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THE 
 
 WOMAN OF THE WORLD 
 
THE 
 
 WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 A NOVEL. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHORESS OF THE 
 
 DIARY OF A DESENNUYEE. 
 
 " O matter and impertinency mix'd !" 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL L 
 
 LONDON: 
 HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, 
 
 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1838. 
 
WHltlNO, IiEAIFORl HOUSF, STRAND. 
 
%<l '^ 
 
 
 QuU 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 After two years of strict seclusion at Harts- 
 ton Abbey, the Dtsennuyee emerges once more 
 into the sunshine of the gay world ! The 
 torpid chrysalis into which_, in her rural retreat, 
 the gay butterfly was transformed, has by an 
 inversion of the laws of nature, become a 
 butterfly again ; fluttering anew among the 
 gaudy parterres of that singularly ugly portion 
 of the creation which calls itself the beau monde. 
 To deposit among their roses and lilies the 
 off'spring of her leisure, is the harmless purpose 
 of her ephemeral existence. From the violence 
 of the summer shower, she creeps for shelter 
 
 ■ ■' 535182 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 under a laurel-leaf ; while against human assail- 
 ants, her fragile nature is her defence. 
 
 Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel ? — fFho 
 attacks with needless severity a frivolous insect, 
 
 — a 
 
 Gay being born to flutter through the air — 
 To-day to sparkle, and to-morrow die ? 
 
 Dropping, however, my wings and my meta- 
 phor, be it the first duty of the Desennuyee to 
 acknowledge with gratitude, the kindness with 
 which the diary of her adventures and senti- 
 ments were received by the world. Favour 
 renders many bold, but some timid ; and it is 
 not without hesitation I follow up the history 
 of my own life with an " own true tale," re- 
 garding two interesting families, my neighbours 
 at Hartston Abbey ; which, disguising their 
 names and titles, they have empowered me to 
 offer as a lesson to the giddy circles of the 
 metropohs. 
 
 Such is the origin of my sketch of '^ A 
 Woman of the World. '^ The picture is true to 
 nature, — (i. e. to fashionable nature;) but, as 
 the world does not always, like Satan, take 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 care of its own, the portrait may be disowned 
 and reviled by the original or originator. 
 
 The coteries of the day differ in fact more 
 extensively than they are aware of from the 
 coteries of yesterday, in which figured the flighty 
 Mrs. Delaval. The splendid year 1838, with 
 its crowns and sceptres, stars and garters, 
 heralds and helter-skelter hopes and promises, 
 is an era of deeper interest than its sallow, pen- 
 sive, desponding elder sister ; and as the human 
 mind is roused to a more .active exercise of its 
 powers by the conflict of stirring events, the 
 London of this passing month is not to be tri- 
 lled with ! — James* may put a pistol to its 
 breast and bid it '^ stand and deliver,'' or Cooper 
 embark its attention in a seventy-four, but my 
 implement of destruction is a paltry sky rocket, 
 and the gay pinnace of the Desennuyee, with 
 youth at the prow, and pleasure at the helm, 
 may perhaps be wrecked in the offing. 
 
 My last lucubrations were addressed to a mild, 
 somnolent, easy- chair sort of pubhc, taking breath 
 and a nap after the Reform Bill. Mais 7iou$ 
 * Author of '♦ The Robber/' 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 avo?i5 change tout cela. England is wide awake. 
 What Talleyrand called '* le cofiunencement de /a 
 jin^^ and even Talleyrand himself, is merged in 
 the dust of centuries; and we have attained 
 *^ h commencement (Van commencement^^ an 
 epoch of brightness, joy, and consummation. 
 Autumn and Winter have departed, and Spring 
 and Summer lie before us. We are besrinninfj 
 to be merry as well as wise, — the best result 
 perhaps of wisdom : — 
 
 The hour now promises unto this land a 
 thousand thousand blessings which time vshall 
 l)ring to ripeness ! 
 
 Still, amid its mirth and rejoicing, may the 
 public find a picktooth hour for pages light and 
 fearless as its present mood ; and a rival to the 
 brilliancy of the bench of peeresses, in the 
 attractions of ^^A Woman of the World." 
 
 H. HARTSTON. 
 
 Arlington Street, 
 June 15, 1838. 
 
THE 
 
 WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Du nom de vertueux serez vous honore 
 Doux et discret Cyrus, en vous-meme concentre ; 
 Honnete homme indolent, qui, dans un doux loisir, 
 Loin du bien et du mal, vivez pour votre plaisir? — 
 
 Voltaire. 
 
 There is no state of obscurity more obscure^ 
 and perhaps none of mortal enjoyment more 
 enjoyable than the condition of a country 
 baronet of respectable connexions and compe- 
 tent means. 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Sir William Helmsley, of Helmsley Abbey, 
 with an income such as his butler might 
 be excused for representing to his brother 
 butlers as " five thousan' a year/^ and a hand- 
 some house situated in one of the woodland 
 districts of Northamptonshire, though neA^er 
 heard of out of his own county, and rarely out 
 of his own parish, had every motive that a rea- 
 sonable mind can suggest for the fervency of 
 his gratitude to Providence. A good constitu- 
 tion — good person — good temper — good for- 
 tune — good family — good wife — good reputation 
 — good standing in the world : such were the 
 qualities and qualifications which his worst 
 enemy could not deny to Sir William. Yet, 
 strange to relate, his maternal uncle. Lord 
 Shropshire (lord-lieutenant of a neighbouring 
 county and a whister of thirty years' renown 
 at White's), never spoke of him but as a lost 
 man 1 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 3 
 
 " My nephew V — he used to say, in reply to 
 inquiries after the son of old Sir Robert. " Oh ! 
 poor Helmsley is completely done for ! — Helms- 
 ley has placed an extinguisher upon himself. — 
 Helmsley will never be heard of again ; — lives 
 entirely at his country place — kills his own 
 mutton — receives his own rents — dotes upon 
 his own wife — and educates his own children. 
 I offered to bring him into parliament at the 
 last dissolution ; but he thanked me, and told 
 me by way of answer that Lady Helmsley was 
 not fond of London.'^ 
 
 And such was the exact position of the coun- 
 try baronet. He was so fortunate as to have 
 found a companion who agreed with him in 
 preferring a hfe of usefulness to a life of show ; 
 who never tormented him with sighing after 
 a house in May Fair, or falhng into a fit of the 
 suUens when she saw their neighbours depart 
 to London for the season. Lady Helmsley, 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 the daughter of a Northamptonshire squire of 
 his own level in fortune and family, shared in 
 all his prejudices and predilections ; there was 
 not even the trifling jealousy of county rivalship 
 to create dissension between them. They 
 agreed in thinking Europe the favoured quar- 
 ter of the globe — England the favoured country 
 of Europe ; Northamptonshire the best county 
 in England, and Helmsley Abbey the most 
 eligible spot in Northamptonshire. It has al- 
 ready been admitted, that Sir William thought 
 Lady Helmsley the first of women; and her 
 ladyship fully returned the compliment in 
 favour of the fortunate Sir William. 
 
 A man must have been indeed fastidious, 
 not to prove an adoring husband to the lovely 
 and gifted Marcella. Not that Lady Helmsley 
 was either a professed beauty or a professed 
 wit; but every turn of her countenance was 
 attractive, every word of her lips persuasive. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 5 
 
 Endowed with the only art that can be called 
 akin to nature, the art of pleasing, her influence 
 over her husband was unbounded. 
 
 Such were the causes which induced Lord 
 Shropshire to decide that ^^ poor Helmsley had 
 placed an extinguisher on himself/'' When the 
 noble uncle, visiting at Helmsley Abbey, sug- 
 gested the removal of a village which was 
 planted out at a considerable expense of pros- 
 pect to the park. Sir William replied that 
 Marcella liked it to be there ; and when he 
 proposed making acquaintance for them with 
 the family of Lord Colebrooke, who was just 
 returned from a residence on the continent, 
 and settled at Woodlands, a seat about thirty 
 miles distant, Marcella answered that she con- 
 sidered the distance too great for country 
 visiting. It was in vain Lord Shropshire ob- 
 served, in a somewhat reproving tone, that 
 the Colebrookes ranked among the first people 
 
6 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 in the kingdom; that^ in consequence of the 
 recent change of ministry^ or rather the revo- 
 lution of European politics, Lord Colebrooke 
 was likely to obtain an eminent post in the 
 administration; and that when, at some fu- 
 ture time. Sir WiUiam should enter into 
 public life (^' as I conclude/^ observed his lord- 
 ship with peculiar emphasis, " will be the case^^), 
 the friendship of such a man might be invalu- 
 able. 
 
 Replying to Lord Shropshire's parenthesis 
 in preference to any other clause of his oration. 
 Lady Helmsley presumed to answer in the 
 name and behalf of her husband, that Sir 
 William had not the remotest intention of 
 entering into public life. 
 
 " Indeed !'' cried Lord Shropshire, rising 
 from his chair, and assuming before the fire 
 an attitude peculiar to Enghsh gentlemen, and 
 amazing to the gentlemen of every other civi- 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 7 
 
 lized country who describe it as bitterly as 
 Mrs. TroUope describes the Iriquoisisms of the 
 Yankees — " Then I fear I did my duty as a 
 guardian very negligently, to have rendered 
 my nephew so little sensible of his duty to the 
 country/^ 
 
 Sir William, who had retreated to the win- 
 dow during the discussion of the Colebrooke 
 question which he felt privileged to leave in 
 the hands of his wife, returned to the hearth- 
 rug and the argument, the moment his con- 
 sistency was called in question. 
 
 " You surely do not think," said he, address- 
 ing his uncle, ^* that my stake in the country 
 is of sufficient magnitude to make it incumbent 
 on me to get into parliament ? — Consider how 
 limited are my fortune and estate, compared with 
 those of twenty men of property I could name 
 in the county ?' 
 
 They have not your family connexion," 
 
 (( 
 
8 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 replied Lord Shropshire^ in a tone implying, 
 " Your mother was sister to an earl/^ 
 
 " Family connexions, I fear, would scarcely 
 extend my credit with my banker sufficiently to 
 defray the expenses of a town establishment/' 
 replied Sir William. 
 
 " Perhaps not. But they may so far tend to 
 advance you in life, as to double your income 
 by means of a good appointment.^' 
 
 " 1 have no ambition to become a place- 
 man,'' replied Sir William, calmly. " Marcella 
 and I are happy as we are. Had I been 
 born with hereditary rank or hereditary fortune 
 of sufficient extent to make it my duty to stand 
 forward, I trust I should have found courage to 
 do so. As it is, my sphere is limited." 
 
 " The more reason that it should be ex- 
 tended ! — It was sufficient boast for the rulers 
 of ancient times, that they found a city mud, 
 and left it marble. A man in these davs does 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 some honour to his pedigree, who is born a 
 baronet and dies a peer/^ 
 
 " That must depend on the means by which 
 his peerage is achieved/^ observed Lady Helms- 
 ley, concealing as she bent over her work a 
 smile provoked by the bathos of the simile. 
 
 ^' You do not I hope, madam, consider the 
 service of the country a dishonourable road 
 to promotion }'' — demanded Lord Shropshire, 
 hastily. 
 
 " By no means ! — But when the road is suffi- 
 ciently filled, I see no reason why those engaged 
 in domestic avocations should resign them in 
 order to jostle against others in an overstocked 
 career.^^ 
 
 ^^ And may I presume to inquire into the 
 nature of my nephew's avocations V' — demanded 
 Lord Shropshire, glancing contemptuously at 
 the shooting-jacket in which Sir William had 
 been about to proceed to his morning's sport, 
 
 b3 
 
10 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 when stopped by his noble kinsman's propo- 
 sition of a sweeping demolition of Helmsley 
 village. 
 
 " Hush — hush — my dear Marcella!'' cried 
 the young baronet, playfully closing the Hps of 
 Lady Helmsley, as she was about to enter upon 
 his vindication. " For Heaven's sake do not 
 bring down Lord Shropshire's judgment upon 
 the nonentityship of country gentlemen, by 
 insisting upon farming and the quorum, parish 
 business or justice business. I know he will 
 be kind enough to give me up as an incorrigible 
 Sir Clod, when I admit my belief that my duty 
 to the country is limited within the confines of 
 Northamptonshire, as completely as my happi- 
 ness is bounded within the park palings of 
 Helmsley Abbey." 
 
 And while Lord Shropshire shrugged his 
 shoulders in all that plenitude of pity with 
 which a fine gentleman looks down on a country 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 11 
 
 cousin. Lady Helmsley's eye wandered from 
 her work to the intelligent manly countenance 
 of her husband, and thence to the well-stored 
 shelves of the library where they were sitting. 
 She knew that while Lord Shropshire despised 
 the vulgarity of their rustic pursuits, they found 
 as much pleasure in studying together the 
 beauties of Bacon or Bolingbroke, Dante, 
 Goethe, Herder or Filicaja, as his lordship in 
 winning the odd trick, or exhibiting his blue 
 ribbon in the mob of stars and garters at the 
 levee. 
 
 Both children were satisfied with their toys ! 
 — The green mould upon a cheese furnishes to 
 the contemplation of a mite, forests of verdure 
 as high as the gigantic trees which some Indian 
 jungle or African wilderness places before the 
 eyes of an elephant. — Reste a savoir whether 
 the Earl or Baronet can claim the higher illus- 
 tration ! 
 
15 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The world denies that thou art fair, 
 
 So, dearest, let it be. 
 If nought in loveliness compare 
 
 With what thou art to me. 
 True beauty dwells in deep retreats. 
 
 Whose veil is but removed 
 When heart with heart in concord beats 
 Both loving and beloved. 
 
 Wordsworth, 
 
 The happiness of Helmsley Abbey was not 
 often invaded by the intrusion of titled relatives. 
 The unaspiring couple were left for the most 
 part to enjoy themselves in their own way ; to 
 ride together, walk together, see with their own 
 eyes and hear with their own ears the progress 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 13 
 
 effected in the village by the fruition of their 
 schemes of benevolence; return home for a 
 stroll in the flower-garden, a game at billiards, 
 or a duet of harp and flute, of which no carping 
 philharmonic critic was at hand to detect the 
 imperfections. Sir WiUiam gave an hour every 
 morning to little Harry ; and Mary passed 
 more than three times that space of time on a 
 Uttle stool beside her mother's work-table. The 
 days of the two idle people were, in short, very 
 fully filled up. Lady Helmsley attended to her 
 village school, while Sir William was busy in 
 his plantations ; and they met again after a few 
 hours absence, vnth as much delight as if weeks 
 had divided them from each other. 
 
 Lady Helmsley's pleasures and duties, how- 
 ever, were not wholly confined to the Abbey. 
 The eldest of her family, her early marriage had 
 been a considerable loss to the household of her 
 widowed father; and on Mr. Wroughton's 
 
14 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 death about two years afterwards, the care of 
 her sister Emma, a girl of twelve, had fallen to 
 her share ; just as the guardianship of her only 
 brother fell to that of Sir William. Young 
 Wroughton, who had lately been emancipated 
 from tutelage by attaining his majority, was 
 now on his travels ; but Emma was still at 
 a school in the neighbourhood of London, at 
 which the old gentleman had made it his dying 
 request she might complete her education. 
 
 For her brother and sister, Lady Helms- 
 ley felt the tenderest and most mother-like 
 interest. She longed for the time when Emma 
 would come home to reside with her and afford 
 her a female companion at the Abbey; and 
 Gerald settle for life at Wroughton Hall, and 
 secure to Sir William a neighbour after his 
 own heart, in his ward and brother-in-law. 
 
 Let those who are enjoying what ought to be 
 a state of perfect contentment, beware how 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 15 
 
 they presume to long for any thing ! — It is tempt- 
 ing Providence to admit a wish ungratified. 
 Hope was intended to be the solace of the 
 unhappy ; it becomes a crime when unlawfully 
 assumed by the prosperous. Were not the 
 fact, that — 
 
 Man never is, but always to be blest, 
 
 the indication of an instinct vouchsafed to the 
 human race to foreshow the immortality of 
 the soul, our restless aspiration after future 
 bliss might be regarded as a fatal drawback 
 upon the happiness of life. 
 
 For when the period arrived for Gerald 
 Wroughton to settle at Wroughton Hall, and 
 Emma to be installed under the protection of 
 her sister, the first exclamation of each to the 
 other on their arrival at the Abbey, was — " How 
 ill Marcella is looking \" — 
 
 In the course of a few weeks, this first ex- 
 
16 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 pression of anxiety deepened into " How 
 strange that Sir William does not see how 
 much she is altered !" — and when, at the expira- 
 tion of a few weeks more, Emma observed her 
 sister silently avoid all occasions of personal 
 exertion, that she seized on any excuse to evade 
 her daily ride, and would rise from her harp 
 before the piece was half concluded which they 
 had commenced together, she could no longer 
 refrain from mentioning to her brother-in-law 
 the first time they were alone together, her 
 apprehensions that Marcella was becoming 
 seriously indisposed. 
 
 " Seriously indisposed ?" cried the Baronet, 
 with a smile. " You are not so much accus- 
 tomed to watch her as I am. Marcella is 
 recovering from a severe cold ; and while 
 it was on her, nothing could prevent her 
 sitting two hours a day in that damp school- 
 house.^^ 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 17 
 
 " I do not think she is recovering from her 
 cold, — I think she is still suffering severely from 
 its effects,'' replied the plain-spoken Emma. 
 
 ^* She is always pale and thin in the spring 
 of the year/' rejoined the unpersuadable Sir 
 William. 
 
 " But she is not always affected by that hectic 
 cough, which leaves her not a moment's peace !" 
 persisted the affectionate sister. 
 
 " Hectic cough, — hectic ?" cried Sir William, 
 starting up, with horror impressed on every 
 feature. '' You surely do not mean, — you surely 
 do not think, — it is impossible — quite impossi- 
 ble — ^you should fancy " and while his 
 
 quivering lips refused to complete the sentence, 
 his eyes were filled with tears which prevented 
 his reading an answer in the looks of his sister- 
 in-law. 
 
 Had he plainly discerned the countenance of 
 Emma Wroughton, he would have seen that 
 
18 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 she did fear the worst. But his own heart 
 already suggested sufficient apprehensions. 
 
 ^^ I will send off immediately for Fitton \^' 
 cried he. " Good God ! my dear Emma^ why 
 did you not suggest this before ? — Fitton must 
 see her in the course of the day. — I shall not 
 rest till I have heard Fitton's opinion.^^ 
 
 " But will it not alarm my sister to have 
 medical advice so suddenly forced upon her }" 
 suggested Miss Wroughton. '^ Could not Dr. 
 Fitton say that he called in accidentally^ as he 
 was in the neighbourhood of the Abbey ?" 
 
 " No V replied Sir William. " Marcella 
 and T have never used arts or concealments 
 with each other. What passes in mj/ mind, 
 passes naturally into hers." 
 
 ^^ But for her sake V persisted Emma. *' I 
 have always heard that persons affected as I 
 believe her to be, ought above all things to be 
 kept in ignorance of their danger.^' 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 19 
 
 " Do not say danger !'' exclaimed Sir Wil- 
 liam, shuddering. " I cannot even bear to hear 
 that word apphed to my wife." 
 
 " Yet you are not afraid to hazard the inti- 
 mation to herself !" 
 
 ^' No ! for Marcella has twice as much cou- 
 rage — as much fortitude — as I have. You 
 know not what strength of character hes con- 
 cealed under her serenity of disposition." 
 
 '^ If there were but half as much vigour in 
 her constitution !" ejaculated Emma. '^ But 
 we have lost time enough already. Go and 
 despatch your note to Northampton, and / will 
 prepare my sister for the visit. To say the 
 truth, I think she has long wished for advice." 
 
 ^^ Anxious about herself, and never own it 
 to me \" cried William. 
 
 " Marcella was more scrupulous, perhaps, 
 about alarming you than — " 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 But she had no time to finish the reproach 
 which the egotism of husband-nature was about 
 to extort from her hps. Sir Wilham was 
 already off to the stables^ to bid White Sur- 
 rey be saddled, and his confidential groo m 
 despatched in search of the family physician. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 And when the hour of sickness came 
 
 To warn us of a coming blow, 
 Till, as we watched her wasted frame. 
 
 Our steps grew hush'd, our voices low ; 
 We had not guessed what auguries 
 
 Might in the sufferer's bosom be, 
 But for the tearful, wistful eyes, 
 
 ^^ ith which she used to gaze on thee ! 
 
 Vane. 
 
 Late as the oracle was invoked, the decree 
 came only too soon for the attached family 
 of Lady Helmsley. So much pains were taken 
 by the worthy doctor to impress upon the 
 
22 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 mind of the husband that he was not altogether 
 without hope^ that Sir WilUam had sense 
 enough to discern the desperateness of the 
 case. 
 
 His eyes once opened, all became clearly appa- 
 rent. The mother of Marcella had fallen an early 
 victim to consumption ; two sisters, intervening 
 in age between herself and Emma, had fallen 
 victims to the same insidious complaint; and 
 the motive of Gerald Wroughton's journey to 
 Italy the preceding year, was a professional 
 suggestion that the young man would do well 
 to winter in a milder climate. A similar sen- 
 tence would now have been pronounced upon 
 Lady Helmsley, according to the usual practice 
 of physicians of sending their patients to die in 
 other hands, but that spring instead of winter 
 was coming on. The medical synod, assem- 
 bled to decide upon her case, decreed that 
 Helmsley Abbey (situated on an eminence 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 23 
 
 Upon a fine gravelly soil), was damp ; and that 
 her ladyship was likely to benefit by change of 
 air and scene. A choice was left between the 
 seaside and London ; when Sir William, eager 
 to ensure the best professional advice, decided 
 in favour of the latter. 
 
 In London, therefore, in a quiet house in 
 Upper Harley Street, they settled for the season ; 
 and Lord Shropshire's first exclamation on meet- 
 ing his nephew accidentally in PaU Mall, was — 
 " Aha ! my patience has not been much tried ! — 
 I knew we should have you at last. But Lady 
 Helmsley seemed so positive, that I did not 
 fancy it would be so soon. Give me your arm 
 up St. James's Street. Do you go to the levee 
 to-morrow ? — Where are you in town ? — By the 
 way, there is a vacancy at Arthurs, where I put 
 you up five years ago. — What do you think of 
 trying it ?" 
 
 Replying by rational gradation to these nu- 
 
24 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 merous interrogatories, Sir William made it as 
 apparent to his inattentive kinsman as the 
 rumble of passing drays would admit, that 
 while others came to town to anoint themselves 
 with the oil of gladness, to enjoy the best din- 
 ners with their worst friends and the worst 
 dinners at the best clubs, to labour diligently 
 in their daily vocation in the ring and weekly at 
 the Zoological, — to give three nights a week to 
 his public duties at the Opera and Almack^s, 
 and one or two perhaps to private duties of 
 ayeing or noing in the House of Commons, — 
 he came to afford companionship to the gentle 
 airings of an invalid, to sit silent beside her 
 sofa, read to her when she was strong enough 
 to listen, and listen when she was strong enough 
 to talk. 
 
 Lord Shropshire shrugged his shoulders in 
 reply, almost as contemptuously as when Sir 
 WilUam declined at Helmsley Abbey an intro- 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 25 
 
 duction to Lord Colebrooke. There was b'lt 
 one word of consolation in all he heard. Lady 
 Helmsley was dangerously ill, and the extin- 
 guisher might possibly be removed from the 
 head of the uxorious husband. He had half a 
 mind to advise him to place her under the 
 homoeopathic system, and accelerate the moment 
 of release. But Marcella^s good sense had 
 been as usual beforehand with him. Content- 
 ing herself with the fruits of long-established 
 experience, she followed the counsels she had 
 already found efficient ; and followed them only 
 to confirm the prescience of advisers, who 
 from the first admitted to her husband that her 
 case was hopeless ! 
 
 All he had to bear from the moment that 
 terrible sentence was pronounced, can be con- 
 ceived only by those compelled to watch over 
 the declining moments of a beinsf tenderly 
 beloved. She was to go ! — She was to leave 
 
 VOL. I. C 
 
26 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD, 
 
 him ! — The unruffled surface of his unexcep- 
 tionable happiness was to be broken up^ and he 
 must not indulge in a single moan, a single 
 murmur ! — He must be patient — cheerful — com- 
 panionable. — Sometimes, he fancied Marcella 
 blind to her danger, and that it was his duty to 
 excite her apprehensions. At others, he thought 
 he could detect indications that she was more 
 enlightened than they supposed, — suppress- 
 ing the admission of her fears in deference to 
 the feelings of those around her ; and then, he 
 would chide Emma for the indiscretion of her 
 anxiety, and denounce vengeance on those who 
 might suiFer their sympathy to excite the ap- 
 prehensions of the dying woman. The care of 
 her mortal body seemed to bid him keep silence ; 
 the care of her immortal soul to require 
 him to speak. Perplexed between his double 
 duty, he listened to the commands of the 
 physicians that Lady Helmsley should on no 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 27 
 
 account be made aware of the precariousness 
 of her situation; then, in the silence of his 
 own chamber, clasped his hands desparingly 
 together, as he reflected that the house of the 
 departing Christian was to be set in order, — that 
 he was not deahng by Marcella as Marcella 
 would have dealt by him. 
 
 But this dilemma was painfully set at rest 
 when, as summer advanced, the medical men 
 suggested that her ladyship ought to profit by 
 the season for a journey to the south, and 
 ensure a milder climate for the ensuing winter. 
 Grasping at this promise of delay if not relief. 
 Sir William accordingly began to talk to the 
 invalid of Hyeres or Nice. 
 
 " Next winter, my dear husband, I shall be 
 beyond the reach of climate !^^ replied Lady 
 Helmsley to his proposal, the first time they 
 were alone together. " If change be desirable 
 for me, let it be back to the Abbey. It is my 
 
 c 2 
 
28 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 wish to die at home^ — to be buried at home.'^ 
 For worlds could not Helmsley have com- 
 manded the utterance of a word in contradic- 
 tion to these forebodings ! To hear them from 
 the lips of his wife^ — his beloved, loving, heart 
 in heart, soul in soul Marcella, — was as if their 
 meaning reached him for the first time. He 
 felt that since she said it, it must be so. He 
 was about to lose her. He was about to be 
 alone ! 
 
 Compassionating the frenzy of grief she had 
 excited. Lady Helmsley lay silent on her sofa, 
 her cold fingers intwining the throbbing con- 
 vulsed hand of him who sat beside her, with 
 his face concealed against the back of his chair. 
 She did not reiterate her request. She did not 
 repeat her forebodings. She lay speechless and 
 patient ; till at length, in hoarse and scarcely 
 articulate accents, he repUed, — ^^ We wdU return 
 to Helmsley then, next week.'^ Such was his 
 
THR WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 29 
 
 mode of confirming the sentence she had passed 
 upon herself! 
 
 All was prepared for their departure. Poor 
 Emma felt that it would indeed be a relief to be 
 spared (as she sat every night watching unsus- 
 pected in the dressing-room of the invalid), the 
 intrusive roll of the carriages, dashing from 
 one entertainment to another ; every morning, 
 the sight of gay equipages filled with the 
 thoughtless and happy, proceeding to Epsom 
 or Ascot — dejeuners or picnics ; and all the 
 thousand faces of giddy London, 
 
 Smiling, as if earth contained no tomb. 
 
 Home was best for them all ! home with its 
 holy associations; — home with its precious 
 reminiscences of duties fulfilled by the sufferer 
 whose probation was nearly at an end, and 
 whose beatification on the eve of accomplish- 
 ment. 
 
30 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Even Sir William had nothing to regret in 
 London. His friendships there were limited ; 
 his very acquaintanceships less extensive than 
 those of other men of his condition in hfe. 
 He had none to whom to turn for sympathy in 
 his affliction. As to Lord Shropshire, beyond 
 sending his servant three times a week with 
 inquiries, to which it was clear he never hstened 
 to the answers since every time he met his 
 nephew he seemed surprised to learn that Lady 
 Helmsley was worse, — he gave no token of 
 interest in the event. 
 
 One day, as Sir William was sauntering out 
 of Ridgway^s shop where he had been selecting 
 new publications for the amusement of the 
 invalid, he encountered his uncle arm in arm 
 with a distinguished looking middle-aged man ; 
 and it was impossible to refuse joining them 
 up Bond Street, whither all three were pro- 
 ceeding. Lord Shropshire, as in decency 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 31 
 
 bound, was minute in his inquiries after the 
 dying woman. But it was the stranger who 
 took note of Helmsley's rephes, and interest 
 in the details the doting husband found it 
 difficult to withhold. Helmsley's eyes were 
 filled with tears, and his voice faltered as he 
 spoke ; and the stranger, by goodnaturedly 
 suggesting some change of diet or position 
 supposed to yield alleviation in cases such as 
 that of Marcella, won his regard in a moment. 
 He spoke in a tone of concern, he listened 
 with a look of interest. It was impossible not 
 to like him. Even after learning from his uncle 
 at the moment of separation, that his well- 
 bred, well-aflfectioned auditor was no other than 
 Lord Coiebrooke, Sir William felt strongly 
 disposed in his favour. 
 
 The circumstance was scarcely worth men- 
 tioning at home ; there were topics of far higher 
 interest to be discussed between Marcella and 
 
32 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 himself. But a day or two afterwards, the 
 evening before their departure from town, Lady 
 Helmsley heard him inquiring of her sister whe- 
 ther Burke^s Peerage were packed up ? 
 
 " Yes, It was in the book-box already 
 despatched by the waggon into Northampton- 
 shire/^ 
 
 ^' I wanted to see/^ observed Sir William, in 
 explanation, " whether Lord Colebrooke has 
 any unmarried daughters/' 
 
 This explanation seemed to require further 
 explanation ; but Marcella lay too much ex- 
 hausted, and Emma stood by in attendance 
 too anxious, to experience any inquisitiveness 
 respecting the curiosity of Sir William. He 
 was therefore spared the necessity of inform- 
 ing them that, as he was crossing Cavendish 
 Square on his way home that afternoon with 
 his eyes fixed despondingly on the pavement, 
 he was struck by the mention of his own name. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 33 
 
 and looking up^ found himself accosted by 
 Lord Colebrooke with the politest — nay, the 
 kindest inquiries after the health of Lady 
 Helmsley. Lord Colebrooke had drawn up 
 to make the inquiry ; and at a little distance, 
 reining in a beautiful horse apparently right 
 proud of its most delicate rider, sat a young 
 and lovely woman, with the most graceful 
 figure and seat on horseback, he had ever 
 happened to behold. 
 
 There was so much life, so much character, 
 so much charm in the countenance of the 
 stranger, as contrasted with the two female 
 faces he was now in the habit of contem- 
 plating, — the one so sick, the other so sorrowful, 
 — that it seemed as if all the impulses of youth, 
 health, and intelligence were gathered there 
 in marvellous combination; and when, at the 
 close of his short dialogue with Lord Cole- 
 brooke, he touched his hat in parting salutation, 
 
 c 3 
 
34 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 the lady, whom involuntarily he included in 
 his obeisance, returned it with a bow and smile 
 so sweet and gracious, that after they had 
 proceeded on their ride along Wigmore Street 
 towards the Park, he found himself gazing 
 after them instead of pursuing his way home- 
 wards. 
 
 No peerage being at hand on his arrival 
 
 in Harley Street, for the satisfaction of his 
 curiosity, the lady and the lord were soon 
 effaced from his mind. He had subjects, just 
 then, of engrossing interest to occupy his 
 attention. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 35 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Give me my robe — put on my crown ! — I have 
 Immortal longings in me ! 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 That polished portion of the community 
 self-styled the World, is a brilliant thing to 
 look on ; — but like the lark-traps which, by the 
 perpetual motion of a few fragments of looking- 
 glass, simulate sunshine, its brightness consists 
 in movement, — incessant movement. In its 
 conversations, a thousand subjects are rapidly 
 whirled round to sparkle and be forgotten ; its 
 entertainments are severally nothing, but the 
 rapidity of their succession consolidates them 
 
36 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 into one gorgeous whole. There is no pause 
 for examination, — no delay for discussion ; — 
 the feathers wave, — the diamonds glitter, — the 
 music quavers, — the sweet lips prattle, — the 
 lustres gleam; — the vivacity of ten thousand 
 souls is blended into a single outbreak of 
 hilarity ! 
 
