When Mr. Effingham found himself with fifty pounds in his pocket outside the bank where he had changed Sir Charles Mitford's cheque, he could scarcely contain his exultation. His dealings with bankers had been few, and not always satisfactory. He had had cheques in his possession which he had been too bashful to present in his own proper person, but had employed a little boy to take to the counter while he waited round the corner of an adjacent street; he had had cheques which he had presented himself, but the proceeds of which, when asked "how he would have," he had always taken in gold, as a more convenient and untraceable medium. On the present occasion, however, he had walked boldly in; had rapped on the counter, to the horror and dismay of the old gentleman behind banking-firm, passing through the public office on his way to the private parlour, peered at Mr. Effingham. under his bushy-grey eyebrows curiously; but Mr. Effingham did not mind that. The porter sitting on a very hard stool just inside the swing doors rubbed his nose and winked significantly at the policeman in plain clothes stationed just outside the swing-doors, whose duty was to help rich old-lady customers in and out of their carriages. Both porter and policeman stared very hard at Mr. Effingham, and Mr. Effingham returned the stare with all the eye-power at his command What did he care? They might call him back and inspect the cheque if they liked, and then they would see what they would get for attempting to molest a gentleman.
In his character of gentleman, Mr. Effingham felt that his costume was scarcely so correct as it might have been; in fact, that in the mere quality of being weather-tight it was lamentably deficient. So his first proceeding was to visit an outfitter's, and then and there to procure what he termed "a rig-out" of the peculiar kind most in accordance with his resonant taste. The trousers were of such an enormous check pattern that, as the Jew tailor humorously remarked, "it would take two men to show it;" the hat shone like a bad looking-glass; the coat, though somewhat baggy in the back, was glossy, and had a cotton-velvet collar; and the Lowther-Arcade jewelry glistened in the midst of a bird's-eye scarf of portentous height and stiffness.
His outer man satisfied, Mr. Effingham thought it time to attend to his inner; and accordingly turned into a City chop-house of renown, where his elegant appearance made an immense impression on the young stockbroking gents and the junior clerks from the banks and Mincing-Lane houses, who commented, in no measured tones, and with a great deal of biting sarcasm, on the various portions of his costume. Either not hearing or not heeding this banter, Mr. Effingham ordered a point steak and potatoes and a pint of stout; all of which he devoured with an appearance of intense relish. An old gentleman sitting in the same box opposite to him had a steaming glass of fragrant punch, the aroma of which ascended gratefully into Mr. Effingham's nostrils and almost impelled him to order a similar jorum; but prudence stepped in, and he paid his bill and departed, Not that he did not intend to indulge in that after-dinner grog, which was customary with him whenever he had the money to pay for it himself, or the luck to get anybody to pay for it for him; but he wished to combine business with pleasure; and so started off for another tavern nearer the West End, where he knew the combination could be accomplished.
The chosen place of Mr. Effingham's resort, though properly designated the Brown Bear, was known to all its frequenters as "Johnson's," from its proprietor's name. It was a commonplace public-house enough, in a street leading out of the Strand, and sufficiently near the large theatres and newspaper offices for its parlour to be the resort of actors and press-men of an inferior grade. The more eminent in both professions "used" the Rougepot in Salad Yard, a famous old place that had been a house of call for actors, wits, and men-of-letters for generations, and where strangers seldom penetrated. Thehabituésof "Johnson's" were mostly young men just affiliated to their professions, and not particularly careful as to their associates; so that you frequently found in Johnson's parlour a sprinkling of questionable characters, men who hung on to the selvage of theatrical life, betting-book keepers, and card-sharpers. The regular frequenters did not actually favour these men, but they tacitly allowed their presence, and occasionally would join in and listen to their conversation, from which they gleaned new notions of life.
When Mr. Effingham pushed open the parlour-door and looked into the room on the afternoon in which he had conducted his banking operation with such signal success, the place was almost deserted. The large corner-boxes by the fire, where the professional gentlemen usually congregated, were empty; but at a table in the far end of the room were seated two men, at sight of whom Mr. Effingham's face brightened. They were flashily-dressed, raffish-looking men, smoking rank cigars, and busily engaged in comparing betting-books.
"Hollo!" said one of them, looking up at the noise made by the opening of the door; "I'm blessed if here ain't D'Ossay Butler! And the regular D'Ossay cut too--sprucer than ever; might pass for the Count himself, D'Ossay!"
"What's happened to the little cove now, I wonder?" said the other, a thin man with a shaved face and a tall hat, which he had great difficulty in keeping on his head; "what's happened to him now? Has he stood-in on a steeple-chase, or robbed a bank? Look at his togs! What a slap-up swell he is!"
Mr. Effingham received these compliments with great equanimity, sat down by his friends, and seeing their glasses empty, said: "Any lap? I'm game to stand anything you like to put a name to;" rang the bell for the waiter, and ordered three nines of brandy hot.
"What an out-and-out little cove it is!" repeated the first man with great admiration. "Well, tell us, D'Ossay, all about it. How did it come off? What was it?"
"Come off!" said Mr. Effingham; "what do you mean? Nothing's come off that I know of; at least nothing particular. You know that gentleman in the City that I told you of, Griffiths?" he asked, with a private wink at the man in the high hat.
"I know him fast enough," replied that worthy with a nod, partly confirmatory, partly to keep the tall hat on his head. "Did he pull through in that matter?"
"Pull through!" said Mr. Effingham; "he won a lot of money; and as I'd given him the office, and put him on a good thing, he said he'd behave handsome; and he didn't do amiss, considerin.'"
"What did he part with?" asked the first man.
"A tenner."
The first man's eyes glistened, and he instantly made up his mind to borrow half-a-sovereign if he could get it---five shillings if he could not---of Effingham before they parted.
