A Mine is laid.
Refused! rejected! Lord Ticehurst could scarcely believe it. "Declined
the honour," she said; that was the way she put it. Declined the
honour! "Whish!" went the whip over the heads of the roans, who became
marvellously unsteady at the sound, and reared, and plunged, and
pulled, and caused the middle-aged groom once again to peer over the
head of the phaeton more nervously and uncomfortably than ever.
Lord Ticehurst could not understand the experience of the morning. The
more he thought over it the more preposterous it appeared to him.
Throughout the whole course of his life he had never had one wish
thwarted. At Eton his fag did his exercises, and at Oxford the dons
toadied him as dons only can toady; and in later life he had had
henchmen innumerable, who bad received his every word as law. As for
this affair with Miss Lambert, he--well, he didn't know; he had not
been so cocksure about it at first, when he first began to be
spooney on her. She was a deuced nice girl, there was no denying
that,--clever, and all that kind of thing; sort of person that any
fellow might be proud of to see sitting at the head of his table, and
look deuced well at the Opera, and all that. Was not half so cocksure
when he first began to be spooney; that was perhaps because he was
spooney; fellows always thought they were not good enough for the
woman they were spooney on; and--not good enough? that's a great
notion! the idea of the Earl of Ticehurst not being good enough
for--no, he couldn't say anything against her; she was an
opera-singer, everyone knew, but she was a perfect lady. O d--, what a
nuisance it was! Since he had made up his mind to it he had begun to
look upon it as quite certain, as a result about which there could not
be the smallest doubt; and now he saw that all his conjectures had
been false and his plans foundationless. What could be her motive? No
question of hoping to hook a larger fish? That was absurd. Lord
Ticehurst reflected with a certain amount of consolation that there
were very few larger fish than he in the waters preserved for
matrimonial angling, and of those few none were likely to make Miss
Lambert an offer. Not any question of personal objection? Even if such
a thing were probable to a person in his position, Miss Lambert's
manner to him had always been courteous, and occasionally cordial. No
one could have been making mischief about him? No, he thought not; he
did not go in to be strait-laced, and all that kind of thing, any more
than any other fellow of his age; but there was nothing that anyone
could lay hold of and make a fuss about; his name was not mentioned in
conjunction with any woman's, or anything of that kind that a woman
might find objectionable in the man who wanted to marry her. What,
then, could it be? Could it be shyness, modesty, and all that? Jove!
he'd never thought of that, never looked at it in that light. Could it
be possible that Miss Lambert had refused him because she did not feel
herself up to the mark--didn't think herself equal to the position
which he had proposed to her to occupy? The notion was a very pleasant
one to Lord Ticehurst; it gratified his vanity, and it gave him
hope. It might come off after all! He had not had much experience of
women--not of that sort, at least--and it was impossible to make them
out; there was never any knowing what to do with them. After all,
perhaps, she only wanted a little more pressing; he certainly had
nipped off rather sharp, without asking her to explain, or anything of
that kind. He supposed that was what fellows usually did,--asked the
women "Why," and all that sort of thing. "Declined the honour," she
said; perhaps if he had given her the chance she would not have
declined it a second time. He would give her the chance; he would go
over again to what's-a-name, old Belwether's place, and tell Miss
Lambert that he really meant it, and that--
As the thought of "what's-a-name, old Belwether's place," passed
through Lord Ticehurst's mind, simultaneously arose therein the very
uncomfortable recollection of having seen Miles Challoner at the gate.
The young nobleman's spirits, which had risen rapidly under the
roseate influence of his hopes, sunk at once to zero when he
remembered that Gilbert Lloyd had told him of the manner in which this
man Challoner was making "strong running" for Miss Lambert, and bade
him beware of him as a dangerous rival. Jove! that might account for
her declining the honour, and all that. Of course it was a ridiculous
thing to imagine any woman taking a fellow like Chaldecott--Challoner,
or whatever they called him--before a man in his position; but one
never knew, it was impossible to say; and--he did not know what the
deuce to do one way or the other.
