THE LONGESTAFFES.
Mr. Adolphus Longestaffe, the squire of Caversham in Suffolk, and of
Pickering Park in Sussex, was closeted on a certain morning for the
best part of an hour with Mr. Melmotte in Abchurch Lane, had there
discussed all his private affairs, and was about to leave the room
with a very dissatisfied air. There are men,--and old men too, who
ought to know the world,--who think that if they can only find the
proper Medea to boil the cauldron for them, they can have their
ruined fortunes so cooked that they shall come out of the pot fresh
and new and unembarrassed. These great conjurors are generally sought
for in the City; and in truth the cauldrons are kept boiling though
the result of the process is seldom absolute rejuvenescence. No
greater Medea than Mr. Melmotte had ever been potent in money
matters, and Mr. Longestaffe had been taught to believe that if he
could get the necromancer even to look at his affairs everything
would be made right for him. But the necromancer had explained to
the squire that property could not be created by the waving of any
wand or the boiling of any cauldron. He, Mr. Melmotte, could put
Mr. Longestaffe in the way of realising property without delay,
of changing it from one shape into another, or could find out the
real market value of the property in question; but he could create
nothing. "You have only a life interest, Mr. Longestaffe."
"No; only a life interest. That is customary with family estates in
this country, Mr. Melmotte."
"Just so. And therefore you can dispose of nothing else. Your son, of
course, could join you, and then you could sell either one estate or
the other."
"There is no question of selling Caversham, sir. Lady Pomona and I
reside there."
"Your son will not join you in selling the other place?"
"I have not directly asked him; but he never does do anything that I
wish. I suppose you would not take Pickering Park on a lease for my
life."
"I think not, Mr. Longestaffe. My wife would not like the
uncertainty."
Then Mr. Longestaffe took his leave with a feeling of outraged
aristocratic pride. His own lawyer would almost have done as much
for him, and he need not have invited his own lawyer as a guest to
Caversham,--and certainly not his own lawyer's wife and daughter.
He had indeed succeeded in borrowing a few thousand pounds from the
great man at a rate of interest which the great man's head clerk was
to arrange, and this had been effected simply on the security of the
lease of a house in town. There had been an ease in this, an absence
of that delay which generally took place between the expression
of his desire for money and the acquisition of it,--and this had
gratified him. But he was already beginning to think that he might
pay too dearly for that gratification. At the present moment,
too, Mr. Melmotte was odious to him for another reason. He had
condescended to ask Mr. Melmotte to make him a director of the South
Central Pacific and Mexican Railway, and he,--Adolphus Longestaffe
of Caversham,--had had his request refused! Mr. Longestaffe had
condescended very low. "You have made Lord Alfred Grendall one!" he
had said in a complaining tone. Then Mr. Melmotte explained that Lord
Alfred possessed peculiar aptitudes for the position. "I'm sure I
could do anything that he does," said Mr. Longestaffe. Upon this
Mr. Melmotte, knitting his brows and speaking with some roughness,
replied that the number of directors required was completed. Since
he had had two duchesses at his house Mr. Melmotte was beginning to
feel that he was entitled to bully any mere commoner, especially a
commoner who could ask him for a seat at his board.
Mr. Longestaffe was a tall, heavy man, about fifty, with hair and
whiskers carefully dyed, whose clothes were made with great care,
though they always seemed to fit him too tightly, and who thought
very much of his personal appearance. It was not that he considered
himself handsome, but that he was specially proud of his aristocratic
bearing. He entertained an idea that all who understood the matter
would perceive at a single glance that he was a gentleman of the
first water, and a man of fashion. He was intensely proud of his
position in life, thinking himself to be immensely superior to all
those who earned their bread. There were no doubt gentlemen of
different degrees, but the English gentleman of gentlemen was he who
had land, and family title-deeds, and an old family place, and family
portraits, and family embarrassments, and a family absence of any
useful employment. He was beginning even to look down upon peers,
since so many men of much less consequence than himself had been made
lords; and, having stood and been beaten three or four times for his
county, he was of opinion that a seat in the House was rather a mark
of bad breeding. He was a silly man, who had no fixed idea that it
behoved him to be of use to any one; but, yet, he had compassed a
certain nobility of feeling. There was very little that his position
called upon him to do, but there was much that it forbad him to do.
It was not allowed to him to be close in money matters. He could
leave his tradesmen's bills unpaid till the men were clamorous,
but he could not question the items in their accounts. He could be
tyrannical to his servants, but he could not make inquiry as to the
consumption of his wines in the servants' hall. He had no pity for
his tenants in regard to game, but he hesitated much as to raising
their rent. He had his theory of life and endeavoured to live up to
it; but the attempt had hardly brought satisfaction to himself or to
his family.
