IN WHICH THE DAUGHTERS OF THE GREAT MEL HAVE TO DIGEST HIM AT DINNER
You must know, if you would form an estimate of the Countess’s heroic
impudence, that a rumour was current in Lymport that the fair and
well-developed Louisa Harrington, in her sixteenth year, did advisedly,
and with the intention of rendering the term indefinite, entrust her
guileless person to Mr. George Uplift’s honourable charge. The rumour,
unflavoured by absolute malignity, was such; and it went on to say,
that the sublime Mel, alive to the honour of his family, followed the
fugitives with a pistol, and with a horsewhip, that he might chastise
the offender according to the degree of his offence. It was certain
that he had not used the pistol: it was said that he had used the whip.
The details of the interview between Mel and Mr. George were numerous,
but at the same time various. Some declared that he put a pistol to Mr.
George’s ear, and under pressure of that persuader got him into the
presence of a clergyman, when he turned sulky; and when the pistol was
again produced, the ceremony would have been performed, had not the
outraged Church cried out for help. Some vowed that Mr. George had
referred all questions implying a difference between himself and Mel to
their mutual fists for decision. At any rate, Mr. George turned up in
Fallowfield subsequently; the fair Louisa, unhurt and with a quiet
mind, in Lymport; and this amount of truth the rumours can be reduced
to—that Louisa and Mr. George had been acquainted. Rumour and gossip
know how to build: they always have some solid foundation, however
small. Upwards of twelve years had run since Louisa went to the wife of
the brewer—a period quite long enough for Mr. George to forget any one
in; and she was altogether a different creature; and, as it was true
that Mr. George was a dull one, she was, after the test she had put him
to, justified in hoping that Mel’s progeny might pass unchallenged
anywhere out of Lymport. So, with Mr. George facing her at table, the
Countess sat down, determined to eat and be happy.
A man with the education and tastes of a young country squire is not
likely to know much of the character of women; and of the marvellous
power they have of throwing a veil of oblivion between themselves and
what they don’t want to remember, few men know much. Mr. George had
thought, when he saw Mrs. Strike leaning to Evan, and heard she was a
Harrington, that she was rather like the Lymport family; but the
reappearance of Mrs. Strike, the attention of the Duke of Belfield to
her, and the splendid tactics of the Countess, which had extinguished
every thought in the thought of himself, drove Lymport out of his mind.
There were some dinner guests at the table—people of Fallowfield,
Beckley, and Bodley. The Countess had the diplomatist on one side, the
Duke on the other. Caroline was under the charge of Sir Franks. The
Countess, almost revelling in her position opposite Mr. George, was
ambitious to lead the conversation, and commenced, smiling at Melville:
“We are to be spared politics to-day? I think politics and cookery do
not assimilate.”
“I’m afraid you won’t teach the true Briton to agree with you,” said
Melville, shaking his head over the sums involved by this British
propensity.
“No,” said Seymour. “Election dinners are a part of the Constitution”:
and Andrew laughed: “They make Radicals pay as well as Tories, so it’s
pretty square.”
The topic was taken up, flagged, fell, and was taken up again. And then
Harry Jocelyn said:
“I say, have you worked the flags yet? The great Mel must have his
flags.”
The flags were in the hands of ladies, and ladies would look to the
rosettes, he was told.
Then a lady of the name of Barrington laughed lightly, and said:
“Only, pray, my dear Harry, don’t call your uncle the ‘Great Mel’ at
the election.”
“Oh! very well,” quoth Harry: “why not?”
“You’ll get him laughed at—that’s all.”
“Oh! well, then, I won’t,” said Harry, whose wits were attracted by the
Countess’s visage.
Mrs. Barrington turned to Seymour, her neighbour, and resumed:
“He really would be laughed at. There was a tailor—he was called the
Great Mel—and he tried to stand for Fallowfield once. I believe he had
the support of Squire Uplift—George’s uncle—and others. They must have
done it for fun! Of course he did not get so far as the hustings; but I
believe he had flags, and principles, and all sorts of things worked
ready. He certainly canvassed.”
“A tailor—canvassed—for Parliament?” remarked an old Dowager, the
mother of Squire Copping. “My what are we coming to next?”
“He deserved to get in,” quoth Aunt Bel: “After having his principles
worked ready, to eject the man was infamous.”
