The Wolves and the Lamb

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  MRS. P.—Darling, dearest child!

  GEORGE [his mouth full].—I won't give 'em mine: but they can have another pot, you know. You have always got a basket with you, Mrs. Prior. I know you have. You had it that day you took the cold fowl.

  MRS. P.—For the poor blind black man! oh, how thankful he was!

  GEORGE.—I don't know whether it was for a black man. Mary, get us another pot of marmalade.

  MARY.—I don't know, Master George.

  GEORGE.—I WILL have another pot of marmalade. If you don't, I'll—I'll smash everything—I will.

  BELLA.—Oh, you naughty, rude boy!

  GEORGE.—Hold YOUR tongue! I WILL have it. Mary shall go and get it.

  MRS. P.—Do humor him, Mary; and I'm sure my poor children at home will be the better for it.

  GEORGE.—There's your basket! now put this cake in, and this pat of butter, and this sugar. Hurray, hurray! Oh, what jolly fun! Tell Adolphus and Amelia I sent it to them—tell 'em they shall never want for anything as long as George Kicklebury Milliken, Esq., can give it 'em. Did Adolphus like my gray coat that I didn't want?

  MISS P.—You did not give him your new gray coat?

  GEORGE.—Don't you speak to me; I'm going to school—I'm not going to have no more governesses soon.

  MRS. P.—Oh, my dear Master George, what a nice coat it is, and how well my poor boy looked in it!

  MISS P.—Don't, mamma! I pray and entreat you not to take the things!

  Enter JOHN from dining-room with a tray.

  JOHN.—Some cream, some jelly, a little champagne, Miss Prior; I thought you might like some.

  GEORGE.—Oh, jolly! give us hold of the jelly! give us a glass of champagne.

  JOHN.—I will not give you any.

  GEORGE.—I'll smash every glass in the room if you don't; I'll cut my fingers; I'll poison myself—there! I'll eat all this sealing-wax if you don't, and it's rank poison, you know it is.

  MRS. P.—My dear Master George! [Exit JOHN.]

  GEORGE.—Ha, ha! I knew you'd give it me; another boy taught me that.

  BELLA.—And a very naughty, rude boy.

  GEORGE.—He, he, he! hold your tongue Miss! And said he always got wine so; and so I used to do it to my poor mamma, Mrs. Prior. Usedn't to like mamma much.

  BELLA.—Oh, you wicked boy!

  GEORGY.—She usedn't to see us much. She used to say I tried her nerves: what's nerves, Mrs. Prior? Give us some more champagne! Will have it. Ha, ha, ha! ain't it jolly? Now I'll go out and have a run in the garden. [Runs into garden].

  MRS. P.—And you, my dear?

  BELLA.—I shall go and resume the perusal of the "Pilgrim's Progress," which my grandpapa, Mr. Bonnington, sent me. [Exit ARABELLA.]

  MISS P.—How those children are spoilt! Goodness; what can I do? If I correct one, he flies to grandmamma Kicklebury; if I speak to another, she appeals to grandmamma Bonnington. When I was alone with them, I had them in something like order. Now, between the one grandmother and the other, the children are going to ruin, and so would the house too, but that Howell—that odd, rude, but honest and intelligent creature, I must say—keeps it up. It is wonderful how a person in his rank of life should have instructed himself so. He really knows—I really think he knows more than I do myself.

  MRS. P.—Julia dear!

  MISS P.—What is it, mamma?

  MRS. P.—Your little sister wants some underclothing sadly, Julia dear, and poor Adolphus's shoes are quite worn out.

  MISS P.—I thought so; I have given you all I could, mamma.

  MRS. P.—Yes, my love! you are a good love, and generous, heaven knows, to your poor old mother who has seen better days. If we had not wanted, would I have ever allowed you to be a governess—a poor degraded governess? If that brute O'Reilly who lived on our second floor had not behaved so shamefully wicked to you, and married Miss Flack, the singer, might you not have been Editress of the Champion of Liberty at this very moment, and had your Opera box every night? [She drinks champagne while talking, and excites herself.]

  MISS P.—Don't take that, mamma.

  MRS. P.—Don't take it? why, it costs nothing; Milliken can afford it. Do you suppose I get champagne every day? I might have had it as a girl when I first married your father, and we kep' our gig and horse, and lived at Clapham, and had the best of everything. But the coal-trade is not what it was, Julia. We met with misfortunes, Julia, and we went into poverty: and your poor father went into the Bench for twenty-three months—two year all but a month he did—and my poor girl was obliged to dance at the "Coburg Theatre"—yes you were, at ten shillings a week, in the Oriental ballet of "The Bulbul and the Rose:" you were, my poor darling child.

