The day after his niece’s marriage was happily effected, Lord Oldborough
said to his secretary, “Now, Mr. Cunningham Falconer, I have leisure to
turn my mind again to the Tourville papers.”
“I was in hopes, my lord,” said the secretary (_se composant le
visage_), “I was in hopes that this happy alliance, which secures the
Duke of Greenwich, would have put your lordship’s mind completely at
ease, and that you would not have felt it necessary to examine farther
into that mystery.”
“Weak men never foresee adversity during prosperity, nor prosperity
during adversity,” replied Lord Oldborough. “His majesty has decided
immediately to recall his present envoy at that German court; a new one
will be sent, and the choice of that envoy his majesty is graciously
pleased to leave to me.--You are a very young man, Mr. Cunningham
Falconer, but you have given me such _written_ irrefragable proofs of
your ability and information, that I have no scruple in recommending you
to his majesty as a person to whom his interests may be intrusted, and
the zeal and attachment your family have shown me in actions, not in
words only, have convinced me that I cannot choose better for my private
affairs. Therefore, if the appointment be agreeable to you, you cannot
too soon make what preparations may be necessary.”
Cunningham, delighted, made his acknowledgments and thanks for the
honour and the favour conferred upon him with all the eloquence in his
power.
“I endeavour not to do any thing hastily, Mr. Cunningham Falconer,” said
his lordship. “I frankly tell you, that I was not at first prepossessed
in your favour, nor did I feel inclined to do more for you than that
to which I had been induced by peculiar circumstances. Under this
prepossession, I perhaps did not for some time do justice to your
talents; but I should be without judgment or without candour, if I did
not feel and acknowledge the merit of the performance which I hold in my
hand.”
The performance was a pamphlet in support of Lord Oldborough’s
administration, published in Cunningham’s name, but the greater part of
it was written by his good genius in the garret.
“On _this_,” said Lord Oldborough, putting his hand upon it as it lay
on the table, “on _this_ found your just title, sir, to my esteem and
confidence.”
Would not the truth have burst from any man of common generosity,
honour, or honesty?--Would not a man who had any feeling, conscience,
or shame, supposing he could have resolved to keep his secret, at this
instant, have been ready to sink into the earth with confusion, under
this unmerited praise?--In availing himself falsely of a title to esteem
and confidence, then fraudulently of another’s talents to obtain favour,
honour, and emolument, would not a blush, or silence, some awkwardness,
or some hesitation, have betrayed him to eyes far less penetrating than
those of Lord Oldborough? Yet nothing of this was felt by Cunningham:
he made, with a good grace, all the disqualifying speeches of a modest
author, repeated his thanks and assurances of grateful attachment,
and retired triumphant.--It must be acknowledged that he was fit for a
diplomatist. His credentials were forthwith made out in form, and his
instructions, public and private, furnished. No expense was spared
in fitting him out for his embassy--his preparations made, his suite
appointed, his liveries finished, his carriage at the door, he departed
in grand style; and all Commissioner Falconer’s friends, of which,
at this time, he could not fail to have many, poured in with
congratulations on the rapid advancement of his sons, and on all sides
exclamations were heard in favour of _friends in power_.
“True--very true, indeed. And see what it is,” said Commissioner
Falconer, turning to Buckhurst, “see what it is to have a son so
perverse, that he will not make use of a good friend when he has one,
and who will not accept the promise of an excellent living when he can
get it!”
