CHAPTER II.—SHOWING HOW LEWIS LOSES HIS TEMPER, AND LEAVES HIS HOME.
“Has the post come in yet, Rose?” inquired Mrs. Arundel, as she made her appearance in the breakfast-room the following morning.
“No, mamma; it is late to-day, I think.”
“It is always late when I particularly expect a letter; that old creature Richards the postman has a spite against me, I am certain, because I once said in his hearing that he looked like an owl—the imbecile!”
“Oh, mamma! he’s a charming old man, with his venerable white hair.”
“Very likely, my dear, but he’s extremely like an owl, nevertheless,” replied Mrs. Arundel, cutting bread and butter with the quickness and regularity of a steam-engine as she spoke.
“Here’s the letters, ma’am,” exclaimed Rachel, entering with a polished face beaming out of a marvellous morning cap, composed of a species of opaque muslin (or some analogous female fabric), which appeared to be labouring under a violent eruption of little thick dots, strongly suggestive of small-pox. “Here’s the letters, ma’am. If you please, I can’t get Mr. Lewis out of bed nohow, though I’ve knocked at his door three times this here blessed morning; and the last time he made a noise at me in French, or some other wicked foreigneering lingo; which is what I won’t put up with—no! not if you was to go down upon your bended knees to me without a hassock.”
“Give me the letters, Rachel,” said Mrs. Arundel eagerly.
“Letters, indeed!” was the reply, as, with an indignant toss of the head, Rachel, whose temper appeared to have been soaked in vinegar during the night, flung the wished-for missives upon the table. “Letters, indeed! them’s all as you care about, and not a poor gal as slaves and slaves, and gets insulted for her trouble; but I’m come to——”
“You’re come to bring the toast just at the right moment,” said Lewis, who had approached unobserved, “and you’re going down to give Faust his breakfast; and he is quite ready for it, too, poor fellow!”
As he spoke, a marvellous change seemed to come over the temper and countenance of Rachel: her ideas, as she turned to leave the room, may be gathered from the following soliloquy, which appeared to escape her unawares:—“He’s as ’andsome as a duke, let alone his blessed father; but them was shocking words for a Christian with a four years’ carikter to put up with.”
During Rachel’s little attempt at an émeute, which the appearance of Lewis had so immediately quelled, Mrs. Arundel had been eagerly perusing a letter, which she now handed to Rose, saying, with an air of triumph, “Read that, my dear.”
“Good news, I hope, my dear mother, from your manner?” observed Lewis, interrogatively.
“Excellent news,” replied Mrs. Arundel gaily. “Show your brother the letter, Rose. Oh! that good, kind Lady Lombard!” Rose did as she was desired, but from the anxiety with which she scanned her brother’s countenance, as he hastily ran his eye over the writing, it was evident she doubted whether the effect the letter might produce upon him would be altogether of an agreeable nature. Nor was her suspicion unfounded, for as he became acquainted with its contents a storm-cloud gathered upon Lewis’s brow. The letter was as follows:—
“My dear Mrs. Arundel,—To assist the afflicted, and to relieve the unfortunate, as well by the influence of the rank and station which have been graciously entrusted to me, as by the judicious employment of such pecuniary superfluity as the munificence of my poor dear late husband has placed me in a position to disburse, has always been my motto through life. The many calls of the numerous dependents on the liberality of the late lamented Sir Pinchbeck, with constant applications from the relatives of his poor dear predecessor (the Girkins are a very large family, and some of the younger branches have turned out shocking pickles), reduce the charitable fund at my disposal to a smaller sum than, from the noble character of my last lamented husband’s will, may generally be supposed. I am, therefore, all the more happy to be able to inform you that, owing to the too high estimation in which my kind neighbours in and about Comfortown hold any recommendation of mine, I can, should you determine on settling near our pretty little town, promise you six pupils to begin with, and a prospect of many more should youi method of imparting instruction in the delightful science of music realise the very high expectations raised by my eulogium on your talents, vocal and instrumental. That such will be the case I cannot doubt, from my recollection of the touching manner in which, when we visited your sweet little cottage on our (alas! too happy) wedding trip, you and your dear departed sang, at my request, that lovely thing, ‘La ci darem la mano.’ (What a fine voice Captain Arundel had!) I dare say, with such a good memory as yours, you will remember how the late Sir Pinchbeck observed that it put him in mind of the proudest moment of his life, when at St. George’s, Hanover Square, his friend, the Very Reverend the Dean of Dinnerton, made him the happy husband of the relict of the late John Girkin. Ah! my dear madam, we widows learn to sympathise with misfortune; one does not survive two such men as the late Mr. Girkin, though he was somewhat peppery at times, and the late lamented Sir Pinchbeck Lombard, in spite of his fidgety ways and chronic cough, without feeling that a vale of tears is not desirable for a permanency. If it would be any convenience to you when you part with your cottage (I am looking out for a tenant for it) to stay with me for a week or ten days, I shall be happy to receive you, and would ask a few influential families to hear you sing some evening, which might prove useful to you. Of course I cannot expect you to part with your daughter, as she will so soon have to quit you (I mentioned her to my friend Lady Babbycome, but she was provided with a governess), and wish you to understand my invitation extends to her also.
“I am, dear Madam, ever your very sincere friend,
“Sarah Matilda Lombard.
“P.S.—Would your son like to go to Norfolk Island for fourteen years? I think I know a way of sending him free of expense. The climate is said to produce a very beneficial effect on the British constitution; and with a salary of sixty pounds a year, and an introduction to the best society the Island affords, a young man in your son’s circumstances would scarcely be justified in refusing the post of junior secretary to the governor.”
“Is the woman mad?” exclaimed Lewis impetuously, as he finished reading the foregoing letter, “or what right has she to insult us in this manner?”
