CHAPTER III.
When our hero arrived in London, and when he was first introduced into fashionable society, his thoughts were so intent upon Selina Sidney, that he was in no danger of plunging into dissipation. He was surprised at the eagerness with which some young men pursued frivolous pleasures: he was still more astonished at seeing the apathy in which others of his own age were sunk, and the listless insignificance in which they lounged away their lives.
The call of the house, which brought Vivian to town, brought Lord Glistonbury also to attend his duty in the house of peers: with his lordship’s family came Mr. Russell, whom Vivian went to see, as soon and as often as he could. Russell heard, with satisfaction, the indignant eloquence with which his friend spoke; and only wished that these sentiments might last, and that fashion might never lead him to imitate or to tolerate fools, whom he now despised.
“In the mean time, tell me how you go on yourself,” said Vivian; “how do you like your situation here, and your pupil, and all the Glistonbury family? Let me behind the scenes at once; for, you know, I see them only on the stage.”
Russell replied, in general terms, that he had hopes Lord Lidhurst would turn out well, and that therefore he was satisfied with his situation; but avoided entering into particulars, because he was a confidential person in the family. He thought that a preceptor and a physician were, in some respects, bound, by a similar species of honour, to speak cautiously of the maladies of their patients, or the faults of their pupils. Admitted into the secrets of families, they should never make use of the confidence reposed in them, to the disadvantage of any by whom they are trusted. Russell’s strictly honourable reserve upon this occasion was rather provoking to Vivian, who, to all his questions, could obtain only the dry answer of—“Judge for yourself.”—The nature of a town life, and the sort of intercourse which capital cities afford, put this very little in Vivian’s power. The obligations he was under to Lord Glistonbury for assistance at the election made him anxious to show his lordship respect and attention; and the sort of intimacy which that election had brought on was, to a certain degree, kept up in town. Lady Mary Vivian was constantly one at Lady Glistonbury’s card parties; and Vivian was frequently at his lordship’s dinners. Considering the coldness and formality of Lady Glistonbury’s manners, she was particularly attentive to Lady Mary Vivian; and our hero was continually an attendant upon the ladies of the Glistonbury family to all public places. This was by no means disagreeable to him, as they were persons of high consideration; and they were sure of drawing into their circle the very best company. Lady Mary Vivian observed that it was a great advantage to her son to have such a house as Lord Glistonbury’s open to him, to go to whenever he pleased. Besides the advantage to his morals, her ladyship was by no means insensible to the gratification her pride received from her son’s living in such high company. The report which had been raised in the country during the election, that Mr. Vivian was going to be married to Lady Sarah Lidhurst, now began to circulate in town. This was not surprising, since a young man in London, of any fortune or notoriety, can hardly dance three or four times successively with the same young lady, cannot even sit beside her, and converse with her in public half a dozen times, without its being reported that he is going to be married to her. Of this, Vivian, during his noviciate in town, was not perhaps sufficiently aware: he was soon surprised at being asked, by almost every one he met, when his marriage with Lady Sarah Lidhurst was to take place. At first he contented himself with laughing at these questions, and declaring that there was no truth in the report: but his asseverations were not to be believed; they were attributed to motives of discretion: he was told by his companions, that he kept his own counsel very well; but they all knew the thing was to be: he was congratulated upon his good fortune in making such an excellent match; for though, as they said, he would have but little money with Lady Sarah, yet the connexion was so great, that he was the luckiest fellow upon earth. The degree of importance which the report gave him among the young men of his acquaintance, and the envy he excited, amused and gratified his vanity. The sort of conversation he was now in the constant habit of hearing, both from young and old, in all companies, about the marriages of people in the fashionable world, where fortune, and rank, and connexion, were always the first things spoken of or considered, began insensibly to influence Vivian’s mode of speaking, if not of judging. Before he mixed in this society, he knew perfectly well that these were the principles by which people of the world are guided; but whilst he had believed this only on hearsay, it had not appeared to him so entirely true and so important as when he saw and heard it himself. The effect of the opinions of a set of fine people, now he was actually in their society, and whilst all other society was excluded from his perception, was very different from what he had imagined it might be, when he was in the country or at college. To do our hero justice, however, he was sensible of this aberration in his own mind, he had sense enough to perceive from what causes it arose, and steadiness sufficient to adhere to the judgements he had previously and deliberately formed. He did not in material points change his opinion of his mistress; he thought her far, far superior to all he saw and heard amongst the belles who were most admired in the fashionable world; but, at the same time, he began to agree with his mother’s former wish, that Selina, added to all other merits, had the advantage of high birth and connexions, or at least, of belonging to a certain class of high company. He determined that, as soon as she should be his wife, he would have her introduced to the very first society in town: he pleased his imagination with anticipating the change that would be made in her appearance, by the addition of certain elegancies of the mode: he delighted in thinking of the sensation she would produce, and the respect that would be paid to her as Mrs. Vivian, surrounded as he would take care that she should be, with all those external signs of wealth and fashion, which command immediate and universal homage from the great and little world.
One day, when Vivian was absorbed in these pleasing reveries, Russell startled him with this question: “When are you to be married to Lady Sarah Lidhurst?”
“From you such a question!” said Vivian.
“Why not from me? It is a question that every body asks of me, because I am your intimate friend; and I should really be obliged to you, if you would furnish me with an answer, that may give me an air of a little more consequence than that which I have at present, being forced to answer, ‘I don’t know.’”
“You don’t know! but why do not you answer, ‘Never!’ as I do,” said Vivian, “to all the fools who ask me the same question?”
“Because they say that is your answer, and only a come off.”