The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 92

"But you love me, Julia?" said he, drawing her close to him.

"How tiresome you are!" said she, trying to free herself from his arm.

"Let me once--only once--hear you say this, and I swear to you, Julia, I 'll never tease you more."

"Well, then if I must--"

More was not spoken, for the lips were pressed by a rapturous kiss, as he clasped her to his heart, muttering, "My own, my own!"

"I declare there is Nelly," cried Julia, wresting herself from his embrace, and starting off; not, however, towards Ellen, but in the direction of the house.

"Oh, Nelly," said Jack, rushing towards his sister, "she loves me--she has said so--she is all my own."

"Of course she is, Jack. I never doubted it, though I own I scarcely thought she'd have told it."

And the brother and sister walked along hand in hand without speaking, a closer pressure of the fingers at intervals alone revealing how they followed the same thoughts and lived in the same joys.

CHAPTER LXII. DEALING WITH CUTBILL

"What's to be done with Cutbill?--will any one tell me this?" was the anxious question Augustus asked as he stood in a group composed of Jack, Nelly, and the L'Estranges. "As to Sedley meeting him at all, I know that is out of the question; but the mere fact of finding the man here will so discredit us in Sedley's eyes that it is more than likely he will pitch up the whole case and say good-bye to us forever."

"But can he do that?" asked Julia. "Can he, I mean, permit a matter of temper or personal feeling to interfere in a dry affair of duty?"

"Of course he can; where his counsels are disregarded and even counteracted he need not continue his guidance. He is a hot-tempered man besides, and has more than once shown me that he will not bear provocation beyond certain limits."

"I think," began L'Estrange, "if I were in _your_ place, I'd tell Cutbill. I'd explain to him how matters stood; and--"

"No, no," broke in Jack; "that won't do at all. The poor dog is too hard up for that."

"Jack is right," said Nelly, warmly.

"Of course he is, so far as Mr. Cutbill goes," broke in Julia; "but we want to do right to every one. Now, how about your brother and his suit?"

"What if I were to show him this letter," said Augustus, "to let him see that Sedley means to be here to-morrow, to remain at farthest three days; is it not likely Cutbill would himself desire to avoid meeting him?"

"Not a bit of it," cried Jack. "It's the thing of all others he 'd glory in; he 'd be full of all the lively impertinences that he could play off on the lawyer; and he 'd write a comic song on him--ay, and sing it in his own presence."

"Nothing more likely," said Julia, gravely.

"Then what is to be done? Is there no escape out of the difficulty?"

asked Augustus.

"Yes," said Nelly, "I think there is. The way I should advise would be this: I 'd show Mr. Cutbill Sedley's letter, and taking him into counsel, as it were, on the embarra.s.sment of his own position, I 'd say, 'We must hide you somewhere for these three days.'"

"But he wouldn't see it, Nelly. He'd laugh at your delicate scruples; he 'd say, 'That's the one man in all Europe I 'm dying to meet.'"

"Nelly is quite right, notwithstanding," said Julia. "There is more than one side to Mr. Cutbill's nature. He 'd like to be thought a very punctilious gentleman fully as much as a very jocose companion. Make him believe that in keeping out of sight here at this moment he will be exercising a most refined delicacy--doing what nothing short of a high-bred sensibility would ever have dreamed of,--and you 'll see he 'll be as delighted with his part as ever he was with his coa.r.s.e drollery. And here he comes to test my theory about him."

As she spoke Cutbill came lounging up the garden walk, too busily engaged in making a paper cigarette to see those in front of him.

"I'm sure, Mr. Cutbill, that cigarette must be intended for me," cried Julia, "seeing all the pains you are bestowing on its manufacture."

"Ah, Miss Julia, if I could only believe that you'd let me corrupt your morals to the extent of a pinch of Latakia--"

"Give me Sedley's letter, Gusty," said Nelly, "and leave the whole arrangement to me. Mr. Cutbill, will you kindly let me have three minutes of your company? I want a bit of advice from you." And she took his arm as she spoke and led him down the garden. She wasted no time in preliminaries, but at once came to the point, saying, "We're in what you would call 'a fix' this morning, Mr. Cutbill: my brother's lawyer, Mr.

