Book: My Novel, Volume 1.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> My Novel, Volume 1.




The strangest thing in the world is the different way in which whist
affects the temper. It is no test of temper, as some pretend,--not at
all! The best-tempered people in the world grow snappish at whist; and I
have seen the most testy and peevish in the ordinary affairs of life bear
their losses with the stoicism of Epictetus. This was notably manifested
in the contrast between the present adversaries of the Hall and the
Rectory. The squire, who was esteemed as choleric a gentleman as most in
the county, was the best-humoured fellow you could imagine when you set
him down to whist opposite the sunny face of his wife. You never heard
one of those incorrigible blunderers scold each other; on the contrary,
they only laughed when they threw away the game, with four by honours in
their hands. The utmost that was ever said was a "Well, Harry, that was
the oddest trump of yours. Ho, ho, ho!" or a "Bless me, Hazeldean--why,
they made three tricks in clubs, and you had the ace in your hand all the
time! Ha, ha, ha!"

Upon which occasions Captain Barnabas, with great goodhumour, always
echoed both the squire's Ho, ho, ho! and Mrs. Hazeldean's Ha, ha, ha!

Not so the parson. He had so keen and sportsmanlike an interest in the
game, that even his adversaries' mistakes ruffled him. And you would
hear him, with elevated voice and agitated gestures, laying down the law,
quoting Hoyle, appealing to all the powers of memory and common-sense
against the very delinquencies by which he was enriched,
---a waste of eloquence that always heightened the hilarity of Mr. and
Mrs. Hazeldean. While these four were thus engaged, Mrs. Dale, who had
come with her husband despite her headache, sat on the sofa beside Miss
Jemima, or rather beside Miss Jemima's Flimsey, which had already secured
the centre of the sofa, and snarled at the very idea of being disturbed.
And Master Frank--at a table by himself--was employed sometimes in
looking at his pumps and sometimes at Gilray's Caricatures, which his
mother had provided for his intellectual requirements. Mrs. Dale, in her
heart, liked Miss Jemima better than Mrs. Hazeldean, of whom she was
rather in awe, notwithstanding they had been little girls together, and
occasionally still called each other Harry and Carry. But those tender
diminutives belonged to the "Dear" genus, and were rarely employed by the
ladies, except at times when, had they been little girls still, and the
governess out of the way, they would have slapped and pinched each other.
Mrs. Dale was still a very pretty woman, as Mrs. Hazeldean was still a
very fine woman. Mrs. Dale painted in water-colours, and sang, and made
card-racks and penholders, and was called an "elegant, accomplished
woman;" Mrs. Hazeldean cast up the squire's accounts, wrote the best part
of his letters, kept a large establishment in excellent order, and was
called "a clever, sensible woman." Mrs. Dale had headaches and nerves;
Mrs. Hazeldean had neither nerves nor headaches. Mrs. Dale said, "Harry
had no real harm in her, but was certainly very masculine;" Mrs.
Hazeldean said, "Carry would be a good creature but for her airs and
graces." Mrs. Dale said Mrs. Hazeldean was "just made to be a country
squire's lady;" Mrs. Hazeldean said, "Mrs. Dale was the last person in
the world who ought to have been a parson's wife." Carry, when she spoke
of Harry to a third person, said, "Dear Mrs. Hazeldean;" Harry, when she
referred incidentally to Carry, said, "Poor Mrs. Dale." And now the
reader knows why Mrs. Hazeldean called Mrs. Dale "poor,"--at least as
well as I do. For, after all, the word belonged to that class in the
female vocabulary which may be called "obscure significants," resembling
the Konx Ompax, which hath so puzzled the inquirers into the Eleusinian
Mysteries: the application is rather to be illustrated than the meaning
to be exactly explained.

"That's really a sweet little dog of yours, Jemima," said Mrs. Dale, who
was embroidering the word CAROLINE on the border of a cambric pocket
handkerchief; but edging a little farther off, as she added, "he'll not
bite, will he?"

