THE DAUGHTERS OF THE SHEARS
Three daughters and a son were left to the world by Mr. Melchisedec.
Love, well endowed, had already claimed to provide for the daughters:
first in the shape of a lean Marine subaltern, whose days of obscuration
had now passed, and who had come to be a major of that corps: secondly,
presenting his addresses as a brewer of distinction: thirdly, and for a
climax, as a Portuguese Count: no other than the Senor Silva Diaz, Conde
de Saldar: and this match did seem a far more resplendent one than that
of the two elder sisters with Major Strike and Mr. Andrew Cogglesby. But
the rays of neither fell visibly on Lymport. These escaped Eurydices
never reappeared, after being once fairly caught away from the gloomy
realms of Dis, otherwise Trade. All three persons of singular beauty, a
certain refinement, some Port, and some Presence, hereditarily combined,
they feared the clutch of that fell king, and performed the widest
possible circles around him. Not one of them ever approached the house
of her parents. They were dutiful and loving children, and wrote
frequently; but of course they had to consider their new position, and
their husbands, and their husbands' families, and the world, and what it
would say, if to it the dreaded rumour should penetrate! Lymport
gossips, as numerous as in other parts, declared that the foreign
nobleman would rave in an extraordinary manner, and do things after the
outlandish fashion of his country: for from him, there was no doubt, the
shop had been most successfully veiled, and he knew not of Pluto's close
relationship to his lovely spouse.
The marriages had happened in this way. Balls are given in country
towns, where the graces of tradesmen's daughters may be witnessed and
admired at leisure by other than tradesmen: by occasional country
gentlemen of the neighbourhood, with light minds: and also by small
officers: subalterns wishing to do tender execution upon man's fair
enemy, and to find a distraction for their legs. The classes of our
social fabric have, here and there, slight connecting links, and
provincial public balls are one of these. They are dangerous, for Cupid
is no respecter of class-prejudice; and if you are the son of a retired
tea-merchant, or of a village doctor, or of a half-pay captain, or of
anything superior, and visit one of them, you are as likely to receive
his shot as any shopboy. Even masquerading lords at such places, have
been known to be slain outright; and although Society allows to its
highest and dearest to save the honour of their families, and heal their
anguish, by indecorous compromise, you, if you are a trifle below that
mark, must not expect it. You must absolutely give yourself for what you
hope to get. Dreadful as it sounds to philosophic ears, you must marry.
This, having danced with Caroline Harrington, the gallant Lieutenant
Strike determined to do. Nor, when he became aware of her father's
occupation, did he shrink from his resolve. After a month's hard
courtship, he married her straight out of her father's house. That he
may have all the credit due to him, it must be admitted that he did not
once compare, or possibly permit himself to reflect on, the dissimilarity
in their respective ranks, and the step he had taken downward, till they
were man and wife: and then not in any great degree, before Fortune had
given him his majority; an advance the good soldier frankly told his wife
he did not owe to her. If we may be permitted to suppose the colonel of
a regiment on friendly terms with one of his corporals, we have an
estimate of the domestic life of Major and Mrs. Strike. Among the
garrison males, his comrades, he passed for a disgustingly jealous brute.
The ladies, in their pretty language, signalized him as a 'finick.'
Now, having achieved so capital a marriage, Caroline, worthy creature,
was anxious that her sisters should not be less happy, and would have
them to visit her, in spite of her husband's protests.
'There can be no danger,' she said, for she was in fresh quarters, far
from the nest of contagion. The lieutenant himself ungrudgingly declared
that, looking on the ladies, no one for an instant could suspect; and he
saw many young fellows ready to be as great fools as he had been another
voluntary confession he made to his wife; for the candour of which she
thanked him, and pointed out that it seemed to run in the family;
inasmuch as Mr. Andrew Cogglesby, his rich relative, had seen and had
proposed for Harriet. The lieutenant flatly said he would never allow
it. In fact he had hitherto concealed the non-presentable portion of his
folly very satisfactorily from all save the mess-room, and Mr. Andrew's
passion was a severe dilemma to him. It need scarcely be told that his
wife, fortified by the fervid brewer, defeated him utterly. What was
more, she induced him to be an accomplice in deception. For though the
lieutenant protested that he washed his hands of it, and that it was a
fraud and a snare, he certainly did not avow the condition of his wife's
parents to Mr. Andrew, but alluded to them in passing as 'the country
people.' He supposed 'the country people' must be asked, he said. The
brewer offered to go down to them. But the lieutenant drew an unpleasant
picture of the country people, and his wife became so grave at the
proposal, that Mr. Andrew said he wanted to marry the lady and not the
'country people,' and if she would have him, there he was. There he was,
behaving with a particular and sagacious kindness to the raw lieutenant
since Harriet's arrival. If the lieutenant sent her away, Mr. Andrew
would infallibly pursue her, and light on a discovery. Twice cursed by
Love, twice the victim of tailordom, our excellent Marine gave away
Harriet Harrington in marriage to Mr. Andrew Cogglesby.
