Devereux Part 5

An old gentleman who filled in her family the office of "the chevalier" in a French one; namely, who told stories; not too long, and did not challenge you for interrupting them; who had a good air, and unexceptionable pedigree,-a turn for wit, literature, note-writing, and the management of lap-dogs; who could attend Madame to auctions, plays, courts, and the puppet-show; who had a right to the best company, but would, on a signal, give up his seat to any one the pretty capricieuse whom he served might select from the worst,-in short a very useful, charming personage, "vastly" liked by all, and "prodigiously" respected by none,-this gentleman, I say, by name Mr. Lovell, had attended her ladyship in her excursion to Devereux Court. Besides him there came also a widow lady, a distant relation, with one eye and a sharp tongue,-the Lady Needleham, whom the beauty carried about with her as a sort of gouvernante or duenna. These excellent persons made my compagnons de voyage, and filled the remaining complements of the coach. To say truth, and to say nothing of my tendresse for the Lady Ha.s.selton, I was very anxious to escape the ridicule of crawling up to the town like a green beetle, in my uncle's verdant chariot, with the four Flanders mares trained not to exceed two miles an hour. And my Lady Ha.s.selton's private raileries-for she was really well bred, and made no jest of my uncle's antiquities of taste, in his presence, at least-had considerably heightened my intuitive dislike to that mode of transporting myself to the metropolis. The day before my departure, Gerald, for the first time, spoke of it.

Glancing towards the mirror, which gave in full contrast the magnificent beauty of his person, and the smaller proportions and plainer features of my own, he said with a sneer, "Your appearance must create a wonderful sensation in town."

"No doubt of it," said I, taking his words literally, and arraying my laced cravat with the air of a pet.i.t-maitre.

"What a wit the Count has!" whispered the d.u.c.h.ess of Lackland, who had not yet given up all hope of the elder brother.

"Wit!" said the Lady Ha.s.selton; "poor child, he is a perfect simpleton!"

CHAPTER XV.

THE MOTHER AND SON.-VIRTUE SHOULD BE THE SOVEREIGN OF THE FEELINGS, NOT THEIR DESTROYER.

I TOOK the first opportunity to escape from the good company who were so divided in opinion as to my mental accomplishments, and repaired to my mother; for whom, despite of her evenness of disposition, verging towards insensibility, I felt a powerful and ineffaceable affection. Indeed, if purity of life, rect.i.tude of intentions, and fervour of piety can win love, none ever deserved it more than she. It was a pity that, with such admirable qualities, she had not more diligently cultivated her affections. The seed was not wanting; but it had been neglected. Originally intended for the veil, she had been taught, early in life, that much feeling was synonymous with much sin; and she had so long and so carefully repressed in her heart every attempt of the forbidden fruit to put forth a single blossom, that the soil seemed at last to have become incapable of bearing it. If, in one corner of this barren but sacred spot, some green and tender verdure of affection did exist, it was, with a partial and petty reserve for my twin-brother, kept exclusive, and consecrated to Aubrey. His congenial habits of pious silence and rigid devotion; his softness of temper; his utter freedom from all boyish excesses, joined to his almost angelic beauty,-a quality which, in no female heart, is ever without its value,-were exactly calculated to attract her sympathy, and work themselves into her love. Gerald was also regular in his habits, attentive to devotion, and had, from an early period, been high in the favour of her spiritual director. Gerald, too, if he had not the delicate and dream-like beauty of Aubrey, possessed attractions of a more masculine and decided order; and for Gerald, therefore, the Countess gave the little of love that she could spare from Aubrey. To me she manifested the most utter indifference. My difficult and fastidious temper; my sarcastic turn of mind; my violent and headstrong pa.s.sions; my daring, reckless and, when roused, almost ferocious nature,-all, especially, revolted the even and polished and quiescent character of my maternal parent. The little extravagances of my childhood seemed to her pure and inexperienced mind the crimes of a heart naturally distorted and evil; my jesting vein, which, though it never, even in the wantonness of youth, attacked the substances of good, seldom respected its semblances and its forms, she considered as the effusions of malignity; and even the bursts of love, kindness, and benevolence, which were by no means unfrequent in my wild and motley character, were so foreign to her stillness of temperament that they only revolted her by their violence, instead of affecting her by their warmth.

