Marriage (Ferrier)/Chapter XII
"Qui vous a pu plonger dans cette humeur chagrine,
A-t-on par quelque edit réformé la cuisine?"
BOILEAU.
MARY'S inexperienced mind expected to find, on her return to Beech Park, some vestige of the pleasures of the preceding night—some shadows, at least, of gaiety, to show what happiness she had sacrificed what delight her friends had enjoyed; but for the first time she beheld the hideous aspect of departed pleasure. Drooping evergreens, dying lamps, dim transparencies, and faded flowers, met her view as she crossed the hall; while the public rooms were covered with dust from the chalked floors, and wax from the droppings of the candles. Everything, in short, looked tawdry and forlorn. Nothing was in its place—nothing looked as it used to do—and she stood amazed at the disagreeable metamorphose an things had undergone.
Hearing some one approach, she turned and beheld Dr. Redgill enter.
"So—it's only you, Miss Mary!" exclaimed he in a tone of chagrin. "I was in hopes it was some of the women-servants. 'Pon my soul, it's disgraceful to think that in this house there is not a woman stirring yet! I have sent five messages by my man to let Mrs. Brown know that I have been waiting for my breakfast these two hours; but this confounded ball has turned everything upside down! You are come to a pretty scene," continued he, looking round with a mixture of fury and contempt,—"a very pretty scene! 'Pon my honour, I blush to see myself standing here! Just look at these rags!" kicking a festoon of artificial roses that had fallen to the ground. "Can anything be more despicable?—and to think that rational creatures in possession of their senses should take pleasure in the sight of such trumpery! 'Pon my soul, I—I—declare it confounds me! I really used to think Lady Emily (for this is all her doing) had some sense—but such a display of folly as this!"
"Pshaw!" said Mary, "it is not fair in us to stand here analysing the dregs of gaiety after the essence is gone. I daresay this was a very brilliant scene last night."
"Brilliant scene, indeed!" repeated the Doctor in a most; wrathful accent: "I really am amazed—I—yes—brilliant enough—if you mean that there was a glare of light enough to blind the devil. I thought my eyes would have been put out the short time I stayed; indeed, I don't think this one has recovered it yet," advancing a fierce blood-shot eye almost close to Mary's. "Don't you think it looks a leettle inflamed, Miss Mary?"
Mary gave it as her opinion that it did.
"Well, that's all I've got by this business; but I never was consulted about it. I thought it my duty, however, to give a leettle hint to the Earl, when the thing was proposed. 'My Lord,' says I, 'your house is your own; you have a right to do what you please with it; burn it; pull it down; make a purgatory of it; but, for God's sake, don't give a ball in it!' The ball was given, and you see the consequences. A ball! and what's a ball, that a whole family should be thrown into disorder for it?"
"I daresay, to those who are engaged in it, it is a very delightful amusement at the time."
"Delightful fiddlestick! 'Pon my soul, I'm surprised at you, Miss Mary! I thought your staying away was a pretty strong proof of your good sense; but I—hem! Delightful amusement, indeed! to see human creatures twirling one another about all night like so many monkeys—making perfect mountebanks of themselves. Really, I look upon dancing as a most degrading and a most immoral practice. 'Pon my soul, I—I couldn't have the face to waltz, I know; and it's all on account of this delightful amusement—" with a convulsive shake of his chin—"that things are in this state—myself kept waiting for my breakfast two hours and a half beyond my natural time: not that I mind myself at all—that's neither here nor there—and if I was the only sufferer, I'm sure I should be the very last to complain—but I own it vexes—it distresses me. 'Pon my honour, can't stand seeing a whole family going to destruction!"
The Doctor's agitation was so great that Mary really pitied him.
"It is rather hard that you cannot get any breakfast since you had no enjoyment in the ball," said she. "I daresay, were I to apply to Mrs. Brown, she would trust me with her keys; and I shall be happy too officiate for her in making your tea."
