THE STANHOPE FAMILY
It is now three months since Dr Proudie began his reign, and
changes had already been affected in the diocese which show at
least the energy of an active mind. Among other things, absentee
clergymen have been favoured with hints much too strong to be
overlooked. Poor dear old Bishop Grantly had on this matter been
too lenient, and the archdeacon had never been inclined to be
severe with those who were absent on reputable pretences, and who
provided for their duties in a liberal way.
Among the greatest of the diocesan sinners in this respect was Dr
Vesey Stanhope. Years had now passed since he had done a day's
duty; and yet there was no reason against his doing duty except a
want of inclination on his own part. He held a prebendal stall in
the diocese; one of the best residences in the close; and the two
large rectories of Crabtree Canonicorum, and Stogpingum. Indeed, he
had the cure of three parishes, for that of Eiderdown was joined to
Stogpingum. He had resided in Italy for twelve years. His first
going there had been attributed to a sore throat; and that sore
throat, though never repeated in any violent manner had stood him
in such stead, that it had enabled him to live in easy idleness
ever since.
He had now been summoned home,--not indeed, with rough violence, or
by any peremptory command, but by a mandate which he found himself
unable to disregard. Mr Slope had written to him by the bishop's
desire. In the first place, the bishop much wanted the valuable
co-operation of Dr Vesey Stanhope in the diocese; in the next, the
bishop thought it his imperative duty to become personally
acquainted with the most conspicuous of his diocesan clergy; then
the bishop thought it essentially necessary for Dr Stanhope's own
interests, that Dr Stanhope should, at any rate for a time, return
to Barchester; and lastly, it was said that so strong a feeling was
at the present moment evinced by the hierarchs of the church with
reference to the absence of its clerical members, that it behoved
Dr Vesey Stanhope not to allow his name to stand among those which
would probably in a few months be submitted to the councils of the
nation.
There was something so ambiguously frightful in this last threat
that Dr Stanhope determined to spend two or three summer months at
his residence in Barchester. His rectories were inhabited by his
curates, and he felt himself from disuse to be unfit for parochial
duty; but his prebendal home was kept empty for him, and he thought
it probable that he might be able now and again to preach a
prebendal sermon. He arrived, therefore, with all his family at
Barchester, and he and they must be introduced to my readers.
The great family characteristic of the Stanhopes might probably be
said to be heartlessness; but the want of feeling was, in most of
them, accompanied by so great an amount of good nature that their
neighbours failed to perceive how indifferent to them was the
happiness and well-being of those around them. The Stanhopes would
visit you in your sickness (provided it were not contagious), would
bring you oranges, French novels, and the last new bit of scandal,
and then hear of your death or your recovery with an equally
indifferent composure. Their conduct to each other was the same as
to the world; they bore and forbore: and there was sometimes, as
will be seen, much necessity for forbearing: but their love among
themselves rarely reached above this. It is astonishing how much
each of the family was able to do, and how much each did, to
prevent the well-being of the other four.
For there were five in all; the doctor, namely, and Mrs Stanhope,
two daughters, and one son. The doctor, perhaps, was the least
singular and most estimable of them all, and yet such good
qualities as he possessed were all negative. He was a good looking
rather plethoric gentleman of about sixty years of age. His hair
was snow white, very plentiful, and somewhat like wool of the
finest description. His whiskers were large and very white, and
gave to his face the appearance of a benevolent sleepy old lion.
His dress was always unexceptionable. Although he had lived so many
years in Italy it was invariably of a decent clerical hue, but it
never was hyperclerical. He was a man not given to much talking,
but what little he did say was generally well said. His reading
seldom went beyond romances and poetry of the lightest and not
always most moral description. He was thoroughly a bon vivant; an
accomplished judge of wine, though he never drank to excess; and a
most inexorable critic in all affairs touching the kitchen. He had
had much to forgive in his own family, since a family had grown up
around him, and had forgiven everything--except inattention to his
dinner. His weakness in that respect was now fully understood, and
his temper but seldom tried. As Dr Stanhope was a clergyman, it may
be supposed that his religious convictions made up a considerable
part of his character; but this was not so. That he had religious
convictions must be believed; but he rarely obtruded them, even on
his children. This abstinence on his part was not systematic, but
very characteristic of the man. It was not that he had
predetermined never to influence their thoughts; but he was so
habitually idle that his time for doing so had never come till the
opportunity for doing so was gone forever. Whatever conviction the
father may have had, the children were at any rate but indifferent
members of the church from which he drew his income.
