The Cornhill Magazine (Vol. I, No. 6, June 1860)

by Various

Lovel the Widower.

CHAPTER VI.
Cecilia’s Successor.

Monsieur et honore Lecteur! I see, as perfectly as if you were sitting opposite to me, the scorn depicted on your noble countenance, when you read my confession that I, Charles Batchelor, Esquire, did burglariously enter the premises of Edward Drencher, Esquire, M.R.C.S.I. (phew! the odious pestle-grinder, I never could bear him!) and break open, and read a certain letter, his property. I may have been wrong, but I am candid. I tell my misdeeds; some fellows hold their tongues. Besides, my good man, consider the temptation, and the horrid insight into the paper which Bedford’s report had already given me. Would you like to be told that the girl of your heart was playing at fast and loose with it, had none of her own, or had given hers to another? I don’t want to make a Mrs. Robin Gray of any woman, and merely because “her mither presses her sair” to marry her against her will. “If Miss Prior,” thought I, “prefers this lint-scraper to me, ought I to balk her? He is younger, and stronger, certainly, than myself. Some people may consider him handsome. (By the way, what a remarkable thing it is about many women, that, in affairs of the heart, they don’t seem to care or understand whether a man is a gentleman or not.) It may be it is my superior fortune and social station which may induce Elizabeth to waver in her choice between me and my bleeding, bolusing, toothdrawing rival. If so, and I am only taken from mercenary considerations, what a pretty chance of subsequent happiness do either of us stand! Take the vaccinator, girl, if thou preferrest him! I know what it is to be crossed in love already. It’s hard, but I can bear it! I ought to know, I must know, I will know what is in that paper!” So saying, as I pace round and round the table where the letter lies flickering white under the midnight taper, I stretch out my hand—I seize the paper—I——well, I own it—there—yes—I took it, and I read it.

LOVEL’S MOTHERS

Or rather, I may say, I read that part of it which the bleeder and blisterer had flung down. It was but a fragment of a letter—a fragment—oh! how bitter to swallow! A lump of Epsom salt could not have been more disgusting. It appeared (from Bedford’s statement) that Æsculapius, on getting into his gig, had allowed this scrap of paper to whisk out of his pocket—the rest he read, no doubt, under the eyes of the writer. Very likely, during the perusal, he had taken and squeezed the false hand which wrote the lines. Very likely the first part of the precious document contained compliments to him—from the horrible context I judge so—compliments to that vendor of leeches and bandages, into whose heart I daresay I wished ten thousand lancets might be stuck, as I perused the False One’s wheedling address to him! So ran the document. How well every word of it was engraven on my anguished heart. If page three, which I suppose was about the bit of the letter which I got, was as it was—what must page one and two have been? The dreadful document began, then, thus:—

“——dear hair in the locket, which I shall ever wear for the sake of him who gave it”—(dear hair! indeed—disgusting carrots! She should have been ashamed to call it “dear hair”)—“for the sake of him who gave it, and whose bad temper I shall pardon, because I think, in spite of his faults, he is a little fond of his poor Lizzie! Ah, Edward! how could you go on so the last time about poor Mr. B.! Can you imagine that I can ever have more than a filial regard for the kind old gentleman?” (Il était question de moi, ma parole d’honneur. I was the kind old gentleman!) “I have known him since my childhood. He was intimate in our family in earlier and happier days; made our house his home; and, I must say, was most kind to all of us children. If he has vanities, you naughty boy, is he the only one of his sex who is vain? Can you fancy that such an old creature (an old muff, as you call him, you wicked, satirical man!) could ever make an impression on my heart? No, sir!” (Aha! So I was an old muff, was I?) “Though I don’t wish to make you vain too, or that other people should laugh at you, as you do at poor dear Mr. B., I think, sir, you need but look in your glass to see that you need not be afraid of such a rival as that. You fancy he is attentive to me? If you looked only a little angrily at him, he would fly back to London. To-day, when your horrid little patient did presume to offer to take my hand, when I boxed his little wicked ears and sent him spinning to the end of the room—poor Mr. Batch was so frightened that he did not dare to come into the room, and I saw him peeping behind a statue on the lawn, and he would not come in until the servants arrived. Poor man! We cannot all of us have courage like a certain Edward, who I know is as bold as a lion. Now, sir, you must not be quarrelling with that wretched little captain for being rude. I have shown him that I can very well take care of myself. I knew the odious thing the first moment I set eyes on him, though he had forgotten me. Years ago I met him, and I remember he was equally rude and tips——”

Here the letter was torn. Beyond “tips” it did not go. But that was enough, wasn’t it? To this woman I had offered a gentle and manly, I may say a kind and tender heart—I had offered four hundred a year in funded property, besides my house in Devonshire Street, Bloomsbury—and she preferred Edward, forsooth, at the sign of the Gallipot: and may ten thousand pestles smash my brains!

You may fancy what a night I had after reading that scrap. I promise you I did not sleep much. I heard the hours toll as I kept vigil. I lay amidst shattered capitals, broken shafts of the tumbled palace which I had built in imagination—oh! how bright and stately! I sate amongst the ruins of my own happiness, surrounded by the murdered corpses of innocent-visioned domestic joys. Tick—tock! Moment after moment I heard on the clock the clinking footsteps of wakeful grief. I fell into a doze towards morning, and dreamed that I was dancing with Glorvina, when I woke with a start, finding Bedford arrived with my shaving water, and opening the shutters. When he saw my haggard face he wagged his head.

