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 KVIi 

 
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 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 das 
 
 (3-66 L> 
 V.I
 
 THE 
 
 BANKER'S WIFE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 COURT AND CITY. 
 
 A NOVEL. 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. GORE, 
 
 AUTHORESS OF « 
 
 "MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS," "MRS. ARMITAGE," &c. 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, 
 
 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 1843.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 F. SHOBERI., JUN., 51, RUPERT STREET, HATMARKET, 
 
 PRINTER TO H. R. H. PRINCE ALBERT.
 
 
 TO 
 
 I 
 ^ 
 
 SIR JOHN DEAN PAUL, 
 
 BART. 
 
 "^ Dear Sir, 
 
 I cannot more strongly mark that the fol- 
 lowing pages are intended to exhibit the 
 failings of an individual, not as an attack 
 upon a class, than by placing at the head of 
 my work the name of one who, ancestrally 
 connected for the last two centuries with the 
 ^banking profession in a house of business 
 which has existed in the same spot since the 
 ^year 1650, has added to its distinctions in 
 r^liis own person; by connecting it with the 
 
 literature and fine arts of the kingdom. 
 j|^^ Believe me, dear Sir, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 ^r C. F. Gore.
 
 THE BANKER'S WIFE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 COURT AND CITY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Scenes form'd for contemplation, and to nurse 
 The growing seeds of -wisdom, that suggest. 
 By every pleasing image they present, 
 Reflections such as meliorate the heart. 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 A lover of the picturesque, whether poet, 
 painter, or simply an enjoyer of Nature's works, 
 may be j ustified, perhaps, in extending his quest 
 after the sublime and beautiful beyond the 
 limits of the rich but monotonous landscapes 
 of Old England. But, while the indented 
 shores of Naples or cloud-capt mountains of 
 Switzerland attract these dreamy wanderers 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 to fill their albums and sketch-books with 
 sonnets in sixteen lines, or daubings in bistre 
 and cobalt, a notable counter-charm is pro- 
 duced on the minds of foreign tourists in our 
 own country, by the neatness, order, and fer- 
 tility of our rural districts. 
 
 Scarcely a county but boasts its series of 
 cheerful villages and aristocratic residences, — 
 from the stately gothic hall of earlier centu- 
 ries to the commodious family mansion of 
 modern times, surrounded by spreading parks 
 and trimly gardens ; — nor is it easy to travel 
 ten miles in England without passing the 
 lodge-gates of some private domain, unmen- 
 tioned save in the obscure annals of county- 
 history, which, if the summer residence of 
 some German principicule, would be signa- 
 lized to tourists with all the descriptive pomp 
 of a guide-book, or the onerous eloquence 
 of the valet de place. 
 
 If, for instance, as a stranger in the land, 
 you stop to dine or sleep at the little country 
 inn of Ovington, and inquire of mine host of 
 the Burlington Arms whether the neighbour- 
 hood contain any object of interest, he will
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 3 
 
 answer, with a stultified look, that there is 
 " nothing thereabouts worth speaking on." 
 
 " There's the Hyde — an old place as 'longs 
 to the Vernon family, — and Squire Hamlyn's, 
 at Dean Park ; besides Sir Rudger Burlin- 
 ton's, further up along the river. But none 
 on 'em show-places : and the gentry as likes to 
 visit grand houses be forced to cut across the 
 country, to Burleigh, or Bel voir." 
 
 Nevertheless, these three domains — the 
 Hyde, Burlington Manor, and Dean Park — 
 are severally citable as models of rural beauty ; 
 the neighbourhood which, within a circle of 
 fifteen miles, comprehends the three properties 
 in question, affording a favourable type of that 
 rich and smiling order of home-landscape 
 which seems almost to embody a portraiture 
 of our social institutions : nothing salient — 
 nothing discordant — a limited ^horizon — a 
 pleasant foreground, with symbols of peace and 
 prosperity interposing between, and abundant 
 evergreens to plant out the offices, in order to 
 gratify the taste of those who care less whether 
 Lazarus be sitting famished and suffering at 
 their gates, than that the gates should be of 
 
 b2
 
 4 THE BANKER S WIFE ; 
 
 sufficient solidity to exclude the spectacle of 
 so piteous an object. 
 
 The parish of Ovington is, in short, a beauti- 
 ful country, — watered by a fine river — pro- 
 spered by a fertile soil — unmolested by com- 
 mercial speculation — undisturbed by factories 
 — unvulgarized by villas; — a country, such 
 as George Robins would have delighted to 
 describe in his largest capitals and most 
 sonorous periods, had either of the noble 
 mansions in question fallen, at any moment, 
 under the branding-iron of his pen or hammer. 
 At the period to which the reader's atten- 
 tion is humbly requested, the fairest of these 
 elates had of late narrowly escaped this de- 
 grading contingency. For nearly a year, it 
 had remained an undecided point among the 
 executors of the late Sir Roger Burlington, 
 whether Burlington Manor should be sold out- 
 right, to pay off the mortgages on the York- 
 shire property of his son (a minor, scarcely 
 past the age of infancy,) or whether the place 
 should be let on lease for a term of twenty- 
 one years. 
 
 The latter alternative carried the day ;
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 5 
 
 thanks, as it was believed, to the advocacy of 
 the most zealous of the guardians, Mr. Hamlyu 
 of Dean Park, whose estate adjoined, and who 
 was supposed to tremble at the idea of seeing 
 the Burlington property fall into the hands of 
 some moneyed speculator, disposed to turn to 
 account the facilities of the fine stream tra- 
 versing the two properties. A respectable and 
 quiet neighbour, secured by his own interfe- 
 rence, was a most important object to him ; 
 and it was probably an argument of some 
 weight with his co-executors and trustees that, 
 precisely at the right moment, he was able to 
 produce the one man needful, in the person^f 
 a wealthy colonel of the East India Company's 
 Engineering Service, recently returned from 
 Bombay. 
 
 Richard Hamlyn was one of those for- 
 tune-favoured individuals who seem born with 
 a knack for producing the right thing at 
 the right moment. Though qualified by the 
 innkeeper of Ovington as " Squire Hamlyn," 
 there was little enough of the " Squire" in 
 the estated proprietor of Dean Park. He 
 was simply a London banker ; — a cold, metho-
 
 6 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 dical, prudent man, taking as much pride in 
 his country-seat as the engrossing nature of a 
 thriving business allowed him to take in any 
 thing out of Lombard Street ; but eager as a 
 matter of interest to secure his property against 
 the deterioration of manufacturing innovation. 
 With the terror of steam-engines or spinning- 
 jennies before his eyes, it was a comfort indeed 
 to find such a man as his friend Colonel Ha- 
 milton established, for the rest of his life, at 
 Burlington Manor. 
 
 The new tenant had been for years a valued 
 constituent of the banking-house of Hamlyn 
 and Co. ; and, on arriving in England, it was 
 to Richard, the acting partner, his correspon- 
 dent for twenty years past, that he addressed 
 himself, as a friend and counsellor, in matters 
 even of more personal interest than the invest- 
 ment of his lacs of rupees. 
 
 Though he had passed nearly half a century 
 in banishment. Colonel Hamilton had been 
 driven home from India several years before 
 the epoch he had mentally fixed for his return, 
 — (the completion of a fortune of four hun- 
 dred thousand pounds !) — by the loss of his
 
 wife, and a severe illness — the first in his 
 life — consequent upon this heartfelt bereave- 
 ment. But the moment he set foot on his 
 native soil, and cast the slough engendered by 
 a long life of slavery to Mammon, the old man 
 became reconciled to leave the cipher of his 
 fortune at three hundred and forty-two thou- 
 sand ; deciding that, at sixty-five years of age, 
 it was better to content himself with these 
 ample means of enjoyment ; for, having out- 
 lived his two sons, who left no posterity to 
 inherit his fine fortune, he had to choose be- 
 tween bequeathing his property to distairt re- 
 lations, or earning a posthumous statue and 
 newspaper renown, from the gratitude of some 
 public institution. 
 
 A London banker is not the man to refuse 
 his friendship or advice to an heirless old 
 gentleman, with a floating capital of hundreds 
 of thousands. Cold and mechanical as were 
 Mr. Hamlyn's habits of life, he put himself 
 almost out of his way to seek a suitable Lon- 
 don residence for Colonel Hamilton, the mo- 
 ment he began to complain of the hot rooms 
 and cold mulligatawny of the hotel in the
 
 8 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 Adelphi to which he had resorted on his arri- 
 val, as the only one still extant which he re- 
 membered as a boy. Many were " the sub- 
 stantial town mansions" which Mr. Hamlyn 
 commended to the notice of the nabob, for the 
 remainder of the season. But the old gentle- 
 man, with his over-brimming purse and inde- 
 finite purposes, like a sailor returned from a 
 cruise in a hurry to get rid of his prize-money, 
 was determined to purchase. As if he could 
 not make too much haste in securing himself 
 a footing in his native country, he concluded 
 a hasty bargain for a commodious house in 
 Portland Place ; and, for some weeks, amused 
 himself and enriched the upholsterers by the 
 effort of furnishing. 
 
 But no sooner was all arranged on what 
 appeared to his friends the Haralyns the most 
 comfortable and liberal footing, than the Colo- 
 nel, for want of further occupation, began to 
 grumble. Day after day did he make his ap- 
 pearance at their house in Cavendish Square, 
 with some complaint against the climate or 
 customs of the metropolis ! — 
 
 Luckily, he was far from a peevish grumbler.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 9 
 
 He was a laughing rather than a crying phi- 
 losopher ; and bantered his own fastidiousness 
 so good-humouredly, that Mrs. Hamlyn, to 
 whom, during the absence of her husband in 
 the city, his complaints were usually confided, 
 was far more amused than wearied by his 
 Chapter of Lamentations. 
 
 " Betwixt ourselves, my good lady," said 
 he, after ensconcing himself in an arm-chair 
 by the fireside, one gloomy morning in Janu- 
 ary, when the leafless trees in Cavendish Square 
 looked as grim and ghastly through the fog as 
 the spectral forms of Ossian's heroes, — ' ' be^ixt 
 ourselves, I own myself plaguily disappointed 
 in this Lon'on of yours ! The few first days in 
 any country are a sad take in, — more especi- 
 ally in one's native land, after fifty years' ab- 
 sence. The excitement of finding oneself 
 among fellow-creatures of one's own creed and 
 complexion, and hearing spoken around one 
 the language of one's boyhood, — the language 
 in which one's parents pronounced their bles- 
 sing on one's head at parting, — is apt to bring 
 tears into one's eyes that blind them to other 
 matters. At first I thought I could never see 
 
 B 5
 
 1 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 enough of busy, prosperous Lon'on ; and I vow 
 to my Maker there were moments when I 
 could have found it in my heart to kneel 
 down and kiss the sooty earth under my feet, 
 (old blockhead that I was !) because it was 
 that of Old England. But, at a week's end, 
 ma'am, I began to see clearer. After I'd been 
 knocked about a bit, and jeered by the Cock- 
 neys every time I ventured to ask a question, 
 or put my nose out of doors in a coat or waist- 
 coat differing in cut from those of the weekly 
 fashion-mongers, I recognised the folly of 
 giving way to such warm emotions among a 
 race of folks who dare not yield to a single 
 natural impulse, from fear of what their finer 
 neighbours may be thinking of 'em !" 
 
 " It is true the forms of social life are some- 
 what rigidly maintained among us," observed 
 the banker's wife, stitching placidly on at her 
 monotonous carpet-work. 
 
 " Rigidly, indeed, — for a country that calls 
 itself the Land of Liberty !" retorted the old 
 Colonel. " I'd as soon live in a waxwork 
 show, as among such stuffed puppets as this 
 sort of formality engenders, — men in buck-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 1 1 
 
 mm — ^men in armour — that is, men of straw ! 
 Your good husband, (who has my interests at 
 heart as if they were his own,) finds me a 
 mighty stubborn scholar, I fancy, in the grand 
 art of modern politeness !" 
 
 " Mr. Hamlyn has, I am sure, sincere plea- 
 sure in any little service he may be able to 
 render you !" replied his companion, without 
 raising her eyes from her work. 
 
 " I believe you, — I really believe yoa ; only 
 we differ, may be, in our notions of service. 
 My friend Hamlyn thinks it a matter of kind- 
 ness to be always setting me right abouUlittle 
 idle, empty, fussy ceremonies of society, con- 
 cerning which, 'twixt you and I, my dear 
 ma'am, I care not a button ! When I pro- 
 pose any thing he thinks out of the common, 
 by way of making those about me comfor- 
 table, or myself happy, he's sure to remind 
 me that ' such is not the custom of this coun- 
 try,' or, that ' 'tis contrary to the usages of the 
 world.' Bless your heart ! I've lived too long 
 where the usages of the world were of no 
 account, to submit patiently to the thraldrom 
 of a network of copper-lace and spangles !
 
 12 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 God forbid I should behave myself like a Hot- 
 tentot. But I can't fancy that Hamlyn's 
 favourite * world' would have gone on a jot 
 the worse had you brought your girls to dine 
 with me on Tuesday : or if I'd persisted in 
 giving up my back-parlour for the use of my 
 man Johnston and his wife, who in Indy were 
 not used to mope away their days in cellars !" 
 
 '' But you have such a capital housekeeper's 
 room in Portland Place," remonstrated Mrs. 
 Hamlyn, — subdued by the force of habit into 
 unquestioning acquiescence in the opinions of 
 her husband. " With respect to my daughters, 
 as Mr. Hamlyn mentioned to you before, they 
 are not out. Lydia is little more than six- 
 teen, — her sister, two years younger. Both 
 are still in the school-room. They do not even 
 dine at our own table." 
 
 " So much the worse, ma'am — so much the 
 worse — one of the very things I complain of! 
 Little more than sixteen, indeed? — Why, in 
 Indy she'd be a wife by this time — perhaps a 
 mother. And not allowed to share the meals 
 of her parents ? — not permitted to dine with 
 her father's old friend ? — Always with the
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 18 
 
 governess — always at her studies ! — What's 
 the use of such excess of edication for young 
 ladies, pray, unless to teach 'em to play their 
 parts prettily in society ? And how the deuce 
 is .a girl ever to learn to become a woman, if 
 excluded from the company of gentlemen and 
 ladies till, without knowing her cue, the cur- 
 tain suddenly draws up, and she finds herself 
 alone upon the stage ?" — 
 
 " The late hours Mr. Hamlyn is obliged to 
 keep," observed the banker's wife, careful not 
 to admit how far more closely her ideas of 
 happiness and propriety agreed with those %f 
 the warm-hearted Colonel than those of her 
 austere husband, " would scarcely be advanta- 
 geous to the girls. With respect to having 
 declined your kind invitation, had they dined 
 in Portland Place, my own family, which is 
 numerous, would have claimed the same ex- 
 ception in their favour." 
 
 " Ay, ay, ay ! it all sounds mighty plau- 
 sible and Mrs. Goodchild - ish !" — interrupted 
 the Colonel, shrugging his shoulders. " But 
 the lono^ and the short of these wise regula- 
 tions is, that such rule-and-compass work in
 
 14 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 the bosom of families is making away with 
 every thing like warmth of feeling, and shri- 
 velling up social interest into a manual of 
 etiquette. Household happiness is too joyous 
 a thing, ma'am, to be worked by steam . I vow 
 to my Maker I'd as soon live in a penitentiary, 
 and be rung in to meals and exercise like a 
 felon, as be cramped up eternally in my loves 
 and likings by a code of heartless decorum." 
 
 " I trust your kind feelings towards my 
 girls are not likely to be cramped by the me- 
 thodical habits of the family ?" observed Mrs. 
 Hamlyn with a smile. 
 
 " That's more than I'll take upon me to 
 say. What will those poor children ever 
 care about one, pray, whom they're called 
 away from their forte-piano once a-week to 
 curtsey to, and hope I'm well, and whom they 
 never see in the exercise of human charities ? 
 I'm disappointed, my dear ma'am — I'm sadly 
 disappointed ! I've no family left of my own, 
 the more's the pity ; and, being fond of young 
 people, 'twas a comfort to me, in returning to 
 this country, to think of surrounding myself 
 with innocent, happy faces ; — if not those of
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 15 
 
 ray own kith and kin, at least the kith and 
 kin of my friends. And what's the end on't ? 
 I vow to my Maker I was not more lonesome in 
 my bungalow at Ghazerapore, than in my 
 fine, showy, comfortable, comfortless house in 
 Portland Place ! Most of my acquaintance in 
 Lon'on are men of business, tied down to their 
 occupations ; and, as to the ladies, my friend 
 Hamlyn gave me a broad hint t'other night 
 over our claret, that 'tisn't the custom of what 
 he calls the world, for gentlemen to indulge 
 in too frequent morning calls — " 
 
 " Be assured," interrupted Mrs. Haml/ii, 
 for once raising her eyes from her w^ork, " that 
 my husband intended no allusion to his own 
 house or family in the prohibition." 
 
 " I know it, my dear good lady, I know it. 
 If you'd allowed me to finish my sentence, I 
 was going to add, ' except in the case of so 
 warm a friendship and intimacy as unites our- 
 selves.' And so, you see, the consequence of 
 this last piece of schooling of Hamlyn's will 
 be to trouble you twice as often with my com- 
 pany. He well knows you are the only folks 
 in Lon'on with whom I'm on anything like a
 
 16 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 friendly footing ; and at the snail's-pace rate 
 at which acquaintances are made in this con- 
 founded foggy metropolis, I shall have leisure 
 to die and be catacombed in one or t'other of 
 the new cemeteries, long afore I've brought 
 myself to more than a distant bow with my 
 next-door neighbours." 
 
 " The vast extension of society in London," 
 observed Mrs. Hamlyn, her habitual serenity 
 unruffled by the vehemence of her companion, 
 ** has necessitated a degree of caution in the 
 formation of intimacy which, to persons habi- 
 tuated to the sociability of a colony, may 
 appear coldness and reserve. But an intimacy, 
 once created, soon ripens into friendship ; and 
 the friendship once really matured ripens and 
 brings forth fruit, an inheritance from gene- 
 ration to generation." 
 
 " So much the better for those who've 
 patience to w^ait so long. But my heart's not 
 like an aloe, my dear ma'am, that wants a 
 hundred years to bring it into bloom ; and 
 I've learnt, to my cost, that a winter in Lon'on 
 (which in Indy we're apt to fancy the summum 
 bonum of human sociability), is about as
 
 17 
 
 cheerful a thing as a judgeship two thousand 
 miles up the country, or a solitary detachment 
 in the Ghauts." 
 
 " Winter is generally admitted to be an 
 unsociable moment in London," said Mrs. 
 Hamlyn, quietly. '^ Most people who have 
 family-seats spend their Christmas in the 
 country. This is the first winter / have 
 passed in town for the last ten years." 
 
 " And how caine you to pass it here ?" — de- 
 manded the matter-of-fact old gentleman. 
 
 Mrs. Hamlyn was busy picking up her 
 scissors, and did not hear. But the ColoneJ, 
 who seldom asked questions except with the 
 view of obtaining information, reiterated his 
 interrogation. 
 
 " Mr. Hamlyn fancied, I believe," replied 
 the lady thus forced to an ungracious expla- 
 nation, '' that you would find it dull, if left in 
 town without a single family of your acquaint- 
 ance." 
 
 Grateful conviction glistened in Colonel 
 Hamilton's eyes as he replied: — ^*And so, 
 then, you're all doing penance in Lon'on 
 for my sake? That was mons'ously kindly
 
 18 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 thought of on Hamlyn's part," added he after 
 a moment's consideration. "To be sure, if 
 dull and lonesome now, I should have been fit 
 to hang myself when you were all off to War- 
 wickshire. Poor girls ! — poor young ladies, 
 I should have said. — I understand now why 
 Miss Lydia complained to me t'other day of 
 the tediousness of parading, morning after 
 morning, round and round yonder square like 
 a squirrel in a cage. But I didn't guess, 
 poor little lady, that / was the cause of 
 moping her up, away from her pony and her 
 country pleasures. Well ! I shall always 
 think 'twas a mons'ous friendly sacrifice on 
 the part of Hamlyn." 
 
 " My husband is not able to enjoy much 
 of his time at Dean Park," replied the vera- 
 cious wife. — " He can seldom spare more 
 than an occasional Saturday and Sunday, and 
 a week or two at Easter and Christmas." 
 
 " And why the deuce couldn't he take me 
 with him then, to spend Christmas in the 
 country ? " 
 
 " I heard him speak of your having import- 
 ant business to wind up at the India House."
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 19 
 
 " True, very true ! — Hamlyn's such a 
 steady, thoughtful dog, where business is con- 
 cerned ! " 
 
 " Mr. Hamlyn fancied, too, you might be 
 disinclined to move, so shortly after settling 
 yourself in your charming house in Portland 
 Place." 
 
 " My dear lady, I should be mighty glad 
 to turn my back on my charming house in 
 Portland Place ! To tell you the honest 
 truth, Pm sick to death of the sight of those 
 eternal damask curtains and rosewood tables ! 
 What interest have I in Lon'on ? — I care ft)r 
 nobody, and nobody cares for me. — I look 
 out at my windows half the day, like a 
 chained dog from its kennel, at the houses 
 of my opposite neighbours, — whose very 
 names I don't know from Adam, except in 
 the Court Guide ; and who'd think me an 
 impertinent old fellow, if I chucked their 
 little ones under the chin, on meeting them 
 in my morning's walk ! " 
 
 Mrs. Hamlyn uttered a civil sort of half- 
 dissentient murmur. 
 
 " And when evening draws on, and my
 
 20 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 house is shut in for the night," resumed the 
 Colonel, " with nobody but poor Pincher 
 and me to keep each other company, I some- 
 times ask myself what crime I've committed 
 to be thus condemned to a solitary cell ; and 
 whether I'm really at home, and really in 
 the Old England that calls itself so hospi- 
 table!" 
 
 " You are surely dwelling on the dark 
 side of the picture, my dear sir !" said Mrs. 
 Hamlyn. 
 
 " I wish you'd show me the bright one. 
 Such desperate long evenings ! Spin out 
 one's dinner and one's claret as one will, 
 they canH last for ever; and though John- 
 ston reads the Courier over to me once, and 
 I read it to myself all over again the mo- 
 ment he goes down to supper, I've a hard 
 matter to make it out till bed-time. If it 
 wasn't a shame to rouse poor Goody John- 
 ston out of her arm-chair, I should some- 
 times send for her to make my tea ; but as 
 to taking out servants and horses in such 
 weather, for half an hour's gossip or whist
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 2 I 
 
 at my club, I haven't the heart to do ifcaii I 
 that's the truth." 
 
 " But why not spend your evenings with 
 usf" demanded Mrs. Hamlyn, in all sin- 
 cerity. 
 
 " Why so I do, as often as my conscience 
 will allow. I'm aware, of course, that poor 
 Hamlyn would far rather enjoy his leisure 
 undisturbed, with his wife and family, than 
 be taken up at backgammon, night after 
 night, by a tiresome old fellow, always pump- 
 ing him for news, and with none to offer in 
 return. Why, my dear ma'am ! even Quiddl^, 
 the apot'cary, shirks me, when I lay an 
 embargo on him more than twice a week ! 
 Though I make the most of my rheumatics, 
 purely to secure half an hour's chit-chat with 
 him, of an afternoon, — when I try to coax 
 him into stopping dinner, forsooth, he puts 
 on a demure, family-man-ish sort of face, 
 and tells me, ' Mrs. Q. is expecting him at 
 home ! ' " 
 
 Mrs. Hamlyn inclined her face closer over 
 her work to conceal an involuntary smile at 
 this desolate picture of the situation of a man
 
 22 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 of fifteen thousand a year, thrown over by an 
 uxorious apothecary. But scarcely had the 
 smile arisen, when it subsided to sadness. 
 Well did she remember the time when, on 
 her translation from her own cheerful home 
 to the cold formal household of the banker 
 in Cavendish Square, she felt nearly as lonely 
 as the old Indian. Habit had become second 
 nature to her. She was now tamed down 
 into apathy, by the long, uneventful morn- 
 ings, and taciturn tete-a-tetes, completing 
 the day ; and though few women would have 
 more enjoyed unrestrained intercourse with 
 her children, she had long resigned herself to 
 the methodical order imposed by the banker, 
 of seeing them at stated periods decreed by 
 the wisdom of the head-nurse and governess, 
 so as not to interfere with the clockwork 
 arrangements of their meals, exercise, and 
 education. For the rigid man of business, 
 accustomed to regard regularity as the main- 
 spring of affairs, carried his system of arith- 
 metical exactitude into all the details of 
 private life. Profound sympathy arose accord- 
 ingly in the bosom of Mrs. Hamlyn, as she
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 23 
 
 reflected how thoroughly she had suhdued 
 Jier impulses of feeling, and silenced her own 
 repinings ; while the grey-headed man before 
 her, though his threescore years were accom- 
 plished, had his lesson yet to learn. 
 
 " I cannot help fearing, my dear sir," she 
 observed, at the close of a few moments' 
 silence, " that you have been precipitate in 
 settling in town. In the country, the bond 
 of good neighbourship still subsists. In the 
 country, you would have found interests in 
 your property to occupy your time. I sadly 
 fear you will never be quite happy in town." 
 
 " By George, I'm beginning to think so 
 too!" cried Colonel Hamilton; — " though to 
 be sure, in Indy, the thing I used to dread most 
 for my old age was the seclusion of a lone- 
 some country-house. Betwixt ourselves, my 
 dear ma'am, I've had enough and to spare of 
 my own company. Mine has been a curious 
 life. I married for love. I'll tell you the 
 whole story some day or another, when I'm 
 in better spirits, — suffice it now that I mar- 
 ried for love. Nothing very wonderful in 
 that, you'll say ; but you may perhaps account
 
 24 THE BANKER'S WIFE 
 
 it worth mention that thirty years of wedded 
 life didn't lessen the mutual affection which 
 first instigated the imprudence. Mary and I 
 had but one head and heart between us. We 
 lived in a remote district, wholly out of reach 
 of society, and so never fretted after it, or 
 any thing else. No little mortifications 
 or heartburnings, to create unkind feelings 
 on either side ; no meddlesome friends to 
 make mischief; nobody to confide in, but 
 each other; nobody to dress for, talk for, 
 think for, feel for, pretend for, but each 
 other. Life lay plain and straight afore us. 
 All our object was to be frugal and grow 
 rich as quick as we could, that we might 
 return to our native country, and enjoy our- 
 selves with our children. 
 
 " We had four- — poor things ! — who were 
 packed off to Europe to be reared and edi- 
 cated, whicli was our only trouble. But there 
 was no remedy, and people soon reconcile 
 them.selves to what is irremediable. Mary 
 and I loved each other only the more when 
 thus left alone together. Our two girls died 
 young : one of 'em on her passage home ;
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 25 
 
 the other, a year or two afterwards. But the 
 boys throve and prospered ; and a great joy 
 it was to their mother and me to watch the 
 progress of the fortune which, some day or 
 other, was to make us all happy and com- 
 fortable together. I had a fine appointment. 
 In those days, ma'am, the pagoda-tree hadn't 
 been shaken too roughly ; and there were still 
 ways and means whereby an honest man might 
 make a princely fortune in Indy, and Indy 
 none the worse for't. I had the roads and 
 tanks of a whole district tO' create; and was 
 lucky enough to create myself, at the same 
 time, a prime favourite with the Rajah. 
 
 " Like an ass as I was, however, the first 
 hundred thousand pounds I had the luck to 
 scrape together, I deposited with a company 
 of native merchants ; and when Mrs. Hamilton 
 and I, moderate in our desires, determined to 
 come home and rejoin our children, these fel- 
 lows, though not in a state of insolvency, were 
 so situated, that to realize my funds was im- 
 possible. So I was even forced to stay and 
 look after them. Fortunately, my roads and 
 tanks wanted looking after too. By way of 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 26 THE banker's WIFE; 
 
 compensation, the Rajah doubled my salary 
 from the company, and so my fortune went on 
 increasing and increasing, and as the appetite 
 for money is said to increase by what it feeds 
 on, we only grew the more sparing for growing 
 richer. By this time, I'd opened an account 
 with my friend Hamlyn ; who strongly advised 
 my remaining on the spot to mount guard over 
 my coffee-coloured debtors. And why not? 
 Mary and I were as happy together as the 
 day was long." 
 
 "' And while your sons remained at school, 
 even in England, you could have enjoyed little 
 of their society," interposed Mrs. Hamlyn. 
 
 " The voyage home, too, was a serious mat- 
 ter in those days ; so having determined to stay 
 in Indy, so long as there was any necessity for 
 return, we dawdled on from year to year, happy 
 in ourselves, and still happier in the thought 
 of settling in our old age in our native country, 
 in the bosom of our family, — see the boys 
 prosper in their turn, marry, and settle. But 
 what a selfish old blockhead I am, to trouble 
 you with all these details, in which you can 
 take no manner of interest !" — cried the old
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 27 
 
 man, suddenly checking himself as a warm 
 tear, stealing down his face, rendered him pain- 
 fully conscious of the presence of his com- 
 panion. 
 
 " Go on, I entreat you," faltered Mrs. Ham- 
 lyn, in a tone of unfeigned interest and com- 
 passion. 
 
 " The rest, my dear good lady, you know 
 pretty well as near as myself," resumed the 
 Colonel. " You knew my poor sons. When 
 they were schoolboys — when Jack was at 
 Eton, and Bob at Haileybury, they used to 
 write us word of the happy holidays they en-' 
 joyed at Dean Park. Thanks to you and Ham- 
 lyn, the poor fellows never felt the want of a 
 home. When they grew to man's estate. Bob, 
 instead of accepting the fine appointment 
 offered me for him by the Company, chose to 
 go into the army. But Jack — 'poor Jack ! — 
 finding I had determined to remain in exile 
 half a dozen years longer, resolved to come 
 out to Indy, (bless him for the thought !) to 
 have a sight of his old father and mother. He 
 never did see 'em, ma'am ! The unfortunate 
 vessel — " 
 
 c 2
 
 28 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 " Spare yourself, my dear sir !" interrupted 
 Mrs. Hamlyn. " The fate of poor dear John 
 Hamilton was as deeply deplored by our fire- 
 side as by your own." 
 
 " Poor lad ! — poor lad ! — To judge by his 
 letters, as fine a fellow as ever breathed God's 
 air. His mother never held up her head again. 
 She survived for years, but never held up her 
 head again after the fatal news reached us. 
 His brother — " 
 
 " His brother married — " 
 
 " Ay — but not till we'd committed the fatal 
 mistake of fretting his heart and health out, 
 by opposition to his marriage. In that, my 
 friend Hamlyn was a wee bit to blame. Ham- 
 lyn seemed to think that it was because I had 
 yielded at a word to Robert's whim about the 
 army, he now presumed on his influence to 
 threaten me with a foolish marriage. As if 
 parents, thousands of miles off, have any right 
 to control the affections of an only son, grown 
 to man's estate, and the best judge of his own 
 tastes and inclinations ! But all that might 
 have been predicted came to pass. Though 
 at first as positive as a Turk, I gave way the
 
 OR, COORT AND ClTY. 29 
 
 moment I heard the boy's health was failing. 
 Too late, my dear madam, too late, — too late ! 
 He married, (as you know, for you were pre- 
 sent, Ifancy, at the wedding,) and went straight 
 to Italy, and died within the year. If he had 
 only left a child to comfort his parents in their 
 old age — if he had onli/ left a child ! — Well, 
 ma'am, — the moment the news of his sud- 
 den death reached us, we resolved to hurry 
 home ; — an odd fancy, you'll think, just then, 
 — when we had nothing left to care for in 
 England. — But our only object had been to lay 
 by a fortune for the boys. Both were gone ! 
 What or wJio was there now left in the world, 
 to induce us to remain estranged from our na- 
 tive country ? Mary was a confirmed invalid ; 
 but I cheered her up with hopes that native air 
 would restore her — that there were bright days 
 in store for us yet. — Poor Mary ! — She smiled, 
 and pretended to believe me, not liking to 
 seem to reproach me for having occasioned the 
 death of her son !" 
 
 " I well remember receiving the letter from 
 Mrs. Hamilton, announcing her return," said 
 Mrs. Hamlyn, in a low voice, " and thanking 
 me for a lock of her son's hair. Her only de-
 
 so THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 sire in this world, she said, was to be laid 
 beside him in the grave." 
 
 " Did she say that ?" — cried the old man, 
 wiping his eyes. " Good creature ! She ne- 
 ver expressed the wish to me ; feeling, I dare 
 say, that it was fated to be ungratified ! Her 
 passage home was taken, however ; and, thanks 
 to Johnston and his wife, every comfort pro- 
 vided. But it wouldn't do. The word had 
 gone forth — God had called her to himself !" 
 
 " I laid her in the grave," resumed Colonel 
 Hamilton, in a voice broken by sobs. '^ My 
 companion for thirty years, — my companion, 
 I may say, in the wilderness, — with whom I 
 had never exchanged one angry word or re- 
 sentful feeling ! — Poor Mary ! — My grief for 
 her was very different from what I had felt for 
 the boys. That she had been there to alle- 
 viate ! But every thing went with her — every 
 thing — every thing !" — 
 
 Mrs. Hamlyn respected in silence the grief 
 of the good old man. At length, she ven- 
 tured to congratulate him on having been able, 
 at a crisis so grievous, to turn his back on the 
 scene of his trials. 
 
 " Your afflictions would have been doubly
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 31 
 
 painful," said she, " had circumstances com- 
 pelled you to remain in India." 
 
 " I don't know, — I often think otherwise," 
 was his reply. " It seemed like losing sight 
 of all my happier recollections, to turn my 
 back on the place where we had abided to- 
 gether. The old house and gardens at Ghaz- 
 napore were full of her. There had our chil- 
 dren been born to us — there had I wiped the 
 last moisture from her face. My poor dear 
 wife ! The natives adored her ; she was a 
 second providence in the village. Here, no 
 one ever heard her name. I spoke of her otie 
 day to Quiddle, — spoke of her as I am speak- 
 ing now, — and the jackass told me I was low^ 
 and advised a dose of sal-volatile ! — However, 
 'twas by her express desire I hastened home. 
 
 " ' You owe it to yourself and others,' said 
 poor Mrs. Hamilton, on her death-bed, * to ex- 
 tend your sphere of usefulness to the best of 
 your means. We have lived, my dear hus- 
 band, solely for ourselves and our children ; 
 and Heaven seems to have visited this upon 
 us as a fault. You are rich — you possess the 
 means of doing good. Go home. Call around
 
 32 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 you those who are left, and promote their hap- 
 piness, and your own. Robert's widow has 
 claims upon you. The Hamlyns, who were 
 parents to your children, have claims upon 
 you. Return to England, therefore, my dear, 
 dear, Hamilton, and fulfil the excellent pur- 
 poses of your kindly nature !' 
 
 " At first, compliance with her parting in- 
 junctions appeared impossible," resumed the 
 old man, after a pause of deep emotion ; " and 
 I hoped to be spared the pain of resisting, for 
 the first time, a wish of my wife's, by following 
 her to the grave. But people seldom die of 
 grief, I fancy. The Almighty proportions our 
 trials to our strength. It is in the order of 
 nature that we survive many whom we love, 
 and become consoled for their loss. — Provi- 
 dence knows best ! 
 
 " Before the end of the year, I embarked 
 for England. I have not been two years a 
 widower, yet already I entertain hopes of ma- 
 king my old age, if not all that I once hoped 
 and expected, at least happy and cheerful with 
 the happiness and cheerfulness of others !" 
 
 " May your prospects be fully realized !"
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 33 
 
 ejaculated Mrs. Hamlyn, her countenance 
 bearing tokens of deep sympathy in the emo- 
 ions of her honest-hearted friend. " You say 
 right, Colonel Hamilton ! Providence knows 
 best. Very, mry few among us are fated to 
 be happy in the way we should have pointed 
 out in early youth as the path of happiness ; 
 yet scarcely a human being but — ." 
 
 She paused. At that moment, the drawing- 
 room door was slowly opened ; and the rising 
 colour on her cheek and words suspended on 
 her lips denoted Mrs. Hamlyn's instantaneous 
 recognition of the noiseless approach of .her 
 husband. 
 
 Colonel Hamilton, without rising from the 
 arm-chair beside the fire, where he felt himself 
 so thoroughly at home, extended his hand in 
 cordial greeting to his friend Hamlyn, the 
 banker. 
 
 C D
 
 34 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Lord Angelo is precise, — scarcely confesses 
 His appetite is more to bread than stone. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Richard Hamlyn was what is called a most 
 excellent man, — a man generally esteemed and 
 respected, — a man eminently qualified to figure 
 to advantage on a tombstone ; had never been 
 suspected of a vice, or accused of a failing. 
 Not a servant in his establishment, most of 
 whom had lived with him for years, could 
 complain of having seen his countenance dis- 
 turbed by anger, or heard his voice raised by 
 excitement. 
 
