The Semi-attached Couple/Chapter 23
CHAPTER XXIII
"Mrs. Douglas," said Lady Portmore, "I am going to take quite the privilege of an old friend with you, but I feel as if I had known you all my life, and I am going to say something very impertinent."
Mrs. Douglas nodded. It was apparently a nod of acquiescence in the latter proposition.
"That dear little Eliza of yours, I am charmed with her; I am indeed. I would not say so if I were not; but if you will take my advice, you will not allow Colonel Beaufort to be so much with her."
"I think it would be difficult to prevent it," said Mrs. Douglas, with an affection of carelessness. "Colonel Beaufort seems to be, like most men, very much in the habit of taking his own way."
"Yes, but, my dear Mrs. Douglas, I am so afraid your gay, innocent Eliza, who is not aware how encouraging her frank manner is, should fancy that Ernest's attentions mean more than they do: I know him so thoroughly. He is a dear, kind-hearted creature, but rather a dangerous man. He means nothing by it, but he always seems as if he were making love to every woman he speaks to."
"That may be rather tiresome, and is very wrong," said Mrs. Douglas; "but it cannot be very dangerous. Those seeming lovers never take anybody in."
"Eliza is so young," continued Lady Portmore, who was longing to bring the conversation round to herself, "and very little attention turns those young heads; and what made me wish to put you on your guard, Mrs. Douglas, is that I know—this is of course entirely between ourselves, but I happen to know that Ernest is much attached to another person, quite a hopeless attachment, but so it is; he is very much in love with—a married woman."
" More shame for her. It is a pity she does not see him now," answered Mrs. Douglas, still preserving her coldness; " she would be thoroughly mortified, and it would do her a great deal of good. I have no patience with married women and their lovers."
"Oh! but you mistake me, dear Mrs. Douglas; I would not have you suppose for an instant, that because Ernest is in love with, this person we are alluding to, she has ever thought of giving him the slightest encouragement."
"But it is what I do suppose, and always shall believe. Lady Portmore. I am not speaking of Colonel Beaufort individually. I never met him before, and shall not very much care if I never meet him again; but I shall always suppose that when a man makes love to a married woman it is entirely her fault, and it gives me the worst possible opinion of her."
"My dear Mrs. Douglas," said Lady Portmore, growing quite warm in the argument, "I do think you are a little too severe. I am sure I know some instances of married women, who are quite surrounded by admirers, who yet have conducted themselves in the most wonderful manner."
"I dare say they have," said Mrs. Douglas, significantly.
"I know several instances myself, and very wonderful women they are. I cannot bear them."
"Ay! but I mean in the most exemplary manner. Now, Mrs. Douglas, only last year I knew a person, a married woman, very much admired," sinking her voice modestly, "who had reason to know that a man whom she met constantly in society was very much in love with her. He was in her opera box every evening, met her at every party she went to, and passed half his mornings at her house. She saw the folly of this, knew that she was in danger of being talked of, and without the least hesitation, without a thought of the inconvenience and trouble, she set off to Cornwall, and passed a whole week there with the most tiresome old aunt in the world. This at once proved to the man that he had no chance, and he withdrew immediately, and affected a passion for somebody else. Now, what do you think of that?"
"Why, that there never was anything half so absurd. If your friend had given up her opera box, sent excuses to her balls, and said, 'Not at home,' for a week, the gentleman's passion would soon have come to an end; and if she had at first stayed at home with her husband and children, it never would have had a beginning. That grand action of a sudden rush to Cornwall must have flattered him amazingly; it showed she was obliged to go to the Land's End for safety. No, whenever I hear any of that cant about the difficult position of a married woman with her lovers, I know exactly what to think of her; I think her a good-for-nothing woman."
"Really, Mrs. Douglas, good-for-nothing is rather a strong term. I must say I cannot go so far as that; good-for-nothing is an odd expression applied to a well-meaning woman."
"Why, what is she good for, Lady Portmore? She is not a good wife, nor probably a good mother, and certainly not a good Christian; so I adhere to my expression, she is good for nothing."
"But if you lived in London, you would think differently, Mrs. Douglas; you would see how difficult it is for a woman of ordinary pretensions However, we will not argue, for, in fact, I am just like you, one of the strictest people possible, excessively strait-laced in all matters of principle; and, besides, we have wandered from our original topic. I merely wished to put you on your guard about Ernest. He is just the sort of man to whose attentions I should object, for a daughter of my own."
"I forget whether you have any grown-up daughters?" asked Mrs. Douglas, with an innocent air of doubt.
"My dear Mrs. Douglas, I have not been married nine years—or ten at the very utmost."
"In-deed!" There was an emphasis on the first syllable, indicative of profound astonishment.
"And I was quite a child at the time; married literally from the school-room, before," with a half-sigh, "I knew what I was about."
"In-deed!" said Mrs. Douglas, still in a marked state of emphatic surprise. "Well, I am much obliged to you, Lady Portmore, for putting me on my guard about Colonel Beaufort, but these things must take their chance. Perhaps he would not show such a decided preference for Eliza's society if there were anything else to amuse him; but Miss Forrester does not seem inclined to take any notice of him; and Lady Teviot is so surrounded by all the other gentlemen, she has no time to attend to her cousin. So there are only you and I left. Lady Portmore, and apparently he has not the slightest taste for our society." And so saying, Mrs. Douglas, who had been rolling up her strips of canvas, and winding off her ends of worsted, quietly took her basket and walked away, leaving Lady Portmore thoroughly discomfited by the many offensive insinuations conveyed in her closing speech. She was regularly out of sorts, and in that soured state in which the wish to do a little mischief is a consoling idea. She was half inclined to leave St. Mary's, where her vanity felt half starved; but her faith in her power over Lord Teviot remained unshaken, and her wish to try it had become stronger. Besides, she could not go now, there was a great man coming.