“No, my lady, I am glad to see you looking so well. I hope your daughters are also quite well?”
“Thank you; they look very well in the evening, but rather pale in the morning. It is a terrible thing a London season, very trying to the constitution, but what can we do? We must be out and be seen everywhere, or we lose caste—so many balls and parties every night. The fact is, that if girls are not married during the three first seasons after they come out, their chance is almost hopeless, for all the freshness and charm of youth, which are so appetising to the other sex, are almost gone. No constitution can withstand the fatigue. I’ve often compared our young ladies to the carriage horses—they are both worked to death during the season, and then turned out to grass in the country to recover themselves, and come up fresh for the next winter. It really is a horrible life, but girls must be got off. I wish mine were, for what with fatigue and anxiety I’m worn to a shadow. Come, Mademoiselle de Chatenoeuf, let us go into the next room. It is cooler, and we shall be more quiet; take my arm: perhaps we shall meet the girls.”
I accepted her ladyship’s invitation, and we went into the next room, and took a seat upon a sofa in a recess.
“Here we can talk without being overheard,” said Lady M—; “and now, my dear young lady, I know that you have left Madame Bathurst, but why I do not know. Is it a secret?”
“No, my lady; when Caroline went away I was of no further use, and therefore I did not wish to remain. You may perhaps know that I went to Madame Bathurst’s on a visit, and that an unforeseen change of circumstances induced me to remain for some time as instructress to her niece.”
“I heard something of that sort, a kind of friendly arrangement, at which Madame Bathurst had good cause to be content. I’m sure I should have been, had I been so fortunate; and now you are residing with Lady R—, may I inquire, without presuming too much, in what capacity you are with Lady R—.”
“I went there as an amanuensis, but I have never written a line. Lady R— is pleased to consider me as a companion, and I must say that she has behaved to me with great kindness and consideration.”
“I have no doubt of it,” replied Lady M—; “but still it appears to me (excuse the liberty I take, or ascribe it to a feeling of good-will), that your position with Lady R— is not quite what those who have an interest in you would wish. Everyone knows how odd she is, to say the least of it, and you may not be perhaps aware, that occasionally her tongue outruns her discretion. In your presence she of course is on her guard, for she is really good-natured, and would not willingly offend anyone or hurt their feelings, but when led away by her desire to shine in company, she is very indiscreet. I have been told that at Mrs W—’s dinner-party the other day, to which you were not invited, on your name being brought up, she called you her charming model, I think was the phrase; and on an explanation being demanded of the term, she said you stood for her heroines, putting yourself in postures and positions while she drew from nature, as she termed it; and that, moreover, on being complimented on the idea, and some of the young men offering, or rather intimating, that they would be delighted to stand or kneel at your feet, as the hero of the tale, she replied that she had no occasion for their services, as she had a page or footman, I forget which, who did that portion of the work. Surely this cannot be true, my dear Mademoiselle de Chatenoeuf?”
Oh! how my blood boiled when I heard this.
How far it was true, the reader already knows; but the manner in which it was conveyed by Lady M—, quite horrified me. I coloured up to the temples, and replied, “Lady M—, that Lady R— has very often, when I have been sitting, and she has been writing, told me that she was taking me as a model for her heroine, is very true, but I have considered it as a mere whim of hers, knowing how very eccentric she is. I little thought from my having good-naturedly yielded to her caprice, that I should have been so mortified as I have been by what you have communicated to me. That she must have been indiscreet, is certain, for it was known only to herself and me.”