"Princes and women must not be contradicted," says the proverb. Young
noblemen, or old noblemen for the matter of that, with health and
wealth, are pretty much in the same category. For the first time in
his life Lord Ticehurst found himself debarred from the fulfilment of
a special wish, and he raged inwardly and chafed against his destiny.
He could have cried from sheer spite and vexation; he stamped his foot
in his rage, and once more startled the roans out of all propriety. He
felt that he was morally "cornered;" he did not like to give up all
idea of this girl, for whom he had a certain liking and a certain
passion, and in the possession of whom he would have had the
justification of that pride which was perhaps the most thoroughly
developed of all the various component parts of his character. On the
other hand, he dared not run the chance of a second rejection, as the
news of it might get wind, and he might be made to appear ridiculous;
and, like most of his order, Lord Ticehurst was more afraid of
ridicule than of anything else. To be laughed at had always been
looked on by him as the greatest possible infliction, for he knew that
neither his position nor his wealth rendered him invulnerable to
"chaff;" and he was sufficiently man of the world to feel that these
advantages in themselves would tempt the aim and barb the arrows of
the sharpshooters. He could not face it out, by Jove he couldn't! The
mere thought of being bantered on the subject of his rejection by Miss
Lambert gave an apoplectic hue to his lordship's cheeks, and brought
large beads of perspiration on to his forehead.
"I couldn't stand it," he said half aloud, and forgetting the
proximity of the serious groom. "Gad! I think I should go mad, and
that kind of thing. Don't think I'll give old Gil the chance of having
a crow over me just yet. He's sure to ask me how I got on, and all
that, and I'd better hold it over for an hour or two. He's rather
spiky in his chaff, I've noticed lately, Master Gil is; I don't know
what's come to him!"
So, on further reflection, Lord Ticehurst struck off the road leading
to Eastbourne, and turned back, tooling the roans along the St.
Leonards parade, to the immense delight of the promenaders there
assembled, and finally pulling up at the door of the principal hotel
in Hastings. Here he alighted, and bidding his groom to bring the
phaeton round at eight in the evening, entered the hotel, ordered an
early dinner, and strolled out on to the parade.
A person in Lord Ticehurst's position and of Lord Ticehurst's habits
is almost certain to find a number of acquaintances in every place of
anything like pretension to fashion which he may visit; and
his lordship had not lounged up the promenade for more than a dozen
paces ere his arrival was known to as many persons. Old Lady Spills,
who was always seated at the bow-window of her lodgings with a
powerful opera-glass, marked the young nobleman's arrival at the
hotel, and immediately called to her granddaughter, then resident with
her, to get her hat and accompany her on the parade as quickly as
possible. "Not that it's of any use," the old lady remarked to
herself; "for Julia is as stupid as an owl, and not likely to be
attractive even to the most innocent of youths, much less to a young
man like this, who is, no doubt, perfectly able to take care of
himself." The Duke of Doncaster, a melancholy old man, in a crumpled
wig and dyed whiskers, wearing the bell-hat, large-checked
neckerchief, and cutaway green coat of the past generation, was
driving his team up and down the parade, solemnly and methodically as
was his usual afternoon practice, and he recognised Lord Ticehurst's
presence by jerking his whip-elbow into the air in true coachman-like
fashion. The sisters Lavrock, of the Scandinavian Opera and the
nobility's concerts--brave little women, who in the off-season went
round to the different watering-places, and made a good deal of money
by giving a little musical entertainment--blushed and giggled in great
delight as his good-natured lordship stopped them on the promenade,
and inquired with unaffected interest after their well-doing. That
eminent landscape-painter Scumble, R.A., who had often met Lord
Ticehurst at Carabas House, over which mansion he seemed to have the
right of free warren, happened to be staying at Hastings, partly for
the sake of studying marine effects, partly for the purpose of
pacifying Mrs. Scumble, who had but a dull time of it in London; and
he tore off his wideawake as he met Lord Ticehurst's eye, and
pretended to have nothing to do with Mrs. Scumble, who at that moment
was a little way off, placidly bargaining for a shell pincushion.
