About the same time, another conversation on the same great topic was going on under the same roof. Barbara had scarcely been five minutes in her room, and had been leaning thoughtfully, with her arms upon the window-sill, gazing out into the moonlit park, and utterly oblivious of Parker, who was preparing the instrument of torture for her mistress's hair, when Withers arrived with a message that Miss Lexden wished to speak to her niece. Obedient to the summons, Barbara crossed the landing, and found the old lady, resplendent in a dark-blue cashmere dressing-gown, seated before her fire. Withers dismissedpro tem., Miss Lexden said:
"I'll not detain you long, Barbara. I merely wished to know whether what you said this evening about your intended marriage with Mr. Churchill was jest or earnest."
"Thorough earnest," replied Barbara, regarding her stedfastly.
"As to marriage, I mean?" asked the old lady; "not as to a temporary flirtation, which,faute de mieux, with a pleasant man in a dull country house, is well enough, and not likely to tell against one's interests. But as to marriage?"
"What I said before, aunt," said Barbara slowly, never dropping her eyes, "I repeat. Mr. Churchill has done me the honour to ask me to become his wife. I have consented, and I mean to keep my word."
"Very well," said Miss Lexden, drawing a long breath; "I only wished to know. You are your own mistress, and control your own actions, of course. You have made your choice, and will abide by it. I don't seek to influence you one jot. But, recollect one thing: if I were to see you with broken health, with broken spirits, ill-used, deserted, starving--as is likely enough, for I know these people--I would not lift one finger to help you, after your degradation of me. I have said it, and you know I keep my word. That is all; we will have no quarrel, and give no occasion for shoulder-shrugs and scandal. The sooner your arrangements permit of your quitting my house, the better pleased I shall be. Now, good night. Withers, I am ready now. See Miss Lexden to her room. Good night, dear."
The old lady proffered her enamelled cheek, against which Barbara laid the tip of her nose. And so the aunt and niece separated for the night.
At the drawing-room window of a house in Great Adullam Street, Macpelah Square, in that district of London whilom known as "Mesopotamia," a lady had been sitting from an early hour in the afternoon until now, when twilight falls upon the neighbourhood. This, I am aware, does not particularly fix the hour, because twilight falls upon the Mesopotamian neighbourhood earlier than on any other with which I am acquainted. You leave Oxford Street in a blaze of sunlight, which bit by bit decreases as you progress through the dingy streets and the dull, vast, second-rate squares, until when you enter upon the confines of Great Adullam Street you find the glory of the day departed, a yellow fog settling gloomily down, and the general aspect suicidal. At the time of which I am speaking, the twilight had been a settled thing for at least an hour,--it was approaching six o'clock. The lamps were lighted, and the inhabitants of the neighbouring houses had pulled their blinds down and settled in for the night; but still at No. 57 the lady sat in the drawing-room window, staring out into the yellow fog. The street lamp flickering on her showed her to be a woman of about sixty years old, with clean-cut regular features, intelligent but sweet expression, and with gray hair--almost white--arranged in broad bands on either side her face. Her dress was black silk, with a soft white-muslin cape pinned across her breast, and on her head she wore a plain white-muslin cap with a little crimped border. On her hands she had black-lace mittens, and she wore a few old-fashioned but valuable rings. A glance at her would have proclaimed her a lady to the most casual observer, a woman of taste and refinement and sensibility to the physiognomist; and a further study would have shown the latter deeply-indented traces of mental anxiety and suffering.
Indeed, Eleanor Churchill's life had not been a particularly happy one. Daughter of a country clergyman near Bath, she lost both her parents before she was eighteen, and remained in the school where she was being "finished" after their death, giving her services as teacher for her board and lodging. Here she was seen and admired by Vance Churchill, who attended the school as drawing-master; a wild young fellow, full of talent, who worked (at intervals) like a horse, and whose splendid method of touching-up the pupils' drawings, so as to make them look all their own, redeemed many of his shortcomings, and caused him to be continued in favour at Minerva House. But when he fell in love with the pretty teacher, and muttered love to her as he was sharpening pencil-points, and was seen by the writing-master--an old person of seventy, who was jealous of his youngconfrère--to hand her a note in a copy of theLaws of Perspective, and on being taxed with his crime acknowledged it and gloried in it, it became impossible for the Miss Inderwicks, as the girls called them, or the Misses Inderwick, as they called themselves, to stand it any longer. So both the delinquents were discharged; and having nothing to live upon, they at once got married, and came up to London. Once there, Vance Churchill set to work with a will: he drew on wood, he lithographed, he drew languishing heads for the music-shops, and caricatures political and social; he finished several elaborate sketches in water-colour and in oil; but he sold scarcely any thing. There was not that demand for art in those days there is now, and consequently not that chance of livelihood for its possessors; and Vance Churchill and his young wife were very near to starvation indeed, and had buried one little girl-baby, who, had luxuries been provided for her, might have lived, when a small picture of Lady Macbeth, which had found a place in the Somerset-House Exhibition, was seen and purchased by Sir Jasper Wentworth, our old friend Sir Marmaduke's uncle and his predecessor in the baronetcy. From that time Vance Churchill's fortune was looked upon as made; for Sir Jasper, who had a nice eye for art, took him up, introduced him right and left, and got him commissions without end. Young Marmaduke, a free-spoken, jolly young man, coeval with the artist, took an immense fancy to him, and was never happy save in his society; money was, if not plentiful, always to be had,--and Eleanor Churchill was more wretched than she had ever been in the days of her direst poverty.
