THE little town of Baden was thrown into a state of considerable
excitement by the unexpected arrival we have chronicled in a preceding
chapter, and the host of the “Russie” reduced to the most uncommon
straits to restore the effective of a staff, now brought down to the
closest economy of retrenchment. Cooks, waiters, and housemaids were
sought after in every quarter, while emissaries were despatched right
and left to replenish the larder and provide for the wants of the mighty
“Englander.” Nor was all the bustle and commotion limited to within the
hotel, but extended throughout the village itself, where many a rustic
pony, laid up in ordinary for the winter, was again trimmed and curried
and shod, to be paraded before the windows with a scarlet saddle-cloth
and a worsted tassel to the bridle, in all the seductive attraction of
a palfrey. Even flower-girls made their appearance again with a few
frost-nipped buds and leaves; while a bassoon and a triangle, voting
themselves a band, gave horrid signs of their means of persecution.
Meanwhile were the fortunate individuals for whose benefit these
exertions were evoked, in the most blissful ignorance of all the
interest they were awakening. From the first moment of their arrival
none had even seen them. Waited upon by their own servants, scarcely
heard, not even appearing at the windows, they were unconsciously
ministering to a mystery that now engaged every tongue and ear
around them. As, however, nothing of secrecy had any share in their
proceedings, we have no scruple in invading the presence and introducing
the reader to the company.
Sir Stafford Onslow was an immensely rich London banker, who in his
capacity of borough member had voted steadily with the Whigs for some
five-and-twenty years; supporting them by all the influence of his
wealth and family, and who now came abroad, in a pet of sulk with his
party, on being refused the peerage. By nature generous, kind-hearted,
and affectionate, the constant pressure of a more ambitious wife had
involved him in a career to which neither his tastes nor habits
suited him. The fortune which he would have dispensed with dignity
and munificence he was eternally taught to believe should be the
stepping-stone to something higher in rank. All his influence in the
City, of which he was justly proud, he was told was a mere vulgar
ambition in comparison with that a coronet would bestow on him; and,
in fact, having believed himself the leading man of a great section in
society, he was led to look upon his position with discontent, and fancy
that his just claims were disregarded and denied. Lady Hester Onslow,
who having once been a beauty and the admired belle of royalty itself,
had accepted the banker in a moment of pique, and never forgave him
afterwards the unhappy preference.
Belonging to a very ancient but poor family, few were surprised at her
accepting a husband some thirty-odd years her senior; and it is probable
that she would fully have recognized the prudence of her choice if, by
the death of a distant relative in India, which occurred a few months
after her marriage, she had not acquired a very large fortune. This
sudden accession of wealth coming, as she herself said, “too late,”
embittered every hour of her after-life.
Had she been but wealthy a few months back, she had married the man
she loved, or whom she thought she loved, the heartless, handsome,
well-mannered Lord Norwood, a penniless viscount, ruined before he came
of age, and with no other means of support than the faculties which
knavery had sharpened into talent.
Miss Onslow and her brother, both the children of a former marriage,
were strikingly like their father, not alone in feature, but in the
traits of his frank and generous character. They were devotedly attached
to him, not the less, perhaps, from the circumstances of a marriage to
which they were strongly opposed, and whose results they now saw in many
a passage of discord and disagreement.
George and Sydney Onslow were both dark-complexioned and black-eyed,
and had many traits of Spanish origin in appearance, their mother having
been from that country. Lady Hester was a blonde, and affected to think
that the Southern tint was but an approximation to the negro. Nor was
she less critical on their manners, whose joyous freedom she pronounced
essentially vulgar. Such, in a few words, were the discordant elements
which Fate had bound up as a family, and who now, by the sudden illness
of Sir Stafford, were driven to seek refuge in the deserted town of
Baden. Nor can we omit another who, although not tied to the rest by
kindred, had been long a member of the circle. This was Dr. Grounsell,
an old college friend of Sir Stafford's, and who, having lost every
shilling of his fortune by a speculation, had taken up his home at
the banker's many years previous to his second marriage. Lady Hester's
dislike to him amounted to actual hatred. She detested him for the
influence he possessed over her husband, for the sturdiness of a
character that resisted every blandishment, for a quaintness that
certainly verged upon vulgarity, and, most of all, for the open and
undisguised manner he always declared against every scheme for the
attainment of a title.
As Sir Stafford's physician, the only one in whom he had confidence, the
doctor was enabled to stand his ground against attacks which must have
conquered him; and by dint of long resistance and a certain obstinacy
of character, he had grown to take pleasure in an opposition which, to
a man of more refinement and feeling, must have proved intolerable;
and although decidedly attached to Sir Stafford and his children, it is
probable that he was still more bound to them by hate to “my Lady,” than
by all his affection for themselves.
