The Hon. Mr. Candituft had a genius for society. In the marks of
a man’s face, he could, he thought, generally interpret the marks
of a man’s bank-book. With an unbounded benevolence for all the
world, he nevertheless—though he would not avow the instinct—best
liked the acquaintance of that portion of society that, raised far
above the cares of money, could do the fullest justice to the moral
and spiritual and, he would add, the tasteful and elegant man. He
looked upon all mankind as brethren; but, still, preferred the elder
brethren of the richest branches. And why? Possibly, because it was
the condition of humanity to forego so much of its original bloom
and goodness in the vulgar pursuit of the vulgar means of life. Not
that he did not honour even the horny hand of sordid labour. To be
sure; and has been known, on more than one festive occasion, to take
the said hand in his own naked palm, at the same time passing a high
eulogium on the original profession of Adam. Still, it must be owned,
that of the two conditions of Adam, he much preferred the landlord of
Eden to the labourer outside.
“Introduce you, my dear sir? To be sure—not that there’s any need
of introduction at Jogtrot Hall; think it a family party, sir; a
family party.” Such was the cordial outspeaking of the host, Gilbert
Carraways, esquire; a fine, simple, hearty, old gentleman; with a
bright grey eye; and white, thin, silky hair. Time had used him
like an old friend, kindly, considerately. At three score, Squire
Carraways—for such was his dignity throughout Marigolds—carried
his years, as a lusty reaper carries a sheaf; with ruddy face and
unbent back. “I say to you again, my good friend,” cried the host to
Candituft, “think it a family party.”
“My dear sir,” said the Hon. Cesar Candituft, catching the hand of
his host, and looking almost pathetically into his face, “my dear
sir, would that we all had your benevolence! Would that all the world
could be brought to think all the world a family party! Look at that
man, sir; that very brown man, sir,”—and Candituft pointed to an
Indian juggler, who, hired for the day, was crossing the grounds to
begin the shew,—“look at that deep-dyed individual, sir; why, I can
consider him my brother.”
“Very kind of you,” said Carraways; who, hooking his thumbs into his
waistcoat pockets, looked a little slily at the philanthropist. “You
never come into the City? Humph! you’d be dreadfully shocked to see
so many of your relations with brooms.”
“Of course,” said Candituft, as the best thing he could say. “But, my
dear sir—here he is—introduce me.”
At this moment, Jericho, between his wife and eldest daughter,
marched slowly up.
“Mr. Jericho, Mr. Candituft—the Hon. Mr. Candituft,” said Carraways:
and, turning from the newly-known brethren, the host took Mrs.
Jericho and Monica under his charge.
“You’ll find us somewhere, Jericho,” said the wife. “We must join
dear Mrs. Carraways.”
“And sweet Bessy,” cried the emphatic Monica.
“Really, Mrs. Jericho, I should like to see your husband look
somewhat stouter. Isn’t he a—a little thin?” asked Carraways.
“Oh, dear, no! not at all,” answered Mrs. Jericho, quite eagerly. “By
no means.”
“Papa, you know, was always thin,” said Miss Pennibacker, so very
confidently, that Carraways felt he ought to be mistaken. It was
clear—Jericho was always thin. “Well, well, it’s my blunder; yet, I
thought, perhaps, the shock of sudden property. By the way, I’m glad
to hear such wonders of the mines.”
“Very kind of you, dear Mr. Carraways. But”—added Mrs. Jericho,
philosophically and sonorously—“after all, what is money? Money
cannot bestow happiness.”
“Why, perhaps not,” said the merchant host; “nevertheless, it often
supplies a good imitation of the article. Come, come, you mustn’t
abuse money, Mrs. Jericho. That’s the rightful privilege of people
who can’t get it.”
“Dear Mrs. Carraways! Well, this is lovely! Quite oriental! Superb!”
cried Mrs. Jericho, with deepening emphasis greeting the lady of the
place. “I vow, it takes one quite back to the Persian poets.”
“Very good company, no doubt,” said Carraways, laughing; “but, after
all, I rather prefer this to any gardens on foolscap. Better company,
too”—and the old gentleman bent gallantly to Mrs. Jericho and
Monica—“much better company than the best of people, made of the best
of ink. My dear,” said Carraways to his wife, “where’s Bessy?”
