“And cannot I,” said Vivian, “have the honour of your introduction?”
“Mine! the worst you could possibly have. The honour, as you are pleased to call it, would be no favour, I assure you. The honour!—honour of a husband’s introduction! What a novice you are, or would make me believe you to be! But, seriously, I am engaged to-day at Glistonbury’s: so, good morning to you.”
Accustomed to hear Wharton talk in the freest manner of women and marriage in general, and scarcely having heard him mention his own wife, Vivian had, as he said, absolutely forgotten that Wharton was a married man. When he was introduced to Mrs. Wharton, he was still more surprised at her husband’s indifference; for he beheld a lady in all the radiance of beauty, and all the elegance of fashion: he was so much dazzled by her charms, that he had not immediately power or inclination to examine what her understanding or disposition might be; and he could only repeat to himself, “How is it possible that Wharton can be indifferent to such a beautiful creature!”
Incapable of feeling any of what he, called the romance of love, the passion, of course, had always been with Mr. Wharton of a very transient nature. Tired of his wife’s person, he showed his indifference without scruple or ceremony. Notorious and glorying in his gallantries, he was often heard to declare, that no price was too high to be paid for beauty, except a man’s liberty; but that was a sacrifice which he would never make to any woman, especially to a wife. Marriage vows and custom-house oaths he classed in the same order of technical forms,—nowise binding on the conscience of any but fools and dupes. Whilst the husband went on in this manner, the wife satisfied herself by indulgence in her strongest passions—the passion for dress and public admiration. Childishly eager to set the fashion in trifles, she spent unconscionable sums on her pretty person; and devoted all her days, or rather all her nights, to public amusements. So insatiable and restless is the passion for admiration, that she was never happy for half an hour together, at any place of public amusement, unless she fixed the gaze of numbers. The first winter after her marriage she enjoyed the prerogatives of a fashionable beauty; but the reign of fashion is more transient even than the bloom of beauty. Mrs. Wharton’s beauty soon grew familiar, and faded in the public eye; some newer face was this season the mode. Mrs. Wharton appeared twice at the opera in the most elegant and becoming dresses; but no one followed her lead. Mortified and utterly dejected, she felt, with the keenest anguish, the first symptoms of the decline of public admiration. It was just at this period, when she was miserably in want of the consolations of flattery, that Vivian’s acquaintance with her commenced. Gratified by the sort of delighted surprise which she saw in his countenance the first moment he beheld her, seeing that he was an agreeable man, and knowing that he was a man of fortune and family, she took pains to please him by all the common arts of coquetry. But his vanity was proof against these: the weakness of the lady’s understanding and the frivolity of her character were, for some weeks, sufficient antidotes against all the power of her personal charms; so much so, that at this period he often compared, or rather contrasted, Mrs. Wharton and Selina, and blessed his happy fate. He wrote to his friend Russell soon after he was introduced to this celebrated beauty, and drew a strong and just parallel between the characters of these two ladies: he concluded with saying, “Notwithstanding your well-founded dread of the volatility of my character, you will not, I hope, my dear Russell, do me the injustice to apprehend that I am in any danger from the charms of Mrs. Wharton.”
Vivian wrote with perfect sincerity; he believed it to be impossible that he could ever become attached to such a woman as Mrs. Wharton, even if she had not been married, and the wife of his friend. So, in all the security of conscious contempt, he went every day to wait upon her, or rather to meet agreeable company at her house,—a house in which all that was fashionable and dissipated assembled; where beauty, and talents, and rank, met and mingled; and where political or other arrangements prevented the host and hostess from scrupulously excluding some whose characters were not free from suspicion. Lady Mary Vivian never went to Mrs. Wharton’s; but she acknowledged that she knew many ladies of unblemished reputation who thought it no impropriety to visit there; and Mrs. Wharton’s own character she knew was hitherto unimpeached. “She is, indeed, a woman of a cold, selfish temper,” said Lady Mary; “not likely to be led into danger by the tender passion, or by any of the delusions of the imagination.”
Vivian agreed with his mother in this opinion, and went on paying his devoirs to her every day. It was the fashion of the times, and peculiarly the mode of this house, for the gentlemen to pay exclusive attention to matrons. Few of the young men seemed to think it worth while to speak to an unmarried woman in any company; and the few who might be inclined to it were, as they declared, deterred by the danger: for either the young ladies themselves, or their mothers, immediately formed expectations and schemes of drawing them into matrimony—the grand object of the ladies’ wishes and of the gentlemen’s fears. The men said they could not speak to an unmarried woman, or even dance with her more than twice, without its being reported that they were going to be married; and then the friends and relatives of the young ladies pretended to think them injured and ill-treated, if these reports were not realized. Our hero had some slight experience of the truth of these complaints in his own case with the Lady Sarah Lidhurst: he willingly took the rest upon trust—believed all the exaggerations of his companions—and began to think it prudent and necessary to follow their example, and to confine his attentions to married women. Many irresistible reasons concurred to make Mrs. Wharton the most convenient and proper person to whom he could pay this sort of homage: besides, she seemed to fall to his share by lot and necessity; for, at Wharton’s house, every other lady and every other gentleman being engaged in gallantry, play, or politics, Mrs. Wharton must have been utterly neglected if Vivian had not paid her some attention. Common politeness absolutely required it; the attention became a matter of course, and was habitually expected. Still he had not the slightest design of going beyond the line of modern politeness; but, in certain circumstances, people go wrong a great way before they are aware that they have gone a single step. It was presently repeated to Mr. Vivian, by some of Mrs. Wharton’s confidantes, in whispers, and under the solemn promise of secrecy, that he certainly was a prodigious favourite of hers. He laughed, and affected to disbelieve the insinuation: it made its impression, however; and he was secretly flattered by the idea of being a prodigious favourite with such a beautiful young creature. In some moments he saw her with eyes of compassion, pitying her for the neglect with which she was treated by her husband: he began to attribute much of her apparent frivolity, and many of her faults, more to the want of a guide and a friend than to a deficiency of understanding or to defects of character. Mrs. Wharton had just sufficient sense to be cunning—this implies but a very small portion: she perceived the advantage which she gained by thus working upon Vivian’s vanity and upon his compassion. She continued her operations, without being violently interested in their success; for she had at first only a general wish to attract his attention, because he was a fashionable young man.
One morning when he called upon Wharton to accompany him to the House of Commons, he found Mrs. Wharton in tears, her husband walking up and down the room in evident ill-humour. He stopped speaking when Vivian entered; and Mrs. Wharton endeavoured, or seemed to endeavour, to conceal her emotion. She began to play on her harp; and Wharton, addressing himself to Vivian, talked of the politics of the day. There was some incoherence in the conversation; for Vivian’s attention was distracted by the air that Mrs. Wharton was playing, of which he was passionately fond.
“There’s no possibility of doing any thing while there is such a cursed noise in the room!” cried Wharton. “Here I have the heads of this bill to draw up—I cannot endure to have music wherever I go—”
He snatched up his papers and retired to an adjoining apartment, begging that Vivian would wait one quarter of an hour for him.—Mrs. Wharton’s tears flowed afresh, and she looked beautiful in tears.
“You see—you see, Mr. Vivian—and I am ashamed you should see—how I am treated.—I am, indeed, the most unfortunate creature upon the face of the earth; and nobody in this world has the least compassion for me!”