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A CHARMING FELLOW.
by
FRANCES ELEANOR TROLLOPE,
Author of "Aunt Margaret's Trouble," "Mabel's Progress," etc. etc.
In Three Volumes.
VOL. III.
London:
Chapman and Hall, 193, Piccadilly.
1876.
Charles Dickens and Evans,
Crystal Palace Press.
A CHARMING FELLOW.
CHAPTER I.
There was a "scene" that evening at Ivy Lodge--not the less a "scene" in
that it was conducted on genteel methods. Mrs. Algernon Errington
inflicted on her husband during dinner a recapitulation of all her
wrongs and injuries which could be covertly hinted at. She would not
broadly speak out her meaning before "the servants." The phrase shaped
itself thus in her mind from old habit. But in truth "the servants" were
represented by one plump-faced damsel in a yellow print gown, into which
her person seemed to have been inserted in the same way that bran is
inserted into the cover of a pincushion. She seemed to have been stuffed
into it by means of considerable force, and with less reference to the
natural shape of her body than to the arbitrary outlines of the case
made for it by a Whitford dressmaker.
This girl ministered to her master and mistress during dinner, pouring
water and wine, changing knives and plates, handing vegetables, and not
unfrequently dropping a spoon or a sprinkling of hot gravy into the laps
of her employers. She had succeeded to Slater, who resigned her post
after a trial of some six weeks' duration. Castalia, in despair at this
desertion, had written to Lady Seely to send her a maid from London
forthwith. But to this application she received a reply to the effect
that my lady could not undertake to find any one who would suit her
niece, and that her ladyship thought Castalia had much better make up
her mind to do without a regular lady's-maid, and take some humbler
attendant, who would make herself generally useful.
"I always knew Slater wouldn't stay with you," wrote Lady Seely; "and
you won't get any woman of that kind to stay. You can't afford to keep
one. Your uncle is fairly well; but poor Fido gives me a great deal of
unhappiness. He eats nothing."
Not by any means from conviction or submission to the imperious advice
of Lady Seely, but under the yoke of stern necessity, Castalia had
consented to try a young woman of the neighbourhood, "highly
recommended." And this abigail, in her tight yellow gown, was the cause
of Mrs. Algernon's reticence during dinner. The poor lady might,
however, have spared herself this restraint, if its object were to keep
her servants in the dark as to domestic disagreements; for no sooner had
Lydia (that was the abigail's name) reached the kitchen, than she and
Polly, the cook, began a discussion of Mr. and Mrs. Algernon Errington's
private affairs, which displayed a surprising knowledge of very minute
details, and an almost equally surprising power of piecing evidence
together.
When Lydia was gone, Algernon lit a cigar and drew up his chair to the
fireside, where he sat silent, staring at his elegantly-slippered feet
on the fender. Castalia rose, fidgeted about the room, walked to the
door, stopped, turned back, and, standing directly opposite to Algernon,
said querulously, "Do you mean to remain here?"
"For the present, yes; out of consideration for you. You dislike me to
smoke in the drawing-room, do you not?"
"Why should you smoke at all?"
Algernon raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, crossed one leg
over the other, and made no answer. His wife went away, and sitting down
alone on a corner of the sofa in her little drawing-room, cried bitterly
for a long time.
She was made to raise her tear-stained face by feeling a hand passed
gently over her hair. She looked up, and found her husband standing
beside her. "What's the matter, little woman?" he asked, in a
half-coaxing, half-bantering tone, like one speaking to a naughty
child, too young to be seriously reproved or argued with.
Now, although Castalia was haughty by education and insolent by temper,
she had very little real pride and no dignity in her character. To be
noticed and caressed by Algernon was to her a sufficient compensation
for almost any indignity. There was but one passion of her nature which
had any chance of resisting his personal influence, and that passion had
never yet been fully aroused, although frequently irritated. Her
jealousy was like a young tiger that had never yet tasted blood.
"What's the matter, little woman?" repeated Algernon, seating himself
beside her, and putting his arm round her waist. She shrugged her
shoulders fretfully, but at the same time nestled herself nearer to his
side. She loved him, and it put her at an immense disadvantage with him.
"Don't you mean to vouchsafe me an answer, Mrs. Algernon Ancram
Errington?"
