LADY K.--Yes, as I find it, when I come to take care of my departed, angel"s children, Mrs. Bonnington--[pointing to picture]--of THAT dear seraph"s orphans, Mrs. Bonnington. YOU cannot. You have other duties--other children--a husband at home in delicate health, who--
MRS. B.--Lady Kicklebury, no one shall say I don"t take care of my dear husband!
MILLIKEN.--My dear mother! My dear Lady Kicklebury! [To T., who has come forward.] They spar so every night they meet, Touchit. Ain"t it hard?
LADY K.--I say you DO take care of Mr. Bonnington, Mrs. Bonnington, my dear creature! and that is why you can"t attend to Horace. And as he is of a very easy temper--except sometimes with his poor Arabella"s mother--he allows all his tradesmen to cheat him, all his servants to cheat him, Howell to be rude to everybody--to me amongst other people, and why not to my servant Bulkeley, with whom Lord Toddleby"s groom of the chambers gave me the very highest character.
MRS. B.--I"m surprised that n.o.blemen HAVE grooms in their chambers. I should think they were much better in the stables. I am sure I always think so when we dine with Doctor Clinker. His man does bring such a smell of the stable with him.
LADY K.--He! he! you mistake, my dearest creature! Your poor mother mistakes, my good Horace. You have lived in a quiet and most respectable sphere--but not--not--
MRS. B.--Not what, Lady Kicklebury? We have lived at Richmond twenty years--in my late husband"s time--when we saw a great deal of company, and when this dear Horace was a dear boy at Westminster School. And we have PAID for everything we have had for twenty years, and we have owed not a penny to any TRADESMAN, though we mayn"t have had POWDERED FOOTMEN SIX FEET HIGH, who were impertinent to all the maids in the place--Don"t! I WILL speak, Horace--but servants who loved us, and who lived in our families.
MILLIKEN.--Mamma, now, my dear, good old mother! I am sure Lady Kicklebury meant no harm.
LADY K.--Me! my dear Horace! harm! What harm could I mean?
MILLIKEN.--Come! let us have a game at whist. Touchit, will you make a fourth? They go on so every night almost. Ain"t it a pity, now?
TOUCHIT.--Miss Prior generally plays, doesn"t she?
MILLIKEN.--And a very good player, too. But I thought you might like it.
TOUCHIT.--Well, not exactly. I don"t like sixpenny points, Horace, or quarrelling with old dragons about the odd trick. I will go and smoke a cigar on the terrace, and contemplate the silver Thames, the darkling woods, the starry hosts of heaven. I--I like smoking better than playing whist. [MILLIKEN rings bell.]
MILLIKEN.--Ah, George! you"re not fit for domestic felicity.
TOUCHIT.--No, not exactly.
HOWELL enters.
MILLIKEN.--Lights and a whist-table. Oh, I see you bring "em. You know everything I want. He knows everything I want, Howell does. Let us cut.
Miss Prior, you and I are partners!
ACT II.
SCENE.--As before.
LADY K.--Don"t smoke, you naughty boy. I don"t like it. Besides, it will encourage your brother-in-law to smoke.
CLARENCE K.--Anything to oblige you, I"m sure. But can"t do without it, mother; it"s good for my health. When I was in the Plungers, our doctor used to say, "You ought never to smoke more than eight cigars a day"--an order, you know, to do it--don"t you see?
LADY K.--Ah, my child! I am very glad you are not with those unfortunate people in the East.
K.--So am I. Sold out just in time. Much better fun being here, than having the cholera at Scutari. Nice house, Milliken"s. Sn.o.b, but good fellow--good cellar, doosid good cook. Really, that salmi yesterday,--couldn"t have it better done at the "Rag" now. You have got into good quarters here, mother.
LADY K.--The meals are very good, and the house is very good; the manners are not of the first order. But what can you expect of city people? I always told your poor dear sister, when she married Mr.
Milliken, that she might look for everything substantial,--but not manners. Poor dear Arabella WOULD marry him.
