The Duke, returning to Sale House, spent an unprofitable half-hour, trying to draft an advertisement for the Gazette. He gave it up finally, exclaiming aloud: “It seems I need a private secretary besides all the rest!”
The door into the library opened. “Your Grace called?” said his footman.
The Duke stared at him in gathering wrath. “Were you standing outside the door?” he demanded.
The man looked quite scared. “Yes, your Grace!”
“Then don’t do it!”
“No, your Grace! I beg your Grace’s pardon! I thought your Grace had called!”
“I did not!”
“No, your Grace!” said the footman, much discomposed, and preparing to bowhimself out again.
“When I need you, I will ring for you,” said the Duke. “At this present I want nothing! At least—Yes, I do! If Mr. Scriven should not have left the house, desire him to come to me, if you please!”
“Yes, your Grace!”
It seemed that Mr. Scriven had not left the house, for in a very few minutes he presented himself in the library. He found the Duke sitting at the big carved desk, biting the end of a quill, and regarding with dissatisfaction a scrawled sheet of paper. Several screwed-up balls of paper cast in the direction of the fireplace bore witness to frustrated literary endeavour.
“You wished to see me, my lord?” said Mr. Scriven, advancing into the room.
The Duke looked up, a boyishly rueful smile in his eyes. “I can do not the least thing for myself, Scriven!” he said. “Here have I been wasting I know not how long trying to write the simplest notice, and making the sorriest work of it!”
“You know you may depend upon me, my lord, to do anything for you that you desire,” said Mr. Scriven, in a soothing voice. “May I know what it is that is giving you so much trouble?”
“Merely the notice of my engagement for the Gazette! You would say a simple matter, but only see what a botch I have made of it!”
Mr. Scriven had been moving towards the desk, but at these words he halted. “Your engagement, my lord!”
“Yes, to the Lady Harriet Presteigne. It must be announced, you know, and I shall be very much obliged to you if you will draft a suitable notice for me.”
“May I say, my lord Duke,” said Mr. Scriven, deeply moved, “that there is no task you could lay upon me which I could undertake with more gratification? I hope your Grace will permit me to offer my sincerest felicitations upon this most happy event!”
“Thank you: you are very good.”
“I shall take advantage, my lord, of my long association with the House of Sale, to say that nothing could afford those who have your interests at heart greater satisfaction than thus intelligence. And I venture to say, my lord, that there is no one amongst your dependants who has not your interests at heart.”
“Thank you!” said the Duke again, startled, but a little touched.
“Your Grace may safely leave this matter in my hands,” said Mr. Scriven. “The notice shall be sent immediately to all the society papers: I shall attend to it myself. May I enquire when the Happy Date is to be?”
“I do not precisely know. In the spring, I think: nothing is fixed yet!”
Mr. Scriven bowed. “We shall have to see to the refurnishing of the Duchess’s apartments,” he said. “In fact, there will be a great many details to be attended to, my lord. You may rely on me!”
The Duke, who felt that he had listened to enough plans for his marriage for one day, said hastily that he was sure of it, but that there was time and to spare. Mr. Scriven thereupon bowed again, and went off to enjoy himself very much in drafting an advertisement in terms grandiloquent enough to satisfy his sense of what was due to his noble employer’s dignity.
The Duke, who had previously ascertained that his cousin was on guard-duty that day, thought that he might perhaps be dining at White’s, and determined to seek him there. He did not succeed, however, in leaving the house without encountering a good deal of opposition, first from his valet, who took it amiss that he did not mean to change his pantaloons for knee-breeches and silk stockings; then from Borrowdale, who had not supposed that his Grace meant to dine from home, and thought that it looked like rain; and lastly from Chigwell, who, forbidden to send a message to the stables, was horrified, and exclaimed: “But your Grace will have the carriage!”
“I do not need it; I am only going to White’s,” replied the Duke, taking his cane and gloves from his footman’s hands.
“Your Grace will not go on foot, and alone! Only let me call a chair!”
“Chigwell, I am not a child, nor shall I melt for a drop or two of rain!” said the Duke.