Lastly, Bobby Maitland--who had come ashore for two days from Mr.
Stackborough's yacht, with the view of meeting his solicitor, and
settling pecuniary matters during his absence--Bobby Maitland, looking
over the blind of the coffee-room of the Marine Hotel, along which
blind he had been thoughtfully rubbing his nose, spied his lordship,
and announced his discovery to his friend Stackborough in these
flattering terms: "By Jove, Haystacks, old man, here's that ass
Ticehurst!"
"Haystacks" and "old man" were both terms of endearment and
familiarity. Mr. Stackborough was about three-and-twenty, very rich,
very foolish, and with an irrepressible yearning for what he called
"high society." He had chambers in the Albany, splendid horses, a
capital yacht, and more clothes than any other man in London. He was
always extensively got-up, and never looked like a gentleman. Bobby
Maitland, who lived with him and on him, could influence him on
everything except his wardrobe--in that matter he always would have
his own way. On the present occasion he was elaborately appareled in
maritime fashion, dark-blue jacket with gilt buttons, very open white
waistcoat, flap shirt-collar, trousers tight to the knee, then loose
and flapping, black oilskin-hat with blue ribbon. Mr. Stackborough
generally suited his language as far as possible to his style of
costume. When that was horsey he talked turf, now he talked sea;
consequently he said--
"Ticehurst, eh? Where does he hail from?"
"How the deuce should I know!" replied Bobby. "He's only just come in
sight."
"T'other craft in company, of course?" suggested Mr. Stackborough.
"He's always under convoy, his is! T'other craft's close by, I
suppose, or at all events in the offing." And Mr. Stackborough peered
from under his hand at his friend as though scanning the horizon.
"Look here, Haystacks, old man!" said Bobby Maitland thoughtfully;
"you must moderate your transports, you must indeed. There's too much
of this bold-smuggler business about you--a deal too much. I daresay
it's a kind of gaff that takes with some people, but it don't with me,
and so you may as well drop it. It isn't good style either; so drop
it, old flick, and tell me in the Queen's English what you mean."
Mr. Stackborough wriggled uneasily in the maritime suit and blushed.
"All right," he said after a minute's pause, "I'll take care. Thank
you for telling me, Bobby. What I meant to say was, wasn't Lloyd
there? He's always with his, you know."
"O, I understand now! No; Ticehurst seems to be by himself for a
wonder. No doubt Lloyd's close at hand, though; he never lets my lord
go far without him."
"Shall we 'bout ship and--I mean, shall we go out and speak to him?"
asked Mr. Stackborough. It _was_ so difficult to resist the influence
of the maritime garments.
"Well, yes; there's no harm," said Bobby, knowing his young friend was
dying to speak to and be seen speaking to a recognised "swell."
So Mr. Stackborough put on the glazed hat with the blue ribbon, and
they strolled into the street. Now, though Lord Ticehurst did not much
affect Bobby Maitland, and had a great contempt for Mr. Stackborough,
he had such a horror of being alone and being thrown on his own
resources for amusement, that, as soon as he saw these gentlemen
approaching, he brightened up, and received them with a warmth which
completely captivated Mr. Stackborough. Bobby Maitland was older and
less enthusiastic. He disliked Ticehurst; and as he knew there was
nothing to be got out of his lordship, he always spoke to him with
charming frankness.
"We could scarcely believe it was you, Etchingham," said he, after the
ordinary salutations had been exchanged.
"O, ah!" replied his lordship, "didn't expect to find me in this
place, eh?"
"Well, no, perhaps one wouldn't have thought of finding you here.
Nothing going on that you can understand--horses, I mean, and that
kind of thing. But that was not what I meant."
"What did you mean, then?" asked his lordship somewhat crossly, for he
understood and appreciated the sneer.
"Well, we didn't think you were ever let out without your
dry-nurse--Lloyd, don't you know? Don't be angry, old fellow, it's
only my chaff!"
