MR. DUBERLY TAKES THE ALARM.
Before the summer days had begun to shorten, and by the time that Arthur
Vavasour’s evident admiration for young Mrs. Beacham had begun to make
his more cool and sensible younger brother seriously uneasy, the
period--namely, the end of August--was fixed for the marriage of the
heir with Miss Sophia Duberly, the only child of one of the richest
_nobodies_ in the county. A fortnight previous to the epoch named,
Arthur would, unless, as Horace facetiously remarked, anything happened
to the contrary, attain the mature age of twenty-one. As regarded the
latter event, Lady Millicent had continued to maintain a dogged and
portentous silence. She was well aware that her children, the girls
especially, had hoped and expected that Arthur’s “coming of age” would
not pass over entirely without the “praise and honour due” to a rich
man’s son so situated; and though the traditional ox need not be
exactly roasted whole, nor gigantic bonfires lighted on the occasion,
yet Lady Millicent was as well aware as if the county newspapers had not
persistently proclaimed the fact that England expected her on this
occasion to do her duty.
“I do really believe she would hinder Atty coming of age at all if she
could,” Kate said one day, when Horace had “run down” for an hour to
brighten up his sisters, and see how things in general were going on.
“Mamma does so hate any of us being jolly.”
“And you call ‘coming of age’ ‘being jolly,’ eh, goosie? Learn then, O
foolish child, that the event you speak of means ‘looking up,’ paying
one’s own bills, being responsible for one’s own actions--being, in
short, out of _nonage_, without the accruing of a grain of brains to
oneself thereby.”
“But I suppose that something will be done,” persisted Kate, who, in
spite of her brother’s repeated assurances that a miracle would probably
not be wrought in her behalf, still nursed the hope that “milady” would
at last be brought to reason. “I cannot believe that the 14th of August
will pass like every other dull stupid day. I thought there was always a
dinner, and a ball, and speeches.”
“And buttering up, and slithering down,” broke out Horace savagely;
“toadying, flattering, and lies! Of all the occasions in life when that
kind of thing is carried on, there’s nothing like the coming of age of
an heir-apparent!”
“I quite agree with you, my dear Horace,” said Lady Millicent, sailing
in silently from behind a treacherous _portière_, and raising a painful
doubt in her children’s mind as to the extent of her knowledge thus
surreptitiously acquired of their opinions. “A great waste of words
always, to say nothing of the whole proceeding being always in the worst
possible taste.”
“Of course! The idea of crying _Vive le roi!_ before the poor old king
is dead! Simply monstrous, I call it. Arthur too quite agrees with me;
and after all, what business has the county to trouble itself about the
matter one way or the other?”
“I hear,” said Lady Millicent, who did not feel quite sure that her son
was not speaking in the ironical vein to which she had so especial an
objection,--“I hear that the Guernseys are going to make themselves more
than usually ridiculous this year at Fairleigh. Lady G. intends to do
the popular, they say, for a whole fortnight. Open house is to be
kept--so intensely absurd! And people of all kinds to be asked! In
short, a regular _omnium gatherum_!”
“O no, mamma, not quite that,” Rhoda said timidly, but terribly eager
withal to do away with an impression which might tend to exclude _her_
from a participation in the gaieties of Fairleigh. “Not quite; and O,
mamma,” gathering a kind of desperate courage from the emergency of the
case, “you promised that if Lady Guernsey gave a ball this year, I
_should_ go to it. I know just how it is; Charlotte Mellon told me all
about the arrangements. _All_ kinds of people are to be asked to the
archery meeting and the fireworks--all the out-of-doors amusements, that
is; but at the ball there will only be the county families, and--”
“How delightfully dull and select!” said Horace. “And how highly
satisfactory, Rhoda, to think that you will make your _début_ under such
very favourable auspices!”
“Anything is better than a mixed society,” said Lady Millicent loftily.