“Insult us, my dear,” replied Mrs. Arundel quickly, disregarding a deprecatory look from Rose. “Lady Lombard has answered my note informing her that I wished for musical pupils with equal kindness and promptitude. Mad, indeed! she is considered a very superior woman by many people, I can assure you, and her generosity and good nature know no bounds.”
“Perish such generosity!” was Lewis’s angry rejoinder. “Is it not bitterness enough to have one’s energies cramped, one’s free-will fettered by the curse of poverty, but you must advertise our wretchedness to the world, and put it in the power of a woman, whose pride of purse and narrowness of mind stand forth in every line of that hateful letter, to buy a right to insult us with her patronage? You might at least have waited till you knew you had no other alternative left. What right have you to degrade me, by letting yourself down to sue for the charity of any one?”
“Dearest Lewis,” murmured Rose, imploringly, “remember it is mamma you are speaking to.”
“Rose, I do remember it; but it is the thought that it is my mother, my honoured father’s widow, who, by her own imprudence, to use the mildest term, has brought this insult upon us, that maddens me.”
“But, Lewis,” interposed Mrs. Arundel, equally surprised and alarmed at this unexpected outburst, “I cannot understand what all this fuss is about; I see no insult; on the contrary, Lady Lombard writes as kindly——”
An exclamation of ungovernable anger burst from Lewis, and he appeared on the point of losing all self-control, when Rose, catching his eye, glanced for a moment towards her father’s portrait. Well did she read the generous though fiery nature of him with whom she had to deal: no sooner did Lewis perceive the direction of her gaze, than, by a strong effort, he checked all further expression of his feelings, and turning towards the window, stood apparently looking out for some minutes. At length he said abruptly—
“Mother, you must forgive me; I am hot and impetuous, and all this has taken me so completely by surprise. After all, it was only my affection for you and Rose which made me resent your patronising friend’s impertinent benevolence; but the fact is, I hope and believe you have been premature in asking her assistance. I have little doubt I shall succeed in obtaining a situation or employment of some kind, which will be sufficiently lucrative to prevent the necessity of your either giving up the cottage, or being separated from Rose. I have written to Frere about it, and expect to hear from him in a day or two.”
“My dear boy, would you have us live here in idleness and luxury, while you are working yourself to death to enable us to do so?” said Mrs. Arundel, her affection for her son overcoming any feeling of anger which his opposition to her pet scheme had excited.
“I do not see that the working need involve my death,” replied Lewis. “Perhaps,” he added, with a smile, “you would prefer my embracing our Lady Patroness’s scheme of a fourteen years’ sojourn in Norfolk Island. I think I could accomplish that object without troubling anybody: I have only to propitiate the Home Office by abstracting a few silver spoons,—and Government, in its fatherly care, would send me there free of expense, and probably introduce me to the best society the Island affords, into the bargain.”
“Poor dear Lady Lombard! I must confess that part of her letter was rather absurd,” returned Mrs. Arundel; “but we must talk more about this plan of yours, Lewis; I never can consent to it.”
“You both can and will, my dear mother,” replied Lewis, playfully but firmly; “however, we will leave this matter in abeyance till I hear from Frere.”
And thus, peace being restored, they sat down to breakfast forthwith,
Lewis feeling thankful that he had restrained his anger ere it had led him to say words to his mother which he would have regretted deeply afterwards, and amply repaid for any effort it might have cost him by the bright smile and grateful pressure of the hand with which his sister rewarded him. Happy the man whose guardian angel assumes the form of such a sister and friend as Rose Arundel!
Rachel was spared the trouble of calling her young master the following morning, as, when that worthy woman, animated with the desperate courage of the leader of a forlorn hope, approached his room, determined to have him up in spite of any amount of the languages of modern Europe to which she might be exposed, she found the door open and the bird flown; the fact being that Lewis and Faust were taking a scamper across the country, to their mutual delectation, and the alarming increase of their respective appetites. Moreover, Faust, in his ignorance of the Game Laws and the Zoology of the land of his adoption, would persist in looking for a wolf in the preserves of Squire Tilbury, and while thus engaged could not resist the temptation of killing a hare, just by way of keeping his jaws in practice; owing to which little escapade he got his master into a row with an underkeeper, who required first knocking down and then propitiating by a half-sovereign before he could be brought to see the matter in a reasonable light.
This gave a little interest and excitement to his morning ramble, and Lewis returned to breakfast in a high state of health and spirits. A letter from his friend Frere awaited his arrival; it ran as follows:—
“Dear Lewis,—If you really mean what you say (and you are not the man I take you to be if you don’t), I know of just the thing to suit you. The pay is above your mark, so that’s all right; and as to the work—well, it has its disagreeables, that’s not to be gainsaid; but life is not exactly a bed of roses—or, if it is, the thorns have got the start of the flowers nine times out of ten, as you will know before long, if you have not found it out already. In these sort of matters (not that you know anything about the matter yet, but I do, which is all the same) it is half the battle to be first in the field; ergo, if £300 a year will suit your complaint, get on the top of the first coach that will bring you to town, and be with me in time for dinner. I have asked a man to meet you, who knows all about the thing I have in view for you. Pray remember me to Mrs. Arundel and your sister, although I have not as yet the pleasure of their personal acquaintance. Don’t get into the dolefuls, and fancy yourself a victim; depend upon it, you are nothing of the kind. Mutton on table at half-past six, and Faust is specially invited to eat the bone.
“So good-bye till we meet.
“Yours for ever and a day,
“Richard Frere.”
“There!” said Lews, handing the epistle to his mother, “now that’s something like a letter: Frere’s a thorough good fellow, every inch of him, and a real true friend into the bargain. I’ll take whatever it is he has found for me, if it is even to black shoes all day; you and Rose shall remain here, and Lady Lombard may go to——”
“Three hundred a year! Why, my dear Lewis, it’s quite a little fortune for you!” interrupted Mrs. Arundel delightedly.
