Читать книгу Plain Living - Rolf Boldrewood, Rolf Boldrewood - Страница 5

Just as dinner was announced, the carriage behind the grand three hundred guinea browns – perhaps the best pair in Sydney – rolled up to the door. Mrs. Grandison and Miss Josie fluttered down the stairs a few minutes afterwards in the full glory of evening costume. As host and guest stood in the hall, the lady of the house vouchsafed a slight explanation, mingled with faint regret that the latter was not coming with them.

“You know, Mr. Stamford, this is one of that dear Ketten’s last recitals. We really could not afford to miss it – especially as our friends, the Cranberrys, will be there. Lady C. sent a private message to Josie that she must go. I wanted to stop, for we really are miserable about that wicked boy Carlo; but Josie said it couldn’t make any difference to him, and why should we punish ourselves because he chose to be selfish and extravagant.”

Mr. Stamford could not wholly assent to these philosophical propositions. He thought of what Laura’s pleasure in hearing the musical magnate would have been on the same evening that Hubert had been declared a defaulter as to play debts, and was socially, if not legally, under a cloud.

He simply bowed coldly. Then he saw the pained maternal expression in Mrs. Grandison’s face, in spite of her worldliness and frivolity, and his heart smote him.

“My dear Mrs. Grandison,” he said, taking her hand, “I feel for you most deeply.”

Then suddenly came a voice from the carriage, in which Miss Josie had ensconced herself. “Mamma, I shall catch cold if we wait one moment longer. Hadn’t you better postpone your interesting talk with Mr. Stamford?”

Mrs. Grandison started, and then recovering herself, shook Mr. Stamford’s hand. “You will talk it over with Robert, won’t you? You are old friends, you know. Don’t let him be too hard on poor Carlo. I’m sure he has a good heart. Pray come and see us again before you leave.”

The portly form of his hostess moved off at a swifter rate than her appearance denoted. The footman banged the carriage door, and the grand equipage rattled out over the mathematically accurate curves of the drive. The dinner gong commenced to resound after a warlike and sudden fashion, and caused Mr. Stamford to betake himself hurriedly to the drawing-room. There he found Mr. Grandison standing by the fire-place in a meditative position.

Mr. Grandison turned at his friend’s entrance. “Seen Mrs. Grandison? Has she told you about it? Well, they’re gone now, and we can talk it over quietly. Come in to dinner. I’ve no appetite, God knows! but I want something to steady my nerves.”

The dinner, somewhat restricted for the occasion, was extremely good, though his host ate little, confining himself to a cutlet and some wonderful brown sherry. Not until the dessert was placed before them and they were alone did he begin the subject which lay so near to his heart.

“Of course I know, Stamford, that young fellows like my boy can’t be expected to live in a town like Sydney upon a screwy allowance – at any rate not if they are to be seen in good company. Therefore I’ve always said to Carlo, ‘Let me see you make your mark, and live like a gentleman. That’s all I ask of you, and you sha’n’t want for a hundred or two.’ I hadn’t got it to spend when I was his age – you know that, Harold; but if I like my youngster to be a bit different in some things, that’s my own affair, isn’t it, as long as I am willing to pay for it? Well that’s all right, you say. Take some of this claret, it won’t hurt you. It’s my own importation from Bordeaux. Of course I didn’t want the boy to slave in an office, nor yet to live in the bush year after year with nothing but station hands to talk to. If Mrs. Grandison had done what I wanted her to do, while the children were young, and lived quietly at Banyule, it might have been different. There we could have had everything comfortable; nearly as good as here. It would have been better for me, and them too, I expect. But she wouldn’t see it, and that’s why we’ve always lived in town.”

“Still,” interposed Stamford, “though you have been well enough off to afford to live where you pleased, I can’t imagine why Carlo should not keep the course and run straight, even in Sydney, like other young men of his age.”

Mr. Grandison sighed and filled his glass. “Some do, and some don’t, that’s about the size of it. I don’t know why the lad shouldn’t have enjoyed himself in reason like young Norman McAllister, Jack Staunton, Neil O’Donnell, and others that we know. They’ve always had lots of money, too; they’ve been home to the Old Country and knocked about by themselves, and I never heard that they’ve got into rows or overrun the constable. How my boy should have made such a fool of himself with a father that’s always stuck well to him, I can’t think. I’m afraid we’ve thought too much of his swell friends’ names and families, and not enough of their principles. I’ve told my wife that before now.”

“But what has he done?” asked Stamford. “If it’s a matter of a few thousands, you can settle that easily enough – particularly now we’ve had rain,” continued he, introducing the pleasantry as a slight relief to his friend’s self-reproachful strain.

