There he was, sure enough, just as she expected, his old black coat glazed and torn, his pinched-up hat pressed down over his pale, sunken features, his whole appearance dirty and emaciated. None but his wife could have recognised the dapper Tom Blacke, of St. Swithin"s, in that shaky, scowling, dissipated sot. Alas! she knew him in his present character too well. There he was, playing skittles with a ponderous ruffian, in a linen jacket and high-lows, who looked like a showman of a travelling menagerie, only not so respectable; and a little Jew pedlar, with a hawk eye and an expression of countenance that defied Mephistopheles himself to overreach him. There was her husband, betting pots of beer and "goes" of gin, though the cupboard was bare at home and the child crying for food--marking his game with a trembling hand, cheating when he won, and blaspheming when he lost, like the very blackguard to which he was rapidly descending.
Gingham shook a little as she advanced, twirling the door-key nervously round her finger; but she determined to try the _suaviter in modo_ first, so she began, "Tom! Tom Blacke! dinner"s ready, ain"t you coming home?"
"Home! Home be ----! and you, too, Mrs. Blacke; we won"t go home till mornin"--shall us, Mr. Fibbes?" Mr. Fibbes, although appearances were much against him, in his linen jacket and high-lows, was a man of politeness where the fair were concerned, so he took a straw out of his mouth, and replied, "Not to cross the missus, when sich is by no means necessary; finish the game first, and then we"ll hargue the pint--that"s what _I_ say."
"O Tom, _pray_ come away," said poor Gingham, who had caught sight of the chalked-up score, and knew, by sad experience, what havoc it would make with the weekly earnings. "I durstn"t leave the child not a minute longer; I"ve kept your bit of dinner all hot for you--come away, there"s a dear!"
"Not I," said Tom, poising his wooden bowl for a fresh effort, and, irritated by his failure, bursting forth upon his wife. "How _can_ I leave these gentlemen in their game to attend to you? Come, let"s have no nonsense; be off! _be off!_" he repeated, clenching his fist, and raising his voice to a pitch that called forth from the large man the admonitory remark that "_easy does it_," whilst the little Jew"s eyes glittered at the prospect of winning his game.
But Gingham was roused, and she went at him fiercely and at once: "Shame--shame on ye!" she exclaimed, in a low, hoa.r.s.e voice, gradually rising, as she got more excited, and her pale features worked with pa.s.sion, "with the child cryin" at home, and me obliged to come and look for you in such a place as this; me that slaves and toils, and works my fingers to the bone," holding up her needle-scarred hands to the by-standers, who were already collecting, as they always do when there is a prospect of _a row_. "Call yourself a man!--_a man_, indeed!--and let your wife and child starve whilst you are taking your diversion, and enjoying of yourself here? And you too," she added, attacking the large man and the Jew with a suddenness which much startled the former, "_you_ ought to be ashamed of yourselves, you ought; keeping of him here, and making of him as bad as yourselves--though perhaps _you"re_ not husbands and fathers, and don"t know no better. Ay, do, you coward! strike a woman if you dare!
Was it for this I left my place and my missus? Oh dear, oh dear, whatever shall I do?" and Gingham, throwing her ap.r.o.n over her head, sank upon a bench in a pa.s.sion of weeping, supported by a phalanx of matrons who had already collected, and who took part in the altercation, as being to all intents and purposes a Government question.
Tom Blacke was furious, of course. Had it not been for the large man, he would have struck his wife to the ground--alas! not the first time, we fear, that she had felt the weight of a coward"s arm; but that ponderous champion interposed his ma.s.sive person, and recommended his friend strongly "not to cross the missus." Truth to tell, Mr. Fibbes had a little shrew of a black-eyed wife at home, who ruled the roast, and kept her great husband in entire subjection; besides which, like most square, powerful men, he was a good-natured fellow, though not very respectable; and having won as much beer as he wanted from Tom, willingly lent his good offices to solder up the quarrel, which ended, as such disturbances generally do, in a sort of half-sulky reconciliation, and the wife marching off in triumph with her captured husband. The women, as usual, had formed the majority of the crowd, and of course sided with the injured lady; so Tom Blacke, after a few ineffectual threats, and an oath or two, left the ground with his still sobbing wife, promising himself an ample revenge if she should dare to cross him at home, when there was no one by to take her part.
