THE GREAT AND THE SMALL OF SOCIETY.
If it be true what the vivid imaginations of poets have frequently
asserted, that when the soul dreams, it is in the actual presence of
those beings whose images present themselves to their slumbers, then
have the spirit, of Thaddeus and Mary been often commingled at the
hour of midnight; then has the young Sobieski again visited his
distant country, again seen it victorious, again knelt before his
sainted parents.
From such visions as these did Thaddeus awake in the morning, after
having spent the preceding evening with Lady Tinemouth.
He had walked with her ladyship in Hyde Park till a late hour. By the
mild light of the moon, which shone brightly through the still, balmy
air of a midsummer night, they took their way along the shadowy bank
of the Serpentine.
There is a solemn appeal to the soul in the repose of nature that
"makes itself be felt." No syllable from either Thaddeus or the
countess for some time broke the universal silence. Thaddeus looked
around on the clear expanse of water, over-shaded by the long
reflection of the darkening trees; then raising his eyes to that
beautiful planet which has excited tender thoughts in every feeling
breast since the creation of the world, he drew a deep sigh. The
countess echoed it.
[Illustration: LADY TINEMOUTH.]
"In such a night as this," said Thaddeus, in a low voice, as if
afraid to disturb the sleeping deity of the place, "I used to walk
the ramparts of Villanow with my dear departed mother, and gaze on
that lovely orb; and when I was far from her, I have looked at it
from the door of my tent, and fancying that her eyes were then fixed
on the same object as mine, I found happiness in the idea."
A tear stole down the cheek of Thaddeus. That moon yet shone
brightly; but his mother's eyes were closed in the grave.
"Villanow!" repeated the countess, in a tone of tender surprise;
"surely that was the seat of the celebrated Palatine of Masovia! You
have discovered yourself, Constantine! I am much mistaken if you be
not his grandson, the young, yet far-famed, Thaddeus Sobieski?"
Thaddeus had allowed the remembrances pressing on his mind to draw
him into a speech which had disclosed to the quick apprehension of
the countess what his still too sensitive pride would forever have
concealed.
"I have indeed betrayed my secret," cried he, incapable of denying
it; "but, dear lady Tinemouth, as you value my feelings, never let it
escape your lips. Having long considered you as my best friend, and
loved you as a parent, I forgot, in the recollection of my beloved
mother, that I had withheld any of my history from you."
"Mysterious Providence!" exclaimed her ladyship, after a pause, in
which ten thousand admiring and pitying reflections thronged on her
mind: "is it possible? Can it be the Count Sobieski, that brave and
illustrious youth of whom every foreigner spoke with wonder? Can it
be him that I behold in the unknown, unfriended Constantine?"
"Even so," returned Thaddeus, pressing her hand. "My country is no
more. I am now forgotten by the world, as I have been by fortune. I
have nothing to do on the earth but to fulfil the few duties which a
filial friendship has enjoined, and then it will be a matter of
indifference to me how soon I am laid in its bosom."
"You are too young, dear Constantine, (for I am still to call you by
that name,) to despair of happiness being yet reserved for you."
"No, my dear Lady Tinemouth, I do not cheat myself with such hope; I
am not so importunate with the gracious Being who gave me life and
reason. He bestowed upon me for awhile the tenderest connections--
friends, rank, honors, glory. All these were crushed in the fall of
Poland; yet I survive, I sought resignation only, and I have found
it. It cost me many a struggle; but the contest was due to the
decrees of that all-wise Creator who gave my first years to
happiness."
"Inestimable young man!" cried the countess, wiping the flowing tears
from her eyes; "you teach misfortune dignity! Not when all Warsaw
rose in a body to thank you, not when the king received you in the
senate with open arms, could you have appeared to me so worthy of
admiration as at this moment, when, conscious of having been all
this, you submit to the direct reverse, because you believe it to be
the will of your Maker! Ah! little does Miss Beaufort think, when
seated by your side, that she is conversing with the youthful hero
whom she has so often wished to see!"
"Miss Beaufort!" echoed Thaddeus, his heart glowing with delight. "Do
you think she ever heard of me by the name of Sobieski?"
