Withering and Stapylton had arrived fully two hoars earlier than they
were expected, and Miss Dinah was too deeply engaged in the household
cares that were to do them honor to receive them. Josephine, too, was
not less busily occupied, for her conventual education had made her
wonderfully skilful in all sorts of confectionery, and she was mistress
of devices in spun sugar and preserved fruits, which rose in Aunt
Dinah's eyes to the dignity of high art. Barrington, however, was there
to meet them, and with a cordial welcome which no man could express more
gracefully. The luncheon hour passed pleasantly over, for all were in
good humor and good spirits. Withering's holiday always found him ready
to enjoy it, and when could old Peter feel so happy as when he had
a guest beneath his roof who thoroughly appreciated the cottage, and
entered into the full charm of its lovely scenery! Such was Stapylton;
he blended a fair liking for the picturesque with a natural instinct for
comfort and homeliness, and he saw in this spot what precisely embraced
both elements. It was very beautiful; but, better still, it was very
lovable. “It was so rare”--so, at least, he told Barrington--“to find
a cottage wherein internal comfort had not been sacrificed to some
requirement of outward show. There was only one way of doing this,”
said he, as Barrington led him through the little flower-garden,
giving glimpses of the rooms within as they passed,--“only one way, Mr.
Barrington; a man must have consummate taste, and strong credit at his
banker's.” Barrington's cheek grew a thought redder, and he smiled that
faint sad smile which now and then will break from one who feels that he
could rebut what he has just heard, if it were but right or fitting he
should do so. Of course, amongst really distressing sensations this has
no place; but yet there is a peculiar pain in being complimented by your
friend on the well-to-do condition of your fortune when your conscience
is full of the long watching hours of the night, or, worse still, the
first awaking thought of difficulties to which you open your eyes of
a morning. It is not often, nor are there many to whom you can say, “I
cannot tell the day or the hour when all this shall pass away from
me; my head is racked with care, and my heart heavy with anxiety.” How
jarring to be told of all the things you ought to do! You who could
so well afford it! And how trying to have to take shelter from your
necessity under the shadow of a seeming stinginess, and to bear every
reflection on your supposed thrift rather than own to your poverty!
If Withering had been with them as they strolled, this, perhaps, might
have been avoided; he had all a lawyer's technical skill to change a
topic; but Withering had gone to take his accustomed midday nap, the
greatest of all the luxuries his time of idleness bestowed upon him.
Now, although Stapylton's alludings--and they were no more--to
Barrington's gifts of fortune were such as perfectly consisted with
good taste and good breeding, Barring-ton felt them all painfully, and
probably nothing restrained him from an open disclaimer of their
fitness save the thought that from a host such an avowal would sound
ungracefully. “It is my duty now,” reasoned he, “to make my guest feel
that all the attentions he receives exact no sacrifice, and that the
pleasure his presence affords is unalloyed by a single embarrassment.
If he must hear of my difficulties, let it be when he is not beneath my
roof.” And so he let Stapylton talk away about the blessings of tranquil
affluence, and the happiness of him whose only care was to find time
for the enjoyments that were secured to him. He let him quote Pope and
Wharton and Edmund Burke, and smiled the blandest concurrence with what
was irritating him almost to fever.
“This is Withering's favorite spot,” said Peter, as they gained the
shade of a huge ilex-tree, from which two distinct reaches of the river
were visible.
“And it shall be mine, too,” said Stapylton, throwing himself down in
the deep grass; “and as I know you have scores of things which claim
your attention, let me release you, while I add a cigar--the only
possible enhancement--to the delight of this glorious nook.”
“Well, it shall be as you wish. We dine at six. I 'll go and look after
a fish for our entertainment;” and Barrington turned away into the
copse, not sorry to release his heart by a heavy sigh, and to feel he
was alone with his cares.
Let us turn for a moment to M'Cormick, who continued to saunter slowly
about the garden, in the expectation of Barrington's return. Wearied
at length with waiting, and resolved that his patience should not go
entirely unrequited, he turned into a little shady walk on which the
windows of the kitchen opened. Stationing himself there, in a position
to see without being seen, he took what he called an observation of all
within. The sight was interesting, even if he did not bring to it the
appreciation of a painter. There, upon a spacious kitchen table, lay a
lordly sirloin, richly and variously colored, flanked by a pair of plump
guinea-hens and a fresh salmon of fully twenty pounds' weight. Luscious
fruit and vegetables were heaped and mingled in a wild profusion, and
the speckled plumage of game was half hidden under the massive bunches
of great hot-house grapes. It is doubtful if Sneyders himself could have
looked upon the display with a higher sense of enjoyment It is, indeed,
a question between the relative merits of two senses, and the issue lies
between the eye and the palate.
