Coningsby | Page 6

her, sharp memory, and the dull routine
of an unimpassioned life, all combined to wear out a constitution
originally frail, and since shattered by many sorrows. Mrs. Coningsby
died the same day that her father-in-law was made a Marquess. He
deserved his honours. The four votes he had inherited in the House of
Commons had been increased, by his intense volition and unsparing
means, to ten; and the very day he was raised to his Marquisate, he
commenced sapping fresh corporations, and was working for the
strawberry leaf. His honours were proclaimed in the London Gazette,
and her decease was not even noticed in the County Chronicle; but the
altars of Nemesis are beneath every outraged roof, and the death of this
unhappy lady, apparently without an earthly friend or an earthly hope,
desolate and deserted, and dying in obscure poverty, was not forgotten.
Coningsby was not more than nine years of age when he lost his last
parent; and he had then been separated from her for nearly three years.
But he remembered the sweetness of his nursery days. His mother, too,
had written to him frequently since he quitted her, and her fond
expressions had cherished the tenderness of his heart. He wept bitterly
when his schoolmaster broke to him the news of his mother's death.
True it was they had been long parted, and their prospect of again
meeting was vague and dim; but his mother seemed to him his only

link to human society. It was something to have a mother, even if he
never saw her. Other boys went to see their mothers! he, at least, could
talk of his. Now he was alone. His grandfather was to him only a name.
Lord Monmouth resided almost constantly abroad, and during his rare
visits to England had found no time or inclination to see the orphan,
with whom he felt no sympathy. Even the death of the boy's mother,
and the consequent arrangements, were notified to his master by a
stranger. The letter which brought the sad intelligence was from Mr.
Rigby. It was the first time that name had been known to Coningsby.
Mr. Rigby was member for one of Lord Monmouth's boroughs. He was
the manager of Lord Monmouth's parliamentary influence, and the
auditor of his vast estates. He was more; he was Lord Monmouth's
companion when in England, his correspondent when abroad; hardly
his counsellor, for Lord Monmouth never required advice; but Mr.
Rigby could instruct him in matters of detail, which Mr. Rigby made
amusing. Rigby was not a professional man; indeed, his origin,
education, early pursuits, and studies, were equally obscure; but he had
contrived in good time to squeeze himself into parliament, by means
which no one could ever comprehend, and then set up to be a perfect
man of business. The world took him at his word, for he was bold,
acute, and voluble; with no thought, but a good deal of desultory
information; and though destitute of all imagination and noble
sentiment, was blessed with a vigorous, mendacious fancy, fruitful in
small expedients, and never happier than when devising shifts for great
men's scrapes.
They say that all of us have one chance in this life, and so it was with
Rigby. After a struggle of many years, after a long series of the usual
alternatives of small successes and small failures, after a few cleverish
speeches and a good many cleverish pamphlets, with a considerable
reputation, indeed, for pasquinades, most of which he never wrote, and
articles in reviews to which it was whispered he had contributed, Rigby,
who had already intrigued himself into a subordinate office, met with
Lord Monmouth.
He was just the animal that Lord Monmouth wanted, for Lord

Monmouth always looked upon human nature with the callous eye of a
jockey. He surveyed Rigby; and he determined to buy him. He bought
him; with his clear head, his indefatigable industry, his audacious
tongue, and his ready and unscrupulous pen; with all his dates, all his
lampoons; all his private memoirs, and all his political intrigues. It was
a good purchase. Rigby became a great personage, and Lord
Monmouth's man.
Mr. Rigby, who liked to be doing a great many things at the same time,
and to astonish the Tadpoles and Tapers with his energetic versatility,
determined to superintend the education of Coningsby. It was a relation
which identified him with the noble house of his pupil, or, properly
speaking, his charge: for Mr. Rigby affected rather the graceful dignity
of the governor than the duties of a tutor. The boy was recalled from his
homely, rural school, where he had been well grounded by a
hard-working curate, and affectionately tended by the curate's
unsophisticated wife. He was sent to a fashionable school preparatory
to Eton,