Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Helen hoped not, but looked frightened.

  “Oh, you may hope not, my dear, but I know it will be — we may not hear the thunder, but we shall see the lightning all the more dangerous. We shall be struck down, unless—” she paused.

  “Unless what?” said Helen.

  “Unless the storm be dispersed in time.”

  “And how?”

  “The lightning drawn off by some good conductor — such as myself; I am quite serious, and though you were angry with me for laughing just now, as if I was not the best of daughters, even though I laugh, I can tell you I am meditating an act of self-devotion for my mother’s sake — a grand coup d’état.”

  “Coup d’état? you, Cecilia! my dear—”

  “I, Helen, little as you think of me.”

  “Of your political talents you don’t expect me to think much, do you?”

  “My political talents! you shall see what they are. I am capable of a grand coup d’état. I will have next week a three days’ congress, anti-political, at Clarendon Park, where not a word of politics shall be heard, nor any thing but nonsense if I can help it, and the result shall be, as you shall see, goodwill between all men and all women — women? yes, there’s the grand point. Mamma has so affronted two ladies, very influential as they call it, each — Lady Masham, a favourite at court, and Lady Bearcroft, risen from the ranks, on her husband’s shoulders; he, ‘a man of law,’ Sir Benjamin Bearcroft, and very clever she is I hear, but loud and coarse; absolutely inadmissible she was thought till lately, and now, only tolerated for her husband’s sake, but still have her here I must.”

  “I think you had better not,” remonstrated Helen; “if she is so very vulgar, Lady Davenant and the general will never endure her.”

  “Oh, he will! the general will bear a great deal for mamma’s sake, and more for papa’s. I must have her, my dear, for the husband is of consequence and, though he is ashamed of her, for that very reason he cannot bear that any body should neglect her, and terribly mamma has neglected her! Now, my dear Helen, do not say a word more against it.” Very few words had Helen said. “I must ponder well,” continued Cecilia, “and make out my list of worthies, my concordatum party.”

  Helen much advised the consulting Lady Davenant first; but Lady Cecilia feared her mother might be too proud to consent to any advance on her own part. Helen still feared that the bringing together such discordant people would never succeed, but Lady Cecilia, always happy in paying herself with words answerable to her wishes, replied, “that discords well managed often produced the finest harmony.” The only point she feared was, that she should not gain the first step, that she should not be able to prevail upon the general to let her give the invitations. In truth, it required all her persuasive words, and more persuasive looks to accomplish this preliminary, and to bring General Clarendon to invite, or permit to be invited, to Clarendon Park, persons whom he knew but little, and liked not at all. But as Lady Cecilia pleaded and urged that it would soon be over, “the whole will be over in three days — only a three days’ visit; and for mamma! — I am sure, Clarendon — you will do anything for her, and for papa, and your own Cecilia? “ — the general smiled, and the notes were written, and the invitations were accepted, and when once General Clarendon had consented, he was resolutely polite in his reception of these to him unwelcome guests. His manner was not false; it was only properly polite, not tending to deceive any one who understood the tokens of conventional good breeding. It however required considerable power over himself to keep the line of demarcation correctly, with one person in particular to whom he had a strong political aversion: Mr. Harley. — His very name was abhorrent to General Clarendon, who usually designated him as “That Genius, Cecilia — that favourite of your mother’s! “ — while to Lady Davenant Mr. Harley was the only person from whose presence she anticipated any pleasure, or who could make the rest of the party to her endurable. Helen, though apprehensive of what might be the ultimate result of this congress, yet could not help rejoicing that she should now have an opportunity of seeing some of those who are usually considered “high as human veneration can look.” It is easy, after one knows who is who, to determine that we should have found out the characteristic qualities and talents in each countenance. Lady Cecilia, however, would not tell Helen the names of the celebrated unknown who were assembled when they went into the drawing-room before dinner, and she endeavoured to guess from their conversation the different characters of the speakers; but only a few sentences were uttered, signifying nothing; snuff-boxes were presented, pinches taken and inclinations made with becoming reciprocity, but the physiognomy of a snuff-box Helen could not interpret, though Lavater asserts that every thing in nature, even a cup of tea, has a physiognomy.

