CHAPTER III.—HAZLEHURST PLEADS HIS CAUSE AND WINS IT.
“A nd the worst of it is the fellow’s right—what a bore life is—confound everything!—” As he gave utterance to this sweeping anathema, Harry Coverdale lifted a shaggy Scotch terrier by the ears out of an easy chair wherein it was reposing, and flinging himself on the seat thus made vacant, waited disconsolately till Hazlehurst should have finished a letter, which, with unwontedly grave brow he was perusing.
Having continued his occupation till his friend’s small stock of patience was becoming well-nigh exhausted, Hazlehurst closed the epistle, muttering to himself—“Well! they know best, I suppose—but I don’t admire the scheme, all the same—” then, turning towards his companion, he continued aloud—“I beg your pardon, my dear fellow! but the governor’s letter contains a budget of family politics, which is, of course, more or less interesting to me, especially as, in the event of certain contingencies, he talks of increasing my allowance, but you’re looking sentimental—what’s the matter?”
“Oh! nothing,” was the reply, “only that fellow Markum has been boring about the rabbits; he says we’ve worked them quite enough, and that the foxes will be pitching into the pheasants if they can’t get plenty of rabbits to eat, and that so much shooting will make the birds wild before the 1st.—I know it all as well as he does—there ought not to be another gun fired on the property till the 1st of September, but then what is a fellow to do with himself? I might go to Paris—but I’ve been there and done it all—besides I hate their dissipation, it bores me to death; London is empty, and if it wasn’t, it’s worse than Paris—more smoke and less fun. I’d start to America, and do Niagara, and all the other picturesque dodges, only, if the wind were to turn restive, or anything go wrong in the boiler-bursting line, I might be delayed and miss the first day of partridge shooting, so it would not do to risk it.”
“By no means,” rejoined Hazlehurst, shaking his head with an air of mock solemnity—“but luckily I’ve a better plan to propose; I must make my way home at once—you shall come with me, and stay till we are all mutually tired of each other.”
“But your father and mother?” urged Coverdale.
“Are more anxious than I am on the subject. Read that, you unbelieving Jew!” So saying, Hazlehurst turned down a portion of his letter, and handed it to Coverdale; it ran thus—“Mind you bring your friend with you; independently of our desire to become acquainted with one who has shown you such unvarying kindness, Mr. Coverdale is just the person to make up the party.”
“Yes, they’re very kind,” began Coverdale, returning the letter, “very kind, but—”
“But what, man,” rejoined Hazlehurst quickly, “we want you to come to us; you have not only no other engagement, but actually don’t know what to do with yourself, and yet you hesitate. However, to come to the point at once, I ask you plainly, and expect a plain answer—where’s the hitch?”
“Well done, most learned counsel, that is the way to browbeat a witness, and no mistake,” replied Coverdale, laughing at his friend’s vehemence; “however, I won’t provoke any farther display of your forensic talents by attempting to prevaricate. The fact is, I know you’ve a bevy of sisters, she cousins, and what not, very charming girls, I dare say; but you see I’m not fit for women’s society, and that’s the truth of it—I’ve chosen my line—I know what suits me best—and I dare say I shall live and die a bachelor, as the old Admiral did before me. I know what women are, and what they expect of one; if a fellow happens to be a little bit rough and ready, they call him a bear, and vow he’s got no soul; ’gad, that’s what the Turks say of them, by-the-bye!—Poetical justice; eh?”
“My dear boy, you’ll excuse my saying so, but you really are talking great nonsense,” interrupted Hazlehurst; “You’re a thorough gentleman in mind, manners, and appearance, if I know the meaning of the term, and neither my sisters, nor my cousin (there is but one), have such bad taste as to prefer a finical fop to a fine manly fellow like yourself—no, they’re more likely to fall into the other extreme.”
