Chapter III

Methinks I play as I have seen them
In Whitsun past’rals: sure this robe of mine
Does change my disposition.

We are come to this great stage of fools--
Wilt stay and see the revellers?
SHAKSPEARE.

Lucy had been very much admired by all to whom Mrs. Tudor had introduced her. A sweet smile, gentle manners, and the absence of any kind of pretension, are quite enough to be supposed agreeable, as well as attractive, by new acquaintances, in a mixed crowd. She was quite equal to reciprocating comments upon the merits of the fête, with those who, after presentation, hazarded two or three commonplace sentences; and if she did use an out-of-the-way phrase upon such an occasion, it was only reckoned original. Whilst thus occupied, she observed her kind friend of Hornscliff Abbey intently gazing on her, who, as soon as she saw that she was remarked, advanced towards Mrs. Tudor, and begged to be presented to Lady Castleton. Lucy was first puzzled at her former friend thinking it necessary to go through that ceremony, and to treat her as a stranger; but when Mrs. Tudor turned away to speak to some one, Lady Gayland said in somewhat an under tone, “Forgive me, dear Lady Castleton, if I suggest to you that, considering the circumstances under which we last met, it should not be known that we ever did meet before. It sounds odd advice; but I should particularly recommend that Lord Castleton should not know it. He is so very old an acquaintance of mine, that I think he will be better pleased in not knowing that I am also an old acquaintance of yours. But to prove to you that I consider myself as such, will you take a turn with me whilst Mrs. Tudor there is curing the cholera? You will see much more, by changing the pair of eyes by which you are shown all this phantasmagoria.” So saying, she linked her arm in Lucy’s, and they paraded through the suite of rooms.

As they passed along, the flattering admiration of the surrounding throng was equally lost on both, though the sensations which produced that disregard were widely dissimilar. In one it arose from simple unconsciousness of the effect she produced, in the other from mere dislike at the open demonstration of that which she felt nevertheless to be her due.

“My dear Lady Castleton,” said her companion; “I have no doubt you feel very strange in this unknown crowd.”

“O I do indeed! and if you only knew how delightful it is to find myself talking with one, who I know, from experience, would on occasion be so kind to me:” and she clung more closely to Lady Gayland’s arm as she said it.

“Yes, but I am afraid that if here no one was to talk, except with those whom they knew, if occasion served, would be kind to them, that it would rather resemble the Temple of Silence, than the Babel it now is. If I could only label these moving figures for your instruction, you would be astonished how soon you would get to know as much of them, as many who have for years what is called _lived_ in their set. From a little observation, you would be able to detect whether they had neglected their dentist, enriched their milliner, or cashiered their _coiffeur_; and that is about the whole knowledge which their friends, called intimate, have collected concerning them. This is called by some a mere marriage mart; that is, however, only one department in the bazaar of fashion; but the whole is, after all, but a sort of face-fair--a show of bipeds; and the stock know about as much of each other, as bullocks would from standing next stall.”

“But surely you, Lady Gayland, are an exception; ever since I have been with you, you have spoken to so many people as if you knew them so well; and not one but has seemed to long to linger with you, had you not passed on.”

“Why I, to be sure, upon the principle that lookers on see most of the game--I, who, having no husband, have not either to watch or be watched, and have, likewise, no daughter to mind, or mother to mind me, I am let a little behind the scenes, which only lets me a thousand times more into the secret of the advantages of your present position, as an unseen _debutante_. Why any mother in the room would think her daughter’s fortune certain, and would begin to criticise incumbrances in any offer beneath a dukedom, who had had half the pretty things said of her, that have this night been said of you; but that could only be the first night. No one knows so well as chaperon chapwomen the converse of the French proverb, _Marchandise que plait, est à moitié vendue_. But I forget; perhaps you do not understand French,” added she kindly.

“No, indeed! I do not at all,” said Lucy, “though Castleton don’t like me to say so.” Adding this domestic explanation in a tone which perfectly conveyed to her auditress, “Though I have volunteered the confession, do not betray me to him.”

