CHAPTER XXXVI

The next morning Meyler entered my room before I was out of bed.

"Thank God, Ebrington is off for Italy," said he; "and, knowing you were alone, how could I resist paying you a visit?"

"I am glad to see you, poor little Meyler; but how very pale you are!"

"I have had a severe attack of liver," answered Meyler, "which confined me six days to my bed."

"Indeed, if I had known that, I would have gone to see you. I thought you were gone to Brussels or Versailles, when I did not see you pass in your carriage."

"I am going to England," said Meyler. "Paris does not agree with me, neither will I ever again attempt to live with any woman breathing. You are the first, and shall be the last. I now know myself and my temper, and feel that my only chance of enjoying health or quiet is in living alone: my nerves are so terribly irritable."

"Believe me, Meyler," I answered, "I would never have left you had there been the slightest hope that my society and attentions could really contribute to your comfort or happiness. I am naturally affectionate, and much the creature of habit. Even now, I would make any sacrifice for you if I could believe it would do you good."

"I trust we shall always continue friends," said Meyler, holding out to me his hand, which was, as I believe I have before said, without any one exception, the most beautiful hand I ever saw in my life. The tones of his voice, naturally melancholy, were now affectingly so. His eyes were rather sunk, and his manner and appearance touched me deeply. I burst into tears!

He asked me in astonishment what had thus affected me.

I would not tell him that I thought him dying, so I expressed my regret that he had not written to me when he was so ill. "Oh!" answered Meyler, "had we been the best friends in the world, I would not then have admitted you. I hate anybody to come near me while I suffer pain. Their pity, or their attention, only makes me worse."

"I am sure that a hot climate would be of service to you," said I.

"So I am told," replied Meyler, "but I know my own temper, and that nothing which disturbs or irritates my nerves can do me any good; and I hate travelling, and should be out of patience fifty times a day, with the bad roads and various inconveniences one must encounter while journeying on the continent: and then, if I am not to hunt in Leicestershire, I may just as well die at once, since that is the only pursuit I have, and my stud is the only thing I am not tired of."

"Thank you," I answered.

"Oh! perhaps, I still like you; at all events, I like no other woman; but, the fact is, I am naturally a much better friend to men than to women; for I believe and put faith in men, while nothing any of you can say or do ever makes me believe in your affection or sincerity."

This characteristic answer of Meyler's dried up my tears. "Why should I fret about this senseless, heartless being?" thought I.

"You may learn to know and appreciate us better one day or other," I observed coldly.

"I shall go to England in three days," said Meyler. "May I see you constantly till I go?"

It was not in my power to refuse this request from one whom I fancied to be dying in the very bloom of youth; and we passed two whole days together, without once quarrelling. Meyler's late indisposition had, in fact, left him too weak to contend, while I humoured him as though he had been a child.

We slept in separate beds, in the same room; and, on the night previous to Meyler's departure for England, just as we were composing ourselves to rest, Lord Ebrington walked up to my bedside! I screamed aloud. Perhaps I mistook him for a ghost, or, it might be, I dreaded the effect this _mal à propos_ visit might have on poor Meyler's shattered and irritable nerves.

"Dear little Harry, have I frightened you?" said Lord Ebrington, in speechless dismay.

I pointed with my finger towards the small French bed, where poor Meyler was still calmly sleeping, and Lord Ebrington hastily bolted from the room. I then got out of bed, and, after steadfastly examining Meyler's features to ascertain that he really slept, seized my lamp, and hastened to awaken my English maid, who slept in a closet adjoining my bedroom, which was situated next to the entrance-room.

I asked her how she came to be so forgetful as to leave the key on the outside of the ante-room.

Martha was frightened to death and begged my pardon; hoped nothing had been stolen.

"A man has entered our bedroom," answered I, and Martha was thinking about fainting!

"Don't faint," said I, "but secure the door instead." I then crept quietly back to my bed, resolved not to tease poor Meyler by acquainting him with Lord Ebrington's unexpected return. I however wrote to his lordship early the following morning, desiring him not to make his appearance until Meyler should have left Paris.

For more than a month after Meyler's departure for Melton Mowbray, I continued in very low spirits about him. Lord Ebrington, after travelling two whole days along a flat, ugly country, was seized with a fit of love for me, or disgust of flat countries, I am not sure which.

"Suppose we turn our horses' heads towards Paris again?" said Lord Ebrington to Lady Heathcote, on the third morning after they had quitted that gay delightful city. Now it happened to have been long shrewdly suspected, that my Lady Heathcote could refuse Lord Ebrington nothing. However that may be, certain it is, she did not refuse to return to Paris with the rest of the party, which consisted of--I forget who.

Ebrington, on the wings of love, flew to his faithful Harriette, whom he expected no doubt to find like fair Lucretia, surrounded by her virgins, at their spinning wheels; instead of which--but I told all this before.

I fancy his vanity was irreparably wounded with what he saw on his arrival. He had left me in tears, and returned almost under the impression that he should save me from despair. He was half in love with me for my tenderness of heart. We might have travelled to Italy altogether, and I would have rather made the tour of Italy with Ebrington, than almost anybody I knew, now that he had quarrelled with Ward, or rather cut and parted company with him. No wonder! who could travel with Ward? However, Meyler spoiled my preferment with Ebrington by hurting his lordship's vanity and thus damping all his ardour.

We passed about a week together, during which time I was continually talking of poor Meyler and lamenting his precarious state of health. Ebrington took his leave of me and of Paris. Could I wonder at it?

To drown care on this terrible occasion, I went to pay Nugent, Luttrell, and Amy a visit, all under one. There was a smart young Frenchwoman waiting in Nugent's ante-room, and we rated him most unmercifully about her.

