A VALID EXCUSE—AN ANONYMOUS LETTER—A RECIPE FOR ANNOYANCES—THE GENERAL ON THE PAVE—SECOND CHILDHOOD—RUNNING THE GAUNTLET—A SUIT OF CLUBS—SETTLED AT LAST—THE FRIEND IN NEED
“Who the deuce ever heard of ‘military duty’ interfering with dinner? and what’s the use of being one’s own commanding-officer if one can’t give oneself leave?—What?—read that, Blanche!” We need hardly observe that it was General Bounce who spoke, as he tossed a note across the luncheon-table to his niece, and proceeded to bury himself in his other dispatches. The General was none of your dawdling, half-torpid, dressing-gown and slipper gentlemen, who consider London a fit place in which to spend the greater part of the day in déshabillé—not a bit of it. The General was up, shaved, and rosy and breakfasted, and prepared to fuss through his day, every morning punctually at eight. On the one in question he had reviewed a battalion of Guards who were at drill in the Park, utterly unconscious of their inspection by such a martinet, and had been good enough to express his disapprobation of their dress, method, and general efficiency, to a quiet, unassuming bystander whom he had never set eyes on before, but who happened to be a peer of the realm, and whose son, indeed, commanded the very regiment under discussion. The peer was quite alarmed at the denunciations of a casual acquaintance, so fierce of demeanour and of such warlike costume, the General never stirring abroad, for these morning excursions, save in a military surtout, buttoned very tight, a stiff black stock and buckskin gloves, armed moreover with a bamboo walking-stick, which he brandished with great impartiality. After his strictures on the sovereign’s body-guard he proceeded into the City by a hansom cab; there was no cab-rebellion in those days, but, nevertheless, Bounce succeeded in having a violent altercation with his driver, which resulted in that observer of human nature setting him down for a madman, and his own discomfiture on referring the dispute to an impartial policeman. From thence he visited his stables, and instructed divers helpers belonging to the adjoining mews in the proper method of washing a carriage, a lesson received by those worthies with much covert derision. The General was by this time ready for “tiffin,” as he still called it—a meal at which, for the first time in the day, he met the ladies of his establishment, read his notes, letters, etc., and arranged with Blanche the details of the gay life they were every day leading. That young lady, in a very pretty morning-gown, now occupied the head of the table; Mary was up-stairs with a headache—she was very subject to them of late—yet a skilful practitioner might have guessed the malady lay elsewhere; and whilst the General, with his eyebrows rising into his very forehead, perused a dirty, ill-conditioned-looking missive, which seemed to afford him great astonishment, his niece glanced over her military suitor’s excuse for not dining with them, in which he expressed his regret that duty and the absolute necessity of his presence in barracks would prevent his having that pleasure, but did not as usual suggest any fresh arrangements for rides, drives, or walks, which should insure him the charms of her society. Blanche was a little hurt and more than a little offended; yet, had she closely examined her own feelings, she would probably have been surprised to find how little she really cared whether he came or not. “Well, Uncle Baldwin,” she said, with her usual merry smile, “you and I will dine tête-à-tête, for I don’t think poor Mrs. Delaval will be able to come down. We shall not quarrel, I fancy—shall we?” The General was dumb. His whole soul seemed absorbed in the missive which hid his face, but, judging from the red swollen forehead peeping above, indignation appeared to be the prevailing feeling inspired by its contents. It was not badly written, though in an unsteady hand, nor was it incorrectly spelt; it bore no signature, and was to the following effect—
“General Bounce,
“Sir,—This from a friend.—Seeing that you would probably be averse to an exposure of family matters, in which Miss Blanche’s name must necessarily appear, a well-wisher sends these few lines to warn you that all has been discovered. The late Mrs. K.’s will has been found, in which she devises everything, with the exception of certain legacies, to C——. The writer has seen it, and knows where it is to be found. His own interests prompt him to make everything public, but his regard for the family would induce him to listen to terms, could he himself be guaranteed from loss. General, time is everything: to-morrow may be too late. If you should be unwilling to disturb muddy water, an advertisement to X. Y., in the second column of the Times, or a line addressed to P. Q., care of Mr. John Stripes, Bear and Bagpipes, corner of Goat Street, Tiler’s Road, Lambeth, would meet with prompt attention. Be wise.”
We regret to state that the General’s exclamation, on arriving at the conclusion of this mysterious document, was of a profane fervour, inexcusable under any provocation, and very properly amenable to a fine of five shillings by the laws of this well-regulated country. It was repeated, moreover, oftener than once; and without deigning to explain to his astonished niece the cause of his evident discomposure, was followed by his immediate departure to his own private snuggery—by the way, the very worst and darkest room in the house, whither our discomfited warrior made a tremulous retreat, banging every door after him with a shock that caused the very window-frames to quiver again.
“Zounds! I won’t believe it!—it’s impossible—it’s a forgery—it’s a lie—it’s an artifice of the devil! Why, it’s written in a clerk’s hand. ’Gad, if I thought there was a word of truth in it, I’d go to bed for a month!” burst out the General, as soon as he was safe in his own sanctuary, choking with passion, and tugging at the black stock and tight frock-coat as if to put his threat of retiring into immediate execution. It was one of his peculiarities, which we have omitted to mention, to adopt this method of avoiding the common annoyances and irritations of life. When anything went wrong in the household, the General made no more ado but incontinently proceeded to strip and turn in. When there was an émeute below stairs, and Newton-Hollows was in a “state of siege”—a calamity which occurred about once in two years—the proprietor used to go to bed till the disturbance had completely blown over. When the news arrived of Mrs. Kettering’s death, her brother gave vent to his feelings between the sheets, although he was obliged to get up within a few hours and travel post-haste to join the afflicted family at St. Swithin’s; nay, it is related of him that, on one occasion, when an alarming fire happened to break out in a country-house where he was staying on a visit, nothing but the personal exertions of his friends, who hurried after him, and carried him off by force from his chamber, where he was rapidly undressing, prevented his being burnt alive in his nightcap. At the present crisis the General had already divested himself of coat, waistcoat, etc., ere the sight of a clean change of apparel, laid out ready for his afternoon wear, altered the current of his ideas, and he bethought him that it would be wiser to walk down to his club, amuse himself as usual in his habitual resorts, and thus drive this impertinent “attempt at extortion,” for so he did not hesitate to call it, entirely from his mind, than place himself at once hors de combat amongst the blankets. So, instead of his night-gear, the General struggled into a stiffer black stock and a tighter frock-coat even than those which he had discarded, and arming himself with his formidable bamboo (how he wished the head and shoulders of his unknown correspondent were within its range), strutted off to Noodles’, feeling, as he cocked his chin up, and threw his chest out, and struck his cane against the sunny pavement, that he was still young and débonnaire, as in the beaux jours at Cheltenham twenty, ay, thirty years ago.
