CHAPTER IX

The Stanhope Family

It is now three months since Dr. Proudie began his reign, and changes

have already been effected in the diocese which show at least the

energy of an active mind. Among other things absentee clergymen have

been favoured with hints much too strong to be overlooked. Poor dear

old Bishop Grantly had on this matter been too lenient, and the

archdeacon had never been inclined to be severe with those who were

absent on reputable pretences, and who provided for their duties in a

liberal way.

Among the greatest of the diocesan sinners in this respect was Dr.

Vesey Stanhope. Years had now passed since he had done a day's duty,

and yet there was no reason against his doing duty except a want

of inclination on his own part. He held a prebendal stall in the

diocese, one of the best residences in the close, and the two large

rectories of Crabtree Canonicorum and Stogpingum. Indeed, he had

the cure of three parishes, for that of Eiderdown was joined to

Stogpingum. He had resided in Italy for twelve years. His first

going there had been attributed to a sore throat, and that sore

throat, though never repeated in any violent manner, had stood him

in such stead that it had enabled him to live in easy idleness ever

since.

He had now been summoned home--not, indeed, with rough violence, or

by any peremptory command, but by a mandate which he found himself

unable to disregard. Mr. Slope had written to him by the bishop's

desire. In the first place, the bishop much wanted the valuable

co-operation of Dr. Vesey Stanhope in the diocese; in the next, the

bishop thought it his imperative duty to become personally acquainted

with the most conspicuous of his diocesan clergy; then the bishop

thought it essentially necessary for Dr. Stanhope's own interests

that Dr. Stanhope should, at any rate for a time, return to

Barchester; and lastly, it was said that so strong a feeling was

at the present moment evinced by the hierarchs of the church with

reference to the absence of its clerical members, that it behoved Dr.

Vesey Stanhope not to allow his name to stand among those which would

probably in a few months be submitted to the councils of the nation.

There was something so ambiguously frightful in this last threat

that Dr. Stanhope determined to spend two or three summer months at

his residence in Barchester. His rectories were inhabited by his

curates, and he felt himself from disuse to be unfit for parochial

duty; but his prebendal home was kept empty for him, and he thought

it probable that he might be able now and again to preach a prebendal

sermon. He arrived, therefore, with all his family at Barchester,

and he and they must be introduced to my readers.

The great family characteristic of the Stanhopes might probably be

said to be heartlessness, but this want of feeling was, in most of

them, accompanied by so great an amount of good nature as to make

itself but little noticeable to the world. They were so prone to

oblige their neighbours that their neighbours failed to perceive how

indifferent to them was the happiness and well-being of those around

them. The Stanhopes would visit you in your sickness (provided it

were not contagious), would bring you oranges, French novels, and the

last new bit of scandal, and then hear of your death or your recovery

with an equally indifferent composure. Their conduct to each other

was the same as to the world; they bore and forbore; and there was

sometimes, as will be seen, much necessity for forbearing; but their

love among themselves rarely reached above this. It is astonishing

how much each of the family was able to do, and how much each did, to

prevent the well-being of the other four.

For there were five in all; the doctor, namely, and Mrs. Stanhope,

two daughters, and one son. The doctor, perhaps, was the least

singular and most estimable of them all, and yet such good qualities

as he possessed were all negative. He was a good-looking rather

plethoric gentleman of about sixty years of age. His hair was

snow-white, very plentiful, and somewhat like wool of the finest

description. His whiskers were very large and very white, and gave to

his face the appearance of a benevolent, sleepy old lion. His dress

was always unexceptionable. Although he had lived so many years in

Italy it was invariably of a decent clerical hue, but it never was

hyperclerical. He was a man not given to much talking, but what

little he did say was generally well said. His reading seldom went

beyond romances and poetry of the lightest and not always most moral

description. He was thoroughly a _bon vivant_; an accomplished judge

of wine, though he never drank to excess; and a most inexorable

critic in all affairs touching the kitchen. He had had much to

forgive in his own family, since a family had grown up around him,

and had forgiven everything--except inattention to his dinner. His

weakness in that respect was now fully understood, and his temper but

seldom tried. As Dr. Stanhope was a clergyman, it may be supposed

that his religious convictions made up a considerable part of his

character, but this was not so. That he had religious convictions

must be believed, but he rarely obtruded them, even on his

children. This abstinence on his part was not systematic, but very

characteristic of the man. It was not that he had predetermined

never to influence their thoughts, but he was so habitually idle that

his time for doing so had never come till the opportunity for doing

so was gone forever. Whatever conviction the father may have had,

the children were at any rate but indifferent members of the church

from which he drew his income.

