The Small House at Allington
thinner, and apparently older. When Eames went into the sitting-room,
the colonel was there alone, and had to take upon himself the trouble
of introducing himself. He did not get up from his arm-chair, but
nodded gently at the young man. "Mr. Eames, I believe? I knew your
father at Guestwick, a great many years ago;" then he turned his face
back towards the fire and sighed.
"It's got very cold this afternoon," said Johnny, trying to make
conversation.
"It's always cold in London," said the colonel.
"If you had to be here in August you wouldn't say so."
"God forbid," said the colonel, and he sighed again, with his eyes
fixed upon the fire. Eames had heard of the very gallant way in which
Orlando Dale had persisted in running away with Lord De Guest's
sister, in opposition to very terrible obstacles, and as he now
looked at the intrepid lover, he thought that there must have been a
great change since those days. After that nothing more was said till
the earl came down.
Pawkins's house was thoroughly old-fashioned in all things, and the
Pawkins of that day himself stood behind the earl's elbow when the
dinner began, and himself removed the cover from the soup tureen.
Lord De Guest did not require much personal attention, but he would
have felt annoyed if this hadn't been done. As it was he had a civil
word to say to Pawkins about the fat cattle, thereby showing that he
did not mistake Pawkins for one of the waiters. Pawkins then took his
lordship's orders about the wine and retired.
"He keeps up the old house pretty well," said the earl to his
brother-in-law. "It isn't like what it was thirty years ago, but then
everything of that sort has got worse and worse."
"I suppose it has," said the colonel.
"I remember when old Pawkins had as good a glass of port as I've got
at home,--or nearly. They can't get it now, you know."
"I never drink port," said the colonel. "I seldom take anything after
dinner, except a little negus."
His brother-in-law said nothing, but made a most eloquent grimace as
he turned his face towards his soup-plate. Eames saw it, and could
hardly refrain from laughing. When, at half-past nine o'clock, the
colonel retired from the room, the earl, as the door was closed,
threw up his hands, and uttered the one word "negus!" Then Eames took
heart of grace and had his laughter out.
The dinner was very dull, and before the colonel went to bed Johnny
regretted that he had been induced to dine at Pawkins's. It might be
a very fine thing to be asked to dinner with an earl, and John Eames
had perhaps received at his office some little accession of dignity
from the circumstance, of which he had been not unpleasantly aware;
but, as he sat at the table, on which there were four or five apples
and a plate of dried nuts, looking at the earl, as he endeavoured to
keep his eyes open, and at the colonel, to whom it seemed absolutely
a matter of indifference whether his companions were asleep or awake,
he confessed to himself that the price he was paying was almost
too dear. Mrs. Roper's tea-table was not pleasant to him, but even
that would have been preferable to the black dinginess of Pawkins's
mahogany, with the company of two tired old men, with whom he seemed
to have no mutual subject of conversation. Once or twice he tried a
word with the colonel, for the colonel sat with his eyes open looking
at the fire. But he was answered with monosyllables, and it was
evident to him that the colonel did not wish to talk. To sit still,
with his hands closed over each other on his lap, was work enough for
Colonel Dale during his after-dinner hours.
But the earl knew what was going on. During that terrible conflict
between him and his slumber, in which the drowsy god fairly
vanquished him for some twenty minutes, his conscience was always
accusing him of treating his guests badly. He was very angry with
himself, and tried to arouse himself and talk. But his brother-in-law
would not help him in his efforts; and even Eames was not bright in
rendering him assistance. Then for twenty minutes he slept soundly,
and at the end of that he woke himself with one of his own snorts.
"By George!" he said, jumping up and standing on the rug, "we'll have
some coffee;" and after that he did not sleep any more.
"Dale," said he, "won't you take some more wine?"
[ILLUSTRATION: "Won't you take some more wine?"]
"Nothing more," said the colonel, still looking at the fire, and
shaking his head very slowly.
"Come, Johnny, fill your glass." He had already got into the way
of calling his young friend Johnny, having found that Mrs. Eames
generally spoke of her son by that name.
"I have been filling my glass all the time," said Eames, taking the
decanter again in his hand as he spoke.
"I'm glad you've found something to amuse you, for it has seemed to
me that you and Dale haven't had much to say to each other. I've been
listening all the time."
"You've been asleep," said the colonel.
"Then there's been some excuse for my holding my tongue," said the
earl. "By-the-by, Dale, what do you think of that fellow Crosbie?"
Eames' ears were instantly on the alert, and the spirit of dullness
vanished from him.
"Think of him?" said the colonel.
"He ought to have every bone in his skin broken," said the earl.
"So he ought," said Eames, getting up from his chair in his
eagerness, and speaking in a tone somewhat louder than was perhaps
becoming in the presence of his seniors. "So he ought, my lord. He is
the most abominable rascal that ever I met in my life. I wish I was
Lily Dale's brother." Then he sat down again, remembering that he
was speaking in the presence of Lily's uncle, and of the father of
Bernard Dale, who might be supposed to occupy the place of Lily's
brother.
The colonel turned his head round, and looked at the young man with
surprise. "I beg your pardon, sir," said Eames, "but I have known
Mrs. Dale and your nieces all my life."
