CONVERSATIONS.
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Our good-natured Begum was at first so much enraged at this last
instance of her husband's duplicity and folly, that she refused to
give Sir Francis Clavering any aid in order to meet his debts of
honor, and declared that she would separate from him, and leave him to
the consequences of his incorrigible weakness and waste. After that
fatal day's transactions at the Derby, the unlucky gambler was in such
a condition of mind that he was disposed to avoid every body--alike
his turf-associates with whom he had made debts which he trembled lest
he should not have the means of paying, and his wife, his
long-suffering banker, on whom he reasonably doubted whether he should
be allowed any longer to draw. When Lady Clavering asked the next
morning whether Sir Francis was in the house, she received answer that
he had not returned that night, but had sent a messenger to his valet,
ordering him to forward clothes and letters by the bearer. Strong knew
that he should have a visit or a message from him in the course of
that or the subsequent day, and accordingly got a note beseeching him
to call upon his distracted friend F. C., at Short's Hotel,
Blackfriars, and ask for Mr. Francis there. For the baronet was a
gentleman of that peculiarity of mind that he would rather tell a lie
than not, and always began a contest with fortune by running away and
hiding himself. The boots of Mr. Short's establishment, who carried
Clavering's message to Grosvenor-place, and brought back his
carpet-bag, was instantly aware who was the owner of the bag, and he
imparted his information to the footman who was laying the
breakfast-table, who carried down the news to the servant's hall, who
took it to Mrs. Bonner, my lady's housekeeper and confidential maid,
who carried it to my lady. And thus every single person in the
Grosvenor-place establishment knew that Sir Francis was in hiding,
under the name of Francis, at an inn in the Blackfriar's-road. And Sir
Francis's coachman told the news to other gentlemen's coachmen, who
carried it to their masters, and to the neighboring Tattersall's,
where very gloomy anticipations were formed that Sir Francis Clavering
was about to make a tour in the Levant.
In the course of that day the number of letters addressed to Sir
Francis Clavering, Bart., which found their way to his hall table, was
quite remarkable. The French cook sent in his account to my lady; the
tradesmen who supplied her ladyship's table, and Messrs. Finer and
Gimcrack, the mercers and ornamental dealers, and Madame Crinoline,
the eminent milliner, also forwarded their little bills to her
ladyship in company with Miss Amory's private, and by no means
inconsiderable, account at each establishment.
In the afternoon of the day after the Derby, when Strong (after a
colloquy with his principal at Short's hotel, whom he found crying and
drinking Curaçoa) called to transact business according to his custom
at Grosvenor-place, he found all these suspicious documents ranged in
the baronet's study; and began to open them and examine them with a
rueful countenance.
Mrs. Bonner, my lady's maid and housekeeper, came down upon him while
engaged in this occupation. Mrs. Bonner, a part of the family, and as
necessary to her mistress as the chevalier was to Sir Francis, was of
course on Lady Clavering's side in the dispute between her and her
husband, and as by duty bound even more angry than her ladyship herself.
"She won't pay if she takes my advice," Mrs. Bonner said. "You'll
please to go back to Sir Francis, Captain--and he lurking about in a
low public-house and don't dare to face his wife like a man;--and say
that we won't pay his debts no longer. We made a man of him, we took
him out of jail (and other folks too perhaps), we've paid his debts
over and over again--we set him up in Parliament and gave him a house
in town and country, and where he don't dare to show his face, the
shabby sneak! We've given him the horse he rides, and the dinner he
eats, and the very clothes he has on his back; and we will give him no
more. Our fortune, such as is left of it, is left to ourselves, and we
wont waste any more of it on this ungrateful man. We'll give him
enough to live upon and leave him, that's what we'll do: and that's
what you may tell him from Susan Bonner."
Susan Bonner's mistress hearing of Strong's arrival sent for him at
this juncture, and the chevalier went up to her ladyship not without
hopes that he should find her more tractable than her factotum Mrs.
