Belles and Ringers | Page 2

get their season in town, poor
things! I began by suggesting masters; but that had no effect on
Cedric--he only retorted, 'Send them to school;' so it was absolutely
necessary to approach him in another manner, and I flatter myself I was
equal to the occasion."
All this took place some six or seven years before the commencement
of our story; and the result had fully warranted Lady Mary's
machinations, as she had successfully married off her two elder
daughters, and, as she had occasionally told her intimates, her chief
object in life now was to see Blanche, the younger, suitably provided
for. Lady Mary was in her way a stanch and devoted mother. Her duty
towards her daughters, she considered, terminated when she had once
seen them properly married. She had two sons--one in a dragoon
regiment, and the younger in the Foreign Office--and she never
neglected to cajole or flatter any one who, she thought, might in any
way be capable of advancing their interests.
The Bloxams had come down from town to entertain a few friends
during the Easter holidays at Todborough, and Lady Mary was now
sitting in the oriel window of the morning-room engaged in an
animated tête-à-tête with one of her most intimate friends, Mr. Pansey
Cottrell. Mr. Pansey Cottrell had been a man about town for the last
thirty years, mixing freely everywhere in the very best society. It must
have been a pure matter of whim if Pansey Cottrell ever paid for his
own dinner during a London season--or, for the matter of that, even out
of it--as he had only to name the week that suited him to be a welcome
guest at scores of country houses. Nothing would have been more

difficult than to explain why it was that Pansey Cottrell should be as
essential to a fashionable dinner party as the epergne. Nothing more
puzzling to account for than why his volunteering his presence in a
country house should be always deemed a source of gratulation to the
hostess. He was a man of no particular birth and no particular
conversational powers; and unless due to his being thoroughly au
courant with all the very latest gossip of the London world, his success
can only be put down as past understanding. Neophytes who did not
know Pansey Cottrell, when they met him in a country house, would
gaze with awe-struck curiosity at the sheaf of correspondence awaiting
him on the side-table, and wondered what news he would unfold to
them that morning. But the more experienced knew better. Pansey
Cottrell always came down late, and never talked at breakfast. He kept
his budget of scandal invariably for the dinner-table and smoking-room.
Such was Pansey Cottrell, as he appeared to the general public, though
he possessed an unsuspected attribute, known only to some few of the
initiated, and of which as yet Lady Mary had only an inkling.
A portly well-preserved gentleman, with iron-grey hair, and nothing
particularly striking about him but a pair of keen dark eyes, he sits in
the window, listening with a half-incredulous smile to the voluble
speech of his buxom hostess.
"Well," exclaimed Lady Mary, in reply to some observation of her
companion's, "I tell you, Pansey" (she had known him from her
childhood, and always called him Pansey, as indeed did many other
middle-aged matrons)--"I tell you, Pansey," she repeated, "it is all a
mistake; the majority of young men in our world do not marry whom
they please: they may think so, but in the majority of cases they marry
whom we please. The bell responds to the clapper; but who is it that
makes the clapper to speak? The ringer. Do you see the force of my
illustration?"
"If I fail to see its force," he replied, "I, of course, perfectly understand
your illustration; and in this case Miss Blanche is of course the belle,
you the ringer, and Mr. Beauchamp the clapper."
"Just so," replied Lady Mary, laughing. "Look at Diana, my eldest. She

thinks she married Mannington; he thinks he married her; and I know I
married them. People are always talking of Shakespeare's 'knowledge
of human nature,' more especially those who never read him. Why don't
they take a leaf out of his book? Do you suppose Beatrice nowadays,
when she is told Benedick is dying for love of her, don't believe it, and
that Benedick cannot be fooled in like manner? Go to--as they said in
those times."
"And you would fain play Leonato to this Benedick," replied Pansey
Cottrell. "Is this Beauchamp of whom you speak one of the Suffolk
Beauchamps?"
"Yes; his father has a large property in the south of the county; and this
Lionel Beauchamp is the eldest son, a good-looking young fellow, with
a healthy