‘Bless my soul! somebody else will have picked her up before that,’ said the earl.
In answer to this Lady Julia merely shook her head.
Johnny went over to his mother on Christmas Day after church, and was received by her and by his sister with great honour. And she gave him many injunctions as to his behaviour at the earl’s table, even descending to small details about his boots and linen. But Johnny had already begun to feel at the Manor that, after all, people are not so very different in their ways of life as they are supposed to be. Lady Julia’s manners were certainly not quite those of Mrs Roper; but she made the tea very much in the way in which it was made at Burton Crescent, and Eames found that he could eat his egg, at any rate on the second morning, without any tremor in his hand, in spite of the coronet on the silver egg-cup. He did feel himself to be rather out of his place in the Manor pew on the Sunday, conceiving that all the congregation was looking at him; but he got over this on Christmas Day, and sat quite comfortably in his soft corner during the sermon, almost going to sleep. And when he walked with the earl after church to the gate over which the noble peer had climbed in his agony, and inspected the hedge through which he had thrown himself, he was quite at home with his little jokes, bantering his august companion as to the mode of his somersault. But be it always remembered that there are two modes in which a young man may be free and easy with his elder and superior – the mode pleasant and the mode offensive. Had it been in Johnny’s nature to try the latter, the earl’s back would soon have been up at once, and the play would have been over. But it was not in Johnny’s nature to do so, and therefore it was that the earl liked him.
At last came the hour of dinner on Tuesday, or at least the hour at which the squire had been asked to show himself at the Manor House. Eames, as by agreement with his patron, did not come down so as to show himself till after the interview. Lady Julia, who had been present at their discussions, had agreed to receive the squire; and then a servant was to ask him to step into the earl’s own room. It was pretty to see the way in which the three conspired together, planning and plotting with an eagerness that was beautiful green and fresh.
He can be as cross as an old stick when he likes it,’ said the earl, speaking of the squire; ‘and we must take care not to rub him the wrong way.’
‘I shan’t know what to say to him when I come down,’ said Johnny.
‘Just shake hands with him and don’t say anything,’ said Lady Julia.
‘I’ll give him some port wine that ought to soften his heart,’ said the earl, ‘and then we’ll see how he is in the evening.’
Eames heard the wheels of the squire’s little open carriage and trembled. The squire, unconscious of all schemes, soon found himself with Lady Julia, and within two minutes of his entrances was walked off to the earl’s private room. ‘Certainly,’ he said, ‘certainly;’ and followed the man-servant. The earl, as he entered, was standing in the middle of the room, and his round rosy face was a picture of good humour.
‘I’m very glad you’ve come, Dale,’ said he. ‘I’ve something I want to say to you.’
Mr Dale, who neither in heart nor in manner was so light a man as the earl, took the proffered hand of his host, and bowed his head slightly, signifying that he was willing to listen to anything.
‘I think I told you,’ continued the earl, ‘that young John Eames is down here; but he goes back tomorrow, as they can’t spare him at his office. He’s a very good fellow – as far as I am able to judge, an uncommonly good young man. I’ve taken a great fancy to him myself.’
In answer to this Mr Dale did not say much. He sat down, and in some general terms expressed his good-will towards all the Eames family.
‘As you know, Dale, I’m very bad hand at talking, and therefore I won’t beat about the bush in what I’ve got to say at present. Of course we’ve all heard of that scoundrel Crosbie, and the way he has treated your niece Lilian.’
‘He is a scoundrel – an unmixed scoundrel. But the less we say about that the better. It is ill mentioning a girl’s name in such a matter as that.’
‘But, my dear Dale, I must mention it at the present moment. Dear young child, I would do anything to comfort her! And I hope that something may be done to comfort her. Do you know that that young man was in love with her long before Crosbie ever saw her?’
‘What – John Eames!’
‘Yes, John Eames. And I wish heartily for his sake that he had won her regard before she had met that rascal whom you had to stay down at your house.’
