Tales and Novels, Vol. V by Maria Edgeworth

M >> Maria Edgeworth >> Tales and Novels, Vol. V

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38

Rosamunda looked round, with the air of one interrupted by a frivolous
question which requires no answer; but some one less exalted, and more
attentive to the common forms of civility, told his lordship that Lady
Julia was in the gallery with her brother. Lord Glistonbury hurried
Vivian into the gallery. He was struck the moment he met Lady Julia with
the great change and improvement in her appearance. Instead of the
childish girl he had formerly seen flying about, full only of the frolic
of the present moment, he now saw a fine graceful woman with a striking
countenance that indicated both genius and sensibility. She was talking
to her brother with so much eagerness, that she did not see Vivian come
into the gallery; and, as he walked on towards the farther end, where
she was standing, he had time to admire her.

"A fine girl, faith! though she is my daughter," whispered Lord
Glistonbury; "and would you believe that she is only sixteen?"

"Only sixteen!"

"Ay: and stay till you talk to her--stay till you hear her--you will
be more surprised. Such genius! such eloquence! She's my own girl.
Well, Julia, my darling!" cried he, raising his voice, "in the clouds,
as usual?"

Lady Julia started--but it was a natural, not a theatric start--
colouring at the consciousness of her own absence of mind. She came
forward with a manner that apologized better than words could do, and
she received Mr. Vivian so courteously, and with such ingenuous pleasure
in her countenance, that he began to rejoice in having accepted the
invitation to Glistonbury; at the same instant, he recollected a look
which his mother had given him when he first saw Lady Julia on the
terrace of the castle.

"Well, what was she saying to you, Lidhurst? hey! my boy?"

"We were arguing, sir."

"Arguing! Ay, ay, she's the devil for that!--words at will!--'Persuasive
words, and more persuasive sighs!' Ah, woman! woman for ever! always
talking us out of our senses! and which of the best of us would not wish
it to be so? 'Oh! let me, let me be deceived!' is the cream of
philosophy, epicurean and stoic--at least, that's my creed. But to the
point: what was it about that she was holding forth so charmingly--a
book or a lover? A book, I'll wager: she's such a romantic little fool,
and so unlike other women: leaves all her admirers there in the
drawing-room, and stays out here, talking over musty books with her
brother. But come, what was the point? I will have it argued again
before me--Let's see the book."

Lord Lidhurst pointed out a speech in "The Fair Penitent," and said that
they had been debating about the manner in which it should be recited.
Lord Glistonbury called upon his daughter to repeat it: she showed a
slight degree of unaffected timidity at first; but when her father
stamped and bid her let him see no vulgar bashfulness, she
obeyed--recited charmingly--and, when urged by a little opposition from
her brother, grew warm in defence of her own opinion--displayed in its
support such sensibility, with such a flow of eloquence, accompanied
with such animated and graceful, yet natural gesture, that Vivian was
transported with sudden admiration. He was astonished at this early
development of feeling and intellect; and if, in the midst of his
delight, he felt some latent disapprobation of this display of talent
from so young a woman, yet he quickly justified her to himself, by
saying that he was not a stranger; that he had formerly been received by
her family on a footing of intimacy. Then he observed farther, in her
vindication, that there was not the slightest affectation or coquetry in
any of her words or motions; that she spoke with this eagerness not to
gain admiration, but because she was carried away by her enthusiasm,
and, thoughtless of herself, was eager only to persuade and to make her
opinions prevail. Such was the enchantment of her eloquence and her
beauty, that after a quarter of an hour spent in her company, our hero
did not know whether to wish that she had more sedateness and reserve,
or to rejoice that she was so animated and natural. Before he could
decide this point, his friend Russell returned from riding. After the
first greetings were over, Russell drew him aside, and asked, "Pray, my
dear Vivian, what brings you here?"

"Lord Glistonbury--to whom I had not time to say no, he talked so fast.
But, after all, why should I say no? I am a free man--a discarded lover.
I am absolutely convinced that Selina Sidney's refusal will never be
retracted; my mother, I know, is of that opinion. You suggested, that if
I distinguished myself in public life, and showed steadiness, I might
recover her esteem and affection; but I see no chance of it. My mother
showed me her last letter--no hopes from that--so I think it would be
madness, or folly, to waste my time, and wear out my feelings, in
pursuit of a woman, who, however amiable, is lost to me."

