A DINNER AT PINCOTE.
Lionel Dering was blessed with one of those equable dispositions which
predispose their owner to look always at the sunny side of everything;
and even now, in prison, and with such a terrible accusation hanging
over him, no one ever saw him downhearted or in any way distressed.
There was about him a serenity, a quiet cheerfulness, which nothing
seemed able to disturb; and when in the company of others he was
usually as gay and animated as if the four walls of his cell had been
those of his own study at Park Newton. The ordeal was, in any case, a
very trying one; but it would have been infinitely more so but for the
sweet offices of love and friendship which he owed in one case to his
wife, and in the other to his friend. Either Edith or Tom saw him every
day. But when all his visitors had gone, and night and silence had
settled down on the grim old prison—silence so profound that but for
the recurring voice of a distant clock, as it counted the hours slowly
and solemnly, he could have fancied himself the last man left alive in
the world—then it was that he felt his situation the most. He had been
so used to an active, outdoor life, that he could not now tire himself
sufficiently to sleep well.
It was these hours of darkness, when the rest of the world was abed,
and the long, long hours of daylight in the early summer mornings
before it was yet awake, which tried him more than anything else. At
such times, when he was tired of reading—and he had never before read
so much in so short a space of time—he could do nothing but lie back on
his pallet, with his arms curled under his head, and think. The
mornings were balmy, soft, and bright. Through the cell-casement, which
he could open at will, he could hear the merry twittering of
innumerable sparrows. He could see the slow shadows sliding, inch by
inch, down the gray stone walls of the prison yard, as the sun rose
higher in the sky. Now and then the sweet west wind brought him faint
wafts of fragrance from the hay-slopes just outside the prison gates.
Sometimes he could hear the barking of a dog on some far far-off farm,
or the dull lowing of cattle; sounds which reminded him that the great
world, with its life, and hopes, and fears, lay close around him,
though he himself might have no part therein. At such moments he often
felt that he would give half of all he was possessed of for an hour’s
freedom outside those tomb-like walls—for one hour’s blessed freedom,
with Edith by his side, to wander at their own sweet will through lane
and coppice and by river’s brim, with the free air of heaven blowing
around them, and nothing to bound their eyes but the dim horizon, lying
like a purple ring on woods and meadows far away.
Little wonder that during these long, solitary hours a sense of
depression, of melancholy even, would now and then take possession of
him for a little while; that his mind was oppressed with vague
forebodings of what that future, which was now drawing near with sure
but unhasting footsteps, might possibly have in store for him. He had
just won for himself the sweetest prize which this world had in its
power to offer him, and his very soul shrank within him when he thought
that he had won it only, perhaps, to lose it for ever in a few short
weeks. Bitter, very bitter—despairing almost—grew his thoughts at such
times; but he struggled bravely against them, and never let them master
him for long. When the clock struck six, and the tramp of heavy feet
was heard along the corridors, and the jingling of huge keys—when the
warders were changed, and the little wicket in his cell door was opened
and a cheerful voice said, “Good-morning, sir. Hope you have slept
well,” Lionel’s cheery response would ring out, clear and full,
“Good-morning, Jeavons. I’ve had an excellent night, thank you.” And
Jeavons would go back to his mates and say, “Mr. Dering’s just
wonderful. Always the same. Never out o’ sorts.”
Later on would come Hoskyns, and Edith, and Tom. It was impossible for
Edith to visit the prison alone, and the lawyer would often make a
pretence of having business with his client when he had none in
reality, rather than withstand the piteous, pleading look which would
spring to Edith’s eyes the moment he told her that there would be no
occasion for him to visit the gaol that day. While he lives Hoskyns
will never forget those pretty pictures of the lover-husband and his
bride, as they sat together, hand in hand, in the grim old cell,
comforting each other, strengthening each other, and drawing pictures
of the happy future in store for them; deceiving each other with a
make-believe gaiety; and hiding, with desperate earnestness, the
terrible dread which lay lurking, like a foul witch in a cavern, low
down in the heart of each—that, for them, the coming months might
bring, not sunshine, flowers, and the joys of mutual love, but
life-long separation and the unspeakable darkness that broods beneath
the awful wings of Death.
