Tales and Novels Volume X Part 22

"The first in birth, the first in fame."

men distinguished in literature and science, in senatorial eloquence and statesmanlike abilities.

But in this party at Clarendon Park there were more of the literary and celebrated than without the presence of Lady Davenant could perhaps have been a.s.sembled, or perhaps would have been desired by the general and Lady Cecilia. Cecilia's beauty and grace were of all societies, and the general was glad for Lady Davenant's sake and proud for his own part, to receive these distinguished persons at his house.

Helen had seen some of them before at Cecilhurst and at the Deanery.

By her uncle's friends she was kindly recognised, by others of course politely noticed; but miserably would she have been disappointed and mortified, if she had expected to fix general attention, or excite general admiration. Past and gone for ever are the days, if ever they were, when a young lady, on her entrance into life, captivated by a glance, overthrew by the first word, and led in triumph her train of admirers. These things are not to be done now-a-days.

Yet even when unnoticed Helen was perfectly happy. Her expectations were more than gratified in seeing and in hearing these distinguished people, and she sat listening to their conversation in delightful enjoyment, without even wanting to have it seen how well she understood.

There is a precious moment for young people, if taken at the prime, when first introduced into society, yet not expected, not called upon to take a part in it, they, as standers by, may see not only all the play, but the characters of the players, and may learn more of life and of human nature in a few months, than afterwards in years, when they are themselves actors upon the stage of life, and become engrossed by their own parts. There is a time, before the pa.s.sions are awakened, when the understanding, with all the life of nature, fresh from all that education can do to develop and cultivate, is at once eager to observe and able to judge, for a brief s.p.a.ce blessed with the double advantages of youth and age. This time once gone is lost irreparably; and how often it is lost--in premature vanity, or premature dissipation!

Helen had been chiefly educated by a man, and a very sensible man, as Dean Stanley certainly was in all but money matters. Under his masculine care, while her mind had been brought forward on some points, it had been kept back on others, and while her understanding had been cultivated, it had been done without the aid of emulation or compet.i.tion; not by touching the springs of pride, but by opening sources of pure pleasure; and this pure pleasure she now enjoyed, grateful to that dear uncle. For the single inimitable grace of simplicity which she possessed, how many mothers, governesses, and young ladies themselves, willingly, when they see how much it charms, would too late exchange half the accomplishments, all the acquirements, so laboriously achieved!

Beauclerc, who had seen something of the London female world, was, both from his natural taste and from contrast, pleased with Helen's fresh and genuine character, and he sympathised with all her silent delight. He never interrupted her in her enthusiastic contemplation of the great stars, but he would now and then seize an interval of rest to compare her observations with his own; anxious to know whether she estimated their relative magnitude and distances as he did. These s.n.a.t.c.hed moments of comparison and proof of agreement in their observations, or the pleasure of examining the causes of their difference of opinion, enhanced the enjoyment of this brilliant fortnight; and not a cloud obscured the deep serene.

Notwithstanding all the ultra-refined nonsense Beauclerc had talked about his wish not to see remarkable persons, no one could enjoy it more, as Helen now perceived; and she saw also that he was considered as a man of promise among all these men of performance. But there were some, perhaps very slight things, which raised him still more in her mind, because they showed superiority of character. She observed his manner towards the general in this company, where he had himself the 'vantage ground--so different now from what it had been in the Old-Forest battle, when only man to man, ward to guardian. Before these distinguished persons there was a look--a tone of deference at once most affectionate and polite.

"It is so generous," said Lady Cecilia to Helen; "is not it?" and Helen agreed.

This brilliant fortnight ended too soon, as Helen thought, but Lady Cecilia had had quite enough of it. "They are all to go to-morrow morning, and I am not sorry for it," said she at night, as she threw herself into an arm-chair, in Helen's room; and, after having indulged in a refres.h.i.+ng yawn, she exclaimed, "Very delightful, very delightful!

as you say, Helen, it has all been; but I am not sure that I should not be very much tired if I had much more of it. Oh! yes, I admired them all amazingly, but then admiring all day long is excessively wearisome. The very att.i.tude of looking up fatigues both body and mind. Mamma is never tired, because she never has to look up; she can always look down, and that's so grand and so easy. She has no idea how the neck of my poor mind aches this minute; and my poor eyes! blasted with excess of light.

