Piccadilly,July 15.
Piccadilly,July 15.
It will be seen by the date at which I am writing this, that I have been compelled to increase the pace I have been keeping up during the season. The fact is, my episode, like those of my neighbours, seems likely to be prematurely concluded by the course of political events, which will no doubt act prejudicially this year upon the happiness of many interesting members of society. Towards the close of the London season it is only natural that everything should culminate; but generally the actors in the scenes of real life so calculate that the curtain falls just at the right moment; or rather, that they shall be doing just the right thing when the curtain falls. The artists insensibly group themselves for thegrand tableau. All over the stage episodes are occurring, any one of which taken separately would make a good sensation finale. There are wily mothers and desperate daughters throwing with unerring aim their nets over youths who have become reckless or imbecile. And there are unprincipled poachers setting snares for the pretty game they hope to destroy. Look at the poor victims, both male and female, trying to get disentangled. What a rush, and shuffle, and conflict of feelings and affections it is! The hearts that for the first time feel they have been touched as the moment of separation draws near; the "histories" which in all future time will form the most marked page in his or her life, and which have begun and ended in the season; the intimacies that have been formed, and which are to last for ever; those that have been broken; the fatal friendships which have been cemented this year, and the disastrous results of which, suspected on neither side, we shall read of in the newspapers years to come. What a curious picture would be the mind of London society if we could photograph it in February, and how strangely different would it be from a photograph of the same subject taken in July, more especially when, as now, the elections throw everything into confusion; and little Haultort gets so bewildered, that he encloses, by mistake, his address to his constituents to Wild Harrie, instead of his proposal to her, which he has forwarded to his local attorney for publication in the Liberal organ of that borough which is honoured by possessing him as a representative!
In these days when good taste requires that our affections should be as shallow as our convictions, we are puzzled, at a crisis like this, to know which we love most, our seats or our mistresses. There is a general disposition on the part of the lavender-gloved tribe to resent the extra wear and tear of mind suddenly imposed upon them this hot weather. Why should they unexpectedly be called away from the corners devoted totête-à-têtes, to stand on hotel balconies, and stammer, in unintelligible language, their views upon Reform to crowds of free and independent electors? "For goodness' sake," says Larkington to Lady Veriphast, "give me some ideas; I've got to go and meet these wretched constituents of mine, and I had promised myself a much more agreeable occupation with you at Richmond. Couldn't you get Veriphast to go down? I should be delighted to retire in his favour; and with his abilities it is ridiculous his not being in Parliament."
"How absurdly you talk about my persuading Veriphast to do anything? the only person, as you know, who has any influence over him is Mrs Loveton," responds her ladyship, with a sigh—arising from dyspepsia.
"I have hit it;" and for a moment Larkington looks animated. "Squabbleton is close to the coast, and we will make a party, and I will take you all round in my yacht, the Lovetons and you and Veriphast; we'll go and do the electioneering business together, and keep the yacht as a sort ofpied à terre, or ratherpied à mer;" and Larkington chuckled, partly at his joke, and partly at this brilliant solution of his dilemma.
And so, while all the world is trying to reconcile their pleasure with what they are pleased to term their duty, being always the duty they owe to themselves, my thoughts are diverted into a very different channel. I am beginning daily to feel, while in the world, that I am less of it. Already I have cut myself off from the one great source of interest which Parliament afforded me, and I have not succeeded in my love as a compensation—that is why Larkington's arrangement to secure both seemed a sort of mockery of my misery. For it was impossible to resist the occasional fits of depression which reduced my mind to the condition of white paper, and the world to that of a doll stuffed with sawdust. I was suffering in this manner the day following the evening entertainment at Lady Broadhem's, which I have already described. The interview which impended inspired me with vague terrors. The night before I had looked forward to it with positive enjoyment. There is no greater bore than to get up morally and physically unhinged, upon the very day that you expect an unusual strain upon your faculties. The days it does not matter, you feel up to anything; but nature too often perversely deserts you at the most critical moment.
Now, upon the morning in question it was necessary as a preliminary measure for me to go into the City and acquire some information essential to the success of my interview with Lady Broadhem, but before starting I was anxious to gain a few particulars from Grandon, the knowledge of which would materially aid me in disentangling the complicated skein of our joint affairs. I therefore looked in upon him for a momenten passant.
"I went to Lady Broadhem's last night, Grandon," I said, "and I have reasons for wishing to know whether you have had any communication with the family lately. I think the time is coming when I shall be able to explain much of my conduct which I can well understand has perplexed and distressed you."
"It would be a relief to me to feel that there was no more mystery between us," he replied. "You have certainly at last most effectually contradicted the report you were the means of originating, but the reparation was tardy, and should never have been rendered necessary. However, there is no use in recurring to the past; but I am entitled to ask what your object is in making your present inquiries?"
"I am to see Lady Broadhem this afternoon," I said, "and I wish to be prepared on all points. I heard something last night which may influence your future far more seriously than mine; and it is in fact in your interests, and not in my own, that I wish to be well informed."
"What do you want to know?"
"I want to know whether you have ever actually proposed to Lady Ursula, and, if so, what was the result?"
