met in Mrs. Firmin's apartments. "Lord Thingambury's card! what next, Brandon,
upon my word? Lady Slowby at home? well, I never, Mrs. B.!" In such artless
phrases Mrs. Mugford would express her admiration and astonishment during the
early time, and when Charlotte still retained the good lady's favour. That a
state of things far less agreeable ensued, I must own. But though there is ever
so small a cloud in the sky even now, let us not heed it for a while, and bask
and be content and happy in the sunshine. "Oh, Laura, I tremble when I think how
happy I am!" was our little bird's perpetual warble. "How did I live when I was
at home with mamma?" she would say. "Do you know that Philip never even scolds
me? If he were to say a rough word, I think I should die; whereas mamma was
barking, barking from morning till night, and I didn't care a pin." This is what
comes of injudicious scolding, as of any other drug. The wholesome medicine
loses its effect. The injured patient calmly takes a dose that would frighten or
kill a stranger. Poor Mrs. Baynes's crossed letters came still, and I am not
prepared to pledge my word that Charlotte read them all. Mrs. B. offered to come
and superintend and take care of dear Philip when an interesting event should
take place. But Mrs. Brandon was already engaged for this important occasion,
and Charlotte became so alarmed lest her mother should invade her, that Philip
wrote curtly, and positively forbade Mrs. Baynes. You remember the picture, 'A
Cradle,' by J. J.? the two little rosy feet brought I don't know how many
hundred guineas a piece to Mr. Ridley. The mother herself did not study babydom
more fondly and devotedly than Ridley did in the ways, looks, features,
anatomies, attitudes, baby-clothes, of this first-born infant of Charlotte and
Philip Firmin. My wife is very angry because I have forgotten whether the first
of the young Firmin brood was a boy or a girl, and says I shall forget the names
of my own children next. Well? At this distance of time, I think it was a
boy��for their boy is very tall, you know��a great deal taller�� Not a boy?
Then, between ourselves, I have no doubt it was a�� "A goose," says the lady,
which is not even reasonable.
This is certain, we all thought the young mother looked very pretty, with her
pink cheeks and beaming eyes, as she bent over the little infant. J. J. says he
thinks there is something heavenly in the looks of young mothers at that time.
Nay, he goes so far as to declare that a tigress at the Zoological Gardens looks
beautiful and gentle as she bends her black nozzle over her cubs. And if a
tigress, why not Mrs. Philip? O ye powers of sentiment, in what a state J. J.
was about this young woman! There is a brightness in a young mother's eye: there
are pearl and rose tints on her cheek, which are sure to fascinate a painter.
This artist used to hang about Mrs. Brandon's rooms, till it was droll to see
him. I believe he took off his shoes in his own studio, so as not to disturb by
his creaking the lady overhead. He purchased the most preposterous mug, and
other presents, for the infant. Philip went out to his club or his newspaper as
he was ordered to do. But Mr. J. J. could not be got away from Thornhaugh
Street, so that little Mrs. Brandon laughed at him��absolutely laughed at him.
