Lady Anne Granard/Chapter 37
CHAPTER XXXVII.
"I am going to ask you a question that does not require much legal acumen to answer," said Lord Meersbrook to his attorney, when he called the next day in Lincoln's Inn: "what is a bazaar or fancy fair?—of course I know the meaning of the first word pretty well, but I don't understand the second."
"A fancy fair is a new kind of charity, my lord; or, strictly speaking, a new mode of dispensing it, by employing the wits and fingers of our wives and daughters in making all sorts of fidfads, which turns your house into a Babel, sends your servants to Ackermann's, or the haberdasher's, ten times a day for coloured paper and pasteboard, fancy edgings and colour-boxes, ribbon and velvet, silver edging, beads and braid, card-racks and hand-screens, dolls' heads and purse-clasps—in short, things without end, as I know to my sorrow."
"And I to my joy," thought Lord Meersbrook, but he only said, "And these are worked up for purposes of charity?"
"They are, my lord, so worked up that fifty or perhaps a hundred per cent, arises from the exercise of ingenuity displayed upon them; therefore, if a man like myself, for instance, finds himself annoyed by the litter that is made in his house, and the absorption given to every member in his family, he finds himself rewarded by the cleverness displayed, or the remembrance that his little paternal gifts have been laid out so wisely, and to such a good end, by his young family and their provident mother."
"Fudge, fudge, arrant fudge," said an old gentleman who had been sitting some time ensconced behind the "Times," which he now laid down with an indignant air—"positive fudge, as Birchell would have justly said!"
"You are of the old school, Sir Robert, I know; but, still, even you must allow that a fancy fair does good—many a sinking charity has been revived under its auspices, many a principle of care for our humble classes been implanted in the young heart, and—"
"Many a young fellow angled for successfully, you were going to say, but I deny the fact—the girls bob for eels, it is true; but they only dance or writhe round the hook for a time, and then sheer off, probably leaving the slime of unmerited reproach sticking to the bait. To a fancy ball, for the purposes of charity, I have no objection; for, there, every body pays for a ticket, partakes of a healthy amusement, and leaves a handsome surplus for a good purpose—there is no individual display, no injury done to the regular trader; in this case, it is poor helpless widows and orphan girls, whom fancy fairs expressly ruin—say, that a few hundred pounds are amassed to recruit a hospital or open a dispensary—in that very act you take away shillings, crowns, and pounds, from the industrious and helpless, who are starving for the want of them; you relieve one pauper and you make two: this is so well known that you, Mr. Wallaston, cannot say one word on that part of the subject."
"But even allowing you to be right, Sir Robert, so far as the charity goes, you must grant that a fancy fair is a good thing, so far as it shows that the great of the land are interested in its institutions—willing to unite with the circle below them for a good end—and prove, by the suavity of their manners, that the aristocracy of this country are by no means the proud, fastidious exclusives we have been taught to believe them!"
"Fiddle de dee, the whole thing is neither more nor less than a substitute for the masquerade, which luckily became so gross, it died of repletion. Instead of nuns and sultanas crowding playhouses, we have now pretty shopkeepers, simpering under bowers, behind boards of greencloth, selling pincushions and purses to ogling lords and city dandies, fops and roués, as well in low life as high (so they can pay entrance-money), whose grandmothers would have shuddered at such contamination, and whose husbands may reflect, in days to come, on the sweet words used to decoy a purchaser, or the smile that lingered on a handsome customer, with any thing but complacency. Why are our innocent and nobly-born girls, our beautiful and well-educated young women, exposed to the unhallowed gaze of libertine eyes, the coarse observation of criticizing tongues, here chartered by charity, forsooth?—Why is the gay, witty one of the party tempted to use her faculty beyond discretion?—the arch one to exert her powers to beguile and refuse change for a note, that she may, by and by, produce the greatest sum for the charity?—a ruse practised on myself—in short, why are foreign countries to be told that British feelings can only be cheated into compassion?—that the richest people in the world have the hardest hearts in it, and refuse to help their fellow-creatures, save through the medium of ostentation, and in return for value received?—that the highest and oldest nobility in Europe—the purest blood which ever mantled in the lovely cheek of virgin woman—is regularly exhibited in large bodies, under the protection of British matrons, policemen, and constables, at half-a-crown a head?"
