somehow ended in daygo.’
A reviving impression goes round the table that Eugene is coming out. An unfulfilled impression, for he goes in again.
‘Now, my dear Mrs Veneering,’ quoth Lady Tippins, I appeal to you whether this is not the basest conduct ever known in this world? I carry my lovers about, two or three at a time, on condition that they are very obedient and devoted; and here is my oldest lover-in-chief, the head of all my slaves, throwing off his allegiance before company! And here is another of my lovers, a rough Cymon at present certainly, but of whom I had most hopeful expectations as to his turning out well in course of time, pretending that he can’t remember his nursery rhymes! On purpose to annoy me, for he knows how I doat upon them!’
A grisly little fiction concerning her lovers is Lady Tippins’s point. She is always attended by a lover or two, and she keeps a little list of her lovers, and she is always booking a new lover, or striking out an old lover, or putting a lover in her black list, or promoting a lover to her blue list, or adding up her lovers, or otherwise posting her book. Mrs Veneering is charmed by the humour, and so is Veneering. Perhaps it is enhanced by a certain yellow play in Lady Tippins’s throat, like the legs of scratching poultry.
‘I banish the false wretch from this moment, and I strike him out of my Cupidon (my name for my Ledger, my dear,) this very night. But I am resolved to have the account of the man from Somewhere, and I beg you to elicit it for me, my love,’ to Mrs Veneering, ‘as I have lost my own influence. Oh, you perjured man!’ This to Mortimer, with a rattle of her fan.
‘We are all very much interested in the man from Somewhere,’ Veneering observes.
Then the four Buffers, taking heart of grace all four at once, say:
‘Deeply interested!’
‘Quite excited!’
‘Dramatic!’
‘Man from Nowhere, perhaps!’
And then Mrs Veneering—for the Lady Tippins’s winning wiles are contagious—folds her hands in the manner of a supplicating child, turns to her left neighbour, and says, ‘Tease! Pay! Man from Tumwhere!’ At which the four Buffers, again mysteriously moved all four at once, explain, ‘You can’t resist!’
‘Upon my life,’ says Mortimer languidly, ‘I find it immensely embarrassing to have the eyes of Europe upon me to this extent, and my only consolation is that you will all of you execrate Lady Tippins in your secret hearts when you find, as you inevitably will, the man from Somewhere a bore. Sorry to destroy romance by fixing him with a local habitation, but he comes from the place, the name of which escapes me, but will suggest itself to everybody else here, where they make the wine.’
Eugene suggests ‘Day and Martin’s.’
‘No, not that place,’ returns the unmoved Mortimer, ‘that’s where they make the Port. My man comes from the country where they make the Cape Wine. But look here, old fellow; its not at all statistical and it’s rather odd.’
It is always noticeable at the table of the Veneerings, that no man troubles himself much about the Veneerings themselves, and that any one who has anything to tell, generally tells it to anybody else in preference.
‘The man,’ Mortimer goes on, addressing Eugene, ‘whose name is Harmon, was only son of a tremendous old rascal who made his money by Dust.’
‘Red velveteens and a bell?’ the gloomy Eugene inquires.
‘And a ladder and basket if you like. By which means, or by others, he grew rich as a Dust Contractor, and lived in a hollow in a hilly country entirely composed of Dust. On his own small estate the growling old vagabond threw up his own mountain range, like an old volcano, and its geological formation was Dust. Coal-dust, vegetable-dust, bone-dust, crockery dust, rough dust and sifted dust,—all manner of Dust.’
A passing remembrance of Mrs Veneering, here induces Mortimer to address his next half-dozen words to her; after which he wanders away again, tries Twemlow and finds he doesn’t answer, ultimately takes up with the Buffers who receive him enthusiastically.
‘The moral being—I believe that’s the right expression—of this exemplary person, derived its highest gratification from anathematizing his nearest relations and turning them out of doors. Having begun (as was natural) by rendering these attentions to the wife of his bosom, he next found himself at leisure to bestow a similar recognition on the claims of his daughter. He chose a husband for her, entirely to his own satisfaction and not in the least to hers, and proceeded to settle upon her, as her marriage portion, I don’t know how much Dust, but something immense. At this stage of the affair the poor girl respectfully intimated that she was secretly engaged to that popular character whom the novelists and versifiers call Another, and that such a marriage would make Dust of her heart and Dust of her life—in short, would set her up, on a very extensive scale, in her father’s business. Immediately, the venerable parent—on a cold winter’s night, it is said—anathematized and turned her out.’
Here, the Analytical Chemist (who has evidently formed a very low opinion of Mortimer’s story) concedes a little claret to the Buffers; who, again mysteriously moved all four at once, screw it slowly into themselves with a peculiar twist of enjoyment, as they cry in chorus, ‘Pray go on.’
‘The pecuniary resources of Another were, as they usually are, of a very limited nature. I believe I am not using too strong an expression when I say that Another was hard up. However, he married the young lady, and they lived in a humble dwelling, probably possessing a porch ornamented with honeysuckle and woodbine twining, until she died. I must refer you to the Registrar of the District in which the humble dwelling was situated, for the certified cause of death; but early sorrow and anxiety may have had to do with it, though they may not appear in the ruled pages and printed forms. Indisputably this was the case with Another, for he was so cut up by the loss of his young wife that if he outlived her a year it was as much as he did.’
There is that in the indolent Mortimer, which seems to hint that if good society might on any account allow itself to be impressible, he, one of good society, might have the weakness to be impressed by what he here relates. It is hidden with great pains, but it is in him. The gloomy Eugene too, is not without some kindred touch; for, when that appalling Lady Tippins declares that if Another had survived, he should have gone down at the head of her list of lovers—and also when the mature young lady shrugs her epaulettes, and laughs at some private and confidential comment from the mature young gentleman—his gloom deepens to that degree that he trifles quite ferociously with his dessert-knife.
Mortimer proceeds.
‘We must now return, as novelists say, and as we all wish they wouldn’t, to the man from Somewhere. Being a boy of fourteen, cheaply educated at Brussels when his sister’s expulsion befell, it was some little time before he heard of it—probably from herself, for the mother was dead; but that I don’t know. Instantly, he absconded, and came over here. He must have been a boy of spirit and resource, to get here on a stopped allowance of five sous a week; but he did it somehow, and he burst in on his father, and pleaded his sister’s cause. Venerable parent promptly resorts to anathematization, and turns him out. Shocked and terrified boy takes flight, seeks his fortune, gets aboard ship, ultimately turns up on dry land among the Cape wine: small proprietor, farmer, grower—whatever you like to call it.’
At this juncture, shuffling is heard in the hall, and tapping is heard at the dining-room door. Analytical Chemist goes to the door, confers angrily with unseen tapper, appears to become mollified by descrying reason in the tapping, and goes out.