On these occasions, Hoskyns never neglected to provide himself with a
newspaper, and, buried behind the huge broadsheet of “The Times,” with
spectacles poised on nose, he would go calmly on with his reading,
leaving Lionel and Edith almost as much to themselves as though he had
not been there. The sterling qualities of the old lawyer, and the
thorough sincerity of his character, gradually forced themselves on the
notice of Lionel and his wife, both of whom came, after a time, to
regard him almost in the light of a second father, and to treat him
with an affectionate familiarity which he was not slow to appreciate.
As Tom Bristow was turning the corner of Duxley High Street, one
afternoon about three days after his arrival from London, he was met,
face to face, by Squire Culpepper. The squire stopped and stared at
Tom, but failed for the moment to recognize him.
“Good-morning, sir,” said Tom, heartily. “Glad to see you looking so
well.”
“Why—eh?—surely I must know that face,” said the squire. “It’s young
Tom Bristow, if I’m not mistaken.”
“You are not mistaken, sir,” answered Tom.
“Then I’m very glad to see you, Tom—very,” said the squire, as he shook
Tom warmly by the hand. “Your father was a man whom I liked and
respected immensely. I can never forget his kindness and attention to
my poor dear wife during her last illness—never. He did all that man
could do to preserve her to me—but it was not to be. For your father’s
sake, Tom, you will always find Titus Culpepper stand your friend.”
“It is very kind of you to say so, sir.”
“Not at all—not at all. So you’re back again at the old place, eh?
Going to stop with us this time, I hope. You ought never to have left
us, young sir, but have settled down quietly in your father’s shoes.
Vagabondizing’s a bad thing for any young man.”
“I quite agree with you, sir,” said Tom, in a tone of assumed
simplicity.
“Glad you’ve come round to my way of thinking at last. Knew you would.
Well, if I can do anything for you in the way of helping you to get a
decent living, you may command me fully. Think over what I’ve said, and
come and dine with me at Pincote to-morrow at seven sharp.”
“It would be worth something,” said Tom to himself as he went on his
way, “to know what the squire’s opinion about me really is; to have a
glimpse at the portrait of me in all its details which he has evolved
from his own inner consciousness. Strange that in a little town like
this, where everybody knows everybody else’s business better than he
knows his own, if a man venture to step out of the beaten track
prescribed for him by custom and tradition, and is bold enough to
strike out a path for himself, he is at once set down as being, of
necessity, either a lunatic or a scapegrace—unless, indeed, his lunacy
chance to win for him either a fortune or a name. And then how changed
the tone!”
Next evening Tom found himself at Pincote. The squire introduced him in
brief terms to his daughter, and then left the room for a few minutes,
for which Tom did not thank him. “What can I say to Miss Culpepper that
will be likely to interest her?” he asked himself. “Does she go in for
private theatricals, or for ritualism and pet parsons? Does she believe
in soup kitchens and visiting the poor, or would she rather talk about
the new prima donna, and the last new poem?”
Miss Culpepper had sat down again at the piano, and was striking a few
chords now and then, in an absent-minded way. She was by no means a
pretty girl in the ordinary acceptation of the term. Her face was a
good one, without being strikingly handsome. She had something of her
father’s shrewd, keen look, but with an underlying expression of
goodness and kindliness, difficult to define, but unmistakably there.
She had large blue-gray eyes and magnificent teeth. Her complexion,
lily-clear during the winter months, was already freckled by the warm
May sunshine, and would be more so before the summer was over. Finally,
her hair was red—not auburn, but an unmistakable red.
But Tom Bristow had rather a weakness for red hair—not perhaps for the
deep, dull, fiery red which we sometimes see. He accepted it, as the
old Venetians accepted it—as one of the rarest types of beauty, as
something far superior to your commonplace browns and blacks. And then
he did not object to freckles—in moderation. He looked upon them as one
of the signs of a sound country-bred constitution. As Jane Culpepper
sat there by the piano, in the sunny May eventide, in her white dress,
trimmed with pale green velvet, with her red hair coiled in great hands
round her little head—with her frank smile, and her clear
honest-looking eyes, she filled up in Tom’s mind his ideal picture of a
healthy, pure-minded English country girl, and it struck him that he
could have made a very pleasant water-colour sketch of herself and her
surroundings.
