The Way We Live Now - 66

when she wanted bread, a serpent when she asked for a fish. She had
no friend left. There was no one living who seemed to care whether
she had a husband or not. She took to walking in solitude about the
park, and thought of many things with a grim earnestness which had
not hitherto belonged to her character.

"Mamma," she said one morning when all the care of the household
was being devoted to the future comforts,--chiefly in regard to
linen,--of Mrs. George Whitstable, "I wonder whether papa has any
intention at all about me."

"In what sort of way, my dear?"

"In any way. Does he mean me to live here for ever and ever?"

"I don't think he intends to have a house in town again."

"And what am I to do?"

"I suppose we shall stay here at Caversham."

"And I'm to be buried just like a nun in a convent,--only that the
nun does it by her own consent and I don't! Mamma, I won't stand it.
I won't indeed."

"I think, my dear, that that is nonsense. You see company here, just
as other people do in the country;--and as for not standing it, I
don't know what you mean. As long as you are one of your papa's
family of course you must live where he lives."

"Oh, mamma, to hear you talk like that!--It is horrible--horrible!
As if you didn't know! As if you couldn't understand! Sometimes I
almost doubt whether papa does know, and then I think that if he did
he would not be so cruel. But you understand it all as well as I do
myself. What is to become of me? Is it not enough to drive me mad
to be going about here by myself, without any prospect of anything?
Should you have liked at my age to have felt that you had no chance
of having a house of your own to live in? Why didn't you, among you,
let me marry Mr. Brehgert?" As she said this she was almost eloquent
with passion.

"You know, my dear," said Lady Pomona, "that your papa wouldn't hear
of it."

"I know that if you would have helped me I would have done it in
spite of papa. What right has he to domineer over me in that way? Why
shouldn't I have married the man if I chose? I am old enough to know
surely. You talk now of shutting up girls in convents as being a
thing quite impossible. This is much worse. Papa won't do anything to
help me. Why shouldn't he let me do something for myself?"

"You can't regret Mr. Brehgert!"

"Why can't I regret him? I do regret him. I'd have him to-morrow if
he came. Bad as it might be, it couldn't be so bad as Caversham."

"You couldn't have loved him, Georgiana."

"Loved him! Who thinks about love nowadays? I don't know any one who
loves any one else. You won't tell me that Sophy is going to marry
that idiot because she loves him! Did Julia Triplex love that man
with the large fortune? When you wanted Dolly to marry Marie Melmotte
you never thought of his loving her. I had got the better of all that
kind of thing before I was twenty."

"I think a young woman should love her husband."

"It makes me sick, mamma, to hear you talk in that way. It does
indeed. When one has been going on for a dozen years trying to do
something,--and I have never had any secrets from you,--then that you
should turn round upon me and talk about love! Mamma, if you would
help me I think I could still manage with Mr. Brehgert." Lady Pomona
shuddered. "You have not got to marry him."

"It is too horrid."

"Who would have to put up with it? Not you, or papa, or Dolly. I
should have a house of my own at least, and I should know what I had
to expect for the rest of my life. If I stay here I shall go mad,--or
die."

"It is impossible."

"If you will stand to me, mamma, I am sure it may be done. I would
write to him, and say that you would see him."

"Georgiana, I will never see him."

"Why not?"

"He is a Jew!"

"What abominable prejudice;--what wicked prejudice! As if you didn't
know that all that is changed now! What possible difference can it
make about a man's religion? Of course I know that he is vulgar, and
old, and has a lot of children. But if I can put up with that, I
don't think that you and papa have a right to interfere. As to his
religion it cannot signify."

"Georgiana, you make me very unhappy. I am wretched to see you so
discontented. If I could do anything for you, I would. But I will not
meddle about Mr. Brehgert. I shouldn't dare to do so. I don't think
you know how angry your papa can be."

"I'm not going to let papa be a bugbear to frighten me. What can he
do? I don't suppose he'll beat me. And I'd rather he would than shut
me up here. As for you, mamma, I don't think you care for me a bit.
Because Sophy is going to be married to that oaf, you are become so
proud of her that you haven't half a thought for anybody else."

