It was not until after Mr. Brag had come to the resolution of
evacuating Lewes, that he decided upon the place to which he should
shift his head-quarters. Brighton he had no intention of visiting; and
it was while he was in a state of perfect indecision upon the important
point, firm only to the determination of “going,” his eye happened to
glance over the newspaper which lay on the table, and he perceived
amongst the intelligence from the Isle of Wight, that his friend, as
he called every man whom he had seen twice in his life--his friend
Lord Wagley was at Cowes, with his “beautiful yacht, the Jigumaree;”
and that the place was crammed with visitors, the harbour crowded with
vessels, and, in short, that nothing upon the face of the earth or
the water had ever been so gay and captivating as that exquisitely
beautiful spot.
Jack’s heart began to beat; he longed to try his fate once more. Like
the tired soldier roused by the “brazen trumpet’s sound,” he longed to
----“dare again the field.”
The lord and his yacht--the good-natured lord too, his colleague in the
arrangement of the steeple-chase--one of the few of his aristocratic
friends who went the length of calling him Jack--nothing could suit
better. It is true he was a crony of Lord Tom Towzle’s; but Lord
Tom was in Paris, or would be, before Jack got Cowes; so that the
disagreeable affair at Dover could not have reached “that tight little
island;” therefore, as it seemed, no possible objection existed to his
invasion of the Vectan shore.
To carry his scheme (having, as we know, resolved upon its adoption)
into execution, our hero rose early, dressed hastily, and having
engaged one of the men about the house to carry his small but
convenient valise, in which, by some skill in the art of compression,
he contrived to pack his wardrobe with a compactness equalled only
by that in which hay for foreign service is squeezed into a portable
state, he proceeded to “The White Hart,” where, having dismissed his
attendant, he ordered breakfast, and proposed ensconcing himself until
the departure of his dear and respectable relations, who had rendered
themselves much too notorious on the preceding evening to continue
desirable associates in the good town of Lewes.
This march was another of the minor evils to which Jack was in the
habit of subjecting himself by his constant efforts to be fine. In
order to get rid of his entanglement with Jem and his lady, he felt
it necessary to make a little history of a visionary friend and an
imaginary chariot--in which chariot, by its owner’s kindness, he was
to be suddenly transported to the Isle of Wight--not recollecting
that, taking the length of the proposed journey into consideration, no
such early start could have been in the slightest degree necessary;
a circumstance not very material in the present case, inasmuch as
neither the slumbering James nor his suspicious spouse had established
in their minds any very correct notion of the relative distances of the
different parts of the British, or indeed any other empire upon the
face of the earth.
To keep up the delusion which he felt it agreeable to play off,
it became essential that he should not leave “The Star” in either
post-chaise, stage-coach, or any other conveyance; because if he did
so, as he must, conveniently to himself, have done, there would have
been the evidence of the master of the house, the mistress, and all
the servants, to prove to the Salmons that the redoubted “sporting
character” had gone in no friend’s chariot, but that he had transported
himself towards the place of his destination in the said chaise,
stage-coach, or whatever he might have selected for the purpose. To
prevent this disclosure, therefore, he had to take all the unnecessary
trouble which we have just described, and absolutely hide himself until
some opportunity presented itself for escaping the violence of his
mother, the lamentations of Salmon, the enquiries of Peckover, and
probably the curiosity of the whole Patcham party, instead of driving
off at any hour which might best have suited his convenience.
Truly, indeed, does the proverb say, that “pride knows no pain.” One
fiftieth part of the turmoil and exertion which Jack underwent to
attain a character which he never could support, properly applied to
the advancement of his prosperity and respectability in his natural
sphere, would in all probability have secured him ease and competence.
However, ours is to describe rather than reason upon the conduct of
people, and we therefore resume the narrative.
The earliness of the hour at which he directed his breakfast to be
prepared, and the short time which he occupied in consuming it,
afforded him the opportunity of watching the departure of the coach
for London. Minutes seemed hours as he kept his eyes strained in every
direction, listening with the most eager expectation for the rattle
of the wheels and the clatter of the traces, which should announce
the arrival at the door of “The Star” inn, of the vehicle destined,
as he tremblingly anticipated, to contain for the next six hours the
jarring elements--the fire and water--the oil and vinegar, embodied
and humanized in the shapes of Mrs. Salmon and Miss Roseville, whose
announcement to Jack of her departure the next morning was, as has
been seen, instantly coupled in his mind with the possible--the almost
probable--circumstance of her becoming the travelling companion of the
venerable catamaran whom she had so feelingly and so unconsciously
denounced to her son the night before.