“I wonder what the situation can be?” said Rose, regarding her brother with a look of affection and regret, as she thought how his proud spirit and sensitive nature unfitted him to contend with the calculating policy and keen-eyed selfishness of worldly men. Rose had of late been her father’s confidante, and even adviser, in some of his matters of business, and had observed the tone of civil indifference or condescending familiarity which the denizens of Vanity Fair assume towards men of broken fortunes.
“Yes,” resumed Mrs. Arundel, “as you say, Rose, what can it be? something in one of the Government offices, perhaps.”
“Curator of Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition, and Master of the Robes to the waxwork figures, more likely,” replied Lewis, laughing. “Or what say you to a civic appointment? Mace-bearer to the Lord Mayor, for instance; though I believe it requires a seven years’ apprenticeship to eating turtle soup and venison to entitle one to such an honour. Seriously, though, if Frere wishes me to take it, I will, whatever it may be, after all his kindness to me, and Faust too. Faust, mein kind! here’s an invitation for you, and a mutton bone in prospect—hold up your head, my dog, you are come to honour.” And thus Lewis rattled on, partly because the ray of sunshine that gleamed on his darkened fortunes had sufficed to raise his naturally buoyant spirits, and partly to prevent the possibility of his mother offering any effectual resistance to his wish—or, more properly speaking, his resolution—to devote himself to the one object of supporting her and Rose in their present position.
It was well for the success of his scheme that Mrs. Arundel had, on the strength of the £300 per annum, allowed her imagination to depict some distinguished appointment (of what nature she had not the most distant notion), which, with innumerable prospective advantages, was about to be submitted to her son’s consideration. Dazzled by this brilliant phantom, she allowed herself to be persuaded to write a civil rejection of Lady Lombard’s patronage, and took leave of her son with an April face, in which, after a short struggle, the smiles had it all their own way.
Rose neither laughed nor cried, but she clung to her brother’s neck (standing on tiptoe to do it, for she was so good, every bit of her, that Nature could not afford to make a very tall woman out of such precious materials), and whispered to him, in her sweet, silvery voice, if he should not quite like this appointment, or if he ever for a moment wished to change his plan, how very happy it would make her to be allowed to go out and earn money by teaching, just for a few years, till they grew richer; and Lewis pressed her to his heart, and loved her so well for saying it, ay, and meaning it too, that he felt he would die rather than let her do it. And so two people who cared for each other more than for all the world beside, parted, having, after a three years’ separation, enjoyed each other’s society for two days. Not that there was anything remarkable in this, it being a notorious though inexplicable fact that the more we like people, the less we are certain to see of them.
We have wearied our brain in the vain endeavour to find a reason for this phenomenon, and should feel greatly indebted to any philosophical individual who would write a treatise on “The perversity of remote contingencies, and the aggravating nature of things in general,” whereby some light might be thrown upon this obscure subject. We recommend the matter more particularly to the notice of the British Association of Science.
And having seated Lewis on the box of a real good old-fashioned stage coach (alas! that, Dodo-like, the genus should be all but extinct, and nothing going, nowadays, but those wonderful, horrible, convenient, stupendous nuisances, railroads; rattling, with their “resonant steam-eagles,” as Mrs. Browning calls the locomotives), with Faust between his knees, apparently studying with the air of a connoisseur the “get up” of a spanking team of greys, we will leave him to prosecute his journey to London; reserving for another chapter the adventures which befell him in the modern Babylon.
CHAPTER III.—IN WHICH RICHARD FRERE MENDS THE BACK OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, AND THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO CHARLEY LEICESTER.
Richard Frere lived in a moderate-sized house in a street in the vicinity of Bedford Square. It was not exactly a romantic situation, neither was it aristocratic nor fashionable; but it was respectable and convenient, and therefore had Frere chosen it; for he was a practical man in the proper sense of the term—by which we do not mean that he thought James Watt greater than Shakespeare, but that he possessed that rare quality, good common sense, and regulated his conduct by it; and as in the course of this veracious history we shall hear and see a good deal of Richard Frere, it may tend to elucidate matters if we tell the reader at once who and what he was, and “in point of fact,” as Cousin Phoenix would say, all about him.
Like Robinson Crusoe, Richard Frere was born of respectable parents. His father was the representative of a family who in Saxon days would have been termed “Franklins”—i.e., a superior class of yeomen, possessed of certain broad acres, which they farmed themselves. The grandfather Frere having, in a moment of ambition, sent his eldest son to Eton, was made aware of his error when the young hopeful on leaving school declared his intention of going to college, and utterly repudiated the plough-tail. Having a very decided will of his own, and a zealous supporter in his mother, to college he went, and thence to a special pleader, to read for the bar. Being really clever, and determined to prove to his father the wisdom of the course he had adopted, sufficiently industrious also, he got into very tolerable practice. On one occasion, having been retained in a well-known contested peerage case, by his acuteness and eloquence he gained his cause, and at the same time the affections of the successful disputant’s younger sister. His noble client very ungratefully opposed the match, but love and law together proved too powerful for his lordship. One fine evening the young lady made a moonlight flitting of it, and before twelve o’clock on the following morning had become Mrs. Frere. Within a year from this event Richard Frere made his appearance at the cradle terminus of the railroad of life. When he was six years old, his father, after speaking for three hours, in a cause in which he was leader, more eloquently than he had ever before done, broke a blood-vessel, and was carried home a dying man. His wife loved him as woman alone can love—for his sake she had given up friends, fortune, rank, and the pleasures and embellishments of life; for his sake she now gave up life itself. Grief does not always kill quickly, yet Richard’s ninth birthday was spent among strangers. His noble uncle, who felt that by neglecting his sister on her death-bed he had done his duty to his pedigree handsomely, and might now give way to family affection, sent the orphan to school at Westminster, and even allowed him to run wild at Bellefield Park during the holidays.
