EVELYN VISITS THE DUCHESS.
THE reader (who is blessed with a good memory) will remember that at
the end of our first chapter Miss Sarah Strong had made an appointment
to take the newly-arrived Miss Manwaring to call upon the Duchess of
Ribblesdale, and punctually at the hour fixed, she arrived to fulfil
her promise.
The entrance to her Grace’s apartments was situated in the first
quadrangle, and after ascending a somewhat narrow flight of stairs,
and passing through a long corridor, the two ladies were ceremoniously
introduced into the presence of the “Vice-reine” of Hampton Court. The
Duchess rose as they entered. She was a little, upright woman, dressed
in plain black silk. A single diamond of great size glistened on her
left hand, and, depending from a plain gold chain which hung around
her neck, she wore a locket or pendant containing a huge emerald. She
wore no cap, but about her hair, which was of a beautiful silver tint,
was disposed, Spanish-fashion, some fine old black lace, beneath which
shone magnificent dark eyes, which lighted up a face beaming with
benevolence, and still retaining some portion of the singular beauty
for which it had formerly been celebrated.
“This is indeed kind,” said the Duchess, shaking Miss Strong’s
masculine-looking hand warmly, “and it is kind of you, Miss Manwaring,”
she added, turning to Evelyn, “to waive ceremony and come to see an old
woman whose doctor would not allow her to come and see you. Ah! I see,”
she continued, holding Evelyn’s hand in hers, and gently kissing her
fair forehead; “you have your mother’s beautiful eyes and hair. Poor
little Honoria! Your mother and I were friends when we were girls, you
know, and I mean that you and I should be friends now. I am most happy
to welcome a _lady_ to the Palace; we have not quite always been
so fortunate of late, have we, Miss Strong? and I venture to promise
that it will not be my fault if Miss Manwaring’s new home is not a
happy one.”
Evelyn was thoroughly set at her ease by this kind address, and the
conversation was becoming general, when Mr. Gilray, the groom of the
chambers, throwing open the door, announced Lady Lavinia Gathercole,
whom Evelyn at once concluded to be the mistress of the Mrs. Papfaddle
who had hospitably entertained her own maid with “the cup that cheers
but not inebriates” the previous evening.
Truth to tell, Lady Lavinia had been bursting with curiosity the whole
morning to see the new-comer--although, till she knew more about her,
she did not like to hazard a call--and being warned by the faithful
Papfaddle that Evelyn was on her way with Miss Strong to visit the
Duchess, she had hastily thrown on her best company bonnet and shawl,
and arrived, as she afterwards told her friend and ally Lady M’Adam, in
the nick of time to see the pert minx currying favour with her betters.
The Duchess looked somewhat annoyed by the interruption, but she
received Lady Lavinia very civilly.
Lady Lavinia (eighth daughter of the late Earl of Beccles), after
fidgeting her quiet little husband, Mr. John Gathercole of the Board
of Trade, into a premature grave, took to writing novels of a mildly
naughty description, and set up as a Blue. The _Morning Post_
(then in its threepenny days) kept constantly printing, in its literary
column and clearest type, announcements like the following:--
“‘_The Debutante and the Debauchee._’ We are charmed to announce
that another Tale of Fashionable Life has just issued from the facile
pen of that well-known and much-appreciated delineator of the Doings
of the Upper Ten, Lady Lavinia Gathercole. We need not say that in her
new Work the talented Authoress will abundantly sustain her reputation
amongst the _Beau Monde_, of which she is herself a brilliant
and accomplished member,” &c., &c. The descent in the price of the
_Morning Post_ having destroyed its reputation with the old
ladies, who were its principal subscribers, and who could not bear
seeing it descend to the level of a “Penny Dreadful,” the sale of
Lady Lavinia’s novels became small by degrees, and alarmingly less,
until it ceased altogether. Upon this, Lady Lavinia, who, at the
instance of Lord Bungay, the then premier, had been given apartments
at Hampton Court, thought it high time that she should be “converted,”
