CHAPTER VI.
Shakspeare.
Germain and Fitzalbert remained some time at ——, not knowing exactly where to transport themselves. Most of the friends of the latter, of whose hospitality he meant to avail himself during the dead months, had not yet established themselves in their country quarters.
Fitzalbert now passed all his mornings in bed, having a happy facility of sleeping in the absence of every other amusement, and this he enjoyed in spite of the situation of his bed, which was so near the window that he could, from his pillow, command the whole range of bathing-machines, and might, if he pleased, trace the entrance of the well-flounced petticoat at one door, and the exit of the somewhat tighter fitting bathing-dress at the other.
Germain, who was habitually an early riser, determined to avail himself of this independence of the companionship of his friend, to ease his conscience of the promised visit to the Dormers.
Of all the minor social sins, none entails so acute a sense of shame as a past and repented-of flirtation—and it was with very uncomfortable feelings of guilty embarrassment, that Germain approached the lodging of his former mistress, to whom he had once paid attentions so assiduous. Not but that he must be acquitted of any legal offence: he never had involved himself in any engagement, or even committed himself by a declaration—he had never indeed been guilty of any thing more definite and positive than exchanging awkward and sheepish looks across the pew, when her father published the Sunday’s banns. However, the apothecary’s wife had long settled that the parson’s pupil and his daughter would make a sweet pair, and were likely to have a fine family; and the attorney’s lady hinted that Mr. Dormer knew where good settlements were to be had.
There were many local associations about the place, where they had formerly met, which had conspired to excite Germain’s tender feelings. The parsonage itself was pretty and pastoral—with the early morning his eye would wander from his book to follow the form of Fanny, watering the rose-beds under his window; and after the studies of the day, they used to drink tea together in a woodbine arbour. Add to all this, that he was but eighteen; and if there ever was a youth of that age who could resist the perpetual propinquity of a liquid blue eye, and a fair fresh skin, he is a monster whom the whole sex will have given up in despair before he is five-and-twenty.
But three years had since elapsed, and in the meantime Germain’s mind had been as much enlarged as Fanny Dormer’s person. The place of meeting, too, instead of reviving the charm of consistent propriety, was incongruous and inconvenient; and whilst waiting in the narrow passage of the paper-built lodging-house, it was in vain that he endeavoured to fortify himself with souvenirs of beds of roses and woodbine bowers, against the overpowering smell of fried sole which arose from the intrusive kitchen below. The small side parlour into which he was shown, and into which were crowded Mr. Dormer, Fanny, and her multitudinous occupations, presented the appearance of confusion without comfort. Mr. Dormer was stuck in an easy chair in one corner—his attention agreeably divided between his lumbago and the county paper.
There was nothing extraordinary in Fanny’s reception of her visitor; but as Germain’s eye fell upon the out-stretched hand which accompanied the greeting, he remarked that her fingers (unlike Aurora’s) were tipped with ink—no very singular consequence of writing most of the morning, but one that would never have been remarked by a lover.
“I hope I don’t interrupt you,” said Germain.
“Always a welcome interruption,” replied Mr. Dormer; “but you would be puzzled to time your visit so as to find Fanny idle.”
And, indeed, that indefatigable young lady, besides the usual allowance of scribbling, which had produced the disfiguring effects upon her fingers noted above, had been employed in sorting Scotch pebbles and sand-stones, spreading dried sea-weed, and was now engaged in preparing sundry articles for a Ladies’ Repository—an ingenious establishment, for which many ladies waste more money in purchasing materials, than industrious work-women would charge for the finished articles, in order to have the pleasure of seeing charity distributed, and the needy relieved, not in proportion as food is wanted, but as fire-screens are fancied. To this Fanny was a zealous but a thrifty contributor, and she was now occupied in rounding emery strawberries, the foliage of which was to be formed of scraps of her light green cloth pelisse.
Germain commenced the conversation by attempting some awkward compliments upon her notable pursuits, but as he felt himself in a false position, he was relieved by Mr. Dormer’s addressing him.
“Upon my word, Mr. Germain, you do no credit to your keep since you left us—you have not fared so well in those meagre countries where you have been, as you used to do, upon my fattened cuyleys and seven years old moor-mutton, and some of Fanny’s firmity for supper.”
The fact was, that the mode of life Germain had been lately leading at Paris, was not near so much calculated for the promotion of “too solid flesh,” as the vegetating state of existence at Rosedale Rectory, where even sentiment was rather soporific.
