Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/558

9, 1860.] state, and now that she really perceived that Evan was progressing and on the point of sealing his chance, the devoted lady resolved to hold her ground. Besides, there was the pic-nic. The Countess had one dress she had not yet appeared in, and it was for the picnic she kept it. That small motives are at the bottom of many illustrious actions is a modern discovery; but I shall not adopt the modern principle of magnifying the small motive till it overshadows my noble heroine. I remember that the small motive is only to be seen by being borne into the range of my vision by a powerful microscope; and if I do more than see—if I carry on my reflections by the aid of the glass, I arrive at conclusions that must be false. Men who dwarf human nature do this. The gods are juster. The Countess, though she wished to remain for the pic-nic, and felt warm in anticipation of the homage to her new dress, was still a gallant general and a devoted sister, and if she said to herself, “Come what may, I will stay for that pic-nic, and they shall not brow-beat me out of it,” it is that trifling pleasures are noisiest about the heart of human nature: not that they govern us absolutely. There is mob-rule in minds as in communities, but the Countess had her appetites in excellent drill. This pic-nic surrendered, represented to her defeat in all its ignominy. The largest longest-headed of schemes ask occasionally for something substantial and immediate. So the Countess stipulated with Providence for the pic-nic. It was a point to be passed: “Thorough flood, thorough fire.”

In vain poor Andrew Cogglesby, to whom the dinner had been torture, and who was beginning to see the position they stood in at Beckley, begged to be allowed to take them away, or to go alone. The Countess laughed him into submission. As a consequence of her audacious spirits she grew more charming and more natural, and the humour that she possessed, but which, like her other faculties, was usually subordinate to her plans, gave spontaneous bursts throughout the day, and delighted her courtiers. Nor did the men at all dislike the difference of her manner with them, and with the ladies. I may observe that a woman who shows a marked depression in the presence of her own sex will be thought very superior by ours; that is, supposing she is clever and agreeable. Manhood distinguishes what flatters it. A lady approaches. “We must be proper,” says the Countess, and her hearty laugh dies with suddenness and is succeeded by a gravity almost superhuman. And the Countess can look a profound merriment with perfect sedateness when there appears to be an equivoque in company. Finely secret are her glances, as if under every eye-lash there lurked the shade of a meaning. What she meant was not so clear. All this was going on, and Lady Jocelyn was simply amused, and sat as at a play.

“She seems to have stepped out of a book of French memoirs,” said her ladyship. “La vie galante et dévote—voila la Comtesse.”

In contradistinction to the other ladies, she did not detest the Countess because she could not like her.

“Where’s the harm in her?” she asked. “She doesn’t damage the men, that I can see. And a person you can laugh at and with, is inexhaustible.”

“And how long is she to stay here?” Mrs. Shorne inquired. Mrs. Melville remarking: “Her visit appears to be inexhaustible.”

Mrs. Melville was a specimen of the arrant British wife,—inflexible in her own virtue, and never certain of her husband’s when he was out of her sight: a noble being (Heaven preserve the breed!), but somewhat wanting in confidence and Christianity.

“I suppose she’ll stay till the Election business is over,” said Lady Jocelyn.

The Countess had just driven with Melville to Fallowfield in Caroline’s black lace shawl.

“Upwards of four weeks longer!” Mrs. Melville interjected.

Lady Jocelyn chuckled.

Miss Carrington was present. She had been formerly sharp in her condemnation of the Countess—her affectedness, her euphuism, and her vulgarity. Now she did not say a word, though she might have done it with impunity.

“I suppose, Emily, you see what Rose is about?” said Mrs. Melville. “I should not have thought it advisable to have that young man here, myself. I think I let you know that.”

“One young man’s as good as another,” responded her ladyship. “I’ve my doubts of the one that’s much better. I fancy Rose is as good a judge by this time as you or I.”

Mrs. Melville made an effort or two to open Lady Jocelyn’s eyes, and then relapsed into the confident serenity inspired by evil prognostications.

“But there really does seem some infatuation about these people!” exclaimed Mrs. Shorne, turning to Miss Current. “Can you understand it? The Duke, my dear! Things seem to be going on in the house, that really!—and so openly.”

“That’s one virtue,” said Miss Current, with her imperturbable metallic voice, and face like a cold clear northern sky. “Things done in secret throw on the outsiders the onus of raising a scandal.”

“You don’t believe, then?” suggested Mrs. Shorne.

Miss Current replied: “I always wait for a thing to happen first.”

“But haven’t you seen, my dear?”

“I never see anything, my dear.”

“Then you must be blind, my dear.”

“On the contrary, that’s how I keep my sight, my dear.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Mrs. Shorne.

“It’s a part of the science of optics, and requires study,” said Miss Current.

Neither with the worldly nor the unworldly woman could the ladies do anything. But they were soon to have their triumph.

A delicious morning had followed the lovely night. The stream flowed under Evan’s eyes, like something in a lower sphere, now. His passion took him up, as if a genie had lifted him into