Such was Dr. Stanhope. The features of Mrs. Stanhope's character

were even less plainly marked than those of her lord. The _far

niente_ of her Italian life had entered into her very soul, and

brought her to regard a state of inactivity as the only earthly good.

In manner and appearance she was exceedingly prepossessing. She had

been a beauty, and even now, at fifty-five, she was a handsome woman.

Her dress was always perfect: she never dressed but once in the day,

and never appeared till between three and four; but when she did

appear, she appeared at her best. Whether the toil rested partly

with her, or wholly with her handmaid, it is not for such a one as

the author even to imagine. The structure of her attire was always

elaborate and yet never over-laboured. She was rich in apparel but

not bedizened with finery; her ornaments were costly, rare, and such

as could not fail to attract notice, but they did not look as though

worn with that purpose. She well knew the great architectural secret

of decorating her constructions, and never descended to construct

a decoration. But when we have said that Mrs. Stanhope knew how to

dress and used her knowledge daily, we have said all. Other purpose

in life she had none. It was something, indeed, that she did not

interfere with the purposes of others. In early life she had

undergone great trials with reference to the doctor's dinners, but

for the last ten or twelve years her elder daughter Charlotte had

taken that labour off her hands, and she had had little to trouble

her--little, that is, till the edict for this terrible English

journey had gone forth: since then, indeed, her life had been

laborious enough. For such a one, the toil of being carried from the

shores of Como to the city of Barchester is more than labour enough,

let the care of the carriers be ever so vigilant. Mrs. Stanhope had

been obliged to have every one of her dresses taken in from the

effects of the journey.

Charlotte Stanhope was at this time about thirty-five years old, and

whatever may have been her faults, she had none of those which belong

particularly to old young ladies. She neither dressed young, nor

talked young, nor indeed looked young. She appeared to be perfectly

content with her time of life, and in no way affected the graces of

youth. She was a fine young woman, and had she been a man, would

have been a very fine young man. All that was done in the house, and

that was not done by servants, was done by her. She gave the orders,

paid the bills, hired and dismissed the domestics, made the tea,

carved the meat, and managed everything in the Stanhope household.

She, and she alone, could ever induce her father to look into the

state of his worldly concerns. She, and she alone, could in any

degree control the absurdities of her sister. She, and she alone,

prevented the whole family from falling into utter disrepute and

beggary. It was by her advice that they now found themselves very

unpleasantly situated in Barchester.

So far, the character of Charlotte Stanhope is not unprepossessing.

But it remains to be said that the influence which she had in her

family, though it had been used to a certain extent for their worldly

well-being, had not been used to their real benefit, as it might

have been. She had aided her father in his indifference to his

professional duties, counselling him that his livings were as much

his individual property as the estates of his elder brother were the

property of that worthy peer. She had for years past stifled every

little rising wish for a return to England which the doctor had

from time to time expressed. She had encouraged her mother in her

idleness, in order that she herself might be mistress and manager of

the Stanhope household. She had encouraged and fostered the follies

of her sister, though she was always willing, and often able, to

protect her from their probable result. She had done her best, and

had thoroughly succeeded in spoiling her brother, and turning him

loose upon the world an idle man without a profession and without a

shilling that he could call his own.

Miss Stanhope was a clever woman, able to talk on most subjects, and

quite indifferent as to what the subject was. She prided herself on

her freedom from English prejudice, and, she might have added, from

feminine delicacy. On religion she was a pure free-thinker, and with

much want of true affection, delighted to throw out her own views

before the troubled mind of her father. To have shaken what remained

of his Church of England faith would have gratified her much, but the

idea of his abandoning his preferment in the church had never once

presented itself to her mind. How could he indeed, when he had no

income from any other source?

But the two most prominent members of the family still remain to be

described. The second child had been christened Madeline and had

been a great beauty. We need not say had been, for she was never

more beautiful than at the time of which we write, though her person

for many years had been disfigured by an accident. It is unnecessary

that we should give in detail the early history of Madeline Stanhope.

She had gone to Italy when about seventeen years of age, and had been

allowed to make the most of her surpassing beauty in the salons of

Milan and among the crowded villas along the shores of the Lake of

Como. She had become famous for adventures in which her character

was just not lost, and had destroyed the hearts of a dozen cavaliers

without once being touched in her own. Blood had flowed in quarrels

about her charms, and she had heard of these encounters with

pleasurable excitement. It had been told of her that on one occasion

she had stood by in the disguise of a page and had seen her lover

fall.

