The commissioner then, as if half in jest, half in earnest, paid Caroline a profusion of compliments upon her appearance the preceding night--numbered on his fingers the conquests she had made, and the hearts she had broken. Mrs. Percy, Rosamond, and Mr. Temple came up; and as soon as they had expressed their raptures on the beauty of this view, the commissioner presented his note from Mrs. Falconer to Mrs. Percy, to which, he said, he was most anxious to be the bearer of a favourable answer, as he knew that he should otherwise be ill-received at home, and the disappointment would be great. The note contained a pressing invitation to a play, which the young people at Falconer-court had it in contemplation to represent. Whether it was to be Zara or Cato, they had not yet positively decided--for Cato they were in terrible distress for a Marcia--could Miss Caroline Percy be prevailed upon to try Marcia? She would look the part so well, and, no doubt, act it so well. Or if she preferred Zara, Miss Georgiana Falconer would, with pleasure, take the part of the confidante. Dresses in great forwardness, Turkish or Roman, convertible, in a few hours' notice--should wait Miss Percy's decision.

"Well, my dear Caroline, what say you?" cried Mrs. Percy.

Caroline was going to answer.

"No, no, don't answer yet," interrupted the commissioner: "let me add, what I find Mrs. Falconer took it for granted I would say, that there can be no possible difficulty or inconvenience about the goings and comings, and horses and carriages, and beds, and all that sort of thing--for our horses and carriages can have nothing to do whilst the ladies are rehearsing--shall attend you any day--any hour--and beds we can contrive: so, I beseech you, let none of these vulgar sublunary considerations deprive us of a Zara or a Marcia--But say, which shall it be?--Which character, my charming cousin, will you do us the honour and pleasure to take?"

Count Altenberg advanced a step, full of eager expectation. When he heard Caroline p.r.o.nounce, with great politeness, a refusal, for the first moment he looked disappointed, but the next seemed satisfied and pleased. It would have highly gratified and interested him to have seen Caroline act either the sublime or the tender heroine, but he preferred seeing her support her own character with modest dignity.

Commissioner Falconer pleaded and pressed in vain; Caroline was steady in her refusal, though the manner of it was so gentle, that every instant he thought he should vanquish her reluctance. At length he turned from the ladies to the gentlemen for a.s.sistance.

"Mr. Temple, I am sure you will join my entreaties--Count Altenberg--"

Count Altenberg "would not presume to ask a favour, which had been refused to the commissioner and to Mrs. Falconer." Caroline understood, and gave him credit for his politeness.

"Then, if I must give up this point," said the commissioner, "at least do not let me return disappointed in every respect--let me hope that you will all favour us with your company at our play."

This invitation was accepted with many thanks.

"And, remember, you must not run away from us that night," added the commissioner. "Mrs. Falconer will have reason to be jealous of Clermont-park, if she finds that it draws our friends and relations away from Falconer-court."

The carriage, which had been ordered to the great gate of the park, was now waiting there, and the commissioner took leave of his relations, with many shakes of the hand and many expressions of regret. Count Altenberg continued talking to Caroline till the last moment; and after he had handed her into the carriage, as he took leave of Mr. Percy, he said that he had to thank him and his family for some of the most agreeable among the many agreeable hours he had pa.s.sed since he came to England.

On their way home, this happy family-party eagerly talked over every thing and every body that had interested them--first and chiefly they spoke of Count Altenberg. Caroline said how often, during their walk, she had regretted her mother's and sister's absence. She recollected and reminded her father of some of the striking circ.u.mstances they had heard, and Mr. Percy and she repeated so many curious and interesting anecdotes, so many just observations and n.o.ble sentiments, that Mrs.

Percy and Rosamond were quite charmed with the Count. Rosamond, however, was surprised by the openness and ease with which Caroline praised and talked of this gentleman.

"I will say nothing," thought she; "for I am determined to be prudent this time. But certainly here is no danger that her love should unsought be won. Only this I may and must think, that Caroline cannot, without affectation, avoid seeing that she has made a conquest."

Mistaken again, Rosamond--Caroline had neither seen nor suspected it.

Count Altenberg's grat.i.tude for the hospitality shown to his countrymen at the time of the shipwreck, his recent acquaintance with her brother Alfred, and all he had heard of her father from the grateful tenants at Percy-hall, accounted, as Caroline justly thought, for the eagerness he had shown to be introduced to her family. His conversing so much with her, she thought, was natural, as he was a stranger to most of the company, and had some subjects of conversation in common with her and her family. Caroline was not apt to imagine admiration in every word or look; she was not expert in construing every compliment into a declaration or an innuendo of love.

His conversation, during their walk, had been perfectly free from all compliment. It had been on subjects so interesting, that she had been carried on without having had time to think of love. A good and great character had opened to her view, and she had been so absorbed in sympathy, that though she had thought of nothing but Count Altenberg, she had never thought of him with any reference to herself.