During all this while Philip and his wife continued in the very greatest favour
with Mr. and Mrs. Mugford, and were invited by that worthy couple to go with
their infant to Mugford's villa at Hampstead, where a change of air might do
good to dear baby and dear mamma. Philip went to this village retreat. Streets
and terraces now cover over the house and grounds which worthy Mugford
inhabited, and which people say he used to call his "Russian Irby." He had
amassed in a small space a heap of country pleasures. He had a little garden; a
little paddock; a little greenhouse; a little cucumber-frame; a little stable
for his little trap; a little Guernsey cow; a little dairy; a little pigsty; and
with this little treasure the good man was not a little content. He loved and
praised everything that was his. No man admired his own port more than Mugford,
or paid more compliments to his own butter and home-baked bread. He enjoyed his
own happiness. He appreciated his own worth. He loved to talk of the days when
he was a poor boy on London streets, and now��"Now try that glass of port, my
boy, and say whether the Lord Mayor has got any better," he would say, winking
at his glass and his company. To be virtuous, to be lucky, and constantly to
think and own that you are so��is not this true happiness? To sing hymns in
praise of himself is a charming amusement ��at least to the performer; and
after dinner. I am sorry to say Philip did not care for this trumpet-blowing. He
was frightfully bored at Haverstock Hill; and when bored, Mr. Philip is not
altogether an agreeable companion. He will yawn in a man's face. He will
contradict you freely. He will say the mutton is tough, or the wine not fit to
drink; that such and such an orator is over-rated, and such and such a
politician is a fool. Mugford and his guest had battles after dinner, had
actually high words. "What-hever is it, Mugford? and what were you quarrelling
about in the dining-room?" asks Mrs. Mugford. "Quarrelling? It's only the
sub-editor snoring," said the gentleman with a flushed face. "My wine ain't good
enough for him, and now my gentleman must put his boots upon a chair and go to
sleep under my nose. He is a cool hand, and no mistake, Mrs. M." At this
juncture poor little Char would gently glide down from a visit to her baby: and
would play something on the piano, and soothe the rising anger; and then Philip
would come in from a little walk in the shrubberies, where he had been blowing a
little cloud. Ah! there was a little cloud rising indeed:��quite a little
one��nay, not so little. When you consider that Philip's bread depended on the
goodwill of these people, you will allow that his friends might be anxious
regarding the future. A word from Mugford, and Philip and Charlotte and the
child were adrift on the world. And these points Mr. Firmin would freely admit,
while he stood discoursing of his own affairs (as he loved to do), his hands in
his pockets, and his back warming at our fire.
"My dear fellow," says the candid bridegroom, "these things are constantly in my
head. I used to talk about 'em to Char, but I don't now. They disturb her, the
poor thing; and she clutches hold of the baby; and�� and it tears my heart out
to think that any grief should come to her. I try and do my best, my good
people�� but when I'm bored I can't help showing I'm bored, don't you see? I
can't be a hypocrite. No, not for two hundred a year, or for twenty thousand.
You can't make a silk purse out of that sow's-ear of a Mugford. A very good man.
I don't say no. A good father, a good husband, a generous host, and a most
tremendous bore, and cad. Be agreeable to him? How can I be agreeable when I am
being killed? He has a story about Leigh Hunt being put into prison
where
Mugford, bringing him proofs, saw Lord Byron. I cannot keep awake during that
story any longer; or, if awake, I grind my teeth, and swear inwardly, so that I
know I'm dreadful to hear and see. Well, Mugford has yellow satin sofas in the
'droaring-room'��"
"Oh, Philip!" says a lady; and two or three circumjacent children set up an
insane giggle, which is speedily and sternly silenced.
"I tell you she calls it 'droaring-room.' You know she does, as well as I do.
She is a good woman: a kind woman: a hot-tempered woman. I hear her scolding the
servants in the kitchen with immense vehemence, and at prodigious length. But
how can Char frankly be the friend of a woman who calls a drawing-room a
droaring-room? With our dear little friend in Thornhaugh Street, it is
different. She makes no pretence even at equality. Here is a patron and
patroness, don't you see? When Mugford walks me round his paddock and gardens,
and says, 'Look year, Firmin;' or scratches one of his pigs on the back, and
says, 'We'll 'ave a cut of this fellow on Saturday'"��(explosive attempts at
insubordination and derision on the part of the children again are severely
checked by the parental authorities)��"'we'll 'ave a cut of this fellow on
Saturday,' I felt inclined to throw him or myself into the trough over the
palings. Do you know that that man put that hand into his pocket, and offered me
some filberts?"
Here I own the lady to whom Philip was addressing himself turned pale and
shuddered.
