Sybil - Benjamin Disraeli (book series to read txt) 📗

can be of great use to me, but he bores me so, I cannot talk to him. I want to present him to Arabella."

"Arabella is in the blue drawing-room. I saw her just now with Mr Jermyn and Charles. Count Soudriaffsky is teaching them some Russian tricks."

"What are Russian tricks to me; she must talk to young Huntingford; everything depends on his working with me against the Cut-and-Come-again branch-line; they have refused me my compensation, and I am not going to have my estate cut up into ribbons without compensation."

"My dear Lady Deloraine," said Lady de Mowbray. "How beautiful your gallery looks to-night! Certainly there is nothing in London that lights up so well."

"Its greatest ornaments are its guests. I am charmed to see Lady Joan looking so well."

"You think so?"

"Indeed."

"I wish--" and here Lady de Mowbray gave a smiling sigh. "What do you think of Mr Mountchesney?"

"He is universally admired."

"So every one says, and yet--"

"Well what do you think of the Dashville, Fitz?" said Mr Berners to Lord Fitzheron, "I saw you dancing with her."

"I can't bear her: she sets up to be natural and is only rude; mistakes insolence for innocence; says everything which comes first to her lips and thinks she is gay when she is only giddy."

"'Tis brilliant," said Lady Joan to Mr Mountchesney.

"When you are here," he murmured.

"And yet a ball in a gallery of art is not in my opinion in good taste. The associations which are suggested by sculpture are not festive. Repose is the characteristic of sculpture. Do not you think so?"

"Decidedly," said Mr Mountchesney. "We danced in the gallery at Matfield this Christmas, and I thought all the time that a gallery is not the place for a ball; it is too long and too narrow."

Lady Joan looked at him, and her lip rather curled.

"I wonder if Valentine has sold that bay cob of his," said Lord Milford to Lord Eugene de Vere.

"I wonder," said Lord Eugene.

"I wish you would ask him, Eugene," said Lord Milford, "you understand, I don't want him to know I want it."

"'Tis such a bore to ask questions," said Lord Eugene.

"Shall we carry Chichester?" asked Lady Firebrace of Lady St Julians.

"Oh! do not speak to me ever again of the House of Commons," she replied in a tone of affected despair. "What use is winning our way by units? It may take years. Lord Protocol says that 'one is enough.' That Jamaica affair has really ended by greatly strengthening them."

"I do not despair," said Lady Firebrace. "The unequivocal adhesion of the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine is a great thing. It gives us the northern division at a dissolution."

"That is to say in five years, my dear Lady Firebrace. The country will be ruined before that."

"We shall see. Is it a settled thing between Lady Joan and Mr Mountchesney?"

"Not the slightest foundation. Lady Joan is a most sensible girl, as well as a most charming person and my dear friend. She is not in a hurry to marry, and quite right. If indeed Frederick were a little more steady--but nothing shall ever induce me to consent to his marrying her, unless I thought he was worthy of her."

"You are such a good mother," exclaimed Lady Firebrace, "and such a good friend! I am glad to hear it is not true about Mr Mountchesney."

"If you could only help me, my dear Lady Firebrace, to put an end to that affair between Frederick and Lady Wallington. It is so silly, and getting talked about; and in his heart too he really loves Lady Joan; only he is scarcely aware of it himself."

"We must manage it," said Lady Firebrace, with a look of encouraging mystery.

"Do, my dear creature; speak to him; he is very much guided by your opinion. Tell him everybody is laughing at him, and any other little thing that occurs to you."

"I will come directly," said Lady Marney to her husband, "only let me see this."

"Well, I will bring Huntingford here. Mind you speak to him a great deal; take his arm, and go down to supper with him if you can. He is a very nice sensible young fellow, and you will like him very much I am sure; a little shy at first, but he only wants bringing out."

A dexterous description of one of the most unlicked and unlickable cubs that ever entered society with forty thousand a year; courted by all, and with just that degree of cunning that made him suspicious of every attention.

"This dreadful Lord Huntingford!" said Lady Marney.

"Jermyn and I will intefere," said Egremont, "and help you."

"No, no," said Lady Marney shaking her head, "I must do it."

At this moment, a groom of the chambers advanced and drew Egremont aside, saying in a low tone, "Your servant, Mr Egremont, is here and wishes to see you instantly."

"My servant! Instantly! What the deuce can be the matter? I hope the Albany is not on fire," and he quitted the room.

In the outer hall, amid a crowd of footmen, Egremont recognized his valet who immediately came forward.

"A porter has brought this letter, sir, and I thought it best to come on with it at once."

The letter directed to Egremont, bore also on its superscription these words. "This letter must be instantly carried by the bearer to Mr Egremont wherever he may be."