“You have read it, I see, sir,” says he.

“Yes, Dick,” groaned I, out of bed, “I have swallowed it.” And I laughed I may say a fiendish laugh. “And now I have taken it, not poppy nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups in his shop (hang him) will be able to medicine me to sleep for some time to come!”

“She has no heart, sir. I don’t think she cares for t’other chap much,” groans the gloomy butler. “She can’t, after having known us”—and my companion in grief, laying down my hot-water jug, retreats.

I did not cut any part of myself with my razor. I shaved quite calmly. I went to the family at breakfast. My impression is I was sarcastic and witty. I smiled most kindly at Miss Prior when she came in. Nobody could have seen from my outward behaviour that anything was wrong within. I was an apple. Could you inspect the worm at my core! No, no. Somebody, I think old Baker, complimented me on my good looks. I was a smiling lake. Could you see on my placid surface, amongst my sheeny water-lilies, that a corpse was lying under my cool depths? “A bit of devilled chicken?” “No, thank you. By the way, Lovel, I think I must go to town to-day.” “You’ll come back to dinner, of course?” “Well—no.” “Oh, stuff! You promised me to-day and to-morrow. Robinson, Brown, and Jones are coming to-morrow, and you must be here to meet them.” Thus we prattle on. I answer, I smile, I say, “Yes, if you please, another cup,” or, “Be so good as to hand the muffin,” or what not. But I am dead. I feel as if I am under ground, and buried. Life, and tea, and clatter, and muffins are going on, of course; and daisies spring, and the sun shines on the grass whilst I am under it. Ah, dear me! it’s very cruel: it’s very, very lonely: it’s very odd! I don’t belong to the world any more. I have done with it. I am shelved away. But my spirit returns and flitters through the world, which it has no longer anything to do with: and my ghost, as it were, comes and smiles at my own tombstone. Here lies Charles Batchelor, the Unloved One. Oh! alone, alone, alone! Why, Fate! didst ordain that I should be companionless? Tell me where the Wandering Jew is, that I may go and sit with him. Is there any place at a lighthouse vacant? Who knows where is the Island of Juan Fernandez? Engage me a ship and take me there at once. Mr. R. Crusoe, I think. My dear Robinson, have the kindness to hand me over your goatskin cap, breeches, and umbrella. Go home, and leave me here. Would you know who is the solitariest man on earth? That man am I. Was that cutlet which I ate at breakfast anon, was that lamb which frisked on the mead last week (beyond yon wall where the unconscious cucumber lay basking which was to form his sauce)—I say, was that lamb made so tender, that I might eat him? And my heart, then? Poor heart! wert thou so softly constituted only that women might stab thee? So I am a Muff, am I? And she will always wear a lock of his “dear hair,” will she? Ha! ha! The men on the omnibus looked askance as they saw me laugh. They thought it was from Hanwell, not Putney, I was escaping. Escape? Who can escape? I went into London. I went to the Clubs. Jawkins, of course, was there; and my impression is that he talked as usual. I took another omnibus, and went back to Putney. “I will go back and revisit my grave,” I thought. It is said that ghosts loiter about their former haunts a good deal when they are first dead; flit wistfully among their old friends and companions, and I daresay, expect to hear a plenty of conversation and friendly tearful remark about themselves. But suppose they return, and find nobody talking of them at all? Or suppose, Hamlet (Père, and Royal Dane) comes back and finds Claudius and Gertrude very comfortable over a piece of cold meat, or what not? Is the late gentleman’s present position as a ghost a very pleasant one? Crow, Cocks! Quick, Sun-dawn! Open, Trap-door! Allons: it’s best to pop underground again. So I am a Muff, am I? What a curious thing that walk up the hill to the house was! What a different place Shrublands was yesterday to what it is to-day! Has the sun lost its light, and the flowers their bloom, and the joke its sparkle, and the dish its savour? Why, bless my soul! what is Lizzy herself—only an ordinary woman—freckled certainly—incorrigibly dull, and without a scintillation of humour: and you mean to say, Charles Batchelor, that your heart once beat about that woman? Under the intercepted letter of that cold assassin, my heart had fallen down dead, irretrievably dead. I remember, àpropos of the occasion of my first death, that perpetrated by Glorvina—on my second visit to Dublin—with what a strange sensation I walked under some trees in the Phœnix Park beneath which it had been my custom to meet my False One Number 1. There were the trees—there were the birds singing—there was the bench on which we used to sit—the same, but how different! The trees had a different foliage, exquisite amaranthine; the birds sang a song paradisaical; the bench was a bank of roses and fresh flowers, which young Love twined in fragrant chaplets around the statue of Glorvina. Roses and fresh flowers? Rheumatisms and flannel-waistcoats, you silly old man! Foliage and Song? O namby-pamby driveller! A statue?—a doll, thou twaddling old dullard!—a doll with carmine cheeks, and a heart stuffed with bran——I say, on the night preceding that ride to and from Putney, I had undergone death—in that omnibus I had been carried over to t’other side of the Stygian Shore. I returned but as a passionless ghost, remembering my life-days, but not feeling any more. Love was dead, Elizabeth! Why, the doctor came, and partook freely of lunch, and I was not angry. Yesterday I called him names, and hated him, and was jealous of him. To-day I felt no rivalship; and no envy at his success; and no desire to supplant him. No—I swear—not the slightest wish to make Elizabeth mine if she would. I might have cared for her yesterday—yesterday I had a heart. Psha! my good sir or madam. You sit by me at dinner. Perhaps you are handsome, and use your eyes. Ogle away. Don’t balk yourself, pray. But if you fancy I care a threepenny-piece about you—or for your eyes—or for your bonny brown hair—or for your sentimental remarks, sidelong warbled—or for your praise to (not of) my face—or for your satire behind my back—ah me!—how mistaken you are! Peine perdue, ma chère dame! The digestive organs are still in good working order—but the heart? Caret.

