THE VEHME-GERICHT OF HAMPTON COURT.
MENTION having already been casually made of a certain Lady M’Adam, it
will be proper to inform the reader of some of the antecedents of that
bright orange luminary and devoted disciple of the great Mr. Moodle.
Clara M’Dougal, then, was the only daughter of a worthy pork-merchant
of Carrickfergus, who, at the mature age of five-and-twenty, espoused
one Peter M’Adam, an eminent whiskey distiller, and elder of the
Presbyterian sect at Belfast. This Peter M’Adam was a great Orangeman,
and a staunch supporter of a very clever lawyer, who, chiefly through
this distiller’s moral influence and indifferent whiskey, became
Member of Parliament for Lisdoonacorrigan, and afterwards, by his
own talents, Solicitor General, and who finally ascended the woolsack
as Lord Yellowlily of Carrignatuohil in the County of Antrim. His
Lordship, unlike those base wretches who are always ready to kick down
the ladder by which they rose, never forgot a favour, or one who had
rendered it. “He knew a trick worth two of that,” he once coarsely
observed to a colleague. Like Napoleon the Little, Lord Yellowlily
always repaid an obligation, but, like the same _parvenu_ despot,
he repaid it _as_ an obligation, and then he stopt short. He
never repaid it with interest, however small, and he neither felt nor
expressed gratitude. He nicely discriminated the precise amount of the
debt, and as nicely calculated the amount he ought to pay in return;
and then, and not before then, he paid it, and had done with his
benefactor for ever. Thus it was that, when Peter M’Adam, who had been
knighted for presenting an address of congratulation to Her Majesty on
the occasion of the birth of one of her numerous German grand-children,
had gone the way of all flesh, with his claims unsatisfied, Lord
Yellowlily remembered his former supporter, and made personal
application to the Queen in behalf of his widow. It thus happened that
the pork-merchant’s daughter and the whiskey distiller’s widow, much
to her own surprise, found herself in possession of a handsome set of
apartments looking into the royal gardens at Hampton Court. Here at
first her ladyship did certainly feel somewhat fish-out-of-waterish,
but she was a “converted” woman, and she had two great consolations.
The first of these was to keep continually declaiming against the
Chaplain of the Palace, who was one of the simplest, gentlest, and
most charitable of men. His sermons, declared Sir Peter’s relict--for,
like most ultra-Protestant ladies, she considered herself to be
infallible--were not “gospel.” Why, too, didn’t he publicly testify
against the goings-on of those flaunting Jezebels, the Ladies
Skandaliza and Coreopsis Corker, who were creditably reported to have
left the Palace in broad daylight in pink bathing-dresses, and to have
publicly bathed with Lieutenant Sprattles (in blue) in Hampton Lasher?
Why did he continue to visit Lady Rathmullen, who was known to have
fitted up an oratory in her own private apartments? Why didn’t he leave
undone everything he had done, and why didn’t he do everything he had
left undone? And above all, why didn’t he conduct the Services of the
Church in a manner pleasing to herself, Lady M’Adam, who was not a
Churchwoman at all? The widow’s other consolation was to sit and talk
scandal with her dear Christian friends, Lady Lavinia Gathercole and
Miss Helen Scheimes. This last-named lady was the sister of Somebody
or Something diplomatic. The Somebody had held a high consular or
semi-diplomatic post on the borders of the Caucasus, and, under threat
of assassination, had signed a treaty in the directly contrary sense to
the orders he had received from the Foreign Office. He was accordingly
deemed signally worthy of promotion, and was instantly named a
Companion of the Order of SS. Michael and George. Dying, however, at
the seat of his jurisdiction of too great devotion to arraki and French
cognac, apartments were obtained in the Palace for his sister Helen,
who had acted as his secretary and factotum at Tomareyeh. While in
that remote Oriental city, Miss Scheimes had written a work entitled
_Harem Life of the Muslim Circassians of the Nether Caucasus_,
and although it had a considerable run at the circulating libraries,
a very nasty book it was. Therein, the authoress (who at the time
was eight-and-thirty if she was eight) conclusively showed that it
was only by the most heroic and heroine-like display of firmness and
austerity that she had escaped being added to the already overgrown
female establishment of H.H. the Emir. Lady M’Adam had still a share
in the whiskey business; had a very substantial jointure, and owned
a very snug Brougham; and Miss Scheimes--who, like Lady Lavinia, was
by no means averse to creature comforts, and idolised wealth--was her
very particular friend and toady, while in her inmost heart she hated
her like poison. While in person Lady M’Adam was short and stout, had
a broad face with a high colour, not without a suspicion of rouge, and
was gifted with a loud voice, Miss Scheimes, on the contrary, was tall
and thin, and had a sallow face, with dark snaky eyes, which sparkled
with malevolence and cunning. Her lips were thin, and she had an ugly
way of drawing them inwards when she spoke, which was commonly in a
tone but little removed from a whisper. While the widow dressed herself
in rich silks and satins, and rejoiced in flounces and furbelows, the
spinster attired herself in the cheapest materials, and her favourite
colours were drab or some shade of yellow, which certainly accorded
rather than contrasted with her sallow complexion. She wore her “waist”
close under her armpits, and her figure was perfectly straight from her
chin to her very long feet.
