When a man's manner and address are very successful with the
world,--when he possesses that power of captivation which extends to
people of totally different tastes and habits, and is equally at home,
equally at his ease, with young and old, with men of grave pursuits and
men of pleasure,--it is somewhat hard to believe that there must not be
some strong sterling quality in his nature; for we know that the base
metals never bear gilding, and that it is only a waste of gold to cover
them with it.
It would be, therefore, very pleasant to think that if people should
not be altogether as admirable as they were agreeable, yet that
the qualities which made the companionship so delightful should be
indications of deeper and more solid gifts beneath. Yet I am afraid the
theory will not hold. I suspect that there are a considerable number
of people in this world who go through life trading on credit, and who
renew their bills with humanity so gracefully and so cleverly, they are
never found out to be bankrupts till they die.
A very accomplished specimen of this order was Lord Culduff. He was a
man of very ordinary abilities, commonplace in every way, and who had
yet contrived to impress the world with the notion of his capacity. He
did a little of almost everything. He sang a little, played a little on
two or three instruments, talked a little of several languages, and had
smatterings of all games and field-sports, so that, to every seeming,
nothing came amiss to him. Nature had been gracious to him personally,
and he had a voice very soft and low and insinuating.
He was not an impostor, for the simple reason that he believed in
himself. He actually had negotiated his false coinage so long, that he
got to regard it as bullion, and imagined himself to be one of the first
men of his age.
The bad bank-note, which has been circulating freely from hand to hand,
no sooner comes under the scrutiny of a sharp-eyed functionary of the
bank than it is denounced and branded; and so Culdufif would speedily
have been treated by any one of those keen men who, as Ministers, grow
to acquire a knowledge of human nature as thorough as of the actual
events of the time.
The world at large, however, had not this estimate of him. They read
of him as a special envoy here, an extraordinary minister there, now
negotiating a secret treaty, now investing a Pasha of Egypt with the
Bath; and they deemed him not only a trusty servant of the Crown, but a
skilled negotiator, a deep and accomplished diplomatist.
He was a little short-sighted, and it enabled him to pass objectionable
people without causing offence. He was slightly deaf, and it gave him
an air of deference in conversation which many were charmed with; for
whenever he failed to catch what was said, his smile was perfectly
captivating. It was assent, but dashed with a sort of sly flattery, as
though it was to the speaker's ingenuity he yielded, as much as to the
force of the conviction.
He was a great favorite with women. Old ladies regarded him as a model
of good _ton_; younger ones discovered other qualities in him that
amused them as much. His life had been anything but blameless, but he
had contrived to make the world believe he was more sinned against
than sinning, and that every mischance that befell him came of
that unsuspecting nature and easy disposition of which even all his
experience of life could not rob him.
Cutbill read him thoroughly; but though Lord Culdufif saw this, it did
not prevent him trying all his little pretty devices of pleasing on the
man of culverts and cuttings. In fact, he seemed to feel that though he
could not bring down the bird, it was better not to spoil his gun by a
change of cartridge, and so he fired away his usual little pleasantries,
well aware that none of them were successful.
He had now been three days with the Bramleighs, and certainly had won
the suffrages, though in different degrees, of them all. He had put
himself so frankly and unreservedly in Colonel Bramleigh's hands about
the coal-mine, candidly confessing the whole thing was new to him, he
was a child in money matters, that the banker was positively delighted
with him.
With Augustus he had talked politics confidentially,--not questions of
policy nor statecraft, not matters of legislation or government, but the
more subtle and ingenious points as to what party a young man entering
life ought to join, what set he should attach himself to, and what line
he should take to insure future distinction and office. He was well up
in the gossip of the House, and knew who was disgusted with such an one,
and why So-and-so “would n't stand it” any longer.
To Temple Bramleigh he was charming. Of the “line,” as they love to call
it, he knew positively everything. Nor was it merely how this or that
legation was conducted, how this man got on with his chief, or why
that other had asked to be transferred; but he knew all the mysterious
goings-on of that wonderful old repository they call “the Office.”
