More than an hour after Allan had set forth on his exploring expedition
through his own grounds, Midwinter rose, and enjoyed, in his turn, a
full view by daylight of the magnificence of the new house.
Refreshed by his long night’s rest, he descended the great staircase as
cheerfully as Allan himself. One after another, he, too, looked into
the spacious rooms on the ground floor in breathless astonishment at the
beauty and the luxury which surrounded him. “The house where I lived in
service when I was a boy, was a fine one,” he thought, gayly; “but it
was nothing to this! I wonder if Allan is as surprised and delighted as
I am?” The beauty of the summer morning drew him out through the open
hall door, as it had drawn his friend out before him. He ran briskly
down the steps, humming the burden of one of the old vagabond tunes
which he had danced to long since in the old vagabond time. Even the
memories of his wretched childhood took their color, on that happy
morning, from the bright medium through which he looked back at them.
“If I was not out of practice,” he thought to himself, as he leaned
on the fence and looked over at the park, “I could try some of my old
tumbling tricks on that delicious grass.” He turned, noticed two of the
servants talking together near the shrubbery, and asked for news of the
master of the house.
The men pointed with a smile in the direction of the gardens; Mr.
Armadale had gone that way more than an hour since, and had met (as had
been reported) with Miss Milroy in the grounds. Midwinter followed the
path through the shrubbery, but, on reaching the flower garden, stopped,
considered a little, and retraced his steps. “If Allan has met with the
young lady,” he said to himself, “Allan doesn’t want me.” He laughed as
he drew that inevitable inference, and turned considerately to explore
the beauties of Thorpe Ambrose on the other side of the house.
Passing the angle of the front wall of the building, he descended some
steps, advanced along a paved walk, turned another angle, and found
himself in a strip of garden ground at the back of the house.
Behind him was a row of small rooms situated on the level of the
servants’ offices. In front of him, on the further side of the little
garden, rose a wall, screened by a laurel hedge, and having a door at
one end of it, leading past the stables to a gate that opened on the
high-road. Perceiving that he had only discovered thus far the shorter
way to the house, used by the servants and trades-people, Midwinter
turned back again, and looked in at the window of one of the rooms on
the basement story as he passed it. Were these the servants’ offices?
No; the offices were apparently in some other part of the ground-floor;
the window he had looked in at was the window of a lumber-room. The
next two rooms in the row were both empty. The fourth window, when he
approached it, presented a little variety. It served also as a door; and
it stood open to the garden at that moment.
Attracted by the book-shelves which he noticed on one of the walls,
Midwinter stepped into the room.
The books, few in number, did not detain him long; a glance at their
backs was enough without taking them down. The Waverley Novels, Tales
by Miss Edgeworth, and by Miss Edgeworth’s many followers, the Poems of
Mrs. Hemans, with a few odd volumes of the illustrated gift-books of
the period, composed the bulk of the little library. Midwinter turned to
leave the room, when an object on one side of the window, which he had
not previously noticed, caught his attention and stopped him. It was a
statuette standing on a bracket--a reduced copy of the famous Niobe of
the Florence Museum. He glanced from the statuette to the window, with a
sudden doubt which set his heart throbbing fast. It was a French window.
He looked out with a suspicion which he had not felt yet. The view
before him was the view of a lawn and garden. For a moment his mind
struggled blindly to escape the conclusion which had seized it, and
struggled in vain. Here, close round him and close before him--here,
forcing him mercilessly back from the happy present to the horrible
past, was the room that Allan had seen in the Second Vision of the
Dream.
He waited, thinking and looking round him while he thought. There
was wonderfully little disturbance in his face and manner; he looked
steadily from one to the other of the few objects in the room, as if the
discovery of it had saddened rather than surprised him. Matting of
some foreign sort covered the floor. Two cane chairs and a plain table
comprised the whole of the furniture. The walls were plainly papered,
and bare--broken to the eye in one place by a door leading into the
interior of the house; in another, by a small stove; in a third, by the
book-shelves which Midwinter had already noticed. He returned to the
books, and this time he took some of them down from the shelves.
