 CHAPTER 1 THREE EDITORS Let the reader be introduced to Lady Carberry, upon whose character and doings much will depend of whatever interest these pages may have, as she sits at her writing-table in her own room, in her own house, in Wellbeck Street. Lady Carberry spent many hours at her desk and wrote many letters, wrote also very much beside letters. She spoke of herself in these days as a woman devoted to literature, always spelling the word with a big L. Something of the nature of her devotion may be learned by the perusal of three letters, which on this morning she had written with a quickly running hand. Lady Carberry was rapid in everything, and in nothing more rapid than in the writing of letters. Here is letter number one. Thursday, Wellbeck Street, Dear Friend, I have taken care that you shall have the early sheets of my two new volumes tomorrow, or Saturday at latest, so that you may, if so minded, give a poor struggler like myself a lift in your next week's paper. Do give a poor struggler a lift. You and I have so much in common, and I have ventured to flatter myself that we are really friends. I do not flatter you when I say that not only would aid from you help me more than from any other quarter, but also that praise from you would gratify my vanity more than any other praise. I almost think you will like my criminal queens. The sketch of Samoramas is at any rate spirited, though I had to twist it about a little to bring her in guilty. Julia Petra, of course, I have taken from Shakespeare what a wint she was. I could not quite make Julia a queen, but it was impossible to pass over so pecan to character. You will recognize in the two or three ladies of the Empire how faithfully I have studied my gibbon. Poor dear old Belisarius, I have done the best I could with Joanna, but I could not bring myself to care for her. In our days she would simply have gone to Broadmoor. I hope you will not think that I have been too strong in my delineations of Henry VIII and his sinful but unfortunate Howard. I don't care a bit about Anne Boleyn. I am afraid that I have been tempted into two great lengths about the Italian Catherine, but in truth she has been my favorite. What a woman! What a devil! Pity that a second Dante could not have constructed for her a special hell. How one traces the effect of her training in the life of our scotch Mary. I trust you will go with me in my view as to the Queen of Scots. Guilty, guilty always, adultery, murder, treason, and all the rest of it, but recommended to mercy because she was royal, a queen, bred, born, and married, and was such other queens around her how could she have escaped to be guilty? Marie Antoinette I have not quite acquitted. It would be uninteresting, perhaps untrue. I have accused her lovingly and have kissed when I scourged. I trust the British public will not be angry because I do not whitewash Carolyn, especially as I go along with them all together and am using her husband. But I must not take up your time by sending you another book, though it gratifies me to think that I am writing what none but yourself will read. Do it yourself like a dear man, and as you are great be merciful, or rather as you are a friend be loving. Yours gratefully and faithfully Matilda Carberry. After all, how few women there are who can raise themselves above the quagmire of what we call love and make themselves anything but playthings for men. Of almost all these royal and luxurious sinners it was the chief sin that in some phase of their lives they consented to be playthings without being wives. I have striven so hard to be proper, but when girls read everything why should not an old woman write anything? This letter was addressed to Nicholas Brown Esquire, the editor of the Morning Breakfast Cable, a daily newspaper of high character, and as it was the longest so was it considered to be the most important of the three. Mr. Brown was a man powerful in his profession, and he was fond of ladies. Lady Carberry in her letter had called herself an old woman, but she was satisfied to do so by a conviction that no one else regarded her in that light. Her age shall be no secret to the reader, though to her most intimate friends, even to Mr. Brown it had never been divulged. She was forty-three, but carried her years so well and had received such gifts from nature that it was impossible to deny that she was still a beautiful woman. And she used her beauty not only to increase her influence as is natural to women who are well-favored, but also with a well-considered calculation that she could obtain material assistance in the procuring of bread and cheese, which was very necessary to her, by a prudent adaptation to her purposes of the good things with which Providence had endowed her. She did not fall in love, she did not willfully flirt, she did not commit herself, but she smiled and whispered and made confidences, and looked out of her own eyes into men's eyes, as though there might be some mysterious bond between her and them, if only mysterious circumstances would permit it. But the end of all was to induce someone to do something which would cause a publisher to give her good payment for indifferent writing, or an editor to be lenient when, upon the merits of the case, he should have been severe. Among all her literary friends Mr. Brown was the one in whom she most trusted, and Mr. Brown was fond of handsome women. It may be as well to give a short record of a scene which had taken place between Lady Carberry and her friend about a month before the writing of this letter which has been produced. She had wanted him to take a series of papers for the morning breakfast table, and to have them paid for at rate number one, whereas she suspected that he was rather doubtful as to their merit, and knew that without special favor she could not hope for remuneration above rate number two, or possibly even number three. So she had looked into his eyes and had left her soft clump hand for a moment in his. A man in such circumstances is so often awkward, not knowing with any accuracy when to do one thing and one another. Mr. Brown, in a moment of enthusiasm, had put his arm round Lady Carberry's waist and had kissed her. To say that Lady Carberry was angry, as most women would be angry if so treated, would be to give an unjust idea of her character. It was a little accident which really carried with it no injury unless it should be the injury of leading to a rupture between herself and a valuable ally. No feeling of delicacy was shocked. What did it matter? No unpardonable insult had been offered. No harm had been done. If only the dearest susceptible old donkey could be made at once to understand that that wasn't the way to go on. Without a flutter and without a blush she escaped from his arm and then made him an excellent little speech. Mr. Brown, how foolish, how wrong, how mistaken. Is it not so? Surely you do not wish to put an end to the friendship between us. Put an end to our friendship, Lady Carberry, oh, certainly not that. Then why risk it by such an act? Think of my son and of my daughter both grown up. Think of the past troubles of my life, so much suffered and so little deserved. No one knows them so well as you do. Think of my name that has been so often slandered but never disgraced. Say that you are sorry and it shall be forgotten. When a man has kissed a woman it goes against the grain with him to say the very next moment that he is sorry for what he has done. It is as much as to declare that the kiss had not answered his expectation. Mr. Brown could not do this, and perhaps Lady Carberry did not quite expect it. You know that for a world I would not offend you, he said. This sufficed. Lady Carberry again looked into his eyes and a promise was given that the articles should be printed and with generous remuneration. When the interview was over Lady Carberry regarded it as having been quite successful. Of course when struggles have to be made and hard work done there will be little accidents. The lady who uses a street cab must encounter mud and dust which her richer neighbor who has a private carriage will escape. She would have preferred not to have been kissed, but what did it matter? With Mr. Brown the affair was more serious. Brown found them all, he said to himself as he left the house. No amount of experience enables a man to know them. As he went away he almost thought that Lady Carberry had intended him to kiss her again and he was almost angry with himself in that he had not done so. He had seen her three or four times since, but had not repeated the offense. We will now go on to the other letters, both of which were addressed to the editors of other newspapers. The second was written to Mr. Booker of the Literary Chronicle. Mr. Booker was a hard-working professor of literature, by no means without talent, by no means without influence, and by no means without a conscience. But from the nature of the struggles in which he had been engaged, by compromises which had gradually been driven upon him by the encroachment of brother-authors on the one side and by the demands on the other of employers who looked only to their profits, he had fallen into a routine of work in which it was very difficult to be scrupulous and almost impossible to maintain the delicacies of a literary conscience. He was now a bald-headed old man of sixty, with a large family of daughters, one of whom was a widow dependent on him with two little children. He had five hundred a year for editing the Literary Chronicle, which, through his energy, had become a valuable property. He wrote for magazines and brought out some book of his own almost annually. He kept his head above water and was regarded by those who knew about him but did not know him as a successful man. He always kept up his spirits and was able in literary circles to show that he could hold his own, but he was driven by the stress of circumstances to take such good things as came in his way and could hardly afford to be independent. It must be confessed that literary scruple had long departed from his mind. Letter number two was as follows. Albeck Street, 25 February 1870, Blank Dear Mr. Booker, I have told Mr. Lettem, Mr. Lettem was senior partner in the enterprising firm of publishers known as Messers Lettem and Lloyder, to send you an early copy of my Criminal Queens. I have already settled with my friend Mr. Brown that I am to do your new tale of a tub in the breakfast table. Indeed, I am about it now, and am taking great pains with it. If there is anything you wish to have specially said as to your view of the Protestantism of the time, let me know. I should like you to say a word as to the accuracy of my historical details, which I know you can safely do. Don't put it off as the sale does so much depend on early notices. I am only getting a royalty which does not commence till the first four hundred are sold. Mr. Sincerely Matilda Carberry, Alfred Booker Esquire, Literary Chronicle Office, Strand. There was nothing in this which shocked Mr. Booker. He laughed inwardly with a pleasantly reticent chuckle as he thought of Lady Carberry dealing with his views of Protestantism, as he thought also of the numerous historical errors into which that clever lady must inevitably fall in writing about matters of which he believed her to know nothing. But he was quite alive to the fact that a favorable notice in the breakfast