"That's very unjust, Georgiana."

"I know what's unjust,--and I know who's ill-treated. I tell you
fairly, mamma, that I shall write to Mr. Brehgert and tell him that
I am quite ready to marry him. I don't know why he should be afraid
of papa. I don't mean to be afraid of him any more, and you may tell
him just what I say."

All this made Lady Pomona very miserable. She did not communicate her
daughter's threat to Mr. Longestaffe, but she did discuss it with
Sophia. Sophia was of opinion that Georgiana did not mean it, and
gave two or three reasons for thinking so. In the first place had she
intended it she would have written her letter without saying a word
about it to Lady Pomona. And she certainly would not have declared
her purpose of writing such letter after Lady Pomona had refused her
assistance. And moreover,--Lady Pomona had received no former hint of
the information which was now conveyed to her,--Georgiana was in the
habit of meeting the curate of the next parish almost every day in
the park.

"Mr. Batherbolt!" exclaimed Lady Pomona.

"She is walking with Mr. Batherbolt almost every day."

"But he is so very strict."

"It is true, mamma."

"And he's five years younger than she! And he's got nothing but his
curacy! And he's a celibate! I heard the bishop laughing at him
because he called himself a celibate."

"It doesn't signify, mamma. I know she is with him constantly. Wilson
has seen them,--and I know it. Perhaps papa could get him a living.
Dolly has a living of his own that came to him with his property."

"Dolly would be sure to sell the presentation," said Lady Pomona.

"Perhaps the bishop would do something," said the anxious sister,
"when he found that the man wasn't a celibate. Anything, mamma, would
be better than the Jew." To this latter proposition Lady Pomona
gave a cordial assent. "Of course it is a come-down to marry a
curate,--but a clergyman is always considered to be decent."

The preparations for the Whitstable marriage went on without any
apparent attention to the intimacy which was growing up between Mr.
Batherbolt and Georgiana. There was no room to apprehend anything
wrong on that side. Mr. Batherbolt was so excellent a young man,
and so exclusively given to religion, that, even should Sophy's
suspicion be correct, he might be trusted to walk about the park with
Georgiana. Should he at any time come forward and ask to be allowed
to make the lady his wife, there would be no disgrace in the matter.
He was a clergyman and a gentleman,--and the poverty would be
Georgiana's own affair.

Mr. Longestaffe returned home only on the eve of his eldest
daughter's marriage, and with him came Dolly. Great trouble had been
taken to teach him that duty absolutely required his presence at his
sister's marriage, and he had at last consented to be there. It is
not generally considered a hardship by a young man that he should
have to go into a good partridge country on the 1st of September, and
Dolly was an acknowledged sportsman. Nevertheless, he considered that
he had made a great sacrifice to his family, and he was received by
Lady Pomona as though he were a bright example to other sons. He
found the house not in a very comfortable position, for Georgiana
still persisted in her refusal either to be a bridesmaid or to speak
to Mr. Whitstable; but still his presence, which was very rare at
Caversham, gave some assistance: and, as at this moment his money
affairs had been comfortably arranged, he was not called upon to
squabble with his father. It was a great thing that one of the girls
should be married, and Dolly had brought down an enormous china dog,
about five feet high, as a wedding present, which added materially
to the happiness of the meeting. Lady Pomona had determined that she
would tell her husband of those walks in the park, and of other signs
of growing intimacy which had reached her ears;--but this she would
postpone until after the Whitstable marriage.

But at nine o'clock on the morning set apart for that marriage, they
were all astounded by the news that Georgiana had run away with Mr.
Batherbolt. She had been up before six. He had met her at the park
gate, and had driven her over to catch the early train at Stowmarket.
Then it appeared, too, that by degrees various articles of her
property had been conveyed to Mr. Batherbolt's lodgings in the
adjacent village, so that Lady Pomona's fear that Georgiana would not
have a thing to wear, was needless. When the fact was first known
it was almost felt, in the consternation of the moment, that the
Whitstable marriage must be postponed. But Sophia had a word to say
to her mother on that head, and she said it. The marriage was not
postponed. At first Dolly talked of going after his younger sister,
and the father did dispatch various telegrams. But the fugitives
could not be brought back, and with some little delay,--which made
the marriage perhaps uncanonical but not illegal,--Mr. George
Whitstable was made a happy man.