Bonner. Many a time before had he pleaded his client's cause with Lady
Clavering and caused her good-nature to relent. He tried again once
more. He painted in dismal colors the situation in which he had found
Sir Francis: and would not answer for any consequences which might
ensue if he could not find means of meeting his engagements. "Kill
hisself," laughed Mrs. Bonner, "kill hisself, will he? Dying's the
best thing he could do." Strong vowed that he had found him with the
razors on the table; but at this, in her turn, Lady Clavering laughed
bitterly. "He'll do himself no harm, as long as there's a shilling
left of which he can rob a poor woman. His life's quite safe, captain:
you may depend upon that. Ah! it was a bad day that ever I set eyes
on him."
"He's worse than the first man," cried out my lady's aid-de-camp. "He
was a man, he was--a wild devil, but he had the courage of a
man--whereas this fellow--what's the use of my lady paying his bills,
and selling her diamonds, and forgiving him? He'll be as bad again
next year. The very next chance he has he'll be a cheating of her, and
robbing of her; and her money will go to keep a pack of rogues and
swindlers--I don't mean you, captain--you've been a good friend to us
enough, bating we wish we'd never set eyes on you."
The chevalier saw from the words which Mrs. Bonner had let slip
regarding the diamonds, that the kind Begum was disposed to relent
once more at least, and that there were hopes still for his principal.
"Upon my word, ma'am," he said, with a real feeling of sympathy for
Lady Clavering's troubles, and admiration for her untiring
good-nature, and with a show of enthusiasm which advanced not a little
his graceless patron's cause--"any thing you say against Clavering, or
Mrs. Bonner here cries out against me, is no better than we deserve,
both of us, and it was an unlucky day for you when you saw either. He
has behaved cruelly to you; and if you were not the most generous and
forgiving woman in the world, I know there would be no chance for him.
But you can't let the father of your son be a disgraced man, and send
little Frank into the world with such a stain upon him. Tie him down;
bind him by any promises you like: I vouch for him that he will
subscribe them."
"And break 'em," said Mrs. Bonner.
"And keep 'em this time," cried out Strong. "He must keep them. If you
could have seen how he wept, ma'am! 'Oh, Strong,' he said to me, 'it's
not for myself I feel now: it's for my boy--it's for the best woman in
England, whom I have treated basely--I know I have.' He didn't intend
to bet upon this race, ma'am--indeed he didn't. He was cheated into
it: all the ring was taken in. He thought he might make the bet quite
safely, without the least risk. And it will be a lesson to him for all
his life long. To see a man cry--Oh, it's dreadful."
"He don't think much of making my dear missus cry," said Mrs.
Bonner--"poor dear soul!--look if he does, captain."
"If you've the soul of a man, Clavering," Strong said to his
principal, when he recounted this scene to him, "you'll keep your
promise this time: and, so help me Heaven! if you break word with her,
I'll turn against you, and tell all."
"What, all?" cried Mr. Francis, to whom his embassador brought the
news back at Short's hotel, where Strong found the baronet crying and
drinking Curaçoa.
"Psha! Do you suppose I am a fool?" burst out Strong. "Do you suppose
I could have lived so long in the world, Frank Clavering, with out
having my eyes about me? You know I have but to speak, and you are a
beggar to-morrow. And I am not the only man who knows your secret."
"Who else does?" gasped Clavering.
"Old Pendennis does, or I am very much mistaken. He recognized the man
the first night he saw him, when he came drunk into your house."
"He knows it, does he?" shrieked out Clavering. "Damn him--kill him."
"You'd like to kill us all, wouldn't you old boy?" said Strong, with a
sneer, puffing his cigar.
The baronet dashed his weak hand against his forehead; perhaps the
other had interpreted his wish rightly. "Oh, Strong!" he cried, "if I
dared, I'd put an end to myself, for I'm the d--est miserable dog in
all England. It's that that makes me so wild and reckless. It's that
which makes me take to drink (and he drank, with a trembling hand, a
bumper of his fortifier--the Curaçoa), and to live about with these
thieves. I know they're thieves, every one of em, d--d thieves.