Thus Joy clapped hands a second time, and Horror deepened its shadows.
From higher ground it was natural that the remaining sister should take a
bolder flight. Of the loves of the fair Louisa Harrington and the
foreign Count, and how she first encountered him in the brewer's saloons,
and how she, being a humorous person, laughed at his 'loaf' for her, and
wore the colours that pleased him, and kindled and soothed his jealousy,
little is known beyond the fact that she espoused the Count, under the
auspices of the affluent brewer, and engaged that her children should be
brought up in the faith of the Catholic Church: which Lymport gossips
called, paying the Devil for her pride.
The three sisters, gloriously rescued by their own charms, had now to
think of their one young brother. How to make him a gentleman! That was
their problem.
Preserve him from tailordom--from all contact with trade--they must;
otherwise they would be perpetually linked to the horrid thing they hoped
to outlive and bury. A cousin of Mr. Melchisedec's had risen to be an
Admiral and a knight for valiant action in the old war, when men could
rise. Him they besought to take charge of the youth, and make a
distinguished seaman of him. He courteously declined. They then
attacked the married Marine--Navy or Army being quite indifferent to them
as long as they could win for their brother the badge of one Service,
'When he is a gentleman at once!' they said, like those who see the end
of their labours. Strike basely pretended to second them. It would have
been delightful to him, of course, to have the tailor's son messing at
the same table, and claiming him when he pleased with a familiar 'Ah,
brother!' and prating of their relationship everywhere. Strike had been
a fool: in revenge for it he laid out for himself a masterly career of
consequent wisdom. The brewer--uxorious Andrew Cogglesby--might and
would have bought the commission. Strike laughed at the idea of giving
money for what could be got for nothing. He told them to wait.
In the meantime Evan, a lad of seventeen, spent the hours not devoted to
his positive profession--that of gentleman--in the offices of the
brewery, toying with big books and balances, which he despised with the
combined zeal of the sucking soldier and emancipated tailor.
Two years passed in attendance on the astute brother-in-law, to whom
Fortune now beckoned to come to her and gather his laurels from the pig-
tails. About the same time the Countess sailed over from Lisbon on a
visit to her sister Harriet (in reality, it was whispered in the
Cogglesby saloons, on a diplomatic mission from the Court of Lisbon; but
that could not be made ostensible). The Countess narrowly examined Evan,
whose steady advance in his profession both her sisters praised.
'Yes,' said the Countess, in a languid alien accent. 'He has something
of his father's carriage--something. Something of his delivery--his
readiness.'
It was a remarkable thing that these ladies thought no man on earth like
their father, and always cited him as the example of a perfect gentleman,
and yet they buried him with one mind, and each mounted guard over his
sepulchre, to secure his ghost from an airing.
'He can walk, my dears, certainly, and talk--a little. Tete-a-tete, I do
not say. I should think there he would be--a stick! All you English
are. But what sort of a bow has he got, I ask you? How does he enter a
room? And, then his smile! his laugh! He laughs like a horse--
absolutely! There's no music in his smile. Oh! you should see a
Portuguese nobleman smile. O mio Deus! honeyed, my dears! But Evan has
it not. None of you English have. You go so.'
The Countess pressed a thumb and finger to the sides of her mouth, and
set her sisters laughing.
'I assure you, no better! not a bit! I faint in your society. I ask
myself--Where am I? Among what boors have I fallen? But Evan is no
worse than the rest of you; I acknowledge that. If he knew how to dress
his shoulders properly, and to direct his eyes--Oh! the eyes! you
should see how a Portuguese nobleman can use his eyes! Soul! my dears,
soul! Can any of you look the unutterable without being absurd! You
look so.'
And the Countess hung her jaw under heavily vacuous orbits, something as
a sheep might yawn.
