CHAPTER IV.

ROSE AND BLANCHE AT HOME.

No doating mother could have seemed kinder to her daughters than was Mrs. Meredith Vyner to Rose and Blanche, for the first three weeks after their arrival from school. She insisted upon their each having a separate allowance; but contrived that it should be totally inadequate to the necessary expenses. She shopped with them, but recommended, in a tone which was almost an insistance, colours which neither suited their complexions, nor assorted well with each other. She made them numberless little presents, and was always saying charming things to them. If they thought her pleasant before, they now declared her quite loveable. They looked up to her, not only as one having a mother's authority, but also as a superior being, for she had made a decided impression on them of that kind, by always condemning or ridiculing their own tastes and opinions as "girlish," and by carefully repeating (with what amount of embroidery I will not say) all the compliments which men paid her on her own supreme taste. The latter were not few. Partly because a pretty, lively woman never is in want of them: the more so, because Mrs. Meredith Vyner not only courted admiration, but demanded it. What more natural, therefore, that two girls, hearing from their father, who was so learned, such praises of their step-mother's talents, and observing such submission from other men to her taste, should blindly acknowledge a superiority so proclaimed?

As if to make "assurance doubly sure," Mrs. Meredith Vyner would occasionally repeat to them, with strong disclaimers, as "unwarrantably satirical," certain depreciatory comments which had been made to her, she said, by men, the gist of which was, that they were not admired. After a while, the poor girls actually believed they were wanting in attractions. Rose's brilliant colour was a milkmaid's coarseness, and Blanche's retiring manners were owing to a want of grace and style. Rose, who was merry, was given to understand that she was loud and vulgar. Blanche, who was all gentleness, had learned to consider herself as an uninteresting, apathetic, awkward girl.

To effect such impressions was only half a victory. The real triumph was to manage that the admiration which such beauty and such manners as theirs were sure to call forth, should not efface these impressions. This was done by a very simple, but ingenious contrivance. Mrs. Meredith Vyner never gave balls, seldom accepted invitations to them, or to any dancing fêtes. She went out a great deal, and often received company. But her society was limited to dinners and conversaziones. The men were almost exclusively scientific, or members of Parliament, or celebrities. No specimen of the genus "Dancing Young Man" was ever asked. Nothing could suit Meredith Vyner better; neither his age nor his habits accorded with balls, while literary and scientific men were always welcome guests; so that he applauded his wife's wisdom in giving up the "frivolities," and hoped his girls would gladly follow her example.

By such and similar means she had got them, as the vulgar phrase goes, "completely under her thumb;" and that, too, without in any instance giving the world anything to lay hold of which looked like a stepmother's unkindness. Indeed, the girls themselves, though they at last began to suspect something, could make no specific accusation. Mrs. Meredith Vyner might occasionally be said to err, but never to do anything that could be interpreted into wilful unkindness.

It may, perhaps, be wondered that considering how much it was her desire to gain the golden opinions of the world as an exemplary stepmother in a peculiarly trying situation, she did not see the simplest plan would have been real, not pretended, kindness.

But by her line of conduct she secured all she wanted—the appearances; and she secured two objects of more importance to her. One of interest, and one of amour propre. The first object was the complete separation of the children from their father. Determined to have undisputed sway over her husband, she isolated him from the affection of every one else, by a calculation as cruel as it was ingenious. The second object was the complete triumph she obtained over her daughters, whose age and beauty made them dreaded rivals. If mothers cannot resist the diabolical suggestions of envy, but must often present the sad spectacle of a jealousy of their own children, how much more keenly must the rivalry be felt with their stepdaughters, especially in England, where the unmarried women have the advantage? And the pretty little tiger-eyed Mrs. Vyner was too painfully conscious of her humpback, not to dread a comparison with the lovely Rose and Blanche.

I have to observe also, that the economical fit no longer troubled Mrs. Vyner; she had launched into the extravagances of London society, with the same thorough-going impetuosity characteristic of all her actions. No fit ever lasted long with her; this of economy had endured an incredible time, and was now put aside, never again to be mentioned.

CHAPTER V.

MARMADUKE MEETS MRS. VYNER.

Everybody was at Dr. Whiston's, as the phrase goes, on one of his Saturday evenings. Dr. Whiston was a scientific man, whose great reputation was founded upon what his friends thought him capable of doing, rather than upon anything he had actually done. He was rich, and knew "everybody." His Saturday evenings formed an integral part of London society. They were an institution. No one who pretended to any acquaintance with the aristocracy of science, or with the scientific members of the aristocracy, could dispense with being invited to Dr. Whiston's. There were crowded lions of all countries, pretty women, bony women, elderly women, strong-minded women, and mathematical women; a sprinkling of noblemen, a bishop or two, many clergymen, barristers, and endless nobodies with bald foreheads and spectacles, all very profound in one or more "ologies," but cruelly stupid in everything else—abounding in "information," and alarmingly dull. Dr. Whiston himself was a man of varied knowledge, great original power, and a good talker. He passed from lions to doctors, from beauties to bores, with restless equanimity: a word for each, adapted to each; and every one was pleased.

The rooms were rapidly filling. The office of announcing the visitors had become a sinecure, for the very staircase was beginning to be invaded. Through the dense crowd of rustling dresses and formidable spectacles, adventurous persons on the search for friends made feeble way; but the majority stood still gazing at the lions, or endeavouring by uneasy fitful conversation to seem interested. Groups were formed in the crowd and about the doorways, in which something like animated conversation went on.

In the centre of the third room, standing by a table on which were ranged some new inventions that occupied the attention of the bald foreheads and bony women, stood a young and striking-looking man of eight and twenty. A melancholy listlessness overspread his swarthy face, and dimmed the fire of his large eyes. The careless grace of his attitude admirably displayed the fine proportions of his almost gigantic form, which was so striking as to triumph over the miserable angularity and meanness of our modern costume.

All the women, the instant they saw him, asked who he was. He interested everybody except the bald foreheads and the strong-minded women; but most he excited the curiosity of the girls dragged there by scientific papas or mathematical mamas. Who could he be? It was quite evident he was not an ologist. He was too gentlemanly for a lion; too fresh-looking for a student.

"My dear Mrs. Meredith Vyner, how d'ye do? Rose, my dear, you look charming; and you too, Blanche. And where's papa?"

