Sybil, or the Two Nations Part 15

"Muddlebrains can't command a single vote," said Mr Jermyn. "He is a political humbug, the greatest of all humbugs; a man who swaggers about London clubs and consults solemnly about his influence, and in the country is a nonent.i.ty."

"Well, that can't be said of Lord Clarinel," rejoined Lady Firebrace.

"And have you been defending me against Lord Clarinel's attacks?"

inquired Mr Jermyn.

"No; but I am going to Wemsbury, and then I have no doubt I shall have the opportunity."

"I am going to Wemsbury myself," said Mr Jermyn.

"And what does Lord Clarinel think of your pledge about the pension list?" said Lady Firebrace daunted but malignant.

"He never told me," said Mr Jermyn.

"I believe you did not pledge yourself to the ballot?" inquired Lady Firebrace with an affected air of inquisitiveness.

"It is a subject that requires some reflection," said Mr Jermyn. "I must consult some profound politician like Lady Firebrace. By the bye, you told my mother that the conservatives would have a majority of fifteen.

Do you think they will have as much?" said Mr Jermyn with an innocent air, it now being notorious that the whig administration had a majority of double that amount.

"I said Mr Tadpole gave us a majority of fifteen," said Lady Firebrace.

"I knew he was in error; because I had happened to see Lord Melbourne's own list, made up to the last hour; and which gave the government a majority of sixty. It was only shown to three members of the cabinet,"

she added in a tone of triumphant mystery.

Lady Firebrace, a great stateswoman among the tories, was proud of an admirer who was a member of the whig cabinet. She was rather an agreeable guest in a country-house, with her extensive correspondence, and her bulletins from both sides. Tadpole flattered by her notice, and charmed with female society that talked his own slang, and entered with affected enthusiasm into all his dirty plots and barren machinations, was vigilant in his communications; while her whig cavalier, an easy individual who always made love by talking or writing politics, abandoned himself without reserve, and instructed Lady Firebrace regularly after every council. Taper looked grave at this connection between Tadpole and Lady Firebrace; and whenever an election was lost, or a division stuck in the mud, he gave the cue with a nod and a monosyllable, and the conservative pack that infests clubs, chattering on subjects of which it is impossible they can know anything, instantly began barking and yelping, denouncing traitors, and wondering how the leaders could be so led by the nose, and not see that which was flagrant to the whole world. If, on the other hand, the advantage seemed to go with the Canton Club, or the opposition benches, then it was the whig and liberal hounds who howled and moaned, explaining everything by the indiscretion, infatuation, treason, of Lord Viscount Masque, and appealing to the initiated world of idiots around them, whether any party could ever succeed, hampered by such men, and influenced by such means.

The best of the joke was, that all this time Lord Masque and Tadpole were two old foxes, neither of whom conveyed to Lady Firebrace a single circ.u.mstance but with the wish, intention, and malice aforethought, that it should be communicated to his rival.

"I must get you to interest Lord de Mowbray in our cause," said Sir Vavasour Firebrace, in an insinuating voice to his neighbour, Lady Joan; "I have sent him a large packet of doc.u.ments. You know, he is one of us; still one of us. Once a baronet, always a baronet. The dignity merges, but does not cease; and happy as I am to see one covered with high honours, who is in every way so worthy of them, still I confess to you it is not so much as Earl de Mowbray that your worthy father interests me, as in his undoubted character and capacity of Sir Altamont Fitz-Warene, baronet."

"You have the data on which you move I suppose well digested," said Lady Joan, attentive but not interested.

"The case is clear; as far as equity is concerned, irresistible; indeed the late king pledged himself to a certain point. But if you would do me the favour of reading our memorial."

"The proposition is not one adapted to our present civilisation," said Lady Joan. "A baronetcy has become the distinction of the middle cla.s.s; a physician, our physician for example, is a baronet; and I dare say some of our tradesmen; brewers, of people of that cla.s.s. An attempt to elevate them into an order of n.o.bility, however inferior, would partake in some degree of the ridiculous."

"And has the duke escaped his gout this year?" enquired Lord Marney of Lady de Mowbray.

"A very slight touch; I never knew my father so well. I expect you will meet him here. We look for him daily."

"I shall be delighted; I hope he will come to Marney in October. I keep the blue ribbon cover for him."

"What you suggest is very just," said Egremont to Lady Maud. "If we only in our own spheres made the exertion, the general effect would be great.

Marney Abbey, for instance, I believe one of the finest of our monastic remains,--that indeed is not disputed--diminished yearly to repair barns; the cattle browsing in the nave; all this might be prevented, If my brother would not consent to preserve or to restore, still any member of the family, even I, without expense, only with a little zeal as you say, might prevent mischief, might stop at least demolition."

"If this movement in the church had only revived a taste for Christian architecture," said Lady Maud, "it would not have been barren, and it has done so much more! But I am surprised that old families can be so dead to our national art; so full of our ancestors, their exploits, their mind. Indeed you and I have no excuse for such indifference Mr Egremont."

"And I do not think I shall ever again be justly accused of it," replied Egremont, "you plead its cause so effectively. But to tell you the truth, I have been thinking of late about these things; monasteries and so on; the influence of the old church system on the happiness and comfort of the People."

"And on the tone of the n.o.bles--do not you think so?" said Lady Maud. "I know it is the fashion to deride the crusades, but do not you think they had their origin in a great impulse, and in a certain sense, led to great results? Pardon me, if I speak with emphasis, but I never can forget I am a daughter of the first crusaders."

"The tone of society is certainly lower than of yore," said Egremont.

"It is easy to say we view the past through a fallacious medium. We have however ample evidence that men feel less deeply than of old and act with less devotion. But how far is this occasioned by the modern position of our church? That is the question."