It need only be added that in about a month's time Georgiana returned
to Caversham as Mrs. Batherbolt, and that she resided there with her
husband in much connubial bliss for the next six months. At the end
of that time they removed to a small living, for the purchase of
which Mr. Longestaffe had managed to raise the necessary money.




CHAPTER XCVI.

WHERE "THE WILD ASSES QUENCH THEIR THIRST."


We must now go back a little in our story,--about three weeks,--in
order that the reader may be told how affairs were progressing at the
Beargarden. That establishment had received a terrible blow in the
defection of Herr Vossner. It was not only that he had robbed the
club, and robbed every member of the club who had ventured to have
personal dealings with him. Although a bad feeling in regard to
him was no doubt engendered in the minds of those who had suffered
deeply, it was not that alone which cast an almost funereal gloom
over the club. The sorrow was in this,--that with Herr Vossner all
their comforts had gone. Of course Herr Vossner had been a thief.
That no doubt had been known to them from the beginning. A man does
not consent to be called out of bed at all hours in the morning to
arrange the gambling accounts of young gentlemen without being a
thief. No one concerned with Herr Vossner had supposed him to be an
honest man. But then as a thief he had been so comfortable that his
absence was regretted with a tenderness almost amounting to love even
by those who had suffered most severely from his rapacity. Dolly
Longestaffe had been robbed more outrageously than any other member
of the club, and yet Dolly Longestaffe had said since the departure
of the purveyor that London was not worth living in now that Herr
Vossner was gone. In a week the Beargarden collapsed,--as Germany
would collapse for a period if Herr Vossner's great compatriot were
suddenly to remove himself from the scene; but as Germany would
strive to live even without Bismarck, so did the club make its new
efforts. But here the parallel must cease. Germany no doubt would
at last succeed, but the Beargarden had received a blow from which
it seemed that there was no recovery. At first it was proposed that
three men should be appointed as trustees,--trustees for paying
Vossner's debts, trustees for borrowing more money, trustees for the
satisfaction of the landlord who was beginning to be anxious as to
his future rent. At a certain very triumphant general meeting of
the club it was determined that such a plan should be arranged, and
the members assembled were unanimous. It was at first thought that
there might be a little jealousy as to the trusteeship. The club was
so popular and the authority conveyed by the position would be so
great, that A, B, and C might feel aggrieved at seeing so much power
conferred on D, E, and F. When at the meeting above mentioned one or
two names were suggested, the final choice was postponed, as a matter
of detail to be arranged privately, rather from this consideration
than with any idea that there might be a difficulty in finding
adequate persons. But even the leading members of the Beargarden
hesitated when the proposition was submitted to them with all its
honours and all its responsibilities. Lord Nidderdale declared from
the beginning that he would have nothing to do with it,--pleading his
poverty openly. Beauchamp Beauclerk was of opinion that he himself
did not frequent the club often enough. Mr. Lupton professed his
inability as a man of business. Lord Grasslough pleaded his father.
The club from the first had been sure of Dolly Longestaffe's
services;--for were not Dolly's pecuniary affairs now in process of
satisfactory arrangement, and was it not known by all men that his
courage never failed him in regard to money? But even he declined.
"I have spoken to Squercum," he said to the Committee, "and Squercum
won't hear of it. Squercum has made inquiries and he thinks the
club very shaky." When one of the Committee made a remark as to
Mr. Squercum which was not complimentary,--insinuated indeed that
Squercum without injustice might be consigned to the infernal
deities,--Dolly took the matter up warmly. "That's all very well for
you, Grasslough; but if you knew the comfort of having a fellow who
could keep you straight without preaching sermons at you you wouldn't
despise Squercum. I've tried to go alone and I find that does not
answer. Squercum's my coach, and I mean to stick pretty close to
him." Then it came to pass that the triumphant project as to the
trustees fell to the ground, although Squercum himself advised
that the difficulty might be lessened if three gentlemen could be
selected who lived well before the world and yet had nothing to lose.
Whereupon Dolly suggested Miles Grendall. But the Committee shook its
heads, not thinking it possible that the club could be re-established
on a basis of three Miles Grendalls.

