MR. HAWKEY SHARPE SEEKS COUNSEL.
We have said that Maude thought that Mr. Hawkey Sharpe's love-making,
with all its euphonious platitudes, was known to him and to herself
alone.
In this she was mistaken, as Hawkey's sister Deborah, Mrs. Lindsay,
was in his confidence in that matter, and quite _au fait_ of its
doubtful progress. She did not appear at dinner that evening, but
dined in her own room, and then betook her to her brother's sanctum,
or 'den,' as he called it--a picturesque old panelled apartment, in
what was named the Beatoun wing--which had a quaint stone fireplace,
the grate of which was full of August flowers then, but at the hearth
of which in the winter of the year before Pinkeyfield was fought, his
Eminence had been wont to toast his scarlet-slippered toes.
The furniture was quite modern. Fishing and shooting gear, with
whips, spurs, billiard cues, a few soiled books on farriery and
racing, were its chief features now; while sporting calendars, etc.,
strewed the table, with a few note and account books, and letters of
minor importance.
After gloomily referring to his late interview with Maude Lindsay, he
assisted himself to a briar-root pipe from a nice arrangement of
meerschaums and other pipes stuck in an oaken and steel mounted
horseshoe on the broad mantel-shelf, and prepared to soothe himself
with 'a weed' and the contents of a remarkably long tumbler--brandy
and soda--sent up, per Mr. Trotter, from the pantry of old Funnell,
the butler, for his delectation; while his pale and sallow-visaged
sister was content to sip from a slender glass a decoction of some
medical stuff prescribed for chronic low spirits and weak action of
the heart--an affliction under which she laboured, and to which, no
doubt, her pallid and at times stone-coloured complexion was
attributable.
Always calm in demeanour, she was otherwise unlike her brother
Hawkey, who was not particular to a shade in anything (provided he
was not found out), and she was outwardly a model of religion and
propriety, blended with hypocrisy, which--according to
Rochefoucauld--is the homage that vice pays to virtue.
Attired in a luxurious dressing-gown and tasselled smoking cap, Mr.
Sharpe lounged in a cosy easy-chair, shooting his huge cuffs forward
from time to time, and stroking his sandy, ragged moustache, in what
he thought to be 'good style.'
Instead of being thick and podgy, as his humble origin might suggest,
his hands, we must admit, were rather thin, with long spiky filbert
nails, reminding one--with all their cultivated whiteness--of the
talons of a bird of prey.
'Deuced good thing for us, Deb, that codicil was never completed,'
said he (for about the hundredth time), breaking a pause; 'but still
we have now that fellow, Roland Lindsay, back again, ready to
overhaul matters, after escaping Arab bullets and swords, desert
fever, and the devil only knows what more.'
'You forget that this is his home,' said she, with a little touch of
womanly feeling for the moment, 'or he deems it as such.'
'So long as you permit it, I suppose.'
'I cannot throw down the glove to the County just now.'
'But assume a virtue if you have it not,' said Hawkey, applying
himself to the long tumbler, that still sparkled and effervesced in
the lamp-light.
'He cannot harm me, at all events.'
'I don't know that, and I was deuced easier when he was away in
Egypt. Some might call this selfish--what the devil do I care! A
man's chief duty centres on himself.'
'Without pity for the unfortunate?'
'Don't be a humbug, Deb, and don't act to me! The poor and
unfortunate are so, by their own fault, I suppose. I wish to speak
with you about that to which I have--reluctantly--referred more than
once.'
Mrs. Lindsay made a gesture of impatience, and said, while toying
with her pet cur Fifine:
'Ah--money matters with reference to yourself in the future?'
'Yes; but I do dislike, my dear Deb,' said he, with an affection
which she knew right well was mostly simulated, 'discussing them with
you.'
'Why?'
'It is so disagreeable.'
'It would be more disagreeable for you if there were no money matters
to discuss,' she replied with the smallest approach to a sneer.
'But, to the point, Hawkey--I know what it is!'
'You are not strong, you know, dear Deb; you may go off--' (the
hooks, he was about to say, but changed his mind)--'off suddenly, and
not leave your house well ordered. We should always be prepared for
the worst. You know what the best doctors in Edinburgh have told
you,' he added, burying his nose and moustache in the tumbler again.
'Well?' said she.
'I mean that you should execute that will you spoke of.'
'In your favour?'
'And so preclude all contention from any quarter--a hundred times I
have hinted this to you.'
'How kind and soothing the reminder is!' she replied bitterly,
unwilling, like all selfish people, to adopt or face the dire idea of
death, sudden or otherwise.
'I do advise you to consider well, Deb.'
'For your sake, of course.'
'Well--it may seem selfish, dear Deb.'
'Ah--advice is a commodity which every possessor deems most valuable,
and yet hastens to get rid of.'
Hawkey eyed her anxiously, for her irritation and animosity, when her
delicate health and disease of the heart were referred to, always
predominated over every other feeling, but she waived them for the
time and returned to the first subject.
'So that was all your success with Maude?'
