The Last Chronicle of Barset Part 66

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

A NEW FLIRTATION.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

John Eames sat at his office on the day after his return to London, and answered the various letters which he had found waiting for him at his lodgings on the previous evening. To Miss Demolines he had already written from his club,--a single line, which he considered to be appropriate to the mysterious necessities of the occasion. "I will be with you at a quarter to six to-morrow.--J. E. Just returned."

There was not another word; and as he scrawled it at one of the club tables while two or three men were talking to him, he felt rather proud of his correspondence. "It was capital fun," he said; "and after all,"--the "all" on this occasion being Lily Dale, and the sadness of his disappointment at Allington,--"after all, let a fellow be ever so down in the mouth, a little amus.e.m.e.nt should do him good."

And he reflected further that the more a fellow be "down in the mouth," the more good the amus.e.m.e.nt would do him. He sent off his note, therefore, with some little inward rejoicing,--and a word or two also of spoken rejoicing. "What fun women are sometimes," he said to one of his friends,--a friend with whom he was very intimate, calling him always Fred, and slapping his back, but whom he never by any chance saw out of his club.

"What's up now, Johnny? Some good fortune?"

"Good fortune; no. I never have good fortunes of that kind. But I've got hold of a young woman,--or rather a young woman has got hold of me, who insists on having a mystery with me. In the mystery itself there is not the slightest interest. But the mysteriousness of it is charming. I have just written to her three words to settle an appointment for to-morrow. We don't sign our names lest the Postmaster-General should find out all about it."

"Is she pretty?"

"Well;--she isn't ugly. She has just enough of good looks to make the sort of thing pa.s.s off pleasantly. A mystery with a downright ugly young woman would be unpleasant."

After this fashion the note from Miss Demolines had been received, and answered at once, but the other letters remained in his pocket till he reached his office on the following morning. Sir Raffle had begged him to be there at half-past nine. This he had sworn he would not do; but he did seat himself in his room at ten minutes before ten, finding of course the whole building untenanted at that early hour,--that unearthly hour, as Johnny called it himself. "I shouldn't wonder if he really is here this morning," Johnny said, as he entered the building, "just that he may have an opportunity of jumping on me." But Sir Raffle was not there, and then Johnny began to abuse Sir Raffle. "If ever I come here early to meet him again, because he says he means to be here himself, I hope I may be ---- blessed." On that especial morning it was twelve before Sir Raffle made his appearance, and Johnny avenged himself,--I regret to have to tell it,--by a fib.

That Sir Raffle fibbed first, was no valid excuse whatever for Eames.

"I've been at it ever since six o'clock," said Sir Raffle.

"At what?" said Johnny.

"Work, to be sure;--and very hard work too. I believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks that he can call upon me to any extent that he pleases;--just any extent that he pleases. He doesn't give me credit for a desire to have a single hour to myself."

"What would he do, Sir Raffle, if you were to get ill, or wear yourself out?"

"He knows I'm not one of the wearing-out sort. You got my note last night?"

"Yes; I got your note."

"I'm sorry that I troubled you; but I couldn't help it. I didn't expect to get a box full of papers at eleven o'clock last night."

"You didn't put me out, Sir Raffle; I happened to have business of my own which prevented the possibility of my being here early."

This was the way in which John Eames avenged himself. Sir Raffle turned his face upon his private secretary, and his face was very black. Johnny bore the gaze without dropping an eyelid. "I'm not going to stand it, and he may as well know that at once," Johnny said to one of his friends in the office afterwards. "If he ever wants any thing really done, I'll do it;--though it should take me twelve hours at a stretch. But I'm not going to pretend to believe all the lies he tells me about the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If that is to be part of the private secretary's business, he had better get somebody else." But now Sir Raffle was very angry, and his countenance was full of wrath as he looked down upon his subordinate minister. "If I had come here, Mr. Eames, and had found you absent, I should have been very much annoyed, very much annoyed indeed, after having written as I did."

"You would have found me absent at the hour you named. As I wasn't here then, I think it's only fair to say so."

"I'm afraid you begrudge your time to the service, Mr. Eames."

"I do begrudge it when the service doesn't want it."

"At your age, Mr. Eames, that's not for you to judge. If I had acted in that way when I was young I should never have filled the position I now hold. I always remembered in those days that as I was the hand and not the head, I was bound to hold myself in readiness whether work might be required from me or not."