The first that he opened contained lines in a woman’s handwriting,
traced in ink that had faded with time. He read the inscription--“Jane
Armadale, from her beloved father. Thorpe Ambrose, October, 1828.”
In the second, third, and fourth volumes that he opened, the same
inscription re-appeared. His previous knowledge of dates and persons
helped him to draw the true inference from what he saw. The books must
have belonged to Allan’s mother; and she must have inscribed them with
her name, in the interval of time between her return to Thorpe Ambrose
from Madeira and the birth of her son. Midwinter passed on to a volume
on another shelf--one of a series containing the writings of Mrs.
Hemans. In this case, the blank leaf at the beginning of the book was
filled on both sides with a copy of verses, the writing being still
in Mrs. Armadale’s hand. The verses were headed “Farewell to Thorpe
Ambrose,” and were dated “March, 1829”--two months only after Allan had
been born.
Entirely without merit in itself, the only interest of the little poem
was in the domestic story that it told.
The very room in which Midwinter then stood was described--with the
view on the garden, the window made to open on it, the bookshelves, the
Niobe, and other more perishable ornaments which Time had destroyed.
Here, at variance with her brothers, shrinking from her friends, the
widow of the murdered man had, on her own acknowledgment, secluded
herself, without other comfort than the love and forgiveness of her
father, until her child was born. The father’s mercy and the father’s
recent death filled many verses, happily too vague in their commonplace
expression of penitence and despair to give any hint of the marriage
story in Madeira to any reader who looked at them ignorant of the truth.
A passing reference to the writer’s estrangement from her surviving
relatives, and to her approaching departure from Thorpe Ambrose,
followed. Last came the assertion of the mother’s resolution to separate
herself from all her old associations; to leave behind her every
possession, even to the most trifling thing she had, that could remind
her of the miserable past; and to date her new life in the future from
the birthday of the child who had been spared to console her--who was
now the one earthly object that could still speak to her of love and
hope. So the old story of passionate feeling that finds comfort in
phrases rather than not find comfort at all was told once again. So the
poem in the faded ink faded away to its end.
Midwinter put the book back with a heavy sigh, and opened no other
volume on the shelves. “Here in the country house, or there on board the
wreck,” he said, bitterly, “the traces of my father’s crime follow me,
go where I may.” He advanced toward the window, stopped, and looked back
into the lonely, neglected little room. “Is _this_ chance?” he asked
himself. “The place where his mother suffered is the place he sees in
the Dream; and the first morning in the new house is the morning that
reveals it, not to _him_, but to me. Oh, Allan! Allan! how will it end?”
The thought had barely passed through his mind before he heard Allan’s
voice, from the paved walk at the side of the house, calling to him by
his name. He hastily stepped out into the garden. At the same moment
Allan came running round the corner, full of voluble apologies for
having forgotten, in the society of his new neighbors, what was due to
the laws of hospitality and the claims of his friend.
“I really haven’t missed you,” said Midwinter; “and I am very, very glad
to hear that the new neighbors have produced such a pleasant impression
on you already.”
He tried, as he spoke, to lead the way back by the outside of the house;
but Allan’s flighty attention had been caught by the open window and the
lonely little room. He stepped in immediately. Midwinter followed, and
watched him in breathless anxiety as he looked round. Not the slightest
recollection of the Dream troubled Allan’s easy mind. Not the slightest
reference to it fell from the silent lips of his friend.
“Exactly the sort of place I should have expected you to hit on!”
exclaimed Allan, gayly. “Small and snug and unpretending. I know you,
Master Midwinter! You’ll be slipping off here when the county families
come visiting, and I rather think on those dreadful occasions you won’t
find me far behind you. What’s the matter? You look ill and out of
spirits. Hungry? Of course you are! unpardonable of me to have kept you
waiting. This door leads somewhere, I suppose; let’s try a short
cut into the house. Don’t be afraid of my not keeping you company at
breakfast. I didn’t eat much at the cottage; I feasted my eyes on Miss
Milroy, as the poets say. Oh, the darling! the darling! she turns you
topsy-turvy the moment you look at her. As for her father, wait till
you see his wonderful clock! It’s twice the size of the famous clock at
Strasbourg, and the most tremendous striker ever heard yet in the memory
of man!”