How yours have stood it so well, Helen, I cannot imagine! how much stronger they must be than mine. I must confess, that, without the relief of music now and then, and ecarte, and that quadrille, bad as it was, I should never have got through it to-night alive or awake. But,"

cried she, starting up in her chair, "do you know Horace Churchill stays to-morrow. Such a compliment from him to stay a day longer than he intended! And do you know what he says of your eyes, Helen?--that they are the best listeners he ever spoke to. I should warn you though, my dear, that he is something, and not a little, I believe, of a male coquette. Though he is not very young, but he well understands all the advantages of a careful toilette. He has, like that George Herbert in Queen Elizabeth's time, 'a genteel humour for dress.' He is handsome still, and his fine figure, and his fine feelings, and his fine fortune, have broken two or three hearts; nevertheless I am delighted that he stays, especially that he stays on your account."

"Upon my account!" exclaimed Helen. "Did not you see that, from the first day when Mr. Churchill had the misfortune to be placed beside me at dinner, he utterly despised me: he began to talk to me, indeed, but left his sentence unfinished, his good story untold, the instant he caught the eye of a grander auditor."

Lady Cecilia had seen this, and marvelled at a well-bred man so far forgetting himself in vanity; but this, she observed, was only the first day; he had afterwards changed his manner towards Helen completely.

"Yes, when he saw Lady Davenant thought me worth speaking to. But, after all, it was quite natural that he should not know well what to say to me. I am only a young lady. I acquit him of all peculiar rudeness to me, for I am sure Mr. Churchill really could not talk for only one insignificant hearer, could not bring out his good things, unless he felt secure of possessing the attention of the whole dinner-table, so I quite forgive him."

"After this curse of forgiveness, my dear Helen, I will wish you a good night," said Lady Cecilia, laughing; and she retired with a fear that there would not be jealousy enough between the gentlemen, or that Helen would not know how to play them one against another.

There is a pleasure in seeing a large party disperse; in staying behind when others go:--there is advantage as well as pleasure, which is felt by the timid, because they do not leave their characters behind them; and rejoiced in by the satirical, because the characters of the departed and departing are left behind, fair game for them. Of this advantage no one could be more sensible, no one availed himself of it with more prompt.i.tude and skill, than Mr. Churchill: for well he knew that though wit may fail, humour may not take--though even flattery may pall upon the sense, scandal, satire, and sarcasm, are resources never failing for the lowest capacities, and sometimes for the highest.

This morning, in the library at Clarendon Park, he looked out of the window at the departing guests, and, as each drove off, he gave to each his _coup de patte_. To Helen, to whom it was new, it was wonderful to see how each, even of those next in turn to go, enjoyed the demolition of those who were just gone; how, blind to fate, they laughed, applauded, and licked the hand just raised to strike themselves. Of the first who went--"Most respectable people," said Lady Cecilia; "a _bonne mere de famille_."

"Most respectable people!" repeated Horace--"most respectable people, old coach and all." And then, as another party drove off--"No fear of any thing truly respectable here."

"Now, Horace, how can you say so?--she is so amiable and so clever."

"So clever? only, perhaps, a thought too fond of English liberty and French dress. _Poissarde lien corfee_."

"_Poissarde!_ of one of the best born, best bred women in England!"

cried Lady Cecilia; "_bien coiffee_, I allow."

"Lady Cecilia is _si coiffee de sa belle amie_, that I see I must not say a word against her, till--the fas.h.i.+on changes. But, hark! I hear a voice I never wish to hear."

"Yet n.o.body is better worth hearing----"

"Oh! yes, the queen of the Blues--the Blue Devils!"

"Hus.h.!.+" cried the aide-de-camp, "she is coming in to take leave."

