house. Then the knife and fork are removed from poor Kate's side, and she
swallows her own sad meal in tears. Then if one of the little Thompsons says,
artlessly, "Papa, I met Teddy Brown in Regent Street; he looked so??" "Hold your
tongue, unfeeling wretch!" cries mamma. "Look at that dear child!" Kate is
swooning. She has salvolatile. The medical man is sent for. And presently??
Charles Jones is taking Kate Thompson to dinner. Long voyages are dangerous; so
are long courtships. In long voyages passengers perpetually quarrel (for that
Mrs. General could vouch); in long courtships the same danger exists; and how
much the more when in that latter ship you have a mother who is for ever putting
in her oar! And then to think of the annoyance of that love voyage, when you and
the beloved and beloved's papa, mamma, half a dozen brothers and sisters, are
all in one cabin! For economy's sake the Bayneses had no sitting-room at
madame's??for you could not call that room on the second floor a sittingroom
which had two beds in it, and in which the young ones practised the piano, with
poor Charlotte as their mistress. Philip's courting had to take place for the
most part before the whole family; and to make love under such difficulties
would have been horrible and maddening and impossible almost, only we have
admitted that our young friends had little walks in the Champs Elys?es; and then
you must own that it must have been delightful for them to write each other
perpetual little notes, which were delivered occultly under the very nose of
papa and mamma, and in the actual presence of the other boarders at madame's,
who, of course, never saw anything that was going on. Yes, those sly monkeys
actually made little post-offices about the room. There was, for instance, the
clock on the mantelpiece in the salon on which was carved the old French
allegory, "Le temps fait passer l'amour." One of those artful young people would
pop a note into Time's boat, where you may be sure no one saw it. The trictrac
board was another post-office. So was the drawer of the music-stand. So was the
S?vres China flower-pot, to each of which repositories in its turn the lovers
confided the delicious secrets of their wooing.
Have you ever looked at your love-letters to Darby, when you were courting, dear
Joan? They are sacred pages to read. You have his tied up somewhere in a faded
ribbon. You scarce need spectacles as you look at them. The hair grows black;
the eyes moisten and brighten; the cheeks fill and blush again. I protest there
is nothing so beautiful as Darby and Joan in the world. I hope Philip and his
wife will be Darby and Joan to the end. I tell you they are married; and don't
want to make any mysteries about the business. I disdain that sort of artifice.
In the days of the old three-volume novels, didn't you always look at the end,
to see that Louisa and the earl (or young clergyman, as the case might be) were
happy? If they died, or met with other grief, for my part I put the book away.
This pair, then, are well; are married; are, I trust, happy: but before they
married, and afterwards, they had great griefs and troubles; as no doubt you
have had, dear sir, or madam, since you underwent that ceremony. Married? Of
course they are. Do you suppose I would have allowed little Charlotte to meet
Philip in the Champs Elys?es with only a giddy little boy of a brother for a
companion, who would turn away to see Punch, Guignol, the soldiers marching by,
the old woman's gingerbread and toffy stall and so forth? Do you, I say, suppose
I would have allowed those two to go out together, unless they were to be
married afterwards? Out walking together they did go; and, once, as they were
arm-in-arm in the Champs Elys?es, whom should they see in a fine open carriage
but young Twysden and Captain and Mrs. Woolcomb, to whom, as they passed, Philip
doffed his hat with a profound bow, and whom he further saluted with a roar of
immense laughter. Woolcomb must have heard the peal. I daresay it brought a
little blush into Mrs. Woolcomb's cheek; and??and so, no doubt, added to the
many attractions of that elegant lady. I have no secrets about my characters,
and speak my mind about them quite freely. They said that Woolcomb was the most
jealous, stingy, ostentatious, cruel little brute; that he led his wife a dismal
life. Well? If he did? I'm sure, I don't care. "There is that swaggering
bankrupt beggar Firmin!" cries the tawny bridegroom, biting his moustache.
"Impudent ragged blackguard," says Twysden minor, "I saw him."
"Hadn't you better stop the carriage, and abuse him to himself, and not to me?"
says Mrs. Woolcomb, languidly, flinging herself back on her cushions.