"Ah, and so you went and rigged yourself out in these swell togs, D'Ossay, did you, at once? You always had the notions of a gentleman, and the sperrit of a gentleman, that's more. I wish you'd put me on to something of that kind; but, there, it wants the way to carry it out; and I haven't got that, I know well enough."
While this speech was in progress, Mr. Effingham had caught the eye of the tall man, and winking towards their friend, pointed over his shoulder at the door. The tall man repeated the nod that did the double duty, and after looking up at the clock, said, "You'd better be off Jim; you'll be just in time to catch that party down at Peter Crawley's, if you look sharp."
Jim, thus admonished, finished his grog and took his leave, asking Mr. Effingham if he could have "half a word" with him outside; which half-word resulted in the extraction of a half-sovereign, as Jim had predetermined.
"Now for it," said Griffiths, as soon as Effingham returned, "I'm death to hear all that's happened, only that fool wouldn't go. Wanted something, of course, outside, eh? Ah, thought so. What did you square him for?"
"Half-a-couter."
"You appear to be making the shiners spin, Master D'Ossay; that swell at the West End must have bled pretty handsome. Tell us all about it. What did he stand?"
"Well, I won't try and gammon you. He stood fifty."
"What, on the mere gab? without your showing him the stiff, and only telling him you knew about it? Fifty quid! that's a cow that'll give milk for many a long year, Master D'Ossay, if only properly handled. Come, hand us over what you promised for putting you on. By George!" he added, as Effingham drew a bundle of notes from his pocket, "how nice and crisp they sound!"
"There's your termer," said Effingham, selecting a note from the roll and handing it to his friend; "I'm always as good as my word. That squares us up so far."
"No fakement about it, is there?" said Mr. Griffiths, first holding the note up to the light, then spreading it flat on the table, and going carefully over it back and front. "I've been dropped in the hole too often by flimsies not to be precious careful about 'em. No. Matthew Marshall--all them coily things in the water-mark and that; all right. I think you ought to make it a little more; I do, indeed."
"Make it a little more! I like that. Why, what the devil could you have done without me? It's true you first heard of the coppered stiff from Tony; but you didn't trouble a bit about it. Who set all the boys to hunt up this cove? who found him at last? and who walked in as bold as brass this morning, and checked him out of fifty quid without a stitch of evidence? Why, you daredn't have gone to his crib, to start with; and if you had, he'd never have seen you; the flunkey would have kicked you out for an area-sneak or a gonoph. Why, even I had some bother to get in; so what would have become of you?"
Mr. Effingham was only a little man, but he swelled so with self-importance as, in the eyes of his companion, to look very big indeed. He bounced and swaggered and spoke so loud as quite to quell the unfortunate Griffiths, who began, with due submission, to apologize for his own shortcomings and deprecate his friend's wrath.
"Well, I know all that fast enough, and I only just hinted; but you're down upon a cove so. However, it's a fine thing for us both, ain't it? He'll be as good as a bank to us for years to come, will this swell."
"I'm not so sure of that," said Mr. Effingham thoughtfully.
"How do you mean, not so sure of that?" asked Griffiths.
"Well, you see, he's a long way off being a fool; he's not half so soft as Tony led us to believe. He downed on me once or twice as quick as lightning; and I think it was only my way of putting it, and his being taken sudden on the hop, that made him shell out."
"You think that after he's thought the matter over he'll fancy he's been a flat?"
"Well, not exactly that. You see the higher a fellow climbs the worse it is when he falls. This Mitford wouldn't have cared a cuss for this thing in the old days; he'd have stood the racket of it easy. But it's different now; he's a big swell; its 'Sir Charles' and 'my Lady,' pony-phe-aton and 'orses and grooms, nice wife, and all that. He'd come an awful smasher if anything was to trip him up just now, and he knows it. That's our hold upon him."
"And that's what will make it easy for us to squeeze him."
"No, not entirely. That very fear of being blown upon, of having to bolt or stand a trial--my eye! how blue he turned when I mentioned Norfolk Island to him!--that very fear will make him most anxious to get rid of every chance of coming to grief, to prevent any one being able to lay hold of him."
"There's only one way for him to do that, and that's to burn the bill."
"Yes; but he must get it first, and that's what he'll want, you may take your oath. The next time I go to him, it'll be, 'Where is it? let me see it! name your outside price, and let me have it!' That's what he'll say."
"Likely enough; and what'll you say then?"
"Cussed if I know!" said Mr. Effingham ruefully. "If I say I haven't got it, he'll stop the supplies until I bring it; if I say I can't get it, not another mag from him."
"You must fall back on the bounce, like you did to-day, and tell him you know of there bein' such a thing, and that you won't keep your mouth shut unless you're paid for it."
"Oh, you're a leery cove, Griffiths, you are!" said Mr. Effingham with great disgust. "You never heard of attemptin' to extort money, did you? You don't think he'd ring the bell and send for a bobby, do you?"
"No, I don't. He wouldn't have the pluck."
"Oh, but I do though; and as you see it's me that the bobby would lay hold of, I'm rather pertickler about it. Besides, it's not such a pleasant thing finding yourself at Bow Street; for even if one could square this Mitford and get him not to prosecute, there'd be heaps of bobbies there to prove previous convictions. Clark of the G's getting up: 'Known as D'Ossay Butler, your worship. I had him for passing base coin in '43;' and all that kind of game. No, no, Griffiths! bounce won't do, my boy; won't do a bit."
"What will do, then? what shall we try? Shall we shy up the sponge and think ourselves lucky to have got this fifty, and never try him any more? That seems hard lines with such a chance."
"It would be; and we won't do it. No; there's only one thing to be done--we must go the whole hog; we must have the bill."
"Ah! and we must have lamb and green peas in Febooary; and a patent shofle cab to ride in, so as not to tire ourselves; and pockets full of 'alf-bulls to toss with! Wemust;but you see we 'aven't, D'Ossay, my boy! And as for getting' that bill, we're done at the very first step: we don't know who's got it."