'But I acknowledge that Evan is no worse than the rest of you,' she
repeated. 'If he understood at all the management of his eyes and mouth!
But that's what he cannot possibly learn in England--not possibly! As
for your poor husband, Harriet! one really has to remember his excellent
qualities to forgive him, poor man! And that stiff bandbox of a man of
yours, Caroline!' addressing the wife of the Marine, 'he looks as if he
were all angles and sections, and were taken to pieces every night and
put together in the morning. He may be a good soldier--good anything you
will--but, Diacho! to be married to that! He is not civilized. None of
you English are. You have no place in the drawing-room. You are like so
many intrusive oxen--absolutely! One of your men trod on my toe the
other night, and what do you think the creature did? Jerks back, then
the half of him forward--I thought he was going to break in two--then
grins, and grunts, "Oh! 'm sure, beg pardon, 'm sure!" I don't know
whether he didn't say, MARM!'
The Countess lifted her hands, and fell away in laughing horror. When
her humour, or her feelings generally, were a little excited, she spoke
her vernacular as her sisters did, but immediately subsided into the
deliberate delicately-syllabled drawl.
'Now that happened to me once at one of our great Balls,' she pursued.
'I had on one side of me the Duchesse Eugenia de Formosa de Fontandigua;
on the other sat the Countess de Pel, a widow. And we were talking of
the ices that evening. Eugenia, you must know, my dears, was in love
with the Count Belmarana. I was her sole confidante. The Countess de
Pel--a horrible creature! Oh! she was the Duchess's determined enemy-
would have stabbed her for Belmarana, one of the most beautiful men!
Adored by every woman! So we talked ices, Eugenic and myself, quite
comfortably, and that horrible De Pel had no idea in life! Eugenia had
just said, "This ice sickens me! I do not taste the flavour of the
vanille." I answered, "It is here! It must--it cannot but be here!
You love the flavour of the vanille?" With her exquisite smile, I see
her now saying, "Too well! it is necessary to me! I live on it!"--when
up he came. In his eagerness, his foot just effleured my robe. Oh!
I never shall forget! In an instant he was down on one knee it was so
momentary that none saw it but we three, and done with ineffable grace.
"Pardon!" he said, in his sweet Portuguese; "Pardon!" looking up--the
handsomest man I ever beheld; and when I think of that odious wretch the
other night, with his "Oh! 'm sure, beg pardon, 'm sure! 'pon my honour!"
I could have kicked him--I could, indeed!'
Here the Countess laughed out, but relapsed into:
'Alas! that Belmarana should have betrayed that beautiful trusting
creature to De Pel. Such scandal! a duel!--the Duke was wounded. For a
whole year Eugenia did not dare to appear at Court, but had to remain
immured in her country-house, where she heard that Belmarana had married
De Pel! It was for her money, of course. Rich as Croesus, and as wicked
as the black man below! as dear papa used to say. By the way, weren't
we talking of Evan? Ah,--yes!'
And so forth. The Countess was immensely admired, and though her sisters
said that she was 'foreignized' overmuch, they clung to her desperately.
She seemed so entirely to have eclipsed tailordom, or 'Demogorgon,' as
the Countess was pleased to call it. Who could suppose this grand-
mannered lady, with her coroneted anecdotes and delicious breeding, the
daughter of that thing? It was not possible to suppose it. It seemed to
defy the fact itself.
They congratulated her on her complete escape from Demogorgon. The
Countess smiled on them with a lovely sorrow.
'Safe from the whisper, my dears; the ceaseless dread? If you knew what
I have to endure! I sometimes envy you. 'Pon my honour, I sometimes
wish I had married a fishmonger! Silva, indeed, is a most excellent
husband. Polished! such polish as you know not of in England. He has a
way--a wriggle with his shoulders in company--I cannot describe it to
you; so slight! so elegant! and he is all that a woman could desire.
But who could be safe in any part of the earth, my dears, while papa
will go about so, and behave so extraordinarily? I was at dinner at your
English embassy a month ago, and there was Admiral Combleman, then on the
station off Lisbon, Sir Jackson Racial's friend, who was the Admiral at
Lymport formerly. I knew him at once, and thought, oh! what shall I do!
My heart was like a lump of lead. I would have given worlds that we
might one of us have smothered the other! I had to sit beside him--
it always happens! Thank heaven! he did not identify me. And then
he told an anecdote of Papa. It was the dreadful old "Bath" story.
