One of the most remarkable families that have ever flourished in England
were the NEUCHATELS. Their founder was a Swiss, who had established
a banking house of high repute in England in the latter part of the
eighteenth century, and, irrespective of a powerful domestic connection,
had in time pretty well engrossed the largest and best portion of
foreign banking business. When the great French Revolution occurred,
all the emigrants deposited their jewels and their treasure with the
Neuchatels. As the disturbance spread, their example was followed by
the alarmed proprietors and capitalists of the rest of Europe; and,
independently of their own considerable means, the Neuchatels thus had
the command for a quarter of a century, more or less, of adventitious
millions. They were scrupulous and faithful stewards, but they were
doubtless repaid for their vigilance, their anxiety, and often their
risk, by the opportunities which these rare resources permitted them to
enjoy. One of the Neuchatels was a favourite of Mr. Pitt, and assisted
the great statesman in his vast financial arrangements. This Neuchatel
was a man of large capacity, and thoroughly understood his period.
The minister wished to introduce him to public life, would have opened
Parliament to him, and no doubt have showered upon him honours and
titles. But Neuchatel declined these overtures. He was one of those
strong minds who will concentrate their energies on one object; without
personal vanity, but with a deep-seated pride in the future. He was
always preparing for his posterity. Governed by this passion, although
he himself would have been content to live for ever in Bishopsgate
Street, where he was born, he had become possessed of a vast
principality, and which, strange to say, with every advantage of
splendour and natural beauty, was not an hour’s drive from Whitechapel.
HAINAULT HOUSE had been raised by a British peer in the days when nobles
were fond of building Palladian palaces. It was a chief work of Sir
William Chambers, and in its style, its beauty, and almost in its
dimensions, was a rival of Stowe or Wanstead. It stood in a deer park,
and was surrounded by a royal forest. The family that had raised it wore
out in the earlier part of this century. It was supposed that the place
must be destroyed and dismantled. It was too vast for a citizen, and the
locality was no longer sufficiently refined for a conscript father.
In this dilemma, Neuchatel stepped in and purchased the whole
affair--palace, and park, and deer, and pictures, and halls, and
galleries of statue and bust, and furniture, and even wines, and all the
farms that remained, and all the seigneurial rights in the royal forest.
But he never lived there. Though he spared nothing in the maintenance
and the improvement of the domain, except on a Sunday he never visited
it, and was never known to sleep under its roof. “It will be ready for
those who come after me,” he would remark, with a modest smile.
Those who came after him were two sons, between whom his millions were
divided; and Adrian, the eldest, in addition to his share, was made the
lord of Hainault. Adrian had inherited something more, and something
more precious, than his father’s treasure--a not inferior capacity,
united, in his case, with much culture, and with a worldly ambition to
which his father was a stranger. So long as that father lived, Adrian
had been extremely circumspect. He seemed only devoted to business, and
to model his conduct on that of his eminent sire. That father who had
recognised with pride and satisfaction his capacity, and who was without
jealousy, had initiated his son during his lifetime in all the secrets
of his wondrous craft, and had entrusted him with a leading part in
their affairs. Adrian had waited in Downing Street on Lord Liverpool, as
his father years before had waited on Mr. Pitt.
The elder Neuchatel departed this life a little before the second French
Revolution of 1830, which had been so fatal to Mr. Ferrars. Adrian, who
had never committed himself in politics, further than sitting a short
time for a reputed Tory borough, for which he paid a rent of a thousand
a year to the proprietor, but who was known to have been nurtured in the
school of Pitt and Wellington, astonished the world by voting for Lord
Grey’s Reform Bill, and announcing himself as a Liberal. This was a
large fish for the new Liberal Treasury to capture; their triumph was
great, and they determined to show that they appreciated the power and
the influence of their new ally. At the dissolution of 1831, Adrian
Neuchatel was a candidate for a popular constituency, and was elected
at the head of the poll. His brother, Melchior, was also returned, and
a nephew. The Liberals were alarmed by a subscription of fabulous
dimensions said to have been collected by the Tories to influence the
General Election; and the undoubted contribution of a noble duke was
particularly mentioned, which alone appalled the heart of Brooks’. The
matter was put before Neuchatel, as he entered the club, to which he
had been recently elected with acclamation. “So you are a little
frightened,” he said, with a peculiarly witching smile which he had,
half mockery and half good nature; as much as to say, “I will do what
you wish, but I see through you and everybody else.” “So you are a
little frightened. Well; we City men must see what we can do against the
dukes. You may put me down for double his amount.”