"Oh, I daresay you're very sorry that I am Mrs. Errington. I have no
doubt you repent."
"Really! And is that what you were crying for?"
No reply.
"It looks rather as if you repented, madam!"
"Oh, you know I don't; unless you like other people better than you like
me!"
"'Other people' don't cry in my company."
"No; because they don't care for you. And because they're----they're
nasty, artful minxes!"
"Hear, hear! A charming definition! Castalia, you are really _impayable_
sometimes. How my lord would enjoy that speech of yours!"
"No, he wouldn't. Uncle Val would never enjoy what vexed me. My lady
might; nasty, disagreeable old thing!"
"There, I can agree with you. A vulgar kind of woman--though she is my
blood-relation--thoroughly coarse in the grain. But now that we have
relieved our feelings, and spoken our minds on that score, suppose we
converse rationally?"
"I don't want to converse rationally."
"Why not?"
"Because that means that you are going to scold me."
"Well--that might be highly rational, certainly; only I never do it."
"Well, but you'll manage to make out that I'm in the wrong and you're in
the right, somehow or other."
"Cassy, I want you to write a letter."
"A letter? Whom do you want me to write to?"
Her tears were completely dried, and she looked up at him with a faint
smile on her countenance, which, however, looked rueful enough, with red
nose and swollen eyes.
"You must write to my lord, and get him to help us with a little money."
Her face fell.
"Ask Uncle Val for money again, Ancram? It is such a short time since he
sent me some!"
"And to-morrow, at this hour, it will be 'such a short time' since you
had your dinner! Nevertheless, I suppose you will want another dinner."
"I--I don't think Uncle Val can afford it, Ancram."
"Leave that to him. Afford it? Pshaw!"
Algernon made the little sharp ejaculation in a tone expressive of the
most impatient contempt.
"But do we really--is it absolutely necessary for us to beg of my uncle
again?"
"Not at all. Do just as you please," answered her husband, rising and
walking away from the sofa to a distant chair.
Castalia's eyes followed him piteously.
"But what can I say?" she asked. "What excuse can I make? I hate to
worry Uncle Val. It isn't as if he had more money than he knew what to
do with. And if Lady Seely knew about his helping us, she would lead him
such a life!"
"Do as you please. It would be a thousand pities to worry your uncle.
Let all the worry fall on me."
He took up a book and threw himself back in his chair as if he had
dismissed the subject.
"I don't know what to do!" exclaimed Castalia, with fretful
helplessness. At length, after sitting silent for some time twisting her
handkerchief backwards and forwards in her fingers, she got up and
crossed the room to her husband's chair.
"Ancram!" she said softly.
"Eh? I beg your pardon!" looking up with an appearance of great
abstraction, as if the perusal of his book had absorbed all his
attention.
"I wish to do what will please you. I only care to please you in the
world. But--can't you explain to me a little better why I must write to
Uncle Val?"
Explain! Of course he would! He desired nothing better. He had brought
her to a point at which encouragement was needed, not coldness. And with
the singular flexibility that belonged to him, he was able immediately
to plunge into an animated statement of his present situation, which
sufficed to persuade his hearer that no course of conduct could be so
desirable, so prudent--nay, so praiseworthy, as the course he had
suggested.
To be sure the details were vague, but the general impression was vivid
enough. If Algernon's pictures were a little inaccurate in drawing, they
were at least always admirably coloured. And the general impression was
this: that there never had been a person of such brilliant abilities and
charming qualities as Algernon Ancram Errington so unjustly consigned
to obscurity and poverty. And no contributions to his comfort, luxury,
or well-being were too much to expect and claim from the world in
general, and his wife's relations in particular. Common honesty--common
decency almost--would compel Lord Seely to make all the amends in his
power for having placed Algernon in the Whitford Post-office. And there
was an insinuation very skilfully and delicately mixed with all the
seemingly unstudied and spontaneous outpourings of Algy's conjugal
confidence--an insinuation which affected the flavour of the whole, as
an accomplished cook will contrive to mingle garlic in a ragoût, never
coarsely obtrusive, and yet distinctly perceptible--to the effect that
the hand of Miss Castalia Kilfinane had been somewhat officiously thrust
upon her charming husband; and that the family owed him no little
gratitude for having been kind enough to accept it.
