The Reverend Mr. Foljambe, who considers himself an aristocrat, talks with him upon genealogies, and such matters, with the condescending attention that befits his high descent and connexions.
“No family has a right to powdered-blue in their liveries, except this branch of the Vernons, one branch of the Lindseys, and two other families,” said Mr. Puntles, with his eyes closed, and his finger tracing diagrams slowly on the tablecloth. “It is a very distinguished privilege, and I’ll tell you how the Vernons came by it.”
Foljambe smiled blandly, and also, nearly closing his eyes, inclined his ear; but a vociferation at another part of the table, where Captain Bamme and the curate were in hot debate, arrested the communication.
“Who consolidated your civil power in India?” urges the curate. “I’ll tell you, captain. It was Mr. Richard Colley Wellesley of Dangan, in the county of Meath. The Marquis Wellesley, as you are good enough to call him. And who commanded the Indian army, at the same critical period, when something more was wanted than blundering and plundering, a teaste of genius and a teaste for thundering?”
Before answering his own question the Reverend Mr. Doody applied his glass to his lips, his disengaged hand being extended all the time toward his gallant adversary, with a movement of the fingers, intended to retain the ear of the company and the right of continuing his speech.
“So far as thundering is concerned, Mr. Doody,” said the vicar, with stately jocularity, “it seems to me that your countrymen seldom want a Jupiter.”
The captain with a rather inflamed visage, for more had passed between the curate and him, smirked angrily, and nodded at the vicar, and leaned back and tossed his head, and rolled a little in his chair, smiling scornfully along the cornice.
But the Reverend Mr. Doody could hear no one but himself, and think of no one but Captain Bamme and the Wellesley family at that moment, and he continued: “Who, I repeat, saved India by his genius for arms, as the other consolidated the same empire by his genius for organisation and rule? Who but that Irishman’s Irish brother, Arthur Wellesley, Jooke of Wellington? And I think I remember some trifling services that same county o’ Meath man did you on other ground. But I’m speaking of India just now, and I ask again, who saved it, again, when its existence was imperilled by the natives? Who but my countryman, Irish Lord Gough, from Tipperary? It’s easy for you, in quiet times when you’re enjoying the fruits of Irish gallantry and Irish genius, to make little of Ireland, but you know where to run for help when you’re in danger.”
“Haven’t you a rather uncomfortable way of putting it, Mr. Doody?” said the Reverend Mr. Foljambe, a little gravely.
“Why I can prove to you,” began Mr. Doody, not hearing the vicar, “if you take up the old chronicles, that the Irish were in the habit of continually invading England.”
“With what result?” inquired Mr. Foljambe, with a smile.
“Ship-loads of plundher and slaves,” answered Mr. Doody, promptly.
“We had better look sharp,” said cosey Mr. Puntles, who rather enjoyed the debate.
“If they had but a regiment of tall Irish clergymen, no doubt they’d march through the country,” said the captain, laughing stingingly.
“If they had nothing but a regiment of small English captains before them,” said the curate, “they’d do it easy enough. My dear friend,” continued the curate, “I don’t say, mind, that a mob can fight a trained army; but give us eighteen months to drill in, and see where you’ll be; give us what ye must give us, before long, federalism, and before ten years, we’ll conquer England!”3
Captain Bamme uttered a short laugh of scorn.
“I hope you’ll spare my little collection of curiosities,” said Mr. Puntles, merrily.
“If you’re strong be merciful,” broke in Captain Bamme.
“Don’t be frightened, captain; we’ll spare them, and all other little curiosities, too,” said Mr. Doody, hilariously, meaning, of course, the captain. “But, seriously, as sure as you’re sitting there, Ireland will conquer England, if she gets a fair chance.”
“That will be something new, won’t it?” says the Reverend Mr. Foljambe. “Shakespeare says something about a country
That never yet did lie
Under the proud foot of a conqueror.”
