It was within a quarter of eight o'clock--forty-five minutes after the
usual dinner-hour--when Lord Culduff's carriage drove up to the door.
“The roads are atrocious down here,” said Temple, apologizing in
advance for an offence which his father rarely, if ever, forgave. “Don't
you think you ought to go out to meet him, sir?” asked he, half timidly.
“It would only create more delay; he 'll appear, I take it, when he is
dressed,” was the curt rejoinder, but it was scarcely uttered when
the door was thrown wide open, and Lord Culduff and Mr. Cutbill were
announced.
Seen in the subdued light of a drawing-room before dinner, Lord Culduff
did not appear more than half his real age, and the jaunty stride and
the bland smile he wore--as he made his round of acquaintance--might
have passed muster for five-and-thirty; nor was the round vulgar figure
of the engineer, awkward and familiar alternately, a bad foil for the
very graceful attractions of his Lordship's manner.
“We should have been here two hours ago,” said he, “but my friend here
insisted on our coming coastwise to see a wonderful bay,--a natural
harbor one might call it. What's the name, Cutbill?”
“Portness, my Lord.”
“Ah, to be sure, Portness. On your property, I believe?”
“I am proud to say it is. I have seen nothing finer in the kingdom,”
said Bramleigh; “and if Ireland were anything but Ireland, that
harbor would be crowded with shipping, and this coast one of the most
prosperous and busy shores of the island.”
“Who knows if we may not live to see it such? Cutbill's projects
are very grand, and I declare that though I deemed them Arabian Night
stories a few weeks back, I am a convert now. Another advantage
we gained,” said he, turning to Marion; “we came up through a new
shrubbery, which we were told had been all planned by you.”
“My sister designed it,” said she, as she smiled and made a gesture
towards Ellen.
“May I offer you my most respectful compliments on your success? I am
an enthusiast about landscape-gardening, and though our English climate
gives us many a sore rebuff in our attempts, the soil and the varied
nature of the surface lend themselves happily to the pursuit. I think
you were at the Hague with me, Bramleigh?” asked he of Temple.
“Does he know how late it is?” whispered Augustus to his father. “Does
he know we are waiting dinner?”
“I'll tell him,” and Colonel Bramleigh walked forward from his place
before the fire. “I'm afraid, my Lord, the cold air of our hills has not
given you an appetite?”
“Quite the contrary, I assure you. I am very hungry.”
“By Jove, and so are we!” blurted out Jack; “and it's striking eight
this instant.”
“What is your dinner-hour?”
“It ought to be seven,” answered Jack.
“Why, Cutbill, you told me nine.”
Cutbill muttered something below his breath, and turned away; and Lord
Culduff laughingly said, “I declare I don't perceive the connection.
My friend, Colonel Bramleigh, opines that a French cook always means
nine-o'clock dinner. I 'm horrified at this delay: let us make a hasty
toilette, and repair our fault at once.”
“Let me show you where you are lodged,” said Temple, not sorry to
escape from the drawing-room at a moment when his friend's character and
claims were likely to be sharply criticised.
“Cutty's a vulgar dog,” said Jack, as they left the room. “But I 'll be
shot if he's not the best of the two.”
A haughty toss of Marion's head showed that she was no concurring party
to the sentiment.
“I 'm amazed to see so young a man,” said Colonel Bramleigh. “In look at
least, he is n't forty.”
“It's all make-up,” cried Jack.
“He can't be a great deal under seventy, taking the list of his
services. He was at Vienna as private secretary to Lord Borchester--”
As Augustus pronounced the words Lord Culduff entered the room in a
fragrance of perfume and a brilliancy of color that was quite effective;
for he wore his red ribbon, and his blue coat was lined with white silk,
and his cheeks glowed with a bloom that youth itself could not rival.
