L'homme qui rit. English

  CHAPTER V.

  ARISTOCRATIC GOSSIP.

  By degrees the seats of the House filled as the Lords arrived. Thequestion was the vote for augmenting, by a hundred thousand poundssterling, the annual income of George of Denmark, Duke of Cumberland,the queen's husband. Besides this, it was announced that several billsassented to by her Majesty were to be brought back to the House by theCommissioners of the Crown empowered and charged to sanction them. Thisraised the sitting to a royal one. The peers all wore their robes overtheir usual court or ordinary dress. These robes, similar to that whichhad been thrown over Gwynplaine, were alike for all, excepting that thedukes had five bands of ermine, trimmed with gold; marquises, four;earls and viscounts, three; and barons, two. Most of the lords enteredin groups. They had met in the corridors, and were continuing theconversations there begun. A few came in alone. The costumes of all weresolemn; but neither their attitudes nor their words corresponded withthem. On entering, each one bowed to the throne.

  The peers flowed in. The series of great names marched past with scantceremonial, the public not being present. Leicester entered, and shookLichfield's hand; then came Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough andMonmouth, the friend of Locke, under whose advice he had proposed therecoinage of money; then Charles Campbell, Earl of Loudoun, listening toFulke Greville, Lord Brooke; then Dorme, Earl of Carnarvon; then RobertSutton, Baron Lexington, son of that Lexington who recommended CharlesII. to banish Gregorio Leti, the historiographer, who was so ill-advisedas to try to become a historian; then Thomas Bellasys, ViscountFalconberg, a handsome old man; and the three cousins, Howard, Earl ofBindon, Bowes Howard, Earl of Berkshire, and Stafford Howard, Earl ofStafford--all together; then John Lovelace, Baron Lovelace, whichpeerage became extinct in 1736, so that Richardson was enabled tointroduce Lovelace in his book, and to create a type under the name. Allthese personages--celebrated each in his own way, either in politics orin war, and of whom many were an honour to England--were laughing andtalking.

  It was history, as it were, seen in undress.

  In less than half an hour the House was nearly full. This was to beexpected, as the sitting was a royal one. What was more unusual was theeagerness of the conversations. The House, so sleepy not long before,now hummed like a hive of bees.

  The arrival of the peers who had come in late had wakened them up. Theselords had brought news. It was strange that the peers who had been thereat the opening of the sitting knew nothing of what had occurred, whilethose who had not been there knew all about it. Several lords had comefrom Windsor.

  For some hours past the adventures of Gwynplaine had been the subject ofconversation. A secret is a net; let one mesh drop, and the whole goesto pieces. In the morning, in consequence of the incidents relatedabove, the whole story of a peer found on the stage, and of a mountebankbecome a lord, had burst forth at Windsor in Royal places. The princeshad talked about it, and then the lackeys. From the Court the news soonreached the town. Events have a weight, and the mathematical rule ofvelocity, increasing in proportion to the squares of the distance,applies to them. They fall upon the public, and work themselves throughit with the most astounding rapidity. At seven o'clock no one in Londonhad caught wind of the story; by eight Gwynplaine was the talk of thetown. Only the lords who had been so punctual that they were presentbefore the assembling of the House were ignorant of the circumstances,not having been in the town when the matter was talked of by every one,and having been in the House, where nothing had been perceived. Seatedquietly on their benches, they were addressed by the eager newcomers.

  "Well!" said Francis Brown, Viscount Montacute, to the Marquis ofDorchester.

  "What?"

  "Is it possible?"

  "What?"

  "The Laughing Man!"

  "Who is the Laughing Man?"

  "Don't you know the Laughing Man?"

  "No."

  "He is a clown, a fellow performing at fairs. He has an extraordinaryface, which people gave a penny to look at. A mountebank."

  "Well, what then?"

  "You have just installed him as a peer of England."

  "You are the laughing man, my Lord Montacute!"

  "I am not laughing, my Lord Dorchester."

  Lord Montacute made a sign to the Clerk of the Parliament, who rose fromhis woolsack, and confirmed to their lordships the fact of the admissionof the new peer. Besides, he detailed the circumstances.

  "How wonderful!" said Lord Dorchester. "I was talking to the Bishop ofEly all the while."

  The young Earl of Annesley addressed old Lord Eure, who had but twoyears more to live, as he died in 1707.

  "My Lord Eure."

  "My Lord Annesley."

  "Did you know Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie?"

  "A man of bygone days. Yes I did."

  "He died in Switzerland?"

  "Yes; we were relations."

