NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Dear Rose Arundel (excuse us the adjective, kind reader, for we
frankly own to being very fond of her), having been a perfect godsend to
everybody during the whole morning of the party day, having thought
of everything and done everything, and looked on the bright side of
everything, and sacrificed herself so pleasantly that an uninitiated
beholder might have imagined her intensely selfish and doing it all for
her own personal gratification,--Rose having, amongst other gymnastics
of self-devotion, run up and down stairs forty-three times in pursuit of
waifs and strays from Lady Lombard’s memory, committed the first bit
of selfishness of which she had been guilty all day, by sitting down
to rest for five minutes before she began her toilet; and leaning
her forehead on her hand, thought over her own chances of pleasure or
amusement during the evening. She had had one disappointment: Lewis
had been invited, and Lewis would not come. He did not say he could not
come, but he put on what Mrs. Arundel called his “iron-face,” and said
shortly, “the thing was impossible;” and no one could have looked on his
compressed lips and doubted the truth of the assertion. It grieved Rose,
for she read his soul as it were an open book before her, and she saw
there pride, that curse of noble minds, still unsubdued. Lady Lombard
patronised them, and Lewis could not submit to witness it. Rose had
hoped better things than this; she had not failed to observe the change
that had taken place in her brother during his residence at
Broadhurst; she saw that from an ardent, impetuous boy he had become an
earnest-minded, high-souled man, and in the calm dignity of his look and
bearing she recognised the evidence of conscious power, chastened by the
discipline of a mind great enough to rule itself. Nor was she wrong in
her conjectures; only she mistook a part for the whole, and arguing with
the gentle sophistry of a woman’s loving heart, concluded that to be
finished which was but in fact begun. Lewis had learned to _control_
(except in rare instances) his haughty nature, but he relied too much on
his own strength, and so he had failed as yet to subdue it. Rose was
too honest to disguise the truth from herself when it was fairly placed
before her, and she acknowledged, with an aching heart that the great
fault of her brother’s character yet remained unconquered. Poor Rose! as
this conviction forced itself upon her, how she sorrowed over it. He
was so good, so noble, and she loved him so entirely--oh! why was he not
perfect? If Lewis could have read her thoughts at that moment he would
have assuredly made one of the guests at Lady Lombard’s hospitable
board.
As the clock struck the half-hour, forming the _juste milieu_ between
seven and eight, post meridiem, the goodly company assembled in Lady
Lombard’s drawing-room, being warned by the portly butler that dinner
was served, paired off and betook themselves two by two (like the
animals coming out of Noah’s Ark, as represented on the dissecting
puzzles of childhood) to the lofty dining-room, where much English good
cheer, disguised under absurd French names, awaited them. During the
short time that Bracy had been in the house he had not been altogether
idle. He first took an opportunity of informing Lady Lombard that De
Grandeville was directly descended from Charlemagne, and that he was
only waiting till the death of an opulent relative should render him
independent of his profession to revive a dormant peerage, when it was
generally supposed his colossal intellect and unparalleled legal
acumen would render him political leader of the House of Lords; he then
congratulated her on her good fortune in having secured the presence of
this illustrious individual, who, he assured her, was in such request
amongst the aristocracy of the kingdom that he was scarcely ever to be
found disengaged, and wound up by running glibly through a long list of
noble names with whom he declared the mighty Marmaduke to be hand and
glove. Accordingly, good Lady Lombard, believing it all faithfully,
mentally elected De Grandeville to the post of honour at her right hand,
deposing for the purpose no less a personage than General Gudgeon.
When we say no less a personage, we speak advisedly, for that gallant
officer, weighing sixteen stone without his snuff-box, and being fully
six feet high, was, if not exactly “a Triton amongst minnows,” at all
events a Goliath amongst gudgeons, which we conceive to be much the same
thing.
