articles. We had really a snug little pension out of this Review, and we prayed
it might last for ever. We might write a novel. We might contribute articles to
a daily paper; get a little parliamentary practice as a barrister. We actually
did get Philip into a railway case or two, and my wife must be coaxing and
hugging solicitors' ladies, as she had wheedled and coaxed Members of
Parliament. Why, I do believe my Dalilah set up a flirtation with old Bishop
Crossticks, with an idea of getting her prot?g? a living; and though the lady
indignatly repudiates this charge, will she be pleased to explain how the
bishop's sermons were so outrageously praised in the Review?
Philip's roughness and frankness did not displease Tregarvan, to the wonder of
us all, who trembled lest he should lose this as he had lost his former place.
Tregarvan had more country-houses than one, and at these not only was the editor
of the Review made welcome, but the editor's wife and children, whom Tregarvan's
wife took in especial regard. In London, Lady Mary had assemblies, where our
little friend Charlotte made her appearance; and half-a-dozen times in the
course of the season the wealthy Cornish gentleman feasted his retainers of the
Review. His wine was excellent and old; his jokes were old, too; his table
pompous, grave, plentiful. If Philip was to eat the bread of dependence, the
loaf was here very kindly prepared for him; and he ate it humbly, and with not
too much grumbling. This diet chokes some proud stomachs and disagrees with
them; but Philip was very humble now, and of a nature grateful for kindness. He
is one who requires the help of friends, and can accept benefits without losing
independence??not all men's gifts, but some men's, whom he repays not only with
coin, but with an immense affection and gratitude. How that man did laugh at my
witticisms! How he worshipped the ground on which my wife walked! He elected
himself our champion. He quarrelled with other people, who found fault with our
characters, or would not see our perfections. There was something affecting in
the way in which this big man took the humble place. We could do no wrong in his
eyes; and woe betide the man who spoke disparagingly of us in his presence!
One day, at his patron's table, Philip exercised his valour and championship in
our behalf by defending us against the evil speaking of that Mr. Trail, who has
been mentioned before as a gentleman difficult to please, and credulous of ill
regarding his neighbour. The talk happened to fall upon the character of the
reader's most humble servant, and Trail, as may be imagined, spared me no more
than the rest of mankind. Would you like to be liked by all people? That would
be a reason why Trail should hate you. Were you an angel fresh dropped from the
skies, he would espy dirt on your robe, and a black feather or two in your wing.
As for me, I know I am not angelical at all; and in walking my native earth,
can't help a little mud on my trousers. Well: Mr. Trail began to paint my
portrait, laying on those dark shadows which that well-known master is in the
habit of employing. I was a parasite of the nobility; I was a heartless
sycophant, house-breaker, drunkard, murderer, returned convict, With a little
imagination, Mrs. Candour can fill up the outline, and arrange the colours so as
to suit her amiable fancy.
Philip had come late to dinner; of this fault, I must confess, he is guilty only
too often. The company were at table; he took the only place vacant, and this
happened to be at the side of Mr. Trail. On Trail's other side was a portly
individual of a healthy and rosy countenance and voluminous white waistcoat, to
whom Trail directed much of his amiable talk, and whom he addressed once or
twice as Sir John. Once or twice already we have seen how Philip has quarrelled
at table. He cried mea culpa loudly and honestly enough. He made vows of reform
in this particular. He succeeded, dearly beloved brethren, not much worse or
better than you and I do, who confess our faults, and go on promising to
improve, and stumbling and picking ourselves up every day. The pavement of life
is strewed with orange-peel; and who has not slipped on the flags?
"He is the most conceited man in London,"??Trail was going on, "and one of the
most worldly. He will throw over a colonel to dine with a general. He wouldn't
throw over you two baronets??he is a great deal too shrewd a fellow for that. He
wouldn't give you up, perhaps, to dine with a lord; but any ordinary baronet he
would."
