University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

A green angel (I mean an angel ignorant of the world) would
probably suppose that the feeding of these animal bodies of ours,
if not done in secret, must at least be the one act of human life
separated entirely from the more heavenly emotions. Yet the
dinner is a meal dear to lovers; and novelists and tale-tellers
choose the moments stolen from fork and plate for the birth and
interchange of the most delicious and tender sentiments of our
existence. Miss Hitchings, while unconsciously shocking Monsieur
Sansou by tilting her soup-plate for the last spoonful of vermicelli,
was controlling the beating of a heart full of feminine and
delicate tenderness; and, as the tutor was careful never to direct
his regards to the other end of the table (for reasons of his own),
Miss Henrietta laid the unction to her soul that such indifference
to the prettiest girl who had ever honored them as a guest,
proved the strength of her own magnet, and put her more at ease

on the subject of Monsieur Sansou's admiration. He, indeed, was
committing the common fault of men whose manners are naturally
agreeable—playing that passive and grateful game of courtesy
and attention so easy to the object of regard, and so delightful
to woman, who is never so blest as in bestowing. Besides, he
had an object in suppressing his voice to the lowest audible pitch,
and the rich and deep tone, sunk only to escape the ear of
another, sounded, to the watchful and desiring sense of her to
whom it was addressed, like the very key-note and harmony of
affection.

At a table so surrounded with secrets, conversation flagged, of
course. Mr. Hitchings thought it very up-hill work to entertain
Miss Hervey, whose heart and senses were completely absorbed
in the riddle of Belaccueil's disguise and presence; Mr. Hervey,
the uncle, found old Mrs. Plantagenet rather absent, for the
smitten dame had eyes for every movement of Monsieur Sansou,
and the tutor himself, with his resentment toward his host, and
his suspicions of the love of his daughter, his reviving passion for
Miss Hervey, and his designs on Mrs. Plantagenet, had enough
to render him as silent as the latter could wish, and as apparently
insensible to the attraction of the fair stranger.

How little we know what is in the bosoms of those around us!
How natural it is, however, to feel and act as if we knew—to
account for all that appears on the surface by the limited
acquaintance we have with circumstances and feelings—to
resent an indifference of which we know not the cause—to approve
or condemn, without allowance for chagrin, or despair, or
love, or hope, or distress—any of the deep undercurrents for
ever at work in the depths of human bosoms. The young man
at your side at a dinner-party may have a duel on his hands for

the morning, or a disgrace imminent in credit or honor, or a refused
heart or an accepted one, newly crushed or newly made
happy; or (more common still, and less allowed for) he may
feel the first impression of disease, or the consequences of an indigestion;
and for his agreeableness or disagreeableness, you try to
account by something in yourself, some feeling toward yourself—
as if you, and you only, could affect his spirits or give a color to
his mood of manners. The old man's thought of death, the
mother's overwhelming interest in her child, the woman's upspring
of emotion or love, are visitors to the soul that come
unbidden and out of time, and you can neither feast nor mourn,
secure against their interruption. It would explain many a
coldness, could we look into the heart concealed from us. We
should often pity when we hate, love when we think we cannot
even forgive, admire where we curl the lip with scorn and indignation.
To judge without reserve of any human action is a culpable
temerity, of all our sins the most unfeeling and frequent.

I will deal frankly with you, dear reader. I have arrived at a
stage of my story which, of all the stages of story-writing, I detest
the most cordially. Poets have written about the difficulty of
beginning a story (vide Byron)—ga ne me coule pas; others of
the ending—that I do with facility, joy, and rejoicing. But
the love pathos of a story—the place where the reader is expected
to sigh, weep, or otherwise express his emotion—that is the point,
I confess, the most difficult to write, and the most unsatisfactory
when written. “Pourquoy, Sir Knight?” Not because it is
difficult to write love-scenes—according to the received mode—
not that it is difficult to please those (a large majority) who never
truly loved, and whose ideas, therefore, of love and its making,
are transcendentalized out of all truth and nature—not that it

would be more labor to do this than to copy a circular, or write a
love-letter for a modest swain (this last my besetting occupation)
—but because, just over the inkstand, there peers a face, sometimes
of a man of forty, past the nonsense of life, but oftener of
some friend, a woman who has loved, and this last more particularly
knows that true love is never readable or sensible—that if
its language be truly written, it is never in polished phrase or
musical cadence—that it is silly, but for its concealed meaning,
embarrassed and blind, but for the interpreting and wakeful heart
of one listener—that love, in short, is the god of unintelligibility,
mystery, and adorable nonsense, and, of course, that which I
have written (if readable and sensible) is out of taste and out of
sympathy, and none but fancy-lovers and enamored brains (not
hearts) will approve or believe it.