table of his very thoughtful work called The New Tale of a Tub would serve him, even though written by the hand of a female literary charlatan, and he would have no compunction as to repaying the service by fulsome praise in the literary chronicle. He would not probably say that the book was accurate, but he would be able to declare that it was delightful reading, that the feminine characteristics of the queens had been touched with a masterly hand, and that the work was one which would certainly make its way into all drawing-rooms. He was in adept at this sort of work and knew well how to review such a book as Lady Carberry's Criminal Queens without bestowing much trouble on the reading. He could almost do it without cutting the book, so that its value for purposes of after-sale might not be injured. And yet Mr. Booker was an honest man and had set his face persistently against many literary malpractices. Stretched-out type, insufficient lines, and the French habit of meandering with a few words over an entire page had been rebuked by him with conscientious strength. He was supposed to be rather an Aristides among reviewers, but circumstances as he was he could not oppose himself altogether to the usages of the time. Bad, of course it is bad, he said to a young friend who was working with him on his periodical, who doubts that. How many very bad things are there that we do? But if we were to attempt to reform all our bad ways at once we should never do any good thing. I am not strong enough to put the world straight, and I doubt if you are. Such was Mr. Booker. Then there was letter number three to Mr. Ferdinand Elf. Mr. Elf managed, and as it was supposed, chiefly owned the evening pulpit, which during the last two years had become quite a property, as men connected with the press were in the habit of saying. The evening pulpit was supposed to give daily to its readers all that had been said and done up to two o'clock in the day by all the leading people in the metropolis, and to prophesy with wonderful accuracy what would be the sayings and doings of the twelve following hours. This was affected with an air of wonderful omniscience, and not unfrequently with an ignorance hardly surpassed by its arrogance. But the writing was clever. The facts, if not true, were well invented. The arguments, if not logical, were seductive. The presiding spirit of the paper had the gift at any rate of knowing what the people for whom he catered would like to read, and how to get his subjects handled so that the reading should be pleasant. Mr. Booker's literary chronicle did not presume to entertain any special political opinions. The breakfast table was decidedly liberal. The evening pulpit was much given to politics, but held strictly to the motto which it had assumed. Nellia sedictus gerare inverba magistri, and consequently had at all times the invaluable privilege of amusing what was being done, whether by one side or by the other. A newspaper that wishes to make its fortune should never waste its columns and weary its readers by praising anything. Eulogy is invariably dull, a fact that Mr. Alph had discovered and had utilized. Mr. Alph had, moreover, discovered another fact. Abuse from those who occasionally praise is considered to be personally offensive, and they who give personal offense will sometimes make the world too hot to hold them. But censure from those who are always finding fault is regarded so much as a matter of course that it ceases to be objectionable. The caricature as to draw's only caricatures is held to be justifiable. Let him take what liberties he may with a man's face and person. It is his trade, and his business calls upon him to vilify all that he touches. But were an artist to publish a series of portraits in which two out of a dozen were made to be hideous, he would certainly make two enemies, if not more. Mr. Alph never made enemies, for he praised no one, and as far as the expression of his newspaper went was satisfied with nothing. Personally, Mr. Alph was a remarkable man. No one knew whence he came or what he had been. He was supposed to have been born a German Jew, and certain ladies said that they could distinguish in his tongue the slightest possible for an accent. Nevertheless, it was conceded to him that he knew England as only an Englishman can know it. During the last year or two he had come up as the phrase goes, and had come up very thoroughly. He had been blackballed at three or four clubs, but had affected an entrance at two or three others, and had learned a manner of speaking of those which had rejected him, calculated to leave on the minds of hearers a conviction that the societies in question were antiquated, imbecile, and moribund. He was never weary of implying that not to know Mr. Alph, not to be on good terms with Mr. Alph, not to understand that let Mr. Alph have been born where he might, and how he might, he was always to be recognized as a desirable acquaintance, was to be altogether out in the dark, and that which he so constantly asserted or implied, men and women around him began at last to believe, and Mr. Alph became an acknowledged something in the different worlds of politics, letters, and fashion. He was a good-looking man, about forty years old, but carrying himself as though he was much younger. His bare, below the middle height, with dark brown hair, which would have shown a tinge of grey, but for the dyer's art, with well-cut features, with a smile constantly on his mouth, the pleasantness of which was always belied by the sharp severity of his eyes. He dressed with the utmost simplicity, but also with the utmost care. He was unmarried, had a small house of his own close to Berkeley Square, at which he gave remarkable dinner parties, kept four or five hunters in Northamptonshire, and was reputed to earn six thousand pounds a year out of the evening pulpit, and to spend about half of that income. He also was intimate after his fashion with Lady Carberry, whose diligence in making and fostering useful friendships had been unwearyed. Her letter to Mr. Alph was as follows, Dear Mr. Alph, do tell me who wrote the review on Fitzgerald Barker's last poem, only I know you won't. I remember nothing done so well. I should think the poor wretch will hardly hold his head up again before the autumn, but it was fully deserved. I have no patience with the pretensions of would-be poets who contrive by toadying and underground influences to get their volumes placed on every drawing-room table. I know no one to whom the world has been so good-natured in this way as to Fitzgerald Barker, but I have heard of no one who has extended the good-nature to the length of reading his poetry. Is it not singular how some men continue to obtain the reputation of popular authorship without adding a word to the literature of their country worthy of note? It is accomplished by unflagging assiduity in the system of puffing. To puff and to get oneself puffed have become different branches of a new profession. Alas me, I wish I might find a class open in which lessons could be taken by such a poor tyro as myself. Much as I hate the thing from my very soul and much as I admire the consistency with which the pulpit has opposed it, I myself am so much in want of support for my own little efforts and am struggling so hard, honestly, to make for myself a remunerative career that I think were the opportunity offered to me, I should pocket my honor, lay aside the high feeling which tells me that praise should be bought neither by money nor friendship, and descend among the low things in order that I might one day have the pride of feeling that I had succeeded by my own work in providing for the needs of my children. But I have not as yet commenced the dissent downwards, and therefore I am still bold enough to tell you that I shall look not with concern but with a deep interest to anything which may appear in the pulpit respecting my criminal queens. I venture to think that the book, though I wrote it myself, has an importance of its own which will secure for it some notice, that my inaccuracy will be laid bare and presumption scourged, I do not in the least doubt, but I think your reviewer will be able to certify that the sketches are lifelike in the portraits well considered. You will not hear me told at any rate that I had better sit at home and darn my stockings, as you said the other day of that poor unfortunate Mrs. Effington Stubbs. I have not seen you for the last three weeks. I have a few friends every Tuesday evening, pray come next week or the week following, and pray believe that no amount of editorial or critical severity shall make me receive you otherwise than with a smile. Most sincerely yours, Matilda Carberry. Lady Carberry, having finished her third letter, threw herself back in her chair and for a moment or two closed her eyes as though about to rest. But she soon remembered that the activity of her life did not admit of such rest. She therefore seized her pen and began scribbling further notes. End of chapter one. Chapter two of The Way We Live Now. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollop. Chapter two, The Carberry Family. Something of herself and condition Lady Carberry has told the reader in the letters given in the former chapter, but more must be added. She has declared she had been cruelly slandered, but she has also shown that she was not a woman whose words about herself could be taken with much confidence. If the reader does not understand so much from her letters to the three editors, they have been written in vain. She has been made to say that her object in work was to provide for the need of her children. And that with that noble purpose before her, she was struggling to make for herself a career in literature. Detestably false as had been her letters to the editors, absolutely and abominably foul as was the entire system by which she was endeavoring to achieve success, far away from honor and honesty as she had been carried by her ready subserviency to the dirty things among which she had lately fallen, nevertheless, her statements about herself were substantially true. She had been ill-treated. She had been slandered. She was true to her children, especially devoted to one of them, and was ready to work her nails off if, by doing so, she could advance their interests. She was the widow of one Sir Patrick Carberry, whom many years since had done great things as a soldier in India, and had been there upon created a baronet. He had married a young wife, late in life, and having found out when too late that he had made a mistake, had occasionally spoiled his darling, and occasionally elused her. In doing each, he had done it abundantly. Among Lady Carberry's faults had never been that of even incipient, not even of sentimental infidelity to her husband. When as a lovely and penniless girl of 18, she had consented to marry a man of 44 who had the spending of a large income, she had made up her mind to abandon all hope of that sort of love which poets describe and which young people generally desire to experience. Sir Patrick, at the time of his marriage, was red-faced, stout, bald, very choleric, generous in money, suspicious in temper and intellect. He knew how to govern men. He could read and understand a book. There was nothing mean about him. He had his attractive qualities. He was a man who might be loved, but he was hardly a