The Lottery of Life

Front matter

PRINTED BY CFIAPZl.ET, 0, RUE DE VAUGIRARD. BY THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. After long slormes and tempests overblowne, The sunne al length his joyous face doth clearer So when as Fortune all her spighl hath showne, Some blissful hours at last must needesappeare, Else should afflicted wights ofltimes despeere. SrENSER's Faery Queeke. PARIS, PUBLISHED BY A. AND W. GAL1GNAN1 AND C"., N° 18, RUE VIVIENNE. 1842. CONTENTS. The Lottery of life • Page 1 Veronica of Castille 1 2 1 Scenes in the Life of a Portrait Painter 135 Galeria ; or, the Deserted Village 1 50 The Dream 1 59 The Honeymoon 162 Mary Lester. . 170 Isptta Grimani 119 Matrimony 195 The Gamesters 21 G The Coquette 237 The Beauty and her Sister, ( part. i. ) 249 The Beauty and her Sister, (pakt. ii. ) 265 The Antidote to Love 279 The Old Irish Gentleman 309 Madelina 322 Annette ; or, the Galerien 334 The Young Mother 339 The Chalet in the Alps 348 Remorse, a Fragment 356 Thoughts on Lord Byron 3C0 Apropos of Bores 363 The Bay of Naples in the Summer of 1824 3G6 The Parvenue

Chapter I

Born os humble but honest parents, I was so fortunate as to attract the notice of Abraham Mortimer, a retired banker, who had purchased a large estate, on which was the small farm occupied by my father, Richard Wallingford. Mr. Mortimer had married late in life, and lost the object of his affections, who died soon after giving birth to an only son. The child was little less than idolized by his doting parent • and, when old enough to have a preceptor, it was suggested that a play-fellow, lo share his lessons, might excite emulation, while a companion in his exercise would tend to give him more pleasure in them. I, then in my twelfth year, was selected to fill this post. I had often attracted the notice of Mr. Mortimer as he rode by the door of my father, who was his tenant, and who having three other children, and not being in affluent circumstances, was not unwilling to accept the kind offer of his landlord, to undertake the education of his son, and afterwards to place him in some reputable profession.

Percy Mortimer, unlike the generality of only sons, was wholly unspoilt by the indulgence of his father. Good-tempered, kind hearted, and generous, he hailed the acquisition of a companion of his own age with delight, and soon became fondly attached to me, who regarded " the young master," as the child was slyled, with the warmest affection. The emulation excited between us never engendered an envious seeling in the breasts of either. The commendations lavished on Percy by his doting father, were even more gratify ing to me than to the object of them • and often would Percy interrupt the eulogiums , by reminding his parent that I merited them quite as well as he did. The only interruptions to the happiness I enjoyed, originated in the contemptuous treatment I not unfrequently experienced from the servants of my benefactor.

" Marry come up! "would Mrs. Turnbull, the fat housekeeper, say, often loud enough to be heard by me, as she beheld us mount our ponies together, " if it isn't queer to see a trumpery farmer's son treated for all the world like the young squire, and not the least difference made between them." "Set a beggar on horseback and he'll ride lo the ," chimed the butler. " Well, I hope master won't have no cause to repent his generosity, or to remember the old saying about pulling a rod to whip himself." " Some people have the luck of it," resumed Mrs. Turnbull. " Now, if master had taken your little boy, Mr. Manningtree, I'd have thought it quite nat'ral like, seeing as how you've served in the family so long; and I'm sure he's a nice spirited little fellow, and sol have thought ever since he broke thegardener's windows for forbidding him to touch the fruit, and set his dog at the beggars' children."