"Go on. Hang you! Ally! Vite!" cry the gentlemen in the carriage to the laquais
de place on the box.
"I can fancy you don't care about seeing him," resumes Mrs. Woolcomb. "He has a
violent temper, and I would not have you quarrel for the world." So I suppose
Woolcomb again swears at the laquais de place: and the happy couple, as the
saying is, roll away to the Bois de Boulogne.
"What makes you laugh so?" says little Charlotte, fondly, as she trips along by
her lover's side.
"Because I am so happy, my dearest!" says the other, squeezing to his heart the
little hand that lies on his arm. As he thinks on yonder woman, and then looks
into the pure eager face of the sweet girl beside him, the scornful laughter
occasioned by the sudden meeting which is just over hushes;??and an immense
feeling of thankfulness fills the breast of the young man:??thankfulness for the
danger from which he has escaped, and for the blessed prize which has fallen to
him.
But Mr. Philip's walks were not to be as pleasant as this walk; and we are now
coming to history of wet, slippery roads, bad times, and winter weather. All I
can promise about this gloomy part is, that it shall not be a long story. You
will acknowledge we made very short work with the love-making, which I give you
my word I consider to be the very easiest part of the novel-writer's business.
As those rapturous scenes between the captain and the heroine are going on, a
writer who knows his business may be thinking about anything else??about the
ensuing chapter, or about what he is going to have for dinner, or what you will;
therefore, as we passed over the raptures and joys of the courting so very
curtly, you must please to gratify me by taking the grief in a very short
measure. If our young people are going to suffer, let the pain be soon over. Sit
down in the chair, Miss Baynes, if you please, and you, Mr. Firmin, in this.
Allow me to examine you; just open your mouth if you please; and??oh, oh, my
dear miss?? there it is out! A little eau-de-Cologne and water, my dear. And
now, Mr. Firmin, if you please, we will?? what fangs! what a big one! Two
guineas. Thank you. Good morning. Come to me once a year. John, show in the next
party. About the ensuing painful business, then, I protest I don't intend to be
much longer occupied than the humane and dexterous operator to whom I have made
so bold as to liken myself. If my pretty Charl
otte is to have a tooth out, it
shall be removed as gently as possible, poor dear. As for Philip, and his great
red-bearded jaw, I don't care so much if the tug makes him roar a little. And
yet they remain, they remain and throb in after life, those wounds of early
days. Have I not said how, as I chanced to walk with Mr. Firmin in Paris, many
years after the domestic circumstances here recorded, he paused before the
window of that house near the Champs Elys?es where Madame Smolensk once held her
pension, shook his fist at a jalousie of the now dingy and dilapidated mansion,
and intimated to me that he had undergone severe sufferings in the chamber
lighted by yonder window? So have we all suffered; so, very likely, my dear
young miss, or master, who peruses this modest page, will you have to suffer in
your time. You will not die of the operation, most probably: but it is painful:
it makes a gap in the mouth, voyez-vous? and years and years, maybe, after, as
you think of it, the smart is renewed, and the dismal tragedy enacts itself over
again.
Philip liked his little maiden to go out, to dance, to laugh, to be admired, to
be happy. In her artless way she told him of her balls, her tea-parties, her
pleasures, her partners. In a girl's first little season nothing escapes her.
Have you not wondered to hear them tell about the events of the evening, about
the dresses of the dowagers, about the compliments of the young men, about the
behaviour of the girls, and what not?
Little Charlotte used to enact the over-night's comedy for Philip, pouring out
her young heart in her prattle as her little feet skipped by his side. And to
hear Philip roar with laughter! It would have done you good. You might have
heard him from the Obelisk to the Etoile. People turned round to look at him,
and shrugged their shoulders wonderingly, as good-natured French folks will do.
