NEVER FORGOTTEN.
PART THE SECOND.
CHAPTER XI. MAJOR CARTER.

A RIM of low old-fashioned little houses, like
dolls'-houses, runs round a sort of hexagonal
teaboard-shaped patch of green, called Hans-place,
just at the back of Sloane-street. A slumbering
monotony reigns here. The hall doors are
tight, and have a huddled hunchback air,
and the houses themselves are squeezed close,
like a crowd at a show where room is precious,
and where stewards have been seen making
people move up. Major Carter and his son
had now three rooms in one of these little houses
—the parlour story and a cold little warren at
the top, where the roof began to slope
inconveniently just over the deal dressing-table. The
major had seen troubles of late; things had not
gone smoothly with him. "Poor Mrs. Carter's
long illness was a heavy 'draw' upon us," he
used to say. "She required many comforts, and
all the care we could give her. Our doctor said
change of air—keep moving about: and she had
change of air, poor soul! I am not as rich as I
was, and I am not ashamed to own it."

Heavy business matters, too, were entailed on
the major by the death of his wife—what he
called "winding up her affairs" (in the
Irrefragable Company), kept him in Hans-place. He
had to watch those fellows, who were treating
him in a shabby unhandsome fashion. Otherwise,
town was not nearly so suited to the
major's life as the little realm of a watering-place.
There he had everything under his
hand: he could cover them all with his hat.
"We were more thrown together there," he said.
"Some of the pleasantest days of my life were
spent at Eastport."

But there was yet another attraction. A stout
round red and wealthy lady, called Mrs. Wrigley,
had a house in Cadogan-place, where, having
twenty years before decently interred Joseph
Wrigley, Esquire, Chairman of the United Bank,
she lived in quiet and substantial splendour, and
swung about London in a quaint old chariot.
As the late chairman had been what is called
"universally respected," so his relict was as
sincerely admired. She was the object of many
gallantries from young gentlemen and men of a
more "suitable" age; and she treated these
worshippers with mature coquetries, which did
not seem in the least out of place, and were
conventionally accepted by the circle in which she
moved, as quite becoming. Youths struggled
who should "take her down"—i.e. to supper;
and at parties younger pairs were often detained
at the foot of the stairs, while she slowly passed
down the straits, a sort of human reproduction
of Turner's "Fighting Téméraire towed to
her last Berth" by a light military tug.

Yet with these worldly condiments she mixed
a little religious seasoning. Until she came to
know Major Carter, she affected the society of
the Reverend Punsher Hill, a dissenting clergyman
of a strong spiritual flavour, whose chapel
was in the Chelsea district. There he poured
out streams of holy hartshorn—the very Preston
salts of divinity—and "drew" large crowds.
With him was combined, in her society, a clergyman
of the more established ritual, who sprinkled
ess-bouquet and rose-water from his pulpit, and
made everything pleasant.

For these gentlemen a sort of "main" of tea
was kept flowing in Cadogan-place. The odium
theologicum did not, as it ought to have done,
hinder their assimilating or balancing Mrs.
Wrigley symmetrically on each side, as though
they were "supporters" for her arms. She had
contributed handsomely to Mr. Punsher Hill's
new conventicle, built for him by admirers of his
Preston salts, which was called "Mount Horeb;"
and she had given moneys to Mr. Hoblush for what
he called his "visiting women." A "delightful
young man," said many; "too long expended on
the rural districts, now happily given up to the
vast fields of missionary labour, which lie in the
uncleared country of drawing-rooms, and among
the pretty soft tulle-clad natives, all more or less
benighted."

These two influences reigned until she came
to know Major Carter. That worldling gradually
began to undermine her faith, or at least her warm
devotion. She was too good natured to feel any
change, or show any change; but the worldling
had more force of character than the two
spiritualists. They felt themselves slipping
as on a parquet floor, and soon the success of
Major Carter was so marked, as to attract public
whispers, and public attention, and public
murmurs, and public anger.