“Ah, yes. We had him for a week or two. Is he not steady, then?” asked Mr. Charles.
Marjory had pricked up her ears, and so did little Milly, to whom Fanshawe was an example of everything admirable in man.
“Well,” said the other, shrugging his shoulders, “I know nothing bad of him; but he’s a sad unsettled fellow; amiable, and all that, but, I fear, a good-for-nothing—a ne’er-do-well, as we say in Scotland. It is odd how many agreeable men belong to that species. For he’s a nice fellow, a pleasant fellow. Didn’t you think so, Miss Heriot? All ladies do.”
“He was good for a great deal when he was at Pitcomlie,” said Marjory, feeling her cheek flush in spite of herself. “A kinder friend never appeared in a melancholy house.”
“He was all that—all that,” said Mr. Charles, hastily.
“That is exactly what I should have expected to hear,” said Seton. “You have hit off his character in a word. Ready to do anything for anybody; always serviceable; good for other people’s concerns, but letting his own, you know, go to the dogs. When I said good-for-nothing, I ought to have said good for everybody but himself.”
“That’s a fatal kind of amiability,” said Mr. Charles, falling into this depreciatory estimate with a readiness which disgusted the two feminine partizans, to whom it was impossible to see their friend assailed without striking a blow in his defence. “I have known many men like that, nobody’s enemy but their own—”
“I think you would speak a little more warmly, Uncle Charles,” said Marjory, with a burst of which she was herself ashamed, “if you remembered all that Mr. Fanshawe did for us. Amiability does not make a man do what he did. Have you forgotten poor Tom’s bedside? and all his kindness to my father, and after—I beg your pardon; it is bad taste to introduce our private matters. But, Mr. Seton, I should be a wretch if I allowed anyone to speak disparagingly of Mr. Fanshawe without telling what I know.”
“Yes, yes; I quite understand,” said Seton, with a suppressed smile. “Ladies always give him that character. He is the most serviceable fellow. But I speak of his own concerns; he is a very unsatisfactory man to have anything to do with in business, for example. He is as ignorant as a woman—begging your pardon again, Miss Heriot. He is a nice fellow, but thoroughly unsatisfactory; as unsettled as a man can be; a complete rover, here to-day and gone to-morrow. I like him very much myself. I don’t know any pleasanter companion; but that’s his character. Socially, of course, it doesn’t matter; but it’s a great pity for himself.”
“No doubt about that,” said Mr. Charles; “a great pity. What are his means, now? That would be a kind of a way of judging.”