The image of her beautiful rival disturbed her morning dreams, and stood before her fancy the moment she opened her eyes. Wakening, she endeavoured to recollect and compare all that had passed the preceding night; but there had been such tumult in her mind, that she had only a vague remembrance of the transactions: she had a confused idea that the Count was in love, and that he was not in love with her: she had fears that, during the heat of competition, she had betrayed unbecoming emotion; but gradually, habitual vanity predominated; her hopes brightened; she began to fancy that the impression made by her rival might be easily effaced, and that they should see no more of the fair phantom. That branch of the Percy family, she recollected, were to be considered only as decayed gentry; and she flattered herself that they would necessarily and immediately sink again into that obscurity from which her mother’s ill-fated civility had raised them. Her mother, she knew, had invited these Percys against her will, and would be particularly careful on account of Sir Robert Percy (and Arabella) not to show them any further attention. Thus things would, in a day or two, fall again into their proper train. “No doubt the Count will call this morning, to know how we do after the ball.”
So she rose, and resolved to dress herself with the most becoming negligence.
Very different was the result of her experienced mother’s reflections. Mrs. Falconer saw that her daughter’s chance of the Count was now scarcely worth considering; that it must be given up at once, to avoid the danger of utter ruin to other speculations of a more promising kind. The mother knew the unmanageable violence of her daughter’s temper: she had seen her Georgiana expose herself the preceding night at the ball to her particular friends, and Mrs. Falconer knew enough of the world to dread reports originating from particular friends; she dreaded, also, that on some future similar occasion, the young lady’s want of command over her jealousy should produce some terribly ridiculous scene, confirm the report that she had an unhappy passion for Count Altenberg, stigmatize her as a forlorn maiden, and ruin her chance of any other establishment. In this instance she had been misled by her own and her daughter’s vanity. It was mortifying, to be sure, to find that she had been wrong; and still more provoking to be obliged to acknowledge that Mr. Falconer was right; but in the existing circumstances it was absolutely necessary, and Mrs. Falconer, with a species of satisfaction, returned to her former habits of thinking, and resumed certain old schemes, from which the arrival of the Count had diverted her imagination. She expected the two Mr. Clays at Falconer-court the next day. Either of them, she thought, might be a good match for Georgiana. To be sure, it was said that French Clay had gaming debts to a large amount upon his hands—this was against him; but, in his favour, there was the chance of his elder brother’s dying unmarried, and leaving him Clay-hall. Or, take it the other way, and suppose English Clay to be made the object—he was one of the men who professedly have a horror of being taken in to marry; yet no men are more likely “to run into the danger to avoid the apprehension.” Suppose the worst, and that neither of the Clays could be worked to any good purpose, Mrs. Falconer had still in reserve that pis aller Petcalf, whose father, the good general, was at Bath, with the gout in his stomach; and if he should die, young Petcalf would pop into possession of the general’s lodge in Asia Minor [Footnote: A district in England so called.]: not so fine a place, to be sure, nor an establishment so well appointed as Clay-hall; but still with a nabob’s fortune a great deal might be done—and Georgiana might make Petcalf throw down the lodge and build. So at the worst she might settle very comfortably with young Petcalf, whom she could manage as she pleased, provided she never let him see her penchant for Count Altenberg. Mrs. Falconer determined to turn the tables dexterously, and to make it appear that the Count admired Georgiana, but saw she could not be induced to leave England. “We must,” said she to herself, “persuade English Clay that I would not for any consideration give my daughter to a foreigner.”
In consequence of these plans and reflections, Mrs. Falconer began her new system of operations, by writing that note full of superfluous civility to Mrs. Percy, with which Commissioner Falconer had been charged: the pressing Caroline to play Zara or Marcia, the leaving to her the choice of dresses and characters, the assurance that Miss Georgiana Falconer would take the confidante’s part with pleasure, were all strokes of Mrs. Falconer’s policy. By these means she thought she could most effectually do away all suspicion of her own or her daughter’s jealousy of Miss Caroline Percy. Mrs. Falconer foresaw that, in all probability, Caroline would decline acting; but if she had accepted, Mrs. Falconer would have been sincerely pleased, confident, as she was, that Caroline’s inferiority to her Georgiana, who was an accomplished actress, would be conspicuously manifest.
As soon as Mrs. Percy’s answer, and Caroline’s refusal, arrived, Mrs. Falconer went to her daughter Georgiana’s apartment, who was giving directions to her maid, Lydia Sharpe, about some part of Zara’s dress.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Falconer, looking carelessly at the dress, “you won’t want a very expensive dress for Zara.”
“Indeed, ma’am, I shall,” cried Georgiana: “Zara will be nothing, unless she is well dressed.”
“Well, my dear, you must manage as well as you can with Lydia Sharpe. Your last court-dress surely she can make do vastly well, with a little alteration to give it a Turkish air.”
“Oh! dear me, ma’am!—a little alteration!” cried Lydia: “no alteration upon the face of Heaven’s earth, that I could devise from this till Christmas, would give it a Turkish air. You don’t consider, nor conceive, ma’am, how skimping these here court-trains are now—for say the length might answer, its length without any manner of breadth, you know, ma’am—look, ma’am, a mere strip!—only two breadths of three quarters bare each—which gives no folds in nature, nor drapery, nor majesty, which, for a Turkish queen, is indispensably requisite, I presume.”
“Another breadth or two would make it full enough, and cotton velvet will do, and come cheap,” said Mrs. Falconer.