  MISS P.—Hush, hush, mamma!

  MRS. P.—And we kep' a lodging-house in Bury Street, St. James's, which your father's brother furnished for us, who was an extensive oil-merchant. He brought you up; and afterwards he quarrelled with my poor James, Robert Prior did, and he died, not leaving us a shilling. And my dear eldest boy went into a wine-merchant's office: and my poor darling Julia became a governess, when you had had the best of education at Clapham; you had, Julia. And to think that you were obliged, my blessed thing, to go on in the Oriental ballet of "The Rose and the Bul—"

  MISS P.—Mamma, hush, hush! forget that story.

  Enter Page from dining-room.

  PAGE.—Miss Prior! please, the ladies are coming from the dining-room. Mrs. B. have had her two glasses of port, and her ladyship is now a-telling the story about the Prince of Wales when she danced with him at Canton House. [Exit Page.]

  MISS P.—Quick, quick! There, take your basket! Put on your bonnet, and good-night, mamma. Here, here is a half sovereign and three shillings; it is all the money I have in the world; take it, and buy the shoes for Adolphus.

  MRS. P.—And the underclothing, my love—little Amelia's underclothing?

  MISS P.—We will see about it. Good-night [kisses her]. Don't be seen here,—Lady K. doesn't like it.

  Enter Gentlemen and Ladies from dining-room.

  LADY K.—We follow the Continental fashion. We don't sit after dinner, Captain Touchit.

  CAPTAIN T.—Confound the Continental fashion! I like to sit a little while after dinner [aside].

  MRS. B.—So does my dear Mr. Bonnington, Captain Touchit. He likes a little port-wine after dinner.

  TOUCHIT.—I'm not surprised at it, ma am.

  MRS. B.—When did you say your son was coming, Lady Kicklebury?

  LADY K.—My Clarence! He will be here immediately, I hope, the dear boy. You know my Clarence?

  TOUCHIT.—Yes, ma'am.

  LADY K.—And like him, I'm sure, Captain Touchit! Everybody does like Clarence Kicklebury.

  TOUCHIT.—The confounded young scamp! I say, Horace, do you like your brother-in-law?

  MILLIKEN.—Well—I—I can't say—I—like him—in fact, I don't. But that's no reason why his mother shouldn't. [During this, HOWELL, preceded by BULKELEY, hands round coffee. The garden without has darkened, as if evening. BULKELEY is going away without offering coffee to Miss PRIOR. JOHN stamps on his foot, and points to her. Captain TOUCHIT, laughing, goes up and talks to her now the servants are gone.]

  MRS. B.—Horace! I must tell you that the waste at your table is shocking. What is the need of opening all this wine? You and Lady Kicklebury were the only persons who took champagne.

  TOUCHIT.—I never drink it—never touch the rubbish! Too old a stager!

  LADY K.—Port, I think, is your favorite, Mrs. Bonnington?

  MRS. B.—My dear lady, I do not mean that you should not have champagne, if you like. Pray, pray, don't be angry! But why on earth, for you, who take so little, and Horace, who only drinks it to keep you company, should not Howell open a pint instead of a great large bottle?

  LADY K.—Oh, Howell! Howell! We must not mention Howell, my dear Mrs. Bonnington. Howell is faultless! Howell has the keys of everything! Howell is not to be controlled in anything! Howell is to
be at liberty to be rude to my servant!

  MILLIKEN.—Is that all? I am sure I should have thought your man was big enough to resent any rudeness from poor little Howell.

  LADY K.—Horace! Excuse me for saying that you don't know—the—the class of servant to whom Bulkeley belongs. I had him, as a great favor, from Lord Toddleby. That class of servant is accustomed generally not to go out single.

  MILLIKEN.—Unless they are two behind a carriage-perch they pine away, as one love-bird does without his mate!

  LADY K.—No doubt! no doubt! I only say you are not accustomed here—in this kind of establishment, you understand—to that class of—

  MRS. B.—Lady Kicklebury! is my son's establishment not good enough for any powdered monster in England? Is the house of a British merchant—?

  LADY K.—My dear creature! my dear creature! it IS the house of a British merchant, and a very comfortable house.

  MRS. B.—Yes, as you find it.

