CHAPTER XXVII.—BROTHERLY LOVE “À LA MODE.”
Now let us shake the kaleidoscope and take a peep at another combination of our dramatis personæ at this particular phase of their destinies. Lord Bellefield is breakfasting in his private sitting-room; a bright fire blazes on the hearth; close to it has been drawn a sofa, upon which, wrapped in a dressing-gown of rich brocaded silk, lounges the tenant of the apartment; a breakfast-table stands by the sofa, on which are placed an empty coffee cup, a small flask of French brandy, and a liqueur glass, together with a plate of toast apparently scarcely touched, a cut-glass saucer containing marmalade, and a cigar-case. His lordship appears to be by no means in an amiable frame of mind. He had sat up the previous night some two hours after the ball was over, playing Ecarté with certain intimates of his own, whom he had caused to be invited to Broadhurst, during which time he had contrived to lose between £200 and,£300. Earlier in the past day he had formed a canvassing engagement with General Grant for eleven o’clock on the following morning, which had obliged him to rise sooner than was by any means agreeable to his tastes, or consonant with his usual habits; and lastly, he expected an important letter, and the post was late. While he was pondering this agglomerate (to choose a euphonious word) of small evils, the door opened noiselessly, and Antoine, the French valet, carrying a well-brushed coat as tenderly as if it had been a baby, stole on tiptoe across the room. Lord Bellefield, whose head was turned away from the door, stretched out his hand, exclaiming impatiently, “Well, where are they?”
“Milor!” returned the astonished Frenchman, who in his interest about the coat had forgotten the letters.
“The letters, fool, where are they?” reiterated his lordship angrily.
“Mille pardons, Milor; but ven I did valk myself up zie stair, I am not avare dat zie lettairs had made zemselves to arrive,” rejoined Antoine with a self-satisfied smile, as if he had said something clever.
“Did you ask?” returned his master with a frown.
“Non pas précisément—I did not exactly demand,” stammered Antoine with (this time) a deprecatory smile.
Lord Bellefield’s only reply was an oath; then, seeing the man remained, uncertain what to do, he added—
“Go down again directly, idiot, and don’t return without my letters, unless——” a menacing gesture of his clenched fist supplied the blank, and the valet quitted the room, muttering with a shrug as he closed the door, “Qu’ils sont barbares, ces Anglais; but, parbleu, like all zie savage, dey are made of gold—eh! bien, c’est égal,—he shall pay me veil for him.”
Lord Bellefield was not fated to enjoy the blessing of peace that morning, for scarcely had his servant closed the door ere some one else tapped at it. “Come in,” shouted the victimised peer, appending a wish concerning his visitor, of which the most charitable view we can take is that he was desirous of offering him a warm reception. However this may be, Charles Leicester (for he it was to whose lot his brother’s left-handed benediction had fallen) entered the room, his face reflecting the joy of his heart, and drawing a chair to the opposite side of the fire-place, seated himself thereupon, and began rubbing his hands with a degree of energy totally opposed to his usual listless indifference.
“Is there no other fire in the house that you are necessitated to come and warm your hands here, Mr. Leicester? I fancied you were aware that if there is one thing in the world which annoys me more than another, it is to be intruded on in a morning,” observed his lordship pettishly. Then, for the first time catching sight of his brother’s face, he continued, “What on earth are you looking so absurdly happy about?”
“Now, don’t growl this morning, Belle; be a little bit like a brother for once in your life. I’m come to receive your congratulations,” returned Leicester.
“Has your Jewish money-lender turned Christian and burned his books, like the magicians of old?” inquired Bellefield sarcastically.
“Something almost as wonderful,” replied his brother, “for I live in good hopes of paying him.”
“Why, you don’t mean to say my father is going to be such a confounded fool as to pay your debts?” continued Bellefield, springing up in the excitement of the moment. “I swear I’ll not allow it; he’ll burden the estates so that when I come into the title I shall be a beggar.”
“Keep yourself cool, my good brother; you might be sure I should never in my wildest moments dream of asking you to congratulate me on any good fortune which could by the most remote contingency either affect your interests or interfere with your ease and comfort,” replied Leicester, for once provoked to say a cutting thing by his brother’s intense selfishness.
