Lady R--sat down before her writing materials, and I took my seat on the
sofa, as she had requested, and was soon occupied with my reading. I
perceived that, as she wrote, her ladyship continually took her eyes off
her paper, and fixed them upon me. I presumed that she was describing
me, and I was correct in my idea, for, in about half-an-hour, she threw
down her pen, and cried:
"There, I am indebted to you for the best picture of a heroine that I
ever drew! Listen."
And her ladyship read to me a most flattering description of my sweet
person, couched in very high-flown language.
"I think, Lady R--," said I, when she had finished, "that you are more
indebted to your own imagination than to reality in drawing my
portrait."
"Not so, not so, my dear Valerie. I may have done you justice, but
certainly not more. There is nothing like having the living subject to
write from. It is the same as painting or drawing, it only can be true
when drawn from nature; in fact, what is writing but painting with the
pen?"
As she concluded her sentence, the page, Lionel, came in with a letter
on a waiter, and hearing her observation, as he handed the letter, he
impudently observed:
"Here's somebody been painting your name on the outside of this paper;
and as there's 7 pence to pay, I think it's rather dear for such a
smudge."
"You must not judge from outside appearance, Lionel," replied Lady R--:
"the contents may be worth pounds. It is not prepossessing, I grant, in
its superscription, but may, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wear a
precious jewel in its head. That was a vulgar error of former days,
Lionel, which Shakespeare has taken advantage of."
"Yes, that chap painted with a pen at a fine rate," replied the boy, as
Lady R--opened the letter and read it.
"You may go, Lionel," said she, putting the letter down.
"I just wanted to know, now that you've opened your toad, if you have
found the jewel, or whether it's a vulgar error?"
"It's a vulgar letter, at all events, Lionel," replied her ladyship,
"and concerns you; it is from the shoemaker at Brighton, who requests me
to pay him eighteen shillings for a pair of boots ordered by you, and
not paid for."
"Well, my lady, I do owe for the boots, true enough; but it's impossible
for me always to recollect my own affairs, I am so busy with looking
after yours."
"Well, but now you are reminded of them, Lionel, you had better give me
the money, and I will send it to him."
At this moment Lady R--stooped from her chair to pick up her
handkerchief. There were some sovereigns lying on the desk, and the
lad, winking his eye at me, took one up, and, as Lady R--rose up, held
it out to her in silence.
"That's right, Lionel," said Lady R--; "I like honesty."
"Yes, madame," replied the impudent rogue, very demurely; "like most
people who tell their own stories, I was born of honest, but poor
parents."
"I believe your parents were honest; and now, Lionel, to reward you, I
shall pay for your boots, and you may keep your sovereign."
"Thank your ladyship," replied the lad. "I forgot to say that the cook
is outside for orders."
Lady R--rose, and went out of the room; and Mr Lionel, laughing at me,
put the sovereign down with the others.
"Now, I call that real honesty. You saw me borrow it, and now you see
me pay it."
"Yes; but suppose her ladyship had not given you the sovereign, how
would it have been then?" said I.
"I should have paid her very honestly," replied he. "If I wished to
cheat her, or rob her, I might do so all day long. She leaves her money
about everywhere, and never knows what she has; besides, if I wanted to
steal, I should not do so with those bright eyes of yours looking at me
all the time."
"You are a very saucy boy," replied I, more amused than angry.
"It's all from reading, and it's not my fault, for her ladyship makes me
read, and I never yet read any book about old times in which the pages
were not saucy; but I've no time to talk just now--my spoons are not
clean yet," so saying he quitted the room.
I did not know whether I ought to inform her ladyship of this freak of
her page's; but, as the money was returned, I thought I had better say
nothing for the present. I soon found out that the lad was correct in
asserting that she was careless of her money, and that, if he chose, he
might pilfer without chance of discovery; and, moreover, that he really
was a good and honest lad, only full of mischief and very impudent;
owing, however, to Lady R--'s treatment of him, for she rather
encouraged his impudence than otherwise. He was certainly a very
clever, witty boy, and a very quick servant; so quick, indeed, at his
work, that it almost appeared as if he never had anything to do, and he
had plenty of time for reading, which he was very fond of.
Lady R--returned, and resumed her writing.
"You sing, do you not? I think Mrs Bathurst told me you were very
harmonious. Now, Valerie, do me a favour: I want to hear a voice
carolling some melodious ditty. I shall describe it so much better, if
I really heard you sing. I do like reality; of course, you must sing
without music, for my country girl cannot be crossing the mead with a
piano in one hand, and a pail of water in the other."
