Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume I Part 3

"Well, I don't mean that exactly, but I said it to startle you. No, Lucy; but, you see, here's how the matter stands. I have been three whole days in their company. On Tuesday the young fellow gave me that book of flies and the top-joint of my rod. Yesterday I lunched with them. To-day they pressed me so hard to dine with them that I felt almost rude in persisting to refuse; and it was as much to avoid the awkwardness of the situation as anything else that I asked them up to tea this evening."

"I'm sure, Tom, if it would give you any pleasure--"

"Of course it gives me pleasure," broke he in; "I don't suspect that fellows of my age like to live like hermits. And whom do I ever see down here? Old Mills and old Tobin, and Larry Day, the dog-breaker. I ask his pardon for putting him last, for he is the best of the three. Girls can stand this sort of nun's life, but I 'll be hanged if it will do for us."

"And then, Tom," resumed she, in the same tone, "remember they are both perfect strangers. I doubt if you even know their names."

"That I do,--the old fellow is Sir Brook something or other. It 's not Fogey, but it begins like it; and the other is called Trafford,--Lionel, I think, is his Christian name. A glorious fellow, too; was in the 9th Lancers and in the blues, and is now here with the fifty--th because he went it too hard in the cavalry. He had a horse for the Derby two years ago." The tone of proud triumph in which he made this announcement seemed to say, Now, all discussion about him may cease. "Not but," added he, after a pause, "you might like the old fellow best; he has such a world of stories, and he draws so beautifully. The whole time we were in the boat he was sketching something; and he has a book full of odds and ends; a tea-party in China, quail-shooting in Java, a wedding in Candia,--I can't tell what more; but he 's to bring them up here with him."

"I was thinking, Tom, that it might be as well if you 'd go down and ask Dr. Mills to come to tea. It would take off some of the awkwardness of our receiving two strangers."

"But they 're not strangers, Lucy; not a bit of it. I call him Trafford, and he calls me Lendrick; and the old cove is the most familiar old fellow I ever met."

"Have you said anything to Nicholas yet?" asked she, in some eagerness.

"No; and that's exactly what I want you to do for me. That old bear bullies us all, so that I can't trust myself to speak to him."

"Well, don't go away, and I'll send for him now;" and she rang the bell as she spoke. A smart-looking lad answered the summons, to whom she said, "Tell Nicholas I want him."

"Take my advice, Lucy, and merely say there are two gentlemen coming to tea this evening; don't let the old villain think you are consulting him about it, or asking his advice."

"I must do it my own way," said she; "only don't interrupt. Don't meddle,--mind that, Tom." The door opened, and a very short, thick-set old man, dressed in a black coat and waistcoat, and drab breeches and white stockings, with large shoe-buckles in his shoes, entered. His face was large and red, the mouth immensely wide, and the eyes far set from each other, his low forehead being shadowed by a wig of coa.r.s.e red hair, which moved when he spoke, and seemed almost to possess a sort of independent vitality.

He had been reading when he was summoned, and his spectacles had been pushed up over his forehead, while he still held the county paper in his hand,--a sort of proud protest against being disturbed.

"You heard that Miss Lucy sent for you?" said Tom Lendrick, haughtily, as his eye fell upon the newspaper.

"I did," was the curt answer, as the old fellow, with a nervous shake of the head, seemed to announce that he was ready for battle.

"What I wanted, Nicholas, was this," interposed the girl, in a voice of very winning sweetness; "Mr. Tom has invited two gentlemen this evening to tea."

"To tay!" cried Nicholas, as if the fact staggered all credulity.

"Yes, to tea; and I was thinking if you would go down to the town and get some biscuits, or a sponge-cake, perhaps--whatever, indeed, you thought best; and also beg Dr. Mills to step in, saying that as papa was away--"

"That you was going to give a ball?"

"No. Not exactly that, Nicholas," said she, smiling; "but that two friends of my brother's--"

"And where did he meet his friends?" cried he, with a marked emphasis on the "friends." "Two strangers. G.o.d knows who or what! Poachers as like as anything else. The ould one might be worse."

"Enough of this," said Tom, sternly. "Are you the master here? Go off, sir, and do what Miss Lucy has ordered you."

