“All right,” said George, “I will be civil enough.”
Sherry Trimm had conveyed exactly the impression which he had desired to convey. He had made George believe by his manner that he was himself anxious to keep his relations with Mr. Craik on a pleasant footing, doubtless on account of the money, and he had effectually deterred George from quarrelling with his unknown benefactor, while he had kept the question of the will as closely secret as ever.
CHAPTER XXV.
George had never been inside Mr. Craik’s house, and the first impression made upon him by the sight of the old gentleman’s collected spoil was a singular one. The sight of beautiful objects had always given him pleasure, but, on the other hand, his mind resented and abhorred alike disorder and senseless profusion. He had no touch in his composition of that modern taste which delights in producing a certain tone of colour in a room, by filling it with all sorts of heterogeneous and useless articles, of all periods and collected out of all countries. It was not sufficient in his eyes that an object should be of great value, or of great beauty, or that it should possess both at once; it was necessary also that it should be so placed as to acquire a right to its position and to its surroundings. A Turkish tile, a Spanish-Moorish dish, an Italian embroidery and an old picture might harmonise very well with each other in colour and in general effect, but George Wood’s uncultivated taste failed to see why they should all be placed together, side by side upon the same wall, any more than why a periwig should be set upon a soup-tureen, as Johnson had remarked. He felt from the moment he entered the house as if he were in a bazaar of bric-à-brac, where everything was put up for sale, and in which each object must have somewhere a label tied or pasted to it, upon which letters and figures mysteriously shadowed forth its variable price to the purchaser while accurately defining its value to the vendor.
It must not be supposed, however, that because George Wood did not like the look of the room in which he found himself, it would not have been admired and appreciated by many persons of unquestioned good taste. The value there accumulated was very great, there was much that was exceedingly rare and of exquisite design and workmanship, and the vulgarity of the effect, if there were any, was of the more subtle and tolerable kind.
George stood in the midst of the chamber, hat in hand, waiting for the owner of the collection to appear. A door made of panels of thin alabaster set in rich old gilt carvings, was opposite to him, and he was wondering whether the light actually penetrated the delicate marble as it seemed to do, when the chiselled handle turned and the door itself moved noiselessly on its hinges. Thomas Craik entered the room.
The old gentleman’s head seemed to have fallen forward upon his shoulders, so that he was obliged to look sideways and upwards in order to see anything above the level of his eyes. Otherwise he did not present so decrepit an appearance as George had expected. His step was sufficiently brisk, and though his voice was little better than a growl, it was not by any means weak. He was clothed in light-coloured tweed garments of the newest cut, and he wore a red tie, and shoes of varnished leather. The corner of a pink silk handkerchief was just visible above the outer pocket of his coat, and he emanated a perfume which seemed to be combined out of Cologne water and Russian leather.
“Official visit, eh?” he said with an attempt at a pleasant smile. “Glad to see you. Sorry you have waited so long before coming. Take a seat.”
“Thanks,” answered George, sitting down. “I am glad to see that you are quite yourself again, Mr. Craik.”
“Quite myself, eh? Never was anybody else long enough to know what it felt like. But I have not forgotten that you came to ask—no, no, I remember that. Going to marry Mamie, eh? Glad to hear it. Well, well.”