# Lady Anne Granard/Chapter 8

CHAPTER VIII.
"Why, you are all in ecstacies about him," said Mrs. Palmer, the next morning.
"So elegant!" said Louisa.
"So interesting!" said Helen.
"So handsome!" said Georgiana.
"So kind!" said Isabella.
"Well, it is a clear case," continued Mrs. Palmer, "that one of you he must have."
"Not me," exclaimed Louisa, and then coloured deeply. Mrs. Palmer looked at her for a moment; this was not the first time she had suspected that her young friend had no longer a heart to give.
"Oh, mamma," cried Georgiana, "intended him for Mary; but now that he turns out so young and good-looking, she seems to think him too good for her."
"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Palmer, "I wish I had her in the country, she should have a basin of new milk, fresh from the cow, every morning. A young friend of mine, who looked just as she does, was quite cured by it."
The efficacy of even new milk may be doubted to ​"minister to a mind diseased," still less can it "pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow." Mary's health and spirits had given way under the constant pressure of one bitter remembrance—she felt herself a burthen upon her mother, and in the way of her sisters; the very affection showed to her by the latter only made her think with deeper regret on what she might have done for them if things had gone differently. Then she was continually hearing of Lady Allerton's extravagance, and Lady Allerton's dissipation; and her conjugal quarrels were topics of common conversation. Mary could not avoid the thought, and the pang of "how much happier I could have made him!" Then she had so little to take her out of herself; her mother more and more discouraged her going out, and, indeed, she had neither strength nor spirits for the fatiguing gaiety of a London season.
"Not yet five and twenty, and she is a complete wreck," continued Mrs. Palmer; "yet I cannot but think that she would be much happier if she were well married. It is much more comfortable to have a house of one's own. I wish Mr. Glentworth may take a fancy to her."
"I do not think," said Isabella, seriously, "that Mary would marry any one, neither does Mr. Glentworth seem a marrying man."
"And pray," said Mrs. Palmer, half laughing, "what is your idea of a marrying man?"
"Why," replied Isabella, "most of the marriages ​that I have heard of have originated in some motive that lay very near the surface. Some men are desperately in love; but more often it is that the table wants a lady at the head of it; or a man is poor, and marries for money; or he is rich, and wants connexion; or very often he marries because his friends have decided the matter for him, and it is less trouble to make the offer than to avoid making it. Now none of these first causes appear to influence Mr. Glentworth."
"Perhaps," said Georgiana, "he has had an unhappy attachment?"
"Or, perhaps," said Louisa, "he has been too poor to marry. He may have been engaged, and, after waiting for years, is now able to fulfil his engagement."
"An engaged man," replied Isabella, "would not have been so anxious to seek us out, and would not be so anxious to secure our house as a refuge for his leisure hours."
"Well, my dears," said Mrs. Palmer, "we shall see: and, what is of most importance to you is, I think, from all I can hear, you will find in Mr. Glentworth a sure and kind friend; and that is what we all of us want some time or other.'"
In a few days, Mr. Glentworth became almost domesticated in the house, an arrangement partly pleasing and partly otherwise to Lady Anne. She liked the air of intimacy with a man so rich; his acquaintance was no expence, and he still retained his old habit ​of making handsome presents. Nevertheless, she was disappointed in the little progress of her matrimonial schemes; there was no preference for one daughter more than another; he was equally kind and affectionate to all. One morning his visit terminated in a most satisfactory manner; he gave each of the elder girls a sealed paper, which, when opened, was found to contain a hundred pounds. To them it seemed the riches of the world, and each was expressly enjoined to spend it on what she liked best. Only those who have often wanted money—wanted it painfully and mortifyingly—who have constantly been debarred gratifications common to those among whom they live—only those can tell the delight of suddenly possessing a large sum of money, to do just what they please with. How many enjoyments of taste, fancy, and kind feeling were comprised in the possession! Even Mary was quite animated.
"We will," exclaimed she, a faint colour warming her cheek at the very idea, "have an excursion into the country—really the country. Fancy, if it be but for a week, having a cottage, into whose garden we can walk unobserved, and gather the roses ourselves. What delicious strolls of a summer evening in the fields, where the hay has just been cut; and through green lanes, covered with wild honeysuckle!" Louisa was silent; but there was a smile round her dimpled mouth, which betrayed how pleasant was the reverie in which she indulged.
​ "We will now," cried Helen, "have a new harp—we can play from morning till night in your cottage, Mary."
"And I," said Georgiana, "will have a white satin dress."
"The only sensible thing I have heard said yet," interrupted Lady Anne—then addressing herself to Helen and Georgiana, added, "You know that you are to be presented next season, and this money will just buy court-dresses, and hire your ornaments. I am sure, if you had gone without, I could not have paid for them." Helen sat in silent disappointment; but Georgiana's fancy was at once busy with ostrich feathers, lace, and white silk; and her interest soon communicated itself to Helen. What girl of nineteen could listen unmoved to the question of in what dress she should be presented!