"Talking to Professor Forbes in the first room," replied Mrs. Meredith Vyner, to her questioner: one of the inspectors of Dr. Whiston's inventions.

"I am trying to get a seat for my girls," said Mrs. Vyner peering about, as well as her diminutive form would allow in so crowded a room.

"I dare say you will find one in the next room. Oh, come in; perhaps you can tell us who is that handsome foreigner in there; nobody knows him, and I can't get at Dr. Whiston to ask."

They all four moved into the third room, and the lady directed Mrs. Vyner's attention to the mysterious stranger.

It was Marmaduke Ashley.

Mrs. Meredith Vyner did not swoon, she did not even scream; though, I believe, both are expected of ladies under such circumstances, in novels. In real life, it is somewhat different. Mrs. Vyner only blushed deeply, and felt a throbbing at her temples—felt, as people say, as if the earth were about to sink under her—but had too much self-command to betray anything. One observing her would, of course, have noticed the change; but there happened to be no one looking at her just then, so she recovered her self-possession before her acquaintance had finished her panegyric on his beauty.

She had not seen Marmaduke since that night on which she parted from him, in a transport of grief, on the sands behind Mrs. Henley's house, when the thunder muttered in the distance, and the heavy, swelling sea threw up its sprawling lines of silvery foam,—the night when he had hacked off a lock of his raven hair for her to treasure.

She had not seen him since that night, when the wretchedness of parting from him seemed the climax of human suffering, from which death—and only death—could bring release.

She had not seen him since she had become the wife of Meredith Vyner; and as that wife she was to meet him now.

What her thoughts would have been at that moment, had she ever really loved him, the reader may imagine; but as her love had sprung from the head, and not the heart, she felt no greater pangs at seeing him, than were suggested by the sight of one she had deceived, and whom she would deceive again, were the past to be recalled. Not that she cared for her husband; she fully appreciated the difference between him and Marmaduke; at the same time she also appreciated the differences in their fortunes, and that reconciled her.

The appearance of Marmaduke at Dr. Whiston's rather flurried than pained her. She dreaded "a scene." She knew the awful vehemence of his temper; and although believing that in an interview she could tame the savage, and bring him submissive to her feet yet that could only be done by the ruse and fascination of a woman; and a soirée was by no means the theatre for it.

She began to move away, having seated Rose and Blanche, trusting that her tiny person would not be detected in the crowd. But Marmaduke's height gave him command of the room. His eye was first arrested by a head of golden hair, the drooping luxuriance of which was but too well known to him: another glance, and the slightly deformed figure confirmed his suspicion. His pulses throbbed violently, his eyes and nostrils dilated, and his breathing became hard; but he had sufficient self-command not to betray himself, although his feelings, at the sight of her whom he had loved so ardently, and who had jilted him so basely, were poignant and bitter. He also moved away; not to follow her, but to hide his emotion.

Little did the company suspect what elements of a tragedy were working amidst the dull prosiness of that soirée. Amidst all the science that was gabbled, all the statistics quoted, all the small talk of the scientific scandal-mongers (perhaps the very smallest of small talk!), all the profundities that escaped from the bald foreheads and the strong-minded women, all the listlessness and ennui of the majority, there were a few souls who, by the earnestness and the sincerity of their passions, vindicated the human race—souls belonging to human beings, and not to mere gubemouches and ologists. These have some interest to the novelist and his public; so while the gabble and the twaddle are in triumphant career, let us cast our eyes only in those corners of the rooms where we may find materials.

To begin with Marmaduke. What a world of emotion is in the breast of that apparently unoccupied young man, carelessly passing from room to room! What thoughts hurry across his brain: thoughts of wrong, of vengeance, of former love, and present hate! Then Mrs. Meredith Vyner, all smiles and kind words, passing from group to group, throwing in a word of criticism here, a quotation there, listening to the account of some new discovery, as if she understood it and cared about it—who could suppose that a thousand rapid plans were presenting themselves to her fertile ingenuity, and all quickly discarded as too dangerous? It was indeed a question of some moment, how was she to meet Marmaduke? Should she give him the cut direct? Should she be sentimental? Should she be haughty?

Her resolution was still unformed when Marmaduke stood before her. Accidentally as they had approached, they were both too much occupied with each other to be in the least surprised. With a sudden impulse, she held out her hand to him. He affected not to see the charming frankness of her greeting, and when she said,—

"I hope I must not recall myself to your recollection, Mr. Ashley!"

He replied with exquisite ease,—

"I know not what will be thought of my gallantry, madam, but, indeed, I must own the impeachment."

"Then how must I be changed! To be forgotten in so short a time. Oh, you terrible man! I can never forgive you."

"I can never forgive myself; but so it is."

So perfectly was this epigram delivered, that those standing around could never have suspected he had said anything but a common-place. She was deeply wounded by his manner, and he read it in her cruel eyes; but the smile never left her face, and she introduced herself as Mrs. Meredith Vyner, with playfulness, throwing his forgetfulness on the lapse of time since they had met.

"You have the more reason to forgive me," said Marmaduke, "as my memory is so very bad, that, under the circumstances, I should have almost forgotten my own sister."

She winced, but laughingly replied,—

"Well, well, there are many virtues in a bad memory. I suppose you forget injuries with the same Christian alacrity."

He laughed, and said,—

"Oh, no! I have not the virtues of bad memory: do not invest me with them. If I easily forget faces, I never forget injuries."

She winced again, and this time felt a vague terror at the diabolical calmness and ease with which he could envelope a terrible threat in the slight laugh of affected modesty. Confusion, even bitterness, would have been more encouraging to her. She felt that she was in the presence of an enemy, and of one as self-possessed as herself.

"Have you been long in England?"

This was to get off the perilous ground on which they stood.

"A few months only."

"And do you intend remaining?"

"Yes; I fancy so. I have one or two affairs which will keep me here an indefinite time."

"I suppose it would be proper to assume that one of those is an affaire de cœur?"

"Well," he replied, laughing gently, "that depends upon how the word is used."

"I must not be indiscreet, but a mutual friend of ours told me there was a lady in the case."

She said this with a peculiarly significant intonation, as if to give him to understand that jealousy had driven her into marrying Meredith Vyner. He did not understand her meaning, but saw that she meant something, and replied,—

"I confess to so much. In fact, one of the affairs I spoke about is the conclusion of a little comic drama, the commencement of which dates before I left England. Ah, Cecil! how d'ye do?"