 Such, however, was the force of his calm 
 and immutable regularity, that the most fiery 
 domestic tyrant could not have attained a more
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 35 
 
 absolute sway in his own family. His wife 
 knew him to be averse to all display of sen- 
 sibility ; his children were early taught that 
 he detested noise ; and the banker's house was, 
 consequently, characterized by the silence, 
 coldness, and dulness of the Great Pyramid. 
 
 Impossible to see a better regulated esta- 
 blishment ! All went as if by clockwork, 
 or steam. Whether the perfection of its 
 household-management arose from perseve- 
 rance in method, or readiness of means, the 
 result was admirable. Had any friend of 
 Hamlyn's, after an absence of many years in 
 the far East or far West, thought proper to 
 drop in to dinner in Cavendish Square, or 
 volunteer a visit to Dean Park, he might 
 have been as certain of the hour and the 
 minute to arrive, the number of dishes on 
 the table and servants in attendance, the 
 disposition of the salvers on the sideboard 
 and decanters on the board, as though he 
 had only vacated his seat in the dining-room 
 the preceding day. But, on the other hand, 
 people of Richard Hamlyn's class seldom 
 possess a friend sufficiently friendly t6 drop
 
 86 THE banker's WIFE ; 
 
 in to dinner, or volunteer a visit in the 
 country. 
 
 His wife, when, at eighteen, in all her 
 bloom of beauty and cheerfulness of spirit, 
 she accepted the proposals of a handsome 
 young man with whom she had danced 
 through the London season, certainly ex- 
 pected a very different personage in the gay 
 son of a wealthy banker, on whom her parents 
 were so eager to bestow her hand. But 
 scarcely a year after their marriage, the 
 death of the elder Hamlyn, while it assigned 
 independence to the young couple, threw the 
 business of the family and the firm so com- 
 pletely into the hands of the bridegroom, as 
 to sober him at once into a man of business. 
 
 From that moment, Mrs. Hamlyn lost sight 
 of her husband in the banker and executor ; 
 and as her mother-in-law continued till her 
 death some years afterwards to reside with 
 them in Cavendish Square and at Dean Park, 
 Richard Hamlyn had no scruple about leaving 
 his wife alone, and devoting himself exclusively 
 to business. In the city he thenceforth lived 
 and moved and had his being. His dreams were
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 37 
 
 of clerkly desks, T-his visions, of loans and Ex- 
 chequer bills ; and when, at the end of the 
 week, he hurried down in summer into the 
 country, or, at the close of the day in winter 
 retired to his London fireside, he arrived there 
 so jaded in spirits by the pressure of his 
 arduous concerns, that it w^as clear his idea 
 of domestic happiness must consist in tran- 
 quillity. The greatest proof of kindness his 
 wife could show him, was to leave him silent 
 and alone. 
 
 It is surprising how readily the tact of a 
 woman attached to her duties, suofsrests the* 
 surest mode of recommending herself to the 
 affections of her husband. The merry, thought- 
 less Sophia soon saw that, to endear herself 
 to the man of business, she must offer no 
 obstruction to the methodical serenity of one 
 who had not leisure for demonstrations of 
 sensibility, or the frivolous pastimes of life. 
 Punctual and acquiescent, she must receive 
 him ever with a smile, — seldom with a laugh. 
 By degrees, the smile subsided into a thought- 
 ful gravity, still more acceptable. At thirty, 
 Mrs. Hamlyn had sunk into a mild, calm,
 
 38 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 silent woman, without a vestige of the buoy- 
 ancy of youth ; and the banker into a stiff, 
 reserved man of business, — after the fashion 
 of most conjugal couples in the money -get- 
 ting classes of Great Britain.- 
 
 Had this sobriety of deportment been a 
 matter of calculation, it could not have pro- 
 spered better ! Eichard Hamlyn was the very 
 mirror of bankers, — the model-man of Lom- 
 bard Street! His father's city contempo- 
 raries nodded their heads approvingly while 
 remarking that Richard was a steady exem- 
 plary young man, — his wife a very prudent 
 young woman ; and though their household 
 and modes of life were established on a foot- 
 ing of almost aristocratic liberality, no one 
 was disposed to find fault. So capital was 
 young Hamlyn's management, that even the 
 most captious of his constituents was fain to 
 admit that the far-sighted financier of Lom- 
 bard Street and Dean Park was able to make 
 half a sovereign go as far as a guinea. 
 
 Children meanwhile had been born to the 
 prosperous couple ; and the same system of 
 discipline which had converted the gay
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 39 
 
 Sophia Harrington into a domestic machine, 
 rendered the little Hamljns the mildest and 
 dullest children in the world. Untaught by 
 the example of others to be capricious or 
 noisy, (for the faults of children are far more 
 imitative than grown-up people are apt to 
 allow,) they appeared to be as much under 
 the control of the omnipotent banker as any 
 other of his ciphers. 
 
 This unlimited submission, on the part of 
 those about him, exercised by degrees an evil 
 influence on the character of Richard Ham- 
 lyn. In his own quiet way, he was as abso- 
 lute as the Sultan. He did not understand 
 the slightest opposition to his veto; and 
 though, having succeeded his father in the 
 representation of the neighbouring borough 
 of Barthorpe, his opinions commanded the 
 respect of the House of Commons on all 
 questions of commercial or financial interest, 
 Hamlyn, the banker, had more than once 
 committed himself in parliament, by outbursts 
 of petulance singularly at variance with the 
 gentle tenour of his private life. In his 
 country neighbourhood, on the other hand.
 
 40 THE BANKER'S WIFE 
 
 he was respected as a just landlord and hos- 
 pitable neighbour; not spending enough of 
 his time in Warwickshire to nullify the good 
 report of the county, by the taciturn reserve 
 of his deportment. By degrees, indeed, his 
 temper afforded evidence in private life of 
 the irritating stress of an anxious vocation. 
 But Mrs. Hamlyn had either schooled herself 
 into such apathy as to remain unconscious of 
 the change ; or was too good a woman to 
 avow, even to herself, that she was aware of 
 the despotic harshness of the father of her 
 children. The concealment w^as easy. Like 
 the majority of his sex, he was never arbi- 
 trary with his wife, unless when they were 
 alone. 
 
 " What were you and Colonel Hamilton 
 discussing to-day, that I found you both so 
 agitated when I came in?" demanded he of 
 his wife, as they awaited together in the 
 drawing-room the announcement of dinner, on 
 the day in question. 
 
 " He was simply describing to me the 
 supreme happiness of his wedded life. Mrs.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 41 
 
 Hamilton and the old gentleman appear to 
 have been a singularly united couple." 
 
 " All couples are said to have been singii- 
 larly united, as soon as either husband or wife 
 is in the grave," replied the banker, coldly. 
 " The Hamiltons lived very well together, or 
 their tete-a-tete in an obscure district in India 
 would have been insupportable. It was their 
 best policy to agree !" 
 
 " People do not always act from policy,'' 
 was the mild remonstrance of Mrs. Hamlyn. 
 " Their dispositions were amiable and well 
 assorted." 
 
 " Their means ample, and their understand- 
 ing narrow !" added the banker. 
 
 " So much the better for their happiness ! 
 They seem to have entertained no injurious 
 ambitions," observed his wife. 
 
 Hamlyn, who was standing magisterially on 
 the rug, with his back to the fire, fixed his 
 eyes inquiringly upon her face. But the coun- 
 tenance of Sophia, though open, was some- 
 times difficult to decipher. The early habit 
 of repressing her emotions into the equanimity 
 of the Hamlyn temperament, imparted a look
 
 42 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 of vagueness and absence to her eyes. Even 
 while uttering a simple answer to a simple 
 question, her thoughts often appeared to be 
 wandering ; and when silent, it was impossi- 
 ble to surmise from her countenance the na- 
 ture of her reveries. 
 
 " Colonel Hamilton must have enlarged un- 
 conscionably on the merits of his late wife," 
 resumed the banker, still scrutinizing the 
 face of his companion ; " for Ramsay told me 
 when I came in, he had been sitting with you 
 more than an hour." 
 
 " Was it so long ? — Poor old man ! — his 
 sole comfort consists in his visits here," re- 
 plied Mrs. Hamlyn. " I wish the boys were 
 in town, to enliven him with their society. But 
 between Walter's hunting, and Henry's Italian 
 tour, we are left this winter quite alone !" 
 
 " What possible charm could the society of 
 young men of their age have for an old fellow 
 like Hamilton ?"— 
 
 *' But since you have no leisure to bestow 
 upon him ?" 
 
 " He bestows Ids leisure upon you. My 
 house is always open to him."
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 43 
 
 " Yet you seem surprised he should have 
 been sitting here so long this morning ?" 
 
 Again did Richard Hamljn fix his eyes in- 
 quiringly on the face of his wife. But he 
 read there no indication of an unusual bitter- 
 ness of retort. 
 
 " I fear he is getting sadly weary of Lon- 
 don," added she, with her customary gentle- 
 ness. " The solitude of a crowded city, where 
 he knows nobody, oppresses him ; and Quid- 
 die assures him that all his indigestion arises 
 from being hypped, and recommends Brighton 
 or Cheltenham. Colonel Hamilton is himself 
 of opinion that London disagrees with him." 
 
 " Absurd ! London is one of the most sa- 
 lubrious spots in the world. Portland Place 
 lies very high, and stands upon gravel." 
 
 *' His spirits, rather than his health, appear 
 affected." 
 
 " Do you mean to say, Sophia, that London 
 is not a sufficiently cheerful residence for a 
 man who has been living contentedly, for the 
 last forty years, tete-a-tete with a valetudina- 
 rian wife, in a colony of Gentoos ?" 
 
 " The very reason of his requiring a livelier
 
 44 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 residence in his old age. I almost agree with 
 him,'' added Mrs. Hamlyn, *' that he would be 
 happier in the country." 
 
 " In short, you have been advising him to 
 settle at Brighton or Cheltenham, where a 
 man of his sort will be instantly surrounded 
 by toadies, to the serious detriment of our 
 children." 
 
 *^ I do not call Brighton or Cheltenham the 
 country. The utmost I suggested was, that 
 he would have been happier with us, this win- 
 ter, at Dean Park !" 
 
 " I told you before, that Hamilton has im- 
 portant business in Leadenhall Street !" 
 
 " Which wdll be settled in a few months. 
 If, therefore, instead of a house in Portland 
 Place, he had purchased Burlington Manor — " 
 
 " You might as well say, if he had pur- 
 chased the Hyde, or Dean Park ! Burling- 
 ton Manor is not on sale !" 
 
 " Yet surely you mentioned the other 
 night — " Mrs. Hamblyn paused. It suddenly 
 occurred to her that her husband might not 
 choose to be reminded of what he had men- 
 tioned the other night. But she had advanced
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 45 
 
 too far to recede. The banker's curiosity was 
 excited. She was compelled to rise and ex- 
 plain. 
 
 " You hinted," resumed his wife, in obe- 
 dience to his commands, " that Lady Burling- 
 ton had resolved against living at the Manor." 
 
 " I certainly said she was apprehensive of 
 the large expenses such a residence must en- 
 tail on the minor's estate." 
 
 " At all events, you seemed of opinion that, 
 before long, the whole place might possibly 
 be brought to the hammer !" 
 
 Mr. Hamlyn had indeed uttered some suoh 
 denunciation ; but merely in the way of me- 
 nace against Lady Burlington, who occa- 
 sionally saw fit to have a will of her own, as 
 co-executrix of her husband, and guardian of 
 her son. He now seemed struck by a sudden 
 inspiration ; and was about to utter some tri- 
 vial remark by way of distracting the atten- 
 tion of his wife from the subject, when Ramsay, 
 his solemn butler, entered with a mysterious 
 air, to announce dinner. It was the rule of 
 the house to avoid, during the attendance of 
 the servants at meal-times, all conversation in-
 
 46 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 volviiig the mention of proper names ; and 
 nothing, consequently, could be more bald and 
 disjointed than the dinner-table chat of the 
 Hamlyn family. 
 
 On returning to the drawing-room, after 
 dinner, the same prohibitory regulations were 
 in force, in deference to the presence of the 
 young ladies and their governess, who made 
 their appearance for tea. Few, therefore, and 
 brief were the moments allotted to conjugal 
 confidence by the banker; who, on points 
 where it was his pleasure to maintain re- 
 serve, understood how to frustrate curiosity 
 by an imperturbable coldness, more effective 
 than the most intemperate warmth of other 
 men. 
 
 The experience of four and twenty years, 
 however, enabled his wife to form tolerably 
 correct inferences even from his silence ; and 
 her interpretation of a few broken words 
 and elevations of the eyebrow prevented her 
 being 7nuch surprised, when, about a month 
 afterwards, the moment that February put 
 forth its usual deceptive mildness. Colonel 
 Hamilton announced one morning to Lydia
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 47 
 
 and her sister that he was about to accom- 
 pany their father for a day or two to Dean 
 Park. 
 
 " Any message to your pony, Miss Lydia, 
 my dear?" — said the old man, to the elder 
 girl, (towards whom he had a partial lean- 
 ing, from the circumstance of his son Jack 
 having been staying, a convalescent child 
 from school, at Dean Park, at the moment 
 of her birth, and enlarged mightily in his 
 letters to his mother on the beauty of the 
 babe,) " any message to the lambs and prim- 
 roses on Valentine's-day ?" — 
 
 " Going to dear Dean ? — How provoking ! 
 You will see the place to such disadvantage 
 at this time of year!" — cried Lydia. " And 
 I was so in hopes that at your first visit / 
 should be there to show you — " 
 
 She paused. The warm-hearted girl hesi- 
 tated about alluding to the flower-garden 
 made for her, in her happier childhood, by 
 her patrons, the young Hamiltons. 
 
 " Don't fret yourself, my dear young 
 lady !" cried Colonel Hamilton. " I shall 
 most likely see the place in all its perfection
 
 48 THE banker's wife 
 
 before I die ; ay, and you may chance to see 
 me there, oftener than you care for. How- 
 ever, mum's the word ! — Hamlyn's such a 
 cautious fellow, that he won't let me blab, 
 even about my own affairs." 
 
 Already, Mrs. Hamlyn foresaw the result 
 of this visit. Within a week, the papers 
 were in progress whose signature was to 
 assign Burlington Manor for a term of years 
 to the ex-Colonel of Ghazerapore. 
 
 The measure, if accomplished solely at the 
 suggestion of the worldly-wise man in whose 
 hands he was little more than a puppet, was 
 one Colonel Hamilton was far less likely to 
 repent than his own precipitate purchase in 
 Portland Place; though even that evil had 
 been remedied by the intervention of the 
 banker ; who contrived to persuade a young 
 Irish Baronet (just come into his fortune, 
 and whom an extensive county in Ireland 
 judged of years of sufficient discretion to 
 represent it in parliament,) that Portland 
 Place was an agreeable distance from the 
 House of Commons, and six hundred a-year 
 a moderate rent.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 49 
 
 " And so you see, my dear lady," ob- 
 served Colonel Hamilton, on announcing the 
 good news in Cavendish Square, " my friend 
 Hamlyn's put me in the way of being com- 
 fortable ; — found me a house, and found me 
 a tenant. With a degree of inconsistency 
 I might blush for, if there were any one but 
 Pincher to admire my blushes, I've let my 
 house to a stranger, and shall reside for the 
 rest of my days under a stranger's roof. — I'd 
 rather have purchased, — much rather have 
 purchased. At my time o' life, to sign a lease 
 for twenty-one years, appears like tempting' 
 Providence. But within fifty miles of Dean, 
 not a place to be had ; and the idea of going 
 further away from you all would have broken 
 my old heart. So you must even make up 
 your minds to put up with me. We're now 
 next-door neighbours. Our park-gates stand 
 cheek by jowl, as it were; and we might 
 almost shake hands over the paling !" 
 
 " We used to see a great deal of the Bur- 
 lingtons,*' replied Mrs. Hamlyn, with a sad- 
 dened eye. " In poor Sir Roger's lifetime, 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 THE BANKER'S WIFE; 
 
 not a day passed without our meeting. As 
 it proved impossible for Lady Burlington to 
 keep up the place during her son's minority, 
 I always preferred its remaining unoccupied 
 to seeing a stranger in the room of my 
 friend ; little expecting ever to find a tenant 
 in yourself. You are nearly the only person 
 I could have been pleased to welcome to the 
 haunts of my lost friends." 
 
 " Thank ye, thank ye !" cried the Colonel. 
 " There's one comfort in talking to i/ou. One 
 knows you mean what you say. Otherwise, 
 I should be afraid you were already murmur- 
 ing in the depths of your heart, ' Shall I never 
 get rid of this old man of the sea ? — Is he 
 always to be strapped to my shoulders V " — 
 
 " I am sure, Colonel Hamilton, you were 
 never afraid of an unkind word or thought 
 from mamma !" interposed Lydia, almost 
 angrily. 
 
 " At all events, I fancy I shall have you 
 among the grumblers," replied the old man, 
 turning laughingly towards her ; " for my 
 friend Hamlyn has decided that instead of
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 51 
 
 your all remaining in town till the end of the 
 season," — he paused, as if reluctant to un- 
 fold the fate impending over them. 
 
 " What have / to do with the London 
 season !" said Miss Hamlyn, shrugging her 
 shoulders. '^ Harriet and I want only to get 
 out of this smoky town, to our ponies and 
 flower-gardens." 
 
 ** I wish ye both joy, then ! — for, as I was 
 just going to tell ye, you are all to be packed 
 off, bag and baggage, into Warwickshire, early 
 in May." 
 
 " This is good news, indeed !" exclaimed 
 Mrs. Hamlyn ; who, taking little pleasure in 
 the gay world previous to the introduction of 
 her daughter into society, experienced a 
 happy emancipation at Dean Park from the 
 methodical restrictions imposed by the head 
 of the family. Though the same school-hours 
 were observed, as in town, she enjoyed the 
 company of the girls unmolested in her drives 
 and walks, in their intervals of recreation. 
 
 " For m;f/ part, I start directly," added 
 Colonel Hamilton. " 'Tis a long time since 
 
 D 2 
 
 rviTVonamos
 
 52 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 I saw the grass grow and the trees bud 
 in my own country. Goody Johnston and 
 her husband swear I'm not made for a coun- 
 try gentleman, and try to persuade me the 
 only thing I shall care for in my new seat is 
 watching over the wall for the Lon'on mail 
 to go by. But, though Hamlyn accuses me 
 of being managed by my servants, I showed 
 'em I was my own master ; and hurried the 
 lawyers all the more with the papers, the 
 more they grumbled. I shall soon teach 
 'em how merry we can make the country 
 by cheerful hearts and open-housekeeping. 
 And by the way, my dear ma'am," con- 
 tinued the exulting old gentleman, address- 
 ing Mrs. Hamlyn, " as I find you're in cor- 
 respondence with this Lady Burlington, (who 
 must be fretting her poor heart sadly, I 
 should think, to be forced to give up her 
 beautiful place) I wish you'd just tell her, 
 as such matters don't read so well in a six- 
 and-eight-penny letter, among the whereases 
 and forasmuches of the lawyers, that if 
 there's any poor folks in the village she holds
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 53 
 
 to having cared for, or any favourite plants 
 in the hothouses she'd like to give to a 
 friend, she has only to send me a hint, and 
 her will's as good as done. I saw a fine 
 Newfoundland dog, skulking about the offices 
 as though he'd been used to be petted, and 
 had lost a friend, — at whom Pincher chose to 
 set up his ears 'cause I patted him on the 
 head." 
 
 " Poor Carlo ! " — murmured Lydia, " Sir 
 Roger's old favourite ! — he must, indeed, miss 
 Lady Burlington." 
 
 " Well, mind and tell her he sha'n't be tied 
 up, but have the run of the place. — Carlo shall 
 still find himself at home." 
 
 " He was too cumbersome a fellow-traveller 
 to take with her and the children to Naples,'* 
 observed Mrs. Hamlyn. " I should have been 
 glad to give him a home at Dean, and the mare 
 too, — Lady Burlington's favourite mare,— 
 but Mr. Hamlyn was not very kindly disposed 
 towards her at the moment of her departure, 
 and I did not dare propose it. I fancy Lady 
 Burlington interfered too much with his ar- 
 rangements as executor."
 
 54 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 " That's to say, I suppose, she thought what 
 was her son's was her's, and what was her's 
 was her own. The two best friends that 
 ever were born seldom remain so when there's 
 pounds, shillings, and pence to be settled be- 
 tween 'em. Joseph's brethren sold him into 
 slavery ; and there's many a brother left in 
 the world who'd drive the same bargain. 
 However, just mention, my dear ma'am, in 
 your next letter, that the mare shall have a 
 paddock to herself till her mistress finds a 
 better master for her ; and, but for Pincher's 
 jealousy. Carlo will have his own way. I 
 recollect what a twinge it gave my heart to 
 leave behind at Ghazerapore a poor drome- 
 dary that worked the well in the garden, lest 
 it should be ill-used after losing its master 
 and mistress. I made up my mind to shoot 
 it, but my hand failed." 
 
 Mrs. Hamlyn answered warmly for the gra- 
 titude of her absent friend ; and six weeks 
 afterwards, on her arrival at Dean Park, had 
 the satisfaction of finding her new neighbour 
 in the exercise of all his good intentions, and
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 55 
 
 the enjoyment of more than his expected 
 pleasures. Moreover, as it was the object of 
 the banker to render Colonel Hamilton as 
 contented as possible in his new residence, he 
 had issued papal indulgences to his family, in 
 accordance with the old gentleman's wishes, 
 entitling his daughters to accompany their 
 mother whenever she dined at Burlington 
 Manor ; besides letters of dispensation to 
 Miss Creswell, the governess, to visit her 
 friends in Ireland for the remainder of the 
 summer, — her first leave of absence during ten 
 years' tuition in the family. 
 
 " This is something like happiness, and 
 something like a home !" cried the old soldier, 
 the first time he welcomed his Dean Park 
 friends to his hospitable board, to meet the 
 Vicar of Ovington and his wife. ''A very 
 different thing from your ostentatious Lon'on 
 dinner-parties ; where people care for nothing 
 but to have it said they give better venison or 
 more turtle, or can show off a finer service of 
 plate than their neighbours ! This is the 
 England I used to dream of in ludy, — green, 
 and fresh, and sociable !"
 
 56 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 " A pleasant refreshment, certainly, sir, to 
 eyes long wearied by the parched sands and 
 scanty foliage of the East," observed Dr. 
 Markham, surprised at such warm enthusiasm 
 on the part of an old gentleman of sixty-five ; 
 a bosom friend, moreover, of his saturnine 
 patron, the banker. 
 
 " Ay, and a still greater relief, after being 
 sent gravel-grinding, day after day, for exer- 
 cise, among a parcel of gaudy hussies in Hyde 
 Park !" — retorted the Colonel. " Just turn 
 round your head, Doctor, and look at the deer 
 grouped yonder under the beech-trees, and 
 the gleams of sunshine flung through the 
 drooping branches on the rich grass ! Lydia, 
 child ! I won't have you laugh at the ectasies 
 of your old friend. I dare say you'll be calling 
 me Peter Pastoral by and by. You never 
 heard the Burlingtons, may be, run on in 
 praise of the place, — 'cause in the?n 'twould 
 have been ostentation. But mi/ raptures are 
 simply an expression of gratitude to God for 
 having secured to the old, useless hulk, after 
 the storms and breakers of life, safe anchorage 
 in a pleasant harbour at last !"
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 57 
 
 In compliance with a wish expressed by the 
 Hamlyn girls, the Colonel ordered coffee to 
 be served in a fine conservatory built by the 
 late Sir Roger in the centre of the flower- 
 garden, to which he was projecting the addi- 
 tion of an aviary for his Bengalees ; and what 
 a relief to the whole party was that uncere- 
 monious evening — the fragrance of the gardens 
 enhanced by a gentle dew, and their gorgeous 
 colours subdued by the clear-obscure of a 
 midsummer twilight — after the formalities of 
 Dean Park ! — 
 
 " Is not this pleasant and sociable, Drt 
 Markham ? " exclaimed the happy Lydia, in 
 all the joy of school-room emancipation. " We 
 never do anything of the kind at home. Papa 
 so much dislikes having things displaced." 
 
 " Ay, ay ! " interrupted the Colonel, " all 
 that sort of household subordination 's a capi- 
 tal thing for a family-man like my friend 
 Hamlyn. But discipline would be out of place 
 in an establishment with an old Indian at its 
 head, accustomed to take things as he finds 
 'em, too glad to find 'em at all. I like every 
 
 D 5
 
 58 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 body to be free, easy, and comfortable about 
 me, — Pincher and all. ' Live and let live,' is 
 my motto, or, rather, ' Let live, that you may 
 deserve to live.' " 
 
 Such sentiments received a silent " amen " 
 from the gentle wife of the banker, and an 
 audible one from the Vicar of Ovington ; who, 
 among the numerous benefits heaped by his 
 patron, the banker, on his parish, began to 
 conceive that the greatest of all might prove 
 the hospitable, open-hearted neighbour he had 
 provided for the Vicarage. 
 
 Dr. Markham's prejudices as a high church- 
 man had always rendered the Roman Catholic 
 baronets of Burlington Manor a stumbling- 
 block in his pastoral way; and though the 
 judicious liberality of Richard Hamlyn almost 
 sufficed the needs of the parish, the generous 
 Hamilton had already shown himself a more 
 apt representative of the bounty of Providence, 
 which sendeth its rain on the just and unjust, 
 — neither assuming with the poor the severity 
 of a judge, nor, with their pastor, the pride of 
 a rich man.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 59 
 
 Richard Hamlyn was one of those who mea- 
 sure out their dole with as many conditions to 
 the naked and hungry as though they had 
 incurred his charity by a crime; nor could 
 Dr. Markham disguise from himself that, after 
 only three months' acquaintance, he was on 
 a pleasanter footing with Colonel Hamilton 
 than with the more correctly-spoken neighbour 
 at Dean Park, who invariably made him feel 
 that the parson and his wife were invited to 
 dine now and then at the great house, to " keep 
 up the respectability of the church in the eyes 
 of the lower classes ;" or, in other words, tg 
 ensure the attendance of his servants and 
 labourers at church, where they were fright- 
 ened out of picking and stealing the property 
 of their betters, and inspired with becoming- 
 deference for those in authority over them. 
 
 It was a real comfort, therefore, to the 
 heart of the Vicar, to find himself respected 
 by Colonel Hamilton as a privileged expositor 
 of the truths of the Gospel ; and invited to 
 his table as a neighbour and gentlemanly com- 
 panion, rather than as a professional man.
 
 60 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 Dr. Markham was, however, too well aware 
 of Mrs. Hamlyn's subordinate importance in 
 the family, to attribute to her any portion of 
 the overweening purse-pride of Dean Park. 
 
 " It must be many years, madam," said he 
 respectfully addressing her, as they sat over- 
 looking the flower-beds from the open doors 
 of the conservatory, " since you enjoyed the 
 sight of your own roses in bloom ? This is 
 the first summer I remember you to have spent 
 in Warwickshire. I often observe to Mrs. 
 Markham, that, while the owners of the three 
 finest seats in the neighbourhood remain pent 
 in the stifling metropolis, she and I, — a poor 
 parson and his wife, — monopolize the enjoy- 
 ment of their beauties !" 
 
 " You do not, I hope, grudge my having at 
 length come to share them with you ?" inquired 
 Mrs. Hamlyn, with a smile. " It has always 
 consoled me for my confinement in London 
 to know that the flowers and shrubberies at 
 Dean were at least enjoyed by those who fill 
 my place so kindly during my absence, in du- 
 ties where it were otherwise difficult indeed 
 to find a representative !"
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 61 
 
 Mrs. Markham, a nervous little woman who 
 could never be encouraged out of her village 
 timidity by the civilities of the Manor or Dean 
 Park, stammered something nearly unintelligi- 
 ble about her delight in being the dispenser of 
 Mrs. Hamlyn's benevolence. 
 
 '' But what the deuce do you mean by the 
 three finest seats in the country, my dear Doc- 
 tor?" — suddenly interrupted Colonel Hamilton. 
 
 " I fancy you have not yet visited the 
 Hyde ; which, begging yours and Mrs. Ham- 
 lyn's pardon, is the finest place within twenty 
 miles round," replied the Vicar. 
 
 " The Hyde — the Hyde f — Never even heard 
 of it," cried Colonel Hamilton. " I must really 
 get a map of the county, to hang up in my 
 hall !" 
 
 " Surely you remember the fine woods I 
 pointed out to you as Lord Vernon's, the day 
 we drove over together from Braxham Heath ?" 
 inquired Mrs. Hamlyn. 
 
 " To be sure I do ! But how was I to guess 
 they belonged to a family-seat ?" 
 
 " The Braxham woods clothe a fine accli-
 
 6S THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 vity. The Hyde, like most old houses, lies 
 at the foot," said the Vicar in explanation, 
 
 " Gad ! I'm glad to hear of more neighbours 
 than I counted on !" cried the sociable old 
 gentleman. " The more the merrier — the 
 more the merrier, — especially if I persist in 
 my intention of spending my winters in the 
 country. Let me see. The Manor makes up 
 fourteen spare beds ; and besides ourselves," 
 he continued, glancing at the whole party, but 
 addressing Mrs. Hamlyn, " there's your two 
 sons, who I hope will be here at Christmas. 
 Old Gratwycke of Gratwycke House tells 
 me he is too old to sleep out of his own house. 
 But tell me, pray — who is it lives at The 
 Hyde?"— 
 
 " I might also answer, 7io one,''' replied Dr. 
 Markham : " so little advantage does the neigh- 
 bourhood derive from the society of Lord 
 Vernon's family. His lordship's principal seat 
 is in Northumberland ; and since the present 
 peer came to his title, he has only visited 
 Warwickshire once or twice, — avowedly to 
 hunt with the Duke of Elvaston's hounds.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 63 
 
 whose best coverts lie on this side the 
 county." 
 
 " The Vernons associate very little with 
 their country neighbours," added Mrs. Ham- 
 lyn, '^ which we regret the less, as the ford at 
 Braxham is unpleasant enough in winter, when 
 they are usually here ; and to go round by 
 Barsthorpe bridge, doubles the distance." 
 
 The parson's wife could scarcely sufficiently 
 admire the fluency with which Mrs. Hamlyn 
 accounted for what the lesser thrones and do- 
 minions interpreted into the pride of all the 
 Vernons ; who presumed upon their length 
 of pedigree towards the banker, as much as 
 the banker presumed towards others upon 
 his length of purse. 
 
 " In short, these fine folks are not neigh- 
 bourly !" was Colonel Hamilton's summary of 
 the case. " Well, there's room enough in 
 the air for high-flyers and low-flyers ! If they 
 can do without us, we must do without them, 
 I'm surprised, though ! We think a deal of 
 a lord in Indy, 'cause we seldom have more 
 than one at a time. A Phoenix is a Phoenix,
 
 64 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 and a governor-general's a governor-general. 
 But I fancied, that in Lon'on, where there's a 
 whole house full of 'em, these great lords 
 thought less of themselves." 
 
 " We scarcely know what the Vernons 
 think of themselves, for they are almost stran- 
 gers in the county," observed Mrs. Hamlyn. 
 ** They have not been here these two years." 
 
 " If there's nobody at the Hyde, then, why 
 shouldn't I go and indulge myself with a peep 
 at the place ?" — cried Colonel Hamilton. 
 
 " I think you would perhaps be more pleased 
 with Ormeau," said Mrs. Hamlyn, timidly. 
 
 " But Ormeau is out of distance. One can't 
 get from Burlington to the Duke of Elvaston's 
 without post-horses," interposed the Vicar. 
 
 " And my chief object is the drive," cried 
 Colonel Hamilton. " The first cool day, 
 Doctor, suppose we go over in my phaeton ?" 
 
 The Vicar readily acquiesced. The plan 
 suited all parties. Between the Vernons and 
 the Hamlyns there existed a coldness which, 
 the fathers of both having been friends, might 
 be considered enmity; and, even during the
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 65 
 
 absence of the family, Mrs. Hamlyn was not 
 fond of appearing an intruder at the Hyde. 
 It was not a regular show-place ; i, e. one of 
 those great houses whose great lords sanction 
 their housekeeper in exhibiting their state 
 apartments and pictures to strangers, on the 
 mulct of a piece of gold. But on inscribing 
 their names in a book (kept for the purpose of 
 recording these tributes to the family vanity) 
 the country neighbours were privileged ; and 
 one of the pragmaticalities of Richard Ham- 
 lyn was a dislike to have his patronymic 
 figure in the register of his haughty neighbour, 
 more than a certain number of times in the 
 year, when forced to show off the lions of the 
 Dean Park neighbourhood to visiters of mark 
 and distinction. Whenever a Countess was 
 his inmate, he took care to parade her to the 
 Hyde, uniting the name of her ladyship by a 
 bracket with those of " Mr. and Mrs. Hamlyn, 
 of Dean Park." But his wife was sufficiently 
 cognizant of his weaknesses to suspect that 
 he would not wish to appear there as the bear- 
 leader of a new comer into the county. 
 
 Moreover, there had been of late election-
 
 66 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 feud between the banker and Lord Vernon ; a 
 member of whose family was usually the 
 Whig representative of the county, while 
 Hamlyn figured in Parliament as the Tory 
 member for a neighbouring borough, in which 
 the Vernon interest was invariably defeated. 
 
 So far from loving his neighbour as himself, 
 Lord Vernon despised Dean Park as much as 
 Dean Park detested Lord Vernon. Accord- 
 ing to the Christian custom of modern times, 
 however, they hated each other in civil tolera- 
 tion ; on that sort of visiting acquaintance 
 which approaches nearest to the blood-stained 
 and deadly feuds of the middle ages. They 
 mutually shook hands, as if caressing a rattle- 
 snake; while the ladies of the two families 
 presented compliments to each other, or 
 requested the honour of each other's com- 
 pany, or were each other's " very sincerely," 
 as occasion needed. 
 
 It was a comfort, therefore, to Mr. Hamlyn 
 when the Vicar of Ovington consented to act 
 as cicerone to Colonel Hamilton, in his visit 
 to the stately old mansion of the Hyde.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 67 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 It stood embosom'd in a happy valley, 
 
 Crown'd by high woodlands where the Druid oak 
 Stood like Caractacus, in act to rally 
 
 His hosts, — with broad arras 'gainst the thunder-stroke ; 
 And from beneath the boughs were seen to sally 
 The dappled foresters ; — as day awoke, ^ 
 
 The branching stag swept down, with all his herd. 
 To quaff a brook that murmured like a bird. 
 
 Byron. 
 
 "By George, my dear Doctor! these 
 people have a wee bit of excuse for thinking 
 curious old port of themselves," cried Colonel 
 Hamilton, when, after crossing Braxham 
 ferry, and sweeping past a quaint old gothic 
 lodge, his phaeton entered one of those noble 
 English parks whose oaks are contemporaries 
 of Queen Bess, and over whose richly swarded
 
 68 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 slopes no ploughshare has passed in the me- 
 mory of man. " Why, this fine avenue must 
 be fall two miles in length !" 
 
 " ' Tis the finest in England, next to the 
 Long Walk at Windsor," replied the Vicar, 
 attempting, as became his cloth, a quotation 
 from Cowper in honour of avenues, which his 
 companion pronounced to be deuced fine, and 
 recollected perfectly in Byron. 
 
 " Is that the house? " — added he, pointing 
 to a venerable pile of gothic almshouses, indis- 
 tinctly seen from the road through openings 
 in a grove of sycamores, whose heavy foliage 
 seemed to impart additional airiness to their 
 slight pinnacles. 
 
 " The Jiouse f — replied the Vicar, smiling ; 
 " if the owner of the Hyde could only hear 
 you ! — That is Vernon College, a charitable 
 endowment of the reign of Edward VI. A 
 large portion of the Vernon property, in this 
 and other counties, consists of Abbey lands — 
 grants from the Crown at the Reformation. 
 It was an act of atonement, probably, on the 
 part of Henry VIII.'s favourite, John Lord
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 69 
 
 Vernon, to bestow this gift upon the poor, to 
 repay the injuries of the Church." 
 
 " Or, rather, I suppose," remonstrated 
 Colonel Hamilton, with ex-ecclesiastical in- 
 terpretation, " the suppression of monasteries 
 expressly endowed by pious persons for the 
 entertainment and succour of the indigent and 
 sick demanded a substitution from the charity 
 of the wealthy nobility." 
 
 " We will not inquire too curiously into the 
 motives and conscience of John Lord Vernon," 
 cried Dr. Markham, good-humouredly ; " as I 
 fear our sole information must be derived from' 
 his brass effigy in Braxham Church. Suffice 
 it that, from his day to the present, the alms- 
 houses have been admirably kept up. But 
 look ! — before you stands the old Manor House 
 of the Vernons." 
 
 Having now reached nearly the end of the 
 avenue, they were within view of a stately 
 mansion, of Elizabethan architecture, stand- 
 ing in a spacious court, enclosed with palisades 
 and gateways of enscrolled iron-work. Ap- 
 proached from so vast a distance, by a gra-
 
 70 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 dually declining avenue, the house, like most 
 ancient mansions, took the traveller by surprise 
 when its full extent of frontage was developed 
 before him. 
 
