Sir Leicester Dedlock has got the better, for the time being, ofthe family gout and is once more, in a literal no less than in afigurative point of view, upon his legs. He is at his place inLincolnshire; but the waters are out again on the low-lyinggrounds, and the cold and damp steal into Chesney Wold, though welldefended, and eke into Sir Leicester's bones. The blazing fires offaggot and coal--Dedlock timber and antediluvian forest--that blazeupon the broad wide hearths and wink in the twilight on thefrowning woods, sullen to see how trees are sacrificed, do notexclude the enemy. The hot-water pipes that trail themselves allover the house, the cushioned doors and windows, and the screensand curtains fail to supply the fires' deficiencies and to satisfySir Leicester's need. Hence the fashionable intelligence proclaimsone morning to the listening earth that Lady Dedlock is expectedshortly to return to town for a few weeks.
It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poorrelations. Indeed great men have often more than their fair shareof poor relations, inasmuch as very red blood of the superiorquality, like inferior blood unlawfully shed, WILL cry aloud andWILL be heard. Sir Leicester's cousins, in the remotest degree,are so many murders in the respect that they "will out." Amongwhom there are cousins who are so poor that one might almost dareto think it would have been the happier for them never to have beenplated links upon the Dedlock chain of gold, but to have been madeof common iron at first and done base service.
Service, however (with a few limited reservations, genteel but notprofitable), they may not do, being of the Dedlock dignity. Sothey visit their richer cousins, and get into debt when they can,and live but shabbily when they can't, and find--the women nohusbands, and the men no wives--and ride in borrowed carriages, andsit at feasts that are never of their own making, and so go throughhigh life. The rich family sum has been divided by so manyfigures, and they are the something over that nobody knows what todo with.
Everybody on Sir Leicester Dedlock's side of the question and ofhis way of thinking would appear to be his cousin more or less.
From my Lord Boodle, through the Duke of Foodle, down to Noodle,Sir Leicester, like a glorious spider, stretches his threads ofrelationship. But while he is stately in the cousinship of theEverybodys, he is a kind and generous man, according to hisdignified way, in the cousinship of the Nobodys; and at the presenttime, in despite of the damp, he stays out the visit of severalsuch cousins at Chesney Wold with the constancy of a martyr.
Of these, foremost in the front rank stands Volumnia Dedlock, ayoung lady (of sixty) who is doubly highly related, having thehonour to be a poor relation, by the mother's side, to anothergreat family. Miss Volumnia, displaying in early life a prettytalent for cutting ornaments out of coloured paper, and also forsinging to the guitar in the Spanish tongue, and propounding Frenchconundrums in country houses, passed the twenty years of herexistence between twenty and forty in a sufficiently agreeablemanner. Lapsing then out of date and being considered to boremankind by her vocal performances in the Spanish language, sheretired to Bath, where she lives slenderly on an annual presentfrom Sir Leicester and whence she makes occasional resurrections inthe country houses of her cousins. She has an extensiveacquaintance at Bath among appalling old gentlemen with thin legsand nankeen trousers, and is of high standing in that dreary city.
But she is a little dreaded elsewhere in consequence of anindiscreet profusion in the article of rouge and persistency in anobsolete pearl necklace like a rosary of little bird's-eggs.
In any country in a wholesome state, Volumnia would be a clear casefor the pension list. Efforts have been made to get her on it, andwhen William Buffy came in, it was fully expected that her namewould be put down for a couple of hundred a year. But WilliamBuffy somehow discovered, contrary to all expectation, that thesewere not the times when it could be done, and this was the firstclear indication Sir Leicester Dedlock had conveyed to him that thecountry was going to pieces.
There is likewise the Honourable Bob Stables, who can make warmmashes with the skill of a veterinary surgeon and is a better shotthan most gamekeepers. He has been for some time particularlydesirous to serve his country in a post of good emoluments,unaccompanied by any trouble or responsibility. In a well-regulated body politic this natural desire on the part of aspirited young gentleman so highly connected would be speedilyrecognized, but somehow William Buffy found when he came in thatthese were not times in which he could manage that little mattereither, and this was the second indication Sir Leicester Dedlockhad conveyed to him that the country was going to pieces.
The rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various agesand capacities, the major part amiable and sensible and likely tohave done well enough in life if they could have overcome theircousinship; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it,and lounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quiteas much at a loss how to dispose of themselves as anybody else canbe how to dispose of them.
In this society, and where not, my Lady Dedlock reigns supreme.
Beautiful, elegant, accomplished, and powerful in her little world(for the world of fashion does not stretch ALL the way from pole topole), her influence in Sir Leicester's house, however haughty andindifferent her manner, is greatly to improve it and refine it.
The cousins, even those older cousins who were paralysed when SirLeicester married her, do her feudal homage; and the Honourable BobStables daily repeats to some chosen person between breakfast andlunch his favourite original remark, that she is the best-groomedwoman in the whole stud.
Such the guests in the long drawing-room at Chesney Wold thisdismal night when the step on the Ghost's Walk (inaudible here,however) might be the step of a deceased cousin shut out in thecold. It is near bed-time. Bedroom fires blaze brightly all overthe house, raising ghosts of grim furniture on wall and ceiling.
Bedroom candlesticks bristle on the distant table by the door, andcousins yawn on ottomans. Cousins at the piano, cousins at thesoda-water tray, cousins rising from the card-table, cousinsgathered round the fire. Standing on one side of his own peculiarfire (for there are two), Sir Leicester. On the opposite side ofthe broad hearth, my Lady at her table. Volumnia, as one of themore privileged cousins, in a luxurious chair between them. SirLeicester glancing, with magnificent displeasure, at the rouge andthe pearl necklace.
