OUR DINNER PARTY AT BRANDON.
I was curious. I had heard a great deal of her beauty; and it had
exceeded all I heard; so I talked my sublimest and brightest chit-chat,
in my most musical tones, and was rather engaging and amusing, I ventured
to hope. But the best man cannot manage a dialogue alone. Miss Brandon
was plainly not a person to make any sort of exertion towards what is
termed keeping up a conversation; at all events she did not, and after a
while the present one got into a decidedly sinking condition. An
acquiescence, a faint expression of surprise, a fainter smile--she
contributed little more, after the first few questions of courtesy had
been asked, in her low silvery tones, and answered by me. To me the
natural demise of a _tête-à-tête_ discourse has always seemed a disgrace.
But this apathetic beauty had either more moral courage or more stupidity
than I, and was plainly terribly indifferent about the catastrophe. I've
sometimes thought my struggles and sinkings amused her cruel serenity.
Bella ma stupida!--I experienced, at last, the sort of pique with which
George Sand's hero apostrophises _la derniere Aldini_. Yet I could not
think her stupid. The universal instinct honours beauty. It is so
difficult to believe it either dull or base. In virtue of some mysterious
harmonies it is 'the image of God,' and must, we feel, enclose the
God-like; so I suppose I felt, for though I wished to think her stupid, I
could not. She was not exactly languid, but a grave and listless beauty,
and a splendid beauty for all that.
I told her my early recollections of Brandon and Gylingden, and how I
remembered her a baby, and said some graceful trifles on that theme,
which I fancied were likely to please. But they were only received, and
led to nothing. In a little while in comes Lord Chelford, always natural
and pleasant, and quite unconscious of his peerage--he was above it, I
think--and chatted away merrily with that handsome animated blonde--who
on earth, could she be?--and did not seem the least chilled in the stiff
and frosted presence of his mother, but was genial and playful even with
that Spirit of the Frozen Ocean, who received his affectionate trifling
with a sort of smiling, though wintry pride and complacency, reflecting
back from her icy aspects something of the rosy tints of that kindly
sunshine.
I thought I heard him call the young lady Miss Lake, and there rose
before me an image of an old General Lake, and a dim recollection of some
reverse of fortune. He was--I was sure of that--connected with the
Brandon family; and was, with the usual fatality, a bit of a _mauvais
sujet_. He had made away with his children's money, or squandered his
own; or somehow or another impoverished his family not creditably. So I
glanced at her, and Miss Brandon divined, it seemed, what was passing in
my mind, for she said:--
'That is my cousin, Miss Lake, and I think her very beautiful--don't
you?'
'Yes, she certainly is very handsome,' and I was going to say something
about her animation and spirit, but remembered just in time, that that
line of eulogy would hardly have involved a compliment to Miss Brandon.
'I know her brother, a little--that is, Captain Lake--Stanley Lake; he's
her brother, I fancy?'
'_Oh?_' said the young lady, in that tone which is pointed with an
unknown accent, between a note of enquiry and of surprise. 'Yes; he's her
brother.'
And she paused; as if something more were expected. But at that moment
the bland tones of Larcom, the solemn butler, announced the Rev. William
Wylder and Mrs. Wylder, and I said--
'William is an old college friend of mine;' and I observed him, as he
entered with an affectionate and sad sort of interest. Eight years had
passed since we met last, and that is something at any time. It had
thinned my simple friend's hair a little, and his face, too, was more
careworn than I liked, but his earnest, sweet smile was there still.
Slight, gentle, with something of a pale and studious refinement in his
face. The same gentle voice, with that slight, occasional hesitation,
which somehow I liked. There is always a little shock after an absence of
some years before identities adjust themselves, and then we find the
change is not, after all, so very great. I suspect it is, rather, that
something of the old picture is obliterated, in that little interval, to
return no more. And so William Wylder was vicar now instead of that
straight wiry cleric of the mulberry face and black leggings.
And who was this little Mrs. William Wylder who came in, so homely of
feature, so radiant of goodhumour, so eager and simple, in a very plain
dress--a Brandon housemaid would not have been seen in it, leaning so
pleasantly on his lean, long, clerical arm--made for reaching books down
from high shelves, a lank, scholarlike limb, with a somewhat threadbare
cuff--and who looked round with that anticipation of pleasure, and that
simple confidence in a real welcome, which are so likely to insure it?