This last sentence was addressed to Cecil Chamberlayne, an old acquaintance of Marmaduke's. During their conversation, Mrs. Meredith Vyner was enabled to pass on, and to reach the third room, where, with more agitation in her manner than the girls had ever remarked before, she summoned them to accompany her, saying that she felt too unwell to remain longer.

Blanche arose hastily, and with great sympathy inquired about the nature of her illness; to which she only received vague replies. Rose was evidently less willing to leave. Though why she was unwilling was not at first so apparent. By a retrospective glance at another little group in Dr. Whiston's salons, we shall be able to understand this.

CHAPTER VI.

HOW ROSE BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH OUR UGLY HERO.

About three quarters of an hour before, Rose and Blanche were seated on an ottoman, between two elderly women, ugly enough to be erudite, and repulsive enough to forbid any attempt at conversation. Silent the girls sat, occasionally interchanging a remark respecting the dress of some lady; and as a witticism was sure to follow from Rose, which Blanche was afraid might be overheard, even this sort of conversation was sparing, though so much food was offered. Not a soul spoke to them. They knew scarcely any one, for their stepmother studiously avoided introducing them. The consequence was, that many habitual visitors at their father's knew them by sight, but had no idea who they were; and many were the invitations in which they were not included, simply because their existence as young ladies who were "out" was not suspected.

While they sat thus alone, it was some relief to them to espy Mrs. St. John, whom they knew slightly, and who had recently purchased the Grange, an estate adjoining Wytton Hall. She came towards them, leaning on the arm of a young man, whom she introduced as her son; and one of the erudite women rising at that moment to go, Mrs. St. John took possession of her seat, next to Blanche, leaving her son standing talking to Rose. In a very few minutes, a withered little man in large gold spectacles came up, and offering his arm to the other erudite female, carried her off, thus leaving a place, which Mr. St. John at once seized upon.

Julius St. John had not a person corresponding to the beauty of his name. Do not, my pretty reader, turn away your head; do not shrug your shoulders; do not skip the next page or so, because truth bids me inform you Julius was remarkably plain. I would have him handsome if I could. You may believe me, for I am perhaps a greater worshipper of beauty than you are; but it is, nevertheless, true, that I am now going to demand your admiration for a young man, who is undisguisedly, unequivocally plain. Not ugly—ugliness implies meanness, or moral deformity—yet absolutely without any feature which could redeem him from being familiarly called "a fright." Strikingly plain is the proper expression; so striking as, perhaps, to be the next best thing to beauty, from the force of the impression created. No one ever forgot his face. No one could casually perceive it without having the gaze arrested for a moment. Let me hasten to add, that the effect was almost repulsive, it was so powerful. I add this, lest you should suppose that I am going to trifle with the truth, and to soften my description by certain intimations of an expression of such exquisite sweetness and such delicate sensibility—such ideality—or such intellectual fire illuminating his face, that to all intents and purposes, my plain hero becomes a handsome man. No, reader, no; while I am perfectly aware that some plain features are rendered handsome by the expression, I am also aware that some faces—and the faces of very noble creatures—are irredeemably plain; and such was Julius St. John's. Judge:—

A head of enormous size was set upon the miserable shoulders of a diminutive body, which, though not deformed, was so thin and small, that an energetic deformity would have been preferable. This head was covered with a mass of black, crisp, curly hair, which fell carelessly over a massive but irregular forehead, ornamented with two thick eyebrows, which, meeting over the nose, formed but one dark line. The eyes that looked underneath these were bright, but small. They looked through you; but what they expressed themselves it was seldom easy to guess. The nose was insignificant; the mobility of the nostrils alone attracted attention to it. The mouth was large—not ill-cut—but the lips full and sensual. The chin large; firmly, boldly cut. The complexion dark and spotted.

These features were not even redeemed by the look of a gentleman, or the look of an artist. Common he did not look, nor vulgar, but striking; and, on the whole, repulsive. The best point about him was his consciousness of his ill looks, and the freedom from any coxcombical effort to disguise it. He did not bring out his ugliness into relief by a foolish attention to dress, as most ugly men do. He was neither a dandy nor a sloven. That he was a "fright" he knew, and accepted his fate with manliness.

"Have you been looking at those?" he said to Rose, as he sank into the chair by her side, and pointed to the table on which the inventions were laid. "Perhaps you can explain them to me?"

"No, indeed, not I. I never understand anything of that sort."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously! it's very stupid, I know; but I am stupid. What I am able to understand it would, perhaps, be difficult to say; but there can be no hesitation in excluding everything like science or manufactures. They are my detestation."

"Whisper it not in Gath!" he said, with mock horror. "Only conceive where you are!"

"Very much out of place; but mama has a fancy for coming here, and we are obliged to like it."

"Well, it is a comfort for me to find some one as ignorant as myself. Everybody here is so alarmingly instructive. I find nobody ignorant of anything but their own ignorance. Even the young ladies have attended Faraday, and the Friday evenings at the Royal Institution, till——"

She held up her finger threateningly, and said, "Now don't be severe, I am one of those young ladies: I never miss a Faraday, and am never allowed to miss a Friday evening. Oh! you need not look astonished. I sleep very comfortably there, believe me."

He laughed, and continued,—

"Then I can forgive your attendance. Science ought to be quite content with female votaries of dubious ages. I am sure if it has the bogies, it may leave us idlers the beauties for our comfort. I quite sympathize with you in your aversion to manufactures. They are very wonderful, doubtless; but as I am not going to set up a mill or a factory of my own, the processes are superlatively uninteresting."

"And if I may be so bold as to ask it, why do I see you here?"

"Upon my word, I can hardly tell. Why does one go anywhere? Mere idleness and imitation. Wherever I go, it is almost always dull, and this house is duller than most; but one occasionally meets with a recompense, as I have this evening."

"In sitting next to me, eh? I accept the compliment, though it might have been newer."

"Well, at any rate, it bears out my confession of ignorance. I know not even how to turn a compliment!"

"Is not that Dr. Lindley?"

"I believe so. You are a disciple of his of course? One may know botany without being formidable."

"I am glad of that, because I am supposed to be learned in that department."

"Then you have not the claim I set up for the new degree of C.I.D."

"Pray, what is that?"

"Doctor of crass ignorance, for which my pretensions are better than yours, as I scarcely know a rose from a rhododendron."

