Thaddeus of Warsaw Part 24

She felt something strange at her heart. His eyes seemed to have penetrated to its inmost devices. Blus.h.i.+ng like scarlet, she got up to hide an embarra.s.sment not to be subdued; and hastily wis.h.i.+ng the countess a good-morning curtseyed to him and left the room.

Her ladys.h.i.+p entered her carriage with feelings all in commotion. She could not account for the confusion which his look had occasioned; and half angry at a weakness so like a raw, inexperienced girl, she determined to become one of Lady Tinemouth's constant visitors, until she should have brought him (as she had done most of the men in her circle) to her feet.

These were her ladys.h.i.+p's resolutions, while she rolled along towards St. James's Place. But she a little exceeded the fact in the statement of her conquests; for notwithstanding she could have counted as many lovers as most women, yet few of them would have ventured the folly of a kneeling pet.i.tion. In spite of her former unwedded charms, these worthy lords and gentlemen had, to a man, adopted the oracle of the poet--

"Love, free as air, at sight of human ties, Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies."

They all professed to adore Lady Sara; some were caught by her beauty, others by her _eclat_, but none had the most distant wish to make this beauty and _eclat_ his own legal property. For she had no other property to bestow.

The young Marquis of Severn seemed serious towards her ladys.h.i.+p during the first year of his appearance at court; but at the end of that time, instead of offering her his hand, he married the daughter of a rich banker.

Lady Sara was so incensed at this disappointment, that, to show her disdain of her apostate lover, she set off next day for Gretna Green, with Horace Ross, a young and early celebrated commander in the navy, whose honest heart had been some time sueing to her in vain. He was also nephew to the Earl of Wintown. They were married, and her ladys.h.i.+p had the triumph of being presented as a bride the same day with the Marchioness of Severn.

When the whirlwind of her resentment subsided, she began most dismally to repent her union. She loved Captain Ross as little as she had loved Lord Severn. She had admired the rank and fas.h.i.+on of the one, and the profound adoration of the other had made a friend of her vanity. But now that her revenge was gratified, and the homage of a husband ceased to excite the envy of her companions, she grew weary of his attentions, and was rejoiced when the Admiralty ordered him to take the command of a frigate bound to the Mediterranean.

The last fervent kiss which he imprinted on her lips, as she breathed out the cold "Good-by, Ross; take care of yourself!" seemed to her the seal of freedom; and she returned into her dressing-room, not to weep, but to exult in the prospect of a thousand festivities and a thousand captives at her feet.

Left at an early age without a mother, and ignorant of the duties of a wife, she thought that if she kept her husband and herself out of Doctor's Commons, she should do no harm by amusing herself with the heart of every man who came in her way. Thus she hardly moved without a train of admirers. She had already attracted everyone she deemed worthy of the trouble, and listened to their compliments, and insolent presumptions, until she was wearied of both. In this juncture of _ennui_, Miss Egerton related to her the countess's recontre with the gallant foreigner.

As soon as she heard he was of rank, (for Miss Egerton was not backward to affirm the dreams of her own imagination,) she formed a wish to see him; and when, to her infinite satisfaction, he did present himself, in her eyes he exceeded everything that had been described. To secure such a conquest, she thought, would not only raise the envy of the women, but put the men on the alert to discover some novel and attractive way of proving their devotion.

Whilst Lady Sara was meditating on her new conquest, the count and Lady Tinemouth remained in their _tete-a-tete_. Her ladys.h.i.+p talked to him on various subjects; but he answered ill upon them all, and sometimes very wide of the matter. At last, conscious that he must be burdensome, he arose, and, looking paler and more depressed than when he entered, wished her a good morning.

"I am afraid, Mr. Constantine, you are unwell."

Like most people who desire to hide what is pa.s.sing in their minds, Thaddeus gladly a.s.sented to this, as an excuse for a taciturnity he could not overcome.

"Then," cried her ladys.h.i.+p, "I hope you will let me know where to send to inquire after your health."

