The next morning Meyler entered my room before I was out of bed.
"Thank God, Ebrington is off for Italy," said he; "and, knowing you were
alone, how could I resist paying you a visit?"
"I am glad to see you, poor little Meyler; but how very pale you are!"
"I have had a severe attack of liver," answered Meyler, "which confined
me six days to my bed."
"Indeed, if I had known that, I would have gone to see you. I thought
you were gone to Brussels or Versailles, when I did not see you pass in
your carriage."
"I am going to England," said Meyler. "Paris does not agree with me,
neither will I ever again attempt to live with any woman breathing. You
are the first, and shall be the last. I now know myself and my temper,
and feel that my only chance of enjoying health or quiet is in living
alone: my nerves are so terribly irritable."
"Believe me, Meyler," I answered, "I would never have left you had there
been the slightest hope that my society and attentions could really
contribute to your comfort or happiness. I am naturally affectionate,
and much the creature of habit. Even now, I would make any sacrifice for
you if I could believe it would do you good."
"I trust we shall always continue friends," said Meyler, holding out to
me his hand, which was, as I believe I have before said, without any one
exception, the most beautiful hand I ever saw in my life. The tones of
his voice, naturally melancholy, were now affectingly so. His eyes were
rather sunk, and his manner and appearance touched me deeply. I burst
into tears!
He asked me in astonishment what had thus affected me.
I would not tell him that I thought him dying, so I expressed my regret
that he had not written to me when he was so ill. "Oh!" answered Meyler,
"had we been the best friends in the world, I would not then have
admitted you. I hate anybody to come near me while I suffer pain. Their
pity, or their attention, only makes me worse."
"I am sure that a hot climate would be of service to you," said I.
"So I am told," replied Meyler, "but I know my own temper, and that
nothing which disturbs or irritates my nerves can do me any good;
and I hate travelling, and should be out of patience fifty times a
day, with the bad roads and various inconveniences one must encounter
while journeying on the continent: and then, if I am not to hunt in
Leicestershire, I may just as well die at once, since that is the only
pursuit I have, and my stud is the only thing I am not tired of."
"Thank you," I answered.
"Oh! perhaps, I still like you; at all events, I like no other woman;
but, the fact is, I am naturally a much better friend to men than to
women; for I believe and put faith in men, while nothing any of you can
say or do ever makes me believe in your affection or sincerity."
This characteristic answer of Meyler's dried up my tears. "Why should I
fret about this senseless, heartless being?" thought I.
"You may learn to know and appreciate us better one day or other," I
observed coldly.
"I shall go to England in three days," said Meyler. "May I see you
constantly till I go?"
It was not in my power to refuse this request from one whom I fancied
to be dying in the very bloom of youth; and we passed two whole days
together, without once quarrelling. Meyler's late indisposition had, in
fact, left him too weak to contend, while I humoured him as though he
had been a child.
We slept in separate beds, in the same room; and, on the night previous
to Meyler's departure for England, just as we were composing ourselves
to rest, Lord Ebrington walked up to my bedside! I screamed aloud.
Perhaps I mistook him for a ghost, or, it might be, I dreaded the effect
this _mal à propos_ visit might have on poor Meyler's shattered and
irritable nerves.
"Dear little Harry, have I frightened you?" said Lord Ebrington, in
speechless dismay.
I pointed with my finger towards the small French bed, where poor Meyler
was still calmly sleeping, and Lord Ebrington hastily bolted from the
room. I then got out of bed, and, after steadfastly examining Meyler's
features to ascertain that he really slept, seized my lamp, and hastened
to awaken my English maid, who slept in a closet adjoining my bedroom,
which was situated next to the entrance-room.
I asked her how she came to be so forgetful as to leave the key on the
outside of the ante-room.
Martha was frightened to death and begged my pardon; hoped nothing had
been stolen.
"A man has entered our bedroom," answered I, and Martha was thinking
about fainting!
