but a sportsman as well as a scholar, a man of the world as well as a man of letters; given overmuch to betting, horse-racing, and dissipation in general, but with as keen a zest for the elegances of literature as for those beauties of the drama to which he pays fully more attention, and one who can compute you the odds as readily as he can turn a lyric or round a flowing period. Had his lordship possessed a little more common sense and a slight modicum of prudence, forethought, reflection, and such plebeian qualities, he need not have failed in any one thing he undertook. As it was, his best friends regretted he should waste his talents so unsparingly on versification; whilst his enemies (the bitter dogs) averred “Mount Helicon’s rhyme was, if possible, worse than his reason.” Being member for Guyville (our readers will probably call to mind how the columns of their daily paper were filled with the Guyville Election Committee’s Report, and the wonderful appetite for “treating” displayed by the “free and independent” of that town during their “three glorious days”)—being member, then, of course it is incumbent on him to attend the ball; so after a hurried dinner with Lacquers, Sir Ascot, Major D’Orville, and sundry other gentlemen who live every day of their lives, behold him curling his red whiskers and attiring his tall, gaunt form in a suit of decorous black.
“Deuced bad dinner they give one here,” said his lordship to himself, still hammering away at the ode. “Wish I hadn’t drunk that second bottle of claret, and smoked so much.
No, I can’t get it right. How those cursed fiddlers are scraping! and either that glass maligns me, or I look a little drunk! This life don’t suit my style of beauty—something must be done. Shall I marry and pull up? Marry—will I! Bow my cultivated intellect before some savage maiden, and fatten like a tethered calf on the flat swamps of domestic respectability. Straps! go down and find out if many of the people are come.”
“Several of the townspeople have arrived, my lord; but few of the county families as yet,” replies Straps, whose knowledge of a member of parliament’s duties would have qualified him to represent Guyville as well as his master. Lord Mount Helicon accordingly completes his toilet and proceeds to the ball-room, still mentally harping on “the thunders of a people,” and “the quailing despot’s ear.”
The townspeople have indeed arrived in very sufficient numbers, yet is there a strong line of demarcation between their plebeian ranks and those of “the county families” huddled together at the upper end of the room. Britannia! Britannia! when will you cease to bring your coat-of-arms into society, and to smother your warm heart and sociable nature under pedigrees, and rent-rolls, and dreary conventionalities? When you do, you will enjoy yourself all the more, and be respected none the less. You will be equally efficient as a chaperon, though the trident be not always pointed on the defensive; and the lion may be an excellent watch-dog, without being trained to growl at every fellow-creature who does not happen to keep a carriage. His lordship’s business, however, lies chiefly with those, so to speak, below the salt. Voters are they, or, more important still, voters’ wives and daughters, and, as such, must be propitiated; for Mount Helicon, we need scarcely inform our readers, is not an English peerage, and my lord may probably require to sit again for the same incorruptible borough.
So he bows to this lady, and flirts with that, and submits to be patted on the shoulder and twaddled to by a fat little man, primed with port, but who, when not thus bemused, is an influential member of his committee, and a staunch supporter on the hustings. Nay more, with an effort that he deserves infinite credit for concealing with such good grace, he offers his arm to the red-haired daughter of his literally warm supporter, and leads the well-pleased damsel, blushing much, and mindful “to keep her head up,” right away to the county families’ quadrille at the top of the room, where she dances vis-à-vis—actually vis-à-vis—to Miss Kettering and Captain Lacquers.
That gentleman is considerably brightened up by his dinner and his potations. He has besides got his favourite boots on, and feels equal to almost any social emergency, so he is making the agreeable to the heiress with that degree of originality so peculiarly his own, and getting on, as he thinks, “like a house on fire.”
“Very wawm, Miss Kettering,” observes the dandy, holding steadily by his starboard moustache. “Guyville people always make it so hot. Charming bouquet!”
“Your vis-à-vis is dancing alone,” says Blanche, cutting short her partner’s interesting remarks, and sending him sprawling and swaggering across the room, only to hasten back again and proceed with his conversation.
“You know the man opposite—man with red whiskers? That’s Mount Helicon. Good fellow—aw—if he could but dye his whiskers. Asked to be introduced to you to-day on the course. Told him—aw—I couldn’t take such a liberty.” Lacquers wishes to say he would like to keep her society all to himself, but, as usual, he cannot express clearly what he means, so he twirls his moustaches instead, and is presently lost in the intricacies of “La Poule.” We need hardly observe that manœuvring is not our friend’s forte. Blanche’s eyes meanwhile are turned steadily towards the lower end of the room, and her partner’s following their direction, he discovers, as he thinks, a fresh topic of conversation. “Ah! there’s Hardingstone just come in—aw. Why don’t he bring his wife with him, I wonder!”
“His wife!” repeated Blanche, with a start that sent the blood from her heart; “why, he’s not married, is he?” she added, with more animation than she had hitherto exhibited.
“Don’t know, I’m sure,” replied the dandy, glancing down at his own faultless chaussure; “thought he was—aw—looks like a married man—aw.”
“Why should you think so?” inquired Blanche, half amused in spite of herself.
“Why—aw,” replied the observant reasoner, “got the married look, you know. Wears wide family boots—aw. Do to ride the children on, you know.”
Blanche could not repress a laugh; and the quadrille being concluded, off she went with Cousin Charlie, to stagger through a breathless polka, just at the moment the “family boots” bore their owner to the upper end of the room in search of her.
Frank was out of his element, and thoroughly uncomfortable. Generally speaking, he could adapt himself to any society into which he happened to be thrown, but to-night he was restless and out of spirits; dissatisfied with Blanche, with himself for being so, and with the world in general. “What a parcel of fools these people are,” thought he, as with folded arms he leant against the wall and gazed vacantly on the shifting throng; “jigging away to bad music in a hot room, and calling it pleasure. What a waste of time, and energy, and everything. Now, there’s little Blanche Kettering. I did think that girl was superior to the common run of women. I fancied she had a heart, and a mind, and ‘brains,’ and was above all the petty vanities of flirting, and fiddling, and dressing, which a posse of idiots dignify with the name of society. But no; they are all alike, giddy, vain, and frivolous. There she is, dancing away with as light a heart as if ‘Cousin Charlie’ were not under orders for the Cape, and to start to-morrow morning. She don’t care—not she! I wonder if she will marry him, should he ever come back. I have never liked to ask him, but everybody seems to say it’s a settled thing. How changed she must be since we used to go out in the boat at St. Swithin’s; and yet how little altered she is in features from the child I was so fond of. It’s disappointing!” And Frank ground his teeth with subdued ferocity. “It’s disgusting! She’s not half good enough for Charlie. I’ll never believe in one of them again!”
Well, if not “half good enough for Charlie,” we mistake much whether, even at the very moment of condemnation, our philosopher did not consider her quite “good enough for Frank”; and could he but have known the young girl’s thoughts while he judged her so harshly, he would have been much more in charity with the world in general, and looked upon the rational amusement of dancing in a light more becoming a sensible man—which, to do him justice, he generally was.