At the present moment, it was the great desire of his heart to sell
the smaller of his two properties and disembarrass the other. The
debt had not been altogether of his own making, and the arrangement
would, he believed, serve his whole family as well as himself. It
would also serve his son, who was blessed with a third property of
his own which he had already managed to burden with debt. The father
could not bear to be refused; and he feared that his son would
decline. "But Adolphus wants money as much as any one," Lady Pomona
had said. He had shaken his head and pished and pshawed. Women never
could understand anything about money. Now he walked down sadly from
Mr. Melmotte's office and was taken in his brougham to his lawyer's
chambers in Lincoln's Inn. Even for the accommodation of those few
thousand pounds he was forced to condescend to tell his lawyers
that the title-deeds of his house in town must be given up. Mr.
Longestaffe felt that the world in general was very hard on him.
"What on earth are we to do with them?" said Sophia, the eldest Miss
Longestaffe, to her mother.
"I do think it's a shame of papa," said Georgiana, the second
daughter. "I certainly shan't trouble myself to entertain them."
"Of course you will leave them all on my hands," said Lady Pomona
wearily.
"But what's the use of having them?" urged Sophia. "I can understand
going to a crush at their house in town when everybody else goes. One
doesn't speak to them, and need not know them afterwards. As to the
girl, I'm sure I shouldn't remember her if I were to see her."
"It would be a fine thing if Adolphus would marry her," said Lady
Pomona.
"Dolly will never marry anybody," said Georgiana. "The idea of his
taking the trouble of asking a girl to have him! Besides, he won't
come down to Caversham; cart-ropes wouldn't bring him. If that is to
be the game, mamma, it is quite hopeless."
"Why should Dolly marry such a creature as that?" asked Sophia.
"Because everybody wants money," said Lady Pomona. "I'm sure I don't
know what your papa is to do, or how it is that there never is any
money for anything. I don't spend it."
"I don't think that we do anything out of the way," said Sophia. "I
haven't the slightest idea what papa's income is; but if we're to
live at all, I don't know how we are to make a change."
"It's always been like this ever since I can remember," said
Georgiana, "and I don't mean to worry about it any more. I suppose
it's just the same with other people, only one doesn't know it."
"But, my dears--when we are obliged to have such people as these
Melmottes!"
"As for that, if we didn't have them somebody else would. I shan't
trouble myself about them. I suppose it will only be for two days."
"My dear, they're coming for a week!"
"Then papa must take them about the country, that's all. I never did
hear of anything so absurd. What good can they do papa by being down
there?"
"He is wonderfully rich," said Lady Pomona.
"But I don't suppose he'll give papa his money," continued Georgiana.
"Of course I don't pretend to understand, but I think there is more
fuss about these things than they deserve. If papa hasn't got money
to live at home, why doesn't he go abroad for a year? The Sydney
Beauchamps did that, and the girls had quite a nice time of it in
Florence. It was there that Clara Beauchamp met young Lord Liffey.
I shouldn't at all mind that kind of thing, but I think it quite
horrible to have these sort of people brought down upon us at
Caversham. No one knows who they are, or where they came from, or
what they'll turn to." So spoke Georgiana, who among the Longestaffes
was supposed to have the strongest head, and certainly the sharpest
tongue.
This conversation took place in the drawing-room of the Longestaffes'
family town-house in Bruton Street. It was not by any means a
charming house, having but few of those luxuries and elegancies which
have been added of late years to newly-built London residences. It
was gloomy and inconvenient, with large drawing-rooms, bad bedrooms,
and very little accommodation for servants. But it was the old family
town-house, having been inhabited by three or four generations of
Longestaffes, and did not savour of that radical newness which
prevails, and which was peculiarly distasteful to Mr. Longestaffe.
Queen's Gate and the quarters around were, according to Mr.
Longestaffe, devoted to opulent tradesmen. Even Belgrave Square,
though its aristocratic properties must be admitted, still smelt
of the mortar. Many of those living there and thereabouts had
never possessed in their families real family town-houses. The old
streets lying between Piccadilly and Oxford Street, with one or two
well-known localities to the south and north of these boundaries,
were the proper sites for these habitations. When Lady Pomona,
instigated by some friend of high rank but questionable taste, had
once suggested a change to Eaton Square, Mr. Longestaffe had at once
snubbed his wife. If Bruton Street wasn't good enough for her and the
girls then they might remain at Caversham. The threat of remaining at
Caversham had been often made, for Mr. Longestaffe, proud as he was
of his town-house, was, from year to year, very anxious to save the
expense of the annual migration. The girls' dresses and the girls'
horses, his wife's carriage and his own brougham, his dull London
dinner-parties, and the one ball which it was always necessary that
Lady Pomona should give, made him look forward to the end of July,
with more dread than to any other period. It was then that he began
to know what that year's season would cost him. But he had never yet
been able to keep his family in the country during the entire year.