For though Vance Churchill could struggle against poverty, neglect, and hardship, he could not withstand ease, comparative wealth, and the attractions of society. He was eminently a "social" man; a big, jolly jovial fellow, with bright blue eyes, large brown whiskers, and a splendid set of teeth. He had capital lungs, and sang a capital song in a deep baritone voice, and he had nice feeling in his singing, which so seldom accompanies correct musical execution; but when Vance Churchill sang "Farewell, my trim-built Wherry," or "Tom Bowling," all the female portion of his audience was in tears, while the men felt husky and uncomfortable. He became the rage in a certain set of fast young men about town, and in that pleasant Upper Bohemia wherein so many literary men, artists, and actors of that day used to spend their time; not a Bohemia of taprooms and sanded floors, of long clay-pipes and spittoons and twopennyworths of gin, nor of Haymarket night-houses and drunken trulls, nor of blind-hooky andvingt-et-unparties in dingy chambers; but a Bohemia of green-rooms andcoulisses, of sparkling little suppers afterwards at Vauxhall, where wit would flow as fast as the champagne, where jokes would be more telling than the hot punch, and whence the mad party would not unfrequently dash away in their carriages to breakfast at the Star and Garter at Richmond, or to drink fresh milk and eat fresh butter in a Hampstead farmhouse. A Bohemia, the denizens of which always would have good clothes and fine linen on their backs, gold watches in their pockets, and guineas in their purses, let who would pay for it; and who roared with laughter at the astonishment of the world at their vagaries, increasing their eccentricities, and saying of the world as Balzac's actress said, "Qu'importe? donne leur des grimaces pour leur argent, et vivons heureux!"
Petted and fêted by the style of society in which he revelled, Vance Churchill had yet the grace not to attempt to force his wife to join it; indeed he had good reason for keeping her away. For the ladies liked Vance Churchill vastly, and Vance returned the compliment, and behaved just as though there were no moral and legal ties binding him to any one in particular. He loved his wife sincerely all the time, and in his quiet moments would tear his hair, and stamp upon the ground, and curse his own weakness and folly, and his treatment of that angel who sat patiently at home attending to and teaching their little boy, and who never reproached him save by her pale face and broken spirit; and then, as evening came round, Marmaduke Wentworth would call for him, or the servant would bring him a dainty little note, written in a very scrawly hand, which she would hold in the corner of her dingy apron, and which Vance would seize from her, and after reading it he would sally out, and commence his vagariesda capo.
Preaching before Mary Queen of Scots and her maids of honour, old John Knox is reported to have said: "Oh, how beautiful, how charming, how pleasurable would be this life,if it would only last!" These were Mr. Vance Churchill's sentiments, but he soon found that it would not last. What the writers of those ghastly impositions, bacchanalian ditties, call "wine and women," or "beauty and the bowl," don't agree with hard work; and if you go to bed at five a.m. after orgies, you will not be able to paint your pictures next day, or to write your book, or mould your clay, or study your part. It is astonishing how slow people are to believe this, and how, year after year, we see friends and acquaintances still determined, not merely upon burning the candle at both ends, but lighting any bit of wick that may protrude in the middle, and quite astonished when they see the flame flicker and feel the whole affair about to collapse. Vance Churchill had plenty of commissions for pictures from first-rate people,--noblemen, connoisseurs, and patrons of art,--but he did not give himself the chances of painting them: his brain was never clear enough for conception, his hand never steady enough for execution; and the result was, that his financial affairs became desperate. His noble patrons never dreamed of parting with their money until the work was done--and in truth not often then; and there were in those days no middle-men, no bland picture-dealers, to advance large sums on untouched canvases; and even if there had been, they would have been far too wise to let Vance Churchill have any money on the strength of "working it out." So the money dwindled and dwindled, and then Vance began borrowing of his friends until he found averted faces and buttoned pockets, and then he faded straight away out of his grand society, and took lodgings at Chelsea, and tried once again to work for his livelihood. He painted one picture, which showed but few traces of his old force and promise. It was plain that the mischief was done; and then Vance Churchill, after steadily drinking for four days, was found one morning with an empty laudanum-phial in his clenched fingers, and a heartbreaking letter to his wife by his side.
Then Eleanor Churchill--who, while perfectly conscious of her husband's frailties and imperfections, had never ceased worshipping him--fairly broke down; and had she not been attended by a skilful physician, and perseveringly nursed night and day by the girl who had been "scrub" at Miss Inderwick's school, and had left when Eleanor left to follow her fortunes, little Frank would have been motherless as well as fatherless. As it was, she recovered, and went away, as soon as she was able to move, to a little fishing-village in Devon, of which an old friend of her father's was vicar. Her income was a mere pittance; contributions from old friends of her husband's family and her own grudgingly yielded; but her expenses were trifling, and the old parson took the boy's education under his own charge, and gave him an excellent classical groundwork. The vicar died when Frank was about fifteen, and left the whole of his little savings--some seven hundred pounds--to Eleanor Churchill, "for the furtherance of her son's education;" and then the widow carried out her long-cherished plan of sending her son to some foreign university, where, in addition to his Classics, he could perfect himself in some of the modern languages. Frank was absent at Leipzig nearly four years, during which period he paid two flying visits to England, at the second of which he was introduced to his godfather, Sir Marmaduke Wentworth, who had succeeded to the family title on his uncle's death. Frank little thought that one of Sir Marmaduke's first acts on coming into his property had been to settle two hundred a year on Mrs. Churchill for her life; he would hear of no refusal. "It is merely an act of reparation," said he; "and but a scanty one. It was my folly, my bad example, that led poor Vance astray; and I should never rest if I thought that those he left behind him were in want, while I had means." But one condition was attached to this gift, and that was that Frank should never know of it. "I recollect Vance's spirit in his best days," Marmaduke said; "and if the boy is like him, he'd fling my money at my head."