"Why, yes, Mrs. Turnbull, I must say as how Billy is as sharp a chap as a man can see in a ride of twenty miles. Why, he knocked out a tooth of widow Browning's son t'other day, and has boxed half the boys in the school, as their black eyes bear witness. Though I say it, as shouldn't say it, Billy is as cule a boy as any in the parish ■ ay, and would be as good-looking a boy, too, only for his bandy legs, that little cast he has in his eyes, and his hair being so red." " As for a cast in the /.eyes, Mr. Manningtree," observed Mrs. Turnbull, " there's many a one as thinks it a beauly • and as for red hair, doesn't it bring white skin with it?" Now, be it known lhat Mrs. Turnbull, squinted, and had very red hair, which the butler had totally forgotten, when he referred to their being detrimental to comeliness.

"Oh! in a woman, Mrs. Turnbull, they certainly are a beauty, of that there can't be a doubt ; for only look at the pic turs ofTeeshin, ' I mean of them there pretty creturs, who have not so much clothes on as might be wished, owing, I suppose, to chintz, muslin, and cotton not being so cheap when he painted as these articles are now." "Fye, Mr. Manningtree! don't mention such things. I'm sure I never go inlo the breakfast room, to take orders of a morning, without being ashamed to meet master's eye, on account of that there Wenus, who is lolloping, half dressed, and them other plump creturs as is bathing in a river." " Faith ! Mrs. Turnbull, I never look at'em without thinking of you." " For shame ! for shame ! Mr. Manningtree ; don't go for to mention such a thing • what would people say if they heard you !

I've been a married woman, Mr. Manningtree, a matter of twenty-five years, and poor Thomas Turnbull, peace be lo his soul, never said no such thing in his life." 1 Titian. •- May he he never saw a Teeshin pictur, Mrs. Turnbull? il he had, he could not help seeing the likeness." " Now, I declare, Mr. Manningtree, you make me all no how, indeed you do— for shame ! But we was a talking abotil that there young chap, Dick Wallingford, I think as how he takes on, and gives himself great airs. ' " So do I, Mrs. Turnbull. He's a cunning fellow, too ■ and I can't abide cunning people." " No, nor I neither, Mr. Manningtree." " Why, would you believe it, the day after James, the new footman, came, the young master was mad because he had not cleaned the shoes of Master Richard (as we are told to call him); for I had been telling him, the evening before, as bow he was only the son of a poor trumpery farmer, as was taken in out of charity, to divart the young squire.

Well, when the young chap finds his shoes dirty, what does he do but begins cleaning 'em with his pocket handkerchief and some water, when in comes Mary, housemaid, and tells him, it is a shame for him to dirt the room after such a fashion, and that it was easy to see he was not a gentleman born, or he wou'd not go for to do such a thing as to clean his own shoes. Mary, housemaid, spoke so loud, that the young master heard her, came into the room, ordered her to leave it directly, and then sent for me, and said, ' If ever any one neglected to clean Ihe shoes of Master Richard, he would tell his papa, and get them discharged.' Would you believe it, Mrs. Turnbull, that there young hypocrite turns round in a jiffy, and says, he hopes Master Percy won't say another word about the matter, for that he doesn't mind doing every thing for himself, just the same as he'd have to do, if he was in his father's house ; and then the young master goes up to him, and puts his arm round his shoulders, quite hke a brother, and says, ' But you sha'n't, my dear Richard ; the servants shall wait on you Ihe same as on me, that they shall ; so mind what I say, Manningtree, or I'll tell my papa.'" " Did I ever? — no, I never heard of such doings.

No good will come of it, Mr. Manningtree." The good temper, for which I always had credit, and the desire of not giving trouble, which I invariably evinced, were insufficient to conciliate the good-will of the servants of my patron, and many were the slights and humiliations they endeavoured to inflict on me, but which this same good temper of mine, and a certain portion of good sense, not often met with in people of my age, lightened the sense of. Time passed rapidly on, and we had each now completed our nineteenth year. Percy was to be entered at Christ Church THE LOTTERY 01 LIFE. College, as a gentleman commoner, and I was to be placed as a clerk in the banking-house of Mortimer, Allison and Finsbury, in which my benefactor was still a sleeping partner. " How I wish you were coming to Oxford with me, my dear Richard," said Percy to me, a few days before the separation, to which both looked forward with so much dread.

