Part 33 (1/2)

The veteran blushed and bowed, deeply gratified at this speech. Meanwhile, the Best of Monarchs was looking at Sir Miles Warrington (whom his Majesty knew perfectly, as the eager recipient of all favours from all Ministers), and at the young gentleman by his side.

”Who is this?” the Defender of the Faith condescended to ask, pointing towards George Warrington, who stood before his sovereign in a respectful att.i.tude, clad in poor Harry's best embroidered suit.

With the deepest reverence Sir Miles informed his King, that the young gentleman was his nephew, Mr. George Warrington, of Virginia, who asked leave to pay his humble duty.

”This, then, is the other brother?” the Venerated Prince deigned to observe. ”He came in time, else the other brother would have spent all the money. My Lord Bishop of Salisbury, why do you come out in this bitter weather? You had much better stay at home!” and with this, the revered wielder of Britannia's sceptre pa.s.sed on to other lords and gentlemen of his court. Sir Miles Warrington was deeply affected at the royal condescension. He clapped his nephew's hands. ”G.o.d bless you, my boy,” he cried; ”I told you that you would see the greatest monarch and the finest gentleman in the world. Is he not so, my Lord Bishop?”

”That, that he is!” cried his lords.h.i.+p, clasping his ruffled hands, and turning his fine eyes up to the sky, ”the best of princes and of men.”

”That is Master Louis, my Lady Yarmouth's favourite nephew,” says Lambert, pointing to a young gentleman who stood with a crowd round him; and presently the stout Duke of c.u.mberland came up to our little group.

His Royal Highness held out his hand to his old companion-in-arms. ”Congratulate you on your promotion, Lambert,” he said good-naturedly. Sir Miles Warrington's eyes were ready to burst out of his head with rapture.

”I owe it, sir, to your Royal Highness's good offices,” said the grateful General.

”Not at all; not at all: ought to have had it a long time before. Always been a good officer; perhaps there'll be some employment for you soon. This is the gentleman whom James Wolfe introduced to me?”

”His brother, sir.”

”Oh, the real Fortunate Youth! You were with poor Ned Braddock in America-a prisoner, and lucky enough to escape. Come and see me, sir, in Pall Mall. Bring him to my levee, Lambert.” And the broad back of the Royal Prince was turned to our friends.

”It is raining! You came on foot, General Lambert? You and George must come home in my coach. You must and shall come home with me, I say. By George, you must! I'll have no denial,” cried the enthusiastic Baronet; and he drove George and the General back to Hill Street, and presented the latter to my Lady Warrington and his darlings, Flora and Dora, and insisted upon their partaking of a collation, as they must be hungry after their ride. ”What, there is only cold mutton? Well, an old soldier can eat cold mutton. And a good gla.s.s of my Lady Warrington's own cordial, prepared with her own hands, will keep the cold wind out. Delicious cordial! Capital mutton! Our own, my dear General,” says the hospitable Baronet, ”our own from the country, six years old if a day. We keep a plain table; but all the Warringtons since the Conqueror have been remarkable for their love of mutton; and our meal may look a little scanty, and is, for we are plain people, and I am obliged to keep my rascals of servants on board-wages. Can't give them seven-year-old mutton, you know.”

Sir Miles, in his nephew's presence and hearing, described to his wife and daughters George's reception at court in such flattering terms that George hardly knew himself, or the scene at which he had been present, or how to look his uncle in the face, or how to contradict him before his family in the midst of the astonis.h.i.+ng narrative he was relating. Lambert sat by for a while with open eyes. He, too, had been at Kensington. He had seen none of the wonders which Sir Miles described.

”We are proud of you, dear George. We love you, my dear nephew-we all love you, we are all proud of you-”

”Yes; but I like Harry best,” says a little voice.

”-not because you are wealthy! Screwby, take Master Miles to his governor. Go, dear child. Not because you are blest with great estates and an ancient name; but because, George, you have put to good use the talents with which Heaven has adorned you; because you have fought and bled in your country's cause, in your monarch's cause, and as such are indeed worthy of the favour of the best of sovereigns. General Lambert, you have kindly condescended to look in on a country family, and partake of our unpretending meal. I hope we may see you some day when our hospitality is a little less homely. Yes, by George, General, you must and shall name a day when you and Mrs. Lambert, and your dear girls, will dine with us. I'll take no refusal now, by George I won't,” bawls the knight.

”You will accompany us, I trust, to my drawing-room?” says my lady, rising.

Mr. Lambert pleaded to be excused; but the ladies on no account would let dear George go away. No, positively, he should not go. They wanted to make acquaintance with their cousin. They must hear about that dreadful battle and escape from the Indians. Tom Claypool came in and heard some of the story. Flora was listening to it with her handkerchief to her eyes, and little Miles had just said- ”Why do you take your handkerchief, Flora? You're not crying a bit.”