  "He was a republican under Cromwell, and remained a republican underCharles II.?"

  "A republican? Not at all! He was sulking. He had a personal quarrelwith the king. I know from good authority that Lord Clancharlie wouldhave returned to his allegiance, if they had given him the office ofChancellor, which Lord Hyde held."

  "You astonish me, Lord Eure. I had heard that Lord Clancharlie was anhonest politician."

  "An honest politician! does such a thing exist? Young man, there is nosuch thing."

  "And Cato?"

  "Oh, you believe in Cato, do you?"

  "And Aristides?"

  "They did well to exile him."

  "And Thomas More?"

  "They did well to cut off his head."

  "And in your opinion Lord Clancharlie was a man as you describe. As fora man remaining in exile, why, it is simply ridiculous."

  "He died there."

  "An ambitious man disappointed?"

  "You ask if I knew him? I should think so indeed. I was his dearestfriend."

  "Do you know, Lord Eure, that he married when in Switzerland?"

  "I am pretty sure of it."

  "And that he had a lawful heir by that marriage?"

  "Yes; who is dead."

  "Who is living."

  "Living?"

  "Living."

  "Impossible!"

  "It is a fact--proved, authenticated, confirmed, registered."

  "Then that son will inherit the Clancharlie peerage?"

  "He is not going to inherit it."

  "Why?"

  "Because he has inherited it. It is done."

  "Done?"

  "Turn your head, Lord Eure; he is sitting behind you, on the barons'benches."

  Lord Eure turned, but Gwynplaine's face was concealed under his forestof hair.

  "So," said the old man, who could see nothing but his hair, "he hasalready adopted the new fashion. He does not wear a wig."

  Grantham accosted Colepepper.

  "Some one is finely sold."

  "Who is that?"

  "David Dirry-Moir."

  "How is that?"

  "He is no longer a peer."

  "How can that be?"

  And Henry Auverquerque, Earl of Grantham, told John Baron Colepepper thewhole anecdote--how the waif-flask had been carried to the Admiralty,about the parchment of the Comprachicos, the _jussu regis_,countersigned _Jeffreys_, and the confrontation in the torture-cell atSouthwark, the proof of all the facts acknowledged by the LordChancellor and by the Queen; the taking the test under the nave, andfinally the admission of Lord Fermain Clancharlie at the commencement ofthe sitting. Both the lords endeavoured to distinguish his face as hesat between Lord Fitzwalter and Lord Arundel, but with no better successthan Lord Eure and Lord Annesley.

  Gwynplaine, either by chance or by the arrangement of his sponsors,forewarned by the Lord Chancellor, was so placed in shadow as to escapetheir curiosity.

  "Who is it? Where is he?"

  Such was the exclamation of all the new-comers, but no one succeeded inmaking him out distinctly. Some, who had seen Gwynplaine in the GreenBox
, were exceedingly curious, but lost their labour: as it sometimeshappens that a young lady is entrenched within a troop of dowagers,Gwynplaine was, as it were, enveloped in several layers of lords, old,infirm, and indifferent. Good livers, with the gout, are marvellouslyindifferent to stories about their neighbours.

  There passed from hand to hand copies of a letter three lines in length,written, it was said, by the Duchess Josiana to the queen, her sister,in answer to the injunction made by her Majesty, that she should espousethe new peer, the lawful heir of the Clancharlies, Lord Fermain. Thisletter was couched in the following terms:--

  "MADAM,--The arrangement will suit me just as well. I can have LordDavid for my lover.--(Signed) JOSIANA."

  This note, whether a true copy or a forgery, was received by all withthe greatest enthusiasm. A young lord, Charles Okehampton, Baron Mohun,who belonged to the wigless faction, read and re-read it with delight.Lewis de Duras, Earl of Faversham, an Englishman with a Frenchman's wit,looked at Mohun and smiled.

  "That is a woman I should like to marry!" exclaimed Lord Mohun.

  The lords around them overheard the following dialogue between Duras andMohun:--

  "Marry the Duchess Josiana, Lord Mohun!"

  "Why not?"

  "Plague take it."

  "She would make one very happy."

  "She would make many very happy."

  "But is it not always a question of many?"

  "Lord Mohun, you are right. With regard to women, we have always theleavings of others. Has any one ever had a beginning?"

  "Adam, perhaps."

  "Not he."

  "Then Satan."

  "My dear lord," concluded Lewis de Duras, "Adam only lent his name. Poordupe! He endorsed the human race. Man was begotten on the woman by thedevil."

