CHAPTER LX.

MISS LONGESTAFFE'S LOVER.

A few days before that period in our story which we have now reached,

Miss Longestaffe was seated in Lady Monogram's back drawing-room,

discussing the terms on which the two tickets for Madame Melmotte's

grand reception had been transferred to Lady Monogram,--the place on

the cards for the names of the friends whom Madame Melmotte had the

honour of inviting to meet the Emperor and the Princes, having been

left blank; and the terms also on which Miss Longestaffe had been

asked to spend two or three days with her dear friend Lady Monogram.

Each lady was disposed to get as much and to give as little as

possible,--in which desire the ladies carried out the ordinary

practice of all parties to a bargain. It had of course been settled

that Lady Monogram was to have the two tickets,--for herself and

her husband,--such tickets at that moment standing very high in the

market. In payment for these valuable considerations, Lady Monogram

was to undertake to chaperon Miss Longestaffe at the entertainment,

to take Miss Longestaffe as a visitor for three days, and to have one

party at her own house during the time, so that it might be seen that

Miss Longestaffe had other friends in London besides the Melmotte's

on whom to depend for her London gaieties. At this moment Miss

Longestaffe felt herself justified in treating the matter as though

she were hardly receiving a fair equivalent. The Melmotte tickets

were certainly ruling very high. They had just culminated. They

fell a little soon afterwards, and at ten P.M. on the night of the

entertainment were hardly worth anything. At the moment which we have

now in hand, there was a rush for them. Lady Monogram had already

secured the tickets. They were in her desk. But, as will sometimes

be the case in a bargain, the seller was complaining that as she had

parted with her goods too cheap, some make-weight should be added to

the stipulated price.

"As for that, my dear," said Miss Longestaffe, who, since the rise in

Melmotte stock generally, had endeavoured to resume something of her

old manners, "I don't see what you mean at all. You meet Lady Julia

Goldsheiner everywhere, and her father-in-law is Mr. Brehgert's

junior partner."

"Lady Julia is Lady Julia, my dear, and young Mr. Goldsheiner has,

in some sort of way, got himself in. He hunts, and Damask says

that he is one of the best shots at Hurlingham. I never met old Mr.

Goldsheiner anywhere."

"I have."

"Oh, yes, I dare say. Mr. Melmotte, of course, entertains all the

City people. I don't think Sir Damask would like me to ask Mr.

Brehgert to dine here." Lady Monogram managed everything herself with

reference to her own parties; invited all her own guests, and never

troubled Sir Damask,--who, again, on his side, had his own set of

friends; but she was very clever in the use which she made of her

husband. There were some aspirants who really were taught to think

that Sir Damask was very particular as to the guests whom he welcomed

to his own house.

"May I speak to Sir Damask about it?" asked Miss Longestaffe, who was

very urgent on the occasion.

"Well, my dear, I really don't think you ought to do that. There are

little things which a man and his wife must manage together without

interference."

"Nobody can ever say that I interfered in any family. But really,

Julia, when you tell me that Sir Damask cannot receive Mr. Brehgert,

it does sound odd. As for City people, you know as well as I do, that

that kind of thing is all over now. City people are just as good as

West-end people."

"A great deal better, I dare say. I'm not arguing about that. I don't

make the lines; but there they are; and one gets to know in a sort

of way what they are. I don't pretend to be a bit better than my

neighbours. I like to see people come here whom other people who come

here will like to meet. I'm big enough to hold my own, and so is Sir

Damask. But we ain't big enough to introduce new-comers. I don't

suppose there's anybody in London understands it better than you do,

Georgiana, and therefore it's absurd my pretending to teach you. I

go pretty well everywhere, as you are aware; and I shouldn't know Mr.

Brehgert if I were to see him."

"You'll meet him at the Melmottes', and, in spite of all you said

once, you're glad enough to go there."

"Quite true, my dear. I don't think that you are just the person to

throw that in my teeth; but never mind that. There's the butcher

round the corner in Bond Street, or the man who comes to do my hair.

