CHAPTER XXI. A FAMILY PICTURE
THE fashionable life of a great city has a character of sameness which defies all attempts at portraiture. Well-bred people, and their amusements, are all constructed so perfectly alike, certain family traits pervading them throughout, that every effort at individualization is certain to be a failure. You may change the venue, if you will, from London to Paris, to Vienna, or St. Petersburg, but the issue is always the same; the very same interests are at work, and the same passions exercised, by the self-same kind of people. If such be the rule among the first-rate capitals of Europe, it is very far from being the case in those smaller cities which belong to inferior States, and which, from reasons of health, pleasure, or economy, are the resort of strangers from different parts of the world. In these society is less disciplined, social rank less defined; conflicting claims and rival nationalities disturb the scene, and there is, so to say, a kind of struggle for pre-eminence, which in better regulated communities is never witnessed. If, as is unquestionably true, such places rarely present the attractions of good society, they offer to the mere observer infinitely more varied and amusing views of life than he would ever expect to see elsewhere. As in the few days of a revolution, when the “barricades are up,” and all hurrying to the conflict, more of national character will be exhibited than in half a century of tame obedience to the law; so here are displayed, to the sun and the noonday, all those passions and pretensions which rarely see the light in other places.
The great besetting sin of this social state is the taste for NOTORIETY. Everything must contribute to this. Not alone wealth, splendor, rank, and genius, but vice, in all its shapes and forms, must be notorious. “Better be calumniated in all the moods and tenses than untalked of,” is the grand axiom. Do something that can be reported of you, good, if you will, bad, if you must; but do it. If you be not rich enough to astonish by the caprices of your wealth, do something by your wits, or even your whiskers. The color of a man's gloves has sufficed to make his fortune.
Upon this strange ocean, which, if rarely storm-shaken, was never perfectly tranquil, the Onslows were now launched, as well pleased as people usually are who, from being of third or fourth-rate importance in their own country, suddenly awake to the fact that they are celebrities abroad.
The Mazzarini Palace had long been untenanted; its last occupant had been one of the Borghese family, whose princely fortune was still unable to maintain the splendor of a residence fitted only for royalty. To learn, therefore, that a rich “milordo” had arrived there with the intention of passing his winter, was a piece of news that occupied every tongue in the city. Gossips were questioned about the private history, the peerage consulted for such facts as were public. Sir Stafford's wealth was actively discussed, and all possible inroads upon it his son's extravagance might have made debated and decided on. A minute investigation into their probable reasons for leaving England was also instituted, in which conjectures far more ingenious than true figured prominently. What they were like what they said, did, and meant to do was the sole table-talk of the capital.
“They've had their horses out from England,” said one; “They 've taken the best box at the Pergola,” said another; “They've engaged Midchekoff's cook,” said a third; “They 've been speaking to Gridani about his band,” chimed in a fourth; and so on. All their proceedings were watched and followed by that eager vulturehood which hungers for ortolans, and thirsts for iced champagne.
Nor were the Onslows without offering food for this curious solicitude. From the hour of her arrival, Lady Hester had been deeply engaged, in concert with her grand vizier, Albert Jekyl, in preparations for the coming campaign. An army of upholsterers, decorators, and such-like, beset the Palazzo with enormous vans crammed full of wares. Furniture, that had served royal guests, and was even yet in high preservation, was condemned, to give way to newer and more costly decoration. Rich stuffs and hangings that had been the admiration of many a visitor, were ruthlessly pulled down, to be replaced by even more gorgeous materials; till at last it was whispered about that, except some antique cabinets, the pictures, and a few tables of malachite or marble, little or nothing remained of what once constituted the splendor of the place.
These were mere rumors, however; for as yet, none, save Albert Jekyl himself, had seen the interior; and from him, unless disposed to accord it, all Confidence was hopeless. Indeed, his little vague stare when questioned; his simpering, “I shouldn't wonder,” “It is very likely,” or “Now that you mention it, I begin to think so too,” would have disarmed the suspicion of all who had not studied him deeply. What the Onslows were going to do, and when they would do it, were, then, the vexed questions of every coterie. In a few days more the Carnival would begin, and yet no announcement of their intentions had yet gone forth, no programme of future festivities been issued to the world. A vague and terrible fear began to prevail that it was possible they meant all these splendid preparations for themselves alone. Such a treason was incredible at first; but as day followed day, and no sign was made, suspicion ripened into actual dread; and now the eager expectants began to whisper among themselves dark reasons for a conduct so strange and inexplicable.