"Dear me, no!" said Miss Jemima; "but" (she added in a confidential
whisper) "don't say he,--'t is a lady dog!"

"Oh," said Mrs. Dale, edging off still farther, as if that confession of
the creature's sex did not serve to allay her apprehensions,--"oh, then,
you carry your aversion to the gentlemen even to lap-dogs,--that is being
consistent indeed, Jemima!"

MISS JEMIMA.--"I had a gentleman dog once,--a pug!--pugs are getting very
scarce now. I thought he was so fond of me--he snapped at every one
else; the battles I fought for him! Well, will you believe--I had been
staying with my friend Miss Smilecox at Cheltenham. Knowing that William
is so hasty, and his boots are so thick, I trembled to think what a kick
might do. So, on coming here I left Bluff--that was his name--with Miss
Smilecox." (A pause.)

MRS. DALE (looking up languidly).--"Well, my love?"

MISS JEMIMA.--"Will you believe it, I say, when I returned to Cheltenham,
only three months afterwards, Miss Smilecox had seduced his affections
from me, and the ungrateful creature did not even know me again? A pug,
too--yet people say pugs are faithful! I am sure they ought to be, nasty
things! I have never had a gentleman dog since,--they are all alike,
believe me, heartless, selfish creatures."

MRS. DALE.--"Pugs? I dare say they are!"

MISS JEMIMA (with spirit).-"MEN!--I told you it was a gentleman dog!"

MRS. DALE (apologetically).--"True, my love, but the whole thing was so
mixed up!"

MISS JEMIMA.--"You saw that cold-blooded case of Breach of Promise of
Marriage in the papers,--an old wretch, too, of sixty-four. No age makes
them a bit better. And when one thinks that the end of all flesh is
approaching, and that--"

MRS. DALE (quickly, for she prefers Miss Jemima's other hobby to that
black one upon which she is preparing to precede the bier of the
universe).--"Yes, my love, we'll avoid that subject, if you please. Mr.
Dale has his own opinions, and it becomes me, you know, as a parson's
wife" (said smilingly: Mrs. Dale has as pretty a dimple as any of Miss
Jemima's, and makes more of that one than Miss Jemima of three), "to
agree with him,--that is, in theology."

MISS JEMIMA (earnestly).---"But the thing is so clear, if you will but
look into--"

MRS. DALE (putting her hand on Miss Jemima's lips playfully).---"Not a
word more. Pray, what do you think of the squire's tenant at the Casino,
Signor Riccabocca? An interesting creature, is he not?"

MISS JEMIMA.--"Interesting! not to me. Interesting? Why is he
interesting?"

Mrs. Dale is silent, and turns her handkerchief in her pretty little
white hands, appearing to contemplate the R in Caroline.

MISS JEMIMA (half pettishly, half coaxingly).--"Why is he interesting? I
scarcely ever looked at him; they say he smokes, and never eats. Ugly,
too!"

MRS. DALE.--"Ugly,--no. A fine bead,--very like Dante's; but what is
beauty?"

MISS JEMIMA.--"Very true: what is it indeed? Yes, as you say, I think
there is something interesting about him; he looks melancholy, but that
may be because he is poor."

MRS. DALE.--"It is astonishing how little one feels poverty when one
loves. Charles and I were very poor once,--before the squire--" Mrs.
Dale paused, looked towards the squire, and murmured a blessing, the
warmth of which brought tears into her eyes. "Yes," she added, after a
pause, "we were very poor, but we were happy even then,--more thanks to
Charles than to me;" and tears from a new source again dimmed those
quick, lively eyes, as the little woman gazed fondly on her husband,
whose brows were knit into a black frown over a bad hand.

MISS JEMIMA.--"It is only those horrid men who think of money as a source
of happiness. I should be the last person to esteem a gentleman less
because he was poor."

MRS. DALE.--"I wonder the squire does not ask Signor Riccabocca here more
often. Such an acquisition we find him!"

The squire's voice from the card-table.--"Whom ought I to ask more often,
Mrs. Dale?"

