But it was at the Christmas dinner that evening that his discretion melted away like wax before the fire, and he made up for lost time and past reticence with a loquacity even more dangerous than John Bradfield had feared.
He alluded to change of fortune, some for the better, some for the worse, when they had got as far as the turkey. When they reached the plum-pudding, he got so far as to remember old friends by the initials of their names; and he broke down altogether into amiable chatter about thirty years ago, at the cheese.
John Bradfield frowned, but by this time frowns were thrown away upon Alfred. Nothing short of taking him by the shoulders and turning him out of the room would have checked the flow of his half-cheerful, half-sorrowful, wholly sentimental reminiscences.
Mr. Graham-Shute, observing John Bradfield’s disapproval in his face, and being, moreover, really interested in the past life of the extraordinarily successful man, mischievously encouraged Marrable by his sympathetic questions; while his wife, who considered these allusions to a ragged past indecent and revolting, tried in vain to talk more loudly than ever to drown the remarks both of Alfred Marrable and her liege lord.
“Dear me, that’s very interesting! And so you walked six hundred miles up the country with only one shirt apiece, and your feet for the most part tied up in straw for the want of boots!” said Mr. Graham-Shute, with deliberate distinctness, thus cleverly epitomising for the benefit of the entire company a rambling story which Alfred had been pouring into his ear.
“I’m sure we shall have skating to-morrow, at least almost sure, though of course one never knows, and the frost may break any minute, and then there would be an end of everything, just when the ice in the parks will be getting into nice condition, and when there are sure to be some ponds and things down here that will bear, though I think myself that skating in the country is always more risky than in town, because there are not so many appliances and things, in case you are drowned,” babbled out Mrs. Graham-Shute, with one nervous eye on dear cousin John, and the other on that wretched William, who was by this time cracking nuts while he listened to Alfred, and who took care, as his wife raised her voice, to raise his also.
The unhappy Marrable went on:
“Yes, indeed! Times are changed, and no mistake, since then. Fancy that fellow there,” and he gently indicated, by a wave of his bunch of grapes, his unhappy host, “fancy him coming to me, with a coat on his back that he bought for eighteenpence from the ship’s steward, and saying to me: ‘Alf, my boy! it’s all up with me! I’m stone-broke; and I believe I’ve got a touch of the fever upon me, and I know I can never stand the hard life out there in the bush. I shall just go and throw myself into the dock basin before another night has passed over my head.’ Fancy that, now, for a man that must have thousands and thousands a year, to judge by the style he lives in, and the goodness of the wines he gives us.”
And Mr. Marrable ended with an expressive smack of the lips. Mr. Graham-Shute nodded appreciatively.
“Was that when you first went out?” he asked with interest.