‘A man cannot help these things. De Guest,’ said the squire.
‘No, no, no! There are such men about the world, and it is impossible to know them at a glance. He was my nephew’s friend, and I am not going to say that my nephew was in fault. But I wish – I only say that I wish – she had first known what are this young man’s feelings towards her.’
‘But she might not have thought of him as you do.’
‘He is an uncommonly good-looking young fellow; straight made, broad in the chest, with a good, honest eye, and young man’s proper courage. He has never been taught to give himself airs like a dancing monkey; but I think he’s all the better for that.’
‘But it’s too late, now, De Guest.’
‘No, no; that’s just where it is. It mustn’t be too late! That child is not to lose her whole life because a villain has played her false. Of course she’ll suffer. Just at present it wouldn’t do, I suppose, to talk to her about new sweetheart. But, Dale, the time will come, the time will come – the time always does come.’
‘It has never come to you and me,’ said the squire, with the slightest possible smile on his dry cheeks. The story of their lives had been so far the same; each had loved, and each had been disappointed, and then each had remained single through life.
‘Yes, it has,’ said the earl, with no slight touch of feeling and even of romance in what he said. ‘We have retricked our beams4 in our own ways, and our lives have not been desolate. But for her – you and her mother will look forward to see her married some day.’
‘I have not thought about it.’
‘But I want you to think about it. I want to interest you in this fellow’s favour; and in doing so, I mean to be very open with you. I suppose you’ll give her something?’
‘I don’t know, I’m sure,’ said the squire, almost offended at an inquiry of such a nature.
‘Well then, whether you do or not, I’ll give him something,’ said the earl. ‘I shouldn’t have ventured to meddle in the matter had I not intended to put myself in such a position with reference to him as would justify me in asking the question.’ And the peer as he spoke drew himself up to his full height. ‘If such a match can be made, it shall not be a bad marriage for your niece in a pecuniary point of view. I shall have pleasure in giving to him; but I shall have more pleasure if she can share what I give.’
‘She ought to be very much obliged to you,’ said the squire.
‘I think she would be if she knew young Eames. I hope the day may come when she will be so. I hope that you and I may see them happy together, and that you too may thank me for having assisted in making them so. Shall we go in to Lady Julia now?’ The earl had felt that he had not quite succeeded; that his offer had been accepted somewhat coldly, and had not much hope that further good could be done on that day, even with the help of his best port wine.
‘Half a moment,’ said the squire. ‘There are matters as to which I never find myself able to speak quickly, and this certainly seems to be one of them. If you will allow me I will think over what you have said, and then see you again.’
‘Certainly, certainly.’
‘But for your own part in the matter, for your great generosity and kind heart, I beg to offer you my warmest thanks.’ Then the squrie bowed low, and preceded the earl out of the room.
Lord De Guest still felt that he had not succeeded. We may probably say, looking at the squire’s character and peculiarities,
that no marked success was probable at the first opening-out of such a subject. He had said of himself that he was never able to speak quickly in matters of moment; but he would more correctly have described his own character had he declared that he could not think of them quickly. As it was, the earl was disappointed; but had he been able to read the squire’s mind, his disappointment would have been less strong. Mr Dale knew well enough that he was being treated well, and that the effort being made was intended with kindness to those belonging to him; but it was not in his nature to be demonstrative and quick at expressions of gratitude. So he entered the drawing-room with a cold, placid face, leading Eames, and Lady Julia also, to suppose that no good had been done.
‘How do you do, sir?’ said Johnny, walking up to him in a wild sort of manner – going through a premeditated lesson, but doing it without any presence of mind.
‘How do you do, Eames?’ said the squire, speaking with a very cold voice. And then there was nothing further said till the dinner was announced.
‘Dale, I know you drink port,’ said the earl when Lady Julia left them. ‘If you say you don’t like that, I shall say you know nothing about it.’
‘Ah! that’s the ’20,’5 said the squir, tasting it.
