Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  ‘Ah, well; never mind,’ grunted Jack, interrupting the labyrinth of lies. ‘I dare say these will do — I dare say these will do,’ putting them on; adding, ‘Now, if you’ll lend me a shawl for my neck, and a mackintosh, my name shall be Walker.’

  ‘Better make it Trotter,’ replied his lordship, ‘considering the distance you have to go.’

  ‘Good,’ said Jack, mounting and driving away.

  ‘It will be a blessing if we get there,’ observed Jack to the liveried stable-lad, as the old bag of bones of a mare went hitching and limping away.

  ‘Oh, she can go when she’s warm,’ replied the lad, taking her across the ears with the point of the whip. The wheels followed merrily over the sound, hard road through the park, and the gentle though almost imperceptible fall of the ground giving an impetus to the vehicle, they bowled away as if they had four of the soundest, freshest legs in the world before them, instead of nothing but a belly-band between them and eternity.

  When, however, they cleared the noble lodge and got upon the unscraped mud of the Deepdebt turnpike, the pace soon slackened, and, instead of the gig running away with the old mare, she was fairly brought to her collar. Being a game one, however, she struggled on with a trot, till at length, turning up the deeply spurlinged, clayey bottomed cross-road between Rookgate and Clamley, it was all she could do to drag the gig through the holding mire. Bump, bump, jolt, jolt, creak, creak, went the vehicle. Jack now diving his elbow into the lad’s ribs, the lad now diving his into Jack’s; both now threatening to go over on the same side, and again both nearly chucked on to the old mare’s quarters. A sharp, cutting sleet, driving pins and needles directly in their faces, further disconcerted our travellers. Jack felt acutely for his new eight-and-sixpenny hat, it being the only article of dress he had on of his own.

  Long and tedious as was the road, weak and jaded as was the mare, and long as Jack stopped at Starfield, he yet reached Jawleyford Court before the messenger Harry.

  As our friend Jawleyford was stamping about his study anathematizing a letter he had received from the solicitor to the directors of the Doembrown and Sinkall Railway, informing him that they were going to indulge in the winding-up act, he chanced to look out of his window just as the contracted limits of a winter’s day were drawing the first folds of night’s muslin curtain over the landscape, when he espied a gig drawn by a white horse, with a dot-and-go-one sort of action, hopping its way up the slumpey avenue.

  ‘That’s Buggins the bailiff,’ exclaimed he to himself, as the recollection of an unanswered lawyer’s letter flashed across his mind; and he was just darting off to the bell to warn Spigot not to admit any one, when the lad’s cockade, standing in relief against the sky-line, caused him to pause and gaze again at the unwonted apparition.

  ‘Who the deuce can it be?’ asked he of himself, looking at his watch, and seeing it was a quarter-past four. ‘It surely can’t be my lord, or that Jack Spraggon coming after all?’ added he, drawing out a telescope and opening a lancet-window.

  ‘Spraggon, as I live!’ exclaimed he, as he caught Jack’s harsh, spectacled features, and saw him titivating his hair and arranging his collar and stock as he approached.

  ‘Well, that beats everything!’ exclaimed Jawleyford, burning with rage as he fastened the window again.

  He stood for a few seconds transfixed to the spot, not knowing what on earth to do. At last resolution came to his aid, and, rushing upstairs to his dressing-room, he quickly divested himself of his coat and waistcoat, and slipped on a dressing-gown and night-cap. He then stood, door in hand, listening for the arrival. He could just hear the gig grinding under the portico, and distinguish Jack’s gruff voice saying to the servant from the top of the steps, ‘We’ll start directly after breakfast, mind.’ A tremendous peal of the bell immediately followed, convulsing the whole house, for nobody had seen the vehicle approaching, and the establishment had fallen into the usual state of undress torpor that intervenes between calling hours and dinner-time.

  The bell not being answered as quickly as Jack expected, he just opened the door himself; and when Spigot arrived, with such a force as he could raise at the moment, Jack was in the act of ‘peeling’ himself, as he called it.

  ‘What time do we dine?’ asked he, with the air of a man with the entrée.

  ‘Seven o’clock, my lord — that’s to say, sir — that’s to say, my lord,’ for Spigot really didn’t know whether it was Jack or his master.

  ‘Seven o’clock!’ muttered Jack. ‘What the deuce is the use of dinin’ at such an hour as that in winter?’

