THE RETURN TO LONDON.--THE ETERNAL NATURE OF DISAPPOINTMENT.--FANNY
MILLINGER.--HER HOUSE AND SUPPER.
It was in the midst of spring, and at the approach of night, that our
travellers entered London. After an absence of some duration, there is a
singular emotion on returning to the roar and tumult of that vast
city. Its bustle, its life, its wealth--the tokens of the ambition
and commerce of the Great Island Race--have something of inconceivable
excitement and power, after the comparative desertion and majestic
stillness of Continental cities. Constance leaned restlessly forth from
the window of the carriage as it whirled on.
“Oh, that I were a man!” said she, fervently.
“And why?” asked Godolphin, smilingly.
“Why! look out on this broad theatre of universal ambition, and read
the why. What a proud and various career lies open in this free city
to every citizen! Look, look yonder--the old hereditary senate, still
eloquent with high memories.”
“And close by it,” said Godolphin, sneering, “behold the tomb!”
“Yes, but the tomb of great men!” said Constance, eagerly.
“The victims of their greatness.”
There was a pause; Constance would not reply, she would scarcely listen.
“And do you feel no excitement, Percy, in the hum and bustle--the
lights, the pomp of your native city?”
“Yes; I am in the mart where all enjoyment may be purchased.”
“Ah, fie!”
Godolphin drew his cloak round him, and put up the window.
“These cursed east winds!”
Very true--they are the curse of the country!
The carriage stopped at the stately portico of Erpingham House.
Godolphin felt a little humiliated at being indebted to another--to a
woman, for so splendid a tenement; but Constance, not penetrating into
this sentiment, hastened up the broad stairs, and said, pointing to a
door that led to her boudoir,
“In that room cabinets have been formed and shaken.”
Godolphin laughed; he was alive only to the vanity of the boast, because
he shared not the enthusiasm; this was Constance’s weak point: her dark
eye flashed fire.
There’s nothing bores a man more than the sort of uneasy quiet
that follows a day’s journey. Godolphin took his hat, and yawningly
stretching himself, nodded to Constance, and moved to the door; they
were in her dressing-room at the time.
“Why, what, Percy, you cannot be going out now?”
“Indeed I am, my love.”
“Where, in Heaven’s name?”
“To White’s, to learn the news of the Opera, and the strength of the
Ballet.”
“I had just rung for lights to show you the house!” said Constance,
disappointed, and half-reproachfully.
“Mercy, Constance! damp rooms and east winds together are too
much. House, indeed! what can there be worth seeing in your English
drawing-rooms after the marble palaces of Italy? Any commands?”
“None!” said Constance, sinking back into her chair, with the tears in
her eyes. Godolphin did not perceive them; he was only displeased by
the cold tone of her answer, and he shut the door, muttering to
himself--“Was there ever such indelicate ostentation!”
“And thus,” said Constance, bitterly, “I return to England; friendless,
unloved, solitary in my schemes and my heart as I was before. Awake, my
soul! thou art my sole strength, my sole support. Weak, weak that I was,
to love this man in spite of--Well, well, I am not sunk so low as to
regret.”
So saying, she wiped away a few tears, and turning with a strong effort
from softer thoughts, leaned her cheek on her hand, and gazing on the
fire, surrendered herself to the sterner and more plotting meditations
which her return to the circle of her old ambition had at first called
forth.
Meanwhile Godolphin sauntered into the then arch-club of St. James’s,
that reservoir of idle exquisites and kid-gloved politicians. There
are two classes of popular men in London; the sprightly, joyous,
good-humoured set; the quiet, gentle, sarcastic herd. The one are
fellows called devilish good--the other, fellows called devilish
gentleman like. To the latter class belonged Godolphin. As he had never
written a book, nor set up for a genius, his cleverness was tacitly
allowed to be no impediment to his good qualities. Nothing atones for
the sin, in the eyes of those young gentlemen who create for their
contemporaries reputation, of having in any way distinguished oneself.
“He’s such a d--d bore, that man with his books and poetry,” said an
arch-dandy of Byron, just after Childe Harold had turned the heads
of the women. There happened to be a knot assembled at White’s when
Godolphin entered; they welcomed him affectionately.
“Wish you joy, old fellow,” said one. “Bless me, Godolphin! well, I am
delighted to see you,” cried another. “So, you have monopolised Lady
Erpingham!--lucky dog!” whispered a third.
Godolphin, his vanity soothed by the reception he met with, spent his
evening at the Club. The habit begun, became easy--Godolphin spent many
evenings at his club. Constance, running the round of her acquaintance,
was too proud to complain. Perhaps complaint would not have mended the
matter: but one word of delicate tenderness, or one look that asked for
his society, and White’s would have been forsaken! Godolphin secretly
resented the very evenness of temper he had once almost overprized.
