Part 20
Fortunate and unfortunate couples, belles in silks and beaux in sentimentals, ye who have wept and sighed, ye who have been wept for and sighed for, victims of vapours and coiners of vows, makers and marrers of intrigue, readers and writers of songs--come to me with your attention and your salts, your sympathy and your cambric; your griefs, your raptures, your anxieties, all have been mine; I know your blushing and your paleness, your self-deceiving and your self-tormenting.
so com’è inconstanta e vaga Timida, ardita vita degli amanti, Ch’un poco dolce molto amaro appoggia; Ε so i costumi, e i lor sospiri, e i canti E’l parlar rotto, e’l subito silenzio, E’l brevissimo riso, e i lunghi pianti; E qual è ’l mel temprato con l’assenzio.
All these things are so beautiful in Italian! But I need not have borrowed a syllable from Petrarch, for shapes of shadowy beauty, smiles of cherished loveliness, glances of reviving lustre, are coming in the mist of memory around me! I am writing “an ower true tale!”
I never fell seriously in love till I was seventeen. Long before that period I had learned to talk nonsense and tell lies, and had established the important points that a delicate figure is equivalent to a thousand pounds, a pretty mouth better than the Bank of England, and a pair of bright eyes worth all Mexico. But at seventeen a more intricate branch of study awaited me.
I was lounging away my June at a pretty village in Kent, with little occupation beyond my own meditations, and no company but my horse and dogs. My sisters were both in the South of France; and my uncle, at whose seat I had pitched my camp, was attending to the interests of his constituents and the wishes of his patron in Parliament. I began after the lapse of a week to be immensely bored; I felt a considerable dislike of an agricultural life, and an incipient inclination for laudanum. I took to playing backgammon with the rector. He was more than a match for me, and used to grow most unclerically hot when the dice, as was their duty, befriended the weaker side. At last, at the conclusion of a very long hit, which had kept Mrs. Penn’s tea waiting full an hour, my worthy and wigged friend flung deuce-ace three times in succession, put the board in the fire, overturned Mrs. Penn’s best china, and hurried to his study to compose a sermon on patience.
Then I took up reading. My uncle had a delightful library, where a reasonable man might have lived and died. But I confess I never could endure a long hour of lonely reading. It is a very pretty thing to take down a volume of Tasso or Racine, and study accent and cadence for the benefit of half a dozen listening belles, all dividing their attention between the work and the work-basket, their feelings and their flounces, their tears and their trimmings, with becoming and laudable perseverance. It is a far prettier thing to read Petrarch or Rousseau with a single companion, in some sheltered spot so full of passion and of beauty that you may sit whole days in its fragrance and dream of Laura and Julie. If these are out of the way, it is endurable to be tied down to the moth-eaten marvels of antiquity, poring to-day that you may pore again to-morrow, and labouring for the nine days’ wonder of some temporary distinction, with an ambition which is almost frenzy, and an emulation which speaks the language of animosity. But to sit down to a novel or a philosopher, with no companion to participate in the enjoyment and no object to reward the toil, this indeed--oh! I never could endure a long hour of lonely reading; and so I deserted Sir Roger’s library, and left his Marmontel and his Aristotle to the slumbers from which I had unthinkingly awakened them.
At last I was roused from a state of most Persian torpor by a note from an old lady, whose hall, for so an indifferent country-house was by courtesy denominated, stood at the distance of a few miles. She was about to give a ball. Such a thing had not been seen for ten years within ten miles of us. From the sensation produced by the intimation you might have deemed the world at an end. Prayers and entreaties were offered up to all the guardians and all the milliners; and the old gentlemen rose in a passion, and the old lace rose in price. Everything was everywhere in a flurry; kitchen, and parlour, and boudoir and garret--Babel all! _Ackermann’s Fashionable Repository_, the _Ladies’ Magazine_, the _New Pocket-book_--all these, and all other publications whose frontispieces presented the “fashions for 1817,” personified in a thin lady with kid gloves and a formidable obliquity of vision, were in earnest and immediate requisition. Needles and pins were flying right and left; dinner was ill-dressed that dancers might be well-dressed; mutton was marred that misses might be married. There was not a schoolboy who did not cut Homer and capers; nor a boarding-school beauty who did not try on a score of dancing shoes, and talk for a fortnight of Angiolini. Every occupation was laid down, every carpet was taken up; every combination of hands-across and down the middle was committed most laudably to memory; and nothing was talked, nothing was meditated, nothing was dreamed, but love and romance, fiddles and flirtation, warm negus and handsome partners, dyed feathers and chalked floors.
