Lesbia Newman (1889)/Chapter 45
CHAPTER XLV.
A Party At Home.
It has not been mentioned that our heroine had matriculated at Ousebridge, and become an undergraduate of New College, the first college erected after the original one, which was called Foundation College. She enjoyed the life thoroughly, and was the leading spirit of the place in all things that savoured of its principal purpose, the eradication of the old ideas and standards of feminine vocation. Undoubtedly, before the days of Ousebridge, Girton and Newnham and other institutions had been praiseworthy moves in the right direction, but the authorities in those places had been content with the improvement in studies, and had been willing to compromise with the old regimen in other matters; whereas at Ousebridge the object was to obliterate every artificial distinction between the sexes which had been in the past, or might be in the future, used to the detriment of the female sex. And it was in aiding such a purpose that our heroine’s strength lay. She was no abnormal genius; she was simply a healthily developed girl, strong physically, mentally, and spiritually; a pattern for girls in general, so soon as society shall have been led—or driven—to do women justice.
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It was the Easter vacation, and the only pleasant sunny afternoon that had yet occurred in it. Two of Lesbia’s college friends were staying at Dulham for the occasion; and many guests for the day, a few from London and the rest from the neighbourhood, had assembled, some in the vicarage garden, where a pavilion for the evening dance had been erected, with the porcupine flag floating above it, and others in the rooms of the house. Lady Hilda Hawknorbuzzard had had to drag her mother and sister to the party, but once there, they enjoyed it. Presently Hilda asked,—
‘And how’s Fidgfumblasquidiot the brilliant? I didn’t see her as we came in.’
‘Oh, she’s very well,’ replied Lesbia, ‘and in an ecstasy ever since post time this morning, because some thoughtful person has sent her an old Christmas card, addressed to ‘Miss Grewel;’ the poetry runs thusly:—
With your nose pink and thine eyes blue!
And may each merry New Year
With roses those white cheeks smear!’
Fidge thinks it very grand. But you haven't heard her last exploit. Finest thing. We drove her with us to Frogmore the other day for an outing; and while she was walking down the High Street with me, as we passed Bummingby’s, it occurred to her to ask if my bicycle wasn’t getting worn out. ‘Yes, Fidge,’ I said; ‘thank you for reminding me. I must grow a new one. Here’s threepence; just go to the market gardener’s over there, and ask him for an ounce of bicycle seed.’ Off starts Fidge, dutifully and without misgiving. In two or three minutes she comes back and returns me the coppers. ‘Well, Fidge?’ ‘Please ’m, the man’s stupid; he stared at me and laughed, said he hadn’t got any bicycle seed, but he could supply me with some bicycle eggs from a mare’s nest, if that would do as well. So I said I must come and ask you first.’
‘Delightful Fidge!’ exclaimed Hilda; ‘give me the refusal of her, Lesbie, if ever she’s for sale.’
‘Now, Lesbie, I haven’t had two words with you yet,’ said Lady Humnoddie, as she joined them. ‘What did you do in town this time? See anybody or anything?’
‘Yes, Lady Humnoddie, everybody and everything. That is, you know, everybody who is anybody, and everything that is anything. We saw a lot of fashionable marriages.’
‘Bless me, Lesbie! you’re turning dollymops like me! I shouldn’t have thought you’d care about fashionable marriages or fashionable anything. But where did you see them?—at St George’s, Hanover Square?’
‘Why no, Lady Humnoddie, not at St George’s, Hanover Square, but at St Mylitta’s, Northbourne Terrace. I omitted to mention that the marriages, though extremely fashionable, were only temporary, and that they appeared to be contracted mostly between married men and other men’s wives. But this may have been an optical illusion.’
This was said pointedly at Rose Lockstable, who was just then within earshot.
‘Don’t you believe that wicked girl’s stories, Lady Humnoddie,’ said she, coming forward. ‘Lesbie has no more sense of propriety than her monster Gossamer there.’