After taking his degree, Frank was fortunate enough to render himself so agreeable to young Fortinbrass, the son of the great Indian pale-ale brewer, that that young plutocrat insisted on taking him with him as half-secretary, half-bear-leader, in his tour through Europe and the East; and as they stopped at every place where there was any thing to be done, and a good many at which there was nothing to be done, and as they had the usual share of quarantine, and as Fortinbrass took ill at Smyrna and had to lay up for four months, it was, full three years before Frank returned to England. Then he determined to settle down and get to work in earnest; and after a few rebuffs and discouragements, philosophically encountered, he made his mark in the press world, and obtained constant and fairly remunerative employment. Then the house in Great Adullam Street was taken, as handy to theStatesmanoffice, Frank's head-quarters, and furnished partly with the best of the Devonshire furniture, and partly with odds and ends bought cheap at sales, for the joint income was but small, and Eleanor had a wholesome horror of debt. And then the full tide of Eleanor Churchill's happiness flowed in: she had loved her husband; she had worshipped his memory in her holy of holies; she had preserved his image, and had bowed down before it; with his death vanished all his shortcomings, but his better qualities--the early affection, kindness, and chivalry--were remembered. But now that her son was with her, the old image faded and rapidly paled. Here was one uniting the excellences of his father with virtues which his father never possessed, tempering high spirits and ardent affection with earnestness, industry, and honour; no mawkish sentimentalist, no prudish Pharisee; a man of passions and impulse, yet a Christian and a gentleman, and above all--her own boy. That was the touchstone; that was the grand secret. He had his flirtations, of course; his intrigues, perhaps; but he was her son, her companion, and she was his honoured mother, but she was also his trusted friend. All his hopes and fears, all the fun and gossip of the day, were brought by him to her; he talked to her on books and art and social questions; he read to her and with her; he advised her on her own reading, and he brought home with him men of European fame and name, and introduced her to them, and made much of her before them.If it would only last!Beware of that, Eleanor Churchill! Some one must reign after you, and with her uprising must be your downsetting. It was ever so. Ask not why tarry the wheels of his chariot, for the news that he brings with him will wring and torture your fond, trusting heart.
The old lady's face, which had grown somewhat worn and rigid in watching, brightened as she heard the sound of wheels in the distance, and as she saw a hansom cab come plunging and rattling over the uneven stones, to be finally pulled up with a jerk before the door.
As Frank Churchill sprang out, he looked up to the window and waved his hand. In a minute he had run upstairs and was in his mother's arms.
"Why, my boy, how late you are!" said Mrs. Churchill, as she relaxed her embrace. "You must be famished for your dinner, my poor fellow!"
"Excursion-trains, mother, your favourite doctrine of health and change for your oldprotégéthe working-man, you know, have contributed to your anxiety and my delay. We were stopped at Forest Hill for a train full of people, with drooping hats and feathers and banners and bands and general tomfoolery, who had been having a day at the Crystal Palace."
"Well, so long as you're here and all safe, that's all the old mother cares about, Frank. Dinner, Lucy, now, at once; Mr. Frank's half-starved. Let me look at you, my boy, and see whether the trip's done you any good. Eh, you're certainly tanned, and a little stouter, Frank, I think."
"Perhaps so, mother, though I've been taking more exercise than usual too. Any news? I saw a pile of letters on the study-table as I rushed past, but I didn't stop to look at them. Any body been?"
"Mr. Harding was here yesterday, to see if you had returned from among the 'swells,' as he called them. I think he's a little envious of your going into such society; eh, Frank?"
"Not a bit of it, mother; nothing would take old George Harding beyond his own set. But he's afraid of my getting my head turned."
"No fear of that in my boy," said Mrs. Churchill somewhat gravely; "there is the difference between you and your poor father, Frank. And now, how is Sir Marmaduke? and what sort of people were staying there? and was he kind and friendly to you? and how did you enjoy yourself?"
As Mrs. Churchill finished speaking, Lucy the old servant entered the room and announced dinner. She was a tall gaunt woman, with a hard unpleasant face, which did not soften much when Churchill, looking up, said, "Well, Lucy, back at home, once again, you see."
"Yes, I see, Master Frank," the woman replied coldly. "We've been waiting dinner until we must be faint, I should think."
"Bat it wasn't Mr. Frank's fault, Lucy," said Mrs. Churchill; "the train was late. Now, my boy, come; you must be starved in earnest;" and they went downstairs.
"We've not got such a dinner for you as you've been having lately, maybe," said Lucy, as she uncovered the dishes. "But you can't be always among lords and ladies, Master Frank."
"Lucy, you silly thing!" said Mrs. Churchill, half-laughing, but looking half-ashamed.
"I've not been among them at all, Lucy, for the matter of that," said Churchill good-humouredly, though his brow began to cloud.
"Well," said the woman, leisurely handing the dishes, "it's not for the want of wishing. Here we are, left at home, in the hot autumn weather; while you--"
"Lucy!" exclaimed Mrs. Churchill.
"Be good enough to leave the room," said Churchill; "this minute!" he said, bringing his hand heavily down on the table, as the woman lingered, looking towards her mistress. "Why, mother darling, what is this?" he asked, when they were alone; "that woman's tongue was always free, and her manner always familiar; but this is quite a new experience."
"It is, my child," said poor Mrs. Churchill; "I don't know how to excuse her, except that it is all done out of excess of affection for me, and--"
"That's quite enough excuse for me, mother," said Churchill, rising, and kissing her. "There, now we'll change the conversation;" and they talked merrily enough on indifferent topics throughout dinner.
