IN BRUSSELS.
‘Of course, this is a plant, my dear.’
‘Really, Colonel,’ said the lady addressed, ‘I wish you would not use
such improper language; children so easily pick up slang. You ought to
be very careful. It is too bad, just as we are about to move to England,
where you will take your rightful place in county society as head of our
ancient family.’
‘You’re right there,’ said the Colonel to his lady in a laughing tone;
‘you’re right there, I believe. We are one of the oldest families in the
country. It was one of them who was with Noah in the ark. You recollect
the old epitaph—
‘“Nobles and heralds, by your leave,
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior,
The son of Adam and of Eve,
Can Bourbon or Nassau go higher?”’
‘Colonel,’ said the lady, ‘I am ashamed of you.’
‘What for, dearest?’
‘For quoting such a worldly poet. We were not allowed to read him in
school. I am sure many of his poems are highly improper.’
‘Oh, then you’ve looked into him, have you?’
‘Certainly not,’ said the lady, with an affected shake of her head.
‘Then how can you condemn him?’
‘Easily enough. He was of the world. His was an unsanctified genius.
He had no part or lot in the one thing needful.’
‘At any rate,’ replied the Colonel, ‘he’s buried in Westminster Abbey.’
‘The more’s the pity.’
‘And he was the friend of the clergy.’
‘Yes, of the carnal and unregenerate. There are too many of such, alas,
in the Church of England—wolves in sheep’s clothing.’
The lady was an Evangelical of the bitterest type.
‘Well, dear, we won’t discuss the question,’ said the Colonel meekly.
‘What am I to reply to this letter?’
‘What, the letter from London, from Mr. Wentworth? Short and sharp. Say
the idea is perfectly ridiculous. We can hear of no compromise. It is
quite out of the question for us to give up our rights just as Providence
has opened to us a means of extended usefulness. Mr. Wentworth is only a
newspaper writer, a man of no position in society, and I am told his wife
was actually an actress.’
‘Yes, I believe so,’ said the Colonel. This was enough. The Colonel’s
lady was one of the elect—a model in a certain section of society of holy
living. Yet, under a sanctified exterior, she was as hard, and bitter,
and selfish, and uncharitable as it was possible for any woman to be, and
the beauty of it was, that she thought herself, and was considered by her
friends, to be in a state of exalted spiritualism, living in close
communion with God.
Such people are by no means uncommon, the creatures of a self-deception
of a most odious kind. Their language is full of Scripture phraseology;
they delight in pious hymns; all their reading is confined to pious
biographies, especially religious diaries, the morbid revelations of
which record at nauseous length their diseased state of mind, which they
assume to be the direct results of a Divine inspiration and tokens of a
Divine love. When they are in distress, it is not the natural result of
the circumstances in which they are placed, or the conditions of ordinary
life, but the Divine will and purpose. If they neglect the laws of
health, and are ill in consequence, it is the Lord’s doing. If they lose
their money owing to imprudence in trusting it in rotten companies, it is
the Lord’s doing. If trade is bad and creature comforts fail, or they
live beyond their means and are in embarrassed circumstances, it is the
Lord’s doing, to wean them from the world and its sinful vanities, and to
lead them back to Himself.
There are no mysteries to them; all is clear, and their knowledge of the
Divine way is only equalled by their thorough acquaintance with those of
His great adversary the devil. In them, peace of mind is the result of
this knowledge. To the carnal mind their self-sufficiency and
self-satisfaction is amusing. It is almost beautiful, the smile with
which they listen to one another, and the calm contempt with which they
regard everyone not of their way of thinking. By the side of them an
iceberg is genial, and their power is as great as their faith. All the
artillery of heaven is in their hands. Peace is theirs, but it is truly
a peace that passeth all understanding; they are not as other men are.
To the outer world their cry is, ‘Procul este, profani!’
But let us return to the Colonel’s lady.
She continues:
‘We are not wealthy, you see,’ she was wont to say to the kind-hearted
Belgian ladies, when they called on her for a subscription. ‘We are, I
may say, living quite up to our income, and we have got our duty to do to
the family, and the Colonel keeps the money-bags so tight that I can
never get a franc. But what I can do I do, and, after all, it matters
little—the contemptible dross of the world—if I can give to the needy the
riches, that never fade nor pass away, of the Divine Word.’
And thus the lady excused to herself, as so many of us do, her lack of
true charity.
