SCENE V
A PERSON OF IMPORTANCE
IN a substantially-built house in the important suburb of Tooting, in a dining-room full of substantial furniture in that school of design which is the glory of Britain and the stupefaction of surrounding nations, sat Alderman Dobbin, J. P., reading the Church Gazette, and breathing Protestantism at every pore.
The person of Alderman Dobbin was not less substantial than the chair which supported it. It was the hour of three in the afternoon; the alderman had just achieved a dinner of solid and ample materials, and a gentle flush which overspread his broad face was due perhaps equally to the silent struggle going on in the region of his waistcoat and to indignation at the insidious practices of Rome.
It is not till a gigantic public evil begins to affect us personally that we become really in earnest for its redress. Alderman Dobbin had long marked the stealthy encroachment of ritual in the Church from afar with inward misgiving. But when the arising of a new vicar of the most lawless school brought the mischief to the door of the alderman’s own pew, when the audacious cleric presumed to burn frankincense or some such idolatrous drug under the alderman’s own nostrils, then, in his own words, he realized that we were on the verge of a revolution. It was fortunate indeed for the offender that the ordinary justice of the peace has no jurisdiction in ecclesiastical causes. Alderman Dobbin did not brawl in the church—such a man could not brawl; but he wrote a letter to the paper, and he intimated to his vicar in the privacy of the vestry that he should reconsider his attitude towards disestablishment.
To the culprit, standing on the great peaks of Catholic verity, clasping hands with sixty generations of apostles, fathers, saints, and bishops, his rebellious church-warden naturally mattered no more than a gnat buzzing round the altar. His spiritual predecessors had cast down emperors from their thrones, and given away largess of kingdoms. Was he to surrender the Œcumenical splendors of the Church at the bidding of an obscure suburban tradesman? If this impertinent boot-maker represented the feelings of the laity, so much the worse for the laity. The Church could get on without them, but not without its apostolic priesthood.
Such disdain, to the worthy alderman, was at once an outrage and a revelation. It is possible that there are social circles in which even an alderman is not removed beyond the reach of rivalry; but in the meridian of Tooting, where Alderman Dobbin had passed his life, and where his high office, together with his equally high moral character, had hitherto secured him universal deference, he felt himself to be an important personage. After all, importance is a question of standpoint. Every one has some one to look up to him. Though you be but a youth of lowly birth, engaged in mercantile pursuits, with a stipend of no more than thirty weekly shillings, yet to the landlady who tolls you in a moiety of that sum you are a power whose favor is to be conciliated, and whose wrath is to be dreaded. To the drudge in the basement who blacks your boots and watches you through the area railings as you issue forth of a morning you are as a god moving on Olympus; the conductor who takes you to your work in his omnibus holds you for an undoubted member of the aristocracy; and the drunken artisan on the roof, earning his pound a day on every day that he can spare from the public-house, hates you for your pride and luxury.
Novelists, it is said, are thought much of by young reporters on the provincial press. The secret of true happiness is to turn away from beholding those who are better off than ourselves, and keep the gaze steadily fixed on those who are worse off; and this secret Alderman Dobbin had mastered. Free from that itching to grovel to some one above him which torments so many unfortunate people, he was satisfied with being grovelled to by his inferiors. Thus it was that he had been able to live in the enjoyment of his own greatness without envying that of others. There might be such persons as dukes and archbishops in the world—he was Alderman Dobbin.
So much the greater was the shock administered to his mind by the unveiled disrespect of the vicar. The alderman’s evangelical zeal had received a new edge; and, at the same time, by a natural chain of cause and effect, he was in a mood peculiarly susceptible to the blandishments of one of those magnates of the earth before whom even Oxford divines are but as dust. Such a one was even now approaching the aldermanic dwelling.
