Lady Carbury

Mother of Hetta Carbury and Sir Felix Carbury

Cousin of Roger Carbury

Chapter I
The novel begins with the following:

"Let the reader be introduced to Lady Carbury, upon whose character and doings much will depend of whatever interest these pages may have, as she sits at her writing-table in her own house in Welbeck Street. Lady Carbury spent many hours at her desk, and wrote many letters, -- wrote also very much beside letters. She spoke of herself in these days as a woman devoted to Literature, always spelling the word with a big L. Something of the nature of her devotion may be learned by the perusal of three letters which on this morning she had written with a quickly running hand. Lady Carbury was rapid in everything, and in nothing more rapid than in the writing of letters." (7) #Letters #Writing as Business

Letter 1: to Mr. Broune


 * "Dear Friend,


 * I have taken care that you shall have the early sheets of my two new volumes to-morrow, or Saturday at latest, so that you may, if so minded, give a poor struggler like myself a lift in your next week's paper. Do give a poor struggler a lift. You and I have so much in common, and I have ventured to flatter myself that we are really friends! I do not flatter you when I say, that not only would aid from you help me more than from any other quarter, but also that praise from you would gratify my vanity more than any other praise. I almost think you will like my 'Criminal Queens.' The sketch of Semiramis is at any rate spirited, though I had to twist it about a little to bring her in guilty. Cleopatra, of course, I have taken from Shakespeare. What a wench she was! I could not quite make Julia a queen; but it was impossible to pass over so piquant a character. You will recognise in the two or three ladies of the empire how faithfully I have studdied my Gibbon. Poor dear old Belisarius! I have done the best I could with Joanna, but I could not bring myself to care for her. In our days she would simply have gone to Broadmore. I hope you will not think that I have been to strong in my delineations of Henry VIII and his sinful but unfortunate Howard. I don't care a bit about Anne Boleyne. I am afraid that I have been tempted into too great length about the Italian Catherine; but in truth she has been my favourite. What a woman! What a devil! Pity that a second Dante could not have constructed for her a special hell. How one traces the effect of her training in the life of our Scotch Mary. I trust you will go with me in my view as to the Queen of Scots. Guilty! guilty always! Adultery, murder, treason, and all the rest of it. But recommended to mrecy because she was royal. A queen bred, born, and married, and with such other queens around her, how could she have escaped to be guilty? Marie Antoinette I have not quite acquitted. It would be uninteresting; -- perhaps untrue. I have accused her lovingly, and have kissed when I scourged. I trust the British public will not be angry because I do not white-wash Caroline, especially as I go along with them altogether in abusing her husband.


 * 'But I must not take up your time by sending you another book, though it gratifies me to think that I am writing what none but yourself will read. Do it yourself, like a dear man, and, as you are great, be merciful. Or rather, as you are a friend, be loving.

'Yours gratefully and faithfully,

'Matilda Carbury.'

After all how few women there are who can raise themselves above the quagmire of what we call love, and make themselves anything but playthings for men. Of almost all these royal and lusurious sinners it was the chief sin that in some phase of their lives they consented to be playthings without being wives. I have striven so hard to be proper; but when girls read everything, why should not an old woman write anything?'" (7-8) #Letters

"But the end of all was to induce some one to do something which would cause a publisher to give her good payment for indifferent writing, or an editor to be lenient when, upon the merits of the case, he should have been severe" (9). #Dishonesty #Writing as Business

"She had wanted him [ Mr. Broune ] to take a series of papers for the 'Morning Breakfast Table,' and to have them paid for at rate No. 1, whereas she suspected that he was rather doubtful as to their merit, and knew that, without special favour, she could not hope for remuneration above rate No. 2, or possible even No. 3" (9). #Dishonesty #Writing as Business

After Lady Carbury chastises Mr. Broune for kissing her: "Lady Carbury again looked into his eyes, and a promise was given that the articles should be printed -- and with generous remuneration" (10).

Letter 2:

"'Dear Mr. Booker,

'I have told Mr. Leadham' -- Mr. Leadham was senior partner in the enterprising firm of publishers known as Messrs. Leadham and Loiter -- 'to send you an early copy of my "Criminal Queens." I have already settled with my friend Mr. Broune that I am to do your "New Tale of a Tub" in the "Breakfast Table." Indeed, I am about it now, and am taking great pains with it. If there is anything you wish to have specially said as to your view of the Protestantism of the time, let me know. I should like you to say a word as to the accuracy of my historical details, which I know you can safely do. Don't put it off, as the sale does so much depend on early notices. I am only getting a royalty, which does not commence till the first four hundred are sold.

'Yours sincerely,

'Matilda Carbury.'"

