Walter Evelyn; or, The long minority

Chapter I

" I saw a troop Of lords and ladies gay As I lay a thynkyne, a thynkyne, a thynkyne, — As I lay a thynkyne they went upon their way." How do you do, my Public ? We have not met for some time. Fatter, eh, my Public ? Looking well, too. Manchester pretty quiet ? So, that's right ! Farmers not so well, eh ? Dissatisfied because they have not got Lord Derby now ? I do not see that it is any business of yours, my Public, how I came by this manuscript, but I will tell you, too, if you like. I went out to California, made my fortune in three days of course, three million VOL. I. B ; OR, sterling, robbed of it all in Panama, that is, paid it all to a doctor, who cured me of the yellow fever, caught in the mines ; worked my passage home. My wife did not know me, said she did not like yellow people ; went away in despair to Homburg, to get back my com plexion and regain my wife, who had serious thoughts of marrying again. — (Mem.

Curate very assiduous in his attendance.) Shown into a room at the hotel, just vacated byT a remarkably fresh-coloured gentleman, thought it was a good omen, determined to take up my quarters there ; looked in the pigeon-holes of the incomprehensible table you always find in a German hotel and break your nose against, under the impression that it is a washhand stand. Well, there it lay in a pigeon-hole on the right side, I mean the manuscript, evidently left there by fresh-coloured gentleman. Pigeon-hole would not open at first — I pulled at it, it resisted; I pulled harder, got excited, handle gave way, fell down, knocked my head against another piece of incomprehensible furniture with marble top standing against the bed. Incomprehensible piece of furniture rattled as if there was something inside.

Never mind now, look into it by-and-bye, perhaps a treasure also left by fresh-coloured gentleman. Well, up again, would not be discouraged (bump on my head not very large after all), attacked pigeon-hole again with German pocket-knife, German pocket-knife broke, cut my fingers — hot work — bound up my finger, — never say die; tried English corkscrew screwed up to the hilt into the place where the handle was ; German wood-work gave way; another bump on the head, but victory ! victory ! first incomprehen sible piece of furniture tumbled all down to gether ; hurt my knee a little in falling ; never mind, get at drawer now from behind. Put my foot against it to push it out from the other side, back gave way, would not open to the last, any more than a Spanish window will. At last, then, cried I, here we are !

Pooh, only a bundle of old bills! Eh? No! What's this ! Walter Evelyn ! A literary discovery — a second Rowley ! No, it's not of the fifteenth century either. Never mind, I shall be a second Chatterton in all except Mrs. Angel and the arsenic water. Hollo ! though, I forgot all about fresh-coloured gentleman. Run after him, quite breathless; caught him B ; OR, just getting into his carriage in the inn-yard ; caught hold of him. Sir! Sir! Rowley! Chat terton! Walter Evelyn left behind. Here fresh-coloured gentleman sung out wildly ; evidently thought I was mad. Valet came run ning up (an Englishman named Thomas, I hear) ; felt a sudden jerk ; something disturbed the skirts of my coat ; listed at least two inches off the ground ; recovered myself in time to see fresh-coloured gentleman driving away, English Tom, grinning in the rumble, and mumbling something about having " done for that 'ere Dutchman."

Well, I am free to confess I do look something like a foreigner, distingue as it were, but not like a Dutch man. And now, my Public, 1 hope you are satisfied that I did everything an honest man could do to restore the manuscript to its rightful owner. I may add, all that unusual energy under great difficulties could accomplish I did ; notwithstanding the application of what it has been hinted to me was the foot (?) of English Tom. And if during the publication of these pages the fresh-coloured gentleman should turn up and claim his own, I shall first demand compensation for the indignity put upon me, and then deliver up the manuscript, that is, for a con-si-de-ra-ti-on, as Mr. Trapbois used very wisely to say. Eh ? what, my Public ? you don't believe a word of it ? Why, what can be more likely.

Pooh ? You may say " pooh " if you like, but I have got the manuscript, and here it is ; and if you consider the fresh-coloured gentleman an imaginary personage, all I can say is that the first night I slept in the room he had previously occupied I got up with such a red face that I thought I had caught the scarlet fever. Little Tom Quidnunc, the doctor from Brigh ton, who was staying in the house, would have it that the redness (which I am bound to con fess went off afterwards) was brought on by sleeping too soundly between two feather beds after a supper of black puddings ; but I am convinced, and am no more likely to alter my opinion than a Protectionist in office, that the extraordinary red colour which I saw while shaving in the looking-glass that morning was occasioned by sleeping in the same bed which had been occupied by the fresh-coloured gen tleman. — Mem.

