Book: Marriage

S >> Susan Edmonstone Ferrier >> Marriage




Adelaide had attempted with a high hand at once to overturn the whole
system of Altamont House, and had failed. She had declared her
detestation of dinners, and been heard in silence. She had kept her room
thrice when they were given, but without success. She had insisted upon
giving a ball, but the Duke, with the most perfect composure, had
peremptorily declared it must be an assembly. Thus baffled in all her
plans of domestic happiness, the Duchess would have sought her pleasures
elsewhere. She would have lived anywhere but in her own house associated
with everybody but her own husband and done everything but what she had
vowed to do. But even in this she was thwarted. The Duke had the same
precise formal notions of a lady's conduct abroad, as well as her
appearance at home; and the very places she would have most wished to go
to were those she was expressly prohibited from ever appearing at.

Even all that she could have easily settled to her own satisfaction by
the simple apparatus of a separate establishment carried on in the same
house; but here too she was foiled, for his Grace had stubborn notions
on that score also, and plainly hinted that any separation must be final
and decided; and Adelaide could not yet resolve upon taking so
formidable a step in the first year of her marriage. She was therefore
compelled to drag the chain by which, with her own will, she had bound
herself for life to one she already despised and detested. And bound she
was, in the strictest sense of the metaphor; for, though the Duke had
not the smallest pleasure in the society of his wife, he yet attached
great ideas of propriety to their being always seen together, side by
side. Like his sister, Lady Matilda, he had a high reverence for
appearances, though he had not her _finesse _in giving them effect. He
had merely been accustomed to do what he thought looked well, and gave
him an air of additional dignity. He had married Aidelaide because he
thought she had a fine presence, and would look well as Duchess of
Altamont; and, for the same reason, now that she was his wedded wife, he
thought it looked well to be seen always together. He therefore made a
point of having no separate engagements; and even carried his sense of
propriety so far, that as regularly as the Duchess's carriage came to
the door the Duke was prepared to hand her in, in due form, and take his
station by her side. This alone would have been sufficient to have
embittered Adelaide's existence, and she had tried every expedient, but
in vain, to rid herself of this public display of conjugal duty. She had
opened her landaulet in cold weather, and shut it, even to the glasses,
in a scorching sun; but the Duke was insensible to heat and cold. He was
most provokingly healthy; and she had not even the respite which an
attack of rheumatism or toothache would have afforded. As his Grace was
not a person of keen sensation, this continual effort to keep up
appearances cost him little or nothing; but to the Duchess's nicer tact
it was martyrdom to be compelled to submit to the semblance of affection
where there was no reality. Ah, nothing but a sense of duty, early
instilled and practically enforced, can reconcile a refined mind to the
painful task of bearing with meekness and gentleness the ill-temper,
adverse will, and opposite sentiments of those with whom we can
acknowledge no feeling in common!

But Adelaide possessed no sense of duty, and was a stranger to
self-command; and though she boasted refinement of mind, yet it was of
that spurious sort which, far from elevating and purifying the heart,
tends only to corrupt and debase the soul, while it sheds a false and
dazzling lustre upon those perishable graces which captivate the senses.

It may easily be imagined the good sense of the mother did not tend to
soothe the irritated feelings of the daughter. Lady Juliana was indeed
quite as much exasperated as the Duchess at these obstacles thrown in
the way of her pleasures, and the more so as she could not quite clearly
comprehend them. The good-nature of her husband and the easy indolence
of her brother even _her _folly had enabled her, on many occasions, to
get the better of; but the obstinacy of her son-in-law was invincible to
all her arts. She could therefore only wonder to the Duchess how she
could not manage to get the better of the Duke's prejudices against
balls and concerts and masquerades. It was so excessively ridiculous, so
perfectly foolish, not to do as other people did; and there was the
Duchess of Ryston gave Sunday concerts, and Lady Oakham saw masks, and
even old ugly Lady Loddon had a ball, and the Prince at it! How vastly
provoking! how unreasonable in a man of the Duke's years to expect a
girl like Adelaide to conform to all his old-fashioned notions! And then
she would wisely appeal to Lord Lindore whether it was not too absurd in
the Duke to interfere with the Duchess's arrangements.