Should this be the case, thought Jack, there will be a slashing race,
and no mistake. From the little he had seen of Molly Hogg, it was
evident that a very little provocation would turn the radiant fire of
love, which sparkled in her looks and countenance, into the forked
lightning of indignant anger. The honeyed words which the sweet bard
of Avon had taught to drop from her roseate lips, would in an instant
be discarded for the expression of her own feelings in less poetic
language; and any remark which his mother might happen to venture
touching the use which the heroine made of the brilliant orbs with
which nature had so liberally gifted her, would, he had little doubt,
provoke some practical resentment on _her_ part well calculated to
render any compliment to a pair of black eyes as applicable to her
antagonist as to herself, in a few minutes after it had been paid.
With all these forebodings in his mind, and hating Miss Hogg for her
description of himself, and at the bottom of his heart feeling that
her intimacy with Salmon was not any very satisfactory evidence as to
the future comfort of the parent whom he had driven into the marriage,
the reader may easily judge Jack’s dismay when, after hearing the long
wished-for wheels rolling along the street, he found the sound suddenly
cease, and saw the coach stop at the door of the milliner’s house at
which the _aimable_ Roseville had indicated to Salmon that she resided.
Nature so far struggled with conceit and vanity in Jack’s mind,
that the moment he saw this occur, he felt disposed to rush from
his retirement, fly to “The Star,” admit the groundlessness of his
excuse for absence, and advise his mother either to stay another day,
or, at all events, proceed by another vehicle to London. He quitted
the window whence he had seen the arrival, and his hand was on the
lock of the door of the parlour in which he was lodged, when his good
resolution failed him, and he returned to watch the departure of the
passengers. If he went out, he should be obliged to enter into a
thousand explanations; if he gave his reasons why his mother had better
not go, her anger would have induced her to “seek the battle,” rather
than “shun it when it came;” while if, on the other hand, she admitted
the reasonableness of his suggestions, he should have her on his hands,
the object of universal curiosity and conversation for four-and-twenty
hours more. He therefore determined to let things take their course.
After keeping the coach waiting some ten minutes, Miss Hogg, enveloped
in a huge cloak and shawls, made her appearance at the door, and
stepped into the vehicle, followed by her “ma’,” who permitted merit
and genius to take precedence of age and maternity;--the elder lady of
the two, bearing in her hand a huge basket with a handle and flaps, O.
P. and P. S., evidently containing sundry papers of sandwiches, and a
bottle of something, wherewith to refresh themselves during the journey.
Well, said Jack to himself, that’s it: now then for the blow-up!--But
the coach still lingered; and Jack’s sight was presently gratified
by the sudden appearance of the “star” from London who had enacted
Othello, enveloped also in a cloak, and accompanied by a friend
and worshipper, who made a point of going to see him act let it
be wheresoever it might. There are many small strugglers after a
reputation for something, who pin themselves to some really deserving
object of popular attention, and so make for themselves a kind of
moon-like character, reflected from the sun of which they are the
satellites. This was one.
The small thing, who was dressed in a cloak ditto to that of Mr.
Teeardeyell, was a man of considerable fortune, which devolved upon him
at the death of his father who had amassed it in trade; and having
just come into possession of it at the period when the town, as it is
called, was undecided between the merits of Mr. Teeardeyell at one
theatre, and Mr. somebody else at the other, he attached himself to
_his_ faction, made a friend of its head, and presented him with a cane
and cocked hat, the indubitable property of Garrick; a snuff-box which
Addison gave Booth after his performance of Cato, on the inside of the
lid of which, was this line by Swift--
To the best Booth in the fair:--
in fact, everything he could do to render his friendship for and
association with his favourite lion notorious, the weak and wealthy
jackal did.
When Brag saw the coach (licenced to carry only four insides,) thus
freighted, his heart was relieved, and he watched its further progress
to the door of “The Star” with confidence and security;--how well
grounded the reader may imagine, when, after a brief pause, he beheld
a ladder brought forth and placed against the hinder wheel of the
machine, followed by his respected mother, handed out by her husband.
The lady who was all muffled up and packed for travelling, and filled
with solicitude lest “rude Boreas” might embarrass her in her ascent
towards the elevation to which she aspired, never cast her eyes towards
the coach window, but proceeded at once to mount. But Salmon, however
assiduous and active in helping her up, and in doing what she called
“keeping her things down,” unluckily for his peace cast one glance
towards the four “insides,” and in that glance assured himself of the
presence of Miss Roseville and her ma’.
In every grief there is a gradation of sorrow: that Molly Hogg should
be in the coach was a cause of wretchedness rendered more painful by
the anxious expectation of what would inevitably happen when they met
wherever, as the phrase goes, the coach stopped to dine. To prevent his
bride’s joining in that repast he knew would be impossible,--and then
what a scene! Yet, horrid as this anticipation was, it was trifling
by comparison with that which must have happened if they had secured
inside places. Nothing, he was quite convinced, had ever occurred in
the world at all to equal the consequences of such a juxta-position,
unless, indeed, it was the affair of the Kilkenny cats, which ferocious
animals, as the deeply “_redde_” in Miller’s History of Ireland, and
the rest of the world know, fought in a saw-pit until nothing was left
of either of them but their tails.