The morning after their return home, Count Altenberg came to the Hills, accompanied by Mr. Temple. They stayed till it was late; for the Count seemed to forget the hour of the day, till reminded of it by Mr. Temple.

Caroline, in her own family, at her home, pleased Count Altenberg particularly. The interest he felt about her increased, and he afterwards took or made frequent opportunities of calling at the Hills: his conversation was generally addressed to Mr. Percy, but he observed Caroline with peculiar attention--and Rosamond was confirmed in her opinion. A few weeks pa.s.sed in this manner, while the play was preparing at Falconer-court. But before we go to the play, let us take a peep behind the scenes, and inquire what is and has been doing by the Falconer family. Even they who are used to the ennui subsequent to dissipation, even they who have experienced the vicissitudes of coquetry, the mortifications of rivalship, and the despair of disappointed vanity, can scarcely conceive the complication of disagreeable ideas and emotions with which Miss Georgiana Falconer awoke the morning after the magnificent ball.

The image of her beautiful rival disturbed her morning dreams, and stood before her fancy the moment she opened her eyes. Wakening, she endeavoured to recollect and compare all that had pa.s.sed the preceding night; but there had been such tumult in her mind, that she had only a vague remembrance of the transactions: she had a confused idea that the Count was in love, and that he was not in love with her: she had fears that, during the heat of compet.i.tion, she had betrayed unbecoming emotion; but gradually, habitual vanity predominated; her hopes brightened; she began to fancy that the impression made by her rival might be easily effaced, and that they should see no more of the fair phantom. That branch of the Percy family, she recollected, were to be considered only as decayed gentry; and she flattered herself that they would necessarily and immediately sink again into that obscurity from which her mother's ill-fated civility had raised them. Her mother, she knew, had invited these Percys against her will, and would be particularly careful on account of Sir Robert Percy (and Arabella) not to show them any further attention. Thus things would, in a day or two, fall again into their proper train. "No doubt the Count will call this morning, to know how we do after the ball."

So she rose, and resolved to dress herself with the most becoming negligence.

Very different was the result of her experienced mother's reflections.

Mrs. Falconer saw that her daughter's chance of the Count was now scarcely worth considering; that it must be given up at once, to avoid the danger of utter ruin to other speculations of a more promising kind.

The mother knew the unmanageable violence of her daughter's temper: she had seen her Georgiana expose herself the preceding night at the ball to her particular friends, and Mrs. Falconer knew enough of the world to dread reports originating from particular friends; she dreaded, also, that on some future similar occasion, the young lady's want of command over her jealousy should produce some terribly ridiculous scene, confirm the report that she had an unhappy pa.s.sion for Count Altenberg, stigmatize her as a forlorn maiden, and ruin her chance of any other establishment. In this instance she had been misled by her own and her daughter's vanity. It was mortifying, to be sure, to find that she had been wrong; and still more provoking to be obliged to acknowledge that Mr. Falconer was right; but in the existing circ.u.mstances it was absolutely necessary, and Mrs. Falconer, with a species of satisfaction, returned to her former habits of thinking, and resumed certain old schemes, from which the arrival of the Count had diverted her imagination. She expected the two Mr. Clays at Falconer-court the next day. Either of them, she thought, might be a good match for Georgiana.

To be sure, it was said that French Clay had gaming debts to a large amount upon his hands--this was against him; but, in his favour, there was the chance of his elder brother's dying unmarried, and leaving him Clay-hall. Or, take it the other way, and suppose English Clay to be made the object--he was one of the men who professedly have a horror of being taken in to marry; yet no men are more likely "to run into the danger to avoid the apprehension." Suppose the worst, and that neither of the Clays could be worked to any good purpose, Mrs. Falconer had still in reserve that _pis aller_ Petcalf, whose father, the good general, was at Bath, with the gout in his stomach; and if he should die, young Petcalf would pop into possession of the general's lodge in _Asia Minor_ [Footnote: A district in England so called.]: not so fine a place, to be sure, nor an establishment so well appointed as Clay-hall; but still with a nabob's fortune a great deal might be done--and Georgiana might make Petcalf throw down the lodge and build. So at the worst she might settle very comfortably with young Petcalf, whom she could manage as she pleased, provided she never let him see her _penchant_ for Count Altenberg. Mrs. Falconer determined to turn the tables dexterously, and to make it appear that the Count admired Georgiana, but saw she could not be induced to leave England. "We must,"

said she to herself, "persuade English Clay that I would not for any consideration give my daughter to a foreigner."

