The Adventures of Hugh Trevor Part 50

CHAPTER VI

_A dinner party, and fortune in good humour: The opera house, and small talk: Sagacious female discoveries: Olivia, and the art of fascinating: An old acquaintance suddenly seen and dreaded, though despised: Timely recollection: The opera great room, and more discoveries_

These points settled, the Baronet proposed to introduce me to his friends and connections, particularly of the political kind. For this purpose he began with inviting me and Mr. Evelyn to dine with him on the Friday following, when he was to have a mixed party of ladies and gentlemen, but chiefly of such as agreed with him on public affairs.

When the day came, I was presented to the company by the Baronet with encomiums, and seated on the left of Lady Bray. A Scotch lord was on her right: it being her ladyship's custom to divide the ladies and gentlemen.

A young fellow properly introduced, if he be new in the circles of fashion and possessed of a tolerable figure, is in no danger of being ill received. I had not indeed learned to be an adept at small talk: a qualification which, contemptible as it is, will supply the want of every superior requisite, whether of mind or person: but I had an apt.i.tude to oblige, be attentive, and speak the moment I found I had any thing to say.

I had laid no plan on this occasion: not having then read, or not remembering, I know not which, Lord Chesterfield's sage reflections, on the necessity of a statesman's being well with the ladies.

It happened however that, on this occasion, I was received with distinguished marks of approbation by the dear angels: from several of whom I received visiting-invitations.

Music and the opera were among the topics on which they conversed. I was found to be an amateur; and Lady Bray was one of the dilettanti, had concerts at her own house, and a box at the opera: to both of which she said I should at all times have free admission.

This was too pleasing an offer to be refused; and I willingly agreed to attend her ladyship the following evening, and hear the charming music of _I Zingari in Fiera_ by Paisiello.

The opera season began rather early that year, many families were not yet come to town, we had little delay from the string of coaches, and, had her ladyship not provided against the misfortune by taking care to go more late than usual, we should have been so unfashionable as to have heard the first act. As it was, we arrived before it was over.

The thing on which her ladyship bestowed her immediate attention was to examine, by the aid of her opera-gla.s.s, which of the subscribers were in their boxes; and how many of her particular friends were among them. Politeness induced me to accompany her in this excursion of the eye: for not to have listened to the names, t.i.tles, and ages, of her friends, with the births, deaths, marriages, creations, and presentations at court of them and their families, of which materials small talk is chiefly if not wholly composed, would have been the very highest defect in good breeding.

Why yes. Listen I did, as long as I was able: till my eyes, tongue, and faculties were all riveted to one spot!

Her ladyship's box was near the centre. She had carried my eye from box to box completely along one side, and had proceeded to about three of the opposite, when she directed her gla.s.s to one, with the owners of which she had no acquaintance: but she knew the names of all; for she had them engraved on her fan.

That name was Mowbray! And the persons in it were Hector, his aunt, and Olivia!

I was silent, gazing, entranced! Her ladyship had talked I know not how long; and I had neither answered nor heard one word.

'Bless me,' said she, 'Mr. Trevor! why you are _absolutely_ in a revery all of a sudden! That Miss Mowbray I find is a very dangerous young lady: for I am told that all the men are _positively_ mad after her; and here are you _absolutely_ struck speechless! What! Not a word yet?'

'I beg ten thousand pardons.'

'Why this seems like love at first sight! You are not acquainted, I suppose, with the Mowbrays.'

'Yes, my lady: from my infancy.'

'Oh, oh! Why, then to be sure you are intimate with this beauty; who _absolutely_ eclipses us all. I a.s.sure you she is _positively_ the belle of the day. I hear she has the very first offers. But you are not silly enough to act the dying swain? What, no answer? Well, well: I see how it is! But, as we never read in any of the morning papers of gentle youths who break their hearts for love, in the present ungallant age, you are in no great danger. Though I think I never saw any creature look more like what I should suppose one of your true lovers to be than you did just now: for, beside your speechless att.i.tude, which was _absolutely_ picturesque and significant, you were _positively_ pale and red, and red and pale, almost as fast as the ticking of my watch. And even yet you are _absolutely_ provoking. I cannot get a word from you!'

'Your ladyship's raillery quite overpowers me.'

'I declare I am _positively_ surprised at what I have seen. Had a stranger been all of a sudden struck, the wonder would not have been _absolutely_ so great: but it is _positively_ unaccountable in you who are a familiar acquaintance of the family.'

'I cannot boast of that honor.'

'No, indeed! Why, do not you visit the Mowbrays?'

'I do not.'

'What, you are a dangerous man; and are forbidden the house? Well, I declare, I shall _absolutely_ know your whole history in five minutes without your having _positively_ told me a word.'

'Your ladyship has a lively imagination.'

'I have heard that the aunt is a very cautious _chaperon_. But, I tell you what: I will be your friend. The Mowbrays are lately become intimate with two families where I visit. And I will _absolutely_ take you with me, on one of their public nights. I will _positively_.'

This proposition was so grateful, and my thanks were so much more prompt than my recollection, that her ladyship was quite confirmed in her surmises; and not a little pleased with her own talent at discovery.

