第16章

Lady Jane, however, spared me such an uncomfortable ride home: for she said she had a fourth place in her carriage, and asked me if I would accept it; and positively, at two o'clock in the morning, there was I, after setting the ladies and my Lord down, driven to Salisbury Square in a great thundering carriage, with flaming lamps and two tall footmen, who nearly knocked the door and the whole little street down with the noise they made at the rapper.You should have seen Gus's head peeping out of window in his white nightcap! He kept me up the whole night telling him about the ball, and the great people I had seen there; and next day he told at the office my stories, with his own usual embroideries upon them.

"Mr.Titmarsh," said Lady Fanny, laughing to me, "who is that great fat curious man, the master of the house? Do you know he asked me if you were not related to us? and I said, 'Oh, yes, you were.'""Fanny!" says Lady Jane.

"Well," answered the other, "did not Grandmamma say Mr.Titmarsh was her cousin?""But you know that Grandmamma's memory is not very good." "Indeed, you're wrong, Lady Jane," says my Lord; "I think it'sprodigious."

"Yes, but not very--not very accurate."

"No, my Lady," says I; "for her Ladyship, the Countess of Drum, said, if you remember, that my friend Gus Hoskins--""Whose cause you supported so bravely," cries Lady Fanny.

"--That my friend Gus is her Ladyship's cousin too, which cannot be, for I know all his family: they live in Skinner Street and St.Mary Axe, and are not--not quite so RESPECTABLE as MY relatives."At this they all began to laugh; and my Lord said, rather haughtily - "Depend upon it, Mr.Titmarsh, that Lady Drum is no more yourcousin than she is the cousin of your friend Mr.Hoskinson.""Hoskins, my Lord--and so I told Gus; but you see he is very fond of me, and WILL have it that I am related to Lady D.: and say what I will to the contrary, tells the story everywhere.Though to be sure," added I with a laugh, "it has gained me no small good in my time." So I described to the party our dinner at Mrs.Roundhand's, which all came from my diamond-pin, and my reputation as a connection of the aristocracy.Then I thanked Lady Jane handsomely for her magnificent present of fruit and venison, and told her that it had entertained a great number of kind friends of mine, who had drunk her Ladyship's health with the greatest gratitude.

"A HAUNCH OF VENISON!" cried Lady Jane, quite astonished; "indeed, Mr.Titmarsh, I am quite at a loss to understand you."As we passed a gas-lamp, I saw Lady Fanny laughing as usual, and turning her great arch sparkling black eyes at Lord Tiptoff.

"Why, Lady Jane," said he, "if the truth must out, the great haunch of venison trick was one of this young lady's performing.You must know that I had received the above-named haunch from Lord Guttlebury's park: and knowing that Preston is not averse to Guttlebury venison, was telling Lady Drum (in whose carriage I had a seat that day, as Mr.Titmarsh was not in the way), that I intended the haunch for your husband's table.Whereupon my Lady Fanny, clapping together her little hands, declared and vowed that the venison should not go to Preston, but should be sent to a gentleman about whose adventures on the day previous we had just beentalking--to Mr.Titmarsh, in fact; whom Preston, as Fanny vowed, had used most cruelly, and to whom, she said, a reparation was due.So my Lady Fanny insists upon our driving straight to my rooms in the Albany (you know I am only to stay in my bachelor's quarters a month longer)--""Nonsense!" says Lady Fanny.

"--Insists upon driving straight to my chambers in the Albany, extracting thence the above-named haunch--""Grandmamma was very sorry to part with it," cries Lady Fanny.

"--And then she orders us to proceed to Mr.Titmarsh's house in the City, where the venison was left, in company with a couple of baskets of fruit bought at Grange's by Lady Fanny herself.""And what was more," said Lady Fanny, "I made Grandmamma go into Fr--into Lord Tiptoff's rooms, and dictated out of my own mouth the letter which he wrote, and pinned up the haunch of venison that his hideous old housekeeper brought us--I am quite jealous of her--I pinned up the haunch of venison in a copy of the John Bull newspaper."It had one of the Ramsbottom letters in it, I remember, which Gus and I read on Sunday at breakfast, and we nearly killed ourselves with laughing.The ladies laughed too when I told them this; and good- natured Lady Jane said she would forgive her sister, and hoped I would too: which I promised to do as often as her Ladyship chose to repeat the offence.

I never had any more venison from the family; but I'll tell you WHAT I had.About a month after came a card of "Lord and Lady Tiptoff," and a great piece of plum-cake; of which, I am sorry to say, Gus ate a great deal too much.