The Adventures of Philip
monde, you would find them agreeable people. If you were a little Treasury
clerk, or a young barrister with no practice, or a lady old or young, not quite
of the monde, your opinion of them would not be so favourable. I have seen them
cut, and scorn, and avoid, and caress, and kneel down and worship the same
person. When Mrs. Lovel first gave parties, don't I remember the shocked
countenances of the Twysden family? Were ever shoulders colder than yours, dear
girls? Now they love her; they fondle her step-children; they praise her to her
face and behind her handsome back; they take her hand in public; they call her
by her Christian name; they fall into ecstasies over her toilettes, and would
fetch coals for her dressing-room fire if she but gave them the word. She is not
changed. She is the same lady who once was a governess, and no colder and no
warmer since then. But you see her prosperity has brought virtues into evidence,
which people did not perceive when she was poor. Could people see Cinderella's
beauty when she was in rags by the fire, or until she stepped out of her fairy
coach in her diamonds? How are you to recognize a diamond in a dusthole? Only
very clever eyes can do that. Whereas a lady, in a fairy coach and eight,
naturally creates a sensation; and enraptured princes come and beg to have the
honour of dancing with her.
In the character of infallible historian, then, I declare that if Miss Twysden
at three-and-twenty feels ever so much or little attachment for her cousin who
is not yet of age, there is no reason to be angry with her. A brave, handsome,
blundering, downright young fellow, with broad shoulders, high spirits, and
quite fresh blushes on his face, with very good talents (though he has been
wofully idle, and requested to absent himself temporarily from his university),
the possessor of a competent fortune and the heir of another, may naturally make
some impression on a lady's heart with whom kinsmanship and circumstance bring
him into daily communion. When had any sound so hearty as Phil's laugh been
heard in Beaunash Street? His jolly frankness touched his aunt, a clever woman.
She would smile and say, "My dear Philip, it is not only what you say, but what
you are going to say next, which keeps me in such a perpetual tremor." There may
have been a time once when she was frank and cordial herself: ever so long ago,
when she and her sister were two blooming girls, lovingly clinging together, and
just stepping forth into the world. But if you succeed in keeping a fine house
on a small income; in showing a cheerful face to the world though oppressed with
ever so much care; in bearing with dutiful reverence an intolerable old bore of
a husband (and I vow it is this quality in Mrs. Twysden for which I most admire
her); in submitting to defeats patiently; to humiliations with smiles, so as to
hold your own in your darling monde; you may succeed, but you must give up being
frank and cordial. The marriage of her sister to the doctor gave Maria Ringwood
a great panic, for Lord Ringwood was furious when the news came. Then, perhaps,
she sacrificed a little private passion of her own: then she set her cap at a
noble young neighbour of my lord's, who jilted her: then she took up with Talbot
Twysden, Esquire, of the Powder and Pomatum Office, and made a very faithful
wife to him, and was a very careful mother to his children. But as for frankness
and cordiality, my good friend, accept from a lady what she can give you??good
manners, pleasant talk, and decent attention. If you go to her breakfast-table,
don't ask for a roc's egg, but eat that moderately fresh hen's egg which John
brings you. When Mrs. Twysden is in her open carriage in the Park, how
prosperous, handsome, and jolly she looks?? the girls how smiling and young
(that is, you know, considering all things); the horses look fat, the coachman
and footman wealthy and sleek; they exchange bows with the tenants of other
carriages??well-known aristocrats. Jones and Brown, leaning over the railings,
and seeing the Twysden equipage pass, have not the slightest doubt that it
contains people of the highest wealth and fashion. "I say, Jones, my boy, what
noble family has the motto, Wel done Twys done? and what clipping girls there
were in that barouche!" B. remarks to J., "and what a handsome young swell that
is riding the bay mare, and leaning over and talking to the yellow-haired girl!"
And it is evident to one of those gentlemen, at least, that he has been looking
at your regular first-rate tiptop people.