"And why not us as well as the rest?" asks Tregarvan, who seemed amused at the
speaker's chatter.
"Because you are not like common baronets at all. Because your estates are a
great deal too large. Because, I suppose, you might either of you go to the
Upper House any day. Because, as an author, he may be supposed to be afraid of a
certain Review," cries Trail, with a loud laugh.
"Trail is speaking of a friend of yours," said the host, nodding and smiling to
the new comer.
"Very lucky for my friend," growls Philip, and eats his soup in silence.
"By the way, that article of his on Madame de S?vign? is poor stuff. No
knowledge of the period. Three gross blunders in French. A man can't write of
French society unless he has lived in French society. What does Pendennis know
of it? A man who makes blunders like those can't understand French. A man who
can't speak French can't get on in French society. Therefore he can't write
about French society. All these propositions are clear enough. Thank you. Dry
champagne, if you please. He is enormously overrated, I tell you; and so is his
wife. They used to put her forward as a beauty: and she is only a dowdy woman
out of a nursery. She has no style about her."
"She is only one of the best women in the world," Mr. Firmin called out, turning
very red; and hereupon entered into a defence of our characters, and pronounced
a eulogium upon both and each of us, in which I hope there was some little
truth. However, he spoke with great enthusiasm, and Mr. Trail found himself in a
minority.
"You are right to stand up for your friends, Firmin!" cried the host. "Let me
introduce you to??"
"Let me introduce myself," said the gentleman on the other side of Mr. Trail.
"Mr. Firmin, you and I are kinsmen,??I am Sir John Ringwood." And Sir John
reached a hand to Philip across Trail's chair. They talked a great deal together
in the course of the evening: and when Mr. Trail found that the great county
gentleman was friendly and familiar with Philip, and claimed a relationship with
him, his manner towards Firmin altered. He pronounced afterwards a warm eulogy
upon Sir John for his frankness and good nature in recognizing his unfortunate
relative, and charitably said, "Philip might not be like the doctor, and could
not help having a rogue for a father." In former days, Trail had eaten and
drunken freely at that rogue's table. But we must have truth, you know, before
all things: and if your own brother has committed a sin, common justice requires
that you should stone him.
In former days, and not long after Lord Ringwood's death, Philip had left his
card at this kinsman's door, and Sir John's butler, driving in his master's
brougham, had left a card upon Philip, who was not over well pleased by this
acknowledgment of his civility, and, in fact, employed abusive epithets when he
spoke of the transaction. But when the two gentlemen actually met, their
intercourse was kindly and pleasant enough. Sir John listened to his relative's
talk??and it appears, Philip comported himself with his usual free and easy
manner??with interest and curiosity; and owned afterwards that evil tongues had
previously been busy with the young man's character, and that slander and
untruth had been spoken regarding him. In this respect, if Philip is worse off
than his neighbours, I can only say his neighbours are fortunate.
Two days after the meeting of the cousins, the transquillity of Thornhaugh
Street was disturbed by the appearance of a magnificent yellow chariot, with
crests, hammer-cloths, a bewigged coachman, and a powdered footman. Betsy, the
nurse, who was going to take baby out for a walk, encountered this giant on the
threshold of Mrs. Brandon's door: and a lady within the chariot delivered three
cards to the tall menial, who transferred them to Betsy. And Betsy persisted in
saying that the lady in the carriage admired baby very much, and asked its age,
at which baby's mamma was not in the least surprised. In due course, an
invitation to dinner followed, and our friends became acquainted with their
kinsfolk.