“Shakespeare said more than his prayers, sir; didn’t he know as well as we do, that there is no country in Christendom that has been so often and so completely conquered as England? ‘Did never lie!’ ha, ha, ha! ‘The proud foot of a conqueror?’ Mighty fine! Did ye never lie undher the Romans? or the Saxons? or the Danes? or the Normans? and didn’t they, one after the other, stay here and settle here, and take your houses and live in them, and your fields, and make ye dig, and sow, and reap, and stack for them? and didn’t they drive you hither and thither, and tax ye, and work ye, and put ye to bed at sunset, and make ye put out your candles and fires by sound of bell? And after all, England did never lie under the proud foot of a conqueror! Sure, my dear sir, ye oughtn’t to be talking like a madman. It’s enough to make a pig laugh. Can’t ye buy books, and read them?”
“But, sir, I’m very proud of those conquests,” interposed Mr. Puntles, smiling happily. “All these invaders are blended down into one composite mass, and that fusion is the stuff that makes the modern Englishman.”
“It won’t do, sir; a few thousands scattered among millions never changed the blood or nature of a nation yet — you’re Britons, still. You are Britons, the same as ever; by no means a warlike people, not gifted with any military aptitudes, pacific and thradesman-like, and the natural prey and possession of a nation with the spirit of conquest and a genius for arms. You’re sinking into your natural, hereditary state, that of Quakers and weavers, contented with your comforts and your opulence, knuckling down to the strong, and bullying the helpless, and leaving soldiering in earnest to nations that have the heart and the head for that sort of game, and just taking your chance, and hoarding your money.”
“Chance has answered pretty well up to this,” said Mr. Foljambe; “we have escaped a military occupation tolerably well I hope.”
“So has Iceland, sir, so has Greenland; ye’re out of the gangway, don’t ye see, sir? I could show you in the middle ages — — “
“Don’t mind the middle ages,” said the captain, “pray don’t — we won’t undertake to follow you there.”
“You won’t follow me, captain, because ye’re gone before me there, my dear fellow, ha, ha, ha! — ye’re one of the middle ages of this place yourself, my dear captain; but never mind, age is honourable, and middle age is middling honourable, anyhow.”
The captain stared hard at the decanter from which he filled his glass. He so obviously meditated a retort that the neutral powers interposed.
“Now, now, now — pray Captain Bamme take some wine, and send the decanters this way,” said the vicar, who was in charge of the party: “and Mr. Doody, I think we have stood the Irish invasion very well, and I vote we declare an armistice and a — eh — what do you think?”
“We’ll be better friends, captain, you and I,” said Mr. Doody, generously, “when we come to understand one another; but don’t ye be talking about things you don’t understand. Stick to the cane and the pipeclay, my boy; and my blessing attend ye! and I pledge ye in a glass of clar’t. Gentlemen, I give ye our gallant friend, Captain —— I give ye my word, I never heard your neeme. No matter; our gallant friend the captain; but I fill to ye all the same.”
“I think he’s gone,” observed Doctor Malkin, rousing himself suddenly from a profound “brown study.” So he was, although the Reverend Michael Doody who, during his concluding remarks, had been staring at a claret jug, in the direction of which his powerful arm was extended, while he twiddled his fingers toward the handle, in general invitation to the company to push it within reach of his generous clutch, had not perceived his disdainful retreat.
“So he is! There now! Ye see what it is to be thin-skinned,” said the c
urate, filling his glass and drinking it off, without insisting on the presence of the object of the compliment, or the participation of the rest of the company.
“That’s good clar’t. I’ll trouble ye, sir, for the white wine — the madeira — thank ye, and I drink to our departed friend, the captain, and, in solemn silence to the memory of his temper, the craiture!” Which ceremony, like the last, he had all to himself, and performed with a loud smack of his lips.
The Reverend Mr. Foljambe and Mr. Puntles had dropped into their quiet feudal talk again. Doctor Malkin would take no more wine, and the tall and courtly vicar, having collected the general suffrage in favour of joining the ladies, arose, and the little party retreated, talking listlessly, in the direction of the drawingroom.
CHAPTER XVII.
IN THE DRAWINGROOM.
