MORE NEWS.
Twenty years ago the Maecenas Club, which is now so immensely popular,
and admission to which is so difficult, was a very quiet unpretending
little place, rather looked down upon and despised by the denizens of
the marble palaces in Pall Mall and the old fogies in St. James's
Street. The great gaunt stuccoed mansion, with the bust of Maecenas in
the big hall, then was not; the Club was held at a modest little
house, only differing from a private residence in the size of its
fanlight, in the fact of its having a double flight of steps
(delicious steeple-chase ground for the youth of the neighbourhood),
and from its hall-door being always open, typical of the hospitality
and good-fellowship which reigned within. Ah! a glorious place in
those days, the Maecenas! which, as it stated in its prospectus, was
established "for the patronage of literature and the drama, and the
bringing together of gentlemen eminent in their respective circles;"
but which wisely left literature, the drama, and the eminent gentlemen
to take care of themselves, and simply brought together the best and
most clubbable fellows it could get hold of. There was something in
the little M., as the members fondly abbreviated its name, which was
indescribably comfortable and unlike any other club. The waiters were
small men, which perhaps had something to do with it; there was no
billiard-room, with noisy raffish frequenters; no card-room, with
solemn one-idea'd fogies; no drawing-room for great hulking men to
lounge about, and put up their dirty boots on yellow satin sofas.
There was a capital coffee-room, strangers'-room, writing-room,
reading-room, and the best smoking-room in London; a smoking-room
whence came three-fourths of the best stories which permeated society,
and whither was brought every bit of news and scandal so soon as it
was hatched. There was a capital _chef_ who was too true an artist to
confine himself to made-dishes, but who looked after the joints and
toothsome steaks, for which the M. had such a reputation; and there
was a capital cellar. Furthermore, the members believed in all this,
and believed intensely in one another.
That a dislike to clubs is strongly rooted in the female breast is not
a mere aphorism of the comic writer, but is a serious fact. This
feeling would be much mitigated, if not entirely eradicated, one would
think, if women could only know the real arcana of those much-loathed
establishments. Life wants something more than good _entrées_ and
wine, easy-chairs, big waiters, and a place to smoke in: it wants
companionship and geniality--two qualities which are very rare in the
club-world. You scowl at the man at the next table, and he scowls at
you in return; the man who wants the magazine retained by your elbow
growls out something, and you, raising your arm, growl in reply. In
the smoking-room there is indeed an attempt at conversation, which is
confined to maligning human nature in general, and the acquaintance of
the talkers in particular; and as each man leaves the room his
character is wrested from him at the door, and torn to shreds by those
who remain.
It was its very difference from all these that made the Maecenas so
pleasant. Everybody liked everybody else, and nobody objected to
anybody. It was not too pleasant to hear little Mr. Tocsin, Q.C.,
shrieking some legal question across the coffee-room to a brother
barrister; to have your mackerel breathed over by Tom O'Blather, as he
narrated to you a Foreign-Office scandal, in which you had not the
smallest interest; to have to listen to Dr. M'Gollop's French jokes
told in a broad-Scotch accent, or to Tim Dwyer's hunting exploits with
his "slash'n meer;" but one bore these things at the M., and bore them
patiently. How proud they were of their notable members in those days;
not swells, but men who had distinguished themselves by something more
than length of whisker and shortness of head--the very "gentlemen
eminent in their respective circles" of the prospectus! They were
proud, and justly so, of Mr. Justice Ion, whose kindly beaming face,
bright eye, and short-cropped gray hair would often be seen amongst
them; of Smielding and Follett, the two great novelists of the day,
each of whom had his band of sworn retainers and worshippers; of
Tatterer, the great tragedian, who would leave King Lear's
robes and be the delight of the Maecenas smoke-room; of Gilks the
marine-painter; of Clobber, who was so great in cathedral interiors;
and Markham, afterwards the great social caricaturist, then just
commencing his career as a wood-draughtsman. The very reciprocity of
regard was charming for the few swells who at that time cared for
membership; they were immensely popular; and amongst them none so
popular as Colonel Laurence Alsager, late of the Coldstream Guards.
