The Way We Live Now II

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW

interpret Manchoo into English, — the imperial interpreter condescending only to interpret Manchoo into ordinary Chinese which had to be reinterpreted, — it was not within his Imperial Majesty’s power to have much conversation with his neighbours. And as his neighbours on each side of him were all cousins and husbands, and brothers and wives, who saw each constantly under, let us presume, more comfortable circumstances, they had not very much to say to each other. Like most of us, they had their duties to do, and, like most of us, probably found their duties irksome. The brothers and sisters and cousins were used to it; but that awful Emperor, solid, solemn, and silent, must, if the spirit of an Eastern Emperor be at all like that of a Western man, have had a weary time of it. He sat there for more than two hours, awful, solid, solemn, and silent, not eating very much, — for this was not his manner of eating; nor drinking very much, — for this was not his manner of drinking; but wondering, no doubt, within his own awful bosom, at the changes which were coming when an Emperor of China was forced, by outward circumstances, to sit and hear this buzz of voices and this clatter of knives and forks. “And this,” he must have said to himself, “is what they call royalty in the West!” If a prince of our own was forced, for the good of the country, to go among some far distant outlandish people, and there to be poked in the ribs, and slapped on the back all round, the change to him could hardly be so great.

“Where’s Sir Gregory?” said Melmotte, in a hoarse whisper, bending over the chair of a City friend. It was old Todd, the senior partner of Todd, Brehgert, and Goldsheiner. Mr. Todd

321

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

was a very wealthy man, and had a considerable following in the City.

“Ain’t he here?” said Todd, — knowing very well who had come from the City and who had declined.

“No; — and the Lord Mayor’s not come; — nor Postlethwaite, nor Bunter. What’s the meaning of it?”

Todd looked first at one neighbour and then at another before he answered. “I’m here, that’s all I can say, Mr. Melmotte; and I’ve had a very good dinner. They who haven’t come, have lost a very good dinner.”

There was a weight upon Melmotte’s mind of which he could not rid himself. He knew from the old man’s manner, and he knew also from Lord Alfred’s manner, that there was something which each of them could tell him if he would. But he was unable to make the men open their mouths. And yet it might be so important to him that he should know! “It’s very odd,” he said, “that gentlemen should promise to come and then stay away. There were hundreds anxious to be present whom I should have been glad to welcome, if I had known that there would be room. I think it is very odd.”

“It is odd,” said Mr. Todd, turning his attention to the plate before him.

Melmotte had lately seen much of Beauchamp Beauclerk, in reference to the coming election. Passing back up the table, he found the gentleman with a vacant seat on one side of him. There were many vacant seats in this part of the room, as the places for the Conservative gentlemen had been set apart together. There Mr. Melmotte seated himself for a minute, thinking that he might get the truth from his new ally. Pru-

322

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW

dence should have kept him silent. Let the cause of these desertions have been what it might, it ought to have been clear to him that he could apply no remedy to it now. But he was bewildered and dismayed, and his mind within him was changing at every moment. He was now striving to trust to his arrogance and declaring that nothing should cow him. And then again he was so cowed that he was ready to creep to any one for assistance. Personally, Mr. Beauclerk had disliked the man greatly. Among the vulgar, loud upstarts whom he had known, Melmotte was the vulgarest, the loudest, and the most arrogant. But he had taken the business of Melmotte’s election in hand, and considered himself bound to stand by Melmotte till that was over; and he was now the guest of the man in his own house, and was therefore constrained to courtesy. His wife was sitting by him, and he at once introduced her to Mr. Melmotte. “You have a wonderful assemblage here, Mr. Melmotte,” said the lady, looking up at the royal table.

“Yes, ma’am, yes. His Majesty the Emperor has been pleased to intimate that he has been much gratified.” — Had the Emperor in truth said so, no one who looked at him could have believed his imperial word. — “Can you tell me, Mr. Beauclerk, why those other gentlemen are not here? It looks very odd; does it not?”

“Ah; you mean Killegrew.”

“Yes; Mr. Killegrew and Sir David Boss, and the whole lot. I made a particular point of their coming. I said I wouldn’t have the dinner at all unless they were to be asked. They were going to make it a Government thing; but I said no. I insisted on the leaders of our own party; and now they’re not here. I know

323

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

the cards were sent; — and, by George, I have their answers, saying they’d come.”

“I suppose some of them are engaged,” said Mr. Beauclerk. “Engaged! What business has a man to accept one engagement and then take another? And, if so, why shouldn’t he write and make his excuses? No, Mr. Beauclerk, that won’t go down.” “I’m here, at any rate,” said Beauclerk, making the very an-

swer that had occurred to Mr. Todd.

“Oh, yes, you’re here. You’re all right. But what is it, Mr. Beauclerk? There’s something up, and you must have heard.” And so it was clear to Mr. Beauclerk that the man knew nothing about it himself. If there was anything wrong, Melmotte was not aware that the wrong had been discovered. “Is it anything about the election to-morrow?”

“One never can tell what is actuating people,” said Mr. Beauclerk.

“If you know anything about the matter I think you ought to tell me.”

“I know nothing except that the ballot will be taken tomorrow. You and I have got nothing more to do in the matter except to wait the result.”

“Well; I suppose it’s all right,” said Melmotte, rising and going back to his seat. But he knew that things were not all right. Had his political friends only been absent, he might have attributed their absence to some political cause which would not have touched him deeply. But the treachery of the Lord Mayor and of Sir Gregory Gribe was a blow. For another hour after he had returned to his place, the Emperor sat solemn in his chair; and then, at some signal given by some one, he was withdrawn.

324

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW

The ladies had already left the room about half an hour. According to the programme arranged for the evening, the royal guests were to return to the smaller room for a cup of coffee, and were then to be paraded upstairs before the multitude who would by that time have arrived, and to remain there long enough to justify the invited ones in saying that they had spent the evening with the Emperor and the Princes and the Princesses. The plan was carried out perfectly. At half-past ten the Emperor was made to walk upstairs, and for half an hour sat awful and composed in an arm-chair that had been prepared for him. How one would wish to see the inside of the mind of the Emperor as it worked on that occasion!

Melmotte, when his guests ascended his stairs, went back into the banqueting-room and through to the hall, and wandered about till he found Miles Grendall. “Miles,” he said, “tell me what the row is.”

“How row?” asked Miles.

“There’s something wrong, and you know all about it. Why didn’t the people come?” Miles, looking guilty, did not even attempt to deny his knowledge. “Come; what is it? We might as well know all about it at once.” Miles looked down on the ground, and grunted something. “Is it about the election?”

“No, it’s not that,” said Miles. “Then what is it?”

“They got hold of something to-day in the City — about Pickering.”

“They did, did they? And what were they saying about Pickering? Come; you might as well out with it. You don’t suppose that I care what lies they tell.”

325

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

sides 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 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

328

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW

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

329

ANTHONY TROLLOPE

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.”

330