A few days after Evelyn’s arrival, these two amiable ladies were
sitting together in Lady M’Adam’s drawing-room, when a visitor was
announced, and in hobbled Admiral Grogrum, known erewhile as “Cursing
Grogrum” of Devonport, but now a sufficiently tame old gentleman, and
one upon whose hard heart the ladies fondly believed Mr. Moodle’s
addresses had had a softening influence. The Admiral, who had a cork
leg, the consequence of an honourable wound received in the service
of his country, made his way to a chair, and was scarcely seated,
when Lady M’Adam exclaimed, with a somewhat spiteful intonation of
the last word, “Well, Admiral, and what do you think of our new
_acquisition_?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I think she’s a doosed pretty girl.”
“Oh! Admiral,” groaned Lady M’Adam. “Profanity! and from you! What
_would_ Mr. Moodle say? Fie!”
The Admiral in his heart of hearts wondered what business in the world
it was of the gentleman named, but he answered penitently, “Well, I’m
sure I’m doosed--I mean to say I’m very sorry; but really this Miss
Manwaring _is_ a very pretty girl. What eyes! What hair!”
“Yes, Admiral,” responded Lady M’Adam, didactically, “that may be all
very true; but what is that but the outward adorning? and what avail
those outward trappings, which are but as dust and ashes, if all the
while she has the old man in her heart?”
“What indeed?” echoed Miss Scheimes.
The Admiral couldn’t help wishing the young lady _had_ the old man
in her heart, but it wouldn’t do to tell Lady M’Adam so, so he said,
“Well, I have only given you my own impression; and now let me ask,
what do _you_ think of her, Lady M’Adam?”
“I think she’s a stuck-up minx, that’s what I think; I’m disgusted with
her, that I am,” answered the widow.
“You have abundant reason,” chimed in Miss Scheimes, as she clasped
together her thin, yellow hands.
“And what’s more, I believe her heart is as hard as a nether
millstone,” pursued Lady M’Adam.
“No, really!” said the Admiral, who was a good-natured old fellow at
bottom; “you surprise me. But what makes you think so? what has she
done?”
“What has she _not_ done?” hissed Miss Scheimes, turning up her
eyes, and looking as much as possible like an elderly and puzzled
sphynx.
“What makes me think so?” continued Lady M’Adam, “why, when I called
on her yesterday afternoon, I asked her point blank whether she had a
converted heart, and what do you think she said?”
“’Pon my honour, I can’t imagine,” answered the Admiral.
“Why, she said she hoped so, but that she made it a rule never to
confide her religious feelings to perfect strangers. Pretty well for a
chit like that! _Hoped_ so, indeed!”
“Well, it certainly looked bad,” said the Admiral, not knowing what
else to say.
“Dreadful!” interpolated Miss Scheimes.
“And then, when I asked her whether she would come to the
Meeting in my rooms of the Hampton Protestant Auxiliary
Eastern-Christians’-Conversion Society, and hear dear Mr. Moodle,
who would be present on the occasion as a Deputation from the Parent
Society, and who would take her by the right hand and lead her into the
right road, she answered that she was much obliged, but that she was
quite content with going to Church, and that if she wanted religious
advice she always consulted a dear old friend, the Rector, at her old
home.”
