“Yes,” said Helen; “how far superior!”
“It has been said,” continued Lady Davenant, “that it is safer to judge of men by their actions than by their words, but there are few actions and many words in life; and if women would avail themselves of their daily, hourly, opportunities of judging people by their words, they would get at the natural characters, or, what is of just as much consequence, they would penetrate through the acquired habits; and here Helen, you have two good studies before you.”
Preoccupied as Helen was with the certainty of Beauclerc being an engaged, almost a married man, and looking, as she did, on Churchill as one who must consider her as utterly beneath his notice, she listened to Lady Davenant’s remarks as she would have done to observations about two characters in a novel or on the stage.
As Churchill could not immediately manifest his hatred of Beauclerc, it worked inwardly the more. He did not sleep well this night, and when he got up in the morning, there was something the matter with him. Nervous, bilious—cross it could not be;—journalier (a French word settles everything)—journalier he allowed he was; he rather gloried in it, because his being permitted to be so proved his power,—his prerogative of fortune and talent combined.
In the vast competition of the London world, it is not permitted to every man to be in his humour or out of his humour at pleasure; but, by an uncommon combination of circumstances, Churchill had established his privilege of caprice; he was allowed to have his bad and his good days, and the highest people and the finest smiled, and submitted to his “cachet de faveur et de disgrace;” and when he was sulky, rude, or snappish, called it only Horace Churchill’s way. They even prided themselves on his preferences and his aversions. “Horace is always charming when he is with us.”—“With me you have no idea how delightful he is.”—“Indeed I must do him the justice to say, that I never found him otherwise.”—While the less favoured permitted him to be as rude as he pleased, and only petted him, and told of his odd ways to those who sighed in vain to have him at their parties. But Lady Davenant was not a person to pet or spoil a child of any age, and to the general, Mr. Churchill was not particularly agreeable—not his sort; while to Lady Cecilia, secure in grace, beauty, and fashion, his humours were only matter of amusement, and she bore with him pleasantly and laughingly.
“Such weather!” cried he in a querulous tone; “how can a man have any sense in such weather? Some foreigner says, that the odious climate of England is an over-balance for her good constitution. The sun of the south is in truth well worth the liberty of the north. It is a sad thing,” said he, with a very sentimental air, “that a free-born Briton should be servile to these skyey influences;” and, grumbling on, he looked out of the window as cross as he pleased, and nobody minded him. The aide-de-camp civilly agreed with him that it was horrid weather, and likely to rain, and it did rain; and every one knows how men, like children, are in certain circumstances affected miserably by a rainy day. There was no going out; horses at the door, and obliged to be dismissed. Well, since there could be no riding, the next best thing the aide-de-camp thought, was to talk of horses, and the officers all grew eager, and Churchill had a mind to exert himself so far as to show them that he knew more of the matter than they did; that he was no mere book-man; but on this unlucky day, all went wrong. It happened that Horace fell into some grievous error concerning the genealogy of a famous race-horse, and, disconcerted more than he would have been at being convicted of any degree of moral turpitude, vexed and ashamed, he talked no more of Newmarket or of Doncaster, left the race-ground to those who prided themselves on the excellences of their four-footed betters, and lounged into the billiard-room.
He found Lady Cecilia playing with Beauclerc; Miss Stanley was looking on. Churchill was a famous billiard-player, and took his turn to show how much better than Beauclerc he performed, but this day his hand was out, his eye not good; he committed blunders of which a novice might have been ashamed. And there was Miss Stanley and there was Beauclerc by to see! and Beauclerc pitied him!
O line extreme of human misery!
He retreated to the book-room, but there the intellectual Horace, with all the sages, poets, and novelists of every age within his reach, reached them not; but, with his hands in his pockets, like any squire or schoolboy under the load of ignorance or penalties of idleness, stood before the chimney-piece, eyeing the pendule, and verily believing that this morning the hands went backward. Dressing-time at last came, and dinner-time, bringing relief how often to man and child ill-tempered; but, this day to Churchill dinner brought only discomfiture worse discomfited.
Some of the neighbouring families were to dine at Clarendon Park. Mr. Churchill abhorred country neighbours and country gentlemen. Among these, however, were some not unworthy to be perceived by him; and besides these, there were some foreign officers; one in particular, from Spain, of high rank and birth, of the sangre azul, the blue blood, who have the privilege of the silken cord if they should come to be hanged. This Spaniard was a man of distinguished talent, and for him Horace might have been expected to shine out; it was his pleasure, however, this day to disappoint expectations, and to do “the dishonours of his country.” He would talk only of eating, of which he was privileged not only to speak but to judge, and pronounce upon en dernier ressort, though this was only an air, for he was not really a gourmand; but after ogling through his glass the distant dishes, when they with a wish came nigh, he, after a cursory glance or a close inspection, made them with a nod retire.