Tales and Novels, Vol. VII by Maria Edgeworth

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

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"Did your ladyship ever try his skill?" said Lady Jane.

"Not I; for the duchess would not hear of him--but I long the more to know
what he could make me dream. He certainly is very clever, for he was asked
last winter everywhere. All the world ran mad--Lady Spilsbury, and my wise
cousin, I understand, came to pulling wigs for him. Angelica conquered
at last; you know Angelica was always a little bit of a coquette--not a
_little_ bit neither. At first, to be sure, she thought no more of love
for the German emperor than I do this minute; but he knew how to coquet
also--Who would have thought it?--So there were notes, and verses, and
dreams, and interpretations, and I can't tell you what. But, so far, the
man is no charlatan--he has made Lady Angelica dream the very dream he
chose--the strangest, too, imaginable--that she is in love with him. And
the interpretation is, that she will take him 'for better for worse.'"

"That is your own interpretation, is not it, Lady Frances?" said Caroline.

"Is it possible there is any truth in it?" said Lady Jane.

"All true, positively, I hear. And of all things, I should like to see Lady
Angelica and the baron face to face--tete-a-tete--or profile by profile, in
the true Roman emperor and empress medal style."

"So should I, I confess," said Lady Jane, smiling.

"The best or the worst of it is," continued Lady Frances, "that, after all,
this baron bold is, I've a notion, no better than an adventurer: for I
heard a little bird sing, that a certain ambassador hinted confidentially,
that the Baron de Wilhelmberg would find it difficult to prove his sixteen
quarterings. But now, upon both your honours, promise me you'll never
mention this--never give the least confidential hint of it to man, woman,
or child; because it might get round, spoil our sport, and never might I
have the dear delight of drawing the caricature."

"_Now_ your ladyship is not serious, I am sure," said Caroline.

"Never more serious--never so serious in my life; and, I assure you," cried
Lady Frances, speaking very earnestly and anxiously, "if you give the least
hint, I will never forgive you while I live; for I have set my heart on
doing the caricature."

"Impossible that, for the mere pleasure of drawing a caricature, you would
let your own cousin expose herself with an adventurer!" said Caroline.

"La! Lady Angelica is only my cousin a hundred removes. I can't help her
being ridiculous: every body, I dare say, has ridiculous cousins--and laugh
one must. If one were forbidden to laugh at one's relatives, it would be
sad indeed for those who have extensive connexions. Well, Lady Jane, I am
glad to see that _you_ don't pique yourself on being too good to laugh: so
I may depend on you. Our party for Lady Angelica's is fixed for Monday."

No--Lady Jane had, it is certain, some curiosity and some desire to laugh
at her neighbour's expense. So far, Lady Frances had, with address,
touched her foible for her purpose; but Lady Jane's affection for Caroline
strengthened her against the temptation. She was persuaded that it would be
a disadvantage to her to go to this conversazione. She would not upon any
account have Miss Percy be seen in the blue-stocking set at present--she
had her reasons. To this resolution her ladyship adhered, though Lady
Frances Arlington, pertinacious to accomplish any purpose she took into her
fancy, returned morning after morning to the charge. Sometimes she would
come with intelligence from her fetcher and carrier of news, as she called
him, Captain Nuttall.

One day, with a very dejected countenance, her ladyship came in saying,
"It's off--it's all off! Nuttall thinks it will never be a match."

The next day, in high spirits, she brought word, "It's on--it's on
again! Nuttall thinks it will certainly be a match--and Angelica is more
delightfully ridiculous than ever! Now, my dear Lady Jane, Tuesday?--next
week?--the week afterwards? In short, my dearest Lady Jane, once for all,
will you ever take me to her conversazione?"

"Never, my dear Lady Frances, till Miss Caroline Percy is married," said
Lady Jane: "I have my own reasons."

"Then I wish Miss Caroline Percy were to be married to-morrow--I have my
own reasons. But, after all, tell me, is there any, the least chance of
Miss Percy's being married?"

"Not the least chance," said Caroline.

"That is her own fault," said Lady Jane, looking mortified and displeased.