"You fool! if we did know who'd got it we'd have it, fast enough. There ain't many of 'em that could keep it away from me!"
"You are a plucked 'un!" said Griffiths, regarding him with admiration; "I can't help sayin' so, though you do lose your temper and call your friends ugly names. No; I don't think there is many as could keep you off it if you knew where it was. But how we're ever to find that I can't tell."
"Let's go over the business all again," said Effingham. "It was Tony that always had a fancy for that bit of stiff. He stuck to it when it wasn't worth more than the stamp and the paper it was wrote on; but he always thought something would come of this Mitford, and then it would be a first-class screw to put on him, and make him do as Tony liked. But you see he died before anything turned up; and though he told you about the stiff, he didn't say where it was."
"He wouldn't. I asked him scores of times; but he always said 'Time enough for that,' he says, or 'That'll keep;' he says. He was a mistrustful cove was Tony,--always suspecting people."
"Ah, he'd seen a good deal of the world, Griffiths. What an infernal nuisance I hadn't got back from Yankeeland before he popped off! I'd have had it out of him. Who took his traps after his death?"
"Well, old Lyons had 'em, I think. There wasn't much; two or three boxes and a little dressin'-case,--for Tony, though not such a swell as you, D'Ossay, was always natty and spruce,--and a walkin'-stick or two. Old Lyons had lent Tony money, and stood in with him generally; and after he stepped it, old Lyons cleared off the things."
"Do you know where to find old Lyons?"
"Reethur! Why?"
"We'll go there next week when I come back to town. You may take your oath he's got the bill; and if he's heard nothing about Mitford's fortune, we may get it for next to nothing."
No; Laurence Alsager was certainly not best pleased at all he heard about Mrs. Hammond. Mrs. Hammond, a pretty little woman, coming to call upon you--great Heaven! Is that the way that that oaf Mitford talked of her who two years ago was Laura Molyneux, the mere mention of whose name caused Alsager to thrill to his finger-tips; and whose lowtrainantevoice, long steady passionate glances, and rippling shoulders could have led him to destruction? Drove her chestnuts well, eh? Yes, by Jove! there were few women could touch her either in riding or driving, and--Laurence laughed grimly to himself as he strode along. What was it Dollamore had said about Mitford's readiness to go to the bad, to shake a loose leg, to enjoy those advantages of health, wealth, and position which had before been denied to him? Why, here was the very woman to ensnare him, to act as his evil genius, the very counter-charm of Lady Mitford's quietude and girlish grace; a woman of the world, bright, sharp, active, and alert; with plenty ofsavoir fair, an enormous talent for flirtation, and not the smallest scrap of heart to throw into the balance against any of her whims. No, by George, not a scrap. Laurence bethought him of a certain December morning in Kensington Gardens, and the whole scene rose vividly before him. The trees all stripped and bare, and stridently clanging in the bitter wind; the thick dun clouds hanging over the horizon; the greatcoated park-keeper stamping vigorously over the gravel, and banging himself with his arms with vague notions of generating calorie; and he himself pacing up and down by Laura Molyneux's side. The arguments he had used, the very phrases which he had employed to induce her to reconsider the determination then announced to him, were ringing in his ears. He recollected how he had humbled himself, how he had implored her to reconsider her decision, how even he had begged for time, and how he had been met with one stern pitiless refusal; and how he had gone away to weep bitter tears of mortified pride, and rejected love, and savage disappointment; and how she had stepped into the neat little brougham waiting for her at the gate, and been whirled off to accept the hand and heart of Mr. Percy Hammond, a retired civil-servant from India, a widower with one daughter, who had shaken the pagoda-tree to some purpose and returned to England with a colossal fortune.
That was the then finale of the intimacy between Laura Molyneux and Laurence Alsager. In the course of the next week he started on his tour; in the course of the next month St. George's, Hanover Square, was the scene of her marriage,--a bishop welding the chains. And now two years had elapsed, and he was back in London, pretty much the same as if he had never left it; and she was asking whether he had returned, and he had begun to feel a great interest in Lady Mitford; and Sir Charles Mitford evidently thought Mrs. Hammond a most delightful person, and every thing wasà tort et à travers, as it has been, is, and always shall be, in the great world of London.
Nil admirariis the motto on which your precocious youth piques himself; but which is adopted in all due seriousness and sobriety by the calm student of life. Who wonders at anything?--at the peevishness of your wife; at the ingratitude of the child for whom you have pinched and slaved; at the treachery of the one familiar friend; at the enormous legacy left you by the uncle whose last words to you were that you were a jackanapes, and, so far as he was concerned, should be a beggar? The man of the world is surprised at nothing; he is notl'homme blaséof the caricaturist; he is not an atom astonished at finding nothing in anything; on the contrary, he finds plenty of novelty in every variety of life; but nothing which may happen to him excites the smallest wonderment on his part. So that when Colonel Alsager walked into the Guards club to dinner, and received from the hall-porter a small note with an address in a handwriting perfectly familiar to him, he was not in the least surprised.
But he looked at the note, and twisted it between his fingers, and even put it into his waistcoat pocket, as he walked up to the table whereon stood the framedmenu, and left it there while he walked round and spoke to two or three men who were already at dinner; and it was not until he was comfortably seated at his little table, and had eaten a few mouthfuls of soup, that he took it from his pocket, leisurely opened it, and bringing the candle within range, began to read it. Even then he paused for a moment, recollecting with what heart-throbs of anxiety and sensations of acute delight he used to read the previous epistles from the same source; then, as with an effort, he set himself to its perusal.
It was very short.
"I shall be at home to-morrow at three, and hope to see you. I hear all sorts of rumours, which you alone can solve.Chi non sa niente non dubita di niente!It will be for you to read the riddle. L."
He smiled outright as, after reading it and restoring it to his pocket, he said to himself, "The old story; she always made a mystery when there was no other excitement; but I'll go, for all that."