"Frank," said Grandon, "after what has passed you are pushing my confidence in you, and my friendship for you, to their utmost limits, in expecting me to answer you in this matter. Still I cannot believe your motives to be unworthy, though they may be unintentionally perverted; nor do I think that it is in your power to affect the position of affairs either for good or harm. The fact is, then, that Lady Ursula does know precisely the state of my feelings towards her, and I feel that, though there may be insuperable obstacles to our union at present, she would never consent to yield to any pressure exercised by her mother in favour of another."
"In other words, the situation is unchanged, for I think I knew as much as that before. Have you never spoken to Lady Broadhem directly on the subject?"
"No," said Grandon—"never."
"I think," said I, "the time is coming when you will be able to do so with advantage. I cannot tell you more now, but this afternoon I shall hope to retrieve myself in your estimation by being the bearer of some good news. By the way, what are you going to do about your election?—they say your prospects are getting cloudy."
"Say rather utterly obscured," he replied. "You know the borough I sit for is in Lord Scilly's pocket, and he says I have not sufficiently stuck to my party. They have never forgiven me for understanding the Schleswig-Holstein question; and Scilly has extracted a promise from his new nominee that he is never to inform himself upon any question of foreign politics. The Government is so weak in this department that they are more afraid of their ownenfants terriblesthan they are of the Opposition, which is not saying much for the latter."
"Who is Scilly's new nominee?" I asked.
"No less a person than our old friend Chundango," he replied. "It seems Lady Broadhem put pressure upon his lordship in his favour, and he at last consented, though I suspect it was with a bad grace."
"Well, I don't think the Government need be afraid of Chundango on foreign policy, though he probably knows as much as the others."
It required no little effort to reach Bodwinkle's office at 10A.M.I found that great millionaire in a peculiarly amiable frame of mind. Though two or three of his neighbours had been smashing around him, his superior foresight had enabled him to escape the calamities which had overtaken them; and he was sitting chuckling in that rather dingy alley, from the recesses of which he had dug his fortune, when I entered.
"Ah, Lord Frank," he said, affably; "come to give me some of your valuable advice and assistance in my election affairs, I feel sure. Don't forget your promise about Stepton. I have already given the necessary instructions about that matter of Lady Broadhem's; there is nothing going to be done about it for the present."
"It is just with reference to Lady Broadhem's affairs that I have come to consult you," I said. "You have a pretty extensive Indian connection, I think?"
"Rather," said Bodwinkle, in a tone which meant to imply gigantic.
"Now I have reason to believe that her ladyship is interested in some Bombay houses, and I shall be able to throw some light upon her affairs which may be of use to us both, if you will give me the benefit of a little of that exclusive information with reference to cotton and those who are embarked in its trade which I know you possess."
Bodwinkle was loath at first to let me into those mysteries which he speedily revealed to me on my explaining more fully my reasons for requiring to know them, and I jumped into a hansom and drove off to Grosvenor Square, planning a little plot which I completed ere I arrived, and the construction of which had acted as beneficially upon my nerves as one of Lady Broadhem's own "pick-me-ups." Drippings let me in, and his countenance wore an expression of anxious consciousness. As he led the way up-stairs he whispered, "I trust, my lord, that under the circumstances your lordship will not betray me—my own livelihood, not to say that of my wife and little ones, depends upon my keeping this place; and I would not have mentioned what had come to my knowledge with respect to her ladyship if it had not been that, knowing the interest your lordship takes in the family, and more especially when I come to consider Lady Ursula——"
"Hold your tongue," I interrupted, angrily. "If you wish me to reduce you and your family to beggary, dare to open your lips to me again unless you're spoken to." I felt savage with him for ruffling my temper at the moment when I desired to have my faculties completely under control; and as my readers will have perceived, though my intentions are always excellent, my course is occasionally, under any unusual strain, erratic.
I never saw Lady Broadhem looking better. One or two wrinkles were positively missing altogether, and an expression of cheerful benevolence seemed to play about the corners of her mouth. She greeted me with anempressementtotally at variance with the terms on which we had parted upon the previous evening. I must say that, when Lady Broadhem chooses, there is nobody of my acquaintance whose manner is more attractive, and whose conversation is more agreeable. She had been abellein her day, and had achieved some renown among the "wholly-worldlies" when she first married the late lord. Her "history," connected chiefly with another lord of that period, is not yet altogether forgotten. The end of it was, that the world looked coldly upon her ladyship for a few seasons, and she scrambled with some difficulty into the society of the "worldly-holies," among whom she has ever since remained. There are occasions when a certain amount of coquetry of manner betrays the existence of some of those "devil's leavings" which she is still engaged in sacrificing. Had it not been for the information I had derived from Drippings, her cordial reception and unembarrassed manner would have puzzled me. As it was, I felt assured by the indications they furnished, that the butler had told me the truth.
"My dear Lady Broadhem," I said, with enthusiasm, "how well you are looking! I am sure you must have some charming news to tell me. Is some near and wealthy relation dead, or what?"
"For shame, Frank! what a satirical creature you are! Do you know I only discovered lately that irony was your strong point? I am positively beginning to be afraid of you."
"Come now," I said, "own frankly, what you have to tell me to-day makes you feel more afraid of me than you ever did before."
Lady Broadhem blushed—yes, actually blushed. It was not the flush of anger which I had often seen dye her cheeks, or of shame, which I never did; but it was a blush of maiden consciousness, if I may so express it, though it is occasionally to be observed in widows. It mounted slowly and suffused her whole neck and face, even unto the roots of her hair; it was a blush of that kind which I have seen technically described by a German philosopher as a "rhythm of exquisite sweetness."