Amazed at the mine she had sprung, the Countess sat through it,
lamenting the misery of owning a notorious father. Happily Evan was
absent, on his peaceful blessed bed!
Bowing over wine with the Duke, she tried another theme, while still,
like a pertinacious cracker, the Great Mel kept banging up and down the
table.
“We are to have a feast in the open air, I hear. What you call
pic-nic.”
The Duke believed there was a project of the sort.
“How exquisitely they do those things in Portugal! I suppose there
would be no scandal in my telling something now. At least we are out of
Court-jurisdiction.”
“Scandal of the Court!” exclaimed his Grace, in mock horror.
“The option is yours to listen. The Queen, when young, was sweetly
pretty; a divine complexion; and a habit of smiling on everybody. I
presume that the young Habral, son of the first magistrate of Lisbon,
was also smiled on. Most innocently, I would swear! But it operated on
the wretched youth! He spent all his fortune in the purchase and
decoration of a fairy villa, bordering on the Val das Rosas, where the
Court enjoyed its rustic festivities, and one day a storm! all the
ladies hurried their young mistress to the house where the young Habral
had been awaiting her for ages. None so polished as he! Musicians
started up, the floors were ready, and torches beneath them!—there was
a feast of exquisite wines and viands sparkling. Quite enchantment. The
girl-Queen was in ecstasies. She deigned a dance with the young Habral,
and then all sat down to supper; and in the middle of it came the cry
of Fire! The Queen shrieked; the flames were seen all around; and if
the arms of the young Habral were opened to save her, or perish, could
she cast a thought on Royalty, and refuse? The Queen was saved the
villa was burnt; the young Habral was ruined, but, if I know a
Portuguese, he was happy till he died, and well remunerated! For he had
held a Queen to his heart! So that was a pic-nic!”
The Duke slightly inclined his head.
“Vrai Portughez derrendo,” he said. “They tell a similar story in
Spain, of one of the Queens—I forget her name. The difference between
us and your Peninsular cavaliers is, that we would do as much for
uncrowned ladies.”
“Ah! your Grace!” The Countess swam in the pleasure of a nobleman’s
compliment.
“What’s the story?” interposed Aunt Bel.
An outline of it was given her. Thank heaven, the table was now rid of
the Great Mel. For how could he have any, the remotest relation with
Queens and Peninsular pic-nics? You shall hear.
Lady Jocelyn happened to catch a word or two of the story.
“Why,” said she, “that’s English! Franks, you remember the ballet
divertissement they improvised at the Bodley race-ball, when the
magnificent footman fired a curtain and caught up Lady Racial, and
carried her—”
“Heaven knows where!” cried Sir Franks. “I remember it perfectly. It
was said that the magnificent footman did it on purpose to have that
pleasure.”
“Ay, of course,” Hamilton took him up. “They talked of prosecuting the
magnificent footman.”
“Ay,” followed Seymour, “and nobody could tell where the magnificent
footman bolted. He vanished into thin air.”
“Ay, of course,” Melville struck in; “and the magic enveloped the lady
for some time.”
At this point Mr. George Uplift gave a horse-laugh. He jerked in his
seat excitedly.
“Bodley race-ball!” he cried; and looking at Lady Jocelyn: “Was your
ladyship there, then? Why—ha! ha! why, you have seen the Great Mel,
then! That tremendous footman was old Mel himself!”
Lady Jocelyn struck both her hands on the table, and rested her large
grey eyes, full of humorous surprise, on Mr. George.
There was a pause, and then the ladies and gentlemen laughed.
“Yes,” Mr. George went on, “that was old Mel. I’ll swear to him.”
“And that’s how it began?” murmured Lady Jocelyn.
Mr. George nodded at his plate discreetly.
“Well,” said Lady Jocelyn, leaning back, and lifting her face upward in
the discursive fulness of her fancy, “I feel I am not robbed. ‘Il y a
des miracles, et j’en ai vu’. One’s life seems more perfect when one
has seen what nature can do. The fellow was stupendous! I conceive him
present. Who’ll fire a house for me? Is it my deficiency of attraction,
or a total dearth of gallant snobs?”