"It's a deuced bad style of chaff," said Lord Ticehurst, who had grown
very white, and whose lips trembled as he spoke,--"a deuced bad style
of chaff; and I'll trouble you not to try it on me, Mr. Maitland!"
"Mr. Maitland! Come, that be hanged!" said Bobby, who saw that he had
gone a little too far. "I'm very sorry if I've offended you,
Etchingham, and I apologise. I can't say more."
The good-natured young man accepted the apology at once, and the three
walked on together. Lord Ticehurst, then explaining that he was only
in the town for a few hours, and that he had ordered a solitary dinner
at the Queen's Hotel, was easily persuaded to let Mr. Stackborough
(who was too delighted to fetch and carry for a lord) go and
countermand it, while his lordship agreed to dine with his new-found
acquaintances at the Marine. So, to the intense delight of Mr.
Stackborough, they strolled up and down the parade, listening to the
band, looking after the pretty women, and criticising the horses.
"Haystacks" conversation became almost unintelligible during this
walk; for Lord Ticehurst being eminently horsey, and the talk running
on the breeding and look of horses, Mr. Stackborough would, under
ordinary circumstances, have turned on the turf tap, and drawn his
idioms from the stable; but the maritime clothes still from time to
time asserted their influence, and the result was that the unfortunate
youth got into a series of linguistic knots which he could not untie,
and with which no one could assist him.
The dinner at the Marine was a success. Boffham, who keeps the hotel,
had been _chef_ to Count Krammetsvogel, of the Hanoverian embassy, in
former days, and had turned out many excellent official dinners, of
which Lord Ticehurst's father had partaken. When he heard that the
young lord was to be a guest of one of his guests, Boffham went
himself to the kitchen, and showed that neither Time nor the gout had
robbed his hand of its cunning. The wines too--notably some Chateau
Yquem and some Steinberger Cabinet, which had been bought by Boffham
out of the Krammetsvogel cellar when the count was recalled--were
delicious; so delicious, that many bottles were drunk, and the hearts
of the drinkers were warmed, and their tongues loosened. Something
which Bobby Maitland had said to him when they first met that day had
stuck in Lord Ticehurst's throat. He had tried to swallow it, but the
attempt had been unsuccessful. Under the influence of the wine he felt
he must mention it--he could see no reason why he should not.
"Bobby!" he said, as they were sipping their claret, "my horses will
be round in a minute; but I want to say two words to you before I
go.--Don't you move, Mr. Stacks," Stackborough made a kind of
blundering attempt to rise,--"don't you move, there's nothing secret
or private,"--here Lord Ticehurst looked long and earnestly at the
wick of the candle close by him, then proceeded--"or at least; if
there is, you're far too good a fellow, Stacks, to--to--you know what
I mean.--So do you, Bobby."
"All right, Etchingham, old boy, I know," said Mr. Maitland "What do
you want to say?" Mr. Maitland had to repeat his question, Lord
Ticehurst having again become absorbed in the contemplation of the
candle. "What do you want to say?"
"What do I want to say?" said his lordship, after a pause--"ah, that's
just it! I wonder--O, I know! Don't you know when you folks first met
me to-day, you said something, Bobby--something about Lloyd?"
"Yes, I recollect--what then?"
"You asked me where my nurse was, or something of that sort, didn't
you?"
"I think I did."
"Ah! just tell me, like a good fellow--is that the way men talk about
me and Lloyd?"
"What way?"
"Do they say that he--that I--that he's like what you said, my nurse?"
"They say you daren't call your soul your own without his leave. That
you never move hand or foot without him; some say he washes you and
parts your hair; but that's their way of putting it. What they mean
is, that he's your master, and you're his most obedient."
"And do you think Lloyd knows they say this?"
"Knows they say it!" repeated Bobby Maitland, with a loud vinous
laugh; "knows they say it! why, he says it himself; boasts of it!"