"Of that you are the best judge," said Russell, gravely. "I am far from
wishing--from urging you to waste your time. Lady Mary Vivian must know
more of Miss Sidney, and be better able to judge of the state of her
heart than I can be. It would not be the part of a friend to excite you
to persevere in a pursuit that would end in disappointment; but this
much, before we quit the subject for ever, I feel it my duty to
say--that I think Miss Sidney the woman of all others the best suited to
your character, the most deserving of your love, the most calculated to
make you exquisitely and permanently happy."

"All that's very true," said Vivian, impatiently; "but, since I can't
have her, why make me miserable about her?"

"Am I to understand," resumed Russell, after a long pause, "am I to
understand that, now you have regained your freedom, you come here with
the settled purpose of espousing the Lady Sarah Lidhurst?"

"Heaven forfend!" cried Vivian, starting back.

"Then I am to go over again, on this subject, with indefatigable
patience and in due logical order, all the arguments, moral, prudential,
and conventional, which I had the labour of laying before you about a
twelvemonth ago."

"Save yourself the trouble, my dear friend!" said Vivian; "I shall set
all that upon a right footing immediately, by speaking of the report at
once to some of the family. I was going to _rise to explain_ this
morning, when I was with Lady Glastonbury; but I felt a sort of
delicacy--it was an awkward time--and at that moment somebody came into
the room."

"Ay," said Russell, "you are just like the hero of a novel, stopped from
saying what he ought to say by somebody's coming into the room.--Awkward
time! Take care you don't sacrifice yourself at last to these
_awkwardnesses_ and this sort of _delicacies_. I have still my fears
that you will get into difficulties about Lady Sarah."

Vivian could not help laughing at what he called his friend's
absurd fears.

"If you are determined, my dear Russell, at all events to fear for
me, I'll suggest to you a more reasonable cause of dread. Suppose I
should fall desperately in love with Lady Julia!--I assure you
there's some danger of that. She is really very handsome and very
graceful; uncommonly clever and eloquent--as to the rest, you know
her--what is she?"

"All that you have said, and more. She might be made any thing--every
thing; an ornament to her sex--an honour to her country--were she under
the guidance of persons fit to direct great powers and a noble
character; but yet I cannot, Vivian, as your friend, recommend her to
you as a wife."

"I am not thinking of her as a wife," said Vivian: "I have not had
time to think of her at all yet. But you said, just now, that in good
hands she might be made every thing that is good and great. Why not
by a husband, instead of a governess? and would not you call mine
_good hands_?"

"Good, but not steady--not at all the husband fit to guide such a
woman. He must be a man not only of superior sense, but of superior
strength of mind."

Vivian was piqued by this remark, and proceeded to compare the fitness
of his character to _such_ a character as Lady Julia's. Every moment he
showed more curiosity to hear further particulars of her disposition; of
the different characters of her governesses, and of all her relations;
but Russell refused to say more. He had told him what he was called
upon, as his friend, to reveal; he left the rest to Vivian's own
observation and judgment. Vivian set himself to work to observe and
judge with all his might.

He soon perceived that all Russell had told him of the mismanagement of
Lady Julia's education was true. In this house there were two parties,
each in extremes, and each with their systems and practice carried to
the utmost excess. The partisans of the old and the new school were here
to be seen at daggers-drawing. Lady Glastonbury, abhorrent of what she
termed modern philosophy, and classing under that name almost all
science and literature, especially all attempts to cultivate the
understanding of women, had, with the assistance of her _double_, Miss
Strictland, brought up Lady Sarah in all the ignorance and all the
rigidity of the most obsolete of the old school; she had made Lady Sarah
precisely like herself; with virtue, stiff, dogmatical, and repulsive;
with religion, gloomy and puritanical; with manners, cold and automatic.
In the course of eighteen years, whilst Lady Glistonbury went on, like
clock-work, the same round, punctual to the letter but unfeeling of the
spirit of her duties, she contrived, even by the wearisome method of her
_minuted_ diary of education, to make her house odious to her husband.
Some task, or master, or hour of lesson, continually, and immitigably
plagued him: he went abroad for amusement, and found dissipation. Thus,
by her unaccommodating temper, and the obstinacy of her manifold
virtues, she succeeded in alienating the affections of her husband. In
despair he one day exclaimed,

