“So you might, my dear fellow,” returned Leicester, after pausing for a minute to regard Lewis with a smile of languid wonder. “So you might with your talents, and—and wonderful power of getting up the steam and keeping it at high pressure. I dare say we should see you a Field Marshal if you took to the red cloth and pipe-clay trade; or on the woolsack if you preferred joining the long-robed gentlemen. Now, I haven’t got that sort of thing in me: I was born to be a man of property, and nothing else; and the absurdity of the thing is the bringing a man into the world fit only for one purpose, and then placing him in a position in which, to use the cant of the day, he can’t ‘fulfil his mission’ at any price. It’s just as if nature were to form a carnivorous animal, and then turn it out to grass.” Having delivered himself of this opinion with the air of a deeply injured man, the Honourable Charles Leicester consulted a minute Geneva watch with an enamelled back, and replacing it in his waistcoat pocket, continued, “Five o’clock; I shall just have time to smoke a cigar before it is necessary to dress for dinner. I presume tobacco is a contraband article in the interior of this respectable dwelling-house?”
“A salutary dread of Miss Livingstone’s indignation has prevented me from ever trying such an experiment,” returned Lewis.
“Well, I won’t run the risk of offending the good lady,” replied Leicester. “Aunt Martha has a wonderful knack of blighting the whole family for the rest of the day if one happens to run against one of her pet prejudices. By the way, you must have found her a most interesting companion?”
“We are great friends, I can assure you,” rejoined Lewis. “She condescends to patronise me most benignantly; but I have not spoken half-a-dozen times with her in as many months.”
“I suppose she has enlightened you as to the events about to come off during the next three weeks.”
“By no means. Beyond the fact of the General’s return, and the information that the house was to be filled with people, Miss Livingstone has allowed me to remain in a state of the most lamentable ignorance.”
“What! have not you heard that the county is vacant, and the General has been persuaded to allow himself to be nominated as a candidate on the conservative interest?”
“But I thought he was already member for the borough of A————?”
“Yes; he will resign that if he succeeds for the county. Oh, you’re quite in the dark, I see; we mean to stir heaven and earth to get him in. My father gives him all his interest—Bellefield is coming down to look up the tenantry. You know we (that is, Belle and the Governor, worse luck) have large estates in the county. Belle can do a little bit of love-making in between whiles, and so kill two birds with one stone. And who else do you think is coming?—a very great man, I can assure you; no less a personage, in fact, than—ar—the De Grandeville! He has been induced to—ar—” (and here he mimicked De Grandeville’s pompous manner inimitably) “throw his little influence—ar—into the scale, and—ar—show himself on the hustings, and—ar—arrange one or two matters which will in fact—ar—render the thing secure! The plain truth being that he really is a good man of business, and the General has engaged him as an electioneering agent. Well, then, there are a lot of people coming besides; and balls and dinners will be given to half the county. In short, the General means to do the thing in style, and spend as much money as would keep me out of debt for the next three years. Several parties are to arrive to-morrow, so the General brought Annie and me down with him as a sort of advanced guard. There will be some fun, I dare say; but an awful deal of trouble to counterbalance it. I shall lose my cigar, though, if I stand gossiping here any longer. Let me see, the nearest way to the stables will be to jump out of that window; deduct the distance saved from the amount of exertion in leaping, and the remainder will be the gain of a minute and a half. Well, time is precious, so off we go. I suppose you appear in the course of the evening? Take care, Walter; that is right.”
Thus saying, he flung open the window, sprang out with more agility than from his usual listless movements might have been expected, pulled the sash down again, and having nodded good-naturedly to Walter, disappeared.