And now they neared that stately palace, rich in associations of storm and splendour,of the grand Cardinal; the iron-clad Protector; Dutch William of the immortal memory, whom we tried so hard to like, and in spite of the great Whig historian, that Titian of English prose, can only frigidly respect. Hard task for us Britons to like a Dutchman who dethrones his father-in-law, and drinks schnaps! Prejudice certainly; but so it is. Harder still to like Dutch Williams unfilial Fran! Like Queen Mary! I could as soon like Queen Goneril! Romance flies from the prosperous phlegmatic AEneas; flies from his plump Lavinia, his fidus Achates, Bentinck; flies to follow the poor deserted fugitive Stuart, with all his sins upon his head. Kings have no rights divine, except when deposed and fallen; they are then invested with the awe that belongs to each solemn image of mortal vicissitude,vicissitude that startles the Epicurean, insanientis sapientiae consultus, and strikes from his careless lyre the notes that attest a god! Some proud shadow chases another from the throne of Cyrus, and Horace hears in the thunder the rush of Diespiter, and identifies Providence with the Fortune that snatches off the diadem in her whirring swoop. But fronts discrowned take a new majesty to generous natures: in all sleek prosperity there is something commonplace; in all grand adversity, something royal.
The boat shot to the shore; the young people landed, and entered the arch of the desolate palace. They gazed on the great hall and the presence-chamber, and the long suite of rooms with faded portraits; Vance as an artist, Lionel as an enthusiastic, well-read boy, Sophy as a wondering, bewildered, ignorant child. And then they emerged into the noble garden, with its regal trees. Groups were there of well dressed persons. Vance heard himself called by name. He had forgotten the London world,forgotten, amidst his midsummer ramblings, that the London season was still ablaze; and there, stragglers from the great focus, fine people, with languid tones and artificial jaded smiles, caught him in his wanderers dress, and walking side by side with the infant wonder of Mr. Rugges show, exquisitely neat indeed, but still in a coloured print, of a pattern familiar to his observant eye in the windows of many a shop lavish of tickets, and inviting you to come in by the assurance that it is selling off. The artist stopped, coloured, bowed, answered the listless questions put to him with shy haste: he then attempted to escape; they would not let him.
You MUST come back and dine with us at the Star and Garter, said Lady Selina Vipont. A pleasant party,you know most of them,the Dudley Slowes, dear old Lady Frost, those pretty Ladies Prymme, Janet and Wilhelmina.
We cant let you off, said, sleepily, Mr. Crampe, a fashionable wit, who rarely made more than one bon mot in the twenty-four hours, and spent the rest of his time in a torpid state.
VANCE.Really you are too kind, but I am not even dressed for
LADY SELINA.So charmingly dressed-so picturesque! Besides, what matters? Every one knows who you are. Where on earth have you been?
VANCE.Rambling about, taking sketches.
LADY SELINA (directing her eyeglass towards Lionel and Sophy, who stood aloof).But your companions, your brother? and that pretty little girl,your sister, I suppose?
VANCE (shuddering).No, not relations. I took charge of the boy,clever young fellow; and the little girl is
LADY SELINA.Yes. The little girl is
VANCE.A little girl, as you see: and very pretty, as you say,subject for a picture.
LADY SELINA (indifferently).Oh, let the children go and amuse themselves somewhere. Now we have found you; positively you are our prisoner.
Lady Selina Vipont was one of the queens of London; she had with her that habit of command natural to such royalties. Frank Vance was no tuft-hunter, but once under social influences, they had their effect on him, as on most men who are blest with noses in the air. Those great ladies, it is true, never bought his pictures; but they gave him the position which induced others to buy them. Vance loved his art; his art needed its career. Its career was certainly brightened and quickened by the help of rank and fashion.
In short, Lady Selina triumphed, and the painter stepped back to Lionel. I must go to Richmond with these people. I know youll excuse me. I shall be back to-night somehow. By the by, as you are going to the post-office here for the letter you expect from your mother, ask for my letters too. You will take care of little Sophy, and [in a whisper] hurry her out of the garden, or that Grand Mogul feminine, Lady Selina, whose condescension would crush the Andes, will be stopping her as my protege, falling in raptures with that horrid coloured print, saying, Dear, what pretty sprigs! where can such things be got? and learning perhaps how Frank Vance saved the Bandits Child from the Remorseless Baron. T is your turn now. Save your friend. The Baron was a lamb compared to a fine lady. He pressed Lionels unresponding hand, and was off to join the polite merrymaking of the Frosts, Slowes, and Prymmes.