"That cannot be said of me, there's one comfort," cried Lady Frances. "If
I'm not married, 'tis not my fault; but my papa's, who, to _make an eldest
son_, left me only a poor 5000_l._ portion. What a shame to rob daughters
for sons, as the grandees do! I wish it had pleased Heaven to have made me
the daughter of an honest merchant, who never thinks of this impertinence:
then with my plum or plums, I might have chosen the first spend-thrift lord
in the land, or, may be, I might have been blessed with an offer from that
paragon of perfection, Lord William ----. Do you know what made him such
a paragon of perfection? His elder brother's falling sick, and being like
to die. Now, if the brother should recover, adieu to my Lord William's
perfections."

"Not in the opinion of all," said Lady Jane. "Lord William was a favourite
of mine, and I saw his merit long ago, and shall see it, whether his elder
brother die or recover."

"At all events," continued Lady Frances, "he will be a paragon, you will
see, only till he is married, and then--

'How shall I your true love know
From any other man?'

"By-the-bye, the other day, Lord William, in flying from the chase of
matrons, in his fright (he always looks like a frightened hare, poor
creature!) took refuge between you two ladies. Seriously, Lady Jane, do you
know I think you _manage_ vastly well for your protegee--you are not so
_broad_ as Mrs. Falconer."

"_Broad!_ I beg your ladyship's pardon for repeating your word," cried Lady
Jane, looking quite angry, and feeling too angry to parry, as she usually
did, with wit: "I really don't understand your ladyship."

"Then I must wish your ladyship a good morning, for I've no time or talents
for explanation," said Lady Frances, running off, delighted to have
produced a sensation.

Lady Jane rang for her carriage, and made no observations on what had
passed. But in the evening she declared that she would not take Lady
Frances Arlington out with her any more, that her ladyship's spirits were
too much for her. "Besides, my dear Caroline, when she is with you, I never
hear you speak a word--you leave it entirely to her ladyship. After all,
she is, if you observe, a perfectly selfish creature."

Lady Jane recollected various instances of this.

"She merely makes a tool of me--my carriage, my servants, my time, myself,
always to be at her service, whenever the aunt-duchess cannot, or will not,
do her ladyship's behests. For the slightest errand she could devise, she
would send me to the antipodes; bid me fetch her a toothpick from the
farthest inch of the city. Well! I could pardon all the trouble she gives
for her fancies, if she would take any trouble for others in return.
No--ask her to do the least thing for you, and she tells you, she'd be very
glad, but she does not know how; or, she would do it this minute, but that
she has not time; or, she would have remembered it certainly, but that she
forgot it."

Caroline admitted that Lady Frances was thoughtless and giddy, but she
hoped not incurably selfish, as Lady Jane now seemed to suppose.

"Pardon me, she is incurably selfish. Her childishness made me excuse her
for a great while: I fancied she was so giddy that she could not remember
any thing; but I find she never forgets any thing on which she has set her
own foolish head. Giddy! I can't bear people who are too giddy to think of
any body but themselves."

Caroline endeavoured to excuse her ladyship, by saying that, by all
accounts, she had been educated in a way that must make her selfish.
"Idolized, and spoiled, I think you told me she was?"

"True, very likely; let her mother, or her grandmother, settle that
account--I am not to blame, and I will not suffer for it. You know, if we
entered like your father into the question of education, we might go back
to Adam and Eve, and find nobody to blame but them. In the mean time, I
will not take Lady Frances Arlington out with me any more--on this point I
am determined; for, suppose I forgave her selfishness and childishness,
and _all that_, why should I be subject to her impertinence? She has been
suffered to say whatever comes into her head, and to think it wit. Now, as
far as I am concerned, I will teach her better."

Caroline, who always saw the best side of characters, pleaded her freedom
from art and dissimulation.

"My dear Caroline, she is not half so free from dissimulation as you are
from envy and jealousy. She is always in your way, and you never see it. I
can't bear to hear you defend her, when I know she would and does sacrifice
you at any time and at all times to her own amusement. But she shall not
stand in your light--for you are a generous, unsuspicious creature. Lady
Frances shall never go out with me again--and I have just thought of
an excellent way of settling that matter. I'll change my coach for a
vis-a-vis, which will carry only two."

