_ CHAPTER IV
One morning, as Vivian was walking with Mr. Wharton up Bond-street, they were met by a party of fashionable loungers, one of whom asked whether Mrs. Wharton was not come to town yet.
"Mrs. Wharton!" said Vivian, with an air of surprise.
"Yes, she came to town this morning," said Wharton, carelessly; then laughing, as he turned to look at Vivian, "Vivian, my good fellow! what smites you with such surprise? Did not you know I was married?"
"I suppose I must have heard it; but I really forgot it," said Vivian.
"There you had the advantage of me," said Wharton, still laughing. "But if you never heard of Mrs. Wharton before, keep your own secret; for I can tell you she would never forgive you, though I might. Put a good face on the matter, at any rate; and swear you've heard so much of her, that you were dying to see her. Some of these gentlemen, who have nothing else to do, will introduce you whenever you please."
"And cannot I," said Vivian, "have the honour of your introduction?"
"Mine! the worst you could possibly have. The honour, as you are pleased to call it, would be no favour, I assure you. The honour!--honour of a husband's introduction! What a novice you are, or would make me believe you to be! But, seriously, I am engaged to-day at Glistonbury's: so, good morning to you."
Accustomed to hear Wharton talk in the freest manner of women and marriage in general, and scarcely having heard him mention his own wife, Vivian had, as he said, absolutely forgotten that Wharton was a married man. When he was introduced to Mrs. Wharton, he was still more surprised at her husband's indifference; for he beheld a lady in all the radiance of beauty, and all the elegance of fashion: he was so much dazzled by her charms, that he had not immediately power or inclination to examine what her understanding or disposition might be; and he could only repeat to himself, "How is it possible that Wharton can be indifferent to such a beautiful creature!"
Incapable of feeling any of what he, called the romance of love, the passion, of course, had always been with Mr. Wharton of a very transient nature. Tired of his wife's person, he showed his indifference without scruple or ceremony. Notorious and glorying in his gallantries, he was often heard to declare, that no price was too high to be paid for beauty, except a man's liberty; but that was a sacrifice which he would never make to any woman, especially to a wife. Marriage vows and custom-house oaths he classed in the same order of technical forms,--nowise binding on the conscience of any but fools and dupes. Whilst the husband went on in this manner, the wife satisfied herself by indulgence in her strongest passions--the passion for dress and public admiration. Childishly eager to set the fashion in trifles, she spent unconscionable sums on her pretty person; and devoted all her days, or rather all her nights, to public amusements. So insatiable and restless is the passion for admiration, that she was never happy for half an hour together, at any place of public amusement, unless she fixed the gaze of numbers. The first winter after her marriage she enjoyed the prerogatives of a fashionable beauty; but the reign of fashion is more transient even than the bloom of beauty. Mrs. Wharton's beauty soon grew familiar, and faded in the public eye; some newer face was this season the mode. Mrs. Wharton appeared twice at the opera in the most elegant and becoming dresses; but no one followed her lead. Mortified and utterly dejected, she felt, with the keenest anguish, the first symptoms of the decline of public admiration. It was just at this period, when she was miserably in want of the consolations of flattery, that Vivian's acquaintance with her commenced. Gratified by the sort of delighted surprise which she saw in his countenance the first moment he beheld her, seeing that he was an agreeable man, and knowing that he was a man of fortune and family, she took pains to please him by all the common arts of coquetry. But his vanity was proof against these: the weakness of the lady's understanding and the frivolity of her character were, for some weeks, sufficient antidotes against all the power of her personal charms; so much so, that at this period he often compared, or rather contrasted, Mrs. Wharton and Selina, and blessed his happy fate. He wrote to his friend Russell soon after he was introduced to this celebrated beauty, and drew a strong and just parallel between the characters of these two ladies: he concluded with saying, "Notwithstanding your well-founded dread of the volatility of my character, you will not, I hope, my dear Russell, do me the injustice to apprehend that I am in any danger from the charms of Mrs. Wharton."
Vivian wrote with perfect sincerity; he believed it to be impossible that he could ever become attached to such a woman as Mrs. Wharton, even if she had not been married, and the wife of his friend. So, in all the security of conscious contempt, he went every day to wait upon her, or rather to meet agreeable company at her house,--a house in which all that was fashionable and dissipated assembled; where beauty, and talents, and rank, met and mingled; and where political or other arrangements prevented the host and hostess from scrupulously excluding some whose characters were not free from suspicion. Lady Mary Vivian never went to Mrs. Wharton's; but she acknowledged that she knew many ladies of unblemished reputation who thought it no impropriety to visit there; and Mrs. Wharton's own character she knew was hitherto unimpeached. "She is, indeed, a woman of a cold, selfish temper," said Lady Mary; "not likely to be led into danger by the tender passion, or by any of the delusions of the imagination."