"Oh, have you?" said the colonel. "Nevertheless it is, perhaps, as
well not to make too free with a young lady's name. Not that I blame
you in the least, Mr. Eames."
"I should think not," said the earl. "I honour him for his feeling.
Johnny, my boy, if ever I am unfortunate enough to meet that man,
I shall tell him my mind, and I believe you will do the same." On
hearing this John Eames winked at the earl, and made a motion with
his head towards the colonel, whose back was turned to him. And then
the earl winked back at Eames.
"De Guest," said the colonel, "I think I'll go upstairs; I always
have a little arrowroot in my own room."
"I'll ring the bell for a candle," said the host. Then the colonel
went, and as the door was closed behind him, the earl raised his two
hands and uttered that single word, "negus!" Whereupon Johnny burst
out laughing, and coming round to the fire, sat himself down in the
arm-chair which the colonel had left.
"I've no doubt it's all right," said the earl; "but I shouldn't like
to drink negus myself, nor yet to have arrowroot up in my bedroom."
"I don't suppose there's any harm in it."
"Oh dear, no; I wonder what Pawkins says about him. But I suppose
they have them of all sorts in an hotel."
"The waiter didn't seem to think much of it when he brought it."
"No, no. If he'd asked for senna and salts, the waiter wouldn't have
showed any surprise. By-the-by, you touched him up about that poor
girl."
"Did I, my lord? I didn't mean it."
"You see he's Bernard Dale's father, and the question is, whether
Bernard shouldn't punish the fellow for what he has done. Somebody
ought to do it. It isn't right that he should escape. Somebody ought
to let Mr. Crosbie know what a scoundrel he has made himself."
"I'd do it to-morrow, only I'm afraid--"
"No, no, no," said the earl; "you are not the right person at all.
What have you got to do with it? You've merely known them as family
friends, but that's not enough."
"No, I suppose not," said Eames, sadly.
"Perhaps it's best as it is," said the earl. "I don't know that any
good would be got by knocking him over the head. And if we are to be
Christians, I suppose we ought to be Christians."
"What sort of a Christian has he been?"
"That's true enough; and if I was Bernard, I should be very apt to
forget my Bible lessons about meekness."
"Do you know, my lord, I should think it the most Christian thing in
the world to pitch into him; I should, indeed. There are some things
for which a man ought to be beaten black and blue."
"So that he shouldn't do them again?"
"Exactly. You might say it isn't Christian to hang a man."
"I'd always hang a murderer. It wasn't right to hang men for stealing
sheep."
"Much better hang such a fellow as Crosbie," said Eames.
"Well, I believe so. If any fellow wanted now to curry favour with
the young lady, what an opportunity he'd have."
Johnny remained silent for a moment or two before he answered. "I'm
not so sure of that," he said, mournfully, as though grieving at the
thought that there was no chance of currying favour with Lily by
thrashing her late lover.
"I don't pretend to know much about girls," said Lord De Guest; "but
I should think it would be so. I should fancy that nothing would
please her so much as hearing that he had caught it, and that all the
world knew that he'd caught it." The earl had declared that he didn't
know much about girls, and in so saying, he was no doubt right.
"If I thought so," said Eames, "I'd find him out to-morrow."
"Why so? what difference does it make to you?" Then there was another
pause, during which Johnny looked very sheepish. "You don't mean to
say that you're in love with Miss Lily Dale?"
"I don't know much about being in love with her," said Johnny,
turning very red as he spoke. And then he made up his mind, in a wild
sort of way, to tell all the truth to his friend. Pawkins's port wine
may, perhaps, have had something to do with the resolution. "But I'd
go through fire and water for her, my lord. I knew her years before
he had ever seen her, and have loved her a great deal better than he
will ever love any one. When I heard that she had accepted him, I had
half a mind to cut my own throat,--or else his."
"Highty tighty," said the earl.
"It's very ridiculous, I know," said Johnny, "and of course she would
never have accepted me."
"I don't see that at all."
"I haven't a shilling in the world."
"Girls don't care much for that."
"And then a clerk in the Income-tax Office! It's such a poor thing."
"The other fellow was only a clerk in another office."
The earl living down at Guestwick did not understand that the
Income-tax Office in the city, and the General Committee Office at
Whitehall, were as far apart as Dives and Lazarus, and separated by
as impassable a gulf.
"Oh, yes," said Johnny; "but his office is another kind of thing, and
then he was a swell himself."
"By George, I don't see it," said the earl.
"I don't wonder a bit at her accepting a fellow like that. I hated
him the first moment I saw him; but that's no reason she should hate
him. He had that sort of manner, you know. He was a swell, and girls
like that kind of thing. I never felt angry with her, but I could
have eaten him." As he spoke he looked as though he would have made
some such attempt had Crosbie been present.
"Did you ever ask her to have you?" said the earl.
"No; how could I ask her, when I hadn't bread to give her?"
"And you never told her--that you were in love with her, I mean, and
all that kind of thing."
"She knows it now," said Johnny; "I went to say good-by to her the
other day,--when I thought she was going to be married. I could not
help telling her then."
"But it seems to me, my dear fellow, that you ought to be very much