Singing the praises of his new friends in this strain at the top of his
voice, Allan hurried Midwinter along the stone passages on the
basement floor, which led, as he had rightly guessed, to a staircase
communicating with the hall. They passed the servants’ offices on the
way. At the sight of the cook and the roaring fire, disclosed through
the open kitchen door, Allan’s mind went off at a tangent, and Allan’s
dignity scattered itself to the four winds of heaven, as usual.
“Aha, Mrs. Gripper, there you are with your pots and pans, and your
burning fiery furnace! One had need be Shadrach, Meshach, and the other
fellow to stand over that. Breakfast as soon as ever you like. Eggs,
sausages, bacon, kidneys, marmalade, water-cresses, coffee, and so
forth. My friend and I belong to the select few whom it’s a perfect
privilege to cook for. Voluptuaries, Mrs. Gripper, voluptuaries, both of
us. You’ll see,” continued Allan, as they went on toward the stairs, “I
shall make that worthy creature young again; I’m better than a doctor
for Mrs. Gripper. When she laughs, she shakes her fat sides, and when
she shakes her fat sides, she exerts her muscular system; and when
she exerts her muscular system--Ha! here’s Susan again. Don’t squeeze
yourself flat against the banisters, my dear; if you don’t mind hustling
_me_ on the stairs, I rather like hustling _you_. She looks like a
full-blown rose when she blushes, doesn’t she? Stop, Susan! I’ve orders
to give. Be very particular with Mr. Midwinter’s room: shake up his bed
like mad, and dust his furniture till those nice round arms of yours
ache again. Nonsense, my dear fellow! I’m not too familiar with them;
I’m only keeping them up to their work. Now, then, Richard! where do we
breakfast? Oh, here. Between ourselves, Midwinter, these splendid rooms
of mine are a size too large for me; I don’t feel as if I should ever
be on intimate terms with my own furniture. My views in life are of the
snug and slovenly sort--a kitchen chair, you know, and a low ceiling.
Man wants but little here below, and wants that little long. That’s not
exactly the right quotation; but it expresses my meaning, and we’ll let
alone correcting it till the next opportunity.”
“I beg your pardon,” interposed Midwinter, “here is something waiting
for you which you have not noticed yet.”
As he spoke, he pointed a little impatiently to a letter lying on the
breakfast-table. He could conceal the ominous discovery which he had
made that morning, from Allan’s knowledge; but he could not conquer
the latent distrust of circumstances which was now raised again in
his superstitious nature--the instinctive suspicion of everything that
happened, no matter how common or how trifling the event, on the first
memorable day when the new life began in the new house.
Allan ran his eye over the letter, and tossed it across the table to his
friend. “I can’t make head or tail of it,” he said, “can you?”
Midwinter read the letter, slowly, aloud. “Sir--I trust you will pardon
the liberty I take in sending these few lines to wait your arrival at
Thorpe Ambrose. In the event of circumstances not disposing you to place
your law business in the hands of Mr. Darch--” He suddenly stopped at
that point, and considered a little.
“Darch is our friend the lawyer,” said Allan, supposing Midwinter had
forgotten the name. “Don’t you remember our spinning the half-crown on
the cabin table, when I got the two offers for the cottage? Heads, the
major; tails, the lawyer. This is the lawyer.”
Without making any reply, Midwinter resumed reading the letter. “In the
event of circumstances not disposing you to place your law business
in the hands of Mr. Darch, I beg to say that I shall be happy to take
charge of your interests, if you feel willing to honor me with your
confidence. Inclosing a reference (should you desire it) to my agents in
London, and again apologizing for this intrusion, I beg to remain, sir,
respectfully yours, A. PEDGIFT, Sen.”
“Circumstances?” repeated Midwinter, as he laid the letter down. “What
circumstances can possibly indispose you to give your law business to
Mr. Darch?”
