The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 40: what you’re looking at

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THE MYSTERIES OF THH COURT. 29 a ee eee You must look as modest as possible; and when, in his lordship’s presence, I hint at the connexion you are about to form with him, you had better shriek out—not too loud, you know, for fear of being overheard-——and then you can cling to me ; and if you choose to go off in a fit, why, it may perhaps be as well. However, in the long run you will yield your consent ; and his lordship will provide for you this very day. Of course you understand, my dear, that I am perfectly disin- terested in what I am doing for you: my only object is to give you a comfortable position—and I do not get one farthing by it-——nv, not a frac- tion !” Eglantine was perfectly willing to fall into the infamous woman’s views ; and she at once followec Madame Angelique to the boudoir. <A glance at the writing-desk showed the milliner that the cheque lay there, ready drawn out; and the in- stant she had introduced Eglantine to the ex- ambassador, she seised the opportunity while hie lordship’s eyes were riveted gloatingly upon the supposed victim of an aunt’s treacherous cupidity, to catch up the draft and thrust it amidst the folds of her dress. The entire scene, as previously arranged, wes then gone through: the half- subdued shriek was uttered—the prudery was affected—the appeal to the wicked aunt was made by the innocent and virtuous niece-—and then the latter sank gracefully down in a fit, just as an actress swoons or dies upon the stage—though with perhaps a trifle more of voluptuous abandon- ment of the form. Water was sprinkled upon Eglantine’s countenance : she suffered herself to be slowly recovered—she then listencd with ad- mirable patience and meckness to Madame An- gelique’s reasoning—end with an equal degree of exemplary resignation she yielded herself to her destiny. In the afternoon Lord Wenham came in his carriage to fetch away bis paragon of virtue ; and he placed her in a eumptuously furnished house which he hired for her accommodation, with an allowance of eighty pounds per week. We may add that in the evening of the very same day on which his lordship paid Madame Angelique a thousand guineas for the beautiful Eglantine and gave the young lady the first instalment of her magnificent income, he most generously and nobly forwarded a cheque for two guineas to the Secre- tary of the Society- for the Distribution of Bread amongst the Famishing Pvor, and a cheque for twenty guineas to the Association for the Proteo- tion of Young Females. To return however, to Madame Angelique. Scarcely bad she effected her most disinterested arrangement with Lord Wenbam, and had dis- miseed the paralysed doting old nobleman,—when the second of the three billete which she had despatched in the morning, was personelly an- swered by the appearance of a gentleman rejoicing in the name of Mr. White Choker. He was dressed in complete black, and wore « low cravat of snowy fuirnces. He showed no shirt-collar, and bad altogether a very clerical look. His hair was cropped all round like a Puritan’s, and was cubed sleek and straight down over his forehead. He had a long pale countenance, the expression of which was so habitually that of sanctimonious eclf-martyrization and lugubrious demurcnese, that even when he tried to smile on entering the mil- liner’s boudair, he looked like an undertaker or a funeral-mute making a desperate attempt to appear gay. Very keen-sighted persons, on regarding Mr. White Choker more closely, might have fan- cied that there was something in the expression of bis coarse lips and in the gleaming of his dark deep-set small eyes which denoted the strong pas- sions of the man and the difficulty he had in con- cealing them beneath the gloss of assumed sanc- tity and hypocritical oant: but on this point we ourselves say nothing—for Mr. White Choker was a saint! Yes—great indeed was he at Excter Hall at the period of the May meetings. Who could eo well declaim against the ignorance and demoraliza- tion of the lower classes? who could whine and moan and weep in such desperate anguish at the benighted condition of the heathen, thousands and thousands of miles off in the islands of the South Pacific? Who could so pathetically enforce the necessity of sending missionaries, and flannel jackets, and hymn.books, and tracts, and all kinds of godly publications, to the poor naked cannibals of those same islands?’ Who was more ready in putting down his money for the Foreign Bible Society, or in taking up the starving beggar who implored alms of him in a street of the British metropolis? In a word, Mr. White Choker was a veritable saint: his name was considered synonymous with pitty and philanthropy them- selves; and if it were the fashion in this Protestant country for persons to be canonized—and before they were dead too—Mr. White Choker was the very man whom all the Exeter Hallites would have solected for the honour, and whom the whole Bench of Bishops would have pronounced worthy thereof. Of course the reader is fully prepared to hear that so good a man could only have come to Ma- dame Angelique’s establishment with one object: namely, to read its proprietress a very long and serious lecture on the wickedness of the life she was leading. And yet somehow or another this was not the worthy gentleman's aim: for, as we have seen, it was in answer to one of the mil- liner’s billets that he now showed himself in her presence. | “ My dear Mr. Choker,” she began, with one of her most amiable smiles, “I am sure you will be delighted to learn that I have resolved upon re- tiring from business and living henceforth re- spectably upon my means.” “ Come now, mother,” said the white-cravatted gentleman, with a more successful attempt at a laugh than he had previously made, “ this is not Exeter Hall—neither is it a committee of the Foreign Cannibal-Reclaiming, Negro-Christian- ising and Naked-Savage-Clothing Society. Every- thing is good in ite place and way——” “And you have come, my dear Mr. Choker,” interrupted Madame Angelique, blandly, “ for whatsoever I may have good in sy place and in my way to put at your disposal f” “That is speaking like a true Chris——-I mean like a woman of the world,” said Mr. Choker, thus very properly correcting himeelf. “It is a long, long time, my dear sir,’’ con- tinued the milliner, “since the light of your coun- tenance shone within my humble habitation; aod | COMicooOolkxs.conrn