It has left off raining down in Lincolnshire at last, and ChesneyWold has taken heart. Mrs. Rouncewell is full of hospitable cares,for Sir Leicester and my Lady are coming home from Paris. Thefashionable intelligence has found it out and communicates the gladtidings to benighted England. It has also found out that they willentertain a brilliant and distinguished circle of the ELITE of theBEAU MONDE (the fashionable intelligence is weak in English, but agiant refreshed in French) at the ancient and hospitable family seatin Lincolnshire.
For the greater honour of the brilliant and distinguished circle,and of Chesney Wold into the bargain, the broken arch of the bridgein the park is mended; and the water, now retired within its properlimits and again spanned gracefully, makes a figure in the prospectfrom the house. The clear, cold sunshine glances into the brittlewoods and approvingly beholds the sharp wind scattering the leavesand drying the moss. It glides over the park after the movingshadows of the clouds, and chases them, and never catches them, allday. It looks in at the windows and touches the ancestral portraitswith bars and patches of brightness never contemplated by thepainters. Athwart the picture of my Lady, over the great chimney-piece, it throws a broad bend-sinister of light that strikes downcrookedly into the hearth and seems to rend it.
Through the same cold sunshine and the same sharp wind, my Lady andSir Leicester, in their travelling chariot (my Lady's woman and SirLeicester's man affectionate in the rumble), start for home. With aconsiderable amount of jingling and whip-cracking, and many plungingdemonstrations on the part of two bare-backed horses and twocentaurs with glazed hats, jack-boots, and flowing manes and tails,they rattle out of the yard of the Hotel Bristol in the PlaceVendome and canter between the sun-and-shadow-chequered colonnade ofthe Rue de Rivoli and the garden of the ill-fated palace of aheadless king and queen, off by the Place of Concord, and theElysian Fields, and the Gate of the Star, out of Paris.
Sooth to say, they cannot go away too fast, for even here my LadyDedlock has been bored to death. Concert, assembly, opera, theatre,drive, nothing is new to my Lady under the worn-out heavens. Onlylast Sunday, when poor wretches were gay--within the walls playingwith children among the clipped trees and the statues in the PalaceGarden; walking, a score abreast, in the Elysian Fields, made moreElysian by performing dogs and wooden horses; between whilesfiltering (a few) through the gloomy Cathedral of Our Lady to say aword or two at the base of a pillar within flare of a rusty littlegridiron-full of gusty little tapers; without the walls encompassingParis with dancing, love-making, wine-drinking, tobacco-smoking,tomb-visiting, billiard card and domino playing, quack-doctoring,and much murderous refuse, animate and inanimate--only last Sunday,my Lady, in the desolation of Boredom and the clutch of GiantDespair, almost hated her own maid for being in spirits.
She cannot, therefore, go too fast from Paris. Weariness of soullies before her, as it lies behind--her Ariel has put a girdle of itround the whole earth, and it cannot be unclasped--but the imperfectremedy is always to fly from the last place where it has beenexperienced. Fling Paris back into the distance, then, exchangingit for endless avenues and cross-avenues of wintry trees! And, whennext beheld, let it be some leagues away, with the Gate of the Stara white speck glittering in the sun, and the city a mere mound in aplain--two dark square towers rising out of it, and light and shadowdescending on it aslant, like the angels in Jacob's dream!
Sir Leicester is generally in a complacent state, and rarely bored.
When he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his owngreatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man to have soinexhaustible a subject. After reading his letters, he leans backin his corner of the carriage and generally reviews his importanceto society.
"You have an unusual amount of correspondence this morning?" says myLady after a long time. She is fatigued with reading. Has almostread a page in twenty miles.
"Nothing in it, though. Nothing whatever.""I saw one of Mr. Tulkinghorn's long effusions, I think?""You see everything," says Sir Leicester with admiration.
"Ha!" sighs my Lady. "He is the most tiresome of men!""He sends--I really beg your pardon--he sends," says Sir Leicester,selecting the letter and unfolding it, "a message to you. Ourstopping to change horses as I came to his postscript drove it outof my memory. I beg you'll excuse me. He says--" Sir Leicester isso long in taking out his eye-glass and adjusting it that my Ladylooks a little irritated. "He says 'In the matter of the right ofway--' I beg your pardon, that's not the place. He says--yes!
Here I have it! He says, 'I beg my respectful compliments to myLady, who, I hope, has benefited by the change. Will you do me thefavour to mention (as it may interest her) that I have something totell her on her return in reference to the person who copied theaffidavit in the Chancery suit, which so powerfully stimulated hercuriosity. I have seen him.'"My Lady, leaning forward, looks out of her window.
