Ou peut-on etre mieux qu’au sein de sa famille?--French Song. [Where
can one be better than in the bosom of one’s family?]
I am an only child. My father was the younger son of one of our oldest
earls; my mother the dowerless daughter of a Scotch peer. Mr. Pelham was
a moderate whig, and gave sumptuous dinners; Lady Frances was a woman of
taste, and particularly fond of diamonds and old china.
Vulgar people know nothing of the necessaries required in good society,
and the credit they give is as short as their pedigree. Six years
after my birth, there was an execution in our house. My mother was just
setting off on a visit to the Duchess of D_____; she declared it
was impossible to go without her diamonds. The chief of the bailiffs
declared it was impossible to trust them out of his sight. The matter
was compromised--the bailiff went with my mother to C___, and was
introduced as my tutor. “A man of singular merit,” whispered my mother,
“but so shy!” Fortunately, the bailiff was abashed, and by losing his
impudence he kept the secret. At the end of the week, the diamonds went
to the jeweller’s, and Lady Frances wore paste.
I think it was about a month afterwards that a sixteenth cousin left
my mother twenty thousand pounds. “It will just pay off our most
importunate creditors, and equip me for Melton,” said Mr. Pelham.
“It will just redeem my diamonds, and refurnish the house,” said Lady
Frances.
The latter alternative was chosen. My father went down to run his last
horse at Newmarket, and my mother received nine hundred people in a
Turkish tent. Both were equally fortunate, the Greek and the Turk; my
father’s horse lost, in consequence of which he pocketed five thousand
pounds; and my mother looked so charming as a Sultana, that Seymour
Conway fell desperately in love with her.
Mr. Conway had just caused two divorces; and of course, all the women
in London were dying for him--judge then of the pride which Lady Frances
felt at his addresses. The end of the season was unusually dull, and
my mother, after having looked over her list of engagements, and
ascertained that she had none remaining worth staying for, agreed to
elope with her new lover.
The carriage was at the end of the square. My mother, for the first time
in her life, got up at six o’clock. Her foot was on the step, and her
hand next to Mr. Conway’s heart, when she remembered that her favourite
china monster and her French dog were left behind. She insisted on
returning--re-entered the house, and was coming down stairs with one
under each arm, when she was met by my father and two servants. My
father’s valet had discovered the flight (I forget how), and awakened
his master.
When my father was convinced of his loss, he called for his
dressing-gown--searched the garret and the kitchen--looked in the maid’s
drawers and the cellaret--and finally declared he was distracted. I have
heard that the servants were quite melted by his grief, and I do not
doubt it in the least, for he was always celebrated for his skill in
private theatricals. He was just retiring to vent his grief in his
dressing-room, when he met my mother. It must altogether have been an
awkward rencontre, and, indeed, for my father, a remarkably unfortunate
occurrence; for Seymour Conway was immensely rich, and the damages
would, no doubt, have been proportionably high. Had they met each other
alone, the affair might easily have been settled, and Lady Frances gone
off in tranquillity;--those d--d servants are always in the way!
I have, however, often thought that it was better for me that the affair
ended thus,--as I know, from many instances, that it is frequently
exceedingly inconvenient to have one’s mother divorced.
I have observed that the distinguishing trait of people accustomed to
good society, is a calm, imperturbable quiet, which pervades all their
actions and habits, from the greatest to the least: they eat in quiet,
move in quiet, live in quiet, and lose their wife, or even their money,
in quiet; while low persons cannot take up either a spoon or an
affront without making such an amazing noise about it. To render this
observation good, and to return to the intended elopement, nothing
farther was said upon that event. My father introduced Conway
to Brookes’s, and invited him to dinner twice a week for a whole
twelvemonth.
Not long after this occurrence, by the death of my grandfather, my uncle
succeeded to the title and estates of the family. He was, as people
justly observed, rather an odd man: built schools for peasants, forgave
poachers, and diminished his farmers’ rents; indeed, on account of these
and similar eccentricities, he was thought a fool by some, and a madman
by others. However, he was not quite destitute of natural feeling; for
he paid my father’s debts, and established us in the secure enjoyment of
our former splendour. But this piece of generosity, or justice, was done
in the most unhandsome manner; he obtained a promise from my father to
retire from Brookes’s, and relinquish the turf; and he prevailed upon
my mother to take an aversion to diamonds, and an indifference to china
monsters.