- -
- 100%
- +
“But you are such a capital partisan, Lady St Julians,” said the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine, who with the viceroyalty of Ireland dexterously dangled before his eyes for the last two years, had become a thorough conservative and had almost as much confidence in Sir Robert as in Lord Stanley.
“I have made great sacrifices,” said Lady St Julians. “I went once and stayed a week at Lady Jenny Spinner’s to gain her looby of a son and his eighty thousand a-year, and Lord St Julians proposed him at White’s; and then after all the whigs made him a peer! They certainly make more of their social influences than we do. That affair of that Mr Trenchard was a blow. Losing a vote at such a critical time, when if I had had only a remote idea of what was passing through his mind, I would have even asked him to Barrowley for a couple of days.”
A foreign diplomatist of distinction had pinned Lord Marney, and was dexterously pumping him as to the probable future.
“But is the pear ripe?” said the diplomatist.
“The pear is ripe if we have courage to pluck it,” said Lord Marney; “but our fellows have no pluck.”
“But do you think that the Duke of Wellington—” and here the diplomatist stopped and looked up in Lord Marney’s face, as if he would convey something that he would not venture to express.
“Here he is,” said Lord Marney, “he will answer the question himself.”
Lord Deloraine and Mr Ormsby passed by; the diplomatist addressed them: “You have not been to the Chamber?”
“No,” said Lord Deloraine; “but I hear there is hot work. It will be late.”
“Do you think—,” said the diplomatist, and he looked up in the face of Lord Deloraine.
“I think that in the long run everything will have an end,” said Lord Deloraine.
“Ah!” said the diplomatist.
“Bah!” said Lord Deloraine as he walked away with Mr Ormsby. “I remember that fellow—a sort of equivocal attache at Paris, when we were there with Monmouth at the peace: and now he is a quasi ambassador, and ribboned and starred to the chin.”
“The only stars I have got,” said Mr Ormsby demurely, “are four stars in India stock.”
Lady Firebrace and Lady Maud Fitz-Warene were announced: they had just come from the Commons; a dame and damsel full of political enthusiasm. Lady Firebrace gave critical reports and disseminated many contradictory estimates of the result; Lady Maud talked only of a speech made by Lord Milford, which from the elaborate noise she made about it, you would have supposed to have been the oration of the evening; on the contrary, it had lasted only a few minutes and in a thin house had been nearly inaudible; but then, as Lady Maud added, “it was in such good taste!”
Alfred Mountchesney and Lady Joan Fitz-Warene passed Lady Marney who was speaking to Lord Deloraine. “Do you think,” said Lady Marney, “that Mr Mountchesney will bear away the prize?”
Lord Deloraine shook his head. “These great heiresses can never make up their minds. The bitter drop rises in all their reveries.”
“And yet,” said Lady Marney, “I would just as soon be married for my money as my face.”
Soon after this there was a stir in the saloons; a murmur, the ingress of many gentlemen: among others Lord Valentine, Lord Milford, Mr Egerton, Mr Berners, Lord Fitz-Heron, Mr Jermyn. The House was up; the great Jamaica division was announced; the radicals had thrown over the government, who left in a majority of only five, had already intimated their sense of the unequivocal feeling of the House with respect to them. It was known that on the morrow the government would resign.
Lady Deloraine, prepared for the great result, was calm: Lady St Julians, who had not anticipated it, was in a wild flutter of distracted triumph. A vague yet dreadful sensation came over her in the midst of her joy that Lady Deloraine had been beforehand with her; had made her combinations with the new Minister; perhaps even sounded the Court. At the same time that in this agitating vision the great offices of the palace which she had apportioned to herself and her husband seemed to elude her grasp; the claims and hopes and interests of her various children haunted her perplexed consciousness. What if Charles Egremont were to get the place which she had projected for Frederick or Augustus? What if Lord Marney became master of the horse? Or Lord Deloraine went again to Ireland? In her nervous excitement she credited all these catastrophes; seized upon “the Duke” in order that Lady Deloraine might not gain his ear, and resolved to get home as soon as possible, in order that she might write without a moment’s loss of time to Sir Robert.
“They will hardly go out without making some peers,” said Sir Vavasour Firebrace to Mr Jermyn.
“Why they have made enough.”
