Piccadilly A Fragment of Contemporary Biography — 07 - Part IVb: The World

I had discovered what I wanted, for in spite of every effort to conceal it, I detected a mixture of jealousy and of triumph in Grandon's last speech.

Ursula, in her moment of agony, had unconsciously allowed him to perceive that he alone was loved, and had urged him still to love and cherish me, because as an irresponsible being she had thought me more than ever in need of sympathy and protection For a moment I wavered in my resolution.

Should I open my heart and give my dearest friend a confidence which should justify me in his eyes, at the risk of destroying the project I had formed on that night when, walking home from my interview with Lady Broadhem, I had determined to devote my energies to the happiness of others and not of myself?

or should I maintain that flippant, heartless exterior which seemed for the time necessary to the success of my plans?

As usual, my mind made itself up while I was doubting what to do, and in spite of myself I said jauntily, "Well, now that you know that she cares about you and not about me, I suppose you have nothing to do but to return her affection?"

"I have done that for some time," he replied, "but you know how perfectly hopeless our love is; and yet," and his voice deepened and his face flushed with enthusiasm, "I am happier loving hopelessly and knowing that I am loved, than I have ever been before.

Forgive me, Frank, but I do not feel for you as I should have done had you behaved differently.

You had no right to let me suppose that she had accepted you when the subject had never been breathed between you.

Your conscience must tell you that you have acted in an unworthy manner towards us both."

"Grandon," I said, sententiously, "my conscience works on a system utterly incomprehensible to an ordinary intelligence, and I am quite satisfied with it.

I will have a metaphysical discussion with you on the matter on some other occasion.

Meantime you think Ursula has decided on preferring the ruin and disgrace of the Broadhem family to a _mariage de convenance_ either with me or any one else?"

"I did not know it was a question of disgrace," said Grandon, "and I am quite sure that Lady Ursula will do the right thing.

I would rather not discuss the subject any further; we shall certainly not agree, and I am afraid that we might become more widely estranged than I should wish.

Here is breakfast.

It was you who last asked me to bury this unhappy subject, it is my turn now to make the same request.

I wish to heaven it had never arisen between us."

"What a lucky fellow you are!"

said I, looking at him with the eye of a philosopher; "now you would never imagine yourself to be one of the most enviable men in London, with the most charming of women and the most devoted of friends ready to sacrifice themselves at your feet--she _incomprise_, I _incompris_."

"Don't trifle," said Grandon, sternly, interrupting me; "my patience is not inexhaustible."

"Luckily mine is," said I, with my mouth full of grilled salmon, "otherwise I should not be the right stuff for a social missionary.

Apropos, you have never asked me what I have been doing in that line;

nor told me what you thought of the long letter I wrote you from Flityville.

Did you get me the answers to those questions?"

"No," he replied, "I must honestly tell you, Frank, that it pains me to discuss so serious a subject with one who makes so fair and earnest a pretence of having deep convictions as you do, and whose acts are so diametrically opposed to them; and now I must be off, for I have a committee of the House to attend."

"And I a rendezvous of a still more interesting character to keep;" and as I left Grandon I observed a shade of disgust and disappointment cross his face at my last speech.

I always overdo it, I thought, as I walked towards Grosvenor Square, but Grandon ought to make allowances for me.

He has known me all my life, but it was reserved for us both to be in love with the same woman to bring out the strong points in each of us.

Lavater says you never know whether a man is your friend until you have divided an inheritance with him; but it is a much more ticklish thing to go halves in a woman's love.

Never mind, I will astonish them both yet.

Now then, to begin with her; and I boldly knocked at the door.

I found Broadhem in his own little den.

"It is all right," he said, as I entered; "I have told Ursula you are coming, and she will see you in the drawing-room."

I had not been for two minutes alone with Lady Ursula since we parted at Dickiefield; indeed, when it is remembered that my whole intercourse with her upon that occasion extended over little more than twenty-four hours, and that we had never been on any other terms since than those of the most casual acquaintances, the embarrassing nature of the impending interview presented itself to me in a somewhat unpleasant aspect.

Now that it had come to the point, I could not make up my mind exactly what to say.

I tried to collect my ideas and go over the history of the events which had resulted in the present predicament.

Why was I in the singular position of having to make a special appointment with a young lady with whom I was desperately in love, whom I knew but slightly, but who supposed me to be mad, for the purpose of asking her, first, whether she considered herself engaged to be married to me or not; and secondly, if not, whether she would have any objection to the world supposing that such was the case?

