It was near the end of May, beautiful May, that month of strange contrarieties in our lovely land. In the haunts of Nature, robed with such gorgeous beauty, bringing such a lavish garniture of tree and shrub, and flowers; such fresh and dewy mornings; such glorious sunsets; and those soft sweet hours of twilight, so fraught with spiritual musings; and those lovely nights, when the mind loses itself in the infinitude of thought, in the vain yearning to grasp something beyond our present being, in itself evidence of Immortality! In the city, in the proud metropolis, seat of empire and wealth, fashion and beauty, luxury and pleasure, crime and famine, misery and desolation, clothed as May still is with her natural beauty, we know her not, save as the “Season!” and in that word what a host of thoughts spring up—enjoyment, luxury, fêtes, balls, dinners! These were once, and but a few years back, its sole association; but now a mighty spirit is abroad, and over the festal halls a dim cloud is hovering, breathing of oppression born in that very thoughtless joyance. Through the gay music, the silvery laugh, the murmur of glad voices—aye, through every tone that tells of luxurious pleasure only—a thrilling cry is sounding! the voice of suffering thousands, claiming brotherhood with Joy; demanding a portion of that which a beneficent Father ordained for ALL—rest, recreation, homes.
In the drawing-room of one of the smaller mansions of the aristocratic west, a young lady was sitting near an open window, inhaling the delicious scent of the beautiful flowers, which filled the balcony in such profusion that, shaded in the background as they were by the magnificent trees of the park, they looked as if the goddess May had brought a garden from her most sylvan haunts, to mark her presence even there.
Lucy Neville, the sole inmate of this pleasant room, was neither very young nor very beautiful, yet she had charms enough to occasion some degree of wonderment that she should have passed through four London seasons and attained the venerable age of three-and-twenty, and was Lucy Neville still. She had the advantage of mingling with some of the most highly gifted and most learned patriots of the age; for her brother, Lord Valery, of whose house she was sole mistress, was one of the most influential men of his day. She went into society also continually; and, altogether, it was a constant marvel to all those who had nothing to do but to talk of their neighbours, why she had never married. Lucy Neville might not have had regular beauty, but she had something better—she had MIND, and a heart so full of good and kindly feeling that she was an exception to the general idea, that we must know sorrow ourselves before we can feel for others. She was indeed, only just putting off mourning for a young and darling brother; but she had begun to think years before that, and the six months of quietude had only deepened, not created, the principles on which she acted.
“Visitors so late! why it is just six o’clock!” passed through her mind, as a loud impetuous ring announced a carriage; and a party of young ladies, of ultra-fashionable exterior, hurried into the drawing-room, all talking at once, and of something so very delightful, that Miss Neville had great difficulty in comprehending their meaning.
“Now, Lucy, don’t look so bewildered. You are quick enough at comprehension sometimes, and I really want you to understand me with a word now, for I am in a terrible hurry. I ought to have come to you by eleven this morning, but really this short invitation has given me so many things to think about, I could not.”
“But what am I to understand, Charlotte?” replied Miss Neville, laughing so good-humouredly, that it was difficult to discover why those of her own age and standing so often kept aloof from her, as having so little in common. “Laura—Mary—have pity on my obtuseness.”
“Why, Lady Gresham’s long-talked-of fête is fixed at last; and of course you will go. Your invitation was enclosed in mamma’s last night. Absolutely her ladyship condescends to entreat her to introduce you. I cannot imagine the reason of this sudden empressement—she could have visited you long ago, had she wished it.”
“She did wish it individually, I believe; but an unfortunate misunderstanding between her brother and mine prevented it. Edward has long wished the estrangement to cease, so I shall be very happy to meet her half-way, and accept the invitation. When is it?”
“Next Monday.”
“Monday! Why, to-day is Friday! You must mean Monday week.”
“Indeed I do not. How she will manage I cannot tell, except that when people have more wealth than they know what to do with, they can do what they please. Her villa at Richmond, too, is just the place for a fête champétre; and the novel shortness of the invitation, and being the day before a drawing-room, will crowd her rooms, depend upon it. It is something unusually exciting, the very bustle of the thing.”
“But I thought it was not to be until—”
“Until Herbert Gresham returned. Nor will it. He arrives to-morrow night, or some time on Sunday, quite suddenly, not having been expected for several weeks yet. What with his foreign honours, his promised baronetcy, and last, not least, his distinguished appearance, he will be sought and fêted by all the money-loving mammas and husband-seeking daughters for the remainder of the season.”
“The worst of its being a fête champétre is, that we must have complete new dresses,” rejoined Laura. “And how to coax papa for the necessary help, I know not; my last quarter was all gone before I received it, and my debts actually frighten me. But what is to be done? go I must.”