I was perfectly civil to Mr. Drencher, and, indeed, wonder to think how in my irritation I had allowed myself to apply (mentally) any sort of disagreeable phrases to a most excellent and deserving and good-looking young man, who is beloved by the poor, and has won the just confidence of an extensive circle of patients. I made no sort of remark to Miss Prior, except about the weather and the flowers in the garden. I was bland, easy, rather pleasant, not too high-spirited, you understand.—No: I vow you could not have seen a nerve wince, or the slightest alteration in my demeanour. I helped the two old dowagers; I listened to their twaddle; I gaily wiped up with my napkin three-quarters of a glass of sherry which Popham flung over my trowsers. I would defy you to know that I had gone through the ticklish operation of an excision of the heart a few hours previously. Heart—pooh! I saw Miss Prior’s lip quiver. Without a word between us, she knew perfectly well that all was over as regarded her late humble servant. She winced once or twice. While Drencher was busy with his plate, the grey eyes cast towards me interjectional looks of puzzled entreaty. She, I say, winced; and I give you my word I did not care a fig whether she was sorry, or pleased, or happy, or going to be hung. And I can’t give a better proof of my utter indifference about the matter, than the fact that I wrote two or three copies of verses descriptive of my despair. They appeared, you may perhaps remember, in one of the annuals of those days, and were generally attributed to one of the most sentimental of our young poets. I remember the reviews said they were “replete with emotion,” “full of passionate and earnest feeling,” and so forth. Feeling, indeed!—ha! ha! “Passionate outbursts of a grief-stricken heart!”—Passionate scrapings of a fiddlestick, my good friend. “Lonely,” of course, rhymes with “only,” and “gushes” with “blushes,” and “despair” with “hair,” and so on. Despair is perfectly compatible with a good dinner, I promise you. Hair is false: hearts are false. Grapes may be sour, but claret is good, my masters. Do you suppose I am going to cry my eyes out, because Chloe’s are turned upon Strephon? If you find any whimpering in mine, may they never wink at a bee’s-wing again.

When the doctor rose presently, saying he would go and see the gardener’s child, who was ill, and casting longing looks at Miss Prior, I assure you I did not feel a tittle of jealousy, though Miss Bessy actually followed Mr. Drencher into the lawn, under the pretext of calling back Miss Cissy, who had run thither without her bonnet.

“Now, Lady Baker, which was right? you or I?” asks bonny Mrs. Bonnington, wagging her head towards the lawn where this couple of innocents were disporting.

“You thought there was an affair between Miss Prior and the medical gentleman,” I say, smiling. “It was no secret, Mrs. Bonnington?”

“Yes, but there were others who were a little smitten in that quarter too,” says Lady Baker, and she in turn wags her old head towards me.

“You mean me?” I answer, as innocent as a new-born babe. “I am a burnt child, Lady Baker; I have been at the fire, and am already thoroughly done, thank you. One of your charming sex jilted me some years ago; and once is quite enough, I am much obliged to you.”

This I said, not because it was true; in fact, it was the reverse of truth; but if I choose to lie about my own affairs, pray, why not? And though a strictly truth-telling man generally, when I do lie, I promise you, I do it boldly and well.

“If, as I gather from Mrs. Bonnington, Mr. Drencher and Miss Prior like each other, I wish my old friend joy. I wish Mr. Drencher joy with all my heart. The match seems to me excellent. He is a deserving, a clever, and a handsome young fellow; and I am sure, ladies, you can bear witness to her goodness, after all you have known of her.”

“My dear Batchelor,” says Mrs. Bonnington, still smiling and winking, “I don’t believe one single word you say—not one single word!” And she looks infinitely pleased as she speaks.

“Oh!” cries Lady Baker, “my good Mrs. Bonnington, you are always match-making—don’t contradict me. You know you thought——”

“Oh, please don’t,” cries Mrs. B.

“I will. She thought, Mr. Batchelor, she actually thought that our son, that my Cecilia’s husband, was smitten by the governess. I should like to have seen him dare!” and her flashing eyes turn towards the late Mrs. Lovel’s portrait, with its faded simper leering over the harp. “The idea that any woman could succeed that angel indeed!”

“Indeed, I don’t envy her,” I said.

“You don’t mean, Batchelor, that my Frederick would not make any woman happy?” cries the Bonnington. “He is only seven-and-thirty, very young for his age, and the most affectionate of creatures. I’m surprised, and it’s most cruel, and most unkind of you, to say that you don’t envy any woman that marries my boy!”

“My dear good Mrs. Bonnington, you quite misapprehend me,” I remark.

“Why, when his late wife was alive,” goes on Mrs. B. sobbing, “you know with what admirable sweetness and gentleness he bore her—her—bad temper—excuse me, Lady Baker!”

