“How am I out of order, Mr. Meiklewham?” said her ladyship, drawing herself up.
“I speak to order! – No warrants for money can be extracted before intimation to the Committee of Management.”
“Pray, who mentioned money, Mr. Meiklewham?” said her ladyship. – “That wretched old pettifogger,” she added in a whisper to Tyrrel, “thinks of nothing else but the filthy pelf.”
“Ye spake of subscription, my leddy, whilk is the same thing as money, differing only in respect of time – the subscription being a contract de futuro, and having a tractus temporis in gremio– And I have kend mony honest folks in the company at the Well, complain of the subscriptions as a great abuse, as obliging them either to look unlike other folk, or to gie good lawful coin for ballants and picture-books, and things they caredna a pinch of snuff for.”
Several of the company, at the lower end of the table, assented both by nods and murmurs of approbation; and the orator was about to proceed, when Tyrrel with difficulty procured a hearing before the debate went farther, and assured the company that her ladyship's goodness had led her into an error; that he had no work in hand worthy of their patronage, and, with the deepest gratitude for Lady Penelope's goodness, had it not in his power to comply with her request. There was some tittering at her ladyship's expense, who, as the writer slyly observed, had been something ultronious in her patronage. Without attempting for the moment any rally, (as indeed the time which had passed since the removal of the dinner scarce permitted an opportunity,) Lady Penelope gave the signal for the ladies' retreat, and left the gentlemen to the circulation of the bottle.
CHAPTER VII.
THE TEA-TABLE
– While the cups,
Which cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each.
It was common at the Well, for the fair guests occasionally to give tea to the company, – such at least as from their rank and leading in the little society, might be esteemed fit to constitute themselves patronesses of an evening; and the same lady generally carried the authority she had acquired into the ball-room, where two fiddles and a bass, at a guinea a night, with a quantum sufficit of tallow candles, (against the use of which Lady Penelope often mutinied,) enabled the company – to use the appropriate phrase – “to close the evening on the light fantastic toe.”
On the present occasion, the lion of the hour, Mr. Francis Tyrrel, had so little answered the high-wrought expectations of Lady Penelope, that she rather regretted having ever given herself any trouble about him, and particularly that of having manœuvred herself into the patronage of the tea-table for the evening, to the great expenditure of souchong and congo. Accordingly, her ladyship had no sooner summoned her own woman, and her fille de chambre, to make tea, with her page, footman, and postilion, to hand it about, (in which duty they were assisted by two richly-laced and thickly-powdered footmen of Lady Binks's, whose liveries put to shame the more modest garb of Lady Penelope's, and even dimmed the glory of the suppressed coronet upon the buttons,) than she began to vilipend and depreciate what had been so long the object of her curiosity.
“This Mr. Tyrrel,” she said, in a tone of authoritative decision, “seems after all a very ordinary sort of person, quite a commonplace man, who, she dared say, had considered his condition, in going to the old alehouse, much better than they had done for him, when they asked him to the Public Rooms. He had known his own place better than they did – there was nothing uncommon in his appearance or conversation – nothing at all frappant– she scarce believed he could even draw that sketch. Mr. Winterblossom, indeed, made a great deal of it; but then all the world knew that every scrap of engraving or drawing, which Mr. Winterblossom contrived to make his own, was, the instant it came into his collection, the finest thing that ever was seen – that was the way with collectors – their geese were all swans.”
“And your ladyship's swan has proved but a goose, my dearest Lady Pen,” said Lady Binks.
“My swan, dearest Lady Binks! I really do not know how I have deserved the appropriation.”
“Do not be angry, my dear Lady Penelope; I only mean, that for a fortnight and more you have spoke constantly of this Mr. Tyrrel, and all dinner-time you spoke to him.”
The fair company began to collect around, at hearing the word dear so often repeated in the same brief dialogue, which induced them to expect sport, and, like the vulgar on a similar occasion, to form a ring for the expected combatants.
“He sat betwixt us, Lady Binks,” answered Lady Penelope, with dignity. “You had your usual headache, you know, and, for the credit of the company, I spoke for one.”
“For two, if your ladyship pleases,” replied Lady Binks. “I mean,” she added, softening the expression, “for yourself and me.”
“I am sorry,” said Lady Penelope, “I should have spoken for one who can speak so smartly for herself, as my dear Lady Binks – I did not, by any means, desire to engross the conversation – I repeat it, there is a mistake about this man.”
“I think there is,” said Lady Binks, in a tone which implied something more than mere assent to Lady Penelope's proposition.
“I doubt if he is an artist at all,” said the Lady Penelope; “or if he is, he must be doing things for some Magazine, or Encyclopedia, or some such matter.”
“I doubt, too, if he be a professional artist,” said Lady Binks. “If so, he is of the very highest class, for I have seldom seen a better-bred man.”
“There are very well-bred artists,” said Lady Penelope. “It is the profession of a gentleman.”
“Certainly,” answered Lady Binks; “but the poorer class have often to struggle with poverty and dependence. In general society, they are like commercial people in presence of their customers; and that is a difficult part to sustain. And so you see them of all sorts – shy and reserved, when they are conscious of merit – petulant and whimsical, by way of showing their independence – intrusive, in order to appear easy – and sometimes obsequious and fawning, when they chance to be of a mean spirit. But you seldom see them quite at their ease, and therefore I hold this Mr. Tyrrel to be either an artist of the first class, raised completely above the necessity and degradation of patronage, or else to be no professional artist at all.”
Lady Penelope looked at Lady Binks with much such a regard as Balaam may have cast upon his ass, when he discovered the animal's capacity for holding an argument with him. She muttered to herself —
“Mon ane parle, et même il parle bien!”
But, declining the altercation which Lady Binks seemed disposed to enter into, she replied, with good-humour, “Well, dearest Rachel, we will not pull caps about this man – nay, I think your good opinion of him gives him new value in my eyes. That is always the way with us, my good friend! We may confess it, when there are none of these conceited male wretches among us. We will know what he really is – he shall not wear fern-seed, and walk among us invisible thus – what say you, Maria?”
“Indeed, I say, dear Lady Penelope,” answered Miss Digges, whose ready chatter we have already introduced to the reader, “he is a very handsome man, though his nose is too big, and his mouth too wide – but his teeth are like pearl – and he has such eyes! – especially when your ladyship spoke to him. I don't think you looked at his eyes – they are quite deep and dark, and full of glow, like what you read to us in the letter from that lady, about Robert Burns.”
“Upon my word, miss, you come on finely!” said Lady Penelope. – “One had need take care what they read or talk about before you, I see – Come, Jones, have mercy upon us – put an end to that symphony of tinkling cups and saucers, and let the first act of the tea-table begin, if you please.”
“Does her leddyship mean the grace?” said honest Mrs. Blower, for the first