Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

“Stupid man!” exclaimed Lady St. Julians; “I never could bear him. And I have sent his vulgar wife and great staring daughter a card for next Wednesday! Well, I hope affairs will soon be brought to a crisis, for I do not think I can bear much longer this life of perpetual sacrifice,” added Lady St. Julians, a little out of temper, both because she had lost a vote and found her friend and rival better informed than herself.

“There is no chance of a division tonight,” said Lady Deloraine.

“That is settled,” said Lady St. Julians. “Adieu, my dear friend. We meet, I believe, at dinner?”

“Plotting,” said Mr. Egerton to Mr. Berners, as they passed the great ladies.

“The only consolation one has,” said Berners, “is, that if they do turn us out, Lady Deloraine and Lady St. Julians must quarrel, for they both want the same thing.”

“Lady Deloraine will have it,” said Egerton.

Here they picked up Mr. Jermyn, a young Tory M.P., who perhaps the reader may remember at Mowbray Castle; and they walked on together, Egerton and Berners trying to pump him as to the expectations of his friends.

“How will Trodgits go?” said Egerton.

“I think Trodgits will stay away,” said Jermyn.

“Who do you give that new man to⁠—that north-country borough fellow;⁠—what’s his name?” said Berners.

“Blugsby! Oh, Blugsby dined with Peel,” said Jermyn.

“Our fellows say dinners are no good,” said Egerton; “and they certainly are a cursed bore: but you may depend upon it they do for the burgesses. We don’t dine our men half enough. Now Blugsby was just the sort of fellow to be caught by dining with Peel: and I dare say they made Peel remember to take wine with him. We got Melbourne to give a grand feed the other day to some of our men who want attention they say, and he did not take wine with a single guest. He forgot. I wonder what they are doing at the House! Here’s Spencer May, he will tell us. Well, what is going on?”

“Wishy is up, and Washy follows.”

“No division, of course?”

“Not a chance; a regular covey ready on both sides.”

On the morning of the same day that Mr. Egerton and his friend Mr. Berners walked down together to the House of Commons, as appears in our last chapter, Egremont had made a visit to his mother, who had married since the commencement of this history the Marquis of Deloraine, a great noble who had always been her admirer. The family had been established by a lawyer, and recently in our history. The present Lord Deloraine, though he was gartered and had been a viceroy, was only the grandson of an attorney, but one who, conscious of his powers, had been called to the bar and died an ex-chancellor. A certain talent was hereditary in the family. The attorney’s son had been a successful courtier, and had planted himself in the cabinet for a quarter of a century. It was a maxim in this family to make great alliances; so the blood progressively refined, and the connections were always distinguished by power and fashion. It was a great hit, in the second generation of an earldom, to convert the coronet into that of a marquis; but the son of the old chancellor lived in stirring times, and cruised for his object with the same devoted patience with which Lord Anson watched for the galleon. It came at last, as everything does if men are firm and calm. The present marquis, through his ancestry and his first wife, was allied with the highest houses of the realm and looked their peer. He might have been selected as the personification of aristocracy: so noble was his appearance, so distinguished his manner; his bow gained every eye, his smile every heart. He was also very accomplished, and not ill-informed; had read a little, and thought a little, and was in every respect a most superior man; alike famed for his favour by the fair, and the constancy of his homage to the charming Lady Marney.

Lord Deloraine was not very rich; but he was not embarrassed, and had the appearance of princely wealth; a splendid family mansion with a courtyard; a noble country-seat with a magnificent park, including a quite celebrated lake, but with very few farms attached to it. He however held a good patent place which had been conferred on his descendants by the old chancellor, and this brought in annually some thousands. His marriage with Lady Marney was quite an affair of the heart; her considerable jointure however did not diminish the lustre of his position.

It was this impending marriage, and the anxiety of Lady Marney to see Egremont’s affairs settled before it took place, which about a year and a half ago had induced her to summon him so urgently from Mowedale, which the reader perhaps may have not forgotten. And now Egremont is paying one of his almost daily visits to his mother at Deloraine House.

“A truce to politics, my dear Charles,” said Lady Marney; “you must be wearied with my inquiries. Besides, I do not take the sanguine view of affairs in which some of our friends indulge. I am one of those who think the pear is not ripe. These men will totter on, and longer perhaps than even themselves imagine. I want to speak of something very different. Tomorrow, my dear son, is your birthday. Now I should grieve were it to pass without your receiving something which showed that its recollection was cherished by your mother. But of all silly things in the world, the silliest is a present that is not wanted. It destroys the sentiment a little perhaps but it enhances the gift, if I ask you in the most literal manner to assist me in giving you something that really would please you?”

“But how can I, my dear mother?” said Egremont. “You have ever been so kind and so generous that I literally want nothing.”

“Oh! you cannot be