CHAPTER XI.

LADY CARBURY AT HOME.

During the last six weeks Lady Carbury had lived a life of very mixed

depression and elevation. Her great work had come out,--the "Criminal

Queens,"--and had been very widely reviewed. In this matter it had

been by no means all pleasure, in as much as many very hard words had

been said of her. In spite of the dear friendship between herself and

Mr. Alf, one of Mr. Alf's most sharp-nailed subordinates had been

set upon her book, and had pulled it to pieces with almost rabid

malignity. One would have thought that so slight a thing could hardly

have been worthy of such protracted attention. Error after error

was laid bare with merciless prolixity. No doubt the writer of the

article must have had all history at his finger-ends, as in pointing

out the various mistakes made he always spoke of the historical facts

which had been misquoted, misdated, or misrepresented, as being

familiar in all their bearings to every schoolboy of twelve years

old. The writer of the criticism never suggested the idea that he

himself, having been fully provided with books of reference, and

having learned the art of finding in them what he wanted at a

moment's notice, had, as he went on with his work, checked off the

blunders without any more permanent knowledge of his own than a

housekeeper has of coals when she counts so many sacks into the

coal-cellar. He spoke of the parentage of one wicked ancient lady,

and the dates of the frailties of another, with an assurance intended

to show that an exact knowledge of all these details abided with him

always. He must have been a man of vast and varied erudition, and his

name was Jones. The world knew him not, but his erudition was always

there at the command of Mr. Alf,--and his cruelty. The greatness of

Mr. Alf consisted in this, that he always had a Mr. Jones or two

ready to do his work for him. It was a great business, this of Mr.

Alf's, for he had his Jones also for philology, for science, for

poetry, for politics, as well as for history, and one special Jones,

extraordinarily accurate and very well posted up in his references,

entirely devoted to the Elizabethan drama.

There is the review intended to sell a book,--which comes out

immediately after the appearance of the book, or sometimes before

it; the review which gives reputation, but does not affect the sale,

and which comes a little later; the review which snuffs a book out

quietly; the review which is to raise or lower the author a single

peg, or two pegs, as the case may be; the review which is suddenly to

make an author, and the review which is to crush him. An exuberant

Jones has been known before now to declare aloud that he would crush

a man, and a self-confident Jones has been known to declare that he

has accomplished the deed. Of all reviews, the crushing review is the

most popular, as being the most readable. When the rumour goes abroad

that some notable man has been actually crushed,--been positively

driven over by an entire Juggernaut's car of criticism till his

literary body be a mere amorphous mass,--then a real success has been

achieved, and the Alf of the day has done a great thing; but even

the crushing of a poor Lady Carbury, if it be absolute, is effective.

Such a review will not make all the world call for the "Evening

Pulpit," but it will cause those who do take the paper to be

satisfied with their bargain. Whenever the circulation of such a

paper begins to slacken, the proprietors should, as a matter of

course, admonish their Alf to add a little power to the crushing

department.

Lady Carbury had been crushed by the "Evening Pulpit." We may fancy

that it was easy work, and that Mr. Alf's historical Mr. Jones

was not forced to fatigue himself by the handling of many books

of reference. The errors did lie a little near the surface; and

the whole scheme of the work, with its pandering to bad tastes by

pretended revelations of frequently fabulous crime, was reprobated in

Mr. Jones's very best manner. But the poor authoress, though utterly

crushed, and reduced to little more than literary pulp for an hour

or two, was not destroyed. On the following morning she went to

her publishers, and was closeted for half an hour with the senior

partner, Mr. Leadham. "I've got it all in black and white," she said,

full of the wrong which had been done her, "and can prove him to

be wrong. It was in 1522 that the man first came to Paris, and he

couldn't have been her lover before that. I got it all out of the

'Biographie Universelle.' I'll write to Mr. Alf myself,--a letter to

be published, you know."

"Pray don't do anything of the kind, Lady Carbury."

"I can prove that I'm right."

"And they can prove that you're wrong."

"I've got all the facts,--and the figures."

Mr. Leadham did not care a straw for facts or figures,--had no

opinion of his own whether the lady or the reviewer were right; but

he knew very well that the "Evening Pulpit" would surely get the

better of any mere author in such a contention. "Never fight the

newspapers, Lady Carbury. Who ever yet got any satisfaction by that

kind of thing? It's their business, and you are not used to it."