Lionels pride ran up to the fever-heat of its thermometer; more roused, though, on behalf of the unconscious Sophy than himself.
Let us come into the town, lady-bird, and choose a doll. You may have one now, without fear of distracting you from what I hate to think you ever stooped to perform.
As Lionel, his crest erect and nostril dilated, and holding Sophy firmly by the hand, took his way out from the gardens, he was obliged to pass the patrician party, of whom Vance now made one.
His countenance and air, as he swept by, struck them all, especially Lady Selina. A very distinguished-looking boy, said she. What a fine face! Who did you say he was, Mr. Vance?
VANCE.His name is Haughton,Lionel Haughton.
LADY SELINA.Haughton! Haughton! Any relation to poor dear Captain Haughton,Charlie Haughton, as he was generally called?
Vance, knowing little more of his young friends parentage than that his mother let lodgings, at which, once domiciliated himself, he had made the boys acquaintance, and that she enjoyed the pension of a captains widow, replied carelessly,
His father was a captain, but I dont know whether he was a Charlie.
MR. CRAMPE (the wit).Charlies are extinct! I have the last in a fossil,box and all.
General laugh. Wit shut up again.
LADY SELINA.He has a great look of Charlie Haughton. Do you know if he is connected with that extraordinary man, Mr. Darrell?
VANCE.Upon my word, I do not. What Mr. Darrell do you mean?
Lady Selina, with one of those sublime looks of celestial pity with which personages in the great world forgive ignorance of names and genealogies in those not born within its orbit, replied, Oh, to be sure. It is not exactly in the way of your delightful art to know Mr. Darrell, one of the first men in Parliament, a connection of mine.
LADY FROST (nippingly).You mean Guy Darrell, the lawyer.
LADY SELINA.Lawyertrue; now I think of it, he was a lawyer. But his chief fame was in the House of Commons. All parties agreed that he might have commanded any station; but he was too rich perhaps to care sufficiently about office. At all events, Parliament was dissolved when he was at the height of his reputation, and he refused to be re-elected.
LADY SELINA.Lawyertrue; now I think of it, he was a lawyer. But his chief fame was in the House of Commons. All parties agreed that he might have commanded any station; but he was too rich perhaps to care sufficiently about office. At all events, Parliament was dissolved when he was at the height of his reputation, and he refused to be re-elected.
One SIR GREGORY STOLLHEAD (a member of the House of Commons, young, wealthy, a constant attendant, of great promise, with speeches that were filled with facts, and emptied the benches).I have heard of him. Before my time; lawyers not much weight in the House now.
LADY SELINA.I am told that Mr. Darrell did not speak like a lawyer. But his career is over; lives in the country, and sees nobody; a thousand pities; a connection of mine, too; great loss to the country. Ask your young friend, Mr. Vance, if Mr. Darrell is not his relation. I hope so, for his sake. Now that our party is in power, Mr. Darrell could command anything for others, though he has ceased to act with us. Our party is not forgetful of talent.
LADY FROST (with icy crispness).I should think not: it has so little of that kind to remember.
SIR GREGORY.Talent is not wanted in the House of Commons now; dont go down, in fact. Business assembly.
LADY SELINA (suppressing a yawn).Beautiful day! We had better think of going back to Richmond.
General assent, and slow retreat.
CHAPTER XV
The historian records the attachment to public business which distinguishes the British legislator.Touching instance of the regret which ever in patriotic bosoms attends the neglect of a public duty.
From the dusty height of a rumble-tumble affixed to Lady Selina Viponts barouche, and by the animated side of Sir Gregory Stollhead, Vance caught sight of Lionel and Sophy at a corner of the spacious green near the Palace. He sighed; he envied them. He thought of the boat, the water, the honeysuckle arbour at the little inn,pleasures he had denied himself,pleasures all in his own way. They seemed still more alluring by contrast with the prospect before him; formal dinner at the Star and Garter, with titled Prymmes, Slowes, and Frosts, a couple of guineas a head, including light wines, which he did not drink, and the expense of a chaise back by himself. But such are life and its social duties,such, above all, ambition and a career. Who that would leave a name on his tombstone can say to his own heart, Perish Stars and Garters: my existence shall pass from day to day in honeysuckle arbours!
