The Semi-detached House/Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV.
Arthur's return infused great animation into the Pleasance life. There were all the Hilton connections and relations to be invited and feasted, and whole families of Grenvilles and Chestertons were supposed to have become suddenly possessed of the warmest feelings of friendship for all the Hiltons and St. Maurs that ever were born. Mr. Leigh, the uncle and guardian, was invited to come and talk settlements, and make difficulties which, as soon as they had driven Colonel Hilton and Aileen to despair, were detected as impostor difficulties, and vanished. Mr. Leigh was so exacting in the article of pin-money, so regularly aggravating, that Colonel Hilton, who would willingly have permitted Aileen to spend half his fortune or the whole of it, if she liked, was provoked into saying that he did not see that she could want any pin-money at all, she could ask him for what money she required. But here Aunt Sarah's good sense stepped in, she thought it better that young married women should have a fixed income, whatever it might be called, pin-money or allowance. They knew then what they ought to spend, and all their little charities, or any presents they wished to give, would be the fruits of their own self-denial, and she even hinted that the most devoted and liberal husbands would, after a certain term of married life, object to milliners' bills, and become possessed with an insane idea that their wives were extravagant and always asking for money. And although Colonel Hilton said it was impossible he could ever be such a brute as that, yet he thought Aunt Sarah's advice sensible, and named to her a much larger amount of pin-money than had been asked for by Mr. Leigh, "just to shew the fellow what he could do, if he were not bullied;" and, moreover, he felt it due to the injured feelings of himself and Aileen to rush up to Hancock's and secure a diamond necklace that was on the point of being "submitted to the Empress Eugénie for approval," that being now the favourite term for buying and selling.
Lord Chesterton came to talk Prussian politics of the most mysterious and heavy description, and tried to throw an air of modest dignity over the love making that was going on in the house. He at first attempted to follow the lovers in their rural walks, but found himself so obviously de trop that he resigned that occupation, with the observation that the manners of the present day had a certain freedom which surprised him. He had never been allowed to be tête-à-tête with Lady Chesterton before they married; but, of course, if Lady Sarah did not object, he supposed there was not that impropriety in these rambles which struck his old-fashioned notions. Sir William and Lady Eleanor de Vesie came for a few days to see their brother, though, as Sir William observed, it was an expensive time to choose for their visit, as they would be expected to make wedding presents to Aileen; and he accordingly bestowed upon her a carved wooden bread-plate, sold cheap, because it would spin round. As he had but thirty thousand a year, this was a handsome present for him.
There was boating on the river, and Edwin and his friends constantly rowing up to Pleasance. There were illustrious Prussians, new friends of Arthur's, generally with a faux air of English corporals, to be entertained—and to many of these parties the Miss Hopkinsons were invited, not for their musical talents, but for their own amusement, and they were so unaffected and so merry, that they became general favourites. There was one grand amateur musical evening, at the end of which Edwin imparted to his sisters that he thought Harcourt was smitten with Rose, and that, as he was a good sort of fellow, and had never had any particular father and mother, he could marry to please himself, and a good contralto voice might catch him any day. Mr. Greydon, who was an old college friend of Arthur's, was a constant guest, and Janet and he became better acquainted; but it required a strong attachment and a very sanguine disposition on her side, to derive that extreme gratification from these interviews, which she found in them. However, she went on persuading herself that he liked her, and that he would show it more when he had a living, and in the meanwhile she was perfectly happy if he handed her into a boat, or put on her shawl; and there was one blissful day, when he actually went back to the house to fetch her parasol which he observed she had forgotten. That parasol never saw the light of day again, it was put into a favourite Chinese cabinet and covered with lavender, and a new and inferior one bought for common use.
