It was long before this question was answered; but after many friendly lamentations, Mrs. Vickars could not help observing, that Miss Turnbull had nobody to blame in this business but herself. This, or any thing else, she was willing to admit, to get at the point, “But what have I done? I dare say it is, as you say, all my own fault—but tell me how?”
“How!—Can you, my dearest Miss Turnbull, forget that you did the most imprudent and really unaccountable thing, that ever woman did?—Lady Pierrepoint had it from Stock the banker. Now you must be certainly conscious to what I allude.”
Almeria still looked innocent till Mrs. Vickars produced the book dedicated to Lady Bradstone, for twelve copies of which Miss Turnbull had subscribed. Her name was printed among the list of subscribers, and there was no palliating the fact. When her companion saw that she was quite overwhelmed with the sense of this misfortune, she began to hint, that though the evil was great, it was not without remedy; that in her own private opinion, Lady Pierrepoint might have passed over the thing, if she had not heard it at a most unlucky moment. The provoking banker mentioned it to her ladyship just after he had disappointed her of certain moneys, for which she was negotiating. From her situation and means of obtaining secret and early intelligence, she had it frequently in her power to make money by selling in or out of the stocks. Such an opportunity at present occurred; and “it was a great pity,” Mrs. Vickars observed, “that the want of a little ready money should preclude her from the possibility of profiting by her situation.” Miss Turnbull, who was not deficient in quickness of comprehension, upon this hint immediately said, “that her ladyship might command some thousands which she had in Sir Thomas Stock’s bank.” Lady Pierrepoint the next day found that it would be best to hush up the affair of the subscription to the fatal pamphlet. She said, “that she had with infinite satisfaction ascertained, that the thing had not been noticed in the quarter where she feared it would have created an insuperable prejudice—that there were other Turnbulls, as she was happy to understand, in the world, besides Mrs. Vickars’s friend; and that as, in the list of subscribers, she was mentioned only as Miss Turnbull, not as Almeria Turnbull, all was safe, and nobody would suspect that a lady presented at court by my Lady Pierrepoint could be the same person that subscribed to a book of such a description.”
This affair being adjusted, the league was tacitly formed between interest and vanity. Miss Turnbull was presented at court by Lady Pierrepoint, and her ladyship bought into the stocks with the Yorkshire heiress’s money. The gratification of Almeria’s ambition, however, did not complete her happiness. When she was at the summit of the Alps of fashion, she saw how little was to be seen.
Though she liked to have it to say that she was a great deal with Lady Pierrepoint, yet the time always passed most heavily in her company; nor was the inferiority of this lady’s understanding compensated by an affectionate heart. Her smoothly polished exterior prevented all possibility of obtaining any hold over her. She had the art at once to seem to be intimate with people, and to keep them at the greatest distance; as, in certain optical deceptions, an object which appears close to us, eludes our hand if we attempt to grasp it. Almeria felt the want of that species of unreserved confidence and friendship which she had formerly enjoyed with Ellen. In judging of what will make us happy, we are apt to leave time out of the account; and this leads to most important errors. For a short period we may be amused or gratified by what will fatigue and disgust us if long continued. The first winter that she spent in dissipation she was amused; but winter after winter passed; and the recurrence of the same public diversions, and the same faces, and the same common-place conversation, wearied instead of interesting her. But as the pleasure of novelty declined, the power of habit increased; and she continued the same course of life for six years—six long years! against both her judgment and her feelings, the absolute slave of an imaginary necessity. Thus the silly chicken remains prisoner in a circle of chalk: even when the hand by which it was held down is removed, it feels an imaginary pressure, from which it dares not even attempt to escape.
