Part 1 (1/2)
General Bounce.
by G. J. Whyte-Melville.
PREFACE
Where the rose blushes in the garden, there will the bee and the b.u.t.terfly be found, humming and fluttering around. So is it in the world; the fair girl, whose sweetness is enhanced by the fict.i.tious advantages of wealth and position, will ever have lovers and admirers enough and to spare.
Burns was no bad judge of human nature; and he has a stanza on this subject, combining the reflection of the philosopher with the _canny_ discrimination of the Scot.
”Away with your follies of beauty's alarms, The _slender_ bit beauty you clasp in your arms; But gi'e me the la.s.s that has acres of charms, Oh, gi'e me the la.s.s with the _weel-plenished_ farms.”
Should the following pages afford such attractive young ladies matter for a few moments' reflection, the author will not have written in vain.
May he hope they will choose well and wisely; and that the withered rose, when she has lost her fragrance, may be fondly prized and gently tended by the hand that plucked her in her dewy morning prime.
CHAPTER I
MY COUSIN
AN ENGLISHMAN'S HOLIDAY--ST. SWITHIN'S IN A CALM--THE MERCHANT'S AMBITION--”MON BEAU COUSIN”--CASTLES IN THE AIR--A LIVELY CRAFT--”HAIRBLOWER” AND HIS COLD BATH
Much as we think of ourselves, and with all our boasted civilisation, we Anglo-Saxons are but a half-barbarian race after all. Nomadic, decidedly nomadic in our tastes, feelings, and pursuits, it is but the moisture of our climate that keeps us in our own houses at all, and like our Scandinavian ancestors (for in turf parlance we have several crosses of the old Norse blood in our veins), we delight periodically--that is, whenever we have a fortnight's dry weather--to migrate from our dwellings, and peopling the whole of our own sea-board, push our invading hordes over the greater part of Europe, nor refrain from thrusting our outposts even into the heart of Asia, till the astonished Mussulman, aghast at our vagaries, strokes his placid beard, and with a blessing on his Prophet that he is not as we are, soothes his disgust with a sentiment, so often repeated that in the East it has become a proverb--viz. that ”There is one devil, and there are many devils; but there is _no_ devil like a Frank in a round hat!”
It was but last autumn that, stepping painfully into our tailor's shop--for, alas! a course of London dinners cannot be persisted in, season after season, without producing a decided tendency to gout in the extremities--hobbling, then, into our tailor's warehouse, as he calls it, we were measured by an unfledged jackanapes, whose voice we had previously heard warning his brother fractions that ”an old gent was a waitin' inside,” instead of that spruce foreman who, for more years than it is necessary to specify, has known our girth to an inch, and our weight to a pound. Fearful that in place of the grave habit of broadcloth which we affect as most suitable to our age and manner, we might find ourselves equipped in one of the many grotesque disguises in which young gentlemen now-a-days deem it becoming to hide themselves, and described by the jackanapes, aforesaid, who stepped round us in ill-concealed admiration of our corpulence, as ”a walking coat, a riding coat, a smoking coat, or a coat _to go to the stable in_!” we ventured to inquire for ”the person we usually saw,” and were informed that ”the gent as waited on us last year had gone for a few months' holiday to the Heast.” Heavens and earth, Mr. Bobst.i.tch was even then in Syria! What a Scandinavian! rather degenerate to be sure in size and ferocity--though Bobst.i.tch, being a little man, is probably very terrible when roused--but yet no slight contrast to one of those gaunt, grim, russet-bearded giants that made the despot of the Lower Empire quake upon his throne. And yet Bobst.i.tch was but obeying the instinct which he inherits from the sea-kings his ancestors, an instinct which in less adventurous souls than a tailor's fills our watering-places to overflowing, and pours the wealth, while it introduces the manners, of the capital into every bight and bay that indents the sh.o.r.es of Britain.