I don't at all think of asking them to my house. But if they were

suddenly to turn out wonderful men, and go everywhere, no doubt I

should be glad to have them here. That's the way we live, and you are

as well used to it as I am. Mr. Brehgert at present to me is like the

butcher round the corner." Lady Monogram had the tickets safe under

lock and key, or I think she would hardly have said this.

"He is not a bit like a butcher," said Miss Longestaffe, blazing up

in real wrath.

"I did not say that he was."

"Yes, you did; and it was the unkindest thing you could possibly say.

It was meant to be unkind. It was monstrous. How would you like it if

I said that Sir Damask was like a hair-dresser?"

"You can say so if you please. Sir Damask drives four in hand, rides

as though he meant to break his neck every winter, is one of the best

shots going, and is supposed to understand a yacht as well as any

other gentleman out. And I'm rather afraid that before he was married

he used to box with all the prize-fighters, and to be a little too

free behind the scenes. If that makes a man like a hair-dresser,

well, there he is."

"How proud you are of his vices."

"He's very good-natured, my dear, and as he does not interfere with

me, I don't interfere with him. I hope you'll do as well. I dare say

Mr. Brehgert is good-natured."

"He's an excellent man of business, and is making a very large

fortune."

"And has five or six grown-up children, who, no doubt, will be a

comfort."

"If I don't mind them, why need you? You have none at all, and you

find it lonely enough."

"Not at all lonely. I have everything that I desire. How hard you are

trying to be ill-natured, Georgiana."

"Why did you say that he was a--butcher?"

"I said nothing of the kind. I didn't even say that he was like a

butcher. What I did say was this,--that I don't feel inclined to risk

my own reputation on the appearance of new people at my table. Of

course, I go in for what you call fashion. Some people can dare to

ask anybody they meet in the streets. I can't. I've my own line, and

I mean to follow it. It's hard work, I can tell you; and it would

be harder still if I wasn't particular. If you like Mr. Brehgert to

come here on Tuesday evening, when the rooms will be full, you can

ask him; but as for having him to dinner, I--won't--do--it." So the

matter was at last settled. Miss Longestaffe did ask Mr. Brehgert for

the Tuesday evening, and the two ladies were again friends.

Perhaps Lady Monogram, when she illustrated her position by an

allusion to a butcher and a hair-dresser, had been unaware that Mr.

Brehgert had some resemblance to the form which men in that trade

are supposed to bear. Let us at least hope that she was so. He was a

fat, greasy man, good-looking in a certain degree, about fifty, with

hair dyed black, and beard and moustache dyed a dark purple colour.

The charm of his face consisted in a pair of very bright black eyes,

which were, however, set too near together in his face for the

general delight of Christians. He was stout;--fat all over rather

than corpulent,--and had that look of command in his face which has

become common to master-butchers, probably by long intercourse with

sheep and oxen. But Mr. Brehgert was considered to be a very good man

of business, and was now regarded as being, in a commercial point of

view, the leading member of the great financial firm of which he was

the second partner. Mr. Todd's day was nearly done. He walked about

constantly between Lombard Street, the Exchange, and the Bank,

and talked much to merchants; he had an opinion too of his own on

particular cases; but the business had almost got beyond him, and Mr.

Brehgert was now supposed to be the moving spirit of the firm. He

was a widower, living in a luxurious villa at Fulham with a family,

not indeed grown up, as Lady Monogram had ill-naturedly said, but

which would be grown up before long, varying from an eldest son of

eighteen, who had just been placed at a desk in the office, to the

youngest girl of twelve, who was at school at Brighton. He was a man

who always asked for what he wanted; and having made up his mind that

he wanted a second wife, had asked Miss Georgiana Longestaffe to fill

that situation. He had met her at the Melmottes', had entertained

her, with Madame Melmotte and Marie, at Beaudesert, as he called

his villa, had then proposed in the square, and two days after had

received an assenting answer in Bruton Street.

