Charlotte Smith- Collected Poetical Works

by Charlotte Smith

  “And I dare say they are so,” replied D’Alonville; “and surely some of them — many of them must be allowed to be handsome.”

  “Yes, your French taste perhaps may call them so; and that my dear friend is the very fault I find with your taste. Their beauty is mere gilding and painting, like the fitting up of your rooms; and for their accomplishments — the very name of them disgusts me.”

  “Really, my good friend,” answered D’Alonville, “if I did not know you so well as I do, I should suspect that, in this dissenting from the general opinion, you affected singularity. — What are then the accomplishments which you admire?”

  “Oh! not what are called so by courtesy; not playing a dozen lessons on a harp or piano-forte, which interrupt all conversation, and tire the unfortunate hearers to death; not painting a rose an hearts-ease, which, if one did not know them by prescription, might as well be a piony and an auricula; not speaking a few phrases of French with a broad English accent, and calling every foreigner Mounshere, as I heard one of those Miss Westwoods call you; girls that are said to be well educated, though I think them hateful, little, formal, conceited things!” Oh! deliver me from such accomplishments!”

  “Well,” said D’Alonville, “but this Mademoiselle whose name I did not hear enough to remember — the lady of whom Lady Sophia said so much.”

  “Aye, Miss Milsington. What, your curiosity was raised, my good friend, by the mention of Miss Milsington! — No, I will not attempt it, for it is impossible to describe her; nor would I diminish, by giving you a foretaste of what she is, the pleasure it must, I think, give you to see, for you will probably see her one day or other, a non descript in the female world.”

  “But is she handsome?”

  “Beauty you know depends upon taste.”

  “Let me put the question in another manner. — do you think her handsome?”

  “She is not very young,” answered D’Alonville, smiling, and evading the question; “but that if you retain the taste established not many years since in France, may diminish none of her perfections in your eyes.”

  “The lady,” said D’Alonville, “appears to be not more a favorite than those we have already canvassed.”

  “Yet her accomplishments I do not deny,” continued Ellesmere. “She certainly speaks your language like a native of France; understands and speaks Italian; is so much mistress of music as to compose; and, as far as I know, executes every other lady-like science, in their respective lines, like an artist. Yet you see that, highly allied, and living always among people of fashion, and tout paitrie, to borrow an expression which my own language does not furnish, with all these graces, Miss Milsington is unmarried; a proof that I am not singular in my opinion of her, though I believe I am extremely singular in having the courage to own it.”

  “In a word” said D’Alonville, “she is not at all like the beautiful Polonese, Alexina?”

  “Alexina!” replied Ellesmere, “Alexina! by heavens there is no more resemblance between them, than between the Midecean Venus, and one of those cherry-checked figures, clad in red and green, which a Jew carries about on a board.”

  “La comparison est un peu fort,” cried D’Alonville.

  On their arrival late in the evening, at Eddisbury-Hall, the seat of Sir Maynard, they found a group assembled of very different characters from those that Ellesmere had treated with so much severity.