Lord Lindore was a frequent visitor at Altamont House; for the Duke,
satisfied with his having been once refused, was no wise jealous of him;
and Lord Lindore was too quiet and refined in his attentions to excite
the attention of anyone so stupid and obtuse. It was not the least of
the Duchess's mortifications to be constantly contrasting her former
lover--elegant, captivating, and _spirituel--_with her husband, awkward,
insipid, and dull, as the fat weed that rots on Lethe's shore. Lord
Lindore was indeed the most admired man in London, celebrated for his
conquests, his horses, his elegance, manner, dress; in short, in
everything he gave the tone. But he had too much taste to carry anything
to extreme; and in the midst of incense, and adulation, and imitation,
he still retained that simple unostentatious elegance that marks the man
of real fashion--the man who feels his own consequence, independent of
all extraneous modes or fleeting fashions.

There is, perhaps, nothing so imposing, nothing that carries a greater
sway over a mind of any refinement, than simplicity, when we feel
assured that it springs from a genuine contempt of show and ostentation.
Lord Lindore was aware of this, and he did not attempt to vie with the
Duke of Altamont in the splendour of his equipage, the richness of his
liveries, the number of his attendants, or any of those previous
attractions attractions; on the contrary, everything belonging to him
was of the plainest description; and, except in the beauty of his
horses, he seemed to scorn every species of extravagance; but then he
rode with so much elegance, he drove his curricle with such graceful
ease, as formed a striking contrast to the formal Duke, sitting
bolt-upright in his state chariot, _chapeau bras,_ and star; and the
Duchess often quitted the Park, where Lord Lindore was the admired of
all admirers, mortified and ashamed at being seen in the same carriage
with the man she had chosen for her husband. Ambition had led her to
marry the Duke, and that same passion now heightened her attachment for
Lord Lindore; for, as some one has remarked, ambition is not always the
desire for that which is in itself excellent, but for that which is most
prized by others; and the handsome Lord Lindore was courted and caressed
in circles where the dull, precise Duke of Altamont was wholly
overlooked. Months passed in this manner, and every day added something
to Adelaide's feelings of chagrin and disappointment. But it was still
worse when she found herself settled for a long season at Norwood Abbey
a dull, magnificent residence, with a vast unvaried park, a profusion of
sombre trees, and a sheet of stillwater, decorated with leaden deities.
Within doors everything was in the same style of vapid, tasteless
grandeur, and the society was not such as to dispel the ennui these
images served to create. Lady Matilda Sufton, her satellite Mrs. Finch,
General Carver, and a few stupid elderly lords and their well-bred
ladies comprised the family circle; and the Duchess experienced, with
bitterness of spirit, that "rest of heart, and pleasure felt at home,"
are blessings wealth cannot purchase nor greatness command; while she
sickened at the stupid, the almost _vulgar_ magnificence of her lot.

At this period Lord Lindore arrived on a visit, and the daily, hourly
contrast that occurred betwixt the elegant, impassioned lover, and the
dull, phlegmatic husband, could not fail of producing the usual
effects on an unprincipled mind. Rousseau and Goethe were studied, French
and German sentiments were exchanged, till criminal passion was exalted
into the purest of all earthly emotions. It were tedious to dwell upon
the minute, the almost imperceptible occurrences that tended to heighten
the illusion of passion, and throw an air of false dignity around the
degrading spells of vice; but so it was, that in something less than a
year from the time of her marriage, this victim of self-indulgence again
sought her happiness in the gratification of her own headstrong
passions, and eloped with Lord Lindore, vainly hoping to find peace and
joy amid guilt and infamy.




CHAPTER XXXII.

"On n'est gueres oblige aux gens qui ne nous viennent
voir, que pour nous quereller, qui pendant toute une visite, ne nous
disent pas une seule parole obligeante, et qui se font un plaisir malin
d'attaquer notre conduite, et de nous faire entrevoir nos
defauts." -- L' ABBE De BELLEGARDE.

THE Duke, although not possessed of the most delicate feelings, it may
be supposed was not insensible to his dishonour. He immediately set
about taking the legal measures for avenging it; and damages were
awarded, which would have the effect of rendering Lord Lindore for ever
an alien to his country. Lady Juliana raved, and had hysterics, and
seemed to consider herself as the only sufferer by her daughter's
misconduct. At one time Adelaide's ingratitude was all her theme: at
another, it was Lord Lindore's treachery, and poor Adelaide was
everything that was amiable and injured: then it was the Duke's
obstinacy; for, had Adelaide got leave to do as she liked, this never
would have happened; had she only got leave to give balls, and to go to
masquerades, she would have made the best wife in the world, etc. etc.
etc.