"The rival parties" on the 16th, as the Baroness always called them, went off well. An enemy, supposing it possible that the Baroness Sampson could have an enemy, might have said that the assemblage at Marble Hall looked like the recovery of one of the lost tribes of Israel; but there were some fine sounding names among them, foreign Counts and Marquises, several members of Parliament, radical in politics, and unpolished in manner, and who had manfully voted for the removal of Jewish disabilities. Whether they knew what the disabilities were, or what would be the effect of their removal, is doubtful; but they somehow had an idea that they were voting against gentlemen and Bishops, and Church and State, and they felt proud of themselves. Then there were their wives and daughters, decidedly not ornamental. There were a few ladies of high sounding titles, who had either risen from the ranks, or fallen into them, but the chief part of the society was decidedly second-rate.
The breakfast was magnificent; plate, wines, china, all of the finest description, and it was evident that money was no object to the Baron, and as he averred, gave him little enjoyment. The Baroness, he said, had a feminine taste for Sèvres China or it might be Dresden, he did not know one from the other, but she pleased herself in those trifling concerns. He owned he thought that plate kept the dinner hotter, and when his friends were kind enough to come and see him, he should be sorry if they found their dinner half cold and not fit to eat. He felt it a duty, with his means, to encourage the manufactures of the country (Sèvres and Dresden!), but for himself, a mutton chop on a common white plate was all he asked.
The Baroness was in the highest spirits, loudly regretting that the Duchess of St. Maur should have carried off so many of her guests, but that circumstance had apparently left her a larger amount of condescension to divide amongst the remainder. Miss Monteneros seemed to be suffering either from a cold or the persevering attentions of Baron Moses, and was more than usually distraite and languid. Willis did not appear till so late in the afternoon that the Baron was quite uneasy about his friend, hoped there had been no mistake about his card; (but there the Baroness reassured him,) trusted that dear little Rachel had not been cruel to her admirer, to which he met with no answer but a frown; and finally asked if it could be possible that he were gone to this grand London party, which notion threw Baron Moses into convulsions.
"Oh, my dear Sir, stop those ingenious conjectures, or you will be the death of your only son. The melancholy Jacques in the salons dorés of St. Maur House. Figurez-vous that determined chief mourner promenant ses ennuis amongst all that is of the gayest and the brightest."
"Would it be any trouble to you, Moses, to speak either English or French?" said Rachel. "The two combined, neither of them very good of their kind, obscure your meaning—to my limited capacity, at least—and why Mr. Willis should be more misplaced at a concert than a breakfast, I do not see."
"Well, this is something à faire dresser les cheveux. The beautiful and accomplished Miss Monteneros avowing her interest in the obscure and freezing Willis! Rachel—spare my feelings, je suis jaloux comme un tigre."
"And habited like a tiger," she said carelessly, as she turned away; and taking the arm of one of her school friends, several of whom had been invited to the fête, "Let us go and set the dancers off. I am in that state of mind that I could dance in desperation, or sing, or laugh, or do anything extravagant."
"You are in one of your moods, my dear, as we used to call them at school," answered her friend, "when you used to begin to cry just as you were making us all laugh by your gaiety."
This was Rachel's answer.
And just as the music began, the recreant Willis appeared. He hated now the very sound of the music. That one unfortunate quadrille into which he had been beguiled on board the barge, had not only lowered him from his high, disconsolate position in the world, but it had lowered him in his own eyes. He knew in his inmost soul, that the fascinations of Rachel had lured him into that incongruous levity.
"Mary, the dear departed shade," was not only on the point of being superseded, but the figurative shade which she had thrown over him, seemed to be departing too. This would not do. He had thought it all well over during the week; Rachel was handsome, perhaps rich, though that had become a matter of doubt; and to do him justice, he was not influenced by wealth. She had shown much sense and good feeling in the advice she had guardedly given him on the day of the water-party, when she had proposed their dancing together, as a cloak to her more serious purpose. The information she imparted had startled him. It gave him a fair promise of actual misfortune, over which he could pity himself for years to come. A thought of finding consolation in his informant crossed his mind at first; but when she had once conscientiously, and painfully warned him of the risks he ran in her Uncle's friendship, she relapsed into her usual supercilious manner, and that he did not like. He once thought of turning disappointed lover. There was a good deal that might be effective in that line, much sighing and moralizing, great scope for sneering at women and life, and a good stroke of business to be done in the way of a bleeding heart. But still this was all common-place and hackneyed to the greatest degree. Everybody had been, or would be disappointed in love, hardly anybody but himself aspired to being hopelessly miserable, and invariably unlucky. So any little vague tenderness for Rachel was quelled, his coat was once more buttoned up to the chin, a fresh crape put to his hat, his grey gloves thrown into the fire, and, leaning, with his arms folded, under a cypress tree on the lawn of Marble Hall, Willis was himself again.
