United States or Kyrgyzstan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
MR. CARR VIPONT. "We want one; the House wants a very distinguished clergyman: we have none at this moment, not a bishop, not even a dean! all mere parish parsons, and among them not one we could push. Very odd, with more than forty livings too. But the Viponts seldom take to the Church kindly: George must be pushed. This demonstration will strike terror in Downing Street, eh!
I say it deliberately! and here is the Head of the Viponts humming and haaing, and asking whether Guy Darrell will join the Cabinet. And if Guy Darrell will not, we have no more chance of the Montfort interest than if we were Peep-o'-day Boys. Carr is gone to find mops and Dame Partingtons to stave off the deluge. Colonel Morley has obeyed Lady Montfort's summons, and has entered the carriage.
Now, for the first time, the Viponts appear as belted knights; they have armorial bearings; they are Lancasterian to the backbone; they are exceedingly indignant against heretics; they burn the Lollards; they have places in the household of Queen Joan, who was called a witch, but a witch is a very good friend when she wields a sceptre instead of a broomstick.
Till then, Darrell had only noticed this green Head of the Viponts as a neat- looking Head, too modest to open its lips. But he now examined the Head with anxious deliberation, and finding it of the poorest possible kind of wood, with a heart to match, Guy Darrell had the audacity to reject, though with great courtesy, the idea of grafting the last plant of his line on a stem so pithless.
"If my nephew were not married," said the Colonel, "I should regard his embarrassment with much suspicion embarrassed at every point, from his travels about the country to the question of a young lady at Twickenham. I wonder who that young lady can be not one of the Viponts, or I should have heard. Are there any young ladies on the Lyndsay side? Eh, Darrell?"
I go afterwards to an exhibition with Lady Adela, and I dine with the Carr Viponts. My choice is not yet made, and my hand still free." "His hand still free!" muttered the Colonel, pursuing his walk alone. "Yes but three days hence O What will he do with it?" Guy Darrell returned home from Carr Vipont's dinner at a late hour.
You are right; in this CRISIS, Guy Darrell once more in the House of Commons, we should have all we require, an orator, a debater! Very odd, but at this moment we have no speakers, WE the Viponts!" COLONEL MORLEY. "Yourself!" CARR VIPONT. "You are too kind. I can speak on occasions; but regularly, no. Too much drudgery; not young enough to take to it now. So you think Darrell will marry again?
The pith of the Viponts was not in him. He looked well; he dressed well: if life were only the dumb show of a tableau, he would have been a paragon of a Marquess. But he was like the watches we give to little children, with a pretty gilt dial-plate, and no works in them.
Carr Vipont has about L40,000 a year; has often refused office for himself, while taking care that other Viponts should have it; is a great authority in committee business and the rules of the House of Commons; speaks very seldom, and at no great length, never arguing, merely stating his opinion, carries great weight with him, and as he votes vote fifteen other members of the House of Vipont, besides admiring satellites.
But, on the other hand, it is fair to say that where Lady Montfort's sphere of action did not interfere with her husband's plans, habits, likings, dislikings, jealous apprehensions that she should be supposed to have any ascendency over what exclusively belonged to himself as /Roi faineant/ of the Viponts, she was left free as air. No attempt at masculine control or conjugal advice.
Word Of The Day