Blanche, even as she wound and threaded through the mazes of a crowded polka, skilfully steered by Cousin Charlie, who was a beautiful dancer, and one of whose little feet would scarcely have served to “ride a fairy,” was wondering in her own mind why Mr. Hardingstone had not asked her to dance, and why he had been so distant at the steeple-chase, and speculating whether it was possible he could be married. How she hoped Mrs. Hardingstone, if there should be one, was a nice person, and how fond she would be of her, and yet few people were worthy of him. How noble and manly he looked to-night amongst all the dandies. She would rather see Mr. Hardingstone frown than any one else smile—there was nobody like him, except, perhaps, Major D’Orville; he had the same quiet voice, the same self-reliant manner; but then the Major was much older. Oh no—there was nothing equal to Frank—and how she liked him, he was such a friend of Charlie; and just as Blanche arrived at this conclusion, the skirt of her dress got entangled in Cornet Capon’s spur, and Charlie laughed so (the provoking boy!) that he could not set her free, and the Cornet’s apologies were so absurd, and everybody stared so, it was quite disagreeable! But a tall, manly figure interposed between her and the crowd, and Major D’Orville released her in an instant; and that deep, winning voice engaged her for the next dance, and she could not but comply, though she had rather it had been some one else. Frank saw it all, still with his arms folded, and misjudged her again, as men do those of whom they are fondest. “How well she does it, the little coquette,” he thought; “it’s a good piece of acting all through—now she’ll flirt with D’Orville because he happens to be a great man here, and then she’ll throw him over for some one else; and so they ‘keep the game alive.’” Frank! Frank! you ought to be ashamed of yourself!
In the meantime, Lord Mount Helicon must not neglect a very important part of the business which has brought him to Guyville. In the pocket of his lordship’s morning coat is a letter which Straps, who has taken that garment down to brush, in the natural course of things, is even now perusing. As its contents may somewhat enlighten us as well as the valet, we will take the liberty of peeping over that trusty domestic’s shoulder, and joining him in his pursuit of knowledge, premising that the epistle is dated Brook Street, and is a fair specimen of maternal advice to a son. After the usual gossip regarding Mrs. Bolter’s elopement, and Lady Susan Stiffneck’s marriage, with the indispensable conjectures about “ministers,” a body in whose precarious position ladies of a certain age take an unaccountable interest, the letter goes on to demonstrate that
“it is needless to point out, my dear Mount, the advantages you would obtain under your peculiar circumstances by settling early in life. When I was at Bubbleton last autumn (and Globus says I have never been so well since he attended me when you were born—in fact, the spasms left me altogether), I made the acquaintance of a General Bounce, an odious, vulgar man, who had been all his life somewhere in India, but who had a niece, a quiet, amiable girl, by name Kettering, with whom I was much pleased. They have a nice place, though damp, somewhere in the neighbourhood of your borough, and I dined there once or twice before I left Bubbleton. Everything looked like maison montée; and from information I can rely on, I understand the girl is a great heiress. Between ourselves, Lady Champfront told me she would have from three to four hundred thousand pounds. Now, although I should be the last person to hint at your selling yourself for money, particularly with your talents and your position, yet if you should happen to see this young lady, and take a fancy to her, it would be a very nice thing, and would make you quite independent. She is prettyish in the ‘Jeannette and Jeannot’ style, and although her manner is not the least formed, she has no prononcé vulgarity, and would soon acquire our ‘ways’ when she came to live amongst us. Of course we should drop the General immediately; and, my dear boy, I trust you would give up that horrid racing—young Cubbington, who has hardly left school, is already nearly ruined by it, and Lady Looby is in despair—such a mother too as she has been to him! By the by, there is a cousin in our way, but he is young enough to be in love only with himself, and appeared to me to be rather making up to the governess! Think of this, my dear Mount, and believe me,
“P.S.—Your book is much admired. Trifles raves about it, and your old friend Mrs. Blacklamb assures me that it made her quite ill.”
Primed with such sage counsel, his lordship determined to lose no time in “opening the trenches.” After enacting sundry duty-dances, by which he had gained at least one prospective “plumper,” he accordingly “completed the first parallel” by obtaining an introduction to General Bounce, which ceremony Captain Lacquers performed in his usual easy off-hand style—the introducer shouting into each man’s ear his listener’s own name, and suppressing altogether that of his new acquaintance, an ingenious method of presenting people to each other without furthering their intimacy to any great extent. The General, however, and the member had known each other previously by sight as well as by name, the former having voted and spoken against the latter at the past election, with his peculiar abruptness and energy; but Mount Helicon was the last man in the world to owe an antagonist a grudge, and being keenly alive to the ridiculous, was prepared to be delighted with his political opponent, in whom he saw a fund of absurdity, out of which he promised himself much amusement.
“Glad to make your acquaintance, my Lud,” said the General, standing well behind his orders and decorations, which showed to great advantage on a coat tightly buttoned across his somewhat corpulent frame—“Don’t like your politics—what? never did—progress and all that, sir, not worth a row of gingerbread—don’t tell me—why, what did Lord Hindostan say to me at Government House, when they threatened to report me at home for exceeding my orders? ‘Bounce,’ says his Excellency—‘Bounce, I’ll see you through it’—what? nothing like a big stick for a nigger. Stick! how d’ye mean?”—and the speaker, who was beginning to foam at the mouth, suddenly changed his tone to one of the sweetest politeness, as he introduced ‘My niece, Miss Kettering; Lord Mount Helicon.’ A second time was Frank Hardingstone forestalled; he had just made up his mind that he would dance with Blanche only once, sun himself yet once again in her sweet smile, and then think of her no more—a sensible resolution, but not very easy to carry out. Of course he laid the blame on her. “First she makes a fool of D’Orville,” thought he, “a man old enough to be her father—and now she whisks away with this red-bearded radical—to make a fool of him too, unless she means to throw over Charlie; and who is the greatest fool of the three? Why, you, Frank Hardingstone, who ought to know better. I shall go home, smoke a cigar, and go to bed; the dream is over; I had no idea it would be so unpleasant to wake from it.” So Frank selected his hat, pulled out his cigar-case, and trudged off, by no means in a philosophical or even a charitable frame of mind.
There was a light twinkling in the window of his lodgings over the Saddlers, some three hours afterwards, when a carriage drove rapidly by, bearing a freight of pleasure-seekers home from the ball. Inside were the General and Blanche, the former fast asleep, wrapped in the dreamless slumbers which those enjoy who have reached that time of life when the soundness of the stomach is far more attended to than that of the heart—when sentiment is of small account, but digestion of paramount importance. Age, as it widens the circle of our affections, weakens their intensity, and although proverbially “there is no fool like an old one,” we question if in the present day there are many Anacreons who—
or who, however little they might object to celebrating her charms “in the bowl,” would, for “soft Bathylla’s sake,” wreathe vine-leaves round their grizzled heads. No: Age is loth to make itself ridiculous in that way; and the General snored and grunted, heartwhole and comfortable, by the side of his pretty niece. How pretty she looked—a little pale from over-excitement and fatigue, but her violet eyes all the deeper and darker from the contrast, whilst none but her maid would have thought the long golden brown hair spoiled by hanging down in those rich, uncurling clusters. She was like the pale blush rose in her bouquet—more winning as it droops in half-faded loveliness than when first it bloomed, bright and crisp, in its native conservatory. The flower yields its fragrance all the sweeter from being shaken by the breeze. Who but a cousin or a brother would have gone on the box to smoke with such a girl as Blanche inside? Yet so it was. Master Charlie, who danced, as he did everything else, with his whole heart and soul, could not forego the luxury of a cigar in the cool night air, after the noise and heat and revelry of the ball. As he puffed volumes of smoke into the air, and watched the bright stars twinkling down through the clear, pure night, his thoughts wandered far—far into the future; and he, too, felt that the majesty of a sad, sweet face had impressed itself on his being—that she had been watching him to-day through his boyish exploits—and that her eye would kindle, her cheek would glow, when military honours and distinction were heaped upon him, as heaped he was resolved they should be, if ever an opportunity offered. To-morrow his career would begin! To-morrow, ay, even to-day (for it was already past midnight) he was to embark for the Cape; and scarce a thought of the bitterness of parting, perhaps for ever, shaded that bright, young imagination, as it sketched out for itself its impossible romance, worth all the material possibilities that have ever been accomplished. So Charlie smoked and pondered, and dreamed of beauty and valour. We do not think he was in very imminent danger of marrying his cousin.