How could a man who had been lately ruined, a man who had just been disappointed
of a great legacy from the earl his great uncle, a man whose boots were in that
lamentable condition, laugh so, and have such high spirits? To think of such an
impudent ragged blackguard (as Ringwood Twysden called his cousin) daring to be
happy! The fact is, that clap of laughter smote those three Twysden people like
three boxes on the ear, and made all their cheeks tingle and blush at once. At
Philip's merriment, clouds which had come over Charlotte's sweet face would be
chased away. As she clung to him doubts which throbbed at the girl's heart would
vanish. When she was acting those scenes of the past night's entertainment, she
was not always happy. As she talked and prattled, her own spirits would rise;
and hope and natural joy would spring in her heart again, and come flushing up
to her cheek. Charlotte was being a hypocrite, as, thank heaven, all good women
sometimes are. She had griefs: she hid them from him. She had doubts and fears:
they fled when he came in view, and she clung to his strong arm, and looked in
his honest blue eyes. She did not tell him of those painful nights when her eyes
were wakeful and tearful. A yellow old woman in a white jacket, with a nightcap
and a night-light, would come, night after night, to the side of her little bed;
and there stand, and with her grim voice bark against Philip. That old woman's
lean finger would point to all the rents in poor Philip's threadbare paletot of
a character??point to the holes, and tear them wider open. She would stamp on
those muddy boots. She would throw up a peaked nose at the idea of the poor
fellow's pipe??his pipe, his great companion and comforter when his dear little
mistress was away. She would discourse on the partners of the night; the evident
attentions of this gentleman, the politeness and high breeding of that.
And when that dreary nightly torture was over, and Charlotte's mother had left
the poor child to herself, sometimes Madame Smolensk, sitting up over her
ledgers and bills, and wakeful with her own cares, would steal up and console
poor Charlotte; and bring her some tisane, excellent for the nerves; and talk to
her about ??about the subject of which Charlotte best liked to hear. And though
Smolensk was civil to Mrs. Baynes in the morning, as her professional duty
obliged her to be, she has owned that she often felt a desire to strangle Madame
la G?n?rale for her conduct to her little angel of a daughter; and all because
Monsieur Philippe smells the pipe, parbleu! "What? a family that owes you the
bread which they eat; and they draw back for a pipe! The cowards, the cowards! A
soldier's daughter is not afraid of it. Merci! Tenez, M. Philippe," she said to
our friend when matters came to an extremity. "Do you know what in your place I
would do? To a Frenchman I would not say so; that understands itself. But these
things make themselves otherwise in England. I have no money, but I have a
cachemire. Take him; and if I were you, I would make a little voyage to Gretna
Grin."
And now, if you please, we will quit the Champs Elys?es. We will cross the road
from madame's boarding-house. We will make our way into the Faubourg St. Honor?,
and actually enter a gate over which the L-on, the Un-c-rn, and the R-y-l Cr-wn
and A-ms of the Three K-ngd-ms are sculptured, and going under the
porte-coch?re, and turning to the right, ascend a little stair, and ask of the
attendant on the landing, who is in the chancellerie? The attendant says that
several of those messieurs y sont. In fact, on entering the room, you find Mr.
Motcomb,??let us say??Mr. Lowndes, Mr. Halkin, and our young friend Mr.
Walsingham Hely, seated at their respective tables in the midst of considerable
smoke. Smoking in the midst of these gentlemen, and bestriding his chair, as
though it were his horse, sits that gallant young Irish chieftain, The O'Rourke.
Some of the gentlemen are copying, in a large handwriting, despatches on
foolscap paper. I would rather be torn to pieces by O'Rourke's wildest horses,
than be understood to hint at what those despatches, at what those
despatch-boxes contain. Perhaps they contain some news from the Court of Spain,
where some intrigues are carried on, a knowledge of which would make your hair
start off your head; perhaps that box, for which a messenger is waiting in a
neighbouring apartment, has locked up twenty-four yards of Chantilly lace for
Lady Belweather, and six new French farces for Tom Tiddler of the Foreign
Office, who is mad about the theatre. It is years and years ago; how should I
know what there is in those despatch-boxes?
But the work, whatever it may be, is not very pressing??for there is only Mr.
Chesham??[Did I say Chesham before, by the way? You may call him Mr.
Sloanestreet if you like]. There is only Chesham (and he always takes things to
the grand serious) who seems to be much engaged in writing; and the conversation
goes on.