When they arrived at the desolate room which served them for home, "baby" was awake, and crying piteously to find its little self alone.
On what trifles do the moods and tempers of the human mind depend! The child set up a crow of delight to see its father, instead of the hideous howl in which it had been indulging, and stretched out its little arms with a welcome that went straight to the drunkard"s heart.
In another moment he was dancing the little thing up and down in perfect good humour; and poor Gingham, thoroughly overcome, was leaning her head against his shoulder in a paroxysm of reconciled affection, and going through that process of relief known to ladies by the expressive term of "having a good cry."
How many a matrimonial bicker has been interrupted and ended by the innocent smile of "one of these little ones"! How many an ill-a.s.sorted couple have been kept from separation by the homely consideration of "what should be done with the children"! How many an evil desire, how many an unkind thought, has been quenched at its very birth by the pure, open gaze of a guileless child! The stern, severe man, disgusted with the world, and disappointed in his best affections, has a corner in his heart for those whom he prizes as his own flesh and blood; the pa.s.sionate, impetuous woman, yearning for the love she seeks in vain at home, her mind filled with an image of which it is sin even to think, and beset by the hundred temptations to which those are exposed who pa.s.s their lives in wedded misery, pauses on the very threshold, and is saved from guilt when she thinks of her darlings. Sunshine and music do they make in a house, with their bright, happy faces, the patter of their little feet, and the ringing echoes of their merry laugh. Grudge not to have the quiver full of them. Love and prize them whilst you may; for the hour will come at last, and your life will be weary and your hearth desolate when they take wing and fly away.
So Tom Blacke and his wife are reconciled for the time, and would be comparatively happy, were it not for the grinding anxiety ever present to their minds of how to "make both ends meet"--that consideration which poisons the comfort of many a homely dwelling, and which in their case is doubtless their own fault, or at least the fault of the "pater familias," but none the less bitter on that account.
"There is the baker to pay, and the rent," sighed Gingham, enumerating them on her fingers; "and the butcher called this morning with his account; to be sure it is but little, and little there is to meet it with. I shall be paid to-day for the plain-work, and I got a bit of washing yesterday, that brought me in sevenpence-halfpenny," she proceeded, immersed in calculation; "and then we shall be three-and-eightpence short--three-and-eight-pence! and where to get it I don"t know, if I was to drop down dead this minute!"
"I _must_ have a little money to-day, too, missus," said Tom, in a hoa.r.s.e, dogged voice; "can"t ye put the screw on a little tighter? A man may as well be starved to death as worried to death; and I can"t face "The Feathers" again without wiping off a bit of the score, ye know." Gingham"s eye glanced at the Sunday gown, hanging on a nail behind the door--a black silk one, of voluminous folds and formidable rustle, the last remnant of respectability left--and she thought _that_, too, must follow the rest to the p.a.w.nbroker"s, to that receptacle of usury with which, alas! she was too familiar, and from which even now she possessed sundry mocking duplicates, representing many a once-prized article of clothing and furniture.
Tom saw and interpreted the hopeless glance. "No, no," said he, relenting, "not quite so bad as that, neither; I wouldn"t strip the gown off your back, Rachel, not if it was ever so; I couldn"t bear to see you, that was once so respectable, going about all in rags. We _might_ get on, too," added he, brightening up, with an expression of desperate cunning in his bad eye--"we might get money--ay, plenty of it--if you were only like the rest: you"re too mealy-mouthed, Mrs.
Blacke, that"s where it is."
"O Tom, what would you have me do?" exclaimed his wife, bursting afresh into tears; "we"ve been honest as yet through it all, and I"ve borne and borne because we _were_ honest. I"d work upon my bare knees for you and the child--I"d starve and never complain _myself_, if I hadn"t a morsel in the cupboard; but I"d keep my honesty, Tom, I"d keep my honesty, for when _that"s_ gone, all"s gone together."