Perhaps, were he inside, his flow of spirits would only disturb the quiet occupants. Blanche is not asleep, but she is dreaming nevertheless. With her large eyes fixed vacantly on the hedge-row trees and fences, that seem to be wheeling past her in the carriage lamp-light, she is living the last few hours of her life again, and seeing their past events more clearly, as she disentangles them from the excitement and confusion amongst which they actually occurred. Now she is dancing with Lacquers or Sir Ascot, and wondering, as she recalls their commonplace chatter and trite remarks, how men so insipid can belong to the same creation as “Cousin Charlie,” or another gentleman, a friend of his, of whom, for the first time in her life, she feels a little afraid. Now she laughs to herself as she recollects Cornet Capon’s agony of shyness, and the burning blushes with which that diffident young officer apologised for tearing her dress. Anon she sees Major D’Orville’s commanding figure and handsome, manly face, while the low musical voice is still ringing in her ear, and the quiet deferential manner, softened by a protective air of kindness, has lost none of its charm. Blanche is not the first young lady, by a good many, who has gone home from a ball with a flattered consciousness that a certain gallant officer thinks her a “very superior person,” and that the good opinion of such a man is indeed worth having. The Major was “a dangerous man”; he betrayed no coxcombry to mar the effect of his warlike beauty and chivalrous bearing. He never “sank” the profession, but always spoke of himself as a “mere soldier,” whilst his manner was that of a “finished gentleman.” He had distinguished himself, too, on more than one occasion; and the men all had a great opinion of him. Woman is an imitative animal; and a high reputation, especially for courage, amongst the gentlemen, goes a long way in the good graces of the ladies. Add to these the crowning advantage, that the Major, except in one instance of which we know the facts, came into the unequal contest with a heart perfectly invulnerable and case-hardened by intercourse with the world, and a selfishness less the result of nature than education. When a man, himself untouched, makes up his mind that a woman shall love him, the odds are fearfully in his favour. Blanche liked him already; but if “in the multitude of counsellors there is safety,” no less is there security in the multitude of admirers; and ere the Major’s image had time to make more than a transient impression, that of Lord Mount Helicon chased it away in the mental magic-lantern of our fair young dreamer. He had taken her in to supper; and how pleasant he was! so odd, but so agreeable—such a command of language, and such a quaint, absurd way of saying commonplace things. Not so bad-looking either, in spite of his red whiskers; and such a beautiful title! How well it would sound! and Blanche smiled at herself as the idea came across her. But a handsome, manly fellow leaning against the wall was looking at her with a stern, forbidding expression she had never seen before on that open brow, and Blanche’s heart ached at the vision. Mr. Hardingstone was surely very much changed; he who used to be so frank, and kind, and good-humoured, and to lose no opportunity of petting and praising the girl he had known from a child; and to-night he had never so much as asked her to dance, and scarcely spoken to her. “What right had he to look so cross at me?” thought the girl, with the subdued irritation of wounded feelings; “what had I done to offend him, or why should I care whether I offend him or not? Poor fellow, perhaps he is in low spirits about Cousin Charlie’s going away so soon.” And Blanche’s eyes filled with tears—tears that she persuaded herself were but due to her cousin’s early departure.
Like the rising generation in general, Charlie was a great smoker. His ideas of “campaigning” were considerably mixed up with tobacco, and he lost no opportunity of qualifying for the bivouac by a sedulous consumption of cigars. He dashed the last bit of “burning comfort” from his lips as the carriage drove into the avenue at Newton-Hollows. Protracted yawns prevented much conversation during the serving-out of hand-candlesticks. Good-nights were exchanged; “We shall all see you to-morrow before you go, dear,” said Blanche, as she disappeared into her room; and soon the sighing of the night wind was the only sound to disturb the silence of that long range of buildings, where all were sunk in slumber and repose—all save one.
At an open window, looking steadfastly forth into the darkness, sat Mary Delaval. She had not stirred for hours, and she might have been asleep, so moveless was her attitude, had it not been for the fixed, earnest expression of her dark grey eye. One round white arm rested on the window-ledge, and her long black hair fell in loose masses over the snowy garments, which, constituting a lady’s déshabillé, reveal her beauties far less liberally than the costume she more inaptly terms “full dress.” Mary is reasoning with herself—generally an unsatisfactory process, and one that seldom leads to any definite conclusion; sadly, soberly, and painfully, she is recalling her past life, her selfish father, her injured mother, the hardships and trials of her youth, and the ray of sunshine that has tinged the last few weeks with its golden light. She never thought to entertain folly, madness, such as this; yet would she not have had it otherwise for worlds. Bitter are the dregs, but verily the poison is more than sweet. And now he is going away, and she will never, never see him again; that fair young face will never more greet her with its thrilling smile, those kindly joyous tones never more make music for her ear. To-morrow he will be gone. Perhaps he may fall in action—the beautiful brow gashed—the too well-known features cold and fixed in death: not if prayers can avert such a fate. Perhaps he will return distinguished and triumphant; but in either case what more will the poor governess have to do with the young hero, save to love him still? Yes, she may love him now—love him with all her heart and soul, without restraint, without self-reproach, for she will never see him again. On that she is determined; their paths lie in different directions, like two ships that meet upon the waters and rejoice in each other’s companionship, and part, and know each other no more. It was foolish to sit up for him to-night; but it is the last, last time, and she could not resist the temptation to wait and watch even for the very wheels that bore him home; and now it is over—all over—he will never know it; but she will always think of him and pray for him, and watch over Blanche for his sake, and love him, adore him dotingly—madly—to the last; and cold, haughty, passionless Mary Delaval leant her head upon her two white arms, and sobbed like a broken-hearted child.
We wonder if any man that walks the earth is worthy of the whole idolatrous devotion of a woman’s heart. Charlie was snoring sound asleep, whilst she who loved him wept and prayed and suffered. Go to sleep too, foolish Mary, and pleasant dreams to you: “Sorrow has your young days shaded;” it is but fair that your nights should glow in the rosy, fancy-brightened hues of joy.
