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CHAPTER XXXV. A WALK BEFORE DINNER

Poor Sir Within! What a change is all this for you! Instead of that pleasant little pottering about from terrace to garden, and from garden to gallery; now in ecstasy over some grand effect of light on a favourite picture, some rich promise of beauty in an opening flower, or, better than either, a chance peep at the fair “ward” as she flitted past, a vision of beauty she well knew how to exaggerate by infrequency – for it was her especial habit to be rarely, if ever, seen of a morning – now, he had to devote himself to his guest, the elder Ladarelle, and not even in the office of Cicerone or guide over the grounds and the woods, but as the apologist of this, and the explainer of that. It had been settled by law that a certain sum should be expended each year on the demesne at the wise discretion of the life tenant, and now came the moment in which this same wisdom was to be arraigned, and all its tasteful exercise brought to the cold and terrible test of what is called permanency. The rock-work grottos, the temples, the rustic bridges, and cane pagodas – all that Horace Walpoleism, in fact, by which the area of domesticity can be so enlarged as to embrace the field, the garden, and the shrubbery – all this, with its varied luxury, and elegance, and beauty, and bad taste, was so repugnant to the mind of the old banker, that he regarded the whole as a tawdry and tasteless extravagance. Structures in stone and iron he could understand. He wanted permanency; and though the old envoy, with a little faint jest, begged to insinuate that he asked more than was supposed to be accorded by the laws of nature, the stern intelligence of the other rejected the pleasantry, and vaguely hinted at a “bill in equity.”

“None of these, Sir, not one of them, would be ‘allowed,’” was the phrase he repeated again and again. “The discretionary power vested in you to-day, or in me, as it might be, to-morrow – ”

“I ask pardon,” broke in the minister; “it is not my present intention to impose the burden upon you so soon. I hope still to live a little longer, with the kind permission of my friends and successors.”

“Humph!” muttered the other, and turned away his head.

“There was an arrangement, however, which I submitted to you four years ago. I am ready – not very willingly, perhaps – but still ready to return to it.”

“You mean, to commute the life-interest into a sum for immediate surrender of the estate? I remember, we did discuss it formerly. Your demand was, I think, sixty thousand pounds – equal to very close on six years’ income?”

“Yes; that was the sum fixed on.”

“Well, suppose we were to entertain the question now. What proposal are you prepared to make, Sir Within?”

“I am ready to repeat my former offer, Sir.”

“Made four years and five months ago?”

“Precisely,” said Sir Within, colouring deeply.

“Four years and a half, Sir Within, at your age or at mine, are a very considerable space of time.”

“I do not deny it, Sir; but I feel in the enjoyment of excellent health. I rise at the same hour, and eat my meals as heartily as I did then; with every regret for the inconvenience I’m occasioning, I still profess to believe that my chances of life are pretty much as they were.”

“Actuaries are the only people to entertain these points. Indeed, friends should not discuss them.”

“Our friendship has stood the test of very delicate details so beautifully this morning, that I see no reason why we should not take all the benefit we can get out of it.”

The fine sarcasm with which he spoke was thoroughly understood, though unnoticed, by the other, who went on:

“When I mentioned actuaries, I merely meant to say that demands of this kind are not arbitrary or capricious – that they are based on laws established by long and abstruse calculations.”

“Perhaps it is my fancy to imagine myself an exceptional case,” said Sir Within, with a faint smile.

“They would take little count of this. They would say, ‘Here is a man aged – ‘” he paused for the other to fill up the blank.

“Let us say one hundred,” said Sir Within, bowing.

“Who has lived long in warm climates – ”

“Participating freely in the dissipations of his class and order,” said Sir Within, throwing back his head, and looking as though, with all the daring of this avowal, he defied scrutiny.

“They’d not say forty thousand. I have my doubts if they’d give you five-and-thirty,” said the banker, curtly.

“And under these circumstances, I should consider it my duty to break off the negotiation, and retire from the conference.”

“Let us suppose, for talk sake, the arrangement possible. I conclude you would not insist upon that other matter – the settlement clause, I mean. You remember that Sir Hugh Rivers decided it was not to be maintained in law?”

“The Attorney-General, with due submission, Sir, never saw the original document; he saw the draft, which was subsequently cancelled, and if there be any point upon which I will waive nothing – positively nothing – it is this.”

“When a man insists so positively on his right to make a settlement, it is no unfair presumption to infer that he means to marry.”

“The supposition might certainly be entertained,” said the old envoy, bowing with the courtesy he would have observed in a ministerial conference.

“For that” – and the banker laid a most marked and peculiar emphasis on the word – “for that, most assuredly, I was not prepared.”

“Nor can I say,” continued the other, “that I deemed it any part of my duty to submit such a possibility to your consideration.”

