Volume Three—Chapter Thirteen.
As Through a Glass.
“Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,” says the poet; and there he stops, leaving the rest of the places under the pink little god’s régime to our imagination.
He was busy as ever at Brackley, with people in a humbler walk in life and there was an attraction there for a person who plays no prominent part in this narrative, to wit, Thompson, private dragoon in Her Majesty’s service, and valet and confidential man to Captain Rolph.
He had long fixed his affections possibly in military temporary fashion upon Mason, Glynne’s maid. These affections had glowed during the many visits to Warren and Hall, cooled down during the activities of service—rubbing down his master as he would a horse, and helping him to train—sinking for a year and a half or so after “the upset” at Brackley, and turning up again when the captain came back to The Warren to be hitched on again, as he termed it. For, truth to tell, it was known that Mason had one hundred and fourteen pounds deposited in consols with a certain old lady in Threadneedle Street.
Thompson felt glad then, when one day the captain said to him,—
“All packed up, isn’t it?” and he replied that the luggage was ready. Whereupon the captain told him that he would not want him for a month.
“And, by the way, go down to The Warren before my mother returns, and get my guns, a few books in my room, and the knick-knacks and clothes, and the rest.”
“Won’t you want ’em, sir, next time you’re going down?”
“Mind your own business, fool, and get the things.”
Thompson stood at attention, winked to himself, and thought of how near he would be to Brackley, and how, in spite of the past he would be sure of a welcome in the servants’ hall. A month would be long enough to “pull that off;” and though he did not put it in words, to pull Mason’s savings out of the great British bank.
But then there was Sinkins, the village carpenter and parish clerk, who often did jobs at the Hall, a man with whom he had come in contact more than a year before, over the preparations for Glynne’s wedding, and had seen talking to Mason more than once, and whom he held in utter contempt.
It is of no use to disguise the truth, for no matter whether Matthew Sinkins was in his Sunday best, or in his regular carpenter’s fustian, he always exhaled a peculiar odour of glue. Certainly it was often dashed with sawdust, suggestive of cellars and wine, or the fragrant resinous scent of newly cut satin shavings; but the glue overbore the rest, and maintained itself so persistently that, even during the week when Sinkins had the French polishing job at Brackley, and the naphtha and shellac clung to his clothes, there, making itself perceptible, was the regular good old carpenter’s shop smell of glue.
Thompson said to Mason that it was disgusting, but she told him frankly that it was a good, clean, wholesome smell, and far preferable to that of the stables.
This, with toss of the head soon after Thompson’s arrival, for, in spite of bygones he found on getting himself driven over from The Warren, quite a warm welcome from old friends, one and all being eager to talk over the past and learn everything that could be pumped out of Thompson respecting his master’s doings since that terrible night.
Thompson was in the stable-yard smoking a cigar—a very excellent cigar, that had cost somewhere about a shilling—rather an extravagance for a young man in his position of life, but as it was one out of his master’s box, the expense did not fall upon him; and had any one suggested that it was not honest for him to smoke the captain’s cigars he would have looked at him with astonishment, and asked whether he knew the meaning of the word perquisites.
It was a very excellent cigar, and being so it might have been supposed to have a soothing effect; but whatever may have been its sedative qualities they were not apparent, for Thompson’s face was gloomy, consequent upon his having seen Matthew Sinkins go up to the side door with his basket of tools hanging from his shoulder, and kept in that position by the hammer being thrust through one of the handles, that handle being passed through its fellow.
“Him here, again?” exclaimed Thompson. “He’s always hanging about the place. Well, it’s as free for me as for him, I suppose. I shall go and see.”
Thompson who was a smart, dapper-looking swarthy man, with closely cut hair, very small mutton chop whiskers, and dark beady eyes, threw away the half-smoked cigar, gave a touch to his carefully-tied white cravat, glanced down at his brightly polished boots, and let his eyes rest upon his very closely fitting Bedford cord trousers before crossing the yard, whistling in a nonchalant manner, and walking into the servants’ hall, where Matthew Sinkins was waiting with his tool basket on the floor by his side.
“Hallo, chips!” said Thompson, condescendingly, “how’s trade?”
“Pretty tidy, Mr Thompson,” said the carpenter, slowly, and taking out the two-foot rule which dwelt in a long narrow pocket down one leg of his trousers, but sheathing it again directly, as if it were a weapon which he did not at present need.