"The deuce he does!" said Lord Ticehurst, rising with an unsteady
gait. "That must be stopped! There are some things that a man can
stand; and there are some things he----My carriage. Thank
you!--Good-night, Mr. Stacks; very glad to have looked you
up.--Good-night, Bobby; see you at Doncaster, I suppose? No! well,
then--never mind.--Right, Martin!" and his lordship dashed off at a
tremendous pace, while the serious groom, who had seen his master reel
on the phaeton-step, looked more serious than ever as he jumped up
behind.
When the other two gentlemen returned to their room, Mr. Stackborough
said, "He didn't half like what you said about Lloyd just now.
Shouldn't wonder if there was a row when he gets home."
"Serve Master Gil deuced well right," said Maitland; "I've owed him
one for a long time, and now I think I've paid him. Teach him to give
himself airs over me next time we meet in the ring."
"Devilish pleasant, gentlemanly fellow is Etchinghurst," said Mr.
Stackborough, steadying himself by holding on to the table.
Bobby Maitland regarded him with a smile. "His name is Etchingham, not
Etchinghurst; but you're not sufficiently intimate with him to call
him anything but Lord Ticehurst. Haystacks, dear old boy, you've had
too much wine; have a tumbler of soda, plain, and go to bed."
There was no reason for the serious groom's apprehensions, so far as
the safety of his person was concerned. It is a received axiom that
the effects of intoxication are increased when gentlemen labouring
under them are exposed to the influence of the air; and the groom's
perturbation was probably based upon this theory. He had not, however,
probably made allowance for the fact--which possibly had never come
within his ken--that when the mind is actively at work it becomes an
admirable counterirritant to the influence of wine. That feeble
nonsense of the hiccupping toper of the past generation relative to
the drowning of dull Care in bowls was as void of reason as of rhythm.
That men in good spirits will have those spirits made livelier by good
drink in good company is intelligible enough; but dull Care--whatever
he may have suffered in the three-bottle days--declines to be drowned
or in any way got rid of by such a quantity of liquor as is at the
present time drank in society. The confirmation of his suspicions
about Gilbert Lloyd, which Bobby Maitland had communicated with so
much charming frankness to Lord Ticehurst, had had a singularly
sobering influence on the young nobleman. The anger arising in his
heart seemed to have chased away the fumes which had been obscuring
his brain; and after he had been five minutes on the road he was in as
good condition as he ever was--which, perhaps, is not saying much--to
think the matter calmly through. It was a lovely night; the roans,
knowing they were on their homeward journey, stepped out splendidly
and refrained from indulging in any of the capers and antics which had
characterised their morning's performance; and Lord Ticehurst, getting
them well in hand, settled himself down to think over all he had
heard, and to endeavour to arrive at some definite conclusion before
the end of his drive.
Was it what we have no adequate expression for, but what the French
call the _vin triste_, that was exercising its malign influence over
the young man? Had his "potations pottle deep" but resulted in
stirring up dull Care instead of drowning him? Had Boffham's Chateau
Yquem and Steinberger Cabinet an effect exactly opposite to that of
the waters of Lethe? Certain it is that as Lord Ticehurst rolled
rapidly homewards his memory, which very seldom troubled him, was
actively at work, and his reflections were of anything but a pleasant
character.
So they said that he was a mere child in Gilbert Lloyd's hands, did
they?--that he dare not call his soul his own; that he had no will, no
opinion,--chaffed, and said Lloyd was his dry-nurse, did they?
Pleasant that, by Jove!--to have things like that said about you by
fellows to whom you had always been civil and polite, and all that
kind of thing--more than that, hospitable, and letting them stand in
with good things, and putting them on to everything you knew. And they
went about and said this--not before your face, of course; they would
not do that; but thought it before your face, and went about and said
it as soon as your back was turned. Made you their laughing-stock and
their butt; poked their fun at you all the time they were eating your
dinners, and made game of you while they borrowed your money. It was
d--d unfriendly and blackguard conduct; that's what it was. And Bobby
Maitland was as bad as any of them--worse, for he would never have
heard of it but for him. They all thought he was a fool, and Bobby
must have thought so too, sneering about him and Gilbert Lloyd, and
pretending to think he would not notice it. He would let them see
pretty sharp he was not such a fool as they took him for; let them see
he knew how they laughed at and chaffed him. Next time any of them
wanted a fifty for a fortnight, that would be the time. They should
laugh the wrong side of their mouths then, he would take care. Called
himself a gentleman too, did Bobby Maitland, and gave himself airs
because he was a peer's son. Why, damme, that other chap, that poor
fellow Haystacks, or whatever his name was, with all his ridiculous
nonsense about his get-up and all that, he was more of a gentleman
than Bobby Maitland. He looked quite queer and uncomfortable,
Haystacks did, when Maitland was going on all that chaff about the
nurse.
