The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 57

"You must not say so, Nelly; you must never tell me you would wish I had been a party to my own dishonor. Either Pracontal or I own this estate; no compromise could be possible without a stain to each of us, and for my own part, I will neither resist a just claim nor give way to an unfair demand. Let us talk of this no more."

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII. WITH LORD CULDUFF.

In a room of a Roman palace large enough to be a church, but furnished with all the luxury of an English drawing-room, stood Lord Culduff, with his back to an ample fire, smoking a cigarette; a small table beside him supported a very diminutive coffee-service of chased silver, and in a deep-cushioned chair at the opposite side of the fireplace lay a toy terrier, asleep.

There were two fireplaces in the s.p.a.cious chamber, and at a writing-table drawn close to the second of these sat Temple Bramleigh writing. His pen as it ran rapidly along was the only sound in the perfect stillness, till Lord Culduff, throwing the end of his cigarette away, said, "It is not easy to imagine so great an idiot as your worthy brother Augustus."

"A little selfishness would certainly not disimprove him," said Temple, coldly.

"Say sense, common sense, sir; a very little of that humble ingredient that keeps a man from walking into a well."

"I think you judge him hardly."

"Judge him hardly! Why, sir, what judgment can equal the man's own condemnation of himself? He has some doubts--some very grave doubts--about his right to his estate, and straightway he goes and throws it into a law-court. He prefers, in fact, that his inheritance should be eaten up by lawyers than quietly enjoyed by his own family.

Such men are usually provided with lodgings at Hanwell; their friends hide their razors, and don't trust them with toothpicks."

"Oh, this is too much: he may take an extreme view of what his duty is in this matter, but he 's certainly no more mad than I am."

"I repeat, sir, that the man who takes conscience for his guide in the very complicated concerns of life is unfit to manage his affairs.

Conscience is a const.i.tutional peculiarity, nothing more. To attempt to subject the business of life to conscience would be about as absurd as to regulate the funds by the state of the barometer."

"I 'll not defend what he is doing--I 'm as sorry for it as any one; I only protest against his being thought a fool."

"What do you say then to this last step of his, if it be indeed true that he has accepted this post?"

"I'm afraid it is; my sister Ellen says they are on their way to Cattaro."

"I declare that I regard it as an outrage. I can give it no other name.

It is an outrage. What, sir, am I, who have reached the highest rank of my career, or something very close to it; who have obtained my Grand Cross; who stand, as I feel I do, second to none in the public service;--am I to have my brother-in-law, my wife's brother, gazetted to a post I might have flung to my valet!"'

"There I admit he was wrong."

"That is to say, sir, that you feel the personal injury his indiscreet conduct has inflicted. You see your own ruin in his rashness."

"I can't suppose it will go that far."

"And why not, pray? When a Minister or Secretary of State dares to offend me--for it is levelled at _me_--by appointing my brother to such an office, he says as plainly as words can speak, 'Your sun is set; your influence is gone. We place you below the salt to-day, that to-morrow we may put you outside the door.' _You_ cannot be supposed to know these things, but _I_ know them. Shall I give you a counsel, sir?"

"Any advice from you, my Lord, is always acceptable."

"Give up the line. Retire; be a gamekeeper, a billiard-marker; turn steward of a steamer, or correspond for one of the penny papers, but don't attempt to serve a country that pays its gentlemen like toll-keepers."

Temple seemed to regard this little outburst as such an ordinary event that he dipped his pen into the ink-bottle, and was about to resume writing, when Lord Culduff said, in a sharp, peevish tone,--

"I trust your brother and sister do not mean to come to Rome?"

"I believe they do, my Lord. I think they have promised to pay the L'Estranges a visit at Albano."

"My Lady must write at once and prevent it. This cannot possibly be permitted. Where are they now?"

"At Como. This last letter was dated from the inn at that place."

Lord Culduff rang the bell, and directed the servant to ask if her Ladyship had gone out.

The servant returned to say that her Ladyship was going to dress, but would see his Lordship on her way downstairs.

"Whose card is this? Where did this come from?" asked Lord Culduff, as he petulantly turned it round and round, trying to read the name.

"Oh, that's Mr. Cutbill. He called twice yesterday. I can't imagine what has brought him to Rome."