Haggerstone contributed his share to these mysterious doublings, for, while not confessing that his acquaintance with the Onslows was of the very slightest, and dated but from a week before, he spoke of them with all the affected ease and information of one who had known them for years.
Nor were his comments of the most flattering kind, for seeing how decidedly every effort he made to renew acquaintance was met by a steady opposition, he lost no time in assuming his stand as enemy. The interval of doubt which had occurred as to their probable mode of life was favorable for this line of action. None knew if they were ever to partake of the splendor and magnificence of the Mazzarini; none could guess what chance they had of the sumptuous banquets of the rich man's table. It was a lottery, in which, as yet, they had not even a ticket; and what so natural as to depreciate the scheme!
If the courts of law and equity be the recognized tribunals by which the rights of property are decided, so there exists in every city certain not less decisive courts, which pronounce upon all questions of social claims, and deliver judgments upon the pretensions of every new arrival amongst them. High amid the number of these was a certain family called Ricketts, who had been residents of Florence for thirty-odd years back. They consisted of three persons, General Ricketts, his wife, and a maiden sister of the General. They inhabited a small house in a garden within the boulevard, dignified by the name of the “41 Villino Zoe.” It had originally been the humble residence of a market-gardener, but, by the aid of paint and plaster, contrived to impose upon the world almost as successfully as did the fair owner herself by the help of similar adjuncts. A word, however, for the humanities before we speak of their abiding-place. The “General” Heaven alone knew when, where, or in what service he became so was a small, delicate little man, with bland manners, a weak voice, a weak stomach, and a weaker head; his instincts all mild, gentle, and inoffensive, and his whole pursuit in life a passion for inventing fortifications, and defending passes and tetes-du-pont by lines, circumvallations, and ravelins, which cost reams of paper and whole buckets of water-color to describe. The only fire which burned within his nature was a little flickering flame of hope, that one day the world would awake to the recognition of his great discoveries, and his name be associated with those of Vauban and Carnot. Sustained by this, he bore up against contemporary neglect and actual indifference; he whispered to himself, that, like Nelson, he would one day “have a gazette of his own,” and in this firm conviction, he went on with rule and compass, measuring and daubing and drawing from morn till night, happy, humble, and contented: nothing could possibly be more inoffensive than such an existence. Even the French our natural enemies or the Russians our Palmerstonian Betes noires would have forgiven, had they but seen, the devices of his patriotism. Never did heroic ardor burn in a milder bosom, for, though his brain revelled in all the horrors of siege and slaughter, he would not have had the heart to crush a beetle.
Unlike him in every respect was the partner of his joys: a more bustling, plotting, scheming existence it was hard to conceive. Most pretenders are satisfied with aspiring to one crown; her ambitions were “legion.” When Columbus received the taunts of the courtiers on the ease of his discovery, and merely replied, that the merit lay simply in the fact that he alone had made it, he was uttering a truth susceptible of very wide application. Nine tenths of the inventions which promote the happiness or secure the ease of mankind have been not a whit more difficult than that of balancing the egg. They only needed that some one should think of them “practically.” Thousands may have done so in moods of speculation or fancy; the grand requisite was a practical intelligence. Such was Mrs. Ricketts's. As she had seen at Naples the lava used for mere road-making, which in other hands, and by other treatment, might have been fashioned into all the shapes and colors of Bohemian glass, so did she perceive that a certain raw material was equally misapplied and devoted to base uses, but which, by the touch of genius, might be made powerful as the wand of an enchanter. This was “Flattery.” Do not, like the Spanish courtiers, my dear reader, do not smile at her discovery, nor suppose that she had been merely exploring an old and exhausted mine. Her flattery was not, as the world employs it, an exaggerated estimate of existing qualities, but a grand poetic and creative power, that actually begot the great sublime it praised. Whatever your walk, rank, or condition in life, she instantly laid hold of it to entrap you. No matter what your size, stature, or symmetry, she could costume you in a minute! Her praises, like an elastic-web livery, fitted all her slaves; and slaves were they of the most abject slavery, who were led by the dictation of her crafty intelligence!