The Countess was drowned. The muscles of her smiles were horribly stiff
and painful. Caroline was getting pale. Could it be accident that thus
resuscitated Mel, their father, and would not let the dead man die? Was
not malice at the bottom of it? The Countess, though she hated Mr.
George infinitely, was clear-headed enough to see that Providence alone
was trying her. No glances were exchanged between him and Laxley, or
Drummond.
Again Mel returned to his peace, and again he had to come forth.
“Who was this singular man you were speaking about just now?” Mrs.
Evremonde asked.
Lady Jocelyn answered her: “The light of his age. The embodied protest
against our social prejudice. Combine—say, Mirabeau and Alcibiades, and
the result is the Lymport Tailor:—he measures your husband in the
morning: in the evening he makes love to you, through a series of
pantomimic transformations. He was a colossal Adonis, and I’m sorry
he’s dead!”
“But did the man get into society?” said Mrs. Evremonde. “How did he
manage that?”
“Yes, indeed! and what sort of a society!” the dowager Copping
interjected. “None but bachelor-tables, I can assure you. Oh! I
remember him. They talked of fetching him to Dox Hall. I said, No,
thank you, Tom; this isn’t your Vauxhall.”
“A sharp retort,” said Lady Jocelyn, “a most conclusive rhyme; but
you’re mistaken. Many families were glad to see him, I hear. And he
only consented to be treated like a footman when he dressed like one.
The fellow had some capital points. He fought two or three duels, and
behaved like a man. Franks wouldn’t have him here, or I would have
received him. I hear that, as a conteur, he was inimitable. In short,
he was a robust Brummel, and the Regent of low life.”
This should have been Mel’s final epitaph.
Unhappily, Mrs. Melville would remark, in her mincing manner, that the
idea of the admission of a tailor into society seemed very unnatural;
and Aunt Bel confessed that her experience did not comprehend it.
“As to that,” said Lady Jocelyn, “phenomena are unnatural. The rules of
society are lightened by the exceptions. What I like in this Mel is,
that though he was a snob, and an impostor, he could still make himself
respected by his betters. He was honest, so far; he acknowledged his
tastes, which were those of Franks, Melville, Seymour, and George—the
tastes of a gentleman. I prefer him infinitely to your cowardly
democrat, who barks for what he can’t get, and is generally beastly. In
fact, I’m not sure that I haven’t a secret passion for the great
tailor.”
“After all, old Mel wasn’t so bad,” Mr. George Uplift chimed in.
“Granted a tailor—you didn’t see a bit of it at table. I’ve known him
taken for a lord. And when he once got hold of you, you couldn’t give
him up. The squire met him first in the coach, one winter. He took him
for a Russian nobleman—didn’t find out what he was for a month or so.
Says Mel, ‘Yes, I make clothes. You find the notion unpleasant; guess
how disagreeable it is to me.’ The old squire laughed, and was glad to
have him at Croftlands as often as he chose to come. Old Mel and I used
to spar sometimes; but he’s gone, and I should like to shake his fist
again.”
Then Mr. George told the “Bath” story, and episodes in Mel’s career as
Marquis; and while he held the ear of the table, Rose, who had not
spoken a word, and had scarcely eaten a morsel during dinner, studied
the sisters with serious eyes. Only when she turned them from the
Countess to Mrs. Strike, they were softened by a shadowy drooping of
the eyelids, as if for some reason she deeply pitied that lady.
Next to Rose sat Drummond, with a face expressive of cynical enjoyment.
He devoted uncommon attention to the Countess, whom he usually shunned
and overlooked. He invited her to exchange bows over wine, in the
fashion of that day, and the Countess went through the performance with
finished grace and ease. Poor Andrew had all the time been brushing
back his hair, and making strange deprecatory sounds in his throat,
like a man who felt bound to assure everybody at table he was perfectly
happy and comfortable.
“Material enough for a Sartoriad,” said Drummond to Lady Jocelyn.
“Excellent. Pray write it forthwith, Drummond”, replied her ladyship;
and as they exchanged talk unintelligible to the Countess, this lady
observed to the Duke:
“It is a relief to have buried that subject.”
The Duke smiled, raising an eyebrow; but the persecuted Countess
perceived she had been much too hasty when Drummond added,
“I’ll make a journey to Lymport in a day or two, and master his
history.”