No place makes a man forget his years so much as London. In the great city, one unit of that circling population rapidly loses his individuality. There nothing seems extraordinary—nothing seems out of the common course of events—there, it is proverbial, people of all pretensions immediately find their own level. If a man thinks he is wiser, or better, or cleverer, or handsomer, or stronger, or more famous than his neighbours, in London he will be sure to meet those who can equal, if not excel him, in all for which he gives himself credit; and so if an elderly gentleman begins to feel at his country-place that all around him speaks of maturity, not to say decay—that his young trees, and his old buildings, and his missing contemporaries, and the boy to whom he gave apples standing for the county, and the village he remembers a hamlet growing into a town, and all such progressive arrangements of Father Time, hint rather personally at old-fellowhood—let him come to London, and take his diversion amongst a crowd of fools more ancient than himself: he will feel a boy again—Regent Street will not appear altered to his enchanted eye, though they have taken down the colonnade in that well-remembered thoroughfare. Pall Mall is as much Pall Mall to him as it was when he trod it in considerably tighter boots, never mind how many years ago. At his club the same waiter (waiters never die) will bring him the paper, and stir the fire for him, just as he used to do when the Reform Bill was a thing unheard of, and he can contemplate his bald head in the very same mirror that once reflected locks of Hyacinthine cluster. He meets an old crony, and he is shocked (though but for the moment) to find him so dreadfully altered—it is possible the old crony, in his heart of hearts, may return the compliment, but in all human probability he will greet the friend of his boyhood as if he had seen him the day before yesterday. If a very demonstrative man, and it should be before two o’clock in the day—for in the afternoon our English manners are all squared to the same pattern—the old crony may perhaps exclaim, with languid rapture, “Why, I haven’t seen you for ages; I don’t think you were in London all last season!” Why should our gentleman from the country undeceive him, and tell him they have not met for more than twenty years, and remind him with mellowing heart of boyhood’s sunny hours and joyous escapades? The old crony will only think him a twaddle and a bore, and thank his stars that he has stuck to London and the world, and his gods, such as they are, and is a much younger man of his age than his rustic friend. And so our country mouse will find in a day or two that the artificial sits quite as easily upon him. When he has visited two or three of his old haunts he will feel as if he had never left them. He will go, perhaps, to some well-remembered palace of revelry, and find there, it may be, one contemporary out of a hundred with whom he once drank deep of dissipation and amusement, but he forgets the other ninety-nine. He feels as if the world had gone along with him, and that threescore years and odd were, after all, as the French king’s courtiers said, L’âge de tout le monde; so he lifts the cup of pleasure once more with shaking hands to his poor, dry old lips, and pours its flood, erst so luscious, over a palate, alas! deadened to all but the intoxication of the draught. Why is it that we so sedulously strive to deceive ourselves about the lapse of time? Why do we so wilfully close our eyes to that certainty that every passing moment brings an instant nearer? It must come! Why will we not look the shape steadily in the face? We are not afraid to front our fellow-man in the struggle for life and death; why should we shrink from the shadowy foe, from whom there is no escape? Perhaps, like all other distant horrors, it will lose half its terrors when it does approach—perhaps it will turn out a friend after all. Man lives in the future; can he not carry his future a little beyond life? Will it be such a bereavement to lose a poor, old, worn-out frame, with its gout and its rheumatism, and its hundred aches and pains, and burdens dragging it day by day towards the earth from whence it sprung? But where will the disembodied self find shelter? “Ay, there’s the rub,” and so “conscience doth make cowards of us all.”
Well, young or old, boys will be boys, whether at one score or three, and all the sermonising in the world will not empty St. James’s Street towards four o’clock on a summer’s afternoon, or prevent one nose being flattened against those club-windows from which the terrarum domini of the present day look upon the world with a mixture of good-humoured satire and careless contempt. Stoics are they in manners and principles, Epicureans in tastes and practice, and Philosophers of the Porch on the clear bright evenings—or rather midnights—when they assemble to smoke in gossiping brotherhood. But now, in the afternoon, laws human and divine would vote it “bad style” to have anything in their mouths save the tops of their canes and riding-whips, and these are scarcely removed to make a passing remark on the unconscious General as, having accomplished the crossing of Piccadilly, he sweeps under the guns of battery No 1, on his way to his own resort, where he too will stand at a window and make comments on the passers-by. Talking of these batteries, we can recollect, old as we are, when we preferred to thread the press of Piccadilly, and so dodging down Bury Street to bring up eventually opposite Arlington Street, rather than face the ordeal of passing under those great guns. Yet was our cab well hung and well painted, our tiger a pocket-Apollo, and our horse well-actioned and in good condition, while no one but ourselves and the dealer who sold him to us could be aware of his broken knee. What strategy wasted! What skill in charioteering thrown away! How should we then, in our shy and sensitive boyhood, have winced from the truth, that no one probably in that dreaded window would have thought it worth while to waste a single monosyllable on anything so insignificant as ourselves. Verily, mauvaise honte is a contradictory foible; but of this weakness the General, like most men who have arrived at his time of life, has but a small leaven. He toddles boldly down, under the battery, masked as it is by the Times newspaper, and nods familiarly to a well-brushed hat and luxuriant pair of grey whiskers just peering above the broadsheet. The whiskers return the salutation, and a stout gentleman at the fireplace, where he has been standing for the last three-quarters of an hour, hatted, gloved, and umbrellaed, as though prepared for instant departure, carelessly remarks, “Old Bounce is getting devilish shaky;” to which the grey whiskers reply, “No wonder; he’s an oldish fellow now. Why, Bounce’ll be a lieutenant-general next brevet. By the by, when are we to have a brevet?” the whiskers forgetting, as after the lapse of so many years it is natural they should, that they were at school with “the oldish fellow,” who was then a “younger fellow” than themselves. However, they have talked about him quite long enough, and pass on to a fresh topic by the time the General himself arrives at Noodles’.
This very excellent and exclusive club seems to bear to institutions of a like nature much the same relation that Greenwich and Chelsea Hospitals do to the crews and battalions of our forces by land and sea. Should the warrior who enlists under the banner of Fashion have the good fortune to escape the various casualties common in his profession, such as absenteeism, imprisonment, marriage, or any other sort of ruin, he is pretty safe to anchor at Noodles’ at last. There he brings up, after all his perils and all his triumphs, amongst a shattered remnant of those who set sail with him in the morning of life, when every wind was fair and every channel practicable. Many have been lured by the siren on to sunken rocks, and gone down “all standing”—many have lost their reckoning and drifted clean away, till they can “fetch up” no more—many have been captured by crafts trim and flaunting as themselves, and towed away as prizes into different havens, where they ride in somewhat wearisome monotony—and of many there is no account, save that which shall be rendered when the sea gives up its dead. Yet a few crazy old barks have made the haven at last—worn, leaky, and sea-worthless, with bulging ribs and warped spars, and tackle strained, yet are they still just buoyant enough to float—can still drift with the tide, and, above all, are still disposed to take in cargo on every available opportunity. As London is now constituted, you can almost tell a man’s age by the clubs he frequents. “Tell me your associates, and I will tell you your character,” says the ancient philosopher. “Tell me your club, and I will tell you your age,” says the modern “ingenious youth,” as that sporting Falstaff Mr. Jorrocks calls him, who begins with huge cigars, gin and soda-water, and billiards, much bemused, at Trappe’s. Anon, as his collars get higher, and the down upon his cheek begins to justify a nobler ambition, he aspires to the science of numbers, and lays the odds to more experienced calculators at “The Short-Grass.” But our youth is becoming a man-about-town, or thinks he is, and must have the entrée to more than one of these luxurious republics; so according to his rank, his profession, or his pretensions, he affects another afternoon club, esteeming it, whichever it may be, the best and most select in London. Here he has a plentiful choice. If a professional or a politician, he will find associations purposely established for those of his own practice or opinions; and here they are looming like a city of palaces—the Conflagrative, the Anarchic, the Regency, the Hat-and-Umbrella, the Chelsea, and the Peace and Plenty. Is there not the Megatherium for the literary, and the Munchausen for the travelled? But peradventure our youth is fast, and aspires to be a man of figure; so shall his carriage be seen waiting at the Godiva, or himself shall face the ballot at Blight’s. For a time all goes on smooth and sunny; but the young ones keep growing up, and they rather jostle him in his chair, and “people let in such boys now-a-days”; so in disgust he abdicates a sovereignty conferred by years, and retreats to quieter resorts, where the cutlet is equally well dressed and the wine a thought better. So we find him presiding over house-dinners at Alfred’s, or winning the odd trick after a quiet parti carré at Snookes’s. But even from these celestial seats he must be ousted at last. Still that pressure from below keeps increasing year by year, “and the young men of the present day are so slangy, and so noisy, and so disagreeable,” that he can stand it no longer, and puts his name down for the first vacancy in that last refuge recommended by his old friend Sapless. Behold him at length shouldered into the harbour, and safely landed at Noodles’.