Having achieved his object of placing De Grandeville in exactly the
position he wished him to occupy, Bracy next proceeded to frustrate a
scheme which he perceived the fair Susanna (who was his pet antipathy)
to have originated for the amatory subjugation and matrimonial
acquisition of John Dace Dackerel Dace, Esq., of Roachpool, in the West
Riding. The aforesaid John D. D. had a weakness bordering indeed on a
mental hallucination; he fancied he was born to be a popular author--“to
go down to posterity upon the tongues of men,” as he himself was wont
to express it--and the way in which he attempted to fulfil his exalted
destiny and effect the wished-for transit, _viâ_ these unruly members of
his fellow-mortals, was by writing mild, dull articles, signed J. D. D.,
and sending them to the editors of various magazines, by whom they were
always unhesitatingly rejected.
The frequent repetition of these most unkind rebuffs, and the consequent
delay in the fulfilment of his mission, had tended to depress the spirit
(at no time an intensely ardent one) of John Dace Dackerel, and had
induced a morbid habit of mind, through which, as through a yellow veil,
he took a jaundiced view of society at large; and even the acquisition
of the surname of Dace, and his accession to the glories of Roachpool,
had scarcely sufficed to restore cheerfulness to this victim of a
postponed destiny. Bracy, from his connection with Blunt’s Magazine,
knew him well, and had rejected, only a fortnight since, a forlorn
little paper entitled “The Curse of Genius, or the Trammelled Soul’s
Remonstrance;” in which his own cruel position was touchingly shadowed
forth in the weakest possible English. Accosting this son of sorrow in a
confidential tone of voice, Bracy began--
“As soon as you can spare a minute to listen to me, I’ve something
rather particular to tell you!”
“To tell me?” returned the blighted barrister in a hollow voice,
suggestive of any amount of black crape hatbands. “What ill news have
I now to arm, or I may say, to steel my soul against?” And here be it
observed that it was a habit with this pseudo-author to talk, as it
were, a rough copy of conversation, which he from time to time corrected
by the substitution of some word or phrase which he conceived to be an
improvement upon the original text.
“Perhaps it may be good news instead of bad!” remarked Bracy
encouragingly. The blighted one shook his head.
“Not for _me_” he murmured; then turning to Susanna, he continued,
“Excuse my interrupting our conversation, but this gentleman has some
intelligence to impart--or I may say, to break to me.”
Mrs. Brahmin smiled sweetly such a sympathetic smile that it went
straight through a black satin waistcoat, with a cypress wreath
embroidered on it in sad-coloured silk, and reached the “crushed and
withered” heart of J. D. D. .
“You know,” continued Bracy, “I was obliged, most unwillingly, to
decline that touching little thing of yours. The--what is it? the Cough
of Genius?”
“The Curse,” suggested its author gloomily.
“Ah! yes. I read it cough--you don’t write very clearly--yes, * the
Cursing Genius.’ You know, my dear Dace, we editors are placed in a
very trying position. A great responsibility devolves upon us; we are
scarcely free agents. Now your article affected me deeply” (this was
strictly true, for he had laughed over the most tragic touches till the
tears ran down his cheeks), “but I was forced to decline it. I could not
have put it in if my own brother had written it. You will naturally ask,
Why? _Because it did not suit the tone of Blunt’s Magazine!_” And as
Bracy pronounced these awful and mysterious words he shook his head and
looked unutterable things; while the “child of a postponed destiny,”
seeing the shadow of a still further postponement clouding his dark
horizon, shook his head likewise, and relieved his elaborately-worked
shirt-front of a sigh.
“But,” resumed Bracy, “thinking the paper much too original to be lost,
I took the liberty of handing it over to Bullbait, the Editor of the
Olla Podrida. Well, sir, I saw him this morning, and he said----”
“What?” exclaimed the fated one eagerly, a hectic tinge colouring his
sallow cheek.
“Don’t excite yourself, my dear Dace,” rejoined Bracy anxiously; “you’re
looking pale: too much brain work, I’m afraid. You must take care of
yourself; so many of our greatest geniuses have died young. But I see
you’re impatient. Bullbait said--he’s a very close, cautious character,
never likes to commit himself, but he actually said, _he’d think about
it!_”
“Was that all?” groaned the disappointed Dace, relapsing into
despondency.