"Will your honesty put decent clothes on your back, missus?" rejoined Tom, who did not see that the article in question was by any means so indispensable; "will your honesty put a joint down before the fire, such as we used to sit down to every day, when we was first man and wife, and lived respectable? Will your honesty furnish a bellyful for this poor little beggar, that"s whining now on my knee for a bit to eat?" Gingham began to relent at this consideration, and Tom pursued his advantage: "Besides, it"s not as if it was to do anybody any harm; there"s Miss Blanche got more than she knows what to do with, and the young gentleman--he"s away at the wars. _Honesty_, indeed! if honesty"s the game, you"ve a right to your share, what Mrs. Kettering intended you should have. I think I ought to know the law; and the law"s on our side, and the justice too. Ah! Rachel, you used not to be so difficult to come round once," concluded Tom, trying the _tender_ tack, when he had exhausted all his other arguments; and recalling to his wife"s mind, as he intended it should do, their early days of courtship, and the carriage of a certain brown-paper parcel by the sea-sh.o.r.e.
But Gingham felt she had right on her side; and when we can indulge the spirit of contradiction never dormant in our natures, and fight under the banner of truth at the same time, it is too great a luxury for mortal man, or especially mortal woman, to forego, so Gingham was game to the last. "No, Tom, _no_!" she said, steadily and with emphasis, "I _won"t_ do it, so don"t ask me, and there"s an end of it!"
Her husband put the child down in disgust, banged his hat upon his head, as if to go back to "The Feathers," and was leaving the room, when a fresh idea struck him. If he could but break down his wife"s self-respect he might afterwards mould her more easily to his purpose, and the course he proposed to adopt might, at any rate, furnish him in the meantime with a little money for his dissipation; so he turned round coaxingly to poor Gingham, and asked for his bit of dinner, and put the infant once more upon his knee, ere he began to sound her on the propriety of applying for a little a.s.sistance to her darling Miss Blanche. "You ought to go and see your young lady, Rachel," said he, quite good-humouredly, and with the old keeping-company-days" smile; "it"s only proper respect, now she"s grown to be a great lady, and come to London. I"ll mind the child at home; it likes to be left with its daddy--a deary--and you brush yourself up a bit, and put on your Sunday gown there, and take a bit of a holiday; you needn"t hurry back, you know, if they ask you to stay tea in the room, and I"ll be here till you come home; or if I"m not, I"ll get one of the neighbours to look in. So now go, there"s a good wench."
Mrs. Blacke had not heard such endearing language since the sea-side walks at St. Swithin"s--she felt almost happy again, and nearly forgot the "three-and-eightpence" wanting for the week"s account. Sundry feminine misgivings had she, as to her personal appearance being sufficiently fine to face the new servants, in the exalted character of Miss Blanche"s late lady"s-maid; but women, even ugly ones, have a wonderful knack of adorning themselves on very insufficient materials, and Tom a.s.sured her the black silk looked as good as new, and that bonnet always _did_ become her, and always _would_--so she gave the child a parting kiss, and her husband many injunctions to take care of the treasure, and started in wonderfully good spirits; Tom"s last injunction to her as she departed being to this effect--"If Miss Blanche should ask you how we"re getting on, Rachel, you put your pride in your pocket--mind that--put your pride in your pocket, do you understand?" So the drunkard was left alone with his child.
We have already said Tom was fond of the little thing--in fact, it was the only being on earth that had found its way to his heart. Man must love _something_, and Tom Blacke, the attorney"s clerk, who had married for money as if he had been a ruined peer of the realm, cared just as little for his wife as any impoverished n.o.bleman might for the peeress with whom his income was necessarily enc.u.mbered; but the more indifferent he was to the mother, the fonder he was of the child; and with all his liking for skittles and vulgar dissipation (the whist and claret of higher circles), he thought it no hardship to spend the rest of the afternoon with an infant that was just beginning to talk. He fully intended, as he had promised, to remain at home till his wife returned, but a drunkard can have no will of his own. When a man gives himself up to strong drink he chooses a mistress who will take no denial, for whom appet.i.te grows too fiercely by what it feeds on, whose beck and call he must be ever ready to obey, for she will punish his neglect by the infliction of such horrors as we may fancy pictured in the imagination of the doomed--till he fly for relief back to the enchantress that has maddened him; and whilst the poison begets thirst as the thirst craves for the poison, the liquid fire poured upon the smouldering flame eats, and saps, and scorches, till it expires in drivelling idiocy, or blazes out in raving, riotous madness. Mr.