 " And Lord Vernon, you say, has a nobler 
 seat than even tliisT' exclaimed Colonel Hamil- 
 ton, in the simplicity of his admiration. 
 
 " A more cheerful one, I fancy, as regards 
 neighbourhood. Vernon Castle is at no great 
 distance from Alnwick and Chillino^ham." 
 
 " And the Hyde at no great distance from 
 Burlington Manor and Dean Park," added the 
 Colonel. " 'Tis as broad as it's long." 
 
 Dr. Markham was, perhaps, of opinion that 
 it was considerably longer than it was broad ; 
 but a spiritual pastor had no right to enlarge 
 upon the vast distinction between lordly castles, 
 and squirearchical residences like Dean Park. 
 
 " And you say they reside here only a few 
 weeks in the year, and that all the rest of the 
 time this noble mansion is untenanted ?" ex- 
 claimed Colonel Hamilton, when, the court- 
 yard gates being opened by a shabby stable- 
 boy, they drove up to the venerable porch.
 
 on, COURT AND CITY. 71 
 
 " Doctor, doctor ! with all the talk one hears 
 against pluralities in the Church, I wonder 
 when a law will pass 'gainst plurality of palaces 
 in private families ? — There's a deal to be 
 said, I suppose, both pro and co7i the sub- 
 division of inheritance, according to Boney's 
 Code ; but, by George, if / were in Parlia- 
 ment, nothing should prevent my getting up 
 and proposing an act compelling every man, 
 having many sons and many family-mansions, 
 to bequeath 'em a country-house a-piece, to 
 be happy in, and rid the country of the 
 nuisance of vagrant younger brothers." 
 
 " The chapter is a wide one to embark in 
 just now; particularly," added Dr. Markham, 
 " within the gates of a man, who, in addition 
 to his English seats, has a castle in Ireland 
 large enough to contain the village of Brax- 
 ham, which, to my knowledge, he has not 
 visited since he came to his estate." 
 
 And ere Colonel Hamilton could express 
 his indignation in reply, the Vicar led the 
 way into the great hall, where the old house- 
 keeper, in her starched coif and lawn apron,
 
 72 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 awaited their approach ; with her keys in her 
 hand, and in her mouth the cut and dry- 
 exposition of the glories of the house of 
 Vernon, a litany of the pomps and vanities of 
 the Hyde. 
 
 All was now paraded in succession ; — the 
 grand staircase, — the Barons' gallery, — the 
 golden chamber, — the Gobelin suite, — the blue 
 damask, — the Holbein room, — the cedar par- 
 lour, — the chapel, — the painted hall; and 
 Colonel Hamilton's raptures increased at the 
 exhibition of every chef d'oeuvre displayed by 
 old Mrs. Harkness, with a becoming sense of 
 its importance — and her own. 
 
 Above all, the series of venerable family 
 portraits, and a thousand curious relics con- 
 nected with the olden time, seemed to rejoice 
 his heart, almost as much as though he had 
 been born a Vernon. This realization of the 
 past appeared to inspire him, for the first time, 
 with faith in the existence of the Middle 
 Ages. 
 
 "This is precisely the sort of thing the 
 Yankees envy us !" — cried he, after surveying
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 73 
 
 the Barons' gallery with delight; — the sort of 
 thing that secures Old England against the 
 hubbub of a commonwealth !" — 
 
 " A link in the chain of the constitution, 
 which, by keeping the vassal faithful, renders 
 the noble loyal," added the Doctor, in a 
 phrase so antithetical, that it sounded replete 
 with meaning. 
 
 " I can't find it in my heart to forgive the 
 man who owns such a place," added the 
 Colonel enthusiastically, '' for choosing to live 
 elsewhere." 
 
 The old housekeeper smoothed down her 
 apron ; but did not smooth her ruffled brows, 
 at hearing the Right Honourable Xord Vernon 
 apostrophized as "a man." Though the 
 name inscribed by her blunt visiter in the 
 book, and Colonel Hamilton's reputation in the 
 neighbourhood for liberality, prepared her for 
 a nabob's fee at parting, and to be patient 
 under any extent of insult or injury in the 
 interim, her wrath nearly exploded on hearing 
 him enlarge to his reverend companion upon 
 
 VOL, I, D
 
 74 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 the dignity and interest of the Hyde, but the 
 vast superiority of Burlington Manor. 
 
 " I should have been moped to death in a 
 magnificent old dungeon like this !" was his 
 ever-recurring exclamation. " This tapestry 
 would give me the blue devils. People must 
 have had ancestors in Harry the Eighth's 
 time, to put up with it. Why, the Manor is 
 thrice as airy, and fifty times more convenient ; 
 — to say nothing that Goody Johnston would 
 have died here of the ague ! Hamlyn knew 
 just what would suit me. As a country 
 gentleman, I am far better off at the Manor." 
 
 The jerk with which old Mrs. Harkness 
 snapped the key in the door of the state- 
 apartments, after locking out the utterer of 
 these insolent heresies, probably conveyed but 
 half her contempt towards the presumptuous 
 offender. Regarding herself as part and 
 parcel of the illustrious family of the Vernons, 
 Dean Park was her wash-pot, and over Bur- 
 lington Manor did she cast her shoe. 
 
 " It is enough to keep my Lord away from 
 the place," muttered the stern housekeeper.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 75 
 
 as she dropped the Colonel's sovereign scorn- 
 fully into her purse, "to be troubled with the 
 intrusion of the upstart tribe of Hamlyn, the 
 banker !" 
 
 Dr. Markhara's description to his wife of 
 the scarcely-suppressed choler of the irate old 
 lady served, that evening, to enliven the 
 homely tea-table of the Vicarage. 
 
 " Colonel Hamilton was pleased, then, with 
 his drive ?" — demanded Mrs. Markham of her 
 husband. 
 
 " Pleased as a child. It does one's heart, 
 good to see a gray-headed man so fresh in 
 spirit. He enjoyed all he saw and heard, like 
 a schoolboy at home for the holidays." 
 
 "And what is he else?" inquired Mrs. 
 Markham. " He tells me he went out to India 
 at fifteen, — a raw boy from the Charter House, 
 — ^half educated, and wholly ignorant of 
 English habits and pleasures." 
 
 " So much the better for him ! To the 
 young men of the present day, on emerging 
 from Haileybury, India is banishment ; — and 
 banishment which their expensive habits tend 
 
 E 2
 
 76 THE BANKER'S WIFE; 
 
 to prolong. Hamilton was both frugal and 
 contented ; and now he is come home, full of 
 eagerness for the common pleasures with which 
 other men are surfeited." 
 
 *' His chief pleasure, worthy man, seems 
 to be doing good," observed Mrs. Markham, 
 who was bound Colonel Hamilton's slave for 
 ever, by the number of yards of flannel and 
 pairs of blankets with which he had already 
 enriched her treasury for the Ovington poor. 
 " Not a particle of self seems to act as a 
 drawback upon his kindly feelings ! — All is 
 sunshine in his heart ; and he likes to dispense 
 a portion of the warmth to other people. I 
 cannot understand the friendship that unites 
 him to so mere a man of business as — " 
 
 " Hush ! my dear ! It is not for us to 
 enlarge upon the faults or failings of Dean 
 Park," remonstrated the Vicar. " Between 
 ourselves, however, I've an idea that Hamlyn 
 was not particularly anxious the old gentle- 
 man should visit the domain at the Hyde." 
 
 " Afraid, perhaps, of putting him out of 
 conceit with his own ?"
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 77 
 
 " Why, certainly, the good Colonel's respect 
 for our Oving'ton school-houses and infirma- 
 ries was a little diminished on observing 
 the priority of such institutions at Vernon 
 College. But to what does this amount? 
 That the Vernons have been doing for four 
 centuries what the Hamlyns began only forty 
 years ago, but will, I trust, persist in, for four 
 centuries to come ! Napoleon's Marshal, old 
 Lefevre, once said to a nobleman of the ancien 
 regime^ — ' You are mighty proud of your 
 ancestors.' Well, — J am an ancestor ! Some 
 day or other, Hamlyn's descendants will be in 
 the Upper House." 
 
 " But Dean Park will never be the Hyde of 
 2235 !" — observed the Vicar's wife, shaking 
 her head. 
 
 " I'm afraid not," rejoined her husband, 
 laughing at her solemnity of tone. '' What- 
 ever else we do for posterity, we don't build 
 for them. However, I should have been 
 vexed had poor Hamlyn witnessed this morn- 
 ing the surprise of his Indian friend, on dis- 
 covering that the acts of beneficence he had
 
 78 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 believed to originate solely in the wisdom and 
 virtue of Dean Park, — an especial invention 
 of Richard Hamljn, Esq., M. P., — are but a 
 modernized edition of the old charities of the 
 Vernons." 
 
 Little did Dr. Markham surmise, debarred 
 as a Protestant minister from the advantages 
 of confession over the parishioners to whom 
 he was appointed to preach the Gospel on Sun- 
 days, the extent to which this rivalship and 
 jealousy had influenced through life the con- 
 duct and character of Mr. Hamlyn. His dis- 
 position and destinies had been literally 
 created by the vicinity of Dean Park to the 
 Hyde. 
 
 The only son of a mercantile man unexpec- 
 tedly enriched by one of those startling specu- 
 lations which begat and extinguished millions, 
 during the early half of the last century, the 
 elder Hamlyn had purchased the estate of the 
 Dean, enclosed the Park, and concentrated 
 the property ; leaving to his son, the father of 
 the present proprietor, the care of erecting a 
 family mansion, proportionate to the estate.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 79 
 
 People never do build houses in proportion 
 to their estates. Their pride will not let 
 them, and their architects will not let them. 
 To build a house is, as it were, to favour the 
 public with the measure of your fortune; 
 and either policy as a banker, or weakness 
 as a man, inclined old Hamlyn to create an 
 exaggerated idea of his property, by providing 
 himself with a residence requiring a nobleman's 
 income and establishment for its support. 
 
 The Lord Vernon of that generation was 
 unluckily a simple, sociable man, estimating 
 his position as much too low, as the presenf 
 representative of the family rated it too 
 high. United to Hamlyn of Dean by the 
 bond of country neighbourship, viz. to preserve 
 foxes, prosecute trespassers, and blunderbuss 
 poachers for the benefit of the community, — 
 the moment the banker began to build, the 
 peer began to beset him with evil counsel. 
 
 " There is nothing more mistaken than to 
 stint yourself in the proportions of your 
 rooms, the numbering your bed-rooms, or the 
 accommodation of your offices, for the value
 
 80 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 of a trifle of brick and mortar !'* said he. " A 
 couple of thousand pounds, more or less, 
 covers all the difference between an indifferent 
 house and a good one." 
 
 Acting on this principle, old Hamlyn pre- 
 ferred building one that was excellent, and 
 completing his establishment on the model of 
 that of Lord Vernon ; and the consequence 
 was that, when the new family mansion of the 
 Hamlyns came to be discussed at justice- 
 meetings, turnpike-meetings, and quarter ses- 
 sions, the smaller squires of the neighbourhood 
 ventured to predict that, on the death of the 
 old banker and division of his property, 
 Dean Park would prove too much for his son. 
 Old Gratwycke of Gratwycke House quoted 
 from Bacon that a house with wings often- 
 times flies away with an estate; while Mr. 
 Barlow, of Alderham, jocosely christened the 
 banker's folly, *' the Lombard Street Ormeau." 
 
 These remarks did not happen to reach the 
 ear of Richard Hamlyn till he had negatived 
 one auspicious occasion of improving his for- 
 tunes, by uniting himself with a woman who.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 81 
 
 having only ten thousand pounds, passed in 
 the moneyed circles to which he belonged for 
 being penniless. The insulting surmises of 
 his country neighbours stung hira to the soul ; 
 yet, on his father's death, which occurred 
 within a year of his marriage, so far from 
 abandoning Dean Park, or allowing the admi- 
 rable charitable foundations created by his 
 parents to decay, Richard Hamlyn, as has 
 been already advanced, increased rather than 
 diminished the liberality of his housekeeping; 
 and by the admirable discipline kept up in his 
 establishment, — kitchen, stables, farm, — nay,* 
 even in the family circle, — was enabled to 
 maintain his position in the county, head and 
 front with the Vernons of the Hyde, and the 
 Burlingtons of Burlington Manor. Nobody 
 had any further right to say that the old 
 banker had over-built himself. The only 
 change for the worse perceptible in the house- 
 hold, was in the spirits of its master. 
 
 Meanwhile, as much as the present pro- 
 prietor of Dean Park seemed resolved to walk 
 in the steps of his predecessor, did the Lord 
 
 E 5
 
 82 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 Vernon, who in process of time, — and a slow 
 process it was, — succeeded to the jovial old 
 sportsman, appear determined to institute a 
 new order of things at the Hyde. As if he 
 had taken a spite at the old mansion where 
 his father had survived so immoderately, he 
 spent all his interludes of London dissipation 
 at his Castle in the North ; and when he did 
 visit Warwickshire, (which, in the old lord's 
 time, he had represented in parliament,) his 
 attentions to his neighbours were paid with 
 such punctilious regard to their graduated 
 claims upon his notice, that one or two of 
 the more plain-spoken country squires had 
 seen fit to reject as an insult the notice mea- 
 sured out to them in proportion to the exact 
 square of their acres. Old Gratwycke of 
 Gratwycke House, for instance, whose pro- 
 perty consisted of a farm on which his family 
 had been settled from the days of the Dun 
 Cow, did not feel, in the opportunity of de- 
 ciding once a year upon the merit of Lord 
 Vernon's French cook, Italian confectioner, 
 and German jnaitre-d'' hotel, sufficient repay-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 83 
 
 ment for the impertinence of his lordship's 
 wife and daughter. Unable to maintain the 
 same terms with the son on which he had 
 lived with the father, he chose to forget the 
 existence of the Hyde. 
 
 Such was not the case with Richard 
 Hamlyn. He could not at once renounce 
 the ambition in which he had been born and 
 nurtured, of living on a friendly footing with 
 the Vernons. He fancied that the intimacy 
 had given him importance with his wife's 
 family, — with his city connections, — with the 
 county, — ^with the world ; and whenever Lord 
 and Lady Vernon were in Warwickshire, 
 smarted severely under the undisguised 
 neglects of the Hyde. 
 
 But while the London banker continued to 
 hunger and thirst after the notice of the 
 great people who had withdrawn the light of 
 their countenance, the rest of the country 
 neighbours were satisfied to enlist their sym- 
 pathies in the long illness and early death of 
 Sir Roger Burlington, and the arrival of a 
 successor at the Manor. A thousand wild
 
 84 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 surmises went forth touching the new lessee, 
 — the strange Nabob, — the rich widower, — 
 who, if too old to marry again, was at least 
 of an age to die and be succeeded in his 
 fortune. Colonel Hamilton was a perfect 
 treasure to the gossips of Braxham and 
 Ovington ! His couple of native servants, — 
 his hookah, — his Thibet goats, — his Indian 
 curiosities of all kinds, — were as great a 
 resource to the parish as the arrival of a show 
 of wild beasts ; and when it became known 
 that he talked of a ball for Miss Hamlyn's 
 debut at Christmas, everybody was quite 
 satisfied that Sir Roger Burlington had done 
 wisely to vacate his family-seat, and that 
 they were under considerable obligations to 
 the widow for having settled in Italy. 
 
 In process 'of time, the feuds between the 
 Colonel's factotum, Johnston, and Sir Roger's 
 head-gardener, Anderson, whom, at Hamlyn's 
 suggestion, he had hired with the place, occu- 
 pied nearly as much attention in the vicinity 
 of Ovington as a county election. The 
 Colonel had chosen to give his duplicate
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 85 
 
 key of the gardens and pineries to Goody 
 Johnston, and the head-gardener to give 
 warning. Opinions were divided. Some 
 thought that a gardener who used to ensure 
 the late Sir Roger his green peas at Christ- 
 mas, his strawberries on Valentine's-day, and 
 his peaches on April-fool's-day, was quite 
 right not to be "put upon," but to go and seek 
 his two hundred guineas per annum elsewhere. 
 But the majority were decided Johnstonians, 
 and voted that Colonel Hamilton, like the 
 chamberlain-making kings of Germany, had a 
 right to bestow his keys where he thought 
 proper. 
 
 Even Mrs. Hamlyn ventured to give an 
 opinion, when she understood that the indig- 
 nant Anderson had offered his services at the 
 Hyde. 
 
 " I am afraid you will miss him sadly in 
 the flower-garden," said she. " From long 
 practice, Anderson understands the Burling- 
 ton forcing-houses better than any stranger 
 can do." 
 
 " My dear good lady," cried the Colonel,
 
 86 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 in reply, " I would rather all the shrubberies 
 were rooted up, and that never another pine- 
 apple should be eaten in my house, than put 
 up with a fellow who has offered offence to 
 Goody Johnston! — What harm would she 
 have done in the gardens, more than my wife 
 or daughter, — if I had 'em ? — Let the fellow 
 go to the Hyde, — and let the Hyde go to 
 the devil, — rather than that any slight should 
 be shown, under my roof, to the faithful 
 attendant of the most faithful wife that ever 
 bequeathed her memory to the respect of a 
 husband." 
 
 On this occasion, even the banker exercised 
 his influence in vain. Mr. Hamlyn discovered 
 that though, in matters of business, a puppet in 
 his hands, the old Colonel, where his feelings 
 were concerned, would display the most 
 mulish obstinacy. 
 
 Satisfied from her letters that his wife was 
 too high-minded or too indolent to counteract 
 by her personal influence that of the favourite 
 servants of whose ascendency over Colonel 
 Hamilton he entertained the most mistrustful
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 87 
 
 jealousy, tlie banker accused himself of im- 
 providence in having placed the Nabob beyond 
 the reach of his own daily obsequiousness and 
 serviceability. The]following week, therefore, 
 he arrived on a visit of investigation at Dean 
 Park. 
 
 " Excuse me, my dear Hamlyn," cried his 
 candid old friend, on seeing him, " if I own 
 that your sallow face and careworn wrinkles 
 put me wonderfully in conceit with my coun- 
 try life. Why, you're. young enough to be 
 my son ; and, by George ! you look old enough 
 to be my father !" 
 
 " The late hours and trying atmosphere of 
 the House of Commons make sad inroads into 
 the constitution !" — replied Hamlyn, with the 
 aid of the martyr. 
 
 " Come, come, come ! — none of your flour- 
 ishes, in honour of your services to the coun- 
 try. A banker was never known to die of 
 patriotism," cried the Colonel. " Those 
 jaundiced looks have very little to do with 
 zeal for the nation. 'Tis all shop, my dear 
 sir, — all gold-spinning, — all the wear and tear
 
 88 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 of filthy lucre, — all the care and anxiety of 
 money-making, — all the yellow leprosy, as I 
 call it !"— 
 
 " Say, rather, of taking care of other 
 people's money," replied Hamlyn, attempting 
 a smile. 
 
 " So long as you take such capital care of 
 mine^ I suppose I must find no fault," replied 
 the Lord of Burlington Manor, jocosely. " But 
 I feel that I'm beginning to have over you all 
 the advantage of a country gentleman. Not 
 but that the country gentleman's estate bears 
 its brambles as well as its blackberries. I 
 suppose Mrs. Hamlyn, or dear Lydia, wrote 
 you word that the people hereabouts have 
 been playing the very deuce with me ?" 
 
 This familiar and affectionate designation 
 of his daughter grated disagreeably on the 
 ear of the banker; and accepting the word 
 " people" in its lowest sense, '' Mrs. Hamlyn 
 informed me," said he, " that the fishponds at 
 Burlington Manor had been robbed." 
 
 " Ay, so the keepers swore, who most 
 likely dragged them themselves. But / al-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 89 
 
 luded to Markham and Gratwycke, who have 
 dragged me into the commission of the peace. 
 The Doctor chose to assert, sir, that I had 
 hired the trouble and worry of being a magis- 
 trate, in hiring Burlington Manor !" 
 
 " Very officious of Markham !" observed the 
 banker, who disliked every measure tending 
 to increase Colonel Hamilton's connection 
 with society ; and chose, at all events, that the 
 proposition should proceed from himself. It 
 seemed to him^ indeed, as if Gratwycke and 
 the Vicar, in meddling with Colonel Hamil- 
 ton, had encroached upon his property. 
 
 " Had I been aware of this in time, I should 
 have protested against your incurring so much 
 trouble and responsibility," said he. " At 
 your age, my dear sir, I really think — " 
 
 " Come, come, come ! I've no great right 
 to take shelter under my age," cried the 
 Colonel. " These gentlemen see that I am 
 young enough to amuse myself by scampering 
 over the country on a pony after my little 
 Lydia, and are kind enough to procure me a 
 more useful employment for my time."
 
 90 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 " It is true there is a sad dearth of efficient 
 men among us," replied Hamlyn, perceiving 
 that the Colonel chose to be put upon. " The 
 neighbourhood is thin. The Hyde lends us 
 no assistance. Gratwycke is nearly super- 
 annuated." 
 
 " And not an idle man under five and sixty 
 for twenty miles round !" cried Colonel Ha- 
 milton. " Poor Lydia, sad news for poor 
 dear little Lydia ! I don't know what you'll 
 do for your Christmas ball, my dear, unless 
 you can persuade your brother Walter to 
 bring you down some beaux from Lon'on." 
 
 Richard Hamlyn, though his previous in- 
 structions had authorised, on the part of his 
 family, every sacrifice likely to make the 
 country pleasant to his valued constituent, 
 was annoyed at the tone of familiarity which 
 seemed to have established itself between Co- 
 lonel Hamilton and his daughters. Before he 
 returned to town, he remonstrated severely 
 with his wife concerning the relaxation of 
 decorum, arising from the absence of Miss 
 Creswell.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 91 
 
 " What will the Vernons think," said he, 
 " when they hear of the Miss Hamlyns, (after 
 the care bestowed on their education,) scam- 
 pering — I use Colonel Hamilton's word — 
 'scampering' over the country on ponies? 
 And what chance has Walter of recommending 
 himself to the Colonel's good-will, if Lydia is 
 constantly made his first object?" 
 
 Mrs. Hamlyn was too respectful a wife to 
 vindicate either her girls or herself. But 
 after her husband's return to town, she was 
 amused to perceive how much the aid of the 
 country had opened the eyes of the old Colo-' 
 nel to the peculiarities of his friend. 
 
 " Hamlyn's quite right to stick to Lon'on !" 
 said he. " Hamlyn's cut out for a man of 
 business. Squirefying is wo^ his element. He 
 hasn't in him the true smack of the country 
 gentleman. 'Tis all dot-and-carry-one with 
 him, even in the middle of a turnip-field. 
 His tenants respect him, but more by name 
 than nature ; and, notwithstanding all he has 
 done for the poor, and the admirable manage- 
 ment by which it has been brought about,
 
 92 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 they seem to feel themselves doubly poor in 
 his presence. He's too prim and trim for 
 a sportsman, too in-doorish for a farmer. 
 Lombard Street and Cavendish Square, par- 
 liament and city meetings, are the place for 
 Hamlyn. — There are some folks who don't 
 seem to have been born for the open air !" — 
 
 " At forty-five, it is difficult to guess what 
 any man is born for," said Mrs. Hamlyn, with 
 a sigh. — " Grave as my husband now appears, 
 I can assure you that when I married, he was 
 one of the gayest men about town, — as gay as 
 his son Walter is now." 
 
 " Walter's wild, is he ?— I'm glad of that !— 
 there's always hope of a wild young man ! — 
 My son Jack was one of the wildest dogs 
 ever turned out of Eton. — Walter was quar- 
 tered at Windsor all the time I was in Lon'on, 
 and I'm beginning to want to make his ac- 
 quaintance. Does he never come down to 
 Dean Park ?"— 
 
 " When the hunting season begins." 
 
 " A curious reason for visiting his father's 
 house ! — Like my friend Sir Joshua Alltrump,
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 93 
 
 who told me he attended divine service at the 
 Chapel Royal 'cause the music was so fine." 
 
 " My son is, I admit, passionately fond of 
 hunting," pleaded Mrs. Hamlyn. 
 
 " Well, well, 'tis something in these times 
 for a youngster to be passionately fond of any 
 thing ! To me all the boys appear as dull 
 and careworn as if they'd spent a life in Lom- 
 bard Street ; old before they're breeched, and 
 decrepit in their accidence. I should never be 
 surprised, now-a-days, to hear of an Eton 
 boy having the gout. Well ! I must wait 
 patient, I suppose, till the hounds are unken-' 
 nelled, to shake hands with Master Watty." 
 
 Mrs. Hamlyn could scarcely forbear smiling 
 at the idea of the indignation with which, (had 
 Sheet Street Barracks been within earshot of 
 Dean Park,) her superfine son would have 
 heard himself thus familiarly designated, by 
 an individual who might have travelled from 
 (Captain Hamlyn's) Dan to Beersheeba, i. e, 
 from St. James's Street to Whitehall, without 
 receiving a bow of recognition from the club- 
 windows; and whose clothes were so inde-
 
 94 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 finitely cut by his nameless tailor, as to have 
 proved an equally good fit for any other man 
 in the county. 
 
 She amended her smile, however, into a 
 secret prayer that the time might come when 
 Walter, now the slave of appearances, would 
 recognise the sterling merit of a man like the 
 simple-hearted being before her.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 95 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Before my gaze I see ray youth, 
 The ghost of gentler years, arise : 
 
 With looks that yearn'd for every truth. 
 And wings that sought the furthest skies. 
 
 Beside that ghost of time gone by 
 
 I stand upon the waste alone. 
 And if a sunbeam light the sky. 
 
 It wakes no flow'rets from the stone. 
 
 The icy calm that smiles on all 
 
 But comes from pride that veils the pain ; 
 
 Alas ! how much we fain would call 
 Content, — is nothing but disdain. 
 
 E. L. BULWER. 
 
 Meanwhile, the merits of the new resident 
 at Burlington Manor were becoming appre- 
 ciated in quarters more important than the 
 fastidious fancy of a Captain of the House-
 
 96 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 hold Brigade. The county gentry already 
 congratulated themselves on the acquisition of 
 such a coadjutor in their labours of public 
 peace-keeping, as a man accustomed for forty 
 years long to administrative functions, yet 
 untried by the disappointments which are 
 somewhat apt to sour the philanthropy, and 
 distress the patriotism of the conscript fathers 
 of a shire. At turnpike-meetings, justice- 
 meetings, agricultural-meetings, the hearty, 
 active, old man, was invariably the first and 
 last in the field. 
 
 But, above all, he was recognised by the 
 minor guardians of the public weal as the 
 proprietor of a capacious heart and purse, the 
 strings of which were always open. The cir- 
 cumstance w^hich had first drawn his attention 
 in India to the firm of Hamlyn and Co. was 
 the magnitude and consistency of their sub- 
 scriptions to all public charities and institu- 
 tions ; little surmising, good easy man, that 
 these donations were so many advertisements 
 of their solidity, by speciously introducing a 
 commercial name into the columns of the
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 97 
 
 newspapers, to be wafted to the four quarters 
 of the globe on the wings of their well-calcu- 
 lated beneficence. But for this blessed itera- 
 tion, in fact, their name might never have 
 reached Ghazerapore. 
 
 As innocently as he had fallen into the 
 snare, did he now conquer, by similar means, 
 the esteem of a county predisposed against 
 him as an invader of the property of the 
 ancient house of Burlington. 
 
 " Who is this man, the new tenant of poor 
 Burlington's place?" — had been eagerly in-, 
 quired, when first the news transpired of the 
 desecration of the Manor. 
 
 " I really don't know. A person who made 
 his money in India, picked up by Ramlyn, the 
 banker, in the course of his city connexion ;" 
 was the disparaging reply. And the country 
 gentlemen, averse to new-comers in general, 
 and doubly averse to the idea of a rich upstart, 
 who would crush them by his ostentation, 
 outshine them by his equipage, and corrupt 
 their homely households by the prodigalities 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 98 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 of his servants' hall, entered into tacit com- 
 bination against the banker's protege. 
 
 But no sooner did they find in the neigh- 
 bour whom they had pictured to themselves 
 as a peevish, enervate, hypochondriac, the 
 victim of liver and blue pill, a hale, happy- 
 spirited, old gentleman, full of child-like 
 interest in the memorabilia of the county, as 
 vrell as of manly sympathy in its wants and 
 welfare, than they extended towards him the 
 right-hand of fellowship ; wondering only how 
 any bond of friendship could subsist between 
 the frank, garrulous, old Indian, and the calm, 
 phlegmatic, hard-headed, owner of Dean Park. 
 
 For in the county, Hamlyn was more ap- 
 proved than liked. His gentlemanly deport- 
 ment and handsome orderly establishment 
 commanded respect; but the neighbouring 
 squires were never sorry, during his absence, 
 to have a fling at his political surfaceism, or 
 the cockney niceties of his model farm. 
 
 Among the foremost ranks of these, stood a 
 gentleman of the name of Barlow, who took 
 considerable pains to impress himself on public
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 99 
 
 attention as "Barlow, of Alderham," lest, 
 being chiefly known in the county as Lord 
 Vernon's agent, it should be overlooked that 
 he was an entity by inheritance, an esquire by 
 qualification. That the Alderham in question 
 was " a moated Grange," standing on a farm 
 of four hundred a year, signified nothing. 
 The great grandsires of his great grandsire 
 had been born under its roof; and he was 
 consequently entitled to talk loud at the con- 
 vivial and other meetings of the neighbour- 
 hood, about " county families," " hereditary, 
 rights," and the " landed interests" of the 
 shire. Mr. Barlow of Alderham seldom 
 lowered his voice, indeed, unless when Lord 
 Vernon, his principal, happened to be residing 
 at the Hyde ; but he was observed never to 
 raise it so defyingly as in the presence of 
 Richard Hamlyn, of Dean Park. 
 
 For in their various election contests, 
 Barlow of Alderham appeared in the field as 
 generalissimo of the Vernon faction; and 
 being invariably defeated, it was but natural 
 he should aim his avenging darts, on other 
 
 F 2
 
 i 00 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 occasions, at the vulnerable heel of the banker. 
 In many points, he enjoyed advantages over 
 him. He was always on the spot, — constantly 
 holding forth wherever two or three " landed- 
 interest" apostles were gathered together, — 
 in daily scud across the country on his well- 
 known brown cob, on Lord Vernon's business 
 or his own ; and, above all, as vicegerent of 
 the estate of the Hyde, he dispensed the 
 squirearchical patronage of its shooting, its 
 fishing, and the private keys of the park. 
 Those who wished to stand well with the 
 Vernons fancied they could not begin better 
 than by standing well with Barlow of Al- 
 derham. 
 
 All this had been fully interpreted by 
 Hamlyn to Colonel Hamilton, on his first ar- 
 rival in Warwickshire ; and, as the old gentle- 
 man had no disposition for toadying, and 
 was disgusted at his very first interview 
 by the bow-wow tone of the agent, and his 
 perpetual allusions to " county families" and 
 " hereditary rights," he received, with as much 
 coldness as was compatible with his humane
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 101 
 
 nature, the civil overtures of a man unfairly 
 represented to him by the banker as the servile 
 slave-driver of a lord. He could not dissever 
 Barlow (of Alderham) in his mind, from the 
 salaried tenant-screw of Lord Vernon. 
 
 Surprised at the disregard with which his 
 civilities were treated by one whom Dr. Mark- 
 ham and old Gratwycke described as the most 
 courteous and kindly of human beings, Mr. 
 Barlow, debarred by a sense of duty towards 
 the political interests of his patron from being 
 resentful, was careful to issue instructions to 
 the keepers at the Hyde that the land auH 
 water privileges enjoyed by the late Sir Roger 
 Burlington should be conceded to his successor. 
 A key of the private gates of the park was 
 accordingly forwarded to the Manor, spe- 
 cifically inscribed with the name of Colonel 
 Hamilton, who, ignorant of county customs, 
 and conceiving the right of transit over Lord 
 Vernon's property to be one of the many im- 
 munities included in his leasehold of Burling- 
 ton Manor, acknowledged the courtesy by a 
 handsome gratuity to the head -keeper, but
 
 102 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 not a word of acknowledgment to the higher 
 powers. 
 
 Mrs. Hamlyn, who, in common with the 
 other neighbouring families, possessed a key, 
 but was scrupulous in using it, in deference to 
 the uneasy position of her husband with regard 
 to Lord Vernon at every fresh election, was 
 startled to perceive how thoroughly the unsus- 
 pecting Colonel made himself at home at the 
 Hyde. 
 
 " In dusty weather, that beautiful pinetum 
 is a monstrous resource to the neighbourhood," 
 cried he. "I delight in the smell of the 
 thyme, crushed under the wheels of my 
 phaeton ; yet, except myself, (the head-keeper 
 says, a smart, intelligent, civil fellow !) not a 
 soul ever sets foot in it." 
 
 Sophia hesitated for a moment whether to 
 hint to the old man so ready to contribute to the 
 pleasures of others, that even he might do well 
 to abstain ; — that Lord Vernon was supposed 
 to be tenacious of the privacy of his reserved 
 walks, more especially as regarded persons 
 connected with Dean Park. But Colonel
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 103 
 
 Hamilton was not the man to be enlightened 
 by a liint. His self-love was not of a suscepti- 
 ble or mistrustful kind. Aware that Dr. 
 Markham profited by a short cut across the 
 Hyde every time he had business atBraxham, 
 he would have laughed at the idea of offend- 
 ing the hauteur of the Vernons, by frank 
 acceptance of a favour spontaneously con- 
 ceded. 
 
 Before Barlow of Alderham had tho- 
 roughly recovered his surprise at the coolness 
 of an individual who, so far from belonging to 
 a " county family," was unconnected with any- 
 family at all, the Colonel was giving offence by 
 new insults to his flag. 
 
 During the long illness of Sir Roger Bur- 
 lington, the sporting over his estates had been 
 placed without reservation at the disposal of 
 his friend and neighbour at Dean Park ; the 
 terms of election enmity between whom and 
 Barlow forbad any civilities towards the latter 
 on the shooting score. But now, on the open- 
 ing of the shooting season, though the Colonel 
 was said to have extended his permissions to
 
 104 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 shoot over the Manor to a degree horrific to 
 the feelings of every high-principled game- 
 preserver in the county, no opening had been 
 made for the agent of the adjoining estate of 
 the Hyde, — an unneighbourly and monstrous 
 exclusion. 
 
 While Barlow of Alderham was huffing 
 over his sense of injury, tidings of Colonel 
 Hamilton's laxity as a game-preserver proved 
 still more appalling to Richard Hamlyn. So 
 thoroughly did he reckon upon retaining his 
 privileges over the Manor wdth a tenant who 
 avowed his abhorrence of Nock or Manton, 
 double-barrels or single, that he had not made 
 the concession a clause of especial reserve in 
 a lease dictated by himself. As a matter of 
 course, he regarded the preserves of the isolated 
 friendless old man of Portland Place, as his 
 perquisite. And to find them thus dese- 
 crated — to learn that, for the future, he had 
 only his own miserable shooting to offer to the 
 aristocratic guests, whom it was his glory, 
 every winter, to advertize in the papers as 
 " spending the Christmas holidays at the
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 105 
 
 hospitable seat of Mr. Hamlyn, at Dean 
 Park/' was a stroke for which he was un- 
 prepared. 
 
 All he had hitherto been able to oppose to 
 the galling slights of Lord Vernon, in a worldly 
 sense, was the choiceness of an aristocratic 
 circle under his roof, fully rivalling that of the 
 Hyde. As an active member of the Tory 
 party in the House of Commons, Hamlyn pos- 
 sessed a certain degree of influence ; while, as 
 a banker, he had found means of obliging 
 various of the nobility, who obliged him by 
 their notice in return; dined with him ia 
 town, and shot with him in the country. The 
 Ormeau hounds and the Burlington preserves 
 had placed Dean Park among the most de- 
 sirable places on which lordly placemen or 
 dukes, debarred by distance from sporting at 
 their Scotch or Irish seats, could quarter 
 themselves for the holidays. And now what 
 was to be done ? — How was he to invite his 
 customary guests, or Walter to bring down to 
 Dean his showy brother-officers without the 
 promise of a battue f — Colonel Hamilton had 
 
 F 5
 
 106 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 done him irreparable injury by his inconsider- 
 ate liberality to strangers ! 
 
 In his private room in Lombard Street, 
 while apparently engaged in calculations in- 
 volving the fate of millions, and the welfare of 
 his clients, the banker pondered heavily upon 
 these things. In that gloomy, silent retreat, 
 the den of his leisure, divided by a wainscot 
 only from the vast compting-house, wherein 
 twenty assiduous clerks were engaged in the 
 active transaction of business, greasing the 
 wheels of public traffic, and amassing grain by 
 golden grain, the sand destined to fill the 
 auspicious hour-glass of the Hamlyn dynasty, 
 —in that silent retreat, of whicli, once at least 
 in every day, some trembling petitioner crossed 
 the threshold, referred by the chief-clerk to 
 the head of the house, for the fiat which was 
 to pronounce his bill dishonoured, or inscribe 
 his cheque with "no effects," — did Richard 
 Hamlyn, blind to the rise or fall of stocks, — 
 indifferent to the fate of exchequer-bills, and 
 careless of the fluctuations of the money- 
 market, sit cursing his own oversight in
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 107 
 
 having failed to secure to himself the sporting 
 over Burlino^ton Manor. 
 
