The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family Part 32

Far from causing Clive to avoid Madame la d.u.c.h.esse, these cautions very likely would have made him only the more eager to make her acquaintance, but that a much n.o.bler attraction drew him elsewhere. At first, being introduced to Madame d'Ivry's salon, he was pleased and flattered, and behaved himself there merrily and agreeably enough. He had not studied Horace Vernet for nothing; he drew a fine picture of Kew rescuing her from the Arabs, with a plenty of sabres, pistols, burnouses, and dromedaries. He made a pretty sketch of her little girl Antoinette, and a wonderful likeness of Miss O'Grady, the little girl's governess, the mother's dame de compagnie;--Miss O'Grady, with the richest Milesian brogue, who had been engaged to give Antoinette the pure English accent.

But the French lady's great eyes and painted smiles would not bear comparison with Ethel's natural brightness and beauty. Clive, who had been appointed painter in ordinary to the Queen of Scots, neglected his business, and went over to the English faction; so did one or two more of the Princess's followers, leaving her Majesty by no means well pleased at their desertion.

There had been many quarrels between M. d'Ivry and his next-of-kin.

Political differences, private differences--a long story. The Duke, who had been wild himself, could not pardon the Vicomte de Florac for being wild. Efforts at reconciliation had been made which ended unsuccessfully. The Vicomte de Florac had been allowed for a brief s.p.a.ce to be intimate with the chief of his family, and then had been dismissed for being too intimate. Right or wrong, the Duke was jealous of all young men who approached the d.u.c.h.esse. "He is suspicious," Madame de Florac indignantly said, "because he remembers: and he thinks other men are like himself." The Vicomte discreetly said, "My cousin has paid me the compliment to be jealous of me," and acquiesced in his banishment with a shrug.

During the emigration the old Lord Kew had been very kind to exiles, M.

d'Ivry amongst the number; and that n.o.bleman was anxious to return to all Lord Kew's family when they came to France the hospitality which he had received himself in England. He still remembered or professed to remember Lady Kew's beauty. How many women are there, awful of aspect, at present, of whom the same pleasing legend is not narrated! It must be true, for do not they themselves confess it? I know of few things more remarkable or suggestive of philosophic contemplation than those physical changes.

When the old Duke and the old Countess met together and talked confidentially, their conversation bloomed into a jargon wonderful to hear. Old scandals woke up, old naughtinesses rose out of their graves, and danced, and smirked, and gibbered again, like those wicked nuns whom Bertram and Robert le Diable evoke from their sepulchres whilst the ba.s.soon performs a diabolical incantation. The Brighton Pavilion was tenanted; Ranelagh and the Pantheon swarmed with dancers and masks; Perdita was found again, and walked a minuet with the Prince of Wales.

Mrs. Clarke and the Duke of York danced together--a pretty dance. The old Duke wore a jabot and ailes-de-pigeon, the old Countess a hoop, and a cus.h.i.+on on her head. If haply the young folks came in, the elders modified their recollections, and Lady Kew brought honest old King George and good old ugly Queen Charlotte to the rescue. Her ladys.h.i.+p was sister of the Marquis of Steyne: and in some respects resembled that lamented n.o.bleman. Their family had relations in France (Lady Kew had always a pied-a-terre at Paris, a bitter little scandal-shop, where les bien pensants a.s.sembled and retailed the most awful stories against the reigning dynasty). It was she who handed over le pet.i.t Kiou, when quite a boy, to Monsieur and Madame d'Ivry, to be lanced into Parisian society. He was treated as a son of the family by the Duke, one of whose many Christian names, his lords.h.i.+p, Francis George Xavier, Earl of Kew and Viscount Walham, bears. If Lady Kew hated any one (and she could hate very considerably) she hated her daughter-in-law, Walham's widow, and the Methodists who surrounded her. Kew remain among a pack of psalm-singing old women and parsons with his mother! Fi donc! Frank was Lady Kew's boy; she would form him, marry him, leave him her money if he married to her liking, and show him life. And so she showed it to him.

