We are here (in the country) among the vast and noble scenes
of Nature; we are there (in the town) among the pitiful
shifts of policy. We walk here in the light and open ways of
the divine bounty,—we grope therein the dark and confused
labyrinths of human malice; our senses are here feasted with
all the clear and genuine taste of their objects, which are
all sophisticated there, and for the most part overwhelmed
with their contraries: here pleasure, methinks, looks like a
beautiful, constant, and modest wife; it is there an
impudent, fickle, and painted harlot.—COWLEY.
Draw up the curtain! The scene is the Opera.
The pit is crowded; the connoisseurs in the front row are in a very ill humour. It must be confessed that extreme heat is a little trying to the temper of a critic.
The Opera then was not what it is now, nor even what it had been in a former time. It is somewhat amusing to find Goldsmith questioning, in one of his essays, whether the Opera could ever become popular in England. But on the night—on which the reader is summoned to that “theatre of sweet sounds” a celebrated singer from the Continent made his first appearance in London, and all the world thronged to “that odious Opera-house” to hear, or to say they had heard, the famous Sopraniello.
With a nervous step, Clarence proceeded to Lady Westborough’s box; and it was many minutes that he lingered by the door before he summoned courage to obtain admission.
He entered; the box was crowded; but Lady Flora was not there. Lord Borodaile was sitting next to Lady Westborough. As Clarence entered, Lord Borodaile raised his eyebrows, and Lady Westborough her glass. However disposed a great person may be to drop a lesser one, no one of real birth or breeding ever cuts another. Lady Westborough, therefore, though much colder, was no less civil than usual; and Lord Borodaile bowed lower than ever to Mr. Linden, as he punctiliously called him. But Clarence’s quick eye discovered instantly that he was no welcome intruder, and that his day with the beautiful marchioness was over. His visit, consequently, was short and embarrassed. When he left the box, he heard Lord Borodaile’s short, slow, sneering laugh, followed by Lady Westborough’s “hush” of reproof.
His blood boiled. He hurried along the passage, with his eyes fixed upon the ground and his hand clenched.
“What ho! Linden, my good fellow; why, you look as if all the ferocity of the great Figg were in your veins,” cried a good-humoured voice. Clarence started, and saw the young and high-spirited Duke of Haverfield.
“Are you going behind the scenes?” said his grace. “I have just come thence; and you had much better drop into La Meronville’s box with me. You sup with her to-night, do you not?
“No, indeed!” replied Clarence; “I scarcely know her, except by sight.”
“Well, and what think you of her?”
“That she is the prettiest Frenchwoman I ever saw.”
“Commend me to secret sympathies!” cried the duke. “She has asked me three times who you were, and told me three times you were the handsomest man in London and had quite a foreign air; the latter recommendation being of course far greater than the former. So, after this, you cannot refuse to accompany me to her box and make her acquaintance.”
“Nay,” answered Clarence, “I shall be too happy to profit by the taste of so discerning a person; but it is cruel in you, Duke, not to feign a little jealousy,—a little reluctance to introduce so formidable a rival.”
“Oh, as to me,” said the duke, “I only like her for her mental, not her personal, attractions. She is very agreeable, and a little witty; sufficient attractions for one in her situation.”
“But do tell me a little of her history,” said Clarence, “for, in spite of her renown, I only know her as La belle Meronville. Is she not living en ami with some one of our acquaintance?”
“To be sure,” replied the duke, “with Lord Borodaile. She is prodigiously extravagant; and Borodaile affects to be prodigiously fond: but as there is only a certain fund of affection in the human heart, and all Lord Borodaile’s is centred in Lord Borodaile, that cannot really be the case.”
“Is he jealous of her?” said Clarence.
“Not in the least! nor indeed, does she give him any cause. She is very gay, very talkative, gives excellent suppers, and always has her box at the Opera crowded with admirers; but that is all. She encourages many, and favours but one. Happy Borodaile! My lot is less fortunate! You know, I suppose, that Julia has deserted me?”
“You astonish me,—and for what?”
“Oh, she told me, with a vehement burst of tears, that she was convinced I did not love her, and that a hundred pounds a month was not sufficient to maintain a milliner’s apprentice. I answered the first assertion by an assurance that I adored her: but I preserved a total silence with regard to the latter; and so I found Trevanion tete-a-tete with her the next day.”
“What did you?” said Clarence.
“Sent my valet to Trevanion with an old coat of mine, my compliments, and my hopes that, as Mr. Trevanion was so fond of my cast-off conveniences, he would honour me by accepting the accompanying trifle.”
“He challenged you, without doubt?”
“Challenged me! No: he tells all his friends that I am the wittiest man in Europe.”
“A fool can speak the truth, you see,” said Clarence, laughing.
“Thank you, Linden; you shall have my good word with La Meronville for that: mais allons.”
Mademoiselle de la Meronville, as she pointedly entitled herself, was one of those charming adventuresses, who, making the most of a good education and a prepossessing person, a delicate turn for letter-writing, and a lively vein of conversation, came to England for a year or two, as Spaniards were wont to go to Mexico, and who return to their native country with a profound contempt for the barbarians whom they have so egregiously despoiled. Mademoiselle de la Meronville was small, beautifully formed, had the prettiest hands and feet in the world, and laughed musically. By the by, how difficult it is to laugh, or even to smile, at once naturally and gracefully! It is one of Steele’s finest touches of character, where he says of Will Honeycombe, “He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily.”
