Here was a death-blow to all Georgiana’s hopes! But we shall not stay to describe her disappointment, or the art of her mother in concealing it; nor shall we accompany Mrs. Falconer to town, to see how her designs upon the Clays or Petcalf prospered. We must follow Count Altenberg to Hungerford Castle.
CHAPTER XXIX.
“Who would prize the tainted posies,
Which on ev’ry breast are worn?
Who could pluck the spotless roses
From their never touched thorn?”
The feeling expressed in these lines will be acknowledged by every man of sense and delicacy. “No such man ever prized a heart much hackneyed in the ways of love.” It was with exquisite pain that Count Altenberg had heard all that had been said of Caroline—he did not give credit to half the insinuations—he despised those who made them: he knew that some of the ladies spoke from envy, others from the mere love of scandal; but still, altogether, an impression unfavourable to Caroline, or rather unfavourable to his passion for Caroline, was left on his mind. The idea that she had been suspected, the certainty that she had been talked of, that she had even been named as one who had coquetted with many admirers—the notion that she had been in love—passionately in love—all this took from the freshness, the virgin modesty, the dignity, the charm, with which she had appeared to his imagination, and without which she could not have touched his heart—a heart not to be easily won.
In his own country, at the court where he resided, in the different parts of the continent which he had visited, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, France, he had seen women celebrated for beauty and for wit, many of the most polished manners, many of the highest accomplishments, some of exquisite sensibility, a few with genuine simplicity of character, but in all there had been something which had prevented his wishing to make any one of them the companion of his life. In some there was a want of good temper—in others of good sense; there was some false taste for admiration or for notoriety—some love of pleasure, or some love of sway, inconsistent with his idea of the perfection of the female character, incompatible with his plans of life, and with his notions of love and happiness.
In England, where education, institutions, opinion, manners, the habits of society, and of domestic life, happily combine to give the just proportion of all that is attractive, useful, ornamental, and amiable to the female character—in England, Count Altenberg had hopes of finding a woman who, to the noble simplicity of character that was once the charm of Switzerland, joined the polish, the elegance, that was once the pride of France; a woman possessing an enlarged, cultivated, embellished understanding, capable of comprehending all his views as a politician and a statesman; yet without any wish for power, or love of political intrigue. Graced with knowledge and taste for literature and science, capable of being extended to the highest point of excellence, yet free from all pedantry, or pretension—with wit, conversational talents, and love of good society, without that desire of exhibition, that devouring diseased appetite for admiration, which preys upon the mind insatiably, to its torture—to its destruction; without that undefineable, untranslateable French love of succès de société, which substitutes a precarious; factitious, intoxicated existence in public, for the safe self-approbation, the sober, the permanent happiness of domestic life. In England Count Altenberg hoped to find a woman raised by “divine philosophy” [Footnote: Milton.] far above all illiberal prejudice, but preserving a just and becoming sense of religion; unobtrusive, mild, and yet firm. Every thing that he had seen of Caroline had confirmed his first hope, and exalted his future expectation; but, by what he had just heard, his imagination was checked in full career, suddenly, and painfully. His heavenly dream was disturbed by earthly voices—voices of malignant spirits—mysterious—indistinct—yet alarming. He had not conceived it possible that the breath of blame could approach such a character as Caroline’s—he was struck with surprise, and shocked, on hearing her name profaned by common scandal, and spoken of as the victim of a disappointed passion, the scorn of one of the most distinguished families in England. Such were the first painful thoughts and feelings of Count Altenberg. At the time he heard the whispers which gave rise to them, he had been actually penning a letter to his father, declaring his attachment—he now resolved not to write. But he determined to satisfy himself as to the truth or falsehood of these reports. He was not a man to give ear lightly to calumny—he detested its baseness; he would not suffer himself for a moment to brood over suspicion, nor yet would he allow himself for present ease and pleasure to gloss over, without examination, that which might afterwards recur to his mind, and might create future unjust or unhappy jealousy. Either the object of his hopes was worthy of him, or not—if not worthy, better tear her from his heart for ever. This determined him to go immediately to Mrs. Hungerford’s. Count Altenberg trusted to his own address and penetration for discovering all he wished to know, without betraying any peculiar interest in the subject.
The first sight of Mrs. Hungerford, the gracious dignity of her appearance and manners, the first five minutes’ conversation he had with her, decided him in the opinion, that common report had done her justice; and raised in his mind extreme anxiety to know her opinion of Caroline. But, though he began the history of Zara, and of the play at Falconer-court, for the express purpose of introducing the Percys, in speaking of the company who had been present, yet, conscious of some unusual emotion when he was going to pronounce that name, and fancying some meaning in Mrs. Hungerford’s great attention as he spoke, he mentioned almost every other guest, even the most insignificant, without speaking of Caroline, or of any of her family. He went back to his friend Colonel Hungerford. Mrs. Hungerford opened a letter-case, and took from it the last letter she had received from her son since he left England, containing some interesting particulars.—Towards the conclusion of the letter, the writing changed to a small feminine hand, and all India vanished from the view of Count Altenberg, for, as he turned the page, he saw the name of Caroline Percy: “I suppose I ought to stop here,” said he, offering the letter to Mrs. Hungerford. “No,” she replied, the whole letter was at his service—they were only a few lines from her daughter Lady Elizabeth.
These few lines mentioned Caroline Percy among the dear and intimate friends whom she regretted most in Europe, and to whom she sent a message expressive of the warmest affection and esteem. A glow of joy instantly diffused itself over his whole frame. As far as related to Colonel Hungerford, he was sure that all he had heard was false. There was little probability that his wife should, if those circumstances were true, be Caroline’s most intimate friend. Before these thoughts had well arranged themselves in his head, a pleasing, sprightly young lady came into the room, who he at first thought was Mrs. Hungerford’s daughter; but she was too young to answer exactly the description of Mrs. Mortimer.