“All! my dear sir? all! Why, what would you have? When a man like
Bullbait says he’ll think about a thing, I consider it a case of _opus
operatum_--reckon the deed done. If he meant to refuse your paper, what
need has he to think about it? No, Mr. Dace, if you’re not correcting
a proof of the ‘Cough’--psha, ‘Curse,’ I mean--(when one once takes a
wrong idea into one’s head how difficult it is to get it out again!)
before the week is over, I’m no prophet. By the way,” he continued,
as Rose, looking better than pretty in the whitest of muslin frocks,
resigned a comfortable seat to a cross old lady in a gaudy turban, which
gave her the appearance, from the neck upwards, of a plain male Turk,
liberally endowed with the attributes commonly assigned to his nation
by writers of fairytales and other light literature for the nursery,
amongst which man-stealing and cannibalism are two of the least
atrocious--“by the way, I must introduce you to this young lady; a
kindred soul, sir, one of the most rising authoresses of the day.”
“No, I really----” began the Dace, flapping about in the extremity of
his shyness like one of his fishy namesakes abstracted from its native
element.
“Nonsense,” resumed Bracy, enjoying his embarrassment. “Miss Arundel,
let me have the pleasure of making you acquainted with one of our men of
genius, a writer to whom a liberal posterity will no doubt do justice,
however the trammelled sycophants of a clique may combine to delay his
intellectual triumphs.” Then in an aside to J. D. D. he added, “Make
play with her; Bullbait wants her particularly to write for the Olla,
and she hangs back at present: she would merely have to say a word to
him, and you might obtain the run of the magazine.”
Thus urged, John Dace, Dackerel Dace, Esq., called up all the energies
of his nature, and by their assistance overcoming his habitual
sheepishness, he caused to descend upon Rose a torrent of pathetic
small-talk which overwhelmed that young lady till dinner was announced,
when he claimed her arm and floated with her down the stream of
descending humanity until he found himself safely moored by her side at
the dinner-table.
Bracy having thus, as he would himself have expressed it, taken the
change out of that odd fish Dace, and frustrated, for the time being,
the matrimonial tactics of the Brahmin’s widow, was making his way
through the various groups of people in search of Miss MacSalvo, whose
rampant Protestantism might, he considered, afford him some sport if
judiciously handled, when he was suddenly intercepted by the innocent
Susanna with the inquiry, “Pray, Mr. Bracy, can you explain this
wonderful metamorphosis in your friend Mr. Frere? He’s grown quite
handsome.”
Thus appealed to, Bracy regarded attentively the individual in question,
who was good-naturedly turning over a book of prints for Lady Gudgeon, a
little shrivelled old lady, so deaf as to render conversation with her
a pursuit of politeness under difficulties. Having apparently satisfied
himself by this investigation, Bracy replied, “To the best of my belief,
I should say he had only had his hair cut, and was for once dressed like
a gentleman.”
“He is wonderfully clever, is he not?” inquired the lady.
“Clever!” repeated Bracy. “That’s a mild word to apply to such
acquirements as Frere rejoices in. He knows all the languages, living or
dead; possesses an intimate acquaintance with the arts and sciences, has
all the ‘ologies’ at his fingers’ ends, and is not only well up in the
history of man since the creation, but will tell you to a fraction how
many feeds a day kept a Mastodon in good condition two or three thousand
years before we tailless monkeys came into possession of our landed
property.”
“I suppose, as he dresses so strangely in general, that he’s very poor:
all clever people are, I believe,” returned Susanna, with an air of the
most artless _naïveté_, the idea having for the first time occurred to
her that, _faute de mieux_, the philosopher might do to replace the man
of war.
Bracy read her thoughts, and kindly invented a few facts and figures
by which he increased Frere’s income about sevenfold, and gave him a
magnificent stock of expectations, regarding the realisation whereof not
the most forlorn hope ever existed.