  Hugh Cholmondeley, Earl of Cholmondeley, strong in points of law, wasasked from the bishops' benches by Nathaniel Crew, who was doubly apeer, being a temporal peer, as Baron Crew, and a spiritual peer, asBishop of Durham.

  "Is it possible?" said Crew.

  "Is it regular?" said Cholmondeley.

  "The investiture of this peer was made outside the House," replied thebishop; "but it is stated that there are precedents for it."

  "Yes. Lord Beauchamp, under Richard II.; Lord Chenay, under Elizabeth:and Lord Broghill, under Cromwell."

  "Cromwell goes for nothing."

  "What do you think of it all?"

  "Many different things."

  "My Lord Cholmondeley, what will be the rank of this young LordClancharlie in the House?"

  "My Lord Bishop, the interruption of the Republic having displacedancient rights of precedence, Clancharlie now ranks in the peeragebetween Barnard and Somers, so that should each be called upon to speakin turn, Lord Clancharlie would be the eighth in rotation."

  "Really! he--a mountebank from a public show!"

  "The act, _per se_, does not astonish me, my Lord Bishop. We meet withsuch things. Still more wonderful circumstances occur. Was not the Warof the Roses predicted by the sudden drying up of the river Ouse, inBedfordshire, on January 1st, 1399. Now, if a river dries up, a peermay, quite as naturally, fall into a servile condition. Ulysses, King ofIthaca, played all kinds of different parts. Fermain Clancharlieremained a lord under his player's garb. Sordid garments touch not thesoul's nobility. But taking the test and the investiture outside thesitting, though strictly legal, might give rise to objections. I am ofopinion that it will be necessary to look into the matter, to see ifthere be any ground to question the Lord Chancellor in Privy Councillater on. We shall see in a week or two what is best to be done."

  And the Bishop added,--

  "All the same. It is an adventure such as has not occurred since EarlGesbodus's time."

  Gwynplaine, the Laughing Man; the Tadcaster Inn; the Green Box; "ChaosVanquished;" Switzerland; Chillon; the Comprachicos; exile; mutilation;the Republic; Jeffreys; James II.; the _jussu regis_; the bottle openedat the Admiralty; the father, Lord Linnaeus; the legitimate son, LordFermain; the bastard son, Lord David; the probable lawsuits; the DuchessJosiana; the Lord Chancellor; the Queen;--all these subjects ofconversation ran from bench to bench.

  Whispering is like a train of gunpowder.

  They seized on every incident. All the details of the occurrence causedan immense murmur through the House. Gwynplaine, wandering in the depthsof his reverie, heard the buzzing, without knowing that he was the causeof it. He was strangely attentive to the depths, not to the surface.Excess of attention becomes isolation.

  The buzz of conversation in the House impedes its usual business no morethan the dust raised by a troop impedes its march. The judges--who inthe Upper House were mere assistants, without the privilege ofspeaking, except when questioned--had taken their places on the secondwoolsack; and the three Secretaries of State theirs on the third.

  The heirs to peerages flowed into their compartment, at once without andwithin the House, at the back of the throne.

  The peers in their minority were on their own benches. In 1705 thenumber of these little lords amounted to no less than adozen--Huntingdon, Lincoln, Dorset, Warwick, Bath, Barlington,Derwentwater--destined to a tragical death--Longueville, Lonsdale,Dudley, Ward, and Carteret: a troop of brats made up of eight earls, twoviscounts, and two barons.

  In the centre, on the three stages of benches, each lord had taken hisseat. Almost all the bishops were there. The dukes mustered strong,beginning with Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset; and ending with GeorgeAugustus, Elector of Hanover, and Duke of Cambridge, junior in date ofcreation, and consequently junior in rank. All were in order, accordingto right of precedence: Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, whose grandfatherhad sheltered Hobbes, at Hardwicke, when he was ninety-two; Lennox, Dukeof Richmond; the three Fitzroys, the Duke of Southampton, the Duke ofGrafton, and the Duke of Northumberland; Butler, Duke of Ormond;Somerset, Duke of Beaufort; Beauclerk, Duke of St. Albans; Paulet, Dukeof Bolton; Osborne, Duke of Leeds; Wrottesley Russell, Duke of Bedford,whose motto and device was _Che sara sara_, which expresses adetermination to take things as they come; Sheffield, Duke ofBuckingham; Manners, Duke of Rutland; and others. Neither Howard, Dukeof Norfolk, nor Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, was present, beingCatholics; nor Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, the French Malbrouck, whowas at that time fighting the French and beating them. There were noScotch dukes then--Queensberry, Montrose, and Roxburgh not beingadmitted till 1707.