"I'm sure of it, my dear--certain sure."
"Lord, I remember," said Mrs. Jupp, with a sudden affectation of a mincing manner, and a lofty carriage of her head; "I remember once seeing something of the sort at the play-house: but then the poor relation was a man, a man who always went about in a large cloak, and appeared in places where he was least expected and most unwelcome. It was in Covent Garden Theatre."
"Covent Garden Theatre," said Jupp, suddenly waking up. "I remember, in the saloon----"
"Mr. Jupp, reck'lect where you are, if you please, and spare the company your reminiscences."
Here Mr. Hallibut, who, finding himself bored by the conversation about people of whom he knew nothing, had quietly betaken himself to drink, and had got through three tumblers of brandy-and-water unobserved, remarked that, as he had a long drive before him, he thought it was time for him to go; and, after making his adieux, departed to find the ostler at The Hoy, who had his rough old pony in charge. Mrs. Jupp put on her bonnet, and after a word of promise to look in next morning and hear the remainder of her hostess's suspicions about Mrs. Stothard, roused up Mr. Jupp, who, balancing himself on frail and trembling legs, which he still believed to be endangered by the proximity of his mill's machinery, staggered out into the open air, where he was bid to reck'lect himself if he pleased, and to walk steadily, so that the coastguard then passing might not see he was drunk.
[CHAPTER II]
A VISITOR EXPECTED.
It was indeed Captain Derinzy who had passed up the village street. It is needless to say that he had not heard anything of the comments which his appearance had evoked; but had he heard them, they would not have made the smallest difference to him. He was essentially a man of the world, and on persons of his class these things have very little effect. A is irretrievably involved; B has outwritten himself; C is much too intimate with Mrs. D; while D is ruining that wretched young E at écarté--so at least say Y and Z; but the earlier letters of the alphabet do not care much about it. They know that the world must be always full of shaves and cancans, and, like men versed in the great art of living, they know they must have their share of them, and know how to take them. Captain Derinzy passed up the village street without bestowing one single thought upon that street's inhabitants, or indeed upon anything or anybody within a hundred miles of Beachborough. He looked utterly incongruous to the place, and he felt utterly incongruous to it, and if he were recalled to the fact of its existence, or of his existence in it, by his accidentally slipping over one of the round knobbly stones which supplied the place of a footway, or having to step across one of the wide self-made sluices which, coming from the cottages, discharged themselves into the common kennel, all he did was to wish it heartily at the devil; an aspiration which he uttered in good round rich tones, and without any heed to the feelings of such lookers-on as might be present.
See him now, as he steps off the knobbly pavement and strikes across the road, making for the greensward of the cliff, and unconsciously becoming bathed in a halo of sunset glory in his progress. A thin man, of fifty years of age, of middle height, with a neat trim figure, and one of his legs rather lame, with a spare, sallow, fleshless face, high cheek-boned, lantern-jawed, bright black eyes, straight nose, thin lips, not overshadowed, but outlined rather, by a very small crisp black moustache. His hair is blue-black in tint and wiry in substance, so much at least of it as can be seen under a rather heavy brown sombrero hat, which he wears perched on one side of his head in rather a jaunty manner. His dress, a suit of some light-gray material, is well cut, and perfectly adapted for the man and the place; and his boots are excellently made, and fit his small natty feet to perfection. His ungloved hands are lithe and brown; in one of them he carries a crook-headed cane, with which--a noticeable peculiarity--he fences and makes passes at such posts and palings as he encounters on his way. That he was a gentleman born and bred you could have little doubt; little doubt from his carriage of himself, and an indescribable, unmistakable something, that he was, or had been, a military man; no doubt at all that he was entirely out of place in Beachborough, and that he was bored out of his existence.
Captain Derinzy passed the little road, which was ankle-deep in white sandy dust, save where the overflowings of the kennel had worked it into thick flaky mud, hopped nimbly, albeit lamely, over the objectionable parts, and when he reached the other side, and stood upon the short crisp turf leading up to the cliff, looked at the soles of his boots, shook his head, and swore aloud. Considerably relieved by this proceeding, he made his way slowly and gently up the ascent, pausing here and there, less from want of breath than from sheer absolute boredom. Rambling quietly on in his own easy-going fashion, now fencing at a handrail, now making a one, two, three sword-exercise cut, and finally demolishing a sprouting field-flower, he took some time to reach the top of the cliff. When there he looked carefully about him for a clean dry spot, and, having found one, dropped gently down at full length, and comfortably reclining his head on his arm, looked round him.