  Jack and my lord always dined as soon as they got home from hunting. Jack, having got himself out of his wraps, and run his bristles backwards with a pocket-comb, was ready for presentation.

  ‘What name shall I enounce?’ asked Mr. Spigot, fearful of committing himself before the ladies.

  ‘Mister Spraggon, to be sure,’ exclaimed Jack, thinking, because he knew who he was, that everybody else ought to know too.

  Spigot then led the way to the music-room.

  The peal at the bell had caused a suppressed commotion in the apartment. Buried in the luxurious depths of a well-cushioned low chair, Mr. Sponge sat, Mogg in hand, with a toe cocked up, now dipping leisurely into his work — now whispering something sweet into Amelia’s ear, who sat with her crochet-work at his side; while Emily played the piano, and Mrs. Jawleyford kept in the background, in the discreet way mothers do when there is a little business going on. The room was in that happy state of misty light that usually precedes the entrance of candles — a light that no one likes to call darkness, lest their eyes might be supposed to be failing. It is a convenient light, however, for a timid stranger, especially where there are not many footstools set to trip him up — an exemption, we grieve to say, not accorded to every one.

  Though Mr. Spraggon was such a cool, impudent fellow with men, he was the most awkward, frightened wretch among ladies that ever was seen. His conversation consisted principally of coughing. ‘Hem!’ — cough— ‘yes, mum,’ — hem — cough, cough— ‘the day,’ — hem — cough— ‘mum, is’ — hem — cough— ‘very,’ — hem — cough— ‘mum, cold.’ But we will introduce him to our family circle.

  ‘Mr. Spraggon!’ exclaimed Spigot in a tone equal to the one in which Jack had announced himself in the entrance; and forthwith there was such a stir in the twilit apartment — such suppressed exclamations of:

  ‘Mr. Spraggon! — Mr. Spraggon! What can bring him here?’

  Our traveller’s creaking boots and radiant leathers eclipsing the sombre habiliments of Mr. Spigot, Mrs. Jawleyford quickly rose from her Pembroke writing-desk, and proceeded to greet him.

  ‘My daughters I think you know, Mr. Spraggon; also Mr. Sponge? Mr. Spraggon,’ continued she, with a wave of her hand to where our hero was ensconced in his form, in case they should not have made each other’s speaking acquaintance.

  The young ladies rose, and curtsied prettily; while Mr. Sponge gave a sort of backward hitch of his head as he sat in his chair, as much as to say, ‘I know as much of Mr. Spraggon as I want.’

  ‘Tell your master Mr. Spraggon is here,’ added Mrs. Jawleyford to Spigot, as that worthy was leaving the room. ‘It’s a cold day, Mr. Spraggon; won’t you come near the fire?’ continued Mrs. Jawleyford, addressing our friend, who had come to a full stop just under the chandelier in the centre of the room. ‘Hem — cough — hem — thank ye, mum,’ muttered Jack. ‘I’m not — hem — cough — cold, thank ye, mum.’ His face and hands were purple notwithstanding.

  ‘How is my Lord Scamperdale?’ asked Amelia, who had a strong inclination to keep in with all parties.

  ‘Hem — cough — hem — my lord — that’s to say, my lady — hem — cough — I mean to say, my lord’s pretty well, thank ye,’ stuttered Jack.

  ‘Is he coming?’ asked Amelia.

  ‘Hem — cough — hem — my lord’s — hem — not well — cough — no — hem — I mean to say — h
em — cough — my lord’s gone — hem — to dine — cough — hem — with his — cough — friend Lord Bubbley Jock — hem — cough — I mean Barker — cough.’

  Jack and Lord Scamperdale were so in the habit of calling his lordship by this nickname, that Jack let it slip, or rather cough out, inadvertently.

  In due time Spigot returned, with ‘Master’s compliments, and he was very sorry, but he was so unwell that he was quite unable to see any one.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ exclaimed Mrs. Jawleyford.

  ‘Poor pa!’ lisped Amelia.

  ‘What a pity!’ observed Mr. Sponge.

  ‘I must go and see him,’ observed Mrs. Jawleyford, hurrying off.

  ‘Hem — cough — hem — hope he’s not much — hem — damaged?’ observed Jack.