Such was Dr Stanhope. The features of Mrs Stanhope's character were
even less plainly marked than those of her lord. The far niente of
her Italian life had entered into her very soul, and brought her to
regard a state of inactivity as the only earthly good. In manner
and appearance she was exceedingly prepossessing. She had been a
beauty, and even now, at fifty-five, she was a handsome woman. Her
dress was always perfect: she never dressed but once in the day,
and never appeared till between three and four; but when she did
appear, she appeared at her best. Whether the toil rested partly
with her, or wholly with her handmaid, it is not for such a one as
the author to imagine. The structure of her attire was always
elaborate, and yet never over laboured. She was rich in apparel,
but not bedizened with finery; her ornaments were costly, rare, and
such as could not fail to attract notice, but they did not look as
though worn with that purpose. She well knew the great
architectural secret of decorating her constructions, and never
condescended to construct a decoration. But when we have said that
Mrs Stanhope knew how to dress, and used her knowledge daily, we
have said all. Other purpose in life she had none. It was
something, indeed, that she did not interfere with the purposes of
others. In early life she had undergone great trials with reference
to the doctor's dinners; but for the last ten or twelve years her
eldest daughter Charlotte had taken that labour off her hands, and
she had had little to trouble her;--little, that is, till the edict
for this terrible English journey had gone forth; since, then,
indeed, her life had been laborious enough. For such a one, the
toil of being carried from the shores of Como to the city of
Barchester is more than labour enough, let the cares of the
carriers be ever so vigilant. Mrs Stanhope had been obliged to have
every one of her dresses taken in from the effects of the journey.
Charlotte Stanhope was at this time about thirty-five years old;
and, whatever may have been her faults, she had none of those which
belong particularly to old young ladies. She neither dressed young,
nor talked young, nor indeed looked young. She appeared to be
perfectly content with her time of life, and in no way affected the
grace of youth. She was a fine young woman; and had she been a man,
would have been a very fine young man. All that was done in the
house, and that was not done by servants, was done by her. She gave
the orders, paid the bills, hired and dismissed the domestics, made
the tea, carved the meat, and managed everything in the Stanhope
household. She, and she alone, could ever induce her father to look
into the state of his worldly concerns. She, and she alone, could
in any degree control the absurdities of her sister. She, and she
alone, prevented the whole family from falling into utter disrepute
and beggary. It was by her advice that they now found themselves
very unpleasantly situated in Barchester.
So far, the character of Charlotte Stanhope is not unprepossessing.
But it remains to be said, that the influence which she had in her
family, though it had been used to a certain extent for their
worldly well-being, had not been used to their real benefit, as it
might have been. She had aided her father in his indifference to
his professional duties, counselling him that his livings were as
much as his individual property as the estates of his elder brother
were the property of that worthy peer. She had for years past
stifled every little rising wish for a return to England which the
doctor had from time to time expressed. She had encouraged her
mother in her idleness in order that she herself might be mistress
and manager of the Stanhope household. She had encouraged and
fostered the follies of her sister, though she was always willing,
and often able, to protect her from their probable result. She had
done her best, and had thoroughly succeeded in spoiling her
brother, and turning him loose upon the world an idle man without a
profession, and without a shilling that he could call his own.
Miss Stanhope was a clever woman, able to talk on most subjects,
and quite indifferent as to what the subject was. She prided
herself on her freedom from English prejudice, and she might have
added, from feminine delicacy. On religion she was a pure
freethinker, and with much want of true affection, delighted to
throw out her own views before the troubled mind of her father. To
have shaken what remained of his Church of England faith would have
gratified her much; but the idea of his abandoning his preferment
in the church had never once presented itself to her mind. How
could he indeed, when he had no income from any other sources?
But the two most prominent members of the family still remain to be
described. The second child had been christened Madeline, and had
been a great beauty. We need not say had been, for she was never
more beautiful than at the time of which we write, though her
person for many years had been disfigured by an accident. It is
unnecessary that we should give in detail the early history of
Madeline Stanhope. She had gone to Italy when seventeen years of
age, and had been allowed to make the most of her surpassing beauty
in the saloons of Milan, and among the crowded villas along the
shores of the Lake of Como. She had become famous for adventures in
which her character was just not lost, and had destroyed the hearts
of a dozen cavaliers without once being touched in her own. Blood
had flowed in quarrels about her charms, and she heard of these
encounters with pleasurable excitement. It had been told of her
that on one occasion she had stood by in the disguise of a page,
and had seen her lover fall.