“In these days one cannot be too careful whom one associates with. I
foresee no end of annoyances with the Duberly connections. The women
belonging to that class of persons are often positively dreadful. Really
Arthur is much worse than thoughtless! Only this afternoon he has been
the cause of my being excessively worried and disturbed! Here is a
letter which I have just received from Mr. Duberly. I thought it most
extraordinary when I saw the post-mark, Bigglesworth, that _I_ should
receive a letter from any of the family; but I was still more astonished
when I glanced over the contents. _Read_ it! I really couldn’t get
through it all, but I saw it was about your brother being so much at
Updown Paddocks. _His_ father--fancy the man talking to me about his
relations!--considers it very wrong, he writes, and dangerous to be on
the turf; and Arthur _must_, he concludes, have to do with race-horses,
or he would never be so much with John Beacham at the Paddocks. You had
better see your brother about it, Horace, as soon as possible. I really
can have nothing to do personally with these people. They are
respectable, of course, or your poor father would not have countenanced
them; but they are terribly _mezzo cetto_, and when that is the case,
anything approaching to familiarity had better be avoided.”
Amongst Lady Millicent’s “peculiarities” (and they were not a few) that
of extreme bodily restlessness was one of the most remarkable. She was
one of the very busiest of idlers, never for fifteen consecutive
minutes, excepting at meal or prayertime, in the same place. These
“fidgety ways” were troublesome, as well as frequently inconvenient, to
those about her. To know where _others_ of a household _are_, the more
especially when those “others” chance to be of the nature of Lady
Millicent Vavasour, is often of advantage to the subordinates of a
family. Severity, Caprice, an absence on the said subordinates’ part of
knowing how anything “will be taken” by the “head of the family,” are
each and all sufficient to account for the secretiveness, guilty in
appearance, that kindles in both children and servants the very natural
desire that the whereabouts of the domestic autocrat should not always
be a matter of conjecture. But it was to no inward fever, no derangement
of the sensitive nerves, that the nomadic condition of the lady of
Gillingham could be attributed, for her health was perfect, and her
constitution sound. The erratic habit had been formed in childhood, and
had increased, instead of diminishing, with advancing years.
* * * * *
“I say, Miss Curiosity, that won’t do. You mustn’t read other people’s
letters.”
Lady Millicent had glided with her accustomed stately step from the
room; and Horace, in whose hand was Mr. Duberly’s open letter, glanced
up at his sister Kate reading over his shoulder the epistle which her
lady mother was either too autocratic or too indolent to answer. Kate’s
colour, between shame and amusement, mounted visibly. Although taught by
experience that his “bark was worse than his bite,” she was still a
little afraid of her brother Horace.
“I thought everybody was to read it,” she said deprecatingly. “Don’t be
ill-natured, Horace; I do so want to know about Atty.”
“I daresay you do; and if you did, why everybody else would pretty soon
be in the secret, and with a vengeance too! No, no, Miss Katie; a young
lady who chatters to her maid is neither old enough nor wise enough to
be told family secrets to--so off with you! If you want anything to do
go to the terrace, and keep a good look-out for Arthur; tell him there’s
a row going on, and that he’d better look sharp, and take the bull by
the horns.”
“And now for old Dub’s letter,” muttered Horace, after convincing
himself by ocular demonstration that both his sisters were sauntering
along the broad gravel-walk, and, as he doubted not, exercising their
united powers of guessing on the subject of Arthur’s misdemeanours. “Old
Dub’s too straightforward to say anything that my lady can understand;”
and with this dutiful commentary on his parent’s powers of
comprehension, Horace Vavasour betook himself to his task.
