Part 52 (1/2)

”Quite well; I saw her before I left Hill Street. She wished me to come alone, as she would not be here early.

”I hope she will be in time for the royal supper table; I quite count on her.”

”She is sure to be here.”

Lord Hainault was in earnest conversation with Baron Sergius, now the minister of King Florestan at the Court of St. James'. It was a wise appointment, for Sergius knew intimately all the English statesmen of eminence, and had known them for many years. They did not look upon him as the mere representative of a revolutionary and parvenu sovereign; he was quite one of themselves, had graduated at the Congress of Vienna, and, it was believed, had softened many subsequent difficulties by his sagacity. He had always been a cherished guest at Apsley House, and it was known the great duke often consulted him. ”As long as Sergius sways his councils, He will indulge in no adventures,” said Europe. ”As long as Sergius remains here, the English alliance is safe,” said England.

After Europe and England, the most important confidence to obtain was that of Lord Hainault, and Baron Sergius had not been unsuccessful in that respect.

”Your master has only to be liberal and steady,” said Lord Hainault, with his accustomed genial yet half-sarcastic smile, ”and he may have anything he likes. But we do not want any wars; they are not liked in the City.”

”Our policy is peace,” said Sergius.

”I think we ought to congratulate Sir Peter,” said Mr. Waldershare to Adriana, with whom he had been dancing, and whom he was leading back to Lady Hainault. ”Sir Peter, here is a lady who wishes to congratulate you on your deserved elevation.”

”Well, I do not know what to say about it,” said the former Mr. Vigo, highly gratified, but a little confused; ”my friends would have it.”

”Ay, ay,” said Waldershare, ”'at the request of friends;' the excuse I gave for publis.h.i.+ng my sonnets.” And then, advancing, he delivered his charge to her _chaperon_, who looked dreamy, abstracted, and uninterested.

”We have just been congratulating the new baronet, Sir Peter Vigo,” said Waldershare.

”Ah!” said Lady Hainault with a contemptuous sigh, ”he is, at any rate, not obliged to change his name. The desire to change one's name does indeed appear to me to be a singular folly. If your name had been disgraced, I could understand it, as I could understand a man then going about in a mask. But the odd thing is, the persons who always want to change their names are those whose names are the most honoured.”

”Oh, you are here!” said Mr. St. Barbe acidly to Mr. Seymour Hicks. ”I think you are everywhere. I suppose they will make you a baronet next.

Have you seen the batch? I could not believe my eyes when I read it.

I believe the government is demented. Not a single literary man among them. Not that I wanted their baronetcy. Nothing would have tempted me to accept one. But there is Gushy; he, I know, would have liked it. I must say I feel for Gushy; his works only selling half what they did, and then thrown over in this insolent manner!”

”Gushy is not in society,” said Mr. Seymour Hicks in a solemn tone of contemptuous pity.

”That is society,” said St. Barbe, as he received a bow of haughty grace from Mrs. Rodney, who, fascinating and fascinated, was listening to the enamoured murmurs of an individual with a very bright star and a very red ribbon.

”I dined with the Rodneys yesterday,” said Mr. Seymour Hicks; ”they do the thing well.”

”You dined there!” exclaimed St. Barbe. ”It is very odd, they have never asked me. Not that I would have accepted their invitation. I avoid parvenus. They are too fidgety for my taste. I require repose, and only dine with the old n.o.bility.”

CHAPTER Lx.x.xXIX

The Right Honourable Job Thornberry and Mrs. Thornberry had received an invitation to the Montfort ball. Job took up the card, and turned it over more than once, and looked at it as if it were some strange animal, with an air of pleased and yet cynical perplexity; then he shrugged his shoulders and murmured to himself, ”No, I don't think that will do.

Besides, I must be at Hurstley by that time.”

Going to Hurstley now was not so formidable an affair as it was in Endymion's boyhood. Then the journey occupied a whole and wearisome day. Little Hurstley had become a busy station of the great Slap-Bang railway, and a despatch train landed you at the bustling and flouris.h.i.+ng hostelry, our old and humble friend, the Horse Shoe, within the two hours. It was a rate that satisfied even Thornberry, and almost reconciled him to the too frequent presence of his wife and family at Hurstley, a place to which Mrs. Thornberry had, it would seem, become pa.s.sionately attached.

”There is a charm about the place, I must say,” said Job to himself, as he reached his picturesque home on a rich summer evening; ”and yet I hated it as a boy. To be sure, I was then discontented and unhappy, and now I have every reason to be much the reverse. Our feelings affect even scenery. It certainly is a pretty place; I really think one of the prettiest places in England.”

Job was cordially welcomed. His wife embraced him, and the younger children clung to him with an affection which was not diminished by the remembrance that their father never visited them with empty hands. His eldest son, a good-looking and well-grown stripling, just home for the holidays, stood apart, determined to show he was a man of the world, and superior to the weakness of domestic sensibility. When the hubbub was a little over, he advanced and shook hands with his father with a certain dignity.

”And when did you arrive, my boy? I was looking up your train in Bradshaw as I came along. I made out you should get the branch at Culvers Gate.”

”I drove over,” replied the son; ”I and a friend of mine drove tandem, and I'll bet we got here sooner than we should have done by the branch.”