The Duke's Children Part 58

"Yes; that was Marley Bullock. He's abroad somewhere now with nothing a year paid quarterly to live on. I think he does a little at cards.

He'd had a good bit of money once, but most of it was gone when he came my way."

"You didn't make by him?"

"I didn't lose nothing. I didn't have a lot of 'orses under me without getting something out of it."

"What am I to do?" asked Tifto. "I can sell him a horse now and again. But if I give him anything good there isn't much to come out of that."

"Very little I should say. Don't he put his money on his 'orses?"

"Not very free. I think he's coming out freer now."

"What did he stand to win on the Derby?"

"A thousand or two perhaps."

"There may be something got handsome out of that," said the Captain, not venturing to allow his voice to rise above a whisper. Major Tifto looked hard at him but said nothing. "Of course you must see your way."

"I don't quite understand."

"Race 'orses are expensive animals,--and races generally is expensive."

"That's true."

"When so much is dropped, somebody has to pick it up. That's what I've always said to myself. I'm as honest as another man."

"That's of course," said the Major civilly.

"But if I don't keep my mouth shut, somebody 'll have my teeth out of my head. Every one for himself and G.o.d for us all. I suppose there's a deal of money flying about. He'll put a lot of money on this 'orse of yours for the Leger if he's managed right. There's more to be got out of that than calling him Silverbridge and walking arm-in-arm.

Business is business. I don't know whether I make myself understood."

The gentleman did not quite make himself understood; but Tifto endeavoured to read the riddle. He must in some way make money out of his friend Lord Silverbridge. Hitherto he had contented himself with the brilliancy of the connection; but now his brilliant friend had taken to snubbing him, and had on more than one occasion made himself disagreeable. It seemed to him that Captain Green counselled him to put up with that, but counselled him at the same time to--pick up some of his friend's money. He didn't think that he could ask Lord Silverbridge for a salary--he who was a Master of Fox-hounds, and a member of the Beargarden. Then his friend had suggested something about the young lord's bets. He was endeavouring to unriddle all this with a brain that was already somewhat muddled with alcohol, when Captain Green got up from his chair and standing over the Major spoke his last words for that night as from an oracle. "Square is all very well, as long as others are square to you;--but when they aren't, then I say square be d----. Square! what comes of it? Work your heart out, and then it's no good."

The Major thought about it much that night, and was thinking about it still when he awoke on the next morning. He would like to make Lord Silverbridge pay for his late insolence. It would answer his purpose to make a little money,--as he told himself,--in any honest way.

At the present moment he was in want of money, and on looking into his affairs declared to himself that he had certainly impoverished himself by his devotion to Lord Silverbridge's interests. At breakfast on the following morning he endeavoured to bring his friend back to the subject. But the Captain was cross, rather than oracular.

"Everybody," he said, "ought to know his own business. He wasn't going to meddle or make. What he had said had been taken amiss." This was hard upon Tifto, who had taken nothing amiss.

"Square be d----!" There was a great deal in the lesson there enunciated which demanded consideration. Hitherto the Major had fought his battles with a certain adherence to squareness. If his angles had not all been perfect angles, still there had always been an attempt at geometrical accuracy. He might now and again have told a lie about a horse--but who that deals in horses has not done that? He had been alive to the value of underhand information from racing-stables, but who won't use a tip if he can get it? He had lied about the expense of his hounds, in order to enhance the subscription of his members. Those were things which everybody did in his line.

But Green had meant something beyond this.

As far as he could see out in the world at large, n.o.body was square.

You had to keep your mouth shut, or your teeth would be stolen out of it. He didn't look into a paper without seeing that on all sides of him men had abandoned the idea of squareness. Chairmen, directors, members of Parliament, amba.s.sadors,--all the world, as he told himself,--were trying to get on by their wits. He didn't see why he should be more square than anybody else. Why hadn't Silverbridge taken him down to Scotland for the grouse?