Thither we have likewise brought the General, and given him ample time to spell through the papers, and reconnoitre his acquaintance as they pass up and down St. James’s Street. But the General is ill at ease—he cannot get that infernal anonymous letter out of his head; do what he will, he cannot prevent himself from glancing at the second column of the Times, and poring over a map of London in search of Goat Street, Tiler’s Road, Lambeth. He fancies, too, as a man is apt to do when self-conscious of anything peculiar, that people look at him strangely; and if two men happen to whisper in a window, he cannot help thinking they must be talking about him. At last he gets nervous, and determines to take counsel of a friend; nor is he long in selecting a recipient for his sorrows, inasmuch as the most remarkable object in the room is Sir Bloomer Buttercup, who is standing in an attitude near the fireplace (Sir Bloomer, for certain mechanical reasons, cannot sit down in that particular pair of trousers), and to him the General resolves to confide his annoyances, and by his advice determines to abide. Although, probably, no man in this world ever managed his own affairs so badly as Sir Bloomer Buttercup—partly, it must be owned, in consequence of his having the most generous heart that ever beat under three inches of padding—yet in all matters unconnected with self, his judgment was as sound as his penetration was remarkable. No man had got his friends out of so many scrapes, no man had given such good counsel, and no man had probably done so many foolish things as kind, good-natured Sir Bloomer; and when he minced after the General into an empty room on those poor, gouty, shiny toes, he really felt as ready as he expressed himself, to “see his old friend through it, whatever it was.”
“I’ll tell you what, Bounce,” lisped the old beau, as the General concluded his tale with that most puzzling of questions, “What would you advise me to do?”—“I’ll tell you what. I think I know a fellow that can sift this for us to the bottom. You know, my dear boy, that I have occasionally been in slight difficulties—merely temporary, of course, and entirely owing to circumstances over which I had no control” (Sir B. had spent two fortunes, and was now living on the recollection of them, and the possible reversion of a third)—“but still difficulties—eh?—a ten-knot breeze was always more to my fancy than a calm. Well, I’ve been brought in contact with all kinds of fellows, and I do know one man, a sort of a lawyer, that’s in with every rogue in London. He could get to the rights of this in twenty-four hours if we made it worth his while. He’s a clever fellow,” added Bloomer reflectively, “a very clever fellow; in fact, a most consummate rascal. Shall I take you to him?”
“This instant,” burst out the General, with a terrific snatch at the bell; “I’ll send for my brougham—what?—it’ll be here in five minutes. Zounds! not go in a brougham? Why not?”
Sir Bloomer had frightful misgivings as to the effects on his costume of the necessary attitude in which carriage exercise must be taken; but in the cause of friendship he was prepared to hazard even a rupture of the most important ties, and he replied heroically, “I’ll see you through it, Bounce; what o’clock is it? Ah! I promised—never mind—they must be disappointed sometimes; and for the sake of your charming niece, I’d go through fire and water a good deal farther than the City. Bounce, Bounce, what an angel that girl is! She mustn’t be told a syllable of this—not a syllable; with me, of course, it’s secret as the grave.” So the pair started, firmly persuaded that not a soul in London, save their two selves, knew a word about the letter, or the will, or the dethronement of poor little Blanche from her pedestal as an heiress.
KEEPING A SECRET—LADY MOUNT HELICON “AT HOME”—A CHAPTER OF FINANCE—WHY LACQUERS WENT TO THE BALL—EXOTICS IN A CONSERVATORY—MRS. BLACKLAMB AND HER CAVALIER—IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES—A LONG WAY OFF, AND FARTHER THAN THAT
You must be an individual of an equally sanguine temperament and confiding disposition, if you believe that what you impart to your neighbour in the modern Babylon under seal of the strictest secrecy, might not as well be published in the leading article of the Times newspaper. How “things get about” is one of those inexplicable mysteries for which nobody is able or willing to account. Some people lay it to servants—some to the amiable generosity in imparting information for which the fair sex are so remarkable; the latter, again, say that “every bit of scandal in London originates at those horrid clubs!” but few will allow that Rumour owes a large portion of her ubiquity to that organisation of mankind which makes a secret utterly valueless unless shared with another. What is the use of knowing something we must not tell? In the strictest confidence, of course, it was told us under promise that we would not breathe a syllable to a single soul—we only make an exception in your favour under the same solemn obligation. You, of course, in mysterious conclave with Tom, will bear in mind our prohibition, and, acting as we have done, Tom shall become a party to the treason. Still upon oath, it will not be long, we think, before Jack and Harry are empowered to join chorus, and whilst our cherished mystery becomes patent to the world in general, we ourselves feel completely absolved from the consequences of our breach of trust. In the whole of Lady Mount Helicon’s crowded rooms to-night, we believe Blanche herself is the only person that is not aware of her own precarious position; and the girl, happy in her ignorance, looks brighter and more blooming than usual, though the world will admire her less on this occasion than it has ever done before. Yes, this is one of Lady Mount Helicon’s “At Homes,” with a small italicised “Dancing” in the corner; and a very brilliant affair it is, as the hostess herself is fully persuaded:—the front and back drawing-room, and the boudoir beyond that, are thrown open and lighted with dazzling brilliancy, whilst a softer lustre shed upon the conservatory and balcony, craftily covered in for the purpose, lures to those irresistible man-traps without betraying their insidious design. Below stairs, libraries and school-rooms and other resorts, devoted in every-day life to far more practical uses, are now cleared and emptied for the reception of shawls, cloaks, and coverings, and the production of countless cups of tea and glasses of lemonade. Lady Mount Helicon’s own maid, in a toilette of gorgeous magnificence, presides over this department, casting the while glances of covert scorn and envy at a younger and prettier assistant in a more becoming cap, on whom the dandies, as they enter, impress with unnecessary circumlocution the propriety of taking great care of their gregos, paletôts, and other sheep’s-clothing. In the dining-room preparations are making for a “stand-up supper” of unparalleled luxury, but we think it right to warn the champagne-drinking guests, that on passing the door in the morning we spied several hampers of that popular fluid, labelled with the maker’s name, and much as we admire its chemical preparation and laudable cheapness, we are concerned to admit that “the splendid sparkling of that house at 45s.” always disarranges our internal economy for several days after an indulgence in its delights. Mount Helicon himself never drinks his mother’s champagne, and to his abstinence he attributes his own unfailing health. At Dinadam’s, or Lord Long-Acre’s, or Wassailworth, he does not by any means practise the same self-denial. Still it is doubtless good enough for a ball, and what with the young ladies, and the old gentlemen, and the servants, will experience a very fair consumption. A bearded band meanwhile is in waiting up-stairs, elaborately dressed, and from the conductor in white kid gloves to the Piccolo in a chin-tuft, rejoicing in boots of jetty brilliancy, and neckcloths dazzling with starch. The whole establishment is so utterly at variance with its usual routine, and the house looks so entirely changed when thus stripped and lighted for reception, that if the old lord, who never permitted these bouleversements, could but come back, he would scarcely recognise his former home, and would unquestionably be glad to return to the quiet of his family vault. The presiding genius of the scene, the hostess herself, is already at her post. A very capital