" I too wish it," answered I, " more, much more, than lean tell you ; but your father wills it otherwise." "Greatly as I shall regret our separation, Richard, I prefer it to having you entered as a sizer at Christ Church • that I could not.bear, brought up as we have been like brothers." " I should feel no humiliation in it, dear Percy," said I, " for though you have ever treated me as an equal, 1 have not forgotten the difference in our stations : the poor farmer's son knows that his cannot be the same path as that traced for the son of his generous benefactor." "That is precisely Ihe only fault I ever have had to find wilh you, Richard. You are ever reminding me of a kindness on the part of my father, lhat has been amply repaid by the advantages I have derived from the example of perseverance and application which you have given to his half — nay, more than half-spoilt son, who, without it, might have been now a dunce, and disappointed his too indulgent father's expectations."

Percy Mortimer entered Christ Church a few days after the above conversation ; and on the same day, I left the abode in which I had passed so many happy days, and became an inmate in the banking-house of Messrs. Mortimer, Allison and Finsbury, in Mincing-lane. I had never neglected my parents, or sisters and brothers, during my residence at Mr. Mortimer's. The pocket-money, and gifts so liberally supplied to me by Percy, were nearly all transferred to my family ; and whenever I could snatch an hour from my ocon studies, or the recreations of my companion, which I was expected to share, it was devoted to the instruction of my brothers and sisters. Ofthese, one amply repaid the trouble and pains I had taken for her improvement, the gentle and prelty Margaret, who applied herself with diligence to the tasks I assigned her.

To her, now in her fourteenth year, I transferred Ihe few books I could call my own, consisting of Goldsmith's " Abridged Histories," Milton's " Paradise Lost," Thomson's " Seasons," and the "Spectator," and having taken an affectionate leave of my family, I bade adieu to the country. Great was the disappointment I experienced on my arrival at the dingy house in Mincing-lane, where I was henceforth to lake up my residence. Impressed with a vivid notion of the grandeur of London, the little I had seen of it in my passage TUP. LOTTERY OF LIFE. 5 through the crowded streets of the city, accorded so little wilh my pre-conceived ideas, that I sank hack into the coach in which I had seated myself and placed my luggage on leaving the slage-coach, disheartened and oppressed by the sense of loneliness peculiar to a stranger on the first entrance into a crowded capital, in which, among the dense masses of people he sees moving about him, he knows not a single face, expects not to see a single, hand held out to welcome him with a kindly pressure, or a familiar voice to greet his ear.

The dingy bank ing-house in Mincing-lane achieved the gloom that was stealing over my feelings; and, as I paid the coachman the sum demand ed, (being only thrice the amount to which he was entitled,) and asked a surly-looking porter who stood at the door to assist me in removing my luggage into the dwelling, I experienced a sadness and sense of isolation, to which I had been hitherto a stranger. Cold and formal was the reception given to me by the partners of the bank, to one of whom I presented a letter of in troduction from Mr. Mortimer. They eyed me with scrutiniz ing glances, then exchanged looks, in which little of approval was visible, and the effect of which was not calculated to exhila rate the depressed spirits of a stranger like myself. "As you are probably fatigued by your journey, you can retire to the apartment prepared for you," said Mr. Allison, " and to-morrow you will enter on your duty.

The porter will show you your room." I felt thankful for permission to retire, and, bowing, hastened to avail myself of it; but my gratitude was diminished, when I saw that the hour of closing the bank had arrived, as all the clerks were withdrawing from their high slools, and hurrying away with an activity that denoted their satisfaction at being released from their daily uninteresting toil. " I thought you were the new clerk, when you asked me to help you in with your trunk," said the porter, when I requested him to show me my room. " You were never afore in Lunnun, I lake it?" " Never," answered I. " I guessed as much, when I seed you give that (here coach man three times more than his fare. You mustn't do lhat, for its no use whatsomever being himposed on, and only gets a man laughed at."

