The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 62

"Why should it be true, sir?" cried the n.o.ble Lord, in a tone that was almost a scream. "The public does not want truth,--what they want is a scandal--a libellous slander on men of rank, men of note like myself.

The vulgar world is never so happy as when it a.s.sumes to cancel great public services by some contemptible private scandal. Lord Culduff has checkmated the Russian Amba.s.sador. I know that, but Moses has three acceptances of his protested for nonpayment. Lord Culduflf has outwitted the Tuileries. Why does n't he pay his bootmaker? That's their chanson, sir--that's the burden of their low vulgar song. As if _I_, and men of _my_ stamp, were amenable to every petty rule and miserable criticism that applies to a clerk in Somerset House. They exact from us the services of a giant, and then would reduce us to their own dwarfish standard whenever there is question of a moral estimate."

He walked to and fro as he spoke, his excitement increasing at every word, the veins in his forehead swelling and the angles of his mouth twitching with a spasmodic motion. "There, sir," cried he, with a wave of his hand; "let there be no more mention of this man. I shall want to see a draft of the educational project, as soon as it is completed. That will do;" and with this he dismissed him.

No sooner was the door closed on his departure, than Lord Culduflf poured some scented water into a small silver ewer, and proceeded to bathe his eyes and temples, and then, sitting down before a little mirror, he smoothed his eyebrows, and patiently disposed the straggling hairs into line. "Who 's there? come in," cried he, impatiently, as a tap was heard at the door, and Mr. Cutbill entered, with the bold and a.s.sured look of a man determined on an insolence.

"So, my Lord, your servants have got orders not to admit me,--the door is to be shut against me!" said he, walking boldly forward and staring fiercely at the other's face.

"Quite true, however you came to know it," said Culduflf, with a smile of the easiest, pleasantest expression imaginable. "I told Temple Bramleigh this morning to give the orders you speak of. I said it in these words: Mr. Cutbill got in here a couple of days ago, when I was in the middle of a despatch, and we got talking of this, that, and t'other, and the end was, I never could take up the clew of what I had been writing. A bore interrupts but does not distract you: a clever man is sure, by his suggestiveness, to lead you away to other realms of thought: and so I said, a strict quarantine against two people--I'll neither see Antonelli nor Cutbill."

It was a bold shot, and few men would have had courage for such effrontery; but Lord Culduff could do these things with an air of such seeming candor and naturalness, nothing less than a police-agent could have questioned its sincerity. Had a man of his own rank in life "tried it on" in this fas.h.i.+on, Cutbill would have detected the impudent fraud at once. It was the superb dignity, the consummate courtesy of this n.o.ble Viscount, aided by every appliance of taste and luxury around him, that a.s.sured success here.

"Take that chair, Cutbill, and try a cheroot--I know you like a cheroot. And now for a pleasant gossip; for I _will_ give myself a holiday this morning."

"I am really afraid I interrupt you," began Cutbill.

"You do; I won't affect to deny it. You squash that despatch yonder, as effectually as if you threw the ink bottle over it. When once I get to talk with a man like you, I can't go back to the desk again. Don't you know it yourself? Haven't you felt it scores of times? The stupid man is got rid of just as readily as you throw a pebble out of your shoe; it is your clever fellow that p.r.i.c.ks you like a nail."

"I 'm sorry, my Lord, you should feel me so painfully," said Cutbill, laughing, but with an expression that showed how the flattery had touched him.

"You don't know what a sc.r.a.pe I've got into about _you_."

"_About me?_"

"Yes. My Lady heard you were here the other morning, and gave me a regular scolding for not having sent to tell her. You know you were old friends in Ireland."

"I scarcely ventured to hope her Ladys.h.i.+p would remember me."

"What! Not remember your admirable imitation of the speakers in the House?--your charming songs that you struck off with such facility,--the very best impromptus I ever heard. And, mark you, Cutbill, I knew Theodore Hook intimately,--I mean, difference of age and such-like considered, for I was a boy at the time,--and I say it advisedly, you are better than Hook."

"Oh, my Lord, this is great flattery!"

"Hook was uncertain, too. He was what the French call 'journalier.'

Now, that, you are not."

Cutbill smiled; for, though he did not in the least know the quality ascribed to him, he was sure it was complimentary, and was satisfied.

"Then there was another point of difference between you. Hook was a sn.o.b. He had the uneasy consciousness of social inferiority, which continually drove him to undue familiarities. Now, I will say, I never met a man so free from this as yourself. I have made a positive study of you, Cutbill, and I protest I think, as regards tact, you are unrivalled."

"I can only say, my Lord, that I never knew it."