Now my readers will remember that the sudden impulse which induced me in the first instance to delude Lady Broadhem into believing that Lady Ursula had accepted me, arose from the desire to save her from the tender mercies of Chundango.

Lady Ursula had in fact owed the repose she had enjoyed for the last two months entirely to her supposed engagement to me.

The moment that is at an end, her fate becomes miserable.

If she will but consider herself drowning, and me the straw, I shall only be too happy to be clutched.

If I cannot propose myself as a husband, I will at least suggest that she should regard me in the light of a straw.

I had got thus far when I found myself in her presence.

She looked very pale, and there was an expression of decision about the corners of her mouth which I had not before remarked.

It did not detract from its sweetness, nor did the slight tremor of the upper lip as she greeted me detract from its force.

It is a great mistake to suppose that a tremor of the lip denotes weakness; on the contrary, it often arises from a concentration of nervous energy.

I am not quite so sure about a tremor of the knees.

That was what I suffered from at the moment, together with a very considerable palpitation of the heart.

Now the difficulty at such a moment is to know how to begin.

I have often heard men say that when they have obtained an interview with a great statesman for the purpose of asking a favour, and he waits for them to begin without helping them out with a word, they have experienced this difficulty.

That arises from the consciousness that they are sacrificing their self-respect to their "career."

If they would never go near a statesman except when they wanted to confer a favour upon him, they would have no difficulty in finding words.

Fortunately the great majority of our public _employes_ are not yet hardened beggars like the Neapolitans, and are not, like them, dead to any sentiment of shame upon these occasions, though it is to be feared that they will soon become so.

The responsibility of demoralising the servants of the public lies entirely with the heads of the departments.

In proportion as these gentlemen are not ashamed of sacrificing their subordinates in order to keep themselves in office, will those subordinates become as unblushing place-hunters as their masters are place-keepers.

Once accustom a man to being a scapegoat, and you destroy at a blow his respect for himself and for the man who offers him up.

I could become very eloquent upon this subject, if I was not afraid of keeping Ursula waiting.

There are few men who need having their duties pointed out to them more constantly than Cabinet Ministers.

Attacks in the House of Commons do them no good, as they are generally the result of party tactics, and spring from as unworthy a motive as does the defence.

Men who have got place do not pay much attention to attacks from men who want it.

Then, as I said before, the Church utterly ignores its duties in this respect.

Who ever heard of a bishop getting up and pointing out to her Majesty's Ministers the necessity of considering the interests of the country before their own?

It would be immediately supposed that he was bullying them, because he wanted to be "translated;" and this would be considered the only excuse for the same want of "good taste" which I, who am only desirous for their good, am now displaying.

I put it to you, my lords, in all humility, do you ever get up in your places, not in the House of Peers, but in another House, and point out to the rulers of the country that no personal consideration should ever interfere with their doing the right thing at the right moment?

Do you ever explain to the noble lords among whom you sit, that when a committee is chosen from both sides of the House to inquire into a simple question of right or wrong, the members of it are bound to vote upon its merits and according to their consciences, rather than according to the political parties to which they belong?

and do you ever ask yourselves what you would do in the same circumstances?

Do you ever tell the heads of departments that they are responsible for the _morale_ which pervades the special services over which they preside?

that the tone of honour, the amount of zeal and of disinterestedness which subordinates display must depend in a great measure upon the example set them by their chief?

that you can no more expect an orchestra to play in tune with a leader devoid of a soul for music, than a department to work well without the soul of honour at its head?

Do you ever tell the leaders of the party with which you "act" that it is wicked openly to collect funds to give candidates to bribe with at general elections?

Do you ever faithfully tell these great men, that just in proportion as their position is elevated, so is their power for good or for evil?

and when you see their responsibilities sit lightly upon them, do you ever take them to task for trifling with the highest interests of the country, and stifling the consciences of its servants?

If the fact that in your ecclesiastical capacity you are beholden to one or other of the political parties makes it delicate for you to attack your opponents, then let the Liberal Episcopacy jealously guard the honour of the Liberal Cabinets, and the Tory bishops watch over the public morality of their own side so soon as it shall come into office.

Of course I was not thinking of all this as I entered the drawing-room, but I had thought it often before, and feel impelled to mention it now.