The girls, who as yet knew nothing of the Continent beyond Paris, had
signified their willingness to be taken about Germany and Italy for
twelve months, but had shown by every means in their power that they
would mutiny against any intention on their father's part to keep
them at Caversham during the London season.
Georgiana had just finished her strong-minded protest against the
Melmottes, when her brother strolled into the room. Dolly did not
often show himself in Bruton Street. He had rooms of his own,
and could seldom even be induced to dine with his family. His
mother wrote to him notes without end,--notes every day, pressing
invitations of all sorts upon him; would he come and dine; would he
take them to the theatre; would he go to this ball; would he go to
that evening-party? These Dolly barely read, and never answered. He
would open them, thrust them into some pocket, and then forget them.
Consequently his mother worshipped him; and even his sisters, who
were at any rate superior to him in intellect, treated him with a
certain deference. He could do as he liked, and they felt themselves
to be slaves, bound down by the dulness of the Longestaffe regime.
His freedom was grand to their eyes, and very enviable, although they
were aware that he had already so used it as to impoverish himself in
the midst of his wealth.
"My dear Adolphus," said the mother, "this is so nice of you."
"I think it is rather nice," said Dolly, submitting himself to be
kissed.
"Oh Dolly, whoever would have thought of seeing you?" said Sophia.
"Give him some tea," said his mother. Lady Pomona was always having
tea from four o'clock till she was taken away to dress for dinner.
"I'd sooner have soda and brandy," said Dolly.
"My darling boy!"
"I didn't ask for it, and I don't expect to get it; indeed I don't
want it. I only said I'd sooner have it than tea. Where's the
governor?" They all looked at him with wondering eyes. There must be
something going on more than they had dreamed of, when Dolly asked to
see his father.
"Papa went out in the brougham immediately after lunch," said Sophia
gravely.
"I'll wait a little for him," said Dolly, taking out his watch.
"Do stay and dine with us," said Lady Pomona.
"I could not do that, because I've got to go and dine with some
fellow."
"Some fellow! I believe you don't know where you're going," said
Georgiana.
"My fellow knows. At least he's a fool if he don't."
"Adolphus," began Lady Pomona very seriously, "I've got a plan and
I want you to help me."
"I hope there isn't very much to do in it, mother."
"We're all going to Caversham, just for Whitsuntide, and we
particularly want you to come."
"By George! no; I couldn't do that."
"You haven't heard half. Madame Melmotte and her daughter are
coming."
"The d---- they are!" ejaculated Dolly.
"Dolly!" said Sophia, "do remember where you are."
"Yes I will;--and I'll remember too where I won't be. I won't go to
Caversham to meet old mother Melmotte."
"My dear boy," continued the mother, "do you know that Miss Melmotte
will have twenty--thousand--a year the day she marries; and that
in all probability her husband will some day be the richest man in
Europe?"
"Half the fellows in London are after her," said Dolly.
"Why shouldn't you be one of them?"
"She isn't going to stay in the same house with half the fellows in
London," suggested Georgiana. "If you've a mind to try it you'll have
a chance which nobody else can have just at present."
"But I haven't any mind to try it. Good gracious me;--oh dear! it
isn't at all in my way, mother."
"I knew he wouldn't," said Georgiana.
"It would put everything so straight," said Lady Pomona.
"They'll have to remain crooked if nothing else will put them
straight. There's the governor. I heard his voice. Now for a row."
Then Mr. Longestaffe entered the room.
"My dear," said Lady Pomona, "here's Adolphus come to see us." The
father nodded his head at his son but said nothing. "We want him to
stay and dine, but he's engaged."
"Though he doesn't know where," said Sophia.
"My fellow knows;--he keeps a book. I've got a letter, sir, ever so
long, from those fellows in Lincoln's Inn. They want me to come and
see you about selling something; so I've come. It's an awful bore,
because I don't understand anything about it. Perhaps there isn't
anything to be sold. If so I can go away again, you know."