Nor did she like me the better for the mutual understanding between my uncle and myself. On the contrary, shocked by the idle and gay turn of the knight's conversation, the frivolities of his mind, and his heretical disregard for the forms of the religious sect which she so zealously espoused, she was utterly insensible to the points which redeemed and enn.o.bled his sterling and generous character; utterly obtuse to his warmth of heart,-his overflowing kindness of disposition,-his charity,-his high honour,-his justice of principle, that nothing save benevolence could warp,-and the shrewd, penetrating sense, which, though often clouded by foibles and humorous eccentricity, still made the stratum of his intellectual composition. Nevertheless, despite her prepossessions against us both, there was in her temper something so gentle, meek, and unupbraiding, that even the sense of injustice lost its sting, and one could not help loving the softness of her character, while one was most chilled by its frigidity. Anger, hope, fear, the faintest breath or sign of pa.s.sion, never seemed to stir the breezeless languor of her feelings; and quiet was so inseparable from her image that I have almost thought, like that people described by Herodotus, her very sleep could never be disturbed by dreams.

Yes! how fondly, how tenderly I loved her! What tears, secret but deep, bitter but unreproaching, have I retired to shed, when I caught her cold and unaffectionate glance! How (unnoticed and uncared for) have I watched and prayed and wept without her door when a transitory sickness or suffering detained her within; and how, when stretched myself upon the feverish bed to which my early weakness of frame often condemned me,-how have I counted the moments to her punctilious and brief visit, and started as I caught her footstep, and felt my heart leap within me as she approached! and then, as I heard her cold tone and looked upon her unmoved face, how bitterly have I turned away with all that repressed and crushed affection which was construed into sullenness or disrespect! O mighty and enduring force of early a.s.sociations, that almost seems, in its unconquerable strength, to partake of an innate prepossession, that binds the son to the mother who concealed him in her womb and purchased life for him with the travail of death?-fountain of filial love, which coldness cannot freeze, nor injustice embitter, nor pride divert into fresh channels, nor time, and the hot suns of our toiling manhood, exhaust,-even at this moment, how livingly do you gush upon my heart, and water with your divine waves the memories that yet flourish amidst the sterility of years?

I approached the apartments appropriated to my mother: I knocked at her door; one of her women admitted me. The Countess was sitting on a high-backed chair, curiously adorned with tapestry. Her feet, which were remarkable for their beauty, were upon a velvet cushion; three hand-maids stood round her, and she herself was busily employed in a piece of delicate embroidery, an art in which she eminently excelled.

"The Count, Madam!" said the woman who had admitted me, placing a chair beside my mother, and then retiring to join her sister maidens.

"Good day to you, my son," said the Countess, lifting her eyes for a moment, and then dropping them again upon her work.

"I have come to seek you, dearest mother, as I know not, if, among the crowd of guests and amus.e.m.e.nts which surround us, I shall enjoy another opportunity of having a private conversation with you: will it please you to dismiss your women?"

My mother again lifted up her eyes. "And why, my son? surely there can be nothing between us which requires their absence; what is your reason?"

"I leave you to-morrow, Madam: is it strange that a son should wish to see his mother alone before his departure?"

"By no means, Morton; but your absence will not be very long, will it?"

"Forgive my importunity, dear Mother; but will you dismiss your attendants?"

"If you wish it, certainly; but I dislike feeling alone, especially in these large rooms; nor did I think being unattended quite consistent with our rank: however, I never contradict you, my son," and the Countess directed her women to wait in the anteroom.

"Well, Morton, what is your wish?"

"Only to bid you farewell, and to ask if London contains nothing which you will commission me to obtain for you?"

The Countess again raised her eyes from her work. "I am greatly obliged to you, my dear son; this is a very delicate attention on your part. I am informed that stomachers are worn a thought less pointed than they were. I care not, you well know, for such vanities; but respect for the memory of your ill.u.s.trious father renders me desirous to retain a seemly appearance to the world, and my women shall give you written instructions thereon to Madame Tourville; she lives in St. James's Street, and is the only person to be employed in these matters. She is a woman who has known misfortune, and appreciates the sorrowful and subdued tastes of those whom an exalted station has not preserved from like afflictions. So you go to-morrow: will you get me the scissors? They are on the ivory table yonder. When do you return?"