"Who has not?" returned the countess; "every heart that could be
interested by heroic virtue has heard and well remembers its glorious
struggles against the calamities of your country. Whilst the
newspapers of the day informed us of these things, they noticed
amongst the first of her champions the Palatine of Masovia,
Kosciusko, and the young Sobieski. Many an evening have I passed with
Miss Dorothy and Mary Beaufort, lamenting the fate of that devoted
kingdom."
During this declaration, a variety of indeed happy emotions agitated
the mind of Thaddeus, until, recollecting with a bitter pang the
shameless ingratitude of Pembroke, when all those glories were
departed from him, and the cruel possibility of being recognized by
the Earl of Tinemouth as his son, he exclaimed, "My dearest madam, I
entreat that what I have revealed to you may never be divulged. Miss
Beaufort's friendship would indeed be happiness; but I cannot
purchase even so great a bliss at the expense of memories which are
knit with my life."
"How?" cried the countess; "is not your name, and all its attendant
ideas, an honor which the proudest man might boast?"
Thaddeus pressed her hand to his heart.
"You are kind--very kind! yet I cannot retract. Confide, dear Lady
Tinemouth, in the justice of my resolution. I could not bear cold
pity; I could not bear the heartless comments of people who,
pretending to compassion, would load me with a heavy sense of my
calamities. Besides, there are persons in England who are so much the
objects of my aversion, I would rather die than let them know I
exist. Therefore, once again, dear Lady Tinemouth, let me implore you
to preserve my secret."
She saw by the earnestness of his manner that she ought to comply,
and without further hesitation promised all the silence he desired.
This long moonlight conversation, by awakening all those dormant
remembrances which were cherished, though hidden in the depths of his
bosom, gave birth to that _mirage_ of imagination which painted
that night, in the rapid series of his tumultuous dreams, the images
of every being whom he had ever loved, or now continued to regard
with interest.
Proceeding next morning towards Harley Street, he mused on what had
happened; and pleased that he had, though unpremeditatedly, paid the
just compliment of his entire confidence to the uncommon friendship
of the countess, he arrived at Lady Dundas's door before he was
sensible of the ground he had passed over, and in a few minutes
afterwards was ushered into his accustomed purgatory.
When the servant opened the study-door, Miss Euphemia was again
alone. Thaddeus recoiled, but he could not retreat.
"Come in, Mr. Constantine," cried the little beauty, in a languid
tone; "my sister is going to the riding-school with Mr. Lascelles.
Miss Beaufort wanted me to drive out with her and my mother, but I
preferred waiting for you."
The count bowed; and almost retreating with fear of what might next
be said, he gladly heard a thundering knock at the door, and a moment
after the voice of Miss Dundas ascending the stairs.
He had just opened his books when she entered, followed by her lover.
Panting under a heavy riding-habit, she flung herself on a sofa, and
began to vilify "the odious heat of Pozard's odious place;" then
telling Euphemia she would play truant to-day, ordered her to attend
to her lessons.
Owing to the warmth of the weather, Thaddeus came out this morning
without boots; and it being the first time the exquisite proportion
of his figure had been so fully seen by any of the present company
excepting Euphemia, Lascelles, bursting with an emotion which he
would not call envy, measured the count's graceful limb with his
scornful eyes; then declaring he was quite in a furnace, took the
corner of his glove and waving it to and fro, half-muttered, "Come
gentle air."
"The fairer Lascelles cries!" exclaimed Euphemia, looking off her
exercise.
"What! does your master teach you wit?" drawled the coxcomb, with a
particular emphasis.
Thaddeus, affecting not to hear, continued to direct his pupil.
The indefatigable Lascelles having observed the complacence with
which the count always regarded Miss Beaufort determined the goad
should fret; and drawing the knitting out of his pocket which he had
snatched the night before from Mary, he exclaimed, "'Fore heaven,
here is my little Beaufort's purse!"