This Lady Jane, quick and decided, immediately accomplished; she adhered
to her resolution, and never did take Lady Frances Arlington out with her
more.

Returning from a party this evening--a party where they met Lord William,
who had sat beside Caroline at supper--Lady Jane began to reproach her with
having been unusually reserved and silent.

Caroline said she was not conscious of this.

"I hope and trust I am not too broad," continued Lady Jane, with a very
proud and proper look; "but I own, I think there is as much indelicacy in
a young lady's hanging back too much as in her coming too forward. And
gentlemen are apt to over-rate their consequence as much, if they find you
are afraid to speak to them, as if you were to talk--like Miss Falconer
herself."

Caroline assented fully to the truth of this remark; assured Lady Jane
that she had not intentionally hung back or been reserved; that she had no
affectation of this sort. In a word, she promised to exert herself more in
conversation, since Lady Jane desired it.

"I do wish it, my dear: you don't _get on_--there's no _getting you on_.
You certainly do not talk enough to gentlemen when they sit beside you. It
will be observed."

"Then, ma'am, I hope it will be observed too," said Caroline, smiling,
"that the gentlemen do not talk to me."

"No matter--you should find something to say to them--you have plenty of
gold, but no ready change about you. Now, as Lord Chesterfield tells us,
you know, that will never do."

Caroline was perfectly sensible of this--she knew she was deficient in the
sort of conversation of the moment, requisite for fine company and public
places.

"But when I have nothing to say, is not it better for me to say nothing,
ma'am?"

"No, my dear--half the world are in that predicament; but would it mend our
condition to reduce our parties to quakers' silent meetings? My dear, you
must condescend to talk, without saying any thing--and you must bear to
hear and say the same words a hundred times over; and another thing, my
dear Caroline--I wish you could cure yourself of looking fatigued. You will
never be thought agreeable, unless you can endure, without showing that you
are tired, the most stupid people extant--"

Caroline smiled, and said she recollected her father's telling her that
"the Prince de Ligne, the most agreeable man of his day, declared that his
secret depended, not on his wit or talents for conversation, but on his
power of concealing the ennui he felt in stupid company."

"Well, my dear, _I_ tell you so, as well as the Prince de Ligne, and let me
see that you benefit by it to-morrow."

The next night they went to a large party at a very fine lady's. It was
dull, but Caroline did her best to look happy, and exerted herself to talk
to please Lady Jane, who, from her card-table, from time to time, looked
at her, nodded and smiled. When they got into their carriage, Lady Jane,
before she had well drawn up the glass, began to praise her for her
performance this evening. "Really, my dear, you got on very well to-night;
and I hear Miss Caroline Percy is very agreeable. And, shall I tell you who
told me so?--No; that would make you too vain. But I'll leave you to sleep
upon what has been said--to-morrow you shall hear more."

The next morning, Caroline had stolen away from visitors, and quietly in
her own room was endeavouring to proceed in her copy of the miniature for
Mr. Gresham, when Lady Jane came into her apartment, with a letter and its
cover in her hand. "A letter in which you, Caroline, are deeply concerned."

A sudden hope darted across Caroline's imagination and illuminated her
countenance. As suddenly it vanished, when she saw on the cover of the
letter, no foreign post-mark, no foreign hand--but a hand unknown to her.

"Deeply concerned! How can I--how--how am I concerned in this, ma'am?" she
asked--with difficulty commanding her voice to articulate the words.

"Only a proposal for you, my dear," said Lady Jane, smiling: "not a
proposal for which you need blush, as you'll see if you'll read."

But observing that Caroline was not at this moment capable of reading,
without seeming to notice the tremor of her hand, and that she was holding
the letter upside down before her eyes, Lady Jane, with kind politeness,
passed on to the picture at which her young friend had been at work, and
stooping to examine the miniature with her glass, made some observations on
the painting, and gave Caroline time to recover. Nor did her ladyship look
up till Caroline exclaimed, "John Clay!--English Clay!"

