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 honour 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 etiquette of her court; and even when his _misalliance_ 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 sympathising 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 sn.o.bs, 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 L100, and lived in Upper Baker Street. His wife took my arm from a place they called a drawing-room (the Captain as he spoke was on a fourth floor), to share some unknown food which they called a dinner (the Captain at that moment would have welcomed a rasher). The woman 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, man becomes reckless.

Teach my boy to beware of the first false step--no a.s.sociation with parvenus. Don't cry, Jessie--I don't mean that he is to cut your--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...o...b..t 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 already laid out in the dining-room. Mrs.

Haughton, with scissors in hand, was cutting flowers to fill the eperyne, but darting to and fro, like a dragonfly, 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 ap.r.o.n-have those doors shut come upstairs. 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--I 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 to-day, 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 very 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, makes 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.

CHAPTER III.

MRS. HAUGHTON AT HOME TO GUY DARRELL.

Thanks to Lionel's activity, the hall was disenc.u.mbered--the plants hastily stowed away-the parlour closed on the festive preparations--and the footman in his livery waiting at the door--when Mr. Darrell arrived.

Lionel himself came out and welcomed his benefactor's footstep across the threshold of the home which the generous man had provided for the widow.

If Lionel had some secret misgivings as to the result of this interview, they were soon and most happily dispelled. For, at the sight of Guy Darrell leaning so affectionately on her son's arm, Mrs. Haughton mechanically gave herself up to the impulse of her own warm, grateful, true woman's heart. And her bound forward, her seizure of Darrell's hand--her first fervent blessing--her after words, simple but eloquent with feeling--made that heart so transparent, that Darrell looked it through with respectful eyes.

Mrs. Haughton was still a pretty woman, and with much of that delicacy of form and outline which const.i.tutes the gentility of person. She had a sweet voice too, except when angry. Her defects of education, of temper, or of conventional polish, were not discernible in the overflow of natural emotion. Darrell had come resolved to be released if possible.

Pleased he was, much more than he had expected. He even inly accepted for the deceased Captain excuses which he had never before admitted to himself. The linen-draper's daughter was no coa.r.s.e presuming dowdy, and in her candid rush of grat.i.tude there was not that underbred servility which Darrell had thought perceptible in her epistolary compositions.

There was elegance too, void both of gaudy ostentation and penurious thrift, in the furniture and arrangements of the room. The income he gave to her was not spent with slatternly waste or on tawdry gewgaws.

To ladies in general, Darrell's manner was extremely attractive--not the less winning because of a certain shyness which, implying respect for those he addressed, and a modest undervaluing of his own merit, conveyed compliment and soothed self-love. And to that lady in especial such gentle shyness was the happiest good-breeding.

In short, all went off without a hitch, till, as Darrell was taking leave, Mrs. Haughton was reminded by some evil genius of her evening party, and her very grat.i.tude, longing for some opportunity to requite obligation, prompted her to invite the kind man to whom the facility of giving parties was justly due. She had never realised to herself, despite all that Lionel could say, the idea of Darrell's station in the world--a lawyer who had spent his youth at the back of Holborn, whom the stylish Captain had deemed it a condescension not to cut, might indeed become very rich; but he could never be the fashion. "Poor man," she thought, "he must be very lonely. He is not, like Lionel, a young dancing man. A quiet little party, with people of his own early rank and habits, would be more in his way than those grand places to which Lionel goes. I can but ask him--I ought to ask him. What would he say if I did not ask him? Black ingrat.i.tude indeed, if he were not asked!" All these ideas rushed through her mind in a breath, and as she clasped Darrell's extended hand in both her own, she said: "I have a little party to-night!"--and paused. Darrell remaining mute, and Lionel not suspecting what was to ensue, she continued: "There may be some good music--young friends of mine--sing charmingly--Italians!"

Darrell bowed. Lionel began to shudder.

"And if I might presume to think it would amuse you, Mr. Darrell, oh, I should be so happy to see you!--so happy!"

"Would you?" said Darrell, briefly. "Then I should be a churl if I did not come. Lionel will escort me. Of course you expect him too?"

"Yes, indeed. Though he has so many fine places to go to-and it can't be exactly what he is used to-yet he is such a dear good boy that he gives up all to gratify his mother."

Lionel, in agonies, turned an unfilial back, and looked steadily out of the window; but Darrell, far too august to take offence where none was meant, only smiled at the implied reference to Lionel's superior demand in the fashionable world, and replied, without even a touch of his accustomed irony: "And to gratify his mother is a pleasure I thank you for inviting me to share with him."

More and more at her ease, and charmed with having obeyed her hospitable impulse, Mrs. Haughton, following Darrell to the landing-place, added:

"And if you like to play a quiet rubber--"

"I never touch cards--I abhor the very name of them, ma'am," interrupted Darrell, somewhat less gracious in his tones.

He mounted his horse; and Lionel, breaking from Mrs. Haughton, who was a.s.suring him that Mr. Darrell was not at all what she expected, but really quite the gentleman--nay, a much grander gentleman than even Colonel Morley--regained his kinsman's side, looking abashed and discomfited. Darrell, with the kindness which his fine quick intellect enabled him so felicitously to apply, hastened to relieve the young guardsman's mind.

"I like your mother much--very much," said he, in his most melodious accents. "Good boy! I see now why you gave up Lady Dulcett. Go and take a canter by yourself, or with younger friends, and be sure you call on me so that we may be both at Mrs. Haughton's by ten o'clock. I can go later to the concert if I feel inclined."

