"Well, there is nothing like getting into _select_ society after all!"
said Miss Salter to her sister, when they had retired for the night.
"Who would have thought, six months ago, of both of us having baronets
for lovers? I dare say you are right, Grace, and that this marriage of
my father's (for I suppose now it will take place), is the best thing
that could have happened for us. And I know, I'm determined when I'm
married to Sir William Orm (and he has gone great lengths, I assure
you), that I will visit none but titled people. And tell me, how did
you and Sir James get on?"
"Oh, delightfully!" answered her sister, "he asked me if I thought him
very handsome; and of course I said I did; and then he laughed so. And
then he asked me if I thought the silk of his waistcoat a pretty
pattern; and I said I did; and he told me a lady chose it for him. And
he asked me if I was inclined to be jealous; and I said if I thought he
had any regard for me, I'd be jealous of every lady that looked at him;
and he said, 'would you indeed?' and laughed again. And he asked me if I
admired his dancing as much as most people did, for that he was thought
a first rate dancer; and I said that nobody could help admiring his
dancing. And he asked me if I could think what in the world it was that
made so many young ladies refuse to dance with him; and I said it was,
to be sure, because he danced so well that they were afraid it would
make their own bad dancing the more noticed. 'And do you really think
so?' said he, laughing again. And so, at last, only think! he asked me
if I'd like very much to be my lady! and I said I should of all things.
And so then he laughed, and said he could make any body a lady he
chose."
"And I hope you said you wished he'd make you one," interrupted her
sister.
"Why I thought of it," replied Miss Grace, "but I was afraid people
would hear me; if we had been quite by ourselves, I would have said it."
"What nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Salter. "If you can get to be my lady,
and have fifteen thousand a-year at your command, I think you can
afford to defy people's comments about how you came by it! You said, the
other day, that if luck knocked once at your door, it shouldn't have to
knock twice. I'm sure it knocked then, with a vengeance, and such a
knock as comes to the doors of but few, I can tell you; and you the fool
not to answer it. It's such as you'll never hear again, with your little
ugly black-a-moor face. And when you had the good fortune to get hold of
a fool that didn't know the difference, if you dosed his draught with
flattery enough, you should have said or done anything to please him,
blockhead that you are."
"You needn't be so abusive, Eliza," said poor Grace, almost whimpering,
"I'm sure I thought I was barefaced enough, this time, to please you."
"Such stuff, with your mock modesty," interrupted Miss Salter.
"And as for a black face, it's as good as a red one, any day," continued
Grace, "and rather _genteeler_ for that matter," she added, "since
you're grown so mighty fond of gentility."
Miss Salter's rage now knew no bounds, and consequently became so coarse
and disgusting in its manifestation, that we shall forbear any further
representation of the scene.
Vulgar people are bad enough in good humour. Propitious fate deliver us
from them when they are out of temper!
Before proceeding further with our history, we may as well take the
present opportunity of sketching slightly the origin of this same titled
personage, by a connection with whom the Misses Salter expected to gain
so much consequence. Lady Flamborough was the only child of an
hotel-keeper, who, in his hospitable calling, had amassed enormous
wealth. He had not always, however, been the great man, even in his own
line, which he ultimately became. His daughter, therefore, to the age of
five or six, was brought up, literally running about in a very minor
establishment, little better, in short, than a road-side posting-house;
and, being a pretty, rosy, fat child, had, up to that age, been the pet
and plaything, not only of her father, (she had no mother living), but
of every waiter and hostler in and about the house. And often had she
sat on her father's knee, while he drank his ale in the bar, and, when
the jest and the tale went round, which were, as yet, to the ear of the
child, a foreign tongue, laughed merrily for very glee at seeing others
laugh. But alas! amid the sounds and sights of scenes like these, native
delicacy, even at this early age, was lost. For callousness is not so
much a wrong bias given, as a class of feelings, out of which some of
the most valuable traits of character are hereafter to be formed,
destroyed; and if the material be gone, how can the superstructure be
raised?
The child was, after this, sent to expensive boarding-schools, and as
her father's fortunes rose, given every possible accomplishment. In
these, and her being very pretty, Mr. * * * *, afterwards Lord
Flamborough, but then a younger brother, and of course poor, found some
apology for overlooking the lady's want of birth, and appropriating her
immense wealth, which was his true object.
Soon after his marriage, his brother died, and he succeeded to the title
and estates; and now, bitterly repenting his ill-assorted union,
behaved with neglect, and even contempt, towards his wife. Upon which
the lady, partly out of revenge, and partly out of levity, gave a
favourable reception to the addresses of a lover in no very exalted
sphere of life.
Proceedings were immediately instituted to obtain legal redress; but
before the divorce had passed the house, his lordship, who had
previously been in a bad state of health, chanced to die.
Lady Flamborough, therefore, though of course banished from all tolerable
society, still continued to be Lady Flamborough, and to enjoy a handsome
jointure. On her total expulsion from the set among whom her marriage
had, for a time, given her a place, she descended till she found her
level among that, rationally speaking, only disreputable class, made up
of those who have lost caste by their own wilful departures from
principle, and those who are contemptible enough to be willing to
associate with vice, for the love of the _tarnished tinsel_ which once
was rank; forgetful that titles and honours were first invented as
badges of the virtuous or heroic deeds of those on whom they were
bestowed; that only as such they have any meaning; and that, when borne
by the vicious, they become, in a peculiar degree, objects for the
finger of scorn to point at, and seem to claim, as their especial
privilege, the contempt and derision of mankind.
"'Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great."
Titles are attainted for high treason, why should they not be so for
every treason against good morals? Are not good morals as essential to
the well-being of the community as good Government?
Nay, what is Government? Power to enforce moral order. Why then should
not a sin against the end be visited as severely as a sin against the
means?
Are men, whose vices invade the peace of the domestic hearth, and sunder
the sacred ties of life,--or men who court luxury in foreign climes,
while evading the payment of their just debts at home; consigning the
while industrious tradesmen and their helpless families to ruin;--are
men, in short, who are no longer men of honour, to be still misnamed
_noble men_? Is it not the natural tendency of such misnomers to bring
nobility into contempt? And is not this an injustice to the truly
_noble_?
Are the vicious to be allowed to sully honours till the honourable
cannot wear them?
Nobility would indeed be beautiful were it a guarantee of virtue! titles
would indeed be honours, if the men who bore them must be pure! And if
the certainty that those titles for ages had existed in that family,
were thus an assurance that morality for centuries had not been sinned
against in that house, then indeed, would rank be nobility. Let us not
be misunderstood: let us not be supposed to mean that men of rank are
more likely to offend against the laws of morality than other men; on
the contrary, education and circumstances ought to render them less so:
we simply assert, that when they do so offend, such offence ought to
degrade them from their rank as _noble men_.
How glorious would be that land that first enacted such a law! how
worthy its monarch of that greatest of his titles, "Defender of the
Faith!" For what is this faith? Religion! and the author of Religion has
defined it thus:
"True religion and undefiled, before God and the Father is this: to
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keep himself
unspotted from the world."