Lady Kew bids her daughter take a pen and write:--"Monsieur le Mauvais
Sujet,--Gentlemen who wish to take the sea air in private, or to avoid
their relations, had best go to other places than Brighton, where their
names are printed in the newspapers. If you are not drowned in a pozzo--"
"Mamma!" interposes the secretary.
"--in a pozzo-profondo, you will please come to dine with two old women,
at half-past seven. You may bring Mr. Belsize, and must tell us a hundred
stories.--Yours, etc., L. Kew."
Julia wrote all the letter as her mother dictated it, save only one
sentence, and the note was sealed and despatched to my Lord Kew, who came
to dinner with Jack Belsize. Jack Belsize liked to dine with Lady Kew. He
said, "she was an old dear, and the wickedest old woman in all England;"
and he liked to dine with Lady Julia, who was "a poor suffering dear, and
the best woman in all England." Jack Belsize liked every one, and every
one liked him.
Two evenings afterwards the young men repeated their visit to Lady Kew,
and this time Lord Kew was loud in praises of his cousins of the house of
Newcome.
"Not of the eldest, Barnes, surely, my dear?" cries Lady Kew.
"No, confound him! not Barnes."
"No, d--- it, not Barnes. I beg your pardon, Lady Julia," broke in Jack
Belsize. "I can get on with most men; but that little Barney is too
odious a little snob."
"A little what--Mr. Belsize?"
"A little snob, ma'am. I have no other word, though he is your grandson.
I never heard him say a good word of any mortal soul, or do a kind
action."
"Thank you, Mr. Belsize," says the lady.
"But the others are capital. There is that little chap who has just had
the measles--he's a clear little brick. And as for Miss Ethel----"
"Ethel is a trump, ma'am," says Lord Kew, slapping his hand on his knee.
"Ethel is a brick, and Alfred is a trump, I think you say," remarks Lady
Kew, nodding approval; "and Barnes is a snob. This is very satisfactory
to know."
"We met the children out to-day," cries the enthusiastic Kew, "as I was
driving Jack in the drag, and I got out and talked to 'em."
"Governess an uncommonly nice woman--oldish, but--I beg your pardon, Lady
Julia," cries the inopportune Jack Belsize--"I'm always putting my foot
in it."
"Putting your foot into what? Go on, Kew."
"Well, we met the whole posse of children; and the little fellow wanted a
drive, and I said I would drive him and Ethel too, if she would come.
Upon my word she is as pretty a girl as you can see on a summer's day.
And the governess said 'No,' of course. Governesses always do. But I said
I was her uncle, and Jack paid her such a fine compliment, that the young
woman was mollified, and the children took their seats beside me, and
Jack went behind."
"Where Monsieur Pozzoprofondo sits, bon."
"We drove on to the Downs, and we were nearly coming to grief. My horses
are young, and when they get on the grass they are as if they were mad.
It was very wrong; I know it was."
"D----d rash," interposes Jack. "He had nearly broken all our necks."
"And my brother Frank would have been Lord Kew," continued the young
Earl, with a quiet smile. "What an escape for him! The horses ran away--
ever so far--and I thought the carriage must upset. The poor little boy,
who has lost his pluck in the fever, began to cry; but that young girl,
though she was as white as a sheet, never gave up for a moment, and sate
in her place like a man. We met nothing, luckily; and I pulled the horses
in after a mile or two, and I drove 'em into Brighton as quiet as if I
had been driving a hearse. And that little trump of an Ethel, what do you
think she said? She said, 'I was not frightened, but you must not tell
mamma.' My aunt, it appears, was in a dreadful commotion--I ought to have
thought of that."
"Lady Anne is a ridiculous old dear. I beg your pardon, Lady Kew," here
breaks in Jack the apologiser.
"There is a brother of Sir Brian Newcome's staying with them," Lord Kew
proceeds; "an East India Colonel--a very fine-looking old boy."
