CHAPTER XXXV

One day as I was sitting at dinner with Rosabella, a poor Italian introduced himself to her, and had the art to impose himself upon her as a countryman of her own of very high rank, who had returned from the Spanish wars in the greatest possible distress, and had just left his lovely wife, who was of noble blood, entirely unprotected. Rosabella offered her mite at once. I wish I had followed her example; but, instead of this, in my eagerness to contribute more substantially to his relief, I addressed a letter to Lord Fife, whom I had twice met in Paris, requesting him to take compassion on the unfortunate bearer of it, who found himself, after enduring the fatigues of a hard campaign in Spain, deserted in a foreign land, where he was likely to starve, if none of us came forward with at least so much relief as might enable him to return to Naples. The poor wretch came to me on the following morning, with a countenance which appeared the very image of despair.

"_Hélas!_" he exclaimed, "_milord Fife ne m'a rien donné._"

I then recollected my old _beau_ Wellington, who, I knew, was at that time our ambassador at Paris, although I had not yet met with him: but I did not like to intrude myself on his recollection. However, I strongly advised the poor fellow to explain the real state of his case to His Excellency, and to acquaint me with the result.

"_Hélas!_" reiterated the Italian, again returning, "_je ne suis qu'un malheureux. Milord Villainton, ne veut rien faire, pour moi, non plus._"

Vexed and hurt at the idea of having given the poor fellow so much useless trouble, I from my own pocket handed him a five-pound note, and promised my influence with Mr. Henry Brougham, who, with Luttrell and his brother Nugent, had just arrived in Paris. My application to that friendly, kind-hearted man was successful, and the next day I presented a second bank-note for five pounds to my poor _protégé_, who seemed absolutely overcome by excess of gratitude.

Amy, if I recollect right, came to Paris with Nugent and Luttrell: at all events if she was not actually the companion of those famous inseparables, she must have followed them immediately. I remember all three paying me a visit together, and inviting me to visit them in the Rue Mont Blanc.

"What then, do you all live together?" I inquired.

"We have each separate apartments, in the same hotel," they replied, and I agreed to call on them.

As for Meyler, he continued to be all a woman could possibly wish him, as long as there was rivalry with Lord Ebrington; but, as soon as ever his lordship had, or seemed to have, relinquished the pursuit, Meyler left off being amiable by slow degrees, till he became just what he had been before Ebrington had made an infraction in the complete harmony of our _ménage_. At that time Lord Hertford's remark occurred to me: "Better live on a bone, than with a man of uneven or bad temper."

In one of Meyler's fits of dogged humour, he asked me if I imagined he was vain enough or dupe enough to believe that I had given up such a man as Lord Ebrington for him? "You know, as well as I do," continued Meyler, "that you are only making a merit of necessity. Ebrington got tired of you!"

I bit my lips with indignation, as ladies are wont to do on these occasions; but I remained silent, considering that most dignified. At last I subdued my anger, and held out my hand to him, saying, "Come, _soyons amis_. It is a great misfortune to yourself that your temper is so unhappy; and therefore I will try and forgive the torment it sometimes occasions me. In regard to what you say of my making a _pis-aller_ of you, it might perhaps not be very difficult to convince you of the contrary; however of this I do not profess to be certain. At a word then, shall I try the experiment?"

"You know I shall not consent or you would not ask me," answered Meyler.

"Be it so then," retorted I; "be it as you will, only pray, pray, a little peace if you please, and a little respite from these eternal quarrels, or part we must and part we will!"

Again we were friends, _pour le moment,_ and again and again we quarrelled. Meyler had his fits of good and bad humour alternately. One hour this peevish, spoiled, provoking little creature would declare that we would never part, and that he had determined never to marry for my sake; and the next, he would say that it was not in his nature to be constant. Sometimes, he would profess to feel respect and friendship alone for me; but as to passion, or anything like love, that naturally had gone by long ago: and then he would make strong love to Rosabella.