dressmaker, an abundance of well-selected jewellery, and a mysterious compound much enhancing the beauty of the human hair, have turned her out a very personable dame, and as she stands in the middle of her ball-room, as yet “monarch of all she surveys,” and spreads her rustling folds, and buttons her well-fitting gloves, the possibility of her marrying again seems no such absurdity after all, nor does she herself look upon such an event as by any means a remote contingency. But soon the knocker is at work, the chariot wheels are clattering in the street, and stentorian voices, louder in proportion to their indistinctness, announce the fast-arriving guests. Unlike a country ball, the feathers of the ladies require but little shaking after a short drive from the next street, nor, fresh from their own impartial mirrors, need they hazard the opinion of perhaps an unbecoming reflector; so they troop up-stairs with small delay, their glossy locks, white shoulders, and gossamer draperies showing to the greatest advantage in the well-lighted ball-room. The earliest arrivals of course receive the most affectionate greeting, proportionately decreased as the plot thickens, till the shake by both hands, and graceful little compliment about “looking so well,” subsides into a stately courtesy and the coldest welcome good-breeding, not hospitality, will admit. At last all individual figures are well-nigh lost in the crush. A mass of charming dresses and well-made coats are swaying and struggling in the doorways, the band is pealing forth a melody of Paradise, and the votaries of the quadrille are striving to adhere to their superstitious evolutions by treading on each other’s toes, entangling each other’s dresses, begging each other’s pardon, and generally complaining of the heat of the atmosphere and crowded state of the room. It is at this juncture that “General Bounce” and “Miss Kettering” make their appearance, the General having placed a guard upon his lips, and neither during the dinner nor the drive hinted at his misgivings and inner discomfiture. “Poor Blanche!” he mutters, as he follows her up the wide, stately staircase; “she’ll know it soon enough, if it’s true—zounds! a girl like that would be a prize without a penny—the young fellows now-a-days are not like what we used to be.” And as the General arrived at this conclusion he bowed his bald head nearly into Lady Mount Helicon’s bosom, in return for her stately, measured greeting. That greeting, both to himself and Blanche, was colder than usual; the girl, frank and unconscious, did not perceive the change, but her uncle caught himself saying, almost aloud, “Zounds! is it possible that this old cat knows it too?” The music ceased, the dancers walked about, the wrongly-paired ones looking for “mamma,” or “my aunt,” inwardly longing to get rid of each other, and glancing in every direction for their own particular vanities, the more fortunate couples likewise keeping a sharp look-out for the chaperons, but this in order to avoid them, and hinting that “It’s much cooler on the staircase,” or “Have you seen the conservatory?” to prolong the delicious interview. The tea-room begins to fill, and incautious youth presses that domestic beverage on beauty nothing loth, nor reflects that charming as are those ringlets drooping over the cup, and rosy as are the lips that whisper their soft affirmative, it would be as well that he should distinctly know his own mind as to whether he would like this celestial being to make tea for him during the rest of his life, and whether it would be always as sweet as it is now. For the first time in her experience of a London season Blanche, begins to think it a “stupid ball.” She has not yet been asked to dance; and spoilt by her previous successes, she feels hurt at the neglect. “The best men,” as they are called, have not yet, indeed, arrived—if, as is somewhat uncertain, they will come at all, for they sometimes throw Lady Mount Helicon over; and “Mount” himself is still detained at the “House.” But there are plenty of beardless dandies and gay young guardsmen, who are far more prone to dance; and yet they all seem to keep aloof. To be sure, whenever they have asked her formerly she has always been “engaged”; but she would like to stand up now, even with young Deadlock, if it was only for “the look of the thing.” However, she hangs contentedly on the General’s arm, and “bides her time.” It is not long coming. A tall, good-looking man, with features expressive only of a kind disposition and a general air of self-satisfaction, bows and sidles and screws himself towards Blanche and her chaperon, receiving as his natural homage the smiles of the old ladies on whose toes he is treading, and regardless of the imploring looks of the young ones who hope he is going to ask them to dance. His glossy hair is curled distinctly in five rows, which, according to Lord Mount Helicon’s account, betokens weighty intentions; and it is no other than our friend Captain Lacquers, who has dined temperately, abjured his usual cigar, and come here for the especial purpose of meeting Miss Kettering. A bow, an indistinct murmur about “not engaged,” and “honour,” and “delighted,” and the couple are off, tripping gracefully round amongst the whirling confusion of the Valse des Fantassins, truly “a mighty maze, but not without a plan.”
To explain the intentions of our rotatory hussar, we must take the liberty of putting the clock back a few hours—an impossibility only permitted to the novelist—and record a conversation which took place between Lacquers and his friend Sir Ascot that very afternoon, in a secluded window of the Godiva Club.
“Well out of this business about Miss Kettering,” said the latter, who was becoming more communicative since he had found so little difficulty in speaking his mind to Blanche on a previous occasion. “You’ve heard of the smash? Not a penny, after all. Downright swindling, I call it—that old Bounce must be a deep one. They tell me that, except the life-interest of the house in Grosvenor Square, she hasn’t a brass farthing. It’s frightful to think of,” added the old head on young shoulders, scanning with rigid attention his companion’s face, in which concern was more apparent than surprise.
“Poor thing, poor thing” rejoined Lacquers; “I had no idea it was so bad as that. They told me she was sure to have Newton-Hollows, at any rate. She must feel it sadly, poor girl; I wonder how she looks since it all came out.”
“Oh, I fancy very few people know it as yet,” suggested Sir Ascot, who was somewhat uncharitable in his conclusions. “I daresay they’ll try to brazen it out, at least till the end of the season. They may if they like, for all I care. I never knew any good come of these half-bred ones, and I’ll have nothing more to do with them!”
Lacquers heard as though he heard him not. He was trying to think, and his well-cut features were gathered into an expression of hopeless perplexity, at which his companion could scarce forbear laughing outright. At last he had recourse to the never-failing moustache; and drawing inspiration from its touch, he began—
“Uppy, you’re a safe fellow—eh?—wouldn’t throw a fellow over, and put him in the hole, you know. You’ve got some brains, too—made a capital book on the Ascot Stakes. Now you understand finance and arithmetic, and that—what should you say a married fellow could live upon? Of course he wouldn’t require so many luxuries as a single one; but what do you think, now, a fellow like me, for instance, could do with?”
Sir Ascot looked completely taken aback. “Why, you’d never be such a fool as to think of——”
“That’s neither here nor there, old boy,” interrupted Lacquers; “of course if I do you shall have the earliest intelligence. But come, here’s a book and a pencil; let’s see how the thing would work with good management and strict economy. Strict economy, you know, of course.” Lacquers had a great idea, in theory, of strict economy. So the young man sat down, and went deep into the various items of rent, and stable expenses, and opera-boxes and pin-money, and cigars and travelling; Sir Ascot arriving at the conclusion that a quiet couple might manage to exist upon something over two thousand a year; whilst Lacquers thought it was to be done, with strict economy, of course, for about five hundred less; but as they both entirely overlooked an indispensable item termed “housekeeping,” we think it needless to record their calculations for the benefit of the inexperienced.