"And Mr. Alf is my particular friend! It does seem so hard," said

Lady Carbury, wiping hot tears from her cheeks.

"It won't do us the least harm, Lady Carbury."

"It'll stop the sale?"

"Not much. A book of that sort couldn't hope to go on very long, you

know. The 'Breakfast Table' gave it an excellent lift, and came just

at the right time. I rather like the notice in the 'Pulpit,' myself."

"Like it!" said Lady Carbury, still suffering in every fibre of

her self-love from the soreness produced by those Juggernaut's

car-wheels.

"Anything is better than indifference, Lady Carbury. A great many

people remember simply that the book has been noticed, but carry

away nothing as to the purport of the review. It's a very good

advertisement."

"But to be told that I have got to learn the ABC of history,--after

working as I have worked!"

"That's a mere form of speech, Lady Carbury."

"You think the book has done pretty well?"

"Pretty well;--just about what we hoped, you know."

"There'll be something coming to me, Mr. Leadham?"

Mr. Leadham sent for a ledger, and turned over a few pages and ran up

a few figures, and then scratched his head. There would be something,

but Lady Carbury was not to imagine that it could be very much. It

did not often happen that a great deal could be made by a first book.

Nevertheless, Lady Carbury, when she left the publisher's shop, did

carry a cheque with her. She was smartly dressed and looked very

well, and had smiled on Mr. Leadham. Mr. Leadham, too, was no more

than man, and had written--a small cheque.

Mr. Alf certainly had behaved badly to her; but both Mr. Broune of

the "Breakfast Table," and Mr. Booker of the "Literary Chronicle,"

had been true to her interests. Lady Carbury had, as she promised,

"done" Mr. Booker's "New Tale of a Tub" in the "Breakfast Table."

That is, she had been allowed, as a reward for looking into Mr.

Broune's eyes, and laying her soft hand on Mr. Broune's sleeve,

and suggesting to Mr. Broune that no one understood her so well

as he did, to bedaub Mr. Booker's very thoughtful book in a very

thoughtless fashion,--and to be paid for her work. What had been said

about his work in the "Breakfast Table" had been very distasteful to

poor Mr. Booker. It grieved his inner contemplative intelligence that

such rubbish should be thrown upon him; but in his outside experience

of life he knew that even the rubbish was valuable, and that he

must pay for it in the manner to which he had unfortunately become

accustomed. So Mr. Booker himself wrote the article on the "Criminal

Queens" in the "Literary Chronicle," knowing that what he wrote

would also be rubbish. "Remarkable vivacity." "Power of delineating

character." "Excellent choice of subject." "Considerable intimacy

with the historical details of various periods." "The literary world

would be sure to hear of Lady Carbury again." The composition of the

review, together with the reading of the book, consumed altogether

perhaps an hour of Mr. Booker's time. He made no attempt to cut the

pages, but here and there read those that were open. He had done this

kind of thing so often, that he knew well what he was about. He could

have reviewed such a book when he was three parts asleep. When the

work was done he threw down his pen and uttered a deep sigh. He felt

it to be hard upon him that he should be compelled, by the exigencies

of his position, to descend so low in literature; but it did not

occur to him to reflect that in fact he was not compelled, and that

he was quite at liberty to break stones, or to starve honestly, if no

other honest mode of carrying on his career was open to him. "If I

didn't, somebody else would," he said to himself.

But the review in the "Morning Breakfast Table" was the making of

Lady Carbury's book, as far as it ever was made. Mr. Broune saw the

lady after the receipt of the letter given in the first chapter of

this Tale, and was induced to make valuable promises which had been

fully performed. Two whole columns had been devoted to the work,

and the world had been assured that no more delightful mixture of

amusement and instruction had ever been concocted than Lady Carbury's

"Criminal Queens." It was the very book that had been wanted for

years. It was a work of infinite research and brilliant imagination

combined. There had been no hesitation in the laying on of the paint.

At that last meeting Lady Carbury had been very soft, very handsome,

and very winning; Mr. Broune had given the order with good will, and

it had been obeyed in the same feeling.

Therefore, though the crushing had been very real, there had also

been some elation; and as a net result, Lady Carbury was disposed to

think that her literary career might yet be a success. Mr. Leadham's

cheque had been for a small amount, but it might probably lead the

way to something better. People at any rate were talking about

her, and her Tuesday evenings at home were generally full. But her

literary life, and her literary successes, her flirtations with Mr.