“And that would be the worst of the two by long odds,” exclaimed Harry aghast; “only fancy me with a wife in the shooting-season—bothering me to stay at home with her, or to drive her out in a four-wheeled arm-chair with a pair of little hopping rats of ponies, that the best whip in the three kingdoms could not screw above six miles an hour out of, if he were to flog their hides off; or, worse still, to take me boxed up in a close carriage to call upon somebody’s grandmother, and I breaking my heart all the time to be blazing away at the partridges. I know what it is—I was staying down in Leicestershire, before I went abroad, with poor Phil Anderton, as stanch a sportsman, and as thoroughly good a fellow, as ever drew trigger, before he married Lady Mirvinia Bluebas. Well, they hadn’t been coupled six months before she’d got him so tight in hand that he daren’t smoke a cigar without a special licence. The first season, she let him shoot Wednesdays and Fridays, and hunt Thursdays and Saturdays. The next year she made him sell off his guns, dogs, and horses, and carried him over to the Continent. What was the result?—why, the poor fellow became so bored and miserable, that he took to gambling, lost every farthing he had in the world at roulette, and—didn’t blow his brains out; so my lady has the pleasure of keeping him, and living herself, upon five hundred a-year pin-money.”
“Verdict, served her right”—observed Hazlehurst judicially; “but you forget, my dear boy, that Anderton, though a good fellow enough in his way, was made of such yielding materials, that anybody could do what they liked with him—rather soft here,” he continued, tapping his forehead; “now you have got sterner stuff in you, and if a woman were to try it on with you in that style, it strikes me she’d find her master.”
“Ah! I don’t know,” sighed Coverdale reflectively; “its easier to talk about managing women than to do it—they’ve got a way with ’em, at least the pleasant ones have, of coming over a fellow somehow, and making him fancy for the moment (it doesn’t last, mind you—and there’s the nuisance of it), that he’d rather do what they wish him, than what he wants to do himself. Then again, if a man offends you, you can quietly knock him down, and if he feels aggrieved, he can have you out (not that I admire duelling); but if you quarrel with a woman, there’s no dernier ressort, you can’t knock her down, poor weak thing, and so you’re reduced to growl like a dog, and she to spit like a cat, and you leave off as you began, without having attained any definite result.”
“I have heard of such a thing as moral force,” suggested Hazlehurst ironically.
“That’s one’s only chance,” returned Coverdale, “though it is one that, to speak seriously and sensibly, I’ve tolerably strong faith in. A fellow must be wanting in manliness of character, if he cannot contrive to manage a woman by moral force, as you call it; there’s a quiet way of doing that as well as everything else, only it’s such a confoundedly slow process.”
“No making ’em to come to the point, eh?” rejoined Hazlehurst; “Well, I have my own ideas about it; how they would work, remains to be proved; but as you’ve such splendid theories on the subject, don’t pretend you’re unfitted for woman’s society. Why, man, you’re equal to a whole seminary of young ladies—your ‘quiet manner’ would prove as irresistible with them as it did with the redoubtable Mr. Styles.”
