CHAPTER IX.
Une belle femme est aimable dans son naturel, elle ne perd rien à être negligée, et sans autre parure que celle qu’elle tire de sa beauté et de sa jeunesse. Une grace naïve éclate sur non visage, anime ses moindres actions: il y aurait moins de péril à la voir avec tout l’attirail de l’ajustement et de la mode.
LA BRUYERE.
To London they went on Monday. Lucy was languid and out of spirits during the first part of the journey, but the rapid motion of the swinging vehicle and the four horses revived her young spirits, and the busy streets of London roused her, and the first sight of her house in London pleased her. The excitement, however, did not last. The hall was grand, the staircase noble, the rooms were vast, but they were not set out in order, as the family were not to take up their abode in London till the meeting of Parliament.
The magnificent lustres were in canvass bags, the sofas in brown holland covers, the carpets only put down in the dining-room and the smaller back drawing-room. One day, while Lord Montreville was occupied with his lawyer, Lucy, from real _désœuvrement_, perambulated the desolate apartments, and uncovered the end of a sofa and the corner of an ottoman. She found them beautiful,—she longed to see the effect; she set to work, removed canvass bags, and paper coverings, &c. Her blood began to flow, and her spirits to rise, at being actively employed: she took care not to send for the housemaid; she was quite glad to work hard. She was in the act of dragging forth a beautiful _chaise-longue_, her bonnet tossed aside, her hair all out of curl, her gloves as gloves must be that have come in contact with London furniture, her shawl having slipped off her shoulders on the floor, her fine embroidered handkerchief covered with dirt and dust off some delicate little ornaments on the chimney-piece, the room spread with all the different envelopes she had abstracted from the furniture, when Lord Montreville entered, and, with him, a very handsome, very well-dressed, very pleasing-looking young man.
Lucy stopped short in her employment, and no little boy caught by his schoolmaster in the act of stealing apples ever looked more shame-faced, more confused, more guilty. Worse and worse. Lord Montreville introduced the stranger as his cousin, Lionel Delville. Lucy knew he was the oracle of the world of fashion, and the person for whose opinion Lord Montreville had more deference than for any other person’s living. She stammered, blushed, and stood abashed.
Lord Montreville, however, showed no outward signs of annoyance; but, with a smiling countenance and easy manner, he said:—
“You seem to have been very busy! Well! I dare say you will settle the rooms with much more taste than ever they were arranged before: women have ten times more tact in making a house look inhabited, than any man—always excepting my cousin Lionel. You must take him into your counsels, Lucy, if you wish your suite of apartments to be perfect;” and Lord Montreville led the way back into the boudoir.
Lucy was comforted at Lord Montreville appearing to take her _équippée_ so quietly, and she in some measure recovered her self-possession.
She looked exceedingly pretty in her dishevelled state, and Lionel Delville thought his cousin, the untutored, rustic Marchioness, a most piquante creature. But though Lord Montreville himself had been originally attracted by this same manner, it was not the manner by which he intended that his wife should charm; and when Mr. Delville took his leave, the lecture which Lucy flattered herself had passed away, arrived with accumulated seriousness.
His wrath was not disarmed by the degree in which he had seen Lionel pleased. He wished him to approve; but he did not at all wish to see him attracted. When he advised Lucy to take him into her counsels, it was from the fear Mr. Delville should read how little he wished she should do so.
Lucy quaked at the tone in which he addressed her.
“Do you think, Lucy, I have had reason to be pleased at the mode in which I have been obliged to present my wife to the first of my relations who has seen her? Do you think your appearance and your occupation were calculated to make a favourable impression upon my family?”
“I am so sorry, dear Lord Montreville! but I did so long to see those pretty things!”
“Could you not send for the housemaid?”
“Yes; to be sure I might; but I had nothing to do; and I only meant to take one peep, and I never thought of any body calling; I thought there was not a soul in London; and then, I know so few people—I never thought of being caught!”
“You forget that I have a very large acquaintance, and that you are my wife; and you also forget one thing, which I have often tried to impress upon your mind—that a woman should never be unfit to be seen—that she should never be _caught_, as you term it, employed in any manner unsuited to her rank and station in life—that your pleasures should be such as befit the situation in which I have placed you; and that my wife should always act as if the eyes of the world were upon her. Let me hear no more of being _caught_—the expression is worthy of a school-miss in her teens.”
