Madeline was considered by every one very like her aunt. To Cameron she
was the vision of his early days, restored unchanged.
The years of past toil faded to a dream--the polished barrenness of the
forehead--the scanty growth and restive sit of the side locks--nay,
certain twitches of rheumatism in the knee and ancle joints were all
forgotten; he felt himself five-and-twenty, and not a day more! He was
in an ecstacy--a delirium;--in short, he was desperately in love. He
danced like a Vestris, and between the regular evolutions of the
quadrille, frisked about his partner, a perfect grasshopper: for such
was his excessive eagerness to oblige, that he waited not between each
service rendered to make the obsequious angle of knee or elbow straight
again, but fetched and carried with the docility of a spaniel, in
attitudes which, could he but have seen himself in a mirror, must have
made even himself laugh. The performance ended, Madeline took his arm
and walked towards aunt Dorothea, with a strange, conscious,
half-pouting expression of countenance, evidently not knowing whether
she ought to be flattered or annoyed by the conspicuous assiduities of
her old beau.
Cameron was sent in pursuit of a passing tray to procure an ice. With an
air of infinite triumph Mrs. Dorothea patted the dimpled cheek of her
niece, and whispered, "I wish you joy, my dear, of your brilliant
conquest, for I do think Mr. Cameron seems to be quite smitten already."
"Oh, but aunt, such an old man!"
"Nonsense, my dear, we were all young once, and you won't be young
always recollect, so mind what you're about."
The return of Cameron put an end to the lecture, which was only however
postponed to a more convenient opportunity. This occurred on the
dispersion of the company, when the family party collected at one end of
a long deserted supper table to talk over the events of the evening.
"I only hope, Madeline," commenced Mrs. Dorothea, "that this affair may
go on as prosperously as it has commenced, and you will be quite an
Eastern queen."
"If he were a nice young man," said Madeline.
"He is quite young enough," retorted Mrs. Dorothea, "a girl should
always marry a man somewhat older than herself."
"Somewhat; yes, but not twice or three times."
"It is impossible, my dear child, to combine every advantage," observed
Lady Arden, with a sigh, "and the establishment, as your aunt says,
would undoubtedly be a very brilliant one." Willoughby, Jane, and
Louisa, all enquired eagerly about the fortune and connexions of the
gentleman, and on being informed of every particular, confessed that it
would certainly be a most desirable match.
"When we consider too," said Lady Arden, "the great difficulty, the next
to impossibility, of meeting with suitable establishments for girls of
good family and small fortunes. They cannot marry wealthy men of low
connexions--that would be disgracing their families; they cannot marry
the younger sons of good families, as they too are of course poor; and
the elder sons cannot marry them, for they want money to pay off their
incumbrances; so that when a girl so situated chances to make a conquest
of a man who can afford to marry her, she may be said to be unusually
fortunate." To have escaped, she might have added, the saddest of all
the _Dilemmas of Pride_.
"Whatever sort of fellow the man may be," interrupted Willoughby,
laughing.
"That is not at all a fair inference," replied her ladyship. "We are of
course taking it for granted that the gentleman is of unexceptionable
character, agreeable, and, in short, all that a gentleman ought to be."
"Which is, you will allow," persisted Willoughby, "taking a good deal
for granted. The only thing you ladies seem determined not to take for
granted is the fortune."
"Luckily," observed Mrs. Dorothea, "there is nothing to take for granted
in this case. Indeed," she added, drawing up, "I should not, as I said
before, have introduced Mr. Cameron to my niece if he had not been in
every way a desirable connexion."
The immediate prospect of the title was now discussed, the uncle being
eighty-six; the magnificence of the fine old place; the splendour of the
town residence; the entertainments to be given; the equipages, the
diamonds, and so forth: while at every pause Madeline was pronounced by
her aunt a most fortunate girl, till vanity at length stirring within
her, she began to think that she really was fortunate; and that she
must, she supposed, be civil to her old beau the next time she saw him.
After this, when Lady Arden had retired to her own room, accompanied by
Madeline, who was her sleeping companion, she renewed the conversation
in a serious and tender strain, representing strongly to her daughter
the great danger of appearing for a season or two unappropriated, with
the ultimate and utter wretchedness of the single state, than which she
did not know if even an unhappy marriage were not preferable. "Mrs.
Dorothea says, you know," she added, trying to treat the subject
jestingly, though herself ill at ease, "that a bad husband, from which
heaven preserve you, my child!" she fervently ejaculated, "is quite a
_natural_ misfortune, and therefore easy to endure, in comparison with
the unnatural misery of having no tie to life; no affections, no
feelings, no hopes, no fears, no joys, no sorrows; yet to be surrounded
with the most undignified annoyances, and to feel that for want of more
important objects of interest, one's mind is degraded into being their
very slave, with just enough left of its former self to make it sensible
of its debasement. The cares of the wife and mother, however numerous,
however anxious, are comparatively ennobling! For though it is our
second self, and our children, who may be said to be parts of ourselves,
that are their objects, still they are not felt for self alone; they do
not spring from that most unredeemed of instincts, individual
selfishness. Then, in the case of Mr. Cameron," proceeded her ladyship,
"he is, your aunt says, so peculiarly amiable, and bears in every
particular so high a character, that there is every reason to hope that
where he fixed his affections he would make a kind and good husband."
And here again Lady Arden enlarged on the splendour of the match, yet
with tears in her eyes, and even more than her usual indulgent
tenderness of manner; for while she could not bear to resign prospects
so dazzling, she looked anxiously at her blooming child, and feared the
sacrifice might be too great.
Madeline, very much affected by her mother's fond and winning
gentleness, said, and thought at the time, she was sure that she should
be quite happy in doing anything that would give her pleasure, promising
to be always and in every thing guided by her advice.
"Still, my love, 'tis you yourself who must ultimately decide; only
don't be rash in casting away, should it ever be in your offer, what has
so many advantages."
This doubt as to the fact of her having made the so much talked of
conquest at all, sounded somewhat disagreeable in Madeline's ear; and
perhaps went further in creating a desire to secure the said brilliant
establishment than all which had been said in its favour. She began
already to think herself threatened with the fate of Aunt Dorothea; and
contrasting that in imagination with what she was told her lot would be
as the wife of Mr. Cameron, she came to the conclusion, that whenever he
made her an offer of his hand she supposed she must accept it!
What were the while the thoughts of the lover, as "sleepless he lay on
his pillow?" Smiles, dimples, and ringlets, floated in lovely confusion
before his mind's eye; the latter, however, brought with them a painful
remembrance of the scantiness of his own locks; then immediately
followed visions of gold and silver, and precious stones; and gratitude
and adoration; all to be offered at the feet of his fair idol, if she
would but kindly overlook the _slight_ disparity in their ages, and
become his wife. What equipages, too, she should have; what a palace she
should dwell in; and as to her own fair person, it should blaze the very
queen of diamonds!
What a happy man, despite an extra twitch of rheumatism, brought on by
his dancing, would our old beau have been, had "some good angel," not
exactly "ope'd to him the book of fate" perhaps, but whispered to him
the propitious resolve just formed by the lovely object of his
affections.
The angel, of course, would have had too much politeness to mention that
the lady intended to marry him solely for the glitter of his title and
his gold.
Thus do we see the identical class of persons whom pride, were they
starving, would not suffer to seek a livelihood by selling any thing
else in the world, for very pride's sake willing to sell themselves!!!
Such are the strange monsters of inconsistency to which the prejudices
of society give birth.
Such, in short, are the _Dilemmas of Pride_!!!