“Hem! I know Tubbe Swete has a promise, and so has Cockawhoop. I don’t think Cockawhoop could show again at Boodle’s without a coronet.”
“I don’t see why these fellows should go out,” said Mr Ormsby. “What does it signify whether ministers have a majority of five, or ten or twenty? In my time, a proper majority was a third of the House. That was Lord Liverpool’s majority. Lord Monmouth used to say that there were ten families in this country who, if they could only agree, could always share the government. Ah! those were the good old times! We never had adjourned debates then; but sate it out like gentlemen who had been used all their lives to be up all night, and then supped at Watier’s afterwards.”
“Ah! my dear Ormsby,” said Mr Berners, “do not mention Watier’s; you make my mouth water.”
“Shall you stand for Birmingham, Ormsby, if there be a dissolution?” said Lord Fitz-Heron.
“I have been asked,” said Mr Ormsby; “but the House of Commons is not the House of Commons of my time, and I have no wish to re-enter it. If I had a taste for business, I might be a member of the Marylebone vestry.”
“All I repeat,” said Lord Marney to his mother, as he rose from the sofa where he had been some time in conversation with her, “that if there be any idea that I wish Lady Marney should be a lady in waiting, it is an error, Lady Deloraine. I wish that to be understood. I am a domestic man, and I wish Lady Marney to be always with me; and what I want I want for myself. I hope in arranging the household the domestic character of every member of it will be considered. After all that has occurred the country expects that.”
“But my dear George, I think it is really premature—”
“I dare say it is; but I recommend you, my dear mother, to be alive. I heard Lady St Julians just now in the supper room asking the Duke to promise her that her Augustus should be a Lord of the Admiralty. She said the Treasury would not do, as there was no house, and that with such a fortune as his wife brought him he could not hire a house under a thousand a-year.”
“He will not have the Admiralty,” said Lady Deloraine.
“She looks herself to the Robes.”
“Poor woman!” said Lady Deloraine.
“Is it quite true?” said a great whig dame to Mr Egerton, one of her own party.
“Quite,” he said.
“I can endure anything except Lady St Julian’s glance of triumph,” said the whig dame. “I really think if it were only to ease her Majesty from such an infliction, they ought to have held on.”
“And must the household be changed?” said Mr Egerton. “Do not look so serious,” said the whig dame smiling with fascination; “we are surrounded by the enemy.”
“Will you be at home to-morrow early?” said Mr Egerton.
“As early as you please.”
“Very well, we will talk then. Lady Charlotte has heard something; nous verrons.”
“Courage; we have the Court with us, and the Country cares for nothing.”
Book 4 Chapter 12
“It is all right,” said Mr Tadpole. “They are out. Lord Melbourne has been with the Queen and recommended her Majesty to send for the Duke, and the Duke has recommended her Majesty to send for Sir Robert.”
“Are you sure?” said Mr Taper.
“I tell you Sir Robert is on his road to the palace at this moment; I saw him pass, full-dressed.”
“It is too much,” said Mr Taper.
“Now what are we to do?” said Mr Tadpole.
“We must not dissolve,” said Mr Taper. “We have no cry.”
“As much cry as the other fellows,” said Mr Tadpole; “but no one of course would think of dissolution before the next registration. No, no; this is a very manageable Parliament, depend upon it. The malcontent radicals who have turned them out are not going to bring them in. That makes us equal. Then we have an important section to work upon—the Sneaks, the men who are afraid of a dissolution. I will be bound we make a good working conservative majority of five-and-twenty out of the sneaks.”
“With the Treasury patronage,” said Mr Taper; “fear and favour combined. An impending dissolution, and all the places we refuse our own men, we may count on the Sneaks.”
“Then there are several religious men who have wanted an excuse for a long time to rat,” said Mr Tadpole. “We must get Sir Robert to make some kind of a religious move, and that will secure Sir Litany Lax and young Mr Salem.”
“It will never do to throw over the Church Commission,” said Mr Taper. “Commissions and committees ought always to be supported.”
“Besides it will frighten the saints,” said Mr Tadpole. “If we could get him to speak at Exeter Hall—were it only a slavery meeting—that would do.”
