Home as Found - James Fenimore Cooper (moboreader TXT) 📗

who was unconsciously jealous that any one should be employed about her darling, even in this manner, though so long accustomed to it, busied herself in preparing the different articles of attire that she fancied her young mistress might be disposed to wear that morning. Grace was also in the room, having escaped from the hands of her own maid, in order to look into one of those books which professed to give an account of the extraction and families of the higher classes of Great Britain, a copy of which Eve happened to possess, among a large collection of books, Allmanachs de Gotha , Court Guides, and other similar works that she had found it convenient to possess as a traveller.

"Ah! here it is," said Grace, in the eagerness of one who is suddenly successful after a long and vexatious search.

"Here is what, coz?"

Grace coloured, and she could have bitten her tongue for its indiscretion, but, too ingenuous to deceive, she reluctantly told the truth.

"I was merely looking for the account of Sir George Templemore's family; it is awkward to be domesticated with one, of whose family we are utterly ignorant."

"Have you found the name?"

"Yes; I see he has two sisters, both of whom are married, and a brother who is in the Guards. But--"

"But what, dear?"

"His title is not so very old."

"The title of no Baronet can be very old, the order having been instituted in the reign of James I."

"I did not know that. His ancestor was created a baronet in 1701, I see. Now, Eve--"

"Now, what, Grace?"

"We are both--" Grace would not confine the remark to herself--"we are both of older families than this! You have even a much higher English extraction; and I think I can claim for the Van Cortlandts more antiquity than one that dates from 1701!"

"No one doubts it, Grace; but what do you wish me to understand by this? Are we to insist on preceding Sir George, in going through a door?"

Grace blushed to the eyes, and yet she laughed, involuntarily.

"What nonsense! No one thinks of such things in America."

"Except at Washington, where, I am told, 'Senators' ladies' do give themselves airs. But you are quite right, Grace; women have no rank in America, beyond their general social rank, as ladies or no ladies, and we will not be the first to set an example of breaking the rule. I am afraid our blood will pass for nothing, and that we must give place to the baronet, unless, indeed, he recognizes the rights of the sex."

"You know I mean nothing so silly. Sir George Templemore does not seem to think of rank at all; even Mr. Powis treats him, in all respects, as an equal, and Sir George seems to admit it to be right."

Eve's maid, at the moment, was twisting her hair, with the intention to put it up; but the sudden manner in which her young mistress turned to look at Grace, caused Annette to relinquish her grasp, and the shoulders of the beautiful and blooming girl were instantly covered with the luxuriant tresses.

"And why should not Mr. Powis treat Sir George Templemore as one every way his equal, Grace?" she asked, with an impetuosity unusual in one so trained in the forms of the world.

"Why, Eve, one is a baronet, and the other is but a simple gentleman."

Eve Effingham sat silent for quite a minute. Her little foot moved, and she had been carefully taught, too, that a lady-like manner, required that even this beautiful portion of the female frame should be quiet and unobtrusive. But America did not contain two of the same sex, years, and social condition, less alike in their opinions, or it might be said their prejudices, than the two cousins. Grace Van Cortlandt, of the best blood of her native land, had unconsciouslv imbibed in childhood, the notions connected with hereditary rank, through the traditions of colonial manners, by means of novels, by hearing the vulgar reproached or condemned for their obtrusion and ignorance, and too often justly reproached and condemned, and by the aid of her imagination, which contributed to throw a gloss and brilliancy over a state of things that singularly gains by distance. On the other hand, with Eve, every thing connected with such subjects was a matter of fact. She had been thrown early into the highest associations of Europe; she had not only seen royalty on its days of gala and representation, a mere raree-show that is addressed to the senses, or purely an observance of forms that may possibly have their meaning, but which can scarcely be said to have their reasons, but she had lived long and intimately among the high-born and great, and this, too, in so many different countries, as to have destroyed the influence of the particular nation that has transmitted so many of its notions to America as heir-looms. By close observation, she knew that arbitrary and political distinctions made but little difference between men of themselves; and so far from having become the dupe of the glitter of life, by living so long within its immediate influence, she had learned to discriminate between the false and the real, and to perceive that which was truly respectable and useful, and to know it from that which was merely arbitrary and selfish. Eve actually fancied that the position of an American gentleman might readily become, nay that it ought to be the highest of all human stations, short of that of sovereigns. Such a man had no social superior, with the exception of those who actually ruled, in her eyes, and this fact she conceived, rendered him more than noble, as nobility is usually graduated. She had been accustomed to see her father and John Effingham moving in the best circles of Europe, respected for their information and independence, undistinguished by their manners, admired for their personal appearance, manly, courteous, and of noble bearing and principles, if not set apart from the rest of mankind by an arbitrary rule connected with rank. Rich, and possessing all the habits that properly mark refinement, of gentle extraction, of liberal attainments, walking abroad in the dignity of manhood, and with none between them and the Deity, Eve had learned to regard the gentlemen of her race as the equals in station of any of their European associates, and as the superiors of most, in every thing that is essential to true distinction. With her, even titular princes and dukes had no estimation, merely as princes and dukes; and, as her quick mind glanced over the long catalogue of artificial social gradations and she found Grace actually attaching an importance to the equivocal and purely conventional condition of an English baronet, a strong sense of the ludicrous connected itself with the idea.

