THE SCHRÖDERS AT HOME.
Mr. Beresford was thoroughly well-informed when he announced Miss
Townshend's marriage with M. Gustav Schröder. That event took place
almost immediately after the break-up of the party at Bissett Grange,
and Sir Marmaduke attended it on his way through to Paris. The wedding
was a very grand affair, and created quite a sensation in the dead
time of the year. A bishop, who in his private capacity held some land
which he had sold to a railway company numbering Mr. Townshend among
its directors, was entrapped for the ceremony, which, of course, took
place at St. George's, Hanover Square. There was such a gathering of
carriages, and such a champing and stamping of horses in George
Street, that two men who were sleeping at Limmer's, on their way
through town, were actually induced to shake off dull sloth so early
as eleven A.M., and to peer out of the window at the cavalcade;
satisfying themselves with a very short glance, however, and returning
to their couches again with great alacrity. Very great magnates in the
banking world, the brokering world, the colonial-export world, and the
shipping world, were present; as were M. Heinrich Schröder,
representative of the house at Frankfort, a bent shrivelled old
gentleman, with marked Jewish profile; thin hands always plucking at
his thin lips, and a very small knowledge of the English language;--M.
Louis Schröder, who represented the house at Paris, a man of forty,
short, stout, genial, and jolly; speaking all languages with equal
ease; with a keen eye for making money, but enjoying nothing better
than spending it; drinking very little, but fond of high-living and
high-play; and showing general sensuality in his thick scarlet lips
and short pudgy hands; more Schröders, male and female, from Hamburg,
from Mainz from Florence; and one--very much burnt up--who had just
returned from losing his liver, and gaining his fortune at Ceylon. Mr.
Townshend contributed the eminent personages in City firms above
mentioned, but none of his family were present; and it was remarked by
some of the guests, that none of his family had ever been seen by any
body,--any body meaning, of course, any body in their society; but,
owing to its being the dull season of the year, Miss Townshend's list
was not as brilliant as it might have been. For instance, ever since
as a child she married her doll to a resplendent individual in a soft
scarlet-cloth coat, a cocked hat, and a pair of linen trousers
(supposed to be of the male sex, but really another doll in disguise,
as proved by the lump of painted hair projecting behind), she had
always intended having eight bridesmaids; but Clara Hamilton and Kate
Brandon were away with their people and in their places she had asked
the Melville girls, people, whom, as she afterwards found, her trump
card, her prettiest bridesmaid Carry Seaward, did not speak. So that
the cards had all to be shuffled again, and eventually she got four
very pretty attendants to the altar. Barbara and her husband were away
honeymooning; and she didn't like to ask Captain Lyster, having a
perfect recollection of that morning in the library at Bissett, and
thinking that his presence on such an occasion would probably render
them both extremely uncomfortable.
But altogether the wedding went off with success; for the bishop was
not only impressively solemn during the ceremony, but was pleasantly
jocose afterwards, cracked tepid little jokes with infinite gusto; and
a tepid jokelet from a bishop is worth more than a brilliant _mot_
from a professional wit. And the company, though not very brilliant in
intellect, was quite brilliant enough to laugh when a bishop said a
good thing; and every body was very well dressed; and the wedding
presents, duly set out on a side-table, made a splendid show. The
Schröders were to the fore in the matter of wedding presents; the City
magnates of the Townshend connexion did pretty well, so far as silver
tea-services, and wine-coolers, and ice-pails, and fish knives and
forks, and splendidly-carved ivory tankards with massive silver
covers, were concerned, and in all the usual wedding-gift nonsense of
butter-dish and card-bowl; but the Schröders gave diamond-necklaces
and sets of turquoises and opals in old-fashioned filigree settings,
and tiny watches from Leroy's, costing 3000 francs, and Barbedienne's
rarest bronzes, and the choicest carvings from the Frankfort Zeil. Mr.
Schröder, too, had taken his bride elect, two days before the
marriage, to Long Acre, and shown her the neat little single brougham,
and the elegant open carriage; and then had driven on to Rice's, and
had had trotted out the fast trotters and the elegant steppers which
had been reserved for them. And Alice Townshend thought of all these
things as she stood at the altar beside the elderly gentleman with the
small eyes and the stubbly gray hair; and the shudder which passed
through her, as she solemnly vowed to honour and obey him, was a
little mitigated by the recollection of his wealth, and her consequent
future position.