Thaddeus was confounded for a moment; then, returning into the room, he took up a pen, which lay on the table, and said,

"I will write my address to a place where any of your ladys.h.i.+p's commands may reach me; but I will do myself the honor to repeat my call very soon."

"I shall always be happy to see you," replied the countess, while he was writing; "but before I engage you in a promise of which you may afterwards repent, I must tell you that you will meet with dull entertainment at my house. I see very little company; and were it not for the inexhaustible spirits of Miss Egerton, I believe I should become a complete misanthrope."

"Your house will be my paradise!" exclaimed the count, with an expressiveness to the force of which he did not immediately attend.

Lady Tinemouth smiled.

"I must warn you here, too," cried she. "Miss Egerton must not be the deity of your paradise. She is already under engagements."

Thaddeus blushed at being mistaken, and wished to explain himself.

"You misunderstand me, madam. I am not insensible to beauty; but upon my word, at that moment I had nothing else in my thoughts than grat.i.tude for your ladys.h.i.+p's kindness to an absolute stranger."

"That is true, Mr. Constantine: you are an absolute stranger, if the want of a formal introduction and an ignorance of your family const.i.tute that t.i.tle. But your protection introduced you to me; and there is something in your appearance which convinces me that I need not be afraid of admitting you into the very scanty number of my friends."

Thaddeus perceived the delicacy of Lady Tinemouth, who wished to know who he was, and yet was unwilling to give him pain by a question so direct that he must answer it. As she now proposed it, she left him entirely to his own discretion; and he determined to satisfy her very proper curiosity, as far as he could without exposing his real name and circ.u.mstances.

The countess, whose benevolent heart was deeply interested in his favor, observed the changes of his countenance with an anxious hope that he would be ingenuous. Her solicitude did not arise from any doubts of his quality and worth, but she wished to be enabled to reply with promptness to the inquisitive people who might see him at her house.

"I hardly know," said Thaddeus, "in what words to express my sense of your ladys.h.i.+p's generous confidence in me; and that my character is not undeserving of such distinction, time, I trust, will prove." He paused for a moment, and then resumed: "For my rank, Lady Tinemouth, it is now of little consequence to my comfort; rather, perhaps, a source of mortification; for--" he hesitated, and then proceeded, with a faint color tinging his cheek: "exiles from their country, if they would not covet misery, must learn to forget; hence I am no other than Mr. Constantine; though, in acknowledgment of your ladys.h.i.+p's goodness, I deem it only just that I should not conceal my real quality from you.

"My family was one of the first in Poland. Even in banishment, the remembrance that its virtues were as well known as its name, affords some alleviation to the conviction that when my country fell, all my property and all my kindred were involved in the ruin. Soon after the dreadful sealing of its fate, I quitted it, and by the command of a dying parent, who expired in my arms, sought a refuge in this island from degradations which otherwise I could neither repel nor avoid."

Thaddeus stopped; and the countess, struck by the graceful modesty with which this simple account was related, laid her hand upon his.

"Mr. Constantine, I am not surprised at what you have said. The melancholy of your air induced me to suspect that you were not happy, and my sole wish in penetrating your reserve was to show you that a woman can be a sincere friend."

Tears of grat.i.tude glistened in the count's eyes. Incapable of making a suitable reply, he pressed her hand to his lips. She rose; and willing to relieve a sensibility that delighted her, added, "I will not detain you longer: only let me see you soon."

Thaddeus uttered a few inarticulate words, whose significancy conveyed nothing, but all he felt was declared in their confusion.

The countess's eloquent smile showed that she comprehended their meaning; and he left the room.

CHAPTER XX.

WOMAN'S KINDNESS.

On the count's return home, he found General Butzou in better spirits, still poring over his journal. This book seemed to be the representative of all which had ever been dear to him. He dwelt upon it and talked about it with a doating eagerness bordering on insanity.