The effect of this hardened old lady indulging in a rhythm of this description struck me as so ludicrous that I was compelled to resort to my pocket-handkerchief and pretend to sneeze behind it. At the same moment Lady Broadhem resorted to hers, and applied it with equal sincerity to her eyes. "Dear Frank," she said, and sobbed. "Dear Lady Broadhem," I responded, and nearly choked with suppressed laughter, for I knew what was coming.
"All my money difficulties are at an end at last, and if I am affected, it is that I feel I am not worthy of the happiness that is in store for me," and she lifted up her eyes, in which real tears were actually glistening, and said, "What have I done to deserve it?"
"Well, really," I replied, "if you ask me that question honestly, I must wait till I know what 'it' is; perhaps you would have been better without—'it.'"
"I assure you, Frank, one of the uppermost feelings in my mind is that of relief. I fully appreciate the warm-hearted generosity which has prompted you to take so much interest in my affairs; but when it was all over between you and Ursula, my conscience would not allow me to let you make pecuniary sacrifices on so large a scale for my sake. When Broadhem told me that you had determined to persevere in your munificence, notwithstanding Ursula's most inexplicable conduct, I made up my mind at once to adopt a course which, I am happy to say, not merely my sense of propriety but my feelings told me was the right one. I must therefore relieve you from all further anxiety about my business matters. You have, I think, still got some papers of mine, which you may return to me; and I will see that my solicitor not only releases you from any engagements which you may have entered into for me, but will repay those sums which you have so kindly advanced on my account already."
There was a tone of triumph pervading this speech which clearly meant, "Now we are quits. I don't forget the time when you drank my 'pick-me-up' first, and biologised me afterwards. And this is my revenge."
I must say I looked at Lady Broadhem with a certain feeling of admiration. She was a woman made up of "forces." Last night passionate and intemperate under the influence of the society she had called round her: to-day calm and wily, using her advantages of situation with a judgment and a moderation worthy of a great strategist. She is only arrogant and insolent in the hour of disaster; but she can conquer magnanimously. I assumed an air of the deepest regret and disappointment. "Of course, Lady Broadhem, any change in your circumstances which makes you independent, even of your friends, must be agreeable to you; but I cannot say how deeply disappointed I feel that my labour of love is over, and that I shall no longer have the pleasure of spending my resources in a cause so precious to me." The last words almost stuck in my throat; but I wanted to overdo it, to see the effect.
"My dear Frank," she said, laughing, and her eyes would have twinkled had they not become too watery from age, "I shall never make you out; I am so stupid at reading character, and I suppose so dull altogether, that sometimes I am not sure when you're joking and when you are in earnest. Now I want you seriously to answer me truly one question, not as people of the world, you know, making pledges to each other, but as old friends, as we are, who may dispense with mystery." She held out her hand with an air of charming candour. "Tell me," she said, as she pressed mine,—"tell me honestly, what could possibly have been your motive in being prepared to go on sacrificing your fortune for me when you had no chance of Ursula?"
"Tell me honestly, Lady Broadhem," I said, and pressed her hand in return, "how you are going to render yourself independent of my assistance hence-forward, and I will tell you the motives which have actuated me in proffering it."
"It is only just settled, and I have not even told it yet either to Broadhem or my daughters. I am quite prepared for the sensation it will make when it is known, and the ill-natured things people will say of me; but my mind is made up, and we are told to expect persecution. I am going to be married to Mr Chundango!"
Lady Broadhem evidently expected to stun me with this announcement, but as I had already been prepared for it by Drippings on the occasion of our first private interview, which the reader will remember, I received it with perfect equanimity.
"I had no conception," her ladyship went on, "of the sterling worth and noble character of that man until I had an opportunity of observing it closely. The munificence of his liberality, and the good uses to which he applies his enormous wealth, the cultivation of his mind, the excellence of his principles, and the perfect harmony of feeling upon religious subjects which exists between us, all convince me that I shall best consult my own happiness and the interests of my dear children by uniting my fate to his. I suppose you know Lord Scilly is going to put him into Parliament for the Scilly boroughs instead of Lord Grandon?"
"No one could congratulate you more sincerely than I do, Lady Broadhem," I said. "I can conceive no greater happiness than an alliance in which that perfect harmony of thought and feeling you describe reigns paramount; and now it is my turn to tell you why I have acted the part which seems so incomprehensible to you. Grandon is, as you know, my dearest friend, but he is poor. Ursula cares for him more, if possible, than I do. And I need not tell you that my own attachment to your daughter is the strongest sentiment of my nature. Now, I determined to prove the depth of my affection for these two people by making them both happy, and when all my arrangements were completed I intended to make a final stipulation with you, that you should give your consent to their marriage, and that I should play the part of a bountiful prince in the Arabian Nights, and that we should all live happy ever after."
"A very pretty little plot indeed," said Lady Broadhem, with a sneer. "You are too good and disinterested for this planet, Frank. So you thought you could coerce me into giving my consent to a marriage I never have approved, and never shall?"
"Don't be too sure of that," I said, and I allowed the faintest tinge of insolence to appear in my manner, for the sentiments and the sneer that accompanied it both irritated me, and I felt that we were morally drawing our revolvers, and looking at the caps.