He waved his hand, wheeled his horse, and trotted off towards the fair suburban lanes that still proffer to the denizens of London glimpses of rural fields, and shadows from quiet hedgerows. He wished to be alone; the sight of Mrs. Haughton had revived recollections of bygone days--memory linking memory in painful chain-gay talk with his younger schoolfellow--that wild Charlie, now in his grave--his own laborious youth, resolute aspirings, secret sorrows--and the strong man felt the want of the solitary self-commune, without which self-conquest is unattainable.

CHAPTER IV.

MRS. HAUGHTON AT HOME MISCELLANEOUSLY. LITTLE PARTIES ARE USEFUL IN BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER. ONE NEVER KNOWS WHOM ONE MAY MEET.

Great kingdoms grew out of small beginnings. Mrs. Haughton's social circle was described from a humble centre. On coming into possession of her easy income and her house in Gloucester Place, she was naturally seized with the desire of an appropriate "visiting acquaintance." The accomplishment of that desire had been deferred awhile by the excitement of Lionel's departure for Paris, and the IMMENSE TEMPTATION to which the attentions of the spurious Mr. Courtenay Smith had exposed her widowed solitude: but no sooner had she recovered from the shame and anger with which she had discarded that showy impostor, happily in time, than the desire became the more keen; because the good lady felt that with a mind so active and restless as hers, a visiting acquaintance might be her best preservative from that sense of loneliness which disposes widows to lend the incautious ear to adventurous wooers. After her experience of her own weakness in listening to a sharper, and with a shudder at her escape, Mrs. Haughton made a firm resolve never to give her beloved son a father-in-law. No, she would distract her thoughts--she would have a VISITING ACQUAINTANCE. She commenced by singling out such families as at various times had been her genteelest lodgers--now lodging elsewhere.

She informed them by polite notes of her accession of consequence and fortune, which she was sure they would be happy to hear; and these notes, left with the card of "Mrs. Haughton, Gloucester Place,"

necessarily produced respondent notes and correspondent cards.

Gloucester Place then prepared itself for a party. The ci-devant lodgers urbanely attended the summons. In their turn they gave parties. Mrs.

Haughton was invited. From each such party she bore back a new draught into her "social circle." Thus, long before the end of five years, Mrs.

Haughton had attained her object. She had a "VISITING ACQUAINTANCE!" It is true that she was not particular; so that there was a new somebody at whose house a card could be left, or a morning call achieved--who could help to fill her rooms, or whose rooms she could contribute to fill in turn. She was contented. She was no tuft-hunter. She did not care for t.i.tles. She had no visions of a column in the Morning Post. She wanted, kind lady, only a vent for the exuberance of her social instincts; and being proud, she rather liked acquaintances who looked up to, instead of looking down on her. Thus Gloucester Place was invaded by tribes not congenial to its natural civilised atmosphere. Hengists and Horsas, from remote Anglo-Saxon districts, crossed the intervening channel, and insulted the British nationality of that salubrious district. To most of such immigrators, Mrs. Haughton, of Gloucester Place, was a personage of the highest distinction. A few others of prouder status in the world, though they owned to themselves that there was a sad mixture at Mrs.

Haughton's house, still, once seduced there, came again--being persons who, however independent in fortune or gentle by blood, had but a small "visiting acquaintance" in town; fresh from economical colonisation on the Continent or from distant provinces in these three kingdoms. Mrs.

Haughton's rooms were well lighted. There was music for some, whist for others; tea, ices, cakes, and a crowd for all.

At ten o'clock-the rooms already nearly filled, and Mrs. Haughton, as she stood at the door, antic.i.p.ating with joy that happy hour when the staircase would become inaccessible--the head attendant, sent with the ices from the neighbouring confectioner, announced in a loud voice: "Mr.

Haughton--Mr. Darrell."

At that latter name a sensation thrilled the a.s.sembly--the name so much in every one's mouth at that period, nor least in the mouths of the great middle cla.s.s, on whom--though the polite may call them "a sad mixture," cabinets depend--could not fail to be familiar to the ears of Mrs. Haughton's "visiting acquaintance." The interval between his announcement and his ascent from the hall to the drawing-room was busily filled up by murmured questions to the smiling hostess: "Darrell! what!

the Darrell! Guy Darrell! greatest man of the day! A connection of yours? Bless me, you don't say so?" Mrs. Haughton began to feel nervous.

Was Lionel right? Could the man who had only been a lawyer at the back of Holborn really be, now, such a very, very great man--greatest man of the day? Nonsense!

"Ma'am," said one pale, puff-cheeked, flat-nosed gentleman, in a very large white waistcoat, who was waiting by her side till a vacancy in one of the two whist-tables should occur. "Ma'am, I'm an enthusiastic admirer of Mr. Darrell. You say he is a connection of yours? Present me to him."

Mrs. Haughton nodded flutteringly, for, as the gentleman closed his request, and tapped a large gold snuff-box, Darrell stood before her--Lionel close at his side, looking positively sheepish. The great man said a few civil words, and was gliding into the room to make way for the press behind him, when he of the white waistcoat, touching Mrs.

Haughton's arm, and staring Darrell full in the face, said, very loud: "In these anxious times, public men dispense with ceremony. I crave an introduction to Mr. Darrell." Thus pressed, poor Mrs. Haughton, without looking up, muttered out: "Mr. Adolphus Poole--Mr. Darrell," and turned to welcome fresh comers.

"Mr. Darrell," said Mr. Poole, bowing to the ground, "this is an honour."