"Ah que de vertus vous me faites hair;"

and, repelled by virtue in this ungracious form, he flew to more
attractive vice. Finding that he could not have any comfort or solace in
the society of his wife, he sought consolation in the company of a
mistress. Lady Glistonbury had, in the mean time, her consolation in
being a pattern-wife; and in hearing that at card-tables it was
universally said, that Lord Glistonbury was the worst of husbands, and
that her ladyship was extremely to be pitied. In process of time, Lord
Glistonbury was driven to his home again by the united torments of a
virago mistress and the gout. It was at this period that he formed the
notion of being at once a political leader and a Mecaenas; and it was at
this period that he became acquainted with both his daughters, and
determined that his Julia should never resemble the Lady Sarah. He saw
his own genius in Julia; and he resolved, as he said, to give her fair
play, and to make her one of the wonders of the age. After some months'
counteraction and altercation, Lord Glistonbury, with a high hand, took
_his_ daughter from under the control of Miss Strictland; and, in spite
of all the representations, prophecies, and denunciations of her
mother, consigned Julia to the care of a governess after his own
heart--a Miss Bateman; or, as he called her, _The Rosamunda_. From the
moment this lady was introduced into the family there was an
irreconcileable breach between the husband and wife. Lady Glistonbury
was perfectly in the right in her dread of such a governess as Miss
Bateman for her daughter. Her ladyship was only partially and
accidentally right: right in point of fact, but wrong in the general
principle; for she objected to Miss Bateman, as being of the class of
literary women; to her real faults, her inordinate love of admiration,
and romantic imprudence, Lady Glistonbury did not object, because she
did not at first know them; and when she did, she considered them but as
necessary consequences of the _cultivation and enlargement of Miss
Bateman's understanding_. "No wonder!" her ladyship would say; "I knew
it must be so; I knew it could not be otherwise. All those clever women,
as they are called, are the same. This _comes_ of literature and
literary ladies."

Thus moralizing in private with Miss Strictland and her own small party,
Lady Glistonbury appeared silent and passive before her husband and his
adherents. After prophesying how it all must end in the ruin of her
daughter Julia, she declared that she would never speak on this subject
again: she showed herself ready, with maternal resignation, and in
silent obduracy, to witness the completion of the sacrifice of her
devoted child.

Lord Glistonbury was quite satisfied with having silenced opposition.
His new governess, established in her office, and with full and
unlimited powers, went on triumphant and careless of her charge; she
thought of little but displaying her own talents in company. The castle
was consequently filled with crowds of amateurs; novels and plays were
the order of the day; and a theatre was fitted up, all in open defiance
of poor Lady Glistonbury. The daughter commenced her new course of
education by being taught to laugh at her mother's prejudices. Such was
the state of affairs when Vivian commenced his observations; and all
this secret history he learnt by scraps, and hints, and inuendoes, from
very particular friends of both parties--friends who were not troubled
with any of Mr. Russell's scruples or discretion.

Vivian's attention was now fixed upon Lady Julia; he observed with
satisfaction, that, notwithstanding her governess's example and
excitement, Lady Julia did not show any exorbitant desire for general
admiration; and that her manners were free from coquetry and
affectation: she seemed rather to disdain the flattery, and to avoid
both the homage and the company of men who were her inferiors in mental
qualifications; she addressed her conversation principally to Vivian and
his friend Russell; with them, indeed, she conversed a great deal, with
much eagerness and enthusiasm, expressing all her opinions without
disguise, and showing on most occasions more imagination than reason,
and more feeling than judgment. Vivian perceived that it was soon
suspected by many of their observers, and especially by Lady Glistonbury
and the Lady Sarah, that Julia had a design upon his heart; but he
plainly discerned that she had no design whatever to captivate him; and
that though she gave him so large a share of her company, it was without
thinking of him as a lover: he saw that she conversed with him and Mr.
Russell, preferably to others, because they spoke on subjects which
interested her more; and because they drew out her brother, of whom she
was very fond. Her being capable, at so early an age, to appreciate
Russell's character and talents; her preferring his solid sense and his
plain sincerity to the brilliancy, the _fashion_, and even the gallantry
of all the men whom her father had now collected round her, appeared to
Vivian the most unequivocal proof of the superiority of her
understanding and of the goodness of her disposition. On various
occasions, he marked with delight the deference she paid to his friend's
opinion, and the readiness with which she listened to reason from
him--albeit unused and averse from reason in general. Impatient as she
was of control, and confident, both in her own powers and in her
instinctive moral sense (about which, by-the-bye, she talked a great
deal of eloquent nonsense), yet a word or a look from Mr. Russell would
reclaim her in her highest flights. Soon after Vivian commenced his
observations upon this interesting subject, he saw an instance of what
Russell had told him of the ease with which Lady Julia might be guided
by a man of sense and strength of mind.