“No, indeed, your Grace, but they say the town abounds with pickpockets, and street-robbers! I am sure his lordship would desire you to take a chair, and a linkboy!”
“I shall take neither, however.”
Chigwell and Borrowdale both looked very much upset. “But, your Grace, you will be very much more comfortable in your carriage!” protested Chigwell. “It can be brought round in a trice, and—”
“ No! ” said the Duke, with sudden and unaccustomed violence.
They fell back, and the porter, who had been standing all the time by the door thought well of opening it.
“As your Grace wishes!” said Chigwell feebly. “At what hour will your Grace be returning?”
“I have not the smallest notion,” said the Duke, drawing on his gloves.
“No, your Grace. Quite so! And your Grace would not wish to have the carriage call for you—?”
“I would not!” said the Duke, and ran down the steps into the forecourt, leaving his faithful henchmen to stare after him in great surprise, and no little perturbation.
He did not find his cousin at White’s, but just as he was ascertaining from the porter that Captain Ware had not been seen in the club that day, Viscount Gaywood walked in, and instantly pounced upon him. “Sale! By God, I was in half a mind to call at your place! My dear fellow, how do you do? I have just heard the news! Never more glad of anything in my life! Come and dine with me!”
Lord Gaywood, who was tall, lanky, and a great rattle, bore little resemblance to his sister Harriet, but had a beak-like nose that brought Lady Ampleforth forcibly to mind. He was said to be a severe trial to his parents, and had certainly occupied his adult years in tumbling in and out of a great many scrapes. He swept the Duke upstairs to the coffee-room, saying cheerfully: “Well, this is a capital go, old fellow! But what a complete hand you are! I was ready to swear you were not hanging out for a wife yet awhile! Why, I don’t believe you ever so much as gave Harry’s hand a squeeze at hands across!”
“Well, do not shout it to the whole world!” said Gilly.
“Oh, no one ever attends to me!” replied his lordship. “You know, it’s not for me to puff m’sister off, but she’s a devilish good girl, Sale, and deserves her fortune. The shyest thing in nature, mind you, but you’re a trifle in that line yourself! I’m glad you didn’t declare off: don’t mind telling you my mother was thrown into gloom when you left town without coming up to scratch! What a business it is! They will be trying their hands at finding a bride for me next, I daresay. Do you want to buy a horse?”
“Yes, but not one of yours,” said the Duke frankly.
“What do you mean, not one of mine?” demanded his lordship, affronted. “I’ve got a prime bit of blood I wouldn’t mind selling you. Shows off well; complete to a shade!”
“Touched in the wind?” asked the Duke, taking his seat at the table.
“Devil a bit of it! Perfect in all his paces!”
“I may look like a flat, but I’m not such a green one that I’d buy one of your breakdowns, Charlie,” said the Duke.
Lord Gaywood grinned. “Well, it ain’t a breakdown, but I never crossed a greater slug in my life! fit only to carry a churchwarden!”
“Thank you!” said the Duke.
“Oh, well, there’s no saying! he might have taken your fancy! What made you take this bolt to the village, my tulip? You did not come merely to offer for Harriet!”
“That, and to buy a horse—not your horse.”
“Gilly, you skirter! Don’t try to come Tip-Street over me! If you have run away from that devilish uncle of yours, I don’t blame you! The most antiquated old fidget I ever saw! Quite gothic, my dear fellow! I’m frightened to death of him. I don’t think he likes me above half.”
“Not as much,” replied Gilly. “In fact, I think he classes you with park-saunterers, and other such ramshackle persons.”
“No, no, Gilly, upon my word! Always in the best of good ton! ” protested his lordship. “Park-saunterers be damned! I’ll tell you what, my boy! I’ll take you along to a place I know of in Pickering Place after dinner. All the crack amongst the knowing ones, and the play very fair.”
“French hazard? You know I haven’t the least taste for gaming! Besides, I’m going to visit my cousin Gideon.”