man for love. The young Lady Carberry had understood her position and had determined to do her duty. She had resolved before she went to the altar that she would never allow herself to flirt and she had never flirted. For 15 years, things had gone tolerably well with her, by which it is intended that the reader should understand that they had so gone that she had been able to tolerate them. They had been home in England for three or four years and then Sir Patrick had returned with some new and higher appointment. For 15 years, though he had been passionate, imperious and often cruel, he had never been jealous. A boy and a girl had been born to them to whom both father and mother had been overindulgent. But the mother, according to her lights, had endeavored to do her duty by them. But from the commencement of her life she had been educated in deceit and her married life had seemed to make the practice of deceit necessary to her. Her mother had run away from her father and she had been tossed to and fro between this and that protector, sometimes being in danger of wanting anyone to care for her till she had been made sharp, incredulous and untrustworthy for the difficulties of her position. But she was clever and had picked up an education and good manners amidst the difficulties of her childhood and had been beautiful to look at. To marry and have the command of money to do her duty correctly, to live in a big house and be respected had been her ambition. And during the first 15 years of her married life she was successful amidst great difficulties. She would smile within five minutes of violent ill usage. Her husband would even strike her and the first effort of her mind would be given to conceal the fact from all the world. In latter years he drank too much and she struggled hard first to prevent the evil and then to prevent and to hide the ill effects of the evil. But in doing all this she schemed and lied and lived a life of maneuvers. Then at last when she felt that she was no longer quite a young woman she allowed herself to attempt to form friendships for herself and among her friends was one of the other sex. If fidelity and a wife be compatible with such friendship if the married state does not exact from a woman the necessity of debarring herself from all friendly intercourse with any man except her Lord, Lady Carberry was not faithless. But Sir Carberry became jealous, spoke words which even she could not endure did things which drove even her beyond the calculations of her prudence and she left him. But even this she did in so guarded a way that as to every step she took she could prove her innocence. Her life at that period is a little moment to our story except that it is essential that the reader should know in what she had been slandered. For a month or two all hard words had been said against her by her husband's friends and even by Sir Patrick himself. But gradually the truth was known and after a year's separation they came again together and she remained the mistress of his house till he died. She brought him home to England but during the short period left to him of life in his old country he had been a worn out dying invalid. But the scandal of her great misfortune had followed her and some people were never tired of reminding others that in the course of her married life Lady Carberry had run away from her husband and had been taken back again by the kind hearted old gentleman. Sir Patrick had left behind him a moderate fortune though by no means great wealth. To his son who was now Sir Felix Carberry he had left a thousand pounds a year and to his widow as much with a provision that after her death the latter some should be divided between his son and daughter. It therefore came to pass that the young man who had already entered the army when his father died and upon whom devolved no necessity of keeping a house and who in fact not unfrequently lived in his mother's house had an income equal to that with which his mother and sister were obliged to maintain a roof over their head. Now Lady Carberry when she was released from her thralldom at the age of forty had no idea at all of passing her future life amidst the ordinary penances of widowhood. She had hitherto endeavored to do her duty knowing that in accepting her position she was bound to take the good and the bad together. She had certainly encountered hitherto much that was bad. To be scolded, watched, beaten and sworn at by a choleric old man till she was at last driven out of her house by the violence of his ill usage to be taken back as a favor with the assurance that her name would for the remainder of her life be unjustly tarnished to have her flight constantly thrown in her face and then at last to become for a year or two the nurse of a dying debauchee was a high price to pay for such good things that she had hitherto enjoyed. Now at length had come to her a period of relaxation her reward, her freedom her chance of happiness she thought much about herself and resolved on one or two things the time for love had gone by and she would have nothing to do with it nor would she marry again for convenience but she would have friends, real friends friends who could help her and whom possibly she might help she would too make some career for herself so that life might not be without an interest to her she would live in London and would become somebody at any rate in some circle accident at first rather than choice had thrown her among literary people but that accident had during the last two years been supported and corroborated by the desire which had fallen upon her of earning money she had known from the first enemy would be necessary to her not chiefly or perhaps not at all from a feeling that she and her daughter could not live comfortably together on a thousand a year but on behalf of her son she wanted no luxury but a house so placed that people might conceive of her that she lived in a proper part of the town of her daughter's prudence she was as well convinced as of her own she could trust Henrietta in everything but her son Sir Felix was not trustworthy and yet Sir Felix was the darling of her heart at the time of the writing of the three letters at which our story is supposed to begin she was driven very hard for money Sir Felix was then 25 had been in a fashionable regiment for four years had already sold out and to own the truth at once had all together wasted the property which his father had left him so much the mother knew that with her limited income she must maintain not only herself and daughter but also the baronet she did not know however the amount of the baronet's obligations nor indeed did he or anyone else a baronet holding a commission in the guards and known to have had a fortune left him by his father may go very far in getting into debt and Sir Felix had made full use of all his privileges his life had been in every way bad he had become a burden on his mother so heavy and on his sister also that their life had become one of unavoidable embarrassments but not for a moment had either of them ever quarreled with him Henrietta had been taught by the conduct of both father and mother that every vice might be forgiven in a man and in the son though every virtue was expected from a woman and especially from a daughter the lesson had come to her so early in life that she had learned it the feeling of any grievance she lamented her brother's evil conduct as it affected him but she pardoned it all together as it affected herself that all her interests in life should be made subservient to him was natural to her and when she found that her little comforts were discontinued and her moderate expenses curtailed because he having eaten up all that was his own was now eating up also all that was his mother's she never complained but Henrietta had been taught to think that men in that rank of life in which she had been born always did eat up everything the mother's feeling was less noble or perhaps it might better be said more open to censure the boy who had been beautiful as a star had ever been the sinister of her eyes the one thing on which her heart had riveted itself even during the career of his folly she had hardly ventured to say a word to him with the purport of stopping him from going on the road to ruin in everything she had spoiled him as a boy and in everything she still spoiled him as a man she was almost proud of his vices and had taken delight in hearing of doings which if not vicious of themselves had been ruinous from their extravagance she had so indulged him that even in her own presence he was never ashamed of his own selfishness or apparently conscious of the injustice which he did to others all this it had come to pass that that dabbling in literature which had been commenced partly perhaps from a sense of pleasure in the work partly as a passport into society had been converted into hard work by which money if possible might be earned so that Lady Carberry when she wrote to her friends the editors of her struggles was speaking the truth tidings had reached her of this and the other man's success and coming near to her still was a gentleman's earnings in literature and it had seemed to her that within moderate limits she might give a wide field to her hopes why should she not add a thousand a year to her income so that Felix might again live like a gentleman and marry that heiress who in Lady Carberry's lookout into the future was destined to make all things straight who was so handsome as her son who could make himself more agreeable who had more of that audacity which is the chief thing necessary to the winning of heiresses and then he could make his wife Lady Carberry if only enough money might be earned to tide over the present evil day all might be well the one most essential obstacle to the chance of success in all this was probably Lady Carberry's conviction that her end was to be obtained not by producing good books but by inducing certain people to say that her books were good she did work hard at what she wrote hard enough at any rate to cover her pages quickly and was by nature a clever woman she could write after a glib commonplace sprightly fashion and had already acquired the knack of spreading all she knew very thin so that it might cover a vast surface she had no ambition to write a good book but was painfully anxious to write a book that the critic should say was good had Mr. Brown in his closet told her that her book was absolutely trash but had undertaken at the same time to have it violently praised in the breakfast table it may be doubted whether the critic's own opinion would have even wounded her vanity the woman was false from head to foot but there was much of good in her false though she was whether Sir Felix her son had become what he was solely by bad training or whether he had been born bad who shall say it is hardly possible that he should not have been better than a boy as an infant and subjected to moral training by moral teachers and yet again it is hardly possible that any training or want of training should have produced a heart so utterly incapable of feeling for others as his was he could not even feel his own misfortunes unless they touched the outward comforts of the moment it seemed that he lacked sufficient imagination to realize future misery though the futurity to be considered was divided from the present but by a single month by a single