Lady Cecilia was conducted to the drawing-room by the Italian valet, who informed her that Mr. Greenwood would wait upon her the moment he had dismissed the charity children.
Lafleur, in the mean time threw open the door of the mansion, and admitted the procession into the spacious hall, after having kept the poor creatures shivering in the cold for nearly a quarter of an hour. The beadle took his station upon the steps, with awful dignity, and watched the boys and girls as they defiled past him in military order into the hall. It was very evident from the timid glances which the little scholars cast towards the countenance of this functionary, that they believed him to be one of the most important personages on the face of the earth; and perhaps they were even perplexed to decide, in their own minds, whether the parish beadle whom they saw before them, or Mr. Greenwood, M.P., whom they were about to see, was the greater man of the two.
At length the procession had entirely cleared the threshold of the mansion, and then only did the beadle enter. He doffed his enormous cocked hat out of respect to the owner of the dwelling in which he now found himself, and made his long staff ring upon the marble pavement of the hall with a din that electrified the children and called looks of solemn importance to the countenances of the schoolmaster and mistress.
In a few moments a side door opened, and Mr. Greenwood appeared.
The beadle struck his stick upon the hall floor once more; and the children, duly tutored to obey the signal, saluted the great man, the girls with low curtseys, and the boys by doffing their muffin caps, bobbing their heads forward, and kicking back their left legs.
“Well, Mr. Muffles,” said the Member of Parliament to the beadle, with one of his usual affable smiles; “brought your little family—eh?”
“These children, sir,” responded Muffles in a self-sufficient and important tone, glancing at the same time in a patronising manner upon the groups of juveniles around—“these children, sir, has come, as in dooty bounden, to hoffer up the hincense of their most gratefullest thanks to you, sir, as their kind paytron which supplied ’em with pea-soup, blankets, and religious tracts, to keep their bodies and souls both warm and comfortable, as one may say.”
“I am delighted, Mr. Muffles,” replied the Member of Parliament, in a most condescending manner, “to receive this little mark of gratitude on the part of those for whom I entertain a deep interest, and I am the more pleased because this visit on their part was quite spontaneous, and on mine totally unlooked for.”
Mr. Greenwood did not think it necessary to state his knowledge that the whole affair had been got up by Lafleur, in obedience to his own commands.
“Representing as I do,” continued Mr. Greenwood, “an enlightened, independent, and important constituency, I cannot do otherwise than feel interested in the welfare of the rising generation; and when I glance upon the happy countenances of these dear children, I thank God for having given me the means to contribute my mite towards the maintenance of the schools of the parish wherein I have the honour to reside.”
Mr. Muffles’ stick was here rapped upon the floor with tremendous violence; and the boys and girls immediately burst forth into shrill cries of “Hear! hear!”
When silence was once more restored, the beadle in due form presented the schoolmaster and school-mistress to Mr. Greenwood.
“This gen’leman, sir,” said the parish functionary, “is Mr. Twiggs, the parochial perceptor—as worthy a man, sir, as ever broke bread. He’s bin in his present sitivation thirteen year come Janivary—”
“Febivary, Mr. Muffles,” said the schoolmaster, mildly correcting the beadle.
“Oh! Febivary, be it, Mr. Twiggs?” exclaimed the parish authority. “And this, sir, is Mrs. Twiggs, a lady well known for her excellent qualities in teaching them blessed young gals, and taking care o’ their linen.”
“Delighted to see your scholars looking so well, Mr. Twiggs,” said Greenwood, bowing to the master: “quite charmed, Mrs. Twiggs, to behold the healthy and neat appearance of your girls,” he added, bowing to the mistress.
“Would you be kind enough, sir,” said Mr. Twiggs, in a meek and fawning tone, “to question any of them lads on any pint of edication?”
“Perhaps I might as well, Mr. Twiggs,” returned Greenwood; “in case I should ever have to allude to the subject in the House of Commons.”
The mere idea of any mention of the parochial school being made in Parliament, produced such an impression upon the beadle that he banged his staff most earnestly on the hall floor; and the children, taking it for a signal which they had been previously tutored to observe, again yelled forth “Hear! Hear!”
“Silence!” thundered Mr. Muffles; and the vociferations instantly ceased.
“Now, my boy,” said Mr. Greenwood, addressing the one who stood nearest to him, “I will ask you a question or two. What is your name?”
“Jem Blister, sir,” was the prompt reply.
“James Blister—eh? Well—who gave you that name?”[153]
“Father and mother, please, sir.”
“Blister, for shame!” ejaculated Mr. Twiggs, with a terrific frown: then, by way of prompting the lad, he said, “My Godfathers and—”
“My Godfathers and Godmother in my baptism,” hastily cried the boy, catching at the hint; and after a pause, he added, “I mean an outward and wisible sign of an inward—”
“Blister, I am raly ashamed of you!” again exclaimed Mr. Twiggs. “Stand back, sir; and let the boy behind you stand for’ard.”
Another urchin stepped forth from the rank, and stood, blushing up to his very hair, and fumbling about with his cap, in the presence of Mr. Greenwood.