Adrian purchased a very fine mansion in Portland Place, and took up his
residence formally at Hainault. He delighted in the place, and to dwell
there in a manner becoming the scene had always been one of his dreams.
Now he lived there with unbounded expenditure. He was passionately fond
of horses, and even in his father’s lifetime had run some at Newmarket
in another name. The stables at Hainault had been modelled on those at
Chantilly, and were almost as splendid a pile as the mansion itself.
They were soon full, and of first-rate animals in their different ways.
With his choice teams Adrian could reach Bishopsgate from Hainault,
particularly if there were no stoppages in Whitechapel, in much under an
hour.
If he had fifty persons in his stables, there were certainly as many in
his park and gardens. These latter were most elaborate. It seemed there
was nothing that Hainault could not produce: all the fruits and flowers
of the tropics. The conservatories and forcing-houses looked, in the
distance, like a city of glass. But, after all, the portion of this
immense establishment which was most renowned, and perhaps, on the
whole, best appreciated, was the establishment of the kitchen. The chef
was the greatest celebrity of Europe; and he had no limit to his staff,
which he had selected with the utmost scrutiny, maintained with becoming
spirit, and winnowed with unceasing vigilance. Every day at Hainault
was a banquet. What delighted Adrian was to bring down without notice a
troop of friends, conscious they would be received as well as if there
had been a preparation of weeks. Sometimes it was a body from the Stock
Exchange, sometimes a host from the House of Commons, sometimes a board
of directors with whom he had been transacting business in the morning.
It delighted Adrian to see them quaffing his burgundy, and stuffing down
his truffles, and his choice pies from Strasbourg, and all the delicate
dishes which many of them looked at with wonder, and tasted with
timidity. And then he would, with his particular smile, say to a brother
bank director, whose mouth was full, and who could only answer him with
his eyes, “Business gives one an appetite; eh, Mr. Trodgits?”
Sunday was always a great day at Hainault. The Royal and the Stock
Exchanges were both of them always fully represented; and then they
often had an opportunity, which they highly appreciated, of seeing and
conferring with some public characters, M.P.’s of note or promise, and
occasionally a secretary of the Treasury, or a privy councillor. “Turtle
makes all men equal,” Adrian would observe. “Our friend Trodgits seemed
a little embarrassed at first, when I introduced him to the Right
Honourable; but when they sate next each other at dinner, they soon got
on very well.”
On Sunday the guests walked about and amused themselves. No one was
allowed to ride or drive; Mrs. Neuchatel did not like riding and driving
on Sundays. “I see no harm in it,” said Adrian, “but I like women to
have their way about religion. And you may go to the stables and see
the horses, and that might take up the morning. And then there are
the houses; they will amuse you. For my part, I am for a stroll in
the forest;” and then he would lead his companions, after a delightful
ramble, to some spot of agrestic charm, and, looking at it with delight,
would say, “Pretty, is it not? But then they say this place is not
fashionable. It will do, I think, for us City men.”
Adrian had married, when very young, a lady selected by his father.
The selection seemed a good one. She was the daughter of a most eminent
banker, and had herself, though that was of slight importance, a large
portion. She was a woman of abilities, highly cultivated. Nothing had
ever been spared that she should possess every possible accomplishment,
and acquire every information and grace that it was desirable to attain.
She was a linguist, a fine musician, no mean artist; and she threw out,
if she willed it, the treasures of her well-stored and not unimaginative
mind with ease and sometimes eloquence. Her person, without being
absolutely beautiful, was interesting. There was even a degree of
fascination in her brown velvet eyes. And yet Mrs. Neuchatel was not a
contented spirit; and though she appreciated the great qualities of her
husband, and viewed him even with reverence as well as affection, she
scarcely contributed to his happiness as much as became her. And for
this reason. Whether it were the result of physical organisation, or
whether it were the satiety which was the consequence of having been
born, and bred, and lived for ever, in a society of which wealth was the
prime object of existence, and practically the test of excellence, Mrs.