"Perhaps never!" said I, abruptly.

"Never, Morton; how singular-why?"

"I may join the army, and be killed."

"I hope not. Dear, how cold it is: will you shut the window? pray forgive my troubling you, but you would send away the women. Join the army, you say? It is a very dangerous profession; your poor father might be alive now but for having embraced it; nevertheless, in a righteous cause, under the Lord of Hosts, there is great glory to be obtained beneath its banners. Alas, however, for its private evils! alas, for the orphan and the widow! You will be sure, my dear son, to give the note to Madame Tourville herself? Her a.s.sistants have not her knowledge of my misfortunes, nor indeed of my exact proportions; and at my age, and in my desolate state, I would fain be decorous in these things, and that reminds me of dinner. Have you aught else to say, Morton?"

"Yes!" said I, suppressing my emotions, "yes, Mother! do bestow on me one warm wish, one kind word, before we part: see,-I kneel for your blessing,-will you not give it me?"

"Bless you, my child,-bless you! look you now; I have dropped my needle!"

I rose hastily, bowed profoundly (my mother returned the courtesy with the grace peculiar to herself), and withdrew. I hurried into the great drawing-room, found Lady Needleham alone, rushed out in despair, encountered the Lady Ha.s.selton, and coquetted with her the rest of the evening. Vain hope! to forget one's real feelings by pretending those one never felt!

The next morning, then, after suitable adieux to all (Gerald excepted) whom I left behind; after some tears too from my uncle, which, had it not been for the presence of the Lady Ha.s.selton, I could have returned with interest; and after a long caress to his dog Ponto, which now, in parting with that dear old man, seemed to me as dog never seemed before, I hurried into the Beauty's carriage, bade farewell forever to the Rubicon of Life, and commenced my career of manhood and citizenship by learning, under the tuition of the prettiest coquette of her time, the dignified duties of a Court Gallant and a Town Beau.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

THE HERO IN LONDON.-PLEASURE IS OFTEN THE SHORTEST, AS IT IS THE EARLIEST ROAD TO WISDOM, AND WE MAY SAY OF THE WORLD WHAT ZEAL-OF-THE-LAND-BUSY SAYS OF THE PIG-BOOTH, "WE ESCAPE SO MUCH OF THE OTHER VANITIES BY OUR EARLY ENTERING."

IT had, when I first went to town, just become the fashion for young men of fortune to keep house, and to give their bachelor establishments the importance hitherto reserved for the household of a Benedict.

Let the reader figure to himself a suite of apartments, magnificently furnished, in the vicinity of the court. An anteroom is crowded with divers persons, all messengers in the various negotiations of pleasure. There, a French valet,-that inestimable valet, Jean Desmarais,-sitting over a small fire, was watching the operations of a coffee-pot, and conversing, in a mutilated attempt at the language of our nation, though with the enviable fluency of his own, with the various loiterers who were beguiling the hours they were obliged to wait for an audience of the master himself, by laughing at the master's Gallic representative. There stood a tailor with his books of patterns just imported from Paris,-that modern Prometheus, who makes a man what he is! Next to him a tall, gaunt fellow, in a coat covered with tarnished lace, a night-cap wig, and a large whip in his hands, comes to vouch for the pedigree and excellence of the three horses he intends to dispose of, out of pure love and amity for the buyer. By the window stood a thin starveling poet, who, like the grammarian of Cos, might have put lead in his pockets to prevent being blown away, had he not, with a more paternal precaution, put so much in his works that he had left none to spare. Excellent trick of the times, when ten guineas can purchase every virtue under the sun, and when an author thinks to vindicate the sins of his book by proving the admirable qualities of the paragon to whom it is dedicated.* There with an air of supercilious contempt upon his smooth cheeks, a page, in purple and silver, sat upon the table, swinging his legs to and fro, and big with all the reflected importance of a billet-doux. There stood the pert haberdasher, with his box of silver-fringed gloves, and lace which Diana might have worn. At that time there was indeed no enemy to female chast.i.ty like the former article of man-millinery: the delicate whiteness of the glove, the starry splendour of the fringe, were irresistible, and the fair Adorna, in poor Lee's tragedy of "Caesar Borgia," is far from the only lady who has been killed by a pair of gloves.