“Nothing can indispose me,” said Allan. “Besides being the family lawyer
here, Darch was the first to write me word at Paris of my coming in for
my fortune; and, if I have got any business to give, of course he ought
to have it.”
Midwinter still looked distrustfully at the open letter on the table.
“I am sadly afraid, Allan, there is something wrong already,” he said.
“This man would never have ventured on the application he has made to
you, unless he had some good reason for believing he would succeed. If
you wish to put yourself right at starting, you will send to Mr. Darch
this morning to tell him you are here, and you will take no notice for
the present of Mr. Pedgift’s letter.”
Before more could be said on either side, the footman made his
appearance with the breakfast tray. He was followed, after an interval,
by the butler, a man of the essentially confidential kind, with a
modulated voice, a courtly manner, and a bulbous nose. Anybody but Allan
would have seen in his face that he had come into the room having a
special communication to make to his master. Allan, who saw nothing
under the surface, and whose head was running on the lawyer’s letter,
stopped him bluntly with the point-blank question: “Who’s Mr. Pedgift?”
The butler’s sources of local knowledge opened confidentially on the
instant. Mr. Pedgift was the second of the two lawyers in the town. Not
so long established, not so wealthy, not so universally looked up to
as old Mr. Darch. Not doing the business of the highest people in the
county, and not mixing freely with the best society, like old Mr. Darch.
A very sufficient man, in his way, nevertheless. Known as a perfectly
competent and respectable practitioner all round the neighborhood. In
short, professionally next best to Mr. Darch; and personally superior to
him (if the expression might be permitted) in this respect--that Darch
was a Crusty One, and Pedgift wasn’t.
Having imparted this information, the butler, taking a wise advantage
of his position, glided, without a moment’s stoppage, from Mr. Pedgift’s
character to the business that had brought him into the breakfast-room.
The Midsummer Audit was near at hand; and the tenants were accustomed
to have a week’s notice of the rent-day dinner. With this necessity
pressing, and with no orders given as yet, and no steward in office
at Thorpe Ambrose, it appeared desirable that some confidential person
should bring the matter forward. The butler was that confidential
person; and he now ventured accordingly to trouble his master on the
subject.
At this point Allan opened his lips to interrupt, and was himself
interrupted before he could utter a word.
“Wait!” interposed Midwinter, seeing in Allan’s face that he was in
danger of being publicly announced in the capacity of steward. “Wait!”
he repeated, eagerly, “till I can speak to you first.”
The butler’s courtly manner remained alike unruffled by Midwinter’s
sudden interference and by his own dismissal from the scene. Nothing but
the mounting color in his bulbous nose betrayed the sense of injury
that animated him as he withdrew. Mr. Armadale’s chance of regaling his
friend and himself that day with the best wine in the cellar trembled in
the balance, as the butler took his way back to the basement story.
“This is beyond a joke, Allan,” said Midwinter, when they were alone.
“Somebody must meet your tenants on the rent-day who is really fit to
take the steward’s place. With the best will in the world to learn, it
is impossible for _me_ to master the business at a week’s notice. Don’t,
pray don’t let your anxiety for my welfare put you in a false position
with other people! I should never forgive myself if I was the unlucky
cause--”
“Gently gently!” cried Allan, amazed at his friend’s extraordinary
earnestness. “If I write to London by to-night’s post for the man who
came down here before, will that satisfy you?”
Midwinter shook his head. “Our time is short,” he said; “and the man may
not be at liberty. Why not try in the neighborhood first? You were going
to write to Mr. Darch. Send at once, and see if he can’t help us between
this and post-time.”
Allan withdrew to a side-table on which writing materials were placed.
“You shall breakfast in peace, you old fidget,” he replied, and
addressed himself forthwith to Mr. Darch, with his usual Spartan brevity
of epistolary expression. “Dear Sir--Here I am, bag and baggage. Will
you kindly oblige me by being my lawyer? I ask this, because I want to
consult you at once. Please look in in the course of the day, and stop
to dinner if you possibly can. Yours truly. ALLAN ARMADALE.” Having read
this composition aloud with unconcealed admiration of his own rapidity
of literary execution, Allan addressed the letter to Mr. Darch, and rang
the bell. “Here, Richard, take this at once, and wait for an answer.