What I actually did was to blush a good deal, stammer a good deal, and finally make the unpleasant discovery that that presence of mind which my readers will ere this have perceived I possess to an eminent degree, had entirely deserted me.

I think this arose from the extreme desire I felt that Lady Ursula should not at that moment imagine that I was mad.

Perhaps, my reader, it may have happened to you to have to broach the most delicate of all topics to a young lady who regarded you in the light of a rather dangerous lunatic, and you can therefore enter into my feelings.

I was not sorry to find myself blushing and stammering, as it might have the effect of reassuring her, and making her feel that for the moment at least I was quite harmless.

"I am glad, Lord Frank," she said, observing my confusion, "that you have given me this opportunity of seeing you, as I am sure you would not willingly inflict pain, and should you find that you have unintentionally done so, will make all the reparation in your power."

At this moment I glanced significantly at Broadhem, who left the room.

"Unfortunately it too often happens, Lady Ursula," I said, "that it is necessary to inflict a temporary pain to avert what might become a permanent misery."

"I cannot conceive," replied she, "to what permanent misery, as affecting myself, you can allude, in which your intervention should be necessary, more especially when exhibited in a form which places me in such a false position.

I need not say that the announcement which I saw for the first time in a newspaper caused me the greatest annoyance; but when I found afterwards that my mother, my brother, and even Lord Grandon, had heard it from your own lips many weeks before, and that in fact you had given my mother, under a promise that she would not allude to the subject to me, such a totally erroneous idea of what passed at our interview at Dickiefield,--when I thought of all this, I could only account for it by the last revelation you made to me there."

She maintained her self-possession perfectly until she was obliged to allude to my insanity, then she dropped her eyelids, and the colour for the first time rushed into her cheeks as she shrank from touching on this delicate subject.

At the moment I almost felt inclined to tell her that I was as sane as she was, but refrained, partly because I was not sure of it myself, partly because I did not think she would believe me, partly because, after all, it might be the best justification I could offer for my conduct, and partly because I was not quite ready to enter upon an explanation of the ruse by which I had hoped to save her from the persecution of her mother to marry Chundango.

This suddenly reminded me of my idea that she was in the position of one drowning.

I therefore said, in a careless way, for the purpose of showing her that her allusion to my insanity had produced no unfavourable impression upon me,---- "Lady Ursula, would you have any objection to regarding me in the light of a straw?"

"A what!"

said Lady Ursula, in a tone in which amazement seemed blended with alarm.

"A straw," I repeated; "I assure you you are drowning, and even an unworthy being like myself may be of use to you, if you would but believe it.

Remember Chundango's conduct at Dickiefield--remember the view Lady Broadhem took of it, until I interposed, or as I should more accurately say, until the current swept me past her--remember that up to this moment she has never recurred to the subject of Mr Chundango, who, although he comes to the house constantly, now devotes himself entirely to Lady Broadhem herself; and, allow me to say it, you owe it all to a timely straw."

Lady Ursula seemed struck by the graphic way in which I put her position before her, and remained silent for a few moments.

It had evidently never occurred to her, that I had indirectly been the means of securing her tranquillity.

She little thought it possible that her mother could have talked her matrimonial prospects over with a comparative stranger in the mercantile terms which Lady Broadhem had used in our interview at Dickiefield.

And I am well aware that society generally would consider such conduct on the part of her ladyship coarse and unladylike.

It showed a disregard of _les convenances_ which good society is the first to resent.

Those who have never secretly harboured the designs which Lady Broadhem in the agony of a financial crisis avowed, might justly repudiate her conduct; but "conscience does make cowards of us all," and fashionable mothers will naturally be the first to censure in Lady Broadhem a practice to which, in a less glaring and obnoxious form, they are so strongly addicted.

If in silvery accents she had confided her projects to Lady Mundane, the world would have considered it natural and ladylike enough; the coarseness consisted in her telling them to me.

O

generation of slave-owners!

why persist in deluding yourselves into the belief, that so long as you buy and sell your own flesh and blood in a whisper there is no harm in it?

My gentle critics, I would strongly advise you not to place me on my defence in these matters; I have every disposition to let you down as gently as possible, but if you play tricks with the rope, I shall have to let you down by the run.

Why, it was only last year that all the world went to Mrs Gorgon Tompkins's second ball.

