Gryll Grange Part 30

_Miss Niphet._ It must not be so--at least, not yet.

_Lord Curryfin._ There is nothing I would not do to acquire the right.

_Miss Niphet._ Nothing?

_Lord Curryfin._ Nothing.

_Miss Niphet._ How thrives your suit with Miss Gryll?

_Lord Curryfin._ That is at an end. I have her permission--her command she calls it--to throw myself at your feet, and on your mercy.

_Miss Niphet._ How did she take leave of you, crying or laughing?

_Lord Curryfin._ Why, if anything, laughing.

_Miss Niphet._. Do you not feel mortified?

_Lord Curryfin._ I have another and deeper feeling, which predominates over any possible mortification.

_Miss Niphet._ And that is--

_Lord Curryfin._ Can you doubt what it is!

_Miss Niphet._. I will not pretend to doubt. I have for some time been well aware of your partiality for me.

_Lord Curryfin._ Partiality! Say love, adoration, absorption of all feelings into one.

_Miss Niphet._. Then you may call me Alice. But once more, let go my hand.

_Lord Curryfin._ My hand, is it not?

_Miss Niphet._. Yours, when you claim it.

_Lord Curryfin._ Then thus I seal my claim.

He kissed her hand as respectfully as was consistent with 'masterless pa.s.sion'; and she said to him, 'I will not dissemble. If I have had one wish stronger than another--strong enough to exclude all others--it has been for the day when you might be free to say to me what you have now said. Am I too frank with you?'

_Lord Curryfin._ Oh, heaven, no! I drink in your words as a stream from paradise.

He sealed his claim again, but this time it was on her lips. The rose again mantled on her cheek, but the blush was heightened to damask. She withdrew herself from his arms, saying, 'Once for all, till you have an indisputable right.'

CHAPTER x.x.xI

A TWELFTH-NIGHT BALL--PANTOPRAGMATIC COOKERY--MODERN VANDALISM--A BOWL OF PUNCH

sic erimus cuncti, postquam nos auferet Orcus: ergo vivamus, dura licet esse bene.

So must we be, when ends our mortal day: Then let us live, while yet live well we may.

_Trimalchio, with the silver skeleton: in_ Petronius: c. 34.

Twelfth-night was the night of the ball. The folding-doors of the drawing-rooms, which occupied their entire breadth, were thrown wide open. The larger room was appropriated to grown dancers; the smaller to children, who came in some force, and were placed within the magnetic attraction of an enormous twelfth-cake, which stood in a decorated recess. The carpets had been taken up, and the floors were painted with forms in chalk{1} by skilful artists, under the superintendence of Mr.

Pallet. The library, separated from all the apartments by ante-chambers with double doors, was a.s.signed, with an arrangement of whist-tables, to such of the elder portion of the party as might prefer that mode of amus.e.m.e.nt to being mere spectators of the dancing. Mr. Gryll, with Miss Ilex, Mr. MacBorrowdale, and the Reverend Dr. Opimian, established his own quadrille party in a corner of the smaller drawing-room, where they could at once play and talk, and enjoy the enjoyment of the young. Lord Curryfin was Master of the Ceremonies.

1 These all wear out of me, like forms with chalk Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast-night: says Wordsworth, of 'chance acquaintance,' in his neighbourhood.--Miscellaneous Sonnets, No. 39.

After two or three preliminary dances, to give time for the arrival of the whole of the company, the twelfth-cake was divided. The characters were drawn exclusively among the children, and the little king and queen were duly crowned, placed on a theatrical throne, and paraded in state round both drawing-rooms, to their own great delight and that of their little a.s.sociates. Then the ball was supposed to commence, and was by general desire opened with a minuet by Miss Niphet and Lord Curryfin.

Then came alternations of quadrilles and country dances, interspersed with occasional waltzes and polkas. So the ball went merrily, with, as usual, abundant love-making in mute signs and in _sotto voce_ parlance.

Lord Curryfin, having brought his own love-making to a satisfactory close, was in exuberant spirits, sometimes joining in the dance, sometimes--in his official capacity--taking the round of the rooms to see that everything was going on to everybody's satisfaction. He could not fail to observe that his proffered partners.h.i.+p in the dance, though always graciously, was not so ambitiously accepted as before he had disposed of himself for life. A day had sufficed to ask and obtain the consent of Miss Niphet's father, who now sate on the side of the larger drawing-room, looking with pride and delight on his daughter, and with cordial gratification on her choice; and when it was once, as it was at once known, that Miss Niphet was to be Lady Curryfin, his lords.h.i.+p pa.s.sed into the cla.s.s of married men, and was no longer the object of that solicitous attention which he had received as an undrawn prize in the lottery of marriage, while it was probable that somebody would have him, and n.o.body knew who.