Grounsell detested the Continent, yet he followed them abroad, resolved
never to give up an inch of ground uncontested; and although assailed by
a thousand slights and petty insults, he stood stoutly up against them
all, defying every effort of fine-ladyism, French cookery, homoeopathy,
puppyism, and the water-cure, to dislodge him from his position. There
was very possibly more of dogged malice in all this than amiability or
attachment to his friends; but it is due to the doctor to say that he
was no hypocrite, and would never have blinked the acknowledgment if
fairly confronted with the charge.
Although, if it had not been for my Lady's resentful notice of
the ministerial neglect, the whole family would have been snugly
domesticated in their beautiful villa beside the Thames at Richmond,
she artfully contrived to throw the whole weight of every annoyance they
experienced upon every one's shoulders rather than her own; and as
she certainly called to her aid no remarkable philosophy against the
inconveniences of travel, the budget of her grievances assumed a most
imposing bulk.
Dressed in the very perfection of a morning costume, her cap, her
gloves, her embroidered slippers, all in the most accurate keeping
with that assumed air of seclusion by which fine ladies compliment the
visitor fortunate enough to be admitted to their presence, Lady Hester
sat at a window, occasionally looking from the deep lace that bordered
her handkerchief to the picturesque scene of mountain and river that lay
before her. A fastidious taste might have found something to be pleased
with in either, but assuredly her handsome features evinced no agreeable
emotion, and her expression was that of utter ennui and listlessness.
At another window sat Sydney Onslow drawing; her brother standing behind
her chair, and from time to time adding his counsels, but in a tone
studiously low and whispered. “Get that shadow in something deeper, Syd,
and you 'll have more effect in the distance.”
“What is that I hear about effect and distance?” sighed out my Lady.
“You surely are not drawing?”
“Only sketching; making a hurried note of that wheel, and the quaint
old-fashioned house beside it,” said Sydney, diffidently.
“What a refinement of cruelty! The detestable noise of that mill kept
me awake all night, and you mean to perpetuate the remembrance by a
picture. Pray, be a good child and throw it out of the window.”
Sydney looked up in her brother's face, where already a crimson flush of
anger was gathering, but before she could reply he spoke for her. “The
drawing is for me, Lady Onslow. You 'll. excuse me if I do not consent
to the fate you propose for it.”
“Let me look at it,” said she, languidly; and the young girl arose
and presented the drawing to her. “How droll!” said she, laughing; “I
suppose it is peculiar to Germany that water can run up hill.”
“The shadow will correct that,” said Sydney, smiling; “and when
the foreground is darker.” A violent slam of the door cut short the
explanation. It was George Onslow, who, too indignant at the practised
impertinence toward his sister, dashed out of the room in a passion.
“How underbred your brother will persist in being, my love,” said she,
calmly; “that vile trick of slamming a door, they learn, I 'm told,
in the Guards' Club. I 'm sure I always thought it was confined to the
melodrames one sees at the Porte St. Martin.”
At this moment a servant appeared at the door. “Colonel Haggerstone's
compliments, my Lady, and begs to know how Sir Stafford is to-day.”
“Something better,” replied she, curtly; and as the man disappeared, she
added, “Whose compliments did he say?”
“I did not hear the name; it sounded like Haggerstone.”
“Impossible, child; we know of no such person. What hour is it?”
“A few minutes past two.”
“Oh dear! I fancied it had been four or five or six,” sighed she,
drearily. “The amiable doctor has not made his report to-day of your
papa, and he went to see him immediately after breakfast.”
“He told George that there was no amendment,” said Sydney, gravely.
“He told George! Then he did not deign to tell me.”
“You were not here at the moment. It was as he passed through the room
hurriedly.”
“I conclude that I was in my dressing-room. But it is only in keeping
with Mr. Grounsell's studied disrespect, a line of conduct I grieve to
see him supported in by members of this family.”
“Mr. Alfred Jekyl, my Lady,” said a servant, “with inquiry for Sir
Stafford.”
“You appear to know best, my dear, how your papa is. Pray answer thai
inquiry.”
“Sir Stafford is not better,” said Sydney to the servant.
“Who can all these people be, my dear?” said Lady Hester, with more
animation of manner than she had yet exhibited. “Jekyl is a name one
knows. There are Northamptonshire Jekyls, and, if I mistake not, it was
a Jekyl married Lady Olivia Drossmore, was it not? Oh, what a fool I am
to ask you, who never know anything of family or connection! And yet
I 'm certain I 've told you over and over the importance the actual
necessity of this knowledge. If you only bestowed upon Burke a tithe of
the patience and time I have seen you devote to Lyell, you 'd not commit
the shocking mistake you fell into t' other day of discussing the Duchess
of Dartley's character with Lord Brandford, from whom she was divorced.
Now you 'd never offend quartz and sandstone by miscalling their
affinities. But here comes the doctor.”