I cannot help giving myself some little credit for the patience and command of temper with which I endured all these taunts. On another occasion he assured me, in direct contradiction to all this, that I was so profligate that he could not like or respect me; nay more, it was out of his power to respect any woman on earth, who had shared her favours with more than one man, and that the very strong passion I had inspired him with was his only reason for staying with me.

I began to grow thin and to lose my appetite owing to the wretched life I led with Meyler, and I often asked myself why I endured it. I must have been naturally steadfast in my attachments, or possessed a very good heart. One of these, I hope, cannot admit of a doubt. At length, Meyler began to despair of putting me in a passion by anything he could say on the subject of Lord Ebrington having cut me dead, and of my having made a merit of returning to him, _faute de mieux_. This was what his jealous, suspicious temper made him really believe, and he never gave a woman the credit of any single good motive for what she did or said. "Perhaps," observed Meyler, in his zeal to tease and provoke, "perhaps Ebrington likes you still and wishes to visit you, while you are so excessively cold-blooded as to leave the man you like to stay with me, because I am so much richer."

"Which of us two must leave the room?" said I, taking up my bonnet and ringing my bell in a violent passion.

Meyler had never seen me so violently disturbed, and half afraid he might have gone too far, he affected to turn the whole into a mere joke, when he took leave of me, as he said, to dress for dinner.

The very instant he had turned his back I wrote a note to Lord Ebrington, declaring whether he ever wished to see me again or not, Meyler and I were now really separated: but that it would certainly make me happy, if he were disposed to convince me he was not offended by what I said to him at our last meeting, by coming to me directly.

Lord Ebrington, who lived in my neighbourhood, was at home, and immediately answered my letter in person. Though his pride had not permitted him to show any symptoms of regret when he was dismissed, yet he very willingly expressed his delight and satisfaction at being reinstated.

"Meyler has accused me of leaving you, to endure his vile temper, merely for his fortune, and that accusation has decided the business. I will therefore receive your visits just as publicly as you please and when you please, for as long as ever we shall both agree together."

Ebrington stayed so long with me, that I was obliged to offer him some of my dinner. In short, difficulties never fail to increase passion even in the coldest breast. Ebrington however, as a lover, was far from cold at any time; but a man may possess very warm passions with a cold heart. Ebrington acknowledged that his heart was cold, at the same time it was on this day rather unusually warmed.

"I love heart in women," said Ebrington, "and am grateful when feeling of any kind is evinced towards me."

His lordship's extreme gentleness of disposition appeared very attractive when set in contrast with Meyler's tormenting, dogged humour. In short, ours bid fair to grow into a strong, mutual fancy, if not to real, true love, _selon les règles._

I could not get Ebrington out of the house. He remained with me from five in the evening until past three on the following day, when, after obtaining my promise to receive him again on the same evening, he took his departure in full dress, having called on me the day before, merely with the intention to make me a flying visit on his way to a large dinner-party. Ward, who, as I have before said, had accompanied him to Paris and lodged with him at the same hotel, entered his room just as he had sat down to a second breakfast, without changing his white silk stockings, &c.

"_Dejeuner restoratif, apparemment?_" said Ward, bowing to him, and mawkish as this may seem in print, it was certainly the most amusing attempt at wit I ever heard from that quarter: although Nugent accuses him of having uttered many more good things.

Ebrington's pretty cabriolet, which he had sent for, was scarcely driven from the door when,--enter little Mr. Dick Meyler, M.P. and sugar-baker, as pale as a ghost! I was really shocked, having seldom seen him look so ill, and I took hold of his hand, which was as cold as death.

"Why, Meyler, will you force me from you, if you really have the smallest attachment for me?"

"I saw Ebrington's cabriolet, and had no stomach for going out to dinner yesterday; so down I sat at my window to watch for his lordship's departure. In about an hour, I saw Ebrington's head put out of your window to order his servant home. I could not endure solitude; therefore, I called on a woman in search of consolation; but she wanted me to make love to her, and I left her in disgust. I then went to Bradshaw, to whom I related everything. He appeared quite surprised at the state of agitation you had put me into, declaring that, from all he had lately observed, he should have firmly believed that I must have been glad and happy to have got rid of you on such easy terms. I was angry and disgusted with him for speaking of you in this manner, and I asked him if he did not think you had used me very ill?"