By way of reply to this impertinent allusion, Coverdale shook his clenched fist (which still bore traces of his late encounter) in his friend’s face with a pseudo-threatening gesture. Hazlehurst sprang back in pretended alarm, with to sudden a movement as to arouse the Scotch terrier from his nap, who, waking up in a fright, immediately recurred to his leading idea that there were thieves in the house, and rushed to the door barking furiously. When the laughter, which this little incident excited, had in some degree abated, Hazlehurst resumed—
“But seriously, Harry, I want you to come home with me, and I’ll tell you in confidence why. You and I have known each other from the time we were schoolboys together, and though, as in re Styles, you act a little hastily sometimes, there is no man on whose clear judgment and high principle I’ve greater reliance than on yours. I’ve received a letter from home this morning, which has annoyed me more than I can tell you. To come to the point at once, the case stands thus:—My father’s pet weakness (rather a creditable one) is family pride; now the Grange has belonged to the Hazlehursts for the last three hundred years, but in my great-grandfather’s time the estate became woefully diminished—the old scamp was a regular wild one, and not only made ducks and drakes of everything he could lay his hands on, but as soon as my grandfather came of age, induced him to cut on the entail, and sold the best half of the family property; some of this my grandfather contrived to redeem in his lifetime, and my Governor has been scheming and screwing all his days in order to buy back the rest. In an evil hour he was induced to invest his savings in a railroad, hoping to attain his object sooner; of course it paid beautifully at first; of course in due time a crash came, and the Pater not only lost all his savings, but was forced to sell a farm of five hundred acres, dear to him as the apple of his eye. The individual who purchased it, and who owns the property my great-grandfather sold, is a certain millionaire cotton spinner, as rich as Crœsus; the fellow is said to have £20,000 a-year. Well, since the railroad affair, a jolly old aunt has died, and left the Governor some tin, and he’s breaking his heart to buy back the farm, but cotton spinner refuses to sell. How at the last Hunt Ball, my eldest sister, came out—she is very pretty, and a nice, taking sort of girl in society—and said cotton spinner came, saw, and was conquered! so much so, that having offered serious intentions ever since, he has ended by offering himself. Thereupon arose a difference of opinion between Alice and the Governor—Alice pleading that she didn’t love cotton spinner one bit, and didn’t expect she ever should do so, and Governor declaring that it was all sentimental bosh, and that if she married the man, as much love as it was at all proper for a young lady to feel, would come afterwards. At last, they made a compromise—Alice was to consent to see more of Mr. Crane, and do her best to like him, in which case, said Crane would allow her to postpone her decision till a future period: to this Alice was fain to consent, and now the suitor is coming to the Grange, on approval, and the Governor’s asked a party of people to meet him.”
“And how do you stand affected towards the proposed alliance?” inquired Coverdale, lifting the Skye terrier into his lap by the nape of its neck, and then curling it up like a fried whiting.
“Not over favourably,” returned Hazlehurst, “which, by the way, is very disinterested of me; for if the affair comes off, and the Governor buys his farm back again—which of course is what he is looking to—he promises to settle the residue of the aunt’s legacy upon me, by which I should be some £200 a-year the better; but it would not be a match to please me. I’m very fond of Alice; she is a dear good girl as ever lived, and I don’t admire the cotton spinner: in the first place, he’s nearly, or quite forty, while she was nineteen last term; in the second place, he’s a slow coach, good-natured enough, and all that, but nothing in him.”
“No soul”—suggested Harry.
“Not enough to animate a kitten, I should imagine,” was the reply;—“not that the man’s a fool—indeed, in his own line he is said to be clever. He invented some dodge to simplify his machinery, by which he nearly doubled his fortune.”
“That was decidedly clever”—remarked Harry, busily engaged in dressing the “Skye” in a muslin “anti-macassar,” placed clean upon the sofa that morning.
“To come to the point, however,” continued Hazlehurst—“I want you to see the man, and try and find out what he’s made of.”
“Fool’s-flesh probably”—suggested Coverdale sotto voce.
“I wish you would try and be serious for five minutes,” returned Hazlehurst testily; “nothing is more provoking than small attempts at wit, when one wants a man to give his attention sensibly to that which one is saying.”
“I stand, or more properly sit, corrected: so continue, most sapient and surly brother!”—was the mocking answer.
Hazlehurst tried to look angry and dignified, but a glance at his friend’s handsome, merry, and, withal, slightly impudent face, disarmed his wrath, and muttering—“Confound you for a stupid, provoking, old humbug”—he burst into a fit of laughter. As soon as he had recovered his gravity, he resumed: “As I said before, I want you to come and make your observations on the cotton spinner, and if your opinion agrees with mine, you must back me up in making a serious remonstrance with the Governor. I know the old gentleman well, and am sure he’ll think twice as much of what I say when he finds that you, a man of the world and a large landed proprietor (that’ll tell with him immensely) look upon the matter in the same light. And now you know my reasons, what do you say?”