If you have a good memory for pedigrees??and in my youthful time every man de
bonne maison studied genealogies, and had his English families in his memory
??you know that this Sir John Ringwood, who succeeded to the principal portion
of the estates, but not to the titles of the late earl, was descended from a
mutual ancestor, a Sir John, whose elder son was ennobled (temp Geo. I.), whilst
the second son, following the legal profession, became a judge, and had a son,
who became a baronet, and who begat that present Sir John who has just been
shaking hands with Philip across Trail's back. [Note: Copied, by permission of
P. Firmin, Esq., from the Genealogical Tree in his possession.] Thus the two men
were cousins; and in right of the heiress, his poor mother, Philip might quarter
the Ringwood arms on his carriage whenever he drove out. These, you know, are
argent, a dexter sinople on a fesse wavy of the first??or pick out, my dear
friend, any coat you like out of the whole heraldic wardrobe, and accommodate it
to our friend Firmin.
When he was a young man at college, Philip had dabbled a little in this queer
science of heraldry, and used to try and believe the legends about his ancestry,
which his fond mother imparted to him. He had a great book-plate made for
himself, with a prodigious number of quarterings, and could recite the alliances
by which such and such a quartering came into his shield. His father rather
confirmed these histories, and spoke of them and of his wife's noble family with
much respect: and Philip, artlessly whispering to a vulgar boy at school that he
was descended from King John, was thrashed very unkindly by the vulgar upper
boy, and nicknamed King John for many a long day after. I daresay many other
gentlemen who profess to trace their descent from ancient kings have no better
or worse authority for their pedigree than friend Philip.
When our friend paid his second visit to Sir John Ringwood, he was introduced to
his kinsman's library; a great family tree hung over the mantelpiece, surrounded
by a whole gallery of defunct Ringwoods, of whom the baronet was now the
representative. He quoted to Philip the hackneyed old Ovidian lines (some score
of years ago a great deal of that old coin was current in conversation). As for
family, he said, and ancestors, and what we have not done ourselves, these
things we can hardly call ours. Sir John gave Philip to understand that he was a
staunch liberal. Sir John was for going with the age. Sir John had fired a shot
from the Paris barricades. Sir John was for the rights of man everywhere all
over the world. He had pictures of Franklin, Lafayette, Washington, and the
first Consul Bonaparte, on his walls along with his ancestors. He had lithograph
copies of Magna Charta, the Declaration of American Independence, and the
Signatures to the Death of Charles I. He did not scruple to own his preference
for republican institutions. He wished to know what right had any man??the late
Lord Ringwood, for example??to sit in a hereditary House of Peers and legislate
over him? That lord had had a son, Cinqbars, who died many years before, a
victim of his own follies and debaucheries. Had Lord Cinqbars survived his
father, he would now be sitting an earl in the House of Peers??the most ignorant
young man, the most unprincipled young man, reckless, dissolute, of the feeblest
intellect, and the worst life. Well, had he lived and inherited the Ringwood
property, that creature would have been an earl: whereas he, Sir John, his
superior in morals, in character, in intellect, his equal in point of birth (for
had they not both a common ancestor?) was Sir John still. The inequalities in
men's chances in life were monstrous and ridiculous. He was determined,
henceforth, to look at a man for himself alone, and not esteem him for any of
the absurd caprices of fortune.
As the republican was talking to his relative, a servant came into the room and
whispered to his master that the plumber had come with his bill as by
appointment; upon which Sir John rose up in a fury, asked the servant how he
dared to disturb him, and bade him tell the plumber to go to the lowest depths
of Tartarus. Nothing could equal the insolence and rapacity of tradesmen, he
said, except the insolence and idleness of servants; and he called this one
back, and asked him how he dared to leave the fire in that state???stormed and
raged at him with a volubility which astonished his new acquaintance; and, the
man being gone, resumed his previous subject of conversation, viz., natural
equality and the outrageous injustice of the present social system. After
talking for half an hour, during which Philip found that he himself could hardly
find an opportunity of uttering a word, Sir John took out his watch, and got up
from his chair; at which hint Philip too rose, not sorry to bring the interview
to an end. And herewith Sir John accompanied his kinsman into the hall, and to
the street-door, before which the baronet's groom was riding, leading his
master's horse. And Philip heard the baronet using violent language to the
groom, as he had done to the servant within doors. Why, the army in Flanders did
not swear more terribly than this admirer of republican institutions and
advocate of the rights of man.