“Well,” said Lacquers, when he had finished his arithmetic and put his betting-book once more into his pocket, “I think it can be done—I believe a fellow ought to marry, you know; what does Shakespeare say about ‘Solitude being born a twin’? it certainly sobers him”—(Sir Ascot smiled as he admitted that was undoubtedly a strong argument)—“and altogether married fellows get into more respectable habits. Look at a breakfast in a country-house; you see all the married ones up and dressed with the lark, while the single men come dawdling down at all hours. Yes, there’s a good deal to be said on both sides, like a Chancery lawsuit; but I’ll think it over, Uppy, my boy, I’ll think it over.” And Lacquers did think it over, and arrived at a conclusion as honourable to his heart as it was antagonistic to that worldly wisdom by which all with whom he associated thought it right to regulate their every action. Here was a man spoilt by the accident of personal beauty and good birth and position. From his earliest boyhood he had never been taught that there was any ulterior object in life save to shine in society, if not intellectually, why, physically, with a handsome person and fine clothes—a far more effectual passport than all the talents to the good graces of the world. What wonder that the tree grew up as it had been bent? what wonder that the hussar had scarcely two ideas beyond his uniform and his betting-book, and his seat upon a horse? that he looked on the world at large as the butterfly on the sunny square enclosed by the garden wall—a mere stage for display, a mere hot-bed for physical enjoyment, to be got the most out of during the bright, gaudy hours of noon; and afterwards—why, afterwards, when the sun goes down and the chill dews of evening clog his fading wings—the butterfly must do the best he can, and perish as he may. With such an education, the sole manly quality left was courage, and it was only the touchstone of a gentle face like Blanche’s that brought out the latent generosity of a character overlaid with faults, for which its training was more to blame than its organisation. We are obliged to confess that Lacquers was vain, thoughtless, self-opinionated, frivolous, ignorant, and empty-headed, but there was some good in him, and it was brought out, as it always will be when it exists at all, by a woman’s smile, and, above all, by a woman’s misfortunes.
Lacquers made up his mind that he would marry Blanche Kettering without a sixpence. The young lady’s consent he rather prematurely counted on as a matter of course, but in making this resolution he deserves some credit for the readiness with which he was prepared to sacrifice all that to him was precious in life, at the feet of his lady-love. He was a younger brother, and, it is needless to add, considerably involved—of course he must bid farewell to all those amusements and pursuits which have hitherto constituted his actual existence. No more Derbys and Hamptons, and Richmond breakfasts, and Greenwich dinners, all vanities enticing enough in their way—no more stalls at the opera, and supper-parties in the suburbs, likewise vanities of a more dangerous tendency—no more hunting in Leicestershire and deer-stalking in Scotland, yachting at Cowes and philandering at Paris—all these must be given up; and worse than all, the profession he delights in, the regiment he is devoted to, must be offered at the shrine of domestic respectability. That these would be privations no man could feel more keenly than Lacquers, yet was he prepared to go through with it, and had it been necessary, we firmly believe he would have cut off his very moustaches and laid them at the feet of Blanche Kettering! Therefore it was that he appeared on the evening in question at Lady Mount Helicon’s ball; therefore it was that his manner had assumed a softness and diffidence which made Blanche confess to herself, as she leaned on his arm in the intervals of the dance, that he was “really very much improved”; and therefore it was that he suggested the old excuse of “looking at the flowers in the conservatory,” and skilfully availing himself of a general rush down-stairs connected with supper, managed to entice his partner into a secluded corner of that love-making retreat, which had indeed been already occupied by several pairs for the same purpose, and having furnished her with a cup of tea, and himself with an ice to keep them both quiet, he entered with much circumlocution on one of those embarrassing interviews such as, we are quite sure, no lady who condescends to glance over these pages but must have experienced at least once before she had been out two seasons.
“That’s a case,” said Mrs. Blacklamb, as she swept down to supper on Lord Mount Helicon’s arm, her dark, haughty features writhing with something between a smile and a sneer, while she caught a glimpse of Blanche’s well-cut profile, and one of Lacquers’s faultless boots in a mirror opposite their retreat. “Will it be, do you think?” she added with a softening expression, for all women warm towards a love-affair, and even Mrs. Blacklamb, with her many faults, was a very woman, perhaps rather too much so, in her heart of hearts.
“I hope not,” replied Mount, with a smile into his companion’s face. “I’m very much in love with her myself. If it hadn’t been for ‘the Division’ I should have been where Lacquers is at this moment. Look what my patriotism has cost me, but I don’t regret it now,” and he emphasised the monosyllable with an almost imperceptible pressure of the arm that hung upon his own, a movement that had little effect on Mrs. Blacklamb, with whom flirtation (whatever that comprehensive word may mean) was the daily business of life.
“Why, you know you would have married her, and too happy if she had only been the catch you all thought she was,” replied the lady. “I must say I could not help being delighted, though I was sorry for her, poor girl, to see you all ‘getting out’ just as you do when some racehorse breaks down, trying which could be first to pull himself clear of the scrape, and leave his neighbours in the lurch. Major D’Orville behaved shamefully, and you still worse, for she really was fond of you.”
“Mount’s” imperturbable good-humour was proof against quizzing, so the sneer fell harmless, and he replied carelessly, “Fond? of course she was, but not so very fond—no. Mrs. Blacklamb, I’m easily imposed on by ladies. I think it’s my diffidence that stands so much in my way; even where my affections are most irrevocably engaged, where I worship is hopeless constancy, and I feel my heart breaking, and my—my—my hair coming out of curl, I dare not ask my enslaver more than whether she will have a glass of wine. Give Mrs. Blacklamb some champagne, and I’ll have a little sherry, if you please;” so the pair went on jesting and philandering and making fools of each other and of themselves, but they troubled their heads no more about the couple in the conservatory; and when “Mount” deserted his fair companion and returned into the ball-room, as he said, “to dance just once with Miss Kettering, in common decency,” he sought her in vain, for she was gone.
“Uncle Baldwin,” said Blanche, when they reached home, and lingered a moment in the drawing-room before retiring—“Uncle Baldwin, I’ve got something to say to you.” Blanche blushed and hesitated, and looked at the little white satin shoe she was resting on the fender in every possible point of view. “To-night at the ball, I—that’s to say, Captain Lacquers—in short, I dare say you remarked—in the conservatory, you know—Oh, Uncle Baldwin, he proposed to me,” and Blanche, half-laughing, half-crying, and blushing over her neck and shoulders, hid her face on the breast of the General’s coat, as she used to do when she had been a naughty little girl and repented, ten years ago.
“Zounds! Blanche, what did you say?” burst out the General, in a terrible taking, as he thought now everything must come out. “Yes or No, my darling, don’t keep me in suspense—which is it, heads or tails? in or out? I mean, Yes or No?”
“No!” whispered Blanche, to the General’s inexpressible relief, who cooled down into a prolonged whew, like the escape of steam from a safety-valve; but it was rather difficult to say it, he seemed so sorry and so patient and considerate. “Do you know, Uncle Baldwin, I never thought so highly of Captain Lacquers as I do to-night.”
“Probably not, my dear,” grunted the General, “you never knew before he thought so highly of you. But, Blanche, as we are here, and—and it’s not very late—zounds! they’ve put that clock on again—well, dear, I too have got something to tell you; but mine, I am sorry to say, is bad news. Prepare yourself, my dear Blanche. I’m sure you will bear it well, my little pet, and as long as I have a roof over my head you will have a home; but, in short, it’s no use mincing the matter, Blanche, you’re not an heiress after all—you won’t have a sixpence beyond what I can leave you, and that’s little enough, heaven knows. They’ve found your mother’s will, my dear, and a most unfair and unreasonable will it is; but still, my pretty Blanche, it makes you a penniless young lady, after all!”