Have you taken your children to the National Gallery in London, and shown them the "Marriage a la Mode?" Was the artist exceeding the privilege of his calling in painting the catastrophe in which those guilty people all suffer? If this fable were not true, if many and many of your young men of pleasure had not acted it, and rued the moral, I would tear the page. You know that in our Nursery Tales there is commonly a good fairy to counsel, and a bad one to mislead the young prince. You perhaps feel that in your own life there is a Good Principle imploring you to come into its kind bosom, and a Bad Pa.s.sion which tempts you into its arms. Be of easy minds good-natured people! Let us disdain surprises and coups-de-theatre for once; and tell those good souls who are interested about him, that there is a Good Spirit coming to the rescue of our young Lord Kew.

Surrounded by her court and royal attendants, La Reine Marie used graciously to attend the play-table, where luck occasionally declared itself for and against her Majesty. Her appearance used to create not a little excitement in the Saloon of Roulette, the game which she patronised, it being more "fertile of emotions" than the slower trente-et-quarante. She dreamed of numbers, had favourite incantations by which to conjure them: noted the figures made by peels of peaches and so forth, the numbers of houses, on hackney-coaches--was superst.i.tious comme toutes les rimes poetiques. She commonly brought a beautiful agate bonbonniere full of gold pieces, when she played. It was wonderful to see her grimaces: to watch her behaviour: her appeals to heaven, her delight and despair. Madame la Baronne de la Crucheca.s.see played on one side of her, Madame la Comtesse de Schlanigenbad on the other. When she had lost all her money her Majesty would condescend to borrow--not from those ladies:--knowing the royal peculiarity, they never had any money; they always lost; they swiftly pocketed their winnings and never left a ma.s.s on the table, or quitted it, as courtiers will, when they saw luck was going against their sovereign. The officers of her household were Count Punter, a Hanoverian, the Cavaliere Spada, Captain Blackball of a mysterious English regiment, which might be any one of the hundred and twenty in the Army List, and other n.o.blemen and gentlemen, Greeks, Russians, and Spaniards. Mr. and Mrs. Jones (of England), who had made the princess's acquaintance at Bagneres (where her lord still remained in the gout) and perseveringly followed her all the way to Baden, were dazzled by the splendour of the company in which they found themselves.

Miss Jones wrote such letters to her dearest friend Miss Thompson, Cambridge Square, London, as caused that young person to crever with envy. Bob Jones, who had grown a pair of mustachios since he left home, began to think slightingly of poor little f.a.n.n.y Thompson, now he had got into "the best Continental society." Might not he quarter a countess's coat on his brougham along with the Jones arms, or, more slap-up still, have the two s.h.i.+elds painted on the panels with the coronet over? "Do you know the princess calls herself the Queen of Scots, and she calls me Julian Avenel?" says Jones delighted, to Clive, who wrote me about the transmogrification of our schoolfellow, an attorney's son, whom I recollected a snivelling little boy at Grey Friars. "I say, Newcome, the princess is going to establish an order," cried Bob in ecstasy. Every one of her aides-de-camp had a bunch of orders at his b.u.t.ton, excepting, of course, poor Jones.

Like all persons who beheld her, when Miss Newcome and her party made their appearance at Baden, Monsieur de Florac was enraptured with her beauty. "I speak of it constantly before the d.u.c.h.esse. I know it pleases her," so the Vicomte said. "You should have seen her looks when your friend M. Jones praised Miss Newcome! She ground her teeth with fury.

Tiens ce pet.i.t sournois de Kiou! He always spoke of her as a mere sac d'argent that he was about to marry--an ingot of the cite--une fille de Lord Maire. Have all English bankers such pearls of daughters? If the Vicomtesse de Florac had but quitted the earth, dont elle fait l'ornement--I would present myself to the charmante meess and ride a steeple-chase with Kiou!" That he should win it the Viscount never doubted.