"Don't faint," said I, "but secure the door instead." I then crept
quietly back to my bed, resolved not to tease poor Meyler by acquainting
him with Lord Ebrington's unexpected return. I however wrote to his
lordship early the following morning, desiring him not to make his
appearance until Meyler should have left Paris.
For more than a month after Meyler's departure for Melton Mowbray,
I continued in very low spirits about him. Lord Ebrington, after
travelling two whole days along a flat, ugly country, was seized with a
fit of love for me, or disgust of flat countries, I am not sure which.
"Suppose we turn our horses' heads towards Paris again?" said Lord
Ebrington to Lady Heathcote, on the third morning after they had quitted
that gay delightful city. Now it happened to have been long shrewdly
suspected, that my Lady Heathcote could refuse Lord Ebrington nothing.
However that may be, certain it is, she did not refuse to return to
Paris with the rest of the party, which consisted of--I forget who.
Ebrington, on the wings of love, flew to his faithful Harriette, whom he
expected no doubt to find like fair Lucretia, surrounded by her virgins,
at their spinning wheels; instead of which--but I told all this before.
I fancy his vanity was irreparably wounded with what he saw on his
arrival. He had left me in tears, and returned almost under the
impression that he should save me from despair. He was half in love
with me for my tenderness of heart. We might have travelled to Italy
altogether, and I would have rather made the tour of Italy with
Ebrington, than almost anybody I knew, now that he had quarrelled with
Ward, or rather cut and parted company with him. No wonder! who could
travel with Ward? However, Meyler spoiled my preferment with Ebrington
by hurting his lordship's vanity and thus damping all his ardour.
We passed about a week together, during which time I was continually
talking of poor Meyler and lamenting his precarious state of health.
Ebrington took his leave of me and of Paris. Could I wonder at it?
To drown care on this terrible occasion, I went to pay Nugent, Luttrell,
and Amy a visit, all under one. There was a smart young Frenchwoman
waiting in Nugent's ante-room, and we rated him most unmercifully about
her.
"It is invariably the case," said Luttrell with his usual earnestness.
"Nugent ought really to hire some sort of a cheap machine in the shape
of an equipage, to bring his ladies home in," Amy observed, "for the
poor things look very miserable, arriving always alone and on foot."
"I have just hired a large light blue coach to contain six of them with
ease. It is rather dirty, and one of the horses is thin and stone-blind,
and the other very lame, so they go extremely well together."
Amy, in the plentitude of her goodness, actually invited me to dine with
her. She had found out an excellent black-pudding shop, in the first
place; in the second, she wanted me to make her _au fait_ as to what was
going on in Paris, and hoped I would introduce her to some nice men,
or at all events give her a place in my opera-box, when she should be
too poor to hire one for herself. However that might be, I accepted her
invitation, because Luttrell and Nugent were pleasant men, particularly
the former, and I promised to return to them after I had taken my usual
drive in the Bois de Boulogne.
"What can be the matter with you, Harriette?" Luttrell inquired, "that
you are eternally driving up that long stupid Bois de Boulogne?"
I replied that I could not live without air.
"Mercy on me, what a tax upon life!" Luttrell said, turning up his eyes.
There were, in fact, but few things which Luttrell did not vote a tax on
life, being one of the most dissatisfied men I ever knew.
We were summoned to the common drawing-room to receive the visit of my
mother. She complained of inflammation in her foot. Nugent prescribed
for her. I was indeed surprised at the very respectful attention he
showed towards her, it was so strikingly polite. As we were not alone,
she soon left us, and I insisted on her taking my carriage, which she
promised to send back for me.
"I have often wondered," said Nugent, as soon as my mother had left the
room, "how it happened that so very large a family as yours should not
only all be very handsome, but likewise so perfectly lady-like and well
bred. Now it is accounted for: the secret I discovered in your mother. I
have not for many years felt such perfect respect and admiration for a
woman, who at least must be bordering upon fifty. Not only is she still
very handsome and delicate; but there is a certain air of modest dignity
in her manner, which, I believe, the greatest libertine in France could
not fail to be struck with."