Jane spared him the trouble of finding a topic that would be likely to
interest her by being the first to speak. “Do you find Duxley much
changed since you were here last?” She asked.
“Very little changed indeed. These small country towns never do change,
or only by such imperceptible degrees that one never notices the
difference. But may I ask, Miss Culpepper, how you know that I am not a
stranger to Duxley?”
“Oh, I have often heard papa speak of you, and wonder what had become
of you.”
“And heard him blame me, I doubt not, for running away from the friends
of my youth, and the town of my birth.”
“I cannot say that you are altogether wrong,” answered Jane with a
smile. “Papa is a little impulsive at times, as I dare say you know,
and judges every one from his own peculiar standpoint.”
“Which means, in my case, I suppose, that because I was born in Duxley,
I ought to have earned my bread there, died there, and been buried
there.”
“Something of the kind, doubtless. Old-fashioned prejudices you would
call them, Mr. Bristow.”
“I dare say I should. But they are worthy of respect for all that.”
“Is not that somewhat of a paradox?”
“Hardly so, I think. Men like Mr. Culpepper, with their conservatism,
and their traditions of a past—which, it should not be forgotten, was
not a past, but a present, when they were young people, and is,
consequently, not so very antiquated—with their faith in old
institutions, old modes of thought, old friendships, and—and old wine,
are simply invaluable in this shifty, restless, out-of-breath era in
which we live. They are like the roots of grass and tangle which bind
together the sandhills on a windy shore. They conserve for us the
essence of an experience which dates from years before we were born;
which will sweeten our lives, if we know how to use it: as yonder
pot-pourri of faded rose-leaves sweetens this room, and whispers to us
that, in summers long ago, flowers as sweet bloomed and faded, as those
which blossom for us to-day and will fade and leave us to-morrow.”
“When you are as old as papa, Mr. Bristow,” said Jane, with a laugh, “I
believe you will be just as conservative and full of prejudices as he
is.”
“I hope so, I’m sure,” said Tom, earnestly. “Only, my prejudices will
differ in some degree from his—as his would doubtless differ in degree
from those of his father—because I happen to have been born some thirty
years later in the world’s history.”
At this moment the servant ushered in Mr. Cope the banker, and Mr.
Edward Cope the banker’s son. Jane rose, and introduced Tom to them as
“Mr. Bristow, a friend of papa’s.” The banker’s son stared at Tom for a
moment, nodded his bull head, and then drawing a chair up to the piano,
proceeded to take possession of Jane with an air of proprietorship
which brought the colour for a moment into that young lady’s face.
The banker himself was more affable, in the pompous way that was
habitual with him. He never remembered to have heard the name of
Bristow before, but being a friend of the squire, the young man was
probably worth cultivating, and, in any case, there was nothing lost by
a little politeness. So Mr. Cope cleared his throat, and planting
himself like a colossus before the vacant grate, entered with becoming
seriousness upon the state of the weather and the prospects of the
crops. When the squire came in, five minutes later, Tom and the banker
were chatting together, as if they had known each other for years.
They all went in to dinner. Over the soup, said the squire to Mr. Cope:
“You were telling me, the other day, that one of your fellows at the
bank died a week or two ago?”
“Yes: young Musgrave. Clever young man. Great loss to the firm.”
“Well, if you have not filled up the place it might, perhaps, suit our
young friend here,” indicating Tom, “if you like to take him on my
recommendation. I don’t know whether Jenny introduced him properly, but
he’s the son of Dr. Bristow, who attended my wife in her last illness.
I respected his father, and I like the lad, and would gladly do
something for him.”
The banker was scandalized. It might almost be said that he was
horrified. To think that he had been invited to meet, and, worse than
that, had talked on terms of perfect equality with, a young man who was
in want of an ordinary clerkship—who would, doubtless, be glad of a
stool in the back office of his bank! It was monstrous—it was
disgusting! But it was just the sort of inconsiderate conduct that
might be expected from a man like Culpepper. His manner towards Tom
froze in a moment.
“What say you? Can you do anything for him?” urged the squire.