Blacke was tolerably cheerful up to a certain point, when he arrived at that state which we once heard graphically described by the sergeant of a barrack-guard, on whom the duty had devolved of placing an inebriated warrior in solitary confinement--"Was he drunk, sergeant?" said the orderly officer. "No, sir." "Was he sober, then?"
"No, sir." "How? neither drunk nor sober! what d"ye mean?" "Well, sir, the man had been drinking, no doubt, _but the liquor was just dying out in him_."
So with Tom Blacke--after an hour or so the liquor began to _die out in him_, and then came the ghastly reaction. First he thought the room was gloomy and solitary, and he got nearer the child"s cradle for company--the little thing was again asleep, and he adjusted its coverlet more comfortably--ah! that slimy, crawling creature! what is it? so near the infant"s head--he brushed it away with his hand, but swarms of the same loathsome insects came climbing over the cradle, chairs, and furniture. Now they settled on his legs and clothes, and he beat them down and flung them from him by hundreds, shuddering with horror the while; then he looked into the corners of the room, and put his hands before his eyes after each startled glance, for hideous faces grinned and gibbered at him, starting out from the very walls, and mopping and mowing, shifted their forms and places, so that it was impossible to identify them. He could have borne these, but worse still, there was a Shape in the room with him, of whose presence he was fearfully conscious, though whenever he manned himself to look steadily at it, it was gone. He could not bear to have this visitant _behind_ him, so he backed his chair hard against the wall. In vain--still on the side from which he turned his head the grim Shape sat and cowered and blinked at him. He knew it--he felt it--mortal nerves could bear it no longer. He grew desperate, as a man does in a dream. Should he take the child and run for it? No! he would meet It on the narrow stairs, and he could not get by there. Ha! the window!
bounding into the air, child and all, he might escape. He was mad now--he was capable of anything. Come along, little one!--they are blocking up the room--they cover the room in myriads--the Shape is waving them on--light and freedom without, the devil and all his legions within--Hurrah!
Fortunate was it for the hope of the Blacke family that Mrs. Crimp was at this instant returning to her lodgings above, accompanied by several promising young Crimps, with whom, as she toiled up the common staircase, she kept up a running fire of objurgation and entreaty. The homely sounds, the familiar voices, brought Tom Blacke to himself. The vicinity of such a material dame as Mrs. Crimp was sufficient to destroy the ideal in the most brandy-sodden brain, and the horrors left their victim for the time. But he dared not remain to encounter a second attack. He could not answer for the consequences of another hour in that room alone with the child; so he asked his neighbour, a kind, motherly woman, and as fond of a baby as if she had not nursed a dozen of her own, to keep an eye upon his little one, and betook himself straight to "The Feathers," to raise the accursed remedy to his lips with a trembling hand, and borrow half-an-hour"s callousness at a frightful sacrifice. Tom thought he knew what was good for his complaint, and "clung to the hand that smote him" with the confirmed infatuation of a sot. So we leave him at the bar, with a glazed eye, a haggard smile, and the worm that never dies eating into his very vitals.
In the meantime, Gingham, with the dingy bonnet somewhat c.o.c.ked up behind, and her bony fingers peeping through the worn thread gloves, is making her way along the sunny pavement in the direction of Grosvenor Square. The old black silk gown looks worse than she expected in that searching light, and she feels nervous and shy at revisiting her former haunts; nor does she like leaving home for many hours at a time. But as she walks on, the exercise does her good. The moving objects on all sides, and the gaudy bustle of London in the height of the season, have an exhilarating effect on her spirits. It is so seldom she has _an outing_; moped up for days together in that mews, the very change is enjoyment; and the shops, with their cheap dresses and seductive ribbons, are perfect palaces of delight. She cannot tear herself from one window, where an excellent silk for her own wear, and a frock "fit to dress an angel," as she thinks, for baby, are to be sold, in tempting juxtaposition, respectively for a mere nothing. If she was sure the colour of the silk would _stand_, she would try and sc.r.a.pe the money together to buy it; but a pang shoots through her as she recalls the fatal "three-and-eightpence," so she walks on with a heavy sigh, and though she knows she never can possess it, yet she feels all the better for having seen such a dress as _that_.