"That's the message," observes Sir Leicester.
"I should like to walk a little," says my Lady, still looking out ofher window.
"Walk?" repeats Sir Leicester in a tone of surprise.
"I should like to walk a little," says my Lady with unmistakabledistinctness. "Please to stop the carriage."The carriage is stopped, the affectionate man alights from therumble, opens the door, and lets down the steps, obedient to animpatient motion of my Lady's hand. My Lady alights so quickly andwalks away so quickly that Sir Leicester, for all his scrupulouspoliteness, is unable to assist her, and is left behind. A space ofa minute or two has elapsed before he comes up with her. Shesmiles, looks very handsome, takes his arm, lounges with him for aquarter of a mile, is very much bored, and resumes her seat in thecarriage.
The rattle and clatter continue through the greater part of threedays, with more or less of bell-jingling and whip-cracking, and moreor less plunging of centaurs and bare-backed horses. Their courtlypoliteness to each other at the hotels where they tarry is the themeof general admiration. Though my Lord IS a little aged for my Lady,says Madame, the hostess of the Golden Ape, and though he might beher amiable father, one can see at a glance that they love eachother. One observes my Lord with his white hair, standing, hat inhand, to help my Lady to and from the carriage. One observes myLady, how recognisant of my Lord's politeness, with an inclinationof her gracious head and the concession of her so-genteel fingers!
It is ravishing!
The sea has no appreciation of great men, but knocks them about likethe small fry. It is habitually hard upon Sir Leicester, whosecountenance it greenly mottles in the manner of sage-cheese and inwhose aristocratic system it effects a dismal revolution. It is theRadical of Nature to him. Nevertheless, his dignity gets over itafter stopping to refit, and he goes on with my Lady for ChesneyWold, lying only one night in London on the way to Lincolnshire.
Through the same cold sunlight, colder as the day declines, andthrough the same sharp wind, sharper as the separate shadows of baretrees gloom together in the woods, and as the Ghost's Walk, touchedat the western corner by a pile of fire in the sky, resigns itselfto coming night, they drive into the park. The rooks, swinging intheir lofty houses in the elm-tree avenue, seem to discuss thequestion of the occupancy of the carriage as it passes underneath,some agreeing that Sir Leicester and my Lady are come down, somearguing with malcontents who won't admit it, now all consenting toconsider the question disposed of, now all breaking out again inviolent debate, incited by one obstinate and drowsy bird who willpersist in putting in a last contradictory croak. Leaving them toswing and caw, the travelling chariot rolls on to the house, wherefires gleam warmly through some of the windows, though not throughso many as to give an inhabited expression to the darkening mass offront. But the brilliant and distinguished circle will soon dothat.
Mrs. Rouncewell is in attendance and receives Sir Leicester'scustomary shake of the hand with a profound curtsy.
"How do you do, Mrs. Rouncewell? I am glad to see you.""I hope I have the honour of welcoming you in good health, SirLeicester?""In excellent health, Mrs. Rouncewell.""My Lady is looking charmingly well," says Mrs. Rouncewell withanother curtsy.
My Lady signifies, without profuse expenditure of words, that she isas wearily well as she can hope to be.
But Rosa is in the distance, behind the housekeeper; and my Lady,who has not subdued the quickness of her observation, whatever elseshe may have conquered, asks, "Who is that girl?""A young scholar of mine, my Lady. Rosa.""Come here, Rosa!" Lady Dedlock beckons her, with even anappearance of interest. "Why, do you know how pretty you are,child?" she says, touching her shoulder with her two forefingers.
Rosa, very much abashed, says, "No, if you please, my Lady!" andglances up, and glances down, and don't know where to look, butlooks all the prettier.
"How old are you?""Nineteen, my Lady.""Nineteen," repeats my Lady thoughtfully. "Take care they don'tspoil you by flattery.""Yes, my Lady."My Lady taps her dimpled cheek with the same delicate gloved fingersand goes on to the foot of the oak staircase, where Sir Leicesterpauses for her as her knightly escort. A staring old Dedlock in apanel, as large as life and as dull, looks as if he didn't know whatto make of it, which was probably his general state of mind in thedays of Queen Elizabeth.
That evening, in the housekeeper's room, Rosa can do nothing butmurmur Lady Dedlock's praises. She is so affable, so graceful, sobeautiful, so elegant; has such a sweet voice and such a thrillingtouch that Rosa can feel it yet! Mrs. Rouncewell confirms all this,not without personal pride, reserving only the one point ofaffability. Mrs. Rouncewell is not quite sure as to that. Heavenforbid that she should say a syllable in dispraise of any member ofthat excellent family, above all, of my Lady, whom the whole worldadmires; but if my Lady would only be "a little more free," notquite so cold and distant, Mrs. Rounceweil thinks she would be moreaffable.
