Relates to Mr. Harry Foker’s Affairs
Since that fatal but delightful night in Grosvenor Place, Mr. Harry
Foker’s heart had been in such a state of agitation as you would hardly
have thought so great a philosopher could endure. When we remember what
good advice he had given to Pen in former days, how an early wisdom and
knowledge of the world had manifested itself in this gifted youth; how
a constant course of self-indulgence, such as becomes a gentleman of
his means and expectations, ought by right to have increased his
cynicism, and made him, with every succeeding day of his life, care
less and less for every individual in the world, with the single
exception of Mr. Harry Foker, one may wonder that he should fall into
the mishap to which most of us are subject once or twice in our lives,
and disquiet his great mind about a woman. But Foker, though early
wise, was still a man. He could no more escape the common lot than
Achilles, or Ajax, or Lord Nelson, or Adam our first father, and now,
his time being come, young Harry became a victim to Love, the
All-conqueror.
When he went to the Back Kitchen that night after quitting Arthur
Pendennis at his staircase-door in Lamb Court, the gin-twist and
devilled turkey had no charms for him, the jokes of his companions fell
flatly on his ear; and when Mr. Hodgen, the singer of ‘The Body
Snatcher,’ had a new chant even more dreadful and humorous than that
famous composition, Foker, although he appeared his friend, and said
“Bravo, Hodgen,” as common politeness and his position as one of the
chiefs of the Back Kitchen bound him to do, yet never distinctly heard
one word of the song, which under its title of ‘The Cat in the
Cupboard,’ Hodgen has since rendered so famous. Late and very tired, he
slipped into his private apartments at home and sought the downy
pillow, but his slumbers were disturbed by the fever of his soul, and
the very instant that he woke from his agitated sleep, the image of
Miss Amory presented itself to him, and said, “Here I am, I am your
princess and beauty, you have discovered me, and shall care for nothing
else hereafter.”
Heavens, how stale and distasteful his former pursuits and friendships
appeared to him! He had not been, up to the present time, much
accustomed to the society of females of his own rank in life. When he
spoke of such, he called them “modest women.” That virtue which, let us
hope, they possessed, had not hitherto compensated to Mr. Foker for the
absence of more lively qualities which most of his own relatives did
not enjoy, and which he found in Mesdemoiselles, the ladies of the
theatre. His mother, though good and tender, did not amuse her boy; his
cousins, the daughters of his maternal uncle, the respectable Earl of
Rosherville, wearied him beyond measure. One was blue, and a geologist;
one was a horsewoman, and smoked cigars; one was exceedingly Low
Church, and had the most heterodox views on religious matters; at
least, so the other said, who was herself of the very Highest Church
faction, and made the cupboard in her room into an oratory, and fasted
on every Friday in the year. Their paternal house of Drummington, Foker
could very seldom be got to visit. He swore he had rather go on the
treadmill than stay there. He was not much beloved by the inhabitants.
Lord Erith, Lord Rosherville’s heir, considered his cousin a low
person, of deplorably vulgar habits and manners; while Foker, and with
equal reason, voted Erith a prig and a dullard, the nightcap of the
House of Commons, the Speaker’s opprobrium, the dreariest of
philanthropic spouters. Nor could George Robert, Earl of Gravesend and
Rosherville, ever forget that on one evening when he condescended to
play at billiards with his nephew, that young gentleman poked his
lordship in the side with his cue, and said, “Well, old cock, I’ve seen
many a bad stroke in my life, but I never saw such a bad one as that
there.” He played the game out with angelic sweetness of temper, for
Harry was his guest as well as his nephew; but he was nearly having a
fit in the night; and he kept to his own rooms until young Harry
quitted Drummington on his return to Oxbridge, where the interesting
youth was finishing his education at the time when the occurrence took
place. It was an awful blow to the venerable earl; the circumstance was
never alluded to in the family; he shunned Foker whenever he came to
see them in London or in the country, and could hardly be brought to
gasp out a “How d’ye do?” to the young blasphemer. But he would not
break his sister Agnes’s heart, by banishing Harry from the family
altogether; nor, indeed, could he afford to break with Mr. Foker,
senior, between whom and his lordship there had been many private
transactions, producing an exchange of bank-cheques from Mr. Foker, and
autographs from the earl himself, with the letters I O U written over
his illustrious signature.