“And then the shortness of the notice!” continued Mary; “really Lady Gresham might have given us more time. Who can decide what to wear, or even what colour, in three days?”
“Come, Lucy, decide! But of course you will go!” exclaimed Charlotte, impatiently. “It will be your first appearance in public this season, and so you can have nothing to think about in the way of expense. Nothing but the trouble of seeing about a new dress.”
“Which will prevent my going, much as I might wish it,” replied Miss Neville, very quietly, though the faint tinge rising to her cheek, and the quiver of the lip, might have betrayed some degree of internal emotion.
“Prevent your going! What can you possibly mean?” exclaimed her guests together.
“That as it is now six o’clock on Friday, and you tell me Lady Gresham’s fête is three o’clock on Monday, I have not sufficient time to procure all I want (for having been so long in mourning, I have literally nothing that will do), without breaking a resolution, and sacrificing a principle, which I do not feel at all inclined to do.”
“Sacrificing a principle! Lucy, you are perfectly ridiculous! What has principle to do with a fête champétre? Your head is turned with the stupid cant of oppressing, and the people, as if we had not annoyances, and vexations, and pressure too, when we want more money than we happen to have! And as for time, what is to prevent your sending to Mrs. Smith to-night, (by-the-bye, how can you employ an English artiste?) and get all you want by ten o’clock on Monday morning? Why, I cannot even give, an order till after the post comes in to-morrow. I must wait to know what was worn at the Duchesse de Nemours’ fête champétre the other day. One feels just out of the ark, in England.”
“And I am sure I cannot decide what to wear till then,” languidly remarked Mary.
“And as for me, I am in a worse predicament than either of you,” laughed Laura, but her laugh was not a gay one. “Raise the wind I must, but it requires time to think how.”
We have no space to follow this conversation further. Persuasions, reproaches, and taunts assailed Miss Neville on all sides, but she did not waver. Charlotte left her in high dudgeon; Mary marvelled at her unfortunate delusion, quite convinced that she was on the verge of insanity; and Laura wishing that she could be but as firm. Not that she comprehended or allowed the necessity of the principle on which she acted, but only as it would save her the disagreeable task of thinking how to get the necessary costume when both modiste and jeweller had refused to trust her any more.
For nearly half an hour Lucy remained sitting where her visitors had left her, her hands pressed on her eyes, and her whole posture denoting a painful intensity of thought. Herbert Gresham returning! His mother’s unexpected and pressing invitation! Could it be that the bar between the families was indeed so entirely removed, that she might hope as she had never dared hope before? Sir Sydney’s hatred to her brother, from some political opposition, had been such, it was whispered at the time, that he had obtained his nephew some honourable appointment abroad, only because he feared that he not only loved Lucy, but leaned towards Lord Valery’s political opinions. Four years had passed since then, and Herbert Gresham was no longer a cipher in another’s hands. He had formed his own principles, marked out his own course; and Lucy heard his name so often and so admiringly from her brother’s lips, that the dream of her first season could not pass away, strive against it as she might, for she knew not whether she claimed more than a passing thought from him who held her being so enchained. And now he was returning; and to the fête to welcome him she was invited, with such an evident desire for her presence, that her heart bounded beneath the thronging fancies that would come, seeming to whisper it was at his instigation. And why could she not go? Was it not, indeed, a quixotic and uncalled-for sacrifice? How could the resolution of one feeble individual aid in removing the heavy pressure of over-work from the thousands of her fellow-creatures? There was time, full time, for all she required, if she saw about it at once. It was but adding an atom to the weight of oppression, which, whether added or withheld, could be of no moment; and surely, surely, for such a temptation there was enough excuse. How would Herbert construe her absence, if, indeed, it was at his wish the invitation came? Why might she not——
“Lucy, seven o’clock and not ready for dinner! Why, what are you so engrossed about?” exclaimed her brother, half-jestingly, half-anxiously, the latter feeling prevailing, as she hastily looked up. A few, a very few words, and he understood it all.
“And yet I know, even under such circumstances, you will not fail,” he said; and how powerful is the voice of affectionate confidence in the dangerous moment of hesitation between right and wrong? “You may, indeed, be but one where there needs the aid of hundreds; but if all hold back because they are but one, how shall we gain the necessary muster? To check this thoughtless waste of human life, this (in many) unconscious crushing of all that makes existence, is WOMAN’S work. Man may legislate, may theorise, but he looks to his female relatives for its practical fulfilment. Dearest, do you choose the right, and trust me, useless as the sacrifice now seems, you will yet thank God that it was made.”
