At one of these clubs of their order, Lord Todmorden's man was in the constant
habit of meeting Lord Ringwood's man, when their lordships (master and man) were
in town. These gentlemen had a regard for each other; and, when they met,
communicated to each other their views of society, and their opinions of the
characters of the various noble lords and influential commoners whom they
served. Mr. Rudge knew everything about Philip Firmin's affairs, about the
doctor's flight, about Philip's generous behaviour. "Generous! I call it
admiral!" old Ridley remarked, while relating this trait of our friend's, and
his present position. And Rudge contrasted Philip's manly behaviour with the
conduct of some sneaks which he would not name then, but which they were always
speaking ill of the poor young fellow behind his back, and sneaking up to my
lord, and greater skinflints and meaner humbugs never were: and there was no
accounting for tastes, but he, Rudge, would not marry his daughter to a black
man,
Now, that day when Mr. Firmin went to see my Lord Ringwood was one of my lord's
very worst days, when it was almost as dangerous to go near him as to approach a
Bengal tiger. "When he is going to have a fit of gout, his lordship," Mr. Rudge
remarked, "was hawful. He curse and swear, he do, at everybody; even the clergy
or the ladies??all's one. On that very day when Mr. Firmin called he had said to
Mr. Twysden, 'Get out, and don't come slandering, and backbiting, and bullying
that poor devil of a boy any more. Its blackguardly, by George, sir??it's
blackguardly.' And Twysden came out with his tail between his legs, and he says
to me??'Rudge,' says he, 'my lord's uncommon bad to-day.' Well. He hadn't been
gone an hour when pore Philip comes, bad luck to him, and my lord, who had just
heard from Twysden all about that young woman??that party at Paris, Mr.
Ridley??and it is about as great a piece of folly as ever I heard tell of?? my
lord turns upon the pore young fellar and call him names worse than Twysden. But
Mr. Firmin ain't that sort of man, he isn't. He won't suffer any man to call him
names; and I suppose he gave my lord his own back again, for I heard my lord
swear at him tremendous, I did, with my own ears. When my lord has the gout
flying about, I told you he is awful. When he takes his colchicum he's worse.
Now, we have got a party at Whipham at Christmas, and at Whipham we must be. And
he took his colchicum night before last, and to-day he was in such a tremendous
rage of swearing, cursing, and blowing up everybody, that it was as if he was
red hot. And when Twysden and Mrs. Twysden called that day??(if you kick that
fellar out at the hall door, I'm blest if he won't come smirkin' down the
chimney)??and he wouldn't see any of them. And he bawled out after me, 'If
Firmin comes, kick him downstairs??do you hear?' with ever so many oaths and
curses against the poor fellow, while he vowed he would never see his hanged
impudent face again. But this wasn't all, Ridley. He sent for Bradgate, his
lawyer, that very day. He had back his will, which I signed myself as one of the
witnesses??me and Wilcox, the master of the hotel??and I know he had left Firmin
something in it. Take my word for it. To that poor young fellow he means
mischief." A full report of this conversation Mr. Ridley gave to his little
friend Mrs. Brandon, knowing the interest which Mrs. Brandon took in the young
gentleman; and with these unpleasant news Mrs. Brandon came off to advise with
those, who ??the good nurse was pleased to say??were Philip's best friends in
the world. We wished we could give the Little Sister comfort: but all the world
knew what a man Lord Ringwood was??how arbitrary, how revengeful, how cruel.
I knew Mr. Bradgate the lawyer, with whom I had business, and called upon him,
more anxious to speak about Philip's affairs than my own. I suppose I was too
eager in coming to my point, for Bradgate saw the meaning of my questions, and
declined to answer them. "My client and I are not the dearest friends in the
world," Bradgate said, "but I must keep his counsel, and must not tell you
whether Mr. Firmin's name is down in his lordship's will or not. How should I
know? He may have altered his will. He may have left Firmin money; he may have
left him none. I hope young Firmin does not count on a legacy. That's all. He
may be disappointed if he does. Why, you may hope for a legacy from Lord
Ringwood, and you may be disappointed. I know scores of people who do hope for
something, and who won't get a penny." And this was all the reply I could get at
that time from the oracular little lawyer.