"But I only told you I was supposed to be learned, not that I am so. My reputation is very simply acquired. Whenever people are puzzling their memories about some flower, I boldly call it a something spirans, if it is of the twirligig kind, or else a something elegans, or if it is bright-coloured, a something splendens. My name is instantly adopted, and my wisdom meets with respect. Many other reputations are no better founded. Impudence may always reckon on the ignorance of an audience."

He laughed at this, and then said—

"Am I to presume you know something of Latin, then?"

"About as much as of botany. Papa, you know, is a great scholar, and has tried to teach us all Latin, though with mediocre success. But mind, it is a secret that I know even the little I do. Think of the injury it would do me. Who would waltz with a girl who was known to understand Latin?"

"True, true. Men don't like it. They are proud of their wives or lovers speaking all the continental languages, but a tinge of Latin is pronounced too blue. The secret of this male outcry is this: all men are supposed to understand Latin, and very few do; accordingly they resent any attempt to invade their prescriptive superiority. I remember my noble friend Leopardi used to say that only in a woman's mouth could the true beauty of Latin be properly recognised."

"Do you know Leopardi, then?"

"I did know him, poor fellow; but he has been dead these two years. He was a grand creature. Have you read his poems? I have never before met with any English who had heard of him."

"Read them, no. He is too difficult."

"Difficult?"

"Why, we girls, as you are perhaps aware, are taught to distinguish sospiri from ardiri, and lagrime from affanni, after which we sing Bellini, and are said to know Italian. But when a poet a little more difficult than Metastasio is placed into our hands, we are at a stand-still."

In this way they chatted merrily enough. Julius was eloquent in his praise of Leopardi, from whom he went to Dante, to Byron, to Bulwer, Scott, and Miss Austen. Rose was delighted to find so many tastes and opinions shared in common with this pleasant young man, and could have sat all night talking to him. She had forgotten his ugliness in the charm of his conversation; but he had not forgotten her beauty, which was shown to greater advantage by the liveliness of her manner.

It was a delicious tête-à-tête. One of those accidental enjoyments which from time to time redeem the monotony of soirées, and for the chance of which one consents to be bored through a whole season. Not what was said, but how it was said, made the talk so delightful. The charm of sympathy, the comfort of finding yourself, as it were, mirrored in the soul of another, the easy unaffected flow of words dictated by no wish to shine, but simply suggested by the feeling, made Rose and Julius as intimate in that brief period, as if they had known each other many months.

Cannot Rose's unwillingness to leave now be appreciated? Cannot the reader understand her impatience at having such a tête-à-tête disturbed? But there was no help for it. She was forced to say adieu, and she held out her hand to him with a frankness which almost compensated him for the pain of seeing her depart. He went home and dreamt all night of her.

Mrs. Meredith Vyner, followed by her daughters, sought her husband, who was listening to a humorous narrative given him by Cecil Chamberlayne, of the elopement of the wife of a distinguished professor, with an officer almost young enough to be her son. Meredith Vyner laughed mildly, brushing the grains of snuff from his waistcoat with the back of his hand, and observed:—

"Egad! I always suspected it would end in that way. Such an ill-assorted match! Well, well, as Horace says, you know,

"Felices ter et amplius
Quos ...."

Here he was interrupted by the appearance of his wife, who, hurriedly intimating that she felt the rooms too hot, desired him to take her home.

"Directly, my dear, directly," he said, and then turned to Cecil, to finish his quotation.

"Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec malis
Divulsus querimoniis
Suprema citius solvet amor die."

"Good-evening..... Now, my dear," offering his arm to his wife, "I am at your service."

"He talks of ill-assorted marriages!" said Cecil Chamberlayne to himself, as they left the room.

The ride home was performed in silence. Meredith Vyner was trying to recollect a passage in Horace, which would have enabled him to make a felicitous pun on something Professor Forbes had said to him, and his forgetfulness of which had teazed him all the evening. His wife was meditating on the words, looks, and manner of her jilted lover, astonished at his calmness, and alarmed at his threats. The calmness of vehement men is always more terrible than their rage; and the vagueness of Marmaduke's threat made it more formidable, because it suggested a thousand things, and intimated none. What would he do? What could he do?

Rose was thinking of Julius St. John, and her charming tête-à-tête. Blanche was weary and sleepy.

Marmaduke, as he jumped into his cab, and drove to the club, reproached himself for having been led away by his anger so far as to threaten. He had put her on her guard, and thereby rendered his vengeance more difficult. It was, indeed, a proof of the violence of his agitation, that he should have so far forgotten himself; and he determined, if possible, to recover that false step.

Marmaduke Ashley was one of those

"Children of the sun whose blood is fire;"

and looked upon the treachery of his mistress with very different feelings from those of a calmer-blooded northern. His transports of rage and anguish when he heard of her infidelity almost killed him, and they only settled down into a fierce lust for vengeance. His father dying bequeathed to him a small fortune, which, instead of endeavouring to increase, he brought with him to England, and there awaited, with all the patience of an Indian, the hour when he should be able to wreak full vengeance on her who had humbled his pride, shattered his illusions, and lacerated his heart.

He had formed no plan. Time would, he doubted not, bring forth some opportunity, and for that he waited; enjoying himself, meanwhile, as a young man about town, with time on his hands and money in his pocket, best can enjoy himself. He was no moody Zanga, with one fixed idea. He did not go scowling through society like the villain of a tragedy, solacing himself with saturnine monologues, and talking of nothing, thinking of nothing, but of his wrongs and his revenge. Such monomaniacs may exist, but they are rare, and he was not of them. His heart swelled, and his temples throbbed, whenever he thought of his hated mistress, and the thirst for vengeance was not slaked by thinking of it. But this dark spot was only a spot in his life, other thoughts occupied him, other interests attracted him, throwing this quite into the background.

CHAPTER VII.

ROSE VYNER WRITES TO FANNY WORSLEY.

