CHAPTER VI.
"How pretty Louisa is looking this morning!" said Lady Anne; "what a dreadful waste, with nobody in town."
"What a pity," replied Isabella, "that people cannot have a savings-bank of good looks—hair, eyes, and skin to be put out at interest till wanted!"
"You would not trouble it much, child," returned Lady Anne, pettishly; "you know you are the plain one of the family. I do not know what I shall do with you when you come out; you will have no beauty but that of youth."
"Then, mamma," exclaimed Isabella, "the sooner you bring me out the better."
"I am sure," cried her mother, "I have quite enough on my hands. No, no, you must wait, and long enough too, unless some of your sisters go off."
"Well," answered she, "I can wait and improve."
"I do not think you will," was Lady Anne's ungracious reply. She was herself a blonde; and it seemed almost a personal affront, that any of her children could be brunettes. Even in Helen, who was a decided beauty, she scarcely tolerated the dark hair; but it was too much to endure in Isabella—dark hair, eyes, and skin—yet Isabella was pretty, and promised to be still prettier; those large and penetrating orbs were full of fire and expression, and the slight form and regular features only required a little rounding and filling up for positive beauty. Yet, from being in a different style to what constituted the family-standard of loveliness, the idea had never crossed Isabella's mind; she was accustomed to be considered the plain one, and to that she quietly submitted. Still she had her moments of mortification. Coming immediately after Georgiana, whose cherub beauty was quite remarkable, she was perpetually subjected to the contrast, and that in a family where personal attractions were considered every thing; but in her the evil wrought for good; she became anxious to find some means of supplying her deficiency. Gradually the question arose, whether personal charms were quite worthy the value set upon them, and whether the sole object in existence was to be well married during your first season.
Once set a strong mind thinking, and you have done all that it needs for its education. It matters little what is the first impetus, so that it only be set to work. Isabella soon acquired the habit of reflection and comparison. She was the first to see how all real comfort in their house was sacrificed to some vain show, and that life had duties to fulfil, that were "unnamed, unknown" in their circle.
More keenly alive perhaps than any of her sisters to the little ridicules that belonged to Mrs. Palmer's character, she yet saw how small was their importance, and that Mrs. Palmer was not only a better but a happier person than most of those with whom she was acquainted. She early learned to detect and to despise the paltry seeming and the miserable motive—the great risk was that a mind so trained would be too cold and too harsh in its views—but from those worst of feminine faults, she was saved by her affection for her sisters; it subdued and softened her whole nature. Perhaps she was the fondest of Mary—for Mary, languid and depressed, was most dependant on her kindness—and in the slight attentions so grateful to an invalid, she found most employment for the generosity of her active nature.
Isabella loved those best whom she served most. Besides, she had a sort of fellow-feeling with Mary, for Lady Anne's lamentations were always over her eldest and youngest daughters—the one as having survived her beauty, the other as not likely to have any to survive. A loud rap at the door made the whole party start. Louisa coloured a deep, beautiful crimson. Lady Anne exclaimed, "I am sure I shall be glad to find that any one is in town as well as myself." And Isabella, going to the window, announced that it was a dark cabriolet, and that Lady Penrhyn and her brother were getting out of it. In another moment a fashionable but haggard-looking woman came into the room, accompanied by a young and most gentleman like man.
"I made Charles drive me here to-day," said Lady Penrhyn, "for Penrhyn has taken the carriage into the city to-day, and at this season we have only one pair of horses."
"And what good fortune," cried Lady Anne, looking as pleased as her style permitted her to look about any thing, "has brought you to town?"
"Ill fortune, you mean," replied the other; "why, the elections being safely over last autumn, Penrhyn thinks that country hospitality is unnecessary for two or three years to come. He will keep up his interest in the county by coals and blankets to the poor, which look well in the papers; and, in the mean time, he must make up what he calls his outlay of capital by some speculation. He has come about the company of a railroad."
Lady Anne drew up, and looked unutterable scorn; she did not, however, think it necessary to give utterance to her thoughts in words, for she knew that Lady Penrhyn objected to any one's sneering at her husband but herself. Perhaps the pleasure was so great that she thought it deserved a monopoly. Lady Penrhyn now explained that the object of her visit was to ask Lady Anne if she would accompany her to the theatre. "One must find something in the way of amusement, so I have taken a box at the Olympic, and I rely upon your going with me."
Lady Anne assented at once; it was just the sort of thing she liked. It might be wondered that Lady Penrhyn did not extend her invitation to the younger part of the family; no one who knew her ladyship would have wondered at it. She did not patronize young ladies—they were always superfluous, sometimes inconvenient; besides, flirting as she did to the last extremity of flirtation, she herself needed a sort of chaperon, and Lady Anne was just the sort of person who was invaluable in the way of sanction. There had never been even the shadow of an insinuation against her perfect correctness, and yet she was d'une discretion parfaite—she never saw or heard any thing more than it was intended she should, she never believed any tale of slander till the very last, "because," as she justly observed, "scandal was so underbred, and destroyed all the use of society;" but when denial became impossible, and les bienséances were outraged, nothing could then exceed her horror and indignation.
But both Lord and Lady Penrhyn are such complete representatives of a class that they deserve longer mention. John Penrhyn began life the younger brother of a younger branch, and passed the first forty years of his life in small, dark chambers in the Temple, twice a year going the circuit which included his native county. There were two, and two only, remarkable circumstances connected with his early career: the first was, that he never exceeded his slender income, and, secondly, he never made the least progress in his profession. He was regular in his habits, parsimonious, and industrious; but he lacked all talent needed at the bar—he had neither address, nor eloquence, nor ingenuity. But, at the age of forty, "a change came o'er the spirit of his dream," though the quotation is somewhat misapplied, for he had neither spirit nor dreams—an old and distant relative died, and left him an immense fortune.