Vivian agreed with his mother in this opinion, and went on paying his devoirs to her every day. It was the fashion of the times, and peculiarly the mode of this house, for the gentlemen to pay exclusive attention to matrons. Few of the young men seemed to think it worth while to speak to an unmarried woman in any company; and the few who might be inclined to it were, as they declared, deterred by the danger: for either the young ladies themselves, or their mothers, immediately formed expectations and schemes of drawing them into matrimony--the grand object of the ladies' wishes and of the gentlemen's fears. The men said they could not speak to an unmarried woman, or even dance with her more than twice, without its being reported that they were going to be married; and then the friends and relatives of the young ladies pretended to think them injured and ill-treated, if these reports were not realized. Our hero had some slight experience of the truth of these complaints in his own case with the Lady Sarah Lidhurst: he willingly took the rest upon trust--believed all the exaggerations of his companions--and began to think it prudent and necessary to follow their example, and to confine his attentions to married women. Many irresistible reasons concurred to make Mrs. Wharton the most convenient and proper person to whom he could pay this sort of homage: besides, she seemed to fall to his share by lot and necessity; for, at Wharton's house, every other lady and every other gentleman being engaged in gallantry, play, or politics, Mrs. Wharton must have been utterly neglected if Vivian had not paid her some attention. Common politeness absolutely required it; the attention became a matter of course, and was habitually expected. Still he had not the slightest design of going beyond the line of modern politeness; but, in certain circumstances, people go wrong a great way before they are aware that they have gone a single step. It was presently repeated to Mr. Vivian, by some of Mrs. Wharton's confidantes, in whispers, and under the solemn promise of secrecy, that he certainly was a prodigious favourite of hers. He laughed, and affected to disbelieve the insinuation: it made its impression, however; and he was secretly flattered by the idea of being a prodigious favourite with such a beautiful young creature. In some moments he saw her with eyes of compassion, pitying her for the neglect with which she was treated by her husband: he began to attribute much of her apparent frivolity, and many of her faults, more to the want of a guide and a friend than to a deficiency of understanding or to defects of character. Mrs. Wharton had just sufficient sense to be cunning--this implies but a very small portion: she perceived the advantage which she gained by thus working upon Vivian's vanity and upon his compassion. She continued her operations, without being violently interested in their success; for she had at first only a general wish to attract his attention, because he was a fashionable young man.
One morning when be called upon Wharton to accompany him to the House of Commons, he found Mrs. Wharton in tears, her husband walking up and down the room in evident ill-humour. He stopped speaking when Vivian entered; and Mrs. Wharton endeavoured, or seemed to endeavour, to conceal her emotion. She began to play on her harp; and Wharton, addressing himself to Vivian, talked of the politics of the day. There was some incoherence in the conversation; for Vivian's attention was distracted by the air that Mrs. Wharton was playing, of which he was passionately fond.
"There's no possibility of doing any thing while there is such a cursed noise in the room!" cried Wharton. "Here I have the heads of this bill to draw up--I cannot endure to have music wherever I go--"
He snatched up his papers and retired to an adjoining apartment, begging that Vivian would wait one quarter of an hour for him.--Mrs. Wharton's tears flowed afresh, and she looked beautiful in tears.
"You see--you see, Mr. Vivian--and I am ashamed you should see--how I am treated.--I am, indeed, the most unfortunate creature upon the face of the earth; and nobody in this world has the least compassion for me!"
Vivian's countenance contradicted this last assertion most positively.--Mrs. Wharton understood this; and her attitude of despondency was the most graceful imaginable.
"My dear Mrs. Wharton"--(it was the first time our hero had ever called her "his dear Mrs. Wharton;" but it was only a platonic dear)--"you take trifles much too seriously--Wharton was hurried by business--a moment's impatience must be forgiven."
"A moment!" replied Mrs. Wharton, casting up to heaven her beautiful eyes--"Oh! Mr. Vivian, how little do you know of him!--I am the most miserable creature that ever existed; but there is not a man upon earth to whom I would say so except yourself."
Vivian could not help feeling some gratitude for this distinction; and, as he leaned over her harp with an air of unusual interest, he said he hoped that he should ever prove himself worthy of her esteem and confidence.
At this instant Wharton interrupted the conversation, by passing hastily through the room.--"Come, Vivian," said he; "we shall be very late at the house."
"We shall see you again of course at dinner," said Mrs. Wharton to Vivian in a low voice. Our hero replied by an assenting bow.