When the cloth was removed, and after Frank had produced his old meerschaum, and had drawn up his chair to the newly-lighted bit of fire, he said to his mother, "I've some news to tell you, mum."
"Tell it, my boy!" said the old lady, settling her gold-rimmed glasses on her nose, and beginning to make play with a portentous piece of knitting; "what is it, Frank?"
"Well, it's news that concerns both of us," said Churchill, slowly puffing at his pipe, "but me more especially. The fact is, mum--I'm going to be married."
It had come at last! that news which she had dreaded so many years past, that news which spoke to her of separation from all she loved, which heralded to her the commencement of a new existence--had come at last! Her heart seemed to give one great bound within her breast as the words fell upon her ears, and her eyes were for an instant dimmed; then recovering herself, she smiled and said, "To be married? that is news indeed, my boy!"
"Ay, mother, my turn has come at last. I thought I had settled down into a regular old bachelor, but I believe that is just the state of mind in which one is most liable to infection. However that may be, I have caught it, and am in for it, as badly as any young lad of twenty."
Mrs. Churchill had risen from her seat, and crossed the room to Frank. Putting her hand lightly on his head, she then flung her arms round him and kissed him warmly, saying, "God bless you, my darling boy, and grant you happiness! God bless you, my son, my own son!" and she fairly broke down, and the tears coursed down her cheeks.
"Why, mum!" said Churchill, gently caressing her; "why, mum!" continued he, stroking her soft gray hair with one hand, while the other was wound round her. "You must not do this, mum. And here's a mother for you! I declare she has never yet asked who or what the lady is!"
"That will come presently, darling; just now I am only thinking of you--thinking how different it--how, after so long--how strange--there, come now, and tell me all about it;" and with one great effort Mrs. Churchill composed herself, and sat down by her son's side to hear his story.
That story lasted far into the night. Frank told of all his hesitation; of his determination not to propose; of the accident that brought about the great result of his happiness; and of the manner in which the affair was viewed by old Miss Lexden. He then said that he and Barbara were determined upon getting married at once, and that he had come up to town principally with the view of looking out some lodgings which he could take in the neighbourhood for them to return to after their honeymoon. His mother listened patiently throughout, with her calm, earnest eyes fixed upon his face, and only now and then commenting in a low tone; but when he finished, she laid her hand on his and said quietly:
"You will bring your bridehere, Frank, and I will go into the lodgings. Henceforth this house is yours, my boy! You are the head of our family now, and I--so long as I'm near you and can see you from time to time, what more do I want? So long as you are happy, I am happy, and--"
"But you don't imagine, mother, I'm going to turn you out, and--"
"There's no turning out in the case, my darling. Lucy and I could not occupy the house by ourselves, and we shall be much better in lodgings. Besides, we won't have any one say that you had not a house of your own to bring your wife to. I shall see her soon, Frank? Do you think she'll like me, my darling? When she knows how I love you, I am sure she will; and yet I am not certain of that. You'll come and see me often, won't you, Frank? and--oh, my boy, my own darling boy!" and she fell on his neck and wept bitterly.
When Churchill returned to Bissett, he found that a considerable change had taken place in the aspect of affairs there. Beresford and Lyster had departed, and old Miss Lexden was on the point of starting that very afternoon, her natty boxes in their leather cases lining the hall; for the old lady was calmly implacable, and never altered one jot of her original determination. After his talk with Frank Churchill, Sir Marmaduke had determined on using his best efforts towards restoring peace, and setting affairs on an amicable footing; so the next morning, when he was closeted with Major Stone discussing various points of business, the old gentleman gradually wore round to the matter perplexing him, took Stone into his confidence, and finished by commanding the major immediately to seek a conference with Miss Lexden, to inform her of Sir Marmaduke's views, and use his best efforts to bring her at least to a compromise. The gallant warrior received the commission with a very ill grace. He hinted that to look after his friend's rents and tenants, farm and live-stock, servants and money-matters, was all well enough; but to have to collogue with a parcel of old cats who--however, since it was to be done, he supposed he must do it; and he would "tackle" the old lady at once. But the old lady carried far too many guns for this blundering half-pay Major, and before he had been in her company five minutes made him feel exceedingly sorry that he had asked for the interview. Miss Lexden received him in the pleasantest manner, talked lightly of the weather, praised in the highest terms Major Stone's admirable management of Sir Marmaduke's estate, could not imagine how Sir Marmaduke would get on without his "other self;" and then, when Stone's flattered vanity led him to disclose the real object of his visit, Miss Lexden pulled up short, and in her most dignified and icy manner declared that "these were family matters, which allowed of no intervention by a third person, especially one entirely unconnected with either side, and therefore incapable of appreciating the delicacies of the position; what, for instance, would Sir Marmaduke have thought of her if she had sent Withers to enter into negotiations!" and thus having completely upset the Major, Miss Lexden summarily dismissed him.
When he returned to his principal, and gave him a full account of his treatment, the old gentleman was very wrath, and took a speedy opportunity of waiting personally upon Miss Lexden.
After exchanging ordinary civilities, their conversation was short and sharp.
"Susan! you're behaving sillily, worse than sillily, in this matter of Barbara and Frank Churchill; and I've come to tell you of it!"
"It's not the first time, Marmaduke, that you have come to me on a fool's errand."
First blood to Miss Lexden the old man thought of the days of his courtship, when he owed but little to Susan Lexden's assistance, and winced.
"Thank you! You're kind and generous as ever! But it was not to talk of bygone times that I came here. Take my word, Susan, you're wrong in your treatment of this business."
"As how, pray?"
"You've played for a big stake with Barbara, and she won't have it! She's fallen in love, in real desperate love; no make-believe humbug, but regular love!"