The agrémens of a public school, acting on a sensitive disposition, gave a tone of bitterness to the boy’s mind, which would have rendered him a misanthrope but for a strong necessity for loving something (the only inheritance his poor mother had left him), which developed itself in attachment to unsympathising silkworms and epicurean white mice during his early boyhood, and in a bizarre but untiring benevolence in after-life, leading him to take endless trouble for the old and unattractive, and to devote himself, body and soul, to forward the interest of those who were fortunate enough to possess his friendship. Of the latter class Lewis Arundel had been one since the day when Frere, a stripling of seventeen, fought his rival, the cock of the school, for having thrashed the new-comer in return for his accidental transgression of some sixth-form etiquette. Ten years had passed over their heads since that day: the cock of the school was a judge in Ceylon, weighed sixteen stone, and had a wife and six little children; Richard Frere was secretary to a scientific institution, with a salary of £400 a year, and a general knowledge of everything of which other people were ignorant; and little Lewis Arundel was standing six feet high, waiting to be let in at the door of his friend’s house, in the respectable and convenient street near Bedford Square, to which he and Faust had found their way, after a prosperous journey by the coach, on the roof of which we left them at the end of the last chapter.
A woman ugly enough to frighten a horse, and old enough for anything, replied in the affirmative to Lewis’s inquiry whether her master was at home, and led the way upstairs, glancing suspiciously at Faust as she did so. On reaching the first landing she tapped at the door; a full, rich, but somewhat gruff voice shouted “Come in,” and Lewis, passing his ancient conductress, entered.
“What, Lewis, old boy! how are you? Don’t touch me, I can’t shake hands, I’m all over paste; I have been mending the backs of two of the old Fathers that I picked up, dirt cheap, at a bookstall as I was coming home to-day: one of them is a real editio princeps—Why, man, how you are grown! Is that Faust? Come here, dog—what a beauty! Ah! you brute, keep your confounded nose out of the paste-pot, do! I must give Aquinas another dab yet. Sit down, man, if you can find a chair—bundle those books under the table. There we are.”
The speaker, who, as the reader has probably conjectured, was none other than Mr. Richard Frere, presented at that moment as singular an appearance as any gentleman not an Ojibbeway Indian, or other natural curiosity for public exhibition in the good city of London, need to do. His apparent age was somewhat under thirty. His face would have been singularly ugly but for three redeeming points—a high, intellectual forehead; full, restless blue eyes, beaming with intelligence; and a bright benevolent smile, which disclosed a brilliant set of white, even teeth, compensating for the disproportioned width of the mouth which contained them. His hair and whiskers, of a rich brown, hung in elf locks about his face and head, which were somewhat too large for his height; his chest and shoulders were also disproportionately broad, giving him an appearance of great strength, which indeed he possessed. He was attired in a chintz dressing-gown that had once rejoiced in a pattern of gaudy colours, but was now reduced to a neutral tint of (we may as well confess it at once) London smoke. He was, moreover, for the greater convenience of the pasting operation, seated cross-legged on the floor, amidst a hecatomb of ponderous volumes.
“I received your letter this morning,” began Lewis, “and, as you see, lost no time in being with you; and now what is it you have heard of, Frere? But first let me thank you——”
“Thank me!” was the reply, “for what? I have done nothing yet, except writing a dozen lines to tell you to take a dusty journey, and leave green trees and nightingales for smoke and bustle—nothing very kind in that, is there? Just look at the dog’s-ears—St. Augustine’s, I mean, not Faust’s.”
“Don’t tease me, there’s a good fellow,” returned Lewis; “I’m not in a humour for jesting at present. I have gone through a good deal in one way or other since you and I last met, and am no longer the light-hearted boy you knew me, but a man, and well-nigh a desperate one.”
“Ay!” rejoined Frere, “that’s the style of thing, is it? Yes; I know all about it. I met Kirschberg the other day, with a beard like a cow’s tail, and he told me that Gretchen had bolted with the Baron.”
“Never mention her name, if you would not drive me mad,” exclaimed Lewis, springing from his chair and pacing the room impatiently. His friend regarded him attentively for a moment, and then uncrossing his legs, and muttering to himself that he had got the cramp, and should make a shocking bad Turk, rose, approached Lewis, and laying his hand on his shoulder, said gravely—
“Listen to me, Lewis: you trusted, and have been deceived; and, by a not unnatural revulsion of feeling, your faith in man’s honour and woman’s constancy is for the time being destroyed; and just at the very moment when you most require the assistance of your old friends, and the determination to gain new ones, you dislike and despise your fellow-creatures, and are at war in your heart with society. Now this must not be, and at the risk of paining you, I am going to tell you the truth.”
“I know what you would say,” interrupted Lewis vehemently: “you would tell me that my affection was misplaced—that I loved a girl beneath me in mind and station—that I trusted a man whom I deemed my friend, but who, with a specious exterior, was a cold-hearted, designing villain. It was so; I own it; I see it now, when it is too late; but I did not see it at the time when the knowledge might have availed me. And why may not this happen again? There is but one way to prevent it: I will avoid the perfidious sex—except Rose, no woman shall ever——”
“My dear boy, don’t talk such rubbish,” interposed his friend; “there are plenty of right-minded, lovable women in the world, I don’t doubt, though I can’t say I have much to do with them, seeing that they are not usually addicted to practical science, and therefore don’t come in my way—household angels, with their wings clipped, and their manners and their draperies modernised, but with all the brightness and purity of heaven still lingering about them,—that’s my notion of women as they should be, and as I believe many are, despite your having been jilted by as arrant a little coquette as ever I had the luck to behold; and as to the Baron, it would certainly be a satisfaction to kick him well; but we can’t obtain all we wish for in this life. What are you grinning at? You don’t mean to say you have polished him off?”