Sir Gregory Stollhead interrupted Vances revery by an impassioned sneeze. Dreadful smell of hay! said the legislator, with watery eyes. Are you subject to the hay fever? I am! A-tisha-tisha-tisha [sneezing]country frightfully unwholesome at this time of year. And to think that I ought now to be in the House,in my committee-room; no smell of hay there; most important committee.
VANCE (rousing himself).Ahon what?
SIR GREGORY (regretfully).Sewers.
CHAPTER XVI
Signs of an impending revolution, which, like all revolutions, seems to come of a sudden, though its causes have long been at work; and to go off in a tantrum, though its effects must run on to the end of a history.
Lionel could not find in the toy-shops of the village a doll good enough to satisfy his liberal inclinations, but he bought one which amply contented the humbler aspirations of Sophy. He then strolled to the post-office. There were several letters for Vance; one for himself in his mothers handwriting. He delayed opening it for the moment. The day was far advanced Sophy must be hungry. In vain she declared she was not. They passed by a fruiterers stall. The strawberries and cherries were temptingly fresh; the sun still very powerful. At the back of the fruiterers was a small garden, or rather orchard, smiling cool through the open door; little tables laid out there. The good woman who kept the shop was accustomed to the wants and tastes of humble metropolitan visitors. But the garden was luckily now empty: it was before the usual hour for tea-parties; so the young folks had the pleasantest table under an apple-tree, and the choice of the freshest fruit. Milk and cakes were added to the fare. It was a banquet, in Sophys eyes, worthy that happy day. And when Lionel had finished his share of the feast, eating fast, as spirited, impatient boys formed to push on in life and spoil their digestion are apt to do; and while Sophy was still lingering over the last of the strawberries, he threw himself back on his chair and drew forth his letter. Lionel was extremely fond of his mother, but her letters were not often those which a boy is over-eager to read. It is not all mothers who understand what boys are,their quick susceptibilities, their precocious manliness, all their mystical ways and oddities. A letter from Mrs. Haughton generally somewhat fretted and irritated Lionels high-strung nerves, and he had instinctively put off the task of reading the one he held, till satisfied hunger and cool-breathing shadows, and rest from the dusty road, had lent their soothing aid to his undeveloped philosophy.
He broke the seal slowly; another letter was enclosed within. At the first few words his countenance changed; he uttered a slight exclamation, read on eagerly; then, before concluding his mothers epistle, hastily tore open that which it had contained, ran his eye over its contents, and, dropping both letters on the turf below, rested his face on his hand in agitated thought. Thus ran his mothers letter:
MY DEAR BOY,How could you! Do it slyly!! Unknown to your own mother!! I could not believe it of you!!!! Take advantage of my confidence in showing you the letters of your fathers cousin, to write to himselfclandestinely!you, who I thought had such an open character, and who ought to appreciate mine. Every one who knows me says I am a woman in ten thousand,not for beauty and talent (though I have had my admirers for them too), but for GOODNESS I As a wife and mother, I may say I have been exemplary. I had sore trials with the dear captainand IMMENSE temptations. But he said on his death-bed, Jessica, you are an angel. And I have had offers since,IMMENSE offers,but I devoted myself to my child, as you know. And what I have put up with, letting the first floor, nobody can tell; and only a widows pension,going before a magistrate to get it paid! And to think my own child, for whom I have borne so much, should behave so cruelly to me! Clandestine! that is that which stabs me. Mrs. Inman found me crying, and said, What is the matter?you who are such an angel, crying like a baby! And I could not help saying, T is the serpents tooth, Mrs. L What you wrote to your benefactor (and I had hoped patron) I dont care to guess; something very rude and imprudent it must be, judging by the few lines he addressed to me. I dont mind copying them for you to read. All my acts are aboveboard, as often and often Captain H. used to say, Your heart is in a glass case, Jessica; and so it is! but my son keeps his under lock and key.
Madam [this is what he writes to me], your son has thought fit to infringe the condition upon which I agreed to assist you on his behalf. I enclose a reply to himself, which I beg you will give to his own hands without breaking the seal. Since it did not seem to you indiscreet to communicate to a boy of his years letters written solely to yourself, you cannot blame me if I take your implied estimate of his capacity to judge for himself of the nature of a correspondence, and of the views and temper of, madam, your very obedient servant. And thats all to me.