CHAPTER V.

NOUVEAUX RICHES.

Eleanor Irvine spoke with perfect truth when she said that her brother-in-law, Mr. Chadwick, was a very rich man. Boiler-making and engine-supplying, when you have secured almost a monopoly of the business, are very paying concerns; and very few of the large steam-shipping companies, not only in England but on the Continent, did not procure their propelling apparatus from Chadwick and Co. In the United States, too, the firm was well known and largely employed. Some of the largest grain elevators in Chicago had been supplied by them, and the lifts which convey you to your bedroom on the tenth story at the Jefferson House, Saratoga, or the Great Atlantic Hotel, Newport, N.J., bear the familiar name. This preëminence in his trade had all been achieved by Mr. Chadwick himself. He was a very poor boy, with but a smattering of education, when he first went in as an apprentice to the drawing-office of the works at Newcastle, the manager having taken him on out of friendship for his father, then recently dead; but he went through the whole routine of that establishment, from the hardest hand-labour to the highest head-work, until he emerged from it as its owner, and now held it as a kind of adjunct to his larger and more important establishment on the Thames. Mr. Chadwick was not a speculative man, and was never tempted to put out any of his capital with the perspective hope of large interests in Baratarian loans or investments in the enormous silver mines of Grass Valley, Colorado. He held a certain number of shares, just sufficient to make the directors regard it as good policy to keep well with him, in such steam-shipping companies as he supplied with engines, but he found that the profits derived from his legitimate undertaking brought him in income sufficient to satisfy all his wants.

This income enabled him to maintain a handsome residence in Fairfax-gardens; to entertain company constantly, and with more than ordinary hospitality; to allow his wife to commit any extravagances she pleased at the milliner's and the jeweller's, and to have all the carriages and horses she chose. It gave him a villa on the Thames, and a shooting-box in Aberdeenshire; and if it did not make him happy, there were plenty of people who said it ought to have done so, and who passed their lives in envying him and wishing to be in his place.

On the whole, however, Mr. Chadwick is a happy man. He has an imperturbably good temper, which no amount of business worry can upset, and he is very proud of his wife. There were plenty of men of birth and breeding whom Mr. Chadwick had met in business, and who, knowing his wealth and the value of a connection with him, would have been only too glad to introduce the rich boiler-maker to their sisters and daughters, and to use all their influence to induce those female members of their family to secure his hand. But Mr. Chadwick, in his own frank phraseology, 'did not go in for swells;' and though in later days he was pleased to see a large number of smart people at his house, and to read their names and titles duly set forth in the next morning's paper, it was because he knew this gave pleasure to his wife, whose every wish he delighted in forestalling. When Mr. Chadwick first saw Miss Irvine, with a rose in her hair and a piece of music in her hand, in front of the orchestra at the St. James's Hall, and heard her warble 'Coming through the Rye,' he determined that, if possible, she should be his wife. The difficulty was not great; the young lady was ambitious, her father was mercenary; and from the day on which they were married, 'my Fan' was Mr. Chadwick's first consideration, ranking even before 'the works,' which up to that time had held possession of his mind, to the exclusion almost of any other subject.

Mrs. Chadwick was what is called 'an elegant-looking woman,' with dark complexion, regular features, and a slight figure; her manners were good, she spoke French and Italian with fluency, had sufficient shrewdness to catch the pervading tone, and was altogether quite presentable in society. She had been ambitious when she was only a concert-singer, and dependent on her own resources. Now that she had a large income at her command she determined to make her mark; to be talked of, renowned, the object of curiosity, and the subject of gossip, was her dearest wish. She could have obtained the notoriety she wanted in one season, by entering into a desperate flirtation--for there would have been no lack of men willing to flirt to any extent with her, some for mere fun, and others in the hope of making a good thing of it--and there are always plenty of persons ready to spread scandal and slander. But Mrs. Chadwick had no intention of entering upon any flirtation, even of the mildest kind; she said she was 'not naturally given that way,' and moreover she had seen quite enough of poverty and precarious existence to prevent her from compromising the very excellent position which fate had assigned her; so she sat herself calmly down at the foot of the social ladder, determined to scale it by entertainments given to the best people whom she could induce to accept her invitations. She began by inviting the wives of the baronets and members of parliament with whom Mr. Chadwick was concerned in various business matters; and though these ladies, who were for the most part intensely respectable, at first hung back, having heard rumours of Mrs. Chadwick's ante-nuptial professional experiences, and having a vague idea that she had been 'on the stage,' their husbands, to whom the business connection with Mr. Chadwick was valuable, insisted on their not merely accepting the invitation, but on their behaving themselves without the stiffness and frigidity which they delighted to display whenever they thought they could safely do so.

