None of you English have. You go so.’
The Countess pressed a thumb and finger to the sides of her mouth, and set her sisters laughing.
‘I assure you, no better! not a bit! I faint in your society. I ask myself—Where am I? Among what boors have I fallen? But Evan is no worse than the rest of you; I acknowledge that. If he knew how to dress his shoulders properly, and to direct his eyes—Oh! the eyes! you should see how a Portuguese nobleman can use his eyes! Soul! my dears, soul! Can any of you look the unutterable without being absurd! You look so.’
And the Countess hung her jaw under heavily vacuous orbits, something as a sheep might yawn.
‘But I acknowledge that Evan is no worse than the rest of you,’ she repeated. ‘If he understood at all the management of his eyes and mouth! But that’s what he cannot possibly learn in England—not possibly! As for your poor husband, Harriet! one really has to remember his excellent qualities to forgive him, poor man! And that stiff bandbox of a man of yours, Caroline!’ addressing the wife of the Marine, ‘he looks as if he were all angles and sections, and were taken to pieces every night and put together in the morning. He may be a good soldier—good anything you will—but, Diacho! to be married to that! He is not civilized. None of you English are. You have no place in the drawing-room. You are like so many intrusive oxen—absolutely! One of your men trod on my toe the other night, and what do you think the creature did? Jerks back, then the half of him forward—I thought he was going to break in two—then grins, and grunts, “Oh! ‘m sure, beg pardon, ‘m sure!” I don’t know whether he didn’t say, MARM!’
The Countess lifted her hands, and fell away in laughing horror. When her humour, or her feelings generally, were a little excited, she spoke her vernacular as her sisters did, but immediately subsided into the deliberate delicately-syllabled drawl.
‘Now that happened to me once at one of our great Balls,’ she pursued. ‘I had on one side of me the Duchesse Eugenia de Formosa de Fontandigua; on the other sat the Countess de Pel, a widow. And we were talking of the ices that evening. Eugenia, you must know, my dears, was in love with the Count Belmarana. I was her sole confidante. The Countess de Pel—a horrible creature! Oh! she was the Duchess’s determined enemy-would have stabbed her for Belmarana, one of the most beautiful men! Adored by every woman! So we talked ices, Eugenic and myself, quite comfortably, and that horrible De Pel had no idea in life! Eugenia had just said, “This ice sickens me! I do not taste the flavour of the vanille.” I answered, “It is here! It must—it cannot but be here! You love the flavour of the vanille?” With her exquisite smile, I see her now saying, “Too well! it is necessary to me! I live on it!”—when up he came. In his eagerness, his foot just effleured my robe. Oh! I never shall forget! In an instant he was down on one knee it was so momentary that none saw it but we three, and done with ineffable grace. “Pardon!” he said, in his sweet Portuguese; “Pardon!” looking up—the handsomest man I ever beheld; and when I think of that odious wretch the other night, with his “Oh! ‘m sure, beg pardon, ‘m sure! ‘pon my honour!” I could have kicked him—I could, indeed!’
Here the Countess laughed out, but relapsed into:
‘Alas! that Belmarana should have betrayed that beautiful trusting creature to De Pel. Such scandal! a duel!—the Duke was wounded. For a whole year Eugenia did not dare to appear at Court, but had to remain immured in her country-house, where she heard that Belmarana had married De Pel! It was for her money, of course. Rich as Croesus, and as wicked as the black man below! as dear papa used to say. By the way, weren’t we talking of Evan? Ah,—yes!’
And so forth. The Countess was immensely admired, and though her sisters said that she was ‘foreignized’ overmuch, they clung to her desperately. She seemed so entirely to have eclipsed tailordom, or ‘Demogorgon,’ as the Countess was pleased to call it. Who could suppose this grand-mannered lady, with her coroneted anecdotes and delicious breeding, the daughter of that thing? It was not possible to suppose it. It seemed to defy the fact itself.
They congratulated her on her complete escape from Demogorgon. The Countess smiled on them with a lovely sorrow.
‘Safe from the whisper, my dears; the ceaseless dread? If you knew what I have to endure! I sometimes envy you. ‘Pon my honour, I sometimes wish I had married a fishmonger! Silva, indeed, is a most excellent husband. Polished! such polish as you know not of in England. He has a way—a wriggle with his shoulders in company—I cannot describe it to you; so slight! so elegant! and he is all that a woman could desire. But who could be safe in any part of the earth, my dears, while papa will go about so, and behave so extraordinarily? I was at dinner at your English embassy a month ago, and there was Admiral Combleman, then on the station off Lisbon, Sir Jackson Racial’s friend, who was the Admiral at Lymport formerly. I knew him at once, and thought, oh! what shall I do! My heart was like a lump of lead. I would have given worlds that we might one of us have smothered the other! I had to sit beside him—it always happens! Thank heaven! he did not identify me. And then he told an anecdote of Papa. It was the dreadful old “Bath” story. I thought I should have died. I could not but fancy the Admiral suspected. Was it not natural? And what do you think I had the audacity to do? I asked him coolly, whether the Mr. Harrington he mentioned was not the son of Sir Abraham Harrington, of Torquay,—the gentleman who lost his yacht in the Lisbon waters last year? I brought it on myself. ‘Gentleman, ma’am,—MA’AM!’ says the horrid old creature, laughing, ‘gentleman! he’s a – I cannot speak it: I choke!’ And then he began praising Papa. Diacho! what I suffered. But, you know, I can keep my countenance, if I perish. I am a Harrington as much as any of us!’
And the Countess looked superb in the pride with which she said she was what she would have given her hand not to be. But few feelings are single on this globe, and junction of sentiments need not imply unity in our yeasty compositions.
‘After it was over—my supplice,’ continued the Countess, ‘I was questioned by all the ladies—I mean our ladies—not your English. They wanted to know how I could be so civil to that intolerable man. I gained a deal of credit, my dears. I laid it all on—Diplomacy.’ The Countess laughed bitterly. ‘Diplomacy bears the burden of it all. I pretended that Combleman could be useful to Silva! Oh! what hypocrites we all are, mio Deus!’
The ladies listening could not gainsay this favourite claim of universal brotherhood among the select who wear masks instead of faces.
With regard to Evan, the Countess had far outstripped her sisters in her views. A gentleman she had discovered must have one of two things—a title or money. He might have all the breeding in the world; he might be as good as an angel; but without a title or money he was under eclipse almost total. On a gentleman the sun must shine. Now, Evan had no title, no money. The clouds were thick above the youth. To gain a title he would have to scale aged mountains. There was one break in his firmament through which the radiant luminary might be assisted to cast its beams on him still young. That divine portal was matrimony. If he could but make a rich marriage he would blaze transfigured; all would be well! And why should not Evan marry an heiress, as well as another?
‘I know a young creature who would exactly suit him,’ said the Countess. ‘She is related to the embassy, and is in Lisbon now. A charming child—just sixteen! Dios! how the men rave about her! and she isn’t a beauty,—there’s the wonder; and she is a little too gauche too English in her habits and ways of thinking; likes to be admired, of course, but doesn’t know yet how to set about getting it. She rather scandalizes our ladies, but when you know her!—She will have, they say, a hundred ‘thousand pounds in her own right! Rose Jocelyn, the daughter of Sir Franks, and that eccentric Lady Jocelyn. She is with her uncle, Melville, the celebrated diplomate though, to tell you the truth, we turn him round our fingers, and spin him as the boys used to do the cockchafers. I cannot forget our old Fallow field school-life, you see, my dears. Well, Rose Jocelyn would just suit Evan. She is just of an age to receive an impression. And I would take care