“Say! what can I say but that I—ahem!—respect the sacred call of friendship, and am prepared to sacrifice myself upon its altar: that’s the correct phraseology, isn’t it? I tell you what, though,” continued Harry gravely, “I make one condition, without which I don’t stir a peg: I’m at your service and that of the cotton spinner, as much as you please; but beyond the requirements of society, I’m not to be expected to concern myself about the women—I’m not to be forced into tête-a-tête drives in pony-chaises, or set to turn over music-books at the piano—I know what all that sort of thing leads to well: is it a bargain?”
“Of course it is,” returned Hazlehurst eagerly; “come to please me, and I leave you to please yourself when you get there.”
“Then, as Sam Weller says, ‘You may take down the bill, for I’m let to a single gentleman,’” was Coverdale’s reply—and so the affair was settled.
CHAPTER IV.—CONTAINS, AMONG OTHER “EXQUISITE” SKETCHES, A PORTRAIT OF A PUPPY (NOT BY LANDSEER).
HAZLEHURST Grange was a picturesque old mansion, modernised out of all resemblance to its moated namesake which Tennyson has immortalised, by the addition of gay flower-beds, closely-shaven lawns, judiciously-planted shrubberies, and other appliances of landscape gardening. It was situated about eighteen miles from Coverdale Park, a distance which Harry’s trotting mare, who had grown plump and saucy upon rest and good keep, accomplished, to her owner’s intense satisfaction, in less than five minutes over the hour and a-half.
“Pretty fair travelling that, eh, Master Arthur,” he observed, replacing his watch in his waistcoat pocket, “and what I particularly like about it is, that the mare did it all willingly and of her own accord, took well to collar at starting, and kept it up steadily, and in a business-like manner, till her work was done.”
“In fact, behaved as utterly unlike a female throughout the whole affair, as if she had belonged to the nobler sex,” returned Hazlehurst, sarcastically.
“Infandum renovare dolorem!—why will you remind me of my coming trials, and not suffer me to enjoy the pleasures of forgetfulness while I may?” was Coverdale’s desponding rejoinder.
“Simply because, unless I am greatly mistaken, they literally are coming trials,” was the reply. “Look through that belt of trees on the left; don’t you see the flutter of something white?”
“Muslin, by all that’s flimsy, frivolous, and feminine!” exclaimed Harry, aghast: “I say, Arthur, can’t we turn off somewhere?”
“By all means, if you wish it; there’s a gravel-pit on the right-hand, and a precipitous bank sloping down to the river on the left, which will you prefer?” was the obliging rejoinder. As he spoke, a turn in the road disclosed to their view a group of three figures, slowly advancing in the same direction as that in which they were themselves proceeding.
“My cousin, Kate Marsden, my sister Alice, and a gent, name unknown,” observed Hazlehurst, as his eyes fell upon the trio. “Why, surely it is—no, it can’t be—yes it is, Horace D’Almayne.”
“Allowing, merely for the sake of argument, that it is the individual you mention, who may he happen to be?” inquired Harry, taking up the whip which had hitherto reposed innocuously between them, and performing rash feats with it over the ears of “My old Aunt Sally”—(for so in honour of the Ethiopian Serenaders, then in the zenith of their popularity, had Harry named his new favourite).
“My dear fellow, you don’t mean to say that you never heard of him? Not to know Horace D’Almayne argues yourself unknown; why, man, he is a noted wit, a successful poet, the greatest dandy, and the most incorrigible male flirt about town: knows everybody, has been everywhere, and done everything.”
“What is he like across a stiff line of country, and how many brace can he bag to his own gun?” inquired Harry drily.
“Not knowing can’t say,” was the rejoinder, “but that’s not at all in his way; he affects, if it is affectation, the man of sentiment; however, just now he is believed in to the fullest extent, and considered a regular lion.”
“A regular tiger, I should have fancied rather,” was the cynical reply. “Why, the brute actually wears moustaches.”
“He has served in the Austrian army, and sports the mouse-tails on the strength of his military pretensions,” was the reply.