And--and how can I help it?--and I didn't know it, you know--and, by
gad, I'm innocent--and until I saw the d--d scoundrel first, I knew no
more about it than the dead--and I'll fly, and I'll go abroad out of
the reach of the confounded hells, and I'll bury myself in a forest,
by gad! and hang myself up to a tree--and, oh--I'm the most miserable
beggar in all England!" And so with more tears, shrieks, and curses,
the impotent wretch vented his grief and deplored his unhappy fate;
and, in the midst of groans and despair and blasphemy, vowed his
miserable repentance.
The honored proverb which declares that to be an ill wind which blows
good to nobody, was verified in the case of Sir Francis Clavering, and
another of the occupants of Mr. Strong's chambers in Shepherd's Inn.
The man was "good," by a lucky hap, with whom Colonel Altamont made
his bet; and on the settling day of the Derby--as Captain Clinker, who
was appointed to settle Sir Francis Clavering's book for him (for Lady
Clavering, by the advice of Major Pendennis, would not allow the
baronet to liquidate his own money transactions), paid over the notes
to the baronet's many creditors--Colonel Altamont had the satisfaction
of receiving the odds of thirty to one in fifties, which he had taken
against the winning horse of the day.
Numbers of the colonel's friends were present on the occasion to
congratulate him on his luck--all Altamont's own set, and the gents
who met in the private parlor of the convivial Wheeler, my host of the
Harlequin's Head, came to witness their comrade's good fortune, and
would have liked, with a generous sympathy for success, to share in
it. "Now was the time," Tom Driver had suggested to the colonel, "to
have up the specie ship that was sunk in the Gulf of Mexico, with the
three hundred and eighty thousand dollars on board, besides bars and
doubloons." "The Tredyddlums were very low--to be bought for an old
song--never was such an opportunity for buying shares," Mr. Keightley
insinuated; and Jack Holt pressed forward his tobacco-smuggling
scheme, the audacity of which pleased the colonel more than any other
of the speculations proposed to him. Then of the Harlequin's Head
boys: there was Jack Hackstraw, who knew of a pair of horses which the
colonel must buy; Tom Fleet, whose satirical paper, "The Swell,"
wanted but two hundred pounds of capital to be worth a thousand a year
to any man--"with such a power and influence, colonel, you rogue, and
the _entrée_ of all the green-rooms in London," Tom urged; while
little Moss Abrams entreated the colonel not to listen to these absurd
fellows with their humbugging speculations, but to invest his money in
some good bills which Moss could get for him, and which would return
him fifty per cent, as safe as the Bank of England.
Each and all of these worthies came round the colonel with their
various blandishments; but he had courage enough to resist them, and
to button up his notes in the pocket of his coat, and go home to
Strong, and "sport" the outer door of the chambers. Honest Strong had
given his fellow-lodger good advice about all his acquaintances; and
though, when pressed, he did not mind frankly taking twenty pounds
himself out of the colonel's winnings, Strong was a great deal too
upright to let others cheat him.
He was not a bad fellow when in good fortune, this Altamont. He
ordered a smart livery for Grady, and made poor old Costigan shed
tears of quickly dried gratitude by giving him a five-pound note after
a snug dinner at the Back-Kitchen, and he bought a green shawl for
Mrs. Bolton, and a yellow one for Fanny: the most brilliant
"sacrifices" of a Regent-street haberdasher's window. And a short time
after this, upon her birth-day, which happened in the month of June,
Miss Amory received from "a friend" a parcel containing an enormous
brass-inlaid writing-desk, in which there was a set of amethysts, the
most hideous eyes ever looked upon--a musical snuff-box, and two
keepsakes of the year before last, and accompanied with a couple of
gown-pieces of the most astounding colors, the receipt of which goods
made the Sylphide laugh and wonder immoderately. Now it is a fact that
Colonel Altamont had made a purchase of cigars and French silks from
some duffers in Fleet-street about this period; and he was found by
Strong in the open Auction-room, in Cheapside, having invested some
money in two desks, several pairs of richly-plated candlesticks, a
dinner épergne and a bagatelle-board. The dinner épergne remained at
chambers and figured at the banquets there, which the colonel gave
pretty freely. It seemed beautiful in his eyes, until Jack Holt said
it looked as if it had been taken in "a bill." And Jack Holt
certainly knew.