"Yes--Clay, of Clay-hall, as Mrs. Falconer would say. You see, my love, I
told you truly, it was no blushing matter. I am sorry I startled you by
my abruptness. _Surprises_ are generally ill-judged--and always ill-bred.
Acquit me, I beseech you, of all but thoughtlessness," said Lady Jane,
sitting down by Caroline, and kindly taking her hand: "I hope you know I am
not Mrs. Falconer."

"I do, indeed," said Caroline, pressing her hand: "I feel all your
kindness, all your politeness."

"Of course, I knew that a proposal from Clay, of Clay-hall, would be to
you--just what it is to me," said Lady Jane. "I hope you cannot apprehend
that, for the sake of his seven or ten thousand, whatever he has per annum,
I should press such a match upon you, Caroline? No, no, you are worth
something much better."

"Thank you, my dear Lady Jane," cried Caroline, embracing her with warm
gratitude.

"Why, child, you could not think me so--merely mercenary. No; touch me upon
family, or fashion--any of my aristocratic prejudices as your father calls
them--and I might, perhaps, be a little peremptory. But John Clay is a man
just risen from the ranks, lately promoted from being a manufacturer's
son, to be a subaltern in good company, looking to rise another step by
purchase: no, no--a Percy could not accept such an offer--no loss of
fortune could justify such a _mesalliance_. Such was my first feeling,
and I am sure yours, when you read at the bottom of this awkwardly folded
epistle, 'Your ladyship's most devoted, &c. John Clay'--"

"I believe I had no feeling, but pure surprise," said Caroline. "I scarcely
think Mr. Clay can be in earnest--for, to the best of my recollection, he
never spoke five words to me in his life!"

"English Clay, my dear. Has not he said every thing in one word?--I should
have been a little surprised, but that I have been seeing this good while
the _dessous des cartes_. Don't flatter yourself that love for you offers
Clay-hall--no; but hatred to Mrs. and Miss Falconer. There have been
quarrels upon quarrels, and poor Lady Trant in the middle of them, unable
to get out--and John Clay swearing he is not to be _taken in_--and Miss
Falconer buffeting Lady Trant with the willow he left on her brows--and
Mrs. Falconer smiling through the whole, and keeping the secret, which
every body knows: in short, my dear, 'tis not worth explaining to you--but
John Clay certainly hopes to complete the mortification of the Falconers by
giving himself to you. Besides, you are in fashion. Too much has been said
about him--I'm tired of him. Write your answer, my dear--or I'm to write,
am I? Well, give me some gilt paper--let us do the thing properly."
Properly the thing was done--the letter folded, not awkwardly, was sealed
and sent, Caroline delighted with Lady Jane, and Lady Jane delighted with
herself.

"So there's an end of that matter," said Lady Jane. "I saw how it would be
long ago; but I was glad you saw nothing of it, lest you should not have
let it come to a declaration. A refusal is always creditable; therefore, I
own, I should have been mortified, if the season had passed without your
having one proposal. But now you have nothing to be ashamed of--you've
killed your man--and I hope and trust I shall live to see you kill
another."

Caroline laughed, but said she was glad Lady Jane was not one of those who
count refusals as so many proofs of a young lady's merit; for her own part,
she acknowledged she was inclined to think that they were sometimes proofs
rather of coquetry and duplicity.

Lady Jane hesitated, and said she did not see this--she could not agree to
this.

The conversation went on till her ladyship and Caroline came to a complete
opposition of opinion on a principle, which, though it was only stated in
general, and in the abstract, her ladyship defended with an urgency, and
Caroline resisted with a steadiness, which are seldom shown about any
merely speculative point, unless there is some secret apprehension of their
being soon reduced to practice.

Lady Jane asserted that "a woman should always let an attachment come to
a declaration, before she permits a man to see her mind, even though
determined upon a refusal."

Caroline thought this would be using the man ill.

Lady Jane maintained that it would be using him much worse to refuse him
before he asked.

"But without refusing," Caroline said that "a gentleman might be led to
perceive when he was not likely to be accepted, and thus would be saved the
pain and humiliation of a rejected proposal."

