CHAPTER LXIV.
The kind neighbour, on returning from the constant morning visit, found her husband earnestly occupied in reading the following letter.
"My dear Sir—I am not able to leave my invalid an hour, though I have contrived to bring him and my dear old friends to Bath (as you will perceive by the date); and I can also assert, that he is much better, and looking almost himself again, nor can there be any doubt that he has regained some strength, and is devoid of all actual complaint; still, he is no more like Arthur than I to Hercules—he sits silent for hours together, as if he were on board his ship, and calculating how long she would last; and when he begins to talk, it is only of the good captain he loved so dearly, and whom he buried so honourably at Corunna, or of one or other of the poor fellows who died during his disastrous voyage—it seems as if his whole mind and memory were converted to a log-book registration of their expiring sighs, and as if he thought the only way of shewing due respect to their virtues was a kind of self-immolation to their honour.
"This disposition unhappily is encouraged by my grandfather and aunt; they sympathise with him too much, either for him or themselves—setting him to spin yarns of poor Jack this, and Tom that, till we all weep together; if it were not for Lord Rotheles, I really should lose my senses; and he, poor man, is threatened with his old enemy, in such a manner, as to alarm the countess much. In fact, we want a young person amongst us dreadfully; will you, who wear your years so lightly, take pity on us; but, above all things, would you bring Georgiana? I have her uncle's sanction for pressing her to come, and the countess, who you know is prudish enough for any thing, declares she thinks it her duty—you know best how she is situated."
"She shall go; she must go," cried Mrs. Palmer; "or my own dear Frederic will be absolutely ruined amongst them! He is the last man in the world to live in an infirmary, for his judgment will continually yield to his sensibility. Lady Anne is no worse; in fact, her disorder has stood still some weeks. I will answer for her consent—the question is, how will you travel?"
"I shall be obliged to post it all the way, or Lady Anne will go off in a puff of indignation. I myself would prefer the mail coach."
"And you shall have it; only pay me the difference, that I may go out and buy the poor thing a few odds and ends, which no woman can do without. She wants bonnet, shawl, gloves, every thing. For dresses, Helen can help her a little. Isabella and Mary are gone. And Louisa's are too large."
"Well, well, there's fifteen sovereigns for you—doubtless I can smuggle the girl into York House, safe enough, and no one the wiser; but only remember the recipe, 'first catch your hare'—go to Lady Anne's before you go to the shops."
Away went Mrs. Palmer, stepping across the street, with unwonted agility, her husband watching her the while, with somewhat of a cynical smile, muttering—
"Ay, ay, visit your great neighbour, my good dame, whilst you have her, for depend upon it you are much too unlike each other, to be likely ever to meet on agreeable terms any where save in Welbeck Street."
Mrs. Palmer arrived at a happy moment, for a cap had been found, so admirably fitted to fill up the vacuum of thin jaws, and exhibit the contour of a fine forehead, that Lady Anne not only seized upon it as a benefaction, but declared that she would make it a fashion—"it would not be the first time she had brought a thing in which had a long run, nor could she see any reason why it should be the last, as it was plain, though she could not go out of the house, she must receive many friends in it."
(It will be owned, at the present day, Lady Anne was as good as her word, for many a plump and lovely face, in the full bloom of youth and health, is at this moment half hidden by blonde, flowers, and ribands, and many a forehead, neither high nor classical, denuded of those curls, which are the natural ornament of youth and modesty.)