Besides the four daughters of Lord Gravesend whose various qualities
have been enumerated in the former paragraph, his lordship was blessed
with a fifth girl, the Lady Ana Milton, who, from her earliest years
and nursery, had been destined to a peculiar position in life. It was
ordained between her parents and her aunt, that when Mr Harry Foker
attained a proper age, Lady Ann should become his wife. The idea had
been familiar to her mind when she yet wore pinafores, and when Harry
the dirtiest of little boys, used to come back with black eyes from
school to Drummington, or to his father’s house of Logwood, where Lady
Ann lived, much with her aunt. Both of the young people coincided with
the arrangement proposed by the elders, without any protests or
difficulty. It no more entered Lady Ann’s mind to question the order of
her father, than it would have entered Esther’s to dispute the commands
of Ahasuerus. The heir-apparent of the house of Foker was also
obedient, for when the old gentleman said, “Harry, your uncle and I
have agreed that when you’re of a proper age, you’ll marry Lady Ann.
She won’t have any money, but she’s good blood, and a good one to look
at, and I shall make you comfortable. If you refuse, you’ll have your
mother’s jointure, and two hundred a year during my life”—Harry, who
knew that his sire, though a man of few words, was yet implicitly to be
trusted, acquiesced at once in the parental decree, and said, “Well,
sir, if Ann’s agreeable, I say ditto. She’s not a bad-looking girl.”
“And she has the best blood in England, sir. Your mother’s blood, your
own blood, sir,” said the Brewer. “There’s nothing like it, sir.”
“Well, sir, as you like it,” Harry replied. “When you want me, please
ring the bell. Only there’s no hurry, and I hope you’ll give us a long
day. I should like to have my fling out before I marry.”
“Fling away, Harry,” answered the benevolent father. “Nobody prevents
you, do they?” And so very little more was said upon this subject, and
Mr. Harry pursued those amusements in life which suited him best; and
hung up a little picture of his cousin in his sitting-room, amidst the
French prints, the favourite actresses and dancers, the racing and
coaching works of art, which suited his taste and formed his gallery.
It was an insignificant little picture, representing a simple round
face with ringlets; and it made, as it must be confessed, a very poor
figure by the side of Mademoiselle Petitot, dancing over a rainbow, or
Mademoiselle Redowa, grinning in red boots and a lancer’s cap.
Being engaged and disposed of, Lady Ann Milton did not go out so much
in the world as her sisters: and often stayed at home in London at the
parental house in Gaunt Square, when her mamma with the other ladies
went abroad. They talked and they danced with one man after another,
and the men came and went, and the stories about them were various. But
there was only this one story about Ann: she was engaged to Harry
Foker: she never was to think about anybody else. It was not a very
amusing story.
Well, the instant Foker awoke on the day after Lady Clavering’s dinner,
there was Blanche’s image glaring upon him with its clear grey eyes,
and winning smile. There was her tune ringing in his ears, “Yet round
about the spot, ofttimes I hover, ofttimes I hover,” which poor Foker
began piteously to hum, as he sat up in his bed under the crimson
silken coverlet. Opposite him was a French Print, of a Turkish lady and
her Greek lover, surprised by a venerable Ottoman, the lady’s husband;
on the other wall was a French print of a gentleman and lady, riding
and kissing each other at full gallop; all round the chaste bedroom
were more French prints, either portraits of gauzy nymphs of the Opera,
or lovely illustrations of the novels; or mayhap, an English
chef-d’oeuvre or two, in which Miss Calverley of T. R. E. O. would be
represented in tight pantaloons in her favourite page part; or Miss
Rougemont as Venus; their value enhanced by the signatures of these
ladies, Maria Calverley, or Frederica Rougemont, inscribed underneath
the prints in an exquisite facsimile. Such were the pictures in which
honest Harry delighted. He was no worse than many of his neighbours; he
was an idle jovial kindly fast man about town; and if his rooms were
rather profusely decorated with works of French art, so that simple
Lady Agnes, his mamma on entering the apartments where her darling sate
enveloped in fragrant clouds of Latakia, was often bewildered by the
novelties which she beheld there, why, it must be remembered, that he
was richer than most young men, and could better afford to gratify his
taste.