If Dr. Grounsell had been intended by nature to outrage all
ultra-refined notions regarding personal appearance, he could not
possibly have been more cunningly fashioned. Somewhat below the middle
size, and squarely formed, his legs did not occupy more than a third of
his height; his head was preternaturally large, and seemed even larger
from a crop of curly yellowish hair, whose flaring ochre only rescued
it from the imputation of being a wig. His hands and feet were enormous,
requiring a muscular effort to move them that made all his gestures
grotesque and uncouth. In addition to these native graces, his clothes
were always made much too large for him, from his avowed dislike to the
over-tightening and squeezing of modern fashion.
As his whole life had been passed in the superintendence of a great
military hospital in the East, wherein all his conversations with his
brethren were maintained in technicalities, he had never converted the
professional jargon into a popular currency, but used the terms of art
upon all occasions, regardless of the inability of the unmedical world
to understand him.
“Well, sir, what is your report to-day?” said Lady Onslow, assuming her
very stateliest of manners.
“Better, and worse, madam. The arthritis relieved, the cardiac symptoms
more imminent.'
“Please to bear in mind, sir, that I have not studied at Apothecaries'
Hall.”
“Nor I, madam; but at Edinburgh and Aberdeen, in the faculties of
medicine and surgery,” said Grounsell, drawing down his waistcoat, and
arranging himself in what he considered an order of battle.
“Is papa better, doctor?” said Sydney, mildly.
“The articular affection is certainly alleviated, but there is mischief
here,” said Grounsell, placing his hand over his heart; “fibrous
tissues, my dear Miss Onslow, fibrous tissues are ticklish affairs.”
“Is this advice to be construed in a moral rather than a medical sense?”
said Lady Onslow, with a malicious smile.
“Either or both,” replied the doctor. “The heart will always be highly
susceptible of nervous influence.”
“But papa” broke in Sydney, eagerly.
“Is suffering under metastasis migratory gout, it may be termed changing
from articular to large organic structures.”
“And, of course, you are giving him the old poisons that were in use
fifty years ago?”
“What do you mean, madam?” said Grounsell, sternly.
“That shocking thing that drives people mad colocynth, or colchicum, or
something like that. You know what I mean?”
“Happily for me, madam, I can guess it.”
“And are you still as obstinate as ever about the globules?”
“The homoeopathic humbug?”
“If you are polite enough so to designate what I put the most implicit
trust in. But I warn you, sir, I mean to exert my just and rightful
influence with Sir Stafford; and in case a very great change does not
appear to-morrow, I shall insist upon his trying the aconite.”
“If you do, madam, the insurance offices shall hear of it!” said
Grounsell, with a sternness that made the threat most significant.
“I 'll send for that man from Heidelberg at once, Sydney,” said Lady
Hester, as, pale with passion, she seated herself at her writing-table.
“Take care what you do, madam,” said Grounsell, approaching where she
sat, and speaking in a low and solemn voice. “Let not any feeling of
displeasure with me induce you to an act of rashness or imprudence. My
old friend's state is critical; it may at any moment become dangerous.
I am convinced that what I am doing offers the most reasonable hope of
serving him. Take care lest you weaken his confidence in me, when he may
not be prepared to repose it in another.”
“Here, Sydney, you write German; and it is possible he may not read
French. This is his name, I got it in Paris Graeffnell. Tell him to come
at once in fact, let Francois take a carriage for him.”
Sydney Onslow looked at her mother and then at the doctor. At the
latter her glance was almost imploring, but he never noticed it, turning
abruptly toward the window without uttering a word.
“Can you consult with him, doctor?” asked Sydney, timidly.
“Of course not; he 's a mountebank.”
“Write, as I bade you, Miss Onslow,” said Lady Hester. “Dr. Graeffnell
is one of the first men in Germany. Lady Heskisson sent for him when the
Earl fell ill at Wiesbaden.”
“And the Countess was a widow in four days after. Don't forget the
denouement of the story, madam.”
Sydney dropped the pen, and her hands fell powerless to her side. There
was something in the sternness of the doctor that seemed to awe
even Lady Onslow, for she made no reply; while Grounsell, seeing his
advantage, left the room at once, without further parley.
Our readers will probably forgive us if we follow his example, and not
remain to listen to the eloquent monologue in which Lady Onslow lamented
her sad condition in life. Not only did she bewail her destiny, but,
like one of those classic personages the Greek Chorus presents us to,
she proceeded to speculate upon every possible mischance futurity might
have in store for her, ingeniously inventing “situations,” and
devising “predicaments” that nothing less gifted than a self-tormenting
imagination can conceive. Leaving her to all the pleasure such a pastime
can give, we shall quit the house, and, although a cold, raw evening is
closing in, wander out into the street.