In reply, Lewis drew his left arm out of his coat, and rolling up his shirt-sleeve above the elbow, exposed to view a newly-healed wound in the fleshy part of his arm, then said quietly, “We fought with small swords in a ring formed by the students; we were twenty minutes at it; he marked me as you see; at length I succeeded in disarming him—in the struggle he fell, and placing my foot upon his neck and my sword point to his heart, I forced him to confess his treachery, and beg his hateful life of me before them all.”
Frere’s face grew dark. “Duelling!” he said. “I thought your principles would have preserved you from that vice—I thought——”
A growl from Faust, whose quick ear had detected a footstep on the stairs, interrupted him, and in another moment a voice exclaimed, “Hello, Frere! where are you, man?” and the speaker, without waiting for an answer, opened the door and entered.
The new-comer was a fashionably-dressed young man, with a certain air about him as if he were somebody, and knew it—he was good-looking, had dark hair, most desirably curling whiskers; and, though he was in a morning costume, was evidently “got up” regardless of expense.
He opened his large eyes and stared with a look of languid wonder at Lewis, then, turning to Frere, he said, “Ah! I did not know you were engaged, Richard, or I would have allowed your old lady to announce me in due form; as it was, I thought, in my philanthropy, to save her a journey upstairs was a good deed, for she is getting a little touched in the wind. May I ask,” he continued, glancing at Lewis’s bare arm, “were you literally, and not figuratively, bleeding your friend?”
“Not exactly,” replied Frere, laughing. “But you must know each other: this is my particular friend, Lewis Arundel, whom I was telling you of,—Lewis, my cousin Charles Leicester, Lord Ashford’s youngest son.”
“Worse luck,” replied the gentleman thus introduced; “younger sons being one of those unaccountable mistakes of Nature which it requires an immense amount of faith to acquiesce in with proper orthodoxy: the popular definition of a younger son’s portion, ‘A good set of teeth, and nothing to eat,’ shows the absurdity of the thing. Where do you find any other animal in such a situation? Where——But perhaps we have scarcely time to do the subject proper justice at present; I have some faint recollection of your having asked me to dine at half-past six, on the strength of which I cut short my canter in the park, and lost a chance of inspecting a prize widow, whom Sullivan had marked down for me!”
“Why, you don’t mean to say it is as late as that?” exclaimed Frere. “Thomas Aquinas has taken longer to splice than I was aware of; to be sure, his back was dreadfully shattered. Excuse me half a minute; I’ll just wash the paste off my hands, make myself decent, and be with you in no time.” As he spoke he left the room.
“What a life for a reasonable being to lead!” observed Leicester, flinging himself back in Frere’s reading-chair. “Now that fellow was as happy with his paste-pot as I should be if some benevolent individual in the Fairy Tale and Good Genius line were to pay my debts and marry me to an heiress with £10,000 a year. An inordinate affection for books will be that man’s destruction. You have known him some years, I think, Mr. Arundel?”
Lewis replied in the affirmative, and Leicester continued—
“Don’t you perceive that he is greatly altered? He stoops like an old man, sir; his eyes are getting weak,—it’s an even chance whether he is shaved or not; he looks upon brushes as superfluities, and eschews bears’ grease entirely, not to mention a very decided objection to the operations of the hair-cutter; then the clothes he wears,—where he contrives to get such things I can’t conceive, unless they come out of Monmouth Street, and then they would be better cut; but the worst of it is, he has no proper feeling about it,—perfectly callous!” He sighed, and then resumed. “It was last Saturday, I think,— ’pon my word, you will scarcely believe it, but it’s true, I do assure you: I had given my horse to the groom, and was lounging by the Serpentine, with Egerton of the Guards, and Harry Vain, who is about the best dressed man in London, a little after five o’clock, and the park as full as it could hold, when who should I see, striding along like a postman among the swells, but Master Richard Frere! And how do you suppose he was dressed? We’ll begin at the top, and take him downwards: Imprimis, a shocking bad hat, set on the back of his head, after the fashion of the he peasants in a pastoral chorus at the Opera House; a seedy black coat, with immense flaps, and a large octavo edition of St. Senanus, or some of them, sticking out of the pocket; a white choker villainously tied, which looked as if he had slept in it the night before; a most awful waistcoat, black-and-white plaid trousers guiltless of straps, worsted stockings, and a clumsy species of shooting shoes; and because all this was not enough, he had a large umbrella, although the day was lovely, and a basket in his hand, with the neck of a black bottle peeping out of it, containing port wine, which it seems he was conveying to a superannuated nurse of his who hangs out at Kensington. I turned my head away, hoping that as he was staring intently at something in the water, he might not recognise me; but it was of no use. Just as Egerton, who did not know him, exclaimed, ‘Here’s a natural curiosity! Did you ever see such a Guy in your life?’ he looked up and saw me: in another minute his great paw was laid upon my shoulder, and I was accosted thus:—‘Ah, Leicester! you here? Just look at that duck with the grey bill; that’s a very rare bird indeed; it comes from Central Asia. I did not know they had a specimen in this country; it is one of the Teal family,—Querquedula Glocitans, the bimaculated teal,—so called from two bright spots near the eye. Look, you can see them now,—very rare bird,—very rare bird indeed!’ And so he ran on, till suddenly recollecting that he was in a hurry, he shook my hand till my arm ached (dropping the umbrella on Vain’s toes as he did so) and posted off, leaving me to explain to my companions how it was possible such an apparition should have been seen in any place except Bedlam. Richard Frere’s a right good fellow, and I have an immense respect for him, but he is a very trying relative to meet in Hyde Park during the London season.”
