Chapter II

Then dress, then dinner, then awakes the world!
Then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then roar
Through street and square fast flashing chariots hurl’d
Like harnessed meteors; then along the floor
Chalk mimics painting; then festoons are twirled;
Then roll the brazen thunders of the door,
Which opens to a thousand happy few,
An earthly paradise of “Or Molu.”
BYRON.

Lord Castleton changed his mind very often as to the best preparatory introduction for Lucy to a few select friends. He was convinced that before she was launched into the great world, he ought to provide her with some female companion, under whose auspices she might then make her appearance. For though it might look merely loving and interesting for a bride to appear leaning on her husband’s arm, in that society to which they had both been previously known; yet where she was a stranger, like needlessly backing a bill, it might excite a suspicion as to her being able to stand alone, without his name being thus attached, or his hand thus put to insure her not being discredited. His first intention was to have invited a small party to dinner at his own house. But though this would have insured him the absolute selection of all the individuals to whom Lucy was, in the first instance, to have been introduced; on the other hand, the active duties of a hostess, perhaps in her idea so much more active than he would have thought necessary, were more than he wished to entail upon her in her probationary trial. Then, as to the lady to whom he was to apply as a sort of _chaperon_ for his inexperienced bride, his thoughts first turned to Lady Gayland; a direction in which, as I am afraid it must be acknowledged, they did turn oftener than he would have chosen to admit. Yet he had a great disinclination to exposing at once to her acute perception any little foibles or deficiencies on Lucy’s part, though he knew that the mere circumstance of any one requiring her assistance, would have disposed her to view them in the most favourable light. Yet there were many little traits of ignorance on Lucy’s part which he was labouring hard to correct, and which he hoped might yet be completely removed, without Lady Gayland’s ever being conscious of them. There were also circumstances of misconception, if not of misunderstanding, connected with his last parting with that lady at Naples, which prevented his feeling authorized in abruptly asking of her a favour.

The difficulties, both with respect to when the introductory dinner was to be given, and the person by whom Lucy was to be _chaperoned_, were removed at the same time, by his accidentally meeting a cousin of his, Mrs. Tudor, who at once occurred to him as admirably suited to both purposes. She was indeed an excellent woman--Mrs. Tudor. Every one admitted it, no one could deny it. Faultless as she was herself, faultless was her society--faultless were her dinners.

Now why is it, that in this wicked world every one of my readers have associated an idea of insipidity with the description I have just given? There were no words used which seemed at all to make such an interpretation necessary, yet in this particular instance it is certainly the right one. Every thing connected with Mrs. Tudor was essentially insipid. Perhaps when an excellent woman is married to a good kind of man, and such was Tudor, it is too much. It gives one the fidgets at once. But excellent women, particularly if they happen to have house and fortune in proportion to their good qualities, are very apt to have very extensive and very eligible acquaintance; and Castleton could not possibly have made a happier choice of the person who was to smooth the first entrance of Lucy into her new career.

Mrs. Tudor was pleased at the extent of the confidence reposed in her, which Castleton limited to informing her, that his bride was a young person who had been educated in retirement, and consequently was not at all prepared for all the ways of the great world. And though activity was not any part of Mrs. Tudor’s excellence, yet this was just the sort of quiet exertion which only made her fancy herself occupied. She immediately fixed an early day for the Castleton’s to dine with her. Do not let the reader be alarmed with the idea, that that day is going to be made the subject of minute description. Suffice it to say, that good nature had, in this instance, its own reward, in pleasing those whom it was intended to gratify. Faultless was the dinner, faultless were the guests invited, and faultless, with pleasure let us add, was Lucy’s deportment during the whole of that day. Anxious as she had already become as to the impression which her conduct in these different circumstances should make upon Castleton, she was on this occasion re-assured by the kind consideration with which she was treated by all, and therefore bore her part without discredit or remark on those ordinary topics from which the conversation never soared.

From Castleton’s lavish praises of her as they returned home in the carriage, she felt as if she must have done wonders, and therefore looked forward without much dread, to the engagement she had made with Mrs. Tudor, to accompany her the following night to Lady Delacour’s ball.

That style of beauty which is defined as the beauty of innocence, is sometimes supposed to be but little improved by dress; but such was not the opinion portrayed in the gratified expression of Lord Castleton’s countenance, when he witnessed the successful result of his wife’s toilet on the succeeding evening: for he thought he never saw her look one half so well--which judgment she read at once in his looks, and felt repaid for all she had gone through. The whole affair had been to her a most painful infliction. She had been in turns a victim in the hands of the milliner, the hair-dresser, and her own maid, each of whose successive operations she had at the time thought to be never ending. She bore the sufferings of a martyr with the patience of a saint. But as Castleton, having first sent the landau for the Tudors, that they might go together, in handing her into it, cast one more approving glance by the hall lamp, and pressed her hand encouragingly, she felt as if she was utterly indifferent as to what any one else thought of her. And though her diffidence so far returned, upon hearing her name shouted from hall to landing-place, and doorway to doorway, as to make an “O pray don’t” half pass her lips, addressed in a supplicatory tone to a peculiarly stentorian callman; yet upon entering the rooms, her admiration at the brilliancy of a scene so much beyond what she had previously conceived possible, gave to her countenance a subdued expression of enjoyment struggling with embarrassment, which to her style of beauty was peculiarly becoming.