The drawingroom is now in a blaze of waxlights, and every object in it brilliantly defined. Miss Maximilla Medwyn has arrived, and stands near the fireplace, in a dark silk dress, with a good deal of handsome lace; otherwise the same erect figure, and energetic and pleasant face, that we have seen.
Two gentlemen have arrived to tea — a tall man, quiet and gentlemanlike, of fifty years or upwards, who is talking to Lady Vernon, and a very short, vulgar man, fat and sleek-haired, with smooth chin and cheek, and ill-made, black, baggy clothes, and a general greasiness of hair, face, and habiliments. This is Mr. Zachary Smelt, alight in the firmament of Roydon dissent, who does not disdain to revolve, on occasions, round the munificent centre of so many religious charities, enterprises, and cliques.
Mr. Smelt has taught the muscles of his fat face to smile, with a perseverance that must have been immensely fatiguing when he first tried it; but every fold and pucker in his cheeks was, by this time, as fixed as those of the great window curtains opposite to him were by the tacks and hammer of the upholsterer. I am sure he sleeps in that smile, and that he will die with it on. When he is angry it still sits on his putty face, though his little black eyes look never so fell and wicked over it, and though it has become a grimace by no means pleasant.
“I’m less in the world, Mr. Smelt, than you are,” Miss Maximilla is saying tartly enough to this good man, whom, instinctively, she loves not. “What do you mean by telling me I live too much in and for the world? You don’t say that to Lady Vernon, I venture to say. You like her money too well to risk it. I venture to say you have fifty times as many spites, and a hundred times as many schemes, in your head as I. I have just as good a commission to speak plainly as you have. There’s your great gun, the Honourable Bagge Muggridge, as you take care to advertise him whenever he attends a meeting, or makes a speech. He has gone out of the world, as you term it; that is, he shirks his duties as a public man and a country gentleman, surrounds himself with parasites and flatterers, and indulges his taste for notoriety by making dull speeches at canting meetings, and putting himself down for shabby contributions to all sorts of useless things. And this selfish creature, because he gratifies his indolence and his vanity, and rides his hobby, has, you tell us, retired from the world, and become an apostle, and is perfectly certain of an eternal crown of glory. Those were your words, and I have seldom read anything more shocking.”
Perhaps Miss Medwyn had something more to say, and no doubt Mr. Z. Smelt had somewhat to rejoin, but the Reverend Mr. Foljambe walked slowly up with a gracious smile, his head inclined and his hand extended, and said, with dignified affection:
“And how is my very dear friend, Miss Medwyn?”
The vicar chose not to see Mr. Smelt, though the shoulder of his fashionably cut clerical coat almost touched the forehead of that fat thunderer against episcopacy, whose fixed smile acquired under this affront a character as nearly that of a sneer as anything so celestial could wear. So Zachary Smelt, folding his fat hands, turned on his heel with an expression of malignant compassion, and Mr. Foljambe inclined his long face and high nose over Maximilla Medwyn, smiling, in his way, as sweetly as his fellow-labourer, and as his “very dear friend” answered his affectionate inquiries, his shrewd eye was peering after Lady Vernon, and I am afraid he could not have given a very accurate account of what the good old spinster answered.
A cloud crossed the pure light of his brow as he saw the fat dissenter, who was always extracting money for the behoof of his sect from Lady Vernon, place himself before her exactly as the tall grave man with the iron-grey head was withdrawing.
Mr. Foljambe turned out of his way, and looked into a book of prints which Doctor Malkin was turning over.
“An unexpected pleasure that,” murmured the doctor, with smiling irony, as he glanced toward the short fat figure of Mr. Smelt.
“Oh! That is —— ?” hesitated the vicar, compressing his eyelids a little as he glanced towards Mr. Smelt, whom he knew as well as the doctor did. “I stupidly forgot my glasses.”
“Mr. Zachary Smelt, the Independent preacher. I venture to say there is not a drawingroom in the country, except this, into which that fellow would be admitted,” said the doctor, who had no practice among that sect.