They no more cared than she did, that she had lost one of her daughters early in the season, just after she had given the first.

I remember Spiffy Goldtip taking public opinion in the club about it, and asking whether an interval of four months was not enough to satisfy the requirements of society in the matter, as it would be so sad if, after having made such good social running before Easter, Mrs Gorgon Tompkins were to lose it all afterwards through an unfortunate domestic _contretemps_ of this kind.

Now I doubt whether Lady Broadhem could surpass that.

However, she is capable of great feats, and I fully expect she will strike out a new line soon; there has been a lurking demon in her eye of late which alarms me.

Fortunately I am not yet finally committed, financially.

It is true it has cost me a few thousands, which I shall never see again, to tide the family over its difficulties thus far, but I can still let it down with a crash if it suits me.

"Lord Frank," said Lady Ursula, after a pause, "I have already alluded to the circumstance which has induced me to treat you with a forbearance which I could not have extended to one whom I regarded as responsible for conduct unwarrantable towards myself, and certainly not to be justified by any possible advantage which I might be supposed to derive from it.

I consented to see you now, because I feel sure that when you know from my own lips that I wish you at once to deny the rumour you have been the means of originating, I may depend upon your doing so."

"May I ask," I said, with much contrition in my tone, "what explanation you gave Lady Broadhem on the subject?"

"If you mean," said Lady Ursula, "whether I accounted to mamma for your conduct as I do to myself--in other words, whether I betrayed your secret--I have carefully refrained from discussing the subject with her.

Fortunately, after dinner at the Whitechapels' last night, Broadhem told me that he had seen you, and that you were coming here to-day, so I assured mamma that she would hear from you the true state of the case;

though, of course, I felt myself bound to let her understand that, owing to a fact which I was unable to explain, she had been completely misled by you."

"And what did Lady Broadhem say?"

I asked.

"She said that had it not been for a meeting she was obliged to attend this morning, she would have waited to see you to-day; but that she was sure I laboured under some strange delusion, and that a few words of explanation from you would smooth everything."

"Will you allow me to tell you what those few words are?"

said I. "Lady Broadhem little imagines the real state of the case, because she knows what you do not know, that I am engaged in clearing off her own pecuniary liabilities, and making arrangements by which the old-standing claims on the Broadhem estates may be met.

You may never have heard how seriously the family is embarrassed, and how unlucky all Lady Broadhem's attempts to retrieve its fortunes by speculation have been.

I could only account to her for the pecuniary sacrifices she knows I am making by allowing her to suppose that I was incurring them for your sake."

I

could not resist letting a certain tone of pique penetrate this speech, and the puzzled and pained expression of Lady Ursula's face afforded me a sense of momentary gratification, of which I speedily repented.

As she looked at me earnestly, her large blue eyes filled slowly with tears.

"Is she crying because this last speech of mine proves me hopelessly mad?"

thought I; "or does she feel herself in a pecuniary trap, and is she crying because she does not see her way out of it?"

and I felt the old sensation coming over me, and my head beginning to swim.

Why, oh why, am I denied that method in my madness which it must be such a comfort to possess?

It is just at the critical moment that my osseous matter invariably plays me a trick.

I seemed groping for light and strength, and mechanically put out my hand; the soft touch of one placed gently in it thrilled through my nerves with an indescribable current, and instantaneously the horrid feeling left me, and I emerged from the momentary torpor into which I had fallen.

I don't think Ursula remarked it, for she said, and her eyes were now overflowing, in a voice of surpassing sweetness, "Lord Frank, I have discovered your _real_ secret;

it is no longer possible for you to conceal the noble motives which have actuated you under your pretended----" "Hush!"

I said, interrupting her; "what I did, whether rightly or wrongly, I did for the best.

Now I will be guided by your wishes.

What am I to do?"

"Allow no worldly consideration, however unselfish, either for myself or those dearest to me, to induce you to swerve from the course which truth and honour distinctly point out.

Whatever may seem to be the consequences, we are both bound to follow this, and we have but to feel that, if need be, we are ready to make great sacrifices to receive the requisite faith and strength.

Believe me," she concluded, and her voice trembled slightly, "whatever happens, I shall feel that you have given me proofs of a friendship upon which I may depend."

I pressed the hand I still held, and I felt the touch was sacred.

"Ah," thought I, as I left the room, and was conscious that the gentle influence of her I had parted from was still resting upon me, "that is the right kind of spirit-medium.

