dies, unless Lord Campion leaves the money to the convent where his
daughter is--and, of the other families, who is there? I made every
inquiry purposely--that is, of course, one is anxious to know about the
Catholics as about one's own people: and little Mr. Rood, who was one of
my poor brother Steyne's lawyers, told me there is not one young man of
that party at this moment who can be called a desirable person. Be very
civil to Madame de Florac; she sees some of the old legitimists, and you
know I am brouillee with that party of late years."
"There is the Marquis de Montluc, who has a large fortune for France,"
said Ethel, gravely; "he has a humpback, but he is very spiritual.
Monsieur de Cadillan paid me some compliments the other night, and even
asked George Barnes what my dot was, He is a widower, and has a wig and
two daughters. Which do you think would be the greatest encumbrance,
grandmamma,--a humpback, or a wig and two daughters? I like Madame de
Florac; for the sake of the borough, I must try and like poor Madame de
Moncontour, and I will go and see them whenever you please."
So Ethel went to see Madame de Florac. She was very kind to Madame de
Preville's children, Madame de Florac's grandchildren; she was gay and
gracious with Madame de Moncontour. She went again and again to the Hotel
de Florac, not caring for Lady Kew's own circle of statesmen and
diplomatists, Russian, and Spanish, and French, whose talk about the
courts of Europe,--who was in favour at St. Petersburg, and who was in
disgrace at Schoenbrunn,--naturally did not amuse the lively young
person. The goodness of Madame de Florac's life, the tranquil grace and
melancholy kindness with which the French lady received her, soothed and
pleased Miss Ethel. She came and reposed in Madame de Florac's quiet
chamber, or sate in the shade in the sober old garden of her hotel; away
from all the trouble and chatter of the salons, the gossip of the
embassies, the fluttering ceremonial of the Parisian ladies' visits in
their fine toilettes, the fadaises of the dancing dandies, and the
pompous mysteries of the old statesmen who frequented her grandmother's
apartment. The world began for her at night; when she went in the train
of the old Countess from hotel to hotel, and danced waltz after waltz
with Prussian and Neapolitan secretaries, with princes' officers of
ordonnance,--with personages even more lofty very likely,--for the court
of the Citizen King was then in its splendour; and there must surely have
been a number of nimble young royal highnesses who would like to dance
with such a beauty as Miss Newcome. The Marquis of Farintosh had a share
in these polite amusements. His English conversation was not brilliant as
yet, although his French was eccentric; but at the court balls, whether
he appeared in his uniform of the Scotch Archers, or in his native
Glenlivat tartar there certainly was not in his own or the public
estimation a handsomer young nobleman in Paris that season. It has been
said that he was greatly improved in dancing; and, for a young man of his
age, his whiskers were really extraordinarily large and curly.
Miss Newcome, out of consideration for her grandmother's strange
antipathy to him, did not inform Lady Kew that a young gentleman by the
name of Clive occasionally came to visit the Hotel de Florac. At first,
with her French education, Madame de Florac never would have thought of
allowing the cousins to meet in her house; but with the English it was
different. Paul assured her that in the English chateaux, les meess
walked for entire hours with the young men, made parties of the fish,
mounted to horse with them, the whole with the permission of the mothers.
"When I was at Newcome, Miss Ethel rode with me several times," Paul
said; "a preuve that we went to visit an old relation of the family, who
adores Clive and his father." When Madame de Florac questioned her son
about the young Marquis to whom it was said Ethel was engaged, Florac
flouted the idea. "Engaged! This young Marquis is engaged to the Theatre
des Varietes, my mother. He laughs at the notion of an engagement." When
one charged him with it of late at the club; and asked how Mademoiselle
Louqsor--she is so tall, that they call her the Louqsor--she is an
Odalisque Obelisque, ma mere; when one asked how the Louqsor would pardon
his pursuit of Miss Newcome, my Ecossois permitted himself to say in full
club, that it was Miss Newcome pursued him,--that nymph, that Diane, that
charming and peerless young creature! On which, as the others laughed,
and his friend Monsieur Walleye applauded, I dared to say in my turn,
"Monsieur le Marquis, as a young man, not familiar with our language, you
have said what is not true, milor, and therefore luckily not mischievous.