Wisely reasoning that such preparations were not made for common guests,
M'Cormick ran over in his mind all the possible and impossible names he
could think of, ending at last with the conviction it was some “Nob” he
must have met abroad, and whom in a moment of his expansive hospitality
he had invited to visit him. “Isn't it like them!” muttered he. “It
would be long before they'd think of such an entertainment to an
old neighbor like myself; but here they are spending--who knows how
much?--for somebody that to-morrow or next day won't remember their
names, or maybe, perhaps, laugh when they think of the funny old woman
they saw,--the 'Fright' with the yellow shawl and the orange bonnet. Oh,
the world, the world!”
It is not for me to speculate on what sort of thing the world had been,
if the Major himself had been intrusted with the control and fashion of
it; but I have my doubts that we are just as well off as we are. “Well,
though they haven't the manners to say 'M'Cormick; will you stop and
dine?' they haven't done with me yet; not a bit!” And with this resolve
he entered the cottage, and found his way to the drawing-room. It was
unoccupied; so he sat himself down in a comfortable armchair, to await
events and their issue. There were books and journals and newspapers
about; but the Major was not a reader, and so he sat musing and
meditating, while the time went by. Just as the clock struck five, Miss
Dinah, whose various cares of housewifery had given her a very busy day,
was about to have a look at the drawing-room before she went to dress,
and being fully aware that one of her guests was asleep, and the other
full stretched beside the river, she felt she could go her “rounds”
without fear of being observed. Now, whatever had been the peculiar
functions she was lately engaged in, they had exacted from her certain
changes in costume more picturesque than flattering. In the first place,
the sleeves of her dress were rolled up above the elbows, displaying
arms more remarkable for bone than beauty. A similar curtailment of her
petticoats exhibited feet and ankles which--not to be ungallant--might
be called massive rather than elegant; and lastly, her two long curls
of auburn hair--curls which, in the splendor of her full toilette,
were supposed to be no mean aids to her captivating powers--were now
tastefully festooned and fastened to the back of her head, pretty
much as a pair of hawsers are occasionally disposed on the bow of a
merchantman! Thus costumed, she had advanced into the middle of the room
before she saw the Major.
“A pleasure quite unexpected, sir, is this,” said she, with a vigorous
effort to shake out what sailors would call her “lower courses.” “I was
not aware that you were here.”
“Indeed, then, I came in myself, just like old times. I said this
morning, if it 's fine to-day, I 'll just go over to the 'Fisherman's
Home.'”
“'The Home,' sir, if you please. We retain so much of the former name.”
But just as she uttered the correction, a chance look at the glass
conveyed the condition of her head-gear,--a startling fact which made
her cheeks perfectly crimson. “I lay stress upon the change of name,
sir,” continued she, “as intimating that we are no longer innkeepers,
and expect something, at least, of the deference rendered to those who
call their house their own.”
“To be sure, and why not?” croaked out the Major, with a malicious grin.
“And I forgot all about it, little thinking, indeed, to surprise you in
'dishabille,' as they call it.”
“_You_ surprise me, sir, every time we meet,” said she, with flashing
eyes. “And you make me feel surprised with myself for my endurance!”
And so saying, she retired towards the door, covering her retreat as
she went by every object of furniture that presented itself, and, like
a skilful general, defending her rear by every artifice of the ground.
Thus did she exit, and with a bang of the door--as eloquent as any
speech--close the colloquy.
“Faix! and the Swiss costume doesn't become you at all!” said the Major,
as he sat back in his chair, and cackled over the scene.
As Miss Barrington, boiling with passion, passed her brother's door, she
stopped to knock.
“Peter!” cried she. “Peter Barrington, I say!” The words were, however,
not well out, when she heard a step ascending the stair. She could not
risk another discovery like the last; so, opening the door, she said,
“That hateful M'Cormick is below. Peter, take care that on no account--”
There was no time to finish, and she had barely an instant to gain her
own room, when Stapylton reached the corridor.
