Clare Avery Part 43

"But touching these debts, Jack," resumed his father. "Suppose thou shouldst fail to wed thine heir,--how then?"

"Then, Sir, I shall trust to redeem the money at play."

Every man of substance--not a Puritan--was at that time a gamester.

"And how, if that fail?"

"They can't all fail, Sir!" said Jack lightly.

"My lad!" replied His father earnestly, "I did an ill deed when I sent thee to London."

"Dear heart, Sir!" exclaimed Jack, just suppressing a much stronger e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, "I do ensure you, you never did a wiser thing."

"Then my life hath been one of sore folly," answered his father.

"I alway told thee thou shouldst come to wrack," added his aunt.

"Nay, now, what wrack have I come to?" returned Jack with a graceful flourish of his hands. "Call you it wrack to have a good post in the Queen's Majesty's house, with hope of a better, maybe, when it please G.o.d?--or, to be well [stand well, be on good terms] with many honourable gentlemen, and heirs of good houses, throughout all England?--or, to have the pick of their sisters and cousins, when it liketh me to wed?"

"They shall have a jolly picking that pick out thee!" growled Aunt Rachel.

"Or to have open door of full many honourable houses,--and good credit, that there is not a craftsman in London that should not count it honour to serve me with such goods as I might choose?" pursued Jack.

"A mighty barren honour, Jack, on thine own showing."

"Jack!" interposed Sir Thomas, who had seemed deep in thought for a minute, "tell me honestly,--of this five thousand pound, if so be, how much was lost at the dice?"

"Why, Sir!--you did not count I should reckon my debts of honour?"

Sir Thomas groaned within himself.

"Debts of honour!" cried Rachel. "What, be there a parcel more?"

"These be trade-debts, Aunt!" said Jack, with an injured air,--"debts that I can defray or leave, as it may stand with conveniency. My debts of honour must be paid, of course!--I looked to your bounty, Sir, for that. They be not much--but a light thousand or twelve hundred pound, I take it."

That is to say, about 15,000 pounds to 18,000 pounds.

"Jack!" said his father, "dost remember thou hast two sisters yet unwed?"

"One, Sir, under your good pleasure," replied Jack suavely.

"Two," gravely repeated Sir Thomas. "I will set no difference betwixt Blanche and Clare. And they be to portion, lad; and we have all to live. I cannot pay thy debts of honour and see to these likewise. And, Jack, the trade-debts, as thou callest them, must come first."

"Sir!" exclaimed Jack aghast.

"I say, the trade-debts must stand first," repeated his father firmly.

"A gentleman never puts his trade-debts before his debts of honour, Sir!" cried Jack in a tone of intense disgust mixed with amazement.

"I know not what you gentlemen of the Court may account honour nor honesty, Sir," replied Sir Thomas, now sternly; "but I am a plain honest man, that knows nought of Court fashions, for the which His good providence I thank G.o.d. And if it be honest to heap up debt that thou hast no means of paying to thy certain knowledge, then I know not the signification of honesty."

"But I must play, Sir!" replied Jack--in the tone with which he might have said, "I must breathe."

"Then thou must pay," said Sir Thomas shortly.

"Must play, quotha!" interjected Rachel. "Thou must be a decent lad,-- that is all the must I see."

"Come, be not too hard on the lad!" pleaded Lady Enville, fanning herself elegantly. "Of course he must live as other young men."

"That is it, Madam!" responded Jack eagerly, turning to his welcome ally. "I cannot affect singularity--'tis not possible."

"Of course not," said Lady Enville, who quite agreed with Jack's sentiments, as women of her type generally do.

"Thou canst affect honesty, trow," retorted Rachel.

"Sir," said Jack, earnestly addressing his father, "I do entreat you, look on this matter in a reasonable fashion."

"That is it which I would fain do, Jack."

"Well, Sir,--were I to put my trade-debts before my debts of honour, all whom I know should stamp me as no gentleman. They should reckon me some craftsman's son that had crept in amongst them peradventure."

"Good lack!" said his step-mother and aunt together,--the former in dismay, the latter in satire.

"I am willing that any should count me no gentleman, if he find me not one," answered his father; "but one thing will I never do, and that is, give cause to any man to reckon me a knave."

"But, Sir, these be nought save a parcel of beggarly craftsmen."

"Which thou shouldst have been, had it so pleased G.o.d," put in Aunt Rachel.

"Aunt," said Jack loftily, "I was born a gentleman; and under your good leaves, a gentleman I do mean to live and die."

"Thou hast my full good leave to live and die a gentleman, my lad," said his father; "and that is, a man of honour, truth, and probity."

"And 'tis no true man, nor an honourable, that payeth not his just debts," added Rachel.

"I cry thee mercy, Rachel; a gentleman never troubleth him touching debts," observed Lady Enville.

"In especial unto such like low companions as these," echoed Jack.

"Well!--honesty is gone out of fashion, I reckon," said Rachel.

"Only this will I say, Sir," resumed Jack with an air of settling matters: "that if you will needs have my trade-debts defrayed before my debts of honour, you must, an't like you, take them on yourself. I will be no party to such base infringement of the laws of honour."

"Good lack, lad! Thou talkest as though thy father had run into debt, and was looking unto thee to defray the charges! 'Tis tother way about, Jack. Call thy wits together!" exclaimed his aunt.

"Well, Aunt Rachel, you seem determined to use me hardly," said Jack, with an air of reluctant martyrdom; "but you will find I harbour no malice for your evil conception of mine intents."

To see this Jack, who had done all the mischief and made everybody uncomfortable, mount on his pedestal and magnanimously forgive them, was too much for Rachel's equanimity.