In all the pride and condescension of an inmate of Grosvenor Square, I looked upon Lady Motley’s “At Home.” “Yes,” I said, flinging away the card with a tragedy twist of the fingers, “yes: I will be there. For one evening I will encounter the tedium and the taste of a village ball. For one evening I will doom myself to figures that are out of date, and fiddles that are out of tune; dowagers who make embroidery by wholesale, and demoiselles who make conquests by profession: for one evening I will endure the inquiries about Almack’s and St. Paul’s, the tales of the weddings that have been and the weddings that are to be, the round of courtesies in the ball-room and the round of beef at the supper-table: for one evening I will not complain of the everlasting hostess and the everlasting Boulanger, of the double duty and the double bass, of the great heiress and the great plum-pudding:
Come one, come all, Come dance in Sir Roger’s great hall.”
And thus, by dint of civility, indolence, quotation, and antithesis, I bent up each corporal agent to the terrible feat, and “would have the honour of waiting upon her ladyship,”--in due form.
I went: turned my uncle’s one-horse chaise into the long old avenue about an hour after the time specified, and perceived by the lights flashing from all the windows, and the crash of chairs and carriages returning from the door, that the room was most punctually full, and the performers most pastorally impatient. The first face I encountered on my entrance was that of my old friend Villars; I was delighted to meet him, and expressed my astonishment at finding him in a situation for which his inclination, one would have supposed, was so little adapted.
“By Mercury,” he exclaimed, “I am metamorphosed--fairly metamorphosed, my good Vyvyan; I have been detained here three months by a fall from Sir Peter, and have amused myself most indefatigably by humming tunes and reading newspapers, winding silk and guessing conundrums. I have made myself the admiration, the adoration, the very worship of all the coteries in the place; am reckoned very clever at cross purposes, and very apt at ‘What’s my thought like?’ The squires have discovered I can carve, and the matrons hold me indispensable at loo. Come! I am of little service to-night, but my popularity may be of use to you. You don’t know a soul! I thought so--read it in your face the moment you came in. Never saw such a---- There, Vyvyan, look there! I will introduce you.” And so saying my companion half limped, half danced with me up to Miss Amelia Mesnil, and presented me in due form.
When I look back to any particular scene of my existence, I can never keep the stage clear of second-rate characters. I never think of Mr. Kean’s Othello without an intrusive reflection upon the subject of Mr. Cooper’s Cassio; I never call to mind a gorgeous scattering forth of roses from Mr. Canning, without a painful idea of some contemporary effusion of poppies from Mr. Hume. And thus, beautiful Margaret, it is in vain that I endeavour to separate your fascination from the group which was collected around you. Perhaps that dominion, which at this moment I feel almost revived, recurs more vividly to my imagination, when the forms and figures of all by whom it was contested are associated in its renewal.
First comes Amelia the magnificent, the acknowledged belle of the county, very stiff and very dumb in her unheeded and uncontested supremacy; and next, the most black-browed of fox-hunters, Augusta, enumerating the names of her father’s stud, and dancing as if she imitated them; and then the most accomplished Jane, vowing that for the last month she had endured immense _ennui_, that she thinks Lady Olivia prodigiously _fade_, that her cousin Sophy is quite _brillante_ to-night, and that Mr. Peters plays the violin _à merveille_.
“I am bored, my dear Villars--positively bored! The light is bad and the music abominable; there is no spring in the boards and less in the conversation; it is a lovely moonlight night, and there is nothing worth looking at in the room.”