When Georgiana heard of her destination, she naturally enough concluded, that poor Arthur was exceedingly ill, and called her to his death-bed; but Mrs. Palmer sent her over the way, that she might read Lord Meersbrook's letter, and, committing Lady Anne to Fanchette, who was never so happy and attentive as when her lady was increasing her stock of finery, took Helen aside, and inquired what Georgiana wanted most, and what she could help her with? This was, indeed, little; but oh! with what fullness of good-will was all she had laid on her bed for the good neighbour to choose! how warmly was every thing that had any pretence recommended, even while the heart was aching with the recollection that Lord Meersbrook would see it on Georgiana and not on herself!—Poor Helen! she was indeed like her
"who pined in thought,
And let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Prey on her damask cheek,"
save in so far as Georgiana was concerned; and although it was a great loss to part with her, yet she well knew, that notwithstanding her deep solicitude for Arthur, she would not forget her sister, but would carefully examine every circumstance on which an opinion might be founded, or a hope indulged. So far as regards Lady Anne, she had that of receiving, every evening, the Penrhyns for an hour. Charles, as might be expected, meant to be present at the election of his kind patron-brother, but he could not spare time to go so far until the polling began.
When Mrs. Glentworth stopped for a moment, to bid her mamma farewell, she presented her husband's adieu in the shape of two hundred pound bills, which Lady Anne thought particularly acceptable; and in return for which, she poured clear but rapid instructions into the ears of his wife, as to disposing of certain moneys, always understood to be required at elections.
"Why should a poor man be deprived of the alms a rich man desires to give him, because he happens to have a vote?" said Lady Anne; "or, if a gentleman is delicately circumstanced, not choosing to relieve the poor man, lest it was likely to be attributed to wrong motives, should not his lady help the poor man's wife, thus easing both parties? If you see occasion for this kind interference, and hesitate in using it, you must be an unfeeling woman, and an ungrateful wife."
Isabella departed, with a determination to be neither.
It was on the strength of this present, that Lady Anne sent for the milliner and silk-mercer, not foreseeing, as she said, that the Palmers were about to come over her for expences on Georgiana's account. When her writing-desk was opened, and she had placed her bills in their usual deposit, she opened that containing the poor Count's sovereigns, and began saying, "Whatever she spends, now, may, indeed must be, deducted from her wedding finery. (I should not wonder if that Mrs. Margaret, seeing her condition, gave her something very pretty)—three sovereigns will do for her pocket very handsomely. Two parties I will have, they are inevitable; and confectioners must be paid. I wonder what government will give that young man, for being half starved, and half drowned, and saving them a whole crew of scarecrows? Something handsome, surely, in which case he will have sympathy with a person so like himself, as I am (by the way, that ring, with the chain, would be the very thing for my hands); but governments are seldom generous in countries they call free. I can't see the reason of it, for I think we are sufficiently taxed, but that is the advantage of a despotic government. Heigho! I hope Glentworth will invent something new."
Of late, whenever Lady Anne had either talked or thought beyond her strength, exhausted nature found refuge in short but refreshing snatches of sleep, and she was thus situated when Georgiana sought to bid her farewell, which she could only do by touching her thin, withered fingers with her lips, affording a strong contrast to the blighted yet still fine outline of her mother's wasted features. Habit had, however, so inured the daughters constantly about her to the change in her person, that they by no means saw it in the same point of view with others, and the young know little of death besides the name.
Lady Anne, by closely adhering to the advice of her physician, had so far subdued her disease, and kept herself at what might be called a "stand still," that she firmly believed she could, on the same terms, live as long as she pleased. By breathing air of the same temperature, she avoided the sufferings induced by cough, and her extreme temperance and light food had delivered her from the wasting effects of fever; and her ever active mind, being employed only on subjects flattering to her love of importance, experienced much to soothe and stimulate existence, but nothing to wear it; and, having long considered May as the month which would conclude her imprisonment, she built castles for the time beyond it with the happiest avidity. Now and then the old trouble would arise, "that such and such tradesmen would want money—an evil always to be apprehended from those low people;" but it was evident that, with three sons-in-law, and a fourth expectant, she could never be in positive distress, since, for their own sakes, they would enable her to "keep up appearances."
Leaving her to pleasant dreams, and poor Helen (who now alone received those many light darts the invalid threw off in the way of habitual exercise) to many a waking dream of "the virgin's first love," so sweetly described by Mrs. Opie, we will follow the travellers to Bath, as they reached their destination considerably sooner than those on their way to Yorkshire.