Broune, her business with Mr. Booker, and her crushing by Mr. Alf's

Mr. Jones, were after all but adjuncts to that real inner life of

hers of which the absorbing interest was her son. And with regard to

him too she was partly depressed, and partly elated, allowing her

hopes however to dominate her fears. There was very much to frighten

her. Even the moderate reform in the young man's expenses which had

been effected under dire necessity had been of late abandoned. Though

he never told her anything, she became aware that during the last

month of the hunting season he had hunted nearly every day. She knew,

too, that he had a horse up in town. She never saw him but once in

the day, when she visited him in his bed about noon, and was aware

that he was always at his club throughout the night. She knew that

he was gambling, and she hated gambling as being of all pastimes

the most dangerous. But she knew that he had ready money for his

immediate purposes, and that two or three tradesmen who were gifted

with a peculiar power of annoying their debtors, had ceased to

trouble her in Welbeck Street. For the present, therefore, she

consoled herself by reflecting that his gambling was successful. But

her elation sprung from a higher source than this. From all that she

could hear, she thought it likely that Felix would carry off the

great prize; and then,--should he do that,--what a blessed son would

he have been to her! How constantly in her triumph would she be able

to forget all his vices, his debts, his gambling, his late hours, and

his cruel treatment of herself! As she thought of it the bliss seemed

to be too great for the possibility of realisation. She was taught to

understand that £10,000 a year, to begin with, would be the least of

it; and that the ultimate wealth might probably be such as to make

Sir Felix Carbury the richest commoner in England. In her very heart

of hearts she worshipped wealth, but desired it for him rather than

for herself. Then her mind ran away to baronies and earldoms, and she

was lost in the coming glories of the boy whose faults had already

nearly engulfed her in his own ruin.

And she had another ground for elation, which comforted her much,

though elation from such a cause was altogether absurd. She had

discovered that her son had become a Director of the South Central

Pacific and Mexican Railway Company. She must have known,--she

certainly did know,--that Felix, such as he was, could not lend

assistance by his work to any company or commercial enterprise in the

world. She was aware that there was some reason for such a choice

hidden from the world, and which comprised and conveyed a falsehood.

A ruined baronet of five-and-twenty, every hour of whose life

since he had been left to go alone had been loaded with vice and

folly,--whose egregious misconduct warranted his friends in regarding

him as one incapable of knowing what principle is,--of what service

could he be, that he should be made a Director? But Lady Carbury,

though she knew that he could be of no service, was not at all

shocked. She was now able to speak up a little for her boy, and did

not forget to send the news by post to Roger Carbury. And her son sat

at the same Board with Mr. Melmotte! What an indication was this of

coming triumphs!

Fisker had started, as the reader will perhaps remember, on the

morning of Saturday, 19th April, leaving Sir Felix at the Club at

about seven in the morning. All that day his mother was unable to see

him. She found him asleep in his room at noon and again at two; and

when she sought him again he had flown. But on the Sunday she caught

him. "I hope," she said, "you'll stay at home on Tuesday evening."

Hitherto she had never succeeded in inducing him to grace her evening

parties by his presence.

"All your people are coming! You know, mother, it is such an awful

bore."

"Madame Melmotte and her daughter will be here."

"One looks such a fool carrying on that kind of thing in one's own

house. Everybody sees that it has been contrived. And it is such a

pokey, stuffy little place!"

Then Lady Carbury spoke out her mind. "Felix, I think you must be a

fool. I have given over ever expecting that you would do anything

to please me. I sacrifice everything for you and I do not even hope

for a return. But when I am doing everything to advance your own

interests, when I am working night and day to rescue you from ruin, I

think you might at any rate help a little,--not for me of course, but

for yourself."

"I don't know what you mean by working day and night. I don't want

you to work day and night."

"There is hardly a young man in London that is not thinking of this

girl, and you have chances that none of them have. I am told they

are going out of town at Whitsuntide, and that she's to meet Lord

Nidderdale down in the country."

"She can't endure Nidderdale. She says so herself."

"She will do as she is told,--unless she can be made to be downright

in love with some one like yourself. Why not ask her at once on

Tuesday?"

"If I'm to do it at all I must do it after my own fashion. I'm not

going to be driven."

"Of course if you will not take the trouble to be here to see her

when she comes to your own house, you cannot expect her to think that

you really love her."

"Love her! what a bother there is about loving! Well;--I'll look in.

What time do the animals come to feed?"