A letter from Miss Calverley written in a very degage style of spelling
and handwriting, scrawling freely over the filagree paper, and
commencing by calling Mr. Harry, her dear Hokey-pokey-fokey, lay on his
bed table by his side, amidst keys, sovereigns, cigar-cases, and a bit
of verbena, which Miss Amory had given him, and reminding him of the
arrival of the day when he was ‘to stand that dinner at the Elefant and
Castle, at Richmond, which he had promised;’ a card for a private box
at Miss Rougemont’s approaching benefit, a bundle of tickets for ‘Ben
Budgeon’s night, the North Lancashire Pippin, at Martin Faunce’s, the
Three-cornered Hat, in St. Martin’s Lane; where Conkey Sam, Dick the
Nailor, and Deadman (the Worcestershire Nobber), would put on the
gloves, and the lovers of the good old British sport were invited to
attend’—these and sundry other memoirs of Mr. Foker’s pursuits and
pleasure lay on the table by his side when he woke.
Ah! how faint all these pleasures seemed now. What did he care for
Conkey Sam or the Worcestershire Nobber? What for the French prints
ogling him from all sides of the room; those regular stunning slap-up
out-and-outers? And Calverley spelling bad, and calling him
Hokey-fokey, confound her impudence! The idea of being engaged to a
dinner at the Elephant and Castle at Richmond with that old woman (who
was seven-and-thirty years old, if she was a day) filled his mind with
dreary disgust now, instead of that pleasure which he had only
yesterday expected to find from the entertainment.
When his fond mamma beheld her boy that morning, she remarked on the
pallor of his cheek, and the general gloom of his aspect. “Why do you
go on playing billiards at that wicked Spratt’s?” Lady Agnes asked. “My
dearest child, those billiards will kill you, I’m sure they will.”
“It isn’t the billiards,” Harry said, gloomily.
“Then it’s the dreadful Back Kitchen,” said the Lady Agnes. “I’ve often
thought, d’you know, Harry, of writing to the landlady, and begging
that she would have the kindness to put only very little wine in the
negus which you take, and see that you have your shawl on before you
get into your brougham.”
“Do, ma’am. Mrs Cutts is a most kind motley woman,” Harry said. “But it
isn’t the Back Kitchen, neither,” he added, with a ghastly sigh.
As Lady Agnes never denied her son anything, and fell into all his ways
with the fondest acquiescence, she was rewarded by a perfect confidence
on young Harry’s part, who never thought to disguise from her a
knowledge of the haunts which he frequented; and, on the contrary,
brought her home choice anecdotes from the clubs and billiard-rooms,
which the simple lady relished, if she did not understand. “My son goes
to Spratt’s,” she would say to her confidential friends. “All the young
men go to Spratt’s after their balls. It is de rigueur, my dear; and
they play billiards as they used to play macao and hazard in Mr. Fox’s
time. Yes, my dear father often told me that they sate up always until
nine o’clock the next morning with Mr. Fox at Brookes’s, whom I
remember at Drummington, when I was a little girl, in a buff waistcoat
and black satin small-clothes. My brother Erith never played as a young
man, nor sate up late—he had no health for it; but my boy must do as
everybody does, you know. Yes, and then he often goes to a place called
the Back Kitchen, frequented by all the wits and authors, you know,
whom one does not see in society, but whom it is a great privilege and
pleasure for Harry to meet, and there he hears the questions of the day
discussed; and my dear father often said that it was our duty to
encourage literature, and he had hoped to see the late Dr. Johnson at
Drummington, only Dr. Johnson died. Yes, and Mr. Sheridan came over,
and drank a great deal of wine,—everybody drank a great deal of wine in
those days,—and papa’s wine-merchant’s bill was ten times as much as
Erith’s is, who gets it as he wants it from Fortnum and Mason’s and
doesn’t keep any stock at all.”
