Tales and Novels Volume V Part 25

In answer to this letter, she received a few lines from Mr. Elmour, requesting to see her before she should go to town: accordingly upon her return to York, she went to Elmour Grove to take leave of her friends.

She was under some anxiety, but resolved to carry it off with that ease, or affectation of ease, which she had learnt during her six weeks'

apprentices.h.i.+p to a fine lady at Harrowgate. She was surprised that no Frederick appeared to greet her arrival; the servant showed her into Mr.

Elmour's study. The good old gentleman received her with that proud sort of politeness, which was always the sign, and the only sign, of his being displeased.

"You will excuse me, Miss Turnbull," said he, "for giving you the trouble of coming here; it was my business to have waited on you, but I have been so far unwell lately, that it was not in my power to leave home; and these are papers," continued he, "which I thought it my duty to deliver into your own hands."

Whilst Mr. Elmour was tying up these papers, and writing upon them, Almeria began two sentences with "I hope," and "I am afraid," without in the least knowing what she hoped or feared. She was not yet sufficiently perfect in the part of a fine lady to play it well. Mr. Elmour looked up from his writing with an air of grave attention when she began to speak, but after waiting in vain for an intelligible sentence, he proceeded.

"You have judged very wisely for me, Miss Turnbull, in relieving my declining years from the fatigue of business: no man understands the management or the value of money better than Sir Thomas Stock, and you could not, madam, in this point of view, have chosen a more proper guardian."

Almeria said, "that she hoped Mr. Elmour would always permit her to consider him as her best friend, to whose advice she should have recourse in preference to that of any person upon earth;" recovering her a.s.surance as she went on speaking, and recollecting some of the hints Lady Stock had given her, about the envy and jealousy of the Elmours, and of their scheme of monopolizing her fortune; she added a few commonplace phrases about respectability--grat.i.tude--and great obligations--then gave a glance at Lady Stock's handsome carriage, which was waiting at the door--then asked for Miss Elmour--and hoped she should not be so unfortunate as to miss seeing her before she left the country, as she came on purpose to take leave of her--then looked at her watch:--but all this was said and done with the awkwardness of a novice in the art of giving herself airs. Mr. Elmour, without being in the least irritated by her manner, was all the time considering how he could communicate, with the least possible pain, what he had further to say--"You speak of me, Miss Turnbull, as of one of your guardians, in the letter I had the favour of receiving from you a few days ago," said he; "but you must excuse me for declining that honour. Circ.u.mstances have altered materially since I first undertook the management of your affairs, and my future interference, or perhaps even my advice, might not appear as disinterested as formerly."

Miss Turnbull here interrupted him with an exclamation of astonishment, and made many protestations of entire dependence upon his disinterested friends.h.i.+p. He waited with proud patience till she had finished her eulogium.

"How far the generous extent of your confidence, madam, reaches, or may hereafter reach," said he, "must be tried by others, not by me--nor yet by my son."

Almeria changed colour.

"He has left it to me, madam, to do that for him, which perhaps he feared he might not have sufficient resolution to do for himself--to return to you these letters and this picture; and to a.s.sure you that he considers you as entirely at liberty to form any connexion that may be suited to your present views and circ.u.mstances."

Mr. Elmour put into her hand a packet of her own letters to Frederick, and a miniature picture of herself, which she had formerly given to her lover. This was an unexpected stroke. His generosity--his firmness of character--the idea of losing him for ever--all rushed upon her mind at once.

Artificial manners vanish the moment the natural pa.s.sions are touched.

Almeria clasped her hands in an agony of grief, and exclaimed, "Is he gone? gone for ever?--I have deserved it!"--The letters and picture fell from her hand, and she sunk back quite overpowered. When she recovered, she found herself in the open air on a seat under Mr. Elmour's study windows, and Ellen beside her.

"Pity, forgive, and advise me, my dear, my best, my only real friend,"

said Almeria: "never did I want your advice so much as at this moment."

