The Adventures of Philip

conventionalism, and to be denied the liberty of free action? My poor fellow, I

  pity you from my heart; and it grieves me to think how hose fine honest children

  ??honest, and hearty, and frank, and open as yet?? are to lose their natural

  good qualities, and to be swathed and swaddled, and stifled out of health and

  honesty by that obstinate worldling their father. Don't tell me about the world,

  I know it. People sacrifice the next world to it, and are all the while proud of

  their prudence. Look at my miserable relations, steeped in respectability. Look

  at my father. There is a chance for him, now he is down and in poverty. I have

  had a letter from him, containing more of that dreadful worldly advice which you

  Pharisees give. If it weren't for Laura and the children, sir, I heartily wish

  you were ruined like your affectionate??P. F.

  "N.B., P.S.??Oh, Pen! I am so happy! She is such a little darling! I bathe in

  her innocence, sir! I strengthen myself in her purity. I kneel before her sweet

  goodness and unconsciousness of guile. I walk from my room, and see her every

  morning before seven o'clock. I see her every afternoon. She loves you and

  Laura. And you love her, don't you? And to think that six months ago I was going

  to marry a woman without a heart! Why, sir, blessings be on the poor old father

  for spending our money, and rescuing me from that horrible fate! I might have

  been like that fellow in the Arabian Nights who married Amina?? the respectable

  woman, who dined upon grains of rice, but supped upon cold dead body. Was it not

  worth all the money I ever was heir to, to have escaped from that ghoul? Lord

  Ringwood says he thinks I was well out of that. He calls people by Anglo-Saxon

  names, and uses very expressive monosyllables; and of aunt Twysden, of uncle

  Twysden, of the girls, and their brother, he speaks in a way which makes me see

  he has come to just conclusions about them.

  "P.S. No. 2.??Ah Pen! She is such a darling. I think I am the happiest man in

  the world."

  And this was what came of being ruined! A scapegrace, who, when he had plenty of

  money in his pocket, was ill-tempered, imperious, and discontented; now that he

  is not worth twopence, declares himself the happiest fellow in the world! Do you

  remember, my dear, how he used to grumble at our claret, and what wry faces he

  made, when there was only cold meat for dinner? The wretch is absolutely

  contented with bread and cheese and small-beer??even that bad beer which they

  have in Paris!

  Now and again, at this time, and as our mutual avocations permitted, I saw

  Philip's friend, the Little Sister. He wrote to her dutifully from time to time.

  He told her of his love affair with Miss Charlotte; and my wife and I could

  console Caroline, by assuring her that this time the young man's heart was given

  to a worthy mistress. I say console, for the news, after all, was sad for her.

  In the little chamber which she always kept ready for him, he would lie awake,

  and think of some one dearer to him than a hundred poor Carolines. She would

  devise something that should be agreeable to the young lady. At Christmas time

  there came to Miss Baynes a wonderfully worked cambric pocket-handkerchief, with

  "Charlotte" most beautifully embroidered in the corner. It was this poor widow's

  mite of love and tenderness which she meekly laid down in the place where she

  worshipped. "And I have six for him, too, ma'am" Mrs. Brandon told my wife.

  "Poor fellow! His shirts was in a dreadful way when he went away from here, and

  that you know, ma'am." So you see this wayfarer, having fallen among undoubted

  thieves, yet found many kind souls to relieve him, and many a good Samaritan

  ready with his twopence, if need were.

  The reason why Philip was the happiest man in the world of course you

  understand. French people are very early risers; and, at the little hotel where

  Mr. Philip lived, the whole crew of the house were up hours before lazy English

  masters and servants think of stirring. At ever so early an hour Phil had a fine

  bowl of coffee and milk and bread for his breakfast; and he was striding down to

  the Invalides, and across the bridge to the Champs Elys?es, and the fumes of his

  pipe preceded him with a pleasant odour. And a short time after passing the Rond

  Point in the Elysian fields, where an active fountain was flinging up showers of

  diamonds to the sky,??after, I say, leaving the Rond Point on his right, and

  passing under umbrageous groves in the direction of the present Castle of

  Flowers, Mr. Philip would see a little person. Sometimes a young sister or

  brother came with the little person. Sometimes only a blush fluttered on her

  cheek, and a sweet smile beamed in her face as she came forward to greet him.

