CHAPTER XI.
THE FEMALE FRIEND.
Lady Szentirmay gained her object. Her week's residence at Kárpáthy Castle had completely changed Fanny's position in the eyes of the great world. Even the most prejudiced became more favourably disposed towards the woman whom Lady Szentirmay freely admitted to her friendship. The proudest dowagers, who hitherto considered that they would be showing infinite condescension if they appeared at a festival where a ci-devant shopkeeper's daughter would play the part of mistress of the house, now began to think that their condescension might bear a little paring down. Rigorously virtuous ladies, who had doubted within themselves whether it were befitting to bring their youthful daughters to thread the labyrinths full of Eleusianian mysteries at Kárpáthy Castle, now ordered their dresses from the dressmakers without the slightest apprehension. The appearance of Lady Szentirmay was the surest guarantee of virtue and propriety. The mere fact that Fanny had gained Flora's friendship made her own domestics regard her with quite different eyes, and even Squire John himself began to understand what sort of a wife he had won; and so the nimbus of gentility began to shine around her.
The whole day the two ladies might have been
seen together, engaged in their great and difficult labours. No smiling, please! The work was really great and difficult. It is easy enough for us men-folk to say, "I will give a great dinner-party to-morrow, or a month hence; and I will invite the whole country-side to it. I will invite not only those I know, but those I have never seen;" but it is our women-folk who have to take thought for it. It is they who have to bear in mind everything necessary to make it all adequate and splendid; it is they who have to take into consideration the thousand and one pretensions, partialities, and caprices of a whole army of guests. It would not have been surprising if the new housewife had not known where to begin first; but under Flora's direction everything went along as smoothly as possible. She was used to such things. She remembered everything, and yet she always appealed so artfully to Fanny as to how this or that ought to be done, that, had not Fanny had the keenest appreciation of her friend's delicacy and tact, she might very easily have fancied that it was she herself who managed everything. At any rate Squire John henceforth lived in the conviction that his consort was as much at home in all these mighty matters as if she had lived all her life in the castles of countesses.
And when the evening came, and they were alone together, and had time to converse, how many sage and pleasant counsels Fanny listened to from her friend! She did nothing but listen to, nothing but look upon those delicate, eloquent lips, and those still more eloquent, sparkling eyes, from which she was beginning to learn happiness. At such times they would send away their ladies' maids, and help each other with their evening toilets, and then they would talk freely and merrily of the great world and its follies.
First of all, the list of names, which had caused
Mr. Varga so much sweat and anguish, would be brought forth, and then they would sit down together and talk scandal of their neighbours, and a delightful joke it was too.
For there's a difference between scandal and scandal. To circulate false reports of the people you know, to lay hold upon their most recondite faults and carefully pass them on from hand to hand, to undermine the good name of your acquaintances,—that is certainly not a nice occupation, I call it ungentlemanly scandal. But to be acquainted with the vices of the world, and communicate them to innocent souls liable to err; to warn and call the attention of the sensitive and the tottering to the thorns, the flints, the vermin, and the pitfalls which beset their path,—that is a proper thing to do in season, and I call it gentlemanly scandal—although many who read these lines will perhaps prefer to call it nonsense.
We will therefore confine ourselves to gentlemanly scandal, and let us take the men first. It is not I who do it, remember, but these two young women who have got hold of such an interesting list. If I had a hand in it, I should certainly begin with the ladies.