The Way We Live Now (31 page)

‘You certainly did say that if we would come down here with those Melmottes we should be taken back to town, and you cannot be surprised that we should be disappointed when we are told that we are to be kept here after that. It makes me feel that life is so hard that I can't bear it. I see other girls having such chances when I have none, that sometimes I think I don't know what will happen to me.' (This was the nearest approach which she dared to make in writing to that threat which she had uttered to her mother of running away with somebody.) ‘I suppose that now it is useless for me to ask you to take us all back this summer – though it was promised; but I hope you'll give me money to go up to the Primeros. It would only be me and my maid. Julia Primero asked me to stay with them when you first talked of not going up, and I should not in the least object to reminding her, only it should be done at once. Their house in Queen's Gate is very large, and I know they've a room. They all ride, and I should want a horse; but there would be nothing else, as they have plenty of carriages, and the groom who rides with Julia would do for both of us. Pray answer this at once, papa.

‘Your affectionate daughter,
‘
GEORGIANA LONGESTAFFE
.'

Mr Longestaffe did condescend to read the letter. He, though he had rebuked his mutinous daughter with stern severity, was also to some extent afraid of her. At a sudden burst he could stand upon his authority, and assume his position with parental dignity; but not the less did he dread the wearing toil of continued domestic strife. He thought that upon the whole his daughter liked a row in the house. If not, there surely would not be so many rows. He himself thoroughly hated them.
He had not any very lively interests in life. He did not read much; he did not talk much; he was not specially fond of eating and drinking; he did not gamble, and he did not care for the farm. To stand about the door and hall and public rooms of the clubs to which he belonged and hear other men talk politics or scandal, was what he liked better than anything else in the world. But he was quite willing to give this up for the good of his family. He would be contented to drag through long listless days at Caversham, and endeavour to nurse his property, if only his daughter would allow it. By assuming a certain pomp in his living, which had been altogether unserviceable to himself and family, by besmearing his footmen's heads, and bewigging his coachmen, by aping, though never achieving, the grand ways of grander men than himself, he had run himself into debt. His own ambition had been a peerage, and he had thought that this was the way to get it. A separate property had come to his son from his wife's mother – some £2,000 or £3,000 a year, magnified by the world into double its amount – and the knowledge of this had for a time reconciled him to increasing the burdens on the family estates. He had been sure that Adolphus, when of age, would have consented to sell the Sussex property in order that the Suffolk property might be relieved. But Dolly was now in debt himself, and though in other respects the most careless of men, was always on his guard in any dealings with his father. He would not consent to the sale of the Sussex property unless half of the proceeds were to be at once handed to himself. The father could not bring himself to consent to this, but, while refusing it, found the troubles of the world very hard upon him. Melmotte had done something for him – but in doing this Melmotte was very hard and tyrannical. Melmotte, when at Caversham, had looked into his affairs, and had told him very plainly that with such an establishment in the country he was not entitled to keep a house in town. Mr Longestaffe had then said something about his daughters – something especially about Georgiana – and Mr Melmotte had made a suggestion.

Mr Longestaffe, when he read his daughter's appeal, did feel for her, in spite of his anger. But if there was one man he hated more than another, it was his neighbour Mr Primero; and if one woman, it was Mrs Primero. Primero, whom Mr Longestaffe regarded as quite an upstart, and anything but a gentleman, owed no man anything. He paid his tradesmen punctually, and never met the squire of Caversham without seeming to make a parade of his virtue in that direction. He had spent many thousands for his party in county elections and borough elections,
and was now himself member for a metropolitan district He was a radical, of course, or, according to Mr Longestaffe's view of his political conduct, acted and voted on the radical side because there was nothing to be got by voting and acting on the other. And now there had come into Suffolk a rumour that Mr Primero was to have a peerage. To others the rumour was incredible, but Mr Longestaffe believed it, and to Mr Longestaffe that belief was an agony. A Baron Bundlesham just at his door, and such a Baron Bundlesham, would be more than Mr Longestaffe could endure. It was quite impossible that his daughter should be entertained in London by the Primeros.