"Who gave it?" asks Motcomb.
"The black man, of course, gave it. We would not pretend to compete with such a
long purse as his. You should have seen what faces he made at the bill! Thirty
francs a bottle for Rhine wine. He grinn
ed with the most horrible agony when he
read the addition. He almost turned yellow. He sent away his wife early. How
long that girl was hanging about London; and think of her hooking a millionnaire
at last! Othello is a frightful screw, and diabolically jealous of his wife."
"What is the name of the little man who got so dismally drunk, and began to cry
about old Ringwood?"
"Twysden??the woman's brother. Don't you know Humbug Twysden, the father? The
youth is more offensive than the parent."
"A most disgusting little beast. Would come to the Vari?t?s, because we said we
were going: would go to Lamoignon's, where the Russians gave a dance and a
lansquenet. Why didn't you come, Hely?"
Mr. Hely.??I tell you I hate the whole thing. Those painted old actresses give
me the horrors. What do I want with winning Motcomb's money who hasn't got any?
Do you think it gives me any pleasure to dance with old Carodol? She puts me in
mind of my grandmother ??only she is older. Do you think I want to go and see
that insane old Boutzoff leering at Corinne and Palmyrine, and making a group of
three old women together? I wonder how you fellows can go on. Aren't you tired
of truffles and ?crevisses ? la Bordelaise; and those old opera people, whose
withered old carcases are stuffed with them?
The O'R.??There was C?risette, I give ye me honour. Ye never saw. She feel
asleep in her cheer??
Mr. Lowndes.??In her hwhat, O' R.?
The O'R.??Well, in her Chair then! And Figaroff smayred her feece all over with
the craym out of a Charlotte Roose. She's a regular bird, and mustache, you
know, C?risette has.
Mr. Hely.??Charlotte, Charlotte! Oh! (He clutches his hair madly. His elbows are
on the table.)
Mr. Lowndes.??It's that girl he meets at the teaparties, where he goes to be
admired.
Mr. Hely.??It is better to drink tea than, like you fellows, to muddle what
brains you have with bad champagne. It is better to look, and to hear, and to
see, and to dance with a modest girl, than, like you fellows, to be capering
about in taverns with painted old hags like that old C?risette, who has got a
face like pomme cuite, and who danced before Lord Malmesbury at the Peace of
Amiens. She did, I tell you; and before Napoleon.
Mr. Chesham.??(Looks up from his writing.)??There was no Napoleon then. It is of
no consequence, but??
Lowndes.??Thank you, I owe you one. You're a most valuable man, Chesham, and a
credit to your father and mother.
Mr. Chesham.??Well, the First Consul was Bonaparte.
Lowndes.??I am obliged to you. I say I am obliged to you, Chesham, and if you
would like any refreshment order it meis sumptibus, old boy??at my expense.
Chesham.??These fellows will never be serious. (He resumes his writing.)
Hely.??(Iterum, but very low.)??Oh, Charlotte, Char??
Mr. Lowndes.??Hely is raving about that girl??that girl with the horrible old
mother in yellow, don't you remember? and old father??good old military party,
in a shabby old coat??who was at the last ball. What was the name? O'Rourke,
what is the rhyme for Baynes?
The O'R.??Pays, and be hanged to you. You're always makin fun on me, you little
cockney!
Mr. Motcomb.??Hely was just as bad about the Danish girl. You know, Walse, you
composed ever so many verses to her, and wrote home to your mother to ask leave
to marry her!
The O'R.??I'd think him big enough to marry without anybody's leave??only they
wouldn't have him because he's so ugly.
Mr. Hely.??Very good, O'Rourke. Very neat and good. You were diverting the
company with an anecdote. Will you proceed?
The O'R.??Well, then, the C?risette had been dancing both on and off the stage
till she was dead tired, I suppose, and so she fell dead asleep, and Figaroff,
taking the whatdyecallem out of the Charlotte Roose, smayred her face all??
Voice without.??Deet Mosho Ringwood Twysden, sivoplay, poor l'honorable Moshoo