I told my wife, as of course every dutiful man tells everything to every dutiful
wife: but though Bradgate discouraged us, there was somehow a lurking hope still
that the old nobleman would provide for our friend. Then Philip would marry
Charlotte. Then he would earn ever so much more money by his newspaper. Then he
would be happy ever after. My wife counts eggs not only before they are hatched,
but before they are laid. Never was such an obstinate hopefulness of character.
I, on the other hand, take a rational and despondent view of things; and if they
turn out better than I expect, as sometimes they will, I affably own that I have
been mistaken.
But an early day came when Mr. Bradgate was no longer needful, or when he
thought himself released from the obligations of silence with regard to his
noble client. It was two days before Christmas, and I took my accustomed
afternoon saunter to Bays's, where other habitu?s of the club were assembled.
There was no little buzzing, and excitement among the frequenters of the place.
Talbot Twysden always arrived at Bays's at ten minutes past four, and scuffled
for the evening paper, as if its contents were matter of great importance to
Talbot. He would hold men's buttons, and discourse to them the leading article
out of that paper with an astounding emphasis and gravity. On this day, some ten
minutes after his accustomed hour, he reached the club. Other gentlemen were
engaged in perusing the evening journal. The lamps on the tables lighted up the
bald heads, the grey heads, dyed heads, and the wigs of many assembled
fogies??murmurs went about the room. "Very sudden." "Gout in the stomach."
"Dined here only four days ago." "Looked very well." "Very well? No! Never saw a
fellow look worse in my life." "Yellow as a guinea." "Couldn't eat." "Swore
dreadfully at the waiters, and at Tom Eaves who dined with him." "Seventy-six, I
see.??Born in the same year with the Duke of York." "Forty thousand a-year."
"Forty? fifty-eight thousand three hundred, I tell you. Always been a saving
man." "Estate goes to his cousin, Sir John Ringwood; not a member here??member
of Boodle's." "Hated each other furiously. Very violent temper, the old fellow
was. Never got over the Reform Bill, they used to say." "Wonder whether he'll
leave anything to old bowwow Twys??" Here enters Talbot Twysden, Esq.?? "Ha,
Colonel! How are you? What's the news to-night? Kept late at my office, making
up accounts. Going down to Whipham to-morrow to pass Chris
tmas with my wife's
uncle??Ringwood, you know. Always go down to Whipham at Christmas. Keeps the
pheasants for us??no longer a hunting man myself. Lost my nerve, by George."
Whilst the braggart little creature indulged in this pompous talk, he did not
see the significant looks which were fixed upon him, or if he remarked them, was
perhaps pleased by the attention which he excited. Bays's had long echoed with
Twysden's account of Ringwood, the pheasants, his own loss of nerve in hunting,
and the sum which their family would inherit at the death of their noble
relative.
"I think I have heard you say Sir John Ringwood inherits after your relative?"
asked Mr. Hookham.
"Yes; the estate, not the title. The earldom goes to my lord and his
heirs??Hookham. Why shouldn't he marry again? I often say to him, 'Ringwood, why
don't you marry, if it's only to disappoint that Whig fellow Sir John. You are
fresh and hale, Ringwood. You may live twenty years, five and twenty years. If
you leave your niece and my children anything, we're not in a hurry to inherit,'
I say; 'why don't you marry?"'
"Ah! Twysden, he's past marrying," groans Mr. Hookham.
"Not at all. Sober man, now. Stout man. Immense powerful man. Healthy man, but
for gout. I often say to him, 'Ringwood!' I say??"
"Oh, for mercy's sake! stop this," groans old Mr. Tremlett, who always begins to
shudder at the sound of poor Twysden's voice. "Tell him somebody."
"Haven't you heard, Twysden? Haven't you seen? Don't you know?" asks Mr. Hookham
solemnly.
"Heard, seen, known??what?" cries the other.
