"A fellow peddlin' shoe-strings and collar-buttons, sir—Hi didn't like 'is looks and Hi hordered 'im hoff pretty sharp. Hi'm sorry you heard the—the haltercation, sir, but they're very 'ard to get rid of."
"And you aren't any too plucky," said the doctor to himself with some amusement, remembering Huddesley's not over-heroic behaviour on the occasion of the burglary. "Why, I saw him going up the avenue towards Colonel Pallinder's afterwards, and I thought he looked like a respectable man," he said aloud.
Huddesley paused a moment before answering; he was folding the tablecloth with an elaborate neatness; the operation required his undivided attention. Then: "Beg parding, sir, that wasn't 'im you saw," he said calmly. "That was the gent that collecks for Barlow & Foster, goin' hup to see if 'e couldn't get something on their coal-bill; I persoom you know it ain't been paid yet. There was hanother there yesterday from Scheurmann—the fourth or fifth time for 'im, Hi've lost count, there's been so many of 'em lately."
Doctor Vardaman retreated to his library, somewhat out of countenance. "Good Lord!" he thought, "it's worse than I supposed—a deal worse! These servants see or smell out everything. It's not safe to let them talk to you; I don't want to know anything about the Pallinders' affairs." Nevertheless he smiled a little as he sat smoking by the fire. "'The haltercation,'" he quoted. "Huddesley certainly is a character. He reminds me of that valet of Major Pendennis' in the novel, that fellow Morgan—only Morgan turned out to be a rascal, the head villain of the story, if I remember." He took down the book—it was a first edition with Thackeray's own clumsy yet spirited illustrations—and sat reading the rest of the morning.
As reluctant as he was, however, the doctor, like the rest of the world, could not always keep his eyes and ears closed against those embarrassing things which we should all so much rather not know. There are bits of gossip which seem to be common and not altogether undesirable property; and there are ugly rumours which we feel it to be the part of decency to hush up. We hear, underhand, that Jones is wont to skulk at home for a fortnight dead drunk, that Smith's latest financial venture was curiously involved and cloudy; even if true, and even if we disapprove of Jones' and Smith's conduct in the abstract, it yet in no way concerns us. We are none of us saints, as the doctor himself said; we dislike especially the pose of holier-than-thou. Jones and Smith may not be model citizens, but let us give them the benefit of the doubt and continue to accept their dinner-invitations. Doctor Vardaman, an upright man who would as soon have taken a horse-whip to a servant as cheat him out of a penny, found himself averse to believe what was under his eyes every day, and obscurely whispered here and there by people in other ranks of life than Huddesley's. What if the Pallinders were besieged by duns, and their servants unpaid? That was none of his business; at the suggestion the old gentleman felt an irritation for which perhaps some mocking inner self was partly to blame. He found excuses for them; they were notoriously and amusingly careless, extravagant, free-handed—er—er—Southern, in a word; the colonel might be a rogue, as he undoubtedly was a wind-bag, yet of his own knowledge, the doctor could say nothing. Nobody had ever tried to trick him; he saw no reason why he should suddenly cold-shoulder the Pallinders; their house was the pleasantest he knew.
Thus the doctor reflected uneasily, trying to hush that ironic sprite within; and presently he was left with fewer defences still against its sly unwelcome jeers, for the business which he took such comfort in assuring himself was not his, became his in spite of him! He was a little surprised, when, in the late afternoon of the same day, Huddesley deferentially opened the library-door to announce "Mr. Gwynne Peters." This formality of entrance was imposed on everybody by the new man, and there was an old-world flavour about it that agreed well with the doctor's house and character. Huddesley, who would have been an ordinary flunkey in such an establishment as the Pallinders', was already that endearing person—a trusted and trustworthy servant—at Doctor Vardaman's. Gwynne came in, ruddy from the thin brisk March air, eager and confident of his welcome, bringing to the doctor's mind what kind memories of old days; of times when he used to come with a top, a kite, a lame kitten, and filled the childless house with childish confusion. Now he was as tall as Doctor Vardaman, and the latter noted with an odd pang that his young face was settling into the harder lines which recalled to so many his grandfather's portrait; perhaps the anxiety that never entirely forsook him had made its mark on Gwynne. At any rate it was very apparent as he said, glancing about, after Huddesley had taken his hat and overcoat, and gone silently and most respectfully out of the room: "Cousin Steven hasn't been here, has he? I asked Huddesley, but he didn't seem to know."
"Come to think of it, I don't believe Steven has been in to see me since I've had Huddesley—that's about two months, you know," said the doctor. "He knows nearly everyone now, and never seems to get the names and faces mixed up. If he'd ever seen Steven, he wouldn't have forgotten him——" ("I wish I hadn't said that!" he added inwardly). But Gwynne only frowned absent-mindedly, and began to feel along the mantelpiece for matches. "Were you looking for him?"
"He's in town; he was in the office, but I had gone out. Then afterwards I met Templeton on the street, and he told me he understood Cousin Steven to say he was coming out here. You—you haven't seen him going up to the Pallinder's, have you?"
"Why, no. But he'll be along in a little while, I dare say," said the doctor easily—and wondered within him what Steven was about now? He said nothing more, having in perfection the gift of companionable silence; and for almost five minutes Gwynne himself did not speak, blowing a soothing cloud of smoke by the doctor's fire. Then he said abruptly, not looking at his old friend, as if trusting him to follow up his thought.
"I went out to see Sam the other day."