Two of the party from the Chase carried back with them to Carbery hearts that were heavier than when they had first set out for the projected visit to the pheasantry at High Tor. Sir Sykes’s ward, so talkative two hours ago, had become sullenly mute. Ruth Willis was smarting under her defeat, for she had measured herself with Lady Gladys, and could not but acknowledge to herself that her own elfish piquancy was quite thrown into the shade by the superior charms of the Earl’s daughter. Blanche was sad and thoughtful. Jasper, twisting his well-waxed moustache, seemed unaware, in the preoccupation of his own mind, that Ruth was resentful and Blanche melancholy, while Miss Denzil frankly wondered why conversation languished as it did. Excellent Lucy had had no by-play to distract her attention from the object of the expedition; she had seen the birds and chatted with her friend, and was mildly gratified with her outing. Nevertheless it was but a silent party that the Exmoor ponies whisked back along the well-kept road that led to Carbery Chase.
CHAPTER XXVI.—THE NEW BROOM.
‘Clever enough, and too clever! It’s your look-out, sir, of course, and not mine; but I can’t help thinking that to give my friend Mr Wilkins an estate to manage is uncommonly like turning a fox into a poultry-yard to take care of the chickens.’
Such was Jasper Denzil’s remonstrance with his father, on hearing the baronet’s announcement of his intention to transfer the reins of local government to the willing hands of the City solicitor, vice Pounce and Pontifex superseded. Privately, Sir Sykes was of much the same opinion as his son; but as he was merely seeking to put a good face on what he felt to be really a surrender to a demand imperiously urged, he shook his head, saying: ‘You are prejudiced against this person, Jasper, and perhaps not unnaturally so. His manners, I admit, are not prepossessing, and his moral code has probably been shaped in a rough school of ethics; but I consider him to be one of those men whom it is pleasanter to have for a friend than for an enemy.’
Jasper’s expressive upper lip wore a curl of disgust. It was to him very disagreeable that Mr Wilkins, who had got the better of him, as he resentfully felt, in many an encounter of wits, should be often at Carbery, and right-hand man to its owner. He resolved on one more attempt to dislodge the intruder.
‘I would not, were I you, sir,’ said he, ‘either trust Wilkins a yard farther than I could see him, or be guided by his advice as to the management of the estate. You yourself heard the fellow say, at luncheon to-day, that he should not know turnips when he saw them unless there were boiled mutton in the middle of them. Wilkins only meant to raise a laugh when he hashed up that old joke against the Cockney sportsmen who ride to hounds, but he was nearer the truth than he was aware of.’
‘Ah, well,’ returned the baronet blandly, ‘I daresay his agricultural knowledge is after all pretty much on a par with that of Messrs Pounce and Pontifex.’
And then Jasper shrugged up his shoulders and was silent, for he perceived that it was hopeless to deprecate a foregone conclusion. For good or for ill, Sir Sykes had made up his mind to convert Mr Wilkins into a grand-vizier over the broad acres that lay within the circuit of his wide-stretching ring-fence.
Enoch Wilkins, gentleman, had on that morning reached Carbery Chase, and was in a fair way of earning for himself any rather than golden opinions from its inmates. Mr Wilkins, as he often and not untruly boasted, knew the world, that is to say he had a minute and almost microscopic acquaintance with one or two sections of the shady side of it. He understood turf-men, as a smart prison-governor understands convicts, and knew the natural history of the fast-living and embarrassed young officer as well as some lecturer on entomology knows the ways of beetle and butterfly. In a lower social grade, he was deeply versed in the arcana of Loan Societies, and could apply the thumbscrew of the County Court in nicely calculated proportions to a struggling debtor. Of what he called swell society Mr Wilkins had but a limited experience. He had shared, as the purveyors of welcome cash often do share, in the costly banquets given at Greenwich or Richmond hotels by wild young gentlemen of blood and fashion. He had even, at the instance of some needy man about town who curried favour with any dispenser of ready-money, received a card which entitled him, now and again, to be crushed and jostled and trodden upon by distinguished company at the maddening ‘At Home’ of some berouged and bewigged old peeress.
There was, as Mr Wilkins felt with some inward misgivings, a difference between forming part of a mob at Macbeth House or at the Baratarian Embassy, and mixing on intimate terms with such a family as were the Denzils. Yet, as the French idiomatically twist the phrase, he paid it off with audacity, being greasily familiar with Sir Sykes; on terms of brotherly frankness where Jasper was concerned; and for the benefit of the young ladies, assuming the character of the facetious and agreeable rattle, as he conceived incumbent on a regular Londoner and a bachelor to boot, when on a visit in the country.