They never change the coun terpanes in Germany ! A convincing fact ! ; OR, What, still incredulous ? Well, verbum per sonate, or, as I once heard those words trans lated by a hedge schoolmaster in Ireland — 11 A man convinced against his will Is of the same opinion still." At all events, I've got the MS. and mean to make my publisher's fortune with it ; in fact, I have been thinking of giving the copyright to his eldest son, if he asks me to stand god father, as I have no doubt he will be dazzled at my literary reputation as Editor of these papers. Meantime, if he likes to do my bank ing business, why I can draw upon him, and of course he can deduct the money paid to my order from the sale of my next poem. Verbum sat.

Chapter II. Small Beginnings

My father was the younger son of a poor Marquis, who flourished during the gay times of the regency of his late sacred Majesty King George the Fourth, who deserves for ever to be embalmed in the memory of the entire tailor population of these kingdoms. My grandfather, the Marquis of Arramore, had an estate which was wholly swallowed up by encumbrances, and which cost him about three thousand a-year to keep up. It was the very bugbear of his life, this estate. It got him into law-suits, election squabbles, county subscrip tions, and botherations without end ; and I OR, fancy he had never gone to bed nor got up again since the time of the last mortgage (which was, by the way, all swallowed up in costs) without cursing it, with the whole staff of bailiffs, agents, gardeners, stewards, and harpies belonging to it.

He quarrelled with Staunton, his eldest son, about it, because he would not cut off the entail, and bring it to the hammer. Lord Staunton was, however, in Parliament, Under-Secretary for some de partment or other, and a rising man. The place cost him nothing, and he knew very well the importance it gives a man in public life to be the reputed heir to a fine estate. Lord Staunton was asked out to dinner every day in the year as the future heir of Evelyn Abbey. Ministers had a proper respect for their young colleague, and for his interest in the county; and everybody looked upon Lord Staunton as a young nobleman of high abilities and great expectations, who had a right to look forward to the grand prizes of a public life. It would never have done for him to sell Evelyn Abbey, — the world's opinion of him would have dwin dled to nothing at once.

He would have been, " Poor fellow ! Quite ruined, I hear. Creditors allow him two hundred pounds a-year to look after the property." " Lord with a broken fortune :" and so forth. So Lord Staunton was determined his father should still have the pleasure of keeping up the place in Lin colnshire and the county interest. Moreover, he had some reason to complain ; for Lord Arramore, who had never thought all his hfe about any one but himself, had upon his wife's death invested the whole of her property, which she, with woman's trust, had bequeathed to him, in the purchase of an annuity during his own life. Staunton was very angry : be said it ought to have gone to pay off the encum brances and portion his brothers. But the Marquis only put on an extra air of dignity ; wondered what a man's children would want him to do next; hired a French cook and a house in Stanhope Street; gave the best din ners in London ; and tried at least to let that dreary old Penitentiary, as he used to call it, down in Lincolnshire, which had been the plague of his life.

Staunton made it up with his father after some time : he found him useful. The old gentleman did not care two straws about his b ; OR, vote ; and when Staunton plied him one day with a long harangue after dinner, the object of which was to persuade him to leave his proxy in the hands of Government (there had been a split in the Cabinet, and the party had gone out to which it was supposed the Marquis of Arramore especially belonged), the Marquis assented with the most charming air of indiffer ence in the world. Then he had a good deal of influence in a certain kind of society, and in those days it was just that kind which was uppermost. The Regent was always delighted to see the witty old gentleman at Brighton and Windsor, whose fat stories and salt jokes were the laughter of every dinner-table in London.

Staunton found that by dining with his father he could learn what was really going on at court better than anybody; and sometimes it was useful to know what others did not. Then the Marquis would always ask anybody who was really a pleasant fellow, and did not bore him, so that Staunton gave up his own cook ; he intended, indeed, at one time to give up his chambers at the Albany too, and live in Stan hope Street altogether. But the very hint of such a thing so discomposed his father, that he went off to Paris for six weeks, and when he came back, Staunton did not think it expedient to renew the proposal. So the Marquis glided into his own style of life, belonged to all the clubs that were worth belonging to, and his cheery face, and quiet chocolate-coloured demi fortune, were as well known to the link-boys at the theatres and the opera (for people went to the theatres in those days) as could be.