The dinners were pretty frequent at chambers, and Sir Francis Clavering
condescended to partake of them constantly. His own house was
shut up; the successor of Mirobolant, who had sent in his bills so
prematurely, was dismissed by the indignant Lady Clavering; the
luxuriance of the establishment was greatly pruned and reduced. One of
the large footmen was cashiered, upon which the other gave warning,
not liking to serve without his mate, or in a family where on'y one
footman was kep'. General and severe economical reforms were practiced
by the Begum in her whole household, in consequence of the
extravagance of which her graceless husband had been guilty. The
major, as her ladyship's friend; Strong, on the part of poor
Clavering; her ladyship's lawyer, and the honest Begum herself,
executed these reforms with promptitude and severity. After paying the
baronet's debts, the settlement of which occasioned considerable
public scandal, and caused the baronet to sink even lower in the
world's estimation than he had been before, Lady Clavering quitted
London for Tunbridge Wells in high dudgeon, refusing to see her
reprobate husband, whom nobody pitied. Clavering remained in London
patiently, by no means anxious to meet his wife's just indignation,
and sneaked in and out of the House of Commons, whence he and Captain
Raff and Mr. Marker would go to have a game at billiards and a cigar:
or showed in the sporting public-houses; or might be seen lurking
about Lincoln's Inn and his lawyers', where the principals kept him
for hours waiting, and the clerks winked at each other, as he sat in
their office. No wonder that he relished the dinners at Shepherd's
Inn, and was perfectly resigned there: resigned? he was so happy
nowhere else; he was wretched among his equals, who scorned him; but
here he was the chief guest at the table, where they continually
addressed him with "Yes, Sir Francis," and "No, Sir Francis," where he
told his wretched jokes, and where he quavered his dreary little
French song, after Strong had sung his jovial chorus, and honest
Costigan had piped his Irish ditties. Such a jolly menage as Strong's,
with Grady's Irish stew, and the chevalier's brew of punch after
dinner, would have been welcome to many a better man than Clavering,
the solitude of whose great house at home frightened him, where he was
attended only by the old woman who kept the house, and his valet who
sneered at him.
"Yes, dammit," said he, to his friends in Shepherd's Inn. "That fellow
of mine, I must turn him away, only I owe him two years' wages, curse
him, and can't ask my lady. He brings me my tea cold of a morning,
with a dem'd leaden tea-spoon, and he says my lady's sent all the
plate to the banker's because it ain't safe. Now ain't it hard that
she won't trust me with a single tea-spoon--ain't it ungentlemanlike,
Altamont? You know my lady's of low birth--that is--I beg your
pardon--hem--that is, it's most cruel of her not to show more
confidence in me. And the very servants begin to laugh--the dam
scoundrels! I'll break every bone in their great hulking bodies, curse
'em, I will. They don't answer my bell: and--and, my man was at
Vauxhall last night with one of my dress shirts and my velvet
waistcoat on, I know it was mine--the confounded impudent
blackguard--and he went on dancing before my eyes, confound him; I'm
sure he'll live to be hanged--he deserves to be hanged--all those
infernal rascals of valets."
He was very kind to Altamont now: he listened to the colonel's loud
stories when Altamont described how--when he was working his way home
once from New Zealand, where he had been on a whaling expedition--he
and his comrades had been obliged to shirk on board at night, to
escape from their wives, by Jove--and how the poor devils put out in
their canoes when they saw the ship under sail, and paddled madly
after her: how he had been lost in the bush once for three months in
New South Wales, when he was there once on a trading speculation: how
he had seen Boney at Saint Helena, and been presented to him with the
rest of the officers of the Indiaman of which he was a mate--to all
these tales (and over his cups Altamont told many of them; and, it
must be owned, lied and bragged a great deal) Sir Francis now listened
with great attention; making a point of drinking wine with Altamont at
dinner and of treating him with every distinction.
