“If you knew the work I had to find you,” said Mr. Cutbill, entering
the room, and throwing his hat carelessly on a table. “I had the
whole police at work to look you up, and only succeeded at last by the
half-hint that you were a great political offender, and Lord Palmerston
would never forgive the authorities if they concealed you.”
“I declare,” said Augustus, gravely, “I am much flattered by all the
trouble you have taken to blacken my character.”
“Character! bless your heart, so long as you ain't a Frenchman, these
people don't care about your character. An English conspirator is the
most harmless of all creatures. Had you been a Pole or an Italian, the
préfet told me, he'd have known every act of your daily life.”
“And so we shall have to leave this, now?” said Ellen, with some
vexation in her tone.
“Not a bit of it, if you don't dislike the surveillance they 'll bestow
on you; and it 'll be the very best protection against rogues and
pickpockets; and I'll go and say that you're not the man I suspected at
all.”
“'Pray take no further trouble on our behalf, sir,” said Bramleigh,
stiffly and haughtily.
“Which being interpreted means--make your visit as short as may be, and
go your way, Tom Cutbill; don't it?”
“I am not prepared to say, sir, that I have yet guessed the object of
your coming.”
“If you go to that, I suspect I 'll be as much puzzled as yourself.
I came to see you because I heard you were in my neighborhood. I don't
think I had any other very pressing reason. I had to decamp from England
somewhat hurriedly, and I came over here to be, as they call it, 'out of
the way,' till this storm blows over.”
“What storm? I 've heard nothing of a storm.”
“You 've not heard that the Lisconnor scheme has blown up?--the great
Culduff Mining Company has exploded, and blown all the shareholders
sky-high?”
“Not a word of it.”
“Why, there 's more writs after the promoters this morning than ever
there was scrip for paid-up capital. We 're all in for it--every man of
us.”
“Was it a mere bubble, then,--a fraud?”
“I don't know what you call a bubble, or what you mean by a fraud. We
had all that constitutes a company: we had a scheme, and we had a lord.
t If an over-greedy public wants grandeur and gain besides, it must be
disappointed; as I told the general meeting, 'You don't expect profit as
well as the peerage, do you?'”
“You yourself told me there was coal.”
“So there was. I am ready to maintain it still. Is n't that money,
Bramleigh?” said he, taking a handful of silver from his pocket; “good
coin of the realm, with her Majesty's image? But if you asked me if
there was much more where it came from--why, the witness might, as the
newspapers say, hesitate and show confusion.”
“You mean, then, in short, there was only coal enough to form a pretext
for a company?”
“I tell you what I mean,” said Cutbill, sturdily. “I bolted from London
rather than be stuck in a witness-box and badgered by a cross-examining
barrister, and I 'm not going to expose myself to the same sort of
diversion here from you.”
“I assure you, sir, the matter had no interest for me, beyond the
opportunity it afforded you of exculpation.”
“For the exculpatory part, I can take it easy,” said Cutbill, with a
dry laugh. “I wish I had nothing heavier on my heart than the load of
my conscience; but I 've been signing my name to deeds, and writing Tom
Cutbill across acceptances, in a sort of indiscriminate way, that in the
calmer hours before a Commissioner in Bankruptcy ain't so pleasant. I
must say, Bramleigh, your distinguished relative, Culduff, doesn't cut
up well.”
“I think, Mr. Cutbill, if you have any complaint to make of Lord
Culduff, you might have chosen a more fitting auditor than his
brother-in-law.”
“I thought the world had outgrown the cant of connection. I thought
that we had got to be so widely-minded, that you might talk to a man
about his sister as freely as if she were the Queen of Sheba.”
“Pray do me the favor to believe me still a bigot, sir.”
“How far is Lord Culduff involved in the mishap you speak of, Mr.
Cutbill?” said Nelly, with a courteousness of tone she hoped might
restore their guest to a better humor.
“I think he 'll net some five-and-twenty thousand out of the
transaction; and from what I know of the distinguished Viscount, he 'll
not lie awake at night fretting over the misfortunes of Tom Cutbill and
fellows.”
“Will this--this misadventure,” stammered out Augustus, “prevent your
return to England?”
“Only for a season. A man lies by for these things, just as he does for
a thunderstorm; a little patience, and the sun shines out, and he walks
about freely as ever. If it were not, besides, for this sort of thing,
we City men would never have a day's recreation in life; nothing
but work, work, from morning till night. How many of us would see
Switzerland, I ask you, if we didn't smash? The Insolvent Court is the
way to the Rhine, Bramleigh, take my word for it, though it ain't set
down in John Murray.”
“If a light heart could help to a light conscience, I must say, Mr.
Cutbill, you would appear to possess that enviable lot.”
“There 's such a thing as a very small conscience,” said Cutbill,
closing one eye, and looking intensely roguish. “A conscience so
unobtrusive that one can treat it like a poor relation, and put it
anywhere.”
“Oh, Mr. Cutbill, you shock me,” said Ellen, trying to look reproachful
and grave.
“I 'm sorry for it, Miss Bramleigh,” said he, with mock sorrow in his
manner.
“Had not our friend L'Estrange an interest in this unfortunate
speculation?” asked Bramleigh.
“A trifle,--a mere trifle. Two thousand I think it was. Two, or
two-five-hundred. I forget exactly which.”
“And is this entirely lost?”
“Well, pretty much the same; they talk of sevenpence dividend, but I
suspect they 're over-sanguine. I 'd say five was nearer the mark.”
“Do they know the extent of their misfortune?” asked Ellen, eagerly.
“If they read the 'Times' they 're sure to see it. The money article
is awfully candid, and never attempts any delicate concealment like the
reports in a police-court. The fact is, Miss Bramleigh, the financial
people always end like Cremorne, with a 'grand transparency' that
displays the whole company!”