"Why not? What do you mean?" she said, sharply. "Who do you suppose is to dictate to me upon such a subject? Ursula will be very well off, and I shall take care that she marries suitably."
"I don't know where she is to get her money from," I said, calmly.
"You need give yourself no anxiety about her for the future, I assure you. Mr Chundango has been most liberal in his arrangements about both my girls."
"But, unfortunately, it is not in Mr Chundango's power to make any such arrangements," I retorted. "I am sure nothing will alter your feelings towards a man you really love, and that your own personal conduct will not be influenced by the fact that Mr Chundango is a beggar. You could go back to India with him, you know, and make a home for him in a bungalow in the Bombay Ghauts."
Lady Broadhem's face had become rigid and stony; so had my whole nature. I did not feel a particle of compassion or of triumph. I was cold, hard, and judicial. Her hour was come, and I had to pass the sentence. "Yes," I said, "there is no doubt about it. I got it from Bodwinkle this moment. The Bombay mail arrived last night, and you know the way everything has been crashing there through speculations in Back Bay shares, cotton, &c. Well, the great Parsee house of Burstupjee Cockabhoy has come down with a grand crash, and all our friend Chundango's jewels in the back verandah, added to everything else he possesses in the world, will fail to meet his liabilities. Terrible thing, isn't it? but we must bear up, you know."
But Lady Broadhem had done bearing up some time ago, and had sunk gently back on the couch, in a dead faint. As there was not the slightest sham about it, I rang the bell for Jenkins, and felt under the pillow for the "pick-me-up," which I failed to make her swallow; so I slapped the soles of her feet with her shoes, till her maid arrived, followed by Drippings, who, I suspect, had spent some portion of his time in the neighbourhood of the keyhole.
"I will go and look for Lady Ursula," I said; "where shall I find her?"
"In her own 'boudwore,'" said Jenkins—"first door on the right, at the top of the stairs," and I left Lady Broadhem being ministered to with sal-volatile, and went in search of her daughter.
Lady Ursula was writing, and as she looked up I saw the traces of tears upon her cheeks, though she smiled as she frankly gave me her hand. "I half expected you, Lord Frank, as I knew you were to call on mamma to-day, and I thought you would not leave without seeing me; but I expected to have been sent for. Don't you know that this is very sacred ground, and that the privilege of treading upon it is accorded to very few?"
"I have that to tell you," I said, gravely, "which I can only talk of privately. I have left Lady Broadhem down-stairs, and it is the result of my interview with her that I want to communicate to you. Do you know that she contemplated taking a very serious step?"
I did not know how to approach the subject, and felt embarrassed now that I found myself obliged to explain to a daughter that her mother was going to marry the man that daughter had rejected, as an act of revenge.
"No," said Lady Ursula. "I have suspected by her preoccupied manner for many days past that mamma had decided upon something, but I have shrunk from speaking to her of her own plans. Indeed she seemed to have avoided me in a way which she never did before."
"Before telling you what she intended doing, I must premise that she has quite abandoned the idea; therefore don't let yourself be distressed by what might have been, but won't be now."
I risked this assertion as, though Lady Broadhem had not told me that she had abandoned the idea, and was at that moment in a dead faint, I felt certain that her first impulse on "coming to" would be to abandon it. "Well," said Lady Ursula, with her lip trembling and her eye cast down, "if you think it right that you should tell me, do so; remember she is my mother."
"It was nothing so very dreadful after all," I said, and tried to reassure her by a careless manner—for I saw how much she dreaded the unknown.
"The fact is, Lady Broadhem has been driven to despair by the family embarrassments, and we must make allowances for her under the circumstances. Then perhaps she was under the influence of pique. At all events, she has made up her mind to accept a proposal which Mr Chundango had the audacity to make."
Lady Ursula raised her eyes in a bewildered way to mine. It was evident that she had failed even now to comprehend me. What business, I thought, had I to come up here after all? It is a piece of impertinence in me; and I trembled at my rashness. What will she think? I shall shock her, and ruin myself in her estimation irretrievably; and I wished myself back again, slapping the soles of Lady Broadhem's feet; but Lady Broadhem was already making use of those very soles, and was marching up-stairs at that identical moment; for before I could find words to explain my meaning more fully to Lady Ursula, and while I was yet doubting whether I should not back out of the whole subject, in stalked her ladyship, very white, with lips compressed, and an expression on her face which so terrified Ursula that she forgot my speech in the amazement and alarm which her mother's aspect caused her. "What are you doing in my daughter's private sitting-room, Lord Frank?" said Lady Broadhem, between her teeth.
"I came to tell her of your sudden illness, and explain the cause of it," I replied, calmly.
"And have you done so?" and I saw how much depended on my answer by the nervous way in which Lady Broadhem clenched her hand to control her emotion: she has given me a good manymauvais quarts d'heures, I thought—I will give her one now.
"I was just telling Lady Ursula," I said, "that Mr Chundango had positively had the impudence to propose to you"—Lady Broadhem gave a sort of suppressed scream—"when you came in."
"Then you did not tell her what he proposed?" she said.
"No, I leave that to you," I said, maliciously.