‘I should rather think it is,’ said the earl. ‘I was lucky enough to get it early, and it hasn’t been moved for thirty years. I like to give it to a man who knows it, as you do, at the very first glance. Now there’s my friend Johnny there; it’s thrown away upon him.’
‘No, my lord, it is not. I think it’s uncommonly nice.’
‘Uncommonly nice! So is champagne, or ginger-beer, or lollipops – for those who llike them. Do you mean to tell me you can taste wine with half a pickled orange in you mouth?’
‘It’ll come to him soon enough,’ said the squire.
‘Twenty port won’t come to him when he is as old as we are,’ said the earl, forgetting that by that time sixty port will be as wonderful to the then living seniors of the age as was his own pet vintage to him.
The good wine did in some sort soften the squie; but, as a matter of course, nothing further was said as to the new matrimonial scheme. The earl did observe, however, that Mr Dale was civil, and even kind, to his own young friend, asking a question here had there as to his life in London, and saying something about the work at the Income-tax Office.
‘It is hard work,’ said Eames. ‘If you’re under the line, they make a great row about it, send for you, and look at you as though you’d been robbing the bank; but they think nothing of keeping you till five.’6
‘But how long do you have for lunch and reading the papers?’ said the earl.
‘Not ten minutes. We take a paper among twenty of us for half the day. That’s exactly nine minutes to each; and as for lunch, we only have a biscuit dipped in ink.’
‘Dipped in ink!’ said the squire.
‘It comes to that, for you have to be writing while you munch it.’
‘I hear all about you,’ said the earl; ‘Sir Raffle Buffle in an old crony of mine.’
‘I don’t suppose he ever heard my name as yet,’ said Johnny. ‘But do you really know him well, Lord De Guest?’
‘Haven’t seen him these thirty years; but I did know him.’
‘We call him old Huffle Scuffle.’
‘Huffle Scuffle! Ha, ha, ha! He always was Huffle Scuffle; a noisy pretentious, empty-headed fellow. But I oughtn’t to say so before you, young man. Come, we’ll go into the drawing-room.’
‘And what did he say?’ asked Lady Julia, as soon as the squire was gone.
There was no attempt at concealment, and the question was asked in Johnny’s presence.
‘Well he did not say much. And coming from him, that ought to be taken as a good sign. He is to think of it, and let me see him again. You hold your head up, Johnny, and remember that you shan’t want a friend on your side. Faint heart never won fair lady.’
At seven o’clock on the following morning Eames started on his return journey, and was at his desk at twelve o’clock – as per agreement with his taskmaster at the Income-tax Office.
CHAPTER 34
THE COMBAT
I HAVE said that John Eames was at his office punctually at twelve; but an incident had happened before his arrival there very important in the annals which are now being told – so important that it is essentially necessary it should be described with some minuteness of detail.
Lord De Guest, in the various conversations which he had had with Eames as to Lily Dale and her present position, had always spoken of Crosbie with the most vehement abhorrence. ‘He is a damned blackguard,’ said the earl, and the fire had come out of his round eyes as he spoke. Now the earl was by no means given to cursing and swearing, in the sense which is ordinarily applied to these words. When he made use of such a phrase as that quoted above, it was to be presumed that he in some sort meant what he said; and so he did, and had intended to signify that Crosbie by his conduct had merited all such condemnation as was the fitting punishment for blackguardism of the worst description.
‘He ought to have his neck broken,’ said Johnny.
‘I don’t know about that,’ said the earl. ‘The present times have become so pretty behaved that corporal punishment seems to have gone out of fashion. I shouldn’t care so much about that, if any other punishment had taken its place. But it seems to me that a blackguard such as Crosbie can escape now altogether unscathed.’
‘He hasn’t escaped yet,’ said Johnny.