Away rolled the coach, and while Mrs. Salmon was making herself snug
and comfortable, Jim was calculating what was best to be done. He knew
that they were to stop at Godstone; he knew too well Titsy’s admiration
of the mutton chops there. Could he by any means break the ladder
which they would bring out to facilitate her descent, or rather effect
it, for, without that, she could not leave her point of elevation!
A thousand things suggested themselves, but one after the other was
discarded from his mind as impracticable, until, before they had got
to Uckfield, every hope he had cherished was destroyed, every scheme
he had imagined blown to atoms, by a remark made by his better and
his bigger half, that the air must be uncommon wholesome, because
she “felt so peckish in spite of her bad spirits:”--the injured Titsy
still playing the offended wife, but little thinking that the delicate,
Venus-like occiput of her hated rival was within an inch of her own
great toe, and separated from it only by a bit of leather.
In this state of affairs, progressing at the rate of nearly ten miles
an hour, we must leave the stage-coach party for the present, and
return to our hero, who, however much he shuddered at the appearance
of his mother packed amongst the fish, fowl, and firkins, destined
for London use, consoled himself with the certainty that, by a little
management on the part of Salmon, and the exercise of a little
discretion on the part of Miss Hogg, she might escape a collision
which, for all their sakes, he so much dreaded.
Jack’s next thoughts were devoted to himself and his own purposes. He
ascertained that his best and shortest mode of reaching the Isle of
Wight was to proceed forthwith to Brighton, and thence, as he chose,
pursue his road by Chichester, to Portsmouth, or Southampton, as he
best pleased. At Brighton, Jack had no intention of staying, and as
he should arrive there early, the chances were that he might find a
conveyance suited to his purpose before the afternoon.
It would be quite useless to follow him in his uninteresting progress
to Cowes, to which place he had really directed his landlady in Lambeth
to despatch him a fresh supply of clothes, resolved to make himself
happy under the auspices of his noble friend, and if possible repair
the damage which the events of the last few weeks had done him. Suffice
it to say that the reader may safely imagine Jack leaning over the
railings of the yacht club-house, having, after his London fashion,
obtained ingress so far, by the countenance of the much-respected
nobleman upon whom he had fastened himself.
Cowes was, as the newspaper had announced, extremely lively; its
picturesque harbour was, as had been said, richly studded with gay
yachts, while the roads were graced by the presence of one or two of
His Majesty’s craft, and various ships, brigs, and schooners, waiting
for a wind to thread the Needles, and wend their way towards their
several places of destination. Jack felt at ease as his ferret-like
eyes twinkled at the laughing promenaders before him, and his little
heart began to beat with the ambition of becoming a member of the Yacht
Club himself. There was something _distingué_ in the button, and the
society was so agreeable; in fact it was ‘_the_ thing;’ and revolving
it much in his mind before he broached his desire to his friend Lord
Wagley, there appeared but three objections to his carrying it into
immediate execution. The first was, that, not having a yacht, he was
not qualified to become a member: the second was, that, if he were
qualified, he might not be received: and the third was, that if he
had the qualification, and was elected, he hated the sea, sailing,
boating, and everything connected with them, to the bottom of his
heart; that hate not being altogether unmixed with a feeling which no
man might venture personally to attribute to him with impunity. He was,
nevertheless, very much of the opinion of Anacharsis, who classed
those who committed themselves to the mercy of the wind and waves,
amongst the dead; and not having the advantage of an acquaintance with
any of those accommodating Lapland ladies, who Dr. Heywood tells us,
(in his ‘Hierarchies of Angels,’)
----winds to merchants sell,
Making their cov’nant when and how they please;
They may with prosperous weather cross the seas,
As thus,--they in a handkerchief fast tie
Three knots; and loose the first, and by and by
You find a gentle gale blow from the shore:
Open the second, it encreaseth more
To fill the sails: When you the third untie
Th’ intemperate gusts grow vehement and high;--
Jack felt certain qualms while thinking of the absolute necessity of
going afloat, which produced a kind of sea-sickness by anticipation.
But then what were his anticipations, apprehensions, or antipathies,
when put into the opposite scale to the privileges, (button included,)
which his admission into such a body as the Yacht Club would confer
upon him!
This notion had taken full possession of his mind, and he waited only
for a favourable opportunity of opening his heart to his noble friend,
whose warmth and good-nature were so satisfactory to him, that in two
or three days he became as brisk as ever, and was pushing himself in
every possible quarter, and, it must be owned, completely succeeded in
planting himself in the character of quality tag upon a Lady Lavinia
Newbiggen, and her niece Miss Hastings, to whom he had been presented
by his noble friend, who was delighted in the highest degree to get
anybody to relieve him in paying those delicate attentions which her
ladyship exacted from the little circle by which she was surrounded,
where everything agreeable was to be found, her ladyship’s own
absolutely indispensable presence alone excepted. Of her ladyship and
her charming niece, more anon.