"My dear Ursula, I would not tell you, because I know you do not approve of speculations, and I feel myself that they are questionable, if not actually sinful. My dear child, I did it for the best; Chundango wanted me to join him in one of his Indian speculations, and proposed to me to"—Lady Broadhem paused, coloured, looked me full in the face, and then said slowly—"to unite my resources to his. Fortunately, Lord Frank has just discovered in time that he is a bankrupt, so of course all partnership arrangements between us are at an end, and I am most thankful for the lesson. You know I promised you once before that I would give up trying to retrieve my own fortunes by commercial speculation, even of the most legitimate description; and now, my dear Frank, and you, my sweet child, forgive me for having even thought of yielding to this temptation. You must have seen how much it has weighed upon me, Ursula dear, for some time past; but let us be thankful that I have been saved from it," and the handkerchief was again called into requisition.
Well done, Lady Broadhem! that was a triumph of white-lying, and the best piece of acting you have done in my presence; it so touched Lady Ursula that she threw herself on her mother's neck.
"Never mind, mamma; I know that whatever you do is out of love for us; but indeed we don't want to be rich. Broadhem has no expensive tastes, and I would only be too glad to get away from London. Let us let the house, and take a little cottage somewhere in the country,—we shall be so much happier;" and Lady Ursula nestled herself on her mother's cheek, little dreaming that she had nearly had Chundango for a father-in-law, and evidently much relieved at finding that this dreadful intelligence, for which I was preparing her, was not some horrid crime, but only another money affair. As I looked at the mother and daughter, clasped in each other's arms, and pictured to myself the thoughts that were hidden in those hearts now palpitating against each other, I felt that it would almost be a righteous act to tear them asunder for ever.
Never mind, you have given me a hold over you that I shall turn to account; that lie was dexterously worded, and evidenced infinite presence of mind; but you will have first to throw over Chundango, and then to shut his mouth, and then you will have to shut mine, and finally to shut Drippings his mouth. Oh, my dear Lady Broadhem, what a very slimy and disagreeable course you have marked out for yourself!
"Mr Chundango is in the drawing-room, my lady," said Drippings, appearing at the door at this critical juncture; and he took a survey of the group as one who should say within himself, "Here is some new start which I am not yet up to, but which I soon shall be," and he waited at the door to observe the effect of his intelligence.
"I shall be down immediately," said Lady Broadhem, coldly; and Drippings vanished. "Perhaps, under the circumstances, you had better leave Mr Chundango to my tender mercies," I said, significantly. "There can be no reason why you shouldeversee him again." I emphasised the word "ever" purposely, and assumed a tone of authority under which Lady Broadhem winced. Our eyes met for a moment, and then I looked at her nose, and I am sure she read my thought, which was "I must keep it on the grindstone," for she sighed and acquiesced.
"How do, my dear Mr Chundango?" said I, gaily, to the Oriental, who seemed rather taken aback when he saw me enter the drawing-room instead of Lady Broadhem, and whose lips got paler than was altogether consistent with their usual colour. "I must congratulate you on the prospect of becoming a legislator. I hear Lord Scilly is going to put you in for his boroughs."
"Yes," said Chundango, affectedly. "His lordship has been good enough to press them upon me, but I have determined not to go in as any man's nominee. The fact is, I wanted to ask Lady Broadhem's advice upon that very matter, and have come here expressly to do so."
"She is not very well, and has deputed me to consult with you instead. Come," I said, confidentially. "What is it all about? I shall be too glad to assist you."
The puzzled expression of Chundango's face at this moment was a study: "Has Lady Broadhem told him everything or not?—How much does he know?—What line shall I take?" and he stroked his chin doubtfully.
"Come, out with it," I said, sharply; "I haven't time to stand here all day waiting till you decide how much you will tell me and how much you won't." Now this is the kind of speech which disturbs a native more than any other, but which would be inexcusable in polite society. I had lived too much in the East to be trammelled with the conventionalities of Europe, and my friend felt as much, for he cringed at once after the manner of his race.
"I have no intention of deceiving you," he said. "I don't know whether Lady Broadhem has told you that we are to be united in matrimony?"
"Yes," I said, "she has."
"Well, I want to make arrangements by which the ceremony may be accomplished without delay, for I feel the suspense is trying. Might I ask you to find out the earliest moment which would suit her convenience? I need not say that I hope you will be present."
"I suppose you would prefer it, if possible, before the arrival of the next mail from Bombay?" I said.
Chundango, who is by no means deficient in intelligence, saw at a glance that it was useless to attempt to deceive me. "I see that you know," he said, meekly, "the terrible misfortune by which I have been overtaken, through no fault of my own. I am quite sure it will not affect Lady Broadhem's resolution."
"I am quite sure it will," I said; "and the fact is, as she did not want a scene, she sent me down to give you to understand that everything is at an end between you. You look surprised," I went on, for Chundango was not yet so familiar with the customs of polite society, as to believe such heartless conduct on the part of Lady Broadhem possible; "but I assure you this is the usual form among ladies in London. I am well aware no Hindoo woman would have done it; but you must remember, Mr Chundango, that you are in a Christian and a civilised country, where money is essential to make the pot boil—not in a tropical heathen land where a pocket-handkerchief is sufficient for clothing, and a few plantains for sustenance. We don't keep our hearts in a state of nature in this country a bit more than our bodies—it would not be considered proper; you'll soon get over it"—but Chundango's eyes were gleaming with revenge.
"Ah!" he said, drawing his breath with a sibilant sound, "everybody in London shall hear how I have got over it."