By the time that Laurence Alsager was gazetted as captain and
lieutenant-colonel, he had had quite enough of regimental duty, quite
enough of transition from Portman Barracks to Wellington Barracks,
from Winchester to Windsor; quite enough of trooping the guard
at St. James's and watching over the treasures hidden away in the
Bank-cellars; of leaning out of the little window in the old Guards
Club in St. James's Street; quite enough of Derby drags and _ballet_
balls, and Ryde pier and Cowes regatta, and Scotch moor and Norway
fishery, and Leamington steeple-chase and Limmer's, and all those
things which make up the life of a properly-regulated guardsman. The
younger men in the Household Brigade could not understand this "having
had quite enough." They thought him the most enviable fellow in the
world. They dressed at him, they walked like him, they grew their
whiskers as nearly like his as they could (mutton-chop whiskers were
then the fashion, and beards and moustaches were only worn by foreign
fiddlers and cavalry regiments), they bragged of him in every possible
way, and one of them having heard him spoken of, from the variety of
his accomplishments, as the Admirable Crichton, declared that he was
infinitely better than Crichton, or any other admiral that had ever
been in the sister service. The _deux-temps_ valse had just been
imported in those days, and Alsager danced it with a long, quick,
swinging step which no one else could accomplish; he played the cornet
almost as well as Koenig; while at Windsor he went into training and
beat the Hammersmith Flyer, a professional brought down by the envious
to degrade him, in a half-mile race with twelve flights of hurdles; he
was a splendid amateur actor; and had covered the rough walls of the
barrack-room at Windsor with capital caricatures of all his brother
officers. He knew all the mysteries of "battalion drill" too, and had
been adjutant of the regiment. When, therefore, he threw up his
commission and sold out, everybody was utterly astonished, and all
sorts of rumours were at once put into circulation. He had had a
quarrel with his governor, old Sir Peregrine Alsager, some said, and
left the army to spite him. He was bitten with a theatrical mania, and
going to turn actor ("Was he, by G--!" said Ledger, the light comedian,
hitherto his warmest admirer; "we want none of your imitation
mock-turtle on the boards!"); he had got a religious craze, and was
going to become a Trappist monk; he had taken to drinking; he had lost
his head, and was with a keeper in a villa in St. John's Wood. All
these things were said about him by his kind friends; but it is
probable that none of them were so near the mark as honest Jock
M'Laren, of the Scots Fusiliers, a great gaunt Scotchman, but the very
best ferret in the world in certain matters; who said, "Ye may depen'
upon it there's a wummin in it. Awlsager's a deevil among the sax; and
there's a wummin in it, I'll bet a croon." This was a heavy stake for
Jock, and showed that he was in earnest.
Be this as it may, how that Laurence Alsager sold out from her
Majesty's regiment of Coldstream Guards, and that he was succeeded
by Peregrine Wilks (whose grandfather, _par parenthèse_, kept a
ham-and-beef shop in St. Martin's Court), is it not written in the
chronicles of the _London Gazette?_ Immediately after the business had
been settled, Colonel Alsager left England for the Continent. He was
heard of at Munich, at Berlin, at Vienna (where he remained for some
considerable time), and at Trieste, where all absolute trace of him
was lost, though it was believed he had gone off in an Austrian
Lloyds' steamer to the Piraeus, and that he intended travelling
through Greece, the Holy Land, and Egypt, before he returned home.
These were rumours in which only a very few people interested
themselves; society has too much to do to take account of the
proceedings of its absent members; and after two years had elapsed
Laurence Alsager's name was almost forgotten, when, on a dull January
morning, two letters from him arrived in Loudon,--one addressed to the
steward of the Maecenas ordering a good dinner for two for the next
Saturday night at six; the other to the Honourable George Bertram of
the Foreign Office, requesting that distinguished public servant to
meet his old friend L. A. at the Maecenas, dine with him, and go with
him afterwards to the Parthenium Theatre, where a new piece was
announced.
Honest Mr. Turquand, the club steward, by nature a reticent man, and
one immersed in perpetual calculation as to ways and means, gave his
orders to the cook, but said never a word to any one else as to the
contents of his letter. George Bertram, known among his colleagues at
the Foreign Office as "Blab Bertram," from the fact that he never
spoke to anybody unless spoken to, and even then seldom answered, was
equally silent; so that Colonel Alsager's arrival at the Maecenas was
thoroughly unexpected by the members. The trimly-shaved old gentlemen
at the various tables stared with wonder, not unmixed with horror, at
the long black beard which Alsager had grown during his absence. They
thought he was some stranger who had entered the sacred precincts by
mistake; some even had a horrible suspicion that it might be a
newly-elected man, whose beard had never been mentioned to the
committee; and it was not until they heard Laurence's clear ringing
voice, and saw his eye light up with the old fire, that they
recognized their long-absent friend. Then they crowded round him, and
wanted to hear all his two-years' adventures and wanderings told in a
breath; but he laughingly shook them off, promising full particulars
at a later period; and went over to a small corner-table, which he had
been accustomed to select before he went away, and which Mr. Turquand
had retained for him, where he was shortly joined by George Bertram.