  For the angels were scarce purer than this young maid; and Una was no more

  afraid of the lion, than Charlotte of her companion with the loud voice and the

  tawny mane. I would not have envied that reprobate's lot who should have dared

  to say a doubtful word to this Una: but the truth is, she never thought of

  danger, or met with any. The workmen were going to their labour; the dandies

  were asleep; and considering their age, and the relationship in which they stood

  to one another, I am not surprised at Philip for announcing that this was the

  happiest time of his life. In later days, when two gentlemen of mature age

  happened to be in Paris together, what must Mr. Philip Firmin do but insist upon

  walking me sentimentally to the Champs Elys?s, and looking at an old house

  there, a rather shabby old house in a garden. "That was the place," sighs he.

  "That was Madame de Smolensk's. That was the window, the third one, with the

  green jalousie. By Jove, sir, how happy and how miserable I have been behind

  that green blind!" And my friend shakes his large fist at the somewhat

  dilapidated mansion, whence Madame de Smolensk and her boarders have long since

  departed.

  I fear that baroness had engaged in her enterprise with insufficient capital, or

  conducted it with such liberality that her profits were eaten up by her

  boarders. I could tell dreadful stories impugning the baroness's moral

  character. people said she had no right to the title of baroness at all, or to

  the noble foreign name of Smolensk. People are still alive who knew her under a

  different name. The baroness herself was what some amateurs call a fine woman,

  especially at dinner-time, when she appeared in black satin and with cheeks that

  blushed up as far as the eyelids. In her peignoir in the morning, she was

  perhaps the reverse of fine. Contours which were round at night, in the forenoon

  appeared lean and angular. Her roses only bloomed half-an-hour before

  dinner-time on a cheek which was quite yellow until five o'clock. I am sure it

  is very kind of elderly and ill-complexioned people to supply the ravages of

  time or jaundice, and present to our view a figure blooming and agreeable, in

  place of an object faded and withered. Do you quarrel with your opposite

  neighbour for painting his house front or putting roses in his balcony? You are

  rather thankful for the adornment. Madame de Smolensk's front was so deco
rated

  of afternoons. Geraniums were set pleasantly under those first-floor windows,

  her eyes. Carcel lamps beamed from those windows: lamps which she had trimmed

  with her own scissors, and into which that poor widow poured the oil which she

  got somehow and anyhow. When the dingy breakfast papillotes were cast of an

  afternoon, what beautiful black curls appeared round her brow! The dingy

  papillotes were put away in the drawer: the peignoir retired to its hook behind

  the door: the satin raiment came forth, the shining, the ancient, the well-kept,

  the well-wadded: and at the same moment the worthy woman took that smile out of

  some cunning box on her scanty toilet-table??that smile which she wore all the

  evening along with the rest of her toilette, and took out of her mouth when she

  went to bed, and to think??to think how both ends were to be made to meet.

  Philip said he respected and admired that woman: and worthy of respect she was

  in her way. She painted her face and grinned at poverty. She laughed and rattled

  with care gnawing at her side. She had to coax the milkman out of his human

  kindness: to pour oil?? his own oil??upon the stormy ?picier's soul: to melt the

  butterman: to tap the wine-merchant: to mollify the butcher: to invent new

  pretexts for the landlord: to reconcile the lady boarders, Mrs. General Baynes,

  let us say, and the honourable Mrs. Boldero, who were always quarrelling: to see

  that the dinner, when procured, was cooked properly; that Fran?oise, to whom she

  owed ever so many months' wages, was not too rebellious or intoxicated; that

  Auguste, also her creditor, had his glass clean and his lamps in order. And this

  work done and the hour of six o'clock arriving, she had to carve and be

  agreeable to her table; not to hear the growls of the discontented (and at what

  table-d'h?te are there not grumblers?); to have a word for everybody present; a

  smile and a laugh for Mrs. Bunch (with whom there had been very likely a

  dreadful row in the morning); a remark for the colonel; a polite phrase for the

  general's lady; and even a good word and compliment for sulky Auguste, who just

  before dinner-time had unfolded the napkin of mutiny about his wages.