"Oh! about gaieties, I assure you I have little to tell. We go to very few parties. Mama says dancing is so frivolous: though I observe she dances all the evening when we do by chance go to a ball. Papa sides with her, and says he cannot conceive what pleasure people take in it. Perhaps not; but we can! However, we dare not complain, and mama is so kind to us that, on the whole, we get on very well, though I long to be in the country. Last Saturday week, we were invited to Dr. Whiston's; a wise place where every one looks like an oracle, where there are few young men, and those generally sickly, fewer nice men, and scarcely any one Blanche and I know to speak to. Mama likes these sort of places. She is so clever, and manages to talk with all the oracles upon their separate sciences, though she never opens a scientific book from one month to another; but somehow she can dispense with knowledge, and yet contrive that people should believe her deeply-read. But then she is so strange! I must interrupt my narrative to tell you something which I can't make out in her. She gets more admiration, in spite of her deformity, than we could ever pretend to; and her style of beauty seems to be exactly what men delight in.

"How she manages to persuade us, I don't know, but the result is, we never look well when we go out to a party. This, and our not being overwise, prevents our finding much enjoyment at Dr. Whiston's; so we went on that memorable evening prepared for a yawn. Mama quickly got us seats, and then sailed about the room talking to her friends. This she does invariably. It is called chaperoning. Though what protection young girls need at such places, and how this can be considered as protection, are two things I have not yet comprehended. Well, I seem as if I were never coming to the point, eh? And yet all this preparation is to usher in no adorably handsome young man with bushy whiskers and sleepy eyes, like him we used to see at church when we were at Mrs. Wirrelston's, and when you persuaded me I was in love with that little humpbacked lawyer, in nankeens, who used to ogle us so (do you remember?)—but, on the contrary, to tell you my evening was rendered perfectly delightful by a certain Julius St. John, who sat by my side and chatted away so pleasantly, that my evening fled as rapidly as Cinderella's. And it was his conversation—nothing else; for I declare he was unreasonably hideous...

"I am almost ashamed of that last line. Why should I say he was hideous? He wasn't. He was adorably ugly. I never cared for beauty, as you know, or you would not have persuaded me into a little sentiment for my nankeened humpback; and it is very foolish in us all to make such a fuss about it: the plainest men are certainly the most agreeable! But, however, it is no use preaching to you on this subject; you who refuse to dance with every man whom you don't think good-looking!

"Enough for you to know that my dear, little, ugly man was unaffectedly chatty, and very clever; and that our conversation was so pleasant, I was quite impatient for yesterday, the second Saturday for which we were invited to Dr. Whiston's,—expecting to see him there and to renew our tête-à-tête. I had arranged all sorts of topics. In my mind's eye, I prefigured his animated pleasure at espying me, and then his coming up and securing a seat, and chatting more charmingly than before. Some of my replies were so clever that they astonished me. How brilliantly I did talk! How many little scenes of this kind were rehearsed in my imagination, I leave you to guess, if you have ever been impatient for any meeting. They were delicious; but they made the reality only more cruel.

"Conceive my disappointment: he was there, yet never came to sit beside me! When first he saw me, his welcome was so warm that it was the realization of what I had expected; but he suffered us to pass on into the last room without once thinking of accompanying us. I was mortified, I confess. I expected to find him as anxious to renew our tête-à-tête as myself, and began to be ashamed of having thought so much of him, when it was clear he had not bestowed a thought on me.

"We sat in our sullen seats, and looked on in no very amiable mood; that is, I was cross; Blanche, dear creature, had nothing to ruffle her sweet equanimity. It then occurred to me that he would assuredly soon find us out; but he did not. I sat there in vain. The people never before seemed so dull and stupid. The rooms never were so hot. I longed for mama to fetch us away.

"At last he did condescend to approach us and ask us some trivial questions, which irritated me so much that I hardly deigned to answer him. He did not seem in the least surprised by my behaviour; and that made me angrier. It was quite a relief to me when he turned round to speak to some one and went away.

"I don't understand it at all. I suppose I have been making a little fool of myself; yet, in spite of his rudeness—no, not rudeness, but—what shall I call it?—I should like to see him again. His mother has purchased the Grange, so when we are at Wyton, we shall perhaps see a good deal of him, and I shall then be able to understand him."

CHAPTER VIII.

MRS. LANGLEY TURNER, AND HER FRIENDS.

While Rose was writing the foregoing letter, Mr. and Mrs. Meredith Vyner were driving towards Eaton-square, on a visit to the well-known and well-worth-knowing lively widow, Mrs. Langley Turner.

London society abounds in subjects curious to the observer; and, in spite of its general uniformity, is so split up into opposite and opposing sections, that a painter of manners, whose observation had been confined to a few of those sections, would be accused of ignorance or of caricature by nine-tenths of the English public. This is the reason of the numerous failures in the attempt to describe English society, both by natives and foreigners. To foreigners, indeed, the task must be hopeless. How should they avoid taking their standard of the whole from the circle in which they move? They see the interior of houses where wealth, talent, political influence, and sounding names meet together in habitual and familiar intercourse: how can they imagine that what they see there are not the acknowledged manners of the "upper classes?" Yet nothing can be more erroneous. Portland-place differs as much from Belgravia, as Regent-street does from Bond-street. What a world is that of Belgravia, and what a variety of worlds within it! Things are there done, and accepted as matters of course, which would make the rest of England incredulously stare; and we may safely affirm that any sketch of English society taken from the pleasant circles of Belgravia, would seem quite as preposterous as any Frenchman's "impressions" of England taken from Leicester-square.

These few remarks were necessary to prevent the reader's indignant rejection of the description of Mrs. Langley Turner as a caricature,—as opposed to the whole constitution of English society. And we beg him therefore, if he have not travelled so far as Pimlico, to retire into his ignorance, and, while staring as much as he pleases, to believe it.

Mrs. Langley Turner's set was one of the small orbs within the greater sphere of Belgravia, and her house was one of the gayest, if not the most exemplary, in it. Her Sunday evenings were celebrated. Her picnics, her breakfasts, her snug dinners, and multitudinous parties, were each and all agreeable enough; but the Sunday evening was her cheval de bataille—therein she distanced all competitors.

There was something piquant in the audacity of the thing in puritanical England, where, unlike all other Protestant countries, the Sunday is a day on which all amusement, except plethoric dinners, is supposed to be a sin; and, in 1839, such a thing was more unusual than it has since become. This saucy defiance thrown in the face of Puritanism, was joyfully accepted by all those whose residence abroad had made it familiar, as well as by those whose opinions were in favour of a less rigid adherence to a code which other Protestant nations repugned. And though many women went to Mrs. Langley Turner's Sunday evenings, and enjoyed them greatly, yet very few had the courage to imitate her.