And these, and such as these, are the pleasures of the poor in our great metropolis. Continual self-denial, continual self-restraint, continual self-abas.e.m.e.nt--like Tantalus, to be whelmed in the waters of enjoyment which must never touch the lip. In the country the poor man can at least revel in its freshest and purest delights. We have been told that "the meek shall inherit the earth"; and the day-labourer, mending "my lord"s" park fence, has often far more enjoyment in that wilderness of beauty than its high-born proprietor.
While the latter is in bed, the former breathes the sweet morning air and the scent of a thousand wild flowers, whose fragrance will be scorched up ere noon. The glad song of birds makes music to his ear--the whole landscape, smiling in the sunlight, is spread out for the delight of his eye. Not only the park, and the waving woods, and the placid lake, are his property for the time, but the cheerful homesteads, and the scattered herds, and the hazy distance stretching away as far as those blue hills that melt into the sky. He can admire the shadow of each giant elm without disturbing himself as to which of them must be marked for the axe; he can watch the bounding deer without caring which is the fattest to furnish a haunch for solemn dinners and political entertainments, where people eat because they are weary, and drink because they are dull. The distant view he looks upon is to him a breathing, sparkling world, full of light and life and hope--not a mere county, subdivided into votes and freeholds, and support and interest. His frame is attempered by toil to the enjoyment of natural pleasures and natural beauties. The wild breeze fans his brow--the daisies spring beneath his feet--the glorious summer sky is spread above--and the presence of his Maker pervades the atmosphere about him. For the time the man is happy--happier, perhaps, than he is himself aware of. To be sure he is mortal, and in the midst of all he sighs for beer; yet is his lot one not unmixed with many pure and thrilling pleasures; and if he can only get plenty of work, there are many states of existence far worse than that of an English field-labourer.
Not so with the sons of toil in town--there, all enjoyment is artificial, all pleasure must be paid for--the air they breathe will support life, but its odours are far different from those of the wild flower. If their eyes are ever gladdened by beauty, it is but the pomp and splendour of their fellow-creatures, on which they gaze with sneering admiration--half envy, half contempt. If their ears are ever ravished by music, there is a tempting demon wafting sin into their hearts upon the sounds--there is a mocking voice of ribaldry and vulgar revelry accompanying the very concord of heaven. What pleasure _can_ they have but those of the senses? Where have they to go for relaxation but to the gin-shop? What inducement have they to raise themselves above the level of "the beasts which perish"?
Honour to those who are working to provide intellectual amus.e.m.e.nts for the ma.s.ses, and that education of the soul which places man _above_ the circ.u.mstances by which he is surrounded! Much has been done, and much is still left to do. Those waves must be taught to leap ever upwards, to fling their separate crests towards the sky; for if the tempest should arise, and they should come surging on in one gigantic volume, they will make a clear breach wherever the embankment happens to be weakest; and who shall withstand their force?
Can we wonder to find the lower cla.s.ses sometimes discontented, when we think of their privations and their toils? Shall a man starve with but half-an-inch of plate-gla.s.s betwixt his dry white lips and the reeking abundance of luxurious gluttony? and shall he turn away without a murmur, die, and make no sign? Shall a fellow-creature drag on an existence of perpetual labour, with no pleasures, no relaxations, almost no repose; and shall we expect this dreary, blighted being to be always contented, always cheerful, always respectful to his superiors? Is it to be all one way here below? shall it be all joy, and mirth, and comfort, and superfluity with the one; and all want, and misery, and grim despair with the other? Forbid it, Heaven! Let us, every man, put his shoulder to the wheel--let each, in his own circle, be it small or great, do all in his power for those beneath him--beneath him but in the accident of station, brothers in all besides--live and let live--stretch a helping hand to all who need it--treat every man as one who has an immortal soul--and though "they shall never cease out of the land," yet will their wants be known and their hardships alleviated, and the fairest spirit of heaven--angelic Charity--shall spread her wings widest and warmest in London for the poor.