The honeymoon was spent partly at Brussels, partly at Paris, and then
the newly-married couple came home to their house in Saxe-Coburg
Square. Fifteen years ago, just before the first Great Exhibition
(_the_ Great Exhibition! we who had _gelebt und geliebt_ before '51
know how poor the other one was in comparison to it!), the tract of
land whereon Saxe-Coburg, Gotha, Coleraine, and Dilkington Squares,
Adalbert Crescent, and Guelph Place now stand, was known as Grunter's
Grounds, and was tenanted by an honest market-gardener, who found a
very remunerative market in Covent Garden for his cabbage cultivation.
But Hodder, the great builder, marked the army of luxury marching
rapidly west; and knowing that quarters must be found for it, saw in
Grunter's Grounds the exact place for the erection of those squares,
crescents, terraces, and places, of which his architect, Palladio
Hicks, had so elaborately shown the elevation on paper, but had
erected so few. Mr. Hodder discovered that the nurseryman was in the
last eighteen months of his lease, and that Grunter's Grounds belonged
to a charity, the trustees of which were always quarreling among
themselves. This was enough for Hodder; he soon wormed his way into
the confidence of some of the trustees; and eventually succeeded in
getting the renewal of the lease refused to the market-gardener, and
the ground made over to him, on building lease, at a very cheap rate.
Now do you wonder why Mrs. Hodder drives one of the most stylish
equipages in the Park; or why, in her amateur theatricals, she manages
to get hold of all that extraordinary histrionic genius, which, by an
odd concurrence of events, always accompanies the possession of a
clerkship in the Treasury? That was a splendid speculation for Mr.
Hodder. There are thirty-six houses in Saxe-Coburg Square, for
instance; and each of them lets at 320_l_. a-year. They are all, as
Mr. Thackeray said of the Pyramids, "very big," and very ugly; great
gaunt stuccoed erections, bow-windowed, plate-glassed, and porticoed
after the usual prevalent pattern, with a small square courtyard
looking into a mews behind, and Mr. Swiveller's prospect, "a
delightful view of--over the way," in front. But they let wonderfully;
it is the thing to live in that quarter; and hangers-on to the selvage
of fashion, clerks in public offices, who have married into
aristocratic poor families, and suchlike, will be found bargaining for
a ghastly little hole in Adalbert Crescent or Guelph Place, when they
could get a capital roomy house at Highgate or Hampstead, with a big
garden, in which their "young barbarians" could be "all at play" from
morning till night, for far less money. Mr. Schröder's house was
furnished very expensively, and, considering all had been left to the
upholsterer, in not bad taste. The dining-room was in light oak,
carved high-backed chairs in green morocco; a large massive
round-table in the centre, with half-a-dozen swinging moderator-lamps
over it; Wardour-Street Rubenses and apocryphal ancestors on the
walls. Behind this the library in dark oak, splendid writing-table,
quaint old carved Davenport desk from a Carmelite monastery; wonderful
collection of books, the result of the blending of two library sales
at Hodgson's,--one the gathering of a bibliomaniacal _virtuoso_, the
other of a sporting nobleman,--and before-letter proofs, after
Landseer. The drawing-rooms I should utterly fail in endeavouring to
describe, so content myself by remarking that they were halls of
dazzling light,--allowed by their worst enemies, the critics, to be
"delicious;" by their most captious, to be "effective,"--splendidly
furnished, and opening on to conservatories and boudoirs and
canvas-covered balconies.
Mr. Schröder was not the man to hide his candle under a bushel; nor,
having spent a vast amount of money on his house and its decorations,
to keep them solely for the contemplation of himself and his wife: so
it was at his suggestion that the dinner-party and reception were
organised. Mrs. Schröder at once gave her acquiescence; indeed, just
at this period of her life, she was in too dazed a state to do any
thing more than follow suit. She knew her father to be wealthy, and
always had lived in good style; but she also knew that her parent was
a great tyrant--one of those "stern" persons so popular in novels; and
she had had many visions of resisting him; of flying from his roof
with some young lover not overburdened with riches; of love in a
cottage, and other maniacal ideas of the same description; and now she
found that the time had come and passed; that she had not resisted at
all; and that she was settled down with a gray-headed, elderly
husband, who was one of the richest men in London. It was not her
childhood's dream, perhaps; but it was by no means uncomfortable; and
Mrs. Schröder wisely determined, to accept the riches, and to forget
the grayness of the head; and went in for the dinner-party with
spirit.