Parson's voice, impatiently.--"Come, come, come, squire: play to my queen
of diamonds,--do!"

SQUIRE.--"There, I trump it! pick up the trick, Mrs. H."

PARSON.--"Stop! Stop! trump my diamond?"

THE CAPTAIN (solemnly).--"'Trick turned; play on, Squire."

SQUIRE.--"The king of diamonds."

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"Lord! Hazeldean, why, that's the most barefaced
revoke,--ha, ha, ha! trump the queen of diamonds and play out the king!
well, I never! ha, ha, ha!"

CAPTAIN BARNABAS (in tenor).--"Ha, ha, ha!"

SQUIRE.--"Ho, ho, ho! bless my soul! ho, ho, ho!"

CAPTAIN BARNABAS (in bass).--"Ho, ho, ho!"

Parson's voice raised, but drowned by the laughter of his adversaries and
the firm, clear tone of Captain Barnabas.--"Three to our score!--game!"

SQUIRE (wiping his eyes).--"No help for it; Harry, deal for me. Whom
ought I to ask, Mrs. Dale?" (Waxing angry.) "First time I ever heard the
hospitality of Hazeldean called in question!"

MRS. DALE.--"My dear sir, I beg a thousand pardons, but listeners--you
know the proverb."

SQUIRE (growling like a bear).--"I hear nothing but proverbs ever since
we had that Mounseer among us. Please to speak plainly, ma'am."

Mrs. DALE (sliding into a little temper at being thus roughly accosted).
--"It was of Mounseer, as you call him, that I spoke, Mr. Hazeldean."

SQUIRE.--"What! Rickeybockey?"

MRS. DALE (attempting the pure Italian accentuation).--"Signor
Riccabocca."

PARSON (slapping his cards on the table in despair).--"Are we playing at
whist, or are we not?"

The squire, who is fourth player, drops the king to Captain
Higginbotham's lead of the ace of hearts. Now the captain has left
queen, knave, and two other hearts, four trumps to the queen, and nothing
to win a trick with in the two other suits. This hand is therefore
precisely one of those in which, especially after the fall of that king
of hearts in the adversary's hand, it becomes a matter of reasonable
doubt whether to lead trumps or not. The captain hesitates, and not
liking to play out his good hearts with the certainty of their being
trumped by the squire, nor, on the other hand, liking to open the other
suits, in which he has not a card that can assist his partner, resolves,
as becomes a military man in such dilemma, to make a bold push and lead
out trumps in the chance of finding his partner strong and so bringing in
his long suit.

SQUIRE (taking advantage of the much meditating pause made by the
captain).--"Mrs. Dale, it is not my fault. I have asked Rickeybockey,--
time out of mind. But I suppose I am not fine enough for those foreign
chaps. He'll not come,--that's all I know."

PARSON (aghast at seeing the captain play out trumps, of which he, Mr.
Dale, has only two, wherewith he expects to ruff the suit of spades, of
which he has only one, the cards all falling in suits, while he has not a
single other chance of a trick in his hand).--"Really, Squire, we had
better give up playing if you put out my partner in this extraordinary
way,--jabber, jabber, jabber!"

SQUIRE.--"Well, we must be good children, Harry. What!--trumps, Barney?
Thank ye for that!" And the squire might well be grateful, for the
unfortunate adversary has led up to ace king knave, with two other
trumps. Squire takes the parson's ten with his knave, and plays out ace
king; then, having cleared all the trumps except the captain's queen and
his own remaining two, leads off tierce major in that very suit of spades
of which the parson has only one,--and the captain, indeed, but two,--
forces out the captain's queen, and wins the game in a canter.

PARSON (with a look at the captain which might have become the awful
brows of Jove, when about to thunder).--"That, I suppose, is the new-
fashioned London play! In my time the rule was, 'First save the game,
then try to win it.'"

CAPTAIN.--"Could not save it, sir."

