Lady Geraldine’s raillery, like all other things, would, perhaps, soon have become tiresome to me; but that there was infinite variety in her humour. At first I had thought her merely superficial, and intent solely upon her own amusement; but I soon found that she had a taste for literature, beyond what could have been expected in one who lived so dissipated a life; a depth of reflection that seemed inconsistent with the rapidity with which she thought; and, above all, a degree of generous indignation against meanness and vice, which seemed incompatible with the selfish character of a fine lady, and which appeared quite incomprehensible to the imitating tribe of her fashionable companions.
I mentioned a Mrs. Norton and Lady Hauton amongst the company of Ormsby Villa. These two English ladies, whom I had never met in any of the higher circles in London, who were persons of no consequence, and of no marked character in their own country, made, it seems, a prodigious sensation when they came over to Ireland, and turned the heads of half Dublin by the extravagance of their dress, the impertinence of their airs, and the audacity of their conduct. Fame flew before them to the remote parts of the country; and when they arrived at Ormsby Villa, all the country gentlemen and ladies were prepared to admire these celebrated fashionable belles. All worshipped them present, and abused them absent, except Lady Geraldine, who neither joined in the admiration nor inquired into the scandal. One morning Mrs. Norton and Lady Hauton had each collected her votaries round her: one group begging patterns of dress from Lady Hauton, who stood up in the midst of them, to have everything she wore examined and envied; the other group sat on a sofa apart, listening to Mrs. Norton, who, sotto voce, was telling interesting anecdotes of an English crim. con., which then occupied the attention of the fashionable world. Mrs. Norton had letters from the best authorities in London, which she was entreated by her auditors to read to them. Mrs. Norton went to look for the letters, Lady Hauton to direct her woman to furnish some patterns of I know not what articles of dress; and, in the mean time, all the company joined in canvassing the merits and demerits of the dress and characters of the two ladies who had just left the room. Lady Geraldine, who had kept aloof, and who was examining some prints at the farther end of the room, at this instant laid down her book, and looked upon the whole party with an air of magnanimous disdain; then smiling, as in scorn, she advanced towards them, and, in a tone of irony, addressing one of the Swanlinbar graces, “My dear Theresa,” said her ladyship, “you are absolutely ashamed, I see, of not being quite naked; and you, my good Bess, will, no doubt, very soon be equally scandalized, at the imputation of being a perfectly modest woman. Go on, my friends; go on, and prosper; beg and borrow all the patterns and precedents you can collect of the newest fashions of folly and vice. Make haste, make haste; they don’t reach our remote island fast enough. We Irish might live in innocence half a century longer, if you didn’t expedite the progress of profligacy; we might escape the plague that rages in neighbouring countries, if we didn’t, without any quarantine, and with open arms, welcome every suspected stranger; if we didn’t encourage the importation of whole bales of tainted fineries, that will spread the contagion from Dublin to Cork, and from Cork to Galway!”
“La!” said Miss Ormsby, “how severe your ladyship is; and all only for one’s asking for a pattern!”
“But you know,” pursued Mrs. O’Connor, “that Lady Geraldine is too proud to take pattern from any body.”
“Too proud am I? Well, then, I’ll be humble; I’ll abase myself—shall I?
‘Proud as I am, I’ll put myself to school;’
and I’ll do what the ladies Hauton and Norton shall advise, to heighten my charms and preserve my reputation. I must begin, must not I, Mrs. O’Connor, by learning not to blush? for I observed you were ashamed for me yesterday at dinner, when I blushed at something said by one of our fair missionaries. Then, to whatever lengths flirtations and gallantry may go between unmarried or married people, I must look on. I may shut my eyes, if I please, and look down; but not from shame—from affectation I may as often as I please, or to show my eyelashes. Memorandum—to practise this before Clementina Ormsby, my mirror of fashion. So far, so good, for my looks; but now for my language. I must reform my barbarous language, and learn from Mrs. Norton, with her pretty accommodating voice, to call an intrigue an arrangement, and a crim. con. an affair in Doctors’ Commons, or that business before the Lords.
‘We never mention Hell to ears polite.’
How virtuous we shall be when we have no name for vice! But stay, I must mind my lessons—I have more, much more to learn. From the dashing Lady Hauton I may learn, if my head be but strong, and my courage intrepid enough, ‘to touch the brink of all we hate,’ without tumbling headlong into the gulf; and from the interesting Mrs. Norton, as I hear it whispered amongst you ladies, I may learn how, with the assistance of a Humane-society, to save a half-drowned reputation. It is, I understand, the glory of one class of fashionable females, to seem worse than they are; and of another class the privilege, to be worse than they seem.”
Here clamorous voices interrupted Lady Geraldine—some justifying, some attacking, Lady Hauton and Mrs. Norton.