Then, as the queen of the Blue Devils entered, Mr. Churchill, in the most humbly respectful manner, begged--"My respects--I trust your grace will do me the favour--the justice to remember me to all your party who--do me the honour to bear me in mind--" then, as she left the room, he turned about and laughed.

"Oh! you sad, false man!" cried the lady next in turn to go. "I declare, Mr. Churchill, though I laugh, I am quite afraid to go off before you."

"Afraid! what could malice or envy itself find to say of your ladys.h.i.+p, _intacte_ as you are?--_Intacte!_" repeated he, as she drove off, "_intacte!_--a well chosen epithet, I flatter myself!"

"Yes, _intacte_--untouched--above the breath of slander," cried Lady Cecilia.

"I know it: so I say," replied Churchill: "fidelity that has stood all temptations--to which it has ever been exposed; and her husband is----"

"A near relation of mine," said Lady Cecilia. "I am not prudish as to scandal in general," continued she, laughing; "'a chicken, too, might do me good,' hut then the fox must not prey at home. No one ought to stand by and hear their own relations abused."

"A thousand pardons! I depended too much on the general maxim--that the nearer the bone the sweeter the slander."

"Nonsense!" said Lady Cecilia.

"I meant to say, the nearer the heart the dearer the blame. A cut against a first cousin may go wrong--but a bosom friend--oh! how I have succeeded against best friends; scolded all the while, of course, and called a monster. But there is Sir Stephen bowing to you." Then, as Lady Cecilia kissed her hand to him from the window, Churchill went on: "By the by, without any scandal, seriously I heard something--I was quite concerned--that he had been of late less in his study and more in the boudoir of ------. Surely it cannot be true!"

"Positively false," said Lady Cecilia.

"At every breath a reputation dies," said Beauclerc.

"'Pon my soul, that's true!" said the aide-de-camp. "Positively, hit or miss, Horace has been going on, firing away with his wit, pop, pop, pop!

till he has bagged--how many brace?"

Horace turned away from him contemptuously, and looked to see whereabouts Lady Davenant might be all this time.

CHAPTER XIV.

Lady Davenant was at the far end of the room engrossed, Churchill feared, by the newspaper; as he approached she laid it down, and said,--

"How scandalous some of these papers have become, but it is the fault of the taste of the age. 'Those who live to please, must please to live.'"

Horace was not sure whether he was cut or not, but he had the presence of mind not to look hurt. He drew nearer to Lady Davenant, seated himself, and taking up a book as if he was tired of folly, to which he had merely condescended, he sat and read, and then sat and thought, the book hanging from his hand.

The result of these profound thoughts he gave to the public, not to the aide-de-camp; no more of the little pop-gun pellets of wits--but now was brought out reason and philosophy. In a higher tone he now reviewed the literary, philosophical, and political world, with touches of La Bruyere and Rochefoucault in the characters he drew and in the reflections he made; with an air, too, of sentimental contrition for his own penetration and fine moral sense, which compelled him to see and to be annoyed by the faults of such superior men.

The a.n.a.lysis he made of every mind was really perfect--in one respect, not a grain of bad but was separated from the good, and held up clean and clear to public view. And as an anatomist he showed such knowledge both of the brain and of the heart, such an admirable acquaintance with all their diseases and handled the probe and the scalpel so well, with such a practised hand!

"Well, really this is comfortable," said Lord Davenant, throwing himself back in his arm-chair--"True English comfort, to sit at ease and see all one's friends so well dissected! Happy to feel that it is our duty to our neighbour to see him well cut up--ably anatomised for the good of society; and when I depart--when my time comes--as come it must, n.o.body is to touch me but Professor Churchill. It will be a satisfaction to know that I shall be carved as a dish fit for G.o.ds, not hewed as a carcase for hounds. So now remember, Cecilia, I call on you to witness--I hereby, being of sound mind and body, leave and bequeath my character, with all my defects and deficiencies whatsoever, and all and any singular curious diseases of the mind, of which I may die possessed, wis.h.i.+ng the same many for his sake,--to my good friend Doctor Horace Churchill, professor of moral, philosophic, and scandalous anatomy, to be by him dissected at his good pleasure for the benefit of society."