Kitobni o'qish: «Sybil, Or, The Two Nations», sahifa 17

BOOK IV

Book 4 Chapter 1

“Are you going down to the house, Egerton?” enquired Mr Berners at Brookes, of a brother M.P., about four o’clock in the early part of the spring of 1839.

“The moment I have sealed this letter; we will walk down together, if you like!” and in a few minutes they left the club.

“Our fellows are in a sort of fright about this Jamaica bill,” said Mr Egerton in an undertone, as if he were afraid a passer-by might overhear him. “Don’t say anything about it, but there’s a screw loose.”

“The deuce! But how do you mean?”

“They say the Rads are going to throw us over.”

“Talk, talk. They have threatened this half-a-dozen times. Smoke, sir; it will end in smoke.”

“I hope it may; but I know, in great confidence mind you, that Lord John was saying something about it yesterday.”

“That may be; I believe our fellows are heartily sick of the business, and perhaps would be glad of an excuse to break up the government: but we must not have Peel in; nothing could prevent a dissolution.”

“Their fellows go about and say that Peel would not dissolve if he came in.”

“Trust him!”

“He has had enough of dissolutions they say.”

“Why, after all they have not done him much harm. Even —34 was a hit.”

“Whoever dissolves,” said Mr Egerton, “I don’t think there will be much of a majority either way in our time.”

“We have seen strange things,” said Mr Berners.

“They never would think of breaking up the government without making their peers,” said Mr Egerton.

“The Queen is not over partial to making more peers; and when parties are in the present state of equality, the Sovereign is no longer a mere pageant.”

“They say her Majesty is more touched about these affairs of the Chartists than anything else,” said Mr Egerton.

“They are rather queer; but for my part I have no serious fears of a Jacquerie.”

“Not if it comes to an outbreak; but a passive resistance Jacquerie is altogether a different thing. When we see a regular Convention assembled in London and holding its daily meetings in Palace Yard; and a general inclination evinced throughout the country to refrain from the consumption of exciseable articles, I cannot help thinking that affairs are more serious than you imagine. I know the government are all on the ‘qui vive.’”

“Just the fellows we wanted!” exclaimed Lord Fitz-Heron, who was leaning on the arm of Lord Milford, and who met Mr Egerton and his friend in Pall Mall.

“We want a brace of pairs,” said Lord Milford. “Will you two fellows pair?”

“I must go down,” said Mr Egerton; “but I will pair from halfpast seven to eleven.”

“I just paired with Ormsby at White’s,” said Berners; “not half an hour ago. We are both going to dine at Eskdale’s, and so it was arranged. Have you any news to-day?”

“Nothing; except that they say that Alfred Mountchesney is going to marry Lady Joan Fitz-Warene,” said Lord Milford.

“She has been given to so many,” said Mr Egerton.

“It is always so with these great heiresses,” said his companion. “They never marry. They cannot bear the thought of sharing their money. I bet Lady Joan will turn out another specimen of the TABITHA CROESUS.”

“Well, put down our pair, Egerton,” said Lord Fitz-Heron. “You do not dine at Sidonia’s by any chance?”

“Would that I did! You will have the best dishes and the best guests. I feed at old Malton’s; perhaps a tete a tete: Scotch broth, and to tell him the news!”

“There is nothing like being a dutiful nephew, particularly when one’s uncle is a bachelor and has twenty thousand a-year,” said Lord Milford. “Au revoir! I suppose there will be no division to-night.”

“No chance.”

Egerton and Berners walked on a little further. As they came to the Golden Ball, a lady quitting the shop was just about to get into her carriage; she stopped as she recognized them. It was Lady Firebrace.

“Ah! Mr Berners, how d’ye do? You were just the person I wanted to see! How is Lady Augusta, Mr Egerton? You have no idea, Mr Berners, how I have been fighting your battles!”

“Really, Lady Firebrace,” said Mr Berners rather uneasy, for he had perhaps like most of us a peculiar dislike to being attacked or cheapened. “You are too good.”