  Was not this enough work for a woman to do? To conduct a great house without

  sufficient money, and make soup, fish, roasts, and half a dozen entr?es out of

  wind as it were? to conjure up wine in piece and by the dozen? to laugh and joke

  without the least gaiety? to receive scorn, abuse, rebuffs, insolence, with gay

  good-humour? and then to go to bed wearied at night, and have to think about

  figures, and that dreadful, dreadful sum in arithmetic??given,5l. to pay 6l?

  Lady Macbeth is supposed to have been a resolute woman: and great, tall, loud,

  hectoring females are set to represent the character. I say No. She was a weak

  woman. She began to walk in her sleep, and blab after one disagreeable little

  incident had occurred in her house. She broke down, and got all the people away

  from her own table in the most abrupt and clumsy manner, because that

  drivelling, epileptic husband of hers fancied he saw a ghost. In Lady Smolensk's

  place Madame de Macbeth would have broken down in a week: and Smolensk lasted

  for years. If twenty gibbering ghosts had come to the boarding-house dinner,

  madame would have gone on carving her dishes, and smiling and helping the live

  guests, the paying guests; leaving the dead guests to gibber away and help

  themselves. "My poor father had to keep up appearances," Phil would say,

  recounting these things in after days: "but how? You know he always looked as if

  he was going to be hung." Smolensk was the gayest of the gay always. That widow

  would have tripped up to her funeral pile and kissed her hands to her friends

  with a smiling 'Bon jour!'"

  "Pray, who was Monsieur de Smolensk?" asks a simple lady who may be listening to

  our friend's narrative.

  "Ah, my dear lady! there was a pretty disturbance in the house when that

  question came to be mooted, I promise you," says our friend, laughing, as he

  recounts his adventures. And, after all, what does it matter to you and me and

  this story who Smolensk was? I am sure this poor lady had hardships enough in

  her life campaign, and that Ney himself could not have faced fortune with a

  constancy more heroical.

  Well, when the Bayneses first came to her house, I tell you Smolensk and all

  round her smiled, and our friends thought they were landed in a real rosy

  Elysium in the Champs of that name. Madame had a Carrick ? l' Indienne prepared

  in compliment to her guests. She had had many Indians in her establishment. She

  adored Indians. N' ?tait ce la polygamie??they were most estimable people the

  Hindus. Surtout, she adored Indian shawls. That of Madame la G?n?rale was

  ravishing. The company at Madame's was pleasant. The Honourable Mrs. Boldero was

  a dashing woman of fashion and respectability, who had lived in the best

  world??it was easy to see that. The young ladies' duets were very striking. The

  Honourable Mr. Boldero was away shooting in Scotland at his brother, Lord

  Strongitharm's, and would take Gaberlunzie Castle and the duke's on his way

  south. Mrs. Baynes did not know Lady Estridge, the ambassadress? When the

  Estridges returned from Chantilly, the Honourable Mrs. B. would be delighted to

  introduce her. "Your pretty girl's name is Charlotte? So is Lady Estridge's

  ??and very nearly as tall;??fine girls the Estridges; fine long necks??large

  feet??but your girl??lady Baynes' has beautiful feet. Lady Baynes, I said? Well,

  you must be Lady Baynes soon. The general must be a K. C. B. after his services.