"'Tis almost a pity," Mrs. Rouncewell adds--only "almost" because itborders on impiety to suppose that anything could be better than itis, in such an express dispensation as the Dedlock affairs--"that myLady has no family. If she had had a daughter now, a grown younglady, to interest her, I think she would have had the only kind ofexcellence she wants.""Might not that have made her still more proud, grandmother?" saysWatt, who has been home and come back again, he is such a goodgrandson.
"More and most, my dear," returns the housekeeper with dignity, "arewords it's not my place to use--nor so much as to hear--applied toany drawback on my Lady.""I beg your pardon, grandmother. But she is proud, is she not?""If she is, she has reason to be. The Dedlock family have alwaysreason to be.""Well," says Watt, "it's to be hoped they line out of their prayer-books a certain passage for the common people about pride andvainglory. Forgive me, grandmother! Only a joke!""Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, my dear, are not fit subjects forjoking.""Sir Leicester is no joke by any means," says Watt, "and I humblyask his pardon. I suppose, grandmother, that even with the familyand their guests down here, there is no ojection to my prolonging mystay at the Dedlock Arms for a day or two, as any other travellermight?""Surely, none in the world, child.""I am glad of that," says Watt, "because I have an inexpressibledesire to extend my knowledge of this beautiful neighbourhood."He happens to glance at Rosa, who looks down and is very shy indeed.
But according to the old superstition, it should be Rosa's ears thatburn, and not her fresh bright cheeks, for my Lady's maid is holdingforth about her at this moment with surpassing energy.
My Lady's maid is a Frenchwoman of two and thirty, from somewhere inthe southern country about Avignon and Marseilles, a large-eyedbrown woman with black hair who would be handsome but for a certainfeline mouth and general uncomfortable tightness of face, renderingthe jaws too eager and the skull too prominent. There is somethingindefinably keen and wan about her anatomy, and she has a watchfulway of looking out of the corners of her eyes without turning herhead which could be pleasantly dispensed with, especially when sheis in an ill humour and near knives. Through all the good taste ofher dress and little adornments, these objections so expressthemselves that she seems to go about like a very neat she-wolfimperfectly tamed. Besides being accomplished in all the knowledgeappertaining to her post, she is almost an Englishwoman in heracquaintance with the language; consequently, she is in no want ofwords to shower upon Rosa for having attracted my Lady's attention,and she pours them out with such grim ridicule as she sits at dinnerthat her companion, the affectionate man, is rather relieved whenshe arrives at the spoon stage of that performance.
Ha, ha, ha! She, Hortense, been in my Lady's service since fiveyears and always kept at the distance, and this doll, this puppet,caressed--absolutely caressed--by my Lady on the moment of herarriving at the house! Ha, ha, ha! "And do you know how pretty youare, child?" "No, my Lady." You are right there! "And how old areyou, child! And take care they do not spoil you by flattery,child!" Oh, how droll! It is the BEST thing altogether.
In short, it is such an admirable thing that Mademoiselle Hortensecan't forget it; but at meals for days afterwards, even among hercountrywomen and others attached in like capacity to the troop ofvisitors, relapses into silent enjoyment of the joke--an enjoymentexpressed, in her own convivial manner, by an additional tightnessof face, thin elongation of compressed lips, and sidewise look,which intense appreciation of humour is frequently reflected in myLady's mirrors when my Lady is not among them.
All the mirrors in the house are brought into action now, many ofthem after a long blank. They reflect handsome faces, simperingfaces, youthful faces, faces of threescore and ten that will notsubmit to be old; the entire collection of faces that have come topass a January week or two at Chesney Wold, and which thefashionable intelligence, a mighty hunter before the Lord, huntswith a keen scent, from their breaking cover at the Court of St.
James's to their being run down to death. The place in Lincolnshireis all alive. By day guns and voices are heard ringing in thewoods, horsemen and carriages enliven the park roads, servants andhangers-on pervade the village and the Dedlock Arms. Seen by nightfrom distant openings in the trees, the row of windows in the longdrawing-room, where my Lady's picture hangs over the great chimney-piece, is like a row of jewels set in a black frame. On Sunday thechill little church is almost warmed by so much gallant company, andthe general flavour of the Dedlock dust is quenched in delicateperfumes.
The brilliant and distinguished circle comprehends within it nocontracted amount of education, sense, courage, honour, beauty, andvirtue. Yet there is something a little wrong about it in despiteof its immense advantages. What can it be?
Dandyism? There is no King George the Fourth ............