“Oh yes! Where is dear Bessy?” cried Monica, with tremulous anxiety.
Mrs. Carraways nodded towards a party of dancers, where was Bessy
Carraways—a girl, whose best beauty was the open goodness of
her face—dancing with Sir Arthur Hodmadod; Miss Candituft apart
smiling—as the Spartan young gentleman smiled with the fox that fed
upon him—and following Bessy with speaking eyes, and shaking her
golden tresses, and beating her silver foot in blithe accompaniment
of the measure.
“How beautiful is Bessy to-day!” said Miss Candituft, joining Bessy’s
father and mother.
“Quite delicious,” cried Miss Pennibacker to Bessy’s mother; and Miss
Candituft swerved her fair neck, and opened her cold eyes at Monica,
as though resenting any admiration of so interesting a subject as a
trespass upon her own monopoly of love. And then she said, with new
supply of fervour—“She carries all hearts with her.”
“She is _so_ beautiful,” again interposed Monica.—Again Miss
Candituft stared.
“Why, as for that, she’s very good—and very like her mother,” said
Carraways, and then he laughed at his wife, and added—“and so we
won’t talk so much about the beauty. However, perhaps I’m grown too
old to judge;” and the father looked towards his child, and his face
glowed with pride and pleasure as she nodded to him, and wove in and
out the dance, young, healthful, and happy as a nymph.
“Ugh! Mr. Carraways,—this is too good; too fine; too grand for poor
folks. It’s cruel of you—sheer barbarity, sir; hard-hearted pride
of purse, nothing better. Cruel, sir; cruel,” gasped Colonel Bones,
offering his hand to the hostess, then to the host, and then making
a courteous sweeping bow to the ladies; for Bones was gallant to the
last.
“What, then, Colonel”—cried Miss Candituft—“you don’t enjoy this
elysium? You don’t like to tread upon asphodel?”
“An insult to poverty, Miss Candituft—an insult;” and Colonel Bones
smiled a hard smile, and his dark, deep sunk eyes twinkled from
behind his ragged eyebrows. “Too bad of our host to drag a beggar
like me here: really too bad. Tyrannous, tyrannous to scourge poverty
with golden rods. Humph?” And the Colonel looked around.
“I dare say you can bear it, Colonel,” answered Miss Candituft,
staring at him, and reading in the human antiquity the hidden mystery
of wealth. Before the eyes of the far-seeing spinster the heart of
Colonel Bones lay all revealed; open, discovered, like the valley
of diamonds. “You can bear it;” and saying this, the smiling lady
drew the very best flower from her bouquet, and threaded it in the
Colonel’s button-hole.
“Ugh!” said Colonel Bones, with a grim smile looking down upon the
operation. “Ugh! Winter, winter adorned by spring. Oh dear! Why will
you take such pains to spoil a beggar? Eh? Humph?” ended the Colonel,
with his usual spasm of interrogation.
At this moment Candituft and Jericho advanced to the party. Colonel
Bones, with a sudden jerk, was moving off, when Candituft stept
forward, with open hand.
“Ugh! No, sir; I can’t do it—I won’t do it. The fact is, sir,—though
this is not the place to name it—the fact is, it was I, Colonel
Bones, who on Saturday last black-balled you at the Cut-and-come.”
Thus spoke Bones, and somewhat defyingly.
“My good Colonel,” said Candituft very meekly, “I know it. What then?
It was a mistake.”
“No mistake at all, sir; not a bit; I’d do it again to-morrow.
Wouldn’t I? Humph?”
“Because, my dear Colonel, you don’t know me. Ignorance causes all
the family quarrels of the brotherhood of man. I lament your error;
but I have no malice. And what is human life,—what is moral dignity,
if it can’t live down these small mistakes? The brotherhood of man,
my dear sir.”
“Eh? What? There you are, at it again, Candituft! The brotherhood of
man! When you come out to enjoy yourself, why the devil can’t you
leave all your poor relations at home?”
