The Vyners, however, had their acute attack of gratitude, and they felt very warmly towards him, and even went so far as to designate by the word “delicacy” the cold reserve which he had once or twice manifested. Vyner gave him up his own room, and the little study adjoining it, and Georgina—the haughty Georgina—vouchsafed to look over its internal economies, and see that it was perfect in all its comforts. She went further; she actually avowed to him the part she had taken in his reception, and coquettishly engaged him to remember how much of his accommodation had depended on her foresight.
Mr. M’Kinlay was delighted; he had not been without certain misgivings, as he journeyed along over the Alps, that he might have shown himself a stronger, stauncher friend to Vyner in his hour of adversity. He had his doubts as to whether he had not been betrayed once or twice into a tone of rebuke or censure, and he knew he had assumed a manner of more freedom than consorted with their former relations. Would these lapses he remembered against him now? Should he find them all colder, stiffer, haughtier than ever?
What a relief to him was the gracious, the more than gracious, reception he met with! How pleasant to be thanked most enthusiastically for the long journey he had come, with the consciousness he was to be paid for it as handsomely afterwards! How lightly he took his fatigues, how cheerily he talked of everything, slyly insinuating now and then that if they would look back to his letters, they would see that he always pointed to this issue to the case, and for his part never felt that the matter was so serious as they deemed it. “Not that I ever permitted myself to hold out hopes which might prove delusive,” added he, “for I belong to a profession whose first maxim is, ‘Nothing is certain.’”
Nor was it merely kind or complimentary they were; they were confidential. Vyner would sit down at the fire with him, and tell all the little family secrets that are usually reserved for the members themselves; and Georgina would join him in the garden, to explain how she long foresaw the infatuation of her brother-in-law, but was powerless to arrest it; and even Lady Vyner—the cold and distant Lady Vyner—informed him, in the strictest secresy, that her dear mother had latterly taken a fondness for Malaga, and actually drank two full glasses of it every day more than the doctor permitted. What may not the man do in the household who is thus accepted and trusted? So, certainly, thought Mr. M’Kinlay, and as he strolled in the garden, apparently deep in thought over the Vyner complications, his real cares were, How was he himself to derive the fullest advantage of “the situation”?
“It is while towing the wreck into harbour the best bargain can be made for salvage,” muttered M’Kinlay. “I must employ the present moments well, since, once reinstated in their old prosperity, the old pride is sure to return.” He hesitated long what course to take. Prudence suggested the slow, cautious, patient approach; but then Miss Courtenay was one of those capricious natures whose sudden turns disconcert all regular siege. And, on the other hand, if he were to attempt a “surprise,” and failed, he should never recover it. He had ascertained that her fortune was safe; he had also learned that Mrs. Courtenay had made a will in her favour, though to what precise amount he could not tell; and he fancied—nor was it mere fancy—that she inclined far more to his society than heretofore, and seemed to encourage him to a greater frankness than he had yet dared to employ in his intercourse with her.
Partly because of the arduous task of investigating Vyner’s accounts, and partly that he was a man who required abundant time and quiet before he could make up his mind on any difficulty, he breakfasted alone in his own room, and rarely mixed with the family before dinner-hour. He knew well how all this seeming industry redounded to his credit; the little entreaties to him to take some fresh air, to take a walk or a drive, were all so many assurances of friendly interest in his behalf; and when Vyner would say, “Have a care, M’Kinlay; remember what’s to become of us if you knock up,” Lady Vyner’s glance of gratitude, and Miss Courtenay’s air of half confusion, were an incense that positively intoxicated him with ecstasy.
A short stroll in the garden he at last permitted himself to take, and of this brief period of relaxation he made a little daily history—one of those small jokes great men weave out of some little personal detail, which they have a conscious sense, perhaps, history will yet deal with more pompously.
“Five times from the orangery to the far summer-house to-day! There’s dissipation for you,” would he say, as he entered the drawing-room before dinner. “Really I feel like a pedestrian training for a race.” And how pleasantly would they laugh at his drollery, as we all do laugh every day at some stupid attempt at fun by those whose services we stand in need of, flattering ourselves the while that our sycophancy is but politeness.
Vyner was absent one day, and Mr. M’Kinlay took the head of the table, and did the honours with somewhat more pretension than the position required, alluding jocularly to his high estate and its onerous responsibilities, but the ladies liked his pleasantry, and treasured up little details of it to tell Sir Gervais on his return.
When they left him to his coffee and his cigar on the terrace, his feeling was little less than triumphant. “Yes,” thought he, “I have won the race; I may claim the cup when I please.” While he thus revelled, he saw, or fancied he saw, the flutter of a muslin dress in the garden beneath. Was it Georgina? Could it be that she had gone there designedly to draw him on to a declaration? If Mr. M’Kinlay appear to my fair readers less gallant than he might be, let them bear in mind that his years were not those which dispose to romance, and that he was only a “solicitor” by profession.