So George Wainwright came away despondingly. His last chance of getting Annette restored to health had failed, and his outlook on life was very blank indeed.
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
PATRICIAN AND PROLETARY.
It was deep mid-winter, and Colonel Orpington was at home at his house in Hill Street, Berkeley Square. Miss Orpington was at home too, temporarily. She had just come up from one of the charming country-houses where she and her chaperone had been spending Christmas, and in a week's time she was about to rush off to another charming country-house, where she would meet the same people, and they would all do the same things, and thoroughly enjoy themselves. This forthcoming one is the last visit she will pay before her marriage. Early in the ensuing spring the Yorkshire baronet with money is to claim Miss Orpington for his own; meantime the interval between the two visits is spent by the young lady in shopping and visiting during the day, and making her father take her to the theatre at night.
Colonel Orpington accepts the position with his usual complacency. He has lived long enough in the world to allow very few things indeed to ruffle him. Even the fact of his not having had any answer from Fanny Stafford does not annoy him.
"A younger man," he says to himself, "would fret and fume, and get in a deuce of a stew. What would be the good of that? It would not make the answer come any quicker, and it would not have any effect upon the girl's decision when she had made up her mind to send it. I am not at all sure that this delay is not rather good than otherwise. My heart does not beat quite so quickly as it did five-and-twenty years since, nor does the blood tingle in my veins to such an extent as at that period, and I can afford to wait. And even if the young lady should make up her mind to decline my proposition, I should certainly not commit suicide, though I confess I hope she may accept it for more reasons than one.
"I expect that this house will be deuced dull after Emily marries. I should have to get a clergyman's widow, or somebody of that kind, to come and be housekeeper. That would be horribly dull, and I don't see why I should have all the expense of keeping this place up. All the people I want to entertain I could have at the club; and if it is necessary for me to give a couple of ladies' dinners during the season--well, they can be done at Greenwich or Richmond, by Hart or Ellis, at less expense and without any trouble. I think I should have chambers in Piccadilly, or somewhere thereabouts; and then that other little arrangement would suit me admirably, provided the Paradise which I propose to establish was situated within an easy drive of town.
"I shall have to lay out a new line of life for myself, I think. I confess I don't see my way to what Emily said the other night about my being constantly with them. She is a very nice girl, and Hawker's a good fellow in his way; but his place is a deuced long way off, and I am getting a little too old to like to be 'braced', as they call it, by that infernally keen air that sweeps over the Yorkshire moors. Besides, they'll be having children, and that kind of thing; and it would be a confounded nuisance to have to be called 'Grandpapa!' Ridiculous position for a man of my appearance! So that, except when they are in town, and one can go to dinner, or to her box at the opera, or that kind of thing, I don't expect I shall see much of them. Grandpapa! by Jove, that would be positively awful!"
And the Colonel rises from his seat, and looks at himself in the glass, and poodles his hair, and strokes his moustache, and is eminently satisfied with his appearance.
It is in the breakfast-room that the Colonel makes these remarks to himself. Miss Orpington has not yet come down. She has announced by her maid that she has a headache, she supposes from the close atmosphere of the theatre the previous evening, and is taking her breakfast in bed. The Colonel has finished his meal, and is wondering what he will do with himself. He strolls to the window, and looks into the street, which is thick with slush. There has been a little snow early in the morning, and it has melted, as snow does nine times out of ten in London, and has been left to lie where it melted, as it always is in London, and the result is a universal pool of slush and mud, a couple of inches deep. The Colonel shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders, and turns away. He had some notion of going for a ride, but he doesn't see the fun of being splashed up to his eyes, and of having to hold damp and slippery reins with aching fingers. So he thinks he will stroll down to the club and look through the papers, and have a chat with anybody who may be available.