About the nurse? That riled him more than anything else. "How was it
he was let out without his nurse?" That's what Maitland had said. As
he thought of that speech Lord Ticehurst kicked out against the
splashboard in front of him, startled the roans into a gallop, and
woke the groom from an elysian dream of eating boiled beans and bacon
in the back-parlour of a public-house which was his own. And when he
had asked if Gilbert knew about the chaff that was going on, Maitland
said he did, and, more than that, had started it and laughed at it
himself. Could that be true? He could scarcely think that; he had been
doosid kind to old Gil, and doosid fond of him, and done all sorts of
things for him one way or the other, and he did not believe old Gil
would go against him in that way. Fellows are always talking about
ingratitude and that kind of thing, but he did not think anyone would
be such a thorough-paced duffer as to go in against a fellow who had
shown him nothing but kindness ever since he had known him. Ever since
he had known him? Well, that was not so long ago, when he came to
think about it, but it seemed like his whole life. He thought with an
odd kind of incredulous wonder on that portion of his life anterior to
his acquaintance with Gilbert Lloyd. The Plater-Dobbs _régime_ seemed
like a dream. He was a vulgar old cad, the Plater, but he would not
have played double, he would not have allowed any of the fellows to
chaff. No fellows had ever been allowed to chaff him, even at
Eton--Eton, hey presto! At that reminiscence the clouds rolled away,
and scenes of bygone time and the actors in them, unthought of for
years, rose before the young man's mind. Some of those fellows who had
been with him at Eton, and were now doing so well and making such stir
in the world--Brackenbury, who had made such a hit in the House, and
who, everybody said, would be A1 some of these days; and Graves, who
had written a devilish clever book about something; and Hammond, who
was under-secretary in one of those office-places down at Whitehall,
and who the newspapers said was a rising man, and all that. Lord! he
recollected when he first went to Eton, his old governor took him, and
a crowd there was when they buried his governor in the family-vault at
Etchingham! He recollected Lord Tantallon the Premier standing at the
foot of the grave after the service, and looking in, with the tears
running down his face. No end of official swells came down to see
the last of their old colleague. He recollected seeing the great
black-marble top of the tomb, which had been taken off, lying on its
side among the weeds; and he remembered the smell of the newly-turned
earth, and the trodden turf, and he could see just as plainly as on
the day itself the men from the London newspapers bending over to read
the inscription on the coffin. Poor old governor! he was a clever
fellow, and was awfully respectable and respected. He would not think
much of the life his son was leading, mixed up with horses and
betting-people and jockeys, and all that kind of thing. Whew! it could
not be helped, he supposed. It was too late to change it. Steady
there! Arrived!
When Lord Ticehurst entered the rooms in the hotel which he occupied
conjointly with Gilbert Lloyd, he found that gentleman asleep on the
sofa, with a decanter of brandy on a small table by his side. The
decanter was half-empty; and when Gilbert, awaking at the noise made
by his friend's arrival, turned round, his face, especially round the
eyes, had a strained, flushed look, and his voice, when he began to
speak, was rather thick and husky.
"Hallo!" he said, raising himself on his elbow, and shading his eyes
with his other hand, "you've got back!"
"Yes," replied his lordship; "here I am!"
"Perhaps the next time you are going to stop out to dinner you will
have the goodness to say so."