“It is difficult,” said Taper; “he must be pledged to nothing—not even to the right of search. Yet if we could get up something with a good deal of sentiment and no principle involved; referring only to the past, but with his practised powers touching the present. What do you think of a monument to Wilberforce or a commemoration of Clarkson?”
“There is a good deal in that,” said Mr Tadpole. “At present go about and keep our fellows in good humour. Whisper nothings that sound like something. But be discreet; do not let there be more than half a hundred fellows who believe they are going to be Under Secretaries of State. And be cautious about titles. If they push you, give a wink and press your finger to your lip. I must call here,” continued Mr Tadpole as he stopped before the house of the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine. “This gentleman is my particular charge. I have been cooking him these three years. I had two notes from him yesterday, and can delay a visit no longer. The worst of it is, he expects that I shall bear him the non-official announcement of his being sent to Ireland, of which he has about as much chance as I have of being Governor-General of India. It must be confessed ours is critical work sometimes, friend Taper; but never mind—what we have to do to individuals Peel has to with a nation, and therefore we ought not to complain.”
The Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine wanted Ireland and Lord de Mowbray wanted the Garter. Lord Marney, who wanted the Buckhounds, was convinced that neither of his friends had the slightest chance of obtaining their respective objects, but believed that he had a very good one of securing his own if he used them for his purpose, and persuaded them to combine together for the common good. So at his suggestion they had all met together at the duke’s, and were in full conference on the present state of affairs, while Tadpole and Taper were engaged in that interesting and instructive conversation of which we have snatched a passage.
“You may depend upon it,” said Lord Marney, “that nothing is to be done by delicacy. It is not delicacy that rules the House of Lords. What has kept us silent for years? Threats; and threats used in the most downright manner. We were told that if we did not conform absolutely and without appeal to the will and pleasure of one individual, the cards would be thrown up. We gave in; the game has been played, and won. I am not at all clear that it has been won by those tactics—but gained it is; and now what shall we do? In my opinion it is high time to get rid of the dictatorship. The new ruse now for the palace is to persuade her Majesty that Peel is the only man who can manage the House of Lords. Well, then it is exactly the time to make certain persons understand that the House of Lords are not going to be tools any longer merely for other people. Rely upon it a bold united front at this moment would be a spoke in the wheel. We three form the nucleus; there are plenty to gather round. I have written to Marisforde; he is quite ripe. Lord Hounslow will be here to-morrow. The thing is to be done; and if we are not firm the grand conservative triumph will only end in securing the best posts both at home and abroad for one too powerful family.”
“Who had never been heard of in the time of my father,” said the duke.
“Nor in the time of mine,” said Lord de Mowbray.
“Royal and Norman blood like ours,” said Lord Marney, “is not to be thrown over in that way.”
It was just at this moment that a servant entered with a card, which the duke looking at said “It is Tadpole; shall we have him in? I dare say he will tell us something.” And notwithstanding the important character of their conference, political curiosity and perhaps some private feeling which not one of them cared to acknowledge, made them unanimously agree that Mr Tadpole should be admitted.
“Lord Marney and Lord de Mowbray with the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine,” thought Mr Tadpole, as he was ushered into the library and his eye, practised in machinations and prophetic in manoeuvres surveyed the three nobles. “This looks like business and perhaps means mischief. Very lucky I called!” With an honest smile he saluted them all.
“What news from the palace, Tadpole?” inquired the duke.
“Sir Robert is there,” replied Tadpole.
“That’s good news,” exclaimed his grace, echoed by Lord de Mowbray, and backed up with a faint bravo from Lord Marney.
Then arose a conversation in which all affected much interest respecting the Jamaica debate; whether the whigs had originally intended to resign; whether it were Lord Melbourne or Lord John who had insisted on the step; whether if postponed they could have tided over the session; and so on. Tadpole, who was somewhat earnest in his talk, seemed to have pinned the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine; Lord Marney who wanted to say a word alone to Lord de Mowbray had dexterously drawn that personage aside on the pretence of looking at a picture. Tadpole, who had a most frank and unsophisticated mien had an eye for every corner of a room, seized the opportunity for which he had been long cruising. “I don’t pretend to be behind the scenes, duke; but it was said to me to-day, ‘Tadpole, if you do chance to see the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine you may say that positively Lord Killcroppy will not go to Ireland.’”