“Oh, pray, abuse my departed angel!” cries the Baker; “say that your son should marry and forget her—say that those darlings should be made to forget their mother. She was a woman of birth, and a woman of breeding, and a woman of family, and the Bakers came in with the Conqueror, Mrs. Bonnington——”

“I think I heard of one in the court of Pharaoh,” I interposed.

“And to say that a Baker is not worthy of a Lovel is pretty news indeed! Do you hear that, Clarence?”

“Hear what, ma’am?” says Clarence, who enters at this juncture. “You’re speakin’ loud enough—though blesht if I hear two sh-shyllables.”

“You wretched boy, you have been smoking!”

“Shmoking—haven’t I?” says Clarence with a laugh; “and I’ve been at the Five Bells, and I’ve been having a game of billiards with an old friend of mine,” and he lurches towards a decanter.

“Ah! don’t drink any more, my child!” cries the mother.

“I’m as sober as a judge, I tell you. You leave so precious little in the bottle at dinner, that I must get it when I can, mustn’t I, Batchelor, old boy? We had a row yesterday, hadn’t we? No, it was sugar-baker. I’m not angry—you’re not angry. Bear no malish. Here’s your health, old boy!”

The unhappy gentleman drank his bumper of sherry, and, tossing his hair off his head, said—“Where’s the governess—where’s Bessy Bellenden? Who’s that kickin’ me under the table, I say?”

“Where is who?” asks his mother.

“Bessy Bellenden—the governess—that’s her real name. Known her these ten years. Used to dansh at Prinsh’s Theatre. Remember her in the corps de ballet. Ushed to go behind the shenes. Dooshid pretty girl!” maunders out the tipsy youth; and as the unconscious subject of his mischievous talk enters the room, again he cries out, “Come and sit by me, Bessy Bellenden, I say!”

The matrons rose with looks of horror in their faces. “A ballet dancer!” cries Mrs. Bonnington. “A ballet dancer!” echoes Lady Baker. “Young woman, is this true?”

“The Bulbul and the Roshe—hay?” laughs the captain. “Don’t you remember you and Fosbery in blue and shpangles? Always all right, though, Bellenden was. Fosbery washn’t: but Bellenden was. Give you every credit for that, Bellenden. Boxsh my earsh. Bear no malish—no—no—malish! Get some more sherry, you—whatsh your name—Bedford, butler—and I’ll pay you the money I owe you;” and he laughs his wild laugh, utterly unconscious of the effect he is producing. Bedford stands staring at him as pale as death. Poor Miss Prior is as white as marble. Wrath, terror, and wonder are in the countenances of the dowagers. It is an awful scene!

“Mr. Batchelor knows that it was to help my family I did it,” says the poor governess.

“Yes, by George! and nobody can say a word against her,” bursts in Dick Bedford, with a sob; “and she is as honest as any woman here!”

“Pray, who told you to put your oar in?” cries the tipsy captain.

“And you knew that this person was on the stage, and you introduced her into my son’s family? Oh, Mr. Batchelor, Mr. Batchelor, I didn’t think it of you! Don’t speak to me, Miss!” cries the flurried Bonnington.

“You brought this woman to the children of my adored Cecilia?” calls out the other dowager. “Serpent, leave the room! Pack your trunks, viper! and quit the house this instant. Don’t touch her, Cissy. Come to me, my blessing. Go away, you horrid wretch!”

“She ain’t a horrid wretch; and when I was ill she was very good to us,” breaks in Pop, with a roar of tears: “and you shan’t go, Miss Prior—my dear, pretty Miss Prior. You shan’t go!” and the child rushes up to the governess, and covers her neck with tears and kisses.

“Leave her, Popham, my darling blessing!—leave that woman!” cries Lady Baker.

“I won’t, you old beast!—and she sha-a-ant go. And I wish you was dead—and, my dear, you shan’t go, and Pa shan’t let you!”—shouts the boy.

“O, Popham, if Miss Prior has been naughty, Miss Prior must go!” says Cecilia, tossing up her head.

“Spoken like my daughter’s child!” cries Lady Baker: and little Cissy, having flung her little stone, looks as if she had performed a very virtuous action.

“God bless you, Master Pop,—you are a trump, you are!” says Mr. Bedford.

“Yes, that I am, Bedford; and she shan’t go, shall she?” cries the boy.

But Bessy stooped down sadly, and kissed him. “Yes, I must, dear,” she said.

“Don’t touch him! Come away, sir! Come away from her this moment!” shrieked the two mothers.

“I nursed him through the scarlet fever, when his own mother would not come near him,” says Elizabeth, gently.

“I’m blest if she didn’t,” sobs Bedford—“and—bub—bub—bless you, Master Pop!”

“That child is wicked enough, and headstrong enough, and rude enough already!” exclaims Lady Baker. “I desire, young woman, you will not pollute him farther!”

“That’s a hard word to say to an honest woman, ma’am,” says Bedford.

“Pray, miss, are you engaged to the butler, too?” hisses out the dowager.

“There’s very little the matter with Maxwell’s child—only teeth. What on earth has happened? My dear Lizzy—my dear Miss Prior—what is it?” cries the doctor, who enters from the garden at this juncture.

“Nothing has happened, only this young woman has appeared in a new character,” says Lady Baker. “My son has just informed us that Miss Prior danced upon the stage, Mr. Drencher; and if you think such a person is a fit companion for your mothers and sisters, who attend a place of Christian worship, I believe—I wish you joy.”

“Is this—is this—true?” asks the doctor, with a look of bewilderment.

