Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  “If,” said Mr. Gresham, observing that Caroline scrupled to take charge of so many precious pictures, “if you are too proud to receive from me the slightest kindness without a return, I am willing to put myself under an obligation to you. While I am away, at your leisure, make me a copy of that Euphrosyne — I shall love it for your sake, and as reminding me of the time when I first saw it — the happiest time perhaps of my life,” added he, in a low voice.

  “Oh, Rosamond!” thought Caroline, “if you had heard that! — and if you knew how generously kind he has been to your brothers!”

  At parting from Alfred and Erasmus, he said to them, “My good young friends, why don’t either of you marry? To be sure, you are young enough; but think of it in time, and don’t put off, put off, till you grow into old bachelors. I know young men generally in these days say, they find it too expensive to marry — some truth in that, but more selfishness: here’s young Mr. Henry has set you a good example. Your practice in your professions, I suppose, puts you as much at ease in the world by this time as he is. Malthus, you know, whom I saw you studying the other day, objects only to people marrying before they can maintain a family. Alfred, when I was at the Hills, I heard of a certain Miss Leicester. If you shall think of marrying before I come back again, you’ll want a house, and I’ve lent mine already — but money, you know, can place one in any part of the town you might like better — I have a sum lying idle at my bankers, which I have just had transferred to the account of Alfred and Erasmus Percy — whichever of you marry before I come back, must do me the favour to purchase a good house — I must have it at the polite end of the town, or I shall be worse than an old bachelor — let me find it well furnished and aired — nothing airs a house so well as a warm friend: then, you know, if I should not fancy your purchase, I leave it on your hands, and you pay me the purchase-money year by year, at your leisure — if you can trust that I will not throw you into jail for it.”

  The warmth of Alfred’s thanks in particular showed Mr. Gresham that he had not been mistaken about Miss Leicester.

  “I wish I had thought, or rather I wish I had spoken of this sooner,” added Mr. Gresham: “perhaps I might have had the pleasure of seeing you married before my leaving England; but — no — it is best as it is — I might have hurried things — and in these matters every body likes to go their own pace, and their own way. So fare ye well — God bless you both, and give you good wives — I can ask nothing better for you from Heaven.”

  No man could he more disposed than Alfred felt himself at this instant to agree with Mr. Gresham, and to marry immediately — visions of beauty and happiness floated before his imagination; but a solicitor knocking at the door of his chambers recalled him to the sense of the sad necessity of finishing some law-papers instead of going into the country to see his fair mistress. His professional duty absolutely required his remaining in town the whole of this term — Lady Jane Granville’s business, in particular, depended upon him — he gave his mind to it. She little knew how difficult it was to him at this time to fix his attention, or how much temper it required in these circumstances to bear with her impatience. The week before her cause was expected to come to trial, her ladyship’s law-fever was at its height — Alfred avoided her presence, and did her business.

  The day arrived — her cause came on — Alfred’s exertions proved successful — and hot from the courts he brought the first joyful news — a decree in her favour!

  Lady Jane started up, clasped her hands, embraced Alfred, embraced Caroline, returned thanks to Heaven — again and again, in broken sentences, tried to express her gratitude. A flood of tears came to her relief. “Oh! Alfred, what pleasure your generous heart must feel!”

  From this day — from this hour, Lady Jane’s health rapidly recovered; and, as Erasmus observed, her lawyer had at last proved her best physician.

  When Caroline saw Lady Jane restored to her strength, and in excellent spirits, preparing to take possession of a handsome house in Spring-Gardens, she thought she might be spared to return to her own family. But Lady Jane would not part with her; she insisted upon keeping her the remainder of the winter, promising to carry her back to the Hills in a few weeks. It was plain that refusing this request would renew the ire of Lady Jane, and render irreconcilable the quarrel between her ladyship and the Percy family. Caroline felt extremely unwilling to offend one whom she had obliged, and one who really showed such anxiety for her happiness.

  “I know, my dear Lady Jane,” said she, smiling, “that if I stay with you, you will form a hundred kind schemes for my establishment; but forgive me when I tell you, that it is upon the strength of my belief in the probability that they will none of them be accomplished, that I consent to accept your ladyship’s invitation.”

  “Perverse! provoking and incomprehensible! — But since you consent to stay, my dear, I will not quarrel with your motives: I will let them rest as philosophically unintelligible as you please. Be satisfied, I will never more accuse you of perversity in refusing me formerly; nor will I convict you of inconsistency for obliging me now. The being convicted of inconsistency I know is what you people, who pique yourselves upon being rational, are so afraid of. Now we every-day people, who make no pretensions to be reasonable, have no character for consistency to support — you cannot conceive what delightful liberty we enjoy. In lieu of whole tomes of casuistry, the simple phrase, ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ does our business. Do let me hear if you could prevail upon yourself to say so.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” said Caroline, playfully.

  “That’s candid — now I love as well as admire you.”

  “To be entirely candid, then,” said Caroline, “I must, my dear Lady Jane, if you will give me leave, tell you more.”

  “As much as you please,” said Lady Jane, “for I am naturally curious, particularly when young ladies blush.”

