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

“I had rather sit quiet generally of a Saturday evening,” says sober Mr. Wolfe; “at any rate, away from card-playing and scandal; but I own, dear Mrs. Lambert, I am under orders. Shall I go across the way and send Mr. Warrington to you?”

“No, let him have his sport. We shall see him to-morrow. He won't care to be disturbed amidst his fine folks by us country-people,” said meek Mrs. Lambert.

“I am glad he is with a clergyman who preaches so well,” says Theo, softly; and her eyes seemed to say, You see, good people, he is not so bad as you thought him, and as I, for my part, never believed him to be. “The clergyman has a very kind, handsome face.”

“Here comes a greater clergyman,” cries Mr. Wolfe. “It is my Lord of Salisbury, with his blue ribbon, and a chaplain behind him.”

“And whom a mercy's name have we here?” breaks in Mrs. Lambert, as a sedan-chair, covered with gilding, topped with no less than five earl's coronets, carried by bearers in richly laced clothes, and preceded by three footmen in the same splendid livery, now came up to Madame de Bernstein's door. The Bishop, who had been about to enter, stopped, and ran back with the most respectful bows and curtseys to the sedan-chair, giving his hand to the lady who stepped thence.

“Who on earth is this?” asks Mrs. Lambert.

“Sprechen sie Deutsch? Ja, meinherr. Nichts verstand,” says the waggish Colonel.

“Pooh, Martin.”

“Well, if you can't understand High Dutch, my love, how can I help it? Your education was neglected at school. Can you understand heraldry?—I know you can.”

“I make.” cries Charley, reciting the shield, “three merions on a field or, with an earl's coronet.”

“A countess's coronet, my son. The Countess of Yarmouth, my son.”

“And pray who is she?”

“It hath ever been the custom of our sovereigns to advance persons of distinction to honour,” continues the Colonel, gravely, “and this eminent lady hath been so promoted by our gracious monarch, to the rank of Countess of this kingdom.”

“But why, papa?” asked the daughters together.

“Never mind, girls!” said mamma.

But that incorrigible Colonel would go on.

“Y, my children, is one of the last and the most awkward letters of the whole alphabet. When I tell you stories, you are always saying Why. Why should my Lord Bishop be cringing to that lady? Look at him rubbing his fat hands together, and smiling into her face! It's not a handsome face any longer. It is all painted red and white like Scaramouch's in the pantomime. See, there comes another blue-riband, as I live. My Lord Bamborough. The descendant of the Hotspurs. The proudest man in England. He stops, he bows, he smiles; he is hat in hand, too. See, she taps him with her fan. Get away, you crowd of little blackguard boys, and don't tread on the robe of the lady whom the King delights to honour.”

“But why does the King honour her?” ask the girls once more.

“There goes that odious last letter but one! Did you ever hear of her Grace the Duchess of Kendal? No. Of the Duchess of Portsmouth? Non plus. Of the Duchess of La Valliore? Of Fair Rosamond, then?”

“Hush, papa! There is no need to bring blushes on the cheeks of my dear ones, Martin Lambert!” said the mother, putting her finger to her husband's lips.

“'Tis not I; it is their sacred Majesties who are the cause of the shame,” cries the son of the old republican. “Think of the bishops of the Church and the proudest nobility of the world cringing and bowing before that painted High Dutch Jezebel. Oh, it's a shame! a shame!”

“Confusion!” here broke out Colonel Wolfe, and making a dash at his hat, ran from the room. He had seen the young lady whom he admired and her guardian walking across the Pantiles on foot to the Baroness's party, and they came up whilst the Countess of Yarmouth-Walmoden was engaged in conversation with the two lords spiritual and temporal, and these two made the lowest reverences and bows to the Countess, and waited until she had passed in at the door on the Bishop's arm.

Theo turned away from the window with a sad, almost awestricken face. Hetty still remained there, looking from it with indignation in her eyes, and a little red spot on each cheek.

“A penny for little Hetty's thoughts,” says mamma, coming to the window to lead the child away.

“I am thinking what I should do if I saw papa bowing to that woman,” says Hetty.

Tea and a hissing kettle here made their appearance, and the family sate down to partake of their evening meal,—leaving, however, Miss Hetty, from her place, command of the window, which she begged her brother not to close. That young gentleman had been down amongst the crowd to inspect the armorial bearings of the Countess's and other sedans, no doubt, and also to invest sixpence in a cheese-cake, by mamma's order and his own desire, and he returned presently with this delicacy wrapped up in a paper.

“Look, mother,” he comes back and says, “do you see that big man in brown beating all the pillars with a stick? That is the learned Mr. Johnson. He comes to the Friars sometimes to see our master. He was sitting with some friends just now at the tea-table before Mrs. Brown's tart-shop. They have tea there, twopence a cup; I heard Mr. Johnson say he had had seventeen cups—that makes two-and-tenpence—what a sight of money for tea!”

“What would you have, Charley?” asks Theo.

“I think I would have cheese-cakes,” says Charley, sighing, as his teeth closed on a large slice, “and the gentleman whom Mr. Johnson was with,” continues Charley, with his mouth quite full, “was Mr. Richardson who wrote——”

“Clarissa!” cry all the women in a breath, and run to the window to see their favourite writer. By this time the sun was sunk, the stars were twinkling overhead, and the footman came and lighted the candles in the Baroness's room opposite our spies.

Theo and her mother were standing together looking from their place of observation. There was a small illumination at Mrs. Brown's tart- and tea-shop, by which our friends could see one lady getting Mr. Richardson's hat and stick, and another tying a shawl round his neck, after which he walked home.

“Oh dear me! he does not look like Grandison!” cries Theo.

“I rather think I wish we had not seen him, my dear,” says mamma, who has been described as a most sentimental woman and eager novel-reader; and here again they were interrupted by Miss Hetty, who cried:

“Never mind that little fat man, but look yonder, mamma.”

And they looked yonder. And they saw, in the first place, Mr. Warrington