Was she an helpmeet for a black-letter man, who talked with the Fathers
in his daily walks, could extemporise Latin hexameters, and dream in
Greek. Was she very wise, or at all learned? I think her knowledge lay
chiefly in the matters of poultry, and puddings, and latterly, of the
nursery, where one treasure lay--that golden-haired little boy, four
years old, whom I had seen playing among the roses before the parsonage
door, asleep by this time--half-past seven, 'precise,' as old Lady
Chelford loved to write on her summons to dinner.
When the vicar, I dare say, in a very odd, quaint way, made his proposal
of marriage, moved thereto assuredly, neither by fortune, nor by beauty,
to good, merry, little Miss Dorothy Chubley, whom nobody was supposed to
be looking after, and the town had, somehow, set down from the first as a
natural-born old maid--there was a very general amazement; some
disappointment here and there, with customary sneers and compassion, and
a good deal of genuine amusement not ill-natured.
Miss Chubley, all the shopkeepers in the town knew and liked, and, in a
way, respected her, as 'Miss Dolly.' Old Reverend John Chubley, D.D., who
had been in love with his wife from the period of his boyhood; and yet so
grudging was Fate, had to undergo an engagement of nigh thirty years
before Hymen rewarded their constancy; being at length made Vicar of
Huddelston, and master of church revenues to the amount of three hundred
pounds a year--had, at forty-five, married his early love, now forty-two.
They had never grown old in one another's fond eyes. Their fidelity was
of the days of chivalry, and their simplicity comical and beautiful.
Twenty years of happy and loving life were allotted them and one
pledge--poor Miss Dorothy--was left alone, when little more than nineteen
years old. This good old couple, having loved early and waited long, and
lived together with wonderful tenderness and gaiety of heart their
allotted span, bid farewell for a little while--the gentle little lady
going first, and, in about two years more, the good rector following.
I remembered him, but more dimly than his merry little wife, though she
went first. She made raisin-wine, and those curious biscuits that tasted
of Windsor soap.
And this Mrs. William Wylder just announced by soft-toned Larcom, is the
daughter (there is no mistaking the jolly smile and lumpy odd little
features, and radiance of amiability) of the good doctor and Mrs.
Chubley, so curiously blended in her loving face. And last comes in old
Major Jackson, smiling largely, squaring himself, and doing his
courtesies in a firm but florid military style, and plainly pleased to
find himself in good company and on the eve of a good dinner. And so our
dinner-list is full.
The party were just nine--and it is wonderful what a row nine
well-behaved people will contrive to make at a dinner-table. The inferior
animals--as we see them caged and cared for, and fed at one o'clock,
'precise,' in those public institutions provided for their
maintenance--confine their uproar to the period immediately antecedent to
their meal, and perform the actual process of deglutition with silent
attention, and only such suckings, lappings, and crunchings, as
illustrate their industry and content. It is the distinctive privilege of
man to exert his voice during his repast, and to indulge also in those
specially human cachinnations which no lower creature, except that
disreputable Australian biped known as the 'laughing jackass,' presumes
to imitate; and to these vocal exercises of the feasters respond the
endless ring and tinkle of knife and fork on china plate, and the
ministering angels in white chokers behind the chairs, those murmured
solicitations which hum round and round the ears of the revellers.
Of course, when great guns are present, and people talk _pro bono
publico_, one at a time, with parliamentary regularity, things are
different; but at an ordinary symposium, when the garrulous and diffident
make merry together, and people break into twos or threes and talk across
the table, or into their neighbours' ears, and all together, the noise is
not only exhilarating and peculiar, but sometimes perfectly
unaccountable.
The talk, of course, has its paroxysms and its subsidences. I have once
or twice found myself on a sudden in total silence in the middle of a
somewhat prolix, though humorous story, commenced in an uproar for the
sole recreation of my pretty neighbour, and ended--patched up,
_renounced_--a faltering failure, under the converging gaze of a sternly
attentive audience.
On the other hand, there are moments when the uproar whirls up in a
crescendo to a pitch and volume perfectly amazing; and at such times, I
believe that anyone might say anything to the reveller at his elbow,
without the smallest risk of being overheard by mortal. You may plan with
young Caesar Borgia, on your left, the poisoning of your host; or ask
pretty Mrs. Fusible, on your right, to elope with you from her grinning
and gabbling lord, whose bald head flashes red with champagne only at the
other side of the table. There is no privacy like it; you may plot your
wickedness, or make your confession, or pop the question, and not a soul
but your confidant be a bit the wiser--provided only you command your
countenance.