"'Why,' answered Bradshaw, 'a handsome, young fellow like you, with more than twenty thousand a year, ought not to admit that it was in the power of any woman to use him ill. How the deuce can you fret about one who thus openly leaves you to intrigue with another man, almost under your very nose?'

"'I love her all the better for it; it was a proof of her independence, and affords me a decided proof that my money may all be d----d for anything she cares about it.'"

"You were right there," said I.

"Well," continued Meyler, "as Bradshaw's conversation afforded me no comfort, I returned home to Mr. Brown." (He alluded to an elderly gentleman, a friend and distant relation of his, whom he had invited to accompany him on the continent.) "Mr. Brown expressed himself much struck with my agitated manner and appearance, and strongly advised me to go to bed; but that was impossible. I sat at my window till past two o'clock in the morning, watching for Lord Ebrington."

"And did not you then begin to hate me?" I inquired.

Meyler shook his head, and the tears were actually gathering in his eyes.

"What an unaccountable creature is man!" exclaimed I.

"Ultimately," continued Meyler, "I threw myself on my bed, and fell into a feverish sleep, during which I dreamed that both you and Lord Ebrington were trying to destroy me."

I now felt so tormented between pity for Meyler's unhappiness and disgust at the idea of being longer the slave of such a temper, which no kindness or attention could mend, because it was ever misinterpreted, that I heartily wished Ebrington in Italy, that Meyler might leave me without fear, to join the Leicestershire hunt, since August was fast approaching.

"Anything on earth will I do, for a quiet life," said I to Meyler. "I have suffered too much already. My nerves and health are nearly destroyed, and, if this is the perpetual tax upon a little wit or a little beauty, I would I were a homely idiot and the mistress of some clean little hut, where people would let me alone. I can do very well without love, for I can always find plenty of things to laugh at and amuse myself with, only do for heaven's sake let me alone: for nothing you can now say or do shall induce me to be tormented with your society."

"Then I will very soon take my departure for London," answered Meyler, despondingly, "for I see you are really in earnest. Only promise me that for the short time I feel under the necessity of remaining in Paris, in order to give a fair trial to my medical adviser here, of whom I think highly, not to let me see Ebrington visit you."

"Indeed, I will not," answered I, feelingly, "and I will advise him to continue his journey to Italy very shortly. We will correspond with your permission when you are in town, and yet we may meet as friends. I sincerely wish you happy; but, my dear Meyler, our feelings, tastes and characters being so very opposite, added to your extreme irritability and the very vile opinion you entertain of women, renders it morally impossible for me to enjoy a single hour's comfort, when you consider that you have any sort of right over me. For ever and for ever then, we are now free, mind! and, being free, if the humour seizes us mutually at any future time, we will meet, without feeling it incumbent on us to answer a single question as to how we have been employed, or with whom we have been in love. Indeed, Meyler, you will be happier thus. Don't fret about impossibilities."

Meyler was almost convinced that his temper was too bad for my endurance, and that, in fact, it would be better for both that we separated, and that I should only receive him as a visitor. Still Ebrington affected his spirits so terribly, that I was obliged to promise that he should not for the present visit me.

"I want rest," said I, "and I cannot be teased just now. _Allez, mon ami. Amuse toi bien,_ and be sure to tell me when you go to England, that we may take leave of each other."

Meyler was no doubt affected, and felt deeply at particular moments; but he was a hard liver, and his heart was a cold one. He loved riding and good claret better than the finest woman in the world, so that, the first burst over, I have no doubt, with Bradshaw's help, with whom I knew I was no favourite, he soon learned to support the dire calamity of my loss, assisted by some gay, pretty Frenchwoman, of rather more refined manners than those of his lost Dulcineas. However that might be, he never attempted to visit me during another fortnight or more.

