But the review in the “Morning Breakfast Table” was the making of Lady Carbury’s book, as far as it ever was made. Mr Broune saw the lady after the receipt of the letter given in the first chapter of this Tale, and was induced to make valuable promises which had been fully performed. Two whole columns had been devoted to the work, and the world had been assured that no more delightful mixture of amusement and instruction had ever been concocted than Lady Carbury’s “Criminal Queens.” It was the very book that had been wanted for years. It was a work of infinite research and brilliant imagination combined. There had been no hesitation in the laying on of the paint. At that last meeting Lady Carbury had been very soft, very handsome, and very winning; Mr Broune had given the order with good will, and it had been obeyed in the same feeling.
Therefore, though the crushing had been very real, there had also been some elation; and as a net result, Lady Carbury was disposed to think that her literary career might yet be a success. Mr Leadham’s cheque had been for a small amount, but it might probably lead the way to something better. People at any rate were talking about her, and her Tuesday evenings at home were generally full. But her literary life, and her literary successes, her flirtations with Mr Broune, her business with Mr Booker, and her crushing by Mr Alf’s Mr Jones, were after all but adjuncts to that real inner life of hers of which the absorbing interest was her son. And with regard to him too she was partly depressed, and partly elated, allowing her hopes however to dominate her fears. There was very much to frighten her. Even the moderate reform in the young man’s expenses which had been effected under dire necessity had been of late abandoned. Though he never told her anything, she became aware that during the last month of the hunting season he had hunted nearly every day. She knew, too, that he had a horse up in town. She never saw him but once in the day, when she visited him in his bed about noon, and was aware that he was always at his club throughout the night. She knew that he was gambling, and she hated gambling as being of all pastimes the most dangerous. But she knew that he had ready money for his immediate purposes, and that two or three tradesmen who were gifted with a peculiar power of annoying their debtors, had ceased to trouble her in Welbeck Street. For the present, therefore, she consoled herself by reflecting that his gambling was successful. But her elation sprang from a higher source than this. From all that she could hear, she thought it likely that Felix would carry off the great prize; and then, — should he do that, — what a blessed son would he have been to her! How constantly in her triumph would she be able to forget all his vices, his debts, his gambling, his late hours, and his cruel treatment of herself! As she thought of it the bliss seemed to be too great for the possibility of realisation. She was taught to understand that £10,000 a year, to begin with, would be the least of it; and that the ultimate wealth might probably be such as to make Sir Felix Carbury the richest commoner in England. In her very heart of hearts she worshipped wealth, but desired it for him rather than for herself. Then her mind ran away to baronies and earldoms, and she was lost in the coming glories of the boy whose faults had already nearly engulfed her in his own ruin.
And she had another ground for elation, which comforted her much, though elation from such a cause was altogether absurd. She had discovered that her son had become a Director of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway Company. She must have known, — she certainly did know, — that Felix, such as he was, could not lend assistance by his work to any company or commercial enterprise in the world. She was aware that there was some reason for such a choice hidden from the world, and which comprised and conveyed a falsehood. A ruined baronet of five-and-twenty, every hour of whose life since he had been left to go alone had been loaded with vice and folly, — whose egregious misconduct warranted his friends in regarding him as one incapable of knowing what principle is, — of what service could he be, that he should be made a Director? But Lady Carbury, though she knew that he could be of no service, was not at all shocked. She was now able to speak up a little for her boy, and did not forget to send the news by post to Roger Carbury. And her son sat at the same Board with Mr Melmotte! What an indication was this of coming triumphs!
Fisker had started, as the reader will perhaps remember, on the morning of Saturday 19th April, leaving Sir Felix at the Club at about seven in the morning. All that day his mother was unable to see him. She found him asleep in his room at noon and again at two; and when she sought him again he had flown. But on the Sunday she caught him. “I hope,” she said, “you’ll stay at home on Tuesday evening.” Hitherto she had never succeeded in inducing him to grace her evening parties by his presence.
“All your people are coming! You know, mother, it is such an awful bore.”
“Madame Melmotte and her daughter will be here.”
“One looks such a fool carrying on that kind of thing in one’s own house. Everybody sees that it has been contrived. And it is such a pokey, stuffy little place!”
Then Lady Carbury spoke out her mind. “Felix, I think you must be a fool. I have given over ever expecting that you would do anything to please me. I sacrifice everything for you and I do not even hope for a return. But when I am doing everything to advance your own interests, when I am working night and day to rescue you from ruin, I think you might at any rate help a little, — not for me of course, but for yourself.”
“I don’t know what you mean by working day and night. I don’t want you to work day and night.”
“There is hardly a young man in London that is not thinking of this girl, and you have chances that none of them have. I am told they are going out of town at Whitsuntide, and that she’s to meet Lord Nidderdale down in the country.”
“She can’t endure Nidderdale. She says so herself.”
“She will do as she is told, — unless she can be made to be downright in love with some one like yourself. Why not ask her at once on Tuesday?”
“If I’m to do it at all I must do it after my own fashion. I’m not going to be driven.”
“Of course if you will not take the trouble to be here to see her when she comes to your own house, you cannot expect her to think that you really love her.”
“Love her! what a bother there is about loving! Well; — I’ll look in. What time do the animals come to feed?”
“There will be no feeding. Felix, you are so heartless and so cruel that I sometimes think I will make up my mind to let you go your own way and never to speak to you again. My friends will be here about ten; — I should say from ten till twelve. I think you should be here to receive her, not later than ten.”
“If I can get my dinner out of my throat by that time, I will come.”
When the Tuesday came, the overdriven young man did contrive to get his dinner eaten, and his glass of brandy sipped, and his cigar smoked, and perhaps his game of billiards played, so as to present himself in his mother’s drawing-room not long after half-past ten. Madame Melmotte and her daughter were already there, — and many others, of whom the majority were devoted to literature. Among them Mr Alf was in the room, and was at this very moment discussing Lady Carbury’s book with Mr Booker. He had been quite graciously received, as though he had not authorised the crushing. Lady Carbury had given him her hand with that energy of affection with which she was wont to welcome her literary friends,