Poor Miss Longestaffe! Although she had acknowledged the fact to Lady

Monogram in her desire to pave the way for the reception of herself

into society as a married woman, she had not as yet found courage to

tell her family. The man was absolutely a Jew;--not a Jew that had

been, as to whom there might possibly be a doubt whether he or his

father or his grandfather had been the last Jew of the family; but

a Jew that was. So was Goldsheiner a Jew, whom Lady Julia Start had

married,--or at any rate had been one a very short time before he ran

away with that lady. She counted up ever so many instances on her

fingers of "decent people" who had married Jews or Jewesses. Lord

Frederic Framlinghame had married a girl of the Berrenhoffers; and

Mr. Hart had married a Miss Chute. She did not know much of Miss

Chute, but was certain that she was a Christian. Lord Frederic's wife

and Lady Julia Goldsheiner were seen everywhere. Though she hardly

knew how to explain the matter even to herself, she was sure that

there was at present a general heaving-up of society on this matter,

and a change in progress which would soon make it a matter of

indifference whether anybody was Jew or Christian. For herself she

regarded the matter not at all, except as far as it might be regarded

by the world in which she wished to live. She was herself above

all personal prejudices of that kind. Jew, Turk, or infidel was

nothing to her. She had seen enough of the world to be aware that

her happiness did not lie in that direction, and could not depend in

the least on the religion of her husband. Of course she would go to

church herself. She always went to church. It was the proper thing to

do. As to her husband, though she did not suppose that she could ever

get him to church,--nor perhaps would it be desirable,--she thought

that she might induce him to go nowhere, so that she might be able to

pass him off as a Christian. She knew that such was the Christianity

of young Goldsheiner, of which the Starts were now boasting.

Had she been alone in the world she thought that she could have

looked forward to her destiny with complacency; but she was afraid of

her father and mother. Lady Pomona was distressingly old-fashioned,

and had so often spoken with horror even of the approach of a

Jew,--and had been so loud in denouncing the iniquity of Christians

who allowed such people into their houses! Unfortunately, too,

Georgiana in her earlier days had re-echoed all her mother's

sentiments. And then her father,--if he had ever earned for himself

the right to be called a Conservative politician by holding a real

opinion of his own,--it had been on that matter of admitting the Jews

into parliament. When that had been done he was certain that the

glory of England was sunk for ever. And since that time, whenever

creditors were more than ordinarily importunate, when Slow and

Bideawhile could do nothing for him, he would refer to that fatal

measure as though it was the cause of every embarrassment which had

harassed him. How could she tell parents such as these that she was

engaged to marry a man who at the present moment went to synagogue on

a Saturday and carried out every other filthy abomination common to

the despised people?

That Mr. Brehgert was a fat, greasy man of fifty, conspicuous for

hair-dye, was in itself distressing:--but this minor distress

was swallowed up in the greater. Miss Longestaffe was a girl

possessing considerable discrimination, and was able to weigh her

own possessions in just scales. She had begun life with very high

aspirations, believing in her own beauty, in her mother's fashion,

and her father's fortune. She had now been ten years at the work, and

was aware that she had always flown a little too high for her mark at

the time. At nineteen and twenty and twenty-one she had thought that

all the world was before her. With her commanding figure, regular

long features, and bright complexion, she had regarded herself as

one of the beauties of the day, and had considered herself entitled

to demand wealth and a coronet. At twenty-two, twenty-three, and

twenty-four any young peer, or peer's eldest son, with a house in

town and in the country, might have sufficed. Twenty-five and six

had been the years for baronets and squires; and even a leading

fashionable lawyer or two had been marked by her as sufficient

since that time. But now she was aware that hitherto she had always

fixed her price a little too high. On three things she was still

determined,--that she would not be poor, that she would not be

banished from London, and that she would not be an old maid. "Mamma,"

she had often said, "there's one thing certain. I shall never do to

be poor." Lady Pomona had expressed full concurrence with her child.