A sound of horses’ hoofs and carriage wheels aroused the nodding alderman, and drew him hastily to the window. He beheld a carriage and pair of the most brilliant lustre drawing up in front of his door, and a woman of stately presence looking out, while a liveried footman ascended the steps and rang the bell. The excited master of the house could scarcely refrain from bursting out into the hall, to anticipate the lagging motions of the housemaid. At last that young female, having arranged her cap to her satisfaction, could be heard flouncing past the dining-room door. A short colloquy followed, and the occupant of the carriage emerged, attended by a fashionably dressed gentleman, and entered the house. There was a sound of doors opening and shutting. Finally, the housemaid came to her impatient master.
“A lady by the name of Seven, and a gentleman, to see you, sir.”
“Seven?” The alderman reflected for a moment, and then his eye fell on a card of invitation which had occupied a prominent place on the mantel-piece and in his thoughts for several days past. “You mean Lady Severn,” he cried out—“the Marchioness of Severn!”
“Yes, sir; ‘Lady Severn’ was what she said, sir.”
The alderman cast a glance of despair at his trousers.
“Run and get me the clothes-brush. No—I must change—there isn’t time! Here, run up-stairs and get me my Sunday coat, while I brush these things.”
The marchioness and her companion, seated in the drawing-room, were aware of a commotion outside.
“I am afraid we have thrown the establishment into confusion,” the gentleman remarked.
“These sort of people always lose their heads if any one comes to see them unexpectedly,” the marchioness responded. “I suppose they never visit each other; their houses are too small.”
“Probably it is because they would only bore each other to death if they did. No one in the middle classes ever breaks the moral law, I understand, and so they have nothing interesting to talk about.”
The marchioness frowned severely.
“Silence! Remember you are on your good behavior. You are not to shock this dear, good person.”
The “dear, good person” interrupted the conversation by his appearance. He advanced to the marchioness, and shook hands with so much real regard that her rings were crushed into the flesh.
“I’m delighted to see your ladyship—delighted! It’s so kind of you to come.” He turned to her companion. “And you, my lord.”
In Tooting it is not the custom for married ladies to drive about paying visits with gentlemen other than their husbands or near relations. The marchioness forced a somewhat unnatural smile as she explained:
“Er—let me—Mr. Despencer, a friend of mine.”
A look of hopeless bewilderment appeared on the alderman’s speaking countenance. Despencer skilfully put in:
“A friend of Mr. Hammond’s as well. The marchioness thought it better for me to come here with her.”
The tension was relieved. Alderman Dobbin seated himself facing his visitors, while the marchioness opened the conversation.
“I have taken the liberty of coming here, Mr. Dobbin, without waiting till you came to my house, because I wanted to have a private chat with you. You know how difficult it is to get five minutes’ conversation with any one in those crushes.”
The alderman bowed, much gratified at being supposed to know anything whatever on the subject.
“Of course, what I am going to say to you is in confidence,” the marchioness proceeded. “I am sure you would not dream of mentioning to Mr. Hammond that we had been here.”
“Certainly not. Your ladyship may trust me absolutely. Not a soul shall know of it.”
“I have heard Mr. Hammond speak of you so often that I feel you are quite an old friend. No doubt he has talked of us to you?”
The alderman smiled feebly. He would have given a good deal to be able to say yes, but could not quite bring himself to it.
“Perhaps I ought to say he has talked of my daughter, Lady Victoria?”
Alderman Dobbin had never heard of such a person as Lady Victoria. His smile became feebler still. The marchioness coughed discreetly, and glanced towards Despencer. He came gallantly to the rescue.
“It has been understood for some time that Mr. Hammond was likely to marry Lady Victoria, as, of course, you know.”
“Yes, of course; quite so,” jerked out the alderman, deeply ashamed of his ignorance on the point.
The marchioness heaved a sigh.
“I need not ask if the match had your approval, Mr. Dobbin, because I am sure that you, as a friend of Mr. Hammond’s, must see what an advantage such a connection would be to him in his political career.”
“Certainly, your ladyship. Nothing could be better. It would go a long way in Tooting.”