“MY DEAR MADAM,”--so this straightforward letter began--“I greatly
regret the necessity of calling your attention to the subject of
your eldest son; but as that subject is at present connected with
the happiness of my only daughter, there is no other course left me
to pursue. You are aware that Sophy is my only child, and your own
feelings as a mother will lead you to understand that her welfare
must be infinitely precious to me. My reason for troubling you
to-day is very simple, and the question I desire to have answered
is, I think, natural enough, being neither more nor less than a
demand, on my part, whether the report that your son Arthur has a
horse in training for the turf is true or false. You will perhaps
be inclined to ask why I have thought it necessary to beat about
the bush; why, in short, I did not put this question to your son
instead of to you. To this very natural remark all I could say is
that I _did_, without delay, mention the reports which had reached
my ears to Arthur, and that from him I could gain no satisfactory
reply. He neither positively denied or actually confirmed the
scandal; for so great is my horror of gambling in any shape that I
can designate taking a single step on what is called the ‘turf’ by
no milder name; and the consequence of our conversation was simply
this,--namely, that, being very far from satisfied either by your
son’s words or manner, I take the liberty of requesting your
maternal aid in discovering the truth. Of your son’s constant, I
was about to say daily, visits at the Paddocks there is, I fear, no
doubt, and you can hardly wonder that, with my child’s future
comfort at stake, I feel it my bounden duty to investigate
thoroughly, and without loss of time, the cause and motive for a
proceeding so remarkable. I have no desire that this inquiry, on my
part, should be kept secret either from Arthur or from the world at
large, and have the honour to remain, dear madam,
“Yours faithfully,
“ANDREW DUBERLY.”
“Well, old fellow, you are in for it now! I wouldn’t be in your place
for something,” said Horace when, half an hour after he had finished
reading “old Dub’s” letter, and long before the annoyance caused by its
perusal had in any degree subsided, Arthur lounged, after his usual
indolent fashion, through the open window into the library.
“Well, what _is_ the row? The girls told me there was something wrong.
Upon my soul, one might as well pitch one’s tent in Mexico, or in the
Argentine Republic, for any chance of peace one has in this confounded
place.”
“Better a great deal,” said Horace seriously,--“better, a thousand
times, go to the uttermost ends of the earth than sow such a storm as,
if I’m not mistaken, you will reap the whirlwind of by and by.”
“Well, but what _is_ in the wind?” asked Arthur, smiling at the faint
idea that he had made a joke.
“_What!_ Just read _that_, and you’ll soon see what a kick-up there’s
likely to be.”
“Prying old idiot!” exclaimed Arthur, tossing the letter of his future
father on the table in disgust. “Why the ---- can’t he mind his own
business, and be hanged to him!”
“Perhaps he thinks that his daughter _is_ his business; but however that
may be, the deed is done, the letter written, and the question now is
how you can satisfy old Dab’s mind that all is right. I conclude that it
_is_ all right, though I must say, Atty, it does, between you and me,
look fishy, your going so very often over to John Beacham’s house.”
“But I don’t go there so very often,” broke in Arthur eagerly; “it’s all
a pack of cursed lies. How could I go to the Paddocks every day, as the
old fool says I do, when I am twice a week, at least, at Fairleigh?”
“Really! How pleasant for Sophy!” said Horace drily. “The worst of all
this, though, is, that old Dub isn’t quite in his dotage yet, and may
be sufficiently up in local geography to be aware that, by judicious
management, it is possible to reach Fairleigh _viâ_ Updown Paddocks.
Seriously now, Atty, can you in your sober senses think that the way you
are going on is either right or prudent? Here you are, within a few
weeks of marrying the girl you are engaged to--a nice girl, too, and you
thought so yourself before you got spooney (nay, hear me out, for it
_is_ true, and you know it is) on John Beacham’s wife,--here you are, I
say, making her (I mean Sophy Duberly) miserable; and what is far
worse--for girls soon get over that kind of thing--you are sowing the
seeds of lasting wretchedness in another man’s house. You are--”
“I--I am doing nothing,” broke in Arthur pettishly; adding, with
brotherly familiarity, “What a fool you are!”
