Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume I Part 57

"Impossible, my Lord, after what occurred between us the last time."

"I don't take it in that way. I suspect he 'll not bear any malice.

Lawyers are not thin-skinned people; they give and take such hard knocks that they lose that nice sense of injury other folks are endowed with. I think you might go."

"I 'd rather not, my Lord," said he, shaking his head.

"Try his wife, then."

"They don't live together. I don't know if they're on speaking terms."

"So much the better,--she'll know every c.h.i.n.k of his armor, and perhaps tell us where he is vulnerable. Wait a moment. There has been some talk of a picnic on Dalkey Island. It was to be a mere household affair. What if you were to invite her?--making of course the explanation that it was a family party, that no cards had been sent out; in fact, that it was to be so close a thing the world was never to hear of it."

"I think the bait would be irresistible, particularly when she found out that all her own set and dear friends had been pa.s.sed over."

"Charge her to secrecy,--of course she'll not keep her word."

"May I say we 'll come for her? The great mystery will be so perfectly in keeping with one of the household carriages and your Excellency's liveries."

"Won't that be too strong, Balfour?" said the Viceroy, laughing.

"Nothing is too strong, my Lord, in this country. They take their blunders neat as they do their sherry, and I'm sure that this part of the arrangement will, in the gossip it will give rise to, be about the best of the whole exploit."

"Take your own way, then; only make no such mistake as you made with the husband. No doc.u.ments, Balfour,--no doc.u.ments, I beg;" and with this warning laughingly given, but by no means so pleasantly taken, his Excellency went off and left him.

CHAPTER XLIII. MR. BALFOUR'S MISSION

Lady Lendrick was dictating to her secretary, Miss Morse, the Annual Report of the "Benevolent Ballad-Singers' Aid Society," when her servant announced the arrival of Mr. Cholmondely Balfour. She stopped abruptly short at a pathetic bit of description,--"The aged minstrel, too old for erotic poetry, and yet debarred by the stern rules of a repressive policy from the strains of patriotic song,"--for, be it said parenthetically, Lady Lendrick affected "Irishry" to a large extent,--and, dismissing Miss Morse to an adjoining room, she desired the servant to introduce Mr. Balfour.

Is it fancy, or am I right in supposing that English officials have a manner specially a.s.sumed for Ireland and the Irish,--a thing like the fur cloak a man wears in Russia, or the snowshoes he puts on in Lapland, not intended for other lat.i.tudes, but admirably adapted for the locality it is made for? I will not insist that this theory of mine is faultless, but I appeal to a candid public of my own countrmen if they have not in their experience seen what may support it. I do not say it is a bad manner,--a presuming manner,--a manner of depreciation towards these it is used to, or a manner indicative of indifference in him who uses it. I simply say that they who employ it keep it as especially for Ireland as they keep their macintosh capes for wet weather, and would no more think of displaying it in England than they would go to her Majesty's levee in a shooting-jacket. Mr. Balfour was not wanting in this manner. Indeed, the Administration of which he formed a humble part were all proficients in it. It was a something between a mock homage and a very jocular familiarity, so that when he arose after a bow, deep and reverential enough for the presence of majesty, he lounged over to a chair and threw himself down with the ease and unconcern of one perfectly at home.

"And how is my Lady? and how are the fourscore and one a.s.sociations for turnkeys' widows and dog-stealers' orphans doing? What 's the last new thing in benevolence? Do tell me, for I 've won five shillings at loo, and want to invest it."

"You mean you have drawn your quarter's salary, Mr. Balfour."

"No, by Jove; they don't pay us so liberally. We have the run of our teeth and no more."

"You forget your tongue, sir; you are unjust."

"Why, my Lady, you are as quick as Sir William himself; living with that great wit has made you positively dangerous."

"I have not enjoyed over-much of the opportunity you speak of."

"Yes, I know that; no fault of yours, though. The world is agreed on that point. I take it he's about the most impossible man to live with the age has yet produced. Sewell has told me such things of him!--things that would be incredible if I had not seen him."