"You wicked man!" said the Baroness, approaching him, "where have you been all day? there is breakfast over without you. The Baron, he does so like to see his friends enjoy themselves at his house, was actually accusing me, poor me! of making some mistake about your card. Now is that likely? I'm a giddy thing, but not so bad as that. Why the Baron could not give a fête without you."
"I suppose not," said Willis, with one of his slight groans, which were so habitual that the Baroness did not mark its meaning character. "Captain Hopkinson arrived unexpectedly this morning, and that detained me."
"Oh! that excellent Captain Hopkinson. I wish you had brought him with you. And so I suppose his daughters missed their concert," said the Baroness, her eyes brightening at the idea.
"No, they had been gone half an hour. It is always so, every pleasure comes exactly half an hour too late—Life! Life!"
"They will not think it too late, their fine friends are everything now," said the lady spitefully. "Baron!" she called to her husband, as he walked by in earnest conversation with a gentleman who looked like the Stock Exchange taking a little recreation. "Our friend's father-in-law is come, I was reproaching him for not bringing him here."
"I should have been delighted to see him. He is, I hear, an excellent man, has prayers for the sailors every morning, and keeps up a very strict tone of morals on board his ships. And virtue has its reward even in this life—I am told he has made a most successful voyage. Willis, you must introduce him to me. He can give us useful information," he added, turning to his friend, "relative to our Chinese railway business."
"Oh, no business here, if you please!" said the Baroness, who saw an additional shade of gloom coming over Willis's countenance, "you know I never allow that. Come, Willis, let me find you a partner."
"No—no dancing, the exertion I made in that way last week quite unhinged me. Go to your gayer friends, Baroness, and leave me here to look on and envy the light hearted."
"No such thing; there is some charming music going on in the saloon. That will divert you, my dear friend," and so she carried off her victim to listen to a comic song.
Now, if there is one thing more than another, conducive to low spirits, it is that depressing invention—a comic song! The mere advertisements—"I'm a merry laughing girl," or "I too, am seventeen, Mamma!" if read early in the morning, particularly before breakfast, produce a degree of nausea that affects the health for the whole day. And the treat offered by the Baroness to Willis, was, to hear a young lady with a prodigious colour, high cheek bones, and a turned-up nose, sing with what was termed "great archness," words to this effect:
"Yes, Sir! I can waltz! I can flirt!
I'm out of the school-room at last!
Pa' says I'm a romp, Ma' says I'm a pert,
I say, I am fast! I am fast!
"We girls love a lark! It's the men who are stiff.
Why, that little Lord John's such a tease,
If I ask him to dance, he turns off in a tiff,
Law, Sir! that is ease! that is ease!
"I handle the ribbons! I smoke my cigar!
I polk till Aunt Jane looks aghast.
I swim like a fish! ride like young Lochinvar!
In short, I am fast! I am fast!"
This last verse illustrated by appropriate gestures of driving, riding, puffing smoke, &c., was received with thunders of applause, which were led by Baron Moses, and acknowledged by an imitation rustic courtesy, by the singer, Miss Corban, who, being eighteen, had quite outlived any youthful shyness. Some of the guests, who were what she would have called "slow," found themselves affected with alarming fits of dejection, accompanied by a distressing tingling in the ears, and very burning cheeks.
Comic sings will occasionally produce these symptoms!
The music was succeeded by games on the lawn, that would have been called romping twenty years ago—more dancing, and a grand display of fireworks, and terminated in a magnificent supper, and much champagne; and the guests departed impressed with the idea that the Baron's immense wealth was spent with equal liberality.