‘Well,’ said the Colonel, ‘what shall I say to this Wentworth?’
‘Take no notice of him. Refer him to your lawyer in London. The path of
duty is very clear. We find ourselves, by a merciful interposition of
Providence, restored to our rightful position in society. You to take
your place as the head of one of the old county families, I to still
labour for my blessed Master in a sphere of increased usefulness. You
owe it to your family to at once take possession of the title and estate,
and not to have a moment’s delay.’
‘But,’ said the Colonel, ‘if there should be a grain of truth in this
cock-and-bull story it might be awkward. I should like to have an
inquiry made about this boy.’
‘Pray, do nothing of the kind. You only open the way to fraud and
imposition. Your late brother never treated us fairly. He was often
positively rude to me, and his son—if this boy is such—has no claims on
us.’
‘Well,’ said the Colonel, ‘I should not like to behave shabbily.’
‘What do you mean, Colonel?’ said the lady indignantly. ‘I am not the
one to recommend you to do that. The boy is no concern of ours. We take
what the law gives us. It is a duty we owe to society to do that. I am
aware,’ added the lady, ‘that Sir Watkin had a son, that the infant was
stolen, and that the dead body was placed in the family vault. Not all
the lawyers in London, and they are bad enough, can upset that.’
‘But suppose the wrong child was buried?’
‘Fiddle-de-dee!’ said the lady. ‘We know better than that. The estates
are fairly ours, and we return to England as soon as we can to take our
rights. Mr. Wentworth and his wife between them have concocted this
villainous story, which no decent person would ever think of believing.’
Wentworth and his wife were quite aware of that; they believed in the
boy, who was—to judge from the family portraits—a striking representation
of the deceased Baronet at his time of life. But would the world believe
it? that was the question to be asked.
Poor Sally on her deathbed had no inducement to tell a lie.
Unfortunately, she had kept her secret too long. She had hoped to have
made a harvest of the boy, but death had come to her, and all her hopes
had ended in the grave. As is often the case, she was too clever by
half.
Wentworth and his wife had an unpleasant time of it. Indeed, the family
lawyer had intimated in a genial mood that he might possibly feel it his
painful duty to place them in the dock, on a charge of conspiracy to
defraud—a situation for which neither of them had any fancy. Their best
friends seemed to regard the story with suspicion. What jury would be
convinced by the testimony of ‘our Sally,’ whose head was generally
fuddled with drink, and whom they could not even produce in court? It
was true that the lad very much resembled the deceased Baronet. It was
quite within probability that the latter was his father, but that did not
legally make him the son and heir. It was felt that they had better talk
over the matter with the lad himself, who was then an officer on board
one of the floating hotels plying between Liverpool and New York.
Accordingly, Rose undertook the task of interviewing him in one of those
sumptuous hotels for which Liverpool is famed. The boy had never heard
of Sir Watkin, nor were his recollections of the deceased Sally of a very
decided character. He had, however, never believed that she was his
mother, and from her mysterious hints when under the influence of drink
he had come to the conclusion that he had been stolen, though when or why
he could not make out.
It is true there was an old woman at Sloville, a pal of Sally’s, the one
who had written to Rose, who had the identical dress which the baby wore
when it was stolen, but it was felt that the production of the article in
question in court would not much advance matters. She had not stolen the
baby. She could only say that the deceased Sally had asserted she had,
and had bidden her be quiet, as one day or other she would astonish
everybody by the wonderful revelation she had it in her power to make.
It was true that Sally had been suspected, and the more so that she was
no more to be seen, having been clever enough to put the detectives on
the wrong scent.
It was hinted that an Italian lady had been mixed up in the matter. The
world said there had been an intrigue between the Baronet and a fair
Italian, and that thus she had revenged herself for his throwing her
overboard.
‘Actresses,’ continued the Colonel’s lady, ‘are not particular sort of
people, and newspaper writers are not much better, I believe. I can’t
think how old county families can be civil to them. In my young days
such an idea would have been scouted, and I must say then they knew their
place. My papa helped the local printer to start a paper on condition
that it was to support Church and State. Occasionally my papa had the
man up in the Castle, and would sit down to a bottle of port with him,
but he never took any notice of him elsewhere, nor ever introduced him to
his family. I believe the man was a very respectable tradesman. He was
regular in his attendance at church, and always stood by our family in
election contests; but the modern literary man gives himself the most
ridiculous airs, fancies he is a genius because he can scribble, and that
he can wield the destinies of the nation because he is connected with
some low paper. I hear he belongs to clubs, and goes into society just
as if he were a gentleman. Every time,’ added the lady piteously, ‘every
time that I take up an English newspaper, I see the country going to the
bad, the people more intolerant of good government, the upper classes
more careless as to the future, recklessly acting in accordance with the
motto, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” The Sunday is
desecrated by all classes, and the Lord will have no pity in the day of
His wrath for Sabbath-breakers. The philosophers are in favour of
Godless education, and now they tell me there are people who argue that
Atheists have a right to sit in a Christian Parliament. Oh dear! the
vials of God’s wrath will soon be flung down upon that unhappy country.
