carriage, and she has come to call upon you, and ask you to her balls, I
suppose."
Mrs. Baynes was delighted at this call. And when she said, "I'm sure I don't
value fine people, or their fine parties, or their fine carriages, but I wish
that my dear child should see the world,"??I don't believe a word which Mrs.
Baynes said. She was much more pleased than Charlotte at the idea of visiting
this fine lady; or else, why should she have coaxed, and wheedled, and been so
particularly gracious to the general all the evening? She wanted a new gown. The
truth is, her yellow was very shabby; whereas Charlotte, in plain white muslin,
looked pretty enough to be able to dispense with the aid of any French milliner.
I fancy a consultation with madame and Mrs. Bunch. I fancy a fly ordered, and a
visit to the gown is settled with the milliner, I fancy the terror on Mrs.
Baynes' wizened face when she ascertains the amount of the bill. To do her
justice, the general's wife had spend little upon her own homely person. She
chose her gowns ugly, but cheap. There were so many backs to clothe in that
family that the thrifty mother did not heed the decoration of her own.
CHAPTER VIII. NEC DULCES AMORES SPERNE, PUER, NEQUE TU CHOREAS.
"My dear," Mrs. Baynes said to her daughter, "you are going out a great deal in
the world now. You will go to a great number of places where poor Philip cannot
hope to be admitted."
"Not admit Philip, mamma! then I'm sure I don't want to go," cries the girl.
"Time enough to leave off going to parties when you can't afford it, and marry
him. When I was a lieutenant's wife, I didn't go to any parties out of the
regiment, my dear!"
"Oh, then, I am sure I shall never want to go out!" Charlotte declares.
"You fancy he will always stop at home, I daresay. Men are not all so domestic
as your papa. Very few love to stop at home like him. Indeed, I may say that I
have made his home comfortable. But one thing is clear, my child. Philip can't
always expect to go where we go. He is not in the position in life. Recollect,
your father is a general officer, C. B., and may be K.C.B. soon, and your mother
is a general officer's lady. We may go anywhere. I might have gone to the
drawing-room at home if I chose. Lady Biggs would have been delighted to present
me. Your aunt has been to the drawing-room, and she is only Mrs. Major Mac
Whirter; and most absurd it was of Mac to let her go. But she rules him in
everything, and they have no children. I have, goodness knows! I sacrifice
myself for my children. You little know what I deny myself for my children. I
said to Lady Biggs, 'No, Lady Biggs; my husband may go. He should go. He has his
uniform, and it will cost him nothing except a fly and a bouquet for the man who
drives; but I will not spend money on myself for the hire of diamonds and
feathers, and, though I yield in loyalty to no person, I daresay my Sovereign
won't miss me.' And I don't think her Majesty did. She has other things to think
of besides Mrs. General Baynes, I suppose. She is a mother, and can appreciate a
mother's sacrifices for her children."??If I have not hitherto given you
detailed reports of Mrs. General Baynes' conversation, I don't think, my
esteemed reader, you will be very angry.
"Now, child," the general's lady continued, "let me warn you not to talk much to
Philip about those places to which you go without him, and to which his position
in life does not allow of his coming. Hide anything from him? Oh, dear, no! Only
for his own good, you understand. I don't tell everything to your papa. I should
only worrit him and vex him. When anything will please him, and make him happy,
then I tell him. And about Philip. Philip, I must say it, my dear??I must as a
mother say it??has his faults. He is an envious man. Don't look shocked. He
thinks very well of himself; and having been a great deal spoiled, and made too
much of in his unhappy father's time, he is so proud and haughty that he forgets
his position, and thinks he ought to live with the highest society. Had Lord
Ringwood left him a fortune, as Philip led us to expect when we gave our consent
to this most unlucky match??for that my dear child should marry a beggar is most
unlucky and most deplorable; I can't help saying so, Charlotte,??if I were on my
deathbed I couldn't help saying so; and I wish with all my heart we had never
seen or heard of him.??There! Don't go off in one of your tantrums! What was I
saying, pray? I say that Philip is in no position, or rather in a very humble
one, which??a mere newspaper-writer and a subaltern too??everybody acknowledges
to be. And if he hears us talking about our parties, to which we have a right to
go??to which you have a right to go with your mother, a general officer's
lady??why, he'll be offended. He won't like to hear about them and think he
can't be invited; and you had better not talk about them at all, or about the
people you meet, you dance with. At Mrs. Hely's you may dance with Lord
Headbury, the ambassador's son. And if you tell Philip he will be offended. He
will say that you boast about it. When I was only a lieutenant's wife at
Barrackpore, Mrs. Captain Capers used to go to Calcutta to the Government House
balls. I didn't go. But I was offended, and I used to say that Flora Capers gave
herself airs, and was always boasting of her intimacy with the Marchioness of
Hastings. We don't like our equals to be better off than ourselves. Mark my
words. And if you talk to Philip about the people whom you meet in society, and
whom he can't from his unfortunate station expect to know, you will offend him.