“Is that the worst?” answered Blanche, looking up with an air of immense relief, though she had turned deadly pale; “is that all, Uncle Baldwin? dear me, I’m not worse off than half the other girls I know. We shall leave this house, I suppose,” she added, looking round at the ample room and its stately furniture, jumping at once to conclusions, as young ladies will do, “and we shall live entirely at Newton-Hollows, and I shall be there all the time my garden looks most beautiful; but we shan’t have to send away Mrs. Delaval, shall we?” (The General winced.) “And when will it all be settled? and when shall we go?”
“Blanche, you’re a diamond,” said the General, his eyes filling with tears; “you’ve the pluck of ten women. You ought to have commanded the Kedjerees. Go to bed now, my dear, and to-morrow we’ll look things boldly in the face, and see what is best to be done.” So the General stumped off with his bed-candle, more than ever doating on his niece, more than ever persuaded that she inherited her sterling qualities from his side of the house, and not from that “poor, foolish old Kettering,” as he called him, and more than ever indignant with all the young men of his acquaintance, except Lacquers, for not being on their knees to Blanche. “They’ve no energy; they’ve no devotion; zounds! they’ve no chivalry amongst ’em—none whatever! If I was such a fellow as any one of these, ’gad, I’d go to bed and never get up again;” with which soliloquy the General proceeded to divest himself of his ball-going attire, and prepared for his refuge from all the ills of life.
To those who are conversant with the habits of ladies, it is needless to mention that Blanche did not, by any means, follow her uncle’s excellent advice and example, in betaking herself to immediate repose. The fair sex will easily comprehend how she sought Mrs. Delaval’s room, and how the two ladies sat up in “their wrappers” and consoled each other, and talked it all over, backwards and forwards, and came to no very logical conclusions; and, above all, how the proposal and its reception were quite as engrossing a topic, and were quite as much dwelt on as the loss of Blanche’s fine fortune; nor will it escape their observation that Mary’s greater worldly experience would clearly foresee the substitution of one cousin for another in this revolution amongst the Kettering possessions, and how a marriage between the two was the only plan to make everything right; and how the fair young face, with its kind eyes, that had haunted her so long, was farther from her now than ever. She knew, of course, long ago, that it was hopeless and impossible—that must surely have been a great consolation! When a child cries for the moon, and a cloud comes and covers up the coveted bauble, and hides it away, the urchin has small comfort in being told that it is just as near the object of its desires as when it could see it, and look, and long, and stretch its tiny hands. When the beggar-maiden sets her affections on King Cophetua, without a hope, in these days, of the famous fabulous mésalliance being perpetrated, the fact that it does not, in reality, remove him one iota farther than before from her humble self, helps but little to assuage the pang inflicted on her infatuated heart by his Majesty’s nuptials with one of his own degree. The impossible may be increased in love, if not in logic, and Mary was lying awake and desponding, long after Blanche had forgotten all the excitement and changes of the evening in happy, dreamless slumbers.
SOCIAL LIBERTY—DOMESTIC ECONOMY—A GAZETTE FROM THE CAPE—A MAN OF MANY IRONS—A TRUE FRIEND—A REAL HERO—COUPLES, NOT PAIRS—OH ME MISERUM!—GATHERED IN THE DEW
Mary Delaval, in London, was one of the many flowers born to “waste their sweetness on the desert air,” for London is, indeed, a desert to those who are in it and not of it, whose destiny seems to have been warped into a strange unfitness in the great, struggling, noisy, pompous town; whose proper place would seem to be in some quiet, secluded nook, the ornament and the joy of a peaceful home, instead of the ever-shifting surface of that seething tide which drifts them here and there in aimless restlessness. Verily, Fortune does sometimes shuffle the pack in most inexplicable confusion—Ludum insolentem, ludere pertinax—she seems to take a perverse pleasure in smuggling the court-cards into all sorts of incongruous places, and to carry out the Latin poet’s metaphor, trans-mutat incertos honores, or, in plain English, palms the trumps, with dexterous sleight-of-hand, where they seem utterly valueless to influence the result of the game. As society is constituted, such a woman as Mary, with her queenly dignity, her charming manner, her striking beauty, and, above all, her noble, well-cultivated mind, was just as thoroughly tabooed and excluded from the circle of her so-called superiors as if she had been a quadroon in the United States, whose very beauty owes its brilliance to that African stain which, in the Land of Freedom and Equality, makes a shade of colouring the badge that entitles man to lord it over his brother more despotically than over the beasts of the field. Thank God for it, we have no slavery in England; and the time cannot be very far distant when slavery shall be a word without a meaning in the dictionary of every language on the face of the globe. Already, from East to West, the trumpet-note has sounded, and those stir in their sleep who have drugged themselves into insensibility, and stopped their ears against the voice of the charmer, but cannot smother the still small whisper within. Scarcely has its last peal died away beneath the blushing Western wave, ere its echoes are caught up in the very heart of the Morning Land, and even now, while we write, a barbarian despot is quailing on his celestial throne, and the voice of Liberty—real Liberty, Civilisation, and Christianity—is thundering in the ears of millions and millions of immortal beings, hitherto held in thraldom, throughout that mysterious empire, which for ages has been a sealed book to all other nations upon earth. Shall not England still be in the van, as she has always been? Never yet has she failed in the good cause, and never will she. Has she not ever struck for Freedom and the Cross? inseparable watchwords, that the experience of the world has taught us must go hand in hand, or not at all; and where she strikes, good faith, she drives well home. Has she not ever been the first assailant in the breach? stood the outmost bulwark in the gap? and will she fail now? Believe it not. Her destiny would seem the brightest that Providence has yet ordained for any nation since the world began. Formidable and glorious without, she is setting her house in order within. Steadily and gradually the good cause—the universal brotherhood of the soul—is progressing everywhere; through wars and rumours of wars, through political clouds and private disappointments, there seems to be in all men’s minds a settled conviction that “the good time’s coming”; and if, as we firmly believe, England shall bear the glorious banner in the van, why, night and morning will we go down upon our knees and thank God that we are Englishmen! But what has all this to do with a penniless governess, sitting up two pair of stairs in Grosvenor Square? Thus much, as we think: our social system is yet a long way from perfection—there is yet much to be improved and much prejudice to be taken away—we have too much class-feeling and class-isolation, and, perhaps, on no people do these shortcomings in our charity fall so heavily as on those to whom we entrust the education of our children. What is it in which we are so superior to them that entitles us to hold ourselves thus aloof, and, for all the courtesy of our wayfaring salutation, virtually “to pass by on the other side”? What is it that constitutes the talismanic qualification for what we modestly term good society? Is it birth, that accident on which we so rationally plume ourselves? They generally possess even that negative advantage. Is it education, intellect, cultivation of mind? We do not entrust our darlings to their care because they are inferior to us in attainments, or we should teach the pupils ourselves. Is it manner? We do not quarrel with a peer for being gross, or a millionaire for being vulgar—and those of whom we are speaking generally show no want at least of decorum in their demeanour and conversation. Is it money? God forbid! Is it then mere frivolity and assumption in which we excel? For shame! No; the truth must out; there is a leaven still left in us of the very essence of vulgarity, the feeling that we are ill at ease with a so-called inferior, or the domineering spirit which every schoolboy knows too well, prompting us to exult in every chance advantage we may possess over a fellow-creature. Of these amiable causes we may take our choice; but one or other it is which leaves the governess to pine up-stairs in her school-room, while revelry and pleasure and good-fellowship are laughing below.