"And, mamma, to do as Sophia is doing would kill me. Fancy having to

live at Toodlam all one's life with George Whitstable!" Lady Pomona

had agreed to this also, though she thought that Toodlam Hall was a

very nice home for her elder daughter. "And, mamma, I should drive

you and papa mad if I were to stay at home always. And what would

become of me when Dolly was master of everything?" Lady Pomona,

looking forward as well as she was able to the time at which she

should herself have departed, when her dower and dower-house would

have reverted to Dolly, acknowledged that Georgiana should provide

herself with a home of her own before that time.

And how was this to be done? Lovers with all the glories and all

the graces are supposed to be plentiful as blackberries by girls of

nineteen, but have been proved to be rare hothouse fruits by girls

of twenty-nine. Brehgert was rich, would live in London, and would

be a husband. People did such odd things now and "lived them down,"

that she could see no reason why she should not do this and live this

down. Courage was the one thing necessary,--that and perseverance.

She must teach herself to talk about Brehgert as Lady Monogram did

of Sir Damask. She had plucked up so much courage as had enabled her

to declare her fate to her old friend,--remembering as she did so

how in days long past she and her friend Julia Triplex had scattered

their scorn upon some poor girl who had married a man with a Jewish

name,--whose grandfather had possibly been a Jew. "Dear me," said

Lady Monogram. "Todd, Brehgert, and Goldsheiner! Mr. Todd is--one of

us, I suppose."

"Yes," said Georgiana boldly, "and Mr. Brehgert is a Jew. His name is

Ezekiel Brehgert, and he is a Jew. You can say what you like about

it."

"I don't say anything about it, my dear."

"And you can think anything you like. Things are changed since you

and I were younger."

"Very much changed, it appears," said Lady Monogram. Sir Damask's

religion had never been doubted, though except on the occasion of his

marriage no acquaintance of his had probably ever seen him in church.

But to tell her father and mother required a higher spirit than

she had shown even in her communication to Lady Monogram, and that

spirit had not as yet come to her. On the morning before she left

the Melmottes in Bruton Street, her lover had been with her. The

Melmottes of course knew of the engagement and quite approved of it.

Madame Melmotte rather aspired to credit for having had so happy

an affair arranged under her auspices. It was some set-off against

Marie's unfortunate escapade. Mr. Brehgert, therefore, had been

allowed to come and go as he pleased, and on that morning he had

pleased to come. They were sitting alone in some back room, and

Brehgert was pressing for an early day. "I don't think we need talk

of that yet, Mr. Brehgert," she said.

"You might as well get over the difficulty and call me Ezekiel at

once," he remarked. Georgiana frowned, and made no soft little

attempt at the name as ladies in such circumstances are wont to

do. "Mrs. Brehgert"--he alluded of course to the mother of his

children--"used to call me Ezzy."

"Perhaps I shall do so some day," said Miss Longestaffe, looking at

her lover, and asking herself why she should not have been able to

have the house and the money and the name of the wife without the

troubles appertaining. She did not think it possible that she should

ever call him Ezzy.

"And ven shall it be? I should say as early in August as possible."

"In August!" she almost screamed. It was already July.

"Vy not, my dear? Ve would have our little holiday in Germany,--at

Vienna. I have business there, and know many friends." Then he

pressed her hard to fix some day in the next month. It would be

expedient that they should be married from the Melmottes' house, and

the Melmottes would leave town some time in August. There was truth

in this. Unless married from the Melmottes' house, she must go down

to Caversham for the occasion,--which would be intolerable. No;--she

must separate herself altogether from father and mother, and become

one with the Melmottes and the Brehgerts,--till she could live it

down and make a position for herself. If the spending of money could

do it, it should be done.

"I must at any rate ask mamma about it," said Georgiana. Mr.

Brehgert, with the customary good-humour of his people, was satisfied

with the answer, and went away promising that he would meet his love

at the great Melmotte reception. Then she sat silent, thinking how

she should declare the matter to her family. Would it not be better

for her to say to them at once that there must be a division among

them,--an absolute breaking off of all old ties, so that it should be

tacitly acknowledged that she, Georgiana, had gone out from among

the Longestaffes altogether, and had become one with the Melmottes,

Brehgerts, and Goldsheiners?