INFLUENCES OF CHARACTER.
The recital of the preceding scene, which was communicated to Miss
Beaufort by Euphemia, filled her with still more doubting thoughts.
Mary could discover no reason why the old gentleman's mental
derangement should dignify his friend with titles he had never borne.
She remarked to herself that his answer to Euphemia was evasive; she
remembered his emotion and apology on seeing Mr. C. Kemble in
Adelbert; and uniting with these facts his manners and acquirements,
so far beyond the charges of any subordinate rank, she could finally
retain no doubt of his being at least well born.
Thus this mysterious Constantine continued to occupy her hourly
thoughts during the space of two months, in which time she had full
opportunity to learn much of a character with whom she associated
almost every day. At Lady Tinemouth's (one of whose evening guests
she frequently became) she beheld him disencumbered of that armor of
reserve which he usually wore in Harley Street.
In the circle of the countess, Mary saw him welcomed like an idolized
being before whose cheering influence all frowns and clouds must
disappear. When he entered, the smile resumed its seat on the languid
features of Lady Tinemouth; Miss Egerton's eye lighted up to keener
archness; Lady Sara's Circassian orbs floated in pleasure; and for
Mary herself, her breast heaved, her cheeks glowed, her hands
trembled, a quick sigh fluttered in her bosom; and whilst she
remained in his presence, she believed that happiness had lost its
usual evanescent property, and become tangible, to hold and press
upon her heart.
Mary, who investigated the cause of these tremors on her pillow,
bedewed it with delicious though bitter tears, when her alarmed soul
whispered that she nourished for this amiable foreigner "a something
than friendship dearer."
"Ah! is it come to this?" cried she, pressing down her saturated
eyelids with her hand. "Am I at last to love a man who, perhaps,
never casts a thought on me? How despicable shall I become in my own
eyes!"
The pride of woman puts this charge to her taken heart--that heart
which seems tempered of the purest clay, and warmed with the fire of
heaven; that tender and disinterested heart asks as its appeal--What
is love? Is it not an admiration of all that is beautiful in nature
and in the soul? Is it not a union of loveliness with truth? Is it
not a passion whose sole object is the rapture of contemplating the
supreme beauty of this combined character?
"Where, then," cried the enthusiastic Mary, "where is the shame that
can be annexed to my loving Constantine? If it be honorable to love
delineated excellence, it must be equally so to love it when embodied
in a human shape. Such it is in Constantine; and if love be the
reflected light of virtue, I may cease to arraign myself of that
which otherwise I would have scorned. Therefore, Constantine," cried
she, raising her clasped hands, whilst renewed tears streamed over
her face, "I will love thee! I will pray for thy happiness, though
its partner should be Euphemia Dundas."
Mary's eager imagination would not allow her to perceive those
obstacles in the shapes of pride and prudence, which would stand in
the way of his obtaining Euphemia's hand; its light showed to her
only a rival in the person of the little beauty; but from her direct
confidence she continued to retreat with abhorrence.
Had Euphemia been more deserving of Constantine, Miss Beaufort
believed she would have been less reluctant to hear that she loved
him. But Mary could not avoid seeing that Miss E. Dundas possessed
little to ensure connubial comfort, if mere beauty and accidental
flights of good humor were not to be admitted into the scale. She was
weak in understanding, timid in principle, absurd in almost every
opinion she adopted; and as for love, true, dignified, respectable
love, she knew nothing of the sentiment.
Whilst Miss Beaufort meditated on this meagre schedule of her rival's
merits, the probability that even such a man as Constantine might
sacrifice himself to flattery and to splendor stung her to the soul.
The more she reflected on it, the more she conceived it possible.
Euphemia was considered a beauty of the day; her affectation of
refined prettiness pleased many, and might charm Constantine: she was
mistress of fifty thousand pounds, and did not esteem it necessary to
conceal from her favorite the empire he had acquired. Perhaps there
was generosity in this openness? If so, what might it not effect on a
grateful disposition? or, rather, (her mortified heart murmured in
the words of her aunt Dorothy,) "how might it not operate on the mind
of one of that sex, which, at the best, is as often moved by caprice
as by feeling."