It is probable that no man on earth had a greater love for another
than had George Bertram for Laurence Alsager. When he saw his old
friend seated at the table, his heart leapt within him, and a great
knot rose in his throat; but he was a thorough Englishman, so he
mastered his feelings, and, as he gripped Laurence's outstretched
hand, merely said, "How do?"
"My dear old George," said Laurence heartily, "what an age since we
met! How splendidly well you seem to be! A little stouter, perhaps,
but not aged a day. Well, I've a thousand questions to ask, and a
thousand things to tell you. What the deuce are you staring at?"
"Beard!" said Mr. Bertram, who had never taken his eyes off Laurence's
chin since he sat down opposite to him.
"O, ah, yes!" said Laurence. "That's a relic of savage life which I
shall get rid of in a few days; but I didn't like to have him off
suddenly, on account of the change of climate. I suppose it shocks the
old gentlemen here; but I can't help it. Well, now, you've got oceans
of news to tell me. It's full a twelvemonth since I had letters from
England; not a line since I left Jerusalem; and--ah, by Jove! I've
never told you how I happened to come in such a hurry. It's horribly
absurd and ridiculous, you know; I hadn't the least idea of returning
for at least another year. But one sultry evening, far up the Nile, as
I was lying back in my kandjia,--boat, you know,--being towed up by
three naked chaps, pulling away like grim death, we met another
kandjia coming down. In it were two unmistakable Englishmen; fellows
in all-round collars and stiff wideawakes, with puggerees put on all
the wrong way. They were chattering to each other; and I thought,
under that burning sky and solemn stillness, and surrounded by all the
memorials of the past, they would probably be quoting Herodotus, or
Gardner Wilkinson, or, better than all, Eothen; but, just as they
passed me, what do you think I heard one of them say to the other?
'No, no, Jack,' said he, 'you're wrong there: it was Buckstone that
played Box!' He did, by Jove! Under the shadow of the Pyramids, and
close by the Sphinx, and the vocal Memnon, and Cheops and Cephrenes,
and all the rest of it, to hear of Buckstone and _Box and Cox!_ You
can't tell the singular effect it had on me. I began to feel an awful
longing for home; what the Germans call _Heimweh_ came upon me at
once. I longed to get back once more, and see the clubs and the
theatres, and all the old life, which I had fled from so willingly;
and I ordered the Arabs to turn the boat round and get me back to
Cairo as quickly as possible. When we got to Cairo, I went to
Shepherd's, and found the house full of a lot of cadets and fellows
going out; and one of them had a _Times_, and in it I saw the
announcement of the new piece at the Parthenium; and, I don't know
why,--I fixed upon that as a sort of date-mark, and I said, I'll be
back in England to see that first night;' and the next day I started
for Alexandria. And on board the P.-and-O. boat I made the
acquaintance of the post-office courier in charge of the Indian mail,
a very good fellow, who, when he found my anxiety to get on, took me
with him in his _fourgon_, brought me through from Marseilles to
Calais without an instant's delay; let me come on board the special
boat waiting for him, and landed me at London Bridge last night,
having got through my journey wonderfully. And I'm in time for the
first night at the Parthenium; and--now tell me all your news."
"Blab" Bertram had been dreading the command, which he knew involved
his talking more in twenty minutes than he was in the habit of doing
in a month. He had been delighted to hear Laurence rattling on about
his own adventures, and fondly hoped that he should avoid any
revelations for that night at least. But the dread edict had been
issued, and George knew his friend too well not to obey. So he said
with a sigh, drawing out a small notebook, "Yes, I knew you'd be
naturally anxious to hear about people, and what had happened since
you've been away; and so, as I'm not much good at telling things, I
got Alick Geddes of our office--you know him, Lord M'Mull's
brother--to put down some notes, and I'll read them to you."
"That'll do, George," said Laurence, laughing; "like the police, 'from
information you have received,' eh? Never mind, so long as I hear
it.--Mr. Turquand, they've not finished that bin of Thompson and
Crofts' 20 during my absence? No. Then bring us a bottle, please.
--And now, George, fire away!"