 Though the atmosphere discernible through 
 the skylight of that little chamber was 
 obscured by city smoke, divided from the 
 pure ether of heaven as by the interposing of 
 a blanket, the baffled proprietor of Dean Park 
 beheld, in his mind's eye, the clear blue sky 
 of his country-seat ; and heard, in his mind's 
 ear, the popping of hundreds of percussion- 
 guns, engaged in shooting away his prospects 
 in life. 
 
 Never could this reverse of fortune, as « 
 landed proprietor, have come more inoppor- 
 tunely ! His jealous hatred of the Vernons, 
 so far from mellowing and dropping from the 
 tree, had of late acquired new aggravation. 
 Though he had defeated the predictions of the 
 Hyde that he would be forced to sell an estate 
 where his father had over-built himself, Ham- 
 lyn's indignation against the family had been 
 renewed by learning that, at a political London 
 dinner, on being questioned concerning the 
 honourable member for Barthorpe, (his tory
 
 1 08 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 opponent,) Lord Vernon had spoken of him in 
 terms the most indulgently insulting. 
 
 " Of Mr. Hamlyn, personally, I really know 
 nothing;" was his lordship's insolent reply. 
 " We exchange cards, bows, dinners, and I be- 
 lieve him to be a well-intentioned person ; but 
 my agent (Barlow of Alderham) assures me that 
 Mr. Hamlyn's petty, money-spinning system, 
 has done infinite harm in my neighbourhood. 
 Since the introduction of Savings' Banks, Loan 
 Societies, and premium companies of all sorts 
 and kinds at Ovington, all the small farmers 
 in the county fancy themselves on the road 
 to become Rothschilds. It is amazing how 
 mercenary and grasping the very labourers 
 are becoming, since this notion of percentage 
 gained ground. All their idea is money, — 
 money, — money ! Natural enough, perhaps, 
 on the part of Mr. Hamlyn, to follow the bias 
 of his calling, even in his charities. For I 
 verily believe that, were you to drop a 
 London banker out of a caravan in the desart, 
 his first notion would be to establish a water- 
 company at the nearest well ! — Mr Hamlyn
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 109 
 
 will, however, perhaps be the first to repent 
 having introduced the mystery of money- 
 making into his bewildered county." 
 
 If Hamlyn, by sacrifices the extent of 
 which was known only to himself, had dis- 
 countenanced Lord Vernon's former prediction 
 that his father's memory would be disgraced, 
 and his estate brought to the hammer, he was 
 now scarcely less intent upon proving that his 
 children were likely to maintain their footing, 
 if not exactly on the same level, exactly in 
 the same circles as Lord Vernon's own. He 
 had authorized his son Walter to invite, for ^ 
 week's shooting at Christmas, the Cornet of 
 his troop, the young Marquis of Dartford ; 
 certain members of whose family he numbered 
 among his constituents, and contemplated 
 adding to the Dean Park party purporting to 
 rival the festivities of the Hyde. But how 
 was he to phrase his invitations to the Earl 
 of Rotherwood, and his brother-in-law Lord 
 Crawley, uncles of the Marquis, unless enabled 
 to make honourable mention of the preserves 
 of Burlington Manor ? —
 
 110 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 Little did poor Colonel Hamilton surmise 
 the evils to which he had given rise by an ex- 
 tension of sporting liberality, which, as far as 
 numbers were concerned, had created a popu- 
 larity that might have enabled him to stand 
 for the county. While Dean Park and the 
 Hyde (in the person of Barlow of Alderham) 
 complained bitterly of a weakness, exposing 
 more rigid landed proprietors to blame, and 
 involving the keepers of the neighbouring 
 estates in endless affrays and squabbles, he 
 delighted to see the neighbouring squires, and 
 even farmers, enjoy a day's shooting on the 
 Manor. Though thoroughly despising, as 
 became a practised hog-hunter, the puny 
 field-sports of Great Britain, he was not sorry 
 to find that the note of preparation from the 
 Ormeau kennel was about to re-assemble the 
 scattered families of the neighbourhood. The 
 turf being now brown, and the woods bare, it 
 was, indeed, time that people should return 
 from touring and the sea-side, to enjoy the 
 beauties of the country. 
 
 " More wood, Johnston ! — more wood !"
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. Ill 
 
 cried the hospitable old man, one evening 
 when the ladies of Dean Park and their friends 
 from the Vicarage had been driven behind 
 screens and into recesses, by the blaze of a 
 roaring fire of roots at Burlington Manor. 
 *' Merry Christmas is coming, — and let us 
 welcome him with a bonfire ! — Well do I 
 remember the bitter mornings when I used to 
 get up by candle-light at the Charter House, 
 blowing my fingers all the time to save 'em 
 from being frost-bitten ! But if we don't 
 me.ke a good jolly season of it now, 'tis 
 nobody's fault but our own !" — 
 
 *' You have taken care at least, sir, that the 
 poor shall have no reason to complain," ob- 
 served Mrs. Markham, gratefully. 
 
 " I seldom find that they do complain half 
 so much as the rich. But this year, even the 
 rich must not grumble ! Lydia, for instance, 
 shall have her ball, and her sledge, and her 
 drive to covert every time the hounds meet in 
 the neighbourhood." 
 
 " I fear Miss Creswell will interfere with 
 some portion of these arrangements," inter-
 
 1 1 2 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 posed Mrs. Hamlyn, satisfied that they would 
 incur the entire disapproval of her husband. 
 
 " Why, what the deuce ! The governess 
 coming back again, is she ?" — said Colonel 
 Hamilton. " I was in hopes she was pen- 
 sioned off! I'm sure there's nothing Miss 
 Harriet wants teaching, but she might learn 
 from her sister." 
 
 " We are expecting a large Christmas 
 party at Dean next week," she replied, not 
 choosing to cite Mr, Hamlyn's opposition, 
 " and I should scarcely know what to do with 
 the girls." 
 
 " Do with 'em ? — Why, let 'em help you 
 to entertain the large party, to be sure !" — 
 cried the Colonel. " I dare say Lydia would 
 no objection !" 
 
 " ILer father would. Lord and Lady Rother- 
 wood and their brother-in-law, Lord Crawley, 
 are coming to us." 
 
 " The Home Secretary ? By George ! I'm 
 glad on't ! I want to badger him about 
 having remitted the sentence of that rascal 
 Saltash. But what exception are they likely
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 113 
 
 to take to the society of an agreeable girl like 
 Lydia?" 
 
 " As she will not be presented for some 
 months to come, it is scarcely according to 
 etiquette for her to join so large a party." 
 
 " And what have such folks as we are to 
 do with etiquette at all ? — What signifies to 
 any human being whether a Miss Hamlyn 
 have or have not kissed the hand of Her 
 Majesty? — My dear good lady, when great 
 lords think proper to come and sleep under 
 your roof, depend on't, among the people 
 they expect to meet at your table, are your 
 own sons and daughters !" 
 
 '*! am happy to say that Walter will be 
 with us," replied Mrs. Hamlyn, unwilling to 
 own her perfect coincidence in his sentiments. 
 " He is coming on the 20th, accompanied by 
 one of his brother officers ; and I trust, dear 
 sir, that while our house is enlivened by these 
 guests, you will join our party. The weather 
 is too uncertain for you to return to Burling- 
 ton at night." 
 
 " Faith, I should have no objection !" cried
 
 114 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 the Colonel; "but, unluckily, I've asked 
 Gratwycke's grandson to come over to me for 
 a few days' shooting ; and I suppose you've 
 no room to take him in? — Though Walter 
 might like his company, may be; for I fancy 
 he's to be a brother soldier of the Captain's !" 
 
 " The idea of that silly, lanky Tom Grat- 
 wycke being a brother-any-thing of Walter's!" 
 exclaimed Lydia, unable to restrain her mirth. 
 " Dear, dear Colonel Hamilton ! you little 
 know my brother, — the pink of fine gentle- 
 men !"— 
 
 " Is he ? He was a deuced bad shoeblack 
 at Eton, I know ! — Jack, whose fag he was, 
 wrote me word he could make nothing of him. 
 As to Tom Gratwycke, I am afraid the lad 
 was a bit of a spoony. But the old gentle- 
 man's been wonderful civil in asking me a 
 dozen times to dinner (though I'd as soon 
 dine in the Ovington infirmary as in his hot 
 rooms) — and the least I could do was to 
 show kindness to his grandson in return. The 
 lad we think nothing of, is a world's wonder 
 to Mm, — the future Gratwycke of Gratwycke, 
 — his Watty, — his pink of fine gentlemen !" —
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 115 
 
 On the banker's arrival at Dean, a day or 
 two previous to that of his visitors for the holi- 
 days, it was a source of considerable mortifica- 
 tion to him that Colonel Hamilton was not of 
 the party. He had reckoned upon his friend's 
 company as prematurely as upon his shooting ; 
 and was greatly disappointed to find that the 
 old gentleman was not fated to make acquaint- 
 ance with his son under all the advantage (to 
 a young man of Walter's brilliant appearance 
 and address) of doing the honours of his 
 father's house to a party of distinction. 
 
 Mrs. Hamlyn perceived that her husband* 
 was sovereignly displeased; that he thought 
 she might have secured the company of their 
 neighbour by an earlier invitation. Hamlyn 
 was unusually absent and out of sorts. Christ- 
 mas is an epoch equally unpropitious to the 
 temper of men of business and their debtors ; 
 and the harness of Lombard Street cares in 
 which the banker arrived in Warwickshire, so 
 far from being laid aside as he had intended 
 on joining his family, was buckled on anew 
 on learning that an insignificant boy, like
 
 116 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 Tom Gratwycke, could become an obstacle to 
 his deep-laid projects. 
 
 " The Vernons are coming down next 
 week !" said he, fixing a stern eye upon his 
 wife. Then, finding that she did not utter 
 so much as an ejaculation of surprise at an 
 announcement wholly indifferent to her, he 
 added, " and what will they think on finding 
 that a man of Hamilton's property could com- 
 mand no better resource for his Christmas 
 circle, than a vulgar hobble-de-hoy, like young 
 Gratwycke ? " 
 
 " I should think they would trouble them- 
 selves very little about the family arrange- 
 ments of a perfect stranger !" replied Sophia, 
 finding he insisted upon an answer. 
 
 " But we are not perfect strangers to them. 
 We should have derived some consequence in 
 their eyes from the domestication at our fire- 
 side of a man of Hamilton's enormous pro- 
 perty, who is supposed to care for nobody but 
 ourselves. I had flattered myself our Christ- 
 mas party would be a matter of some envy at 
 the Hyde."
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 117 
 
 '* I have little doubt," observed Mrs. 
 Hamlyn, struck by what she considered a 
 brilliant inspiration, " that if you really have 
 Colonel Hamilton's company at heart, it 
 might be obtained by Lydia's intervention. If 
 you will compromise with his whims, by allow- 
 ing her to join the party, as when we are alone, 
 he might surely be persuaded to defer young 
 Gratwycke's visit till the following week ?" 
 
 Mr. Hamlyn, who had been traversing the 
 room in a fit of mental irritation, now ad- 
 vanced close to his wife, as if to ensure the 
 exact hearing of her words. 
 
 " Lydia ?" cried he ; " Lydia possess suf- 
 ficient influence over Hamilton to induce him 
 to grant a request he has denied to us f " — 
 
 " You are aware of his fondness for young 
 people," replied Mrs. Hamlyn, composedly ; 
 " and his indulgence towards the girls, having 
 insured their affection in return, they have 
 spent much of their time together during Miss 
 Creswell's absence." 
 
 " It was for this, then, that you persuaded 
 me to allow that woman leave of absence?" 
 cried the indignant banker.
 
 118 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 *^ You expressly desired we should do our 
 utmost to render the country agreeable to 
 Colonel Hamilton !" 
 
 " Not to the injury of Walter ! I never 
 desired to find Lydia his favourite. But I 
 see how it is! Aware of my inability to 
 make a provision for my daughters tending 
 to their settlement in life in the brilliant 
 position you desire, you want to bespeak 
 the old man's fortune for them ! It would 
 not suit you to see Lydia become, like her 
 mother before her, the wife of a poor drudging 
 man of business. — No, no ! you know too 
 much of the miseries and privations of such a 
 position. You want her to be a fine lady. 
 You wish Colonel Hamilton's heiress to marry 
 a nobleman. You have had enough of city 
 men. What pride have you in my family 
 name? — The respectability of Hamlyn of 
 Dean Park is nothing to you,'' 
 
 Mrs. Hamlyn raised her gentle eyes to- 
 wards the angry man, in utter consternation. 
 
 " But once for all, madam, know this /" 
 continued he ; " that sooner than Walter 
 should not be enabled to preserve his fitting
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 119 
 
 station in society, and keep up his family 
 place in the style that his father and my 
 father did before him, — I would." — 
 
 Mr. Hamlyn paused suddenly, — and his 
 wife, breathlessly interested in these singular 
 revelations concerning the destinies of her 
 children, riveted her eyes on his, as if to as- 
 certain the motive of his hesitation. His face 
 had become suddenly blanched, and the 
 words seemed frozen on his lips ; when, lo ! 
 following the direction of his eyes towards the 
 window, she beheld, leaning against its single 
 pane of plate-glass, the glowing, happy coun-* 
 tenance of Colonel Hamilton. The object of 
 their critical conversation stood intently re- 
 garding them ; having trudged in snow-shoes 
 across the park, to welcome his friend to the 
 country. 
 
 " On with your great coat, and come out to 
 me, Hamlyn !" shouted the old man. — '' I 
 want to show you some draining-tiles I've 
 had made for me at Ovington, on a plan I've 
 often tried in Indy, with success ; and the 
 fellow's waiting with 'em in the stable- 
 yard,"
 
 120 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 Relieved by this cordial appeal from the 
 apprehension that his incautious words might 
 have reached the ear of Colonel Hamilton, 
 yet so unaccustomed to be detected in a state 
 of mental disturbance that he fancied his 
 whole secret must be portrayed in his counte- 
 nance, Richard Hamlyn stood for a moment, 
 dreading to approach the window. 
 
 " Why not come in, my dear Colonel V said 
 he, having ascertained by a glance that his 
 wife had resumed her usual air of enforced 
 serenity. 
 
 " No, no !" was the reply. — " I have con- 
 quered my first startle from the cold, and am 
 in a fine glow. I'm not going to have my 
 nose nipped again by a second sortie, after 
 coddling myself in your hot rooms." 
 
 *' I will be with you in a minute, then," 
 said Hamlyn. " Take a turn in the shrub- 
 bery, and I will meet you at the offices." 
 
 But instead of obeying. Colonel Hamilton, 
 after his friend's exit, chose to remain at the 
 window, talking through it to Sophia. 
 
 ** Are you very angry, my dear lady, at 
 my carrying off your good man so soon?"
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 121 
 
 cried he, so loud as to be audible not only to 
 herself, but to the gardeners who were 
 sweeping the snow from the gravel -walks. 
 
 " Never mind, never mind ! The sledge is 
 to be finished in a day or two, (Lydia's sledge ; 
 — I mean to call it the Royal Lydia), and 
 then she and I will drive about the country 
 together all the morning, and leave you to 
 yourselves. I like young folks best ! — I'm 
 such a frisky old boy myself, that I always 
 want something in its teens about me, to keep 
 my foolish old face in countenance !" 
 
 Accoutred for his walk, Hamlyn now made 
 his way along the gravel-walk towards the 
 Colonel; who, having at that moment in- 
 clined his ear close to the window to catch 
 the faint reply of Mrs. Hamlyn, the banker 
 had no means of surmising the subject of 
 their conversation. 
 
 " Ready so soon? Come along with ye 
 then !" cried Hamilton, starting round on 
 being tapped upon the shoulder, and little 
 aware of the mistrustful glances which his 
 friend was at that moment darting through 
 
 VOL. I, G
 
 122 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 the window, at the confused countenance of 
 his wife. Then seizing the arm of Hamlyn, 
 he dragged him along, at a brisk country gen- 
 tleman pace, somewhat at variance with the 
 dio^nified habits of the London banker. 
 
 Scarcely had they disappeared round the 
 angle of the house, when Mrs. Hamlyn 
 sank heavily into a_ chair. Clasping her 
 hands together in utter despondency, she 
 felt scarcely equal to confront the new 
 sources of grief and anxiety opening in her 
 lono^-embittered existence. 
 
 Had certain of her London associates been 
 required to point out a woman enjoying to 
 the utmost the prosperities and contentments 
 of life, it would have been Mrs. Hamlyn of 
 Dean Park. With a seemingly attached and 
 honourable husband, and promising children 
 growing up around her, the career of such a 
 woman was to many a matter of envy. Yet, in 
 reality, her fate was one of those instances 
 of personal disappointment which convert so 
 many cheerful girls into silent and repining 
 women.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 123 
 
 Within a year of her happy marriage, 
 within a year of the passionate protestations 
 which, as usual, preceded it, Sophia. Hamlyn 
 discovered that she had sunk into nothing in 
 the estimation of her husband. Absorbed 
 by worldly interests, by sordid calculations, 
 by the anxieties of a critical business sud- 
 denly devolving on his shoulders, he began 
 to regard a wife and increasing family as 
 domestic incumbrances, — a burthen upon the 
 onerous honours of Hamlyn of Dean Park, — 
 
 an additional embarrassment to the house 
 
 • 
 
 of Hamlyn and Co. Still, his deference to 
 the decencies of society and his own high 
 character kept him scrupulously exact to 
 his duties as a husband and parent ; and it 
 was only the craving eye of affection that 
 discovered the alteration of his mood. 
 
 Luckily for all parties, Mrs. Hamlyn was 
 a woman of principle ; and, just as deference 
 to worldly opinion made Eichard Hamlyn a 
 regardful husband, the sense of duty silenced 
 all complaints upon her lips. She felt her- 
 self to be in the enjoyment of too many of 
 
 G 2
 
 124 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 the comforts of life, to murmur against Pro- 
 vidence. She had married for better for 
 worse ; and the worse was not so much the 
 worst that could have befallen her, as to 
 justify rebellion against her destinies. 
 
 But Sophia was only in her first lesson of 
 the education of the heart. By degrees, she 
 found that, though she might content herself 
 with a due discharge of the duties of her 
 mission as a wife, a mother, a member of 
 the community, it was difficult, if not im- 
 possible, to reconcile them with the exactions 
 arising from the worldly-mindedness of her 
 husband. She was required to sacrifice her 
 influence over her children and enjoyment of 
 their society to his notions of the formal 
 propriety becoming his situation in life ; to 
 select her associates in deference to his pecu- 
 niary interests; to regulate her loves and 
 likings according to the fluctuations of the 
 money-market; convert life into a specu- 
 lation ; and, even in the holy retirement of 
 the country, calculate her acts of benevolence 
 so as at once to benefit the firm, and sub-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 125 
 
 stantiate her husband's position in the county 
 of Warwick. Having discovered all this, 
 Sophia could no longer disguise from herself 
 that her early marriage had perilled her hap- 
 piness in this world, — perhaps in the next. 
 
 To conceal the discovery from her own 
 family and the world was her first consi- 
 deration. Never, in a single instance, had 
 she swerved in deference towards the husband 
 of her children. If an unhappy, she was 
 never a complaining wife. 
 
 Meanwhile she had ample consolations. 
 The time must come when her children 
 would afford her the companionship her 
 heart so much needed. Their personal and 
 moral endowments were such as to gratify, 
 meanwhile, her utmost maternal pride ; and 
 with such prospects before her, she became 
 fortified in her patient forbearance. 
 
 But scarcely had the period of their ma- 
 turity arrived, when she was beset by new 
 apprehensions. In the handsome Walter, 
 the idol of his father's vanity as the future 
 head of the firm and owner of Dean Park,
 
 126 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 she soon discerned fatal traces of the influence 
 of the world-seeking education bestowed upon 
 him by his father. Her affection for her 
 warm-hearted girl, on the other hand, was 
 frustrated by the jealousy and mistrust of 
 Mr. Hamlyn ; and she now foresaw, in the 
 connection of Colonel Hamilton with the 
 family, an endless source of mistrust and 
 disputation. 
 
 But it was a still deeper cause for appre- 
 hension that at present depressed the heart 
 of the thoughtful mother. Aw^are that the 
 man, so mild and self-controlled under the 
 observation of society, could, if opposed, 
 indulge in private in the most frantic irrita- 
 tion, she trembled at the idea, that the most 
 gifted if not most beloved of her children 
 was about to incui; for the first time the 
 penalty of filial disobedience. Her son 
 Henry was on the eve of drawing down upon 
 himself the utmost violence of parental dis- 
 pleasure. 
 
 While his two sons were still arrayed in 
 jackets and nankeen trowsers, Hamlyn, after
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 127 
 
 the fashion of most modern fathers, had decided 
 upon their future career. Walter was to 
 succeed him in the borough and banking- 
 house, an eldest son in every sense of the 
 word ; Henry, to go out to India, under the 
 auspices of his maternal uncle, an India Di- 
 rector. But the banker, far-sighted as he 
 was, was fated to defeat his own projects. 
 
 " You will of course send your eldest son 
 to Eton ? — Eton is the only place for making 
 connections. I would not have sent Vernon 
 to any other school than Eton, for millions ;" 
 sounded on the part of the old Lord Vernon 
 too friendly an admonition to be disregarded ; 
 and from Eton to Oxford, the transition was 
 inevitable. The future member for Bars- 
 thorpe was accordingly entered at Christ 
 Church ; and as his prepossessing exterior and 
 handsome allowance recommended him to 
 what was called the first society of the 
 University, the heir of Dean Park speedily 
 contracted such aristocratic tastes and pre- 
 dilections as, on the attainment of his ma- 
 jority, created a demand of some thousands
 
 128 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 upon his father, for his losses at hazard and 
 on the turf. Legal claim there was none; 
 but the harpies who prey upon the boyish 
 vices of the university represented so clamour- 
 ously that the credit of Messrs. Hamlyn, of 
 Lombard Street, and the honour of Squire 
 Hamlyn of Dean Park, were inextricably 
 involved in the issue, that the worldly-wise 
 banker conceived it more prudent to be a 
 silent victim. 
 
 On such trying occasions, most fathers 
 indulge in an outburst of fury and insult, that 
 suffices to provoke further rebellion on the 
 part of the prodigal. Richard Hamlyn bore 
 it like a Spartan, or rather, like a banker ; 
 and his system of cold-blooded self-command 
 afforded him singular advantages over the 
 offender. Walter was touched by what he 
 considered his father's generous forbearance ; 
 and, affected above all by his ready payment 
 of claims which the letter of the law enabled 
 him to dishonour, resolved to accept with 
 respect whatever penalty might be imposed 
 upon his fault.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 1^9 
 
 Thus prepared, it was a considerable relief 
 to his apprehensions to learn that his punish- 
 ment consisted in expulsion from his father's 
 lucrative career, — an object of abhorrence to 
 himself, and contempt to his fashionable 
 associates. 
 
 " The irregularity of your conduct in this 
 money transaction," observed Mr. Hamlyn to 
 his son, in his usual mild, deliberate tone, 
 " evinces such total deficiency of the princi- 
 ples I had hoped to find in you, — principles 
 doubly and vitally important in a man de- 
 voted to the responsible career in which yom 
 father and grandfather have acquired the 
 respect of the commercial world, — that I dare 
 not place the interests of my constituents in 
 your hands. Henry, therefore, will take the 
 place reserved for you in the firm. You must 
 content yourself with the army." 
 
 A gleam of joy irradiated the eyes of the 
 young Oxonian. But the visions of a guards- 
 man's St. James's street life, which were the 
 origin of his self-gratulation, faded in a 
 moment on learning that he was to be an 
 
 G5
 
 ISO THE banker's wife ; 
 
 ensign in a marching regiment ; and that in 
 the event of his exceeding his allowance, or 
 compromising anew his father's credit as a 
 man of business, his bills on the firm would 
 be dishonoured without hesitation. 
 
 To this terrible denunciation, the prodigal 
 son had the good grace to submit without a 
 murmur. To be gazetted into a marching 
 regiment was mortifying enough ; but on the 
 whole, it was less vilifying than the city. 
 The subservience in which he had been reared 
 by his father towards the opinions of the 
 Hyde, had brought forth such good fruit, that, 
 even at Eton, Walter had been put utterly 
 out of conceit of his prospects in life, by the 
 name of " Young Discount" bestowed upon 
 him by his lordly companions ; and, satisfied 
 that his father had too much value for his 
 own consequence in life to leave his son and 
 heir exposed to the chance of being sent to 
 Sydney or Jamaica, submitted so prudently 
 to the sentence imposed upon him, that, 
 twelve months afterwards, the enfranchised 
 ensign had progressed into a cornet of the 
 Household Brigade.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 131 
 
 Henry, meanwhile, whose fortunes were 
 thus satisfactorily subverted, was not sorry to 
 exchange his prospects of banishment from 
 his family and friends for the certainty of a 
 provision at home. Henry Hamlyn was a 
 noble fellow. Less gifted in person than his 
 singularly handsome brother, his mental ac- 
 complishments w^ere of a far higher order. 
 The darling of Mrs. Hamlyn, the idol of his 
 sisters, as if in vindication of the unjust 
 favouritism which rendered the heir of Deg^ii 
 an object of exclusive interest to his father, 
 Henry was the only member of the family 
 over whom its methodical routine had exer- 
 cised no unfavourable influence. Guileless 
 and fearless as a child, — enthusiastic as a 
 woman, — in the days when there were poets 
 on the earth he would probably have become 
 a poet. As it was, but Mrs. Hamlyn never 
 allowed herself, even in the depths of her 
 heart, to reflect how little he was calculated 
 to become a banker. 
 
 On learning, at Haileybury, his sentence of 
 reprieve from India, Henry had been en-
 
 1 32 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 chanted; and received with affectionate joy 
 the eager congratulations of his mother that 
 they were never to lose sight of each other. 
 
 " You will see, mother," said he exultingly, 
 *' that in time I shall make a capital banker. 
 In the spirit of contradiction, I suppose, I have 
 always had a great leaning towards the voca- 
 tion. Such a position as my father's is not 
 sufficiently appreciated ; such a position as 
 my father's is a most important one ; requi- 
 ring the exercise of the highest faculties, and 
 a thousand virtues, beginning with that of 
 patience. Think of the number of persons 
 a banker has it in his power to oblige, — to as- 
 sist from indigence into prosperity, — to re- 
 claim, to comfort ! Think of the number of 
 important schemes he is able to forward into 
 existence ; the number of useful inventions, — 
 of — !" 
 
 " My dear Henry," remonstrated his mo- 
 ther, " you are, as usual, too enthusiastic ! 
 Unless your views become more practical, you 
 will make me tremble for you and for the 
 firm."
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 133 
 
 *' Don't be afraid. For some time, at least, 
 your flighty boy's hands will be tied, and he 
 will be unable to do mischief. Besides, with 
 such an example ever before me as my father's 
 prudence, my father's integrity, my father's 
 usefulness, my father's good citizenship, it 
 will be hard, dearest mother, if I do not pro- 
 gress into a model-banker, and the best man 
 of business in the United Kingdom." 
 
 Such were the dispositions of Henry Ham- 
 lyn at nineteen. Unluckily, the harangues 
 of the late Lord Vernon in favour of the ne- 
 cessity of a college education to every maq 
 destined to figure in parliament, had not lost 
 their posthumous influence over the mind of 
 his neighbour at Dean Park. To increase the 
 connections of the family, Cambridge was pre- 
 ferred to Oxford, for the second son ; and at 
 Cambridge, Henry speedily afforded evi- 
 dence of such rare abilities, as signalized his 
 name in the University beyond all expectation. 
 
 But in proportion as his scholarship and its 
 honours increased, his zeal for the vocation 
 of money-making became less ardent. The
 
 134 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 slavery and abject occupations of a banking- 
 house appalled him. With a decided taste 
 for literature, and passionate love of travel, 
 how was he to reconcile the routine of a city 
 life, — or the devotion to business which he 
 knew would be exacted by his father ? 
 
 At every fresh avowal of these sentiments, 
 Mrs. Hamlyn, to whom alone his disgusts were 
 confided, implored him to exercise his high 
 faculties of mind in the noblest manner, by 
 submitting to the career appointed for him by 
 Providence and his father. She entreated 
 him at least to forbear from any precipitate 
 declarations — to make the attempt ; satisfied 
 that, once embarked in his calling, the usual 
 influence of Mr. Hamlyn's calm but potent 
 despotism would prevail ; and that he would 
 unconsciously sink into subordination. 
 
 Unfortunately, an excursion to Italy, be- 
 tween his Cambridge terms, more than ever 
 unsettled his mind ; and Henry was now on 
 the eve of taking his degree ; resolved that 
 if, according to general expectation, it proved 
 a high honour, he would seize the oppor-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 1 S5 
 
 tunity of throwing himself on his father's 
 indulgence, and imploring redemption from 
 a career, of all others the most distasteful to 
 his feelings. 
 
 Such was the dilemma which now wrung 
 tears of bitterness from the gentle eyes of 
 Mrs. Hamlyn, of Dean Park. All she had 
 hitherto undergone was nothing to the trials 
 she might henceforward have to bear, in the 
 persons of her children. She had not courage 
 to contemplate the vials of wrath about to 
 be poured upon the head of the imprudent 
 Henry ! 
 
 Till that moment, she had never allowed 
 herself to appreciate all that was repellent in 
 the character of her husband.
 
 136 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 CHAPTEK V. 
 
 We understand the splendid host intends 
 
 To entertain this Christmas a select 
 And numerous party of his noble friends : 
 
 'Midst whom we've heard, from sources quite correct, 
 The Duke of D. his shooting season spends, 
 With many more by rank and fashion decked. 
 Morning Post loquitur in 
 
 Byron. 
 
 By a singular weakness in the character of 
 the prudent banker, though fully conscious of 
 the superior abilities of his second son, the 
 member of his family of whose understanding 
 he thought least highly was the only one who 
 possessed the least influence over his mind ; 
 while the son who had seriously thwarted his 
 projects was the only one who had any real 
 ascendency over his heart.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 137 
 
 Walter Hamlyn, though vain and frivolous, 
 was one of the most popular young men of 
 the day. His good manners and personal at- 
 tractions rendered him a general favourite. 
 Manly as well as gentlemanly, his athletic 
 address in the field and tennis-court recom- 
 mended him at Oxford and in town to the 
 fellowship of the most fashionable young 
 men of the day. " Hamlyn of the Blues" 
 was in short a known man ; — member of seve- 
 ral of the best clubs, and moving in the high- 
 est circles of London society. 
 
 That under such circumstances he should' 
 consider himself a personage of first-rate im- 
 portance was not very wonderful. Most empty- 
 headed fellows think the same. The wonder 
 was that the steady banker of Lombard Street 
 should share his infatuation. For Hamlyn 
 was proud of Walter ; proud of his accep- 
 tance in society ; proud of the connections 
 he had formed ; proud of Walter's pride in 
 his own position. In his person, the honours 
 of Dean Park were sure to experience aug- 
 mentation. Lord Vernon and his family
 
 1 38 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 would never presume to extend their dispa- 
 ragements to a fashionable young man like 
 Hamlyn of the Blues. 
 
 That he had personally neglected the op- 
 portunity of promoting himself in life by an 
 interested marriage, had long been a source of 
 regret to the ambitious banker. But he felt 
 satisfied that his future representative would 
 effect something for the emblazonment of the 
 family escutcheon, by connecting himself, at 
 some future time, with the Order, the object 
 of his jealous worship at the Hyde. 
 
 Though Richard Hamlyn kept cautious 
 guard over himself against any betrayal of 
 these weaknesses, the unconscionable value he 
 affixed to his fashionable son caused him to 
 Tender the epochs of Walter's visits matters 
 of the highest moment at Dean Park. Even 
 in Colonel Hamilton's presence, he was unable 
 to disguise this weakness; but the good old 
 man, attributing Hamlyn's constantly recur- 
 ring phrase of " We will talk of it when my 
 son Walter arrives;" — "Walter will settle 
 what horse would be safest for the sledge ;" —
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 139 
 
 or " Better not think of a ball till Walter has 
 informed us how long he can stay !" — to a 
 father's natural partiality for his first-born, 
 smiled aside at Lydia whenever his friend 
 repeated the too often reiterated name of 
 " Walter." 
 
 '' It is clear," said Colonel Hamilton, with 
 a knowing glance, " that my young master is 
 top-sawyer at Dean Park." 
 
 On the other hand, the banker had either 
 enlarged considerably in his letters to Wind- 
 sor on the importance of conciliating their 
 new neighbour, or the gossip of the world had- 
 magnified fourfold the cipher of the Colonel's 
 fortune ; for the fine gentleman of the Blues 
 astonished his valet and his boots considerably 
 by walking over with his father to the Manor, 
 within a couple of hours of his arrival at home ; 
 even before he had examined the weekly card 
 of the appointments of the Ormeau hounds. 
 
 By the results of the visit, the banker's 
 hopes were almost exceeded. The easy good 
 will of the old soldier was instantly conci- 
 liated by the easy good manners of the young
 
 1 40 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 one ; and the spell attached to the gentlemanly 
 demeanour of the handsome Captain Hamlyn 
 wrought its usual miracle in his favour. His 
 egotism was, in fact, so quiet, so free from 
 fuss or ostentation, that it had the art of 
 passing unnoticed. In this, the age of sel- 
 fishness, there exist almost as many varieties 
 as of dahlias or piccotees ; and ordinary minds 
 being on their guard only against the loud, 
 outspoken selfishness that appropriates the 
 thigh of the woodcock, the wing of the chicken, 
 and the best place by the fire, less glaring 
 demonstrations of the same vice, the silent 
 egotisms of personal vanity, intellectual pride, 
 domestic self-seclusion, sordid calculation, and 
 divers others, glide through the world unde- 
 tected, or arrayed in the mask and domino of 
 virtue. 
 
 Colonel Hamilton was not a suflSciently 
 nice observer to discover that Captain Ham- 
 lyn, instead of considering himself a part of 
 his family, considered his family a portion of 
 himself; that he looked upon the firm of 
 Hamlyn and Co., of Lombard Street, as the
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 141 
 
 mere springs and wheels of a timepiece, 
 whereof a handsome Captain in the Blues 
 constituted the enamelled dial. 
 
 But if the designing banker triumphed in 
 the result of his son's visit to Burlington, 
 Walter was thoroughly disgusted. A few 
 hurried interviews in London had not pre- 
 pared him for the reckless good-humoured 
 familiarity of the man thus established in the 
 bosom of his family. He was annoyed at the 
 idea of exhibiting the unpolished eccentrici- 
 ties of Hamilton to the quizzing of his young 
 friend Lord Dartford, and his noble relatives. 
 But above all, he was deeply vexed to think 
 of the impression their intimacy with this 
 strange old man might create on the minds of 
 the Vernons. 
 
 " We really are not sufficiently well esta- 
 blished in the county to commit ourselves by 
 responsibility for the oddities of a man so 
 ignorant of the common forms of the world," 
 was his secret reflection, on quitting Burling- 
 ton Hatch. " However, my father knows 
 what he is about better than most men ; and
 
 142 THE banker's WIFE; 
 
 since he decides old Hamilton's company to 
 be an inevitable evil, I fear we must submit. 
 A vulgar uncle or godfather, if equally rich, 
 weve supportable ; for the gift of a hundred 
 pound note or a charger, now and then, would 
 plead his apology. But a stranger, a man 
 from whom one can accept nothing in re- 
 quital for being bored, is a charge beyond 
 permission. I heartily wish this Christmas 
 party were over, and the Rotherwoods relieved 
 from the corvee of old Hamilton's vulgar 
 jocularity." 
 
 To live in the world without the faculty of 
 observation, advances a man no further in tact 
 than to spend his days at Ghazerapore ; and 
 poor Walter, though established in the coteries 
 of fashionable life, understood quite as little 
 of their impulses as the simple-hearted object 
 of his contempt. With the noble guests who, 
 in the course of the day, assembled at Dean 
 Park, Colonel Hamilton had the greatest suc- 
 cess. So far from being shocked at his blunt- 
 ness, the Rotherwoods were inexpressibly 
 amused by the sallies of a person so untram-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 143 
 
 melled by the monotonizing influences of 
 fashionable life. As something exceedingly 
 new to them, he was exceedingly welcome ; 
 and his pungent criticisms upon the follies 
 of the day were applauded by involuntary 
 bursts of merriment, such as had never before 
 echoed under the stuccoed ceilings of Dean 
 Park. 
 
