Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/505

488 The girl-Queen was in ecstacies. She deigned a dance with the young Habral, and then all sat down to supper; and in the middle of it came the cry of Fire! The Queen shrieked; the flames were seen all around; and if the arms of the young Habral were opened to save her, or perish, could she cast a thought on Royalty, and refuse? The Queen was saved, the villa was burnt: the young Habral was ruined, but, if I know a Portuguese, he was happy till he died, and well remunerated! For he had held a Queen to his heart! So that was a pic-nic!”

The Duke slightly inclined his head.

“Vrai Portughez derrendo,” he said. “They tell a similar story in Spain, of one of the Queens—I forget her name. The difference between us and your Peninsula cavaliers is, that we would do as much for uncrowned ladies.”

“Ah! your Grace!” The Countess swam in the pleasure of a nobleman’s compliment.

“What’s that story?” interposed Aunt Bel.

An outline of it was given her. Thank heaven, the table was now rid of the great Mel. For how could he have any, the remotest relation with Queens and Peninsula pic-nics? You shall hear.

Lady Jocelyn happened to catch a word or two of the story.

“Why,” said she, “that’s English! Franks, you remember the ballet divertissement they improvised at the Bodley race-ball, when the magnificent footman fired a curtain and caught up Lady Roseley, and carried her—”

“Heaven knows where!” cried Sir Franks. “I remember it perfectly. It was said that the magnificent footman did it on purpose to have that pleasure.”

“Ay, of course,” Hamilton took him up. “They talked of prosecuting the magnificent footman.”

“Ay,” followed Seymour, “and nobody could tell where the magnificent footman bolted. He vanished into thin air.”

“Ay, of course,” Melville struck in; “and the magic enveloped the lady for some time.”

At this point Mr. George Uploft gave a horse laugh. He jerked in his seat excitedly.

“Bodley race-ball!” he cried; and looking at Lady Jocelyn: “Was your ladyship there, then? Why—ha! ha! why, you have seen the Great Mel, then! That tremendous footman was old Mel himself!”

Lady Jocelyn struck both her hands on the table, and rested her large grey eyes, full of humorous surprise, on Mr. George.

There was a pause, and then the ladies and gentlemen laughed.

“Yes,” Mr. George went on, “that was old Mel. I’ll swear to him.”

“And that’s how it began?” murmured Lady Jocelyn.

Mr. George nodded at his plate discreetly.

“Well,” said Lady Jocelyn, leaning back and lifting her face upward in the discursive fulness of her fancy, “I feel I am not robbed. Il y a des miracles, et j'en ai vus! One’s life seems more perfect when one has seen what nature can do. The fellow was stupendous! I conceive him present. Who’ll fire a house for me? Is it my deficiency of attraction, or a total dearth of gallant snobs?”

The Countess was drowned. The muscles of her smiles were horribly stiff and painful. Caroline was getting pale. Could it be accident that thus resuscitated Mel, their father, and would not let the dead man die? Was not malice at the bottom of it? The Countess, though she hated Mr. George infinitely, was clear-headed enough to see that Providence alone was trying her. No glances were exchanged between him and Laxley, or Drummond.

Again Mel returned to his peace, and again he had to come forth.

“Who was this singular man you were speaking about just now?” Mrs. Evremonde asked.

Lady Jocelyn answered her: “The light of his age. The embodied protest against our social prejudice. Combine—say, Mirabeau and Alcibiades, and the result is the Lymport Tailor:—he measures your husband in the morning: in the evening he makes love to you, through a series of pantomimic transformations. He was a colossal Adonis, and I’m sorry he’s dead!”

“But did the man get into society?” said Mrs. Evremonde. “How did he manage that?”

“Yes, indeed! and what sort of a society!” the dowager Copping interjected. “None but bachelor-tables, I can assure you. Oh! I remember him. They talked of fetching him to Dox Hall. I said, No, thank you, Tom; this isn’t your Vauxhall.”

“A sharp retort,” said Lady Jocelyn, “a most conclusive rhyme; but you’re mistaken. Many families were glad to see him, I hear. And he only consented to be treated like a footman when he dressed like one. The fellow had some capital points. He fought two or three duels, and behaved like a man. Franks wouldn’t have him here, or I would have received him. I hear that, as a conteur, he was inimitable. In short, he was a robust Brummel, and the Regent of low life.”

This should have been Mel’s final epitaph.

Unhappily, Mrs. Melville would remark, in her mincing manner, that the idea of the admission of a tailor into society seemed very unnatural; and Aunt Bel confessed, that her experience did not comprehend it.

“As to that,” said Lady Jocelyn, “phenomena are unnatural. The rules of society are lightened by the exceptions. What I like in this Mel is, that though he was a snob and an impostor, he could still make himself respected by his betters. He was honest, so far; he acknowledged his tastes, which were those of Franks, Melville, Seymour, and George—the tastes of a gentleman. I prefer him infinitely to your cowardly democrat, who barks for what he can’t get, and is generally beastly. In fact, I’m not sure that I haven’t a secret passion for the great tailor.”

“After all, old Mel wasn’t so bad,” Mr. George Uploft chimed in. “Granted a tailor—you didn’t see a bit of it at table. I’ve known him taken for a lord. And when he once got hold of you, you couldn’t give him up. The Squire met him first in the coach, one winter. He took him for a Russian nobleman—didn’t find out what he was for a month or so. Says Mel, ‘Yes, I make clothes. You find the notion unpleasant; guess