“Quite a father confessor,” interposed Miss Scheimes.
“And then I noticed on Sunday--for I can tell you I never took my eyes
off her all Service-time--that she turned to the East at the Creed:
depend upon it, she’s a ritualist in disguise!”
“And perhaps a Jesuit,” said Miss Scheimes.
“Well,” said the Admiral, plucking up courage, “the Duchess does that,
and for the matter of that, so does fforester.”
“Duchess! don’t Duchess me, Admiral, I beg,” retorted the distiller’s
widow; as if the possession of that exalted title conferred the
privilege of committing any enormity. “This Miss Manwaring isn’t a
Duchess, is she? And as for that poor Mr. fforester, we all know what
he is; didn’t precious Mr. Moodle say, the last time he addressed us
in this very room, that he is a dry branch that withereth afore it be
plucked up, a--a----”
“A dumb dog,” suggested Miss Scheimes.
“Thank you, love,” continued Lady M’Adam, “I was just coming to that
when you interrupted me; it’s a habit you’ve got at times. A dumb dog
that barketh not when the wolf cometh; a blind lead----” But at that
moment the string of protestant Billingsgate was cut short by the door
being thrown open, and by the servant announcing in harsh Belfast
accent, “The Loidy Laveenia Gatherghoul,” and then in skipped Lady
Lavinia, in as lambkin-like a manner as her lame leg and upwards of
sixty years in this troublous world permitted.
“My _dear_ Lady M’Adam,” cried she, pointing one shoulder at
the widow; “my _dear_ Helen,” pointing the other shoulder at the
spinster; “my _dear_ Admiral,” pointing both shoulders at that
naval commander, “how fortunate I am to find you together, really
quite providential! Do you know, my nerves have had _such_ a
shock. Papfaddle--you know Papfaddle, Admiral? the faithfullest
creature--Papfaddle has found out such a dreadful story from that Miss
Manwaring’s maid. I do really think the dear Queen ought to be more
careful in her choice. Oh! this Palace might be quite a heaven below,
if we could be sure of only having converted persons in our midst! But,
only think--Miss Manwaring’s own brother was accused of committing a
burglary at Lord Guttleborough’s, and then went and committed suicide,
or something dreadful.”
“But was he guilty?” asked the Admiral.
“Guilty? No, not exactly _guilty_,” answered Lady Lavinia,
“but only think, how shocking to be _accused_ even of such
dreadful things. Depend upon it, there is no what-you-may-call ’em
without thingummy! And the worst of it is, that sort of thing runs
in the Blood. Really, if Miss Manwaring should develop a tendency to
Klep-Klep-Klep something--Klepsydra, isn’t it?--and I living on the
same staircase, whatever should I do?”
“Send for the police,” suggested the Admiral.
“And if, say at midnight,” pursued Lady Lavinia, without paying any
attention to the interruption, “you were to wake up and see Miss
Manwaring standing over you with a blunderbuss, or a bayonet, or
some such dreadful thing, and demanding your India shawls and Sevres
teapots, or your life, what would you do then, Admiral?” and the
inevitable shoulders worked up and down like a pump handle.
The Admiral looked puzzled. “’Pon my honour,” said he at last, “it
would be a doosed--I mean a very awkward situation for a man; but I
hope there’s no danger of that.”
“There’s no telling, in these cases,” said Lady M’Adam.
“No, indeed,” echoed Miss Scheimes.
“It’s very dreadful,” continued the widow--looking as virtuous as
if there were no such thing as fifth-rate Irish whiskey in the
world--“it’s very dreadful, but it is something to know what to expect.
No wonder the young person declines the ministrations of dear Mr.
Moodle. O--h, the hardness of the unconverted heart!”
And then, having taken away a sister’s character by spying, innuendo,
malice, and hatred, the three “converted” and “saved” ladies became
quite cheerful, as they sipped their tea, with just a _soupçon_ of
something stronger in it, and turned to small talk and gossip, which in
“unconverted” people would have been deemed worldly enough. But then,
as Miss Scheimes once remarked, “when one _knows_ one’s saved,
it’s so nice to feel that it makes no difference what one says or does,
for it _must_ be all right at the last.”