"Smokes awfully, row about it in the hotel. Go on, Kew; beg your----"
"This gentleman was on the look-out for us, it appears, for when we came
in sight he despatched a boy who was with him, running like a lamplighter
back to my aunt, to say all was well. And he took little Alfred out of
the carriage, and then helped out Ethel, and said, 'My dear, you are too
pretty to scold; but you have given us all a belle peur.' And then he
made me and Jack a low bow, and stalked into the lodgings."
"I think you do deserve to be whipped, both of you," cries Lady Kew.
"We went up and made our peace with my aunt, and were presented in form
to the Colonel and his youthful cub."
"As fine a fellow as ever I saw: and as fine a boy as ever I saw," cries
Jack Belsize. "The young chap is a great hand at drawing--upon my life
the best drawings I ever saw. And he was making a picture for little
What-d'you-call-'em. And Miss Newcome was looking over them. And Lady
Anne pointed out the group to me, and said how pretty it was. She is
uncommonly sentimental, you know, Lady Anne."
"My daughter Anne is the greatest fool in the three kingdoms," cried Lady
Kew, looking fiercely over her spectacles. And Julia was instructed to
write that night to her sister, and desire that Ethel should be sent to
see her grandmother:--Ethel, who rebelled against her grandmother, and
always fought on her Aunt Julia's side, when the weaker was oppressed by
the older and stronger lady.
CHAPTER XI
At Mrs. Ridley's
Saint Peter of Alcantara, as I have read in a life of St. Theresa,
informed that devout lady that he had passed forty years of his life
sleeping only an hour and a half each day; his cell was but four feet and
a half long, so that he never lay down: his pillow was a wooden log in
the stone wall: he ate but once in three days: he was for three years in
a convent of his order without knowing any one of his brethren except by
the sound of their voices, for he never during this period took his eyes
off the ground: he always walked barefoot, and was but skin and bone when
he died. The eating only once in three days, so he told his sister Saint,
was by no means impossible, if you began the regimen in your youth. To
conquer sleep was the hardest of all austerities which he practised:--I
fancy the pious individual so employed, day after day, night after night,
on his knees, or standing up in devout meditation in the cupboard--his
dwelling-place; bareheaded and barefooted, walking over rocks, briars,
mud, sharp stones (picking out the very worst places, let us trust, with
his downcast eyes), under the bitter snow, or the drifting rain, or the
scorching sunshine--I fancy Saint Peter of Alcantara, and contrast him
with such a personage as the Incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's Chapel,
Mayfair.
His hermitage is situated in Walpole Street, let us say, on the second
&nbs
p; floor of a quiet mansion, let out to hermits by a nobleman's butler,
whose wife takes care of the lodgings. His cells consist of a refectory,
a dormitory, and an adjacent oratory where he keeps his shower-bath and
boots--the pretty boots trimly stretched on boot-trees and blacked to a
nicety (not varnished) by the boy who waits on him. The barefooted
business may suit superstitious ages and gentlemen of Alcantara, but does
not become Mayfair and the nineteenth century. If St. Pedro walked the
earth now with his eyes to the ground he would know fashionable divines
by the way in which they were shod. Charles Honeyman's is a sweet foot. I
have no doubt as delicate and plump and rosy as the white hand with its
two rings, which he passes in impassioned moments through his slender
flaxen hair.
A sweet odour pervades his sleeping apartment--not that peculiar and
delicious fragrance with which the Saints of the Roman Church are said to
gratify the neighbourhood where they repose--but oils, redolent of the
richest perfumes of Macassar, essences (from Truefitt's or Delcroix's)
into which a thousand flowers have expressed their sweetest breath, await
his meek head on rising; and infuse the pocket-handkerchief with which he
dries and draws so many tears. For he cries a good deal in his sermons,
to which the ladies about him contribute showers of sympathy.