All this was warmly resented by Lady Matilda, supported by Mrs. Finch
and General Carver, till open hostilities were declared between the
ladies, and Lady Juliana was compelled to quit the house she had looked
upon as next to her own, and became once more a denizen of Beech Park.

Mary's grief and horror at her sister's misconduct were proportioned to
the nature of the offence. She considered it not as how it might affect
herself, or would be viewed by the world, but as a crime committed
against the law of God; yet, while she the more deeply deplored it on
that account, no bitter words of condemnation passed her lips. She
thought with humility of the superior advantages she had enjoyed in
having principles of religion early and deeply engrafted in her soul;
and that, but for these, such as her sister's fate was, hers might have
been.

She felt for her mother, undeserving as she was of commiseration; and
strove by every means in her power to promote her comfort and happiness.
But that was no easy task. Lady Juliana's notions of comfort and
happiness differed as widely from those of her daughter as reason and
folly could possibly do. She was indeed "than folly more a fool--a
melancholy fool without her bells." She still clung to low earth-born
vanities with as much avidity as though she had never experienced their
insecurity; still rung the same changes on the joys of wealth and
grandeur, as if she had had actual proof of their unfading felicity.
Then she recurred to the Duke's obstinacy and Lord Lindore's artifices,
till, after having exhausted herself in invective against them, she
concluded by comforting herself with the hope that Lord Lindore and
Adelaide would marry; and although it would be a prodigious degradation
to her, and she could not be received at Court, she might yet get into
very good society in town. There were many women of high rank exactly in
the same situation, who had been driven to elope from their husbands,
and who married the men they liked and made the best wives in the world.

Mary heard all this in shame and silence; but Lady Emily, wearied and
provoked by her folly and want of principle, was often led to express
her indignation and and contempt in terms which drew tears from her
cousin's eyes. Mary was indeed the only person in the world who felt her
sister's dereliction with the keenest feelings of shame and sorrow. All
Adelaide's coldness and unkindness had not been able to eradicate from
her heart those deep-rooted sentiments of affection which seem to have
been entwined with our existence, and which, with some generous natures,
end but with their being. Yes! there are ties that bind together those
of one family, stronger than those of taste, or choice, or friendship,
or reason; for they enable us to love, even in opposition to them all.

It was understood the fugitives had gone to Germany; and after wonder
and scandal were exhausted, and a divorce obtained, the Duchess of
Altamont, except to her own family, was as though she had never been.
Such is the transition from--from guilt to insignificance!

Amongst the numerous visitors who flocked to Beech Park, whether from
sympathy, curiosity, or exultation, was Mrs. Downe Wright. None of these
motives, singly, had brought that lady there, for her purpose was that
of giving what she genteelly termed some _good hits_ to the Douglas's
pride--a delicate mode of warfare, in which, it must be owned, the
female sex greatly excel.

Mrs. Downe Wright had not forgiven the indignity of her son having
been refused by Mary, which she imputed entirely to Lady Emily's
influence, and had from that moment predicted the downfall of the whole
pack, as she styled the family; at the same time always expressing her
wish that she might be mistaken, as she wished them well--God knows she
bore them no ill-will, etc. She entered the drawing-room at Beech Park
with a countenance cast to a totally different expression from that with
which she had greeted Lady Matilda Sufton's widowhood. Melancholy would
there have been appropriate, here it was insulting; and accordingly,
with downcast eyes, and silent pressures of the hand, she saluted every
member of the family, and inquired after their healths with that air of
anxious solicitude which implied that if they were all well it was what
they ought not to be. Lady Emily's quick tact was presently aware of her
design, and she prepared to take the field against her.

"I had some difficulty in getting admittance to you," said Mrs.
Downe Wright. "The servant would fain have denied you; but at such a
time, I knew the visit of a friend could not fail of being acceptable,
so I made good my way in spite of him."

"I had given orders to be at home to friends only," returned Lady Emily,
"as there is no end to the inroads of acquaintances."

"And poor Lady Juliana," said Mrs. Downe Wright in a tone of affected
sympathy, "I hope she is able to see her friends?"

"Did you not meet her?" asked Lady Emily carelessly. "She is just gone
to Bath for the purpose of securing a box during the term of Kean's
engagement; she would not trust to _l'eloquence du billet_ upon
such an occasion."

"I'm vastly happy to hear she is able for anything of the kind," in a
tone of vehement and overstrained joy, rather unsuitable to the
occasion.

