conventionalism, and to be denied the liberty of free action? My poor fellow, I
pity you from my heart; and it grieves me to think how hose fine honest children
��honest, and hearty, and frank, and open as yet�� are to lose their natural
good qualities, and to be swathed and swaddled, and stifled out of health and
honesty by that obstinate worldling their father. Don't tell me about the world,
I know it. People sacrifice the next world to it, and are all the while proud of
their prudence. Look at my miserable relations, steeped in respectability. Look
at my father. There is a chance for him, now he is down and in poverty. I have
had a letter from him, containing more of that dreadful worldly advice which you
Pharisees give. If it weren't for Laura and the children, sir, I heartily wish
you were ruined like your affectionate��P. F.
"N.B., P.S.��Oh, Pen! I am so happy! She is such a little darling! I bathe in
her innocence, sir! I strengthen myself in her purity. I kneel before her sweet
goodness and unconsciousness of guile. I walk from my room, and see her every
morning before seven o'clock. I see her every afternoon. She loves you and
Laura. And you love her, don't you? And to think that six months ago I was going
to marry a woman without a heart! Why, sir, blessings be on the poor old father
for spending our money, and rescuing me from that horrible fate! I might have
been like that fellow in the Arabian Nights who married Amina�� the respectable
woman, who dined upon grains of rice, but supped upon cold dead body. Was it not
worth all the money I ever was heir to, to have escaped from that ghoul? Lord
Ringwood says he thinks I was well out of that. He calls people by Anglo-Saxon
names, and uses very expressive monosyllables; and of aunt Twysden, of uncle
Twysden, of the girls, and their brother, he speaks in a way which makes me see
he has come to just conclusions about them.
"P.S. No. 2.��Ah Pen! She is such a darling. I think I am the happiest man in
the world."
And this was what came of being ruined! A scapegrace, who, when he had plenty of
money in his pocket, was ill-tempered, imperious, and discontented; now that he
is not worth twopence, declares himself the happiest fellow in the world! Do you
remember, my dear, how he used to grumble at our claret, and what wry faces he
made, when there was only cold meat for dinner? The wretch is absolutely
contented with bread and cheese and small-beer��even that bad beer which they
have in Paris!
Now and again, at this time, and as our mutual avocations permitted, I saw
Philip's friend, the Little Sister. He wrote to her dutifully from time to time.
He told her of his love affair with Miss Charlotte; and my wife and I could
console Caroline, by assuring her that this time the young man's heart was given
to a worthy mistress. I say console, for the news, after all, was sad for her.
In the little chamber which she always kept ready for him, he would lie awake,
and think of some one dearer to him than a hundred poor Carolines. She would
devise something that should be agreeable to the young lady. At Christmas time
there came to Miss Baynes a wonderfully worked cambric pocket-handkerchief, with
"Charlotte" most beautifully embroidered in the corner. It was this poor widow's
mite of love and tenderness which she meekly laid down in the place where she
worshipped. "And I have six for him, too, ma'am" Mrs. Brandon told my wife.
"Poor fellow! His shirts was in a dreadful way when he went away from here, and
that you know, ma'am." So you see this wayfarer, having fallen among undoubted
thieves, yet found many kind souls to relieve him, and many a good Samaritan
ready with his twopence, if need were.
The reason why Philip was the happiest man in the world of course you
understand. French people are very early risers; and, at the little hotel where
Mr. Philip lived, the whole crew of the house were up hours before lazy English
masters and servants think of stirring. At ever so early an hour Phil had a fine
bowl of coffee and milk and bread for his breakfast; and he was striding down to
the Invalides, and across the bridge to the Champs Elys�es, and the fumes of his
pipe preceded him with a pleasant odour. And a short time after passing the Rond
Point in the Elysian fields, where an active fountain was flinging up showers of
diamonds to the sky,��after, I say, leaving the Rond Point on his right, and
passing under umbrageous groves in the direction of the present Castle of
Flowers, Mr. Philip would see a little person. Sometimes a young sister or
brother came with the little person. Sometimes only a blush fluttered on her
cheek, and a sweet smile beamed in her face as she came forward to greet him.