A word about poor Martha, and we have done; nor, indeed, is there any need we should say more than that she was universally known as “Poor Martha” by all their acquaintance. Oh! what patience, submission, and long suffering it takes before the world will confer its degree of Martyr, before they will condescend to visit, even with so cheap a thing as compassion, the life of an enduring self-devotion. Martha had had but one idol all her life, her brother; and although, when he married late in years, she had almost died broken-hearted at the shock, she clung to him and his fortunes, unable to separate from one to whose habits she had been ministering for above thirty years. It was said that originally she was a person of good common faculties, and a reasonably fair knowledge of the world; but to see her at the time of which we now speak, not a vestige remained of either, not a stone marked where the edifice once stood. Nor can this ba matter of wonderment. Who could have passed years amid all the phantasmagoria of that unreal existence, and either not gone clean mad, or made a weak compromise with sanity, by accepting everything as real? Poor Martha had exactly these two alternatives, either to “believe the crusts mutton,” or be eternally shut out from all hope. Who can tell the long and terrible struggle such a mind must have endured? what little bursts of honest energy repelled by fear and timidity? what good intentions baffled by natural humility, and the affection she bore her brother?
It may have nay, it did cost her much to believe this strange creed of her sister-in-law; but she ended by doing so. So implicit was her faith, that, like a true devotee, she would not trust the evidence of her own senses, if opposed by the articles of her belief. The very pictures at whose purchase she had been present, and whose restoration and relacquering had been the work of her own hands, she was willing to aver had been the gifts of royal and princely personages. The books for which she had herself written to the publishers, she would swear all tributes offered by the respective writers to the throne of taste and erudition. Every object with whose humble birth and origin she was familiar, was associated in her mind with some curious history, which, got off by rote, she repeated with full credulity. Like the well-known athlete, who lifted a bull because he had accustomed himself to the feat since the animal had been a calf, rising from small beginnings, she had so educated her faculties that now nothing was above her powers. Not all the straits and contrivances by which this motley display was got up, not all the previous schemings and plottings, not all the discussions as to what King or Kaiser this should be attributed, by what artist that was painted, who carved this cup, who enamelled that vase, could shake the firmness of her faith when the matter was once decided. She might oppose the Bill in every stage; she might cavil at it in Committee, and divide on every clause; but when it once became law, she revered it as a statute of the land. All her own doubts faded away on the instant; all her former suggestions vanished at once; a new light seemed to break on her mind, and she appeared to see with the eyes of truth and discernment. We have been led away beyond our intention in this sketch, and have no space to devote to that temple wherein the mysteries were celebrated. Enough if we say that it was small and ill-arranged, its discomfort increased by the incongruous collection of rare and curious objects by which it was filled. Stuffed lions stood in the hall; mock men in armor guarded the entrance to the library; vast glass cases of mineralogical wealth, botanical specimens, stuffed birds, impaled butterflies, Indian weapons, Etrurian cups, Irish antiquities, Chinese curiosities, covered the walls on every side. Not a specimen amongst them that could not trace its presentation to some illustrious donor. Miniatures of dear, dear friends everywhere; and what a catholic friendship was that which included every one, from Lord Byron to Chalmers, and took in the whole range of morals, from Mrs. Opie to Fanny Elssler. Indeed, although the fair Zoe was a “rigid virtue,” her love of genius, her “mind-worship,” as she called it, often led her into strange intimacies with that intellectual class whose strength lies in pirouettes, and whose gifts are short petticoats. In a word, whatever was “notorious” was her natural prey; a great painter, a great radical, a great basso, a great traveller; any one to lionize, anything to hang history upon; to enlist, even “for one night only,” in that absurd comedy which was performed at her house, and to display among her acquaintances as another in that long catalogue of those who came to lay the tribute of their genius at her feet.
That a large section of society was disposed to be rude and ungenerous enough to think her a bore, is a fact that we are, however unwilling, obliged to confess; but her actual influence was little affected by the fact. The real serious business of life is often carried on in localities surrounded by innumerable inconveniences. Men buy and sell their millions, subsidize states, and raise loans in dens dark and dismal enough to be prison-cells. In the same way, the Villino was a recognized rendezvous of all who wanted to hear what was going on in the world, and who wished to be d la hauteur of every current scandal of the day. Not that such was ever the tone of the conversation; on the contrary, it was “all taste and the musical glasses,” the “naughty talk” being the mere asides of the scene.
Now, in that season of foreign life which precedes the Carnival, and on those nights when there is no opera, any one benevolent enough to open his doors to receive is sure of full houses; so the Villino “improved the occasion,” by announcing a series of Tuesdays and Fridays, which were, as the papers say, frequented by all the rank and fashion of the metropolis. It is at one of these “at homes” that we would now present our reader, not, indeed, during the full moon of the reception, when the crowded rooms, suffocating with heat, were crammed with visitors, talking in every tongue of Europe, and every imaginable dialect of each. The great melee tournament was over, and a few lingered over the now empty lists, discussing in familiar converse the departed guests and the events of the evening.