“Ha! Commissioner, glad to see you. Why, you look as flourishing and
as bountiful as one of your own bread-trees. It’s food and lodging
to behold you.” This was the ready, flattering reply of Candituft
to a short, thick, very black, and very red man, who had the look
of having been dried like pepper, hard and hot, in a fiery climate;
though there were people who, when Commissioner Thrush talked of his
travels in Siam, stared very doubtingly upon the boastful rover. Be
such doubts just or unjust, the Commissioner made a very good use of
the king of Siam; putting off upon the royal whim, or royal wisdom,
his own jest. Thus, when Commissioner Thrush wanted to shoot at
impertinence or folly, he would very modestly shoot with the king of
Siam’s proper long-bow.
“Why, my dear good Thrush, will you so speak of human nature?” asked
the indomitable Candituft. “Why will you take such pains to hide
that noble heart of yours? That heart enlarged by travel—softened by
experience—purified by”——
“Well, it’s wonderful,” said the Commissioner, scrutinizing the cheek
of the Man-Tamer—“wonderful how you can do it. But you talk of hearts
and homes, and keep your face like a figure-head. It’s a good thing,
Candituft, you ar’n’t in Siam. They’d put you in petticoats; they
would, sir; for life—without hope of pardon, sir, for the term of
your natural life. In petticoats.”
“Ugh!” cried Colonel Bones with a sneering grin, “shouldn’t a bit
wonder. What for? Humph?”
“You see, Colonel, it is the custom of the king of Siam—or was, when
I knew him, for let me be particular—it was his Majesty’s custom,
when any of his ministers, or judges, or generals, or people of that
sort of kidney persisted in doing or talking of matters they didn’t
understand—not that I insinuate anything of the sort against our
friend Candituft—by no means; don’t mistake me—it was the king’s
custom, I say, to make his ministers, for the rest of their days,
wear nothing else but the cast-off clothes of the oldest women in
his dominions. When I left Siam, which is now—how time flies! a
good while ago—there were three prime ministers, one chancellor of
the exchequer, a chief justice, and two field marshals, all in old
women’s petticoats, sir. And for life! What do you think of that?”
“For my part,” said Carraways, “I must think the old ladies much
scandalised by the practice. But, Jericho, I want you”—
“Why, it isn’t Jericho!” cried Thrush, rushing up to our Man of
Money, and laying hold of his coat with both hands—“It can’t be
Jericho! Only a dividend of him. As I’m alive, you don’t look a
shilling in the pound of yourself.”
“Looks, sir—looks,”—said Jericho, with a dignity that did his wife’s
heart good—“are the cheats of the simple. If, however, I do look
thin, be assured I’ve my own private reasons for it. May I have the
pleasure, madam?”—and Jericho offered his arm to Miss Candituft,
her brother having introduced Jericho, and being with his sister
introduced to Jericho’s wife and daughter in honourable return.
Jericho made for a distant crowd, gathered about the juggler. “Very
odd, madam, that people can’t keep their foolish opinions under
their own hats,” said Jericho: and Miss Candituft—forewarned by
a significant look, an emphatic whisper from her brother—jumped
instantly to the like conclusion. Indeed Miss Candituft had very
quickly gathered the Jericho family to her bunch of treasured
friends: adding them readily as new flowers to chosen blossoms.
“Well, Mr. Jericho is certainly not so stout as he was,” said Mrs.
Carraways to Jericho’s wife, “but then I think he looks a great deal
better. He was a little _too_ stout,” suggested the good-natured
hostess.
“Decidedly too stout,” said Mrs. Jericho. “He wanted activity of
mind and body. I have prevailed upon him of late to take exercise,
and he is a great deal better. But, really, it would seem as if
there was a general conspiracy to frighten the poor man out of the
world. Absolutely a wicked design to throw me into the despair of
widowhood.” And then, as tearing herself with a wrench from the idea,
Mrs. Jericho blandly suggested—“Let us follow the world, and go to
the juggler.”
Candituft, Colonel Bones, and Commissioner Thrush slowly trod the
greensward. “Why,” said Thrush, “money seems to have taken all the
colour out of him. He was a jolly fellow, red and ripe as a peach;
and now—I wonder if he’s made his will. Depend upon it, he won’t live
long.”
“Don’t say that! Dear fellow—I mean, poor creature! Dreadful times
for such people to die, when by living”—and Candituft, with finger at
his cheek, shook his head—“they could do so much good to the family
of man. Really, Mr. Jericho ought to have the best advice.”