And, I say, if there’s any news stirring in the town, pick it up and
bring it back with you. See how I manage my servants!” continued Allan,
joining his friend at the breakfast-table. “See how I adapt myself to my
new duties! I haven’t been down here one clear day yet, and I’m taking
an interest in the neighborhood already.”
Breakfast over, the two friends went out to idle away the morning under
the shade of a tree in the park. Noon came, and Richard never appeared.
One o’clock struck, and still there were no signs of an answer from Mr.
Darch. Midwinter’s patience was not proof against the delay. He left
Allan dozing on the grass, and went to the house to make inquiries. The
town was described as little more than two miles distant; but the day
of the week happened to be market day, and Richard was being detained
no doubt by some of the many acquaintances whom he would be sure to meet
with on that occasion.
Half an hour later the truant messenger returned, and was sent out to
report himself to his master under the tree in the park.
“Any answer from Mr. Darch?” asked Midwinter, seeing that Allan was too
lazy to put the question for himself.
“Mr. Darch was engaged, sir. I was desired to say that he would send an
answer.”
“Any news in the town?” inquired Allan, drowsily, without troubling
himself to open his eyes.
“No, sir; nothing in particular.”
Observing the man suspiciously as he made that reply, Midwinter
detected in his face that he was not speaking the truth. He was plainly
embarrassed, and plainly relieved when his master’s silence allowed
him to withdraw. After a little consideration, Midwinter followed, and
overtook the retreating servant on the drive before the house.
“Richard,” he said, quietly, “if I was to guess that there _is_ some
news in the town, and that you don’t like telling it to your master,
should I be guessing the truth?”
The man started and changed color. “I don’t know how you have found it
out,” he said; “but I can’t deny you have guessed right.”
“If you let me hear what the news is, I will take the responsibility on
myself of telling Mr. Armadale.”
After some little hesitation, and some distrustful consideration, on
his side, of Midwinter’s face, Richard at last prevailed on himself to
repeat what he had heard that day in the town.
The news of Allan’s sudden appearance at Thorpe Ambrose had preceded the
servant’s arrival at his destination by some hours. Wherever he went,
he found his master the subject of public discussion. The opinion of
Allan’s conduct among the leading townspeople, the resident gentry
of the neighborhood, and the principal tenants on the estate was
unanimously unfavorable. Only the day before, the committee for managing
the public reception of the new squire had sketched the progress of the
procession; had settled the serious question of the triumphal arches;
and had appointed a competent person to solicit subscriptions for the
flags, the flowers, the feasting, the fireworks, and the band. In less
than a week more the money could have been collected, and the rector
would have written to Mr. Armadale to fix the day. And now, by Allan’s
own act, the public welcome waiting to honor him had been cast back
contemptuously in the public teeth! Everybody took for granted (what
was unfortunately true) that he had received private information of
the contemplated proceedings. Everybody declared that he had purposely
stolen into his own house like a thief in the night (so the phrase ran)
to escape accepting the offered civilities of his neighbors. In brief,
the sensitive self-importance of the little town was wounded to the
quick, and of Allan’s once enviable position in the estimation of the
neighborhood not a vestige remained.
For a moment, Midwinter faced the messenger of evil tidings in silent
distress. That moment past, the sense of Allan’s critical position
roused him, now the evil was known, to seek the remedy.
“Has the little you have seen of your master, Richard, inclined you to
like him?” he asked.
This time the man answered without hesitation, “A pleasanter and kinder
gentleman than Mr. Armadale no one could wish to serve.”
“If you think that,” pursued Midwinter, “you won’t object to give me
some information which will help your master to set himself right with
his neighbors. Come into the house.”
He led the way into the library, and, after asking the necessary
questions, took down in writing a list of the names and addresses of the
most influential persons living in the town and its neighborhood. This
done, he rang the bell for the head footman, having previously sent
Richard with a message to the stables directing an open carriage to be
ready in an hour’s time.
