Which England’s common courtesy,
To make bad fellowship go down,
Politely calls good company.”
Cooper.
We left Dr. Crack at the end of the last volume in a fair way of falling deeply in love with Miss Henderson, and there, for the present, we will leave him still, conscious that no one envies him. Our attention is now required in another quarter. The gentle, unobtrusive Clara Rivolta, whom nature indeed had never destined to be a heroine or even to be talked about, continued to undergo with much forbearance and quietness the persecuting attentions of the fragrant Henry Augustus Tippetson, who divided his time and attentions between the Countess of Trimmerstone and the grand-daughter of old John Martindale. What points of resemblance there were between these two ladies is not easy to say. Tippetson, however, thought much of rank: it was so great an honor to be intimate with a countess. Every body said that Tippetson was too intimate with the Countess, and another every body said that he was going to be married to Clara Rivolta.
Our readers must have observed that we are in general tolerably candid. But sometimes we do find ourselves glowing with an indignation not easily expressed, and feeling a contempt, for the conveyance of which no ordinary terms or allowed language will suffice. This contempt and this indignation do we now feel for that most execrable fribble, for that most attenuated shred of a dandikin, Henry Augustus Tippetson. Singleton Sloper is a lazy, ignorant lob, and Dr. Crack is a conceited puppy; but in neither of these two do we discern any thing at all equivalent in moral turpitude to that effeminate, that more than unmanly, that almost inhuman selfishness that disgraces, or rather constitutes, the character of Tippetson. This young gentleman had learned by rote the common places of polished society, and he played them off with a vile, cunning dexterity on the simple Clara Rivolta, till she was almost deceived as to his character. Her mind had been injured, though unintentionally, by the trumpery sentimentality of Miss Henderson’s foolish correspondence. The circumstances, also, of Mr. Martindale’s oddness of character, of Signora Rivolta’s retired habits, and of the Colonel’s general indifference to every thing, allowed to Clara but little opportunity of seeing or learning the world and its moral elements.
Markham now but seldom paid his visits. When he did, he was sure to find Tippetson there before him, or soon after he entered the house; and such was the cunning and craftiness of that young fox, that, whenever Markham was present, he contrived to pay such attentions as might corroborate to his eye the report of an engagement, and yet such as Clara could not pointedly or freezingly repel. To Markham, therefore, it seemed almost demonstrated that there subsisted an implicit engagement or understanding between the two; and as Markham saw in Tippetson nothing but the perfumed fop, and was not aware of his dirty cunning, he began to fancy that he had given Clara credit for more discernment than she possessed, when she could tolerate and be pleased with the attentions of such an unfurnished blockhead.
The days passed away to Clara very heavily. There was but little comfort to her in life, for there was little satisfaction in her situation. Without exactly knowing it, she missed the intelligent conversation of Markham, which was but imperfectly supplied by the common-place prate of Tippetson. She did not feel that she loved Markham, or that she hated Tippetson; but her feeling was that of dissatisfaction with herself. It was not a feeling of moral pain, but of moral uneasiness. There was nothing in amusement that amused her, and there was nothing in pleasure that pleased her. Her mother was intelligent and parentally kind; but there was in the construction of her mother’s mind that which rendered it unfit for a dexterous and accommodating sympathy with hers. Her mother had all the wisdom of a Mentor, but could not lay aside the majesty of a Minerva. It is a painful and disagreeable state of being, when a soul of natural and ardent sensibility has had its feelings wrongly excited and improperly directed, and when, from the disappointment which naturally results from this, it is beginning to settle down into the coldness of apathy and indifference. This is a condition in which multitudes have been placed; and shame be the portion of those who have placed them therein. “In the transition of this bitter hour” the strength of the mind is tried, and the destiny for life is decided.
Clara Rivolta was at this time in such state of mind, that had Tippetson made an offer of his hand, and had her parents approved it, she would have accepted the offer. And on the other hand, had Markham proposed to her, and had her parents expressed the slightest opposition, she would without any painful effort have refused him. To her mother’s mental discernment and strength of character was she indebted for the prevention of the first of these evils. Tippetson saw, as we have said above, that Signora Rivolta knew him, and he was therefore well aware that he could not have any hope of obtaining Clara’s hand till he had gained her affections, and had become essential to her happiness. How soon that was likely to take place is not easy to say. For greater coxcombs than he have been loved by women in other respects sensible and rational.
The mind of Tippetson, if such expression be consistent, was of such a nature as to be totally unable to exist without some stimulus, and yet absolutely without power to frame amusement or employment for itself. He had an ambition, but not a laborious ambition; it was composed of and impelled by trick and artifice. He could only ascend by creeping; and he found it easier to distinguish himself by singularity than by strength, to attract attention by eccentricity than to gain notice by excellence. He had been for a long while Clara’s companion. By the sufferance of the odd old gentleman, Mr. John Martindale, he had been in the habit of considering and finding himself at home at their house. He had never so far committed himself as to give Clara an opportunity of refusing him, nor had his behaviour to her been such as she could at all take notice of. There was nothing in his manner which demanded an explanation; and had he been asked what were his intentions, he could have replied that no one had any right to ask such a question from any part of his conduct. In the same manner as he deported himself towards Clara Rivolta did he, considering the different circumstances of the parties, behave towards the Countess of Trimmerstone. There was, however, this difference in the two cases; viz. that while his attentions were indifferent to the former, they were manifestly agreeable to the latter. In his company Clara was grave and silent, but Lady Trimmerstone cheerful and loquacious. Her ladyship’s ignorance attributed to the young gentleman a high degree of fashionable and scientific knowledge. Few were the Countess’s friends and intimates among persons of real consequence in society. Her parties were as numerously attended as need be, and the report of them looked as well in the Morning Post as the record of any other congregation of the superfine. But though many were her visitors, few were her friends. The cards which announced calls did not bear the names of those with whom she was personally intimate; and if by any accident she met any of the number, their chilling, freezing formality kept her at a mighty distance from them; and so far as acquaintance went, her intimacy with them was no more than if she had been presented at the court of the Emperor of China: she had an audience, but not any understanding of the party. We have, in the course of this narrative, mentioned it as a misfortune that Clara Rivolta had a female friend. We may here state that it was a misfortune that the Countess of Trimmerstone had not a female friend; for the Dowager Lady Martindale had taken herself quite out of the world, and had gone to reside at a distance from town, that she might give her undivided attention to her family. Of her eldest son she had long ceased to have any hopes; and of her daughter-in-law such was her opinion, that she was happy in any excuse to avoid her society.