“Why—ah—really, you know—should be most happy to oblige you, or to
serve Mr.—Mr.——”
“Bristow,” said the squire.
“Bristow—thank you—but you see—ah—young Musgrave’s berth was filled up
a week ago, and I’m sorry that I’ve nothing else just now at all likely
to suit the requirements of your—ah—protégé. I’ll take another spoonful
of clear soup, if you please.”
Tom’s face was a study all this time. “I’m in for it now,” he said to
himself. “The banker will never speak to me again.”
“Ah, well,” said the squire, “I’ll see McKenna, the electioneering
agent, to-morrow. I dare say he’ll know of something that will suit our
young friend.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Culpepper,” said Tom quietly, “but I’m afraid there’s a
slight mistake somewhere. I am not aware that I ever expressed myself
as being in want of a situation, either in Mr. Cope’s bank, or
elsewhere. My business, such as it is, lies in London. I have only come
down to Duxley to see a few old friends.”
“Why, bless my heart,” said the squire, “I thought you told me
yesterday that you were in want of something to do!”
“A misunderstanding, I assure you, sir. Many thanks to you all the
same.”
“And what the deuce is your business, if I may make bold to ask?” said
the squire, testily.
Tom hesitated for a moment. “I believe, sir, I might describe myself as
an individual who lives by his wits—such as they are,” he said at last.
“And can you manage to make money by your wits?” asked the squire, with
ill-concealed contempt.
“A little, sir,” answered Tom. “Enough to find me in food and clothes.
Enough to satisfy my few and simple needs.”
The squire gave a grunt of discontent, and turned towards the banker,
who, ignoring any further notice of Tom, at once broached the
interminable subject of local politics—a subject that had a fascination
for the squire which he was never able to resist. Tom revenged himself
by turning his attention to the opposite end of the table, where sat
Miss Culpepper, with her faithful squire, Mr. Edward Cope, in close
proximity to her. “They are engaged, I suppose,” said Tom to himself,
“or else she wouldn’t let him sit so near her, and glare at her so with
those pig’s eyes of his. But I’ll never believe that she can care for a
fellow like that. She’s just the kind of girl,” he went on mentally,
“that, if I were a marrying man, I should like to win for myself—and,
by Jove! he’s just the sort of fellow that I should glory in cutting
out. Has he a word of any kind to say for himself, I wonder? At present
his whole soul seems given up to the pleasures of the table.”
Certainly, Mr. Edward Cope was no Adonis; but he might have been
accepted as a very tolerable representation of Bacchus clothed in
modern evening dress. For a young man, he was abnormally stout.
Already, at three-and-twenty, he had no waist worth speaking of. What
he would be ten years hence was a mystery. His dress was usually a
compromise between that of a horse trainer and a gentleman. He turned
his toes in when he walked, and he had a fat, vacuous face, which, in
his case, was a fair index to the vacuous mind within. He was a crack
whip, and a tolerable shot—pigeon shooting was his favourite
pastime—but much farther than that his intellect did not carry him.
He did venture on a remark at last. “I gave Beauty a new set of shoes
this morning,” he said. “She didn’t at all like having them put on, and
kicked out furiously. Ferris did not half like the job, I can tell you;
especially after she sent him sprawling into a corner of his own
smithy. I never laughed so much in my life before.”
“I can’t see what there was to laugh at, Edward. I hope the poor man
was not much hurt.”
“Oh, we got some brandy into him, and he came round all right in about
ten minutes. I’m going to try Beauty to-morrow in the new dog-cart. You
might let me call for you about eleven.”
“You may call for me, if you like, but only on one condition: that you
drive me over to see how poor Ferris is getting on.
“All right. I’ll call. But you women do make such a jolly fuss about
nothing.”
“What a beautiful sunset, is it not, Mr. Bristow?” said Jane, turning
to Tom.
“Beautiful, indeed—for England; but in no wise comparable, in point of
sheer splendour, to the sunsets of the East.”
“From which, I presume, we may infer that you are not unacquainted with
the East.”
“Three months since I was living in the desert as the guest of an Arab
scheik.”
