Roehampton

“ He hardly ever gave one of his famous banquets to which Lord Roehampton was not invited, and, strange to say, Lord Roehampton, who had the reputation of being somewhat difficult on this head, always accepted the invitations. The crowning social incident, however, was when Lord Roehampton opened his own house for the first time since his widowhood, and received the Neuchatels at a banquet not inferior to their own. This was a great triumph for Lady Montfort, who thought the end was at hand.
“Life is short,” she said to Lord Roehampton that evening. ”

“ That telephone number happened to be quite familiar to Rivière. It was the number of his own house at Roehampton.
He jumped into the waiting taxi once again, and ordered the chauffeur to drive across London to Barnes Common and Roehampton. If he could not confront Larssen at office or house, he would run him to earth that evening in his own home. No doubt Larssen was going there to talk business with Sir Francis.
Roehampton is a country village held within the octopus arms of Greater London. ”

“ Lady Montfort was to give a ball early in June, and Royalty itself was to be her guests. The entertainments at Montfort House were always magnificent, but this was to exceed accustomed splendour. All the world was to be there, and all the world, who were not invited, were in as much despair as if they had lost their fortune or their character.
Lady Roehampton had a passion for light, provided the light was not supplied by gas or oil. Her saloons, even when alone, were always brilliantly illuminated. ”

“ This mysterious but universal sickness of a single root changed the history of the world.
“There is no gambling like politics,” said Lord Roehampton, as he glanced at the “Times,” at Princedown; “four cabinets in one week; the government must be more sick than the potatoes.”
“Berengaria always says,” said Lord Montfort, “that you should see Princedown in summer. I, on the contrary, maintain it is essentially a winter residence, for, if there ever be a sunbeam in England, Princedown always catches it. Now to-day, one might fancy one’s self at Cannes.” ”

“ The leader of the opposition came up to town, but he found nothing but difficulties, and a few days before Christmas he had resigned the proffered trust. The protectionist ministry were to remain in office, and to repeal the corn laws. The individual who was most baulked by this unexpected result was perhaps Lord Roehampton. He was a man who really cared for nothing but office and affairs, and being advanced in life, he naturally regretted a lost opportunity. ”

“ If there be exceptions among statesmen of the highest class, they will generally be found among those who have been chiefly in opposition, and so have had leisure and freedom of mind sufficient to manage their estates. Lord Roehampton had, however, extensive powers of charging his estate in lieu of dower, and he had employed them to their utmost extent; so his widow was well provided for. The executors were Mr. Sidney Wilton and Endymion.
After a short period, Lady Roehampton saw Adriana, and not very long after, Lady Montfort. ”

“ Roehampton is not far from Richmond, and one day the chariot, with the golden bullocks emblazoned on the panels, and the flaccid children within, drove to Amelia's house at Richmond; and the Bullock family made an irruption into the garden, where Amelia was reading a book, Jos was in an arbour placidly dipping strawberries into wine, and the Major in one of his Indian jackets was giving a back to Georgy, who chose to jump over him. ”

“ The neighbouring hamlet of Roehampton, too, has many interesting associations, for before the beautiful park that belonged to the manor was sold for building, there were many fine old mansions in it that were the homes of distinguished men. The estate was long the property of the Crown, but it was given by Charles I. to Sir Richard Weston, who added to the manor-house a chapel (the site of which is occupied by the present church) that was consecrated by Bishop Laud in 1632. ”

“ The twilight was creeping on apace, the smoke from the Streatham stage that had been so dense and dark, was now a pillar of fire, and all the laced curves of the moving ways and the translucent roofs and domes and the chasms between the buildings were glowing softly now, lit by the tempered radiance of the electric light that the glare of the day overpowered. The three efficient stages that the Ostrogites held—for Wimbledon Park was useless because of the fire from Roehampton, and Streatham was a furnace—were glowing with guide lights for the coming aeroplanes. ”

