CHAPTER XLVII.
There is a surprising difference in the powers of renovation possessed by the young and the middle-aged. Lady Anne had seen her daughters all reduced to shadows by fever, but they were all well again in a very short time, and took plain food with good appetites and evident advantage. This was by no means her own case; she had no ailment to which she could or would give a name, but yet she was not well—her palate was fastidious to the greatest degree, and, even when gratified, produced little beneficial results. She was overdone by slight exertions, heated rooms, and large parties; even an opera was death to her, and there was nothing for it but lying bye for a whole season.
At this period she therefore seriously resumed the intention she had occasionally mentioned to her eldest daughter of writing a book, for which she intended to get a sum of money which should cover the remaining pecuniary obligations, and put such a surplus in her pocket as would make her at ease, and enable her to "keep up appearances." If so many ladies of rank wrote books, there could be no impropriety in her following their example, though it must be allowed to be a great concession in one of her noble blood to write a book at a common price, to be had at a circulating library, and which even a dirty artizan might read. She remembered, when a girl, seeing a short poem written by the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, for which her papa gave three guineas; she did not suppose there was a single copy sold in the city or the country, so that her grace had really the satisfaction of knowing that her beautiful hotpressed folio was opened alone by courtly hands. "It was true the verses themselves got into all the newspapers, for they get hold of every thing."
Having made up her mind to do the thing, Lady Anne assumed at once the rights and privileges of her order; she beautified her dressing-room as far as was necessary for the reception of the élite amongst the class she meant to honour with her acquaintance; she consulted the publisher, who boasted the most extensive intimacy with persons of rank, on the subject, and was told that her work must be three volumes long, and no longer.
"I never thought of making it longer; but I think I shall be tired when I have finished two, otherwise I could write a dozen."
"Your ladyship can bring out two or three series, but each must be three volumes; any thing short of that would not pay."
As pay was Lady Anne's object, and poor Georgiana was intended to be the amanuensis, should she be found capable of forming sentences out of disjointed hints, and of wrapping foul facts in clean composition. "There will be some anecdotes I had better tell myself, and I must find the smartness and the pathos, but there may be sheet after sheet of prosiness that Georgiana may do fast enough; the essence of the work will be in the title-page—'Records of People of Rank,' by Lady Anne Granard; or, 'Facts known to few,' by the Right Honourable Lady; or, 'Annals of High Life:' but I had better write the book first, and give it a title afterwards."
"But I thought you were going to write a novel, mamma, like Mrs."
"Then you thought wrong. I shall not write like Mistress Anybody. I shall write like what I am—a woman of rank. Did Lady Mary Wortley Montague write like Miss Emma Roberts and Miss Pardoe, who were merely modest young ladies in private life, and could not see or relate what an ambassador's lady did?"
"May I read her book, mamma? It is locked up in your bookcase."
"No; you may see quite enough of Turkey in the old copy of Guthrie's grammar. I wish you to study stile and composition, in order to assist me in the relation of anecdotes; and you may do that effectually by reading Johnson's Rambler and Hawksworth's Adventurer, which are always left out. If you want any thing more, ask Mr. Palmer for it, he has an excellent library, and I never objected to any of the books he has lent you. Indeed he is a well-informed man, I must say, and has practised 'forget and forgive' to me ever since I returned, and, I trust, will do so about the money I borrowed, at least till the publication of my work. As to reading many books, it would be nonsense, as I am certain I have seen enough, and can relate enough, to astonish any body; my own brother's history, during twenty-three years, would make a huge quarto. I have had domestic scenes, too, that would have effect upon paper."
"Dear, dear mamma!" cried Georgiana, in absolute terror, "you surely would not put any thing in print about uncle or papa?"
"Not if I can help it, and fill up the book, certainly, for it might kill poor Rotheles. Granard it could not hurt; but nobody wants anecdotes of private gentlemen, except they were great orators, like that red-nosed Sheridan, or great writers, like Scott. No; the charm in all such books, is stories of royalty, and undoubtedly I can tell several; not only of what I have read in letters addressed to my mother, and which, by the by, should never have been permitted to fall into my hands, as the old Countess of Ck very justly observed—not but she gave me herself all the particulars of things I could not make out. I have all the history of the beautiful Mrs. N, Admiral N's wife, whom the two royal brothers were both in love with—I mean the eldest and the fourth successively. That is a good story, and can be spun out. She took a cottage in Clewer Meadows, and the prince (whom she certainly admired) used to visit her, after the castle gates were shut, by letting himself down."
"I thought you said she was married, mamma?"
"So she was; but her husband was an admiral in the West Indies."
"And the prince had never heard of him? I suppose it was what they call a clandestine marriage."
"I suppose it was," said Lady Anne, actually colouring for shame, as well as anger, as Georgiana looked innocently into her face, eager to learn the romantic in the story, and not conceiving to what it could tend.
"Then I suppose she told the prince she was married, and that drove him to despair, mamma?"
"Why, he was not much given to that. Princes seldom are. She was taken away suddenly by the Countess of H, and there was, happily, an end of the matter."
"But, after that, his younger brother fell in love with her; her marriage being still a secret, how did she go on with him, mamma?"