“My good boy,” said the Member of Parliament, condescendingly patting him upon the head, “what is your name?”
“M. or N. as the case may be, please, sir,” replied the boy.[154]
“I should observe, sir,” said the schoolmaster, “that this lad only began his Catechism yesterday.”
“Oh very well, Mr. Twiggs,” exclaimed Greenwood: “that accounts for his answer! I will ask him something else, then. My good lad, who was Adam?”
“The fust man, sir.”
“Very good, my boy. And who was Eve?”
“The fust ’ooman, sir.”
“Very good indeed,” repeated Mr. Greenwood. “Now tell me what is the capital of England?”
“This boy is not in geography, sir,” said Mr. Twiggs. “He’s jest begun cyphering.”
“Oh very good. Can you say your multiplication table, my boy?”
“Twice one’s two; twice two’s three; twice three’s eight; twice four’s ten; twice five’s fourteen—”
The boy was rattling on at a furious pace, when the ominous voice of Mr. Twiggs ejaculated, “Garlick, I am ashamed of you!”
And Master Garlick began to cry most piteously.
“Come, it is not so bad, though,” said Mr. Greenwood, by way of soothing the discomfited schoolmaster and restoring the abashed beadle to confidence; “he evidently knows his Bible very well—and that is the essential.”
The Member of Parliament then delivered himself of a long harangue in favour of a sound religious education and in praise of virtue; and thus ended the solemn farce.
The great man bowed and withdrew: the beadle rapped his staff upon the floor; Lafleur opened the door; and the procession filed slowly out of the mansion.
Mr. Greenwood, having thus gone through a ceremony an account of which was to appear in the papers on the following morning, hurried up to the drawing-room where Lady Cecilia awaited him.
“My dear Cecilia,” he exclaimed, as he entered the room, “a thousand pardons for keeping you; but the fact is that the position in which an intelligent and independent constituency has placed me, entails upon me duties—”
“A
truce to that absurdity with me,” interrupted the baronet’s wife, in a more peremptory tone than Mr. Greenwood had ever yet heard her use. “I am come according to appointment to settle a most unpleasant business. Here is my husband’s acknowledgment, drawn up as you desired: please to deliver up to me the bill.”
Mr. Greenwood ran his eye over the document, and appeared satisfied. He then drew forth the bill from his pocket-book, and handed it to Lady Cecilia.
There was a flush upon the lady’s delicately pale countenance; and her eyes sparkled with unusual vivacity. She was dressed in a very neat, but plain and simple manner; and Mr. Greenwood fancied that she had never seemed so interesting before.
As he delivered the bill into her keeping, he took her hand and endeavoured to convey it to his lips.
She drew back with an air of offended dignity, which would have well become a lady that had never surrendered herself to the pleasures of an illicit love.
“No, Mr. Greenwood,” she said, in a firm, and even haughty tone: “all that is ended between you and me. You are a heartless man, who cannot appreciate the warmth with which a confiding woman yields herself up to you;—you have treated me—the daughter of a peer—like a pensioned mistress. But I let that now pass:—I have made you acquainted with the nature of my thoughts—and I am satisfied.”
“I am at a loss to understand how I should have deserved these harsh words, Cecilia,” replied Greenwood, with a somewhat supercilious smile; “but perhaps my inability to supply you with the means of gratifying your extravagances has given you offence.”
“Your cool indifference of late has indeed given me a bitter lesson,” said Lady Cecilia.
“And yet I manifested every disposition to serve you, madam,” rejoined Greenwood haughtily, “when I consented to compromise your husband’s felony.”
“Yes—you generously abandoned your claim to a thousand pounds,” exclaimed Cecilia, with cutting irony, “in order to hush up an intrigue with the wife of the man whom you had inveigled into your net. But think not, Mr. Greenwood, that I attempt to justify my husband’s conduct: I know him to be a heartless—a bad—an unprincipled man; and yet Mr. Greenwood, I do not conceive that you would shine the more resplendently by being placed in contrast with him. One word more. Had you refused to deliver up that bill, I was prepared to pay it. Some unknown friend had heard of this transaction—heaven alone knows how; and that friend forwarded last evening the means wherewith to liquidate this debt. Here is the letter which contained a Bank-note for a thousand pounds: it fell into my hands, and my husband knows naught concerning it;—can you say whose writing that is?”
Greenwood glanced hastily at the letter, and exclaimed, “Yes—I know that writing well—Mrs. Arlington is your husband’s generous friend!”
“Mrs. Arlington!” exclaimed Cecilia: “Oh!—now I recollect that rumour points to that woman as having once been my husband’s mistress.”
“The same,” said Greenwood, struck by this noble act on the part of the fair one whom he himself had first seduced from the paths of virtue.
“It would now be difficult to decide,” observed Cecilia, in a tone of profound contempt, “which has acted the more noble part—the late mistress of his Rupert Harborough, or the late lover of his wife.”
Greenwood only answered with a satirical curl of the lip.
Lady Cecilia rose from her seat, bowed coldly to the capitalist, and withdrew.