He led one of those pleasant, busy, do-nothing sort of lives which we sometimes find elderly gentlemen enjoying, very much to their own satisfaction, and apparently to that of other people. Some people grumbled a little, a poor relation or two were dissatisfied ; one who was curate of Little Twaddlington, which living was in the gift of the Marquis, preached a sermon against him, when it was announced that the advowson had been sold ; and he learned in the newspapers that he had been burnt in effigy. This did not please the peer at all ; he hated publicity of all kinds, and had the most forgiving temper of any man alive. So he asked the curate to dinner to meet the Bishop of Blazes, presented him to my lord, and took occasion to remark incidentally on his ; OR, close relationship. The Bishop liked good dinners, the poor relation was an excellent toady, and putting this and that together, the Bishop promoted the troublesome fellow to be his own chaplain, and the Marquis got praised up to the skies for his magnanimity, and, what was better, got quit of some proceedings which had been taken against him in one of the ecclesiastical courts, and which had hitherto prevented his touching the produce of the sale of the advowson.

My father, Lord Herbert Evelyn, and two other brothers (one of whom fortunately for me went out shortly after to India), lived with their father on excellent terms. They might dine with him, one at a time, whenever they liked, and provided they did not ask for anything ; and they had each five thousand pounds, which had been left them by Lady Tabitha Evelyn, who died while they were children. This five thousand pounds had, indeed, accumulated so considerably by the time they were of age that the Marquis wished them to lend him the principal, secured on the estate,and promising to pay them four per cent., that he might add to his annuity, which paid him ten ; and that thus he might be a gainer of six per cent. The only son who fell into this little trap was Lord Walter, and he soon had reason to repent it.

The Marquis wanted him to live down at Evelyn Court, and manage the estates, instead of receiving his interest. " There is the hay-crop, and the grapes, you know ; and all that wall-fruit (after my table has been supplied, of course), which will pay you much more than you wish me ; and I tell you, my dear boy, I've not got it, — I really have not got it — upon my soul I have not — that is to say, not without inconvenience," said the Marquis. So Lord Walter, who was very quiet and reserved, smiled sadly when his father had finished, and never asked him any more. My uncle Howard, who can never to this day speak of Lord Walter without a moist eye, says he was the finest fellow that ever put on a boot. Slight and dark, very pale, and rather sad look ing, — but " with the sweetest smile ever seen," adds my aunt Lady Mary, stifling a sigh .

" Well, this was all Walter got by lending his money on the estates," my uncle would say ; " and he soon sold his horses, and paid his debts ; which was more than any of you besides ever did (except Staunton), and got Staunton to have ; OR, him appointed secretary to some one who was going out to India. We heard great accounts of Walter after that." So my uncle tells the story. " He changed from the civil service into the army, and every gazette mentioned him honour ably. I was in the Guards, and he did not forget me. The first time I heard from him was that he had lodged money at the agent's for my captaincy ; he tried to do it on the sly — dear Walter ! — and lodged it in my father's name, for I had had a quarrel with him before he went away. And to your father, who was the youngest of his brothers, he sent five hun dred pounds, promising to continue it every year, if he liked to go into the church or the army.

Herbert, however, would not do either, but got married." And Lord Walter ? I asked, I remember, when my uncle first told this story : " Poor Walter," my uncle would say, " He died of the climate just as he was returning home loaded with honour and prize-money." "And then Helen Lascelles died broken-hearted, too," said aunt Mary, quietly ; " and we heard they had been engaged all along." But this story of Uncle Walter is only an episode, and ought not to have been introduced here at all, save that he left his fortune to my father Lord Herbert Evelyn's eldest son, and that is why I got the name of Walter. Let us now however return to my father. He was almost the last of a race of dandies now rapidly becoming extinct. The little fortune he had, and the annuity sent to him by Lord Walter, was soon squandered in driving curricles, and unicorns, and tandems, and wearing the skins of unborn foals, at thirty guineas each, upon his coat-collars, and committing all the graceless, hard-drinking, inelegant debaucheries of the time.

He had wit too in his way, wit which, if cultivated and properly restrained, would have made him a brilliant and a useful man ; as it was, he became nothing but a man of fashion, and lived altogether with the wild young bloods of the day. Lord Staunton tried very hard to reform him, and got him, for one Session, into Parliament ; but my father only astonished everybody by a brilliant ; showy speech or two, and then could never afterwards be got away from the gaming-table ; at last he married. Staunton heard that Lord Yarmouth was to give away the bride, and would not go to the wedding. He tried indeed to stop the ; OR, match, but my father would not listen to him. Staunton never spoke to him afterwards, and the Marquis did not ask him to dinner. My mother had about thirty thousand pounds how ever, which was believed to be much more, and my father cared no more for his relations than he did for anything else.

