PAULINE'S GOOD POINTS.
How often Sir Oswald's simile of the untrained, unpruned, uncultivated
vine returned to the mind of Miss Hastings! Pauline Darrell was by
nature a genius, a girl of magnificent intellect, a grand, noble,
generous being all untrained. She had in her capabilities of the
greatest kind--she could be either the very empress of wickedness or
angelic. She was gloriously endowed, but it was impossible to tell how
she would develop; there was no moderation in her, she acted always from
impulse, and her impulses were quick, warm, and irresistible. If she had
been an actress, she would surely have been the very queen of the stage.
Her faults were like her virtues, all grand ones. There was nothing
trivial, nothing mean, nothing ungenerous about her. She was of a nature
likely to be led to the highest criminality or the highest virtue; there
could be no medium of mediocre virtue for her. She was full of
character, charming even in her willfulness, but utterly devoid of all
small affectations. There was in her the making of a magnificent woman,
a great heroine; but nothing could have brought her to the level of
commonplace people. Her character was almost a terrible one in view of
the responsibilities attached to it.
Grand, daring, original, Pauline was all force, all fire, all passion.
Whatever she loved, she loved with an intensity almost terrible to
witness. There was also no "middle way" in her dislikes--she hated with
a fury of hate. She had little patience, little toleration; one of her
greatest delights consisted in ruthlessly tearing away the social vail
which most people loved to wear. There were times when her grand, pale,
passionate beauty seemed to darken and to deepen, and one felt
instinctively that it was in her to be cruel even to fierceness; and
again, when her heart was touched and her face softened, one imagined
that she might be somewhat akin to the angels.
What was to become of such a nature? What was to develop it--what was to
train it? If from her infancy Pauline had been under wise and tender
guidance, if some mind that she felt to be superior to her own had
influenced her, the certainty is that she would have grown up into a
thoughtful, intellectual, talented woman, one whose influence would have
been paramount for good, one to whom men would have looked for guidance
almost unconsciously to themselves.
But her training had been terribly defective. No one had ever controlled
her. She had been mistress of her father's house and queen of his little
coterie; with her quiet, unerring judgment, she had made her own
estimate of the strength, the mind, the intellect of each one with whom
she came in contact, and the result was always favorable to herself--she
saw no one superior to herself. Then the society in which her father
had delighted was the worst possible for her; she reigned supreme over
them all--clever, gifted artists, good-natured Bohemians, who admired
and applauded her, who praised every word that fell from her lips, who
honestly believed her to be one of the marvels of the world, who told
her continually that she was one of the most beautiful, most talented,
most charming of mortals, who applauded every daring sentiment instead
of telling her plainly that what was not orthodox was seldom
right--honest Bohemians, who looked upon the child as a wonder, and
puzzled themselves to think what destiny was high enough for her--men
whose artistic tastes were gratified by the sight of her magnificent
loveliness, who had for her the deepest, truest, and highest respect,
who never in her presence uttered a syllable that they would not have
uttered in the presence of a child--good-natured Bohemians, who
sometimes had money and sometimes had none, who were always willing to
share their last _sou_ with others more needy than themselves, who wore
shabby, threadbare coats, but who knew how to respect the pure presence
of a pure girl.
Pauline had received a kind of education. Her father's friends discussed
everything--art, science, politics, and literature--in her presence;
they discussed the wildest stories, they indulged in unbounded fun and
satire, they were of the wittiest even as they were of the cleverest of
men. They ridiculed unmercifully what they were pleased to call the
"regulations of polite society;" they enjoyed unvarnished truth--as a
rule, the more disagreeable the truth the more they delighted in
telling it. They scorned all etiquette, they pursued all dandies and
belles with terrible sarcasm; they believed in every wild or impossible
theory that had ever been started; in fact, though honest as the day,
honorable, and true, they were about the worst associates a young girl
could have had to fit her for the world. The life she led among them had
been one long romance, of which she had been queen.
The house in the Rue d'Orme had once been a grand mansion; it was filled
with quaint carvings, old tapestry, and the relics of a by-gone
generation. The rooms were large--most of them had been turned into
studios. Some of the finest of modern pictures came from the house in
the Rue d'Orme, although, as a rule, the students who worked there were
not wealthy.
It was almost amusing to see how this delicate young girl ruled over
such society. By one word she commanded these great, generous, unworldly
men--with one little white finger upraised she could beckon them at her
will; they had a hundred pet names for her--they thought no queen or
empress fit to be compared with their old comrade's daughter. She was to
be excused if constant flattery and homage had made her believe that she
was in some way superior to the rest of the world.
When the great change came--when she left the Rue d'Orme for Darrell
Court--it was a terrible blow to Pauline to find all this superiority
vanish into thin air. In place of admiration and flattery, she heard
nothing but reproach and correction. She was given to understand that
she was hardly presentable in polite society--she, who had ruled like a
queen over scholars and artists! Instead of laughter and applause, grim
silence followed her remarks. She read in the faces of those around her
that she was not as they were--not of their world. Her whole soul turned
longingly to the beautiful free Bohemian world she had left. The
crowning blow of all was when, after studying her carefully for some
time, Sir Oswald told her that he feared her manners were against
her--that neither in style nor in education was she fitted to be
mistress of Darrell Court. She had submitted passively to the change in
her name; she was proud of being a Darrell--she was proud of the grand
old race from which she had sprung. But, when Sir Oswald had uttered
that last speech, she flamed out in fierce, violent passion, which
showed him she had at least the true Darrell spirit.
There were points in her favor, he admitted. She was magnificently
handsome--she had more courage and a higher spirit than fall even to the
lot of most men. She was a fearless horse-woman; indeed it was only
necessary for any pursuit to be dangerous and to require unlimited
courage for her instantly to undertake it.
Would the balance at last turn in her favor? Would her beauty, her
spirits, her daring, her courage, outweigh defective education,
defective manner, and want of worldly knowledge?