Chapter VIII: Mrs. Langley Turner, and Her Friends

While Rose was writing the foregoing letter, Mr. and Mrs. Meredith Vyner were driving towards Eaton-square, on a visit to the well-known and well-worth-knowing lively widow, Mrs. Langley Turner.

London society abounds in subjects curious to the observer; and, in spite of its general uniformity, is so split up into opposite and opposing sections, that a painter of manners, whose observation had been confined to a few of those sections, would be accused of ignorance or of caricature by nine-tenths of the English public. This is the reason of the numerous failures in the attempt to describe English society, both by natives and foreigners. To foreigners, indeed, the task must be hopeless. How should they avoid taking their standard of the whole from the circle in which they move? They see the interior of houses where wealth, talent, political influence, and sounding names meet together in habitual and familiar intercourse: how can they imagine that what they see there are not the acknowledged manners of the "upper classes?" Yet nothing can be more erroneous. Portland-place differs as much from Belgravia, as Regent-street does from Bond-street. What a world is that of Belgravia, and what a variety of worlds within it! Things are there done, and accepted as matters of course, which would make the rest of England incredulously stare; and we may safely affirm that any sketch of English society taken from the pleasant circles of Belgravia, would seem quite as preposterous as any Frenchman's "impressions" of England taken from Leicester-square.

These few remarks were necessary to prevent the reader's indignant rejection of the description of Mrs. Langley Turner as a caricature,--as opposed to the whole constitution of English society. And we beg him therefore, if he have not travelled so far as Pimlico, to retire into his ignorance, and, while staring as much as he pleases, to believe it.

Mrs. Langley Turner's set was one of the small orbs within the greater sphere of Belgravia, and her house was one of the gayest, if not the most exemplary, in it. Her Sunday evenings were celebrated. Her picnics, her breakfasts, her snug dinners, and multitudinous parties, were each and all agreeable enough; but the Sunday evening was her _cheval de bataille_--therein she distanced all competitors.

There was something piquant in the audacity of the thing in puritanical England, where, unlike all other Protestant countries, the Sunday is a day on which all amusement, except plethoric dinners, is supposed to be a sin; and, in 1839, such a thing was more unusual than it has since become. This saucy defiance thrown in the face of Puritanism, was joyfully accepted by all those whose residence abroad had made it familiar, as well as by those whose opinions were in favour of a less rigid adherence to a code which other Protestant nations repugned. And though many women went to Mrs. Langley Turner's Sunday evenings, and enjoyed them greatly, yet very few had the courage to imitate her.

Never were pleasanter parties than hers. The rooms were always crowded with pretty women and _somebodies_. Foreigners abounded; literary men and artists of celebrity, Italian singers, travellers, diners out, guardsmen, wits, and roués, formed the heterogeneous and amusing society. People with "slurs" upon their reputation were to be met there; and they were not the least amusing of the set. I know not whether it is that the women whose virtue is not absolutely intact, and the men whose conduct is of the same easy class, are really more amusing and better natured than the incorruptibly virtuous and the sternly conscientious; or that public envy more readily pounces upon any slips made by the clever, amusing, good-natured people; but the social fact is indisputable, that the pleasantest companions are not always the most "respectable."

Mrs. Langley Turner had a sneaking regard for those black sheep; and Cecil Chamberlayne once laughingly declared, that she never took any notice of a person until his or her reputation had been damaged. "In her paradise," he said, "all the angels will be fallen angels."

With all due allowance for the exaggeration here, certain it is that the truth of the _bon-mot_ gave it its success. Everybody said it was "_so_ good!" And she did not disown it.

"I like people for themselves," she would say; "and, as their virtue does not affect me, so long as I like them and see nothing dishonourable in them, I will open my doors to them."

This un-Britannic audacity of thinking for herself, without reference to the opinion of Mrs. Grundy, and of actually "receiving" women about whom scandal had been busy, very naturally gave scandal a sort of licence with her; but it never rose above whispers. Mrs. Langley Turner herself was a prodigious favourite with all classes of men. The wits liked her, she was so lively; the guardsmen, she was "so larky;" the talkers, she was so chatty; the authors, she was so clever, without ink on her thumb, and knew so much of the world; and everybody, because she was so quiet and good-natured. A genuine woman; frank, hearty, gossipy, flirty, kind, forgiving--in a word, loveable.