"An accident has happened to Lord Ringwood. Look at the paper. Here it is." And
Twysden pulls out his great gold eye-glasses, holds the paper as far as his
little arm will reach, and ?? and mercif ul Powers! ?? but I will not venture to
depict the agony on that noble face. Like Timanthes, the painter, I hide this
Agamemnon with a veil. I cast the Globe newspaper over him. Illabatur orbis: and
let imagination depict our Twysden under the ruins.
What Twysden read in the Globe was a mere curt paragraph; but in next morning's
Times there was one of those obituary notices to which noblemen of eminence must
submit from the mysterious necrographer engaged by that paper.
CHAPTER VI. PULVIS ET UMBRA SUMUS.
The first and only Earl of Ringwood has submitted to the fate which peers and
commoners are alike destined to undergo. Hastening to his magnificent seat of
Whipham Market, where he proposed to entertain an illustrious Christmas party,
his lordship left London scarcely recovered from an attack of gout to which he
has been for many years a martyr. The disease must have flown to his stomach,
and suddenly mastered him. At Turreys Regum, thirty miles from his own princely
habitation, where he had been accustomed to dine on his almost royal progresses
to his home, he was already in a state of dreadful suffering, to which his
attendants did not pay the attention which his condition ought to have excited;
for when labouring under this most painful malady his outcries were loud, and
his language and demeanour exceedingly violent. He angrily refused to send for
medical aid at Turreys, and insisted on continuing his journey homewards. He was
one of the old school, who never would enter a railway (though his fortune was
greatly increased by the passage of the railway through his property); and his
own horses always met him at Popper's Tavern, an obscure hamlet, seventeen miles
from his princely seat. He made no sign on arriving at Popper's, and spoke no
word, to the now serious alarm of his servants. When they came to light his
carriage-lamps, and look into his postchaise, the lord of many thousand acres,
and, according to report, of immense wealth, was dead. The journey from Turreys
had been the last stage of a long, a prosperous, and, if not a famous, at least
a notorious and magnificent career.
"The late John George Earl and Baron Ringwood and Viscount Cinqbars entered into
public life at the dangerous period before the French Revolution; and commenced
his career as the friend and companion of the Prince of Wales. When his Royal
Highness seceded from the Whig party, Lord Ringwood also joined the Tory side of
politicians, and an earldom was the price of his fidelity. But on the elevation
of Lord Steyne to a marquisate, Lord Ringwood quarrelled for awhile with his
royal patron and friend, deeming his own services unjustly slighted as a like
dignity was not conferred on himself. On several occasions he gave his vote
against Government, and caused his nominees in the House of Commons to vote with
the Whigs. He never was reconciled to his late Majesty George IV., of whom he
was in the habit of speaking with characteristic bluntness. The approach of the
Reform Bill, however, threw this nobleman definitively on the Tory side, of
which he has ever since remained, if not an eloquent, at least a violent
supporter. He was said to be a liberal landlord, so long as his tenants did not
thwart him in his views. His only son died early; and his lordship, according to
report, has long been on ill terms with his kinsman and successor, Sir John
Ringwood, of Appleshaw, Baronet. The Barony has been in this ancient family
since the reign of George I., when Sir John Ringwood was ennobled, and Sir
Francis, his brother, a Baron of the Exchequer, was advanced to the dignity of a
Baronet by the first of our Hanoverian sovereigns."
This was the article which my wife and I read on the morning of Christmas eve,
as our children were decking lamps and looking-glasses with holly and red
berries for the approaching festival. I had despatched a hurried note,
containing the news, to Philip on the night previous. We were painfully anxious
about his fate now, when a few days would decide it. Again my business or
curiosity took me to see Mr. Bradgate the lawyer. He was in possession of the
news, of course. He was not averse to talk about it. The death of his client
unsealed the lawyer's lips partially: and I must say Bradgate spoke in a manner
not flattering to his noble deceased client. The brutalities of the late
nobleman had been very hard to bear. On occasion of their last meeting his oaths
and disrespectful behaviour had been specially odious. He had abused almost
every one of his relatives. His heir, he said, was a prating Republican humbug.