Doubtless the citizens are right. Let us, while we are in Scandinavian vein, make use of an old Norse metaphor, and pressing into our service the two Ravens of Odin, named Mind and Will, with these annihilate time and s.p.a.ce, so as to be, like the Irish orator's bird, ”in two places at once.” Let us first of all take a retrospective glance at Mrs. Kettering's house in Grosvenor Square, one of the best houses, by the way, to be had in London for love or money. We recollect it well, not so many years ago, lit up for one of those great solemnities which novelists call ”a rout,” but which people in real life, equally martially as well as metaphorically, designate ”a drum.” To us creeping home along the pavement outside the _fete_, it seemed the realisation of fairyland. Row upon row, glaring carriage-lamps, like the fabulous monsters keeping watch, illuminated the square and adjoining streets, even to the public-house round the corner, that night driving a highly remunerative trade; whilst on a nearer inspection magnificent horses (horses, like ladies, look most beautiful by candle-light), gorgeous carriages--none of your Broughams and Clarences, but large, roomy, well-hung family coaches, with cartoons of heraldry on the panels--gigantic footmen, and fat coachmen, struck the beholder with admiration not totally unmixed with awe. Then the awning that was to admit the privileged to the inner realms of this earthly paradise, of which the uninitiated might know but the exterior; what a gauzy, gaudy transparency it was, no unfitting portal to that upper storey, from which the golden light was hardly veiled by jalousies and window-blinds. Ever and anon, much las.h.i.+ng of bay, brown, or chestnut sufferers, and the interference of a tall policeman, with a hat made on purpose to be a.s.saulted by bludgeons, betokened the arrival of a fresh party, and angelic beings in white robes, with glossy hair, tripped daintily up the steps over a cloth, not of gold exactly, but of horse-hair, amongst a phalanx of unwashed faces, gazing half enviously at such loveliness in full dress. How beautiful we used to think these apparitions as we plodded home to our quiet chambers! but young Bareface, our connecting link with the great world, who goes to all the _best_ places, through the influence of his aunt, Lady Champfront, a.s.sures us they don't look half so beautiful inside, and that he sees quite as pretty faces, and hair quite as nicely done, at the little gatherings in Russell Square and Bloomsbury, to which even we might go if we liked. A radical dog!
we don't believe a word of it. Never mind, let us look at that house in the dead time of year. Without and within, from attics to bas.e.m.e.nt, from the balcony facing the square to the empty bird-cage overlooking a precipice of offices at the back, Repose and Ennui reign supreme.
Were it not for the knocking of the workmen next door, we might as well be in the Great Desert. There _is_, we presume, a woman in possession, but she has gone to ”get the beer,” and if you have ever sighed for a town-house, now is the time to be satisfied with your rustic lot, and to hug yourself that you are not paying ground-rent and taxes, church-rate, poor's-rate, and water-rate, drainage, lighting, and paving, for that ghastly palace of soot and cobwebs, dust, dreariness, and decay. There is a scaffolding up in every third house in the square; and workmen in paper caps, with foot-rules sticking out of their fustian trousers, and complexions ingrained with lime-dust, and guiltless of fresh water, seem to be the only inhabitants of this deserted region, and even they are ”between earth and heaven.” Brown and parched are the unfortunate shrubs in those gardens of which discontented householders ”round the corner” covet so to possess a key; and the very birds, sparrows, every feather of 'em, hop about in dirty suits of plumage that can only be described as of that colour unknown to naturalists, which other people call ”grimy.”
Who would be in London in the autumn? Not Mrs. Kettering, certainly, if she might be elsewhere; and although she had possessed this excellent and commodious family mansion, with all its boudoirs, retreats, and appurtenances, so well described in the advertis.e.m.e.nt, but a short time, and was not the giver of that ”reunion of fas.h.i.+onables” we have depicted above (indeed, the hostess of that evening has since been economising up two pair of stairs at Antwerp); yet Mrs. Kettering having plenty of money, and being able to do what she liked, had wisely moved herself, her fancies, her imperials, and her family to the coast, where, obeying the instinct for freedom that has driven Bobst.i.tch to the desert, she was idly inhaling the salt breezes of the Channel, and dazzling her eyes with the sun-glint that sparkled over its dancing waves.
Some few years have elapsed since the events took place which we shall endeavour to describe; but the white cliffs of our island change little with the lapse of time, though the sea does make its encroachments ever and anon when the wind has been blowing pretty steady from the south-west for a fortnight or so, and the same scene may be witnessed any fine day towards the middle of August as that which we are about to contrast with the dulness, closeness, and confinement of the great town-house in Grosvenor Square.