Then dreadful rumours were heard. The Beargarden must surely be
abandoned. "It is such a pity," said Nidderdale, "because there never
has been anything like it."

"Smoke all over the house!" said Dolly.

"No horrid nonsense about closing," said Grasslough, "and no infernal
old fogies wearing out the carpets and paying for nothing."

"Not a vestige of propriety, or any beastly rules to be kept! That's
what I liked," said Nidderdale.

"It's an old story," said Mr. Lupton, "that if you put a man into
Paradise he'll make it too hot to hold him. That's what you've done
here."

"What we ought to do," said Dolly, who was pervaded by a sense of his
own good fortune in regard to Squercum, "is to get some fellow like
Vossner, and make him tell us how much he wants to steal above his
regular pay. Then we could subscribe that among us. I really think
that might be done. Squercum would find a fellow, no doubt." But Mr.
Lupton was of opinion that the new Vossner might perhaps not know,
when thus consulted, the extent of his own cupidity.

One day, before the Whitstable marriage, when it was understood that
the club would actually be closed on the 12th August unless some
new heaven-inspired idea might be forthcoming for its salvation,
Nidderdale, Grasslough, and Dolly were hanging about the hall and
the steps, and drinking sherry and bitters preparatory to dinner,
when Sir Felix Carbury came round the neighbouring corner and, in a
creeping, hesitating fashion, entered the hall door. He had nearly
recovered from his wounds, though he still wore a bit of court
plaster on his upper lip, and had not yet learned to look or to speak
as though he had not had two of his front teeth knocked out. He had
heard little or nothing of what had been done at the Beargarden since
Vossner's defection. It was now a month since he had been seen at
the club. His thrashing had been the wonder of perhaps half nine
days, but latterly his existence had been almost forgotten. Now, with
difficulty, he had summoned courage to go down to his old haunt, so
completely had he been cowed by the latter circumstances of his life;
but he had determined that he would pluck up his courage, and talk to
his old associates as though no evil thing had befallen him. He had
still money enough to pay for his dinner and to begin a small rubber
of whist. If fortune should go against him he might glide into I. O.
U.'s;--as others had done before, so much to his cost. "By George,
here's Carbury!" said Dolly. Lord Grasslough whistled, turned his
back, and walked up-stairs; but Nidderdale and Dolly consented to
have their hands shaken by the stranger.

"Thought you were out of town," said Nidderdale. "Haven't seen you
for the last ever so long."

"I have been out of town," said Felix,--lying; "down in Suffolk. But
I'm back now. How are things going on here?"

"They're not going at all;--they're gone," said Dolly.

"Everything is smashed," said Nidderdale. "We shall all have to pay,
I don't know how much."

"Wasn't Vossner ever caught?" asked the baronet.

"Caught!" ejaculated Dolly. "No;--but he has caught us. I don't know
that there has ever been much idea of catching Vossner. We close
altogether next Monday, and the furniture is to be gone to law for.
Flatfleece says it belongs to him under what he calls a deed of sale.
Indeed, everything that everybody has seems to belong to Flatfleece.
He's always in and out of the club, and has got the key of the
cellar."

"That don't matter," said Nidderdale, "as Vossner took care that
there shouldn't be any wine."

"He's got most of the forks and spoons, and only lets us use what we
have as a favour."

"I suppose one can get a dinner here?"

"Yes; to-day you can, and perhaps to-morrow."

"Isn't there any playing?" asked Felix with dismay.

"I haven't seen a card this fortnight," said Dolly. "There hasn't
been anybody to play. Everything has gone to the dogs. There has been
the affair of Melmotte, you know;--though, I suppose, you do know all
about that."

"Of course I know he poisoned himself."

