"You will be of our party to-night, gentlemen," continued Mrs. Cheesham.
"We are to have a little music. You are fond of music, Mr. Stukeley, I know; and no pressing can be necessary to an ama_toor_ like you, Mr.
Francis. I can a.s.sure you, you"ll meet some very nice people. Mr. and Mrs. M"Skrattachan, highly respectable people--an old Highland family, and with very high connections. Mr. M"Skrattachan"s mother"s sister"s aunt--no, his aunt"s mother"s sister--yes, that was it--Mr.
M"Skrattachan"s aunt"s mother"s sister; and yet I don"t know--I dare say I was right before--at all events, it was one or other of them--married a second cousin--something of that kind--of the Duke of Argyle, by the mother"s side. They had a large estate in Skye or Ross-shire--I am not sure which, but it was somewhere thereabout."
Stukeley and Preston were glad to cover their retreat by acceptance of Mrs. Cheesham"s invitation; and, leaving her to empty the dregs of the details which she had begun into the willing ears of some of her more submissive friends, they made their escape from the pump-room.
s...o...b..le Cottage, where the Cheesham"s were domiciliated during their sojourn at Potterwell, was situated upon the banks of the Wimpledown, at a distance of somewhat less than a quarter of a mile from the burgh. It had, at one time, been a farm-house; but, within a few years, it had been recast: and, by the addition of a bow window, a trellised door, and a few of the usual et ceteras, it had been converted into what is by courtesy termed a cottage ornee. It was an agreeable place, for all that, shaded by the remnants of a fine old wood--the rustling of whose foliage made pleasant music, as it blended with the ever-sounding plash and rushing of the stream.
When Frank Preston arrived at s...o...b..le Cottage that evening, he found the drawing-room already well stocked with the usual components of a tea-party. The two exquisites of the morning he saw, to his dismay, were already there. Adolph was a.s.siduously sacrificing to the charms and wit of Miss Emily, while his shadow, Eugene, was--but Preston did not care about that--as much engaged in Macadamising his great conceptions into small talk suitable for the intellectual capacity of Miss f.a.n.n.y. Mrs.
Cheesham regarded these proceedings with entire satisfaction. The friends, to her mind, were men of birth, fashion, and fortune, and the very men for her daughters. Besides, there was a mystery about them that was charming. n.o.body knew exactly who they were, although everybody was sure they were somebody. None but great people ever travel _incog_. They were evidently struck by her daughters. Things were in a fair train; and, if she could but make a match of it, Mrs. Cheesham thought she might then fold her hands across, and make herself easy for life. Her daughters would be the wives of great men, and she was their mother, and every one knows what an important personage a wife"s mother is.
"Two very fine young men, Mr. Francis," said Mrs. Cheesham. "Extremely intelligent people. And so good looking! Quite _distingue_, too. It is not every day one meets such people."
Frank Preston threw in the necessary quant.i.ty of "yes"s," "certainly"s,"
and so forth, while Mrs. Cheesham continued--
"They seem rather taken with my girls, don"t they? Mr. Blowze is never away from Emily"s side. His attentions are quite marked. Don"t you think, now, they"d make a nice pair? They"re both so lively--always saying such clever things. I never knew Emily so smart either; but that girl"s all animation--all spirits. I always said Emily would never do but for a rattle of a husband--a man that could talk as much as herself.
It does not do, you know, really it does not do for the wife to have too much of the talk to herself. I make that a principle; and, as I often tell Cheesham, I let him have it all his own way, rather than argue a point with him."
This was, of course, an exceedingly agreeable strain of conversation to the lover, to whom it was no small relief, when Mrs. Cheesham quitted his side to single out her musical friends for the performance of a quartette. At her summons, these parties were seen to emerge from the various recesses where they had been concealing themselves, in all the majesty of silence, as is the way with musical amateurs in general. Miss f.a.n.n.y, who was really an accomplished performer, was called to preside at the pianoforte, and Mr. Lilylipz rushed before to adjust the music-stool and turn over the leaves for her. Mr. Blewitt got out his flute, and, after s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g it together, commenced a series of blasts upon it, which were considered necessary to the process of tuning. Mr.
Harrower, the violoncello player, turned up the wristbands of his coat, placed his handkerchief on his left knee, and, after a preliminary flourish or two of his hands, began to grind his violoncello into a proper sharpness of pitch. Not to be behind the rest, Mr. Fogle screwed his violin strings first up, and then he screwed them down, and then he proceeded to screw them up again, with a waywardness of purpose that might have been extremely diverting, if its effects had not been so very distressing to the ears. Having thus begot a due degree of attention in their audience, the performers thought of trying how the results of their respective preparations tallied.
"Miss f.a.n.n.y, will you be kind enough to sound your A?" lisped Mr.
Blewitt.
Miss f.a.n.n.y did sound her A, and again a dissonance broke forth that would have thrown Orpheus into fits. It was then discovered that the damp had reduced the piano nearly a whole tone below pitch, and Mr.
