"Who dines there?"
"Himself and his granddaughter and I make the company, I believe."
"Then I shall not go. I never do go when there "s not a party."
"He"s safer, I suppose, before people?"
"Just so. I could not trust to his temper under the temptation of a family circle. But what Drought you to town?"
"He sent for me by telegraph; just, too, when I had the whole county with me, and was booked to ride a match I had made with immense trouble.
I got his message,--"Come up immediately." There was not the slightest reason for haste, nor for the telegraph at all. The whole could have been done by letter, and replied to at leisure, besides--"
"What was it, then?"
"It is a place he has given me,--a Registrarship of something in his Court, that he has been fighting the Castle people about for eighteen years, and to which Heaven knows if he has the right of appointment this minute."
"What"sit worth?"
"A thousand a year net. There were pickings,--at least, the last man made a good thing of them,--but there are to be no more. We are to inaugurate, as the newspapers say, a reign of integrity and incorruptibility."
"So much the better."
"So much the worse," say I. "My motto is, Full batta and plenty of loot; and it"s every man"s motto, only that every man is not honest enough to own it."
"And when are you to enter upon the duties of your office?"
"Immediately. I "m to be sworn in--there"s an oath, it seems--this day week, and we "re to take up our abode at the Priory till we find a house to suit us."
"At the Priory?"
"Yes. May I light a cigarette, mother: only one? He gave the invitation most royally. A whole wing is to be at our disposal. He said nothing about the cook or the wine-cellar, and these are the very ingredients I want to secure."
She shook her head dubiously, but made no answer.
"You don"t think, then, that he meant to have us as his guests?"
"I think it unlikely."
"How shall I find out? It"s quite certain I "ll not go live under his roof--which means his surveillance--without an adequate compensation. I "ll only consent to being bored by being fed."
"House-rent is something, however."
"Yes, mother, but not everything. That old man would be inquiring who dined with me, how late he stayed, who came to supper, and what they did afterwards. Now, if he take the whole charge of us, I "ll put up with a great deal, because I could manage a little "_pied a terre_" somewhere about Kingstown or Dalkey, and "carry on" pleasantly enough. You must find out his intentions, mother, before I commit myself to an acceptance. You must, indeed."
"Take my advice, Dudley, and look out for a house at once. You "ll not be in _his_ three weeks."
"I can submit to a great deal when it suits me, mother," said he, with a derisive smile, and a look of intense treachery at the same time.
"I suppose you can," said she, nodding in a.s.sent. "How is she?"
"As usual," said he, with a shrug of the shoulders.
"And the children?"
"They are quite well. By the way, before I forget it, don"t let the Judge know that I have already sent in my papers to sell out. I want him to believe that I do so now in consequence of his offer."
"It is not likely we shall soon meet, and I may not have an opportunity of mentioning the matter."
"You "ll come to dinner to-day, won"t you?"
"No."
"You ought, even out of grat.i.tude on _my_ account. It would be only commonly decent to thank him."
"I could n"t."
"Couldn"t what? Couldn"t come, or couldn"t thank him?"
"Could n"t do either. You don"t know, Dudley, that whenever our intercourse rises above the common pa.s.sing courtesies of mere acquaintanceship, it is certain to end in a quarrel. We must never condemn or approve. We must never venture upon an opinion, lest it lead to a discussion, for discussion means a fight."
"Pleasant, certainly,--pleasant and amiable too!"
"It would be better, perhaps, that I had some of that happy disposition of my son," said she, with a cutting tone, "and could submit to whatever suited me."
He started as if he had seen something, and turning on her a look of pa.s.sionate anger, began: "Is it from _you_ that this should come?" Then suddenly recollecting himself, he subdued his tone, and said: "We "ll not do better by losing our tempers. Can you put me in the way to raise a little money? I shall have the payment for my commission in about a fortnight; but I want a couple of hundred pounds at once."
"It"s not two months since you raised five hundred."
"I know it, and there "s the last of it. I left Lucy ten sovereigns when I came away, and this twenty pounds is all that I now have in the world."
"And all these fine dinners and grand entertainments that I have been told of,--what was the meaning of them?"
"They were what the railway people call "preliminary expenses," mother.
Before one can get fellows to come to a house where there is play, there must be a sort of easy style of good living established that all men like: excellent dinners and good wine are the tame elephants, and without them you "ll not get the wild ones into your "compounds.""
"And to tell me that this could pay!"
"Ay, and pay splendidly. If I had three thousand pounds in the world to carry on with, I "d see the old Judge and his rotten place at Jericho before I "d accept it. One needs a little capital, that"s all. It"s just like blockade-running,--you must be able to lose three for one you succeed with."
"I see nothing but ruin--disreputable ruin--in such a course."
"Come down and look at it, mother, and you "ll change your mind. You "ll own you never saw a better ordered society in your life,--the _beau ideal_ of a nice country-house on a small scale. I admit our _chef_ is not a Frenchman, and I have only one fellow out of livery; but the thing is well done, I promise you. As for any serious play, you "ll never hear of it--never suspect it--no more than a man turning over Leech"s sketches in a dentist"s drawing-room suspects there"s a fellow getting his eye-tooth extracted in the next room."
"I disapprove of it all, Dudley. It is sure to end ill."
"For that matter, mother, so shall I! All I have asked from Fate this many a year is a deferred sentence; a long day, my Lord,--a long day!"
"Tell Sir William I am sorry I can"t dine at the Priory to-day. It is one of my cruel headache-days. Say you found me looking very poorly.
It puts him in good-humor to hear it; and if you can get away in the evening, come in to tea."