  Sir Maynard Ellesmere was now turned sixty. In his person he resembled the idea given in the old Ballad of “The old Courier of the Queens ;” and in his manners he observed much of the formality and ceremony now so generally exploded. Though he had been disappointed in his views of aggrandizing and enriching his house, by some of those comfortable sinecures which make up to so many noble families for the prodigality or unrequited zeal of their ancestors, he was still the most loyal of country gentleman, and held in utter abhorrence, all who did not implicitly believe in the infallibility of powers and princes. His detestation of all such persons was supposed to be considerably augmented, since a neighbouring estate, larger than his own, had been purchased by a rich Dissenter, who, from a very humble origin, had risen to great wealth, by being concerned in a manufacture in an adjoining county. Though no intercourse had ever subsisted between the two houses, so great was the enmity Sir Maynard bore the proprietor of this estate, that he would not suffer his family to notice any persons around them, who visited this obnoxious Presbyterian; and dismissed the apothecary, whose ancestors had for two generations felt the pulse of the Ellesmere family, because he had been too assiduous in paying his court to the new comers, and had made his visits at Eddisbury Hall, during a fit of the rheumatism, to which Lady Ellesmere was subject, with less alacrity, as Sir Maynard fancied, than he used to do when his attention was not divided with this opulent patient. In other respects, Sir Maynard was a good neighbour, and affected popularity. His table was more hospitable than his fortune could with prudence allow; and he made a very respectable figure as chairman of the sessions, and foreman of the grand jury. He was a good master, and his servants grew old in his service and as a husband and a father, he had through life acquitted himself well: the only error he had committed being perhaps sacrificing too much to have no favorable effect on the destiny of his five other children. Lady Ellesmere was one of those women to whom might be applied, with great truth, the epithet which usually means nothing — that of a very good sort of woman. She had been handsome in her youth without being vain; and though she brought Sir Maynard a good fortune, being a co-heiress, she had resigned with great cheerfulness her house in town, and, when it became necessary to retrench their expences, retired to the country, where she had supplied, as well as she could, to her three daughters, the deficiencies which inevitably happened in their education from want of masters which only London could supply. But though she had been well educated herself, she was not a great proficient in what are called accomplishments; and the instructions she gave were rather useful than ornamental — such as were likely to make her daughters good wives to country gentlemen, if country gentlemen had been what they once were. For such wives, however, it did not appear that there now existed any demand. Miss Ellesmere was in her twenty-seventh year — without being very handsome she had an agreeable countenance, and a genteel figure; but there was an air of melancholy about her, which was imputed to a disappointment she had met with a few years before, when a marriage between her and a young clergyman had been broken off upon Sir Maynard finding it impossible to fulfil, in regard to her fortune, the engagement he at first seemed willing to enter into on behalf of his daughter. Miss Mary, the second daughter, a year younger than D’Alonville’s friend, was a sprightly girl of two and twenty; who did not take much pains to conceal the reluctance with which she should wither on the virgin thorn, only that her elder brother might have a few thousands less to pay out of the family estate. Though she was not hansome, there was something smart and piquant in her whole appearance; and at the public meetings of the country, where she had within the last eighteen months been seen (for Lady Ellesmere kept her as long as she could from coming out, as it is called) she had been enough the object of admiration to make her long to try her fortune in London. — For this purpose she had imagined a little plan to procure an invitation from Lady Sophia; but she had failed, as Lady Sophia seemed not to like either the trouble of expence of introducing her husband’s sisters into circles, where their appearance could not be supported by their father, but by lessening his allowance to his eldest son. Miss Mary, therefore, was compelled to remain the belle of rural balls; and to limit her present hopes of conquest to the very few young men who were within twenty miles. Her younger sister, Theodora, was about eighteen; but being not tall, and very fair, she passed for at least three years younger; and was dressed and treated as a child. The younger brother of the family, who was designed by Sir Maynard for the church, had been just entered at Oxford on leaving Eaton College; but he was now at home, for the festivals of the Christmas
recess, and those which celebrate the commencement of the new year, were not yet over, when Edward Ellesmere introduced to the family thus described, his friend the Chevalier D’Alonville.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  There’s nothing in this world can make me joy:

  Life is as tedious as a twice told tale

  Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

  SHAKESPEARE.

  SIR Maynard Ellesmere received the foreign friend of his son with the hospitality of an English gentleman, and the politeness of a courtier of fifty years ago. He had almost entirely forgotten his French; but he tried in favor of D’Alonville’s supposed ignorance of English, to recover such common phrases as he could recollect, which did not however much accelerate the conversation. There was a native and simple civility about D’Alonville, which had not yet been spoiled by the affectation of the day. He neither wearied his friends with bows and fine speeches, or, as is now more usual, sat absent or yawning. Sir Maynard was pleased with his manner, and what Edward Ellesmere had related to him of his tender and affectionate attendance on his father confirmed this empression in his favor. — When, therefore, Sir Maynard discovered that he understood English, he found great pleasure in conversing with him; expressed his approbation of his political sentiments; and the first day at dinner made him drink eternal confusion to all Dissenters, Roundheads and Sans Culottes. D’Alonville had no very clear notion of what the two first were; but imagining by their being joined to the other, that they might be the English species of the same genius, he swallowed as much wine as Sir Maynard thought necessary to direct, towards their extirpation. When these potations were at their height, Edward Ellesmere contrived to glide off, for though Sir Maynard did not drink, according to the English meaning of the word, yet there was sometimes a period after dinner, when he became extremely eloquent, and insisted, somewhat at large, on his great services to government; the sacrifices he had made, and the hardship he thought it, to be discarded after a life so loyally passed, and duties so ably fulfilled. All this was very true; but Edward Ellesmere had heard it so often, that he left his friend, to whom it had at least the advantage of novelty, to listen to it alone, and went up to a little study which had been fitted up for him near his own room, where his second sister presently came to him.

  “Well, Mary,” said he as she entered, “have you examined what I have brought you from London? — Tell me, have I fulfilled all my commissions well?”

  “You are a dear soul,” answered Miss Mary; “and the things, particularly the bonnets, are divine. What a sweet cloak you have brought mama — only I think it too young for her.”

  “Oh! as to that, it was no affair of mine, you know. Lady Sophia did condescend to order that; but for your millinery, and Elizabeth’s, and Theodora’s, she declared that she could as soon fly, as give any attention to all those things; for she was in the midst, not preparing herself for the birth-day (for you know she does not go to court) but of superintending the dresses of I know not how many Lady Frances’s and Lady Caroline’s, whose names she ran over. There was the Miss Milsington with her, and I would not have staid five minutes longer in the room to have been made a peer; so I even took D’Alonville with me, and we went about among the smart milliners, and chose your fineries ourselves. — I believe we have exceeded my order a little in point of expence; but if my mother should think it too much, I must manage the difference as well as I can, though I assure you, my dear Molsy, I am come back the poorest traveller in the three kingdoms.” “Oh, Ned,” answered Miss Mary; “you are such a good creature, that I want to have you rich — and I want to send an heiress for you. Do you know we have been all fancying you might carry off this little nabobess that has just now made her appearance. She is really pretty — she is to be at the ball on Tuesday, and we long to have you contrive to engage her.”

