The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 58

"Giacomo," said Lord Culduff, "that man is not to be admitted again on any pretext. Tell the porter his place shall pay for it, if he pa.s.ses the grille."

Giacomo bowed silent acquiescence, and Lord Culduff lay back on a sofa and said, "Tell Dr. Pritchard to come here; tell my Lady, tell Mr.

Temple, I feel very ill;" and so saying he closed his eyes and seemed overcome.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX. AT ALBANO

"Who do you think asks himself to dine with us to-day, Julia?" said L'Estrange to his sister on the day of the scene recorded in our last chapter.

"I cannot guess; but I am prepared to say I'll be glad to see any one."

"It is very dull for you, indeed," said he, compa.s.sionately.

"No, George, not that. Not half so bad for _me_ as for _you_; but somehow I felt it would be a relief to have a guest, who would oblige us to drop our grumblings and exert ourselves to talk of something besides our own personal worries. Now, who is it?"

"What would you say to Mr. Cutbill?"

"Do you mean the engineering man we saw at Castello?"

"The same."

"Oh, dear! I retract. I recall my last speech, and avow, in all humility, I was wrong. All I remember of that man--not much certainly--but all I do remember of him was that he was odious."

"He was amusing, in his way."

"Probably--but I detested 'his way.'"

"The Bramleighs said he was good-natured."

"With all my heart. Give him all the excellent qualities you like; but he will still remain insufferably ill-bred and coa.r.s.e-minded. Why did you ask him, George?"

"I did n't; he asked himself. Here's his note: 'Dear L'Estrange'--familiar enough--'Dear L'Estrange--I have just arrived here, and want to have some talk with you. I mean, therefore, to ask you to let me take a bit of dinner with you to-day. I shall be out by five or half-past. Don't make a stranger of me, but give me the cold mutton or whatever it is.--Yours, Tom Cutbill.'"

"What a type of the writer!"

"Well; but what can we get for dinner, Ju?"

"The cold mutton, I think. I 'm sure the gentleman's estimate of his value as a guest cannot be too low."

"No, Julia, let us treat him to our best. He means kindly by coming out here to see us."

"I 'd have taken the will for the deed with more of grat.i.tude. Oh, George," cried she with fervor, "why will you be always so much obliged to the man who condescends to eat your salt? This Mr. Cutbill will be your patron for the next twenty-four hours."

"Certainly the man who dines with us cannot come for the excellence of our fare."

"That is a very ingenious bit of self-flattery; but don't trust it, George. Men eat bad dinners continually; and there is a sort of condescension in eating them at a friend's house, which is often mistaken for good-nature; and the fun of it is that the men who do these things are very vain of the act."

L'Estrange gave a little shrug of his shoulders. It was his usual reply to those subtleties which his sister was so fond of, and that he was never very sure whether they were meant to puzzle or to persuade him.

"So then he is to be an honored guest, George, eh?"

He smiled a gentle a.s.sent, and she went on: "And we are to treat him to that wonderful Rhine wine Sir Marcus sent you to cure your ague. And the very thought of drinking anything so costly actually brought on a shivering attack."

"Have we any of it left?"

"Two bottles, if those uncouth little flattened flasks can be called bottles. And since you are resolved he is to be entertained like a 'Prince Russe,' I 'll actually treat him to a dish of maccaroni of my own invention. You remember, George, Mrs. Monkton was going to withdraw her subscription from the Church when she ate of it, and remained a firm Protestant."

"Julia, Julia!" said he, in a half-reproving tone.

"I am simply citing an historical fact, but you'll provoke me to say much worse if you stand there with that censorial face. As if I did n't know how wrong it was to speak lightly of a lady who subscribes two hundred francs a year."

"There are very few who do so," said he, with a sigh.

"My poor brother," said she, caressingly, "it is a very hard case to be so poor, and we with such refined tastes and such really nice instincts; we, who would like a pretty house, and a pretty garden, and a pretty little equipage, and who would give pretty little dinners, with the very neatest cut gla.s.s and china, and be, all the time, so cultivated and so simple, so elevated in tone and so humble in spirit. There, go away, and look after some fruit--do something, and don't stand there provoking me to talk nonsense. That solemn look made me ten times more silly than I ever intended to be."

"I 'm sure," said L'Estrange, thoughtfully, "he has something to tell me of the coal-mine."

"Ah, if I thought that, George? If I thought he brought us tidings of a great 'dividend'--is n't that the name for the thing the people always share amongst themselves, out of somebody else's money? So I have shocked you, at last, into running away; and now for the cares of the household."

Now, though she liked to quiz her brother about his love of hospitality and the almost reckless way in which he would spend money to entertain a guest, it was one of her especial delights to play hostess, and receive guests with whatever display their narrow fortune permitted. Nor did she spare any pains she could bestow in preparing to welcome Mr. Cutbill, and her day was busily pa.s.sed between the kitchen, the garden, and the drawing-room, ordering, aiding, and devising with a zeal and activity that one might have supposed could only have been evoked in the service of a much honored guest.

"Look at my table, George," said she, "before you go to dress for dinner, and say if you ever saw anything more tasteful. There's a bouquet for you; and see how gracefully I have twined the grape-leaves round these flasks. You'll fancy yourself Horace entertaining Maecenas.

Mr. Cutbill is certainly not very like him--but no matter. Nor is our little Monte Oliveto exactly Falernian."

"It is quite beautiful, Ju, all of it," said he, drawing her towards him and kissing her; but there was a touch of sadness in his voice, as in his look, to which she replied with a merry laugh, and said,--

"Say it out boldly, George, do; say frankly what a sin and a shame it is, that such a dear good girl should have to strain her wits in this hand-to-hand fight with Poverty, and not be embellishing some splendid station with her charming talents, and such like."

"I was thinking something not very far from it," said he, smiling.

"Of course you were; but you never thought, perhaps, how soon ennui and la.s.situde might have taken the place of all my present energy. I want to please you now, George, since without me you would be desolate; but if we were rich, you'd not depend on me, and I'd have been very dispirited and very sad. There now, that's quite enough of sentimentalizing for once. I 'm off to dress. Do you know," said she, as she mounted the stairs, "I have serious thoughts of captivating Mr. Cutbill?"

"Oh, Julia, I entreat--" but she was gone ere he could finish, and her merry laughter was heard till her door closed.

Poor girl, her light-heartedness died out as she felt herself alone, and turning towards a little photograph of a man in a naval uniform, that hung over the chimney, her eyes grew dim with tears as she gazed on it.

"Ay," said she, bitterly, "and this same humor it was that lost me the truest heart that ever beat! What would I not give now to know that he still remembered me--remembered me with kindness!"

She sat down, with her face buried in her hands, nor stirred till the sound of voices beneath apprised her that their guest had arrived.

While she was yet standing before her gla.s.s, and trying to efface the traces of sorrow on her features, George tapped softly at her door.

"May I come in?" cried he. "Oh, Julia," said he, as he drew nigh, "it is worse than I had even suspected. Cutbill tells me that--"

He could not go on, but bending his head on her shoulder, sobbed hysterically.

"George, George, do not give way thus," said she calmly. "What is it has happened? What has he told you?"