Being tired of the idea of a mere animal, whom I had loved for his beauty, I began to grow in love with mind. Ebrington passed the whole of his time with me; but he never brought his cabriolet to my door, and I strictly enjoined him to watch in every direction for Meyler, before he ventured to approach my house, in order to spare that little gentleman, if possible, the disgust of seeing him enter. Much as I abhorred deception, I considered this a matter of common delicacy towards a man with whom I had once lived as a wife; but, to have denied myself the society of a person so very pleasing, merely to gratify Meyler, who had so coarsely insulted my feelings, I conceived to be quite unnecessary, particularly as I often observed him go out in his barouche with a party of male friends, evidently in improved health and tolerable spirits. Meyler's spirits had never been high since I had known him, owing, probably to a decayed constitution, for even when I first saw him, strong and blooming as he seemed to the careless observer, he had symptoms of decline about him; and one of them was that lovely transparency of skin and the occasional blue tint of his lips.

Ebrington and I were excellent companions. We both knew the world well, and well we both knew how to laugh at it. We often strolled in the Tuilleries, or down the Champs Elysées. One evening we attempted to enter the former just as the hour had passed for the admittance of strangers.

"_On n'entre pas,_" said the _garde royale,_ pointing his bayonet fiercely towards the breast of his lordship, who, without advancing or retreating a single step, fixed his eyes on the man's face and said very slowly:

"_Comme il vous plaira! Cela m'est parfaitement indifférent._" The guard seemed astonished, and I laughed at his lordship's extreme coolness.

"I take everything in this life coolly," answered Ebrington, "except you," he added smiling. He then related to me the circumstance of his having one night gone, with the Hon. John William Ward, to the Salon des Etrangers, not knowing that an introduction was necessary, when they were refused admittance. "I, of course," continued Ebrington, "took the thing very quietly, with my usual _cela m'est infiniment indifférent;_ but Ward began to bully and make a noise, and swear at them, declaring that he did too much honour to a mere _tripod de jeu;_ but, for my part, I thought him so very absurd, that I was ashamed of him: for, if such was the rule of their house, what were we that should require them to dispense with it?"

It was long since I had been fairly and truly in love. I might very likely have begun again with Lord Ebrington, but that there was a certain hauteur about his character, added to a disposition to be severe and satirical, which rendered him at some moments quite odious. _Au reste_, few men could, when he happened to be in the humour, render themselves more pleasing to a woman than Lord Ebrington. There was, indeed, much of true dignity in his carriage, manner, and general deportment. His countenance bore a strong resemblance to that of the late John Philip Kemble; but, though I conceive no man alive could be more handsome than Kemble, yet his lordship's features were perhaps more delicately turned: in fact, they would, generally, have had more attraction in a woman's eye, from possessing somewhat more of softness.

Ebrington, in point of every exterior quality, perhaps too in many of his general habits, was a model for English noblemen. Nevertheless, though he never scolded, nor found fault with anybody, he often put me in a passion. If one kept him waiting, or refused even his most trifling request, he would not condescend to complain, and yet there was something about the freezing reserve he assumed on such occasions, which my pride and feeling could ill brook. There was no affectation in this; but much genuine, innate pride. His lordship was a connoisseur in pictures and statues, and a most enthusiastic admirer of Napoleon, to whom he said he had some idea of paying a visit at St. Helena. In short, the only time I ever heard Ebrington speak like a man of warm feelings was one evening as we stood in the Place Vendôme canvassing the merits and the faults of Bonaparte.

Lord Ebrington having accompanied to the continent a party who were impatient to be on their road to Italy, after passing a few more weeks with me began to talk of taking his departure.

"If we like each other again, we will renew our acquaintance on your return," said I, "but pray let us make no promises. I am so delighted to have obtained my liberty, that I am resolved to permit no man on earth to infringe it."

Ebrington, with his cold heart and his proud disposition, naturally loved to feel himself unshackled as well as I did, however he might regret the idea of leaving me. I think Lady Heathcote was one of the party he was to accompany to Italy. Ebrington at last took his leave of me, promising to make Paris in his way back. Our parting was affectionate: it might have been enthusiastic on my part; but that I could not help thinking Ebrington naturally selfish. Yet, since I found him an intelligent, delightful companion, I regretted him for a whole day and night.