Manners: A Novel, Vol 3

by Madame Panache

"When I entered, grief, in her calmest attitude, was seated on her brow. No tear dimmed the majesty of her commanding eye, but a convulsive smile sometimes passed over her pallid lip. She told me that her father, though a German Baron, was a British subject by birth, but that some unfortunate circumstances induced him to condemn himself to perpetual exile from his native land; that she could not desert her duties by leaving him, in the evening of his days, to sad solitude in a foreign country; nor would she ever consent to obscure the morning of my life by suffering me, if I were so inclined, to quit my country, and leave my high calling unfulfilled, to waste my hours at her side in unavailing regret for my lost character: and addressing me with the utmost solemnity, said in conclusion, 'Frederick, if you really love me, as I think you do; if you are the noble being I believe you to be—you will not, after this meeting, try my feelings by any further solicitation. My resolution is unalterable—do not deprive me of my self-esteem, by making me feel the sacrifice I make to filial duty too painful.'

"I then told her, if she would promise to be mine when these obstacles to our union were at an end, I would wait in joyful thankfulness any length of time.

"'No, no,' said she, 'I could not, in justice to you, enter into such an engagement. Our affections are involuntary—you cannot answer for the continuance of your attachment. Time, absence, your country, your family, will estrange your heart from me; and honour alone would continue to bind you to me when love had fled. I should, when too late for recall, be doomed to inconsolable misery, by finding your sense of duty had destroyed your happiness. As for myself, I could not live under such a load of hopes and fears. No, Frederick, from this day I will endeavour to destroy every memento of our having ever met. Hope must be completely eradicated.' Irritated by the misery of my mind, I had the inhumanity to upbraid her in words that I would now give worlds to recall, with being cold and unfeeling. 'Would to Heaven I were!' exclaimed she, and abruptly leaving the room, forbid my following her.—I never saw her afterwards."

Here Lord Eltondale started up, and paced the room in an agony of feeling difficult to describe. Even Sedley was moved with compassion. "Poor fellow!" said he, in a suppressed tone, "And did you make no further attempt to change her resolution?" "I wrote several letters from Catania, and returned from Paris after my second visit there to see her once more, but the villa was deserted—Baron Wildenheim and his daughter had gone no one knew whither."

"Wildenheim!" exclaimed Sedley, "Good God, is it possible!—Wildenheim did you say?" Frederick repeated this name, and he, on hearing it a second time, danced about the room like a madman. "Sedley, are you absolutely and entirely insane?" exclaimed his friend, indignant at the levity of his behaviour—"Beware!—by Heavens, you trifle too much with my feelings!" "Well, you shall judge of the justice of my conjectures; but if you give me the smallest interruption, I will leave you in the state of blessed ignorance you at present enjoy," replied Sedley, wringing his hand rather than shaking it. "First, then, to describe your charmer, for I spent a month in the house with her last autumn. Imprimis—her mind I know nothing about; she was so damned shy, sitting alone all morning writing amatory odes to your Lordship I suppose—there now, if you interrupt me I have done."

Here Sedley made a short pause. He felt that all was at stake: the effects of a few minutes' conversation might decide his fate for life. He hastily revolved in his mind Lord Eltondale's Sicilian letters, which he had lately read for the base purpose of divulging their contents to the Viscountess, and calling to mind the points on which Frederick's admiration had been founded, endeavoured to paint Miss Wildenheim's charms in those terms which he judged most likely to raise his friend's love and regrets to their acmé, and thus for ever defeat Lady Eltondale's schemes for uniting him to Selina. In reply to Frederick's entreaties to proceed, he continued with affected carelessness, "I can scarcely give you a more minute description of her person than of her mind. Her beauty is not to be compared to ——" (Miss Seymour's, he would have said with well acted indifference, had he not timely recollected her name was a "word of fear," not only to himself but his auditor)—"that of some of our reigning belles; but 'the charm of Celia altogether' is so captivating, so touching, that no one ever thought of beauty in her presence; nor is admiration the sentiment she excites, that, like her attractions, can only be felt, not described. Come, don't be jealous; her indifference to me, and every other man she associated with, was too marked to encourage that love it would have been impossible not to have felt but for this coldness. Her form and motions were so graceful, that my attention was too completely engrossed by their exquisite elegance to observe her stature; nor was I more at liberty to remark the minutiæ of her features, rivetted as I was by the enchanting expression of her countenance, where softness is ennobled by dignity, and animated by intellect.