Lord Gaywood exclaimed against such tame behaviour, but the Duke remained steady in refusing to accompany him to his gaming-hell, and they parted after dinner, Gaywood crossing the street to Pickering Place, and the Duke going off to Albany, where Captain Ware rented a set of chambers. These were on the first floor of one of the new buildings, and were reached by a flight of stone stairs. The Duke ran up these, and knocked on his cousin’s door. It was opened to him by a stalwart individual with a rugged countenance, and the air and bearing of an old soldier, who stared at him for an instant, and then exclaimed: “It’s your Grace!”
“Hallo, Wragby! is my cousin in?” returned the Duke, stepping into a small hall, and laving his hat and cane down upon the table.
“Ay, that he is, your Grace, and Mr. Matthew with him,” said Wragby. “I’ll warrant hell be mighty glad to see your Grace. I’ll take your coat, sir.”
He divested the Duke of it as he spoke, and would have announced him had not Gilly shaken his head, and walked without ceremony into his cousin’s sitting-room.
This was a comfortable, square apartment, with windows giving on to a little balcony, and some folding doors that led into Captain Ware’s bedchamber. It was lit by candles, a fire burned in the grate, and the atmosphere was rather thick with cigar-smoke. The furniture was none of it very new, or very elegant, and the room was not distinguished by its neatness. To the Duke, who rarely saw as much as a cushion out of place in his own residences, the litter of spurs, riding-whips, racing-calendars, invitation-cards, pipes, tankards, and newspapers gave the room a charm all its own. He felt at his ease in it, and never entered it without experiencing a pang of envy.
There were two persons seated at the mahogany table, at which it was evident they had been dining. One was a fair youth, in a very dandified waistcoat; the other, a big, dark young man, some four years older than the Duke, who lounged at the head of the table, with his long legs stretched out before him, and one hand dug into the pocket of his white buckskins. He had shed his scarlet coat for a dressing-gown, and he wore on his feet a pair of embroidered Turkish slippers. It was easy to trace his relationship to Lord Lionel Ware. He had the same high nose, and stern gray eyes, and something of the same mulish look about his mouth and chin, which made his face, in repose, a little forbidding. But he had also an attractively crooked smile, which only persons for whom he had a fondness were privileged to see. As he looked up, at the opening of the door, his eyes narrowed, and the smile twisted up one side of his mouth. “Adolphus!” he said, in a lazy drawl. “Well, well, well!”
The fair youth, who had been staring a little moodily at the dregs of the port in his glass, started, and looked round, as much as he was able to do for the extremely high and starched points of his shirt-collar. “Gilly!” he exclaimed. “Good God, what are you doing in town?”
“Why shouldn’t I be in town?” said the Duke, with a touch of impatience. “If it comes to that, what brings you here?”
“I’m on my way up to Oxford, of course,” said his cousin. “Lord, what a start you gave me, walking in like that!”
By this time, the Duke had taken in all the glories of his young cousin’s attire, which included, besides that amazingly striped waistcoat, an Oriental tie of gigantic height, a starched frill, buckram-wadded shoulders to an extravagantly cut coat, buttons the size of crown pieces, and a pair of Inexpressibles of a virulent shade of yellow. He closed his eyes, and said faintly: “Gideon, have you any brandy?”
Captain Ware grinned. “Regular little counter-coxcomb, ain’t he?” he remarked.
“I thought you had a Bartholomew baby dining with you,” said Gilly. “Matt, you don’t mean to go up to Oxford in that rig? Oh, my God, Gideon, will you look at his pantaloons? What a set of dashing blades they must be at Magdalen!”
“Gilly!” protested Matthew, flushing hotly. “Because you are never in the least dapper-dog yourself you need not quiz me! It’s the pink of the fashion, bang up to the nines! You should have a pair yourself!”
“Above my touch,” said the Duke, shaking his head. He looked up at Gideon, who had dragged himself out of his chair, and now stood towering above him, and smiled. “Gideon,” he said, with satisfaction. “Oh, I think I was charged with a great many messages for you, but I have forgot them all!”
“Do you mean to tell me, Adolphus, that you have slipped your leash?” demanded Gideon.