 Lord Crawley, on the other hand, a man 
 who had set up for statesmanship on a shallow 
 stock of reading and information, and whose 
 knowledge consisted of facts ably abstracted 
 from the experience of others, contrived, in* 
 the course of their first day's gossip, to ex- 
 tract a world of information from the Colonel, 
 touching the seat of war in India, and the 
 state of public opinion in the East. While 
 Walter Hamlyn was endeavouring to cover, 
 by dexterous manoeuvres, the quizzicalities of 
 the old-fashioned Nabob's method of taking 
 wine at dinner and dealing at whist — pecu- 
 liarities of no moment in the eyes of people of 
 the world, — Lord Crawley and his noble 
 brother-in-law were chiefly anxious that the
 
 144 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 trifling young man they tolerated as their 
 banker's son should hold his peace, that they 
 might give their attention to the amusing 
 anecdotes of the veteran. 
 
 Even Mrs. Hamlyn, though far superior to 
 the weakness of blushing for a homely guest 
 because she happened to have great personages 
 under her roof, had been a little apprehensive 
 that the oriental anecdotes, so often repeated 
 at Dean Park, might prove as tedious to her 
 visiters as to herself. 
 
 " Afraid I shall be tired of listening to 
 Colonel Hamilton's amusing Indian stories ?" 
 exclaimed Lady Rotherwood, to whom she 
 expressed her apprehensions. — " Are you in 
 earnest? — Why I never heard anything so 
 interesting in my life ! — What an agreeable, 
 chatty old man ! — and how much of the world 
 he has seen !" 
 
 Mrs. Hamlyn, accustomed in her own 
 family to hear Colonel Hamilton's oddities 
 attributed to having seen iiotJiing of " the 
 world," could scarcely refrain from a smile. 
 The good-natured Countess's interpretation of
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 145 
 
 the word, was clearly that of the Statistical 
 Society rather than of- Almack's ! 
 
 '' It is like reading an amusing book, to 
 talk to Colonel Hamilton;" — persisted Lady 
 Rotherwood, — " I literally held my breath, 
 last night, when he was giving us that charm- 
 ing account of the lion-hunt at Chinderabad !" 
 
 Sophia, who had been listening three times 
 a week to this very narrative for the last six 
 months, as one of the ColoneFs crack stories, 
 and been debarred by politeness only from 
 interrupting what she feared must form a dis- 
 agreeable obstacle to the political discussions 
 of the parliamentary men present, recognised 
 her own misconception. It had not before 
 struck her that the eminence of Lady Rother- 
 wood's position in life rendered a thousand 
 things new and strange to her which consti- 
 tuted t h stale daily bread of Cavendish 
 Square and Dean Park. Refined to inanity 
 in her habits of life, the excitement afforded 
 by the hair-breadth-scape inventions of a 
 novelist, or the stirring anecdotes of a pilgrim 
 in the wilderness, such as Colonel Hamilton, 
 
 VOL I. ' H
 
 146 THE banker's wife 
 
 was an agreeable relief to the ennui of the 
 languid Countess. 
 
 '' When my nephew joins us," she observed, 
 on the eve of Lord Dartford's arrival, " I 
 entreat you, my dear Mrs. Hamlyn, to get 
 that dear old man once more into the Ghaz- 
 napore chapter. Dartford has not heard the 
 stories of the Lion Hunt, or the l^atch-girl, or 
 the Serpent Charmer, and will be absolutely 
 enchanted. — Captain Hamlyn ! — /?r6??/ promise 
 me the Lion Hunt, for your friend Dartford. 
 My nephew is such an enthusiastic sportsman ! 
 My nephew will delight in your lively, chatty, 
 old neighbour !" — 
 
 Thus encouraged. Colonel Hamilton became 
 the star of the little party ; and the enthu- 
 siasm of his auditory seemed to develop a 
 thousand new or forgotten sources of infor- 
 mation. Beset by the young Marquis with 
 inquiries concerning the wild sports of the 
 East, — by Lord Crawley, touching its tri- 
 bunals and institutions, — by the Countess 
 regarding its climate, fruits, and flowers, its 
 suttees and incantations, — his replies were so
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 147 
 
 fluent and so varied, that Walter Hamlyn had 
 the mortification of finding the evening pass 
 away without a single allusion to London 
 politics, or fashionable scandal, in which he 
 fancied himself qualified to take a distin- 
 guished part. 
 
 Further consideration satisfied him that, 
 since it was his object to render his father's 
 house agreeable to the society prized by the 
 London banker only as conferring importance 
 upon Dean Park in the eyes of the county, 
 and enabling him to make a stand against the 
 impertinence of the Vernons, — they might 
 consider themselves lucky that, while follow- 
 ing up their system of courtesy to the Nabob, 
 they had unconsciously engaged for the amuse- 
 ment of their friends a first-rate conversation 
 man ! 
 
 In the sequel, the Rotherwoods were per- 
 suaded to stay a day longer than they had 
 promised, for the sole purpose of a visit to 
 the Oriental museum of their new friend at 
 Burlington Manor. As to the Marquis of 
 Dartford, he was half afraid of allowing it to 
 
 H 2
 
 148 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 be perceived how much he considered Dean 
 Park, (which on a former visit he had felt to 
 be the acme of dulness and formality, — 
 endured only in deference to its vicinity to 
 the Ormeau kennel,) improved by the acces- 
 sion of a neighbour whose warmth and single- 
 ness of heart might have infused sociability 
 into a gallery of statues. 
 
 On the morning fixed for the Rotherwoods' 
 departure, Walter found the Countess so ex- 
 clusively engrossed by her pet wonder-monger, 
 that he could find no opportunity to pay her 
 bis parting compliments. 
 
 *' What can Colonel Hamilton be bothering 
 Lady Rotherwood about, now?" he ex- 
 claimed, pettishly, to his sister Lydia; who, 
 at the instigation of her indulgent friend, had 
 been admitted into the party. 
 
 " Excusing himself from accompanying my 
 father and mother, next week, to Rotherwood 
 Castle." 
 
 ** You do not mean that the Rotherwoods 
 have invited old Hamilton?" — 
 
 " Urgently. — There is to be a battve^^'
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 149 
 
 " But he is no sportsman ; — and I and 
 Dartford have not heard a word of it !" in- 
 terrupted Walter. 
 
 " Perhaps Lord Rotherwood may not wish 
 to have too many sportsmen of the party." 
 
 " But what on earth would poor old Ha- 
 milton do in the midst of a circle of official 
 men, like that assembled at Rotherwood 
 Castle !" 
 
 " Just what I heard him answer. He 
 said he would rather visit Lord and Lady 
 Rotherwood when they were alone, and soci- 
 able ; that he liked a snug party best !" 
 
 " What a man I" ejaculated Walter, shrug- 
 ging his shoulders. " And what must Lady 
 Rotherwood have thought of him V 
 
 " Probably that he paid her house a great 
 compliment ! It is not often the Rother- 
 woods have found their company preferred 
 to their pheasant-shooting." 
 
 " How little are such people to be depended 
 upon !" was Captain Hamlyn's secret reflection. 
 " The last time the Rotherwoods were here, 
 my father was at the trouble of inviting the
 
 1 50 THE banker's WIFE ; 
 
 most amusing set in London to meet them : — 
 Flimflam, the reviewer, and Augustus Brag, 
 the best chit-chatterer in town, yet Lady 
 Rotherwood never came down to breakfast, 
 and was, I suspect, bored to death ! — And 
 now, to be engouee by this dreadful old bore ! 
 — Caprice de grande dame, I suppose ! — It 
 will be most annoying, however, if she should 
 not ask me to the Castle for this battue; 
 for I understood, and gave Dartford to under- 
 stand, that I was to accompany my father." 
 
 At that moment. Lady Rotherwood ad- 
 vanced towards Mr. and Mrs. Hamlyn, with 
 her parting compliments, — the travelling car- 
 riage having been announced ; and Walter, 
 overhearing cordial expressions of hospitality, 
 felt satisfied that all was right. 
 
 He was mistaken, however, and disap- 
 pointed. " I will not hear of her being left at 
 home," were the unwelcome words that met his 
 ear. — '* Colonel Hamilton has just been telling 
 me," continued the Countess, glancing kindly 
 towards Lydia, in answer to her mother's 
 excuses for the " unpresented" young lady
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 151 
 
 — " that she is the most charming companion 
 in the world ! — that he does not know how he 
 should get on without her ! " 
 
 To refuse the pressing invitation that fol- 
 lowed was impossible. But no sooner had 
 the Rotherwoods departed, and Colonel Ha- 
 milton and the two young sportsmen left 
 the room, than the wrath of Mr. Hamlyn 
 exploded. 
 
 " Lydia invited in the place of her brother ?" 
 cried he ; "a most unaccountable slight to be 
 offered to my son, and to be offered in Co- 
 lonel Hamilton's presence. But I have to' 
 thank you for it !" he continued angrily, ad- 
 dressing his wife. " It is all the result of 
 your most mistaken and pernicious system ! 
 Unable to invite the whole party, it was in- 
 evitable that Lady Rotherwood must give the 
 preference to one whom you chose to impose 
 upon her as a woman !" 
 
 " Indeed, dear papa, I would a thousand 
 times rather stay at home," pleaded Lydia ; 
 tears filling her eyes at hearing, for the first 
 time in her life, her kind mother reprehended.
 
 152 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 But Mrs. Hamlyn, dreading to see the wrath 
 she had incurred transferred to her daughter, 
 for the presumption of having a choice on so 
 grave a subject, instantly dismissed the of- 
 fender to her practising. 
 
 " Next year," said she, v^hen the door had 
 closed upon the poor girl, " Lydia will, of 
 necessity, accompany us every where ; and 
 Walter experience the same chance as a 
 supernumerary." 
 
 " Next year, I shall care nothing about the 
 matter ! — Next year, the Rotherwoods may 
 follow their own senseless fancies. At pre- 
 sent, it is essential that Walter should stand 
 on the highest ground in the estimation of 
 Colonel Hamilton." 
 
 " Forgive me for saying that I believe 
 Colonel Hamilton to be wholly above being 
 influenced by the notice of great people !" 
 mildly rejoined Mrs. Hamlyn. 
 
 *' Not of great people whom he respects," 
 retorted Hamlyn, biting his lips, which were 
 growing paler and paler. " Do you suppose 
 that, in the choice of an heir to his property,
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 153 
 
 he would not be influenced by the worldly 
 standing of a young man, whom he knows 
 only from report ? On settling in Warwick- 
 shire, he finds us slighted, — pointedly slight- 
 ed, — by the leading family of the neighbour- 
 hood ; and it was on the courtesies of the 
 Rotherwoods I depended, as the most effec- 
 tual counterbalance to the evil. Look at the 
 result, — the result brought about by your 
 imprudence ! The Vernons are expected 
 down to-day ; and in a week's time, Hamilton 
 will have discovered us to be on distant 
 terms of civility, more humiliating than a de-' 
 cided cut !" added Mr. Hamlyn, in a tone of 
 bitterness. 
 
 " He is aware that we associate familiarly 
 with their equals in station and respecta- 
 bility," urged his wife. 
 
 " Fifty Earls of Rotherwood in distant 
 counties do not amount in value to Lord Ver- 
 non, residing almost in the same parish. 
 Hamilton will have a right to conclude that 
 these people know something to my discre- 
 dit. Ten to one that, while keeping us at a 
 
 H5
 
 15 i THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 distance, they will be extremely civil to him 
 as a stranger in the county." 
 
 " I see no possible line of connection be- 
 tween them." 
 
 " There is always a line of connection be- 
 tween country-neighbours whose lands adjoin ; 
 — foxes to preserve, — poachers to repel, — 
 trespassers to prosecute. Barlow threw out a 
 feeler, by his attention about the keys of the 
 park. Lord Vernon expects to be Lord-lieu- 
 tenant of the County ; and a man of Hamil- 
 ton's fortune is always an object for con- 
 ciliation." 
 
 "" On his first arrival, you seemed anxious 
 that his residence here should become as plea- 
 sant as possible." 
 
 " Of course, — as a means of uniting him 
 more closely with ourselves. Consider what 
 might be the consequence, were he left to run 
 about the country in search of amusement, — 
 making promiscuous acquaintance at water- 
 ing-places ! — But I neither wish to see him 
 feted by the Rotherwoods, at Walter's ex- 
 pense ; nor by the Vernons, in whose house he
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 155 
 
 would be sure to hear us named slightingly." 
 " By the Vernons, I am convinced, his opi- 
 nion would be uninfluenced," cried Mrs. 
 Hamlyn, warmly. 
 
 " Few people are sufficiently firm to re- 
 main uninfluenced by hearing persons daily 
 disparaged. At all events, to become inti- 
 mate at the Hyde, would estrange him from 
 our fireside, where it is essential to me he 
 should be anchored, — at least till Walter's 
 interests are secure. I shall give him vaguely 
 to understand, however, that my son ex- 
 pressly avoided an invitation to Rotherwood 
 Castle." 
 
 The wistful expression of Mrs. Hamlyn's 
 countenance evinced her disgust at any at- 
 tempt at imposition on their frank-hearted 
 friend. But her husband might have spared 
 his designs ! At the desire of Colonel Ha- 
 milton, the two young men, in the course of 
 their morning's shooting, had taken luncheon 
 at the Hyde ; and while pledging his cordial 
 host in an equally cordial bumper of old 
 Madeira, Lord Dartford's discontents had 
 burst forth.
 
 156 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 " And so, my dear sir," cried he, to Colonel 
 Hamilton, " this audacious aunt and uncle 
 of mine have invited you to a battue, and pre- 
 sumed to omit Walter and myself? I feel 
 outrageously insulted, both in my own person 
 and my friend's. What can they mean by it ? 
 Though I had the ill-luck to shoot Lord Ro- 
 therwood's favourite setter by mistake, the last 
 time I entered his preserves, I sha'n't stand 
 being snubbed by my own lawful uncle. 
 Unless he make amends by an early invitation, 
 I have serious thoughts of cutting him off 
 with a shilling !" 
 
 " Never mind, never mind," was Colonel 
 Hamilton's cheerful exhortation in reply. 
 " If this weather last, you'll have little to re- 
 gret in the battue ; and if it don't, why, as 
 you informed me, my lord, you had given up 
 an expedition to Italy, this winter, solely that 
 you might enjoy the sport of fox-hunting, 
 you'll amuse yourself a plaguy deal better 
 with the Ormeau hounds than in shooting 
 the setters of the Earl." 
 
 " I do prefer hunting to shooting, certainly ; 
 and I suppose my uncle will make that pre-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 157 
 
 ference a pretext for his rudeness," cried 
 Lord Dartford. " But there would have been 
 no harm in giving one the option, eh, Ham- 
 lyn ?" continued he, addressing Walter, who 
 was deep in his own reflexions and a chicken- 
 pie. " For my part, I would give the best 
 run the Duke of Elvaston is likely to have 
 this season, for the certainty of a pleasant 
 party, such as will be assembled next week 
 at Rotherwood Castle. 
 
 " Oh ! oh !" cried Colonel Hamilton, who, 
 like most jovial old gentlemen, was apt to 
 suspect a pretty girl as the latent object oi 
 every good-looking young gentleman, " I'm 
 beginning to see now what sort of bird you're 
 wanting to take aim at, at Rotherwood Cas- 
 tle! But if that's the case, my lord, why 
 not be satisfied where you are ? Haven't you 
 the game in your own hands, pray, at Dean 
 Park?" 
 
 Walter Hamlyn, shocked by the indis- 
 cretion of this allusion, yet aware that, to 
 silence the old man's reckless garrulity when 
 once an idea had taken possession of his
 
 1 58 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 fancy, was out of the question, attempted to 
 change the conversation by exaggerated praise 
 of Hodgson's pale ale at table, which was the 
 object of his disgust. But the attention of 
 Colonel Hamilton was not so easily diverted. 
 
 " Ay, ay ! I knew Hodgson would make a 
 convert of you in time," cried he. ** Worth 
 hogsheads of your heavy home-brewed ! The 
 Dean Park ale sends me to sleep like one of 
 Twaddlem's speeches. I'm expecting my new 
 sledge over from Birmingham," continued he, 
 turning to the Marquis ; " and by George, 
 my lord, you and Miss Lydia- shall have the 
 seasoning of it. I'll send it to Dean to-mor 
 row after breakfast ; and as the park roads 
 are famously beaten by the coals they've 
 been leading this morning, you can't do better 
 than refresh my old eyes with a sight of you 
 both, by driving to Burlington to lunch. A 
 snug drive in the snow, eh ! my lord ? No 
 cross chaperon, no fussy governess; — only two 
 happy young faces glowing in the frosty air. 
 Well ! what say ye to my proposition." 
 
 " A tempting one, certainly ;" replied Lord
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 159 
 
 Dartford, more embarrassed than he had ever 
 felt in his life by this indiscreet allusion, in 
 the presence of Lydia's brother, to a pre- 
 ference he had scarcely yet avowed, even to 
 himself. " The only obstacle is the impro- 
 bability of Miss Hamlyn's accepting it ; and 
 the impossibility of my even venturing to 
 name it at Dean Park." 
 
 " Pho, pho, pho ! What is there to prevent 
 two young people from enjoying a harmless 
 diversion, pray, who have a mind to each 
 other's company ? A hundred miles, too, from 
 the prying and scandal-mongering of Lon'ou? 
 Where's the harm of a drive, I should like to 
 know?" 
 
 " None, I hope, my dear sir !'* cried Lord 
 Dartford, rising from table, and snatching 
 up his shooting-cap, to depart. " For which 
 reason, I trust you will not forget your kind 
 offer of the sledge, that I may make an 
 attempt to enjoy one with Mrs. Hamlyn, if 
 she will do me the honour of trusting my 
 sledgemanship. Priority of age, you know! 
 Mrs. Hamlyn and I, first; her son and
 
 160 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 daughter next. I have a year and two 
 months the advantage over Walter, there, — 
 and claim precedency with the new toy. 
 Come, Hamlyn, we shall have just time for 
 the coveys we marked down in the turnips, as 
 we go home." 
 
 On their way back to Dean Park, Walter 
 Hamlyn made divers attempts at apology for 
 the eccentricities of their host. But Dart- 
 ford discouraged all by pronouncing him, in 
 round terms, to be " a capital old fellow." 
 
 " What an acquisition you must find him 
 in your thin neighbourhood !" exclaimed the 
 Marquis. " When I heard from Copington 
 that you were to have the Vernons here this 
 winter, really pitied you ! Lady Vernon and 
 her daughter are the two most restless, 
 plotting women of my acquaintance ! Lord 
 Vernon is a pompous cipher, an ' in-the- 
 name of the prophet, Figs' sort of fellow; 
 and Alberic, a Frenchified prig ! I could not 
 stand such neighbours as the Vernons. But 
 this pleasant, open-hearted old soldier is really 
 a resource."
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 161 
 
 Walter Haralyn, the ambition of whose life 
 it was to become the bosom friend of the 
 Frenchified prig, — the favoured admirer of 
 the restless, plotting girl, — replied evasively 
 that, as the Vernons lived chiefly in Northum- 
 berland, and there were election feuds be- 
 tween the families, their comings or goings 
 were a matter of no moment to Dean Park. 
 
 So thoroughly disingenuous, however, was 
 this statement, that, at that very moment, 
 the banker was engaged in deliberating on 
 the day and the hour, when, without positive 
 compromise of his dignity, it became him to 
 leave a card of courtesy on his arrival upon 
 the unconciliating peer with whom he was 
 forced to keep up the semblance of neigh- 
 bourship ; tidings having already reached him 
 that the family coach of the Vernons had 
 been seen making its dogged way along the 
 Ovington road, bringing the august family to 
 spend a discontented winter at the Hyde. 
 
 Though the severe definition hazarded by 
 the young Marquis of Lord Vernon was some- 
 what exaggerated, it would have been difld-
 
 162 THE BANKER'S WIFE 
 
 cult to point out a man less happy in himself, 
 or less disposed to administer to the happi- 
 ness of others. A victim to the moral dys- 
 pepsia arising from the repletion of prosperity, 
 the great man murmured away his useless 
 life ; ringing the golden bells of his gorgeous 
 rattle with as doleful a measure as though 
 they were solemnizing a funeral. 
 
 The sullen discontent of his lordship did 
 not rise indeed to the dignity of misanthropy ; 
 or pretend to base itself on consciousness of 
 personal superiority. But whereas his father, 
 the late noble lord, had enjoyed estates to the 
 value of thirty thousand a-year, he thought 
 himself a much injured man to succeed to 
 two-thirds only of that amount; in conse- 
 quence of the absorptions of a long dowager- 
 hood, and superabounding family of brothers 
 and sisters. But had Lord Vernon been quite 
 candid with himself, which few people are in 
 this world, he would have admitted that his 
 chief quarrel against destiny consisted in the 
 good old age to which his father had sur- 
 vived.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 163 
 
 *' I did not come into my property," was 
 one of his favourite complaints, " till I was 
 past the age for enjoying it." To which he 
 did not think it necessary to add that, when 
 at length made a happy man by the death of 
 his octogenarian parent, he had considerably 
 encumbered an already diminished rent-roll 
 by the amount of his post-obits. 
 
 Concerning the only real calamity of his life, 
 he was equally silent ; — the fact, namely, that 
 soon after attaining his majority, he had become 
 a dupe to the designs of a fashionable match- 
 hunter : who, having falsely estimated the eldest 
 son of a peer having already numbered three- 
 score years, as an excellent parti, resented it 
 almost as a crime against herself and her child- 
 ren, when, a few years afterwards, the old lord 
 saw fit to discountenance her appraisements 
 by a second marriage, followed by a numerous 
 progeny. This worldly-minded wife had, 
 exercised, through life, considerable influence 
 over the shallow mind of her husband ; and, 
 compelled to pass the first twenty years of 
 their married life in modest competence, in
 
 164 THE banker's wife 
 
 lieu of the brilliant existence they had mu- 
 tually projected, Lord Vernon, when at length 
 his venerable parent obliged him by dropping 
 into the grave, had lost the power of enjoying 
 with due zest the death of his father. Such 
 at least was the plain English interpretation 
 of his murmurs. Indignant as he would have 
 been had any one now suggested that his sur- 
 vival might become an obstacle to the plea- 
 sures of his children, certain it is that his 
 father's length of days had been a burthen to 
 him. Let Christian moralists determine 
 whether such sentiments on the part of an 
 enlightened man be not more culpable in the 
 sight of God than the outrages of physical 
 violence so heavily visited in lower life by the 
 retributive justice of the law. 
 
 Until, at the age of forty-five, Lord Vernon 
 accomplished the long-coveted enjoyment of 
 what he called independence, — namely, a 
 house in town, three country-seats, and a 
 suitable establishment, — his poverty seemed 
 to afford sufficient subject for his grumblings. 
 His " wretched allowance " (of three thousand
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 165 
 
 a-year), scarcely enabling him to enjoy his 
 hunting in Leicestershire, maintain his son at 
 College, and bestow upon his pretty affected 
 daughter her due excess of the superficial 
 accomplishments of the day, placed him, in 
 his own estimation, in indigent circumstances. 
 But on the attainment of twenty thousand 
 per annum, albeit the annual amount of seven 
 thousand had been abstracted for evermore 
 from the family rent-roll by the weakness of 
 the old lord in favour of his junior branches, 
 it seemed almost time he should find some 
 more legitimate cause for discontent than 
 pecuniary distress. 
 
 A new evil opportunely presented itself. 
 Government began to use Lord Vernon almost 
 as ill by its precariousness, as his father had 
 done by his longevity. The administration 
 to which, for many years past, he had pawned 
 his vote in parliament, on the private under- 
 standing of receiving an earldom, in redemp- 
 tion, on the death of his father, thought proper 
 to resign, a few months previous to that long- 
 procrastinated event ; — with malice prepense,
 
 1 66 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 of course. Ministers could have no stronger 
 incentive for their resignation of office than 
 to baffle the ambition of a newly-inheriting 
 peer. 
 
 Conscious that he had forborne to press his 
 father's advancement to the earldom, solely 
 under an apprehension that the old man might 
 be tempted to increase the portions of his 
 eight daughters when promoted into ladyships, 
 Lord Vernon felt too angry with himself for 
 having allowed the long-coveted object to slip 
 through his fingers, not to contemplate the 
 addition to his family honours with increased 
 and increasing avidity. The gloomy turn of 
 countenance acquired by brooding over his 
 domestic calamities during the lifetime of the 
 late lord became, accordingly, more morose 
 than ever; till the world, unaware of his 
 secret sources of dissatisfaction, began to at- 
 tribute to pride his lordship's ill-humoured 
 reserve. The surliness of a great man who 
 has no justifying or ostensible cause for being 
 out of sorts, is usually so attributed. 
 
 Nevertheless, the individual supposed by his
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 167 
 
 country-neighbours to wear so sour a visage 
 simply because qualified by the peerage, as 
 "John, fourteenth Lord Vernon," stood in 
 reality so low in his own conceit, that he 
 thought himself nothing because unable to 
 accomplish the coveted object of writing him- 
 self down John, the first Earl. He clearly 
 felt that he should have lived in vain, unless 
 he achieved a step of precedency over his 
 predecessor. 
 
 The very motive of his lordship's preference 
 of Vernon Castle, as a residence, over the 
 Hyde, was of similar instigation. So far 
 from caring about the sociability of the neigh- 
 bourhood, or despising the Warwickshire 
 squirearchy, he took less pleasure in his 
 ancient seat, only because overshadowed in 
 the county by the superior distinctions of his 
 noble neighbours at Ormeau. The Duke of 
 Elvaston was a greater personage than him- 
 self, and a more popular person. Having 
 succeeded to his family honours at an early 
 age, his grace's connection with the neigh- 
 bourhood was an affair of forty years long ;
 
 168 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 and he had, consequently, obliged twenty 
 times as many people as Lord Vernon, and 
 given away ninety and nine times as many 
 haunches of venison to the rich, and chaldrons 
 of coals to the poor. Moreover, the duke had 
 one of the best seats in England, and was 
 master of a crack pack of fox-hounds ; and 
 Lord Vernon, even had he been a worthier 
 and better-tempered man, might have vainly 
 attempted to contend against these truly 
 great British elements of popularity. 
 
 Next to the superior greatness of Ormeau, 
 Lord Vernon was jealous of the officious acti- 
 vity of Dean Park. In his rare visits to the 
 Hyde, during the lifetime of his father, he had 
 always felt annoyed at meeting among the 
 guests a man, a banker, who presumed to 
 diflfer in politics from the noble house of 
 Vernon; a house already moss-grown with 
 antiquity at a time when that of Dean Park 
 was still an unenclosed common; and now 
 that he bore in his own person the dignities 
 of the peerage, he intended, by his chilling 
 reserve, to replace the individual who exer-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 169 
 
 cised such unjustifiable influence in that part 
 of the county, in the obscurity he considered 
 to be Richard Hamlyn's appropriate element. 
 The Duke of Elvaston was, in short, the upas 
 over his head, and Hamlyn the fungus at his 
 feet. 
 
 The offspring of Lord and Lady Vernon 
 partook of the nature of their parents, and 
 were of the world, worldly. To form a desi- 
 rable matrimonial connection was the object 
 of the one ; to avoid a disadvantageous one 
 the object of the other. From the day 
 Lucinda Vernon was presented, it had been 
 the absorbing ambition of the debutante and 
 her mother to hail her as a Marchioness; 
 and the son of the Duke of Elvaston happen- 
 ing to be married, they mutually shared Lord 
 Vernon's antipathy to a neighbourhood pre- 
 senting no facilities for the realization of their 
 favourite project. 
 
 Under such circumstances, the beautiful 
 seat of the Hyde might, perhaps, have been 
 altogether deserted by its ungrateful proprie- 
 tor, but for the influence of the son and heir 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 1 70 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 over the mind of his mother. Alberic Vernon, 
 by dexterous allusions to the improvidence of 
 an absenteeism that might have the effect of 
 excluding his father from the lord-lieuten- 
 ancy, which he represented as a step towards 
 the earldom, continued to bring his parents, 
 during the hunting season, within reach of the 
 advantages of Ormeau. 
 
 That the environs of the Hyde contained 
 more than the Ormeau fox-hounds, not one of 
 the party cared to remember. The indigenous 
 families were no more in their estimation than 
 the oaks or beeches of the neighbourhood, — 
 its cauliflowers or spinach ; — people with whom 
 they had no interest in common, — no possible 
 connection. With the exception of the Ham- 
 lyns of Dean Park, none of them were even 
 specific enough to be hateful. 
 
 Whenever questioned in Northumberland or 
 town touching their Warwickshire neighbours, 
 Lady Vernon or Lucinda would reply — " we 
 have no one with whom we can associate ; 
 being out of visiting distance from Ormeau ;" 
 — while Alberic was often heard to boast that
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 171 
 
 the sole advantage of the Hyde was its utter 
 isolation. 
 
 " No booby squires thereabouts, — thank 
 Heaven, — to ride over the hounds, or try 
 to hook one for their daughters. We have it 
 all our own way at the Hyde." 
 
 Though Lady Vernon and her daughter had 
 a slight ball-room acquaintance with Walter 
 Hamlyn, there seemed so little affinity between 
 the fashionable Captain of the Blues, and the 
 insignificant family at Dean Park, that they 
 had actually never been at the trouble of con- 
 necting him in their mind with their offending ' 
 Warwickshire opponents. 
 
 The Vernon s were now visiting the halls of 
 their ancestors with renewed disgust. Her 
 ladyship and her daughter had been vainly 
 attempting to persuade Lord Vernon into 
 passing the winter in Italy, in order to follow 
 up at Rome what they fancied to be one of 
 the promising match-hunts of the London 
 season ; while his lordship, frustrated in his 
 hopes that a change of ministry was about to 
 renew his prospects of promotion, felt more 
 
 J 2
 
 172 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 than usually aggrieved by the limited number 
 of balls in his coronet. At such a moment, 
 it required all the selfish perseverance of 
 young Vernon to determine his father to come 
 and be shone upon by the superior resplend- 
 ence of Ormeau. 
 
 '' My dear Inda, we must make some sacri- 
 fices to your brother !" — was Lady Vernon's 
 reply to the peevish remonstrances of the 
 repining young lady. '* Alberic cannot of 
 course dispense with his hunting, — it is the 
 chief business of life to a young man of his 
 age ; and were your father to enable him to 
 set up an independent establishment at the 
 Hyde, we should be having him marry, or do 
 some silly thing or other. No great sacrifice 
 for us to spend six weeks there ! Indeed, as 
 we always get ill with the damp or dulness of 
 the place, it will afford an excellent excuse 
 for taking a house at Brighton, for Easter, to 
 recruit our health." 
 
 " I suppose, then, we must make the best 
 of it," sighed Miss Vernon, shrugging her 
 shoulders. " One comfort is that there is no
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 173 
 
 visiting, — no going out, — no call upon one's 
 attention. So, with plenty of new novels from 
 Ebers's, and a new piece of braid work from 
 Brydon's, I trust I may be able to get through 
 my period of penance." 
 
 Before the expiration of a couple of days, 
 the young lady began to assert this with less 
 certainty of survival. Never had the Hyde 
 appeared so insupportable. The weather was 
 against them. A deep snow confined the 
 Ormeau hounds to their kennel, and Lord 
 Vernon and his son to their fireside; and 
 Lucinda had all the ennui of her brother to 
 support, in addition to her own. Lady Ver- 
 non, too, still smarting under her disappoint- 
 ments of the season in the non-marriage of her 
 daughter, was forced to listen, hour after 
 hour, to the ejaculations of the listless, useless, 
 graceless husband, who protested, that from 
 the moment he was born, he had been a foot- 
 ball for the fates, and thwarted in all his 
 objects of existence. 
 
 " It only required for me to determine to 
 spend a few weeks at the Hyde, to bring such
 
 174 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 a winter as this !" grumbled Lord Vernon, as 
 he stood roasting himself before the breakfast- 
 room fire. " But 'tis the last time I ever risk 
 the annoyance. It is too absurd to be making 
 the sacrifice of one's time and health in this 
 detestable house, on pretence of giving Alberic 
 his hunting, when the hounds will probably 
 not be out of their kennel half a dozen times 
 in as many weeks." 
 
 " My father always labours to impress upon 
 me the vast self-sacrifice of his visit here," 
 was the comment on this text, after Lord 
 Vernon had left the room, of one who had 
 been taught by his own parents the lesson of 
 unfiliality. " But, after all, what but his own 
 stinginess brings us to the Hyde ? Were he to 
 make a proper addition to my allowance, no- 
 thing would be more agreeable to me than to 
 spend the winter at Melton. The Ormeau 
 hounds are a very fair pack, — the Ormeau 
 county is tolerable; but as Dartford was 
 saying yesterday, the idea of comparing them 
 with Melton is—" 
 
 " Dartford f' — interrupted Lady Vernon, to
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 175 
 
 whom, though apparently engaged in perusal 
 of the Morning Post, her son's observations 
 were addressed. 
 
 " He was saying to me yesterday, I ob- 
 served," resumed her son, " that if " 
 
 " Lord Dartford was saying to you yester- 
 day?" again remorsely interrupted her lady- 
 ship. " Why where on earth did you see him ?" 
 
 " At Ovington." 
 
 " Changing horses, of course ! — but I 
 fancied he was half way to Italy by this 
 time." 
 
 " He could not get leave, I fancy ; for the 
 scheme fell to the ground. He has been stay- 
 ing in this neighbourhood." 
 
 " At Ormeau, I conclude. How unreason- 
 able it is, Alberic, that your father should per- 
 sist in being on such unsociable terms with 
 those people ! It is all very well to give out 
 in the neighbourhood we come here for retire- 
 ment, — do not wish to go out on account of 
 your father's gout, and so forth ; — for there is 
 not a soul within reach with whom we have 
 the least object in associating. But there
 
 176 THE banker's wife 
 
 might surely be found some plea of exception 
 for the Elvastons." 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know why. The War- 
 wickshire people are unexceptionably odious, 
 and the Ormeau set worst of all. As far as 
 sporting goes, the Duke is a valuable man ; but 
 his family bores are of the first magnitude. 
 Those dreadful Irish nieces of the Duchess, 
 who are quartered at the Castle regularly every 
 hunting season, in hopes that some unhappy 
 fellow may be netted during a long frost, or 
 when laid up with a broken collar-bone. No, 
 no, my father is quite right to relieve us from 
 the hospitalities of Ormeau." 
 
 " You never consider for a moment the 
 interests of your sister," cried Lady Vernon, 
 pettishly. 
 
 " What advantage could Inda possibly 
 derive at Ormeau? Cossington is married, 
 poor fellow ! and all the young men in the 
 house are marked with a white cross, to be cut 
 down for the Irish nieces." 
 
 " You very well know, however, what at- 
 tention he paid to Inda last season."
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 177 
 
 "Who, Cossington?'* 
 
 " What nonsense ! — I am talking of Lord 
 Dartford." 
 
 *' But what has Dartford to do with the 
 Elvastons, mother ? " 
 
 " You said you spoke to him yesterday, on 
 his road from Ormeau." 
 
 " Indeed I said no such thing." 
 
 " What did you say, then ? " 
 
 " That he advised me strongly to join him 
 in February, at Melton." 
 
 " But where has he been staying then, in 
 Warwickshire ? " • 
 
 " At Hamlyn the banker's." 
 
 " How very strange ! He can't be in diffi- 
 culties already ! What takes him to a banker's, 
 I wonder ? " 
 
 " The son is in the Blues, you know. 
 Dartford is in Hamlyn's troop." 
 
 " That good-looking Captain Hamlyn we 
 met at dinner at Elvaston House ?" 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 *'Why did you never tell me so before? 
 We ought to return those Dean Park people's 
 
 1 5
 
 178 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 visit. The grandfather was a great friend of 
 the late Lord Vernon." 
 
 " Grandfather ! — I thought they were peo- 
 ple of yesterday." 
 
 " And so they are ; but Lord Vernon was 
 what is called a good neighbour, that is, caring 
 not a straw with whom he associated, so that 
 he was sure of society. But I really believe 
 these Hamlyns are inoffensive good sort of 
 people. How long was Lord Dartford there ? " 
 "I did not ask him. Some days, I be- 
 lieve." 
 
 " How very provoking ! " 
 " Why provoking ? " 
 
 "Because we have been sitting over the 
 fire for the last two mornings, wearying our 
 hearts and souls out for want of something to 
 do ; and might just as well have driven over 
 to Dean Park." 
 
 " In such weather? " 
 
 " What signifies weather when one has an 
 object in view." 
 
 " It signifies very much to the horses. And 
 what object can you possibly have in driving,
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 179 
 
 in a deep snow, to call upon a vulgar banker's 
 vulgar wife ?" 
 
 " To invite Lord Dartford here, to be sure." 
 
 " Take out your horses and servants in such 
 weather, to accomplish what a note by the post 
 would have settled equally well." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I should have had no 
 objection to ask him to the Hyde in an off- 
 hand sort of way, but on the terms we are, 
 I do not choose to write him a formal letter 
 of invitation. Yon know yourself, Alberic, 
 what remarks you always make when asked to 
 a country-house where there are unmarried 
 daughters." 
 
