What Will He Do With It? (Belford)/Book 7/Chapter 2
CHAPTER II.
"Let Observation, with expansive view,
Survey mankind from China to Peru,"
Lionel knew that Mrs. Haughton would that day need more than usual forewarning of a visit from Mr. Darrell. For the evening of that day Mrs. Haughton proposed "to give a party." When Mrs. Haughton gave a party, it was a serious affair. A notable and bustling housewife, she attended herself to each preparatory detail. It was to assist at this party that Lionel had resigned Lady Dulcett's concert. The young man, reluctantly acquiescing in the arrangements by which Alban Morley had engaged him a lodging of his own, seldom or never let a day pass without gratifying his mother's proud heart by an hour or two spent in Gloucester Place, often to the forfeiture of a pleasant ride or other tempting excursion, with gay comrades. Difficult in London life, and at the full of its season, to devote an hour or two to visits, apart from the track chalked out by one's very mode of existence—difficult to cut off an hour so as not to cut up a day. And Mrs. Haughton was exacting—nice in her choice as to the exact slice in the day. She took the prime of the joint. She liked her neighbors to see the handsome, elegant, young man dismount from his charger, or descend from his cabriolet, just at the witching hour when Gloucester Place was fullest. Did he go to a levee, he must be sure to come to her before he changed his dress, that she and Gloucester Place might admire him in uniform. Was he going to dine at some very great house, he must take her in his way (though no street could be more out of his way), that she might be enabled to say in the parties to which she herself repaired, "There is a great dinner at Lord So-and-so's to-day; my son called on me before he went there. If he had been disengaged, I should have asked permission to bring him here."
Not that Mrs. Haughton honestly designed, nor even wished, to draw the young man from the dazzling vortex of high life into her own little currents of dissipation. She was much too proud of Lionel to think that her friends were grand enough for him to honor their houses by his presence. She had in this, too, a lively recollection of her lost Captain's doctrinal views of the great world's creed. The Captain had flourished in the time when Impertinence, installed by Brummell, though her influence was waning, still schooled her oligarchs, and maintained the eti- quette of her court; and even when his mesalliance and his debts had cast him out of his native sphere, he lost not all the original brightness of an exclusive. In moments of connubial confidence, when owning his past errors, and tracing to his sympathizing Jessie the causes of his decline, he would say, "'Tis not a man's birth, nor his fortune, that gives him his place in society—it depends on his conduct, Jessie. He must not be seen bowing to snobs, nor should his enemies track him to the haunts of vulgarians. I date my fall in life to dining with a horrid man who lent me £100, and lived in Upper Baker Street. His wife took my arm from a place they called a draw- ing-room (the Captain as he spoke was on a fourth floor), to share some unknown food which they called a dinner (the Cap- tain at that moment would have welcomed a rasher). The women went about blabbing—the thing got wind—for the first time my character received a soil. What is a man without character? and character once sullied, Jessie, a man becomes reckless. Teach my boy to beware of the first false step—no associations with parvenus. Don't cry, Jessie—I don't mean that he is to cut you—relations are quite different from other people—nothing so low as cutting relations. I continued, for instance, to visit Guy Darrell, though he lived at the back of Holborn, and I actually saw him once in brown beaver gloves. But he was a relation. I have even dined at his house, and met odd people there—people who lived also at the back of Holborn. But he did not ask me to go to their houses, and if he had, I must have cut him."
By reminiscences of this kind of talk Lionel was saved from any design of Mrs. Haughton's to attract his orbit into the circle within which she herself moved. He must come to the parties she gave—illumine or awe odd people there. That was a proper tribute to maternal pride. But had they asked him to their parties, she would have been the first to resent such a liberty.
Lionel found Mrs. Haughton in great bustle. A gardener's cart was before the street-door. Men were bringing in a grove of evergreens, intended to border the staircase, and make its exiguous ascent still more difficult. The refreshments were al- ready laid out in the dining-room. Mrs. Haughton, with scis- sors in hand, was cutting flowers to fill the epergne, but darting to and fro, like a dragon-fly, from the dining-room to the hall, from the flowers to the evergreens. "Dear me, Lionel, is that you? Just tell me, you who go to all those grandees, whether the ratafia cakes should be opposite to the sponge-cakes, or whether they would not go better—thus —at cross-corners?"
"My dear mother, I never observed—I don't know. But make haste—take off that apron—have these doors shut—come up stairs. Mr. Darrell will be here very shortly. I have ridden on to prepare you."
"Mr. Darrell—to-day!—How could you let him come? Oh, Lionel, how thoughtless you are? You should have some respect for your mother—1 am your mother. Sir."
"Yes, my own dear mother—don't scold—I could not help it. He is so engaged, so sought after; if I had put him off today he might never have come, and—"
"Never have come! Who is Mr. Darrell, to give himself such airs?—Only a lawyer, after all," said Mrs. Haughton, with majesty.
"Oh, mother, that speech is not like you. He is our benefactor—our—"
"Don't, don't say more—I was very wrong—quite wicked—only my temper, Lionel dear. Good Mr. Darrell! I shall be so happy to see him—see him, too, in this house that I owe to him—see him by your side! I think I shall fall down on my knees to him."
And her eyes began to stream.
Lionel kissed the tears away fondly. " That's my own mother now, indeed—now I am proud of you, mother; and how well you look!—I am proud of that too."
"Look well!—I am not fit to be seen, this figure—though perhaps an elderly quiet gentleman like good Mr. Darrell does not notice ladies much. John, John, make haste with those plants. Gracious me! you've got your coat off!—put it on—I expect a gentleman—I'm at home, in the front drawing-room—no—that's all set out—the back drawing-room, John. Send Susan to me. Lionel, do just look at the supper-table; and what is to be done with the flowers, and—"
The rest of Mrs. Haughton's voice, owing to the rapidity of her ascent, which affected the distinctness of her utterance, was lost in air. She vanished at culminating point—within her chamber.