week but by a single night he liked to be kindly treated to be praised and petted to be well fed and caressed and they who so treated him were his chosen friends he had in this the instincts of a horse not approaching the higher sympathies of a dog but it cannot be said of him that he had ever loved anyone to the extent of denying himself a moment's gratification on that loved one's behalf but he was beautiful to look at ready-witted and intelligent he was very dark with that soft olive complexion which so generally gives to young men an appearance of aristocratic breeding his hair which was never allowed to become long was nearly black and was soft and silky without that taint of grease which is so common with silken-headed darlings his eyes were long brown in color and were made beautiful with the perfect arch of the perfect eyebrow but perhaps the glory of the face was due more to the finished molding and fine symmetry of the nose and mouth than to his other features on his short upper lip he had a mustache as well formed as his eyebrows but he wore no other beard the form of his chin too was perfect but it lacked that sweetness and softness of expression indicative of softness of heart which a dimple conveys at eight nine in height and was as excellent in figure as in face it was admitted by men and clamorously asserted by women that no man had ever been more handsome than Felix Carberry and it was admitted also that he never showed consciousness of his beauty he had given himself heirs on many scores on the score of his money poor fool while it lasted on the score of his title on the score of his army standing till he lost it he had no priority in fashionable intellect but he had been clever enough to dress himself always with simplicity and to avoid the appearance of thought about his outward man as yet the little world of his associates had hardly found out how callous were his affections or rather how devoid he was of affection his heirs and his appearance joined with some cleverness had carried him through even the viciousness of his life in one matter he had marred his name had injured his character among his friends more than he had done by the folly of three years there had been a quarrel between him and a brother officer in which he had been the aggressor and when the moment came in which a man's heart should have produced manly conduct he had first threatened and had then shown the white feather that was now a year since and he had partly outlived the evil but some men still remembered that Felix Carberry had been cowed and had cowered and was now his business to marry an heiress he was well aware that it was so and was quite prepared to face his destiny but he lacked something in the art of making love he was beautiful, had the manners of a gentleman could talk well, lacked nothing of audacity and had no feeling of repugnance at declaring a passion which he did not feel but he knew so little of the passion that he could hardly make even a young girl believe that he felt it when he talked of love he not only thought that he was talking nonsense but showed that he thought so from this fault he had already failed with one young lady reputed to have 40,000 pounds who had refused him because as she naively said she knew he did not really care how can I show that I care more than by wishing to make you my wife he had asked I don't know that you can but all the same you don't care now there was another young lady to whom the reader shall be introduced in time whom Sir Felix was instigated to pursue with unremitting diligence her wealth was not defined as had been the 40,000 pounds of her predecessor but was known to be very much greater than that it was indeed generally supposed to be fathomless, bottomless, endless it was said that in regard to money for ordinary expenditure money for houses, servants, horses, jewels and the like one sum was the same as another to the father of this young lady he had great concerns concerns so great that the payment of 10 or 20,000 pounds upon any trifle was the same thing to him as to men who are comfortable in their circumstances it matters little whether they pay six pence or nine pence for their mutton chops such a man may be ruined at any time but there was no doubt that to anyone marrying his daughter during the present season of his outrageous prosperity he could give a very large fortune indeed Lady Carberry who had known the rock on which her son had been once wrecked was very anxious that Sir Felix should at once make a proper use of the intimacy which he had effected in the house of this topping process of the day and now there must be a few words said about Henrietta Carberry of course she was of infinitely less importance than her brother who was a baronette the head of that branch of the Carberry and her mother's darling and therefore a few words should suffice she also was very lovely being like her brother but somewhat less dark and with features less absolutely regular but she had in her countenance a full measure of that sweetness of expression which seems to imply that consideration of self is subordinated to consideration for others this sweetness was altogether lacking to her brother and her face was a true index of her character again who shall say why the brother and sister had become so opposite to each other whether they would have been thus different had both been taken away as infants from their fathers and mothers training or whether the girls virtues were owing all together to the lower place which she had held in her parents heart she at any rate had not been spoiled by a title by the command of money and by the temptations of too early acquaintance with the world at the present time she was barely 21 years old and had not seen much of London's society her mother did not frequent balls and during the last two years they had grown upon them a necessity for economy which was inimical to many gloves and costly dresses Sir Felix went out of course but Hedda Carberry spent most of her time at home with her mother in Wellbeck Street occasionally the world saw her and when the world did see her the world declared that she was a charming girl the world was so far right but for Henrietta Carberry the romance of life had already commenced in real earnest there was another branch of the Carberry's the head branch which was now represented by one Roger Carberry of Carberry Hall Roger Carberry was a gentleman of whom much will have to be said but here at this moment it need only be told that he was passionately in love with his cousin Henrietta he was however nearly 40 years old and there was one Paul Montague whom Henrietta had seen End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of The Way We Live Now this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollop Chapter 3 The Bear Garden Lady Carberry's house in Wellbeck Street was a modest house enough with no pretensions to be a mansion hardly assuming even to be a residence but having some money in her hands when she first took it she had made it pretty and pleasant and was still proud to feel that in spite of the hardness of her position she had comfortable belongings around her when her literary friends came to see her on Tuesday evenings Here she was now living with her son and daughter the back drawing room was divided from the front by doors that were permanently closed and in this she carried on her great work Here she wrote her books and contrived her system for the invagling of editors and critics Here she was rarely disturbed by her daughter and admitted no visitors except editors and critics but her son was controlled by no household laws and would break in upon her privacy without remorse She had hardly finished two galloping notes after completing her letter to Mr. Ferdinand Alf when Felix entered the room with a cigar in his mouth and threw himself upon the sofa My dear boy, she said, pray leave your tobacco below when you come in here What affectation it is, mother, he said Throwing, however, the half-smoked cigar into the fireplace Some women swear they like smoke Others say they hate it like the devil It depends all together on whether they wish to flatter or snub a fellow You don't suppose that I wish to snub you Upon my word I don't know I wonder whether you can let me have twenty pounds My dear Felix Just so, mother, but how about the twenty pounds? What is it for, Felix? Well, to tell the truth to carry on the game for the knots till something is settled A fellow can't live without some money in his pocket I do with as little as most fellows I pay for nothing that I can help I even get my hair cut on credit and as long as it was possible I had a broom to save cabs What is to be the end of it, Felix? I never could see the end of anything, mother I never could nurse a horse when the hounds were going well in order to be in it to finish I never could pass a dish that I liked in favor of those that were to follow What's the use? The young man did not say Carpe diem but that was the philosophy which he intended to preach Have you been at the Melmonts today? It was now five o'clock on a winter afternoon the hour at which ladies are drinking tea and idle men playing wist at the clubs at which young idle men are sometimes allowed to flirt at which, as Lady Carberry thought, her son might have been paying his court to Marie Melmont, the great heiress I have just come away and what do you think of her? To tell the truth, mother, I have thought very little about her She is not pretty, she is not plain she is not clever, she is not stupid she is neither saint nor sinner the more likely to make a good wife Perhaps so I am at any rate quite willing to believe that as wife she would be good enough for me What does the mother say? The mother is a caution I cannot help speculating whether if I marry the daughter I shall ever find out where the mother came from Dolly Longstaff says that somebody says that she was a Bohemian Jewish but I think she is too fat for that What does it matter, Felix? Not in the least Is she civil to you? Yes, civil enough Mother? Well, he does not turn me out or anything of that sort Of course, there are half a dozen after her and I think the old fellow is bewildered among them all He is thinking more of getting dukes to dine with him than of his daughter's lovers Any fellow might pick her up who happened to hit her fancy and why not you? Why not, mother? I am doing my best and it is no good flogging a willing horse Can you let me have the money? Felix, I think you hardly know how poor we are You have still got your hunters down at the place I have got two horses, if you mean that and I haven't paid a shilling for their keep since the season began Look here, mother this is a risky sort of game I grant but I am playing it by your advice If I can marry Miss Melmott I suppose all will be right but I don't think the way to get her would be to throw up everything and let all the world know that I haven't got a copper To do that kind of thing I must live a little up to the mark I brought my hunting down to a minimum but if I gave it up altogether there would be lots of fellows to tell them in Grovener Square why I had done so There was an apparent truth in this argument which the poor woman was unable to answer Before the interview was over the money demanded was forthcoming though at the time it could be but ill afford it and the youth went away