Thaddeus started, and unconsciously looking up, beheld the well-known
work of Mary dangling in the hand of Lascelles. He suffered pangs
unknown to him; his eyes became dim; and hardly knowing what he saw
or said, he pursued the lesson with increased rapidity.
Finding that his malice had taken effect, with a careless air the
malicious puppy threw his clumsy limbs on the sofa, which Miss Dundas
had just quitted to seat herself nearer the window, and cried out, as
in a voice of sudden recollection:
"By the bye, that Miss Mary Beaufort, when she chooses to be sincere,
is a staunch little Queen Bess."
"You may as well tell me," replied Miss Dundas, with a deriding curl
of her lip, "that she is the Empress of Russia."
"I beg your pardon!" cried he, and raising his voice to be better
heard, "I do not mean in the way of learning. But I will prove in a
moment her creditable high-mightiness in these presumptuous times,
though a silly love of popularity induces her to affect now and then
a humble guise to some people beneath her. When she gave me this
gewgaw," added he, flourishing the purse in his hand, "she told me a
pretty tissue about a fair friend of hers, whose music-master,
mistaking some condescension on her part, had dared to press her
snowy fingers while directing them towards a tender chord on her
harp. You have no notion how the gentle Beaufort's blue eyes blazed
up while relating poor Tweedledum's presumption!"
"I can have a notion of anything these boasted meek young ladies do
when thrown off their guard," haughtily returned his contemptuous
auditress, "after Miss Beaufort's violent sally of impertinence to
you last night."
"Impertinence to me!" echoed the fop, at the same time dipping the
end of the knitting into Diana's lavender-bottle, and dabbing his
temples; "she was always too civil by half. I hate forward girls."
Thaddeus shut the large dictionary which lay before him with a force
that made the puppy start, and rising hastily from his chair, with a
face all crimson, was taking his hat, when the door opened, and Mary
appeared.
A white-chip bonnet was resting lightly on the glittering tresses
which waved over her forehead, whilst her lace-shade, gently
discomposed by the air, half veiled and half revealed her graceful
figure. She entered with a smile, and walking up to the side of the
table where Thaddeus was standing, inquired after his friend's
health. He answered her in a voice unusually agitated. All that he
had been told by the countess of her favorable opinion of him, and
the slander he had just heard from Diana's lover, were at once
present in his mind.
He was yet speaking, when Miss Beaufort, casually looking towards the
other side of the room, saw her purse still acting the part of a
handkerchief in the hand of Mr. Lascelles.
"Look, Mr. Constantine," said she, gayly tapping his arm with her
parasol, "how the most precious things may be degraded! There is the
knitting you have so often admired, and which I intended for Lady
Tinemouth's pocket, debased to do the office of Mr. Lascelles's
napkin."
"You gave it to him, Miss Beaufort," cried Miss Dundas; "and after
that, surely he may use it as he values it!"
"If I could have given it to Mr. Lascelles, madam, I should hardly
have taken notice of its fate."
Believing what her lover had advanced, Miss Dundas was displeased at
Mary for having, by presents, interfered with any of her danglers,
and rather angrily replied, "Mr. Lascelles said you gave it to him;
and certainly you would not insinuate a word against his veracity?"
"No, not insinuate," returned Miss Beaufort, "but affirm, that he has
forgotten his veracity in this statement."
Lascelles yawned. "Lord bless me, ladies, how you quarrel! You will
disturb Monsieur?"
"Mr. Constantine," returned Mary, blushing with indignation, "cannot
be disturbed by nonsense."
Thaddeus again drew his hat towards him, and bowing to his lovely
champion, with an expression of countenance which he little suspected
had passed from his heart to his eyes, he was preparing to take his
leave, when Euphemia requested him to inform her whether she had
folded down the right pages for the next exercise. He approached her,
and was leaning over her chair to look at the book, when she
whispered, "Don't be hurt at what Lascelles says; he is always
jealous of anybody who is handsomer than himself."
Thaddeus dropped his eyelids with a face of scarlet; for on meeting
the eyes of Mary, he saw that she had heard this intended comforter
as well as himself. Uttering a few incoherent sentences to both
ladies he hurried out of the room.
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