"Nobody would believe you, and you would only be laughed at. Lady Broadhem would flatly deny it. We always do deny those little episodes. My good innocent Chundango, how much you have to learn, and how simple and guileless they are in your native country to what we are here! No, no! come with me; I will do the best for everybody, and send you back to your mother dutiful and repentant—you had no business ever to desert her;" and I rang the bell.
"Tell Lady Broadhem," I said to Drippings, "that I have gone with Mr Chundango into the City, and will call again to-morrow." I took Chundango straight to Bodwinkle's, and found the millionaire in close confabulation with Spiffy Goldtip. Between them was the address to the electors of Shuffleborough, with which my readers are already familiar.
"We must alter it slightly," said Spiffy as I entered.
"What! haven't you issued it yet?" I asked.
"No," he said; "we were just going to send it out to-day."
"Then I am in time to stop you. Your address, Spiffy, so outraged Stepton, that he has determined to stand himself, and neither you nor Bodwinkle have a chance; so I would advise you to keep that document back," I said, turning to Bodwinkle, who looked dumbfounded and crestfallen.
"A nice mess you have got me into between you," he said, sulkily gazing at us both.
"Spiffy has, but my turn has yet to come. Bodwinkle, I think you know more of Mr Chundango's affairs than any one else; in fact, I suppose you have what the tradesmen call 'a little account' between you. He wishes to say a few words confidentially to you, while I want to have a moment alone with Spiffy."
"You know all about him?" I said, nodding towards Chundango.
"Collapsed, hasn't he?" said Spiffy.
"Yes," I said, "but it won't be known for a day or two. At present he is Lord Scilly's nominee. Bodwinkle wants a borough. He may either ignore his last programme, as it is not yet issued, and adopt Scilly's political views, or, if he is too conscientious, when Chundango retires at the last moment, he may snatch the seat. All that is your affair—you know Scilly and Bodwinkle both better than I do. Now I have reasons for wanting Chundango shipped back at once to Bombay, and for wishing to close this long-standing affair of Lady Broadhem's with Bodwinkle. Make the best terms you can for Chundango, and see what Bodwinkle is disposed to do in the other matter; and let me know the result to-morrow. Keep Chundango here now to refer to. Good-bye, Bodwinkle," I called out; "Spiffy has got some good news to give you, but be merciful to our friend here," and I passed my arm through Chundango's and drew him to a corner. "Now, look here," I said, in a whisper, "if you will bury the recollection of what has passed between you and Lady Broadhem, and never breathe a word of it even in your dreams, I will get Bodwinkle to start you again in Bombay, but you must go back at once and stay there. Now you may stay here, for you will be wanted." I saw Spiffy meantime imparting to Bodwinkle his projects for turning to account the new prospects I had been the means of opening out to him.
"Dear me," I thought, as I for the second time that day threaded my way westwards from the City, "all this is unravelling itself very neatly, considering how much dirt is mixed up in it, but it is not quite far enough advanced to be communicated to Grandon." The fact is, I had a sort of suspicion that he would not altogether approve of my mode of carrying my point, even when my only desire was to secure his and Ursula's happiness. No, I thought; he would have scruples, and object, and bother. I won't tell him anything till it is all done; but I must tell him something, as I promised him some good news to-day, and he is waiting at home on purpose.
"Well, old fellow, I think I have got a borough for you, after all. It stupidly did not occur to me before, but you are just the man for the constituency."
"I thought you had been to Lady Broadhem's, and were to bring me back some good news," said Grandon, with a disappointed air.
"So I have," I replied, "but I am bound to secrecy for another twenty-four hours; meantime, listen! I am going to retire from Dunderhead. I wrote my address a few days ago, but did not send it. They are therefore quite unprepared. I will retire to-morrow; the nomination is to be in two or three days; and what with the suddenness of the affair and my influence, your return is certain."
"You going to retire!" said Grandon, astounded. "Why, you never told me of this. When did you make up your mind?"
"It made itself up, as it always does," I said, laughing. "It never puts me in the painful position of having to decide, but takes its own line at once. I am going to America by the next steamer." Now, when I tell my readers that when I began to talk to Grandon I had no intention whatever of going to America, they will be able to form some idea, if they have not done so already, of what a funny mind mine is. It came upon me with the irresistible force of an inspiration, and from that moment I was morally booked and bound at all hazards to go.
Grandon knew me so well that he was less surprised than he might have been, and only sighed deeply. He felt at that moment that there was something hopelessly wrong about me. He had been so often encouraged by a certain steadiness which I maintained for some time, and which led him to think me changed, and so often disappointed; for when he least expected it I broke the slender fetters of common-sense and conventionalism, which he and society between them had woven round me, and went off at a tangent.
"Never mind, old fellow," I said, laughing, "there is no use sighing over me. I have pleasures and satisfactions arising from within that I should not have if I was like everybody else. Now, for instance:"—and the eagerness and turmoil which my new project excited within me seemed to reduce every other consideration to insignificance, for I began to feel conscious that, somehow or other, though I had often been in America before, this time it was to be to me a newer world than ever.
"Are you going alone?" said Grandon; for I had not finished my sentence.
"No," I said; and I guessed who my companion was to be, though no words had been exchanged between us.