That was why I nudged you to-day when you were going on about Mr. Hely. Anything
so absurd! I saw Philip getting angry at once, and biting his moustaches, as he
always does when he is angry??and swears quite out loud??so vulgar! There! you
are going to be angry again, my love; I never saw anything like you! Is this my
Charly who never was angry? I know the world, dear, and you don't. Look at me,
how I manage your papa, and I tell you don't talk to Philip about things which
offend him! No, dearest, kiss your poor old mother who loves you. Go upstairs
and bathe your eyes, and come down happy to dinner." And at dinner Mrs. General
Baynes was uncommonly gracious to Philip: and when gracious she was especially
odious to Philip, whose magnanimous nature accommodated itself ill to the
wheedling artifices of an ill-bred old woman.
Following this wretched mother's advice, my poor Charlotte spoke scarcely at all
to Philip of the parties to which she went, and the amusements which she enjoyed
without him. I daresay Mrs. Baynes was quite happy in thinking that she was
"guiding" her child rightly. As if a coarse woman, because she is mean, and
greedy, and hypocritical, and fifty years old, has a right to lead a guileless
nature into wrong! Ah! if some of us old folks were to go to school to our
children, I am sure, madam, it would do us a great deal of good. There is a fund
of good sense and honourable feeling about my great-grandson Tommy, which is
more valuable than all his grandpapa's ex
perience and knowledge of the world.
Knowledge of the world forsooth! Compromise, selfishness modified, and double
dealing. Tom disdains a lie. When he wants a peach, he roars for it. If his
mother wishes to go to a party, she coaxes, and wheedles, and manages, and
smirks, and curtseys for months, in order to get her end; takes twenty rebuffs,
and comes up to the scratch again smiling;??and this woman is for ever lecturing
her daughters, and preaching to her sons upon virtue, honesty, and moral
behaviour!
Mrs. Hely's little party at the H?tel de la Terrasse was very pleasant and
bright; and Miss Charlotte enjoyed it, although her swain was not present. But
Philip was pleased that his little Charlotte should be happy. She beheld with
wonderment Parisian duchesses, American millionnaires, dandies from the
embassies, deputies and peers of France with large stars and wigs like papa. She
gaily described her party to Philip; described, that is to say, everything but
her own success, which was undoubted. There were many beauties at Mrs. Hely's,
but nobody fresher or prettier. The Miss Blacklocks retired very early and in
the worst possible temper. Prince Slyboots did not in the least heed their going
away. His thoughts were all fixed upon little Charlotte. Charlotte's mamma saw
the impression which the girl made, and was filled with a hungry joy.
Good-natured Mrs. Hely complimented her on her daughter. "Thank God, she is as
good as she is pretty," said the mother, I am sure speaking seriously this time
regarding her daughter. Prince Slyboots danced with scarce anybody else. He
raised a perfect whirlwind of compliments round about Charlotte. She was quite a
simple person, and did not understand one-tenth part of what he said to her. He
strewed her path with roses of poesy: he scattered garlands of sentiment before
her all the way from the ante-chamber downstairs, and so to the fly which was in
waiting to take her and her parents home to the boarding-house. "By George,
Charlotte, I think you have smitten that fellow," cries the general, who was
infinitely amused by young Hely??his raptures, his affectations, his long hair,
and what Baynes called his low dress. A slight white tape and a ruby button
confined Hely's neck. His hair waved over his shoulders. Baynes had never seen
such a specimen. At the mess of the stout 120th, the lads talked of their dogs,
horses, and sport. A young civilian, smattering in poetry, chattering in a dozen
languages, scented, smiling, perfectly at ease with himself and the world, was a
novelty to the old officer.