Her accusation however was very true. All she could _positively_ say could not _absolutely_ draw my attention from the box of Olivia, whose turns and motions I was anxiously watching; hoping that some lucky accident would guide her eye toward me.

Nay I partly hoped and partly feared the same of the aunt: my emotions being now influenced by the respectable station which I at present seemed to occupy; and now by the remembrance that even this might turn to my disadvantage, in the jealous apprehensions of the old lady.

Busied as my thoughts were and absorbed in anxious attention, this anxiety was soon overcome by a much more powerful feeling.

A gentleman entered Olivia's box! My eyes were instantly turned on him. Recollection was roused. My heart beat. It surely was he! I could not be mistaken! My opera-gla.s.s was applied, and my fears confirmed.

It was, indeed, the Earl of Idford.

Here then, in a moment, the enigma was solved. The peer who had aspired to the hand of Olivia, and who tempted her with all his opulence and all his dignity, could be no other than Lord Idford. He had long been intimate with Hector, and now comes without ceremony and joins the family. See how the aunt smiles on him! Nay, mark! Olivia is attentive to him! Her lips move! Her eyes are directed to his! She is conversing with him, and at her ease, while I am racked by all the terrors that jealousy can raise! What, can she not cast one look this way? Is she fascinated by a reptile? Is there no instinctive sympathy, that should make her tremble to betray the dearest interests of love in the very presence of the lover! Does she act complacency, and sit calm and unruffled! Has she no foreboding that I will dart upon that insect; that thing; which, being less than man, presumes because it is called Lord! Thinks she that I will not crush, tear, tread, him to dust? He, the defrauder of my fair fame, who plundered me of the first fruits of genius by infamous falsehood, who joined in plotting my destruction by arts which the basest cowards blush at! Is he the fiend that comes to s.n.a.t.c.h me from bliss; and plunge me into pangs and horrors unutterable?

From these ravings of the mind I was a little recovered, by the very serious alarm which the wild changes of my countenance produced in Lady Bray. I apologised, pleaded indisposition, but presently was lost again in revery. Fortunately, a gentleman of her ladyship's acquaintance came into the box, and left me to continue my embittered meditations.

Olivia was now attentive to the music; and the lord had only her aunt and Hector, apparently, to bestow his conversation upon.

This was some relief; and so far allayed the fever of my mind as to call me back to self examination, and to question my own conduct.

For the earl I could not but have the most rooted contempt. I could not compare myself with him, and entertain a doubt, concerning who ought to be preferred.

But what reason had I to accuse Olivia? What did these angry emotions of my soul forebode? Perhaps that my habitual irritability, were she mine, would make her miserable!

What was the end of existence? Happiness. Had I not a right then to be happy? Yes. But so had she. So had her aunt. Nay so had that rival, odious and despicable as he was, whose appearance had raised this tempest in my soul.

But was constraint, was force, justifiable in this aunt; or in this insignificant, this selfish lord?

Force it is said is the law of nature; and it is that law which impels the ravenous tiger to spring upon the lamb, and suck its blood, to appease his craving appet.i.te. But, if so, if self-gratification were a defensible motive, the detestable Norman robber, the monster who inhabited a cave and seized on every stray virgin, to deflower, murder her and prey on her remains, was justifiable.

In the agitated mind, dreams like these are endless. While they were pa.s.sing, I stared with fixed attention toward Olivia; and, had she not been almost motionless, my pa.s.sive trances could not have continued.

The first dance was over, the second act had begun, more visitors came to pay their respects to Lady Bray, and I endeavoured to recollect myself and shake off a behaviour that might well be construed inattention, if not ill manners; and might injure me even in that point on which I was then so deeply intent. I uttered two or three sentences; and her ladyship complimented me on being once more awake.

The persevering attention of Olivia to the scene, for it was impossible to forbear glancing at her every moment, contributed to calm my fears.

It did more: it was a most beneficial lesson to me. It called me again to the consideration of that impetuosity of temper which was so dangerous in me. Into what acts of frenzy and desperation might not these fevers of the soul hurry me? What in the present instance could I urge to justify such excess? Had I not heard the reproaches of her aunt for her having refused the hand of this Lord: if this Lord it should happen to be? When he entered the box, what had she done, that should excite such frantic ecstacies in me? What, except return those civilities without which it is impossible for man or woman to be amiable? Did she now coquet, prattle, and display her power; tempted as she was by such a public scene of triumph? Was not her demeanour as chastely cautious as my own exigent heart could desire?

Every question that the facts before me suggested was an aggravating reproof of my headlong pa.s.sions; and, luckily for me, my thoughts took that train which was most corrective and healthful. They led me too to dwell, with a melting and mild rapture, on the endearing virtues of Olivia: dignified, yet not austere; firm, yet not repulsive; circ.u.mspect, yet capable of all those flowing affections without which circ.u.mspection is but meanness.

Nor were these visionary attributes: such as the disordered imagination of a lover falsely bestows. They were as real as those personal beauties by which they were embellished.

To aspire to the possession of a woman so gifted, and to be the lunatic which my own reproaches at this moment pictured me, was to demand that which I did not deserve. To be worthy of her, it was fit I should resemble her.