"You'd better come with me into the study," said the father. "We
needn't disturb your mother and sisters about business." Then the
squire led the way out of the room, and Dolly followed, making a
woful grimace at his sisters. The three ladies sat over their tea
for about half-an-hour, waiting,--not the result of the conference,
for with that they did not suppose that they would be made
acquainted,--but whatever signs of good or evil might be collected
from the manner and appearance of the squire when he should return to
them. Dolly they did not expect to see again,--probably for a month.
He and the squire never did come together without quarrelling, and
careless as was the young man in every other respect, he had hitherto
been obdurate as to his own rights in any dealings which he had with
his father. At the end of the half hour Mr. Longestaffe returned to
the drawing-room, and at once pronounced the doom of the family. "My
dear," he said, "we shall not return from Caversham to London this
year." He struggled hard to maintain a grand dignified tranquillity
as he spoke, but his voice quivered with emotion.
[Illustration: Then the squire led the way out of the room,
and Dolly followed.]
"Papa!" screamed Sophia.
"My dear, you don't mean it," said Lady Pomona.
"Of course papa doesn't mean it," said Georgiana rising to her feet.
"I mean it accurately and certainly," said Mr. Longestaffe. "We go to
Caversham in about ten days, and we shall not return from Caversham
to London this year."
"Our ball is fixed," said Lady Pomona.
"Then it must be unfixed." So saying, the master of the house left
the drawing-room and descended to his study.
The three ladies, when left to deplore their fate, expressed their
opinions as to the sentence which had been pronounced very strongly.
But the daughters were louder in their anger than was their mother.
"He can't really mean it," said Sophia.
"He does," said Lady Pomona, with tears in her eyes.
"He must unmean it again;--that's all," said Georgiana. "Dolly has
said something to him very rough, and he resents it upon us. Why did
he bring us up at all if he means to take us down before the season
has begun?"
"I wonder what Adolphus has said to him. Your papa is always hard
upon Adolphus."
"Dolly can take care of himself," said Georgiana, "and always does do
so. Dolly does not care for us."
"Not a bit," said Sophia.
"I'll tell you what you must do, mamma. You mustn't stir from this
at all. You must give up going to Caversham altogether, unless he
promises to bring us back. I won't stir,--unless he has me carried
out of the house."
"My dear, I couldn't say that to him."
"Then I will. To go and be buried down in that place for a whole year
with no one near us but the rusty old bishop and Mr. Carbury, who
is rustier still. I won't stand it. There are some sort of things
that one ought not to stand. If you go down I shall stay up with the
Primeros. Mrs. Primero would have me I know. It wouldn't be nice of
course. I don't like the Primeros. I hate the Primeros. Oh yes;--it's
quite true; I know that as well as you, Sophia; they are vulgar; but
not half so vulgar, mamma, as your friend Madame Melmotte."
"That's ill-natured, Georgiana. She is not a friend of mine."
"But you're going to have her down at Caversham. I can't think what
made you dream of going to Caversham just now, knowing as you do how
hard papa is to manage."
"Everybody has taken to going out of town at Whitsuntide, my dear."
"No, mamma; everybody has not. People understand too well the trouble
of getting up and down for that. The Primeros aren't going down. I
never heard of such a thing in all my life. What does he expect is to
become of us? If he wants to save money why doesn't he shut Caversham
up altogether and go abroad? Caversham costs a great deal more than
is spent in London, and it's the dullest house, I think, in all
England."
The family party in Bruton Street that evening was not very gay.
Nothing was being done, and they sat gloomily in each other's
company. Whatever mutinous resolutions might be formed and carried
out by the ladies of the family, they were not brought forward on
that occasion. The two girls were quite silent, and would not speak
to their father, and when he addressed them they answered simply by
monosyllables. Lady Pomona was ill, and sat in a corner of a sofa,
wiping her eyes. To her had been imparted up-stairs the purport of
the conversation between Dolly and his father. Dolly had refused to
consent to the sale of Pickering unless half the produce of the sale
were to be given to him at once. When it had been explained to him
that the sale would be desirable in order that the Caversham property
might be freed from debt, which Caversham property would eventually
be his, he replied that he also had an estate of his own which was a
little mortgaged and would be the better for money. The result seemed
to be that Pickering could not be sold,--and, as a consequence of
that, Mr. Longestaffe had determined that there should be no more
London expenses that year.
The girls, when they got up to go to bed, bent over him and kissed
his head, as was their custom. There was very little show of
affection in the kiss. "You had better remember that what you have
to do in town must be done this week," he said. They heard the words,
but marched in stately silence out of the room without deigning to
notice them.