CHAPTER III.
“In my youth, and through the prime of manhood, I never entered London without feelings of hope and pleasure. It was to me the grand theatre of intellectual activity, the field for every species of enterprise and exertion, the metropolis of the world, of business, thought, and action. There, I was sure to find friends and companions, to hear the voice of encouragement and praise. There, society of the most refined sort offered daily its banquets to the mind, and new objects of interest and ambition were constantly exciting attention either in politics, literature, or science.”
These feelings, so well described by a man of genius, have probably been felt more or less by most young men who have within them any consciousness of talent, or any of that enthusiasm, that eager desire to have or to give sympathy, which, especially in youth, characterises noble natures. But after even one or two seasons in a great metropolis these feelings often change long before they are altered by age. Granville Beauclerc had already persuaded himself that he now detested, as much as he had at first been delighted with, a London life. From his metaphysical habits of mind, and from the sensibility of his temper, he had been too soon disgusted by that sort of general politeness which, as he said, takes up the time and place of real friendship; and as for the intellectual pleasures, they were, he said, too superficial for him; and his notions of independence, too, were at this time quite incompatible with the conventional life of a great capital. His present wish was to live all the year round in the country, with the woman he loved, and in the society of a few chosen friends. Helen quite agreed with him in his taste for the country; she had scarcely ever known any other life, and yet had always been happy; and whatever youthful curiosity had been awakened in her mind as to the pleasures of London, had been now absorbed by stronger and more tender feelings. Her fate in life, she felt, was fixed, and wherever the man she loved wished to reside, that, she felt, must be her choice. With these feelings they arrived at General Clarendon’s delightful house in town.
Helen’s apartment, and Cecilia’s, were on different floors, and had no communication with each other. It was of little consequence, as their stay in town was to be but short, yet Helen could not help observing that Cecilia did not express any regret at it, as formerly she would have done; it seemed a symptom of declining affection, of which, every the slightest indication was marked and keenly felt by Helen, the more so because she had anticipated that such must be the consequence of all that had passed between them, and there was now no remedy.
Among the first morning visitors admitted were Lady Castlefort and Lady Katrine Hawksby. They did not, as it struck Cecilia, seem surprised to see that Miss Stanley was Miss Stanley still, though the day for the marriage had been announced in all the papers as fixed; but they did seem now full of curiosity to know how it had come to pass, and there was rather too apparent a hope that something was going wrong. Their first inquisitive look was met by Lady Cecilia’s careless glance in reply, which said better than words could express, “Nothing the matter, do not flatter yourselves.” Then her expertness at general answers which give no information, completely baffled the two curious impertinents. They could only learn that the day for the marriage was not fixed, that it could not be definitively named till some business should be settled by the general. Law business they supposed, of course. Lady Cecilia “knew nothing about it. Lawyers are such provoking wretches, with their fast bind fast find. Such an unconscionable length of time as they do take for their parchment doings, heeding nought of that little impatient flapper Cupid.”
Certain that Lady Cecilia was only playing with their curiosity, yet unable to circumvent her, Lady Katrine changed the conversation, and Lady Castlefort preferred a prayer, which was, she said, the chief object of her visit, that Lady Cecilia and Miss Stanley would come to her on Monday; she was to have a few friends—a very small party, and independently of the pleasure she should have in seeing them, it would be advantageous perhaps to Miss Stanley, as Lady Castlefort, in her softest voice, added, “For from the marriage being postponed even for a few days, people might talk, and Mr. Beauclerc and Miss Stanley appearing together would prevent anybody’s thinking there was any little—Nothing so proper now as for a young lady to appear with her futur; so I shall expect you, my dear Cecilia, and Miss Stanley,”—and so saying, she departed. Helen’s objections were all overruled, and when the engagement was made known to Beauclerc, he shrugged, and shrank, and submitted; observing, “that all men, and all women, must from the moment they come within the precincts of London life, give up their time and their will to an imaginary necessity of going when we do not like it, where we do not wish, to see those whom we have no desire to see, and who do not care if they were never to see us again, except for the sake of their own reputation of playing well their own parts in the grand farce of mock civility” Helen was sorry to have joined in making an engagement for him which he seemed so much to dislike. But Lady Cecilia, laughing, maintained that half his reluctance was affectation, and the other half a lover-like spirit of monopoly, in which he should not be indulged, and instead of pretending to be indifferent to what the world might think, he ought to be proud to show Helen as a proof of his taste.
In dressing Helen this night, Felicie, excited by her lady’s exhortations, displayed her utmost skill. Mademoiselle Felicie had a certain petite métaphysique de toilette, of which she was justly vain. She could talk, and as much to the purpose as most people of “le genre classique,” and “le genre romantique,” of the different styles of dress that suit different styles of face; and while “she worked and wondered at the work she made,” she threw out from time to time her ideas on the subject to form the taste of Helen’s little maid. Rose, who, in mute attention, held the light and assiduously presented pins. “Not your pin so fast one after de other Miss Rose—Tenez! tenez!” cried mademoiselle. “You tink in England alway too much of your pin in your dress, too little of our taste—too little of our elegance, too much of your what you call tidiness, or God know what! But never you mind dat so much, Miss Rose; and you not prim up your little mouth, but listen to me. Never you put in one pin before you ask yourself, Miss Rose, what for I do it? In every toilette that has taste there is above all—tenez—a character—a sentiment to be support; suppose your lady is to be superbe, or she will rather be élégante, or charmante, or intéressante, or distinguée—well, dat is all ver’ well, and you dress to that idée, one or oder—well, very well—but none of your wat you call odd. No, no, never, Miss Rose—dat is not style noble; ‘twill only become de petit minois of your English originale. I wash my hand of dat always.” The toilette superbe mademoiselle held to be the easiest of all those which she had named with favour, it may be accomplished by any common hands; but head is requisite to reach the toilette distinguée. The toilette superbe requires only cost—a toilette distinguée demands care. There was a happiness as well as care in Felicie’s genius for dress, which, ever keeping the height of fashion in view, never lost sight of nature, adapting, selecting, combining to form a perfect whole, in which art itself concealed appeared only, as she expressed it, in the sublime of simplicity. In the midst of all her talking, however, she went on with the essential business, and as she finished, pronounced “Précepte commence, exemple achève.”
When they arrived at Lady Castlefort’s, Lady Cecilia was surprised to find a line of carriages, and noise, and crowds of footmen. How was this? She had understood that it was to be one of those really small parties, those select reunions of some few of the high and mighty families who chance to be in town before Christmas.—“But how is this?” Lady Cecilia repeated to herself as she entered the hall, amazed to find it blazing with light, a crowd on the stairs, and in the anteroom a crowd, as she soon felt, of an unusual sort. It was not the soft crush of aristocracy, they found hard unaccustomed citizen elbows,—strange round-shouldered, square-backed men and women, so over-dressed, so bejewelled, so coarse—shocking to see, impossible to avoid; not one figure, one face, Lady Cecilia had ever seen before; till at last, from the midst of the throng emerged a fair form—a being as it seemed of other mould, certainly of different caste. It was one of Cecilia’s former intimates—Lady Emily Greville, whom she had not seen since her return from abroad. Joyfully they met, and stopped and talked; she was hastening away, Lady Emily said, “after having been an hour on duty; Lady Castlefort had made it a point with her to stay after dinner, she had dined there, and had stayed, and now guard was relieved.”
“But who are all these people? What is all this, my dear Lady Emily?” asked Cecilia.
“Do not you know? Louisa has trapped you into coming then, to-night without telling you how it is?”