“You see, I’m a great man here, not the poor starveling I was when you and I went out in the steerage to Melbourne thirty years ago. I don’t think I’ve grown much of a snob, but still one doesn’t care, when one’s got on, to have all the servants talking about their master having been glad enough to do things for himself once. Do you see?”
“Oh, yes, yes; of course, of course. I understand perfectly. You may rely upon me, old chap. I flatter myself I’m not wanting in tact, whatever my faults may be.”
John Bradfield, although he feared that Alfred was giving himself too high a character, went on:
“So no talk about old times and hard times, or”—his voice trembled a little here, for this was in truth a point on which he was most anxious—“or old acquaintances. Let the dead past bury its dead, as the poet says,” he continued, jocularly, “and we’ll have a merry Christmas over its grave.”
“That’s it, that’s it; so we will,” agreed Marrable, heartily, as they reached the drawing-room door.
In all good faith Alfred Marrable had given his promise to be discreet, and in all good faith John Bradfield had told him that he should have a merry Christmas. But unluckily the powers of darkness in the shape of Mrs. Graham-Shute, were against him. Indeed, John Bradfield had had his doubts about her, and as he entered the drawing-room with his protégé in his ill-fitting clothes, he whispered to the latter:
“Never mind the Queen of Snobs,” with a glance in the portly lady’s direction.
Mrs. Graham-Shute was already looking at them with an unpromising stare. She had a hatred of shabbily-dressed people, the keener that it was only by a great effort that she herself escaped that category. She had been indignant when her husband stopped the landau to speak to this “person,” and now to have the “person” obtruded upon her notice, in clothes which did not belong to him, was an outrage to her dignity, which at once dispelled the good humour which is traditionally supposed to belong to fat people. If people must invite their humble friends, they should not ask them to meet guests of greater consideration. It was extremely awkward and unpleasant, as one didn’t know where to draw the line between too much civility, which made the humble friend “presume,” and too little, which might offend one’s host.
In the case of Alfred Marrable, Mrs. Graham-Shute certainly did not err in the former manner. Her disdain of the poor man, who was just the sort of weak-minded person to be impressed by her foolish arrogance, had a crushing effect upon him; so, far from becoming loquacious on the subject of old times, the poor man could scarcely be prevailed upon to open his lips at all. The glare of the cold, fish-like eyes, turned full upon him at dinner—for she sat opposite to him—even took away the poor man’s appetite; and John Bradfield was able to congratulate himself that night that the evening had passed off (according to his views) so well.
The next day was Christmas day, and Alfred Marrable, always under the watchful eyes of his careful old friend, began it beautifully. He went to church, was almost pathetically civil and attentive to the ladies, delighted to carry their prayer-books, and to render them such small services of a like kind as he could. At luncheon, by which time Mrs. Graham-Shute had grown sufficiently used to him to ignore him altogether, he thawed a little, and needed the warning eye of his host to restrain him from making appropriate Christmas allusions to old times over his glass of port.