"After all," said Lord Culduff, rising and standing with his back to the fire, while, dropping his eyelids, he seemed to fall into a reflective vein,--"after all, this, as regards worldly success, is the master quality. You may have every gift and every talent and every grace, and, wanting 'tact', they are all but valueless."

Cutbill was silent. He was too much afraid to risk his newly acquired reputation by the utterance of even a word.

"How do you like Rome?" asked his Lords.h.i.+p, abruptly.

"I can scarcely say; I 've seen very little of it. I know n.o.body; and, on the whole, I find time hang heavily enough on me."

"But you _must_ know people, Cutbill; you must go out. The place has its amusing side; it's not like what we have at home. There's another tone, another style; there is less concentration, so to say, but there 's more 'finesse.'"

Cutbill nodded, as though he followed and a.s.sented to this.

"Where the priest enters, as such a considerable element of society, there is always a keener study of character than elsewhere. In other places you ask, What a man does? here you inquire, Why he does it?"

Cutbill nodded again.

"The women, too, catch up the light delicate touch which the churchmen are such adepts in; and conversation is generally neater than elsewhere.

In a fortnight or ten days hence, you 'll see this all yourself. How are you for Italian? Do you speak it well?"

"Not a word, my Lord."

"Never mind. French will do perfectly. I declare I think we all owe a debt of grat.i.tude to the First Empire for having given us a language common to all Europe. Neither cooking nor good manners could go on without it, and apropos of cooking, when will you dine? They are good enough to say here that my cook is the best in Rome. When will you let me have your verdict on him?"

Cutbill felt all the awkwardness that is commonly experienced when a man is asked to be his own inviter.

"To-day," continued Lord Culduff, "we dine at the Duc de Rignano's; we have promised Lady Augusta for Friday; but Sat.u.r.day, I believe Sat.u.r.day is free. Shall we say Sat.u.r.day, Cutbill--eight for half-past? Now, don't fail us. We shall have a few people in the evening, so make no other engagement. By-by."

Cutbill muttered out his acceptance, and retired, half delighted with his success, and half distrustful as to whether he had done what he had come to do, or whether, in not approaching the subject, he had not earned a stronger claim to the possession of that "tact" which his Lords.h.i.+p had so much admired in him.

"I'm sure he's an old fox; but he's wonderfully agreeable," muttered he, as he descended the stairs. It was only as he turned into the Piazzo di Spagna, and saw L'Estrange standing looking in at a print-shop, that he remembered how he had left the curate to wait for him, while he made his visit.

"I'm afraid, from your look," said L'Estrange, "that you have no very good news for me. Am I right?"

"Well," said the other, in some confusion, "I won't say that I have anything one could call exactly rea.s.suring to tell."

"Did he suffer you to go into the question fully? Did he show a disposition to treat the matter with any consideration?"

Cutbill shook his head. The consciousness that he had done nothing, had not even broached the subject for which his visit was ostensibly made, overwhelmed him with shame; and he had not the courage to avow how he had neglected the trust committed to him.

"Don't mince matters with me, for the sake of sparing me," continued L'Estrange. "I never closed my eyes last night, thinking over it all; and you can't lower me in my own esteem below what I now feel. Out with it, then, and let me hear the worst, if I must hear it."

"You must have a little patience. Things are not always so bad as they look. I'm to have another interview; and though I won't go so far as to bid you hope, I 'd be sorry to say despair. I 'm to see him again on Sat.u.r.day."

"Two more days and nights of anxiety and waiting! But I suppose I deserve it all, and worse. It was in a spirit of greed--ay, of gambling--that I made this venture; and if the punishment could fall on myself alone, I deserve it all."

"Come, come, don't take on in that fas.h.i.+on; never say die. When do the Bramleighs arrive?--don't you expect them this week?"

"They promised to eat their Christmas dinner with us; but shall we have one to give them? You know, I suppose, how matters have gone at Albano?

The church patrons have quarrelled, and each has withdrawn his name. No: Mrs. Trumpler remains, and she has drawn out a new code of her own--a thirty-nine articles of her own devising, which I must subscribe, or forfeit her support. The great feature of it all is, that the Bible is never to be quoted except to disprove it; so that what a man lacks in scholars.h.i.+p, he may make up in scepticism."

"And do you take to that?"

"Not exactly; and in consequence I have resigned my chaplaincy, and this morning I received a notice to vacate my house by the last day of the year, and go--I don't think it was suggested where to in particular--but here comes my sister--let us talk of something else."

"Oh, George," cried she, "I have got you such a nice warm coat for your visiting in the cold weather. Will you promise me to wear it, though you will look like a bear? How d'ye do, Mr. Cutbill?"

"I'm bobbish, miss, thank you. And you?" "I don't exactly know if I'm bobbish, but I'm certainly in good spirits, for I have heard from some very dear friends, who are on their way to see, and spend the Christmas with us."