“Who talks of old Borchester?” said he, gayly. “My father used to tell
me such stories of him. They sent him over to Hanover once, to report on
the available Princesses to marry the Prince: and, egad! he played his
part so well that one of them--Princess Helena I think it was--fell in
love with him; and if it was 't that he had been married already,--May
I offer my arm?” And the rest of the story was probably told as he led
Miss Bramleigh in to dinner.
Mr. Cutbill only arrived as they took their places, and slunk into
a seat beside Jack, whom, of all the company, he judged would be the
person he could feel most at ease with.
“What a fop!” whispered Jack, with a glance at the peer.
“Is n't he an old humbug?” muttered Cutbill. “Do you know how he
managed to appear in so short a time? We stopped two hours at a little
inn on the road while he made his toilette; and the whole get-up--paint
and padding and all--was done then. The great fur pelisse, in which
he made his entrance into the drawing-room, removed, he was in full
dinner-dress underneath. He's the best actor living.”
“Have you known him long?”
“Oh, yes! I know all of them,” said he, with a little gesture of his
hand: “that is, they take devilish good care to know _me_.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Jack, in the tone which seemed to ask for some
explanation.
“You see, here's how it is,” said Cutbill, as he bent over his plate
and talked in a tone cautiously subdued: “All those swells--especially
that generation yonder--are pretty nigh aground. They have been living
for forty or fifty years at something like five times their income; and
if it had n't been for this sudden rush of prosperity in England, caused
by railroads, mines, quarries, or the like, these fellows would have
been swept clean away. He 's watching me now. I 'll go on by-and-by.
Have you any good hunting down here, Colonel Bramleigh?” asked he of the
host, who sat half hid by a massive centrepiece.
“You 'll have to ask my sons what it's like; and I take it they 'll
give you a mount too.”
“With pleasure, Mr. Cutbill,” cried Augustus. “If we have no frost,
we'll show you some sport on Monday next.”
“Delighted,--I like hunting of all things.”
“And you, my Lord, is it a favorite sport of yours?” asked Temple.
“A long life out of England--which has unfortunately been my case--makes
a man sadly out of gear in all these things; but I ride, of course,”
and he said the last words as though he meant to imply “because I do
everything.”
“I'll send over to L'Estrange,” said Augustus; “he's sure to know where
the meet is for Monday.”
“Who is L'Estrange?” asked his Lordship.
“Our curate here,” replied Colonel Bramleigh, smiling. “An excellent
fellow, and a very agreeable neighbor.”
“Our only one, by Jove!” cried Jack.
“How gallant to forget Julia!” said Nelly, tartly.
“And the fair Julia,--who is she?” asked Lord Culduff.
“L'Estrange's sister,” replied Augustus.
“And now, my Lord,” chimed in Jack, “you know the whole neighborhood,
if we don't throw in a cross-grained old fellow, a half-pay lieutenant
of the Buffs.”
“Small but select,” said Lord Culduff, quietly. “May I venture to
ask you, Colonel Bramleigh, what determined you in your choice of a
residence here?”
“I suppose I must confess it was mainly a money consideration. The bank
held some rather heavy mortgages over this property, which they were
somewhat disposed to consider as capable of great improvement, and as I
was growing a little wearied of City life, I fancied I 'd come over here
and--”
“Regenerate Ireland, eh?”
“Or, at least, live very economically,” added he, laughing.
“I may be permitted to doubt that part of the experiment,” said
Lord Culduff, as his eyes ranged over the table, set forth in all the
splendor that plate and glass could bestow.
“I suspect papa means a relative economy,” said Marion, “something very
different from our late life in England.”
“Yes, my last three years have been very costly ones,” said Colonel
Bramleigh, sighing. “I lost heavily by the sale of Earlshope, and my
unfortunate election, too, was an expensive business. It will take some
retrenchment to make up for all this. I tell the boys they'll have to
sell their hunters, or be satisfied, like the parson, to hunt one day
a week.” The self-complacent, mock humility of this speech was all too
apparent.