"Whoisgoing with you?" he asked, wonderingly, for my manner struck him, and I scarcely heard his question, so wrapt at that instance seemed all my faculties. I think I fell asleep and dreamt, but I can't recall exactly what I seemed to see. Grandon was shaking me, I thought, in the most heartless manner, and I told him as much when I opened my eyes. The fact was, I was a little knocked up with excitement; but I would not go and lie down till he promised me to stand for Dunderhead. Then I went to bed, and did not get up till the lamps were being lighted in Piccadilly.
The result of such irregular hours was that I was in bed next morning when Spiffy Goldtip knocked at my bedroom-door. He had worked very hard in Lady Broadhem's interest, and explained to me the scheme which he had arranged with Bodwinkle, by means of which, at a very considerable sacrifice of my own capital, I could start Lady Broadhem and her son afresh in the world, on a very limited income, but devoid of encumbrances of a threatening or embarrassing nature. I would far rather have invested the same amount in securing a larger income to Grandon and Ursula, if they were ever destined to be united; but I knew that, in the first place, nothing would induce them to take it from me; and in the second, that I could only even now hope to extort Lady Broadhem's consent to the match by the prospect I was enabled to hold out to her of a period of financial repose. After all, my own wants were moderate, and £15,000 a-year satisfied them as well as £20,000.
"We accomplished great things yesterday," said Spiffy, rubbing his hands gleefully, for he had himself benefited by the settlement above alluded to. "When I showed Bodwinkle that we could make the Scilly boroughs a certainty, he behaved like a gentleman, and our friend Chundango is to go out to Bombay by the next mail, under more favourable conditions than he could have possibly expected. Of course I shall retire from contesting Shuffleborough to the more congenial atmosphere of Homburg. Heigho!" sighed Spiffy, "I have gone through a good deal of wear and tear this season, and want to recruit."
I got rid of Spiffy as soon as I had heard what he had to say, and I was so satisfied with his intelligence that I determined at once to see Grandon, and to take him with me to Lady Broadhem's. "Grandon," I said, abruptly entering his room, "I want you to come with me at once to Grosvenor Square."
"Did Lady Broadhem tell you to ask me?" He looked up with such a sad, wistful gaze as he said this, that my heart melted towards him, for I felt I had spoken roughly; so I drew a chair close to him, and, sitting by his side, placed my arm in his as we did in the old school-days.
"My dear old fellow, the moment is come for you to prove your friendship by trusting me thoroughly. I know how rudely Lady Broadhem has always behaved to you whenever you have met—I know how my conduct has perplexed and grieved you. Well, now, I have come to ask you to forgive us both."
"I have nothing to forgive; but it would be an utter want of taste in me to go there unless she expects me, and wishes to see me, and I can hardly hope that," he said, with a forced smile.
For a moment I doubted whether I dared to risk it, but I had placed Lady Broadhem in a position upon which I could venture a good deal, and I longed for the triumph and gratification of enjoying the success of my own handiwork. It would be a triumph full of alloy, but I wanted to see how much I could achieve and—bear; so my hesitation vanished.
"I will take the responsibility on myself," I said; "and believe me, I would not urge it if I was not perfectly certain that I was doing what is right. Remember how many times I have blindly followed your advice. I only ask you this once to follow mine, and secure your own happiness."
The temptation was too strong, and Grandon yielded; but it was with a reluctant, doubtful step that he approached the door he had not this year ventured to enter. It was opened by Drippings, and I took the opportunity of having a little private conversation with him in the hall, in the course of which it was arranged that he should exchange her ladyship's service for mine, and accompany me to America: the truth is, I proposed settling him there, and making him send for his wife and family. He knew too much of Lady Broadhem's affairs to be at all a desirable domestic either to herself or to her friends in this country.
"Lady Broadhem is in her own sitting-room, my lord," said Drippings; "shall I show your lordship up to her?"
"No; if there is nobody in the drawing-room, take us there first. Now, Grandon, I will send for you when you are wanted; keep quiet, and don't get impatient;" and I left him and knocked at Lady Broadhem's door.
The events of the last twenty-four hours had told upon her, and the old wrinkles had come back, with several new ones. She was at that critical age when a great grief or anxiety can make an elderly person antiquated in a night—just as hair will turn grey in a few hours. She put out her hand without speaking, but with an expression of resignation which seemed to say, "I acknowledge myself beaten; be a brute or anything else you like; trample upon me, pray—I am down without the possibility of retaliating, but you will get very little sport out of me; badger me if you like, I don't mean to show fight." All this I read in her face as plainly as if she had said it; and I thought this a moment when generosity on the part of the victor will prove one to be a true strategist; and no one will appreciate it more than Lady Broadhem. With great gentleness, and without allowing a shade of self-satisfaction to cross my face or to penetrate my tones, I told her how I had propitiated Bodwinkle, banished Chundango, provided for Drippings, and succeeded at last in placing her affairs generally on a sound footing.
"Your genius will never be appreciated by the world, Frank," she said, smiling half ironically, half sadly.
"I am quite aware of that," I replied; "nor will this record of my experiences in it—except by you and one or two others who know how true it is. And now, Lady Broadhem, you know the wish which is nearest my heart, but which I don't venture to put in words,"—and I held out my hand.
"Yes," she said—and I saw the slender nostril dilate with the effort it cost her to yield the point upon which she had been so long inflexible—"you want my consent to Ursula's marriage with Grandon. I give it."
"Wait a minute; I should like Lady Ursula to be present," I said; for even now I did not feel that I could trust the old lady thoroughly, and I rang the bell. It was delightful to see how submissively Lady Broadhem sent for Lady Ursula, and how kindly she greeted both son and daughter as they entered, for Broadhem accompanied his sister.