As is so often the case, she had married the very worst of those
who sought her hand. Why she had chosen Paulo Neroni, a man of no
birth and no property, a mere captain in the pope's guard, one who
had come up to Milan either simply as an adventurer or as a spy, a
man of harsh temper and oily manners, mean in figure, swarthy in
face, and so false in words as to be hourly detected, need not now
be told. When the moment for doing so came, she had probably no
alternative. He, at any rate, had become her husband; and after a
prolonged honeymoon among the lakes, they had gone together to
Rome, the papal captain having vainly endeavoured to induce his
wife to remain behind him.
Six months afterwards she arrived at her father's house a cripple
and a mother. She had arrived without even notice, with hardly
clothes to cover her, and without one of those many ornaments which
had graced her bridal trousseaux. Her baby was in the arms of a
poor girl from Milan, whom she had taken in exchange for the Roman
maid who had accompanied her thus far, and who had then, as her
mistress said, become homesick and had returned. It was clear that
the lady had determined that there should be no witness to tell
stories of her life in Rome.
She had fallen, she said, in ascending a ruin and had fatally
injured the sinews of her knee; so fatally, that when she stood she
lost eight inches of her accustomed height; so fatally, that when
she essayed to move, she could only drag herself painfully along,
with protruded hip and extended foot in a manner less graceful than
that of a hunchback. She had consequently made up her mind, once
and for ever, that she would never stand, and never attempt to move
herself.
Stories were not slow to follow her, averring that she had been
cruelly ill-used by Neroni, and that to his violence had she owed
her accident. Be that as it may, little had been said about her
husband, but that little had made it clearly intelligible to the
family that Signor Neroni was to be seen and heard of no more.
There was no question as to re-admitting the poor ill-used beauty
to her old family rights, no question as to adopting her infant
daughter, beneath the Stanhope roof tree. Though heartless, the
Stanhopes were not selfish. The two were taken in, petted, made
much of, for a time all but adored, and then felt by the two
parents to be great nuisances in the house. But in the house the
lady was, and there she remained, having her own way, though that
way was not very comfortable with the customary usages of an
English clergyman.
Madame Neroni, though forced to give up all motion in the world,
had no intention whatever of giving up the world itself. The beauty
of her face was uninjured, and that beauty was of a peculiar kind.
Her copious rich brown hair was worn in Grecian bandeaux round her
head, displaying as much as possible of her forehead and cheeks.
Her forehead, though rather low, was very beautiful from its
perfect contour and pearly whiteness. Her eyes were long and large,
and marvellously bright; might I venture to say, bright as
Lucifer's, I should perhaps best express the depth of their
brilliancy. They were dreadful eyes to look at, such as would
absolutely deter any man of quiet mind and easy spirit from
attempting a passage of arms with such foes. There was talent in
them, and the fire of passion and the play of wit, but there was no
love. Cruelty was there instead, and courage, a desire for
masterhood, cunning, and a wish for mischief. And yet, as eyes,
they were very beautiful. The eyelashes were long and perfect, and
the long steady unabashed gaze, with which she would look into the
face of her admirer, fascinated while it frightened him. She was a
basilisk from whom an ardent lover of beauty could make no escape.
Her nose and mouth more so at twenty-eight than they had been at
eighteen. What wonder that with such charms still glowing in her
face, and with such deformity destroying her figure, she should
resolve to be seen, but only to be seen reclining on a sofa.
Her resolve had not been carried out without difficulty. She had
still frequented the opera at Milan; she had still been seen
occasionally in the saloons of the noblesse; she had caused herself
to be carried in and out from her carriage, and that in such a
manner as in no wise to disturb her charms, disarrange her dress,
or expose her deformities. Her sister always accompanied her and a
maid, a manservant also, and on state occasions, two. It was
impossible that her purpose could have been achieved with less: and
yet, poor as she was, she had achieved her purpose. And then again
the more dissolute Italian youths of Milan frequented the Stanhope
villa and surrounded her couch, not greatly to her father's
satisfaction. Sometimes his spirit would rise, a dark spot would
show itself on his cheek, and he would rebel; but Charlotte would
assuage him with some peculiar triumph of her culinary art, and all
again would be smooth for a while.
Madeline affected all manner of rich and quaint devices in the
garniture of her room, her person, and her feminine belongings. In
nothing was this more apparent than in the visiting card which she
had prepared for her use. For such an article one would say that
she, in her present state, could have but small need, seeing how
improbable it was that she should make a morning call; but not such
was her own opinion. Her card was surrounded by a deep border of
gilding; on this she had imprinted, in three lines:-
La Signora Madeline
Vesey Neroni.
