The Hillyars and the Burtons by Henry Kingsley

THOSE whom one has asked say that it is easy enough for any one with either brains, or money, or manners, to see a great deal of society in London, --to be, in fact, in the room with the very greatest people in the land, to be presented to them, and speak to them, --and yet not to be in society at all, in one sense of the word. If this is so, as there is no disputing, we should say that, if ever people were in this predicament, those two people were George and Gerty. The season after his father's death, George went to London, refurnished the house in Grosvenor Square, filled the balconies with flowers, had new carriages, horses, and servants, made every preparation for spending double his income, and then sat down to wait for society to come and be hospitably entertained with the best of everything which money could buy.

Society had quite enough to eat and drink elsewhere. It wanted to know first who this Sir George Hillyar was,--which was easily found out from the Tory whip, and from Burke. Next it wanted to know who his wife was; and it discovered that she was a mulatto woman (alas, poor Gerty! ), or something of that kind. And, lastly, there was a most general and persistent inquiry whether you did not remember some very queer story about this Sir George Hillyar; and the answer to this was, among the oldsters, that there was something deused queer, and that no one seemed to remember the fact.