“That's what you must look to, Bramleigh,” he would say, clapping him
on the shoulder. “The men who make plenipos and envoys are not in the
Cabinet, nor do they dine at Osborne; they are fellows in seedy black,
with brown umbrellas, who cross the Green Park every morning about
eleven o'clock, and come back over the self-same track by six of an
evening. Staid old dogs, with crape on their hats, and hard lines round
their mouths, fond of fresh caviare from Russia, and much given to
cursing the messengers.”
He was, in a word, the incarnation of a very well-bred selfishness, that
had learned how much it redounds to a man's personal comfort that he
is popular, and that even a weak swimmer who goes with the tide makes
a better figure than the strongest and bravest who attempts to stem
the current. He was, in his way, a keen observer; and a certain haughty
tone, a kind of self-assertion, in Marion's manner, so distinguished her
from her sister, that he set Cutbill to ascertain if it had any other
foundation than mere temperament; and the wily agent was not long in
learning that a legacy of twenty thousand pounds in her own absolute
right from her mother's side accounted for these pretensions.
“I tell you, Cutty, it 's only an old diplomatist like myself would have
detected the share that bank debentures had in that girl's demeanor.
Confess, sir, it was a clever hit.”
“It was certainly neat, my Lord.”
“It was more, Cutty; it was deep,--downright deep. I saw where the
idiosyncrasy stopped, and where the dividends came in.”
Cutbill smiled an approving smile, and his Lordship turned to the glass
over the chimney-piece and looked admiringly at himself.
“Was it twenty thousand you said?” asked he, indolently.
“Yes, my Lord, twenty. Her father will probably give her as much more.
Harding told me yesterday that all the younger children are to have
share and share alike,--no distinction made between sons and daughters.”
“So that she 'll have what a Frenchman would call 'un million de dot.'”
“Just about what we want, my Lord, to start our enterprise.”
“Ah, yes. I suppose that would do; but we shall do this by a company,
Cutty. Have you said anything to Bramleigh yet on the subject?”
“Nothing further than what I told you yesterday. I gave him the papers
with the surveys and the specifications, and he said he 'd look over
them this morning, and that I might drop in upon him to-night in the
library after ten. It is the time he likes best for a little quiet
chat.”
“He seems a very cautious, I 'd almost say a timid man.”
“The city men are all like that, my Lord. They 're always cold enough
in entering on a project, though they'll go rashly on after they've put
their money in it.”
“What's the eldest son?”
“A fool,--just a fool. He urged his father to contest a county, to lay
a claim for a peerage. They lost the election and lost their money; but
Augustus Bramleigh persists in thinking that the party are still their
debtors.”
“Very hard to make Ministers believe that,” said Culduff, with a grin.
“A vote in the House is like a bird in the hand. The second fellow,
Temple, is a poor creature.”
“Ain't he? Not that he thinks so.”
“No; they never do,” said Culduff, caressing his whiskers, and looking
pleasantly at himself in the glass. “They see one or two men of mark in
their career, and they fancy--Heaven knows why--that they must be like
them; that identity of pursuit implies equality of intellect; and so
these creatures spread out their little sails, and imagine they are
going to make a grand voyage.”
“But Miss Bramleigh told me yesterday you had a high opinion of her
brother Temple.”
“I believe I said so,” said he, with a soft smile. “One says these sort
of things every day, irresponsibly, Cutty, irresponsibly, just as one
gives his autograph, but would think twice before signing his name on a
stamped paper.”
Mr. Cutbill laughed at this sally, and seemed by the motion of his lips
as though he were repeating it to himself for future retail; but in what
spirit, it would not be safe perhaps to inquire.