When Lady Anne Newcome first appeared in the ballroom at Baden, Madame la d.u.c.h.esse d'Ivry begged the Earl of Kew (notre filleul, she called him) to present her to his aunt miladi and her charming daughter. "My filleul had not prepared me for so much grace," she said, turning a look towards Lord Kew, which caused his lords.h.i.+p some embarra.s.sment.

Her kindness and graciousness were extreme. Her caresses and compliments never ceased all the evening. She told the mother and the daughter too that she had never seen any one so lovely as Ethel. Whenever she saw Lady Anne's children in the walks she ran to them (so that Captain Blackball and Count Punter, A.D.C., were amazed at her tenderness), she etouffed them with kisses. What lilies and roses! What lovely little creatures! What companions for her own Antoinette. "This is your governess, Miss Quigli; mademoiselle, you must let me present you to Miss O'Gredi, your compatriot, and I hope your children will be always together." The Irish Protestant governess scowled at the Irish Catholic--there was a Boyne Water between them.

Little Antoinette; a lonely little girl, was glad to find any companions. "Mamma kisses me on the promenade," she told them in her artless way. "She never kisses me at home!" One day when Lord Kew with Florac and Clive were playing with the children, Antoinette said, "Pourquoi ne venez-vous plus chez nous, M. de Kew? And why does mamma say you are a lache? She said so yesterday to ces messieurs. And why does mamma say thou art only a vaurien, mon cousin? Thou art always very good for me. I love thee better than all those messieurs. Ma tante Florac a ete bonne pour moi a Paris aussi--Ah! qu'elle a ete bonne!"

"C'est que les anges aiment bien les pet.i.ts cherubins, and my mother is an angel, seest thou," cries Florac, kissing her.

"Thy mother is not dead," said little Antoinette, "then why dost thou cry, my cousin?" And the three spectators were touched by this little scene and speech.

Lady Anne Newcome received the caresses and compliments of Madame la d.u.c.h.esse with marked coldness on the part of one commonly so very good-natured. Ethel's instinct told her that there was something wrong in this woman, and she shrank from her with haughty reserve. The girl's conduct was not likely to please the French lady, but she never relaxed in her smiles and her compliments, her caresses, and her professions of admiration. She was present when Clara Pulleyn fell; and, prodigal of calineries and consolation, and shawls and scent-bottles, to the unhappy young lady, she would accompany her home. She inquired perpetually after the health of cette pauvre pet.i.te Miss Clara. Oh, how she railed against ces Anglaises and their prudery! Can you fancy her and her circle, the tea-table set in the twilight that evening, the court a.s.sembled, Madame de la Crucheca.s.see and Madame de Schlangenbad; and their whiskered humble servants, Baron Punter and Count Spada, and Marquis Iago, and Prince Iachimo, and worthy Captain Blackball? Can you fancy a moonlight conclave, and ghouls feasting on the fresh corpse of a reputation:--the gibes and sarcasms, the laughing and the gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth? How they tear the dainty limbs, and relish the tender morsels!

"The air of this place is not good for you, believe me, my little Kew; it is dangerous. Have pressing affairs in England; let your chateau burn down; or your intendant run away, and pursue him. Partez, mon pet.i.t Kiou; partez, or evil will come of it." Such was the advice which a friend of Lord Kew gave the young n.o.bleman.