PARSON (exploding)--"Not save it!--two ruffs in my own hand,--two tricks
certain till you took them out! Monstrous! The rashest trump."--Seizes
the cards, spreads them on the table, lip quivering, hands trembling,
tries to show how five tricks could have been gained,--N.B. It is
/short/ whist which Captain Barnabas had introduced at the Hall,--can't
make out more than four; Captain smiles triumphantly; Parson in a
passion, and not at all convinced, mixes all the cards together again,
and falling back in his chair, groans, with tears in his voice.--"The
cruellest trump! the most wanton cruelty!"

The Hazeldeans in chorus.--"Ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha!" The captain, who
does not laugh this time, and whose turn it is to deal, shuffles the
cards for the conquering game of the rubber with as much caution and
prolixity as Fabius might have employed in posting his men. The squire
gets up to stretch his legs, and, the insinuation against his hospitality
recurring to his thoughts, calls out to his wife, "Write to Rickeybockey
to-morrow yourself, Harry, and ask him to come and spend two or three
days here. There, Mrs. Dale, you hear me?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Dale, putting her hands to her ears in implied rebuke at
the loudness of the squire's tone. "My dear sir, do remember that I'm a
sad nervous creature."

"Beg pardon," muttered Mr. Hazeldean, turning to his son, who having got
tired of the caricatures, had fished out for himself the great folio
County History, which was the only book in the library that the squire
much valued, and which he usually kept under lock and key, in his study,
together with the field-books and steward's accounts, but which he had
reluctantly taken into the drawing-room that day, in order to oblige
Captain Higginbotham. For the Higginbothams--an old Saxon family, as the
name evidently denotes--had once possessed lands in that very county; and
the captain, during his visits to Hazeldean Hall, was regularly in the
habit of asking to look into the County History, for the purpose of
refreshing his eyes, and renovating his sense of ancestral dignity, with
the following paragraph therein:

To the left of the village of Dunder, and pleasantly situated in a
hollow, lies Botham Hall, the residence of the ancient family of
Higginbotham, as it is now commonly called. Yet it appears by the
county rolls, and sundry old deeds, that the family formerly styled
itself Higges, till the Manor House lying in Botham, they gradually
assumed the appellation of Higges-in-Botham, and in process of time,
yielding to the corruptions of the vulgar, Higginbotham."

"What, Frank! my County History!" cried the squire. "Mrs. H., he has got
my County History!"

"Well, Hazeldean, it is time he should know something about the county."

"Ay, and history too," said Mrs. Dale, malevolently, for the little
temper was by no means blown over.

FRANK.--"I'll not hurt it, I assure you, sir. But I'm very much
interested just at present."

THE CAPTAIN (putting down the cards to cut).--"You've got hold of that
passage about Botham Hall, page 706, eh?"

FRANK.--"No; I was trying to make out how far it is to Mr. Leslie's
place, Rood Hall. Do you know, Mother?"

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"I can't say I do. The Leslies don't mix with the
county; and Rood lies very much out of the way."

FRANK.--"Why don't they mix with the county?"

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"I believe they are poor, and therefore I suppose they
are proud; they are an old family."

PARSON (thrumming on the table with great impatience).--" Old fiddle-
dee!--talking of old families when the cards have been shuffled this
half-hour!"

CAPTAIN BARNABAS.--"Will you cut for your partner, ma'am?"

SQUIRE (who has been listening to Frank's inquiries with a musing air).--
"Why do you want to know the distance to Rood Hall?"

FRANK (rather hesitatingly).--"Because Randal Leslie is there for the
holidays, sir."

PARSON.---"Your wife has cut for you, Mr. Hazeldean. I don't think it
was quite fair; and my partner has turned up a deuce,--deuce of hearts.
Please to come and play, if you mean to play."

The squire returns to the table, and in a few minutes the game is decided
by a dexterous finesse of the captain against the Hazeldeans. The clock
strikes ten; the servants enter with a tray; the squire counts up his own
and his wife's losings; and the captain and parson divide sixteen
shillings between them.

SQUIRE.--"There, Parson, I hope you'll be in a better humour. You win
enough out of us to set up a coach-and-four."