All his friends and acquaintance now joining in one chorus told
Buckhurst, in courtly terms, that he was a fool, and Buckhurst began to
think they must be right.--“For here,” said he to himself, “are my two
precious brothers finely provided for, one an envoy, the other a major
_in esse_, and a lieutenant-colonel _in posse_--and I, _in esse_ and _in
posse_, what?--Nothing but a good fellow--one day with the four in hand
club, the next in my chambers, studying the law, by which I shall never
make a penny. And there’s Miss Caroline Percy, who has declined the
honour of my hand, no doubt, merely because I have indulged a little in
good company, instead of immuring myself with Coke and Blackstone,
Viner and Saunders, Bosanquet and Puller, or chaining myself to a
special-pleader’s desk, like cousin Alfred, that galley-slave of the
law!--No, no, I’ll not make a galley-slave of myself. Besides, at my
mother’s, in all that set, and in the higher circles with Hauton and the
Clays, and those people, whenever I appear in the character of a poor
barrister, I am scouted--should never have _got on_ at all, but for my
being a wit--a wit!--and have not I wit enough to make my fortune? As
my father says, What hinders me?--My conscience only. And why should my
conscience be so cursedly delicate, so unlike other men’s consciences?”
In this humour, Buckhurst was easily persuaded by his father to take
orders. The paralytic incumbent of Chipping-Friars had just at this time
another stroke of the palsy, on which Colonel Hauton congratulated the
young deacon; and, to keep him in patience while waiting for the third
stroke, made him chaplain to his regiment.--The Clays also introduced
him to their uncle, Bishop Clay, who had, as they told him, taken a
prodigious fancy to him; for he observed, that in carving a partridge,
Buckhurst never touched the wing with a knife, but after nicking the
joint, tore it off, so as to leave adhering to the bone that muscle
obnoxious to all good eaters.--The bishop pronounced him to be “a
capital carver.”
Fortune at this time threw into Buckhurst’s hands unasked, unlooked-for,
and in the oddest way imaginable, a gift of no small value in itself,
and an earnest of her future favours. At some high festival, Buckhurst
was invited to dine with the bishop. Now Bishop Clay was a rubicund,
full-blown, short-necked prelate, with the fear of apoplexy continually
before him, except when dinner was on the table; and at this time a
dinner was on the table, rich with every dainty of the season, that
earth, air, and sea, could provide. Grace being first said by the
chaplain, the bishop sat down “_richly to enjoy_;” but it happened in
the first onset, that a morsel too large for his lordship’s swallow
stuck in his throat. The bishop grew crimson--purple--black in the face;
the chaplain started up, and untied his neckcloth. The guests crowded
round, one offering water, another advising bread, another calling for a
raw egg, another thumping his lordship on the back. Buckhurst Falconer,
with more presence of mind than was shown by any other person, saved his
patron’s life. He blew with force in the bishop’s ear, and thus produced
such a salutary convulsion in the throat, as relieved his lordship from
the danger of suffocation [Footnote: Some learned persons assert that
this could not have happened. We can only aver that it did happen.
The assertions against the possibility of the fact remind us of the
physician in Zadig, who, as the fable tells us, wrote a book to prove
that Zadig should have gone blind, though he had actually recovered the
use of his eye.--Zadig never read the book.]. The bishop, recovering his
breath and vital functions, sat up, restored to life and dinner--he ate
again, and drank to Mr. Buckhurst Falconer’s health, with thanks for
this good service to the church, to which he prophesied the reverend
young gentleman would, in good time, prove an honour. And that he might
be, in some measure, the means of accomplishing his own prophecy, Bishop
Clay did, before he slept, which was immediately after dinner, present
Mr. Buckhurst Falconer with a living worth 400_l._ a year; a living
which had not fallen into the bishop’s gift above half a day, and which,
as there were six worthy clergymen in waiting for it, would necessarily
have been disposed of the next morning.
“Oh! star of patronage, shine ever thus upon the Falconers!” cried
Buckhurst, when, elevated with wine in honour of the church, he gave an
account to his father at night of the success of the day.--“Oh! thou,
whose influence has, for us, arrested Fortune at the top of her wheel,
be ever thus propitious!--Only make me a dean. Have you not made my
brother, the dunce, a colonel? and my brother, the knave, an envoy?--I
only pray to be a dean--I ask not yet to be a bishop--you see I have
some conscience left.”
“True,” said his father, laughing. “Now go to bed, Buckhurst; you may,
for your fortune is up.”