By his bedside are slippers lined with blue silk and worked of an
ecclesiastical pattern, by some of the faithful who sit at his feet. They
come to him in anonymous parcels: they come to him in silver paper: boys
in buttons (pages who minister to female grace!) leave them at the door
for the Rev. C. Honeyman, and slip away without a word. Purses are sent
to him--penwipers--a portfolio with the Honeyman arms; yea, braces have
been known to reach him by the post (in his days of popularity); and
flowers, and grapes, and jelly when he was ill, and throat comforters,
and lozenges for his dear bronchitis. In one of his drawers is the rich
silk cassock presented to him by his congregation at Leatherhead (when
the young curate quitted that parish for London duty), and on his
breakfast-table the silver teapot, once filled with sovereigns and
presented by the same devotees. The devo-teapot he has, but the
sovereigns, where are they?
What a different life this is from our honest friend of Alcantara, who
eats once in three days! At one time if Honeyman could have drunk tea
three times in an evening, he might have had it. The glass on his
chimneypiece is crowded with invitations, not merely cards of ceremony
(of which there are plenty), but dear little confidential notes from
sweet friends of his congregation. "Ob, dear Mr. Honeyman," writes
Blanche, "what a sermon that was! I cannot go to bed to-night without
thanking you for it." "Do, do, dear Mr. Honeyman," writes Beatrice, "lend
me that delightful sermon. And can you come and drink tea with me and
Selina, and my aunt? Papa and mamma dine out, but you know I am always
your faithful Chesterfield Street." And so on. He has all the domestic
accomplishments; he plays on the violoncello: he sings a delicious
second, not only in sacred but in secular music. He has a thousand
anecdotes, laughable riddles, droll stories (of the utmost correctness,
you understand) with which he entertains females of all ages; suiting his
conversation to stately matrons, deaf old dowagers (who can hear his
clear voice better than the loudest roar of their stupid sons-in-law),
mature spinsters, young beauties dancing through the season, even rosy
little slips out of the nursery, who cluster round his beloved feet.
Societies fight for him to preach their charity sermon. You read in the
papers, "The Wapping Hospital for Wooden-legged Seamen.--On Sunday the
23rd, Sermons will be preached in behalf of this charity, by the Lord
Bishop of Tobago in the morning, in the afternoon by the Rev. C.
Honeyman, A.M., Incumbent of," etc. "Clergymen's Grandmothers' Fund.--
Sermons in aid of this admirable institution will be preached on Sunday,
4th May, by the Very Rev. the Dean of Pimlico, and the Rev. C. Honeyman,
A.M." When the Dean of Pimlico has his illness, many people think
Honeyman will have the Deanery; that he ought to have it, a hundred
female voices vow and declare: though it is said that a right reverend
head at headquarters shakes dubiously when his name is mentioned for
preferment. His name is spread wide, and not only women but men come to
hear him. Members of Parliament, even Cabinet Ministers, sit under him.
Lord Dozeley of course is seen in a front pew: where was a public meeting
without Lord Dozeley? The men come away from his sermons and say, "It's
very pleasant, but I don't know what the deuce makes all you women crowd
so to hear the man." "Oh, Charles! if you would but go oftener!" sighs
Lady Anna Maria. "Can't you speak to the Home Secretary? Can't you do
something for him?" "We can ask him to dinner next Wednesday if you
like," Says Charles. "They say he's a pleasant fellow out of the wood.
Besides there is no use in doing anything for him," Charles goes on. "He
can't make less than a thousand a year out of his chapel, and that is
better than anything any one can give him. A thousand a year, besides the
rent of the wine-vaults below the chapel."
"Don't, Charles!" says his wife, with a solemn look. "Don't ridicule
things in that way.
"Confound it! there are wine-vaults under the chapel!" answers downright
Charles. "I saw the name, Sherrick and Co.; offices, a green door, and a
brass plate. It's better to sit over vaults with wine in them than
coffins. I wonder whether it's the Sherrick with whom Kew and Jack
Belsize had that ugly row?"
"What ugly row?--don't say ugly row. It is not a nice word to hear the
children use. Go on, my darlings. What was the dispute of Lord Kew and
Mr. Belsize, and this Mr. Sherrick?"
"It was all about pictures, and about horses, and about money, and about
one other subject which enters into every row that I ever heard of."
"And what is that, dear?" asks the innocent lady, hanging on her
husband's arm, and quite pleased to have led him to church and brought
him thence. "And what is it, that enters into every row, as you call it,
Charles?"