During his wildest times, Laurence had always been a punctual man; and even the irregular manner of his life during the two last years had not altered him in this respect. On the next afternoon, as the clock was striking three, he presented himself at Mrs. Hammond's door, and was immediately admitted and shown into her presence.
He was apparently a little too punctual; for a tall young woman, looking half lady, half nursery-governess, was standing by her and listening respectfully. Mrs. Hammond rose at the announcement of the Colonel's name, and coming forward, pressed his cold motionless hand with a tight grasp.
"Pray excuse me for one instant, Colonel Alsager," said she; "the doctors have said that we were all wrong in leaving Florence; that it's impossible Mr. Hammond can remain in London during this awful weather, and that he must go at once to Torquay. So I'm sending Miss Gillespie down there to get a house for us, and arrange matters before we go down.--Now, Ruth," turning to her, "I don't think there's any more to say. Not facing the sea, recollect, and a six-stall stable and double coach-house. You know all about the rest,--bed-rooms, and those sort of things,--and so goodbye."
Miss Gillespie touched lightly the outstretched tips of Mrs. Hammond's fingers, bowed gracefully to Laurence, and departed.
Mrs. Hammond watched the door close again, and obviously ill at ease, turned to Laurence, and said: "Miss Gillespie is the most invaluable person. She came at first as governess to Miss Hammond; but she has really made herself so useful to me, that I don't know what I should do without her. Housekeepers and all regular servants are so stupid; and I hate trouble so."
She stopped, and there was a dead silence. Mrs. Hammond coloured, and said: "Have you nothing to say, Colonel Alsager?"
"On the subject of Miss Gillespie, nothing. If you sent for me to expatiate to me on Miss Gillespie's virtues, I am sorry; for my time could have been better employed."
"Than in coming to see me? You did not think so once."
"Then we didn't talk about Miss Gillespie. Your note said that you had heard rumours, or riddles, which you wanted me to explain. What have you heard?"
"In a word, nothing. I wrote the first thing that came into my mind because I wanted to see you, Laurence Alsager. Because I have hungered to see you for two years; to hear your voice, to--You were at Vienna? at Ischl? and at Trieste?"
"I was at all three--some little time at each."
"You saw theTimesoccasionally on your travels?"
"While I remained in Europe, frequently. O yes, Laura, I received all your letters at the places you mention; and I saw the advertisement in theTimes, under the signature and with the ciphers by which we used to correspond in the old days."
"And why did you take no notice?"
"Because my love for you was gone and dead; because I was tired of being dragged about and shown-off, and made to display the abject state of docility to which you had reduced me. I told you all this that January morning in Kensington Gardens; I said to you, 'Let us finish this scheming and hiding; let our engagement be announced, and let us be married in the spring.' And you apparently assented; and went home and wrote me that letter which I have now, and shall keep to my dying day, declaring that you had been compelled to accept an offer from Mr. Hammond."
"You knew, Laurence, that my mother insisted on it."
"I knew you said so, Mrs. Hammond.--When I was acquainted with Mrs. Molyneux she was not much accustomed to having any influence with her daughter. Then I went away; but at first not out of the reach of that London jargon which permeates wherever Englishmen congregate. I heard of your marriage, of your first season, of the Richmondfêtegiven for you by the Russian Prince, Tchernigow. I heard of you that autumn as being the reigning belle of Baden, where Tchernigow must have been at the same time, as I recollect reading inGalignaniof his breaking the bank. Before I went to the East I heard of you in a score of other places; your name always connected with somebody else's name--always 'la belle Hammond, et puis--' I never choose to be one in a regiment; besides--"
"Besides what?"
"Well, my time for that sort of thing was past and gone; I was too old for it; I had gone through the phase of existence which Tchernigow and the others were then enjoying. I had offered you a steadfast honest love, and you had rejected it. When I heard of the Tchernigow alliance, and the various otherpasse-temps, I must say I felt enormously grateful for the unpleasantness you had spared me."
"I cannot say your tour has improved you, Colonel Alsager," said Mrs. Hammond calmly, though with a red spot burning on either cheek. "In the old days you were considered the pink of chivalry, and would have had your tongue cut out before you would have hinted a sneer at a woman. You refuse to believe my story of compulsion in my marriage; but it is true--as true as is the fact that I rebelled then and there, and, having sold myself, determined to have as much enjoyment of life as was compatible with the sale."
"I never denied it, Mrs. Hammond; I simply told you what I had heard."
"Then tell me something more, Laurence Alsager," said Mrs. Hammond, flushing brilliantly, and looking him, for the first time during their interview, straight in the face; "is it to be war between us two, or what?"
She looked splendidly beautiful just at that moment. She was a bright-looking little woman, with deep-gray eyes and long dark lashes, shining chestnut hair, aretroussénose, a wanton mouth, and a perfect, trim, tight, rounded small figure. As she threw out this verbal challenge, her eyes flashed, she sat erect, and every fibre within her seemed quivering with emotion.
Laurence marked her expression, and for an instant softened, as the recollection of the old days, when he had seen her thus wilfully petulant only to make more marked the subsidence into placidity and devotion, rose before him; but it faded rapidly away, had utterly vanished before, no less in reply to her peering gaze than to her words, he said, "No, not war; neighbours who have been so nearly allied should never quarrel. Let us take another strategic phrase, and say that we will preserve an armed neutrality."
"And that means--?"
"Well, in our case that means that neither shall interfere with the other's plans, of whatever kind, without due warning. That once given and disregarded, there will be war to the knife; for I think under present circumstances neither will be inclined to spare the other."
"Your anticipations are of a singularly sombre character, Colonel Alsager. I think that--ah!" she exclaimed, suddenly clapping her hands, "I see it all! my eyes are opened, and the whole map lies patent before me."
"What has caused this happy restoration of sight?"