"It was not a young lady's first business to think of that--her first duty
was to do what was right and proper for herself," Lady Jane said.

"Certainly; but the very question is, what is right and proper?"

"To give a distinct answer when a distinct question is asked, neither more
nor less," said Lady Jane. "Caroline, on these subjects you must trust to
one who knows the world, to tell you the opinion of the world. A woman is
safe, and cannot be blamed by friend or foe, if she adhere to the plain
rule, 'Stay till you are asked.' Till a gentleman thinks proper, in form,
to declare his attachment, nothing can be more indelicate than for a lady
to see it."

"Or, in some cases, more disingenuous, more cruel, than to pretend to be
blind to it."

"Cruel!--Cruel is a word of the last century, or the century before the
last. Cruelty is never heard of now, my dear--gentlemen's hearts don't
break in these our days; or suppose an odd heart should break, if the lady
is treating it according to rule, she is not to blame. Why did not the
proud tongue speak? Whatever happens, she is acquitted by the world."

"And by her own conscience? Surely not, if she deceive, and injure by
deception."

Lady Jane warmly repeated that she knew the world--that at her time of life
she ought to know the world--and that she was certain any line of conduct
but that which she had pointed out would expose a woman to the charge of
indelicacy, and perhaps of impertinence.

These were heavy charges, Caroline felt; but she thought that, when not
deserved, they could be borne better than self-reproaches for the want of
candour and truth.

Lady Jane observed, that, in the catalogue of female virtues, delicacy must
have the foremost place.

Caroline made a distinction between real delicacy and punctilio.

Lady Jane was inclined to call it a distinction without a difference. She,
however, more prudently said, that punctilio was necessary as the guard of
female delicacy.

Undoubtedly; but the greater virtue should not be sacrificed to the less.
Truth and sincerity, Caroline thought, must be classed among the highest
virtues of woman, as well as of man, and she hoped they were perfectly
consistent with the utmost feminine modesty. She asked whether, after all,
the plea of delicacy and punctilio was not sometimes used to conceal the
real motives? Perhaps ladies, in pretending to be too delicate to see a
gentleman's sentiments, were often, in fact, gratifying their own vanity,
and urging him to that declaration which was to complete the female
triumph.

Lady Jane grew angry: but, fearing lest Caroline should perceive that she
had some particular object in view--doubtful whether Caroline knew, or did
not know, her aim--and farther, having a secret hope, that, like other
young ladies who support fine sentiments about love and generosity, in
conversation, she might, when it came to the test, forget them, her
ladyship urged her opinion no farther.

Indeed, she candidly acknowledged, that much might be said on Caroline's
side of the question--and there the matter ended.

CHAPTER XXXV.

The object that Lady Jane had in view was to prevent Caroline from
discouraging, by premature candour, a passion which she saw rising in the
heart of a young nobleman.

Lord William ----,

"Well pleased to 'scape from flattery to wit,"

had always preferred Lady Jane Granville's company to the society of those
who courted him more, or with less delicacy. Since Miss Caroline Percy's
arrival and appearance in town Lady Jane had, to do her justice, preserved
with his lordship exactly the same even tenor of conduct; whatever her
wishes might be, she had too much proper pride to compromise her own or her
young friend's dignity. Moreover, her ladyship had sense and knowledge
of character sufficient to perceive that such a sacrifice, or the least
appearance of a disposition to make it, would be not only degrading, but
vain: it would, she knew, for ever disgust and ruin them in the opinion
of a man, who had infinitely more penetration and feeling than those who
flattered him were aware that he possessed.

Lord William had excellent abilities, knowledge, and superior qualities of
every sort, all depressed by excessive timidity, to such a degree as to be
almost useless to himself and to others. Whenever he was, either for the
business or pleasure of life, to meet or mix with numbers, the whole man
was, as it were, snatched from himself. He was subject to that nightmare
of the soul, who seats herself upon the human breast, oppresses the heart,
palsies the will, and raises spectres of dismay, which the sufferer combats
in vain--that cruel enchantress, who hurls her spell even upon childhood;
and when she makes the youth her victim, pronounces, "Henceforward you
shall never appear in your natural character: innocent, you shall look
guilty; wise, you shall look silly; never shall you have the use of your
natural faculties. That which you wish to say, you shall not say--that
which you wish to do, you shall not do: you shall appear reserved when you
are enthusiastic, insensible when your heart sinks into melting tenderness.
In the presence of those you most wish to please, you shall be most
awkward; and when approached by her you love, you shall become lifeless as
a statue, under the irresistible spell of _mauvaise honte_."

