"I can't undertake to go trapesing down there in this weather," exclaimed my lady. "And, besides, I wouldn't leave you just now."
Lord Seely by no means wished that his wife should interfere personally in the matter. He well knew that nothing but discord was likely to arise from any interview between Castalia and her aunt. "There is no one I could send," he murmured. "No one I could trust."
"No, no! It would never do to send anybody at all. This kind of family wash had better be done in private. I tell you what you do, Valentine—you just dictate a letter to me to be sent to Castalia. Send it off at once. When does Ancram return? To-morrow? Very well, then. Send it off at once, so that it shall reach Whitford before he does."
"Why so, Belinda?" asked my lord anxiously.
"Why so? Dear me, Valentine; how st——unsuspicious you are! If Ancram was there when the letter arrived, do you suppose she would ever get it?"
Lord Seely stared at the florid, fat, unfeeling face before him, with a sensation of oppression and dismay. How was it possible to attribute such actions and motives to persons of one's own family with an air of such matter-of-fact indifference? It was not the first time that his wife's coarseness of feeling had been thrust on his observation to the shocking of his own finer taste and sentiment—for my lord was a gentleman at heart—but this was an amount of phlegmatic cynicism which hurt him to the core. He could not forget that it was his wife who had promoted the marriage of Castalia with this young man. It was his wife who had declared that the Honourable Miss Kilfinane was not likely to make a better match. It was his wife who had urged him to put young Errington into the Whitford Post-office, declaring that the place was in every way a suitable one for him. And now it was his wife who coolly described Ancram as a wretch, full of the vilest duplicity!
The fact was, that my lady was by no means so indifferent on the subject as her words and manner would seem to imply. She was—not pained as Lord Seely was, but—angered excessively. She foresaw various troubles to herself and her husband—even the distant possibility of having Castalia "returned upon their hands," as she phrased it, and of having, sooner or later, to find money, or make interest, to get Ancram a berth which she would more willingly have bestowed on some of her nearer kith and kin. And her fashion of venting her anger was roundly to declare Ancram Errington capable of anything! And in her heart she believed him capable of a good deal of falsehood.
Lord Seely made no immediate reply to his wife's suggestion. He was ill and grieved, and he felt as if his final exit from this world of troubles might not be altogether undesirable. His interview with Algernon had agitated him terribly. His interview with his wife—although she had opened the door for a ray of hope that things might be not quite so terribly bad as he had feared—had certainly not soothed him. But before the departure of the evening mail that night, he had completed and despatched a letter to Castalia. He had insisted on writing it with his own hand, sitting up in bed to do so, although his fingers were scarcely able to guide the pen.
Meanwhile, Algernon was spending a very pleasant evening. He went to the club to which the Honourable Jack Price had introduced him during the brief butterfly period of his London existence. There he found the genial Jack, friendly, affectionate, expansive, as ever: a trifle balder, maybe, but otherwise unchanged. There, too, he found several of his former acquaintances ("old friends," he called them), who, after having his name recalled to their recollection by Jack Price, said, "Hulloa, Errington, where the dooce have you been hiding yourself?" and shook hands with the utmost cordiality. Then Jack Price insisted on adjourning to a favourite haunt of his, and ordering supper in celebration of Algernon's unexpected visit. And the "old friends" were flatteringly willing to do Algernon the honour of eating it. They were mostly unfledged lads, such as affected very often the society of Jack Price, who was really a kind companion, and gave the boys long lectures on steadiness of purpose and energy, illustrated by warning examples from his own career, and delivered amid such agreeable accompaniments to moral reflection as hot whisky-punch and first-rate Havanas. But there were one or two older men: a newspaper editor from Dublin, who had been at college with Jack; and a grey-whiskered major of cavalry, who had served with Jack during his brief military career; and a middle-aged attaché to His Majesty's legation at the Grand Duchy of Prundenhausen, who had been a contemporary of Jack in the Foreign Office. And all these gentlemen, being warmed by wine and meat, became excessively companionable and entertaining. The Dublin editor, a fat, short, rather humorous-looking individual, sang Irish sentimental ballads with a sweet tenor voice, and, at the whisky-punch stage of the entertainment, brought tears into the eyes of the cavalry major and Jack Price. The middle-aged attaché did not cry; he considered such a manifestation beneath the dignity of the diplomatic service. And although he affected a bitter tone, and secretly considered himself to be a mute inglorious Talleyrand, much injured and unappreciated by the blundering chiefs at the Foreign Office, yet to outsiders he maintained the dignity of the service, at the cost of a good deal of trouble and starch.
Algernon did not cry either. Indeed, the combination of sentimental ballad and stout Dublin editor struck him as being pleasantly comic. But he paid the singer so easy and well-turned a compliment as put to shame the clumsy "Thanks, O'Reilly!" "By Jove, that was delightful!" "What a sweet whistle you have of your own!" and the general shout of "Bravo!" by which the others expressed their approbation. And then he sang himself—one of the French romances for which he had gained a little reputation among a certain society in town. The romance was somewhat thread-bare, and the singer's voice out of practice; still, the performance was favourably received. But Algernon soon changed his ground, and, eschewing music altogether, began to entertain his hearers with stories about the eccentric worthies of Whitford, illustrated by admirable mimicry of their peculiarities of voice, face, and phraseology, so that he soon had the table in a roar of laughter, and achieved a genuine success. Jack Price was enchanted—partly with the consciousness that it was he who had provided his friends with this diverting entertainment, and explained to every one who would listen to him: "Oh, you know, it's great! What? Great, sir! Mathews isn't a patch on him. Inimitable, what? He is the dearest, brightest, most lovable fellow! What a burning shame that a thing of this sort should be hidden under a bushel—I mean, down in what-d'ye-call-it! By George! What?"