"You shall have it, then, without reserve," said Ellen, "and without fear that it should be attributed to any unworthy motive. I could almost as soon wish for my brother's death as desire to see him united to any woman, let her beauty and accomplishments be what they might, who had a mean or frivolous character, such as could consider money as the greatest good, or dissipation as the prime object of life. I am firmly persuaded, my dear Almeria, that however you may be dazzled by the first view of what is called fas.h.i.+onable life, you will soon see things as they really are, and that you will return to your former tastes and feelings."

"Oh! I am, I am returned to them!" cried Almeria; "I will write directly to Lady Stock and to Sir Thomas, to tell them that I have changed my mind--only prevail upon your father to be my guardian."

"That is out of my power," said Ellen; "and I think that it is much better you should be as you are, left completely at liberty, and entirely independent of us. I advise you, Almeria, to persist in your scheme of spending the ensuing winter in town with Lady Stock--then you will have an opportunity of comparing your own different feelings, and of determining what things are essential to your happiness. If you should find that the triumphs of fas.h.i.+on delight you more than the pleasures of domestic life; pursue them--your fortune will put it in your power; you will break no engagements; and you will have no reproaches to fear from us. On the contrary, if you find that your happiness depends upon friends.h.i.+p and love, and that the life we formerly led together is that which you prefer, you will return to Elmour Grove, to your friend and your lover, and your choice will not be that of romance, but of reason."

It was with difficulty that Almeria, in her present fit of enthusiasm, could be brought to listen to sober sense and true friends.h.i.+p. Her parting from Ellen and Mr. Elmour cost her many tears, and she returned to her fas.h.i.+onable friend with swollen eyes and a heavy heart. Her sorrow, however, was soon forgotten in the bustle and novelty of a new situation. Upon her arrival in London, fresh trains of ideas were quickly forced upon her mind, which were as dissimilar as possible from those a.s.sociated with love, friends.h.i.+p, and Elmour Grove. At Sir Thomas Stock's, every thing she saw and heard served to remind, or rather to convince her, of the opulence of the owner of the house. Here every object was estimated, not for its beauty or elegance, but by its costliness. Money was the grand criterion, by which the worth of animate and inanimate objects was alike decided. In this society, the wors.h.i.+p of the golden idol was avowed without shame or mystery; and all who did not bow the knee to it were considered as hypocrites or fools. Our heroine, possessed of two hundred thousand pounds, could not fail to have a large share of incense--every thing she said, or looked, was applauded in Sir Thomas Stock's family; and she would have found admiration delightful, if she had not suspected that her fortune alone ent.i.tled her to all this applause. This was rather a mortifying reflection. By degrees, however, her delicacy on this subject abated; she learned philosophically to consider her fortune a thing so immediately a.s.sociated with herself as to form a part of her personal merit. Upon this principle, she soon became vain of her wealth, and she was led to overrate the consequence that riches bestow on their possessor.

In a capital city, such numerous claimants for distinction appear, with beauty, birth, wit, fas.h.i.+on, or wealth to support their pretensions, that the vanity of an individual, however clamorous, is immediately silenced, if not humbled. When Miss Turnbull went into public, she was surprised by the discovery of her own, nay even of Lady Stock's insignificance. At York her ladys.h.i.+p was considered as a personage high as human veneration could look; but in London she was lost in a crowd of fellow-mortals.

It is, perhaps, from this sense of humiliation, that individuals combine together, to obtain by their union that importance and self-complacency, which separately they could never enjoy. Miss Turnbull observed, that a numerous acquaintance was essential to those who lived much in public--that the number of bows and curtsies, and the consequence of the persons by whom they are given or received, is the measure of merit and happiness. Nothing can be more melancholy than most places of public amus.e.m.e.nt, to those who are strangers to the crowds which fill them.

Few people have such strength of mind as to be indifferent to the opinions of numbers, even considered merely as numbers; hence those who live in crowds, in fact surrender the power of thinking for themselves, either in trifles or matters of consequence. Our heroine had imagined before she came to town, that Lady Stock moved in the highest circle of fas.h.i.+on; but she soon perceived that many of the people of rank who visited her ladys.h.i.+p, and who partook of her sumptuous entertainments, thought they condescended extremely whilst they paid this homage to wealth.