“Do,” said her ladyship; and flourishing her hand, “‘I sing the Prince
of Snobs!’”
“Oh, if it’s about old Mel, I’ll sing you material enough,” said Mr.
George. “There! you talk of it’s being unnatural, his dining out at
respectable tables. Why, I believe—upon my honour, I believe it’s a
fact—he’s supped and thrown dice with the Regent.”
Lady Jocelyn clapped her hands. “A noble culmination, Drummond! The
man’s an Epic!”
“Well, I think old Mel was equal to it,” Mr. George pursued. “He gave
me pretty broad hints; and this is how it was, if it really happened,
you know. Old Mel had a friend; some say he was more. Well, that was a
fellow, a great gambler. I dare say you’ve heard of him—Burley
Bennet—him that won Ryelands Park of one of the royal dukes—died worth
upwards of £100,000; and old Mel swore he ought to have had it, and
would if he hadn’t somehow offended him. He left the money to Admiral
Harrington, and he was a relation of Mel’s.”
“But are we then utterly mixed up with tailors?” exclaimed Mrs.
Barrington.
“Well, those are the facts,” said Mr. George.
The wine made the young squire talkative. It is my belief that his
suspicions were not awake at that moment, and that, like any other
young country squire, having got a subject he could talk on, he did not
care to discontinue it. The Countess was past the effort to attempt to
stop him. She had work enough to keep her smile in the right place.
Every dinner may be said to have its special topic, just as every age
has its marked reputation. They are put up twice or thrice, and have to
contend with minor lights, and to swallow them, and then they command
the tongues of men and flow uninterruptedly. So it was with the great
Mel upon this occasion. Curiosity was aroused about him. Aunt Bel
agreed with Lady Jocelyn that she would have liked to know the mighty
tailor. Mrs. Shorne but very imperceptibly protested against the
notion, and from one to another it ran. His Grace of Belfield expressed
positive approval of Mel as one of the old school.
“Si ce n’est pas le gentilhomme, au moins, c’est le gentilhomme
manqué,” said Lady Jocelyn. “He is to be regretted, Duke. You are
right. The stuff was in him, but the Fates were unkind. I stretch out
my hand to the pauvre diable.”
“I think one learns more from the mock magnifico than from anything
else,” observed his Grace.
“When the lion saw the donkey in his own royal skin,” said Aunt Bel,
“add the rhyme at your discretion—he was a wiser lion, that’s all.”
“And the ape that strives to copy one—he’s an animal of judgement,”
said Lady Jocelyn. “We will be tolerant to the tailor, and the Countess
must not set us down as a nation of shopkeepers: philosophically
tolerant.”
The Countess started, and ran a little broken “Oh!” affably out of her
throat, dipped her lips to her tablenapkin, and resumed her smile.
“Yes,” pursued her ladyship; “old Mel stamps the age gone by. The
gallant adventurer tied to his shop! Alternate footman and marquis, out
of intermediate tailor! Isn’t there something fine in his buffoon
imitation of the real thing? I feel already that old Mel belongs to me.
Where is the great man buried? Where have they set the funeral brass
that holds his mighty ashes?”
Lady Jocelyn’s humour was fully entered into by the men. The women
smiled vacantly, and had a common thought that it was ill-bred of her
to hold forth in that way at table, and unfeminine of any woman to
speak continuously anywhere.
“Oh, come!” cried Mr. George, who saw his own subject snapped away from
him by sheer cleverness; “old Mel wasn’t only a buffoon, my lady, you
know. Old Mel had his qualities. He was as much a ‘no-nonsense’ fellow,
in his way, as a magistrate, or a minister.”
“Or a king, or a constable,” Aunt Bel helped his illustration.
“Or a prince, a poll-parrot, a Perigord-pie,” added Drummond, whose
gravity did not prevent Mr. George from seeing that he was laughed at.
“Well, then, now, listen to this,” said Mr. George, leaning his two
hands on the table resolutely. Dessert was laid, and, with a full glass
beside him, and a pear to peel, he determined to be heard.
The Countess’s eyes went mentally up to the vindictive heavens. She
stole a glance at Caroline, and was alarmed at her excessive pallor.
Providence had rescued Evan from this!
