“Sacrificing a principle! Lucy, you are perfectly ridiculous! What has principle to do with a fête champétre? Your head is turned with the stupid cant of oppressing, and the people, as if we had not annoyances, and vexations, and pressure too, when we want more money than we happen to have! And as for time, what is to prevent your sending to Mrs. Smith to-night, (by-the-bye, how can you employ an English artiste?) and get all you want by ten o’clock on Monday morning? Why, I cannot even give, an order till after the post comes in to-morrow. I must wait to know what was worn at the Duchesse de Nemours’ fête champétre the other day. One feels just out of the ark, in England.”
“And I am sure I cannot decide what to wear till then,” languidly remarked Mary.
“And as for me, I am in a worse predicament than either of you,” laughed Laura, but her laugh was not a gay one. “Raise the wind I must, but it requires time to think how.”
We have no space to follow this conversation further. Persuasions, reproaches, and taunts assailed Miss Neville on all sides, but she did not waver. Charlotte left her in high dudgeon; Mary marvelled at her unfortunate delusion, quite convinced that she was on the verge of insanity; and Laura wishing that she could be but as firm. Not that she comprehended or allowed the necessity of the principle on which she acted, but only as it would save her the disagreeable task of thinking how to get the necessary costume when both modiste and jeweller had refused to trust her any more.
For nearly half an hour Lucy remained sitting where her visitors had left her, her hands pressed on her eyes, and her whole posture denoting a painful intensity of thought. Herbert Gresham returning! His mother’s unexpected and pressing invitation! Could it be that the bar between the families was indeed so entirely removed, that she might hope as she had never dared hope before? Sir Sydney’s hatred to her brother, from some political opposition, had been such, it was whispered at the time, that he had obtained his nephew some honourable appointment abroad, only because he feared that he not only loved Lucy, but leaned towards Lord Valery’s political opinions. Four years had passed since then, and Herbert Gresham was no longer a cipher in another’s hands. He had formed his own principles, marked out his own course; and Lucy heard his name so often and so admiringly from her brother’s lips, that the dream of her first season could not pass away, strive against it as she might, for she knew not whether she claimed more than a passing thought from him who held her being so enchained. And now he was returning; and to the fête to welcome him she was invited, with such an evident desire for her presence, that her heart bounded beneath the thronging fancies that would come, seeming to whisper it was at his instigation. And why could she not go? Was it not, indeed, a quixotic and uncalled-for sacrifice? How could the resolution of one feeble individual aid in removing the heavy pressure of over-work from the thousands of her fellow-creatures? There was time, full time, for all she required, if she saw about it at once. It was but adding an atom to the weight of oppression, which, whether added or withheld, could be of no moment; and surely, surely, for such a temptation there was enough excuse. How would Herbert construe her absence, if, indeed, it was at his wish the invitation came? Why might she not——
“Lucy, seven o’clock and not ready for dinner! Why, what are you so engrossed about?” exclaimed her brother, half-jestingly, half-anxiously, the latter feeling prevailing, as she hastily looked up. A few, a very few words, and he understood it all.
“And yet I know, even under such circumstances, you will not fail,” he said; and how powerful is the voice of affectionate confidence in the dangerous moment of hesitation between right and wrong? “You may, indeed, be but one where there needs the aid of hundreds; but if all hold back because they are but one, how shall we gain the necessary muster? To check this thoughtless waste of human life, this (in many) unconscious crushing of all that makes existence, is WOMAN’S work. Man may legislate, may theorise, but he looks to his female relatives for its practical fulfilment. Dearest, do you choose the right, and trust me, useless as the sacrifice now seems, you will yet thank God that it was made.”
Lady Gresham’s fête was brilliant, recherché—crowded as anticipated. The weather was lovely, the gardens magnificent, the arrangements in the best taste that an ultra-fashionist of some thirty years’ experience could devise. Youth, beauty, rank, wealth, all were there, and the female portion set off to the best advantage by an elegance of costume and an extreme carefulness of attire, without which all knew an entrance into Lady Gresham’s select coterie could never be obtained. A despot in the empire of dress and appearance, she little knew, and still less cared, for all the petty miseries (alas, that such a word should be spoken in the same breath with dress!) which her invitations usually excited. The resolve to outvie—the utter carelessness of expenditure while the excitement lasted—the depression, almost despair, at the accumulated debts which followed—the rivalry of a first fashion—the petty manœuvres not to give a hint of the intended costume, and the equally petty manœuvres to discover it—the mortification when, after all the lavish expense, all the mysteries, others appeared more fashionable, more recherché—the disgust with which, in consequence, the previously considered perfect dress was henceforth regarded—these, and a hundred other similar emotions had been, during the “season,” called forth again and again; and in beings destined for immortality! was it marvel they had no thought for other than themselves?
That this fête was in commemoration of Herbert Gresham’s return, and that he was present, the hero of the day, not a little increased its excitement and importance. But he moved amongst his mother’s guests with native and winning courtesy indeed, but as if his mind were engrossed with other and deeper things. In the four years of his absence many changes, powerful in themselves, but still only invisibly working, had taken place in the political aspect of his country. By means of private correspondence with the most influential men of the day, and through the public journals, he had felt the deepest interest in these changes; and from the very fact of his looking on from a distance, and not mingling with the contending waves of party, he had formed clearer views concerning them than many on the spot. He had returned, determined to devote the whole energies of his powerful mind to removing invisible oppression, so lessening labour that MIND might resume her supremacy, and create for every position its own immortal joys. He was no leveller of ranks; no believer in that vain dream, equality. He had travelled and thought much, and felt to his heart’s core the superiority of England as a nation, both for constitution and morality; but this conviction, instead of blinding him to her faults, quickened his perceptions, not only regarding the evils, but their causes, and increased the intensity of his desire to remove them.