in the evangelical sense of that much-abused word, and the operation
was accordingly performed by Mr. Moodle, the eminent apostle of the
lower grades of the female aristocratic world. This gentleman, who
had been a somewhat fast “Somerset House young man,” had somehow been
pitchforked into the position of Commissioner of Taxes, and having
noticed the commercial success of the trash which Dr. Cumming and other
“religious” quacks annually threw off, he determined to set up in the
same line himself. So well, indeed, did he find this scheme pay, that
he was on the point of marrying the Dowager Marchioness of Scampingham,
when unluckily the young Marquis caught the self-sent apostle in the
act of chucking his lady-mother’s French maid under the chin on the
grand staircase of Scampingham House, and thereupon incontinently
kicked him down stairs, and out into the Square--an operation which
Mr. Moodle bore with much pseudo-Christian meekness. Strange to
say, this little episode did not destroy his popularity amongst his
female devotees. In the first place, he promptly gave out that he had
discovered that Lady Scampingham was of too worldly a disposition to
merit a union with a saint like himself, and that therefore he had felt
it his duty to draw back, as from the pit of Tophet; by which judicious
course he came to be regarded in the light of a martyr and injured
saint, and turned his kicking to his own advantage. In the next place,
Moodle was a good-looking fellow enough, and his admirers, each of
them, felt that, as he had _not_ married the Dowager, he might,
and very likely _would_, marry her own sweet self; and so they
petted him, and believed in him more than ever.
Moodle’s _modus operandi_ was as follows. It was his habit to
give addresses on religious subjects, or, in other words, to preach
self-sent to as many ladies as could be crammed at afternoon tea time
into the drawing-room of one of his devotees; and as he was a strong,
lusty fellow, with a rich, oily voice, and a great gift of the gab,
he drew, you may be sure, large audiences. When the London Season was
over, he would visit one watering-place after another, and then his
addresses were delivered at ten o’clock in the morning, after which the
audience would disperse to write letters, bathe, read French novels on
the sly, and flirt on the beach. Moodle generally contrived on these
occasions to be the guest of a spinster lady of competent fortune,
or of a widow with a comfortable jointure; but he had a particular
_penchant_ for ladies of rank, and it is but fair to say that they
returned his predilection with interest. Moodle took good care never to
give out that he was not a Member of the Church of England, although
his doctrine and practice were utterly at variance with its teaching;
in spite of which fact, however, he was able to boast of having once
had a low-church Bishop amongst his audience at Swimingley-super-Mare.
His doctrine, if such it could be called, was, it is needless to
relate, of a Calvinistic description, but it was entirely without a
tinge of Calvin’s asceticism and sternness, or indeed of anything
which goes to lend respectability to that gloomy and Christless creed.
It was, in fact, a combination of Calvinism and sugarstick, and his
religion was quite consistent with a vast amount of lawn tennis (with
serious young men), flirting, gossip, and tittle-tattle. Moodle
descanted chiefly on the “filthiness” of good works, and as he was
careful to assert the undoubted salvation of all those who believed
in his pretensions, his lady admirers felt remarkably comfortable
under his ministrations, and agreed with him that those who questioned
them were “very dark indeed.” In fact, the ladies, who were so
unhesitatingly assured of their own final acceptance, found a pleasing
zest in contemplating the equally certain damnation of those who
rejected this protestant pontiff. Mr. Moodle had recently established
a footing in Hampton Court Palace, through his intimacy with a certain
Lady M’Adam, of whom more anon; but his only “converts” at present
were Lady Lavinia, her friend Miss Scheimes, and old Admiral Grogrum;
but the Admiral, alas! showed from time to time unmistakable signs of
back-sliding, and an unregenerate desire to kick over the traces.