“Oh, Godolphin,” one evening whispered a young lord, “we sup at the
little actress’s,--the Millinger; you remember the Millinger? You must
come; you are an old favourite, you know: she’ll be so glad to
see you,--all innocent, by the way: Lady Erpingham need not be
jealous--(jealous! Constance jealous of Fanny Millinger!) all innocent.
Come, I’ll drive you there; my cab is at the door.”
“Anything better than a lecture on ambition,” thought Godolphin; and
he consented. Godolphin’s friend was a lively young nobleman, of that
good-natured, easy, uncaptious temper, which a clever, susceptible,
indolent man often likes better than comrades more intellectual, because
he has not to put himself out of his way in the comradeship. Lord
Falconer rattled on, as they drove along the brilliant streets, through
a thousand topics, of which Godolphin heard as much as he pleased; and
Falconer was of that age and those spirits when a listener may be easily
dispensed with.
They arrived at a little villa at Brompton: there was a little garden
round it, and a little bower in one corner, all kept excessively neat;
and the outside of the house had just been painted white from top to
bottom; and there was a veranda to the house; and the windows were
plate-glass, with mahogany sashes--only, here and there, a Gothic
casement was stuck in by way of looking “tasty;” and through one window
on the ground-floor, the lights shining within, showed crimson silk and
gilded chairs, and all sorts of finery--Louis Quatorze in a nutshell!
The reader knows the sort of house as well as if he had lived in it.
Ladies of Fanny Millinger’s turn of mind always choose the same kind of
habitation. It is astonishing what a unanimity of taste they have; and
young men about town call it “taste” too, and imitate the fashion in
their own little tusculums in Chapel street.
After having threaded a Gothic hall four feet by eight and an oval
conservatory with a river-god in the middle, the two visitors found
themselves in the presence of Fanny Millinger.
Godolphin had certainly felt no small curiosity to see again the frank,
fair, laughing face which had shone on his boyhood, and his mind ran
busily back to that summer evening when, with a pulse how different from
its present languid tenor, and a heart burning with ardour and the pride
of novel independence, the young adventurer first sallied on the world.
He drew back involuntarily as he now gazed on the actress: she had kept
the promise of her youth, and grown round and full in her proportions.
She was extravagantly dressed, but not with an ungraceful, although a
theatrical choice: her fair hands and arms were covered with jewels,
and that indescribable air which betrays the stage was far more visibly
marked in her deportment than when Godolphin first knew her; yet
still there was the same freedom as of old, the same joyousness, and
good-humoured carelessness in her manner, and in the silver ring of
her voice as she greeted Falconer, and turned to question him as to his
friend. Godolphin dropped his cloak, and the next moment, with a pretty
scream, quite stage-effect, and yet quite natural, the actress had
thrown herself into his arms.
“Oh! but I forgot,” said she presently, with a mock salutation of
respect, “you are married now; there will be no more cakes and ale.
Ah! what long years since we met; yet I have never quite forgotten you,
although the stage requires all one’s memory for one’s new parts. Alas!
your hair--it was so beautiful, it has lost half its curl, and grown
thin. Very rude in me to say so, but I always speak the truth, and my
heart warms to see you, so all its thoughts thaw out.”
“Well,” said Lord Falconer, who had been playing with a little muffy
sort of dog, “you’ll recollect me presently.”
“You! Oh! one never thinks of you, except when you speak, and then one
recollects you--to look at the clock.”
“Very good, Fanny--very good, Fan: and when do you expect Windsor?--He
ought to be here soon. Tell me, do you like him really?”
“Like him!--yes, excessively; just the word for him--for you all. If
love were thrown into the stream of life, my little sail would be upset
in an instant. But in truth, what with dressing, and playing, and
all the grave business of life, I am not idle enough to love. And oh,
Godolphin, I’m so improved! Ask Lord Falconer, if I don’t sing like
an angel, although my voice is hardly strong enough to go round a
loo-table; but on the stage, one learns to dispense with all qualities.
It is a curious thing, that fictitious existence, side by side with
the real one! We live in enchantment, Percy, and enjoy what the poets
pretend to.”
The dreaming Godolphin was struck by the remark. He was surprised,
also, to see how much Fanny remained the same. A life of gaiety had not
debased her.
Tom Windsor came next, an Irishman of five-and-forty, not like his
countrymen in aught save wit. Thin, small, shrivelled, but up to his
ears in knowledge of the world, and with a jest for ever on his tongue:
rich and gay,--he was always popular, and he made the most of his little
life without being an absolute rascal. Next dropped in the handsome
Frenchman De Damville; next, the young gambler, St. John; next two
ladies, both actresses; and the party was complete.
The supper was in keeping with the house; the best wines, excellent
viands--the actress had grown rich. Wit, noise, good-humour, anecdote,
flashed round with the champagne; and Godolphin, exhilarated into a
second youth, fancied himself once more the votary of pleasure.