 Even some dire event infusing anguish into 
 the happiest household circle, is discussed by a 
 passing word. " Have you any news of the 
 Helmsleys V — demanded Lord Colebrook of 
 Lord Shropshire, one night, as they came into 
 momentary collision in the lobby of the opera, 
 or the vestibule of the House of Lords, or some 
 other place of public amusement. And the 
 noble kinsman's reply ^^ No ; — but I fancy my 
 nephew will soon be released from his attend- 
 ance. Halford said^when they left town, that 
 ten days must end it 1^' — comprised the melan- 
 choly history which left not a dry eye in 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 37 
 
 Helmsley village, and reduced the inmates 
 of the Abbey to a state bordering on dis- 
 traction ! 
 
 The only person who retained any degree of 
 serenity, was the dying woman. After the 
 subsiding of the accession of fever produced 
 by a journey which it had taken four days to 
 accomplish, Lady Helmsley resumed all her 
 usual composure. She knew that she was to 
 die, — that her days, her hours, were numbered. 
 But the intimate confidence in which, for seven 
 years past, she had lived with her husband, 
 left her no anxieties on his account or those 
 of her children. Her wishes and projects 
 for them were fully known to him ; and she 
 was too well acquainted with the strength of 
 his affection not to feel that she was bequeath- 
 ing their interests to the care of the best of 
 fathers. 
 
 Nevertheless, with the anxiety of a tender 
 
38 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 friend about to depart on a long journey, she 
 could not altogether refrain from charges to 
 her sister respecting the care of those helpless 
 creatures, particularly of the little girl. 
 
 ^^ I trust Knowles will not be tempted to 
 quit Mary, even after she is in the hands of a 
 governess/^ said she, in a faint voice, one even- 
 ing to Miss Wroughton, " Mary is delicate ; 
 and Knowles so thoroughly understands her 
 constitution. Should Helmsley marry again 
 (as in all probability will be the case), changes 
 might arise. Promise me, my dear Emma, 
 that you will do your utmost to keep that good 
 woman about the children }'^ 
 
 '^ Her own inchnation will keep her there,'"* 
 replied Miss Wroughton, deeply affected by 
 such a petition. " And Sir WilHam will never 
 replace the ^vife he loves so dearly .'' 
 
 *^ No man can answer for himself on such a 
 point. And why should he? — Why should I 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 39 
 
 wish to perpetuate his regret, or prevent 
 some other woman from enjoying the happiness 
 I have enjoyed ? A prudent remarriage would 
 probably be the best thing that could befal the 
 children. You are too young, my dear Emma, 
 to remain here as their protectress. You will 
 live here with Gerald, — marry — become a mo- 
 ther. It will be a better thing for Mary that 
 lier father — " 
 
 She could not conclude the sentence; and 
 Emma, aware how differently her sister had 
 always expressed herself in the similar case of 
 their own father, saw what violence she was 
 doing to her feelings, in order to pre-as- 
 sure excuses for any future measure to her 
 husband. 
 
 To Sir William, the patient sufferer had 
 already exerted herseK to manifest a similar 
 opinion. A presentiment founded on her 
 knowledge of his character, assured her that he 
 
40 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 would marry again. She chose him to feel 
 himself thoroughly enfranchised. 
 
 Anxious, too, not to increase his present 
 anguish by the sight of her regret at quitting a 
 world endeared by the tenderness of many and 
 the esteem of all, Marcella was careful to let no 
 murmur escape her lips, and to avoid all indul- 
 gences in those tender weaknesses which, more 
 than any uttered phrase, indicate the conscious- 
 ness of approaching dissolution. Her decline 
 was more tedious, more painful than she 
 had anticipated ; not that ethereal wasting, the 
 delusive creation of poets and novelists, but 
 the fearful struggle of the soul with decaying 
 nature ; the harassing efforts, the restlessness, 
 he exhaustion, the momentary delirium fol- 
 lowed by hours of inanition. Throughout all 
 this, the husband watched and ministered with 
 a fervour of patient affection as feminine almost 
 as that of the sister. He would send the 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 41 
 
 others to bed, and remain in secret by the bed- 
 side, watching long after the hirehng watchers 
 were outwearied and at rest. 
 
 It was on one of those nights, when he was 
 alone with the sick, that what might be termed 
 the agony of Marcella commenced. His hand 
 was lying beside her own on the coverlid, — not 
 clasping it, lest the pressure should be too 
 much for its wasted fingers ; when of a sudden, 
 with an unnatural accession of voice, she began 
 to talk, as with the tongues of angels, of God, 
 of immortality, of the rewards of the just. 
 Those who have watched beside the dying, 
 know how often this elevation of spirit conse- 
 quent upon the disorganization of mortal na- 
 ture, tends to sooth and dignify sufferings 
 otherwise insupportable. 
 
 Having anxiously examined her face, which 
 was flushed with hectic spots, Helmsley saw 
 that the strain of triumph in which she was in- 
 
42 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 dulging, was the song of the dying swan ; and, 
 as if jealous that any but himself should listen 
 to those words of Heavenly exaltation, forbore 
 to summon assistance. Marcella was beyond 
 the reach of mortal succour ; and kneeling by 
 her bedside, he gathered into his heart every 
 look, every syllable, each one of which might 
 prove the last. 
 
 In this attitude, were they found when morn- 
 ing dawned. But from the moment Miss 
 Wroughton and the nurse busied themselves in 
 administering remedies and suggesting aid, 
 Marcella became silent. The smile ceased to 
 play upon her lips ; the light of love ceased 
 to beam from her eyes ; — the sun was setting ! 
 — Her breathing became more difficult, — her 
 hands more cold ; and as if aware chat the 
 power of motion was departing and death 
 creeping upward towards her heart, her last 
 hurried movement was to extend one of those 
 
^ THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 43 
 
 wasted hands towards her husband, — her last 
 incoherent utterance — the words " for ever !^^ — 
 
 He listened. No other followed. The hand 
 lay motionless in his,^ — the half-parted Hps were 
 breathless, — all was over. — The spoiler had 
 been permitted to work his worst in the earthly- 
 Eden so long allotted to the unhappy Helms- 
 ley. He was alone there now; — alone with his 
 motherless children, — alone with the memory 
 of the past. 
 
 The lapse of only a few hours after the 
 decease of Lady Helmsley, suffered to prove 
 to what influence the Abbey had been indebted 
 for its serene and well-ordered existence. 
 Emancipated from the restraint imposed by her 
 gentle presence, Sir William threw aside all self- 
 control. Resigning himself to the impetuosity 
 of a despair aggravated by long estrangement 
 from rest, exercise, and food, the bereaved hus- 
 band became excited to a degree of frenzy. 
 
44 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 which rendered it impossible for the physicians 
 to quit the house ; and when, after many days 
 he was restored to a sense of his situation, he 
 found that Emma and the children had been 
 removed to Wroughton Hall ; and that Gerald, 
 his brother-in-law, had taken upon himself those 
 necessary duties which ought to have fallen to 
 the share of the husband and the father. It 
 was clear that the prop was gone from the 
 house. The afflicted man gave himself up to 
 his weakness, — to his selfishness, — to the un- 
 controlled flow of human passion. 
 
 At first, he insisted on administering to the 
 last rites, and rendering honour to her who had 
 been a crown of honour unto him. But he 
 had not even strength to quit his room; and 
 the brother to whom Marcella had been a 
 mother, fulfilled the part of a son to her re- 
 mains. The village poured forth its throng of 
 mourners ; — the Abbey its solitary representa- 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 45 
 
 tive. The voice of the preacher was heard,— 
 the ratthng of the dust on the coffin, — the stone 
 was rolled to the mouth of the sepulchre,— 
 and another human destiny was accomplished I 
 
46 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Once a day I'll visit 
 The chapel where she lies ; and tears shed there, 
 Shall be my recreation : so long as 
 Nature will bear up with this exercise, 
 So long I daily vow to use it. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Sir William Helmsley submitted pa- 
 tiently to the mandate of his physicians that 
 he should leave home for a time; but instead 
 of turning his submission to good account by 
 selecting a change of scene ensuring change of 
 associations, he went no further than Wroughton 
 Hall, where Emma's maiden aunt, Mrs. Mar- 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 47 
 
 garet Wroughton, had become a permanent 
 resident with the family of her favourite 
 niece. 
 
 But Wroughton Hall was full of Marcella! 
 — It was there Sir William had wooed and won 
 the best of daughters^ to become the best of 
 wives. There hung her portrait on the wall ; 
 there the early specimens of her own artist-hke 
 skill. The village^ the household, overflowed 
 with legends of her virtues. It was not the 
 spot that should have been chosen to subdue 
 the intensity of his regrets. Nay, when the 
 time came for him to return home, he felt that 
 his temporary estrangement from the scene of 
 his melancholy trials had only served to pre- 
 serve the impression more vivid in his soul; 
 and he resolved that months should elapse, 
 consecrated to grief and seclusion, before he 
 suffered himself to be again tempted from the 
 Abbey. Even Gerald was too cheerful and 
 
48 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 too much engrossed by the worldly interests of 
 life, to be a palatable companion to him. He 
 fancied that his exceeding heavy sorrow should 
 be all in all with others as with himself. 
 
 Nothing that could tend to ahenate the 
 sources of his grief was neglected. He would 
 sit for hours in Marcella's dressing-room, 
 surrounded by the objects which had ministered 
 to her daily use, as if expecting to find her 
 re-enter the room and resume her place by his 
 side. He would wander by moonlight in all 
 her favourite haunts, calling upon her name and 
 breathing aloud the terms of endearment in 
 which it was her custom to address him. He 
 would repair, in the gloom of twilight, to the 
 old church, and secured from \Tilgar intrusion, 
 throw himself weeping on her grave, with 
 passionate exclamations of tenderness and 
 anguish. It was fortunate for the two poor 
 babes that they were spared the sight of all this 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 49 
 
 distraction. Their father had consented to 
 leave them under the charge of their female 
 relatives at Wroughton ; jealous that even those 
 two beloved creatures should intrude into the 
 solitude consecrated to the memory of the 
 dead. 
 
 Sir William^s household and tenants predicted 
 of course that the young widower would fall a 
 victim to such excess of sorrow. ^^ Poor 
 master was quite broken-hearted ; poor master 
 was hastening fast after my lady.^^ But tenants 
 and servants are superficial observers; and 
 those who have more leisure to expatiate upon 
 the nature of men and things^ have ascertained 
 that grief is a plant often killed by over cherish- 
 ing. Almost every other passion increases in 
 proportion to the space allotted for its growth ; 
 but sorrow, which availeth nothing to the 
 advantage of the dead or living, is by the 
 wisdom of Providence limited in its existence. 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
50 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 The holy and precious feeling which embalms 
 the memory of those we are called upon to 
 resign, may sanctify a whole life by its mild and 
 silent influence ; but the grief which partakes of 
 passion, — the grief which is loud, vehement^ 
 and selfish, — frets itself to death and to ob- 
 livion. 
 
 One of the wise ones of the earth has ob- 
 served, that our sorrow for the dead is at first 
 profound and genuine, afterwards a matter 
 of habit, and at length a matter of hypocrisy. 
 At the close of his year of widowhood. Sir 
 William Helmsley, though far from any assump- 
 tion of affliction, had reached the second stage 
 of consolation; he pursued his visits to Mar- 
 ceUa's chamber and MarceUa^s grave, more as 
 a matter of custom, than at the prompting of 
 his earlier despair. Time, the comforter, had 
 wrought its usual miracles. The wound was 
 cicatrized. The world, with its myriads of 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 51 
 
 stirring sights and sounds and interests, had 
 proved too much for the opposing influence of 
 a single, silent, soUtary sepulchre. If Sir 
 William Helmsley still persisted in refusing 
 the invitations of his neighbours, and clinging 
 to the seclusion of the Abbey, it was more for 
 want of knowing Itow to resume his habitual 
 place in society, more from the egotism of a 
 reserved Enghshman who fancies that the eyes 
 of all the world are fixed upon his comings and 
 goings, than because he delighted in seclusion. 
 The menials at the Abbey had laid aside their 
 sable garments ; the little children resumed 
 their gay attire. Changes and improvements 
 were going on. Nothing remained of Marcella 
 save a certain stern gravity on the brow of Sir 
 William, and a pensive sadness occasionally 
 overspreading the fair brow of the faithful 
 sister. 
 
 Gerald Wroughton was among the first to 
 D 2 
 
52 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 notice with regret, the moral insignificance into 
 which his brother-in-law was sinking. At three- 
 and-twenty, Gerald was animated by a more 
 mercurial spirit than Helmsley at twenty-eight. 
 There was something of the impetuosity, the 
 fervour, so often connected with organic disease, 
 in the nature of Gerald. With him, to feel to 
 say were the work of a moment. 
 
 Advised by the physician with whom he had 
 formerly travelled on the continent, to pass as 
 many of his mnters as possible in a southern 
 climate, Mr. Wroughton, when the second 
 winter of his residence in England was about 
 to set in, fancied that a warmer atmosphere was 
 indispensable. But though he felt no reluc- 
 tance at leaving his sister under the care of 
 their sage and sober kinswoman, in a house so 
 guarded round with security as Wroughton 
 Hall, he had some scruple about abandoning 
 poor Helmsley to his querulous melancholy. 
 
THE WOMAN OP THE WORLD. 53 
 
 He knew that his brother-in-law still declined 
 all overtures of civility from Lord Shropshire 
 and his country neighbours. 
 
 ^^ If I leave him shut up with Emma, the 
 children, and aunt Margaret, he will turn 
 hermit and let grow his beard before my re- 
 turn ;^^ mused the kind-hearted young man. 
 ^^ What if I could persuade him to bear me 
 company? — He has never been abroad; the 
 excitement of new scenes might be of service." 
 
 Conscious, however, of the weakness of the 
 man with whom he had to deal, instead of 
 proposing the tour to Helmsley as a matter of 
 recreation, he suggested it •as a sacrifice of 
 good will towards himself. 
 
 ^^ Dr. Moorsom, the physician from whose 
 treatment he had derived so much benefit, had 
 accompanied an English family to Naples. He 
 wished to pass some months under his care. 
 He wished to get through the winter in a 
 
54 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 milder climate. It would be an act of real 
 kindness on the part of Sir William to bear 
 him company/^ 
 
 Helmsley was thus half-startled^ half-be- 
 guiled into an expedition which was perhaps 
 the happiest event that could befal him. His 
 preparations were soon achieved; Wroughton, 
 an experienced traveller, undertook all the bu- 
 siness part of the journey ; and there remained 
 only for Sir William to take a tender farewell 
 of his children, from whom nothing less than 
 the interest of his beloved Marcella^s only 
 brother would have induced him to part. It 
 was a heartrending pang to quit the Abbey; 
 but, as with most other pangs, the pain was 
 momentary. Before they reached Calais, his 
 spirits were rising; and by the time they set 
 foot in Paris, Sir WilHam was ready to look 
 about him and be amused. 
 
 " So your neighbour, my nephew, is gone 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 55 
 
 abroad ?^^ — observed Lord Shropshire to Mr. 
 De Ligne, a Northamptonshire squire, whose 
 estates bordered upon Helmsley Abbey. " Had 
 it not been for the newspapers, I should have 
 supposed him still vegetating at his place ; for 
 he had not even the grace to apprize me of 
 his intentions.^^ 
 
 '^ Sir William has suffered deeply from the 
 loss of his wife/^ observed Mr. De Ligne, 
 gravely ; ^^ I never saw a young man more 
 miserably cut up. It is to be hoped that 
 change of scene will be of use to him. He 
 would never have recovered himself at the 
 Abbey.'' 
 
 ^^ Weak in that as in all the rest !"-^ observed 
 the noble kinsman. " As if local influences 
 ought to weigh upon a man possessing any 
 strength of mind ! — As if the tinkle of a guitar 
 and the sight of a volcano, were indispensable 
 to wean a man from the memory of a wife ! — 
 
56 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Never did a young fellow so fling away his 
 opportunities as William Helmsley ! — After 
 forming at one-and-twenty the sort of detest- 
 able respectable match which a guardian had 
 no right to oppose, though it advanced him 
 not a jot in fortune or connexion, he ties him- 
 self to his wife's apronstring for the bortit 
 routine of a country gentleman ! — And now, 
 when the wife luckily dies in time to leave 
 him an opening into life, instead of profiting 
 by the vacancy occasioned by Theydon's ele- 
 vation to the peerage to come forward for 
 Stamford, off goes the blockhead to the con- 
 tinent, to bear-lead a brother-in-law who they 
 tell me might make some figure had he fallen 
 into better hands/' 
 
 " Mr. Wroughton is a hvely young man, of 
 good abilities ; but by no means so fine a scholar 
 as my friend Helmsley," observed Mr. De Ligne, 
 who was an F.S.A. and F.R.S. 
 
THE WOMAN 0^ THE WORLD. 57 
 
 '' Scholar ? of what use his scholarship [" 
 exclaimed the earl^ with contempt, " Give me 
 a man who knows the world. It is with man- 
 kind_5 not books, we are appointed to live ; and 
 mankind should be our study .^^ 
 
 " The knowledge of mankind is, perhaps, 
 best attainable through the study of books/^ 
 observed Mr. De Ligne, sententiously, on tip- 
 toe for an argument. But Lord Shropshire was 
 thinking more of his nephew than of his theory. 
 
 ^^ I have no doubt/^ cried he; " Helmsley 
 will return to England as great a boor as 
 ever; and marry the daughter of some other 
 country squire, or perhaps of the parson of the 
 parish. There^s not a grain of spirit in the 
 fellow's composition ! I dearly loved my poor 
 sister, Lady Carohne. But, by Jove ! it would 
 not give me a moment's concern were I 
 never again to hear mention of the name of 
 William Helmsley." 
 
 D 3 
 
58 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Kalb is meant for the feather-brained thing of tags and 
 laces, which inhabits courts ; but he wants the grace and 
 agihty proper to the species. 
 
 Schiller's Letters. 
 
 Little did Lord Shropshire foresee what 
 cause he might one day have to desire that 
 the name of Sir WiUiam were to remain 
 famihar in his own ears, and those of the 
 world. 
 
 Lord Shropshire was the father of an only 
 son, of whom he thought as highly, as 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 59 
 
 slightingly of his nephew. Lord Bridgnorth 
 was one of the handsomest young men in 
 England ; a leading man at the leading 
 clubs, and indispensable at every fashionable 
 dinner-party; gave exquisite fetes at an ex- 
 quisite villa, under the presidency of the most 
 exquisite opera-dancer of the day ; had fought 
 a duel, caused a divorce, won a steeple chase, 
 ruined a raw ensign in the guards at piquet ; 
 and was supposed to be able to distinguish 
 himself in public life any rainy day, when, 
 having nothing else to do, he should see fit to 
 throw himself away upon politics ! 
 
 Unluckily, during his interim of fine wea- 
 ther, the noble roue to whom ordinary modes 
 of life were becoming stale and unprofit- 
 able, grew bored on shore, and, like other 
 dandies nautically inclined, mounted a yacht. 
 The result was disastrous. Designing to pass the 
 autumn in the Baltic, Lord Bridgnorth and a 
 
60 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 noble friend^ who, being what is called " hard 
 up/' quartered himself on any one who was 
 soft enough to feed_, lodge, and bear with his 
 inanity, landed one day in an obscure fishing- 
 town, on the coast of Jutland; where, after 
 treating themselves with schiedam, they saw 
 fit to treat the natives with a specimen of the 
 Great British art of pugilism ; till their Danish 
 antagonists, provoked by the wantonness of an 
 attack which they little supposed to be a scien- 
 tific exhibition, retaliated so much in earnest, 
 that the following day Lord Bridgnorth fell a 
 victim to the contusions received while his 
 blood was in a state of inflammation. 
 
 The heir of forty thousand a year, and an 
 ancient English peerage, to die scarcely sober, 
 wholly unattended, in a Jutland fishing-hovel ! 
 The humiliation was greater almost than the 
 affliction ; and the bereaved father, blind to 
 the fact that his son had fallen a victim to his 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 61 
 
 own vices, talked of nothing less than requiring 
 from ministers a demand for vengeance on the 
 murderers, and swore that there was something 
 rotten in the state of Denmark. It was not 
 enough that his only son, the finest young man 
 in England, had been sacrificed ; but the inso- 
 lent newspapers had taken upon themselves to 
 represent the event in a series of pitiful para- 
 graphs, presuming to throw blame upon Lord 
 Bridgnorth, and leave a doubt whether his death 
 need be made a matter of national warfare. 
 
 Lord Shropshire was in fact almost as angry 
 as afflicted at the loss of his son. It was such a 
 mode to die ! — such a waste of all the fashion, 
 favour and popularity enjoyed by the best 
 seat, best shot, best whip, best every thing in 
 England ! — such a cruel want of consideration 
 for his father — such a sinful disregard to his 
 position in life — such an inattention to the 
 demands of his own consequence ! — What busi- 
 
62 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ness had he^ a member of White's and the 
 House of Commons, — a peer expectant, whose 
 bay Filly was entered for the Derby two years 
 following, whose name was honoured at Coutts's, 
 and good at Crockford's, to ^^ drink, and speak, 
 parrot, squabble, swagger, swear,'' with a gang 
 of Holstein skippers ? — What business had he 
 at all yachting in the Baltic ? — Que diahle 
 allait-il faire dans cette galere ? — 
 
 At length, as this outbreak of paternal irri- 
 tability subsided, when the yacht which had 
 taken out the rampant, insolent, fastidious, 
 despotic libertine, brought back his sense- 
 less, helpless, useless, humiliated remains, 
 some officious friend suggested to Lord Shrop- 
 shire — a circumstance which the vigorous 
 health and brilliant promise of Bridgnorth had 
 hitherto kept out of view — that the ancient 
 barony of Monthermer descended in the female 
 line ; and that, lacking male heirs, the son of 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 63 
 
 his sister Lady Caroline, his sober nephew Sir 
 William Helmsley, must succeed to his honours. 
 The mortified Earl scarcely knew whether to 
 be glad or sorry. The humdrum puritanism of 
 the country baronet was a poor exchange for 
 the fine, gay, bold-faced villany of the fashion- 
 able Bridgnorth ; but he was better than no 
 exchange at all. Sir William was a fine young 
 man of eight- and-twenty, his son a fine boy 
 of seven ; and this double shoot to the all-but- 
 withered tree, was certainly preferable to the 
 utter extinction of its branches. Five thousand 
 a-year of Lord Shropshire's rental was entailed 
 with the barony. It began to appear to him 
 an almost possible thing that the remaining 
 thirty-five might find its way to little Harry 
 Helmsley, or his father. 
 
 He was too wise, however, to make engage- 
 ments, still more to make a will. Sir William 
 was his heir at law ; and a will, that exercise of 
 
64 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 posthumous despotism so appalling to the 
 nerves of old gentlemen of sixty-five, need only 
 be thought of in case of intended exclusion. 
 Who could say that, with Bath, Brighton, 
 Cheltenham, London and all their spinsters in 
 ambuscade against his coronet. Lord Shropshire 
 might not himself be tempted to marry again ? 
 The neighbourhood of Bridgnorth Castle 
 meanwhile occupied itself with the pros and 
 cons of the case, as earnestly as if acquainted 
 with the real views and motives of the parties 
 interested. All those who had been so deeply 
 shocked by the untimely fate of the young 
 heir, the bad because he was such a fine dash- 
 ing fellow, the good because they had hoped he 
 would survive for amendment, the indifterent 
 because there was a lord the less in the county, 
 set about considering the comparative merits of 
 Sir William Helmsley. At first, they had no 
 great opinion of him ! Though residing in an 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 65 
 
 adjoining county, the fame of his hospitalities 
 had never reached them. He had given no 
 entertainment of sufficient magnitude to rouse 
 the remote echoes of Bridgnorth Castle; and 
 had done nothing on coming of age but settle 
 an annuity on his old nurse and marry a wife. 
 This was a sorry substitute for one who had 
 kept them in a ten-years^ panic by the constant 
 jeopardy of his neck in fox-chases and his 
 fortune at the hazard-table. 
 
 They were displeased, too, at his having 
 chosen to go abroad. It was all very right to 
 grieve for his wife. But he was a responsible 
 man ; he ought to have stayed at home to take 
 care of his preserves, his county interest, his 
 children, servants, tenants, partridges and deer. 
 The game would be destroyed during his 
 absence ; the place go to rack and ruin ; his 
 children be spoiled by their maiden grand- 
 
66 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 aunt, and Miss Wroughton be run away with 
 by a fortune-hunter. 
 
 On the whole, they remained true to their 
 regrets for the loss of Henry, Viscount Bridg- 
 north ; and sincerely hoping that the old earl 
 might be tempted anew into matrimony, wished 
 Sir William Helmsley a pleasant journey and a 
 profitable winter in Italy. He was heard of 
 from Rome — he was heard of from Naples ; 
 for their parts they wished to hear of him no 
 more. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 67 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 L'eglise de St. Pierre appartient-elle au Pape? — Non! 
 aux Anglais. Je suis alle dans toute la candeur de mes 
 r^ves Catholiques, assister en pelerin, aux offices de la 
 semaine sainte. Qu'ai-je vu ? — Un raout Anglais dans 
 la plus belle salle de I'linivers ! Le Benedictus tombait 
 comme un anath^me sur cette multitude folle et de- 
 soeuvree. 
 
 Mery. 
 
 \ 
 Vivent les voyages et les voyageurs ! — England 
 
 is undoubtedly the garden of the world; — its 
 soil the most productive, — its climate the most 
 equable, — its domestic comfort the most com- 
 plete, — its constitution the most admirable, — 
 its men the wisest and bravest, — its women the 
 
6S THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 fairest and most virtuous of all the kingdoms 
 outstretched under the canopy of heaven. And 
 this is probably the reason why^ in approaching 
 every noticeable city of the continent^ the first 
 thing we meet is a natty English groom exer- 
 cising a fine English horse ; why, on entering 
 the Opera-house, we discover the best boxes 
 to be filled with people who talk and laugh 
 louder than the loudest passages of the or- 
 chestra; why lodgings are doubled in price 
 by the influx of Great-British visitors, and why, 
 the day after our inauguration, we find one or 
 more cards on our breakfast- table, requesting 
 the honour of our company to dinner at 
 seven o^clock, three weeks in perspective. 
 
 It is no doubt owing to the irresistible attrac- 
 tion of English, Irish, and Scottish homes, 
 that we may slip into a colony of our country- 
 men at any baiting-place between Rotterdam and 
 Palermo ; and in defiance of climate, customs, 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 69 
 
 and common sense^ enjoy the habits of London 
 naturalized among French^ Italians^ High Dutch 
 and Low. — Scandal, sportsmanship, exclusivism, 
 Harvey sauce, and soda water, have cut through 
 or across the surface of Europe in steamboats 
 and postchaises ; and Mr. Monck Mason's 
 balloon might have dropped into almost any 
 place but Weilburg, and found English dowagers 
 maundering over their tea, or English dandies 
 disputing over their pigeon matches. 
 
 Next to Paris, Naples is perhaps the most 
 favourite winter residence of our countrypeople . 
 At Rome they miss the glare and gold lace of 
 a court. They are fond of presentation and 
 representation, galas and gaudiness ; and, at- 
 tracted by the united charms of nature and 
 art, the bay the climate and the aristocratization 
 of the Two Sicilies, are usually found in ample 
 congregation in the Neapolitan capital. 
 
 Nothing too can be more welcome than the 
 
70 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 contrast afforded by the aspect of Naples to that 
 of Rome. Rome might be aptly termed the 
 city of death in life, — Naples, of Hfe in death. 
 In the former, amid the pomps, vanities, and 
 artificial distinctions of mankind, all is torpor, 
 all oblivion ; — while in the latter, though hover- 
 ing on the verge of a volcano, amid buried 
 cities and a consuming soil, all is light, loveli- 
 ness, and vitality. 
 
 Not even the inspirations of art — not even 
 the reminiscences of antiquity — which ought to 
 create an atmosphere of poetry for the Eternal 
 city, avail to disperse that mal a?ia of the 
 mind, whose influence is more baneful than the 
 pestilential vapours of the Campagna. The 
 traveller feels transfixed upon the site of 
 an extinguished despotism, and a despotism 
 about to be extinguished. Roman emperors, 
 or Roman pontiffs, — creatures of clay aspiring 
 to the power of the divinity, though debased 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 7^ 
 
 below the level of human kind^ — have in- 
 vested the soil with dishonouring reminis- 
 cences ; — and the roofless Coliseum as the 
 monument of the one^ seems to foreshow the 
 Vatican of future ages equally exposed to the 
 derision of the winds of Heaven. Providence 
 delights in rendering the wreck of empires 
 a mark for the irony of posterity. A column 
 in the desert, a pyramid on the shore, mark 
 the spots where human sceptres have been 
 brandished m audacious rivalry with the bolts 
 of Heaven ; — and the jaundiced Tiber, flowing 
 enviously in its shrunken channel, will one 
 day alone survive to point out to the traveller 
 hurrying through the pestilential wastes of the 
 Campagna, ^' the spot where Rome once stood, 
 and nothing stands. '^ 
 
 But Naples, the land of the Sirens, seems to 
 have inherited the spell of their enchantments i 
 Around the natural features of the divine Par- 
 
72 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 thenope, poetry has enwoven its everlasting 
 spells. With her dark blue waters, we connect 
 the majestic epithets of Homer ; — and 
 
 Sua lieta piaggia, sua solitaria valle, 
 Suo accolto monticel, 
 
 are by the genius of Virgil, still hallowed in our 
 hearts. — Posilipo and its myrtles, — Mergellina 
 and its roses — present associations purer than 
 the blood-stained triumphs of the Forum or the 
 astucious bigotry of the Vatican. It is in vain 
 that the eloquence of Cicero or grace of Raphael 
 interpose to rescue those fated sites from their 
 sentence of condemnation : — what are they 
 compared with the glorious bay, — the threaten- 
 ing mountain, — whose contrasted smiles and 
 frowns have outlived the cities of successive 
 ages, and are still bright with those heavenly 
 impulses wliose vigour is derived from the 
 eternal life- spring of the universe ! 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 73 
 
 The very population of the two cities appears 
 to take its colouring from their opposite nature. 
 The modern Romans are leaden, saturnine, pom- 
 pous, dispirited, — soulless denizens of a City 
 of the Dead ; the Neapolitans, all fire and irri- 
 tability, — dozing away half the day in the shade, 
 but seen throughout the other half dancing 
 gaily, almost franticly, in the sunshine, — voci- 
 ferating and gesticulating with an excitability 
 of nerve which announces that their blood is 
 lava, and the clay wherewith they are fashioned 
 the burning soil of the Solfatara. 
 
 Yet milder influences are not wanting, 
 
 *^ Cours, — vole a Naples F' cried Jean Jacques 
 
 to the lovers of music; — and to the lovers of 
 
 loveliness, we should still say, " fly to Naples !" 
 
 Fly thither to thaw the numbness induced by 
 
 the stagnant atmosphere of Rome ; fly thither 
 
 to revel in a climate 
 
 able to cure all sadness but despair! — 
 Even the sedate Sir William Helmsley 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
74 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 was for some days overpowered by the in- 
 fluence of the place. It was long since he 
 had felt so accessible to the charms of nature, 
 or so little inclined to recede from the 
 contact of society; and it was rather as a 
 matter of precaution than of inclination, that 
 he repeated to Mr. Wroughton his determina- 
 tion to submit no further than was indispens- 
 able to the importunities of the English co- 
 teries established at Naples. 
 