“ I rode on to Roehampton, dined there, and rode back.
At 10 a Cabinet at Peel's. We framed the message. Peel was very flat. The measure of immediate dissolution is one he does not half approve. He wished to settle the Regency question. He has been put out of humour by having his opinions upon that point not at once acquiesced in. He sees all the difficulties of our position, and does not meet them with energy and elan. He certainly is not an agreeable person to transact business with, but he is a very able man.
The accounts from Ireland are very bad. ”

“ I do not think that I shall ever much care to go out again, but I may help you at home, and then you can invite women; a mere bachelor’s house is always dull.”
There was one difficulty still in this arrangement. The mansion in Hill Street was not to be let, it was for sale, and the price naturally for such a mansion in such a situation, was considerable; quite beyond the means of Lady Roehampton who had a very ample income, but no capital. This difficulty, however, vanished in a moment. Mr. Sidney Wilton purchased the house ”

“ In that little gray house the great orator first saw the light on the 15th of July, 1832; it was easy to draw more than one parallel between his narrow, classical talent and his education as a Catholic and a Legitimist, and that little house of needy citizens with a convent on one side and a seignorial residence on the other, and a provincial academy in front of it.
Roumestan was filled with emotion, as he always was over anything concerning himself. He had not visited this spot for perhaps thirty years; it needed the whim of this young girl to bring him here. ”

“ But the earl, or the viscount, or the duke’s son, who are the natural prey of such conquering invaders, had not turned up, and the beautiful old house, and the armorial bearings of the Prescotts, and all that was old and traditionary about them, had been felt by Miss Rotherham to be next best. To say that her husband belonged to the old untitled aristocracy, who looked upon new lordships with contempt, was so refined and exquisite a piece of brag that the imagination of the daughter of the wilds was captivated by it. ”

“ The interpellation by Rougeot was torn to bits, the South seduced once more the North, Gaul for yet another time was conquered!—and when Roumestan ran down the steps again, worn out, perspiring and almost without voice, he had the proud satisfaction of seeing his party—but a moment ago so cold and even hostile—and his colleagues in the Cabinet, who had been accusing him of having compromised them, surround him with acclamations and enthusiastic flatteries. ”

“ Rothyng Hall, or Rutten Hall Was the capital manor, and was owned by John, Waleram's nephew, at the Conquest, and in Richard the First's time by Alexander de Rohinges, Roynges, or Rothyng, who, in Henry the Third's time, is said to hold it at half a fee of Margery de Riparijs, who held it of the Earl of Arundell, as of his hundred of Shropham, belonging to his castle of Bukenham, and the Earl of the King in chief. ”

“ In a corner sat old Béchut, a professor at the Collège de France, a very ugly man all nose—an immense scientist’s nose that seemed to have elongated itself from poking into books. He was taking the success of Roumestan as the text for one of his favorite theories—that all the weakness in the modern world comes from the too prominent place in it given to women and children. Ignorance and toilets, caprice and brainlessness! “You see, sir, that is where Roumestan is so strong! He has no children and he has known how to escape the influence of woman. ”

“ I know there are these chaps who can't endure to be clocked to their work with a patent time-clock in the morning and released of an evening with a whistle—and it's one of the things no master can ever understand. So Rooum came and went erratically, showing up maybe in Leeds or Liverpool, perhaps next on Plymouth breakwater, and once he turned up in an out-of-the-way place in Glamorganshire just when I was wondering what had become of him. ”

“ Hidden away in his coach in order to escape ovations, Roumestan enjoyed immensely all this [374] jollity, pleased with the sight of these countenances all brown and hooked-nosed and alive with emotion and sarcasm, these big fellows with their smart air, these chatos as amber-colored as the long berries of the muscat grape, who as they grow older will turn into these crones, black and dried by the sun, who seem to scatter a dust as from the tomb every time they make one of their habitual gestures. ”

