Paul Clifford — Complete
day from that on which Mauleverer had held with Brandon the interview
we have recorded, that the earl received a note from Brandon, seemingly
turning only on political matters, but inscribed with the address and
direction in full form.
Mauleverer answered it in person. He found Lucy at home, and more
beautiful than ever; and from that day his mind was made up, as the
mammas say, and his visits became constant.
CHAPTER XV.
There is a festival where knights and dames,
And aught that wealth or lofty lineage claims,
Appear.
'T is he,--how came he thence?
What doth he here?
Lara.
There are two charming situations in life for a woman,--one, the first
freshness of heiressship and beauty; the other, youthful widowhood, with
a large jointure. It was at least Lucy's fortune to enjoy the first. No
sooner was she fairly launched into the gay world than she became the
object of universal idolatry. Crowds followed her wherever she moved
nothing was talked of or dreamed of, toasted or betted on, but Lucy
Brandon; even her simplicity, and utter ignorance of the arts of fine
life, enhanced the eclat of her reputation. Somehow or other,
young people of the gentler sex are rarely ill-bred, even in
their eccentricities; and there is often a great deal of grace in
inexperience. Her uncle, who accompanied her everywhere, himself no
slight magnet of attraction, viewed her success with a complacent
triumph which he suffered no one but her father or herself to detect.
To the smooth coolness of his manner, nothing would have seemed more
foreign than pride at the notice gained by a beauty, or exultation at
any favour won from the caprices of fashion. As for the good old squire,
one would have imagined him far more the invalid than his brother. He
was scarcely ever seen; for though he went everywhere, he was one of
those persons who sink into a corner the moment they enter a room.
Whoever discovered him in his retreat, held out their hands, and
exclaimed, “God bless me! you here! We have not seen you for this age!”
Now and then, if in a very dark niche of the room a card-table had been
placed, the worthy gentleman toiled through an obscure rubber; but more
frequently he sat with his hands clasped and his mouth open, counting
the number of candles in the room, or calculating “when that stupid
music would be over.”
Lord Mauleverer, though a polished and courteous man, whose great object
was necessarily to ingratiate himself with the father of his intended
bride, had a horror of being bored, which surpassed all other feelings
in his mind. He could not therefore persuade himself to submit to the
melancholy duty of listening to the squire's “linked speeches long drawn
out.” He always glided by the honest man's station, seemingly in an
exceeding hurry, with a “Ah, my dear sir, how do you do? How delighted I
am to see you! And your incomparable daughter? Oh, there she is! Pardon
me, dear sir,--you see my attraction.”
Lucy, indeed, who never forgot any one (except herself occasionally),
sought her father's retreat as often as she was able; but her
engagements were so incessant that she no sooner lost one partner than
she was claimed and carried off by another. However, the squire bore his
solitude with tolerable cheerfulness, and always declared that “he was
very well amused; although balls and concerts were necessarily a little
dull to one who came from a fine old place like Warlock Manor-house, and
it was not the same thing that pleased young ladies (for, to them, that
fiddling and giggling till two o'clock in the morning might be a very
pretty way of killing time) and their papas!”
What considerably added to Lucy's celebrity was the marked notice and
admiration of a man so high in rank and ton as Lord Mauleverer. That
personage, who still retained much of a youthful mind and temper, and
who was in his nature more careless than haughty, preserved little or no
state in his intercourse with the social revellers at Bath. He cared not
whither he went, so that he was in the train of the young beauty; and
the most fastidious nobleman of the English court was seen in every
second and third rate set of a great watering-place,--the attendant, the
flirt, and often the ridicule of the daughter of an obscure and almost
insignificant country squire. Despite the honour of so distinguished a
lover, and despite all the novelties of her situation, the pretty head
of Lucy Brandon was as yet, however, perfectly unturned; and as for her
heart, the only impression that it had ever received was made by that
wandering guest of the village rector, whom she had never again seen,
but who yet clung to her imagination, invested not only with all the
graces which in right of a singularly handsome person he possessed, but
with those to which he never could advance a claim,--more dangerous to
her peace, for the very circumstance of their origin in her fancy, not
his merits.
They had now been some little time at Bath, and Brandon's brief respite
was pretty nearly expired, when a public ball of uncommon and manifold
attraction was announced. It was to be graced not only by the presence
of all the surrounding families, but also by that of royalty itself; it
being an acknowledged fact that people dance much better and eat much
more supper when any relation to a king is present.
“I must stay for this ball, Lucy,” said Brandon, who, after spending
the day with Lord Mauleverer, returned home in a mood more than usually
cheerful,--“I must stay for this one ball, Lucy, and witness your
complete triumph, even though it will be necessary to leave you the very
next morning.”
“So soon!” cried Lucy.
