The Small House at Allington
very courteous to both his guests, but towards Eames he had used a
good-humoured and almost affectionate familiarity. He had quizzed him
for having been found asleep under the tree, telling Crofts that he
had looked very forlorn,--"So that I haven't a doubt about his being
in love," said the earl. And he had asked Johnny to tell the name
of the fair one, bringing up the remnants of his half-forgotten
classicalities to bear out the joke. "If I am to take more of the
severe Falernian," said he, laying his hand on the decanter of port,
"I must know the lady's name. Whoever she be, I'm well sure you need
not blush for her. What! you refuse to tell! Then I'll drink no
more." And so the earl had walked out of the dining-room; but not
till he had perceived by his guest's cheeks that the joke had been
too true to be pleasant. As he went, however, he leaned with his hand
on Eames's shoulder, and the servants looking on saw that the young
man was to be a favourite. "He'll make him his heir," said Vickers.
"I shouldn't wonder a bit if he don't make him his heir." But to this
the footman objected, endeavouring to prove to Mr. Vickers that, in
accordance with the law of the land, his lordship's second cousin,
once removed, whom the earl had never seen, but whom he was supposed
to hate, must be his heir. "A hearl can never choose his own heir,
like you or me," said the footman, laying down the law. "Can't he
though really, now? That's very hard on him; isn't it?" said the
pretty housemaid. "Psha," said Vickers: "you know nothing about it.
My lord could make young Eames his heir to-morrow; that is, the heir
of his property. He couldn't make him a hearl, because that must go
to the heirs of his body. As to his leaving him the place here, I
don't just know how that'd be; and I'm sure Richard don't."
"But suppose he hasn't got any heirs of his body?" asked the pretty
housemaid, who was rather fond of putting down Mr. Vickers.
"He must have heirs of his body," said the butler. "Everybody has
'em. If a man don't know 'em himself, the law finds 'em out." And
then Mr. Vickers walked away, avoiding further dispute.
In the meantime, the earl was asleep upstairs, and the two young men
from Guestwick did not find that they could amuse themselves with any
satisfaction. Each took up a book; but there are times at which a
man is quite unable to read, and when a book is only a cover for his
idleness or dulness. At last, Dr. Crofts suggested, in a whisper,
that they might as well begin to think of going home.
"Eh; yes; what?" said the earl: "I'm not asleep." In answer to
which the doctor said that he thought he'd go home, if his lordship
would let him order his horse. But the earl was again fast bound in
slumber, and took no further notice of the proposition.
"Perhaps we could get off without waking him," suggested Eames, in a
whisper.
"Eh; what?" said the earl. So they both resumed their books, and
submitted themselves to their martyrdom for a further period of
fifteen minutes. At the expiration of that time, the footman brought
in tea.
"Eh, what? tea!" said the earl. "Yes, we'll have a little tea. I've
heard every word you've been saying." It was that assertion on the
part of the earl which always made Lady Julia so angry. "You cannot
have heard what I have been saying, Theodore, because I have said
nothing," she would reply. "But I should have heard it if you had,"
the earl would rejoin, snappishly. On the present occasion neither
Crofts nor Eames contradicted him, and he took his tea and swallowed
it while still three parts asleep.
"If you'll allow me, my lord, I think I'll order my horse," said the
doctor.
"Yes; horse--yes--" said the earl, nodding.
"But what are you to do, Eames, if I ride?" said the doctor.
"I'll walk," whispered Eames, in his very lowest voice.
"What--what--what?" said the earl, jumping up on his feet. "Oh, ah,
yes; going away, are you? I suppose you might as well, as sit here
and see me sleeping. But, doctor--I didn't snore, did I?"
"Only occasionally."
"Not loud, did I? Come, Eames, did I snore loud?"
"Well, my lord, you did snore rather loud two or three times."
"Did I?" said the earl, in a voice of great disappointment. "And yet,
do you know, I heard every word you said."
The small phaeton had been already ordered, and the two young men
started back to Guestwick together, a servant from the house riding
the doctor's horse behind them. "Look here, Eames," said the earl, as
they parted on the steps of the hall door. "You're going back to town
the day after to-morrow, you say, so I shan't see you again?"
"No, my lord," said Johnny.
"Look you here, now. I shall be up for the Cattle-show before
Christmas. You must dine with me at my hotel, on the twenty-second
of December, Pawkins's, in Jermyn Street; seven o'clock, sharp. Mind
you do not forget, now. Put it down in your pocket-book when you get
home. Good-by, doctor; good-by. I see I must stick to that mutton
chop in the middle of the day." And then they drove off.
"He'll make him his heir for certain," said Vickers to himself, as he
slowly returned to his own quarters.
"You were returning from Allington, I suppose," said Crofts, "when
you came across Lord De Guest and the bull?"
"Yes: I just walked over to say good-by to them."
"Did you find them all well?"
"I only saw one. The other two were out."
"Mrs. Dale, was it?"
"No; it was Lily."
"Sitting alone, thinking of her fine London lover, of course? I
suppose we ought to look upon her as a very lucky girl. I have no
doubt she thinks herself so."
"I'm sure I don't know," said Johnny.
"I believe he's a very good young man," said the doctor; "but I can't
say I quite liked his manner."
"I should think not," said Johnny.