Mary blushed at her adoption of this opinion; and, angry with herself
for the injustice which a lurking jealousy had excited in her to
apply to Constantine's noble nature, she resolved, whatever might be
her struggles, to promote his happiness, though even with Euphemia,
to the utmost of her power.
The next morning, when Miss Beaufort saw the study door opened for
her entrance, she found Mr. Constantine at his station, literally
baited between Miss Dundas and her honorable lover. At such moments
Mary appeared the kindest of the kind. She loved to see Constantine
smile; and whenever she could produce that effect, by turning the
spleen of these polite sneerers against themselves, his smiles, which
ever entered her heart, afforded her a banquet for hours after his
departure.
Mary drew out her netting, (which was a purse for Lady Tinemouth,)
and taking a seat beside Euphemia, united with her to occupy his
attention entirely, that he might not catch even one of those
insolent glances which were passing between Lascelles and a new
visitant the pretty lady Hilliars.
This lady seemed to take extreme pleasure in accosting Thaddeus by
the appellation of "Friend," "My good man," "Mr. What's-your-name,"
and similar squibs of insult, with which the prosperous assail the
unfortunate. Such random shots they know often inflict the most
galling wounds.
However, "Friend," "My good man," and "Mr. What's-your-name,"
disappointed this lady's small artillery of effect. He seemed
invulnerable both to her insolence and to her affectation; for to be
thought a wit, by even Miss Dundas's emigrant tutor, was not to be
despised; though at the very moment in which she desired his
admiration, she supposed her haughtiness had impressed him with a
proper sense of his own meanness and a high conception of her
dignity.
She jumped about the room, assumed infantine airs, played with
Euphemia's lap-dag, fondled it, seated herself on the floor and swept
the carpet with her fine flaxen tresses; but she performed the
routine of captivation in vain. Thaddeus recollected having seen this
pretty full-grown baby, in her peculiar character of a profligate
wife, pawning her own and her husband's property; he remembered this,
and the united shafts of her charms and folly fell unnoticed to the
ground.
When Thaddeus took his leave, Miss Beaufort, as was her custom,
retired for an hour to read in her dressing-room, before she directed
her attention to the toilet. She opened a book, and ran over a few
pages of Madame de Stael's Treatise on the Passions; but such
reasoning was too abstract for her present frame of mind, and she
laid the volume down.
She dipped her pen in the inkstand. Being a letter in debt to her
guardian, she thought she would defray it now. She accomplished "My
dear uncle," and stopped. Whilst she rested on her elbow, and,
heedless of what she was doing, picked the feather of her quill to
pieces, no other idea offered itself than the figure of Thaddeus
sitting 'severe in youthful beauty!' and surrounded by the
contumelies with which the unworthy hope to disparage the merit they
can neither emulate nor overlook.
Uneasy with herself, she pushed the table away, and, leaning her
cheek on her arm, gazed into the rainbow varieties of a beaupot of
flowers which occupied the fireplace. Even their gay colors appeared
to fade before her sight, and present to her vacant eye the form of
Thaddeus, with the melancholy air which shaded his movements. She
turned round, but could not disengage herself from the spirit that
was within her; his half-suppressed sighs seemed yet to thrill in her
ear and weigh upon her heart.
"Incomparable young man!" cried she, starting up, "why art thou so
wretched? Oh! Lady Tinemouth, why have you told me of his many
virtues? Why have I convinced myself that what you said is true? Oh!
why was I formed to love an excellence which I never can approach?"
The natural reply to these self-demanded questions suggesting itself,
she assented with a tear to the whisperings of her heart--that when
cool, calculating reason would banish the affections, it is incapable
of filling their place.
She rang the bell for her maid.
"Marshall, who dines with Lady Dundas to-day?"
"I believe, ma'am," replied the girl, "Mr. Lascelles, Lady Hilliars,
and the Marquis of Elesmere."