Having delivered himself of this sentiment, the Honourable Charles, or, as he was more commonly denominated by his intimates, Charley Leicester, leaned back in his chair, apparently overcome by the recollections his tale had excited, in which position he remained, cherishing his whiskers, till their host reappeared.
The dinner was exactly such a meal as one gentleman of moderate income should give to two others, not particularly gourmands; that is, there was enough to eat and drink, and everything was excellent of its kind; one of those mysterious individuals who exist only in large cities and fairy tales having provided the entire affair, and waited at table like a duke’s butler into the bargain. When the meal was concluded, and the good genius had vanished, after placing before them a most inviting magnum of claret, and said “Yessir” for the last time, Frere turned to Lewis, and observed, “By the way, Arundel, I dare say you are anxious to hear about this appointment, or situation, or whatever the correct term may be,—the thing I mentioned to you. My cousin Charles can tell you all there is to hear concerning the matter, for the good folks are his friends, and not mine; indeed, I scarcely know them.”
Thus appealed to, Charley Leicester filled a bumper of claret, seated himself in an easy attitude, examined his well-turned leg and unexceptionable boot with a full appreciation of their respective merits, and then sipping his wine and addressing Lewis, began as follows:—
“Well, Mr. Arundel, this is the true state of the case, as far as I know about it. You may perhaps be acquainted with the name of General Grant?”
Lewis replied in the negative, and Leicester continued—
“Ah! yes, I forgot, you have been on the Continent for some time; however, the General is member for A————, and a man very well known about town. Now, he happens to be a sort of cousin of mine—my mother, Lady Ashford, was a Grant; and for that reason, or some other, the General has taken a liking to me, and generously affords me his countenance and protection. So, when I have nothing better to do, I go and vegetate at Broadhurst, an old rambling place in H———shire, that has been in his family since the flood—splendid shooting, though; he preserves strictly, and transports a colony of poachers every year. I was sitting with him the other day, when he suddenly began asking about Frere, where he was, what he was doing, and all the rest of it. So I related that he was secretary to a learned society, and was popularly supposed to know more than all the scavans in Europe and the Dean of Dustandstir put together. Whereupon he began muttering, ‘Unfortunate!— he was just the person—learned man—good family—well connected—most unlucky!’ ‘What’s the matter, General?’ said I. ‘A very annoying affair, Charles—a very great responsibility has devolved upon me, a matter of extreme moment—clear;£ 12,000 a year, and a long minority.’ ‘Has;£12,000 a year devolved upon you, sir?’ returned I. ‘I wish Dame Fortune would try me with some such responsibility.’ In reply he gave me the following account:—
“It appeared that one of his most intimate friends and neighbours, an old baronet, had lately departed this life; the title and estates descend to a grandson, a minor, and General Grant had been appointed guardian. All this was bad enough, but the worst was yet to come—he had promised his dying friend that the boy should reside in his house. Now it seems that, as a sort of set-off against his luck in coming into the world with a gold spoon in his mouth, the said boy was born with even less brains than usually fall to the lot of Fortune’s favourites—in plain English, he is half an idiot. Accordingly, the General’s first care was to provide the young bear with a leader, and in his own mind he had fixed on Frere, whom he knew by reputation, as the man, and was grievously disappointed when he found he was bespoke. I suggested that, although he could not undertake the duty himself, he might possibly know some one who could, and offered to ascertain. The General jumped at the idea—hinc illae lachrymae—hence the whole business.”
“Just as I received your letter,” began Frere, “Leicester came in to make the inquiry. In fact the thing fitted like the advertisements in The Times—‘Wants a situation as serious footman in a pious family; wages not so much an object as moral cultivation.’—‘Wanted in a pious family, a decidedly serious footman, wages moderate, but the spiritual advantages unexceptionable.’—‘If A. B. is not utterly perfidious, and lost to all the noblest feelings of humanity, he will forward a small enclosure to C. D. at Mrs. Bantam’s, oilman, Tothill Street.’—‘A. B. is desirous of communicating with C. D.; if forgiven, he will never do so no more, at any price.’ You may see lots of them in the advertising sheet; they are like angry women, sure to answer one another if you leave them alone. And now, what do you think of the notion, Lewis?”
“Why, there are one or two points to be considered,” replied Lewis. “In the first place, what would be the duties of the situation? In the second, am I fitted to perform them? In the third—— But, however, I have named the most important.”
“As to the duties,” replied Leicester, “I should fancy they would be anything but overpowering—rather in the nothing-to-do-and-a-man-to help-you style than otherwise. All the General said was, ‘Mind, I must have a gentleman, a person who is accustomed to the rank of life in which he will have to move—he must be a young man, or he will not readily fall into my habits and wishes. As he is to live in my family, he must be altogether presentable. His chief duty will be to endeavour to develop my ward’s mind, and fit him for the position which his rank and fortune render it incumbent on him to occupy.’ To which speech, delivered in a very stately manner, I merely said, ‘Yes, exactly;’ a style of remark to which no exception could reasonably be taken, unless on the score of want of originality.”
“Is the General in town, Charley?” asked Frere.
“Yes; he is waiting about this very business,” was the reply.
“Well then, the best thing will be for you to take Arundel there to-morrow morning, and bring them face to face; that is the way to do business, depend upon it.”
“Will not that be giving Mr. Leicester a great deal of trouble?” suggested Lewis.
“Not at all, my dear sir,” replied Leicester, good-naturedly; “I’ll call for you at twelve o’clock, and drive you up to Park Crescent in my cab. Having once taken the matter in hand, I am anxious to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion—besides, a man must lunch, and the General’s pale ale is by no means to be despised.”