I shook hands with my friend, bowed to three or four people, and was moving off. As I passed to the door I met two ladies in conversation. “Don’t you dance any more, Margaret?” said one. “Oh no,” replied the other, “I am bored, my dear Louisa--positively bored! The light is bad and the music abominable; there is no spring in the boards and less in the conversation; it is a lovely moonlight night, and there is nothing worth looking at in the room.”
I never was distanced in a jest. I put on the look of a ten years’ acquaintance and commenced parley. “Surely you are not going away yet! You have not danced with me, Margaret: it is impossible you can be so cruel!” The lady behaved with wonderful intrepidity. “She would allow me the honour--but I was very late; really I had not deserved it.” And so we stood up together.
“Are you not very impertinent?”
“Very; but you are very handsome. Nay, you are not to be angry; it was a fair challenge and fairly received.”
“And you will not even ask my pardon?”
“No! it is out of my way! I never do those things; it would embarrass me beyond measure. Pray let us accomplish an introduction: not altogether a usual one, but that matters little. Vyvyan Joyeuse--rather impertinent, and very fortunate--at your service.”
“Margaret Orleans--very handsome, and rather foolish--at your service!”
Margaret danced like an angel. I knew she would. I could not conceive by what blindness I had passed four hours without being struck. We talked of all things that are, and a few beside. She was something of a botanist, so we began with flowers; a digression upon China roses carried us to China--the Mandarins with little brains, and the ladies with little feet--the Emperor--the Orphan of China--Voltaire--Zayre--criticism--Dr. Johnson--the Great Bear--the system of Copernicus--stars--ribbons--garters--the Order of the Bath--sea-bathing--Dawlish--- Sidmouth--Lord Sidmouth--Cicero--Rome--Italy--Alfieri--Metastasio--fountains--groves--gardens; and so, as the dancing concluded, we contrived to end as we began, with Margaret Orleans and botany.
Margaret talked well on all subjects and wittily on many. I had expected to find nothing but a romping girl, somewhat amusing, and very vain. But I was out of my latitude in the first five minutes, and out of my senses in the next. She left the room very early, and I drove home, more astonished than I had been for many years.
Several weeks passed away, and I was about to leave England to join my sisters on the Continent. I determined to look once more on that enslaving smile, whose recollection had haunted me more than once. I had ascertained that she resided with an old lady who took two pupils, and taught French and Italian, and music and manners, at an establishment called Vine House. Two days before I left the country, I had been till a late hour shooting at a mark with a duelling pistol, an entertainment, of which, perhaps from a lurking presentiment, I was very fond. I was returning alone when I perceived, by the light of an enormous lamp, a board by the wayside bearing the welcome inscription, “Vine House.” “Enough,” I exclaimed, “enough! One more scene before the curtain drops. Romeo and Juliet by lamplight!” I roamed about the dwelling-place of all I held dear, till I saw a figure at one of the windows in the back of the house, which it was quite impossible to doubt. I leaned against a tree in a sentimental position, and began to chant my own rhymes thus:--
Pretty coquette, the ceaseless play Of thine unstudied wit, And thy dark eye’s remembered ray By buoyant fancy lit, And thy young forehead’s clear expanse, Where the locks slept, as through the dance, Dreamlike, I saw thee flit, Are far too warm, and far too fair, To mix with aught of earthly care; But the vision shall come when my day is done, A frail and a fair and a fleeting one!
And if the many boldly gaze On that bright brow of thine, And if thine eye’s undying rays On countless coxcombs shine And if thy wit flings out its mirth, Which echoes more of air than earth, For other ears than mine, I heed not this; ye are fickle things, And I like your very wanderings; I gaze, and if thousands share the bliss, Pretty capricious! I heed not this.
In sooth I am a wayward youth, As fickle as the sea, And very apt to speak the truth, Unpleasing though it be; I am no lover; yet, as long As I have heart for jest or song, An image, sweet, of thee, Locked in my heart’s remotest treasures, Shall ever be one of its hoarded pleasures; This from the scoffer thou hast won, And more than this he gives to none.
“Are they your own verses?” said my idol at the window.
