There had been a shower, and it had cleared up. Lady Cecilia thought the sky looked bluer, and birds sang sweeter, and the air felt pleasanter than before the storm. “Nothing like a storm,” said she, “for clearing the air; nothing like a little honest hurricane. But with Lady Masham there never is anything like a little honest hurricane. It is all still and close with an indescribable volcano-like feeling; one is not sure of what one is standing upon. Do you know, Helen,” continued she, “I am quite afraid of some explosion between mamma and Lady Masham. If we came to any difficulty with her, we could not get out of it quite so well as with Lady Bearcroft, for there is no resource of heart or frankness of feeling with her. Before we all meet at dinner, I must sound mamma, and see if all is tolerably safe.” And when she went this day at dressing-time with a bouquet, as was her custom, for her mother, she took Helen with her.
At the first hint of Lady Cecilia’s fears, that Lady Masham could do her any mischief, Lady Davenant smiled in scorn. “The will she may have, my dear, but she has not the power.”
“She is very foolish, to be sure,” said Lady Cecilia; “still she might do mischief, and there is something monstrously treacherous in that smile of hers.”
“Monstrously!” repeated Lady Davenant. “No, no, my dear Cecilia; nothing monstrous. Leave to Lady Bearcroft the vulgar belief in court-bred monsters; we know there are no such things. Men and women there, as everywhere else, are what nature, education, and circumstances have made them. Once an age, once in half-a-dozen ages, nature may make a Brinvilliers, or art allow of a Zeluco; but, in general, monsters are mere fabulous creatures—mistakes often, from bad drawings, like the unicorn.”
“Yes, mamma, yes; now I feel much more comfortable. The unicorn has convinced me,” said Lady Cecilia, laughing and singing
‘’Tis all a mere fable; there’s nothing to fear.‘
“And I shall think of her henceforth as nothing but what she appears to be, a well-dressed, well-bred, fine lady. Ay—every inch a fine lady; every word, look, motion, thought, suited to that metier.”
“That vocation,” said Lady Davenant; “it is above a trade; with her it really is a sacred duty, not merely a pleasure, to be fine. She is a fine lady of the first order; nothing too professional in her manner—no obvious affectation, for affectation in her was so early wrought into habit as to have become second nature, scarcely distinguishable from real—all easy.”
“Just so, mamma; one gets on so easy with her.”
“A curious illusion,” continued Lady Davenant, “occurs with every one making acquaintance with such persons as Lady Masham, I have observed; perhaps it is that some sensation of the tread-mill life she leads, communicates itself to those she is talking to; which makes you fancy you are always getting on, but you never do get beyond a certain point.”