“Yes, it is true,” sighs the girl.

“And you never told me, Elizabeth?” groans the doctor.

“She’s as honest as any woman here,” calls out Bedford. “She gave all the money to her family.”

“It wasn’t fair not to tell me. It wasn’t fair,” sobs the doctor. And he gives her a ghastly parting look, and turns his back.

“I say, you—Hi! What-d’-you-call-’em? Sawbones!” shrieks out Captain Clarence. “Come back, I say. She’s all right, I say. Upon my honour, now, she’s all right.”

“Miss P. shouldn’t have kept this from me. My mother and sisters are dissenters, and very strict. I couldn’t ask a party into my family who has been—who has been——I wish you good morning,” says the doctor, and stalks away.

“And now, will you please to get your things ready and go, too,” continues Lady Baker. “My dear Mrs. Bonnington, you think——”

“Certainly, certainly, she must go!” cries Mrs. Bonnington.

“Don’t go till Lovel comes home, Miss. These ain’t your mistresses. Lady Baker don’t pay your salary. If you go, I go, too. There!” calls out Bedford, and mumbles something in her ear about the end of the world.

“You go, too; and a good riddance, you insolent brute!” exclaims the dowager.

“O, Captain Clarence! you have made a pretty morning’s work,” I say.

“I don’t know what the doose all the sherry—all the shinty’s about,” says the captain, playing with the empty decanter. “Gal’s a very good gal—pretty gal. If she choosesh dansh shport her family, why the doosh shouldn’t she dansh shport a family?”

“That is exactly what I recommend this person to do,” says Lady Baker, tossing up her head. “And now I will thank you to leave the room. Do you hear?”

As poor Elizabeth obeyed this order, Bedford darted after her; and I know ere she had gone five steps he had offered her his savings and everything he had. She might have had mine yesterday. But she had deceived me. She had played fast and loose with me. She had misled me about this doctor. I could trust her no more. My love of yesterday was dead, I say. That vase was broke, which never could be mended. She knew all was over between us. She did not once look at me as she left the room.

The two dowagers—one of them, I think, a little alarmed at her victory—left the house, and for once went away in the same barouche. The young maniac who had been the cause of the mischief staggered away, I know not whither.

About four o’clock, poor little Pinhorn, the child’s maid, came to me, well nigh choking with tears, as she handed me a letter. “She’s goin’ away—and she saved both them children’s lives, she did. And she’ve wrote to you, sir. And Bedford’s a-goin’. And I’ll give warnin’, I will, too!” And the weeping handmaiden retires, leaving me, perhaps somewhat frightened, with the letter in my hand.

“Dear Sir,” she said—“I may write you a line of thanks and farewell. I shall go to my mother. I shall soon find another place. Poor Bedford, who has a generous heart, told me that he had given you a letter of mine to Mr. D. I saw this morning that you knew everything. I can only say now that for all your long kindnesses and friendship to my family I am always your sincere and grateful—E. P.”

Yes: that was all. I think she was grateful. But she had not been candid with me, nor with the poor surgeon. I had no anger: far from it: a great deal of regard and goodwill, nay admiration, for the intrepid girl who had played a long, hard part very cheerfully and bravely. But my foolish little flicker of love had blazed up and gone out in a day; I knew that she never could care for me. In that dismal, wakeful night, after reading the letter, I had thought her character and story over, and seen to what a life of artifice and dissimulation necessity had compelled her. I did not blame her. In such circumstances, with such a family, how could she be frank and open? Poor thing! poor thing! Do we know anybody? Ah! dear me, we are most of us very lonely in the world. You who have any who love you, cling to them, and thank God. I went into the hall towards evening: her poor trunks and packages were there, and the little nurserymaid weeping over them. The sight unmanned me; and I believe I cried myself. Poor Elizabeth! And with these small chests you recommence your life’s lonely voyage! I gave the girl a couple of sovereigns. She sobbed a God bless me! and burst out crying more desperately than ever. Thou hast a kind heart, little Pinhorn!

“‘Miss Prior—to be called for.’ Whose trunks are these?” says Lovel, coming from the city. The dowagers drove up at the same moment.

“Didn’t you see us from the omnibus, Frederick?” cries her ladyship, coaxingly. “We followed behind you all the way!”

“We were in the barouche, my dear,” remarks Mrs. Bonnington, rather nervously.

“Whose trunks are these?—what’s the matter?—and what’s the girl crying for?” asks Lovel.

“Miss Prior is a-going away,” sobs Pinhorn.

“Miss Prior going? Is this your doing, my Lady Baker?—or yours, mother?” the master of the house says, sternly.

“She is going, my love, because she cannot stay in this family,” says mamma.

“That woman is no fit companion for my angel’s children, Frederick!” cries Lady B.

“That person has deceived us all, my love!” says mamma.

“Deceived?—how? Deceived whom?” continues Mr. Lovel, more and more hotly.

“Clarence, love! come down, dear! Tell Mr. Lovel everything. Come down and tell him this moment,” cries Lady Baker to her son, who at this moment appears on the corridor which was round the hall.

“What’s the row now, pray?” And Captain Clarence descends, breaking his shins over poor Elizabeth’s trunks, and calling down on them his usual maledictions.

“Tell Mr. Lovel, where you saw that—that person, Clarence! Now, sir, listen to my Cecilia’s brother!”

“Saw her—saw her, in blue and spangles, in the Rose and the Bulbul, at the Prince’s Theatre—and a doosed nice-looking girl she was too!”—says the captain.