Miss Lexden shrugged her shoulders, raised her eyebrows, and tattooed impatiently with her foot.
"God knows she's to be envied," said the old gentleman; "how many girls are there, do you think, who are booked for marriage before next spring, who would give their ears to feel to their future husbands as Barbara does to hers? It's not about her I'm come to preach, it's about you. You're behaving like an idiot, Susan,--worse than an idiot,--in thus refusing your countenance to the match."
"You're growing horribly coarse in your language, Marmaduke, and unfit for me to listen to. But since you've broached the topic, hear me: I shall leave Bissett at once; and once gone, I shall never see Barbara again. I shall not give her one sixpence for hertrousseau, or make one addition to her wardrobe. I will not allow her a penny, and I will strive to forget that I ever knew there was such a person on earth. She has grievously disappointed me, and been selfish and ungrateful; but I shall not cast her off, or do any thing melodramatic or nonsensical; I shall simply ignore her existence, and live on as though she had never been."
Sir Marmaduke retired, boiling over with rage. An hour afterwards he sent for Barbara to the library and placing a cheque for 100l. in her hands, told her he had arranged with Mrs. Vincent to accompany her to town and get the requisite articles for hertrousseauat once. Her aunt was about to leave, he said; but Mrs. Vincent had promised to stop and actchaperon, and Miss Townshend would be bridesmaid. Let the wedding take place at once, since both the young people wished it, and let it be from Bissett. There would be no fuss, no tomfoolery; but no one should be able to say in future that there was any thing underhand or secret about her marriage, or that it was not properly countenanced by some of the family. If her aunt chose to be an old fool, that was her look-out, not his. And then the old gentleman kissed her on the forehead, and told her that while he lived she and Frank should never want a friend.
Miss Lexden left on the evening of the day on which Churchill returned, without seeing him or taking farewell of any of the household. Mr. Townshend would have liked to go too, but his daughter strongly objected, determining to remain with Barbara; a determination in which she was well supported by Mr. Schröder, who had taken great interest in Barbara's "love-affair" ever since it had been made public--as apparently seeing therein an excess of romance which might cast a halo over his own somewhat meagre and prosaic wooing. Mrs. Vincent, too, entered into the affair with great spirit, principally incited thereto by her hatred of old Miss Lexden, who had been particularly rude about Mr. Vincent's little gastronomical tastes; and Sir Marmaduke seemed for a time to have eschewed his eccentricity, and to have become perfectly humanised. Of course Major Stone was in great force, rallying the lovers with much subtle humour, and looking after all the preparations for the wedding with as much interest as though he were a person principally concerned.
The day arrived, and the weather did its very noblest for the young people. The sky was cloudless, and the sun brilliant, if not warm. Barbara was in the finest health and spirits, and never looked more lovely than in her plain white silk dress and Brussels lace--the latter an old family relic. The wedding took place at the little parish-church, where three bells rang a somewhat abbreviated but merry peal, while the villagers thronged the churchyard and did proper obeisance and gratulation to a party coming from "the Grange." Afterwards there was a breakfast, at which no one save the clergyman and the house-inmates were present, where there was only one speech of four words,--"God bless them both!" from Sir Marmaduke; and then, kisses and hand-shakings done, they departed. As Churchill shook hands with the old gentleman, the latter left an envelope in his godson's hands, which, on opening, he found to contain a banknote for fifty pounds, with the words "For the honeymoon" in the envelope. Nor had Barbara been without her presents. On the previous evening she had received a packet containing a necklace of ivy-leaves in dead deep-coloured gold, with earrings to match, and in the case Captain Lyster's card, with "With all good wishes" written on it; while a splendid enamel and diamond bracelet came to her as the joint gift of Mr. Schröder and Alice Townshend.
While the happy couple were honeymooning it in the north of Devon, unconsciously standing as capital models of posed figures to several artists who had lingered beyond most of their fraternity in those pleasant quarters, old Mrs. Churchill, having engaged a tolerably neat lodging not far from her old abode, devoted herself and some of her savings to the embellishment of the house in Great Adullam Street, which was newly painted outside, and revived within to the extent of new carpeting and a general polishing of the furniture. Intelligence of these triumphs had been duly conveyed in letters to Frank, who in return, thanked his mother, and sent a postscript by Barbara, who, addressing her as "her dear mother," begged her not to over-fatigue herself in their service; which little message, signed "Your affectionate daughter, B. C.," brought tears of delight into the old lady's eyes, and had the effect of causing her to redouble her exertions. At last the day for their return arrived, and the rain, which had been threatening for nearly a week past, broke through the yellow canopy of fog hanging over London, and came down heroically. It was not favourable weather in which to make one's first acquaintance with Great Adullam Street, which required a good deal of sunlight to do away with its normal ghastliness; and as the evening twilight, drear and dim, came rolling up, Eleanor Churchill, sitting at the window of her lodgings on the look-out for the cab, which must pass her door, felt her heart sink within her with a strange, indefinable sensation of dread. Her delicacy had prevented her being present on her new daughter's first arrival at her home; but she now almost regretted that she had not gone round to welcome her among her new and strange surroundings. Great Adullam Street very seldom had a cab rattling over its ill-set stones; there was a large gate at one end (as is frequently the case in the neighbourhood), where every public vehicle was stopped, and sent by a different route, at the mandate of a very sullen gate-keeper, unless it happened to be bound to some house in the street. So that when Mrs. Churchill heard the creaking gates open, followed by the noise of wheels, she knew that her children had arrived, and looking out, saw by the lamplight Barbara's handsome face at the cab-window. "Handsome, very handsome and patrician-looking," thought the ow lady; "but what a strange look of bewilderment on it!"
