Cecil Castlemaine's Gage, Lady Marabout's Troubles, and Other Stories Part 27

"Nonsense," said Miss Fay, impatiently. "(I like that sweet little thing with the black nose best, dear.) _Who_ is he? What is he? How old is he?

What's his name? Where does he live?"

"Gently, young woman," cried Sydie. "He is Tutor and Fellow of King's, and a great gun besides; he's some twenty-five years older than you. His name on the rolls is Gerald, I believe, and he dwells in the shadow of Mater, beyond the reach of my cornet; for which fact, not being musically inclined, he is barbarian enough to return thanks daily in chapel."

"I am sorry he is come. It was stupid of you to bring him."

"Wherefore, _ma cousine_? Are you afraid of him? You needn't be. Young ladies are too insignificant atoms of creation for him to criticise.

He'll no more expect sense from you than from Snowdrop and her pups."

"Afraid!" repeated Fay, with extreme indignation. "I should like to see any man of whom I should feel afraid! If he doesn't like fun and nonsense, I pity him; but if he despise me ever so much for it, I shall enjoy myself before him, and in spite of him. I was sorry you brought him, because he will take you away when I want you all to myself; and he looks so haughty, that----"

"You _are_ afraid of him, Fay, and won't own it."

"I am _not_," reiterated Fay, impetuously; "and I will smoke a cigar with him after dinner, to show you I am not one bit."

"I bet you six pair of gloves you do no such thing, young lady."

"Done. Do keep the one with a black nose, Sydie; and yet that little liver-colored darling is too pretty to be killed. Suppose we save them all? Snowdrop will be so pleased."

Whereon Fay kissed all the little snub noses with the deepest affection, and was caught in the act by Keane and the General.

"There's that child with her arms full of dogs," said the General, beaming with satisfaction at sight of his niece. "She's a little, spoilt, wilful thing. She's an old bachelor's pet, and you must make allowances. I call her the fairy of the Beeches, G.o.d bless her! She nursed me last winter, when I was at death's door from these cursed cold winds, sir, better than Miss Nightingale could have done. What a devilish climate it _is_; never two days alike. I don't wonder Englishwomen are such icicles, poor things; they're frostbitten from their cradle upwards."

"India warms them up, General, doesn't it?"

The General shook with laughter.

"To be sure, to be sure; if prudery's the fashion, they'll wear it, sir, as they would patches or hair-powder; but they're always uncommonly glad to leave it off and lock it out of sight when they can. What do you think of the kennels? I say, Sydie, confound you, why did you bring down any traps with you? Haven't room for 'em, not for one. Couldn't cram a tilbury into the coach-house."

"A trap, governor?" said Sydie, straightening his back after examination of the pups; "can't keep even a wall-eyed cab-horse; wish I could."

"Where's your drag, then?" demanded the General.

"My drag? Don't I just wish I had one, to offer my bosom friend the V. P. a seat on the box. Calvert, of Trinity, tooled us over in his to the Spring Meetings, and his grays are the sweetest pair of goers--the leaders especially--that ever you saw in harness. We came back 'cross country, to get in time for hall, and a pretty mess we made of it, for we broke the axle, and lamed the off-wheeler, and----"

"But, G.o.d bless my soul," stormed the General, excited beyond measure, "you wrote me word you were going to bring a drag down with you, and of course I supposed you meant what you said, and I had Harris in about it, and he swore the coach-house was as full of traps as ever it could hold, so I had my tax-cart and Fay's phaeton turned into one of the stalls, and then, after all, it comes out you've never brought it! Devil take you, Sydie, why can't you be more thoughtful----"

"But, my dear governor----"

"Nonsense; don't talk to me!" cried the General, trying to work himself into a pa.s.sion, and diving into the recesses of six separate pockets one after another. "Look here, sir, I suppose you'll believe your own words?

Here it is in black and white.--'P. S. I shall bring _my Coach_ down with me.' There, what do you say now? Confound you, what are you laughing at? _I_ don't see anything to laugh at. In my day, young fellows didn't make fools of old men in this way. Bless my soul, why the devil don't you leave off laughing, and talk a little common sense?

The thing's plain enough.--'P.S. _I shall bring my Coach down with me_.'"

"So I have," said Sydie, screaming with laughter. "Look at him--he's a first-rate Coach, too! Wheels always oiled, and ready for any road; always going up hill, and never caught coming down; started at a devil of a pace, and now keeps ahead of all other vehicles on all highways. A first-cla.s.s Coach, that will tool me through the tortuous lanes and treacherous pitfalls of the Greats with flying colors. My Coach! Bravo, General! that's the best bit of fun I've had since I dressed up like Sophonisba Briggs, and led the V. P. a dance all round the quad, every hair on his head standing erect in his virtuous indignation at the awful morals of his college."

"Eh, what?" grunted the General, light beginning to dawn upon him. "Do you mean Mr. Keane? Hum! how's one to be up to all your confounded slang? How could I know? Devil take you, Sydie, why can't you write common English? You young fellows talk as bad jargon as Sepoys. You're sure I'm delighted to see you, Mr. Keane, though I did make the mistake."

"Thank you, General," said Keane; "but it's rather cool of you, Master Sydie, to have forced me on to your uncle's hands without his wish or his leave."

"Not at all, not at all," swore the General, with vehement cordiality.

