Good for Nothing; or, All down Hill, etc

Front matter

GOOD FOR NOTHING; OB, ALL DOWN HILL. BY G. J. WHYTE MELVILLE, AUTHOR OF ' DIGBY GRAND,' THE ' INTERPRETER,' 'HOLMBY HOUSE,' etc. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ' FSASERS MAGAZINE.' LONDON: PARKER, SON, AND BOURN, WEST STRAND. 1861. [The Author reserves the right of translation.'} CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. CHAP. PAGE I. * GILDED WIRES' I II. I REMEMBER l6 III. 'EARLY FROSTS' 27 IV. 'THE BEES AND THE DRONES ' . . . 4 1 V. 'ADA' 55 VI. THE ADVENTURER 67 vu. 'ganz allein' 77 VIII. MISGIVINGS 87 IX. JOHN GORDON IO7 X. BELLA JONES Il8 XI. 'ALARMS — A SKIRMISH' . . . 130 XII. 'DINNER IS ON THE TABLE.1' . . . 141 XIII. DIPLOMACY 157 XIV. PELIDES l66 XV. 'at-home' 184 xvi. 'a hitch in the reel' . . . . 194 XVII. 'AY DE Ml!' 206 XVIII. 'bon voyage' 218 xix. 'why do you go to the opera?' . 227 XX.

THE FALSE GOD 238 XXI. A BOLD FRONT 252 XXII. 'KEEPING AFLOAT' 262 XXIII. 'SINK OR SWIM' 274 XXIV. TOM TIDLER'S GROUND . . . . 281 xxv. 'a new leaf' OR, ALL DOWN HILL. PAET I. Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, While proudly gliding, o'er the azure realm In gilded trim the gallant vessel goes, Youth at the prow, and Pleasure at the helm, Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey,

Chapter I

' GILDED WIRES.' HAT ' fine feathers make fine birds ' is so self-evident an adage as to admit of no dispute by the most argumentative of cavil lers; but that fine feathers make happy birds is a different story altogether, and one which will bear a considerable amount of discussion pro and con. vol. I. B Up two pair of stairs in yonder large London house, poised over a box of fragrant mignionette, and com manding the comparatively extensive view of the square gardens, hangs a shining gilt bird-cage, with bath and sanded floor complete ; perches for exercise, trays for hempseed and other delicacies, a graceful festooning of groundsel, and a lump of white sugar between the bars. Prison, forsooth ! it's a palace ; and would its inmate, that bright yellow canary-bird, sing so loudly, think you, if she wasn't happy?

Don't we know that the bravest voice and the noisiest laugh are unerring inch cators of hearts-ease and content ? At least the world is well satisfied to take them as such; and surely plenty of bird-seed, and sand, and groundsel, and white sugar, are an equivalent for that imaginary blessing which men term liberty. 'Tis a sad heart that sighs for the ' wings of a dove ; ' the canary don't want any wings, she has no use even for her own glossy yellow pair ; and for liberty, why she wouldn't know what to do with it if she had it. 'Tis only on a day like this, when the May sunshine bursts forth into somewhat of summer warmth, when the tender green leaves, as yet unsniirched by London smoke, quiver in the breath of spring, and the fleecy clouds dance against the blue sky even over Belgrave-square, that the cage looks a little narrow and confined, that the vagrant life of yonder dirty sparrow appears somewhat enviable.

It must be joyful to be free to perch on the area-railings, or to sip from the muddy kennel, and twitter away at will over chimney and house-top, into the fragrant hedgerows and sunny fields of the pleasant country. But then he is but a common sparrow, after all, and she is a dehcate ' GILDED WIRES.* 3 canary — noblesse oblige indeed in many more ways than one. What thinks her high-born mistress, the Lady Gertrude, an earl's sister and a sovereign's god-child? With the wholesome fear of Burke and Debrett before my eyes, I suppress the proper name of the noble maiden. Shall I involve myself in an action for libel at the suit of a distinguished family ? Shall I pander to the morbid taste of that numerous and respectable class who make it their especial study to identify the persons of the aristocracy and chronicle their deeds ?