Lucy blushed rosy red. She blushed for shame; for she felt there was something undignified in the expression: but she blushed more from anger at being treated as a missish girl—at being, in fact, accused of vulgarity. She was on the point of crying, but the servant entered with the tickets for the play; and he put on coals, and swept up the ashes, and lighted the lamps, and shut the shutters. Lucy had time to recover herself, and Lord Montreville to reflect that he should not do wisely to frighten her too much; that his own annoyance had perhaps caused him to speak more angrily than the thing deserved.
It was, therefore, in a gay and good-humoured tone, that he bade her make haste and dress; though, at the same time, he gave her a hint to be simple in her costume, as it was not good _ton_ to be too smart at the play.
They dined alone; but Lionel Delville and a friend joined them late in the evening. If he thought her pretty in the morning, he thought her lovely in her present quiet, but most _soigné_ and fashionable attire.
He seated himself by her side, and gave her very little opportunity of enjoying the drollery of the afterpiece. But he did not, he could not, flirt with her. There was a complete simplicity—a straightforward frankness in her manner, which rendered it impossible to know how to begin. Moreover, she believed herself in love with her husband; and besides, being dutifully and religiously devoted, she was particularly anxious to give him satisfaction after her errors of the morning; and her real thoughts and attention were on him and for him alone. He could not but be pleased; knowing women to their heart’s core, as he did, he saw the genuine innocence of her manner, and he felt assured that it must take a long apprenticeship to the world to contaminate the purity of her mind. He resolved to watch attentively over it.
The kindness of his manner towards her the next day gratified her. He presented her with a magnificent real Cashmere; and the next day with a beautiful guard-ring. She thought him very kind, and she determined to do every thing to please him, which was, in fact, never to do any thing except to dress well, sit on the sofa buried among cushions (not bolt upright engaged in any employment), and especially to fling herself back into the corner of her carriage with an elegant _abandon_ when she went out airing.
Her efforts to do nothing were crowned with success: he thought her extremely improved; but this _dolce far niente_ to her was not _dolce_, especially when they returned into the country, and she could not go shopping every day—an occupation to which he had no objection, as her pin-money was so ample that she could not easily be distressed.
He now thought he might venture to gather some of his own friends and relations around him, and before Christmas there arrived a large party, all people of the very highest fashion, pleasing and agreeable. They, like their host, seemed in their conversation to have adopted the motto of “_Glissez mortels, mais n’appuyez pas_;” and though the hours might fly swiftly and pleasantly in their society, there was nothing about them sufficiently original or individual to deserve recording.
Lucy behaved exceedingly well; she had been properly drilled before their arrival: she was in an interesting state, which, assisted by the lectures of the apothecary, and the constant solicitude of Lord Montreville, and the ennui occasioned by being headed, as a sportsman would term it, whenever she attempted to stir hand or foot, gave to her whole carriage and deportment a most excellent languor. She no longer felt any flutter when she made the signal after dinner, and, upon the whole, Lord Montreville thought the result all he could wish, except that he would fain have had her join a little more in general conversation, if he could have been quite sure of no exuberance of spirits.
Was she happy in the midst of her splendour? Her husband exceedingly attentive, and the most agreeable society collected around her. No: she was bored—from morning till night, constantly suffering from ennui. She was grateful for her husband’s attentions, but they invariably prevented her doing the thing she wished to do; and she sometimes wondered how so many little chubby children were running about the village in health and safety, who were not heirs to titles and properties.
The society of her husband’s friends did not amuse her; they were all the intimates of one clique; and, notwithstanding their habitual good-breeding, she could not help often being unable to understand, or, at all events, to join in their conversation. A slight tone of persiflage and of quizzing in their mode of treating all subjects, also made her feel less at her ease, than she would otherwise have done after ten days’ residence under the same roof; and she often longed for a hearty laugh with Bell Stopford, a long scrambling walk with Emma and Mary, or a quiet chat with the dear, honest, affectionate Milly.
Lucy occasionally suggested how glad she should be to see her parents; but the house was always filled with a succession of visitors. The Duke and Duchess of Altonworth announced their intention of taking Ashdale Park in their way to London, and Lord Montreville inadvertently exclaimed, “Whom shall we get to meet them, for this party disperses on Wednesday?”