 As if an unencumbered man, with an unen- 
 cumbered estate, had any right to the disposal 
 of his own time and convenience ! — The secre- 
 tary^ of legation. Sir Raymond Horton, had 
 been Sir William's chum at Eton ; and various 
 English families, settled there for the winter, 
 had divers degrees of right and title to his 
 civility. The mere arrival of two gentlemanly 
 young Englishmen, of whom one was known to 
 be a bachelor, and the other a widower, had 
 caused the mammas to glance with satisfaction 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. ^5 
 
 at their daughters. The elderly gentlemen 
 trusted the new comers might prove whisters ; 
 the younger ones that they might prove bidders 
 for their horses^ or backers for their bets. The 
 ambassador. Lord Portumna, with whom Ge- 
 rald Wroughton was already acquainted, was 
 prompt in his civilities; and in the course of 
 the first week, every one possessing the smallest 
 pretensions to their acquaintance, left cards for 
 Wroughton and his brother-in-law. 
 
 Of all these visitors, the most welcome to the 
 former, was his old friend, Dr. Moorsom. 
 
 " You see you have tempted me again to 
 Naples, my dear doctor !'^ cried Gerald, receiv- 
 ing him with a hearty shake of the hand. " It 
 is almost worth while to pass a few years in 
 getting sick and sorry in England, for the 
 delight of returning to this blessed blue sky 
 and lightsome climate.'' 
 
 No symptoms in your countenance at least 
 E 2 
 
 (( 
 
76 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLUr 
 
 of any need for the move/' cried Dr. Moorsom, 
 cheerfully. " Never saw you looking better l 
 But I am too fond of this maccaroni- stewing 
 town myself^ to be surprised that others find 
 attraction here. Why even 1, scrub as I am, 
 instead of nailing myself down in England, 
 as I ought, to conquer an independence, must 
 needs come sneaking back to the Chiaja for 
 a peep at the dark blue seas, every time T can 
 manage to cut across Europe per favour of 
 other people's post-horses/' 
 
 " I saw by the papers you were here, which 
 was one of my inducements to the journey. 
 You are with the St. Pauls, I think ?" 
 
 '^ Do you know them ?" 
 
 " No.'' 
 
 " Then you must !— Inoffensive people ! — Ma- 
 dame (my patient), a fine lady, but expiring by 
 inches of an excruciating malady — " 
 
 " Poor woman !" interrupted Helmsley, in a 
 tone of concern — " 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 77 
 
 «c 
 
 A malady beyond reach of the healing art/^ 
 continued the doctor; — ^^ namely, a whimsical 
 nature, and fifteen thousand a-year !^' 
 
 " You find Mrs. St. Paul as troublesome 
 a charge as you found me!'' said Gerald, 
 laughing. " But tell me who of my former 
 acquaintances remain in Naples.^' 
 
 " At the embassy, only Lord Portumna and 
 Sir Raymond. — The two attaches are new.^^ 
 
 " And an acquisition V — 
 
 " Alexis Bagot (the roue Lord Royston's 
 still more rom brother), is an open-hearted, 
 empty-headed young coxcomb, not worth a 
 guinea. Young Harford, the other, is a stupid, 
 self- conceited ass, worth nothing but his heir- 
 ship-apparent to one of the largest fortunes in 
 England. However, they add to the general 
 stock of amusement. Lord Portumna is still a 
 bachelor, and the most /e^e-giving and popular 
 of men.^^ 
 
78 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ^^ And Prince Guastalla }" 
 
 " On the look out for an English heiress, to 
 enable him to sweep the cobwebs out of his 
 fine old palace ; while his sister. Princess Stra- 
 dalla, is as assiduous as ever to any English lord 
 she fancies she can cajole into buying one of 
 her pictures/^ 
 
 " And what English have you ?'^ 
 
 " Lady Drummond, — the Actons, — Gell, and 
 a few other permanencies. For birds of passage, 
 we have a Sir James and Lady Darling, with a 
 whole tribe of Darhng Misses, come to be 
 continentalized out of the rust contracted in the 
 wolds of Yorkshire ; and a rich Mr. and Mrs. 
 Longman Tomkinson, who buy their way into 
 better society abroad than they can manage 
 at home. These are all who open their houses. 
 Let me see — no ! — though last, far greatest — 
 there are Lord Colebrooke and Lady Adelaide."*" 
 
 " Lord Colebrooke V cried Wroughton, 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 79 
 
 starting up. " I noticed his name in the Hotel 
 register in Geneva^ and fancied he was on his 
 return to England.^^ 
 
 ^^ No; they have been here these three 
 weeks.^^ 
 
 ^' Then it was certainly Lady Adelaide we 
 passed in one of the corridors of the Char- 
 treuse ! — Don^t you remember, Helmsley, see- 
 ing some people get into their carriage, and 
 our courier saying it was a Milor Anglais avec 
 sa demoiselle?'' — 
 
 " I was too much interested by the aspect of 
 the place to notice them/' answered Sir Wil- 
 liam. 
 
 " Then (pardon me) you pronounce your 
 own condemnation V cried the doctor, ab- 
 ruptly. " All the monasteries in Europe, 
 ruined or entire, are not worth a glimpse of 
 the noble face and form of Lady Adelaide de 
 VereP* 
 
80 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 (C 
 
 Still so enthusiastic, my dear Moorsom ?^' 
 said Gerald Wroughton, with a smile. 
 
 ^^ And why not ?" — rephed the doctor, " I 
 speak as a connoisseur rather than as a man. 
 My friend Bartolini once commissioned me (in 
 the interests of sculpture) to implore Lady 
 Adelaide to stand to him in the character of a 
 muse, for the benefit of his atteliers, or rather 
 for the benefit of the tribune ; for as sure as 
 fate, the grand duke would have purchased 
 such a chef d^oeuvre to form a pendant to 
 Canova's Venus.^^ 
 
 '^ And did not such an argument persuade 
 her V — inquired Wroughton. 
 
 ^^ Pho ! pho ! — you, who know Lady Ade- 
 laide, can you suppose her capable of doing 
 any thing she was asked ? — Her ladyship 
 would not hear of it. Mrs. St. Paul, 
 who is a little jealous of her triumphs, will 
 have it that her ladyship's pride revolted 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 81 
 
 against the idea of being hawked about 
 in plaster casts, on the trays of the image- 
 boys I'' 
 
 " Do you know Lady Adelaide ?'' — de- 
 manded Sir Wilham of his brother-in-law, hav- 
 ing waited till the caustic doctor finished his 
 sentence. 
 
 '' It were presumption to say yes ; it were 
 hypocrisy to say no/^ replied Gerald. " I saw 
 a good deal of Lord Colebrooke when I was 
 here before. Lady Adelaide noticed me as 
 much as a beautiful woman of four- and- twenty 
 ever notices a cubling squire in his non- 
 age .^^ 
 
 '^ It was to my connexion with Gerald, then/^ 
 thought Sir William, *^ that I was indebted for 
 the gracious advances of these people when I 
 met them in London !'^ 
 
 " But amid all this gossip and scandaV^ 
 exclaimed the doctor, " I am forgetting my 
 
 E 3 
 
82 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 errand, which was neither to feel your pulse nor 
 backbite our friends. I am the bearer of a 
 message from Mrs. St. Paul (St. Paul called 
 on you both yesterday, in proper form) to beg 
 you will dine with them to-day, without cere- 
 mony and in boots, that 1 may enjoy a long 
 talk with you.^' 
 
 Sir William drew up as Englishmen do, when 
 startled by a sudden invitation. 
 
 " Don^t refuse V said the doctor. " Tliey 
 are pleasant, well-meaning people, who will do 
 their best towards enlivening your stay at Na- 
 ples. Indeed I have half promised that you 
 will come.^^ 
 
 '' With all my heart," said Gerald. '^ Helms- 
 ley, you have no objection ? — " 
 
 " If Mr. and Mrs. St. Paul are real/i/ to be 
 alone, — '' hesitated Sir William. 
 
 " At six o^clock, then,'^ said Dr. Moorsom, 
 leaving the room, and caring more for the 
 
THE WOMAN OP THE WORLD. 83 
 
 acquiescence of his young friend than for the 
 pompous concession of Helmsley. 
 
 Alone with his brother-in-law, Sir Wil- 
 liam longed to question Gerald concerning 
 his intimacy with the Colebrookes, and as- 
 certain whether his previous silence concern- 
 ing them proceeded from accident or design. 
 It almost occurred to him to suspect young 
 Wroughton of duplicity in his avowed ignorance 
 of the sojourn of the family in Naples; and to 
 suppose it possible that his eagerness for a 
 winter in Italy, might originate in a desire to 
 renew his acquaintance with a person so irre- 
 sistible as Lady Adelaide de Vere. 
 
 But between two young men living together 
 on terms of the closest intimacy, certain re- 
 serves were kept up ; and Helmsley felt that 
 there would be indelicacy in forcing the con- 
 fidence of Wroughton on a point where he 
 might have motives for reserve. They were 
 
84 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 now about to be thrown into the society of 
 Lord Colebrooke and his daughter; and it 
 would be easy for Helmsley to make his ob- 
 servations and form conclusions of his own. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 85 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Succeeding hours his former fame destroy, 
 He who began a man — will end, a boy. 
 
 Ovid. 
 
 The St. Pauls were, as they had promised 
 to be, alone ; and the comfort and decency of a 
 good English establishment under the presi- 
 dency of an Englishwoman of elegant manners, 
 was an agreeable relief to the travellers, after 
 the roughness of Italian magnificence and the 
 discomfort of Italian inns. 
 
 Mr. St. Paul was a finical little man, who 
 lived only to endow with undue importance the 
 
86 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 nothingnesses of life : — Mrs. St. Paul a pretty 
 die-away little woman^ assigning importance to 
 little beyond her own convenience and sensa- 
 tions. St. Paul was overflomng with elegant 
 classicality, his wife with the jargon of valetu- 
 dinarianism ; but Dr. Moorsom^ by talking plain 
 sense for both, added the only charm that 
 might have been wanting to the best ap- 
 pointed dinner-table in Naples. 
 
 Sir Wilham Helmsley was of course fastened 
 upon by the host,^ — who delighted in the encoun- 
 ter of a scholarly Englishman, to whom he 
 could exhibit his erudition as a cicerone, — while 
 Gerald fell to the share of the lady ; and the 
 dessert was over, and the party re-installed in 
 the drawing-room, before she had displayed 
 half the extent of her ignorance, in a learned 
 exposition of the philosophy of the Homoeopa- 
 thic system. 
 
 Mrs. St. Paul was interrupted in her last 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 87 
 
 blunder by the entrance of her page with a 
 visiting-card. 
 
 "Do^ my dear doctor, come and decipher 
 these pencilled hieroglyphics for me/' said she, 
 taking it from the salver. 
 
 ^^ Can / be of any use V said Gerald — per- 
 ceiving that Moorsom was encumbered with 
 his cofFee-cup. 
 
 ^^ Thank you! — Dr. Moorsom is the only 
 person of my acquaintance who, having studied 
 in the pyramids, can make out Lady Adelaide 
 de Vere's handwriting. — Well, doctor, — what 
 does she say?" 
 
 " That, if you are alone, she will drink tea with 
 you. Lord Colebrooke dines with the king." 
 
 "Am I to send an answer?" — 
 
 ^^ My lady is at the door in her carriage, and 
 sent up her card," interposed the page. 
 
 " Then go down to her by all means, doctor. 
 
88 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 and say I shall be delighted to see her/^ — cried 
 Mrs. St. Paul, involuntarily adjusting her cap, 
 and shaking out the Valenciennes of her hand- 
 kerchief in anticipation of a female visitor. 
 
 ^^ I am enchanted that you account Helms- 
 ley and myself nothing, and announce your- 
 self alone/^ said Gerald, laughing ; " for I am 
 impatient to renew my acquaintance with Lady 
 Adelaide.^^ 
 
 Meanwhile, although Mr. St. Paul, disregard- 
 ing these frivolous interruptions, continued to 
 prose on to Sir William concerning the last 
 excavations at Pompeii, Helmsley could no 
 longer command his attention. He felt dis- 
 pleased. — He fancied — Heaven knows why, — 
 that Lady Adelaide's visit had been precon- 
 certed between her ladyship and Dr. Moorsom ; 
 that he and his brother-in-law had been ma- 
 noeuvred into dining with the St. Pauls, and 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 89 
 
 above all^ betrayed into coming in boots. 
 There was trickery, there was ill-usage in the 
 whole business ! — 
 
 Another minute, and steps being audible in 
 the adjoining room, Sir William rose from his 
 seat with the mechanical courtesy due to 
 the entrance of a female. But the folding 
 doors were not thrown open by the servants. 
 Dr. Moorsom re-entered unannounced, and 
 alone. 
 
 ''Well?'' demanded Mrs. St. Paul, as the 
 doctor unceremoniously traversed the saloon — 
 " What have you done with Lady Adelaide ?" 
 
 '' Sent her home again.^^ 
 
 " But I begged you to say we should be 
 delighted to see her ? — " 
 
 " And so I did, — adding only that you had 
 two English gentlemen with you. Lady Ade- 
 laide fancied she might be de trop" 
 
 " You surely did not give her ladyship reason 
 
90 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 to imagine her visit could be disagreeable to 
 us }" — cried Gerald, almost angrily. 
 
 ^^ My dear sir, — make yourself easy ! — I did 
 nothing that could compromise your gallantry. 
 I told her only that you were not prepared for 
 company; which perhaps reminded her that 
 she was en deshabille; for she immediately 
 ordered her carriage home again.^^ 
 
 " How Enghsh !" — cried Mrs. St. Paul, vexed 
 at her disappointment. — " So much as Lady 
 Adelaide has lived on the continent, not to 
 have laid aside the chain-mail of English for- 
 malities ?' — 
 
 "Would that of all her countrywomen one 
 could say the same \" thought the three single 
 men present. 
 
 " Our notions of politeness,'^ continued 
 Mrs. St. Paul, pettishly, " are all connected ^^dth 
 laced buttonholes, and our best bib -and- 
 tucker ! — We never fancv ourselves fine enousfh 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 91 
 
 to do honour to ourselves and our friends." — 
 Sir William^ who was still sufficiently English 
 to blush for his boots^ experienced a twinge of 
 conscience at the charge. Fortunately for his 
 confusion^ Dr. Moorsom engaged in defence of 
 Lady Adelaide. Of all earthly women^ he said, 
 she ought to be most indifferent to dress ; her 
 beauty being of an order beyond deriving 
 the shghtest advantage from such accessories. 
 ^^ Her attraction/^ observed the doctor, ^^ con- 
 sists in grace, ease, dignity, intelhgence. She 
 is charming in the simplest morning dress.^^ 
 
 ^^ And on horseback !" involuntarily added 
 Sir William, half apart. 
 
 ^^ True ! Nothing can be more perfect than 
 her seat on horseback !" — chimed in Mr. St. Paul. 
 ^^ She reminds me of an Amazon in an antique 
 bas - relief I once saw at Girgenti." While 
 Wroughton could not refrain from exclaiming 
 to Helmsley, " You have seen her, then ! — You 
 never told me that you had seen her ?'' 
 
92 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Sir William's scarcely -audible reply was 
 luckily overpowered by the vehemence of Mrs. 
 St. Paul ; who could not bear to hear even her 
 friend Lady Adelaide so unnecessarily over- 
 lauded at the moment of giving her oifence. 
 
 ^^ I do not say that she is not handsome and 
 clever/' cried the little beauty, raising her 
 voice three semitones above her valetudinarian- 
 key ; — ^^ I only maintain that she is a vast deal 
 too indifferent to the opinion of the world.'' 
 
 " The world indulges in such a world of 
 foolish opinions !" said Gerald, playfully. 
 
 ^^ Lady Adelaide thinks herself privileged to 
 say and do every thing she pleases !" — persisted 
 the lady. 
 
 " Because she pleases to say and do nothing 
 but what is pleasing !" vindicated the gentle- 
 man. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ! — /, for one, think the 
 independence of her manners any thing but 
 pleasing." 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 93 
 
 ^^ Yet they could not become more depre- 
 cating without hypocrisy/^ interposed Dr. 
 Moorsom. " Age is not to be measured by 
 years. Though scarcely five-and-twenty^ Lady 
 Adelaide has been at the head of her father's 
 house from the age of fourteen^ doing its 
 honours to all the royalty and nobility of 
 Europe. When Lord Colebrooke was ambas- 
 sador at the Hague^ I recollect his daughter 
 presiding over his fetes^ like a Heine de Seize 
 ans, or rather like the dueen of Faery in 
 person.^' 
 
 ^^ Yes, we all know that she is a woman of 
 the world V^ — cried Mrs. St. Paul, with a some- 
 what tremulous voice. " The spoiled child of 
 the cleverest man and greatest roue in Europe ! 
 Well ! — We shall see whether their united 
 cleverness achieves the object they have now 
 in view !" 
 
 " And what may that be ? — To outbkze 
 
94 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Vesuvius at the approaching carnival ?" in- 
 quired Gerald, with a smile. 
 
 " Outblaze ! — Oh dear, no. — Lady Adelaide 
 is superior to display. She only wants to catch 
 Lord Portumna.^^ 
 
 " My dear Louisa \" interposed St. Paul, who 
 was now turning over the pages of a volume of 
 Piranesi for the amusement of Sir William, 
 unconscious that his visitor's attention was 
 very differently occupied. 
 
 *^^ Is Lord Portumna a great partie?" inquired 
 Helmsley, addressing the question generally to 
 the circle. 
 
 " A man of broken fortune and broken 
 constitution, — first-rate abilities, and first-rate 
 fashion !'^ replied Dr. Moorsom. 
 
 " But by no means deeply read, — far from an 
 eminent scholar !" rejoined Mr. St. Paul. '^ A 
 well-bred man, certainly, and admirably fitted 
 for his vocation ; but one soon grows weary of 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 95 
 
 his society. One derives no information from 
 him." 
 
 " Admirably fitted indeed^ then^ for his 
 diplomatic vocation !" — cried Gerald. " I am 
 no longer surprised that Lord Colebrooke, 
 who, on the next change of ministry, is likely 
 to enter the cabinet, should estimate the value 
 of such a son-in-law !" 
 
 '^ Yes, one often hears that Lord Colebrooke 
 is likely to be made premier, or that he is 
 going to form a ministry," said Mrs. St. Paul, 
 still unforgiving ; '^ but, somehow or other, the 
 day never arrives." 
 
 " Shall I teU you why ?" demanded Dr. 
 Moorsom. ^^ Lady Adelaide has taken it into 
 her head that her father is not equal to the 
 fatigues of office ; and insisted on bringing him 
 abroad, a few months ago, as a plea for the 
 rejection of overtures of the most flattering 
 description." 
 
96 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " I suppose she cared more for Lord Por- 
 tumna than for Downing Street \" said Mrs. 
 St. Paul. 
 
 '^ She cared more for her father than either !" 
 cried the doctor. " Let us be just ! — Lady 
 Adelaide shall be ugly, if you please, — vain, if 
 you please, — frivolous, if you please — artificial, 
 if you please ; but she has given fatal and 
 irrefragable proof that she is the best daughter 
 in the world !" 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 97 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 L'univers, mon ami, ne pense point a toi ; 
 L'avenir encore moins ; conduis bien ton menage, 
 Divertis-toi, bois, dors, sois tranquille, sois sage. 
 
 Voltaire. 
 
 Sir William Helmsley did not easily 
 lose his susceptibility to the charm of the most 
 delightful climate and most vivacious city of 
 Europe. The din, — the movement, the many- 
 coloured complexions of Naples, had roused him 
 to a new sense of existence, — the elasticity 
 of the atmosphere soothed him to a more ex- 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
98 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 quisite; — ^he felt fuller of life and spirits than 
 he had fancied he should ever feel again. 
 
 The instincts of the scholar and artist were 
 called forth; and while Gerald was renewing 
 his intimacies with card-playing Duchesses 
 and medal-hunting prelates^ Helmsley was 
 sketching the picturesque spinstresses who ply 
 their distaffs on the Chiaja, or plucking a leaf 
 of laurel beside the tomb of Virgil. So rapidly 
 had the advanced season of their journey com- 
 pelled them to traverse Italy, that his attention 
 was not overwearied by the multiplicity of 
 sites and monuments which exhaust the sym- 
 pathy of more deliberate travellers: Florence, 
 Bologna, Rome, had done little more than 
 stimulate his curiosity for the admiration of 
 new wonders. He had none of the indifference 
 of those who, beholding in Naples only its 
 charms of site and classical association, pro- 
 nounce that it contains scarcely an object 
 deserving the attention of a dilettante. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 99 
 
 The two brothers tacitly agreed to be no 
 restraint on each other^s movements. For all 
 that was new to Helmsley, was stale and un- 
 profitable to Gerald ; all that was attractive in 
 
 the eyes of a young man of three-and-twenty, 
 was frivolous and vexatious to Sir William ; 
 and as Mr. St. Paul was only too happy in the 
 duties of ciceroneship, the few expeditions 
 where an experienced companion is an ad- 
 vantage, were undertaken by Helmsley under 
 his learned auspices. For the twenty-seventh 
 time in his Neapolitan life, St. Paul visited 
 Pompeii, in order to favour the Northampton- 
 shire baronet with his notes explanatory ; — 
 with theories of his own invention and facts the 
 
 invention of the hireling guides of the place. 
 
 On returning home, from one of these clas- 
 sical expeditions. Sir WiUiam learned from his 
 brother that he had been riding with Lord 
 Colebrook and his daughter on the Posilipo 
 
 F 2 
 
100 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 road, and had promised to join them that even- 
 ing in their box at St. Carlos. 
 
 " I met Moorsom, too ;" added Gerald^ " and 
 knowing that you were to be alone and that 
 the St. Pauls would not miss Pasta in the Semi- 
 ramide, persuaded him to come and spend the 
 evening with you." 
 
 ^^ Thank you !" — replied Sir William, with a 
 short dry cough. He could not help feeling 
 that his brother had all the advantages on his 
 side; — Rossini, Pasta, the cleverest man in 
 Europe, and Lady Adelaide De Vere, against 
 a doctor of physic and a cup of ill-brewed 
 Bohea. ! But Gerald, aware that Sir William 
 had not entered any place of public amusement 
 since the loss of his wife, fancied there would 
 be indelicacy in proposing to him a visit to 
 the opera. More than once, suggestions of 
 a similar nature had been received by Helrasley 
 with an outburst of wounded feeling ; and 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 101 
 
 there was no reason for supposing a moral 
 revolution to have been effected in his mind^ by 
 a fortnight's sojourn in Naples. 
 
 " I am sorry to be under the necessity of 
 excusing myself to Dr. Moorsom/' added Sir 
 William^ at length ; " but I must have this 
 evening to myself. I have only written a few 
 hurried lines to Emma since we arrived here ; 
 and unless I mark by somewhat more than a 
 word or two of thanks my gratitude for her 
 kind details concerning the children, I can- 
 not hope she will continue to favour me.^^ 
 
 " True ! — To-morrow is the day for the 
 courier/' observed Gerald, carelessly, on other 
 thoughts intent. ^^ I wiU leave word, then, 
 on my way, for Moorsom not to interrupt you. 
 Give my love to Emma and Aunt Margaret, 
 and tell them I will write next week.'^ 
 
 On returning that night from the opera, 
 Wroughton noticed in his brother-in-law's 
 
102 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 countenance^ an expression of pique. The 
 transition is a trying one from a crowded 
 theatre^ blazing with light and buzzing with 
 enthusiasm^ to the dull chamber at home, 
 where, by the light of two melancholy candles 
 or a solitary lamp, sits the studious, home- 
 staying friend. There should be great so- 
 briety on the part of the world -haunting 
 individual, or great natural cheerfulness on 
 that of the world-avoiding, to bring them 
 tolerably on a par. Unluckily, Sir William was 
 dispirited by the associations called up by his 
 letters to Wroughton Hall ; and Gerald elated, 
 as became his age, by the recent contact of 
 youth and beauty, wit and animation. He 
 entered the dull room with a smiling and glow- 
 ing face; and was about to expand into raptures 
 concerning Pasta and Lady Adelaide, when 
 he was checked by the cold taciturnity of 
 Helmsley. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 103 
 
 " This will not do ?' thought the good- 
 natured Wroughton^ retiring to rest. " I must 
 not allow this poor fellow's hypochondriacism 
 to become habitual. Lord Colebrooke is all 
 friendliness. I will ask the favour of him to call 
 here to-morrow, and include Sir William in the 
 invitation I have accepted to dine at the 
 Palazzo Balbi. There will be no possibility of 
 refusing, when asked in that sort of ofF-hand 
 viva voce manner. 
 
 The plan was successful . Lord Cole- 
 brooke seemed to enter fully into Gerald's 
 feeings and Sir William's repugnances ; and 
 performed his part in the little drama with so 
 much apparent naivete and real good breeding, 
 that " no/^ under any possible modification, 
 was unpronounceable. As he dressed for the 
 party, Helmsley satisfied his conscience for 
 the pleasure the prospect afforded him, by 
 assuring himself that his only object in the 
 
104 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 visit was to form some conclusion respecting 
 Lady Adelaide de Vere, as regarded the atten- 
 tions of young Wroughton. 
 
 Lord Colebrooke had said nothing of a 
 
 ^' party/^ because to him the crowds of society 
 were habitual; he would only have felt it 
 necessary to apologize, had there been but 
 himself and his daughter to assist his two 
 guests in bearing onwards on their shoulders 
 the burden of the passing time. Such was 
 not, such had never been, the tenour of his 
 existence. His father, a cabinet minister, — his 
 mother, an accredited beauty of the last reign, 
 — his lordship's youth had progressed from the 
 mobs of a fashionable season, to the Uvely 
 circles of Colebrooke Castle or Woodland's 
 Lodge, overflowing, from the close of the ses- 
 sion to its recommencement, with a succession of 
 illustrious guests. An occasional excursion to 
 the continent, that is to Spa or Baden, Paris 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 105 
 
 or Naples, filled up the measure of existence 
 both for the old lord and the new. They 
 were creatures of the community ; their notions 
 of domestic life consisted in the seclusion 
 which is surrounded by a score or two of ser- 
 vants, and a dozen or two of guests. 
 
 Such were, of course, the habits which Lady 
 Adelaide had witnessed from her birth. The 
 spoiled child of fashionable parents, she had 
 been brought up at her father's knee ; a play- 
 thing to wits out of season, and statesmen out 
 of place, — mimicking the airs of beauties, and 
 the grimaces of coquettes. From her earliest 
 age, she had heard things freely talked of 
 which, in less distinguished circles are discussed 
 only in a whisper. There was no pause for 
 the growth of delicate sentiments; no silence 
 for the development of gentle reflections. Like 
 foreigners of every class, English people of 
 fashion have a habit of wearing their hearts on 
 
 F 3 
 
106 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 their sleeve^ till they become hardened by ex- 
 posure ; and opening the budget of their 
 opinions for the advantage of all and sundry, 
 till not a charm of mind remains to be dedi- 
 cated pure and undefiled to the sacred sym- 
 pathy of a friend. 
 
 Of all this, Helmsley knew only that Lord 
 Colebrooke, as one of the early boon companions 
 of his uncle, shared in the worldliness of Lord 
 Shropshire's ways and sentiments. He was 
 aware also that Marcella had declined a 
 presentation to Lady Adelaide; but nothing 
 wherefore. The Colebrookes were confessedly 
 continentalized in their modes of life ; and his 
 departed angel might perhaps have dreaded 
 to expose to such contact, the almost cloistral 
 sanctity of her opinions. But though Mar- 
 cella was a being apart from her sex, and high 
 above competition, Lady Adelaide might have 
 claims to an average portion of its excellences. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 107 
 
 She might be as good as the generality of 
 women; nay, might be a very charming wo- 
 man, and still remain immeasurably below his 
 standard of perfection. 
 
 Such were his cogitations on his way to the 
 stately apartments of the Palazzo Balbi in the 
 Largo di Castello, inhabited by the earl; but 
 when, the doors of the saloon being thrown 
 open, the buzz and laughter of a crowded room 
 burst upon the startled ear so long habituated to 
 seclusion, Helmsley felt himself betrayed into 
 a pit-fall. The party, as parties generally are, 
 became hushed into the silence of examination, 
 while Sir William was going through his com- 
 pliments to Lord Colebrooke, and presentation 
 to Lord Colebrooke^s daughter ; and a single 
 glance round the room showed that the circle 
 was composed of strange faces. He had hoped 
 to meet his friend Sir Raymond Horton ; but 
 not a creature present had poor Helmsley ever 
 beheld before. 
 
108 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Of Gerald, indeed, they were mostly old 
 acquaintances ; and as Mr. Wroughton quietly 
 glided round the circle with a bow to one, a 
 shake of the hand with another, and a finger 
 extended to a third, in answer to their " How 
 are you?^^ or ^' Comment ga vaV he felt almost 
 envious of the ease and popularity of his bro- 
 ther-in-law. But neither before, nor at, nor 
 after dinner, did Gerald address more than a 
 profound bow to Lady Adelaide de Vere, who 
 was the only lady of the party ; nor did it need 
 a star and green ribbon to acquaint Sir Wil- 
 liam that the somewhat faded looking man who 
 occupied the nearest station to her chair, was 
 no other than Lord Portumna. This accounted 
 for his friend, Sir Raymond^s absence. Excel- 
 lencies seldom like to be kept in check by the 
 presence of their perpetual blister or secretary 
 of legation. 
 
 The dinner was good, the party agreeable. 
 An incessant chatter of conversation was kept 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 109 
 
 up, overpowering to the saturnine Englishness 
 of Sir William's nature; and the vehement 
 gesticulation and grotesque play of countenance 
 of four or five Italians among the guests, 
 struck him as the grimace of mountebanks : 
 — his Great British composure, being still un- 
 prepared for the ardour of " souls made of 
 fire and children of the sun." 
 
 He was surprised to observe the eagerness 
 with which Wroughton entered into discussion 
 with these people, on trifling points of general 
 interest in society, but of no account to those 
 who weigh and measure the trivialities of life 
 with a too mathematical precision. But pre- 
 sently, amid the discordant jar of a dozen male 
 voices, his ear was struck by the silvery accents 
 of a female ; and, one by one, all became silent 
 to attend to the singularly-musical enunciation 
 of Lady Adelaide. She spoke French, as the 
 language generally familiar to her guests ; and 
 
110 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of music, as the topic universally acceptable ; 
 and Helmsley was forced to admit that it was 
 impossible to talk better, with less pretension, 
 or more judgment. She seemed to understand 
 the science as thoroughly as she felt the charm 
 of ^^ the only sensual pleasure without vice ','' 
 her very voice and intonation being formed 
 by nature to discourse eloquent music about 
 music. 
 
 '^ Were she in the wrong, I should fancy her 
 right, while she delivered herself so gracefully V 
 observed Prince Ottavio Sforza, who sat beside 
 Sir Wilham and noticed the approving ex- 
 pression of his countenance. " But she is right, 
 — logically and practically right ; your country- 
 woman, sir, is the finest musician in all Italy." 
 
 Lord Portumna was the only person who 
 ventured to oppose the theories propounded 
 by Lady Adelaide ; not by argument, but by 
 the most caustic and polished irony. Scorning 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. Ill 
 
 to admit the ascendancy of either reason or 
 sentiment, he attacked his fair friend with 
 playful witticisms incomprehensible to his 
 Italian auditors, and evoking only the applause 
 of Mr. Harford, the chief duty of whose diplo- 
 matic vocation as junior attache consisted in 
 furnishing an echo to his chef. Helmsley was 
 delighted with the mildness and temper with 
 which Lady Adelaide, unmoved by these idle 
 tokens of her defeat, tried to convince, as long 
 as there appeared a gleam of candour in Lord 
 Portumna; and became patiently silent, the 
 moment she found her efforts parried by buf- 
 foonery. Her very mode of diverting the con- 
 versation into another channel, was a triumph 
 of good breeding ; and Sir William felt that he 
 had never beheld an Englishwoman whose 
 manners were so perfectly conciliating. 
 
 For on that point. Englishwomen must 
 be allowed to fail. They are too much the 
 
112 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 creatures of impulse and too little of actresses, to 
 subdue their movements to the happy medium 
 of good taste. They are either shy, and attempt 
 
 to conceal it under reserve and hauteur ; or apt 
 through excessive vivacity to degenerate into 
 abruptness. With rare exceptions, their ad- 
 dress is destitute of grace ; and their intended 
 civilities might often be mistaken for an afiront. 
 But in Lord Colebrooke^s daughter, all appeared 
 spontaneous as it was ingratiating. If there 
 were art in the business, she had art enough 
 to conceal it. 
 