 " That is, what remarks j/oe^ make, mother, 
 which / am forced to echo. However, if you 
 really wish to invite Dartford in what you call 
 an ofF-hand sort of way (of all impromptus 
 fait a loisir the most treacherous — a positive 
 guet-a-pens ! ) you have still time. I met him 
 yesterday at Ovington, not, as you surmised, 
 changing horses ; he was simply shopping for 
 the people at Dean Park, buying a skein of 
 white-worsted, or some nonsense of that
 
 180 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 description. He is not off these three 
 days." 
 
 " What can possibly keep him loitering on 
 in such a house as that ? Mrs. Hamlyn is a 
 dull, motherly sort of woman ; the daughters 
 are not grown up. My dear Alberic, if you 
 are going to the stables, say the carriage will 
 be wanted after luncheon to drive over to 
 Dean." 
 
 Mr. Vernon rang the bell, and reiterated 
 the order to the groom of the chambers. 
 
 " I have too much regard for old Robson to 
 make his wig stand on end by any such out- 
 rageous instructions," said he ; and on pretence 
 of letters to write he proceeded to shut him- 
 self up in his own room, to enjoy the morning, 
 in an easy-chair before the fire, with his dog 
 at his feet, a cigar in his mouth, and in his 
 hand the last new novel of Eugene Sue. 
 
 Meanwhile, furred to the chin, and with their 
 feet ensconced in well-warmed Chancelieres, 
 his mother and sister set forth upon their arctic 
 expedition ; — a visit which, the preceding day, 
 would have been pronounced as unaccom-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 181 
 
 plishable as one of the labours of Hercules, 
 having suddenly become a trifle light as air 
 when connected with the castles in the air 
 dependent upon the capture of a Marquis.
 
 182 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it 
 
 shows that he is no island cut off from other lands, 
 
 but a continent joined to them. If he easily pardon and 
 
 remit offences, it shows that his mind is planted above 
 
 injuries. 
 
 Bacon. 
 
 Little aware of the motive of Lady Vernon's 
 unusual condescension, Mrs. Hamlyn received 
 her guests with a quiet courtesy that not 
 even her husband's ardent desire to conciliate 
 the family at the Hyde had ever availed to 
 render servile. She was very sincere, how- 
 ever, in her expressions of regret that her 
 ladyship should have attempted so long a 
 drive in weather so severe, for the mere cere- 
 mony of a morning visit.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 183 
 
 " I had business at Ovington, and a mile or 
 two more or less makes no great difference ;" 
 was the ill-bred explanation of the manoeuvring 
 lady; afraid that her latent object might be 
 suspected, and scarcely knowing how to in- 
 troduce the name of Lord Dartford, so as to 
 ascertain whether her son's information were 
 correct. For already she perceived herself 
 mistaken in the supposition that the banker's 
 wife would be unable to refrain from some 
 allusion to so desirable a guest, within the 
 first ten minutes of their interview. • 
 
 Mrs. Hamlyn's polite expressions of satis- 
 faction at the return of the Vernon family to 
 the Hyde were met with an equally ill-grace. 
 
 *' We scarcely hoped to have the pleasure 
 of seeing your ladyship in Warwickshire this 
 winter ;" observed the hostess. " The news- 
 papers had announced that you were on the 
 point of starting for Italy." 
 
 *' Oh ! pray do not mention it, — the disap- 
 pointment was too trying !" interrupted Miss
 
 184 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 Vernon, with an affected sigh. " After an- 
 ticipating the delights of that charming 
 climate, a winter in Warwickshire seems 
 doubly insupportable. I do believe it always 
 snows at the Hyde. Every Christmas we 
 have spent there, at least, the snow has been 
 a foot deep on the ground." 
 
 And both mother and daughter fell upon 
 their family place as ferociously as though 
 poor Mrs. Hamlyn were accountable for all 
 the crimes and misdemeanours of the county ! 
 
 " For my part, I suffered so severely from 
 rheumatism the last winter I spent at the 
 Hyde," resumed Lady Vernon, languidly, 
 " that I had fully made up my mind never 
 again to set foot in the house, unless in sum- 
 mer, as a resting-place on our way to the 
 North." 
 
 " The house is, certainly, better adapted 
 for a summer residence," replied Mrs. Hamlyn, 
 scarcely considering it civil to be too severe 
 upon the family-seat of her visitor.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 185 
 
 " Better adapted f — Say rather more hear- 
 able ! " retorted Miss Vernon, with a shudder. 
 " I know nothing for which the Hyde is 
 adapted, unless to figure in one of Charlotte 
 Smith's equally old-fashioned novels. I found 
 one yesterday in the library, describing the 
 place as though the Hyde had sat for its 
 picture !" 
 
 " It would, however, have been cruel upon 
 my son to leave him alone there, his first 
 winter in England," added Lady Vernon. 
 " Alberic is passionately fond of hunting ; * 
 and in these days, every thing is sacrificed to 
 young people, and by young people to their 
 pleasures. I dare say you have the mortifica- 
 tion to find that Dean Park owes a considerable 
 portion of its attraction in the eyes of Captain 
 Hamlyn to its vicinity to Ormeau ?" 
 
 This was the longest and civilest speech 
 Mrs. Hamlyn had ever yet heard from the lips 
 of Lady Vernon; who had not deigned to 
 notice, on previous occasions, her relationship 
 to Walter.
 
 186 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 " My son is certainly fond of hunting," 
 was Sophia's meek reply. " But later in the 
 season, he usually enjoys a few weeks at 
 Melton." 
 
 "He is with you, however, at present, I 
 believe ?" resumed Lady Vernon, fancying she 
 was veering round unperceived towards the 
 Marquis. 
 
 " He will be here, I hope, till next week." 
 
 " In that case, pray tell him he must lose 
 no time in riding over to see us at the Hyde," 
 was the gracious rejoinder of the great lady. 
 " Alberic and Captain Hamlyn were school- 
 fellows. But there is some difference of age 
 between them ; and my son has been so little 
 in England, that he has had no opportunity 
 of cultivating the acquaintance of young men 
 of his own standing ; a circumstance I regret 
 more especially in the case of those connected 
 with him by the common ties of interest in 
 the county. Perhaps Captain Hamlyn will 
 come over to-morrow without ceremony, and
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 187 
 
 dine and sleep at the Hyde ? I am expecting 
 my sister, Lady Middlebury, and her family." 
 
 " My son would doubtless have had much 
 pleasure in accepting your ladyship's invita- 
 tion," replied the astonished Mrs. Hamlyn, 
 " but"— 
 
 Terrified by the sound of a disjunctive con- 
 junction so sinister to her hopes. Lady Vernon, 
 interrupting her hostess, recommenced her 
 attack. 
 
 " Lord Vernon would have done himself 
 the honour of calling on Mr. Hamlyn, or 
 accompanying me here to-day," said she, 
 " but he has unfortunately flying symptoms 
 of gout which confine him to the house. The 
 last time he was at the Hyde, he experienced 
 a very severe attack." 
 
 '' My son would, I am sure, have had great 
 pleasure in waiting upon his lordship without 
 any preliminary of the kind," resumed Mrs. 
 Hamlyn, unable to account for this excess 
 of courtesy, " but, at present, we have a friend 
 staying with us in the house."
 
 188 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 ** In that case, it will only give us ad- 
 ditional pleasure if he will consent to accom- 
 pany Captain Hamlyn," added Lady Vernon. 
 " But I fear I must now ask leave to ring for 
 my carriage," said she, with sudden recollec- 
 tion ; "my coachman made it an earnest 
 request, in behalf of his horses, that he might 
 not have to put up in your warm stable, for 
 so short a time ; and I do not like to keep 
 him out, poor old man, in this bitter cold." 
 
 " There is always so much more fuss about 
 horses taking cold than human beings !" ob- 
 served Miss Vernon, aside to Lydia, — (with 
 whom she had been exchanging a few insigni- 
 ficant sentences in hopes to avoid overhearing 
 the nervous mention of Lord Dartford's 
 name ;) while the simple-hearted girl, in her 
 plain morning-dress, sat contemplating with 
 admiration the number of ways and means by 
 which fur could be rendered ornamental to 
 the human form divine, as exemplified in the 
 fanciful winter-dress of the London belle.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 189 
 
 " You will, I hope, have the goodness to 
 express all this to Captain Hamljn and his 
 friend," added Lady Vernon — a guilty con- 
 science rendering the name of the Marquis 
 unpronounceable. " We dine at seven, — a 
 liberal seven. But it will be perhaps better 
 if I write the hour on the two cards I was 
 about to leave in the hall, on the part of Lord 
 Vernon." 
 
 " I can only promise to deliver them," ob- 
 served Mrs. Hamlyn, while her guest, who 
 had risen to take leave, hastily inscribed in 
 pencil on the visiting-cards the date of the 
 invitation. " The gentlemen must, of course, 
 answer for themselves." 
 
 " Since you have kindly consented to part 
 with them, I consider the engagement ac- 
 cepted," — said Lady Vernon, — a tall, square- 
 shouldered, law-laying-down woman, to whom, 
 when she chose to carry a point, it seemed 
 difficult to persist in opposition. " One really 
 has scruples about sending men and horses
 
 190 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 across the country with superfluous notes, at 
 such a season !— Unless, therefore, I hear to 
 the contrary, we shall expect the honour of 
 seeing Captain Hamlyn and his friend to- 
 morrow, to dine and sleep at the Hyde." 
 
 With a shake of the hand fully qualified 
 to frost-hite the fingers of Mrs. Hamlyn and 
 her daughter, the Vernons now took leave. 
 
 " What extremely disagreeable people ! — 
 And what could bring them out to call upon 
 us in such weather!" — exclaimed Lydia, the 
 moment the carriage drove from the door, — 
 this being Miss Hamlyn's first interview with 
 the family. 
 
 "It is not always easy to dive into the 
 motives of so worldly a woman as Lady 
 Vernon !" — was her mother's reply. " That 
 she had some unavow^d motive, I fear I must 
 conclude, — for she is not a person who acts 
 upon ordinary impulses of good nature. Lord 
 Vernon may wish to conciliate your father 
 concerning some election difficulty ; — or there
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 191 
 
 is some private bill, perhaps, he wants to carry 
 through the House. I know they are talking 
 of enclosing Alderham Gorse." 
 
 " In that case, surely Papa would have been 
 included in the invitation. — It seems almost 
 rude that Lady Vernon should pointedly omit 
 him, — yet invite others out of his house !" 
 
 " Had your father been invited, we must all 
 have been included in the party; and with 
 the present family at the Hyde, we are 
 only on terms of rare and formal dinner- 
 parties. We have never been offered beds. 
 With Walter, they may relax from these for- 
 malities. They meet Mm everywhere in town ; 
 — ^he was at E|ton with young Vernon. They 
 will probably establish a footing of intimacy 
 with your brother." 
 
 " I only trust Walter will have the spirit 
 to refuse ! — Become intimate with people 
 who have kept systematically aloof from 
 his parents !" — 
 
 " When you have seen more of the world,
 
 192 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 Lydia, you will find that those who devote 
 themselves exclusively to high society, (as 
 Walter seems inclined to do,) do not analyze 
 too curiously the motives of their associates. 
 Walter must take the Vernons' civilities as he 
 finds them, or he will not find them at all." 
 
 " But why not learn to dispense with 
 them ? — Surely there is nothing vert/ charming 
 in the family ?" — 
 
 " Miss Vernon and her brother are the only 
 young people in the neighbourhood. When 
 Mr. Vernon marries, his father will perhaps 
 establish him at the Hyde. It is certainly 
 desirable that your brother, as the future 
 owner of Dean, should be on amicable terms 
 with so near a neighbour." 
 
 " From something Lord Dartford said yes- 
 terday, I should think Mr. Vernon never 
 would marry !" observed Lydia. " He fancies, 
 it seems, that every young lady he sees has 
 designs upon him ; and is constantly refusing 
 invitations, and running away from country-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 193 
 
 houses, on pretence that some family or other 
 is trying to entrap him into a match !" 
 
 " Did Lord Dartford tell you all this?"— 
 inquired Mrs. Hamlyn, with a heightened 
 colour, vexed at the idea that a tone of such 
 familiar pleasantry should have established 
 itself, without her knowledge, between the 
 young Marquis and her daughter. 
 
 " No, mamma ! He told me nothing. While 
 he was here, nothing passed between us you 
 did not hear. But yesterday, the billiard- 
 room-door being open while I sat reading in 
 the library, I heard Lord Dartford mention to 
 my brother that he had met Mr. Vernon at 
 Ovington, (when he rode over to inquire for 
 letters,) and had almost persuaded him to 
 take Dean Park on his way home to the 
 Hyde." 
 
 " I am very glad he did not /" ejaculated 
 Mrs. Hamlyn. 
 
 " Walter, however, seemed vexed that Mr. 
 Vernon had not accepted the proposal; and 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 194 THE BAINKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 spoke of inviting him to dine and sleep here, 
 the first time the hounds met in the neigh- 
 bourhood. — ' He won't come ! ' — observed 
 Lord Dartford, continuing his game. " Why 
 not?' rejoined my brother. — 'Because Al- 
 beric never shows his nose in a country- 
 house where there is an unmarried daughter.' 
 — Walter laughed at the idea of a child like 
 myself being any obstacle to the movements 
 of Mr. Vernon. ' And why not V — persisted 
 Lord Dartford. ' As there is nothing to pre- 
 vent your sister becoming his wife, except that 
 Miss Hamlyn appears to have too good taste 
 to throw herself away on a prig, I am pretty 
 sure he would order post-horses and fly the 
 country, on the strength of your invitation !' 
 — Both Lord Dartford and Walter then began 
 to quiz Mr. Vernon as a coxcomb. So that, 
 in spite of Lady Vernon's anxiety to promote 
 her son's intimacy with Walter, and spare 
 the exposure of our groom to the weather she 
 was not afraid to encounter, I fear an excuse
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 195 
 
 will have to be forwarded to-night across 
 Braxham Ferry !" 
 
 " Most probably ; but from Colonel Hamil- 
 ton, not from your brother. I am persuaded 
 Walter will go. Even were he disinclined for 
 the party, his father would persuade him." 
 
 At that moment Mr. Hamlyn, who had been 
 occupied with business in his justice-room, 
 made his appearance to inquire the purport of 
 Lady Vernon's visit ; and in the mere conscious- 
 ness of having just uttered his name, the cheeks 
 of his wife became suffused at his sudden- 
 entrance. The suspicions of the mistrustful 
 man were instantly awakened. Certain that 
 he was the subject of the conversation which 
 had stopped short on his arrival, and, unaccus- 
 tomed at present to regard his daughter as 
 more than a child, he could not support the 
 idea of confidence between Lydia and her 
 mother, in which his name had mention. 
 
 "Lady Vernon appears to have communi- 
 cated very astounding intelligence," said he, 
 
 k2
 
 196 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 examining the countenances of both, with a 
 degree of severity that increased their con- 
 fusion. 
 
 " She surprised me, certainly," replied Mrs. 
 Ha.mlyn, trying to rally her spirits, " by 
 coming out in such weather merely to invite 
 Colonel Hamilton and Walter to dine to- 
 morrow at the Hyde ! " 
 
 '' Colonel Hamilton f — Why they are not 
 even acquainted," retorted her husband. 
 
 " She left Lord Vernon's card for him in 
 proper form, and a written invitation for both." 
 " Very unaccountable !" — criedMr. Hamlyn, 
 shrugging his shoulders, stung with his usual 
 jealousy at the idea of the ^labob receiving 
 attentions likely to extend his connections 
 with society. A moment's reflection, how- 
 ever, suggested that, since it was impossible 
 to suppress the invitation, his best policy was 
 to assume the credit of having suggested the 
 civility of the Vernons towards a friend and 
 guest of his family.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 197 
 
 ** I have to ask a favour of you, my dear 
 Colonel," cried he, addressing the old gentle- 
 man, who at that moment made his appear- 
 ance with Walter, after whom he had been 
 hobbling in his morning's duck-shooting. 
 Lord Vernon is anxious you should waiv.e cere- 
 mony, as a country neighbour, and accompany 
 my son to-morrow, in a friendly way, to dine 
 and sleep at the Hyde. His lordship is an 
 invalid, or would have made the invitation in 
 person. Lady Vernon, however, has been here 
 as his delegate, entreating Mrs. Hamlyn's in- 
 terference to obtain your assent." 
 
 Poor Lydia, amazed at this fluent exposi- 
 tion, gazed in utter consternation, first at her 
 father, and then upon the old gentleman it 
 purported to deceive. 
 
 " It was my Lady Vernon's carriage then 
 we saw passing the lodge as we came out of 
 Woodsfield Hanger," cried he. " Such folly, 
 such ostentation ! — outriders in a frost that 
 might split a flint !" —
 
 1 98 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 " She came only to leave these two cards 
 of invitation for yourself and my son," re- 
 sumed Mr. Hamlyn, in an extenuating tone. 
 
 Walter, who had been disencumbering him- 
 self of his shooting paraphernalia in the hall, 
 now entered, his handsome face radiant with 
 exercise, to receive his share of the explana- 
 tion ; but the self-possessed London man was 
 cautious not to betray his surprise in ex- 
 clamation. 
 
 " Very cool, upon my word," said he, " to 
 fancy any one would leave a comfortable 
 fireside, in such weather as this, to join a 
 family dinner-party half-a-dozen miles off!" 
 Satisfied that his father would not hear of his 
 refusing an invitation from the Vernons, and 
 that he should be compelled to follow his in- 
 clinations, he threw himself into an arm-chair 
 with an air of indignation at the unexpected 
 presumption of the Hyde. 
 
 With all the candour of girlhood, Lydia ex- 
 changed a triumphant glance with her mother.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 199 
 
 exultingly implying, '' you were wrong. My 
 brother has too much spirit, you see, dear 
 mother, to be at the beck of such people as 
 the Vernons." 
 
 " It is certainly a somewhat unceremonious 
 invitation," gravely observed Mr. Hamlyn. 
 *' But at your age, Walter, weather or distance 
 seldom form an obstacle to a pleasant engage- 
 ment ; and Lord Vernon, having known you 
 from a boy, feels, of course, entitled to treat 
 you with greater freedom." 
 
 " But he has not known Colonel Hamilton,' 
 sir, from a boy," remonstrated Walter ; " and 
 I must say ." 
 
 " Aware of the long-standing friendship 
 between Hamilton and myself," interrupted 
 the banker, **he builds, perhaps, upon the old 
 adage, * the friends of my friends are my own.' 
 At all events, it is clear that the liberty he has 
 taken arises from the commendable desire of 
 establishing a footing of good-neighbourship 
 between Burlington Manor and the Hyde."
 
 200 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 " ' Tisn't the want of ceremony would pre- 
 vent my going," observed Colonel Hamilton, 
 heartily ; "on the contrary, the only thing 
 that pleases me in the invitation is the free- 
 and-easy-style on't, which is better than I ex- 
 pected from the great don at the Hyde. I 'm 
 beginning to have a handsomer notion of the 
 family, 'pon my life. However, this weather 
 is not the thing for a long drive in pumps and 
 silk stockings." 
 
 " As there are beds offered, you would, of 
 course, drive over to dress," pleaded Mr. 
 Hamlyn. " My horses would take you there in 
 forty minutes." 
 
 Lydia fixed her eyes anxiously on the face 
 of the old man thus plausibly tempted. 
 Though wholly unconscious of the blunder 
 which had occurred concerning Lord Dartford's 
 invitation, she felt that the warm, frank nature 
 of her excellent friend would be out of place 
 among all these artificial people. Nothing but 
 awe of her father prevented her from darting
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 201 
 
 forward with an entreaty to Colonel Hamilton 
 that he would not be beguiled into a visit to 
 the Hyde. 
 
 Aware of his innate sociability, she dis- 
 cerned, with regret, symptoms of relenting 
 in his countenance. An invitation of any kind 
 had been for many years so unattainable a 
 pleasure with him, that the abstract idea had 
 not yet lost its charm. He could not bear to 
 say " no" to any man sufficiently well-disposed 
 towards him to invite him to dinner. 
 
 " Well, Master Watty ? What say ye to, 
 all this?" cried he, addressing Captain Hani- 
 lyn, who sat balancing himself with a super- 
 cilious air in his chair, divided between hi« 
 inclination to snatch the olive-branch ten- 
 dered by the Vernons, and his dread of 
 appearing at the Hyde in company with such 
 an Ostrogoth as the Colonel. " If you choose 
 to take the chance of a damp bed in Lord 
 Vernon's old ghost-hole of a Manor-house, 
 I'm your man ! From the day of my arrival 
 
 K 5
 
 202 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 in the county, these people have always been 
 doing one civil thing to me or another. More- 
 over, this is the first opportunity I've had 
 of seeing your high-flying London ladies, 
 which, to my notion, is worth the hazard of a 
 catarrh." 
 
 On a hint from his father, Walter suffered 
 himself to be victimized. 
 
 " It is unlucky enough," said he, carelessly, 
 as he left the room to dress for dinner, *' that 
 Dartford should have been forced to hurry 
 away this morning, by the news of his mo- 
 ther's illness, for his being here would have 
 afforded a pretext for refusing; a pretext 
 not very satisfactory to the Vernons, however, 
 for I remember that, in London, they were 
 always besetting him with attentions." 
 
 Even under the heavy infliction of a great 
 fall of snow at Christmas, the country-houses 
 of England are unquestionably the most 
 *' comfortable" residences in the world ; — in- 
 effable temples of egotism, whereof the most
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 203 
 
 scientific architects and upholsterers of the 
 day tax their invention to polish the corners, 
 so as to defy the influence of all seasons and 
 their change. In these cozy burrows of pri- 
 vileged self-love, all is effected with patent 
 precision ; and miracles are wrought by the 
 more than magic influence of the golden rod, 
 to confer upon some isolated mansion and its 
 park those condensated attractions and en- 
 joyments which other countries seek in the 
 colonization of cities, or the sparkle and 
 animation of the courts of kings. 
 
 To the influence of fox-hunting, a pursuit 
 which, under the molestations of railroads 
 and other modern contingencies, is said (laud 
 we the gods !) to be on the decline, is usually 
 attributed the peculiarity of taste which 
 exiles English families into the denuded 
 country, at the most unpropitious moment of 
 the year. But the real secret of their de- 
 light in their country-seats is an instinct of 
 exclusivism ; a pride in the self-sufficient dig-
 
 204 THE banker's WIFE ; 
 
 nity of a well-ordered home, in which the 
 social circle may be as fastidiously select as 
 they think proper. 
 
 The noble owner of some fine castle glories 
 in making it almost as agreeable to his guests 
 as a mansion in Grosvenor Square, by bring- 
 ing down daily from town the freshest Lon- 
 don fish and London scandal, the last new 
 books and engravings, periodicals and carica- 
 tures. Just as the Chinese embellish their 
 little flat sandy gardens with artificial rocks 
 and factitious mountains, the hard-working 
 entertainer of a fashionable Christmas party 
 exercises his laborious ingenuity that nothing 
 may be wanting in his country-house, (" his 
 country-house,") which his friend might not 
 have enjoyed better in town. 
 
 With the thermometer below freezing point, 
 so as to neutralize the effect of any possible 
 superiority of atmosphere and imprison the 
 weary guests within the over-stoved house, 
 the captives continue to smile encouragingly
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 205 
 
 upon each other's sufferings ; and though in- 
 expressibly weary of themselves and each 
 other, persist in congratulating their host on 
 the superior sociability of a country party 
 in winter time ; endeavouring by their la- 
 boured vivacity to disguise the growing 
 oppression of their spirits. 
 
 " After all, we shall not find it so dread- 
 fully dull here !" was Lady Vernon's consola- 
 tory apostrophe to her daughter, on the 
 morning they were expecting their new 
 guests, casting an approving glance at the 
 exotics with which the zealous groom of the 
 chambers had decorated the apartments, and 
 the blazing fires which diffused a cheerful 
 glow over the costly but gloomy hangings. 
 " Your father, in one of his fits of hypochon- 
 driacism, determined that, (in consequence of 
 the expenses of Alberic's election, and those 
 few miserable /e/e^ he authorized me to give 
 in London for your debut,) we should have no 
 regular Christmas party here, this winter,
 
 206 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 that is, no one but my family and his. But 
 the Middleburys will fill the house for a 
 week, and afford a pretext for inviting strag- 
 glers from the hunt, and persuading Dart- 
 ford to prolong his visit ; luckily enough, by 
 the v^ay, — for Lord Vernon is always so out of 
 spirits or so out of humour, (which he calls a 
 flying gout,) that, had we been quite alone, 
 I should scarcely have ventured the invi- 
 tation." 
 
 " Have you said any thing about it to 
 papa?" inquired the fair Lucinda, arranging 
 her worktable in elegant confusion, so as 
 to secure being discovered in a becoming 
 attitude. 
 
 " I told him it was indispensable to invite 
 a few young men ; for that, if Alberic were 
 our only beau, he would find his cousins a 
 horrible corvee'' 
 
 " Papa would certainly like few things less 
 than a match between my brother and Susan 
 or Fanny Middlebury ;" replied Miss Vernon.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 207 
 
 " Family intermarriages I have always heard 
 him attack as lopping off the main branch of 
 a tree." 
 
 " Not more than he disapproved my having 
 invited young Hamlyn. He has had election- 
 squabbles with the family, and dislikes the 
 Dean Park people as upstarts and pre- 
 tenders." 
 
 " But papa cannot call Lord Dartford an 
 upstart or pretender ?" 
 
 " He seems to think all the less of him for 
 being the bosom friend of the banker's son.. 
 In order to avoid being obliged to talk to 
 young Hamlyn, therefore, he insisted on hav- 
 ing to dinner to-day the Barlows of Alderham, 
 whom we never ask above once during our 
 stay at the Hyde, as a matter of ceremony, 
 to keep up the agent's respectability in the 
 county." 
 
 " What people to meet Lord Dartford ! — 
 And do they come f " — 
 
 "The woman Barlow is ill, and excuses
 
 208 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 herself — (I do not suppose she finds her visits 
 here very agreeable !) — The husband comes, I 
 am happy to say; for he is a rational sort of 
 person, who helps one amazingly through the 
 dinner-talking, and will be at the trouble of 
 answering Sir Henry Middlebury's eternal 
 questions. One is obliged to have somebody 
 belonging to the house qualified to discuss 
 farming and poor-laws — (which Lord Vernon 
 will not trouble himself to do) — for the coun- 
 try gentlemen." 
 
 " Sir Henry is certainly a dreadful bore," 
 observed Lucinda. " And then he looks so 
 like a churchwarden, — so spruce, and wiggy, 
 and respectable. But how are we to manage, 
 dear mamma, about Lord Dartford ? Of 
 course he must take you out, and Aunt Mid- 
 dlebury and Fanny will sit on either side papa. 
 But pray tell Alberic to place Susan Middle- 
 bury on the side opposite the fire ; upon which, 
 on pretence of being cold, I can take the vacant 
 place next to Lord Dartford. Sir Henry, who
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 209 
 
 will take me in to dinner, is much too great a 
 wiseacre to notice what is going on." 
 
 Scarcely was the plan of the opening cam- 
 paign adjusted, when the clang of the hall-bell 
 became audible. 
 
 " The Middleburys so early?" exclaimed 
 Miss Vernon. " What manque d' usage /" 
 
 " They could not well manage otherwise," 
 said Lady Vernon. " My sister wrote me 
 word they were to sleep at Uplands, which is 
 only thirty miles from hence; and, being 
 obliged to start after breakfast, as there was 
 a party in the house, she is forced to arrive 
 here an hour too soon. With her sister, she 
 felt privileged to take such a liberty." 
 
 The Middleburys were not people qualified 
 to make the embarrassing hour when newly- 
 arriving guests are neither at home nor com- 
 pany pass more pleasantly ; or, rather, there 
 was something in the hollowness and heartless- 
 ness of the Vernons which imposed constraint 
 even on their family connexions. Sir Henry
 
 210 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 was simply a painstaking and rather solemn 
 country-gentleman, so eager to do every thing 
 in the right way, and according to the most 
 approved principles, that he stretched himself 
 upon a rack of perpetual experiment. Ab- 
 sorbed in the study of all the new systems and 
 patent inventions of the day, he was either 
 absent in society, or roused himself only to 
 bore people, till they wished him absent, by the 
 development of his crotchety speculations. 
 
 His lady- wife was a collet monte of prudery, 
 and rigid education-monger ; who, having 
 lived for the last twenty years enveloped in a 
 severe course of governesses and masters, re- 
 garded her two pretty daughters rather as the 
 result of her excellent Trimmer-ism, than as 
 pleasant companions or affectionate children. 
 Every careless word uttered by Susan and 
 Fanny was instantly submitted by their mother 
 to rigid analysis, and referred back to some 
 entry in her education-ledger. Any rash notice 
 of a rainy-day was connected by mamma with
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 2 J 1 
 
 their early doses of Mrs. Marcet's Conversa- 
 tions on Atmospherical Phenomena ; nor could 
 Susan take out her leaded netting-cushion, 
 without producing a cross-examination from 
 her mother on the first principles of mechanics, 
 as imbibed (with her bread and milk) from 
 the dialogues of Joyce. 
 
 Held in this precise, maternal subordination, 
 the two girls, though naturally cheerful un- 
 affected creatures, had become as stiff and 
 starched as the farthingaled maids of honour 
 of Queen Elizabeth. This was their first visit 
 to the Hyde; and, being still, guiltless of a 
 London season, they stood in considerable awe 
 of their cousin, Lucinda Vernon, whom they 
 knew to be one of the fashionable beauties of 
 the day. Seated on the edges of their chairs, 
 glancing ever and anon at Lady Middlebury 
 for signals to regulate their answers and de- 
 portment, the two poor girls looked almost as 
 much in torment as if undergoing the process 
 of thumb -sere win (r.
 
 212 THE BANKER'S WIFE 
 
 Miss Vernon was, however, in the mood to 
 be gracious, even to her country cousins. 
 Fluttered into high spirits by Lord Dartford's 
 unexpected arrival in Warwickshire, she en- 
 tertained little doubt of bagging her bird, 
 while thus sporting on her own manor, and 
 upheld by her own keepers. A high-bred girl 
 is never seen to greater advantage than when 
 assisting to do the honours of her father's 
 country-house ; and the good-humoured, open 
 character of Dartford rendering it indispen- 
 sable to eschew all imputation of coldness or 
 hauteur, she welcomed Susan and Fanny as 
 cordially as though she were about to stand 
 for their county, inquired cousinishly after 
 their little brothers and sisters, hoped they 
 had brought their music with them, and tried 
 to beguile the time till the dressing-bell by 
 exhibiting the facetiae of Messrs. Jabot, Vieux- 
 bois, Crepin, De la Linottiere, and the divers 
 other albums of platitudes invented to supply 
 topics of conversation for a tongue-tied coun- 
 try-house.
 
 OR, COURT AND CIT\. 213 
 
 The two simple - hearted girls were en- 
 chanted. Already, the numbness engendered 
 by a long drive in a severe frost, and the 
 repeated exhortations of Lady Middlebury 
 previous to their arrival that they should sit 
 straight, hold up their heads, and attend to 
 the use of the subjunctive mood, was beginning 
 to give way; and the long-dreaded visit to 
 Aunt and Uncle Vernon, which was to be the 
 crowning probation of their accomplishments, 
 to lose a portion of its terrors. The Hyde, 
 though mentioned in history, and engraved in 
 picture-books, was no such very alarming 
 place after all ; and, provided their cousin 
 Alberic, the travelled man, did not examine 
 them very severely in their Italian and Ger- 
 man, or Lord and Lady Vernon stand behind 
 them during their execution of their grand 
 duet in C Minor, they trusted they might get 
 through their week without much agony of 
 body or spirit. 
 
 Just, however, as they were becoming ac-
 
 214 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 climatized to the snug morning-room, and 
 beginning to wonder whether the chaise-seats 
 were unpacked, and the maid waiting in their 
 dressing-room, in stalked Lord Vernon ; look- 
 ing a thousand domestic tragedies, and with 
 the countenance of Count Ugolino on the eve 
 of devouring his children. 
 
 In vain did the Middleburys rise from their 
 seats to be welcomed and noticed. With every 
 previous disposition to bear with fortitude the 
 visitation of his wife's family, his Lordship 
 could scarcely command his feelings of irri- 
 tation sufficiently to be civil. 
 
 " Will you be so very obliging as to peruse 
 this, and explain its meaning," said he, ad- 
 dressing Lady Vernon in a tone of wounded 
 dignity, startling even to his unimpressible 
 daughter, and placing an open note in her 
 hand ; whereupon, the lady of the house, amid 
 the general silence of the room, cast her eyes 
 over a few lines, indited on thick wire wove, in 
 a clerkly hand, to the following tremendous 
 purport : —
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 215 
 
 *' Dean Park, Thursday morning. 
 *' Colonel Hamilton and Captain Hamlyn 
 will have the honour of dining with Lord and 
 Lady Vernon this day, at half-past seven ; 
 and of accepting' her Ladyship's polite offer of 
 beds at the Hyde." 
 
 Nothing very obscure or involved in the 
 phrasing of the note ! Yet, succinct and 
 straightforward as it was, Lady Vernon chose 
 to read it over a second time, ere she formed 
 any very decided conclusions about the mat-, 
 ter; and, on once more attaining the full 
 stop following the fatal words " the Hyde," 
 almost wished it could have been prolonged 
 into the prolixity of one of Sir Charles Gran- 
 dison's epistles, so embarrassing did she find 
 her situation with regard to her justly irritated 
 spouse. 
 
 The preceding night, she had duly an- 
 nounced to Lord Vernon that the Marquis of 
 Dartford was coming to join the Middlebury 
 party at the Hyde ; hinting that, with such a
 
 2 1 6 THE banker's WIFE ; 
 
 snow on the ground, and such a capital bil- 
 liard-table in the house, it would be their 
 own fault if he quitted them otherwise than as 
 the declared lover of their daughter ; which 
 exposition must be fresh in the remembrance 
 of the indignant Lord Vernon. Nor was the 
 impression less vivid in her own that, a few 
 days before their journey into Warwickshire, 
 his Lordship had observed to her, " we have 
 got a new neighbour at the Hyde, — a purse- 
 proud Nabob, — a vulgar friend of Hamlyn, 
 the banker. I find from Barlow that he has 
 been intruding, and making himself trouble- 
 some to the keepers, having, as a tenant of the 
 Burlington s, been allowed the usual privileges. 
 We must of course exchange cards with this 
 person ; but I shall take especial care that the 
 acquaintance goes no further." 
 
 And it was after this marital warning, she 
 had to account for inviting the purse-proud 
 Nabob to dine and sleep in the most familiar 
 manner at the Hyde ! — 
 
 " I fear there must have been some unfor-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 217 
 
 tunate mistake," said she ; at length summon- 
 ing courage for the confession of her offences. 
 " Alberic informed me yesterday, that Lord 
 Dartford was staying at Dean Park ; and I 
 thought the opportunity a good one for in- 
 viting him here. I was mistaken — my son 
 was mistaken, — we were all mistaken. My 
 card of invitation appears to have reached the 
 wrong person." 
 
 " Wrong, indeed ! — the horrible Bengal 
 tiger of Burlington Manor ! — However, since 
 it was a mistake, a mistake it shall remain. 
 I will instantly write and explain for whom 
 the invitation was really intended. No occa- 
 sion for us to be entangled in so unsatisfactory 
 an acquaintance." 
 
 " Certainly not !" — burst in faint murmurs 
 from the lips of all present, in reply to an in- 
 terrogatory glance, addressed by Lord Vernon, 
 in succession, to the whole circle. 
 
 But Lady Vernon, though apparently as- 
 sentient among the rest, no sooner saw her 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 2 1 8 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 husband direct his steps towards the writing- 
 table, and open the lid of the envelope case, 
 evidently with the most epistolary intentions, 
 than she experienced qualms of conscience. 
 
 " After all," said he, " it is no fault of 
 Colonel Hamilton's that Mrs. Hamlyn should 
 have fancied it was Mm I intended to desig- 
 nate as ' the friend staying with them at 
 Dean.'" 
 
 " I am convinced the whole affair is an im- 
 pertinent mystification, preconcerted on the 
 part of the Hamlyns," persisted Lord Ver- 
 non. "It is only to me such adventures 
 ever happen. I am certainly the most un- 
 lucky person in the world. A man actually 
 invited to dine in my house, whom I never 
 beheld in my life, and whom I had expressly 
 pointed out to my family as an object of 
 avoidance." 
 
 " Colonel Hamilton is universally respected 
 in the neighbourhood, I find," pleaded Lady 
 Vernon. '' Even Mr. Barlow was mention-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 219 
 
 ing yesterday, how active and useful they 
 found him as a magistrate." 
 
 " There is, surely, no occasion for me to 
 have all the useful magistrates in the county 
 quartered in my house," snarled her lord, still 
 rustling the blotting-book. 
 
 " Any insult offered to such a man, how- 
 ever, would only recoil upon ourselves." 
 