" I thank you for your advice," replied I, and the civility with which I said so, made John Stebbings (who be it known to our readers had a passion for giving advice), my friend for life. "You will find Mrs. Chatterton, the housekeeper, a very good and tidy woman; and, provided you keeps good hours, and is regular at meals, she will make you very comfortable, said John Stebbings, as he conducted me up stairs. He opened the door of a very gloomy room, in which was a table laid for dinner ; and, seated by the sire, a respectable look ing elderly woman, with considerable remains of beauty, who, with spectacles on nose, was busily employed in knitting a stocking. " Here be the new clerk, Mrs. Chatterton," said John Steb bings, raising his voice to a very loud key. " What do you say, Mr. Stebbings?" answered the old dame, turning round leisurely.

" This here young gentleman he's the new clerk," repeated Stebbings, in the tone of a Stentor. " Why don't you speak a little louder, Mr. Stebbings?— I never hear a word you say." " Speak a litlle louder indeed ; why, hang me, if the old lady don't get deafer and deafer every day," and, approaching close to her ear, he bellowed rather than spoke, "This here he's Ihe new clerk." " Then why couldn't you say so at first, Mr. Stebbings? " " As if I did'nt. Well, it surely is a great misfortune to be deaf. I wouldn't be deaf for all the world,— that I wouldn't, " said John Stebbings. " How do you do, young gentleman? " said Mrs. Chatterton, civilly, and with a most benevolent smile : " your bedroom is prepared for you, and dinner will be served up in a few minutes. This way, if you please. What did you say your name was?

" " Richard Wallingford, ma'am. '•' "What?" " Richard Wallingford, ma'am," and I spoke louder than I had ever spoken before. " Speak a little louder, young man; it's very strange no one will speak loud enough at present to be heard. When 1 was young, everybody spoke loud enough." " Ay, ay, I warrant me you weren't as deaf as a post then, as you are now," said John Stebbings, as he proceeded towards the door, with my trunk on his shoulders; and scarcely had he uttered the remark, when, coming in contact with a chair which he had not observed, and which had been left out of its place by Mrs. Chatterton, who had been winding cotton on its back, he stumbled over it, and fell to the ground, while the trunk, coming on a pile of plates placed before the fire, crashed them in pieces. " Was there ever such a man?" said Mrs. Chatterton, " always breaking and falling over every thing !

Why can't you wear spectacles, John Stebbings? You're as blind as a bat, lhat you are; but you won't allow it — you're so obstinate." " No more blinder lhan my neighbours," growled John Sleb bings, " and not deaf into the bargain, as some of us be," and he began rubbing his leg, which had sustained some injury by its contact wilh the chair. " Bless me! if he hasn't broken a dozen of plates. What will the firm say, when they see four shillings down again for plates?" " I've broken my shin, and that's worse nor the plates," muttered Stebbings; " but that comes of putting chairs out in the middle of the room to throw people down. " " Here's a glass of cordial, it will do you good, Mr. Stebbings," and the old lady opened a cupboard, and poured out a glass of some liquid which she handed to Stebbings, who, nothing loth, drank to her good health, while she murmured, " 'Tis a pity he's so blind, poor man; I wish he would wear spectacles : " and he having emptied the glass of its contents, turned to me and remarked, that " there was not a better-hearted woman alive lhan Mrs. Chatterton, and it was a great pity she was so deaf."

Chapter II

The bed-chamber allotted to me, though small, and furnished in the most homely style, was clean, an agreeable fact which Mrs. Chatterton called on me to remark, as she installed me in it. " Here is soap for you, young man, — good old brown Wind sor soap. The firm allows a cake a month to each clerk, which is ample for those who are not so stupid as some are, who forget it in the wash-hand basin. Such people never come to much good ; for bow can a man take care of great things, who begins by forgetting small? Here is a chest of drawers for your clothes, and a boot-jack for your separate use. The firm are very liberal in allowing a boot-jack to each room. You are the only clerk who has a bed-chamber to himself; and, therefore, this boot jack belongs exclusively to this room. I have had Ihe initials of the firm cut on it, M. A. F.; it prevents mistake.