  Dinner was announced, and the company paired off, seemingly not standing on the order of their going; yet all, especially as some were strangers, secretly mindful of their honours, and they moved on in precedence just, and found themselves in places due at the dinner-table.

  But Helen did not seem likely to obtain more insight into the characters of these great personages in the dining-room than she had done in the drawing-room. For it often happens that, when the most celebrated, and even the most intellectual persons are brought together expressly for the purpose of conversation, then it does not flow, but sinks to silence, and ends at last in the stagnation of utter stupidity. Each seems oppressed with the weight of his own reputation, and, in the pride of high celebrity, and the shyness, real or affected, of high rank, each fears to commit himself by a single word. People of opposite parties, when thrown together, cannot at once change the whole habit of their minds, nor without some effort refrain from that abuse of their opposites in which they are accustomed to indulge when they have it all to themselves. Now every subject seems laboured — for in the pedantry of party spirit no partisan will speak but in the slang or cant of his own craft. Knowledge is not only at one entrance, but at every entrance quite shut out, and even literature itself grows perilous, so that to be safe they must all be dumb.

  Lady Cecilia Clarendon was little aware of what she undertook when she called together this heterogeneous assembly of uncongenials and dissimilars round her dinner-table. After she had in vain made what efforts she could, and, well skilled in throwing the ball of conversation, had thrown it again and again without rebound from either side, she felt that all was flat, and that the silence and the stupidity were absolutely invincible. Helen could scarcely believe, when she tried afterwards to recollect, that she had literally this day, during the whole of the first course, heard only the following sentences, which came out at long intervals between each couple of questions and answers — or observations and acquiescences:—”We had a shower.”—”Yes, I think so.” “But very fine weather we have had.”—”Only too hot.”—”Quite.” “The new buildings at Marblemore — are they getting on, my Lord?”—”Do not know; did not come that way.” “Whom have they now at Dunstanbury?” was the next question. Then in reply came slowly a list of fashionable names. “Sir John died worth a million, they say.”—”Yes, a martyr to the gout.” “Has Lady Rachel done any thing for her eyes?”—”Gone to Brighton, I believe.” “Has any thing been heard of the North Pole expedition?”—”Not a word.” “Crockly has got a capital cook, and English too.”—”English! eh?”—”English — yes.” Lord Davenant hoped this English cook would, with the assistance of several of his brother artistes of the present day, redeem our country from one-half of the Abbé Gregoire’s reproach. The abbé has said that England would be the finest country in the world, but that it wants too essentials, sunshine and cooks. “Good! Good! Very!” voices from different sides of the table pronounced; and there was silence again.

  At the dessert, however, after the servants had withdrawn, most people began to talk a little to their next neighbours; but by this Helen profited not, for each pair spoke low, and those who were beside her on either hand, were not disposed to talk; she was seated between
Sir Benjamin Bearcroft and Mr. Harley — Sir Benjamin the man of law, and Mr. Harley the man of genius, each eminent in his kind; but he of law seemed to have nothing in him but law, of which he was very full. In Sir Benjamin’s economy of human life it was a wholesome rule, which he practised invariably, to let his understanding sleep in company, that it might waken in the courts, and for his repose he needed not what some great men have professed so much to like—”the pillow of a woman’s mind.” Helen did not much regret the silence of this great legal authority, but she was very sorry that the man of genius did not talk; she did not expect him to speak to her, but she wished to hear him converse with others. But something was the matter with him; from the moment he sat down to dinner Helen saw he seemed discomfited. He first put his hand across his eyes, then pressed his forehead: she feared he had a bad headache. The hand went next to his ear, with a shrinking, excruciating gesture; it must be the earache thought Helen. Presently his jaws were pinched together; toothache perhaps. At last she detected the disturbing cause. Opposite to Mr. Harley, and beside Lady Davenant, sat a person whom he could not endure; one, in the first place, of an opposite party, but that was nothing; a man who was, in Mr. Harley’s opinion, a disgrace to any party, and what could bring him here? They had had several battles in public, but had never before met in private society, and the aversion of Mr. Harley seemed to increase inversely as the squares of the distance. Helen could not see in the object adequate cause for this antipathy: the gentleman looked civil, smiling, rather mean, and quite insignificant, and he really was as insignificant as he appeared — not of consequence in any point of view. He was not high in office, nor ambassador, nor chargé-d’affaires; not certain that he was an attaché even, but he was said to have the ear of somebody, and was reputed to be secretly employed in diplomatic transactions of equivocal character; disclaimed, but used, by his superiors, and courted by his timid inferiors, whom he had persuaded of his great influence somewhere. Lady Cecilia had been assured, from good authority, that he was one who ought to be propitiated on her father’s account, but now, when she perceived what sort of creature he was, sorely did she repent that he had been invited; and her mother, by whom he sat, seemed quite oppressed and nauseated.