  The old lady being thus got rid of, and Jawleyford disposed of — apparently for the night — Mr. Spraggon felt more comfortable, and presently yielded to Amelia’s entreaties to come near the fire and thaw himself. Spigot brought candles, and Mr. Sponge sat moodily in his chair, alternately studying Mogg’s Cab Fares— ‘Old Bailey, Newgate Street, to or from the Adelphi, the Terrace, 1s. 6d.; Admiralty, 2s.’; and so on; and hazarding promiscuous sidelong sort of observations, that might be taken up by Jack or not, as he liked. He seemed determined to pay Mr. Jack off for his out-of-door impudence. Amelia, on the other hand, seemed desirous of making up for her suitor’s rudeness, and kept talking to Jack with an assiduity that perfectly astonished her sister, who had always heard her speak of him with the utmost abhorrence.

  Mrs. Jawleyford found her husband in a desperate state of excitement, his influenza being greatly aggravated by Harry having returned very drunk, with the mare’s knees desperately broken ‘by a fall,’ as Harry hiccuped out, or by his ‘throwing her down,’ as Jawleyford declared. Horses fall with their masters, servants throw them down. What a happiness it is when people can send their servants on errands by coaches or railways, instead of being kept on the fidget all day, lest a fifty-pound horse should be the price of a bodkin or a basket of fish!

  Amelia’s condescension quite turned Jack’s head; and when he went upstairs to dress, he squinted at his lordship’s best clothes, all neatly laid out for him on the bed, with inward satisfaction at having brought them.

  ‘Dash me!’ said he, ‘I really think that girl has a fancy for me.’ Then he examined himself minutely in the glass, brushed his whiskers up into a curve on his cheeks, the curves almost corresponding with the curve of his spectacles above; then he gave his bristly, porcupine-shaped head a backward rub with a sort of thing like a scrubbing-brush. ‘If I’d only had the silver specs,’ thought he, ‘I should have done.’

  He then began to dress; an operation that, ever and anon was interrupted by the outburst of volleys of smoke from the little spluttering, smouldering fire in the little shabby room Jawleyford insisted on having him put into.

  Jack tried all things — opening the window and shutting the door, shutting the window and opening the door; but finding that, instead of curing it, he only produced the different degrees of comparison — bad, worse, worst — he at length shut both, and applied himself vigorously to dressing. He soon got into his stockings and pumps, also his black Saxony trousers; then came a fine black laced fringe cravat, and the damson-coloured velvet waistcoat with the cut-steel buttons.

  ‘Dash me, but I look pretty well in this!’ said he, eyeing first one side and then the other as he buttoned it. He then stuck a chased and figured fine gold brooch, with two pendant tassel-drops, set with turquoise and agates, that he had abstracted from his lordship’s dressing-case, into his, or rather his lordship’s finely worked shirt-front, and crowned the toilet with his lordship’s best new blue coat with velvet collar, silk facings, and the Flat Hat Hunt button— ‘a striding fox,’ with the letters ‘F.H.H.’ below.

  ‘Who shall say Mr. Spraggon’s not a gentleman?’ said he, as he perfumed one of his lordship’s fine coronetted cambric handkerchiefs with lavender-water. Scent, in Jack’s opinion, was one of the criterions of a gentleman.

  Somehow Jack felt quite differently towards the house of Jawleyford; and though he did not expect much pleasure in Mr. Sponge’s company, he thought, nevertheless, that the ladies and he — Amelia and he at least — would get on very well. Forgetting that he had come to eject Sponge on the score of insufficiency, he really began to think he might be a very desirable match for one of them himself.

  ‘The Spraggons are a most respectable family,’ said he, eyeing himself in the glass. ‘If not very handsome, at all events, very genteel,’ added he, speaking of himself in particular. So saying, he adorned himself with his spectacles and set off to explore his way downstairs. After divers mistakes he at length found himself in the drawing-room, where the rest of the party being assembled, they presently proceeded to dinner.

  Jack’s amended costume did not produce any difference in Mr. Sponge’s behaviour, who treated him with the utmost indifference. In truth, Sponge had rather a large balance against Jack for his impudence to him in the field. Nevertheless, the fair Amelia continued her attentions, and talked of hunting, occasionally diverging into observations on Lord Scamperdale’s fine riding and manly character and appearance, in the roundabout way ladies send their messages and compliments to their friends.