"Remembering a story which was told me a day or two ago by a little bird. The story of apreux chevalierand a lady in distress; of a romantic adventure and a terrific leap; of plunging hoofs and fainting-fits, and all the necessary ingredients of such a scene.Je vous en félicité, Monsieur le Colonel."
Laurence's brow grew very dark as he said, "You are too clever a woman to give a leg-up to a manifestly limping story, however much it might temporarily serve your purpose. Of that story as it stands, turned, twisted, perverted as it may be, nothing can be made. The scandal-mongers don't know what they have taken in hand. They might as well try to shake the Rock of Gibraltar as that lady's good name."
Mrs. Hammond laughed a short bitter laugh and said, "You have even lost that grand virtue which you possessed--the power of concealing your emotions. With the gravity, you have attained the simplicity of the Oriental; and you now--"
She was interrupted by the servant's throwing open the door and announcing, "Sir Charles Mitford."
That gentleman entered immediately on the announcement of his name, with a certain air ofempressementwhich vanished so soon as he saw Colonel Alsager's broad back. Laura Hammond prided herself on never having been taken unawares. When speaking to Alsager her face had been curling with sneers, her voice harsh and strident; but before Sir Charles Mitford had crossed the threshold, she had wreathed her mouth in smiles, and as she shook hands with him, though aloud she only uttered the ordinary commonplaces, in a lower tone she said, "I thought you would come to-day."
Alsager heard her say it. That was a singular property of his--that gift of hearing anything that might be said, no matter in how large a party, or how earnestly he might be supposed to be talking. It had saved his life once; and he had assiduously cultivated it ever since. Mitford heard it too, but thickly. He had not had as much experience in the cadences of thedemi-voixas Laurence.
"How are you, Alsager? We seem to be always tumbling over each other now, don't we? and the oftener the better, I say.--How d'ye do, Mrs. Hammond? I say, what's all this that you've been saying to my wife?"
Laurence started, and then reverted to the album which lay on his knees. Mrs. Hammond saw the start, and the means adopted for hiding it, and smiled quietly.
"I don't know what I said in particular to Lady Mitford; nothing to frighten her, I hope," said Mrs. Hammond; "I was congratulating myself that she and I had got on so very well together."
"O yes, so you did, of course," said Sir Charles,--"sisters, and all that kind of thing. But I mean what you said to her about leaving town."
"Oh, that's perfectly correct. Mr. Hammond has seen Sir Charles Dumfunk and Dr. Wadd, and they both concur in saying that he ought not to have left Florence until the spring; and that he must leave London forthwith."
"And they have recommended Torquay as the best place for him; at least so my wife tells me."
"Quite right; and in obedience to their commands I have sent Miss Gillespie off this very day to take a house, and make all necessary arrangements."
"Who's Miss Gillespie?"
"My-well, I don't know what. I believefactotumis the Latin word for it. She's Miss Hammond's governess (my stepdaughter, you know), and my general adviser and manager. I don't know what I should do without her, as I told Colonel Alsager, who, by the way, did not pay much attention."
Laurence grinned a polite grin, but said never a word.
"She was with me in the pony-carriage the first day Mr. Bertram introduced you to me, Sir Charles. Ah, but she had her veil down, I recollect; and she asked all about you afterwards."
"Very civil of her to take any interest in me," said Sir Charles. "I recollect a veiled person in the pony-carriage; but not a bit of interest did I take in her. All that concentrated elsewhere, and that sort of thing;" and he smiled at Mrs. Hammond in a manner that made Laurence's stern face grow sterner than ever.
"Well, but about Torquay," continued Sir Charles. "I thought at first it was a tremendous nuisance your having to go out of town; but now I've got an idea which does not seem so bad. Town's horribly slow, you know, utterly empty; one does not know what to do with oneself; and so I've been suggesting to Georgie why not go down to Redmoor--our country place in Devon, you know--close to Torquay,--and one could fill the house with pleasant people, and you could come over from Torquay, and it would be very jolly indeed."
He said it in an off-hand manner, but he nevertheless looked earnestly up into Mrs. Hammond's face, and Laurence Alsager's expression grew sterner than ever.
Mrs. Hammond returned Sir Charles's glance, and said, "That would be thoroughly delightful! I was looking forward with horror, I confess, to a sojourn at Torquay. Those dreadful people in respirators always creeping about, and the stupid dinner-parties, where the talk is always about the doctor, and the quarter in which the wind is. But with you and Lady Mitford in the neighbourhood it would be quite another thing."
"O yes, and we'd get some jolly people down there.--Alsager, you'd come?"
"I don't think I'd come, and I'm anything but a jolly person. I must go to my father's at once."
"Gad, Alsager, you seem to keep your father always ready to bring forward whenever you want to be misanthropical. You were to have gone to him a week ago."
"Circumstances alter cases," said Mrs. Hammond with a short laugh; "and Colonel Alsager finds London more tolerable than he expected. Is it not so, Colonel?"
"'Very tolerable, and not to be endured,' as Dogberry says, since I am about to leave it," said Laurence. ("She would like to draw me into a semi-confidence on that subject; but she sha'n't," thought he.)
"No; but really, Alsager, do try and come, there's a good fellow; you can hold over your father until you want an excuse for not going to some place where you'll be bored. Now we won't bore you; we'll take down a rattling good team Tom Charteris and his wife--she plays and sings, and all that kind of thing, capitally; and Mrs. Masters, who's quiet to ride or drive--I don't mean that exactly, but she's available in two ways,--as a widow she can chaperon, and she's quite young and pretty enough to flirt on her own hook; and the Tyrrells--nice girls those; and Bligh and Winton,--Oh, and Dollamore! I'll ask Dollamore; he'd be just the man for such a party."
"O yes, you must have Lord Dollamore," said Mrs. Hammond; "he has such a delightfully dry way of saying unpleasant things about everybody; and as he never shoots or hunts, he is a perfect treasure in a country house, and devotes himself to the ladies." She shot one hasty glance at Laurence as she said this, which he duly perceived.