“Oh! I don’t care what a person’s politics are!” exclaimed Lady Firebrace with an air of affectionate devotion. “I should be very glad indeed to see you one of us. You know your father was! But if any one is my friend I never will hear him attacked behind his back without fighting his battles; and I certainly did fight yours last night.”

“Pray tell me where it was?”

“Lady Crumbleford—”

“Confound Lady Crumbleford!” said Mr Berners indignant but a little relieved.

“No, no; Lady Crumbleford told Lady Alicia Severn.”

“Yes, yes,” said Berners, a little pale, for he was touched.

“But I cannot stop,” said Lady Firebrace. “I must be with Lady St Julians exactly at a quarter past four;” and she sprang into her carriage.

“I would sooner meet any woman in London than Lady Firebrace,” said Mr Berners; “she makes me uneasy for the day: she contrives to convince me that the whole world are employed behind my back in abusing or ridiculing me.”

“It is her way,” said Egerton; “she proves her zeal by showing you that you are odious. It is very successful with people of weak nerves. Scared at their general unpopularity, they seek refuge with the very person who at the same time assures them of their odium and alone believes it unjust. She rules that poor old goose, Lady Gramshawe, who feels that Lady Firebrace makes her life miserable, but is convinced that if she break with the torturer, she loses her only friend.”

“There goes a man who is as much altered as any fellow of our time.”

“Not in his looks; I was thinking the other night that he was better-looking than ever.”

“Oh! no; not in his looks; but in his life. I was at Christchurch with him, and we entered the world about the same time. I was rather before him. He did everything; and did it well. And now one never sees him, except at the House. He goes nowhere; and they tell me he is a regular reading man.”

“Do you think he looks to office?”

“He does not put himself forward.”

“He attends; and his brother will always be able to get anything for him,” said Egerton.

“Oh! he and Marney never speak; they hate each other.”

“By Jove! However there is his mother; with this marriage of hers and Deloraine House, she will be their grandest dame.”

“She is the only good woman the tories have: I think their others do them harm, from Lady St Julians down to your friend Lady Firebrace. I wish Lady Deloraine were with us. She keeps their men together wonderfully; makes her house agreeable; and then her manner—it certainly is perfect; natural, and yet refined.”

“Lady Mina Blake has an idea that far from looking to office, Egremont’s heart is faintly with his party; and that if it were not for the Marchioness—”

“We might gain him, eh?”

“Hem; I hardly know that: he has got crotchets about the people I am told.”

“What, the ballot and household suffrage?”

“Gad, I believe it is quite a different sort of a thing. I do not know what it is exactly; but I understand he is crotchetty.”

“Well, that will not do for Peel. He does not like crotchetty men. Do you see that, Egerton?”

At this moment, Mr Egerton and his friend were about to step over from Trafalgar square to Charing Cross. They observed the carriages of Lady St Julians and the Marchioness of Deloraine drawn up side by side in the middle of the street, and those two eminent stateswomen in earnest conversation. Egerton and Berners bowed and smiled, but could not hear the brief but not uninteresting words that have nevertheless reached us.

“I give them eleven,” said Lady St Julians.

“Well, Charles tells me,” said Lady Deloraine, “that Sir Thomas says so, and he certainly is generally right; but it is not Charles’ own opinion.”

“Sir Thomas, I know, gives them eleven,” said Lady St Julians; “and that would satisfy me; and we will say eleven. But I have a list here,” and she slightly elevated her brow, and then glanced at Lady Deloraine with a piquant air, “which proves that they cannot have more than nine; but this is in the greatest confidence: of course between us there can be no secrets. It is Mr Tadpole’s list; nobody has seen it but me; not even Sir Robert. Lord Grubminster has had a stroke: they are concealing it, but Mr Tadpole has found it out. They wanted to pair him off with Colonel Fantomme, who they think is dying: but Mr Tadpole has got a Mesmerist who has done wonders for him, and who has guaranteed that he shall vote. Well, that makes a difference of one.”