I have the honour to count of my friends the parents of the young lady of
whom you have spoken. You never could have intended to say that a young
miss who lives under the guardianship of her parents, and is obedient to
them, whom you meet in society all the nights, and at whose door your
carriage is to be seen every day, is capable of that with which you
charge her so gaily. These things say themselves, monsieur, in the
coulisses of the theatre, of women from whom you learn our language; not
of young persons pure and chaste, Monsieur de Farintosh! Learn to respect
your compatriots; to honour youth and innocence everywhere, monsieur! and
when you forget yourself, permit one who might be your father to point
where you are wrong."
"And what did he answer?" asked the Countess.
"I attended myself to a soufflet," replied Florac; "but his reply was
much more agreeable. The young insulary, with many blushes and a gros
juron, as his polite way is, said he had not wished to say a word against
that person. 'Of whom the name,' cried I, 'ought never to be spoken in
these places.' Herewith our little dispute ended."
So, occasionally, Mr. Clive had the good luck to meet with his cousin at
the Hotel de Florac, where, I dare say, all the inhabitants wished he
should have his desire regarding this young lady. The Colonel had talked
early to Madame de Florac about this wish of his life, impossible then to
gratify, because Ethel was engaged to Lord Kew. Clive, in the fulness of
his heart, imparted his passion to Florac, and in answer to Paul's offer
to himself, had shown the Frenchman that kind letter in which his father
bade him carry aid to "Leonore de Florac's son," in case he should need
it. The case was all clear to the lively Paul. "Between my mother and
your good Colonel there must have been an affair of the heart in the
early days during the emigration." Clive owned his father had told him as
much, at least that he himself had been attached to Mademoiselle de
Blois. "It is for that that her heart yearns towards thee, that I have
felt myself entrained toward thee since I saw thee"--Clive momentarily
expected to be kissed again. "Tell thy father that I feel--am touched by
his goodness with an eternal gratitude, and love every one that loves my
mother." As far as wishes
went, these two were eager promoters of Clive's
little love-affair; and Madame la Princesse became equally not less
willing. Clive's good looks and good-nature had had their effects upon
that good-natured woman, and he was as great a favourite with her as with
her husband. And thus it happened that when Miss Ethel came to pay her
visit, and sate with Madame de Florac and her grandchildren in the
garden, Mr. Newcome would sometimes walk up the avenue there, and salute
the ladies.
If Ethel had not wanted to see him, would she have come? Yes; she used to
say she was going to Madame de Preville's, not Madame de Florac's, and
would insist, I have no doubt, that it was Madame de Preville whom she
went to see (whose husband was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, a
Conseiller d'etat; or other French bigwig), and that she had no idea of
going to meet Clive, or that he was more than a casual acquaintance at
the Hotel de Florac. There was no part of her conduct in all her life,
which this lady, when it was impugned, would defend more strongly than
this intimacy at the Hotel de Florac. It is not with this I quarrel
especially. My fair young readers, who have seen a half-dozen of seasons,
can you call to mind the time when you had such a friendship for Emma
Tomkins, that you were always at the Tomkins's, and notes were constantly
passing between your house and hers? When her brother, Paget Tomkins,
returned to India, did not your intimacy with Emma fall off? If your
younger sister is not in the room, I know you will own as much to me. I
think you are always deceiving yourselves and other people. I think the
motive you put forward is very often not the real one; though you will
confess, neither to yourself, nor to any human being, what the real
motive is. I think that what you desire you pursue, and are as selfish in
your way as your bearded fellow-creatures are. And as for the truth being
in you, of all the women in a great acquaintance, I protest there are
but--never mind. A perfectly honest woman, a woman who never flatters,
who never manages, who never cajoles, who never conceals, who never uses
her eyes, who never speculates on the effect which she produces, who
never is conscious of unspoken admiration, what a monster, I say, would
such a female be! Miss Hopkins, you have been a coquette since you were a
year old; you worked on your papa's friends in the nurse's arms by the
fascination of your lace frock and pretty new sash and shoes; when you
could just toddle, you practised your arts upon other children in the
square, poor little lambkins sporting among the daisies; and nunc in
ovilia, mox in reluctantes dracones, proceeding from the lambs to
reluctant dragoons, you tried your arts upon Captain Paget Tomkins, who
behaved so ill, and went to India without--without making those proposals
which of course you never expected. Your intimacy was with Emma. It has
cooled. Your sets are different. The Tomkins's are not quite etc. etc.