Being a man of great humour, Martin Lambert, when he went home, could not help entertaining his wife with an account of the new family with which he had made acquaintance. A certain cant word called humbug had lately come into vogue. Will it be believed that the General used it to designate the family of this virtuous country gentleman? He described the eager hospitalities of the father, the pompous flatteries of the mother, and the daughters' looks of admiration; the toughness and security of the mutton, and the abominable taste and odour of the cordial; and we may be sure Mrs. Lambert contrasted Lady Warrington's recent behaviour to poor Harry with her present conduct to George.

”Is this Miss Warrington really handsome?” asks Mrs Lambent.

”Yes; she is very handsome indeed, and the most astounding flirt I have ever set eyes on,” replies the General.

”The hypocrite! I have no patience with such people!” cries the lady.

To which the General, strange to say, only replied by the monosyllable ”Bo!”

”Why do you say 'Bo!' Martin?” asks the lady.

”I say 'Bo!' to a goose, my dear,” answers the General.

And his wife vows she does not know what he means, or of what he is thinking, and the General says- ”Of course not.”

CHAPTER LIX. In which we are treated to a Play

The real business of life, I fancy, can form but little portion of the novelist's budget. When he is speaking of the profession of arms, in which men can show courage or the reverse, and in treating of which the writer naturally has to deal with interesting circ.u.mstances, actions, and characters, introducing recitals of danger, devotedness, heroic deaths, and the like, the novelist may perhaps venture to deal with actual affairs of life: but otherwise, they scarcely can enter into our stories. The main part of Ficulnus's life, for instance, is spent in selling sugar, spices and cheese; of Causidicus's in poring over musty volumes of black-letter law; of Sartorius's in sitting, cross-legged, on a board after measuring gentlemen for coats and breeches. What can a story-teller say about the professional existence of these men? Would a real rustical history of hobnails and eighteenpence a day be endurable? In the days whereof we are writing, the poets of the time chose to represent a shepherd in pink breeches and a chintz waistcoat, dancing before his flocks, and playing a flageolet tied up with a blue satin ribbon. I say, in reply to some objections which have been urged by potent and friendly critics, that of the actual affairs of life the novelist cannot be expected to treat-with the almost single exception of war before named. But law, stockbroking, polemical theology, linen-drapery, apothecary-business, and the like, how can writers manage fully to develop these in their stories? All authors can do, is to depict men out of their business-in their pa.s.sions, loves, laughters, amus.e.m.e.nts, hatreds, and what not-and describe these as well as they can, taking the business part for granted, and leaving it as it were for subaudition.

Thus, in talking of the present or the past world, I know I am only dangling about the theatre-lobbies, coffee-houses, ridottos, pleasure-haunts, fair-booths, and feasting- and fiddling-rooms of life; that, meanwhile, the great serious past or present world is plodding in its chambers, toiling at its humdrum looms, or jogging on its accustomed labours, and we are only seeing our characters away from their work. Corydon has to cart the litter and thresh the barley, as well as to make love to Phillis; Ancillula has to dress and wash the nursery, to wait at breakfast and on her misses, to take the children out, etc., before she can have her brief sweet interview through the area-railings with Boopis, the policeman. All day long have his heels to beat the stale pavement before he has the opportunity to s.n.a.t.c.h the hasty kiss or the furtive cold pie. It is only at moments, and away from these labours, that we can light upon one character or the other; and hence, though most of the persons of whom we are writing have doubtless their grave employments and avocations, it is only when they are disengaged and away from their work, that we can bring them and the equally disengaged reader together.

The macaronis and fine gentlemen at White's and Arthur's continued to show poor Harry Warrington such a very cold shoulder, that he sought their society less and less, and the Ring and the Mall and the gaming-table knew him no more. Madame de Bernstein was for her nephew's braving the indifference of the world, and vowed that it would be conquered, if he would but have courage to face it; but the young man was too honest to wear a smiling face when he was discontented; to disguise mortification or anger; to parry slights by adroit flatteries or cunning impudence; as many gentlemen and gentlewomen must and do who wish to succeed in society.

”You pull a long face, Harry, and complain of the world's treatment of you,” the old lady said. ”Fiddlededee, sir! Everybody has to put up with impertinences: and if you get a box on the ear now you are poor and cast down, you must say nothing about it, bear it with a smile, and if you can, revenge it ten years after. Moi qui vous parle, sir!-do you suppose I have had no humble-pie to eat? All of us in our turn are called upon to swallow it: and, now you are no longer the Fortunate Youth, be the Clever Youth, and win back the place you have lost by your ill luck. Go about more than ever. Go to all the routs and parties to which you are asked, and to more still. Be civil to everybody-to all women especially. Only of course take care to show your spirit, of which you have plenty. With economy, and by your brother's, I must say, admirable generosity, you can still make a genteel figure. With your handsome person, sir, you can't fail to get a rich heiress. Tenez! You should go amongst the merchants in the City, and look out there. They won't know that you are out of fas.h.i.+on at the Court end of the town. With a little management, there is not the least reason, sir, why you should not make a good position for yourself still. When did you go to see my Lady Yarmouth, pray? Why did you not improve that connexion? She took a great fancy to you. I desire you will be constant at her ladys.h.i.+p's evenings, and lose no opportunity of paying court to her.”