apparently with a light heart hardly listening to his mothers and treaties that the affair with Marie Melmott if possible be brought to a speedy conclusion Felix, when he left his mother went down to the only club to which he now belonged Clubs are pleasant resorts in all respects but one They require ready money or even worse than that in respect to annual payments money in advance and the young Baronet had been absolutely forced to restrict himself He, as a matter of course out of those to which he had possessed the right of entrance chose the worst It was called the Bear Garden and had been lately opened with the express view of combining persimony with profligacy Clubs were ruined so said certain young parsimonious profligates by providing comforts for old fogies who paid little or nothing but their subscriptions and took out by their mere presence three times as much as they gave This club was not to be open until three o'clock in the afternoon before which hour the promoters of the Bear Garden thought it improbable that they and their fellows would want a club There were to be no morning papers taken no library, no morning room dining rooms, billiard rooms and card rooms would suffice for the Bear Garden Everything was to be provided by a purveyor so that the clubs should be cheated only by one man Everything was to be luxurious but the luxuries were to be achieved at first cost It had been a happy thought and the club was said to prosper Herr Wozner, the purveyor, was a jewel and so carried on affairs that there was no trouble about anything He would assist even in smoothing little difficulties as to the settling of card accounts and had behaved with the greatest tenderness to the drawers of checks whose bankers had harshly declared them to have no effects Herr Wozner was a jewel and the Bear Garden was a success Perhaps no young man about town enjoyed the Bear Garden more thoroughly than did Sir Felix Carberry The club was in the close vicinity of other clubs in a small street turning out of St. James's Street and peaked itself on its outward quietness and sobriety Why pay for stonework for other people to look at? Why lay out money and marble pillars and cornices seeing that you can neither eat such things nor drink them nor gamble with them But the Bear Garden had the best wines or thought that it had and the easiest chairs and two billiard tables than which nothing more perfect had ever been made to stand upon legs Hithers Sir Felix wended on that January afternoon as soon as he had his mother's check for 20 pounds in his pocket He found his special friend, Dolly Longstaff standing on the steps with a cigar in his mouth and gazing vacantly at the Dahlberg House opposite Going to dine here Dolly, said Sir Felix I suppose I shall because it's such a lot of trouble to go anywhere else I'm engaged somewhere I know but I'm not up to getting home and dressing By George, I don't know how fellows do that kind of thing I can't Going to hunt tomorrow? Well, yes, but I don't suppose I shall I was going to hunt every day last week but my fellow never would get me up in time I can't tell why it is that things are done in such a beastly way Why shouldn't fellows begin to hunt at two or three so that a fellow needn't get up in the middle of the night One can't ride by moonlight, Dolly It isn't moonlight at three At any rate, I can't get myself to Houston Square by nine I don't think that fellow of mine likes getting up himself He says he comes in and wakes me but I never remember it How many horses have you got at Thayton, Dolly? How many? There were five, but I think that fellow down there sold one but then I think he bought another I know he did something as I suppose That is, of course, I ride them myself only I so seldom get down Somebody told me that Grasslaw was riding two of them last week I don't think I ever told him he might I think he tipped that fellow of mine and I call that a low kind of thing to do I'd ask him, only I know he'd say that I had lent them Perhaps I did when I was tight, you know You and Grasslaw were never pals I don't like him a bit He gives himself heirs because he is a lord and is devilish ill-natured, I don't know why he should want to ride my horses to save his own He isn't hard up, why doesn't he have his own horses? I'll tell you what, Carberry I've made up my mind to one thing and by Jove I'll stick to it I never will lend a horse again to anybody If fellows want horses, let them buy them But some fellows haven't got any money, Dolly Then they ought to go check I don't think I've paid for any of mine I bought this season, there was somebody here yesterday What, here at the club? Yes, followed me here to say he wanted to be paid for something It was horses, I think because of the fellows trousers What did you say? Me? Oh, I didn't say anything And how did it end? When he'd done talking I offered him a cigar and while he was biting off the end went upstairs, I suppose he went away when he was tired of waiting I'll tell you what, Dolly, I wish you'd let me ride two of yours for a couple of days That is, of course, if you don't want them yourself You ain't tight now at any rate No, I ain't tight, said Dolly with melancholy acquiescence I mean, that I wouldn't like to borrow your horses without you remembering all about it Nobody knows as well as you do how awfully done up I am I shall pull through at last but it's an awful squeeze in the meantime There's nobody I'd ask such a favor of except you Well, you may have them That is, for two days I don't know whether that fellow of mine will believe you He wouldn't believe Grasslow and told him so But Grasslow took them out of the stables That's what somebody told me You could ride a line to your groom Oh, my dear fellow, that is such a bore I don't think I could do that My fellow will believe you because you and I have been pals I think I'll have a little drop of Krakow before dinner Come along and try it It'll give us an appetite It was then nearly seven o'clock Nine hours afterwards, the same two men with two others of whom young Lord Grasslow Dolly Longstaff's peculiar aversion was one were just rising from a card table in one of the upstairs rooms of the club for it was understood that though the bear garden was not to be opened before three o'clock in the afternoon the accommodation denied during the day was to be given freely during the night No man could get a breakfast at the bear garden The suppers at three o'clock in the morning were quite within the rule Such a supper or rather succession of suppering there had been tonight Various devils and broils and hot toasts having been brought up from time to time first for one and then for another But there had been no cessation of gambling since the cards had first been opened about ten o'clock At four in the morning Dolly Longstaff was certainly in a condition to lend his horses and to remember nothing about it He was quite affectionate with Lord Grasslow as he was also with his other companions affection being the normal state of his mind within that condition He was by no means helplessly drunk and was perhaps hardly more silly than when he was sober but he was willing to play at any game whether he understood it or not and for any stakes When Sir Felix got up and said he would play no more Dolly also got up apparently quite contented When Lord Grasslow with a dark scowl on his face expressed his opinion that it was not just the thing for men to break up like that when so much money had been lost Dolly is willingly sat down again but Dolly's sitting down was not sufficient I'm going to hunt tomorrow said Sir Felix meaning that day and I shall play no more A man must go to bed at some time I don't see it at all said Lord Grasslow It's an understood thing that when a man has won as much as you have he should stay Stay how long? said Sir Felix with an angry look That's nonsense There must be an end of everything and there's an end of this for me tonight Oh, if you choose said his lordship I do choose Good night Dolly We'll settle this next time we meet I've got it all entered The night had been one very serious in its results to Sir Felix He had sat down to the card table with the proceeds of his mother's check a poor twenty pounds and now he had he didn't at all know how much in his pockets He also had drunk but not so as to obscure his mind He knew that Longstaff owed him over three hundred pounds and he knew also that he had received more than that in ready money in checks from Lord Grasslow and the other player Dolly Longstaff's money too would certainly be paid though Dolly did complain of the importunity of his tradesmen As he walked up St. James Street looking for a cab he presumed himself to be worth over seven hundred pounds When begging for a small sum from Lady Carberry he had said that he could not carry on the game without some ready money and had considered himself fortunate in fleecing his mother as he had done Now he was in the possession of wealth of wealth that might at any rate be sufficient to aid him materially in the object he had in hand He never for a moment thought of paying his bills even the large sum which he had become so unexpectedly possessed would not have gone far with him in such a quixotic object as that But he could now look bright and by presence and be seen with money in his hands It is hard even to make love in these days without something in your purse He found no cab but in his present frame of mind was indifferent to the trouble of walking home There was something so joyous in the feeling of the possession of all this money that it made the night air pleasant to him Then, of a sudden he remembered the low wail with which his mother had spoken of her poverty when he demanded assistance from her Now he could give her back the twenty pounds But it occurred to him, sharply with an amount of carefulness quite new to him that it would be foolish to do so How soon might he want it again and moreover he could not repay the money without explaining to her how he had gotten it It would be preferable to say nothing about his money As he let himself into the house and went up to his room he resolved that he would not say anything about it On that morning he was at the station at nine and hunted down in Buckinghamshire riding two of Dolly Longstaff's horses for the use of which he paid Dolly Longstaff's fellow thirty shilling End of chapter three Chapter four of the way we live now This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollop Chapter four Madame Melmont's Ball The next night but one after that of the gambling transaction at the Bear Garden a great ball was given in Grovner Square It was a ball on a scale so magnificent that it had been talked about ever since Parliament met now about a fortnight since Some people had expressed an opinion that such a ball as this was intended to be could not be given successfully in February Others declared that the money which was to be spent an amount which would make this affair quite new in the annals of ball giving would give the thing such a character that it would certainly be successful And much more than money had been expended Almost incredible efforts had been made to obtain the cooperation of great people and these efforts had at last been grandly successful The Duchess of Stevanage had come up from Castle Albury herself to be present at it and to bring her daughters though it