“Ah! And now, do you know, I am almost afraid that the idea will have to be abandoned. I hesitate whether I ought to allow my daughter to think of Mr. Hammond any longer.”
“Dear me! I am very sorry to hear your ladyship say that.”
Her ladyship shook her head sadly.
“Yes. I have no doubt you understand the reason.”
The alderman’s face again clearly betraying that he had not the remotest idea of the reason, Despencer came to his assistance once more.
“The marchioness refers to Mr. Hammond’s attentions to this music-hall singer, Belle Yorke.”
Alderman Dobbin sat horror-struck. He was not acquainted with Belle Yorke by name, but of music-hall singers as a class his ideas could only have been expressed in language severely Biblical. The marchioness hastened to drive the nail home.
“All his friends must share the same feelings about this unfortunate attachment,” she observed, in a tone of sympathetic condolence. “What effect, in your opinion, Mr. Dobbin, would his marrying a girl of that kind have on his position here?”
“He would never get in for Tooting again. The Liberals have got a very strong candidate—Sir Thomas Huggins, a baronet. I dare say your ladyship knows him?”
Her ladyship was not quite sure whether she had met Sir Thomas Huggins.
“His social influence here is very strong. His wife, Lady Huggins, gives a garden-party every summer, and many Primrose Dames go to it. We are beginning to be afraid for the seat, as it is.”
“Then you consider, speaking as a judge of the political situation, that if Mr. Hammond were to marry beneath him, instead of making such a match as it is in his power to do, it would seriously affect his prospects?”
“It would be fatal to them, my lady.”
The marchioness looked up at the ceiling.
“What a pity he has no wise and candid friend to point this out to him, and remonstrate with him on behalf of the—er—the party!”
Curiously enough, there was just such a wise and candid friend in the room ready and willing to undertake the task.
“Your ladyship may leave it to me,” said the eager alderman. “I will take it on myself to point out to Mr. Hammond the—the—”
“Political situation,” suggested Despencer.
The marchioness threw a smile of admiration at the wise and candid friend.
“The very thing!” she exclaimed, with a fine assumption of having been taken entirely by surprise. “No one else could do this so well. I have no doubt that a few judicious words from you will be sufficient to open Mr. Hammond’s eyes. Ahem! Have the—er—the rumors about this young woman reached you?”
“What rumors, my lady? I haven’t heard anything about her.”
The marchioness raised her eyebrows, and then appealed by an eloquent look to Mr. Despencer. Despencer shook his head with the air of a good man whose righteous soul was vexed by the bare recollection of others’ iniquity.
“I see you don’t know the worst,” he remarked, gravely. “If there were nothing more against Miss Yorke than the mere fact of her being on the music-hall stage it would not matter so much. But—”
Another head-shake completed the sentence, and told the horrified alderman far more than any words could have done.
“Poor girl! let us hope it is not all true,” murmured the marchioness, with Christian compassion.
A minute or two later she rose to go. The alderman, aware from sundry creaking sounds overhead that his wife was hurrying through a frantic toilet up-stairs, remonstrated.
“Won’t your ladyship stay and have a cup of tea? I expect Mrs. Dobbin to come in every minute.”
“I am so sorry. I particularly wish to make Mrs. Dobbin’s acquaintance, but I am afraid I cannot stay another moment. Some other day, if you will allow me, I hope to come out and call on her. But you see this is quite a confidential visit. What a charming situation you have here! Quite rural, I declare! It reminds me of our place in Worcestershire.”
Mr. Despencer added his testimony that it was very like the Marquis of Severn’s place in Worcestershire—indeed it was, for there were grass and laurel-bushes in both.
The visitors tore themselves away at last, and disappeared, a vision of varnished panels and gleaming harness and tossing horses’ heads and flying dust. And what did Alderman Dobbin do when they were gone?
He did what every other well-conducted alderman in his situation would have done. He went forth into the town and bought a peerage.
Then he shut himself up in his counting-house, and sat down to write a letter.