The tragedy of "The Fair Penitent," Calista by Miss Bateman, was
represented with vast applause to a brilliant audience at the
Glistonbury theatre. The same play was to be reacted a week afterwards
to a fresh audience--it was proposed that Vivian should play Lothario,
and that Lady Julia should play Calista: Miss Bateman saw no objection
to this proposal: Lord Glistonbury might, perhaps, have had the parental
prudence to object to his daughter's appearing in public at her age, in
such a character, before a mixed audience: but, unfortunately, Lady
Glistonbury bursting from her silence at this critical moment, said so
much, and in such a prosing and puritanical manner, not only against her
daughter's acting in this play, and in these circumstances, but against
all _stage plays_, playwrights, actors, and actresses whatsoever,
denouncing and anathematizing them all indiscriminately; that
immediately Lord Glistonbury laughed--Miss Bateman took fire--and it
became a trial of power between the contending parties. Lady Julia, who
had but lately escaped from the irksomeness of her mother's injudicious
and minute control, dreaded, above all things, to be again subjected to
her and Miss Strictland; therefore, without considering the real
propriety or impropriety of the point in question, without examining
whether Miss Bateman was right or wrong in the licence she had granted,
Lady Julia supported her opinion warmly; and, with all her eloquence, at
once asserted her own liberty, and defended the cause of the theatre in
general. She had heard Mr. Russell once speak of the utility of a
well-regulated public stage; of the influence of good theatric
representations in forming the taste and rousing the soul to virtue: he
had shown her Marmontel's celebrated letter to Rousseau on this subject;
consequently, she thought she knew what his opinion must be on the
present occasion: therefore she spoke with more than her usual
confidence and enthusiasm. Her eloquence and her abilities transported
her father and most of her auditors, Vivian among the rest, with
astonishment and admiration: she enjoyed, at this moment, what the
French call _un grand succes_; but, in the midst of the buzz of
applause, Vivian observed that her eye turned anxiously upon Russell,
who stood silent, and with a disapproving countenance.

"I am sure your friend, Mr. Russell, is displeased at this instant--and
with me.--I must know why.--Let us ask him.--Do bring him here."

Immediately she disengaged herself from all her admirers, and, making
room for Mr. Russell beside her, waited, as she said, to hear from him
_ses verites_. Russell would have declined speaking, but her ladyship
appealed earnestly and urgently for his opinion, saying, "Who will speak
the truth to me if you will not? On whose judgment can I rely if not on
yours?--You direct my brother's mind to every thing that is wise and
good; direct mine: I am as desirous to do right as he can be: and you
will find me--self-willed and volatile, as I know you think me--you will
find me a docile pupil. Then tell me frankly--did I, just now, speak too
much or too warmly? I thought I was speaking your sentiments, and that I
_must_ be right. But perhaps it was not right for a woman, or so young a
woman as I am, to support even just opinions so resolutely. And yet is
it a crime to be young?--And is the honour of maintaining truth to be
monopolized by age?--No, surely; for Mr. Russell himself has not that
claim to stand forth, as he so often does, in its defence. If you think
that I ought not to act Calista; if you think that I had better not
appear on the stage at all, only say so!--All I ask is your opinion; the
advantage of your judgment. And you see, Mr. Vivian, how difficult it is
to obtain it!--But his friend, probably, never felt this difficulty!"

With a degree of sober composure, which almost provoked Vivian, Mr.
Russell answered this animated lady. And with a sincerity which, though
politely shown, Vivian thought severe and almost cruel, Russell
acknowledged that her ladyship had anticipated some, but not all of his
objections. He represented that she had failed in becoming respect to
her mother, in thus publicly attacking and opposing her opinions, even
supposing them to be ill-founded; and declared that, as to the case in
discussion, he was entirely of Lady Glistonbury's opinion, that it would
be unfit and injurious to a young lady to exhibit herself, even on a
private stage, in the character in which it had been proposed that Lady
Julia should appear.

