Vanity Fair - Page 395/573

My Lord Gaunt married, as every person who frequents the Peerage knows,

the Lady Blanche Thistlewood, a daughter of the noble house of

Bareacres, before mentioned in this veracious history. A wing of Gaunt

House was assigned to this couple; for the head of the family chose to

govern it, and while he reigned to reign supreme; his son and heir,

however, living little at home, disagreeing with his wife, and

borrowing upon post-obits such moneys as he required beyond the very

moderate sums which his father was disposed to allow him. The Marquis

knew every shilling of his son's debts. At his lamented demise, he was

found himself to be possessor of many of his heir's bonds, purchased

for their benefit, and devised by his Lordship to the children of his

younger son.

As, to my Lord Gaunt's dismay, and the chuckling delight of his natural

enemy and father, the Lady Gaunt had no children--the Lord George Gaunt

was desired to return from Vienna, where he was engaged in waltzing and

diplomacy, and to contract a matrimonial alliance with the Honourable

Joan, only daughter of John Johnes, First Baron Helvellyn, and head of

the firm of Jones, Brown, and Robinson, of Threadneedle Street,

Bankers; from which union sprang several sons and daughters, whose

doings do not appertain to this story.

The marriage at first was a happy and prosperous one. My Lord George

Gaunt could not only read, but write pretty correctly. He spoke French

with considerable fluency; and was one of the finest waltzers in

Europe. With these talents, and his interest at home, there was little

doubt that his lordship would rise to the highest dignities in his

profession. The lady, his wife, felt that courts were her sphere, and

her wealth enabled her to receive splendidly in those continental towns

whither her husband's diplomatic duties led him. There was talk of

appointing him minister, and bets were laid at the Travellers' that he

would be ambassador ere long, when of a sudden, rumours arrived of the

secretary's extraordinary behaviour. At a grand diplomatic dinner given

by his chief, he had started up and declared that a pate de foie gras

was poisoned. He went to a ball at the hotel of the Bavarian envoy,

the Count de Springbock-Hohenlaufen, with his head shaved and dressed

as a Capuchin friar. It was not a masked ball, as some folks wanted to

persuade you. It was something queer, people whispered. His

grandfather was so. It was in the family.

His wife and family returned to this country and took up their abode at

Gaunt House. Lord George gave up his post on the European continent,

and was gazetted to Brazil. But people knew better; he never returned

from that Brazil expedition--never died there--never lived there--never

was there at all. He was nowhere; he was gone out altogether.

"Brazil," said one gossip to another, with a grin--"Brazil is St.

John's Wood. Rio de Janeiro is a cottage surrounded by four walls, and

George Gaunt is accredited to a keeper, who has invested him with the

order of the Strait-Waistcoat." These are the kinds of epitaphs which

men pass over one another in Vanity Fair.