CHAPTER X
SUPERFLUITY
LONDON FOR THE RICH--A GOLDEN IMAGE--THE LADY OF FASHION--LIFE WELL SPENT--BOOK-WRITING AND BOOK-MAKING--THE DAY OF THE DRAWING-ROOM--GOING TO MY CLUB--THE AWFUL MOMENT--G.o.d SAVE THE QUEEN
London for the rich, though, is a different thing altogether. "Money cannot purchase happiness," said the philosopher. "No," replied a celebrated wit, himself well skilled in circulating the much-esteemed dross, "but it can purchase a very good imitation of it;"
and none can gainsay the truth of his distinction. What can it do for us in the great Babylon? It can buy us airy houses--cool rooms--fragrant flowers--the best of everything to eat and drink--carriages--horses--excitement--music--friends--everything but a good appet.i.te and content. London for the rich man is indeed a palace of delights. See him at the window of his club, in faultless attire, surrounded by worshippers who perform their part of the mutual contract most religiously, by finding conversation and company, both of the pleasantest, for him who provides drag and dinner, equally of the best. Though they bow before a calf, is it not a golden one?
though they "eat dirt," is it not dressed by a French cook? See him cantering in the Park--an animal so well broke as that would make John Gilpin himself appear a fine horseman. What envious glances follow him from the humble pedestrian--what sunny smiles shine on him from lips and eyes surmounting the most graceful shapes, the most becoming neck-ribbons! No, admiring stranger! You are not in the Bazaar at Constantinople--you are amidst England"s high-born beauties in the most moral country on earth; yet even here, with sorrow be it said, there is many a fair girl ready to barter love, and hope, and self-respect, for a box at the opera and an _adequate_ settlement--only it must be large enough. Within fifty yards of this spot may Tattersall"s voice be heard any Monday or Thursday proclaiming, hammer in hand, his mercenary ultimatum, "The best blood in England, and she is to be sold." Brain-sick moralists would read a lesson from the animal"s fate. Our men of the world are satisfied to take things as they are. Meanwhile the calf has shown himself long enough to his idolaters; he dines _early_ to-day--a quarter past eight--therefore he canters home to dress. Man has no right to insult such a cook as his by being hungry, so he trifles over a repast that Apicius would have envied, and borrows half-an-hour"s fict.i.tious spirits from a golden vintage that has well-nigh cost its weight in gold. What an evening is before him! All that can enchant the eye, all that can ravish the ear--beauties of earth and sounds of heaven--the very revelry of the intellect, and "the best box in the house" from which to see, hear, and enjoy. The calf is indeed pasturing in the Elysian fields, and we need follow him no longer. Can he be otherwise than happy? Can there be lips on which such fruits as these turn to ashes? Are beauty, and luxury, and society, and song, nothing after all but "a bore"? Nature is a more impartial mother than we are p.r.o.ne to believe, and the rich man need not always be such an object of envy only because he _is_ rich.
But pretty Blanche Kettering enjoyed the glitter and the excitement, and the pleasures of her London life, even as the opening flower enjoys the sunshine and the breeze. It requires a season or two to take the edge off a fresh, healthy appet.i.te, and _ennui_ scowls in vain upon the _very_ young. Gingham thought her young lady had never looked so well as she did to-day, of all days in the year the one in which Blanche was to _be presented_. Yes--it was the day of the Drawing-room, and our former Abigail forgot the supercilious manners of the new porter, and the high and mighty ways of the General"s gentleman, and even her own faded black silk, in a paroxysm of motherly affection and professional enthusiasm, brought on by the beauty of her darling, and the surpa.s.sing magnificence of her costume.
Blanche was nearly dressed when she arrived, standing like a little princess amongst her many attendants--this one smoothing a fold, that one adjusting a curl, and a third holding the pincushion aloft, having transferred the greater portion of its contents to her own mouth.
