Chapter 12
1753 Words
Whether the gentlemen were agreeable to each other was less evident. Mr.
Grandcourt had drawn his chair aside so as to face the lawn, and with his
left leg over another chair, and his right elbow on the table, was smoking
a large cigar, while his companion was still eating. The dogs--half-a-
dozen of various kinds were moving lazily in and out, taking attitudes of
brief attention--gave a vacillating preference first to one gentleman,
then to the other; being dogs in such good circumstances that they could
play at hunger, and liked to be served with delicacies which they declined
to put in their mouths; all except Fetch, the beautiful liver-colored
water-spaniel, which sat with its forepaws firmly planted and its
expressive brown face turned upward, watching Grandcourt with unshaken
constancy. He held in his lap a tiny Maltese dog with a tiny silver collar
and bell, and when he had a hand unused by cigar or coffee-cup, it rested
on this small parcel of animal warmth. I fear that Fetch was jealous, and
wounded that her master gave her no word or look; at last it seemed that
she could bear this neglect no longer, and she gently put her large silky
paw on her master's leg. Grandcourt looked at her with unchanged face for
half a minute, and then took the trouble to lay down his cigar while he
lifted the unimpassioned Fluff close to his chin and gave it caressing
pats, all the while gravely watching Fetch, who, poor thing, whimpered
interruptedly, as if trying to repress that sign of discontent, and at
last rested her head beside the appealing paw, looking up with piteous
beseeching. So, at least, a lover of dogs must have interpreted Fetch, and
Grandcourt kept so many dogs that he was reputed to love them; at any
rate, his impulse to act just in that way started from such an
interpretation. But when the amusing anguish burst forth in a howling
bark, Grandcourt pushed Fetch down without speaking, and, depositing Fluff
carelessly on the table (where his black nose predominated over a salt-
cellar), began to look to his cigar, and found, with some annoyance
against Fetch as the cause, that the brute of a cigar required relighting.
Fetch, having begun to wail, found, like others of her s*x, that it was
not easy to leave off; indeed, the second howl was a louder one, and the
third was like unto it.
"Turn out that brute, will you?" said Grandcourt to Lush, without raising
his voice or looking at him--as if he counted on attention to the smallest
sign.
And Lush immediately rose, lifted Fetch, though she was rather heavy, and
he was not fond of stooping, and carried her out, disposing of her in some
way that took him a couple of minutes before he returned. He then lit a
cigar, placed himself at an angle where he could see Grandcourt's face
without turning, and presently said--
"Shall you ride or drive to Quetcham to-day?"
"I am not going to Quetcham."
"You did not go yesterday."
Grandcourt smoked in silence for half a minute, and then said--
"I suppose you sent my card and inquiries."
"I went myself at four, and said you were sure to be there shortly. They
would suppose some accident prevented you from fulfilling the intention.
Especially if you go to-day."
Silence for a couple of minutes. Then Grandcourt said, "What men are
invited here with their wives?"
Lush drew out a note-book. "The Captain and Mrs. Torrington come next
week. Then there are Mr. Hollis and Lady Flora, and the Cushats and the
Gogoffs."
"Rather a ragged lot," remarked Grandcourt, after a while. "Why did you
ask the Gogoffs? When you write invitations in my name, be good enough to
give me a list, instead of bringing down a giantess on me without my
knowledge. She spoils the look of the room."
"You invited the Gogoffs yourself when you met them in Paris."
"What has my meeting them in Paris to do with it? I told you to give me a
list."
Grandcourt, like many others, had two remarkably different voices.
Hitherto we have heard him speaking in a superficial interrupted drawl
suggestive chiefly of languor and _ennui_. But this last brief speech was
uttered in subdued inward, yet distinct, tones, which Lush had long been
used to recognize as the expression of a peremptory will.
"Are there any other couples you would like to invite?"
"Yes; think of some decent people, with a daughter or two. And one of your
damned musicians. But not a comic fellow."
"I wonder if Klesmer would consent to come to us when he leaves Quetcham.
Nothing but first-class music will go down with Miss Arrowpoint."
Lush spoke carelessly, but he was really seizing an opportunity and fixing
an observant look on Grandcourt, who now for the first time, turned his
eyes toward his companion, but slowly and without speaking until he had
given two long luxuriant puffs, when he said, perhaps in a lower tone than
ever, but with a perceptible edge of contempt--
"What in the name of nonsense have I to do with Miss Arrowpoint and her
music?"