The genius of the man now developed itself—it was that of making money out of money. A man must be rich to be a miser, and Penrhyn was a miser heart and soul. Now, avarice, like all other vices, has changed its bearing since the days of our ancestors. It has lost the picturesque; no one now accumulates ingots of gold, or bars of silver; there are warehouses, not caverns, for bales of rich stuffs, for "ivorie, ambers and all precious woods." The temples of Mammon now are banking-houses and offices—in these Penrhyn luxuriated. Moreover, he duly prepared to indulge in all, as rich, that had appeared to him as indulgences while poor. He married for love—so it was said; but I hold he took his fair cousin from other motives. He married for protection; he was henceforth safe from all designs and schemes, two wives not being legal even in a man of his fortune. He was also more likely to be comfortable—a wife does make a house more comfortable—it is more cheerful, clean, better aired, with feminine supervision, and he liked to have all the minor comforts about him; besides, it was the greater contrast to his single life in chambers.
True, he married a girl without money; but then, as he calculated, she could make no demands for extra expences, prefacing each with "you should remember, sir, the fortune I brought you." Lastly, as the settlements were in his own power, he calculated that she would be more dependant on his good will and pleasure. In this he was somewhat mistaken; still he was fond of her after his fashion—she could flatter and persuade him a little. He took an odd sort of pride in her conquests; he considered them as so many proofs of his own good taste. Jealous he was not, for he only calculated, he never felt; and his sum total of the matter was, that his wife had too much to lose if she ran away from him. In some things he restrained her expences, while in others he was positively lavish. He objected to lace at two or three guineas a yard—that would wear out soon, and, once gone, "is gone for ever;" but he would load her with diamonds. The great object of his life was a peerage; the house of commons was too turbulent for a man of his quiet habits, but there was a repose in that of lords which suited him exactly. Besides, he felt the mercantile value of his title as a speculation—it told when he was elected chairman of a committee, or one of the directors of an insurance company.
It was wonderful how he had increased his private fortune; but in wealth, as with St. Denis, cest la premier pas qui coute—the difficulty is to commence the accumulation, but, the first little heap laid by, and then begin to think of your thousands and tens of thousands—they will come in time. Lord Penrhyn had no near relations, and no children. How civil people were to him, and how many onward-looking hopes were based on that civility! The only near connexion was his wife's brother, Charles Penrhyn, and for him he had procured a place in the Foreign Office, as he meant, some time or other, to push him forward in the diplomatic line. But Lord Penrhyn disliked using his influence, not from that honourable spirit of independence which shrinks from undue obligation, but out of sheer selfishness, which dreads lest it should be called upon to make a return.
Lady Penrhyn cared little about her brother; he was sometimes useful, and sometimes in the way. Handsome and gentlemanlike, he was rather a credit to her than otherwise; he had between three or four hundred a year, his club, his cab, and the run of her house—what could he want more! That he could desire home, independence, or a sphere for the exertion of what ability and industry he might possess, crossed her mind as little as it did that of her husband. Every one considers the world as made especially for their own purposes: Archimedes only desired to see how far he could raise it by means of lever and screw; Sir Godfrey Kneller thought that the human race were only created to be painted; while Talma could only say of any burst of passion, How well that would tell upon the stage! or, as Wordsworth says,
"Each man has some one object of pursuit,
To which he sedulously devotes himself."
Now, Lady Penrhyn had her ruling passion—she held that mankind were sent upon earth for one express purpose—to be flirted with; and she carried flirtation to its last extremity. To no admiration was she quite indifferent, unless she had been in possession of it for some time—a lover was as necessary to her existence as a diamond, but she was not very particular as to who that lover might be; a list of her adorateurs would have included a most curious collection of contrasts. All the time she professed the utmost devotion to her husband, and lover after lover was dismissed, not a little surprised to find that there was some truth in it. The fact was, her husband represented house, carriage, and position in society. She would have had something to lose by losing him, whereas the loss of a lover was nothing.
It might seem at first sight extraordinary how she contrived to keep her list so well supplied; but nothing deceives its possessor like vanity—so far from taking warning by another's disappointment, it only holds it as an additional trophy to its own success. Lady Penrhyn had been, and was still, a very pretty woman, with superb dark eyes, and a perfect understanding of the toilette; she dressed with seeming carelessness, but it was truly "most studied to kill". Added to this, she had a handsome house, in which there was a good deal going on. It was a pleasant lounge of a morning, when you had nothing better to do with yourself; and, if you were expected to flatter her vanity, she was quite ready to flatter your's in return. Such was the lady who, having finished her whispering conversation with her hostess, very unceremoniously called her brother from a lively conversation that was going on between him and the girls, just gave them a languid bow, and departed.
"I wonder," said Lady Anne, as she too left the room, "what Lady Penrhyn takes her brother about with her for? He is neither a good match now, nor ever likely to be one."
"I think," said Isabella, startling Louisa, who had been watching the cabriolet down the street, "that Lady Penrhyn might have asked you to go with mamma."
"What should she ask me for?" exclaimed Louisa, colouring.
"Only because it would have given you pleasure," replied her sister; "but when did Lady Penrhyn ever think of any body's pleasure but her own?"