"There will be no feeding. Felix, you are so heartless and so cruel

that I sometimes think I will make up my mind to let you go your own

way and never to speak to you again. My friends will be here about

ten;--I should say from ten till twelve. I think you should be here

to receive her, not later than ten."

"If I can get my dinner out of my throat by that time, I will come."

When the Tuesday came, the over-driven young man did contrive to

get his dinner eaten, and his glass of brandy sipped, and his cigar

smoked, and perhaps his game of billiards played, so as to present

himself in his mother's drawing-room not long after half-past ten.

Madame Melmotte and her daughter were already there,--and many

others, of whom the majority were devoted to literature. Among them

Mr. Alf was in the room, and was at this very moment discussing

Lady Carbury's book with Mr. Booker. He had been quite graciously

received, as though he had not authorised the crushing. Lady Carbury

had given him her hand with that energy of affection with which she

was wont to welcome her literary friends, and had simply thrown one

glance of appeal into his eyes as she looked into his face,--as

though asking him how he had found it in his heart to be so cruel

to one so tender, so unprotected, so innocent as herself. "I cannot

stand this kind of thing," said Mr. Alf, to Mr. Booker. "There's a

regular system of touting got abroad, and I mean to trample it down."

"If you're strong enough," said Mr. Booker.

"Well, I think I am. I'm strong enough, at any rate, to show that I'm

not afraid to lead the way. I've the greatest possible regard for our

friend here;--but her book is a bad book, a thoroughly rotten book,

an unblushing compilation from half-a-dozen works of established

reputation, in pilfering from which she has almost always managed to

misapprehend her facts, and to muddle her dates. Then she writes to

me and asks me to do the best I can for her. I have done the best I

could."

Mr. Alf knew very well what Mr. Booker had done, and Mr. Booker was

aware of the extent of Mr. Alf's knowledge. "What you say is all very

right," said Mr. Booker; "only you want a different kind of world to

live in."

"Just so;--and therefore we must make it different. I wonder how our

friend Broune felt when he saw that his critic had declared that the

'Criminal Queens' was the greatest historical work of modern days."

"I didn't see the notice. There isn't much in the book, certainly, as

far as I have looked at it. I should have said that violent censure

or violent praise would be equally thrown away upon it. One doesn't

want to break a butterfly on the wheel;--especially a friendly

butterfly."

"As to the friendship, it should be kept separate. That's my idea,"

said Mr. Alf, moving away.

"I'll never forget what you've done for me,--never!" said Lady

Carbury, holding Mr. Broune's hand for a moment, as she whispered to

him.

"Nothing more than my duty," said he, smiling.

"I hope you'll learn to know that a woman can really be grateful,"

she replied. Then she let go his hand and moved away to some other

guest. There was a dash of true sincerity in what she had said. Of

enduring gratitude it may be doubtful whether she was capable: but

at this moment she did feel that Mr. Broune had done much for her,

and that she would willingly make him some return of friendship.

Of any feeling of another sort, of any turn at the moment towards

flirtation, of any idea of encouragement to a gentleman who had once

acted as though he were her lover, she was absolutely innocent. She

had forgotten that little absurd episode in their joint lives. She

was at any rate too much in earnest at the present moment to think

about it. But it was otherwise with Mr. Broune. He could not quite

make up his mind whether the lady was or was not in love with

him,--or whether, if she were, it was incumbent on him to indulge

her;--and if so, in what manner. Then as he looked after her,

he told himself that she was certainly very beautiful, that her

figure was distinguished, that her income was certain, and her rank

considerable. Nevertheless, Mr. Broune knew of himself that he was

not a marrying man. He had made up his mind that marriage would not

suit his business, and he smiled to himself as he reflected how

impossible it was that such a one as Lady Carbury should turn him

from his resolution.

"I am so glad that you have come to-night, Mr. Alf," Lady Carbury

said to the high-minded editor of the "Evening Pulpit."

"Am I not always glad to come, Lady Carbury?"

"You are very good. But I feared,--"

"Feared what, Lady Carbury?"

"That you might perhaps have felt that I should be unwilling to

welcome you after,--well, after the compliments of last Thursday."

"I never allow the two things to join themselves together. You see,

Lady Carbury, I don't write all these things myself."

"No indeed. What a bitter creature you would be if you did."

