A Quiet Adjustment

A Quiet Adjustment by Benjamin Markovits Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: A Quiet Adjustment by Benjamin Markovits Read Free Book Online
Authors: Benjamin Markovits
or otherwise of poetical sentiments. I mean to say, that there is something in the act of publication which may be said to reveal an author to himself more clearly than any examination of his own conscience, unaided by such reflection , in its literal sense, could ever hope to do.’
    Lord Byron bowed at her gravely and said ‘that he could never wish for a fairer discernment than Miss Milbanke’s; that he feared she placed but too much faith in the power of an author’s understanding to live up to her own; that her generous mind interpreted virtues where none were present, but that he himself would study to deserve them.’
    A ripple of applause greeted this gracious speech, and Annabella blushed, not entirely for pleasure. He had touched on, however inadvertently, what Annabella conceived to be the great obstacle to their deepening acquaintance, as she later explained it to Miss Montgomery: ‘He puts so much faith in my goodness, such as it is, that he has correspondingly little in his right to attract me.’ George Eden had been among the party. The look he directed at her, after Lord Byron’s pretty compliment, was less one of reproof than calculation. Annabella bridled at any suspicion that she had fallen under the poet’s spell and gave him but a cold farewell when Mr Eden excused himself early—hoping to anticipate, he said, by only a day, the forbearance which is always extended to the clergy for appearing unsociable. He was travelling to Oxford in the morning for the purpose of his ordination.
    But she was caught out both ways that night. Later, she overheard Lord Byron attempting to appease their host at the expense of his departed guest. ‘Now there is a good man, a handsome man, an honourable man, a most inoffensive man, a well-informed man, and a dull man, and this last epithet undoes all the rest. It is lucky for him that God loves him, as nothing human will.’ Rogers, who for all his severity of manner relished gossip, only simpered at him; and it was left to Annabella, by a pointed turn of her shoulder, to communicate an appropriate disgust at such sentiments. She had heard of this side of his lordship’s wit but had never before seen the evidence of it herself; and the worst of it was, that he had hit upon her own awful suspicions of Mr Eden. She was forced to count among the objects of her disapproval her own hypocrisy. Afterwards, he apologized to Miss Milbanke for attacking a reputation he could never aspire to himself, when he knew it to be dear to her—and which he envied on that account. ‘You are too good for a fallen creature to know,’ he added.
    In the morning, she called upon Miss Montgomery—hoping, by a limited confession, to relieve her mind of its most painful uncertainties. Mary lived in a comfortable house on Wilmot Street. As an only child, she was the spoilt darling of her parents, although more conscious of the luxury entailed by that condition than Annabella, in her own case, was willing to confess to. It was feared she would not live long. Her constitution was very weak and often laid her up a month at a time in the front parlour with nothing but a constant fire and supply of books and gossip to sustain her. Her invalidity had at least one benefit, which she sometimes admitted, that it spared her the pressures which usually attend the coming out of a girl with expectations. She had no real expectations, it was not presumed that she would live to see her wedding day. She only joked of being slighted in Annabella’s favour by every suitor to tease her friend; really, she had little desire to surrender her mental independence to any man, however much her material liberty lay at the mercy of her flickering vitality and the vagaries of the weather.
    She liked to keep the front room of the house on the first floor for her own use. It was smaller but overlooked the street, whose traffic she took a steady pleasure in remarking

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