"I dislike them all three!" cried Mary, with an impatience to which
she was little liable; "dress me how you like: I am indifferent to my
appearance."
Marshall obeyed the commands of her lady, who, hoping to divert her
thoughts, took up the poems of Egerton Brydges. But the attempt only
deepened her emotion, for every line in that exquisite little volume
"gives a very echo to the seat where love is throned!"
She closed the book and sighed. Marshall having fixed the last pearl
comb in her mistress's beautiful hair, and observing that something
was wrong that disquieted her, exclaimed, "Dear ma'am, you are so
pale to-day! I wish I might put on some gayer ornaments!"
"No," returned Mary, glancing a look at her languid features; "no,
Marshall: I appear as well as I desire. Any chance of passing
unnoticed in company I dislike is worth retaining. No one will be
here this evening whom I care to please."
She was mistaken; other company had been invited besides those whom
the maid mentioned. But Miss Beaufort continued from seven o'clock
until ten, the period at which the ladies left the table, the annoyed
victim of the insipid and pert compliments of Lord Elesmere.
Sick of his subjectless and dragging conversation, she gladly
followed Lady Dundas to the drawing-room, where, opening her knitting
case, she took her station in a remote corner.
After half an hour had elapsed, the gentlemen from below, recruited
by fresh company, thronged in fast; and, notwithstanding it was
styled a family party, Miss Beaufort saw many new faces, amongst whom
she observed an elderly clergyman, who was looking about for a chair.
The yawning Lascelles threw himself along the only vacant sofa, just
as the reverend gentleman approached it.
Miss Beaufort immediately rose, and was moving on to another room,
when the coxcomb, springing up, begged permission to admire her work;
and, without permission, taking it from her, pursued her, twisting
the purse around his fingers and talking all the while.
Mary walked forward, smiling with contempt, until they reached the
saloon, where the Misses Dundas were closely engaged in conversation
with the Marquis of Elesmere.
Lascelles, who trembled for his Golconda at this sight, stepped
briskly up. Miss Beaufort, who did not wish to lose sight of her
purse whilst in the power of such a Lothario, followed him, and
placed herself against the arm of the sofa on which Euphemia sat.
Lascelles now bowed his scented locks to Diana in vain; Lord Elesmere
was describing the last heat at Newmarket, and the attention of
neither lady could be withdrawn.
The beau became so irritated by the neglect of Euphemia, and so
nettled at her sister's overlooking him, that assuming a gay air, he
struck Miss Dundas's arm a smart stroke with Miss Beaufort's purse;
and laughing, to show the strong opposition between his broad white
teeth and the miserable mouth of his lordly rival, hoped to alarm him
by his familiarity, and to obtain a triumph over the ladies by
degrading them in the eyes of the peer.
"Miss Dundas," demanded he, "who was that quiz of a man in black your
sister walked with the other day in Portland Place?"
"Me!" cried Euphemia, surprised.
"Ay!" returned he; "I was crossing from Weymouth Street, when I
perceived you accost a strange-looking person--a courier from the
moon, perhaps! You may remember you sauntered with him as far as
Sir William Miller's. I would have joined you, but seeing the family
standing in the balcony, I did not wish them to suppose that I knew
anything of such queer company."
"Who was it, Euphemia?" inquired Miss Dundas, in a severe tone.
"I wonder he affects to be ignorant," answered her sister, angrily;
"he knows very well it was only Mr. Constantine."
"And who is Mr. Constantine?" demanded the marquis. Mr. Lascelles
shrugged his shoulders.
"E'faith, my lord! a fellow whom nobody knows--a teacher of
languages, giving himself the airs of a prince--a writer of poetry,
and a man who will draw you, your house or dogs, if you will pay him
for it."
Mary's heart swelled.
"What, a French emigrant?" drawled his lordship, dropping his lip;
"and the lovely Euphemia wishes to soothe his sorrows."