"Thank you, Miss Mary," replied the Doctor coldly. "I'm very much obliged to you. It is really a very polite offer on your part; but—hem!—you might have observed that I never take tea to breakfast. I keep that for the evening; most people, I know, do the reverse, but they're in the wrong. Coffee is too nutritive for the evening. The French themselves are in an error there. That woman, that Mrs. Brown knows what I like; in fact, she's the only woman I ever met with who could make coffee—coffee that I thought drinkable. She knows that—and she knows that I like it to a moment—and yet—-"
Here the Doctor blew his nose, and Mary thought she perceived a tear twinkle in his eye. Finding she was incapable of administering consolation, she was about to quit the room, when the Doctor, recovering himself, called after her.
"If you happen to be going the way of Mrs. Brown's room, Miss Mary, I would take it very kind if you could just contrive to let her know what time of day it is; and that I have not tasted a mouthful of anything since last night at twelve o'clock, when I took a leettle morsel of supper in my own room."
Mary took advantage of the deep sigh that followed to make her escape; and as she crossed the vestibule she descried the Doctor's man, hurrying along with a coffee pot, which she had no doubt would pour consolation into his master's soul.
As Mary was aware of her mother's dislike to introduce her into company, she flattered herself she had for once done something to merit her approbation by having absented herself on this occasion. But Mary was a novice in the ways of temper, and had yet to learn that to study to please, and to succeed, are very different things. Lady Juliana had been decidedly averse to her appearing at the ball, but she was equally disposed to take offence at her having stayed away; besides, she had not been pleased herself, and her glass told her she looked jaded and ill. She was therefore, as her maid expressed it, in a most particular bad temper; and Mary had to endure reproaches, of which she could only make out that although she ought not to have been present she was much to blame in having been absent. Lady Emily's indignation was in a different style. There was a heat and energy in her anger that never failed to overwhelm her victim at once. But it was more tolerable than the tedious, fretful ill humour of the other; and after she had fairly exhausted herself in invectives, and ridicule, and insolence, and drawn tears from her cousin's eyes by the bitterness of her language, she heartily embraced her, vowed she liked her better than anybody in the world, and that she was a fool for minding anything she said to her.
"I assure you," said she, "I was only tormenting you a little, and you must own you deserve that; but you can't suppose I meant half what I said; that is a bêtise I can't conceive you guilty of. You see I am much more charitable in my conclusions than you. You have no scruple in thinking me a wretch, though I am too good-natured to set you down for a fool. Come, brighten up, and I'll tell you all about the ball. How I hate it, were it only for having made your nose red! But really the thing in itself was detestable. Job himself must have gone mad at the provocations I met with. In the first place, I had set my heart upon introducing you with éclat, and instead of which you preferred psalm-singing with Mrs. Lennox, or sentiment with her son—I don't know which. In the next place there was a dinner in Bath, that kept away some of the best men; then, after waiting an hour and a half for Frederick to begin the ball with Lady Charlotte M—-, I went myself to his room, and found him lounging by the fire with a volume of Rousseau in his hand, not dressed, and quite surprised that I should think his presence at all necessary; and when he did make his entré, conceive my feelings at seeing him single out Lady Placid as his partner! I certainly would rather have seen him waltzing with a hyena! I don't believe he knew or cared whom he danced with—unless, perhaps, it had been Adelaide, but she was engaged; and, by-the-bye, there certainly is some sort of a liaison there; how it will end I don't know; it depends upon on themselves, for I'm sure the course of their love may run smooth if they choose—I know nothing to interrupt it. Perhaps, indeed, it may become stagnate from that very circumstance; for you know, or perhaps you don't know, 'there is no spirit under heaven that works with such delusion.'"
Mary would have felt rather uneasy at his intelligence, had she believed it possible for her sister to be in love; but she had ever appeared to her so insensible to every tender emotion and generous affection, that she could not suppose even love itself as capable of making any impression on her heart. When, however, she saw them together, she began to waver in her opinion. Adelaide, silent and disdainful to others, was now gay and enchanting to Lord Lindore, and looked as if she triumphed in the victory she had already won. It was not so easy to ascertain the nature of Lord Lindore's feelings towards his cousin, and time only developed them.