Never were pleasanter parties than hers. The rooms were always crowded with pretty women and somebodies. Foreigners abounded; literary men and artists of celebrity, Italian singers, travellers, diners out, guardsmen, wits, and roués, formed the heterogeneous and amusing society. People with "slurs" upon their reputation were to be met there; and they were not the least amusing of the set. I know not whether it is that the women whose virtue is not absolutely intact, and the men whose conduct is of the same easy class, are really more amusing and better natured than the incorruptibly virtuous and the sternly conscientious; or that public envy more readily pounces upon any slips made by the clever, amusing, good-natured people; but the social fact is indisputable, that the pleasantest companions are not always the most "respectable."

Mrs. Langley Turner had a sneaking regard for those black sheep; and Cecil Chamberlayne once laughingly declared, that she never took any notice of a person until his or her reputation had been damaged. "In her paradise," he said, "all the angels will be fallen angels."

With all due allowance for the exaggeration here, certain it is that the truth of the bon-mot gave it its success. Everybody said it was "so good!" And she did not disown it.

"I like people for themselves," she would say; "and, as their virtue does not affect me, so long as I like them and see nothing dishonourable in them, I will open my doors to them."

This un-Britannic audacity of thinking for herself, without reference to the opinion of Mrs. Grundy, and of actually "receiving" women about whom scandal had been busy, very naturally gave scandal a sort of licence with her; but it never rose above whispers. Mrs. Langley Turner herself was a prodigious favourite with all classes of men. The wits liked her, she was so lively; the guardsmen, she was "so larky;" the talkers, she was so chatty; the authors, she was so clever, without ink on her thumb, and knew so much of the world; and everybody, because she was so quiet and good-natured. A genuine woman; frank, hearty, gossipy, flirty, kind, forgiving—in a word, loveable.

It was to her house that the Vyners were driving, Sunday afternoon being a sort of levée with her. When the Vyners arrived the little drawing-room was tolerably full. First on the sofa, by Mrs. Langley Turner, sat a dowager-countess with her young, handsome, and uninteresting daughter. Opposite them, in an easy chair, sat the broken, gouty, but still charming Sir Frederick Winter; a name celebrated in the annals of gallantry, and one of the now almost extinct species of roués, in whom exquisite manner and courtly elegance made vice the very chivalry of vice, so that, in losing all its grossness, it did really seem to lose half its deformity. By his side sat Cecil Chamberlayne, and next to him the pedantic and bony Miss Harridale and her mother; the former seemed to have absorbed the dregs of her ancient family for several generations, so cruelly vulgar was every look and movement. She was talking atrocious French to a bearded dandy, whom Cecil called "some very foreign count;" occasionally entrapping young Lord Boodle into the conversation by an appeal to his judgment, which, after smoothing his blonde moustache with the ivory handle of his riding-cane, he reluctantly drawled out.

Mrs. Meredith Vyner, in her very affectionate and sprightly greeting of Mrs. Langley Turner, had time to perceive that Marmaduke, for whom she came, was not there. It was her first appearance in Eaton-square on a Sunday, for Mrs. Meredith Vyner never missed afternoon service, and nothing but the hope of seeing Marmaduke, whom she was told was a constant visitor, would have induced her to break in thus upon her habits. She comforted herself with the expectation that he might still come.

"Mr. Chamberlayne," said Mrs. Langley Turner, when they were seated, "is giving us an enthusiastic account of a new tragic actress, whom, he says, the Duchesnois, the Dorval, and the Mars—three single ladies rolled into one—would not equal."

"Who is that?" said Mrs. Meredith Vyner, restlessly turning upon Cecil.

"A little Jewess they call Rachel, quite a girl, picked up from the streets, but an empress on the stage. Till I had seen her, I did not believe the human voice capable, in mere speech, of expressing such unutterable sadness, such sobs of woe."

"And you have seen Edmund Kean?"

"Yes, Edmund Kean; but Rachel is something quite incomparable."

"That is true," said the very foreign count; "her acting is not acting."

"No," replied Cecil, "it is suffering."

The bony Miss Harridale nodded approval of the epigram, and then informed the company that for her part she saw nothing in French tragedy.

"Surely," said Cecil, "Racine is an exquisite writer."

"No," replied the confident young lady, "he has no ideas!"

There was something so vague yet so crushing in this dictum, which was delivered with amazing aplomb, that no one replied for a few seconds.

"I fancy," said Sir Frederick Winter, "we are scarcely inclined to do justice to French tragedy, because we always compare it with that which it least resembles—our own."

"For my part, I never presume to have an opinion on so delicate a subject," said Mrs. Vyner, who hated Miss Harridale, and never lost an opportunity of saying something disagreeable; "because I feel we English do not understand the language sufficiently to judge of that which depends upon the grace and beauty of language. I do not, of course, mean to imply Miss Harridale in that observation—she is such a Frenchwoman!"

Miss Harridale looked daggers, and said, "I do not pretend to feel the graces of Racine, about which they talk so much. I dare say they are all very well. I only speak of the substance: he has no ideas; and what is a poet without profound ideas? I am for ideas above everything."

"But how Racine understood the heart—especially woman's heart!" said the count. "What insight into the passions! what tenderness! what subtlety! what sublimity!"

"I never saw them," dogmatically pronounced Miss Harridale.

"Then Corneille," added the count; "le grand Corneille, there is a genius! Has he not painted Romans?"

"Not to my apprehension," said Cecil. "His Romans are Gascons. The old Horace, for example, who is so much admired, seems to me to have more rhodomontade than grandeur. He is not a man, but a figment!"

Miss Harridale smiled her approbation of this, and declared that the celebrated qu'il mourût was not an "idea."

The count failing to understand that profound objection, asked if she did not regard the qu'il mourût as sublime?

"Not at all."

"Well, I suppose I am a heretic," said Meredith Vyner; "but to speak the honest truth, French sublimity always seems to me to fall very wide of the mark."

"Surely, not very," said Cecil; "only a step."

A general laugh greeted this sally, which made Mrs. Vyner remark Cecil, whom she now remembered as the young man Marmaduke spoke to at Dr. Winston's. She resolved to invite him.

"Is this Rachel—I think you call her—handsome?" asked Lord Boodle, tapping his lips with his cane.

"Yes, and no—the beauty of mind."

"The only beauty worthy of the name," said Miss Harridale, sententiously.

It was the only style of beauty to which she could lay claim.

