“I shall not leave this room, miss. We cannot but be uneasy, but I fancy Mr. Coate is comporting himself as well as he knows how, besides being set a little in awe of the master.”
It was true. Coate, ushered formally into Sir Peter’s room, was indeed a trifle over-awed. He had a disconcerting feeling that he had been granted an audience, and the immobility of the gaunt figure in the wing-chair did nothing to dispel this. As he stood for a moment on the threshold, unusually uncertain of himself, he was aware of being scanned from head to foot by a pair of eyes, deep-sunken, but as hard and as fierce as an eagle’s. He began, without knowing it, to fidget with the elaborate folds of his neckcloth. A hand the colour of parchment found, and raised to one eye, a quizzing-glass. It was levelled at him; he thought all at once that the room was overheated. The glass was allowed to fall. “How do you do?” Sir Peter said courteously. “You must forgive my inability to rise from this chair, Mr. Coate.”
“Oh, not at all! don’t give it a thought! Never one to stand upon ceremony! Sorry to find you in queer stirrups, sir!”
“Thank you,” said Sir Peter, in a thin voice. “Pray be seated! I regret that circumstances should have prevented my making your acquaintance before, Mr. Coate. I apprehend that I have had the honour of entertaining you for some days. I trust my people have attended to your comfort?” Mr. Coate thought fleetingly of unaired sheets, underhung mutton, and watered wine, and said that he had no complaint to make. A slight lifting of his host’s brows then made him wish that he had phrased this assurance differently.
Sir Peter made a sign to his valet, and said: “Do you mean to make a long stay in Derbyshire, sir?”
“Oh, as to that—!” said Coate, watching Winkfield pour brandy into two glasses. “Daresay you know how it is! One needs to go into the country on a repairing lease every now and then, and my friend Stornaway having begged me to bear him company—well, the long and the short of it was that I told Mawdesley—you are acquainted with his lordship, I daresay: capital fellow! one of the Melton men!—he must not look for me immediately. ‘Why, how is this?’ he cried. ‘You do not mean to miss the cubbing! Here am I depending upon you to give us all a lead!’ But I was adamant. ‘My friend Stornaway has a claim upon me,’ I said. ‘I am promised to him, and there is no more to be said.’”
“Ah, you hunt in the Shires?” said Sir Peter.
“Oh, lord, where else should a man hunt? No humbug country for Nat Coate! Neck-or-nothing Nat: that’s what they call me! No fence you can’t get over with a fall, I say!”
Sir Peter, who had thought it one of Mr. Assheson Smith’s sayings, smiled, and sipped his brandy. He encouraged his guest to talk, and when he saw his guest’s glass empty, he begged him to refill it. Under this genial influence Mr. Coate expanded like a peony on a hot summer’s day, and thought he had achieved so excellent an understanding with his host that he was fatally emboldened to compliment him upon his granddaughter’s looks and high spirit. He said that he did not mind owning that he had not expected to find his friend’s cousin such a dashing chipper, and wound up this tribute by giving Sir Peter to understand that although he had steered clear of marriage and was not to be thought a fellow that was hanging out for a wife, he was damned if he wasn’t beginning to change his mind.
It was at this point that Winkfield entered the room. He said that he fancied that Mr. Henry was waiting for Mr. Coate in the library; and since he stood holding the door in the evident expectation of ushering his master’s guest out of the room immediately, there was nothing for Coate to do but to bid Sir Peter good-night, and take himself off. This was not accomplished without his shaking Sir Peter’s hand, and saying, with a wink, that he was happy to have met him, for he rather thought that they had reached a very tolerable understanding.