One night at the Opera, Almeria happened to be seated in the next box to Lady Bradstone, a proud woman of high family, who considered all whose genealogy could not vie in antiquity with her own as upstarts that ought to be kept down. Her ladys.h.i.+p, either not knowing or not caring who was in the next box to her, began to ridicule an entertainment which had been given a few days before by Lady Stock. From her entertainment, the transition was easy to her character, and to that of her whole family.

Young Stock was p.r.o.nounced to have all the purse-proud self-sufficiency of a banker, and all the pertness of a clerk; even his bow seemed as if it came from behind the counter.

Till this moment Almeria had at least permitted, if not encouraged, this gentleman's a.s.siduities; for she had hitherto seen him only in company where he had been admired: his attentions, therefore, had been flattering to her vanity. But things now began to appear in quite a different light: she saw Mr. Stock in the point of view in which Lady Bradstone placed him; and felt that she might be degraded, but could not be elevated, in the ranks of fas.h.i.+on by such an admirer. She began to wish that she was not so intimately connected with a family which was ridiculed for want of taste, and whose wealth, as she now suspected, was their only ticket of admittance into the society of the truly elegant.

In the land of fas.h.i.+on, "Alps on Alps arise;" and no sooner has the votary reached the summit of one weary ascent than another appears higher still and more difficult of attainment. Our heroine now became discontented in that situation, which but a few months before had been the grand object of her ambition.

In the mean time, as Mr. Stock had not overheard Lady Bradstone's conversation at the Opera, and as he had a comfortably good opinion of himself, he was sure that he was making a rapid progress in the lady's favour. He had of late seldom heard her mention any of her friends at Elmour Grove; and he was convinced that her romantic attachment to Frederick must have been conquered by his own superior address. Her fortune was fully as agreeable to him as to his money-making father: the only difference between them was, that he loved to squander, and his father to h.o.a.rd gold. Extravagance frequently produces premature avarice--young Mr. Stock calculated Miss Turnbull's fortune, weighed it against that of every other young lady within the sphere of his attractions, found the balance in her favour by some thousands, made his proposal in form, and could not recover his astonishment, when he found himself in form rejected. Sir Thomas and Lady Stock used all their influence in his favour, but in vain: they concluded that Almeria's pa.s.sion for Frederick Elmour was the cause of this refusal; and they directed their arguments against the folly of marrying for love. Our heroine was at this time more in danger of the folly of marrying for fas.h.i.+on: not that she had fixed her fancy upon any man of fas.h.i.+on in particular, but she had formed an exalted idea of the whole species--and she regretted that Frederick was not in that magic circle in which all her hopes of happiness now centred. She wrote kind letters to Miss Elmour, but each letter was written with greater difficulty than the preceding; for she had lost all interest in the occupations which formerly were so delightful. She and Ellen had now few ideas in common; and her epistles dwindled into apologies for long silence--promises of being a better correspondent in future--reasons for breaking these promises--hopes of pardon, &c. Ellen, however, continued steady in her belief that her friend would at last prove worthy of her esteem, and of her brother's love. The rejection of Mr. Stock, which Almeria did not fail to mention, confirmed this favourable opinion.

When that gentleman was at length with some difficulty convinced that our heiress had decided against him, his manners and those of his family changed towards her from the extreme of civility to that of rudeness--they spoke of her as a coquette and a jilt, and a person who gave herself very extraordinary airs. She was vexed, and alarmed--and in her first confusion and distress thought of retreating to her friends at Elmour Grove. She wrote a folio sheet to Ellen, unlike her late apologetic epistles, full of the feelings of her heart, and of a warm invective against fas.h.i.+onable and interested _friends_. After a narrative of her quarrel with the Stocks, she declared that she would immediately quit her London acquaintance and return to her best friend.