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

Grex

Far away from all known places, in the northern limit of the Craven district, on the borders of Westmorland but in Yorkshire, there stands a large, rambling, most picturesque old house called Grex. The people around call it the Castle, but it is not a castle. It is an old brick building supposed to have been erected in the days of James the First, having oriel windows, twisted chimneys, long galleries, gable ends, a quadrangle of which the house surrounds three sides, terraces, sun-dials, and fish-ponds. But it is so sadly out of repair as to be altogether unfit for the residence of a gentleman and his family. It stands not in a park, for the land about it is divided into paddocks by low stone walls, but in the midst of lovely scenery, the ground rising all round it in low irregular hills or fells, and close to it, a quarter of a mile from the back of the house, there is a small dark lake, not serenely lovely as are some of the lakes in Westmorland, but attractive by the darkness of its waters and the gloom of the woods around it.

This is the country seat of Earl Grex,--which however he had not visited for some years. Gradually the place had got into such a condition that his absence is not surprising. An owner of Grex, with large means at his disposal and with a taste for the picturesque to gratify,--one who could afford to pay for memories and who was willing to pay dearly for such luxuries, might no doubt restore Grex.

But the Earl had neither the money nor the taste.

Lord Grex had latterly never gone near the place, nor was his son Lord Percival fond of looking upon the ruin of his property. But Lady Mabel loved it with a fond love. With all her lightness of spirit she was p.r.o.ne to memories, p.r.o.ne to melancholy, p.r.o.ne at times almost to seek the gratification of sorrow. Year after year when the London season was over she would come down to Grex and spend a week or two amidst its desolation. She was now going on to a seat in Scotland belonging to Mrs. Montacute Jones called Killancodlem; but she was in the meanwhile pa.s.sing a desolate fortnight at Grex in company with Miss Ca.s.sewary. The gardens were let,--and being let of course were not kept in further order than as profit might require. The man who rented them lived in the big house with his wife, and they on such occasions as this would cook and wait upon Lady Mabel.

Lady Mabel was at the home of her ancestors, and the faithful Miss Ca.s.s was with her. But at the moment and at the spot at which the reader shall see her, Miss Ca.s.s was not with her. She was sitting on a rock about twelve feet above the lake looking upon the black water; and on another rock a few feet from her was seated Frank Tregear.

"No," she said, "you should not have come. Nothing can justify it. Of course as you are here I could not refuse to come out with you. To make a fuss about it would be the worst of all. But you should not have come."

"Why not? Whom does it hurt? It is a pleasure to me. If it be the reverse to you, I will go."

"Men are so unmanly. They take such mean advantages. You know it is a pleasure to me to see you."

"I had hoped so."

"But it is a pleasure I ought not to have,--at least not here."

"That is what I do not understand," said he. "In London, where the Earl could bark at me if he happened to find me, I could see the inconvenience of it. But here, where there is n.o.body but Miss Ca.s.s--"

"There are a great many others. There are the rooks, and stones, and old women;--all of which have ears."

"But of what is there to be ashamed? There is nothing in the world to me so pleasant as the companionship of my friends."

"Then go after Silverbridge."

"I mean to do so;--but I am taking you by the way."

"It is all unmanly," she said, rising from her stone; "you know that it is so. Friends! Do you mean to say that it would make no difference whether you were here with me or with Miss Ca.s.s?"

"The greatest difference in the world."

"Because she is an old woman and I am a young one, and because in intercourse between young men and young women there is something dangerous to the women and therefore pleasant to the men."

"I never heard anything more unjust. You cannot think I desire anything injurious to you."

"I do think so." She was still standing and spoke now with great vehemence. "I do think so. You force me to throw aside the reticence I ought to keep. Would it help me in my prospects if your friend Lord Silverbridge knew that I was here?"

"How should he know?"

"But if he did? Do you suppose that I want to have visits paid to me of which I am afraid to speak? Would you dare to tell Lady Mary that you had been sitting alone with me on the rocks at Grex?"

"Certainly I would."

"Then it would be because you have not dared to tell her certain other things which have gone before. You have sworn to her no doubt that you love her better than all the world."

"I have."