 " Who talked of offering him an insult? 
 I simply intend to state that the invitation he 
 has received was intended for the Marquis of 
 Dartford, and that he is under a mistake." 
 
 " Which amounts to a request that he will 
 not come and dine here to-day. What is such 
 a prohibition but an insult ?" exclaimed Lady 
 Vernon. 
 
 " It is your own fault. You should have 
 been more explicit. People cannot be too 
 explicit about dinner-invitations. Why, so 
 vague a definition as * the friend staying 
 at Dean Park,' might have brought down upon 
 us something far less reputable in the way of 
 
 l2
 
 220 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 acquaintance than this East India Colonel — 
 some of Mr. Hamlyn's city connections, for 
 instance." 
 
 '' Certainly ; it was very careless : on the 
 whole, we may consider ourselves fortunate 
 that it is no worse," said Lady Vernon, trust- 
 ing that her husband was beginning to mol- 
 lify, so mry fastidious did he show himself in 
 the selection of a pen. 
 
 '^ We met Lord Dartford changing horses 
 at Barsthorpe this morning, the first stage 
 from Uplands," said Sir Henry Middlebury. 
 ^' The postmaster asked leave to give his 
 Lordship the first turn-out, as he had been 
 sent for express, it seems, to Dartford Hall, 
 the Marchioness being dangerously ill. I no- 
 ticed his Lordship's carriage ; because, to my 
 surprise, it had neither Collinge's axles, nor 
 grasshopper springs. I was assured that, in 
 London, no carriages were built now-a-days 
 without Collinge's patent axles and grass- 
 hopper springs. I had a new one from Leader, 
 last spring, solely with a view to a crane neck,
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 221 
 
 (the Comte de Bambis, when he was staying 
 at Middlebury Park, having been greatly sur- 
 prised that, with our narrow turn-in, we 
 should venture on a carriage without a crane- 
 neck); and I was beginning to be afraid 
 I was again in the wrong box, my new coach 
 having neither CoUinge's axles nor grass- 
 hopper springs. But when I saw that the 
 Marquis of Dartford, who, as one of the 
 richest, is, I conclude, one of the most fashion- 
 able young men of the day, had neither Col- 
 lingo's axles nor grasshopper springs, I in- 
 stantly observed to Lady Middlebury — " 
 
 " If I might venture to hazard a remark on 
 the subject," observed Lady Vernon aside to 
 her husband, lowering her voice and leaning 
 over his chair, so as not to interrupt the 
 drowsy prosification of her brother-in-law, 
 " I should strongly advise your receiving 
 Colonel Hamilton as though no error had 
 occurred. Reflect what a triumph it would 
 afford the people at Dean Park to find that
 
 222 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 we had been anxious to attract a guest like 
 young Dartford out of their house. Think 
 what a history they would make of it, in their 
 vulgar circles. But if they were able to add 
 that we had treated with ill-breeding an old 
 gentleman, an old soldier, guiltless of offence 
 towards us, and no less than ourselves betrayed 
 into the scrape, the fault would be wholly on 
 our side, in the opinion of the world." 
 
 " I should certainly be sorry," replied Lord 
 Vernon, whose first explosion of ire having 
 subsided, he was beginning to sink into his 
 usual apathetic distaste for scenes and expla- 
 nations, or the exertion of note- writing and 
 sending — " I should be seriously annoyed, 
 indeed, that any occurrence at the Hyde 
 justified Mr. Hamlyn, the banker, in mixing 
 up my name with the history of his hospitalities 
 at Dean Park. Perhaps, therefore, on the 
 whole, it will be best to pass over this offen- 
 sive mistake as lightly as possible." 
 
 " A man of Colonel Hamilton's age can
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 223 
 
 never be so objectionable an acquaintance as 
 a younger person, particularly as regards 
 Alberic and Inda," pleaded Lady Vernon, 
 greatly relieved. " Besides, it will be easy 
 to receive this new neighbour of ours in so 
 formal a manner as to give him little incli- 
 nation for returning to the Hyde." 
 
 " I fear you are right," rejoined his lord- 
 ship, tearing up the note he had commenced, 
 and crossing the room to throw the fragments 
 into the fire. " All that remains for us is to 
 submit heroically to the evil. If Colonel 
 Hamilton be an intentional intruder, my cold- 
 ness will afford him a proper rebuke; and 
 preserve us from further advances, should the 
 whole affair have been as accidental as you 
 suppose." 
 
 The dressing-bell having now rung, the 
 party dispersed ; the poor Middlebury girls 
 horror-struck anew by the grandeur of so 
 august an uncle and aunt, and fearing they 
 should never hold their heads high enough,
 
 224 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 preserve sufficient decorum, or execute the 
 chromatic scale with sufficient accuracy, for 
 the satisfaction of a family so fastidious. 
 
 Such was the circle into which the warm- 
 hearted and hospitable Colonel Hamilton was 
 about to become an involuntary intruder.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 225 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The highest life is oft a dreary void, 
 
 A rack of pleasures where we must invent 
 
 A something wherewithal to be annoy'd. 
 
 Bards may sing what they will about ** Content !" 
 
 ** Contented," when translated, means but " cloy'd," 
 And hence arise the woes of sentiment. 
 
 Byron. 
 
 " By George ! these nobs know how to 
 manufacture a pleasant berth for themselves," 
 exclaimed Colonel Hamilton to his young 
 companion; when, after emerging from the 
 long dark avenue, after a drive of three 
 quarters of an hour over the moonlit snow, 
 they came upon the ^vlq facade of the vener- 
 
 l5
 
 226 THE BANKER'S WIFE 
 
 able mansion, every window of which seemed 
 radiant with reflected light. " Your father 
 was quite right. The distance is a mere 
 trifle. In my fur cloak, I vow I've been as 
 snug as by my parlour-fire. After all, what 
 signifies a frost-bitten nose when a pleasant 
 sociable party's in the wind ?" 
 
 The glowing hall into which they were now 
 ushered, and the troop of highly-disciplined 
 servants in attendance, perfected his elation 
 of spirit. It had been settled that, unac- 
 customed at present to the ways of the house, 
 they should arrive dressed for dinner ; and, as 
 they had made their appearance with military 
 exactness, the drawing-room contained, on the 
 entrance of the punctual guests, only a blazing 
 fire, — a profusion of light, — and the morning 
 papers just arrived from town; which the 
 groom of the chambers ofliciously placed on 
 the table nearest the old gentleman, whose 
 liberal housekeeping and open-handed habits 
 secured him far higher renown in the steward's
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 227 
 
 rooms of the neighbourhood, than awaited 
 many a man of loftier announcement. 
 
 " The Morning Chronicle of to-day, I vow 
 and declare," cried Colonel Hamilton, instantly 
 ensconcing himself in an arm-chair, which he 
 drew towards the fire, to the serious detri- 
 ment of the symmetrical arrangements of the 
 room ; then, taking out his spectacles to make 
 himself perfectly comfortable, " I wonder / 
 never thought of getting down the morning 
 papers by the day-coach !" said he, addressing 
 over his shoulder the dismayed Walter, whe 
 stood elegant and graceful on the hearth-rug, 
 in his well- starched white cravat, and well- 
 cut black coat. " Why 'twould have shortened 
 by half those deuced long winter evenings. 
 Ay, ay, let these lords alone for taking care 
 of themselves ! But bless me ! — What have 
 we got here ? — ' Overland Mail from Indy V 
 Why 'twasn't expected these three days. — By 
 George ! — ' By Extraordinary Express.' 
 And I shouldn't have known an item about
 
 228 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 the matter afore to-morrow morning, but for 
 coming here. So, so, so ! — " 
 
 And, with his legs comfortably crossed, and 
 a heavy silver candlestick taken from the 
 table interposed between his spectacled nose 
 and the newspaper, the Colonel gave himself 
 up, heart, soul, and body, to the ecstatic en- 
 joyments of a quidnunc, — enjoyments only 
 fully understood by those who have passed 
 their lives in a remote colony ; when, lo ! the 
 drawing-room door was thrown open by the 
 page, and in stalked Lady Vernon, majestic 
 in point and black velvet, arrayed in costume 
 and countenance as for the part of Lady 
 Macbeth. Closely following, came the Mid- 
 dlebury girls, like her pale and awe-struck 
 maids in waiting ; having been loitering in the 
 vestibule for want of courage to enter the 
 drawing-room uncountenanced by one of the 
 family. 
 
 Never had the good address of Walter 
 Hamlyn proved more available than at that
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 229 
 
 moment. His gentlemanly and unembarrassed 
 manner of accepting the formal welcome of 
 the lady of the house placed him at once be- 
 fore her eyes as Captain Hamlyn of the 
 Blues, the friend of Lord Dartford, and effaced 
 all trace of the banker's son of Dean Park; 
 thus affording to the poor old Colonel leisure 
 to recover his equilibrium, and perform his 
 part, in due form, in the ceremony of presen- 
 tation to Lady Vernon. 
 
 It was only the Middleburys who, while 
 Walter was undergoing the interrogatory of 
 the lofty lady in black velvet concerning the 
 health of his family, had opportunity to note 
 the embarrassed attitude of the startled guest, 
 not knowing how to disencumber himself of 
 the silver branch and newspaper, or the spec- 
 tacles on his nose, in time to execute his 
 obeisances,- with becoming alacrity, to the 
 lady paramount of the Hyde. 
 
 Luckily, the page, who was now holding 
 open the door for Lady Middlebury, rustling
 
 230 THE banker's wife 
 
 forward, like a ship in a North Easter, arrayed 
 in a dozen breadths of well-flounced Gros de 
 Naples, perceived the old gentleman's embar- 
 rassment, and hastened to relieve him of at 
 least one portion of his burthen ; so that, by 
 the time Walter Hamlyn, after casting an 
 agonized glance at the Colonel to ascertain 
 his present whereabout, ventured to ask leave 
 to present to her ladyship Colonel Hamilton, of 
 Burlington Manor, he was quite prepared to 
 offer his acknowledgments for the friendly 
 and unceremonious manner in which, as a new 
 comer into the neighbourhood, he had been 
 invited by Lord Vernon to his house. 
 
 To impute any connivance in a scheme of 
 imposition to this out-spoken, grayheaded 
 old soldier, was out of the question. His de- 
 linquency was consequently limited, for the 
 present, in Lady Vernon's eyes, to the free 
 and easy manner in which he seemed to recog- 
 nize his right to be at home under her roof. 
 Though previously resolved to meet the friend
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 231 
 
 of Lord Dartford's friend, with a degree of 
 formal courtesy, rendering it equally impos- 
 sible for him to complain or encroach, she 
 had scarcely patience with the ready freedom 
 with which the stranger had drawn her own 
 pet fauteuil of ebony encrusted with ivory, 
 into the trying blaze of a tremendous fire, in 
 order to read her own paper by the light of 
 her own candelabrum. 
 
 Sir Henry Middlebury and Lord Vernon 
 soon made their appearance. Entering the 
 room, side by side, like the two kings of 
 Brentford, and being unluckily presented at 
 the same time to the Colonel by his lady 
 hostess, an involuntary confusion arose in his 
 mind as to the identity of the parties. He 
 knew not which was Prince Volscius — which 
 Prince Pretyman; and Sir Henry, a tall, 
 good-looking, sententious, portly man, hap- 
 pening to embody his preconception of the 
 noble owner of the Hyde, he set down as the 
 country baronet the stunted peer, who, in
 
 232 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 spite of his efforts to appear with a degree of 
 dignity fitting the occasion, had contracted, 
 from his hahitual dissatisfaction at the things 
 of this world, so sour an expression of coun- 
 tenance, that he looked only a little more 
 mean and sullen than usuaL 
 
 It was to the former, therefore, as the more 
 promising interlocutor, that the Colonel be- 
 gan instantly to unfold the excitement of his 
 mind, under the influence of the news brought 
 by the overland mail ; and he talked, of course, 
 with all the prejudice and exaggeration of a 
 man of moderate judgment, who had been 
 contemplating, through life, a single side of a 
 single question, unmodified by the qualifying 
 influences of society. 
 
 Overflowing with the righteous indignation 
 enkindled by a fiery leading article comment- 
 ing on the Indian news brought by the express, 
 over which he had scarcely found time to 
 glance, his ardent feelings relieved themselves 
 in a philippic against the Governor-General, for
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 233 
 
 his sanction of certain local abuses, concerning 
 which no mortal present was more interested 
 than if they had occurred among the natives 
 of Nootka Sound. Amazed by this sudden 
 explosion of politics and petulance, the party 
 listened in silent and contemptuous wonder, 
 as they would have done to the rantings of a 
 provincial Sir Giles Overreach. 
 
 " His lordship ought to be instantly re- 
 called, impeached, condemned, — his lordship 
 ought to be hanged, draw^n, and quartered !" 
 was the unmeaning denunciation of the 
 mildest man on earth, under the contagion 
 of newspaper virulence; and as it happened 
 that the sole interest experienced by the Ver- 
 non family in the affairs of the East consisted 
 in cousinship to the offending Governor-Gene- 
 ral in question, a frown contracted the brows 
 of the elder, and a smile the lips of the 
 younger members of the astonished family, 
 while listening to the diatribes of the Colonel. 
 
 At that moment (the fair Lucinda and Bar-
 
 234 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 low of Alderham having made their appear- 
 ance) dinner was luckily announced ; when, 
 alas! the previous ceremonial, decreed with 
 more than a Lord Chamberlain's exactness of 
 etiquette, by Lady Vernon, in honour of Lord 
 Dartford's expected presence, was afflictingly 
 superseded by the exit of Lady Middlebury on 
 the arm of her lord, and her own on that of 
 her brother-in-law. 
 
 " Darby and Joan-fashion, I protest !" was 
 Oolonel Hamilton's secret commentation on 
 the order of the procession. *' And so the 
 folks here go in to dinner in couples, for all 
 the world like Mr. and Mrs. Hem, Shem, and 
 Japhet, in the children's toy of Noah's Ark ! 
 Well, among such high-flying people, hang 
 me but 'tis a better feeling than I should have 
 expected." 
 
 While musing, however, on this singularly 
 conjugal arrangement, he forgot to offer his 
 arm to Miss Vernon, who, gladly accepting 
 that of Walter Hamlyn, waited politely for
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. .235 
 
 her cousins to pass before her. In this di- 
 lemma, the two poor shy Middlebury girls 
 glanced at each other awkwardly for mutual 
 instructions ; and, having suddenly agreed to 
 edge their way onwards together like decanters 
 in a coaster, the gallant old gentleman, roused 
 from his reverie, pushed forward to the rescue, 
 offered an arm to each, with many jocular 
 expressions of regret that he could not cut 
 himself in two for their sakes; and, on 
 reaching the dining-room door, which, like 
 those of most ancient houses, was ill adapted 
 for the admission of three abreast, produced 
 new confusion and delay by his boyish hila- 
 rity with the young ladies. 
 
 Walter Hamlyn, who was following close 
 behind with the supercilious Lucinda on his 
 arm, of whose persiflage he stood more in awe 
 than beqame his inches and martial calling, 
 had scarcely patience with the ill-timed prac- 
 tical pleasantries of the veteran, to whom he 
 was reluctantly officiating as bear-leader ; more
 
 236 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 especially as, on reacliing the brilliantly - 
 lighted and sumptuous table so calculated to 
 impose decorum on its guests, the Colonel's 
 jokes were renewed in taking his seat, and 
 unfolding his napkin between the two stiff 
 frightened girls, whom the good old man 
 unconsciously addressed in something of the 
 fatherly tone he was in the habit of assuming 
 towards his favourite Lydia at Dean Park. 
 
 The sole consolation of Walter, in this pre- 
 dicament, arose from the absence of the 
 hyper-fastidious and super-impertinent young 
 gentleman of the house ; but, as an unexplained 
 chair still stood vacant opposite, he indulged 
 in justly-founded apprehensions that the 
 pleasure of Alberic's company was an evil 
 still impending over them. His doubts on 
 this point were speedily resolved. 
 
 " I have not seen Alberic," observed Sir 
 Henry Middlebury to his hostess, " since his 
 return from the continent." 
 
 " He will probably be here in time for the
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 237 
 
 second course/' observed Lady Vernon, in a 
 tone of injured dignity. " We never wait for 
 my son. Alberic is systematically unpunc- 
 tual. Alberic is too late for everything." 
 
 " Then I must say that is a fault which, for, 
 his own sake, I should be loth to pass over in 
 a son of mine !" exclaimed Colonel Hamilton, 
 not understanding that, being under the ban 
 of the empire, he had no voice in the diet. " It 
 may seem an exaggerated assertion, but I 
 vow to my Maker, I 've never known an un- 
 punctual man come to good in public life; 
 and, vice-versa, look at the punctual ones, — 
 look at Nelson and Wellington !" 
 
 As if in answer to the cue, Alberic Vernon, 
 at that moment sauntering in, honoured his 
 friends and relatives, as he took the vacant 
 chair, with a nod of recognition, and Colonel 
 Hamilton, with a blank stare of amazement 
 which, when the courteous old man replied by 
 an instinctive bow, assumed the form of one 
 of John Kemble's salutations.
 
 238 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 " Where is Dartford ? I thought we were 
 to have Dartford?" said he, addressing his 
 sister across Walter Hamlyn; when Lady 
 Vernon, dreading further inquiries and ex- 
 planations, abruptly silenced her son with 
 " No ; he was suddenly called away into Shrop- 
 shire by the illness of his mother." 
 
 The question and answer, neither of which 
 happened to be overheard by Colonel Hamil- 
 ton, (who was just then equally amused and 
 bewildered by the multiplicity of fish-sauces 
 pressed upon his choice by the maitre d 'hotel) 
 and which, even had they reached his ear, 
 would have conveyed nothing but regret that 
 a youngster he so much liked as the Marquis 
 might have accompanied him to the Hyde but 
 for his family affliction, — contained a world of 
 enlightenment for Walter Hamlyn. All that 
 had been inexplicable in the invitation of Lady 
 Vernon was now accounted for ; and the pang 
 inflicted upon his self-love was only exceeded 
 by his uneasiness at finding himself an ap-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 239 
 
 pendage to so every-way an unwelcome guest 
 as the unsuspecting Colonel Hamilton. 
 
 Instead of redoubling his endeavours to 
 make himself acceptable to his fair neighbour, 
 Walter could not a moment divert his at- 
 tention from the old gentleman opposite. 
 Every syllable uttered, every gesture hazarded, 
 by the Colonel, became a source of consterna- 
 tion. Before a sentence had half escaped his 
 lips, Walter began to modify or explain its 
 purport. He experienced, in short, all the 
 trepidation endured by the proprietor of an 
 ill-taught dog, which has accidentally made 
 its way into a lady's drawing-room, and is 
 tolerated by the politeness of the lady of the 
 house, every time the intruder seems about to 
 perpetrate some new offence. 
 
 The candid nature of the old Colonel secured 
 him, however, from all participation in these 
 perplexities. His innate sociability of spirit 
 was expanding. In that well-warmed, well- 
 lighted room, with a capital dinner before him,
 
 240 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 a glass of generous wine in his hand, and, on 
 either side, a pleasing modest-looking girl, he 
 found himself perfectly happy ; talked unre- 
 servedly, laughed cordially, and, after banter- 
 ing Barlow of Alderham, (who officiated as 
 substitute for his patron in muttering the 
 benedicite and carving the haunch of South 
 Down) on divers petty points of county juris- 
 diction, ended by infringing another etiquette 
 of the Hyde, by inviting his hostess {and by 
 the name of " my lady ! ") to take a glass of 
 sherry. 
 
 Of all these enormities. Lord Vernon re- 
 mained a mute spectator ; resigning himself to 
 his injuries as if far too well-accustomed to 
 the evil entreatment of Providence, to resent 
 being sprighted by a troublesome and intru- 
 sive guest. His ever sullen face was com- 
 pressed almost to sternness, however, by his 
 firm resolve not to be betrayed into open 
 reprehension of Colonel Hamilton's vulgar 
 familiarity.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 241 
 
 To Walter Hamlyn's susceptible self-love, 
 however, the conduct of Alberic Vernon on 
 the occasion was still more mortifying. 
 Assuming towards the stranger an air of 
 ironical deference, he affected to regard him 
 with the indulgence due to the newly-caught 
 native of some uncivilized quarter of the globe, 
 whose peculiarities form a matter for philo- 
 sophical speculation to the world of broadcloth 
 and brocade. Walter Hamlyn almost writhed, 
 under the supercilious expression of Mr. 
 Vernon's countenance, while affecting to draw 
 out the eccentricities of their semi-savage 
 guest. 
 
 It was torture to the banker's son every 
 time the poor Colonel apostrophized his stately 
 hostess or her sister as " my lady ;" nor 
 could he forgive his mother for having omitted 
 to school her careless friend, on this and other 
 futile points of conventional usage, with which 
 the seclusion of Colonel Hamilton's early life 
 rendered him unfamiliar. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 242 THE BAISKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 As the champagne and burgundy went 
 round, the joviality of the sociable old man 
 increased into the most chirupping garrulity. 
 He talked only as he had talked to the Rother- 
 woods, — only as he had talked when com- 
 manding the admiring attention of young 
 Dartford ; little suspecting how thoroughly his 
 anecdotes and mirthful ejaculations were out 
 of place. Struck by the beauty of Lucinda 
 Vernon, who was seated opposite, exhibiting 
 an elegance of dress and deportment new to 
 his unsophisticated eye, and naturally attri- 
 buting to one so young and fair the inward 
 and spiritual grace appropriate to innocence, 
 youth, and beauty, he was overjoyed at the 
 good-fortune of his friend Walter in having 
 so charming a companion. 
 
 " Well, Master Watty," said he, across the 
 table, after inviting him to join him in a glass 
 of the hock which was just then carried round, 
 — " do you still repent your frosty drive ? — 
 No, no ! — my boy ! — I suspect you know too
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 243 
 
 "syell what's what, to quarrel with such a 
 dinner, enjoyed by the side of such a 
 young lady !" 
 
 The higher Colonel Hamilton's spirits, the 
 more offensive, of course, became his company 
 to those who, even had they found his man- 
 ners more consonant with their own nature, — 
 *' like table-land^ high and flat,'' — would have 
 been equally ill-inclined to see him seated at 
 their board. 
 
 In the course of the evening, matters grew 
 worse and worse. The Vernons remained 
 studiedly cold and silent ; the Middleburys, 
 who, had Colonel Hamilton been a new settler 
 in their own neighbourhood, would have 
 welcomed him as a pleasant chatty old 
 gentleman, considered it a becoming token 
 of respect to the displeasures of their noble 
 relatives, to treat him with distant civility. 
 Alberic, who affected the fashionable insouci- 
 ance of a miss-hater, afraid of compromising 
 himself by exchanging a syllable with his 
 
 m2
 
 244 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 cousins, devoted himself to the assiduous 
 study of the new Annuals, (in which his own 
 Honourableship figured as the contributor 
 of some amusingly muzzy " Musings in the 
 Coliseum;") — while Captain Hamlyn and 
 Lucinda, having their London friends to 
 canvass and cry down, talked in whispers, and 
 exclusively to each other. Thus thrown out 
 of the circle, the Colonel, vs^ith a happy knack 
 accommodating himself to whatever circum- 
 stances he was placed in, and to extract 
 '* sermons from stones and good from every 
 thing," took refuge in a grave discussion, 
 between Sir Henry Middlebury and Mr. Bar- 
 low, on the Briarean question of pauper legis- 
 lation ; which, in the true country-gentle- 
 man spirit of worrying an argument as dogs 
 worry a bone, they were fighting over, inch 
 by inch, and act of parliament by act of 
 parliament. 
 
 The Benthamisms of Hamilton, fresh with 
 the raw philanthropy of a new and not very
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 245 
 
 enlightened settler in England, were expressed 
 with a degree of warmth, — almost of indig- 
 nation, — absolutely startling to his sober 
 hearers. Never before had Mr. Barlow heard 
 the well-bred insipidity of that state-apart- 
 ment, insulted by the emission of sentiments 
 and principles so nearly approaching to radi- 
 calism. With all due respect for the some- 
 what short-sighted benevolence of the old 
 Indian, he considered his manifesto out of 
 place, and declared his projects to be wholly 
 inapplicable to the state of the county. 
 
 " I tell ye what !" — cried Colonel Hamilton, 
 — suddenly appealing to Lord Vernon, — the 
 real Lord Vernon, — whose identity he had 
 discovered through the " my lording" of the 
 servants, and who now sat exchanging short 
 cold sentences, as round and smooth as 
 marbles, with Lady Middlebury, as though 
 the political economy tearing to rags within 
 their hearing were frivolous, vexatious, and 
 beneath his notice, — " it may sound very wise
 
 246 THE banker's wife 
 
 and statesmanlike to say that such and such 
 principles are inapplicable to a particlar 
 county, or particlar crisis. But, by George ! 
 human natur' is human natur' all over the 
 world ; ay, my lord, — and from king Pharaoh's 
 time till our own ! One's fellow-creatures 
 are one's fellow-creatures, — one's brethren, — 
 whether they live in Lancashire or Cornwall ; 
 — and to my thinking, such measures as were 
 shown up t'other day at the Union at Braxham, 
 and the county member who defended the 
 county magistrates when the question was 
 mooted in parliament, will have something to 
 answer for afore God !" — 
 
 A dead silence followed this awful denun- 
 ciation ; from which Sir Henry Middlebury 
 justly concluded that Barlow of Alderham 
 was one of the magistrates in question, — Al- 
 beric Vernon the offending county member ; 
 and being by no means anxious to figure 
 as second in a duel to any of the parties, he 
 accordingly hastened to hint, with precipitate
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 247 
 
 incoherence, that " by the time Colonel Ha- 
 milton had been a few years longer in Eng- 
 land, he might probably alter his views 
 considerably on many points connected with 
 the giant-striding claims of the poor!" 
 
 " I hope not, — I humbly hope not !" — was 
 Colonel Hamilton's eager rejoinder. But Sir 
 Henry heard him not. He was now exem- 
 plifying in a double sense his love of harmony 
 by inquiring of Miss Vernon whether she 
 and his daughters would not "favour them 
 with a little music ;" — the country Baronet 
 avowing himself so great a rustic as to treat 
 of " a little music" as " a great favour !" 
 
 Unaware that a request of this kind, in 
 mixed society, implies a desire to put a stop 
 to rational conversation. Colonel Hamilton 
 was not to be so silenced. Resuming his 
 appeal to Lord Vernon, after toddling across 
 the room to throw himself beside his lordship 
 on the sofa, — " I've often thought, since I 
 came into this neighbourhood," said he, in a
 
 248 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 more confidential tone, that if you and I, my 
 lord, and a few more of the influential landed 
 proprietors, were to — " 
 
 '' I was not aware, sir," gravely interrupted 
 Lord Vernon, drawing away the knee on 
 which his strange neighbour had inflicted a 
 familiar tap, in the exuberance of his philan- 
 thropic zeal,—" that you were a landed pro- 
 prietor of the county of Warwick." 
 
 '' Pho, pho, pho l—T/ou know what I mean ! 
 I've got to live, and die, and spend fifteen 
 thousand a year among ye ; and if that isn't 
 an equivalent to landed proprietorship, I don't 
 know what is ! I've thought many a time, 
 my lord, — as I was saying just now, — that if 
 we were all to lay our heads together, some 
 plan might certainly be hit upon for — " 
 
 " You must do me the favour to excuse 
 me, sir!" — said Lord Vernon, coldly, rising 
 from his seat. " I am so unfortunate as 
 to hear these questions too often debated 
 in my place in parliament, and among the
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 249 
 
 responsible representatives of the throne, to 
 have much appetite for bringing them on the 
 tapis of my ovfn drawing-room. Points of 
 which the collective wisdom of the realm is 
 perpetually engaged in the consideration, are 
 scarcely likely, I fear, to derive much eluci- 
 dation from our puny attempts at develop- 
 ment. If you are fond of parochial legislation, 
 I must beg to refer you for my share of the 
 argument, — as I universally do your friend 
 Mr. Hamlyn, — to the abler hands of my 
 worthy agent, Mr. Barlow of Alderham. Mr* 
 Barlow, sir, will, I am sure, be happy to meet 
 you in any discussion you may wish to pro- 
 mote. Lady Vernon ! — we are waiting 
 
 your commands for whist — Alberic ! — may I 
 ask the favour of you to ring for cards ?" 
 
 Whist levels all distinctions, and silences all 
 argumentation. Under its influence, the dull, 
 constrained evening at length concluded; and 
 but that, on stepping out of the carriage, 
 Colonel Hamilton had given orders that his 
 
 M 5
 
 250 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 own might be sent for him at eleven the fol- 
 lowing day, gladly would he have returned to 
 sleep at Dean Park. Though still unsuspici- 
 ous that he was an uninvited guest, he ^could 
 not stand the repellent reserve of the Vernons. 
 It was the first specimen of fashionable super- 
 ciliousness he had ever met with; and the 
 hollowness of such a reception wounded him 
 like a poisoned krees, 
 
 *' I could almost fancy the old don intended 
 to be uncivil to-night !'' — mused the Colonel, 
 in silence, while his faithful Johnston was as- 
 sisting him to undress. " Yet how could that 
 be? — Why invite me to his house? — Why 
 make me free of his park, on my first arrival ? 
 Why send his wife to leave a card upon me, 
 if he intended to be uppish? — No, no, — 'tis 
 the way of these fine folks ! — They're born so, 
 — they're nat'rally ungracious. By George ! 
 Mrs. Hamlyn was right. — These Vernons are 
 as little suited to me as / to them."" 
 
 In spite of all his distaste, however, for the
 
 251 
 
 hauteur of the house, Colonel Hamilton was 
 not blind to its merits. He was favourably 
 impressed by the peculiar air of distinction of 
 the ladies of the family, and the admirable 
 organization of the household. It had not 
 before occurred to him as possible, that 
 anything so perfect in its details as that 
 dinner could be produced, served, and en- 
 joyed, with such mechanical nonchalance. 
 The step or voice of a menial was unheard in 
 the establishment ; the servants appeared to 
 be no more than ingenious machines; y«t 
 even his unspoken wishes had been divined 
 and accomplished. He would have been 
 sorry to mortify Johnston by avowing how 
 thoroughly he recognized the merit of those 
 well-powdered magicians. 
 
 '* 'Tis vexatious enough these folks should 
 turn out so deuced disagreeable !" was his 
 concluding reflection, as he closed his eyes for 
 the night. *' It would have afforded a pleasant 
 change for us all, to be on friendly terms with 
 the family at the Hyde."
 
 252 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 The morrow's sun rose glitteringly over 
 fresh-fallen snow, as bright and cheerful as 
 on a day in June ; and it was, consequently, 
 difficult for a man of good dispositions, like 
 Colonel Hamilton, to rise from a good bed to 
 a good breakfast after a good night's rest, 
 in an ill-humour with himself or his neigh- 
 bours. Colonel Hamilton was not in the 
 habit of living on bad terms with Providence. 
 While viewing the varied afflictions of the 
 human kind, he had not courage to sulk, like 
 Lord Vernon, with his prosperous fortunes ; 
 and accordingly proceeded, with a heart over- 
 brimming with milk and honey, to the break- 
 fast-room, where the uncongenial crew were 
 gradually re-assembling. 
 
 " This is all mons'ous pleasant !" said he, 
 after going through the customary morning 
 salutations, and slapping Walter Hamlyn on 
 the back, while inquiring whether no pretty 
 face had embellished the tenor of his dreams. 
 " One could almost fancy oneself in summer,
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 253 
 
 or in Indy," he continued, pointing with his 
 breakfast-fork to a beautiful conservatory 
 opening from the room, and bright with Per- 
 sian lilacs, camellias, and hyacinths of every 
 dye. 
 
 " The march of science has unquestionably 
 enabled us to defy the influence of the seasons," 
 replied the sententious Sir Henry Middlebury, 
 perceiving that no one was at the trouble of 
 answering an observation addressed to all. 
 " The Epicureans of the ancient world would, 
 in all probability, be somewhat startled, could 
 they arise from their tombs and survey the 
 luxurious improvement of our social habits. 
 As regards, however, the introduction of con- 
 servatories among the adjuncts of domestic 
 architecture, I am inclined to believe the 
 gaseous emanations of the majority of the 
 floral tribes decidedly inimical to the salu- 
 brity of the atmosphere." 
 
 Colonel Hamilton, who seldom bothered his 
 brain with polysyllables, and knew no more of
 
 254 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 " gaseous emanations" than a New Zealander, 
 pursued his own view of the question, — ad- 
 dressing his observations, however, to the real 
 Simon Pure, to whom he was indebted for the 
 cup of smoking coffee before him. 
 
 *' I often used to think, my lord," said he, 
 "when I came driving and strolling about 
 your place, whilst you were away at t'other 
 castle in the north, that this must make a 
 mighty grim, damp sort of winter residence. 
 But I vow and protest you've not only 
 banished the blue devils, but made it every 
 bit as liveable a place as Burlington Manor or 
 Dean Park. It must have cost a mint of money 
 to modernize it as you've done, inside, without 
 altering the cut of its countenance. But the 
 attempt has answered, — by George ! it has 
 answered. I was saying last night to Mr. 
 Thingumee, your agent, that, if the place had 
 been on hire, I'd almost as lief have taken it 
 as Burlington Manor. / would^ upon my life 
 and soul !"
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. ^55 
 
 Walter Hamlyn glanced instinctively at the 
 silver coffee-pot, standing at Lord Vernon's 
 elbow, as if half expecting to see it hurled at 
 the head of the offender. But his lordship 
 contented himself with replying, with a deadly 
 smile and livid complexion, " Sir, you do me 
 infinitely too much honour." 
 
 " Not a bit, — not a bit," — cried the Colonel, 
 — full of good faith and feeling ;— " you may 
 believe every syllable that falls from mi/ lips. 
 I'm a rough diamond, I know ; but true as 
 unpolished." ♦ 
 
 Though he had almost determined, on leav- 
 ing his room that morning, not to exchange 
 another syllable, while they remained at the 
 Hyde, with his unpopular companion, Walter 
 now judged it prudent to interfere, and draw 
 off the attention of the parties. 
 
 " I have charming news for your sledging 
 project. Colonel Hamilton," said he. " Lord 
 Vernon's venerable head-keeper has just an- 
 nounced to me that the frost has set in for a
 
 256 HE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 fortnight ; — and old Tom Giles is an oracle ! 
 A sad prospect for us !" continued he, ad- 
 dressing young Vernon, who had just sauntered 
 into the room, and was asking for rizzered 
 haddock. " No chance of a run, I fear, for 
 some time to come !" 
 
 " By George ! if I'd known of this last 
 night," cried the Colonel, " I'd have sent 
 word to Burlington, by your people, Watty, 
 to bring round the sledge here this morning, 
 instead of the carriage." * 
 
 " You have mounted a sledge, then ?" 
 inquired Alberic Vernon, almost with interest. 
 " Vastly spirited, certainly, considering there 
 are not half-a-dozen days in an English winter 
 to render it available ! Always too much 
 frost for hunting, — seldom enough for skating, 
 — " de trop ou de trop peu, par tout dans ce 
 monde /" 
 
 " I mounted a sledge only because I've a 
 pretty little friend who had set her heart 
 upon one," rejoined Colonel Hamilton, won-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 257 
 
 dering why the avowal should produce so 
 singular a smile on the lips of Alberic Vernon. 
 
 " I trust your pretty little friend will prove 
 properly grateful," said he, with a plausible 
 face. " You seem bent, my dear sir, on en- 
 lightening the darkness of our obtuse county. 
 No end to the curious spectacles with which 
 you have already favoured the neighbour- 
 hood !" 
 
 " Ah ! you mean my hookahbadar and the 
 Thibet goats ?" replied the Colonel. 
 
 "• Not exactly," was Alberic Vernon's re- 
 ply ; when Sir Henry Middlebury, perceiving 
 (though by no means a miracle of discern- 
 ment), from the confusion of Captain Hamlyn's 
 countenance, that his nephew was perpetrating 
 impertinences, with a becoming deference to 
 Colonel Hamilton's age, calling, and income, 
 brought up his heavy forces to the assistance 
 of the weaker party. The Baronet's minute 
 and prolix inquiries concerning the construc- 
 tion of the sledge, its cost, and principles of
 
 258 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 draught, allowed time to Alberic to recover 
 his sense of decency. On this occasion, Sir 
 Henry's powers of prosification proved as 
 valuable as those of a pompous Mr. Speaker 
 in the House of Commons ; who, in the midst 
 of an uproarious debate, rises to expound 
 some point of law, and afford breathing time 
 to the infuriated belligerents. 
 
 Already it had glanced into Alberic Ver- 
 non's mind, that though Colonel Hamilton did 
 not belong to White's, — was not in parlia- 
 ment, — and neither employed a quotable 
 tailor, nor understood a syllable of French, it 
 was unbecoming his chivalry to insult a gray- 
 headed man under his father's roof ; and, with 
 his usual glibness of speech, and pretended 
 interest in the subject, he accordingly began 
 to descant upon sledges in general, torch- 
 races in Germany, sleighing parties in Ame- 
 rica, and the brilliant traineaux of Moscow 
 and the Bois de Boulogne. 
 