"A woman, my love," answers the gentleman, behind whom we have been in
imagination walking out from Charles Honeyman's church on a Sunday in
June: as the whole pavement blooms with artificial flowers and fresh
bonnets; as there is a buzz and cackle all around regarding the sermon;
as carriages drive off; as lady-dowagers walk home; as prayer-books and
footmen's sticks gleam in the sun; as little boys with baked mutton and
potatoes pass from the courts; as children issue from the public-houses
with pots of beer; as the Reverend Charles Honeyman, who has been drawing
tears in the sermon, and has seen, not without complacent throbs, a
Secretary of State in the pew beneath him, divests himself of his rich
silk cassock in the vestry, before he walks away to his neighbouring
hermitage--where have we placed it?--in Walpole Street. I wish St. Pedro
of Alcantara could have some of that shoulder of mutton with the baked
potatoes, and a drink of that frothing beer. See, yonder trots little
Lord Dozeley, who has been asleep for an hour with his head against the
wood, like St. Pedro of Alcantara.
An East Indian gentleman and his son wait until the whole chapel is
clear, and survey Lady Whittlesea's monument at their leisure, and other
hideous slabs erected in memory of defunct frequenters of the chapel.
Whose was that face which Colonel Newcome thought he recognised--that of
a stout man who came down from the organ-gallery? Could it be Broff the
bass singer, who delivered the "Red Cross Knight" with such applause at
the Cave of Melody, and who has been singing in this place? There are
some chapels in London, where, the function over, one almost expects to
see the sextons put brown hollands over the pews and galleries, as they
do at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.
The writer of these veracious pages was once walking through a splendid
English palace, standing amidst parks and gardens, than which none more
magnificent has been seen since the days of Aladdin, in company with a
melancholy friend, who viewed all things darkly through his gloomy eyes.
The housekeeper, pattering on before us from chamber to chamber, was
expatiating upon the magnificence of this picture; the beauty of that
statue; the marvellous richness of these hangings and carpets; the
admirable likeness of the late Marquis by Sir Thomas; of his father, the
fifth Earl, by Sir Joshua, and so on; when, in the very richest room of
the whole castle, Hicks--such was my melancholy companion's name--stopped
the cicerone in her prattle, saying in a hollow voice, "And now, madam,
will you show us the closet where the skeleton is?" The seared
functionary paused in the midst of her harangue; that article was not
inserted in the catalogue which she daily utters to visitors for their
half-crown. Hicks's question brought a darkness down upon the hall where
we were standing. We did not see the room: and yet I have no doubt there
is such an one; and ever after, when I have thought of the splendid
castle towering in the midst of shady trees, under which the dappled deer
are browsing; of the terraces gleaming with statues, and bright with a
hundred thousand flowers; of the bridges and shining fountains and rivers
wherein the castle windows reflect their festive gleams, when the halls
are filled with happy feasters, and over the darkling woods comes the
sound of music;--always, I say, when I think of Castle Bluebeard:--it is
to think of that dark little closet, which I know is there, and which the
lordly owner opens shuddering--after midnight--when he is sleepless and
must go unlock it, when the palace is hushed, when beauties are sleeping
around him unconscious, and revellers are at rest. O Mrs. Housekeeper:
all the other keys hast thou: but that key thou hast not!
Have we not all such closets, my jolly friend, as well as the noble
Marquis of Carabas? At night, when all the house is asleep but you, don't
you get up and peep into yours? When you in your turn are slumbering, up
gets Mrs. Brown from your side, steals downstairs like Amina to her
ghoul, clicks open the secret door, and looks into her dark depository.
Did she tell you of that little affair with Smith long before she knew
you? Psha! who knows any one save himself alone? Who, in showing his
house to the closest and dearest, doesn't keep back the key of a closet
or two? I think of a lovely reader laying down the page and looking over
at her unconscious husband, asleep, perhaps, after dinner. Yes, madam, a
closet he hath: and you, who pry into everything, shall never have the