CHAPTER VIII.

_Calantha._—To court, good brother, ere her bloom of mind Be set for fruit? Oh, take her not to court, Where we be slaves to petty circumstance Of empty form and fashion. Where the laugh Pealed merrily from the joy-freighted heart, Gives place to measured smiles still worn by all, As ’twere a thing of custom, and alike Lavished on friend and foe; where your fair child, For coronals of buttercups and hare-bells, Must prank her youth in gorgeous robes of state, And where sweet nature’s impulses must all Be curbed, suppressed.

_Manuscript Poems._

At length the awful day arrived. Lucy was married, and the Marquess and Marchioness of Montreville drove from St. George’s Church in the neatest of dark-green chariots, with four grey horses, leaving Colonel Heckfield sad, but satisfied, Mrs. Heckfield joyful, but dissolved in tears, Emma full of delight, wonderment, and awe, at her sister Lucy being actually a marchioness, Mademoiselle feeling herself the person most peculiarly concerned, inasmuch as it must have been entirely owing to the superior education she had given her pupil that she had been deemed worthy to be raised to so lofty a station in the peerage. Milly watched the carriage till it was out of sight, with tearful eyes, and left the window with a foreboding shake of the head.

The bride and bridegroom spent the honeymoon at Ashdale Park, and Lucy was much edified by the grandeur of the place. The park was extensive, the pleasure-grounds immense, the gardens perfect. She had nothing to do but to enjoy all she saw. She went round the pictures several times, till she thought there was no pleasure in making her neck ache with looking up, and her eyes ache with peering through Claude Lorraine glasses; she repeatedly walked about the gardens, but she dreaded the sight of the gardener; he used such hard names, and he was such a gentleman, that she scarcely ventured to ask him the name of a flower, much less to suggest any fancy of her own. The house was completely _montée_. The _maître d’hôtel_ sent in the bill of fare, but she could never have presumed to propose any alteration in the repast. She had heard that Ashdale Park was famous for bantams, and she one day expressed a wish to see them. Lord Montreville ordered the pony phaeton to drive her to the poultry establishment.

“Oh, let us walk, dear Lord Montreville; I had much rather walk.”

“It has been just raining, my dear Lucy, and your shoes are thin.”

“But I can put on thick ones in a moment.”

“I hate to see a woman’s foot look like a man’s. Nothing so ugly as great coarse shoes upon a pretty woman’s little foot.”

“Oh! but nobody will see me.”

“Yes, I shall see you,” answered Lord Montreville, and Lucy felt frightened lest he should think she could have meant he was nobody. So the pony phaeton was ordered. In about three quarters of an hour it appeared, and a groom on another beautiful little long-tailed pony to follow, and Lucy’s wadded cloaks, and Lord Montreville’s fur cloak, and the boa, and the parasol, and the umbrella, and the reticule, &c. were all duly packed and arranged, and they entered the carriage, and drove about a mile to the end of the park.

Having summoned the poultryman, Lady Montreville was introduced to all the different yards and coops, the winter roosting-place, and the summer roosting-place, and the coops for early chickens, and the places for fatting; and Lucy soon felt that the poulterer, who did the honours of the establishment, was much more the master of the whole concern than she could ever be; so, having bestowed the requisite portion of approbation and admiration, she was departing without any particular desire to revisit the scene, when a young gosling waddled past her feet. She stooped to pick it up—it escaped her—she ran after it—she succeeded in catching it—she brought the pretty little yellow thing back to Lord Montreville in great delight at having secured it, and fully expecting that he would sympathize in her feelings.

“Look at the pretty creature!—Is it not a love?—dear little thing!”

“My dear Lady Montreville, it will dirty you all over—its feathers are coming off: I beg, I entreat, you will put it down!” added Lord Montreville in a tone of annoyance.

Lucy let the gosling go, and followed Lord Montreville to the carriage. When they had remounted, and again arranged the cloaks and shawls, Lord Montreville said—

“My dear Lucy, you must remember that now you are a married woman, and my wife: these are little girlish ways that do not sit well upon you. I am sure your own good sense will point out to you that there ought to be something more _posé_ in manner for your present situation.”

Lucy acquiesced, and resolved not to catch goslings any more.

They lived in the most perfect retirement. Lord Montreville did not mean to enter the world till he had tutored his wife into being precisely the thing he wished.

