Vanity Fair
in the splendid Court of the Prince of Wales. Fox had toasted her.
Morris and Sheridan had written songs about her. Malmesbury had made
her his best bow; Walpole had pronounced her charming; Devonshire had
been almost jealous of her; but she was scared by the wild pleasures
and gaieties of the society into which she was flung, and after she had
borne a couple of sons, shrank away into a life of devout seclusion.
No wonder that my Lord Steyne, who liked pleasure and cheerfulness, was
not often seen after their marriage by the side of this trembling,
silent, superstitious, unhappy lady.
The before-mentioned Tom Eaves (who has no part in this history, except
that he knew all the great folks in London, and the stories and
mysteries of each family) had further information regarding my Lady
Steyne, which may or may not be true. "The humiliations," Tom used to
say, "which that woman has been made to undergo, in her own house, have
been frightful; Lord Steyne has made her sit down to table with women
with whom I would rather die than allow Mrs. Eaves to associate--with
Lady Crackenbury, with Mrs. Chippenham, with Madame de la Cruchecassee,
the French secretary's wife (from every one of which ladies Tom
Eaves--who would have sacrificed his wife for knowing them--was too
glad to get a bow or a dinner) with the REIGNING FAVOURITE in a word.
And do you suppose that that woman, of that family, who are as proud as
the Bourbons, and to whom the Steynes are but lackeys, mushrooms of
yesterday (for after all, they are not of the Old Gaunts, but of a
minor and doubtful branch of the house); do you suppose, I say (the
reader must bear in mind that it is always Tom Eaves who speaks) that
the Marchioness of Steyne, the haughtiest woman in England, would bend
down to her husband so submissively if there were not some cause? Pooh!
I tell you there are secret reasons. I tell you that, in the
emigration, the Abbe de la Marche who was here and was employed in the
Quiberoon business with Puisaye and Tinteniac, was the same Colonel of
Mousquetaires Gris with whom Steyne fought in the year '86--that he and
the Marchioness met again--that it was after the Reverend Colonel was
shot in Brittany that Lady Steyne took to those extreme practices of
devotion which she carries on now; for she is closeted with her
director every day--she is at service at Spanish Place, every morning,
I've watched her there--that is, I've happened to be passing there--and
depend on it, there's a mystery in her case. People are not so unhappy
unless they have something to repent of," added Tom Eaves with a
knowing wag of his head; "and depend on it, that woman would not be so
submissive as she is if the Marquis had not some sword to hold over
her."
So, if Mr. Eaves's information be correct, it is very likely that this
lady, in her high station, had to submit to many a private indignity
and to hide many secret griefs under a calm face. And let us, my
brethren who have not our names in the Red Book, console ourselves by
thinking comfortably how miserable our betters may be, and that
Damocles, who sits on satin cushions and is served on gold plate, has
an awful sword hanging over his head in the shape of a bailiff, or an
hereditary disease, or a family secret, which peeps out every now and
then from the embroidered arras in a ghastly manner, and will be sure
to drop one day or the other in the right place.
In comparing, too, the poor man's situation with that of the great,
there is (always according to Mr. Eaves) another source of comfort for
the former. You who have little or no patrimony to bequeath or to
inherit, may be on good terms with your father or your son, whereas the
heir of a great prince, such as my Lord Steyne, must naturally be angry
at being kept out of his kingdom, and eye the occupant of it with no
very agreeable glances. "Take it as a rule," this sardonic old Eaves
would say, "the fathers and elder sons of all great families hate each
other. The Crown Prince is always in opposition to the crown or
hankering after it. Shakespeare knew the world, my good sir, and when
he describes Prince Hal (from whose family the Gaunts pretend to be
descended, though they are no more related to John of Gaunt than you
are) trying on his father's coronet, he gives you a natural description
of all heirs apparent. If you were heir to a dukedom and a thousand
pounds a day, do you mean to say you would not wish for possession?
Pooh! And it stands to reason that every great man, having experienced
this feeling towards his father, must be aware that his son entertains
it towards himself; and so they can't but be suspicious and hostile.
"Then again, as to the feeling of elder towards younger sons. My dear
sir, you ought to know that every elder brother looks upon the cadets
of the house as his natural enemies, who deprive him of so much ready
money which ought to be his by right. I have often heard George Mac
Turk, Lord Bajazet's eldest son, say that if he had his will when he
came to the title, he would do what the sultans do, and clear the
estate by chopping off all his younger brothers' heads at once; and so
the case is, more or less, with them all. I tell you they are all
Turks in their hearts. Pooh! sir, they know the world." And here,
haply, a great man coming up, Tom Eaves's hat would drop off his head,
and he would rush forward with a bow and a grin, which showed that he
knew the world too--in the Tomeavesian way, that is. And having laid
out every shilling of his fortune on an annuity, Tom could afford to
bear no malice to his nephews and nieces, and to have no other feeling
with regard to his betters but a constant and generous desire to dine
with them.
Between the Marchioness and the natural and tender regard of mother for
children, there was that cruel barrier placed of difference of faith.