It was when Wagley and Jack had been left together, _tête-à-tête_,
after the first dinner at her ladyship’s to which he had been invited,
that he felt himself able to break to his lordship the secret of his
great desire to become a member of the ‘Royal Squadron.’
“And a deuced good thing too,” said Lord Wagley. “I am not sure,
however, that we can ballot for you this year, even if you had a yacht
to qualify with; but--of that I’m not certain--the best thing you can
do is to get a qualification as soon as possible.”
“Oh,” said Jack; “what--get a yacht,--out and out,--and no mistake?”
“That is essential,” said his lordship, “and she must be one of
more than forty tons. Now, the opportunity is tempting--there is at
this moment in the harbour--’gad I can shew her to you from these
windows if the moon is up--one of the prettiest things that ever
swam,--seventy-six tons, there or thereabouts,--cutter-rigged,--all
copper fastened,--coppered to the bends,--excellent cabin,
mahogany fittings,--uncommon well found in stores,--ready for sea
to-morrow,--two regular suits of sails,--belongs to a member well
known in these parts,--has won two prizes, and is to be had a regular
bargain: there’s an opportunity,” said his lordship, “which ought not
to be lost.”
“It is indeed,” said Jack;--“built of mahogany, and fastened with
copper,--all right down, straight up, and no mistake?”
“Not exactly that,” said his lordship, “but she is perfect of her
class,--dirt-cheap.”
“What may be the damage?” said Jack.
“Why,” said his lordship, “take everything as it stands,--ready for a
start as she is,--eight hundred and fifty sovereigns, and no haggling!”
“Eight hundred and fifty sovereigns!” said Jack, “that’s a lump of
money for mahogany and copper!”
“Money!” exclaimed the peer, “my dear fellow, the chances are, that if
Chipstead was not hard up, you wouldn’t get her for a thousand.”
“I’ll think of it,” said Jack. “I confess it would be uncommon
pleasant. I don’t like, you see, my lord, to find every fellow taking
water, while I stand on the shore, like an old hen looking at young
ducks.”
“I assure you she’s worth your attention and the money,” said his
lordship, who had got her for an equivocal debt of the before-named
Chipstead, who, happening to miss his return for a borough which he had
before misrepresented, thought it advisable to take French-leave of
the Yacht Club and the Fleet together, and bestow himself securely at
Boulogne sur Mer. His lordship’s animated description of the beauties
of the abandoned ‘Psyche’ therefore, however nautically just, were not
altogether disinterested.
The wine,--the discussion,--the hope,--the expectation, all combined
to confuse and obfuscate Jack’s intellect; who, having in the space
of less than a week determined that something really _was_ to be done
in the family of Lady Lavinia very greatly to his advantage, seeing
that her ladyship herself paid him marked attentions, while she always
appeared to recommend her beautiful niece to his particular notice, and
that impressed with an idea of his wealth,--a notion which spread like
wildfire at Cowes,--they had resolved upon a line of conduct which,
if carried to its extreme point, might after all retrieve his past
defeats, and achieve the great object of his ambition,--was determined,
as far as in _him_ lay, to make a last great effort to soar above his
own sphere, and taking an exactly opposite course from his presumptuous
predecessor Icarus, carry his point by getting entirely rid of the wax
with which he fancied his wings were clogged.
The man who has lost and lost again, calls to Crockford for more
counters, feeling a fresh confidence after each succeeding loss, and
hoping, Antæus like, to gain new strength from every fall; goes on,
until at last his calling fails, and he arouses himself to a sad
conviction of the vanity of the delusion by which he has been led
to pursue his ill fortune to extremity:--so did Jack persevere in a
course, his discomfitures in which one should have thought, must, as he
would himself say, “have taken the shine out of him:”--but no; here he
was again beginning a fresh pursuit, and, as it appeared upon a more
important scale, and with more extensive means.
Lady Lavinia Newbiggen was universally voted a nuisance. She was
silly and sentimental, and wanted to pass for a blue. She affected to
be charmed with everything odd;--‘a character,’ as she used to call
anybody distinguished for doing anything, was her delight; an artist
was her idol, although she could not distinguish between a Vandyke
and a Varley; an author was a jewel of inestimable price, although
she never read a book. To _her_, a man who had been up in a balloon,
or down in a diving-bell, was something; even a celebrity gained by
wearing a particularly shaped hat, or an oddly cut coat, was important
in her eyes, and, accordingly, wherever she was, her house was filled
with all the lions and tigers of the society in which she was set down.
Brag had been presented to her as _the_ celebrated steeple-hunter, and
the best amateur jockey on the turf. _That_ was enough to secure him a
favourable reception, although she hated races, and never went to any
meeting but Ascot, and then invariably shut her eyes while the horses
were running.