Husband and wife furnished about an equal complement of friends to the
banquet, which was very splendid, but at first rather dull. Old
Heinrich Schröder, who had not yet returned to Frankfort, was present;
and as he spoke scarcely any English, he did not enliven the
conversation; which, however, was often polyglot. The magnates from
the City and their wives ate a good deal, and talked very little;
while some of the younger and more aristocratic people brought in by
Mrs. Schröder were silent as becomes "swells," and only occasionally
worked eyebrow or shoulder telegraphs to each other, in silent wonder
at, and depreciation of, their neighbours. Mr. Beresford began to be
awfully bored, and tried topic after topic without meeting with the
least success. At last, however, he seemed to have stumbled on one
that awoke a certain amount of general interest.
"Seen your newly-elected brother-director of the Terra-del-Fuego
Company yet, Mr. Schröder?" he asked.
"Colonel Levison?" said Mr. Schröder; "no, not yet; we've had no
board-day since his election."
"Man of mark, sir," said an old gentleman, who had painted his chin
and shirt-front with turtle-soup.
"What Levison is it, Beresford?" asked Captain Lyster, who was seated
near Mrs. Schröder.
"Jack Levison; you know him. Wonderful life he's had!"
"Has he?" said Mrs. Schröder, on whom the dulness had settled like a
pall. "Oh, do tell us about it, Mr. Beresford; that is, if you may."
"Oh, yes, I may," laughed Beresford; "though it's nothing much to
tell. Jack was in the 9th, and came into five thousand pounds at his
father's death; sold out; speculated in cotton, and made it twenty;
speculated in hides, and lost every sixpence. Went out to Australia on
the first discovery of gold; was a boot-black in Melbourne; actually
had a stand and brushed boots, you know; afterwards was cad to the
Ballarat omnibus; fact, give you my word! At last got up to the
diggings; worked with varying luck, until at last turned up monster
nugget, and hit upon a splendid vein; stuck to it quietly, and made a
fortune. Realised; came back to England, and has doubled it. Curious
life, isn't it?"
"How very odd!" said Mrs. Schröder, trying to extract a remark from a
very gorgeous lady on her right; "fancy, blacking boots!"
"And what do you call 'em to a bus?" said the lady, who, though
gorgeous, was Clapham-born, and still possessed her native dialect.
"Must be clayver man," hazarded a tall, thin gentleman, a light of the
Draft and Docket Office, who was very short-sighted, and perpetually
kept in his eye a glass, with which he endeavoured to focus somebody
into conversation; hitherto hopelessly.
"Oh, yes," said his neighbour, a bald man, with cinnamon whiskers,
whose life was passed in saying the wrong thing in the wrong
place--"oh, yes; but don't you know he's Boswell Levison's brother.
He's a Jew!"
Every body looked involuntarily at old Heinrich Schröder, about whose
origin there could be no doubt, and who had that face which you may
see repeated by hundreds in the Frankfort Juden-Gasse.
"Ha! ha!" said the old gentleman, catching the last word, and finding
himself the centre of attraction; "was Chew! ya, zo; Chew ist goot."
Mr. Schröder turned a dull lead colour, and a general awe-struck
silence fell upon the company, which was broken by Beresford, who,
again coming to the rescue, said:
"You knew Levison, Monkhouse? We stayed together in his uncle's house
two years ago."
The man with the eyeglass made a vain attempt to focus Beresford, and
said, "Did we?"
"Yes, of course we did. You recollect, at Macarum's, near Elgin?"
Mr. Monkhouse dropped his glass from his eye, and looked up to the
ceiling for inspiration; then, re-fixing it, said, "Oh, ah! Elgin! I
know!--where the marble comes from?"
The Levison subject now being evidently exhausted, and the
conversation becoming hopelessly-idiotic, Captain Lyster strikes in at
a tangent, and asks Mrs. Schröder whether she has seen any thing
recently of her friend, Mrs. Churchill,--Miss Lexden that was.
Mrs. Schröder replies in the negative, adding that she had called upon
Barbara "in, oh, such a strange street!" but had not found her at
home: the Churchills had been asked to dine there that day, but had
declined on account of Mr. Churchill's engagements. It was, however,
probable that they might come in the evening. Hearing the name of
Churchill mentioned, Mr. Beresford chimes in.