The absence of Mr. Falconer was remarked by several young ladies, to whom it appeared that Miss Gryll had lost her two most favoured lovers at once. However, as she had still many others, it was not yet a decided case for sympathy. Of course she had no lack of partners, and whatever might have been her internal anxiety, she was not the least gay among the joyous a.s.sembly.

Lord Curryfin, in his circuit of the apartments, paused at the quadrille-table, and said, 'You have been absent two or three days, Mr.

MacBorrowdale--what news have you brought from London?'

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ Not much, my lord. Tables turn as usual, and the ghost-trade appears to be thriving instead of being merely audible, the ghosts are becoming tangible, and shake hands under the tables with living wiseacres, who solemnly attest the fact. Civilised men ill-use their wives; the wives revenge themselves in their own way, and the Divorce Court has business enough on its hands to employ it twenty years at its present rate of progression. Commercial bubbles burst, and high-pressure boilers blow up, and mountebanks of all descriptions flourish on public credulity. Everywhere there are wars and rumours of wars. The Peace Society has wound up its affairs in the Insolvent Court of Prophecy. A great tribulation is coming on the earth, and Apollyon in person is to be perpetual dictator all the nations. There is, to be sure, one piece of news your line, but it will be no news to you. There is a meeting of the Pantopragmatic Society, under the presidency of Lord Facing-both-ways, who has opened it with a long speech, philanthropically designed as an elaborate exercise in fallacies, for the benefit of young rhetoricians. The society has divided its work into departments, which are to meddle with everything, from the highest to the lowest--from a voice in legislation to a finger in Jack Horner's pie. I looked for a department of Fish, with your lords.h.i.+p's name at the head of it; but I did not find it. It would be a fine department.

It would divide itself naturally into three cla.s.ses--living fish, fossil fish, and fish in the frying-pan.

_Lord Curryfin._ I a.s.sure you, Mr. MacBorrowdale, all this seems as ridiculous now to me as it does to you. The third cla.s.s of fish is all that I shall trouble myself with in future, and that only at the tables of myself and my friends.

_Mr. Gryll._ I wonder the Pantopragmatics have not a department of cookery; a female department, to teach young wives how to keep their husbands at home, by giving them as good dinners as they can get abroad, especially at club. Those anti-domestic inst.i.tutions receive their chief encouragment from the total ignorance of cookery on the part of young wives: for in this, as in all other arts of life, it is not sufficient to order what shall be done: it is necessary to know how it ought to be done. This is a matter of more importance to social well-being than nine-tenths of the subjects the Pantopragmatics meddle with.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ And therefore I rejoice that they do not meddle with it. A dinner, prepared from a New Art of Cookery, concocted under their auspices, would be more comical and more uneatable than the Roman dinner in Peregrine Pickle. Let young ladies learn cookery by all means: but let them learn under any other tuition than that of the Pantopragmatic Society.

_Mr. Gryll._ As for the tribulation coming on the earth, I am afraid there is some ground to expect it, without looking for its foreshadowing exclusively to the Apocalypse. Niebuhr, who did not draw his opinions from prophecy, rejoiced that his career was coming to a close, for he thought we were on the eve of a darker middle age.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ He had not before his eyes the astounding march of intellect, drumming and trumpeting science from city to city. But I am afraid that sort of obstreperous science only gives people the novel 'use of their eyes to see the way of blindness.'{1}

Truths which, from action's paths retired, My silent search in vain required,{2}

1 Gaoler. For look you, sir: you know not which way you shall go. Posthumus. Yes, indeed do I, fellow.

Gaoler. Your death has eyes in's head, then: I have not seen him so pictured... .

Posthumus. I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes to direct them the way I am going, but such as wink, and will not use them.

Gaoler. What an infinite mock is this, that a man should have the best use of eyes to see the way of blindness!

--Cymbeline: Act v. Scene 4.

2 Collins: Ode on the Manners.

I am not likely to find in the successive gabblings of a dozen lecturers of Babel.