The cab stopped, and Churchill jumped out and handed Barbara into the house. Lucy, old Mrs. Churchill's servant, stood within the door, and gave a very grim bow as Barbara passed; the two newly-hired servants were smirking in the passage. Frank hurried past them, and led Barbara into the little dining-room. She was very tired with her journey, and at once sat down.
"Who was that horrid person, Frank, at the door,--with the strange sour look, I mean?"
"Oh, my mother's servant, old Lucy; been with her since her girlhood. She has not prepossessing manners, but she's a faithful creature. You'll make much of her, dearest."
"Nothing, I should hope; she's too horrible! What a disagreeable colour this paper is, and what a horribly prim carpet! I'll take off my things, Frank, at once, and come down to dinner; I'm rather faint."
Churchill lit a candle, and preceded her up the stairs--at the carpet on which Barbara made a despairing shrug--to the best bedroom, erst his mother's, where stood the heavy four-post bed, the old-fashioned mahogany wardrobe, the dingy pictures of sacred subjects--all the furniture just as he recollected it for years. It was rather a ghastly room, certainly; and when Frank had left her, to go down and pay the cabman and see about the luggage, she glanced nervously round, and burying her face in her hands, burst into a flood of tears.
Thus her husband found her when he returned. He a once rushed up to her, and asked her what was the matter; but she replied that she was a little over-fatigued, and would be better after the dinner and rest.
"That's well," said Frank cheerfully; "you must not give way now, darling; recollect you'reat home."
At which words, strange though it may appear, Barbara's sobs were redoubled.
No sooner was the Churchills' wedding safely over than all further reason for keeping on the establishment at Bissett Grange was at an end, and the party broke up at once. Sir Marmaduke went straight to Paris, and took up his quarters at Meurice's, according to his annual custom, to the disgust of Gumble, who detested all things "forring" with that pious horror always to be found in the British serving-class. The old gentleman knew Paris better perhaps than he knew London, and was thoroughly well known in the best circles of Parisian society; his eccentricity,quelque chose bizarre, which distinguished him from the ordinary run of English visitors, made him popular with the young people, while his perfectly polished manner to women, the unmistakable not-to-be-acquired high-breeding of the true gentleman, combined with his ready wit and biting sarcasm, both expressed in perfect French, rendered him a favourite with his coevals. To the Faubourg and its inhabitants, however, his visits were principally confined; he had never yielded allegiance to the Imperial Court, and used to speak of it and its august head in a very disparaging manner. "Gad, sir!" he would say in the smoke-room of Meurice's, after his return from the Français or from some grand reception,--"Gad, sir! I've a very low opinion of your what d'ye call him?--your Emperor! met him often when he was in England,--at Gore House, and two or three other places; always found him a silent, moody, stupid fellow--that's it! a stupid fellow, by Jove!--tries to make out that he holds his tongue to think the more; like the monkey, you know. My belief is, that he's so deuced quiet because he's got nothing to say. And his surroundings, my dear fellow! his surroundings, awful! De Rossignol, who was a billiard-marker or a singer at acafé chantant, or something of that kind; Oltenhaus, the financier, who is a Polish Jew, of the worst stamp; and O'Malley, the Marshal, a mere Irish adventurer! That is not the sort of stuff for Courts, sir!--the sweepings of the Boulevard theatres, the Juden-Gasse at Frankfort, and the long-sword, saddle, bridle, whack-fol-de-rol, and all the rest of it, of the bold dragoon!Vieille école bonne écoleis a good maxim, by Jove! They mayn't be clever; but they're gentle-people at least, and that's not saying a little for them!"
So the old gentleman growled to the little select circle round him, enjoying himself meanwhile in the highest degree. Perhaps one of the most gratifying results of his sojourn in Paris he could not have explained, though at the same time he was, however unconsciously, keenly sensible of it; it was that he had Gumble at his mercy. So desolate, so bored, so completely used up was that great man, that he looked forward to the time of his master's retiring for the night, and getting up in the morning, as the only two happy periods in his Parisian existence. All the toilet-ceremonies, before held by him in deep disgust, were now lingered over with the utmost fondness, and every scrap of gossip was brought forward in the chance of its provoking a discussion, and protracting the period when the valet should be again relegated to the company of the French and German waiters and pert ladies'-maids, who scoffed at Gumble's old-fashioned ways and stories. Of course there were other gentlemen's gentlemen installed with their masters at Meurice's; but they were all much younger than Gumble; and when their "governors" were not expected home till late, beguiled the weary hours with pleasant dances at the Salle Valentino, or suchlike resorts. But Gumble was a little too old, and a great deal too insular, to enjoy these recreations. Once indeed he had been persuaded into attending one of these public balls; but the sight of his deep white choker, straight-brushed whiskers aid solemn old mug, had such an effect on the dancers,--Jules utterly missing his great bound in thecavalier seul, and Eulalie failing to touch hervis-à-visshoulder with her toe in theen avant deux,--that he was requested to confine histristesseto some other place; and as he was really not amused, he willingly consented. So, after that, he remained at Meurice's, generally sitting solitary in a crowd of chattering French servants, beguiling the time sometimes by speculating how long his master would live, and what he would leave him at his death; whether a greengrocer's or a public-house would be the most profitable business to undertake with Sir Marmaduke's legacy; whether he could get any thing for the recipe of some wonderful boot-varnish which he alone possessed; sometimes by reading a shilling novel of fashionable life, or nodding dreamily over theTimesof the previous day. One night, as he was attending his master to bed, he brought forth a special bit of news which he had reserved.
"House full here, sir," said he, as he was mixing the old gentleman's evening draught.