 The whole party moved together to the 
 drawing-room to take coflPee ; and after it was 
 served. Sir William was vexed to perceive that 
 nothing remained but to make a parting bow. 
 He had intended to draw nearer to the enchant- 
 ress, and hazard an attempt towards the im- 
 provement of his acquaintance with Lord Cole- 
 brooke. But the party was already broken up ; 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 113 
 
 each was hastening to his evening's amusement. 
 Helmsley had dedined the proposition of 
 Prince Ottavio to present him at the conver- 
 sazione of his sister^ the Duchess d'Asti, where 
 he now found that Gerald and the majority of 
 his companions were proceeding ; and arrived 
 at home, — at his dull solitary home, — he had 
 nothing to occupy him but the consciousness 
 of having been a dead letter in a brilliant 
 society ; — and the certainty that he should be 
 set down by the Colebrookes as a dull, silent, 
 impracticable Englishman, — not worth the 
 trouble of a second attempt to include in the 
 gay and enlightened circle of their hospitality. 
 ^^ After all," — mused the country baronet, 
 trying to justify to himself the failing of which 
 he was only too painfully conscious, — '^ is it 
 worth while to unfold one^s opinions and senti- 
 ments, for the amusement of a set of people one 
 sees for the first time, and may never behold 
 
114 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 again ? — Certainly not ! It is necessary to me to 
 entertain some esteem for a man, before I admit 
 him into my confidence/^ 
 
 Sir William did not perceive that certain 
 qualifications must pre-exist to render a man 
 agreeable in society ; either that want of sym- 
 pathy with any particular person which produces 
 a congeniality of feeling with all the world ; or 
 that warm sympathy with a particular person, 
 inducing a desire to shine in their eyes by 
 universal popularity. Neither of these causes 
 at present stirred him out of his habitual apathy. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 115 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Corsaires a corsaires, 
 
 L'un I'autre s'attaquant, ne font pas leurs affaires. 
 
 La Fontaine. 
 
 The following morning when he entered the 
 breakfast-room, a fashionable looking young 
 EngHshman was sitting with Gerald, whom 
 nothing but Wroughton's introduction as '^ Mr. 
 Bagot," could have induced Helmsley to sup- 
 pose a new acquaintance formed at the party 
 of the preceding night. Since their arrival, 
 Alexis the Great had been on a par tie de chasse 
 with Prince Guastalla, in Calabria ; but he was 
 
116 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 evidently disposed to make up for lost time in 
 improving an intimacy with the new-comers. 
 
 " How do you mean to amuse yourself 
 through the winter ?" he inquired of Wrough- 
 ton, as soon as the ceremonies of introduction 
 to his brother-in-law were concluded. ^'You 
 were here two years ago, I think ? — There was 
 a better set of people, then. At present (with 
 the exception of Lady Wycombe and her 
 cUque), I never saw worse company \" 
 
 ^^I do not know Lady Wycombe/^ said 
 Wroughton, carelessly. 
 
 "Not knoio Lady Wycombe? — Why, my dear 
 fellow, where the deuce — a— a — a — I mean 'tis 
 an unlucky thing that you should not ; for it 
 is her rule to make no English acquaintances 
 on the continent. And after aU it is a highly 
 necessary regulation ; — for every EngUsh person 
 in a certain set has the entrte of her house in 
 London.^' 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. Il7 
 
 " A proof that I do not belong to what you 
 call a certain set. T told you last night/^ said 
 Gerald, laughing, '^ that I was but a country 
 squire V' 
 
 " Yes, yes. — But no one intends to remain a 
 country squire. You don^t suppose that I mean 
 to live and die a dirty attache, copying lordly 
 crinkum-crankum into legible text, and com- 
 pressing circumbendibus periods into intelli- 
 gible English ? — Have you been presented to 
 Madame de Hardenstein, the Austrian ambas- 
 sadress ?" 
 
 " No.'' 
 
 '' Nor to the charming Madame de la Chu- 
 chotterie V^ 
 
 '^ The French ambassadress ? — No.'' 
 
 " Why, my dear fellow, where have you — 
 a — a— a — with whom then are you faujile in 
 Naples ?"— 
 
 " With your friend Guastalla — with Ottavio 
 Sforza— with the Duchess d'Asti." 
 
118 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ^^ But no English ? — so much the better/' 
 
 ^^ We dined the other day with the St. Pauls/' 
 said Sir William, manfully, not choosing to 
 eat his cutlet in utter silence. 
 
 " The St. Pauls ?— Oh ! my God !''— cried 
 Bagot, with an air of ineffable disgust : " What 
 could induce you to confront the vapour of 
 that woman's ether, or the weight of that 
 fellow's pedantry? — But I forgot — you have 
 your apology! — St. Paul's chef is really one of 
 the first artistes in Naples, and for the sake of 
 his entrees one may put up with those of his 
 fortunate owners ; particularly if you manage to 
 sit next old Moorsom, who is a capital fellow ; 
 — helps one's digestion like a glass of crusty 
 port!- — I have the greatest regard for Moorsom. 
 — Whereabouts have you got your box ?" 
 
 Sir William did not exactly comprehend the 
 transition. 
 
 " We have none,'" replied Gerald. " Sir 
 WiUiam is not particularly fond of music, or 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 119 
 
 I should have indulged myself. I must look 
 out for a stall.^^ 
 
 ^^ Do not let my disinclination be any 
 obstacle^^^ said Helmsley, making a desperate 
 effort. " I do not intend to miss Pasta while 
 I am here. I shall be happy to join you in- 
 a box.^^ 
 
 ^^ Then I recommend you to engage the 
 one next Colebrooke^s, which was bespoken for 
 Lady Mary Mitchell, who has made up her 
 mind to pass the winter at Home. Shall I 
 speak to Tavarini for you ? — I believe it is still 
 to be had. I wanted Portumna to take it. 
 But when bachelor ambassadors come to his 
 lordship^s wiggy time of life, they do not like 
 to bring their attaches into contact with their 
 courtships.^^ 
 
 '^ Lord Portumna, then, is really papng his 
 addresses to Lady Adelaide de Vere V— de- 
 manded Sir William, fancying Gerald might 
 not like to push the inquiry. 
 
120 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 (( 
 
 Paying his addresses ?'^ — exclaimed Alexis 
 Bagot^ throwing down the stand of arms he had 
 been making on the breakfast-table with its 
 supernumerary spoons and forks. " Paying ! 
 — How I hate that expression I — It reminds 
 one of every thing that is detestable ; — debt 
 — visits — grudges — " 
 
 ^' Would you have had me inquire whether 
 he was making love to her ladyship }'' — cried 
 Gerald banteringly, half afraid that Helms- 
 ley might not take such coarse pleasantry in 
 good part. 
 
 ^^ Making love to Lady Adelaide de Vere I — 
 As if the love of such women was not to be 
 had ready made ! '^ 
 
 ^^ Lady Adelaide is a great favourite of mine ; 
 I have a sincere regard for her^" said Wrough- 
 ton, more gravely. 
 
 " So have I ! — I am in love with her myself 
 for a day or two, every time we meet after 
 a year's absence. But as to feeling respect for 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 121 
 
 a woman who — but no matter ! — I did not come 
 hither to talk scandal ; but to inquire, in Lord 
 Portumna^s name, when you intend to be pre- 
 sented ?" 
 
 " I have been presented. I shall go to court 
 on Monday next ; — and if I can prevail on 
 Helmsley to — '^ 
 
 '^ I had just despatched a note on the subject 
 to Lord Portumna/^ said Sir WiUiam, calmly ; 
 and while he proceeded to make his arrangements 
 with the nonchalant attache, Gerald indulged in 
 silent wonder at the change which a couple of 
 days had effected in the views of his brother- 
 in-law. It was not for him, however, to check 
 so happy a transformation by any token of sur- 
 prise. Pleased that his winter was likely to be 
 a pleasanter one than he had anticipated. He 
 resolved to make all haste to secure the box at 
 St. Carlos, and get the name of Sir William in- 
 cluded in his invitations. 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
122 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 The opera-box^ however, was disposed of; — 
 Mrs. Longman Tompkinson, attracted by the 
 prospect of a station next to the most fashion- 
 able woman in Naples, had secured it at a high 
 premium. Nor did Gerald regret the loss. 
 Another was easily obtained, from which his 
 own visits to Lady Adelaide were less imme- 
 diately under the inspection of his grave bro- 
 ther-in-law. If Portumna dreaded the approxi- 
 mation of his attache's jetty curls, Wroughton 
 might not have been altogether easy under the 
 inquiring eye of Helmsley. 
 
 Meanwhile Sir William — his deputy lieu- 
 tenant's uniform duly prepared, his horses 
 properly appointed, and his various introduc- 
 tions effected, — was surprised to find that, after 
 the first effort of a launch, his course over the 
 untroubled waters of pleasure was a smooth 
 one. Nothing is more amazing to little people 
 than the discovery of their own insignificance. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 123 
 
 So long accustomed in Northamptonshire to 
 find his comings and goings^ — his finger-aches 
 
 and heart-aches^ — a matter of moment to the 
 infinitesimal sphere of a country neighbour- 
 hood, it surprised him to observe that not a 
 soul in Naples was surprised at his return to 
 the social world. After the first mortification, 
 he began to congratulate himself on the fact; 
 and to feel that independence is sometimes 
 prefeiable to dignity. Dr. Moorsom, indeed, 
 clapped him somewhat roughly on the shoulder 
 while congratulating him on his amended health 
 and spirits ; but not another creature, not even 
 the minutious Mr. St. Paul, noticed that he had 
 ever held back from company and was now 
 among the foremost in the vortex. 
 
 The carnival was beginning. There were balls, 
 royal, diplomatic, foreign, or English, every 
 night, and even some mornings of the week ; in 
 spite of which, St. Carlos, the Accademia, anda 
 
 g2 
 
124 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 variety of weekly conversazioni, held on the 
 monotonous tenour of their way. Not a 
 moment^s leisure for recoil or reflection ! — All 
 was mirth, gaiety, music, feasting, dancing. — 
 Helmsley and his brother-in-law rarely enjoyed 
 more than an hour's tete-a-tete. 
 
 That lovely queen of Naples, now departed, 
 forgotten, and replaced, was then in the zenith 
 of her beauty and popularity ; and among the 
 foreign ladies especially favoured by her notice, 
 were Lady Wycombe and Lady Adelaide de 
 Vere. But it was only when sunning them- 
 selves in the royal smile, that they suffered 
 themselves to be brought into contact. There 
 was war, not ouverte but converte, between the 
 fair countrywomen : — Lady Wycombe being a 
 strictly English Englishwoman of fashion, 
 armed to the teeth with the exceptiousness 
 and high-tory exclusivism of London Dnrch- 
 lauchtigkeit ; Lady Adelaide, a continentalized 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 125 
 
 Englishwoman of fashion^ rigid in her prin- 
 ciples of taste and toilet, but lax in the 
 punctilio and etiquette of minor morals. 
 Lady Adelaide chose to associate with any one 
 who pleased her ; Lady Wycombe scorned to 
 be pleased by any one not legitimately privi- 
 leged to be pleasing. 
 
 The two ladies, young handsome and inde- 
 pendent, might perhaps have enjoyed their 
 mutual detestation undisturbed, till for want 
 of opposition it exhausted itself to extinction, 
 but for the efforts of the idle and frivolous by 
 whom they were surrounded. Not the Italians ; 
 — the Italians are too indolent to trouble 
 themselves with fomenting other people^s 
 discords; more especially the Neapolitans, 
 who, steeped in the sensual enjoyment of the 
 most delicious of climates, have no genius for 
 tracasserie. But the English, wherever they 
 colonize, beget factions. The women more 
 
126 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 especially, delight in a petty feud : and the 
 first -thing sure to be confided to one on joining 
 a society of fellow-country people on the conti- 
 nent, is a tale of scandal or a disreputable 
 accusation. 
 
 There was, in the first place, Mrs. St. Paul ; 
 who, like the bat in the fable, fought alternately 
 on both sides ; and occupied her idle morn- 
 ings in cariying from one party to the other, 
 hints, sneers, and misrepresentations ; with all 
 her little douilletterie of a valetudinarian and 
 scarcely audible voice, continuing to deal 
 sledge-hammer blows upon the self-love of 
 both her bosom friends. 
 
 Then came Mrs. Longman Tompkinson, 
 conscious that the most golden of her gold 
 would be insufficient to gild over in the sight 
 of the high and mighty countess, the looms 
 rom which Mr. Longman Tompkinson of 
 Stoke Park, derived his mansions in Bucking- 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 12? 
 
 hamshire and Carlton Terrace, his plate, equi- 
 pages, parliamentary interest and promise of a 
 baronetcy : but trusting that the excellence of 
 her professional concerts might bribe the pre- 
 sence of the dilettante Colebrookes, and the 
 glitter of her diamonds procure an invitation 
 in return. In Mrs. Longman Tompkinson, 
 therefore, Lady Adelaide had the most vehe- 
 ment of partisans; — flying from house to 
 house in a frenzy of enthusiasm for her wit, 
 beauty, and accomplishments; and returning to 
 deposit at the feet of her lovely patroness, the 
 bouquet of nettles she had gathered for her in 
 the shape of a thousand traits of Lady Wy- 
 combe^s animosity. 
 
 The Darlings, with five daughters to marry, 
 judiciously adhered to the Wycombe cause, as 
 the safer side of the question. For Lady 
 Wycombe was a woman congealed in the 
 hardest frost of virtue ; and there was a suffi- 
 
128 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 cient certificate of moral excellence conveyed 
 in the formal curtsey with which the countess 
 honoured the family in society, to render them 
 stanch in their opposition to the flighty Lady 
 Adelaide de Vere. Since the arrival of Helms- 
 ley and Wroughton, indeed, poor Lady Darling 
 half repented her demonstrations in favour of 
 the enemy; wisely remarking to a singularly 
 coincident husband, ^^ that people have no 
 business to indulge in dislikes or partialities 
 who have a family to provide for/' 
 
 The society of Naples, meanwhile, found its 
 account in the feminine feud. Lady Wycombe, 
 well instructed by London experience that 
 popularity will not flourish except upon a diet 
 of ices and lemonade, gave weekly soirtes dan- 
 sautes of considerable brillianc)^ But balls are 
 things of every-day occurrence during the 
 carnival ; and Lady Adelaide contrived, after 
 the first two or three, to give the tone to a 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 129 
 
 general disgust for the heat^ noise, and fatigue 
 of such entertainments, as a prelude to the 
 exquisite weekly concerts which Lord Portumna 
 was commencing on Lady Wycombe^s nights 
 at the Embassy. 
 
 Let a private individual, whatever his rank, 
 lavish his utmost cost and care, he will never 
 succeed in producing any thing equal to a 
 diplomatic fete. It becomes as much a matter 
 of business as of pleasure, to crowd to the 
 saloons of the ambassador of one of the higher 
 powers ; and when the king and queen, as a 
 matter of foreign policy, honoured one of the 
 musical assemblies of Lord Portumna with 
 their presence accompanied by the whole court, 
 (and just then all Naples was a courtier), the 
 triumph of the Portumna party was complete. 
 The temper of no woman of fashion, is proof 
 against such a catastrophe. There remained but 
 one resource. Lady Wycombe whispered to her 
 
 G 3 
 
130 THE WOMAN OP THE WORLD. 
 
 intimates, that she only hoped Lord Por- 
 tumna would marry poor Lady Adelaide de 
 Vere ! — But even that usually successful hint, 
 fell innocuous ; even the conscientious Darlings, 
 though they started at the imphcation, observed 
 that however things might be, it was the duty 
 of the English in a foreign country to attend 
 the fetes of their ambassador. 
 
 In vain did her ladyship condescend to the 
 most pitiful resources. She would have visited, 
 nay, have honoured with her countenance at 
 dinner, the Longman Tompkinsons, for the sake 
 of bribing away an adherent of her rival. But 
 the Longman Tompkinsons stood stanchly by 
 the visited of royalty. 
 
 The countess, at length, stooped to conquer 
 by despatching an invitation to her soiree dans- 
 antes, through Alexis Bagot, to Sir William 
 Helmsley and Wroughton. 
 
 " My dear fellow, T cannot think of accept- 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 131 
 
 ing it/^ replied Gerald. " I had not the honour 
 of visiting Lady Wycombe in London ; 1 can- 
 not presume to make her acquaintance on the 
 continent.^^ 
 
 " But do you not see that the card is in her 
 own handwriting ? — It was quite a goodnatured 
 idea of her own. Seeing you so often with the 
 St. Pauls, she was afraid you would die no 
 other death than that of the bored. Those 
 people are so densely dull and commonplace — 
 si extraordinairement ordinaire P' 
 
 " A thousand thanks !" persisted Gerald. 
 " I am not a dancer, even in chilly England 
 where one's blood requires to be circulated by 
 exercise^ and Naples is the last place under 
 the sun or moon, where it appears advisable to 
 increase the labours of life. Perhaps Helmsley 
 will go. — Sir William, what answer to Lady 
 Wycombe V 
 
 ^' That I am engaged to Lord Portumna,^^ 
 
1.32 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 answered Helmsley, a faint streak colouring his 
 cheek. And Gerald was deeply gratified by 
 this tacit declaration for Lady Adelaide ; whom 
 he sometimes feared was less a favourite than 
 he could wish with his brother-in-law. 
 
 Never, however, had she appeared to greater 
 advantage than since her exposure to the ani- 
 mosities of Lady Wycombe. Lady Adelaide 
 had either the best temper or the best com- 
 mand of temper in the world. It did not 
 appear in her nature to raise her voice, or in- 
 dulge in an angry retort. She smiled at the 
 bitter anecdotes related by the Longman Tomp- 
 kinson, or replied by a brilliant glance of irony 
 to the scarcely - concealed impertinences of 
 Bagot ; but Talleyrand himself could not have 
 encountered the furious provocations of Lady 
 Wycombe with a more steady impassibility. 
 She neither chose to hear, see, nor understand 
 the manoeuvres of which she was the o])ject. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 133 
 
 Her mild courtesies towards her infuriated 
 rival when they were thrown together in the 
 narrow circle of the queen, might have sufficed 
 to drive to distraction a more patient personage 
 than the high-tory English countess. 
 
134 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 \ ' 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 On rit, on rit ! — C'est une maniere de pleurer. — C'est 
 pour s'etourdir. 
 
 De Lesser. 
 
 One night, as Sir William sat enjoying the 
 rare pleasure of solitude in his opera-box, which 
 was usually crowded with the ItaUan friends of 
 Wroughton, he was startled from his reverie by 
 the sudden entrance of Sir Raymond Horton ; 
 of whom, considering their previous acquaint- 
 ance, he had seen but little during his sojourn 
 in Naples. Sir Raymond, the most efficient 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 135 
 
 man attached to the mission, was not often to 
 be met with in society. His only liaison was 
 with the family of the Duchess d^Ascoli, the 
 favourite of the queen, and supposed to be of 
 a political rather than a personal nature. For 
 if it be the wisdom of the ambassador to stand 
 well with the cabinet at home, it is the business 
 of a secretary of legation to make for himself 
 an opening into the mysteries of the land, 
 through the favour of its powers that be. 
 
 " Any news V^ — demanded Horton, after the 
 usual form of inquiry of public men, who are 
 the first to know every thing and the first to 
 protest ignorance. 
 
 ^' Nothing that I am aware of. — Wroughton 
 dined with Prince Guastalla, and I have not 
 seen him since .^^ 
 
 Sir Raymond was not listening for a reply. 
 His glass was fixed upon the opposite box 
 of Lord Colebrooke ; in which, as usual, sat 
 
136 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Lady Adelaide, accompanied by the pur- 
 blind, stone-deaf Neapolitan Countess Diodata 
 Porro; and stood Lord Portumna, unaccom* 
 panied. 
 
 Helmsley, seeing the attention of his com- 
 panion thus engrossed, turned his attention to 
 the stage, — the crocchio ristretto of the house 
 becoming at that moment hushed to listen to 
 the touching mad scene of Pasta, in Anna 
 
 Bolena; when suddenly, in the midst of one of 
 the most thrilling passages. Sir Horton quietly 
 demanded of him, — "Pray what is the rent-roll 
 of Mr. Wroughton ?" — 
 
 ^' Are you charged by some Italian beauty 
 with proposals for his hand ? ^^ — demanded 
 Helmsley in his turn, on recovering from his 
 first amazement. 
 
 " No, — my inquiry regards his own in- 
 terests.^^ 
 
 ^^ Perhaps you are going to oifer him yours 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 137 
 
 with the foreign office^ to get him appointed 
 attache here ?" — inquired Helmsley, unable to 
 consider the matter in a serious point of view. 
 
 '^ Still less. I am far from wanting a third 
 sub, whose business would fall upon my shoul- 
 ders. Harford is too rich to work,— Bagot too 
 fine. — Young Wroughton would probably be 
 too much in love.'^ 
 
 '^ In love ! — You asked me just now for 
 news, my dear Sir Raymond ; and it seems I 
 have much to learn from yourself."*' 
 
 " You do not mean to say that, living in 
 intimate confidence with Wroughton, you are 
 ignorant of his passion for Lady Adelaide de 
 Vere ?"— 
 
 Sir WilHam paused ere he ventured to reply. 
 It had all but escaped his lips that men living 
 in intimate friendship together, often know 
 least of each other^s affections. But he felt 
 that the remark might savour of self- accusation. 
 
138 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " Gerald has never admitted to me any attach- 
 ment to Lord Colebrooke's daughter/^ was his 
 tardy reply. 
 
 " But you know it^ — you see it, — you cannot 
 possibly be blind to it. — TherCy look ! — He has 
 just come into the box. Observe with what 
 ardour he addresses her ; — see how consciously 
 she receives him.^^ 
 
 ^^ But Lord Portumna, you perceive, remains, 
 — shows no empressement, — and is treated with 
 perfect sangfroid; — and he also has the reputa- 
 tion of being attached to the lady.^^ 
 
 Sir Raymond shook his head. ^' You are 
 not so well acquainted as I am with the dessoits 
 des cartes,^' said he. ^^ Accompany me half an 
 hour hence to the coulisses ; and you will see 
 Portumna the centre of a group of the houris 
 of that lawless paradise, yet wearing the same 
 insouciant air. The Venus de Medicis, endowed 
 with the wit of Madame de Sevigne, would not 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 139 
 
 rouse him from the well-bred apathy created 
 by having been for twenty years an object of 
 courtship. Portumna's irregularities are so 
 soberly performed, that he is no subject for 
 comparison with an honest, warm-hearted young 
 man Hke Wroughton/^ 
 
 " Thank you ! — He is all you say, and more. 
 Gerald is a sterHng fellow ; and, since I needs 
 must add it for your satisfaction, has an unen- 
 cumbered estate in Northamptonshire of six 
 thousand a year.^^ 
 
 " Six thousand ! — A comfortable independ- 
 ence ; but scarcely enough, I think, to place 
 him in danger. His income would render him 
 a deuced bad attache ; but scarcely a better 
 husband for Lady Adelaide de Vere.^' 
 
 ^^ If he were sufficiently attached to make 
 the offer," said Helmsley, doubtingly. 
 
 " IJ ! — It depends far more on his rent-roll 
 than his passion. With fifteen thousand, 
 
140 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Wroughton would be a lost man. Lady 
 Adelaide would make him quite sufficiently in 
 love, any day it suited her purpose. She is 
 the sort of woman whom no living man could 
 resist, at whose head she chose to throw her- 
 self.'^ 
 
 " More dangerous, then, than I thought her. 
 But since her spells are so potent, why does 
 she not at once secure Lord Portumna ?" 
 
 ^^ Secure him? — Her object is to get rid of 
 him! — Portumna^s income amounts to little 
 more than the interest of his debts ; a charming 
 person, I grant you, and with a fine position in 
 society, but wholly unable to lose himself in 
 matrimony. He must calculate to a guinea the 
 value of his coronet, and try to get double the 
 money for it, from a city heiress. But it is not 
 of Portumna I am thinking. Son excellence is 
 old enough and knowing enough to take care of 
 himself; while Wroughton, or I am much mis- 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 141 
 
 taken, is young of liis three- and- twenty years^ 
 and wholly at the mercy of a beautiful face 
 with an ingratiating smile. It is for this I 
 warn you ! — The lad is in a fair way to marry 
 Lady Adelaide de Vere^ and to break his heart 
 within twelve months of the marriage/' 
 
 ^^I am at least obliged to you for your 
 caution^ though I feel it to be superflous/' said 
 Sir William^ coldly. — " I will speak to Gerald, 
 and—'' 
 
 "^ Speak to him ?'' — cried the diplomat in con- 
 sternation. '' My dear fellow, are you mad, — 
 or have you learned nothing since we parted at 
 Eaton ? — Speak to him ? — not for worlds ! — You 
 would break the ice for him, and facilitate his 
 confessions. No, no ! — if youneeds must talk,let 
 it be at him ! — Let him collaterally know that — '' 
 
 The honourable secretary was interrupted, — 
 Young Harford, having noticed the entree of his 
 chef into Sir William Helmsley's box, began to 
 
142 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 consider the country baronet worthy his 
 patronage -, and with the instinct which marks 
 the genuine bore^ contrived to bestow his ever 
 tedious company at the moment of all others 
 when it could prove most tedious. 
 
 " How fine Rubini has been to-night !" said 
 he^ by way of a safe piece of criticism. 
 
 " Very !'' — was the laconic answer of Helms- 
 ley; Sir Raymond not seeming to think the 
 molten calf deserving a reply. 
 
 " How handsome Lady Adelaide is looking I'' 
 he continued, fixing his eyes on Lord Cole- 
 brooke^s box, — "and how amazingly Wroughton 
 is getting on with her. Ay, by Jove, — and Lord 
 Portumna getting off! — Look! — he is making 
 his parting bow. — The little Clotilda has a 
 supper to-night.^^ — 
 
 And his attention thus directed to the spot. 
 Sir WilUam was forced to notice that after his 
 lordship^s departure, the attentions of Gerald 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 143 
 
 were apparently received with double satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 ^^ How astonishingly Wroughton talks \" ob- 
 served Mr. Harford. ^^ I can^t understand how 
 people can be at the trouble of saying so much, 
 when there is really so little to be said. That 
 is what is called having a fine flow of conversa- 
 tion ; / call it an overflow/^ 
 
 " Quite right !" cried Sir Raymond, out of 
 patience with his empty impertinence. ^'^ I 
 recommend 2/011 to filtre ; — a drop an hour is 
 almost as much as we can swallow V 
 
 " Are you going to Lady Wycombe^s to- 
 night V — inquired the unabashed attache, of Sir 
 William Helmsley. " But I forgot ! — I believe 
 you are not of her set. I don^t remember 
 meeting you there. Bagot and I are pretty 
 nearly the only Enghsh admitted to the house. 
 
 " Most others being of Helmsley's and my 
 own opinion," added Sir Raymond — ^^ that there 
 
144 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 is no occasion to put up with pompous inanity 
 beyond the limits of Grosvenor-square. Here, 
 where one may enjoy the easy laissez aller of 
 ItaUan society and the charm of such a coterie 
 as Colebrooke's^ we do not want to yawn 
 away an evening in admiration of ceremony 
 curtseying to ceremony, and vanity holding up 
 her mirror to vanity/^ 
 
 ^^ You remind me of my friend Sneyd's 
 stricture upon the English/^ drawled Harford. 
 ^^ Sneyd swears that we abuse each other 
 furiously so long as we are not acquainted ; but 
 that the moment we are formally introduced, 
 we discover black to be white, and foul to be 
 fair.'^ 
 
 " Lady Wycombe's case must be a bad one 
 then ; since I, her first cousin, can perceive 
 that black is black ; while Helmsley (whom she 
 has been trying this month past to cajole into 
 her house) cannot discover a single white 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 145 
 
 streak in all the cubits of her ladyship's tower- 
 ing altitude.'^ 
 
 And unable longer to support the society of 
 one whose ignorance was the plague of his 
 mornings, and whose impertinence the plague 
 of his evenings. Sir Raymond rose and hastily 
 quitted the box. 
 
 " The Pacha is in a bad humour to-night ?' 
 said Harford, quietly installing himself in the 
 vacant place. ^' He could not stand what I said 
 about Wroughton and Lady Adelaide.'^ 
 
 '^ What particular interest has Sir Raymond 
 Horton in either }'' — 
 
 ^^ None whatever ! — The very thing that 
 provokes him. Lady Wycombe assures me 
 that some years ago (before I or Lord Portumna 
 came to Naples) Sir Raymond, who was then 
 only an unpaid attache (poor fellow ! you know, 
 diplomacy is a profession to Iiim), wanted to 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
146 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 marry Lady Adelaide^ who encouraged^, or 
 pretended to encourage him. But^ just as the 
 business was drawing to a cUmax^ there was a 
 change of ministry at home, a change of ambas- 
 sadors here ; — Lord Portumna came, saw, and 
 conquered; — and Horton has never forgiven 
 either the lady or the lord.^' 
 
 Odious as was to Helmsley the pretention of 
 Mr. Harford, he felt grateful for an anecdote 
 which seemed to explain away the evident 
 animosity of Horton to Lady Adelaide de Vere. 
 Sir Raymond was probably still attached, — 
 still jealous. 
 
 Helmsley had previously determined to come 
 to some explanation with his brother-in-law ; 
 what he noiv heard, left him still undecided. To 
 what, in fact, amounted all that was alleged 
 against Lady Adelaide ? — What had the worst cf 
 her enemies to urge against her ? — Only those 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 14? 
 
 indefinite " hums and ha^s/' the most mis- 
 chievous and least authentic weapons of ca- 
 lumny : 
 
 Something there was — what none presumed to say, — 
 Clouds lightly passing as the summer day ; 
 
 and vexatious as was the reflection they con- 
 veyed to all who were disposed to become the 
 champions of so lovely a woman, Helmsley had 
 found no opportunity or no courage to trace the 
 evil to its source. The only positive accusation 
 which had reached his ear, was her desertion of 
 Sir Raymond Horton for a greater man, which 
 rested on the testimony of a fool ; and that 
 she would now willingly renounce the impover- 
 ished great man for a rich, which rested on the 
 accusation of Sir Raymond. Either might be 
 mistaken, or both be actuated by personal 
 motives. 
 
 But whether or not he brought the business 
 H 2 
 
148 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 to an explanation^ Helmsley felt it due to his 
 brother-in-law to satisfy his own misgivings. 
 He determined to interrogate Dr. Moorsom^ — 
 to frequent the society of Lady Wycombe, — to 
 gossip with Mrs. St. Paul, — to leave, in shorty 
 no means untried to come at the truth. Gerald 
 Wroughton must not be sacrificed to the ma- 
 noeuvres of a coquette ; Gerald Wroughton 
 must not become the pis-aller of one, however 
 beautiful, however attractive, whose name had 
 been coupled in the rumours of societ}^ ■v\dth 
 epithets of merited reproach. The brother of 
 his beloved Marcella must be rescued at all 
 risks, from a rash and hazardous connexion. 
 Sir William flattered himself, that though the 
 tie of guardian and ward had been of brief 
 duration between them, he still retained con- 
 siderable influence over the ingenuous nature 
 of Gerald ; and should the result of his inquiries 
 prove unsatisfactory, doubted not that his 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. [ 149 
 
 arguments might overmaster the attractions 
 of the frail enchantress. 
 
 Good easy man ! — As if all the wisdom of 
 Solomon would avail the weight of a single 
 grain of sand against the seductions of a beauti- 
 ful and plausible woman I 
 
150 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 You rock'd my cradle, — were my guide 
 In youth, still tending at my side. 
 But now, dear Sir, my beard is grown, 
 And I'm a child to you alone. 
 
 Martial. 
 
 Anxious and dispirited, Helmsley retired 
 from the Opera before the fall of the curtain. 
 On his return home, he found letters from 
 England, — the courier having been delayed by 
 the unfavourable state of the weather. The 
 intelligence he received was cheering. His 
 children were well and happy ; a little letter in 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 151 
 
 the crooked handwriting of each, afforded ample 
 confirmation of the sober commendations of 
 Aunt Margaret. 
 