“Oh, then, now we can have papa and mamma, and Emma and Mary!—that will be nice!”
Lord Montreville’s countenance fell—he looked blank and dismayed. Lucy saw she was wrong, but she could not imagine that papa and mamma were not fit company for any duke or duchess in the land; so she awaited the result, blank and dismayed in her turn, but wholly at a loss to guess what was the matter. Lord Montreville soon rallied.
“I do not think that would quite do, my dear Lucy: a family party is always a dull thing, and the Duchess is very clever, and altogether——My dear Lucy, I am sure you perfectly understand me.”
This time, however, Lucy could not and would not understand.
“But it will not be a family party to the Duchess, and I am sure mamma is clever too: some people call her blue.”
“Very true, my love; but the Duchess is clever and not blue, and she is a person who is very exclusive; she has retired habits, and does not like new acquaintances; and, in short, we must either get somebody whom she would decidedly like to meet, or we had better have nobody.”
“But we are going to town in a fortnight, and mamma has not been here yet,” said Lucy with more pertinacity, and even humour, than she had ever yet shown.
“We shall be here again at Easter, and in the summer certainly, and then you shall have them all, Emma and Mary, and your old friend Milly too, if you like it;” and Lord Montreville resolved he would do it once for all, well and thoroughly.
Lucy acquiesced, though she did not exactly see why Ashdale Park should be open to so many slight acquaintances, and yet that a visit from her parents should be so difficult of accomplishment. She was also somewhat appalled at the idea of this clever, exclusive Duchess, whom she should have to entertain herself, for no one whom Lord Montreville thought worthy of meeting her could be found on such short notice. Lucy was sure she should dislike her; she was angry with her for, as she thought, keeping away her own family, and she determined to bear patiently the infliction of her presence for the few days she remained, and never to seek her any more. She was free from the vulgar awe which simple rank inspires to the _parvenu_, though she was not free from the _gêne_ which most people feel when in company with persons who are wedded to their own set, and who do not give themselves any trouble to please those who are not of it.
The day arrived, and Lucy, who was not constitutionally shy, and had now become perfectly at her ease in the discharge of her every-day hostess duties, awaited with composure the entry of the disagreeable Duchess.
She was rather surprised when a little, quiet, middle-aged woman, in a close bonnet, and a black cloak, slid into the room, followed by a large, gaunt, lordly-looking man. Lord Montreville was not present. Lucy rose to receive them; the Duchess introduced herself and the Duke, in a gentle, kind, frank manner.
They sat down, and the Duchess being very cold drew her chair close to the fire, put her feet upon the fender, and dropped out little natural sentences, which half amused, half pleased Lucy, and before they went to dress for dinner she felt more intimate with the dreaded Duchess than with any of the other people who had yet been her inmates at Ashdale Park.
At dinner Lord Montreville was in his most agreeable vein; the Duchess was charming, so unaffected, so straightforward, and, withal, there was something singular and original in her turn of thought, with a graceful _bonhommie_ which was peculiar to herself. The Duke was a sensible, hard-headed, high-minded man, silent in large society, but conversable enough in small ones. Lucy was interested and amused all the time, and would have talked more than she did, but that she liked to listen to the Duchess, and to watch the pleasing expression of her countenance, and the wonderful manner in which, without youth, features, or complexion, it lighted up into something more attractive than beauty.
Upon further acquaintance she found her as good as she was fascinating. She spoke of her married daughters, of her grand-children, of her home, her garden, her son, and his wife and children, who lived at Altonworth, when in the country; of her school, of the poor people, and Lucy perceived that, in fact, her heart was so completely filled with the near and dear charities of life, that it was not strange she had no inclination to seek for other objects in the world.
Lucy’s genuine feelings thawed to her immediately; and the Duchess was also pleased with the innocence and simplicity of her young hostess. Lucy was more delighted and flattered at the hope of being admitted into her intimacy, than she had been since the ball, at which she had first met Lord Montreville, when he had first made her feel herself a person altogether superior to the common run of girls.
Lucy and the Duchess parted with a mutual wish to meet again; on the part of one, amounting to a passionate desire, on the part of the other to a kindly inclination.