Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume Ii Part 10

"I declare, Dudley, you are too bad,--too bad," said she, coloring with anger as she spoke.

"I should say, Too good,--too good by half, mother; at least, if endurance be any virtue. The world is beautifully generous towards us husbands. We are either monsters of cruelty, or we come into that category the French call 'complaisant.' I can't say I have any fancy for either cla.s.s; but if I am driven to a choice, I accept the part which meets the natural easiness of my disposition, the general kindliness of my character."

For an instant Lady Lendrick's eyes flashed with a fiery indignation, and she seemed about to reply with anger; but with an effort she controlled her pa.s.sion, and took a turn or two in the room without speaking. At last, having recovered her calm, she said, "Is the marriage project then broken off?"

"So far as the Chief is concerned, it is. He has written a furious letter to his granddaughter,--dwelt forcibly on the ingrat.i.tude of her conduct. There is nothing old people so constantly refer to ingrat.i.tude as young folks falling in love. It is strange what a close tie would seem to connect this sin of ingrat.i.tude with the tender pa.s.sion. He has reminded her of all the good precepts and wise examples that were placed before her at the Priory, and how shamefully she would seem to have forgotten them. He asks her, Did she ever see him fall in love? Did she ever see any weakness of this kind in Mrs. Beales the housekeeper, or Joe the gardener?"

"What stuff and nonsense!" said Lady Lendrick, turning angrily away from him. "Sir William is not an angel, but as certainly he is not a fool."

"There I differ from you altogether. He may be the craftiest lawyer, the wisest judge, the neatest scholar, and the best talker of his day,--these are all claims I cannot adjudicate on,--they are far and away above me. But I _do_ pretend to know something about life and the world we live in, and I tell you that your all-accomplished Chief Baron is, in whatever relates to these, as consummate an a.s.s as ever I met with. It is not that he is sometimes wrong; it is that he is never right."

"I can imagine he is not very clever at billiards, and it is possible that there may be persons more conversant than _he_ with the odds at Tattersall's," said she, with a sneer.

"Not bad things to know something about, either of them," said he, quietly; "but not exactly what I was alluding to. It is, however, somewhat amusing, mother, to see you come out as his defender. I a.s.sure you, honestly, when I counselled him on that new wig, and advised him to the choice of that dark velvet paletot, I never contemplated his making a conquest of you."

"He _has_ done some unwise things in life," said she, with a fierce energy; "but I do not know if he has ever done so foolish a one as inviting you to come to live under his roof."

"No, mother; the mistake was his not having done it earlier,--done it when he might have fallen in more readily with the wise changes I have introduced into his household, and when--most important element--he had a better balance at his banker's. You can't imagine what sums of money he has gone through."

"I know nothing--I do not desire to know anything--of Sir William's money matters."

Not heeding in the slightest degree the tone of reproof she spoke in, he went on, in the train of his own thoughts: "Yes! It would have made a considerable difference to each of us had we met somewhat earlier. It was a sort of backing I always wanted in life."

"There was something else that you needed far more," said she, with a sarcastic sternness.

"I know what you mean, mother,--I know what it is. Your politeness will not permit you to mention it. You would hint that I might not have been the worse of a little honesty,--is n't that it? I was certain of it.

Well, do you know, mother, there's nothing in it,--positively nothing.

I 've met fellows who have tried it,--clever fellows too, some of them,--and they have universally admitted it was as great a sham as the other thing. As St. John said, Honesty is a sort of balloon jib, that will bowl you along splendidly with fair weather; but when it comes on to blow, you'll soon find it better to shift your canvas and bend a very different sail. Now, men like myself are out in all kinds of weather; we want a handy rig and light tackle."

"Is Lucy coming to luncheon?" said Lady Lendrick, most unmistakably showing how little palatable to her was his discourse.