As for Phil Firmin on his bay mare with his geranium in his button-hole, there
is no doubt that Philippus looks as handsome, and as rich, and as brave as any
lord. And I think Jones must have felt a little pang when his friend told him,
"That a lord! Bless you, it's only a swell doctor's son." But while J. and B.
fancy all the little party very happy, they do not hear Phil whisper to his
cousin, "I hope you liked your partner last night?" and they do not see how
anxious Mrs. Twysden is under her smiles, how she perceives Colonel Shafto's cab
coming up (the dancer in question), and how she would rather have Phil anywhere
than by that particular wheel of her carriage; how Lady Braglands has just
passed them by without noticing them??Lady Braglands, who has a ball, and is
determined not to ask that woman and her two endless girls; and how, though Lady
Braglands won't see Mrs. Twysden in her great staring equipage, and the three
faces which have been beaming smiles at her, she instantly perceives Lady Lovel,
who is passing ensconced in her little brougham, and kisses her fingers twenty
times over. How should poor J. and B., who are not, vous comprenez, du monde,
understand these mysteries?
"That's young Firmin, is it, that handsome young fellow?" says Brown to Jones.
"Doctor married the Earl of Ringwood's niece??ran away with her, you know."
"Good practice?"
"Capital. First-rate. All the tiptop people. Great ladies' doctor. Can't do
without him. Makes a fortune, besides what he had with his wife."
"We've seen his name??the old man's??on some very queer paper," says B. with a
wink to J. By which I conclude they are city gentlemen. And they look very hard
at friend Philip, as he comes to talk and shake hands with some pedestrians who
are gazing over the railings at the busy and pleasant Park scene.
CHAPTER V. THE NOBLE KINSMAN.
Having had occasion to mention a noble earl once or twice, I am sure no polite
reader will consent that his lordship should push through this history along
with the crowd of commoner characters, and without a special word regarding
himself. If you are in the least familiar with Burke or Debrett, you know that
the ancient family of Ringwood has long been famous for its great possessions,
and its loyalty to the British crown.
In the troubles which unhappily agitated this kingdom after the deposition of
the late reigning house, the Ringwoods were implicated with many other families,
but on the accession of his Majesty George III. these differences happily ended,
nor had the monarch any subject more loyal a
nd devoted than Sir John Ringwood,
Baronet, of Wingate and Whipham Market. Sir John's influence sent three members
to Parliament; and during the dangerous and vexatious period of the American
war, this influence was exerted so cordially and consistently in the cause of
order and the crown, that his Majesty thought fit to advance Sir John to the
dignity of Baron Ringwood. Sir John's brother, Sir Francis Ringwood, of
Appleshaw, who followed the profession of the law, was promoted to be a Baron of
his Majesty's Court of Exchequer. The first baron, dying A.D. 1786, was
succeeded by the eldest of his two sons??John, second Baron and first Earl of
Ringwood. His lordship's brother, the Honourable Colonel Philip Ringwood, died
gloriously, at the head of his regiment and in the defence of his country, in
the battle of Busaco, 1810, leaving two daughters, Louisa and Maria.
The Earl of Ringwood had but one son, Charles Viscount Cinqbars, who, unhappily,
died of a decline, in his twenty-second year. And thus the descendants of Sir
Francis Ringwood became heirs to the earl's great estates of Wingate and Whipham
Market, though not of the peerages which had been conferred on the earl and his
father.
Lord Ringwood had, living with him, two nieces, daughters of his late brother
Colonel Philip Ringwood, who fell in the Peninsular War. Of these ladies, the
youngest, Louisa, was his lordship's favourite; and though both the ladies had
considerable fortunes of their own, it was supposed their uncle would further
provide for them, especially as he was on no very good terms with his cousin,
Sir John of the Shaw, who took the Whig side in politics, whilst his lordship
was a chief of the Tory party.