“Ugh! If he’s so very rich, Candituft, you’ll bestow advice gratis,”
grinned Bones. “You’ll feel his pulse,—I’m sure of that. Now a beggar
like me—a pensioner upon a crust—can’t hope for such a doctor. Humph?”
“Ha, Colonel! You know you may say anything. You know you may use
your friends as you please; you can’t offend ’em. They know your
heart,”—said Candituft—“and what matters the rest?”
“I say, Colonel, you’ll remember Candituft in your will for all
this?” said Thrush.
“My will! Ugh!” cried Colonel Bones. “When I die, I shall leave—I
shall leave—the world.”
“Talking of wills,” said Thrush, returning to his self-laid trap,
“talking of wills, there was an odd thing happened in Siam.”
“No doubt. Odd if there hadn’t,” cried Candituft, smiling with
confidence on the unmoved Bones.
“You’ll like to hear it, Candituft. Very odd. There was an old
muckthrift died, and left to the dear friend that had best flattered
him a curious bequest. You’ll never guess it—it was a jar of treacle,
mixed with caterpillars.”
“Disgusting!” cried Candituft.
“Good! devilish good!” laughed Colonel Bones.
“And so it became a saying in Siam. Whenever,” said Thrush, with a
leer at the Man-Tamer—“whenever a man coaxed and flattered another
for his own ends, folks would say—‘He’s laying on the treacle, and
may come in for the caterpillars.’ And this, I assure you, was in
Siam.”
“Charming! excellent! quite a delicious apologue!” said Candituft,
with a smile that declared him invulnerable. “You are a happy fellow,
Thrush. When you are most bitter, you are most wholesome. It’s
impossible not to relish you. After a talk with you, I feel my morals
braced, toned I may say, for a month. Capital fellow!” and Candituft
laid his outspread hand affectionately on Thrush’s shoulder.
“Hallo! Basil, boy, how d’ye do?” said Thrush to young Pennibacker,
who, looking anxiously about him, ran upon the party. “’Pon my word,
you haven’t done growing yet. Why, how you’ve shot up this last
month!”
“No doubt, my dear sir; climb like a honeysuckle. But the truth is,
we talk of the degeneracy of the age. I’ve found out the cause, sir;
it’s straps. They hold down the free-born Briton, sir; they dwarf a
giant race, sir. Every man, if he likes, has his discovery; straps is
mine.”
“Admirable!” cried Candituft, with convulsive laughter; for Basil had
already been shown to the Man-Tamer as the son-in-law of the gorgeous
Jericho. “Most ingenious; and yet most simple discovery! Ha! ha!”
“That’s it, sir,” said Basil, taking quick measure of
Candituft—“that’s it. We look abroad for causes, when the thing
is under our foot. What has lowered the standard of the British
army?—straps. Why, in these days, sir, have we no high drama, sir—no
high art? Straps, sir; straps. Men are tied to their boots, and
can’t reach it. Why have we no political greatness, sir? Why does
an unprincipled minister every night of his parliamentary existence
violate the spotless constitution?”
“Ugh! Hear! Hear! Humph?” cried Colonel Bones, and he rubbed his big,
raw hands.
“Why have we no public spirit left, sir? Why do we not rise against
tyranny, and taxation, and free trade, and the Pope? The disgrace and
the answer, gentlemen, are in one crushing syllable—straps!”
“Hear! hear! hear! Loud cheers!” cried Candituft. At this moment
Bessy, under the protection of Miss Candituft, was crossing the
lawn, when Basil, without further word, immediately broke from
his audience. Candituft, however, with some sudden and violent
commendation of Basil’s vivacious talent, instantly followed.
“My dear lady,” said Basil, sweeping off his hat, and reddening and
stammering somewhat—“may I now beg the goodness of your promise?
These little work-people of yours”——
“Really, Mr. Pennibacker, you’ll not care about them,” said Bessy, in
a voice made sweeter by her simple, affectionate looks. “But if you
really wish to see them”——
“Yes, yes; that’s right, Bessy. It’s a sight that may do the young
men of our day good,” said old Carraways, coming up with a host of
visitors, Mrs. Jericho and Monica being of the number. “It will be a
change, too, from the juggler. By the way—that poor brother of yours,
Mr. Candituft”——
“Brother, Mr. Carraways!” cried Candituft; and then he recollected
the human relationship, and warmly smiled, and said—“Oh yes! very
true; to be sure.”