‘Oh yes, I have, Rose, much more,’ remonstrated Lesbia. ‘You should have seen Goss romping with Fidge’s great tom-cat Bollflax, yesterday morning. Boll was determined to get his teeth into Goss’s back, and at last he did. Goss didn’t seem to be the least hurt, quite the contrary; never saw a dog so good-natured in his play.’
‘Was there any mark afterwards?’ asked Rose.
‘Really, I didn’t look,’ replied Lesbia.
‘We are told in Holy Writ that the lion shall lie down with the lamb,’ observed Mr Bristley; ‘but when cats and dogs take to mutual backbiting, it is quite a new school for scandal.’
‘Here comes my worse half,’ said Rose. ‘Well, Athelstan, I won’t ask, ‘Who’s your fat friend?’ as Brummel did, but, who’s your slim one? Didn’t I see a spare young man get out of the trap with you?’
‘Yes, to be sure, Rose, don’t you know Dandidimmons by this time?’ replied her husband testily. ‘As I knew you were coming with cousin Blanche, I thought I might as well give him a lift. We've had a jolly discussion about a joint trip to Italy in the autumn. Of course, you won't say no.’
‘Not if it’s a great pleasure to you,’ answered his wife doubtfully, ‘but you’re not a first-rate linguist, Athelstan, and you've quite enough to do to make your own way abroad, without having to act as interpreter to a green young tourist.’
‘There’s no need for interpreters nowadays, my dear Rose,’ replied her husband. ‘They'll give you your change right, I fancy, at the chief railway refreshment stations; and any one can see the Hums and Damns at the little houses all along the line. What more do you want?’
‘Some people travel with ulterior objects, Mr Lockstable,’ observed Lesbia snickering, ‘but, after all, there’s no blessing like a contented mind. Hallo! how are you, Julius Cæs— I mean, Mr Dandidimmons?’ putting out her hand to the young man’s, and giving him a grip, which—but that it was salve to the passion he secretly felt for her—would have been enough to make him howl.
‘Call me Julius Cæsar or anything else you like, Miss Newman,’ he answered; ‘any name is pleasant from your mouth. How splendid you look in that dress!’
‘Splendid! of course I do. Fine parsnips butter fine birds, don’t they? But there are two of my chums in the same, and you’d see the whole flight of us if you came to Ousebridge. This is the college uniform.’
‘Well, I will say that the process of changing the sex of gurls is a beautiful one.’
‘Developing the sex of girls, not changing it, Julius. Perfect womanhood includes, not differs from, masculine attributes.’
‘Jove! that is thundering queer, bai Jove!’ said Julius, endeavouring to make his moustache bear the weight of the new idea, by vigorously twirling the former. ‘But I say, Miss Newman, do you go in for such masculine attributes as smoking and billiard rooms, for instance, at Ousebridge?’
‘Yes, everything; come on visitors’ day in term-time, and I'll show you over. But now let me see if you recognise a former acquaintance of mine,—that girl leaning against the rope, the taller of the two in uniform.’
‘Miss Blemmyketts an Ousian! She! Never should have thought it!’ exclaimed Julius.
‘Yes,’ said Lesbia; ‘her friends thought it worth while to lose her company for the sake of the education. They haven’t fixed up anything in Yankeeland yet to equal Ousebridge, although I’ve no doubt they will, and perhaps beat us. But come and talk to her.’
‘Yes—a—presently, with pleasure—but I just want to say a word to a fellow over there.’
Julius made his escape, and Lesbia crossed over alone.
‘Guess that young masher’s afraid of me, eh, Lesbie?’ said the American, who had observed the move. ‘Most of the sort are.’
‘Yet he’s not a bad sort either, Letty,’ replied her friend. ‘He has no brain to spare, but what little he has is malleable.’
‘Ah! I’m glad you’ve not forgotten us, Mr O’Logan,’ said Lesbia, advancing to shake hands with her acquaintance of Killarney. ‘So good of you to run down; I hope you'll find Dulham and Frogmore endurable till to-morrow.’
‘Purgatory and h—hem! would be endurable, with you to lighten them, Miss Newman,’ answered the Irishman.