I will leave you now , and order dinner to be served ; in five minutes more it will be on the table. You will just have time to wash your hands, and smooth down your hair. Hold the candle, Mr. Steb bings, if you please, not so close to my cap for fear of fire. I wish you would wear spectacles , indeed I do." " And /, and every one else who knows you, wish that you would have a speaking-trumpet," muttered John Stebbings. " How droll it is she. can find out that I can't sec so well as I could forty years ago, but she can't discover lhat she is as deaf as a post."i The ringing of a bell announced that dinner was served be fore I had completed the arrangement of my hasty toilette; hut I hurried to the room in which I had previously seen the table laid, and found that five clerks and Mrs. Chatterton had already taken their seats at it.

A substantial piece of boiled beef and carrots smoked on the board, and a dish of potatoes flanked the opposite side. "Gentlemen, this is Mr. Richard Wallingford, the new clerk," said Mrs. Chatterton, and each of the five clerks looked inquir ingly at the new comer, and nodded lo me, but without speaking, their mouths being too full for speech. Mrs. Chatterton helped me to a substantial slice of beef, and added to it a supply of carrots lhat might have satisfied the most voracious appetite. " Gentlemen, how do you like your fare? " demanded she ; a needless question, as the avidity with which the huge slices disappeared from each plate save mine, bore ample testimony to the approval of the dinner. " I hope, young gentleman, you like your beef? Our butcher is considered one of the best in Leadenhall-market, and my mode of having it boiled has always given the greatest satisfaction."

"You need not give yourself the trouble to scream yourself hoarse by attempting lo make the old lady hear," said a young man whose dress, air and manner indicated a desire of being considered a smart, if not a pretty man too, but whom nature had wholly unfitted for enacting the part. " What does Mr. Bingly say?" asked Mrs. Chatterton, " something civil I am sure." The simplicity and goodness in dicated by the question set the table in a roar, while the said Mr. Bingly, moving his lips as if speaking, looked at Mrs. Chat terton as though he was addressing her, a piece of mockery lhat still more increased the laughter of the junior portion of the party. " I see you are all laughing ■ and I dare say something pleasant has been said, but strange to say, I have only caught a word here and there in all that Mr. Bingly has utlered.

I wish people would speak a little louder. When I was young, every one spoke louder, and I never used to miss a word of what was said." The beef and vegetables having been removed by a stout and active maiden who acted in the capacity of cook and parlour maid, a huge wedge of Cheshire cheese, flanked by a foaming tankard of ale, was placed on the table, and the glasses of the party being silled from it, Mrs. Chatterton proposed the health of the firm. " 1 have drunk this same toast, young gentleman, for forty years, and make a point that it should be drank here every day. And a good right we have to drink the health of the firm, for there is not a belter in the city of London." Mr. Bingly now taking his glass in hand, looked respectfully at Mrs. Chatterton, and bowing his head to her, gravely said — "I heartily wish, old Mother Chatterbox, that you, and your everlasting pieces of beef and dry cheese, only fit to bait mouse traps with, were faraway," and he raised the glass of ale to his lips.

" Thank you, Mr. Bingly, you are always polite, I must say." and elevating the glass to her mouth, " I wish you the same." The happiest repartee ever uttered by a wit, never produced more laughter than did the answer of Mrs. Chatterton, who again expressed her desire that people would speak as loud as they did when she was young. Of the four other clerks seated round the board, two were elderly men, of grave and reserved manners, and two were about the age of Mr. Bingly, whose style of dress and behaviour, they evidently emulated. They waited to see whether he would patronize the new comer, be fore they extended any friendly encouragement to me, while the two elderly clerks seemed scarcely conscious of my presence. " I am for the play," said Mr. Bingly, if you like to go, Mr. ■what did you say your name was?"