Of these two nieces, the eldest, Maria, never any great favourite with her
uncle, married, 1824, Talbot Twysden, Esq., a Commissioner of Powder and Pomatum
Tax; but the youngest, Louisa, incurred my lord's most serious anger by eloping
with George Brand Firmin, Esq., M.D., a young gentleman of Cambridge University,
who had been with Lord Cinqbars when he died at Naples, and had brought home his
body to Wingate Castle.
The quarrel with the youngest niece, and the indifference with which he
generally regarded the elder (whom his lordship was in the habit of calling an
old schemer), occasioned at first a little rapprochement between Lord Ringwood
and his heir, Sir John of Appleshaw; but both gentlemen were very firm, not to
say obstinate, in their natures. They had a quarrel with respect to the cutting
off of a small entailed property, of which the earl wished to dispose; and they
parted with much rancour and bad language on his lordship's part, who was an
especially free-spoken nobleman, and apt to call a spade a spade, as the saying
is.
After this difference, and to spite his heir, it was supposed that the Earl of
Ringwood would marry. He was little more than seventy years of age, and had once
been of a very robust constitution. And though his temper was violent and his
person not at all agreeable (for even in Sir Thomas Lawrence's picture his
countenance is very ill-favoured), there is little doubt he could have found a
wife for the asking among the young beauties of his own county, or the fairest
of May Fair.
But he was a cynical nobleman, and perhaps morbidly conscious of his own
ungainly appearance. "Of course, I can buy a wife" (his lordship would say). "Do
you suppose people won't sell their daughters to a man of my rank and means? Now
look at me, my good sir, and say whether any woman alive could fall in love with
me? I have been married, and once was enough. I hate ugly women, and your
virtuous women, who tremble and cry in private, and preach at a man, bore me.
Sir John Ringwood of Appleshaw is an ass, and I hate him; but I don't hate him
enough to make myself miserable for the rest of my days, in order to spite him.
When I drop, I drop. Do you suppose I care what comes after me?" And with much
sardonical humour this old lord used to play off one good dowager after another
who would bring her girl in his way. He would send pearls to Emily, diamonds to
Fanny, opera-boxes to lively Kate, books of devotion to pious Selinda, and, at
the season's end, drive back to his lonely great castle in the west. They were
all the same, such was his lordship's opinion. I fear, a wicked and corrupt old
gentleman, my dears. But ah, would not a woman submit to some sacrifices to
reclaim that unhappy man; to lead that gifted but lost being into the ways of
right; to convert to a belief in woman's purity that erring soul? They tried him
with high-church altar-cloths for his chapel at Wingate; they tried him with
low-church tracts; they danced before him; they jumped fences on horseback; they
wore bandeaux, or ringlets, according as his taste dictated; they were always at
home when he called, and poor you and I were gruffly told they were engaged;
they gushed in gratitude over his bouquets; they sang for him, and their
mothers, concealing their sobs, murmured, "What an angel that Cecilia of mine
is!" Every variety of delicious chaff they flung to that old bird. But he was
uncaught at the end of the season: he winged his way back to his western hills.
And if you dared to say that Mrs. Netley had tried to take him, or Lady Trapboys
had set a snare for him, you know you were a wicked, gross calumniator, and
notorious everywhere for your dull and vulgar abuse of women.
In the year 1830, this great nobleman was seized with a fit of the gout, which
had very nearly consigned his estates to his kinsman the Baronet of Appleshaw. A
revolution took place in a neighbouring State. An illustrious reigning family
was expelled from its country, and projects of reform (which would pretty
certainly end in revolution) were rife in ours. The events in France, and those
pending at home, so agitated Lord Ringwood's mind, that he was attacked by one
of the severest fits of gout under which he ever suffered. His shrieks, as he
was brought out of his yacht at Ryde to a house taken for him in the town, were
dreadful; his language to all persons about him was frightfully expressive, as
Lady Quamley and her daughter, who had sailed with him several times, can vouch.