"To tell the truth, I never write any of them. Of course we endeavour

to get people whose judgments we can trust, and if, as in this case,

it should unfortunately happen that the judgment of our critic should

be hostile to the literary pretensions of a personal friend of my

own, I can only lament the accident, and trust that my friend may

have spirit enough to divide me as an individual from that Mr. Alf

who has the misfortune to edit a newspaper."

"It is because you have so trusted me that I am obliged to you," said

Lady Carbury with her sweetest smile. She did not believe a word that

Mr. Alf had said to her. She thought, and thought rightly, that Mr.

Alf's Mr. Jones had taken direct orders from his editor, as to his

treatment of the "Criminal Queens." But she remembered that she

intended to write another book, and that she might perhaps conquer

even Mr. Alf by spirit and courage under her present infliction.

It was Lady Carbury's duty on the occasion to say pretty things to

everybody. And she did her duty. But in the midst of it all she was

ever thinking of her son and Marie Melmotte, and she did at last

venture to separate the girl from her mother. Marie herself was not

unwilling to be talked to by Sir Felix. He had never bullied her, had

never seemed to scorn her; and then he was so beautiful! She, poor

girl, bewildered among various suitors, utterly confused by the life

to which she was introduced, troubled by fitful attacks of admonition

from her father, who would again, fitfully, leave her unnoticed for

a week at a time; with no trust in her pseudo-mother--for poor Marie

had in truth been born before her father had been a married man, and

had never known what was her own mother's fate,--with no enjoyment in

her present life, had come solely to this conclusion, that it would

be well for her to be taken away somewhere by somebody. Many a varied

phase of life had already come in her way. She could just remember

the dirty street in the German portion of New York in which she had

been born and had lived for the first four years of her life, and

could remember too the poor, hardly-treated woman who had been her

mother. She could remember being at sea, and her sickness,--but could

not quite remember whether that woman had been with her. Then she

had run about the streets of Hamburgh, and had sometimes been very

hungry, sometimes in rags,--and she had a dim memory of some trouble

into which her father had fallen, and that he was away from her for a

time. She had up to the present splendid moment her own convictions

about that absence, but she had never mentioned them to a human

being. Then her father had married her present mother in Francfort.

That she could remember distinctly, as also the rooms in which she

was then taken to live, and the fact that she was told that from

henceforth she was to be a Jewess. But there had soon come another

change. They went from Francfort to Paris, and there they were all

Christians. From that time they had lived in various apartments in

the French capital, but had always lived well. Sometimes there had

been a carriage, sometimes there had been none. And then there came

a time in which she was grown woman enough to understand that her

father was being much talked about. Her father to her had always been

alternately capricious and indifferent rather than cross or cruel,

but just at this period he was cruel both to her and to his wife.

And Madame Melmotte would weep at times and declare that they were

all ruined. Then, at a moment, they burst out into sudden splendour

at Paris. There was an hotel, with carriages and horses almost

unnumbered;--and then there came to their rooms a crowd of dark,

swarthy, greasy men, who were entertained sumptuously; but there were

few women. At this time Marie was hardly nineteen, and young enough

in manner and appearance to be taken for seventeen. Suddenly again

she was told that she was to be taken to London, and the migration

had been effected with magnificence. She was first taken to Brighton,

where the half of an hotel had been hired, and had then been brought

to Grosvenor Square, and at once thrown into the matrimonial

market. No part of her life had been more disagreeable to her, more

frightful, than the first months in which she had been trafficked for

by the Nidderdales and Grassloughs. She had been too frightened, too

much of a coward to object to anything proposed to her, but still

had been conscious of a desire to have some hand in her own future

destiny. Luckily for her, the first attempts at trafficking with the

Nidderdales and Grassloughs had come to nothing; and at length she

was picking up a little courage, and was beginning to feel that it

might be possible to prevent a disposition of herself which did not

suit her own tastes. She was also beginning to think that there might

be a disposition of herself which would suit her own tastes.

Felix Carbury was standing leaning against a wall, and she was seated

on a chair close to him. "I love you better than anyone in the

world," he said, speaking plainly enough for her to hear, perhaps

indifferent as to the hearing of others.

"Oh, Sir Felix, pray do not talk like that."

"You knew that before. Now I want you to say whether you will be my

wife."

"How can I answer that myself? Papa settles everything."

"May I go to papa?"

"You may if you like," she replied in a very low whisper. It was thus

that the greatest heiress of the day, the greatest heiress of any day

if people spoke truly, gave herself away to a man without a penny.