“Oh, no!” said Gilly, sighing. “I did think that perhaps I might, but I was reckoning without Belper, and Scriven, and Chigwell and Borrowdale, and Nettlebed, and—”
“Enough!” commanded Gideon. “This air of consequence ill becomes you, my little one! Is my revered father in town?”
“No, I am alone. Except, of course, for Nettlebed, and Turvey, and—But you don’t like me to puff off my state!”
“This,” said Gideon, lounging over to the door, and opening it, “calls for a bowl of punch! Wragby! Wragby, you old rascal! Rum! Lemons! Kettle! Bustle about, man!” He came back to the fire. “Tell me that my parents are well, and then do not let us talk about them any more!” he invited.
“They are very well, but I am going to say a great deal to you about your father. I think I came for that very purpose. Yes, I am sure that I did!”
“You have never given Uncle Lionel the bag?” exclaimed Matthew.
“Oh, no! He saw me off with his blessing, and an adjuration to visit the dentist. I have never yet succeeded in giving anyone the bag,” said Gilly.
Gideon looked at him under his brows. “Hipped, Adolphus?” he said gently.
“Blue-devilled!” replied the Duke, meeting his look.
“What a complete hand you are, Gilly!” said Matthew impatiently. “I only wish I stood in your shoes! There you are, your pockets never to let, everything made easy for you, all the toad-eaters in town ready to serve you, and you complain—”
“Peace, halfling!” interrupted Gideon. “Sit down, Gilly! Tell me all that is in your mind!”
“Too much!” said the Duke, sinking into a chair at the table. “Oh, that reminds me! Would you like to offer me your felicitations? You won’t be quite the first to do so, but—but you won’t care to be backward! I have this day fulfilled the expectations of my family—not to mention those of every busybody in town—and entered upon a very eligible engagement. You will see the notice in the Gazette, presently, and all the society journals. I do hope Scriven will not forget any of these!”
“Oh!” said Gideon. He pitched the butt of his cigar into the fire, and cast another of those shrewd, appraising looks at the Duke. “Well, that certainly calls for a bowl of punch,” he said. “Harriet, eh?”
The Duke nodded.
“I don’t wish to enrage you, my little one, but you have my felicitations. She will do very well for you.”
The Duke looked up quickly. “Yes, of course! What a fellow I am to be talking in such a fashion! Don’t regard it! She is everything that is amiable and obliging.”
“Well, I’m sure I wish you very happy,” said Matthew. “Of course we all knew that you were going to offer for her.”
“Of course you did!” agreed Gilly, with immense cordiality.
“Charlotte has contracted an engagement too,” observed Matthew. “Did you know it? It is to Alfred Thirsk.”
“Certainly I knew it,” replied Gilly. “In fact, I very nearly withheld my consent to the match.”
“Very nearly withheld your consent!” repeated Matthew, staring at him in the liveliest astonishment.
“Well, I had the intention, but, like so many of my intentions, it came to nothing. Your father wrote me a very proper letter, expressing the hope that the alliance met with my approval. Only it does not: not at all!”
Matthew burst out laughing. “Much my father would care! Stop bamming, Gilly!”
“Bamming? You forget yourself, Matt!” Gilly retorted. “Let me tell you that I am the head of our family, and it is time that I learned to assert myself!”
Gideon smiled. “Have you been asserting yourself, Adolphus?”
“No, no, I am not yet beyond the stage of learning! I am so bird-witted, you know, that I can never tell what is asserting myself, and what is putting myself forward in a very pert fashion that will not do at all.”
Gideon dropped a hand on his shoulder, and gripped it, but as Wragby came in just then, with a laden tray, he said nothing. The Duke lifted his own hand to clasp that larger one. “All gammon!” he said jerkily. “I told you I was blue-devilled!”
Gideon smiled down at him in his lazy way, and shook him gently to and fro. “Wretched little snirp!” he said.
“Mackerel-backed dragoon!” retorted the Duke, with an effort at liveliness. “Brew your punch!”