"I can no more be that man's friend que celui du domestique qui vient d'apporter
le what-d'you-call'em? le coal-scuttle"��(John entered the room with that useful
article during Philip's oration��and we allowed the elder children to laugh this
time, for the fact is, none of us knew the French for coal-scuttle, and I will
wager there is no such word in Chambaud). "This holding back is not arrogance,"
Philip went on. "This reticence is not want of humility. To serve that man
to make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, is subserviency and
hypocrisy on my part. I ought to say to him," "Mr. Mugford, I will give you my
work for your wage; I will compile your paper, I will produce an agreeable
miscellany containing proper proportions of news, politics, and scandal, put
titles to your paragraphs, see the Pall Mall Gazette shipshape through the
press, and go home to my wife and dinner. You are my employer, but you are not
my friend, and��bless my soul! there is five o'clock striking!" (The time-piece
in our drawing-room gave that announcement as he was speaking). "We have what
Mugford calls a white-choker dinner to-day, in honour of the pig!" And with this
Philip plunges out of the house, and I hope reached Hampstead in time for the
entertainment.
Philip's friends in Westminster felt no little doubt about his prospects, and
the Little Sister shared their alarm. "They are not fit to be with those folks,"
Mrs. Brandon said, "though as for Mrs. Philip, dear thing, I am sure nobody can
ever quarrel with her. With me it's different. I never had no education you
know��no more than the Mugfords, but I don't like to see my Philip sittin' down
as if he was the guest and equal of that fellar." Nor indeed did it ever enter
that fellar's' head that Mr. Robert Mugford could be Mr. Philip Firmin's equal.
With our knowledge of the two men, then, we all dismally looked forward to a
rupture between Firmin and his patron.
As for the New York journal, we were more easy in respect to Philip's success in
that quarter. Several of his friends made a vow to help him. We clubbed
clubstories; we begged from our polite friends anecdotes (that would bear
sea-transport) of the fashionable world. We happened to overhear the most
remarkable conversations between the most influential public characters who had
no secrets from us. We had astonishing intelligence at most European courts;
exclusive reports of the Emperor of Russia's last joke��his last? his next, very
likely. We knew the most secret designs of the Austrian Privy Council: the views
which the Pope had in his eye; who was the latest favourite of the Grand Turk,
and so on. The Upper Ten Thousand at New York were supplied with a quantity of
information which I trust profited them. It was "Palmerston remarked yesterday
at dinner," or, "The good old Duke said last night at Apsley House to the French
Ambassador," and the rest. The letters were signed "Philalethes;" and, as nobody
was wounded by the shafts of our long bow, I trust Mr. Philip and his friends
may be pardoned for twanging it. By information procured from learned female
personages, we even managed to give accounts, more or less correct, of the
latest ladies' fashions. We were members of all the clubs; we were present at
the routs and assemblies of the political leaders of both sides. We had little
doubt that Philalethes would be successful at New York, and looked forward to an
increased payment for his labours. At the end of the first year of Philip
Firmin's married life, we made a calculation by which it was clear that he had
actually saved money. His expenses, to be sure, were increased. There was a baby
in the nursery: but there was a little bag of sovereigns in the cupboard, and
the thrifty young fellow hoped to add still more to his store.
We were relieved at finding that Firmin and his wife were not invited to repeat
their visit to their employer's house at Hampstead. An occasional invitation to
dinner was still sent to the young people; but Mugford, a haughty man in his
way, with a proper spirit of his own, had the good sense to see that much
intimacy could not arise between him and his sub-editor, and magnanimously
declined to be angry at the young fellow's easy superciliousness. I think that
indefatigable Little Sister was the peacemaker between the houses of Mugford and
Firmin junior, and that she kept both Philip and his master on their good
behaviour. At all events, and when a quarrel did arise between them, I grieve to
have to own it was poor Philip who was in the wrong.