"I should think not," replied I, laughing; "but am not I too near?"
"Yes, rather; I should prefer it on the stairs, or on the first floor
landing, but I could not be so rude as to send you out of the room."
"But I will go without sending," replied I; and I did so, and having
arrived at my station, I sang a little French refrain, which I thought
would answer her ladyship's purpose. On my return her ladyship was
writing furiously, and did not appear to notice my entrance. I took my
seat quietly, and in about ten minutes she again threw down the pen,
exclaiming:
"I never wrote so effective a chapter! Valerie, you are more precious
to me than fine gold; and as Shylock said of his ring, `I would not
change thee for a wilderness of monkeys.' I make the quotation as
expressive of your value. It was so kind-hearted of you to comply with
my wish. You don't know an author's feelings. You have no idea how our
self-love is flattered by success, and that we value a good passage in
our works more than anything else in existence. Now, you have so kindly
administered to my ruling passion twice in one morning, that I love you
exceedingly. I daresay you think me very odd, and people say that I am
so; I may ask you to do many odd things for me, but I shall never ask
you to do what a lady may not do, or what would be incorrect for you to
do, or for me to propose; that you may depend upon, Valerie: and now I
close my manuscript for the present, being well satisfied with the day's
work."
Lady R--rang the bell, and on Lionel making his appearance, she desired
him to take away her writing materials, put her money into her purse--if
he knew where the purse was--and then asked him what were her
engagements for the evening.
"I know _we_ have an engagement," replied the boy; "I can't recollect
it, but I shall find it in the drawing-room."
He went out, and in a minute returned.
"I have found it, my lady," said he. "Here's the ticket; Mrs Allwood,
at home, nine o'clock."
"Mrs Allwood, my dear Valerie, is a literary lady, and her parties are
very agreeable."
The page looked at me from behind Lady R--'s chair, and shook his head
in dissent.
"Shall we go?" continued Lady R--.
"If you please, madame," replied I.
"Well, then, we will take a drive before dinner, and the evening after
dinner shall be dedicated to the feast of reason and the flow of soul.
Dear me, how I have inked my fingers, I must go upstairs and wash them."
As soon as Lady R--left the room, Master Lionel began.
"Feast of reason and flow of soul; I don't like such entertainment.
Give me a good supper and plenty of champagne."
"Why, what matter can it make to you?" said I, laughing.
"It matters a good deal. I object to literary parties," replied he.
"In the first place, for one respectable carriage driving up to the
door, there are twenty cabs and jarveys, so that the company isn't so
good; and then at parties, when there is a good supper, I get my share
of it in the kitchen. You don't think we are idle down below. I have
been to Mrs Allwood's twice, and there's no supper, nothing but feast
of reason, which remains upstairs, and they're welcome to my share of
it. As for the drink, it's negus and cherry-water; nothing else, and if
the flow of soul is not better than such stuff, they may have my share
of that also. No music, no dancing, nothing but buzz, buzz, buzz.
Won't you feel it stupid!"
"Why, one would think you had been upstairs instead of down, Lionel."
"Of course I am. They press all who have liveries into the service, and
I hand the cakes about rather than kick for hours at the legs of the
kitchen-table. I hear all that's said just as well as the company, and
I've often thought I could have given a better answer than I've heard
some of your great literaries. When I hand the cakes to-night, take
them I point out to you: they'll be the best."
"Why, how can you tell?"
"Because I try them all before I come in the room."
"You ought to be ashamed to acknowledge it."
"All comes of reading, miss," replied he. "I read that in former times
great people, kings and princes and so on, always had their victuals
tasted first, lest there should be poison in them: so I taste upon that
principle, and I have been half-poisoned sometimes at these cheap
parties, but I'm getting cunning, and when I meet a suspicious-looking
piece of pastry, I leave it for the company; but I can't wait to talk
any longer, miss, I must give coachman his orders."
"I never asked you to talk, Mr Lionel," said I.
"No, you didn't, but still I know you like to hear me: you can't deny
that. Now to use my lady's style, I am to tell the coachman to put a
girdle round the park in forty minutes;" so saying, the lad vanished, as
he usually did, in a second.