"I gave him carte blanche to ask whom he would, and unexpected guests are always most welcome; _not_ that you were unexpected though, for I'd told that boy to be sure and bring somebody down here----"

"And have had the tax-cart and my phaeton turned out to make comfortable quarters for him," said Miss Fay, with a glance at The Coach to see how he took chaff, "and I only hope Mr. Keane may like his accommodation."

"Perhaps, Miss Morton," said Keane, smiling, "I shall like it so well that you will have to say to me as poor Voltaire to his troublesome abbe, 'Don Quichotte prenait les auberges pour les chateaux, mais vous avez pris les chateaux pour les auberges.'"

"Tiresome man," thought Fay. "I wish Sydie hadn't brought him here; but I shall do as I always do, however grand and supercilious he may look.

He has lived among all those men and books till he has grown as cold as granite. What a pity it is people don't enjoy existence as I do!"

"You are thinking, Miss Morton," said Keane, as he walked on beside her, with an amused glance at her face, which was expressive enough of her thoughts, "that if your uncle is glad to see me, you are not, and that Sydie was very stupid not to bring down one of his kindred spirits instead of----Don't disclaim it now; you should veil your face if you wish your thoughts not to be read."

"I was not going to disclaim it," said Fay, quickly looking up at him with a rapid glance, half penitence, half irritation. "I always tell the truth; but I was _not_ thinking exactly that; I don't want any of Sydie's friends--I detest boys--but I certainly _was_ thinking that as you look down on everything that we all delight in, I fancied you and the Beeches will hardly agree. If I am rude, you must not be angry; you wanted me to tell you the truth."

Keane smiled again.

"Do I look down on the things you delight in? I hardly know enough of you, as we have only addressed about six syllables to each other, to be able to judge what you like and what you don't like; but certainly I must admit, that caressing the little round heads of those puppies yonder, which seemed to afford you such extreme rapture, would not be any source of remarkable gratification to me."

Fay looked up at him and laughed.

"Well, I am fond of animals as you are fond of books. Is it not an open question whether the live dog or sheepskin is not as good as the dead Morocco or Russian leather?"

"Is it an open question, whether Macaulay's or Arago's brain weighs no more than a cat's or a puppy's?"

"Brain!" said impudent little Fay; "are your great men always as honest and as faithful as my poor little Snowdrop? I have an idea that Sheridan's brains were often obscured by brandy; that Richelieu had the weakness to be prouder of his bad poems than his magnificent policies; and that Pope and Byron had the folly to be more tenacious of a glance at their physical defect than an onslaught on their n.o.blest works. I could mention a good many other instances where brain was not always a voucher for corresponding strength of character."

Keane was surprised to hear a sensible speech from this volatile little puss, and honored her by answering her seriously.

"Say, rather, Miss Morton, that those to whom many temptations fall should have many excuses made. Where the brain preponderates, excelling in creative faculty and rapid thought, there will the sensibilities be proportionately acute. The vivacity and vigorous life which produced the rapid flow of Sheridan's eloquence led him into the dissipation which made him end his days in a spunging-house. Men of cooler minds and natures must not presume to judge him. They had not his temptation; they cannot judge of his fault. Richelieu, in all probability, amused himself with his verses as he amused himself with his white kitten and its cork, as a _dela.s.s.e.m.e.nt_; had he piqued himself upon his poetry, as they say, he would have turned poetaster instead of politician. As for the other two, you must remember that Pope's deformity made him a subject of ridicule to the woman he was fool enough to worship, and Byron, poor fellow, was over-susceptible on all points, or he would scarcely have allowed the venomed arrows from the Scotch Reviewers to wound him, nor would he have cared for the desertion of a wife who was to him like ice to fire. When you are older, you will learn that it is very dangerous and unjust to say this thing is right, that wrong, that feeling wise, or this foolish; for all temperaments are different, and the same circ.u.mstances may produce very different effects. Your puppies will grow up with dissimilar characters; how much more so, then, must men?"

Miss Fay was quiet for a minute, then she flashed her mischievous eyes on him.

"Certainly; but then, by your own admission, you have no right to decide that your love for mathematics is wise, and my love for Snowdrop foolish; it may be quite _au contraire_. Perhaps, after all, I may have 'chosen the better part.'"

"Fay, go in and dress for dinner," interrupted the General, trotting up; "your tongue would run on forever if n.o.body stopped it; you're no exception to your s.e.x on that point. Is she?"

Keane laughed.

"Perhaps Miss Morton's fraenum, like Sydie's, was cut too far in her infancy, and therefore she has been 'unbridled' ever since."

"In all things!" cried little Fay. "n.o.body has put the curb on me yet, and n.o.body ever shall."

"Don't be too sure, Fay," cried Sydie. "Rarey does wonders with the wildest fillies. Somebody may bring you down on your knees yet."

"You'll have to see to that, Sydie," laughed the General. "Come, get along, child, to your toilette. I never have my soup cold and my curry overdone. To wait for his dinner is a stretch of good nature, and patience that ought not to be expected of any man."

The soup was not cold nor the curry overdone, and the dinner was pleasant enough, in the long dining-room, with the June sun streaming in through its bay-windows from out the brilliant-colored garden, and the walls echoing with the laughter of Sydie and his cousin, the young lady keeping true to her avowal of "not caring for Plato's presence."

"Plato," however, listened quietly, peeling his peaches with tranquil amus.e.m.e.nt; for if the girl talked nonsense, it was clever nonsense, as rare, by the way, and quite as refreshing as true wit.

"My gloves are safe; you're too afraid of him, Fay," whispered Sydie, bending forwards to give her some hautboys.