"Ah, by the way, the Churchills! friends of yours, Mrs. Schröder? How
are they getting on? Love-match, and all that kind of thing, hey?
Clever man, Churchill; but should have kept to his own set; married
the daughter of his printer or publisher, or some fellow of that sort;
not taken away one of our stars."
"What do you mean by his own set, Mr. Beresford?" said Lyster, rousing
himself. "Mr. Churchill, I take it, is a gentleman in every sense of
the word. I don't know whom you have been accustomed to associate
with, but I never saw a better-bred man."
Mr. Beresford pauses for a moment, startled at the attack; then a
smile passes over his face as he says, "I didn't impugn your friend's
breeding, Captain Lyster; but I suppose even such a Corydon as you
would allow the folly of a love-match with no money on either side?"
It is probable that Captain Lyster might have replied, even seeing,
clearly as he did, that the tendency of the conversation was towards
an argument in which he would have to exert himself; but the
cinnamon-whiskered man, who had been waiting for an opportunity of
speaking, now saw his chance, and burst forth--"Love-match!" said he;
"no money on either side! What then? Do you imagine that two people,
young, attached to each other, who risk a--a--what d'ye call
um?--fight in the great battle of life"--looking round and repeating
"in the great battle of life--are not much happier than those who
make, what you may call, sordid matches? Thus, for the sake of
argument, an elderly man marries a young girl; nothing in common
between them; she simply married for position, or to oblige her
parents; and he--well, I think we know the contemptible figure he
cuts; a case of buying and selling, as you would say in the City,
eh, Schröder?" and the cinnamon-coloured man, who was great at a
debating-society, looked in triumph at his host.
Mr. Schröder, more leaden-coloured than ever, said, "Certainly." Mrs.
Schröder, who had been looking down at the table, and playing with her
dessert-knife, rose with the rest of the ladies, and left the room.
After their departure, the West-end section, including Beresford,
Lyster, and Monkhouse, seemed to get silent and abstracted; while Mr.
Schröder's particular friends from the City, the bank-directors and
public-company men, re-invigorated themselves with port, and discussed
the politics of Threadneedle Street and the chances of change in
the discount rate in hoarse whispers. Solemn dulness fell upon the
West-end division: Lyster dropped into a semi-dose; Mr. Monkhouse
tried to focus the talkers one by one, but failing, fell to polishing
his eyeglass and admiring his nails; the cinnamon-whiskered man cut
into the conversation once in the wrong place, and, having plainly
showed himself to be an idiot, was promptly extinguished; and
Beresford fell into a dreamy state, in which his liabilities ranged
themselves in horrible array before him, and he went into wild
speculations as to how they might be met. While in this state, he
became conscious of old Mr. Townshend's voice, laying down the law, in
most imperative style, on matters of finance, and suddenly he
remembered his promise to Simnel. He waited for his opportunity when
Mr. Townshend ceased for an instant, and then said: "My dear Mr.
Schröder, you can't tell how horrible it is for us impecunious people
to listen to this tremendously ingotted talk. We look upon you as a
dozen Sinbad the Sailors, each having found his own peculiar treasure
in the Valley of Diamonds. Ah! if it were only given to me to fathom
the secret of money-making!"
The City section were pleased at this concession, and took the remarks
as complimentary. Mr. Schröder smiled, and said sententiously:
"Business has its cares as well as its pleasures." Mr. Townshend
nodded his head, saying, "You gentlemen despise our prosaic ways and
business routine; with you--"
"Business routine!" exclaimed Beresford. "Why, you make a fortune by
the arrival of a telegram, by the nod of a cabinet-minister's head.
I'm not so ignorant of these mercantile matters as you may fancy. When
I was in the habit of staying with my intimate friend Pigott, of the
firm of Pigott and Wells--"
"What name did you say?" asked Mr. Townshend, with a blanched face.
"Pigott and Wells," repeated Beresford slowly, looking at him
stedfastly; "merchants of Combcardingham. Do you know the firm?"
"No, not at all. That is--I--" and Mr. Townshend's teeth chattered as
he gulped down a bumper of port and cowered in his chair, as a
tremendous knock, reverberating through the house, announced the
arrival of the first guests for the reception.