The very love which she might feel for her sons only served to render
the timid and pious lady more fearful and unhappy. The gulf which
separated them was fatal and impassable. She could not stretch her
weak arms across it, or draw her children over to that side away from
which her belief told her there was no safety. During the youth of his
sons, Lord Steyne, who was a good scholar and amateur casuist, had no
better sport in the evening after dinner in the country than in setting
the boys' tutor, the Reverend Mr. Trail (now my Lord Bishop of Ealing)
on her ladyship's director, Father Mole, over their wine, and in
pitting Oxford against St. Acheul. He cried "Bravo, Latimer! Well
said, Loyola!" alternately; he promised Mole a bishopric if he would
come over, and vowed he would use all his influence to get Trail a
cardinal's hat if he would secede. Neither divine allowed himself to
be conquered, and though the fond mother hoped that her youngest and
favourite son would be reconciled to her church--his mother church--a
sad and awful disappointment awaited the devout lady--a disappointment
which seemed to be a judgement upon her for the sin of her marriage.
My Lord Gaunt married, as every person who frequents the Peerage knows,
the Lady Blanche Thistlewood, a daughter of the noble house of
Bareacres, before mentioned in this veracious history. A wing of Gaunt
House was assigned to this couple; for the head of the family chose to
govern it, and while he reigned to reign supreme; his son and heir,
however, living little at home, disagreeing with his wife, and
borrowing upon post-obits such moneys as he required beyond the very
moderate sums which his father was disposed to allow him. The Marquis
knew every shilling of his son's debts. At his lamented demise, he was
found himself to be possessor of many of his heir's bonds, purchased
for their benefit, and devised by his Lordship to the children of his
younger son.
As, to my Lord Gaunt's dismay, and the chuckling delight of his natural
enemy and father, the Lady Gaunt had no children--the Lord George Gaunt
was desired to return from Vienna, where he was engaged in waltzing and
diplomacy, and to contract a matrimonial alliance with the Honourable
Joan, only daughter of John Johnes, First Baron Helvellyn, and head of
the firm of Jones, Brown, and Robinson, of Threadneedle Street,
Bankers; from which union sprang several sons and daughters, whose
doings do not appertain to this story.
The marriage at first was a happy and prosperous one. My Lord George
Gaunt could not only read, but write pretty correctly. He spoke French
with considerable fluency; and was one of the finest waltzers in
Europe. With these talents, and his interest at home, there was little
doubt that his lordship would rise to the highest dignities in his
profession. The lady, his wife, felt that courts were her sphere, and
her wealth enabled her to receive splendidly in those continental towns
whither her husband's diplomatic duties led him. There was talk of
appointing him minister, and bets were laid at the Travellers' that he
would be ambassador ere long, when of a sudden, rumours arrived of the
secretary's extraordinary behaviour. At a grand diplomatic dinner given
by his chief, he had started up and declared that a pate de foie gras
was poisoned. He went to a ball at the hotel of the Bavarian envoy,
the Count de Springbock-Hohenlaufen, with his head shaved and dressed
as a Capuchin friar. It was not a masked ball, as some folks wanted to
persuade you. It was something queer, people whispered. His
grandfather was so. It was in the family.
His wife and family returned to this country and took up their abode at
Gaunt House. Lord George gave up his post on the European continent,
and was gazetted to Brazil. But people knew better; he never returned
from that Brazil expedition--never died there--never lived there--never
was there at all. He was nowhere; he was gone out altogether.
"Brazil," said one gossip to another, with a grin--"Brazil is St.
John's Wood. Rio de Janeiro is a cottage surrounded by four walls, and
George Gaunt is accredited to a keeper, who has invested him with the
order of the Strait-Waistcoat." These are the kinds of epitaphs which
men pass over one another in Vanity Fair.
Twice or thrice in a week, in the earliest morning, the poor mother
went for her sins and saw the poor invalid. Sometimes he laughed at her
(and his laughter was more pitiful than to hear him cry); sometimes she
found the brilliant dandy diplomatist of the Congress of Vienna
dragging about a child's toy, or nursing the keeper's baby's doll.
Sometimes he knew her and Father Mole, her director and companion;
oftener he forgot her, as he had done wife, children, love, ambition,
vanity. But he remembered his dinner-hour, and used to cry if his
wine-and-water was not strong enough.
It was the mysterious taint of the blood; the poor mother had brought
it from her own ancient race. The evil had broken out once or twice in
the father's family, long before Lady Steyne's sins had begun, or her
fasts and tears and penances had been offered in their expiation. The
pride of the race was struck down as the first-born of Pharaoh. The
dark mark of fate and doom was on the threshold--the tall old
threshold surmounted by coronets and caned heraldry.
The absent lord's children meanwhile prattled and grew on quite
unconscious that the doom was over them too. First they talked of
their father and devised plans against his return. Then the name of
the living dead man was less frequently in their mouth--then not
mentioned at all. But the stricken old grandmother trembled to think
that these too were the inheritors of their father's shame as well as
of his honours, and watched sickening for the day when the awful
ancestral curse should come down on them.
This dark presentiment also haunted Lord Steyne. He tried to lay the