Strange that France should give a name to that malady of the mind which
she never knew, or of which she knows less than any other nation upon the
surface of the civilized globe! Under the spell of _mauvaise honte_ poor
Lord William--laboured--fast bound--and bound the faster by all the efforts
made for his relief by the matrons and young damsels who crowded round
him continually. They were astonished that all their charms, and all the
encouragement they held out, failed to free this young nobleman from his
excessive timidity.

"What a pity! it was his only fault, they were sure."--"Ten thousand
pities he could not be made to speak--they were certain he had a vast
deal to say."--"And he could be so agreeable, they were confident, if he
would."--"Most extraordinary that a man of his rank and fortune, whom every
creature admired, should be so timid."

True; but the timid Lord William all the time esteemed himself more highly
than these ladies who affected to admire him. Mixed with his apparent
timidity there was a secret pride. Conscious of the difference between what
he was, and what he appeared to be, he was at once mortified and provoked,
and felt disdain and disgust for those who pretended to admire his outward
man, or who paid to his fortune that tribute which he thought due to his
merit. With some few, some very few, by whom he was appreciated, his
pride and his timidity were equally at ease, his reserve vanished in an
astonishing manner, and the man came out of the marble. Of this small
number in his confidence Lady Jane Granville was one. Even from his boyish
years she had discerned his worth and value, and he now distinguished her
by his grateful and constant regard. But Lady Jane Granville, though a
woman of considerable talents, could not be a judge of the whole of
his mind, or the extent of his powers: her talent was chiefly wit--her
knowledge, knowledge of the world--her mind cultivated but slightly, and
for embellishment--his deeply, extensively, and with large views. When he
became acquainted with Miss Caroline Percy, he soon found that to her all
this appeared, and by her was justly valued. His assiduity in cultivating
his friend Lady Jane's acquaintance increased; and his taste for the
conversation at her house became so great, that he was always the first,
and usually the last, at her parties. His morning visits were frequent and
long; he knew, by instinct, the hours when the two ladies were disengaged,
but not always so exactly the time when he ought to take leave. His ear
never informed him when Lady Jane's carriage came to the door, nor did
he always hear the servant announce its being in readiness. Her ladyship
might fidget as much as her politeness would permit without danger of its
being observed. His lordship never was wakened to the sense of its being
necessary to stir, till Miss Caroline Percy, by some strong indication,
such as putting away her drawing, and the books, or by plainly saying, "We
must go out now," made it manifest to him that he must depart. For this
Caroline was regularly reproved afterwards by Lady Jane--but she never
found that it gave Lord William any offence; nor did she for some time
observe that it caused him much uneasiness. He seemed to her to stay from
mere habitual absence of mind, and unwillingness to remove from a retreat
where he was safe and comfortable, to some place where he was liable to be
annoyed by his fair persecutors. That be liked her company and conversation
she did not affect to deny, nor could she doubt that he felt for her esteem
and regard--he expressed both, and he was not a man to express more than he
felt, or the truth of whose professions could be suspected; but she thought
that his regard for her, and for Lady Jane, were both of the same nature.
She thought him a _friend, not a lover_. This was not with Caroline a mere
commonplace phrase. She believed this to be true; and at the time she
believed it, she was right. But constantly in the society of an amiable,
sensible, and beautiful young woman, with a man of feeling, taste, and
understanding, whose heart is disengaged, the passage from friendship to
love is found so easy and rapid, as to be scarcely perceptible. And to
this, which generally happens in similar circumstances, Lord William was
peculiarly liable. For though, from the crowds who courted his attention,
it might seem that his liberty of choice was unlimited, yet, in fact, his
power of choosing was contracted and reduced to the few "whom choice and
passion both approve." Among these few his fastidious judgment, and his
apprehensions of domestic unhappiness, saw frequently, and sometimes too
justly, objection to the family connexion of the young lady: some want of
union in it--want of principle, or train of dissipation, which he dreaded,
or some folly he disliked; so that among the numbers of his own rank who
