CHAPTER IV.
A MODERN COTERIE.
If any circumstance had been wanting to give strength to Lady Tilney's resolves on the momentous question of social reform, the occurrences at Lady Feuillemerte's were in themselves sufficient—at least, they formed an addition to that kind of plausible excuse, sought for on all occasions where the will is previously set on a particular line of conduct, but which, without a pretext, it would hardly be safe for the individual to adopt.
The motley and unkindred assemblage of the previous evening, with its royal restraints, its want of organization in its inferior members, and the consequent offences experienced by those of higher order—for Lady Tilney, although she did not divulge the stain inflicted by Colonel Temple's assiduities, yet felt it deeply,—were points she dwelt upon to her colleagues in the following morning with that extreme pathos and eloquence which the sufferings of self never fail to produce, and which could not but enforce on her auditors conviction of the necessity of the measures she proposed.
Closeted, therefore, with the leading characters in her own peculiar circle, the final arrangements for that société choisie which was to eclipse courts and banish sovereigns, to school rank, and bring to maturity all the yet unripened follies of a soi-disant ton, were at length concluded. The lists were full—the doors were closed to all but the secret representatives of the system, and the anathema went forth. Strange that St. James's did not shake from its foundation, England's sovereign resign his sceptre, and her lengthened line of nobility crouch in the dust, under the awful denunciation of such an ascendancy. But though this were not so—yet must the loyalty of many a high-born subject, and the purity of many a noble and virtuous mind, have been outraged, when the results of a system at once so contemptuous and immoral began to be developed.
It will be remembered that Lady Tilney had already fixed on the evening of Lady Borrowdale's assembly as a fitting occasion for the display of her own undivided rule in the empire of fashion. Her cards had been issued for that purpose, and these were now followed by injunctions through various channels, requiring an early attendance—since the two syrens of the day, Pasta and Sontag, it was whispered, were engaged to give additional effect to the opening charms of exclusiveness, and render the blow struck at the existing state of society at once decisive.
Lady Borrowdale's apartments, it was decreed, should possess only the canaille of the fashionable world, and royalty be doomed to oblivion there, in the surpassing lustre which Lady Tilney's circle would display. To the authority that called for this ready obedience, none of the satellites of Lady Tilney's court were ever known to offer resistance;—and though the chiefs of her party alone knew the real object of the summons, yet the uninitiated hastened to obey it with the same alacrity as their superiors, satisfied that in so doing they were best consulting their views of advancement to the distinction courted by them, as well as securing a greater license in the indulgence of those follies and errors which made the sum of their daily occupation.
To tell of the decoration of the apartments, of the splendour and luxury which reigned around the mansion of Lady Tilney, to dwell on externals, would be to repeat descriptions a thousand times given, and tend to no developement of import. A plant, under the fairest guise of colour or of form, sometimes contains within its fibres the deadliest poison; and in the scorching plains of the East, the upas-tree extends an alluring shade over the exhausted and unconscious traveller, who is soon to sink beneath its deadly atmosphere. But what would it profit were the naturalist to dwell only on the pencilling and texture of the one, or the traveller describe vaguely the outspreading branches and inviting coolness of the other, and yet neglect to record the noxious qualities and inherent dangers of each. The plant and its virtues, not the scene in which it is to be found, must first be recognised and known, if escape from its contagion be intended;—and it is to the habits and system of a people, not to the country they inhabit, that we must look, rightly to understand the manner in which their lives are passed.
To a casual observer, Lady Tilney's assembly presented no distinguishing external marks at variance with received habits or customs. The rooms were not darkened, the servants passed through the apartments at intervals in the performance of their respective duties without constraint: the company, however, was less numerous, and more scattered and divided into detached parties. The conversation, with the exception of Lady Tilney herself, was carried on in a low tone, scarcely audible but to the individual addressed; the different members of the coterie, when they moved about, seemed to do so under certain measured and stated paces.