"But then in all probability he did not like mine a bit better, or
perhaps yours either. And if so it's all fair."
"I don't see that it's a bit fair. He's a snob," said Eames; "and I
don't believe that I am." He had taken a glass or two of the earl's
"severe Falernian," and was disposed to a more generous confidence,
and perhaps also to stronger language, than might otherwise have been
the case.
"No; I don't think he is a snob," said Crofts. "Had he been so, Mrs.
Dale would have perceived it."
"You'll see," said Johnny, touching up the earl's horse with energy
as he spoke. "You'll see. A man who gives himself airs is a snob; and
he gives himself airs. And I don't believe he's a straightforward
fellow. It was a bad day for us all when he came among them at
Allington."
"I can't say that I see that."
"I do. But mind, I haven't spoken a word of this to any one. And
I don't mean. What would be the good? I suppose she must marry him
now?"
"Of course she must."
"And be wretched all her life. Oh-h-h-h!" and he muttered a deep
groan. "I'll tell you what it is, Crofts. He is going to take the
sweetest girl out of this country that ever was in it, and he don't
deserve her."
"I don't think she can be compared to her sister," said Crofts
slowly.
"What; not Lily?" said Eames, as though the proposition made by the
doctor were one that could not hold water for a minute.
"I have always thought that Bell was the more admired of the two,"
said Crofts.
"I'll tell you what," said Eames. "I have never yet set my eyes on
any human creature whom I thought so beautiful as Lily Dale. And now
that beast is going to marry her! I'll tell you what, Crofts; I'll
manage to pick a quarrel with him yet." Whereupon the doctor, seeing
the nature of the complaint from which his companion was suffering,
said nothing more, either about Lily or about Bell.
Soon after this Eames was at his own door, and was received there by
his mother and sister with all the enthusiasm due to a hero. "He has
saved the earl's life!" Mrs. Eames had exclaimed to her daughter on
reading Lord De Guest's note. "Oh, goodness!" and she threw herself
back upon the sofa almost in a fainting condition.
"Saved Lord De Guest's life!" said Mary.
"Yes--under Providence," said Mrs. Eames, as though that latter fact
added much to her son's good deed.
"But how did he do it?"
"By cool courage and good feeling--so his lordship says. But I wonder
how he really did do it?"
"Whatever way it was, he's torn all his clothes and lost his hat,"
said Mary.
"I don't care a bit about that," said Mrs. Eames. "I wonder whether
the earl has any interest at the Income-tax.
"What a thing it would be if he could get Johnny a step. It would be
seventy pounds a year at once. He was quite right to stay and dine
when his lordship asked him. And so Dr. Crofts is there. It couldn't
have been anything in the doctoring way, I suppose."
"No, I should say not; because of what he says of his trowsers." And
so the two ladies were obliged to wait for John's return.
"How did you do it, John?" said his mother, embracing him, as soon as
the door was opened.
"How did you save the earl's life?" said Mary, who was standing
behind her mother.
"Would his lordship really have been killed, if it had not been for
you?" asked Mrs. Eames.
"And was he very much hurt?" asked Mary.
"Oh, bother," said Johnny, on whom the results of the day's work,
together with the earl's Falernian, had made some still remaining
impression. On ordinary occasions, Mrs. Eames would have felt hurt at
being so answered by her son; but at the present moment she regarded
him as standing so high in general favour that she took no offence.
"Oh, Johnny, do tell us. Of course we must be very anxious to know it
all."
"There's nothing to tell, except that a bull ran at the earl, as I
was going by; so I went into the field and helped him, and then he
made me stay and dine with him."
"But his lordship says that you saved his life," said Mary.
"Under Providence," added their mother.
"At any rate, he has given me a gold watch and chain," said Johnny,
drawing the present out of his pocket. "I wanted a watch badly. All
the same, I didn't like taking it."
"It would have been very wrong to refuse," said his mother. "And I
am so glad you have been so fortunate. And look here, Johnny: when
a friend like that comes in your way, don't turn your back on him."
Then, at last, he thawed beneath their kindness, and told them the
whole of the story. I fear that in recounting the earl's efforts with
the spud, he hardly spoke of his patron with all that deference which
would have been appropriate.
CHAPTER XXIII.
MR. PLANTAGENET PALLISER.
A week passed over Mr. Crosbie's head at Courcy Castle without much
inconvenience to him from the well-known fact of his matrimonial
engagement. Both George De Courcy and John De Courcy had in their
different ways charged him with his offence, and endeavoured to annoy
him by recurring to the subject; but he did not care much for the
wit or malice of George or John De Courcy. The countess had hardly
alluded to Lily Dale after those few words which she said on the
first day of his visit, and seemed perfectly willing to regard his
doings at Allington as the occupation natural to a young man in such
a position. He had been seduced down to a dull country house, and
had, as a matter of course, taken to such amusements as the place
afforded. He had shot the partridges and made love to the young lady,
taking those little recreations as compensation for the tedium of the
squire's society. Perhaps he had gone a little too far with the young
lady; but then no one knew better than the countess how difficult it
is for a young man to go far enough without going too far. It was not
her business to make herself a censor on a young man's conduct. The
blame, no doubt, rested quite as much with Miss Dale as with him. She
was quite sorry that any young lady should be disappointed; but if