Pelham Part 44

"P.S. How dreadfully shocking about that poor Sir John Tyrrell!"

I tossed the letter from me. Heaven pardon me if the misanthropy of my mood made me less grateful for the maternal solicitude than I should otherwise have been.

I took up one of the numerous books with which my table was covered; it was a worldly work of one of the French reasoners; it gave a new turn to my thoughts--my mind reverted to its former projects of ambition.

Who does not know what active citizens private misfortune makes us? The public is like the pools of Bethesda--we all hasten there, to plunge in and rid ourselves of our afflictions.

I drew my portfeuille to me, and wrote to Lord Dawton. Three hours after I had sent the note, he called upon me. I gave him Lord Chester's letter, but he had already received from that n.o.bleman a notification of my success. He was profuse in his compliments and thanks.

"And, do you know," added the statesman, "that you have quite made a conquest of Lord Guloseton? He speaks of you publicly in the highest terms: I wish we could get him and his votes. We must be strengthened, my dear Pelham; every thing depends on the crisis."

"Are you certain of the cabinet?" I asked.

"Yes; it is not yet publicly announced, but it is fully known amongst us, who comes in, and who stays out. I am to have the place of--."

"I congratulate your lords.h.i.+p from my heart. What post do you design for me?"

Lord Dawton changed countenance. "Why--really--Pelham, we have not yet filled up the lesser appointments, but you shall be well remembered--well, my dear Pelham, be sure of it."

I looked at the n.o.ble speaker with a glance which, I flatter myself, is peculiar to me. If, thought I, the embryo minister is playing upon me as upon one of his dependant characters; if he dares forget what he owes to my birth and zeal, I will grind myself to powder but I will shake him out of his seat. The anger of the moment pa.s.sed away.

"Lord Dawton," said I, "one word, and I have done discussing my claims for the present. Do you mean to place me in Parliament as soon as you are in the cabinet? What else you intend for me, I question not."

"Yes, a.s.suredly, Pelham. How can you doubt it?"

"Enough!--and now read this letter from France."

Two days after my interview with Lord Dawton, as I was riding leisurely through the Green Park, in no very bright and social mood, one of the favoured carriages, whose owners are permitted to say, "Hic iter est n.o.bis," overtook me. A sweet voice ordered the coachman to stop, and then addressed itself to me.

"What, the hero of Chester Park returned, without having once narrated his adventures tome?"

"Beautiful Lady Roseville," said I, "I plead guilty of negligence--not treason. I forgot, it is true, to appear before you, but I forget not the devotion of my duty now that I behold you. Command, and I obey."

"See, Ellen," said Lady Roseville, turning to a bending and blus.h.i.+ng countenance beside her, which I then first perceived--"See what it is to be a knight errant; even his language, is worthy of Amadis of Gaul--but--(again addressing me) your adventures are really too shocking a subject to treat lightly. We lay our serious orders on you to come to our castle this night: we shall be alone."

"Willingly shall I repair to your bower, fayre ladie; but tell me, I beseech you, how many persons are signified in the world 'alone?'"

"Why," answered Lady Roseville, "I fear we may have two or three people with us; but I think, Ellen, we may promise our chevalier, that the number shall not exceed twelve."

I bowed and rode on. What worlds would I not have given to have touched the hand of the countess's companion, though only for an instant.

But--and that fearful but, chilled me, like an ice-bolt. I put spurs to my horse, and dashed fiercely onwards. There was rather a high wind stirring, and I bent my face from it, so as scarcely to see the course of my spirited and impatient horse.

"What ho, Sir!--what ho!" cried a shrill voice--"for G.o.d's sake, don't ride over me before dinner, whatever you do after it!"

I pulled up. "Ah, Lord Guloseton! how happy I am to see you; pray forgive my blindness, and my horse's stupidity."

"'Tis an ill wind," answered the n.o.ble gourmand, "which blows n.o.body good. An excellent proverb, the veracity of which is daily attested; for, however unpleasant a keen wind may be, there is no doubt of its being a marvellous whetter of that greatest of Heaven's blessings--an appet.i.te. Little, however, did I expect, that besides blowing me a relish for my saute de foie gras, it would also blow me one who might, probably, be a partaker of my enjoyment. Honour me with your company at dinner to-day."

"What saloon will you dine in, my Lord Lucullus?" said I, in allusion to the custom of the epicure, by whose name I addressed him.

"The saloon of Diana," replied Guloseton--"for she must certainly have shot the fine buck of which Lord H. sent me the haunch that we shall have to-day. It is the true old Meynell breed. I ask you not to meet Mr.

So-and-so, and Lord What-dye-call-him: I ask you to meet a saute de foie gras, and a haunch of venison."

"I will most certainly pay them my respects. Never did I know before how far things were better company than persons. Your lords.h.i.+p has taught me that great truth."

"G.o.d bless me," cried Guloseton, with an air of vexation, "here comes the Duke of Stilton, a horrid person, who told me the other day, at my pet.i.t diner, when I apologized to him for some strange error of my artiste's, by which common vinegar had been subst.i.tuted for Chili--who told me--what think you he told me? You cannot guess; he told me, forsooth, that he did not care what he eat; and, for his part, he could make a very good dinner off a beef-steak! Why the deuce, then, did he come and dine with me? Could he have said any thing more cutting?

Imagine my indignation, when I looked round my table and saw so many good things thrown away upon such an idiot."

Scarcely was the last word out of the gourmand's mouth before the n.o.ble personage so designated, joined us. It amused me to see Guloseton's contempt (which he scarcely took the pains to suppress) of a person whom all Europe honoured, and his evident weariness of a companion, whose society every one else would have coveted as the summum bonum of worldly distinction. As for me, feeling any thing but social, I soon left the ill-matched pair, and rode into the other park.