“Perhaps not, Sir Within; there was no absolute reason why you should. You are, of course, the only judge of what concerns your own interests, or – or – ”

“Or happiness?”

“I didn’t say happiness, simply because I thought it was the very consideration that you were about to omit.”

Sir Within smiled very blandly; he arranged the frill of his shirt – he wore a frilled shirt – and, taking forth a splendidly jewelled box, he offered a pinch to his companion. It was the diplomatic mode of saying that a conference was closed; but Mr. Ladarelle did not understand this nicety.

“After all, Sir Within, neither you nor I are men who can affect to defy the world. What the world thinks and says of us, we cannot undervalue.”

“The world, at my age, is the six, perhaps eight, people I could get to dine with me.”

“No, no, Sir, don’t say that – you can’t say that. The world is to you, as to all men who have taken a large part in public affairs, the wide circle of those who bring to their judgment on their fellow-men a vast acquaintance with motives, and interests, and reasons; and, besides all these, with conventionalities and decorums. They form the jury who decide on, not alone the good morals of their contemporaries, but on their good taste.”

“Perhaps it might be my fortune to offer them a most undeniable proof of mine,” said the old man, intentionally mistaking what the other had said.

“Take care, Sir Within! Take care. You might be like that case at Guildford t’other day, where the judge said, ‘There is nothing so serious in the indictment against you as your own defence.’”

“I believe you said you never took snuff,” said the envoy, tapping the gorgeous box he still held in his fingers. “That clump of oaks you see yonder,” continued he, pointing with his finger, “shuts out one of the most beautiful bits of landscape I ever saw, and I have only waited for your presence here, to decide on cutting them down.”

“I will not consent to fell timber, Sir, for the sake of landscape. I am certain Adolphus would agree with me.”

They now walked on, side by side, in silence. How beautiful that wood alley was! How calmly sweet the leafy shade, how deliciously the blackbird carolled from its depths, and how soft the smooth turf beneath their feet, and yet how little they heeded or cared for it all! The banker spoke first: “If you had been prepared to propose terms on which it was possible to treat, Sir Within, my son, I know – as for myself, the plan has no attractions for me – but my son, I know, would have felt disposed to meet you; but when you start on the basis that an interval of five years, or something akin to it, makes no inroad whatever on a man’s life, and then, possibly aided by that theory, hint at the likelihood of having to charge the estate with settlement – ”

“My dear Mr. Ladarelle, forgive my interrupting you. All this is very painful, and, what is worse, unprofitable. I remember a remark of the charming old Duke of Anhalt to his neighbouring sovereign, the Prince of Hohen Alttingen: ‘My dear Prince,’ said he, ‘whatever our ministers can and ought to discuss together, will always prove a most unseemly topic for us;’ so be assured, Sir, that what our lawyers can wrangle over, we will do much better if we leave to them.”

“You know best, I am certain, Sir. I feel it is your province to understand these cases; but I own it would never have occurred to me to take a stupid old German potentate as an authority on a matter of business. May I ask what is that edifice yonder, like a piece of confectionary?”

“It is my aviary, which I shall be proud to-show you.” “Excuse me, I know nothing about birds.”

“I shall not insist, for it is the season when they lose their plumage.”

“By Jove! Sir, if this system of expense be carried on, I suspect that some of ourselves will be just as devoid of feathers. That gimcrack cost, I should say, seven or eight hundred pounds?”

“You have guessed too low! It will, when finished – for the frescos are not completed – amount to very close on two thousand.”

“For linnets and piping bullfinches!”

“Pardon me, Sir; for nothing of the kind. For the blue sparrows of Java, for the crimson owl of Ceylon, for the azure-winged mocking-bird, and the scarlet bustard.”

“Let us see what the Master will say to this fine catalogue, when it is presented to him as part of works of permanent value – that’s the phrase, Sir, permanent and substantial improvements – which scarcely contemplated cockatoos and canaries. And what do I see yonder? Is that the Lord Mayor’s state barge, that you have bought in at second hand?”

“That is a little gondola – a caprice of my ward’s, Sir, and not to be questioned in any way.”

It was the first time since they met that any allusion to Kate had been dropped between them, and already the old envoy’s voice showed by its vibration that the theme was one not to be lightly adverted to.

“The young lady’s tastes, it would seem, incline to splendour, but possibly her fortune warrants it.”

“I am certain that her tastes befit her condition,” said the other, with a tone of open defiance.

“I have no doubt of it, not the least doubt of it; I would only observe, that a person so very attractive – ”

“Well, Sir, go on; finish what you were about to say.”

“Certainly not, Sir Within, when the expression with which you hear me declares that I am taking too great a liberty.”