“ The church and churchyard of Bullhampton are indeed perfect, and yet but few people go to see it. It has not as yet had its own bard to sing its praises. Properly it is called Bullhampton Monachorum, the living having belonged to the friars of Chiltern. The great tithes now go to the Earl of Todmorden, who has no other interest in the place whatever, and who never saw it. ”

“ The great tournament was supposed to be held in a field a mile or two from the tower. After the tournament and the banquet in the castle which followed, Cedric the Saxon and his kinsman, Athelstane of Coningsburgh, with the Lady Rowena and their servants and retainers, set out for Rotherwood, the house of Cedric, presumably in the neighbourhood of, or possibly a fictitious substitute for, the present city of Rotherham. Their way led through a great forest, some remnants of which may still be seen. ”

“ Rothwell soon after the Conquest was granted as a dependency of the castle of Pontefract to the Lacys, who erected here a baronial residence of which there are slight remains. Coal and stone are obtained in the neighbourhood, and the town possesses match-works and rope and twine factories in which the majority of the large industrial population is employed. ”

“ The carriages of the Bishop and the President shake the highroad; then delegations arrive from [4] the aristocratic Faubourg where Roumestan is adored because of his royalist convictions; next deputations from the women warpers march in bands the width of the street, their heads held high under their Arlesian caps.
The inns overflow with the country people, farmers from the Camargue or the Crau, whose unhitched wagons crowd the small squares and streets as on a market day. ”

“ General Rochambeau, who is at Port au Prince, has been sent for by the inhabitants of the Cape to take the command. Much good is expected from the change, he is said to be a brave officer and an excellent man. ”

“ Nevertheless, the people of Bullhampton had gloried in being a borough, and the shame, or at least the regret of their downfall, had not yet altogether passed away when the tidings of a new Reform Bill came upon them. The people of Bullhampton are notoriously slow to learn, and slow to forget. It was told of a farmer of Bullhampton, in old days, that he asked what had become of Charles I., when told that Charles II. had been restored. Cromwell had come and gone, and had not disturbed him at Bullhampton. ”

“ Roderick answered with unaverted eyes. "Yes, I am distinctly engaged, in Northampton, and impatiently waited for!" And he gave a little sympathetic sigh. "To reconcile Northampton and Rome is rather a problem. Mary had better come out here. Even at the worst I have no intention of giving up Rome within six or eight years, and an engagement of that duration would be rather absurd."
"Miss Garland could hardly leave your mother," Rowland observed. ”

“ Edward Royston was about leaving Oxford to visit Lady Mary at her house in London, when he was apprised of the sufferings of our western folk subsequent to the battle of Sedgemoor. Being now of a man's estate (for his entrance at the College of Corpus Christi was at an age much beyond the common) and of a nature graver than his years, he was impelled by his love for his people of Royston, and his pity of the dangers their misleading might bring upon them, without delay to set out for his home in Somerset, resolved to do what he might to order things fitly. ”

“ If Numa stopped in the street to speak to any one, Bompard stepped aside with a dignified air as if about to light a cigar. At funerals or first nights he was always turning up to ask every one in the most impressive haste: “Have you seen Roumestan anywhere?” ”

“ If there were no other reason for staying, I won't put it in the power of the Marquis of Trowbridge to say that he has turned me out of my parish, and so punished me because I have not submitted myself to him. I have not sought the quarrel. He has been overbearing and insolent, and now is meanly desirous to injure me because I will not suffer his insolence. No doubt, placed as he is, he can do much; but he cannot turn me out of Bullhampton. ”

“ This idea became a fixture in her mind and she felt daily in her brother’s pockets for the stamped document when Valmajour set out for the Ministry, in order to be sure it was there.
But Roumestan was engaged in signing another kind of paper and had many things to think of more important than the taborist. He was settling down in his new office with the generous ardor and enthusiasm, with the fever of a man who comes to his own. Everything was a novelty to him—the enormous rooms of the Ministry as well as the large ideas necessitated by his position. ”