“Glad of it,” said Thompson. “Haven’t they asked you to have a horn of ale?”
“Yes, Mr Thompson; oh, yes. Miss Mason has gone to get one for me from Mr Morris.”
“Oh! has she?” said Thompson; and this news was of so discomforting a nature that he was taken a little aback. “Job on?”
“Yes, Mr Thompson, I’m wanted. You’re here again, then. Thought you was going abroad.”
“No,” said Thompson, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and see-sawing himself to and fro, from toe to heel and back. “No, we’re not gone yet, Mr Sinkins; and if it’s any pleasure to you to know it, I don’t see any likelihood of our going for some time to come. What have you got to say to that?”
Mr Sinkin’s big hand went deliberately down the leg of his trousers, and he half drew out the rule again, as if he meant to measure the captain’s attendant, but he allowed the narrow strip of boxwood to glide back into its place and breathed hard.
“I say, what have you got to say to that, Mr Sinkins?” said Thompson, nodding his head a good deal, and unconsciously making himself wonderfully like a pugnacious bantam cock ruffling himself in the presence of a heavy, stolid, barn-door fowl.
“Got to say to it?” replied Sinkins, calmly.
“Yes, sir, got to say to it, sir,” cried Thompson, with an irritating air of superiority that appeared to suggest that he had got the carpenter in a corner now, from which he did not mean to let him escape until he had answered the question put to him so sharply.
Sinkins seemed to feel that his rule was necessary once again, but the boxwood was allowed to slip back as its master shook his head, and said in a slow serious way,—
“I haven’t got anything to say to it, Mr Thompson, sir.”
“Oh, you haven’t.”
“No, sir,” replied the carpenter stolidly. “If I was to say a lot to it, I don’t see as it would make any difference one way or the other.”
“No, sir, I should think it wouldn’t,” cried Thompson; and just then Miss Mason, the brisk-looking, dark-eyed, ale-bearing Hebe of two-and-twenty, came in, looking as if she were wearing an altered silk dress that had once been the property of Glynne Day.
“Oh, you are here, Mr Thompson, are you?” she said with a voice full of acidity.
“Yes, ma’am, I am here,” said Thompson, sharply.
“Perhaps you’ll come up as soon as you’ve drunk your ale, Mr Sinkins,” said Miss Mason, sweetly. “I’ll show you which room.”
Matthew placed the horn at his lips, and removed it so reluctantly that it ceased to be a horn of plenty, and he set it back upon the table with a sigh. He stooped then and took the handle of his hammer, lifting the tool basket, so that chisels and screws, and drivers, gimlets, saws, and planes, all jumbled up together, as they were swung round upon the strong man’s shoulder, but only to be swung off again and carried in the hand, as being more suitable in so grand a place as Brackley Hall.
“Are you quite ready, Mr Sinkins,” said Miss Mason, in a tone of voice that seemed quite affectionate.
“Yes, miss, I’m quite ready.”
“Come along, then, Mr Sinkins,” said Mason; and with what was meant for a haughty look at the captain’s man, she led the way through the door opening on to the back staircase, sending the said door back with unnecessary violence as Mr Thompson essayed to follow, but only essayed for fear of being ordered back.
“There’s something up,” he said. “That fellow’s seen something about master, and been tale-bearing. And so he’s to go up there all alone, easing and repairing doors as the old major’s ’most banged off the hinges in his passions, and she’s to stand by a-giving of him instructions, and all to aggravate and annoy me.”
He took a turn up and down the hall, screwing his doubled-up fist in his left hand, and grinding his teeth with rage.
“Yes; that’s what it’s for, just to aggravate and annoy me, and him smelling that awful of glue! Bah! It’s disgusting. A low, common, heavy-looking country bumpkin of a carpenter, as has never been hardly outside his village, and can only just sign his name with a square pencil, pointed up with a chisel. I say it’s disgusting.”
Thompson took another turn or two up and down the hall, to ease his wounded pride, and then went on again talking to himself till he caught sight of the empty, unoffending horn, which he smote with his doubled fist, striking out at it scientifically from the shoulder, and sent it flying to the other end of the hall.
“Here, what I want to know,” said Thompson, is this—“Am I going to pull this here off, or am I not?”