He had a relative (whom Bradgate said he would not name) who was a scheming,
swaggering, swindling lickspittle parasite, always cringing at his heels, and
longing for his death. And he had another relative, the impudent son of a
swindling doctor, who had insulted him two hours before in his own room;??a
fellow who was a pauper, and going to propagate a breed for the workhouse; for,
after his behaviour of that day, he would be condemned to the lowest pit of
Acheron, before he (Lord Ringwood) would give that scoundrel a penny of his
money. "And his lordship desired me to send him back his will," said Mr.
Bradgate. "And he destroyed that will before he went away: it was not the first
he had burned. And I may
tell you, now all is over, that he had left his
brother's grandson a handsome legacy in that will, which your poor friend might
have had, but that he went to see my lord in his unlucky fit of gout." Ah, mea
culpa! mea culpa! And who sent Philip to see his relative in that unlucky fit of
gout? Who was so worldly-wise??so Twysden-like, as to counsel Philip to flattery
and submission? But for that advice he might be wealthy now; he might be happy;
he might be ready to marry his young sweetheart. Our Christmas turkey choked me
as I ate of it. The lights burned dimly, and the kisses and laughter under the
mistletoe were but melancholy sport. But for my advice, how happy might my
friend have been! I looked askance at the honest faces of my children. What
would they say if they knew their father had advised a friend to cringe, and
bow, and humble himself before a rich, wicked old man? I sate as mute at the
pantomime as at a burial; the laughter of the little ones smote me as with a
reproof. A burial? With plumes and lights, and upholsterers' pageantry, and
mourning by the yard measure, they were burying my Lord Ringwood, who might have
made Philip Firmin rich but for me.
All lingering hopes regarding our friend were quickly put to an end. A will was
found at Whipham, dated a year back, in which no mention was made of poor Philip
Firmin. Small legacies??disgracefully shabby and small, Twysden said??were left
to the Twysden family, with the full-length portrait of the late earl in his
coronation robes, which, I should think, must have given but small satisfaction
to his surviving relatives; for his lordship was but an ill-favoured nobleman,
and the price of the carriage of the large picture from Whipham was a tax which
poor Talbot made very wry faces at paying. Had the picture been accompanied by
thirty or forty thousand pounds, or fifty thousand??why should he not have left
them fifty thousand???how different Talbot's grief would have been! Whereas when
Talbot counted up the dinners he had given to Lord Ringwood, all of which he
could easily calculate by his cunning ledgers and journals in which was noted
down every feast at which his lordship attended, every guest assembled, and
every bottle of wine drunk, Twysden found that he had absolutely spent more
money upon my lord than the old man had paid back in his will. But all the
family went into mourning, and the Twysden coachman and footman turned out in
black worsted epaulettes in honour of the illustrious deceased. It is not every
day that a man gets a chance of publicly bewailing the loss of an earl his
relative. I suppose Twysden took many hundred people into his confidence on this
matter, and bewailed his uncle's death and his own wrongs whilst clinging to
many scores of button-holes.
And how did poor Philip bear the disappointment? He must have felt it, for I
fear we ourselves had encouraged him in the hope that his grand-uncle would do
something to relieve his necessity. Philip put a bit of crape round his hat,
wrapped himself in his shabby old mantle, and declined any outward show of grief
at all. If the old man had left him money, it had been well. As he did not,??a
puff of cigar, perhaps, ends the sentence, and our philosopher gives no further
thought to his disappointment. Was not Philip the poor as lordly and independent
as Philip the rich? A struggle with poverty is a wholesome wrestling match at
three or five and twenty. The sinews are young, and are braced by the contest.
It is upon the aged that the battle falls hardly, who are weakened by failing
health, and perhaps enervated by long years of prosperity.
Firmin's broad back could carry a heavy burden, and he was glad to take all the
work which fell in his way. Phipps, of the Daily Intelligencer, wanting an
assistant, Philip gladly sold four hours of his day to Mr. Phipps: translated