Mr. Scarborough's Family. Anthony Trollope
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do not know that the family can have any honor left," said Florence, severely.
"My dear, you have no right to say that. The Scarboroughs have always held their heads very high in Staffordshire, and more so of late than ever. I don't mean quite of late, but since Tretton became of so much importance. Now, I'll tell you what I think we had better do. We'll go and spend six weeks with your uncle at Brussels. He has always been pressing us to come."
"Oh, mamma, he does not want us."
"How can you say that? How do you know?"
"I am sure Sir Magnus will not care for our coming now. Besides, how could that be retiring into private life? Sir Magnus, as ambassador, has his house always full of company."
"My dear, he is not ambassador. He is minister plenipotentiary. It is not quite the same thing. And then he is our nearest relative—our nearest, at least, since my own brother has made this great separation, of course. We cannot go to him to be out of the way of himself."
"Why do you want to go anywhere, mamma? Why not stay at home?" But Florence pleaded in vain as her mother had already made up her mind. Before that day was over she succeeded in making her daughter understand that she was to be taken to Brussels as soon as an answer could be received from Sir Magnus and the necessary additions were made to their joint wardrobe.
Sir Magnus Mountjoy, the late general's elder brother, had been for the last four or five years the English minister at Brussels. He had been minister somewhere for a very long time, so that the memory of man hardly ran back beyond it, and was said to have gained for himself very extensive popularity. It had always been a point with successive governments to see that poor Sir Magnus got something, and Sir Magnus had never been left altogether in the cold. He was not a man who would have been left out in the cold in silence, and perhaps the feeling that such was the case had been as efficacious on his behalf as his well-attested popularity. At any rate, poor Sir Magnus had always been well placed, and was now working out his last year or two before the blessed achievement of his pursuit should have been reached. Sir Magnus had a wife of whom it was said at home that she was almost as popular as her husband; but the opinion of the world at Brussels on this subject was a good deal divided. There were those who declared that Lady Mountjoy was of all women the most overbearing and impertinent. But they were generally English residents at Brussels, who had come to live there as a place at which education for their children would be cheaper than at home. Of these Lady Mountjoy had been heard to declare that she saw no reason why, because she was the minister's wife, she should be expected to entertain all the second-class world of London. This, of course, must be understood with a good deal of allowance, as the English world at Brussels was much too large to expect to be so received; but there were certain ladies living on the confines of high society who thought that they had a right to be admitted, and who grievously resented their exclusion. It cannot, therefore, be said that Lady Mountjoy was popular; but she was large in figure, and painted well, and wore her diamonds with an air which her peculiar favorites declared to be majestic. You could not see her going along the boulevards in her carriage without being aware that a special personage was passing. Upon the whole, it may be said that she performed well her special role in life. Of Sir Magnus it was hinted that he was afraid of his wife; but in truth he desired it to be understood that all the disagreeable things done at the Embassy were done by Lady Mountjoy, and not by him. He did not refuse leave to the ladies to drop their cards at his hall-door. He could ask a few men to his table without referring the matter to his wife; but every one would understand that the asking of ladies was based on a different footing.
He knew well that as a rule it was not fitting that he should ask a married man without his wife; but there are occasions on which an excuse can be given, and upon the whole the men liked it. He was a stout, tall, portly old gentleman, sixty years of age, but looking somewhat older, whom it was a difficulty to place on horseback, but who, when there, looked remarkably well. He rarely rose to a trot during his two hours of exercise, which to the two attaché's who were told off for the duty of accompanying him was the hardest part of their allotted work. But other gentlemen would lay themselves out to meet Sir Magnus and to ride with him, and in this way he achieved that character for popularity which had been a better aid to him in life than all the diplomatic skill which he possessed.
"What do you think?" said he, walking off with Mrs. Mountjoy's letter into his wife's room.
"I don't think anything, my dear."
"You never do." Lady Mountjoy, who had not yet undergone her painting, looked cross and ill-natured. "At any rate, Sarah and her daughter are proposing to come here."
"Good gracious! At once?"
"Yes, at once. Of course, I've asked them over and over again, and something was said about this autumn, when we had come back from Pimperingen."
"Why did you not tell me?"
"Bother! I did tell you. This kind of thing always turns up at last. She's a very good kind of a woman, and the daughter is all that she ought to be."
"Of course she'll be flirting with Anderson." Anderson was one of the two mounted attachés.
"Anderson will know how to look after himself," said Sir Magnus. "At any rate they must come. They have never troubled us before, and we ought to put up with them once."
"But, my dear, what is all this about her brother?"
"She won't bring her brother with her."
"How can you be sure of that?" said the anxious lady.
"He is dying, and can't be moved."
"But that son of his—Mountjoy. It's altogether a most distressing story. He turns out to be nobody after all, and now he has disappeared, and the papers for an entire month were full of him. What would you do if he were to turn up here? The girl was engaged to him, you know, and has only thrown him off since his own father declared that he was not legitimate. There never was such a mess about anything since London first began."
Then Sir Magnus declared that, let Mountjoy Scarborough and his father have misbehaved as they might, Mr. Scarborough's sister must be received at Brussels. There was a little family difficulty. Sir Magnus had borrowed three thousand pounds from the general which had been settled on the general's widow, and the interest was not always paid with extreme punctuality. To give Mrs. Mountjoy her due, it must be said that this had not entered into her consideration when she had written to her brother-in-law; but it was a burden to Sir Magnus, and had always tended to produce from him a reiteration of those invitations, which Mrs. Mountjoy had taken as an expression of brotherly love. Her own income was always sufficient for her wants, and the hundred and fifty pounds coming from Sir Magnus had not troubled her much. "Well, my dear, if it must be it must;—only what I'm to do with her I do not know."
"Take her about in the carriage," said Sir Magnus, who was beginning to be a little angry with this interference.
"And the daughter? Daughters are twice more troublesome than their mothers."
"Pass her over to Miss Abbott. And for goodness' sake don't make so much trouble about things which need not be troublesome." Then Sir Magnus left his wife to ring for her chambermaid and go on with her painting, while he himself undertook the unwonted task of writing an affectionate letter to his sister-in-law. It should be here explained that Sir Magnus had no children of his own, and that Miss Abbott was the lady who was bound to smile and say pretty things on all occasions to Lady Mountjoy for the moderate remuneration of two hundred a year and her maintenance.
The letter which Sir Magnus wrote was as follows:
MY DEAR SARAH—Lady Mountjoy bids me say that we shall be delighted to receive you and my niece at the British Ministry on the 1st of October, and hope that you will stay with us till the end of the month.—Believe me, most affectionately yours,
MAGNUS MOUNTJOY.
"I have a most kind letter from Sir Magnus," said Mrs. Mountjoy to her daughter.
"What does he say?"
"That he will be delighted to receive