“There, sir!”

“There, Frederick!” cry the matrons in a breath.

“And what then?” asks Lovel.

“Mercy! you ask, What then, Frederick? Do you know what a theatre is? Tell Frederick what a theatre is, Mr. Batchelor, and that my grandchildren must not be educated by——”

“My grandchildren—my Cecilia’s children,” shrieks the other, “must not be poll-luted by——”

“Silence!” I say. “Have you a word against her—have you, pray, Baker?”

“No. ’Gad! I never said a word against her,” says the captain. “No, hang me, you know—but——”

“But suppose I knew the fact the whole time?” asks Lovel, with rather a blush on his cheek. “Suppose I knew that she danced to give her family bread? Suppose I knew that she toiled and laboured to support her parents, and brothers, and sisters? Suppose I know that out of her pittance she has continued to support them? Suppose I know that she watched my own children through fever and danger? For these reasons I must turn her out of doors, must I? No, by Heaven!—No!—Elizabeth!—Miss Prior!—Come down!—Come here, I beg you!”

The governess arrayed as for departure at this moment appeared on the corridor running round the hall. As Lovel continued to speak very loud and resolute, she came down looking deadly pale.

Still much excited, the widower went up to her and took her hand. “Dear Miss Prior!” he said—“dear Elizabeth! you have been the best friend of me and mine. You tended my wife in illness, you took care of my children in fever and danger. You have been an admirable sister, daughter in your own family—and for this, and for these benefits conferred upon us, my relatives—my mother-in-law—would drive you out of my doors! It shall not be!—by Heavens, it shall not be!”

You should have seen little Bedford sitting on the governess’s box, shaking his fist, and crying “Hurrah!” as his master spoke. By this time the loud voices and the altercation in the hall had brought a half-dozen of servants from their quarters into the hall. “Go away, all of you!” shouts Lovel; and the domestic posse retires, Bedford being the last to retreat, and nodding approval at his master as he backs out of the room.

“You are very good, and kind, and generous, sir,” says the pale Elizabeth, putting a handkerchief to her eyes. “But without the confidence of these ladies, I must not stay, Mr. Lovel. God bless you for your goodness to me. I must, if you please, return to my mother.”

The worthy gentleman looked fiercely round at the two elder women, and again seizing the governess’s hand, said—“Elizabeth! dear Elizabeth! I implore you not to go! If you love the children——”

“Oh, sir!” (A cambric veil covers Miss Prior’s emotion, and the expression of her face, on this ejaculation.)

“If you love the children,” gasps out the widower, “stay with them. If you have a regard for—for their father”—(Timanthes, where is thy pocket handkerchief?)—“remain in this house, with such a title as none can question. Be the mistress of it.”

“His mistress—and before me!” screams Lady Baker. “Mrs. Bonnington, this depravity is monstrous!”

“Be my wife! dear Elizabeth,” the widower continues. “Continue to watch over the children, who shall be motherless no more.”

“Frederick! Frederick! haven’t they got us?” shrieks one of the old ladies.

“Oh, my poor dear Lady Baker!” says Mrs. Bonnington.

“Oh, my poor dear Mrs. Bonnington!” says Lady Baker.

“Frederick, listen to your mother,” implores Mrs. Bonnington.

“To your mothers!” sobs Lady Baker.

And they both go down on their knees, and I heard a boohoo of a guffaw behind the green-baized servants’ door, where I have no doubt Mons. Bedford was posted.

“Ah! Batchelor, dear Batchelor, speak to him!” cries good Mrs. Bonny. “We are praying this child, Batchelor—this child whom you used to know at College, and when he was a good, gentle, obedient boy. You have influence with my poor Frederick. Exert it for his heart-broken mother’s sake; and you shall have my bubble-uble-essings, you shall.”

“My dear good lady,” I exclaim—not liking to see the kind soul in grief.

“Send for Doctor Straightwaist! Order him to pause in his madness,” cries Baker; “or it is I, Cecilia’s mother, the mother of that murdered angel, that shall go mad.”

“Angel! Allons, I say. Since his widowhood, you have never given the poor fellow any peace. You have been for ever quarrelling with him. You took possession of his house; bullied his servants, spoiled his children—you did, Lady Baker.”

“Sir,” cries her ladyship, “you are a low, presuming, vulgar man! Clarence, beat this rude man!”

“Nay,” I say, “there must be no more quarrelling to-day. And I am sure Captain Baker will not molest me. Miss Prior, I am delighted that my old friend should have found a woman of good sense, good conduct, good temper—a woman who has had many trials, and borne them with very great patience, to take charge of him, and make him happy. I congratulate you both. Miss Prior has borne poverty so well that I am certain she will bear good fortune, for it is good fortune to become the wife of such a loyal, honest, kindly gentleman as Frederick Lovel.”