“And then Sir Henry Churton—”

“Oh! you know it,” said Lady St Julians, looking slightly mortified. “Yes: he votes with us.”

Lady Deloraine shook her head. “I think,” she said, “I know the origin of that report. Quite a mistake. He is in a bad humour, has been so the whole session, and he was at Lady Alice Fermyne’s, and did say all sorts of things. All that is true. But he told Charles this morning on a committee, that he should vote with the Government.”

“Stupid man!” exclaimed Lady St Julians; “I never could bear him. And I have sent his vulgar wife and great staring daughter a card for next Wednesday! Well, I hope affairs will soon be brought to a crisis, for I do not think I can bear much longer this life of perpetual sacrifice,” added Lady St Julians a little out of temper, both because she had lost a vote and found her friend and rival better informed than herself.

“There is no chance of a division to-night,” said Lady Deloraine.

“That is settled,” said Lady St Julians. “Adieu, my dear friend. We meet, I believe, at dinner?”

“Plotting,” said Mr Egerton to Mr Berners, as they passed the great ladies.

“The only consolation one has,” said Berners, “is, that if they do turn us out, Lady Deloraine and Lady St Julians must quarrel, for they both want the same thing.”

“Lady Deloraine will have it,” said Egerton.

Here they picked up Mr Jermyn, a young tory M.P., who perhaps the reader may remember at Mowbray Castle; and they walked on together, Egerton and Berners trying to pump him as to the expectations of his friends.

“How will Trodgits go?” said Egerton.

“I think Trodgits will stay away,” said Jermyn.

“Who do you give that new man to—that north-country borough fellow;—what’s his name?” said Berners.

“Blugsby! Oh, Blugsby dined with Peel,” said Jermyn.

“Our fellows say dinners are no good,” said Egerton; “and they certainly are a cursed bore: but you may depend upon it they do for the burgesses. We don’t dine our men half enough. Now Blugsby was just the sort of fellow to be caught by dining with Peel: and I dare say they made Peel remember to take wine with him. We got Melbourne to give a grand feed the other day to some of our men who want attention they say, and he did not take wine with a single guest. He forgot. I wonder what they are doing at the House! Here’s Spencer May, he will tell us. Well, what is going on?”

“WISHY is up, and WASHY follows.”

“No division, of course?”

“Not a chance; a regular covey ready on both sides.”

Book 4 Chapter 2

On the morning of the same day that Mr Egerton and his friend Mr Berners walked down together to the House of Commons, as appears in our last chapter, Egremont had made a visit to his mother, who had married since the commencement of this history the Marquis of Deloraine, a great noble who had always been her admirer. The family had been established by a lawyer, and recently in our history. The present Lord Deloraine, though he was gartered and had been a viceroy, was only the grandson of an attorney, but one who, conscious of his powers, had been called to the bar and died an ex-chancellor. A certain talent was hereditary in the family. The attorney’s son had been a successful courtier, and had planted himself in the cabinet for a quarter of a century. It was a maxim in this family to make great alliances; so the blood progressively refined, and the connections were always distinguished by power and fashion. It was a great hit, in the second generation of an earldom, to convert the coronet into that of a marquis; but the son of the old chancellor lived in stirring times, and cruised for his object with the same devoted patience with which Lord Anson watched for the galleon. It came at last, as everything does if men are firm and calm. The present marquis, through his ancestry and his first wife, was allied with the highest houses of the realm and looked their peer. He might have been selected as the personification of aristocracy: so noble was his appearance, so distinguished his manner; his bow gained every eye, his smile every heart. He was also very accomplished, and not ill-informed; had read a little, and thought a little, and was in every respect a most superior man; alike famed for his favour by the fair, and the constancy of his homage to the charming Lady Marney.

Lord Deloraine was not very rich; but he was not embarrassed, and had the appearance of princely wealth; a splendid family mansion with a courtyard; a noble country-seat with a magnificent park, including a quite celebrated lake, but with very few farms attached to it. He however held a good patent place which had been conferred on his descendants by the old chancellor, and this brought in annually some thousands. His marriage with Lady Marney was quite an affair of the heart; her considerable jointure however did not diminish the lustre of his position.