A smile of satisfaction played over the handsome face of the duke—instantly suppressed lest it might excite suspicion; and then with a friendly and very significant nod that intimated to Tadpole not to dwell on the subject at the present moment, the duke with a rather uninterested air recurred to the Jamaica debate, and soon after appealed on some domestic point to his son-in-law. This broke up the conversation between Lord de Mowbray and Lord Marney. Lord de Mowbray advancing was met accidentally on purpose by Mr Tadpole, who seemed anxious to push forward to Lord Marney.
“You have heard of Lord Ribbonville?” said Tadpole in a suppressed tone.
“No; what?”
“Can’t live the day out. How fortunate Sir Robert is! Two garters to begin with!”
Tadpole had now succeeded in tackling Lord Marney alone; the other peers were far out of ear-shot. “I don’t pretend to be behind the scenes, my Lord,” said the honest gentleman in a peculiarly confidential tone, and with a glance that spoke volumes of state secrecy; “but it was said to me to-day, ‘Tadpole, if you do chance to meet Lord Marney, you may say that positively Lord Rambrooke will not have the Buck-hounds.’”
“All I want,” said Lord Marney, “is to see men of character about her Majesty. This is a domestic country, and the country expects that no nobleman should take household office whose private character is not inexpugnable. Now that fellow Rambrooke keeps a French woman. It is not much known, but it is a fact.”
“Dreadful!” exclaimed Mr Tadpole. “I have no doubt of it. But he has no chance of the Buck-hounds, you may rely on that. Private character is to be the basis of the new government. Since the Reform Act that is a qualification much more esteemed by the constituency than public services. We must go with the times, my Lord. A virtuous middle class shrink with horror from French actresses; and the Wesleyans—the Wesleyans must be considered, Lord Marney.”
“I always subscribe to them,” said his Lordship.
“Ah!” said Mr Tadpole mysteriously, “I am glad to hear that. Nothing I have heard to-day has given me so much pleasure as those few words. One may hardly jest on such a subject,” he added with a sanctimonious air; “but I think I may say”—and here he broke into a horse smile—“I think I may say that those subscriptions will not be without their fruit.” And with a bow honest Tadpole disappeared, saying to himself as he left the house, “If you were ready to be conspirators when I entered the room, my Lords, you were at least prepared to be traitors when I quitted it.”
In the meantime Lord Marney in the best possible humour said to Lord de Mowbray, “You are going to White’s are you? If so take me.”
“I am sorry, my dear Lord, but I have an appointment in the city. I have got to go to the Temple, and I am already behind my time.”
Book 4 Chapter 13
And why was Lord de Mowbray going to the Temple? He had received the day before when he came home to dress a very disagreeable letter from some lawyers, apprising him that they were instructed by their client Mr Walter Gerard to commence proceedings against his lordship on a writ of right with respect to his manors of Mowbray, Valence, Mowedale, Mowbray Valence, and several others carefully enumerated in their precise epistle, and the catalogue of which read like an extract from Domesday Book.
More than twenty years had elapsed since the question had been mooted; and though the discussion had left upon Lord de Mowbray an impression from which at times he had never entirely recovered, still circumstances had occurred since the last proceedings which gave him a moral if not a legal conviction that he should be disturbed no more. And these were the circumstances: Lord de Mowbray after the death of the father of Walter Gerard had found himself in communication with the agent who had developed and pursued the claim for the yeoman, and had purchased for a good round sum the documents on which that claim was founded, and by which apparently that claim could only be sustained.
The vendor of these muniments was Baptist Hatton, and the sum which he obtained for them, by allowing him to settle in the metropolis, pursue his studies, purchase his library and collections, and otherwise give himself that fair field which brains without capital can seldom command, was in fact the foundation of his fortune. Many years afterwards Lord de Mowbray had recognised Hatton in the prosperous parliamentary agent who often appeared at the bar of the House of Lords and before committees of privileges, and who gradually obtained an unrivalled reputation and employment in peerage cases. Lord de Mowbray renewed his acquaintance with a man who was successful; bowed to Hatton whenever they met; and finally consulted him respecting the barony of Valence which had been in the old Fitz-Warene and Mowbray families and to which it was thought the present earl might prefer some hocus-pocus claim through his deceased mother; so that however recent was his date as an English earl, he might figure on the roll as a Plantagenet baron, which in the course of another century would complete the grand mystification of high nobility. The death of his son dexterously christened Valence had a little damped his ardour in this respect; but still there was a sufficiently intimate connection kept up between him and Hatton; so that before he placed the letter he had received in the hands of his lawyers he thought it desirable to consult his ancient ally.