Vade retro — be it far from me ! The titled daughters of England are classed and ticketed in certain catalogues published by authority, with mercantile fidelity. With the same accuracy that is at once his pride and his profession, in measuring her off a thousand yards of tulle for the trimming of her ball-dress, can John Ellworthy, the mercer, calculate to a day the age of Lady Hildegonda Vavasour. Her ladyship is debarred by the remnants of feudalism from the very birthright of lowlier women, never to exceed seven-and-twenty. Like those high-bred Arab steeds which the children of the desert offer for purchase to the Feringhee, there can be no concealment of her age or her performances ; and she is sold, so to speak, with her pedigree about her neck. Be gentle with her in her new capacity ; like all thorough-bred animals she is stanch and resolute for good and for evil.

Lady Gertrude is alone in the privacy of her own chamber. Bed-room, dressing-room, boudoir, sanctuary, it combines something of all of these. Her midnight slumbers and her morning dreams take place in a deep B and distant recess, containing a charming little French bed, like a toy, draped with a rosy fabric of muslin, corresponding in colour and texture with the toilet-cover and the pincushion. Her prayer-book of purple velvet, crossed and clasped, and bound and bedizened with gold, Mes within easy reach of the lace-edged pillows, and where male imbecility would look instinctively for a boot-jack, a pair of sweet httle slippers, fawn-coloured, with bronze tips and beaded embroidery, turn their toes to each other in confiding simplicity. A pianoforte occupies the corresponding recess at the other side of the doorway.

A piece of music hes open on its stand ; it is an oratorio of Handel's, a deep, solemn, and sug gestive strain, such as to sit and hear with half-shut eyes from which the tears are not far distant, calls up a vision of the shadowy Future and the mournful Past, of the bruised reed and the aching heart, of hopes and fears, and bitter sorrow, and humble resignation, and the white-robed angels leading the poor penitent home. She is not all frivolous, you see, my Lady Gertrude, though the canterbury by the side of the instrument contains the Ratcatcher's Waltz and the ' Pray don't ' Polka, and other refined and popular music of the modern school. Her book-shelves, too, bear a strange mixture of literature, light and heavy, ancient and modern. No Byron, no Tommy Moore. A quarto Milton, we dare not say thumbed, but worn and frayed by the taper white fingers, and holding even now between the pages of Satan's rebellious peroration a single thread of hair, denoting that while Justine dresses the silken locks, ' GILDED WIRES.' Lady Gertrude is no less busy than her handmaid with the inner culture of that haughty little head.

A volu minous Shakspeare with notes, a translation of He rodotus, Swedenborg's Transcendental Lucubrations ; Euclid, which she cannot understand, but perseveres at from sheer obstinacy, even to the hopeless and utterly futile task of learning him by heart ; Schiller in the original, whom she don't much care about ; Tennyson's Maude, that she would never confess she cries over like a child; sundry excellent works of reference on Chemistry, Optics, Geology, and other sciences; two or three odd volumes of Sermons, new and stiff in the binding, as if but rarely consulted ; and a French novel, doubtless contraband, and having no business there. By the way, what is the intrinsic merit of this species of literature ? Why is it gradually becoming so popu lar in England ? Is it that the less scrupulous French man hesitates not to paint phases of life which British conventionality affects to ignore, the while they move the mainsprings of every-day society ? or is it that he has a happy knack of describing gracefully the mere trifles we all know so well, and imparting an additional charm to the interest every reader feels in matters with which he is himself familiar, as we see a farce run night after night, wherein a man eats a real mutton-chop on the stage, or goes to bed bodily then and there in full sight of the audience ?