“I suppose,” continued Mr. Dormer, “that they half starved you in those Catholic countries with their fast days.”
But Germain protesting that he never had suffered any positive privation, Mr. Dormer, by a natural transition from body to soul, turned to the other subject, almost as constantly in his mind; and after folding in an important manner the newspaper he held in his hand, he began.
“Pray, Mr. Germain, might I ask whether in those popish parts you have lately visited, you were ever unfortunate enough to be present at any of those sacrifices to superstition—those auto-da-fès—those burnings of heretics?”
“No, indeed,” replied Germain, rather surprised: “nor was I aware that any events of the kind had taken place within the memory of man. This is the first I ever heard of it.”
“I am sorry, my young friend,” rejoined Mr. Dormer, with an air of reproach, “to find that you have made so little use of your time—that you have not been a more observant traveller.”
Then again unfolding the county paper, he read aloud, with earnest emphasis, the words in italics.
“Characteristics of Catholicism—Burning of a Jew. It is, we are proud to say, not a little owing to our unceasing efforts in the good Protestant cause, that these burning piles are seen only as a warning beacon from afar—that the flames are not now kindled in Smithfield, or the crackling faggots heard in the market-place beneath our own office-window. For if such is the treatment of the papists towards an unoffending Israelite, what might we expect, if they had the power, towards the objects of their unceasing detestation—the loyal Protestants of these most religious realms? Yet there are amongst us those infatuated enough to wish to open wide our doors to them. What doors? and to whom?—why the very doors of those two houses of parliament which, never let it be forgotten, they conspired to blow to atoms with their hellish popish plot.”
Germain, perceiving that his worthy friend was not in a state of mind for serious argument, simply asked: “Do you think, sir, the Catholics would be so much more likely to blow up the parliament, if they had seats in it themselves?”
“God forbid we should ever try!” ejaculated the Rev. Mr. Dormer; in which short question and answer is contained the epitome of the arguments on either side, which are sometimes diluted into many successive nights’ debate on this somewhat threadbare subject.
“But come, Mr. Germain,” said Mr. Dormer, after a pause, “music has charms, and Fanny shall delight you with ‘Home, sweet Home.’” Accordingly Fanny posted herself obediently at a jingling upright piano-forte, and began.
It is a penalty upon the popularity of a piece of music in England, that in six months every hand-organist grinds it, and every ostler whistles it; and the attraction which in this instance it originally owed to one person alone, is perpetually weakened by its being screamed or slurred over by every young lady who has a single note in her voice, and most of those who have none.
“It is not so much,” said Mr. Dormer, “Fanny’s musical talent, as that she sings it with so much depth of true domestic feeling.”
Germain bowed an extorted assent to the paternal puff, and repeated mechanically, “So much depth of true domestic feeling.”
The extremes of art and nature sometimes touch each other, and even Lady Flamborough, with all her manœuvring, could not have attempted a more home thrust, as a maternal manager, than Mr. Dormer, in the simplicity of his heart, gave utterance to, in this mere ebullition of natural affection. But Germain was at present proof against the remaining charms of Fanny Dormer—he felt triply armed against a relapse by the consciousness of a vast foot, thick waist, and inky fingers; and not a little ashamed of his former weakness, he brought his visit to an abrupt conclusion.
Upon Germain’s return to his lodgings, he found Oakley’s letter, announcing the death of their uncle; but as this letter had followed him from place to place, resting by the way at sundry country post-offices, it did not forestall the regular notice of the event in the London papers.
Germain was not a little surprised at Oakley’s dwelling much more, in the first part of his letter, upon the loss he had sustained in the death of a relation he had never known, than upon the acquisition of a fortune which he had always expected. From this turning to the concerns of his friend, Oakley continued—
“I can assure you, my dear Germain, that neither this important change in my own fortune, nor the agitation of the unexpected event which caused it, has prevented me from reflecting much and seriously on your future prospects, such as I think I am able to foresee them, from the insight that long intimacy has given me into your disposition, and however unwelcome to you it may be, I cannot but repeat, that the unhappy facility of your temper which renders it an impossibility to you to say, ‘No,’ will open your purse to every sharper, and surrender your heart to the first flirt you meet. This last is a danger, however, against which it is quite out of my province to guard you; but as to the first, though I cannot prevent it, I may postpone its evil consequences to you; and as you are always in want of money, and I have now more than I shall ever know what to do with, I have desired my banker, without limitation, to answer your drafts.”