CHAPTER x.x.xII. Barnes's Courts.h.i.+p

Ethel had made various attempts to become intimate with her future sister-in-law; had walked, and ridden, and talked with Lady Clara before Barnes's arrival. She had come away not very much impressed with respect for Lady Clara's mental powers; indeed, we have said that Miss Ethel was rather more p.r.o.ne to attack women than to admire them, and was a little hard upon the fas.h.i.+onable young persons of her acquaintance and s.e.x. In after life, care and thought subdued her pride, and she learned to look at society more good-naturedly; but at this time, and for some years after, she was impatient of commonplace people, and did not choose to conceal her scorn. Lady Clara was very much afraid of her. Those timid little thoughts, which would come out, and frisk and gambol with pretty graceful antics, and advance confidingly at the sound of Jack Belsize's jolly voice, and nibble crumbs out of his hand, shrank away before Ethel, severe nymph with the bright eyes, and hid themselves under the thickets and in the shade. Who has not overheard a simple couple of girls, or of lovers possibly, pouring out their little hearts, laughing at their own little jokes, prattling and prattling away unceasingly, until mamma appears with her awful didactic countenance, or the governess with her dry moralities, and the colloquy straightway ceases, the laughter stops, the chirp of the harmless little birds is hushed.

Lady Clara being of a timid nature, stood in as much awe of Ethel as of her father and mother; whereas her next sister, a brisk young creature of seventeen, who was of the order of romps or tomboys, was by no means afraid of Miss Newcome, and indeed a much greater favourite with her than her placid elder sister.

Young ladies may have been crossed in love, and have had their sufferings, their frantic moments of grief and tears, their wakeful nights, and so forth; but it is only in very sentimental novels that people occupy themselves perpetually with that pa.s.sion: and, I believe, what are called broken hearts are very rare articles indeed. Tom is jilted--is for a while in a dreadful state--bores all his male acquaintance with his groans and his frenzy--rallies from the complaint--eats his dinner very kindly--takes an interest in the next turf event, and is found at Newmarket, as usual, bawling out the odds which he will give or take. Miss has her paroxysm and recovery--Madame Crinoline's new importations from Paris interest the young creature--she deigns to consider whether pink or blue will become her most--she conspires with her maid to make the spring morning dresses answer for the autumn--she resumes her books, piano, and music (giving up certain songs perhaps that she used to sing)--she waltzes with the Captain--gets a colour--waltzes longer, better, and ten times quicker than Lucy, who is dancing with the Major--replies in an animated manner to the Captain's delightful remarks--takes a little supper--and looks quite kindly at him before she pulls up the carriage windows.

Clive may not like his cousin Barnes Newcome, and many other men share in that antipathy, but all ladies do not. It is a fact that Barnes, when he likes, can make himself a very pleasant fellow. He is dreadfully satirical, that is certain; but many persons are amused by those dreadful satirical young men: and to hear fun made of our neighbours, even of some of our friends, does not make us very angry. Barnes is one of the very best waltzers in all society, that is the truth; whereas it must be confessed Some One Else was very heavy and slow, his great foot always crus.h.i.+ng you, and he always begging your pardon. Barnes whirls a partner round a room ages after she is ready to faint. What wicked fun he makes of other people when he stops! He is not handsome, but in his face there is something odd-looking and distinguished. It is certain he has beautiful small feet and hands.

He comes every day from the City, drops in, in his quiet un.o.btrusive way, and drinks tea at five o'clock; always brings a budget of the funniest stories with him, makes mamma laugh, Clara laugh, Henrietta, who is in the schoolroom still, die of laughing. Papa has the highest opinion of Mr. Newcome as a man of business: if he had had such a friend in early life his affairs would not be where they now are, poor dear kind papa! Do they want to go anywhere, is not Mr. Newcome always ready?

Did he not procure that delightful room for them to witness the Lord Mayor's show; and make Clara die of laughing at those odd City people at the Mansion House ball? He is at every party, and never tired though he gets up so early: he waltzes with n.o.body else: he is always there to put Lady Clara in the carriage: at the drawing-room he looked quite handsome in his uniform of the Newcome Hussars, bottle-green and silver lace: he speaks Politics so exceedingly well with papa and gentlemen after dinner: he is a sound conservative, full of practical good sense and information, with no dangerous new-fangled ideas, such as young men have. When poor dear Sir Brian Newcome's health gives way quite, Mr.

Newcome will go into Parliament, and then he will resume the old barony which has been in abeyance in the family since the reign of Richard the Third. They had fallen quite, quite low. Mr. Newcome's grandfather came to London with a satchel on his back, like Whittington. Isn't it romantic?