You believe Captain Tomkins married a Miss O'Grady, etc. etc. Ah, my
pretty, my sprightly Miss Hopkins, be gentle in your judgment of your
neighbours!
CHAPTER XLVII
Contains two or three Acts of a Little Comedy
All this story is told by one, who, if he was not actually present at the
circumstances here narrated, yet had information concerning them, and
could supply such a narrative of facts and conversations as is, indeed,
not less authentic than the details we have of other histories. How can I
tell the feelings in a young lady's mind; the thoughts in a young
gentleman's bosom?--As Professor Owen or Professor Agassiz takes a
fragment of a bone, and builds an enormous forgotten monster out of it,
wallowing in primeval quagmires, tearing down leaves and branches of
plants that flourished thousands of years ago, and perhaps may be coal by
this time--so the novelist puts this and that together: from the
footprint finds the foot; from the foot, the brute who trod on it; from
the brute, the plant he browsed on, the marsh in which he swam--and thus
in his humble way a physiologist too, depicts the habits, size,
appearance of the beings whereof he has to treat;--traces this slimy
reptile through the mud, and describes his habits filthy and rapacious;
prods down this butterfly with a pin, and depicts his beautiful coat and
embroidered waistcoat; points out the singular structure of yonder more
important animal, the megatherium of his history.
Suppose then, in the quaint old garden of the Hotel de Florac, two young
people are walking up and down in an avenue of lime-trees, which are
still permitted to grow in that ancient place. In the centre of that
avenue is a fountain, surmounted by a Triton so grey and moss-eaten, that
though he holds his conch to his swelling lips, curling his tail in the
arid basin, his instrument has had a sinecure for at least fifty years;
and did not think fit even to play when the Bourbons, in whose time he
was erected, came back from their exile. At the end of the lime-tree
avenue is a broken-nosed damp Faun, with a marble panpipe, who pipes to
the spirit ditties which I believe never had any tune. The perron of the
hotel is at the other end of the avenue; a couple of Caesars on either
side of the door-window, from which the inhabitants of the hotel issue
into the garden--Caracalla frowning over his mouldy shoulder at Nerva, on
to whose clipped hair the roofs of the grey chateau have been dribbling
for ever so many long years. There are more statues gracing this noble
place. There is Cupid, who has been at the point of kissing Psyche this
half-century at least, though the delicious event has never come off,
through all those blazing summers and dreary winters: there is Venus and
her Boy under the damp little dome of a cracked old temple. Through the
alley of this old garden, in which their ancestors have disported in
hoops and powder, Monsieur de Florac's chair is wheeled by St. Jean, his
attendant; Madame de Preville's children trot about, and skip, and play
at cache-cache. The R. P. de Florac (when at home) paces up and down and
meditates his sermons; Madame de Florac sadly walks sometimes to look at
her roses; and Clive and Ethel Newcome are marching up and down; the
children, and their bonne of course being there, jumping to and fro; and
Madame de Florac, having just been called away to Monsieur le Comte,
whose physician has come to see him.
