In the example of Lady Glenmore's present danger, the mischiefs arising out of the system of the society in which she lived are painfully apparent; and although they have more than once been dwelt upon, yet, with the object of unmasking a disguised evil, they cannot be too frequently alluded to or minutely detailed. Nor can the observation be too often repeated, that such dangers must unavoidably accrue to the young and inexperienced while receiving none of those salutary checks which are afforded them in a society differently organized, and where the ties of families, and the counsel and protection of sincere friends, are not sacrificed to the laws and rules of exclusive fashion.
Lady Glenmore's absence, it might almost be called alienation, from Lord and Lady Melcombe and the bosom of her own family, had been so gradual as scarcely to be perceptible. Had it been otherwise, she would have recoiled from the idea, and her excellent heart would have sufficed to guard her from so unnatural a fault; but the evil grew out of the circumstances in which she was placed, and increased without any appearance which could awaken a suspicion of its real tendency. She did not go to-day to Lady Melcombe, because Lady Tenderden, or Lady Tilney, or some other of her friends, had prevented her at the very moment she was stepping into her carriage; but she would go to-morrow: and when to-morrow came, fatigued with the ball or the assembly of the preceding evening, she did not rise till at so late an hour, that Lady Melcombe would be out, and it was in vain for her to go. When the evening in its turn came round, then some ceremonious diplomatic dinner, followed by the soirées of the different members of her coterie, equally precluded her from fulfilling this duty.
Thus one day passed on after another, and the rare and short visit to her parents, when it was paid, afforded no real communion of heart or thought. Yet all this happened not wilfully, not in positive indifference, or forgetfulness of natural affection, but arose, as it were, unavoidably, out of the life she led. Let it not excite surprise that this alienation had been productive of no alarm in the tender and affectionate hearts of Lord and Lady Melcombe. They, indeed, saw less of their daughter than they wished; but though they sometimes sighed over the "angel visits, few and far between," of their estranged child, still, in the indulgent fondness of their hearts, perhaps too in a mistaken pride, they found an excuse for her constantly living in a round of dissipation, partly from the pomp and circumstance attendant on the public situation which her husband held, and partly from thinking it natural that one so young, and gifted with external graces, should indulge in the pleasures that courted her on all sides.
Another cause, too, existed, to render their separation an apparent consequence of her marriage. Lord and Lady Melcombe had not lived at any time on terms of intimacy with that circle which now exclusively formed their daughter's and Lord Glenmore's society; and a further barrier by this means stood between their meeting; but it was one which, if natural feelings had been allowed their proper influence, and had any advance been made to Lord and Lady Melcombe, on the part of those persons, towards their acquaintance, might easily have been removed.
In this case, for their daughter's sake, they would readily have met any advance, and in order to do so, have stepped out of their own habitual line of society; a society founded on the dignified principles of high rank, and the rational grounds of real social happiness: but they were the last persons to court an intimacy where a mutual desire was not expressed for its formation; and the question, however painful as it affected their natural intercourse with their child, was not, however, one which gave rise to any seriously uneasy feelings. When they did see her, they saw her so fondly attached to her husband, and so happy, what could they fear for her? It would almost have seemed like a selfish apprehension, to have indulged any doubts regarding her future welfare.
Their own course through life had been one perpetual gleam of sunshine, a circumstance which is apt to render us more blind to the possibility of evil, than when we have been exercised in the school of adversity; that school by which we are alone perfected, and without whose salutary discipline the false security is indulged, that "to-morrow will be as to-day, and even more abundant," and we dread no check to our earthly career.
How fearful is this species of happiness, which, resting on itself, forgets the hand by which it is alone upheld! Could Lord and Lady Melcombe have seen through this delusion—could they have guessed that their child stood at the moral point where the two paths separate which lead to virtue or to vice, and where the traveller in the road of life, according as he makes his choice, will be admitted in the end to misery or happiness—they would have performed their duty as parents unhesitatingly; they would have pointed out to their child the excellence of the one course, and have warned her of the inevitable ruin and degradation attendant on the other. As to the current reports of the day, they were the last to hear them, as is usually the case with those most concerned; and in this respect Lord Glenmore was removed still further from a knowledge of the truth. Lady Glenmore, deprived of her natural and true guides, surrounded by persons whose lives were, generally speaking, characterized by the same errors, on the brink of which she now hung, and who, if they looked on such conduct as error, held it in a very venial light even when detected, and as nothing, if it evaded open discovery, had little chance of receiving any counsel in time to save her.
Speaking thus of Lady Glenmore, it must not be supposed that she viewed her own conduct and career in its true light, or that she erred from any determination to err, or even from being led away by any impulse of passion; far from it. The innocence of her nature, her domestic habits and education, as well as her attachment to her husband, had in the first instance rendered her present mode of life distasteful. But it is the very property of the subtle poison of that atmosphere in which she lived and breathed to pollute the healthful springs of being, till the moral taste becomes less and less acute, and is at length wholly corrupted, leaving the mind totally unable to discriminate between right and wrong.
Although, with the young men who lived in the same society, the event of the downfall of her reputation was looked upon as a thing of course, and hailed, in their licentiousness of spirit, as a matter of congratulation, since it would level another victim to their standard, still there were others of the coterie, who, from motives of policy, were anxious that no further esclandre should take place, than that which had already arisen on the subject, to call forth the loud reprehension of a public whom they at once feared and despised, and whose opinions, though they set them at defiance, they in reality wished not to brave unnecessarily: for in the instance of Lady Glenmore, the destruction of so much happiness as was supposed to have centred in her union would be likely to create proportionate abhorrence and condemnation of a system of society which had been the occasion of it, and lead to a sifting and exposure of the principle and motives on which that system was based.
Lady Tilney was the first person whose acuteness and vigilance descried the danger; and was impelled to attempt an arrangement of the business, as well from her general love of managing every body and every thing, as from the more weighty reason attached to it. Being perfectly aware of Lady Glenmore's character, she dreaded lest an affair which, in the hands of a woman of tact, might have been managed without any éclat, would with her be precipitated to a point which must end in an exposure. She felt, however, that to speak to Lady Glenmore openly would be to commit herself with a person whose want of discretion was the chief ground of her apprehensions respecting her; and therefore, after much reflection, she determined to seek the assistance of Lady Tenderden in the business, and employ her in its management, as being more intimate with the parties than she herself was.