"Leave him alone, I know what he's a-coming to," Altamont said,
laughing to Strong, who remonstrated with him, "and leave me alone; I
know what I'm a-telling, very well. I was officer on board an
Indiaman, so I was; I traded to New South Wales, so I did, in a ship
of my own, and lost her. I became officer to the Nawaub, so I did;
only me and my royal master have had a difference, Strong--that's it.
Who's the better or the worse for what I tell? or knows any thing
about me? The other chap is dead--shot in the bush, and his body
reckonized at Sydney. If I thought any body would split, do you think
I wouldn't wring his neck? I've done as good before now, Strong--I
told you how I did for the overseer before I took leave--but in fair
fight, I mean--in fair fight; or, rayther, he had the best of it. He
had his gun and bay'net, and I had only an ax. Fifty of 'em saw
it--ay, and cheered me when I did it--and I'd do it again,--him,
wouldn't I? I ain't afraid of any body; and I'd have the life of the
man who split upon me. That's my maxim, and pass me the liquor--_You_
wouldn't turn on a man. I know you. You're an honest feller, and will
stand by a feller, and have looked death in the face like a man. But
as for that lily-livered sneak--that poor lyin', swindlin', cringin'
cur of a Clavering--who stands in my shoes--stands in my shoes, hang
him! I'll make him pull my boots off and clean 'em, I will. Ha, ha!"
Here he burst out into a wild laugh, at which Strong got up and put
away the brandy-bottle. The other still laughed good-humoredly.
"You're right, old boy," he said; "you always keep your head cool, you
do--and when I begin to talk too much--I say, when I begin to _pitch_,
I authorize you, and order you, and command you, to put away the
rum-bottle."
"Take my counsel, Altamont," Strong said, gravely, "and mind how you
deal with that man. Don't make it too much his interest to get rid of
you; or who knows what he may do?"
The event for which, with cynical enjoyment, Altamont had been on the
look-out, came very speedily. One day, Strong being absent upon an
errand for his principal, Sir Francis made his appearance in the
chambers, and found the envoy of the Nawaub alone. He abused the world
in general for being heartless and unkind to him: he abused his wife
for being ungenerous to him: he abused Strong for being
ungrateful--hundreds of pounds had he given Ned Strong--been his
friend for life and kept him out of jail, by Jove--and now Ned was
taking her ladyship's side against him and abetting her in her
infernal, unkind treatment of him. "They've entered into a conspiracy
to keep me penniless, Altamont," the baronet said: "they don't give me
as much pocket-money as Frank has at school."
"Why don't you go down to Richmond and borrow of him, Clavering?"
Altamont broke out with a savage laugh. "He wouldn't see his poor old
beggar of a father without pocket-money, would he?"
"I tell you, I've been obliged to humiliate myself cruelly," Clavering
said. "Look here, sir--look here, at these pawn-tickets! Fancy a
member of Parliament and an old English baronet, by gad! obliged to
put a drawing-room clock and a Buhl inkstand up the spout; and a gold
duck's head paper-holder, that I dare say cost my wife five pound, for
which they'd only give me fifteen-and-six! Oh, it's a humiliating
thing, sir, poverty to a man of my habits; and it's made me shed
tears, sir--tears; and that d--d valet of mine--curse him, I wish he
was hanged!--has had the confounded impudence to threaten to tell my
lady: as if the things in my own house weren't my own, to sell or to
keep, or to fling out of window if I chose--by gad! the confounded
scoundrel."
"Cry a little; don't mind cryin' before me--it'll relieve you,
Clavering" the other said. "Why, I say, old feller, what a happy
feller I once thought you, and what a miserable son of a gun you
really are!"