Poor Castalia had an uneasy feeling, at the end of his fluent discourse,
that Algernon had been a victim to her great relations, and, in some dim
way, to herself. But the garlic was so admirably blended with the whole
mass, that it was impossible for her to pick it out, or resent it, or do
anything but declare her willingness to help her husband by any means in
her power.
"Why, my dear girl, it is as much for your sake as for mine! And as to
the necessity for it, I must tell you what Minnie Bodkin said to me
to-day. Minnie is an excellent creature, full of friendly feeling--a
little too conceited and fond of lecturing" (Castalia's face
brightened); "but much must be excused to an afflicted invalid, who
never meets her fellow-creatures on equal terms."
Castalia looked almost happy. But she said, "As to her affliction, it
seems to me that she has been growing much stronger lately."
"Yes; I am glad to think so too. But let the best happen that can be
hoped--let the disease, that has kept her helpless on her couch all
these years, be overcome--still she must always be so lame as to make
her an object of pity."
"Poor thing! I daresay it does warp her mind a good deal. What did she
say to you?"
Algernon recapitulated a part of Minnie's warnings, but gave them such a
turn as to make it appear that the greatest wrath and impatience of the
Whitford tradesmen were directed against his wife. "They have a narrow
kind of provincial prejudice against you, Cassy, on account of your
being a 'London fine lady.' Me they know; and, in their great
condescension, are pleased to approve of."
"Oh, everybody likes you better than me, of course," answered Castalia,
simply. "But I don't care for that, if you will only like me better
than anybody."
The genuine devotion with which this was said would have touched most
men. It might have touched Algernon, had he not been too much engrossed
in mentally composing the rough draft of Castalia's letter to her uncle,
and putting his not inconsiderable powers of plausible persuasion to the
task of making it appear that his wife's personal extravagance was the
chief cause of their need for ready money.
"Don't tell him that I even know of your writing. My lord will be more
willing to come down handsomely if he thinks it's for you only, Cassy,"
said Algernon, as he drew up his wife's writing-table for her, placed a
chair, opened her inkstand, and performed several little acts of
attention with a really charming grace and gallantry.
So Castalia, writing almost literally what her husband
dictated--(although he kept saying at every sentence, "My dear child,
you ought to know best how to address your uncle;" "Well, I really don't
know, but I think you might put it thus;" and so forth)--completed an
appeal to Lord Seely to anticipate by nearly a quarter the allowance he
continued to make her for her dress out of his private purse, and, if
possible, to increase its amount.
One such appeal had already been made and responded to by a gift of
money. It had been made immediately after the arrival of the
newly-married couple in Whitford, on the ground of the unforeseen
expenses attendant on installing themselves in their new habitation. In
answering it Lord Seely had written kindly, but with evident disapproval
of the step that had been taken. "I cannot, Castalia," he said, "bid you
keep anything secret from your husband, and yet I can scarcely help
saying that I wish he did not know of the cheque I inclose. I fear he is
disposed to be reckless in money matters; and nothing encourages such a
disposition more than the idea that aid can be had from friends for the
asking. Ancram will recollect a serious conversation I had with him the
evening before your marriage, and I can only now reiterate what I then
assured him of--that it will be impossible for me to repeat the
assistance I gave him on that occasion."
"What assistance was that, Ancram?" asked Castalia, who knew not a word
of the matter.
"Oh, I believe my lord made me the munificent present of two pair of
breeches, and an old coat and waistcoat, or so."
"Made you a present of an old coat and breeches! What on earth do you
mean?"
"I mean that he paid a twopenny outstanding tailor's bill for me. And he
writes now as if he had conferred the most overwhelming obligation."
The fact was that Lord Seely had discharged a great number of Algernon's
debts; all of them, as his lordship imagined. But there was clearly no
need of troubling Castalia with these details.
When the letter was finished and sealed, Castalia still sat musingly
tracing unmeaning figures with the point of her pen on the
blotting-book. At length she said with some hesitation, "Ancram, how is
it that we spend so much money? I don't think I am very extravagant."
"'So much money!' Good Heavens, Castalia--but you really have no
conception of these things. Our whole income, and twice our income, is a
miserable pittance. The Dormers pay their butler more."