Whatever may be the attrac tion, there is no doubt that these works are day by day more generaUy read, notwithstanding then questionable taste, their doubtful morality, and unblushing disqui sitions on sentiments which at least we don't write about on this side the Channel. Perhaps there may be something in the language, after all, and we may opine with Biddy Fudge that, Though the words on good manners intrench, I assure you 'tis not half so shocking in French. One or two exquisite casts of children are placed too here and there on brackets in the corners of the room ; and a sufficiently faithful copy of Frances chini's ' Sleeping St. John' overhangs the chimney piece. Lady G. is not above the mania for little naked boys, so prevalent during the present era that they may be purchased in any of the bazaars at a shilling a dozen, and indeed the Holy Infant in his slumbers is a gem that I have seen but rarely equaUed in real life.

So she prizes it accordingly, and suffers no other painting to lodge permanently in her chamber save one, and that is a mere coloured photograph, set in a costly framework of velvet and gold, placed in a favourable hght on her own especial writing-table (littered as a lady'swriting-table invariably is with every sort of knick-knack, and destitute of that freedom and elbow-room so indispensable to the efforts of masculine penmanship) ; this additional ornament is but a pleasing representation of a well-looking and well-dressed young gentleman, very like the other ninety-and-nine out of any hundred of well-dressed young gentlemen who pass their time in going to and fro in St. James'-street as Satan does upon earth, and walking up and down hi it. He is good to look at, too, with his dark silken hah', his soft eyes with then long lashes, and rich brown whiskers curling round a pair of smding lips, and a little dimple chin such aa ' GILDED WIRES.' 7 ought to have belonged to a woman ; this countenance surmounting nevertheless a large, well-developed frame, indubitably characteristic of a man's organization and a man's physical courage and vigour.

Lady Gertrude wipes the miniature half tenderly, half triumphantly, with her delicate handkerchief; then she smiles, such a saucy mischievous smile as dimples a child's face when it has ousted a playmate at ' puss-in-the-corner.' Lastly she walks up to the full-length mirror which has reflected her graceful person so often and in so many becoming costumes — ball-dress, court-dress, riding-habit, and peignoir — the woman's true friend and constant counsellor; the adroit flatterer in sunshine, the sympathizing consoler in storms, the depositary of how many a secret tri umph and buoyant aspiration, and how many a galling disappointment and weary, hopeless sigh. Carefully, and inch by inch as it were, she scans what she sees there, but the expression in her lady ship's face is scarcely that of self-satisfied female vanity.

There is a look of mingled confidence and inquiry, more akin to Lord Martingale's calculating glance as he eyes the favourite for the Derby, bred by himself, and trained in his own stable, stripped and mounted for the race ; or Herr Merlin's sweeping review of his magic rings, his all productive hat, and the other accessories with which he effects his incredi ble feats of legerdemain. The reflection is that of a striking girl enough. A tall, graceful form, too slight, it may be, to fulfil the rigorous standard of womanly beauty, but rounded and symmetrical as a nymph's, with the same length of limb and airiness of gesture which painters have combined to confer on those mythological coquettes. The hands and feet are perfect, long, slender, and flexible, they assimilate well with the undulating lines of her patrician figure, and the stately pose of her proud head.

Dark masses of hair, that look black against the pure white skin, are gathered into a twisted knot behind the skull, pulled away somewhat too boldly from the temples, and disclosing the fault less outline of the cheek and the perfect little tho rough-bred ear. Nor is Lady Gertrude's face out of character with the rest of her person. The forehead, though low, has width and capacity ; bright hazel eyes sparkle with vivacity and a considerable touch of satirical humour, while the defect of too wide a mouth is redeemed by the whitest of teeth, and when occasion offers, the merriest of snides. Though a critic might pronounce her features too sharp and bird-like, though in her light primrose morning dress she has a certain resemblance to her own canary, the general effect of her face denotes considerable intel lect, no slight leaven of caprice, above all, great per sistence and force of will.

The yomig lady turns at length from the perusal of her own features, and moves towards the window, where hang the cage and the canary. The bird knows her mistress, and chirps and flutters in her prison, and beats her breast against the bars. The sunshine pours in floods into the room, and a fragrant breeze from Surrey scatters a hundred blossoms from the square gardens over a dingy coal dray and ' the boy with the beer,' and an astonished figure — a foot- ' GILDED WIRES.* 9 man — emerging in his magnificence from the area with a note. How sweet the mignionette smells, and how that silly bird is fighting with the cage! For the second time within the last five minutes, her mistress experiences a morbid desire to unhook the door and let the captive go free. ' But then,' she reflects, ' poor thing, you are not used to liberty, and you would die.