- Nata Stanhope.
And over the name she had a bright gilt coronet, which certainly
looked very magnificent. How she had come to concoct such a name
for herself it would be difficult to explain. Her father had been
christened Vesey, as another man is christened Thomas; and she had
no more right to assume it than would have the daughter of a Mr
Josiah Jones to call herself Mrs Josiah Smith, on marrying a man of
the latter name. The gold coronet was equally out of place, and
perhaps inserted with even less excuse. Paul Neroni had not the
faintest title to call himself a scion of even Italian nobility.
Had the pair met in England Neroni would probably have been a
count; but they had met in Italy, and any such pretence on his part
would have been simply ridiculous. A coronet, however, was a pretty
ornament, and if it could solace a poor cripple to have such on her
card, who could begrudge it to her?
Of her husband, or of his individual family, she never spoke; but
with her admirers she would often allude in a mysterious way to her
married life and isolated state, and, pointing to her daughter,
would call her the last of the blood of the emperors, thus
referring Neroni's extraction to the old Roman family from which
the worst of the Caesars sprang.
The 'Signora' was not without talent, and not without a certain
sort of industry; she was an indomitable letter writer, and her
letters were worth the postage: they were full of wit, mischief,
satire, love, latitudinarian philosophy, free religion, and,
sometimes, alas! loose ribaldry. The subject, however, depended
entirely on the recipient, and she was prepared to correspond with
any one, but moral young ladies or stiff old women. She wrote also
a kind of poetry, generally in Italian, and short romances,
generally in French. She read much of a desultory sort of
literature, and as a modern linguist had really made great
proficiency. Such was the lady who had now come to wound the hearts
of the men of Barchester.
Ethelbert Stanhope was in some respects like his younger sister,
but he was less inestimable as a man than she was as a woman. His
great fault was an entire absence of that principle which should
have induced him, as the son of a man without fortune, to earn his
own bread. Many attempts had been made to get him to do so, but
these had all been frustrated, not so much by idleness on his part,
as by a disinclination to exert himself in any way not to his
taste. He had been educated at Eton, and had been intended for the
Church, but had left Cambridge in disgust after a single term, and
notified to his father his intention to study for the bar.
Preparatory to that, he thought it well that he should attend a
German university, and consequently went to Leipzig. There he
remained two years, and brought away a knowledge of German and a
taste for the fine arts. He still, however, intended himself for
the bar, took chambers, engaged himself to sit at the feet of a
learned pundit, and spent a season in London. He there found that
all his aptitudes inclined him to the life of an artist, and he
determined to live by painting. With this object he retired to
Milan, and had himself rigged out for Rome. As a painter he might
have earned his bread, for he wanted only diligence to excel; but
when at Rome his mind was carried away by other things: he soon
wrote home for money, saying that he had been converted to the
Mother Church, that he was already an acolyte of the Jesuits, and
that he was about to start with others to Palestine on a mission
for converting Jews. He did go to Judea, but being unable to
convert the Jews, was converted by them. He again wrote home, to
say that Moses was the only giver of perfect laws to the world,
that the coming of the true Messiah was at hand, that great things
were doing in Palestine, and that he had met one of the family of
Sidonis, a most remarkable man, who was now on his way to Western
Europe, and whom he had induced to deviate from his route with the
object of calling at the Stanhope villa. Ethelbert then expressed
his hope that his mother and sisters would listen to this wonderful
prophet. His father he knew could not do so from pecuniary
considerations. This Sidonia, however, did not take so strong a
fancy to him as another of that family once did to a young English
nobleman. At least he provided him with no hope of gold as large as
lions; so that the Judaised Ethelbert was again obliged to draw on
the revenues of the Christian Church.
It is needless to tell how the father swore that he would send no
more money and receive no Jew; nor how Charlotte declared that
Ethelbert could not be left penniless in Jerusalem; and how 'La
Signora Neroni' resolved to have Sidonia at her feet. The money was
sent, and the Jew did come. The Jew did come, but he was not at all
to the taste of 'la Signora'. He was a dirty little old man, and
though he had provided no golden lions, he had, it seems, relieved
young Stanhope's necessities. He positively refused to leave the
villa till he got a bill from the doctor on his London bankers.
Ethelbert did not long remain a Jew. He soon reappeared at the
villa without prejudices on the subject of his religion, and with a
firm resolve to achieve fame and fortune as a sculptor. He brought
with him some models which he had originated at Rome, and which
really gave much fair promise that his father was induced to go to
further expense in furthering these views. Ethelbert opened an
establishment, or rather took lodgings and workshop, at Carrara,
and there spoilt much marble, and made some few pretty images.