"Not she. She's performing devoted mother up at the Priory, teaching Regy his catechism, or Cary her scales, or, what has an infinitely finer effect on the surrounders, dining with the children. Only dine with the children, and you may run a-muck through the Decalogue all the evening after."

And with this profound piece of morality he adjusted his hat before the gla.s.s, trimmed his whiskers, gave himself a friendly nod, and walked away.

CHAPTER VIII. TWO MEN WELL MET

Sewell had long coveted the suite of rooms known at the Priory as "Miss Lucy's." They were on the ground-floor; they opened on a small enclosed garden of their own; they had a delicious aspect; and it was a thousand pities they should be consigned to darkness and spiders while he wanted so much a snuggery of his own,--a little territory which could be approached without coming through the great entrance, and where he could receive his familiars, and a variety of other creatures whose externals alone would have denied them admittance to any decent household.

Now, although Sir William's letter to Lucy was the sort of doc.u.ment which, admitting no species of reply, usually closes a correspondence, Sewell had not courage to ask the Chief for the rooms in question. It would be too like peremptory action to be prudent. It might lead the old man to reconsider his judgment. Who knows what tender memories the thought might call up? Indeed, as Sewell himself remembered, he had seen fellows in India show great emotion at the sale of a comrade's kit, though they had read the news of his death with comparative composure.

"If the old fellow were to toddle in here, and see her chair and her writing-table and her easel, it might undo everything," said he; so that he wisely resolved it would be better to occupy the premises without a t.i.tle than endeavor to obtain them legitimately.

By a slight effort of diplomacy with Mrs. Beales, he obtained possession of the key, and as speedily installed himself in occupancy. Indeed, when the venerable housekeeper came round to see what the Colonel could possibly want to do with the rooms, she scarcely recognized them. A pipe-rack covered one wall, furnished with every imaginable engine for smoke; a stand for rifles and fowling-pieces occupied a corner; some select prints of Derby winners and ballet celebrities were scattered about; while a small African monkey, of that color they call green, sat in a small arm-chair, of his own, near the window, apparently sunk in deep reflection. This creature, whom his master called Dundas--I am unable to say after what other representative of the name--was gifted with an instinctive appreciation of duns, and flew at the man who presented a bill as unerringly as ever a bull rushed at the bearer of a red rag.

How he learned to know tailors, shoemakers, and tobacconists, and distinguish them from the rest of mankind, and how he recognized them as natural enemies, I cannot say. As for Se well, he always spoke of the gift as the very strongest evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory, and declared it was the prospective sense of troubles to come that suggested the instinct. The chalk head, the portrait Lucy had made of Sir Brook, still hung over the fireplace. It would be a curious subject of inquiry to know why Sewell suffered it still to hold its place there. If there was a man in the world whom he thoroughly hated, it was Fossbrooke. If there was one to injure whom he would have bartered fortune and benefit to himself, it was he. And how came it that he could bear to have this reminder of him so perpetually before his eyes?--that the stern features should be ever bent upon him,--darkly, reproachfully lowering, as he had often seen them in life? If it were simply that his tenure of the place was insecure, what so easy as to replace the picture, and why should he endure the insult of its presence there?

No, there was some other reason,--some sentiment stronger than a reason,--some sense of danger in meddling with that man in any shape.

Over and over again he vowed to himself he would hang it against a tree, and make a pistol-mark of it. Again and again he swore that he would destroy it; he even drew out his penknife to sever the head from the neck, significant sign of how he would like to treat the original; but yet he had replaced his knife, and repressed his resolve, and sat down again to brood over his anger inoperative.

To frown at the "old rascal," as he loved to call him,--to menace him with his fist as he pa.s.sed,--to scowl at him as he sat before the fire, were, after all, the limits of his wrath; but still the picture exerted a certain influence over him, and actually inspired a sense of fear as well as a sense of hatred.