"She is beautiful enough," continued Cecil, "for the parts she plays—you never feel any contradiction between the poet's idea and her representation of it. You should see her in Phèdre. I think I never can forget the desolation in her utterance of the four grand opening lines; or the fine horror of her 'C'est Vénus tout entière à sa proie attachée;' which by the way," he added, turning to Vyner, "is only a magnificent paraphrase of what your favourite Horace says in his ode to Glycera—

"In me tota ruens Venus
Cyprum deseruit."

Meredith Vyner, who had a high opinion of any man who could quote Horace appositely, suspended a pinch of snuff which he had for some minutes been heaping up between his thumb and forefinger, to assure Cecil that he was perfectly correct in his conjecture, and as no commentator had noticed it, he should certainly do so in his forthcoming edition—"the work of twenty years' labour, sir!" Vyner added, clenching the observation with a sonorous pinch.

In a few seconds, Cecil and Vyner were engaged together upon the nullity of commentators in general, and those on Horace in particular. Talk of contempt! there is no scorn like the scorn of one commentator for another.

Vyner wound up a tirade against Burmann, Dacier, Sanadon, and Bentley, by saying, "If you will do me the pleasure of calling, Mr. Chamberlayne, I will show you my edition, together with some of my marginal corrections. Bentley boasted that he had made eight hundred corrections of the text,—sir, I have made more than a thousand in Bentley's edition. You shall see it: it will delight you."

Cecil thought that few things would delight him less, but he was glad to have an invitation to the Vyners upon any pretext.

During this talk, Miss Harridale was harassing Lord Boodle with her criticisms on modern English literature, which she found deplorably deficient in "ideas."

Mrs. Vyner was paying great court to the old roué, Sir Frederick—his opinion being a verdict.

A knock at the door made her heart beat a little faster. To her disappointment, however, it was only Julius St. John's name she heard announced. She shortly overheard Julius informing Mrs. Langley Turner, that he had left Mr. Ashley stretched on his sofa, devouring Ruy Blas, just received.

"And I am to be neglected for Victor Hugo, I presume!" said Mrs. Langley Turner.

Julius shrugged his shoulders significantly.

"I shall scold him well for it."

"Not when you hear his excuse. He told me that no attraction could drag him from Ruy Blas till he had finished it; it was such a splendid tale of vengeance."

A cold shiver ran over Mrs. Meredith Vyner, as she heard St. John carelessly and laughingly let fall those words full of terrible significance to her.

"But he will be here this evening, I hope?" inquired Mrs. Langley Turner.

"Yes."

Finding it was useless waiting any longer, Mrs. Vyner rose to withdraw.

"Do come round this evening, dear," said Mrs. Langley Turner; "only a few friends, and Pellegrini is to give us some recitations from Alfieri—will you?"

"With pleasure."

"That's a dear little woman, I'm so glad."

Meredith Vyner handed Cecil his card, and repeated how glad he should be to show him all his notes on Horace.

"A very clever fellow, that young Mr. Chamberlayne," said Meredith to his wife, as they got into their carriage, "with remarkably sound ideas on the subject of commentators."

"Charming person—so witty. I am glad you gave him your card. By the way, I have said we would go to Mrs. Turner's this evening, to hear Pellegrini recite from Alfieri."

"Very well, my dear," said the astonished Vyner, not venturing to make any further remark on so singular a communication.

It was indeed enough to make him silent. It was something so enormous, so unexpected, that it sounded like a mystification. She had always pretended to be very strict on religious subjects; without affecting fanaticism, she was as rigid as was compatible with her being a woman of the world. This relaxation from her usual rigidity, therefore, was the more surprising, because it seemed motiveless.

Her husband at last thought that the temptation was Pellegrini's recitations. He knew she was a great student of poetry, which she always declared he knew very little about, and had the naïveté to believe, that to hear poetry well recited would be as great a temptation to her, as a new edition of Horace would be to him.

Her motive really was an anxiety to come to an "explanation" with Marmaduke, whose threats terrified her the longer she thought of them. She wished at least to know his game, if she could not look over his cards; and as the sooner she knew that the better for her own defence, she was restless till she had seen him.

CHAPTER IX.

TWO PORTRAITS.

"Look on this picture, and on that."
                                            SHAKSPEARE.

It was no small gratification to Mrs. Meredith Vyner, as, leaning on the arm of her ponderous husband, she glided into Mrs. Langley Turner's rooms that evening, to distinguish amongst the first group that met her eye, Marmaduke Ashley, resting against the doorway of the second salon, talking to Cecil Chamberlayne and Julius St. John. He was, indeed, a figure not to escape even an indifferent eye. There was lion-like grace about him; a certain indefinable something in his attitudes and movements, which, in their oriental laisser aller, were in sharp contrast to the stiffness and artificiality of even the least awkward of our northern dandies. When our young men are careless, they have a slouching, sprawling manner, which is more offensive to the eye than stiffness. It is only the children of warmer climates who can afford to let their limbs fall naturally, and be graceful. Marmaduke, whose prodigious chest and back betokened the strength of a bull, seemed to have united with it the agility of a deer, and was the very model of manly grace.

He was well dressed, without overdress; but he had committed one error in taste, which might, perhaps, be set down to coxcombry, in wearing a white waistcoat, somewhat larger than the fashion permitted. His chest was so expansive, and he was so tall, that this vast expanse of staring white, while it fixed all eyes upon him, made them remark how much too large the chest was for symmetry. It was trop voyant, to adopt the jargon of the French dandies. The effect was further increased by his wearing a white cravat, which at that time had only just began to replace the black, introduced by that puffy potentate, so wittily characterized by Douglas Jerrold as the "most finished gent. in Europe."

How many women sighed for him on that evening, I cannot tell; but certain it is, that a shadow of regret fell on Mary's heart as she remarked the beauty of her former lover, and silently compared him with her heavy, snuffy husband. Nor did he gaze on her unmoved. She was a striking figure, and would have been so even in an assembly of beauties. Perhaps the most striking part about her was her neck and bosom, with the whiteness and firmness of marble,—with its coldness too; beautiful it was, and yet repulsive; hard, cold, immodest, unvoluptuous; no blood seemed to beat in its delicate, blue veins—no heart seemed to move its rise and fall; this, the most womanly beauty of a woman, was in her unwomanly; it arrested the eye, without charming it. There was something about her whole appearance which was singularly fantastic: her golden hair, drooping in ringlets to her waist, and her dazzling skin and tiny figure gave her the appearance of a little fairy; nor did her deformity destroy this impression. She was so pretty, or rather so piquante, and unlike other women, that her crooked shoulder only gave a piquancy the more by the sort of compassionate feeling it raised. "What a pity such a sweet creature should be deformed!" was the universal exclamation; and this very exclamation made people think more of the charms which redeemed that deformity.