Having done this small piece of mischief also, he continued his search
after Miss MacSalvo. The result of these machinations was that Lady
Lombard signified to De Grandeville that he was to hand her down to
dinner; John Dace Dackerel Dace, Esquire, performed the same office by
Rose, much to the disgust of Richard Frere, who had intended to secure
that pleasure for himself, and who being, at the moment in which he
first became aware of his misfortune, captured by the Brahminical widow,
whose silky manner he could not endure, went downstairs in a frame of
mind anything but seraphic. Mrs. Arundel contrived to gain possession
of General Gudgeon, with a view, as she observed to Bracy, to discover,
firstly, his system of feeding, which, from its results, she felt
sure must be an excellent one; and secondly, to ensure his obtaining
a liberal supply of port wine, to the end that she might satisfy a
reprehensible curiosity as to the precise nature of the “gentleman’s
stories” Lady Lombard was so anxious to suppress; which act of
un-_English_-woman-like _espièglerie_ must be set down to the score of a
foreign education, than which we know not a better receipt for unsexing
the minds of the daughters of Albion. When we add that Bracy, with a
face of prim decorum, escorted Miss MacSalvo, a gaunt female, whose
spirit appeared to have warred with her flesh so effectually that there
was little more than skin and bone left, we believe we have accounted
for every member of the party in whom our readers are likely to feel the
slightest interest.
During the era of the fish and soup, by which our modern dinners are
invariably commenced, little is discussed except the viands; but after
the first glass of sherry mute lips begin to unclose, and conversation
flows more freely. Thus it came about that John Dace Dackerel Dace,
Esquire, of the Inner Temple (we admire his name so much that we lose no
opportunity of repeating it), having revolved in his anxious mind some
fitting speech wherewith to accost the talented young authoress, of whom
he felt no inconsiderable degree of dread, fortified himself with an
additional sip of sherry ere he propounded the very original inquiry,
“Whether Miss Arundel was fond of poetry?” Before Rose could answer
this query her neighbour on the other side, one Mr. James Rasper, a
very strong young man with a broad, good-natured, dullish face, demanded
abruptly, in a jovial tone of voice, “Whether she was fond of riding?”
As soon as she could collect her senses, scattered by the raking fire of
this cross-examination, Rose replied “that she was particularly fond of
some kinds of poetry,” which admission she qualified by the apparently
inapposite restriction--“When she was on a very quiet horse.”
J. D. D. was about to follow up his attack by a leading question in
regard to the gushing pathos of the bard of Rydal, when Rasper prevented
him by exclaiming, “No! Do you really?” (which he called “railly”).
“Then I know just the animal that would suit you.” And having thus
mounted his hobby-horse he dashed at everything, as was his wont when
once fairly off, and rattled away, without stopping, till dinner
was finished, and he had talked Rose completely stupid; while
the unfortunate Dace, foiled in his weak attempt to captivate the
influential authoress, plunged again into the deep waters of affliction,
where, pondering over this further postponement of his destiny, he sank,
and was heard no more.
Exactly opposite to Rose and her companions sat Frere and the
simple Susanna, who, labouring zealously at her vocation--viz.,
husband-hunting--threw away much flattery and wasted an incalculable
amount of “sweetness on the desert air.” To all her pretty speeches
Frere returned monosyllabic replies in a tone of voice suggestive of
whole forests full of bears with sore heads, while a cloud hung heavy
on his brow, and his bright eyes flashed envy, hatred, malice, and
all uncharitableness at the unconscious James Rasper. At last Susanna
chanced to inquire whether he were fond of music; and as, without
falsifying facts, he could not answer this negatively, he was forced to
reply, “Yes; I like some sort of music well enough.”
“Some sort only,” returned Susanna in a tone of infantine artlessness.
“Oh! you should like every kind, Mr. Frere. I never hear a merry tune
without longing to dance to it, and pathetic music affects me even
to tears. But what class of music is it that you particularly
prefer?--though I need scarcely ask--operatic, of course.”