"O yes," said Sir Charles, "Dollamore's sure to come. And you, Alsager,--come, you've changed your mind?"
"Upon my word, the temptation you offer me is so great, that I'm unable to resist it. Yes, I'll come."
"I thought you would," said Sir Charles carelessly.
"I knew you would," said Mrs. Hammond in an undertone; then aloud, "What, going, Colonel Alsager? Goodbye; I'm so pleased to have seen you; and looking so well too, after the climate, and all the things you've gone through."
Laurence shook hands with Mitford and departed.
Yes, there was not much doubt about it: Sir Charles was tolerably well "on" in that quarter. An old poacher makes the best gamekeeper, because he knows the tricks and dodges of his old profession; and there was not one single move of Sir Charles Mitford's during the entire conversation which Laurence Alsager did not recognize as having been used by himself in bygone days. He knew the value of every look, knew the meaning of each inflexion of the voice; and appreciated to its full the motive-power which had induced the baronet suddenly to long for the country house at Redmoor, and to become disgusted with the dreariness of London. Determined to sit him out too, wasn't he? Lord! how often he, Laurence, had determinedly sat out bores for the sake of getting ten words, one hand-clasp, from Laura after they were gone! Yes, Mitford was getting on, certainly; making the running more quickly even than Dollamore had prophesied. Dollamore! ah, that reminded him: Dollamore was to be asked down to Redmoor. That, and the manner in which Mrs. Hammond had spoken of him and his visit, had decided Laurence in accepting Mitford's invitation. There could not be anything between them which--no; Dollamore could never have made aconfidanteof Laura and imparted to her--O no! Laura had not too much conscience in any case where her own passion or even her own whim was concerned; but she would shrink from meddling in an affair of that kind. And as for Lord Dollamore, he was essentially a man ofpetits soins, the exercise of which always laid those who practised them open to misunderstanding. He had a habit of hinting and insinuating also, which was unpleasant, but not very noxious. As people said, his bark was probably worse than his bite, and--
And at all events Laurence was very glad that he had accepted the invitation, and that he would be there to watch in person over anything that might happen.
Just on the highest ridge of the great waste of Redmoor, which is interspersed with dangerous peat-bogs and morasses, and extends about ten miles every way, with scarcely a fence or a tree, stands Redmoor House, from time immemorial--which means from the reign of Edward III.--the home of the Mitford family. Stands high and dry, and looking warm and snug and comfortable, with its red-brick face and its quaint gables and queer little mullioned windows. It is a house the sight of which would put spirit into a man chilled and numbed with looking over the great morass, and would give some vestige of credibility to the fact, that the sluggiest little stream born in the middle of the moor, and winding round through the gardens of the house, from its desolate birthplace flows down--as can be traced from the windows--through a land of plenty, of park and meadow, of orchard and cornfield, by the old cathedral-city, to the southern shore.
A grand old house, with a big dining-hall like St. George's Chapel at Windsor on a small scale, without the stalls, but with the knightly banners, and the old oak, and the stained glass, and the solemn air of antiquity; with a picture-gallery full of ancestors, beginning with Sir Gerard, temp. Henry VIII., painted by Holbein, a jolly red-bearded swashbuckler, not unlikehisroyal master, and ending with the late lamented Sir Percy, painted by Lawrence, with a curly head of hair, a fur collar to his coat, a smile of surprising sweetness, and altogether not unlikehisroyal master. There were drawing-rooms in blue and amber; a charming bow-windowed room hung with tapestry, and commanding a splendid view over the cultivated landscape, which, in the housekeeper's tradition, had been a boudoir for Sir Percy's lady, who died within three years of her marriage; a grand old library, the bookcases in black oak, and nearly all the books in Russia leather, save those bought under the auspices of the late baronet,--Hansard's Debates, and a legal and magisterial set of volumes all bound in calf and red-lettered at the back. There is a grand terrace in front of the house, and all kinds of gardens stretch round it: Dutch gardens, formal, quaint, and solemn, with a touch of old-world stiffness like the Mynheers; Italian gardens, bright and sunny and gaudy, very glittering and effective, but not very satisfactory after all, like the Signori; English gardens, with ample space of glorious close-shaved lawn, and such wealth of roses as to keep the whole air heavy with their fragrance. Great prolific kitchen-gardens at the back, and stables and coach-houses which might be better; but the late baronet cared for nothing but his quarter-sessions and his yacht; and so long as he had a pair of horses to jolt with him to join the judge's procession at assize-times, troubled himself not one jot how the internal economy of the stables was ordered.
This is all to be altered now. It was not very bright in Sir Percy's time, and it has been deadly-lively indeed since his death; but the Sleeping Beauty herself was never more astonished by the arrival of the prince than was Mrs. Austin, the old housekeeper at Redmoor, by the advent of a tall hook-nosed gentleman, who announced himself as Captain Bligh, and who brought a letter from Sir Charles Mitford, duly signed and sealed with the family arms, which Mrs. Austin knew so well, ordering implicit obedience to whatever orders the bearer might choose to give. With him came a sleek-looking man with close-cut hair and a white cravat, whom Mrs. Austin at first took for a clergyman, until she discovered, he was the stud-groom. This person inspected the stables, and the remnant of the late Sir Percy's stud, and reported to Captain Bligh that the stables was pigsties, and as for the hanimals, he should think they must be the 'osses as Noah put into the hark.