“When the late Mr. Blanchard went out to make calls in the neighborhood,
it was your place to go with him, was it not?” he asked, when the upper
servant appeared. “Very well. Be ready in an hour’s time, if you please,
to go out with Mr. Armadale.” Having given that order, he left the house
again on his way back to Allan, with the visiting list in his hand.
He smiled a little sadly as he descended the steps. “Who would have
imagined,” he thought, “that my foot-boy’s experience of the ways of
gentlefolks would be worth looking back at one day for Allan’s sake?”
The object of the popular odium lay innocently slumbering on the grass,
with his garden hat over his nose, his waistcoat unbuttoned, and his
trousers wrinkled half way up his outstretched legs. Midwinter roused
him without hesitation, and remorselessly repeated the servant’s news.
Allan accepted the disclosure thus forced on him without the slightest
disturbance of temper. “Oh, hang ‘em!” was all he said. “Let’s have
another cigar.” Midwinter took the cigar out of his hand, and, insisting
on his treating the matter seriously, told him in plain words that he
must set himself right with his offended neighbors by calling on
them personally to make his apologies. Allan sat up on the grass in
astonishment; his eyes opened wide in incredulous dismay. Did Midwinter
positively meditate forcing him into a “chimney-pot hat,” a nicely
brushed frock-coat, and a clean pair of gloves? Was it actually in
contemplation to shut him up in a carriage, with his footman on the box
and his card-case in his hand, and send him round from house to house,
to tell a pack of fools that he begged their pardon for not letting them
make a public show of him? If anything so outrageously absurd as this
was really to be done, it could not be done that day, at any rate. He
had promised to go back to the charming Milroy at the cottage and to
take Midwinter with him. What earthly need had he of the good opinion of
the resident gentry? The only friends he wanted were the friends he
had got already. Let the whole neighborhood turn its back on him if it
liked; back or face, the Squire of Thorpe Ambrose didn’t care two straws
about it.
After allowing him to run on in this way until his whole stock of
objections was exhausted, Midwinter wisely tried his personal influence
next. He took Allan affectionately by the hand. “I am going to ask a
great favor,” he said. “If you won’t call on these people for your own
sake, will you call on them to please _me_?”
Allan delivered himself of a groan of despair, stared in mute surprise
at the anxious face of his friend, and good-humoredly gave way. As
Midwinter took his arm, and led him back to the house, he looked round
with rueful eyes at the cattle hard by, placidly whisking their tails in
the pleasant shade. “Don’t mention it in the neighborhood,” he said; “I
should like to change places with one of my own cows.”
Midwinter left him to dress, engaging to return when the carriage was at
the door. Allan’s toilet did not promise to be a speedy one. He began it
by reading his own visiting cards; and he advanced it a second stage
by looking into his wardrobe, and devoting the resident gentry to the
infernal regions. Before he could discover any third means of delaying
his own proceedings, the necessary pretext was unexpectedly supplied
by Richard’s appearance with a note in his hand. The messenger had just
called with Mr. Darch’s answer. Allan briskly shut up the wardrobe, and
gave his whole attention to the lawyer’s letter. The lawyer’s letter
rewarded him by the following lines:
“SIR--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of to-day’s date,
honoring me with two proposals; namely, ONE inviting me to act as your
legal adviser, and ONE inviting me to pay you a visit at your house.
In reference to the first proposal, I beg permission to decline it with
thanks. With regard to the second proposal, I have to inform you that
circumstances have come to my knowledge relating to the letting of the
cottage at Thorpe Ambrose which render it impossible for me (in justice
to myself) to accept your invitation. I have ascertained, sir, that my
offer reached you at the same time as Major Milroy’s; and that, with
both proposals thus before you, you gave the preference to a total
stranger, who addressed you through a house agent, over a man who had
faithfully served your relatives for two generations, and who had been
the first person to inform you of the most important event in your life.
After this specimen of your estimate of what is due to the claims of
common courtesy and common justice, I cannot flatter myself that I
possess any of the qualities which would fit me to take my place on the
list of your friends.
“I remain, sir, your obedient servant,
“JAMES DARCH.”
