Lady Euphrasia, now rising from the harpsichord, requested Amanda to take her place at it, saying, with an ironical air, "her performance (which indeed was shocking) would make hers appear to amazing advantage.”
Diffident of her own abilities, Amanda begged to be excused. But when Miss Malcolm, with an earnestness even oppressive, joined her entreaties to Lady Euphrasia’s she could no longer refuse.
“I suppose,” said her ladyship, following her to the instrument, "these songs,” presenting her some trifling ones, “will answer you better than the Italian music before you?”
Amanda made no reply, but turned over the leaves of the book to a lesson much more difficult than that Lady Euphrasia had played. Her touch at first was tremulous and weak, but she was too susceptible of the powers of harmony not soon to be inspired by it; and gradually her style became so masterly and elegant, as to excite universal admiration, except in the bosoms of those who had hoped to place her in a ludicrous situation. Their invidious scheme, instead of depressing, had only served to render excellence conspicuous; and that mortification they destined for another, fell upon themselves. When the lesson was concluded, some gentlemen who either were, or pretended to be, musical connoisseurs, entreated her to sing. She chose a plaintive Italian air, and the exquisite taste and sweetness with which she sung, equally astonished and delighted. Nor was admiration confined to the accomplishments she displayed. The soft expression of her countenance, which seemed accordant to the harmonious sounds that issued from her lips, was viewed with pleasure, and praised with energy; and she rose from the harpsichord covered with blushes from the applause which stole around her. The gentlemen gathered around Lady Euphrasia, to inquire who the beautiful stranger was, and she gave them pretty much the same account she had already done to Miss Malcolm.
The rage and disappointment of that young lady, and her ladyship, could scarcely be concealed. “I declare, I never knew anything so monstrously absurd,” exclaimed Lady Euphrasia, “as to let a girl in her situation learn such things, except, indeed, it was to qualify her for a governess, or an opera singer.”
“Ay, I suppose,” said Miss Malcolm, “we shall soon hear her quavering away at one of the theatres; for no person of fashion would really intrust her children to so confident a creature.”
The fair object of their disquietude gladly accompanied Lady Araminta into another room. Several gentlemen followed, and crowded about her chair, offering that adulation which they were accustomed to find acceptable at the shrine of beauty. To Amanda, however, it was irksome, not only from its absurd extravagance, but as it interrupted her conversation with Lady Araminta. The marchioness, however, who critically watched her motions, soon relieved her from the troublesome assiduities of the beaux, by placing them at card-tables. Not, indeed, from any good-natured motive, but she could not bear that Amanda should have so much attention paid her, and flattered herself she would be vexed by losing it.
In the course of conversation, Lady Araminta mentioned Ireland. She had a faint remembrance of Castle Carberry, she said, and had been half tempted to accompany the marquis and his family in their late excursion. Her brother, she added, had almost made her promise to visit the castle with him the ensuing summer. “You have seen Lord Mortimer, to be sure?” continued her ladyship.
“Yes, madam,” faltered Amanda, while her face was overspread with a crimson hue. Her ladyship was too penetrating not to perceive her confusion, and it gave rise to a conjecture of something more than a slight acquaintance being between his lordship and Amanda. The melancholy he had betrayed on his return from Ireland had excited the raillery of her ladyship, till convinced, by the discomposure he showed whenever she attempted to inquire into the occasion of it, that it proceeded from a source truly interesting to his feelings. She knew of the alliance her father had projected for him with the Roslin family—a project she never approved of, for Lady Euphrasia was truly disagreeable to her; and a soul like Mortimer’s, tender, liberal, and sincere, she knew could never experience the smallest degree of happiness with a being so uncongenial in every respect as was Lady Euphrasia to him. She loved her brother with the truest tenderness, and secretly believed he was attached in Ireland. She wished to gain his confidence, yet would not solicit it, because she knew she had it not in her power essentially to serve him. Her arguments, she was convinced, would have little weight with Lord Cherbury, who had often expressed to her his anxiety for a connection with the Roslin family. With the loveliness of Amanda’s person, with the elegance of her manner, she was immediately charmed. As she conversed with her, esteem was added to admiration, and she believed that Mortimer would not have omitted mentioning to her the beautiful daughter of his father’s agent, had he not feared betraying too much emotion at her name. She appeared to Lady Araminta just the kind of woman he would adore; just the being that would answer all the ideas of perfection (romantic ideas she had called them) which he had declared necessary to captivate his heart. Lady Araminta already felt for her unspeakable tenderness. In the softness of her looks, in the sweetness of her voice, there were resistless charms; and she felt, that if oppressed by sorrow, Amanda Fitzalan, above all other beings, was the one she would select to give her consolation. The confusion she betrayed at the mention of Mortimer, made her ladyship suspect she was the cause of his dejection. She involuntarily fastened her eyes upon her face, as if to penetrate the recesses of her heart, yet with a tenderness which seemed to say she would pity the secret she might then discover.
Lord Cherbury, at this moment of embarrassment to Amanda, approached. He said, “He had just been making a request, and an apology to Lady Greystock, and was now come to repeat them to her. The former was, to meet the marquis’s family at his house the next day at dinner; and the latter was, to excuse so unceremonious an invitation, which he had been induced to make on Lady Araminta’s account, who was obliged to leave town the day after the next, and had, therefore, no time for the usual etiquette of visiting.”