“That was an uncommon good dinner we had yesterday, ma’am,” the artful
Harry broke out. “Their clear soup’s better than ours. Moufflet will
put too much taragon into everything. The supreme de volaille was very
good—uncommon, and the sweets were better than Moufflet’s sweets. Did
you taste the plombiere, ma’am, and the maraschino jelly? Stunningly
good that maraschino jelly!”
Lady Agnes expressed her agreement in these, as in almost all other
sentiments of her son, who continued the artful conversation, saying—
“Very handsome house that of the Claverings. Furniture, I should say,
got up regardless of expense. Magnificent display of plate, ma’am.” The
lady assented to all these propositions.
“Very nice people the Claverings.”
“H’m!” said Lady Agnes.
“I know what you mean. Lady C. ain’t distangy exactly, but she is very
good-natured.”
“Oh, very,” mamma said, who was herself one of the most good-natured of
women.
“And Sir Francis, he don’t talk much before ladies; but after dinner he
comes out uncommon strong, ma’am—a highly agreeable, well-informed man.
When will you ask them to dinner? Look out for an early day, ma’am;”
and looking into Lady Agnes’s pocket-book, he chose a day only a
fortnight hence (an age that fortnight seemed to the young gentleman),
when the Claverings were to be invited to Grosvenor-street.
The obedient Lady Agnes wrote the required invitation. She was
accustomed to do so without consulting her husband, who had his own
society and habits, and who left his wife to see her own friends alone.
Harry looked at the card; but there was an omission in the invitation
which did not please him.
“You have not asked Miss Whatdyecallem—Miss Emery, Lady Clavering’s
daughter.”
“Oh, that little creature!” Lady Agnes cried. “No! I think not, Harry.”
“We must ask Miss Amory,” Foker said. “I—I want to ask Pendennis;
and—and he’s very sweet upon her. Don’t you think she sings very well,
ma’am?”
“I thought her rather forward, and didn’t listen to her singing. She
only sang at you and Mr. Pendennis, it seemed to me. But I will ask her
if you wish, Harry,” and so Miss Amory’s name was written on the card
with her mother’s.
This piece of diplomacy being triumphantly executed Harry embraced his
fond parent with the utmost affection, and retired to his own
apartments where he stretched himself on his ottoman, and lay brooding
silently, sighing for the day which was to bring the fair Miss Amory
under his paternal roof, and devising a hundred wild schemes for
meeting her.
On his return from making the grand tour, Mr. Foker, Junior, had
brought with him a polyglot valet, who took the place of Stoopid, and
condescended to wait at dinner, attired in shirt fronts of worked
muslin, with many gold studs and chains, upon his master and the elders
of the family. This man, who was of no particular country, and spoke
all languages indifferently ill, made himself useful to Mr. Harry in a
variety of ways,—read all the artless youth’s correspondence, knew his
favourite haunts and the addresses of his acquaintance, and officiated
at the private dinners which the young gentleman gave. As Harry lay
upon his sofa after his interview with his mamma, robed in a wonderful
dressing-gown, and puffing his pipe in gloomy silence, Anatole, too,
must have remarked that something affected his master’s spirits; though
he did not betray any ill-bred sympathy with Harry’s agitation of mind.