“So soon!” echoed the uncle, with a smile. “How good you are to speak
thus to an old valetudinarian, whose company must have fatigued you to
death! Nay, no pretty denials! But the great object of my visit to this
place is accomplished: I have seen you, I have witnessed your debut in
the great world, with, I may say, more than a father's exultation, and I
go back to my dry pursuits with the satisfaction of thinking our old
and withered genealogical tree has put forth one blossom worthy of its
freshest day.”
“Uncle!” said Lucy, reprovingly, and holding up her taper finger with
an arch smile, mingling with a blush, in which the woman's vanity spoke,
unknown to herself.
“And why that look, Lucy?” said Brandon.
“Because--because--well, no matter! you have been bred to that trade in
which, as you say yourself, men tell untruths for others till they lose
all truth for themselves. But let us talk of you, not me; are you really
well enough to leave us?”
Simple and even cool as the words of Lucy's question, when written,
appear, in her mouth they took so tender, so anxious a tone, that
Brandon, who had no friend nor wife nor child, nor any one in his
household in whom interest in his health or welfare was a thing of
course, and who was consequently wholly unaccustomed to the accent of
kindness, felt himself of a sudden touched and stricken.
“Why, indeed, Lucy,” said he, in a less artificial voice than that in
which he usually spoke, “I should like still to profit by your cares,
and forget my infirmities and pains in your society; but I cannot: the
tide of events, like that of nature, waits not our pleasure!”
“But we may take our own time for setting sail!” said Lucy.
“Ay, this comes of talking in metaphor,” rejoined Brandon, smiling;
“they who begin it always get the worst of it. In plain words, dear
Lucy, I can give no more time to my own ailments. A lawyer cannot play
truant in term-time without--”
“Losing a few guineas!” said Lucy, interrupting him.
“Worse than that,--his practice and his name.”
“Better those than health and peace of mind.”
“Out on you, no!” said Brandon, quickly, and almost fiercely. “We
waste all the greenness and pith of our life in striving to gain a
distinguished slavery; and when it is gained, we must not think that
an humble independence would have been better. If we ever admit that
thought, what fools, what lavish fools, we have been! No!” continued
Brandon, after a momentary pause, and in a tone milder and gayer, though
not less characteristic of the man's stubbornness of will, “after losing
all youth's enjoyments and manhood's leisure, in order that in age the
mind, the all-conquering mind, should break its way at last into the
applauding opinions of men, I should be an effeminate idler indeed, did
I suffer, so long as its jarring parts hold together, or so long as I
have the power to command its members, this weak body to frustrate the
labour of its better and nobler portion, and command that which it is
ordained to serve.”
Lucy knew not while she listened, half in fear, half in admiration,
to her singular relation, that at the very moment he thus spoke, his
disease was preying upon him in one of its most relentless moods,
without the power of wringing from him a single outward token of his
torture. But she wanted nothing to increase her pity and affection for a
man who in consequence, perhaps, of his ordinary surface of worldly
and cold properties of temperament never failed to leave an indelible
impression on all who had ever seen that temperament broken through by
deeper though often by more evil feelings.
“Shall you go to Lady--------'s rout?” asked Brandon, easily sliding
back into common topics. “Lord Mauleverer requested me to ask you.”
“That depends on you and my father.”
“If on me, I answer yes,” said Brandon. “I like hearing Mauleverer,
especially among persons who do not understand him. There is a refined
and subtle sarcasm running through the commonplaces of his conversation,
which cuts the good fools, like the invisible sword in the fable, that
lopped off heads without occasioning the owners any other sensation than
a pleasing and self-complacent titillation. How immeasurably superior he
is in manner and address to all we meet here! Does it not strike you?”
“Yes--no--I can't say that it does exactly,” rejoined Lucy.
“Is that confusion tender?” thought Brandon.
“In a word,” continued Lucy, “Lord Mauleverer is one whom I think
pleasing without fascination, and amusing without brilliancy. He is
evidently accomplished in mind and graceful in manner, and withal the
most uninteresting person I ever met.”
“Women have not often thought so,” said Brandon. “I cannot believe that
they can think otherwise.”
A certain expression, partaking of scorn, played over Brandon's hard
features. It was a noticeable trait in him, that while he was most
anxious to impress Lucy with a favourable opinion of Lord Mauleverer, he
was never quite able to mask a certain satisfaction at any jest at the
earl's expense, or any opinion derogatory to his general character for
pleasing the opposite sex; and this satisfaction was no sooner conceived
than it was immediately combated by the vexation he felt that Lucy did
not seem to share his own desire that she should become the wife of the
courtier. There appeared as if in that respect there was a contest in
his mind between interest on one hand and private dislike or contempt on
the other.
“You judge women wrongly!” said Brandon. “Ladies never know each
other; of all persons, Mauleverer is best calculated to win them, and
experience has proved my assertion. The proudest lot I know for a woman
would be the thorough conquest of Lord Mauleverer; but it is impossible.
He may be gallant, but he will never be subdued. He defies the whole
female world, and with justice and impunity. Enough of him. Sing to me,
dear Lucy.”
The time for the ball approached; and Lucy, who was a charming girl and