The reception. _Item_, Herr Klavierspieler, the celebrated _pianiste_,
who was so fall of soul, and so mysterious, and so thin, and so
long-haired, and so silent. All sorts of stories afloat about Herr
Klavierspieler,--that he communed with spirits; that he was a ghoule;
that he was consuming away under an unrequited passion for an Austrian
countess of excessive haughtiness; whereas in real truth he was the
son of a saddler in the Breite Strasse of Dresden, and his liver was
deranged, perhaps by his eating five heavy meals a day, and, save when
he was playing in public, never being without a pipe in his mouth.
_Item_, M. Bloffski, the Pole, _the_ violincellist of the world, a fat
man in spectacles, who perspired a great deal, breathed through his
nose, had a red-cotton pocket-handkerchief, and played his instrument
divinely. _Item_, Mr. Schrink, musical critic of the _Statesman_
newspaper, a little man with a hump-back and a frightfully sensitive
ear; a little man who would cower and, shrink under false notes, and
stamp and growl under bad singing; a little man whom every one hated,
and who did not particularly like himself. _Item_, Fräulein Wünster,
one of those German young ladies who, ever since Jenny Lind's success,
have been imported into England under the firm idea that they were
"going to do it," and who, having filled up gaps in the Hanover Square
and St. James's Hall concerts, have returned to _Vaterland_ without
having made the smallest mark. Mr. Dabb, fashionable artist, whose
portrait of Mr. Schröder decorated the walls, was there; as was Mr.
Fleem, the author of _Fashion and Satire_--a young gentleman who,
for a cynic, seemed on remarkably good terms with himself and his
fellow-creatures. Mr. Pringle and Mr. Prescott arrived together; and
just after the gentlemen came up from the dining-room, Mr. and Mrs.
Churchill were announced.
If Mrs. Churchill had been the Empress of Austria or the Queen of the
Cannibal Islands, she could not have entered the room more haughtily,
or created a greater effect. She was dressed in a plain dark-gray
silk, with a bunch of scarlet geraniums in her hair, and a black-lace
shawl over her shoulders. Her little head was erect, her delicate
nostrils distended, and her eye seemed to challenge any unpleasant
remark. Frank Churchill was, as usual, quiet and sedate; but it was
evident he marked the impression which his wife made, and was pleased
thereby. Was he pleased with the expression of her face, as he marked
it contracted for an instant, though immediately afterwards the
features resumed their calm statuesque immobility? Was he pleased with
the tone of her voice, which became a little hard and metallic,
instead of that soft whispering which he knew as hers? Barbara's trial
was on her at that instant: she had returned to that society in which
she had all her life lived; those luxuries, which had been in daily
use, were around her, after she had been for weeks absent from them;
the mere size of the rooms, the lighting, the perfume, the presence of
guests,--all seemed to render the events of the past months as a
dream; and she had to bring her presence of mind into play to argue
with herself.
Mrs. Schröder rushed up to her at once; no doubt of the _empressement_
of her manner! affection a little too palpable, as Barbara thought.
"Oh, Barbara darling! so glad you're come! I thought you'd
disappointed us. How late you are!"
"Frank was detained; as I expected, Alice; make him explain himself."
"No occasion for that, I hope? Mrs. Schröder," said Churchill; "the
slaves of the lamp, you know!"
"Oh, there! that horrible business! your constant excuse; you're all
alike. Gustav! Gustav! here's Mr. Churchill excusing himself from
being late, and pleads business; take him away, and discuss the
wretched subject together. I want to talk to Barbara,--a long talk.
No, Gustav! I don't care what you say about my duties as hostess: I
_will_ talk to my old friend!" So Schröder and Churchill went off, and
Alice and Barbara seated themselves in a far window.
"Now, Barbara dear, tell me every thing. I needn't ask you if you're
happy; that's a matter of course. Do you like your house? Is the
boudoir in pale-green silk, as we always said we'd have it? Mine's in
rose-colour; but that's Gustav's taste; I always liked your notion
best."
"My boudoir, Alice? you forget."
"Oh, so I do. How ridiculous! But look here, Barbara darling; you'll
come out for a drive with me whenever I fetch you?"
"Oh, thanks, Alice; I'm too far out of your way to be fetched often."
"Not a bit, Barbara; what else have the horses to do? though it is a
difficult place to find out. Edwards--the coachman, I mean--had never
heard of it, though he knows all sorts of short cuts; and we had to
ask our way perpetually."