"Don't be cross, old man; you knew I was going, fast enough."
"I knew you were going out to luncheon, but there was nothing said
about dinner, I believe; and as to being cross, it's enough to make a
fellow savage, having had to cool his heels about here for an hour and
a half, waiting dinner for a man who never came; and then to sit down
to a lot of stuff cooked to rags, half cold, and quite uneatable."
"Sorry for that, Gil," said Lord Ticehurst with unimpaired
good-humour; "very sorry, but you should not have waited."
"O, I like that!" said Lloyd; "and suppose your lordship had not had
your dinner, and had come in when I had half-finished mine, you would
have been pleased, wouldn't you?"
"I don't suppose 'my lordship,' as you call me, would have cared one
straw about it. What a rum fellow you are, Gil! What's the matter with
you to-night, that you are going on in this way?"
"Going on in what way? I merely suggested that it would have been
pleasanter if you had said you would not be back to dinner, and--"
"But I didn't know that I should not. I had no intention of stopping
when I went away. Can't you understand?"
"O yes, I understand! _Chapeau bas, chapeau bas!_ However, that's no
matter now. I ought to have known that the young lady would suggest
your stopping there--that the old Belwethers would be delighted to
receive a person of your lordship's quality, and that--"
"There, you may drop that silliness as soon as you like. It's very
funny, I daresay; but it's all thrown away, because I didn't stop at
Hardriggs after all."
"The deuce you didn't! Why, where did you dine, then?"
"At the hotel at Hastings, with Bobby Maitland and that young fellow
he's always about with now--'Haystacks.'"
"I know," growled Gilbert. He hated Maitland, and half-despised him,
as men do their unsuccessful rivals. "What on earth made you dine with
them?"
"Well, I don't know," said the earl, blushing a little, in spite of
vigorous attempts to prevent it and look unconcerned. "I--I had
stopped later there than I intended at Hardriggs, and I thought you
would have dined, and so I put up at Hastings, and those fellows saw
me and asked me to dinner."
"And you went, deuced Samaritan-like and benevolent, and all that, I
declare! That fellow Stackborough will be set up for life; there will
be no holding him, now that he has once dined in company with a real
live earl."
"Well, I don't know; Mr. Stackborough seemed to me to behave like a
gentleman."
"O yes; but you like a fellow who bows down before you, Etchingham, we
all know that; and it's natural enough. However, that's neither here
nor there. What about the object of your visit to Hardriggs? You saw
the young lady?"
"Yes, I saw her."
"And you carried out your intention?"
"What intention?" asked Lord Ticehurst, summoning up courage, and
looking his friend full in the face. And then Gilbert knew for
certain, what he had decidedly anticipated, that Lord Ticehurst had
been rejected by Gertrude.
"What intention?" he replied, with a sneer already dawning on his
face; "why, the intention of proposing to Miss--what does she call
herself?--Miss Lambert."
"Yes," said Lord Ticehurst quietly, "I carried out that intention."
"Well, and we are to ring the joy-bells, and to roast the whole ox,
and set the barrels of ale flowing, and order the bishop to be in
readiness at St. George's, and select the new carriages, and have
Etchingham new furnished. And when are we to do all this?"
"Not just now, at all events," said Lord Ticehurst. "First catch your
hare, don't you know?" and his lordship tried to look knowing--a
process in which he failed sublimely.
"Why, you don't mean to say that--"
"I mean to say that I proposed to Miss Lambert--you know her name fast
enough--and she refused me."
"Refused you!" screamed Gilbert with admirably-assumed astonishment;
"refused you,--the opera-singer, the tragedy-queen, the Princess Do Re
has refused my lord with his thousands and his tens of thousands! The
world is coming to an end! People will next question the value of an
hereditary legislature. You astound me!"
"I'll tell you what, Lloyd," said Lord Ticehurst sulkily, "I wish you
to drop that style of chaff; I don't see the fun of it."
"You never saw the fun of anything, Etchingham; it is not your
_métier_; Providence has ordained otherwise. It's for us poor devils
to see the fun that you big swells make for us."
