CHAPTER XXXIII.
In these days, people travel with so much safety, ease, and celerity, that heroines have little chance of adventures on the road; and a journey is now so common a thing, that, as Rosamond observed, the most brilliant imagination has no hope of having wonders to relate. To Rosamond’s mortification, Caroline and her brother reached London without any event having occurred better worth recording than the loss of an umbrella. They drove into town when it was nearly dark, just before the lamps were lighted; Caroline, therefore, had little satisfaction from the first view of the metropolis. She found Lady Jane Granville in a small lodging in Clarges-street—the room dark—a smell of smoke—the tea-equipage prepared—Lady Jane lying on a shabby-looking sofa—drops and a smelling-bottle on a little table beside her. She raised herself as Caroline entered, looked half pleased, half ashamed to see her; and, stretching out her hand, said, in a complaining voice, “Ah! my dear Caroline, are you really come? This is too good! Sadly changed, you find—and every thing about me—Sit down, my dear—Keppel, do let us have tea as soon as you can,” said Lady Jane.
“As soon as ever Eustace comes in, my lady,” answered Keppel, peevishly.
“In the mean time, for Heaven’s sake, allow us a little more light—I cannot live without light. Come nearer to me, my dear Caroline, and tell me how did you leave all our friends at the Hills?”
Whilst Caroline was answering her ladyship, more candles were brought, and Lady Jane moved them on the table till she threw the light full on Caroline’s face.
“Handsomer than ever! And altogether so formed. One would not think, Alfred, she had been buried all this time in the country. Ah! perverse child; why would not you come when I could have been of some use to you—when, at least, I could, have received you as I ought? This is not a fit place, you see; nor am I now in circumstances, or in a style of life—Heigho!”
“Dr. Percy is not come yet,” resumed she. “This is his usual hour—and I wrote a note to tell him that he would meet his sister Caroline to-night.”
In all her ladyship said, in every look and motion, there was the same nervous hurry and uneasiness. Dr. Percy arrived, and for a moment Lady Jane forgot herself in sympathy with the pleasure the brother and sister showed at meeting. Soon, however, she would have relapsed into melancholy comparisons, but, that Dr. Percy checked the course of her thoughts; and with the happy art, by which a physician of conversational powers can amuse a nervous patient, he, without the aid of poppy or mandragora, medicined her to rest, though not to sleep.
When Erasmus was alone with his sister, he observed that no permanent amendment could be expected in Lady Jane’s health till her mind should be at ease about her lawsuit. While this was undecided, her imagination vacillated between the horror of neglected poverty, and the hopes of recovering her former splendour and consideration. The lawsuit was not to be decided for some weeks, and Caroline saw that all that could be done in the mean time was as much as possible to soothe and amuse her patient: however tiresome and difficult the task, she went through it with the utmost cheerfulness and sweetness of temper. Day after day she passed alone with Lady Jane, hearing her complaints, bodily and mental, and listening to the eternally repeated history of her lawsuit. But Caroline’s patience was ensured by a sense of gratitude, which, in her, was not a sentimental phrase, but a motive for long endurance, still more difficult than active exertion.