“Oh!” exclaimed Louisa, “after such a dismal life, what a change it will be to her to come to London! How she will delight in all its amusements! I hope that she’ll be as mad after the opera as I am; and that from week’s end to week’s end we may never have the penance of an evening at home, except when we entertain company ourselves! I can forgive anything in her but being dull, sober, and solemn.”
“Giddy child!” lisped Lady Selina, with uplifted finger and affected smile, “you sadly need some one to keep you in order—some one to hold the rein with a firmer hand than your poor indulgent aunt ever has done.”
“Hold the rein!” repeated Arabella with indignant pride, the blood mounting to her forehead as she spoke. “I hope that Mrs. Effingham will make no attempt of that kind with us. There’s but five years’ difference between her age and mine; and as regards knowledge of the world, I suppose that the difference lies all the other way. I have no idea of being governed by an apothecary’s daughter!”
“Nor I!” exclaimed Louisa, shaking her pretty ringlets with a contemptuous toss of the head.
“Nor I!” echoed Vincent, shutting his book, and joining his sisters by the fire.
“Little rebels!—fy! fy!” said their aunt, with a smile on her lips that contradicted her words. Lady Selina saw that she had succeeded in her aim. She had prejudiced the minds of her sister’s children against the young bride of their father; she had created a party against Clemence in the home which she was about to enter as its mistress. Arabella, Louisa, and their brother, would be on the watch to find out defects in the character, manners, and education of their step-mother; they would regard her rather in the light of a usurper, from whom any assertion of power would be an encroachment on their rights, than as a friend united to them by a close and tender tie.
It was not, perhaps, surprising that Lady Selina should contemplate with little satisfaction a marriage which dethroned her from the position in Mr. Effingham’s house which she had held for seven years. Lady Selina had enjoyed more of the luxuries of life and the pleasures of society in the dwelling of her brother-in-law, than her small capital of ten thousand pounds could have secured for her anywhere else. To Vincent Effingham it had been a satisfaction to have at the head of his household a lady of position and intelligence, who would take a general super-intendence of the education of his three motherless children. How far Lady Selina was fitted to do justice to the charge, is a different question. She was one who passed well in the world when viewed only in its candle-light glare—one to whom had been applied the various epithets of “a sensible woman,” “an amiable creature,” and “a very desirable acquaintance.”
Lady Selina had acquired the reputation for sense, from those whose opinions resembled her own, for her tact in steering clear of every theological difficulty. Her religion, if religion it could be called, was of the simplest and most easy description. To her the path to heaven was so wide that its boundaries were scarcely visible. There was, of course, a decent attendance to forms, for that the laws of society demanded; nay more, Lady Selina had about half-a-dozen cut and dried religious phrases, to be brought forward before clergymen and serious visitors, and put back again immediately upon their departure: these were, perhaps, satisfactory evidence to herself that her condition, as regards spiritual things, was one of the most perfect security. Enthusiasm on any subject regarding a future state appeared to the “woman of sense” a weak and childish folly. She could understand a politician’s strong interest in his party, a landlord’s in his estate, a lady’s in raising her position by a single step in the social circle; but the longing of an immortal soul for peace, pardon, and purity, was a matter completely foreign to her experience, and beyond her comprehension. Lady Selina wore her religion as she did her mantle; it was becoming, fashionable, and commodious, and it could be laid aside at a moment’s notice if it occasioned the slightest inconvenience.
And Lady Selina was called “an amiable creature” by such as are easily won by a polished manner and courteous address. She possessed the art of being censorious without appearing so. She seldom openly expressed an unfavourable opinion of any one; but conveyed more sarcastic meaning in a word of faint praise or disparaging pity, a shake of the head, a hesitating tone, or a soft, compassionating sigh, than might have been expressed by severe vituperation. None of her strokes were direct strokes—she never appeared to take aim; but her balls ever glanced off at some delicate angle, and effected her object without visible effort of her own. She had a secret pride in her power of influencing others, never considering that her ingenuity simply consisted in the art of gratifying malice at the expense of generosity and candour.
Lady Selina was “a very desirable acquaintance” to those who only knew her as an acquaintance. Her kindliness was as the blue tint on the distant mountain, which vanishes as we approach nearer towards the barren height. Whoever might rest upon her friendship, would lean, indeed, upon a broken reed. But, in the exchange of ordinary courtesies, in the art of simulating cordiality and sympathy, Lady Selina was a perfect adept. Few left her presence without a feeling of self-satisfaction and gratified vanity, which caused both the visit and her to whom it had been made to be remembered with pleasure.