“Really, Charles, I’m in no humour for foolery or impertinence,” said Lord Bellefield snappishly. “If there’s anything you wish me to know, tell it at once; if not, I am expecting important letters, and should be glad to be alone.”
“What should you say if you heard I was going to be hanged, Belle?” asked Charley.
“Wish you joy of your exalted destiny, and think things might have been worse,” was the answer.
“Apply both the wish and reflection to the present emergency,” returned Leicester, “for I’m in nearly as sad a case—I’m going to be married.”
“On the principle that what is not enough to keep one can support two, I suppose!” rejoined Lord Bellefield in a tone of the most bitter contempt. “Well, I did not think—but I wash my hands of the affair entirely. Only mind this—the property is strictly entailed, my father can do nothing without my consent, and if you expect that you’re to be supported in idleness at our expense——”
“My dear fellow, I expect nothing of the kind,” returned Charley, caressing his whiskers. “My wife and I mean to set up a cigar divan, and all we shall look for from you is your custom; we certainly do hope to make a decent living out of that.”
Lord Bellefield uttered an exclamation expressive of disgust, and then inquired abruptly—
“Well, who is the woman?”
“She isn’t exactly a woman,” returned Charley meekly; “that is, of course, speaking literally and in a physiological point of view she is a woman, but in the language of civilised society she is something more than a mere woman—for instance, by birth she is a lady. Nature has bestowed on her that somewhat unusual feminine attribute, a mind, to which art, through the medium of the various educational sciences, has added cultivation; then she has the sweetest, most lovable disposition——
“There! spare me your lovers’ raptures,” returned Lord Bellefield; “of all stale trash they are the most sickening; and tell me plainly, in five words, who she is, and what she has.”
“Laura Peyton—heiress—value unknown,” returned Leicester emphatically and concisely.
“Miss Peyton!” exclaimed Lord Bellefield in surprise. “My dear Charles,” he continued in a more cordial tone than he had yet used, “do you really mean that you’re engaged to Laura Peyton? Why, she is said to have between four and five thousand a year in the funds, besides a princely estate in———shire. Are you in earnest?”
“Never was so much so about anything before in my life,” returned Leicester. “If I don’t marry Laura Peyton, and that very soon too, I shall do something so desperate that society had better shut up shop at once, for it’s safe to be ‘uprooted from its very foundations,’ as the conservative papers say if a poor devil of a chartist happens to strop his razor before committing the ‘overt act’ by which he cuts his own throat.”
“’Pon my word,” exclaimed Lord Bellefield, as he became convinced that his brother was really in earnest, “ ’pon my word, you’ve played your cards deucedly well. I declare, if I hadn’t been booked for little Annie here, I wouldn’t have minded marrying the girl myself. Why, Charley, you’ll actually become a creditable member of society.”
As he spoke a tap was heard at the door, and Antoine made his appearance, breathless with the haste in which he had run upstairs.
“Enfin elles sont arrivées,” he exclaimed, handing the letters on a silver waiter; “vhy for zey vos si tard, zie postman, he did slip up on von vot you call—(ah! q té ils sont difficiles, ces sacrés mots Anglais)—slid? oui! oui! he did slip himself up on von slid, and tumbled into two ditches.”
Lord Bellefield seized the letters eagerly. Signing to the valet to leave the room, without heeding his lucid explanation of the delay, he selected one in a particular handwriting, and tearing it open, hastily perused the first few lines; then rubbing his hands, he exclaimed with an oath, “By ———! Beppo’s won, and I’m a clear, £12,000 in pocket. Charley, boy,” he continued, with a sudden impulse of generosity (for no one is all bad), “how much are your debts?”
“I believe about £2000 would cover them,” returned Leicester.
“Then I’ll clear you, old fellow,” replied Lord Bellefield, clapping him on the shoulder, “and you shall marry your rich bride a free man.”
“My dear Bellefield, I can’t allow it—you are too kind—I—I really don’t know how to thank you—I can’t think what’s come to everybody this morning,” cried poor Charley, as, fairly overpowered by his good fortune, he seized Lord Bellefield’s hand and wrung it warmly. At that moment those two men, each warped and hardened differently, as their dispositions differed, by the world’s evil influence, felt more as brothers should feel towards each other than they had done since they played together years ago as little children at their mother’s knee. With one the kindly feeling thus revived was never again entirely forgotten; with the other—but we will not anticipate.