Five minutes afterwards he repented that he had accepted the invitation, because he foresaw that he should resume a conversation which was at once interesting and embarrassing. He felt that it was not right to become the depository of this lady's complaints against her husband; yet he had been moved by her tears, and the idea that he was
the only man in the world to whom she would open her heart upon such a delicate subject, interested him irresistibly in her favour. He returned in the evening, and was flattered by observing, that amongst the crowd of company by which she was surrounded he was instantly distinguished. He was perfectly persuaded of the innocence of her intentions; and, as he was attached to another woman, he fancied that he could become the friend of the beautiful Mrs. Wharton without danger. The first time he had an opportunity of speaking to her in private, he expressed this idea in the manner that he thought the most delicately flattering to her self-complacency. Mrs. Wharton seemed to be perfectly satisfied with this conduct; and declared, that unless she had been certain that he was not a man of gallantry, she should never have placed any confidence in his friendship.
"I consider you," said she, "quite as a married man:--by-the-bye, when are you to be married, and what sort of a person is Miss Sidney?--I am told she is excessively handsome, and amiable, and sensible.--What a happy creature she is!--just going to be united to the man she loves!" Here the lady gave a profound sigh; and Vivian had an opportunity of observing that she had the longest dark eyelashes that he had ever seen.
"I was married," continued she, "before I knew what I was about. You know Mr. Wharton can be so charming when he pleases--and then he was so much in love with me, and swore he would shoot himself if I would not have him--and all that sort of thing.--I protest I was terrified; and I was quite a child, you know. I had been out but six weeks, and I thought I was in love with him. That was because I did not know what love was--
then;--besides, he hurried and teased me to such a degree!--After all, I'm convinced I married him more out of compassion than any thing else; and now you see how he treats me!--most barbarously and tyrannically!--But I would not give the least hint of this to any man living but yourself. I conjure you to keep my secret--and--pity me!--that is all I ask--pity me sometimes, when your thoughts are not absorbed in a happier manner."
Vivian's generosity was piqued: he could not be so selfish as to be engrossed exclusively by his own felicity. He thought that delicacy should induce him to forbear expatiating upon Selina's virtues and accomplishments, or upon his passion. He carried this delicacy so far, that sometimes for a fortnight or three weeks he never mentioned her name. He could not but observe that Mrs. Wharton did not like him the less for this species of sacrifice. It may be observed, that Mrs. Wharton managed her attack upon Vivian with more art than could be expected from so silly a woman; but we must consider that all her faculties were concentrated on one object; so that she seemed to have an instinct for coquetry. The most silly animals in the creation, from the insect tribe upwards, show, on some occasions, where their interests are immediately concerned, a degree of sagacity and ingenuity, which, compared with their usual imbecility, appears absolutely wonderful. The opinion which Vivian had early formed of the weakness of this lady's understanding prevented him from being on his guard against her artifices: he could not conceive it possible that he should be duped by a person so obviously his inferior. With a woman of talents and knowledge, he might have been suspicious; but there was nothing in Mrs. Wharton to alarm his pride or to awaken his fears: he fancied that he could extricate himself in a moment, and with the slightest effort, from any snares which she could contrive; and, under this persuasion, he neglected to make even that slight effort, and thus continued from hour to hour in voluntary captivity.
Insensibly Vivian became more interested for Mrs. Wharton; and, at the same time, submitted with increased facility to the influence of her husband. It was necessary that he should have some excuse to the world, and yet more to his own conscience, for being so constantly at Wharton's. The pleasure he took in Wharton's conversation was still a sort of involuntary excuse to himself for his intimacy with the lady. "Wharton's wit more than Mrs. Wharton's beauty," thought he, "is the attraction that draws me here--I am full as ready to be of his parties as of hers; and this is the best proof that all is as it should be."
Wharton's parties were not always such as Vivian would have chosen; but he was pressed on, without power of resistance. For instance, one night Wharton was going with Lord Pontipool and a set of dissipated young men, to the house of a lady who made herself fashionable by keeping a faro-bank.
"Vivian, you'll come along with us?" said Wharton. "Come, we must have you--unless you are more happily engaged."
His eye glanced with a mixture of contempt and jealousy upon his wife. Mrs. Wharton's alarmed and imploring countenance at the same moment seemed to say, "For Heaven's sake, go with him, or I am undone." In such circumstances it was impossible for Vivian to say no: he followed immediately; acting, as he thought, from a principle of honour and generosity. Wharton was not a man to give up the advantage which he had gained. Every day he showed more capricious jealousy of his wife, though he, at the same time, expressed the most entire confidence in the honour of his friend. Vivian still thought he could not do too much to convince him that his confidence was not misplaced; and thus, to protect Mrs. Wharton from suspicion, he yielded to all her husband's wishes. Vivian now felt frequently ashamed of his conduct, but always proud of his motives; and, with ingenious sophistry, he justified to himself the worst actions, by pleading that he did them with the best intentions. _