Madame de F. Qu’as tu?
Clive. I might as well hope to marry one of the sisters of yonder convent, dear lady. (He sinks down again, and she kisses him.)
Clive. I never had a mother; but you seem like one.
Madame de F. Mon fils! Oh, mon fils!
CHAPTER XLVIII.
In which Benedick is a Married Man
We have all heard of the dying French Duchess, who viewed her coming dissolution and subsequent fate so easily, because she said she was sure that Heaven must deal politely with a person of her quality;—I suppose Lady Kew had some such notions regarding people of rank: her long-suffering towards them was extreme; in fact, there were vices which the old lady thought pardonable, and even natural, in a young nobleman of high station, which she never would have excused in persons of vulgar condition.
Her ladyship’s little knot of associates and scandal-bearers—elderly roues and ladies of the world, whose business it was to know all sorts of noble intrigues and exalted tittle-tattle; what was happening among the devotees of the exiled court at Frobsdorf; what among the citizen princes of the Tuileries; who was the reigning favourite of the Queen Mother at Aranjuez; who was smitten with whom at Vienna or Naples; and the last particulars of the chroniques scandaleuses of Paris and London;—Lady Kew, I say, must have been perfectly aware of my Lord Farintosh’s amusements, associates, and manner of life, and yet she never, for one moment, exhibited any anger or dislike towards that nobleman. Her amiable heart was so full of kindness and forgiveness towards the young prodigal that, even without any repentance on his part, she was ready to take him to her old arms, and give him her venerable benediction. Pathetic sweetness of nature! Charming tenderness of disposition! With all his faults and wickednesses, his follies and his selfishness, there was no moment when Lady Kew would not have received the young lord, and endowed him with the hand of her darling Ethel.
But the hopes which this fond forgiving creature had nurtured for one season, and carried on so resolutely to the next, were destined to be disappointed yet a second time, by a most provoking event, which occurred in the Newcome family. Ethel was called away suddenly from Paris by her father’s third and last paralytic seizure. When she reached her home, Sir Brian could not recognise her. A few hours after her arrival, all the vanities of the world were over for him: and Sir Barnes Newcome, Baronet, reigned in his stead. The day after Sir Brian was laid in his vault at Newcome—a letter appeared in the local papers addressed to the Independent Electors of that Borough, in which his orphan son, feelingly alluding to the virtue, the services, and the political principles of the deceased, offered himself as a candidate for the seat in Parliament now vacant. Sir Barnes announced that he should speedily pay his respects in person to the friends and supporters of his lamented father. That he was a staunch friend of our admirable constitution need not be said. That he was a firm, but conscientious upholder of our Protestant religion, all who knew Barnes Newcome must be aware. That he would do his utmost to advance the interests of this great agricultural, this great manufacturing county and borough, we may be sure he avowed; as that he would be (if returned to represent Newcome in Parliament) the advocate of every rational reform, the unhesitating opponent of every reckless innovation. In fine, Barnes Newcome’s manifesto to the Electors of Newcome was as authentic a document and gave him credit for as many public virtues, as that slab over poor Sir Brian’s bones in the chancel of Newcome church, which commemorated the good qualities of the defunct, and the grief of his heir.
In spite of the virtues, personal and inherited, of Barnes, his seat for Newcome was not got without a contest. The dissenting interest and the respectable Liberals of the borough wished to set up Samuel Higg, Esq.; against Sir Barnes Newcome: and now it was that Barnes’s civilities of the previous year, aided by Madame de Moncontour’s influence over her brother, bore their fruit. Mr. Higg declined to stand against Sir Barnes Newcome, although Higg’s political principles were by no means those of the honourable Baronet; and the candidate from London, whom the Newcome extreme Radicals set up against Barnes, was nowhere on the poll when the day of election came. So Barnes had the desire of his heart; and, within two months after his father’s demise, he sate in Parliament as Member for Newcome.
The bulk of the late Baronet’s property descended, of course, to his eldest son: who grumbled, nevertheless, at the provision made for his brothers and sisters, and that the town-house should have been left to Lady Anne, who was too poor to inhabit it. But Park Lane is the best situation in London, and Lady Anne’s means were greatly improved by the annual produce of the house in Park Lane, which, as we all know, was occupied by a foreign minister for several subsequent seasons. Strange mutations of fortune: old places; new faces; what Londoner does not see and speculate upon them every day? Cœlia’s boudoir, who is dead with the daisies over her at Kensal Green, is now the chamber where Delia is consulting Dr. Locock, or Julia’s children are romping: Florio’s dining-tables have now Pollio’s wine upon them: Calista, being a widow, and (to the surprise of everybody who knew Trimalchio, and enjoyed his famous dinners) left but very poorly off, lets the house, and the rich, chaste, and appropriate planned furniture, by Dowbiggin, and the proceeds go to keep her little boys at Eton. The next year, as Mr. Clive Newcome rode by the once familiar mansion (whence the hatchment had been removed, announcing that there was in Cœlo Quies for the late Sir Brian Newcome, Bart.), alien faces looked from over the flowers in the balconies. He got a card for an entertainment from the occupant of the mansion, H.E. the Bulgarian minister; and there was the same crowd in the reception-room and on the stairs, the same grave men from Gunter’s distributing the refreshments in the dining-room, the same old Smee, R. A. (always in the room where the edibles were), cringing and flattering to the new occupants; and the same effigy of poor Sir Brian, in his deputy-lieutenant’s uniform, looking blankly down from over the sideboard, at the feast which his successors were giving. A dreamy old ghost of a picture. Have you ever looked at those round George IV.’s banqueting-hall at Windsor? Their frames still hold them, but they smile ghostly smiles, and swagger in robes and velvets which are quite faint and faded: their crimson coats have a twilight tinge: the lustre of their stars has twinkled out: they look as if they were about to flicker off the wall and retire to join their originals in limbo.