  LADY K.—Yes, as I find it, when I come to take care of my departed, angel's children, Mrs. Bonnington—[pointing to picture]—of THAT dear seraph's orphans, Mrs. Bonnington. YOU cannot. You have other duties—other children—a husband at home in delicate health, who—

  MRS. B.—Lady Kicklebury, no one shall say I don't take care of my dear husband!

  MILLIKEN.—My dear mother! My dear Lady Kicklebury! [To T., who has come forward.] They spar so every night they meet, Touchit. Ain't it hard?

  LADY K.—I say you DO take care of Mr. Bonnington, Mrs. Bonnington, my dear creature! and that is why you can't attend to Horace. And as he is of a very easy temper—except sometimes with his poor Arabella's mother—he allows all his tradesmen to cheat him, all his servants to cheat him, Howell to be rude to everybody—to me amongst other people, and why not to my servant Bulkeley, with whom Lord Toddleby's groom of the chambers gave me the very highest character.

  MRS. B.—I'm surprised that noblemen HAVE grooms in their chambers. I should think they were much better in the stables. I am sure I always think so when we dine with Doctor Clinker. His man does bring such a smell of the stable with him.

  LADY K.—He! he! you mistake, my dearest creature! Your poor mother mistakes, my good Horace. You have lived in a quiet and most respectable sphere—but not—not—

  MRS. B.—Not what, Lady Kicklebury? We have lived at Richmond twenty years—in my late husband's time—when we saw a great deal of company, and when this dear Horace was a dear boy at Westminster School. And we have PAID for everything we have had for twenty years, and we have owed not a penny to any TRADESMAN, though we mayn't have had POWDERED FOOTMEN SIX FEET HIGH, who were impertinent to all the maids in the place—Don't! I WILL speak, Horace—but servants who loved us, and who lived in our families.

  MILLIKEN.—Mamma, now, my dear, good old mother! I am sure Lady Kicklebury meant no harm.

  LADY K.—Me! my dear Horace! harm! What harm could I mean?

  MILLIKEN.—Come! let us have a game at whist. Touchit, will you make a fourth? They go on so every night almost. Ain't it a pity, now?

  TOUCHIT.—Miss Prior generally plays, doesn't she?

  MILLIKEN.—And a very good player, too. But I thought you might like it.

  TOUCHIT.—Well, not exactly. I don't like sixpenny points, Horace, or quarrelling with old dragons about the odd trick. I will go and smoke a cigar on the terrace, and contemplate the silver Thames, the darkling woods, the starry hosts of heaven. I—I like smoking better than playing whist. [MILLIKEN rings bell.]

  MILLIKEN.—Ah, George! you're not fit for domestic felicity.

  TOUCHIT.—No, not exactly.

  HOWELL enters.

  MILLIKEN.—Lights and a whist-table. Oh, I see you bring 'em. You know everything I want. He knows everything I want, Howell does. Let us cut. Miss Prior, you and I are partners!

  ACT II.

  SCENE.—As before.

  LADY K.—Don't smoke, you naughty boy. I don't like it. Besides, it will encourage your brother-in-law to smoke.

  CLARENCE K.—Anything to oblige you, I'm sure. But can't do without it, mother; it's good for my health. When I was in the Plungers, our doctor used to say, "You ought never to smoke more than eight cigars a day"—an order, you know, to do it—don't you see?

  LADY K.—Ah, my child! I am very glad you are not with those unfortunate people in the East.

  K.—So am I. Sold out just in time. Much better fun being here, than having the cholera at Scutari. Nice house, Milliken's. Snob, but good fellow—good cellar, doosid good cook. Really, that salmi yesterday,—couldn't have it better done at the "Rag" now. You have got into good quarters here, mother.

  LADY K.—The meals are very good, and the house is very good; the manners are not of the first order. But what can you expect of city people? I always told your poor dear sister, when she married Mr. Milliken, that she might look for everything substantial,—but not manners. Poor dear Arabella WOULD marry him.

  K.—Would! that is a good one, mamma! Why, you made her! It's a dozen years ago. But I recollect, when I came home from Eton, seeing her crying because Charley Tufton—

  LADY K.—Mr. Tufton had not a shilling to bless himself with. The marriage was absurd and impossible.

  K.—He hadn't a shilling then. I guess he has plenty now. Elder brother killed, out hunting. Father dead. Tuf a baronet, with four thousand a year if he's a shilling.

  LADY K.—Not so much.

  K.—Four thousand if it's a shilling. Why, the property adjoins Kicklebury's—I ought to know. I've shot over it a thousand times. Heh! I remember, when I was quite a young 'un, how Arabella used to go out into Tufton Park to meet Charley—and he is a doosid good fellow, and a gentlemanlike fellow, and a doosid deal better than this city fellow.