CHAPTER IX
WANT
LODGINGS IN LONDON—A CONVIVIAL HUSBAND—THE WIFE GIVES HER OPINION—FAMILY PLEASURES—FAMILY CARES—DRESSING TO GO OUT—THE DRUNKARD’S VISITORS—CHEAP ENJOYMENT—WHO IS THE OWNER?—LONDON FOR THE POOR
As you walk jauntily along any of the great thoroughfares of London, you arrive, ever and anon, at one of those narrow offshoots of which you would scarcely discover the existence, were it not for the paved crossing over which you daintily pick your way on the points of your jetty boots. All the attention you can spare from passing events is devoted to the preservation of your chaussure, and you do not probably think it worth while to bestow even a casual peep down that close, winding alley, in which love and hate, and hopes and fears, and human joys and miseries and sympathies, are all packed together, just as they are in your own house in Belgravia, Tyburnia, or Mayfair, only considerably more cramped for room, and a good deal worse off for fresh air. That noble animal, the horse, generally occupies the ground-floor of such tenements as compose these narrow streets, whilst the dirty children of those bipeds who look after his well-being, embryo coachmen, and helpers, and stablemen, play and fight and vociferate in the gutter, with considerable energy and no little noise, munching their dinners al fresco the while, with an appetite that makes dry bread a very palatable sustenance. A strong “smell of stables” pervades the atmosphere, attributable perhaps to the accumulation of that agricultural wealth which, in its right place, produces golden harvests; and the ring of harness and stamp of steeds, varied by an occasional snort, nearly drown the plaintive street organ, grinding away, fainter and fainter, round the corner. Shirts, stockings, and garments of which we neither know the names nor natures, hang, like Macbeth’s banners, “on the outward walls.” Washing appears to be the staple commerce, while porter seems the principal support, of these busy regions; and as the snowy water-lily rises from the stagnant marsh, so does the dazzling shirt-front, in which you will to-day appear at dinner, owe its purity to that stream of soapy starch-stained liquid now pouring its filthy volume down the gutter. Dirty, drowsy-looking men clatter about with pails and other apparatus for the cleansing of carriages, whilst here and there an urchin is pounced upon and carried off by some maternal hawk, with bare arms and disordered tresses, either to return with a smeared mouth and a festive slice of bread and treacle, or to admonish its companions, by piercing cries, that it is undergoing summary punishment not undeserved. The shrill organ of female volubility, we need hardly say, is in the ascendant; and we may add that the faces generally met with, all dirty and careworn though they be, are gilded by an honest expression of contentment peculiar to those who fulfil their destiny by working for their daily bread.
In one of the worst lodgings in such a mews as we have faintly endeavoured to describe, in a dirty, comfortless room, bare of furniture, and to which laborious access is obtained by a dilapidated wooden staircase, sits our old acquaintance Gingham, now Mrs. Blacke, but who will never be known to “the families in which she lived” by any other than her maiden patronymic. Though in her best days a lady of no fascinating exterior, she is decidedly altered for the worse since we saw her at St. Swithin’s, and is now, without question, a hard-featured and repulsive-looking woman. She has lost the “well-to-do” air, which sits more easily on those who live at “housekeeping” than on those “who find themselves,” and everything about her betrays a degree of poverty, if not of actual want, sadly repugnant to the habits of an orderly upper-servant in a well-regulated establishment.
Of all those who sink to hardships after having “seen better days,” none bear privation so ill as this particular rank. They have neither the determination and energy of “the gentle,” nor the happy carelessness and bodily vigour of the labouring class. It is lamentable to watch the gradual sinking of a once respectable man, who has been tempted, by the very natural desire of becoming independent, to leave “service” and set up on his own account. From his boyhood he has been fed, housed, and clothed, without a thought or care of his own, till he has spread into the portly, grave, ponderous official, whom not even his master’s guests would think of addressing save by the respectful title of “Mister.” He has saved a “pretty bit o’ money”; and on giving warning, announces his long-concealed marriage to the housekeeper, who has perhaps saved a little more. Between them they muster a very few hundred pounds; and on this inexhaustible capital they determine to set up for themselves. If he takes a public-house, it is needless to dwell on the almost inevitable catastrophe. But whatever the trade or speculation on which he embarks, he has everything to learn; education cannot be had without paying for it; business connections cannot be made—they must grow. Those are positive hardships to him, which could scarcely be felt as wants by others of his own sphere, who had not always lived, as he has, on the fat of the land. Discontent and recrimination creep into the household. The wife makes home uncomfortable, and “the husband goes to the beer-shop.” The money dwindles—the business fails—fortunate if the family do not increase. “Trade never was so bad,” and it soon becomes a question of assignees and ten shillings in the pound. The man himself is honest, and it cuts him to the heart. Only great speculators can rise, like the Phœnix, in gaudier plumage after every fresh insolvency; and hunger begins to stare our once portly acquaintance in the face. At last he is completely “sold up,” and if too old to go again into service, he will probably think himself well off to finish in the workhouse. And this is the career of two-thirds of those who leave comfortable homes for the vague future of a shadowy independence, and embark upon speculations of which they neither understand the nature nor count the cost.
But we must return to Gingham, bending her thin, worn figure over some dirty needlework, and rocking with her foot a wooden cradle, in which, covered by a scanty rug not over-clean, sleeps a little pinched-up atom of a child, contrasting sadly with those vigorous, brawling urchins out of doors. There is a scanty morsel of fire in the grate, though the day is hot and sultry, for a “bit of dinner” has to be kept warm for “father”; and very meagre fare it is, between its two delf plates. A thin-bladed knife and two-pronged fork lie ready for him on the rough deal table, guiltless of a cloth; and Gingham wonders what is keeping him, for he promised faithfully to come back to dinner, and the poor woman sighs as she stitches and rocks the child, and counts the quarters told out by the neighbouring clock, and ponders sadly on old times, than which there is no surer sign of a heart ill at ease. Well-to-do, thriving people are continually looking forward, and scheming and living in the Future; it is only your worn, dejected, hopeless sufferer that recalls the long-faded sunshine of the Past.
Gingham’s marriage took place at St. Swithin’s as soon after Mrs. Kettering’s death as appearances would allow, and was conducted with the usual solemnities observed on such occasions in her rank of life. There was a new shawl, and a gorgeous bonnet, and a cake, with a large consumption of tea, not to mention excisable commodities. Tom Blacke looked very smart in a white hat and trousers to match, whilst Hairblower signalised the event by the performance of an intricate and unparalleled hornpipe, such as is never seen now-a-days off the stage. Blanche made the bride a handsome present, which was acknowledged with many blessings and a shower of tears. Gingham’s great difficulty was, how ever she should part with Miss Blanche! and “all went merry as a marriage bell.” But they had not long been man and wife ere Tom began to show the cloven foot. First he would take his blushing bride to tea-gardens and such places of convivial resort, where, whilst she partook of the “cup that cheers but not inebriates,” he would sip consolatory measures of that which does both. After a time he preferred such expeditions as she could not well accompany him on, and would come home with glazed eyes, a pale face, and the tie of his neckcloth under his ear. The truth will out. Tom was a drunken dog. There was no question about it. Then came dismissal from his employer, the attorney. Still, as long as Gingham’s money lasted, all went on comparatively well. But a lady’s-maid’s savings are not inexhaustible, and people who live on their capital are apt to get through it wonderfully fast. So they came down from three well-furnished rooms to a kitchen and parlour, and from that to one miserable apartment, serving all purposes at once. Then they moved to London to look for employment; and Tom Blacke, a handy fellow enough when sober, obtained a series of situations, all of which he lost owing to his convivial failing. Now they paid two shillings a week for the wretched room in which we find them, and a hard matter it often was to raise money for the rent, and their own living, and Tom’s score at “The Feathers,” just round the corner. But Gingham worked for the whole family, as a woman will when put to it, and seemed to love her husband the better the worse he used her, as is constantly the case with that long-suffering sex. “Poor fellow,” she would say, when Tom reeled home to swear at her in drunken ferocity, or kiss her in maudlin kindness, “it’s trouble that’s drove him to it; but there’s good in Tom yet—look how fond he is of baby.” And with all his faults, there is no doubt little Miss Blacke possessed a considerable share of her father’s heart, such as it was.
But even gentle woman’s temper is not proof against being kept waiting, that most irritating of all trials; and Gingham, who in her more prosperous days had been a lady of considerable asperity, could “pluck up a spirit,” as she called it, even now, when she was “raised,”—so, surmounting the coffee-coloured front with a dingy bonnet, and folding her bare arms in a faded shawl, she locked baby in, trusting devoutly the child might not wake during her absence, and marched stoutly off to “The Feathers,” where she was sure to find her good-for-nothing husband.
