Tales and Novels Volume VI Part 4

"That's my sweet Grace!" cried Lady Clonbrony. "Oh! she knows how to manage these men--not one of them can resist her!"

Lord Colambre, for his part, did not deny the truth of this a.s.sertion.

"Grace," added Lady Clonbrony, "make him promise to do as we would have him."

"No--promises are dangerous things to ask or to give," said Grace.

"Men and naughty children never make promises, especially promises to be good, without longing to break them the next minute."

"Well, at least, child, persuade him, I charge you, to make my gala go off well. That's the first thing we ought to think of now. Ring the bell!--And all heads and hands I put in requisition for the gala."

CHAPTER III.

The opening of her gala, the display of her splendid reception rooms, the Turkish tent, the Alhambra, the paG.o.da, formed a proud moment to Lady Clonbrony. Much did she enjoy, and much too naturally, notwithstanding all her efforts to be stiff and stately, much too naturally did she show her enjoyment of the surprise excited in some and affected by others on their first entrance.

One young, very young lady expressed her astonishment so audibly as to attract the notice of all the bystanders. Lady Clonbrony, delighted, seized both her hands, shook them, and laughed heartily; then, as the young lady with her party pa.s.sed on, her ladys.h.i.+p recovered herself, drew up her head, and said to the company near her, "Poor thing! I hope I covered her little _navete_ properly. How NEW she must be!"

Then with well practised dignity, and half subdued self-complacency of aspect, her ladys.h.i.+p went gliding about--most importantly busy, introducing my lady _this_ to the sphynx candelabra, and my lady _that_ to the Trebisond trellice; placing some delightfully for the perspective of the Alhambra; establis.h.i.+ng others quite to her satisfaction on seraglio ottomans; and honouring others with a seat under the Statira canopy. Receiving and answering compliments from successive crowds of select friends, imagining herself the mirror of fas.h.i.+on, and the admiration of the whole world, Lady Clonbrony was, for her hour, as happy certainly as ever woman was in similar circ.u.mstances.

Her son looked at her, and wished that this happiness could last.

Naturally inclined to sympathy, Lord Colambre reproached himself for not feeling as gay at this instant as the occasion required. But the festive scene, the blazing lights, the "universal hubbub," failed to raise his spirits. As a dead weight upon them hung the remembrance of Mordicai's denunciations; and, through the midst of this eastern magnificence, this unbounded profusion, he thought he saw future domestic misery and ruin to those he loved best in the world.

The only object present on which his eye rested with pleasure was Grace Nugent. Beautiful--in elegant and dignified simplicity-- thoughtless of herself--yet with a look of thought, and with an air of melancholy, which accorded exactly with his own feelings, and which he believed to arise from the same reflections that had pa.s.sed in his own mind.

"Miss Broadhurst, Colambre! all the Broadhursts!" said his mother, wakening him as she pa.s.sed by to receive them as they entered.

Miss Broadhurst appeared, plainly dressed--plainly even to singularity--without any diamonds or ornament.

"Brought Philippa to you, my dear Lady Clonbrony, this figure, rather than not bring her at all," said puffing Mrs. Broadhurst, "and had all the difficulty in the world to get her out at all, and now I've promised she shall stay but half an hour. Sore throat--terrible cold she took in the morning. I'll swear for her, she'd not have come for any one but you."

The young lady did not seem inclined to swear, or even to say this for herself; she stood wonderfully unconcerned and pa.s.sive, with an expression of humour lurking in her eyes, and about the corners of her mouth; whilst Lady Clonbrony was "shocked," and "gratified,"

and "concerned," and "flattered;" and whilst every body was hoping, and fearing, and busying themselves about her, "Miss Broadhurst, you'd better sit here!"--"Oh, for heaven's sake! Miss Broadhurst, not there!" "Miss Broadhurst, if you'll take my opinion," and "Miss Broadhurst, if I may advise--."

"Grace Nugent!" cried Lady Clonbrony. "Miss Broadhurst always listens to you. Do, my dear, persuade Miss Broadhurst to take care of herself, and let us take her to the inner little paG.o.da, where she can be so warm and so retired--the very thing for an invalid--Colambre! pioneer the way for us, for the crowd's immense."

Lady Anne and Lady Catherine H----, Lady Langdale's daughters, were at this time leaning on Miss Nugent's arm, and moved along with this party to the inner paG.o.da. There were to be cards in one room, music in another, dancing in a third, and in this little room there were prints and chess-boards, &c.

"Here you will be quite to yourselves," said Lady Clonbrony; "let me establish you comfortably in this, which I call my sanctuary--my _snuggery_--Colambre, that little table!--Miss Broadhurst, you play chess?--Colambre, you'll play with Miss Broadhurst--"

"I thank your ladys.h.i.+p," said Miss Broadhurst, "but I know nothing of chess but the moves: Lady Catherine, you will play, and I will look on."