They all cut him — all except Lord Walter, who wrote them a letter which my mother treasured up in her jewel-case, and I once saw her read it through her tears. They always kept up a correspondence afterwards. And my mother got intro duced to Helen Lascelles, who was a cousin of my father's, and Helen used to come to us, and was, I believe, the only woman my mother ever sincerely liked. My mother and she were inseparable ; Lord Walter said he wished it; and my mother long afterwards used to say that this was the sweetest time of her life. When Lord Walter died she tended Helen night and day the little time she lived after him, for her health had been long broken by those cruel years of absence. Her last sigh was breathed in my mother's arms, and a little before her death she gave her a portrait of Lord Walter which she had always worn round her neck, and said feebly, " I meant to have it buried with me, dear Lucy ; but take it.

It is the only thing I value in the world." This portrait my mother always after wore next her heart ; and, when I was a very little boy, I once remember hearing her pray to it. She used to say, " There never was but one good man in the world, and that was Walter Evelyn, who could not live in it." Praying, indeed, was not generally much a part of my mother's character ; nor, indeed, did she do anything else except dress her hair, which was very beautiful, and read novels, and go to the theatre, which she did very constantly, and with never-ending enjoyment. My mother never would believe that I could remember certain things, which I do remember perfectly well, nevertheless. I remember them as well as if they had passed yesterday. I remember my father's house in town — a large house in Clargesstreet, full of buhl, and marble, and indifferent pictures, which had been sold to him as originals of value.

I remember the very ceiling, painted sky-blue, with birds, of which one was a bird of paradise flying about in the middle. I remember the cupboards in my mother's bed-room, where I used to hide ; OR, when I was frightened of being whipped by the nurse for crying at being left alone. I remember even the nurse's gin-bottle in one corner of it, — she kept it under the clothes. My mother used to say languidly to her, when she brought me down to her, " There, there, nurse, let Master Walter come to me, and put him down, please, and stand at the door; you smell like the places where we change horses on our way to the Hall. Does not she, Taylor?" my mother would add to her maid ; and Taylor would say, " La ! bless me, my lady, you know them nusses always does." All this my mother would never believe I could remember, and would open her large blue surprised eyes, and say, " Nonsense !

Walter, you were a baby then." I remember, when I was a little older, — I might have been six years old then, — get ting permission to sit up on my birthday till mamma came home from the theatre. I was very sleepy, but it was a point of honour not to give in, so I sat bolt upright upon my httle chair, with my eyes aching, and every now and then closing themselves of their own accord ; but I would not go to bed, and constantly as sured the housemaid (a kind of Peggotty), and the butler, and the cook, who were all sitting up (for my mother always took supper), that I was wide awake, whereat they all laughed, and the housemaid said, " Bless you ! so you are ;" and on one occasion gave me such a hugging, that my ears tingled for I don't know how long afterwards ; upon which demonstra tion of the tenderness of her disposition I remember the butler sang something about — " Oh ! what appy days we'll see, Writh our childring on our knee ;" and the cook laughed, and the housemaid grew red, but seemed to like it too ; and I could not think for the life of me what it all meant.

At length came a rumbling of wheels, and a knock at the door, that made the very plates, ranged in rows on the shelves (for we were in the kitchen), to rattle again. " There's my lady," they all cried out. " Oh, there's mama ! oh, do let me go ! Oh, please let me go to meet her when she comes in," cried I. " Don't 'ee, don't 'ee, Master Walter," said the butler, who was a good-natured fellow, " I should think my lady '11 be angry with Jeames if I lets you go to the door." " Oh no, James !" said I, struggling up into his arms, while he was just ; OR, giving a touch of powder to his hair. "Oh no, James ! I will beg you off, I will indeed !" Rat ! tat ! tat ! tara ! tara ! Rat ! tat ! tat ! tat! tat! went the knocker again, as if the house was to be knocked down ; and we heard a voice outside saying, " The lazy rascals !