“It is too late for apology, Sir. You have already transgressed.”

“I never intended an apology, Sir Within, for I took care not to incur what might require one. When I saw, or fancied I saw, that my remarks, well meant as they were, might not be as acceptable as I desired, I forbore from completing them; that is all.”

“And you did well, Sir!” said the other, haughtily, while, with a proud wave of his hand, he seemed to say the subject must be dropped.

“I mean to return to town to-morrow,” said Mr. Ladarelle, after a pause; “but my son, with your kind permission, will be a burden on your hospitality for a few days longer.”

“I am proud to have his company,” said the old minister, with a courteous bow; but the other, not noticing it, went on: “He wants to see that mill. Hoare says, that without some arrangement about the supply of water, he must insist upon an abatement; that your Neptunes, and Dryads, and river-gods, consume far more than goes over his wheel; and though, perhaps, it is a little premature on our part to enter upon this matter, yet, as the man has a lease renewable at his pleasure – ”

“With your gracious leave, it is on a question of wine, and not of water, I will ask your opinion. I have got some very old Steinberger, which I purpose to have your judgment on, and as I hear the first bell ringing, probably we have not much time to lose. This is the shortest way back to the house.”

The banker made no reply; he plodded on moodily towards the Castle, and mounted the stairs to his dressing-room, neither pleased with his host nor himself, nor, indeed, with the rest of the world.

It is very probable that Sir Within retired to dress for dinner far more deeply wounded and far more irritated by this interview than his guest. With persons as plain spoken as Mr. Ladarelle, Sir Within had held very little intercourse in life. He had always played the game with those of the most refined and the most susceptible politeness. Men who would no more have committed a rudeness than a murder, and it was no mean trial of his nerves to be told, not merely that he was old, but that he was of that age in which life was something more than precarious. The ex-envoy felt, in fact, as he might have felt had some one ordered his carriage before the time he himself had told his coachman to come; thus intimating, it is possible, from reasons not entered upon or discussed, that he might think proper to leave earlier than he had contemplated. He changed colour so often, that he had to supply a little extra rouge to his cheek; and his nerves were so shaken, that he could not descend to the drawing-room without a little dram of Maraschino and ether.

He found Kate alone in the drawing-room as he entered. She was most becomingly dressed, and wore a sprig of lily of the valley in her hair, which became her vastly.

“How well you look, Ma Mie,” said he, as he surveyed her through his glass; “and how glad I should be if our guests were more deserving of us both. You, however, cannot help being beautiful.”

“And you will be witty, whether you like it or not, my dear guardian,” said she, with a bewitching smile.

“C’est plus fort que moi! Kate. The old Duc de Nevers said to me, when I was a very young man, ‘Mon cher Wardle, always talk your very best, no matter what the theme, or with whom. Never give yourself the indolent habit of careless expression. There is no such thing in conversation as dishabille.’”

“Indeed, Sir!”

“Yes, ma chere; to be epigrammatic, your faculties must be always in exercise. To let off those brilliant fireworks which astonish the world as wit, the match must be kept ever a-light, the hand ready.”

“Mr. George Grenfell!” said the servant, throwing wide the door, and, after about two seconds’ interval, that former acquaintance of our reader entered the room, and was met by Sir Within with a blended polish and cordiality.

“This is a kindness, Mr. Grenfell, that promises well for our future neighbourhood. I am most grateful to you for accepting my short-time invitation. My ward, Mademoiselle O’Hara.”

He introduced her, as he had done to the Ladarelles the day before, as Mademoiselle; why, it would not have been so easy to say; perhaps to mystify, perhaps to avoid a difficulty, perhaps to create one; for Sir Within was a diplomatist, and one of these reasons to such a man is own brother of the other.

Grenfell was evidently struck by her beauty; but there was something besides admiration in his gaze; he was surprised, and more than surprised; the traits were not altogether new to him, though the expression, lofty – haughty, even – unquestionably was. As for Kate, she had seen too few faces in life to have forgotten any one of them. They were like the books she had read, too remarkable not to be remembered. She knew him, and knew well the very hour and the very spot in which first she saw him.

Either Grenfell had not heard the name, O’Hara, well, or had not connected it with the past; very possibly, he had not heard it ever before, for it suggested nothing to him; still her features continued to puzzle him; through all, however, was he enough man of the world to conceal any show of this; and, as he sat down beside the sofa where she sat, opened the usual common-places of first acquaintance. He spoke of the country and its charming scenery, especially around Dalradern, which was all new to him; “for I am ashamed,” added he, “to own, I know more of Switzerland than I do of Wales. Perhaps in this, Mademoiselle is a defaulter like myself?”

