I stood at the hotel door, wishing I could screw up courage to call at Sir Robert’s, but shrinking from it terribly. Then I thought of poor Mr. Lake, and that there was no one else to tell about him; and at last I started, for Upper Brook Street.
“Is Lady Tenby at home?” I asked, when I got to the door.
“Yes, sir.” And the man showed me into a room where Lady Tenby sat, teaching her little boy to walk.
She was just the same kind and simple-mannered woman that she had been as Anne Lewis. Putting both her hands into mine, she said how glad she was to see me in London, and held out the child to be kissed. I explained my errand, and my unwillingness to come; saying I could venture to tell her all about it better than I could tell Sir Robert.
She laughed merrily. “He is not any more formidable than I am, Johnny; he is not the least bit so in the world. You shall see whether he is”—opening the door of the next room. “Robert,” she called out in glee, “Johnny Ludlow is here, and is saying you are an ogre. He wants to tell you something, and can’t pluck up courage to do it.”
Sir Robert Tenby came in, the Times in his hand, and a smile on his face: the same kind, rugged, homely face that I knew well. He shook hands with me, asking if I wanted his interest to be made prime-minister.
And somehow, what with their kindness and their thorough, cordial homeliness, I lost my fears. In two minutes I had plunged into the tale, Sir Robert sitting near me with his elbow on the table, and Anne beside him, her quiet baby on her knee.
“I thought it so great a pity, sir, that you should not hear about Mr. Lake: how hard he has worked for years, and what a good and self-denying man he is,” I concluded at last, after telling what Miss Deveen thought of him, and what Mrs. Topcroft said. “Not, of course, that I could presume to suggest such a thing, sir, as that you should bestow upon him the living—only to let you know there was a man so deserving, if—if it was not given already. It is said in the parish that the living is given.”
“Is this Mr. Lake a good preacher?” asked Sir Robert, when I paused.
“They say he is one of the best and most earnest of preachers, sir. I have not heard him; Mr. Selwyn generally preached.”