The signs of the times tell us that we have reached the beginning of the
end. There will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the
day of the Lord shall come.’
The gallant Colonel was accustomed to that sort of thing, and took it
calmly. Whether he believed what his wife said I don’t know. He always
acted as if he did; never contradicted her, as he had found that to be no
use; attended her to church, sat out with well-bred polish the dreary
minutes devoted to staring the domestics out of countenance called family
prayers. He was always ready at his wife’s bidding to attend
Bible-readings for the select few, and when joked on the subject by his
chums, if he had any at his club, never gave railing for railing, but
took it as if it was a cross laid on him to bear.
That he was a sincere believer no one, however, who caught him apart from
the presiding influence of his wife believed for a moment. He swore too
much for that, and occasionally he had been heard, when sentimental and
under the influence of wine, to refer to Cremorne, to Evans’s and the
Cider Cellars, to the Closerie du Lilas, to the Mabille, and other places
in London and Paris where wicked people, in old times, were wont to enjoy
themselves after their kind. Beneath his frosted exterior there was a
good deal of the old Adam yet.
Once upon a time, according to William of Malmesbury, a merchant named
Swelf had been in the habit of calling on the holy St. Wolstan once a
year, to receive his advice in the healing of his spiritual ailments.
After giving the needed absolution, the prelate observed:
‘You often repeat the sins which you have confessed, because, as the
proverb goes, opportunity makes the thief. Wherefore, I advise you to
become a monk, which if you do, you will not long have the opportunity
for these sins.’
Upon this, the other rejoined that he could not possibly become a monk,
because he found it so difficult to bring his mind to it.
‘Go your ways,’ said the bishop, in somewhat of a passion: ‘a monk you
will become, whether you choose it or not, but only when the appliances
and means of vice have waxen old in you;’ which fact, adds the historian,
‘we afterwards witnessed, because when now broken down by old age, he
betook himself to our monastery.’
It was the decay of nature rather than the growth of grace which made
that man a monk. What we lack in old age is the power to sin. The body
ceases to be the servant of the senses. We lead a better life possibly,
from a conventional point of view, but is it not often terribly against
the grain? A man gives up a dissipated career because his strength is
not equal to its demands. His vitality has been prematurely exhausted.
The conversation referred to took place in the breakfast-room of one of
the attractive residences lining the route to the Bois du Cambre, which
all my readers know is one of the fairest suburbs of Brussels, and of
which, as most of them have gone there, I doubt not, to spend a happy
day, I need say no more. The family did not reside there, but far away
in the suburb, where rents and wages and provisions were alike cheap.
The Colonel had gone abroad to educate his daughters more cheaply than he
could in London, and the plan had so far succeeded that the young ladies
had managed to read a good many French novels, the perusal of which not a
little interfered with the enjoyment of family prayers, Bible-reading,
and religious conferences, to which they were invariably taken by their
mamma, and other means of grace. The family funds had been rather
restricted, and at Brussels the mamma had assured herself that there was
an exceptionally attractive Evangelical ministry in the Church of
England, under the special license of the Bishop of London, and that was
enough for her, the Colonel merely considering he could vegetate more
cheaply in Belgium than in London. But they were all quite ready to
leave for England; the Colonel to strut as a baronet and landed
proprietor, the young ladies with a view to the matrimonial market—for,
alas! they had met with few eligibles in Brussels—and the mamma that she
might carry on on a larger scale and with increased success the
missionary operations of which she had been the centre in Brussels. If
she had not done much good among the people, she had—and that was her one
great reward—managed considerably to annoy the priests, who glared at her
with evil eyes as they watched her sallying forth daily with her bag of
tracts. Money it was hard to get out of the Colonel’s lady, even in the
most urgent cases; but no one was more ready with her tracts.