Now, Mary had, indeed, little of this sort of neglect to complain of; yet was she lonely and sad during the London season which Blanche enjoyed so much. She could not, of course, accompany her to all the balls and “At Homes” which were fast becoming the business of the girl’s life; if she had, we think the worshipful body of chaperons would have lost nothing in dignity, and gained a good deal in grace, beauty, and good-humour by her adhesion. So she felt she was too much separated from Blanche, whom she dearly loved; and it was with a sensation almost of satisfaction, for which she was, nevertheless, quite angry with herself, that she heard of the entire disturbance of all the family arrangements, and the loss of fortune sustained by the young heiress. “Ah,” thought Mary, “perhaps I may be of some use to her now in her distress; at any rate, I can give her good counsel and practical instruction how to bear—none better;” and had it not been for a certain marriage, which seemed more than ever indispensable, Mary would have been ashamed to confess to herself how glad she was.
The General, it is needless to say, was a man of vigorous execution when he had once made up his mind. He had ascertained, as he believed, the validity of the will, had paid Gingham her legacy, with a gratuity over and above on his own account, and now held a council of war with the two ladies, before breakfast, in which he discloses his plans with a degree of meekness nothing could ever have brought him to, save a misfortune affecting his beloved Blanche.
“No going abroad this year, my dear,” said the General, looking the while less warlike than usual; “glad of it—what? A German watering-place—bah! an association of blackguards in an overgrown village, robbing the public to soft music in the open air. No, my dear, we’ll get to Newton-Hollows before the strawberries are done—and I’m glad of it. We’ll let this great house—you’re tired of it, Blanche, and so am I; what’s the use of a house all up and down-stairs? You should have seen my bungalow at Simlah—a man could get about in that and hear himself speak. Well, we’ll put down two of the carriages and one of the footmen—that pompous one. Zounds, if he had stayed a week longer I must have bastinadoed him—and we’ll start Poulard: confound him, he never gives one a dinner fit to eat, and wouldn’t dress a cutlet for Mrs. Delaval, only the day before yesterday, because we dined out—I’ll trounce him before he goes. Then, my dear, we’ll keep your scrubby pony for the little carriage, and ‘Water King’ can go down home with the others, and you’ll ride a deal more there than in London, Blanche. Manage? I’ll manage—how d’ye mean? I’m only a steward till Charlie comes back. I must write to Charlie by this mail, and we’ll have him safe and sound from the Kaffirs—and rejoicings when he comes home, and a—who knows what?”—(Mary Delaval got up at this juncture, went to fetch her work, and sat majestically down to it, as the General went on.)—“Yes, we’ll make it all right when Charlie comes back. Let me see, we ought to have a mail to-day. Zounds, these servants they read all the news—money market, foreign intelligence, every one of their own cursed advertisements for places they won’t keep six months—and then, if I ask whether the paper’s come, ‘Please, sir, it’s not ironed.’ Ironed! ’Gad, I’ll iron them—wish I’d my Kitmugar here—bamboozle them well on the soles of their feet—there’s no liberty in this country. Blanche, ring the bell, there’s a dear—oh, here it comes;” and the General’s further strictures were cut short by the entrance of his old, pompous servant, who laid the paper out for his master’s perusal with a strange air of mingled pity and concern. The General put on his spectacles, deliberately unfolded the sheet, and after a glance at the money market, in which consols had, as usual, fluctuated the fraction of a fraction, he turned to the well-known column in which the budget of the African mail was likely to be detailed; Blanche leaning over his shoulder the while, and Mary watching them with an eager glance that seemed almost prescient of evil. Suddenly the General’s face flushed up to a purple hue. “Engagement with the Kaffirs,” he muttered; “gallant repulse of the enemy—capture—loss—strong position—brilliant success of the Light Brigade—O my boy! my boy!” And, forgetful of all around, the old man leaned his head upon the table and gave way to a passion of grief that was frightful to contemplate. There it was, sure enough, in distinct, choicely-printed types—there was no mistaking the name, or the regiment, or the authenticity of the report, and Blanche, with bloodless lips and stony eyes, could see nothing but that one line of hopeless import—“Missing, Cornet Kettering, of the 20th Lancers.” Yes, she had skimmed through killed and wounded, with the agonising fear of seeing her cousin returned in that awful list, and a deep sigh of relief was rising to her lips as she recognised no beloved name among the sufferers, when it was frozen back again by the startling truth. And there she stood, utterly colourless, her hair pushed back from her temples, and her eyes staring wildly and vacantly, as she kept her finger pressed on the dreadful line, of which she too well comprehended the meaning.
The General rocked to and fro in an agony of grief, his broken exclamations of childish despair strangely mingled with those warlike sentiments of honour and resignation which become second nature in the soldier’s character.
“My boy, my boy! my gallant, handsome, light-hearted Charlie! I might have known it must be so—I’ve seen it a hundred times—the youngest, the fairest, the happiest, go down at the first shot. That pale, tender lad at the sortie from Bayonne—my subaltern at Quatre Bras—my aide-de-camp in the Deccan, always the brightest and the most hopeful—and now my boy, my Charlie! Why did I let him go? a soldier’s fate, poor lad. Well, well, every bullet has its billet—but, oh, he need never have gone to that savage country. O my boy, my boy! you were more than a son to me, and now you’re lying mangled and rotting in the bush below the Anatolas.”
Mary alone preserved her presence of mind. Utter despair is the most powerful of sedatives; and she walked deliberately across the room, took the paper from Blanche’s unresisting hands, and satisfied herself of the worst. A special paragraph of nearly six lines was devoted to the fate of “this gallant and promising young officer, who was last seen waving his men on in a brilliant attack which he led against a numerous horde of savages; the enemy were driven from their defences at all points; but we regret to learn Cornet Kettering was reported missing at nightfall, and we have reason to fear, from the barbarous and ferocious character of Kaffir warfare, it will be almost impossible to recover or identify his remains.”
And was this the end of all? Was this the fate of the bright, happy, beloved boy, whose image, as she last saw him, radiant in health and hope, had never since left her mind?—mangled—defaced—butchered—dead!—that awful word comprised everything—never to see him more, never to hear his voice; to feel as if it was all a dream, as if it had never been; as if there was no Past, and there would be no Future—that the deadening, heavy, soul-sickening Present was to be all! But she could not give him up like this: the report was dated immediately previous to the departure of the mail, and there might be a possibility of error. Steadily, calmly, closely, like a heroine as she was, Mary read through the whole official account of the engagement, word for word, and line for line; how “the Brigadier had received information of the enemy’s movements, and had held himself in readiness, and had given such and such orders, and executed such and such movements,” all detailed in the happy, self-satisfied style which characterises official accounts of the game of death; how in a previous report his Excellency had been apprised of the capture of so many head of cattle, and the submission of so many chiefs with hard names; and how the Brigadier had great pleasure in informing his Excellency of the further capture of several thousand oxen, and the discomfiture of more chiefs, and all with a loss of life trifling compared to the important results of this brilliant coup-de-main. How the troops, and the levies, and the Hottentots, had each and all reaped their share of laurels, by their gallantry in attack, their steadiness under fire, and general cheerfulness and good discipline through long, toilsome marches and harassing privations; and how the Brigadier’s own thanks were due to officers commanding regiments, and officers commanding companies, and his aides-de-camp, and his quartermaster, and his medical staff, and all the brave fellows who had won their share in the triumph of the hour; and the report concluded with a few feeling words of manly regret for those who had earned a soldier’s grave, amongst whom poor “Old Swipes,” shot down as he led his men so gallantly to the attack, was not forgotten; whilst a line of concern for the uncertainty attending Cornet Kettering’s fate (otherwise honourably mentioned in the dispatch) wound up the whole. All this Mary read with a painful distinctness that seemed to burn every word into her brain, and from it she gathered, indeed, small hope and small consolation. Truly, war is a fine thing in the abstract! The martial music, the flaunting colours, the steady tramp of bold, bronzed men, exulting in their freemasonry of danger, the enthusiasm of the spectators, the professional charlatanry (we use the word with no disrespectful meaning) which pervades the brotherhood,—all this is taking enough when the engine is in repose; and then the joys of a campaign, the continual change of scene, the never-flagging excitement, the little luxuries of the bivouac, the rough good-fellowship of the march, and the boiling, thrilling excitement of the encounter—all these doubtless have their charms when the machine is put into action; but there is a sad reverse to the picture, and those who read with the military enthusiasm of ignorance such captivating accounts of brilliant strategy and daring heroism, should recollect that the same Gazette which makes captains and colonels, makes also widows and orphans; that eyes are gushing and hearts breaking over those very lines that bid the uninterested peruser thrill with warlike ardour and half-envious pride in the deeds of arms of his countrymen. The greatest hero of the age has recorded his opinion of those scenes in which he reaped his own immortal laurels, when he said, “he prayed God he might never again see so frightful a calamity as a national war;” and his opinion has been often quoted, to the effect that a battle won was the next most horrible sight to a battle lost. Far and wide spreads the crop of misery that springs from that iron shower. Its effects are not confined to wasted fields and blackened houses, and devoted ranks stretched where they fell in all the ghastly distortions of violent death. Far, far away, in happy homes and peaceful families, women and children must wail and pine in vain for him whom they will never see again on earth; and the ounce of lead that carries death into that loyal, kind heart, scatters misery and grief, and penury, perhaps, and ruin, over the gentle dependents here at home in England, that have none to trust to, none to care for them, save him who lies cold and stiff upon the field of glory. Glory! when will men learn the right meaning of the word?