An ill return that rude old man made for all their kindness and attention to
him. They had danced on board his yacht; they had dined on board his yacht; they
had been out sailing with him, and cheerfully braved the inconveniences of the
deep in his company. And when they ran to the side of his chair??as what would
they not do to soothe an old gentleman in illness and distress??? when they ran
up to his chair as it was wheeled along the pier, he called mother and daughter
by the most
vulgar and opprobrious names, and roared out to them to go to a place which I
certainly shall not more particularly mention.
Now it happened, at this period, that Dr. and Mrs. Firmin were at Ryde with
their little boy, then some three years of age. The doctor was already taking
his place as one of the most fashionable physicians then in London, and had
begun to be celebrated fo
r the treatment of this especial malady. (Firmin on
Gout and Rheumatism was, you remember, dedicated to his Majesty George IV.) Lord
Ringwood's valet bethought him of calling the doctor in, and mentioned how he
was present in the town. Now Lord Ringwood was a nobleman who never would allow
his angry feelings to stand in the way of his present comforts or ease. He
instantly desired Mr. Firmin's attendance, and submitted to his treatment; a
part of which was a hauteur to the full as great as that which the sick man
exhibited. Firmin's appearance was so tall and grand, that he looked vastly more
noble than a great many noblemen. Six feet, a high manner, a polished forehead,
a flashing eye, a snowy shirt-frill, a rolling velvet collar, a beautiful hand
appearing under a velvet cuff??all these advantages he possessed and used. He
did not make the slightest allusion to bygones, but treated his patient with a
perfect courtesy and an impenetrable self-possession.
This defiant and darkling politeness did not always displease the old man. He
was so accustomed to slavish compliance and eager obedience from all people
round about him, that he sometimes wearied of their servility, and relished a
little independence. Was it from calculation, or because he was a man of high
spirit, that Firmin determined to maintain an independent course with his
lordship? From the first day of their meeting he never departed from it, and had
the satisfaction of meeting with only civil behaviour from his noble relative
and patient, who was notorious for his rudeness and brutality to almost every
person who came in his way.
From hints which his lordship gave in conversation, he showed the doctor that he
was acquainted with some particulars of the latter's early career. It had been
wild and stormy. Firmin had incurred debts; had quarrelled with his father; had
left the university and gone abroad; had lived in a wild society, which used
dice and cards every night, and pistols sometimes in the morning; and had shown
a fearful dexterity in the use of the latter instrument, which he employed
against the person of a famous Italian adventurer, who fell under his hand at
Naples. When this century was five-and-twenty years younger, the crack of the
pistol-shot might still occasionally be heard in the suburbs of London in the
very early morning; and the dice-box went round in many a haunt of pleasure. The
knights of the Four Kings travelled from capital to capital, and engaged each
other, or made prey of the unwary. Now, the times are changed. The cards are
coffined in their boxes. Only sous-officiers, brawling in their provincial caf?s
over ther dominos, fight duels. "Ah, dear me," I heard a veteran punter sigh the
other day, at Bays's, "isn't it a melancholy thing to think, that if I wanted to
amuse myself with a fifty-pound note, I don't know the place in London where I
could go and lose it?" And he fondly recounted the names of twenty places where
he could have cheerfully staked and lost his money in his young time.
After a somewhat prolonged absence abroad, Mr. Firmin came back to this country,
was permitted to return to the university, and left it with the degree of
Bachelor of Medicine. We have told how he ran away with Lord Ringwood's niece,
and incurred the anger of that nobleman. Beyond abuse and anger his lordship was
powerless. The young lady was free to marry whom she liked, and her uncle to
disown or receive him; and accordingly she was, as we have seen, disowned by his
lordship, until he found it convenient to forgive her. What were Lord Ringwood's
intentions regarding his property, what were his accumulations, and who his
heirs would be, no one knew. Meanwhile, of course, there were those who felt a
very great interest on the point. Mrs. Twysden and her husband and children were