Blewitt"s flute could not be brought down to a level with it by any contrivance. The musicians, however, were not to be baulked in their purpose for this, and they agreed to proceed with the flute some half a tone higher than the other instruments. But there was a world of preliminary work yet to be gone through; tables had to be adjusted, and books had to be built upon music stands. But the tables would not stand conveniently, and the books would fall, and then all the work of adjustment and library architecture had to be gone over again. At last these matters were put to rights, and, after a few more indefinite vagaries by Messrs. Blewitt, Harrower, and Fogle, the junto made a dash into the heart of one of Haydn"s quartetts. The piano kept steadily moving through the piece. Miss f.a.n.n.y knew her work, and she did it. The others did not know theirs, and they _did for_ it. After a few faint squeaks at the beginning, Mr. Blewitt"s flute dropped out of hearing altogether, and, just as everybody had set it down as defunct, it began to give token of its existence by a wail or two rising through the storm of sounds with which the performance closed, and then made up its leeway by continuing to vapour away for some time after the rest had finished.
"Bless my heart, are you done?" cried Mr. Blewitt, breaking off in the middle of a solo, which he found himself performing to his own astonishment.
Mr. Harrower and Mr. Fogle threw up their eyes with an intensity of contempt that defies description. To be sure, neither of them had kept either time or tune all the way through. Mr. Harrower"s violoncello had growled and groaned, at intervals, in a manner truly pitiable; and Mr.
Fogle"s bow had done nothing but dance and leap, in a perpetual staccato from the first bar to the last, to the entire confusion of both melody and concord. But they had both managed to be in at the death, and were therefore ent.i.tled to sneer at the unhappy flutist. Mr. Eugene Lilylipz, who had annoyed Miss f.a.n.n.y throughout the performance, by invariably turning over the leaf at the wrong place, now broke into a volley of raptures, of which the words "Devaine" and "Chawming," were among the princ.i.p.al symbols. A buzz of approbation ran round the room, warm in proportion to the relief which the cessation of the Dutch concert afforded. Mr. Harrower and his coadjutors grew communicative, and vented an infinite quant.i.ty of the jargon of dilettanteism upon each other and upon those about them. They soon got into a discussion upon the merits of different composers, whose names served them to bandy to and fro in the battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k of conversation. Beethoven was cried up to the seventh heaven by Mr. Harrower, for his grandeur and sublimity, and all that sort of thing.
"There is a Miltonic greatness about the man!" he exclaimed, throwing his eyes to the ceiling, in the contemplation of a visionary demiG.o.d. "A vastness, a ma.s.siveness, an incomprehensible--eh, eh?--ah, I can"t exactly tell what, that places him far above all other writers."
"Every man to his taste," insinuated Mr. Blewitt; "but I certainly like what I can understand best. Now I don"t understand Beethoven; but I _can_ understand Mozart, or Weber, or Haydn."
"It is very well if you do!" retorted the violoncellist, reflecting probably on the recent specimen Mr. Blewitt had given of his powers. "It is more than everybody does, I can tell you."
"Od, gentlemen, but it"s grand music onyhow, and exceeding justice you have done it, if I may speak my mind. But ye ken, I"m no great shakes of a judge."
This was the opinion volunteered by Mr. Cheesham, who saw the musicians were giving symptoms of that tendency to discord for which they are proverbial, and threw out a sop to their vanity, which at once restored them to order. As he said himself, Mr. Cheesham was no great judge of music, nor, indeed, of any of the fine arts. He had read little, and thought less; and yet, since he had become independent of the world, he was fond of a.s.suming an air of knowledge, that was exceedingly amusing.
There was nothing, for instance, that he liked better to be talking about than history; and, nevertheless, that Hannibal was killed at the battle of Drumclog, and Julius Caesar beheaded by Henry the Eighth, were facts which he would probably have had no hesitation in admitting, upon any reasonable representation.
By this time, Mr. Stukeley had joined the party, and was going his rounds, chatting, laughing, quizzing, and prosing, according to the different characters of the people whom he talked with. When he reached Mr. Cheesham, he found him in earnest conversation with Mr. Lilylipz, regarding the ruins of Tinglebury, an abbey not far from Potterwell, of which the architecture was p.r.o.nounced, by Mr. Lilylipz, to be "_suttinly_ transcandent beyond anythin_k_. It is of that pure Graeco-Gothic, which was brought over by William the Conqueror, and went out with the Saxons."
Stukeley encouraged the conversation, drawing out the presumptuous ignorance of Mr. Lilylipz, and the rusty nomeanings of the parent Cheesham into strong relief.
"Gentlemen, excuse me for breaking up your _tete-a-tete_. Have you got upon "Shakspeare, taste, and the musical gla.s.ses?"" said Miss Emily, joining the trio. "Mr. Lilylipz, your friend tells me you sing. Will you break the dullness, and favour us?"
"Oh, I never do sing; and, besides, I am suffering from hoa.r.s.eness."
"Come, come," replied Miss Emily, "none of these excuses, or we shall expect to find a very Braham, at least."