"Of course that had effect," said Dolly, continuing his history.
"Though why fellows shouldn't play cards because another fellow like
that takes poison, I can't understand. Last year the only day I
managed to get down in February, the hounds didn't come because some
old cove had died. What harm could our hunting have done him? I call
that rot."

"Melmotte's death was rather awful," said Nidderdale.

"Not half so awful as having nothing to amuse one. And now they say
the girl is going to be married to Fisker. I don't know how you and
Nidderdale like that. I never went in for her myself. Squercum never
seemed to see it."

"Poor dear!" said Nidderdale. "She's welcome for me, and I dare say
she couldn't do better with herself. I was very fond of her;--I'll be
shot if I wasn't."

"And Carbury too, I suppose," said Dolly.

"No; I wasn't. If I'd really been fond of her I suppose it would have
come off. I should have had her safe enough to America, if I'd cared
about it." This was Sir Felix's view of the matter.

"Come into the smoking-room, Dolly," said Nidderdale. "I can stand
most things, and I try to stand everything; but, by George, that
fellow is such a cad that I cannot stand him. You and I are bad
enough,--but I don't think we're so heartless as Carbury."

"I don't think I'm heartless at all," said Dolly. "I'm good-natured
to everybody that is good-natured to me,--and to a great many people
who ain't. I'm going all the way down to Caversham next week to see
my sister married, though I hate the place and hate marriages, and
if I was to be hung for it I couldn't say a word to the fellow who
is going to be my brother-in-law. But I do agree about Carbury. It's
very hard to be good-natured to him."

But, in the teeth of these adverse opinions Sir Felix managed to get
his dinner-table close to theirs and to tell them at dinner something
of his future prospects. He was going to travel and see the world. He
had, according to his own account, completely run through London life
and found that it was all barren.

"In life I've rung all changes through,
Run every pleasure down,
'Midst each excess of folly too,
And lived with half the town."

Sir Felix did not exactly quote the old song, probably having never
heard the words. But that was the burden of his present story. It was
his determination to seek new scenes, and in search of them to travel
over the greater part of the known world.

"How jolly for you!" said Dolly.

"It will be a change, you know."

"No end of a change. Is any one going with you?"

"Well;--yes. I've got a travelling companion;--a very pleasant
fellow, who knows a lot, and will be able to coach me up in things.
There's a deal to be learned by going abroad, you know."

"A sort of a tutor," said Nidderdale.

"A parson, I suppose," said Dolly.

"Well;--he is a clergyman. Who told you?"

"It's only my inventive genius. Well;--yes; I should say that would
be nice,--travelling about Europe with a clergyman. I shouldn't get
enough advantage out of it to make it pay, but I fancy it will just
suit you."

"It's an expensive sort of thing;--isn't it?" asked Nidderdale.

"Well;--it does cost something. But I've got so sick of this kind of
life;--and then that railway Board coming to an end, and the club
smashing up, and--"

"Marie Melmotte marrying Fisker," suggested Dolly.

"That too, if you will. But I want a change, and a change I mean to
have. I've seen this side of things, and now I'll have a look at the
other."

"Didn't you have a row in the street with some one the other day?"
This question was asked very abruptly by Lord Grasslough, who, though
he was sitting near them, had not yet joined in the conversation, and
who had not before addressed a word to Sir Felix. "We heard something
about it, but we never got the right story." Nidderdale glanced
across the table at Dolly, and Dolly whistled. Grasslough looked at
the man he addressed as one does look when one expects an answer. Mr.
Lupton, with whom Grasslough was dining, also sat expectant. Dolly
and Nidderdale were both silent.

It was the fear of this that had kept Sir Felix away from the club.
Grasslough, as he had told himself, was just the fellow to ask such
a question,--ill-natured, insolent, and obtrusive. But the question
demanded an answer of some kind. "Yes," said he; "a fellow attacked
me in the street, coming behind me when I had a girl with me. He
didn't get much the best of it though."

"Oh;--didn't he?" said Grasslough. "I think, upon the whole, you
know, you're right about going abroad."

"What business is it of yours?" asked the baronet.