"No, my lord," stammered Euphemia, "he is--he is----"
"What!" interrupted Lascelles, with a malicious grin. "A wandering
beggar, who thrusts himself into society which may some day repay his
insolence with chastisement! And for the people who encourage him,
they had better beware of being themselves driven from all good
company. Such confounders of degrees ought to be degraded from the
rank they disgrace. I understand his chief protectress is Lady
Tinemouth; his second, Lady Sara Ross, who, by way of _passant le
temps,_ shows she is not quite inconsolable at the absence of her
husband."
Mary, pale and trembling at the scandal his last words insinuated,
opened her lips to speak, when Miss Dundas (whose angry eyes darted
from her sister to her lover) exclaimed, "Mr. Lascelles, I know not
what you mean. The subject you have taken up is below my discussion;
yet I must confess, if Euphemia has ever disgraced herself so far as
to be seen walking with a schoolmaster, she deserves all you have
said."
"And why might I not walk with him, sister?" asked the poor culprit,
suddenly recovering from her confusion, and looking pertly up; "who
knew that he was not a gentleman?"
"Everybody, ma'am," interrupted Lascelles; "and when a young woman of
fashion condescends to be seen equalizing herself with a creature
depending on his wits for support, she is very likely to incur the
contempt of her acquaintance and the censure of her friends."
"She is, sir," said Mary, holding down her indignant heart and
forcing her countenance to appear serene; "for she ought to know that
if those men of fashion, who have no wit to be either their support
or ornament, did not proscribe talents from their circle, they must
soon find 'the greater glory dim the less.'"
"True, madam," cried Lord Berrington, who, having entered during the
contest, had stood unobserved until this moment; "and their gold and
tinsel would prove but dross and bubble, if struck by the Ithuriel
touch of Merit when so advocated."
Mary turned at the sound of his philanthropic voice, and gave him one
of those glances which go immediately to the soul.
"Come, Miss Beaufort," cried he, taking her hand; "I see the young
musician yonder who has so recently astonished the public. I believe
he is going to sing. Let us leave this discordant corner, and seek
harmony by his side."
Mary gladly acceded to his request, and seating herself a few paces
from the musical party, Berrington took his station behind her chair.
When the last melting notes of "From shades of night" died upon her
ear, Mary's eyes, full of admiration and transport, which the power
of association rendered more intense, remained fixed on the singer.
Lord Berrington smiled at the vivid expression of her countenance,
and as the young Orpheus moved from the instrument, exclaimed, "Come,
Miss Beaufort, I won't allow you quite to fancy Braham the god on
whom
Enamored Clitie turned and gazed!
[Footnote: This accomplished singer and composer still lives--one of
the most admired ornaments of the British orchestra.--1845.]
Listen a little to my merits. Do you know that if it were not for my
timely lectures, Lascelles would grow the most insufferable gossip
about town? There is not a match nor a divorce near St. James's of
which he cannot repeat all the whys and wherefores. I call him Sir
Benjamin Backbite; and I believe he hates me worse than Asmodeus
himself."
"Such a man's dislike," rejoined Mary, "is the highest encomium he
can bestow. I never yet heard him speak well of any person who did
not resemble himself."
"And he is not consistent even there," resumed the viscount: "I am
not sure I have always heard him speak in the gentlest terms of Miss
Dundas. Yet, on that I cannot quite blame him; for, on my honor, she
provokes me beyond any woman breathing."
"Many women," replied Mary, smiling, "would esteem that a flattering
instance of power."
"And, like everything that flatters," returned he, "it would tell a
falsehood. A shrew can provoke a man who detests her. As to Miss
Dundas, notwithstanding her parade of learning, she generally
espouses the wrong side of the argument; and I may say with somebody,
whose name I have forgotten, that any one who knows Diana Dundas
never need be at a loss for a woman to call impertinent."
"You are not usually so severe, my lord!"
"I am not usually so sincere, Miss Beaufort," answered he; "but I see
you think for yourself, therefore I make no hesitation in speaking
what I think--to you."
