Chapter I: Rose Vyner to Fanny Worsley

WYTTON HALL, 14_th Oct._ 1840.

MY DEAR FANNY,

Since poor Blanche's unfortunate marriage--and yet why should I call it unfortunate? has she not married the man of her choice, and is not that the great ideal we maidens all aspire to? However, as it is the fashion here to speak of it as a "most unfortunate business," over which mama weeps (I don't clearly see why) and papa storms, I have caught the trick, and called it so to you.

To resume this broken sentence; or rather to begin it anew: since Blanche's fortunate marriage, our days have passed equably enough; but although not characterized by any "incidents," nor affording any "news," they have not been stupid. Life has not been stagnant. The slow growth of passions has proceeded without interruption. Marmaduke Ashley has become the devoted slave of Violet. I call him her Brazilian Othello. I made her very angry yesterday, by telling her that she should be less cruelly haughty to him, "for is he not," said I, "_a man and a brother_?" They would make a superb couple, for although I tease her with references to gentlemen of colour, and with congratulatory remarks respecting the chain being "broken, and Africa being free," you must know that his complexion is not really darker than that of a Spaniard. And you know how lovely she is--no you don't, you have not seen her since she shook off girlish things, and cannot imagine how she has altered.

Poor Marmaduke, although he has made some impression on her, will have, I fear, to languish a long while ere the haughty beauty condescends to step down from her pedestal. Almost as long as I shall have to wait before the modest Julius will understand, without my being forced to tell him, that he is not absolutely indifferent to a certain saucy girl at whom he makes sweet eyes.

You can't imagine how, every day, my admiration deepens for the little man. I am always finding some new illustration of his excellence; always hearing something which confirms my opinion of his nobility of soul. Yesterday, I found that he was studying hard for the bar, not because he was without fortune, but because he would not consent to his mother being poorer at the death of his father than she had been before. He was the heir to all the property, except a jointure; but he refused to enter into possession while his mother lived, and as every man ought, he says, to be able to gain his own livelihood, he has determined to gain his at the bar.

He has recently been exerting himself to procure a good subscription list to a volume of poems. Here is the title. "GLOOMS AND GLEAMS. By One who has suffered."

I am as a weed
Torn from the rock, on ocean's foam to sail,
Where'er the wave or tempest's breath prevail.
BYRON.

The mysterious one--the one who has suffered (_what_ not specified!) is a newly discovered wonder--the Sappho of Walton--the daughter of a linen-draper.

According to Julius she is really a clever deserving girl, a little wild in her notions, but with all the generosity of genius, which redeems her affectations and her follies. She is too poor to venture on publication herself; and I have just found that Julius, unable to secure a sufficient sum by subscription, has undertaken to pay the printing expenses. He stipulated that this should be a secret; but her grateful father disclosed it to Mrs. Roberts (our housekeeper) who disclosed it to me. Imagine the gossip there will be in Walton over this publication! How the papas and mamas, the uncles and maiden aunts will moralize over the corruption of the age, and the wild audacious vanity of their townswoman! A poetess in Walton? Why a volume of poems--(unless they were low church effusions or the inspirations of "advanced Christians"--) is itself a rarity. You know how slightly tainted with literature the small towns of England usually are? I doubt if any are so colourless as Walton. Dickens penetrates here--where does not his genial sunshine penetrate?--but no other name of those blown from the brazenly impudent trumpet of fame has ever found an echo in Walton. A poetess is, consequently, looked upon as something short of a sorceress: a fearful and Appalling Illustration of the Reckless March of Intellect which Devastates the World!

Julius has already secured her an influential patron in Sir Chetsom Chetsom, and his brother Tom Chetsom. The baronet is possessor of the Dingles, a fine estate within three miles of Walton, and is looked up to as one of the great people of the county. Such a figure as he is! I must sketch him for your amusement.

Sir Chetsom Chetsom is not without considerable daring, for with the weight of six or seven and sixty years upon his shoulders, he makes a gallant dash at thirty. His whiskers are miraculously black, always well-oiled, and stiffly curled; his eyebrows are of another black in virtue of his inheritance from nature; and his hair is of a third black in virtue of Truefit's well directed efforts at _wigmanity_. This threefold darkness, unsuspicious of a gray hair, overshadows a sallow, wrinkled brow and cheeks, upon which a hare's foot imitates the ruddy glow of youth with a sort of Vauxhall-by-daylight-splendour. Under the genuine eyebrows, float two colourless eyes, between which a high and well-shaped nose rears its haughty form. Frightfully regular teeth, without a speck, without a gap, fill up the gash which represents his mouth. A well-padded chest, and well-stayed waist, ending in shrunken legs and excruciatingly tight-booted feet complete the _physique_ of this Adonis. His dress is a perpetual book of fashions!

Of the _morale_ I know little, except that he never plays cards--flatters himself he has not come to that _yet_--talks fluently of valtzing (particular about sounding the _w_ as _v_, as a young gentleman after his first German lesson), adores Fanny Elssler, calls Grisi a _naice leetle giarl enough_, thinks himself, and wishes to be accepted as, a remorseless Lovelace, and is always afraid of talking too long with one woman, lest he should "compromise her."

This ferocious lady-killer, whom you will at once place amongst that very terrific and numerous class of men which I have christened Murders, has a brother, whom I wonder he does not disown, so frankly does that brother bear his age. Tom Chetsom, "jolly Tom Chetsom," as he is called, is "a tun of a man," with a bald, shiny pate fringed with straggling grey hair, a rubicund face, a vinous nose, and a moist, _oystery_ eye, rolling in rheum. Yet this implacable exhibition of age in a younger brother is tolerated by the baronet, who is blind enough, or stupid enough, not to be aware of the comment it is on his own resplendent juvenility!

Tom Chetsom, careless _bon vivant_ as he seems, and is, conceals beneath that rubicund jollity an astute selfishness, and a real knowledge of life and human nature, to which his elder brother makes great pretension. But that which the elder _seems_ to be without being it, the younger _is_ without seeming it, as Browning would say.

Well, these are the patrons selected for our Walton Sappho. They are to launch her into the "great world." Sir Chetsom has permitted the dedication of _Glooms and Gleams_ to himself. He is to introduce the volume into the "first circles," while Tom Chetsom is to bruit its fame in all the clubs.

I have not yet seen the poetess herself; but propose to fall in with the general "rage," and pay a visit at the Grange some day when she is there. I will give you a full description.

And there is an end of my budget.