“Well, you know, Lady Vernon may do things that other people couldn’t. Smelt? Yes, he is a troublesome person, and certainly, I don’t pretend to say — I don’t stand, at all, I hope, on that sort of thing; but I should not suppose he can feel quite at home among gentlemen.”
Doctor Malkin smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“This is, you know, a very distinguished house,” continues the vicar, loftily, “and not the place, as you say, where one would expect to meet people of a certain level in society; I don’t object to it, though, of course, there are others who, I dare say, don’t like it. But I do say it is a mistake, as respects the object of the distinction; it does not answer its purpose. I venture to say there is not a more uncomfortable man in this county tonight, than this Mr. — Mr. — a — Smelt.”
“I’m not so sure; he is such an impudent fellow,” said the doctor.
“I shouldn’t wonder if he had a good deal of that kind of thing, as you say. You possibly have more opportunities than I can boast. You see, Doctor — a — Doctor — a — a — Malkin.” The Reverend Mr. Foljambe had a habit of hesitating rather over the names of small men with whom he was good enough to converse. “Lady Vernon, though she is a churchwoman, and a very staunch one, in a certain sense, has yet very vague views respecting the special sympathy due to those who, in a more intimate way, are of the household of faith; but she’ll come all right, ultimately, with her powerful mind, and the supremacy she assigns to conscience in everything. I have had, from my position, opportunities, and I can safely say I have rarely encountered a mind so entirely under the guidance and control of conscience.”
The Reverend Richard Howard Foljambe looked with the affectionate interest of a good pastor and kinsman at that paragon of women.
“What a splendidly handsome woman she is!” observed the doctor. “By Jove, for her time of life, she’s perfectly wonderful.”
Every one flatters Lady Vernon, and these gentlemen like to pay her compliments in each other’s ears, though she does not hear them. This frank testimony behind backs prevents the least suspicion of adulation in what they may say in her hearing, But in truth, Doctor Malkin’s criticism is no flattery, though, perhaps, they hardly know that it is not, their critical faculties being a little confused, standing so much as they do in the relation of courtiers to her.
They are both covertly looking at her. They see a lady of some four or five-and-forty, still very handsome, according to the excellence of middle-aged beauty. How refined and elegant she looks, as she talks gravely with that little vulgar dissenter. She is the representative of an ancient family. She is peculiar in appearance, in habits, in character. A fine figure, a little fuller than girlhood, but only a little. A Greek face, pale, proud, and very still.
“What a talent for command that woman has!” says the doctor.
“She’s very clever — she’s very able, I may say, is Lady Vernon,” says the clerg
yman, who being a kinsman, does not quite like Doctor Malkin’s calling her a woman.
“Did it ever strike you, sir, making allowance for the difference of sex, that her eye has a very powerful resemblance to that of a remarkable historic genius?” asks Doctor Malkin.
“Ah — well, I can’t quite say; a — do you mean — I don’t quite see,” says the vicar.
“A large wonderful grey eye that will be famous as long as history lasts — I mean Napoleon the first consul, Napoleon the Great. It is powerfully like some of the portraits.”
“Well, do you know, I should not wonder. I believe there is — very likely,” replies the vicar.
“Now, Miss Maud’s, you see, although they are large and grey, they haven’t got that peculiar character — a look of serene command, and what some people would call cold; it is very fine.”
“Yes, and accompanied with that talent, she has so much administrative ability! She is a Dorcas, but a Dorcas on a very princely scale indeed,” says Mr. Foljambe.
“More like my idea of Minerva-glaucopis, you know — just that marble brow and pencilled eyebrow, and cold, full, splendid grey eye. It is a study for Pallas; it would be worth a fortune to some of our artists,” says the doctor.
The doctor’s face looks a little sterner as he closes his little speech. It is not always easy to say what a man is looking at with an obliquity of vision like his; but I think of his two rather fine dark eyes, that one which he chiefly uses glanced at that moment on Miss Maud Vernon. Perhaps some association or train of thought, suddenly suggested, caused the change. The doctor’s face is well enough when he is talking and animated. In repose it is not prepossessing; disturbed by any unpleasant emotion it is still less so.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 575