"Well;--as the club is being broken up, I don't know that it is very
much the business of any of us."

"I was speaking to my friends, Lord Nidderdale and Mr. Longestaffe,
and not to you."

"I quite appreciate the advantage of the distinction," said Lord
Grasslough, "and am sorry for Lord Nidderdale and Mr. Longestaffe."

"What do you mean by that?" said Sir Felix, rising from his chair.
His present opponent was not horrible to him as had been John Crumb,
as men in clubs do not now often knock each others' heads or draw
swords one upon another.

"Don't let's have a quarrel here," said Mr. Lupton. "I shall leave
the room if you do."

"If we must break up, let us break up in peace and quietness," said
Nidderdale.

"Of course, if there is to be a fight, I'm good to go out with
anybody," said Dolly. "When there's any beastly thing to be done,
I've always got to do it. But don't you think that kind of thing is
a little slow?"

"Who began it?" said Sir Felix, sitting down again. Whereupon Lord
Grasslough, who had finished his dinner, walked out of the room.
"That fellow is always wanting to quarrel."

"There's one comfort, you know," said Dolly. "It wants two men to
make a quarrel."

"Yes; it does," said Sir Felix, taking this as a friendly
observation; "and I'm not going to be fool enough to be one of them."

"Oh, yes, I meant it fast enough," said Grasslough afterwards up
in the card-room. The other men who had been together had quickly
followed him, leaving Sir Felix alone, and they had collected
themselves there not with the hope of play, but thinking that they
would be less interrupted than in the smoking-room. "I don't suppose
we shall ever any of us be here again, and as he did come in I
thought I would tell him my mind."

"What's the use of taking such a lot of trouble?" said Dolly. "Of
course he's a bad fellow. Most fellows are bad fellows in one way or
another."

"But he's bad all round," said the bitter enemy.

"And so this is to be the end of the Beargarden," said Lord
Nidderdale with a peculiar melancholy. "Dear old place! I always felt
it was too good to last. I fancy it doesn't do to make things too
easy;--one has to pay so uncommon dear for them! And then, you know,
when you've got things easy, then they get rowdy;--and, by George,
before you know where you are, you find yourself among a lot of
blackguards. If one wants to keep one's self straight, one has to
work hard at it, one way or the other. I suppose it all comes from
the fall of Adam."

"If Solomon, Solon, and the Archbishop of Canterbury were rolled into
one, they couldn't have spoken with more wisdom," said Mr. Lupton.

"Live and learn," continued the young lord. "I don't think anybody
has liked the Beargarden so much as I have, but I shall never try
this kind of thing again. I shall begin reading blue books to-morrow,
and shall dine at the Carlton. Next session I shan't miss a day in
the House, and I'll bet anybody a fiver that I make a speech before
Easter. I shall take to claret at 20_s._ a dozen, and shall go about
London on the top of an omnibus."

"How about getting married?" asked Dolly.

"Oh;--that must be as it comes. That's the governor's affair. None of
you fellows will believe me, but, upon my word, I liked that girl;
and I'd 've stuck to her at last,--only that there are some things a
fellow can't do. He was such a thundering scoundrel!"

After a while Sir Felix followed them up-stairs, and entered the room
as though nothing unpleasant had happened below. "We can make up a
rubber;--can't we?" said he.

"I should say not," said Nidderdale.

"I shall not play," said Mr. Lupton.

"There isn't a pack of cards in the house," said Dolly. Lord
Grasslough didn't condescend to say a word. Sir Felix sat down with
his cigar in his mouth, and the others continued to smoke in silence.

"I wonder what has become of Miles Grendall," asked Sir Felix. But no
one made any answer, and they smoked on in silence. "He hasn't paid
me a shilling yet of the money he owes me." Still there was not a
word. "And I don't suppose he ever will." There was another pause.
"He is the biggest scoundrel I ever met," said Sir Felix.

"I know one as big," said Lord Grasslough,--"or, at any rate, as
little."

There was another pause of a minute, and then Sir Felix left the room
muttering something as to the stupidity of having no cards;--and
so brought to an end his connection with his associates of the