A freshrégimeand fresh work to be done by everybody under it. No more chance for Tummus coachman and Willum helper to just ride harses to ex'cise and dryaive 'em out in trap whenever wanted to go crass to races or market, or give missus and young 'uns a little change. No more chance for Dawniel Todd the Scotch gardener to make his market of all the fruits, flowers, and vegetables, selling them to Mrs. Dean or Miss Archdeacon, or to the officers up in barracks. Not much chance for the head-keeper and his two under-trappers, who really had all their work to do to keep the game down after Sir Percy's death, so strictly had that terror of poachers preserved; though they thought they saw their way to balancing any loss which they might sustain from being unable any longer to supply the poulterers of the county town, in a house full of ardent sportsmen, with innumerable heavy tips after battue-days, and an occasional dog to break or to sell. The old lodge-gates had begun to grow rusty from disuse; but they are constantly on the stretch now, for carts with ladders and scaffolding-poles, and men in light linen blouses daubed with paint, were streaming in and out from morning till night. There is a new roof being put on the stables, and the outhouses are being painted and whitewashed throughout; and the mastiff, who has been bred on the true English principle of "keeping himself to himself," has been driven quite mad at the influx of new faces, and has shown such a convincing set of teeth to the painter's men, that they have declined proceeding with their work until he has been removed. So Tummus coachman and Willum helper have removed his big kennel to the back of the stables; and here Turk lies, with nothing but his black nose visible in the clean straw, until he catches sight of a painter or a tiler pursuing his occupation high up in mid-air, and then with one baleful spring Turk bounds out of his kennel, and unmistakably expresses his fervent wish to have that skilled labourer's life's-blood.
Captain Bligh too sits heavy on the lodge-keeper's soul. For the captain, after a cursory inspection of the vehicles at Redmoor louse, has sent down to Exeter for a dog-cart, and has duly received thence the nearest approach which the Exeterian coachbuilder had on hand. It is not a bad tax-cart, of the kind known as "Whitechapel," has a very big pair of wheels, and behind a long chestnut mare--which the captain found in a loose box in the corner of the yard, and which it seemed Tummus the coachman used to reserve for his special driving-runs remarkably well and light. In this tax-cart Captain Bligh drives to and from the station, where he is occupied watching the disembarkation of furniture coming direct from Gillow's--ottomans for the smoking-rooms, and looking-glasses for my lady's boudoir; to and from the market-town, where the painters and other workpeople are to be hunted up; to and from the barracks, where he has found that hospitality and good-fellowship which are invariable characteristics of the service. From the barracks the Captain is not unfrequently very late in returning, yelling out, "Ga-a-ate!" in the early hours of the morning, and frightening the lodge-keeper from peaceful dreams; and as the painter's men arrive at six, and the railway-van did not leave till eleven, the lodge-keeper begins to feel, on the whole, that life is not all beer and skittles, and rather wishes that the late baronet had never been drownded.
Now things begin to look a little straighter, and rumours are rife that it won't be long before the new baronet brings his wife down, and, regularly takes possession. The old stables have been re-tiled and touched up, four new loose boxes, "wi' sla-ate mangers and brass foxes' heads a-holdin' the pillar-reins," have been erected, the coach-houses have been cleaned and enlarged. The stud-groom, under whose directions all these alterations have been made, has watched their completion, and has then started for London, returning with a whole string of splendid creatures, all in the most perfect-fitting hoods and cloths embroidered with Sir C. M.'s initials and bloody hand, railed down to the nearest station, and brought over thence in charge of three underlings, also sleek-headed, tight-trousered, and white-cravated. Not in income, but in status do Tummus coachman and Willum helper feel the change. They are to be retained on the establishment at the same rate of wages; but they are simply to make themselves generally useful in the stables, and to have no particular duties whatsoever.
Very busy indeed has been Captain Bligh; but his labours are drawing to an end now, and he begins to think that he has been very successful He has been good in generalization, he thinks; there's nothing that any one could find particular fault with, looking at the materials he had to work upon, and the time he had to do it in. But there are two things about which he knows in managing for other people you should be particular. Take care that both the men and the women have a stunning good room of their own. You know the library is generally considered the men's room; but Charley ain't much of a bookworm; theTimesof a day, andBellof a Sunday, and that kind of thing; and the library's an infernal big room, with all sorts of plaster-casts of philosophic classic parties grinning at you off the tops of the shelves. Charley won't like that; so Bligh has fitted him up this little crib, next to his dressing-room, cosey and comfortable, good-drawing stove, little let-down flap for his grog, whip-rack, pipe-rack, and all snug--don't you think so? Bollindar and Smyth, of the 26th Cameronians, to whom the question is put, think so--rather! and look all round the room and nod their heads sagaciously, and clap Bligh on the back and tell him what a knowing hand he is, and then go off to try the new billiard-table which Thurston has just sent from London. That Lady Mitford's special room should also be something to be proud of, is also a desideratum with the Captain; but there he mistrusts his own taste. The late Mrs. Bligh had been a barrack-master's daughter, and having lived in barracks both before and after her marriage, had been accustomed, as her husband recollected, to think highly of any place where the doors would shut and the windows would not rattle. But the old campaigner recollected that Mrs. Barrington the widow, daughter of the Dean and Deaness, and then living at home with her parents in the Close, had, during the two happy years of her marriage to George Barrington, private secretary to Lord Muffington when keeper of the Gold Fish to her Majesty, lived in very decent society in London; and it was after Mrs. Barrington's idea that the bow-windowed boudoir had its bow-window filled with plate-glass, and a light chintz paper and maple furniture. Sipping a glass of '20 port with her lunch-biscuit (the cellars at Redmoor were splendidly stocked, and wanted no renovation), Mrs. Dean declared that the room was perfect; and poor pale peaky little Mrs. Barrington, looking round at the elegance and comfort, was reminded of the days when she was something more than a dependent on her parents' bounty, and when she had a husband whose chiefest delight was the fulfilment of her every wish.