You know in the old, old days the young king and queen never gave any
christening entertainment without neglecting to invite some old fairy, who was
furious at the omission. I am sorry to say Charlotte's mother was so angry at
not being appointed godmother to the new baby, that she omitted to make her
little quarterly payment of 12l. 10s.; and has altogether discontinued that
payment from that remote period up to the present time; so that Philip says his
wife has brought him a fortune of 45l., paid in four instalments. There was the
first quarter paid when the old lady "would not be beholden to a man like him."
Then there came a second quarter��and then��but I daresay I shall be able to
tell when and how Philip's mamma-in-law paid the rest of her poor little
daughter's fortune.
Well, Regent's Park is a fine healthy place for infantine diversion, and I don't
think Philip at all demeaned himself in walking there with his wife, her little
maid, and his baby on his arm. "He is as rude as a bear, and his manners are
dreadful; but he has a good heart, that I will say for him," Mugford said to me.
In his drive from London to Hampstead, Mugford once or twice met the little
family group, of which his subeditor formed the principal figure; and for the
sake of Philip's young wife and child Mr. M. pardoned the young man's vulgarity,
and treated him with long-suffering.
Poor as he was, this was his happiest time, my friend is disposed to think. A
young child, a young wife, whose whole life was a tender caress of love for
child and husband, a young husband watching both:��I recal the group, as we used
often to see it in those days, and see a something sacred in the homely figures.
On the wife's bright face what a radiant happiness there is, and what a
rapturous smile! Over the sleeping infant and the happy mother the father looks
with pride and thanks in his eyes. Happiness and gratitude fill his simple
heart, and prayer involuntary to the Giver of good, that he may have strength to
do his duty as father, husband; that he may be enabled to keep want and care
from those dear innocent beings; that he may defend them, befriend them, leave
them a good name. I am bound to say that Philip became thrifty and saving for
the sake of Char and the child: that he came home early of nights: that he
thought his child a wonder; that he never tired of speaking about that infant in
our house, about its fatness, its strength, its weight, its wonderful early
talents and humour. He felt himself a man now for the first time, he said. Life
had been play and folly until now. And now especially he regretted that he had
been idle, and had neglected his opportunities as a lad. Had he studied for the
bar, he might have made that profession now profitable, and a source of honour
and competence to his family. Our friend estimated his own powers very humbly: I
am sure he was not the less amiable on account of that humility. O fortunate he,
of whom Love is the teacher, the guide and master, the reformer and chastener!
Where was our friend's former arrogance, self-confidence, and boisterous
profusion? He was at the feet of his wife and child. He was quite humbled about
himself; or gratified himself in fondling and caressing these. They taught him,
he said: and, as he thought of them, his heart turned in awful thanks to the
gracious heaven which had given them to him. As the tiny infant hand closes
round his fingers, I can see the father bending over mother and child, and
interpret those maybe unspoken blessings which he asks and bestows Happy wife,
happy husband! However poor his little home may be, it holds treasures and
wealth inestimable: whatever storms may threaten without, the home fireside is
brightened by the welcome of the dearest eyes.
CHAPTER V. IN WHICH I OWN THAT PHILIP TELLS AN UNTRUTH.
Charlotte (and the usual little procession of nurse, baby, once made their
appearance at our house in Queen Square, where they were ever welcome by the
lady of the mansion. The young woman was in a great state of elation, and when
we came to hear the cause of her delight, her friends too opened the eyes of
wonder. She actually announced that Dr. Firmin had sent over a bill of forty
pounds (I may be incorrect as to the sum) from New York. It had arrived that
morning, and she had seen the bill, and Philip had told her that his father had
sent it; and was it not a comfort to think that poor Doctor Firmin was
endeavouring to repair some of the evil which he had done; and that he was
repenting, and, perhaps, was going to become quite honest and good? This was
indeed an astounding piece of intelligence: and the two women felt joy at the
thought of that sinner repenting, and some one else was accused of cynicism,
scepticism, and so forth, for doubting the corrctness of the information. "You