It was to her house that the Vyners were driving, Sunday afternoon being a sort of levée with her. When the Vyners arrived the little drawing-room was tolerably full. First on the sofa, by Mrs. Langley Turner, sat a dowager-countess with her young, handsome, and uninteresting daughter. Opposite them, in an easy chair, sat the broken, gouty, but still charming Sir Frederick Winter; a name celebrated in the annals of gallantry, and one of the now almost extinct species of _roués_, in whom exquisite manner and courtly elegance made vice the very chivalry of vice, so that, in losing all its grossness, it did really seem to lose half its deformity. By his side sat Cecil Chamberlayne, and next to him the pedantic and bony Miss Harridale and her mother; the former seemed to have absorbed the dregs of her ancient family for several generations, so cruelly vulgar was every look and movement. She was talking atrocious French to a bearded dandy, whom Cecil called "some very foreign count;" occasionally entrapping young Lord Boodle into the conversation by an appeal to his judgment, which, after smoothing his blonde moustache with the ivory handle of his riding-cane, he reluctantly drawled out.

Mrs. Meredith Vyner, in her very affectionate and sprightly greeting of Mrs. Langley Turner, had time to perceive that Marmaduke, for whom she came, was not there. It was her first appearance in Eaton-square on a Sunday, for Mrs. Meredith Vyner never missed afternoon service, and nothing but the hope of seeing Marmaduke, whom she was told was a constant visitor, would have induced her to break in thus upon her habits. She comforted herself with the expectation that he might still come.

"Mr. Chamberlayne," said Mrs. Langley Turner, when they were seated, "is giving us an enthusiastic account of a new tragic actress, whom, he says, the Duchesnois, the Dorval, and the Mars--three single ladies rolled into one--would not equal."

"Who is that?" said Mrs. Meredith Vyner, restlessly turning upon Cecil.

"A little Jewess they call Rachel, quite a girl, picked up from the streets, but an empress on the stage. Till I had seen her, I did not believe the human voice capable, in mere speech, of expressing such unutterable sadness, such sobs of woe."

"And you have seen Edmund Kean?"

"Yes, Edmund Kean; but Rachel is something quite incomparable."

"That is true," said the very foreign count; "her acting is not acting."

"No," replied Cecil, "it is _suffering_."

The bony Miss Harridale nodded approval of the epigram, and then informed the company that for her part she saw nothing in French tragedy.

"Surely," said Cecil, "Racine is an exquisite writer."

"No," replied the confident young lady, "he has no _ideas_!"

There was something so vague yet so crushing in this dictum, which was delivered with amazing _aplomb_, that no one replied for a few seconds.

"I fancy," said Sir Frederick Winter, "we are scarcely inclined to do justice to French tragedy, because we always compare it with that which it least resembles--our own."

"For my part, I never presume to have an opinion on so delicate a subject," said Mrs. Vyner, who hated Miss Harridale, and never lost an opportunity of saying something disagreeable; "because I feel we English do not understand the language sufficiently to judge of that which depends upon the grace and beauty of language. I do not, of course, mean to imply Miss Harridale in that observation--she is _such_ a Frenchwoman!"

Miss Harridale looked daggers, and said, "I do not pretend to feel the graces of Racine, about which they talk so much. I dare say they are all very well. I only speak of the substance: he has no ideas; and what is a poet without profound ideas? I am for ideas above everything."

"But how Racine understood the heart--especially woman's heart!" said the count. "What insight into the passions! what tenderness! what subtlety! what sublimity!"

"I never saw them," dogmatically pronounced Miss Harridale.

"Then Corneille," added the count; "le grand Corneille, there is a genius! Has he not painted Romans?"

"Not to my apprehension," said Cecil. "His Romans are Gascons. The old Horace, for example, who is so much admired, seems to me to have more rhodomontade than grandeur. He is not a man, but a figment!"

Miss Harridale smiled her approbation of this, and declared that the celebrated _qu'il mourût_ was not an "idea."

The count failing to understand that profound objection, asked if she did not regard the _qu'il mourût_ as sublime?

"Not at all."

"Well, I suppose I am a heretic," said Meredith Vyner; "but to speak the honest truth, French sublimity always seems to me to fall very wide of the mark."

"Surely, not _very_," said Cecil; "only a _step_."

A general laugh greeted this sally, which made Mrs. Vyner remark Cecil, whom she now remembered as the young man Marmaduke spoke to at Dr. Winston's. She resolved to invite him.