  “Chimeras!” cried Ellesmere. “I promise thee, my sweet Mary, that I shall never marry a nabobess, or an heiress of any description. A pair of colours, and the honor of being shot at by Messieurs les Patriots, is, I believe, my decided destination; but you don’t tell me what you think of my friend — is he not a very fine young fellow?”

  “Y-e-s,” answered the lady slowly, and only as half assenting; “he is hansome — that is, I should think him a very handsome man, perhaps, if he were not a Frenchman.” “And does that single circumstance,” cried Ellesmere laughing, “change your opinion of his person? Alas! my sister is it not a little owing to the circumstances under which you see him, rather than to his country, that makes him appear in a light so little advantageous? I would not have D’Alonville’s figure, and a French dukedom, in your way, Mary.” “No, “ said she, hesitating, “’tis not that I assure you — but somehow, I don’t like foreigners.”

  “Your somehow,” replied her brother, “is a word of great force and effect; but however we will not argue this matter any farther, Molsy, for I do not want my friend to be in love with you, nor you in love with my friend. We men are no great judges of one another, it is true; but I assure you, that had I a favourite nymph, without your happy prejudice of not liking a foreigner somehow, I should not introduce to her my friend D’Alonville; nor should I have brought him down hither, had I not known that there was nothing to fear for you my cold pensive nun Elizabeth; for who are looking out for a fortune and a title, and besides do not like foreigners somehow — nor fort he little snow-drop, Theodora.” “Theodora! indeed,” exclaimed Miss Mary— “It is curious to name that child, as thinking of, or being thought of by a lover — Mama would be mightily delighted to have such stuff put into her head — she is safe indeed — yes, I think so!”

  “Nay be not angry, sister Mary; Theodora shall have no lover till she is forty, if you are not disposed of first — so let us be friends again, and go down to tea in my mother’s dressing room.”

  On their arrival they found D’Alonville already seated between lady Ellesmere and her daughter, and assisting the latter to make tea. Lady Ellesmere endeavoured to shew him all the civility in her power; for her heart, naturally good, was interested for every body in distress; she had at length been made to comprehend that he was a gentleman who had left his country in hopes of returning to re-instate his dethroned king; and seeing his situation in this light, she felt for him pity and respect; but to the strange scenes that had been passing for so long a time in France, her curiosity had till now been very little directed. She was one of those women, who content with an home prospect, never risk the sobriety of their understanding, by attempting the giddy heights of science. Kings and politicians occupied her attention no otherwise than when she read of the places they had to give; she wished her son Ellesmere, the great object of her ambition, had one of them; but of despotic government, of limited monarchy, or republicanism, she had not a single idea; and never knew from whence originated the revolution in France, of which, without ever attending to it, she had been hearing for four years. Sir Maynard had told her several times, but she always forgot; “ and was indeed as much a poco curante, as Mrs. Shandy herself, in a thousand things about which half the world was running mad.

  But however indifferent she might be to what passed at a distance, in the scene immediately near her she took the liveliest interest. She bore the most perfect good will to the generality of her neighbours, except always the rich Presbyterian, whom she hated as much as it was her nature to hate any one; though why she was to hate him, except that he was rich, and an upstart of yesterday, she never understood; for of the tendency which Sir Maynard supposed this man, and all his sect, had to republican principles, she had no notion — but thought it quite a sufficient cause of dislike, that such a man, who was only a tradesman, had a large house, a fine estate, and all the luxuries which ought exclusively to belong to people of birth; every other family around them paid them some sort of deference; and Lady Ellesmere had pleasure in promoting meetings, where her daughters were the first in rank, and looked up to as the leaders of fashion. As the obnoxious neighbour was fro
m these sociable parties carefully excluded, none disputed with the Ellesmere family the prominence in birth, beauty, elegance, or wealth; and the young ladies usually returned satisfied with every thing but the chance these meetings gave them of changing their names — year after year they had passed in the same dull succession. The same dances, the same faces, the same conversation, had regularly been danced, looked at, and heard, since Miss Ellesmere was fourteen. Her unfortunate attachment had been formed during a visit in Oxfordshire, and it was now the source of that languor and indifference which gave her the appearance of being haughty and reserved: Miss Mary, younger and more sanguine, was already wearied by the same scene but now the calling out of the militia, the arrival of the only daughter of a rich East Indian on a visit to a neighbouring family, and some other strangers coming among them, together with the return of her second brother from abroad, contributed to animate her spirits, and to reconcile her to another winter passed in the country, while her mother, who began to fear that her eldest daughter might never marry, was very anxious to have Mary appear to the best advantage; and was now occupied in the various arrangements necessary for a ball at a neighbouring town, which was to take place on the following day save one.