CHAPTER XX.

THE VEHME-GERICHT OF HAMPTON COURT.

MENTION having already been casually made of a certain Lady M’Adam, it will be proper to inform the reader of some of the antecedents of that bright orange luminary and devoted disciple of the great Mr. Moodle. Clara M’Dougal, then, was the only daughter of a worthy pork-merchant of Carrickfergus, who, at the mature age of five-and-twenty, espoused one Peter M’Adam, an eminent whiskey distiller, and elder of the Presbyterian sect at Belfast. This Peter M’Adam was a great Orangeman, and a staunch supporter of a very clever lawyer, who, chiefly through this distiller’s moral influence and indifferent whiskey, became Member of Parliament for Lisdoonacorrigan, and afterwards, by his own talents, Solicitor General, and who finally ascended the woolsack as Lord Yellowlily of Carrignatuohil in the County of Antrim. His Lordship, unlike those base wretches who are always ready to kick down the ladder by which they rose, never forgot a favour, or one who had rendered it. “He knew a trick worth two of that,” he once coarsely observed to a colleague. Like Napoleon the Little, Lord Yellowlily always repaid an obligation, but, like the same _parvenu_ despot, he repaid it _as_ an obligation, and then he stopt short. He never repaid it with interest, however small, and he neither felt nor expressed gratitude. He nicely discriminated the precise amount of the debt, and as nicely calculated the amount he ought to pay in return; and then, and not before then, he paid it, and had done with his benefactor for ever. Thus it was that, when Peter M’Adam, who had been knighted for presenting an address of congratulation to Her Majesty on the occasion of the birth of one of her numerous German grand-children, had gone the way of all flesh, with his claims unsatisfied, Lord Yellowlily remembered his former supporter, and made personal application to the Queen in behalf of his widow. It thus happened that the pork-merchant’s daughter and the whiskey distiller’s widow, much to her own surprise, found herself in possession of a handsome set of apartments looking into the royal gardens at Hampton Court. Here at first her ladyship did certainly feel somewhat fish-out-of-waterish, but she was a “converted” woman, and she had two great consolations. The first of these was to keep continually declaiming against the Chaplain of the Palace, who was one of the simplest, gentlest, and most charitable of men. His sermons, declared Sir Peter’s relict--for, like most ultra-Protestant ladies, she considered herself to be infallible--were not “gospel.” Why, too, didn’t he publicly testify against the goings-on of those flaunting Jezebels, the Ladies Skandaliza and Coreopsis Corker, who were creditably reported to have left the Palace in broad daylight in pink bathing-dresses, and to have publicly bathed with Lieutenant Sprattles (in blue) in Hampton Lasher? Why did he continue to visit Lady Rathmullen, who was known to have fitted up an oratory in her own private apartments? Why didn’t he leave undone everything he had done, and why didn’t he do everything he had left undone? And above all, why didn’t he conduct the Services of the Church in a manner pleasing to herself, Lady M’Adam, who was not a Churchwoman at all? The widow’s other consolation was to sit and talk scandal with her dear Christian friends, Lady Lavinia Gathercole and Miss Helen Scheimes. This last-named lady was the sister of Somebody or Something diplomatic. The Somebody had held a high consular or semi-diplomatic post on the borders of the Caucasus, and, under threat of assassination, had signed a treaty in the directly contrary sense to the orders he had received from the Foreign Office. He was accordingly deemed signally worthy of promotion, and was instantly named a Companion of the Order of SS. Michael and George. Dying, however, at the seat of his jurisdiction of too great devotion to arraki and French cognac, apartments were obtained in the Palace for his sister Helen, who had acted as his secretary and factotum at Tomareyeh. While in that remote Oriental city, Miss Scheimes had written a work entitled _Harem Life of the Muslim Circassians of the Nether Caucasus_, and although it had a considerable run at the circulating libraries, a very nasty book it was. Therein, the authoress (who at the time was eight-and-thirty if she was eight) conclusively showed that it was only by the most heroic and heroine-like display of firmness and austerity that she had escaped being added to the already overgrown female establishment of H.H. the Emir. Lady M’Adam had still a share in the whiskey business; had a very substantial jointure, and owned a very snug Brougham; and Miss Scheimes--who, like Lady Lavinia, was by no means averse to creature comforts, and idolised wealth--was her very particular friend and toady, while in her inmost heart she hated her like poison. While in person Lady M’Adam was short and stout, had a broad face with a high colour, not without a suspicion of rouge, and was gifted with a loud voice, Miss Scheimes, on the contrary, was tall and thin, and had a sallow face, with dark snaky eyes, which sparkled with malevolence and cunning. Her lips were thin, and she had an ugly way of drawing them inwards when she spoke, which was commonly in a tone but little removed from a whisper. While the widow dressed herself in rich silks and satins, and rejoiced in flounces and furbelows, the spinster attired herself in the cheapest materials, and her favourite colours were drab or some shade of yellow, which certainly accorded rather than contrasted with her sallow complexion. She wore her “waist” close under her armpits, and her figure was perfectly straight from her chin to her very long feet.