The lad was certainly right when he said that I did like to hear him
talk, for he amused me so much, that I forgave his impudence and
familiarity. Shortly afterwards, we went out in the carriage, and
having driven two or three times round the park, returned home to
dinner. At ten o'clock, we went to Mrs Allwood's party. I was
introduced to a great many great literary stars, whom I had never before
heard of; but the person who attracted the most attention was a Russian
Count, who had had his ears and nose cut off by the Turks. It certainly
did not add to his beauty, however it might have to his interest.
However, Lionel was right. It was a very stupid party to me: all
talking at once and constantly on the move to find fresh listeners; it
_was_ all buzz, buzz, buzz, and I was glad when the carriage was
announced. Such were the events of the first day which I passed under
the roof of Lady R--.
Indeed, this first day may be taken as a sample of most others, and a
month passed rapidly away. Each day, however, was marked with some
peculiar eccentricity on her part, but these diverted me. I was often
requested to do strange things in my position as a model, but with all
her oddities Lady R--was a gentlewoman in manner and in feeling, and
what I should certainly have refused to anyone else, I did for her
without reluctance. I now called her Sempronia, as she requested, and,
moreover, I became very intimate with Master Lionel, who would be
intimate, whether or no, and who, like Lady R--, was a source of great
amusement. At times, when I was alone and communed with myself, I could
not help surveying my peculiar position. I was engaged at a large
salary--for what? to look handsome, to put myself in attitudes, and to
do nothing. This was not flattering to my talents (such as I had), but
still I was treated with kindness and confidence; was the companion of
her ladyship; was introduced and taken to all the parties to which she
was asked, and never made to feel my dependence. I had already imbibed
a strong friendship for Lady R--, and I was, therefore, content to
remain. One morning she said to me, "My dear Valerie, do me the favour
to tighten the laces of my stays."
She was, as usual, writing in her dressing-gown.
"Oh, tighter yet; as tight as you can draw them. That will do nicely."
"Why you can hardly breathe, Sempronia."
"But I can write, my dear child, and, as I before observed, the mind and
the body influence each other. I am about to write a strictly moral
dialogue, and I never could do it unless I am strait-laced. Now I feel
fit for the wife of Cato and of Rome."
A few days afterwards she amused me still more. After writing about
half-an-hour, she threw down her pen--
"I never can do it; come upstairs, my dear Valerie, and help me off with
my stays. I must be _a l'abandon_."
I followed her, and having removed these impediments we returned to the
boudoir.
"There," said she, sitting down, "I think I shall manage it now: I feel
as if I could."
"Manage what?" inquired I.
"My dear, I am about to write a love scene, very warm and impassioned,
and I could not do it, confined as I was. Now that I am loose, I can
give loose to the reins of my imagination, and delineate with the arrow
of Cupid's self. My heroine is reclining, with her hand on her cheek;
put yourself in that attitude, my dear dear Valerie, as if you were
meditating upon the prolonged absence of one dear to you. Exactly--
beautiful--true to nature--but I forgot, a page enters--don't move, I'll
ring the bell."
Lionel answered quickly, as usual.
"Here, Lionel, I want you to play the page."
"I've no time for play, my lady; I'm page in earnest. There's all the
knives to clean."
"Never mind the knives just now. Observe, Lionel, you are supposed to
be sent a message to that lovely girl, who is sitting absorbed in a soft
reverie. You enter her presence unperceived, and are struck with her
beauty; you lean against a tree, in a careless but graceful attitude,
with your eyes fixed upon her lovely features. Now lean against the
door, as I have described, and then I shall be able to write."
I could not help smiling at the absurdity of this scene, the more so as
Lionel, just passing his fingers through his hair, and then pulling up
his shirt collar, took his position, saying, "Now, Miss Valerie, we'll
see who performs best: I think you will be sooner tired of sitting than
I shall be of looking at you."
"Excellent, Lionel!--exactly the position that I wished," said Lady R--,
scribbling as fast as she could; "that stare of yours is true to
nature--Cymon and Iphigenia--a perfect tableau!--don't move, I beg; I
only require ten minutes."
I looked up at Master Lionel, and he made such a grimace, that I could
hardly keep my countenance, and I did not exactly feel satisfied at thus
performing, as it were, with a servant; but still, that servant was
Lionel, who was very unlike other servants. In ten minutes, as
promised, we were released, much to my satisfaction. Lionel went off to
clean his knives, and I took up my book, and really when I perceived the
delight of Lady R--, at what she called her success, I no longer felt
anything like annoyance at having complied with her wishes.