 But there was a passage in Emma Wrough- 
 ton's epistle which startled him. After such 
 details of their little family circle as might 
 have been supposed to flow from the pen 
 and heart of a mother, she proceeded thus. — 
 ^' I am not satisfied, my dear brother, with 
 Gerald's letters, or with the accounts that reach 
 us of him. Mr. De Ligne informs us that he 
 scarcely stirs from the house of Lord Cole- 
 brooke ; and when I reflect upon the opinions 
 entertained by dear Marcella of that family, I 
 tremble to anticipate any nearer connexion. 
 His own letters too, — so incoherent, — so wild, — 
 so much at variance with the tone of his former 
 correspondence, confirm my apprehensions ; 
 and were it not that you have never named 
 these people, never even alluded to the name of 
 
152 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Lady Adelaide de Vere, I should give it up as 
 a lost case. But living on terms of perfect 
 confidence^ you could not but be aware of 
 the fact, were things as I fear; and would 
 have interfered to save dear Gerald from the 
 worst of destinies, — a marriage with a mere 
 woman of the world. 
 
 ^^ Still, my dear Helmsley, with all a sister's 
 anxiety on so important a matter, I cannot but 
 remember your studious habits, your abstrac- 
 tion of mind and fear that his danger may have 
 escaped your notice. T call upon you, therefore, 
 in my own name and that of one still dearer to 
 you, to frustrate the plans of these people, and 
 prevent so fatal a connexion ; or, at least, direct 
 your attention to his proceedings, and let us 
 know with the least possible delay the extent 
 of evil for which we must be prepared. Once 
 his guardian, ever his brother, be still, I beseech 
 you, his friend and councillor! — Remember, 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 153 
 
 we look for his happiness at your hands ! — When 
 you set off together on this ill-starred expedi- 
 tion^ I would have given worlds to oppose the 
 scheme; but with Gerald's health at stake^ I 
 dared not interfere. I felt, too, that you would 
 be on the spot to watch over him, — to save his 
 young and inexperienced heart and head from 
 
 But enough of this ! I will not detain 
 
 you by the expression of fears which, after all, 
 may prove absurd, and will try to banish 
 them from my mind till I once more welcome 
 your handwriting. 
 
 Your ever affectionate sister, 
 
 E. W.^^ 
 
 " His brother, — his friend, — his councillor. — ^' 
 The words appealed painfully to the conscience 
 of Helmslcv^ ! — How had he fulfilled those 
 trusts? — Of whom had he thought since his 
 arrival in Italy, save of himself ; — at first, a prey 
 to selfish melancholy, — and now the victim of 
 
 h3 
 
154 TEIE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 equally selfish elation! — What proof had he 
 given of that sturdiness of manly friendship to 
 which he formed such lofty pretensions ? — What 
 had he done to estrange Gerald Wroughton 
 from the influence of Lord Colebrooke^s society 
 and Lady Adelaide's attractions ? — Nothing ! — 
 for he was a slave to them himself ! 
 
 Helmsley was pacing the room with hurried 
 footsteps^ when this fatal acknowledgment burst 
 from his lips. It was a confession he had 
 scarcely dared to frame in the depths of his 
 secret thoughts ; yet now, it escaped his utter- 
 ance. Yes ! — he loved Lady Adelaide de 
 Vere ; — and it was this wild and inexcusable 
 passion, which had deterred him from remon- 
 strating with Gerald. — He felt that the jealousy 
 of a rival, not the prudence of a councillor, 
 would instigate his advice ; and had too much 
 generosity of mind to plead under false colours ! 
 
 But Emma's letter recalled him to himself. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 155 
 
 Emma^s letter appealed to him in a name which 
 was still sacred as ever in the holiest recesses 
 of his heart, and determined him to throw off 
 a degrading infatuation. 
 
 He knew that at that very moment Wrough- 
 ton was at the Palazzo Balbi. Lady Adelaide 
 and her father were in the habit of receiving 
 company after the opera. He had the general 
 entree of the house ; nor was the hour such as 
 to render his visit extraordinary. Of late, 
 indeed, he had studiously absented himself 
 from society which he felt was becoming too 
 dangerously dear; but Lord Colebrooke and his 
 daughter had probably never noticed his absence 
 and would be equally unobsen^ant of his return. 
 As if mistrusting his own courage, he would 
 not w^ait for a carriage, but set off hurriedly on 
 foot ; and in a few minutes, was announced in 
 the well-known antechamber. The sort of tre- 
 pidation of which, for some weeks past, he had 
 
156 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 been conscious^ in approaching the presence of 
 Lady Adelaide, overcame him with double force 
 as he entered the saloon. 
 
 But in the first of the two drawing-rooms, 
 there was only Lord Colebrooke^s whist-table, 
 at which were the Earl, Sir James Darling, an 
 Italian Abbe, and the Princess Stradalla, with 
 Dr. Moorsom and one or two Neapolitan 
 noblemen looking on ; while in a remote corner 
 of the room, sat Mrs. Longman Tompkinson 
 in vehement discourse with the Duke of San 
 Magnanos, the Sjoanish ambassador; and as 
 Sir William was proceeding to the inner sanc- 
 tuary, the folding-doors of which stood open, 
 he found himself plucked by the sleeve by the 
 gorgeous lady of the looms. 
 
 '^ My dear Sir William, I am enchanted to 
 see you, — I entreat you to come to my assist- 
 ance y — cried Mrs. Longman Tompkinson. 
 " Do pray interpret for me a bit to his Ex- 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 157 
 
 celleiicy the Duke of San Magnanos, — (a 
 grandee of the first class, you know, and the 
 richest subject in Spain)," added she, in a 
 whisper. "I have been trying to make him 
 understand that if he should ever visit England, 
 it will give Mr. T. and myself the greatest 
 pleasure to see him at Stoke Park, or at our man- 
 sion in Carlton Terrace. Our mansion in Carlton 
 Terrace is let for five years ; but it is not likely 
 the Duke will quit Naples within that time.'^ 
 
 During this explanation, Mrs. Longman 
 Tompkinson^s hand was placed detainingly on 
 the arm of the Spanish grandee of the first 
 class, who was about to escape her ; and 
 Helmsley, compassionating his durance, re- 
 peated as succinctly as possible, the invita- 
 tion which the '^^ French of Stratford school by 
 Bow" of Mrs. Longman T., had left some- 
 what problematical. The polite old man 
 bowed low to Helmsley, — lower to the lady, — 
 
158 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 and promised and vowed things which he knew 
 he should never be required to perform. 
 
 ^^ Pray explain to his Excellency all about 
 Stoke Park \" cried Mrs. Longman Tomp- 
 kinson^ enchanted at the prospect of adding 
 the name of a Spanish duke to a visiting 
 list heretofore adorned only with the titles 
 of a few damaged Irish peers. " Tell him it 
 was built by Inigo Jones, and that the grand 
 hall is painted by Laguerre.'' 
 
 " Plait-il ?'' demanded the deaf old Duke, 
 fancying the latter word to allude to the affairs 
 of Spain. 
 
 '^ There ! — you see he is dying to know all 
 about it ! — Explain that Stoke Park was 
 inhabited by the French princes after the 
 revolution ; which is a curious historical fact, as 
 the Prince of Canino (Lucien Bonaparte that 
 was) spent a fortnight there with Mr. Longman 
 Tompkinson and myself last year." 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 159 
 
 Helmsley repeated as little of all this as 
 would pacify the lady, but quite enough to tire 
 the patience of the Duke ; who had been listen- 
 ing to an unintelligible farrago for the last haK- 
 hour, concerning " hs ttats de mon mari dans 
 rJngleterre.'* But the politeness of a foreigner 
 outlasts his patience ; and the old gentle- 
 man, eager as he was to break away to the 
 whist-table, kept bowing and smiling so com- 
 placently, that Sir William began to fear he 
 should next be required to enlarge upon what 
 he had often heard Mrs. Longman Tompkinson 
 describe as the goblin hangings of her mansion 
 in Carlton Terrace. — Fortunately, the conclu- 
 sion of a rubber intervened ; and the Abbe cut- 
 ting out, the Duke was strenuously invited by 
 Lord Colebrooke to cut in. 
 
 But the movement by which San Magnanos 
 was released, did not admit of the escape of 
 Helmsley. To leave the only lady in the room 
 
160 
 
 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 sitting alone in a corner^ was out of the ques- 
 tion ; and he was forced to take the vacated 
 chair^ and listen for the hundredth time to 
 Mrs. Longman Tompkinson's description of 
 the extent of her estates, the amount of game 
 bagged at her last battue, and the square feet 
 of glass in her pineries. Not a soul in Naples 
 but could have set the parvenue lady right to 
 a fraction, so well were they habituated to 
 the recapitulation ! 
 
 Luckily, she was not the woman to require 
 an answer beyond an affirmative movement of 
 the head; and Helmsley, having discovered 
 that his position commanded a view of all that 
 was passing in the inner drawing-room, was 
 content to seetJi to listen and admire. 
 
 During his hurried walk, the impetuosity 
 of feeling arising from the perusal of Em- 
 ma's letter, had created a vague and invo- 
 luntary prejudice not only against Lord 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 161 
 
 Colebrooke and his daughter^ but all their 
 society. Though not a single circumstance 
 or peculiarity had ever struck him under their 
 roof as indecorous or irregular, he now chose to 
 imagine an immoral tendency in the whole coterie. 
 There must be something wrong 1 — He was 
 prepared to discover indelicacy and levity in all 
 that met his ear or eye at the Palazzo Balbi. 
 
 On casting a hurried glance, however, into 
 the adjoining room, the first object that struck 
 him was Lady Darling, dull, cold, and upright 
 as a statue of snow, — a sentence falling from 
 her lips every quarter of an hour, with watch- 
 man-like precision, in answer to the lively 
 sallies of Prince Guastalla who was making up 
 to her eldest daughter, continentalwise, through 
 the medium of mamma. Close beside her, 
 were the frozen figures of the two girls, 
 whom old Moorsom had deserted the whist- 
 
162 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 table, now that its best player was gone, to 
 beguile into a smile. A little further on, stood 
 St. Paul, maundering old womanisms with the 
 venerable Princess Sforza; while his wife 
 sat distorting herself into a thousand attitudes, 
 to withdraw the attention of Gerald Wroughton 
 and Ottavio Sforza from Lady Adelaide de Vere. 
 Helmsley could not but perceive how admiringly, 
 passionately, the eyes of his brother-in-law 
 were fixed on that faultless form ; little sus- 
 pecting that, while he gazed, his own were 
 rapidly attaining a similar expression ! — 
 
 It would have been difficult for an artist to 
 conceive a face and figure nearer to perfection 
 than that of Lady Adelaide ; the most exquisite 
 symmetry being animated by the most exquisite 
 grace, and the utmost regularity of features 
 enlivened by the brightest intelligence. But 
 it was scarcely so much these endowments 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 163 
 
 as the charm of her manners which rendered 
 her irresistible. The sweetest tones gave ut- 
 terance to expressions ever kind or courteous. 
 '^ Without one jarring atom formed/^ she 
 seemed to personify all that is most attractive 
 in her sex ! — 
 
 As Helmsley sat, he could not catch even 
 a murmur of her voice ; yet the mutable coun- 
 tenance on which his eyes were fixed, seemed 
 to reveal the graceful pleasantries with which 
 she was parrying every extravagance that fell 
 from the lips of Mrs. St. Paul ; and striving 
 to moderate the enthusiasm of Sforza and 
 Wroughton at every retort which escaped her 
 own. It was impossible to doubt that both 
 these young men were her infatuated admirers ; 
 it was impossible to charge her with bestowing 
 the smallest encouragement on either. 
 
 From his fit of abstraction, he was recalled 
 by the monotonous chime of Mrs. Longman 
 
164 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Tompkinson. " For^ as I was saying to Princess 
 Stradalla before you came in, I am sure I cannot 
 conceive what induces Tompkinson and myself 
 to give up .our comforts and luxuries (for I 
 must do ourselves the justice to say that I don^t 
 know a house in London finished with such 
 attention to comfort as our mansion in Carl- 
 ton TerracC;, doors listed and patent hinges 
 down to the very butler's pantry), — to give it all 
 up as I was saying, for a half-furnished barn of 
 a barrack, they call a palace ; without a com- 
 fortable chair to sit in or feather-bed to lie on ! 
 — To be sure the chmate is superior. — But what 
 signifies winter weather without, when one's 
 comfortably lodged in-doors ? — and as to spring 
 and summer, I take it Old England has the 
 best of it ! Shall you be in town early in the 
 season. Sir William V 
 
 ^^ Certainly — quite so — '^ replied Helmsley, 
 whose faculties were again wandering. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 165 
 
 (S 
 
 Oh ! then_, — I must insist on your noticing 
 our house^ the first time you drive through 
 Carlton Terrace^ — you will know it by the 
 mahogany window-frames. The best-finished 
 house there ! The lamp-posts and doorway 
 executed after Mr. Longman Tompkinson^s own 
 design ! — There was a sketch of them in Somer- 
 set House, last exhibition, by a young artist 
 whom Mr. Longman Tompkinson particularly 
 patronizes. I am sorry I cannot obtain you a 
 view of the interior; the house is let to the 
 Brazilian Ambassador. I would not have ac- 
 cepted a commoner for tenant ; for even when 
 one does let one^s house, one likes to know that 
 things are done there in a certain style. How- 
 ever, if you are particularly anxious to see it 
 (for I think I may say that the goblin tapestry 
 is unique of its kind in London), perhaps Mr. 
 LongmanTompkinson would not object to fur- 
 nish you with a letter to " 
 
166 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Regardless of the interruption. Sir WiUiam 
 could not resist the opportunity which now 
 presented itself to make his way into the other 
 room. The St. Pauls were moving. As they 
 passed him, he rose in the midst of Mrs. 
 Longman Tompkinson's harangue, to say 
 good-night ; and, with a slight bow to the 
 astonished lady, proceeded onwards to pay 
 his compliments to Lady Adelaide. But the 
 chair occupied by Mrs. St. Paul was already 
 seized by Prince Ottavio, and Helmsley, found 
 himself compelled to fall back upon Lady 
 Darling and her dummies : — still out of 
 hearing of those who had attracted him towards 
 the circle. 
 
 The quick eye of Lady Adelaide marked his 
 discomfiture ; as well as the alacrity with which 
 he was seized upon by Lady Darling to be- 
 come the auditor of those excellent theories 
 of female education, with which she was in 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 167 
 
 the habit of favouring all the unmarried men 
 in Naples. 
 
 " Pray admire/^ said Lady Adelaide to 
 Wroughton^ in Italian, "the patience with 
 which your brother is undergoing his martyr- 
 dom. You, who have heard so much of the 
 ^ sweetness of my dear Marians disposition/ 
 and nhe mild retiring domestic character of 
 my poor Fanny/ can enter into his suffer- 
 ings." 
 
 " Sir WiUiam's ways of thinking resemble 
 in so many respects those of Lady Darling, 
 that he is less to be pitied than you imagine,^^ 
 repHed Gerald. " Observe his approving bow 
 in answer to her ladyship^s last sentence ! — I 
 will answer for it she has been assuring 
 him, as she constantly assures me, that her 
 chief study on the continent is to keep her 
 poor dear girls strictly Enghsh ; that however 
 
168 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 late the ball overnight, they rise at eight for 
 family prayers ; that their constitutions are 
 secured from injury by an Enghsh cook in 
 their suite, and their morals by never losing 
 sight of an English governess. Of all this, I 
 am quite sure, Helmsley is earnest in his 
 approval/^ 
 
 ^^ I always heard he was a pattern for country- 
 gentlemen !'^ said Lady Adelaide, with a feeble 
 smile " for whom Lady Mary Wortley Mon- 
 tagu condensed Lord Lyttleton^s ^ advice to a 
 lady' into 
 
 Be plain in dress, — be sober in your diet ; 
 In short, my deary, kiss me, and be quiet ! 
 
 But since the Darling school is so much to his 
 taste, why not decide between ^ dear Maria' and 
 ' poor Fanny ?' The Darlings are of a highly 
 respectable Yorkshire family — the match 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 169 
 
 would be very suitable, — all country baronets 
 together !^^ 
 
 Without resenting the tone of disparage- 
 ment used by his fair companion, Gerald 
 contented himself with replying— '^ Poor 
 Helmsley will never marry again. Helmsley 
 is wedded to the grave. It is impossible for 
 a man to be more passionately attached than 
 he was to my poor sister.^^ 
 
 " Your remark does not exhibit the know- 
 ledge of human nature for which I gave you 
 credit/^ observed Lady Adelaide. " The man 
 who has once loved passionately^ will love 
 again ; the tendencies of his character ensure it. 
 It is your plodding, moderate, matter-of-fact 
 men, who are faithful through life and death. 
 My right hand upx)n it. Sir William Helmsley 
 marries again !" 
 
 " I doubt it, — permit me still to doubt it \" 
 replied Gerald ', " or, at all events, permit me 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
170 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 to assure you, that at present he has no eyes 
 for living woman. '^ 
 
 Lady Adelaide smiled incredulously. 
 
 " Were it necessary, I would stake my life/^ 
 persisted Gerald, '' that from the period of my 
 poor sister^s death, he has been scarcely aware 
 of the existence of any other woman.^^ 
 
 They were still conversing in Italian; and, 
 at this assertion, Lady Adelaide exchanged a 
 hasty glance with Ottavio Sforza, who imme- 
 diately added, " In that case, and in society 
 such as this, we are bound to consider him a 
 very happy, because a very insensible man.^^ 
 
 Wroughton, not noticing the inference, re- 
 sumed in a lower voice, as if dreading to be 
 overheard by the subject of their conversation, — 
 ^^ Your view of Helmsley^s position is far more 
 agreeable to me than my own ; and I would 
 therefore willingly adopt it. Nothing, I am 
 convinced, would be so advantageous to my 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. IJl 
 
 little nephew and niece as the prudent re- 
 marriage of their father/^ 
 
 '' Provided the prudent marriage were also 
 one of inclination/^ said Lady Adelaide, 
 gravely, " But, in truth, no other marriage 
 can be termed prudent/* 
 
 Sir William, who was all this time intently 
 regarding her little suspecting that he afforded 
 the text of her discourse, could not but notice 
 the sort of saddened expression which now 
 overspread her countenance. He would have 
 given much to approach and join in a conver- 
 sation that seemed to be taking a serious turn. 
 But the Darhngs were departing. His aid was 
 required in seeking tippets for ^^ dear Maria/^ 
 and cloaks for ^^ poor Fanny ;" and when he 
 returned to the saloon, Wroughton himself 
 was taking leave. 
 
 It had been his intention to seek some 
 explanation from his brother-in-law, before 
 
 1 2 
 
1/2 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 they parted for the night. But his spirits were 
 now excited to a species of nervous tremour 
 which he felt would unfit him for the task. 
 He determined, therefore, to defer till the 
 morrow the purposed inquiry; and place Em^ 
 ma's letter in her brother's hand as a plea for 
 his interference. It was sufficiently mortifying 
 that Gerald's reserve should have rendered such 
 a proceeding necessary ; but if displeased with 
 Gerald, he retired to rest that night far more 
 indignant against himself! 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 173 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Leon. Are these things spoken, or do I but dream ? 
 D. John. Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Sir William had forgotten that he was 
 engaged to accompany St. Paul early on the 
 following morning, on a drive along the coast 
 towards Baise ; and as the engagement was 
 made between themselves only, he was vexed, 
 on entering the britschka of the classic, to find 
 one corner of it occupied by Mrs. St. Paul, 
 her fur cloak and her affectations. He felt 
 that they should have been better alone. If 
 
174 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 St. Paul fell somewhat below the mark of 
 agreeabiHty as a companion, he was at least 
 free from the bitterness which sometimes sent 
 showers of sleet from between the lips of his 
 ^vife. 
 
 ^^ What a relief it is to see a well-appointed 
 English carriage, after the wretched turn-outs 
 for which one is obliged to be thankful in 
 Italy," observed Helmsley, good-humouredly, 
 — aware how much the St. Pauls prided them- 
 selves on the neatness of their equipage. 
 
 ^^ We shall not dare appear on the Corso, 
 with morning liveries in this unpretending 
 vehicle much longer !" exclaimed Mrs. St. 
 Paul. '^ The Schrams are arrived — to dazzle all 
 eyes with the tinsel and gold-leaf which form 
 the delight of rich Yankees and Bartholomew- 
 Fair showmen." 
 
 ^^ And who are the Schrams ?" — inquired Sir 
 WiUiam ; " I never even heard of them." 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 175 
 
 '^ You are fortunate, then, in having lived 
 out of hearing of the tin-trumpets of news- 
 paper puffery/^ replied the lady, "The 
 Schrams are New-York Newcomes, who have 
 performed ko-too at the foot of all the thrones 
 of Europe, saving that of England, where they 
 know their pretensions would be weighed in 
 the balance, and found wanting/' 
 
 " Americans perform Ko-too }" cried Sir 
 William. " Forbid it, shade of Washington V 
 
 '^ The patriarch Schram is an empty, pomp- 
 ous fellow, bursting with the sense of his 
 personal importance yet unable to forgive 
 himself for not having been born a lord ; who 
 throws away his money, not like a prince 
 but like a parvenu,^' added Mrs, St, Paul. 
 
 ^^ Throw away the only thing that seems 
 to have raised him in the world? — But what 
 brings these people to Naples V^ — 
 
 A desire of smoking the calumet of 
 
 (( 
 
176 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 peace with another aristocracy/^ replied St. 
 Paul. " Paris is their meridian ; but having 
 unexpectedly attained an accession of fortune, 
 they wisely recollect that objects destined 
 to shine in the celestial spheres are lost to 
 mortal sight for a time before they reappear 
 as constellations; and have therefore eclipsed 
 themselves preparatory to future splendour/' 
 
 ^^ But though in eclipse, I suppose they 
 will justify the adage by giving feasts for wise 
 men to eat? — Such a man as Mr. Schram 
 ought surely to be V Amiphytrion oil fon 
 dine V — 
 
 " He prefers balls. His guests come in finer 
 clothes, and he is warranted in a more gorge- 
 ous display/' said Mr. St. Paul. " I wonder 
 to whom they will accrocher themselves in 
 Naples ? — Lady Wycombe, of course, is out of 
 the question.'' 
 
 Why out of the question ? — I suppose she 
 
 e( 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. l77 
 
 is as accessible to flattery and subservience as 
 the rest of the world ? — It would not surprise 
 me if she were to take it into her head to 
 patronize these ultramarines^ if only for the 
 sake of enjoying the sense of her own supe- 
 riority,^^ 
 
 ^^ It would be charity to afford a hint to 
 Schram that he has only to declare war against 
 Lady Adelaide de Vere, to be accepted as an 
 ally of the Wycomites/' cried Mrs. St. Paul. 
 ^' By the way^ we met Lady Adelaide as we 
 were driving to your house. ^^ 
 
 "So early?" 
 
 " I fancy she had been to Santa Chiara^ to 
 see her little girl. I know she is only allowed 
 to visit the child on appointed days.^^ 
 
 Sir WilHam was too much astonished for 
 utterance. He felt persuaded that he had 
 misunderstood Mrs. St. Paul; but it was im- 
 
 I 3 
 
178 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 possible to require the repetition of a lady^s 
 words. 
 
 " Admire, I beseech you, the light which is 
 now playing upon the Castello di Baise \" 
 interrupted Mr. St. Paul. — ^^ The ruin of 
 which you catch a glimpse beyond, between 
 the castle and the headland of Misenum, is 
 the Sepolcro di Agrippina, the last existing 
 record of a too gloomy tragedy V 
 
 Sir Wilham looked and looked, but saw 
 nothing; not even the "bending of the shore' ' 
 they were pursuing. There was a mist before 
 his eyes. 
 
 And his ears tingled and his colour fled ; 
 
 yet his lips recoiled from the interrogation 
 which was bursting from the inmost recesses 
 of his heart. 
 
 ^^ Every road of the route we are travers- 
 ing, is a site consecrated by history or song,^' 
 resumed Mrs. St. Paul. " By looking back. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 179 
 
 we catch a glimpse of the Scoglio di Virgilio 
 fast by the ruins of the marino of Lucullus; 
 and beyond '* 
 
 " Did I understand you to say the daughter 
 of Lady Adelaide de Vere?^^ — suddenly inter- 
 rupted poor Helmsley, unconscious of the wet 
 blanket of erudition thrown over his impa- 
 tience. 
 
 ^^ Her little girl. — Miss Sherburne is only 
 six years old you know, but I am told that 
 she is already a perfect miniature of her 
 mother." 
 
 " And Lady Adelaide openly avows and 
 visits her ?" — demanded Sir William, the blood 
 boiling in his veins, 
 
 " Why not ? — There is surely no necessity 
 that her hatred of the father should extend 
 to the unfortunate child ? — I do not sup- 
 pose indeed that she is one of your passion- 
 ately tender mothers. But I conclude that 
 
180 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 her motive for persuading Lord Colebrooke 
 to return again to Naples, is that she may 
 not altogether lose sight of the poor little 
 thing. Old Lady Sherburne, you know, re- 
 sides here. She has that beautiful villa I 
 pointed out to you the other day on the other 
 side of Pozzuoli. The dowager is legal guar- 
 dian of the child ; and being a stanch Roman 
 Catholic, chooses her to be brought up at 
 Santa Chiara/^ 
 
 " You will scarcely believe,^' said Helmsley, 
 trying to force a smile, that, till this moment, 
 I was not aware of the fact of Lady Adelaide 
 being a widow i^' 
 
 The St. Pauls were too well bred to exclaim, 
 as Alexis Bagot certainly would have done, 
 ^^ My dear fellow, where have you lived all your 
 life V — The lady simply contented herself with 
 replying, — " But who told you that she was a 
 widow ? '' — 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 181 
 
 " I thought I understood" — stammered 
 Helmsley, — more embarrassed than before. 
 
 '' Lord Sherburne is not dead, you know," 
 interposed Mrs. St. Paul. " As his widow, 
 she would retain his name." 
 
 '^ But surely I have heard even yourself al- 
 lude to her wish of marrying Lord Portumna ?" 
 
 " Certainly, — I am convinced that such is, 
 or was, her intention.'^ 
 
 But you say Lord Sherburne is still alive ?" 
 My dear Sir William, — where are your 
 wits this morning ? — Are you sporting with 
 my love of gossiping; or can it be possible 
 that you are in earnest, ignorant of what has 
 rung from one end of Europe to the other; — 
 the life and adventures, or rather marriage and 
 divorce of Lady Adelaide de Vere ?" 
 
 Sir William would have given much for the 
 power of reply. His bosom throbbed tumul- 
 tuously ; but he was silent. 
 
 (( 
 
 ec 
 
182 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " She did not altogether, I think, live a 
 twelvemonth with her husband/' calmly ob- 
 served Mr. St. Paul, with his glass still raised 
 towards the surrounding scenery; "it was a 
 most unlucky business !'^ 
 
 " More than unlucky, I should imagine !" 
 gasped Helmsley, at length recovering his 
 powers of utterance. 
 
 " Many people thought so, at the time/' 
 said the lady. " Lady Adelaide had of course 
 her partisans, as a woman so eminently beau- 
 tiful always must ; but people in general — ^how- 
 ever — it is all histoire ancienne now ! — There 
 is no use in disinterring old grievances. Let 
 us hope that her next marriage (whether with 
 Lord Portumna or Mr. Wroughton), will be 
 more auspicious than the first." 
 
 ^^ Never !" — cried Sir William, with indigna- 
 tion. " I beseech you do not couple Gerald 
 Wroughton's name with hers : I pledge my 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 183 
 
 life that my brother-in-law will never seek the 
 hand of a divorcee" 
 
 ^' In uniting their names, I only follow the 
 example of half Naples/^ said Mrs. St. Paul, 
 pettishly. 
 
 " Who can be as well acquainted as I am 
 with the principles of Gerald Wroughton?'* 
 cried Helmsley. '^ Had not my brother been 
 as ignorant as myself of the real position of 
 Lady Adelaide de Vere, he would never 
 have afforded the remotest cause for sus- 
 picion that " 
 
 " My dear, dear Sir William ?' again in- 
 terrupted Mrs. St. Paul ; — " do not fancy the 
 whole world so blind as you appear to have 
 been yourseK ! Why it was when Dr. Moor- 
 som was here three years ago with Mr. 
 Wroughton, that old Lady Sherburne brought 
 little Adelaide from England, to place her at 
 Santa Chiara; and I have often heard Moor- 
 
184 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 som mention how deeply his young charge, 
 then in so delicate a state of health, was affected 
 by the agitation into which Lady Adelaide was 
 thrown by the arrival of the child.'^ 
 
 " All this is so strange, — so incomprehen- 
 sible to me \" ejaculated Sir WiUiam, after 
 a moment's pause. 
 
 '^ I shall begin to think that the English 
 coteries at Naples, which are reviled by the 
 Italians for their addiction to cancans, are less 
 guilty than I have often supposed them,^^ ob- 
 served Mr. St. Paul, — finding it impossible to 
 win back the attention of Helmsley to his 
 pedantic dissertations, — ^^ since we are left to 
 inform you of things with which I should have 
 supposed you familiar before you had been eight- 
 and-forty hours an inhabitant of the Chiaja.^^ 
 
 " People would as soon have thought of 
 telling him that Queen Anne was dead V^ said 
 Mrs. St. Paul, flippantly. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 185 
 
 " If you wish to inform yourself more cir- 
 cumstantially/^ added St. Paul gravely, "you 
 had better apply to Dr. Moorsom. Moorsom 
 has been acquainted with the Colebrookes 
 these twenty years. Moorsom is an un- 
 prejudiced man, — or perhaps a little par- 
 tial in Lady Adelaide's favour. Dine with 
 us to-day, and he will tell you the whole 
 story." 
 
 But Sir William was under the necessity of 
 refusing. He was engaged to the Duchess 
 d^Ascoli, to whom he had been presented by 
 their mutual friend Sir Raymond. Horton 
 would probably be there. He, at least, was 
 not prejudiced in favour of the delinquent ; and 
 it was from him that Helmsley determined to 
 learn the worst that could be told. 
 
 He now became as eager to divert the con- 
 versation of the St. Pauls from Lady Adelaide 
 as he had previously been to engage them to 
 communication ; and rejoiced when by dex- 
 
186 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 terous inquiries and quotations, he contrived to 
 concentrate once more the faculties of his clas- 
 sical companion upon Sibyls, Sirens, and Queen 
 Dido, instead of the mortal heroine of the Palazzo 
 Balbi. 
 
 But Mrs. St. Paul, the moment she perceived 
 the gossipry of the morning to be at an end, 
 grew languid and out of spirits; concealed a 
 yawning fit under her embroidered handker- 
 chief, and had frequent recourse to her salts 
 bottle. When her husband insisted upon drag- 
 ging Helmsley to explore the half-buried ruins 
 of an amphitheatre, her shoes were too thin 
 for subterraneous adventures ; yet she was per- 
 suaded she should catch cold if left to wait for 
 them in the open carriage. She played the 
 fine lady, in short, so much to the purpose, as 
 wholly to frustrate the object of their expedi- 
 tion, and determine their return to the city 
 full an hour before Sir William had flattered 
 himseK lie should be set at liberty. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 18? 
 
 It was some relief that Gerald was absent 
 when he reached home. A note left on the 
 table, apprized his brother that he dined 
 early with the Colebrookes. The Palazzo Balbi 
 had bespoken an old Italian comedy at the 
 theatre of San Carlino, and were to attend 
 with a large fJarty ; which he invited Helmsley 
 to join on quitting the table of the Duchess 
 d^Ascoli. 
 