There he was, sure enough, just as she expected, his old black coat glazed and torn, his pinched-up hat pressed down over his pale, sunken features, his whole appearance dirty and emaciated. None but his wife could have recognised the dapper Tom Blacke, of St. Swithin’s, in that shaky, scowling, dissipated sot. Alas! she knew him in his present character too well. There he was, playing skittles with a ponderous ruffian, in a linen jacket and high-lows, who looked like a showman of a travelling menagerie, only not so respectable; and a little Jew pedlar, with a hawk eye and an expression of countenance that defied Mephistopheles himself to overreach him. There was her husband, betting pots of beer and “goes” of gin, though the cupboard was bare at home and the child crying for food—marking his game with a trembling hand, cheating when he won, and blaspheming when he lost, like the very blackguard to which he was rapidly descending.
Gingham shook a little as she advanced, twirling the door-key nervously round her finger; but she determined to try the suaviter in modo first, so she began, “Tom! Tom Blacke! dinner’s ready, ain’t you coming home?”
“Home! Home be ——! and you, too, Mrs. Blacke; we won’t go home till mornin’—shall us, Mr. Fibbes?” Mr. Fibbes, although appearances were much against him, in his linen jacket and high-lows, was a man of politeness where the fair were concerned, so he took a straw out of his mouth, and replied, “Not to cross the missus, when sich is by no means necessary; finish the game first, and then we’ll hargue the pint—that’s what I say.”
“O Tom, pray come away,” said poor Gingham, who had caught sight of the chalked-up score, and knew, by sad experience, what havoc it would make with the weekly earnings. “I durstn’t leave the child not a minute longer; I’ve kept your bit of dinner all hot for you—come away, there’s a dear!”
“Not I,” said Tom, poising his wooden bowl for a fresh effort, and, irritated by his failure, bursting forth upon his wife. “How can I leave these gentlemen in their game to attend to you? Come, let’s have no nonsense; be off! be off!” he repeated, clenching his fist, and raising his voice to a pitch that called forth from the large man the admonitory remark that “easy does it,” whilst the little Jew’s eyes glittered at the prospect of winning his game.
But Gingham was roused, and she went at him fiercely and at once: “Shame—shame on ye!” she exclaimed, in a low, hoarse voice, gradually rising, as she got more excited, and her pale features worked with passion, “with the child cryin’ at home, and me obliged to come and look for you in such a place as this; me that slaves and toils, and works my fingers to the bone,” holding up her needle-scarred hands to the by-standers, who were already collecting, as they always do when there is a prospect of a row. “Call yourself a man!—a man, indeed!—and let your wife and child starve whilst you are taking your diversion, and enjoying of yourself here? And you too,” she added, attacking the large man and the Jew with a suddenness which much startled the former, “you ought to be ashamed of yourselves, you ought; keeping of him here, and making of him as bad as yourselves—though perhaps you’re not husbands and fathers, and don’t know no better. Ay, do, you coward! strike a woman if you dare! Was it for this I left my place and my missus? Oh dear, oh dear, whatever shall I do?” and Gingham, throwing her apron over her head, sank upon a bench in a passion of weeping, supported by a phalanx of matrons who had already collected, and who took part in the altercation, as being to all intents and purposes a Government question.
Tom Blacke was furious, of course. Had it not been for the large man, he would have struck his wife to the ground—alas! not the first time, we fear, that she had felt the weight of a coward’s arm; but that ponderous champion interposed his massive person, and recommended his friend strongly “not to cross the missus.” Truth to tell, Mr. Fibbes had a little shrew of a black-eyed wife at home, who ruled the roast, and kept her great husband in entire subjection; besides which, like most square, powerful men, he was a good-natured fellow, though not very respectable; and having won as much beer as he wanted from Tom, willingly lent his good offices to solder up the quarrel, which ended, as such disturbances generally do, in a sort of half-sulky reconciliation, and the wife marching off in triumph with her captured husband. The women, as usual, had formed the majority of the crowd, and of course sided with the injured lady; so Tom Blacke, after a few ineffectual threats, and an oath or two, left the ground with his still sobbing wife, promising himself an ample revenge if she should dare to cross him at home, when there was no one by to take her part.
When they arrived at the desolate room which served them for home, “baby” was awake, and crying piteously to find its little self alone. On what trifles do the moods and tempers of the human mind depend! The child set up a crow of delight to see its father, instead of the hideous howl in which it had been indulging, and stretched out its little arms with a welcome that went straight to the drunkard’s heart. In another moment he was dancing the little thing up and down in perfect good humour; and poor Gingham, thoroughly overcome, was leaning her head against his shoulder in a paroxysm of reconciled affection, and going through that process of relief known to ladies by the expressive term of “having a good cry.”
How many a matrimonial bicker has been interrupted and ended by the innocent smile of “one of these little ones”! How many an ill-assorted couple have been kept from separation by the homely consideration of “what should be done with the children”! How many an evil desire, how many an unkind thought, has been quenched at its very birth by the pure, open gaze of a guileless child! The stern, severe man, disgusted with the world, and disappointed in his best affections, has a corner in his heart for those whom he prizes as his own flesh and blood; the passionate, impetuous woman, yearning for the love she seeks in vain at home, her mind filled with an image of which it is sin even to think, and beset by the hundred temptations to which those are exposed who pass their lives in wedded misery, pauses on the very threshold, and is saved from guilt when she thinks of her darlings. Sunshine and music do they make in a house, with their bright, happy faces, the patter of their little feet, and the ringing echoes of their merry laugh. Grudge not to have the quiver full of them. Love and prize them whilst you may; for the hour will come at last, and your life will be weary and your hearth desolate when they take wing and fly away.
So Tom Blacke and his wife are reconciled for the time, and would be comparatively happy, were it not for the grinding anxiety ever present to their minds of how to “make both ends meet”—that consideration which poisons the comfort of many a homely dwelling, and which in their case is doubtless their own fault, or at least the fault of the “pater familias,” but none the less bitter on that account.
“There is the baker to pay, and the rent,” sighed Gingham, enumerating them on her fingers; “and the butcher called this morning with his account; to be sure it is but little, and little there is to meet it with. I shall be paid to-day for the plain-work, and I got a bit of washing yesterday, that brought me in sevenpence-halfpenny,” she proceeded, immersed in calculation; “and then we shall be three-and-eightpence short—three-and-eight-pence! and where to get it I don’t know, if I was to drop down dead this minute!”
“I must have a little money to-day, too, missus,” said Tom, in a hoarse, dogged voice; “can’t ye put the screw on a little tighter? A man may as well be starved to death as worried to death; and I can’t face ‘The Feathers’ again without wiping off a bit of the score, ye know.” Gingham’s eye glanced at the Sunday gown, hanging on a nail behind the door—a black silk one, of voluminous folds and formidable rustle, the last remnant of respectability left—and she thought that, too, must follow the rest to the pawnbroker’s, to that receptacle of usury with which, alas! she was too familiar, and from which even now she possessed sundry mocking duplicates, representing many a once-prized article of clothing and furniture.
Tom saw and interpreted the hopeless glance. “No, no,” said he, relenting, “not quite so bad as that, neither; I wouldn’t strip the gown off your back, Rachel, not if it was ever so; I couldn’t bear to see you, that was once so respectable, going about all in rags. We might get on, too,” added he, brightening up, with an expression of desperate cunning in his bad eye—“we might get money—ay, plenty of it—if you were only like the rest: you’re too mealy-mouthed, Mrs. Blacke, that’s where it is.”