"It's a shame that they treat me so, ain't it," Clavering went
on--for, though ordinarily silent and apathetic, about his own griefs
the baronet could whine for an hour at a time. "And--and, by gad, sir,
I haven't got the money to pay the very cab that's waiting for me at
the door; and the porteress, that Mrs. Bolton, lent me three
shillin's, and I don't like to ask her for any more: and I asked that
d--d old Costigan, the confounded old penniless Irish miscreant, and
he hadn't got a shillin', the beggar; and Campion's out of town, or
else he'd do a little bill for me, I know he would."
"I thought you swore on your honor to your wife that you wouldn't put
your name to paper," said Mr. Altamont, puffing at his cigar.
"Why does she leave me without pocket-money then? Damme, I must have
money," cried out the baronet. "Oh, Am--, Oh, Altamont, I'm the most
miserable beggar alive."
"You'd like a chap to lend you a twenty-pound-note, wouldn't you now?"
the other asked.
"If you would, I'd be grateful to you forever--forever, my dearest
friend," cried Clavering. "How much would you give? Will you give a
fifty-pound bill, at six months, for half down and half in plate,"
asked Altamont.
"Yes, I would, so help me--, and pay it on the day," screamed
Clavering. "I'll make it payable at my banker's: I'll do any thing
you like."
[Illustration]
"Well, I was only chaffing you. I'll _give_ you twenty pound."
"You said a pony," interposed Clavering; "my dear fellow, you said a
pony, and I'll be eternally obliged to you; and I'll not take it as a
gift--only as a loan, and pay you back in six months. I take my oath
I will."
"Well--well--there's the money, Sir Francis Clavering. I ain't a bad
fellow. When I've money in my pocket, dammy, I spend it like a man.
Here's five-and-twenty for you. Don't be losing it at the hells now.
Don't be making a fool of yourself. Go down to Clavering Park, and
it'll keep you ever so long. You needn't 'ave butchers' meat: there's
pigs I dare say on the premises: and you can shoot rabbits for dinner,
you know, every day till the game comes in. Besides, the neighbors
will ask you about to dinner, you know, sometimes: for you _are_ a
baronet, though you have outrun the constable. And you've got this
comfort, that _I'm_ off your shoulders for a good bit to come--p'raps
this two years--if I don't play; and I don't intend to touch the
confounded black and red: and by that time my lady, as you call her--
Jimmy, I used to say--will have come round again; and you'll be ready
for me, you know, and come down handsomely to yours truly."
At this juncture of their conversation Strong returned, nor did the
baronet care much about prolonging the talk, having got the money: and
he made his way from Shepherd's Inn, and went home and bullied his
servant in a manner so unusually brisk and insolent, that the man
concluded his master must have pawned some more of the house
furniture, or at any rate, have come into possession of some
ready money.
"And yet I've looked over the house, Morgan, and I don't think he has
took any more of the things," Sir Francis's valet said to Major
Pendennis's man, as they met at their club soon after. "My lady locked
up a'most all the befews afore she went away, and he couldn't take
away the picters and looking-glasses in a cab: and he wouldn't spout
the fenders and fire-irons--he ain't so bad as that. But he's got
money somehow. He's so dam'd imperent when he have. A few nights ago I
sor him at Vauxhall, where I was a polkin with Lady Hemly Babewood's
gals--a wery pleasant room that is, and an uncommon good lot in it,
hall except the 'ousekeeper, and she's methodisticle--I was a
polkin--you're too old a cove to polk, Mr. Morgan--and 'ere's your
'ealth--and I 'appened to 'ave on some of Clavering's _abberdashery_,
and he sor it too; and he didn't dare so much as speak a word."
"How about the house in St. John's Wood?" Mr. Morgan asked.
"Execution in it.--Sold up hevery thing: ponies and pianna, and
Brougham, and all. Mrs. Montague Rivers hoff to Boulogne--non est
inwentus, Mr. Morgan. It's my belief she put the execution in herself:
and was tired of him."
"Play much?" asked Morgan.