During her novel-writing days, Lady Lavinia Gathercole had rather
prided herself on exhibiting just a slight spice of naughtiness in her
conversation and behaviour, and she was rather tolerant of naughtiness
in others; but now, since her “conversion,” as was the case with the
Athenians of old, her main occupation in life was to hear (or invent)
some new things. Unluckily, however, these new things were generally
to the disparagement of her neighbours. Her main object was to appear
young, innocent, and lamb-like. Lady Lavinia dressed like a girl,
entered a room with a juvenile skip, spite of a slight lameness in
one leg, and she had a way of moving her shoulders up and down, and
backwards and forwards, which she fondly believed to be alluring. It
certainly caused a responsive shudder to vibrate through the frames of
all beholders, and it irresistibly reminded strangers of calves’ foot
jelly. One of Lady Lavinia’s adulators remarking one day that she was
“fawn-like,” Lord Frederic Fitzfoodles, who had apartments in the
Palace, drily remarked--“Yes, like a fawn, very; but she reminds me
rather of an old nanny-goat with a game leg.” Evelyn was, of course,
presented to Lady Lavinia, who, with an infinite amount of undulatory
movements in her shoulders, expressed herself delighted to make her
acquaintance.
“Really,” she cried, “I am so charmed and delighted to find my new
neighbour is Young. With my poor spirits, I feel I could scarcely put
up with the presence of another Old person on my staircase, paralytic,
perhaps, or with a wooden leg like Admiral Grogrum, and quite--what
is it the poet says?--oh! quite in the queer and mellow leaf; no,
not mellow either, I think, but something like it. Do you know, Miss
Manwaring,” she continued--elevating her shoulders to such an extent
that Miss Strong feared she would emerge from her clothes altogether,
and appear _in puris naturalibus_ in the Duchess’s drawing-room,
which, if Gilray should come in, would, to say the least, be scarcely
proper--“do you know that some of the dear people here are so Old that,
living amongst them, I sometimes think I must be as old as Methoosalem
myself!” (It is a curious question, by the way, why it is that High
Church folks always say “Meth_u_sel_ah_,” and Low Church
people “Meth_oo_sal_em_.”)
Evelyn could only reply that she was happy to make acquaintance with a
lady whose appearance was so remarkably unsuggestive of the patriarchal
personage mentioned, and then the conversation, such as it was, turned
upon general topics. After a short time, the Duchess, begging her other
visitors to excuse her, expressed a wish to speak to Evelyn in private,
and conducted her to her own particular room, which was through that
in which they had been sitting. “I have brought you in here,” said her
Grace, as soon as they were seated, “because I wish to speak to you
a few words without interruption. I want to tell you, my dear Miss
Manwaring, that I wish to be your friend, not only on account of the
excellent qualities which I am sure you possess, and for your dear
mother’s sake, but because I feel I owe a debt of gratitude to one of
your family who now, alas! is no more--I mean your brother Wilfred,
who was my son’s intimate friend when they were together at a private
tutor’s, that Dr. Massenger who behaved so ill. My son has often told
me what a noble lad that brother of yours was, and that his steadfast
friendship and good example were of the utmost value to himself at a
critical point of his life: some day, before long, I trust you will see
my boy yourself.”
Evelyn was inexpressibly gratified at hearing her darling brother thus
lauded by the gracious lady who sat beside her, and, with her eyes
filled with grateful tears, said she had often heard of the young
Duke of Ribblesdale from her brother. She added that she had still in
her possession the letter he had written to Wilfred with the too-late
intention of informing him of his acquittal of the charges brought
against him, and that she felt deeply thankful to him for having
written it.
The Duchess then expressed a hope that Evelyn would not too much
seclude herself. “Take us all round,” said her Grace, smiling, “we
are not a bad sort of people in the Palace, and I am sure you will
meet many kind friends among us. To-morrow I shall insist on your
dining quietly with me, for I am bent on introducing you to the Miss
Hazelhursts, who are the dearest old ladies in the world. And, now
I have said what I wanted, we will go back to Lady Lavinia and Miss
Strong; and remember this, that the Duchess of Ribblesdale only brings
into this little sanctum those who are, or those who she wishes to be,
her intimate personal friends.”