A well-feigned look of surprise from Lady Emily made her fear she had
overshot her mark; she therefore, as if from delicacy, changed the
conversation to her own affairs. She soon contrived to let it be known
that her son was going to be married to a Scotch Earl's daughter; that
she was to reside with them; and that she had merely come to Bath for
the purpose of letting her house--breaking up her establishment--packing
up her plate--and, in short, making all those magnificent arrangements
which wealthy dowagers usually have to perform on a change of residence.
At the end of this triumphant declaration, she added--

"I fain would have the young people live by themselves, and let me just
go on in my own way; but neither my son nor Lady Grace would hear of
that, although her family are my son's nearest neighbours, and most
sensible, agreeable people they are. Indeed, as I said to Lord
Glenallan, a man's happiness depends fully as much upon his wife's
family as upon herself."

Mary was too noble-minded to suspect that Mrs. Downe Wright could intend
to level innuendoes; but the allusion struck her; she felt herself
blush; and, fearful Mrs. Downe Wright would attribute it to a wrong
motive, she hastened to join in the eulogium on the Benmavis family in
general, and Lady Grace in particular.

"Lady Benmavis is, indeed, a sensible, well-principled woman, and her
daughters have been all well brought up."

Again Mary coloured at the emphasis which marked the sensible,
well-principled mother, and the well brought-up daughters; and in some
confusion she said something about Lady Grace's beauty.

"She certainly is a very pretty woman," said Mrs. Downe Wright with
affected carelessness; "but what is better, she is out of a good nest.
For my own part I place little value upon beauty now; commend me to
principles. If a woman is without principles the less beauty she has the
better."

"If a woman has no principles," said Lady Emily, "I don't think it
signifies a straw whether she has beauty or not--ugliness can never add
to one's virtue."

"I beg your pardon, Lady Emily; a plain woman will never make herself so
conspicuous in the world as one of your beauties."

"Then you are of opinion wickedness lies all in the eye of the world,
not in the depths of the heart? Now I think the person who cherishes--no
matter how secretly--pride, envy, hatred, malice, or any other besetting
sin, must be quite as criminal in the sight of God as those who openly
indulge their evil propensity."

"I go very much by outward actions," said Mrs. Downe Wright; "they are
all we have to judge by."

"But I thought we were forbidden to judge one another?"

"There's no shutting people's mouths, Lady Emily."

"No; all that is required, I believe, is that we should shut our own."

Mary thought the conversation was getting rather too _piquante_ to be
pleasant, and tried to soften the tone of it by asking that most
innocent question, Whether there was any news?

"Nothing but about battles and fightings, I suppose," answered Mrs.
Downe Wright. "I'm sure they are to be pitied who have friends or
relations either in army or navy at present. I have reason to be
thankful my son is in neither. He was very much set upon going into one
or other; but I was always averse to it; for, independent of the danger,
they are professions that spoil a man for domestic life; they lead to
such expensive, dissipated habits, as quite ruin them for family men. I
never knew a military man but what must have his bottle of port every
day. With sailors, indeed, it's still worse; grog and tobacco soon
destroy them. I'm sure if I had a daughter it would make me miserable if
she was to take fancy to a naval or military man;--but," as if suddenly
recollecting herself, "after all, perhaps it's a mere prejudice of
mine."

"By no means," said Lady Emily "there is no prejudice in the matter;
what you say is very true. They are to be envied who can contrive to fall
in love with a stupid, idle man: _they_ never can experience any
anxiety; _their_ fate is fixed; 'the waveless calm, the slumber of the
dead,' is theirs; as long as they can contrive to slumber on, or at
least to keep their eyes shut, 'tis very well, they are in no danger of
stumbling till they come to open them; and if they are sufficiently
stupid themselves there is no danger of their doing even that. The have
only to copy the owl, and they are safe."

"I quite agree with your Ladyship ," said Mrs. Downe Wright, with a well
_got-up,_ good-humoured laugh. "A woman has only not to be a wit or a
genius, and there is no fear of her; not that _I_ have that antipathy to
a clever woman that many people have, and especially the gentlemen. I
almost quarrelled with Mr. Headley, the great author, t'other day, for
saying that he would rather encounter a nest of wasps than a clever
woman."