K.--Would! that is a good one, mamma! Why, you made her! It"s a dozen years ago. But I recollect, when I came home from Eton, seeing her crying because Charley Tufton--
LADY K.--Mr. Tufton had not a shilling to bless himself with. The marriage was absurd and impossible.
K.--He hadn"t a shilling then. I guess he has plenty now. Elder brother killed, out hunting. Father dead. Tuf a baronet, with four thousand a year if he"s a shilling.
LADY K.--Not so much.
K.--Four thousand if it"s a shilling. Why, the property adjoins Kicklebury"s--I ought to know. I"ve shot over it a thousand times. Heh!
I remember, when I was quite a young "un, how Arabella used to go out into Tufton Park to meet Charley--and he is a doosid good fellow, and a gentlemanlike fellow, and a doosid deal better than this city fellow.
LADY K.--If you don"t like this city fellow, Clarence, why do you come here? why didn"t you stop with your elder brother at Kicklebury?
K.--Why didn"t I? Why didn"t YOU stop at Kicklebury, mamma? Because you had notice to quit. Serious daughter-in-law, quarrels about management of the house--row in the building. My brother interferes, and politely requests mamma to shorten her visit. So it is with your other two daughters; so it was with Arabella when she was alive. What shindies you used to have with her, Lady Kicklebury! Heh! I had a row with my brother and sister about a confounded little nursery-maid.
LADY K.--Clarence!
K.--And so I had notice to quit too. And I"m in very good quarters here, and I intend to stay in "em, mamma. I say--
LADY K.--What do you say?
K.--Since I sold out, you know, and the regiment went abroad, confound me, the brutes at the "Rag" will hardly speak to me! I was so ill, I couldn"t go. Who the doose can live the life I"ve led and keep health enough for that infernal Crimea? Besides, how could I help it? I was so cursedly in debt that I was OBLIGED to have the money, you know. YOU hadn"t got any.
LADY K.--Not a halfpenny, my darling. I am dreadfully in debt myself.
K.--I know you are. So am I. My brother wouldn"t give me any, not a dump. Hang him! Said he had his children to look to. Milliken wouldn"t advance me any more--said I did him in that horse transaction. He! he!
he! so I did! What had I to do but to sell out? And the fellows cut me, by Jove. Ain"t it too bad? I"ll take my name off the "Rag," I will, though.
LADY K.--We must sow our wild oats, and we must sober down; and we must live here, where the living is very good and very cheap, Clarence, you naughty boy! And we must get you a rich wife. Did you see at church yesterday that young woman in light green, with rather red hair and a pink bonnet?
K.--I was asleep, ma"am, most of the time, or I was bookin" up the odds for the Chester Cup. When I"m bookin" up, I think of nothin" else, ma"am,--nothin".
LADY K.--That was Miss Brocksopp--Briggs, Brown and Brocksopp, the great sugar-bakers. They say she will have eighty thousand pound. We will ask her to dinner here.
K.--I say--why the doose do you have such old women to dinner here? Why don"t you get some pretty girls? Such a set of confounded old frumps as eat Milliken"s mutton I never saw. There"s you, and his old mother Mrs.
Bonnington, and old Mrs. Fogram, and old Miss What"s-her-name, the woman with the squint eye, and that immense Mrs. Crowder. It"s so stoopid, that if it weren"t for Touchit coming down sometimes, and the billiards and boatin", I should die here--expire, by gad! Why don"t you have some pretty women into the house, Lady Kicklebury?
LADY K.--Why! Do you think I want that picture taken down: and another Mrs. Milliken? Wisehead! If Horace married again, would he be your banker, and keep this house, now that ungrateful son of mine has turned me out of his? No pretty woman shall come into the house whilst I am here.
K.--Governess seems a pretty woman: weak eyes, bad figure, poky, badly dressed, but doosid pretty woman.
LADY K.--Bah! There is no danger from HER. She is a most faithful creature, attached to me beyond everything. And her eyes--her eyes are weak with crying for some young man who is in India. She has his miniature in her room, locked up in one of her drawers.
K.--Then how the doose did you come to see it?