“It is my fault for expressing myself in speckled language. It is a great fault, I own. A foreign phrase, like a piebald horse, has nothing to excuse the oddity of its use, but its being faultless and perfect in its form, and peculiarly adapted to the purpose to which it is applied. But see! here comes an old acquaintance of yours, Sir North Saunders; never mind, do not fear his recognizing you, for he moves about in a perpetual halo of selfishness, which prevents his clearly distinguishing what does not concern himself.”

As she finished this piece of advice to Lucy, Sir North approached Lady Gayland, and addressed her.

“Permit--in offering, as usual, adoration at my accustomed shrine,--may be allowed to add farther offerings at the side altar that now distracts my devotion. Will you present me to our friend’s beautiful bride, Lady Castleton?”

“Sir North Saunders, as the most gallant of men, is naturally anxious to make the acquaintance of his friend’s beautiful bride. Lord Castleton is his friend--you are the beautiful bride. Lady Castleton--Sir North Saunders! Sir North Saunders--Lady Castleton. There, that’s quite in order, is not it? And now permit the neglected shrine to move itself out of the renegade’s way.” And she took Lady Castleton’s other arm, which brought Lucy next to Sir North, who addressed her,

“Never more thoroughly convinced of the pre-eminence of Castleton’s universally acknowledged taste.”

A formal curvature of his short fat figure was meant to complete the compliment inferred in this half finished sentence; but Lucy only looked confused and uneasy, as she could not yet persuade herself that those little grey eyes, which she had last seen fixed on her, with all the assumed appearance of intense scrutiny, could so soon have ceased to reflect any trace of her identity. Sir North therefore continued--

“Earliest friend--flatter myself, of Castleton.--Came of age as Horncliffe--arrived at years of discretion--rather _volage_ in those days. You ladies never like your husbands the worse for that, in the preterpluperfect time. Hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at Hornscliff Abbey. Your friend, Lady Gayland, behaved very shabbily,--actually run away--second day--mus’n’t do that.”

“My dear Sir North, you know I was obliged, and couldn’t help myself; but I assure you, Lady Castleton, you’ll find Sir North sometimes tyrannical in the extent to which he pushes hospitality. Do you know, now, if he thought there was any chance of your making your escape, I shouldn’t wonder if he was actually to lock you up. Only think of that--lock you up,--yes, positively keep you under lock and key!”

“Really, my dear Lady, that is rather a worn-out attack upon me. However, it is, to be sure, perfectly new to Lady Castleton. You don’t know, perhaps, that this joke originated in Lady Gayland’s having taken a prodigious fancy to the society of a pretty vagrant, brought up before me as a disorderly person. Poz--believe she left Hornscliff, because I wouldn’t ask the fair tramper to my table.”

“Come, Sir North, you had better say no more on that subject,” said Lady Gayland, seeing it distressed Lucy. “I can assure you Lady Castleton won’t think the better of you for it.”

“Scrupulously avoid any unfavourable impression in such a quarter.--Hope to be able to convince you that Hornscliff is not such a dungeon. Not much used, apparently, to the hardships of rural routine. No fear of being exposed to the fatigues of sight-seeing at Hornscliff,--never be required to pound along in clogs. Confine yourself, if you like, to the thirty-yard terrace, along which Mrs. Macangle used once, before dusk, to glide, in green satin slippers, to match its velvety surface.”

“I’ll tell you what, though, Sir North,” said Lady Gayland, “if I had staid at Hornscliff Abbey, I should have voted your terrace _flat_ as well as level. A country morning ought to be as varied as a London evening; though the monotony of the first half of the day here, and the latter there, is unavoidable.

“Always ready to adapt myself to the taste of my guests. Once,--years ago, when your husband was a very young man, Lady Castleton, I remember we did make a most extraordinary expedition to a strange out-of-the-way place, called Morden Bay. But if Castleton ever mentioned the circumstance, I dare say his recollection was not of the distance being so formidable, for he was in love then.”