"I should most cordially have agreed with him," said Lady Emily, with
equal _naivete._ "There is nothing more insupportable than
one of your clever women, so called. They are generally under-bred,
consequently vulgar. They pique themselves upon saying good things
_coitte qu'il coute._ There is something, in short, quite
professional about them; and they wouldn't condescend to chat nonsense
as you and I are doing at this moment--oh! not for worlds! Now, I think
one of the great charms of life consists in talking nonsense. Good
nonsense is an exquisite thing; and 'tis an exquisite thing to be stupid
sometimes, and to say nothing at all. Now, these enjoyments the clever
woman must forego. Clever she is, and clever she must be. Her life must
be a greater drudgery than that of any actress. _She_ merely frets her
hour upon the stage; the curtain dropped, she may become as dull as she
chooses; but the clever woman must always stage it, even at her own
fireside."

"Lady Emily Lindore is certainly the last person from whom I should have
expected to hear a panegyric on stupidity," said Mrs. Downe Wright, with
some bitterness.

"Stupidity!--oh, heavens! my blood curdles at the thought of real,
genuine, downright stupidity! No! I should always like to have the
command of intellect, as well as of money, though my taste, or my
indolence, or my whim, perhaps, never would incline me to be always
sparkling, whether in wit or in diamonds. 'Twas only when I was in the
nursery that I envied the good girl who spoke rubies and pearls. Now it
seems to me only just better than not spitting toads and vipers." And
she warbled a sprightly French _ariette_ to a tame bullfinch that flew
upon her hand.

There was an airy, high-bred elegance in Lady Emily's impertinence that
seemed to throw Mrs. Downe Wright's coarse sarcasms to an immeasurable
distance; and that lady was beginning to despair, but she was determined
not to give in while she could possibly stand out. She accordingly
rallied her forces, and turned to Mary.

"So you have lost your neighbour, Mrs. Lennox, since I was here? I think
she was an acquaintance of yours. Poor woman! her death must have been a
happy release to herself and her friends. She has left no family, I
believe?" quite aware of the report of Mary's engagement with Colonel
Lennox."

"Only one son," said Mary, with a little emotion.

"Oh! very true. He's in the law, I think?"

"In the army," answered Mary, faintly.

"That's a poor trade," said Mrs. Downe Wright, "and I doubt he'll not
have much to mend it. Rose Hall's but a poor property. I've heard they
might have had a good estate in Scotland if it hadn't been for the pride
of the General, that wouldn't let him change his name for it, He thought
it grander to be a poor Lennox than a rich Macnaughton, or some such
name, It's to be hoped the son's of the same mind?"

"I have no doubt of it," said Lady Emily. "Tis a noble name-quite a
legacy in itself."

"It's one that, I am afraid, will not be easily turned into bank notes,
however," returned Mrs. Downe Wright, with a _real_ hearty laugh. And
then, delighted to get off with what she called flying colours, she
hastily rose with an exclamation at the lateness of the hour, and a
remark how quickly time passed in pleasant company; and, with friendly
shakes of the hand, withdrew.

"How very insupportable is such a woman," said Lady Emily to Mary, "who,
to gratify her own malice, says the most cutting things to her
neighbours, and at the same time feels self-approbation, in the belief
that she is doing good. And yet, hateful as she is, I blush to say I
have sometimes been amused by her ill-nature when it was directed
against people I hated still more. Lady Matilda Sufton, for
example,--there she certainly shone, for hypocrisy is always fair game;
and yet the people who love to hunt it are never amiable. You smile, as
much as to say, Here is Satan preaching a sermon on holiness. But
however satirical and intolerant you may think me, you must own that I
take no delight in the discovery of other people's faults: if I want the
meekness of a Christian, at least I don't possess the malice of a Jew.
Now Mrs. Downe Wright has a real heartfelt satisfaction in saying
malicious things, and in thrusting herself into company where she must
know she is unwelcome, for the sole purpose of saying them. Yet many
people are blessed with such blunt perceptions that they are not at all
aware of her real character, and only wonder, when she has left them,
what made them feel so uncomfortable when she was present. But she has
put me in such a bad humour that I must go out of door and apostrophise
the sun, like Lucifer. Do come, Mary, you will help to dispel my
chagrin. I really feel as if my heart had been in a limekiln. All its
kingly feelings are so burnt up by the malignant influences of Mrs.
Downe Wright; while you," continued she, as they strolled into the
gardens, "are as cool, and as sweet, and as sorrowful as these violets,"
gathering some still wet with an April shower. "How delicious, after
such a mental _sirocco,_ to feel the pure air and hear the birds sing,
and look upon the flowers and blossoms, and sit here, and bask in the
sun from laziness to walk into the shade. You must needs acknowledge,
Mary, that spring in England is a much more amiable season than in your
ungentle clime."

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