(11) #Letters #Writing as Business

"He [ Mr. Booker ] laughed inwardly, with a pleasantly reticent chuckle, as he thought of Lady Carbury dealing with his views on Protestantism, -- as he thought also fo the numerous historical errors into which that clever lady must inevitable fall in writing about matters of which he believed her to know nothing" (12)

He [ Mr. Booker ] would not probably say that the book was accurate, but he would be able to declare that it was delightful reading, that the feminine characteristics of the queens had been touched with a masterly hand, and that the work was one which would certainly make its way into all drawing-rooms" (12). #Dishonesty #Writing as Business

Letter 3:


 * "'Dear Mr. Alf,


 * 'Do tell me who wrote the review on Fitzgerald Barker's last poem. Only I know you won't. I remember nothing done so well. I should think the poor wretch will hardly hold his head up again before the autumn. But it was fully deserved. I have no patience with the pretensions of would-be poets who contrive by toadying and underground influences to get their volumes placed on every drawing-room table. I know no one to whom the world has been so good-natured in this way as to Fitzgerald Barker, but I have heard of no one who has extended the good nature to the length of reading his poetry.


 * 'Is it not singular how some men continue to obrain the reputation of popular authorship without adding a word to the literature of their country worthy of note? It is accomplished by unflagging assiguity in the system of puffing. To puff and to get one's self puffed have become different branches of a new profession. Alas, me! I wish I might find a class open in which lessons could be taken by such a poor tyro as myself. Much as I hate the thing from my very soul, and much as I admire the consistencywith which the "Pulpit" has opposed it, I myself am so much in want of support for my own little efforts, and am struggling so hard honestly to make for myself a remunerative career, that I think, were the opportunity offered to me, I should pocket my honour, lay aside the high feeling which tells me that praise should be bought neither by money nor friendship, and descend among the low things, in order that I might one day have the pride of feeling that I had succeeded by my own work in providing for the needs of my children.


 * 'But I have not as yet commenced the descent downwards; and therefore I am still bold enough to tell you that I shall look, not with concern but with a deep interest, to anything which may appear in the "Pulpit" respecting my "Criminal Queens." I venture to think that the book, -- though I wrote it myself, -- has an importance of its own which will secure for it some notice. That my inacuracy will be laid bare and presumption scourged I do not in the least doubt, but I think your reviewer will be able to certify that the sketches are life-like and the portraits well considered. You will not hear e told, at any rate, that I had better sit at home and darn my stockings, as you said the other day of that poor unfortunate Mrs. Effinton Stubbs.

'Most sincerely yours,
 * 'I have not seen you for the last three weeks. I have a few friends every Tuesday evening; -- pray come next week or the week following. And pray believe that no amount of editorial or critical severity shall make me receive you otherwise than with a smile.

'Matilda Carbury.'"

(14-16) #Letters #Writing as Business

Chapter II
“she also had shown that she was not a woman whose words about herself could be taken with much confidence” (16).

"If the reader does not understand so much from her letters to the three editors they have been written in vain. She has been made to say that her object in work was to provide for the need other children, and that with that noble purpose before her she was struggling to make herself a career in literature. Detestably false as had been her letters to the editors, absolutely and abominably foul as as the entire system by which she was endeavouring to achieve success, far away from honour and honesty as she had been carried by her ready subserviency to the dirty things among which she had lately fallen, nevertheless her statements about herself were substantially true” (16). #dishonesty

“He [Sir Patrick] could read and understand a book” (17). #Literacy

“But she was clever, and had picked up an education and good manners amidst the difficulties of her childhood, -- and had been beautiful to look at” (17). #Literacy

“Accident at first rather than choke had thrown her among literary people, but that accident had, during the last two years, been supported and corroborated by the desire which had fallen upon her earning money” (19). #Writing as Business

“From all this it had come to pass that that dabbling in literature in the work, partly as a passport into society, had been converted into hard work by which money if possible might be earned. So that Lady Carbury when she wrote to her friends, the editors, of her struggles was speaking the truth. Tidings had reached her of this and the other man’s success, and, -- coming near to her still, -- of this and that other woman’s earnings in literature” (20). #Writing as Business

“The one most essential obstacle to the chance of success in all this was probably Lady Carbury’s conviction that her end was to be obtained not by producing good books, but by inducing certain people to say that her books were good. She did work hard at what she wrote, -- hard enough at any rate to cover her pages quickly; and was, by nature, a clever woman. She could write after a glib, commonplace, sprightly fashion, and had already acquired the knack of spreading all she knew very thin, so that it might cover a vast surface. She had no ambition to write a good book, but was painfully anxious to write a book that the critics should say was good. Had Mr. Broune, in his closet, told her that her book was absolutely trash, but had undertaken at the same time to have it violently praised in the ‘Breakfast Table’, it may be doubted whether the critic’s own opinion would have even wounded her vanity. The woman was false from head to foot, but there was much of good in her, false though she was” (21). #Writing as Business #dishonesty

Chapter III
“The back drawing-room was divided from the front by doors that were permanently closed, and in this she carried on her great work. Here she wrote her books and contrived her system for the inveigling of editors and critics” (24).