In a word, the pretty Frenchwoman was precisely formed to turn the head of a man like Lord Borodaile, who loved to be courted and who required to be amused. Mademoiselle de la Meronville received Clarence with a great deal of grace, and a little reserve, the first chiefly natural, the last wholly artificial.
“Well,” said the duke (in French), “you have not told me who are to be of your party this evening,—Borodaile, I suppose, of course?”
“No, he cannot come to-night.”
“Ah, quel malheur! then the hock will not be iced enough: Borodaile’s looks are the best wine-coolers in the world.”
“Fie!” cried La Meronville, glancing towards Clarence, “I cannot endure your malevolence; wit makes you very bitter.”
“And that is exactly the reason why La belle Meronville loves me so: nothing is so sweet to one person as bitterness upon another; it is human nature and French nature (which is a very different thing) into the bargain.”
“Bah! my Lord Duke, you judge of others by yourself.”
“To be sure I do,” cried the duke; “and that is the best way of forming a right judgment. Ah! what a foot, that little figurante has; you don’t admire her, Linden?”
“No, Duke; my admiration is like the bird in the cage,—chained here, and cannot fly away!” answered Clarence, with a smile at the frippery of his compliment.
“Ah, Monsieur,” cried the pretty Frenchwoman, leaning back, “you have been at Paris, I see: one does not learn those graces of language in England. I have been five months in your country; brought over the prettiest dresses imaginable, and have only received three compliments, and (pity me!) two out of the three were upon my pronunciation of ‘How do you do?’”
“Well,” said Clarence, “I should have imagined that in England, above all other countries, your vanity would have been gratified, for you know we pique ourselves on our sincerity, and say all we think.”
“Yes? then you always think very unpleasantly. What an alternative! which is the best, to speak ill or to think ill of one?”
“Pour l’amour de Dieu,” cried the duke, “don’t ask such puzzling questions; you are always getting into those moral subtleties, which I suppose you learn from Borodaile. He is a wonderful metaphysician, I hear; I can answer for his chemical powers: the moment he enters a room the very walls grow damp; as for me, I dissolve; I should flow into a fountain, like Arethusa, if happily his lordship did not freeze one again into substance as fast as he dampens one into thaw.”
“Fi donc!” cried La Meronville. “I should be very angry had you not taught me to be very indifferent—”
“To him!” said the duke, dryly. “I’m glad to hear it. He is not worth une grande passion, believe me; but tell me, ma belle, who else sups with you?”
“D’abord, Monsieur Linden, I trust,” answered La Meronville, with a look of invitation, to which Clarence bowed and smiled his assent, “Milord D——, and Monsieur Trevanion, Mademoiselle Caumartin, and Le Prince Pietro del Ordino.”
“Nothing can be better arranged,” said the duke. “But see, they are just going to drop the curtain. Let me call your carriage.”
“You are too good, milord,” replied La Meronville, with a bow which said, “of course;” and the duke, who would not have stirred three paces for the first princess of the blood, hurried out of the box (despite of Clarence’s offer to undertake the commission) to inquire after the carriage of the most notorious adventuress of the day.
Clarence was alone in the box with the beautiful Frenchwoman. To say truth, Linden was far too much in love with Lady Flora, and too occupied, as to his other thoughts, with the projects of ambition, to be easily led into any disreputable or criminal liaison; he therefore conversed with his usual ease, though with rather more than his usual gallantry, without feeling the least touched by the charms of La Meronville or the least desirous of supplanting Lord Borodaile in her favour.
The duke reappeared, and announced the carriage. As, with La Meronville leaning on his arm, Clarence hurried out, he accidentally looked up, and saw on the head of the stairs Lady Westborough with her party (Lord Borodaile among the rest) in waiting for her carriage. For almost the first time in his life, Clarence felt ashamed of himself; his cheek burned like fire, and he involuntarily let go the fair hand which was leaning upon his arm. However, the weaker our course the better face we should put upon it, and Clarence, recovering his presence of mind, and vainly hoping he had not been perceived, buried his face as well as he was able in the fur collar of his cloak, and hurried on.
“You saw Lord Borodaile?” said the duke to La Meronville, as he handed her into her carriage.
“Yes, I accidentally looked back after we had passed him, and then I saw him.”
“Looked back!” said the duke; “I wonder he did not turn you into a pillar of salt.”
“Fi donc!” cried La belle Meronville, tapping his grace playfully on the arm, in order to do which she was forced to lean a little harder upon Clarence’s, which she had not yet relinquished—“Fi donc! Francois, chez moi!”
“My carriage is just behind,” said the duke. “You will go with me to La Meronville’s, of course?”
“Really, my dear duke,” said Clarence, “I wish I could excuse myself from this party. I have another engagement.”
“Excuse yourself? and leave me to the mercy of Mademoiselle Caumartin, who has the face of an ostrich, and talks me out of breath! Never, my dear Linden, never! Besides, I want you to see how well I shall behave to Trevanion. Here is the carriage. Entrez, mon cher.”
And Clarence, weakly and foolishly (but he was very young and very unhappy, and so, longing for an escape from his own thoughts) entered the carriage, and drove to the supper party, in order to prevent the Duke of Haverfield being talked out of breath by Mademoiselle Caumartin, who had the face of an ostrich.
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