"A simple gentleman, Grace!" she repeated slowly after her cousin; "and is not a simple gentleman, a simple American gentleman, the equal of any gentleman on earth--of a poor baronet, in particular?"

"Poor baronet, Eve!"

"Yes, dear, poor baronet; I know fully the extent and meaning of what I say. It is true, we do not know as much of Mr. Powis' family," and here Eve's colour heightened, though she made a mighty effort to be steady and unmoved, "as we might; but we know he is an American ; that, at least, is something; and we see he is a gentleman; and what American gentleman, a real American gentleman, can be the inferior of an English baronet? Would your uncle, think you; would cousin Jack; proud, lofty-minded cousin Jack, think you, Grace, consent to receive so paltry a distinction as a baronetcy, were our institutions to be so far altered as to admit of such social classifications?"

"Why, what would they be, Eve, if not baronets?"

"Earls, Counts, Dukes, nay Princes! These are the designations of the higher classes of Europe, and such titles, or those that are equivalent, would belong to the higher classes here."

"I fancy that Sir George Templemore would not be persuaded to admit all this!"

"If you had seen Miss Eve, surrounded and admired by princes, as I have seen her, Miss Grace," said Ann Sidley, "you would not think any simple Sir George half good enough for her."

"Our good Nanny means, a Sir George," interrupted Eve, laughing, "and not the Sir George in question. But, seriously, dearest coz, it depends more on ourselves, and less on others, in what light they are to regard us, than is commonly supposed. Do you not suppose there are families in America who, if disposed to raise any objections beyond those that are purely personal, would object to baronets, and the wearers of red ribands, as unfit matches for their daughters, on the ground of rank? What an absurdity would it be, for a Sir George, or the Sir George either, to object to a daughter of a President of the United States for instance, on account of station; and yet I'll answer for it, you would think it no personal honour, if Mr. Jackson had a son, that he should, propose to my dear father for you. Let us respect ourselves properly, take care to be truly ladies and gentlemen, and so far from titular rank's being necessary to us, before a hundred lustres are past, we shall bring all such distinctions into discredit, by showing that they are not necessary to any one important interest, or to true happiness and respectability any where."

"And do you not believe, Eve, that Sir George Templemore thinks of the difference in station between us?"

"I cannot answer for that," said Eve, calmly. "The man is naturally modest; and, it is possible, when he sees that we belong to the highest social condition of a great country, he may regret that such has not been his own good fortune in his native land; especially, Grace, since he has known you ."

Grace blushed, looked pleased, delighted even, and yet surprised. It is unnecessary to explain the causes of the three first expressions of her emotions; but the last may require a short examination. Nothing but time and a change of circumstances, can ever raise a province or a provincial town to the independent state of feeling that so strikingly distinguishes a metropolitan country, or a capital. It would be as rational to expect that the inhabitants of the nursery should disregard the opinions of the drawing-room, as to believe that the provincial should do all his own thinking. Political dependency, moreover, is much more easily thrown aside than mental dependency. It is not surprising, therefore, that Grace Van Cortlandt, with her narrow associations, general notions of life, origin, and provincial habits, should be the very opposite of Eve, in all that relates to independence of thought, on subjects like those that they were now discussing. Had Grace been a native of New England, even, she would have been less influenced by the mere social rank of the baronet than was actually the case; for, while the population of that part of the Union feel more of the general subserviency to Great Britain than the population of any other portion of the republic, they probably feel less of it, in this particular form, from the circumstance that their colonial habits were less connected with the aristocratical usages of the mother country. Grace was allied by blood, too, with the higher classes of England, as, indeed, was the fact with most of the old families