A prisoner you were bred, and a prisoner you must remain.' A cloud comes over Lady Gertrude's face as she turns with a listless air from the open window and the mellow sunshine, and sits her down in her own arm-chair to think. Now, in order to follow the thread of Lady Ger trude's ruminations, it is indispensable to put the clock back to the hour of noon; as it is already nearly luncheon time, a meal which everybody knows would interfere with the servants' dinner if it took place be fore two p.m. At noon, then, Lady Gertrude emerged from the door of No. oo, Belgrave-square, in the primrose-coloured dress already hinted at, and such a bonnet as Paris only can produce, to cross the well watered road with decorous speed, and let herself into the gardens with her own pass-key. It being freely admitted by the logical verdict of English society, that in these chaste groves Dian herself might perambulate without a chaperone.

The canary, had she been on the watch, might then have observed her mistress pacing the gravel-walk to and fro with something of quarter-deck impatience and energy. In truth, there is nothing provokes a woman so much as to be kept waiting, and this is the more unjustifiable when we consider that it is a penance she takes much pleasure in exacting from the opposite sex. The sixth turn, however, and such a clench of the slender hand and stamp of the slender foot as con stitute what our American friends term a ' caution,' brought her once more to the entrance-gate, where a good-looking face, framed in a pair of brown whiskers, and surmounted by a white hat, being indeed no other than the original of the photograph up-stairs, was seen imploring admittance, with a comical expression of half penitence, half amusement depicted on its comely lineaments.

Lady Gertrude's wrath seemed to evaporate as she turned the key for ingress of the new arrival, but it was with a backward toss of the head, and in a sharper tone of voice than ordinary, that she met him with a reproach rather than a greeting. ' How very unpunctual you are, Gilbert. I told you half-past eleven on purpose that you mightn't keep me waiting.' ' So you would have given me the forty minutes of anxiety and agitation instead,' rephed the gentleman, with a pleasant laugh ; ' and you know that every minute I wait for you seems an age. Oh ! Gertrude, what a bully you are !' She was the least bit of a tyrant, if the truth must be told, and to-day she was in one of her most im perious moods, so she threw her head up once more as she resumed, ' I tell you honestly, I'm going to quarrel with you, Gilbert.

It has been brewing for a week, and I mean really to have it out at last. There ! of course you ' GILDED WIRES.' begin to smoke, though you know I hate it; but I suppose it's no use my forbidding you to do anything. I wonder which of them worked you that tawdry cigar case. Bought it at the Baker-street Bazaar? oh, I dare say ! Well, what have you got to say in your defence ? Come, now, begin.' The owner of the white hat put a pair of lavender kidded hands together in an attitude of supplication, and without removing his cigar from his lips, mumbled out the very apposite question — ' What have I done ? ' ' It's not what you've done,' she replied, ' and I can't help laughing at you, though I am so provoked. Pray don't be so absurd, with all those nurses and children looking at us ! It's not what you have done, but what you've left undone.

Pray, since when have gentlemen considered it honourable to break their word to a lady because she's a cousin ? Where were you last Thursday when you ought to have met us at Sydenham ? and even Aunt Ohvia said it was just hke you to forget all about it ! ' 'I am always sure of my mother's good word,' rephed the gentleman, somewhat bitterly ; ' but last Thursday was the day of the pigeon match.' 'Pigeon match!' echoed his cousin, with the colour mounting rapidly ; ' that won't do. Why, the " ties," as you call them, were shot off before two o'clock. I know it, because I asked Charley Wing the same night, at Ormolu House. By the way, he dances as well again as he did last year ; besides, the pigeon match didn't prevent people going to see those hideous rhodo dendrons, and as Mrs. Montpellier's yellow barouche was there from three till five, I suppose she gave you a lift back into London.' ' You wouldn't have wished me to walk,' said the unabashed culprit, holding up at the same time a thin and remarkably neat boot, on which it is needless to say he prided himself not a httle. ' What I wish seems to be a matter of the greatest indifference,' was the reply. ' But, indeed, Gilbert, there is nobody to scold you but me ; at least, you say yourself you never pay attention to any one else, and you know, after all, I'm a very near relation, and — and — like a sister, in short, and I own I ivas hurt that you never came near us all last week, and you didn't go to Lady Broadway's, though I sent your invitation myself.