It was this impending marriage, and the anxiety of Lady Marney to see Egremont’s affairs settled before it took place, which about a year and a half ago had induced her to summon him so urgently from Mowedale, which the reader perhaps may have not forgotten. And now Egremont is paying one of his almost daily visits to his mother at Deloraine House.

“A truce to politics, my dear Charles,” said Lady Marney; “you must be wearied with my inquiries. Besides, I do not take the sanguine view of affairs in which some of our friends indulge. I am one of those who think the pear is not ripe. These men will totter on, and longer perhaps than even themselves imagine. I want to speak of something very different. To-morrow, my dear son, is your birth-day. Now I should grieve were it to pass without your receiving something which showed that its recollection was cherished by your mother. But of all silly things in the world, the silliest is a present that is not wanted. It destroys the sentiment a little perhaps but it enhances the gift, if I ask you in the most literal manner to assist me in giving you something that really would please you?”

“But how can I, my dear mother?” said Egremont. “You have ever been so kind and so generous that I literally want nothing.”

“Oh! you cannot be such a fortunate man as to want nothing, Charles,” said Lady Marney with a smile. “A dressing-case you have: your rooms are furnished enough: all this is in my way; but there are such things as horses and guns of which I know nothing, but which men always require. You must want a horse or a gun, Charles. Well, I should like you to get either; the finest, the most valuable that money can purchase. Or a brougham, Charles; what do you think of a new brougham? Would you like that Barker should build you a brougham?”

“You are too good, my dear mother. I have horses and guns enough; and my present carriage is all I can desire.”

“You will not assist me, then? You are resolved that I shall do something very stupid. For to give you something I am determined.”

“Well my dear mother,” said Egremont smiling and looking round, “give me something that is here.”

“Choose then,” said Lady Marney, and she looked round the blue satin walls of her apartment, covered with cabinet pictures of exquisite art, and then at her tables crowded with precious and fantastic toys.

“It would be plunder, my dear mother,” said Egremont.

“No, no; you have said it; you shall choose something. Will you have those vases?” and she pointed to an almost matchless specimen of old Sevres porcelain.

“They are in too becoming a position to be disturbed,” said Egremont, “and would ill suit my quiet chambers, where a bronze or a marble is my greatest ornament. If you would permit me, I would rather choose a picture?”

“Then select one at once,” said Lady Marney; “I make no reservation, except that Watteau, for it was given me by your father before we were married. Shall it be this Cuyp?”

“I would rather choose this,” said Egremont, and he pointed to the portrait of a saint by Allori: the face of a beautiful young girl, radiant and yet solemn, with rich tresses of golden brown hair, and large eyes dark as night, fringed with ebon lashes that hung upon the glowing cheek.

“Ah! you choose that! Well, that was a great favourite of poor Sir Thomas Lawrence. But for my part I have never seen any one in the least like it, and I think I am sure that you have not.”

“It reminds me—” said Egremont musingly.

“Of what you have dreamed,” said Lady Marney.

“Perhaps so,” said Egremont; “indeed I think it must have been a dream.”

“Well, the vision shall still hover before you,” said his mother; “and you shall find this portrait to-morrow over your chimney in the Albany.”

Book 4 Chapter 3

“Strangers must withdraw.”

“Division: clear the gallery. Withdraw.”

“Nonsense; no; it’s quite ridiculous; quite absurd. Some fellow must get up. Send to the Carlton; send to the Reform; send to Brookes’s. Are your men ready? No; are your’s? I am sure I can’t say. What does it mean? Most absurd! Are there many fellows in the library? The smoking-room is quite full. All our men are paired till half-past eleven. It wants five minutes to the halfhour. What do you think of Trenchard’s speech? I don’t care for ourselves; I am sorry for him. Well that is very charitable. Withdraw, withdraw; you must withdraw.”