‘But I hope you don’t regard Dulham and Frogmore in that light?’ said Lesbia, laughing.
‘No, no, not at all. Binns’s is a very comfortable little inn,—always bicycling men there to smoke and talk with you in the evening. And I should be glad to stay longer, but my engagements forbid.’
‘Well, Mr O’Logan,’ resumed Lesbia, ‘how your forebodings have come true!’
‘And sorry we are for it, at the bottom of our hearts, I can assure you,’ he returned. ‘True, English and Americans are the same race, still the new country cannot be as the old, any more than a second wife or husband can be as the first. But what were we to do? The bigoted stupidity of your majority here prevailed over your intelligent minority, and the result—Queenstown! Well, the lesson won’t have to be repeated, that’s a little comfort. The world in general is beginning to shake down on new couches, and after all, things might have been a great deal worse. Introduce me, will you kindly, Miss Newman, to your American friend; I should like to hear what she thinks about Yankeefied Ireland.’
The introduction was made, and Letitia soon engaged in earnest conversation with her new acquaintance. In reply to his direct question, she said,—
‘I guess, sir, we shall keep you as long as you want, and no longer. Keeping the Irish against their will is like treading down an octopus, or poking smoke out of a door with a fork.’
‘You are discreet, Miss Blemmyketts,’ answered O’ Logan. ‘We are the closest friends, and the most dangerous enemies. The reason is not far to seek. You can’t deny that the Irishman is, after all, the—a—well, it’s a difficult thing for me to say, but—you know what I mean.’
‘I’m sure I don’t, Mr O’Logan,’ said Lesbia. ‘Come, out with it! don’t be modest!’
‘Well, in fact—why disguise it?—the paragon of God’s creation—there it is.’
‘Guess he’s the loudest animal at blowing his own trumpet,’ laughed Letitia.
The dancing presently commenced, and Mr Lockstable happened to lead off the first waltz with his cousin Hilda. He was rather moody at the moment, and danced silently for a long turn. When at last they stopped to rest in a corner, he said to his partner, with sudden geniality,—
‘Do you know—I'm going to sneeze—do you know h—h—h—ha shub! do you know, h—ha shub! that seven years ago, ha shub! I danced at a ball on the Continent—in fact, at the Casino, the Etablissmong des Bang, you know, at Blown-sir-mayor, in this very evening suit in which I’m now waltzing with you. Hope to start a new one next month; seven years complete.’
Hilda laughed in his face.
‘What a funny man you are! I hope the lower portion is not too worn to hold out till our dance is over? But, I say, what were you doing at Boulogne? I shouldn’t have thought it was the sort of place you’d care about.’
‘Ah well,’ he replied, ‘there was gossip and caffyshantongs and squibs and balloons and boat-races and horse-races and balls and operas; but I wasn’t much in the town itself. I stayed about a month in a crockery-cupboard of an inn, at the hamlet of Whacking-gong[1] on the Calais road, about five miles from Blown, which I was told would be central for my trout-fishing excursions. It was cheap and nasty.’
‘Here, Rose, I say!’ Hilda called Mrs Lockstable’s attention, as she and her partner came to a halt near them; ‘here’s this husband of yours changes his evening clothes once in seven years, like his skin. I tell him he'll come to grief with them in public before long.’
Rose laughed, and waltzed off again.
‘Who's she dancing with, do you know?’ Hilda asked.
‘Oh, yes, that’s Captain Clapper,’ replied Lockstable, ‘a member of my club, and the most imperturbable cool hand you ever saw. What do you think? While the Battle of Queenstown was at its height, happening to be on sickleave at the time, he offered 5 to 2 on the enemy! Someone at the club took him; and when the telegrams told us how the awful day had ended, he seemed quite consoled for his country’s disaster by having won his bet. And even now he’s always rather pleased to hear the subject brought up. I fancy he made a good thing by speculating for the fall—I say, Clapper!’ as Rose stopped him in the same place near them, ‘allow me to introduce you to my cousin Lady Hilda Hawknorbuzzard. I’m telling her some things about Queenstown, you know.’