“I 'm so sorry for the L'Estranges,” said Ellen, feelingly.
“And why not sorry for Tom Cutbill, miss? Why have no compassion for
that gifted creature and generous mortal, whose worst fault was that he
believed in a lord?”
“Mr. Cutbill is so sure to sympathize with himself and his own griefs
that he has no need of me; and then he looks so like one that would have
recuperative powers.”
“There, you 've hit it,” cried he, enthusiastically. “That 's it! that's
what makes Tom Cutbill the man he is,--_flectes non frangis_. I hope I
have it right; but I mean you may smooth him down, but you can't smash
him; and it 's to tell the noble Viscount as much I 'm now on my way
to Italy. I 'll say to the distinguished peer, 'I 'm only a pawn on the
chess-board; but look to it, my Lord, or I 'll give check to the king!'
Won't he understand me? ay, in a second, too!”
“I trust something can be done for poor L'Estrange,” said Augustus. “It
was his sister's fortune; and the whole of it, too.”
“Leave that to me, then. I 'll make better terms for him than he 'll
get by the assignee under the court. Bless your heart, Bramleigh, if it
was n't for a little 'extramural equity,' as one might call it, it
would go very hard with the widow and the orphan in this world; but we,
coarse-minded fellows, as I 've no doubt you 'd call us, we do kinder
things in our own way than commissioners under the act.”
“Can you recover the money for them?” asked Augustus, earnestly. “Can
you do that?”
“Not legally--not a chance of it; but I think I 'll make a noble lord of
our acquaintance disgorge something handsome. I don't mean to press any
claim of my own. If he behaves politely, and asks me to dine, and treats
me like a gentleman, I 'll not be over hard with him. I like the--not
the conveniences--that's not the word, but the----”
“'Convenances,' perhaps,” interposed Ellen.
“That's it--the convenances. I like the attentions that seem to say, 'T.
C. is n't to be kept in a tunnel or a cutting, but is good company at
table, with long-necked bottles beside him. T. C. can be talked to about
the world: about pale sherry, and pretty women, and the delights of
Homburg, and the odds on the Derby; he's as much at home at Belgravia as
on an embankment.'”
“I suspect there will be few to dispute that,” said Augustus, solemnly.
“Not when they knows it, Bramleigh; 'not when they knows it,' as the
cabbies say. The thing is to make them know it, to make them feel it.
There 's a rough-and-ready way of putting all men like myself, who take
liberties with the letter H, down as snobs; but you see there 's snobs
and snobs. There 's snobs that are only snobs; there 's snobs that have
nothing distinctive about them but their snobbery, and there 's snobs so
well up in life, so shrewd, such downright keen men of the world, that
their snobbery is only an accident, like a splash from a passing 'bus;
and, in fact, their snobbery puts a sort of accent on their acuteness,
just like a trade-mark, and tells you it was town-made--no bad thing,
Bramleigh, when that town calls itself London!”
If Augustus vouchsafed little approval of this speech, Ellen smiled an
apparent concurrence, while in reality it was the man's pretension and
assurance that amused her.
“You ain't as jolly as you used to be; how is that?” said Cutbill,
shaking Bramleigh jocosely by the arm. “I suspect you are disposed, like
Jeremiah, to a melancholy line of life?”
“I was not aware, sir, that my spirits could be matter of remark,” said
Augustus, haughtily.
“And why not? You're no highness, royal or serene, that one is obliged
to accept any humor you may be in, as the right thing. You are one of
_us_, I take it.”
“A very proud distinction,” said he, gravely.
“Well, if it's nothing to crow, it's nothing to cry for! If the world
had nothing but top-sawyers, Bramleigh, there would be precious little
work done. Is that clock of yours, yonder, right--is it so late as
that?”
“I believe so,” said Augustus, looking at his watch. “I want exactly ten
minutes to four.”
“And the train starts at four precisely. That's so like me. I 've lost
my train, all for the sake of paying a visit to people who wished me at
the North Pole for my politeness.”
“Oh, Mr. Cutbill,” said Ellen, deprecatingly.
“I hope, Mr. Cutbill, we are fully sensible of the courtesy that
suggested your call.”
“And _I 'm_ fully sensible that you and Miss Ellen have been on thorns
for the last half-hour, each muttering to himself, 'What will he say
next?' or worse than that, 'When will he go?”'
“I protest, sir, you are alike unjust to yourself and to us. We are
so thoroughly satisfied that you never intended to hurt us, that if
incidentally touched, we take it as a mere accident.”
“That is quite the case, Mr. Cutbill,” broke in Nelly; “and we know,
besides, that, if you had anything harsh or severe to say to us, it is
not likely you 'd take such a time as this to say it.”
“You do me proud, ma'am,” said Cutbill, who was not quite sure whether
he was complimented or reprimanded.
“Do, please, Augustus; I beg of you, do,” whispered Nelly in her
brother's ear.
“You've already missed your train for us, Mr. Cutbill,” said Augustus;
“will you add another sacrifice and come and eat a very humble dinner
with us at six o'clock?”
“Will I? I rayther think I will,” cried he, joyfully. “Now that the
crisis is over, I may as well tell you I 've been angling for that
invitation for the last half-hour, saying every minute to myself, 'Now
it's coming,' or 'No, it ain't.' Twice you were on the brink of it,
Bramleigh, and you drifted away again, and at last I began to think I 'd
be driven to my lonely cutlet at the 'Leopold's Arms.' You said six; so
I 'll just finish a couple of letters for the post, and be here
sharp. Good-bye. Many thanks for the invite, though it was pretty long
a-coming.” And with this he waved an adieu and departed.