I'll horsewhip every one of them. E — very one of them— I'll be hanged if I don't." " Oh, its papa ! its papa !" said I, climbing up stairs, " I will see him ; dear, dear papa !" "Here's my lord back from Newmarket! Look alive !" said James, rushing up stairs, quite forgetting me, who followed close at his heels. Wide swung the door upon its hinges — a post-chaise, with four reeking posters, stood before it. My father, the handsomest of men, the very picture of a gallant dare-devil reckless blood of the day, got out. He was covered with mud from head to heel, and had evidently posted up in the same dress he had worn on the course. It was a dress of which we saw the last on Sir Francis Burdett, the late Lord Westmorland, and the Duke of Dorset. Blue coat, leather breeches, top boots, and a high white cravat, and under-waistcoat.

As my father got out of the chaise, child as I was, I saw that there was something unusual about him, and that he looked strangely flushed and disordered. He came unsteadily up the steps ; drew himself up to his full height. " I will," said he, striking his heavy riding whip on his boot, and looking the very soul of sly wit and good humour, as he always did, " I will flog e — ve — ry scoundrel in the ha — a — use," and the next moment he mea sured his full length upon the hall floor. It was of stone, and it stunned him. There was a tremendous bustle and running about for hot vinegar and such simple remedies as could be applied till the doctor came ; and I don't know how it became clear to my mind that my father had fallen down simply because he was tipsy. I clung to him wildly, and would not be torn away, and cried till my face was quite blistered, for I loved him dearly, that reckless, selfish, good-natured saunterer through life that I now know he was.

He slowly recovered himself, and was seated in the great chair in the dining-room hiccoughing out jokes to me, and making me laugh through my tears as he tossed me about on his knee. I do not even now know how ; 0R, it was that everybody loved my father, and that he exercised a species of fascination over all with whom he came in contact; but so it was, and so it remained long afterwards, when he was changed indeed. It must have surprised my mother a good deal when she came home, as she did shortly afterwards, to find the scene that presented itself to her in the dining-room. Instead of the roast plovers she had ordered for supper, there sat my father with his dress all in disarray, and bedabbled with blood ; beside him stood Mary the housemaid, wetting a large patch of brown paper on his forehead with vinegar, and cook holding the basin which supplied it.

There sat my father, flushed and bright-eyed, and hiccoughing out jokes, first to me and then to the servants, and none of us able for the lives and souls of us to help laughing till the room rang again. On the table lay a handful of sovereigns and bank notes, and a pocket-book apparently pretty well stuffed, which had fallen from my father's pocket. I do not know what my mother thought of us altogether, or of my father and the servants, and the blood, and the vinegar and brown paper, and the laughter separately. She was not a sort of person to shew herself astonished at anything : " Leave the room," said she to the servants, " Go away;" and then she went up and kissed him silently, for she saw how it was, and said, " Oh, Herbert !" There was something very touching in the manner in which my mother said " Oh, Her bert !"

It said so much and seemed to say so little. " Lucy Bird," said my father, " don't be angry with me." " I am not angry," she answered, " Oh, no." "I know you are now, Lucy Bird." "Indeed I am not, you dear, dear naughty boy ; — but who is that they tell me is waiting up in the drawing-room, dear Herbert ?" " Lucy Bird," said my father again and this time his handsome mouth twitched painfully, and he was quite sober. " Lucy Bird, give me a glass of curacoa." " Not to-night — not before supper." " Why not, Lucy Bird ? the sooner I die the sooner you will be a blooming widow ; and — and — Harkaway has lost the cup — and I'm arrested for seven thousand pounds. The man upstairs is a bailiff, and we shall not sup to- ; OR, gether to-night, Lucy." My mother turned ghastly pale, and then fell upon his neck (that cold, languid woman), and cried, as if her heart was breaking. " Oh, my husband ! my dear, dear husband !" I nestled between them, and took my father's hand, which was as cold as ice.

Chapter III

My mother's efforts were all in vain ; she had sold and sacrificed, till she could sell and sa crifice no longer. Her plate and jewels were long gone ; and he had sold many a year ago his reversionary life-interest in her property. The fortune Lord Walter had left to me was not to be got at ; though my father promised liberally enough in my name that I should ratify any security given on it when I came of age. There was no getting at the precise amount of my father's debts, either. He ab solutely and entirely forgot every creditor who VOL. I. C ; OR, was not hotly pressing him for money ; and would pledge his honour he did not owe them a farthing. Unfortunately, he had been through hfe so extremely ready to pledge his honour, that it was not worth redeeming any longer. So Lord Herbert Evelyn went to prison, to the King's Bench, — and a very gentlemanly place it was in those days.