Isabella was seated alone in the dining-room. Lady Anne and Louisa were gone out for a drive with Lady Penrhyn; and Helen and Georgiana accompanied Mary in her attempt at a walk in the gardens of Portman Square. Mr. Glentworth was therefore shown in to the young lady, who was busily employed at work, "Ah!" said he, on entering, "you are the very person I wanted; I am come to make my amende for leaving you out the other evening—I had not forgotten you."
"Ah!" said Isabella, "you thought I was too young to know the value of money—that I should throw it away on coral necklaces and piping bulfinches."
​Mr. Glentworth smiled, and, half taking a red morocco case out of his pocket, said, "I thought that I could give you what you would like better."
"Nothing," interrupted Isabella, eagerly, who had not noticed his movement—"nothing that I should like half so well."
"My dear child," said he, seriously, even sadly, "you seem to set an undue value on money for one so young; what can you care for money, except for the sake of trifles which, believe me, are of no real value!"
"It is not for the sake of all that Howell and James have in their shop, or Storr and Mortimer besides, that I care for money. I know its value only too well. Money has been the curse of our lives; it is the want of money that keeps poor Mary like a ghost. Had she been rich, she would have escaped that early disappointment, which fell upon her like a blight, and from which she has had no change to distract her thoughts; she is country-bred, and she pines like a caged bird in London. It is want of money that keeps Louisa wasting her best days in fruitless hopes, that will leave her with a step as sad, and a cheek as pale, as that of her elder sister. It is want of money that will fall over Helen and Georgiana like a curse: they will go into society only to repress every warm and kindly feeling—to dread the approach of affection, unless it takes what is called an eligible shape. Their future fate hangs on a chance; if it goes against them, they will be blamed for the failure; but I really have ​not courage to fancy mamma with all her daughters unmarried."
"Lady Anne is very anxious, then, for your establishment?" said her listener.
"I can remember nothing else," replied Isabella, "ever held forth in the future, but a good match. It may be wrong for a girl like myself to talk so freely: but who can help reflecting on what passes every day before her eyes?"
"It is not many, though, who do reflect," thought Mr. Glentworth, while Isabella went on.
"There are very few happy marriages; indifference on the part of the husband, and dislike on that of the wife, appear to me the general feeling. Yet there are some exceptions; and these led me to think, why should they be happier than their fellows? I always found the cause the same—they married from different motives. There was affection and respect for each other to begin with. But let a coronet, properly accompanied, be offered to any of my sisters, mamma would not hear of a refusal. Neither character, temper, and taste, still less attachment, would be taken into consideration; and, yet, without them how can there be happiness in married life! Georgiana's sweet nature will be perverted; all that is vain and frivolous in her will be brought out; she will constantly be disappointed in the vain endeavour to make pleasure a substitute for content, and, craving for excitement. Vain and heartless, the world will leave us little trace of ​the lovely mind as of the lovely face. For Helen there is a yet darker doom; her imagination exaggerates every suffering; her keen feelings cannot lie dormant—she needs to love and be loved; amusement never can be to her the sole business of life—she requires to be interested. What can a future, where love is not, offer to her?" She paused, for her eyes had filled with tears, and, to conceal them, she stooped over her work.
"You do not," said Mr. Glentworth, after a brief pause, "speak of your elder sisters, or of yourself."
"Alas!" replied Isabella, "you must have perceived that Mary is heart and spirit-broken; and Louisa is in a fair way of being the same: 'hope deferred maketh the heart sick.' As to myself, as mamma often says, I am not pretty; I have not, therefore, the same brilliant chances of marriage that my sisters have."
Mr. Glentworth was for a moment silent with surprise at the air of entire conviction with which this was said; the next, he could not help looking at the girl who so quietly avowed that she was not pretty. He did not think it necessary, however, to state that his own opinion was different, so he went on with the conversation.
"You prefer, then, having the money to the ornaments which I had intended for you?"
"Oh! the hundred pounds, certainly," exclaimed Isabella, colouring a little at the idea of trespassing on the donor's generosity.
​"You shall have it, then," said Mr. Glentworth.
"But," cried Isabella, eagerly, "it must be on conditions, and you may not like them."
"Let me hear what they are," replied her companion.
"First, that you will not tell mamma that you have given it; and, secondly, that you will not ask me what I have done with it."
Mr. Glentworth took out his pocket-book, and placed a hundred pound note in Isabella's hands. "It is a sum," said he, seriously, "that, properly employed, would be a source of happiness to many. I give it you without the least fear that it is misplaced. We have quite talked the morning away," added he, without allowing her time for the thanks which she was trying to put into shape. "I must leave my message with you. You must tell your sisters that I have a box at the theatre for to-morrow night, and that it is large enough for us all." He left Isabella breathless with delight. As far as the selfish pleasure went, the box at the theatre was even greater enjoyment than the possession of the hundred pound note.