When Harry began to dress himself in his out-of-door morning costume,
he was very hard indeed to please, and particularly severe and snappish
about his toilet: he tried, and cursed, pantaloons of many different
stripes, checks, and colours: all the boots were villainously
varnished; the shirts too “loud” in pattern. He scented his linen and
person with peculiar richness this day; and what must have been the
valet’s astonishment, when, after some blushing and hesitation on
Harry’s part, the young gentleman asked, “I say, Anatole, when I
engaged you, didn’t you—hem—didn’t you say that you could
dress—hem—dress hair?”
The valet said, “Yes, he could.”
“Cherchy alors une paire de tongs,—et—curly moi un peu,” Mr. Foker
said, in an easy manner; and the valet, wondering whether his master
was in love or was going masquerading, went in search of the
articles,—first from the old butler who waited upon Mr. Foker, senior,
on whose bald pate the tongs would have scarcely found a hundred hairs
to seize, and finally of the lady who had the charge of the meek auburn
fronts of the Lady Agnes. And the tongs being got, Monsieur Anatole
twisted his young master’s locks until he had made Harry’s head as
curly as a negro’s; after which the youth dressed himself with the
utmost care and splendour, and proceeded to sally out.
“At what dime sall I order de drag, sir, to be to Miss Calverley’s
door, sir?” the attendant whispered as his master was going forth.
“Confound her!—Put the dinner off—I can’t go!” said Foker. “No, hang
it—I must go. Poyntz and Rougemont, and ever so many more are coming.
The drag at Pelham Corner at six o’clock, Anatole.”
The drag was not one of Mr. Foker’s own equipages, but was hired from a
livery-stable for festive purposes; Foker, however, put his own
carriage into requisition that morning, and for what purpose does the
kind reader suppose? Why, to drive down to Lamb Court, Temple, taking
Grosvenor Place by the way (which lies in the exact direction of the
Temple from Grosvenor Street, as everybody knows), where he just had
the pleasure of peeping upwards at Miss Amory’s pink window-curtains,
having achieved which satisfactory feat, he drove off to Pen’s
chambers. Why did he want to see his dear friend Pen so much? Why did
he yearn and long after him; and did it seem necessary to Foker’s very
existence that he should see Pen that morning, having parted with him
in perfect health on the night previous? Pen had lived two years in
London, and Foker had not paid half a dozen visits to his chambers.
What sent him thither now in such a hurry?
What?—If any young ladies read this page, I have only to inform them
that, when the same mishap befalls them, which now had for more than
twelve hours befallen Harry Foker, people will grow interesting to them
for whom they did not care sixpence on the day before; as on the other
hand persons of whom they fancied themselves fond will be found to have
become insipid and disagreeable. Then you dearest Eliza, or Maria of
the other day, to whom you wrote letters and sent locks of hair yards
long, will on a sudden be as indifferent to you as your stupidest
relation whilst, on the contrary, about his relations you will begin to
feel such a warm interest! such a loving desire to ingratiate yourself
with his mamma; such a liking for that dear kind old man his father! If
He is in the habit of visiting at any house, what advances you will
make in order to visit there too. If He has a married sister you will
like to spend long mornings with her. You will fatigue your servant by
sending notes to her, for which there will be the most pressing
occasion, twice or thrice in a day. You will cry if your mamma objects
to your going too often to see His family. The only one of them you
will dislike, is perhaps his younger brother, who is at home for the
holidays, and who will persist in staying in the room when you come to
see your dear new-found friend, his darling second sister. Something
like this will happen to you, young ladies, or, at any rate, let us
hope it may. Yes, you must go through the hot fits and the cold fits of
that pretty fever. Your mothers, if they would acknowledge it, have
passed through it before you were born, your dear papa being the object
of the passion, of course,—who could it be but he? And as you suffer
it, so will your brothers, in their way,—and after their kind. More
selfish than you: more eager and headstrong than you: they will rush on
their destiny when the doomed charmer makes her appearance. Or if they
don’t, and you don’t, Heaven help you! As the gambler said of his dice,
to love and win is the best thing, to love and lose is the next best.