"I occasionally meet on my staircase here," drawls Volumnia, whosethoughts perhaps are already hopping up it to bed, after a longevening of very desultory talk, "one of the prettiest girls, Ithink, that I ever saw in my life.""A PROTEGEE of my Lady's," observes Sir Leicester.
"I thought so. I felt sure that some uncommon eye must have pickedthat girl out. She really is a marvel. A dolly sort of beautyperhaps," says Miss Volumnia, reserving her own sort, "but in itsway, perfect; such bloom I never saw!"Sir Leicester, with his magnificent glance of displeasure at therouge, appears to say so too.
"Indeed," remarks my Lady languidly, "if there is any uncommon eyein the case, it is Mrs. Rouncewell's, and not mine. Rosa is herdiscovery.""Your maid, I suppose?""No. My anything; pet--secretary--messenger--I don't know what.""You like to have her about you, as you would like to have aflower, or a bird, or a picture, or a poodle--no, not a poodle,though--or anything else that was equally pretty?" says Volumnia,sympathizing. "Yes, how charming now! And how well thatdelightful old soul Mrs. Rouncewell is looking. She must be animmense age, and yet she is as active and handsome! She is thedearest friend I have, positively!"Sir Leicester feels it to be right and fitting that the housekeeperof Chesney Wold should be a remarkable person. Apart from that, hehas a real regard for Mrs. Rouncewell and likes to hear herpraised. So he says, "You are right, Volumnia," which Volumnia isextremely glad to hear.
"She has no daughter of her own, has she?""Mrs. Rouncewell? No, Volumnia. She has a son. Indeed, she hadtwo."My Lady, whose chronic malady of boredom has been sadly aggravatedby Volumnia this evening, glances wearily towards the candlesticksand heaves a noiseless sigh.
"And it is a remarkable example of the confusion into which thepresent age has fallen; of the obliteration of landmarks, theopening of floodgates, and the uprooting of distinctions," says SirLeicester with stately gloom, "that I have been informed by Mr.
Tulkinghorn that Mrs. Rouncewell's son has been invited to go intoParliament."Miss Volumnia utters a little sharp scream.
"Yes, indeed," repeats Sir Leicester. "Into Parliament.""I never heard of such a thing! Good gracious, what is the man?"exclaims Volumnia.
"He is called, I believe--an--ironmaster." Sir Leicester says itslowly and with gravity and doubt, as not being sure but that he iscalled a lead-mistress or that the right word may be some otherword expressive of some other relationship to some other metal.
Volumnia utters another little scream.
"He has declined the proposal, if my information from Mr.
Tulkinghorn be correct, as I have no doubt it is. Mr. Tulkinghornbeing always correct and exact; still that does not," says SirLeicester, "that does not lessen the anomaly, which is fraught withstrange considerations--startling considerations, as it appears tome."Miss Volumnia rising with a look candlestick-wards, Sir Leicesterpolitely performs the grand tour of the drawing-room, brings one,and lights it at my Lady's shaded lamp.
"I must beg you, my Lady," he says while doing so, "to remain a fewmoments, for this individual of whom I speak arrived this eveningshortly before dinner and requested in a very becoming note"--SirLeicester, with his habitual regard to truth, dwells upon it--"I ambound to say, in a very becoming and well-expressed note, thefavour of a short interview with yourself and MYself on the subjectof this young girl. As it appeared that he wished to depart to-night, I replied that we would see him before retiring."Miss Volumnia with a third little scream takes flight, wishing herhosts--O Lud!--well rid of the--what is it?--ironmaster!
The other cousins soon disperse, to the last cousin there. SirLeicester rings the bell, "Make my compliments to Mr. Rouncewell,in the housekeeper's apartments, and say I can receive him now."My Lady, who has beard all this with slight attention outwardly,looks towards Mr. Rouncewell as he comes in. He is a little overfifty perhaps, of a good figure, like his mother, and has a clearvoice, a broad forehead from which his dark hair has retired, and ashrewd though open face. He is a responsible-looking gentlemandressed in black, portly enough, but strong and active. Has aperfectly natural and easy air and is not in the least embarrassedby the great presence into which he comes.
"Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, as I have already apologized forintruding on you, I cannot do better than be very brief. I thankyou, Sir Leicester."The head of the Dedlocks has motioned towards a sofa betweenhimself and my Lady. Mr. Rouncewell quietly takes his seat there.
"In these busy times, when so many great undertakings are inprogress, people like myself have so many workmen in so many placesthat we are always on the flight."Sir Leicester is content enough that the ironmaster should feelthat there is no hurry there; there, in that ancient house, rootedin that quiet park, where the ivy and the moss have had time tomature, and the gnarled and warted elms and the umbrageous oaksstand deep in the fern and leaves of a hundred years; and where thesun-dial on the terrace has dumbly recorded for centuries that timewhich was as much the property of every Dedlock--while he lasted--as the house and lands. Sir Leicester sits down in an easy-chair,opposing his repose and that of Chesney Wold to the restlessflights of ironmasters.
"Lady Dedlock has been so kind," proceeds Mr. Rouncewell with arespectful glance and a bow that way, "as to place near her a youngbeauty of the name of Rosa. Now, my son has fallen in love withRosa and has asked my consent to his proposing marriage to her andto their becoming engaged if she will take him--which I suppose shewill. I have never seen Rosa until to-day, but I have someconfidence in my son's good sense--even in lov............