The step thus made was satisfactory, but the society obtained by it was rather poor. It began to improve when some of the younger members of the House, and the private secretaries of ministers whom Mr. Chadwick had now and then occasion to wait upon, found out and appreciated the excellence of the cuisine and the cellar in Fairfax-gardens, and not only came themselves when asked, but brought their friends--guardsmen, Foreign-office clerks, and men about town of various ages and degrees. So far as the men were concerned, this was all very well; but Mrs. Chadwick saw with regret that, with the ladies she had made very little way. The extremely proper and generally plain-headed wives of the commercial baronets and M.P.s turned up their eyes at each other in horror at some of the male company, whose loose living was notorious, and whom they saw dancing attendance in Fairfax-gardens; dear Lord George never brought dear Lady George, the Marquis never so much as mentioned the Marchioness, although Mrs. Chadwick gave him frequent opportunities for doing so; and though several of the private secretaries chattered volubly enough about their sisters, no cards from those ladies were ever delivered in Fairfax-gardens.

Mrs. Chadwick suffered deeply under this social ban; she could not see the way to fight against it herself, and at last took Charley Ormerod, one of the private secretaries, and the best leader of a _cotillon_ in London, into her confidence. Charley was very frank in deed upon the point. 'If you want to get hold of this sort of people, my dear Mrs. Chadwick,' said he, 'and 'pon my word I don't see why--you being so very charming yourself, and all that sort of thing--you will find it uncommonly difficult. There is so much going on in their own set, that they won't go anywhere, don't you know, unless it is to meet some particular person or to see some particular thing. Now your cook is first class, and Chadwick has some dry champagne that is really A1, and if there were nothing so good elsewhere in both those ways, they would come for that; but there is, and so they won't. You will ask how it is that Madame Schottenberger and Mrs. Stutterheim go into society when their position is no better than yours, and their houses, I think, nothing like so nice; but then, you see, both Schottenberger and Stutterheim are in the City, and they are able, don't you know, to give these people what one may call a leg-up in the way of making a little premium on shares. Mr. Chadwick is not in that line; he is the last man who would think of doing anything of that sort if he were. Now if you could only give them some specialty. There is that fine billiard-room at the back; what do you say to turning it into a theatre, having a stage at the end, and that sort of thing? And there are lots of amateurs who would be only too delighted to come and act; or you could get up tableaux, don't you know, with pretty girls, and have Eardley or some of those fellows to pose them, and then supper, don't you know, and that sort of thing; if you could do one, and just get it talked about, everybody would be wild to come to the next.'

Mrs. Chadwick ponders over this idea, but is afraid it will not do, at least so far as dramatic representation is concerned. The tableaux might be managed quietly at some future time; but Mr. Chadwick, whose childhood was passed among strict dissenters in the North, has a strong objection to theatrical entertainments, and his wife thinks best to give him no cause for complaint. Nevertheless, the attempt to secure superior society must be made; and it is first made with concerts. Mrs. Chadwick drives round to some of those whom she used to know in her professional days; old Sir Gottlieb Moto, the famous music-master, who smiles and rubs his hands, and will give her all the assistance in his power, and Mr. Bluck, the well-known _entrepreneur_ of the Ante-Chamber Concerts, who every year produces such a wonderful prospectus, and who knows far too much about music to attempt to play or sing. By the aid of these gentlemen a very excellent concert was given, at which all the noted singers of the day were present, and were exceptionally treated in being asked to remain after their labours were over, and mingle with the company. Mrs. Chadwick made a great point of this, and went about murmuring to the wives and daughters of the baronets and M.P.s that she did not forget the time when she herself was in a similar position, and that she would always be glad to welcome her brothers and sisters in art; at which the wives and daughters muttered 'How charming!' to her face, and shrugged their shoulders and raised their eyebrows to each other when her back was turned.