For the angels were scarce purer than this young maid; and Una was no more
afraid of the lion, than Charlotte of her companion with the loud voice and the
tawny mane. I would not have envied that reprobate's lot who should have dared
to say a doubtful word to this Una: but the truth is, she never thought of
danger, or met with any. The workmen were going to their labour; the dandies
were asleep; and considering their age, and the relationship in which they stood
to one another, I am not surprised at Philip for announcing that this was the
happiest time of his life. In later days, when two gentlemen of mature age
happened to be in Paris together, what must Mr. Philip Firmin do but insist upon
walking me sentimentally to the Champs Elys�s, and looking at an old house
there, a rather shabby old house in a garden. "That was the place," sighs he.
"That was Madame de Smolensk's. That was the window, the third one, with the
green jalousie. By Jove, sir, how happy and how miserable I have been behind
that green blind!" And my friend shakes his large fist at the somewhat
dilapidated mansion, whence Madame de Smolensk and her boarders have long since
departed.
I fear that baroness had engaged in her enterprise with insufficient capital, or
conducted it with such liberality that her profits were eaten up by her
boarders. I could tell dreadful stories impugning the baroness's moral
character. people said she had no right to the title of baroness at all, or to
the noble foreign name of Smolensk. People are still alive who knew her under a
different name. The baroness herself was what some amateurs call a fine woman,
especially at dinner-time, when she appeared in black satin and with cheeks that
blushed up as far as the eyelids. In her peignoir in the morning, she was
perhaps the reverse of fine. Contours which were round at night, in the forenoon
appeared lean and angular. Her roses only bloomed half-an-hour before
dinner-time on a cheek which was quite yellow until five o'clock. I am sure it
is very kind of elderly and ill-complexioned people to supply the ravages of
time or jaundice, and present to our view a figure blooming and agreeable, in
place of an object faded and withered. Do you quarrel with your opposite
neighbour for painting his house front or putting roses in his balcony? You are
rather thankful for the adornment. Madame de Smolensk's front was so deco
rated
of afternoons. Geraniums were set pleasantly under those first-floor windows,
her eyes. Carcel lamps beamed from those windows: lamps which she had trimmed
with her own scissors, and into which that poor widow poured the oil which she
got somehow and anyhow. When the dingy breakfast papillotes were cast of an
afternoon, what beautiful black curls appeared round her brow! The dingy
papillotes were put away in the drawer: the peignoir retired to its hook behind
the door: the satin raiment came forth, the shining, the ancient, the well-kept,
the well-wadded: and at the same moment the worthy woman took that smile out of
some cunning box on her scanty toilet-table��that smile which she wore all the
evening along with the rest of her toilette, and took out of her mouth when she
went to bed, and to think��to think how both ends were to be made to meet.
Philip said he respected and admired that woman: and worthy of respect she was
in her way. She painted her face and grinned at poverty. She laughed and rattled
with care gnawing at her side. She had to coax the milkman out of his human
kindness: to pour oil�� his own oil��upon the stormy �picier's soul: to melt the
butterman: to tap the wine-merchant: to mollify the butcher: to invent new
pretexts for the landlord: to reconcile the lady boarders, Mrs. General Baynes,
let us say, and the honourable Mrs. Boldero, who were always quarrelling: to see
that the dinner, when procured, was cooked properly; that Fran�oise, to whom she
owed ever so many months' wages, was not too rebellious or intoxicated; that
Auguste, also her creditor, had his glass clean and his lamps in order. And this
work done and the hour of six o'clock arriving, she had to carve and be
agreeable to her table; not to hear the growls of the discontented (and at what
table-d'h�te are there not grumblers?); to have a word for everybody present; a
smile and a laugh for Mrs. Bunch (with whom there had been very likely a
dreadful row in the morning); a remark for the colonel; a polite phrase for the
general's lady; and even a good word and compliment for sulky Auguste, who just
before dinner-time had unfolded the napkin of mutiny about his wages.