This process has been going on for months. It is not in one day that poor Lady Clara has been made to forget the past, and to lay aside her mourning. Day after day, very likely, the undeniable faults and many peccadilloes of--of that other person, have been exposed to her. People around the young lady may desire to spare her feelings, but can have no interest in screening Poor Jack from condign reprobation. A wild prodigal--a disgrace to his order--a son of old Highgate's leading such a life, and making such a scandal! Lord Dorking believes Mr. Belsize to be an abandoned monster and fiend in human shape; gathers and relates all the stories that ever have been told to the young man's disadvantage, and of these be sure there are enough, and speaks of him with transports of indignation. At the end of months of unwearied courts.h.i.+p, Mr. Barnes Newcome is honestly accepted, and Lady Clara is waiting for him at Baden, not unhappy to receive him; when walking on the promenade with her father, the ghost of her dead love suddenly rises before her, and the young lady faints to the ground.

When Barnes Newcome thinks fit he can be perfectly placable in his demeanour and delicate in his conduct. What he said upon this painful subject was delivered with the greatest propriety. He did not for one moment consider that Lady Clara's agitation arose from any present feeling in Mr. Belsize's favour, but that she was naturally moved by the remembrance of the past, and the sudden appearance which recalled it.

"And but that a lady's name should never be made the subject of dispute between men," Newcome said to Lord Dorking, with great dignity, "and that Captain Belsize has opportunely quitted the place, I should certainly have chastised him. He and another adventurer, against whom I have had to warn my own family, have quitted Baden this afternoon. I am glad that both are gone, Captain Belsize especially; for my temper, my lord, is hot, and I do not think I should have commanded it."

Lord Kew, when the elder lord informed him of this admirable speech of Barnes Newcome's, upon whose character, prudence, and dignity the Earl of Dorking p.r.o.nounced a fervent eulogium, shook his head gravely, and said, "Yes, Barnes was a dead shot, and a most determined fellow:" and did not burst out laughing until he and Lord Dorking had parted. Then to be sure he took his fill of laughter, he told the story to Ethel, he complimented Barnes on his heroic self-denial; the joke of the thundering big stick was nothing to it. Barnes Newcome laughed too; he had plenty of humour, Barnes. "I think you might have whopped Jack when he came out from his interview with the Dorkings," Kew said: "the poor devil was so bewildered and weak, that Alfred might have thrashed him.

At other times you would find it more difficult, Barnes my man." Mr. B.

Newcome resumed his dignity; said a joke was a joke, and there was quite enough of this one; which a.s.sertion we may be sure he conscientiously made.

That meeting and parting between the old lovers pa.s.sed with a great deal of calm and propriety on both sides. Miss's parents of course were present when Jack at their summons waited upon them and their daughter, and made his hang-dog bow. My Lord Dorking said (poor Jack in the anguish of his heart had poured out the story to Clive Newcome afterwards), "Mr. Belsize, I have to apologise for words which I used in my heat yesterday, and which I recall and regret, as I am sure you do that there should have been any occasion for them."

Mr. Belsize looking at the carpet said he was very sorry.

Lady Dorking here remarked, that as Captain Belsize was now at Baden, he might wish to hear from Lady Clara Pulleyn's own lips that the engagement into which she had entered was formed by herself, certainly with the consent and advice of her family. "Is it not so, my dear?"

Lady Clara said, "Yes, mamma," with a low curtsey.

"We have now to wish you good-bye, Charles Belsize," said my lord, with some feeling. "As your relative, and your father's old friend, I wish you well. I hope your future course in life may not be so unfortunate as the past year. I request that we may part friends. Good-bye, Charles.

Clara, shake hands with Captain Belsize. My Lady Dorking, you will please to give Charles your hand. You have known him since he was a child; and--and--we are sorry to be obliged to part in this way." In this wise Mr. Jack Belsize's tooth was finally extracted; and for the moment we wish him and his brother-patient a good journey.