All those who were present congratulated Mrs. Chadwick on her delightful concert, but she was shrewd enough to see that she was no nearer the end she had proposed to herself--the entertainment of a better class of society; so Charley Ormerod was again called into consultation, with the result that the tableaux were determined upon, and set about in earnest. There was no difficulty in finding good-looking young people to volunteer for the different characters so soon as the idea was promulgated, and it was understood that the thing was to be carried out without reference to expense. The sisters of two or three of the private secretaries, who knew the fascination of dishevelled hair and bare arms, and who saw their way to Andromache lamenting over the dead body of Hector, or Jephtha's daughter in her solitude amongst the mountain fastnesses, induced their brothers to propose them at once; and amongst Mr. Chadwick's plutocratic Tyburnian connection there were many pretty girls only too glad to be utilised. The committee of management was composed of men of the highest artistic repute in London. Old Mr. Tabardy, who passed his early life in writing burlesques, and whose latter days are spent in even a more comic way in the manufacture of pedigrees and the search for coats-of-arms for parvenus, came up from the Heralds' College, bearing two elaborate books of costume pictures; Mr. Eardley, R.A., who looks like Glaucus the Athenian, was there to superintend the embodiment of one of his own dreamy sensuous creations; and Mr. Gurth, who would be Eardley's shadow if he had not a large body and capable brain of his own, was of course there also. Mogg, R.A., came (of course in his worsted comforter, though the month was June), and gave excellent advice and assistance in preparing a tableau of the days of Charles II.; and Ghoule, the great tragedian, who was never before seen in the daylight, 'made up' the gentleman who was to portray the dead body of Hector in the most approved charnel-house fashion. Each tableau was to be ushered in by music, and the choice of that music and its direction was left to Mr. Shamus O'Voca, who is as popular in society as he is clever in his art. Auguste and Nathan were nearly worried out of their lives; and in addition to them, by favour of the managers, various theatrical tailors were busily engaged in the preparation of costumes. All this preparation began to be talked of in those circles amongst which Mrs. Chadwick most wanted it made known; faint wishes for invitations were heard, which, after the full-dress rehearsal carefully arranged for by Charley Ormerod and duly notified in the newspapers, grew into furious desire. Under Charley's advice, Mrs. Chadwick at first stood firm, and issued very few cards to persons whom she had not previously known. 'There would be another representation later on,' she said to those asking on behalf of their friends, 'and they could come then.' This reply, of course, fanned the flame--they must come the first time, nothing could prevent them; and eventually, by what Charley called 'jockey-ship' And Mrs. Chadwick 'diplomacy,' the boilermaker's wife had the pleasure of receiving one duchess, two marchionesses, four countesses, and a great number of lords and ladies at the first representation of her tableaux.

From that time forth Mrs. Chadwick's course was easy. After her second season, now just concluded, she was honoured by the presence of royalty at her tableaux, and a garden-party which she gave at the villa on the Thames was pronounced the most perfect fête seen for many years; the description of it and of the company assembled filled a column of the _Sluice_, a journal not generally given to reporting such matters; and old Lord Quoch wrote a poem about it, which was made to do duty as letter-press to a fanciful river-side illustration, and published in the _Albert-gate Magazine_. By this means Mrs. Chadwick was fully established as one of the personages of the day, and her movements were duly chronicled among the 'fashionable arrangements' advertised by the fashionable journal.

With all her frivolity and her hankering after great society, the woman was kindhearted, as she had proved by her treatment of her sister. When in the days gone by it was proposed by Mr. Irvine that Eleanor should be sent upon the stage, the plan was rather approved of than otherwise by Fanny, who thought it time that her sister should be earning her own livelihood, and saw nothing to be complained of in the means by which it was proposed she should do so. After her marriage, indeed, while enlarging on her own experiences in the concert-rooms, she would aver it to be a very different arena from the stage, would shake her head at the mention of ladies of the theatrical profession, of whom not more than two (who were supposed to have certificates of character from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Editor of _Punch_) were admitted into Mrs. Chadwick's society. But formerly, when there had seemed to be a chance of thirty shillings a week being added to the general income, Fanny not merely had felt no scruple at Eleanor's following this despised profession, but had rated her sister soundly when the girl expressed her horror at the career in store for her; nor while she was still toiling in concert-rooms was she best pleased that Eleanor should be leading a comparatively easy life in that very society to which she, Fanny, had always aspired. After her marriage, however, all was very different. Mrs. Chadwick then thought it scarcely right that her sister should be 'dependent on a fine lady,' more especially a fine lady who could not be induced to take any notice of Mrs. Chadwick, although that worthy woman had what children call 'spelled' for it in every possible way; and when Mr. Irvine died, Fanny took her sister from her father's poor lodging, to which she had returned after May Dunmow's marriage, and bade her be happy at Fairfax-gardens until she should possess a home of her own.

At Fairfax-gardens Eleanor lived happily enough until this question of her marriage arose to cause her annoyance. Occasions of difference between the sisters had previously been slight and few, for Eleanor was in the habit of giving way to her sister's whims, and save when she was requested to give up her black dress at the end of six months--a period which Mrs. Chadwick thought quite long enough to show any outward signs of lamentation for her deceased father--she had but little difficulty in doing so. On that point, however, she was firm; and as it would have been impossible for her in her mourning attire to take part in the festivities which commenced so soon as the prescribed time was over, Eleanor did not mix with the general society, but only saw those who were intimate friends at the house. Amongst the latter was Mr. Spiridion Pratt, a dilettante gentleman of five or six and thirty, who, having an excellent fortune and a cultivated taste, chose to pass the 'fallow leisure of his life' with painters, sculptors, writers, musicians, and actors, and to attempt himself to shine a little in each of those vocations in which his friends were proficient. Poems signed 'S.P.' were not uncommon in the pages of the fashionable magazines; the President of the Royal Academy (remembering a commission which he had received and executed for painting an equestrian portrait of the late Mr. Pratt for presentation to the Muffletubbe Hunt, of which he had been M.F.H.) had made a very graceful allusion at one of the annual banquets to 'an amateur contribution of great merit which graces our walls,' and all the R.A.s of Spiridion's acquaintance, who were in the habit of dining with him very often, tried to catch his downcast eyes, and in their after-dinner perambulations through the room nudged each other as they pointed out a rather gloomy canvas representing a Rhenish wineglass, a bunch of grapes, half a cut orange, and two boiled prawns, which, under the title of 'Still Life,' had been S.P.'s contribution to the exhibition. It is needless to say that 'Ballads of the Blighted,' words and music by Spiridion Pratt, Esq., are on every piano, and that two of them, 'My Muffineer' and 'Take, O take the toast away,' have achieved an unparalleled success.