Such a stupid ball, Gdbert ; and Aunt Olivia, though she says nothing, I can see she don't like it. It's not so much for my own sake I mind it, as for hers ; and then, you are doing yourself incalculable harm. Is it true you lost so much money on that childish match of Count Carambole's ? ' ' A hatfull,' answered the defendant, at the same time taking his own off, and looking roguishly into the crown with provoking good humour. 'What a life!' proceeded Lady Gertrude, waxing visibly impatient. ' What a waste of time, and posi tion, and talent; for you have talent, you know, Gil bert, if you choose to exert it ; and all for what ? To play billiards night after night at Pratt's, and yawn through the day between the bay window at White's and the end of the ride in the park ; you who might do anything.' 'Very good of you to say so, dear,' drawled her 'GILDED WIRES.' 13 cousin. ' I'm not bad at caricatures, I know, and I think with a fortnight's practice, I could do the " pea and-thimble " well enough to earn a livelihood during the racing season — but as for high art, and science, and " a career," and that sort of thing, why it's not exactly in my line.' She looked at him for a minute or two in silence.

Something almost of contempt curled her lip, while she checked the words that came uppermost, but her eye softened as it rested on his comely, good-humoured face, with its habitual expression of lazy contentment, and she put her arm within his and pressed it kindly as she asked his pardon for so lecturing him and taking him to task. ' But you know, Gilbert,' she said, ' Aunt Olivia never scolds you, and so if I didn't nobody would take any pains with you, and what would become of you then? I don't believe you really care for any one mortal thing in the world, and more than that, Gilbert, I don't believe you are really happy — there !' She had broke through the crust at last, for this was a home thrust. He had been thinking so himself of late more than once ; had been startled to learn that the wine-cup of youth could taste so flat sometimes, as if filled from a bad bottle ; and the garlands, though fresh and rosy stdl, were not always radiant with the dew of the morning. ' Happy,' he repeated, musingly ; ' why should I be happy ?

After all, I am pretty well alone in the world, Gertrude. I don't believe any one in London cares two straws about me but you. I have no home ; certainly not there] he added, nodding towards the house whereat hung the cage and the canary, and to which it was already time for his cousin to return. ' But I live as ninety-nine out of every hundred do ; I take the rough with the smooth ; and I suppose, after all, I am as well off as my neighbours ; at least, I don't know any I should like to change places with. Certainly none that own such a pretty cousin with such a pretty bonnet. Time to go in, is it ? Well, good bye, Gertrude, dear ; I'm always the better for a scold ing from you, and I'll do anything you like this after noon, only let me out of the square first ; if I don't go away, you know, I can't come back again.' So the white hat was presently vacillating up the shady side of Grosvenor-place, and Lady Gertrude having taken off her bonnet, which it now struck her was indeed a very pretty one, sate her down, as we have already stated, in her own arm-chair, to recapitu late and think over the events of the morning.

The result of her cogitations was in one respect at least decisive. She went to her writing-table, and selecting a pen with great care proceeded to write a note, which she folded and sealed with accurate nicety. We must do women the justice to allow that then missives, however involved in sense and grammar, are at least fairly and decently worked out as regards caligraphy ; and that they do not seem to consider the legacy of Cadmus simply as a means of puzzling their hapless correspondents. This done, she looked once more at the coloured photograph, once more at the winsome Lady Gertrude over yonder in the looking-glass ; then she walked restlessly to the window, and looked forth into the 'GILDED WIRES.' 15 square gardens she had so recently quitted, and drew a long breath as of one who has at last solved a difficulty, the while she murmured in an audible whisper — ' It will be far better for us both ; I shall marry my cousin Gilbert ! ' And the canary struggled to get out of her cage, and fought, and fluttered, and beat her breast against the bars.