This privy council consisted of the reader's old acquaintance, Haggerstone, a Russo-Polish Count Petrolaffski, a dark, sallow-skinned, odd-looking gentleman, whose national predilections had raised him to the rank of an enemy to the Emperor, but whose private resources, it was rumored, came from the Imperial treasury to reward his services as a spy; a certain Mr. Scroope Purvis, the brother of Mrs. Ricketts, completing the party. He was a little, rosy-cheeked old man, with a limp and a stutter, perpetually running about retailing gossip, which, by some accident or other, he invariably got all wrong, never, on even the most trifling occasion, being able to record a fact as it occurred.
Such were the individuals of a group which sat around the fire in close and secret confab., Mrs. Ricketts herself placed in the midst, her fair proportions gracefully disposed in a chair whose embroidery displayed all the quarterings and emblazonment of her family for centuries back. The “Bill” before the house was the Onslows, whose res gestee were causing a most intense interest everywhere.
“Have dey return your call, madam?” asked the Pole, with an almost imperceptible glance beneath his dark brows.
“Not yet, Count; we only left our cards yesterday.” This, be it said in parenthesis, was “inexact,” the visit had been made eight days before. “Nor should we have gone at all, but Lady Foxington begged and entreated we would. 'They will be so utterly without guidance of any kind,' she said, 'you must really take them in hand.'”
“And you will take dem in your hand eh?”
“That depends, my dear Count, that depends,” said she, pondering. “We must see what line they adopt here; rank and wealth have no influence with us if ununited with moral and intellectual excellence.”
“I take it, then, your circle will be more select than amusing this winter,” said Haggerstone, with one of his whip-cracking enunciations.
“Be it so, Colonel,” sighed she, plaintively. “Like a lone beacon on a rock, with I forget the quotation.”
“With the phos-phos-phos-phate of lime upon it?” said Purvis, “that new discov-co-covery?”
“With no such thing! A figure is, I perceive, a dangerous mode of expression.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” cried he, with a peculiar cackle, whose hysteric notes always carried himself into the seventh heaven of enjoyment, “you would cut a pretty figure if you were to be made a beacon of, and be burned like Moses. Ha! ha! ha!”
The lady turned from him in disdain, and addressed the Colonel.
“So you really think that they are embarrassed, and that is the true reason of their coming abroad?”
“I believe I may say I know it, ma'am!” rejoined he. “There is a kind of connection between our families, although I should be very sorry they 'd hear of it, the Badelys and the Harringtons are first cousins.”
“Oh, to be sure!” broke in Purvis. “Jane Harrington was father; no, no, not father she was mo-mo-mother of Tom Badely; no! that is n't it, she was his aunt, or his brother-in-law, I forget which.”
“Pray be good enough, sir, not to involve a respectable family in a breach of common law,” said Haggerstone, tartly, “and leave the explanation to me.”
“How I do dislike dat English habit of countin' cousins,” said the Pole; “you never see tree, four English togeder without a leetle tree of genealogie in de middle, and dey do sit all round, fighting for de fruit.”
“Financial reasons, then, might dictate retirement,” said Mrs. Ricketts, coming back to the original theme.
A very significant nod from Haggerstone inferred that he concurred in the remark.
“Four contested elections for a county, ma'am, a spendthrift wife, and a gambling son, rarely increase a man's income,” said he, sententiously.
“Do he play? What for play is he fond of?” asked the Pole, eagerly.
“Play, sir? There is nothing an Englishman will not play at, from the turf, to tossing for sovereigns.”
“So Hamlet say, in Shakspeare, 'de play is de ting,'” cried the Count, with the air of a man who made a happy quotation.
“They are going to have plays,” broke in Purvis; “Jekyl let it out to-night. They 're going to get up a Vauvau-vau-vau—”
“A tete de veau, probably, sir,” said Haggerstone; “In which case,” continued he, in a whisper, “you would be invaluable.”
“No, it is n't that,” broke in Purvis; “they are to have what they call Proverbs.”
“I trust they have engaged your services as Solomon, sir,” said Haggerstone, with that look of satisfaction which always followed an impudent speech.
“I heard the subject of one of them,” resumed the other, who was far too occupied with his theme to bestow a thought upon a sarcasm. “There's a lady in love with with with her Mam-mam-mam—”
“Her mamma,” suggested the Pole.