"Not since the smash. When your governor, and the lawyers, and my lady
and him had that tremenduous scene: he went down on his knees, my lady
told Mrs. Bonner, as told me--and swoar as he never more would touch a
card or a dice, or put his name to a bit of paper; and my lady was
a-goin' to give him the notes down to pay his liabilities after the
race: only your governor said (which he wrote it on a piece of paper,
and passed it across the table to the lawyer and my lady), that some
one else had better book up for him, for he'd have kep' some of the
money. He's a sly old cove, your gov'nor." The expression of "old
cove," thus flippantly applied by the younger gentleman to himself and
his master, displeased Mr. Morgan exceedingly. On the first occasion,
when Mr. Lightfoot used the obnoxious expression, his comrade's anger
was only indicated by a silent frown; but on the second offense,
Morgan, who was smoking his cigar elegantly, and holding it on the tip
of his penknife, withdrew the cigar from his lips, and took his young
friend to task.
"Don't call Major Pendennis an old cove, if you'll 'ave the goodness,
Lightfoot, and don't call _me_ an old cove, nether. Such words
ain't used in society; and we have lived in the fust society, both at
'ome and foring. We've been intimate with the fust statesmen of
Europe. When we go abroad we dine with Prince Metternitch and Louy
Philup reg'lar. We go here to the best houses, the tip-tops, I tell
you. We ride with Lord John and the noble Whycount at the edd of
Foring Affairs. We dine with the Earl of Burgrave, and are consulted
by the Marquis of Steyne in every think. We _ought_ to know a
thing or two, Mr. Lightfoot. You're a young man, I'm an old cove, as
you say. We've both seen the world, and we both know that it ain't
money, nor bein' a baronet, nor 'avin' a town and country 'ouse, nor a
paltry five or six thousand a year."
"It's ten, Mr. Morgan," cried Mr. Lightfoot, with great animation.
"It _may_ have been, sir," Morgan said, with calm severity; "it
may have been Mr. Lightfoot, but it ain't six now, nor five, sir. It's
been doosedly dipped and cut into, sir, by the confounded extravygance
of your master, with his helbow-shakin' and his bill discountin', and
his cottage in the Regency Park, and his many wickednesses. He's a bad
un, Mr. Lightfoot--a bad lot, sir, and that you know. And it ain't
money, sir--not such money as that, at any rate, come from a Calcuttar
attorney, and I dessay wrung out of the pore starving blacks--that
will give a pusson position in society, as you know very well. We've
no money, but we go every where; there's not a housekeeper's room,
sir, in this town of any consiquince, where James Morgan ain't
welcome. And it was me who got you into this club, Lightfoot, as you
very well know, though I am an old cove, and they would have
blackballed you without me, as sure as your name is Frederic."
"I know they would, Mr. Morgan," said the other, with much humility.
"Well, then, don't call me an old cove, sir. It ain't gentlemanlike,
Frederic Lightfoot, which I knew you when you was a cab-boy, and when
your father was in trouble, and got you the place you have now when
the Frenchman went away. And if you think, sir, that because you're
making up to Mrs. Bonner, who may have saved her two thousand
pound--and I dare say she has in five-and-twenty years as she have
lived confidential maid to Lady Clavering--yet, sir, you must remember
who put you into that service, and who knows what you were before,
sir, and it don't become you, Frederic Lightfoot, to call me an
old cove."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Morgan--I can't do more than make an
apology--will you have a glass, sir, and let me drink your 'ealth?"
"You know I don't take sperrits, Lightfoot," replied Morgan, appeased.
"And so you and Mrs. Bonner is going to put up together, are you?"
"She's old, but two thousand pound's a good bit, you see, Mr. Morgan.
And we'll get the 'Clavering Arms' for a very little; and that'll be
no bad thing when the railroad runs through Clavering. And when we are
there, I hope you'll come and see us, Mr. Morgan."
"It's a stoopid place, and no society," said Mr. Morgan. "I know it
well. In Mrs. Pendennis's time we used to go down reg'lar, and the
hair refreshed me after the London racket."
"The railroad will improve Mr. Arthur's property," remarked Lightfoot.
"What's about the figure of it, should you say, sir?"