Little lynx-eyed Dr. Von Finck, who attends most of the polite company at Baden, drove ceaselessly about the place that day, with the real version of the fainting-fit story, about which we may be sure the wicked and malicious, and the uninitiated, had a hundred absurd details. Lady Clara ever engaged to Captain Belsize? Fiddle-de-dee! Everybody knew the Captain's affairs, and that he could no more think of marrying than flying. Lady Clara faint at seeing him! she fainted before he came up; she was always fainting, and had done so thrice in the last week to his knowledge. Lord Dorking had a nervous affection of his right arm, and was always shaking his stick. He did not say Villain, he said William; Captain Belsize's name is William. It is not so in the Peerage? Is he called Jack in the Peerage? Those Peerages are always wrong. These candid explanations of course had their effect. Wicked tongues were of course instantaneously silent. People were entirely satisfied; they always are. The next night being a.s.sembly night, Lady Clara appeared at the rooms and danced with Lord Kew and Mr. Barnes Newcome. All the society was as gracious and good-humoured as possible, and there was no more question of fainting than of burning down the Conversation-house.

But Madame de Crucheca.s.see, and Madame de Schlangenbad, and those horrid people whom the men speak to, but whom the women salute with silent curtseys, persisted in declaring that there was no prude like an English prude; and to Dr. Finck's oaths, a.s.sertions, explanations, only replied, with a shrug of their bold shoulders, "Taisez-vous, Docteur, vous n'ete qu'une vieille bete."

Lady Kew was at the rooms, uncommonly gracious. Miss Ethel took a few turns of the waltz with Lord Kew, but this nymph looked more farouche than upon ordinary days. Bob Jones, who admired her hugely, asked leave to waltz with her, and entertained her with recollections of Clive Newcome at school. He remembered a fight in which Clive had been engaged, and recounted that action to Miss Newcome, who seemed to be interested. He was pleased to deplore Clive's fancy for turning artist, and that Miss Newcome recommended him to have his likeness taken, for she said his appearance was exceedingly picturesque. He was going on with further prattle, but she suddenly cut Mr. Jones short, making him a bow, and going to sit down by Lady Kew. "And the next day, sir," said Bob, with whom the present writer had the happiness of dining at a mess dinner at the Upper Temple, "when I met her on the walk, sir, she cut me as dead as a stone. The airs those swells give themselves is enough to make any man turn republican."

Miss Ethel indeed was haughty, very haughty, and of a difficult temper.

She spared none of her party except her kind mother, to whom Ethel always was kind, and her father, whom, since his illnesses, she tended with much benevolence and care. But she did battle with Lady Kew repeatedly, coming to her Aunt Julia's rescue, on whom her mother as usual exercised her powers of torturing. She made Barnes quail before her by the shafts of contempt which she flashed at him; and she did not spare Lord Kew, whose good-nature was no s.h.i.+eld against her scorn. The old queen-mother was fairly afraid of her; she even left off beating Lady Julia when Ethel came in, of course taking her revenge in the young girl's absence, but trying in her presence to soothe and please her.

Against Lord Kew the young girl's anger was most unjust, and the more cruel because the kindly young n.o.bleman never spoke a hard word of any one mortal soul, and, carrying no arms, should have been a.s.saulted by none. But his very good-nature seemed to make his young opponent only the more wrathful; she shot because his honest breast was bare; it bled at the wounds which she inflicted. Her relatives looked at her surprised at her cruelty, and the young man himself was shocked in his dignity and best feelings by his cousin's wanton ill-humour.

Lady Kew fancied she understood the cause of this peevishness, and remonstrated with Miss Ethel. "Shall we write a letter to Lucerne, and order d.i.c.k Tinto back again?" said her ladys.h.i.+p. "Are you such a fool, Ethel, as to be hankering after that young scapegrace, and his yellow beard? His drawings are very pretty. Why, I think he might earn a couple of hundred a year as a teacher, and nothing would be easier than to break your engagement with Kew, and whistle the drawing-master back again."