" Wallingford," answered I. " I'll conduct you." " I am obliged to you, but I prefer remaining at home." " You are right, young man, — yes, quite right," observed the two elderly clerks, and they looked graciously at me. " What! not desire to see Miss Tree, and Kean, or Miss Helen Faucit and Macready ? 'Pon my soul ! the acting of these great stars quite electrifies me. They are sine creatures." " What do you think of the acting in the early scenes, Bin gly?" asked one of the elderly clerks. " Think ! why very fine, monstrous sine to be sure, but why do you ask ?" " Because, as you only go at the half-price, I thought it likely you may never have seen them." A laugh on the part of Bingly's imitators followed this re mark. " If I were you, I would for once put together the sums for two admissions of half-price, and see Ihe whole piece, if only just for the novelty of the thing."

" Ha, ha .' not so bad, 'pon my soul, not so bad !" and Bingly affected lo laugh. The table being now cleared, I rose to seek my bed-room, for the purpose of arranging my clothes and books, and having placed them in order, and written a letter to my friend Percy Mortimer, I returned to the sitting-room, where I found the two elderly clerks busily engaged in a game of chess, Mrs. Chatterton knitting, and two of the young men occupied in reading two well-thumbed and soiled novels, from the next cir culating library. Mr. Bingly had gone out. " If you wish to converse, Mr. Wallingford," said Mrs. Chat terton, " I will have great pleasure in a little sociable chat wilh you • but I must beg of you to speak louder." A suppressed titter from the young men, marked that they were not so deeply interested in the novels they were perus ing, as not to be aware of what was going on in the room.

" You see Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Burton," continued Mrs. Chatterton, " playing chess at the same table, and on the same board where they have played for the last forty years. Night after night there they are, never weary. I wonder they can go on for so many years without being tired of it." " Well, that's a good'un, however," said one of the young men, " when here has she been knitting stockings, day after day and night after night, for nearly as long a period as they have played chess; yet she wonders they can be amused with their game." " It is wonderful how time flies," resumed Mrs. Chatterton, " and so I often think, when I look over and see Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Burton seated in the same spot, and engaged in the same amusement year after year; and, would you believe it, Mr. Wallingford, it sometimes seems to me as if it was impos sible that it could be thirty-five years since I first saw them sitting there, every thing appears so exactly the same, — except that people don't speak so loud?

When we always do the same things, and at the same hours, it makes the time pass quite pleasantly, though I can't get Mr. Bingly to think so. Ah, well ! he'll come to my opinion when he grows older, — that he will. Doing the same thing at the same hours, keeps people young much longer, I can tell you. Why, I declare, except that Mr. Murdoch has lost all his hair, and his front teeth, and is grown so very corpulent, I don't see much change in him ■ and, as for Mr. Burton, only that he wears that light-coloured wig, instead of having his head nearly bald, as it was when I first saw him, and his having lost his flesh and got lame, he is just Ihe same man he used to be thirty-five years ago. I, too, am very litlle changed. Indeed, my friends tell me they don't see the least alteration, which shows what a fine thing it is to be always doing the same thing.

Up at six in the summer, and seven in the winter— off lo Leadenhall-market thrice a-week in winter, and every day in summer, by eight in the morning 5 home by nine— breakfast on the table by five minutes after. In the kitchen to look about dinner at ten— see the rooms are perfectly cleaned at half-past ten— scold Kitty. Look over the linen at eleven, repair whatever may require mending. Read the Morning Post at twelve, and at one o'clock sit down comfortably to my knitting. At two, Kitty brings me a mouthful of cold meat, a slice of bread, and a glass of beer; and, at half-post two, I take up my knitting again until dinner-time, after which the evening passes just the same as you see. O ! it's a great blessing to have the time pass so pleasantly, — is n't it, Mr. Richard? I dare say you were very sorry to leave your village, because you knew every face and step around the place, and every one knew you ?