has never been her gracious want to be in London at this inclement season No doubt the persuasion used with the Duchess had been very strong Her brother Lord Alfred Grendel was known to be in great difficulties which, so people said, had been considerably modified by opportune pecuniary assistance And then it was certain that one of the young Grendels Lord Alfred's second son had been appointed to some mercantile position for which he received a salary which his most intimate friends thought that he was hardly qualified to earn It was certainly a fact that he went to Abchurch Lane in the city four or five days a week and that he did not occupy his time in so unaccustomed a manner for nothing Where the Duchess of Stevanage went the world would go and it became known at the last moment, that is to say only the day before the party that a prince of the blood royal was to be there How this had been achieved nobody quite understood But there were rumors that a certain lady's jewels had been rescued from the pawnbrokers Everything was done on the same scale The prime minister had indeed declined to allow his name to appear on the list But one cabinet minister and two or three undersecretaries agreed to come because it was felt that the giver of the ball might before long be the master of considerable parliamentary interest It was believed that he had an eye to politics and it is always wise to have great wealth on one's own side There had at one time been much solicitude about the ball Many anxious thoughts had been given When great attempts failed the failure is disastrous and may be ruinous but it is put beyond the chance of failure The giver of the ball was Augustus Melmont Esquire the father of the girl whom Sir Felix Carberry desired to marry and the husband of the lady who was said to have been a Bohemian Jewess It was thus that the gentleman chose to have himself designated though within the last two years he had arrived in London from Paris and had at first been known as Monsieur Melmont But he had declared of himself that he had been born in England and that he was an Englishman He admitted that his wife was a foreigner an admission that was necessary as she spoke very little English Melmont himself spoke his native language fluently but with an accent which betrayed at least along expatriation Miss Melmont who a very short time since had been known as Madame Moussel Marie spoke English well but as a foreigner it was acknowledged that she had been born out of England some said in New York but Madame Melmont who must have known had declared that the great event had taken place in Paris It was at any rate an established fact that Mr. Melmont had made his wealth in France He no doubt had had enormous dealings in other countries as to which stories were told which must surely have been exaggerated It was said that he had made a railway across Russia and commissioned the Southern Army in the American Civil War that he had supplied Austria with arms and had at one time bought up all the iron in England He could make or mar any company by buying or selling stock and could make money dear or cheap as he pleased All this was said of him in his praise but it was also said that he was regarded in Paris as the most gigantic swindler that had ever lived but he had endeavored to establish himself in Vienna but had been warned away by the police and that he had at length found that British freedom would alone allow him to enjoy without persecution the fruits of his industry He was now established privately in Grosvenor Square and officially in Abchurch Lane and it was known to all the world that a royal prince, a cabinet minister and the very cream of duchesses were going to his wife's ball and be done within twelve months There was but one child in the family one heiress for all this wealth Melmont himself was a large man with bushy whiskers and rough thick hair with heavy eyebrows and a wonderful look of power about his mouth and chin This was so strong as to redeem his face from vulgarity but the countenance and appearance of the man were on the whole unpleasant and I may say untrustworthy but they were purse proud and a bully She was fat and fair unlike in color to our traditional but she had the Jewish nose and the Jewish contraction of the eyes There was certainly very little in Madame Melmont to recommend her unless it was a readiness to spend money on any object that might be suggested to her by her new acquaintances It sometimes seemed that she had a commission from her husband to give away presents to anyone with them The world had received the man as Augustus Melmont Esquire The world so addressed him on the very numerous letters which reached him and so inscribed him among the directors of three dozen companies to which he belonged but his wife was still Madame Melmont The daughter had been allowed to take her rank with an English title She was now Miss Melmont on all occasions Marie Melmont had been accurately described by Felix Carberry to his mother She was not beautiful she was not clever and she was not a saint but then neither was she plain nor stupid nor especially a sinner She was a little thing, hardly over 20 years of age Very unlike her father or mother having no trace of the Jewish in her countenance who seemed to be overwhelmed by the sense of her own position With such people as the Melmonts things go fast and it was very well known that Miss Melmont had already had one lover who had been nearly accepted The affair however had gone off In this going off no one imputed to the young lady blame or even misfortune it was not supposed that she had either jilted or been jilted As in royal espousals interests of state regulate their expedience with an acknowledged absence was even a proclaimed impossibility of personal predilections so in this case was money allowed at the same weight Such a marriage would or would not be sanctioned in accordance with great pecuniary arrangements The young Lord Nitterdale the eldest son of the Marquis of Old Reiki had offered to take the girl and make her a Martianess in the process of time for half a million down Melmont had not objected to the sum so it was said but had proposed to tie it up Nitterdale had desired to have it free and not move on any other terms Melmont had been anxious to secure the Marquis very anxious to secure the Martianess for at that time terms had not been made with the Duchess but at last he had lost his temper and had asked his lordship's lawyer whether it was likely that he would entrust such a sum of money to such a man You are willing to trust your only child to him said the lawyer Melmont scowled at the man for a few seconds under his bushy eyebrows then told him that his answer had nothing in it and marched out of the room so that affair was over I doubt whether Lord Nitterdale had ever said a word of love to Marie Melmont or whether the poor girl had expected it her destiny had no doubt been explained to her others had tried and had broken down somewhat in the same fashion each had treated the girl as an encumbrance he was to undertake at a very great price but as affairs prospered with Melmont's as princes and duchesses were obtained by other means costly no doubt but not so ruinously costly the immediate disposition of Marie became less necessary and Melmont reduced his offers the girl herself too began to have an opinion it was said that she had absolutely rejected Lord Grasslow whose father indeed was in a state of bankruptcy who had no income of his own who was ugly, vicious, ill-tempered and without any power of recommending himself to a girl she had had experience since Lord Nitterdale with a half laugh had told her that he might just as well take her for his wife and was now tempted from time to time to contemplate her own happiness and her own condition people around were beginning to say that if Sir Felix Carberry managed his affairs well he might be the happy man there was a considerable doubt whether Marie was the daughter of that Jewish looking woman inquiries had been made but not successfully as to the date of the Melmont marriage there was an idea abroad that Melmont had got his first money with his wife and had gotten it not very long ago then other people said that Marie was not his daughter at all altogether the mystery was rather pleasant as the money was certain of the certainty of the money in daily use there could be no doubt there was the house there was the furniture there were the carriages, the horses the servants with the livery coats and powdered heads and the servants with the black coats and un-powdered heads there were the gems and the presents and all the nice things that money could buy there were two dinner parties every day one at two o'clock called lunch and the other at eight the tradesmen had learned enough to be quite free of doubt and in the city Mr. Melmont's name was given the money though his character was perhaps worth but little the large house on the south side of Grovner Square was all ablaze by ten o'clock the broad veranda had been turned into a conservatory had been covered with boards contrived to look like trellis work was heated with hot air and filled with exotics at some fabulous price a covered way had been made from the door down across the pathway to the road had been bribed to frighten foot passengers into a belief that they were bound to go round the house had been so arranged that it was impossible to know where you were when once in it the hall was a paradise the staircase was fairyland the lobbies were grottoes rich with ferns walls had been knocked away and arches had been constructed the leads behind had been supported and walled in and covered and carpeted the ball had possession of the ground floor and first floor and the house seemed to be endless it's to cost sixty thousand pounds said the Martianess of Aldrichie to her old friend the Countess of Midlothien the Martianess had come in spite of her son's misfortune when she heard that the Duchess of Stevanage was to be there and worse spent money never was wasted said the Countess by all accounts it was as badly come by said the Martianess the noble women one after the other made graciously flattering speeches to the much worn Bohemian Jewess who was standing in fairyland to receive her guests almost fainting under the greatness of the occasion the three saloons on the first or drawing room floor had been prepared for dancing and here Marie was stationed the Duchess had however undertaken to see that somebody should set the dancing going and she had commissioned her nephew the young gentleman who now frequented the city to give directions to the band and to make himself generally useful indeed there had sprung up a considerable intimacy between the Grendal family that is Lord Alfred's branch of the Grendals and the Melmots which was as it should be as each could give much and each receive much it was known that Lord Alfred had not a shilling but his brother was a Duke and his sister was a Duchess for thirty years there had been one continual anxiety for poor dear Alfred who had tumbled into an unfortunate marriage without a shilling had spent his own moderate patrimony had three sons and three daughters and had lived now for a very long time entirely on the unwilling contributions of his noble relatives Melmot could support the whole family in affluence without feeling the burden and why should he not