“Ha! my good cousin Percys, where are you now?--Education, merit, male
and female, where are you now?--Planting cabbages, and presiding at a
day-school: one son plodding in a pleader’s office--another cast in an
election for an hospital physician--a third encountering a plague in the
West Indies. I give you joy!”
No wonder the commissioner exulted, for he had not only provided
thus rapidly for his sons, but he had besides happy expectations
for himself.--With Lord Oldborough he was now in higher favour and
confidence than he had ever hoped to be. Lord Oldborough, who was a
man little prone to promise, and who always did more than he said, had,
since the marriage of his niece, thrown out a hint that he was aware of
the expense it must have been to Commissioner and Mrs. Falconer to give
entertainments continually, and to keep open house, as they had done
this winter, for his political friends--no instance of zeal in his
majesty’s service, his lordship said, he hoped was ever lost upon him,
and, if he continued in power, he trusted he should find occasion to
show his gratitude. This from another minister might mean nothing but to
pay with words; from Lord Oldborough the commissioner justly deemed it
as good as a promissory note for a lucrative place. Accordingly he
put it in circulation directly among his creditors, and he no longer
trembled at the expense at which he had lived and was living. Both Mrs.
Falconer and he had ever considered a good cook, and an agreeable house,
as indispensably necessary to those who would rise in the world; and
they laid it down as a maxim, that, if people wished to grow rich,
they must begin by appearing so. Upon this plan every thing in their
establishment, table, servants, equipage, dress, were far more splendid
than their fortune could afford. The immediate gratification which
resulted from this display, combining with their maxims of policy,
encouraged the whole family to continue this desperate game. Whenever
the timidity of the commissioner had started; when, pressed by his
creditors, he had backed, and had wished to stop in this course of
extravagance; his lady, of a more intrepid character, urged him forward,
pleading that he had gone too far to recede--that the poorer they were,
the more necessary to keep up the brilliant appearance of affluence. How
else could her daughters, after all the sums that had been risked upon
them, hope to be advantageously established? How otherwise could they
preserve what her friend Lady Jane Granville so justly styled the
patronage of fashion?
When success proved Mrs. Falconer to be right, “Now, Commissioner
Falconer! Now!” How she triumphed, and how she talked! Her sons all in
such favour--her daughters in such fashion! No party without the Miss
Falconers!--Miss Falconers must sing--Miss Falconers must play--Miss
Falconers must dance, or no lady of a house could feel herself happy,
or could think she had done her duty--no piano, no harp could draw such
crowds as the Miss Falconers. It was the ambition among the fashionable
men to dance with the Miss Falconers, to flirt with the Miss Falconers.
“Not merely flirting, ma’am,” as Mrs. Falconer said, and took proper
pains should be heard, “but several serious proposals from very
respectable quarters:” however, none _yet_ exactly what she could
resolve to accept for the girls--she looked high for them, she
owned--she thought she had a right to look high. Girls in fashion should
not take the first offers--they should hold up their heads: why should
they not aspire to rank, why not to title, as well as to fortune?
Poor Petcalf! General Petcalf’s son had been for some time, as it was
well known, desperately in love with Miss Georgiana Falconer; but
what chance had he now? However, he was to be _managed_: he was useful
sometimes, as a partner, “to whom one may say one is engaged when a
person one does not choose to dance with asks for the honour of one’s
hand--useful sometimes to turn over the leaves of the music-book--useful
always as an attendant in public places--useful, in short, to be
exhibited as a captive; for one captive leads to another conquest.” And
Miss Arabella Falconer, too, could boast her conquests, though nobody
merely by looking at her would have guessed it: but she was a striking
exemplification of the truth of Lady Jane Granville’s maxim, that
fashion, like Venus’s girdle, can beautify any girl, let her be ever so
ugly.
And now the Falconer family having risen and succeeded beyond their most
sanguine hopes by a combination of lucky circumstances, and by adherence
to their favourite system, we leave them fortified in their principles,
and at the height of prosperity.