‘Don’t you go and put your finger in the pie and make a fool of yourself,’ said the earl. If it had behoved anyone to resent in any violent fashion the evil done by Crosbie, Bernard Dale, the earl’s nephew, should have been the avenger. This the earl felt, but under these circumstances he was disposed to think that there should be no such violent vengeance. ‘Things were different when I was young,’ he said to himself. But Eames gathered from the earl’s tone that the earl’s words were not strictly in accordance with his thoughts, and he declared to himself over and over again that Crosbie had not yet escaped.
He got into the train of Guestwick, taking a first-class ticket, because the earl’s groom in livery was in attendance upon him. Had he been along he would have gone in a cheaper carriage. Very weak in him, was it not? little also, and mean? My friend, can you say that you would not have done the same at his age? Are you quite sure that you would not do the same now that you are double his age? Be that as it may, Johnny Eames did that foolish thing, and gave the groom in livery half-a-crown into the bargain.
‘We shall have you down again soon, Mr John,’ said the groom, who seemed to understand that Mr Eames was to be made quite at home at the Manor.
He went fast to sleep in the carriage, and did not awake till the train was stopped at the Barchester Junction.
‘Waiting for the up-train from Barchester, sir’, said the guard. ‘They’re always late.’ Then he went to sleep again, and was aroused in a few minutes by someone entering the carriage in a great hurry. The branch train had come in, just as the guardians of the line then present had made up their minds that the passengers on the main line should not be kept waiting any longer. The transfer of men, women, and luggage was therefore made in great haste, and they who were now taking their new seats had hardly time to look about them. An old gentleman, very red about the gills, a first came into Johnny’s carriage, which up to that moment, he had shared with an old lady. The old gentleman was abusing everybody, because he was hurried, and would not take himself well into the compartment, but stuck in the doorway, standing on the step.
‘Now, sir, when you’re quite at leisure,’ said a voice behind the old man, which instantly made Eames start up in his seat.
‘I’m not at all at leisure,’ said the old man; ‘and I’m not going to break my legs if I know it.’
‘Take your time, sir,’ said the guard.
‘So I mean,’ said the old man, seating himself in her corner nearest to the open door, opp
osite to the old lady. Then Eames saw plainly that it was Crosbie who had first spoken, and that he was getting into the carriage.
Crosbie at the first glance saw on one but the old gentleman and the old lady, and he immediately made for the unoccupied corner seat. He was busy with his umbrella and his dressing-bag, and a little flustered by the pushing and hurrying. The carriage was actually in motion before he perceived that John Eames was opposite to him: Eames had, instinctively, drawn up his legs so as not to touch him. He felt that he had become very red in the face, and to tell the truth, the perspiration had broken out upon his brow. It was a great occasion – great in its imminent trouble, and great in its opportunity for action. How was he to carry himself at the first moment of his recognition by his enemy, and what was he to do afterwards?
It need hardly be explained that Crosbie had also been spending his Christmas with a certain earl of his acquaintance, and that he too was returning to his office. In one respect he had been much more fortunate than poor Eames, for he had been made happy with the smiles of his lady love. Alexandrina and the countess had fluttered about him softly, treating him as a tame chattel, now belonging to the noble house of De Courcy, and in this way he had been initiated into the inner domesticities of that illustrious family. The two extra menservants, hired to wait upon Lady Dumbello, had vanished. The champagne had ceased to flow in a perennial stream. Lady Rosina had come out from her solitude, and had preached at him constantly. Lady Margaretta had given him some lessons in economy. The Honourable John, in spite of a late quarrel, had borrowed five pounds from him. The Honourable George had engaged to come and stay with his sister during the next May. The earl had used a father-in-law’s privilege, and had called him a fool. Lady Alexandrina had told him more than once, in a rather tart voice, that this must be done, and that that must be done; and the countess had given him her orders as though it was his duty, in the course of nature to obey every word that fell from her. Such had been his Christmas delights; and now, as he returned back from the enjoyment of them, he found himself confronted in the railway carriage with Johnny Eames!
The Small House at Allington Page 45