Mr. Scarborough's Family

by Anthony Trollope

"Oh, mamma, he does not want us."

"How can you say that? How do you know?"

"I am sure Sir Magnus will not care for our coming now. Besides, how could that be retiring into private life? Sir Magnus, as ambassador, has his house always full of company."

"My dear, he is not ambassador. He is minister plenipotentiary. It is not quite the same thing. And then he is our nearest relative,—our nearest, at least, since my own brother has made this great separation, of course. We cannot go to him to be out of the way of himself."

"Why do you want to go anywhere, mamma? Why not stay at home?" But Florence pleaded in vain as her mother had already made up her mind. Before that day was over she succeeded in making her daughter understand that she was to be taken to Brussels as soon as an answer could be received from Sir Magnus and the necessary additions were made to their joint wardrobe.

Sir Magnus Mountjoy, the late general's elder brother, had been for the last four or five years the English minister at Brussels. He had been minister somewhere for a very long time, so that the memory of man hardly ran back beyond it, and was said to have gained for himself very extensive popularity. It had always been a point with successive governments to see that poor Sir Magnus got something, and Sir Magnus had never been left altogether in the cold. He was not a man who would have been left out in the cold in silence, and perhaps the feeling that such was the case had been as efficacious on his behalf as his well-attested popularity. At any rate, poor Sir Magnus had always been well placed, and was now working out his last year or two before the blessed achievement of his pursuit should have been reached. Sir Magnus had a wife of whom it was said at home that she was almost as popular as her husband; but the opinion of the world at Brussels on this subject was a good deal divided. There were those who declared that Lady Mountjoy was of all women the most overbearing and impertinent. But they were generally English residents at Brussels, who had come to live there as a place at which education for their children would be cheaper than at home. Of these Lady Mountjoy had been heard to declare that she saw no reason why, because she was the minister's wife, she should be expected to entertain all the second-class world of London. This, of course, must be understood with a good deal of allowance, as the English world at Brussels was much too large to expect to be so received; but there were certain ladies living on the confines of high society who thought that they had a right to be admitted, and who grievously resented their exclusion. It cannot, therefore, be said that Lady Mountjoy was popular; but she was large in figure, and painted well, and wore her diamonds with an air which her peculiar favorites declared to be majestic. You could not see her going along the boulevards in her carriage without being aware that a special personage was passing. Upon the whole, it may be said that she performed well her special role in life. Of Sir Magnus it was hinted that he was afraid of his wife; but in truth he desired it to be understood that all the disagreeable things done at the Embassy were done by Lady Mountjoy, and not by him. He did not refuse leave to the ladies to drop their cards at his hall-door. He could ask a few men to his table without referring the matter to his wife; but every one would understand that the asking of ladies was based on a different footing.

He knew well that as a rule it was not fitting that he should ask a married man without his wife; but there are occasions on which an excuse can be given, and upon the whole the men liked it. He was a stout, tall, portly old gentleman, sixty years of age, but looking somewhat older, whom it was a difficulty to place on horseback, but who, when there, looked remarkably well. He rarely rose to a trot during his two hours of exercise, which to the two attaché's who were told off for the duty of accompanying him was the hardest part of their allotted work. But other gentlemen would lay themselves out to meet Sir Magnus and to ride with him, and in this way he achieved that character for popularity which had been a better aid to him in life than all the diplomatic skill which he possessed.

"What do you think?" said he, walking off with Mrs. Mountjoy's letter into his wife's room.

"I don't think anything, my dear."

"You never do." Lady Mountjoy, who had not yet undergone her painting, looked cross and ill-natured. "At any rate, Sarah and her daughter are proposing to come here."