"Ah!" growled Sir Marmaduke. "God bless my soul, pack of people come over by the rail devilish cheap, and all that sort of thing. Poor dear old diligences kept the place dear; that was one comfort. Full, eh? Any body I know?"
"Capting Currer, from the Forring Office, come in to-night, sir; saw he had a white shammy-leather bag with him, sir--"
"Ah! Queen's messenger off to-morrow morning to Smyrna or Kamschatka, or some infernal place. Any body else?"
"Miss Lexden come, sir; but we was full here, just full; so she have gone next door to the Windsor, sir. Only Withers with her, sir; no one else. Must miss Miss Barbara, sir--Mrs. Churchill, sir--I shouldn't think, sir."
"What the devil business is it of yours? What right have you to think about it? There now; be off! Good night."
"Bless my soul!" said the old gentleman, when he was left alone. "I'm deuced glad Susan didn't get in here, or she'd have led me a pretty life. I suppose I must call on her to-morrow morning. Deuced unpleasant 'talk there'll be--Barbara, and all the rest of it. Poor girl! Susan--too hard--come round at last;" and musing in this way Sir Marmaduke fell asleep.
When, in the course of the next day, he called upon Miss Lexden, he found that lady in the highest spirits. "I knew you were here, Sir Marmaduke," said she. "I've had Cabanel here;--you recollect little Cabanel? Spanish-looking little fellow with black eyes; was an attaché when the Walewskis were in London; and he saw you at the duchess's last week. You're going there to-morrow of course? How well you look! that's the climate, you know, and the style of life; so much better than in that wretched old island of ours."
"What news do you bring from that wretched old island of ours?" asked the old gentleman.
"News? none; not a scrap, positively not a scrap; nobody in town, not a soul. I didn't wait there above a day, but came through at once."
"You did not stop long enough to see the Churchills, I suppose?"
"The--eh? I beg your pardon, I did not catch the name."
"The Churchills."
"Churchills!" echoed Miss Lexden, with the greatest deliberation; "Churchills! I have not the least idea who you mean."
"Ah!" said Sir Marmaduke, through his closed teeth. "No, of course not; you don't recollect your own brother's child, even when there's no one in town. If it had been in the season, I could not have attempted to suggest any thing so horribly low; but I thought perhaps, that when there was not a soul in town, as you said, you might have thought of the girl who is of your blood, and who has been, as it were, your daughter for ten years." And the old gentleman stamped his stick on the floor, and looked fiercely across at his cousin.
"O--h!" said Miss Lexden, perfectly calmly. "I didn't follow you at first; now I see. It seems strange to me that a man with your knowledge of the world, Marmaduke Wentworth,--more especially with your knowledge of me, derived in times past, when you had full opportunity of making yourself acquainted with my character,--should have imagined that I should for an instant have altered in my purpose as regards my niece Barbara. What is there to induce me to swerve one atom from--"
"What?" interrupted Sir Marmaduke; "What? Old age, Susan Lexden! You and I are two old people, who ought to be thankful to have been left here so long; and not to bear malice and all sorts of miserable hatred in our old age, more especially to our own kindred. You're vexed with Barbara, not unnaturally, as you'd set your heart upon seeing her married to a rich man; but that's over now, and so make the best of it. Her husband's a good fellow and a gentleman; so what more do you want?"
"What more!" exclaimed the old lady; "what more! Freedom from this style of conversation; permission to go my own way without comment or impertinent suggestion. I use the adjective advisedly; I claim my right to visit those whom I like, to ignore those whom I dislike, without such remarks from those who I distinctly say have no right to make them. And, however old I may be, I am not yet sufficiently in my dotage to show affection, kindness, no, nor even recognition, to those who have wilfully disregarded my desires."
So Sir Marmaduke retired worsted from the conflict, and contented himself with writing a letter to Major Stone, bidding that worthy: take the first opportunity of a visit to town to ascertain how Churchill and Barbara were getting on.
* * * * *
Mr. Beresford, after leaving Bissett, went for a short visit to a bachelor friend with a shooting-box in Norfolk; and after enjoying some excellent sport, and nearly boring himself to death, in the company of his host and a few hard-drinking sporting squires of the neighbourhood, returned to town--to his lodgings in South Audley Street, and to his daily routine of life. He did not at all dislike London in the autumn, when he had no calls to make; when he could wear out his old clothes; could smoke in the streets at any hour without loss of dignity; could get a little quiet reading and a little quiet play-going; and need not fear the admonitory missives of duns, who concluded that all their customers were, or ought to be, out of town at that dull season. Moreover, he had not spent all of the last two hundred pounds he had borrowed, and had received his October quarter's salary; so that, on the whole, he was in very good case, and came smiling radiantly into Simnel's room on the first morning after his return. Mr. Simnel, as usual, had a pile of papers before him; but he pushed them aside at Beresford's entrance; rose up, welcomed him; and placing his back against the mantelpiece, at once entered into conversation.
"Well, Mr. Commissioner," he commenced; "so you've got back to the hive, eh? and now I suppose you mean to remain and let one of the other hard-worked members of the Board have a little rest, eh?"
"Yes," replied Beresford; "I'm a fixture now for a long time; I must take to the collar, and stick to it; but you, old fellow,--do you mean to say you've been here all this blessed time?"
"I've not moved away yet," said Simnel; "some one must do the work, you know," he added with a meaning grin.
"Yes, I knew, of course; and a deuced hard grind you've had of it. But you'll go away now, I suppose?"
"No; I shall run down to Leicestershire and get a little hunting next month perhaps that is, if I can get away; and I might take a fortnight in Paris at Christmas, just to avoid the 'God bless yous!' and 'Happy years!' and other jackass congratulations, which I hate and abominate."