You don’t die of the complaint: or very few do. The generous wounded
heart suffers and survives it. And he is not a man, or she a woman, who
is not conquered by it, or who does not conquer it in his time.——Now,
then, if you ask why Henry Foker, Esquire, was in such a hurry to see
Arthur Pendennis, and felt such a sudden value and esteem for him,
there is no difficulty in saying it was because Pen had become really
valuable in Mr. Foker’s eyes: because if Pen was not the rose, he yet
had been near that fragrant flower of love. Was not he in the habit of
going to her house in London? Did he not live near her in the
country?—know all about the enchantress? What, I wonder, would Lady Ann
Milton, Mr. Foker’s cousin and pretendue, have said, if her ladyship
had known all that was going on in the bosom of that funny little
gentleman?
Alas! when Foker reached Lamb Court, leaving his carriage for the
admiration of the little clerks who were lounging in the archway that
leads thence into Flag Court which leads into Upper Temple Lane,
Warrington was in the chambers but Pen was absent. Pen was gone to the
printing-office to see his proofs. “Would Foker have a pipe and should
the laundress go to the Cock and get him some beer?”—Warrington asked,
remarking with a pleased surprise the splendid toilet of this scented
and shiny-booted young aristocrat; but Foker had not the slightest wish
for beer or tobacco: he had very important business: he rushed away to
the Pall Mall Gazette office, still bent upon finding Pen. Pen had
quitted that pace. Foker wanted him that they might go together to call
upon Lady Clavering. Foker went away disconsolate, and whiled away an
hour or two vaguely at clubs: and when it was time to pay a visit, he
thought it would be but decent and polite to drive to Grosvenor Place
and leave a card upon Lady Clavering. He had not the courage to ask to
see her when the door was opened, he only delivered two cards, with Mr.
Henry Foker engraved upon them, to Jeames, in a speechless agony.
Jeames received the tickets bowing his powdered head. The varnished
doors closed upon him. The beloved object was as far as ever from him,
though so near. He thought he heard the tones of a piano and of a syren
singing, coming from the drawing-room and sweeping over the
balcony-shrubbery of geraniums. He would have liked to stop and listen,
but it might not be. “Drive to Tattersall’s,” he said to the groom, in
a voice smothered with emotion,—“And bring my pony round,” he added, as
the man drove rapidly away.
As good luck would have it, that splendid barouche of Lady Clavering’s,
which has been inadequately described in a former chapter, drove up to
her ladyship’s door just as Foker mounted the pony which was in waiting
for him. He bestrode the fiery animal, and dodged about the arch of the
Green Park, keeping the carriage well in view, until he saw Lady
Clavering enter, and with her—whose could be that angel form, but the
enchantress’s, clad in a sort of gossamer, with a pink bonnet and a
light-blue parasol,—but Miss Amory?
The carriage took its fair owners to Madame Rigodon’s cap and lace
shop, to Mrs Wolsey’s Berlin worsted shop,—who knows to what other
resorts of female commerce? Then it went and took ices at Hunter’s, for
Lady Clavering was somewhat florid in her tastes and amusements, and
not only liked to go abroad in the most showy carriage in London, but
that the public should see her in it too. And so, in a white bonnet
with a yellow feather, she ate a large pink ice in the sunshine before
Hunter’s door, till Foker on his pony, and the red jacket who
accompanied him, were almost tired of dodging.