After a minute’s pause, Coverdale observed, inquiringly, “I suppose we must needs pull up and do the civil by these good people.”
“Why, considering that I have not seen my sister for the last five months, family affection (to say nothing of the duties of society) demands the sacrifice,” returned Hazlehurst.
“Cut it short then, there’s a good fellow, the mare’s too hot to be allowed to stand long, and I would not have anything go wrong with her after the splendid manner in which she has brought us to-day, for three times the money I gave for her.”
As he spoke, Harry again impatiently flirted the whip over the ears of “My old Aunt Sally,” an indignity which excited the fiery disposition of that highly-descended quadruped, who, throwing up her head and tail, flinging out her fore feet, as though she were sparring with the distance her speed must overcome, and altogether looking her very handsomest, dashed up to the group of pedestrians so suddenly as to cause the two ladies to draw back in alarm; while even the redoubtable Horace himself sprang out of the way with a degree of alacrity which evinced a stronger regard for his personal safety than might have been expected from so heroic a character. For this sacrifice of dignity to the first law of nature, self-preservation, he endeavoured to compensate himself by stroking his moustaches, and staring superciliously at the new comers.
While Hazlehurst, who sprang down the moment the dog-cart stopped, was exchanging greetings with his cousin and sister, Harry was left undisturbed to make his observations on the trio to whom he was about to be introduced. The elder of the two young ladies, who responded to the definition, “My cousin, Miss Kate Marsden,” was above the middle height, and of a singularly graceful figure; her features were delicately formed and regular, her complexion pale, but clear, her hair and eyes dark, the latter being large and expressive, her hands and feet small, and her whole bearing and appearance refined and aristocratic in the extreme; but her features bore a look of proud reserve, which interfered with the effect which her beauty would otherwise have produced—an inscrutable look, which seemed to say, “I have a peculiar and decided character, but I defy you to read it.”
It is of no use to attempt to describe Alice Hazlehurst, for the simple reason that no description could convey an adequate idea of her. Not that she was anything particularly wonderful; she was not even a miracle of beauty—she was only about the best thing this fallen world of ours contains—a bright, high-spirited, pure, simple, true-hearted, lovely, and loveable young girl, just emerging into graceful womanhood; very shy, slightly romantic, full of kindly sympathies and generous impulses, which she concealed as carefully as bad men hide unpopular vices, and with all the deep and noble qualities of her woman’s nature, as well as, alas! its faults and foibles, lying dormant within her, either to be developed in their full completeness, or dwarfed into comparative insignificance, as the hands into which she might fall should prove fitted or unfitted to the great, yet enviable, responsibility of forming her character. As Hazlehurst leapt down, she sprang forward to meet him; then drew back from his hearty embrace with a smile and a blush, which very unnecessarily made her appear prettier than before, to acknowledge, with a bow, her introduction to her brother’s friend.
The third member of the party, Horace D’Almayne, had been well fitted by nature to sustain the character of “exquisite”—tall, and with a graceful, slender figure, his well-formed and regular features, soft dark hair, and brilliant complexion, gave him an undoubted right to the epithet handsome, although it was in a style suited rather to a woman than to a man. The expression of his face, cynical and supercilious when in repose, or when he spoke to one of his own sex, relaxed into a smile of sentimental self-confidence when he addressed a woman. He appeared very young, probably not above two or three and twenty, and was dressed up to the ne plus ultra of refined dandyism.
“‘Why, D’Almayne,” exclaimed Hazlehurst, “how is it that we come to be honoured by your company? I was not even aware that my father possessed the pleasure of your acquaintance.”