This was the reason that Lord de Mowbray was at the present moment seated in the same chair in the same library as was a few days back that worthy baronet, Sir Vavasour Firebrace. Mr Hatton was at the same table similarly employed; his Persian cat on his right hand, and his choice spaniels reposing on their cushions at his feet.
Mr Hatton held forward his hand to receive the letter of which Lord de Mowbray had been speaking to him, and which he read with great attention, weighing as it were each word. Singular! as the letter had been written by himself, and the firm who signed it were only his instruments, obeying the spring of the master hand.
“Very remarkable!” said Mr Hatton.
“Is it not!” said Lord de Mowbray.
“And your Lordship received this yesterday?”
“Yesterday. I lost no time in communicating with you.”
“Jubb and Jinks,” continued Mr Hatton, musingly, surveying the signature of the letter. “A very respectable firm.”
“That makes it more strange,” said his Lordship.
“It does,” said Mr Hatton.
“A respectable firm would hardly embark in such a proceeding without some show of pretext,” said Lord de Mowbray.
“Hardly,” said Mr Hatton.
“But what can they have?” urged his Lordship.
“What indeed!” said Mr Hatton. “Mr Walter Gerard without his pedigree is a mere flash in the pan; and I defy him to prove anything without the deed of ‘77.”
“Well, he has not got that,” said Lord de Mowbray.
“Safe, of course?” said Mr Hatton.
“Certain. I almost wish I had burnt it as well as the whole box-full.”
“Destroy that deed and the other muniments, and the Earl de Mowbray will never be Baron Valence,” said Mr Hatton.
“But what use are these deeds now?” said his lordship. “If we produce them, we may give a colour to this fellow’s claim.”
“Time will settle his claim,” said Mr Hatton; “it will mature yours. You can wait.”
“Alas! since the death of my poor boy—”
“It has become doubly important. Substantiate the barony, it will descend to your eldest daughter, who, even if married, will retain your name. Your family will live, and ennobled. The Fitz-Warenes Lords Valence will yield to none in antiquity; and as to rank, as long as Mowbray Castle belongs to them, the revival of the earldom is safe at the first coronation, or the first ministry that exists with a balanced state of parties.”
“That is the right view of the case,” said Lord de Mowbray; “and what do you advise?”
“Be calm, and you have nothing to fear. This is the mere revival of an old claim, too vast to be allowed to lapse from desuetude. Your documents you say are all secure?”
“Be sure of that. They are at this moment in the muniment room of the great tower of Mowbray Castle; in the same iron box and in the same cabinet they were deposited—”
“When, by placing them in your hands,” said Mr Hatton finishing a sentence which might have been awkward, “I had the extreme satisfaction of confirming the rights and calming the anxieties of one of our ancient houses. I would recommend your lordship to instruct your lawyers to appear to this writ as a matter of course. But enter into no details, no unnecessary confidence with them. They are needless. Treat the matter lightly, especially to them. You will hear no more of it.”
“You feel confidence?”
“Perfect. Walter Gerard has no documents of any kind. Whatever his claim might be, good or bad, the only evidence that can prove his pedigree is in your possession and the only use to which it ever will be put, will be in due time to seat your grandson in the House of Lords.”
“I am glad I called upon you,” said Lord Mowbray.
“To be sure. Your lordship can speak to me without reserve, and I am used to these start-ups. It is part of the trade; but an old soldier is not to be deceived by such feints.”
“Clearly a feint, you think?”
“A feint! a feint.”
“Good morning. I am glad I have called. How goes on my friend Sir Vavasour?”
“Oh! I shall land him at last.”
“Well, he is an excellent, neighbourly, man. I have a great respect for Sir Vavasour. Would you dine with me, Mr Hatton, on Thursday? It would give me and Lady de Mowbray great pleasure.”
“Your lordship is extremely kind,” said Mr Hatton bowing with a slight sarcastic smile, “but I am an hermit.”
“But your friends should see you sometimes,” said Lord de Mowbray.