“No, it is n't her mamma; it's her Mam-ame-ameluke her Mameluke slave; and he, who is a native prince, with a great many wives of his own—”
“Oh, for shame, Scroope, you forget Martha is here,” said Mrs. Ricketts, who was always ready to suppress the bore by a call to order on the score of morals.
“It isn't wrong, I assure you; just hear me out; let me only explain—”
“There, pray don't insist, I beg you,” said Mrs. Ricketts, with a regal wave of her hand.
“Why, it's Miss Dalton is to play it, Jekyl says,” cried Purvis, in a tone of most imploring cadence.
“And who may Miss Dalton be?” asked Mrs. Ricketts.
“She is the niece no, she's the aunt or rather her father is aunt to to—”
“He may be an old lady, sir; but, surely—”
“Oh, I have it now!” broke in Purvis. “It was her mother; Miss Da-a-alton's mother was uncle to a Stafford.”
“Perhaps I can shorten the pedigree,” said Haggerstone, tartly. “The young lady is the daughter of a man whom this same Sir Stafford tricked out of his fortune; they were distant relatives, so he had n't even the plea of blood-relationship to cover his iniquity. It was, however, an Irish fortune, and, like a Spanish chateau, its loss is more a question of feeling than of fact. The lawyers still say that Dalton's right is unimpeachable, and that the Onslows have not even the shadow of a case for a jury.”
“An' have de lady no broder nor sister?” asked the Count, who had heard this story with much attention.
“She has, sir, both brother and sister, but both illegitimate, so that this girl is the heiress to the estate.”
“And probably destined to be the wife of the young Guardsman,” said Mrs. Ricketts.
“Guessed with your habitual perspicuity, madam,” said Haggerstone, bowing.
“How very shocking! What worldliness one sees everywhere!” cried she, plaintively.
“The world is excessively worldly, madam,” rejoined Haggerstone; “but I really believe that we are not a jot worse than were the patriarchs of old.”
“Ah, oui, les patriarches!” echoed the Pole, laughing, and always ready to seize upon an allusion that savored of irreverence.
“Count! Colonel Haggerstone!” cried Mrs. Ricketts, in reproof, and with a look to where Martha sat at her embroidery-frame. “And this Miss Dalton is she pretty?”
“She is pretty at this moment, madam; but, with a clever hairdresser and a good milliner, would be downright beautiful. Of course these are adjuncts she is little likely to find during her sojourn with the Onslows.”
“Poor thing! how glad one would be to offer her a kinder asylum,” said Mrs. Ricketts, while she threw her eyes over the cracked china monsters and mock Vandykes around her; “a home,” added she, “where intellectuality and refinement might compensate for the vulgar pleasures of mere wealth!”
“She may want such, one of these days, yet, or I'm much mistaken,” said Haggerstone. “Onslow has got himself very deep in railway speculations; he has heavy liabilities in some Mexican mining affairs too. They 've all been living very fast; and a crash a real crash” this word he gave with a force of utterance that only malignity could compass “is almost certain to follow! What an excellent stable will come to the hammer then! There 's a 'Bone setter' colt worth a thousand guineas, with his engagements.”
And now there was a little pause in the dialogue, while each followed out the thoughts of his own mind. Haggerstoue's were upon the admirable opportunity of picking up a first-rate batch of horses for a fourth of their value; Mrs. Ricketts was pondering over the good policy of securing possession of a rich heiress as a member of her family, to be held in bondage as long as possible, and eventually if it must be given in marriage to some unprovided-for cousin; the Pole's dreams were of a rich wife; and Purvis, less ambitious than the rest, merely revelled in the thought of all the gossip this great event, when it should come off, would afford him; the innumerable anecdotes he would have to retail of the family and their wastefulness; the tea-parties he should enliven by his narratives; the soirees he would amuse with his sallies. Blessed gift of imbecility! how infinitely more pleasurable to its possessor than all the qualities and attributes of genius!
“Dat is ver pretty indeed, tres jolie!” said the Count, bestowing a look of approval at the embroidery-frame, whereupon, for eight mortal months, poor Martha labored at the emblazonment of the Ricketts' arms; “de leetle dogs are as de life.”
“They are tigers, Monsieur le Comte,” replied she, modestly.
“Oh, pardon! dey are tigres!”
“Most puppies are somewhat tigerish nowadays,” chimed in Haggerstone, rising to take his leave.
“You are leaving us early, Colonel,” said the old General, as he awoke from a long nap on the little corner sofa, which formed his resting-place.
“It is past two, sir; and, even in your society, one cannot cheat time.” Then, having acquitted himself of his debt of impertinence, he wished them good-night. The others, also, took their leave and departed.