 " The Duchess has invited a few eminent 
 men expressly to meet you/^ said Sir Ray- 
 mond, after Helmsley had paid his compli- 
 ments to the handsome but somewhat formal 
 mistress of one of the finest and gloomiest 
 mansions in Naples. " She is expecting Berio 
 (a very tolerable poet, for a lord, — except poor 
 Byron's, few right honourable verses are worth 
 their weight in chaff !) Delfico, the historian, 
 and my friend, Salvaggi, — all agreeable men, 
 whose acquaintance will do you honour.^^ 
 
188 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD, 
 
 Helmsley gave an involuntary sigh. His 
 thoughts were with one whose acquaintance 
 conferred little honour upon him, but infinite 
 anguish; — even upon the fallen angel, whose 
 ascendancy had so unsuspectedly obtained the 
 mastery over his soul. 
 
 The tone of conversation during the stately 
 banquet which soon followed, was such as at 
 any other time might have excited strong in- 
 terest in the mind of one who was somewhat 
 more of a scholar than comported with his 
 vocation of country-gentleman ; and more 
 bent upon improvement than most young men 
 of eight-and-twenty, who have stagnated in 
 the unstirring atmosphere of domestic life. 
 But now, he could neither listen nor reply. 
 Horton, who had announced him as an in- 
 telligent man, intent on literary pursuits, almost 
 blushed for the apparent incapacity of his 
 friend. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 189 
 
 It was in vain that the polite Marchese 
 Berio, hoping to stimulate the reserved stran- 
 ger to conversation through the ready channel 
 of national pride, made handsome reference 
 to leading English authors of the day, to our 
 reviews, — our journals, — our statesmen and 
 historians. 
 
 " It surprises us untravelled and rarely loco- 
 motive Italians,'^ said he, "who have no 
 means of judging your countrymen in their 
 own country, where, doubtless, they are stu- 
 died to the best advantage, to observe the 
 strange contrast between the gravity of purpose 
 of your public men and writers of European 
 reputation, and the class of English travel- 
 lers with whom we become acquainted. I 
 venture to say this, sir, to yourself, because 
 our friend, the cavalier Horton has apprized 
 us of the superiority of your understanding ; 
 and I am, therefore, convinced you will agree 
 
190 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 with me, that the conversation of the English 
 circles in Naples is more flighty and insipid, 
 and their pursuits more trivial, than can well 
 be accounted for. It is true, they are formed 
 of the noble and the wealthy, whose habits are 
 necessarily frivolous. But these very classes 
 have furnished your greatest writers and great- 
 est men.'^ 
 
 " Our great men and writers are too busy 
 in these stirring times at home, my dear mar- 
 quis, to afford you an opportunity of judging 
 of their colloquial qualifications,^^ cried Sir 
 Raymond, perceiving that Helmsley was un- 
 prepared with an answer. ^^ Be so amiable as 
 not to judge us after the cub-lords, dandies, 
 and twaddlers, whom your climate and your 
 San Carlos attract hither to flutter in the 
 winter sunshine !" 
 
 " My dear friend,^^ protested the Neapohtan, 
 " we have had here, within these last few years, 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 191 
 
 several of your great modern authors; cold, 
 silent men, who seemed to sulk with us for not 
 speaking their language, while they deUver 
 themselves in the French of a laquais de place ! 
 Gell, Mathias, and Landor, I admit to be 
 exceptions; but these men are rather Italian 
 than English. Your straight-from-London 
 EngUshman never appears to be in earnest; 
 and as to the ordinary run of their lovely wives 
 and daughters, they draw up in alarm if one 
 ventures to ask them a rational question, and 
 are to be propitiated only by some idle jest. 
 They never converse like Frenchwomen, they 
 never argue like Italians ; their portion of 
 dialogue invariably consists in exaggerated 
 affirmation, or negation. Yet what wonderful 
 women you have in your country ! — One of 
 the first astronomers, and one of the first 
 political economists in the world ! '' — 
 
 " We choose to keep them there, lest you 
 
192 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 should turn their heads by flattery \" said 
 Horton, laughing. 
 
 " But you forget, my dear marquis, the 
 charming Lady Adelaide de Vere/^ interposed 
 the Duchess d^Ascoli, fearing from the uneasy 
 look of Helmsley, that he resented the dis- 
 paraging manner in which his countrymen and 
 women were alluded to. 
 
 ^^ No — I have not forgotten her/^ replied 
 the old man. " She, I grant you, possesses a 
 thousand graces of address. She can assume 
 any tone of conversation, grave or gay, lively 
 or severe. But she does assume it — it is plain 
 to every nice observer that she assumes it. I 
 have no conjecture what may be the real 
 complexion of her character.^' 
 
 ^^ That of a mere woman of the world ! '' 
 observed Horton, in an under tone. " Any 
 thing to serve the momentary aim she has 
 in view.^' 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 193 
 
 " Admit, at all events/^ observed the duchess, 
 touched for the honour of her sex, or conscious 
 perhaps that she stood accountant for as great 
 a sin, — ^^ that she can converse, — that she has 
 both intelligence and information ? " 
 
 " Like most women of her rank in life, her 
 information has been orally acquired. She 
 knows every thing that is to be learned from 
 conversation, — nothing that is to be learned 
 from books; and I have observed that know- 
 ledge attained from the lips of others, passed 
 out of our own without producing much 
 impression on the mind. On what we read, 
 we reflect; of what we hear, we talk. I 
 conceive Lady Adelaide to be altogether su- 
 perficial.'^ 
 
 " Come, come, you are hypercritical, '^ ex- 
 claimed the duchess. " Between over-reserve 
 and over-loquacity, you are, indeed, hard to 
 please." 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
194 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " Not hard to please, but hard to be ex- 
 cited to enthusiasm/^ replied the old man, in 
 self-vindication. ^^ I admire Lady Adelaide as 
 an ornament to society ; but when you ask me 
 to regard her with the adoration she is accus- 
 tomed to command among the English, I an- 
 swer that I cannot adore what I do not beheve 
 to be genuine. Were your idol what she 
 appears, — were her words as sincere as they 
 are agreeable, — she would be an enchantress 
 indeed ! — But I hear her talk scandal, toilet, 
 and liberalism, with Madame De la Chuchot- 
 terie, — ^high toryism and duro di schiena with 
 Madame Von Hardenstein: — saintship with 
 Miladi Darling, and sinnership with Milor 
 Portumna. — ^What am I to think ? — which 
 of all these am T to believe her vein of na- 
 ture?'' 
 
 ^^ Believe her to be — 
 
 « Every thing by turns, and nothing long ! " 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 195 
 
 said Sir Raymond ; ^^ and you will be nearer 
 the truth/' 
 
 " Then, with your forgiveness, I could as 
 soon bestow my esteem on a weathercock ! '' 
 
 Helmsley was almost tempted to take up 
 the cause of Lady Adelaide; but the shrewd 
 glances emanating from the expressive eye of 
 his diplomatic friend luckily restrained him 
 from stimulating opposition by defence. He 
 determined, however, to seize the earliest op- 
 portunity of referring his incertitudes of the 
 morning to Sir Raymond; and having con- 
 ducted the duchess from the dinuig-room to 
 the stately fauteuil of her saloon, justified 
 the charge so often brought on the continent 
 against English gentlemen, of button-holding in 
 a corner apart from the rest of the company. 
 
 " 1 want you, my dear Horton, to e;xplain 
 to me,'' whispered he, as soon as he had drawn 
 his friend out of hearing of the others, ^^the 
 
 K 2 
 
196 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 particulars of an absurd story I heard this 
 morning from Mrs. St. Paul, about the mar- 
 riage and divorce of '' 
 
 '^ Not Lady Adelaide, again ?^ cried Horton, 
 laughing. ^^ Surely she afforded pdtiire enough 
 for mauvaises langues, during dinner? But, 
 with respect to the affair of her foolish match, 
 I fancy the wrongs of the business are better 
 known than its rights. She married Lord 
 Sherburne at sixteen, to gratify her father, as 
 she says, — to gratify her love of independ- 
 ence, as I believe; and, at eighteen, brought 
 evidence before Doctors' Commons sufficient 
 to set herself at still greater liberty, and 
 consign her monster for life to a lunatic 
 asylum." 
 
 " The divorce proceeded, then, from no im- 
 propriety of conduct ?'' 
 
 Impropriety, my dear fellow, is ajvague 
 
 (e 
 
 term. Though all the world considered Lord 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 197 
 
 Colebrooke justified in securing his daughter 
 
 from the brutality of a madman^ many people 
 
 thought it a suspicious circumstance that a 
 
 man so knowing as his lordship should have 
 
 suffered his daughter to become the wife of a 
 
 Roman Catholic peer by the mere ceremonial 
 
 of the Protestant church, so as to leave her the 
 
 possibility of divorce. The Sherburnes, you 
 
 see, originally discountenanced the match, but 
 
 left the poor fellow to his own devices; so 
 
 that, though married according to the law of the 
 
 land, the solemnization was nothing to him as 
 
 a case of conscience. Altogether, there was 
 
 something louche in the business/^ 
 
 " But had not the marriage been valid, there 
 
 could have been no legal divorce ?" argued Sir 
 
 William. 
 
 " In these sharp quiddets of the law, 
 Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw," 
 
198 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 replied Sir Raymond. " I only know that the 
 child is to inherit, and that Lady Adelaide is 
 at liberty to marry again whenever she shall 
 hit upon her dupe. And now let us join the 
 duchess ; who will fancy us to be plotting trea- 
 son against the state, if we hide in corners and 
 do not take her into our confidence." 
 
 Luckily the custom of the country sanc- 
 tioned Sir William's early escape from the 
 circle; for, with his head and heart pre-en- 
 grossed, it would have been difficult to justify 
 the praises of his understanding by which his 
 friend Sir Raymond had obtained access for 
 him into the somewhat pedantic circle of the 
 Duchess d'Ascoli. He took his leave, in- 
 different to the impression his incoherence 
 and unsociability might leave on men, of 
 whom, a few months before, he would have 
 felt proud to cultivate the good opinion; 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 199 
 
 and arrived at home in time to acquire^ by 
 two hours of restlessness and self-reproach, 
 the composure indispensable to the delivery 
 of his remonstrances to his brother-in-law. 
 
200 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Dans la conversation, chose si superflue et si necessaire, 
 les uns ne disent pas toujours ce qu'ils savent, les autres 
 ne savent pas toujours ce qu'ils disent. 
 
 BOUFFLERS. 
 
 " Aha ! — at home so soon }" cried Gerald, 
 when, after having been long and impatiently 
 expected, he entered the drawing-room. " I 
 took it into my head that Horton would carry 
 you off to his den, and tie you down in argu- 
 ment as he has often done my less worthy self, 
 till the witching time of night/^ 
 
 ^^ I left the duchesses before him. I wished 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 201 
 
 to be here in time to, — I was anxious in short 
 to— ^^ 
 
 " Is any thing the matter ?"— cried Gerald, 
 noticing the distempered look of the usually- 
 placid Helmsley. " Have you bad news from 
 England ?^^ he added, with a glance towards 
 the half- open letter, which lay beside Sir 
 William on the table. 
 
 ^^ I have heard nothing likely to be new 
 to 2/021," replied Helmsley, with growing agi- 
 tation. " Your sister is anxious about you, 
 Gerald. He?' anxiety has directed my own 
 attention to things which might otherwise have 
 escaped my notice. Read this \'' he continued, 
 placing Miss Wroughton^s letter in her brother^s 
 hand, — " and then, if you can, relieve the agita- 
 tion of my mind.^^ 
 
 Wroughton, seizing the letter, hurried over 
 the lines to which the finger of Helmsley di- 
 
 K 3 
 
202 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 rected his attention. It afforded some comfort 
 to Sir William to observe that, as he read, the 
 colour with which his cheeks had been moment- 
 arily flushed, gradually faded ; and that, as his 
 mind became enlightened, it was restored to 
 composure. 
 
 " He knows the worst, now," thought 
 Helmsley. " He is aware of Emma's anxieties, 
 and does not blench.^' 
 
 Gerald returned the letter without a syllable 
 of comment. 
 
 '' And what am I to say to your sister in 
 reply?'' demanded Helmsley, after waiting a 
 few minutes, in hopes of some communication 
 from his brother-inJaw. 
 
 " I 'will write to Emma myself by the next 
 courier," said the young man, in a grave 
 manner. 
 
 " To myself, then, you consider all explana- 
 
THE WOMAN OP THE WORLD. 203 
 
 tion unnecessary ?^^ — cried Helmsley, stung to 
 the quick by this ungracious mode of excluding 
 him from the family council. 
 
 " My dear Helmsley, what could I possibly 
 tell you on the subject of which you are not 
 aware already ?" — said Wroughton, with some 
 degree of irritation. 
 
 ^^ I am aware of nothing ! — Had it been left 
 to me to answer Emma's letter, I could only 
 have replied that your feelings towards Lady 
 Adelaide de Vere or hers towards yourself, are 
 as much a mystery to me as if I had never 
 seen you in each other's company." 
 
 " Impossible !" cried Gerald. " No person 
 can have been my associate as you have been, 
 without noticing my unconcealed attachment* 
 I have made no secret of my sentiments. I 
 concluded that motives of delicacy alone pre- 
 vented you from expressing your opinion on 
 the subject. I concluded you saw as well as 
 
204 THE WOMAN OP THE WORLD. 
 
 the rest of the worlds the whole extent of my 
 passion I" — 
 
 "Motives of deHcacy !" — exclaimed Helmsley. 
 Had I been really aware of your infatuation, 
 would any earthly consideration have prevented 
 me from plucking you back, when I saw you 
 rushing upon destruction ? — No, Gerald ! — 
 Either by design or indiflference on your part, 
 I have been kept wholly in the dark ! — Had 
 I guessed — had I dreamed — that you enter- 
 tained serious projects concerning this woman, 
 I should have inquired — should have inves- 
 tigated. But believing that, were you seri- 
 ously attached, your guardian and friefid would 
 be one of the first persons taken into your 
 confidence, I left matters so entirely to chance, <* 
 that it was only this morning I became apprized 
 of facts of which I cannot but suppose y3*i still 
 ignorant, — the marriage and divorce of Lady 
 Adelaide/^ 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 205 
 
 " I am aware of every incident of her life/^ 
 replied Wroughton, calmly. 
 
 ^' And you would carry back as your wife 
 to Wroughton Hall, to be the protectress of 
 your sister and the successor of your mother, 
 a woman branded with suspicions of the most 
 detestable nature? — You would take to your 
 bosom the mother of a child whose father i» 
 yet alive ? — A woman haunted by disgraceful 
 reminiscences — a woman who has figured before 
 the tribunals of the country ? ^' 
 
 " At present, I have made no engagement to 
 marry Lady Adelaide de Vere/^ replied Gerald, 
 startled but not convinced by the unwonted 
 impetuosity of his brother-in-law. '^ If any 
 thing could hurry me into precipitate proposals, 
 it would be to hear her character unjustly 
 aspersed by my family/^ 
 
 Sir William was silent. 
 
 *^ All that can be urged against her, / know !" 
 
206 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 resumed Gerald. "With all the calumnies 
 circulated concerning her, I am also acquainted. 
 I have heard them from others, — I have heard 
 them from herself. Before I ever saw her face, 
 the history of her unfortunate marriage was 
 recounted to me as a matter of conversation by 
 Dr. Moorsom, who was intimately acquainted 
 with Lord Sherburne, and absolves her wholly. 
 Nevertheless, I owe it to you to avow that a 
 certain repugnance arising from that connexion, 
 has alone prevented my becoming her declared 
 lover.^^ 
 
 " How !" — exclaimed Helmsley. " You have 
 made no declaration of your sentiments ? — You 
 are still at liberty to '' 
 
 " At Hberty, according to the world^s decrees, 
 to quit Naples to-morrow without further ex- 
 planation, and withdraw myself uncompromised 
 from the society of Lord Colebrooke^s family. 
 But my own views on such points do not coin- 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 20? 
 
 cide with those of the world. Though I have 
 made no professions of attachment, my looks, 
 my manners, my involuntary homage, can have 
 left no doubt in Lady Adelaide's mind of the 
 state of my feelings. And if Lord Colebrooke 
 permits me to spend half my time in his house 
 by the side of the most beautiful and most 
 attractive of women, engaging her regard and 
 luxuriating in her smiles, it is because he re- 
 lies on the honour of an English gentleman 
 not to excite expectations he has no intention 
 of fulfilUng.'^ 
 
 " Lady Adelaide, then, returns your affec- 
 tion?''— 
 
 *^ I have no right to answer in the affirma- 
 tive since I have never sought the privilege of 
 aspiring to her love. But to you— my nearest 
 connexion — I will not hesitate to own that did 
 
 I suppose her indiiFerent, I should not devote 
 4 
 
208 THE WOMAN OP THE WORLD. 
 
 my life to her, or labour to overcome the pre- 
 judices created by her unhappy position/' 
 
 ^^ Which means that you know her heart to 
 be your own ! '^ 
 
 '^ I am not such a coxcomb as either to say 
 or think it V^ cried Gerald, with indignation. 
 ^^ No man has a right to pretend to such a con- 
 cession, who holds back for the indulgence of 
 his scruples. At the period of my first visit 
 to Naples, from the very first week of my 
 acquaintance with her, I became attached to 
 Lady Adelaide. The circumstances connected 
 with her marriage were then more fresh in 
 public recollection than now. I heard her 
 every where blamed, every where reviled. My 
 friends and associates derided the idea of any 
 man intending to make her his wife. It was 
 this scorn and contempt, perhaps, which at 
 that time helped to remind me that I was two 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 209 
 
 years younger than the object of my attach- 
 ment; and I returned to England, determined 
 to banish her from my mind for ever ! " 
 
 Helmsley, who had been hitherto seated, rose, 
 and involuntarily paced the room. Though 
 striving to recall to mind the circumstances 
 connected with Gerald's arrival in England, 
 he could remember nothing likely to have 
 excited the suspicions of Wroughton^s sisters 
 that he rejoined them with an engaged heart. 
 
 ^^ I need not remind you, my dear brother,^^ 
 resumed Gerald, '^ that family events of an 
 engrossing nature, left me little leisure for 
 recurrence to the past. The illness and loss 
 of our dear Marcella absorbed every thought 
 of my mind ; and when T returned to the busy 
 world, the influence of Italy and Adelaide was 
 so far suspended that I had sufiicient self-com- 
 mand to make no inquiries respecting the 
 family of Lord Colebrooke. I knew them to 
 
210 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 be in England, — nay, settled within forty miles 
 of Wroughton HaU, yet made no effort for the 
 renewal of onr acquaintance. Still, I hankered 
 after Italy. The climate, I fancied indispensa- 
 ble to my health ; — the associations — but why 
 dilate upon it all! — I pledge you my word 
 that in coming hither, I knew not she would 
 be here. AU I wished was to inhabit the spot 
 where she had been, — where I had last beheld 
 her, — last luxuriated in transitory visions of 
 happiness. The rest, you know ! — To have 
 dashed away the ohve-branch extended towards 
 me, would have been sterner virtue than is 
 to be expected of my age and nature. I 
 accepted the civihties of Lord Colebrooke, — 
 I revelled once more in the smiles of Lady 
 Adelaide, — and became once more, and more 
 than ever, her slave.^^ 
 
 " And you intend to marry her ? ^^ demanded 
 Helmsley, in a hoarse voice. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 211 
 
 " At the first renewal of our intimacy, I 
 heard and fancied that Lord Portumna was her 
 accepted lover. I was soon undeceived. Por- 
 tumna never has been, — never has sought to 
 be more than the admiring friend of Lady Ade- 
 laide. Reassured on this point — (if I can say 
 reassured, when in fact it was the supposition 
 of her engagement which seemed to leave me 
 at hberty to return to the house,) I gave my- 
 self up to my feelings. You, my dear Helms- 
 ley, are a philosopher. You are one who, 
 having loved with all the sobriety of domestic 
 tenderness, are insensible to every wilder pas- 
 sion. But ask any other breathing man, whe- 
 ther it were possible to live in yearly, hourly, 
 familiar intercourse with a woman so exqui- 
 sitely gifted, and restrain the impetuosity of a 
 passion beyond — oh ! far beyond the curb of 
 human reason ! '^ — 
 
 ^* I never ventured to doubt the attractions 
 
212 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 of Lady Adelaide de Yere" said Sir William, 
 with a guilty thrill. 
 
 ^^ Give me credit, then, for some degree of 
 moderation, when I assure you that I have 
 strictly adhered to my resolution of watching 
 every word, look, gesture, — and examining ^\4th 
 scrupulous severity the opinions of the world 
 as justified by her conduct. Had I found her 
 faulty in a single particular, had I on any one 
 occasion detected the shghtest indication of 
 levity in her mind or manners, as God sees 
 my heart, I would have given her up for ever ! 
 — But all in her nature is bright and hea- 
 venly as the expression of her countenance ; 
 and— ^^ 
 
 ^^ And you are now resolved to make her the 
 offer of your hand !" again interrupted Helmsley. 
 
 " I am ! — but the period of probation is 
 not over. We have always agreed, my dear 
 Helmsley, to return to England the first week 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 213 
 
 in May. Lord Colebrooke, who will leave 
 Naples about the same period^ wishes that we 
 should travel together; and it will depend 
 upon the manner in which my proposals are 
 received, on the eve of our departure, whether 
 I accede to his request." 
 
 " We have two months reprieve then before 
 us V — was the involuntary exclamation of Sir 
 WilUam. " May I hold you pledged, my dear 
 brother, that during that interval you will at- 
 tempt no further explanation, — no further en- 
 gagement ?" — 
 
 " Here is my hand upon it V said Gerald. 
 '^ You have every right to exert your influ- 
 ence over my judgment. The more you 
 frequent the society so dear to me, the 
 better satisfied I shall be that you act without 
 prejudice, and are unbiassed by the calumnies 
 of the world. Lady Adelaide highly esteems 
 you, and will rejoice to welcome you on more 
 intimate terms to her fireside. If I do not yet 
 
214 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 require you to love her as a sister, promise 
 me at least that you will view her with the 
 indulgence of a friend ?^^ 
 
 Sir William found it impossible to utter a 
 syllable in reply. He stiU held in his the hand 
 extended to him by Gerald ; and his own trem- 
 bled so violently that, had not Wroughton at- 
 tributed to the warmth of fraternal affection 
 the uncontrollable emotion by which he was 
 agitated, suspicions of the truth must necessarily 
 have arisen in the mind of the young lover. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 215 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 To court the great ones, and to soothe their pride, 
 Seems a sweet task — to those that never tried. 
 
 Horace. 
 
 There are three classes of men morally dis- 
 tinguishable in that order of society which, 
 by the courtesy of modem times, is termed 
 The Order ; — those who live to act, those who 
 live to read, and those who live to talk. 
 
 Lord Colebrooke was one of the latter. 
 He was exclusively a man of the world. His 
 duties as a legislator were fulfilled by sitting 
 half an hour in the House previous to any 
 great division, and talking over the debate 
 
216 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 during the whole preceding and succeeding 
 days at his club and dinner party. A saun- 
 ter on horseback in the afternoon, and a rubber 
 or two at midnight, fiUed up the measure of 
 his London existence. Having Uved prodi- 
 gally from youth to middle age, talking of 
 retrenchments which he had not the energy to 
 put in practice, he was now forced to econo- 
 mize his way down the hill of life : — the extra- 
 vagance of his eldest son superadded to his 
 own, having heaped Ossa on Pelion in the 
 accumulation of the debts of the family. 
 
 His lordship accordingly drew in. He now 
 played twenty guineas on the rubber, instead 
 of fifty; and had engaged a chef at two hundred 
 per annum, instead of four. But the chief 
 indication of Lord Colebrooke^s pauperism was 
 the necessity of spending his winters on the 
 continent, to escape the onerous hospitalities 
 of Colebrooke Castle or Woodland^s Lodge; — 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 21? 
 
 and the worst privation he experienced in 
 these annual banishments, the loss of that ever- 
 flo\\ing course of small-talk, which enlivens 
 the revolving coteries of the country-house, the 
 star-gazing circles of Brighton, or the select 
 vestries of St. James's Street and Pall-Mall. — 
 What cared he for the on-dits of Naples? 
 With the exception of Lord Portumna, there 
 was not a soul in the place to sympathize with 
 his curiosity respecting vacant regiments or 
 vacant mitres, — the disposal of the ribbon of 
 some expiring peer, — the ayes of a majority, or 
 the shufflings of the back stairs ! — There was 
 no one at Naples who played his stake ; there was 
 no one at Naples who could converse with him 
 in the sort of telegraphic London jargon, which 
 communicates, from one noble signal-post to 
 another, the small gossip of the great world; 
 and it was a toil to talk to people of the lower 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
218 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 world, for whose dulness it was necessary to 
 cross his Ts, and place a dot over every I ! — 
 
 With the inanity of young Wroughton 
 indeed he bore patiently, in the hope that 
 he was to become the husband of his daugh- 
 ter; but it was a sad sacrifice to relinquish 
 the society of Lord Portumna, — whom he 
 had tact enough to perceive must be a less 
 frequent guest at the Palazzo Balbi, to give 
 free scope to the pretensions of the esquire of 
 Wroughton Hall. 
 
 ^' We have had an amazing dull winter here \" 
 observed his lordship to Sir William Helmsley, 
 while waiting to make up his nightly rubber 
 on the evening succeeding the explanation 
 between the two brothers. ^^ I was saying to 
 my daughter this morning, that Naples is no 
 longer the place I remember it.^^ 
 
 " To me, it has all the charm of novelty,'^ 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 219 
 
 answered Helmsley. ^' I usually pass my winters 
 at my country place ; and have rather to blame 
 the too much than too little society I find as- 
 sembled here." 
 
 Lord Colebrooke slightly shrugged his 
 shoulders. ^^ But we have positively nobody !" 
 said he. " Some years ago, there was so little 
 stirring in England that people came to the 
 continent for two or three years, and one of 
 their seasons was necessarily spent here. Now, 
 every man must be at his post, — every man 
 must have his hand on the oar ; and they have 
 only time to run over to Paris, and back for the 
 meeting of parliament. Americans and English 
 nonentities are the only persons who have 
 leisure for a winter at Naples." 
 
 ^' We have some Americans just arrived," 
 interposed Wroughton, alarmed lest his grave 
 brother should be disgusted by the hoary levity 
 of his future father-in-law, ^^ who write them- 
 
 L 2 
 
220 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 selves down somebodies. Moorsom, my dear 
 friend^ if you can take your spectacles off 
 the Diario, pray come and tell us what the 
 Schrams are going to do for our entertain- 
 ment !" 
 
 '' Hire Vesuvius for the centre of the supper- 
 table, and clothe a regiment of lazzaroni to 
 officiate as their guard of honour/^ replied 
 the doctor, with becoming gravity. 
 
 " Why exaggerate V — cried Mrs. St. Paul, 
 stopping short in the midst of her gentle prat- 
 tlings with Lady Adelaide. " Why try to make 
 them more ridiculous than they are ? — I am sure 
 they are as absurd as heart can wish V' 
 
 '^ They appear to be goodnatured people/' 
 remonstrated the mild voice of Lady Adelaide. 
 " We must forgive some outbreak of vanity in 
 people who have attained sudden wealth, and 
 possess limited opportunities for display. All 
 they do by way of attracting our attention, is to 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 221 
 
 spend. Surely they might find more objec- 
 tionable modes of obtaining notoriety I'' 
 
 ^' Certainly, certainly !" cried Moorsom, rea- 
 dily backing the fair apologist ; " and if they 
 limited their prodigality to buying up cabinets 
 of modern antiques, or the copies of our friend 
 Princess Stradalla for Raphael and Correggio, 
 there would be no great harm done. But un- 
 luckily there is a wondrous power of sympathy in 
 vanity and folly. These Tompkinson-Longmans, 
 or Longman-Tompkinsons, for instance, have 
 been as quiet as mice among persons with 
 whom it was impossible to contend in rivalship, 
 inasmuch as they put their trust neither m 
 chariots nor in horsemen, nor parks, nor man- 
 sions. But the moment the Schrams set up 
 their golden image, Mrs. Carlton Terrace's 
 idolatry waxed hot within her; and she has 
 ordered a set of new liveries, and is going to 
 send out cards for a bal masque, or costume, or 
 a carrousel, or some tomfoolery or other.'' 
 
222 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " How ill-judged !" observed Lady Adelaide. 
 " How uncalled for ! How far wiser would it 
 be, if travellers left the toil of costly entertain- 
 ments to their ambassadors. The continental 
 nobility, in Italy more especially, are unable to 
 compete with us on equal terms ; and it is the 
 splendour of our dress, equipages, and fetes, 
 which determines them to close their doors 
 against us. It is too mortifying to their na- 
 tional pride to be constantly eclipsed on their 
 own territories.^^ 
 
 ^ D'autant plus^ observed Dr. Moorsom, 
 " that they reaUy have something to offer in 
 exchange for the pomp and show in which they 
 are deficient; — an easy, well-bred tone of society, 
 never very exciting, I admit, but calculated to 
 spread an agreeable varnish over the rough 
 surface of human life.^^ 
 
 " The natural consequence of a self-concen- 
 trated aristocracy !^' said Lord Colebrocke, 
 " which admits no intrusion of extraneous 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 22 
 
 \L\LO 
 
 members. I remember the days of the Petit 
 Trianon and Versailles, when society in Paris 
 resembled the society of to-day in Naples, 
 The utmost strictness of caste prevented the 
 jealousies, competitions, and mutual contempts, 
 arising between a wealthy bourgeoisie and im- 
 poverished nobihty," 
 
 " Some sacrifice of wit, gaiety, and intelli- 
 gence, being compounded for in both instances, 
 to secure a level and harmonious texture,'^ 
 interposed Dr. Moorsom. 
 
 ^' No I'' persisted Lord Colebrooke. ^^ / 
 perceive no sacrifice on any side. The re- 
 serve of Enghshmen (which prevails rather in 
 the second than the first class of society), is 
 attributable to the promiscuous nature of 
 our associations. The attainability of pubhc 
 distinctions by men of talent of any class, and 
 the extraordinary accumulation of mercantile 
 
224 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 wealth, necessarily destroy the exclusivism 
 of the English aristocracy ; and our uncertainty 
 concerning the origin and habits of those with 
 whom we are brought into contact, by occa- 
 sioning a continual apprehension of wounding 
 the self-love of others by some casual remark, 
 produces consequent reserve. Placed between 
 two strangers at the table of one of my country 
 neighbours, I discover that one is a legal digni- 
 tary, the other a meml:)er of parliament. How 
 am I to guess (when indulging in a diatribe 
 on the peculations of servants), that my friend 
 on the right hand is the son of my father's 
 butler ; or (when discussing the abohtion of 
 slavery) that my friend to the left is a sugar- 
 baker in Bucklersbury ? I speak daggers, 
 most unintentionally, to both; and leave on 
 their minds an impression that I am an inso- 
 lent, ignorant brute. — Henceforth, there is war 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 225 
 
 between us. — I have bruised their head, and 
 they will take the first opportunity to fasten 
 upon my heel," 
 
 " True ; but posterity will be the gainer. 
 Your lordship's son, and the son of the so- 
 licitor-general, will be nearly on a par ; their 
 sons, perhaps," — the doctor paused. It was 
 not for him to prophetize that in the third 
 generation, the balance of the scales might be 
 reversed. Lady Adelaide, guessing his embar- 
 rassment, came to his assistance. 
 
 *^ An apprehension of being misunderstood 
 certainly keeps people silent, who would other- 
 wise cheerfully converse,^' said she ; ^^ and an 
 universal language is impossible among persons 
 of opposite views and incompatible situations. 
 In England, how much stress is laid upon man- 
 ners ; — how apt people are to arraign others as 
 vulgar and ill-bred ! — Here, one never hears the 
 whisper of such an accusation, because every 
 
 L 3 
 
226 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 one in society is on a par ; every one has been 
 brought up on the same system^ in the same 
 habits of life. All have definite places, all ad- 
 here to them. Pretension or hauteur are out 
 of the question." 
 
 ^' How amazingly poor Princess Stradalla 
 will be outblazed by the gaudy liveries of the 
 Schrams !" said Mrs. St. Paul, who thought 
 Lady Adelaide and her father extremely prosy. 
 " I am told they raise the price of gold lace 
 wherever they go.'^ 
 
 " I thought the sturdy Americans despised 
 such gaudy distinctions ?" said Sir William. 
 
