To return to Lucian Gay. It was a rule with Rigby that no one, if possible, should do anything for Lord Monmouth but himself; and as a jester must be found, he was determined that his Lordship should have the best in the market, and that he should have the credit of furnishing the article. As a reward, therefore, for many past services, and a fresh claim to his future exertions, Rigby one day broke to Gay that the hour had at length arrived when the highest object of reasonable ambition on his part, and the fulfilment of one of Rigby’s long-cherished and dearest hopes, were alike to be realised. Gay was to be presented to Lord Monmouth and dine at Monmouth House.
The acquaintance was a successful one; very agreeable to both parties. Gay became an habitual guest of Lord Monmouth when his patron was in England; and in his absence received frequent and substantial marks of his kind recollection, for Lord Monmouth was generous to those who amused him.
In the meantime the hour of dinner is at hand. Coningsby, who had lost the key of his carpet-bag, which he finally cut open with a penknife that he found on his writing-table, and the blade of which he broke in the operation, only reached the drawing-room as the figure of his grandfather, leaning on his ivory cane, and following his guests, was just visible in the distance. He was soon overtaken. Perceiving Coningsby, Lord Monmouth made him a bow, not so formal a one as in the morning, but still a bow, and said, ‘I hope you liked your drive.’
CHAPTER VI
A little dinner, not more than the Muses, with all the guests clever, and some pretty, offers human life and human nature under very favourable circumstances. In the present instance, too, every one was anxious to please, for the host was entirely well-bred, never selfish in little things, and always contributed his quota to the general fund of polished sociability.
Although there was really only one thought in every male mind present, still, regard for the ladies, and some little apprehension of the servants, banished politics from discourse during the greater part of the dinner, with the occasional exception of some rapid and flying allusion which the initiated understood, but which remained a mystery to the rest. Nevertheless an old story now and then well told by Mr. Ormsby, a new joke now and then well introduced by Mr. Gay, some dashing assertion by Mr. Rigby, which, though wrong, was startling; this agreeable blending of anecdote, jest, and paradox, kept everything fluent, and produced that degree of mild excitation which is desirable. Lord Monmouth sometimes summed up with an epigrammatic sentence, and turned the conversation by a question, in case it dwelt too much on the same topic. Lord Eskdale addressed himself principally to the ladies; inquired after their morning drive and doings, spoke of new fashions, and quoted a letter from Paris. Madame Colonna was not witty, but she had that sweet Roman frankness which is so charming. The presence of a beautiful woman, natural and good-tempered, even if she be not a L’Espinasse or a De Stael, is animating.
Nevertheless, owing probably to the absorbing powers of the forbidden subject, there were moments when it seemed that a pause was impending, and Mr. Ormsby, an old hand, seized one of these critical instants to address a good-natured question to Coningsby, whose acquaintance he had already cultivated by taking wine with him.
‘And how do you like Eton?’ asked Mr. Ormsby.
It was the identical question which had been presented to Coningsby in the memorable interview of the morning, and which had received no reply; or rather had produced on his part a sentimental ebullition that had absolutely destined or doomed him to the Church.
‘I should like to see the fellow who did not like Eton,’ said Coningsby, briskly, determined this time to be very brave.
‘Gad I must go down and see the old place,’ said Mr. Ormsby, touched by a pensive reminiscence. ‘One can get a good bed and bottle of port at the Christopher, still?’
‘You had better come and try, sir,’ said Coningsby. ‘If you will come some day and dine with me at the Christopher, I will give you such a bottle of champagne as you never tasted yet.’
The Marquess looked at him, but said nothing.
‘Ah! I liked a dinner at the Christopher,’ said Mr. Ormsby; ‘after mutton, mutton, mutton, every day, it was not a bad thing.’
‘We had venison for dinner every week last season,’ said Coningsby; ‘Buckhurst had it sent up from his park. But I don’t care for dinner. Breakfast is my lounge.’
‘Ah! those little rolls and pats of butter!’ said Mr. Ormsby. ‘Short commons, though. What do you think we did in my time? We used to send over the way to get a mutton-chop.’
‘I wish you could see Buckhurst and me at breakfast,’ said Coningsby, ‘with a pound of Castle’s sausages!’
‘What Buckhurst is that, Harry?’ inquired Lord Monmouth, in a tone of some interest, and for the first time calling him by his Christian name.
‘Sir Charles Buckhurst, sir, a Berkshire man: Shirley Park is his place.’
‘Why, that must be Charley’s son, Eskdale,’ said Lord Monmouth; ‘I had no idea he could be so young.’
‘He married late, you know, and had nothing but daughters for a long time.’
‘Well, I hope there will be no Reform Bill for Eton,’ said Lord Monmouth, musingly.
The servants had now retired.
‘I think, Lord Monmouth,’ said Mr. Rigby, ‘we must ask permission to drink one toast to-day.’
‘Nay, I will myself give it,’ he replied. ‘Madame Colonna, you will, I am sure, join us when we drink, THE DUKE!’
‘Ah! what a man!’ exclaimed the Princess. ‘What a pity it is you have a House of Commons here! England would be the greatest country in the world if it were not for that House of Commons. It makes so much confusion!’
‘Don’t abuse our property,’ said Lord Eskdale; ‘Lord Monmouth and I have still twenty votes of that same body between us.’
‘And there is a combination,’ said Rigby, ‘by which you may still keep them.’
‘Ah! now for Rigby’s combination,’ said Lord Eskdale.
‘The only thing that can save this country,’ said Rigby, ‘is a coalition on a sliding scale.’
‘You had better buy up the Birmingham Union and the other bodies,’ said Lord Monmouth; ‘I believe it might all be done for two or three hundred thousand pounds; and the newspapers too. Pitt would have settled this business long ago.’
‘Well, at any rate, we are in,’ said Rigby, ‘and we must do something.’
‘I should like to see Grey’s list of new peers,’ said Lord Eskdale. ‘They say there are several members of our club in it.’
‘And the claims to the honour are so opposite,’ said Lucian Gay; ‘one, on account of his large estate; another, because he has none; one, because he has a well-grown family to perpetuate the title; another, because he has no heir, and no power of ever obtaining one.’
‘I wonder how he will form his cabinet,’ said Lord Monmouth; ‘the old story won’t do.’
‘I hear that Baring is to be one of the new cards; they say it will please the city,’ said Lord Eskdale. ‘I suppose they will pick out of hedge and ditch everything that has ever had the semblance of liberalism.’
‘Affairs in my time were never so complicated,’ said Mr. Ormsby.
‘Nay, it appears to me to lie in a nutshell,’ said Lucian Gay; ‘one party wishes to keep their old boroughs, and the other to get their new peers.’
CHAPTER VII
The future historian of the country