Читать книгу The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly - Charles James Lever - Страница 12

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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.