  Caroline thought, that however Lady Jane and she might differ on some points, her ladyship’s anxiety to promote her happiness, in the way she thought most advantageous, deserved not only her gratitude but her confidence. Besides, it would be the most effectual way, she hoped, of preventing Lady Jane from forming any schemes for her establishment, to confess at once that she really believed it was not likely she should meet with any person, whose character and merits were equal to those of Count Altenberg, and any one inferior to him she was determined never to marry. She added a few words, as delicately as she could, upon the dread she felt of being presented in society as a young lady wishing for an establishment.

  Lady Jane heard all she said upon this subject with much attention; but when she had finished, her ladyship said to herself, “Nonsense! — Every young lady thinks one lover perfect till she has seen another. Before Caroline has passed a month in fashionable society, provided she has a fashionable admirer, we shall hear no more of this Count Altenberg.”

  “Well, my dear,” said she, holding out her hand to Caroline, “I will give you my word I will, to the best of my ability, comply with all your conditions. You shall not be advertised as a young lady in search of a husband — but just as if you were a married woman, you will give me leave to introduce my acquaintance to you; and if they should find out, or if in time you should find out, that you are not married, you know, I shall not be to blame.”

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  Behold Lady Jane Granville reinstated in her fortune, occupying a fine house in a fashionable situation, with suitable equipage and establishment! carriages rolling to her door; tickets crowding her servants’ hands; an influx, an affluence of friends, and congratulations such as quite astonished Caroline.

  “Where were these people all the time she lived in Clarges-street?” thought she.

  Lady Jane, though she knew from experience the emptiness and insincerity of such demonstrations of regard, was, nevertheless, habitually pleased by them, and proud to be in a situation where numbers found it worth while to pay her attentions. But notwithstanding her foibles, she was
not a mere fashionable friend. She was warm in her affection for Caroline. The producing her young friend in the great London world was her prime object.

  The pretensions of individuals are often cruelly mortified when they come to encounter the vast competition of a capital city. As King James said to the country-gentleman at court, “The little vessels, that made a figure on the lake, appear insignificant on the ocean!”

  Happily for Caroline, she had not formed high expectations of pleasure, any hope of producing effect, or even sensation, upon her first appearance in the fashionable world. As she said in her letters to her friends at home, nothing could be more dull or tiresome than her first experience of a young lady’s introduction into life; nothing, as she assured Rosamond, could be less like the reality than the delightful representations in novels, where every day produces new scenes, new adventures, and new characters. She was ashamed to write such stupid letters from London; but unless she were to have recourse to invention, she literally had not any thing entertaining to tell. She would, if Rosamond was in despair, invent a few conquests; and like great historians, put in some fine speeches supposed to have been spoken by celebrated characters.

  In reality, Caroline’s beauty had not passed so completely unobserved as her modesty and inexperience imagined. She did not know the signs of the times. On her first entrance into a public room eyes turned upon her — the eyes of mothers with apprehension, of daughters with envy. Some gentlemen looked with admiration, others with curiosity.

  “A new face! Who is she?”

  “A relation of Lady Jane Granville.”

  “What has she?”

  “I don’t know — nothing, I believe.”

  “Nothing, certainly — a daughter of the Percy who lost his fortune.”

  All apprehensions ceased on the part of the ladies, and generally all admiration on the part of the gentlemen. Opera-glasses turned another way. Pity succeeding to envy, a few charitably disposed added, “Ah! poor thing! unprovided for — What a pity!”

  “Do you dance to-night?”

  “Does our quadrille come next?”

  Some gentleman, an abstract admirer of beauty, perhaps, asked the honour of her hand — to dance; but there the abstraction generally ended. A few, indeed, went farther, and swore that she was a fine girl, prophesied that she would take, and declared they would be d —— d if they would not think of her, if they could afford it.

  From their prophecies or their oaths nothing ensued, and even the civilities and compliments she received from Lady Jane’s particular friends and acquaintance, though in a more polite style, were equally unmeaning and unproductive. Days passed without leaving a trace behind.

  Unluckily for Caroline, her brother Alfred was about this time obliged to leave town. He was summoned to the country by Dr. Leicester. Dr. Percy was so continually employed, that she could scarcely have a few minutes in a week of his company, now that Lady Jane’s health no longer required his professional attendance. Caroline, who had always been used to domestic society and conversation, was thus compelled to live completely in public, without the pleasures of home, and without the amusement young people generally enjoy in company, when they are with those of their own age to whom they can communicate their thoughts. Lady Jane Granville was so much afraid of Caroline’s not appearing fashionable, that she continually cautioned her against expressing her natural feelings at the sight of any thing new and surprising, or at the perception of the tiresome or ridiculous. Her ladyship would never permit her protégée to ask the name of any person in public places or at private parties — because not to know certain people “argues yourself unknown.”