“O Tom, what would you have me do?” exclaimed his wife, bursting afresh into tears; “we’ve been honest as yet through it all, and I’ve borne and borne because we were honest. I’d work upon my bare knees for you and the child—I’d starve and never complain myself, if I hadn’t a morsel in the cupboard; but I’d keep my honesty, Tom, I’d keep my honesty, for when that’s gone, all’s gone together.”
“Will your honesty put decent clothes on your back, missus?” rejoined Tom, who did not see that the article in question was by any means so indispensable; “will your honesty put a joint down before the fire, such as we used to sit down to every day, when we was first man and wife, and lived respectable? Will your honesty furnish a bellyful for this poor little beggar, that’s whining now on my knee for a bit to eat?” Gingham began to relent at this consideration, and Tom pursued his advantage: “Besides, it’s not as if it was to do anybody any harm; there’s Miss Blanche got more than she knows what to do with, and the young gentleman—he’s away at the wars. Honesty, indeed! if honesty’s the game, you’ve a right to your share, what Mrs. Kettering intended you should have. I think I ought to know the law; and the law’s on our side, and the justice too. Ah! Rachel, you used not to be so difficult to come round once,” concluded Tom, trying the tender tack, when he had exhausted all his other arguments; and recalling to his wife’s mind, as he intended it should do, their early days of courtship, and the carriage of a certain brown-paper parcel by the sea-shore.
But Gingham felt she had right on her side; and when we can indulge the spirit of contradiction never dormant in our natures, and fight under the banner of truth at the same time, it is too great a luxury for mortal man, or especially mortal woman, to forego, so Gingham was game to the last. “No, Tom, no!” she said, steadily and with emphasis, “I won’t do it, so don’t ask me, and there’s an end of it!”
Her husband put the child down in disgust, banged his hat upon his head, as if to go back to “The Feathers,” and was leaving the room, when a fresh idea struck him. If he could but break down his wife’s self-respect he might afterwards mould her more easily to his purpose, and the course he proposed to adopt might, at any rate, furnish him in the meantime with a little money for his dissipation; so he turned round coaxingly to poor Gingham, and asked for his bit of dinner, and put the infant once more upon his knee, ere he began to sound her on the propriety of applying for a little assistance to her darling Miss Blanche. “You ought to go and see your young lady, Rachel,” said he, quite good-humouredly, and with the old keeping-company-days’ smile; “it’s only proper respect, now she’s grown to be a great lady, and come to London. I’ll mind the child at home; it likes to be left with its daddy—a deary—and you brush yourself up a bit, and put on your Sunday gown there, and take a bit of a holiday; you needn’t hurry back, you know, if they ask you to stay tea in the room, and I’ll be here till you come home; or if I’m not, I’ll get one of the neighbours to look in. So now go, there’s a good wench.”
Mrs. Blacke had not heard such endearing language since the sea-side walks at St. Swithin’s—she felt almost happy again, and nearly forgot the “three-and-eightpence” wanting for the week’s account. Sundry feminine misgivings had she, as to her personal appearance being sufficiently fine to face the new servants, in the exalted character of Miss Blanche’s late lady’s-maid; but women, even ugly ones, have a wonderful knack of adorning themselves on very insufficient materials, and Tom assured her the black silk looked as good as new, and that bonnet always did become her, and always would—so she gave the child a parting kiss, and her husband many injunctions to take care of the treasure, and started in wonderfully good spirits; Tom’s last injunction to her as she departed being to this effect—“If Miss Blanche should ask you how we’re getting on, Rachel, you put your pride in your pocket—mind that—put your pride in your pocket, do you understand?” So the drunkard was left alone with his child.
We have already said Tom was fond of the little thing—in fact, it was the only being on earth that had found its way to his heart. Man must love something, and Tom Blacke, the attorney’s clerk, who had married for money as if he had been a ruined peer of the realm, cared just as little for his wife as any impoverished nobleman might for the peeress with whom his income was necessarily encumbered; but the more indifferent he was to the mother, the fonder he was of the child; and with all his liking for skittles and vulgar dissipation (the whist and claret of higher circles), he thought it no hardship to spend the rest of the afternoon with an infant that was just beginning to talk. He fully intended, as he had promised, to remain at home till his wife returned, but a drunkard can have no will of his own. When a man gives himself up to strong drink he chooses a mistress who will take no denial, for whom appetite grows too fiercely by what it feeds on, whose beck and call he must be ever ready to obey, for she will punish his neglect by the infliction of such horrors as we may fancy pictured in the imagination of the doomed—till he fly for relief back to the enchantress that has maddened him; and whilst the poison begets thirst as the thirst craves for the poison, the liquid fire poured upon the smouldering flame eats, and saps, and scorches, till it expires in drivelling idiocy, or blazes out in raving, riotous madness. Mr. Blacke was tolerably cheerful up to a certain point, when he arrived at that state which we once heard graphically described by the sergeant of a barrack-guard, on whom the duty had devolved of placing an inebriated warrior in solitary confinement—“Was he drunk, sergeant?” said the orderly officer. “No, sir.” “Was he sober, then?” “No, sir.” “How? neither drunk nor sober! what d’ye mean?” “Well, sir, the man had been drinking, no doubt, but the liquor was just dying out in him.”
So with Tom Blacke—after an hour or so the liquor began to die out in him, and then came the ghastly reaction. First he thought the room was gloomy and solitary, and he got nearer the child’s cradle for company—the little thing was again asleep, and he adjusted its coverlet more comfortably—ah! that slimy, crawling creature! what is it? so near the infant’s head—he brushed it away with his hand, but swarms of the same loathsome insects came climbing over the cradle, chairs, and furniture. Now they settled on his legs and clothes, and he beat them down and flung them from him by hundreds, shuddering with horror the while; then he looked into the corners of the room, and put his hands before his eyes after each startled glance, for hideous faces grinned and gibbered at him, starting out from the very walls, and mopping and mowing, shifted their forms and places, so that it was impossible to identify them. He could have borne these, but worse still, there was a Shape in the room with him, of whose presence he was fearfully conscious, though whenever he manned himself to look steadily at it, it was gone. He could not bear to have this visitant behind him, so he backed his chair hard against the wall. In vain—still on the side from which he turned his head the grim Shape sat and cowered and blinked at him. He knew it—he felt it—mortal nerves could bear it no longer. He grew desperate, as a man does in a dream. Should he take the child and run for it? No! he would meet It on the narrow stairs, and he could not get by there. Ha! the window! bounding into the air, child and all, he might escape. He was mad now—he was capable of anything. Come along, little one!—they are blocking up the room—they cover the room in myriads—the Shape is waving them on—light and freedom without, the devil and all his legions within—Hurrah!
Fortunate was it for the hope of the Blacke family that Mrs. Crimp was at this instant returning to her lodgings above, accompanied by several promising young Crimps, with whom, as she toiled up the common staircase, she kept up a running fire of objurgation and entreaty. The homely sounds, the familiar voices, brought Tom Blacke to himself. The vicinity of such a material dame as Mrs. Crimp was sufficient to destroy the ideal in the most brandy-sodden brain, and the horrors left their victim for the time. But he dared not remain to encounter a second attack. He could not answer for the consequences of another hour in that room alone with the child; so he asked his neighbour, a kind, motherly woman, and as fond of a baby as if she had not nursed a dozen of her own, to keep an eye upon his little one, and betook himself straight to “The Feathers,” to raise the accursed remedy to his lips with a trembling hand, and borrow half-an-hour’s callousness at a frightful sacrifice. Tom thought he knew what was good for his complaint, and “clung to the hand that smote him” with the confirmed infatuation of a sot. So we leave him at the bar, with a glazed eye, a haggard smile, and the worm that never dies eating into his very vitals.