sought his alliance, it was not easy for him to satisfy himself, even as
to connexion--still more difficult to satisfy him as to love, "the modern
fair one's jest," or, what is worse, her affectation. His lordship was well
aware that among the numbers of young ladies who were ready at a moment's
warning to marry him, not one of these would love him for his own sake. Now
in common with Marmontel's Alcibiades, and with most men of rank who have
any superiority of character, Lord William had an anxious desire to be
loved for his own sake; for though, in the opinion of most people of the
world, and of some philosophers, the circumstances of rank and fortune form
a part of personal merit; yet as these are not indissolubly associated
with the individual, he rather preferred affection and esteem arising from
merit, of which he could not be deprived by any revolution of fate or turn
of fancy. If he were ever loved by Caroline Percy, it would be _for his own
sake_; and of the constancy of her affection, if once obtained, the whole
tenor of her character and conduct gave him the most secure pledge. Her
education, manners, talents, and beauty, were all such as would honour
and grace the highest rank of life. She had no fortune--but that was of
no consequence to him--he was likely to have a princely income: he had no
debts, he had at present all that satisfied his wishes, and that could
enable him to live married, as well as single, in a manner that suited his
station. His friends, eager to have him marry, and almost despairing of his
complying, in this point, with their wishes, left him entirely at liberty
in his choice. Reason and passion both determined on that choice, just
about the time when English Clay proposed for Caroline, and when the
conversation about declarations and refusals had passed between her and
Lady Jane. That conversation, instead of changing or weakening the opinions
Caroline then expressed, had confirmed her in her own sentiments, by
drawing out more fully the strength of the reasons, and the honourable
nature of the feelings, on which they were founded. Some slight
circumstances, such as she could scarcely state in words, occurred about
this time, which first gave her the idea, that Lord William ---- felt for
her more than esteem. The tender interest he showed one day when she had a
slight indisposition--the extreme alarm he expressed one night when there
occurred an embarrassment between their carriages at the door of the
opera-house, by which Lady Jane's vis-a-vis was nearly overturned--an alarm
much greater than Caroline thought the occasion required--was succeeded
by anger against his coachman, so much more violent and vehement than the
error or offence justified, or than his lordship had ever before been seen
to show; these things, which in a man of gallantry might mean nothing but
to show his politeness, from Lord William seemed indicative of something
more. Caroline began to see that the friend might become a lover, and now,
for the first time, questioned her own heart. She thought highly of Lord
William's abilities and character--she saw, as she had once said to Lady
Jane, "signs which convinced her that this volcano, covered with snow, and
often enveloped in clouds, would at some time burst forth in torrents of
fire." Little indication as Lord William now showed to common observers of
being or of becoming an orator, she perceived in him the soul of eloquence;
and she foresaw, that on some great occasion, from some great motive, he
would at once vanquish his timidity, and burst forth upon the senate. She
felt convinced that whether eloquent or silent, speaking or acting, in
public or private life, Lord William would in every circumstance of trial
fill and sustain the character of an upright, honourable, enlightened
English nobleman. Notwithstanding that she thought thus highly of him,
Count Altenberg, in her opinion, far surpassed him in the qualities
they both possessed, and excelled in many, in which Lord William was
deficient--in manner especially; and manner goes a great way in love,
even with people of the best understanding. Besides all the advantages of
manner, Count Altenberg had far superior talents, or at least far superior
habits of conversation--he was altogether as estimable and more agreeable
than his rival. He also had had the advantage of finding Caroline's mind
disengaged--he had cultivated her society in the country, where he had had
time and opportunity to develope his own character and hers--in one word,
he had made the first impression on her heart; and such an impression, once
made on a heart like hers, cannot be easily effaced. Though there seemed
little chance of his returning to claim his place in her affections--though
she had made the most laudable efforts to banish him from her recollection,
yet