Then at last she made her way into the Park, and the rapid Foker made
his dash forward. What to do? Just to get a nod of recognition from
Miss Amory and her mother; to cross them a half-dozen times in the
drive; to watch and ogle them from the other side of the ditch, where
the horsemen assemble when the band plays in Kensington Gardens. What
is the use of looking at a woman in a pink bonnet across a ditch? What
is the earthly good to be got out of a nod of the head? Strange that
men will be contented with such pleasures, or if not contented, at
least that they will be so eager in seeking them. Not one word did
Harry, he so fluent of conversation ordinarily, change with his charmer
on that day. Mutely he beheld her return to her carriage, and drive
away among rather ironical salutes from the young men in the Park. One
said that the Indian widow was making the paternal rupees spin rapidly;
another said that she ought to have burned herself alive, and left the
money to her daughter. This one asked who Clavering was?—and old Tom
Eales, who knew everybody, and never missed a day in the Park on his
grey cob, kindly said that Clavering had come into an estate over head
and heels in mortgage: that there were dev’lish ugly stories about him
when he was a young man, and that it was reported of him that he had a
share in a gambling-house, and had certainly shown the white feather in
his regiment. “He plays still; he is in a hell every night almost,” Mr.
Eales added.
“I should think so, since his marriage,” said a wag.
“He gives devilish good dinners,” said Foker, striking up for the
honour of his host of yesterday.
“I daresay, and I daresay he doesn’t ask Eales,” the wag said. “I say,
Eales, do you dine at Clavering’s,—at the Begum’s?”
“I dine there?” said Mr. Eales, who would have dined with Beelzebub if
sure of a good cook, and when he came away, would have painted his host
blacker than fate had made him.
“You might, you know, although you do abuse him so,” continued the wag.
“They say it’s very pleasant. Clavering goes to sleep after dinner; the
Begum gets tipsy with cherry-brandy, and the young lady sings songs to
the young gentlemen. She sings well, don’t she, Fo?”
“Slap up,” said Fo. “I tell you what, Poyntz, she sings like a
whatdyecallum—you know what I mean—like a mermaid, you know, but that’s
not their name.”
“I never heard a mermaid sing,” Mr. Poyntz, the wag, replied. “Whoever
heard a mermaid? Eales, you are an old fellow, did you?”
“Don’t make a lark of me, hang it, Poyntz,” said Foker, turning red,
and with tears almost in his eyes, “you know what I mean: it’s those
what’s-his-names—in Homer, you know. I never said I was a good
scholar.”
“And nobody ever said it of you, my boy,” Mr. Poyntz remarked, and
Foker striking spurs into his pony, cantered away down Rotten Row, his
mind agitated with various emotions, ambitions, mortifications. He was
sorry that he had not been good at his books in early life—that he
might have cut out all those chaps who were about her, and who talked
the languages, and wrote poetry, and painted pictures in her album,
and—and that—“What am I,” thought little Foker, “compared to her? She’s
all soul, she is, and can write poetry or compose music, as easy as I
could drink a glass of beer. Beer?—damme, that’s all I’m fit for, is
beer. I am a poor, ignorant little beggar, good for nothing but Foker’s
Entire. I misspent my youth, and used to get the chaps to do my
exercises. And what’s the consequences now? Oh, Harry Foker, what a
confounded little fool you have been!”
As he made this dreary soliloquy, he had cantered out of Rotten Row
into the Park, and there was on the point of riding down a large old
roomy family carriage, of which he took no heed, when a cheery voice
cried out, “Harry, Harry!” and looking up, he beheld his aunt, the Lady
Rosherville, and two of her daughters, of whom the one who spoke was
Harry’s betrothed, the Lady Ann.
He started back with a pale, scared look, as a truth about which he had
not thought during the whole day, came across him. There was his fate,
there, in the back seat of that carriage.
“What is the matter, Harry? why are you so pale? You have been raking
and smoking too much, you wicked boy,” said Lady Ann.
Foker said, “How do, aunt,” “How do, Ann,” in a perturbed
manner—muttered something about a pressing engagement,—indeed he saw by
the Park clock that he must have been keeping his party in the drag
waiting for nearly an hour—and waved a good-bye. The little man and the
little pony were out of sight in an instant—the great carriage rolled
away. Nobody inside was very much interested about his coming or going;
the Countess being occupied with her spaniel, the Lady Lucy’s thoughts
and eyes being turned upon a volume of sermons, and those of the Lady
Ann upon a new novel, which the sisters had just procured from the
library.