“Not I,” growled Frere; “I hate your operas.”
“Oh, Mr. Frere!” exclaimed Simplicity, fixing its large eyes
reproachfully upon him, “you can’t mean what you say. Not like operas!
Why, they are perfectly delicious. Look at a well-filled house--what a
magnificent _coup d’oil!_”
“A set of pigeon-holes full of fools, and a long row of fiddlers,”
rejoined Frere; “I can’t say I see much to admire in that. I went to one
of your operas last year, and a rare waste of time I thought it. It was
one of Walter Scott’s Scotch stories bewitched into Italian. There was
poor Lucy of Lammermoor dressed out like a fashionable drawing-room
belle, singing duets all about love and murder with a pale-faced,
moustachioed puppy, as much like Edgar Ravenswood as I am like the
Belvidere Apollo--a brute engaged, on the strength of a tenor voice, to
make love to all and sundry for the space of four calendar months, for
which ‘labour of love’ he is paid to the tune of £500 a month, a salary
on which better men than himself contrive to live for a whole year.
Then Lucy’s cruel mamma, who is the great feature in the novel, was
metamorphosed into a rascally brother, who growled baritone atrocities
into the ears of a sympathising chorus of indigent needle-women and
assistant carpenters, who act the nobility and gentry of Scotland
at half-a-crown a head and their beer. The first act is all love and
leave-taking, the second all cursing and confusion, and the third all
madness and misery: and that’s what people call a pleasant evening’s
amusement. The only thing that amused me was in the last scene, when the
stipendiary lover kills himself first and sings a long scena afterwards.
I thought that very praiseworthy and persevering of him, and if I’d been
Lucy such a little attention as that would have touched me particularly,
and I dare say it would have done her, only--seeing that she had died
raving mad some five minutes before, and was then drinking bottled
porter in her dressing-room for the good of her voice--she was perhaps
scarcely in a situation to appreciate it.”
“But if you don’t like the singing, I dare say you prefer the ballet?”
suggested Susanna.
“No, I don’t,” was the short, sharp, and decisive reply.
“Not like the ballet? Oh! Mr. Frere, what can be your reason?” inquired
the surprised turtle-dove.
“Well, I have a reason good and sufficient, but I shan’t tell it to
you,” growled Frere; then muttered as an aside, which was, however,
sufficiently audible, “A set of jumping Jezebels skipping about in white
muslin kilts, for they’re nothing better; respectable people ought to be
ashamed of looking at ’em.” Having enunciated this opinion, Frere cast
a doubly ferocious glance at Mr. Rasper, then eloquently describing
to Rose the points of his favourite hunter, and relapsed into surly
monosyllables, beyond which no amount of cooing could again tempt him.
Marmaduke de Grandeville, enthroned in state on the right hand of the
lady of the house, gazed regally around him, and in the plenitude of his
magnificence was wonderful to behold. But, after all, he _was_ human,
and the evident depth and reality of Lady Lombard’s admiration and
respect softened even him, so that ere long he graciously condescended
to eat, drink and talk--not like an ordinary mortal, for that he never
did, but like himself. For instance, the topic under discussion being
the new Houses of Parliament, then in even a more unfinished state than
they are at present, De Grandcville elaborately explained the whole
design, every detail of which he appeared to have at his fingers’
ends--a fact for which he accounted when he allowed it to be understood
that--“Ar--he had--ar--given Barry a hint or two--ar--that Barry was a
very sensible fellow, and not above--ar--acting upon an idea when he saw
it to be a good one;” and it must be owned that as De Grandeville had
only once been in Mr. Barry’s company, on which occasion he had sat
opposite to him at a public dinner, he had made the best use of his
time, and not suffered his powers of penetration to rust for want of
use. Having in imagination put the finishing-stroke to the Victoria
Tower (one of the furthest stretches of fancy on record, we should
conceive), he contrived to work the conversation round to military
matters, set General Gudgeon right on several points referring to
battles in the Peninsula at which the General had himself been present,
and gave so graphic an account of Waterloo, that to this day
Lady Lombard believes he acted as Amateur Aide-du-Camp and Privy
Counsellor-in-Chief to the Duke of Wellington on that memorable
occasion. He then talked about the De Grandeville estates till every one
present believed him to be an immense landed proprietor, and wound up
by the anecdote of William of Normandy and the original De Grandeville,
which, with a slight biographical sketch of certain later worthies of
the family (one of whom, Sir Solomon de Grandeville, he declared to have
suggested to King Charles the advisability of hiding in the oak), lasted
till the ladies quitted the room, when, by Lady Lombard’s request, he
assumed her vacant chair, and did the honours with dignified courtesy.