"Tut!" muttered the parson; "at the end of the year, I'm not a penny the
richer for it all."

And, indeed, monstrous as that assertion seemed, it was perfectly true,
for the parson portioned out his gains into three divisions. One-third
he gave to Mrs. Dale, for her own special pocket-money; what became of
the second third he never owned even to his better half,--but certain it
was, that every time the parson won seven-and-sixpence, half-a-crown,
which nobody could account for, found its way to the poor-box; while the
remaining third, the parson, it is true, openly and avowedly retained;
but I have no manner of doubt that, at the year's end, it got to the poor
quite as safely as if it had been put into the box.

The party had now gathered round the tray, and were helping themselves to
wine and water, or wine without water,--except Frank, who still remained
poring over the map in the County History, with his head leaning on his
hands, and his fingers plunged in his hair.

"Frank," said Mrs. Hazeldean, "I never saw you so studious before."

Frank started up and coloured, as if ashamed of being accused of too much
study in anything.

SQUIRE (with a little embarrassment in his voice).--"Pray, Frank, what do
you know of Randal Leslie?"

"Why, sir, he is at Eton."

"What sort of a boy is he?" asked Mrs. Hazeldean.

Frank hesitated, as if reflecting, and then answered, "They say he is the
cleverest boy in the school. But then he saps."

"In other words," said Mr. Dale, with proper parsonic gravity, "he
understands that he was sent to school to learn his lessons, and he
learns them. You call that sapping? call it doing his duty. But pray,
who and what is this Randal Leslie, that you look so discomposed,
Squire?"

"Who and what is he?" repeated the squire, in a low growl. "Why, you
know Mr. Audley Egerton married Miss Leslie, the great heiress; and this
boy is a relation of hers. I may say," added the squire, "that he is a
near relation of mine, for his grandmother was a Hazeldean; but all I
know about the Leslies is, that Mr. Egerton, as I am told, having no
children of his own, took up young Randal (when his wife died, poor
woman), pays for his schooling, and has, I suppose, adopted the boy as
his heir. Quite welcome. Frank and I want nothing from Mr. Audley
Egerton, thank Heaven!"

"I can well believe in your brother's generosity to his wife's kindred,"
said the parson, sturdily, "for I am sure Mr. Egerton is a man of strong
feeling."

"What the deuce do you know about Mr. Egerton? I don't suppose you could
ever have even spoken to him."

"Yes," said the parson, colouring up, and looking confused. "I had some
conversation with him once;" and observing the squire's surprise, he
added--"when I was curate at Lansmere, and about a painful business
connected with the family of one of my parishioners."

"Oh, one of your parishioners at Lansmere,--one of the constituents Mr.
Audley Egerton threw over, after all the pains I had taken to get him his
seat. Rather odd you should never have mentioned this before, Mr. Dale!"

"My dear sir," said the parson, sinking his voice, and in a mild tone of
conciliatory expostulation, "you are so irritable whenever Mr. Egerton's
name is mentioned at all."

"Irritable!" exclaimed the squire, whose wrath had been long simmering,
and now fairly boiled over,--"irritable, sir! I should think so: a man
for whom I stood godfather at the hustings, Mr. Dale! a man for whose
sake I was called a 'prize ox,' Mr. Dale! a man for whom I was hissed in
a market-place, Mr. Dale! a man for whom I was shot at, in cold blood,
by an officer in His Majesty's service, who lodged a ball in my right
shoulder, Mr. Dale! a man who had the ingratitude, after all this, to
turn his back on the landed interest,--to deny that there was any
agricultural distress in a year which broke three of the best farmers I
ever had, Mr. Dale!--a man, sir, who made a speech on the Currency which
was complimented by Ricardo, a Jew! Good heavens! a pretty parson you
are, to stand up for a fellow complimented by a Jew! Nice ideas you must
have of Christianity! Irritable, sir!" now fairly roared the squire,
adding to the thunder of his voice the cloud of a brow, which evinced a
menacing ferocity that might have done honour to Bussy d'Amboise or
Fighting Fitzgerald. "Sir, if that man had not been my own half-brother,
I'd have called him out. I have stood my ground before now. I have had
a ball in my right shoulder. Sir, I'd have called him out."

