Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.. Lever Charles James

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      CHAPTER IV. HOME DIPLOMACIES

      “Well, it ‘s done now, Lucy, and it can’t be helped,” said young Lendrick to his sister, as, with an unlighted cigar between his lips, and his hands in the pockets of his shooting-jacket, he walked impatiently up and down the drawing-room. “I ‘m sure if I only suspected you were so strongly against it, I ‘d not have done it.”

      “My dear Tom, I’m only against it because I think papa would be so. You know we never see any one here when he is at home, and why should we now, because he is absent?”

      “Just for that reason. It’s our only chance, girl.”

      “Oh, Tom!”

      “Well, I don’t mean that exactly, but I said it to startle you. No, Lucy; but, you see, here’s how the matter stands. I have been three whole days in their company. On Tuesday the young fellow gave me that book of flies and the top-joint of my rod. Yesterday I lunched with them. To-day they pressed me so hard to dine with them that I felt almost rude in persisting to refuse; and it was as much to avoid the awkwardness of the situation as anything else that I asked them up to tea this evening.”

      “I’m sure, Tom, if it would give you any pleasure – ”

      “Of course it gives me pleasure,” broke he in; “I don’t suspect that fellows of my age like to live like hermits. And whom do I ever see down here? Old Mills and old Tobin, and Larry Day, the dog-breaker. I ask his pardon for putting him last, for he is the best of the three. Girls can stand this sort of nun’s life, but I ‘ll be hanged if it will do for us.”

      “And then, Tom,” resumed she, in the same tone, “remember they are both perfect strangers. I doubt if you even know their names.”

      “That I do, – the old fellow is Sir Brook something or other. It ‘s not Fogey, but it begins like it; and the other is called Trafford, – Lionel, I think, is his Christian name. A glorious fellow, too; was in the 9th Lancers and in the blues, and is now here with the fifty – th because he went it too hard in the cavalry. He had a horse for the Derby two years ago.” The tone of proud triumph in which he made this announcement seemed to say, Now, all discussion about him may cease. “Not but,” added he, after a pause, “you might like the old fellow best; he has such a world of stories, and he draws so beautifully. The whole time we were in the boat he was sketching something; and he has a book full of odds and ends; a tea-party in China, quail-shooting in Java, a wedding in Candia, – I can’t tell what more; but he ‘s to bring them up here with him.”

      “I was thinking, Tom, that it might be as well if you ‘d go down and ask Dr. Mills to come to tea. It would take off some of the awkwardness of our receiving two strangers.”

      “But they ‘re not strangers, Lucy; not a bit of it. I call him Trafford, and he calls me Lendrick; and the old cove is the most familiar old fellow I ever met.”

      “Have you said anything to Nicholas yet?” asked she, in some eagerness.

      “No; and that’s exactly what I want you to do for me. That old bear bullies us all, so that I can’t trust myself to speak to him.”

      “Well, don’t go away, and I’ll send for him now;” and she rang the bell as she spoke. A smart-looking lad answered the summons, to whom she said, “Tell Nicholas I want him.”

      “Take my advice, Lucy, and merely say there are two gentlemen coming to tea this evening; don’t let the old villain think you are consulting him about it, or asking his advice.”

      “I must do it my own way,” said she; “only don’t interrupt. Don’t meddle, – mind that, Tom.” The door opened, and a very short, thick-set old man, dressed in a black coat and waistcoat, and drab breeches and white stockings, with large shoe-buckles in his shoes, entered. His face was large and red, the mouth immensely wide, and the eyes far set from each other, his low forehead being shadowed by a wig of coarse red hair, which moved when he spoke, and seemed almost to possess a sort of independent vitality.

      He had been reading when he was summoned, and his spectacles had been pushed up over his forehead, while he still held the county paper in his hand, – a sort of proud protest against being disturbed.

      “You heard that Miss Lucy sent for you?” said Tom Lendrick, haughtily, as his eye fell upon the newspaper.

      “I did,” was the curt answer, as the old fellow, with a nervous shake of the head, seemed to announce that he was ready for battle.

      “What I wanted, Nicholas, was this,” interposed the girl, in a voice of very winning sweetness; “Mr. Tom has invited two gentlemen this evening to tea.”

      “To tay!” cried Nicholas, as if the fact staggered all credulity.

      “Yes, to tea; and I was thinking if you would go down to the town and get some biscuits, or a sponge-cake, perhaps – whatever, indeed, you thought best; and also beg Dr. Mills to step in, saying that as papa was away – ”

      “That you was going to give a ball?”

      “No. Not exactly that, Nicholas,” said she, smiling; “but that two friends of my brother’s – ”

      “And where did he meet his friends?” cried he, with a marked emphasis on the “friends.” “Two strangers. God knows who or what! Poachers as like as anything else. The ould one might be worse.”

      “Enough of this,” said Tom, sternly. “Are you the master here? Go off, sir, and do what Miss Lucy has ordered you.”

      “I will not, – the devil a step,” said the old man, who now thrust the paper into a capacious pocket, and struck each hand on a hip. “Is it when the ‘Jidge’ is dying, when the newpapers has a column of the names that ‘s calling to ask after him, you are to be carousing and feastin’ here?”

      “Dear Nicholas, there’s no question of feasting. It is simply a cup of tea we mean to give; sorely there’s no carousing in that. And as to grandpapa, papa says that he was certainly better yesterday, and Dr. Beattie has hopes now.”

      “I have n’t, then, and I know him better than Dr. Beattie.”

      “What a pity they have n’t sent for you for the consultation!” said Tom, ironically.

      “And look here, Nicholas,” said Lucy, drawing the old man towards the door of a small room that led off the drawing-room, “we could have tea here; it will look less formal, and give less trouble; and Mears could wait, – he does it very well; and you need n’t be put out at all.” These last words fell to a whisper; but he was beyond reserve, beyond flattery. The last speech of her brother still rankled in his memory, and all that fell upon his ear since that fell unheeded.

      “I was with your grandfather, Master Tom,” said the old man, slowly, “twenty-one years before you were born! I carried his bag down to Court the day he defended Neal O’ Gorman for high treason, and I was with him the morning he shot Luke Dillon at Castle Knock; and this I ‘ll say and stand to, there ‘s not a man in Ireland, high or low, knows the Chief Baron better than myself.”

      “It must be a great comfort to you both,” said Tom; but his sister had laid her hand on his mouth and made the words unintelligible.

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