“They are yours, Margaret! I was only the versifier; you were the muse herself.”
“The muse herself is obliged to you. And now what is your errand? For it grows late, and you must be sensible--no, that you never will be--but you must be aware that this is very indecorous.”
“I am come to see you, dear Margaret--which I cannot without candles--to see you, and to tell you that it is impossible I can forget----”
“Bless me! what a memory you have. But you must take another opportunity for your tale; for----”
“Alas! I leave England immediately.”
“A pleasant voyage to you! There, not a word more; I must run down to coffee.”
“Now may I never laugh more,” I said, “if I am baffled thus.” So I strolled back to the front of the house and proceeded to reconnoitre. A bay-window was half open, and in a small neat drawing-room I perceived a group assembled: an old lady, with a high muslin cap and red ribbons, was pouring out the coffee; her nephew, a tall awkward young gentleman, silting on one chair and resting his legs on another, was occupied in the study of Sir Charles Grandison; and my fair Margaret was leaning on a sofa, and laughing immoderately. “Indeed, miss,” said the matron, “you should learn to govern your mirth; people will think you came out of Bedlam.”
I lifted the window gently, and stepped into the room. “Bedlam, madam!” quoth I, “I bring intelligence from Bedlam; I arrived last week.”
The tall awkward young gentleman stared; and the aunt half said, half shrieked, “What in the name of wonder are you?”
“Mad, madam! very particularly mad! Mad as a hare in March or a Cheapside blood on Sunday morning. Look at me! do I not foam? Listen to me! do I not rave? Coffee, my dear madam, coffee; there is no animal so thirsty as your madman in the dog-days.”
“Eh, really!” said the tall awkward young gentleman.
“My good sir,” I began. But my original insanity began to fail me, and I drew forthwith upon Ossian’s. “Fly! receive the wind and fly; the blasts are in the hollow of my hand, the course of the storm is mine!”
“Eh, really!” said the tall awkward young gentleman.
“I look on the nations and they vanish; my nostrils pour the blast of death; I come abroad on the winds; the tempest is before my face; but my dwelling is calm, above the clouds; the fields of my rest are pleasant.”
“Do you mean to insult us?” said the old lady.
“Ay! do you mean to insult my aunt?--really!” said the tall awkward young gentleman.
“I shall call in my servants,” said the old lady.
“I am the humblest of them,” said I, bowing.
“I shall teach you a different tune,” said the tall awkward young gentleman, “really!”
“Very well, my dear sir; my instrument is the barrel-organ;” and I cocked my sweet little pocket companion in his face, “Vanish, little Kastril; for by Hannibal, Heliogabalus, and Holophernes, time is valuable, madness is precipitate, and hair-triggers are the word! Vanish!”
“Eh, really!” said the tall awkward young gentleman, and performed an _entrechat_ which carried him to the door: the old lady had disappeared at the first note of the barrel-organ. I locked the door, and found Margaret in a paroxysm of laughter. “I wish you had shot him,” she said, when she recovered; “I wish you had shot him: he is a sad fool.”
“Do not talk of him; I am speaking to you, beautiful Margaret, possibly for the last time! Will you ever think of me? Perhaps you will. But let me receive from you some token that I may dote upon in other years; something that may be a hope to me in my happiness, and a consolation in calamity; something--nay! I never could talk romance; but give me one lock of your hair, and I will leave England with resignation.”
“You have earned it like a true knight,” said Margaret; and she severed from her head a long glossy ringlet. “Look!” she continued, “you must to horse, the country has risen for your apprehension.” I turned towards the window. The country had indeed risen. Nothing was to be seen but gossoons in the van and gossips in the rear, red faces and white jackets, gallants in smock-frocks and gay damsels in grogram. Bludgeons were waving, and torches were flashing, as far as the gaze could reach. All the chivalry of the place was arming and chafing, and loading for a volley of pebbles and oaths together.
I kneeled down and kissed her hand. It was the happiest moment of my life! “Now,” said I, “_au revoir_, my sweet Margaret!” and in a moment I was in the lane.
