The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 186: what you’re looking at

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Jukes were discussing a succulent lunch and pouring into each other's bosoms certain little confidences by no means corroborative of their sanctified-looking Dowager-Marchioness of Ban- bury was toying with one of her handsome pages on the drawing-room sofa,—and while, in the third place, the old Countess of Montgamery and her lady companions were commenting, with a true enjoyment and a lively seat, upon the downfall of Mrs. Fitzherbert and laughing st the suceces with which they drew Mr. Orimp out and gleaned from him all those particularsthat now fur- nished food for so much pleasant discussion,— while such, we may, were the proceedings in the several houses visited that day by tho bailiff, this individual himself was returning, melancholy and dispirited, to the almost deserted dwelling of Mrs. Fitsherbert. It was nearly three o'clock in the afternoon when he alighted from the hackney-coach at the termination of his fruitless mission. On ascend- ing to the a $ where he hed left Mrs. Fitzherbert in the custody of hig man Jack, he found the unhappy ledy pacing the room in a condition of the most nervous suspense, while his follower wos seated near the fire, contemplating the blazing coale with an alr of indifference ta all beside. The failure of Mr. Orimp's errand was instanta- neoualy read by Mrs. Fiteherbert in hie face; and, clasping her hands together, she fell upon her knees, exclaiming with frantic wildness, “ Oh, do not take me to prieun—lI implore you not to drag mo hence! Grant mea few days’ se-——-"" “ Calea yourself, ma'am,” interrupted Mr. Na- than Orimp; “you ain't a-going to quod—o ny to my look-up house.” . “ But that is almost as bad as a prison!” she exclaimed, with a rending emphasis in her words and despair in ber looks. “ Well, ma'am, [' make yer as comfortable aa I can: but there you must go—and at vunce too. None of yeur friends won't do nuffin fer you——~" _ ™“ Friends, indeed !” ejaculated Mrs. * itzherbert, bitterly, as she rosa from her suppliant posture. “The unfortanate have no friends; on the con- trary, I dare believe that many and many a heart, lately so full of envious and jealous feelings, will now rejoice at my downfall! Ah! I see by your looks that such is already the case,” she oried, read- ing in the expression of the bailiff's countenance the confirmation of her most galling fears. “ But I will not now ehrink from making one more trial of love and Jriendship,” she added, with increasing bitter- ness of tone and excitement of manner; “ and this last experiment sball be tested from the look-up house, which is the threabold of the debtor's gaol !” “ Well, ma'am. what have you resolved upon ?” inquired Mr. Crimp, who, as the reader may have seen, did not a bad heart, although the very nature of bis calling had rendered selfish- ness the prominent feature in his character. “ I have resolved upon accompanying you forth- with,” said Mrs. Fitzherbert, now speaking with the firmness of desperation, while her lips were as colourless as her cheeks: “I have also determined upon allowing forty-eight hours to elapse without raaking another effort to procure my liberation—so that the whole metropolis may learn what has hap- pened, and thas have leisure to comment upon the generosity, manliness, and affection of him who 173 permits all this to take place. “ Yos—forty-cight hours shall elapss in that manner,” she cried, with a virulent bitterness in her toneand a glare of frenzy in her eyes; “and then, if no notice be taken of mein a certain quarter—then, I say, I will send and demandasa right what I never would have accepted, much less besought, as a boon.” Having thus spoken, Mw. Fitsherbert repaired to her own chamber ; and while Crimp waited out- side in the passage to assure himeelf that she did not give him the slip, the once courted and almoat worshipped lady performed her unassisted toilette. - No tears now traced their pearly path adown hes cheeks; her eyes seemed to burn with the light of frenzy, and her face was flushed with the hectic glow of fever. The pulsations of her heart were rapid aud abrupt:—the heavings of her bosom proved this. There was something awful about her—aa if she had reached that crisis of her des- tiny when suicide was an alternative as conspicu- aus to ber view as the chance of redemption from her difficulties. In her brain was a sensation of hurry and confusion: she felt as never before she had felt, either in the head or ia the heart! At length her toilette was completed; and appa- relled in the most unpretending garb, she issued forth from ber chamber. In her purse there were a few shillings ; in a little casket there were a fow jewels. But ali her most precious gems, ae well as her plate and other valuables, were already in pledge :—and thus was it that, standing upon the very verge of pauperism-——friendless and slone— unattended by even a domestic, and unaccompanied by even such sympathy asa hired abigail might have beatowed—the once brilliant and magnificent Mrs. Fitzherbert entered the hackney-coach and was driven off to thesponging-bourein Chancery Lane, euestwarss CHAPTER CLXVIL. THE MONSTER-MAMS. Acat have we a scene of horror to depict: once more must we seek the charcbyard by night, when the moon is shining pure and cold and the silver stars spangle the deep blue vault of heaven. "Twas twelve o’clock—midnight,—tbat hour when even the revellers over the wine-cup look at each other to imply that the moment for breaking up the orgie is at hand,—when the daughter of crime begins to think it fruitless to pace the street any longer or later that night, and turns her weary steps towards the abode of pollution which she denominates her “home,”"——when the desperate suicide seeks the bridge from which the fatal plunge may be made without the fear of molesta- tion at such an hour,—when the convict in the doomed cell of Newgate counts the strok of St. Sepuichre’sclock, and calculates with a heavy, Oh! so heavy a heart, that he bas only eight hours more to live,—when the Cabinet Minister rises from the table in his private office where he has been con- costing some fresh invasion upon the popular rights, and some new element of wealth, monopoly, or influence forthe greedy, gripin g, heartless arie- tocracy,— when the gambler is just beginning to feel excited with the ruinous play which he proposes to continue until daybreak,—-when the gorged alderman turns and moans upon a couch which, though of down, is made comfortless by indi- gestion, and when the poor starving wretch PE I I EE ap (C DOO (CO