Thus terminated the amours of the man of the world and the lady of fashion—ending, as such illicit loves usually do, in a quarrel.
But the reader must not suppose that the same sentiments of pride which had thus induced Lady Cecilia to break off abruptly a connexion which her paramour had been for some time dissolving by degrees, influenced her in the use to which she appropriated the handsome sum supplied for an especial purpose by Mrs. Arlington. The lady knew no compunction in this respect, and she therefore devoted the thousand pounds so generously forwarded by her husband’s late mistress, to her own wants!
* * * * * * *
The Italian valet had overheard the entire conversation between Lady Cecilia Harborough and Mr. Greenwood, which we have just described.
In the course of the day the whole details of that interview were communicated to Mrs. Arlington, who thus learnt that Lady Cecilia had intercepted the money intended for Sir Rupert Harborough, and had settled the forged bill without being compelled to disburse it.
CHAPTER XCVII.
ANOTHER NEW YEAR’S DAY.
IT was the 1st of January, 1840.
The tide of Time rolls on with the same unvarying steadiness of motion, wearing off the asperities of barbarism, as the great flood of ocean smooths the sharp edges of rugged rocks.
But as the seasons glide away, vainly may we endeavour to throw a veil upon the past;—vainly do we lament, when Winter comes, that our Spring-dreams should be faded and gone, too beautiful to endure;—vainly, vainly do we pray that the waves of a Lethean sea may overwhelm the memories of those years when Time cast flowers from his brow, and diamonds from his wing!
Time looks down upon the world from the heights of the Pyramids of Egypt; and, as he surveys the myriad cities of the universe swarming with life,—marks the mighty armies of all states, ready to exterminate and kill,—views the navies of great powers riding over every sea,—as he beholds all these, Time chuckles, for he knows that they are his own!
For the day must come when the Pyramids themselves, the all but immortal children of antiquity, shall totter and fall; and Time shall triumph over even these.
The strongest edifices crumble into dust, and the power of the mightiest nations fritters into shreds, beneath the hand of Time.
The glories of Sesostris are now a vague dream—the domination of Greece and Rome has become an uncertain vision: the heroes of the Crusades have long since mouldered in the earth;—the crescent of the Ottomans menaces Christendom no more: the armadas of Spain are extinct;—the thrones that Napoleon raised are cast down: of the millions that he led to conquest, during his meteor-like career, what numbers have left this busy scene for ever; and how varied are the climes in which they have found their graves!
Oh, Time! what is there that can strive with thee—thou that art the expression of the infinite existence of God himself!
Alas! if Time were a spirit endowed with intellect to comprehend, and feelings to sympathise, how would he sorrow over the woes of that human existence, which has now occupied nearly sixty centuries!
Year after year rolls away; and yet how slowly does civilization accomplish its task of improving the condition of the sons and daughters of toil.
For in the present day, as it was in the olden time, the millions labour to support the few, and the few continue to monopolize the choicest fruits of the earth.
The rights of labour are denied; and the privileges of birth and wealth are dominant.
And ever, when the millions, bowed down by care, and crushed with incessant hardships, raise the voice of anguish to their taskmasters, the cry is, “Toil! toil!”
And when the poor labourer, with the sweat standing in large drops upon his brow, points to his half-starved wife and little ones, and demands that increase of his wages which will enable him to feed them adequately, and clothe them comfortably, the only response that meets his ears is still, “Toil! toil!”
And when the mechanic, pale and emaciated, droops over his loom, and in a faint tone beseeches that his miserable pittance may be turned into a fair remuneration for that hard and unceasing work which builds up the fortunes of his employer, the answer to his pathetic prayer is, “Toil! toil!”
And when the miner, who spends his best days in the bowels of the earth, hewing the hard mineral in dark subterranean caves at the peril of his life, and in positions which cramp his limbs, contract his chest, and early
prostrate his energies beyond relief,—when he exalts his voice from those hideous depths, and demands the settlement of labour’s rights upon a just basis, the only echo to his petition is, “Toil! toil!”
Yes—it is ever “Toil! toil!” for the millions, while the few repose on downy couches, feed upon the luxuries of the land and water, and move from place to place in sumptuous equipages!
It was the 1st of January, 1840.
Another New Year’s Day—commemorated with feasting by those who had no reason to repine, but marked as the opening of another weary epoch of care and sorrow by those who had nothing for which to be grateful, either to heaven or to man!
The first day of January, 1840, was inclement and severe. The air was piercing cold, and the rain fell in torrents. The streets of the great metropolis were swept by a wintery wind that chased the poor houseless wanderers beneath the coverings of arches and doorways, and sent the shivering mendicants to implore an asylum at the workhouse.
It was evening; and the lamps diffused but an uncertain light in the great thoroughfares. The courts and alleys of the poor neighbourhoods were enveloped in almost total darkness; for every shutter was closed, and where there were no shutters, blinds were drawn down, or rags were stretched across the windows, to expel the bitter cold.
The Mysteries of London Volume 1 Page 100