Egremont with some change of countenance drew aside, and opening the letter read it by a lamp at hand. It must have been very brief; but the face of him to whom it was addressed became, as he perused its lines, greatly agitated. When he had finished reading it, he seemed for a moment lost in profound thought; then looking up he dismissed his servant without instructions, and hastening back to the assembly, he enquired of the groom of the chambers whether Lord John Russell, whom he had observed in the course of the evening, was still present; and he was answered in the affirmative.

About a quarter of an hour after this incident, Lady Firebrace said to Lady St Julians in a tone of mysterious alarm. "Do you see that?"

"No! what?"

"Do not look as if you observed them: Lord John and Mr Egremont, in the furthest window, they have been there these ten minutes in the most earnest conversation. I am afraid we have lost him."

"I have always been expecting it," said Lady St Julians. "He breakfasts with that Mr Trenchard and does all those sorts of things. Men who breakfast out are generally liberals. Have not you observed that? I wonder why?"

"It shows a restless revolutionary mind," said Lady Firebrace, "that can settle to nothing; but must be running after gossip the moment they are awake."

"Yes," said Lady St Julians. "I think those men who breakfast out or who give breakfasts are generally dangerous characters; at least, I would not trust them. The whigs are very fond of that sort of thing. If Mr Egremont joins them, I really do not see what shadow of a claim Lady Deloraine can urge to have anything."

"She only wants one thing," said Lady Firebrace, "and we know she cannot have that."

"Why?"

"Because Lady St Julians will have it."

"You are too kind," with many smiles.

"No, I assure you Lord Masque told me that her Majesty--" and here Lady Firehrace whispered.

"Well," said Lady St Julians evidently much gratified, "I do not think I am one who am likely to forget my friends."

"That I am sure you are not!" said Lady Firebrace.


Book 5 Chapter 8


Behind the printing office in the alley at the door of which we left Sybil, was a yard which led to some premises that had once been used as a work-shop, but were now generally unoccupied. In a rather spacious chamber over which was a loft, five men, one of whom was Gerard, were busily engaged. There was no furniture in the room except a few chairs and a deal table, on which was a solitary light and a variety of papers.

"Depend upon it," said Gerard, "we must stick to the National Holiday: we can do nothing effectively, unless the movement is simultaneous. They have not troops to cope with a simultaneous movement, and the Holiday is the only machinery to secure unity of action. No work for six weeks, and the rights of Labour will be acknowledged!"

"We shall never be able to make the people unanimous in a cessation of labour," said a pale young man, very thin but with a countenance of remarkable energy. "The selfish instincts will come into play and will baulk our political object, while a great increase of physical suffering must be inevitable."

"It might be done," said a middle-aged, thickset man, in a thoughtful tone. "If the Unions were really to put their shoulder to the wheel, it might be done."

"And if it is not done," said Gerard, "what do you propose? The people ask you to guide them. Shrink at such a conjuncture, and our influence over them is forfeited and justly forfeited."

"I am for partial but extensive insurrections," said the young man. "Sufficient in extent and number to demand all the troops and yet to distract the military movements. We can count on Birmingham again, if we act at once before their new Police Act is in force; Manchester is ripe; and several of the cotton towns; but above all I have letters that assure me that at this moment we can do anything in Wales."

"Glamorganshire is right to a man," said Wilkins a Baptist teacher. "And trade is so bad that the Holiday at all events must take place there, for the masters themselves are extinguishing their furnaces.

"All the north is seething," said Gerard.

"We must contrive to agitate the metropolis," said Maclast, a shrewd carroty-haired paper-stainer. "We must have weekly meetings at Kennington and demonstrations at White Conduit House: we cannot do more here I fear than talk, but a few thousand men on Kennington Common every Saturday and some spicy resolutions will keep the Guards in London."

"Ay, ay," said Gerard; "I wish the woollen and cotton trades were as bad to do as the iron, and we should need no holiday as you say, Wilkins. However it will come. In the meantime the Poor-law pinches and terrifies, and will make even the most spiritless turn."

"The accounts to-day from the north are very encouraging though," said the young man. "Stevens is producing a great effect, and this plan of our people going in procession and taking possession of the churches very much affects the imagination of the multitude."

"Ah!" said Gerard, "if we could only have the Church on our side, as in the good old days, we would soon put an end to the demon tyranny of Capital."

"And now," said the pale young man, taking up a manuscript paper, "to our immediate business. Here is the draft of the projected proclamation of the Convention on the Birmingham outbreak. It enjoins peace and order, and counsels the people to arm themselves in order to secure both. You understand: that they may resist if the troops and the police endeavour to produce disturbance."

"Ay, ay," said Gerard. "Let it be stout. We will settle this at once,