But the very day after she had despatched this letter she changed her mind, and formed a new idea of a _best friend_.

One morning she went with Lady Stock to a bookseller's, whose shop served as a fas.h.i.+onable _lounge_. Her ladys.h.i.+p valued books, like all other things, in proportion to the money which they cost: she had no taste for literature, but a great fancy for acc.u.mulating the most expensive publications, which she displayed ostentatiously as part of the costly furniture of her house. Whilst she was looking over some literary luxuries, rich in all the elegance of hot-press and vellum binding, Lady Bradstone and a party of her friends came into the room.

She immediately attracted and engrossed the attention of all present.

Lady Stock turned over the leaves of the fine books, and asked their prices; but she had the mortification to perceive that she was an object rather of derision than of admiration to the new comers. None are so easily put out of countenance by airs, as those who are most apt to play them off on their inferiors. Lady Stock bit her lips in evident embarra.s.sment, and the awkwardness of her distress increased the confidence and triumph of her adversary. She had some time before provoked Lady Bradstone by giving a concert in opposition to one of hers, and by engaging, at an enormous expense, a celebrated performer for _her night_: hostilities had thenceforward been renewed at every convenient opportunity, by the contending fair ones. Lady Bradstone now took occasion loudly to lament her extreme poverty; and she put this question to all her party, whether if they had it in their power they should prefer having more money than taste, or more taste than money?

They were going to decide _par acclamation_, but her ladys.h.i.+p insisted upon taking each vote separately, because this prolonged the torments of her rival, who heard the preference of taste to money reiterated half a dozen times over, with the most provoking variety of insulting emphasis.

Almeria's sufferings during this scene were far more poignant than those of the person against whom the ridicule was aimed: not that she pitied Lady Stock--no; she would have rejoiced to have seen her humbled to the dust, if she could have escaped all share in her mortification: but as she appeared as her ladys.h.i.+p's acquaintance, she apprehended that she might be mistaken for her friend. An opportunity offered of marking the difference. The bookseller asked Lady Stock if she chose to put her name down in a list of subscribers to a new work. The book, she saw, was to be dedicated to Lady Bradstone--and that was sufficient to decide her against it.

She declared that she never supported such things either by her name or her money; that for her part she was no politician; that she thought female patriots were absurd and odious; and that she was glad none of that description were of her acquaintance.

All this was plainly directed against Lady Bradstone, who was a zealous patriot: her ladys.h.i.+p retorted, by some reflections equally keen, but rather more politely expressed, each party addressing their inuendoes to the bookseller, who afraid to disoblige either the rich or the fas.h.i.+onable, preserved, as much as it was in the power of his muscles, a perfectly neutral countenance. At last, in order to relieve himself from his constraint, he betook himself to count the subscribers, and Miss Turnbull seized this moment to desire that her name might be added to the list. Lady Bradstone's eyes were immediately fixed upon her with complacency--Lady Stock's flashed fire. Regardless of their fire, Almeria coolly added, "Twelve copies, sir, if you please."

"Twelve copies, Miss Turnbull, at a guinea a-piece! Lord bless me, do you know what you are about, my dear?" said Lady Stock.

"Perfectly well," replied our heroine; "I think twelve guineas, or twenty times that sum, would be well bestowed in a.s.serting independence of sentiment, which I understand is the object of this work."

A whisper from Lady Bradstone to one of the shopmen, of "Who is that charming woman?" gave our heroine courage to p.r.o.nounce these words. Lady Stock in great displeasure walked to her carriage, saying, "You are to consider what you will do with your twelve copies, Miss Turnbull; for I am convinced your guardian will never let such a parcel of inflammatory trash into his house: he admires female patriotism, and _all that sort of thing_, as little as I do."