At this moment the servant entered, and handing Frere a card, informed him the gentleman wished to speak with him.
“Tell him to walk in. Say that I have one or two friends taking wine with me, and that I hope he will join us. Now, Lewis, I will introduce you to an original—you know him, Leicester—Marmaduke Grandeville.”
“De Grandeville, my dear fellow—don’t forget the De unless you intend him to call you out. What, is ‘the Duke’ coming? Yes, I certainly do know him, rather—just a very little.” Then, speaking in an affected yet pompous tone, he continued—“Ar—really—yes—the De Grandevilles—very old Yorkshire family in the West Riding—came in with the Conqueror.”
“That’s exactly like him,” exclaimed Frere, laughing. “Hush! here he is.”
As he spoke the door opened slowly, and a head with a hat on first appeared, then followed a pair of broad shoulders, and lastly the whole man entered bodily. Drawing himself up with a stiff military air, he closed the door, and slightly raising his hat, shaded his eyes with it, while he reconnoitred the company.
“There, come along in, man; you know Charles Leicester—this is an old Westminster friend of mine, Lewis Arundel: now here’s a clean glass; take some claret.”
The individual thus addressed made the slightest possible acknowledgment on being introduced to Lewis, favoured Leicester with a military salute, laid a large heavy hand adorned with a ring of strange and antique fashion patronisingly on Frere’s shoulder, poured himself out a glass of wine, and then wheeling round majestically to the fire, and placing his glass on the chimney-piece, faced the company with an air equally dignified and mysterious, thereby affording Lewis a good opportunity of examining his appearance. He was above the middle height and powerfully made, so much so as to give his clothes, which were fashionably cut, the air of being a size too small for him. He wore his coat buttoned tightly across his chest, which he carried well forward after the manner of a cuirassier; indeed, his whole gait and bearing were intensely military. His age might be two or three-and-thirty; he had dark hair and whiskers, good though rather coarse features, and a more ruddy complexion than usually falls to the lot of a Londoner. After sipping his wine leisurely, he folded his arms with an air of importance, and fixing his eyes significantly on the person addressed, said, “Ar—Leicester, how is it Lord Ashford happens to be out of town just now?”
“’Pon my word, I don’t know,” was the reply; “my father is not usually in the habit of explaining his movements, particularly to such an unimportant individual as myself. I have a vague idea Bellefield wrote to beg him to come down for something—he’s at the Park, at all events.”
“Ar—yes, you must not be surprised if you see him in Belgrave Square to-morrow; we want him; he’s been—ar—written to to-night.”
“How the deuce do you know that?” inquired Frere. “I never can make out where you contrive to pick up those things.”
“Who are we?” inquired Lewis in an undertone of Leicester, near whom he was seated. “Does Mr. Grandeville belong to the Government?”
“Not really, only in imagination,” was the reply. “We means himself and the other Whig magnates of the land, in this instance.”
“Then you did not really know Graves was dead?” continued Grandeville.
“I am not quite certain that I even knew he was alive,” replied Leicester. “Who was he?”
A significant smile, saying plainly, “Don’t fancy I am going to believe you as ignorant as you pretend,” floated across Grandeville’s face ere he continued: “You need not be so cautious with me, I can assure you. The moment I heard Graves was given over, I wrote—ar—that is, I gave the hint to a man who wrote to Lord Bellefield to say the county was his; he had only to declare himself, and he would walk over the course.”
“Extremely kind of you, I’m sure,” replied Leicester; then turning to Lewis, while Grandeville was making some mysterious communication to Frere, he added in an undertone, “That’s a lie from beginning to end. I had a note from Bellefield (he’s my frere aîné, you know) this morning, in which he says, ‘Our county member has been dangerously ill, but is now better;’ and he adds, ‘Some of the fools about here wanted me to put up for the county if he popped oft, but I am not going to thrust my neck into the collar to please any of them.’ Bell’s too lazy by half for an M.P., and small blame to him either.” Frere having listened to De Grandeville’s whispered communication, appeared for a moment embarrassed, and then observed—but an adventure so important as that to which his observation related deserves a fresh chapter.
CHAPTER IV.—LEWIS ENLISTS UNDER A “CONQUERING HERO,” AND STARTS ON A DANGEROUS EXPEDITION.
“I should be happy to join you, but you see I am engaged to my friends here,” observed Frere to Grandeville.
“You would never dream of standing on ceremony with me, Frere, I hope,” interposed Lewis.
“Why should we not all go together?” inquired Frere; “the more the merrier, particularly if it should come to a shindy.”
“What’s the nature of the entertainment?” asked Leicester.
“Tell them, De Grandeville,” said Frere, looking hard at his cousin, as he slightly emphasised the De.
“Ar—well, you won’t let it go further, I’m sure, but there’s a meeting to be held to-night at a kind of Mechanics’ Institute, a place I and one or two other influential men have had our eyes on for some time past, where they promulgate very unsound opinions; and we have been only waiting our opportunity to give the thing a check, and show them that the landed gentry are united in their determination not to tolerate sedition, or in fact anything of the sort; and I have had a hint from a very sure quarter (I walked straight from Downing Street here) that to-night they are to muster in force—a regular showoff; so a party of us are going to be present and watch the proceedings, and if there should be seditious language used, we shall make a decided demonstration, let them feel the power they are arraying themselves against, and the utter madness of provoking such an unequal struggle.”
“Then we have a very fair chance of a row, I should hope,” interposed Lewis eagerly, his eyes sparkling with excitement; “ ’twill put us in mind of old sixth-form days, eh, Frere?”
“Leicester, what say you? Do you mind dirtying your kid gloves in the good cause?” asked Frere.