"Now, _r_eally!" remonstrated Mr. Lilylipz.
"Oh, never mind his nonsense, Miss Cheesham," exclaimed Mr. Blowze, from the other side of the room. "Lilylipz sings an uncommonly good song, when he likes. Give us "the Rose of Cashmere," or "She wore a wreath of Roses." Come away, now--no humbug!"
"Oh, that will be delightful!--pray, do sing!" were the exclamations of a dozen voices, at least. "Mr. Lilylipz" song!" shouted the elderly gentlemen of the party; and, forthwith, an awful stillness reigned throughout the apartment. Upon this, Mr. Lilylipz blew his nose, coughed thrice, and, throwing himself back in his chair, rivetted his eyes, with the utmost intensity, upon a corner of the ceiling. Every one held back his breath in expectation, and the interesting young man opened upon the a.s.semblage with a ballad all about an Araby maid, to whom a Christian knight was submitting proposals of elopement, which the lady appeared to be by no means averse to, for each stanza ended with the refrain, "Away, away, away!" signifying that the parties meant to be off somewhere as fast as possible. Mr. Lilylipz had just concluded verse the first, and the "Away, away, away!" had powerfully excited the imagination of the young ladies present, when the door opened, and the clinking of crystal ware announced the inopportune entrance of a maidservant bearing a trayful of gla.s.ses filled with that vile imbroglio of hot water and sugar coloured with wine, which pa.s.ses in genteel circles by the name of negus. All eyes turned towards the door, and Mrs. Cheesham exclaimed, "Sally, be quiet!" but Mr. Eugene was too much enrapt by his own performance to feel the disturbance, and he tore away through verse the second with kindling enthusiasm. "Away, away, away!" sang the vocalist, when a crash and a scream arrested his progress. The servant maid had dropped the tray, and the gla.s.ses were rolling to and fro upon the floor in a confusion of fragments, while the delinquent, Sally, shrieking at the top of her voice, was making her way out at the door with all the speed she was mistress of.
"What the devil"s that?" cried one. "The careless s.l.u.t!" screamed another. "Such thoughtlessness!" suggested a third. "What the deuce could the woman mean?" asked a fourth. "It"s the last night she sets foot in my house!" exclaimed Mrs. Cheesham, thrown off her dignity by the sudden shock.
"Bless me, you look unwell!" said Mr. Cheesham to Mr. Lilylipz, who had turned deadly pale, and was altogether looking excessively unhappy.
"Oh, it is nothing. Only a const.i.tutional nervousness. The start, the surprise, that sort of thing, you know; but it will go off in a moment.
I shall just take a turn in the air for a little, and I"ll be quite better."
The ladies were engaged in the contemplation of the wreck at the other end of the room, and Mr. Lilylipz, accompanied by his friend, stepped out at one of the drawing-room windows, which opened out upon the lawn.
Frank Preston looked after them, and saw them in the moonlight, pa.s.sing down the banks of the river among the trees, apparently engaged in earnest conversation.
"What do you think of this business, eh?" said Stukeley, rousing him from a reverie, by a tap upon the shoulder. "Queerish a little, isn"t it?"
"Queerish _not_ a little, I think; and blow me if I don"t get to the bottom of it, or the devil"s in it. That girl knows something of Mr.
Eugene, I"ll be sworn. We must get out of her what it is."
"Oh, no doubt she does. It wasn"t the song that threw her off, although it was certainly vile enough for anything; it was himself; that is as clear as day. Let us off, hunt out the wench, and get the secret from her."
They left the room by the open window, and pa.s.sing round the house to the servants" entrance, walked into the kitchen, where they found Sally labouring under strong excitement, as she narrated the incident which had led to her precipitate retreat from the drawing-room.
"To think of seeing him here; the base deceitful wretch! c.o.c.ked up in the drawing-room, forsooth, as if that were a place for him or the likes of him. Set him up indeed--a pretty story. But I know"d as how he"d never come to no good!"
"Who is he, my dear?" inquired Stukeley.
"Who is he, sir!--who should he be but Tom Newlands, the son of Dame Newlands of our village."
"Oh, you must certainly be mistaken."
"Never a bit mistaken am I, sir. I have too good reason for remembering him, the wretch! Oh, if I had him here, I wouldn"t give it him, I wouldn"t? I"d sarve him out, the deludin" scoundrel. But he never was good for nothing since he went into the haberdashery line."
"A haberdasher, is he? Capital!--capital! The man of fashion, eh, Frank?"
"The young man of _distingue_ appearance!"
"And who"s his friend, Sally?"
"What! the other chap? Oh, I don"t know anything about him, except that he"s one of them man millinery fellows; and a precious bad lot they are, I know."
"Glorious!--glorious!" cried Stukeley, crying with delight, as he walked out of the place with his friend. "Here"s a discovery for some folks, isn"t it? The brilliant alliance, the high family, et cetera, et cetera, all dwindled into a measurer of tapes. Aren"t you proud of having had such a rival?"