“I take it,” said Culduff, authoritatively, “that every gentleman”--and
he laid a marked emphasis on the “gentleman”--“must at some period or
the other of his life have spent more money than he ought--more than was
subsequently found to be convenient.”
“I have repeatedly done so,” broke in Cutbill, “and invariably
been sorry for it afterwards, inasmuch as each time one does it the
difficulty increases.”
“Harder to get credit, you mean?” cried Jack, laughing.
“Just so; and one's friends get tired of helping one. Just as they told
me, there was a fellow at Blackwall used to live by drowning himself. He
was regularly fished up once a week, and stomach-pumped and 'cordialled'
and hot-blanketed, and brought round by the Humane Society's people,
till at last they came to discover the dodge, and refused to restore
him any more; and now he's reduced to earn his bread as a
water-bailiff--cruel hard on a fellow of such an ingenious turn of
mind.”
While the younger men laughed at Cutbill's story, Lord Culduff gave him
a reproving glance from the other end of the table, palpably intended to
recall him to a more sedate and restricted conviviality.
“Are we not to accompany you?” said Lord Culduff to Marion, as she and
her sister arose to retire. “Is this barbarism of sitting after dinner
maintained here?”
“Only till we finish this decanter of claret, my Lord,” said Colonel
Bramleigh, who caught what was not intended for his ears.
“Ask the governor to give you a cigar,” whispered Jack to Cutbill; “he
has some rare Cubans.”
“Now, this is what I call regular jolly,” said Cutbill, as he drew a
small spider table to his side, and furnished himself with a glass and
a decanter of Madeira, “and,” added he in a whisper to Jack, “let us not
be in a hurry to leave it. We only want one thing to be perfect, Colonel
Bramleigh.”
“If I can only supply it, pray command me, Mr. Cutbill.”
“I want this, then,” said Cutbill, pursing up his mouth at one side,
while he opened the other as if to emit the smoke of a cigar.
“Do you mean smoking?” asked Colonel Bramleigh, in a half-irritable
tone.
“You have it.”
“Are you a smoker, my Lord?” asked the host, turning to Lord Culduff.
“A very moderate one. A cigarette after breakfast, and another at bed
time, are about my excesses in that direction.”
“Then I'm afraid I must defraud you of the full measure of your
enjoyment, Mr. Cutbill; we never smoke in the dining-room. Indeed, I
myself have a strong aversion to tobacco, and though I have consented
to build a smoking-room, it is as far off from me as I have been able to
contrive it.”
“And what about his choice Cubans, eh?” whispered Cutbill to Jack.
“All hypocrisy. You'll find a box of them in your dressing-room,” said
Jack, in an undertone, “when you go upstairs.”
Temple now led his distinguished friend into those charming pasturages
where the flocks of diplomacy love to dwell, and where none other
save themselves could find herbage. Nor was it amongst great political
events, of peace or war, alliances or treaties, they wandered--for
perhaps in these the outer world, taught as they are by newspapers,
might have taken some interest and some share. No; their talk was all of
personalities, of Russian princes and grandees of Spain, archduchesses
and “marchesas,” whose crafts and subtleties, and pomps and vanities,
make up a world like no other world, and play a drama of life--happily
it may be for humanity--like no other drama that other men and women
ever figured in. Now it is a strange fact--and I appeal to my readers if
their experience will not corroborate mine--that when two men thoroughly
versed in these themes will talk together upon them, exchanging their
stories and mingling their comments, the rest of the company will be
struck with a perfect silence, unable to join in the subject discussed,
and half ashamed to introduce any ordinary matter into such high and
distinguished society. And thus Lord Culduff and Temple went on for full
an hour or more, pelting each other with little court scandals and small
state intrigues, till Colonel Bramleigh fell asleep, and Cutbill, having
finished his Madeira, would probably have followed his host's example,
when a servant announced tea, adding, in a whisper, that Mr. L'Estrange
and his sister were in the drawing-room.