First, we must imagine a real summer's day, such a day as in our island we seldom enjoy till summer has well-nigh given place to autumn, but which, when it does come, is worth waiting for. Talk of climate! a real fine day in England, like a really handsome Englishwoman, beats creation. Well, we must imagine one of these bright, hot, hay-making days, almost too warm and dusty ash.o.r.e, but enjoyable beyond conception on the calm and oily waves, unruffled by the breeze, and literally as smooth as gla.s.s. A sea-bird occasionally dips her wing on the surface, and then flaps lazily away, as if she too was as much inclined to go to sleep as yonder moveless fleet of lugger, brig, bark, and schooner, with their empty sails, and their heads all round the compa.s.s. There is a warm haze towards the land, and the white houses of St. Swithin's seem to glow and sparkle in the heat, whilst to seaward a modified sort of mirage would make one fancy one could plainly distinguish the distant coast of France.
Ash.o.r.e, in those great houses, people are panting, and gasping, and creating thorough draughts that fill their rooms with a small white dust of a destructive tendency to all personal property. The children up-stairs are running about in linen under-garments, somewhat more troublesome than usual, with a settled flush on their little peach-like cheeks, and the s.h.i.+ning streets are deserted, save by the perspiring pot-boy, and the fly-men drinking beer in their s.h.i.+rt sleeves. Only afloat is there a chance of being cool; and sailing-boat, gig, dinghy, and cobble, all are in requisition for the throng of amateur mariners, rus.h.i.+ng like ducklings to the refres.h.i.+ng element.
It was on just such a day as this that Mrs. Kettering found it extremely difficult to ”trim the boat.” A mile or so from the sh.o.r.e, that boat was slowly progressing, impelled by the unequal strength of her nephew Charles, commonly called ”Cousin Charlie,” and its worthy proprietor, a fine specimen of the genus ”seaman,” who certainly had a Christian name, and probably a patronymic, but had sunk both distinctions under the sobriquet of ”Hairblower,” by which appellation alone he was acknowledged by gentle and simple, bold and timid, delicate ladies and bluff fishermen, along many a mile of sea-board, up and down from St. Swithin's.
”The least thing further, Master Charles,” said Hairblower, ever and anon pulling the stripling's efforts round with one hand. ”Don't ye disturb, madam--don't ye move, Miss Blanche; it's not _your_ weight that makes her roll.” And again he moistened the large, strong hand, and turned to look out ahead.
In vain Mrs. Kettering shut up her parasol, and s.h.i.+fted her seat; in vain she disposed her ample figure, first in one uncomfortable position, then in another; she could _not_ ”trim the boat,” and the reason was simple enough. Mrs. Kettering's weight was that of a lady who had all her life been ”a fine woman,” and was now somewhat past maturity; whilst her daughter and only child, ”Blanche,” the occupant of the same bench, had but just arrived at that period when the girl begins to lengthen out into the woman, and the slight, lanky figure, not without a grace peculiar to itself, is nevertheless as delicate as a gossamer, and as thin as its own gauzy French bonnet.
Mother and daughter were but little alike, save in their sweet and rather languid tone of voice--no trifling charm in that s.e.x which is somewhat p.r.o.ne, especially under excitement, to pitch its organ in too high a key. Mrs. Kettering was dark and brown of complexion, with sparkling black eyes, and a rich colour, much heightened by the heat.
Not very tall in stature, but large and square of frame, well-filled out besides by a good appet.i.te, a good digestion, and, though nervous and excitable, a good temper. Blanche, on the contrary, with her long violet eyes, her curving dark eyelashes, and golden-brown hair, was so slight of frame and delicate of tint as to warrant her mother's constant alarm for her health; not that there was any real cause for anxiety, but mamma loved to fidget, if not about ”dear Blanche,” about something belonging to her; and failing these, had a constant fund of worry in the exploits and escapades of graceless ”Cousin Charlie.”
”Now, Charlie, my own dear boy” (Mrs. K. was very fond of Charlie), ”I know you must be over-heating yourself--nothing so bad for growing lads. Mr. Hairblower, _pray_ don't let him row so hard.”