AN ANTI-TOXINE
They rowed over, and were in mid-water when the landau drove up to the
house. It had been sent in for Mr. Dalrymple early in the forenoon. They
saw nothing, however, until they landed, when the equipage was
proceeding on its way to the stables, having deposited the guest. At
this discovery, the Duke's excitement knew no bounds, so Olivia urged
him to run on and leave her; and he took her advice, chiefly regretting
that he had missed the proud moment of welcoming his old boss in the
hall.
Jack regretted this the more when he reached the house. There was
Dalrymple of Carara beginning his visit by roundly abusing the butler in
the very portico! The guest was in a towering passion, the butler in a
palsy of senile agitation; and between them on the step lay Dalrymple's
Gladstone bag.
"What _is_ the matter?" cried Jack, rushing up with a very blank face.
"Stebbings, what's this? What has he done, Mr. Dalrymple?"
"Refused to take in my bag! Says it's the footman's place!"
"Then what's he here for? The man must be drunk. Are you, Stebbings?"
The butler murmured an inarticulate reply.
"Get to your pantry, sir!" roared Jack. "You shall hear more of this
when you are sober. Old servant or new servant, out you clear!"
And he took up the bag himself, as Stebbings gave a glassy stare and
staggered off without a word.
"I'm extremely sorry for losing my temper," said Dalrymple, taking
Jack's arm as they entered the house; "but it always was rather short,
as I fear I needn't remind _you_. Really, though, your disgraceful old
retainer would have provoked a saint. Drunk as fool in the middle of the
day; drunk and insolent. Has the man been with you long?"
"Only fifty years or so with the family," replied Jack savagely; "but,
by the living Lord, he may roll up his swag!"
"Ah! I wouldn't be hasty," said Dalrymple. "One must make allowances for
one's old retainers; they're a privileged class. How good of you, by
the way, to send in for me in such style! It prepared me for much. But I
am bound to say it didn't prepare me for all this. No, I never should
have pictured you in such an absolute palace had I not seen it with my
own eyes!"
And now the visitor was so plainly impressed by all he saw, that Jack
readily forgave him the liberty he had taken in rating Stebbings on his
own account. Still the incident rankled. Dalrymple was the one man in
the world before whom the Duke of St. Osmund's really did desire to play
his new part creditably; and what could be said for a peer of the realm
who kept a drunken butler to insult his guests? Jack could have shaken
the old reprobate until the bones rattled again in his shrivelled skin.
Dalrymple, however, seemed to think no more about the matter. He was
entirely taken up with the suits of armour here in the hall: indeed
Olivia discovered him lecturing Jack on his own trophies in a manner
that would have led a stranger to mistake the guest for the host.
It may be said at once that this was Dalrymple's manner from first to
last. It was that of the school-master to whom the boy who once trembled
at his frown is a boy for evermore. And it greatly irritated Jack's
friends, though Jack himself saw nothing to resent.
The Duke led his guest into the great drawing-room, and introduced him
with gusto to Lady Caroline Sellwood and to Claude Lafont. But all his
pride was in the visitor, who, with his handsome cynical face, his
distinguished bearing, and his faultless summer suit, should show them
that at least one "perfect gentleman" could come out of Riverina. Jack
waited a moment to enjoy the easy speeches and the quiet assurance of
Dalrymple; then he left the squatter to Lady Caroline and to Claude. It
was within a few minutes of the luncheon hour. Jack wanted a word with
Stebbings alone. The more he thought of it, the less able was he to
understand the old butler's extraordinary outbreak. Could he have been
ill instead of drunk? A charitable explanation was just conceivable to
Jack until he opened the pantry door; it fell to the ground that moment;
for not only did he catch Stebbings in the act of filling a wine-glass
with brandy, but the butler's breath was foul already with the spirit.
"Very well, my man," said Jack slowly. "Drink as much as you like!
You'll hear from me when you're sober. But show so much as the tip of
your nose in the dining-room, and I'll throw you through the window with
my own hands!"
The upshot of the matter was indirect and a little startling; for this
was the reason why Dalrymple of Carara took the head of his old hand's
table at luncheon on the day of his arrival; and obviously it was
Dalrymple's temporary occupation of that position, added to his
unforgettable past relations with his host, which led him to behave
exactly as though the table were his own.
A difficulty about the carving was the more immediate cause of the
transposition. In the ordinary course, this was Stebbings's business,
which he conducted on the sideboard with due skill; in his absence,
however, the footmen had placed the dishes on the table; and as these
included a brace of cold grouse, and neither Jack nor Claude was an even
moderate practitioner with the carving-knife, there was a little hitch.
Mr. Sellwood was not present; he took his lunch on the links; and Jack
made no secret of his relief when the squatter offered to fill the
breach.