“Thanks for the compliment; but I must be a still greater fool than I am
not to foresee a _little_ of the mischief that is brewing there.” And he
pointed over his shoulder in the direction of John Beacham’s home. “Why,
even a child could see it,--even Katie, who for a girl is wonderfully
unknowing in delicate matters of this kind and description--”
“But,” said Arthur, very seriously this time, and speaking in language
which would have carried conviction to his brother’s mind, even had the
latter (which was not the case) entertained the idea that there was
anything “really wrong” in Arthur’s intimacy with John Beacham’s
family,--“but, Horace, I declare to you solemnly, by all I hold most
sacred--I won’t say by my love for my mother, for I don’t love her, and
it would be extremely odd if I did--but I swear to you by my father’s
memory that there is no foundation, none whatever, for any of the
spiteful things that people dare to say of John Beacham’s wife. She’s
not happy, poor little thing, certainly, but--”
“Not happy? Why, what’s the matter with her? She’s got the best husband
in the country, and the nicest house to live in--I declare I don’t know
a more comfortable place than Pear-tree House--and the prettiest horse
to ride, and--”
“Yes, of course; all that is very nice; but then there’s the old woman.”
“John’s mother? So she is the crumpled rose-leaf, eh?”
“Well, yes, in some degree; but then John himself is partly to blame.
You see, he does not understand Honor.”
“That may be more his misfortune than his fault, poor fellow! But, Atty,
I _am_ sorry to hear that you have come to _confidences_. I had an idea
before all this that Honor was a quiet, good, honourable girl; and I
know that the parson’s wife had the best possible opinion of her, when
she was a girl, and used to teach a class at milady’s school; but what
you say now makes me think her very far from either sensible or
grateful--to say nothing of rectitude. When I know what a real good
fellow John Beacham is, it seems such a shame of his wife to be
complaining of him.”
Arthur laughed. He felt, in his superior wisdom, that his brother knew
wonderfully little of the qualities required by a woman in the man who
aspires to her love.
“Nonsense!” he said; “she doesn’t complain. One sees those things for
oneself, without hearing about them. I never saw a gentler or a more
forbearing creature than that dear little Irish girl, who is wretchedly
out of place at Updown Paddocks. She is utterly wasted upon John, who,
as you say, is the best fellow in the world, only so boorish compared to
her, and so thoroughly unintellectual! Thinks of nothing from morning
till night, and probably dreams of nothing _then_, but of his farm and
breeding-stud. I declare that it seems the work of some horrible fate,
some malicious demon, to have bound such a glorious woman as that to the
side of a man so totally unsuited to her--so completely incapable of
appreciating the beauty, and the delicacy, and the refinement--”
Horace stopped him with a laugh.
“The Lady Clara Vere de Vere and the clown, eh, over again? Well, I
suppose it may be because I happen to be one of the rougher-looking sort
myself--made of coarser clay, you know--that I cannot help having a sort
of fellow-feeling for poor John. I wonder now, if I were ever to
marry--and such an event is just possible, though I confess that it does
not seem likely, as things stand at present,--I wonder, I was going to
say, whether in that case any of you good-looking, languid swells--you
fastidiously refined fellows--would be found willing to believe me
capable of appreciating the charms of my own wife. Of course, it is not
in the power of we ordinary mortals to make ourselves as agreeable as
men who are blessed with straight noses, six feet of manhood, and wavy
hair; but you might give us credit for _some_ sense of the beautiful;
you really might allow that we can see and feel and love the woman whom
you admire, even though nature may have cruelly denied us the gift of
charming in our turn.”
Arthur looked at his brother in surprise. It was very seldom that
Horace, who was not of an impulsive nature, broke into so discursive a
speech. He had a way--at least, so it had hitherto appeared--of taking
life and the things of life so easily. Judging from the airy
_insouciance_ of his words and manner, his own lack of personal
attraction had never weighed upon his spirits; the giving of advice,
too, whether by implication or otherwise, to his big, experienced elder
brother, was so out of Horace’s line, that Arthur’s surprise at this
unexpected outbreak is scarcely to be wondered at. Any relative
response, however, whether in the shape of protest against, or of
acquiescence in, the general truth of his brother’s remark, appeared to
him to be simply impossible, and he therefore betook himself to the open
field of general observation.
