The great object of Lady Boileau's day was now successfully attained, and doubtless she laid her head upon her pillow that night with all the satisfaction which such success ought to confer. Lady Baskerville, on her part rejoiced in having as she thought so completely outmanœuvred her friend, and enjoyed the triumph which her superior skill in the management of such matters, as well as her superior knowledge of the world, had afforded her. Yet these women called each other friends! How is that sacred name profaned, that name which can have no embodied existence, but with the sincere and good, yet which is polluted in the world's mouth at every instant.
Restormel was, as it had been described by Lady Baskerville, an exceedingly gloomy place, but all within the house was luxury; beyond its walls, however, there were none of those moral circumstances which can give interest even to the dullest spot. The scenery was monotonous and insipid; but there might have been an enlivening character thrown over the gloom, in the happy countenances and cheerful looks of dependents and retainers, if such had been the will of the possessors of Restormel. But this was not the case, the cold calculating system of employment of the poor, merely when the purpose of keeping up the grounds or other improvements made it necessary, and then taking no further charge whatever of the beings so employed, regarding them only as the labourers of the hour, conspired to give the place a moral, as well as a natural gloom.
No peasant's abode in these domains was ever cheered by Lady Ellersby's presence; no sufferer in sickness or distress alleviated beyond the donation of money, and that but seldom;—none of those heart-interests in short were ever evinced, on her, or her Lord's part, which confer a mutual delight on those who receive, and on those who bestow them, and which maintain that link between the higher and lower classes, which is at once so beautiful and so beneficial, and without which all the luxuries in the world will never produce any thing but a melancholy and unsatisfying grandeur.
There certainly, however, were the means, if they had been resorted to, for every laudable gratification of interest and entertainment at Restormel. And where is the country place in which, if its possessor fulfil the various duties the possession entails on him, the means are wanting; and even as it was, if that sickly appetite for excitement which characterised its present inhabitants could ever have been satisfied, it must have been here, where every thing connected with their system of life was found in profusion; but the factitious smiles which gild the exterior of such a circle as was generally to be met with at Restormel is not the sunshine of real happiness.
Easter was now arrived and the party assembled at Restormel, consisted of the Tilneys, the Tenderdens, the Baskervilles, the Leinsengens, Luttermannes, Lord Tonnerre, Lady Hamlet Vernon, Lord Albert D'Esterre (who was asked on trial), Lord and Lady Boileau, by the manœuvre which has been described, and one or two single men like Mr. Leslie Winyard, Mr. Spencer Newcomb, &c. &c.
These persons all met on the first night of their arrival at an eight o'clock dinner. Lord Albert D'Esterre had been invited at Lady Tilney's suggestion, who considered a country house a good stage for the display of a new debutant, and as affording no unpropitious opportunity of forwarding her wishes in regard to Lord Albert's political bias. These wishes, however, were soon doomed to disappointment; Lord Albert had accepted the invitation under the impression that in the country there was more leisure and tranquillity than the hurry of a London life allowed; but whether in the country or town, he might have known, had not the fatal mist of delusion which comes over all who enter on a tortuous path began to blind him, that reflection and serenity of mind do not depend on time or place; that power, that calm, may be destroyed or may be nurtured in cities, as in lonely wilds, it is true; but had he thought for a moment, he would have felt that the gay assemblage in which he was to mix at Restormel, was not calculated to restore him to that state of mind which he believed himself anxious to regain.
In the course of Lord Albert D'Esterre's acquaintance with Lady Hamlet Vernon, he had discovered much to charm, to dazzle, and to lead a mind so young as his into a maze of error. Sophistry had gradually drawn its veil before his perception of truth; through this he viewed her character; and under the same delusive influence, he persuaded himself that the interest he took in her arose from the purest motive, namely that of endeavouring to free from error, one whose nature was naturally endowed with capabilities for becoming truly estimable. He listened to all her dangerous and seductive opinions, while he gazed on her beauty, bewildered with the false conviction that he did so to prove to her the error of the one, and to point out the peril which, with such unfixed tenets, the other would most probably lead her into.
What a melancholy prospect, he inwardly exclaimed, lies before that beautiful creature, whose principles have never been formed to virtue, and who has been cast among those whose every axiom is contrary to the laws of purity and truth! What delight in the reflection, what a good action it will be, to disentangle such a being from the snares that surround her, and restore her to a life of usefulness and happiness. My heart aches for her, when I think how in early youth, before she could know her own wishes, she was married to an unprincipled husband, one who could never have known her worth; she must not be abandoned without an effort to save her. Thus did Lord Albert parley with himself, till a dangerous admixture of evil glided in with his better feelings, and prevented that clear perception between right and wrong, which under his engagements should have made him at once fly from Lady Hamlet Vernon. It was not so, however, and Lady Hamlet Vernon was more the object that led him to Restormel, than any wish for, or sense of, the necessity of retirement and reflection.
The mode of living at Restormel was what Spencer Newcomb wittily called the foreign system, that is, every pleasure-giving circumstance was throughout the daily routine cultivated to the utmost point which art could reach. To give an account of it in detail would be a work of supererogation; for it was a transfer of London to the country, only with this difference, that the post town and high road took place of the streets of the metropolis; and the shrubberies and gardens of Restormel, of those of Kensington and the Park; with the exception, too, of a rather animated discussion between Lady Tilney and Lord Tonnerre on the subject of female influence; and which brought the parties into closer collision, than was consistent with the outward harmony of exclusive ton.
Little occurred during the first few days of the retreat to Restormel to vary the monotony of the scene. With reference to this latter subject, Lady Tilney remarked to Lady Baskerville, as they left the dining-room, on the evening when the affair alluded to had taken place, "I am very sorry, my dear Lady Baskerville, very sorry indeed, that what I said should have taken such a desperate effect on your friend Lord Tonnerre; however, it does every body good to hear the truth now and then, and as he seldom if ever hears it, I think I have done him service in sounding that tocsin in his ears for once in his life, don't you, my dear?"