"Capital!" he cried; "you take my place, sir, and I wish you joy of the
billet." And so the thing fell out.
It had the merit of seating the Duke and Olivia side by side; and the
happy pair were made distinctly happier by the mutual discovery that
neither had as yet confided in a third soul. At the foot of the table,
in the position which Jack had begged her to assume at the outset of her
visit, sat Lady Caroline Sellwood. The clever young men were on opposite
sides, as usual; nor did they fail to exchange those looks of neglected
merit and of intellectual boredom which were another feature of their
public appearances. Their visit had not been altogether a success. It
was a mystery why they prolonged it. They had been invited, however, to
spend a month at Maske Towers, which, after all, was neither an
uncomfortable resting-place nor a discreditable temporary address.
Francis Freke said a Latin grace inaudibly, and then the squatter went
to work at the birds. These were a present from afar; there were no
moors "on" Maske, as Jack explained, with a proud eye on Dalrymple's
knife. It flashed through the joints as though the bird had been already
"boned"; on either side the breast fell away in creamy flakes; and
Dalrymple talked as he carved, with the light touch and the easy grace
of a many-sided man of the world. At first he seemed to join in
everybody's conversation in turns; but he was only getting his team
together; and in a little everybody was listening to him. Yet he talked
with such tact that it was possible for all to put in their word;
indeed, he would appeal first to one, then to another, so that the
general temper of the party rose to a high level. Only Olivia and Claude
Lafont felt that this stranger was taking rather much upon himself.
Otherwise it was a pleasure to listen to him; he was excellently well
informed; before the end of the meal it came out that he had actually
read Claude's poems.
"And lived to tell the tale!" he added with characteristic familiarity.
"I can tell you I felt it a risk after reading that terrible
depreciation of you in the _Parthenon_; you see, I've been in England a
few days, and have been getting abreast of things at my hotel while my
tailors were making me externally presentable. By the way, I ran across
a young Australian journalist who is over here now, and who occasionally
scribbles for the _Parthenon_. I asked him if he knew who had made that
scurrilous attack upon you, Mr. Lafont. I was interested, because I knew
you must be one of Jack's relations."
"And did you find out?" inquired Claude, with pardonable curiosity.
"He found out for me. The culprit was a man of your name, Mr. Stubbs; no
relation, I hope?"
"I hope not," said Stubbs, emptying his glass; and his pallid complexion
turned a sicklier yellow, as though his blood were nicotine, and the
nicotine had mounted to his face.
"I should like to hear that name in full," said Lady Caroline down the
length of the table. "I read the article myself. It was a disgrace to
journalism. It is only fair to our Mr. Stubbs that we should hear his
namesake's Christian name."
"I think I can oblige," said Dalrymple, producing his pocket-book. "His
name was--ah! here it is! His name was Edmund. Edmund Stubbs!"
Edmund Stubbs was not unequal to the occasion. He looked straight at
Jack.
"Will you kindly make it convenient to send me in to Devenholme in time
for the next train?" he said. "If the Australian--gentleman--is going to
stay in your house, I, for one, shall trespass no longer on your
hospitality."
"Nor I, for another!" Llewellyn chimed in.
And without further ceremony the mordant couple left the table and the
room. Jack looked embarrassed, and Claude felt sorry for Jack. As for
Olivia, she had felt vaguely indignant with Dalrymple ever since he had
taken the head of the table; and this scene put a point to her feelings,
while it also revived her first prejudice against the squatter. Lady
Caroline, however, congratulated him upon an excellent piece of work.
"You have performed a public service, my dear Mr. Dalrymple," said she.
"Dear Jack will, I know, forgive me when I say that those two young men
have never been in their element here. They are all right in a London
drawing-room, as representatives of a certain type. In a country house
they are impossible; and, for my part, I shall certainly never send them
another card."
Jack also was ceasing to disapprove of the humiliation of Edmund Stubbs,
whose remarks overnight in the Poet's Corner had suddenly recurred to
his mind.
"Did you know it was the same man?" said he, pushing back his chair.
"I'm afraid I did," replied the squatter, as he rose. "They told me he
was staying down here, and I could hardly avoid exposing the fellow. I
hope, my dear Jack, that you will forgive the liberty I undoubtedly took
in doing so. I am the germ that expels the other germs--a sort of
anti-toxine in cuffs. _Similia similibus_, if my memory serves me, Mr.
Lafont. Before long you may have to inject a fresh bacillus to expel
_me_! Meantime, my dear Jack, let me offer you a cigar to show there's
no ill-feeling."
"No, thanks," said Jack, for once rather shortly; "you've got to smoke
one of mine. It's my house!" he added, with a grin.
And the remark was much appreciated by those to whom it was not
addressed; on Dalrymple it produced no effect at all.