Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

such a fortunate man as to want nothing, Charles,” said Lady Marney with a smile. “A dressing-case you have: your rooms are furnished enough: all this is in my way; but there are such things as horses and guns of which I know nothing, but which men always require. You must want a horse or a gun, Charles. Well, I should like you to get either; the finest, the most valuable that money can purchase. Or a brougham, Charles; what do you think of a new brougham? Would you like that Barker should build you a brougham?”

“You are too good, my dear mother. I have horses and guns enough; and my present carriage is all I can desire.”

“You will not assist me, then? You are resolved that I shall do something very stupid. For to give you something I am determined.”

“Well my dear mother,” said Egremont smiling and looking round, “give me something that is here.”

“Choose then,” said Lady Marney, and she looked round the blue satin walls of her apartment, covered with cabinet pictures of exquisite art, and then at her tables crowded with precious and fantastic toys.

“It would be plunder, my dear mother,” said Egremont.

“No, no; you have said it; you shall choose something. Will you have those vases?” and she pointed to an almost matchless specimen of old Sevres porcelain.

“They are in too becoming a position to be disturbed,” said Egremont, “and would ill suit my quiet chambers, where a bronze or a marble is my greatest ornament. If you would permit me, I would rather choose a picture?”

“Then select one at once,” said Lady Marney; “I make no reservation, except that Watteau, for it was given me by your father before we were married. Shall it be this Cuyp?”

“I would rather choose this,” said Egremont, and he pointed to the portrait of a saint by Allori: the face of a beautiful young girl, radiant and yet solemn, with rich tresses of golden brown hair, and large eyes dark as night, fringed with ebon lashes that hung upon the glowing cheek.

“Ah! you choose that! Well, that was a great favourite of poor Sir Thomas Lawrence. But for my part I have never seen anyone in the least like it, and I think I am sure that you have not.”

“It reminds me⁠—” said Egremont musingly.

“Of what you have dreamed,” said Lady Marney.

“Perhaps so,” said Egremont; “indeed I think it must have been a dream.”

“Well, the vision shall still hover before you,” said his mother; “and you shall find this portrait tomorrow over your chimney in the Albany.”

III

“Strangers must withdraw.”

“Division: clear the gallery. Withdraw.”

“Nonsense; no; it’s quite ridiculous; quite absurd. Some fellow must get up. Send to the Carlton; send to the Reform; send to Brookes’s. Are your men ready? No; are your’s? I am sure I can’t say. What does it mean? Most absurd! Are there many fellows in the library? The smoking-room is quite full. All our men are paired till half-past eleven. It wants five minutes to the halfhour. What do you think of Trenchard’s speech? I don’t care for ourselves; I am sorry for him. Well that is very charitable. Withdraw, withdraw; you must withdraw.”

“Where are you going, Fitztheron?” said a Conservative whipling.

“I must go; I am paired till half-past eleven, and it wants some minutes, and my man is not here.”

“Confound it!”

“How will it go?”

“Gad, I don’t know.”

“Fishy eh?”

“Deuced!” said the under-whip in an undertone, pale and speaking behind his teeth.

The division bell was still ringing; peers and diplomatists and strangers were turned out; members came rushing in from library and smoking-room; some desperate cabs just arrived in time to land their passengers in the waiting-room. The doors were locked.

The mysteries of the Lobby are only for the initiated. Three quarters of an hour after the division was called, the result was known to the exoteric world. Majority for Ministers thirty-seven! Never had the opposition made such a bad division, and this too on their trial of strength for the session. Everything went wrong. Lord Milford was away without a pair. Mr. Ormsby, who had paired with Mr. Berners, never came, and let his man poll; for which he was infinitely accursed, particularly by the expectant twelve hundred a-yearers, but not wanting anything himself, and having an income of forty thousand pounds paid quarterly, Mr. Ormsby bore their reported indignation like a lamb.

There were several other similar or analogous mischances; the Whigs contrived to poll Lord Grubminster in a wheeled chair; he was unconscious but had heard as much of the debate as a good many. Colonel Fantomme on the other hand could not come to time; the mesmerist had thrown him into a trance from which it was fated he should never awake: but the crash of the night was a speech made against the opposition by one of their own men, Mr. Trenchard, who voted with the government.

“The rest may be accounted for,” said Lady St. Julians to Lady Deloraine the morning after; “it is simply vexatious; it was a surprise and will be a lesson: but this affair of this Mr. Trenchard⁠—and they tell me that William Loraine was absolutely cheering him the whole time⁠—what does it mean? Do you know the man?”

“I have heard Charles speak of him, and I think much in his favour,” said Lady Deloraine; “if he were here, he would tell us more about it. I wonder he does not come: he never misses looking in after a great division and giving me all the news.”

“Do you know, my dear friend,” said Lady St. Julians with an air of some solemnity, “I am half meditating a great stroke? This is not a time for trifling. It is all very well for these people to boast of their division of last night, but it was a surprise, and as great to them as to us. I know there is dissension in the camp; ever since that Finality speech of Lord John, there has been a smouldering sedition. Mr. Tadpole knows all