📔 Lady Anne Granard

Quotes from this book

Even among the most experienced and discriminating of men, she rarely allowed the élite of the high-born or distinguished to escape her temporary allurements, so that she was the absolute horror, alike of the designing, whose baits she rendered nugatory, and the innocent attached ones, whose expectations she blighted, and whose young hearts were lacerated by the perfidy of those whom she misled. Lady Anne could not repress one involuntary exclamation of "what an inconvenient time Mr. Granard had chosen for his death!" but otherwise she behaved with exemplary propriety. She retired to her dressing-room, which was duly darkened, and there she sat, a white cambric handkerchief in one hand, and a bottle of salts in the other. Mary heard with sorrow, and fear also, of the projected journey; but the altered expression of Isabella's countenance was a great palliative—dreadful as it was that her husband should love another (and of that distressing fact it was impossible to doubt), his confidence was consoling; and her power to prove the firmness of her character, her right to his esteem, and the immolation of her happiness to further his desires, had, in itself, the sustainment which belongs to great sacrifice. Had she known that prurient anecdotes, breaches of confidence, scandalous facts, and cruel observations, were intended to constitute the matter and to enhance the price, her very heart would have broken under the affliction such a disgraceful proceeding exhibited,... Whether Lady Anne knew or suspected who it was that drew his steps from the purlieus of fashion he knew not, nor held himself bound to explain. Much as it is the fashion to deride the nobility, by decrying their morality and denying their ability, even by those who have the entrée, and therefore may be supposed to know them the best, in point of fact, at the present day, there are amongst them an immense proportion of good and sensible people. I impute my improvement more to the kind attentions of Lord Allerton, who is my companion still, and will not, I think, leave me, than to the sea air. [N]o wonder that, although junior partner, and as modest as he was high-spirited, he trod his counting-house floor with a step vigorous and springy as the young captain of a man-of-war, for he felt that he was an emancipated slave; nay, more, a British merchant. It was impossible to imagine anything more cold or comfortless, while it was a task of no small dexterity to thread your way through the labyrinth of trunks, bandboxes, &c.; for it had of late years become a maxim with Lady Anne that nothing ought to be thrown or given away:... He was regular in his habits, parsimonious, and industrious; but he lacked all talent needed at the bar—he had neither address, nor eloquence, nor ingenuity. The duke found his soldiery half disciplined, flagitious, disorderly and inefficient: he rendered them, in his own words, a "perfect organ." "I shall not be the best little one much longer, for I am growing very fast since we left England. Dr. Bartolomé says it is the climate, and that I may go on for a year or two; and, being quite tall enough already, I am willing to leave Marseilles whenever you please, for I don't want to be a may-pole." There was a deep silence, while Helen's vivid fancy conjured up the scene. She knew the small neat room—she had been with Mrs. Palmer to see it; the cheerful garden filled with flowers, the hum of the distant play-ground, the rosy clusters of an acacia-tree, whose branches almost came in at the window;... ...and there were few words of vituperative abuse furnished by a lady's vocabulary (and even some beyond it) that were not launched upon his head, as a "city tradesman," that of the "puling baby," his wife, his flirting sister and her wittol husband;... Could a man so situated fail to evince the joy he felt in the circumstance expected; thereby, delighting and sustaining his suffering young wife, if he were not wrapt and absorbed in the contemplation of an object still more interesting—an object still living, still capable, however high or virtuous, of working woe to Isabella? "There is nothing of the kind even within view," cried Helen, warmly, "nor any one object that could offend the most fastidious eye, as Mrs. Palmer observed; a duchess might delight in it; every thing is so clean without, and so good within: such beautiful carpets and rugs to match! such handsome chiffoniers, and elegant books!... Courageous, patriotic, yet vacillating, many of the noblest principles and the purest intentions, men of large possessions and ancient names, under the afflicting circumstances of the times, failed to render service to their unhappy country, but involved themselves in irremediable ruin. ...and where he never failed to lavish on me every gift his fortune could supply, delight me by the encomiums he bestowed on my music and needlework (always an object of importance in a nunnery), and prove, by his admiring looks and his tender tones, how entirely he loved me.