Rage swelled within Lord Ticehurst's heart as he listened to these
words, which were so eminently corroborative of what Bobby Maitland
had said to him, and of what he had thought to himself on his homeward
drive. But he controlled himself, and said:
"Well, what I see or what I don't see don't matter much just now.
Perhaps I see more than some people think I do; more than I give
tongue about, that's certain. However, I don't care about being
chaffed on that subject, and so please drop it."
"Poor old boy!" said Lloyd, with an elaborate affectation of
compassion; "of course he's very sore, that's natural enough; and of
course it comes much harder to a fellow in his position, who thinks
that he has only to lie under the wall and the ripe cherries will
tumble into his mouth, to find that they sometimes hang on the stalk
and won't tumble. It puts me in mind of the little stories in one
syllable that we used to learn at school. 'There was once a small boy,
and he cried for the moon, and when--'"
"D--n it, sir, will you stop?" cried Lord Ticehurst, angered beyond
all patience. "Look here, Lloyd, you and I have been friends for a
long time; but if you go on in this way I shall--"
"What?" interrupted Gilbert, turning quickly on him.
"Cut the whole concern, stock, lock, and barrel," said his lordship,
"and part from you for ever."
The two men stood confronting each other; Lord Ticehurst flushed and
heated, Lloyd wonderfully pale and calm, and only betraying agitation
in the twitchings of the muscles of his mouth. He was the first to
speak.
"Part from me for ever, eh?" he said in slow deliberate tones, each
word clipping out from between his thin tight lips. "O no, you
wouldn't do that! You are not very wise, Lord Ticehurst, but you would
not be such a fool as to quarrel with or part from the man who has
made you what you are. Ah, you may stare and pretend to be astonished,
but I repeat, who has made you what you are. And you need not come
down upon me, as you are going to--I see it!--with the whole long
story of your birth and position and status, and all the rest of it. I
know all that from _Debrett_; and still I stick to my text,--that I
made you what you are! The time has come--you have brought it about,
not I; I could have gone on for ever as we were--but the time has come
for plain speaking; and I say that whatever you are, and whatever you
may be thought of in the world, you owe to me, to me; without whom you
would have remained the unformed cub you were when I found you in the
hands of that old duffer, Plater Dobbs!"
The prospect of a row with his pupil--not a separation, of course, but
a brisk breeze to freshen up the tamely-flowing current of their
ordinary life--had often occurred to Gilbert Lloyd. He had thought
over calmly what should be his conduct under such circumstances, and
he had determined upon using the strongest possible "bounce," and
acting in the most offensive and most truculent manner. His
remembrance of Lord Ticehurst's behaviour in the quarrel with the
Frenchman, M. de Prailles, at Baden, prompted him to this line of
action, and he found it was the correct one. Lord Ticehurst did not
knock him down, or fling a chair at him, or take any other prompt and
decisive step. His cheek flushed angrily, certainly, but he only said:
"Major Dobbs might have been a duffer, as you say he was, but at all
events he aid not pitch into people who were kind to him, didn't
blackguard them before their faces, as some people do, or what's
worse, make game of them behind their backs."
He laid such stress on this last sentence that Gilbert Lloyd looked
hard at him, and said, "Make game of you behind your back! What do you
mean by that?"
"What I say," said Lord Ticehurst; "chaffin' about my not being able
to do anything without asking you, and you being my dry-nurse, and all
that kind of thing!"
"Ah, ha!" said Gilbert Lloyd; "you haven't dined with our friend Bobby
Maitland for nothing! That's his stab, I'll swear. Now look here,
Ticehurst, you've talked about our parting, and I never let a man
threaten me twice. So part we will. We must wait over Doncaster,
because there are some things coming off there in which we are
mutually interested; but after that I'll square up all the accounts
and hand over everything to you."
He looked bard at his pupil as he said these words, expecting that the
announcement would evoke a burst of protestations and disavowals. But
Lord Ticehurst merely said "Very well; all right;" and took up his
candle and left the room.