In a room of a Roman palace large enough to be a church, but furnished
with all the luxury of an English drawing-room, stood Lord Culduff, with
his back to an ample fire, smoking a cigarette; a small table beside him
supported a very diminutive coffee-service of chased silver, and in a
deep-cushioned chair at the opposite side of the fireplace lay a toy
terrier, asleep.
There were two fireplaces in the spacious chamber, and at a
writing-table drawn close to the second of these sat Temple Bramleigh
writing. His pen as it ran rapidly along was the only sound in the
perfect stillness, till Lord Culduff, throwing the end of his cigarette
away, said, “It is not easy to imagine so great an idiot as your worthy
brother Augustus.”
“A little selfishness would certainly not disimprove him,” said Temple,
coldly.
“Say sense, common sense, sir; a very little of that humble ingredient
that keeps a man from walking into a well.”
“I think you judge him hardly.”
“Judge him hardly! Why, sir, what judgment can equal the man's
own condemnation of himself? He has some doubts--some very grave
doubts--about his right to his estate, and straightway he goes and
throws it into a law-court. He prefers, in fact, that his inheritance
should be eaten up by lawyers than quietly enjoyed by his own family.
Such men are usually provided with lodgings at Hanwell; their friends
hide their razors, and don't trust them with toothpicks.”
“Oh, this is too much: he may take an extreme view of what his duty is
in this matter, but he 's certainly no more mad than I am.”
“I repeat, sir, that the man who takes conscience for his guide in
the very complicated concerns of life is unfit to manage his affairs.
Conscience is a constitutional peculiarity, nothing more. To attempt to
subject the business of life to conscience would be about as absurd as
to regulate the funds by the state of the barometer.”
“I 'll not defend what he is doing--I 'm as sorry for it as any one; I
only protest against his being thought a fool.”
“What do you say then to this last step of his, if it be indeed true
that he has accepted this post?”
“I'm afraid it is; my sister Ellen says they are on their way to
Cattaro.”
“I declare that I regard it as an outrage. I can give it no other name.
It is an outrage. What, sir, am I, who have reached the highest rank
of my career, or something very close to it; who have obtained my
Grand Cross; who stand, as I feel I do, second to none in the public
service;--am I to have my brother-in-law, my wife's brother, gazetted to
a post I might have flung to my valet!”'
“There I admit he was wrong.”
“That is to say, sir, that you feel the personal injury his indiscreet
conduct has inflicted. You see your own ruin in his rashness.”
“I can't suppose it will go that far.”
“And why not, pray? When a Minister or Secretary of State dares to
offend me--for it is levelled at _me_--by appointing my brother to such
an office, he says as plainly as words can speak, 'Your sun is set; your
influence is gone. We place you below the salt to-day, that to-morrow
we may put you outside the door.' _You_ cannot be supposed to know these
things, but _I_ know them. Shall I give you a counsel, sir?”
“Any advice from you, my Lord, is always acceptable.”
“Give up the line. Retire; be a gamekeeper, a billiard-marker; turn
steward of a steamer, or correspond for one of the penny papers,
but don't attempt to serve a country that pays its gentlemen like
toll-keepers.”
Temple seemed to regard this little outburst as such an ordinary event
that he dipped his pen into the ink-bottle, and was about to resume
writing, when Lord Culduff said, in a sharp, peevish tone,--
“I trust your brother and sister do not mean to come to Rome?”
“I believe they do, my Lord. I think they have promised to pay the
L'Estranges a visit at Albano.”
“My Lady must write at once and prevent it. This cannot possibly be
permitted. Where are they now?”
“At Como. This last letter was dated from the inn at that place.”
Lord Culduff rang the bell, and directed the servant to ask if her
Ladyship had gone out.
The servant returned to say that her Ladyship was going to dress, but
would see his Lordship on her way downstairs.
“Whose card is this? Where did this come from?” asked Lord Culduff, as
he petulantly turned it round and round, trying to read the name.
“Oh, that's Mr. Cutbill. He called twice yesterday. I can't imagine
what has brought him to Rome.”
“Perhaps I might hazard a guess,” said Lord Culduff, with a grim
smile. “But I'll not see him. You'll say, Bramleigh, that I am very
much engaged; that I have a press of most important business; that the
Cardinal Secretary is always here. Say anything, in short, that will
mean No, Cutbill!”
“He 's below at this moment.”
