“She’s pretty much the same as usual,” said Thompson Jowell sourly, and ceased to puff himself out to double his natural size, and left off rattling the tills in his trousers, “or she was when I left her early this morning. A decent, worthy sort of woman, your mother,” he added, snorting, “without any spirit or go in her. And as for setting off fine clothes and jewels, as the wife of a man in My position ought to—you might as well hang ’em on a pump. Indeed, you’d show ’em off to more advantage, because a pump can’t retire into the background with a Dorcas work-basket and a Prayer-Book, and generally efface itself. It stops where it is,—and if it ain’t a rattler as regards conversation, people do get some kind of response from it, if they’re at the trouble of working the handle. Now, your mother——”
“My mother, sir, is as good company and as well worth looking at—in fine clothes or shabby ones—as any lady in the land!” said Morty. “I’m dam’ if she ain’t!” And so red and angry a light shone in the round brown eyes that were generally dull and lusterless, and so well-developed a scowl sat on the rather pimply forehead, from which the tall shaggy white beaver stove-pipe of the latest fashion was jovially tilted back, that Thompson Jowell changed the conversation rather hurriedly.
“Well, well! perhaps she is!” he agreed, in rather a floundering manner. “And if her own son didn’t think so, who should? Run down to Market Drowsing and see her as soon as you’re able. She won’t come up to Hanover Square before the beginning of May. Give her compliments, along with mine, to the Honorable and Reverend Alfred de Gassey and Lady Alicia Brokingbole. There’s a thorough-paced nob for you, the Honorable and Reverend! And his wife! The genuine hallmarked Thing, registered and stamped—that’s what she is!”
He referred in these terms of unqualified admiration to a needy sprig of nobility who had held a commission in a Cavalry regiment; and, having with highly commendable rapidity run through a considerable fortune, had exchanged, some years previously, at the pressing instance of his creditors, the Army for the Church, and a family living which fell vacant at a particularly appropriate moment. And, having married another slip of the aristocracy as impecunious as himself, the Reverend Alfred had hit upon the philanthropic idea of enlarging his clerical stipend and benefiting Humanity at large, by receiving under his roof two or three young gentlemen of backward education and large fortune, who should require to be prepared for the brilliant discharge of their duty to their Sovereign and their country, as subaltern officers of crack regimental corps.
Not that preparation was essential in those days, when Army Coaches were vehicles as rare as swan-drawn water-chariots; and the cramming-establishments that were some years later to spring up like mushrooms on Shooter’s Hill or Primrose Hill, or in the purlieus of Hammersmith or Peckham, were unknown. Ensigns of Infantry, or cornets of Cavalry Regiments, joined their respective corps without having received the ghost of a technical military education; often without possessing any knowledge whatever beyond a nodding acquaintance with two out of the three R’s.... Mathematics, Fortification, French and German, were not imparted by the Honorable and Reverend Alfred to his wealthy pupils, for the simple reason that he, the instructor, was not acquainted with these. But in Boxing, Fencing, Riding, the clauses of the Code of Honor regulating the Prize Ring and the dueling-ground, not to mention the rules governing the game of Whist, at which the Reverend Alfred always won; he was a very fully-qualified tutor. And his wife, the Lady Alicia Brokingbole, youngest daughter of the Earl of Gallopaway, initiated the more personable of the young gentlemen into the indispensable art of handing chairs, winding Berlin wools, giving an arm to a lady, copying sweet poems from the Forget-Me-Not or The Keepsake into her album, and generally making themselves useful and agreeable. Nor was the Lady Alicia averse to a little discreet flirtation, or a little game of piquet, or a little rubber of whist, at which, like the Reverend Alfred, she invariably won. It will be comprehended that, provided the bear-cub who came to Norwood to be licked into shape were rich, the said cub might spend a fairly pleasant time; and be regaled with a good deal of flattery and adulation, mixed with chit-chat, gossip, and scandal, of the most aristocratic and exclusive kind.
“She’s a spankin’ fine woman, is Lady Alicia,” agreed Morty, with the air of a connoisseur, “though a dam’ sight too fond of revokin’ at whist with pound points to suit my book!” he added, with a cloud upon the brow that might have been more intellectual.
“But she’s an Earl’s daughter!—an Earl’s daughter, Morty, my boy!” urged Thompson Jowell; “and moves in high Society, the very highest—or so I have been given to understand.”
“Correct, too. Knows everybody worth knowin’—got the entire Peerage and Court Circular at her finger-ends,” declared simple Morty. “I drove her four-in-hand from Norwood to the Row only yesterday. Gaw! You should have seen us! Bowin’ right and left like China Manda—what-do-you-call-’ems?—to the most tre-menjous nobs (in coroneted carriages, with flunkeys in powder and gold lace) you ever clapped your eyes on! And you ought to hear her tell of the huntin’ supper she sat down to at her cousin’s castle in Bohemia—the chap’s an Austrian Prince with a name like a horse’s cough. Four-and-forty covers, two Crowned Heads, five Hereditary Grand-Dukes with their Duchesses, a baker’s dozen of Princes, and for the rest, nothin’ under a Count or Countess, ‘until, Mr. Jowell,’ she says, ‘you arrived at Alfred, who would grace any social circle, however lofty, and poor little humble Me!’ And they played a Charade afterwards, and Lady Alicia had no jewels to wear in the part of Cleopatra, ‘having chosen,’ she says, ‘to wed for Love rather than Ambition.’ And the Prince had an iron coffin brought in—or was it a copper?—cram-jam-full of diamonds and rubies as big as pigeons’ eggs, and told her ladyship to take what she chose. ‘Gaw! those sort of relatives are worth havin’! Shouldn’t mind a few of ’em myself!’ says I to Lady A.”