  So ended the dinner. And, as Lady Cecilia passed the general in going out of the room, she looked her contrition, her acknowledgment that he was perfectly right in his prophecy that it would never do.

  CHAPTER IX.

  It was rather worse when the ladies were by themselves. Some of the party were personally strangers to Lady Davenant; all had heard of her sufficiently; most had formed a formidable and false opinion of her. Helen was quite astonished at the awe her ladyship inspired in strangers. Lady Davenant’s appearance and manner at this moment were not, indeed, calculated to dispel this dread. She was unusually distant and haughty, from a mistaken sort of moral pride. Aware that some of the persons now before her had, in various ways, by their own or their husbands’ means, power to serve or to injure Lord Davenant, she disdained to propitiate them by the slightest condescension.

  But how any persons in England — in London — could be strangers to Lady Davenant, was to a foreign lady who was present, matter of inexpressible surprise. She could not understand how the wives of persons high in political life, some of opposite, but some of the same parties, should often be personally strangers to each other. Foreigners are, on first coming to England, apt to imagine that all who act together in public life must be of the same private society; while, on the contrary, it often happens that the ladies especially of the same party are in different grades of fashion — moving in different orbits. The number of different circles and orbits in London is, indeed, astonishing to strangers, and the manner in which, though touching at tangents, these keep each their own path, attracted and repelled, or mutually influential, is to those who have not seen and studied the planisphere, absolutely incomprehensible. And, as she pondered on this difficulty, the ambassadress, all foreigner as she was, and all unused to silence, spoke not, and no one spoke: and nought was heard but the cup on the saucer, or the spoon in the cup, or the buzzing of a fly in the window.

  In the midst of this awful calm it was that Lady Bearcroft blurted out with loud voice—”Amazing entertaining we are! so many clever people got together, too, for what?” It was worth while to have seen Lady Masham’s face at that moment! Lady Bearcroft saw it, and, fearing no mortal, struck with the comic of that look of Lady Masham’s, burst into laughter uncontrolled, and the contrast of dignity and gravity in Lady Davenant only made her laugh the more, till out of the room at last she ran. Lady Masham all the while, of course, never betrayed the slightest idea that she could by any possibility have been the object of Lady Bearcroft’s mirth. But Lady Davenant — how did she take it? To her daughter’s infinite relief, quite quietly; she looked rather amused than displeased. She bore with Lady Bearcroft, altogether, better than could have been expected; because she considered her only as a person unfortunately out of her place in society, and, without any fault of her own, dragged up from below to a height of situation for which nature had never intended, and neither art nor education had ever prepared her; whose faults and deficiencies were thus brought into the flash of day at once, before the malice of party and the fastidiousness of fashion, which knows not to distinguish between manque d’esprit, and manque d’usage.