“Then get rid of him! My dear fellow, the A B C of your craft is to
dismiss the importunate. Go and send him off!”
Lord Culduff turned to caress his whiskers as the other left the room;
and having gracefully disposed a very youthful curl of his wig upon his
forehead, was smiling a pleasant recognition of himself in the glass,
when voices in a louder tone than were wont to be heard in such sacred
precincts startled him. He listened, and suddenly the door was opened
rudely, and Mr. Cutbill entered, Temple Bramleigh falling back as the
other came forward, and closing the door behind.
“So, my Lord, I was to be told you'd not see me, eh?” said Cutbill, his
face slightly flushed by a late altercation.
“I trusted, sir, when my private secretary had told you I was engaged,
that I might have counted upon not being broken in upon.”
“There you were wrong, then,” said Cutbill, who divested himself of an
overcoat, threw it on the back of a chair, and came forward towards the
fire. “Quite wrong. A man does n't come a thousand and odd miles to be
'not-at homed' at the end of it.”
“Which means, sir, that I am positively reduced to the necessity of
receiving you, whether I will or not?”
“Something near that, but not exactly. You see, my Lord, that when
to my application to your lawyer in town I received for answer the
invariable rejoinder, 'it is only my Lord himself can reply to this;
his Lordship alone knows what this, that, or t'other refers to,' I knew
pretty well, the intention was to choke me off. It was saying to me, Is
it worth a journey to Rome to ask this question? and my reply to myself
was, 'Yes, Tom Cutbill, go to Rome by all means.' And here I am.”
“So I perceive, sir,” said the other dryly and gravely.
“Now, my Lord, there are two ways of transacting business. One may
do the thing pleasantly, with a disposition to make matters easy and
comfortable; or one may approach everything with a determination to
screw one's last farthing out of it, to squeeze the lemon to the last
drop. Which of these is it your pleasure we should choose?”
“I must endeavor to imitate, though I cannot rival your frankness, sir;
and therefore I would say, let us have that mode in which we shall see
least of each other.”
“All right. I am completely in your Lordship's hands. You had your
choice, and I don't dispute it. There, then, is my account. It's a
trifle under fourteen hundred pounds. Your Lordship's generosity will
make it the fourteen, I 've no doubt. All the secret-service part--that
trip to town and the dinner at Greenwich--I 've left blank. Fill it up
as your conscience suggests. The Irish expenses are also low, as I lived
a good deal at Bishop's Folly. I also make no charge for keeping you out
of 'Punch.' It was n't easy, all the same, for the fellows had you, wig,
waistcoat, and all. In fact, my Lord, it's a friendly document, though
your present disposition doesn't exactly seem to respond to that line
of action; but Tom Cutbill is a forgiving soul. Your Lordship will look
over this paper, then; and in a couple of days--no hurry, you know, for
I have lots to see here--in a couple of days I 'll drop in, and talk the
thing over with you; for you see there are two or three points--about
the way you behaved to your brother-in-law, and such like--that I 'd
like to chat a little with you about.”
As Lord Culduff listened his face grew redder and redder, and his
fingers played with the back of the chair on which he leaned with a
quick, convulsive motion; and as the other went on he drew from time
to time long, deep inspirations, as if invoking patience to carry him
through the infliction. At last he said, in a half-faint voice, “Have
you done, sir,--is it over?”
“Well, pretty nigh. I 'd like to have asked you about my Lady. I know
she had a temper of her own before you married her, and I 'm rather
curious to hear how you hit it off together. Does she give in--eh? Has
the high and mighty dodge subdued her? I thought it would.”
“Do me the great favor, sir, to ring that bell and to leave me. I am
not very well,” said Culduff, gasping for breath.
“I see that. I see you've got the blood to your head. When a man comes
to your time of life, he must mind what he eats, and stick to pint
bottles too. That's true as the Bible--pint bottles and plenty of
Seltzer when you 're amongst the seventies.”
And with this aphorism he drew on his coat, buttoned it leisurely to the
collar, and with a familiar nod left the room.
“Giacomo,” said Lord Culduff, “that man is not to be admitted again on
any pretext. Tell the porter his place shall pay for it, if he passes
the grille.”
Giacomo bowed silent acquiescence, and Lord Culduff lay back on a sofa
and said, “Tell Dr. Pritchard to come here; tell my Lady, tell Mr.
Temple, I feel very ill;” and so saying he closed his eyes and seemed
overcome.