She found the time hang rather heavy on her hands; she read, but she could not read all day; she wrote to her mother and sisters, but she had not much to say, and a bride’s letters are always very dull. No part of the household required her superintendence: she did not work much, for where was the use of working when she had plenty of money, and could buy every thing so much better than she could make it? She always hated torturing a piece of muslin, till the muslin was dirty and the pattern out of fashion. She played and sang a little; but Lord Montreville liked Italian music, and she sang English ballads. She liked long walks; but Lord Montreville always thought she would get tanned if the sun shone, and red if the wind blew, and wet if it had been raining, or was likely to rain. Then there were so many rooms, she never found any thing at the moment she wished for it: when she was at luncheon in the ante-room, she missed her reticule, which was left in the library, where she passed the morning; when she retired to her boudoir after her drive, she found she had left her letters in the saloon, where they breakfasted: in the evening, when they sat in the great drawing-room, she wanted her work, and the work-box was in the library. Lord Montreville rang the bell, and a servant was despatched to bring the work-box. He returned, but the one skein of silk of the right shade was missing, and it ended by her lighting a candle and going to look for it herself. In the morning, after hunting all over the library for the book she was reading, she remembered she had left it the preceding evening in the drawing-room; and she sometimes thought it would be vastly comfortable to live in one snug room, where one had all one’s things about one.

Lord Montreville had so far tamed her, that she did not think of setting out to trudge alone beyond the precincts of the shrubbery: she had learned not to pat every dog she met, or to kiss a donkey’s nose; and she was as steady from a gosling or duckling as a good fox-hound from a hare. When she wanted any thing at the other end of the room, she did not run, neither did she ever jump over the footstool, and she carried a candle perpendicularly, instead of horizontally. Lord Montreville thought it was time to ascertain a little what her manners would be in society, before he ventured to ask any of his own set to his house; and they sent forth a regular invitation to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Delafield, Major and Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Smith’s sister, Miss Brown.

Lucy was a little appalled at the prospect of making the signal after dinner. Every woman must have felt that the first time of making this little mysterious bow is an epoch in her life. Lucy was sure she should stay too long or too short a time. Then, to which of the ladies was the sign to be made? Lord Montreville told her that when the conversation took the turn of horses, hunting, dogs, or partridges, which it invariably did somewhere between twenty minutes and half an hour after the servants had left the apartment, all women with any tact or discretion took advantage of the first pause to depart; and that the lady whom he should hand in to dinner would almost invariably prove the one towards whom she should direct her eyes.

The dinner went off very well. Lucy’s manners were perfect. She never was awkward, and her thoughts were sufficiently occupied with the idea of making the dreaded signal at the right moment to render her rather shy, and to prevent her spirits running away with her. She watched narrowly every thing that was said after dinner; and upon Major Smith asking her if she was fond of riding, she cast a glance towards Lord Montreville, to see if that was near enough the mark for her to rise; but, upon the whole, she thought not, as the question was addressed to herself. This occurred precisely eighteen minutes after the last servant had changed the last plate on which there had been ice; and sure enough it led the way to the usual turn of gentlemen’s conversation before twenty-two minutes had expired.

Lucy had answered, “Yes, but Lord Montreville had not yet found a horse he thought fit for her.”

Mr. Johnson remarked, that “Nothing was so difficult to procure as a good lady’s horse.”

“Except a good hunter for a heavy weight,” said Mr. Delafield.

“I can scarcely agree with you, Delafield,” rejoined Mr. Johnson; “for a lady’s horse should be so very safe, and all horses will stumble sometimes, and temper and mouth are so indispensable, besides action and ease.”

“Temper is as necessary for a good hunter,” interrupted Mr. Delafield, “or they knock themselves to pieces; and I know that a heavy man like me can’t afford to have a horse take too much out of himself at first.”

The moment was decidedly come; and Lucy, with a slight palpitation of the heart, looked at Mrs. Johnson. But Mrs. Johnson did not give a responsive glance: she was talking to Miss Brown. Lucy looked again; Mrs. Johnson was putting on her gloves, and did not raise her eyes. The conversation became every moment more sporting, and Lucy felt that if she had any tact or discretion she ought to depart. Her heart positively beat, but she could not venture to say any thing out loud, and she kept looking and looking, when Major Smith again addressed her, and she was obliged to answer him. He rejoined, and she found herself entangled in a fresh discourse. The half hour—more than the half hour must have elapsed! She answered with an absent air, still glancing uneasy glances, till at length Miss Brown nudged Mrs. Johnson, and Mrs. Johnson looked up, and Lucy hastily rose from her chair in the middle of Major Smith’s sentence.

Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Delafield made a great ceremony at the door, during which time the gentlemen stood bolt upright, with their napkins in their hands, waiting with exemplary patience while the ladies gave each other _le pas_. At length they marched out arm-in-arm, with a slight laugh to carry off their uncertainties. Lady Montreville, in her shyness, slipped her arm within Miss Brown’s, and thanked her for making Mrs. Johnson look round.

“Why could I not catch her eye before?”

“Oh, don’t you know? She is only the wife of a younger son of a Baronet, and Mrs. Delafield is the wife of the eldest son of a Knight, so you know she was afraid of putting herself forward.”

This was a new light to Lucy, who had never before been aware of these niceties.

Miss Brown was rather pretty, with gay laughing eyes, and a lively countenance; and Lucy was so glad to meet with a person of her own age, and who looked as if she could be merry, that she forgot it was her duty to attend to the married ladies.

She had shown Miss Brown all her diamonds and trinkets, and the wedding-gown. Miss Brown had half confessed she should soon be in want of such an article herself. Lady Montreville was in the act of trying to find out who was to be the happy man. They were in deep, interesting, and rather giggling conversation, somewhat apart, while Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Johnson, and Mrs. Delafield were sitting up quite prim, when the gentlemen entered. Lord Montreville was not pleased. Lucy, who was accustomed to her mother’s countenance when Bell Stopford was in question, instantly recognised the expression, and was frightened out of her wits. She was conscience-stricken; she broke off her discourse with Miss Brown; she came forward to the other ladies, and began talking to them with all her might.

If people are easily offended by any want of attention from the great, in return they are easily soothed. The consciousness of being slighted is so unpleasant to the _amour propre_, that if the intention to be civil is made manifest, they readily accept the will for the deed; and they soon forgave the lovely young Marchioness when they found there was no intentional neglect.

The evening passed much like other evenings after a dinner in the country. There were no new people whom Lord Montreville wished to charm; they were old country neighbours, with whom there was no object to gain, and he let things take their course. He had merely wished to accustom Lucy to sit at the head of her table.

When the company had all departed, he thus addressed his wife—

“Lucy, my dear, what did I hear you saying to Miss Brown about Monday?”

“I only asked her to come here. She is such a nice girl—is she not? I said I would send for her, that was all.”

And Lucy began to fear that “all” was a great deal. It seemed so natural to ask Miss Brown to her own house at the moment she did so; but now that she told Lord Montreville what she had done, it did not seem so natural.

“This will never do, my dear Lucy: Miss Brown is not at all the sort of person I wish you to be intimate with,—not at all the sort of person with whom I wish my wife to appear in public; and, if you are intimate in private, you must be the same in public. I hold it out of the question to begin intimacies you cannot keep up;—it exposes people to being accused of caprice and finery, which are very different things from the proper pride and self-respect which should make them move in their own sphere, and associate with persons in their own station. You understand me, my near Lucy?—and you will remember what I say:—and now let us see what can be done. Her coming here is wholly out of the question. If she is the first person who visits you after your marriage, it is proclaiming her your friend. I want to see my lawyer some time soon, and, instead of sending for him here, we will go to St. James’s Square for a few days; and you can write a very civil note—mind, a very civil note—(I never affronted any body in my life), and tell her we are obliged to go to town on particular business.”

All this was said in the sweetest and kindest tone imaginable; but Lucy was confounded and stupified when she found her having invited Miss Brown to her house for a day had brought on this complete _déménagement_. She felt herself a cipher; she felt herself perfectly helpless. But the tone was so kind, and at the same time so decided, that she had not a word to say. Lord Montreville turned to other subjects,—told her he had seen her distress after dinner,—laughed with her at the rival dignities of the lady of the Baronet’s youngest son, and the lady of the Knight’s eldest son,—and was most gay and agreeable.

Lucy did not quite like so entirely giving up her point without a struggle. If he had spoken a little longer, if he had harped upon the subject, she would have rallied, and said something; but before she had recovered her first surprise, the whole affair was settled and done, and she did not know how to recur to it.

The next morning, after breakfast, Lord Montreville said, “Lucy, my love, write your note; and, as I am going to the stables, I will order a groom to be ready to take it to Miss Brown.”

He left the room. There was no time to remonstrate. Lucy thought of Lady Selcourt,—she thought of her mother. Lady Selcourt would simply not have written the note; her mother would have had a thousand arguments before Colonel Heckfield had finished half his first sentence. She had not cool courage for the first line of conduct, nor had she had presence of mind for the latter. There was nothing left for her to do but to submit; so she wrote the note (not without three foul copies), sealed it very neatly, rang the bell, and gave it to the servant with a heavy heart; not that she cared for Miss Brown, but she felt herself imprisoned and enthralled.