"If I'm wanted as hand now, Sir Raffle, I'm ready."

"That's all very well;--but why were you not here at the hour I named?"

"Well, Sir Raffle, I cannot say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer detained me;--but there was business. As I've been here for the last two hours, I am happy to think that in this instance the public service will not have suffered from my disobedience."

Sir Raffle was still standing with his hat on, and with his back to the fire, and his countenance was full of wrath. It was on his tongue to tell Johnny that he had better return to his former work in the outer office. He greatly wanted the comfort of a private secretary who would believe in him--or at least pretend to believe in him.

There are men who, though they have not sense enough to be true, have nevertheless sense enough to know that they cannot expect to be really believed in by those who are near enough to them to know them.

Sir Raffle Buffle was such a one. He would have greatly delighted in the services of some one who would trust him implicitly,--of some young man who would really believe all that he said of himself and of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but he was wise enough to perceive that no such young man was to be had; or that any such young man,--could such a one be found,--would be absolutely useless for any purposes of work. He knew himself to be a liar whom n.o.body trusted.

And he knew himself also to be a bully,--though he could not think so low of himself as to believe that he was a bully whom n.o.body feared.

A private secretary was at the least bound to pretend to believe in him. There is a decency in such things, and that decency John Eames did not observe. He thought that he must get rid of John Eames, in spite of certain attractions which belonged to Johnny's appearance and general manners, and social standing, and reputed wealth. But it would not be wise to punish a man on the spot for breaking an appointment which he himself had not kept, and therefore he would wait for another opportunity. "You had better go to your own room now," he said. "I am engaged on a matter connected with the Treasury, in which I will not ask for your a.s.sistance." He knew that Eames would not believe a word as to what he said about the Treasury,--not even some very trifling base of truth which did exist; but the boast gave him an opportunity of putting an end to the interview after his own fashion. Then John Eames went to his own room and answered the letters which he had in his pocket.

To the club dinner he would not go. "What's the use of paying two guineas for a dinner with fellows you see every day of your life?"

he said. To Lady Glencora's he would go, and he wrote a line to his friend Dalrymple proposing that they should go together. And he would dine with his cousin Toogood in Tavistock Square. "One meets the queerest people in the world there," he said; "but Tommy Toogood is such a good fellow himself!" After that he had his lunch. Then he read the paper, and before he went away he wrote a dozen or two of private notes, presenting Sir Raffle's compliments right and left, and giving in no one note a single word of information that could be of any use to any person. Having thus earned his salary by half-past four o'clock he got into a hansom cab and had himself driven to Porchester Terrace. Miss Demolines was at home, of course, and he soon found himself closeted with that interesting young woman.

"I thought you never would have come." These were the first words she spoke.

"My dear Miss Demolines, you must not forget that I have my bread to earn."

"Fiddlestick--bread! As if I didn't know that you can get away from your office when you choose."

"But, indeed, I cannot."

"What is there to prevent you, Mr. Eames?"

"I'm not tied up like a dog, certainly; but who do you suppose will do my work if I do not do it myself? It is a fact, though the world does not believe it, that men in public offices have got something to do."

"Now you are laughing at me, I know; but you are welcome, if you like it. It's the way of the world just at present that ladies should submit to that sort of thing from gentlemen."

"What sort of thing, Miss Demolines?"

"Chaff,--as you call it. Courtesy is out of fashion, and gallantry has come to signify quite a different kind of thing from what it used to do."

"The Sir Charles Grandison business is done and gone. That's what you mean, I suppose? Don't you think we should find it very heavy if we tried to get it back again?"

"I'm not going to ask you to be a Sir Charles Grandison, Mr.

Eames. But never mind all that now. Do you know that that girl has absolutely had her first sitting for the picture?"

"Has she, indeed?"

"She has. You may take my word for it. I know it as a fact. What a fool that young man is!"

"Which young man?"

"Which young man! Conway Dalrymple to be sure. Artists are always weak. Of all men in the world they are the most subject to flattery from women; and we all know that Conway Dalrymple is very vain."

"Upon my word I didn't know it," said Johnny.

"Yes, you do. You must know it. When a man goes about in a purple velvet coat of course he is vain."

"I certainly cannot defend a purple velvet coat."