“What a bore it is,” he said with a yawn that was not wholly the result
of weariness, “that every simple thing one does gets commented on and
gossiped about!”
“That comes of being an elder son. One of the penalties of greatness is
the bore, as you call it, of being the observed of all observers. It
would be long enough before the world paid me such a compliment.
Seriously, though,” he continued, glad, perhaps, of the opportunity thus
afforded of passing off as a jest the sarcasms which had in a moment of
irritation escaped his lips,--“seriously, though, Arthur, this strikes
me as being that unpleasant thing called a ‘crisis.’ If I know anything
of old Dub, he won’t let this matter rest till it’s thoroughly cleared
up. He wouldn’t have written to Lady M. if he hadn’t been in earnest;
and now the question is, how the deuce you are going to tackle the old
fellow.”
“God knows; I’m quite sure that _I_ don’t!” said Arthur helplessly, for
he foresaw endless difficulties--greater difficulties far than Horace
could form any idea of--in the process of “tackling” to which his
brother alluded. “It’s such a nuisance--such a horrible nuisance--to be
questioned in this sort of way!”
“Is it? I don’t think I should mind it; that is to say if I was all
right--all on the square, you know. The fact is, Atty,--and I can see it
as plain as possible, though of course it isn’t pleasant to you to
believe it,--that old Duberly has got _two_ ideas about this business in
his head; and these two ideas are, in my opinion, two too many. In the
first place he is suspicious, as old fellows of that kind are so apt to
be, about the horse-breeding part of the affair. Now, if you could tell
him on your honour that you have no horse in training--that you have not
the slightest intention, either directly or indirectly, of going on the
turf--why there would be nothing more to be said on that score.”
Arthur rose from his chair and walked about the room impatiently.
“But suppose I _can’t_ swear to that?” he said, speaking in the annoyed
tone of a man who had forced himself to utter a disagreeable truth. “The
fact is,” he went on confidentially, “I have bought--on tick of
course--one of John Beacham’s yearlings--the best he has bred since he
began the concern--by Oddfellow out of Gay Lady. You never saw such
bone! John’s quite certain--and you know how safe he is--that my
colt--Rough Diamond his name is--will be a Derby horse. I paid a long
price for him--I’m half afraid to say how much--but when one is so
positively certain to make such a pot of money as I shall, why what
_does_ it signify?”
The look--half comic and half pityingly sardonic--that settled for a
moment on the plain, but singularly expressive, face of Horace Vavasour
would have been a study for a picture.
“So!” he drawled out, “the old fellow is not so far wrong after all! No
wonder you were taken aback when he asked those leading questions!”
“Taken aback! I should think I just was! Why I should like to know what
_you_ would have been!”
“Quite as much disgusted, I suspect, if not more than you were
yourself; but somehow or other, Atty--though I don’t set up for being a
bit better than other people--these are not, I fancy, exactly the kind
of hobbles that I should have been likely to get into.”
“What do you mean?” asked Arthur a little sulkily. “It strikes me that I
haven’t done anything at all out of the common way.”
“Not the least in the world,” rejoined Horace drily; “but that does not
disprove what I said. I don’t want to boast. The fact, if it were
proved, is nothing to be proud of; but I feel sure that I should not
have made love to one woman while I was engaged to another; and as
certain am I of this--that I should not have gone into partnership with
an honest man like John, in order that--”
“Horace!” cried Arthur in a towering passion, and taking his stand in
front of the chair in which his brother leant back, calm and impassible,
“you have no right--none whatever--especially after what I said just
now, to believe me capable--”
“It is partly from the very words you said just now that I draw my
conclusions,” interrupted Horace. “What old Duberly drew _his_ from can
only of course be guessed at.”