“Nor did he a week ago; but the matter came about thus,” was the reply. “During the London season I was introduced at one of the Duke of D———’s parties, to an opulent individual of the name of Crane, learned his opinion prospective and retrospective in regard to the weather, bowed adieu, and straightway forgot him. About a month since, being in a café at Baden-Baden, my attention was attracted by an awful charivari; and on attempting to investigate the cause thereof, discovered Friend Crane lamenting himself pathetically in bad French and worse German, and surrounded by a mob of foreigners. Having in some degree appeased his polyglot passion, I soon contrived to make out, that his pocket having been picked by A., he had accused innocent B., and denounced unoffending C.—a vicarious system of reprisals which those victimised individuals appeared, not unnaturally, inclined to resent. Understanding somewhat better than our irascible friend the language and customs of the natives, I contrived to extricate him from the dilemma; for which act of good Samaritanism I have been, from that time forward, more or less the victim of his indefatigable gratitude. Your worthy father finding me a few days since located in the Château Crane, politely included me in his invitation. I arrived this morning, and under the able tuition of your cousin and sister, was rapidly becoming acquainted with the beauties of Hazlehurst, when you drove up.”
As he insinuated this skilfully-veiled compliment, the exquisite Horace pointed its application by favouring Alice with a languishing œillade, which was certainly not without effect; for it excited in the breast of Harry Coverdale a sudden, intense, and unreasonable desire then and there heartily to kick the talented originator of the compliment. This impulse he was only enabled to check by a powerful effort, which caused him to twitch the reins so suddenly, as painfully to compress the delicate mouth of “My Aunt Sally,” to an extent which justified that outraged quadruped in converting herself for the time being into a biped, by standing erect on her hind legs, and pawing the air with her fore feet.
“Soho, girl! gently, gently!” exclaimed Hazlehurst, who, not having perceived the exciting cause of the manœuvre, attributed the mare’s unmannerly behaviour to an outbreak of inherent viciousness. “Why, Harry, what on earth is the matter with the creature?”
“Probably nothing more than a reasonless caprice natural to her sex,” was Harry’s ungallant reply. “Possibly she may have the bad taste to prefer the creature comforts of a cool stable and a good feed of corn, to remaining in the broiling sunshine, even with the opportunity of becoming acquainted with the beauties of Hazlehurst;” and as he made this sarcastic remark, Harry glanced, carelessly round over wood and field, so that any one not well acquainted with the play of his features would have been puzzled to decide whether he was himself aware of the full meaning of his words.
“A pretty broad hint that I am not to keep the mare standing any longer,” returned Hazlehurst, turning to his cousin and sister. “That fellow cares for nothing in the world but his horses, except his dogs and his double-barrel. Well, I suppose you girls will be coming home soon.”
“Quite as soon as we are wanted, if your amiable and complimentary friend has any voice in the matter,” returned Alice, sotto voce.
“Nonsense,” was the reply in the same tone; “you know nothing about him, you silly child. Harry is the kindest-hearted, best-tempered fellow in the world, as you’ll find out before long.”
Alice’s only reply was an incredulous toss of her pretty head, and the parties separated.
“Of all the puppies I ever beheld, that creature D’Almayne is the most insufferable—the very sight of him irritates me. What business has he to pay his absurd compliments to your sister, when he has only known her for a few hours? If I were you, I should not stand it.”
“At all events, his compliments are of a more civil nature than yours,” returned Hazlehurst with a smile; “why, Harry, you are becoming as peppery a character as your namesake Hotspur himself.”
“I am like him in one particular, at all events,” was the reply, “for I cannot abide a coxcomb.”
“It strikes me, that is not the only point in which you resemble the ‘gunpowder Percy,’ as old Falstaff calls him. By the way,” he continued, “what in the world was the matter with ‘Aunt Sally,’ a minute ago she seems to go quietly enough now.”
“I rather fancy something must have hurt her mouth,” replied Harry, turning away his head to conceal a smile. As he spoke, they drove round the gravel sweep leading to the hall door of Hazlehurst Grange. Beneath the porch stood two gentlemen—in one of whom, corpulent and elderly, Coverdale had little trouble in recognising, from his likeness to his friend, Mr. Hazlehurst senior; while the other, tall, thin, and cadaverous-looking, he rightly conjectured to be the opulent and amorous cotton spinner, Jedediah Crane.