Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

“Would that I did! You will have the best dishes and the best guests. I feed at old Malton’s; perhaps a tête a tête: Scotch broth, and to tell him the news!”

“There is nothing like being a dutiful nephew, particularly when one’s uncle is a bachelor and has twenty thousand a-year,” said Lord Milford. “Au revoir! I suppose there will be no division tonight.”

“No chance.”

Egerton and Berners walked on a little further. As they came to the Golden Ball, a lady quitting the shop was just about to get into her carriage; she stopped as she recognized them. It was Lady Firebrace.

“Ah! Mr. Berners, how d’ye do? You were just the person I wanted to see! How is Lady Augusta, Mr. Egerton? You have no idea, Mr. Berners, how I have been fighting your battles!”

“Really, Lady Firebrace,” said Mr. Berners rather uneasy, for he had perhaps like most of us a peculiar dislike to being attacked or cheapened. “You are too good.”

“Oh! I don’t care what a person’s politics are!” exclaimed Lady Firebrace with an air of affectionate devotion. “I should be very glad indeed to see you one of us. You know your father was! But if anyone is my friend I never will hear him attacked behind his back without fighting his battles; and I certainly did fight yours last night.”

“Pray tell me where it was?”

“Lady Crumbleford⁠—”

“Confound Lady Crumbleford!” said Mr. Berners indignant but a little relieved.

“No, no; Lady Crumbleford told Lady Alicia Severn.”

“Yes, yes,” said Berners, a little pale, for he was touched.

“But I cannot stop,” said Lady Firebrace. “I must be with Lady St. Julians exactly at a quarter past four;” and she sprang into her carriage.

“I would sooner meet any woman in London than Lady Firebrace,” said Mr. Berners; “she makes me uneasy for the day: she contrives to convince me that the whole world are employed behind my back in abusing or ridiculing me.”

“It is her way,” said Egerton; “she proves her zeal by showing you that you are odious. It is very successful with people of weak nerves. Scared at their general unpopularity, they seek refuge with the very person who at the same time assures them of their odium and alone believes it unjust. She rules that poor old goose, Lady Gramshawe, who feels that Lady Firebrace makes her life miserable, but is convinced that if she break with the torturer, she loses her only friend.”

“There goes a man who is as much altered as any fellow of our time.”

“Not in his looks; I was thinking the other night that he was better-looking than ever.”

“Oh! no; not in his looks; but in his life. I was at Christchurch with him, and we entered the world about the same time. I was rather before him. He did everything; and did it well. And now one never sees him, except at the House. He goes nowhere; and they tell me he is a regular reading man.”

“Do you think he looks to office?”

“He does not put himself forward.”

“He attends; and his brother will always be able to get anything for him,” said Egerton.

“Oh! he and Marney never speak; they hate each other.”

“By Jove! However there is his mother; with this marriage of hers and Deloraine House, she will be their grandest dame.”

“She is the only good woman the Tories have: I think their others do them harm, from Lady St. Julians down to your friend Lady Firebrace. I wish Lady Deloraine were with us. She keeps their men together wonderfully; makes her house agreeable; and then her manner⁠—it certainly is perfect; natural, and yet refined.”

“Lady Mina Blake has an idea that far from looking to office, Egremont’s heart is faintly with his party; and that if it were not for the Marchioness⁠—”

“We might gain him, eh?”

“Hem; I hardly know that: he has got crotchets about the people I am told.”

“What, the ballot and household suffrage?”

“Gad, I believe it is quite a different sort of a thing. I do not know what it is exactly; but I understand he is crotchetty.”

“Well, that will not do for Peel. He does not like crotchetty men. Do you see that, Egerton?”

At this moment, Mr. Egerton and his friend were about to step over from Trafalgar square to Charing Cross. They observed the carriages of Lady St. Julians and the Marchioness of Deloraine drawn up side by side in the middle of the street, and those two eminent stateswomen in earnest conversation. Egerton and Berners bowed and smiled, but could not hear the brief but not uninteresting words that have nevertheless reached us.

“I give them eleven,” said Lady St. Julians.

“Well, Charles tells me,” said Lady Deloraine, “that Sir Thomas says so, and he certainly is generally right; but it is not Charles’ own opinion.”

“Sir Thomas, I know, gives them eleven,” said Lady St. Julians; “and that would satisfy me; and we will say eleven. But I have a list here,” and she slightly elevated her brow, and then glanced at Lady Deloraine with a piquant air, “which proves that they cannot have more than nine; but this is in the greatest confidence: of course between us there can be no secrets. It is Mr. Tadpole’s list; nobody has seen it but me; not even Sir Robert. Lord Grubminster has had a stroke: they are concealing it, but Mr. Tadpole has found it out. They wanted to pair him off with Colonel Fantomme, who they think is dying: but Mr. Tadpole has got a Mesmerist who has done wonders for him, and who has guaranteed that he shall vote. Well, that makes a difference of one.”

“And then Sir Henry Churton⁠—”

“Oh! you know it,” said Lady St. Julians, looking slightly mortified. “Yes: he votes with us.”

Lady Deloraine shook her head. “I think,” she said, “I know the origin of that report. Quite a mistake. He is in a bad humour, has been so the whole session, and he was at Lady Alice Fermyne’s, and did say all sorts of things. All that is true. But he told Charles this morning on a committee, that