“_Guessed_ at! What utter rot! What confounded humbug!”
“Well, have it your own way. Give up that poor girl Sophy--for it _is_
giving her up if you don’t satisfy her father--be talked of all over the
county as--”
“I don’t care a d--n about that,” growled Arthur.
“So many fellows have said before they were tried. Throw away all chance
of that blessed home at Fairleigh, that the poor girls have built upon
so much; and all because you haven’t the courage, or rather because you
are too self-indulgent, to give up a little momentary amusement,--or
rather, if you like it better, though I confess to considering it a
distinction without a difference, because you happen to be a little--as
I said before--spooney on John Beacham’s wife.”
Arthur made a gesture indicative of disgust.
“Hear me out, please,” Horace went on to say. “What I want you to do is,
to think seriously of all these necessary consequences, and to ask
yourself whether _le jeu vaut la chandelle_. I, for my part--but then I
have the good fortune neither to be, nor to fancy myself, in love--have
an idea that it does not. In the first place, remember--not that we are
any of us in much danger of the fact escaping our memory--what a
wretched home this is. Think what a contrast to the dulness, the
restraint, the everyday--well, I won’t go on; we both know only too
well how wretched one person can contrive to make a house--but just
think of the contrast to all this that Fairleigh is! Old Duberly, with
his cheerful, hearty ways--I declare Lady M.’s are enough to give one a
sickener of refinement; everyone allowed to please himself; no one lying
in wait for occasions on which to differ; annoying trifles, or trifles
that might have been annoying, delightfully slided over; and no
‘head-of-the-house’ tyranny, causing one to long at every hour of the
day for the desperate remedy of a bloodless revolution--”
“That is all very true, but--”
“But what? I suppose you mean to remind me that you are not doomed to
bear with the wretchedness of Gillingham for ever. Of course you are
not; but in the mean time there are the involvements,--O Atty, I hate to
talk of, but you know that _there they are_. And then there is poor
Sophy--so fond of you, so trusting and affectionate. It would not break
her heart, I know, to hear of all this nonsense; but it would make her
deuced miserable.” And the younger brother, a little overcome by the
picture he had conjured up, stopped for a moment to recover himself.
Very soon, however, he was at the old arguments again. “She wouldn’t
have a pleasant time of it, of course. And as for Lady M., she would be
less inclined than ever to give you anything of an allowance. You have
ascertained that there are insurmountable impediments to raising money
on the estates; and my mother--may her shadow never be less!--is a hale
woman of, if I mistake not, forty-two. What do you say to your
prospects? Inviting, eh? And just fancy what a blow it would be to the
girls. Why, ever since it was all settled, and you wrote from Rome to
tell us so, _their_ spirits, poor things, have been entirely kept up by
the idea--by the hope, I mean--of a kind of occasional home at
Fairleigh. They are very fond of Sophy; and, in short, Atty, if you
could but make up your mind to give up--well, all your interests at
Updown Paddocks, all would go on quite smoothly again. You could answer
old Dub face to face without fear of consequences; and--and I don’t
think you would regret it, Atty,”--laying his hand affectionately on his
brother’s shoulder,--“I don’t indeed. I think it pays, don’t you, old
fellow, making other people--I mean those that one’s fond of--jolly?”
“Well, yes; I fancy it does,” Arthur said musingly; “and of course one
hates this kind of thing. It’s nonsense, too, to suppose that I want to
make any change--about little Sophy, I mean. Of course I wish to marry
her, and if it’s only to be done by giving up Rough Diamond, why, I’ve
no alternative. It _is_ a bore though; upon my soul it is! He is so
certain to win! And then there’s all the nuisance of the talk with Mr.
Duberly. I say, Horace, do be a good fellow, and help me out of this. It
would do quite as well--ay, and better still--if you would settle the
business for me.”
“How do you mean ‘settle it’?” Horace asked.