She was again silent for a little while. Then she said, "Isn't there
anything we could do without?"
Her husband looked at her in astonishment. It was a quite unexpected
suggestion on Castalia's part. "Could you be kind enough to point out
anything?" he asked drily. She looked somewhat cast down by his tone,
but answered, "There's that last case of wine from town--the Rhine wine.
Don't you think we might send it back unopened, and do with a bottle of
sherry, now and then, from the 'Blue Bell?' Your mother finds that very
good."
"Pshaw!" with the accustomed sharp, impatient contempt. "My mother knows
no more about wine than a baby. To drink bad wine is absolutely to
poison oneself. I can't do it, and I don't mean to let you do it,
either. And when one knows that it is only a question of a few months,
more or less, and that directly I get a better berth these greedy
rascals will be paid their extortionate bills in full--positively,
Castalia, it seems to me childish to talk in that way!"
It was the same with one or two other suggestions of retrenchment she
ventured to make. Algernon showed conclusively (conclusively enough to
satisfy his hearer, at all events) that it would not do--that it would
be absolutely imprudent, on their part, to make any open retrenchment.
All these sharks would come round them at once, if they smelt poverty.
"I know these gentry better than you do, Castalia," said he. "There is
no way of getting on with them except by not being in a hurry to pay
them. Nothing spoils tradespeople so much as any over-alacrity of that
kind. They immediately conclude that you can't do without them!"
"Oh, they're disgustingly impudent creatures, these Whitford
tradespeople! There is no doubt in the world about that," said Castalia,
in perfect good faith. "Only I thought you seemed to be made uneasy by
what Miss Bodkin said to you on the subject."
"To be sure! But, my dear girl, your method would never answer! I do
want money, very badly. And I do hope and expect--as I think I have some
right to do--that my lord will assist us without delay, and without
making one of his intolerable prosy preachments on the occasion. And we
must have a few pounds to go on with, and stop the mouths of these
rapacious rascals. But no retrenchment, Castalia! No 'Blue Bell' sherry!
Good Heavens, it makes one bilious to think of it! I really cannot
sacrifice my digestion to advance the commercial prosperity of Whitford.
And when one considers it, why should we destroy our peace of mind by
worrying ourselves? Lord Seely has got us into this scrape, and Lord
Seely must get us out of it. _Voilà tout!_"
After that the rest of the evening was spent very harmoniously. Algernon
could not repress two or three prodigious yawns, but he politely
concealed them. And when Castalia went to her pianoforte, he woke up at
the conclusion of an intricate fantasia quite in time to thank her for
the performance, and to praise its brilliancy. In a word, so agreeable
an evening, Castalia told herself, she had not passed for many weeks,
although it had certainly begun in an unpromising way. So softened was
she, indeed, by this gleam of happiness, that several times she was on
the point of making a confession to her husband, and entreating his
forgiveness. But she could not bear to risk bringing a cloud over the
light of his countenance, which was the only sunshine in her life.
"Ancram would be so angry!" was a thought that checked back words which
were on her lips a dozen times. "And since the matter is all over, and
he need never know anything about it, I may as well hold my tongue."
It needed, however, no confession on Castalia's part to convince
Algernon that she had opened his secretaire, and taken Minnie Bodkin's
letter thence, instead of having found it lying open on his table, as
she had said. For on the next morning, when he entered his private room
at the office, his first action was to try the little secretaire, which
was unlocked. He then remembered that, after having secured that
repository of his private papers, he had re-opened it, to throw Minnie's
note into a drawer of it; and, having been called away at that moment,
must have forgotten to re-lock it.
"Damnably provoking!" muttered Algernon to himself as he stood looking
at the little cabinet with gloomy, anxious brows. Then, having first
bolted the door of his room, he made a thorough search throughout the
secretaire. "Nothing disturbed! She probably flew off to Dr. Bodkin's
house directly after reading Minnie's note; and that lay in the little
empty drawer right in front. It would be the first she opened."
Then he sat down in a mighty comfortable armchair, which was placed in
front of an official-looking desk, and meditated so deeply that he
forgot to unbolt the door, and was roused by Mr. Gibbs tapping at it,
and desiring to speak with him on business.