Chapter V
On Sir Felix Carbury ’s disrespect: “But my word is nothing to him” (44).

Chapter VII
“The ‘Criminal Queens’ might be a great literary success. She almost thought that it would be a success. Messrs. Leadham and Loiter, the publishers, were civil to her. Mr. Broune had promised. Mr. Booker had said that he would see what could be done. She had gathered from Mr. Alf ’s caustic and cautious words that the book would be noticed in the ‘Evening Pulpit’” (57). #Writing as Business

“If only by the end of this season Henrietta could be engaged to her cousin, Felix be the husband of the richest bride in Europe, and she the acknowledged author of the cleverest book of the year, what a Paradise of triumph might still be open to her after all her troubles!” (57) #Writing as Business

Chapter XI
“Her great work had come out, -- the ‘Criminal Queens’, -- and had been very widely reviewed” (87). Mr. Alf’ s subordinate, Jones, reviewed the book and “had pulled it to pieces with almost rabid malignity,” and pointed out all the historical errors. #Press #Writing as Business

“Lady Carbury had been crushed by the ‘Evening Pulpit.’ We may fancy that it was not easy work, and that Mr. Alf’s historical Mr. Jones was not forced to fatigue himself by the handling of many books of reference. The errors did lie a little near the surface; and the whole scheme of the work, with its pandering to bad tastes by pretended revelations of frequently fabulous crime, was reprobated by Mr. Jones’s very best manner. But the poor authoress, though utterly crushed, and reduced to little more than literary pulp for an hour or two, was not destroyed” (88). #Press #Writing as Business

Lady Carbury finds evidence that she is right about one of the historical facts from the “Criminal Queens,” and goes to her publisher Mr. Leadham to prove it. Mr. Leadham doesn’t care who was right and begs Lady Carbury to let it rest because “he knew very well that the ‘Evening Pulpit’ would surely get the better of any mere author in such a contention” (89). Lady Carbury cries at the injustice and because she is even more offended since Mr. Alf is her “particular friend” (89). Mr. Leadham persuades Lady Carbury that the bad review won’t do the book’s sale any harm because “A book of that sort couldn’t hope to go on very long, you know” (89). Mr. Leadham mentions that the book got decent reviews from the “Breakfast Table” and the “Pulpit,” and tells Lady Carbury that she will get some money, but “not to imagine that it could be very much” (89). #Press #Writing as Business

Lady Carbury reviews Mr. Booker ’s book in the “Breakfast Table,” by convincing Mr. Broune to allow her with flirtation. Mr. Booker is dissatisfied with the review Lady Carbury writes because it is rubbish, but Mr. Booker also knows that his article about the “Criminal Queens” in the “Literary Chronicle” “would also be rubbish” (90). Mr. Booker made no attempt to read the book and only spent “perhaps an hour” on both the reading and writing required for the review. “He could have reviewed such a book when he was three parts asleep” (90). #Press #Writing as Business

“But the review in the ‘Morning Breakfast Table’ was the making of Lady Carbury ’s book, as far as it ever was made” (91). His review claimed “It was the very book that had been wanted for years,” and that it was “a work of infinite research and brilliant imagination combined” (91). #Press #Writing as Business #Dishonesty

“Therefore, though the crushing had been very real, there had also been some elation; and as a net result, Lady Carbury was disposed to think that her literary career might yet be a success” (91). #Writing as Business

 “But her literary life, and her literary successes, her flirtations with Mr. Broune, her business with Mr. Booker , and her crushing by Mr. Alf’ s Mr. Jones, were after all but adjuncts to that real inner life of hers of which the absorbing interest was her son” (91).

 Though Lady Carbury knows that Felix really can’t be much use as a Director of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway Company, she still takes the opportunity to “speak up a little for her boy, and did not forget to send the news by post to Roger Carbury ” (92).