"I beg pardon for interrupting, but of course you have not come to dilate on the Chief Baron's defects of temper to his wife."

"No, only incidentally,--parenthetically, as one may say,--just as one knocks over a hare when he's out partridge-shooting."

"Never mind the hare, then, sir; keep to your partridges."

"My partridges! my partridges! which are my partridges? Oh, to be sure!

I want to talk to you about Sewell. He has told you perhaps how ill we have behaved to him,--grossly, shamefully ill, I call it."

"He has told me that the Government object to his having this appointment, but he has not explained on what ground."

"Neither can I. Official life has its mysteries, and, hate them as one may, they must be respected; he ought n't to have sold out,--it was rank folly to sell out. What could he have in the world better than a continued succession of young fellows fresh from home, and knowing positively nothing of horse-flesh or billiards?"

"I don't understand you, sir,--that is, I hope I misunderstand you,"

said she, haughtily.

"I mean simply this, that I'd rather be a lieutenant-colonel with such opportunities than I 'd be Chairman of the Great Overland."

"Opportunities--and for what?"

"For everything,--for everything; for game off the b.a.l.l.s, on every race in the kingdom, and as snug a thing every night over a devilled kidney as any man could wish for. Don't look shocked,--it's all on the square; that old hag that was here last week would have given her diamond ear-rings to find out something against Sewell, and she could n't."

"You mean Lady Trafford?"

"I do. She stayed a week here just to blacken his character, and she never could get beyond that story of her son and Mrs. Sewell."

"What story? I never heard of it."

"A lie, of course, from beginning to end; and it's hard to imagine that she herself believed it."

"But what was it?"

"Oh, a trumpery tale of young Trafford having made love to Mrs. Sewell, and proposed to run off with her, and Sewell having played a game at ecarte on it, and lost,--the whole thing being knocked up by Trafford's fall. But you must have heard it! The town talked of nothing else for a fortnight."

"The town never had the insolence to talk of it to _me_."

"What a stupid town! If there be anything really that can be said to be established in the code of society, it is that you may say anything to anybody about their relations. But for such a rule how could conversation go on?--who travels about with his friend's family-tree in his pocket? And as to Sewell,--I suppose I may say it,--he has not a truer friend in the world than myself."

She bowed a very stiff acknowledgment of the speech, and he went on: "I 'm not going to say he gets on well with his wife,--but who does? Did you ever hear of him who did? The fact I take to be this, that every one has a certain capital of good-nature and kindliness to trade on, and he who expends this abroad can't have so much of it for home consumption; that's how your insufferable husbands are such charming fellows for the world! Don't you agree with me?"

A very chilling smile, that might mean anything, was all her reply.

"I was there all the time," continued he, with unabated fluency. "I saw everything that went on: Sewell's policy was what our people call non-intervention; he saw nothing, heard nothing, believed nothing; and I will say there 's a great deal of dignity in that line; and when your servant comes to wake you in the morning, with the tidings that your wife has run away, you have established a right before the world to be distracted, injured, overwhelmed, and outraged to any extent you may feel disposed to appear."

"Your thoughts upon morals are, I must say, very edifying, sir."

"They 're always practical, so much I will say. This world is a composite sort of thing, with such currents of mixed motives running through it, if a man tries to be logical he is sure to make an a.s.s of himself, and one learns at last to become as flexible in his opinions and as elastic as the great British const.i.tution.

"I am delighted with your liberality, sir, and charmed with your candor; and as you have expressed your opinion so freely upon my husband and my son, would it appear too great a favor if I were to ask what you would say of myself?"

"That you are charming, Lady Lendrick,--positively charming,"

replied he, rapturously. "That there is not a grace of manner, nor a captivation, of which you are not mistress; that you possess that attraction which excels all others in its influence; you render all who come within the sphere of your fascination so much your slaves that the cold grow enthusiastic, the distrustful become credulous, and even the cautious reserve of office gives way, and the well-trained private secretary of a Viceroy betrays himself into indiscretions that would half ruin an aide-de-camp."