In consequence of these plans and reflections, Mrs. Falconer began her new system of operations, by writing that note full of superfluous civility to Mrs. Percy, with which Commissioner Falconer had been charged: the pressing Caroline to play Zara or Marcia, the leaving to her the choice of dresses and characters, the a.s.surance that Miss Georgiana Falconer would take the confidante's part with pleasure, were all strokes of Mrs. Falconer's policy. By these means she thought she could most effectually do away all suspicion of her own or her daughter's jealousy of Miss Caroline Percy. Mrs. Falconer foresaw that, in all probability, Caroline would decline acting; but if she had accepted, Mrs. Falconer would have been sincerely pleased, confident, as she was, that Caroline's inferiority to her Georgiana, who was an accomplished actress, would be conspicuously manifest.

As soon as Mrs. Percy's answer, and Caroline's refusal, arrived, Mrs.

Falconer went to her daughter Georgiana's apartment, who was giving directions to her maid, Lydia Sharpe, about some part of Zara's dress.

"My dear," said Mrs. Falconer, looking carelessly at the dress, "you won't want a very expensive dress for Zara."

"Indeed, ma'am, I shall," cried Georgiana: "Zara will be nothing, unless she is well dressed."

"Well, my dear, you must manage as well as you can with Lydia Sharpe.

Your last court-dress surely she can make do vastly well, with a little alteration to give it a Turkish air."

"Oh! dear me, ma'am!--a little alteration!" cried Lydia: "no alteration upon the face of Heaven's earth, that I could devise from this till Christmas, would give it a Turkish air. You don't consider, nor conceive, ma'am, how _skimping_ these here court-trains are now--for say the length might answer, its length without any manner of breadth, you know, ma'am--look, ma'am, a mere strip!--only two breadths of three quarters bare each--which gives no folds in nature, nor drapery, nor majesty, which, for a Turkish queen, is indispensably requisite, I presume."

"Another breadth or two would make it full enough, and cotton velvet will do, and come cheap," said Mrs. Falconer.

"Cotton velvet!" cried Miss Georgiana. "I would not wear cotton velvet--like the odious, shabby Miss Chattertons, who are infamous for it."

"But on the stage, what eye could detect it, child?" said Mrs. Falconer.

"Eye, ma'am! no, to be sure, at that distance: but the first touch to any body that understands velvets would betray it--and them that is on the stage along with Miss Georgiana, or behind the scenes, will detect it. And I understood the ladies was to sup in their dresses, and on such an occasion I presumed you would like Miss Georgiana to have an entire _cap a pie_ new dress, as the Lady Arlingtons and every body has seen her appear in this, and has it by heart, I may say--and the Count too, who, of course, will expect, to see Zara spick and span--But I leave it all to your own better judgment, ma'am--I am only just mentioning--"

"All I know is, that the play will be nothing unless it is well dressed," cried Miss Georgiana; "and I never will play Zara in old trumpery."

"Well, my dear, there's your amber satin, or your pink, or your green, or your white, or--I am sure you have dresses enough. Lydia, produce them, and let me see."

Lydia covered the bed with various finery; but to every dress that was produced some insuperable objection was started by the young lady or by her maid.

"I remember you had a lavender satin, that I do not see here, Georgiana," said Mrs. Falconer.

"The colour did not become me, ma'am, and I sold it to Lydia."

_Sold! gave_, perhaps some innocent reader may suspect that the young lady meant to say.--No: this buying and selling of finery now goes on frequently between a certain cla.s.s of fashionable maids and mistresses; and some young ladies are now not ashamed to become old clothes-women.

"Vastly well," said Mrs. Falconer, smiling; "you have your own ways and means, and I am glad of it, for I can tell you there is no chance of my getting you any money from your father; I dare not speak to him on that subject--for he was extremely displeased with me about Mrs. Sparkes'

last bill: so if you want a new dress for Zara, you and Lydia Sharpe must settle it as well as you can between you. I will, in the mean time, go and write a note, while you make your bargain."

"Bargain! Me, ma'am!" cried Lydia Sharpe, as Mrs. Falconer left the room; "I am the worst creature extant at bargaining, especially with ladies. But any thing I can do certainly to accommodate, I shall, I'm sure, be happy."

"Well, then," said Miss Georgiana, "if you take this white satin off my hands, Lydia, I am sure I shall be happy."

"I have no objection, ma'am--that is, I'm in duty bound to make no manner of objections," said Lydia, with a very sentimental air, hanging her head aside, and with one finger rubbing her under-lip slowly, as she contemplated the white satin, which her young mistress held up for sale.

"I am really scrupulous--but you're sensible, Miss Georgiana, that your white satin is so all frayed with the c.r.a.pe sleeves. Lady Trant recommended--"

"Only a very little frayed."

"But in the front breadth, ma'am; you know that makes a world of difference, because there's no hiding, and with satin no turning--and not a bit neither to new body."

"The body is perfectly good."

"I beg pardon for observing, but you know, ma'am, you noticed yourself how it was blacked and soiled by wearing under your black lace last time, and that you could not wear it again on that account."