The Absentee Part 5

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 Catharine 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 past three-and-twenty--shall be four-and-twenty the 5th 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 Catharine.

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

'Now, Lord Colambre, would you believe it? Can you believe it?' asked Lady Catharine.

'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 to extort a smile from him under false pretences? I am sure he sees that you, ladies, 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, shelved a desire to converse with her, and listened eagerly to what she said. He recollected that Grace Nugent had told him that this young lady had no common character; and, neglecting his move at chess, he looked up at Grace 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 Catharine.

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

'Are not these rooms beautiful, Miss Broadhurst?' said Lady Catharine, 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 Catharine'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 Catharine.

'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.'

'Oh dear! what a move was there!' cried Lady Catharine. '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 CONNAISSANCE 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 Catharine; '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 Catharine, but turning the next instant to converse with Miss Broadhurst.

But when I talked of liking to be an heiress,' said Lady Anne, 'I was not thinking of lovers.'

'Certainly. One is not always thinking of lovers, you know,' added Lady Catharine.

'Not always,' replied Miss Broadhurst. 'Well, lovers out of the question on all sides, what would your ladys.h.i.+p buy with the thousands upon thousands?'

'Oh, everything, if I were you,' said Lady Anne.

'Rank, to begin with,' said Lady Catharine.

'Still my old objection--bought rank is but a shabby thing.'

'But there is so little difference made between bought and hereditary rank in these days,' said Lady Catharine.

'I see a great deal still,' said Miss Broadhurst; 'so much, that I would never buy a t.i.tle.'

'A t.i.tle without birth, to be sure,' said Lady Anne, 'would not be so well worth buying; and as birth certainly is not to be bought--'

'And even birth, were it to be bought, I would not buy,' said Miss Broadhurst, 'unless I could be sure to have with it all the politeness, all the n.o.ble sentiments, all the magnanimity--in short, all that should grace and dignify high birth.'

'Admirable!' said Lord Colambre. Grace Nugent smiled.

'Lord Colambre, will you have the goodness to put my mother in mind I must go away?'

'I am bound to obey, but I am very sorry for it,' said his lords.h.i.+p.

'Are we to have any dancing to-night, I wonder?' said Lady Catharine.

'Miss Nugent, I am afraid we have made Miss Broadhurst talk so much, in spite of her hoa.r.s.eness, that Lady Clonbrony will be quite angry with us. And here she comes!'

My Lady Clonbrony came to hope, to beg, that Miss Broadhurst would not think of running away; but Miss Broadhurst could not be prevailed upon to stay. Lady Clonbrony was delighted to see that her son a.s.sisted Grace Nugent most carefully in SHAWLING Miss Broadhurst; his lords.h.i.+p conducted her to her carriage, and his mother drew many happy auguries from the gallantry of his manner, and from the young lady's having stayed three-quarters, instead of half an hour--a circ.u.mstance which Lady Catharine did not fail to remark.

The dancing, which, under various pretences, Lady Clonbrony had delayed till Lord Colambre was at liberty, began immediately after Miss Broadhurst's departure; and the chalked mosaic pavement of the Alhambra was, in a few minutes, effaced by the dancers' feet. How transient are all human joys, especially those of vanity! Even on this long meditated, this long desired, this gala night, Lady Clonbrony found her triumph incomplete--inadequate to her expectations. For the first hour all had been compliment, success, and smiles; presently came the BUTS, and the hesitated objections, and the 'd.a.m.ning with faint praise.' All THAT could be borne. Everybody has his taste--and one person's taste is as good as another's; and while she had Mr. Soho to cite, Lady Clonbrony thought she might be well satisfied. But she could not be satisfied with Colonel Heathc.o.c.k, who, dressed in black, had stretched his 'fas.h.i.+onable length of limb' under the statira canopy upon the snow-white swan-down couch. When, after having monopolised attention, and been the subject of much bad wit, about black swans and rare birds, and swans being geese and geese being swans, the colonel condescended to rise, and, as Mrs.

Dareville said, to vacate his couch, that couch was no longer white--the black impression of the colonel remained on the sullied snow.

'Eh, now! really didn't recollect I was in black,' was all the apology he made. Lady Clonbrony was particularly vexed that the appearance of the statira, canopy should be spoiled before the effect had been seen by Lady Poc.o.c.ke, and Lady Chatterton, and Lady G--, Lady P--, and the Duke of V--, and a party of superlative fas.h.i.+onables, who had promised TO LOOK IN UPON HER, but who, late as it was, had not yet arrived. They came in at last. But Lady Clonbrony had no reason to regret for their sake the statira couch. It would have been lost upon them, as was everything else which she had prepared with so much pains and cost to excite their admiration, They came resolute not to admire. Skilled in the art of making others unhappy, they just looked round with an air of apathy.

'Ah! you've had Soho!--Soho has done wonders for you here! Vastly well!--Vastly well!--Soho's very clever in his way!'

Others of great importance came in, full of some slight accident that had happened to themselves, or their horses, or their carriages; and, with privileged selfishness, engrossed the attention of all within their sphere of conversation. Well, Lady Clonbrony got over all this, and got over the history of a letter about a chimney that was on fire, a week ago, at the Duke of V's old house, in Brecknocks.h.i.+re. In grat.i.tude for the smiling patience with which she listened to him, his Grace of V--fixed his gla.s.s to look at the Alhambra, and had just p.r.o.nounced it to be 'Well!--very well!' when the Dowager Lady Chatterton made a terrible discovery--a discovery that filled Lady Clonbrony with astonishment and indignation--Mr. Soho had played her false! What was her mortification when the dowager a.s.sured her that these identical Alhambra hangings had not only been shown by Mr. Soho to the d.u.c.h.ess of Torcaster, but that her grace had had the refusal of them, and had actually rejected them, in consequence of Sir Horace Grant the great traveller's objecting to some of the proportions of the pillars.

Soho had engaged to make a new set, vastly improved, by Sir Horace's suggestions, for her Grace of Torcaster.

Now Lady Chatterton was the greatest talker extant; and she went shout the rooms telling everybody of her acquaintance--and she was acquainted with everybody--how shamefully Soho had imposed upon poor Lady Clonbrony, protesting she could not forgive the man. 'For,' said she,'though the d.u.c.h.ess of Torcaster has been his constant customer for ages, and his patroness, and all that, yet this does not excuse him and Lady Clonbrony's being a stranger, and from Ireland, makes the thing worse.' From Ireland!--that was the unkindest cut of all but there was no remedy.

In vain poor Lady Clonbrony followed the dowager about the rooms, to correct this mistake, and to represent, in justice to Mr. Soho, though he had used her so ill, that he knew she was an Englishwoman, The dowager was deaf, and no whisper could reach her ear. And when Lady Clonbrony was obliged to bawl an explanation in her car, the dowager only repeated--

'In justice to Mr. Soho!--No, no; he has not done you justice, my dear Lady Clonbrony! and I'll expose him to everybody. Englishwoman--no, no, no!--Soho could not take you for an Englishwoman!'

All who secretly envied or ridiculed Lady Clonbrony enjoyed this scene.