“Well, tell him you know that it’s all _bosh_; that there was no harm in
life--you’d go bail for that--in my sometimes paying a visit of an
afternoon, just to have a look at the stock, to Beacham at the Paddocks;
and that--that, in short, the sooner I’m married the better.”
“And how about the Rough Diamond?” asked Horace, who felt perhaps the
least in the world suspicious regarding the destination of that
promising animal.
“O, I suppose I must sell him; not much difficulty about that. He
wouldn’t be a shadow of use to me unless I entered him; which is, of
course, out of the question now. I will see John about it this
afternoon. There are lots of men who would give as much or more than I
did for him. So that’s settled; and you may say so, if you like, with my
compliments to old Dub.”
“I’ll do it, of course, if you wish it,” said Horace, after deliberating
for a few moments on his brother’s proposal; “but I can’t help
thinking--don’t fancy, though, that I want to get off--that this is the
kind of thing a man had better do himself.”
“Do you think so? Well, then, I don’t,” said Arthur, laughing: “and that
makes all the difference. I should be sure to make a mess of it, while
you are the coolest hand possible at that kind of thing. On the whole,
it has just occurred to me, after I’ve seen John about the nag, that it
wouldn’t be half a bad move to go to Pemberton’s for a week or so. He
has been asking me to pay them a visit for weeks past, and I should
escape from the festivities, as they call them, at the Guernseys’ next
week. I hate that kind of thing infernally; and _engaged_ people in
public are always in a ridiculous position. Yes, I think I certainly
will go for a week or so to Sir Richard’s.”
“Very good,” rejoined Horace; he was wise, as I before remarked, for his
years, and therefore forbore (albeit he had his own opinion on the
subject) any comment on his brother’s sudden resolution to leave the
Chace during Lady Guernsey’s “popularity week.” “Very good; but,
Atty”--as his brother, throwing open the French window, gave evident
tokens of a desire to cut short the interview,--“you are quite sure it’s
all on the square about the colt? Of course you mean it now,” he added
hastily, as Arthur turned round a red and angry face; “but everyone is
liable to be tempted--I am sure that _I_ am--and seeing Rough Diamond
again might--”
“Not a bit of it. Don’t be afraid. I know what I’m about; only it’s not
fair to John to leave him in the dark about it: so I’m off. No occasion
to answer Mr. Duberly’s letter, I suppose, till to-morrow?”
“Well, I should say there is. However, I’ll ask my mother. It was
written to her, though what old Dub was thinking of when he did that
same is more than I can guess.”
“Lady Mill was deucedly indignant at the liberty,” said Arthur,
laughing. “Few things have ever amused me more than my mother’s anxiety
for this marriage, and her intense disgust at being brought into contact
with any of the Duberly lot.”
“I wonder which will behave the worst at the wedding, old Dub or my
lady! In quite another way he has ten times her pride, but then he is
far more deficient in polish.”
They both laughed lightly at the ideas which this remark called up; and
after a few more last words, each brother departed on his own separate
errand.
As Arthur Vavasour had predicted and felt assured, it required few
arguments, and a very little exertion of diplomatic talent, to convince
“little Sophy’s” good-natured parent that there was nothing really
_wrong_ either in the character or conduct of the “handsome young
fellow” who had won his daughter’s heart. A short conversation with that
“steady, sensible one of the brothers” (the thoughtful Horace), a little
coaxing and petting on the part of his “darling girl,” and a positive
assurance--it was “a case of honour, mind, Mr. Duberly”--more than once
repeated--from Arthur, that he had sold the two-year-old (that wonderful
Rough Diamond, of whom such great things were expected), to Colonel
Norcott, of sporting celebrity, for an almost fabulous sum--were
sufficient to set the unsuspicious, sanguine mind of “old Dub” at rest.
Arthur Vavasour was received again with open arms at Fairleigh; the
fatted calf, so to speak, was killed; and Sophy--caressing, tender
Sophy--put on her best robe to do honour to the exculpated prodigal.