  The dinner was flat. Jawleyford had stopped the champagne tap, though the needle-case glasses stood to tantalize the party till about the time that the beverage ought to have been flowing, when Spigot took them off. The flatness then became flatter. Nevertheless, Jack worked away in his usual carnivorous style, and finished by paying his respects to all the sweets, jellies, and things in succession. He never got any of these, he said, at ‘home,’ meaning at Lord Scamperdale’s — Amelia thought, if she was ‘my lady,’ he would not get any meat there either.

  ENTER MR. JACK SPRAGGON, FULL DRESS

  At length Jack finished; and having discussed cheese, porter, and red herrings, the cloth was drawn, and a hard-featured dessert, consisting principally of apples, followed. The wine having made a couple of melancholy circuits, the strained conversation about came to a full stop, and Spigot having considerately placed the little round table, as if to keep the peace between them, the ladies left the male worthies to discuss their port and sherry together. Jack, according to Woodmansterne fashion, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and stuck his legs out before him — an example that Mr. Sponge quickly followed, and each assumed an attitude that as good as said ‘I don’t care twopence for you.’ A dead silence then prevailed, interrupted only by the snap, snap, snapping of Jack’s toothpick against his chair-edge, when he was not busy exploring his mouth with it. It seemed to be a match which should keep silence longest. Jack sat squinting his eyes inside out at Sponge, while Sponge pretended to be occupied with the fire. The wine being with Sponge, and at length wanting some, he was constrained to make the first move, by passing it over to Jack, who helped himself to port and sherry simultaneously — a glass of sherry after dinner (in Jack’s opinion) denoting a gentleman. Having smacked his lips over that, he presently turned to the glass of port. He checked his hand in passing it to his mouth, and bore the glass up to his nose.

  ‘Corked, by Jove!’ exclaimed he, setting the glass down on the table with a thump of disgust.

  It is curious what unexpected turns things sometimes take in the world, and how completely whole trains of well-preconcerted plans are often turned aside by mere accidents such as this. If it hadn’t been for the corked bottle of port, there is no saying but these two worthies would have held a Quakers’ meeting without the ‘spirit’ moving either of them.

  ‘Corked, by Jove!’ exclaimed Jack.

  ‘It is!’ rejoined Sponge, smelling at his half-emptied glass.

  ‘Better have another bottle,’ observed Jack.

  ‘Certainly,’ replied Sponge, ringing the bell. ‘Spigot, this wine’s corked,’ observed Sponge, as old Pomposo entered the room.

  ‘Is it?’ said Sp
igot, with the most perfect innocence, though he knew it came out of the corked batch. ‘I’ll bring another bottle,’ added he, carrying it off as if he had a whole pipe at command, though in reality he had but another out. This fortunately was less corked than the first; and Jack having given an approving smack of his great thick lips, Mr. Sponge took it on his judgement, and gave a nod to Spigot, who forthwith took his departure.

  ‘Old trick that,’ observed Jack, with a shake of the head, as Spigot shut the door.

  ‘Is it?’ observed Mr. Sponge, taking up the observation, though in reality it was addressed to the fire.

  ‘Noted for it,’ replied Jack, squinting at the sideboard, though he was staring intently at Sponge to see how he took it.

  ‘Well, I thought we had a bottle with a queer smatch the other night,’ observed Sponge.

  ‘Old Blossomnose corked half a dozen in succession one night,’ replied Jack.

  (He had corked three, but Jawleyford re-corked them, and Spigot was now reproducing them to our friends.)

  Although they had now got the ice broken, and entered into something like a conversation, it nevertheless went on very slowly, and they seemed to weigh each word before it was uttered. Jack, too, had time to run his peculiar situation through his mind, and ponder on his mission from Lord Scamperdale — on his lordship’s detestation of Mr. Sponge, his anxiety to get rid of him, his promised corner in his will, and his lordship’s hint about buying Sponge’s horses if he could not get rid of him in any other way.

  Sponge, on his part, was thinking if there was any possibility of turning Jack to account.

  It may seem strange to the uninitiated that there should be prospect of gain to a middle-man in the matter of a horse-deal, save in the legitimate trade of auctioneers and commission stable-keepers; but we are sorry to say we have known men calling themselves gentlemen, who have not thought it derogatory to accept a ‘trifle’ for their good offices in the cause. ‘I can buy cheaper than you,’ they say, ‘and we may as well divide the trifle between us.’