Philip was not allowed to go away without appointing a day when he and his wife
would partake of their kinsman's hospitality. On this occasion, Mrs. Philip
comported herself with so much grace and simplicity, that Sir John and Lady
Ringwood pronounced her to be a ve
ry pleasing and ladylike person; and I daresay
wondered how a person in her rank of life could have acquired manners that were
so refined and agreeable. Lady Ringwood asked after the child which she had
seen, praised its beauty; of course, won the mother's heart, and thereby caused
her to speak with perhaps more freedom than she would otherwise have felt at a
first interview. Mrs. Philip has a dainty touch on the piano, and a sweet
singing voice that is charmingly true and neat. She performed after dinner some
of the songs of her little r?pertoire, and pleased her audience. Lady Ringwood
loved good music, and was herself a fine performer of the ancient school, when
she played Haydn and Mozart under the tuition of good old Sir George Thrum. The
tall and handsome beneficed clergyman who acted as major-domo of Sir John's
establishment, placed a parcel in the carriage when Mr. and Mrs. Philip took
their leave, and announced with much respectful deference that the cab was paid.
Our friends no doubt would have preferred to dispense with this ceremony; but it
is ill looking even a gift cab-horse in the mouth, and so Philip was a gainer of
some two shillings by his kinsman's liberality.
When Charlotte came to open the parcel which majordomo, with his lady's
compliments, had placed in the cab, I fear she did not exhibit that elation
which we ought to feel for the favours of our friends. A couple of little
frocks, of the cut of George IV., some little red shoes of the same period, some
crumpled sashes, and other small articles of wearing apparel, by her ladyship's
order by her ladyship's lady's-maid; and Lady Ringwood kissing Charlotte at her
departure, told her that she had caused this little packet to be put away for
her. "H'm," says Philip, only half pleased. "Suppose, Sir John had told his
butler to put up one of his blue coats and brass buttons for me, as well as pay
the cab?"
"If it was meant in kindness, Philip, we must not be angry," pleaded Philip's
wife;??"and I am sure if you had heard her and the Miss Ringwoods speak of baby,
you would like them as I intend to do."
But Mrs. Philip never put those mouldy old red shoes upon baby; and as for the
little frocks, children's frocks are made so much fuller now that Lady
Ringwood's presents did not answer at all. Charlotte managed to furbish up a
sash, and a pair of epaulets for her child?? epaulets are they called?
Shoulder-knots??what you will, ladies; and with these ornaments Miss Firmin was
presented to Lady Ringwood and some of her family.
The goodwill of these new-found relatives of Philip's was laborious, was
evident, and yet I must say was not altogether agreeable. At the first period of
their intercourse??for this, too, I am sorry to say, came to an end, or
presently suffered interruption??tokens of affection in the shape of farm
produce, country butter and poultry, and actual butcher's meat, came from
Berkeley Square to Thornhaugh Street. The Duke of Double-Glo'ster I know is much
richer than you are; but if he were to offer to make you a present of
half-a-crown, I doubt whether you would be quite pleased. And so with Philip and
his relatives. A hamper brought in the brougham, containing hot-house grapes and
country butter is very well, but a leg of mutton I own was a gift that was
rather tough to swallow. It was tough. That point we ascertained and established
amongst roars of laughter one day when we dined with our friends. Did Lady
Ringwood send a sack of turnips in the brougham too? In a word, we ate Sir
John's mutton, and we laughed at him, and be sure many a man has done the same
by you and me. Last Friday, for instance, as Jones and Brown go away after
dining with your humble servant. "Did you ever see such profusion and
extravagance?" asks Brown. "Profusion and extravagance!" cries Jones, that
well-known epicure. "I never saw anything so shabby in my life. What does the