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

“'Tis the cold—no, I mean the heat. Thank you, Mr. Warrington.” And she makes him a faint curtsey, as Harry bows a tremendous bow, and walks elsewhere amongst his guests. He hardly knows what is happening at first, so angry is he.

He is aroused by another altercation, between his aunt and the Duchess of Queensberry. When the royal favourite passed the Duchess, her Grace gave her Ladyship an awful stare out of eyes that were not so bright now as they had been in the young days when they “set the world on fire;” turned round with an affected laugh to her neighbour, and shot at the jolly Hanoverian lady a ceaseless fire of giggles and sneers. The Countess pursued her game at cards, not knowing, or not choosing, perhaps, to know how her enemy was gibing at her. There had been a feud of many years' date between their Graces of Queensberry and the family on the throne.

“How you all bow down to the idol! Don't tell me! You are as bad as the rest, my good Madame Bernstein!” the Duchess says. “Ah, what a true Christian country this is! and how your dear first husband, the Bishop, would have liked to see such a sight!”

“Forgive me, if I fail quite to understand your Grace.”

“We are both of us growing old, my good Bernstein, or, perhaps, we won't understand when we don't choose to understand. That is the way with us women, my good young Iroquois.”

“Your Grace remarked, that it was a Christian country,” said Madame de Bernstein, “and I failed to perceive the point of the remark.”

“Indeed, my good creature, there is very little point in it! I meant we were such good Christians, because we were so forgiving. Don't you remember reading, when you were young, or your husband the Bishop reading, when he was in the pulpit, how when a woman amongst the Jews was caught doing wrong, the Pharisees were for stoning her out of hand? Far from stoning such a woman now, look, how fond we are of her! Any man in this room would go round it on his knees if yonder woman bade him. Yes, Madame Walmoden, you may look up from your cards with your great painted face, and frown with your great painted eyebrows at me. You know I am talking about you; and intend to go on talking about you, too. I say any man here would go round the room on his knees, if you bade him!”

“I think, madam, I know two or three who wouldn't!” says Mr. Warrington, with some spirit.

“Quick, let me hug them to my heart of hearts!” cries the old Duchess. “Which are they? Bring 'em to me, my dear Iroquois! Let us have a game of four—of honest men and women; that is to say, if we can find a couple more partners, Mr. Warrington!”

“Here are we three,” says the Baroness Bernstein, with a forced laugh; “let us play a dummy.”

“Pray, madam, where is the third?” asks the old Duchess, looking round.

“Madam!” cries out the other elderly lady, “I leave your Grace to boast of your honesty, which I have no doubt is spotless: but I will thank you not to doubt mine before my own relatives and children!”

“See how she fires up at a word! I am sure, my dear creature, you are quite as honest as most of the company,” says the Duchess.

“Which may not be good enough for her Grace the Duchess of Queensberry and Dover, who, to be sure, might have stayed away in such a case, but it is the best my nephew could get, madam, and his best he has given you. You look astonished, Harry, my dear—and well you may. He is not used to our ways, madam.”

“Madam, he has found an aunt who can teach him our ways, and a great deal more!” cries the Duchess, rapping her fan.

“She will teach him to try and make all his guests welcome, old or young, rich or poor. That is the Virginian way, isn't it, Harry? She will tell him, when Catherine Hyde is angry with his old aunt, that they were friends as girls, and ought not to quarrel now they are old women. And she will not be wrong, will she, Duchess?” And herewith the one dowager made a superb curtsey to the other, and the battle just impending between them passed away.

“Egad, it was like Byng and Galissoniere!” cried Chaplain Sampson, as Harry talked over the night's transactions with his tutor next morning. “No power on earth, I thought, could have prevented those two from going into action!”

“Seventy-fours at least—both of 'em!” laughs Harry.

“But the Baroness declined the battle, and sailed out of fire with inimitable skill.”

“Why should she be afraid? I have heard you say my aunt is as witty as any woman alive, and need fear the tongue of no dowager in England.”

“Hem! Perhaps she had good reasons for being peaceable!” Sampson knew very well what they were, and that poor Bernstein's reputation was so hopelessly flawed and cracked, that any sarcasms levelled at Madame Walmoden were equally applicable to her.

“Sir,” cried Harry, in great amazement, “you don't mean to say there is anything against the character of my aunt, the Baroness de Bernstein!”

The chaplain looked at the young Virginian with such an air of utter wonderment, that the latter saw there must be some history against his aunt, and some charge which Sampson did not choose to reveal. “Good heavens!” Harry groaned out, “are there two then in the family, who are——?”

“Which two?” asked the chaplain.

But here Harry stopped, blushing very red. He remembered, and we shall presently have to state, whence he had got his information regarding the other family culprit, and bit his lip, and was silent.

“Bygones are always unpleasant things, Mr. Warrington,” said the chaplain; “and we had best hold our peace regarding them. No man or woman can live long in this wicked world of ours without some scandal attaching to them, and I fear our excellent Baroness has been no more fortunate than her neighbours. We cannot escape calumny, my dear young friend! You have had sad proof enough of that in your brief stay amongst us. But we can have clear consciences, and that is the main point!” And herewith the chaplain threw his handsome eyes upward, and tried to look as if his conscience was as white as the ceiling.

“Has there been anything very wrong, then, about my Aunt Bernstein?” continued Harry, remembering how at home his mother had never spoken of the Baroness.

“O sancta simplicitas!” the chaplain muttered to himself. “Stories, my dear sir, much older than your time or mine. Stories such as were told about everybody, de me, de te; you know with what degree of truth in your own case.”

“Confound the villain! I should like to hear any scoundrel say a word against the dear old lady,” cries the young gentleman. “Why, this world, parson, is full of lies and scandal!”

“And you are just beginning to find it out, my dear sir,” cries the clergyman, with his most beatified