* Thank Heaven, for the honour of literature, nous avons change tout cela!-ED.

Next to the haberdasher, dingy and dull of aspect, a book-hunter bent beneath the load of old works gathered from stall and shed, and about to be re-sold according to the price exacted from all literary gallants who affect to unite the fine gentleman with the profound scholar. A little girl, whose brazen face and voluble tongue betrayed the growth of her intellectual faculties, leaned against the wainscot, and repeated, in the anteroom, the tart repartees which her mistress (the most celebrated actress of the day) uttered on the stage; while a stout, st.u.r.dy, bull-headed gentleman, in a gray surtout and a black wig, mingled with the various voices of the motley group the gentle phrases of Hockley-in-the-Hole, from which place of polite merriment he came charged with a message of invitation. While such were the inmates of the anteroom, what picture shall we draw of the salon and its occupant?

A table was covered with books, a couple of fencing foils, a woman's mask, and a profusion of letters; a scarlet cloak, richly laced, hung over, trailing on the ground. Upon a slab of marble lay a hat, looped with diamonds, a sword, and a lady's lute. Extended upon a sofa, loosely robed in a dressing-gown of black velvet, his shirt collar unb.u.t.toned, his stockings ungartered, his own hair (undressed and released for a brief interval from the false locks universally worn) waving from his forehead in short yet dishevelled curls, his whole appearance stamped with the morning negligence which usually follows midnight dissipation, lay a young man of about nineteen years. His features were neither handsome nor ill-favoured, and his stature was small, slight, and somewhat insignificant, but not, perhaps, ill-formed either for active enterprise or for muscular effort. Such, reader, is the picture of the young prodigal who occupied the apartments I have described, and such (though somewhat flattered by partiality) is a portrait of Morton Devereux, six months after his arrival in town.

The door was suddenly thrown open with that unhesitating rudeness by which our friends think it necessary to signify the extent of their familiarity; and a young man of about eight-and-twenty, richly dressed, and of a countenance in which a dissipated nonchalance and an aristocratic hauteur seemed to struggle for mastery, abruptly entered.

"What! ho, my n.o.ble royster," cried he, flinging himself upon a chair, "still suffering from St. John's Burgundy! Fie, fie, upon your apprenticeship!-why, before I had served half your time, I could take my three bottles as easily as the sea took the good ship 'Revolution,' swallow them down with a gulp, and never show the least sign of them the next morning!"

"I really believe you, most magnanimous Tarleton. Providence gives to each of its creatures different favours,-to one wit, to the other a capacity for drinking. A thousand pities that they are never united!"

"So bitter, Count!-ah, what will ever cure you of sarcasm?"

"A wise man by conversation, or fools by satiety."

"Well, I dare say that is witty enough, but I never admire fine things of a morning. I like letting my faculties live till night in a deshabille; let us talk easily and sillily of the affairs of the day. Imprimis, will you stroll to the New Exchange? There is a black eye there that measures out ribbons, and my green ones long to flirt with it."

"With all my heart-and in return you shall accompany me to Master Powell's puppet-show."

"You speak as wisely as Solomon himself in the puppet-show. I own that I love that sight: 'tis a pleasure to the littleness of human nature to see great things abased by mimicry; kings moved by bobbins, and the pomps of the earth personated by Punch."

"But how do you like sharing the mirth of the groundlings, the filthy plebeians, and letting them see how petty are those distinctions which you value so highly, by showing them how heartily you can laugh at such distinctions yourself? Allow, my superb Coriola.n.u.s, that one purchases pride by the loss of consistency."

"Ah, Devereux, you poison my enjoyment by the mere word 'plebeian'! Oh, what a beastly thing is a common person!-a shape of the trodden clay without any alloy; a compound of dirty clothes, bacon breaths, villanous smells, beggarly cowardice, and cattish ferocity. Pah, Devereux! rub civet on the very thought!"