“Generous fellow! his conclusion is admirable, though his reasoning is somewhat defective,” thought Germain, calling to mind, with consolatory consciousness, what had passed since they parted, and that he had escaped being either Fitzalbert’s dupe, or Fanny Dormer’s victim.
He found Fitzalbert still en robe de chambre, at the breakfast-table, over muffins and shrimps.
“Nothing in the newspaper,” said he; “I have just finished it. Let me see; ‘Marriages.—Mr. John Smith to Miss Jane Brown, both of this town.’—Important. ‘Birth.—At Little Warren, the lady of the Rev. Peter Parsley was brought to bed of twins, being her nineteenth and twentieth.’—More inconvenient to the Rev. Peter Parsley than interesting to us. But, what is this?—‘Died, on Thursday last, at Rockington Castle, George James, Lord Viscount Rockington;—by his lordship’s demise, the ancient title becomes extinct, but all his ample fortunes descend to his nephew, Ernest Oakley, Esq.’ Did you know this, Germain?”
“I have just heard from Oakley, announcing the event.”
“Oakley! well, I wish it had been you.—I hope, however, he will make a proper use of it. By the bye, Béchamel is now out of place: he should write about him; he is quite a cordon bleu for the first course; and though he knows nothing about pâtisserie, of course Oakley will have a confectioner.”
“All in good time,” said Germain; “he writes me word that he is about to leave Rockington Castle for his other place, Goldsborough Park, where he is wanted on business, by the late Lord Rockington’s agent for that property. I think I shall go over and see him there.”
“I can drop you then, at the park-gate; for I have received a very pressing summons from Lady Boreton, to join the party she has just collected. You must meet me again at the Boretons: you are included in the invitation, all in due form: ‘Know your family well’—‘old friend of your mother’s;’—and so forth.”
Germain, to whom a long tête-à-tête with Oakley in his present temper, had few attractions, and who was also anxious as soon as possible to establish himself in the world, caught readily at this proposal of Fitzalbert’s.
“Will there,” said he, “be a large party at the Boretons?”
“Of that you may always feel yourself pretty sure; a little mixed, sometimes; but I own that is no great objection to me—my taste is become so depraved that I rather relish a tiger. From long usage, the regular routine of the exclusives appears to me, ‘weary, flat,’ et cetera. More than I envy Oakley the fulness of his purse, do I envy you the freshness of your feelings. For after all, of what use are riches but as the capital with which to purchase pleasure—the real free trade which is all over at five-and-twenty? Then are our ports honestly open for the reception of every agreeable sensation from without, but after that we are subject to all the drawbacks of our artificial situation, and fastidiousness is the protecting duty with which we starve our senses.”
Germain, who had never heard Fitzalbert utter a serious sentence before, was rather puzzled to know whether he was quizzing or not. To avoid the awkwardness of mistaking his vein, he asked him: “Of what species are the tigers we are to meet at Lady Boreton’s—physical or intellectual—bucks or bores?”
“Principally the latter, for her ladyship is rather blue, and has generally some hangers-on who dabble in literature, or skim the surface of science. But don’t be alarmed—you will also meet Lady Latimer and her two unmarried sisters—and these among them secure the attendance of all the best men, whether marrying or otherwise, who can get themselves invited. What would I give that Lady Latimer should be as new to me as she is to you! Gladly would I suffer, as you will, from the first fear of her frowns, to be rewarded with a faint hope of her smiles—but, alas! we have long settled for life into easy intimacy and friendly indifference. I am on this, as on every thing else—perfectly blasé. Why is that phrase as exclusively French as the feeling is English? It is long since any thing to my taste has seemed fresh, except, indeed, these shrimps,” added he, changing his tone suddenly, and adding another to the hecatomb of shells which crowded his plate; after which he rose from the breakfast-table, and they made arrangements for their departure on the morrow for Boreton Park, where Germain was to join Fitzalbert, after having spent a night by the way with his friend Oakley.
Lest the reader, however, should have as great a dread as Germain himself of a tête-à-tête with Oakley in his present gloomy temper, we will not intrude beyond the park-gate where Fitzalbert deposited his fellow-traveller with, “By the bye, Germain, you may as well see if you can do any thing with Oakley about an exchange of that property which joins Latimer Moors—you may remember I showed it to you at a distance, from the top of that hill when I brought down both those two old birds you had just missed.”