"No matter. I shall change my plan—I shall write a novel."
"But novels take a deal of inventing and contriving; so, that if you could write from your memory it would save you a deal of trouble, because, as you told it, I could put it down."
"No, you couldn't. You can't help me at all; so don't teaze me. I cannot be assisted by you, I see plainly, unless you could do something towards a novel; do you think you have any head for that?"
"I think I could write a great deal about the love, and the sorrow, and—and—other things."
"What other things, child?"
"The glimpses of hope and comfort, that come across the mind like sunbeams, without any apparent reason, and the way in which, without a cause (or, at least, a new cause, and when, on the whole, prospects are mending), the heart sinks all at once, as it were, into an abyss of anguish, increasing the pains of absence a thousand fold, by the fears and terrors of an awakened imagination."
"That's all very well; but do you know nothing of any sorrows but those of love?"
"Oh! yes, mamma, I could do the sorrows of poverty very decently, I dare say, and tell something about the happiness of relief, and the pleasure of helping those one loves. I could also say a great deal against riches being the medium of happiness, and the inadequacy of grandeur to supply the wishes of an humble, tender heart."
"I dare say you could; I have no doubt you could pour out as much nonsense as other fools of your age. Don't be frightened, I am not angry with you. I know perfectly well that the stuff you are talking is the staple of old novels; but now-a-days they must have a great deal besides to make them go down; if those people would come from Italy, they might do one some good."
"Surely Count Riccardini could tell one a great deal more than my sisters, for he could give an account of all the ceremonies and splendour of his church—the nuns, and friars, and penances, and the soft music, the blue skies, the grapes and melons, and feasts of saints, and all the magnificent antiquities; I think, mamma, one might get a great deal out of him."
"I think one might, Georgiana, if I were not such an object."
"Object! you were never so interesting in all your life as you are now. Mrs. Palmer said, only the other day, 'though Lady Anne is very pale and thin, she retains all her wonted elegance of person.'"
"As to the paleness, that can be remedied, and Fanchette does certainly manage the thinness very well; she is a perfect artiste with cotton wool; so you shall write him a note, and ask him to take tea to-morrow evening. When he chooses to be agreeable, there is nothing like him; and certainly for contour and manner he is a wonderful creature. I am sure he might pick and choose amongst the best dowried dowagers in England; and, instead of making any thing of himself, he has actually been all the way to Granard Park to look at his wife's picture, and make his bow to all the people who knew him, as "Manuello, the emigrant Italian," hunting up his sempstress and washerwoman, to make their old age comfortable, and talking religion with paralytic vicars and learned curates. Ah! that illness of mine was a sad thing! it divided us, as it were, the moment we came together, and, by leaving him to his conscience and his reminiscences, positively ruined him."
"I have scarcely seen him; but he appeared to me very happy and exceedingly agreeable; I could almost say captivating, for a man of his age."
"That's the very thing I complain of; he makes himself happy under such degrading circumstances; he has actually nursed Louisa's child two hours at a time, sometimes singing the exquisite compositions of his own country, sometimes weeping over it, and calling it his own sweet Manuello. When he resigned it, he would go to prayers at one of the churches; yet, at that very time, there was a Jew's widow, as rich as Crœsus, and really beautiful, watching his every motion, and at length leaving Brighton in despair. My medical men mentioned it as a most extraordinary thing, and well they might. They had never known an Englishman so utterly blind to his own interest."
"But, dear mamma, you could not surely wish my uncle Riccardini should marry after he had declared my father's children should be his children?"
"Of course, I do not want him to marry. I only say he is a fool for not doing it."
"Get well, dear mamma, and then we shall see where the Count turns his eyes; he is like the hero of your future novel—merit not money is his object."
"Go down and tell them to make a fire in the dining-parlour; those claret-coloured curtains are more becoming than any we have in the house, and both you and I need them."
The latter assertion was scarcely true, for Georgiana was looking very well; all external circumstances had been, of late, favourable to her, and internal no less; her uncle and Sir Edward Hales alike treating her with the utmost affection, and promising her the support her case required. Not a single word had been hither to said of the Marquis, and the Count had contrived to fulfil Isabella's desire by giving her the money she really needed, which Lord Rotheles, in his gift to her mother, did not doubt she would share. Indeed, as a man, he did not conceive that she wanted any thing. The Countess well knew she did; but she was not of the giving school; she idolized "the dear, affectionate, artless girl," and could see her want shoes and stockings, and smile when her own insolent maid remarked the "sweet young lady's sitivation."
But, in fact, the happiest impetus was given to the mind of Georgiana by the writing scheme broached by her mother. Had she known that prurient anecdotes, breaches of confidence, scandalous facts, and cruel observations, were intended to constitute the matter and to enhance the price, her very heart would have broken under the affliction such a disgraceful proceeding exhibited, but having no idea that her mamma was capable of such conduct, it could not enter a mind so pure and so uncontaminated by the world; and, happily, Lady Anne was incapable of fulfilling her own purpose, and of displaying herself, at once, as the scandalizer of the order she was proud of, and the mother who could injure and disgrace so admirable a family of daughters.