The unquestioned success of Lady Lavinia in having established the
reputation of being the greatest bore upon earth, did not obtain
for her a corresponding admiration on the part of the rest of the
world, who were not so ravenously fond of rarities as she either
was, or professed to be, and therefore the attentions of Brag were
most acceptable to her. There he was, lounging and giggling with her
ladyship, who was sitting on a bench placed outside the door of the
house she occupied, on the little grass-plot dignified with the name of
garden, while Fanny Hastings, who had neither heart to give nor ears
to lend, lingered languidly and listlessly by the side of her aunt.
From this “shady blest retreat” they saw yacht after yacht depart, Lord
Wagley’s among the rest, and not an invitation to “sail” came from any
one of them to poor Lady Lavinia.
“Why haven’t _you_ a yacht, Mr. Brag?” said Lady Lavinia.
That question settled the affair:--Jack’s little heart beat ninety to
the minute.
“Then Fanny and I,” continued her ladyship, “might perhaps be favoured
with a cruise.”
Another palpitation at a considerably increased rate.
“For my part,” said her ladyship, “I cannot bear what are called
commonplace people. These young men are all very well, and they are
people of rank, and suitable, and all that--but I am, as you know, only
excited by something _piquante_;--don’t you understand?”
“Exactly, my lady,” said Jack; “straight up, right down, and no
mistake.”
“No mistake!” said her ladyship--“I hate mistakes--yes.--Well then, if
you had a yacht----”
“I _have_ one, my lady,” said Jack.
“Have you?” exclaimed her ladyship.
“The----pooh!--I forget her name,” said Jack, “I only bought her last
night. Pooh!--something beginning with an S.”
“An S!” said her ladyship.
“An S!” said Fanny, looking at Brag with an interest such as she
would have felt if her eyes had rested upon his amiable mother’s
tortoiseshell cat.
“Yes,” said Jack, “an S, and no mistake: and there she is, looking
uncommon nice--all regular.”
“That,” said Lady Lavinia--“that is Captain--what’s the man’s
name, Fanny, who was so famous last year for wearing yellow
boots?--Captain--Chipstead.”
“That’s he,” said Jack.
“She is called ‘The Psyche,’” said her ladyship.
“Well,” said Brag, “I hinted as much.”
“Oh! I see,” said her ladyship;--“you are so droll, it’s quite
delightful! Psyche with an S--ha, ha!--how odd you are! And you have
bought her?”
“Out and out,” said Jack.
This certainly was not the fact; but the moment her ladyship expressed
her wish that he should have a yacht, her desire, combined with his own
wish to qualify for the Club, determined him. What she had discovered
so exceedingly droll in his mode of spelling Psyche, Jack could not
make out; he naturally thinking--knowing nothing, of his own knowledge,
of the lovely lively lady with the papilionaceous wings, that her name
was written as it sounded, and being no more inclined to favour her
with the letter P at its beginning, than he would have been to indulge
Ptolemy or a ptarmigan with a similar favour.
“She is a very pretty yacht,” said Fanny.
“Delighted to hear you say so,” said Jack.
“What is her complement?” asked Lady Lavinia.
“What! Miss Fanny’s compliment?” said Jack--“it’s everything to
me!”--and he looked expressively.
“No,” said Lady Lavinia, “Psyche’s complement.”
“Ah!” said Jack, “that’s what I meant--Miss H’s compliment to Psyche.”
“Oh, you _are_ so droll!” said her ladyship, resolved to give her new
lion or tiger a credit to which certainly he had no claim whatever:
“how many have you?”
“What!” said Jack, wholly at a loss to answer a question, of the
purport of which he had not the slightest earthly comprehension--“eh!
how many what?”
“Men, my aunt means,” said Fanny.
“Men,” said Jack; “oh, only my own man, my butler, and two or three
livery servants, and my grooms.”
“Well, you certainly are the most comical creature in the world!”
said Lady Lavinia; “you _will_ misunderstand everything one says: so
odd--isn’t he, Fanny? What number of men have you for your yacht? There
now, you can’t make a joke of _that_.”
“Oh, the yacht!” said Jack; “why, to tell you the truth, my lady, till
Wagley comes back I can’t exactly say: he has what he calls the selling
of her; and--so I put it all into Wagley’s hands; and he will manage it
all, smack smooth, and no mistake.”
“He is a nice young man,” said Lady Lavinia, sighing, “but he hasn’t a
bit of sentiment about him.”
“Indeed!” said Jack, not in the least understanding what her ladyship
meant, “that’s a very sad business.”
“_I_ don’t care about it,” said her ladyship, “because I don’t
feel that sort of interest in him which genius, or talent, or even
eccentricity excites in my mind. He is a distant connexion of mine,
and therefore I cherish him, although, as I tell him, he is horridly
ungallant about his yacht. I think when ‘The Psyche’ is in commission,
her master will not be so cross.”
“I’m sure,” said Jack, “I shall be happy to lend her to your ladyship
whenever you and Miss Fanny like to go out in her.”
“Oh!” said Fanny, “that’s worse than Lord Wagley:--what will the sail
be without _your_ society, Mr. Brag?”