The rudeness of this speech did not disconcert Almeria; for she was fortified by the consciousness that she had gained her point with Lady Bradstone. This lady piqued herself upon showing her preferences and aversions with equal enthusiasm and _eclat_. She declared before a large company at dinner, that notwithstanding Miss Turnbull was _n.o.body_ by birth, she had made herself _somebody_ by spirit; and that for her part, she should, contrary to her general principle, which she confessed was to keep a strong line of demarcation between n.o.bility and mobility, take a pride in bringing forward merit even in the shape of a Yorks.h.i.+re grazier's daughter.

Pursuant to this gracious declaration, she empowered a common friend to introduce Miss Turnbull to her, on the first opportunity. When people really wish to become acquainted with each other, opportunities are easily and quickly found. The parties met, to their mutual satisfaction, that very night in the waiting-room of the Opera-house, and conversed more in five minutes than people in town usually converse in five months or years, when it is their wish to keep on a merely civil footing. But this was not the footing on which Miss Turnbull desired to be with Lady Bradstone; she took the utmost pains to please, and succeeded. She owed her success chiefly to the dexterous manner in which she manifested her contempt for her late dear friend Lady Stock. Her having refused an alliance with the family was much in her favour; her ladys.h.i.+p admired her spirit, but little suspected that the contemptuous manner in which she had once been overheard to speak of this _banker's son_ was the real and immediate cause of his rejection. The phrase--"_only_ Stock the banker's son"--decided his fate: so much may be done by the mere emphasis on a single word from fas.h.i.+onable lips! Our heroine managed with considerable address in bringing her quarrel with one friend to a crisis at the moment when another was ready to receive her. An ostensible pretext is never wanting to those who are resolved on war.

The book to which Miss Turnbull had subscribed was the pretext upon this occasion: nothing could be more indifferent to her than politics; but Lady Bradstone's party and principles were to be defended at all events.

Sir Thomas Stock protested that he might be hurt essentially in the opinion of those for whom he had the highest consideration if a young lady living under his roof, known to be his ward, and probably presumed to be guided by him, should put her name as subscriber to twelve copies of a work patronized by Lady Bradstone. "The mere circ.u.mstance of its being dedicated to her ladys.h.i.+p showed what it _must_ be," Sir Thomas observed; and he made it a point with Miss Turnbull that she should withdraw her name from the subscription. This Miss Turnbull absolutely refused. Lady Bradstone was her confidante upon the occasion, and half-a-dozen notes a day pa.s.sed between them: at length the affair was brought to the long wished-for crisis. Lady Bradstone invited Miss Turnbull to her house, feeling herself, as she said, bound in honour to _bear her out_ in a dispute of which she had been the original occasion.

In this lady's society Almeria found the style of dress, manners, and conversation, different from what she had seen at Lady Stock's: she had without difficulty imitated the affectation of Lady Stock, but there was an ease in the decided tone of Lady Bradstone which could not be so easily acquired. Having lived from her infancy in the best company, there was no heterogeneous mixture in her manners; and the consciousness of this gave an habitual air of security to her words, looks, and motions. Lady Stock seemed forced to beg or buy--Lady Bradstone accustomed to command or levy admiration as her rightful tribute. The pride of Lady Bradstone was uniformly resolute, and successful; the insolence of Lady Stock, if it were opposed, became cowardly and ridiculous. Lady Bradstone seemed to have, on all occasions, an instinctive sense of what a person of fas.h.i.+on ought to do; Lady Stock, notwithstanding her bravadoing air, was frequently perplexed, and anxious, and therefore awkward: she had always recourse to precedents.

"Lady P---- said so, or Lady Q---- did so; Lady G---- wore this, or Lady H---- was there, and therefore I am sure it is proper."

On the contrary, Lady Bradstone never quoted authorities, but presumed that she was a precedent for others. The one was eager to follow, the other determined to lead, the fas.h.i.+on.

Our heroine, who was by no means deficient in penetration, and whose whole attention was now given to the study of externals, quickly perceived these shades of difference between her late and her present friend. She remarked, in particular, that she found herself much more at ease in Lady Bradstone's society. Her ladys.h.i.+p's pride was not so offensive as Lady Stock's vanity: secure of her own superiority, Lady Bradstone did not want to measure herself every instant with inferiors.