One morning, when Lady R--had walked out, and the page Lionel was in the
room, I entered into conversation with him, and asked how it was that he
had been so much better educated than were lads in his position in
general?
"That's a question that I often ask myself, Miss Valerie," replied he,
"as they say in some autobiographies. The first recollection I have of
myself was finding myself walking two-and-two, in a suit of
pepper-and-salt, along with about twenty other very little boys, at a
cheap preparatory school, kept by the Misses Wiggins. There I
remained--nobody came to see me: other boys talked of their papas and
mammas--I had none to talk about: they went home at the holidays, and
brought back toys and plum-cakes; I enjoyed my holidays alone, scraping
holes in the gravel, for want of better employment, between my meals,
and perhaps not opening my mouth, or hearing the sound of my own voice,
more than three or four times in the twenty-four hours. As I had plenty
of time for reflection during the vacations, as I grew bigger I began to
imagine that somehow or another I must have had a father and mother,
like the other boys, and began to make very impertinent (as I was told)
inquiries about them. The Misses Wiggins gave me a good wigging, as
they call it, for my unwarranted curiosity, pointing out the indelicacy
of entering upon such subjects, and thus was my mouth stopped.
"At last I grew up too big for the school, and was not to be managed by
two old maids, and I presume it was through their representations that I
was at last honoured by a visit from an old housekeeper, a woman above
fifty, whom I never saw before. I ventured to put the forbidden
questions to her, and she replied that I had neither father nor mother,
that they were both dead, and that I was educated by the kindness of a
great lady, whose dependents they had been, and that the great lady
would call and see me perhaps, or if she did not, would send for me and
do something for me. Well, about four years ago (I was then twelve
years old, I was told, but my idea is that I am older than they say), I
was sent for by Lady R--, and at first I was dressed in a turban and red
jacket, and sat on the floor. I was told that I was to be her page, and
I liked it very much, as I did nothing but run messages and read books,
which I was very fond of; and Lady R--took some pains with me; but as I
grew bigger, so did I fall off from my high estate, and by degrees
descended from the drawing-room to the kitchen.
"My finery was not renewed; at first I had a plain suit and did my work
under the footman, and two years ago, when the footman was sent away,
rather than be under the orders of another, I volunteered to do the
work, which I have done ever since, and now receive high wages, and wear
sugar-loaf buttons, as you perceive. Now, Miss Valerie, that's all I
know of _myself_; but I suspect that Lady R--knows more; still it may be
that what the old woman told me was correct, and that I was the child of
one of her favourite dependents, and was educated by her in the manner
that I was, for you know how many odd things she does."
"What is your other name, Lionel?"
"Bedingfield, I am told, is my name," replied he.
"Have you ever spoken to Lady R--," inquired I, "relative to your
parents?"
"I once did; but she said they were Sir Richard's people, not hers (that
is, her father's, the late baronet's), and that she knew nothing about
them, except that my father was a steward or bailiff to him in the
country, and that he had left directions that she should do something
for me. Her ladyship did not appear to be inclined to talk about them
much, and sent me away as soon as she had told me what I now repeat to
you; however, I have found out something since that--but there's her
ladyship's knock"--so saying, Lionel vanished.
Soon after her ladyship's return, Madame Gironac, who had called upon me
two or three times, was announced. I went out of the room, and when I
met her in the dining-parlour, she told me that she had brought some of
her imitations of flowers on wax, to show them to her ladyship. I
immediately went up, and asked Lady R--if she would like to see them, to
which proposal she assented. When Madame Gironac displayed her
performances, which were very natural and beautiful, her ladyship was
delighted, and purchased several of them, after which I again went
downstairs, and had a long conversation with my warm-hearted little
friend.
"I don't like this situation of yours, mademoiselle," said she, "nor
does my husband. Now I was thinking, Mademoiselle de Chatenoeuf, that
it would not be a bad plan if you were to learn how to make those
flowers. I will teach you for nothing; and I will teach you what I
never teach my pupils, which is how to prepare the wax, and a great many
other little secrets which are worth knowing."
"I shall be very glad to learn, my dear madame," replied I, "but I can
afford to pay you for your time and trouble, and must insist upon doing
so; if not, I will not be your pupil."
"Well, well, we must not quarrel about that. I know that no one likes
to be under an obligation, especially one like you--but learn you must--
so let us arrange for the lessons."