A few days after Evelyn’s arrival, these two amiable ladies were sitting together in Lady M’Adam’s drawing-room, when a visitor was announced, and in hobbled Admiral Grogrum, known erewhile as “Cursing Grogrum” of Devonport, but now a sufficiently tame old gentleman, and one upon whose hard heart the ladies fondly believed Mr. Moodle’s addresses had had a softening influence. The Admiral, who had a cork leg, the consequence of an honourable wound received in the service of his country, made his way to a chair, and was scarcely seated, when Lady M’Adam exclaimed, with a somewhat spiteful intonation of the last word, “Well, Admiral, and what do you think of our new _acquisition_?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I think she’s a doosed pretty girl.”

“Oh! Admiral,” groaned Lady M’Adam. “Profanity! and from you! What _would_ Mr. Moodle say? Fie!”

The Admiral in his heart of hearts wondered what business in the world it was of the gentleman named, but he answered penitently, “Well, I’m sure I’m doosed--I mean to say I’m very sorry; but really this Miss Manwaring _is_ a very pretty girl. What eyes! What hair!”

“Yes, Admiral,” responded Lady M’Adam, didactically, “that may be all very true; but what is that but the outward adorning? and what avail those outward trappings, which are but as dust and ashes, if all the while she has the old man in her heart?”

“What indeed?” echoed Miss Scheimes.

The Admiral couldn’t help wishing the young lady _had_ the old man in her heart, but it wouldn’t do to tell Lady M’Adam so, so he said, “Well, I have only given you my own impression; and now let me ask, what do _you_ think of her, Lady M’Adam?”

“I think she’s a stuck-up minx, that’s what I think; I’m disgusted with her, that I am,” answered the widow.

“You have abundant reason,” chimed in Miss Scheimes, as she clasped together her thin, yellow hands.

“And what’s more, I believe her heart is as hard as a nether millstone,” pursued Lady M’Adam.

“No, really!” said the Admiral, who was a good-natured old fellow at bottom; “you surprise me. But what makes you think so? what has she done?”

“What has she _not_ done?” hissed Miss Scheimes, turning up her eyes, and looking as much as possible like an elderly and puzzled sphynx.

“What makes me think so?” continued Lady M’Adam, “why, when I called on her yesterday afternoon, I asked her point blank whether she had a converted heart, and what do you think she said?”

“’Pon my honour, I can’t imagine,” answered the Admiral.

“Why, she said she hoped so, but that she made it a rule never to confide her religious feelings to perfect strangers. Pretty well for a chit like that! _Hoped_ so, indeed!”

“Well, it certainly looked bad,” said the Admiral, not knowing what else to say.

“Dreadful!” interpolated Miss Scheimes.

“And then, when I asked her whether she would come to the Meeting in my rooms of the Hampton Protestant Auxiliary Eastern-Christians’-Conversion Society, and hear dear Mr. Moodle, who would be present on the occasion as a Deputation from the Parent Society, and who would take her by the right hand and lead her into the right road, she answered that she was much obliged, but that she was quite content with going to Church, and that if she wanted religious advice she always consulted a dear old friend, the Rector, at her old home.”