Matthew seized one of the lemons, and sliced it in half, chanting: “ One sour, Two sweet; Four strong, And eight weak! Shall you add a dash of pink champagne to it, Gideon?”
“I shall not,” replied Gideon, releasing the Duke’s shoulder, and beginning to measure out the rum. “Arrack, my child, nothing but arrack!”
“Only rustics use arrack instead of champagne,” said Matthew, in a lofty way, which he instantly regretted.
“Listen to our rasher-of-wind!” Gideon recommended, with a nod at Gilly. “Proceed, Matt! Any more airs of the exquisite to play off?”
Young Mr. Ware’s ready colour surged up again. “No, but it is so! Gilly, you go to all the ton parties! It should be pink champagne, shouldn’t it?”
“Yes, of course, only Gideon has such nip-cheese ways!” responded the Duke, lifting a spoonful of well-pounded sugar from the bowl, and letting it shower back again. “Does Charlotte really wish to marry Thirsk, Matt?”
“Lord, yes, she’s in high gig!” replied Matthew cheerfully.
“Good God!”
“Well, she will have a very creditable establishment, you know! Oh, you are thinking that Thirsk is a bit of a loose-screw! She won’t care for that as long as he don’t spy too closely after her, and I dare swear he won’t, for he’s got a mistress in keeping, and has had for years. At least that’s one of the on-dits of town, and I should think it would be true, would not you?”
“But what a charming match!” said the Duke.
“Oh, well!” said Matthew charitably, “no one could blame my father for nabbling Thirsk, after all! Devilish plump in the pocket, you know, and there’s the title besides, and four more of my sisters to be provided for! As for Charlotte, it’s all very well for you to cavil, Gilly, but you are your own master, and may do as you please. You don’t have to live at Croylake, dangling after my mother, and having to pour tea for a parcel of humbugging Methodies five evenings out of the seven! I can tell you, there’s no bearing it!”
The kettle had boiled by this time; Gideon lifted it from the hob, and poured the sherbet he had brewed in it on to his spirit. A fragrant aroma rose from the bowl. He stirred the mixture, his attention fixed on it. But the Duke, catching the note of bitterness in Matthew’s voice, looked at him rather searchingly. Matthew averted his eyes with a little laugh, and began to boast of Oxford larks.
Gideon, who rarely paid the least heed to him, interrupted his chatter without ceremony. “How long do you mean to stay in town, Adolphus?”
“I don’t know. As long as I am permitted, I daresay!”
“No time at all, in fact.” He began to ladle the punch into three glasses. “Did you tell me you had Belper toad-eating you? What the devil made you advise him you were in London?”
“Don’t be so bacon-brained, Gideon!” Gilly implored. “Of course I never did so! That was left for my uncle to do. And he did it. I found Belper awaiting me on my doorstep.”
“If you had as much sense as a pullet you would have kicked him off your doorstep!” commented the Captain.
“‘I would I had thy inches!’” retorted the Duke ruefully.
“Resolution is all you stand in need of, my child.”
“I know. But I fancy he’s none too well-breeched, and when a man is so damned pleased to see one—well, what can one do?”
“What, indeed?” said Gideon sardonically. “I suppose if all the scaff and raff of London were to show pleasure at the sight of you you would throw your doors open to them!”
“I daresay I should,” said Gilly, with a short sigh. “How like my uncle you will be one day, when those beautiful whiskers of yours are no longer so black or so glossy! How right he was to warn me against seeking your company! And how little he knew how right he was!”
“ What? ” ejaculated Gideon. “He never did so!”
“Well, no!” admitted Gilly. “But he did warn me against letting myself be drawn into the sort of company you keep. Very justly, I daresay. You Lifeguards—Hyde Park soldiers, Belper calls you: did you know?—you’re such a fast set of fellows, and one never knows where military society may lead one, does one? He warned me against Gaywood, too. He said he might lead me into gaming-hells, and this is precisely where he did try to lead me, only I was mindful of my orders, and I didn’t go with him.”
“Humdudgeon, Adolphus! You didn’t go with him because gaming don’t amuse you. No playing off your tricks to me, little cousin!”