"Yet they will laugh to-day at the same things you will, and consequently there would be a most flattering congeniality between you. Emotion, whether of ridicule, anger, or sorrow; whether raised at a puppet-show, a funeral, or a battle,-is your grandest of levellers. The man who would be always superior should be always apathetic."

"Oracular, as usual, Count,-but, hark, the clock gives tongue. One, by the Lord!-will you not dress?"

And I rose and dressed. We pa.s.sed through the anteroom; my attendant a.s.sistants in the art of wasting money drew up in a row.

"Pardon me, gentlemen," said I ("gentlemen, indeed!" cried Tarleton), "for keeping you so long. Mr. Snivelship, your waistcoats are exquisite: favour me by conversing with my valet on the width of the lace for my liveries; he has my instructions. Mr. Jockelton, your horses shall be tried to-morrow at one. Ay, Mr. Rymer, I beg you a thousand pardons; I beseech you to forgive the ignorance of my rascals in suffering a gentleman of your merit to remain for a moment unattended to. I have read your ode; it is splendid,-the ease of Horace with the fire of Pindar; your Pegasus never touches the earth, and yet in his wildest excesses you curb him with equal grace and facility: I object, sir, only to your dedication; it is too flattering."

"By no means, my Lord Count, it fits you to a hair."

"Pardon me," interrupted I, "and allow me to transfer the honour to Lord Halifax; he loves men of merit; he loves also their dedications. I will mention it to him to-morrow: everything you say of me will suit him exactly. You will oblige me with a copy of your poem directly it is printed, and suffer me to pay your bookseller for it now, and through your friendly mediation; adieu!"

"Oh, Count, this is too generous."

"A letter for me, my pretty page? Ah! tell her ladyship I shall wait upon her commands at Powell's: time will move with a tortoise speed till I kiss her hands. Mr. Fribbleden, your gloves would fit the giants at Guildhall: my valet will furnish you with my exact size; you will see to the legitimate breadth of the fringe. My little beauty, you are from Mrs. Bracegirdle: the play shall succeed; I have taken seven boxes; Mr. St. John promised his influence. Say, therefore, my Hebe, that the thing is certain, and let me kiss thee: thou hast dew on thy lip already. Mr. Thumpen, you are a fine fellow, and deserve to be encouraged; I will see that the next time your head is broken it shall be broken fairly: but I will not patronize the bear; consider that peremptory. What, Mr. Bookworm, again! I hope you have succeeded better this time: the old songs had an autumn fit upon them, and had lost the best part of their leaves; and Plato had mortgaged one half his 'Republic,' to pay, I suppose, the exorbitant sum you thought proper to set upon the other. As for Diogenes Laertius, and his philosophers-"

"Pish!" interrupted Tarleton; "are you going, by your theoretical treatises on philosophy, to make me learn the practical part of it, and prate upon learning while I am supporting myself with patience?"

"Pardon me! Mr. Bookworm; you will deposit your load, and visit me to-morrow at an earlier hour. And now, Tarleton, I am at your service."

CHAPTER II.

GAY SCENES AND CONVERSATIONS.-THE NEW EXCHANGE AND THE PUPPET-SHOW.-THE ACTOR, THE s.e.xTON, AND THE BEAUTY.

"WELL, Tarleton," said I, looking round that mart of millinery and love-making, which, so celebrated in the reign of Charles II., still preserved the shadow of its old renown in that of Anne,-"well, here we are upon the cla.s.sical ground so often commemorated in the comedies which our chaste grandmothers thronged to see. Here we can make appointments, while we profess to buy gloves, and should our mistress tarry too long, beguile our impatience by a flirtation with her milliner. Is there not a breathing air of gayety about the place?-does it not still smack of the Ethereges and Sedleys?"

"Right," said Tarleton, leaning over a counter and amorously eying the pretty coquette to whom it belonged; while, with the c.o.xcombry then in fashion, he sprinkled the long curls that touched his shoulders with a fragrant shower from a bottle of jessamine water upon the counter,-"right; saw you ever such an eye? Have you snuff of the true scent, my beauty-foh! this is for the nostril of a Welsh parson-choleric and hot, my beauty,-pulverized horse-radish,-why, it would make a nose of the coldest const.i.tution imaginable sneeze like a washed school-boy on a Sat.u.r.day night.-Ah, this is better, my princess: there is some courtesy in this snuff; it flatters the brain like a poet's dedication. Right, Devereux, right, there is something infectious in the atmosphere; one catches good humour as easily as if it were cold. Shall we stroll on?-my Clelia is on the other side of the Exchange.-You were speaking of the play-writers: what a pity that our Ethereges and Wycherleys should be so frank in their gallantry that the prudish public already begins to look shy on them. They have a world of wit!"