Neuchatel had imbibed not merely a contempt for money, but absolutely
a hatred of it. The prosperity of her house depressed her. The stables
with their fifty grooms, and the grounds with their fifty gardeners,
and the daily visit of the head cook to pass the bill of fare, were
incidents and circumstances that made her melancholy. She looked upon
the Stock Exchange coming down to dinner as she would on an invasion
of the Visigoths, and endured the stiff observations or the cumbrous
liveliness of the merchants and bank directors with gloomy grace.
Something less material might be anticipated from the members of
Parliament. But whether they thought it would please the genius of the
place, or whether Adrian selected his friends from those who sympathised
with his pursuits, the members of Parliament seemed wonderfully to
accord with the general tone of the conversation, or varied it only by
indulging in technical talk of their own. Sometimes she would make a
desperate effort to change the elements of their society; something in
this way: “I see M. Arago and M. Mignet have arrived here, Adrian. Do
not you think we ought to invite them here? And then you might ask Mr.
Macaulay to meet them. You said you wished to ask Mr. Macaulay.”
In one respect the alliance between Adrian and his wife was not an
unfortunate one. A woman, and a woman of abilities, fastidious, and
inclined to be querulous, might safely be counted on as, in general,
ensuring for both parties in their union an unsatisfactory and unhappy
life. But Adrian, though kind, generous, and indulgent, was so absorbed
by his own great affairs, was a man at the same time of so serene a
temper and so supreme a will, that the over-refined fantasies of his
wife produced not the slightest effect on the course of his life. Adrian
Neuchatel was what very few people are--master in his own house. With
a rich varnish of graciousness and favour, he never swerved from his
purpose; and, though willing to effect all things by smiles and sweet
temper, he had none of that morbid sensibility which allows some men
to fret over a phrase, to be tortured by a sigh, or to be subdued by a
tear.
There had been born of this marriage only one child, the greatest
heiress in England. She had been christened after her father, ADRIANA.
She was now about seventeen; and, had she not been endowed with the
finest disposition and the sweetest temper in the world, she must have
been spoiled, for both her parents idolised her. To see her every day
was for Adrian a reward for all his labours, and in the midst of his
greatest affairs he would always snatch a moment to think how he could
contribute to her pleasure or her happiness. All that was rare and
delightful and beautiful in the world was at her command. There was
no limit to the gratification of her wishes. But, alas! this favoured
maiden wished for nothing. Her books interested her, and a beautiful
nature; but she liked to be alone, or with her mother. She was impressed
with the horrible and humiliating conviction, that she was courted and
admired only for her wealth.
“What my daughter requires,” said Adrian, as he mused over these
domestic contrarieties, “is a companion of her own age. Her mother is
the very worst constant companion she could have. She requires somebody
with charm, and yet of a commanding mind; with youthful sympathy, and
yet influencing her in the right way. It must be a person of birth and
breeding and complete self-respect. I do not want to have any parasites
in my house, or affected fine ladies. That would do no good. What I do
want is a thing very difficult to procure. And yet they say everything
is to be obtained. At least, I have always thought so, and found it so.
I have the greatest opinion of an advertisement in the ‘Times.’ I
got some of my best clerks by advertisements in the ‘Times.’ If I had
consulted friends, there would have been no end of jobbing for such
patronage. One could not trust, in such matters, one’s own brother. I
will draw up an advertisement and insert it in the ‘Times,’ and have
the references to my counting-house. I will think over the wording as I
drive to town.” This was the wording:--ADVERTISEMENT
A Banker and his Wife require a Companion for their only child, a
young lady whose accomplishments and acquirements are already
considerable. The friend that they would wish for her must be of
about the same age as herself, and in every other respect their
lots will be the same. The person thus desired will be received
and treated as a daughter of the house, will be allowed her own
suite of apartments, her own servants and equipage. She must be a
person of birth, breeding, and entire self-respect; with a mind
and experience capable of directing conduct, and with manners
which will engage sympathy.--Apply to H. H., 45 Bishopsgate Street
Within.
This advertisement met the eye of Myra at Hurstley Rectory about a
month after her father’s death, and she resolved to answer it. Her
reply pleased Mr. Neuchatel. He selected it out of hundreds, and placed
himself in communication with Mr. Penruddock. The result was, that Miss
Ferrars was to pay a visit to the Neuchatels; and if, on experience,
they liked each other, the engagement was to take place.
In the meantime the good rector of Hurstley arrived on the previous
evening with his precious charge at Hainault House; and was rewarded for
his kind exertions, not only by the prospect of assisting Myra, but by
some present experience of a splendid and unusual scene.