In the meantime, Gingham, with the dingy bonnet somewhat cocked up behind, and her bony fingers peeping through the worn thread gloves, is making her way along the sunny pavement in the direction of Grosvenor Square. The old black silk gown looks worse than she expected in that searching light, and she feels nervous and shy at revisiting her former haunts; nor does she like leaving home for many hours at a time. But as she walks on, the exercise does her good. The moving objects on all sides, and the gaudy bustle of London in the height of the season, have an exhilarating effect on her spirits. It is so seldom she has an outing; moped up for days together in that mews, the very change is enjoyment; and the shops, with their cheap dresses and seductive ribbons, are perfect palaces of delight. She cannot tear herself from one window, where an excellent silk for her own wear, and a frock “fit to dress an angel,” as she thinks, for baby, are to be sold, in tempting juxtaposition, respectively for a mere nothing. If she was sure the colour of the silk would stand, she would try and scrape the money together to buy it; but a pang shoots through her as she recalls the fatal “three-and-eightpence,” so she walks on with a heavy sigh, and though she knows she never can possess it, yet she feels all the better for having seen such a dress as that.
And these, and such as these, are the pleasures of the poor in our great metropolis. Continual self-denial, continual self-restraint, continual self-abasement—like Tantalus, to be whelmed in the waters of enjoyment which must never touch the lip. In the country the poor man can at least revel in its freshest and purest delights. We have been told that “the meek shall inherit the earth”; and the day-labourer, mending “my lord’s” park fence, has often far more enjoyment in that wilderness of beauty than its high-born proprietor. While the latter is in bed, the former breathes the sweet morning air and the scent of a thousand wild flowers, whose fragrance will be scorched up ere noon. The glad song of birds makes music to his ear—the whole landscape, smiling in the sunlight, is spread out for the delight of his eye. Not only the park, and the waving woods, and the placid lake, are his property for the time, but the cheerful homesteads, and the scattered herds, and the hazy distance stretching away as far as those blue hills that melt into the sky. He can admire the shadow of each giant elm without disturbing himself as to which of them must be marked for the axe; he can watch the bounding deer without caring which is the fattest to furnish a haunch for solemn dinners and political entertainments, where people eat because they are weary, and drink because they are dull. The distant view he looks upon is to him a breathing, sparkling world, full of light and life and hope—not a mere county, subdivided into votes and freeholds, and support and interest. His frame is attempered by toil to the enjoyment of natural pleasures and natural beauties. The wild breeze fans his brow—the daisies spring beneath his feet—the glorious summer sky is spread above—and the presence of his Maker pervades the atmosphere about him. For the time the man is happy—happier, perhaps, than he is himself aware of. To be sure he is mortal, and in the midst of all he sighs for beer; yet is his lot one not unmixed with many pure and thrilling pleasures; and if he can only get plenty of work, there are many states of existence far worse than that of an English field-labourer.
Not so with the sons of toil in town—there, all enjoyment is artificial, all pleasure must be paid for—the air they breathe will support life, but its odours are far different from those of the wild flower. If their eyes are ever gladdened by beauty, it is but the pomp and splendour of their fellow-creatures, on which they gaze with sneering admiration—half envy, half contempt. If their ears are ever ravished by music, there is a tempting demon wafting sin into their hearts upon the sounds—there is a mocking voice of ribaldry and vulgar revelry accompanying the very concord of heaven. What pleasure can they have but those of the senses? Where have they to go for relaxation but to the gin-shop? What inducement have they to raise themselves above the level of “the beasts which perish”?
Honour to those who are working to provide intellectual amusements for the masses, and that education of the soul which places man above the circumstances by which he is surrounded! Much has been done, and much is still left to do. Those waves must be taught to leap ever upwards, to fling their separate crests towards the sky; for if the tempest should arise, and they should come surging on in one gigantic volume, they will make a clear breach wherever the embankment happens to be weakest; and who shall withstand their force?
Can we wonder to find the lower classes sometimes discontented, when we think of their privations and their toils? Shall a man starve with but half-an-inch of plate-glass betwixt his dry white lips and the reeking abundance of luxurious gluttony? and shall he turn away without a murmur, die, and make no sign? Shall a fellow-creature drag on an existence of perpetual labour, with no pleasures, no relaxations, almost no repose; and shall we expect this dreary, blighted being to be always contented, always cheerful, always respectful to his superiors? Is it to be all one way here below? shall it be all joy, and mirth, and comfort, and superfluity with the one; and all want, and misery, and grim despair with the other? Forbid it, Heaven! Let us, every man, put his shoulder to the wheel—let each, in his own circle, be it small or great, do all in his power for those beneath him—beneath him but in the accident of station, brothers in all besides—live and let live—stretch a helping hand to all who need it—treat every man as one who has an immortal soul—and though “they shall never cease out of the land,” yet will their wants be known and their hardships alleviated, and the fairest spirit of heaven—angelic Charity—shall spread her wings widest and warmest in London for the poor.
CHAPTER X
SUPERFLUITY
LONDON FOR THE RICH—A GOLDEN IMAGE—THE LADY OF FASHION—LIFE WELL SPENT—BOOK-WRITING AND BOOK-MAKING—THE DAY OF THE DRAWING-ROOM—GOING TO MY CLUB—THE AWFUL MOMENT—GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
London for the rich, though, is a different thing altogether. “Money cannot purchase happiness,” said the philosopher. “No,” replied a celebrated wit, himself well skilled in circulating the much-esteemed dross, “but it can purchase a very good imitation of it;” and none can gainsay the truth of his distinction. What can it do for us in the great Babylon? It can buy us airy houses—cool rooms—fragrant flowers—the best of everything to eat and drink—carriages—horses—excitement—music—friends—everything but a good appetite and content. London for the rich man is indeed a palace of delights. See him at the window of his club, in faultless attire, surrounded by worshippers who perform their part of the mutual contract most religiously, by finding conversation and company, both of the pleasantest, for him who provides drag and dinner, equally of the best. Though they bow before a calf, is it not a golden one? though they “eat dirt,” is it not dressed by a French cook? See him cantering in the Park—an animal so well broke as that would make John Gilpin himself appear a fine horseman. What envious glances follow him from the humble pedestrian—what sunny smiles shine on him from lips and eyes surmounting the most graceful shapes, the most becoming neck-ribbons! No, admiring stranger! You are not in the Bazaar at Constantinople—you are amidst England’s high-born beauties in the most moral country on earth; yet even here, with sorrow be it said, there is many a fair girl ready to barter love, and hope, and self-respect, for a box at the opera and an adequate settlement—only it must be large enough. Within fifty yards of this spot may Tattersall’s voice be heard any Monday or Thursday proclaiming, hammer in hand, his mercenary ultimatum, “The best blood in England, and she is to be sold.” Brain-sick moralists would read a lesson from the animal’s fate. Our men of the world are satisfied to take things as they are. Meanwhile the calf has shown himself long enough to his idolaters; he dines early to-day—a quarter past eight—therefore he canters home to dress. Man has no right to insult such a cook as his by being hungry, so he trifles over a repast that Apicius would have envied, and borrows half-an-hour’s fictitious spirits from a golden vintage that has well-nigh cost its weight in gold. What an evening is before him! All that can enchant the eye, all that can ravish the ear—beauties of earth and sounds of heaven—the very revelry of the intellect, and “the best box in the house” from which to see, hear, and enjoy. The calf is indeed pasturing in the Elysian fields, and we need follow him no longer. Can he be otherwise than happy? Can there be lips on which such fruits as these turn to ashes? Are beauty, and luxury, and society, and song, nothing after all but “a bore”? Nature is a more impartial mother than we are prone to believe, and the rich man need not always be such an object of envy only because he is rich.
