For it was now the high tide, the carnival of London. Every one was there——and every one went every where—hurrying and crowding after each other, although caring for no one. What a wretched, humiliating picture of human nature does London present during the months of May, June, and July! Affection, friendship, all the social virtues, and charities, disappear before folly, dissipation, and selfishness. And so infectious is the disease, that almost the best hearts are, at least for the moment, tainted; the steadiest heads turned. It is a constant hurry, a perpetual bustle, in which no one has leisure to care, or feel for another, whatever may be the inclination; and scarcely is there time to drop a tear over the grave of a friend. If an uncle, cousin, or some such near relation, is so inconsiderate as to choose these interesting, busy moments to depart this life, it is looked upon as an almost unpardonable act of selfishness on the part of the defunct, by which so much time, perhaps many entertainments and balls, are lost to his surviving family. On the other hand, the demise of some mere nightly companion in the resorts of dissipation is generally hailed with joy, not for their own demerits, but that not only their opera-box and ticket at Almacks, but that of all those nearly connected with them will thereby become disposable; a short retirement being considered necessary both to dry their tears, and give time to a fashionable tailor or mantua-maker to send home the becoming mourning, in which they can again sally forth to make up for the time they have lost, by returning with renovated spirits to their dissipated duties. In the mean time, anxious notes fly about town as soon as the death is announced in the papers; and the doors of all the patronesses of fashion are beset by the dear friends of the deceased, anxious to be the first to apply for the vacated subscription, which happily can neither be carried away from this world by the selfish, nor be disposed of by will by the obliging.
And this was the world into which poor Emmeline had to carry a breaking heart!
After Fitzhenry had joined her in town, although nothing further had ever passed,—no dispute, no difference had taken place,—yet, they appeared mutually to consider themselves as more than ever, in short, totally estranged.
Both looked miserable: an additional shade of melancholy seemed to have gathered on Lord Fitzhenry’s countenance; and yet Emmeline was now certain that her rival was again in town, and that he passed with Lady Florence those hours which she now spent alone in Grosvenor-Street. For Emmeline felt it impossible to return to her former life; and, as there was no reason why she should, no one for whom she was called upon to make the exertion, she gave up what had already injured her health, both of mind and body.
Emmeline’s temper even was not what it used to be; often, if Fitzhenry accidentally spoke to her, she answered him with asperity, and then the minute he had disappeared, she wept bitterly for her fault—for her offence towards love; longing for his return, that, on her knees, she might implore his forgiveness. Yet, when they again met, it was the same repulsive coldness on both sides.
But if there can ever be an excuse for one gifted by nature with the blessing of a mild, gentle disposition, for giving way to irritation, Emmeline might plead it. Her heart was every way wounded; even Pelham she now dreaded; Mrs. Osterley’s hints eternally haunted her: if she caught his eye fixed upon her in anxious interest, her sick fancy took alarm, and the deep crimson in her cheeks betrayed apprehensions, which she wished to conceal even from herself.
Tormented with this idea, she now shunned his society and conversation, as much as she had formerly sought it; for, although her extreme diffidence with regard to her own attractions, (a diffidence which her husband’s disregard of her had much increased,) her unsuspecting innocence, and simplicity of heart, would rather have led her to prize than avoid the attentions of an agreeable man, regardless of their raising suspicions in the breast of others, any more than in her own; yet, now being aware of what the world could and did say, that very innocence and simplicity made her fly from the least appearance of evil. She was not one of those to play off on a husband the arts of infidelity, in order, by jealousy, to rouse his feelings, and by the fear of wounded honour, to attract his attentions towards her.
Fitzhenry cared not for her; but the vow of constancy which her lips had pronounced at the altar, and which was since engraven by strong affection on her heart, was too sacred in her estimation to allow even the uninterested world to suspect that she trifled with it.
Her intercourse with Pelham being thus embittered, and her parents being the last to whom she could reveal her sorrows, she dragged on, in wretched solitude of heart, a listless, useless, aimless existence. The young, the gay, and the busy meantime bustled around her, careless of her unhappiness; or, if they sometimes observed its melancholy symptoms on her pale cheek, or in her heavy, absent eye, they only wondered “what could make Lady Fitzhenry so discontented, when she possessed every thing in the world to render her happy.”
It is thus we too often pass harsh and hasty judgment on those whose grave or suffering countenances chance to cross us in the paths of pleasure, checking, for a minute, by their sad and therefore unwelcome presence, our feeling of enjoyment, in reminding us, most disagreeably, of its transient nature.