“Yes, of course, I can do that, thank God! rain or no rain, though it made a matter of thirty thousand profit to me on those back Dillandra blocks – more than that. I shouldn’t care if the money was all; but this is how it is. I may as well bring it straight out. It seems that Carlo and Captain Maelstrom (d – n him! – I never liked a bone in his body) and some others were playing loo last week with a young fellow whose father had just died and left him a lot of money. The stakes ran up high – a deal higher than the club committee would have allowed if they’d known about it. Well, just at first they had it all their own way. This young chap was a long way to the bad – thousands, they say. Then the luck turned, and after that they never held a card. He played a bold game, and the end of it was that Carlo and the Captain were ten thousand out, and of course neither of them able to pay up. The Captain managed to get time, but Carlo, like a fool, went straight off and said nothing about it. He was afraid to come to me, it seems, as we’d had a row last time; so he did the very worst thing he could have done and cleared out to Tasmania. We got a letter yesterday. He’s over there now.” Here Mr. Grandison fairly groaned, and looked piteously in his old friend’s face.

“Well, well! but after all,” said Mr. Stamford, “of course it’s bad enough, gambling – high stakes and folly generally; but if you pay up, things will be much as they were, and it will be a lesson to him.”

“I hope it may be, but the worst of it is,” went on Mr. Grandison, “that the whole thing came out, and there was a regular exposé. The young fellow, Newlands, made a disturbance when he wasn’t paid, swore he’d horsewhip Carlo whenever he met him, and went on tremendously. Then the committee of the club took it up and talked of expelling Maelstrom and him for playing for stakes above the proper limit, and if the affair’s raked up it’s possible they will. I paid up in full, of course, as soon as I could get to know the amount. Newlands apologised very properly and all that. But the mischief’s done! Carlo can’t show his face in Sydney for I don’t know how long. All our hopes about his turning steady and settling down are disappointed. It’s a round sum of money to throw away for nothing, and worse than nothing. And what to do with the boy I don’t know.”

“It certainly is a hard case for his parents,” said Mr. Stamford, thoughtfully. “I scarcely know what to advise. A year or two on a station, or a turn at exploring in the far north used to be thought a remedy, or, at any rate, to hold out reasonable hope of amendment by change of scene and fresh interests, but – ”

“But that wouldn’t suit Carlo. He hates bush life – can’t live away from excitement – and I’m afraid, if I sent him away against his will, he’d take to drinking, or do something worse still. I’m at my wits’ end. He seems to have got it into his head that I’m to provide for him under any circumstances, and the consequence is he never thinks of doing anything for himself.”

“How do you think travel would act upon him? He has never seen the Old World, ‘the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them.’ Surely that would rouse sufficient enthusiasm to counteract the meaner pleasures?”

“Carlo would never get further than Paris if I trusted him alone. However, I shall have to try it, I suppose. The long and the short of it will be that we shall be obliged to move en famille. I can’t send him by himself after what has happened.”

“I really do think it is the best thing you can do. You can afford it easily. Station property is likely to look up for a few years now. You have excellent managers, and it will most likely benefit the other young people. I don’t see any objection; indeed everything seems in favour of it.”

“Of course we can do it,” said his friend, doubtfully; “but I didn’t intend to leave for a year or two yet – until we could have entered Cecil at one of the universities, and, in fact, made other arrangements. But Carlo is the master of the situation at present – he must be, as usual, considered before everything and everybody. Well, I’m much obliged to you, Stamford; indeed I feel most grateful; it has been a great relief to my mind to be able to talk the matter over with you quietly, and I really believe this idea of yours of travel abroad will suit everybody. Mrs. Grandison and Josie will be wild with delight, I feel sure.”

“I hope you will all have reason to be satisfied with the results of the step; and now, as it is getting late, I will say good night.”

“Good night, and thank you very much, old fellow! By the way, this rain has reached your part of the world, I see; I suppose your affairs are improving a bit now – look brighter, eh!”

“I have been enabled to make satisfactory arrangements lately,” said Stamford, shortly. “I have placed my account with the Austral Agency Company and we got on very well.”

“Ah, indeed. Rising man, that Barrington Hope. I wish – but it’s no use wishing. Well, good night again! Nothing like being independent of the banks; that’s always the safest line!”

“Safest indeed,” thought his guest as he walked down the gravel drive, just in time to miss the blazing lamps and chariot wheels of Mrs. Grandison’s equipage, which bore herself and her daughter back from the hall where the maestro