'Not much, certainly,' he replied, with a scowl at vacancy.
'Unfortunate!'
'Rather!'
'As the provision left by her father is a most ample one for her.'
'Not so ample as all Earlshaugh, however,' thought he, refilling his
briar-root in silence.
'You must persevere. It has been truly said that "the days of Jacob
are over, that men don't understand waiting now, and it is always as
well to catch your fish when you can."'
Hawkey smoked on in silence. He had never before dared to lift his
eyes so high, never before ventured to 'make love' to a lady. His
past experience had been more sudden, abrupt, less bothersome, and
more acceptable. Had he done or said too much, or too little? Ought
he to have gone down on his knees like the lovers he had seen on the
stage, or read of in old story books?
No--he was certain she would have laughed at him had he done so; and
he was also certain no one 'did that sort of thing' nowadays. The
age of such supplication was assuredly past; and he thought,
viciously too, that he had 'done all that may become a man.'
'These bloated aristocrats, Deb, have a way all their own, of setting
a fellow down!' said he, with a louring expression in his shifty,
pale-gray eyes; 'she is, I know, my superior in position, in the way
the world goes, _as yet_,' he continued, for Mr. Hawkey Sharpe,
though longing for the vineyard of Naboth, was--at heart--a
Social-Democrat; 'my superior in birth, education, and habits.'
'I should think so.'
'Don't sneer at me, Deb.'
'So far, perhaps, as Maude is concerned, your success depends,
Hawkey, upon whether there is anyone else in her thoughts.'
'Before me, you mean?'
'Yes--she may be engaged for all we know. I, for one, am certainly
not in her confidence. She has a lover, however, I suspect.'
'It looks deuced like the case. I saw her post a letter to a fellow
named Elliot to-night,' he added, with a knit in his brow and an ugly
gleam in his pale eyes.
'Elliot--that is the name of one of those who come here to shoot, for
the First.'
'To shoot?'
'Yes--on Roland's invitation.'
'There may be something else shot than partridges.'
'Elliot--Captain Elliot?'
'Yes--that was the name on her letter.'
'Well--you must not quarrel with him--that would be unseemly.'
'My dear Deb, I never _quarrel_ with those I _hate_,' was the
comprehensive and sinister reply of Hawkey Sharpe, with his most
diabolical expression; 'and though I have never seen this interloper
Elliot, I feel a most ungodly hatred of him already.'
'I repeat that no good can come of a vulgar quarrel, and that you
must not forget the proprieties. What would the servants alone say
or think?'
'Oh, d--n the servants!' responded her brother, tugging his moustache
angrily; 'but if that fellow Elliot is her lover, I must put my
brains in steep and contrive to separate them at all hazards, Deb.
If I allow him or anyone else to enter the stakes, I shall be out of
the running. Anyhow, as you are looking pale, Deb, I mustn't keep
you here talking over my incipient love affairs, or you will not be
able to receive some of these infernal guests, who, I believe, come
to-morrow. You are not overburdened with visitors, however.'
'Yet I would rather it was the time of their going than their
coming,' said Mrs. Lindsay, whom his remark touched on a tender point.
'Why?' asked Hawkey.
'They must soon perceive that I am tabooed by the county
families--that no one calls here as of old.'
'Well?'
'Except, perhaps, the people from the Manse and the doctor.'
'Neither--or none--of whom I care to see.'
'And yet I subscribe to all local charities, bazaars, school feasts,
as regularly----'
'As if you were an Elder of the Kirk--thereby wasting your money to
win a place among the "unco guid," and all to no purpose,' said
Hawkey, with the slightest approach to derision. 'Well--well; how I
shall succeed with the fair Maude--if I succeed at all--time and a
little management, in more ways than one, will show,' he added with
knitted brows and hands clenched by thoughts that were full of vague
but savage intentions.
'You know the proverb,' said Mrs. Lindsay, with a cold smile, as she
lifted up her dog and retired: 'a man may woo as he will, but maun
wed where his weird is.'
Hawkey Sharpe set his teeth, and his eyes gleamed as he thought
with--but did not quote--Georges Ohnet, because he knew him not:
'Money is the password of these venal and avaricious times. Beauty,
virtue, and intelligence count for nothing. People no longer say,
"Room for the worthiest," but "Room for the wealthiest!"'
Then other things occurred to him.
'I am certain that Maude' (he spoke of her as 'Maude' to himself and
his sister) 'won't mention our little matter, for cogent reasons, to
her brother,' he reflected confidently;. 'but I must work the oracle
with Deb about her will. With that heart ailment which she
undoubtedly has, she may go off the hooks at any moment, as I,
perhaps unwisely, hinted; and I am not lawyer enough to know how old
Earlshaugh's last testament may stand; yet, surely, I am Deb's
heir-at-law, anyhow, I should think!'
Unless Mr. Hawkey Sharpe had indulged--which was not improbable--in
'tall talk,' his language and disposition augured ill for the safety
and comfort of Maude's _fiancé_ if he came to Earlshaugh; but
Sharpe's threatened vengeance had no decided plan as yet.