“You are uncommon kind,” said Jack.
“I only speak for my aunt,” said Fanny.
“My dear child,” said Lady Lavinia, “I can speak for myself, thank
you!--Have you been long on the turf, Mr. Brag?”
“Ever since my father was put under it, ma’am,” said Jack: “but I think
I shall give it up now, marry, and settle--that’s the plan, and no
mistake.”
“Most rationally resolved,” said her ladyship.
“There’s only one hitch, my lady,” said Jack--“I must get some other
body’s consent as well as my own.”
“I should think _that_ no difficulty,” said Lady Lavinia.
“You are very good, my lady,” said Jack, looking silly and shy, and
feeling sure that he had made a regular hit.
“For _my_ part,” said Lady Lavinia, “I believe I am not a fair judge of
the comforts and blessings of a married life, for never certainly had
woman so happy a lot. My poor Henry was certainly one of the kindest
of husbands! Our felicity was destroyed in the third year of our union
by his untimely death. I believe--dear Fanny does not recollect him--I
believe there never was a happier couple. Fanny dear, go into the
drawing-room, and show it to Mr. Brag?”
Jack, who, like his friend Lord Wagley, had not a bit of sentiment
about him, could by no means enter into the sort of feeling exhibited
by Lady Lavinia towards the memory of her departed husband, who had
been deposited in the family vault of all the Orlebars for the last
fourteen years; but “in course,” as he would have said, without
knowing, or even guessing what it was he was going to see, he followed
the fair Fanny into the room, in which was deposited an ebony case,
the doors of which she slowly opened, and exhibited to his sight the
portrait of a stout, fresh-coloured young man, dressed in the uniform
of some volunteer corps of cavalry, wearing flashes, with a profusion
of well-powdered hair fluttering in the breeze, as he stood without his
hat, leaning his left arm on the saddle of his horse, which pawed the
ground behind him,--his right hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
Jack looked at it. Fanny observed that it was considered a good
likeness. Jack made a little noise between a hem and a grunt, took out
his pocket-handkerchief, blew his nose;--Fanny shut up the case.
“Well,” said Lady Lavinia, as he returned to the garden, “you have seen
it.”
“Yes, my lady,” said Jack--“fine man. Do you happen to recollect
where he got that bright bay which he is a leaning upon? It’s as like
one that I have got down at my little place in Surrey, as one pea to
another.”
“No, Mr. Brag,” said her ladyship, “I recollect nothing but my own sad
loss; the accessories to the likeness have no interest for me.”
“The gentleman was in the army,” said Jack, who was terribly puzzled
what to say, and above all felt the greatest difficulty in pronouncing
the name of the dear departed, seeing that it was by no means euphonic.
What he _had_ said, however, was fatal to his own tranquillity for the
next hour or two.
Lady Lavinia had fallen in love with Mr. Newbiggen when she was
eighteen or nineteen, he being the son of a most respectable man,
who kept what is called “an everything shop” in a fashionable
watering-place at which her ladyship and her noble father happened to
be staying.
This attachment, which at the first blush certainly seems as little
sentimental as may be, was struggled with, by the gentle Lavinia, in
vain. Her efforts to conquer it brought on a severe illness; and a
confession made to her indulgent parent the Earl of Scredington, whose
only child she was, obtained from him his sanction to the match, under
certain circumstances, and upon certain conditions.
The first condition was, that Mr. Newbiggen the elder should retire
from trade, and establish himself as a private gentleman in some part
of England, as far distant as possible from his then residence, and
that no intercourse was to be allowed between the families after the
marriage: this was a hard and heart-breaking stipulation for Henry’s
mother; however, his lordship made a considerable pecuniary sacrifice
to induce the old folks to accede to it, and they accordingly retired
from business into Yorkshire.
The next condition was, that as Mr. Newbiggen’s name would devolve
upon Lady Lavinia Orlebar, and be thus connected for ever with that
highly honourable house, he should forthwith repair to London, and
put Clarencieux, or some of his co-mates in arms, in possession of
whatever family facts or anecdotes he could collect, in order that,
previous to the marriage, he might get his genealogy properly arranged
to meet the public eye, so as to give a weight and respectability to
the name of Newbiggen, which it appeared very considerably to want.
These stipulations having been complied with, Lord Scredington got Mr.
Newbiggen into the volunteer cavalry of his own county, and converted
him into a captain with the least possible delay: it was in the uniform
of this rank he had been painted, and the picture and the pedigree
were the constant subjects of Lady Lavinia’s conversation with every
fresh acquaintance she made. The merits and amiability of her lost
Henry were never rehearsed without an immediate reference to his family
tree, a perusal of which would unquestionably establish the antiquity
and aristocracy of his family, and put at rest at once any hints or
innuendoes of an inferiority disparaging to the Orlebars.
“Perhaps, Mr. Brag,” said her ladyship, “as you are so good as to
take an interest in our family affairs, you would like to look at Mr.