"You must speak to Mr St Lys about that," said Lady Maud. "Do you know him?" she added in a lowered tone.

"No; is he here?"

"Next to mamma."

And looking in that direction, on the left hand of Lady Mowbray, Egremont beheld a gentleman in the last year of his youth, if youth according to the scale of Hippocrates cease at thirty-five. He was distinguished by that beauty of the n.o.ble English blood, of which in these days few types remain; the Norman tempered by the Saxon; the fire of conquest softened by integrity; and a serene, though inflexible habit of mind. The chains of convention, an external life grown out of all proportion with that of the heart and mind, have destroyed this dignified beauty. There is no longer in fact an aristocracy in England, for the superiority of the animal man is an essential quality of aristocracy. But that it once existed, any collection of portraits from the sixteenth century will show.

Aubrey St Lys was a younger son of the most ancient Norman family in England. The Conqueror had given them the moderate estate on which they now lived, and which, in spite of so many civil conflicts and religious changes, they had handed down to each other, from generation to generation, for eight centuries. Aubrey St Lys was the vicar of Mowbray.

He had been the college tutor of the late Lord Fitz-Warene, whose mind he had formed, whose bright abilities he had cultivated, who adored him.

To that connection he owed the slight preferment which he possessed, but which was all he desired. A bishopric would not have tempted him from his peculiar charge.

In the centre of the town of Mowbray teeming with its toiling thousands, there rose a building which might vie with many of the cathedrals of our land. Beautiful its solemn towers, its sculptured western front; beautiful its columned aisles and lofty nave; its sparkling shrine and delicate chantry; most beautiful the streaming glories of its vast orient light!

This magnificent temple, built by the monks of Mowbray, and once connected with their famous house of which not a trace now remained, had in time become the parish church of an obscure village, whose population could not have filled one of its side chapels. These strange vicissitudes of ecclesiastical buildings are not singular in the north of England.

Mowbray Church remained for centuries the wonder of pa.s.sing peasants, and the glory of county histories. But there is a magic in beautiful buildings which exercises an irresistible influence over the mind of man. One of the reasons urged for the destruction of the monasteries after the dispersion of their inhabitants, was the pernicious influence of their solemn and stately forms on the memories and imagination of those that beheld them. It was impossible to connect systematic crime with the creators of such divine fabrics. And so it was with Mowbray Church. When manufactures were introduced into this district, which abounded with all the qualities which were necessary for their successful pursuit, Mowbray offering equal though not superior advantages to other positions, was accorded the preference, "because it possessed such a beautiful church." The lingering genius of the monks of Mowbray hovered round the spot which they had adorned, and sanctified, and loved; and thus they had indirectly become the authors of its present greatness and prosperity.

Unhappily for a long season the vicars of Mowbray had been little conscious of their mission. An immense population gathered round the sacred citadel and gradually spread on all sides of it for miles. But the parish church for a long time remained the only one at Mowbray when the population of the town exceeded that of some European capitals. And even in the parish church the frigid spell of Erastian self-complacency fatally prevailed. A scanty congregation gathered together for form, and as much influenced by party as higher sentiments. Going to church was held more genteel than going to meeting. The princ.i.p.al tradesmen of the neighbouring great houses deemed it more "aristocratic;" using a favourite and hackneyed epithet which only expressed their own servility. About the time the Church Commission issued, the congregation of Mowbray was approaching zero. There was an idea afloat for a time of making it the seat of a new bishopric; the cathedral was ready; another instance of the influence of fine art. But there was no residence for the projected prelate, and a jobbing bishop on the commission was afraid that he might have to contribute to building one. So the idea died away; and the living having become vacant at this moment, instead of a bishop, Mowbray received a humble vicar in the shape of Aubrey St Lys, who came among a hundred thousand heathens to preach "the Unknown G.o.d."

Book 2 Chapter 12

"And how do you find the people about you, Marney?" said Lord de Mowbray seating himself on a sofa by his guest.

"All very well, my lord," replied the earl, who ever treated Lord de Mowbray with a certain degree of ceremony, especially when the descendant of the crusaders affected the familiar. There was something of a Puck-like malignity in the temperament of Lord Marney, which exhibited itself in a remarkable talent for mortifying persons in a small way; by a gesture, an expression, a look, cloaked too very often with all the character of profound deference. The old n.o.bility of Spain delighted to address each other only by their names, when in the presence of a spick-and-span grandee; calling each other, "Infantado,"

"Sidonia," "Ossuna," and then turning round with the most distinguished consideration, and appealing to the Most n.o.ble Marquis of Ensenada.

"They begin to get a little uneasy here," said Lord de Mowbray.

"We have nothing to complain of," said Lord Marney. "We continue reducing the rates, and as long as we do that the country must improve.

The workhouse test tells. We had the other day a case of incendiarism, which frightened some people: but I inquired into it, and am quite satisfied it originated in purely accidental circ.u.mstances; at least nothing to do with wages. I ought to be a judge, for it was on my own property."

"And what is the rate of wages, in your part of the world, Lord Marney?"

inquired Mr St Lys who was standing by.

"Oh! good enough: not like your manufacturing districts; but people who work in the open air, instead of a furnace, can't expect, and don't require such. They get their eight shillings a week; at least generally."

"Eight shillings a week!" said Mr St Lys. "Can a labouring man with a family, perhaps of eight children, live on eight shillings a week!"

"Oh! as for that," said Lord Marney; "they get more than that, because there is beer-money allowed, at least to a great extent among us, though I for one do not approve of the practice, and that makes nearly a shilling per week additional; and then some of them have potatoe grounds, though I am entirely opposed to that system.