"Is this Rachel--I think you call her--handsome?" asked Lord Boodle, tapping his lips with his cane.

"Yes, and no--the beauty of mind."

"The only beauty worthy of the name," said Miss Harridale, sententiously.

It was the only style of beauty to which she could lay claim.

"She is beautiful enough," continued Cecil, "for the parts she plays--you never feel any contradiction between the poet's idea and her representation of it. You should see her in Phèdre. I think I never can forget the desolation in her utterance of the four grand opening lines; or the fine horror of her 'C'est Vénus tout entière à sa proie attachée;' which by the way," he added, turning to Vyner, "is only a magnificent paraphrase of what your favourite Horace says in his ode to Glycera--

"In me tota ruens Venus
Cyprum deseruit."

Meredith Vyner, who had a high opinion of any man who could quote Horace appositely, suspended a pinch of snuff which he had for some minutes been heaping up between his thumb and forefinger, to assure Cecil that he was perfectly correct in his conjecture, and as no commentator had noticed it, he should certainly do so in his forthcoming edition--"the work of twenty years' labour, sir!" Vyner added, clenching the observation with a sonorous pinch.

In a few seconds, Cecil and Vyner were engaged together upon the nullity of commentators in general, and those on Horace in particular. Talk of contempt! there is no scorn like the scorn of one commentator for another.

Vyner wound up a tirade against Burmann, Dacier, Sanadon, and Bentley, by saying, "If you will do me the pleasure of calling, Mr. Chamberlayne, I will show you my edition, together with some of my marginal corrections. Bentley boasted that he had made eight hundred corrections of the text,--sir, I have made more than a thousand in Bentley's edition. You shall see it: it will delight you."

Cecil thought that few things would delight him less, but he was glad to have an invitation to the Vyners upon any pretext.

During this talk, Miss Harridale was harassing Lord Boodle with her criticisms on modern English literature, which she found deplorably deficient in "ideas."

Mrs. Vyner was paying great court to the old roué, Sir Frederick--his opinion being a verdict.

A knock at the door made her heart beat a little faster. To her disappointment, however, it was only Julius St. John's name she heard announced. She shortly overheard Julius informing Mrs. Langley Turner, that he had left Mr. Ashley stretched on his sofa, devouring _Ruy Blas_, just received.

"And I am to be neglected for Victor Hugo, I presume!" said Mrs. Langley Turner.

Julius shrugged his shoulders significantly.

"I shall scold him well for it."

"Not when you hear his excuse. He told me that no attraction could drag him from _Ruy Blas_ till he had finished it; it was such a splendid tale of vengeance."

A cold shiver ran over Mrs. Meredith Vyner, as she heard St. John carelessly and laughingly let fall those words full of terrible significance to her.

"But he will be here this evening, I hope?" inquired Mrs. Langley Turner.

"Yes."

Finding it was useless waiting any longer, Mrs. Vyner rose to withdraw.

"Do come round this evening, dear," said Mrs. Langley Turner; "only a few friends, and Pellegrini is to give us some recitations from Alfieri--will you?"

"With pleasure."

"That's a dear little woman, I'm so glad."

Meredith Vyner handed Cecil his card, and repeated how glad he should be to show him all his notes on Horace.

"A very clever fellow, that young Mr. Chamberlayne," said Meredith to his wife, as they got into their carriage, "with remarkably sound ideas on the subject of commentators."

"Charming person--so witty. I am glad you gave him your card. By the way, I have said we would go to Mrs. Turner's this evening, to hear Pellegrini recite from Alfieri."

"Very well, my dear," said the astonished Vyner, not venturing to make any further remark on so singular a communication.

It was indeed enough to make him silent. It was something so enormous, so unexpected, that it sounded like a mystification. She had always pretended to be very strict on religious subjects; without affecting fanaticism, she was as rigid as was compatible with her being a woman of the world. This relaxation from her usual rigidity, therefore, was the more surprising, because it seemed motiveless.

Her husband at last thought that the temptation was Pellegrini's recitations. He knew she was a great student of poetry, which she always declared he knew very little about, and had the naïveté to believe, that to hear poetry well recited would be as great a temptation to her, as a new edition of Horace would be to him.

Her motive really was an anxiety to come to an "explanation" with Marmaduke, whose threats terrified her the longer she thought of them. She wished at least to know his game, if she could not look over his cards; and as the sooner she knew that the better for her own defence, she was restless till she had seen him.