Was not this enough work for a woman to do? To conduct a great house without
sufficient money, and make soup, fish, roasts, and half a dozen entr�es out of
wind as it were? to conjure up wine in piece and by the dozen? to laugh and joke
without the least gaiety? to receive scorn, abuse, rebuffs, insolence, with gay
good-humour? and then to go to bed wearied at night, and have to think about
figures, and that dreadful, dreadful sum in arithmetic��given,5l. to pay 6l?
Lady Macbeth is supposed to have been a resolute woman: and great, tall, loud,
hectoring females are set to represent the character. I say No. She was a weak
woman. She began to walk in her sleep, and blab after one disagreeable little
incident had occurred in her house. She broke down, and got all the people away
from her own table in the most abrupt and clumsy manner, because that
drivelling, epileptic husband of hers fancied he saw a ghost. In Lady Smolensk's
place Madame de Macbeth would have broken down in a week: and Smolensk lasted
for years. If twenty gibbering ghosts had come to the boarding-house dinner,
madame would have gone on carving her dishes, and smiling and helping the live
guests, the paying guests; leaving the dead guests to gibber away and help
themselves. "My poor father had to keep up appearances," Phil would say,
recounting these things in after days: "but how? You know he always looked as if
he was going to be hung." Smolensk was the gayest of the gay always. That widow
would have tripped up to her funeral pile and kissed her hands to her friends
with a smiling 'Bon jour!'"
"Pray, who was Monsieur de Smolensk?" asks a simple lady who may be listening to
our friend's narrative.
"Ah, my dear lady! there was a pretty disturbance in the house when that
question came to be mooted, I promise you," says our friend, laughing, as he
recounts his adventures. And, after all, what does it matter to you and me and
this story who Smolensk was? I am sure this poor lady had hardships enough in
her life campaign, and that Ney himself could not have faced fortune with a
constancy more heroical.
Well, when the Bayneses first came to her house, I tell you Smolensk and all
round her smiled, and our friends thought they were landed in a real rosy
Elysium in the Champs of that name. Madame had a Carrick � l' Indienne prepared
in compliment to her guests. She had had many Indians in her establishment. She
adored Indians. N' �tait ce la polygamie��they were most estimable people the
Hindus. Surtout, she adored Indian shawls. That of Madame la G�n�rale was
ravishing. The company at Madame's was pleasant. The Honourable Mrs. Boldero was
a dashing woman of fashion and respectability, who had lived in the best
world��it was easy to see that. The young ladies' duets were very striking. The
Honourable Mr. Boldero was away shooting in Scotland at his brother, Lord
Strongitharm's, and would take Gaberlunzie Castle and the duke's on his way
south. Mrs. Baynes did not know Lady Estridge, the ambassadress? When the
Estridges returned from Chantilly, the Honourable Mrs. B. would be delighted to
introduce her. "Your pretty girl's name is Charlotte? So is Lady Estridge's
��and very nearly as tall;��fine girls the Estridges; fine long necks��large
feet��but your girl��lady Baynes' has beautiful feet. Lady Baynes, I said? Well,
you must be Lady Baynes soon. The general must be a K. C. B. after his services.
What, you know Lord Trim? He will, and must, do it for you. If not, my brother
Strongitharm shall." I have no doubt Mrs. Baynes was greatly elated by the
attentions of Lord Strongitharm's sister; and looked him out in the Peerage,
where his lordship's arms, pedigree, and residence of Gaberlunzie Castle are
duly recorded. The Honourable Mrs. Boldero's daughters, the Misses Minna and
Brenda Boldero, played some rattling sonatas on a piano which was a good deal
fatigued by their exertions, for the young ladies' hands were very powerful. And
madame said, "Thank you," with her sweetest smile; and Auguste handed about on a
silver tray��I say silver, so that the convenances may not be wounded��well, say
silver that was blushing to find itself copper��handed up on a tray a white
drink which made the Baynes boys cry out, "I say, mother, what's this beastly
thing?" On which madame, with the sweetest smile, appealed to the company, and
said, "They love orgeat, these dear infants!" and resumed her picquet with old
M. Bidois��that odd old gentleman in the long brown coat, with the red ribbon,
who took so much snuff and blew his nose so often and so loudly. One, two, three
rattling sonatas Minna and Brenda played; Mr. Clancy, of Trinity College, Dublin
(M. de Clanci, madame called him), turning over the leaves, and presently being
persuaded to sing some Irish melodies for the ladies. I don't think Miss
Charlotte Baynes listened to the music much. She was listening to another music,
which she and Mr. F
irmin were performing together. Oh, how pleasant that music
used to be! There was a sameness in it, I dare say, but still it was pleasant to
hear the air over again. The pretty little duet � quatre mains, where the hands
cross over, and hop up and down the keys, and the heads get so close, so close.