She treated Almeria as her equal in every respect; and in setting her right in points of fas.h.i.+on never seemed to triumph, but to consider her own knowledge as a necessary consequence of the life she had led from her infancy. With a sort of proud generosity, she always considered those whom she honoured with her friends.h.i.+p as thenceforward ent.i.tled to all the advantages of her own situation, and to all the respect due to a part of herself. She now always used the word _we_, with peculiar emphasis, in speaking of Miss Turnbull and herself. This was a signal perfectly well understood by her acquaintance. Almeria was received every where with the most distinguished attention; and she was delighted, and absolutely intoxicated, with her sudden rise in the world of fas.h.i.+on. She found that her former acquaintance at Lady Stock's were extremely ambitious of claiming an intimacy; but this could not be done.

Miss Turnbull had now acquired, by practice, the power of looking at people without seeming to see them, and of forgetting those with whom she was perfectly well acquainted. Her opinion of her own consequence was much raised by the court that was paid to her by several young men of fas.h.i.+on, who thought it expedient to marry two hundred thousand pounds.

How quickly ambition extends her views! Our heroine's highest object had lately been to form an alliance with a man of fas.h.i.+on; she had now three fas.h.i.+onable admirers in her train, but though she was flattered by their attention, she had not the least inclination to decide in favour of any of these candidates. The only young man of her present acquaintance who seemed to be out of the reach of her power was Lord Bradstone; and upon the conquest of his heart, or rather his pride, her fancy was fixed.

He had all his mother's family pride, and he had been taught by her to expect an alliance with a daughter of one of the first n.o.ble families in England. The possibility of his marrying a grazier's daughter had never entered into his or Lady Bradstone's thoughts: they saw, indeed, every day, examples, among the first n.o.bility, of such matches; but they saw them with contempt. Almeria knew this, and yet she did not despair of success: nor was she wrong in her calculations. Lord Bradstone was fond of high play--his taste for gaming soon reduced him to distress--his guardian was enraged, and absolutely refused to pay his lords.h.i.+p's debts. What was to be done?--He must extricate himself from his difficulties by marrying some rich heiress. Miss Turnbull was the heiress nearest at hand. Lord Bradstone's pride was compelled to yield to his interest, and he resolved to pay his addresses to the Yorks.h.i.+re grazier's daughter: but he knew that his mother would be indignant at this idea; and he therefore determined to proceed cautiously, and to a.s.sure himself of the young lady's approbation before he should brave his mother's anger.

The winter was now pa.s.sed, and her ladys.h.i.+p invited Miss Turnbull to accompany her to Cheltenham;--her son was of the party. Our heroine plainly understood his intentions, and her friends.h.i.+p for Lady Bradstone did not prevent her from favouring his views: neither was she deterred by her knowledge of his lords.h.i.+p's taste for play, so ardent was her desire for a coronet. The recollection of Frederick Elmour sometimes crossed her imagination, and struck her heart; but the pang was soon over, and she settled her conscience by the reflection, that she was not, in the least degree, bound in honour to him--he had set her entirely at liberty, and could not complain of her conduct. As to Ellen--every day she determined to write to her, and every day she put it off till to-morrow. At last she was saved the trouble of making and breaking any more resolutions: for one evening, as she was walking with Lady Bradstone and her n.o.ble admirer, in the public walk, she met Miss Elmour and her brother.

She accosted Ellen with great eagerness; but it was plain to her friend's discerning eyes that her joy was affected. After repeating several times that she was quite delighted at this unexpected meeting, she ran on with a number of commonplace questions, commencing and concluding with, "When did you come?--How long do you stay?--Where do you lodge?"

"We have been here about a fortnight, and I believe we shall stay about a month longer."

"Indeed!--A month!--So long!--How fortunate!--But where are you?"

"We lodge a little out of the town, on the road to Cirencester."

"How unfortunate!--We are at such a shocking distance!--I'm with Lady Bradstone--a most charming woman!--Whom are you with?"