What Will He Do With It? (Belford)/Book 1/Chapter 14

by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

CHAPTER XIV.

The Historian takes advantage of the summer hours vouchsafed to the present life of Mr. Waife's grandchild, in order to throw a few gleams of light on her past. He leads her into the Palace of our Kings, and moralizes thereon; and entering the Royal Gardens, shows the uncertainty of Human Events, and the insecurity of British Laws, by the abrupt seizure and constrained deportation of an innocent and unforeboding Englishman.

Such a glorious afternoon! The capricious English summer was so kind that day to the child and her new friends! When Sophy's small foot once trod the sward, had she been really Queen of the Green People, sward and footstep could not more joyously have met together. The grasshopper bounded, in fearless trust, upon the hem of her frock; she threw herself down on the grass, and caught him, but, oh, so tenderly; and the gay insect, dear to poet and fairy, seemed to look at her from that quaint, sharp face of his with sagacious recognition, resting calmly on the palm of her pretty hand; then when he sprang off, little moth-like butterflies peculiar to the margins of running waters, quivered up from the herbage, fluttering round her. And there, in front, lay the Thames, glittering through the willows, Vance getting ready the boat, Lionel seated by her side, a child like herself, his pride of incipient manhood all forgotten; happy in her glee—she loving him for the joy she felt—and blending his image evermore in her remembrance with her first summer holiday—with sunny beams—glistening leaves—warbling birds—fairy wings—sparkling waves. Oh to live so in a child's heart—innocent, blessed, angel-like—better, better than the troubled reflection upon woman's later thoughts; better than that mournful illusion, over which tears so bitter are daily shed—better than First Love! They entered the boat. Sophy had never, to the best of her recollection, been in a boat before. All was new to her; the life-like speed of the little vessel—that world of cool, green weeds, with the fish darting to and fro—the musical chime of oars—those distant, stately swans. She was silent now—her heart was very full.

"What are you thinking of, Sophy?" asked Lionel, resting on the oar.

"Thinking—I was not thinking."

"What then?"

"I don't know—feeling, I suppose."

"Feeling what?"

"As if between sleep and waking—as the water perhaps feels, with the sunlight on it!"

"Poetical," said Vance, who, somewhat of a poet himself, naturally sneered at poetical tendencies in others. "But not so bad in its way. Ah, have I hurt your vanity? there are tears in your eyes."

"No, Sir," said Sophy, falteringly. "But I was thinking then."

"Ah," said the artist, "that's the worst of it; after feeling ever comes thought—what was yours?"

"I was sorry poor grandfather was not here, that's all."

"It was not our fault; we pressed him cordially," said Lionel.

"You did, indeed, Sir—thank you! And I don't know why he refused you." The young men exchanged compassionate glances.

Lionel then sought to make her talk of her past life—tell him more of Mrs. Crane. Who and what was she?

Sophy could not, or would not, tell. The remembrances were painful; she had evidently tried to forget them. And the people with whom Waife had placed her, and who had been kind?

The Miss Burtons—and they kept a day-school, and taught Sophy to read, write, and cipher. They lived near London, in a lane opening on a great common, with a green rail before the house, and had a good many pupils, and kept a tortoise-shell cat and acanary. Not much to enlighten her listener did Sophy impart here.

And now they neared that stately palace, rich in associations of storm and splendor. The grand Cardinal—the iron-clad Protector; Dutch William of the immortal memory, whom we try so hard to like, and, in spite of the great Whig historian, that Titian of English prose, can only frigidly respect. Hard task for us Britons to like a Dutchman who dethrones his father-in-law and drinks schnaps. Prejudice, certainly; but so it is. Harder still to like Dutch William's unfilial Frau! Like Queen Mary! I could as soon like Queen Goneril! Romance flies from the prosperous, phlegmatic Æneas; flies from his plump Lavinia, his "fidus Achates," Bentinck, flies to follow the poor. deserted, fugitive Stuart, with all his sins upon his head. Kings have no rights divine, except when deposed and fallen; they are then invested with the awe that belongs to each solemn image of mortal vicissitude—Vicissitude that startles the Epicurean, "insanientis sapientiæ consultus," and strikes from his careless lyre the notes that attest a God! Some proud shadow chases another from the throne of Cyrus, and Horace hears in the thunder the rush of the Diespiter and identifies Providence with the Fortune that snatches off the diadem in her whirring swoop.^[1] But fronts discrowned take a new majesty to generous natures;—in all sleek prosperity there is something commonplace—in all grand adversity, something royal.

The boat shot to the shore; the young people landed, and entered the arch of the desolate palace. They gazed on the great hall and the presence-chamber and the long suite of rooms, with faded portraits—Vance as an artist, Lionel as an enthusiastic, well-read boy, Sophy as a wondering, bewildered, ignorant child. And then they emerged into the noble garden, with its regal trees. Groups were there of well-dressed persons. Vance heard himself called by name. He had forgotten the London world—forgotten, amidst his midsummer ramblings that the London season was still ablaze—and there, stragglers from the great Focus, fine people, with languid tones and artificial jaded smiles, caught him in his wanderer's dress, and walking side by side with the infant wonder of Mr. Rugge's show, exquisitely neat indeed, but still in a colored print, of a pattern familiar to his observant eye in the windows of many a shop lavish of tickets, and inviting you to come in by the assurance that it is "selling off." The artist stopped, colored, bowed, answered the listless questions put to him with shy haste; he then attempted to escape—they would not let him.

"You must come back and dine with us at the Star and Garter," said Lady Selina Vipont. "A pleasant party—you know most of them—the Dudley Slowes, dear old Lady Frost, those pretty ladies Prymme, Janet and Wilhelmina."