"I have sent for you, my dear," she said, "to tell you how much we owe to our kind friend here, who has completely relieved my mind from all those anxieties which have been weighing upon it for the last few years, by his noble and generous conduct. Ursula, dear, you will never know really how much you owe him, for he has shown me that I have not done my duty to you as a mother;" and Lady Broadhem's voice trembled. "Upon my word," I thought, "I do believe the old woman is sincere;" and I looked at her fixedly. The tears were filling her eyes. Now pray heaven that we have got to heart at last—it is like sinking a well in a thirsty desert, and coming on water. Yes, there they are welling out, honest large drops, chasing each other to the point of her nose. Oh, my dear Lady Broadhem, I am beginning to love you, and my eyes are beginning to swim too; and before she knew where she was, I threw my arms round her neck and kissed her—an example which was rapidly followed both by Ursula and Broadhem, and which so overcame their mother that she buried her face in a pillow and sobbed out—in tears that might at first have been bitter, but were assuredly sweet and refreshing at last—her repentance. I don't think Broadhem had any very definite idea why he wept, beyond a feeling of sympathy with his mother, and the fact, which I afterwards heard, that Wild Harrie had taken Spiffy's advice, and refused him; so he mingled his tears with hers, but Lady Ursula's eyes were dry and supernaturally brilliant. As I gazed on the group, my own heart seemed to swell to bursting. I do really believe and trust that Lady Broadhem will give up the worldly-holies, and become a pious good woman; and that those talents and that force of character which she possesses may be dedicated to a higher service than they have heretofore been. If I have been the humble instrument of working the change, the sooner I send Grandon here and vanish myself from the scene, the better, or I shall become vain and conceited, I thought; and I rose from my seat.
"Good-bye, Lady Broadhem," I said, "you will not see me again. I am going to America in three days, and must go to Flityville to-morrow; but I never thought I could have bid you all farewell and felt so happy at the prospect of parting;" and I threw one yearning glance on Ursula in spite of myself. "Your happiness is secured, I do most firmly believe," I said to her; "and as for you," and I laid my hand on Broadhem's shoulder, "remember the experiment I proposed to you the other night, and try it;" and I was moving off when Ursula seized my hand, and almost dragged me back to her mother's side. She lifted up her eyes like one inspired, and the radiancy of her expression seemed to dazzle and blind me. Then she knelt down, and I knelt by her side, while her mother lay before us, her whole frame heaving with convulsive sobs, and Broadhem stood by wondering and awestruck. I can't repeat that prayer here, but there was a power in those gentle accents which stilled the stormy elements, as the waves of the sea were once stilled before; and when the thrilling voice ceased there was a great calm, and we knew that a change had been affected in that place. Then the floodgates were opened which had been to that moment barred, and Lady Ursula threw herself on her mother's bosom, and wept tears of gratitude, and I stole silently away to the drawing-room, and led Grandon by the hand, without uttering a word, to that room into which a new atmosphere had descended, and a new breath had called into existence a new nature. He started back on the threshold at the picture before him. Lady Broadhem, apparently scarcely conscious, clasped in the arms of her weeping daughter; and Broadhem—poor Broadhem—bewildered at the sight of the strong woman he had dreaded and worshipped thus suddenly breaking down, was sitting on a footstool at his mother's side, holding one of her hands, helplessly.
"Good God! Frank," said Grandon, in a whisper, for neither Lady Broadhem nor her daughter saw us, "what have you been doing?"
"Beginning the work which is left for you to finish;" and I gently disengaged one of Lady Ursula's hands, and drew it towards me. "On you," I said to her solemnly, "has been bestowed a great gift; use it as you have done, and may he share it with you, and support you in the lifelong trial it must involve, and in the ridicule to which you will both be exposed. For myself, I go to seek it where I am told I shall alone find it." I placed her hand in Grandon's, kissed her mother on the forehead, and hurried from the room. Then the strain on my nervous system suddenly relaxed. I am conscious of Drippings helping me into a cab, and going with me to Piccadilly, and of one coming in and finding me stretched on my bed, and of his lifting me from it by a single touch, just as Drippings was going off in quest of the doctor. It was he who had met me that night when I was walking with Broadhem, but his name I am unable to divulge. "Stay here, my friend," he said to Drippings, "and pack your master's things: there is no need for the doctor; I will take him to America." And my heart leaped within me, for its predictions were verified, and the path lay clear before me.
And now, on this last night in England, as I pen the last lines of this record of my life during the six months that are past, and look back to the spirit in which it was begun, and examine the influences which impelled me to write as I have, I see that I too have undergone a change, and that the time has come when, if I wished, I can no more descant as heretofore on the faults and foibles of the day. Among those who have read me there may be some who have so well understood, that they will see why this is so. If in what I have said I have hurt the feelings of any man or woman in my desire to expose the vices of society at large, they will be of those who have failed to detect why I have said thus much, and needs must stop here; but none the less earnestly would I assure them that it has been against my will and intention to wound any one. As I began because I could not help it, so I end because I am obliged. My task is done. The seed which I found in my hand, such as it was, I have sown. Whether it rots and dies in the ground, or springs up and brings forth fruit, is a matter in which I cannot, and ought not, to have the smallest personal interest.