“There is no time to put on an old coat, I suppose?” was the reply. “A broken head I don’t mind occasionally, it gives one a new sensation; but to sacrifice good clothes verges too closely on the wantonly extravagant to suit either my pocket or my principles.”
“I will lend you one of mine,” returned Frere.
“Heaven forfend!” was the horrified rejoinder. “I have too much regard for the feelings of my family, let alone those of my tailor, to dream of such a thing for a minute. Only suppose anything were to happen to me, just see how it would read in the papers: ‘The body of the unfortunate deceased was enveloped in a threadbare garment of mysterious fashion; in the enormous pockets which undermined its voluminous skirts was discovered, amongst other curiosities, the leg-bone of a fossil Iguanodon.’”
“Gently there!” cried Frere; “how some people are given to exaggeration! Because I happened accidentally one day to pull out two of the vertebræ of——”
“Ar—if you’ll allow me to interrupt you,” began Grandeville, “I don’t think you need apprehend any display of physical force; our object is, if possible, to produce a moral effect—in fact, by weight of character and position, to impress them with a deep sense of the power and resources of the upper classes.”
“Still a good licking is a very effectual argument where other means of persuasion fail. I have great faith in fists,” said Frere.
“Ar—in the event of our being obliged to have recourse to such extreme measures, I must impress upon you the necessity of discipline,” returned Grandeville. “Look to me for orders, ar—I am not exactly—ar—regular profession—ar—military, though when I was at the headquarters of the ——th in Ireland last year, they did me the honour to say that I had naturally a very unusual strategic turn—a good officer spoiled—ha! ha!”
“I always thought you had a sort of Life-guardsman-like look about you,” said Leicester, with a sly glance at the others. “You often hear of a man being one of ‘Nature’s gentlemen,’ now I should call you one of ‘Nature’s guardsmen.’”
“Ar—yes, not so bad that,” returned Grandeville, the possibility of Leicester’s meaning to laugh at him faintly occurring to him, and being instantly rejected as utterly inconceivable. “Here, sir,” he continued, turning abruptly to Lewis, “feel my arm; there’s muscle for you! I don’t say it by way of a boast, but there is not such an arm as that in her Majesty’s ~*—th; there was not one of their crack men that could hold up so heavy a weight as I could, for I tried the thing when I was over at Killandrum last autumn, and beat them all.”
“At what time does your entertainment commence, may I ask?” inquired Leicester.
“Ar—I promised to join the others at a quarter before nine; the meeting was to commence at nine, and we shall have some little way to walk.”
“Then the sooner we are off the better,” said Frere. “But you expect a reinforcement, do you?”
“Ar—some men, some of our set, you understand, very first-rate fellows who have the cause at heart, have agreed to come and carry the matter through with a high hand. Failure might produce very serious results, but the right measures have been taken; I dropped a hint at the Horse Guards.”
“I suppose I had better not take Faust,” observed Lewis. “If there is a crowd he will get his toes trodden on, and he is apt to show fight under these circumstances. May I leave him here?”
“Yes, certainly,” replied Frere; “that is, if you can persuade him to stay quietly, and bind him over to keep the peace till we return.”
“That is soon accomplished,” rejoined Lewis, and calling the dog to him, he dropped a glove on the floor and uttered some German word of command, when the well-trained animal immediately laid down with the glove between his huge paws.
“Caution your old lady not to interfere with the glove,” he continued, “or Faust will assuredly throttle her.”
“What, is he touchy on that head?” inquired Grandeville, poising himself on one leg while he endeavoured to kick the glove away with the other. A growl like that of an angry tiger, and the display of a set of teeth of which a dentist or a crocodile might equally have been proud, induced him to draw back his foot with rather more celerity than was altogether in keeping with the usual dignity of his movements.
“The dog has not such a bad notion of producing a moral impression,” said Leicester, laughing. “Don’t you think he might be useful to us to-night?”
“Ar—now, there is nothing I should like better than to take that glove away from him,” observed Grandeville, casting a withering glance on Faust. “Ar—I wish I had time.”
“I wish you had,” returned Lewis dryly.
“Why, do you think it would be so mighty difficult?” retorted Grandeville.
“When Rudolph Arnheim, a fellow-student of mine, tried the experiment, I had some trouble in choking Faust off before the dog had quite throttled him,” was the reply. “Rudolph is no child, and had a heavy wager depending on it.”
“Ar—well, I can’t see any great difficulty in the thing, but it depends on a man’s nerve, of course. Now, are we ready?”
So saying, Marmaduke Grandeville, Esq., placed his hat firmly on his head, and with the gait of a heavy dragoon and the air of a conquering hero, marched nobly out of the apartment. Leicester held back to allow Lewis to follow, then drawing Frere on one side, he said—
“Richard, I like your friend Arundel; he is a manly, intelligent young fellow, much too good to be bear-leader to a half-witted cub like this precious ward of old Grant’s; and if I were as rich as I am poor, I would do something better for him. Now, if he had but a few hundreds to go on with, matrimony would be the dodge for him. With such a face and figure as his, he might secure no end of a prize in the wife market; there’s a thoroughbred look about him which would tell with women amazingly.”
“He has all the makings of a fine character in him,” replied Frere, “but he is proud and impetuous; and pride and poverty are ill companions, though they often go together.”
“Do they?” replied Leicester. “Well, I am poor enough for anything, as a very large majority of the metropolitan tradesmen know to their cost, but, upon my word, I am not proud. Any man may give me a good dinner, and I’ll eat it,—good wine, and I’ll drink it; I never refuse a stall at the Opera, though the bone may belong to an opulent tallow-chandler; and there is not a woman in England with £150,000 that I would not marry to-morrow if she would have me. No! I may be poor, but you can’t call me proud.” And placing his arm through that of his cousin, they descended to the street together, and rejoined Lewis and his companion.