As is so often the case, she had married the very worst of those who

sought her hand. Why she had chosen Paulo Neroni, a man of no birth

and no property, a mere captain in the Pope's guard, one who had come

up to Milan either simply as an adventurer or else as a spy, a man of

harsh temper and oily manners, mean in figure, swarthy in face, and

so false in words as to be hourly detected, need not now be told.

When the moment for doing so came, she had probably no alternative.

He, at any rate, had become her husband, and after a prolonged

honeymoon among the lakes, they had gone together to Rome, the papal

captain having vainly endeavoured to induce his wife to remain behind

him.

Six months afterwards she arrived at her father's house a cripple,

and a mother. She had arrived without even notice, with hardly

clothes to cover her, and without one of those many ornaments which

had graced her bridal trousseau. Her baby was in the arms of a poor

girl from Milan, whom she had taken in exchange for the Roman maid

who had accompanied her thus far, and who had then, as her mistress

said, become homesick and had returned. It was clear that the lady

had determined that there should be no witness to tell stories of her

life in Rome.

She had fallen, she said, in ascending a ruin, and had fatally

injured the sinews of her knee; so fatally that when she stood, she

lost eight inches of her accustomed height; so fatally that when she

essayed to move, she could only drag herself painfully along, with

protruded hip and extended foot, in a manner less graceful than

that of a hunchback. She had consequently made up her mind, once

and forever, that she would never stand and never attempt to move

herself.

Stories were not slow to follow her, averring that she had been

cruelly ill-used by Neroni, and that to his violence had she owed her

accident. Be that as it may, little had been said about her husband,

but that little had made it clearly intelligible to the family that

Signor Neroni was to be seen and heard of no more. There was no

question as to readmitting the poor, ill-used beauty to her old

family rights, no question as to adopting her infant daughter beneath

the Stanhope roof-tree. Though heartless, the Stanhopes were not

selfish. The two were taken in, petted, made much of, for a time all

but adored, and then felt by the two parents to be great nuisances

in the house. But in the house the lady was, and there she remained,

having her own way, though that way was not very conformable with the

customary usages of an English clergyman.

Madame Neroni, though forced to give up all motion in the world,

had no intention whatever of giving up the world itself. The beauty

of her face was uninjured, and that beauty was of a peculiar kind.

Her copious rich brown hair was worn in Grecian bandeaux round her

head, displaying as much as possible of her forehead and cheeks. Her

forehead, though rather low, was very beautiful from its perfect

contour and pearly whiteness. Her eyes were long and large, and

marvellously bright; might I venture to say bright as Lucifer's, I

should perhaps best express the depth of their brilliancy. They were

dreadful eyes to look at, such as would absolutely deter any man of

quiet mind and easy spirit from attempting a passage of arms with

such foes. There was talent in them, and the fire of passion and the

play of wit, but there was no love. Cruelty was there instead, and

courage, a desire of masterhood, cunning, and a wish for mischief.

And yet, as eyes, they were very beautiful. The eyelashes were

long and perfect, and the long, steady, unabashed gaze with which

she would look into the face of her admirer fascinated while it

frightened him. She was a basilisk from whom an ardent lover of

beauty could make no escape. Her nose and mouth and teeth and chin

and neck and bust were perfect, much more so at twenty-eight than

they had been at eighteen. What wonder that with such charms still

glowing in her face, and with such deformity destroying her figure,

she should resolve to be seen, but only to be seen reclining on a

sofa.

Her resolve had not been carried out without difficulty. She had

still frequented the opera at Milan; she had still been seen

occasionally in the salons of the noblesse; she had caused herself to

be carried in and out from her carriage, and that in such a manner

as in no wise to disturb her charms, disarrange her dress, or expose

her deformities. Her sister always accompanied her and a maid, a

manservant also, and on state occasions, two. It was impossible that

her purpose could have been achieved with less; and yet, poor as she

was, she had achieved her purpose. And then again the more dissolute

Italian youths of Milan frequented the Stanhope villa and surrounded

her couch, not greatly to her father's satisfaction. Sometimes his

spirit would rise, a dark spot would show itself on his cheek, and

he would rebel, but Charlotte would assuage him with some peculiar

triumph of her culinary art and all again would be smooth for awhile.

Madeline affected all manner of rich and quaint devices in the

garniture of her room, her person, and her feminine belongings. In

nothing was this more apparent than in the visiting card which she

had prepared for her use. For such an article one would say that

she, in her present state, could have but small need, seeing how

improbable it was that she should make a morning call: but not such

was her own opinion. Her card was surrounded by a deep border of

gilding; on this she had imprinted, in three lines

La Signora Madeline

Vesey Neroni.