“Where are you going, Fitztheron?” said a Conservative whipling.

“I must go; I am paired till half-past eleven, and it wants some minutes, and my man is not here.”

“Confound it!”

“How will it go?”

“Gad, I don’t know.”

“Fishy eh?”

“Deuced!” said the under-whip in an under-tone, pale and speaking behind his teeth.

The division bell was still ringing; peers and diplomatists and strangers were turned out; members came rushing in from library and smoking-room; some desperate cabs just arrived in time to land their passengers in the waiting-room. The doors were locked.

The mysteries of the Lobby are only for the initiated. Three quarters of an hour after the division was called, the result was known to the exoteric world. Majority for Ministers thirty-seven! Never had the opposition made such a bad division, and this too on their trial of strength for the session. Everything went wrong. Lord Milford was away without a pair. Mr Ormsby, who had paired with Mr Berners, never came, and let his man poll; for which he was infinitely accursed, particularly by the expectant twelve hundred a-yearers, but not wanting anything himself, and having an income of forty thousand pounds paid quarterly, Mr Ormsby bore their reported indignation like a lamb.

There were several other similar or analogous mischances; the whigs contrived to poll Lord Grubminster in a wheeled chair; he was unconscious but had heard as much of the debate as a good many. Colonel Fantomme on the other hand could not come to time; the mesmerist had thrown him into a trance from which it was fated he should never awake: but the crash of the night was a speech made against the opposition by one of their own men, Mr Trenchard, who voted with the government.

“The rest may be accounted for,” said Lady St Julians to Lady Deloraine the morning after; “it is simply vexatious; it was a surprise and will be a lesson: but this affair of this Mr Trenchard—and they tell me that William Loraine was absolutely cheering him the whole time—what does it mean? Do you know the man?”

“I have heard Charles speak of him, and I think much in his favour,” said Lady Deloraine; “if he were here, he would tell us more about it. I wonder he does not come: he never misses looking in after a great division and giving me all the news.”

“Do you know, my dear friend,” said Lady St Julians with an air of some solemnity, “I am half meditating a great stroke? This is not a time for trifling. It is all very well for these people to boast of their division of last night, but it was a surprise, and as great to them as to us. I know there is dissension in the camp; ever since that Finality speech of Lord John, there has been a smouldering sedition. Mr Tadpole knows all about it; he has liaisons with the frondeurs. This affair of Trenchard may do us the greatest possible injury. When it comes to a fair fight, the government have not more than twelve or so. If this Mr Trenchard and three or four others choose to make themselves of importance—you see? The danger is imminent, it must be met with decision.”

“And what do you propose doing?”

“Has he a wife?”

“I really do not know. I wish Charles would come, perhaps he could tell us.”

“I have no doubt he has,” said Lady St Julians. “One would have met him, somehow or other in the course of two years, if he had not been married. Well, married or unmarried, with his wife, or without his wife,—I shall send him a card for Wednesday.” And Lady St Julians paused, overwhelmed as it were by the commensurate vastness of her idea and her sacrifice.

“Do not you think it would be rather sudden?” said Lady Deloraine.

“What does that signify? He will understand it; he will have gained his object; and all will be right.”

“But are you sure it is his object? We do not know the man.”

“What else can be his object?” said Lady St Julians. “People get into Parliament to get on; their aims are indefinite. If they have indulged in hallucinations about place before they enter the House, they are soon freed from such distempered fancies; they find they have no more talent than other people, and if they had, they learn that power, patronage and pay are reserved for us and our friends. Well then like practical men, they look to some result, and they get it. They are asked out to dinner more than they would be; they move rigmarole resolutions at nonsensical public meetings; and they get invited with their women to assemblies at their leader’s where they see stars and blue ribbons, and above all, us, whom they little think in appearing on such occasions, make the greatest conceivable sacrifice. Well then, of course such people are entirely in one’s power, if one only had time and inclination to notice them. You can do anything with them. Ask them to a ball, and they will give you their votes; invite them to dinner and if necessary they will rescind them; but cultivate them, remember their wives at assemblies and call their daughters, if possible, by their right names; and they will not only change their principles or desert their party for you; but subscribe their fortunes if necessary and lay down their lives in your service.”