Barbara had something on the tip of her tongue, but it was never
framed into words. She contented herself with saying, "the situation
is handy for my husband, you know. I should not like the thought that
he had far to come late at night."
"Oh! is he ever out late at night? How dreadful! how dull you must be!
how wretched for you! I should make my maid sit up and read me to
sleep."
"There has been no need for any such violent measures at present,"
said Barbara, with a slight smile. "Frank has managed to do his work
at home, hitherto; but of course there may be occasions when he will
be obliged to be out."
"You must come to us then. Promise! won't you, Barbara dear? You'll
like Mr. Schröder; at least I think you will. He's very quiet; but so
kind-hearted and thoughtful. Oh, Captain Lyster! how you startled me!"
"Very sorry, Mrs. Schröder," drawled the Captain, creeping leisurely
towards them; "wouldn't have put you out for the world; but this is
scarcely fair, you know; two ladies monopolising each other when we're
dying to talk to them; and we're left to listen to that horrible
hirsute wretch who's thumping the piano."
"Klavierspieler a horrible wretch! Did you hear that, Barbara? Well,
Captain Lyster, I won't monopolise Mrs. Churchill any more, and you
shall have a chat with her;" and Mrs. Schröder walked off, laughing.
Barbara had been looking at Mr. Schröder, who was standing in the
doorway talking with Frank Churchill; and had noticed his face fall as
Lyster approached them. When Mrs. Schröder moved away, her husband
seemed relieved.
Captain Lyster sat down by Barbara, and talked long, and for him
earnestly. She saw at once that he wanted to be numbered among her
friends; and in a score of little delicate sentences he conveyed to
her his appreciation of her conduct in marrying a man whom she loved,
in spite of the opposition of her friends, his respect for her
husband's character and talents, and his desire to serve them. Then he
turned the conversation upon Mrs. Schröder; and Barbara noticed that
his manner changed; that he hesitated, and kept his eyes down, as he
wondered whether she were happy; whether she loved he husband; whether
it had really been her duty to obey her father's will, and not consult
her own inclinations, as people said had been the case. For the first
time a light broke upon Barbara, and she knew Captain Lyster's story
as plainly as if he had told it to her in so many words. Following his
glance as he stopped speaking, she saw that it rested on Alice
Schröder, to whom Mr. Beresford was now talking, bending over her
chair with great apparent devotion; and looking from them to Mr.
Schröder, Barbara remarked that the gloom had returned to his face,
while Frank Churchill himself looked somewhat annoyed.
It was not without a very great deal of trouble that Mr. Pringle had
induced his friend Prescott to accompany him to Saxe-Coburg Square.
Even after that gentleman had given a reluctant consent he withdrew
it, and on the very morning of the reception Mr. Pringle was not aware
whether or not he should have to go alone. For Mr. Prescott was very
much in love with Kate Mellon still: that interview in the Park had by
no means had the effect of curing him of his passion; although, being
a sensible young fellow, he saw that there was not the slightest use
in giving way to it.
"He's a thoroughly changed buffer, is Jim, sir!" Mr. Pringle would
remark of him; "he used to be the cheeriest of birds; always good for
going out some where, and no end of fun; always in tip-top spirits,
and the best chap out. But now he sits in his chambers, and smokes his
pipe, and grizzles himself to death, pretty near; wishing he'd got
more money, and all sorts of things. That won't do, you know! He must
be picked up and trotted out; and the man for that line of business is
yours truly." In pursuance of which determination Mr. Pringle opened a
system of attack on his friend, and in the first place insisted that
they should go together to Mr. Schröder's reception. Even at the last,
when Prescott gave in his final consent, it was under strong protest.
"I shall be dreary, old boy; and you'll be sorry you took me. You know
I'm not very good company just now, George. I've not got over--"
"All right; I know. 'Tell me, my heart, can this be?' &c. But we'll
have some dinner at Simpson's, and a bottle of old port; and that'll
set you up, and make you see life under a different aspect, as they
say in novels."
The dinner was very good; and finding his friend still silent and
low-spirited, Mr. Pringle exerted himself to rouse him. He was very
well known at the dining-rooms, and called the waiters by their
Christian names, and asked after their families, and little events in
their private lives.