After such a speech as that, I think I may say, liberavi animam. Not one word of complaint, you see, not a hint about “Edward,” not a single sarcasm, though I might have launched some terrific shots out of my quiver, and have made Lovel and his bride-elect writhe before me. But what is the need of spoiling sport? Shall I growl out of my sulky manger, because my comrade gets the meat? Eat it, happy dog! and be thankful. Would not that bone have choked me if I had tried it? Besides, I am accustomed to disappointment. Other fellows get the prizes which I try for. I am used to run second in the dreary race of love. Second? Psha! Third, Fourth. Que sçais-je? There was the Bombay captain in Bess’s early days. There was Edward. Here is Frederick. Go to, Charles Batchelor; repine not at fortune; but be content to be Batchelor still. My sister has children. I will be an uncle, a parent to them. Isn’t Edward of the scarlet whiskers distanced? Has not poor Dick Bedford lost the race—poor Dick, who never had a chance, and is the best of us all? Besides, what fun it is to see Lady Baker deposed: think of Mrs. Prior coming in and reigning over her! The purple-faced old fury of a Baker, never will she bully, and rage, and trample more. She must pack up her traps, and be off. I know she must. I can congratulate Lovel, sincerely, and that’s the fact.

And here at this very moment, and as if to add to the comicality of the scene, who should appear but mother-in-law No. 2, Mrs. Prior, with her blue-coat boy and two or three of her children, who had been invited, or had invited themselves, to drink tea with Lovel’s young ones, as their custom was whenever they could procure an invitation. Master Prior had a fine “copy” under his arm, which he came to show to his patron Lovel. His mamma, entirely ignorant of what had happened, came fawning in with her old poke-bonnet, her old pocket, that vast depository of all sorts of stores, her old umbrella, and her usual dreary smirk. She made her obeisance to the matrons,—she led up her blue-coat boy to Mr. Lovel, in whose office she hoped to find a clerk’s place for her lad, on whose very coat and waistcoat she had designs whilst they were yet on his back: and she straightway began business with the dowagers—

“My lady, I hope your ladyship is quite well?” (a curtsey.) “Dear, kind Mrs. Bonnington! I came to pay my duty to you, mum. This is Louisa, my lady, the great girl for whom your ladyship so kindly promised the gown. And this is my little girl, Mrs. Bonnington, mum, please; and this is my big Blue. Go and speak to dear, kind Mr. Lovel, Gus, our dear good friend and protector,—the son and son-in-law of these dear ladies. Look, sir, he has brought his copy to show you; and it’s creditable to a boy of his age, isn’t it, Mr. Batchelor? You can say, who know so well what writing is, and my kind services to you, sir,—and—Elizabeth, Lizzie, my dear! where’s your spectacles, you—you——”

Here she stopped, and looking alarmed at the group, at the boxes, at the blushing Lovel, at the pale countenance of the governess, “Gracious goodness!” she said, “what has happened? Tell me, Lizzy, what is it?”

“Is this collusion, pray?” says ruffled Mrs. Bonnington.

“Collusion, dear Mrs. Bonnington?”

“Or insolence?” bawls out my lady Baker.

“Insolence, your ladyship? What—what is it? What are these boxes—Lizzy’s boxes? Ah!” the mother broke out with a scream, “you’ve not sent the poor girl away? Oh! my poor child—my poor children!”

“The Prince’s Theatre has come out, Mrs. Prior,” here, said I.

The mother clasps her meagre hands. “It wasn’t the darling’s fault. It was to help her poor father in poverty. It was I who forced her to it. O ladies! ladies!—don’t take the bread out of the mouth of these poor orphans!”—and genuine tears rained down her yellow cheeks.

“Enough of this,” says Mr. Lovel, haughtily. “Mrs. Prior, your daughter is not going away. Elizabeth has promised to stay with me, and never to leave me—as governess no longer, but as—” and here he takes Miss Prior’s hand.

“His wife! Is this—is this true, Lizzy?” gasped the mother.

“Yes, mamma,” meekly said Miss Elizabeth Prior.

At this the old woman flung down her umbrella, and uttering a fine scream, folds Elizabeth in her arms, and then runs up to Lovel; “My son!” my son! says she (Lovel’s face was not bad, I promise you, at this salutation and salute). “Come here, children!—come, Augustus, Fanny, Louisa, kiss your dear brother, children! And where are yours, Lizzy? Where are Pop and Cissy? Go and look for your little nephew and niece, dears: Pop and Cissy in the schoolroom, or in the garden, dears. They will be your nephew and niece now. Go and fetch them, I say.”

As the young Priors filed off, Mrs. Prior turned to the two other matrons, and spoke to them with much dignity: “Most hot weather, your ladyship, I’m sure! Mr. Bonnington must find it very hot for preaching, Mrs. Bonnington! Lor! There’s that little wretch beating my Johnny on the stairs. Have done, Pop, sir! How ever shall we make those children agree, Elizabeth?”

Quick, come to me, some skillful delineator of the British dowager, and draw me the countenances of Lady Baker and Mrs. Bonnington!

“I call this a jolly game, don’t you, Batchelor, old boy?” remarks the captain to me. “Lady Baker, my dear, I guess your ladyship’s nose is out of joint.”

“O Cecilia—Cecilia! Don’t you shudder in your grave?” cries Lady B. “Call my people, Clarence—call Bulkeley—call my maid! Let me go, I say, from this house of horror!” and the old lady dashed into the drawing room, where she uttered, I know not what, incoherent shrieks and appeals before that calm, glazed, simpering portrait of the departed Cecilia.

Now this is a truth, for which I call Lovel, his lady, Mrs. Bonnington and Captain Clarence Baker, as witnesses. Well, then, whilst Lady B. was adjuring the portrait, it is a fact that a string of Cecilia’s harp—which has always been standing in the corner of the room under its shroud of Cordovan leather—a string, I say, of Cecilia’s harp cracked, and went off with a loud bong, which struck terror into all beholders. Lady Baker’s agitation at the incident was awful; I do not like to describe it—not having any wish to say anything tragic in this narrative—though that I can write tragedy, plays of mine (of which envious managers never could be got to see the merit) I think will prove, when they appear in my posthumous works.

