Tales and Novels Volume IX Part 4

_Now_, here's your friend, Mr. Harrington, says it's only a _prettiness_, and something about Ovid. I'm sure I wish you'd advise some of your friends to leave their cla.s.sics, as you did, at the musty university. What have we to do with Ovid in London? You, yourself, Mr.

Harrington, who set up for such a critic, what fault can you find, pray, with

'Keep all cold from your breast, there's already too much?'"

By the lady's tone of voice, raised complexion, and whole air of the head, I saw the danger was imminent, and to avoid the coming storm, I sheltered myself under the cover of modesty; but Mowbray dragged me out to make sport for himself.

"Oh! Harrington, that will never do. No critic! No judge! You! with all your college honours fresh about you. Come, come, Harrington, p.r.o.nounce you must. Is this poetry or not?

'_Keep all cold from your breast, there's already too much_.'"

"Whether prose or poetry, I p.r.o.nounce it to be very good advice."

"Good advice! the thing of all others I have the most detested from my childhood," cried Lady Anne; "but I insist upon it, it is good poetry, Mr. Harrington."

"And equally good grammar, and good English, and good sense," cried her brother, in an ironical tone. "Come, Harrington, acknowledge it all, man--all equally. Never stop half way, when a young--and such a young lady, summons you to surrender to her your truth, taste, and common sense. Gi' her a' the plea, or you'll get na good of a woman's hands."

"So, sir!--So, my lord, you are against me too, and you are mocking me too, I find. I humbly thank you, gentlemen," cried Lady Anne, in a high tone of disdain; "from a colonel in the army, and a n.o.bleman who has been on the continent, I might have expected more politeness. From a Cambridge scholar no wonder!"

My mother laid down her netting in the middle of a row, and came to keep the peace. But it was too late; Lady Anne was deaf and blind with pa.s.sion. She confessed she could not see of what use either of the universities were in this world, except to make bears and bores of young men.

Her ladys.h.i.+p, fluent in anger beyond conception, poured, as she turned from her brother to me, and from me to her brother, a flood of nonsense, which, when it had once broken bounds, there was no restraining in its course. Amazed at the torrent, my mother stood aghast; Mowbray burst into unextinguishable laughter: I preserved my gravity as long as I possibly could; I felt the risible infection seizing me, and that malicious Mowbray, just when he saw me in the struggle--the agony--sent me back such an image of my own length of face, that there was no withstanding it. I, too, breaking all bounds of decorum, gave way to visible and audible laughter; and from which I was first recovered by seeing the lady burst into tears, and by hearing, at the same moment, my mother p.r.o.nounce in a tone of grave displeasure, "Very ill-bred, Harrington!" My mother's tone of displeasure affecting me much more than the young lady's tears, I hastened to beg pardon, and I humbled myself before Lady Anne; but she spurned me, and Mowbray laughed the more.

Mowbray, I believe, really wished that I should like his sister; yet he could not refrain from indulging his taste for ridicule, even at her expense. My mother wondered how Lord Mowbray could tease his sister in such a manner; and as for Harrington, she really thought he had known that the first law of good-breeding is never to say or do any thing that can hurt another person's feelings.

"Never _intentionally_ to hurt another's feelings, ma'am," said I; "I hope you will allow me to plead the innocence of my intentions."

"Oh, yes! there was no malicious _intent_: Not guilty--Not guilty!"

cried Mowbray. "Anne, you acquit him there, don't you, Anne?"

Anne sobbed, but spoke not.

"It is little consolation, and no compensation, to the person who is hurt," said my mother, "that the offender pleads he did not mean to say or do any thing rude: a rude thing is a rude thing--the intention is nothing--all we are to judge of is the fact."

"Well, but after all, in fact," said Mowbray, "there was nothing to make any body seriously angry."

"Of that every body's own feelings must be the best judge," said my mother, "the best and the sole judge."

"Thank Heaven! that is not the law of libel _yet_, not the law of the land _yet_," said Mowbray; "no knowing what we may come to. Would it not be hard, ma'am, to const.i.tute the feelings of one person _always_ sole judge of the intentions of another? though in cases like the present I submit. Let it be a ruled case, that the sensibility of a lady shall be the measure of a gentleman's guilt."

"I don't judge of these things by rule and measure," said my mother: "try my smelling-bottle, my dear." Very few people, especially women of delicate nerves and quick feelings, could, as my mother observed, bear to be laughed at; particularly by those they loved; and especially before other people who did not know them perfectly. My mother was persuaded, she said, that Lord Mowbray had not reflected on all this when he had laughed so inconsiderately.

Mowbray allowed that he certainly had not reflected when he had laughed inconsiderately. "So come, come. Anne, sister Anne, be friends!" then playfully tapping his sister on the back, the pretty, but sullen back of the neck, he tried to raise the drooping head; but finding the chin resist the upward motion, and retire resentfully from his touch, he turned upon his heel, and addressing himself to me, "Well! Harrington,"

said he, "the news of the day, the news of the theatre, which I was bringing you full speed, when I stumbled upon this cursed half-pint of a.s.ses' milk, which Mrs.. Harrington was so angry with me for overturning--"

"But what's the news, my lord?" said my mother.

"News! not for you, ma'am, only for Harrington; news of the Jews."

"The Jews!" said my mother.

"The Jews!" said I, both in the same breath, but in very different tones.

"_Jews_, did I say?" replied Mowbray: "Jew, I should have said."

"Mr. Montenero?" cried I.