With all these social advantages, and with a certain amount of good looks of the black-eyed, straight-nosed, hairdresser's-dummy style, Mr. Pratt was naturally a favourite with the ladies, and certain _affaires_ with which his name was mixed up had been freely discussed in society. These _affaires_ Mrs. Chadwick professed to look upon as mere trifles, though one of them had lasted for a considerable time, and was supposed to be even then in existence. Any discreditable connection of the kind, however, could not possibly be known to a lady of Mrs. Chadwick's virtue, and wholly ignoring it, she laid plans for making a match between her sister and the accomplished Spiridion. Eleanor, as we have seen, was by no means pleased at the idea; but Mr. Pratt was not merely much struck by the girl's beauty, but thought it would be very delightful to have the moulding of such a young and ingenuous creature, and to undertake the formation of her character on a plan peculiarly his own. The already existing connection threatened to prove an obstacle; but that connection must be broken at some time or other, and Spiridion thought he would have little chance of finding a better excuse than Eleanor Irvine.

Such was the state of affairs at the time when Eleanor was paying her stolen visits to Lady Forestfield; necessarily stolen, because Mrs. Chadwick imagined that all connection between Eleanor and her quondam patroness had ceased, and would have been horribly scandalised at the notion that her sister was in the habit of seeing one 'who had so painfully forgotten herself.' Fanny had never had any liking for Lord Stortford's family, and the fact that her younger sister had been preferred to her for adoption in the Grosvenor-square household had never ceased to rankle in her mind. When, therefore, the story of Lady Forestfield's disgrace became known, Mrs. Chadwick made it the theme of many bitter discourses, with which she improved the occasion, and inflicted the deepest pain on her sister when kindness was needed.

When she left Podbury-street after the conversation recorded in the last chapter, Eleanor found herself suffering from unusual depression. Something in Lady Forestfield's manner when speaking about Spiridion Pratt convinced the girl that May knew more than she was willing to tell. So far as Mr. Pratt himself was concerned Eleanor had no feeling in the matter, and had she regarded him in the light of a common acquaintance she would have pronounced him to be a gentleman, but rather a vain and silly man. She knew, however, that Mrs. Chadwick's project had not been lightly conceived, and would not be easily departed from, and objectionable as the idea of, marriage with Mr. Pratt had been before, since she had discussed it with her friend the vague dread with which May Forestfield's words had inspired her made her regard it with increased aversion. On her arrival at Fairfax-gardens she found her sister just returned from her drive, and looking through the cards which had been left during her absence.

'"P.P.C." on nearly all of them,' said Mrs. Chadwick, looking up. 'There was quite a thin Park, and there is not the smallest doubt that everybody is leaving town; and it was only this morning that James told me there was no possibility of our getting away for another month. That won't matter to you, Eleanor, I suppose,' she said as she seated herself; 'for you don't seem to me to care whether it is the season or not--indeed, I think you are rather happier when nobody comes.'

'I am sure of it,' said Eleanor quietly.

'Well, my dear child, you really must get out of these moping ways,' said Fanny. 'As I have told you so many times, you should leave off your mourning and come out with me; a drive in the Park would have done you infinitely more good than sitting with that invalid schoolfellow of yours; for I suppose that is where you have been all the day?'

'Yes,' said Eleanor, with a slight blush; 'that is where I have been.'

'I can't understand it; for my part,' said Mrs. Chadwick, 'I don't believe I should be alive if I did not have a drive every day, and I was just looking forward to Scotland to revive me. However, I daresay we shall do tolerably well; there are sure to be some people left in town, and we shall be more thrown together with them than is possible when all the world has to be attended to. It is time to dress now, dear; and will you please make yourself look particularly nice?'

'Why?' asked Eleanor.

'For my sake,' said Fanny. Then stepping to her sister she said, in what she intended to be an arch voice, but what was really a somewhat angular manner, 'Spiridion Pratt is coming to dinner.'