Just as I entered it, I perceived, on a dull, yet cross-looking pony, Mr. Wormwood, of bitter memory. Although we had not met since our mutual sojourn at Sir Lionel Garratt's, and were then upon very cool terms of acquaintance, he seemed resolved to recognize and claim me.

"My dear Sir," said he, with a ghastly smile, "I am rejoiced once more to see you; bless me, how pale you look. I heard you had been very ill.

Pray have you been yet to that man who professes to cure consumption in the worst stages?"

"Yes," said I, "he read me two or three letters of reference from the patients he had cured. His last, he said, was a gentleman very far gone; a Mr. Wormwood."

"Oh, you are pleased to be facetious," said the cynic, coldly--"but pray do tell me about that horrid affair at Chester Park. How disagreeable it must have been to you to be taken up on suspicion of the murder."

"Sir," said I, haughtily, "what do you mean?"

"Oh, you were not--wern't you? Well, I always thought it unlikely; but every one says so--"

"My dear Sir," I rejoined, "how long is it since you have minded what every body says? If I were so foolish, I should not be riding with you now; but I have always said, in contradiction to every body, and even in spite of being universally laughed at for my singular opinion, that you, my dear Mr. Wormwood, were by no means silly, nor ignorant, nor insolent, nor intrusive; that you were, on the contrary, a very decent author, and a very good sort of man; and that you were so benevolent, that you daily granted to some one or other, the greatest happiness in your power: it is a happiness I am now about to enjoy, and it consists in wis.h.i.+ng you 'good bye!'" And without waiting for Mr. Wormwood's answer, I gave the rein to my horse, and was soon lost among the crowd, which had now began to a.s.semble.

Hyde Park is a stupid place; the English make business an enjoyment, and enjoyment a business--they are born without a smile--they rove about public places like so many easterly winds--cold, sharp, and cutting; or like a group of fogs on a frosty day, sent out of his hall by Boreas for the express purpose of looking black at one another. When they ask you, "how you do," you would think they were measuring the length of your coffin. They are ever, it is true, labouring to be agreeable; but they are like Sisyphus, the stone they roll up the hill with so much toil, runs down again, and hits you a thump on the legs. They are sometimes polite, but invariably uncivil; their warmth is always artificial--their cold never, they are stiff without dignity, and cringing without manners. They offer you an affront, and call it "plain truth;" they wound your feelings, and tell you it is manly "to speak their minds;" at the same time, while they have neglected all the graces and charities of artifice, they have adopted all its falsehood and deceit. While they profess to abhor servility, they adulate the peerage--while they tell you they care not a rush for the minister, they move heaven and earth for an invitation from the minister's wife. There is not another court in Europe where such systematized meanness is carried on,--where they will even believe you, when you a.s.sert that it exists. Abroad, you can smile at the vanity of one cla.s.s, and the flattery of another: the first, is too well bred to affront, the latter, too graceful to disgust; but here, the pride of a n.o.blesse, (by the way, the most mushroom in Europe,) knocks you down in a hail-storm, and the fawning of the bourgeois makes you sick with hot water. Then their amus.e.m.e.nts--the heat--the dust--the sameness--the slowness of that odious park in the morning; and the same exquisite scene repeated in the evening, on the condensed stage of a rout-room, where one has more heat, with less air, and a narrower dungeon, with diminished possibility of escape!--we wander about like the d.a.m.ned in the story of Vathek, and we pa.s.s our lives, like the royal philosopher of Prussia, in conjugating the verb, Je m'ennuie.

CHAPTER LXVII.

In solo vivendi causa palato est.--Juvenal.

They would talk of nothing but high life, and high-lived company; with other fas.h.i.+onable topics, such as pictures, taste, Shakspeare, and the musical gla.s.ses.--Vicar of Wakefield.

The reflections which closed the last CHAPTER, will serve to show that I was in no very amiable or convivial temper, when I drove to Lord Guloseton's dinner. However, in the world, it matters little what may be our real mood, the mask hides the bent brow and the writhing lip.

Guloseton was stretched on his sofa, gazing with upward eye at the beautiful Venus which hung above his hearth. "You are welcome, Pelham; I am wors.h.i.+pping my household divinity!"

I prostrated myself on the opposite sofa, and made some answer to the cla.s.sical epicure, which made us both laugh heartily. We then talked of pictures, painters, poets, the ancients, and Dr. Henderson on Wines; we gave ourselves up, without restraint, to the enchanting fascination of the last-named subject, and our mutual enthusiasm confirming our cordiality, we went down stairs to our dinner, as charmed with each other as boon companions always should be.

"This is comme il faut," said I, looking round at the well filled table, and the sparkling spirits immersed in the ice-pails, "a genuine friendly dinner. It is very rarely that I dare entrust myself to such extempore hospitality--miserum est aliena vivere quadra;--a friendly dinner, a family meal, are things from which I fly with undisguised aversion. It is very hard, that in England, one cannot have a friend on pain of being shot or poisoned; if you refuse his familiar invitations, he thinks you mean to affront him, and says something rude, for which you are forced to challenge him; if you accept them, you perish beneath the weight of boiled mutton and turnips, or--"

"My dear friend," interrupted Guloseton, with his mouth full, "it is very true; but this is no time for talking, let us eat."

I acknowledged the justice of the rebuke, and we did not interchange another word beyond the exclamations of surprise, pleasure, admiration, or dissatisfaction, called up by the objects which engrossed our attention, till we found ourselves alone with our dessert.

When I thought my host had imbibed a sufficient quant.i.ty of wine, I once more renewed my attack. I had tried him before upon that point of vanity which is centered in power, and political consideration, but in vain; I now bethought me of another.