"Mr. Hazeldean! Mr. Hazeldean! I'm shocked at you," cried the parson;
and, putting his lips close to the squire's ear, he went on in a whisper,
"What an example to your son! You'll have him fighting duels one of
these days, and nobody to blame but yourself."

This warning cooled Mr. Hazeldean; and muttering, "Why the deuce did you
set me off?" he fell back into his chair, and began to fan himself with
his pocket-handkerchief.

The parson skilfully and remorselessly pursued the advantage he had
gained. "And now that you may have it in your power to show civility and
kindness to a boy whom Mr. Egerton has taken up, out of respect to his
wife's memory,--a kinsman, you say, of your own, and who has never
offended you,--a boy whose diligence in his studies proves him to be
an excellent companion to your son-Frank" (here the parson raised his
voice), "I suppose you would like to call on young Leslie, as you were
studying the county map so attentively."

"Yes, yes," answered Frank, rather timidly, "if my father does not object
to it. Leslie has been very kind tome, though he is in the sixth form,
and, indeed, almost the head of the school."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Hazeldean, "one studious boy has a fellow feeling for
another; and though you enjoy your holidays, Frank, I am sure you read
hard at school."

Mrs. Dale opened her eyes very wide, and stared in astonishment.

Mrs. Hazeldean retorted that look, with great animation. "Yes, Carry,"
said she, tossing her head, "though you may not think Frank clever, his
masters find him so. He got a prize last half. That beautiful book,
Frank--hold up your head, my love--what did you get it for?"

FRANK (reluctantly).--"Verses, ma'am."

MRS. HAZELDEAN (with triumph).--" Verses!--there, Carry, verses!"

FRANK (in a hurried tone).--"Yes, but Leslie wrote them for me."

MRS. HAZELDEAN (recoiling).--"O Frank! a prize for what another did for
you--that was mean."

FRANK (ingenuously).--"You can't be more ashamed, Mother, than I was when
they gave me the prize."

MRS. DALE (though previously provoked at being snubbed by Harry, now
showing the triumph of generosity over temper).--"I beg your pardon,
Frank. Your mother must be as proud of that shame as she was of the
prize."

Mrs. Hazeldean puts her arm round Frank's neck, smiles beamingly on Mrs.
Dale, and converses with her son in a low tone about Randal Leslie. Miss
Jemima now approached Carry, and said in an "aside," "But we are
forgetting poor Mr. Riccabocca. Mrs. Hazeldean, though the dearest
creature in the world, has such a blunt way of inviting people--don't you
think if you were to say a word to him, Carry?"

MRS. DALE (kindly, as she wraps her shawl round her).--" Suppose you
write the note yourself? Meanwhile I shall see him, no doubt."

PARSON (putting his hand on the squire's shoulder).--"You forgive my
impertinence, my kind friend. We parsons, you know, are apt to take
strange liberties, when we honour and love folks as I do."

"Fish," said the squire; but his hearty smile came to his lips in spite
of himself. "You always get your own way, and I suppose Frank must ride
over and see this pet of my--"

"Brother's," quoth the parson, concluding the sentence in a tone which
gave to the sweet word so sweet a sound that the squire would not correct
the parson, as he had been about to correct himself.

Mr. Dale moved on; but as he passed Captain Barnabas, the benignant
character of his countenance changed sadly. "The cruellest trump,
Captain Higginbotham!" said he sternly, and stalked by-majestic.

The night was so fine that the parson and his wife, as they walked home,
made a little detour through the shrubbery.

MRS. DALE.--"I think I have done a good piece of work to-night."

PARSON (rousing himself from a revery).--"Have you, Carry?--it will be a
very pretty handkerchief."

MRS. DALE.--"Handkerchief?--nonsense, dear. Don't you think it would be
a very happy thing for both if Jemima and Signor Riccabocca could be
brought together?"

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