Am I imposing too much on my reader's memory by asking him to recall a certain Mr. O'Reardon, in whose humble dwelling at Cullen's Wood Sir Brook Fossbrooke was at one time a lodger? Mr. O'Reardon, though an official of one of the law courts, and a patriot by profession, may not have made that amount of impression necessary to retain a place in the reader's recollection, nor indeed is it my desire to be exacting on this head. He is not the very best of company, and we shall not see much of him.

When Sewell succeeded to the office of Registrar, which the old Judge carried against the Castle with a high hand, he found Mr. O'Reardon there; he had just been promoted to the rank of keeper of the waiting-room. In the same quick glance with which the shrewd Colonel was wont to single out a horse, and knew the exact sort of quality he possessed, he read this man, and saw with rapid intelligence the stuff he was made of, and the sort of service he could render.

He called him into his office, and, closing the door, asked him a few questions about his former life. O'Reardon, long accustomed to regard the man who spoke with an English accent as an easy dupe, launched out on his devoted loyalty, the perils it had cost him, the hate to which his English attachment exposed him from his countrymen, and the little reward all his long-proved fidelity had ever won him; but Sewell cut him suddenly short with: "Don't try any of this sort of balderdash upon _me_, old fellow,--it's only lost time: I've been dealing with blackguards of your stamp all my life, and I read them like print."

"Oh! your honor, them's hard words,--blackguard, blackguard! to a decent man that always had a good name and a good character."

"What I want you to understand is this," said Sewell, scanning him keenly while he spoke, "and to understand it well: that if you intend to serve me, and make yourself useful in whatever way I see fit to employ you, there must be no humbug about it. The first lesson you have to learn is, never to imagine you can take me in. As I have just told you, I have had my education amongst fellows more than your masters in craft,--so don't lose your time in trying to outrogue me."

"Your honor's practical,--I always like to serve a gentleman that's practical," said the fellow, with a totally changed voice.

"That will do,--speak that way,--drop your infernal whine,--turn out your patriotic sentiments to gra.s.s, and we'll get on comfortably."

"Be gorra! that's practical,--practical, every word of it."

"Now the first thing I want is to know who are the people who come here.

I shall require to be able to distinguish those who are accustomed to frequent the office from strangers; I suppose you know the attorneys and solicitors, all of them?"

"Every man of them, sir; there's not a man in Dublin with a pair of black trousers that I could n't give you the history of."

"That's practical, certainly," said Sewell, adopting his phrase; and the other laughed pleasantly at the employment of it. "Whenever you have to announce persons that are strangers to you, and whose business you can't find out, mention that I am most busily engaged,--that persons of consequence are with me,--delay them, in short, and put them off for another day--"

"Till I can find out all about them?" broke in O'Reardon.

"Exactly."

"And that's what I can do as well as any man in Ireland," said the fellow, overjoyed at the thought of such congenial labor.

"I suppose you know a dun by the look of him?" asked Sewell, with a low, quiet laugh.

"Don't I, then?" was the reply.

"I 'll have none of them hanging about here,--mind that; you may tell them what you please, but take care that my orders are obeyed."

"I will, sir."

"I shall probably not come down every day to the office; it may chance that I may be absent a week at a time; but remember, I am always here,--you understand,--I am here, or I am at the Chief Baron's chambers,--somewhere, in short, about the Court."

"Up in one of the arbitration rooms, maybe," added O'Rear-don, to show he perfectly comprehended his instructions.

"But whether I come to the office or not, I shall expect you every morning at the Priory, to report to me whatever I ought to know,--who has called,--what rumors are afloat; and mind you tell everything as it reaches you. If you put on any embroidery of your own, I 'll detect it at once, and out you go, Master O'Reardon, notwithstanding all your long services and all your loyalty."

"Practical, upon my conscience,--always practical," said the fellow, with a grin of keen approval.

"One caution more; I'm a tolerably good friend to the man who serves me faithfully. When things go well, I reward liberally; but if a fellow doubles on me, if he plays me false, I 'll back myself to be the worst enemy he ever met with. That's practical, isn't it?"