In truth, the great deformity was not in the back—it never is—but in the eyes and mouth. Theoretically, we may all declaim against faults of proportion and of outline, but, practically, it is the eyes and mouth that carry the day: according as they look and they smile, do we feel that people are beautiful or ugly; because in them lies the expression of the heart and soul. This I take to be the secret of those astounding differences in taste upon a subject of which there is a distinct standard—beauty. True, there is a standard of form and colour. We are all agreed upon the face that would make the handsomest picture; but the best part of beauty is that which the painter can never express, because he is condemned to one expression; and the beauty of the loving heart and noble soul is visible in the changing lustre of a thousand smiles and glances. Now, although we might all agree that a certain face has exquisite purity of outline, and gratifies the æsthetical sense of proportion, yet we should feel and say that some less perfect face has charmed us more. Why?—because we are indifferent to perfection? No: but because in some less harmoniously proportioned face, we have read a more loveable soul—a soul with which we can better enter into communion. Thus it is that men get distractedly enamoured of women, whose beauty is more than problematical, because without having had many opportunities of knowing their characters, but mostly from what the faces express, they read there the signs of unalterable goodness and lovingness, of high nobility of soul, or, perhaps, only of some voluptuous and passionate tendencies; and all these are qualities more fascinating than purity of outline. In support of my argument, let me mention the fact, that the women most celebrated as beauties have seldom, if ever, been picture-beauties. It is impossible from any picture of Mary Queen of Scots, for example, to imagine wherein lay the enchantment of her beauty.

Therefore, my ill-favoured reader, take courage; if your mind is honest, and your heart loving, you will have true beauty—yes, the positive effect of beauty on all those who can read the signs of honesty and loveliness.

These signs were not legible in the eyes and mouth of Mrs. Meredith Vyner; and there, as I said, lay her real deformity, though people did not call it so. Those light, grey eyes, so destitute of voluptuousness, but so full of light—so cunning, so cruel, so uncomfortable to look upon; and that small mouth, with its thin, irritable, selfish lips, which a perpetual smile endeavoured to make amiable, created a far more repulsive impression, when first you saw her, than any hump could have created: and yet she fancied that her hump was her only deformity.

She was, as I said, repulsive at first sight; but most people got over that impression after a while, as they generally do when familiarity has blunted their perceptions. It was not necessary to be a great physiognomist to see at once the nature of the soul her eyes expressed; and yet, when people heard her amiable sentiments, and noticed the meekness of her manner, they yielded to the popular sophism of its being "unjust to judge from first impressions," and they believed in her professions rather than in her expressions—that is, in her calculated utterances rather than her instinctive and unconquerable emotions.

"But," objects the reader, "first impressions are so often false, that it would be madness to rely on them." I answer: first impressions—at least those of a broad and simple kind—are rarely, if ever, false; though often incomplete. The observer should not rely on them; but he should never absolutely reject them. They may be modified—greatly modified—but not contradicted. Human character is marvellously complex, and this very complexity serves to confound the observer, if he have not a clue; and that clue is best attained on a first interview, because then the perceptions are least biassed by the opinions. If he understand human nature, he will soon be able to modify his first impressions, and complete the general outline of a character.

Physiognomy is very fallacious, I know, in its details; but in its broad principles, which almost all human beings instinctively employ, there is no more infallible guide. The mistake physiognomists commit, is in not leaving sufficient margin for education. A man may have cruelty or bad temper very legible in his face, and yet not in his acts be cruel or bad-tempered; but if you interrogate his boyhood, you will find that, however he may have subdued the demon within him, he once had the quality which his face expresses, and, in the depths of his nature, he has it still: the wild beast lies chained within him, but may at any time break loose.

If physiognomy betrays us into rash judgments, far more erroneous are those into which we are betrayed by an observation of conduct or of speech, if we have not previously a clue to the character: because it is a tendency in us all to attribute importance only to important acts—only to great occasions, when as we say, a man's true nature is called forth. Nothing can be more false. Trifles are the things by which men are to be judged. If we would know them as they are, we should observe them in their unguarded moments, in the routine of daily and familiar life, when no man's eyes, as it were, are on them. If we would know them as they wish to be considered, then we may observe them when the importance of the occasion turns men's eyes upon them. Taking the most liberal view of the question, one can only say that great occasions show what men are capable of in extraordinary circumstances, not what the men are.

I am tempted to quote the remarkable words of a remarkable writer on this very point: "In our judgment of men," says Henry Taylor, "we are to beware of giving any importance to occasional acts. By acts of occasional virtue weak men endeavour to redeem themselves in their own estimation, vain men endeavour to exalt themselves in that of mankind. It may be observed, that there are no men more worthless and selfish, in the general tenor of their lives, than some who from time to time perform feats of generosity. Sentimental selfishness will commonly vary its indulgences in this way, and vain-glorious selfishness will break out into acts of munificence. But self-government and self-denial are not to be relied on for any real strength, except in so far as they are found to be exercised in detail."*

* "The Statesman."

The first impression Mrs. Meredith Vyner made, was that of a cold, cunning, cruel woman; with plenty of nervous energy and sensibility, but no affection. If you disregarded that, and attended only to her conduct, and to the sentiments she generally expressed, you thought her an enthusiastic, affectionate, child-like creature, whose very faults sprang from an excess of warmth and impulsiveness; and so good an actress was she, that it required a keen observer, or a long intimacy with her, to detect her real character.

It has been remarked that deformed people are singularly noble, delicate, and generous in their natures; or singularly mean, cunning, and malicious. The scorn of the world so powerfully influences them, that it brings out into greater relief the features of that moral physiognomy with which nature has endowed them, making them much better or much worse than their fellows. Mrs. Meredith Vyner belonged to the latter class; but so cunning was she, that most people were entirely deceived by her; and if they were occasionally startled by some great contradiction, they got over it with the usual remark, "Oh, she is such a very strange woman!"