  What, you know Lord Trim? He will, and must, do it for you. If not, my brother

  Strongitharm shall." I have no doubt Mrs. Baynes was greatly elated by the

  attentions of Lord Strongitharm's sister; and looked him out in the Peerage,

  where his lordship's arms, pedigree, and residence of Gaberlunzie Castle are

  duly recorded. The Honourable Mrs. Boldero's daughters, the Misses Minna and

  Brenda Boldero, played some rattling sonatas on a piano which was a good deal

  fatigued by their exertions, for the young ladies' hands were very powerful. And

  madame said, "Thank you," with her sweetest smile; and Auguste handed about on a

  silver tray??I say silver, so that the convenances may not be wounded??well, say

  silver that was blushing to find itself copper??handed up on a tray a white

  drink which made the Baynes boys cry out, "I say, mother, what's this beastly

  thing?" On which madame, with the sweetest smile, appealed to the company, and

  said, "They love orgeat, these dear infants!" and resumed her picquet with old

  M. Bidois??that odd old gentleman in the long brown coat, with the red ribbon,

  who took so much snuff and blew his nose so often and so loudly. One, two, three

  rattling sonatas Minna and Brenda played; Mr. Clancy, of Trinity College, Dublin

  (M. de Clanci, madame called him), turning over the leaves, and presently being

  persuaded to sing some Irish melodies for the ladies. I don't think Miss

  Charlotte Baynes listened to the music much. She was listening to another music,

  which she and Mr. F
irmin were performing together. Oh, how pleasant that music

  used to be! There was a sameness in it, I dare say, but still it was pleasant to

  hear the air over again. The pretty little duet ? quatre mains, where the hands

  cross over, and hop up and down the keys, and the heads get so close, so close.

  Oh, duets, oh, regrets! Psha! no more of this. Go downstairs, old dotard. Take

  your hat and umbrella and go walk by the sea-shore, and whistle a toothless old

  solo. "These are our quiet nights," whispers M. de Clanci, to the Baynes ladies,

  when the evening draws to an end. "Madame's Thursdays are, I promise ye, much

  more fully attended." Good night, good night. A squeeze of a little hand, a

  hearty hand-shake from papa and mamma, and Philip is striding through the dark

  Elysian fields and over the Place of Concord to his lodgings in the Faubourg St.

  Germain. Or, stay! what is that glowworm beaming by the wall opposite Madame de

  Smolensk's house???a glowworm that wafts an aromatic incense and odour? I do

  believe it is Mr. Philip's cigar. And he is watching, watching at a window by

  which a slim figure flits now and again. Then darkness falls on the little

  window. The sweet eyes are closed. Oh, blessings, blessings be upon them! The

  stars shine overhead. And homeward stalks Mr. Firmin, talking to himself, and

  brandishing a great stick.

  I wish that poor Madame Smolensk could sleep as well as the people in her house.

  But care, with the cold feet, gets under the coverlid, and says, "Here I am; you

  know that bill is coming due to-morrow." Ah, atra cura! can't you leave the poor

  thing a little quiet? Hasn't she had work enough all day?

  CHAPTER IV. COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

  We beg the gracious reader to remember that Mr. Philip's business at Paris was

  only with a weekly London paper as yet; and hence that he had on his hands a

  great deal of leisure. He could glance over the state of Europe; give the latest

  news from the salons, imparted to him, I do believe, for the most part, by some

  brother hireling scribes; be present at all the theatres by deputy; and smash

  Louis Philippe or Messieurs Guizot and Thiers in a few easily turned paragraphs,

  which cost but a very few hours' labour to that bold and rapid pen. A wholesome

  though humiliating thought it must be to great and learned public writers, that

  their eloquent sermons are but for the day; and that, having read what the

  philosophers say on Tuesday or Wednesday, we think about their yesterday's

  sermons or essays no more. A score of years hence, men will read the papers of

  1861 for the occurrences narrated??births, marriages, bankruptcies, elections,

  murders, deaths, and so forth; and not for the leading articles. "Though there

  were some of my letters," Mr. Philip would say, in after times, "that I fondly

  fancied the world would not willingly let die. I wanted to have them or see them

  reprinted in a volume, but I could find no publisher willing to undertake the

  risk. A fond being, who fancies there is genius in everything I say or write,

  would have had me reprint my letters to the Pall Mall Gazette; but I was too

  timid, or she, perhaps, was too confident. The letters never were republished.

  Let them pass." They have passed. And he sighs, in mentioning this circumstance;

  and I think tries to persuade himself, rather than others, that he is an

  unrecognized genius.

  "And then, you know," he pleads, "I was in love, sir, and spending all my days

  at Omphale's knees. I didn't do justice to my powers. If I had had a daily

  paper, I still think I might have made a good public writer; and that I had the

  stuff in me??the stuff in me, sir!"

  The truth is that, if he had had a daily paper, and ten times as much work as

  fell to his lot, Mr. Philip would have found means of pursuing his inclination,

  as he ever through life has done. The being, whom a young man wishes to see, he