Orley Farm Part 29

"Oh, I hope so; any serious secret. I am sure he ought, for I am always thinking about him."

"And would you tell him your secrets?"

"I have none."

"But when you have, will you do so?"

"Will I? Well, yes; I think so. But a girl has no such secret," she continued to say, after pausing for a moment. "None, generally, at least, which she tells, even to herself, till the time comes in which she tells it to all whom she really loves." And then there was another pause for a moment.

"I am not quite so sure of that," said Miss Furnival. After which the gentlemen came into the drawing-room.

Augustus Staveley had gone to work in a manner which he conceived to be quite systematic, having before him the praiseworthy object of making a match between Felix Graham and Sophia Furnival. "By George, Graham," he had said, "the finest girl in London is coming down to Noningsby; upon my word I think she is."

"And brought there expressly for your delectation, I suppose."

"Oh no, not at all; indeed, she is not exactly in my style; she is too,--too,--too--in point of fact, too much of a girl for me. She has lots of money, and is very clever, and all that kind of thing."

"I never knew you so humble before."

"I am not joking at all. She is a daughter of old Furnival's, whom by-the-by I hate as I do poison. Why my governor has him down at Noningsby I can't guess. But I tell you what, old fellow, he can give his daughter five-and-twenty thousand pounds. Think of that, Master Brook." But Felix Graham was a man who could not bring himself to think much of such things on the spur of the moment, and when he was introduced to Sophia, he did not seem to be taken with her in any wonderful way.

Augustus had asked his mother to help him, but she had laughed at him. "It would be a splendid arrangement," he had said with energy.

"Nonsense, Gus," she had answered. "You should always let those things take their chance. All I will ask of you is that you don't fall in love with her yourself; I don't think her family would be nice enough for you."

But Felix Graham certainly was ungrateful for the friendship spent upon him, and so his friend felt it. Augustus had contrived to whisper into the lady's ear that Mr. Graham was the cleverest young man now rising at the bar, and as far as she was concerned, some amount of intimacy might at any rate have been produced; but he, Graham himself, would not put himself forward. "I will pique him into it," said Augustus to himself, and therefore when on this occasion they came into the drawing-room, Staveley immediately took a vacant seat beside Miss Furnival, with the very friendly object which he had proposed to himself.

There was great danger in this, for Miss Furnival was certainly handsome, and Augustus Staveley was very susceptible. But what will not a man go through for his friend? "I hope we are to have the honour of your company as far as Monkton Grange the day we meet there," he said. The hounds were to meet at Monkton Grange, some seven miles from Noningsby, and all the sportsmen from the house were to be there.

"I shall be delighted," said Sophia, "that is to say if a seat in the carriage can be spared for me."

"But we'll mount you. I know that you are a horsewoman." In answer to which Miss Furnival confessed that she was a horsewoman, and owned also to having brought a habit and hat with her.

"That will be delightful. Madeline will ride also, and you will meet the Miss Tristrams. They are the famous horsewomen of this part of the country."

"You don't mean that they go after the dogs, across the hedges."

"Indeed they do."

"And does Miss Staveley do that?"

"Oh, no--Madeline is not good at a five-barred gate, and would make but a very bad hand at a double ditch. If you are inclined to remain among the tame people, she will be true to your side."

"I shall certainly be one of the tame people, Mr. Staveley."

"I rather think I shall be with you myself; I have only one horse that will jump well, and Graham will ride him. By-the-by, Miss Furnival, what do you think of my friend Graham?"

"Think of him! Am I bound to have thought anything about him by this time?"

"Of course you are;--or at any rate of course you have. I have no doubt that you have composed in your own mind an essay on the character of everybody here. People who think at all always do."

"Do they? My essay upon him then is a very short one."

"But perhaps not the less correct on that account. You must allow me to read it."

"Like all my other essays of that kind, Mr. Staveley, it has been composed solely for my own use, and will be kept quite private."

"I am so sorry for that, for I intended to propose a bargain to you.

If you would have shown me some of your essays, I would have been equally liberal with some of mine." And in this way, before the evening was over, Augustus Staveley and Miss Furnival became very good friends.

"Upon my word she is a very clever girl," he said afterwards, as young Orme and Graham were sitting with him in an outside room which had been fitted up for smoking.

"And uncommonly handsome," said Peregrine.

"And they say she'll have lots of money," said Graham. "After all, Staveley, perhaps you could not do better."

"She's not my style at all," said he. "But of course a man is obliged to be civil to girls in his own house." And then they all went to bed.

CHAPTER XX.

MR. DOCKWRATH IN HIS OWN OFFICE.

In the conversation which had taken place after dinner at Noningsby with regard to the Masons Peregrine Orme took no part, but his silence had not arisen from any want of interest on the subject.

He had been over to Hamworth that day on a very special mission regarding it, and as he was not inclined to speak of what he had then seen and done, he held his tongue altogether.

"I want you to do me a great favour," Lucius had said to him, when the two were together in the breakfast-parlour at Noningsby; "but I am afraid it will give you some trouble."

"I sha'n't mind that," said Peregrine, "if that's all."

"You have heard of this row about Joseph Mason and my mother? It has been so talked of that I fear you must have heard it."

"About the lawsuit? Oh yes. It has certainly been spoken of at The Cleeve."

"Of course it has. All the world is talking of it. Now there is a man named Dockwrath in Hamworth--;" and then he went on to explain how it had reached him from various quarters that Mr. Dockwrath was accusing his mother of the crime of forgery; how he had endeavoured to persuade his mother to indict the man for libel; how his mother had pleaded to him with tears in her eyes that she found it impossible to go through such an ordeal; and how he, therefore, had resolved to go himself to Mr. Dockwrath. "But," said he, "I must have some one with me, some gentleman whom I can trust, and therefore I have ridden over to ask you to accompany me as far as Hamworth."

"I suppose he is not a man that you can kick," said Peregrine.

"I am afraid not," said Lucius; "he's over forty years old, and has dozens of children."

"And then he is such a low beast," said Peregrine.

"I have no idea of kicking him, but I think it would be wrong to allow him to go on saying these frightful things of my mother, without showing him that we are not afraid of him." Upon this the two young men got on horseback, and riding into Hamworth, put their horses up at the inn.

"And now I suppose we might as well go at once," said Peregrine, with a very serious face.

"Yes," said the other; "there's nothing to delay us. I cannot tell you how much obliged I am to you for coming with me."