  “I’ll tell you who every body is when we go home;” but when she was at home, Lady Jane was generally too much tired to explain or to comprehend the description of these nameless bodies; and even when her ladyship was able to satisfy her curiosity, Caroline was apt to mistake afterwards the titles and histories of the personages, and by the misnomers of which she was guilty, provoked Lady Jane past endurance. Whether it was from want of natural genius in the scholar, or interest in the study, or from the teacher’s thus unphilosophically separating the name and the idea, it is certain that Caroline made but slow progress in acquiring her fashionable nomenclature. She was nearly in despair at her own want of memory, when fortunately a new instructress fell in her way, who was delighted with her ignorance, and desired nothing better than to tell her who was who; in every private party and public place to point out the ridiculous or notorious, and at the moment the figures were passing, whether they heard or not, to relate anecdotes characteristic and illustrative: this new, entertaining preceptress was Lady Frances Arlington. Her ladyship having quarrelled with Miss Georgiana Falconer, hated to go out with Mrs. Falconer, hated still more to stay at home with the old tapestry-working duchess her aunt, and was delighted to have Lady Jane Granville to take her every where. She cared little what any person thought of herself, much less what they thought of Caroline: therefore, free from all the delicacies and anxieties of Lady Jane’s friendship and systems, Lady Frances, though from different premises coming to the same conclusion, agreed that thinking of Caroline’s advantage was stuff! and that all she had to do was to amuse herself in town. Caroline was the most convenient companion to go out with, for she never crossed her ladyship about partners, or admirers, never vied with her for admiration, or seemed to mind her flirtations; but quietly suffering her to draw off all the fashionable beaux, whom Lady Jane stationed upon duty, she let Lady Frances Arlington talk, or dance, to her heart’s content, and was satisfied often to sit still and be silent. The variety of words and ideas, facts and remarks, which her lively and practised companion poured into her mind, Caroline was left to class for herself, to generalize, and to make her own conclusions. Now she had means of amusement, she took pleasure in observing all that was going on, and she knew something of the characters and motives of the actors in such different scenes. As a spectator, she was particularly struck by the eagerness of all the players, at their different games of love, interest, or ambition; and in various sets of company, she was diverted by observing how each thought themselves the whole world: here a party of young ladies and gentlemen, practising, morning, noon, and night, steps for their quadrille; and while they are dancing the quadrille, jockey gentlemen ranged against the wall in the ball-room, talking of their horses; grave heads and snuff-boxes in a corner settling the fate of Europe, proving that, they were, are, or ought to be, behind the scenes; at the card-tables, sharpened faces seeing nothing in the universe but their cards; and at the piano-forte a set of signers and signoras, and ladies of quality, mingled together, full of duets, solos, overtures, cavatinas, expression, execution, and thorough bass — mothers in agonies, daughters pressed or pressing forward — some young and trembling with shame — more, though young, yet confident of applause — others, and these the saddest among the gay, veteran female exhibitors, tired to death, yet forced to continue the unfruitful glories. In one grand party, silence and state; in another group, rival matrons chasing round the room the heir presumptive to a dukedom, or wedging their daughters closer and closer to that door-way through which Lord William * * * * * must pass. Here a poet acting enthusiasm with a chapeau bras — there another dying of ennui to admiration; here a wit cutting and slashing right or wrong; there a man of judgment standing by, silent as the grave — all for notoriety. Whilst others of high rank, birth, or wealth, without effort or merit, secure of distinction, looked down with sober contempt upon the poor stragglers and wranglers for fame.

  Caroline had as yet seen but few of the literary candidates for celebrity; only those privileged few, who, combining the pretensions of rank and talent, had a natural right to be in certain circles; or those who, uniting superior address to superior abilities, had risen or forced their way into fine company. Added to these were two or three, who were invited to parties as being the wonder and show of the season — persons whom the pride of rank found it gratifyin
g to have at command, and who afforded to them a most happy relief from the dulness of their habitual existence. Caroline, though pitying the exhibitors, whenever she met any of this description, had great curiosity, to see more of literary society; but Lady Jane systematically hung back on this point, and evaded her promises.

  “Yes, my dear, I did promise to take you to Lady Angelica Headingham’s, and Lady Spilsbury’s, but there’s time enough — not yet — not till I have established you in a higher society: not for your advantage to get among the blue-stockings — the blue rubs off — and the least shade might ruin you with some people. If you were married, I should introduce you to that set with pleasure, for they entertain me vastly, and it is a great privation to me this winter — a long fast; but even this abstinence from wit I can endure for your sake, my dear Caroline — you are my first object. If you would take the bel esprit line decidedly — Talents you have, but not courage sufficient; and even if you had, you are scarce old enough: with your beauty and grace, you have a better chance in the circle you are in, my dear.”

  But Lady Frances Arlington, who thought only of her own chance of amusement, seconded Caroline’s wish to see the literary set. Nothing could be more stupid, her ladyship said, than running round always in the same circle; for her part, she loved to see clever odd people, and though her aunt-duchess would not let her go to Lady Spilsbury’s, yet Lady Frances was sure that, with Lady Jane Granville for her chaperon, she could get a passport for Lady Angelica Headingham’s, “because Lady Angelica is a sort of cousin, I can’t tell you how many times removed, but just as many as will serve my present purpose — a connexion quite near enough to prove her fashionable, and respectable, and all that: so, my dear Lady Jane — I’ll ask leave,” concluded Lady Frances, “and we will go next conversazione day.”