Newbiggen’s tree? Fanny dear, open the box, and let Mr. Brag see it; it
is most beautifully got up, and does infinite credit to the Heralds’
College.”
Jack’s ideas were now greatly confused. What Mr. Newbiggen’s tree was,
puzzled him greatly; and when he saw the ample parchment removed from
its resting-place, his perplexity was very little reduced.
Butler says, “A herald calls himself a king, because he has authority
to hang, draw, and quarter--arms: for, assuming a jurisdiction over the
distributive titles of honour, as far as words extend, he gives himself
as great a latitude that way, as other magistrates use to do where they
have authority, and would enlarge it as far as they can. It is true he
can make no lords, nor knights, of himself, _but as many squires and
gentlemen as he pleases, and adopt them into what family they have a
mind_.
“His dominions abound with all sorts of cattle, fish, and fowl, and all
manner of manufactures, besides whole fields of gold and silver, which
he magnificently bestows upon his followers. The language he uses is
barbarous, as being but a dialect of pedlar’s French, or the Egyptian,
though of a loftier sound, and in its propriety affecting brevity, as
the other does verbosity.
“His business is like that of all the schools,--to make plain things
hard with perplexed methods and insignificant terms, and then appear
learned in making them plain again. He professes arms,--not for
war, but for ornament; and yet makes the basest things in the world
weapons of worshipful bearings. He is wiser than the fellow who sold
his ass and kept the shadow for his own use, for he sells the shadow
(that is, the picture) and keeps the ass himself. His chief province
is at funerals, where he commands in chief, marshals the _tristitiæ
irritamenta_, and, like a gentleman-sewer to the worms, serves up the
feast with all punctual formality. He is a kind of necromancer, and can
raise the dead out of their graves, and make them marry and give birth
to people of whom they never even heard in their lifetime.
“His coat is like the king of Spain’s dominions,--all skirts, and hangs
as loose about him; and his neck is the waist, like the picture of
Nobody, with his breeches fastened to his collar. He will sell the
head, or the single joint of a beast, or fowl, as dear as the whole
body--like a pig’s head in Bartholomew Fair; and after, put off the
rest to his customers at the same rate. His arms, being utterly out
of use in war since guns came up, have been translated to dishes and
cups, as the ancients used their precious stones, according to the
poet, ‘_Gemmas ad pocula transfert à gladiis_,’ and since are like to
decay every day more and more, for since he gave citizens coats of
arms, gentlemen have made bold to take their letters of mark by way of
reprisal. The hangman has a recipe to mar all his work in a moment;
for, by nailing the wrong end of a ’scutcheon upwards upon a gibbet,
all the honour and gentility extinguishes of itself, like a candle that
is held with the flame downwards. Other arms are made for the spilling
of blood; but his only purify and cleanse it, like scurvy-grass; for a
small dose taken by his prescription, will refine that which is as base
and gross as bull’s blood, (which the Athenians used to poison withal)
to any degree of purity.”
Butler’s description is somewhat elaborated, and in no small degree
illiberal in its reflections upon the College: but if he could have
seen the genealogy of the deceased Mr. Newbiggen, whatever he might
have found to justify some part of his observations, he could not have
failed to admire the mingled boldness and ingenuity with which it had
been manufactured.
Jack glanced his eye over the parchment, and was going to make some
particularly absurd remark, when Lady Lavinia desired Fanny to give him
“the papers” to read.
“I should like you to look over them,” said her ladyship. “Fanny
dear, let us leave Mr. Brag for a little;--and then we will go in to
luncheon.”
Saying which, the ladies retired; Lady Lavinia affecting to be greatly
affected, in order to give our hero the opportunity of informing
himself with respect to the ancestry of her late husband, a course
which, as has already been observed, she invariably adopted, in order
to confute and confound any reports--which mischievous people were but
too ready to circulate--tending to disparage the respectability of Mr.
Newbiggen, or, what she more disliked,--misrepresent the character of
her affection for him, from which their union resulted.
Brag opened the sort of MS. pamphlet which had been delivered to him;
but he certainly did not think of its contents. His eyes rested on the
Psyche, and his thoughts reverted to the statement he had made, as
regarded its purchase, to Lady Lavinia--then to the advantages to be
derived from her patronage--then the possibility of his election into
the Club;--in short, he felt himself upon the edge of a precipice,--he
must either jump boldly, clear his present difficulties, and land upon
higher ground;--or “be for ever fall’n,” and he felt, above all, that
he had no time to lose.
Having turned all his own personal affairs in his mind, he proceeded to
read the honourable record which he held in his hand.
[Illustration: NEWBIGGEN OF BUMBLESFORD.]
This ancient and honourable family is descended from Hugo de Hoaques,
one of the followers of King William the Conqueror, who married, on
the 19th of August 1058, Hermengilda, Duchess of Coutance, daughter of
Reginald d’Evreux, by Margaret, great-niece of the Emperor Charlemagne.