Miss Broadhurst drew her seat to the fire; Lady Catherine sat down to play with Lord Colambre: Lady Clonbrony withdrew, again recommending Miss Broadhurst to Grace Nugent's care. After some commonplace conversation, Lady Anne H----, looking at the company in the adjoining apartment, asked her sister how old Miss Somebody was who pa.s.sed by. This led to reflections upon the comparative age and youthful appearance of several of their acquaintance, and upon the care with which mothers concealed the age of their daughters. Glances pa.s.sed between Lady Catherine and Lady Anne.

"For my part," said Miss Broadhurst, "my mother would labour that point of secrecy in vain for me; for I am willing to tell my age, even if my face did not tell it for me, to all whom it may concern--I am pa.s.sed three-and-twenty--shall be four-and-twenty the fifth of next July."

"Three-and-twenty!--Bless me!--I thought you were not twenty!" cried Lady Anne.

"Four-and-twenty next July!--impossible!" cried Lady Catherine.

"Very possible," said Miss Broadhurst, quite unconcerned.

"Now, Lord Colambre, would you believe it? Can you believe it?" asked Lady Catherine.

"Yes, he can," said Miss Broadhurst. "Don't you see that he believes it as firmly as you and I do? Why should you force his lords.h.i.+p to pay a compliment contrary to his better judgment, or extort a smile from him under false pretences? I am sure he sees that you, and I trust he perceives that I, do not think the worse of him for this."

Lord Colambre smiled now without any false pretence; and, relieved at once from all apprehension of her joining in his mother's views, or of her expecting particular attention from him, he became at ease with Miss Broadhurst, showed a desire to converse with her, and listened eagerly to what she said. He recollected that Miss Nugent had told him, that this young lady had no common character; and, neglecting his move at chess, he looked up at Miss Nugent, as much as to say, "_Draw her out_, pray."

But Grace was too good a friend to comply with that request; she left Miss Broadhurst to unfold her own character.

"It is your move, my lord," said Lady Catherine.

"I beg your ladys.h.i.+p's pardon--"

"Are not these rooms beautiful, Miss Broadhurst?" said Lady Catherine, determined, if possible, to turn the conversation into a commonplace, safe channel; for she had just felt, what most of Miss Broadhurst's acquaintance had in their turn felt, that she had an odd way of startling people, by setting their own secret little motives suddenly before them.

"Are not these rooms beautiful?"

"Beautiful!--Certainly."

The beauty of the rooms would have answered Lady Catherine's purpose for some time, had not Lady Anne imprudently brought the conversation back again to Miss Broadhurst.

"Do you know, Miss Broadhurst," said she, "that if I had fifty sore throats, I could not have refrained from my diamonds on this GALA night; and such diamonds as you have! Now, really, I could not believe you to be the same person we saw blazing at the opera the other night!"

"Really! could not you, Lady Anne? That is the very thing that entertains me. I only wish that I could lay aside my fortune sometimes, as well as my diamonds, and see how few people would know me then. Might not I, Grace, by the golden rule, which, next to practice, is the best rule in the world, calculate and answer that question?"

"I am persuaded," said Lord Colambre, "that Miss Broadhurst has friends on whom the experiment would make no difference."

"I am convinced of it," said Miss Broadhurst; "and that is what makes me tolerably happy, though I have the misfortune to be an heiress."

"That is the oddest speech," said Lady Anne. "Now I should so like to be a great heiress, and to have, like you, such thousands and thousands at command."

"And what can the thousands upon thousands do for me? Hearts, you know, Lady Anne, are to be won only by radiant eyes. Bought hearts your ladys.h.i.+p certainly would not recommend. They're such poor things--no wear at all. Turn them which way you will, you can make nothing of them."

"You've tried, then, have you?" said Lady Catherine.

"To my cost.--Very nearly taken in by them half a dozen times; for they are brought to me by dozens; and they are so made up for sale, and the people do so swear to you that it's real, real love, and it looks so like it: and, if you stoop to examine it, you hear it pressed upon you by such elegant oaths.--By all that's lovely!--By all my hopes of happiness!--By your own charming self! Why, what can one do but look like a fool, and believe? for these men, at the time, all look so like gentlemen, that one cannot bring oneself flatly to tell them that they are cheats and swindlers, that they are perjuring their precious souls. Besides, to call a lover a perjured creature is to encourage him. He would have a right to complain if you went back after that."

"O dear! what a move was there!" cried Lady Catherine. "Miss Broadhurst is so entertaining to-night, notwithstanding her sore throat, that one can positively attend to nothing else. And she talks of love and lovers too with such _connoissance de fait_--counts her lovers by dozens, tied up in true lovers' knots!"

"Lovers!--no, no! Did I say lovers?--suitors I should have said.

There's nothing less like a lover, a true lover, than a suitor, as all the world knows, ever since the days of Penelope. Dozens!--never had a lover in my life!--And fear, with much reason, I never shall have one to my mind."

"My lord, you've given up the game," cried Lady Catherine; "but you make no battle."

"It would be so vain to combat against your ladys.h.i.+p," said Lord Colambre, rising, and bowing politely to Lady Catherine, but turning the next instant to converse with Miss Broadhurst.