"We can't let you off," said sleepily Mr. Crampe, a fashionable wit, who rarely made more than one bon-mot in the twenty-four hours, and spent the rest of his time in a torpid state.

Vance. "Really you are too kind, but I am not even dressed for—"

Lady Selina. "So charmingly dressed—so picturesque! Besides, what matters? Every one knows who you are. Where on earth have you been?"

Vance. "Rambling about, taking sketches."

Lady Selina (directing her eye-glass toward Lionel and Sophy, who stood aloof). "But your companions, your brother?—and that pretty little girl—your sister, I suppose?"

Vance (shuddering). "No, not relations. I took charge of the boy—clever young fellow; and the little girl is—"

Lady Selina. "Yes. The little girl is—"

Vance. "A little girl as you see; and very pretty, as you say—subject for a picture."

Lady Selina (indifferently), "Oh, let the children go and amuse themselves somewhere. Now we have found you—positively you are our prisoner."

Lady Selina Vipont was one of the queens of London; she had with her that habit of command natural to such royalties. Frank Vance was no tuft-hunter, but once under social influences, they had their effect on him, as on most men who are blessed with noses in the air. Those great ladies, it is true, never bought his pictures, but they gave him the position which induced others to buy them. Vance loved his art; his art needed its career. Its career was certainly brightened and quickened by the help of rank and fashion.

In short, Lady Selina triumphed, and the painter stepped back to Lionel. "I must go to Richmond with these people. I know you'll excuse me. I shall be back to-night somehow. By-the-by, you are going to the post-office here for the letter you expect from your mother; ask for mine too. You will take care of little Sophy, and (in a whisper) hurry her out of the garden, or that Grand Mogul feminine, Lady Selina, whose condescension would crush the Andes, will be stopping her as myprotége, falling in raptures with that horrid colored print, saying, 'Dear what pretty sprigs! where can such things be got?' and learning, perhaps, how Frank Vance saved the Bandit's Child from the Remorseless Baron. 'Tis your turn now. Save your friend. The Baron was a lamb compared to a fine lady." He pressed Lionel's unresponding hand, and was off to join the polite merry-making of the Frost, Slowes, and Prymmes.

Lionel's pride ran up to the fever heat of its thermometer; more roused, though, on behalf of the unconscious Sophy than himself.

"Let us come into the town, lady-bird, and choose a doll. You may have one now without fear of distracting you from—what I hate to think you ever stooped to perform."

As Lionel, his crest erect, and nostril dilated, and holding Sophy firmly by the hand, took his way out from the gardens, he was obliged to pass the patrician party of whom Vance now made one.

His countenance and air, as he swept by, struck them all, especially Lady Selina. "A very distinguished-looking boy," said she. "What a fine face! Who did you say he was, Mr. Vance?"

Vance. "His name is Haughton—Lionel Haughton!"

Lady Selina. "Haughton! Haughton! Any relation to poor, dear Captain Haughton—Charlie Haughton, as he was generally called?"

Vance, knowing little more of his young friend's parentage than that his mother let lodgings, at which, once domiciliated himself, he had made the boy's acquaintance, and that she enjoyed the pension of a captain's widow, replied carelessly:

"His father was a captain, but I don't know whether he was a Charlie."

Mr. Crampe (the Wit). "Charlies are extinct! I have the last in a fossil—box and all!"

General laugh. Wit shut up again.

Lady Selina. "He has a great look of Charlie Haughton. Do you know if he is connected with that extraordinary man, Mr. Darrell?"

Vance. "Upon my word, I do not. What Mr. Darrell do you mean?"

Lady Selina, with one of those sublime looks of celestial pity with which personages in the great world forgive ignorance of names and genealogies in those not born within its orbit, replied, "Oh, to be sure: it is not exactly in the way of your delightful art to know Mr. Darrell, one of the first men in Parliament, a connection of mine."

Lady Frost (nippingly). "You mean Guy Darrell, the lawyer."

Lady Selina. "Lawyer—true, now I think of it, he was a lawyer. But his chief fame was in the House of Commons. All parties agreed that he might have commanded any station; but he was too rich, perhaps, to care sufficiently about office. At all events, Parliament was dissolved when he was at the height of his reputation, and he refused to be re-elected."

One Sir Jasper Stollhead (a member of the House of Commons, young, wealthy, a constant attendant, of great promise, with speeches that were filled with facts, and emptied the benches). "I have heard of him. Before my time; lawyers not much weight in the House now."

Lady Selina. "I am told that Mr. Darrell did not speak like a lawyer. But his career is over—lives in the country, and sees nobody—a thousand pities—a connection of mine, too—great loss to the country. Ask your young friend, Mr. Vance, if Mr. Darrell is not his relation. I hope so, for his sake. Now that our party is in power, Mr. Darrell could command any thing for others, though he has ceased to act with us. Our party is not forgetful of talents."

Lady Frost (with icy crispness). "I should think not; it has so little of that kind to remember."

Sir Jasper. "Talent is not wanted in the House of Commons now—don't go down, in fact. Business assembly."

Lady Selina (suppressing a yawn). "Beautiful day! We had better think of going back to Richmond."

General assent, and slow retreat.

1. "——Valet ima summis
   Mutare, et insignia attenuat Deus,
   Obscura promens. Hinc apicem rapax
   Fortuna cum stridore acuto
   Sustulit,—hic posuisse gaudet."
   —Horat. Carm. lib. i. xxxiv.

   The concluding allusion is evidently to the Parthian revolutions, and the changeful fate of Phraates 1V.; and I do not feel sure that the preceding lines upon the phenomenon of the thunder in a serene sky have not a latent and half-allegorical meaning, dimly applicable, throughout, to the historical reference at the close.