I was more grateful to Nugent than I can describe, for this most warm,
uncalled-for, and spontaneous praise of my mother. I knew he only did
her justice; but how few among the gay and the fashionable, ever think
about doing justice to the excellent qualities of a woman of fifty!
"Mind you are here by six," said Amy, as I was leaving her; "because,
perhaps, we shall go to the opera, if we can procure a box."
"_Vous voilà,_" said I to myself, and then offered her a place in mine.
"Do be punctual," added she, "for it is not the fashion to dress
unless when there is a new piece. Come as you are. That is a beautiful
plume of white ostrich-feathers in your bonnet. You are always so very
magnificent. Remember, black-puddings are good for nothing cold. The
French consider them a very _recherché_ dish I assure you, and they are
much more expensive than in town."
I returned to Amy's just as her black pudding was being served up, and
for once in my life I met Luttrell without Nugent.
"Nugent is not dead, I hope?" said I.
"Oh no," answered Amy, "he has just taken out one of his ladies in his
large blue remise."
"Shocking work!" Luttrell observed, with just as pious a face, turned
towards the ceiling as though he had not lately stepped out of window
for love and regard of that fair she who set his brain a madding.
Amy was in a great hurry to go to the opera, and we were comfortably
seated in my private box before eight o'clock, and soon visited by my
late, mild, and gentle acquaintance, Lord William Russell, who really
appeared very glad to meet with me. In the room downstairs we mustered a
tolerably brilliant number of _beaux_ about us, for Paris; but Paris was
not London. Among them was Lord Fife, who came sailing towards me the
moment I entered the room.
"How do you do? How do you do?" said Fife. "Very glad to see you in
Paris. Who would have thought to find you here? By the bye, you sent me
the greatest rogue in the world some time ago, who told me a long story
about having served: all entirely humbug. I know Spain well enough,
and he had never been there in his life. Could not give the least
description of it."
"I am truly sorry that I threw away five pounds on him then; for I might
have guessed that your kindness would not have refused to assist him if
he had been deserving."
"I did not refuse," answered Fife. "You know my way, I give to
everybody, good, bad, or indifferent. I gave him ten pounds, and told
him he was the greatest rascal I had ever met with."
I resolved never to be duped again.
"May I presume to inquire after the _petite santé_ of Miss Eliza
Higgins?" I asked.
"Oh! You are always quizzing me," answered Lord Fife, without answering
my question.
Just as Amy, Luttrell and myself were seated in the carriage, Nugent
came puffing up to it, whispered in my ear, "Beg ten thousand pardons,
Harriette; but want to oblige a lady here, and am going to call on
another. You will infinitely oblige me by setting her down. I know I
take a liberty; but you may take two with me some other time in return."
It was easy to guess the style of lady who would be at the opera alone,
trusting to chance or Nugent for a conveyance.
"Agreed," answered I, "so that I may affect not to understand a word of
French."
"Certainly," said Nugent, handing into my carriage a very gaily dressed
young lady, whom I set down where he directed without exchanging a
single word with her.
As one always requires a good supper after dining at Amy's expense, I
accepted Luttrell's invitation to eat cold chicken and drink champagne.
During our supper, Amy was entertaining us with the delightful qualities
of one Mr. Grefule, a Swiss banker residing at Paris, whom I thought the
most absurd, affected, mean, contemptible blockhead I had ever met with.
It is true I knew but little about him and cared less, and may have been
mistaken in all but his stinginess, of which I had an opportunity of
judging, having heard that subject discussed by those who knew him well.
"You surely must be in love with his large property?" said I to Amy.
"In love with his property! Why is he not an Adonis?"
Amy's Adonis is a short, thick man, almost a mulatto, with little
purblind eyes and straight, coarse, black hair; and his age at least
five and forty.