Well, three lines in the Gazette had brought misery enough to the inmates of the house in Grosvenor Square. How paltry to them now seemed the household cares and little money arrangements that had occupied their morning consultation. What was there to arrange for now? What signified it how things went? He would never return to enjoy the fruits of their care. What mattered it who had the house, and the fortune, and the plate, and the personalities, and all the paltry dross, which now showed its real value?—to-morrow it will begin again to resume its fictitious appearance, for grief passes as surely as does the cloud. But to-day, the General and Blanche are almost stupefied, and can think of nothing but Charlie—dear, dear, lost Charlie. The old man sits rocking to and fro, in violent paroxysms, frightful in one of his age—who would have thought he had so much feeling left in him?—and Blanche is exhausted with weeping, and lies with her face buried, and her long golden hair trailing over the sofa cushions, incapable of thought or exertion. Mary alone retains her presence of mind; Mary alone vindicates her noble nature in the hour of trial; Mary alone is fit to command; and Mary alone resolves upon what is best to be done, and proceeds at once to put her schemes into execution. There is but one person to apply to for advice and assistance: there is but one friend in whom the bereaved family can confide; who should it be but kind, generous, bold-hearted Frank Hardingstone? Mary puts on her bonnet and shawl: out of the confused mass in the hall she selects Mr. Hardingstone’s card, ascertains his address, and without saying a word about her intentions, sallies forth to seek him out, primed with the eloquence of a woman’s hopeless, unselfish love.
Frank has lingered on in London, he scarce knows why. He is training his strong, masculine mind to bear the loss of Blanche—for he feels that Blanche is lost to him—just as he would train to make any other effort, or endure any other suffering. His mornings are spent in close and severe study; his afternoons in those athletic exercises at which he is so proficient; and in the evening he goes into men’s society, as gentlemen do when they are sore about the other sex, and tries to be amused, and to enter into the frivolities and pastimes of his associates, and succeeds sometimes indifferently badly, sometimes not at all. Strange visitors are admitted to Frank’s morning-room at the hotel where he puts up—the waiter cannot make him but at all. Now, an engineer, in his Sunday clothes, but with a rough chin and grimy hands, is closeted with him all the morning, and the waiter overhears casual expressions, such as “power,” and “gradients,” and “angles,” and “the motive,” and “the bite,” and “the catch,” which, on the principle of omne ignotum pro terribili, make his hair stand on end. Then, just as he had made up his mind that Mr. Hardingstone is professional, and not a real gent after all, some live Duke or magnificent Marquis comes in with his hat on, and says, “Frank, my dear fellow, how goes it?” and the waiter’s conclusions are again completely upset. Then an archæologian, with smooth white neckcloth and well-brushed beaver, steps gravely up-stairs, and remains for hours discussing the probable site of some problematic edifice which there is reason to suppose might have been pulled down by the Confessor; and on this interesting topic they lavish a store of knowledge, penetration, and research rather disproportioned to the result arrived at, till the archæologian stays to have luncheon, and shows no small energy even at that. The waiter begins to think Mr. Hardingstone is a gent connected with the British Museum (for which institution he entertains a superstitious reverence), and possibly a fellow-labourer with Layard and Rawlinson. But again, twice a week, an individual is admitted whose general appearance is so much the reverse of the respectable, sleek archæologian, that the waiter finds it impossible to reconcile the contradiction of Mr. Hardingstone’s being, as he terms it, “in with both.” This latter visitor is of athletic frame, and remarkably forbidding countenance, none the less so from an originally snub nose having been smashed into a sort of plaster over the adjoining territory. His hair is cut as short as is consistent with the use of scissors, and his arms, in very tight sleeves, hang down his sides as if they were in the last stage of powerless fatigue. He dresses as though he kept a horse, yet is his gait that of a man who is continually on his legs, active as a cat, and of no mean pedestrian powers. He remains with Mr. Hardingstone about an hour, during which time much shuffling of feet is heard, and much hard breathing, with occasional expectoration on the part of the visitor. The windows are invariably thrown wide open during the interview; and at its conclusion, the stranger being supplied with beer, for which fluid he entertains a remarkable predilection, wipes his mouth on his sleeve, and expresses his satisfaction at the hospitality of his entertainer, and the warmth of his reception, by stating, in reprehensibly strong language, that he has had “a—something—good bellyful.” This too is a professor, and a scientific man; but his profession is that of pugilism, his science the noble one of self-defence. So the waiter is again all abroad: but when Mary Delaval puts up her veil, and taking out a plain card with her name written thereon, requests the astonished functionary to “take it up to Mr. Hardingstone, and tell him a lady wishes to see him,” even a waiter’s self-command is overcome, and he can only relieve his feelings by the execution of an infinity of winks for his own benefit, and the frequent repetition of “Well, this beats cock-fighting!” as he ushers the lady up the hotel stairs, and points out to her the rooms occupied by the mysterious guest.
Most people would have considered Frank hardly prepared to receive visits from a lady, both in respect of his costume and the general arrangement of his apartment. He was sitting in his shirt-sleeves, unbraced, and with his neck bare; his large loose frame curled up on a short, uncomfortable sofa, in anything but a graceful position, and his broad manly countenance gathered into an expression of intense, almost painful attention. A short pipe between his strong white teeth filled the room with odours only preferable to that of stale tobacco-smoke, with which its atmosphere was generally laden; and the book on his knee was a ponderous quarto, to the full as heavy as it looked, and fit for even Frank’s large intellect to grapple with. The furniture was simple enough; most of that which belonged to the hotel had been put away, and a set of boxing-gloves, two or three foils, a small black leather portmanteau, and a few books of the same stamp as that on the owner’s knee, comprised almost the only objects in the apartment. The morning paper was lying unopened on the window-sill. When he saw who it was, Frank started up with a blush, snatched the short pipe out of his mouth, set a chair for his visitor, and sitting bolt upright on the short sofa, stared at her with a ludicrous expression of mingled shyness and surprise. He was glad to see her, too—for why?—she belonged in some sort to Blanche.