Peter Barrington had, however, heard enough to inform him of his
sister's high behest. Indeed, he was as quick at interpreting brief
messages as people have grown in these latter days of telegraphic
communication. Oracular utterings had been more than once in his life
his only instructors, and he now knew that he had been peremptorily
ordered not to ask the Major to dinner.
There are, doubtless, people in this world--I almost fancy I have met
one or two such myself--who would not have felt peculiar difficulty in
obeying this command; who would have gone down to the drawing-room
and talked coolly to the visitor, discussing commonplaces, easily and
carelessly, noting the while how at every pause of the conversation each
was dwelling on the self-same point, and yet, with a quiet abstinence,
never touching it, till with a sigh, that was half a malediction, the
uninvited would rise to take leave. Barrington was not of this number.
The man who sat under his roof was sacred. He could have no faults; and
to such a pitch had this punctilio carried him, that had an actual enemy
gained the inside of his threshold, he would have spared nothing to
treat him with honor and respect.
“Well, well,” muttered he, as he slowly descended the stairs, “it will
be the first time in my life I ever did it, and I don't know how to go
about it now.”
When a frank and generous man is about to do something he is ashamed
of, how readily will a crafty and less scrupulous observer detect it!
M'Cormick read Barrington's secret before he was a minute in the room.
It was in vain Peter affected an off-hand easy manner, incidentally
dropping a hint that the Attorney-General and another friend had just
arrived,--a visit, a mere business visit it was, to be passed with
law papers and parchments. “Poor fun when the partridges were in the
stubble, but there was no help for it. Who knew, however, if he could
not induce them to give him an extra day, and if I can, Major, you must
promise to come over and meet them. You 'll be charmed with Withering,
he has such a fund of agreeability. One of the old school, but not the
less delightful to you and me. Come, now, give me your word--for--shall
we say Saturday?--Yes, Saturday!”
“I 've nothing to say against it,” grumbled out M'Cormick, whose assent
was given, as attorneys say, without prejudice to any other claim.
“You shall hear from me in the morning, then,” said Peter. “I 'll send
you a line to say what success I have had with my friends.”
“Any time in the day will do,” said the Major, unconcernedly; for, in
truth, the future never had in his estimation the same interest as the
present. As for the birds in the bush, he simply did not believe in them
at all.
“No, no,” said Barrington, hurriedly. “You shall hear from me early,
for I am anxious you should meet Withering and his companion, too,--a
brother-soldier.”
“Who may he be?” asked M'Cormick.
“That's my secret, Major,--that's my secret,” said Peter, with a forced
laugh, for it now wanted but ten minutes to six; “but you shall know all
on Saturday.”
Had he said on the day of judgment, the assurance would have been as
palatable to M'Cormick. Talking to him of Saturday on a Monday was
asking him to speculate on the infinite. Meanwhile he sat on, as only
they sit who understand the deep and high mystery of that process. Oh,
if you who have your fortunes to make in life, without any assignable
mode for so doing, without a craft, a calling, or a trade, knew what
success there was to be achieved merely by sitting--by simply being
“there,” eternally “there”--a warning, an example, an illustration, a
what you will, of boredom or infliction; but still “there.” The butt
of this man, the terror of that,--hated, feared, trembled at,--but yet
recognized as a thing that must be, an institution that was, and is, and
shall be, when we are all dead and buried.
Long and dreary may be the days of the sitter, but the hour of his
reward will come at last. There will come the time when some one--any
one--will be wanted to pair off with some other bore, to listen to his
stories and make up his whist-table; and then he will be “there.” I knew
a man who, merely by sitting on patiently for years, was at last chosen
to be sent as a Minister and special Envoy to a foreign Court just
to get rid of him. And for the women sitters,--the well-dressed
and prettily got-up simperers, who have sat their husbands into
Commissionerships, Colonial Secretaryships, and such like,--are they not
written of in the Book of Beauty?
“Here 's M'Cormick, Dinah,” said Barrington, with a voice shaking with
agitation and anxiety, “whom I want to pledge himself to us for Saturday
next. Will you add your persuasions to mine, and see what can be done?”
“Don't you think you can depend upon me?” cackled out the Major.
“I am certain of it, sir; I feel your word like your bond on such a
matter,” said Miss Dinah. “My grandniece, Miss Josephine Barrington,”
said she, presenting that young lady, who courtesied formally to the
unprepossessing stranger.
“I'm proud of the honor, ma'am,” said M'Cormick, with a deep bow, and
resumed his seat; to rise again, however, as Withering entered the room
and was introduced to him.