Sedley, is coming here most unexpectedly. We know that some unpleasant pa.s.sages have occurred between you and that gentleman, making a meeting between you quite impossible; and in the great difficulty of the moment I have charged myself with the solution of the embarra.s.sment, and now begin to see that without your aid I am powerless. Will you help me; that is, will you advise with or for me?"

"Of course I will; but, first of all, where's the difficulty you speak of? I 'd no more mind meeting this man--sitting next him at dinner, if you like--than I would an old creditor--and I have a good many of them--that I never mean to pay."

"We never doubted _your_ tact, Mr. Cutbill," said she, with a strong emphasis on the p.r.o.noun.

"If so, then the matter is easy enough. Tact always serves for two. If _I_ be the man you take me for, that crabbed old fellow will love me like a brother before the first day is over."

"That's not the question, Mr. Cutbill. Your personal powers of captivation no one disputes, if only they get a fair field for their exercise; but what we fear is that Mr. Sedley, being the hot-tempered, hasty man he is, will not give you this chance. My brother has twice already been on the verge of a rupture with him for having acted on his own independent judgment. I believe nothing but his regard for poor dear papa would have made him forgive Augustus; and when I tell you that in the present critical state of our cause his desertion of us would be fatal, I am sure you will do anything to avert such a calamity."

"Let us meet, Miss Ellen; let us dine together once--I only ask once--and if I don't borrow money from him before he takes his bedroom candle, you may scratch Tom Cutbill, and put him off 'the course'

forever. What does that impatient shrug of the shoulders mean? Is it as much as to say, 'What a conceited sn.o.b it is!' eh?"

"Oh, Mr. Cutbill, you could n't possibly--"

"Could n't I, though? And don't I know well that I am Just as vain of my little talents--as your friend, Miss Julia, called them--as you and others are ready to ridicule them; but the real difference between us after all is this: _You_ think the world at large is a monstrous clever creature, with great acuteness, great discrimination, and great delicacy; and I _know_ it to be a great overgrown bully, mistaking half it hears, and blundering all it says, so that any one, I don't care who he is, that will stand out from the crowd in life, think his own thoughts and guide his own actions, may just do what he pleases with that unwieldy old monster, making it believe it's the master, all the while it is a mere slave and a drudge. There's another shrug of the shoulders. Why not say it out--you're a puppy, Tom Cutbill?"

"First of all it would n't be polite, and secondly--"

"Never mind the secondly. It's quite enough for me to see that I have not convinced you, nor am I half as clever a fellow as I think myself; and do you know, you 're the first I ever knew dispute the position."

"But I do not. I subscribe to it implicitly; my presence here, at this moment, attests how I believe it. It is exactly because I regard Mr.

Cutbill as the cleverest person I know--the very ablest to extricate one from a difficulty--that I have come to him this morning."

"My honor is satisfied!" said he, laying his hand on his heart, and bowing with a grand seriousness.

"And now," said Nelly, hurriedly, for her patience had wellnigh given in, "what's to be done? I have a project of my own, but I don't know whether you would agree to it."

"Not agree to a project of yours! What do you take me for, Miss Ellen?"

"My dear Mr. Cutbill, I have exhausted all my compliments. I can only say I indorse all the preceding with compound interest."

Slightly piqued by the half sarcasm of her manner, he simply said--"And your project; what is it?"

"That you should be a close prisoner for the short time Mr. Sedley stays here; sufficiently near to be able to communicate and advise with you--for we count much on your counsel--and yet totally safe from even the chance of meeting him. There is a small chapel about a mile oft, where the family confessor used to live, in two neat little rooms adjoining the building. These shall be made comfortable for you. We will take care--I will--that you are not starved; and some of us will be sure to go and see you every day, and report all that goes on. I foresee a number of details, but I have no time now to discuss them; the great point is, do you agree?"

"This is Miss Julia's scheme, is it not?"

"No, I a.s.sure you; on my word, it is mine."