 " We had some charming sledge-races at
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 259 
 
 Ratisbon, last winter," said he, addressing 
 Lady Middlebury, lest he should be suspected 
 of civility to her daughter. " I remember, 
 one night, that mad Hungarian, Prince Keg- 
 lies, in pretending to cross the Danube at 
 full gallop, turned over the traineau of one 
 of the young Princes of Saxony, and broke 
 his arm." 
 
 " For mischief-sake?" abruptly inquired 
 Colonel Hamilton. 
 
 " No ; for a wager. I made my whole 
 journey through Styria, last Christmas, in *a 
 sledge ; and flatter myself I drive one like a 
 Laplander. But the horses are too heavy in 
 this country for any thing of the kind, — a 
 great deal too heavy." — 
 
 " By George ! I wish you'd try mine /" 
 cried Colonel Hamilton, cordially; wholly 
 unaware of the young gentleman's previous 
 impertinence. " There's almost time, now, 
 to send over for it, if one of your lazy stable 
 fellows could be spared."
 
 260 THE BANKER'S WIFE 
 
 Mr. Vernon hesitated, — for the proposition 
 really took his fancy ; yet he was ashamed to 
 accept a civility from the man they had been 
 confederating together to keep at arm's length 
 from the foot of their throne. 
 
 " If you choose to make the experiment 
 this morning," continued the Colonel, still and 
 ever intent upon promoting the pleasures of 
 other people, " you must even compromise 
 with driving over to Dean to give Miss Hamlyn 
 a turn ; for I promised her she should have 
 the first day's enjoyment of the Royal Lydia, 
 which was built solely to please her, poor 
 dear ; and I wouldn't have her disappointed 
 for a Jew's eye ! However, I suppose a 
 pretty girl's company will be no obstacle to 
 the pleasure of the drive ?" 
 
 The whole party looked aghast; — Alberic, 
 at so audacious an attack upon his hand and 
 heart ; Lady Middlebury and her daughters, 
 at the immorality of such a project as a tete^ 
 a-tete between a young gentleman and young 
 lady!
 
 261 
 
 " My sister will easily bear the privation 
 for a single day," cried Walter Hamlyn, in 
 utter confusion. "Mr. Vernon has far too 
 many agreeable companions at his disposal, 
 my dear Colonel, to render it necessary to 
 seek one so far from home." 
 
 But I won't hear of Lydia's being put off! — " 
 cried the Colonel, stoutly. " I settled it 
 t'other day with the young Marquis, that he 
 was to be the first to drive her ; and a sad 
 vexation 'twas to him, poor fellow, to be 
 forced to go off at a moment's warning, before 
 the sledge was off the stocks. The very last 
 thing he said to me, as he stepped into his 
 char'ot, was a wish the snow might last long 
 enough to enable me to drive it over to Dart- 
 ford Hall. * But even then, my dear lord,' said 
 I, nudging his elbow, ' you won't have Miss 
 Lydia along with it;' on which (between 
 friends), he turned as red as scarlet ; for he 
 didn't suspect, poor lad, that any one had 
 been noticing how plaguy sweet he was upon
 
 262 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 the young lady all the time he was staying 
 at Dean Park. But he's a fine fellow, any 
 way, Lord Dartford, — a fine, hearty, manly, 
 unaffected fellow; and, by George, I wish 
 there were more like him in the world !" 
 
 This rambling speech, which seemed almost 
 intended to convey reproach to the two young 
 men present, was followed by a profound 
 silence. Lady Vernon and her daughter 
 seemed petrified. Regarding the Marquis of 
 Dartford as almost a portion of their goods 
 and chattels, they considered the mere junc- 
 tion of his name with that of the banker's 
 daughter as positive profanation. Still, the 
 man on so familiar a footing with the 
 Marquis was not altogether to be coughed 
 down. 
 
 Already, Sir Henry Middlebury was coming 
 to their aid, in his usual laudable spirit of 
 prosy investigation; begging to know in 
 what particular consisted the superiority of 
 Lord Dartford, whether he had taken his
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 263 
 
 seat in parliament, and were likely to distin- 
 guish himself in the House ? 
 
 Before the question had been jealously 
 answered by Alberic, and scoutingly by Cap- 
 tain Hamlyn, as inconsistent with the well- 
 known habits of their friend, the breakfast 
 party broke up, the carriage being announced 
 for the departure of the visitors for Dean Park. 
 
 By a strange but not unnatural revulsion 
 of feeling, no sooner did Lord Vernon be- 
 hold Colonel Hamilton in the act of taking 
 leave, previous to quitting his house for evef, 
 than the instincts of English nature were 
 roused for a moment in his stubborn heart ; 
 suggesting a regret that he had been tempted 
 into ungraciousness towards any guest under 
 his roof. Conscious that the old soldier was 
 guiltless of intentional intrusion on his hospi- 
 tality, Lord Vernon felt that, so long as the 
 stranger remained within his gates, he was 
 entitled to courtesy and protection. As re- 
 garded the question of iheiv future acquain-
 
 264 THE BANKER'S WIFE; 
 
 tanceship, according to the policy of the 
 Thane of Fife .— 
 
 There might have come a time for that hereafter ! 
 
 These scruples of conscience were only 
 increased by the openness of heart and hand 
 with which Colonel Hamilton, unsuspicious 
 as guiltless of offence, expressed at parting 
 his cordial hopes to Lady Vernon and her 
 daughter that they would shortly visit him at 
 Burlington Manor, bringing with them the 
 Middlebury family; Sir Henry having ex- 
 pressed his usual painstaking curiosity con- 
 cerning the complexion of raw betel-nuts, 
 and the fleece and feeding of the Thibet 
 goats. 
 
 At that moment, Lord Vernon felt almost 
 vexed at the repellent coldness with which 
 his lady received these neighbourly demon- 
 strations. Like Alexander the Great, he 
 began to reckon it among the many miseries 
 of his destiny, that his orders were too punc- 
 tiliously obeyed.
 
 OR, COURT ANB CITY. 265 
 
 " Hey day ! what an't we to travel home 
 together, then?" cried the Colonel, address- 
 ing Walter, as they traversed the hall 
 escorted by Sir Henry and Alberic, who were 
 projecting a walk to look after snipes in the 
 neighbourhood of Braxham Mere, — on per- 
 ceiving that his own carriage and Walter's 
 hack were in attendance. 
 
 *' You mentioned, sir, that you were not 
 returning to Dean, but to Burlington ; and, 
 as I have business at Ovington on my way 
 home" — Captain Hamlyn was beginning. 
 
 ** Ay, ay, ay ! I see how 'tis, I see how 
 'tis !" good-humouredly interrupted the Co- 
 lonel. " You threw over the old man, 
 because you'd a mind to give yourself a 
 chance of being invited to stop another 
 day in a house containing three pretty 
 girls, eh ? instead of keeping company with 
 a lonesome hermit through his dull evening ! 
 At your age, my boy, I should ha' done 
 ]ust the same ! But come I Watty, drive 
 
 VOL. I, N
 
 ^66 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 back with me ; and if you'll stay and dine, 
 by George ! Goody Johnston shall toss you 
 up one of those famous dry mango curries 
 I was talking about yesterday at dinner, of 
 which not a soul in England knows the secret 
 but herself. I promise you that one of Mrs. 
 Johnston's prawn-curries, washed down by a 
 glass of my old Madeira, is a thing not to be 
 sneezed at, even by a fine gentleman of the 
 Blues. By George ! it whets an appetite that 
 would carry you through three courses and a 
 half of French kickshaws." — 
 
 Afraid of hazarding a glance towards Al- 
 beric Vernon's impertinent face, Walter Ham- 
 lyn politely excused himself. While the 
 Colonel was assisted into his well-appointed 
 carriage, he mounted and rode hastily from 
 the door ; secretly blessing his stars that a 
 visit was at an end, to which, for many years 
 past, he had been looking forward as an 
 almost unattainable pleasure.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 267 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The best composition and temperature (for worldly 
 
 success) is to have openness in fame and opinion, secrecy 
 
 in habit, dissimulation in seasonable use, and a power to 
 
 feign if there be no remedy. 
 
 Bacon. 
 
 Though the morning was one of the bright- 
 est of winter mornings, and his hack one of 
 the best reputed in the county, Captain Ham- 
 lyn's ride homewards was far from a pleasant 
 one. For whatever he might have been in- 
 tended by nature, Walter was, by the influence 
 of education, more worldly and artificial than 
 is generally supposed compatible with the 
 warm impulses of four-and-twenty. Not 
 " Nature," but Art was " his goddess." 
 
 N 2
 
 268 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 Trained by his father in abject deference to 
 the opinion of the world, the verdict of the 
 coteries (the "world" with which he was 
 chiefly acquainted) comprehended his Alpha 
 and Omega. His likings and dislikings had 
 long been regulated by fashionable favour; 
 and a suspicion was just arising in his mind 
 that a sentiment stronger still was about to 
 originate under a similar influence. 
 
 From the moment of his introduction to 
 Lucinda Vernon, at a royal ball, where he 
 had been accounted the handsomest man, and 
 she the best valseuse in the room, he had re- 
 garded her with strong admiration, — admira- 
 tion not a little enhanced by the consecration 
 of the name of Vernon to his early reverence, 
 by the worship of Dean Park. In the days of 
 the old Lord Vernon, the families had lived on 
 terms of intimacy, which did not prevent their 
 mutual visitations from being gaudy days and 
 domestic epochs in the archives of the 
 Hamlyn tribe.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 269 
 
 To such a slave of appearances as Walter, 
 the grace and elegance of Miss Vernon were, 
 in fact, a sufficient merit ; and now that he 
 had beheld her deriving new charms from the 
 dignities of her father's house, yet accepting 
 his attentions far more propitiously than she 
 had ever done in town, his prepossession in 
 her favour was complete. Young, pretty, 
 animated, there was something in Lucinda's 
 smile, when she did choose to smile, pecu- 
 liarly ingratiating ; and as she had chosen to 
 dispense her smiles to the intimate friend o't 
 the fortunate man whose marchioness she was 
 bent on becoming, the deluded guest had every 
 reason to suppose himself an object of interest 
 in her fastidious eye. 
 
 In London, Walter was a general favourite. 
 Hamlyn of the Blues had conquests to boast 
 of, far more gratifying to dandy vanity than 
 the preference of Lord Vernon's daughter; and 
 it was, therefore, no exorbitant sketch of self- 
 love to infer that, had other contingencies pro-
 
 270 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 spered the pretension, his homage might not 
 have proved unacceptable to the daughter of 
 his noble neighbour. 
 
 Lucinda was precisely the worldly wife for 
 so worldly a husband ; — for a man who took 
 as much delight in appearances as others in 
 reality. Lucinda sympathized in all his pre- 
 tentious finery. Lucinda, like himself, had 
 not an aim beyond the narrow horizon of 
 fashionable life. With such a bride, he felt 
 that he should be indescribably happy ; — no 
 longer the humble Hamlyn of Dean Park, but 
 son-in-law to the Right Hon. John Lord 
 Vernon, and appurtenant to the noble family 
 at the Hyde ; no longer fated to figure by 
 inscription in day-books and ledgers, but in- 
 cluded in the flattering pages of Burke, 
 Lodge, and Debrett ! — 
 
 But, above all, to be beloved by that thrice- 
 refined being to whom the vulgar earth seemed 
 scarcely good enough to tread, — who culti- 
 vated impertinence as an accomplishment, and
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 271 
 
 pride as a virtue ! It was really too flattering 
 an unction to be laid to any mortal soul ; and 
 Walter, as he proceeded to recall, smile by 
 smile, and repartee by repartee, their delight- 
 ful conversation of the preceding evening, 
 suddenly uttered so deep a sigh as sent his 
 warm breath into the frosty atmosphere like 
 the burst of extra steam discharged from a 
 tender. 
 
 For, alas, it occurred to him at the same 
 moment, that, though any decided avowal of 
 preference on the part of Miss Vernon mighfr, 
 in the early days of their London acquaint- 
 ance, have mollified her father in favour of a 
 gentlemanly young man, the heir to an unin- 
 cumbered estate of six thousand a year, all 
 was now frustrated by the degrading light in 
 which he had made his debut at the Hyde, as 
 esquire to a foolish Knight ; henceforward tQ 
 be inextricably connected in the minds of the 
 family with the old Ostrogoth who had pro- 
 posed to hang, for incompetency, their Right
 
 272 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 Honourable cousin, the Earl of Clanswaney ; 
 and addressed Lady Vernon as " my lady," 
 after the fashion of her footmen. 
 
 " I was certain the intimacy of that blunder- 
 ing old blockhead boded us no good," mur- 
 mured Walter, in the bitterness of his heart. 
 " How shall I ever manage to make my father 
 understand the irreparable injury he may do 
 US by entailing such a nuisance on the family. 
 Useless to appeal to my mother, I fear, — 
 utterly useless ! The seclusion of her life 
 renders her comparatively indifferent to the 
 verdict of society; besides, the old gentle- 
 man's foolish partiality for my sisters has en- 
 listed her as his warmest partizan. But the 
 governor, thank Heaven, is a man of the 
 world ; and on hearing how Hamilton has 
 been committing himself and us, may grow 
 less fond of his company. No time to be lost 
 in broaching the subject. After to-morrow, — 
 my father and mother start for Kotherwood 
 Castle, and thence for town ; where, once set-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 273 
 
 tied to business, it is impossible to abstract 
 the governor's attention a moment from his 
 consols and exchequer-bills. But we shall be 
 alone to-day, and after dinner, over our wine, 
 I will not lose the opportunity of relating 
 Hamilton's preposterous allusions to Dartford 
 and Lydia, which, in the presence of Lady 
 Vernon, positively made my blood run cold! — " 
 On arriving at home, however, Walter saw 
 that his father was in no mood for trifling expos- 
 tulations. Rarely, save in the intimate privacy 
 
 • 
 
 of wedded life, never, with his favourite son, 
 did Richard Hamlyn give way to the irrita- 
 tions of temper ; but by the saddened looks of 
 his mother, Walter, saw, the moment he en- 
 tered the house, that something was amiss. 
 He could almost have fancied, indeed, that her 
 eyelids were swollen with weeping ; a painful 
 suspicion, — for he loved his mother, if not as 
 she deserved, as much as was compatible with 
 the shallow selfishness of his heart. He would 
 have prized her more highly had she been the 
 
 N 5
 
 274 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 offspring of nobility than as the daughter of 
 a family of hereditary merchants, who en- 
 tailed upon him the opprobrium of having his 
 second name (for he was *' Walter Harrington 
 Hamlyn ") engraved upon brewers' drays and 
 warehousemen's waggons. But, as is usually 
 the case, the parent who had never flattered 
 his foibles was the one nearest to his heart. 
 
 " What is the matter to-day with my 
 mother?" he inquired anxiously of Lydia, 
 when Mrs. Hamlyn suddenly left the room in 
 which he had found them sitting together 
 engaged at work. 
 
 " Nothing that I am aware of," replied his 
 sister, to whom it was no unusual occurrence 
 to see her mother out of spirits. 
 
 " She was cheerful enough when we drove 
 off yesterday to dinner," persisted Walter, 
 *' and now she will scarcely utter a word." 
 
 *' Mamma had no opportunity to say much 
 while you were giving us your lively account 
 of the party at the Hyde," observed Miss
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 275 
 
 Hamlyn ; " but it does not strike me that she 
 is more silent than usual. The house appears 
 duller, of course, than when filled with com- 
 pany at your first arrival. You miss Lord 
 Dartford, — you miss Colonel Hamilton." 
 
 " Miss Colonel Hamilton ?" exclaimed 
 Walter, shrugging his shoulders, — a suspicion 
 glancing into his mind that, according to the 
 old man's surmises, the departure of the Mar- 
 quis might at least be a source of regret to 
 his sister. " No, no, I miss nobody. I miss 
 only my mother's usual smile, which is cet- 
 tainly the sweetest in the world. Either I 
 have offended her, or something is going 
 wrong in the family." 
 
 " What can be going wrong ?" — cried Lydia. 
 " My dear Walter, the change is in yourself, 
 not in mamma. By the way, now I think of 
 it, she may be a little out of spirits ; for she 
 was telling me, as you came in, that we 
 should have to go to Rotherwood Castle 
 without my father, who is obliged to return 
 to London to-morrow."
 
 276 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 ''To-morrow? — how provoking! On that 
 eternal plea of business, I suppose. I wish 
 the word City were utterly effaced from the 
 language !" 
 
 " Might not the name of Hamlyn chance to 
 disappear in its company?" — replied Lydia, 
 who, under the encouragement of Colonel 
 Hamilton, had of late sometimes hazarded a 
 retort upon her brother. 
 
 " Nonsense ! Do you suppose that Mr. 
 Hamlyn, of Dean Park, — Mr. Hamlyn, the 
 member for Barsthorpe, — ^has no existence out 
 of Lombard Street ?" — inquired Walter, taking 
 up his usual station in the rocking-chair, as if 
 for the composure of his irritation. *' I wish 
 to Heaven," he continued, pursuing his train 
 of sinister reflections, " that I had made up 
 my mind to proceed at once to Melton with 
 Dartford, instead of deranging my plans with 
 Warwickshire and Ormeau ! I see how it 
 will happen. Here shall I be, in case the 
 frost sets in, weather-logged at Dean, with
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 277 
 
 that insufferable old man constantly buzzing 
 about us, like a huge insect, and profiting by 
 my father's absence to bore us eternally with 
 his company ! Yesterday, on our way to the 
 Hyde, he had literally the coolness to invite 
 ME to dine and sleep at Burlington, to meet 
 — guess whom ?" 
 
 " The Markhams, perhaps?" — 
 " A thousand times worse ! Tom Grat- 
 wycke, — a vulgar, silly, lanky boy, with whom 
 my tiger would scarcely associate !" 
 " It was easy to excuse yourself." 
 " Not so easy as you may fancy, A man 
 so provokingly friendly and hospitable as thi 
 worthy Colonel of yours is as hard to throw 
 over as the Tower of Pisa. If the weather 
 were not so detestable, I would start for 
 Melton when you are off to Rotherwood, 
 sooner than remain here." 
 
 " Why not return to town with my father?" 
 
 " When I have just got two months' leave ? 
 
 Absurd! I had so thoroughly counted on
 
 278 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 a fortnight here, and a month at Melton with 
 Dartford !" 
 
 "It is really most inconsiderate of Lady 
 Dartford to fall ill during the hunting season !" 
 cried Lydia, laughing. " But, perhaps, when 
 it becomes generally known how much you 
 are bored here, and what an infliction you 
 find Colonel Hamilton, Providence may send 
 us a thaw, or better health to the Mar- 
 chioness." 
 
 Walter surveyed the saucy girl with some 
 surprise. But the result of his examination 
 was favourable to Lydia. Though sharing 
 his father's indignation that a child of seven- 
 teen should presume to have an opinion of her 
 own, he was startled by the discovery that, 
 while his attention was absorbed by his Lon- 
 don pleasures, his sister had been expanding 
 in the school-room into a lovely and intelli- 
 gent girl, to a degree that fully accounted 
 for the imputed admiration of his friend the 
 Marquis.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 279 
 
 " Mean time," said he, resuming the train 
 of his reflections, " be assured that I shall not 
 disgrace myself by again appearing before the 
 Vernons in company with your friend the 
 Colonel ; and so I mean to announce this very 
 day to my father." 
 
 The torporific influence of a family dinner 
 enjoyed after the taciturn fashion of Dean 
 Park produced, however, some modification 
 in Walter's heroic intentions. On the pre- 
 sent occasion, Mr. Hamlyn not only abstained 
 from the mention of proper names, but Re- 
 mained altogether silent so long as Ramsay 
 and the footmen were in attendance. During 
 dessert, he did not exceed monosyllables; 
 and by the time the ladies withdrew, Walter's 
 confidence in himself and in his influence over 
 his father was somewhat shaken. Had he 
 possessed a single sin unwhipped of justice, in 
 the form of a play-debt or disgraceful affair 
 of gallantry, he would have trembled at the 
 idea of being left alone with " the Governor !"—
 
 280 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 Scarcely, however, had Mrs. Hamlyn quit- 
 ted the room, when the spirits of her husband 
 appeared suddenly to revive* Drawing his 
 chair nearer the fire, he rang for a fresh* bottle 
 of claret, specifying to Ramsay a particular 
 binn ; the favourite Mouton which had been 
 in requisition for the recent Rotherwood 
 party. 
 
 " After all," thought Walter, " the discom- 
 fiture of my father and mother arose probably 
 from one of those conjugal misunderstandings 
 common to the best-regulated families. Most 
 likely, they disagreed about my sister ; whom 
 her mother brings as much too forward, as 
 her father wants to keep too much in the back- 
 ground. My mind is relieved. I think I may 
 venture to announce my visit to Melton, and 
 throw down the gauntlet to Burlington Manor." 
 
 Nevertheless, to his own surprise, Walter, 
 who was the only member of the family un- 
 restrained by the habitual gravity of his father, 
 found it for once difficult to open the conver-
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 281 
 
 sation he meditated ; — not from finding him, 
 ag he expected, out of sorts, but from the 
 vein of unusual loquacity in which Mr. Ham- 
 lyn saw fit to indulge. 
 
 No sooner did the favourite claret arrive, 
 than he expanded, with reckless fluency, on a 
 thousand trivial subjects, which, in his ordinary 
 mood, he would have scorned as unworthy 
 mention ; — such as the merits of Lord Ver- 
 non's French cook, the fine proportions of 
 Lord Dartford's figure, and the bad taste of 
 the Etruscan library at the Hyde. Grat- 
 wyckes. Barlows, Markhams, — Ovington, 
 Braxham, Barsthorpe, — all and sundry — 
 everything and nothing, — elicited in succession 
 some flighty remark from the habitually taci- 
 turn banker. But that Walter could have 
 numbered the glasses swallowed by his ever 
 sober parent, he could almost have supposed 
 him under the influence of wine. 
 
 " As you say, old Middlebury is a mouthy, 
 pompous, empty fellow !" said he, cheerfully 
 addressing his son. "I remember him at
 
 282 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 college, — a pains-taking ass, even then, — 
 wearing his soul out, and other peoples', to 
 ascertain, chapter and verse, the cause and 
 effect of things that wiser people are content 
 to take for granted. Another glass of claret, 
 Walter ! — This Mouton is not to be despised. 
 But Sir Henry is a man highly respected in his 
 county, — always in the chair at public meet- 
 ings, and so forth. Lady Middlebury used to 
 be a devilish pretty woman, — far prettier 
 than Lady Vernon. The late Lord Vernon 
 was often heard to say that his son had been 
 taken in by the wrong sister. The late Lord 
 Vernon had an aversion to the whole family. 
 Your health, Walter ! — your friend Lord 
 Dartford's health. What sort of girl has the 
 present Miss Vernon grown up? Better 
 looking than her eight ugly aunts, I hope, — as 
 old Gratwycke used to call them, the eight 
 foolish virgins. I have not seen Miss Vernon 
 since she was a child." 
 
 " She is considered one of the prettiest 
 persons in London," replied Walter, more
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 283 
 
 warmly than was his wont, so contagious is 
 the influence of good wine and good spirits. 
 ^' Miss Vernon possesses an air of distinction 
 and high-breeding, in my opinion, far superior 
 to beauty." 
 
 " She will marry well, I dare say, — though 
 I doubt whether her father will be inclined to 
 come down with the ready," said Hamlyn. 
 " I think I heard Lord Crawley, the other 
 night, quizzing his nephew about the fair lady 
 of the Hyde ?" 
 
 "Dartford?" exclaimed Walter Hamlyn, 
 '' Dartfordf no, no, that would never do," 
 added he, with the significant smile that over- 
 spreads the face of a handsome man, when 
 naming a rival to whom he supposes himself 
 preferred. — " Dartford is an excellent fellow ; 
 but,' (as you must have perceived,) fond only 
 of horses, dogs, driving, sporting, billiards, — " 
 
 *' In short, not a ladies' man !" interrupted 
 his father, summing up. 
 
 " Whereas Miss Vernon is refinement and
 
 284 THE BANKER'S WIFE 
 
 elegance itself; — the sort of girl whom, were 
 it your wish I should marry and our pro- 
 spects in life were equal, I should prefer above 
 all others for a wife." 
 
 Mr. Hamlyn, fancying, perhaps, that he had 
 not distinctly understood the words uttered 
 by his son, drew his chair a little closer ; and 
 as he poured out another glass of claret, 
 glanced interrogatively at his face. 
 
 " I said, sir, that were I at liberty to make 
 a choice, of all the girls of my acquaintance 
 I would marry the daughter of Lord Vernon." 
 
 Mr. Hamlyn replied by a sudden burst of 
 laughter, that sounded hysterical. He was a 
 person who seldom laughed. When he did, his 
 mirth had almost the appearance of a convul- 
 sion. 
 
 " YouV — cried he, ^' you marry the 
 daughter of Lord Vernon ? — you, Walter 
 Hamlyn, unite yourself with a penniless fine 
 lady ? — you, the son of Hamlyn of Lombard 
 Street, — of Hamlyn the banker? Think of
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 285 
 
 the tone in which that stiif-necked pharisee, 
 Lord Vernon, would pronounce those very 
 words — * the son of Hamlyn the hanker /' " 
 
 " I am not likely to afford him the oppor- 
 tunity of insulting us, sir," replied Walter, 
 coolly. " So far from deeming it possible I 
 could be received at the Hyde as a suitor, I 
 never expect to enter the house again, even as 
 a guest. After the offensive conduct of your 
 friend Colonel Hamilton," he continued, 
 nettled by the reiterated laughter of his 
 father, — " I shall consider Lord Vernon fully 
 justified in cutting our acquaintance. It 
 required all my self-command and forbear- 
 ance towards every friend of yours, sir, not 
 to tell the old fellow, when we left the Hyde 
 this morning, how great a savage I consider 
 him." 
 
 The merriment of Mr. Hamlyn instantly 
 ceased. A moment before, he had been rais- 
 ing his glass to the light, as if in admiration 
 of the hue and clearness of his claret. He 
 now suddenly set down the glass.
 
 286 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 " Better cut your tongue out, Walter Ham- 
 lyn," was his stern reply, " than let it convey 
 offence to Colonel Hamilton ! " — 
 
 The banker had all the air of being as 
 abruptly sobered as he had before been sud- 
 denly excited. Yet Captain Hamlyn, on 
 raising his eyes in amazement to his father's 
 face, fancied he could discern about the mouth 
 spasmodic twitches of suppressed passion. 
 
 " Be assured, sir," he resumed, in a paci- 
 fying tone, " that I did not hazard so much as 
 an ungracious syllable to the old gentleman. 
 We parted the best friends in the world. Be 
 under no apprehensions." 
 
 *' Apprehensions ! — What apprehensions ? 
 and apprehensions of what f " — repeated Mr. 
 Hamlyn, with kindling eyes. " Of whom do 
 you suppose I am afraid ? — All I desire is, 
 that a poor old man, who has not a relation 
 in the world, — who has survived his kith and 
 kin, — his wife and children, — should derive in 
 his declining years such comfort as our soci-
 
 287 
 
 ety is able to afford him. A mere matter of 
 Christian charity, Walter — a mere matter of 
 Christian charity ! — Hamilton is very fond of 
 you ; he admires you, he appreciates you. 
 You were his son's fag, I fancy, at Eton ; and 
 your very name refreshes his heart with remi- 
 niscences of his children." 
 
 " His name brings back to me reminiscences 
 of the blacking-brush, which Jack Hamilton 
 used to fling every morning at my head when his 
 shoes were not ready !" — cried Walter, hoping 
 to divert the serious view his father had for a 
 moment seemed inclined to take of the case. 
 
 " Robert Hamilton was nearer your age, I 
 fancy ?" resumed Mr. Hamlyn, with an air of 
 abstraction. 
 
 " Robert, however, I liked even less than 
 his brother. Bob was always a peevish, sickly 
 fellow." 
 
 *' His sickliness, my dear boy, (between our- 
 selves) may prove the origin of singular good 
 fortune to yourself," said Mr. Hamlyn.
 
 S88 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 " To mef'' — reiterated Walter, with a smile. 
 
 " I have reason to know," persisted his 
 father, lowering his voice to a still more con- 
 fidential pitch, " that the widow is coming to 
 spend the spring at Burlington Manor." 
 
 " What widow ?" — inquired Walter Hamlyn, 
 beginning to fear that what he had at first 
 mistaken for tipsiness might he in truth mental 
 aberration. 
 
 "Robert Hamilton's widow. That beau- 
 tiful Ellen Somerton, whom his father (at my 
 instigation) did so much to prevent his mar- 
 rying, and who made him so good a wife." 
 
 " Well, sir ? " — demanded Walter, still per- 
 plexed by his father's incoherency of manner. 
 
 " Well, sir ? — Why I say that a pretty wife 
 and a good wife, when converted into a widow, 
 may make a good and pretty wife again. Mrs. 
 Robert Hamilton's health, Walter ! Drink it, 
 my boy, in a bumper ! Mrs. Robert Hamil- 
 ton's health! — till she become Mrs. Walter 
 Hamlyn."
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 289 
 
 " What can you possibly mean, my dear 
 father?" exclaimed Walter, now almost hoping 
 that his father's mind migJd be disturbed. 
 
 " Mean ! — why that Hamilton is about to 
 bequeath her every guinea of his three hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand pounds, — that is, if 
 she should marry to please him." 
 
 " I trust she may,'' was Walter's cold reply, 
 " but it certainly will not be through my 
 offering her my hand." 
 
 " Impossible to say, till you become ac- 
 quainted with the lady," pleaded his father, 
 still undiscouraged. 
 
 " I can both say and swear it !" — persisted 
 Walter Hamlyn. 
 
 " The eloquence of three hundred and fifty 
 thousand pounds may induce you to forswear 
 yourself." 
 
 " Not where there exists a counterbalance 
 of vulgarity and pretension," cried the young 
 man, his feelings warm with claret and the 
 recollection of Lucinda Vernon's bright eyes, 
 
 VOL. I, O
 
 290 THE BANKER'S WIFE ; 
 
 Nothing on earth, — no, my dear father ! — / 
 swear that nothing on earth would ever induce 
 me to unite myself with a widow !" 
 
 " Nothing on earth? not even your father's en- 
 treaties, — your father's danger, — your father's 
 misery, — your father's ruin !" — demanded 
 the elder Hamlyn, trembling in every limb, and 
 apparently on the verge of distraction. " Take 
 heed of what you are saying, Walter !" added 
 he, with a glance that froze the young soldier's 
 blood in his veins. — '* You know not what it is 
 to live stretched on the rack of a responsibi- 
 lity such as mine; — to exist day after day, and 
 year after year, in all the agony and torture 
 of having a golden Pactolus stream, like the 
 waters of Tantalus, through my hands ! — Very 
 well for you, your mother, your brother, who 
 glide through life enjoying without an effort 
 the fruit of my labours, the fruit of my joyless 
 days, my sleepless nights, my perilled salva- 
 tion ; all very well for you, I say, to disparage 
 my labours, and recede from this sacrifice.
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 291 
 
 or refuse that exertion, while your father 
 is wearing himself down to the grave by his 
 endeavours to preserve the honour of the 
 family !"— 
 
 Pausing for a moment in his impetuous 
 volubility, Mr. Hamlyn suddenly filled his 
 glass with wine, and swallowed it almost at a 
 mouthful. 
 
 " But you may tax a man's faculties too 
 far ! " — cried he, with renewed fervour ; 
 " and beware, Walter, — beware of driving 
 me to distraction. — I have this day cursed 
 your brother, — cursed him with a bitter and 
 cleaving curse! — I have this day raised my 
 hand against my wife, because she ventured 
 to defend his disobedience. Do not tempt me 
 into further outrages, — do not bring me to 
 further shame. — Walter, you are my eldest- 
 bom, — you are my heir. I have ever loved 
 you better than the rest. You bear my 
 father's name, — you will one day be. my 
 father's representative. For you^ I have 
 
 o 2
 
 292 THE banker's WIFE ; 
 
 toiled, for you I have suffered, for you I have 
 sinned. Though the others are conspiring to 
 bring down my hairs with sorrow to the 
 grave, — my son, my son ! — let me not have 
 to reckon you among my enemies." 
 
 Convulsive sobs burst from the bosom of 
 Richard Hamlyn, as he concluded this frantic 
 apostrophe ; and Walter, who no longer enter- 
 tained a doubt of the mental infirmity of his 
 companion, knew not whether to soothe or 
 chide the morbid emotions of the sufferer. But 
 though apprehensive of augmenting the evil 
 by any expression of sympathy, the impulse 
 of nature was not to be resisted ; and, taking 
 the hand of his father, he held it for some 
 minutes in silence between his own, till warm 
 tears gushed from the eyes of the banker. 
 
 Thus relieved, he seemed by degrees to 
 recover some portion of tranquillity. 
 
 " Forgive me for having agitated you, my 
 dear boy," faltered he, at length, though, in 
 fact, it was himself alone who had given
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 293 
 
 evidence of agitation. " I have this day, 
 Walter, gone through much to disturb my 
 mind, — much to depress my courage. — Your 
 brother has grievously disappointed me. But 
 we will talk of it another time, — another time, 
 when I am more composed. Not a word on 
 the subject to your mother. It is unfair and 
 fruitless to entangle women in one's per- 
 plexities. They can afford no support, — no 
 counsel, — and only increase the evil by their 
 chicken-heartedness . ' ' 
 
 *' My dear father, I entreat, I implore, you 
 to explain yourself !" — cried Walter, becoming 
 more and more alarmed, in proportion as his 
 father appeared more rational. " Is there 
 any thing in which I can afford you the least 
 comfort, — the least assistance ?" — 
 
 " Nothing !"— replied Mr. Hamlyn. " Did 
 you not tell me, just now, that my utmost 
 entreaties, and three hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand pounds, would not determine you to 
 marry a widow ? Such is the extent of your
 
 294 THE banker's wife ; 
 
 filial piety. But, as I said before, we will 
 discuss the matter thoroughly another time." 
 
 " No ! — now, now ! — What is there to pre- 
 vent it ?" — cried Walter Hamlyn. 
 
 " The irritation of my feelings. I cannot 
 talk of it with patience, — I cannot talk of it 
 with reason. Your brother, — your cold- 
 blooded, selfish brother, presumes to — but no 
 matter, no matter ! — When the stroke of retri- 
 bution comes, it will fall on all, — root and 
 branch,-— sapling and tree. — Lord Vernon may 
 triumph then to his heart's content over 
 Hamlyn the banker." Then, suddenly ring- 
 ing the bell, as if to put a decisive stop to 
 his own rash disclosures, " let us go in to 
 coffee, Walter, my boy !" said he, " let us go in 
 to coffee. They are expecting us, — they are 
 waiting for us. But, remember, not a sylla- 
 ble of all this to your mother." 
 
 This prohibition was, perhaps, as trying to 
 Captain Hamlyn's feelings as any part of the 
 painful scene by which it was preceded. For
 
 OR, COURT AND CITY. 295 
 
 the first time in his life, Walter was under- 
 going severe mental uneasiness ; because wit- 
 nessing, for the first time, inconsistency and 
 incoherency on the part of one whom he had 
 hitherto regarded as utterly passionless, — 
 utterly immoveable, — ruthless as destiny, 
 but steady as time. And to behold the man 
 of stone thus passion-stricken, — the man of 
 business thus lost to all considerations of pru- 
 dence, — filled him with alarm. The chain of 
 the sheet-anchor of his fortunes seemed sud- 
 denly snapt asunder ; and what was to become 
 of the luckless vessel in which the welfare 
 of his family was embarked ? — 
 
 He could scarcely restrain his emotion on 
 finding himself once more in presence of his 
 gentle and unconscious mother. He trem- 
 bled to think how thoroughly her spirit would 
 be overcome if exposed to the spectacle of 
 his father's inexplicable violence. 
 
 Scarcely, however, had he been ^s^ minutes 
 in the drawing-room, where Mrs. Hamlyn
 
 296 THE banker's wife. 
 
 and Lydia were pursuing their customary 
 evening avocations, when his father, undis- 
 turbed in voice or mien, made his appearance, 
 and joined cheerfully in conversation ; exhi- 
 biting no trace of his flighty excitement after 
 dinner, or his subsequent depression. 
 
 The cold, calm, leaden-eyed banker was 
 himself again; and as Walter contemplated 
 this miraculous transition, he trembled to 
 consider how much of his father's habitual 
 serenity might be a matter of hypocrisy, — how 
 much of his decorum an effort of self-control. 
 It was, perhaps, only within the last half 
 hour he had witnessed indications of the real 
 character of Hamlyn, the banker. 
 
 END OF VOL T. 
 
 LONDON; 
 
 P. SHOBERL, JUN., 51, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARRET, 
 
 PRINTER TO H. R. H. PRINCE ALBERT.
 
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