--Nata Stanhope.

And over the name she had a bright gilt coronet, which certainly

looked very magnificent. How she had come to concoct such a name

for herself it would be difficult to explain. Her father had been

christened Vesey as another man is christened Thomas, and she had no

more right to assume it than would have the daughter of a Mr. Josiah

Jones to call herself Mrs. Josiah Smith, on marrying a man of the

latter name. The gold coronet was equally out of place, and perhaps

inserted with even less excuse. Paulo Neroni had had not the

faintest title to call himself a scion of even Italian nobility. Had

the pair met in England Neroni would probably have been a count, but

they had met in Italy, and any such pretence on his part would have

been simply ridiculous. A coronet, however, was a pretty ornament,

and if it could solace a poor cripple to have such on her card, who

would begrudge it to her?

Of her husband, or of his individual family, she never spoke, but

with her admirers she would often allude in a mysterious way to her

married life and isolated state, and, pointing to her daughter,

would call her the last of the blood of the emperors, thus referring

Neroni's extraction to the old Roman family from which the worst of

the Caesars sprang.

The "signora" was not without talent and not without a certain sort

of industry; she was an indomitable letter-writer, and her letters

were worth the postage: they were full of wit, mischief, satire,

love, latitudinarian philosophy, free religion, and, sometimes,

alas, loose ribaldry. The subject, however, depended entirely on the

recipient, and she was prepared to correspond with anyone but moral

young ladies or stiff old women. She wrote also a kind of poetry,

generally in Italian, and short romances, generally in French. She

read much of a desultory sort of literature, and as a modern linguist

had really made great proficiency. Such was the lady who had now

come to wound the hearts of the men of Barchester.

Ethelbert Stanhope was in some respects like his younger sister,

but he was less inestimable as a man than she as a woman. His great

fault was an entire absence of that principle which should have

induced him, as the son of a man without fortune, to earn his own

bread. Many attempts had been made to get him to do so, but these

had all been frustrated, not so much by idleness on his part as by a

disinclination to exert himself in any way not to his taste. He had

been educated at Eton and had been intended for the Church, but he

had left Cambridge in disgust after a single term, and notified

to his father his intention to study for the bar. Preparatory to

that, he thought it well that he should attend a German university,

and consequently went to Leipzig. There he remained two years and

brought away a knowledge of German and a taste for the fine arts. He

still, however, intended himself for the bar, took chambers, engaged

himself to sit at the feet of a learned pundit, and spent a season

in London. He there found that all his aptitudes inclined him to the

life of an artist, and he determined to live by painting. With this

object he returned to Milan, and had himself rigged out for Rome.

As a painter he might have earned his bread, for he wanted only

diligence to excel, but when at Rome his mind was carried away by

other things: he soon wrote home for money, saying that he had been

converted to the Mother Church, that he was already an acolyte of the

Jesuits, and that he was about to start with others to Palestine on a

mission for converting Jews. He did go to Judea, but being unable to

convert the Jews, was converted by them. He again wrote home, to say

that Moses was the only giver of perfect laws to the world, that the

coming of the true Messiah was at hand, that great things were doing

in Palestine, and that he had met one of the family of Sidonia, a

most remarkable man, who was now on his way to western Europe, and

whom he had induced to deviate from his route with the object of

calling at the Stanhope villa. Ethelbert then expressed his hope

that his mother and sisters would listen to this wonderful prophet.

His father he knew could not do so from pecuniary considerations.

This Sidonia, however, did not take so strong a fancy to him as

another of that family once did to a young English nobleman. At

least he provided him with no heaps of gold as large as lions, so

that the Judaized Ethelbert was again obliged to draw on the revenues

of the Christian Church.

It is needless to tell how the father swore that he would send no

more money and receive no Jew, nor how Charlotte declared that

Ethelbert could not be left penniless in Jerusalem, and how "La

Signora Neroni" resolved to have Sidonia at her feet. The money was

sent, and the Jew did come. The Jew did come, but he was not at all

to the taste of "La Signora." He was a dirty little old man, and

though he had provided no golden lions, he had, it seems, relieved

young Stanhope's necessities. He positively refused to leave the

villa till he had got a bill from the doctor on his London bankers.