“This is intolerable, Peter,” whispered Miss Barrington, while the
lawyer and the Major were talking together. “You are certain you have
not asked him?”
“On my honor, Dinah! on my honor!”
“I hope I am not late?” cried Stapylton, entering; then turning hastily
to Barrington, said, “Pray present me to your niece.”
“This is my sister, Major Stapylton; this is my granddaughter;” and the
ladies courtesied, each with a degree of satisfaction which the reader
shall be left to assign them.
After a few words of commonplace civility, uttered, however, with
a courtesy and tact which won their way for the speaker, Stapylton
recognized and shook hands with M'Cormick.
“You know my neighbor, then?” said Barrington, in some surprise.
“I am charmed to say I do; he owes me the _denouement_ of a most amusing
story, which was suddenly broken off when we last parted, but which I
shall certainly claim after dinner.”
“He has been kind enough to engage himself to us for Saturday,” began
Dinah. But M'Cormick, who saw the moment critical, stepped in,--
“You shall hear every word of it before you sleep. It's all about
Walcheren, though they think Waterloo more the fashion now.”
“Just as this young lady might fancy Major Stapylton a more interesting
event than one of us,” said Withering, laughing. “But what 's become of
your boasted punctuality, Barrington? A quarter past,--are you waiting
for any one?”
“Are we, Dinah?” asked Barrington, with a look of sheepishness.
“Not that I am aware of, Peter. There is no one to _come_;” and she
laid such an emphasis on the word as made the significance palpable.
To Barrington it was painful as well as palpable; so painful, indeed,
that he hurriedly rang the bell, saying, in a sharp voice, “Of course,
we are all here,--there are six of us. Dinner, Darby!”
The Major had won, but he was too crafty to show any triumph at his
victory, and he did not dare even to look towards where Miss Barrington
stood, lest he should chance to catch her eye. Dinner was at length
announced. Withering gave his arm to Miss Barrington, Stapylton took
charge of Josephine, and old Peter, pleasantly drawing his arm within
M'Cormick's, said, “I hope you 've got a good appetite, Major, for I
have a rare fish for you to-day, and your favorite sauce, too,--smelt,
not lobster.”
Poor Barrington! it was a trying moment for him, that short walk into
the dinner-room, and he felt very grateful to M'Cormick that he said
nothing peevish or sarcastic to him on the way. Many a dinner begins in
awkwardness, but warms as it proceeds into a pleasant geniality. Such
was the case here. Amongst those, besides, who have not the ties of
old friendship between them, or have not as yet warmed into that genial
good-fellowship which is, so to say, its foster-brother, a character of
the M'Cormick class is not so damaging an element as might be imagined,
and at times there is a positive advantage in having one of whose
merits, by a tacit understanding, all are quite agreed. Withering
and Stapylton both read the man at once, and drew out his salient
points--his parsimony, his malice, and his prying curiosity--in various
ways, but so neatly and so advisedly as to make him fancy he was the
attacking party, and very successful, too, in his assaults upon the
enemy. Even Barrington, in the honest simplicity of his nature, was
taken in, and more than once thought that the old Major was too severe
upon the others, and sat in wondering admiration of their self-command
and good temper. No deception of this sort prevailed with Miss
Barrington, who enjoyed to the fullest extent the subtle raillery with
which they induced him to betray every meanness of his nature, and yet
never suffered the disclosure to soar above the region of the ludicrous.
“You have been rather hard upon them, Major,” said Barrington, as they
strolled about on the greensward after dinner to enjoy their coffee and
a cigar. “Don't you think you have been a shade too severe?”
“It will do them good. They wanted to turn me out like a bagged fox, and
show the ladies some sport; but I taught them a thing or two.”
“No, no, M'Cormick, you wrong them there; they had no such intentions,
believe me.”
“I know that _you_ did n't see it,” said he, with emphasis, “but your
sister did, and liked it well, besides; ay, and the young one joined in
the fun. And, after all, I don't see that they got much by the victory,
for Withering was not pleased at my little hit about the days when he
used to be a Whig and spout liberal politics; and the other liked just
as little my remark about the fellows in the Company's service, and how
nobody knew who they were or where they came from. He was in the Madras
army himself, but I pretended not to know it; but I found his name
written on the leaf of an old book he gave me, and the regiment he was
in: and did you see how he looked when I touched on it? But here he
comes now.”