For the purposes of this story it would be needless to recount all the
bits of scandal and chit-chat, interesting and amusing to those
acquainted with the various actors in the drama, but utterly vapid to
every one else, which the combined memories of Messrs. Alexander
Geddes and George Bertram, clerks in the Foreign Office, and gentlemen
going a great deal into all kinds of society, had furbished up and put
together for the delectation of Colonel Alsager. It was the old, old
story of London life, known to every one, and, _mutatis nominibus_,
narrated of so many people. Tom's marriage, Dick's divorce, and
Harry's going to the bad. Jack Considine left the service, and become
sheep-farmer in Australia. Little Tim Stratum, of the Treasury, son of
old Dr. Stratum the geologist, marrying that big Indian widow woman,
and becoming a heavy swell, with a house in Grosvenor Square. Ned
Walters dead,--fit of heart disease, or some infernal thing,--dead, by
Jove; and that pretty wife of his, and all those nice little children,
gone--God knows where! Lady Cecilia married? Oh, yes; and she and
Townshend get on very well, they say; but that Italian chap, Di
Varese, with the black beard and the tenor voice, always hanging about
the house. Gertrude Netherby rapidly becoming an old woman, thin as a
whipping-post, by George! and general notion of nose-and-chinniness.
Florence Sackville, as lovely and as jolly as ever, was asking after
you only last night. These and a hundred other little bits of gossip
about men in his old regiment, and women, reputable and disreputable,
formerly of his acquaintance, of turf matters and club scandals,
interspersed with such anecdotes, seasoned with _gros sel_, as
circulate when the ladies have left the dinner-table, did Laurence
Alsager listen to; and when George Bertram stopped speaking and shut
up his notebook, he found himself warmly complimented on his capital
budget of news by his recently-arrived friend.
"You've done admirably, old fellow," said Laurence. "'Pon my oath I
don't think there's hardly any one we know that you haven't had
something pleasantly unpleasant to say about. Now," taking out his
watch, "we must be off to the theatre, and we've just time to smoke a
cigarette as we walk down there. You took the two stalls?"
"Well--no," replied George Bertram, hesitating rather suspiciously; "I
only took one for you; I--I'm going-that is--I've got a seat in a
box."
"George, you old vagabond, you don't mean to say you're going to
desert me the first night I come back?"
"Well, I couldn't help it. You see I was engaged to go with these
people before you wrote; and--"
"All right; what people are they?"
"The Mitfords."
"Mitfords? _Connais pas_."
"Oh, yes; you know them fast enough; Oh, I forgot--all since you left;
only just happened."
"Look here, George: I've had quite enough of the Sphinx during the
last six months, and I don't want any of the enigma business. _What_
has only just happened?"
"Mitford--and all that. You'll give me no peace till I tell you. You
recollect Mitford? with us at Oxford--Brasenose man, not Christ
Church."
"Mitford, Mitford! Oh, I recollect; big, fair man, goodish-looking.
His father failed and smashed up; didn't he? and our man went into a
line regiment. Oh, by Jove, yes! and came to grief about mistaking
somebody else's name for his own, and backing a bill with it; didn't
he? at Canterbury, or somewhere where he was quartered?"
"Same man. Had to leave service, and came to awful grief. Ran away,
and nothing heard of him. His uncle, Sir Percy, and two little boys
drowned off Malta, and title came to our man. Couldn't find him
anywhere; at last some Jew lawyer was employed, put detectives on, and
hunted up Mitford, nearly starved, in some public in Wapping, or
somewhere in the East-end. When he heard what a swell he'd become, he
had a fit, and they thought he'd die. But he's been all square ever
since; acted like a gentleman; went down to the place in Devonshire
where his people lived before the smash; married the clergyman's
daughter to whom he had been engaged in the old days; and they've just
come up to town for the winter."
"Married the clergyman's daughter to whom he had been engaged in the
old days, eh? George Bertram, I saw a blush mantle on your ingenuous
cheek, sir, when you alluded to the lady. What is she like?"
"Stuff, Laurence! you did nothing of the kind. Lady Mitford is a very
delightful woman."
"_Caramba_, Master George! If I were Sir Mitford, and heard you speak
of my lady in that earnest manner, I should keep a sharp eye upon you.
So you've not improved in that respect."
George Bertram, whose _amourettes_ were of the most innocent
description, but to accuse whom of the wildest profligacy was a
favourite joke with his friends, deeper than ever, and only uttered an
indignant "Too bad, too bad!"
"Come along, sir," said Laurence: "I'll sit in the silent solitude of
the stalls while you are basking in beauty in a box."
"But you'll come up and be introduced, Laurence?"
"Not I. thank you; I'll leave the field clear for you."
"But Sir Charles Mitford would be so glad to renew his old
acquaintance with you."
"Would he? Then Sir Charles Mitford must reserve that delight for
another occasion. I shall be here after the play, and we can have a
further talk if you can descend to mundane matters after your
felicity. Now come along." And they strolled out together.