I don't know how it happened, but Wylder sat beside Miss Lake. I fancied
he ought to have been differently placed, but Miss Brandon did not seem
conscious of his absence, and it seemed to me that the handsome blonde
would have been as well pleased if he had been anywhere but where he was.
There was no look of liking, though some faint glimmerings both of
annoyance and embarrassment in her face. But in Wylder's I saw a sort of
conceited consciousness, and a certain eagerness, too, while he talked;
though a shrewd fellow in many ways, he had a secret conviction that no
woman could resist him.
'I suppose the world thinks me a very happy fellow, Miss Lake?' he said,
with a rather pensive glance of enquiry into that young lady's eyes, as
he set down his hock-glass.
'I'm afraid it's a selfish world, Mr. Wylder, and thinks very little of
what does not concern it.'
'Now, _you_, I dare say,' continued Wylder, not caring to perceive the
_soupçon_ of sarcasm that modulated her answer so musically, 'look upon
me as a very fortunate fellow?'
'You are a very fortunate person, Mr. Wylder; a gentleman of very
moderate abilities, with no prospects, and without fortune, who finds
himself, without any deservings of his own, on a sudden, possessed of an
estate, and about to be united to the most beautiful heiress in England,
_is_, I think, rather a fortunate person.'
'You did not always think me so stupid, Miss Lake,' said Mr. Wylder,
showing something of the hectic of vexation.
'Stupid! did I say? Well, you know, we learn by experience, Mr. Wylder.
One's judgment matures, and we are harder to please--don't you think
so?--as we grow older.'
'Aye, so we are, I dare say; at any rate, some things don't please us as
we calculated. I remember when this bit of luck would have made me a
devilish happy fellow--_twice_ as happy; but, you see, if a fellow hasn't
his liberty, where's the good of money? I don't know how I got into it,
but I can't get away now; and the lawyer fellows, and trustees, and all
that sort of prudent people, get about one, and persuade, and exhort, and
they bully you, by Jove! into what they call a marriage of convenience--I
forget the French word--you know; and then, you see, your feelings may be
very different, and all that; and where's the good of money, I say, if
you can't enjoy it?'
And Mr. Wylder looked poetically unhappy, and trundled over a little bit
of fricandeau on his plate with his fork, desolately, as though earthly
things had lost their relish.
'Yes; I think I know the feeling,' said Miss Lake, quietly. 'That ballad,
you know, expresses it very prettily:--"Oh, thou hast been the cause of
this anguish, my mother?"'
It was not then as old a song as it is now.
Wylder looked sharply at her, but she did not smile, and seemed to speak
in good faith; and being somewhat thick in some matters, though a cunning
fellow, he said--
'Yes; that is the sort of thing, you know--of course, with a
difference--a girl is supposed to speak there; but men suffer that way,
too--though, of course, very likely it's more their own fault.'
'It is very sad,' said Miss Lake, who was busy with a _pâté_.
'She has no life in her; she's a mere figurehead; she's awfully slow; I
don't like black hair; I'm taken by conversation--and all that. There are
some men that can only really love once in their lives, and never forget
their first love, I assure you.'
Wylder murmured all this, and looked as plaintive as he could without
exciting the attention of the people over-the-way.
Mark Wylder had, as you perceive, rather vague notions of decency, and
not much experience of ladies; and thought he was making just the
interesting impression he meditated. He was a good deal surprised, then,
when Miss Lake said, and with quite a cheerful countenance, and very
quickly, but so that her words stung his ear like the prick of a bodkin.
'Your way of speaking of my cousin, Sir, is in the highest degree
discreditable to you and offensive to me, and should you venture to
repeat it, I will certainly mention it to Lady Chelford.'
And so she turned to old Major Jackson at her right, who had been
expounding a point of the battle of Vittoria to Lord Chelford; and she
led him again into action, and acquired during the next ten minutes a
great deal of curious lore about Spanish muleteers and French prisoners,
together with some particulars about the nature of picket duty, and 'that
scoundrel, Castanos.'