 ^^ Not in Europe," replied Dr. Moorsom. 
 '^ Schram found himself so often mistaken 
 for one of the ^ helps/ and the head help was 
 so often spoken to for his master, that in self- 
 defence he was obliged to hang out the ensigns 
 of feudal life." 
 
 " Princess Stradalla (whose grand apartment 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 227 
 
 they have hired), declares that instead of having 
 the carriage at the door at a certain hour, they 
 have always a stand of carriages in waiting, 
 open, shut, coaches, chariots, caleches, cabrio- 
 lets, ready to answer their call, or that of their 
 hangers-on; beside saddle horses a discretion 
 for the use of their morning visiters,^^ observed 
 Mrs. St. Paul. 
 
 '^ What pure philanthropy !" cried the doc- 
 tor, 
 
 ^' Excellent policy in Paris, perhaps,^^ ob- 
 served Lord Colebrooke, " where the misfor- 
 tunes and impoverishment of la haute noblesse, 
 have stripped the spunging system of a portion 
 of its dishonour. The old emigrant dukes and 
 marquesses who in their youth gambled away 
 the pocket money so splendidly allowed them 
 by Lord Moira, do not blush to fawn and prey 
 upon the Schrams. Here, people are of a differ* 
 ent way of thinking. The Neapolitans will 
 
228 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 overreach brother Jonathan, if they can, in the 
 sale of a picture or antique ; but they will not 
 stoop to pick up the crumbs that fall from his 
 table." 
 
 " Let them overreach Schram, if they can \" 
 cried Dr. Moorsom, laughing. " ^ They need 
 ha^ long spoons to sup with the de^il !' The 
 old gentleman has still enough of the pettifog- 
 gery of the Broadway about him to be a sharp 
 hand at a bargain ! " — 
 
 " I confess it w^ould give me no pain to find 
 that he was overreached/' observed Gerald 
 Wroughton. " Wherever this man goes, he 
 purchases whatever is most costly, not to gratify 
 his individual taste, but to exhibit the length of 
 his purse ; and when people bring their vanity 
 into the market with all the streamers of its 
 ostentation flying, they mark themselves out 
 for dupes !" 
 
 ^^ I am sure the balls and concerts with 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 229 
 
 which they threaten us, will be a horrid bore, 
 and cause a total break up of society \'' said 
 Mrs. St. Paul, languidly, drawing her cachemere 
 more closely over her shoulders. " I hope 
 they won't expect one to go to them? Dr. 
 Moorsom, pray make Mrs. Longman-Tomp- 
 kinson understand that she need not count 
 upon 7ne for any thing of the kind." 
 
 " My dear madam, I do not undertake to 
 furnish Mrs. Carlton Terrace with under- 
 standing,'' replied the blunt doctor ; and a 
 conversation ensued between him and his pa- 
 tient, to which Helmsley found it impossible to 
 give his attention. His eyes were irresistibly at- 
 tracted towards the table where Gerald and Lady 
 Adelaide had established themselves at chess. 
 
 There was something domestic in their 
 attitude which displeased him. Although 
 placed so close beside the circle as to take a 
 share in the conversation, they had means of 
 
230 THE WOMAN OP THE WORLD. 
 
 addressing to each other by-words and com- 
 ments, unheard by the rest of the party, and of 
 interchanging glances more eloquent than 
 words. 
 
 With her long hair simply parted on her 
 forehead and twisted into a knot, — attired in a 
 dress of dark velvet, which imparted a rich con- 
 trast to the dazzling whiteness of her shoulders 
 and of the ungloved arm resting on the edge of 
 the chess- table, — without an ornament, — ■with- 
 out an affectation, — Lady Adelaide presented a 
 realization of the ideal of some poet's or ai tlst's 
 dream. It was beauty of the highest order, — 
 of form, of colour, of expression ; it was beauty 
 which caused the heart of Helmsley to sink 
 within him, when he reflected how soon he 
 might be brought within hourly peril of its 
 charms ; — and at the cost to Gerald Wroughton, 
 of what fearful hazard of happiness ! — 
 
 Short as was the period since he had shrunk 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 231 
 
 from the self-avowal of a passion which he felt 
 to be unhallowed and degrading, Helmsley now 
 gave himself up to the consciousness of his 
 enthralment. So is it ever with a lover I — 
 Closing his eyes and mind far longer than 
 reason can justify against conviction of the 
 growing evil, the moment when, by some 
 sudden and inexplicable impulse, he exclaims 
 in the secrecy of his heart, ^^ I love," is the 
 last in which he attempts to struggle against 
 his passion. When once the shghtest crevice 
 is opened, the embankment gives way at once 
 before the impetuosity of the torrent. 
 
 He no longer attempted to avert his impas- 
 sioned gaze from the fair mischief before him ; 
 no longer sought to put harsh constructions on 
 her sentiments and actions. At times, he 
 persuaded himself that it was for Gerald^s sake 
 he devoted himself to the contemplation of his 
 future sister-in-law; but oftener still, truth 
 
232 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 prevailed over his sophistry; and alone with 
 his conscience^ he admitted with varying com- 
 plexion and hurried respiration, that he was no 
 longer master of himself, — that a spell had 
 enthralled his destinies, — that the tranquillity of 
 his life was broken up for ever, — that he existed 
 but in the presence of Lady Adelaide de Vere ! 
 Nor was he sufficiently a hypocrite to frame 
 his answer to Emma Wroughton in terms to 
 suit the tenour of her sisterly scruples. He 
 admitted his knowledge of Gerald's attachment ; 
 he admitted his belief that no man honoured 
 by the smiles of Lord Colebrooke's daughter 
 was likely to withdraw his allegiance ; and after 
 fairly stating the engagements he had exacted 
 from his brother-in-law, entreated that Emma 
 and her aunt would rather prepare themselves 
 for a more lenient judgment of their future 
 relative, than anticipate the slightest advantage 
 rom delav. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 233 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 La, tous les soirs, la troupe vagabonde 
 D'un peuple oisif, appele le beau monde, 
 Va promener de reduit en reduit, 
 L'inquietude et I'ennui qui la suit. 
 La sont en foule, antiques mijaurees 
 Disant des riens d'un ton perroquet 
 Lorgnant des sots, et trichant au piquet. 
 
 VOLTAIIIE. 
 
 His mind thus unburdened of a portion of 
 its grievances^ Helmsley strove to relieve his 
 irritation by rushing into the flurry of dissipa- 
 tion by which Naples was, at that moment, 
 opportunely agitated. But recklessness came 
 
234 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 not at his call ! — Though he had no longer pa- 
 tience for the plaintive valetudinarianisms of 
 Mrs, St. Paul or leisure for the gentle dulness 
 of her husband^ he found it impossible to chime 
 in with the rattling unmeaning hilarity of the 
 set which had been attracted from Rome by a 
 rumour of the projected fetes of the Schrams 
 and Longman-Tompkinsons. There were balls, 
 masquings, charades, tableaux, going on all 
 the seven days of the week; but though he 
 hurried from one house to another, to gaze 
 upon the same unmeaning faces and give ear to 
 the same unmeaning ejaculations, the move- 
 ments which he trusted would exhaust his 
 irritability of body, served only to stimulate 
 his irritabihty of mind. 
 
 If the insipidity of Lady DarHng^s daughters, 
 and the languid inanity of Moorsom^s fair hy- 
 pochondriac, had enhanced the dignified sim- 
 plicity and clear intelligence of Lady Adelaide, 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 235 
 
 what far higher relief was now afforded to 
 her merits, by contrast with the purse-proud 
 fussiness of the Schrams, and the noisy frivo- 
 lity of the flight of summer swallows which had 
 migrated to twitter in their sunshine ! — Mrs. 
 Longman-Tompkinson, apprehensive of being 
 outglittered in a single spangle, by the gilt 
 gingerbread of the Broadway, was labouring 
 like a recruiting-sergeant to increase her forces, 
 with favours flying and beat of drum; while 
 curiosity to ascertain whether the high mighti- 
 nesses of the New World ate with their fin- 
 gers and dieted their guests on pumpkin-pie, 
 attracted the untravelled and unenlightened 
 nobility of Naples to the balls and dinners 
 of the Schrams, and policy engaged the corps 
 diplomatique to fraternize with the transatlantic 
 colony. 
 
 ^^ We intend to stand by the Tompkinson 
 woman V said Alexis Bagot to Helmsley, as 
 
236 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 they were riding home one day together from 
 the Corso* 
 
 " By wtf meaning the mission ?" 
 
 " Oh dear, no ! — I know nothing about 
 school during play-hours. Portumna, you 
 know, is a sort of person to go any where he 
 is hkely to be amused, — whether to laugh at 
 or with his entertainers; — Horton is a galley- 
 slave who stirs only as pleases the duchess, to 
 whom he is chained ;— and Harford, of course, 
 follows Portumna, like the shadow of a shade. 
 All three will become Schrammites. But we 
 adhere to the Tompkinsons !" 
 
 '' I am to conclude, then, that to realize the 
 number of your pronoun, you write yourself 
 ^ M7e, Alexis Bagot?'*' 
 
 " No, I speak in the name of my set. Lady 
 Wvcombe cannot endure these half-horse, half- 
 alligator monsters. Madame de la Chuchotterie 
 comes to her every day, with proposals of al- 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WOULD. 237 
 
 liance ; undertaking that she shall make out the 
 list for their next ball, and order them a dessert 
 service at the royal manufactory emblazoned 
 with whatever coat of arms she chooses to 
 assign them. But we are cruel ! — What do the 
 Colebrooke party intend to do }" he continued, 
 coming at length to his point. ^' What has 
 Lady Adelaide decided ?^^ 
 
 " I have never inquired/^ replied Helmsley. 
 '^ Conduct herself, I presume, with her 
 usual judicious good-breeding; neither make 
 a favour of going, nor a merit of staying 
 away.'^ 
 
 '^ The world, then, is right in its conjectures V 
 
 cried Bagot. '^ Wroughton 2*5 engaged to marry 
 
 the fair divorcee ?'' 
 
 '^ From what do you draw your inference ?^* 
 
 demanded Helmsley, striving to speak with 
 
 composure. 
 
 From the eagerness of your defence. I 
 
 ic 
 
238 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 never heard you so strenuous before. You are 
 pleading the cause of a sister-in-law/^ 
 
 ^^ I am pleading the cause of a very charming 
 woman/^ 
 
 " On second thoughts," interrupted Bagot, 
 caring very little for the motives or opinions of 
 his companion, — " Lady Adelaide certainly v/ill 
 not coalesce with the Schrams. Portumna 
 has taken them up as vehemently as he takes 
 up all such showy novelties; and it is their 
 cure just now, you know, to fight under dif- 
 ferent banners/^ 
 
 " Indeed T know nothing about the matter \'^ 
 cried Helmsley, with rising indignation. 
 
 ^' Portumna is too much a man of the 
 world to interfere with a lady^s prospects ; for 
 entre nous, old Colebrooke, who is wretchedly 
 out at elbows, only waits to get rid of bis 
 daughter to break up his establishment. Por- 
 tumna is not, by fortune or inheritance, a 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 239 
 
 marrying man. It would be most unfair to 
 stand in Lady Adelaide's light, being, as it 
 is, her last glimmer. I must do Portumna 
 the justice to say that he is the best bred man 
 in Europe. — Injudicious though, — vastly inju- 
 dicious ! — As Lady Wycombe says, his system 
 has always been sens dessus dessous. When a 
 mere attache and his business was to play the 
 agreeable, he chose to ruin himself by giving 
 the best dinners in Europe; now that he is 
 ambassador and his business is to give the best 
 dinners in Europe, he fritters away his life in 
 making himself agreeable ! — Do Wroughton's 
 estates lie in a hunting country }" 
 
 " Within reach of two of the best packs in 
 England,'^ replied Helmsley, much surprised. 
 "Why?'— 
 
 " I was wondering whether there would be 
 any apology for a long winter visit from his 
 
240 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Excellency. We should not be sorry to have 
 our next carnival here to ourselves/^ 
 
 Nettled by the flippancy of his companion, 
 Helmsley seized the first pretext to ride on. 
 But it was not so easy to leave behind the 
 vexatious reflections arising from the dispa- 
 ragement he found universally coupled with 
 the name of the Colebrookes. Small as was 
 his experience in the levity of tongue preva- 
 lent in fashionable society, he knew that 
 the really excellent are never wantonly at- 
 tacked; that it is only the infirm and defec- 
 tive of the herd who are made a prey of by the 
 rest. Often, when smarting under the insinu- 
 ations he heard thrown out by Horton and 
 others, he resolved to appeal anew to the good 
 sense of Gerald Wroughton, and implore him 
 to renounce a connexion so fraught with dis- 
 honour. But an hour spent in the saloons of 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 241 
 
 the Palazzo Balbi sufficed to renew his irreso- 
 lution, by bringing it home to his conscience 
 that, encouraged and favoured like Gerald, 
 like Gerald he should become the most infa- 
 tuated of lovers. 
 
 Distinguished at all times by the gentle sua- 
 vity of her address. Lady Adelaide appeared 
 inspired by a yet more feminine softness by the 
 attachment to which she was evidently giving 
 way. Few women were likely to have received 
 such attentions as those of Wroughton with 
 indifference. Eminently handsome, his coun- 
 tenance was the variable index of a lively mind. 
 Inferior to Helmsley in information, he pos- 
 sessed that happy talent of knowing what to 
 say and saying it at the right moment, which 
 throws the slow-paced pedant into despair. 
 While Helmsley was screwing up his courage or 
 St. Paul hunting out appropriate words for a 
 speech, Gerald never failed to call up a smile 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
242 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 into the countenance of Lady Adelaide by some 
 spirited sally, or excite her curiosity by some 
 well-timed anecdote. He was endowed with 
 the esprit de conversation in which his coun- 
 trymen are so generally deficient. 
 
 But it was less his power of amusing Lady 
 Adelaide which excited the jealous pangs of 
 Sir William, than his admission to the stiU 
 more flattering distinction of sitting by her side 
 in moments of sadness and abstraction. From 
 his own box at St. Carlos, Helmsley often tor- 
 tured himself by watching the sympathy of 
 silence with which the lovers listened together 
 to the touching strains of the ^^ Othello,^^ 
 and " Medea.^^ They seemed perfectly to un- 
 derstand each other ; — they seemed already pre- 
 pared for the heart-in-heart collision of a life of 
 domestic happiness ! 
 
 Sometimes, rousing himself from the reveries 
 produced by such a picture, he would intrude 
 
THE WOMAN OP THE WORLD. 243 
 
 upon their happiness, as if in vengeance ; and 
 it almost provoked him to observe with what 
 courtesy his appearance was welcomed by Lady 
 Adelaide, as if admitting his claim to be there 
 as one of the nearest relatives of her future 
 husband. She would invite him to the seat by 
 her side; address him in her softest tones, 
 with utmost blandishment; defer to his opi- 
 nions, — draw out his conversational powers, — 
 applaud his sentiments, — rejoice in his plea- 
 sures ; talk to him of Northamptonshire — of 
 his home, his children, his return to England, — 
 till her gracious interest almost tempted him to 
 execrate her in return ! — He could not bear to 
 know that he was indebted to Gerald for the 
 melting glances that reposed with almost sisterly 
 affection upon his face ; for the graceful ges- 
 ture that seemed prepared to admit conviction, 
 ere half his argument was unfolded; for the 
 
 M 2 
 
244 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 conciliatory expression, for the deprecating 
 smile ! 
 
 Disquieted and ill at ease, how often did he 
 wish that he had never been tempted to visit 
 Naples; that he had never been admitted to 
 the companionship of Lady Adelaide ! — " Had 
 I known her only as Wroughton^s wife," he 
 would exclaim, in his solitary strolls amid the 
 shrubby steeps of Pozzuoli, " she would have 
 produced no other impression on my mind than 
 regret that a woman of doubtful reputation 
 should have been forced upon the adoption of 
 the family. But now, —when — when will my 
 better reason overcome the hateful enchant- 
 ments with which she has stirred my spirit to 
 this mood of madness ?^ — 
 
 He determined, at length, to return no more to 
 the Palazzo Balbi ; to greet the beautiful offender 
 with courtesy when chance should bring them 
 together in society, but expose himself no further 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 245 
 
 to the dangerous charm of her familiar conver- 
 sation. 
 
 But from the moment we rivet round our 
 necks the badge of bondage to society, our 
 servitude is complete. It was no longer pos- 
 sible for Helmsley to withdraw from his accus- 
 tomed haunts, unless on the plea of indispo- 
 sition ; and as yet, the fever of his soul pro- 
 duced no visible signs upon a countenance 
 bright with the hues and animation of health. 
 There was no pretext to be made to Gerald for 
 confining himself to the house ; none to be 
 made to those who met him in his daily ride, 
 for secluding himself from their nightly-recur- 
 ring entertainments. 
 
 One evening, as he was preparing to quit 
 the St. Pauls on learning that Lord Colebrooke 
 and his daughter were expected, he was caught 
 at the door by Dr. Moorsom, with proposals 
 that he should join a large party of Englis^ 
 
246 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 gentlemen^ who, on the first favourable change 
 of weather, were to make the ascent of Vesu- 
 vius ; and ere the good doctor had finished his 
 proposal or relinquished his button, Lady 
 Adelaide de Vere was beside him. 
 
 ^* The very person we wanted to see !'^ cried 
 Gerald, as he followed the Palazzo Balbi party 
 into the room ; and that word " we,^' spoke 
 daggers to the ear of Helmsley, who was already 
 attempting his escape. 
 
 ^^ Lady Adelaide had almost made up her 
 mind to write to you,^^ he continued, laying his 
 hand on the sleeve of his brother-in-law, and 
 drawing him back into the room. ^' She wants 
 to ask you a favour. Nay, do not look so 
 magnanimously stern, or I shall be afraid to 
 follow up my request.^^ 
 
 ^' I trust my severity is not very appalling,'^ 
 replied Sir William, with a smile that greatly 
 resembled a sneer. " What does her ladyship 
 require of me ?^* 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 247 
 
 " This is worse and worse 1" cried Gerald. 
 " You alarm even me ! — I will leave you to 
 ^ her ladyship/ and see what power of fusion 
 lies in her smile. To me you are likely to be 
 unbending as iron.'^ 
 
 Sir WiUiam again made a movement to leave 
 the room, muttering something of being engaged 
 to Princess Sforza. 
 
 " Princess Sforza?^' exclaimed Moorsom, 
 who was still standing within hearing of the 
 two brothers. " My dear sir, you are dream- 
 ing 1 The princess has been dining here ; 
 Thursday is her night for receiving.^^ And 
 Helmsley, thus convicted, was forced to re- 
 main. 
 
 '^ And how goes on the Petrarch group ?" 
 continued the doctor, addressing Gerald. 
 " Are you still obliged to put up with me 
 for your Cardinal Colonna, for want of a 
 better ?'' 
 
248 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 '^ We can do nothing till we have Helmsley's 
 answer/' replied Wroughton, " and neither 
 Lady Adelaide nor I have courage to make the 
 proposition." 
 
 "Courage? — Pho, pho, pho !" cried the doctor. 
 ^^ My dear Sir William, there is a great honour 
 designed you by the handsomest woman in 
 Naples ; and my young friend pretends to be 
 afraid of breaking the news to you, lest your 
 joy should be too overpowering. We Enghsh 
 feel ourselves bound to muster strong in favour 
 of Mrs. Longman- Tompkinson and her bal 
 costume. The woman is a bore, — her ball a 
 greater ; but it will not be fair to let the Yan- 
 kees beat our countrywoman out of the field, — 
 which, by the way, is to be a field of the cloth 
 of gold.'' 
 
 ^^ I never go to fancy balls," observed Helms- 
 ley, beginning to suspect his drift. ^^ I do not 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 249 
 
 make a greater jackanapes of myself than I find 
 absolutely necessary. ^^ 
 
 " Hallo — hallo i'^ — cried the doctor, good- 
 
 humouredly. " This is bearing down upon us 
 
 with a vengeance ! — This is throwing down the 
 
 gauntlet to a brigade at a time ! — Why we are 
 
 all going to make jackanapeses of ourselves. — 
 
 I, old Martin Moorsom, among the rest, though 
 
 in my five-and -fiftieth year : and what business 
 
 have you, pray, at less than thirty, to be wiser 
 
 than all the world ? — Come, come ! — relax I — 
 
 relent ! — Lady Adelaide, who is to be our 
 
 Madonna Laura, will hear of no other Petrarch 
 
 than yourself. I heard her reject your brother 
 
 Gerald Wroughton there, and your friends Sir 
 
 Raymond and St. Paul." 
 
 Helmsley was becoming every moment more 
 and more embarrassed ; and his confusion was at 
 the utmost, when Lady Adelaide, advancing to- 
 wards him with the grace so peculiarly her own, 
 
 M 3 
 
250 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 modestly and mistrustingly preferred her re- 
 quest. " At the general desire of their Italian 
 friends/' she said, " she had undertaken to get up 
 a group, including the more illustrious contem- 
 poraries of Petrarch ; Princess Stradalla having 
 insisted on providing her a costume after a cele- 
 brated original portrait of Laura de Sades, in 
 the Stradalla gallery ; but it was impossible to 
 proceed with the project till she had secured 
 for the part of Petrarca, some English repre- 
 sentative, — some Enghsh friend, — with whom 
 she could, without impropriety, venture on so 
 public an exhibition.^' 
 
 Predetermined on refusal. Sir William had 
 scarcely patience to allow her to proceed to the 
 end of her explanation. He wished to spare 
 Lady Adelaide the humiliation of fruitless en- 
 treaty. But in the course of the siren's address, 
 there was so much gentle hesitation, so manifest 
 a fear of giving offence, so humble a conscious- 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 251 
 
 ness that she was taking a liberty with one of 
 SO grave a character as Sir William Helmsley, 
 that her varying colour and faltering voice 
 seemed to endow her with a thousand new and 
 irresistible charms. All the apology, therefore, 
 that the bewildered baronet could find to stam- 
 mer in reply, was an assurance of his inadc' 
 quacy to support the part, on account of his 
 imperfect knowledge of the Italian language. 
 
 " Come, come, my dear good sir, we shall 
 hardly admit of that evasion," cried the doc- 
 tor. " At a fancy-ball, people are required 
 to charm the eye and not the ear ; we are only 
 asked to ' look delightfully with all our might,^ 
 and hold our peace. You are the very man for 
 our money ! — Ottavio Sforza will desire nothing 
 better than to fit you out, in compliment to his 
 sister's picture ; and we are to be grouped 
 together by the young artist who is copying the 
 Pompeii frescoes for St. Paul. All that remains 
 
252 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 for your ladyship is to curtsey your thanks to 
 Sir WiUiam Helmsley for his amiable acquies- 
 cence, and smile away the few remaining scruples 
 that darken his brows /^ 
 
 Lady Adelaide did as she was required. But 
 she contrived to throw so much cordiality into 
 her thanks, and to suggest the extreme caution 
 to which she was compelled by the peculiar 
 delicacy of her situation, till Helmsley was 
 alternately gratified by the compliment of her 
 choice, and humbled by the tacit admission 
 that he was reckoned the least dangerous man 
 in Naples. 
 
 Meanwhile he was fairly embarked in the 
 scheme. Disinclined as he might be to en- 
 gage in similar levities, he was ashamed to 
 recede, ashamed to betray the weakness and 
 vacillation of his mind. Lady Adelaide had 
 thanked him, — Gerald warmly echoed her 
 thanks; while Moorsom and the St. Pauls, 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 253 
 
 who were to form part of the group, compli- 
 mented him on his obligingness. 
 
 Early on the following morning, appeared 
 Ottavio Sforza and the costumier, sketch and 
 measures in hand, to equip the reserved North- 
 amptonshire baronet to figure in a pageant, as 
 the tenderest of poets and of lovers ! 
 
254 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Men are but children of a larger growth. 
 
 Pope. 
 
 Were confirmation wanting to the truth of 
 the poet^s dictum, it might be found in the 
 eagerness with which beings, self-styled rational, 
 engage in the puppet-shows of fashionable life, 
 —in tableaux, costumed-balls, and masquerades. 
 The mummeries of morris-dancers of a fair or 
 the Mayday gambols of a village, are comprehen- 
 sible enough ; for sweet must be the one day's 
 holiday that has been prefaced by months of 
 toil and self-denial. But the pageantry which 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 255 
 
 enables the rich and idle to array their manhood 
 in velvet and brocade, instead of Irish linen and 
 broadcloth, is the spontaneous ebullition of 
 human weakness. 
 
 For a whole week preceding poor Mr. Long- 
 man-Tompkinson^s gala, the gay world of 
 Naples was in a fever of frivolity. The Neapo- 
 litans, self-secure of the superiority of their 
 taste, already triumphed by anticipation over 
 the gorgeous vulgarity of the Great British ; 
 prepared to oppose to diamond-laden sultanas 
 and blazing Queen Elizabeths, the exquisite 
 impersonation of some of the chef d'ceuvres of 
 their schools of art ; while the sweet simplicity 
 of the Darling Misses and their kind, laboured 
 diligently in getting up in the strictest secrecy 
 certain Bearnaise and Spanish costumes, pro- 
 testing, to each other every time they met, 
 their intention to appear in " a thimple ball 
 dress. ^^ 
 
256 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Even the most fastidious did not affect to 
 exempt themselves from the reigning epidemy ; 
 and it was known that Lady Wycombe had not 
 only vouchsafed a promise to the Tompkinsons, 
 but was preparing for a sensation. She, too, 
 had her group ; and as young Harford was in- 
 cluded in it as well as her established adherent 
 Alexis Bagot, there was reason to infer that 
 Lord Portumna had also attached himself (either 
 through excess of treason or excess of confede- 
 racy) to the train of the rival of Lady Adelaide. 
 However vexed in the first instance to find 
 himself involved in such a display, however 
 conscious that he was about to figure in a 
 pastime the report of which would draw upon 
 him the animadversions of his sober friends 
 in England, Sir William soon became inte- 
 rested in the details and progress of the prepa- 
 rations. Scarcely a morning passed, but it was 
 necessary for the httle party to assemble at the 
 
THE WOMAN OP THE WORLD. 257 
 
 Palazzo Balbi, to canvass the admission of some 
 new member, or some variation of grouping. 
 The costumier of San Carlos was in frequent 
 attendance; and the cares of poor MrsLongman- 
 Tompkinson, — who, half out of her wits for joy 
 at the eclat with which she had environed herself, 
 flew from house to house to keep up the excite- 
 ment and spur the flagging zeal of her consti- 
 tuents, — seemed almost superfluous. In vain 
 did she whisper that she had hopes of an 
 incognito visit from the king and queen; and 
 that Prince Charles and Prince Leopold had 
 announced their royal intention of breaking 
 through royal custom and appearing in charac- 
 ter : — it was with their own costumes and power 
 of conquest, that each was severally occupied. 
 They cared as little whether Mrs. Longman- 
 Tompkinson had agreed to expend a few hun- 
 dred guineas more than the Schrams upon the 
 decorations of her suite of apartments, as whe- 
 
258 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ther the Schrams were to exceed the Tompkin- 
 sons in the number of their dozens of dozens of 
 Champagne. 
 
 The day, the night arrived, preceded by six 
 nights and days of anxious vigil for the Enghsh 
 housekeeper and Itahan maitre d'hotel. All 
 that British gold and Neapolitan taste could 
 supply was in preparation for the five hundred 
 expected and expectant guests; and at the 
 appointed hour, Mrs. Longman-Tompkinson, 
 radiant in smiles and a diamond tiara, took her 
 station of triumph at the door. 
 
 Unluckily, the day selected for the fete was 
 that of the arrival of the courier ; and it hap- 
 pened that among the letters placed in the hands 
 of Sir William Helmsley was one which he felt 
 ought to prevent him from joining the festivities 
 of the evening. Not, indeed, as a matter of 
 feeling ; for the relative whose dangerous iUness 
 was announced in a mere letter of neighbourly 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 259 
 
 civility from his prosy friend De Ligne, was a 
 man who had never shown him, and consequently 
 never merited in return, one gleam of kinsmanly 
 affection. Still, the blood of one of his parents 
 flowed in the veins of Lord Shropshire; and 
 Sir William was not yet so callous to the 
 opinions of society, as to defy the ceremonies 
 of its exaction. He knew that it was his busi- 
 ness to give up the ball, — to disappoint Lady 
 Adelaide, — and vex and mortify the Tompkin- 
 sons and their guests ; but he felt that the 
 sacrifice was impossible. 
 
 Wroughton, who was absent when the letters 
 were brought in, had no officious correspondent 
 to corroborate the report of Mr. De Ligne ; and 
 it was unlikely that any other person in Naples 
 should have received intimation of the fact. It 
 was not for Helmsley to circulate the rumour. 
 No one need know a word of the matter. After 
 
260 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 locking De Ligne^s letter into his writing-desk, 
 he determined to go to the ball ! 
 
 And how could he do otherwise than exult 
 in his determination, when, on arriving at the 
 Palazzo Balbi, he beheld Lady Adelaide de 
 Vere, to whom the elegant lightness of her 
 costume imparted an almost girlish air of sim- 
 plicity. The robe of pale straw colour, bodiced 
 with violet-coloured velvet, the slight gauze 
 hanging sleeves looped up to display the sym- 
 metrical beauty of her ungloved hands, — the 
 hair bound over her forehead, its braids half 
 escaping from the net of gold and pearls so 
 often described by her poet and lover, — all was 
 in strict accordance with the descriptions of 
 Petrarch and the portrait of the Stradalla gal- 
 lery. Lady Adelaide, slightly embarrassed, 
 perhaps by the novelty of her position, looked 
 paler and more delicately lovely than ever : and 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 261 
 
 when Sir William, arrayed in his simple white 
 tunic and crowned with the laurels of the capitol, 
 approached to offer her his hand, her eyes 
 involuntarily cast down to veil her confusion 
 completing her resemblance to the well-known 
 picture of Laura de Sades, — so perfect was the 
 illusion that Sforza, Guastalla, the Duchess 
 d'Asti, Princess Stradalla, and all the other 
 Italians present, burst into irrepressible de- 
 monstrations of rapture and applause. 
 
 It was remarkable that all the other English 
 destined to form part of the eventful group, 
 were attempting to disguise their mauvaise honte, 
 by laughing at themselves or each other, — by 
 affected buffoonery and clumsy irony. Even 
 Gerald,'who*personated Boccaccio, was pretend- 
 ing to throw himself into attitudes at the feet 
 of Mrs. St. Paul, while old Moorsom assumed 
 the solemnity of demeanour becoming the Sa- 
 cred College. But Petrarch and Laura were 
 
262 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 apparently mutually engrossed. They had no 
 eyes but for each other. 
 
 It was time to set oflf. Arrived at the Pa- 
 lazzo Stradalla, a legion of sbirri and a few 
 scattered horseguards announced as intelligibly 
 as the illuminated portal, that a fete was toward 
 and royalty expected. The grand staircase, 
 usually so Italianly filthy, was carpeted and 
 adorned with flowering shrubs ; the antecham- 
 bers were crowded with the powdered lackeys 
 of the Tompkinsons, glittering in the flaming 
 plush and broadcloth of the family-liveries. In 
 the hall below, was stationed the miUtary band 
 of the royal guard ; and from the saloons within, 
 breathed the softer strains of a well-ordered 
 orchestra. 
 
 Lady Adelaide and her party had agreed to 
 appear early in the evening, that a prominent 
 station might be assigned to their group pre- 
 vious to the arrival of the Princes. Yet, early 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 263 
 
 as it was, the same especial invitation had been 
 extended to so many, that the grand gallery 
 was already nearly full. At the entrance stood 
 Mrs. Longman-Tompkinson, diving and diving 
 in a perpetual succession of curtseys, all affa- 
 bility to her equals, all servility to her superiors ; 
 a forest of diamond sprays nodding and quiver- 
 ing upon her head, and scarcely an inch of her 
 person or attire undecorated with jewels. She 
 looked like the idol of Loretto, twitched and 
 agitated by the vivifying influence of a galvanic 
 battery. The best of fine ladies is at best a 
 frivolous thing; but a vulgar, would-be fine 
 lady is vexatious as well as frivolous, and alto- 
 gether insupportable. 
 