"There is much truth in what you say, Sir Robert; but still we live in a world that must keep moving—the impetus is given, and we can't stop it. Fashions are foolish things, but the change they adopt is the very soul of trade. Railroads are dangerous, but they save time, the most valuable of all commodities—the march of mind renders multitudes averse to the privileged classes; therefore, it must be more wise to mix with them as friends than defy them as enemies, seeing the many must govern, and—"
"I deny the assertion; the many cannot govern, never have governed, never will govern—diffusion implies weakness, as concentration does strength: but I never talk politics; I eschew them in toto; but at fancy fairs I will take a fillip so long as I live, more especially for the benefit of a stranger."
With these words the old gentleman departed, making a low bow to Lord Meersbrook, and a profound shake of the head to the lawyer.
"Sir Robert Akhurst is a good man, a very good man, notwithstanding his philippic; but he is an old one, which makes all the difference."
"And they get his money out of him at the bazaar it seems?"
"By a kind of imposition; otherwise, he is the last man in the world to grumble. A better landlord, a kinder neighbour, or a more generous donor than Sir Robert, it would be difficult to meet with: but we all have our prejudices, and the longer we have cherished them the more warmly we defend them; there is no more possibility of putting a young head on old shoulders than the reverse."
"Where is the shop where fancy-fair things can be bought?"
Being informed on this head, Lord Meersbrook stepped into his cab and drove directly to the place, really believing that there was a great deal of truth in all the observations of the old baronet, for all his prepossessions were in favour of female seclusion, and he had no idea of rank being an advantage beyond its right to mix in a higher atmosphere of morality and intellect than can possibly be found in the great mass of society. He had the chivalric and heroic perception which belongs to loftier and more idealizing spirits than those to be generally met with, either amongst his own order, or others claiming distinction from nature and education, and all his dreams of love and beauty tended rather to enshrine than display the fair being to whom he could devote a heart, certainly fastidious, but naturally confiding. He determined, on the point in question, however, to see for himself: it was an easy thing to run down to Brighton, and a very proper one to see as much as he could of that society in which he must henceforth "live, move, (and to a certain degree) have his being."
Whilst he is, like the people who are very properly angry at all satirical and lying journals, yet allow them to be always on their tables, i.e., encouraging what they condemn, we must leave the young lord for the—the lady of a certain age, (that most uncertain thing on earth) and attend to the labours and cares,
the manifold schemes*[1]
Of those who it seems
Make charity business their care,
though not given exactly
To a gamester decay'd,
And a prudish old maid
By gaiety brought to despair.
Very troublesome, indeed, are all such affairs, where the parties engaging in them are liable to the changes entailed on watering-places. The company pretty generally go out for a given time, and with a given sum in their pockets, which, in nine cases out often, admits of but little encroachment; and if the temptations of mixing in superior society and speculating in expensive novelties cause new demands on papas, or show mammas the impolicy of making them, nothing can be more probable than that a hasty retreat should be resolved on, the consequence of a "summons from some sick or dying friend, of the most pressing nature."
Then have the lady patronesses and their active coadjutors, whether noble or ignoble, all the work of beating up for recruits to go over again. This was so decidedly the case at Brighton, within the month when the plan was broached, that it was for a fortnight given up in despair, and the duchess set out to make visits in the neighbourhood, and three others actually deserted their posts by removing to Hastings. Poor Lady Anne could not run away, therefore she struggled to keep the affair open, thereby earning a high character from the serious party, and the benevolent also, which she merited by "doing affability to all kinds of creatures," and writing such accounts of her own success and the promising character of arrivals, that the duchess returned, Lady Penryhn arrived, having in her train two Polish nobles utterly ruined, with pelisses, constituting their claims and their fortunes; a young Turk, retaining the habit of his country, because he had tact enough to discover that the eyes of English houri preferred it; and a Scotch laird, who, at her request, brought his tartans, though compelled to exhibit without his tail.