There was no answer to the question, so the man sat down astride of a form, as if it had been a horse, folded his arms exceedingly tight, and scowled at the door that had been shut against him, devoured by jealously, and picturing in his mind other matters beside the easing of doors and tightening of hinges, for he was measuring other people’s conduct, not by Mr Sinkins’ footrule, but by his own bushel.
“I can’t stand it,” he muttered at last. “I must have a quiet pipe.”
Striding out of the hall as if he were on duty, he marched right out across the park and into the lane, from whence he struck into the first opening in the fir woods where the shade seemed to calm him; and, taking out a pipe-case, he extracted a very black bruyère root pipe, filled it, stuck it in his mouth, and then, seeking for a match in his vest pocket, he lit it deftly by giving it a rub on the leg of his trousers, puffed his tobacco into incandescence, and then threw the glowing vesta, like a hand grenade, over his left shoulder.
There was a sharp ejaculation, and then,—“Confound your insolence, fellow!” Thompson started round, and found himself facing the major, trowel in one hand, malacca cane in the other.
“That light hit me in the face, sir. Do you know, sir, that you may set the woods on fire, sir?” cried the major. “What! Thompson! ’Tention! What the devil are you doing here?”
The man gave a sharp look to left and right, and then, from old habit, obeyed the imperious military order, and drew himself upright, staring straight before him—“eyes front.”
“You scoundrel!” cried the major, seizing him by the collar, and holding his cane threateningly, as the idea of some peril to his niece flashed across his mind. “You’ve brought a note or some message to the Hall.”
“No, sir! really, sir, I haven’t, sir.”
“Don’t dare to lie to me, you dog!” cried the major, with the stick moving up and down, and Thompson’s eyes following it, in the full belief that at any moment it might fall upon his shoulders.
“It’s gospel truth, sir,” he cried. “I haven’t got no note. How could I have?”
“Where’s your master?”
“Off, sir.”
“Off? What do you mean? Isn’t he at The Warren?”
“No, sir; he only sent me down to fetch his things.”
“Ah!” cried the major; “and here with some message.”
“No, sir, that he didn’t, sir. I come over here of my own self.”
“What do you mean by ‘off’?” cried the major. “You don’t go from here till you confess the truth. After what happened how dare you set foot on these grounds! I say, where is your master?”
“Gone abroad, sir.”
“Is that the truth?—Here, I was a bit hasty.—A sovereign, my lad.—Now, then, tell me. Your master sent you down here?”
“Only to The Warren, sir, to fetch his things, because he wasn’t coming down again.”
The major looked at him searchingly.
“Let me see,” he said, sharply; “he was to be married the other day, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, sir,” said Thompson, with a peculiar look as he held the sovereign in his pocket, and ran a finger nail round the milled edge.
“What do you mean by that, sir?” cried the major suspiciously, and the stick was raised again. “Wasn’t he married?”
“Well, he may have been since, sir, but that other didn’t come off.”
“What?”
“Well, sir, the fact is, master was going to be, but there was a little trouble, sir, about another lady who lived in these parts, and when it come out about the wedding as was to be very quiet in London, there was a bit of a fuss.”
“Humph! well, that is nothing to me, my man. I made a mistake, and I ask your pardon.”
“It’s all right, sir, and thank you kindly,” said Thompson. “It was Ben Hayle’s daughter, sir, Miss Judith, who used to be at The Warren before they were sent away.”
The major had turned his back to go, but the man’s words arrested him, and, in spite of himself, he listened.
“Ben Hayle come to Long’s, sir, in Bond Street, where we was staying, and got to see master. I was packing up, because master was going on the Continong next day, and there was a tremenjus row, all in whispers like, because I was in the next room, but Ben Hayle got louder and louder, and I couldn’t help hearing all the last of it.”
“There, that will do. I don’t want to hear any more.”
“No, sir, certainly not,” said Thompson; “but master didn’t go to the church with Miss Emlin, sir, and from what I heered he went abroad next night, sir.”
“Alone?”
“No, sir,” said Thompson, smiling.
“Poor Glynne!” muttered the major as he turned away. “The man is a disgrace to the service. An utter scoundrel. Gone abroad. No, he would not go alone.”
Thompson, left in the wood, took out and looked at the sovereign, and concluded that he would not go to the Hall again.