Ethelbert did not long remain a Jew. He soon reappeared at the villa

without prejudices on the subject of his religion, and with a firm

resolve to achieve fame and fortune as a sculptor. He brought with

him some models which he had originated at Rome and which really

gave such fair promise that his father was induced to go to further

expense in furthering these views. Ethelbert opened an establishment,

or rather took lodgings and a workshop, at Carrara, and there spoilt

much marble and made some few pretty images. Since that period, now

four years ago, he had alternated between Carrara and the villa, but

his sojourns at the workshop became shorter and shorter and those at

the villa longer and longer. 'Twas no wonder, for Carrara is not a

spot in which an Englishman would like to dwell.

When the family started for England, he had resolved not to be left

behind, and, with the assistance of his elder sister, had carried his

point against his father's wishes. It was necessary, he said, that

he should come to England for orders. How otherwise was he to bring

his profession to account?

In personal appearance Ethelbert Stanhope was the most singular

of beings. He was certainly very handsome. He had his sister

Madeline's eyes, without their stare and without their hard, cunning,

cruel firmness. They were also very much lighter, and of so light and

clear a blue as to make his face remarkable, if nothing else did so.

On entering a room with him, Ethelbert's blue eyes would be the first

thing you would see, and on leaving it almost the last you would

forget. His light hair was very long and silky, coming down over his

coat. His beard had been prepared in holy land, and was patriarchal.

He never shaved and rarely trimmed it. It was glossy, soft, clean,

and altogether not unprepossessing. It was such that ladies might

desire to reel it off and work it into their patterns in lieu of

floss silk. His complexion was fair and almost pink; he was small

in height and slender in limb, but well-made; and his voice was of

peculiar sweetness.

In manner and dress he was equally remarkable. He had none of the

_mauvaise honte_ of an Englishman. He required no introduction

to make himself agreeable to any person. He habitually addressed

strangers, ladies as well as men, without any such formality, and

in doing so never seemed to meet with rebuke. His costume cannot

be described because it was so various, but it was always totally

opposed in every principle of colour and construction to the dress

of those with whom he for the time consorted.

He was habitually addicted to making love to ladies, and did so

without any scruples of conscience, or any idea that such a practice

was amiss. He had no heart to touch himself, and was literally

unaware that humanity was subject to such an infliction. He had not

thought much about it, but, had he been asked, would have said that

ill-treating a lady's heart meant injuring her promotion in the

world. His principles therefore forbade him to pay attention to a

girl if he thought any man was present whom it might suit her to

marry. In this manner his good nature frequently interfered with his

amusement, but he had no other motive in abstaining from the fullest

declarations of love to every girl that pleased his eye.

Bertie Stanhope, as he was generally called, was, however, popular

with both sexes--and with Italians as well as English. His circle of

acquaintance was very large and embraced people of all sorts. He had

no respect for rank, and no aversion to those below him. He had lived

on familiar terms with English peers, German shopkeepers, and Roman

priests. All people were nearly alike to him. He was above, or

rather below, all prejudices. No virtue could charm him, no vice

shock him. He had about him a natural good manner, which seemed to

qualify him for the highest circles, and yet he was never out of

place in the lowest. He had no principle, no regard for others, no

self-respect, no desire to be other than a drone in the hive, if

only he could, as a drone, get what honey was sufficient for him. Of

honey, in his latter days, it may probably be presaged, that he will

have but short allowance.

Such was the family of the Stanhopes, who, at this period, suddenly

joined themselves to the ecclesiastical circle of Barchester close.

Any stranger union it would be impossible perhaps to conceive. And

it was not as though they all fell down into the cathedral precincts

hitherto unknown and untalked of. In such case, no amalgamation

would have been at all probable between the new-comers and either

the Proudie set or the Grantly set. But such was far from being

the case. The Stanhopes were all known by name in Barchester, and

Barchester was prepared to receive them with open arms. The doctor

was one of her prebendaries, one of her rectors, one of her pillars

of strength; and was, moreover, counted on as a sure ally both by

Proudies and Grantlys.

He himself was the brother of one peer, and his wife was the sister

of another--and both these peers were lords of Whiggish tendency,

with whom the new bishop had some sort of alliance. This was

sufficient to give to Mr. Slope high hope that he might enlist Dr.

Stanhope on his side, before his enemies could outmanoeuvre him. On

the other hand, the old dean had many many years ago, in the days of

the doctor's clerical energies, been instrumental in assisting him

in his views as to preferment; and many many years ago also, the two

doctors, Stanhope and Grantly, had, as young parsons, been joyous

together in the common-rooms of Oxford. Dr. Grantly, consequently,

did not doubt but that the newcomer would range himself under his

banners.

Little did any of them dream of what ingredients the Stanhope family

was now composed.