there had once been an idea that Miles should attempt to win the heiress but it had soon been found expedient to abandon it Miles had no title, no position of his own and was hardly big enough for the place it was in all respects better that the waters of the fountain should be allowed to irrigate mildly the whole Grendal family and so Miles went into the city the ball was opened by a quadrill in which Lord Buntingford the eldest son of the Duchess stood up with Marie various arrangements had been made in this among them we may say that it had been a part of the bargain Lord Buntingford had objected mildly being a young man devoted to business fond of his own order rather shy and not given to dancing but he had allowed his mother to prevail of course there are vulgar the Duchess had said so much so as to be no longer distasteful because of the absurdity of the thing he had been very honest when men make so much money I don't know how they can have been honest of course it's done for a purpose it's all very well saying that it isn't right but what are we to do about Alfred's children Miles is to have five hundred pounds a year and then he is always about the house and between you and me they have got up those bills of Alfred's and have said they can lie in their safe till it suits your uncle to pay them they will lie there a long time of course they expect something in return do dance with the girl once Lord Buntingford disapproved mildly and did as his mother asked him the affair went off very well there were three or four card tables in one of the lower rooms and at one of them sat Lord Alfred Grendahl and Mr. Melmont with two or three other players cutting in and out at the end of each rubber playing wisp was Lord Alfred's only accomplishment and almost the only occupation of his life he began it daily at his club at three o'clock and continued playing till two in the morning with an interval of a couple of hours for his dinner this he did during ten months of the year and during the other two he frequented some watering place at which wisp prevailed he did not gamble never playing for more than the club's stakes and bets his whole mind and must have excelled those who were generally opposed to him but so obdurate was fortunate to Lord Alfred that he could not make money even of wisp Melmont was very anxious to get into Lord Alfred's club the parapetetics it was pleasant to see the grace with which he lost his money and the sweet intimacy with which he called his lordship Alfred Lord Alfred had a remnant of feeling left of light to kick him though Melmont was by far the bigger man and was also the younger Lord Alfred would not have lacked the pluck to kick him Lord Alfred, in spite of his habitual idleness and vapid uselessness had still left about him a dash of vigor and sometimes thought that he would kick Melmont and have done with it but there were his poor boys in those bills in Melmont safe and then Melmont lost his points so regularly and paid his bets with absolute good humor come and have a glass of champagne Alfred Melmont said as the two cut out together Lord Alfred liked champagne and followed his host but as he went he almost made up his mind that on some future day he would kick the man late in the evening Marie Melmont was waltzing with Felix Carberry and Henrietta Carberry was then standing by talking to one Mr. Paul Montague Lady Carberry was also there she was not well inclined either to balls or to such people as the Melmonts nor was Henrietta but Felix had suggested that bearing in mind his prospects as to the heiress they had better accept the invitation which he would cause to have sent to them they did so and then Paul Montague also got a card not all together to Lady Carberry's satisfaction Lady Carberry was very gracious to Madame Melmont for two minutes and then slid into a chair expecting nothing but misery for the evening she however was a woman who could do her duty and endure without complaint it is the first great ball I ever was at in London said Head of Carberry to Paul Montague and how do you like it not at all how should I like it I know nobody here I don't understand how it is that at these parties people do know each other or whether they all go dancing about without knowing just that I suppose when they are used to it they get introduced backwards and forwards and then they can know each other as fast as they like if you would wish to dance why don't you dance with me I have danced with you twice already is there any log against dancing three times but I don't especially want to dance said Henrietta I think I'll go and console poor Mama who has got nobody to speak to her just at this moment however Lady Carberry was not in that wretched condition as an unexpected friend had come to her relief Sir Felix and Marie Melmont had been spinning round and round throughout a long waltz thoroughly enjoying the excitement of the music and the movement to give Felix Carberry what little praise might be his due it is necessary to say that he did not lack physical activity he would dance and ride and shoot eagerly with a formation that made him happy for the moment it was an affair not of thought or calculation but of physical organization and Marie Melmont had been thoroughly happy she loved dancing with all her heart if she could only dance in a manner pleasant to herself she had been warned especially as to some men that she should not dance with them she had been almost thrown into Lord Nitterdale's arms and had been prepared to take him to Father's bidding but she had never had the slightest pleasure in his society and had only not been retched because she had not as yet recognized that she had an identity of her own in the disposition of which she herself should have a voice she certainly had never cared to dance with Lord Nitterdale Lord Graslau she had absolutely hated though at first she had hardly dared to say so one or two others had been obnoxious in their ways but they had passed on or were passing on out of her way there was no one at the present moment whom she had been commanded by her father to accept should an offer be made but she did like dancing with Sir Felix Carberry it was not only that the man was handsome but that he had a power of changing the expression of his countenance a play of face which belied altogether his real disposition he could seem to be hearty and true a name in which he had really to expose his heart or to try to expose it then he failed knowing nothing about it but in the approaches to intimacy with a girl he could be very successful he had already nearly got beyond this with Marie Melmont but Marie was by no means quick in discovering his deficiencies to her he had seemed like a god if she might be allowed to be wooed by Sir Felix Carberry and to give herself to him he intended how well you dance said Sir Felix as soon as he had breath for speaking do I she spoke with a slightly foreign accent which gave a little prettiness to her speech I was never told so but nobody ever told me anything about myself I should like to tell you everything about yourself from the beginning to the end ah but you don't know I would find out I think I could make some good guesses I'll tell you what you would like best in all the world what is that somebody that liked you best in all the world ah yes if one knew who how can you know Miss Melmont but by believing that is not the way to know if a girl told me that she liked me better than any other girl I should not know it just because she said so I should have to find it out and if a gentleman told you so I shouldn't believe him a bit and I should not care to find out but I should like to have some girl for a friend whom I could love oh ten times better than myself so should I have you no particular friend I mean a girl whom I could love oh ten times better than myself now you are laughing at me Sir Felix said Miss Melmont I wonder whether that will come to anything said Paul Montague to Miss Carberry they had come back into the drawing room and had been watching the approaches to lovemaking which the baronet was opening you mean Felix and Miss Melmont I hate to think of such things Mr. Montague it would be a magnificent chance for him to marry a girl the daughter of vulgar people just because she will have a great deal of money he can't care for her really because she is rich but he wants money so dreadfully to me that there is no other condition of things under which Felix can face the world but by being the husband of an heiress what a dreadful thing to say but isn't it true he has beggared himself oh Mr. Montague and he will beggar you and your mother I don't care about myself others do though as he said this he did not look at her but spoke through his teeth as if he were angry both with himself and her I did not think you would have spoken so harshly of Felix I don't speak harshly of him Miss Carberry I haven't said that it was his own fault he seems to be one of those who have been born to spend money and as this girl will have plenty of money to spend I think it would be a good thing if he were to marry her if Felix had twenty thousand pounds a year everybody would think him the finest fellow in the world in saying this however Mr. Paul Montague showed himself unfit to gauge the opinion of the world whether Sir Felix be rich or poor the world evil hearted as it is will never think him a fine fellow Lady Carberry had been seated for nearly half an hour in uncomplaining solitude under a bust when she was delighted by the appearance of Mr. Ferdinand Alf you here she said why not Melmont and I are brother adventurers I should have thought you would find so little here to amuse you I have found you and in addition to that duchesses and their daughters without number they expect Prince George do they and Leggy Wilson from the India office is here already I spoke to him in some jeweled bow as I made my way here not five minutes since it's quite a success don't you think it very nice Lady Carberry I don't know whether you are joking or an earnest I never joke I say it is very nice these people are spending thousands upon thousands to gratify you and me and others and all they want in return is a little countenance do you mean to give it then I am giving it them ah but the countenance of the evening pulpit do you mean to give them that well it is not in our line exactly to give a catalogue of names and to record Lady's dresses perhaps it may be better for our host himself that he should be kept out of the newspapers are you going to be very severe upon poor me Mr. Elf said the lady after a pause we are never severe upon anybody Lady Carberry here's the Prince what will they do with him now they've caught him oh they're going to make him dance with the heiress poor heiress poor Prince said Lady Carberry not at all she's a nice little girl enough and he'll have nothing to trouble him but how is she poor thing to talk to royal blood poor thing indeed the Prince was brought into the big room where Marie was still being talked to by Felix Carberry and was at once made to understand that she was to stand up and dance with royalty the introduction was managed in a very business like manner Miles Grendel first came in and found the female victim the Duchess followed with the male victim Madame Melmont who had been on her legs till she was ready to sink she rolled behind but was not allowed to take any part