Almeria, however, was now arrived at an age when she could no longer, with any propriety, be called a chicken: she was seven-and-twenty; and the effect of keeping late hours, and the continual petty irritations to which she had been subject, were sufficiently visible in her countenance. She looked in a morning so faded and haggard, that any one not used to the wear and tear of fashionable faces would have guessed Almeria’s age to be seven-and-thirty instead of seven-and-twenty. During her six campaigns in London, she or her fortune had made many conquests; but none of her London captives had ever obtained any power over her affections, and her ambition could not decide upon the pretensions of her several suitors. Lady Pierrepoint, who was her prime adviser, had an interest in keeping her unmarried; because during this time her ladyship employed most advantageously certain moneys, which she had borrowed from our heiress. This female politician made some objection to every proposal; continually repeating, that Miss Turnbull might do better—that she might look higher—that with her pretensions, there could be no doubt that she would have a variety of advantageous offers—and that her play should be to raise her value by rejecting, without hesitation, all pretenders but those of the first distinction. Lady Pierrepoint, who usually spoke with all the ambiguity of an oracle, seemed on this subject more than usually mysterious. She dropped half sentences, then checked herself, hinted that she was not at liberty to speak out; but that she had her own private reasons for advising her friend Miss Turnbull not to be precipitate in her choice. Her ladyship’s looks said more than her words, and Almeria interpreted them precisely as she wished. There was a certain marquis, whom she sometimes met at Lady Pierrepoint’s, and whom she would have been pleased to meet more frequently. He was neither young, nor handsome, nor witty, nor wise. What was he then?—He was a marquis—and is not that enough?—Almeria saw that he was looked up to as a person of great influence and importance, and she now had the habit of trusting to the eyes and ears of others. She now considered what people were thought of, not what they really were; and according to this mode of estimation she could not fail to form a high opinion of this exalted personage. He paid her distinguished, but not decisive attention; and perhaps the uncertainty in which she was kept as to his views increased her interest upon the subject. There was always some obstacle, which seemed to prevent him from declaring himself:—at one time he was suddenly obliged to go ambassador to some foreign court; he went, and stayed a year; at his return he was immersed in politics, and deplored his hard fate in terms which Almeria thought it was impossible not to construe favourably to her wishes. She thought she was upon the point of becoming a marchioness, when his lordship was again sent into what he called banishment. Lady Pierrepoint had constantly letters from him, however; passages from which she from time to time read to Almeria, in whose weak mind this kept alive an indistinct hope, for which she had no rational foundation. She was confirmed in her belief that the marquis had serious thoughts of her, by the opinion of Mrs. Vickars, who she thought was in the secret, and who certainly would not speak decidedly without sufficient reason. Indeed, nothing but the pleasure she received from Mrs. Vickars’s favourable prognostics upon this subject could have in any degree balanced the pain she daily endured from this lady’s fretful temper. Almeria submitted to her domineering humour, and continued to propitiate her with petty sacrifices, more from fear than love—from fear that her adverse influence might be fatal to her present scheme of aggrandizement. Weak minds are subject to this apprehension of control from secret causes utterly inadequate to their supposed effects; and thus they put their destiny into the hands of persons who could not otherwise obtain influence over their fate.
The time at length arrived when our heroine was to be confirmed in her expectations, or wakened from her state of self-delusion. The marquis returned from abroad, and Lady Pierrepoint wrote a note more mysteriously worded than usual, signifying that she “wished to have a conference with Miss Turnbull on a subject of some importance; and begged to know at what hour in the morning she might be secure of the pleasure of finding her at home.” Almeria named her hour, and waited for its arrival with no small impatience. Lady Pierrepoint’s thundering knock at the door was heard; her ladyship was shown up stairs; and she entered the room with a countenance that seemed to promise well. She preluded with many flattering phrases—declared that ever since she had been first acquainted with Miss Turnbull at Cheltenham, she had always considered her with sentiments of esteem, of which she had since given indeed the most convincing proofs, by accepting of obligations from her.
“Obligations!” exclaimed Almeria, with an air of polite astonishment.
“Yes, my dear Miss Turnbull,” continued her ladyship, with still more polite humility, “I am under obligations to you assuredly. Things of a pecuniary nature ought not to be named, I confess, in the same sentence with friendship; yet for the sake of one’s family it is, whilst we remain in this world, the duty of every one to pay a certain degree of attention to such points; and a person who has, like me, advantages of situation and connexions, would not be justifiable in neglecting, under due limitations, to make use of them.”
Miss Turnbull readily assented to these guarded truisms, but wondered to what all this was to lead.