Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume II.. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ her, mother,” said he, with a grin of devilish spite-fulness, – “just ask her; and even if she won’t tell you, your woman’s wit will find out the reason without her aid.”

      “I declare, Dudley, you are too bad, – too bad,” said she, coloring with anger as she spoke.

      “I should say, Too good, – too good by half, mother; at least, if endurance be any virtue. The world is beautifully generous towards us husbands. We are either monsters of cruelty, or we come into that category the French call ‘complaisant.’ I can’t say I have any fancy for either class; but if I am driven to a choice, I accept the part which meets the natural easiness of my disposition, the general kindliness of my character.”

      For an instant Lady Lendrick’s eyes flashed with a fiery indignation, and she seemed about to reply with anger; but with an effort she controlled her passion, and took a turn or two in the room without speaking. At last, having recovered her calm, she said, “Is the marriage project then broken off?”

      “So far as the Chief is concerned, it is. He has written a furious letter to his granddaughter, – dwelt forcibly on the ingratitude of her conduct. There is nothing old people so constantly refer to ingratitude as young folks falling in love. It is strange what a close tie would seem to connect this sin of ingratitude with the tender passion. He has reminded her of all the good precepts and wise examples that were placed before her at the Priory, and how shamefully she would seem to have forgotten them. He asks her, Did she ever see him fall in love? Did she ever see any weakness of this kind in Mrs. Beales the housekeeper, or Joe the gardener?”

      “What stuff and nonsense!” said Lady Lendrick, turning angrily away from him. “Sir William is not an angel, but as certainly he is not a fool.”

      “There I differ from you altogether. He may be the craftiest lawyer, the wisest judge, the neatest scholar, and the best talker of his day, – these are all claims I cannot adjudicate on, – they are far and away above me. But I do pretend to know something about life and the world we live in, and I tell you that your all-accomplished Chief Baron is, in whatever relates to these, as consummate an ass as ever I met with. It is not that he is sometimes wrong; it is that he is never right.”

      “I can imagine he is not very clever at billiards, and it is possible that there may be persons more conversant than he with the odds at Tattersall’s,” said she, with a sneer.

      “Not bad things to know something about, either of them,” said he, quietly; “but not exactly what I was alluding to. It is, however, somewhat amusing, mother, to see you come out as his defender. I assure you, honestly, when I counselled him on that new wig, and advised him to the choice of that dark velvet paletot, I never contemplated his making a conquest of you.”

      “He has done some unwise things in life,” said she, with a fierce energy; “but I do not know if he has ever done so foolish a one as inviting you to come to live under his roof.”

      “No, mother; the mistake was his not having done it earlier, – done it when he might have fallen in more readily with the wise changes I have introduced into his household, and when – most important element – he had a better balance at his banker’s. You can’t imagine what sums of money he has gone through.”

      “I know nothing – I do not desire to know anything – of Sir William’s money matters.”

      Not heeding in the slightest degree the tone of reproof she spoke in, he went on, in the train of his own thoughts: “Yes! It would have made a considerable difference to each of us had we met somewhat earlier. It was a sort of backing I always wanted in life.”

      “There was something else that you needed far more,” said she, with a sarcastic sternness.

      “I know what you mean, mother, – I know what it is. Your politeness will not permit you to mention it. You would hint that I might not have been the worse of a little honesty, – is n’t that it? I was certain of it. Well, do you know, mother, there’s nothing in it, – positively nothing. I ‘ve met fellows who have tried it, – clever fellows too, some of them, – and they have universally admitted it was as great a sham as the other thing. As St. John said, Honesty is a sort of balloon jib, that will bowl you along splendidly with fair weather; but when it comes on to blow, you’ll soon find it better to shift your canvas and bend a very different sail. Now, men like myself are out in all kinds of weather; we want a handy rig and light tackle.”

      “Is Lucy coming to luncheon?” said Lady Lendrick, most unmistakably showing how little palatable to her was his discourse.

      “Not she. She’s performing devoted mother up at the Priory, teaching Regy his catechism, or Cary her scales, or, what has an infinitely finer effect on the surrounders, dining with the children. Only dine with the children, and you may run a-muck through the Decalogue all the evening after.”

      And with this profound piece of morality he adjusted his hat before the glass, trimmed his whiskers, gave himself a friendly nod, and walked away.

      CHAPTER VIII. TWO MEN WELL MET

      Sewell had long coveted the suite of rooms known at the Priory as “Miss Lucy’s.” They were on the ground-floor; they opened on a small enclosed garden of their own; they had a delicious aspect; and it was a thousand pities they should be consigned to darkness and spiders while he wanted so much a snuggery of his own, – a little territory which could be approached without coming through the great entrance, and where he could receive his familiars, and a variety of other creatures whose externals alone would have denied them admittance to any decent household.

      Now, although Sir William’s letter to Lucy was the sort of document which, admitting no species of reply, usually closes a correspondence, Sewell had not courage to ask the Chief for the rooms in question. It would be too like peremptory action to be prudent. It might lead the old man to reconsider his judgment. Who knows what tender memories the thought might call up? Indeed, as Sewell himself remembered, he had seen fellows in India show great emotion at the sale of a comrade’s kit, though they had read the news of his death with comparative composure. “If the old fellow were to toddle in here, and see her chair and her writing-table and her easel, it might undo everything,” said he; so that he wisely resolved it would be better to occupy the premises without a title than endeavor to obtain them legitimately.

      By a slight effort of diplomacy with Mrs. Beales, he obtained possession of the key, and as speedily installed himself in occupancy. Indeed, when the venerable housekeeper came round to see what the Colonel could possibly want to do with the rooms, she scarcely recognized them. A pipe-rack covered one wall, furnished with every imaginable engine for smoke; a stand for rifles and fowling-pieces occupied a corner; some select prints of Derby winners and ballet celebrities were scattered about; while a small African monkey, of that color they call green, sat in a small arm-chair, of his own, near the window, apparently sunk in deep reflection. This creature, whom his master called Dundas – I am unable to say after what other representative of the name – was gifted with an instinctive appreciation of duns, and flew at the man who presented a bill as unerringly as ever a bull rushed at the bearer of a red rag.

      How he learned to know tailors, shoemakers, and tobacconists, and distinguish them from the rest of mankind, and how he recognized them as natural enemies, I cannot say. As for Se well, he always spoke of the gift as the very strongest evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory, and declared it was the prospective sense of troubles to come that suggested the instinct. The chalk head, the portrait Lucy had made of Sir Brook, still hung over the fireplace. It would be a curious subject of inquiry to know why Sewell suffered it still to hold its place there. If there was a man in the world whom he thoroughly hated, it was Fossbrooke. If there was one to injure whom СКАЧАТЬ