“He earns his daily mutton hard enough. I never knew such tricks. Ha!
ha! Stock Exchange is nothing to it,” said Carraways, and he led the
way between high laurel hedges—winding and winding—until he came into
a small garden. Here the company heard clamorous shouts of laughter.
The quiet, well-bred mirth of the party seemed to have migrated
hither to break loose into the largest enjoyment. A few paces, and a
happy scene revealed itself. The garden was skirted by a hay-field. A
heavy second crop had blessed the land. Some thirty or forty of the
youngest and sprightliest of the visitors were making hay; and—one
or two or three in a violent spirit of romps—were pitching the hay
at one another. “Ha! ha! ha! I like this,” cried Carraways. “Well, I
do think that young folks never look so happy or so handsome as when
they’re making hay. What say you, Mrs. Jericho?”
“I was ever of that sentiment,” said Mrs. Jericho, with one of her
fullest smiles. “’Tis so pastoral—so innocent; so far away from the
fastidious conventionalities of life.” And then Mrs. Jericho darkly
frowned, and suddenly squeezing her daughter Monica by the arm,
and whispering anxiously between her maternal teeth, cried—“That
never can be your sister, Agatha!” But it was; and the flushed
delinquent—with a sharp, chirping laugh—was at the moment throwing
a wisp of hay at Sir Arthur Hodmadod, who had evidently made up his
mind to receive it as the largest of blessings.
“It _is_ Agatha,” said Monica, sharing more than her mother’s trouble
at the exposure; for she much wondered that her younger sister could
take such freedom with a baronet.
“Don’t mind Sir Arthur,” said Miss Candituft in her own sympathetic
way, to the anxious parent. “Nobody minds him. He hasn’t the genius
to be even dangerous.” Mrs. Jericho stared, and then smiled and
jerked her head, at once acknowledging and despising the information.
In a minute the disturbed merry-makers, as suddenly grave as they
might be, joined the party, Carraways laughing and giving them
heartiest praise for their romps. “That’s it! I love to see people
not ashamed to enjoy themselves after their own hearts. For my part,
I never see a haycock that I don’t wish to go plump head over heels
into it. I think, somehow, it’s an instinct of the natural family of
man, eh, Mr. Candituft?”
“No doubt, my dear sir,” said Candituft; “not the least doubt—a
remnant of Eden that still sweetens the fall.”
“Agatha, I am ashamed of you,” whispered Mrs. Jericho to her
red-faced daughter as she sidled up. The next moment Sir Arthur
Hodmadod, with a gay confident look, proffered to the rebuked Agatha
an arm of the baronetage. The motion was not lost upon the scrupulous
Monica; who—to comfort her mother—immediately whispered—“And I’m
ashamed of her, too, ma.”
“Here we are,” cried Carraways, halting at an apiary of the trimmest
and prettiest order. “Here’s Bessy’s work-people. And I can tell you,
charming it is to see them coming in and going out; and delightful to
meet ’em in the fields—for upon my life, I sometimes think they know
us—as they go bouncing, buzzing by.”
“I’m sure they know me, papa,” said Bessy; and then she modestly
added—“at least I think so.”
“Ugh! They must know you,” said Colonel Bones; “bees, bees must be
the best judges of flowers. Humph?”
“Delicious! A sweet thought, Colonel,” said Candituft. “Excellent!”
“It is very pretty,” cried Hodmadod, surveying the apiary. “So
nicely thatched, too; so very snug. I call it”—said the baronet with
authority—“I call it quite a bijou.”
“Do you, indeed?” asked Agatha, all smiles.
“I do,” said Sir Arthur; “that is, when I say a bijou, I mean—of
course—a picture.”
“The inference is so plain,” said Miss Candituft, and she looked
in that wild moment at the flushed Agatha as though she could have
bitten her bold, red cheek.
“Wonderful creatures, bees!” cried Hodmadod. “Only to think that such
little things should make all the wax candles!” There was a pause,
when the modest baronet asked—“They do make all the wax candles, eh?
don’t they?”
“Make everything in wax,” said Basil. “Wonderfully arranged, sir. The
white bees make wax; and the black bees—the nigger bees—make pitch.”