"Montenero!--Can you think of nothing but Mr. Montenero, whom you've never seen, and never will see?"

"Thank you for that, my lord," said my mother; "one touch from you is worth a hundred from me."

"But of what Jew then are you talking? and what's your news, my lord?"

said I.

"My news is only--for Heaven's sake, Harrington, do not look expecting a mountain, for 'tis only a mouse. The news is, that Macklin, the honest Jew of Venice, has got the pound, or whatever number of pounds he wanted to get from the manager's heart; the quarrel's made up, and if you keep your senses, you may have a chance to see, next week, this famous Jew of Venice."

"I am heartily glad of it!" cried I, with enthusiasm.

"And is that all?" said my mother, coldly.

"Mr. Harrington," said Lady Anne, "is really so enthusiastic about some things, and so cold about others, there is no understanding him; he is very, very _odd_."

Notwithstanding all the pains my mother took to atone for my offence, and notwithstanding that I had humbled myself to the dust to obtain pardon, I was not forgiven.

Lady de Brantefield, Lady Anne, and some other company, dined with us; and Mowbray, who seemed to be really sorry that he had vexed his sister, and that he had in the heyday of his spirit unveiled to me her defects of temper, did every thing in his power to make up matters between us.

At dinner he placed me beside Anne, little sister Anne; but no caressing tone, no diminutive of kindness in English, or soft Italian, could touch her heart, or move the gloomy purpose of her soul. Her sulky ladys.h.i.+p almost turned her back upon me, as she listened only to Colonel Topham, who was on the other side. Mowbray coaxed her to eat, but she refused every thing he offered--would not accept even his compliments--his compliments on her _pouf_--would not allow him to show her off, as he well knew how to do, to advantage; would not, when he exerted himself to prevent her silence from being remarked, smile at any one of the many entertaining things he said; she would not, in short, even pa.s.sively permit his attempts to cover her ill-humour, and to make things pa.s.s off well.

In the evening, when the higher powers drew off to cards, and when Lady Anne had her phalanx of young ladies round her; and whilst I stood a defenceless young man at her mercy, she made me feel her vengeance. She talked _at_ me continually, and at every opening gave me sly cuts, which she flattered herself I felt sorely.

Mowbray turned off the blows as fast as they were aimed, or treated them all as playful traits of lover-like malice, tokens of a lady's favour.

"Ha! a good cut, Harrington!--Happy man!--Up to you there, Harrington!

High favour, when a lady condescends to remember and retaliate. Paid you for old scores!--Sign you're in her books now!--'No more to say to you, Mr. Harrington'--a fair challenge to say a great deal more to her."

And all the time her ladys.h.i.+p was aiming to vex, and hoping that I was heartily mortified, as from my silence and melancholy countenance she concluded that I was; in reality I stood deploring that so pretty a creature had so mean a mind. The only vexation I felt was at her having destroyed the possibility of my enjoying that delightful illusion which beauty creates.

My mother, who had been, as she said, quite nervous all this evening, at last brought Lady Anne to terms, and patched up a peace, by prevailing on Lady de Brantefield, who could not be prevailed on by any one else, to make a party to go to some new play which Lady Anne was _dying_ to see. It was a sentimental comedy, and I did not much like it; however, I was all complaisance for my mother's sake, and she in return renewed her promise to go with me to patronize Shylock. By the extraordinary anxiety my mother showed, and by the pains she took that there should be peace betwixt Lady Anne and me, I perceived, what had never before struck me, that my mother wished me to be in love with her ladys.h.i.+p.

Now I could sooner have been in love with Lady de Brantefield. Give her back a decent share of youth and beauty, I think I could sooner have liked the mother than the daughter.

By the force and plastic power of my imagination, I could have turned and moulded Lady de Brantefield, with all her repulsive haughtiness, into a Clelia, or a Princess de Cleves, or something of the Richardson full-dressed heroine, with hoop and fan, and _stand off, man_!--and then there would be cruelty and difficulty, and incomprehensibility-something to be conquered--something to be wooed and won. But with Lady Anne Mowbray my imagination had nothing to work upon, no point to dwell on, nothing on which a lover's fancy could feed: there was no doubt, no hope, no fear, no reserve of manner, no dignity of mind.

My mother, I believe, now saw that it would not do, at least for the present; but she had known many of Cupid's capricious turns. Lady Anne was extremely pretty, and universally allowed to be so; her ladys.h.i.+p was much taken notice of in public, and my mother knew that young men are vain of having their mistresses and wives admired by our s.e.x. But my mother calculated ill as to my particular character. To the Opera and to Ranelagh, to the Pantheon, and to all the fas.h.i.+onable public places of the day, I had had the honour of attending Lady Anne; and I had had the glory of hearing "Beautiful!" "Who is she?"--and "Who is with her?" My vanity, I own, had been flattered, but no further. My imagination was always too powerful, my pa.s.sions too sincere and too romantic, to be ruled by the opinions of others, or to become the dupe of personal vanity. My mother had fancied that a month or two in London would have brought my imagination down to be content with the realities of fas.h.i.+onable life. My mother was right as to the fact, but wrong in her conclusion. This did not incline me more towards Lady Anne, but it disinclined me towards marriage.

My exalted ideas of love were lowered--my morning visions of life fled--I was dispirited.

Mowbray had rallied me on my pining for Cambridge, and on preferring Israel Lyons, the Jew, to him and all the best company in London.

He had hurried me about with him to all manner of gaieties, but still I was not happy; my mind--my heart wanted something more.