"In short, I no longer wonder at what I once termed infatuation, if 'la bella Adelina' be (as I verily believe she is) the lovely Adelaide Wildenheim——" "Where is she, for God's sake where is she?" "Why, your Venus is at this moment—not rising from the sea, but—enjoying the delights of a mud bath in a bog in Ireland. I will furnish you with proper directions to find her. I advise you to lose no time; I assure you, you have a dangerous rival in the son of the lady she resides with;—a year may have made a great change in her sentiments though." Here a severe and long continued fit of coughing saved Sedley from betraying the laughter he was almost convulsed by, at the thought of the rival he had terrified Lord Eltondale with, in the person of Mr. Webberly. "Better, my dear fellow, better," said he at last, in answer to Frederick's earnest concern on his behalf: "though, to continue my speech, her aversion even to him was so decided, I have no doubt her constancy to you would stand a much greater probation." At first Lord Eltondale's joy was too great for him to believe all this was not a dream; and he questioned Sedley over and over again as to every particular regarding Miss Wildenheim. The latter had profited considerably by the lessons he had received during his intercourse with the Viscountess, in the science of insinuation and finesse, and now therefore artfully related every circumstance likely to strengthen his friend's passion for the "divine Adelaide;" but perceiving at last from Frederick's countenance that he was in danger of over-acting his part, he abruptly discontinued a tirade on her perfections, by exclaiming, "All this comes of romancing, Eltondale; if you could have condescended to have designated your dearly beloved by any more specific term than 'the fair Adelina,' this quid pro quo would never have occurred.—Why the devil did you never tell me she was plain Adelaide Wildenheim?" "I had very strong reasons for my silence as to her surname. Though I never knew a man more highly endowed in mind than Baron Wildenheim, or whose manners bore the stamp of more refined elegance, more impressive dignity, yet there was something extremely mysterious in the manner in which he sometimes avoided, sometimes sought, conversation on English affairs; in a moment he would interrupt a discussion he had seemed much interested in, with a perturbation that excited unfavourable suspicions, which were confirmed in my mind by a variety of minute circumstances.—None made a stronger impression than the following occurrence:—I one evening unexpectedly met him and Adelina walking through a beautiful grove in the neighbourhood of their villa. They were conversing earnestly, and, to my astonishment, in English—he with that pure accent a native only can possess, which was forcibly contrasted by the pronunciation of his daughter. I claimed him as my countryman, and rallied her for concealing her knowledge of my native language. She, evidently embarrassed, blushed deeply, (how beautiful she looked!) whilst the Baron, with a haughty austerity, only answered my compliment by a profound bow; and, after some trifling remark, pointedly addressed to me in French, alleged the lateness of the hour for taking their leave, and expressed a flattering wish to see me the following morning; thus politely giving me to understand my presence was not at that moment particularly agreeable. This confirmed my former surmise, that in the revolutionary period he had been engaged in some dark affair inimical to the interests of Great Britain, and that Baron Wildenheim was merely a nom de guerre, to cover the incognito he found it expedient to assume; therefore I purposely avoided mentioning it to you. Now as for Adelina—that is the Italian diminutive of Adelaide, which her father always called her; it was the first I heard her addressed by; it is one, in short, that has a charm in my ear, which none who has not loved, approved as I do, can conceive." "It is strange enough, Eltondale," remarked Sedley; "but you and Miss Wildenheim must have been in Paris at the same time; for she related to me one day a whimsical occurrence, which took place in the Chamber of Deputies, that one of your letters informed me you had also witnessed." "Is it possible!" exclaimed Frederick, "how unfortunate we did not meet! I now recollect, I once thought I saw her at the Théâtre François; if so, she had contrived to forget me in a great hurry; for though it was but three months after a parting that was almost death to me, she was looking as gay and as happy as possible." Here Sedley made an involuntary grimace, internally exclaiming, "The devil she did! That agrees but badly with the Il penseroso I have described with such effect." "Baron Wildenheim," continued Lord Eltondale, "I certainly did see, but could not ascertain whether the lady who was with him was Adelina or not; for when I approached near enough to put the matter out of doubt, either by accident or design, she threw a large shawl over her, so as effectually to conceal her figure from my sight; and before I could push through the crowd to speak to them, they had left the theatre. However I trust, thanks to you, my dear friend, we shall soon meet; and if her heart is still mine, what happiness!—Gracious Heaven! Miss Seymour!"—and the recollection of his situation regarding Selina glanced through his mind, turning all the past to pain—"I must not, dare not, think of her now." "And why not?" replied Sedley, with an agitation little inferior to his own, "You are not irrevocably engaged to Miss Seymour, Eltondale?" "I am as much as a man of honour can be, who has not received the lady's own consent from her own mouth. But my poor father got Sir Henry Seymour's consent to our marriage above a year ago—read those two letters, Sedley, the last I received from Lady Eltondale immediately after my father's death. You will see by the tenor of it, that she considers the business as concluded; and though she does not positively tell me Miss Seymour's opinion, she distinctly says she has no doubt of our mutual happiness!"

The first of these letters gave Sedley the most unequivocal proofs of Lady Eltondale's double-dealing, in speaking of Selina to Frederick as decidedly his future wife, at the very moment when she seemed to favour his own pretensions. He dashed the letters, one after the other, on the table, with a violence that made it resound, and internally imprecated "the treachery, the artifice, of this damned dissembling woman!"

A sense of the moral rectitude, which should guide the conduct of others, grows surprisingly acute, even in the breast of the most worthless, when they themselves begin to suffer from the effects of dissimulation in their associates. At that moment Sedley could have demonstrated sincerity to be "the first of virtues"—in theory at least—deferring the practice of it to a more convenient season.

For some time both these young men remained absorbed in their own reflections; till at last Sedley endeavoured to persuade Lord Eltondale, that it was not incumbent on him to pay his addresses to Miss Seymour: but neither the sophistry of his friend, nor still more the pleadings of his own unconquered passion, could make him swerve from the rectitude of his principles. He knew that even in his very last letter to his stepmother, he had mentioned his intention of proposing for Selina, and therefore, under all the circumstances considering himself as pledged to do so, he endeavoured to find solace in what would once have been the acmé of misery—a belief that Adelaide no longer cherished any regard for him.