The proud, intensely
proper, and highly prejudiced Duchess of Bellamont took the most
charitable view of this sudden and fervent friendship. A female friend,
who talked about Jerusalem, but kept her son in London, was in the
present estimation of the duchess a real treasure, the most interesting
and admirable of her sex. Their intimacy was satisfactorily accounted
for by the invaluable information which she imparted to Tancred; what
he was to see, do, eat, drink; how he was to avoid being poisoned and
assassinated, escape fatal fevers, regularly attend the service of
the Church of England in countries where there were no churches, and
converse in languages of which he had no knowledge. He could not have a
better counsellor than Lady Bertie, who had herself travelled, at least
to the Faubourg St. Honore, and, as Horace Walpole says, after Calais
nothing astonishes. Certainly Lady Bertie had not been herself to
Jerusalem, but she had read about it, and every other place. The duchess
was delighted that Tancred had a companion who interested him. With
all the impulse of her sanguine temperament, she had already accustomed
herself to look upon the long-dreaded yacht as a toy, and rather an
amusing one, and was daily more convinced of the prescient shrewdness of
her cousin, Lord Eskdale.
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