These symptoms, increasing from day to day, gave his young friend considerable uneasiness. He listened with pain to the fond dreams which took possession of the poor old man, who delighted in saying that much might yet be done in Poland when he should be recovered, and they be enabled to return together to Warsaw, and stimulate the people to resume their rights.

Thaddeus at first attempted to prove the emptiness of these schemes; but seeing that contradiction on this head threw the general into deeper despondency, he thought it better to affect the same sentiments, too well perceiving that death would soon terminate these visions with the venerable dreamer's life.

Accordingly, as far as lay in the count's power, he satisfied all the fancied wants of his revered friend, who on every other subject was perfectly reasonable; but at last he became so absorbed in this chimerical plot, that other conversation, or his meals, seemed to oppress him with restraint.

When Thaddeus perceived that his company was rather irksome than a comfort to his friend, he the more readily repeated his visits to Lady Tinemouth. She now looked for his appearance at least once a day. If ever a morning and an evening pa.s.sed away without his appearance, he was sure of being scolded by Miss Egerton, reproached by the countess, and frowned at by Lady Sara Ross. In defiance of all other engagements, this lady contrived to drop in every night at Lady Tinemouth's. Her ladys.h.i.+p was not more surprised at this sudden attachment of Lady Sara to her house than pleased with her society.

She found she could lay aside in her little circle that tissue of affectation and fas.h.i.+on which she wore in public, and really became a charming woman.

Though Lady Sara was vain, she was mistress of sufficient sense to penetrate with tolerable certainty into the characters of her acquaintance. Most of the young men with whom she had hitherto a.s.sociated having lived from youth to manhood amongst those fas.h.i.+onable a.s.semblies where individuality is absorbed in the general ma.s.s of insipidity, she saw they were frivolous, though obsequious to her, or, at the best, warped in taste, if not in principle; and the fascinations she called forth to subdue them were suited to their objects--her beauty, her thoughtless, or her caprice. But, on the reverse, when she formed the wish to entangle such a man as Thaddeus, she soon discovered that to engage his attention she must appear in the unaffected graces of nature. To this end she took pains to display the loveliness of her form in every movement and position; yet she managed the action with so inartificial and frank an air, that she seemed the only person present who was unconscious of the versatility and power of her charms. She conversed with good sense and propriety. In short, she appeared completely different from the gay, ridiculous creature he had seen some weeks before in the countess's drawing-room.

He now admired both her person and her mind. Her winning softness, the vivacity of Miss Egerton, and the kindness of the countess, beguiled him many an evening from the contemplation of melancholy scenes at his humble and anxious home.

One night it came into the head of Sophia Egerton to banter him about his military dress. "Do, for heaven's sake, my dear Don Quixote,"

cried she, "let us see you out of your rusty armor! I declare I grow frightened at it. And I cannot but think you would be merrier out of that customary suit of solemn black!"

This demand was not pleasing to Thaddeus, but he good-humoredly replied, "I knew not till you were so kind as to inform me that a man's temper depends on his clothes."

"Else, I suppose," cried she, interrupting him, "you would have changed yours before? Therefore, I expect you will do as I bid you now, and put on a Christian's coat against you next enter this house."

Thaddeus was at a loss what to say; he only bowed; and the countess and Lady Sara smiled at her nonsense.

When they parted for the night, this part of the conversation pa.s.sed off from all minds but that of Lady Tinemouth. She had considered the subject, but in a different way from her gay companion. Sophia supposed that the handsome Constantine wore the dress of his country because it was the most becoming. But as such a whim did not correspond with the other parts of his character, Lady Tinemouth. in her own mind, attributed this adherence to his national habit to the right cause.

She remarked that whenever she wished him to meet any agreeable people at her house, he always declined these introductions under the plea of his dress, though he never proposed to alter it. This conduct, added to his silence on every subject which related to the public amus.e.m.e.nts about town, led her to conclude, that, like the banished n.o.bility of France he was encountering the various inconveniences of poverty in a foreign land. She hoped that he had escaped its horrors; but she could not be certain, for he always s.h.i.+fted the conversation when it too closely referred to himself.