“Not a word did she tell me, I expected to meet only our own world.”
“A very different world you perceive this! A sort of farce this is to the ‘Double Distress,’ a comedy;—in short, one of Lord Castlefort’s brothers is going to stand for the City, and citizens and citoyennes must be propitiated. When an election is in the case all other things give place: and, besides, he has just married the daughter of some amazing merchant, worth I don’t know how many plums; so le petit Bossu, who is proud of his brother, for he is reckoned the genius of the family! made it a point with Louisa to do this. She put up her eyebrows, and stood out as long as she could, but Lord Castlefort had his way, for he holds the purse you know,—and so she was forced to make a party for these Goths and Vandals, and of course she thought it best to do it directly, out of season, you know, when nobody will see it—and she consulted me whether it should be large or small; I advised a large party, by all means, as crowded as possible.”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” said Cecilia; “to hide the shame in the multitude; vastly well, very fair all this, except the trapping us into it, who have nothing to do with it.”
“Nothing to do with it! pardon me,” cried Lady Emily. “It could not have been done without us. Entrapping us!—do not you understand that we are the baits to the traps? Bringing those animals here, wild beasts or tame, only to meet one another, would have been ‘doing business no how.’ We are what they are ‘come for to see,’ or to have it to say that they have seen the Exclusives, Exquisites, or Transcendentals, or whatever else they call us.”
“Lady Emily Greville’s carriage!” was now called in the anteroom.
“I must go, but first make me known to your friend Miss Stanley, you see I know her by instinct;” but “Lady Emily Greville’s carriage!” now resounded reiteratedly, and gentlemen with cloaks stood waiting, and as she put hers on, Lady Emily stooped forward and whispered,
“I do not believe one word of what they say of her,” and she was off, and Lady Cecilia stood for an instant looking after her, and considering what she could mean by those last words. Concluding, however, that she had not heard aright, or had missed some intervening name, and that these words, in short, could not possibly apply to Helen, Lady Cecilia turned to her, they resumed their way onward, and at length they reached the grand reception-room.
In the middle of that brilliantly lighted saloon, immediately under the centre chandelier, was ample verge and space enough reserved for the élite of the world; circle it was not, nor square, nor form regularly defined, yet the bounds were guarded. There was no way of getting to the further end of the saloon, or to the apartments open in the distance beyond it, except by passing through this enclosed space, in which one fair entrance was practicable, and one ample exit full in view on the opposite side. Several gentlemen of fashionable bearing held the outposts of this privileged place, at back of sofa, or side of fauteuil, stationary, or wandering near. Some chosen few were within; two caryatides gentlemen leaned one on each side of the fireplace, and in the centre of the rug stood a remarkably handsome man, of fine figure, perfectly dressed, his whole air exquisitely scornful, excruciatingly miserable, and loftily abstract. ‘Twas wonderful, ‘twas strange, ‘twas passing strange! how one so lost to all sublunary concerns, so far above the follies of inferior mortals, as he looked, came here—so extremely well-dressed too! How happened it? so nauseating the whole, as he seemed, so wishing that the business of the world were done! With half-closed dreamy eyelids he looked silent down upon two ladies who sat opposite to him, rallying, abusing, and admiring him to his vanity’s content. They gave him his choice of three names, l’Ennuyé, le Frondeur, or le Blasé. L’Ennuyé? he shook his head; too common; he would have none of it. Le Frondeur? no; too much trouble; he shrugged his abhorrence. Le Blasé? he allowed, might be too true. But would they hazard a substantive verb? He would give them four-and-twenty hours to consider, and he would take twenty-four himself to decide. They should have his definitive to-morrow, and he was sliding away, but Lady Castlefort, as he passed her, cried, “Going, Lord Beltravers, going are you?” in an accent of surprise and disappointment; and she whispered, “I am hard at work here, acting receiver general to these city worthies; and you do not pity me—cruel!” and she looked up with languishing eyes, that so begged for sympathy. He threw upon her one look of commiseration, reproachful. “Pity you, yes! But why will you do these things? and why did you bring me here to do this horrid sort of work?” and he vanished.
Lady Cecilia Clarendon and Miss Stanley now appeared in the offing, and now reached the straits: Lady Castlefort rose with vivacity extraordinary, and went forward several steps. “Dear Cecilia! Miss Stanley, so good! Mr. Beauclerc, so happy! the general could not? so sorry!” Then with hand pressed on hers, “Miss Stanley, so kind of you to come. Lady Grace, give me leave—Miss Stanley—Lady Grace Bland,” and in a whisper, “Lord Beltravers’ aunt.”
Lady Grace, with a haughty drawback motion, and a supercilious arching of her brows, was “happy to have the honour.” Honour nasally prolonged, and some guttural sounds followed, but further words, if words they were, which she syllabled between snuffling and mumbling, were utterly unintelligible; and Helen, without being “very happy,” or happy at all, only returned bend for bend.