Would that we had power to describe the young lady"s dress; would that we could delight bright eyes, should bright eyes condescend to glance upon our page, with a critical and correct account of the materials and the fashion that were capable of const.i.tuting so attractive a _tout ensemble_--how the gown was brocade, and the train was silk, and the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs were gossamer, to the best of our belief!--how pearls were braided in that soft brown hair, and feathers nodded over that graceful little head, though to our mind it would have been even better without these accessories--and how the dear girl looked altogether like a fairy queen, smiling through a wreath of mist, and glittering with the dewdrops of the morning.
"Lor", miss, you do look splendid!" said Gingham, lost in admiration, partly at the richness of the materials, partly at the improvement in her old charge. Blanche was a very pretty girl, certainly, even in a court dress, trying as is that costume to all save the dark, tall beauties, who do indeed look magnificent in trains and feathers; but then the Anglo-Saxon _blonde_ has her revenge next morning in her simple _deshabille_ at breakfast--a period at which the black-eyed sultana is apt to betray a slight yellowness of skin, and a drowsy, listless air, not above half awake. Well, they are all very charming in all dresses--it"s lucky they are so unconscious of their own attractions.
Blanche was anything but a vain girl; but of course it takes a long time to dress for a Drawing-room, and when mirrors are properly arranged for self-inspection, it requires a good many glances to satisfy ladies as to the correct disposition of "front, flanks, and rear"; so several minutes elapse ere Gingham can be favoured with a private interview, and she pa.s.ses that period in admiring her young lady, and scanning, with a criticism that borders on disapprobation, the ministering efforts of Rosine, the French maid.
A few weeks of London dissipation have not yet taken the first fresh bloom off Blanche"s young brow; there is not a single line to herald the "battered look" that will, too surely, follow a very few years of late hours, and nightly excitement, and disappointments. The girl is all _girl_ still--bright, and simple, and lovely. With all our prejudices in her favour, and our awe-struck admiration of her dress, we cannot help thinking she would look yet lovelier in a plain morning gown, with no ornament but a rose or two; and that Mary Delaval"s stately beauty and commanding figure would be more in character with those splendid robes of state. But Mary is only a governess, and Blanche is an heiress; so the one remains up-stairs, and the other goes to Court. What else would you have?
It is difficult for an inferior at any time to obtain an interview with a superior, and nowhere more so than in London. Gingham was secure of Blanche"s sympathy as of her a.s.sistance; but although the latter was forthcoming the very instant there was the slightest hesitation perceived in her answer to the natural question, "How are you getting on?" Gingham was deprived of her share of the former by a thundering double-knock, that shook even the ma.s.sive house in Grosvenor Square to its foundation, and the announcement that Lady Mount Helicon had arrived, and was even then waiting in the carriage for Miss Kettering.
"Good-bye, good-bye, Gingham," said Blanche, hurrying off in a state of nervous trepidation, she scarcely knew why; "I mustn"t keep Lady Mount Helicon waiting, and of course she won"t get out in her train--come again soon--good-bye;" and in another moment the steps were up, the door closed with a bang, and Blanche, spread well out so as not to get "creased," by the side of stately Lady Mount Helicon, in a magnificent family coach, rich in state-liveried coachman and Patagonian footmen, to which Cinderella"s equipage in the fairy tale was a mere costermonger"s cart.
As the stout official on the box hammer-cloth, whose driving, concealed as he is behind an enormous nosegay, is the admiration of all beholders, will take some little time to reach the "string," and when placed in that lingering procession, will move at a snail"s pace the whole way to St. James"s, we may as well fill up the interval by introducing to the reader a lady with whom Blanche is rapidly becoming intimate, and who takes a warm--shall we say a _maternal_?--interest in the movements of our young heiress.