Ethel says, "How charming and odd this solitude is: and how pleasant to
hear the voices of the children playing in the neighbouring Convent
garden," of which they can see the new chapel rising over the trees.
Clive remarks that "the neighbouring hotel has curiously changed its
destination. One of the members of the Directory had it; and, no doubt,
in the groves of its garden, Madame Tallien, and Madame Recamier, and
Madame Beauharnais have danced under the lamps. Then a Marshal of the
Empire inhabited it. Then it was restored to its legitimate owner,
Monsieur le Marquis de Bricquabracque, whose descendants, having a
lawsuit about t
he Bricquabracque succession, sold the hotel to the
Convent."
After some talk about nuns, Ethel says, "There were convents in England.
She often thinks she would like to retire to one;" and she sighs as if
her heart were in that scheme.
Clive, with a laugh, says, "Yes. If you could retire after the season,
when you were very weary of the balls, a convent would be very nice. At
Rome he had seen San Pietro in Montorio and Sant Onofrio, that delightful
old place where Tasso died: people go and make a retreat there. In the
ladies' convents, the ladies do the same thing--and he doubts whether
they are much more or less wicked after their retreat, than gentlemen and
ladies in England or France."
Ethel. Why do you sneer at all faith? Why should not a retreat do people
good? Do you suppose the world is so satisfactory, that those who are in
it never wish for a while to leave it'd (She heaves a sigh and looks down
towards a beautiful new dress of many flounces, which Madame de
Flouncival, the great milliner, has sent her home that very day.)
Clive. I do not know what the world is, except from afar off. I am like
the Peri who looks into Paradise and sees angels within it. I live in
Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square: which is not within the gates of
Paradise. I take the gate to be somewhere in Davies Street, leading out
of Oxford Street into Grosvenor Square. There's another gate in Hay Hill:
and another in Bruton Street, Bond----
Ethel. Don't be a goose.
Clive. Why not? It is as good to be a goose, as to be a lady--no, a
gentleman of fashion. Suppose I were a Viscount, an Earl, a Marquis, a
Duke, would you say Goose? No, you would say Swan.
Ethel. Unkind and unjust!--ungenerous to make taunts which common people
make: and to repeat to me those silly sarcasms which your low Radical
literary friends are always putting in their books! Have I ever made any
difference to you? Would I not sooner see you than the fine people? Would
I talk with you, or with the young dandies most willingly? Are we not of
the same blood, Clive; and of all the grandees I see about, can there be
a grander gentleman than your dear old father? You need not squeeze my
hand so.--Those little imps are look--that has nothing to do with the
question. Viens, Leonore! Tu connois bien, monsieur, n'est-ce pas? qui te
fait de si jolis dessins?
Leonore. Ah, oui! Vous m'en ferez toujours, n'est-ce pas Monsieur Clive?
des chevaux, et puis des petites filles avec leurs gouvernantes, et puis
des maisons--et puis--et puis des maisons encore--ou est bonne maman?
[Exit little LEONORE down an alley.
Ethel. Do you remember when we were children, and you used to make
drawings for us? I have some now that you did--in my geography book,
which I used to read and read with Miss Quigley.
Clive. I remember all about our youth, Ethel.
Ethel. Tell me what you remember?
Clive. I remember one of the days, when I first saw you, I had been
reading the Arabian Nights at school--and you came in in a bright dress
of shot silk, amber, and blue--and I thought you were like that
fairy-princess who came out of the crystal box--because----
Ethel. Because why?
Clive. Because I always thought that fairy somehow must be the most
beautiful creature in all the world--that is "why and because." Do not
make me Mayfair curtsies. You know whether you are good-looking or not:
and how long I have thought you so. I remember when I thought I would
like to be Ethel's knight, and that if there was anything she would have
me do, I would try and achieve it in order to please her. I remember when
I was so ignorant I did not know there was any difference in rank between
us.
Ethel. Ah, Clive!
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