Mr. Prescott could not help laughing at the absurdities perpetrated
by his friend, and gradually his spirits revived. After dinner
they went to Mr. Pringle's chambers, and smoked and had some hot
whisky-and-water, which, coming after the port-wine, had a very
hilarious effect upon Mr. Pringle, who then wanted to "go out some
where," and not to go to the Schröders at all; but Mr. Prescott
overruling this, they dressed and went. Mr. Pringle--and especially
Mr. Pringle after half a bottle of port-wine and a couple of tumblers
of whisky-punch--was a trying person to go about with, and Prescott
had to call him to order several times. When they arrived at the
house, and were asked their names, he gave them as the Duke of
Wellington and Mr. Babbage; and on the servant's being about gravely
to repeat them, he stopped him, saying they did not wish their names
announced, as they were detectives come on very private business. On
the staircase he feigned a wild terror at the powdered heads of the
footmen; asked "how they came so white;" by nature or not? and
altogether so behaved himself, that Mr. Prescott declared he would not
enter the room with him.
Once in the room, Mr. Pringle toned down visibly, and conducted
himself like an ordinary mortal. He was very friendly with Alice
Schröder, and expressed poignant regret at Mr. Townshend's sudden
indisposition (for that worthy gentleman declined to come upstairs
after dinner; Beresford's mention of Pigott and Wells had been too
much for him), though secretly Mr. Pringle was pleased at missing his
godfather, whom he was accustomed to regard as the essence of
sternness; and he was introduced to Churchill, of whom he spoke
the next day at the office as a "deuced clever fellow, a literary
bird;" and he listened for a few minutes to Klavierspieler's
pianoforte-fireworks; and, then went down and got some refreshment. He
endeavoured to induce Mr. Prescott to accompany him; but that
gentleman not merely absolutely declined, but addressed his friend in
strong words of warning, and declared that as for himself he was
thoroughly happy where he was.
Indeed, once more in society, surrounded by well-looking, well-dressed
people, listening to music and conversation in a splendidly-appointed
home, Mr. Prescott began to think to himself that the solitary
pipe-smokings in dreary chambers, the shutting himself away from the
world, and giving himself up to melancholy, was rather a mistake. Of
course the grand cause of it all remained unaltered,--he never could
get over his passion, he never would give up thinking of Kate,--and
just then he started as he heard a light, musical, girlish voice
behind him say, "it is James Prescott!" He turned rapidly round, and
saw two or three people standing by him; one of whom, a very pretty,
fresh-coloured buxom girl, stepped forward, laughed as he made a
rather distant bow, and said, "You don't recollect me! Oh, what a
horridly bad compliment!"
"It is excessively absurd, to be sure, on my part, I know. I cannot,
by Jove! Emily Murray!" Prescott burst out as the face recurred to his
memory.
"Emily Murray, of course!" said the young lady, still laughing; "Why,
what ages since we've met! not since you left Havering; and how's the
dear Vicar and the girls? which of them are married? I should so like
to see them; and you--you're in some Government Office we heard; which
is it? and--"
"I must come to Mr. Prescott's rescue, Emily, if you'll introduce me.
You've stunned him with questions," said an elderly lady standing by.
"Oh, aunt, how can you say so! James--Mr. Prescott,--I don't know
which I ought to say; but I always used to say James,--this is my
aunt, Mrs. Wilmslow, with whom we're staying. I say we, for papa is in
town; but his gout was threatening; so he wouldn't come to-night."
"My brother will be very pleased to see you, though, Mr. Prescott,"
said Mrs. Wilmslow; "I know he has the kindliest recollection of your
father at Havering. Will you come and lunch with us to-morrow?"
Mr. Prescott accepted with thanks, and Mrs. Wilmslow moved back to her
party; but Emily Murray stayed behind, and they had a very long
conversation; during which he settled not merely that he would lunch
in Portland Place on the next day, but that he would afterwards
accompany Miss Murray and some of her friends in their subsequent
ride. As Miss Murray departed with her friends, Mr. Pringle came up
and apologised for having left his friend so much alone. "Very sorry,
old fellow, but I got into an argument with an old German buffer
downstairs. Very good fellow, but spoke very shy English. Told me he
was nearly eighty years old; and that he accounted for his good health
by having been always in the habit of taking a walk past dinner. Took
me full ten minutes to find out he meant _after_ dinner. But I say,
old fellow, I'm really sorry; you must have had a very slow evening."
"On the contrary," said Mr. Prescott, "I've enjoyed myself amazingly."
Mr. Pringle looked hard at his friend, and whistled plaintively.