Ethel took up the whole heap of Clive's drawings, lighted a taper, carried the drawings to the fireplace, and set them in a blaze. "A very pretty piece of work," says Lady Kew, "and which proves satisfactorily that you don't care for the young Clive at all. Have we arranged a correspondence? We are cousins, you know; we may write pretty cousinly letters to one another." A month before the old lady would have attacked her with other arms than sarcasm, but she was scared now, and dared to use no coa.r.s.er weapons. "Oh!" cried Ethel in a transport, "what a life ours is, and how you buy and sell, and haggle over your children! It is not Clive I care about, poor boy. Our ways of life are separate.

I cannot break from my own family, and I know very well how yon would receive him in it. Had he money, it would be different. You would receive him, and welcome him, and hold out your hands to him; but he is only a poor painter, and we forsooth are bankers in the City; and he comes among us on sufferance, like those concert-singers whom mamma treats with so much politeness, and who go down and have supper by themselves. Why should they not be as good as we are?"

"M. de C----, my dear, is of a n.o.ble family," interposed Lady Kew; "when he has given up singing and made his fortune, no doubt he can go back into the world again."

"Made his fortune, yes," Ethel continued, "that is the cry. There never were, since the world began, people so unblus.h.i.+ngly sordid! We own it, and are proud of it. We barter rank against money, and money against rank, day after day. Why did you marry my father to my mother? Was it for his wit? You know he might have been an angel and you would have scorned him. Your daughter was bought with papa's money as surely as ever Newcome was. Will there be no day when this mammon-wors.h.i.+p will cease among us?"

"Not in my time or yours, Ethel," the elder said, not unkindly; perhaps she thought of a day long ago before she was old herself.

"We are sold," the young girl went on, "we are as much sold as Turkish women; the only difference being that our masters may have but one Circa.s.sian at a time. No, there is no freedom for us. I wear my green ticket, and wait till my master comes. But every day as I think of our slavery, I revolt against it more. That poor wretch, that poor girl whom my brother is to marry, why did she not revolt and fly? I would, if I loved a man sufficiently, loved him better than the world, than wealth, than rank, than fine houses and t.i.tles,--and I feel I love these best,--I would give up all to follow him. But what can I be with my name and my parents? I belong to the world like all the rest of my family. It is you who have bred us up; you who are answerable for us. Why are there no convents to which we can fly? You make a fine marriage for me; you provide me with a good husband, a kind soul, not very wise, but very kind; you make me what you call happy, and I would rather be at the plough like the women here."

"No, you wouldn't, Ethel," replies the grandmother, drily. "These are the fine speeches of schoolgirls. The showers of rain would spoil your complexion--you would be perfectly tired in an hour, and come back to luncheon--you belong to your belongings, my dear, and are not better than the rest of the world:--very good-looking, as you know perfectly well, and not very good-tempered. It is lucky that Kew is. Calm your temper, at least before marriage; such a prize does not fall to a pretty girl's lot every day. Why, you sent him away quite seared by your cruelty; and if he is not playing at roulette, or at billiards, I dare say he is thinking what a little termagant you are, and that he had beat pause while it is yet time. Before I was married, your poor grandfather never knew I had a temper; of after-days I say nothing; but trials are good for all of us, and he bore his like an angel."

Lady Kew, too, on this occasion at least, was admirably good-humoured.

She also when it was necessary could put a restraint on her temper, and, having this match very much at heart, chose to coax and to soothe her granddaughter rather than to endeavour to scold and frighten her.

"Why do you desire this marriage so much, grandmamma," the girl asked.

"My cousin is not very much in love,--at least I should fancy not," she added, blus.h.i.+ng. "I am bound to own Lord Kew is not in the least eager, and I think if you were to tell him to wait for five years he would be quite willing. Why should you be so very anxious?"