Though Lord Culduff did not present himself at the family break
fast-table, and but rarely appeared at luncheon, pretexting that his
mornings were always given up to business and letter-writing, he usually
came down in the afternoon in some toilet admirably suited to the
occasion, whatever it might be, of riding, driving, or walking. In fact,
a mere glance at his Lordship's costume would have unmistakably
shown whether a canter, the croquet lawn, or a brisk walk through the
shrubberies were in the order of the day.
“Do you remember, Cutty,” said he, suddenly, “what was my engagement for
this morning? I promised somebody to go somewhere and do something; and
I 'll be shot if I can recollect.”
“I am totally unable to assist your Lordship,” said the other, with
a smile. “The young men, I know, are out shooting, and Miss Eleanor
Bramleigh is profiting by the snow to have a day's sledging. She
proposed to me to join her, but I did n't see it.”
“Ah! I have it now, Cutty. I was to walk over to Portabandon, to return
the curate's call. Miss Bramleigh was to come with me.”
“It was scarcely gallant, my Lord, to forget so charming a project,”
said the other, slyly.
“Gallantry went out, Cutty, with slashed doublets. The height and the
boast of our modern civilization is to make women our perfect equals,
and to play the game of life with them on an absolutely equal footing.”
“Is that quite fair?”
“I protest I think it is. Except in a few rare instances, where the men
unite to the hardier qualities of the masculine intelligence the nicer,
finer, most susceptible instincts of the other sex,--the organization
that more than any other touches on excellence,--except, I say, in these
cases, the women have the best of it. Now what chance, I ask you, would
_you_ have, pitted against such a girl as the elder Bramleigh?”
“I 'm afraid a very poor one,” said Cutbill, with a look of deep
humility.
“Just so, Cutty, a very poor one. I give you my word of honor I have
learned more diplomacy beside the drawing-room fire than I ever acquired
in the pages of the blue-books. You see it's a quite different school
of fence they practise; the thrusts are different, and the guards are
different. A day for furs essentially, a day for furs,” broke he in,
as he drew on a coat lined with sable, and profusely braided and
ornamented. “What was I saying? where were we?”
“You were talking of women, my Lord.”
“The faintest tint of scarlet in the under vest--it was a device of the
Regent's in his really great day--is always effective in cold, bright,
frosty weather. The tint is carried on to the cheek, and adds brilliancy
to the eye. In duller weather a coral pin in the cravat will suffice;
but, as David Wilkie used to say, 'Nature must have her bit of red.'”
“I wish you would finish what you were saying about women, my Lord. Your
remarks were full of originality.”
“Finish! finish, Cutty! It would take as many volumes as the
'Abridgement of the Statutes' to contain one-half of what I could say
about them; and, after all, it would be Sanscrit to you.” His Lordship
now placed his hat on his head, slightly on one side. It was the
“tigerism” of a past period, and which he could no more abandon than he
could give up the jaunty swagger of his walk, or the bland smile which
he kept ready for recognition.
“I have not, I rejoice to say, arrived at that time of life when I can
affect to praise bygones; but I own, Cutty, they did everything much
better five-and-twenty years ago than now. They dined better, they
dressed better, they drove better, they turned out better in the field
and in the park, and they talked better.”
“How do you account for this, my Lord?”
“Simply in this way, Cutty. We have lowered our standard in taste just
as we have lowered our standard for the army. We take fellows five feet
seven into grenadier companies now; that is, we admit into society men
of mere wealth,--the banker, the brewer, the railway director, and the
rest of them; and with these people we admit their ways, their tastes,
their very expressions. I know it is said that we gain in breadth; yet,
as I told Lord Cocklethorpe (the mot had its success),--what we gain in
breadth, said I, we lose in height. Neat, Cutty, was n't it? As neat as
a mot well can be in our clumsy language.”
And with this, and a familiar “Bye-bye,” he strolled away, leaving
Cutbill to practise before the glass such an imitation of him as might
serve, at some future time, to convulse with laughter a select and
admiring audience.