So the Captain wrote up to his principal, and reported all in readiness; and the day for Sir Charles and Lady Mitford to come down was agreed upon. There was some talk of having a public reception; but the Captain did not think Sir Charles would care particularly about that, and so the scheme was given up. However, when the carriage which fetched them from the station dashed through the lodge-gates, the tenantry, some mounted on their rough little Redmoor ponies, some on foot, but all in their best clothes, were drawn up on either side of the avenue, and greeted their new landlord with reiterated cheers. They are an impressible people, these Devonians; and they were much gratified by the frank, hearty, sporting appearance of Sir Charles, "so different from Sir Percy, as were all dried-up like;" they liked the jolly way in which he stood up and waved his hat to them; while as for Lady Mitford, the impression she created was something extraordinary. The men raved about her, and the women seemed to feel the greatest gratification in repeating that she was "a pure Devon lass, as any one could tell by her skin."
Sir Charles had wished to bring all their friends down to Redmoor at the same time as they themselves came; but Georgie, who, ever since the visit to the ancestral home had been determined upon, had found her mistress-of-the-house position weighing on her mind, begged that they might be there for at least a day or two by themselves, that she might settle with Mrs. Austin the disposal of the various rooms, and the general arrangement of the household. To this Sir Charles agreed, and they came alone.
The "day or two" spent by themselves were very happily passed by Georgie. The whole of the first day was consumed in going from room to room with Mrs. Austin, listening to the family history, and thoroughly examining all the pictures, tapestry, and curios. The old lady was enchanted with her new mistress, who took so much interest in everything, and who, above all, was such an excellent listener. Then Georgie, whose housekeeping tastes had not had much opportunity for display in the parsonage at Fishbourne, under Mrs. Austin's guidance went "through the things," absolutely revelling in snowy linen and spotless damask, in glorious old china and quaint antique glass, in great stores of jams and preserves, and all Mrs. Austin's household treasures. She did not take so much interest in the display of plate, though it was really very handsome and very valuable; not the least effective among the trophies being several splendid regatta-prizes won by the late baronet's celebrated yacht. With the boudoir Georgie was delighted; and when she heard from Captain Bligh that, feeling his utter ignorance in the matter, he had consulted Mrs. Barrington, after whose taste the room had been prepared, Georgie declared that Mrs. Barrington must be a very nice woman to have such excellent taste, would probably prove a delightful neighbour, and certainly should be called upon as soon as possible.
You see, if Georgie "gushed" a little at this period of her life, it was not unnatural, and was certainly excusable. She had been brought up very quietly, and had had, as we have seen, her little trouble and had, borne it with great pluck and determination; and now, as she imagined, she was thoroughly happy. Husband's love, kind, friends, wealth and position, were all hers; and as she was young and impulsive, and thoroughly appreciative of all these blessings, she could not help showing her appreciation. In those days, even more than in the present, it was considered in the worst taste to be in the smallest degree natural; a dull uncaring acceptance of events as they occurred, without betraying the least astonishment or concern, was considered the acme of good breeding; so that unless Georgie altered a great deal before the London season, she would be voted very badtonby Lady Clanronald and the Marchioness of Tappington, those sovereigns of society. But there is some little time yet before the commencement of the season, and Georgie may then have become as unappreciative and as undemonstrative as the other women in her position. Just now she is thoroughly happy with Mrs. Austin and the contents of the linen and china-rooms.
Whether, as the woman is the lesser man, the feminine mind is much more easily amused than the masculine, or whether there was much more absolute novelty to Lady Mitford in her position than to Sir Charles in his (he had seen something of the external life of fashionable people, and, like most military men, had acquired a veneer of swelldom while in the army), it is difficult to determine; but it is certain that the "day or two" to be spent before the arrival of their friends seemed like a day or twenty-two to Sir Charles Mitford. He had gone over every room of the house, thoroughly examined the new stables and loose boxes, had out all the horses and critically examined them, had tried two new pairs and spent an hour or two in breaking them, had pulled the old mastiff's ears until the dog growled, had then kicked him for growling, had put all his whips and all his pipes into their respective racks, had smoked more than was good for him, had whistled every tune he could remember, and was utterly and horribly bored.
He was like the little boy in the child's story-book: he wanted somebody to come and play with him. Captain Bligh had been obliged to leave for London directly his friends arrived, and was coming down again with the first batch of visitors. And Sir Charles hated being alone; he wanted somebody to smoke with him, and to play billiards with him. He used to put a cigar in his mouth and go and knock the balls about, trying various new hazards; but it did not amuse him. He could not ask the officers of the neighbouring garrison to come over, as his plea to his friends had been the necessity for preparation in the house. He grew very cross towards the close of the second day; and after dinner, as he was going to smoke a sulky pipe in his own room, Georgie came up to him, and put her arm through his, and looked at and spoke to him so affectionately, that his conscience gave him a little twinge as he thought how lately he had let his fancy run on eyes and hair of a different colour from his wife's.
"What is it, Charley? You're all wrong, I see; not ill, are you, darling?"
"No, Georgie, not ill; only confoundedly bored."
"Bored?"
"Yes, bored! Oh, I know it's all very well for you, who have your house to look after and Mrs. Austin to attend to, and all that kind of thing--that passes the time. But I've had nothing to do, and nobody to speak to, and I'm regularly sick of it. If this is the kind of thing one's to expect in country life, I shall go back to town to-morrow."
"Oh, you won't feel it when your friends come down, Charley; they'll be here the day after to-morrow. It's only because you're alone with me--and I'm not much of a companion for you, I know--that you're moped. Now let us see, what can you do to-morrow? Oh, I have it,--why not drive over and see your friends the Hammonds at Torquay?"
He had thought of that several times, but had not mentioned it because--well, he did not know why. But now his wife had started the subject; so of course it was all right. Still he hesitated.
"Well, I don't know--"
"Now I think it a capital idea. You can drive over there, and they'll most probably ask you to stop to dinner, and you'll have a fine moonlight drive back. And then the next day all the rest of the people will come down."
After this Sir Charles did not attempt, however faintly, to interpose an objection, and was in a very good temper for the remainder of the evening.