Here was a question adroitly insinuated, to induce what might lead to some disclosure as to whence she came, or where she had been.

“I am very fond of mountains,” said she, as if mistaking his question.

“Ladies are the less selfish in their love of scenery,” resumed he, with a little smile, “that they do not connect mountains with grouse shooting. Now, I’m afraid a man in his admiration for the hill-side and the heather, has some lurking dreams about deer-stalking, and in the highland ‘tarn’ his thoughts invariably run on ten-pound trout.”

“That is the practical side by which men assert their superiority, I believe; but perhaps they mistake occasionally; I suspect they do, at least.”

“You mean, that women have the quality also?”

“I fancy that women are not so prone to parade this egotism,” said she, with a slight flashing of the eye.

“That may mean something very severe,” said he, laughing.

“In which case, I could not have said what I intended.”

Though this was said apologetically, there was a saucy defiance in her look that declared anything rather than apology.

“Your remark,” said he, “reminds me of an Irish squire I heard of, who, wanting to get rid of the charge in his pistol, fired it out of the window into a crowd, saying, ‘I hope it won’t hurt any of you!’ Have you been in Ireland, Mademoiselle?”

“I have seen next to nothing of Ireland; far too little to have caught up, as you infer, any traits of her nationality.”

There was not the slightest tremor in her voice, nor change in her colour as she spoke, though Grenfell watched her with more – far more – intentness than he was aware of, or would have permitted himself to bestow, if he had known it.

“I know very little of the green island myself,” said he. “I once made a yachting excursion with a friend to the West – the same friend to whom I am now indebted for the honour of knowing you.”

Kate’s cheek grew crimson; she had mistaken the meaning of his words, and fancied that they referred to his meeting her first in Vyner’s company, and not to his possession of Vyner’s Cottage.

“Will you let me present my friends – Mr. Ladarelle, Mr. Adolphus Ladarelle, Mr. Grenfell?” said Sir Within, at this critical moment, “and then, if you will give Mademoiselle your arm, we will go to dinner.”

It required all the practised tact and consummate skill in such matters of Sir Within’s to carry through that day’s dinner.

Kate scarcely spoke at all, the elder Ladarelle very little; the younger was evidently bent on finding out who Grenfell was, what were his clubs, his houses, and his associates; and Grenfell, not at all unused to such assaults of curiosity, repelled them by a cold and distant politeness, which gave little aid to table-talk. So that on the old envoy was thrown all the burden of the entertainment.

Where men imagine that in supplying the material wants of humanity they have amply fulfilled the part between host and guest, and that when the viands are good, and the wine exquisite, the whole responsibility is satisfied, it will seem that Sir Within’s fears and anxieties were not all reasonable; but this was not his theory. At a grand dinner, a state occasion, a certain dulness was a part of the solemnity, and full-dress liveries and gold dishes were the natural accompaniments of dreariness and display; but a little dinner meant a choice party, a selected few, bound to bring with them their faculties at the brightest; not sharpening their wits at the moment of exercise, like an unruly orchestra tuning their instruments when they should be playing, but ready to start off at score. What a blank disappointment was here! The few sallies that relieved the dulness came from the younger Ladarelle, and were neither attic in themselves, or quite unquestionable in point of taste; and when they arose to take their coffee, the feeling was rather gratification that so much of weariness had been got over, and a hope that there was not much more to come.

“I shall want you to sing, Ma Mie; I see you won’t talk,” whispered Sir Within to Kate, as he drew near her.

“No, Sir, I have a headache. I shall go and lie down.”

“That is about as much of her company as she has vouchsafed us since we have been here,” said Ladarelle the younger to Grenfell, as they stood together in a window.

“Is she haughty?”

“I don’t know.”

“Vain, I should take her to be, eh?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who is she?” whispered Grenfell, in the confidential tone he knew how to assume with younger men.

“I don’t know that, either,” said Ladarelle. “The old fellow says his ward; but I’d not be surprised if one of these days he should say his wife.”

“Why, he’s seventy.”

“Seventy-six – seventy-six! but he’d like to fancy he was eight-and-thirty.”

“A natural sort of self-delusion in its way,” said Grenfell, carelessly. “He’d be wrong to marry, though.”

“I believe you; and very hard on me, too.”

“How do you mean on you?”

“Because the estate comes to me; but he can charge it with a settlement if he marries; that’s what I call hard. Don’t you?”

Grenfell had no time to resolve the question, for Sir Within had already come over to propose a rubber at whist, a party to which, as an old member of Graham’s, his appetite was not whetted as young Ladarelle whispered, “I wish you joy of your whist; old Wardle revokes, and my father never pays if he loses!”

“Come over and dine with me to-morrow,” said Grenfell; “it will not be more dreary than this.”