“You ought to be ashamed to acknowledge it.”
“All comes of reading, miss,” replied he. “I read that in former times great people, kings and princes and so on, always had their victuals tasted first, lest there should be poison in them: so I taste upon that principle, and I have been half-poisoned sometimes at these cheap parties, but I’m getting cunning, and when I meet a suspicious-looking piece of pastry, I leave it for the company; but I can’t wait to talk any longer, miss, I must give coachman his orders.”
“I never asked you to talk, Mr Lionel,” said I.
“No, you didn’t, but still I know you like to hear me: you can’t deny that. Now to use my lady’s style, I am to tell the coachman to put a girdle round the park in forty minutes;” so saying, the lad vanished, as he usually did, in a second.
The lad was certainly right when he said that I did like to hear him talk, for he amused me so much, that I forgave his impudence and familiarity. Shortly afterwards, we went out in the carriage, and having driven two or three times round the park, returned home to dinner. At ten o’clock, we went to Mrs Allwood’s party. I was introduced to a great many great literary stars, whom I had never before heard of; but the person who attracted the most attention was a Russian Count, who had had his ears and nose cut off by the Turks. It certainly did not add to his beauty, however it might have to his interest. However, Lionel was right. It was a very stupid party to me: all talking at once and constantly on the move to find fresh listeners; it was all buzz, buzz, buzz, and I was glad when the carriage was announced. Such were the events of the first day which I passed under the roof of Lady R—.
Indeed, this first day may be taken as a sample of most others, and a month passed rapidly away. Each day, however, was marked with some peculiar eccentricity on her part, but these diverted me. I was often requested to do strange things in my position as a model, but with all her oddities Lady R— was a gentlewoman in manner and in feeling, and what I should certainly have refused to anyone else, I did for her without reluctance. I now called her Sempronia, as she requested, and, moreover, I became very intimate with Master Lionel, who would be intimate, whether or no, and who, like Lady R—, was a source of great amusement. At times, when I was alone and communed with myself, I could not help surveying my peculiar position. I was engaged at a large salary—for what? to look handsome, to put myself in attitudes, and to do nothing. This was not flattering to my talents (such as I had), but still I was treated with kindness and confidence; was the companion of her ladyship; was introduced and taken to all the parties to which she was asked, and never made to feel my dependence. I had already imbibed a strong friendship for Lady R—, and I was, therefore, content to remain. One morning she said to me, “My dear Valerie, do me the favour to tighten the laces of my stays.”
She was, as usual, writing in her dressing-gown.
“Oh, tighter yet; as tight as you can draw them. That will do nicely.”
“Why you can hardly breathe, Sempronia.”
“But I can write, my dear child, and, as I before observed, the mind and the body influence each other. I am about to write a strictly moral dialogue, and I never could do it unless I am strait-laced. Now I feel fit for the wife of Cato and of Rome.”