The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray (top books to read txt) 📕

humble lodgings in Westminster with him, when it became necessary to disclose their marriage, and when her furious relatives disowned her.

General Lambert brought the news home from his office in Whitehall one day, and made merry over it with his family. In those homely times a joke was none the worse for being a little broad; and a fine lady would laugh at a jolly page of Fielding, and weep over a letter of Clarissa, which would make your present ladyship's eyes start out of your head with horror. He uttered all sorts of waggeries, did the merry General, upon the subject of this marriage; upon George's share in bringing it about; upon Barry's jealousy when he should hear of it, He vowed it was cruel that cousin Hagan had not selected George as groomsman; that the first child should be called Carpezan or Sybilla, after the tragedy, and so forth. They would not quite be able to keep a coach, but they might get a chariot and pasteboard dragons from Mr. Rich's theatre. The baby might be christened in Macbeth's caldron; and Harry and harlequin ought certainly to be godfathers.

“Why shouldn't she marry him if she likes him?” asked little Hetty. “Why should he not love her because she is a little old? Mamma is a little old, and you love her none the worse. When you married my mamma, sir, I have heard you say you were very poor; and yet you were very happy, and nobody laughed at you!” Thus this impudent little person spoke by reason of her tender age, not being aware of Lady Maria Esmond's previous follies.

So her family has deserted her? George described what wrath they were in; how Lady Castlewood had gone into mourning; how Mr. Will swore he would have the rascal's ears; how furious Madame de Bernstein was, the most angry of all. “It is an insult to the family,” says haughty little Miss Hett; “and I can fancy how ladies of that rank must be indignant at their relative's marriage with a person of Mr. Hagan's condition; but to desert her is a very different matter.”

“Indeed, my dear child,” cries mamma, “you are talking of what you don't understand. After my Lady Maria's conduct, no respectable person can go to see her.”

“What conduct, mamma?”

“Never mind,” cries mamma. “Little girls can't be expected to know, and ought not to be too curious to inquire, what Lady Maria's conduct has been! Suffice it, miss, that I am shocked her ladyship should ever have been here; and I say again, no honest person should associate with her!”

“Then, Aunt Lambert, I must be whipped and sent to bed,” says George, with mock gravity. “I own to you (though I did not confess sooner, seeing that the affair was not mine) that I have been to see my cousin the player, and her ladyship his wife. I found them in very dirty lodgings in Westminster, where the wretch has the shabbiness to keep not only his wife, but his old mother, and a little brother, whom he puts to school. I found Mr. Hagan, and came away with a liking, and almost a respect for him, although I own he has made a very improvident marriage. But how improvident some folks are about marriage, aren't they, Theo?”

“Improvident, if they marry such spendthrifts as you,” says the General. “Master George found his relations, and I'll be bound to say he left his purse behind him.”

“No, not the purse, sir,” says George, smiling very tenderly. “Theo made that. But I am bound to own it came empty away. Mr. Rich is in great dudgeon. He says he hardly dares have Hagan on his stage, and is afraid of a riot, such as Mr. Garrick had about the foreign dancers. This is to be a fine gentleman's riot. The macaronis are furious, and vow they will pelt Mr. Hagan, and have him cudgelled afterwards. My cousin Will, at Arthur's, has taken his oath he will have the actor's ears. Meanwhile, as the poor man does not play, they have cut off his salary; and without his salary, this luckless pair of lovers have no means to buy bread and cheese.”

“And you took it to them, sir? It was like you, George!” says Theo, worshipping him with her eyes.

“It was your purse took it, dear Theo!” replies George.

“Mamma, I hope you will go and see them to-morrow!” prays Theo.

“If she doesn't, I shall get a divorce, my dear!” cries papa. “Come and kiss me, you little wench—that is, avec la bonne permission de monsieur mon beau-fils.”

“Monsieur mon beau fiddlestick, papa!” says Miss Lambert, and I have no doubt complies with the paternal orders. And this was the first time George Esmond Warrington, Esquire, was ever called a fiddlestick.

Any man, even in our time, who makes an imprudent marriage, knows how he has to run the gauntlet of the family, and undergo the abuse, the scorn, the wrath, the pity of his relations. If your respectable family cry out because you marry the curate's daughter, one in ten, let us say, of his charming children; or because you engage yourself to the young barrister whose only present pecuniary resources come from the court which he reports, and who will have to pay his Oxford bills out of your slender little fortune;—if your friends cry out for making such engagements as these, fancy the feelings of Lady Maria Hagan's friends, and even those of Mr. Hagan's, on the announcement of this marriage.

There is old Mrs. Hagan, in the first instance. Her son has kept her dutifully and in tolerable comfort, ever since he left Trinity College at his father's death, and appeared as Romeo at Crow Street Theatre. His salary has sufficed of late years to keep the brother at school, to help the sister who has gone out as companion, and to provide fire, clothing, tea, dinner, and comfort for the old clergyman's widow. And now, forsooth, a fine lady, with all sorts of extravagant habits, must come and take possession of the humble home, and share the scanty loaf and mutton! Were Hagan not a high-spirited fellow, and the old mother very much afraid of him, I doubt whether my lady's life at the Westminster lodgings would be very comfortable. It was very selfish perhaps to take a place at that small table, and in poor Hagan's narrow bed. But Love in some passionate and romantic dispositions never regards consequences, or measures accommodation. Who has not experienced that frame of mind; what thrifty wife has not seen and lamented her husband in that condition; when, with rather a heightened colour and a deuce-may-care smile on his face, he comes home and announces that he has asked twenty people to dinner next Saturday? He doesn't know whom exactly; and he does know the dining-room will only hold sixteen. Never mind! Two of the prettiest girls can sit upon young gentlemen's knees: others won't come: there's sure to be plenty! In the intoxication of love people venture upon this dangerous sort of housekeeping; they don't calculate the resources of their dining-table, or those inevitable butchers' and fishmongers' bills which will be brought to the ghastly housekeeper at the beginning of the month.

Yes: it was rather selfish of my Lady Maria to seat herself at Hagan's table and take the cream off the milk, and the wings of the chickens, and the best half of everything where there was only enough before; and no wonder the poor old mamma-in-law was disposed to grumble. But what was her outcry compared to the clamour at Kensington among Lady Maria's noble family? Think of the talk and scandal all over the town! Think of the titters and whispers