"I love to be with you," said he to us: "your influence is so beneficial over me, and you wrap me in such a pleasing illusion! for while I am with you I fancy myself as good as you are: but when I go away, I shall be just as bad again.—Well; have you nothing to say in reply? How disappointed I am! for I thought you would in mercy have exclaimed, 'Then stay here for ever!' Would I could!"
And indeed, when he did go, I missed him.—But to return to the place whence I digressed. Pendarves came home time enough to take a ride with Lord Charles, but he took care to let him see that he expected more attention from him. That evening he challenged my husband to picquet; and having won back nearly the whole of what he had lost, positively declined playing any more: and, much to Seymour's vexation, he would not play again while he staid. The second night's performances at Oswald Lodge now took place; but though Lord Charles staid to be present at them, he could not help expressing his astonishment to me, when alone, that a modest, respectable gentlewoman like myself should ever have joined in them, and that my husband should have permitted it.
"It is very well for these fiddling, frolicking, fun-hunting Oswalds," said he, "to fill their house with persons and things of this sort, and rant and roar, and kick and jump, and make fools and tumblers of themselves and such of their guests as like it: but never did I expect to see the dignified and retiring Helen Pendarves exhibiting her person on a stage, and levelling herself to a Lady Martindale. As your friend, your adoring friend, I tell you, that such an exhibition degrades you."
"It would do so were it my choice, but it is my necessity; and the fulfilment of a painful duty exalts rather than degrades."
"Duty!"
"Yes; my husband required me to act, and I obeyed."
"I understand you. Oh! what a rash, ill-judging being he is! But I beg your pardon, and will say no more. Yet I must add, you are justified; but alas! what can justify him?"
This conversation did not give me any additional courage to undertake and execute my task; especially as I had no reputation as an actress to lose, and other circumstances increased my timidity.—Lady Martindale had purposely reserved all her powers for this evening, and, as she herself said, she was very glad to have her performance witnessed by such a judge as Lord Charles Belmour—a man whose opinion, she knew, was looked up to in all circles as decisive, with regard to beauty, grace, and talents. No wonder, therefore, that to throw her spells round him was become the object of her ambition. Hitherto he had avoided her, and she seemed conscious that he did not admire her. Her only hope was, I believe, therefore, to charm him at once by a coup de théâtre; and while she convinced Pendarves that for him alone she should exert her various powers, her fascinating graces were in reality aimed at Lord Charles: so I thought and suspected,—and though jealousy blinds, it also very often enlightens.
She was to begin the entertainments by acting a French proverb with a French gentleman, an emigré, who was staying at the house; and having no doubt of her transcendent powers, I felt very reluctant to enter into competition with her. Yet, was not the prize for which I strove my husband's admiration? But then was I not degrading myself from the dignity of a wife and a private gentlewoman, by putting myself into a competition like this? The question was difficult to answer, and while I was thus ruminating, the curtain drew up.
I shall not describe her performance: suffice, that the exhibition was perfect. The dialogue was epigrammatic, and the scenes too short to let the attention flag. Every word, every gesture, every look told; and the curtain dropped amidst the loudest applauses.