Jane brightened up in a moment. Here was a chance at last of hearing
about something that would interest her. Question and answer followed
each other in quick succession, and in less than five minutes the
conversation had drifted away into regions far beyond the reach of
Edward le Gros, who sat glowering at them in a sulky silence, which
remained unbroken till the cloth was drawn, and Miss Culpepper left the
gentlemen to themselves.
“Draw up, boys—draw up closer,” said the squire. “Jenkins, bring in two
bottles of the blue seal.”
Edward drew his chair up closer to the squire, who was totally unaware
that everything among his guests was not on the pleasantest possible
footing. Both the banker and his son had evidently determined to ignore
Tom utterly, but Tom accepted his fate with unbroken serenity.
After a little time, the conversation turned on the probability of a
new line of railway being made before long to connect Duxley with a
certain manufacturing town about forty miles away. Mr. Culpepper was
strongly opposed to the scheme, but Mr. Cope was rather inclined to
view it with favour.
“One thing is quite clear,” said the banker. “Sir Harry Fulke will do
his best to get the bill smuggled through Parliament. The proposed line
would just cut through the edge of his estate, and the money he would
get for the land would be very useful to him just now—as I happen to
know.”
“Pardon me,” interrupted Tom, “but if Sir Harry Fulke’s word is worth
anything at all, he is as strongly opposed as Mr. Culpepper himself to
the line in question.”
“And pray, sir,” asked the banker, with considerable hauteur, “may I be
allowed to ask how you happen to know Sir Harry’s opinion on this
important point?”
“Because I had it from Sir Harry’s own lips,” answered Tom, simply. “We
were talking together on this very subject, only a few evenings ago, at
Lord Tynedale’s.”
Mr. Cope stared at Tom as though he could hardly believe the evidence
of his own senses.
“Ah, well,” said the squire, with a chuckle, “if Sir Harry’s opposed to
the line, we may make our minds easy that we shall hear very little
more about it.”
“I’m not so sure on that point,” answered Tom. “I know for a fact that
Bloggs and Hayling, the great engineers, are very much interested in
getting the scheme pushed forward, and they are generally credited with
knowing pretty well what they are about.”
“As you seem, sir, to be on such intimate terms with Lord Tynedale,”
said the banker, with a sneer, “you can, perhaps, tell us the real ins
and outs of that strange gambling transaction with which his lordship’s
youngest son was so recently mixed up.”
“I cannot tell you the real facts of the case,” answered Tom. “I
presume that they are known only to the parties most concerned. But
this I can tell you, that I and Mr. Cecil Drake, the young gentleman in
question, lived together for three months in Algeria on the most
intimate terms; and from my knowledge of him, I feel perfectly sure
that his share of the transaction you allude to was that of a strictly
honourable man.”
The banker blew his nose violently. This Mr. Bristow was a very strange
young man, he said to himself. There was evidently a mistake somewhere.
Probably the squire had blundered as usual. In the meantime, it might
be just as well to be decently civil to him.
When the evening came to an end, and the banker was putting on his
overcoat in the hall, he whispered in the squire’s ear: “I suppose you
know that your balance is seventy pounds overdrawn?”
The squire’s face for a moment turned quite ghastly, and he clutched at
a chair for support. He recovered himself with a laugh. “I knew it was
very low, but I didn’t know it was overdrawn,” he whispered back. “But
I know what I’m about, never fear. Just mark my words: before you are
two months older, you’ll have a bigger balance to the credit of Titus
Culpepper than you’ve ever had yet. Oh yes, I know perfectly well what
I’m about.”
“I’m very glad to hear it, I’m sure,” said the banker with a dubious
cough. “I think we shall have some rain before morning. Good-night, Mr.
Bristow. Very pleased to have made your acquaintance. Hope we shall
meet again.”
The banker took counsel with himself as he was being driven home by his
son. “I think it will be advisable to send Edward to New York for a
couple of months,” he thought. “In case the worst comes to the worst,
the affair can then be broken off without scandal. The squire’s playing
some underhand game which will bring him to grief if he’s not very,
very careful. Meanwhile, all I can do is to wait and watch.”
Strange to say, Tom Bristow’s dreams that night were of Jane Culpepper.
“I wonder whether she dreamed about me,” he murmured to himself next
morning as he was stropping his razor. “Not likely. And I was no better
than a fool to dream about her.”