But pretty Blanche Kettering enjoyed the glitter and the excitement, and the pleasures of her London life, even as the opening flower enjoys the sunshine and the breeze. It requires a season or two to take the edge off a fresh, healthy appetite, and ennui scowls in vain upon the very young. Gingham thought her young lady had never looked so well as she did to-day, of all days in the year the one in which Blanche was to be presented. Yes—it was the day of the Drawing-room, and our former Abigail forgot the supercilious manners of the new porter, and the high and mighty ways of the General’s gentleman, and even her own faded black silk, in a paroxysm of motherly affection and professional enthusiasm, brought on by the beauty of her darling, and the surpassing magnificence of her costume. Blanche was nearly dressed when she arrived, standing like a little princess amongst her many attendants—this one smoothing a fold, that one adjusting a curl, and a third holding the pincushion aloft, having transferred the greater portion of its contents to her own mouth.
Would that we had power to describe the young lady’s dress; would that we could delight bright eyes, should bright eyes condescend to glance upon our page, with a critical and correct account of the materials and the fashion that were capable of constituting so attractive a tout ensemble—how the gown was brocade, and the train was silk, and the trimmings were gossamer, to the best of our belief!—how pearls were braided in that soft brown hair, and feathers nodded over that graceful little head, though to our mind it would have been even better without these accessories—and how the dear girl looked altogether like a fairy queen, smiling through a wreath of mist, and glittering with the dewdrops of the morning.
“Lor’, miss, you do look splendid!” said Gingham, lost in admiration, partly at the richness of the materials, partly at the improvement in her old charge. Blanche was a very pretty girl, certainly, even in a court dress, trying as is that costume to all save the dark, tall beauties, who do indeed look magnificent in trains and feathers; but then the Anglo-Saxon blonde has her revenge next morning in her simple déshabillé at breakfast—a period at which the black-eyed sultana is apt to betray a slight yellowness of skin, and a drowsy, listless air, not above half awake. Well, they are all very charming in all dresses—it’s lucky they are so unconscious of their own attractions.
Blanche was anything but a vain girl; but of course it takes a long time to dress for a Drawing-room, and when mirrors are properly arranged for self-inspection, it requires a good many glances to satisfy ladies as to the correct disposition of “front, flanks, and rear”; so several minutes elapse ere Gingham can be favoured with a private interview, and she passes that period in admiring her young lady, and scanning, with a criticism that borders on disapprobation, the ministering efforts of Rosine, the French maid.
A few weeks of London dissipation have not yet taken the first fresh bloom off Blanche’s young brow; there is not a single line to herald the “battered look” that will, too surely, follow a very few years of late hours, and nightly excitement, and disappointments. The girl is all girl still—bright, and simple, and lovely. With all our prejudices in her favour, and our awe-struck admiration of her dress, we cannot help thinking she would look yet lovelier in a plain morning gown, with no ornament but a rose or two; and that Mary Delaval’s stately beauty and commanding figure would be more in character with those splendid robes of state. But Mary is only a governess, and Blanche is an heiress; so the one remains up-stairs, and the other goes to Court. What else would you have?
It is difficult for an inferior at any time to obtain an interview with a superior, and nowhere more so than in London. Gingham was secure of Blanche’s sympathy as of her assistance; but although the latter was forthcoming the very instant there was the slightest hesitation perceived in her answer to the natural question, “How are you getting on?” Gingham was deprived of her share of the former by a thundering double-knock, that shook even the massive house in Grosvenor Square to its foundation, and the announcement that Lady Mount Helicon had arrived, and was even then waiting in the carriage for Miss Kettering.
“Good-bye, good-bye, Gingham,” said Blanche, hurrying off in a state of nervous trepidation, she scarcely knew why; “I mustn’t keep Lady Mount Helicon waiting, and of course she won’t get out in her train—come again soon—good-bye;” and in another moment the steps were up, the door closed with a bang, and Blanche, spread well out so as not to get “creased,” by the side of stately Lady Mount Helicon, in a magnificent family coach, rich in state-liveried coachman and Patagonian footmen, to which Cinderella’s equipage in the fairy tale was a mere costermonger’s cart.
As the stout official on the box hammer-cloth, whose driving, concealed as he is behind an enormous nosegay, is the admiration of all beholders, will take some little time to reach the “string,” and when placed in that lingering procession, will move at a snail’s pace the whole way to St. James’s, we may as well fill up the interval by introducing to the reader a lady with whom Blanche is rapidly becoming intimate, and who takes a warm—shall we say a maternal?—interest in the movements of our young heiress.
Lady Mount Helicon, then, is one of those characters which the metropolis of this great and happy country can alone bring to perfection. That she was once a merry, single-hearted child, is more than probable, but so many years have elapsed since that innocent period—so many “seasons,” with their ever-recurring duties of card-leaving, dinner-receiving, ball-haunting, and keeping up her acquaintance, have been softening her brain and hardening her heart, that there is little left of the child in her world-worn nature, and not a great deal of the woman, save her attachment to her son. She is as fond of him as it is possible for her to be of anything. She is proud of his talents, his appearance, his acquirements, and in her heart of hearts of his wildness. Altogether, she thinks him a great improvement on the old lord, and would sacrifice anything for him in the world, save her position in society. That position, such as it is, she has all her life been struggling to retain. She would improve it if she could, but she will never get any farther. She belongs to the mass of good society, and receives cards for all the “best places” and most magnificent entertainments; but is as far removed as a curate’s wife in Cornwall from the inner circle of those “bright particular stars” with whom she would give her coronet to associate.
Lady Long-Acre bows to her, but she never nods. Lady Dinadam invites her to the great ball, which that exemplary peeress annually endures with the constancy of a martyr; but as for the little dinners, for which her gastronomic lord is so justly renowned, it is needless to think of them. She might just as well expect to be asked to Wassailworth. And although the Duke is hand-and-glove with her son, she well knows she has as much chance of visiting the Emperor of Morocco. Even tiny Mrs. Dreadnought alternately snubs and patronises her. Why that artificial woman, who has no rank and very little character, should be one of “the great people” is totally inexplicable; however, there she is, and Lady Mount Helicon looks up to her accordingly. Well, there are gradations in all ranks, even to the very steps before the throne. In her ladyship’s immediate circle are the Ormolus, and the Veneers, and the Blacklambs, with whom she is on terms of the most perfect equality; while below her again are the Duffles, and the Marchpanes, and the Featherheads, and a whole host of inferiors. If Lady Long-Acre is distant with her, can she not be condescending in her turn to Lady Tadpole? If Dinadam, who uses somewhat coarse language for a nobleman, says he “can’t stand that something vulgar woman,” cannot Lady Mount Helicon cut young Deadlock unblushingly in the street, and turn the very coldest part of her broad shoulder on Sir Timothy and Lady Turnstile? “City people, my dear,” as she explains for the edification of Blanche, who is somewhat aghast at the uncourteous manœuvre. Has she not a grand object to pursue for eighteen hours out of every twenty-four? Must she not keep alive the recollections of her existence in the memories of some two or three hundred people, who would not care a straw if she were dead and buried before to-morrow morning? Is it not a noble ambition to arrive at terms of apparent intimacy with this shaky grandee, or that superannuated duchess, because they are duchesses and grandees? Can horses and carriages be better employed than in carrying cards about for judicious distribution? Is not that a delightful night of which two-thirds are spent blocked up in the “string,” and the remainder suffocated on the staircase? In short, can money be better lavished, or time and energy better applied, than in “keeping up one’s acquaintance”?