“Stop the messenger!” cried Allan, leaping to his feet, his ruddy face
aflame with indignation. “Give me pen, ink, and paper! By the
Lord Harry, they’re a nice set of people in these parts; the whole
neighborhood is in a conspiracy to bully me!” He snatched up the pen in
a fine frenzy of epistolary inspiration. “Sir--I despise you and your
letter.--” At that point the pen made a blot, and the writer was seized
with a momentary hesitation. “Too strong,” he thought; “I’ll give it to
the lawyer in his own cool and cutting style.” He began again on a clean
sheet of paper. “Sir--You remind me of an Irish bull. I mean that story
in ‘Joe Miller’ where Pat remarked, in the hearing of a wag hard by,
that ‘the reciprocity was all on one side.’ _Your_ reciprocity is all on
one side. You take the privilege of refusing to be my lawyer, and
then you complain of my taking the privilege of refusing to be your
landlord.” He paused fondly over those last words. “Neat!” he thought.
“Argument and hard hitting both in one. I wonder where my knack of
writing comes from?” He went on, and finished the letter in two more
sentences. “As for your casting my invitation back in my teeth, I beg to
inform you my teeth are none the worse for it. I am equally glad to
have nothing to say to you, either in the capacity of a friend or a
tenant.--ALLAN ARMADALE.” He nodded exultantly at his own composition,
as he addressed it and sent it down to the messenger. “Darch’s hide must
be a thick one,” he said, “if he doesn’t feel _that_!”
The sound of the wheels outside suddenly recalled him to the business
of the day. There was the carriage waiting to take him on his round of
visits; and there was Midwinter at his post, pacing to and fro on the
drive.
“Read that,” cried Allan, throwing out the lawyer’s letter; “I’ve
written him back a smasher.”
He bustled away to the wardrobe to get his coat. There was a wonderful
change in him; he felt little or no reluctance to pay the visits now.
The pleasurable excitement of answering Mr. Darth had put him in a fine
aggressive frame of mind for asserting himself in the neighborhood.
“Whatever else they may say of me, they shan’t say I was afraid to face
them.” Heated red-hot with that idea, he seized his hat and gloves,
and hurrying out of the room, met Midwinter in the corridor with the
lawyer’s letter in his hand.
“Keep up your spirits!” cried Allan, seeing the anxiety in his friend’s
face, and misinterpreting the motive of it immediately. “If Darch can’t
be counted on to send us a helping hand into the steward’s office,
Pedgift can.”
“My dear Allan, I was not thinking of that; I was thinking of Mr.
Darch’s letter. I don’t defend this sour-tempered man; but I am afraid
we must admit he has some cause for complaint. Pray don’t give him
another chance of putting you in the wrong. Where is your answer to his
letter?”
“Gone!” replied Allan. “I always strike while the iron’s hot--a word and
a blow, and the blow first, that’s my way. Don’t, there’s a good fellow,
don’t fidget about the steward’s books and the rent-day. Here! here’s a
bunch of keys they gave me last night: one of them opens the room where
the steward’s books are; go in and read them till I come back. I give
you my sacred word of honor I’ll settle it all with Pedgift before you
see me again.”
“One moment,” interposed Midwinter, stopping him resolutely on his way
out to the carriage. “I say nothing against Mr. Pedgift’s fitness to
possess your confidence, for I know nothing to justify me in distrusting
him. But he has not introduced himself to your notice in a very delicate
way; and he has not acknowledged (what is quite clear to my mind) that
he knew of Mr. Darch’s unfriendly feeling toward you when he wrote. Wait
a little before you go to this stranger; wait till we can talk it over
together to-night.”
“Wait!” replied Allan. “Haven’t I told you that I always strike while
the iron’s hot? Trust my eye for character, old boy, I’ll look Pedgift
through and through, and act accordingly. Don’t keep me any longer, for
Heaven’s sake. I’m in a fine humor for tackling the resident gentry; and
if I don’t go at once, I’m afraid it may wear off.”
With that excellent reason for being in a hurry, Allan boisterously
broke away. Before it was possible to stop him again, he had jumped into
the carriage and had left the house.