Lady Mount Helicon, then, is one of those characters which the metropolis of this great and happy country can alone bring to perfection. That she was once a merry, single-hearted child, is more than probable, but so many years have elapsed since that innocent period--so many "seasons," with their ever-recurring duties of card-leaving, dinner-receiving, ball-haunting, and keeping up her acquaintance, have been softening her brain and hardening her heart, that there is little left of the child in her world-worn nature, and not a great deal of the woman, save her attachment to her son. She is as fond of him as it is possible for her to be of anything. She is proud of his talents, his appearance, his acquirements, and in her heart of hearts of his wildness. Altogether, she thinks him a great improvement on the old lord, and would sacrifice anything for him in the world, save her position in society. That position, such as it is, she has all her life been struggling to retain. She would improve it if she could, but she will never get any farther. She belongs to the ma.s.s of good society, and receives cards for all the "best places" and most magnificent entertainments; but is as far removed as a curate"s wife in Cornwall from the inner circle of those "bright particular stars" with whom she would give her coronet to a.s.sociate.
Lady Long-Acre _bows_ to her, but she never _nods_. Lady Dinadam invites her to the great ball, which that exemplary peeress annually endures with the constancy of a martyr; but as for the little dinners, for which her gastronomic lord is so justly renowned, it is needless to think of them. She might just as well expect to be asked to Wa.s.sailworth. And although the Duke is hand-and-glove with her son, she well knows she has as much chance of visiting the Emperor of Morocco. Even tiny Mrs. Dreadnought alternately snubs and patronises her. Why that artificial woman, who has no rank and very little character, should be one of "the great people" is totally inexplicable; however, there she _is_, and Lady Mount Helicon looks up to her accordingly. Well, there are gradations in all ranks, even to the very steps before the throne. In her ladyship"s immediate circle are the Ormolus, and the Veneers, and the Blacklambs, with whom she is on terms of the most perfect equality; while below her again are the Duffles, and the Marchpanes, and the Featherheads, and a whole host of inferiors. If Lady Long-Acre is distant with _her_, can she not be condescending in her turn to Lady Tadpole? If Dinadam, who uses somewhat coa.r.s.e language for a n.o.bleman, says he "can"t stand that _something_ vulgar woman," cannot Lady Mount Helicon cut young Deadlock unblushingly in the street, and turn the very coldest part of her broad shoulder on Sir Timothy and Lady Turnstile? "City people, my dear," as she explains for the edification of Blanche, who is somewhat aghast at the uncourteous manuvre. Has she not a grand object to pursue for eighteen hours out of every twenty-four? Must she not keep alive the recollections of her existence in the memories of some two or three hundred people, who would not care a straw if she were dead and buried before to-morrow morning? Is it not a n.o.ble ambition to arrive at terms of apparent intimacy with this shaky grandee, or that superannuated d.u.c.h.ess, because they _are_ d.u.c.h.esses and grandees? Can horses and carriages be better employed than in carrying cards about for judicious distribution? Is not that a delightful night of which two-thirds are spent blocked up in the "string," and the remainder suffocated on the staircase? In short, can money be better lavished, or time and energy better applied, than in "keeping up one"s acquaintance"?
This is the n.o.ble aim of "all the world." This it is which brings country families to London when their strawberries are ripe, and their roses in full bloom. The Hall looks beautiful when its old trees are in foliage, and its sunny meadows rippled with the fresh-mown hay.
But, dear! who would be out of London in June? except, of course, during Ascot week. No, the gardener and the steward are left to enjoy one of the sweetest places in England, and the family hug themselves in the exchange of their roomy chambers, and old oak wainscoting, and fresh country air, for a small, close, ill-constructed house, redolent of those mysterious perfumes which are attributed to drains, and grimy with many a year"s acc.u.mulation of soot and other impurities, but happy, thrice happy in its _situation_--not a quarter of a mile from St. James"s Street, and within a stone"s throw of Berkeley Square!
Year after year the exodus goes on. Year after year has the squire sworn stoutly that he will enjoy _this_ summer at home, and perjured himself, as a man invariably does when he attests by oath an opinion in defiance of his wife. While there are daughters to marry off, and sons to get commissions for, we can account in a measure for the migratory movement, though based, we conceive, on fallacious principles. But when John has got his appointment, through the _county_ member after all, and Lucy has married the young rector of the adjoining parish, who fell in love with her at the _county_ archery meeting, why the two poor old folks should make their annual struggle, and endure discomfort, is only to be explained by the tenacity with which English people cling to their national superst.i.tions and their national absurdities.