“Gentlemen, be pleased to fall back! Farther yet--a few paces farther! Stalwart kern in buckskin, be pleased to lay down your cat-o’-nine-tails! Old knight of the plush jerkin, ground your poker! So, fair damsel with the pitchfork, you are too pretty for so rude an encounter! Most miraculous Magog with the sledge-hammer, flit! Sooty Cupid with the link, light me from Paphos. Ha! tall friend of the barrel-organ, have you turned staff officer? Etna and Vesuvius! Wild fire and wit! Blunderbusses and steam! Fly! Ha! have I not Burgundy in my brain, murder in my plot, and a whole train of artillery in my coat-pocket?” Right and left the ranks opened for my egress, and in a few minutes I was alone on the road, and whistling “Lillibullero.”
This was my first folly. I looked at the lock of hair often, but I never saw Margaret again. She has become the wife of a young clergyman, and resides with him on a small living in Staffordshire. I believe she is very happy, and I have forgotten the colour of her eyes.
POINTS.
“Peregrine,” said Lady Mary, “write.” “I will make a point of it, may it please you ladyship.”
“Ο mes enfans! quelles âmes que celles qui ne sont inquiètes que des mouvemens de l’écliptique, ou que des mœurs et des arts des Chinois!”
MARMONTEL.
How far our happiness may be advanced or endangered by the indulgence of a lively interest in all things and persons that chance throws in our way, is a point on which I never could make up my mind. I have seen the man of feeling rapt up in the fervour of his affection or the enthusiasm of his benevolence, and I have believed him perfectly happy; but I have seen him again when he has discovered that his affection had been wasted on a fool, and his benevolence lavished on a scoundrel, and I have believed him the most wretched of men. Again, I have looked on the man of the world in an hour of trouble or embarrassment, and I have envied his philosophy and his self-command; but I have marked him too in the day of revel and exultation, and I have shrunk from the immobility of his features and the torpor of his smile.
I could never settle it to my satisfaction. Acute pleasure seems to be always the forerunner of intense pain, and weariness the inseparable demon which dogs the steps of gratification. I have examined all ranks and all faces; I have looked into eyes and I have looked into folios; I have lost patience and I have lost time; I have made inquiries of many and enemies of not a few; and drawn confessions and conclusions from demoiselles who never had feelings, and from dowagers who have survived them, from bards who have nourished them in solitude, and from barristers who have crushed them in Westminster Hall. The choice spirit who is loudest at his club to-night will be dullest in his chambers to-morrow, and the girl who is merriest at the dance will infallibly be palest at the breakfast-table. How shall I decide? The equability which lives, or the excitement which dies? The beef without the mustard, or the mustard without the beef?
Chance, or my kind stars, for I am very often inclined to believe in their agency, especially on fine moonlight nights, has flung me into a circle of acquaintance, where the pleasures and the pains attendant upon these different tempers of mind are continually forced upon my notice, and hold me delightfully balanced, like Mahomet’s coffin, between earth and ether. Davenant Cecil is a being as thoroughly made up of sympathies and affections as ever was a puppet of springs or a commentator of absurdities. He never experienced, he never could endure five minutes of calm weather; he is always carried up into the heaven and down again into the deep; every hope, every exertion, every circumstance, be it of light or of grave import, is to him equally productive of its exaltation or its depression; like the Proserpina of fable he is in Olympus half the year, and in Tartarus the other. Marmaduke Villars has about as much notion of raptures and enthusiasm as a Mohawk chief entertains of turtle soup, or a French milliner of the differential calculus. Except that he prefers claret to port, and Drury Lane to Covent Garden, and eau de Montpellier to eau de Cologne, I doubt whether he is conscious of any predilection for one thing or any aversion to another. Marmaduke is like Ladurlad in everything except “the fire in his heart, and the fire in his brain;” and Davenant is the Sorcerer Benshee, who rode on a fast horse, and talked with many, and jested with many, and laughed loudly, and wept wildly for the things he saw; yet was he bound by his compact to the fiend to sit at no table, and to lie on no couch, and to speed forward by night and by day, sleeping never, and resting never, even till his appointed hour.