"Well, something," said Lush, jocosely. "You need not give yourself much
trouble, perhaps. But some forms must be gone through before a man can
marry a million."
"Very likely. But I am not going to marry a million."
"That's a pity--to fling away an opportunity of this sort, and knock down
your own plans."
"_Your_ plans, I suppose you mean."
"You have some debts, you know, and things may turn out inconveniently
after all. The heirship is not _absolutely_ certain."
Grandcourt did not answer, and Lush went on.
"It really is a fine opportunity. The father and mother ask for nothing
better, I can see, and the daughter's looks and manners require no
allowances, any more than if she hadn't a sixpence. She is not beautiful;
but equal to carrying any rank. And she is not likely to refuse such
prospects as you can offer her."
"Perhaps not."
"The father and mother would let you do anything you like with them."
"But I should not like to do anything with them."
Here it was Lush who made a little pause before speaking again, and then
he said in a deep voice of remonstrance, "Good God, Grandcourt! after your
experience, will you let a whim interfere with your comfortable settlement
in life?"
"Spare your oratory. I know what I am going to do."
"What?" Lush put down his cigar and thrust his hands into his side
pockets, as if he had to face something exasperating, but meant to keep
his temper.
"I am going to marry the other girl."
"Have you fallen in love?" This question carried a strong sneer.
"I am going to marry her."
"You have made her an offer already, then?"
"No."
"She is a young lady with a will of her own, I fancy. Extremely well
fitted to make a rumpus. She would know what she liked."
"She doesn't like you," said Grandcourt, with the ghost of a smile.
"Perfectly true," said Lush, adding again in a markedly sneering tone.
"However, if you and she are devoted to each other, that will be enough."
Grandcourt took no notice of this speech, but sipped his coffee, rose, and
strolled out on the lawn, all the dogs following him.
Lush glanced after him a moment, then resumed his cigar and lit it, but
smoked slowly, consulting his beard with inspecting eyes and fingers, till
he finally stroked it with an air of having arrived at some conclusion,
and said in a subdued voice--
"Check, old boy!"
Lush, being a man of some ability, had not known Grandcourt for fifteen
years without learning what sort of measures were useless with him, though
what sort might be useful remained often dubious. In the beginning of his
career he held a fellowship, and was near taking orders for the sake of a
college living, but not being fond of that prospect accepted instead the
office of traveling companion to a marquess, and afterward to young
Grandcourt, who had lost his father early, and who found Lush so
convenient that he had allowed him to become prime minister in all his
more personal affairs. The habit of fifteen years had made Grandcourt more
and more in need of Lush's handiness, and Lush more and more in need of
the lazy luxury to which his transactions on behalf of Grandcourt made no
interruption worth reckoning. I cannot say that the same lengthened habit
had intensified Grandcourt's want of respect for his companion since that
want had been absolute from the beginning, but it had confirmed his sense
that he might kick Lush if he chose--only he never did choose to kick any
animal, because the act of kicking is a compromising attitude, and a
gentleman's dogs should be kicked for him. He only said things which might
have exposed himself to be kicked if his confidant had been a man of
independent spirit. But what son of a vicar who has stinted his wife and
daughters of calico in order to send his male offspring to Oxford, can
keep an independent spirit when he is bent on dining with high
discrimination, riding good horses, living generally in the most luxuriant
honey-blossomed clover--and all without working? Mr. Lush had passed for a
scholar once, and had still a sense of scholarship when he was not trying
to remember much of it; but the bachelor's and other arts which soften
manners are a time-honored preparation for sinecures; and Lush's present
comfortable provision was as good a sinecure in not requiring more than
the odor of departed learning. He was not unconscious of being held
kickable, but he preferred counting that estimate among the peculiarities
of Grandcourt's character, which made one of his incalculable moods or
judgments as good as another. Since in his own opinion he had never done a
bad action, it did not seem necessary to consider whether he should be
likely to commit one if his love of ease required it. Lush's love of ease
was well-satisfied at present, and if his puddings were rolled toward him
in the dust, he took the inside bits and found them relishing.
This morning, for example, though he had encountered more annoyance than
usual, he went to his private sitting-room and played a good hour on the
violoncello.
- Writer