I thought I should have died. I could not but fancy the Admiral
suspected. Was it not natural? And what do you think I had the audacity
to do? I asked him coolly, whether the Mr. Harrington he mentioned was
not the son of Sir Abraham Harrington, of Torquay,--the gentleman who
lost his yacht in the Lisbon waters last year? I brought it on myself.
"Gentleman, ma'am,--MA'AM!" says the horrid old creature, laughing,"
gentleman! he's a--" I cannot speak it: I choke! And then he began
praising Papa. Diacho! what I suffered. But, you know, I can keep my
countenance, if I perish. I am a Harrington as much as any of us!'
And the Countess looked superb in the pride with which she said she was
what she would have given her hand not to be. But few feelings are
single on this globe, and junction of sentiments need not imply unity in
our yeasty compositions.
'After it was over--my supplice,' continued the Countess, 'I was
questioned by all the ladies--I mean our ladies--not your English. They
wanted to know how I could be so civil to that intolerable man. I gained
a deal of credit, my dears. I laid it all on--Diplomacy.' The Countess
laughed bitterly. 'Diplomacy bears the burden of it all. I pretended
that Combleman could be useful to Silva! Oh! what hypocrites we all are,
mio Deus!'
The ladies listening could not gainsay this favourite claim of universal
brotherhood among the select who wear masks instead of faces.
With regard to Evan, the Countess had far outstripped her sisters in her
views. A gentleman she had discovered must have one of two things--
a title or money. He might have all the breeding in the world; he might
be as good as an angel; but without a title or money he was under eclipse
almost total. On a gentleman the sun must shine. Now, Evan had no
title, no money. The clouds were thick above the youth. To gain a title
he would have to scale aged mountains. There was one break in his
firmament through which the radiant luminary might be assisted to cast
its beams on him still young. That divine portal was matrimony. If he
could but make a rich marriage he would blaze transfigured; all would be
well! And why should not Evan marry an heiress, as well as another?
'I know a young creature who would exactly suit him,' said the Countess.
'She is related to the embassy, and is in Lisbon now. A charming child--
just sixteen! Dios! how the men rave about her! and she isn't a
beauty,--there's the wonder; and she is a little too gauche too English
in her habits and ways of thinking; likes to be admired, of course, but
doesn't know yet how to set about getting it. She rather scandalizes our
ladies, but when you know her!--She will have, they say, a hundred
'thousand pounds in her own right! Rose Jocelyn, the daughter of Sir
Franks, and that eccentric Lady Jocelyn. She is with her uncle,
Melville, the celebrated diplomate though, to tell you the truth,
we turn him round our fingers, and spin him as the boys used to do the
cockchafers. I cannot forget our old Fallow field school-life, you see,
my dears. Well, Rose Jocelyn would just suit Evan. She is just of an
age to receive an impression. And I would take care she did. Instance
me a case where I have failed?
'Or there is the Portuguese widow, the Rostral. She's thirty, certainly;
but she possesses millions! Estates all over the kingdom, and the
sweetest creature. But, no. Evan would be out of the way there,
certainly. But--our women are very nice: they have the dearest,
sweetest ways: but I would rather Evan did not marry one of them.
And then there 's the religion!'
This was a sore of the Countess's own, and she dropped a tear in coming
across it.
'No, my dears, it shall be Rose Jocelyn!' she concluded: 'I will take
Evan over with me, and see that he has opportunities. It shall be Rose,
and then I can call her mine; for in verity I love the child.'
It is not my part to dispute the Countess's love for Miss Jocelyn;
and I have only to add that Evan, unaware of the soft training he was
to undergo, and the brilliant chance in store for him, offered no
impediment to the proposition that he should journey to Portugal with his
sister (whose subtlest flattery was to tell him that she should not be
ashamed to own him there); and ultimately, furnished with cash for the
trip by the remonstrating brewer, went.
So these Parcae, daughters of the shears, arranged and settled the young
man's fate. His task was to learn the management of his mouth, how to
dress his shoulders properly, and to direct his eyes--rare qualities in
man or woman, I assure you; the management of the mouth being especially
admirable, and correspondingly difficult. These achieved, he was to
place his battery in position, and win the heart and hand of an heiress.
Our comedy opens with his return from Portugal, in company with Miss
Rose, the heiress; the Honourable Melville Jocelyn, the diplomate; and
the Count and Countess de Saldar, refugees out of that explosive little
kingdom.