After the Conquest we find the family of de Hoaques settled in Kent.
Stephen de Hoaques, of Tenterden, married, March the 6th, 1108, Emma,
daughter of Sir Trystram Dummer, by Florence, daughter and co-heiress
of Robert Chittenden, who was afterwards knighted by King Henry the
First, on the 4th of September 1119, in memory of the great services
he had rendered to his late queen Matilda, daughter of Malcolm king of
Scotland, who died on the 1st of the preceding May.
Stephen had seventeen children by his wife, nine of whom survived him.
He died April 1, 1151, having been married forty-three years. He was
succeeded by
Stephen de Hoaques, who assumed the name of Hoaxley, of Tenterden, born
March 4, 1109. He married Alice, daughter of Sir Walter Fysheton, of
Cromlie in the county of Huntingdon; and by her, who died July 7, 1162,
he had
Margaret, married to Sir Hugh Gamstock, afterwards created Baron
Gamstock, who died without issue.
Of the younger branches of the family of Hoaques there are no distinct
records. One son, it is believed, was educated for the church, became
a cardinal, and was proposed for the Tiara; another rose to great
eminence in the state; and the youngest sister went to France, where
she espoused a French nobleman of the highest rank.
Stephen Hoaxley survived his wife Alice but three years, having
deceased on the 9th of March 1165. On his death, it appears that the
family estates at Tenterden were sold; for in the year 1169 we find
the ancient manor-house of Homebag, or Hommbug, in the possession of
Stephen Newcome, of whose genealogy a long account is given by Lyall,
in his “Researches.” His wife was great-great-great-grand-daughter of
Owen Glmdrwg, a near relation of Eglmd, who was some time Prince of
Powys.
By this lady Mr. Newcome had a numerous family, who subsequently
quitted Kent, and settled in the neighbourhood of Leicester. His third
son was created a baron, in the year 1238, by Henry the Third, whose
queen stood sponsor to his only daughter, Eleanor, who was named after
her illustrious godmother. She was born November 11, 1240; and married,
May 6, 1259, Wynkin de Nethersole, to whom her large fortune devolved,
upon the death of her father, on the 8th of August 1271.
The Lady de Nethersole survived her husband, and married a second
time, on the 12th of March 1279, the first-cousin of her former
husband,--Bertram de Nethersole, by whom she had several children. This
branch of the family intermarried with the Mowbrays, Herings, Russells,
Spencers, Fitzwalters, Courtenays, and various other noble houses.
In the reign of George the Second the family of the Nethersoles were
possessed of considerable landed property in Gloucestershire, of
which county Mr. Isaac Nethersole was foreman of the grand jury in
the year 1759. His daughter Anne, by Margaret Alicia, first-cousin to
the Honourable Patrick O’Callaghan, of Sculduddery in the county of
Tipperary, married, June 9th, 1754, Sir Thomas Walkinghame, knight and
alderman of the city of London, who had by her,
Thomas,--Died young:
Anne,--Born May 1762;--married, December 21, 1778, John Hogmore,
of Dilberry, in the county of Gloucester, who, dying, bequeathed
his paternal estates to his nephew George Stamford Bamford Hogmore,
Esq.; from whom a portion of them descended, by purchase, to the
present owner, Isaac John Newbiggen, of Bumblesford, Esq. now the
representative of that respectable and ancient family.
Mr. Newbiggen married, July 7, 1779, Miss Margaret Tibbs, of a very
ancient and highly honourable family in Cumberland, by whom he has
issue,--
Henry Theophilus Newbiggen, born May 12, 1784, a captain in the Flimsy
volunteer corps of cavalry, a vestryman of the parish of Gammonby, and
one of the trustees of the Puddlesford turnpike-road; married, February
14, 1810, the Lady Lavinia Anne Elizabeth Catharine Jemisetta Orlebar,
only surviving daughter of the Right Honourable Francis John Earl of
Scredington, by whom he has no issue.
ARMS. Sa. a fesse engrailed Or, between three Coffee-biggens proper.
CREST. The sun in splendour, rising from clouds, all ppr.
MOTTO. “_Begin anew._”
QUARTERINGS.
FYSHETON.
GAMSTOCK.
HOWARD.
RUSSELL.
SPENCER.
COURTENAY.
MURRAY.
CAMPBELL.
PERCY.
DUMMER.
GLMDRWG.
BOTELER.
DE COURCY.
MONTMORENCI.
FITZALLAN.
NETHERSOLE.
TIBBS.
GAMMON.
Country Seats--Bumblesford Grange, Yorkshire. Newbiggen House, Kent.
Town Residence--Lower Brook Street.
Jack had scarcely finished this valuable specimen of heraldic research,
brought to such an obvious and satisfactory conclusion, before the
ladies returned to summon him to luncheon, where, as the after-part of
the day is destined to be rather eventful to him, we will leave him,
and begin a fresh chapter for fresh occurrences.