in the affair the band were playing a gallop but that was stopped at once to the great confusion of the dancers in two minutes Miles Grendel had made up a set he stood up with his aunt the Duchess as vis-a-vis to Marie and the Prince tell about the middle of the quadril Lega Wilson was found and made to take his place Lord Buntingford had gone away but then there were still present members of the Duchess who were rapidly caught Sir Felix Carberry being good looking and having a name was made to dance with one of them and Lord Graslau with the other there were four other couples all made up of titled people as it was intended that the special dance should be chronicled if not in the evening pulpit in some less serious daily journal a paid reporter was present in the house ready to rush off with the list as soon as the dance would be a realized fact the Prince himself did not quite understand why he was there but they who marshalled his life for him had so marshalled it for the present moment he himself probably knew nothing about the ladies diamonds which had been rescued or the considerable subscription to St. George's hospital which had been extracted from Mr. Malmont as a make-wait poor Marie felt as though the burden of the hour would be greater and looked as though she would have fled had flight been possible but the trouble passed quickly and was not really severe the Prince said a word or two between each figure and did not seem to expect a reply he made a few words go a long way and was well trained in the work of easing the burden of his own greatness for those who were for the moment inflicted with it when the dance was over he was allowed to escape after the ceremony of a single glass of champagne drunk in the presence of the hostess considerable skill was shown in keeping the presence of his royal guest the secret from the host himself till the Prince was gone Malmont would have desired to pour out that glass of wine with his own hands to solace his tongue by royal highnesses and would probably have been troublesome and disagreeable Miles Grandal had understood all this and had managed the affair very well bless my soul his royal highness has come and gone and claimed Malmont you and my father were so fast at your wist that it was impossible to get you away said Miles Malmont was not a fool and understood it all understood not only that it had been thought better that he should not speak to the Prince but also that it might be better that it should be so he could not have everything at once Miles Grandal was very useful to him and he would not quarrel with Miles at any rate as yet have another rubber Alfred he said to Miles' father as the carriages were taking away the guests Lord Alfred had taken sundry glasses of champagne and for a moment forgot the bills and the safe and the good things which his boys were receiving damn that kind of nonsense he said call people by their proper names then he left the house without a further word to the master of it that night before they went to sleep Mr. Malmont required from his weary wife an account of the ball and especially of Marie's conduct Marie, Madam Malmont said had behaved well but had certainly preferred Sir Carberry to any other of the young men hitherto Mr. Malmont had heard very little of Sir Carberry except that he was a baronette though his eyes and ears were always open though he attended to everything and was a man of sharp intelligence he did not yet quite understand the bearing and sequence of English titles he knew that he must get for his daughter either an eldest son or one absolutely in possession himself Sir Felix he had learned was only a baronette but then he was in possession he had discovered also that Sir Felix's son would in course of time also become Sir Felix he was not therefore at the present moment disposed to give any positive orders as to his daughter's conduct to the young baronette he did not however conceived that the young baronette had as yet addressed his girl in such words as Felix had in truth used when they parted you know who it is he whispered likes you better than anyone else in the world nobody does don't Sir Felix I do he said as he held her hand for a minute he looked into her face and she thought it very sweet he had studied the words as a lesson and repeating them as a lesson he did it fairly well he did it well enough at any rate to send the poor girl to bed with a sweet conviction that at last a man had spoken to her whom she could love End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of The Way We Live Now This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollop Chapter 5 After the Ball It's weary work said Sir Felix as he got into the broom with his mother and sister What must it have been to me then who had nothing to do said his mother It's the having something to do that makes me call it weary work By the by now I think of it I'll run down to the club before I go home so saying he put his head out of the broom and stopped the driver It is two o'clock Felix said his mother I'm afraid it is but you see I'm hungry You had supper perhaps I had none Are you going down to the club for supper at this time in the morning I must go to bed hungry if I don't Good night Then he jumped out of the broom called a cab and had himself driven to the bear garden He declared to himself that he had been of him if he did not give them their revenge He had renewed his play on the preceding night and had again won Dolly Longstaff owed him now a considerable sum of money and Lord Grasslow was also in his debt He was sure that Grasslow would go to the club after the ball and he was determined that they should not think that he had submitted to be carried home by his mother and sister So he argued with himself but in truth the devil of gambling was the devil of capitalism and though he feared that in losing he might lose real money and that if he won it would be long before he was paid yet he could not keep himself from the card table Neither mother or daughter said a word till they reached home and had got upstairs Then the elder spoke of the trouble that was nearest to her heart at the moment Do you think he gambles He has got no money mama for him and he has money with him though for him and such friends as he has it is not much if he gambles everything is lost I suppose they all do play more or less I have not known that he played I am weary too out of all heart by his want of consideration to me it is not that he will not obey me a mother perhaps should not expect obedience from a grown up son but my word is nothing to him he has no respect for me he will soon do what is wrong before me as before the mirror stranger he has been so long his own master mama yes his own master and yet I must provide for him as though he were but a child Header you spent the whole evening talking to Paul Malague No mama that is unjust he was always with you I knew nobody else I could not tell him not to speak to me I danced with him twice her mother was seated with both her hands up to her forehead and shook her head if you did not want me to speak to Paul you should not have taken me there I don't wish to prevent your speaking to him you know what I want Henrietta came up and kissed her and bade her good night I think I am the unhappiest woman in all London she said sobbing hysterically is it my fault mama you could save me from much I work like a horse and I never spend a shilling that I can help I want nothing for myself nothing for myself nobody has suffered as I have but Felix never thinks of me for a moment I think of you mama if you did you would accept your cousin's offer what right have you to refuse him I believe it is all because of that young man no mama it is not because of that young man I like my cousin very much but that is all good night mama Lady Carberry just allowed herself to be kissed and then was left alone at eight o'clock the next morning Daybreak found four young men who had just risen from a card table at the bear garden the bear garden was so pleasant a club that there was no rule whatsoever as to its being closed the only law being that it should not be opened before three in the afternoon that had however been given to the servants to demur to producing supper or drinks after six in the morning so that about eight unrelieved tobacco began to be too heavy even for juvenile constitutions the party consisted of Dolly Longstaff, Lord Graslaw Miles Grendel and Felix Carberry and the four had amused themselves during the last six hours with various innocent games they had commenced with wist and had culminated during the last half hour with blind hooky but during the whole night Felix had won Miles Grendel hated him and there had been an expressed opinion between Miles and the young Lord that it would be both profitable and proper to relieve Sir Felix of the winnings of the last two nights the two men had played with the same object and being young had shown their intention so that a certain feeling of hostility had been engendered the reader is not to understand whether he was cheated or that the Baronet had entertained any suspicion of foul play but Felix had felt that Grendel and Graslaw were his enemies and had thrown himself on Dolly for sympathy and friendship Dolly however was very tipsy at eight o'clock in the morning there came a sort of settling though no money then passed the ready money transactions had not lasted long through the night Graslaw was the chief loser he grabbed the paper which had been passed over to Carberry when counted up amounted to nearly two thousand pounds his lordship contested the fact bitterly but contested it in vain there were his own initials and his own figures and even Miles Grendel who was supposed to be quite wide awake could not reduce the amount then Grendel had lost over four hundred pounds to Carberry an amount indeed that mattered little as Miles could at present as easily have raised forty thousand pounds however he gave his IOU to his opponent with an easy air Graslaw also was imprecunious but he had a father also imprecunious indeed but with them the matter would not be hopeless Dolly Longstaff was so tipsy that he could not even assist in making up his own account that was to be left between him and Carberry for some future occasion I suppose you'll be here tomorrow that is tonight said Miles certainly only one thing answered Felix what one thing I think these things should be squared before we play anymore what do you mean by that said Graslaw angrily do you mean to hint anything I never hint anything my grassy said Felix I believe when people play cards it's intended to be ready money that's all but I'm not going to stand on P's and Q's with you I'll give you your revenge tonight that's all right said Miles I was speaking to Lord Graslaw said Felix he is an old friend and we know each other you have been rather rough tonight Mr. Grendal rough what the devil do you mean by that and I think it will be as well that our account should be settled before we begin again a settlement once a week is the kind of thing I'm used to said Grendal there was nothing more said but the young men did not part on good terms and Felix as he got himself taken home calculated that if he could realize his spoil he might begin the campaign again with horses, servants and all luxuries as before if all were paid he would have over 3,000 pounds End of chapter 5