With such acquisitions as these, the duchess and her friends again took the field, and with every prospect of success, for the Dowager Marchioness of Linlithgow and her three tall daughters (each of whom might be deemed a rival to the Swiss giantess) had arrived, and entered warmly into the plan. Lord and Lady Conisburgh, and their eight beautiful children, with blue eyes, coral lips, and flaxen locks, (the very models of wax dolls) were the charm of the new pier, and would be transferred in a tasteful group, as the background of a stand, and two Otaheite princes, nearly seven feet, swathed in white calico, with naked arms and legs, would stand on each side, holding a laurel crown over the heads of the fair cherubs, with a massive club in their right hands, threatening destruction to all who approached. The two beautiful little Miss Wrens (already celebrated by Miss Mitford) agreed to exhibit their exquisite miniature persons under a canopy of dahlias, on condition that a proper bench should be provided for them to stand upon, and all the properties in which they should deal be commensurate with themselves. For this purpose it was necessary that the stocks of all the contributing parties should be examined, in order that little pincushions and purses; little old women and little negroes; diminutive models of cathedrals and castles; wee reticules; diamond editions of old poets, and baby albums; little socks and less mittens; miniature scaramouches and punchinelloes: men-of-war, with minnikin pins for their cannon, &c., might be selected; and accordingly a certain time was fixed on when the committee-room received all that was sent, and the lady patronesses began eagerly to select the pretty little things to be sold by the pretty little ladies, who popped about amid the gay confusion, like birds of paradise, selecting their food from baskets of parti- coloured flowers.
Although a great quantity of materials appeared, in the first place, to meet the demand, the sharp eye of the duchess, who understood the affair, soon perceived that there must not only be little but few things assigned to the stand of the Wrens, or some others would be lamentably deficient. Brighton was not a likely place for work to progress in effectively; those who come to see and be seen, cannot afford to shut themselves up for hours together, at the risk of getting pale cheeks and dim eyes; therefore, much the greater part of the goods in question were bought, and the purchasers either could not, or would not, or at least did not, produce, by any means, what was expected. Those parties who, like the Misses Wren, were conscious of their own strength in persons "fine by degrees and elegantly less," or, with Lady Penrhyn, knew the value of their allies in attracting attention, furnished little or nothing to sell; and the duchess, for a moment, cast round her eyes in despair, by no means sorry to perceive such a promise of storm in the sky as to insist on another postponement of the fancy fair day, by which means a little time was given for more begging, with the assurance "that the smallest donation would be thankfully received."
"To be sure," said the duchess, musing, "as an exhibition of curiosities, the affair will be well furnished, and ought to be attractive; the people will come in by thousands: we must refuse nobody, and prevail on our lions to pace the ground the day through. We shall make money at the doors undoubtedly, but the sale will be nothing, absolutely nothing; for there is not a tolerably good thing in the collection besides our own, and not a single novelty amongst them. I think, Ginevra, my dear, we had better put your music-books into our stand; they will sell the better for having your autograph."
"I hope we shan't be so pushed for materials as that comes to; and you forget, mamma, that the daughters of Lady Anne have not arrived with their work, which will, I should hope, be worth having."
"I cannot hope any thing of the kind; if Lady Penrhyn brings so little, we cannot expect her sister-in-law to bring much; and where could the unmarried girls get materials? Lady Anne has been very useful to us, and must have distressed herself in order to procure two very elegant dresses nearly like mine, so that I fear she could not do more, though she has, at present, only one girl to fit up for the occasion; and, luckily, she is very pretty—in that piece of good fortune she resembles myself."
"Thank you, dear mamma," said Lady Ginevra, with a smile well meriting the marble that shall transmit it to future ages.
Three rainy days succeeded, and a whole week of tempest followed, after which there was the promise of better weather; and the committee, for the third and concluding time, fixed on the two middle days of the following week for their appeal to an intelligent and benevolent public.
During the very bad weather, when persons could neither ride nor walk, the duchess, either by beautiful notes (to be kept as heirlooms) or by calls at the nearest houses, got people to work for the bazaar, and kept Lady Anne always in sight and in employment, of one kind or other, as she had superior taste, and could tell how many things ought to be done, though she did them no longer; for time was that she had made one in the working parties of Queen Charlotte and her daughters, the most accomplished artistes in woman's special emporium of useful knowledge.
But, although her friends were kind, Lady Anne was not easy; neither daughter made her appearance, nor did she receive a letter to account for their silence. She remembered, indeed, that Charles Penrhyn could not get franks now, and her daughters knew she would not pay postage; and she had commanded Helen to work night and day, saying, "surely they can give her common materials." As, however, each day drew to a close, her mind misgave her; she doubted the power of Helen, the good will of Charles, when, two days only before the fair, arrived (no daughter) but an important-looking packing case, carriage free. For this Lady Anne gladly paid porterage, bargaining only that it should be carried a few doors distant, to the house of the Duke of C.
- ↑ *Anstey.