“In love!” thought Lucy. “Was his early partiality for me, then, already suspected?”

“Don’t be alarmed, Lady Castleton. She of whom I speak,” continued Sir North, “could never have been your rival, even if she had been your contemporary; but hers was the reign of another generation. Poor Lady Madelina Manfred! Castleton was her last conquest--certainly made the most of him while it lasted. Ah, Castleton, just in time to prevent the exposure of your past peccadilloes to your wife.”

Castleton gave him an inquiring stare, which seemed to say, “I do think you very impertinent, but I won’t tell you so for fear of provoking a continuance of the same:” and then turning to Lady Gayland, said earnestly, “I cannot tell you how kind I think it of _you_ to have taken such care of my inexperienced _debutante_.”

There was a slight emphasis on the words “_of you_,” which might imply that it was what he had no reason to expect of her in particular; but if such was its signification, Lady Gayland took no notice of it, only replying, “I have been endeavouring to persuade Lady Castleton to accompany me to my box at the opera tomorrow night; she says she has never been there.”

Castleton would have found it difficult to separate the notions, or to analyze the feelings, which induced him so readily to accept this offer of Lady Gayland’s. And it was thus they separated the first night of their renewed acquaintance, after a long interval, and under much altered circumstances. Castleton was in spirits during the return homewards; and as soon as they had deposited the Tudors, and he was left alone with Lucy, delighted her with his praises of her deportment during the whole evening, saying, “I am sure you must have been all I could have wished, to have pleased Lady Gayland.”

“Well, I am sure,” said Lucy, “she is the person next to yourself whose good opinion I should most wish to gain.”

But in spite of this, which was indeed the utterance of her real feelings towards that lady, Lucy was not quite contented with herself, or with that society which had produced such a feeling of self-dissatisfaction on her part. It would have been inconvenient, considering Castleton’s dislike to such a discovery, to have been recognized by Sir North; but it is never very welcome to a young and pretty woman to have been so soon and so completely forgotten, even by Sir North Saunders, particularly as the terms in which alone her other self had been mentioned were so little flattering. She could not but remember that she was still the same person; that it was no difference either in her character or identity, but merely the act of another, which caused her to be now so differently considered in that society to which he had raised her.

But the part which hurt her most was the new version which had that night been given by Sir North, to the attraction which rendered interesting to Castleton his former visit to Morden Bay.

Lucy’s diffidence as to her own merits and unlimited sense of Castleton’s superiority, had often made her wonder why, courted as she saw he still was, admired as she believed he must always have been, he should nevertheless have diverged from his natural sphere of triumph on purpose to win her from her remote seclusion. Yet with all her modest astonishment that such should have been the case, she still clung to the idea that at dear Morden Bay, at least, she was supreme, that there “her reign there was none to dispute;” and of all the splendid gifts with which he had presented her since their marriage, there was none in her eyes which had half the value of the little French watch given on the occasion of that first visit to Morden Bay, and to which she always referred with pleasure, as proving the consistency and permanence of his attachment, whenever a painful sensation of inferiority made her almost question its possibility.

The idea, therefore, started by Sir North, that at that time it was the company of another which alone made the expedition to Morden Bay tolerable to him, was most annoying to Lucy. She longed to question her husband on the subject, but dared not.

This was an unfortunate effect of the timidity which rather increased towards him, the longer they continued to live together, without establishing any habits of confidence between them, which, though most indulgent to her in every other respect, Castleton never encouraged, from feeling a growing distrust of the power of her intellect to reciprocate confidential communications. Had she happily ventured to mention what Sir North had hinted to her, of the companion he had had tacked to him at the time of that expedition, Lucy would have found with pleasure, that nothing had so much contributed to the cure of the sickly delusion under which Castleton was then labouring, as the first sight of herself on the shore of Morden Bay.