Whilst Russell spoke, Vivian was charmed with the manner in which Lady
Julia listened: he thought her countenance enchantingly beautiful,
alternately softened as it was by the expression of genuine humility,
and radiant with candour and gratitude. She made no reply, but
immediately went to her mother; and, in the most engaging manner
acknowledged that she had been wrong, and declared that she was
convinced it would be improper for her to act the character she had
proposed. With that cold haughtiness of mien, the most repulsive to a
warm and generous mind, the mother turned to her daughter, and said
that, for her part, she had no faith in sudden conversions, and starts
of good conduct made little impression upon her; that, as far as she was
herself concerned, she forgave, as in charity it became her, all the
undutiful insolence with which she had been treated; that, as to the
rest, she was glad to find, for Lady Julia's own sake, that she had
given up her strange, and, as she must say, _scandalous_ intentions.
"However," added Lady Glistonbury, "I am not so sanguine as to consider
this as any thing but a respite from ruin; I am not so credulous as to
believe in sudden reformations; nor, despicable as you and my lord do me
the honour to think my understanding--am I to be made the dupe of a
little deceitful fondling!"

Julia withdrew her arms, which she had thrown round her mother; and Miss
Strictland, after breaking her netting silk with a jerk of indignation,
observed, that, for her part, she wondered young ladies should go to
consult their brother's tutor, instead of more suitable, and, perhaps,
as competent advisers. Lady Julia, now indignant, turned away, and was
withdrawing from before the triumvirate, when Lady Sarah, who had sat
looking, even more stiff and constrained than usual, suddenly broke from
her stony state, and, springing forward, exclaimed, "Stay, Julia!--Stay,
my dear sister!--Oh, Miss Strictland! do my sister justice!--When Julia
is so candid, so eager to do right, intercede for her with my mother!"

"First, may I presume to ask," said Miss Strictland, drawing herself up
with starch malice; "first, may I presume to ask, whether Mr. Vivian,
upon this occasion, declined to act Lothario?"

"Miss Strictland, you do not do my sister justice!" cried Lady Sarah:
"Miss Strictland, you are wrong--very wrong!"

Miss Strictland, for a moment struck dumb with astonishment, opening her
eyes as far as they could open, stared at Lady Sarah, and, after a
pause, exclaimed, "Lady Sarah! I protest I never saw any thing that
surprised me so much in my whole life!----Wrong!--very wrong!--I?----My
Lady Glistonbury, I trust your ladyship----"

Lady Glistonbury, at this instant, showed, by a little involuntary shake
of her head, that she was inwardly perturbed: Lady Sarah, throwing
herself upon her knees before her mother, exclaimed, "Oh,
madam!--mother! forgive me if I failed in respect to Miss
Strictland!----But, my sister! my sister----!"

"Rise, Sarah, rise!" said Lady Glistonbury; "that is not a fit
attitude!--And you are wrong, very wrong, to fail in respect to Miss
Strictland, my second self, Sarah. Lady Julia Lidhurst, it is you who
are the cause of this--the only failure of duty your sister ever was
guilty of towards me in the whole course of her life--I beg of you to
withdraw, and leave me my daughter Sarah."

"At least, I have found a sister, and when I most wanted it," said Lady
Julia. "I always suspected you loved me, but I never knew how much till
this moment," added she, turning to embrace her sister; but Lady Sarah
had now resumed her stony appearance, and, standing motionless, received
her sister's embrace without sign of life or feeling.

"Lady Julia Lidhurst," said Miss Strictland, "you humble yourself in
vain: I think your mother, my Lady Glistonbury, requested of you to
leave your sister, Lady Sarah, to us, and to her duty."

"Duty!" repeated Lady Julia, her eyes flashing indignation: "Is this
what you call _duty_?--Never will I humble myself before you again--I
_will_ leave you--I do leave you--now and for ever--DUTY!"

She withdrew:--and thus was lost one of the fairest occasions of
confirming a young and candid mind in prudent and excellent
dispositions. After humbling herself in vain before a mother, this poor
young lady was now to withstand a father's reproaches; and, after the
inexorable Miss Strictland, she was to encounter the exasperated Miss
Bateman. Whether the Gorgon terrors of one governess, or the fury
passions of the other, were most formidable, it was difficult to decide.
Miss Bateman had written an epilogue for Lady Julia to recite in the
character of Calista; and, with the combined irritability of authoress
and governess, she was enraged at the idea of her pupil's declining to
repeat these favourite lines. Lord Glistonbury cared not for the lines;
but, considering his own authority to be impeached by his daughter's
resistance, he treated _his Julia_ as a traitor to his cause, and a
rebel to his party.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38