"It is invariably the case," said Luttrell with his usual earnestness.

"Nugent ought really to hire some sort of a cheap machine in the shape of an equipage, to bring his ladies home in," Amy observed, "for the poor things look very miserable, arriving always alone and on foot."

"I have just hired a large light blue coach to contain six of them with ease. It is rather dirty, and one of the horses is thin and stone-blind, and the other very lame, so they go extremely well together."

Amy, in the plentitude of her goodness, actually invited me to dine with her. She had found out an excellent black-pudding shop, in the first place; in the second, she wanted me to make her _au fait_ as to what was going on in Paris, and hoped I would introduce her to some nice men, or at all events give her a place in my opera-box, when she should be too poor to hire one for herself. However that might be, I accepted her invitation, because Luttrell and Nugent were pleasant men, particularly the former, and I promised to return to them after I had taken my usual drive in the Bois de Boulogne.

"What can be the matter with you, Harriette?" Luttrell inquired, "that you are eternally driving up that long stupid Bois de Boulogne?"

I replied that I could not live without air.

"Mercy on me, what a tax upon life!" Luttrell said, turning up his eyes.

There were, in fact, but few things which Luttrell did not vote a tax on life, being one of the most dissatisfied men I ever knew.

We were summoned to the common drawing-room to receive the visit of my mother. She complained of inflammation in her foot. Nugent prescribed for her. I was indeed surprised at the very respectful attention he showed towards her, it was so strikingly polite. As we were not alone, she soon left us, and I insisted on her taking my carriage, which she promised to send back for me.

"I have often wondered," said Nugent, as soon as my mother had left the room, "how it happened that so very large a family as yours should not only all be very handsome, but likewise so perfectly lady-like and well bred. Now it is accounted for: the secret I discovered in your mother. I have not for many years felt such perfect respect and admiration for a woman, who at least must be bordering upon fifty. Not only is she still very handsome and delicate; but there is a certain air of modest dignity in her manner, which, I believe, the greatest libertine in France could not fail to be struck with."

I was more grateful to Nugent than I can describe, for this most warm, uncalled-for, and spontaneous praise of my mother. I knew he only did her justice; but how few among the gay and the fashionable, ever think about doing justice to the excellent qualities of a woman of fifty!

"Mind you are here by six," said Amy, as I was leaving her; "because, perhaps, we shall go to the opera, if we can procure a box."

"_Vous voilà,_" said I to myself, and then offered her a place in mine.

"Do be punctual," added she, "for it is not the fashion to dress unless when there is a new piece. Come as you are. That is a beautiful plume of white ostrich-feathers in your bonnet. You are always so very magnificent. Remember, black-puddings are good for nothing cold. The French consider them a very _recherché_ dish I assure you, and they are much more expensive than in town."

I returned to Amy's just as her black pudding was being served up, and for once in my life I met Luttrell without Nugent.

"Nugent is not dead, I hope?" said I.

"Oh no," answered Amy, "he has just taken out one of his ladies in his large blue remise."

"Shocking work!" Luttrell observed, with just as pious a face, turned towards the ceiling as though he had not lately stepped out of window for love and regard of that fair she who set his brain a madding.

Amy was in a great hurry to go to the opera, and we were comfortably seated in my private box before eight o'clock, and soon visited by my late, mild, and gentle acquaintance, Lord William Russell, who really appeared very glad to meet with me. In the room downstairs we mustered a tolerably brilliant number of _beaux_ about us, for Paris; but Paris was not London. Among them was Lord Fife, who came sailing towards me the moment I entered the room.

"How do you do? How do you do?" said Fife. "Very glad to see you in Paris. Who would have thought to find you here? By the bye, you sent me the greatest rogue in the world some time ago, who told me a long story about having served: all entirely humbug. I know Spain well enough, and he had never been there in his life. Could not give the least description of it."

"I am truly sorry that I threw away five pounds on him then; for I might have guessed that your kindness would not have refused to assist him if he had been deserving."

"I did not refuse," answered Fife. "You know my way, I give to everybody, good, bad, or indifferent. I gave him ten pounds, and told him he was the greatest rascal I had ever met with."

I resolved never to be duped again.

"May I presume to inquire after the _petite santé_ of Miss Eliza Higgins?" I asked.

"Oh! You are always quizzing me," answered Lord Fife, without answering my question.

Just as Amy, Luttrell and myself were seated in the carriage, Nugent came puffing up to it, whispered in my ear, "Beg ten thousand pardons, Harriette; but want to oblige a lady here, and am going to call on another. You will infinitely oblige me by setting her down. I know I take a liberty; but you may take two with me some other time in return."

It was easy to guess the style of lady who would be at the opera alone, trusting to chance or Nugent for a conveyance.

"Agreed," answered I, "so that I may affect not to understand a word of French."

"Certainly," said Nugent, handing into my carriage a very gaily dressed young lady, whom I set down where he directed without exchanging a single word with her.

As one always requires a good supper after dining at Amy's expense, I accepted Luttrell's invitation to eat cold chicken and drink champagne. During our supper, Amy was entertaining us with the delightful qualities of one Mr. Grefule, a Swiss banker residing at Paris, whom I thought the most absurd, affected, mean, contemptible blockhead I had ever met with. It is true I knew but little about him and cared less, and may have been mistaken in all but his stinginess, of which I had an opportunity of judging, having heard that subject discussed by those who knew him well.

"You surely must be in love with his large property?" said I to Amy.

"In love with his property! Why is he not an Adonis?"

Amy's Adonis is a short, thick man, almost a mulatto, with little purblind eyes and straight, coarse, black hair; and his age at least five and forty.