Lady Gresham’s fête was brilliant, recherché—crowded as anticipated. The weather was lovely, the gardens magnificent, the arrangements in the best taste that an ultra-fashionist of some thirty years’ experience could devise. Youth, beauty, rank, wealth, all were there, and the female portion set off to the best advantage by an elegance of costume and an extreme carefulness of attire, without which all knew an entrance into Lady Gresham’s select coterie could never be obtained. A despot in the empire of dress and appearance, she little knew, and still less cared, for all the petty miseries (alas, that such a word should be spoken in the same breath with dress!) which her invitations usually excited. The resolve to outvie—the utter carelessness of expenditure while the excitement lasted—the depression, almost despair, at the accumulated debts which followed—the rivalry of a first fashion—the petty man?uvres not to give a hint of the intended costume, and the equally petty man?uvres to discover it—the mortification when, after all the lavish expense, all the mysteries, others appeared more fashionable, more recherché—the disgust with which, in consequence, the previously considered perfect dress was henceforth regarded—these, and a hundred other similar emotions had been, during the “season,” called forth again and again; and in beings destined for immortality! was it marvel they had no thought for other than themselves?
That this fête was in commemoration of Herbert Gresham’s return, and that he was present, the hero of the day, not a little increased its excitement and importance. But he moved amongst his mother’s guests with native and winning courtesy indeed, but as if his mind were engrossed with other and deeper things. In the four years of his absence many changes, powerful in themselves, but still only invisibly working, had taken place in the political aspect of his country. By means of private correspondence with the most influential men of the day, and through the public journals, he had felt the deepest interest in these changes; and from the very fact of his looking on from a distance, and not mingling with the contending waves of party, he had formed clearer views concerning them than many on the spot. He had returned, determined to devote the whole energies of his powerful mind to removing invisible oppression, so lessening labour that MIND might resume her supremacy, and create for every position its own immortal joys. He was no leveller of ranks; no believer in that vain dream, equality. He had travelled and thought much, and felt to his heart’s core the superiority of England as a nation, both for constitution and morality; but this conviction, instead of blinding him to her faults, quickened his perceptions, not only regarding the evils, but their causes, and increased the intensity of his desire to remove them.
It was not, however, only the habitude of thought which, on this occasion, had given him a look of abstraction. He was disappointed. His mother had told him that, in compliance with his desire, all foolish coolness between his family and that of Lord Valery should cease—she had condescended to make advances to Miss Neville, which were coldly rejected. She did not tell him that these advances had been merely an invitation to her fête (of whose sudden arrangement Herbert was himself unconscious), and did not know herself, and certainly would never have imagined the real reason of Lucy’s refusal. Before the day closed, however, her son was destined to be enlightened.
He was standing near a group of very gay young ladies and gentlemen, conversing at first on grave topics with a friend, when his quick ear was irresistibly attracted by the mention of Miss Neville’s name, coupled with much satirical laughter.
“She will become a second Mrs. Fry, depend upon it,” was the observation of one. “I should not be at all surprised that at last we shall find her making pilgrimages through the streets of London, to see if all the shops are closed at a certain hour, and the released apprentices properly employed. She should set up an evening school for drapers’ assistants and milliners’ apprentices. Why don’t you propose it to her, Miss Balfour?”
Charlotte, whose superb Parisian costume gave her the triumph of being almost universally envied, laughed, and declared it was too much trouble.
“You stand in rather too much awe of both her and Lord Valery,” was her brother’s rejoinder. “It is a pity, though, that Miss Neville has imbibed such outré notions, otherwise she would be a nice girl enough.”
“And did she really refuse to come only because the notice was too short for her to get a proper costume without injuring or oppressing—as the cant of the day has it—the poor milliners? How perfectly ridiculous! I am sure the artistes who come for our orders are in the finest condition both as to health and wealth.”
“And the shopmen—they are sleek, gay, care-nothing looking fellows. As for their needing greater rest, more recreation, opportunities to cultivate the mind, one has only to look at them to feel the pure romance of the thing. What are some people born for but to work?”
“And just imagine how dull London would be if all the shops were closed by seven or eight o’clock! I should lose half my enjoyment in walking to my club.”
“I should like to know what good Miss Neville and her party of philanthropists think they will accomplish by giving so much liberty and leisure. We shall have to build double the number of taverns, for such will be their only resort. What can such people know of intellectual amusement!”
“And if they did, what do they want with it? We should have a cessation of all labour, and then what is to become of us, or the country either?”
“It is pure folly. Some people must have a hobby to make a noise about; and so now nothing is heard but oppression, internal slavery, broken-hearted milliners’ apprentices, and maimed drapers’ assistants! Really, for so much eloquence, it is a pity they do not choose a higher subject!”
“And I wish the present sub............