Baker has always averred that at the moment when the harp-string broke, her heart broke too. But as she lived for many years, and may be alive now for what I know; and as she borrowed money repeatedly from Lovel—he must be acquitted of the charge which she constantly brings against him of hastening her own death, and murdering his first wife Cecilia. “The harp that once in Tara’s Halls” used to make such a piteous feeble thrumming, has been carted off I know not whither; and Cecilia’s portrait, though it has been removed from the post of honour (where, you conceive, under present circumstances it would hardly be àpropos) occupies a very reputable position in the pink room up-stairs, which that poor young Clarence inhabited during my visit to Shrublands.

All the house has been altered. There’s a fine organ in the hall, on which Elizabeth performs sacred music very finely. As for my old room, it would trouble you to smoke there under the present government. It is a library now, with many fine and authentic pictures of the Lovel family hanging up in it, the English branch of the house with the wolf crest, and Gare à la louve for the motto, and a grand posthumous portrait of a Portuguese officer (Gandish), Elizabeth’s late father.

As for dear old Mrs. Bonnington, she, you may be sure, would be easily reconciled to any live mortal who was kind to her, and any plan which should make her son happy; and Elizabeth has quite won her over. Mrs. Prior, on the deposition of the other dowagers, no doubt expected to reign at Shrublands, but in this object I am not very sorry to say was disappointed. Indeed, I was not a little amused, upon the very first day of her intended reign—that eventful one of which we have been describing the incidents—to see how calmly and gracefully Bessy pulled the throne from under her, on which the old lady was clambering.

Mrs. P. knew the house very well, and everything which it contained; and when Lady Baker drove off with her son and her suite of domestics, Prior dashed through the vacant apartments, gleaning what had been left in the flurry of departure—a scarlet feather out of the dowager’s room, a shirt stud and a bottle of hair-oil, the captain’s property. “And now they are gone, and as you can’t be alone with him, my dear, I must be with you,” says she, coming down to her daughter.

“Of course, mamma, I must be with you,” says obedient Elizabeth.

“And there is the pink room, and the blue room, and the yellow room for the boys—and the chintz boudoir for me—I can put them all away, oh, so comfortably!”

“I can come and share Louisa’s room, mamma,” says Bessy. “It will not be proper for me to stay here at all—until afterwards, you know. Or I can go to my uncle at St. Boniface. Don’t you think that will be best, eh, Frederick?”

“Whatever you wish, my dear Lizzy!” says Lovel.

“And I daresay there will be some little alterations made in the house. You talked, you know, of painting, Mr. Lovel; and the children can go to their grandmamma Bonnington. And on our return when the alterations are made we shall always be delighted to see you, Mr. Batchelor—our kindest old friend. Shall we not, a—Frederick?”

“Always, always,” said Frederick.

“Come, children, come to your teas,” calls out Mrs. P., in a resolute voice.

“Dear Pop, I’m not going away—that is, only for a few days, dear,” says Bessy, kissing the boy; “and you will love me, won’t you?”

“All right,” says the boy. But Cissy said, when the same appeal was made to her: “I shall love my dear mamma!” and makes her new mother-in-law a very polite curtsey.

“I think you had better put off those men you expect to dinner to-morrow, Fred?” I say to Lovel.

“I think I had, Batch,” says the gentleman.

“Or you can dine with them at the club, you know?” remarks Elizabeth.

“Yes, Bessy.”

“And when the children have had their tea I will go with mamma. My boxes are ready, you know,” says arch Bessy.

“And you will stay, and dine with Mr. Lovel, won’t you, Mr. Batchelor?” asks the lady.

It was the dreariest dinner I ever had in my life. No undertaker could be more gloomy than Bedford, as he served us. We tried to talk politics and literature. We drank too much, purposely. Nothing would do. “Hang me, if I can stand this, Lovel,” I said, as we sat mum over our third bottle. “I will go back, and sleep at my chambers. I was not a little soft upon her myself, that’s the truth. Here’s her health, and happiness to both of you, with all my heart.” And we drained a great bumper apiece, and I left him. He was very happy I should go.

Bedford stood at the gate, as the little pony-carriage came for me in the dusk. “God bless you, sir,” says he. “I can’t stand it; I shall go too.” And he rubbed his hands over his eyes.

He married Mary Pinhorn, and they have emigrated to Melbourne; whence he sent me, three years ago, an affectionate letter, and a smart gold pin from the diggings.

A month afterwards, a cab might have been seen driving from the Temple to Hanover Square: and a month and a day after that drive, an advertisement might have been read in the Post and Times: “Married, on Thursday, 10th, at St. George’s, Hanover Square, by the Reverend the Master of St. Boniface College, Oxbridge, uncle of the bride, Frederick Lovel, Esquire, of Shrublands, Roehampton, to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the late Captain Montagu Prior, K.S.F.”

We may hear of Lovel Married some other day, but here is an end of Lovel the Widower. Valete et plaudite, you good people, who have witnessed the little comedy. Down with the curtain; cover up the boxes; pop out the gas-lights. Ho! cab. Take us home, and let us have some tea, and go to bed. Good night, my little players. We have been merry together, and we part with soft hearts and somewhat rueful countenances, don’t we?