As she proceeded, under Mrs. Tudor’s arm, Castleton soon got separated from her by the crowd of acquaintances, who at that moment seemed to have no other object there than to welcome him back to London. After this had a little subsided, whilst jostled by that most fidgetting, unquiet, unaccommodating of all mobs, the hat-tugging, gown-tearing mob of fashion, he was of course subject occasionally to hear remarks which were not meant to meet his ear, but none as yet, which were not on the whole rather flattering than not. “Who is that pretty _new_ girl with Mrs. Tudor?” “Where’s the _new_ beauty--have you seen her?” “Who is that _new_ woman every body is raving about?” It is true, in all these encomiums, the emphasis was on the word _new_, as if that was the great attraction; but at the same time, this, which seemed to imply most in itself, was always coupled with some favourable adjuncts.

After a little, when it became more generally known who she was, he observed that his vicinity often caused some half-vented exclamation or inquiry to be checked by the nudge of a neighbouring elbow; but even then this appeared to be more from the opinion being rather free and familiar in its expression, than unfavourable in its nature. He thought it as well to avoid as much as possible the running any more risks of this kind, and therefore, making his way out of that apartment where the crowd was thickest, he came unexpectedly in the next upon a select circle of admiring listeners, of which Lady Gayland was the centre of attraction. Their eyes met at the same instant; one moment she paused, though in the very agony of a half-finished _bon mot_. She hesitated one moment more, then stretched out her hand to him, saying, “How is Lady Castleton? Is she here?”

Mumbling his reply to this, from her, unexpected question, he passed on. She renewed her sentence, but somehow omitted its point. Her hearers were much disappointed thereat, though some who listened were not aware of the fact. Amongst them was a foreign nobleman, to whom our old acquaintance, Peter Spencer, much to her annoyance, was showing off Lady Gayland, as a sort of literary lioness. The Count Finale was a gentlemanlike, inoffensive man, who had been much puzzled, upon first coming to this country, which of the two alternatives, offered to every foreigner, he had better select,--the could and would speak English line, or not. This is a very awkward choice to make, and there are so many disadvantages both ways, that it is really difficult to know which to recommend. All foreigners now, after a manner, speak English, and few like to do it, but they must profess both or neither, in the first case they are much more generally well received, but get much less separate attention. They have more acquaintance but less society; for it is impossible that they can for some time make out the clipped, slovenly colloquy, in which so much the greater part of common conversation passes current. But the Count Finale had at length taken upon himself the alternative of assumed knowledge, the consequence of which was, that he was at the present moment in the most disagreeable situation for a gallant man, that of appearing to be more amused than he really was with a beautiful woman; for Lady Gayland’s thoughts flowed in much too rapid sketches for him to be able to follow them.

“You are not aware, my dear Count,” said Peter Spencer, “that Lady Gayland is a dweller on Parnassus--that she makes up an even _half score_ with the _Nine_; indeed, there’s hardly a _muse_ whose department she might not double with advantage, upon occasion.”

The habitual inattention which she always extended to every saying of Peter Spencer’s, might account for her taking no notice whatever of this pretty speech, without its being necessary to suppose that her thoughts were just then straying after that mental will-o’-the-wisp, the memory of by-gone visions. But Sir North Saunders, who was standing by, was determined not to let the conversation drop, therefore continued--

“Seen Lady Gayland’s last little work--eh! Count?”

“O pray, Sir North, don’t talk of one’s _work_, it sounds so mechanical--savours much more of the tambour frame than the printing press. Besides, work was a very appropriate description, when the brain was distilled by midnight oil in a lonely garret. But now the stud of letters is as light as the lives of the authors, who first _amuse_ themselves, as the best way of _amusing_ their readers. Formerly even _plays_ were _works_, but now any _work_ is but _play_. Besides, from the days of Byron downwards, if an author has passions he puts them into poetry--if foibles, he owns them with only the additional lackering of some imaginary merit, confesses himself grand but faulty--doubly gratifies his vanity, by being himself his own theme--puts but a little gilt paper upon the blackest parts of his character, and, in this May day finery, presents himself to an admiring world.”

Lord Castleton, who had been hovering near, again approached, time enough to catch most of the last speech, and said more to the speaker herself, than those whom she had been addressing,

“Heaven forefend that I should ever take pen in hand; but if I did, it would be to use myself as a warning, not a model. It would be from the reverse of my own sentiments I should expect sympathy--from a contrast to my own conduct I should promise happiness.”

Lady Gayland cast one penetrating glance upon him, as if wishing to detect whether there was any particular meaning attached to so extraordinary an avowal; and then saying, “And this from a newly married man too, _che vergogna_,” she passed on.