“Make your peace with him, M'Cormick, make your peace!” said Barrington,
as he moved away, not sorry, as he went, to mark the easy familiarity
with which Stapylton drew his arm within the other's, and walked along
at his side.
“Wasn't that a wonderful dinner we had to-day, from a man that hasn't a
cross in his pocket?” croaked out M'Cormick to Stapylton.
“Is it possible?”
“Sherry and Madeira after your soup, then Sauterne,--a thing I don't
care for any more than the oyster patties it came with; champagne next,
and in tumblers too! Do you ever see it better done at your mess? Or
where did you ever taste a finer glass of claret?”
“It was all admirable.”
“There was only one thing forgotten,--not that it signifies to me.”
“And what might that be?”
“It was n't paid for! No, nor will it ever be!”
“You amaze me, Major. My impression was that our friend here was,
without being rich, in very comfortable circumstances; able to live
handsomely, while he carried on a somewhat costly suit.”
“That 's the greatest folly of all,” broke out M'Cormick; “and it's to
get money for that now that he's going to mortgage this place here,--ay,
the very ground under our feet!” And this he said with a sort of
tremulous indignation, as though the atrocity bore especially hard upon
_them_. “Kinshela, the attorney from Kilkenny, was up with me about it
yesterday. 'It's an elegant investment, Major,' says he, 'and you 're
very likely to get the place into your hands for all the chance old
Peter has of paying off the charge. His heart is in that suit, and he
'll not stop as long as he has a guinea to go on with it.'
“I said, 'I 'd think of it: I 'd turn it over in my mind;' for there's
various ways of looking at it.”
“I fancy I apprehend one of them,” said Stapylton, with a half-jocular
glance at his companion. “You have been reflecting over another
investment, eh? Am I not right? I remarked you at dinner. I saw how the
young brunette had struck you, and I said to myself, 'She has made a
conquest already!'”
“Not a bit of it; nothing of the kind,” said M'Cormick, awkwardly. “I 'm
too 'cute to be caught that way.”
“Yes, but remember it might be a very good catch. I don't speak of the
suit, because I agree with you, the chances in that direction are very
small, indeed, and I cannot understand the hopeful feeling with which
he prosecutes it; but she is a fine, handsome girl, very attractive in
manner, and equal to any station.”
“And what's the good of all that to me? Wouldn't it be better if she
could make a pease-pudding, like Polly Dill, or know how to fatten a
turkey, or salt down a side of bacon?”
“I don't think so; I declare, I don't think so,” said Stapylton, as he
lighted a fresh cigar. “These are household cares, and to be bought with
money, and not expensively, either. What a man like you or I wants is
one who should give a sort of tone,--impart a degree of elegance to his
daily life. We old bachelors grow into self-indulgence, which is only
another name for barbarism. With a mistaken idea of comfort we neglect
scores of little observances which constitute the small currency of
civilization, and without which all intercourse is unpleasing and
ungraceful.”
“I'm not quite sure that I understand you aright, but there's one thing
I know, I 'd think twice of it before I 'd ask that young woman to be
Mrs. M'Cormick. And, besides,” added he, with a sly side-look, “if it's
so good a thing, why don't you think of it for yourself?”
“I need not tell an old soldier like _you_ that full pay and a wife are
incompatible. Every wise man's experience shows it; and when a fellow
goes to the bishop for a license, he should send in his papers to the
Horse Guards. Now, I 'm too poor to give up my career. I have not, like
you, a charming cottage on a river's bank, and a swelling lawn dotted
over with my own sheep before my door. I cannot put off the harness.”
“Who talks of putting off the harness?” cried Withering, gayly, as he
joined them. “Who ever dreamed of doing anything so ill-judging and so
mistaken? Why, if it were only to hide the spots where the collar has
galled you, you ought to wear the trappings to the last. No man ever
knew how to idle, who had n't passed all his life at it! Some go so far
as to say that for real success a man's father and grandfather should
have been idlers before him. But have you seen Barrington? He has been
looking for you all over the grounds.”
“No,” said Stapylton; “my old brother-officer and myself got into
pipeclay and barrack talk, and strolled away down here unconsciously.”
“Well, we 'd better not be late for tea,” broke in the Major, “or we
'll hear of it from Miss Dinah!” And there was something so comic in
the seriousness of his tone, that they laughed heartily as they turned
towards the house.