Lady Carbury has her literary friends over on Tuesday evenings: “Madame Melmotte and her daughter [ Marie Melmotte ] were already there, -- and many others, of whom the majority were devoted to literature. Among them Mr. Alf was in the room, and was at this very moment discussing Lady Carbury’ s book with Mr. Booker ” (94). #Writing as Business

Mr. Alf “had been quite graciously received, as though he had not authorised the crushing. Lady Carbury had given him her hand with that energy of affection with which she was wont to welcome her literary friends, and had simply thrown one glance of appeal into his eyes as she looked into his face, -- as though asking him how he had found it in his heart to be so cruel to one so tender, so unprotected, so innocent as herself. ‘I cannot stand this kind of thing,’ said Mr. Alf, to Mr. Booker. ‘There’s a regular system of touting got abroad, and I mean to trample it down’” (94). #Press #Writing as Business #Sincerity

Mr. Alf : “I’ve the greatest possible regard for our friend here; -- but her book is a bad book, a throughly rotten book, an unblushing compilation from half-a-dozen works of established reputation, in pilfering from which she has almost always managed to misapprehend her facts, and to muddle her dates. Then she writes me and asks me to do the best I can for her. I have done the best I could” (94). #Press #Writing as Business #Sincerity

Mr. Alf claims that he has no control over what his reviewers say about the books, but Lady Carbury “thought rightly, that Mr. Alf ’s Mr. Jones had taken direct orders from his editor, as to his treatment of the ‘Criminal Queens’” (96). #Writing as Business #Press #Dishonesty

Chapter XII
"She had never really determined what it was that might make her happy, -- having some hazy aspiration after social distinction and literary fame, in which was ever commingled solicitude respecting money” (99). #Writing as Business

Chapter XIV
Letter from Lady Carbury to Roger requesting they might come to Carbury Manor:

“My Dear Roger,

“We know how kind you are and how sincere, and that if what I am going to propose doesn’t suit you’ll say so at once. I have been working very hard, -- too hard indeed, and I feel that nothing will do me so much real good as getting into the country for a day or two. Would you takes us for a part of Whitsun week? We would come down on the 20th May and stay over the Sunday if you would keep us. Felix says he would run down though he would not trouble you for so long a time as we talk of staying.

“I’m sure you must have been glad to hear of his being put upon that Great American Railway Board as a Director. It opens upon a new sphere of life to him, and will enable him to prove that he can make himself useful. I think it was a great confidence to place in one so young.

“Of course you will say so at once if my little proposal interferes with any of your plans, but you have been so very very kind to us that I have no scruple in making it.

“Henrietta joins with me in kind love” (113) #Letters

“He [ Roger ] wrote his two letters at once. That to Lady Carbury was very short. He would be delighted to see her and Henrietta at the time named, -- and would be very glad should it suit Felix to come also. He did not say a word about the Board, or the young man’s probable usefulness in his new sphere of life. To Montague his letter was long. ‘It is always best to be open and true,’ he said. ‘Since you were kind enough to say that you would come to me, Lady Carbury has proposed to visit me just at the same time and to bring her daughter. After what has passed between us I need hardly say that I could not make you both welcome here together. It is not pleasant to me to have to ask you to postpone your visit, but I think you will not accuse me of a want of hospitality toward you.’ Paul wrote back to say that he was sure that there was no want of hospitality, and that he would remain in town” (115). #Letters #Sincerity

Chapter XV
Roger to Lady Carbury about the invitation to dine with the Longestaffes at Caversham: “You must answer at once, because their servant is waiting.”. . . . “I suppose I had better say that I [ Lady Carbury ], and Hetta, -- and Felix will accept their invitation” (128). #Premeditation

“A quarter of an hour later the Caversham servant was on his way home with two letters, -- the one from Roger expressing his regret that he could not accept Lady Pomona ’s invitation, and the other from Lady Carbury declaring that she and her son and daughter would have great pleasure in dining at Caversham on the Monday” (128). #Proximity

Chapter XVI
“Lady Carbury assured him [ Roger ] that she was never dull when left alone with books” (129). #WomenReading #Dishonesty

Lady Carbury ’s telegram to Felix from Beccles: “‘You are to dine at Caversham on Monday. Come on Sunday if you can. She is there.’ Lady Carbury had many doubts as to the wording of this message. The female in the office might too probably understand who was the ‘She,’ who was spoken of as being at Caversham, and might understand also the project, and speak of it publicly. But then it was essential that Felix should know how great and certain was the opportunity afforded to him” (131). #Letters #Premeditation #Possibility of Exposure

“Then she [ Lady Carbury ] returned, and shut herself up in her bedroom, and worked for an hour or two at a paper which she was writing for the ‘Breakfast Table.’ Nobody should ever accuse her justly of idleness” (131). #Writing as Business #Press

Chapter XX
“She [ Lady Carbury ] endeavored to open various other subjects of conversation; but she found Mr. Melmotte to be heavy on her hands. After a while she had to abandon him in despair, and give herself up to raptures in favour of Protestantism at the bidding of the Caversham parson, who sat on the other side of her” (167). #Facility with Language