The scarcity of beaux, so often remarked and lamented in most societies, could hardly be a legitimate cause of complaint on this occasion, but, as Sir Patrick remarked to Marion, "in every family there is but one eldest son, while there are at least three-and-twenty daughters, each educated and prepared to take her place at the head of a brilliant establishment; therefore, seeing in this room sixty-five young ladies, every one of whom expects to marry on at least £2000 a-year, it would require £130,000 per annum to satisfy them and their expectant mammas!"
Lord Wigton's fortune alone might have been sufficient, if divided into suitable portions, for at least ten such happy couples; but his whole heart seemed bent on bestowing it, with himself, on Marion, who found that she was pursued with assiduity so persevering, not only by him, but also by Captain De Crespigny, who had now openly abandoned Agnes for her, that, annoyed and perplexed how to act, rather than become repulsive and forbidding, which was always repulsive to her nature, she silently retreated with Sir Arthur to the quiet domestic fireside of the Granvilles, where she enjoyed the peaceful reality of happiness, instead of that noisy and glittering imitation of it which she had so gladly forsaken.
In the public saloon, Mrs. O'Donoghoe, a superannuated jeune femme of about thirty, more or less, in a dress as bright and red as a blacksmith's forge, hammered on a decayed piano-forte a sort of tune, which might be an Irish jig or a Scotch strathspey, while several mournful-looking gentlemen had been persuaded to dance with three or four very affected, over-dressed partners, giggling young ladies, most of whom were on the shady side of five-and-twenty, dressed in stiff muslin frocks a l'enfant, bare shoulders, rouge, and very pink stockings.
Mrs. O'Donoghoe's marriage, ten years before, had been a true Harrowgate match—a mutual take-in—the lady being a reputed heiress, without a shilling, and the gentleman endowed with an imaginary estate, which turned out to be situated in the moon. Since her widowhood, she had affected extreme youth, excessive wealth, and extraordinary vivacity, being of opinion that liveliness is the most universally popular of all qualities in the gay world, and that those who are not gifted by nature with light and joyous spirits, should assume them, though, if the exact degree of any person's happiness were distinctly marked by a thermometer on their foreheads, the reality might seldom coincide with the external appearance, and the pre-eminence would seldom be awarded to those who are blazing the brightest in a crowd. The most malevolent persons could scarcely wish their worst enemy to lead that life of anxiety, mortification, and misery, the inevitable doom of ladies who will not consent with a good grace to grow old—who desire to seem what they are not, and never can be again—who, instead of cheerfully advancing to meet advancing years, attempt to rajeunir leur beaute passee, and who, vainly endeavoring to stem the tide of time, catch at every straw which affords a hope of impeding their career into oblivion. If it be indeed true, as all who have experienced it acknowledge, that a worldly career, decked with all the glare and glitter of success, is yet a weariness to the spirit, what must such a life be to those for whom it does not even assume the tinsel of deceit.
Mrs. O'Donoghoe had appeared during nine successive seasons at Harrowgate, where she shone like a moving rainbow, dressing of course younger as she became older, and being considered now quite a part and parcel of the Granby establishment. Though it had been remarked that she always appeared about the same day as Lord Doncaster, yet her usual place of habitation and means of existence were perfectly unknown; but as, on her arrival, she generally entered the public room about the same hour as the post bag, it became shrewdly conjectured that she might perhaps condescend to travel per mail, while, nevertheless, she boasted long and loudly of her enormous jointure.
Sir Patrick alleged, that on a former occasion, when the house was crowded, Mrs. O'Donoghoe ordered a bed to be made up for her on the billiard table, and that now she had bespoken one, after the dancing was over, in the orchestra, while she gladly dispensed with a sitting-room, as the deficiency formed an adequate pretext for constantly frequenting the public room, which she greatly preferred, alleging at the same time, in the most emphatic terms, that saving six shillings a-day for the hire of a parlor was not of the slightest consequence to her, money being "no object," as poor Mr. O'Donoghoe had left her more than she could ever hope to spend.
Mrs. O'Donoghoe's name appeared regularly in the weekly printed list of company at Harrowgate, and she was certainly by no means a dead letter in the brilliant circle. She sang a little, played a little, and talked a great deal, while no topic of conversation ever came amiss to her. The gay widow floundered through anything or everything, making a thousand blunders, and adapting herself to each individual who conversed with her in succession, being ready and anxious for the admiration of all. She seemed willing to compensate for the want of silver in her purse, by having plenty on her tongue, and apparently thought, if she thought at all, that conversation resembled a game at whist, where each individual should implicitly follow his partner's lead.
In every carriage going to races, balls, pigeon matches, or steeple chases, Mrs. O'Donoghoe generally manœuvred to get herself a place, either inside or outside, she seemed by no means particular which; and whenever the master of the ceremonies became perplexed at balls, by an application for a partner from some heavy elderly gentleman in yellow gloves, who desired to risk his tendon of Achilles by dancing, he was sure to be rapturously welcomed by Mrs. O'Donoghoe. She had been always hitherto the favorite flirt of Lord Doncaster; and her bold bravura manner amused Captain De Crespigny, who called her "Fountain's Abbey," on account of her being so picturesque a ruin on so very large a scale. Though not quite so "wither'd, auld, and droll," as he and some refractory officers had alleged, when entreated by the master of the ceremonies to dance with her, yet Mrs. O'Donoghoe's best friends allowed she was thirty—her enemies protested she was forty—and the truth lay, as usual, between both extremes. Forced almost to acknowledge at last that she had arrived on the debatable ground between youth and that uninteresting period, middle age, too old for dancing, too young for cards, and not quite beyond the excitement of love-hunting, she still eagerly hoped to forget, in a brilliant establishment, the blighted hopes of former years. No unmarried man was too elderly or too juvenile for Mrs. O'Donoghoe to try her well-practised fascinations on; and whether they were majors or minor, Lord Wigton, Captain De Crespigny, Sir Patrick, or the Marquis, she yet continued to hope for their admiration. Still she retained a firm conviction that every gentleman arrived at Harrowgate with the full intention of marrying within a month or two—that happy couples, at the end of every season, were to be paired off like pairs of gloves or shoes—and that every gentleman among her numerous assortment of intimate acquaintances, would at last make his own selection; but the most sanguine hope of her sanguine mind was, that the attentions shown to her during many a successive season by Lord Doncaster, which had gone so far as even to excite some scandal, might at last ripen into an offer of his coronet; in which very ardent expectation she had recently suspended her dancing propensities, and diligently exercised on the Marquis her talents for listening, when his society could be had, or in his absence, she even tolerated his shadow, the Abbe.
"Mrs. O'Donoghoe," exclaimed Captain De Crespigny, throwing himself into a seat beside the piano during the interval of a quadrille, "only look at your old superannuated admirer and Miss Dunbar. People laugh at the susceptibility of seventeen, but that is nothing to the susceptibility of seventy. Your ears have generally been the best of listeners to Lord Doncaster's prosing, but you are fairly outdone to-night. How all you young ladies must be tormented by that old fellow's button-holding propensities."
"Quite the contrary! His conversation, though not always perfectly correct, is, it must be confessed, very amusing. Men in general are a queer set, but I like Lord Doncaster's old-fashioned compliments—quite of the vieille cour—one might fancy he had lived some centuries ago!"