Bracy, who during dinner had appeared most devoted to Miss MacSalvo,
now endeavoured to render himself universally agreeable. He applauded
General Gudgeon’s stories, and plied him vigorously with port wine,
which, as Mrs. Arundel had taken care the servants did not neglect to
replenish his wine-glass at dinner, began to tell upon him visibly.
He elicited the names, pedigrees, and performances of all Mr. James
Rasper’s horses, and received from that fast young man a confidential
statement of his last year’s betting account, together with a minute
detail of how he had executed that singular horticultural operation
yclept “hedging on the Oaks,” during which dry recital his throat
required constantly moistening with wine, in spite of which precaution
his voice grew exceedingly thick and husky before the sitting concluded.
On two individuals of the party, however, all Bracy’s efforts were
thrown away: Frere continued silent and moody, only opening his lips
occasionally, shortly and sternly to contradict some assertion, and
relapsing into his former taciturnity; while J. D. D. sat silently
bewailing his postponed destiny over a glass of water and two
ratafia cakes, which seemed to possess the singular property of never
diminishing.
At length the gentlemen rose to go upstairs, a matter easily
accomplished by every one but General Gudgeon, who made three
unsuccessful attempts to get under weigh, and then looked helplessly
round for assistance. Bracy, the ever-ready, was at hand in an instant.
“My dear General, let me lend you an arm. You’re cramped from sitting so
long.”
“Tha-a-ank you, my dear bo-o-oy,” returned the gallant officer, who
appeared to have been seized with a sudden, wild determination to alter
the English language by dividing monosyllables into three parts, and
otherwise fancifully to embellish his mother-tongue. “Tha-a-ank you!
It’s that confou-wow-wow-nded gun-shot wound in my knee-ee. I got it at
Bu-Bu-Bu--no! not Bucellas. What is it, eh?”
“Busaco,” suggested Bracy, fearing he had over-dosed his patient.
However, when once the General got upon his legs he used them to
better advantage than might have been expected, and proceeded upstairs,
“rolling grand,” as that prince of clever-simple biographers (to adopt
one of Mrs. Browning’s double-barrelled adjectives), Boswell, said of
his ponderous idol. Encountering Frere at the foot of the staircase, he
stumbled against that gentleman with so much force as nearly to knock
him down. As he recovered his footing Frere turned angrily towards his
assailant; but his irritation changed to an expression of contemptuous
pity as his eye fell upon the white hair of General Gudgeon, and
stepping on one side, he allowed him to pass. He was quietly following,
when Mr. James Rasper, who had witnessed his discomfiture with an
ill-bred laugh, excited by the wine he had drank, attempted, by way of a
stupid practical joke, to repeat General Gudgeon’s involuntary assault,
and reckoning Frere a good-natured, quiet sort of person, not likely to
resent such a jest, pretended to stumble against him, and pushed past
him when about half-way up the first flight of stairs. Never did a man
(to use a common but forcible expression) “mistake his customer” more
completely. In an instant Frere had collared him, dragged him down a
step or two, then retaining his grasp of the coat-collar, seized him
by the waistband of his trousers, and by a great exertion of strength,
swung him clear over the banisters, lowered him till his feet were about
a yard from the floor, and then let him drop. After which performance,
having glanced round to see that his victim was not injured by the fall,
he coolly pursued his way upstairs.