“Quite a father confessor,” interposed Miss Scheimes.

“And then I noticed on Sunday--for I can tell you I never took my eyes off her all Service-time--that she turned to the East at the Creed: depend upon it, she’s a ritualist in disguise!”

“And perhaps a Jesuit,” said Miss Scheimes.

“Well,” said the Admiral, plucking up courage, “the Duchess does that, and for the matter of that, so does fforester.”

“Duchess! don’t Duchess me, Admiral, I beg,” retorted the distiller’s widow; as if the possession of that exalted title conferred the privilege of committing any enormity. “This Miss Manwaring isn’t a Duchess, is she? And as for that poor Mr. fforester, we all know what he is; didn’t precious Mr. Moodle say, the last time he addressed us in this very room, that he is a dry branch that withereth afore it be plucked up, a--a----”

“A dumb dog,” suggested Miss Scheimes.

“Thank you, love,” continued Lady M’Adam, “I was just coming to that when you interrupted me; it’s a habit you’ve got at times. A dumb dog that barketh not when the wolf cometh; a blind lead----” But at that moment the string of protestant Billingsgate was cut short by the door being thrown open, and by the servant announcing in harsh Belfast accent, “The Loidy Laveenia Gatherghoul,” and then in skipped Lady Lavinia, in as lambkin-like a manner as her lame leg and upwards of sixty years in this troublous world permitted.

“My _dear_ Lady M’Adam,” cried she, pointing one shoulder at the widow; “my _dear_ Helen,” pointing the other shoulder at the spinster; “my _dear_ Admiral,” pointing both shoulders at that naval commander, “how fortunate I am to find you together, really quite providential! Do you know, my nerves have had _such_ a shock. Papfaddle--you know Papfaddle, Admiral? the faithfullest creature--Papfaddle has found out such a dreadful story from that Miss Manwaring’s maid. I do really think the dear Queen ought to be more careful in her choice. Oh! this Palace might be quite a heaven below, if we could be sure of only having converted persons in our midst! But, only think--Miss Manwaring’s own brother was accused of committing a burglary at Lord Guttleborough’s, and then went and committed suicide, or something dreadful.”

“But was he guilty?” asked the Admiral.

“Guilty? No, not exactly _guilty_,” answered Lady Lavinia, “but only think, how shocking to be _accused_ even of such dreadful things. Depend upon it, there is no what-you-may-call ’em without thingummy! And the worst of it is, that sort of thing runs in the Blood. Really, if Miss Manwaring should develop a tendency to Klep-Klep-Klep something--Klepsydra, isn’t it?--and I living on the same staircase, whatever should I do?”

“Send for the police,” suggested the Admiral.

“And if, say at midnight,” pursued Lady Lavinia, without paying any attention to the interruption, “you were to wake up and see Miss Manwaring standing over you with a blunderbuss, or a bayonet, or some such dreadful thing, and demanding your India shawls and Sevres teapots, or your life, what would you do then, Admiral?” and the inevitable shoulders worked up and down like a pump handle.

The Admiral looked puzzled. “’Pon my honour,” said he at last, “it would be a doosed--I mean a very awkward situation for a man; but I hope there’s no danger of that.”

“There’s no telling, in these cases,” said Lady M’Adam.

“No, indeed,” echoed Miss Scheimes.

“It’s very dreadful,” continued the widow--looking as virtuous as if there were no such thing as fifth-rate Irish whiskey in the world--“it’s very dreadful, but it is something to know what to expect. No wonder the young person declines the ministrations of dear Mr. Moodle. O--h, the hardness of the unconverted heart!”

And then, having taken away a sister’s character by spying, innuendo, malice, and hatred, the three “converted” and “saved” ladies became quite cheerful, as they sipped their tea, with just a _soupçon_ of something stronger in it, and turned to small talk and gossip, which in “unconverted” people would have been deemed worldly enough. But then, as Miss Scheimes once remarked, “when one _knows_ one’s saved, it’s so nice to feel that it makes no difference what one says or does, for it _must_ be all right at the last.”