But another suggestion had been made. Georgiana's letter had been laid on her father's table on the Monday morning. On the following morning, when there could have been no intercourse with London by letter, Lady Pomona called her younger daughter to her, and handed her a note to read. ‘Your papa has this moment given it me. Of course you must judge for yourself.' This was the note: –

‘
MY DEAR MR LONGESTAFFE
,

‘As you seem determined not to return to London this season, perhaps one of your young ladies would like to come to us. Mrs Melmotte would be delighted to have Miss Georgiana for June and July. If so, she need only give Mrs Melmotte a day's notice.

‘Yours truly,
‘
AUGUSTUS MELMOTTE
.'

Georgiana, as soon as her eye had glanced down the one side of note paper on which this invitation was written, looked up for the date. It was without a date, and had, she felt sure, been left in her father's hands to be used as he might think fit. She breathed very hard. Both her father and mother had heard her speak of these Melmottes, and knew what she thought of them. There was an insolence in the very suggestion. But at the first moment she said nothing of that ‘Why shouldn't I go to the Primeros?' she asked.

‘Your father will not hear of it. He dislikes them especially.'

‘And I dislike the Melmottes. I dislike the Primeros of course, but they are not so bad as the Melmottes. That would be dreadful.'

‘You must judge for yourself, Georgiana.'

‘It is that – or staying here?'

‘I think so, my dear.'

‘If papa chooses I don't know why I am to mind. It will be awfully disagreeable – absolutely disgusting!'

‘She seemed to be very quiet.'

‘Pooh, mamma! Quiet! She was quiet here because she was afraid of us. She isn't yet used to be with people like us. She'll get over that if I'm in the house with her. And then she is, oh! so frightfully vulgar! She must have been the very sweeping of the gutters. Did you not see it, mamma? She could not even open her mouth, she was so ashamed of herself. I shouldn't wonder if they turned out to be something quite horrid. They make me shudder. Was there ever anything so dreadful to look at as he is?'

‘Everybody goes to them,' said Lady Pomona. ‘The Duchess of Stevenage has been there over and over again, and so has Lady Auld Reekie. Everybody goes to their house.'

‘But everybody doesn't go and live with them. Oh, mamma – to have to sit down to breakfast every day for ten weeks with that man and that woman!'

‘Perhaps they'll let you have your breakfast upstairs.'

‘But to have to go out with them – walking into the room after her! Only think of it!'

‘But you are so anxious to be in London, my dear.'

‘Of course I am anxious. What other chance have I, mamma? And, oh dear, I am so tired of it! Pleasure, indeed! Papa talks of pleasure. If papa had to work half as hard as I do, I wonder what he'd think of it. I suppose I must do it. I know it will make me so ill that I shall almost die under it. Horrid, horrid people! And papa to propose it, who has always been so proud of everything – who used to think so much of being with the right set.'

‘Things are changed, Georgiana,' said the anxious mother.

‘Indeed they are when papa wants me to go and stay with people like that. Why, mamma, the apothecary in Bungay is a fine gentleman compared with Mr Melmotte, and his wife is a fine lady compared with Madame Melmotte. But I'll go. If papa chooses me to be seen with such people it is not my fault. There will be no disgracing one's self after that. I don't believe in the least that any decent man would propose to a girl in such a house, and you and papa must not be surprised if I take some horrid creature from the Stock Exchange. Papa has altered his ideas; and so, I suppose, I had better alter mine.'

Georgiana did not speak to her father that night, but Lady Pomona informed Mr Longestaffe that Mr Melmotte's invitation was to be accepted. She herself would write a line to Madame Melmotte, and Georgiana would go up on the Friday following. ‘I hope she'll like it,' said Mr Longestaffe. The poor man had no intention of irony. It was not in his nature to be severe after that fashion. But to poor Lady Pomona the words sounded very cruel. How could any one like to live in a house with Mr and Madame Melmotte!

On the Friday morning there was a little conversation between the two sisters, just before Georgiana's departure to the railway station, which was almost touching. She had endeavoured to hold up her head as usual, but had failed. The thing that she was going to do cowed her even in the presence of her sister. ‘Sophy, I do so envy you staying here.'

‘But it was you who were so determined to be in London.'