Chapter II

I REMEMBER HE cads at Tattersall's Yard knew Gilbert Orme as well as the Wellington Statue. The fast young gentlemen who frequent that equine resort, had each and all a greeting and a pleasant word or two for avowedly ' about the nicest fellow in England.' Half-a-dozen seasons in London, autumns at Cowes, and winters in the grass countries, had thoroughly identified him with that ab normal portion of the human race which calls itself the world ; and with good health, good spirits, good looks, and a good income, few went the pace so easUy and gracefully as gentle Gilbert Orme. A long minority had put him in possession of a large sum of ready money, so that the gloss of youth was untarnished by the many annoyances and anxieties which lay upon none so heavily as those who cannot afford to live in society, and cannot bear to live out of it. ' How I should hate to be a poor man ! ' was Gilbert's oft-quoted exclamation, when he overheard young Brozier lament ing his inability to keep a certain high-stepping cab horse, which was the only claim to distinction advanced by that uninteresting youth, and the sentiment counted for a joke at the clubs.

Many of the members knew its import too well by bitter experience, for, alas, several of those magnificoes whom we are so often called upon to admire as they pace the Ride in equestrian splendour, or traverse Pall Mall in gorgeous apparel, have secret debts and difficulties far more enthralling than those of Mr. Plausible, the coachmaker, whose schedule bears him triumphantly through the Insolvent Court ; and ends that won't stretch to come within half-a-yard as near meeting as those of John Stokes the bricklayer. Var nished boots are beautiful objects to look at, but a thick sole with ease is more comfortable for walking, and no man knows where the shoe pinches so well as he who wears it. I often think that the life of a ' young man about London ' has in nine cases out of ten something of the excitement and adventure of a brigand's or a buccaneer's. The moral piracy that would fain board every prize and haul down every flag ; the unceasing endeavour to sail nearer the wind than the adversary, and take every advantage, fair and unfair, of the chase ; the cutting-out expeditions, the unacknowledged repulses, the boasted triumphs, the strange freemasonry that exists between reckless men ; above all, the uncertainty of the career, and the consciousness that it must end in a general smash at last ; all this invests a ' fast ' man's life with some inexplicable fascination, to which we must attribute the numerical strength of the class.

How many there are who trust to the turn of a trump-card or the spin of a billiard-ball for the very means by which they keep their heads above water day by day ; and whose future, morally and physically, is bounded by the settling after Goodwood. Pleasant, sunshiny, VOL. I. c and agreeable, they are totally devoid of scruples, and utterly reckless of consequences — such characters, in short, as are summed up in the modern satirist's de scription of a promising young man : The damsels' delight, and the chaperone's fear, He is voted a trump amongst men ; His father allows him two hundred a year, And he 'll lay you a thousand to ten ! But Gilbert Orme was not one of these. Living as he did in the midst of the temptations and dissipa tions of a London life, there was a certain chfld-like simplicity in his character which, while it enhanced the pungency of his pleasures, doubtless deprived them of their most deleterious ingredients.

Far be it from me to affirm that ' to the pure all things are pure,' or indeed that Gilbert's theory and practice were much less lax than his neighbours' ; but frail mortality at least is inclined to look leniently on those errors in which the imagination and the inteUect predominate over the senses ; and he must have been a stern Mentor and forgotten the while that he had ever himself been a boy, who could have clipped the wings of that high hearted young eagle, soaring indeed far beyond the bounds of conventionality and decorum, but yet soaring ever upwards nearer and nearer to the sun. I can see him now, as he was long after he had wound himself round my old heart, a lad of eighteen. I can see his tall graceful figure as he used to jump the ha-ha that divided the lawn from the park at West-Acres, and bound away over the turf lithe and active, as the very deer scouring before him.