“You paint them to the life, my dear Lady St Julians,” said Lady Deloraine laughing; “but with such knowledge and such powers, why did you not save our boroughs?”

“We had lost our heads, then, I must confess,” said Lady St Julians. “What with the dear King and the dear Duke, we really had brought ourselves to believe that we lived in the days of Versailles or nearly; and I must admit I think we had become a little too exclusive. Out of the cottage circle, there was really no world, and after all we were lost not by insulting the people but by snubbing the aristocracy.”

The servant announced Lady Firebrace. “Oh! my dear Lady Deloraine. Oh! my dear Lady St Julians!” and she shook her head.

“You have no news, I suppose,” said Lady St Julians.

“Only about that dreadful Mr Trenchard; you know the reason why he ratted?”

“No, indeed,” said Lady St Julians with a sigh.

“An invitation to Lansdowne House, for himself and his wife!”

“Oh! he is married then?”

“Yes; she is at the bottom of it all. Terms regularly settled beforehand. I have a note here—all the facts.” And Lady Firebrace twirled in her hand a bulletin from Mr Tadpole.

“Lansdowne House is destined to cross me,” said Lady St Julians with bitterness.

“Well it is very provoking,” said Lady Deloraine, “when you had made up your mind to ask them for Wednesday.”

“Yes, that alone is a sacrifice,” said Lady St Julians.

“Talking over the division I suppose,” said Egremont as he entered.

“Ah! Mr Egremont,” said Lady St Julians. “What a hachis you made of it.”

Lady Firebrace shook her head, as it were reproachfully.

“Charles,” said Lady Deloraine, “we were talking of this Mr Trenchard. Did I not once hear you say you knew something of him?”

“Why, he is one of my intimate acquaintance.”

“Heavens! what a man for a friend!” said Lady St Julians.

“Heavens!” echoed Lady Firebrace raising her hands.

“And why did you not present him to me, Charles,” said Lady Deloraine.

“I did; at Lady Peel’s.”

“And why did you not ask him here?”

“I did several times; but he would not come.”

“He is going to Lansdowne House, though,” said Lady Firebrace.

“I suppose you wrote the leading article in the Standard which I have just read,” said Egremont smiling. “It announces in large type the secret reasons of Mr Trenchard’s vote.”

“It is a fact,” said Lady Firebrace.

“That Trenchard is going to Lansdowne House to-night; very likely. I have met him at Lansdowne House half-a-dozen times. He is very intimate with the family and lives in the same county.”

“But his wife,” said Lady Firebrace; “that’s the point: he never could get his wife there before.”

“He has none,” said Egremont very quietly.

“Then we may regain him,” said Lady St Julians with energy. “You shall make a little dinner to Greenwich, Mr Egremont, and I will sit next to him.”

“Fortunate Trenchard!” said Egremont. “But do you know I fear he is hardly worthy of his lot. He has a horror of fine ladies; and there is nothing in the world he more avoids than what you call society. At home, as this morning when I breakfasted with him, or in a circle of his intimates, he is the best company in the world; no one so well informed, fuller of rich humour, and more sincerely amiable. He is popular with all who know him—except Taper, Lady St Julians, and Tadpole, Lady Firebrace.”

“Well, I think I will ask him still for Wednesday,” said Lady St Julians; “and I will write him a little note. If society is not his object, what is?”

“Ay!” said Egremont, “there is a great question for you and Lady Firebrace to ponder over. This is a lesson for you fine ladies, who think you can govern the world by what you call your social influences: asking people once or twice a-year to an inconvenient crowd in your house; now haughtily smirking, and now impertinently staring, at them; and flattering yourselves all this time, that to have the occasional privilege of entering your saloons and the periodical experience of your insolent recognition, is to be a reward for great exertions, or if necessary an inducement to infamous tergiversation.”