‘Getting rather an old subject now, isn’t it, Lady Hilda?’ said Captain Clapper. ‘But ‘twas a famous defeat—eh?’
‘For shame, Captain Clapper!’ laughed Hilda. ‘You've neither patriotism yourself, nor respect for its greatest examples.’
‘Ah, my patriotism’s the modern sort, the patriotism of the market. I made a few shillings over the affair.’
‘Well,’ observed Hilda, ‘I’m not sure it isn’t the most harmless sort, after all. Swinburne says slumber is sweeter than tears. We're getting cosmopolitan now; patriotism is going the way family pride has gone.’
‘And many other old things are gone,’ added Rose. ‘The platforms of religion and morals are being newplanked; perhaps it was high time.’
‘Only it is our turn to lay the new planks,’ put in Lesbia, who stopped beside them at the moment, in her waltz with Julius Dandidimmons, whom she had whirled quite out of breath and made giddy. ‘Men have tried and failed. But about Queenstown, this is the second time we English have gained more real good from a crushing defeat than from our most brilliant victories. Hastings made us a world-leading nation; Queenstown, there is every reason to hope, has made us a world-bettering nation. But who comes here? Why, Rose! it’s your spiritual suppliant, the Bishop of Disestablishment! Happy to make your personal acquaintance, Dr Fairfax,’ she said, advancing to shake hands with him; ‘I saw you lately, but not to speak to, at the church of Saint Mylitta, you know. I heard from Mrs Lockstable that we might possibly have this honour. Meanwhile, I should have said, my lord.’
‘Nay, nay, lord me no lords, Miss Newman,’ replied the personage addressed. ‘I wish no man to say of me now, Ah, lord, or Ah, his glory. It’s a relief to doff titles, I assure you. What’s the use of titles without power? they’re only in one’s way. It is true that I am indebted to Mrs Lockstable for the pleasure of this visit; but the immediate reason for my coming down into the neighbourhood is some law affairs in which I rashly offered to assist my dark friend over there, who is talking to your uncle. But I don’t regret it now.’
‘You are quartered for the night at Frogmore, I presume,’ said Lesbia.
‘Yes, our business is there, with a lawyer of the name of Lyttelhurst.’
‘Oh, I know him well,’ said Lesbia; ‘he’s the chief of my bicycle club, and we expected him here. But our friend is quite a negro, is he not?
‘Yes,’ answered Dr Fairfax; ‘he’s a Nubian by birth, and now a missionary of disestablishment! a converted heathen, and, like all converts, a zealot. His name is Babtweak—Evangelicus Trigonometrosius Babtweak; he’s very well off, and consequently well received in soceity; but how he made his money, Heaven knows.’
‘Perhaps they know better still at the opposition shop,’ suggested Lesbia. ‘I suppose he made it by preaching the gospel to the poor, and practising Baal to the rich.’
‘If that had been the case, I should hardly have known him,’ said the ex-bishop; but with a twinkle in his eye that did not escape Lesbia.
‘Not know him! Why not, Dr Fairfax? If he could, why shouldn’t he do so? Money’s money all the world over, don’t you think? And don’t you think that the world’s good word is at all times and in all places to be bought with it? What saith the wise man? Get wisdom, get understanding; but with all thy getting get riches. And again he saith,—Blessed is the sinner that converteth to much wealth the error of his ways; for he hath saved his soul from death, and he shall hide a multitude of sins.’
‘It is just as well to hide them, is it not?’ answered the ex-bishop, gazing at her with unfeigned admiration. ‘Upon my word, Miss Newman, it’s a great pity they hadn’t your assistance in compiling the New Version. You'd have smoothed over every difficulty. Meanwhile, are you ready for me to present my Nubian to you? You'll like him better than you think.’
‘Yes, but just let him finish his confab with my uncle; he’s getting some newer ideas into his fine curly pate than I can give him. I’m sorry that press of business has prevented Mr Aluminium Mountjoy from coming here to meet you. I understand that something like ten thousand applicants are refused admittance to his church every Sunday. He'll have to build two or three new churches at least. The bell again—the cry is still they come.’