"Perhaps I might hazard a guess," said Lord Culduff, with a grim smile. "But I'll not see him. You'll say, Bramleigh, that I am very much engaged; that I have a press of most important business; that the Cardinal Secretary is always here. Say anything, in short, that will mean No, Cutbill!"

"He 's below at this moment."

"Then get rid of him! My dear fellow, the A B C of your craft is to dismiss the importunate. Go and send him off!"

Lord Culduff turned to caress his whiskers as the other left the room; and having gracefully disposed a very youthful curl of his wig upon his forehead, was smiling a pleasant recognition of himself in the gla.s.s, when voices in a louder tone than were wont to be heard in such sacred precincts startled him. He listened, and suddenly the door was opened rudely, and Mr. Cutbill entered, Temple Bramleigh falling back as the other came forward, and closing the door behind.

"So, my Lord, I was to be told you'd not see me, eh?" said Cutbill, his face slightly flushed by a late altercation.

"I trusted, sir, when my private secretary had told you I was engaged, that I might have counted upon not being broken in upon."

"There you were wrong, then," said Cutbill, who divested himself of an overcoat, threw it on the back of a chair, and came forward towards the fire. "Quite wrong. A man does n't come a thousand and odd miles to be 'not-at homed' at the end of it."

"Which means, sir, that I am positively reduced to the necessity of receiving you, whether I will or not?"

"Something near that, but not exactly. You see, my Lord, that when to my application to your lawyer in town I received for answer the invariable rejoinder, 'it is only my Lord himself can reply to this; his Lordship alone knows what this, that, or t'other refers to,' I knew pretty well, the intention was to choke me off. It was saying to me, Is it worth a journey to Rome to ask this question? and my reply to myself was, 'Yes, Tom Cutbill, go to Rome by all means.' And here I am."

"So I perceive, sir," said the other dryly and gravely.

"Now, my Lord, there are two ways of transacting business. One may do the thing pleasantly, with a disposition to make matters easy and comfortable; or one may approach everything with a determination to screw one's last farthing out of it, to squeeze the lemon to the last drop. Which of these is it your pleasure we should choose?"

"I must endeavor to imitate, though I cannot rival your frankness, sir; and therefore I would say, let us have that mode in which we shall see least of each other."

"All right. I am completely in your Lordship's hands. You had your choice, and I don't dispute it. There, then, is my account. It's a trifle under fourteen hundred pounds. Your Lordship's generosity will make it the fourteen, I 've no doubt. All the secret-service part--that trip to town and the dinner at Greenwich--I 've left blank. Fill it up as your conscience suggests. The Irish expenses are also low, as I lived a good deal at Bishop's Folly. I also make no charge for keeping you out of 'Punch.' It was n't easy, all the same, for the fellows had you, wig, waistcoat, and all. In fact, my Lord, it's a friendly doc.u.ment, though your present disposition doesn't exactly seem to respond to that line of action; but Tom Cutbill is a forgiving soul. Your Lordship will look over this paper, then; and in a couple of days--no hurry, you know, for I have lots to see here--in a couple of days I 'll drop in, and talk the thing over with you; for you see there are two or three points--about the way you behaved to your brother-in-law, and such like--that I 'd like to chat a little with you about."

As Lord Culduff listened his face grew redder and redder, and his fingers played with the back of the chair on which he leaned with a quick, convulsive motion; and as the other went on he drew from time to time long, deep inspirations, as if invoking patience to carry him through the infliction. At last he said, in a half-faint voice, "Have you done, sir,--is it over?"

"Well, pretty nigh. I 'd like to have asked you about my Lady. I know she had a temper of her own before you married her, and I 'm rather curious to hear how you hit it off together. Does she give in--eh? Has the high and mighty dodge subdued her? I thought it would."

"Do me the great favor, sir, to ring that bell and to leave me. I am not very well," said Culduff, gasping for breath.

"I see that. I see you've got the blood to your head. When a man comes to your time of life, he must mind what he eats, and stick to pint bottles too. That's true as the Bible--pint bottles and plenty of Seltzer when you 're amongst the seventies."

And with this aphorism he drew on his coat, b.u.t.toned it leisurely to the collar, and with a familiar nod left the room.