Thus the old woman who had loved Harry so on his first appearance in England, who had been so eager for his company, and pleased with his artless conversation, was taking the side of the world, and turning against him. Instead of the smiles and kisses with which the fickle old creature used once to greet him, she received him with coldness; she became peevish and patronising; she cast gibes and scorn at him before her guests, making his honest face flush with humiliation, and awaking the keenest pangs of grief and amazement in his gentle, manly heart. Madame de Bernstein's servants, who used to treat him with such eager respect, scarcely paid him now any attention. My lady was often indisposed or engaged when he called on her; her people did not press him to wait; did not volunteer to ask whether he would stay and dine, as they used in the days when he was the Fortunate Youth and companion of the wealthy and great. Harry carried his woes to Mrs. Lambert. In a pa.s.sion of sorrow he told her of his aunt's cruel behaviour to him. He was stricken down and dismayed by the fickleness and heartlessness of the world in its treatment of him. While the good lady and her daughters would move to and fro, and busy themselves with the cares of the house, our poor lad would sit glum in a window-seat, heart-sick and silent.

”I know you are the best people alive,” he would say to the ladies, ”and the kindest, and that I must be the dullest company in the world-yes, that I am.”

”Well, you are not very lively, Harry,” says Miss Hetty, who began to command him, and perhaps to ask herself, ”What? Is this the gentleman whom I took to be such a hero?”

”If he is unhappy, why should he be lively?” asks Theo, gently. ”He has a good heart, and is pained at his friends' desertion of him. Sure there is no harm in that?”

”I would have too much spirit to show I was hurt, though,” cries Hetty, clenching her little fists. ”And I would smile, though that horrible old painted woman boxed my ears. She is horrible, mamma. You think so yourself, Theo! Own, now, you think so yourself! You said so last night, and acted her coming in on her crutch, and grinning round to the company.”

”I mayn't like her,” said Theo, turning very red. ”But there is no reason why I should call Harry's aunt names before Harry's face.”

”You provoking thing; you are always right!” cries Hetty, ”and that's what makes me so angry. Indeed, Harry, it was very wrong of me to make rude remarks about any of your relations.”

”I don't care about the others, Hetty; but it seems hard that this one should turn upon me. I had got to be very fond of her; and you see, it makes me mad, somehow, when people I'm very fond of turn away from me, or act unkind to me.”

”Suppose George were to do so?” asks Hetty. You see, it was George and Hetty, and Theo and Harry, amongst them now.

”You are very clever and very lively, and you may suppose a number of things; but not that, Hetty, if you please,” cried Harry, standing up and looking very resolute and angry. ”You don't know my brother as I know him-or you wouldn't take-such a-liberty as to suppose-my brother George could do anything unkind or unworthy!” Mr. Harry was quite in a flush as he spoke.

Hetty turned very white. Then she looked up at Harry, and then she did not say a single word.

Then Harry said, in his simple way, before taking leave, ”I'm very sorry, and I beg your pardon, Hetty, if I said anything rough, or that seemed unkind; but I always fight up if anybody says anything against George.”

Hetty did not answer a word out of her pale lips, but gave him her hand, and dropped a prim little curtsey.

When she and Theo were together at night, making curl-paper confidences, ”Oh!” said Hetty, ”I thought it would be so happy to see him every day, and was so glad when papa said we were to stay in London! And now I do see him, you see, I go on offending him. I can't help offending him; and I know he is not clever, Theo. But oh! isn't he good, and kind, and brave? Didn't he look handsome when he was angry?”

”You silly little thing, you are always trying to make him look handsome,” Theo replied.

It was Theo and Hetty, and Harry and George, among these young people, then; and I dare say the reason why General Lambert chose to apply the monosyllable ”Bo” to the mother of his daughters, was as a rebuke to that good woman for the inveterate love of sentiment and propensity to match-making which belonged to her (and every other woman in the world whose heart is worth a fig); and as a hint that Madam Lambert was a goose if she fancied the two Virginian lads were going to fall in love with the young women of the Lambert house. Little Het might have her fancy; little girls will; but they get it over: ”and you know, Molly” (which dear, soft-hearted Mrs. Lambert could not deny), ”you fancied somebody else before you fancied me,” says the General; but Harry had evidently not been smitten by Hetty; and now he was superseded, as it were, by having an elder brother over him, and could not even call the coat upon his back his own, Master Harry was no great catch.

”Oh yes: now he is poor we will show him the door, as all the rest of the world does, I suppose,” says Mrs. Lambert.