Meanwhile the vicar and the Nubian were conversing with animation.
‘No, sir, no good to be a missionary any more,’ said the negro; ‘gospel’s knocked on the head. Universal free secular education has scuttled Christianity.’
‘Therefore you must go and preach a new gospel, Mr Babtweak,’ replied the vicar. ‘You see for yourself that the old one’s played out; where’s the good of sticking to the sinking ship? The gospel of woman’s priesthood is the gospel of the future; go and preach that. There’s your ex-diocesan, Dr Fairfax, with my niece on the other side of the room, come and hear what his opinion is. He’s a man without prejudices; and if what he says does not convince you, I will give you a note of introduction to Mr Aluminium Mountjoy, when you return to town.’
But before they could cross to Lesbia’s group, she had gone to meet the late arrival.
‘Oh, Mr Guineabush,’ she said, ‘here you are at last! we’d almost given you up. But where’s your wife?’
‘Somewhere astern,’ he replied; ‘she’s fussing people still about that old parrot.’
‘What—have you lost him?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so; we can’t find him anywhere. It was the hunt after him that made us so late in starting.’
‘Well, I’m sorry too, for my own sake as well as yours. Not only was he associated in my recollection with dear Goss, who you see is flourishing, and might take a prize, I should think, but also the old parrot reminded me of a memorable conversation, heard long ago, between two bargees at Poplar’s Weir. The men and their language were very rough, but so simple and naïf, that I quite took a fancy to them, and was very sorry to hear that one of them had perished, and the other had been crippled on the field of Queenstown. What a dreadful thing war is! That men should spend on mutual destruction the energies given them to be employed for their own and the general welfare! but let us hope the end is in sight, though it has been long in coming. But who’s that with Mrs Guineabush? How are you, Mrs Guineabush? and this is quite an unexpected pleasure, Sir Richard; we understood you were away.’
‘I was, Miss Newman,’ replied Sir Richard Robins; ‘I only came back this afternoon, and found your mother’s note, about five o’clock. What an age since we’ve met! But I see Miss Blemmyketts over there, and I hope I shall see her with you once more in your old place in the hunting-field next season. It'll be a revival of good old days that I thought were gone for ever, and fox-hunting along with them. What times we have been through, Miss Newman! what times! Did any country ever go through such a convulsion as ours, and survive at all? But it does survive after a fashion: the character of old England dies hard.’
‘Bother old England! it’s welcome to die, if only my parrot were alive!’ exclaimed Mrs Guineabush.
‘Depend upon it, he’s only strayed away to some neighbouring wood, Mrs Guineabush,’ said Lesbia, to comfort her. ‘He'll come back when he gets lonely and hungry. I wish I could think the same of Ireland!’
‘I say, Miss Newman,’ observed Sir Richard, ‘your college fare agrees with you; they don’t starve you at Ousebridge evidently; you’re a more muscular Christian than ever.’
‘Yes; well, they give us everything good of its kind there,’ she replied,—‘old beef and old mutton, instead of stuff that’s half veal or half lamb, and all the malt liquor direct from the breweries, not filtered through the retail trade. The bread, too, is made of pure flour, without any of your lightening messes. That’s why the living there is so wholesome.’
‘But you'll miss it all very much when you leave.’
‘No doubt, but meanwhile we get a good foundation. And perhaps the good example will spread, and people will not be so ready as they are to swallow trash without inquiry.’
‘To turn to a widely different topic,’ said Sir Richard, ‘what’s the meaning of the Pope and his satellites coming to London?’
But Lesbia was not to be drawn out upon that subject by the old squire. She merely replied,—
‘Really, I can tell you no more about that than you can tell me. Their quarrel with the Countess Pisa-Vitri having led to their expulsion, I suppose they find London the likeliest warm corner.’
‘Except one, perhaps,’ added the M.F.H., grinning, as he moved off to another group.