And now the Queen's birthday arrived??and that it may arrive for many scores of
years yet to come is, I am sure, the prayer of all of us??and with the birthday
his Excellency Lord Estridge's grand annual f?te in honour of his sovereign. A
card for the ball was left at Madame Smolensk's, for General, Mrs. and Miss
Baynes; and no doubt Monsieur Slyboots Walsingham Hely was the artful agent by
whom the invitation was forwarded. Once more the general's veteran uniform came
out from the tin-box, with its dingy epaulets and little cross and ribbon. His
wife urged on him strongly the necessity of having a new wig, wigs being very
cheap and good at Paris??but Baynes said a new wig would make his old coat look
very shabby; and a new uniform would cost more money than he would like to
afford. So shabby he went de cape ? pied, with a moulting feather, a threadbare
suit, a tarnished wig, and a worn-out lace, sibi constans. Boots, trousers,
sash, coat, were all old and worse for wear, and "faith," says he, "my face
follows suit." A brave, silent man was Baynes; with a twinkle of humour in his
lean, wrinkled face.
And if General Baynes was shabbily attired at the Embassy ball, I think I know a
friend of mine who was shabby too. In the days of his prosperity, Mr. Philip was
parcus cultor et infrequens of balls, routes, and ladies' company. Perhaps
because his father was angered at Philip's neglect of his social advantages and
indifference as to success in the world, Philip was the more neglectful and
indifferent. The elder's comedy-smiles, and solemn hypocritical politeness,
caused scorn and revolt on the part of the younger man. Philip despised the
humbug, and the world to which such humbug could be welcome. He kept aloof from
tea-parties then: his evening-dress clothes served him for a long time. I cannot
say how old his dress-coat was at the time of which we are writing. But he had
been in the habit of respecting that garment and considering it new and handsome
for many years past. Meanwhile the coat had shrunk, or its wearer had grown
stouter; and his grand embroidered, embossed, illuminated, carved and gilt
velvet dress waistcoat, too, had narrowed, had become absurdly tight and short,
and I daresay was the laughing-stock of many of Philip's acquaintances, whilst
he himself, poor simple fellow, was fancying that it was a most splendid article
of apparel. You know in the Palais Royal they hang out the most splendid
reach-me-down dressing-gowns, waistcoats, and so forth. "No," thought Philip,
coming out of his cheap dining-house, and swaggering along the arcades, and
looking at the tailors' shops, with his hands in his pockets. "My brown velvet
dress waistcoat with the gold sprigs, which I had made at college, is a much
more tasty thing than these gaudy ready-made articles. And my coat is old
certainly, but the brass buttons are still very bright and handsome, and, in
fact, it is a most becoming and gentlemanlike thing." And under this delusion
the honest fellow dressed himself in his old clothes, lighted a pair of candles,
and looked at himself with satisfaction in the looking-glass, drew on a pair of
cheap gloves which he had bought, walked by the Quays, and over the Deputies'
Bridge, across the Place Louis XV., and strutted up the Faubourg St. Honor? to
the Hotel of the British Embassy. A half-mile queue of carriages was formed
along the street, and of course the entrance to the hotel was magnificently
illuminated.
A plague on those cheap gloves! Why had not Philip paid three francs for a pair
of gloves, instead of twenty-nine sous? Mrs. Baynes had found a capital cheap
glove shop, whither poor Phil had gone in the simplicity of his heart; and now
as he went in under the grand illuminated porte-coch?re, Philip saw that the
gloves had given way at the thumbs, and that his hands appeared through the
rents, as red as red as raw beefsteaks. It is wonderful how red hands will look
through holes in white gloves. "And there's that hole in my boot, too," thought
Phil; but he had put a little ink over the seam, and so the rent was
imperceptible. The coat and waistcoat were tight, and of a past age. Never mind.