"Genial creature!" said Beresford, regarding him with great complacency "what's the news?"
"That's just what I should ask you," retorted Simnel; "there's no news here. Sir Hickory has been to the Lakes, and 'my lady' was much pleased with Ullswater; which is more, I should think, than Ullswater was with 'my lady,' always supposing Ullswater to have any taste. Old Peck has slept as much as usual but has not devoted as much time as he generally does to his get-up, and has consequently been rather red and rusty about his beard. O'Scanlon has been dying for your return, that he may get away; and the men in the Office are just the same as ever. Oh, by the way, I see that marriage has come off?"
"Which marriage?"
"That man Churchill, who was staying with you at old Wentworth's, has married that dashing girl--what was her name--?--Lexden!"
"Yes; and theothermarriage has come off. Old Schröder is one flesh now with Miss Townshend; that's a nice thing to think of, isn't it?"
"Ay, I heard of that too; saw it in the paper of course; but beyond that, one of the young fellows here, Pringle, had cards; he's a connexion, or something of the sort."
"Yes; they've taken a thundering big house in Saxe-Coburg Square,--in the new South-Kensington district, you know,--and are coming out heavily. There's a dinner there on Thursday, to which I'm asked; and a reception afterwards. It's a bad time of year; but theremaybe some new fillies trotted out, you know."
"Ah! you've done nothing more in that matter, I suppose? no one on hand just now! no combination of money and beauty, as Jack Palmer says, when he rides with Schwarzchild into the City?"
"None! I've had no chance; but I should think this wouldn't be a bad opening. They are a tremendously well-tinned set at Schröder's; and he's safe to ask no women who are not enormously ingotted. With such girls, unaccustomed to any thing but what was Paddington and is now Tyburnia, one might have a chance, for they've seen nothing decent yet, you know. Your stock-brokering gent is a hopeless beast!" And Mr. Beresford shrugged his shoulders, and then looked down at his feet, as though Capel Court lay beneath them.
"You're going to the dinner?" asked Simnel.
"Going, my dear fellow! if you had been staying for the last month, as I have, with Jim Coverdale, you wouldn't ask the question. No better fellow than Jim breathes, and there's always capital sport to be got at his place; but the cooking is something indescribably atrocious. One always feels inclined, when he asks you what you'd like for dinner, to use the oldmot, and say, 'Chez vous, monsieur, on mange, mais on ne dîne pas.' After a month's experience of Coverdale's cook, I am looking forward with eager anticipation to the performances of such an artist as Schröder will probably employ."
"I should think," said Mr. Simnel, after a minute's pause--"I should think it probable that Mr. Townshend will be there."
"First dinner after his daughter's marriage," said Beresford. "Duty, by Jove Of course he will."
"If he is there, I want you to do me a favour," said Simnel, quietly.
"And that is--?" asked Beresford, in whose ears the word 'favour' always rang with a peculiar knell.
"A very slight one, and involving very little trouble to you; else, you may take your oath, I know you too well to expect you'd grant it," said Simnel, with some asperity. "No! I merely want you, in the course of conversation, and when you have fully secured Mr. Townshend's attention, to introduce, no matter how, the name of a firm--Pigott and Wells."
"Pigott and Wells!" repeated Beresford, mechanically.
"Pigott and Wells. Should he ask you any thing farther, you will remember that it is the name of a cotton firm in Combcardingham; and take care that it fits into your story. That's all!"
"It won't get me into any row, will it?" asked the cautious commissioner; "you're such a tremendously sly olddiplomate, such an infernal old Machiavel, that I am always afraid of your getting me into a mess."
"Sweet innocent! you need not fear. There's no harm in the name. Of course, it depends upon yourself how you bring it in."
And Mr. Beresford, with a vivid recollection of owing eight hundred pounds to Mr. Simnel, undertook the commission.
About the same time Mr. Schröder's domestic arrangements were being discussed under the same roof, in No. 120.
"What are you going to do on Thursday night, Jim?" asked Mr. Pringle of Mr. Prescott.
"Nothing," said Mr. Prescott.
"Then don't," said Mr. Pringle. "It don't answer and it don't pay. I've got a card for a party in Saxe-Coburg Square, and I'll take you if you like to come."
"But I don't like to come. I'm sick of all your parties, with the same grinning and bowing nonsense, the same bosh talked, the same wretched routine from first to last. Who are the people?"
"Now, what a duffer you are!" said Mr. Pringle; "first you declaim in the strongest virtuous indignation against all parties, and then you ask who the people are! Well; they are connexions of mine. Old Townshend, my godfather, who's an old beast, and who never gave me any thing except a tip of half-a-crown once when I was going to school, has married his daughter--deuced pretty girl she is too--to a no-end rich City party--Schröder by name. And Mrs. Schröder is 'at home' on Thursday evening, 'small and early;' and I've got a card, and can take you. There's a dinner-party first, I hear, but I'm not asked to that."
"What a pity!" said Prescott; "your true philosopher only goes to dinners. Balls and receptions are well enough when one is very young; but they soon pall. There is in them an insincere glitter, a spurious charm, which--"
"Yes, thank ye," interrupted Mr. Pringle; "for which seePelham passim, or the collected works of the late Lord Byron. Much obliged; but I subscribe to Mudie's; and would sooner read the sentiments in the original authors. What I want to know is, whether you'll come?"
"No, then."
"Yes, you will. I know you, you old idiot, and all the reason for your moping,--as though that would advance the cause one bit. Yes, you will. We'll dine at Simpson's; have a quiet weed in my chambers; dress there; and go into the vortex together."