Blanche and Lucy Denzil scarcely knew whether to let amusement or dislike predominate in their minds as Mr Wilkins rattled on, pouring out miscellaneous anecdotes and jokes that, if worn threadbare in the metropolis, would, he was convinced, retain enough of their original gloss and sparkle to pass muster in the country. That the man was coarse, pushing, and unscrupulous, was evident even to critics so lenient as the baronet’s daughters; while Sir Sykes, behind his urbane smile, suffered martyrdom from his new agent’s deportment.
There was one member of the family circle at Carbery whom Mr Wilkins eyed with quite an exceptional interest. He rarely addressed himself in conversation to the Indian orphan, Sir Sykes’s ward, but he watched her narrowly, and the more he saw of her the harder he found it to adhere to his original hypothesis as regarded the young lady whom Richard Hold, master mariner, had recommended to his good offices.
‘If that demure manner and those downcast eyes do not belong to as sly a puss as ever lived, write me down a greenhorn!’ was the mental reflection of Enoch Wilkins, of St Nicholas Poultney, in the City of London, gentleman. ‘That she sets her cap at the captain, Sir Sykes Denzil’s hopeful heir, I take for granted. Her communicative friend, the pirate fellow, implied as much. The Lancer does not seem, however, disposed to come forward in a satisfactory style, and play Philemon to her Baucis.’
And it was a fact that since the morning which had witnessed the drive to High Tor and the visit to the pheasantry, the snares of Miss Ruth Willis had been vainly set for the capture of that bird of dubious feather, Jasper Denzil.
Why Jasper, who had so much to gain by the match on which his father’s mind was inexplicably bent, should hang back and prove recalcitrant, it was hard to say. His was not an independent soul. He was free from any trammels of a too scrupulous delicacy, and would have fingered any money got through the grimiest channels, without fear of soiling those white useless hands of his, the manliest work of which had hitherto been to grasp a bridle-rein. Yet Jasper had been very remiss of late in his attentions towards Ruth Willis, and apparently indifferent to the bribe of an income and establishment to be earned by marrying her.
‘Now look here, Sir Sykes!’ said the lawyer after dinner, as he edged his chair nearer to that of his host, refilled his glass, and assumed a tone of waggish confidence—‘look here, Sir Sykes! You want brushing up down here at Carbery, you do indeed; ay and a little fresh air let in upon you. In an old estate like this, and under such management as those of Pounce and Proser—beg his pardon; I mean Pontifex; ha, ha, ha!’—pursued Mr Wilkins, having his laugh out, without so much as a sympathetic titter from Jasper or a smile from Sir Sykes—‘in an estate of this kind matters are apt to stagnate, and all sorts of abuses and jobs to grow up, like the green duckweed on the surface of a pool. Your head-gamekeeper now, Sir Sykes, I never saw him, but I’m sure that he’s a rogue.’
‘Leathers is an old servant,’ answered Sir Sykes coldly; ‘I have had no reason to think ill of him.’
‘I’ll go bail that he’s a rogue, for all that,’ returned the unabashed lawyer, holding up his glass to the light, to admire the ruby claret before he swallowed it. ‘The head-keeper of an easy-going, moneyed gent of your standing—excuse me, Sir Sykes—must be a saint, if he’s not a sinner. Think of the temptations! Why, the rabbits alone must be a cool two hundred a year to the man; and then the pheasants, and the black-mail from the tenants for keeping the ground-game within reasonable numbers, and the percentage on watchers’ wages. I’ll get you a contract with a London poulterer, Sir Sykes, that shall stand you in something handsome, provide you with a keeper twice as useful as Leathers, and insure your having a hot corner for your friends at battue-time. I’m a new broom, and sweep clean.’
‘You promise well, at anyrate!’ said Jasper with a languid sneer.
‘And did you ever know me not ready to implement when I had once promised?’ briskly retorted the solicitor. ‘I merely mention the gamekeeper to shew that all’s fish that comes to my net, and that I am not above attending to such minor fry as a fellow in velveteen with a dog-whistle at his button-hole. We must go on commercial principles, Sir Sykes, if we want to manage an estate so as to make it pay, nowadays. All that feudal nonsense of an affectionate tenantry and a liberal lord of the manor is about as dead as Queen Anne. You should get a new steward as well as a new gamekeeper, Sir Sykes.’