  Not so Lady Davenant: she made liberal and philosophic allowance for even those faults of manner which were most glaring, and she further suspected that Lady Bearcroft purposely exaggerated her own vulgarity, partly for diversion, partly to make people stare, and partly to prevent their seeing what was habitual, and what involuntary, by hiding the bounds of reality. Of this Lady Masham had not the most distant conception; on the contrary, she was now prepared to tell a variety of odd anecdotes of Lady Bearcroft. She had seen, she said, this extraordinary person before, but had never met her in society, and delighted she was unexpectedly to find her here—”quite a treat.” Such characters are indeed seldom met with at a certain height in the atmosphere of society, and such were peculiarly and justly Lady Masham’s delight, for they relieved and at the same time fed a sense of superiority insufficient to itself. Such a person is fair, privileged, safe game, and Lady Masham began, as does a reviewer determined to be especially severe, with a bit of praise.

  “Really very handsome, Lady Bearcroft must have been! Yes, as you say, Lady Cecilia, she is not out of blow yet certainly, only too full blown rather for some tastes — fortunately not for Sir Benjamin; he married her, you know, long ago, for her beauty; she is a very correct person — always was; but they do repeat the strangest things she says — so very odd! and they tell such curious stories, too, of the things she does.” Lady Masham then detailed a variety of anecdotes, which related chiefly to Lady Bearcroft’s household cares, which never could she with haste despatch; then came stories of her cheap magnificence and extraordinary toilette expedients. “I own,” continued Lady Masham, “that I always thought the descriptions I heard must be exaggerated; but one is compelled to acknowledge that there is here in reality a terrible want of tact. Poor Sir Benjamin! I quite pity him, he must so see it! Though not of the first water himself, yet still he must feel, when he sees Lady Bearcroft with other people! He has feeling, though nobody would guess it from his look, and he shows it too, I am told; sadly annoyed he is sometimes by her malapropoisms. One day, she at one end of the table and he at the other, her ladyship, in her loud voice called out to him, ‘Sir Benjamin! Sir Benjamin! this is our wedding-day!’ He, poor man, did not hear; she called out again louder, ‘Sir Benjamin, my dear, this day fifteen years ago you and I were married!’ ‘Well, my dear,’ he answered, ‘well, my dear, how can I possibly help that now!’”

  Pleased with the success of this anecdote, which raised a general smile, Lady Masham vouched for its perfect correctness, “she had it from one, who heard it from a person who was actually present at the time it happened.” Lady Davenant had not t
he least doubt of the correctness of the story, but she believed the names of the parties were different; she had heard it years ago of another person. It often happens, as she observed, to those who make themselves notoriously ridiculous, as to those who become famous for wit, that all good things in their kinds are attributed to them; though the one may have no claim to half the witticisms, and the other may not be responsible for half the absurdities for which they have the reputation. It required all Lady Masham’s politeness to look pleased, and all her candour to be quite happy to be set right as to that last anecdote. But many she had heard of Lady Bearcroft were really incredible. “Yet one would almost believe anything of her.” While she was yet speaking, Lady Bearcroft returned, and her malicious enemy, leaning back in her chair as if in expectation of the piece beginning, waited for her puppet to play or be played off.

  All this time Lady Cecilia was not at ease; she, well aware what her mother would feel, and had felt, while Lady Masham was going on with this gossip-talk, had stood between her ladyship and Lady Davenant, and, as Lady Masham did not speak much above her breath, Cecilia had for some time flattered herself that her laudable endeavours to intercept the sound, or to prevent the sense from reaching her mother’s ear, had succeeded, especially as she had made as many exclamations as she could of “Really!” “Indeed!” “How extraordinary!” “You do not say so?” which, as she pronounced them, might have excited the curiosity of commonplace people, but which she knew would in her mother’s mind deaden all desire to listen. However, Lady Masham had raised her voice, and from time to time had stretched her neck of snow beyond Lady Cecilia’s intercepting drapery, so as actually to claim Lady Davenant’s attention. The consequences her daughter heard and felt. She heard the tap, tap, tap of the ivory folding-knife upon the table; and well interpreting, she knew, even before she saw her mother’s countenance, that Lady Masham had undone herself, and, what was of much more consequence, had destroyed all chance of accomplishing that reconciliation with “mamma,” that projected coalition which was to have been of such ultimate advantage to “papa.”