 Then there was the frigid Lady Darling, the 
 lady " with a right sense of things,'^ magnifi- 
 cently attired as Joanna, queen of Naples ; while 
 her daughters, calling themselves Minna and 
 Brenda, were draperied after the fashion of two 
 
264 THE WOMAN OF THE "WORLD. 
 
 Ossianic nymphs. Lady Mary MitchelPs young- 
 est girl, who resembled a white mouse in size 
 and complexion, kept running about, squeak- 
 ing to her English friends, — " Am I not a 
 famous figure ? — I^m a brigand^s wife ! — Look 
 at my stiletto, — look at my pistols, — look at 
 my coral agnus Dei ! — An^t I a capital brigand^s 
 wife?^^ — Her elder sister, whose somewhat 
 more eveille countenance had braved the Al- 
 macks of twelve seasons, and was now making 
 the tour of Europe for the same purpose that 
 Whittington's cat made its voyage, to be dis- 
 posed of to the highest bidder, had disguised 
 her audacity under a quaker's cap ; while their 
 mamma, the roundabout Lady Mary, sinking 
 under a train of threadbare black velvet and a 
 coif a la Anne Boleyn, was compared by Alexis 
 Bagot to a pate de foie gras covered with a 
 parish pall, or the Heidelberg ton in mourning 
 for its grandfather. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 265 
 
 The ^^ Trionfo di Petrarca/^ meanwhile, was 
 welcomed with rapture by the Itahan portion 
 of the assembly. Lady Wycombe and her 
 party, attired as the personages of " Waverley/' 
 had already enjoyed their tribute of admiration, 
 and were mingling with the crowd. But Lady 
 Adelaide was a being apart. Lady Adelaide 
 was one of those lovely wonders of too rare 
 occurrence to be regarded at any moment w4th 
 a careless eye. To the charm of beauty the 
 Italians are almost as susceptible as to that of 
 music. They could not pay sufficient homage 
 to a Laura yielded by the pale regions of the 
 North, to dispute the palm of lovehness with 
 the traditional idol of their favourite minstrel. 
 
 In spite of himself, Helmsley was not only 
 pleased by the success of their masquing, but 
 deeply gratified to witness the deference with 
 which his fair companion was complimented by 
 the leading personages of Naples. Attracted 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
266 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 by the prospect of so brilliant a f^te, all that 
 was distinguished in society was assembled 
 under the roof of " Ladi Tomkin ;" — cour- 
 tiersj ministers, diplomats, — civil and military. 
 
 " At least/^ thought Sir WiUiam, " whatever 
 may be the Uberty of tongue assumed by Hor- 
 ton or Bagot towards her, the influence of Lady 
 Adelaide is honourably admitted by men, ay, 
 and by women, as much their superiors in rank 
 and station as in sense and candour.^^ 
 
 He was enchanted by the exquisite elegance 
 of her address, — ^by the accomplishment of her 
 mind. She spoke French, Itahan, German, as 
 fluently as her native tongue ; and was as per- 
 fectly at home in her replies to the pedantic 
 compliments of Berio and the courtly jargon of 
 the Duchess d'Ascoli, as when bowing off* the 
 provincial over-civility of Sir James Darhng. 
 
 But when the whole sunshine of that radiant 
 countenance was turned upon himself, Helmsley 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 26? 
 
 lost all power of discrimination ! He scarcely 
 understood what words proceeded from lips 
 that seemed too expressively beautiful for the 
 utterance of any ordinary sentiment. 
 
 The ball commenced; but Lady Adelaide 
 would not dance. Though most of the groups 
 which had been formed for tableaux were 
 broken up, Laura and Petrarca seemed destined 
 to remain together. Mrs. St. Paul accepted 
 the offered hand of her Boccaccio and took her 
 place in a quadrille^ amid a judicious mixture of 
 Greeks and Turks, Russians and Persians, 
 quakers and lady abbesses; but Lady Adelaide 
 having dechned to waltz with Prince Leopold 
 of Syracuse on the plea of indisposition, ap- 
 peared to have appropriated to herself the 
 attendance of the far from reluctant Helmsley. 
 
 As they were sitting together, however, at one 
 extremity of the gallery, now comparatively de- 
 serted for the gay spectacle of the ball-room, she 
 
 n2 
 
268 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 suddenly rose, observing, ^^ I saw my father 
 pass into the tribune, where I rather think 
 there are card- tables. Perhaps you will take 
 me to him that I may release you from capti- 
 vity. The ball-room is too oppressive for me ; 
 and you must not lose the gayest part of the 
 spectacle/^ 
 
 " If you grudge me the perfect happiness I 
 am enjoying here,^^ rephed Sir William, " I 
 will certainly go in search of Lord Colebrooke. 
 But I have as little inchnation as yourself to 
 encounter the atmosphere of the ball-room.^^ 
 
 ^^ At least, let us move from hence,^^ said 
 Madonna Laura, in a lower voice, glancing 
 towards one end of the gallery, where sat 
 the Grosvenor Square countess, conversing 
 as Flora Mc Ivor with a Baron of Bradwar- 
 dine in whom Sir William detected his friend 
 Sir Raymond Horton, — " that man is my evil 
 genius !" 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 269 
 
 " I am sorry to hear such an accusation 
 against one of my earliest acquaintances. Do 
 notj however, let him drive us away from this 
 cool, quiet retreat. I will answer for preserving 
 you to-night from the influence of his spells V* 
 continued Helmsley, with a smile. 
 
 '^ You cannot answer for securing me against 
 the scandals and misinterpretations which 
 Lady Wycombe will not only create out of our 
 being seen here together, but despatch to Lon- 
 don, by to-morrow^s courier, for the annotations 
 of all the dowagers in May Fair !" 
 
 " What could the most scandal-loving synod 
 of old women whose breath outvenoms all the 
 worms of Nile, find to comment upon, in the 
 fact that Lady Adelaide de Vere condescended 
 to accept for an hour or two, at a crowded fete, 
 the protection of her future brother-in-law V' 
 said Helmsley, with awakened spirit. 
 
 " Brother-in-law ?" reiterated Lady Adelaide, 
 
270 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 turning towards him a countenance wearing 
 the expression of unequivocal amazement. 
 
 " Pardon me ?' said Helmsley, conscious of 
 the indiscretion of his frankness. " I am per- 
 haps too presumptuous in anticipating for 
 Gerald a happiness to which he may not yet 
 have found courage to aspire. Overlook my 
 offence ; and conclude that I am only judging 
 the case as it will be judged by at least one 
 half the persons assembled here to-night. '^ 
 
 " Do you mean me to understand/* said 
 Lady Adelaide, evidently struggling with some 
 secret emotion, " that I am generally supposed 
 to be engaged to Mr. Wroughton ?" 
 
 " Not engaged/' rephed Sir William, still 
 more and more embarrassed. 
 
 " Likely, then, to be engaged, — desirous to 
 be engaged, — attached, — what term can I use 
 to persuade you to be frank with me \" cried 
 Lady Adelaide, with genuine earnestness. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 2jl 
 
 " You have a right to command my frank- 
 ness after my unpardonable indiscretion/^ said 
 Helmsley. " You have a right to know that 
 the world here imagines Gerald Wroughton to 
 be deeply attached to Lady Adelaide de Vere ; 
 and that at no distant period^ it will lie at her 
 disposal to render him the happiest or most 
 miserable of men," 
 
 Lady Adelaide started, and was for a moment 
 silent. " I know not why I should feel sur- 
 prised or displeased at all this/^ she observed 
 at length. ^' I have lived long enough to be 
 aware that there is no limit to the absurd sur- 
 mises of society, particularly in such an uninci- 
 dental place as Naples, where there is so little 
 scandal to engross the interest of my country- 
 people.'* 
 
 ^* Is there any thing particularly absurd,'' 
 said Sir William, almost seriously, " in attri- 
 buting to a beautiful woman supreme influence 
 
272 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 over the feelings of a disengaged man^ — youngs 
 free^ — handsome^ — rich^ — in a position to look 
 upon marriage as the crowning happiness of his 
 prosperous destiny ?" 
 
 ^^ I spoke not with reference to your brother- 
 in-law, I spoke selfishly. It is^ I think^ absurd 
 to imagine that a woman who has suffered so 
 bitterly as I have done from the consequences 
 of an ill-advised marriage, would, in the more 
 matured season of her experience, be tempted 
 into a union with a man several years her 
 junior in age, — in character a hundred !^' 
 
 It was now Sir William Helmsley's turn to 
 start. " Am I to understand, then, that you 
 would reject a proposal of marriage from Gerald 
 Wroughton ?" — 
 
 " I know not by what right you interrogate 
 me on so delicate a point,^^ replied Lady 
 Adelaide, restored to composure and attempting 
 to resume her smiles. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 273 
 
 " May I at least be permitted to inquire/' 
 persisted Sir William, ^^ whether, throughout 
 your intimacy with this young man, — this boy, 
 — (for he was a boy when first he became sub- 
 mitted to your influence,) — you never surmised, 
 you never felt the extent of your power over 
 his feelings ?'' — 
 
 ^^ If the extent be such as you would infer, — 
 never ! I was aware that he preferred the society 
 of our house to that of any other in Naples, — 
 which (to render my father justice) is not very 
 wonderful/' 
 
 ^^ You imagined that he was attracted to the 
 Palazzo Balbi, by the charm of Lord Cole- 
 brooke's conversation }" — 
 
 ^^ In some measure, but not solely. I con- 
 cluded I had my share in the attraction. I 
 have known Mr. Wroughton intimately for 
 years. When first he was presented to us by 
 our valued friend Dr. Moorsom, he was, as you 
 
 n3 
 
274 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 just now remarked, a mere boy, — a sickly, 
 dying boy. How could we do otherwise than 
 interest ourselves in the fate of a young coun- 
 tryman, exiled from home, and under circum- 
 stances so truly dispiriting? — I was at that 
 period scarcely recovered from the anguish, so 
 torturing to a woman of decent feeling, of being 
 exposed to the coarse raillery of a court of law, 
 — the coarse comments of the public journals. 
 I was then less cheerful, and our house less 
 brilliant than now ; and to its domestic fireside 
 Gerald was welcomed, by my father as a son, — 
 by myself as a brother. — He quitted Naples. 
 We heard no more of him. We expected to 
 hear no more of him. We knew that he was 
 by no means our far-distant neighbour in 
 Northamptonshire ; yet intimate as had been 
 our friendship in Italy, he deigned not even to 
 make the common inquiries of courtesy after 
 my father. How could I suppose that one so 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 275 
 
 cold and graceless, was cherishing towards me 
 the tenderness of a lover V — 
 
 Lady Adelaide paused for a reply ; but Helms- 
 ley had not presence of mind to utter a syl- 
 lable. 
 
 ** At length, casual report acquainted us,'' 
 continued the lovely Laura, " of the family 
 distresses which, naturally enough, were estrang- 
 ing the mind of Gerald Wroughton from his 
 friends. We grieved for him, for through him 
 we had learned to feel famihar with the un- 
 known members of his family ; to respect his 
 brother and guardian, — to admire and love that 
 guardian^s angelic wife. We pitied, therefore, 
 and forgave our truant friend." 
 
 " You were indeed indulgently forgiving I" 
 exclaimed Sir William ; " since, on his arrival 
 here this winter, you received him again and 
 with the same familiar confidence into your 
 circle \" 
 
^7^ THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " Sufficient evidence^ were proof wanting, 
 that he was regarded as a mere acquaintance 
 both by my father and myself! — It is easy to 
 forgive the fault of an indifferent person ; while 
 the ingratitude of those we love is an unpardon- 
 able offence \" 
 
 " Am I plainly to conclude, then/^ — cried 
 Helmsley, accelerating his explanations on 
 perceiving that, a supper-room having been 
 opened at the lower extremity of the gallery, 
 the crowd of dancers was hurr}nng forward so 
 as to render conversation or confidence impos- 
 sible ; — " am I to conclude that my brother is 
 without hope of — '^ 
 
 ^^ Lady Adelaide — Lady Adelaide de Vere — 
 my dear Lady Adelaide ! — I have been looking 
 for you in aU directions l^' — panted Mrs. Long- 
 man-Tompkinson. " There's the Prince of 
 Capua waiting to take me in to supper, and 
 I can't lay my hand on Lady Wycombe (who, 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 277 
 
 I suppose^ is somewhere or other with Lord 
 Portumna) to take the arm of Prince Leopold. 
 
 So do pray be so obliging as Stay ! — he^s 
 
 here close behind me ?' — And before the Long- 
 
 man-Tompkinson could complete her harangue, 
 or Lady Adelaide de Vere refuse or consent, 
 the embroidered arm of Neapolitan royalty 
 was extended towards her ; she was compelled 
 to follow, led by the Prince of Syracuse, the 
 nodding diamond sprays of her elated hostess ; 
 and Petrarca was left to follow, with the un- 
 poetical throng, or go poetically supperless to 
 bed!— 
 
278 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 One prospect lost, another still we gain ; 
 And not a vanity is given in vain. 
 
 Pope. 
 
 The triumph reflected upon Sir William 
 while escorting through the enthusiastic throng 
 the queen of the night, had alas ! produced an 
 intoxicating effect on his usually sober senses. 
 It would have been indeed difficult to remain 
 insensible to the homage lavished from all sides 
 on the lovely Laura ! — Wherever they turned, 
 exclamations in all languages greeted his ear, of 
 " How lovely !"— '' How elegant !"— « How 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 279 
 
 enchanting \" — " What a handsome couple I" 
 " They seem made for each other !'* — 
 
 In the illusion of the moment, Sir William 
 was almost tempted to echo this flattering sen- 
 timent ; which, when overheard by Lady Ade- 
 laide, brought so delicate a blush into her beau- 
 teous face. He felt that they were made for 
 each other ; and could scarcely restrain himself 
 from pressing the graceful hand that rested in 
 alabaster whiteness on his own. 
 
 But now that the glory of his momentary 
 triumph was over, — now that he was forced to 
 resign his place of honour to the heavy-headed 
 Prince Leopold, — Helmsley was induced, by the 
 sudden sense of dulness and bereavement that 
 overpowered him, to a still higher sense of the 
 honours he had enjoyed. What gratification, 
 then, must await the vanity of the man to 
 whom such triumphs would become of hourly 
 recurrence ; the man privileged to feel, when 
 
280 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 thousands of admiring eyes were fixed upon 
 that lovely being, — " She is mine — my own — 
 my plighted love — my wedded wife !'^ 
 
 Thwarted and irritable, he had not patience 
 to bestow his civilities upon any other woman 
 present ; but, separating himself from the mot- 
 ley throng pressing onwards to the banquet, 
 wandered in an opposite direction through the 
 farms they had deserted. When, lo ! peepinginto 
 the ball-room from the furthest antechamber, in 
 curious contrast with the snowy heads of Mrs. 
 Longman-Tompkinson's over-powdered foot- 
 men, he discerned the black Brutus and anxious 
 countenance of Ludovico, his courier. At the 
 same moment, his own person attracted the 
 notice of the servant; who, in spite of the 
 efforts of the scarlet-plush brigade to restrain 
 his intrusion, advanced boldly towards his mas- 
 ter, with a letter in his hand ; — a letter from 
 England, — a letter hy express, — a letter from 
 
THE WOMAN OP THE WORLD. 281 
 
 the confidential secretary of the dying Lord 
 Shropshire ! 
 
 "Is the carriage here }" — demanded the con- 
 science-stricken baronet after receiving this 
 explanation. 
 
 " Si, eccelenza ! — at the door !" And without 
 a moment^s pause Sir William hurried home. 
 The courier was waiting to see him ; but the 
 man^s verbal communication was superfluous. 
 " Lord Shropshire, though most unlikely to be 
 still alive, had requested the immediate presence 
 of his nephew — of his heir J ^ 
 
 Not an hour was to be lost. The inteUigent 
 Ludovico undertook every preparation for im- 
 mediate departure. It would only be necessary 
 to wait for the opening of the banking-house 
 with which Sir WiUiam^s letter of credit was 
 deposited. His diplomatic passport required a 
 single visa from the police ; by nine o^clock the 
 following morning, he might be on the road. 
 
 For a moment, Sir William hesitated whether 
 
282 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 to return to the ball, to communicate to Gerald 
 the necessity for his precipitate departure and 
 take leave of a few chosen friends. But he felt 
 that, under all the circumstances, he ought not 
 to be seen at the fete ; or rather, he felt con- 
 scious that his motives for the project were not 
 altogether such as he was avowing to himself. 
 In the course of an hour or two, Gerald must 
 return home ; when their adieus and mutual 
 commissions would be easily exchanged. 
 
 It did not, of course, enter into the conjec- 
 tures of Helmsley, that Wroughton would pro- 
 pose to bear him company. So hurried a 
 journey as he should be forced to make, could 
 not be otherwise than unnecessarily injurious 
 to the delicate young man ; nor was it likely 
 that Gerald would be desirous to tear himself 
 from the spot where the object of his affections 
 had still a month to sojourn. 
 
 But there lay the real source of perplexity to 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 283 
 
 Sir William Helmsley ! — Was he to leave poor 
 Gerald cherishing expectations, the loss of which 
 must prove so agonizing, without a word of 
 warning — a word of admonition ? — Yet, to what 
 extent was he privileged in repeating the com- 
 munications, or rather betraying the confidence, 
 of Lady Adelaide ? — How could he, in all the 
 flurry of departure, hazard the sudden discussion 
 of so delicate a subject ? — 
 
 The effort was impossible ! He felt that he 
 had not courage to startle his brother, returning 
 in all the gladsomeness of youthful gaiety from a 
 ball-room, first with the tidings of his own abrupt 
 departure, and secondly with the unprefaced 
 declaration that he must give up aU hope of 
 Lady Adelaide de Vere ! He would write. He 
 would convey a slight hint in his first letter, 
 and, gradually unfolding the truth, secure poor 
 Gerald from the mortification of rejection. 
 
 Helmsley was fully confirmed in this deter- 
 
284 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 -r 
 
 mination, when at length Mr. Wroughton 
 made his appearance. Elated by the excite- 
 ment of the brilhant scene he had quitted, 
 Gerald was in the highest spirits. His eyes 
 sparkled, his cheeks were flushed with animation. 
 He was evidently thrilling under the inspiration 
 of love, and hope, and Laura ! 
 
 " Well, my dear fellow V' — cried he, after 
 listening to the incoherent explanations afforded 
 by Sir William, ^^ I must not grumble over an 
 event which by this time has probably made 
 you Lord Monthermer, with forty or fifty thou- 
 sand a year ; for though my own loss on the 
 occasion is great, 7/our gain is clearly greater. 
 I will not even affect the pitiful hypocrisy of 
 offering to bear you company ; for were you to 
 accept it, you would have little profit in a tra- 
 velHng companion whose heart and soul would 
 be at Naples, and his body in your post-chaise.^^ 
 
 Helmsley was silent. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 285 
 
 ^^ I know I can trust Ludovico to cater for 
 you with comfort on your route ; and to say the 
 truths I shall neither replace him nor the car- 
 riage. You, my dear Helmsley, will not pro- 
 nounce me to be a coxcomb, if I own that I 
 have the hope — the all but certainty — a cer- 
 tainty more than ever confirmed this very even- 
 ing, — that I shall return to England an accepted 
 lover; and when Lord Colebrooke finds me 
 left alone here, he will probably offer me a place 
 in his carriage.^^ 
 
 ^^ A certainty more than ever confirmed this 
 very evening }" — involuntarily repeated Sir 
 William. 
 
 " Ay — more than ever ! — Do not ask me for 
 particulars — do not compel me to confession. 
 I fancy you give me credit for not being wholly 
 an ass ; and you may trust to my discrimination 
 that I am safe, — approved by the father and 
 beloved by ' 
 
 i) 
 
286 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Sir William started from his seat. This was 
 too much for him. He felt that he was on the 
 point of betraying himself. But in remaining 
 silent^ was he not betraying his brother-in-law ? 
 
 " All, therefore, I have to entreat of you," 
 continued Wroughton, attributing Helmsley's 
 emotion to dissatisfaction at the prospect of the 
 match, — ^' is, that you will try for my sake to 
 overcome yo\ir own prejudices and those of 
 poor dear Emma ; and prepare to welcome my 
 sweet wife into the family as a sister and friend. 
 I am fully aware of your antipathy ; but I am 
 also aware you have too much kindness of 
 heart to persist in harshness and injustice to- 
 wards an innocent person." 
 
 It was fortunate for Helmsley that Ludovico 
 at that moment entered the room with a bag of 
 gold, the exchange for one of Hammerslej^s 
 notes with which he had been intrusted by Sir 
 William. Details of business were now to be 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD, 28? 
 
 attended to. The hour of departure was at 
 hand ; and the doubts which a moment before 
 had glanced into the mind of the new Lord 
 Monthermer — " Is it myself, or is it Gerald 
 she has been deceiving?" — was set aside by 
 inquiries after cloaks and roadbooks, sandwich- 
 boxes and air-pillows ! 
 
 When morning dawned, Gerald retired to 
 rest to dream of Laura de Sades, or Lady Ade- 
 laide Wroughton ; and Lord Monthermer had 
 reached Santa Agata, on his way to the enjoy- 
 ments of Bridgnorth Castle and the revenues 
 of an Italian sovereign. 
 
288 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 I have upon a rich and pleasant hill, 
 Feigned Fortune to be thron'd. Amongst the crowd, 
 Whose eyes are on the sovereign lady fix'd. 
 One do I personate, of Lord Timon's frame. 
 Whom fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Had Lord Monthermer^ in his hurried jour- 
 ney homewards, been morally the same indi- 
 vidual who, five months before, as Sir William 
 Helmsley, pursued the same road in an opposite 
 direction, the self-communing, ensured by a 
 fortnight spent in a solitary travelling-carriage, 
 might have been productive of advantageous 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 289 
 
 results. But the man was as much altered as 
 his name and station ; and the conflict of those 
 emotions to which he had unwittingly afforded 
 shelter in his bosom^ was rather stimulated 
 than soothed by the undisturbed train of his 
 reflections. 
 
 Sometimes, starting from his reveries, he 
 would upbraid himself for having quitted 
 Naples so abruptly, without a definite explana- 
 tion with Gerald and Lady Adelaide. What 
 was the motive of his haste in flying to England ? 
 To bury the dead. For it was scarcely within 
 the scope of possibility that Lord Shropshire 
 should still survive; and what claim had the 
 senseless remains of his kinsman upon his 
 assiduities, compared with the interests of his 
 living, breathing, excellent, afl*ectionate brother ? 
 He almost determined, on reaching Milan, when 
 a letter was delivered to him addressed to " The 
 Lord Monthermer^' formally announcing the 
 
 o 
 
290 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 decease of his uncle^ to retrace his steps towards 
 Naples. But what interpretation would be 
 placed by the world on such manifest inconsis- 
 tency ? — What apology could he oifer to society 
 for leaving the obsequies of the deceased earl 
 unsolemnized, and the interests of his own son 
 unguarded ? — No ! — he must proceed ! — With 
 feverish lips he murmured aloud an ejaculation 
 that it was now too late for interference ; that 
 time and fate must develop his own destinies 
 and those of the two human beings who, saving 
 his children, were dearest to him on earth. 
 
 It was scarcely possible for a man acceding 
 to opulence and distinction from comparative 
 obscurity, to regard with more complete indif- 
 ference his auspicious change of fortunes. He 
 no longer attempted to disguise from himself, 
 that the humblest position in life cheered by 
 the tenderness and brightened by the beauty of 
 such a being as Adelaide de Vere, would be 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 291 
 
 more precious to him than the barren splen- 
 dours with which he was henceforth to be 
 environed. He felt that, though tidings of 
 Gerald^s rejection would imbitter his pros- 
 perity with feelings of pity and remorse, the 
 realization of Gerald^s presumptuous hopes, 
 would render life a burden to himself. 
 
 The weather was mild and spring-hke ; the 
 hill-sides were already clothed with verdure, 
 and the meads variegated with flowers. All 
 was in accordance with the spirit of his dawn- 
 ing prospects. Yet scarcely for a moment 
 were the reflections of the bewildered man 
 directed towards either the pleasures or duties 
 that awaited him. He thought not of the 
 princely halls and parks and forests of Bridg- 
 north, — the home of his mother^s youth, — the 
 home of his son^s maturity. His fancy wan- 
 dered only to the purple coasts he was aban- 
 doning, — to the budding gardens of Villa Reale, 
 
292 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 — to the shrubby steeps of Pozzuoli, — to the 
 fragrant atmosphere of enervate and enervating 
 Italy !— 
 
 Arrived at Dovor, and persecuted into a re- 
 cognition of his newly-acquired importance by 
 the obsequiousness of mine host of the Ship, 
 the London newspapers which were placed in 
 his hands during a hurried breakfast, informed 
 him that " The body of the late Earl of Shrop- 
 shire was lying in state in his mansion in 
 Grosvenor Square, till the arrival of his lord- 
 ship's nephew and heir Lord Monthenner, who 
 was hourly expected in town from the con- 
 tinent.'^ 
 
 Another journal acquainted him that he was 
 in his twenty-ninth year ; a young man of pre- 
 possessing appearance and high accomplish- 
 ments ; who had distinguished himself by the 
 attainment of honours at Oxford, and was likely 
 to acquire distinction in the upper house. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 293 
 
 A third (and these tidings were, perhaps, the 
 most welcome of the three) stated that " prepa- 
 rations were making at his mansion in Grosve- 
 nor Square, for the arrival of Lord Monthermer, 
 who was to reach town on Tuesday next/^ 
 
 For once, indeed, the papers spoke truth. 
 On that very Tuesday evening, four smoking 
 posters drew up before the lordly mansion 
 in Grosvenor Square whose doors had never 
 before unclosed to afford him a cordial welcome; 
 and whose half-closed shutters now announced 
 to the world, that the dust of the Earl, its late 
 owner, lay coffined within, in all the pride and 
 pomp of crimson velvet and circumstance of 
 gilt cherubim and nails. 
 
 On the following morning, a gorgeous achieve- 
 ment appended to the fagade of the house, 
 proclaimed that even the dust was departed. 
 The funeral was on its slow way into North- 
 amptonshire; Lord Monthermer having pre- 
 
 o 2 
 
294 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 ceded it, to be in waiting at Bridgnorth Castle 
 for the mournful procession. 
 
 After the ruggedness of continental land- 
 scape, how rich now appeared to his eyes the 
 green and timber-fenced pastures of England ! 
 how Tempe-hke those noble parks, set aside 
 for centuries from the common earth, to recreate 
 the mighty ones of mankind with their velvet 
 sward, their groves, their glens, their glorious 
 alternation of hill and valley 1 — Lord Mon- 
 thermer entered the magnificent domain of 
 Bridgnorth Castle, as the evening sun was 
 streaming in golden lustre over its hanging 
 woods, its abounding river and foaming cas- 
 cades ; and the nobleness of the scenery, and the 
 lofty mansion by which it was dominated, seemed 
 to strike him with all the force of novelty. 
 
 But no feeling of personal elation mingled 
 with his delight. Expectation of future in- 
 heritance had been so remote from his mind. 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 295 
 
 and the untimely death of his young cousin 
 was still so recent, that no time had been 
 afforded for surmises respecting the ultimate 
 disposal of the property. Up to the moment 
 of receiving the letter from his man of business, 
 he felt persuaded that the earl would marry 
 again; and events had since succeeded each 
 other so rapidly, and fallen upon a mind so 
 thoroughly pre-engrossed, that all appeared a 
 dream. He approached Bridgnorth Castle as 
 if still coming to pay his cold respects to the 
 kinsman, who was no longer there to welcome 
 him or to repulse. 
 
 It was well for the new lord that a sense of 
 fatigue after his recent exertions, superseded 
 for the time every other sensation; and that 
 he was able to sleep away his first twelve hours 
 of desolate autocracy. In spite of the throng 
 of servants which poured forth to offer their 
 compliments of condolence and allegiance, no- 
 
296 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 thing could exceed the dreariness of the vast 
 mansion; of which, till Lord Shropshire was 
 deposited in the grave. Lord Monthermer could 
 not feel himself altogether lord and master. 
 It seemed to his disordered faculties (still 
 unrefreshed by repose), as if the blaze of light 
 and display of plate, costly viands, and gene- 
 rous wines, were prepared as a feast of mock- 
 to the absent one, not yet united to the 
 dead, though so fearfully c?25-united from the 
 living. 
 
 The following morning, however, some relief 
 was afforded to the loneliness of the dispirited 
 though not afflicted heir, by a visit from the 
 rector of Bridgnorth (the chaplain of the late 
 earl), and the arrival from town of the family 
 solicitor and auditor of the estates. The will 
 of the deceased was now formally read ; be- 
 queathing all and every thing to the heir-at-law, 
 with the exception of a legacy of a thousand 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 297 
 
 pounds to his friend Lord Colebrooke, and a 
 few bequests to old servants and dependants. 
 The only person who listened with a careless 
 ear to the enumeration of family property, 
 inserted probably by the manufacturers and 
 reciters of the will for the purpose of multiply- 
 ing its skins of parchment, was Lord Mon- 
 thermer ; who was roused from the reverie into 
 which he had fallen during the recapitulation 
 by a hearty shake of the hand from the gra- 
 tulating rector, who had not yet learned to 
 approach with the obsequiousness due to a 
 right honourable patron, the young man he 
 had so often heard reviled by the late earl as 
 " that ass, my nephew William Helmsley.^^ 
 
 Lord Monthermer had sufficient command 
 over himself to oifer his thanks to the three 
 grave elders who expressed such disinterested 
 satisfaction in his good fortune ; and to invite 
 them to assist in doing to each other the hor 
 
298 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 nours of a house in which at present he still felt 
 himself an alien. 
 
 There was nothing very appalling in the 
 prospect of the duties of life he was called upon 
 to discharge ; for his three guests were unani- 
 mous in asserting over their third bottle of 
 claret, that the loss of the late lamented earl 
 would be severely felt in the parish, the county, 
 and the country. Dr. Drumstrum humbly sug- 
 gested that, in consequence of Lord Monther- 
 mer^s absence from England, he had ventured 
 to anticipate his wishes by ordering decent 
 mourning for the children of the two schools 
 founded by his late generous patron, to appear 
 at the funeral of their benefactor, as well as for 
 the elderly women and infirm men, pensioners 
 of the Bridgnorth almshouses. Mr. Screw, the 
 auditor stated that he had taken upon himself 
 to bespeak scarves and hatbands for three hun- 
 dred tenants, who were desirous to pay the 
 
THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 299 
 
 last respect to the most liberal of landlords 
 (after which a handsome entertainment must 
 necessarily be afforded them at the castle) ; while 
 Mr. Cognovit acquainted his lordship that his 
 two partners and head-clerk, as well as the 
 architect, apothecary, wine-merchant, and sil- 
 versmith of the lamented peer, had signified 
 their intention of gracing his honoured obse- 
 quies on the morrow ; the distance from town 
 being nothing in comparison with their zeal in 
 the service of so amiable and generous an 
 employer. 
 
 After listening to these announcements, and 
 a few more flourishes of a similar nature. Lord 
 Monthermer began to be almost persuaded that 
 the poor and the people had really lost a friend; 
 and that, though a heartless libertine in the 
 private relations of life, his uncle had been un- 
 blemished in the discharge of his public duties. 
 The county papers designated him " our late 
 
300 THE WOMAN OF THE WORLD. 
 
 esteemed and lamented Lord-lieutenant/^ — 
 the metropolitan journals, " that worthy and 
 distinguished man, the late Earl of Shrop- 
 shire/^ and, oppressed by the weight of all 
 these testimonials to his merit, his nephew 
 began to feel that he was scarcely worthy of 
 laying at the feet of royalty the badge and rib- 
 bon of so excellent a predecessor, as the man 
 who had devoted a third of his life to whist, — 
 which third was, perhajis, the least objectionable 
 part of his mortal career. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSB, STRAND. 
 
wmmm^