"I will not,--the devil a step," said the old man, who now thrust the paper into a capacious pocket, and struck each hand on a hip. "Is it when the 'Jidge' is dying, when the newpapers has a column of the names that 's calling to ask after him, you are to be carousing and feastin'

here?"

"Dear Nicholas, there's no question of feasting. It is simply a cup of tea we mean to give; sorely there's no carousing in that. And as to grandpapa, papa says that he was certainly better yesterday, and Dr.

Beattie has hopes now."

"I have n't, then, and I know him better than Dr. Beattie."

"What a pity they have n't sent for you for the consultation!" said Tom, ironically.

"And look here, Nicholas," said Lucy, drawing the old man towards the door of a small room that led off the drawing-room, "we could have tea here; it will look less formal, and give less trouble; and Mears could wait,--he does it very well; and you need n't be put out at all."

These last words fell to a whisper; but he was beyond reserve, beyond flattery. The last speech of her brother still rankled in his memory, and all that fell upon his ear since that fell unheeded.

"I was with your grandfather, Master Tom," said the old man, slowly, "twenty-one years before you were born! I carried his bag down to Court the day he defended Neal O' Gorman for high treason, and I was with him the morning he shot Luke Dillon at Castle Knock; and this I 'll say and stand to, there 's not a man in Ireland, high or low, knows the Chief Baron better than myself."

"It must be a great comfort to you both," said Tom; but his sister had laid her hand on his mouth and made the words unintelligible.

"You'll say to Mr. Mills, Nicholas," said she, in her most coaxing way, "that I did not write, because I preferred sending my message by _you_, who could explain why I particularly wanted him this evening."

"I'll go, Miss Lucy, resarving the point, as they say in the law,--resarving the point! because I don't give in that what you're doin' is right; and when the master comes home, I'm not goin' to defend it."

"We must bear up under that calamity as well as we can," said the young man, insolently; but Nicholas never looked towards or seemed to hear him.

"A barn-a-brack is better than a spongecake, because if there 's some of it left it does n't get stale, and one-and-six-pence will be enough; and I suppose you don't need a lamp?"

"Well, Nicholas, I must say, I think it would be better; and two candles on the small table, and two on the piano."

"Why don't you mentiou a fiddler?" said he, bitterly. "If it's a ball, there ought to be music?"

Unable to control himself longer, young Lendrick wrenched open the sash-door, and walked out into the lawn.

"The devil such a family for temper from this to Bantry!" said Nicholas; "and here's the company comin' already, or I 'm mistaken. There 's a boat makin' for the landing-place with two men in the stern."

Lucy implored him once more to lose no time on his errand, and hastened away to make some change in her dress to receive the strangers.

Meanwhile Tom, having seen the boat, walked down to the sh.o.r.e to meet his friends.

Both Sir Brook and Trafford were enthusiastic in their praises of the spot. Its natural beauty was indeed great, but taste and culture had rendered it a marvel of elegance and refinement. Not merely were the trees grouped with reference to foliage and tint, but the flower-beds were so arranged that the laws of color should be respected, and thus these plats of perfume were not less luxuriously rich in odor than they were captivating as pictures.

"It is all the governor's own doing," said Tom, proudly, "and he is continually changing the disposition of the plants. He says variety is a law of the natural world, and it is our duty to imitate it. Here comes my sister, gentlemen."

As though set in a beautiful frame, the lovely girl stood for an instant in the porch, where drooping honeysuckles and the tangled branches of a vine hung around her, and then came courteously to meet and welcome them.

"I am in ecstasy with all I see here, Miss Lendrick," said Sir Brook.

"Old traveller that I am, I scarcely know where I have ever seen such a combination of beauty."

"Papa will be delighted to hear this," said she, with a pleasant smile; "it is the flattery he loves best."

"I 'm always saying we could keep up a salmon-weir on the river for a t.i.the of what these carnations and primroses cost us," said Tom.

"Why, sir, if you had been in Eden you 'd have made it a market garden,"

said the old man.

"If the governor was a Duke of Devonshire, all these-caprices might be pardonable; but my theory is, roast-beef before roses."

While young Lendrick attached himself to Trafford, and took him here and there to show him the grounds, Sir Brook walked beside Lucy, who did the honors of the place with a most charming courtesy.