“Now, I know this to be true,” Mr. George began. “When old Mel was
alive, he and I had plenty of sparring, and that—but he’s dead, and
I’ll do him justice. I spoke of Burley Bennet just now. Now, my lady,
old Burley was, I think, Mel’s half-brother, and he came, I know,
somewhere out of Drury Lane—one of the courts near the theatre—I don’t
know much of London. However, old Mel wouldn’t have that. Nothing less
than being born in St. James’s Square would content old Mel, and he
must have a Marquis for his father. I needn’t be more particular.
Before ladies—ahem! But Burley was the shrewd hand of the two. Oh-h-h!
such a card! He knew the way to get into company without false
pretences. Well, I told you, he had lots more than £100,000—some said
two—and he gave up Ryelands; never asked for it, though he won it.
Consequence was, he commanded the services of somebody pretty high. And
it was he got Admiral Harrington made a captain, posted, commodore,
admiral, and K.C.B., all in seven years! In the Army it’d have been
half the time, for the H.R.H. was stronger in that department. Now, I
know old Burley promised Mel to leave him his money, and called the
Admiral an ungrateful dog. He didn’t give Mel much at a time—now and
then a twenty-pounder or so—I saw the cheques. And old Mel expected the
money, and looked over his daughters like a turkey-cock. Nobody good
enough for them. Whacking handsome gals—three! used to be called the
Three Graces of Lymport. And one day Burley comes and visits Mel, and
sees the girls. And he puts his finger on the eldest, I can tell you.
She was a spanker! She was the handsomest gal, I think, ever I saw. For
the mother’s a fine woman, and what with the mother, and what with old
Mel—”
“We won’t enter into the mysteries of origin,” quoth Lady Jocelyn.
“Exactly, my lady. Oh, your servant, of course. Before ladies. A Burley
Bennet, I said. Long and short was, he wanted to take her up to London.
Says old Mel: ‘London’s a sad place.’—‘Place to make money,’ says
Burley. ‘That’s not work for a young gal,’ says Mel. Long and short
was, Burley wanted to take her, and Mel wouldn’t let her go.” Mr.
George lowered his tone, and mumbled, “Don’t know how to explain it
very well before ladies. What Burley wanted was—it wasn’t quite
honourable, you know, though there was a good deal of spangles on it,
and whether a real H.R.H., or a Marquis, or a Viscount, I can’t say,
but—the offer was tempting to a tradesman. ‘No,’ says Mel; like a chap
planting his flagstaff and sticking to it. I believe that to get her to
go with him, Burley offered to make a will on the spot, and to leave
every farthing of his money and property—upon my soul, I believe it to
be true—to Mel and his family, if he’d let the gal go. ‘No,’ says Mel.
I like the old bird! And Burley got in a rage, and said he’d leave
every farthing to the sailor. Says Mel: ‘I’m a poor tradesman; but I
have and I always will have the feelings of a gentleman, and they’re
more to me than hard cash, and the honour of my daughter, sir, is
dearer to me than my blood. Out of the house!’ cries Mel. And away old
Burley went, and left every penny to the sailor, Admiral Harrington,
who never noticed ’em an inch. Now, there!”
All had listened to Mr. George attentively, and he had slurred the
apologetic passages, and emphasized the propitiatory “before ladies” in
a way to make himself well understood a generation back.
“Bravo, old Mel!” rang the voice of Lady Jocelyn, and a murmur ensued,
in the midst of which Rose stood up and hurried round the table to Mrs.
Strike, who was seen to rise from her chair; and as she did so, the
ill-arranged locks fell from their unnatural restraint down over her
shoulders; one great curl half forward to the bosom, and one behind her
right ear. Her eyes were wide, her whole face, neck, and fingers, white
as marble. The faintest tremor of a frown on her brows, and her shut
lips, marked the continuation of some internal struggle, as if with her
last conscious force she kept down a flood of tears and a wild outcry
which it was death to hold. Sir Franks felt his arm touched, and looked
up, and caught her, as Rose approached. The Duke and other gentlemen
went to his aid, and as the beautiful woman was borne out white and
still as a corpse, the Countess had this dagger plunged in her heart
from the mouth of Mr. George, addressing Miss Carrington:
“I swear I didn’t do it on purpose. She’s Carry Harrington, old Mel’s
daughter, as sure as she’s flesh and blood!”