His auditor bowed her head sportively but modestly. Lady Dundas at
that moment beckoned him across the room. She compelled him to sit
down to whist. He cast a rueful glance at Mary, and took a seat
opposite to his costly partner.
"Lord Berrington is a very worthy young man," observed the clergyman
to whom at the beginning of the evening Miss Beaufort had resigned
her chair; "I presume, madam, you have been honoring him with your
conversation?"
"Yes," returned Mary, noticing the benign countenance of the speaker;
"I have not had the pleasure of long knowing his lordship, but what I
have seen of his character is highly to his advantage."
"I was intimate in his father's house for years," rejoined the
gentleman: "I knew this young nobleman from a boy. If he has faults,
he owes them to his mother, who doated on him, and rather directed
his care to the adornment of his really handsome person than to the
cultivation of talents he has since learned to appreciate."
"I believe Lord Berrington to be very sensible, and, above all, very
humane," returned Miss Beaufort.
"He is so," replied the old gentleman; "yet it was not till he had
attained the age of twenty-two that he appeared to know he had
anything to do in the world besides dressing and attending on the
fair sex. His taste produced the first, whilst the urbanity of his
disposition gave birth to the latter. When Berrington arrived at his
title, he was about five-and-twenty. Sorrow for the death of his
amiable parents, who died in the same month, afforded him leisure to
find his reason. He discovered that he had been acting a part beneath
him, and he soon implanted on the good old stock those excellent
acquirements which you see he possesses. In spite of his
regeneration," continued the clergyman, casting a good-humored glance
on the dove-colored suit of the viscount, "you perceive that first
impressions will remain. He loves dress, but he loves justice and
philanthropy better."
"This eulogy, sir," said Mary, "affords me real pleasure, may I know
the name of the gentleman with whom I have the honor to converse?"
"My name is Blackmore," returned he.
"Dr. Blackmore?"
"The same."
He was the same Dr. Blackmore who had been struck by the appearance
of the Count Sobieski at the Hummums, but had never learned his name,
and who, being a rare visitor at Lady Dundas's, had never by chance
met a second time with the object of his compassion.
"I am happy," resumed Miss Beaufort, "in having the good fortune to
meet a clergyman of whom I have so frequently heard my guardian, Sir
Robert Somerset, speak with the highest esteem."
"Ah!" replied he, "I have not seen him since the death of his lady; I
hope that he and his son are well!"
"Both are perfectly so now," returned she, "and are together in the
country!"
"You, madam, I suppose are my lady's niece, the daughter of the brave
Admiral Beaufort?"
"I am, sir."
"Well, I rejoice at this incident," rejoined he, pressing her hand;
"I knew your mother when she was a lovely girl. She used to spend her
summers with the late Lady Somerset, at the castle. It was there I
had the honor of cultivating her friendship."
"I do not remember ever having seen my mother," replied the now
thoughtful Mary. Dr. Blackmore observing the expression of her
countenance, smiled kindly, and said, "I fear I am to blame here.
This is a somewhat sad way of introducing myself. But your goodness
must pardon me," continued he; "for I have so long accustomed myself
to speak what I think to those in whom I see cause to esteem, that
sometimes, as now, I undesignedly inflict pain."
"Not in this case," returned Miss Beaufort. "I am always pleased when
listening to a friend of my mother, and particularly so when he
speaks in her praise."
The breaking up of the card-tables prevented further conversation.
Lord Berrington again approached the sofa where Mary sat, exclaiming,
as he perceived her companion, "Ah my good doctor; have you presented
yourself at this fair shrine I declare you eccentric folk may dare
anything. Whilst you are free, Miss Beaufort," added he turning to
her, "adopt the advice which a good lady once gave me, and which I
have implicitly followed: 'When you are young, get the character of
an oddity, and it seats you in an easy chair for life.'"
Mary was interrupted in her reply by a general stir amongst the
company, who, now the cards were over, like bees and wasps were
swarming about the room, gathering honey or stinging as they went.
At once the house was cleared; and Miss Beaufort threw herself on the
pillow, to think, and then to dream of Thaddeus.