Part 5 (1/2)

This led to reflections upon the comparative age and youthful appearance of several of their acquaintance, and upon the care with which mothers concealed the age of their daughters. Glances pa.s.sed between Lady Catharine and Lady Anne.

'For my part,' said Miss Broadhurst, 'my mother would 'labour that point of secrecy in vain for me; for I am willing to tell my age, even if my face did not tell it for me, to all whom it may concern. I am past three-and-twenty--shall be four-and-twenty the 5th of next July.'

'Three-and-twenty! Bless me! I thought you were not twenty!' cried Lady Anne.

'Four-and-twenty next July!--impossible!' cried Lady Catharine.

'Very possible,' said Miss Broadhurst, quite unconcerned.

'Now, Lord Colambre, would you believe it? Can you believe it?' asked Lady Catharine.

'Yes, he can,' said Miss Broadhurst. 'Don't you see that he believes it as firmly as you and I do? Why should you force his lords.h.i.+p to pay a compliment contrary to his better judgment, or to extort a smile from him under false pretences? I am sure he sees that you, ladies, and I trust he perceives that I, do not think the worse of him for this.'

Lord Colambre smiled now without any false pretence; and, relieved at once from all apprehension of her joining in his mother's views, or of her expecting particular attention from him, he became at ease with Miss Broadhurst, shelved a desire to converse with her, and listened eagerly to what she said. He recollected that Grace Nugent had told him that this young lady had no common character; and, neglecting his move at chess, he looked up at Grace as much as to say, 'DRAW HER OUT, pray.'

But Grace was too good a friend to comply with that request; she left Miss Broadhurst to unfold her own character.

'It is your move, my lord,' said Lady Catharine.

'I beg your ladys.h.i.+p's pardon--'

'Are not these rooms beautiful, Miss Broadhurst?' said Lady Catharine, determined, if possible, to turn the conversation into a commonplace, safe channel; for she had just felt, what most of Miss Broadhurst's acquaintance had in their turn felt, that she had an odd way of startling people, by setting their own secret little motives suddenly before them, 'Are not these rooms beautiful?'

'Beautiful!--Certainly.'

The beauty of the rooms would have answered Lady Catharine's purpose for some time, had not Lady Anne imprudently brought the conversation back again to Miss Broadhurst.

'Do you know, Miss Broadhurst,' said she, 'that if I had fifty sore throats, I could not have refrained from my diamonds on this GALA night; and such diamonds as you have! Now, really, I could not believe you to be the same person we saw blazing at the opera the other night!'

'Really! could not you, Lady Anne? That is the very thing that entertains me. I only wish that I could lay aside my fortune sometimes, as well as my diamonds, and see how few people would know me then. Might not I, Grace, by the golden rule, which, next to practice, is the best rule in the world, calculate and answer that question?'

'I am persuaded,' said Lord Colambre, 'that Miss Broadhurst has friends on whom the experiment would make no difference.'

'I am convinced of it,' said Miss Broadhurst; 'and that is what makes me tolerably happy, though I have the misfortune to be an heiress.'

'That is the oddest speech,' said Lady Anne. 'Now I should so like to be a great heiress, and to have, like you, such thousands and thousands at command.'

'And what can the thousands upon thousands do for me? Hearts, you know, Lady Anne, are to be won only by radiant eyes. Bought hearts your ladys.h.i.+p certainly would not recommend. They're such poor things--no wear at all. Turn them which way you will, you can make nothing of them.'

'You've tried then, have you?' said Lady Catharine.

'To my cost. Very nearly taken in by them half a dozen times; for they are brought to me by dozens; and they are so made up for sale, and the people do so swear to you that it's real, real love, and it looks so like it; and, if you stoop to examine it, you hear it pressed upon you by such elegant oaths--By all that's lovely!--By all my hopes of happiness!--By your own charming self! Why, what can one do but look like a fool, and believe; for these men, at the time, all look so like gentlemen, that one cannot bring oneself flatly to tell them that they are cheats and swindlers, that they are perjuring their precious souls.

Besides, to call a lover a perjured creature is to encourage him. He would have a right to complain if you went back after that.'

'Oh dear! what a move was there!' cried Lady Catharine. 'Miss Broadhurst is so entertaining to-night, notwithstanding her sore throat, that one can positively attend to nothing else. And she talks of love and lovers too with such CONNAISSANCE DE FAIT--counts her lovers by dozens, tied up in true-lovers' knots!'

'Lovers!--no, no! Did I say lovers?--suitors I should have said. There's nothing less like a lover, a true lover, than a suitor, as all the world knows, ever since the days of Penelope. Dozens!--never had a lover in my life! And fear, with much reason, I never shall have one to my mind.'

'My lord, you've given up the game,' cried Lady Catharine; 'but you make no battle.'

'It would be so vain to combat against your ladys.h.i.+p,' said Lord Colambre, rising, and bowing politely to Lady Catharine, but turning the next instant to converse with Miss Broadhurst.