“Very well; very good; but no—I can’t quite believe that. Still, it
is wonderful. And Miss Carraways, permit me to ask”—said Hodmadod—“do
your labourers here work all the year round?”
“Not all the year, Sir Arthur,” answered the smiling Bessy.
“Ha! I see; the bees have a recess. Ha! ha! They’re like us in
Parliament,” said Hodmadod. “Ha! ha!”
“Oh, very like you in Parliament,” cried the cool, cutting Miss
Candituft.
“That is, when I say that bees are like members of Parliament, I
don’t mean”—explained the logical Hodmadod—“I don’t mean that members
of Parliament make wax candles, you know.”
“No, no, no,” cried Carraways with a laugh; and the company, to be
relieved, would see a joke, and laughed most heartily; Hodmadod still
laughing loudest.
“But we are not the only bee-keepers,” said Mrs. Carraways. “We have
what we call our honey-feasts. And you should only see Bessy’s silver
bees.”
“Silver bees! Well, that is strange. Now I call it curious”—cried
Hodmadod—“but on the road, I did see a silver bee settled—when I say
settled, of course I mean buckled—on the throat of a nice little
girl. Wasn’t she, Miss Candituft?”
“A very pretty, fair thing with flaxen hair,” remarked Miss Candituft.
“That’s Jenny White. She’s the silver bee of this year; you see,
it’s a whim of our Bessy’s”—Mrs. Carraways would talk, regardless
of Bessy’s looks—“to give prizes every year to the folks hereabout
whose hives weigh most honey. Besides these prizes, there’s a silver
bee to be worn on holidays.”
“’Pon my word,” said Hodmadod, “I think I shall take a cottage here,
and enter myself for the stakes. When I say myself, of course I mean
my bees, because I couldn’t very well go into a lily,—eh?”
“Not in boots,” said Basil with a knowing clench.
Here Topps winding his way round the company, with importance in his
looks, made up to his master. “This way,” cried Carraways, giving
his arm to Mrs. Jericho. “I think I know where we can light upon the
merry-thought of a chicken.”
In a very few minutes, the host was seated at the head of the table
under a long, wide tent. On the table were the most delicious proofs
of the earth’s goodness; with every kitchen mystery. And these
vanished and were replaced, and guests came and went, and came and
went; and so the hours flew, eating, drinking, laughing and dancing
by; until the stars came out, and the music played more noisily, and
the merriment grew louder and louder.
Some twenty or thirty were seated together. Mr. Jericho, taciturn and
dignified, graced the board. Candituft sat next him; and with others,
among whom were Commissioner Thrush, and the miserly Colonel Bones,
clubbed their share of mirth. An elderly gentleman, pock-marked, with
a pink nose, had been particularly silent; admiring, when and where
required, with soberest discretion. And now, for the past half hour,
he had been seized with a passion to drink everybody’s health. This
vinous philanthropist was Doctor Mizzlemist of Doctors’ Commons.
He had at last discovered the great duty of life; and was resolved
to perform it. For the third time, he rose to give “the health of
Solomon Jericho, Esquire; an honour to his country.” For the third
time, the Doctor dwelt upon the hidden virtues of his excellent
toast, emphasizing them with a dessert fork, which never failed in
its downward descent to make three marks upon the table. Finally
wrought into enthusiasm by a contemplation of his subject, Doctor
Mizzlemist delivered himself with such energy, that at the same
time he struck the fork between the bones of Jericho’s right hand,
pinning it where it lay. The planted weapon trembled in the mahogany.
Mr. Jericho’s head was at the moment turned aside. A shout from the
company proclaimed some calamity. Mr. Jericho slowly turning, saw the
fork still quivering in his flesh. He calmly withdrew the weapon from
the wood, laid it down, passed his palm over his bloodless hand, and
with a smile said—“It’s nothing.”
“What wonderful forbearance!” “What extraordinary firmness!” thought
the company, and still they looked strangely, curiously at the
serene, the philosophic Jericho.
* * * * *
The fireworks died in darkness—the lamps twinkled fainter and
fainter—and at some hour in the morning the last vehicle rolled
from the gate of Jogtrot Lodge.—Perhaps, some four hours before the
postman delivered his letters at the house of Carraways in the City.