The chest was broad, the arms were muscular and long, and Phil's face, in the
midst of a halo of fair hair and flaming whiskers, looked brave, honest, and
handsome. For a while his eyes wandered fiercely and restlessly all about the
room from group to group; but now??ah! now??they were settled. They had met
another pair of eyes, which lighted up with glad welcome when th
ey beheld him.
Two young cheeks mantled with a sweet blush. These were Charlotte's cheeks: and
hard by them were mamma's, of a very different colour. But Mrs. General Baynes
had a knowing turban on, and a set of garnets round her old neck, like
gooseberries set in gold.
They admired the rooms: they heard the names of the great folks who arrived, and
beheld many famous personages. They made their curtseys to the ambassadress.
Confusion! With a great rip, the thumb of one of those cheap gloves of Philip's
parts company from the rest of the glove, and he is obliged to wear it crumpled
up in his hand: a dreadful mishap??for he is going to dance with Charlotte, and
he will have to give his hand to the vis-?-vis.
Who comes up smiling, with a low neck, with waving curls and whiskers, pretty
little hands exquisitely gloved, and tiny feet? 'Tis Hely Walsingham, lightest
in the dance. Most affably does Mrs. General Baynes greet the young fellow. Very
brightly and happily do Charlotte's eyes glance towards her favourite partner.
It is certain that poor Phil can't hope at all to dance like Hely. "And see what
nice neat feet and hands he has got," says Mrs. Baynes. "Comme il est bien
gant?! A gentleman ought to be always well gloved."
"Why did you send me to the twenty-nine-sous-shop?" says poor Phil, looking at
his tattered handshoes, and red obtrusive thumb.
"Oh, you!"??(here Mrs. Baynes shrugs her yellow old shoulders.) "Your hands
would burst through any gloves! How do you do, Mr. Hely! Is your mamma here? Of
course she is! What a delightful party she gave us! The dear ambassadress looks
quite unwell??most pleasing manners, I am sure; Lord Estridge, what a perfect
gentleman!"
The Bayneses were just come. For what dance was Miss Baynes disengaged? "As many
as ever you like!" cries Charlotte, who, in fact, called Hely her little
dancing-master, and never thought of him except as a partner. "Oh, too much
happiness! Oh, that this could last for ever!" sighed Hely, after a waltz,
polka, mazurka, I know not what, and fixing on Charlotte the full blaze of his
beauteous blue eyes. "For ever?" cries Charlotte, laughing. "I'm very fond of
dancing, indeed; and you dance beautifully; but I don't know that I should like
to dance for ever." Ere the words are over, he is whirling her round the room
again. His little feet fly with surprising agility. His hair floats behind him.
He scatters odours as he spins. The handkerchief with which he fans his pale
brow is like a cloudy film of muslin??and poor old Philip sees with terror that
his pocket-handkerchief has got three great holes in it. His nose and one eye
appeared through one of the holes while Phil was wiping his forehead. It was
very hot. He was very hot. He was hotter, though standing still, than young Hely
who was dancing. "He! he! I compliment you on your gloves, and your
handkerchief, I'm sure," sniggers Mrs. Baynes, with a toss of her turban. Has it
not been said that a bull is a strong, courageous, and noble animal, but that a
bull in a china-shop is not in his place? "There you go. Thank you! I wish you'd
go somewhere else," cries Mrs. Baynes in a fury. Poor Philip's foot has just
gone through her flounce. How red he is! how much hotter than ever! There go
Hely and Charlotte, whirling round like two operadancers! Philip grinds his
teeth, he buttons his coat across his chest. How very tight it feels! How
savagely his eyes glare! Do young men still look savage and solemn at balls? An
ingenuous young Englishman ought to do that duty of dancing, of course. Society
calls upon him. But I doubt whether he ought to look cheerful during the
performance, or flippantly engage in so grave a matter.
As Charlotte's sweet round face beamed smiles upon Philip over Hely's shoulders,