Oh, duets, oh, regrets! Psha! no more of this. Go downstairs, old dotard. Take
your hat and umbrella and go walk by the sea-shore, and whistle a toothless old
solo. "These are our quiet nights," whispers M. de Clanci, to the Baynes ladies,
when the evening draws to an end. "Madame's Thursdays are, I promise ye, much
more fully attended." Good night, good night. A squeeze of a little hand, a
hearty hand-shake from papa and mamma, and Philip is striding through the dark
Elysian fields and over the Place of Concord to his lodgings in the Faubourg St.
Germain. Or, stay! what is that glowworm beaming by the wall opposite Madame de
Smolensk's house?��a glowworm that wafts an aromatic incense and odour? I do
believe it is Mr. Philip's cigar. And he is watching, watching at a window by
which a slim figure flits now and again. Then darkness falls on the little
window. The sweet eyes are closed. Oh, blessings, blessings be upon them! The
stars shine overhead. And homeward stalks Mr. Firmin, talking to himself, and
brandishing a great stick.
I wish that poor Madame Smolensk could sleep as well as the people in her house.
But care, with the cold feet, gets under the coverlid, and says, "Here I am; you
know that bill is coming due to-morrow." Ah, atra cura! can't you leave the poor
thing a little quiet? Hasn't she had work enough all day?
CHAPTER IV. COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.
We beg the gracious reader to remember that Mr. Philip's business at Paris was
only with a weekly London paper as yet; and hence that he had on his hands a
great deal of leisure. He could glance over the state of Europe; give the latest
news from the salons, imparted to him, I do believe, for the most part, by some
brother hireling scribes; be present at all the theatres by deputy; and smash
Louis Philippe or Messieurs Guizot and Thiers in a few easily turned paragraphs,
which cost but a very few hours' labour to that bold and rapid pen. A wholesome
though humiliating thought it must be to great and learned public writers, that
their eloquent sermons are but for the day; and that, having read what the
philosophers say on Tuesday or Wednesday, we think about their yesterday's
sermons or essays no more. A score of years hence, men will read the papers of
1861 for the occurrences narrated��births, marriages, bankruptcies, elections,
murders, deaths, and so forth; and not for the leading articles. "Though there
were some of my letters," Mr. Philip would say, in after times, "that I fondly
fancied the world would not willingly let die. I wanted to have them or see them
reprinted in a volume, but I could find no publisher willing to undertake the
risk. A fond being, who fancies there is genius in everything I say or write,
would have had me reprint my letters to the Pall Mall Gazette; but I was too
timid, or she, perhaps, was too confident. The letters never were republished.
Let them pass." They have passed. And he sighs, in mentioning this circumstance;
and I think tries to persuade himself, rather than others, that he is an
unrecognized genius.
"And then, you know," he pleads, "I was in love, sir, and spending all my days
at Omphale's knees. I didn't do justice to my powers. If I had had a daily
paper, I still think I might have made a good public writer; and that I had the
stuff in me��the stuff in me, sir!"
The truth is that, if he had had a daily paper, and ten times as much work as
fell to his lot, Mr. Philip would have found means of pursuing his inclination,
as he ever through life has done. The being, whom a young man wishes to see, he
The Adventures of Philip Page 35