"Under fifteen hundred, sir," answered Morgan; at which the other, who
knew the extent of poor Arthur's acres, thrust his tongue in his
cheek, but remained wisely silent.
"Is his man any good, Mr. Morgan?" Lightfoot resumed.
"Pigeon ain't used to society as yet; but he's young and has good
talents, and has read a good deal, and I dessay he will do very well,"
replied Morgan. "He wouldn't quite do for _this_ kind of thing,
Lightfoot, for he ain't seen the world yet."
When the pint of sherry for which Mr. Lightfoot called, upon Mr.
Morgan's announcement that he declined to drink spirits, had been
discussed by the two gentlemen, who held the wine up to the light, and
smacked their lips, and winked their eyes at it, and rallied the
landlord as to the vintage, in the most approved manner of
connoisseurs, Morgan's ruffled equanimity was quite restored, and he
was prepared to treat his young friend with perfect good-humor.
"What d'you think about Miss Amory, Lightfoot?--tell us in confidence,
now--do you think we should do well--you understand--if we make Miss
A. into Mrs. A. P.? _Comprendy vous_?"
"She and her ma's always quarrelin'," said Mr. Lightfoot. "Bonner is
more than a match for the old lady, and treats Sir Francis like that--like
this year spill, which I fling into the grate. But she daren't
say a word to Miss Amory. No more dare none of us. When a visitor
comes in, she smiles and languishes, you'd think that butter wouldn't
melt in her mouth: and the minute he is gone, very likely, she flares
up like a little demon, and says things fit to send you wild. If Mr.
Arthur comes, it's 'Do let's sing that there delightful song!' or,
'Come and write me them pooty verses in this halbum!' and very likely
she's been a rilin' her mother, or sticking pins into her maid, a
minute before. She do stick pins into her and pinch her. Mary Hann
showed me one of her arms quite black and blue; and I recklect Mrs.
Bonner, who's as jealous of me as a old cat, boxed her ears for
showing me. And then you should see Miss at luncheon, when there's
nobody but the family! She makes b'leave she never eats, and my! you
should only jest see her. She has Mary Hann to bring her up plum-cakes
and creams into her bedroom; and the cook's the only man in the house
she's civil to. Bonner says, how, the second season in London,
Mr. Soppington was a-goin' to propose for her, and actially came one
day, and sor her fling a book into the fire, and scold her mother so,
that he went down softly by the back droring-room door, which he came
in by; and next thing we heard of him was, he was married to Miss
Rider. Oh, she's a devil, that little Blanche, and that's my candig
apinium, Mr. Morgan."
"Apinion, not apinium, Lightfoot, my good fellow," Mr. Morgan said,
with parental kindness, and then asked of his own bosom with a sigh,
why the deuce does my governor want Master Arthur to marry such a girl
as this? and the _tête-à-tête_ of the two gentlemen was broken up by
the entry of other gentlemen, members of the club--when fashionable
town-talk, politics, cribbage, and other amusements ensued, and the
conversation became general.
The Gentleman's Club was held in the parlor of the Wheel of Fortune
public-house, in a snug little by-lane, leading out of one of the
great streets of May Fair, and frequented by some of the most select
gentlemen about town. Their masters' affairs, debts, intrigues,
adventures; their ladies' good and bad qualities and quarrels with
their husbands; all the family secrets were here discussed with
perfect freedom and confidence, and here, when about to enter into a
new situation, a gentleman was enabled to get every requisite
information regarding the family of which he proposed to become a
member. Liveries it may be imagined were excluded from this select
precinct; and the powdered heads of the largest metropolitan footmen
might bow down in vain, entreating admission into the Gentleman's
Club. These outcast giants in plush took their beer in an outer
apartment of the Wheel of Fortune, and could no more get an entry into
the club room than a Pall Mall tradesman or a Lincoln's Inn attorney
could get admission into Bay's or Spratt's. And it is because the
conversation which we have been permitted to overhear here, in some
measure explains the characters and bearings of our story, that we
have ventured to introduce the reader into a society so exclusive.