D'Israeli the younger is one of the few men of genius who,
having seen truth without a veil, dare to reveal the vision; and
he has written Henrietta Temple—the silliest yet truest love-book
of modern time. The critics (not an amative race) have
given him a benefit of the “besom” of ridicule, but D'Israeli, far
from being the effeminate intellect they would make him, is one
of the most original and intrepid men of genius living, and
whether the theme be “wine, woman, or war,” he writes with
fearless truth, piquancy, and grace. Books on love, however,
should be read by lovers only, and pity it is that there is not an
ink in chemistry, invisible save to the eye kindled with amatory
fire. But “to our muttons.”

It was not leap-year, but Monsieur Belaccueil, on the day of
the dinner-party at Hitchings park, was made aware (I will not
say by proposals, for ladies make known their inclinations in ways
much less formidable)—he was made aware, I say, that the hearts

of three of the party were within the flight of his arrow. Probably
his humble situation reversed the usual relative position of
the sexes in the minds of the dame and damsels—and certainly
there is no power woman exercises so willingly as a usurpation of
the masculine privilege. I have stated my objection to detail the
dialogue between Miss Hitchings and her tutor at the dinner-table.
To be recorded faithfully, the clatter of silver forks on
China, the gurgle of wine, the interruptions of the footmen with
champagne and vegetables, should all be literally interspersed—
for, to all the broken sentences, (so pathetic when properly punctuated—vide
Neal's novels) these were the sequels and the accompaniments:
“No, thank you!” and “If you please,” and “May
I fill your glass?”—have filled out, to the perfect satisfaction of
the lady, many an unfinished sentence upon which depended the
whole destiny of her affections; and, as I said before, the truth is
not faithfully rendered when these interstices are unsupplied.

It was dark when the ladies left the dinner-table, followed by
Monsieur Sansou, and, at the distance of a few feet from the
windows opening on the lawn, the air was black and impenetrable.
There were no stars visible and no moon, but the clouds which
were gathering after a drought, seemed to hush the air with their
long expected approach, and it was one of those soft, still, yet
murky and fragrant nights, when the earth seems to breathe only—
without light, sound, or motion. What lover does not remember
such a night?

Oppressed with the glaring lights and the company of people
she cared nothing about, Miss Hervey stepped out upon the lawn,
and, with her face lifted as if to draw deeper inhalations of the
dew and freshness, she strolled Ieisurely over the smooth carpet
of grass. At a slight turn to avoid a clump of shrubbery, she

encountered Belaccueil, who was apologizing and about to pass
her, when she called him by his name, and passing her arm
through his, led him on to the extremity of the lawn. A wire fence
arrested their progress, and, leaning against it, Miss Hervey
inquired into the cause of the disguise she had penetrated, and
softened and emboldened by the fragrant darkness, said all that a
woman might say of tenderness and encouragement. Belaccueil's
heart beat with pride and gratified amour propre, but he confined
himself to the expression of this feeling, and, living the
subject open, took advantage of Mrs. Plantagenet's call to Miss
Hervey from the window, to leave her and resume his ramble
through the grounds.

The supper tray had been brought in, and the party were just
taking their candles to separate, when the tutor entered at the
glass door and arrested the steps of Mrs. Plantagenet. She set
down her candle and courtesied a good-night to the ladies (Mr.
Hitchings had gone to bed, for wine made him sleepy, and Mr.
Hervey always retired early—where he was bored), and, closing
the windows, mixed a glass of negus for Monsieur Sansou; and,
herself pulling a sandwich to pieces, deliberately, and it must be
confessed, somewhat patronisingly, invited the Frenchman to
become her lord. And after a conversation, which (la verité
avant tout) turned mainly on will and investments, the widow
dame sailed blissfully to bed, and Belaccueil wrote the following
letter to his friend and adviser:

In one of the most fashionable squares of London lives, “in the
season,” Monsieur Belaccueil, one of the most hospitable foreigners
in that great metropolis. He is a pensive and rather melancholy-looking
man by day; but society, which he seems to seek

like an opiate to restless feeling, changes him to a gay man, the
most mirth-loving of Amphytrions. His establishment is presided
over by his wife, who, as his society is mostly French, preserves
a respectable silence, but seems contented with her lot, and proud
of her husband; while in Miss Plantagenet (ci-devant Miss
Hitchings) his guests find his table's chief attraction—one of the
prettiest heiresses and most loveable girls in London. How
deeply Monsieur Belaccueil still rejoices at his success in “getting
to windward,” is a matter of problem. Certainly there is one
chariot which passes him in his solitary ride in the park, to which
he bows with a pang of unabating and miserable anguish. And, if
the occupant of that plain chariot share at all in his suffering, she
has not the consolation to which he flies in society—for a more
secluded and lonely woman lives not in the great solitude of London,
than Constantia Hervey.