The Duke ladled more punch into his glass. “Don’t interrupt the head of the family, Gideon! Remember what is due to my position!”
“A little more, and that will be head downwards in my wine-cooler!” said Gideon.
“I warn you, it will be two to one against you, for Matt—if not too castaway—will stand my friend.”
Matthew, who had been sitting in a brown study, started. “I’m not castaway!” he said. “A fellow can’t be talking all the time!”
“You cannot know Belper, or you would not say so, Gideon. I shall be of full age next year, and my uncle says I must learn to manage for myself. I have a thousand amiable qualities, but I lack resolution. So I thought I would interest myself a little in my estates, but my notions were so nonsensical they made Scriven smile, and put my uncle out of all patience with me. I wish—oh, how much I wish!—that my guardian had been a villain, and my agent a fool, and that the pair of them had tried to ruin me!”
“I don’t see any sense in that!” objected Matthew, blinking.
“And I wish,” continued Gilly, disregarding the interruption, “that no one about me wished me well, or cared for my interests, or had a particle of affection for me! But they have! God knows why, but they have! Do you know what Borrowdale, and Chigwell, and Nettlebed, and my footman—no, not my footman! Heaven reward him, for he did not know me in my cradle, and does not care a fig what may become of me! He is a splendid fellow! I wonder what wage I pay him? It must be doubled!—But the rest of them—oh, yes, and Turvey, too! how came I to forget him?—the rest of them are waiting for me to come home, and fretting themselves to flinders because I would not have my carriage ordered, and so may have been set-upon by footpads, or taken a chill! They will all be sitting up for me, you know. Borrowdale will offer me a hot posset, I daresay, and I am quite sure that Nettlebed will give me a scold!” He jumped up, and began to stride restlessly about the room. “Gideon, I have been wondering what it would be like to be plain Mr. Dash, of Nowhere in Particular!”
“Try it!” recommended his cousin.
“How can I? We are not living between the covers of a romance, but in this dead bore of a Polite World! And I am going to be married! Give me some more punch! Or had you better perhaps warn me that my digestion was never of the strongest, and it may very likely set up some disorder, for which it will be necessary to summon Dr. Baillie?”
“Go to the devil!” said Gideon, refilling his glass. “You may be as ill as you please, as long as you are not ill in my chambers. I shall bundle you into a chair, and tell ’em to carry you home.”
“I like you so much,” sighed the Duke, “and there is no virtue in you! You lie, Gideon, you lie! You would have half the Faculty here within an hour of my collapse!”
“Not I!”
“I wish you will stop twaddling for ever!” suddenly exclaimed Matthew, sitting up with a jerk. “I can tell you this, Gilly! It would do you a deal of good not to be a Duke, and not to have all the money you need, and scores of servants to wait on you, and not to have a stable full of blood-cattle, or a pair of sixty-guinea Mantons, or people to manage your affairs, or—or any of the things you have got, and don’t so much as think about!”
“Yes, I think it would,” agreed Gilly, arrested by this outburst. “Would you like to change places with me?”
“By God I would!”
“Well, you can’t,” said Gilly, sitting down again. “I’ve suddenly bethought me that if we changed places I should have Uncle Henry for my father, and although I don’t wish to offend you, Matt, I don’t want him.”
“Adolphus, you are three parts disguised!” said Gideon severely.
The Duke smiled at him, but shook his head. “No, I am quite sober. But Matt is right! I have twaddled enough! Matt escort me home through our perilous streets! Where are you putting up?”
“Reddish’s, but I don’t mind going along with you,” replied Matthew, draining his glass.
The Duke went out into the hall to pick up his coat. Gideon accompanied him, and helped him to put it on. “Come and dine with me tomorrow, Adolphus,” he said, I’ll have none of our cousins here to meet you.”
“Yes, I wanted to find you alone,” said Gilly.
“You shall, my little one. Eight o’clock. Do not cut your throat before then!”
“Gideon, Gideon, you don’t suppose that I shave myself, do you?” riposted Gilly, much shocked.