"Ay," said I; "and, as my good uncle would say, a world of knowledge of human nature, namely, of the worst part of it. But they are worse than merely licentious: they are positively villanous; pregnant with the most redemptionless scoundrelism,-cheating, lying, thieving, and fraud; their humour debauches the whole moral system; they are like the Sardinian herb,-they make you laugh, it is true, but they poison you in the act. But who comes here?"

"Oh, honest Coll!-Ah, Cibber, how goes it with you?"

The person thus addressed was a man of about the middle age, very grotesquely attired, and with a periwig preposterously long. His countenance (which, in its features, was rather comely) was stamped with an odd mixture of liveliness, impudence, and a coa.r.s.e yet not unjoyous spirit of reckless debauchery. He approached us with a saunter, and saluted Tarleton with an air servile enough, in spite of an affected familiarity.

"What think you," resumed my companion, "we were conversing upon?"

"Why, indeed, Mr. Tarleton," answered Cibber, bowing very low, "unless it were the exquisite fashion of your waistcoat, or your success with my Lady d.u.c.h.ess, I know not what to guess."

"Pooh, man," said Tarleton, haughtily, "none of your compliments;" and then added in a milder tone, "No, Colley, we were abusing the immoralities that existed on the stage until thou, by the light of thy virtuous example, didst undertake to reform it."

"Why," rejoined Cibber, with an air of mock sanct.i.ty, "Heaven be praised, I have pulled out some of the weeds from our theatrical parterre-"

"Hear you that, Count? Does he not look a pretty fellow for a censor?"

"Surely," said Cibber, "ever since d.i.c.ky Steele has set up for a saint, and a.s.sumed the methodistical tw.a.n.g, some hopes of conversion may be left even for such reprobates as myself. Where, may I ask, will Mr. Tarleton drink to-night?"

"Not with thee, Coll. The Saturnalia don't happen every day. Rid us now of thy company: but stop, I will do thee a pleasure; know you this gentleman?"

"I have not that extreme honour."

"Know a Count, then! Count Devereux, demean yourself by sometimes acknowledging Colley Cibber, a rare fellow at a song, a bottle, and a message to an actress; a lively rascal enough, but without the goodness to be loved, or the independence to be respected."

"Mr. Cibber," said I, rather hurt at Tarleton's speech, though the object of it seemed to hear this description with the most unruffled composure-"Mr. Cibber, I am happy and proud of an introduction to the author of the 'Careless Husband.' Here is my address; oblige me with a visit at your leisure."

"How could you be so galling to the poor devil?" said I, when Cibber, with a profusion of bows and compliments, had left us to ourselves.

"Ah, hang him,-a low fellow, who pins all his happiness to the skirts of the quality, is proud of being despised, and that which would excruciate the vanity of others only flatters his. And now for my Clelia."

After my companion had amused himself with a brief flirtation with a young lady who affected a most edifying demureness, we left the Exchange, and repaired to the puppet-show.

On entering the Piazza, in which, as I am writing for the next century, it may be necessary to say that Punch held his court, we saw a tall, thin fellow, loitering under the columns, and exhibiting a countenance of the most ludicrous discontent. There was an insolent arrogance about Tarleton's good-nature, which always led him to consult the whim of the moment at the expense of every other consideration, especially if the whim referred to a member of the canaille whom my aristocratic friend esteemed as a base part of the exclusive and despotic property of gentlemen.

"Egad, Devereux," said he, "do you see that fellow? he has the audacity to affect spleen. Faith, I thought melancholy was the distinguishing patent of n.o.bility: we will smoke him." And advancing towards the man of gloom, Tarleton touched him with the end of his cane. The man started and turned round. "Pray, sirrah," said Tarleton, coldly, "pray who the devil are you that you presume to look discontented?"