Part 57 (1/2)
CHAPTER XLII
Lady Baldock Does Not Send a Card to Phineas Finn
Lady Baldock's house in Berkeley Square was very stately,--a large house with five front windows in a row, and a big door, and a huge square hall, and a fat porter in a round-topped chair;--but it was dingy and dull, and could not have been painted for the last ten years, or furnished for the last twenty. Nevertheless, Lady Baldock had ”evenings,” and people went to them,--though not such a crowd of people as would go to the evenings of Lady Glencora. Now Mr. Phineas Finn had not been asked to the evenings of Lady Baldock for the present season, and the reason was after this wise.
”Yes, Mr. Finn,” Lady Baldock had said to her daughter, who, early in the spring, was preparing the cards. ”You may send one to Mr. Finn, certainly.”
”I don't know that he is very nice,” said Augusta Boreham, whose eyes at Saulsby had been sharper perhaps than her mother's, and who had her suspicions.
But Lady Baldock did not like interference from her daughter. ”Mr.
Finn, certainly,” she continued. ”They tell me that he is a very rising young man, and he sits for Lord Brentford's borough. Of course he is a Radical, but we cannot help that. All the rising young men are Radicals now. I thought him very civil at Saulsby.”
”But, mamma--”
”Well!”
”Don't you think that he is a little free with Violet?”
”What on earth do you mean, Augusta?”
”Have you not fancied that he is--fond of her?”
”Good gracious, no!”
”I think he is. And I have sometimes fancied that she is fond of him, too.”
”I don't believe a word of it, Augusta,--not a word. I should have seen it if it was so. I am very sharp in seeing such things. They never escape me. Even Violet would not be such a fool as that. Send him a card, and if he comes I shall soon see.” Miss Boreham quite understood her mother, though she could never master her,--and the card was prepared. Miss Boreham could never master her mother by her own efforts; but it was, I think, by a little intrigue on her part that Lady Baldock was mastered, and, indeed, altogether cowed, in reference to our hero, and that this victory was gained on that very afternoon in time to prevent the sending of the card.
When the mother and daughter were at tea, before dinner, Lord Baldock came into the room, and, after having been patted and petted and praised by his mother, he took up all the cards out of a china bowl and ran his eyes over them. ”Lord Fawn!” he said, ”the greatest a.s.s in all London! Lady Hartletop! you know she won't come.” ”I don't see why she shouldn't come,” said Lady Baldock;--”a mere country clergyman's daughter!” ”Julius Caesar Conway;--a great friend of mine, and therefore he always blackb.a.l.l.s my other friends at the club. Lord Chiltern; I thought you were at daggers drawn with Chiltern.” ”They say he is going to be reconciled to his father, Gustavus, and I do it for Lord Brentford's sake. And he won't come, so it does not signify.
And I do believe that Violet has really refused him.” ”You are quite right about his not coming,” said Lord Baldock, continuing to read the cards; ”Chiltern certainly won't come. Count Sparrowsky;--I wonder what you know about Sparrowsky that you should ask him here.”
”He is asked about, Gustavus; he is indeed,” pleaded Lady Baldock. ”I believe that Sparrowsky is a penniless adventurer. Mr. Monk; well, he is a Cabinet Minister. Sir Gregory Greeswing; you mix your people nicely at any rate. Sir Gregory Greeswing is the most old-fas.h.i.+oned Tory in England.” ”Of course we are not political, Gustavus.”
”Phineas Finn. They come alternately,--one and one.
”Mr. Finn is asked everywhere, Gustavus.”
”I don't doubt it. They say he is a very good sort of fellow. They say also that Violet has found that out as well as other people.”
”What do you mean, Gustavus?”
”I mean that everybody is saying that this Phineas Finn is going to set himself up in the world by marrying your niece. He is quite right to try it on, if he has a chance.”
”I don't think he would be right at all,” said Lady Baldock, with much energy. ”I think he would be wrong,--shamefully wrong. They say he is the son of an Irish doctor, and that he hasn't a s.h.i.+lling in the world.”
”That is just why he would be right. What is such a man to do, but to marry money? He's a deuced good-looking fellow, too, and will be sure to do it.”
”He should work for his money in the city, then, or somewhere there.
But I don't believe it, Gustavus; I don't, indeed.”