‘Yes; I was determined, and am determined. I've got to get myself settled somehow, and that can't be done down here. But you are not going to disgrace yourself.'

‘There's no disgrace in it, Georgey.'

‘Yes, there is. I believe the man to be a swindler and a thief; and I believe her to be anything low that you can think of. As to their pretensions to be gentlefolk, it is monstrous. The footmen and housemaids would be much better.'

‘Then don't go, Georgey.'

‘I must go. It's the only chance that is left. If I were to remain down here everybody would say that I was on the shelf. You are going to marry Whitstable, and you'll do very well. It isn't a big place, but there's no debt on it, and Whitstable himself isn't a bad sort of fellow.'

‘Is he, now?'

‘Of course he hasn't much to say for himself, for he's always at home. But he is a gentleman.'

‘That he certainly is.'

‘As for me, I shall give over caring about gentlemen now. The first man that comes to me with four or five thousand a year, I'll take him, though he'd come out of Newgate or Bedlam. And I shall always say it has been papa's doing.'

And so Georgiana Longestaffe went up to London and stayed with the Melmottes.

It was very generally said in the City about this time that the Great South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway was the very best thing out. It was known that Mr Melmotte had gone into it with heart and hand.
There were many who declared – with gross injustice to the Great Fisker – that the railway was Melmotte's own child, that he had invented it, advertised it, agitated it, and floated it; but it was not the less popular on that account. A railway from Salt Lake City to Mexico no doubt had much of the flavour of a castle in Spain. Our far-western American brethren are supposed to be imaginative. Mexico has not a reputation among us for commercial security, or that stability which produces its four, five, or six per cent with the regularity of clockwork. But there was the Panama railway, a small affair which had paid twenty-five per cent; and there was the great line across the continent to San Francisco, in which enormous fortunes had been made. It came to be believed that men with their eyes open might do as well with the Great South Central as had ever been done before with other speculations, and this belief was no doubt founded on Mr Melmotte's partiality for the enterprise. Mr Fisker had ‘struck 'ile' when he induced his partner, Montague, to give him a note to the great man.

Paul Montague himself, who cannot be said to have been a man having his eyes open, in the City sense of the word, could not learn how the thing was progressing. At the regular meetings of the board, which never sat for above half an hour, two or three papers were read by Miles Grendall. Melmotte himself would speak a few slow words, intended to be cheery, and always indicative of triumph, and then everybody would agree to everything, somebody would sign something, and the ‘board' for that day would be over. To Paul Montague this was very unsatisfactory. More than once or twice he endeavoured to stay the proceedings, not as disapproving, but ‘simply as desirous of being made to understand'; but the silent scorn of his chairman put him out of countenance, and the opposition of his colleagues was a barrier which he was not strong enough to overcome. Lord Alfred Grendall would declare that he ‘did not think all that was at all necessary'. Lord Nidderdale, with whom Montague had now become intimate at the Beargarden, would nudge him in the ribs and bid him hold his tongue. Mr Cohenlupe would make a little speech in fluent but broken English, assuring the committee that everything was being done after the approved City fashion. Sir Felix, after the first two meetings, was never there. And thus Paul Montague, with a sorely burdened conscience, was carried along as one of the directors of the Great South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway Company.

I do not know whether the burden was made lighter to him or heavier, by the fact that the immediate pecuniary result was certainly
very comfortable. The company had not yet been in existence quite six weeks – or at any rate Melmotte had not been connected with it above that time – and it had already been suggested to him twice that he should sell fifty shares at £112 10s. He did not even yet know how many shares he possessed, but on both occasions he consented to the proposal, and on the following day received a cheque for £625 – that sum representing the profit over and above the original nominal price of £100 a share. The suggestion was made to him by Miles Grendall, and when he asked some questions as to the manner in which the shares had been allocated, he was told that all that would be arranged in accordance with the capital invested, and must depend on the final disposition of the Californian property. ‘But from what we see, old fellow,' said Miles, ‘I don't think you have anything to fear. You seem to be about the best in of them all. Melmotte wouldn't advise you to sell out gradually, if he didn't look upon the thing as a certain income as far as you are concerned.'