There is a magnetism in that slender finger which supports and purifies."

O my hardened and material readers!

don't suppose that because I know you will laugh at the idea of a purifying or invigorating magnetism I shall hesitate to write exactly what I feel on such matters.

If I refrain from saying a great deal more, it is not because I shrink from your ridicule but from your ignorance.

You may not believe that the pearls exist; I honestly admit that they are not yet in my possession, but I have seen those who own them, and, unfortunately, also I have seen the animals before whom they have been cast.

And you, my dear young ladies, do not ignore the responsibility which the influence you are able to exercise over young men imposes upon you.

You need not call it magnetism unless you like, but be sure that there is that conveyed in a touch or a glance which elevates or degrades him upon whom it is bestowed, according as you preserve the purity and simplicity of your inmost natures.

If you would only regard yourselves in the light of female missionaries to that benighted tribe of lavender-gloved young gentlemen who flutter about you like moths round a candle, you would send them away glowing and happy, instead of singeing their wings.

If, when these butterflies come to sip, you would give them honey instead of poison, they would not forsake you as they do now for the gaudy flowers which are too near you.

I know what you have to contend against--the scheming mothers who bring you up to the "Daughticultural Show," labelled and decorated, and put up to competition as likely prize-winners--who deliberately expose you to the first rush of your first seasons, and mercilessly watch you as you are swept along by the tearing stream--who see you without compunction cast away on sandbanks of worldliness, where you remain till you become as "hard" and as "fast" as those you find stranded there before you.

Here your minds become properly, or rather improperly, opened.

You hear, for the first time, to your astonishment, young men talked of by their Christian or nick names--their domestic life canvassed, their eligibility discussed, and the varied personal experiences through which your "hard and fast" friends have passed, related.

Then, better prepared for the rest of the voyage, you start again, and venture a little on your own account.

What bold swimmers you are becoming now!

How you laugh and defy the rocks and reefs upon which you are ultimately destined to split!

Already you look back with surprise to the time when almost everything you heard shocked you.

What an immense amount of unnecessary knowledge you have acquired since then, and how recklessly you display it!

Do you think it has softened and elevated you?

Do you think the moral contact which should be life-giving to those who know you, benefits them?

It is not true, because young men behave heartlessly, that you must flirt "in self-defence," as you call it.

When a warfare of this kind once begins, it is difficult to fix the responsibility; but if one side left off, the occupation of the other would be gone.

If you want to revenge yourselves on these fickle youths--_strike!

_ as they do in the manufacturing districts.

Conceive the wholesome panic you would cause, if you combined into "unions" like the working-classes, and every girl in London bound herself not to flirt for the entire season!

Unless you do something of this kind soon, you will reverse the whole system of nature.

The men will be the candles and you the moths; they will be the flowers, and you the butterflies.

If all the brothers in London persist in trying to imitate their sisters, and all the sisters ape their brothers, what a nice confusion we shall arrive at!

The reason I preach to you and not to them now, is, because I think I have a better chance with the mind of a masculine young woman than with that of a feminine young man.

If you only knew what a comfort it would be to talk sense instead of that incessant chaff, you would read a little more.

I

don't object to your riding in the Park--the abominable constitution of society makes it almost the only opportunity of seeing and talking to those you like without being talked about; but you need not rush off for a drive in the carriage immediately after lunch, just because you are too restless to stay at home.

First, the Park and young men, then lunch, then Marshall and Snelgrove, then tea and young men again, then dinner, drums, and balls, and young men till three A. M.

That is the tread-wheel you have chosen to turn without the smallest profit to yourself or any one else.

If I seem to speak strongly, it is because my heart yearns over you.

I belonged once to the lavender-gloved tribe myself, and though I have long since abandoned the hunting-grounds of my youth, I would give the world to see them happy and innocent.

Moreover, I know you too well to imagine that I have written a word which will offend you.

Far from it.

We shall be warmer and closer friends ever after; but I am strongly afraid mamma will disapprove.

She will call 'Piccadilly' "highly improper," and say that it is a book she has not allowed any of "her girls" to read.

I

don't want to preach disobedience; but there are modes well known to my fair young friends of reading books which mamma forbids, and I trust that they will never read one against her wish which may leave a more injurious impression upon their minds than 'Piccadilly.'

[Illustration] PART V. THE FLESH.