Since that period, now four years ago, he had alternated between
Carrara and the villa, but his sojourns at the workshop became
shorter and shorter, and those at the villa longer and longer.
'Twas no wonder; for Carrara is not a spot in which an Englishman
would like to dwell.
When the family started for England he had resolved not to be left
behind, and with the assistance of his elder sister had earned his
point against his father's wishes. It was necessary, he said, that
he should come to England for orders. How otherwise was he to bring
his profession to account?
In personal appearance Ethelbert Stanhope was the most singular of
beings. He was certainly very handsome. He had his sister
Madeline's eyes without their stare, and without their hard cunning
cruel firmness. They were also very much lighter, and of so light
and clear a blue as to make his face remarkable, if nothing else
did so. On entering a room with him, Ethelbert's blue eyes would be
the first thing you would see, and on leaving it almost the last
thing you would forget. His light hair was very long and silky,
coming down over his coat. His beard had been prepared in the holy
land, and was patriarchal. He never shaved, and rarely trimmed it.
It was glossy, soft, clean, and altogether not unprepossessing. It
was such that ladies might desire to reel it off and work it into
their patterns in lieu of floss silk. His complexion was fair and
almost pink, he was small in height, and slender in limb, but
well-made, and his voice was of particular sweetness.manner and
dress he was equally remarkable. He had none of the mauvaise honte
of an Englishman. He required no introduction to make himself
agreeable to any person. He habitually addressed strangers, ladies
as well as men, without any such formality, and in doing so never
seemed to meet with rebuke. His costume cannot be described,
because it was so various; but it was always totally opposed in
every principle of colour and construction to the dress of those
with whom he for the time consorted.
He was habitually addicted to making love to ladies, and did so
without scruple of conscience, or any idea that such a practice was
amiss. He had no heart to touch himself, and was literally unaware
that humanity was subject to such infliction. He had not thought
much about it; but, had he been asked, would have said, that
ill-treating a lady's heart meant injuring her promotion in the
world. His principles therefore forbade him to pay attention to a
girl, if he thought any man was present whom it might suit her to
marry. In this manner, his good nature frequently interfered with
his amusement; but he had no other motive in abstaining from the
fullest declaration of love to every girl that pleased his eye.
Bertie Stanhope, as he was generally called, was, however, popular
with both sexes; and with Italians as well as English. His circle
of acquaintance was very large, and embraced people of all sorts.
He had not respect for rank, and no aversion to those below him. He
had lived on familiar terms with English peers, German shopkeepers,
and Roman priests. All people were nearly alike to him. He was
above, or rather below, all prejudices. No virtue could charm him,
no vice shock him. He had about him a natural good manner, which
seemed to qualify him for the highest circles, and yet he was never
out of place in the lowest. He had no principle, no regard for
others, no self-respect, no desire to be other than a drone in a
hive, if only he could, as a drone, get what honey was sufficient
for him. Of honey, in his latter days, it may probably be presaged,
that he will have but short allowance.
Such was the family of the Stanhopes, who, at this period, suddenly
joined themselves to the ecclesiastical circle of Barchester close.
Any stranger union, it would be impossible perhaps to conceive. And
it was not as though they all fell down into the cathedral
precincts hitherto unknown and untalked of. In such case no
amalgamation would have been at all probable between the new comers
and either the Proudie set or the Grantly set. But such was far
from being the case. The Stanhopes were all known by name in
Barchester, and Barchester was prepared to receive them with open
arms. The doctor was one of the prebendaries, one of her rectors,
one of her pillars of strength; and was, moreover, counted on, as a
sure ally, both by Proudies and Grantlys.
He himself was the brother of one peer, and his wife was the sister
of another--and both these peers were lords of whiggish tendency,
with whom the new bishop had some sort of alliance. This was
sufficient to give to Mr Slope high hope that he might enlist Dr
Stanhope on his side, before his enemies could out-manoeuvre him.
On the other hand, the old dean had many many years ago, in the
days of the doctor's clerical energies, been instrumental in
assisting him in his views as to preferment; and many many years
ago also, the two doctors, Stanhope and Grantly, had, as young
parsons, been joyous together in the common rooms of Oxford. Dr
Grantly, consequently, did not doubt but that the new comer would
range himself under his banners.
Little did any of them dream of what ingredients the Stanhope
family was now composed.