He then continued—"Nothing is more—hem—essential to a clergyman than a knowledge of the early history of Christianity. Let me ask you what you know of the Patripassian heresy?"
I don't know what I might have answered under other circumstances, but the chaplain's whisper and the Bishop's exordium were too much for me. I could not utter a word. Other questions followed, to which I answered nothing or nonsense. In the end I recollect that his lordship made me a long speech, from which I gathered—it was not difficult to do this, as it consisted of the same sentence repeated in every variety of collocation—that he was very sorry that he could not admit me into orders with such—hem—ah—insufficient preparation.
I bowed and left the room, passed through the ante-chamber and passage into the apartment where the rest of the candidates were waiting, and thence made my exit with some words of Mr Maxey's dancing and humming in my ears,—"so we're plucked again, old boy!"
Between this scene and the next passage of my life, which I shall sketch or the reader's benefit, there was an interval of several years. I had been abroad most of the time, and had very nearly managed to forget my university misfortune. There was no occasion to revert to the bishop, for my elder brother died, and I stepped into his place—the family living being duly put out to nurse for my brother Tom. From the proximate parson, I had become the bachelor heir, with rooms in Piccadilly, a groom, and a brougham.
One day—it was in the course of my first season in town—I was dining with Jobson in Hamilton Place. Why I went so frequently to Jobson's, any body who remembers Emily Jobson, and what an angel she looked in that lilac silk, will easily guess. I had flattered myself I was not prospering badly with her. But I knew there was a rival in the field—no other person than my old friend Swetter, then a rising junior of five-and-thirty at the chancery bar. We were running on a tie, as I fancied—Swetter and I. The dear girl was, I am sure, very much puzzled to decide between us; and I often thought I could see, by the expression of her face, that she was balancing Swetter, his advantages and disadvantages, his possible peerage, and the necessity entailed on his wife of staying in London through the winter, against me and my little place in Surrey. And all the time, I had an uneasy consciousness that my rival could get the start, if he pleased, by confiding to Emily certain awkward antecedents of mine, known to the reader. But, to do him justice, he was too much of a gentleman to head me by such means. This I knew, and though at this very dinner-party he was sitting opposite Emily and myself, and looking exquisitely uncomfortable every time I whispered in her ear between the spoonfuls of bisque d'écrivisses, I felt certain that even greater provocation would not tempt him to peach. So all went smoothly—as smoothly as things ought to go at one of Jobson's admirable dinners. But towards the middle of the second course, Jobson's voice, which had been growing gradually louder since we sat down, became so overpowering as to beat down and absorb all other conversation. He was talking about Cambridge and his son Plantagenet. Jobson is a nouveau riche (some of his friends call him Tyburn Jobson, because he made his money in hemp), and rather unnecessarily fond of introducing the now well-known facts that Plantagenet is at the university, and Tudor in the Guards. So, Jobson giving the cue, Cambridge became the text of the general conversation. Glauber, who stammers horridly, and, like most stammering men, takes every opportunity of telling long and inextricable stories, began to hold forth, in the midst of general silence, concerning Lady Ligham's son William, whom her ladyship would persist in believing a genius, and whom she had sent to Cambridge expressly to be senior wrangler. "But," added Glauber, "only the other d..d..d..day I heard he was p..p..p..pluck—."
The word was not out of his mouth, when that brute Jones, who was next him, gave him a tremendous admonitory poke in the side. Glauber first turned wrathfully on him, and then, beginning to comprehend, looked straight at me—his red face becoming redder with confusion, and his great goggle eyes almost starting out of his head.
"I b . . b . . b . . beg your p . . p . ." begun the wretch; but Swetter and Jones, who had been writhing with suppressed laughter, here gave vent to such sounds as effectually drowned his miserable voice. I gulped down a glass of champagne, and made things worse by choking myself. Meanwhile Emily looked on with a face of the utmost astonishment.
Well, we concluded dinner, drank Jobson's wine, and ascended to the drawing-room. No sooner did we enter, than I saw Emily go straight up to Swetter, and ask a question. He laughed a good deal at first, and then visibly commenced a long story. I followed it in Emily's face as clearly as if I had been listening to it. Yes! the temptation was too much for Swetter; and, to say the truth, he only did what any one else would have done in like circumstances. He told all. Determined to know my fate, I walked to Emily's chair, and began conversing in my usual strain. She was civil—just civil—but in less than five minutes, she managed to inform me that she hoped her dear brother Plantagenet would work hard at Cambridge—for the honour of his family. It was enough. Swetter and she were married in two months.
I left London without waiting for the season to conclude, and buried myself and a fishing-rod in a lonely Welsh cottage. For months I saw nobody but the old woman whom I brought from Monmouth to cook my dinners. She, I believe, thought me decidedly mad—principally because I once swore dreadfully at her, when, àpropos of a chicken on which I was to dine, she used a word vernacularly employed to signify the stripping birds of their feathers. I fished, caught nothing, and mused on Emily. At last, however, on casually extending a ramble to a greater length than usual, I found that a house, five miles from my present residence, and quite as solitary, had been taken by an English family. As a matter of course—though I really cannot precisely remember in what way—we became acquainted. All I know is, that I determined the acquaintance should commence as soon as possible, immediately after meeting a young lady in a pink bonnet, who was sauntering along the side of the stream in which I was pretending to fish. This was Caroline Lumley. They were the Lumleys—Captain and Mrs Lumley, and two daughters. The family had lived the anomalous life common to English semi-genteel families with small incomes. They had resided, now in Jersey, now in Dublin, now on the Continent—every where but in civilised and inhabitable parts of England. At present they had settled themselves down, for the sake of cheapness, in a spot where every thing except mutton and house-rent was twice as expensive as in London, and where they had to walk five miles to meet with a neighbour.
That neighbour was myself. I was sick with disappointed love, and Caroline Lumley was dying with ennui. Need I say that in six weeks we were engaged!