  LADY K.—If you don't like this city fellow, Clarence, why do you come here? why didn't you stop with your elder brother at Kicklebury?

  K.—Why didn't I? Why didn't YOU stop at Kicklebury, mamma? Because you had notice to quit. Serious daughter-in-law, quarrels about management of the house—row in the building. My brother interferes, and politely requests mamma to shorten her visit. So it is with your other two daughters; so it was with Arabella when she was alive. What shindies you used to have with her, Lady Kicklebury! Heh! I had a row with my brother and sister about a confounded little nursery-maid.

  LADY K.—Clarence!

  K.—And so I had notice to quit too. And I'm in very good quarters here, and I intend to stay in 'em, mamma. I say—

  LADY K.—What do you say?

  K.—Since I sold out, you know, and the regiment went abroad, confound me, the brutes at the "Rag" will hardly speak to me! I was so ill, I couldn't go. Who the doose can live the life I've led and keep health enough for that infernal Crimea? Besides, how could I help it? I was so cursedly in debt that I was OBLIGED to have the money, you know. YOU hadn't got any.

  LADY K.—Not a halfpenny, my darling. I am dreadfully in debt myself.

  K.—I know you are. So am I. My brother wouldn't give me any, not a dump. Hang him! Said he had his children to look to. Milliken wouldn't advance me any more—said I did him in that horse transaction. He! he! he! so I did! What had I to do but to sell out? And the fellows cut me, by Jove. Ain't it too bad? I'll take my name off the "Rag," I will, though.

  LADY K.—We must sow our wild oats, and we must sober down; and we must live here, where the living is very good and very cheap, Clarence, you naughty boy! And we must get you a rich wife. Did you see at church yesterday that young woman in light green, with rather red hair and a pink bonnet?

  K.—I was asleep, ma'am, most of the time, or I was bookin' up the odds for the Chester Cup. When I'm bookin' up, I think of nothin' else, ma'am,—nothin'.

  LADY K.—That was Miss Brocksopp—Briggs, Brown and Brocksopp, the great sugar-bakers. They say she will have eighty thousand pound. We will ask her to dinner here.

  K.—I say—why the doose do you have such old women to dinner here? Why don't you get some pretty
girls? Such a set of confounded old frumps as eat Milliken's mutton I never saw. There's you, and his old mother Mrs. Bonnington, and old Mrs. Fogram, and old Miss What's-her-name, the woman with the squint eye, and that immense Mrs. Crowder. It's so stoopid, that if it weren't for Touchit coming down sometimes, and the billiards and boatin', I should die here—expire, by gad! Why don't you have some pretty women into the house, Lady Kicklebury?

  LADY K.—Why! Do you think I want that picture taken down: and another Mrs. Milliken? Wisehead! If Horace married again, would he be your banker, and keep this house, now that ungrateful son of mine has turned me out of his? No pretty woman shall come into the house whilst I am here.

  K.—Governess seems a pretty woman: weak eyes, bad figure, poky, badly dressed, but doosid pretty woman.

  LADY K.—Bah! There is no danger from HER. She is a most faithful creature, attached to me beyond everything. And her eyes—her eyes are weak with crying for some young man who is in India. She has his miniature in her room, locked up in one of her drawers.

  K.—Then how the doose did you come to see it?

  LADY K.—We see a number of things, Clarence. Will you drive with me?

  K.—Not as I knows on, thank you. No, Ma; drivin's TOO slow: and you're goin' to call on two or three old dowagers in the Park? Thank your ladyship for the delightful offer.

  Enter JOHN.

  JOHN.—Please, sir, here's the man with the bill for the boats; two pound three.

  K.—Damn it, pay it—don't bother ME!

  JOHN.—Haven't got the money, sir.

  LADY K.—Howell! I saw Mr. Milliken give you a cheque for twenty-five pounds before he went into town this morning. Look sir [runs, opens drawer, takes out cheque-book]. There it is, marked, "Howell, 25L."

  JOHN.—Would your ladyship like to step down into my pantry and see what I've paid with the twenty-five pounds? Did my master leave any orders that your ladyship was to inspect my accounts?

  LADY K.—Step down into the pantry! inspect your accounts? I never heard such impertinence. What do you mean, sir?

  K.—Dammy, sir, what do you mean?

  JOHN.—I thought as her ladyship kept a heye over my master's private book, she might like to look at mine too.