“My dear Jack, my good, my brave Ighgate! I am delighted to see you!” Florac continues, regardless of the stranger’s reception, or of the landlord’s looks towards us, who was bowing the Prince into his very best room.
“How do you do, Monsieur de Florac?” growls the new comer, surlily; and was for moving on after this brief salutation; but having a second thought seemingly, turned back and followed Florac into the apartment where our host conducted us. A la bonne heure! Florac renewed his cordial greetings to Lord Highgate. “I knew not, mon bon, what fly had stung you,” says he to my lord. The landlord, rubbing his hands, smirking and bowing, was anxious to know whether the Prince would take anything after his drive. As the Prince’s attendant and friend, the lustre of his reception partially illuminated me. When the chief was not by, I was treated with great attention (mingled with a certain degree of familiarity) by my landlord.
Lord Highgate waited until Mr. Taplow was out of the room; and then said to Florac, “Don’t call me by my name here, please, Florac, I am here incog.”
“Plait-il?” asks Florac. “Where is incog.?” He laughed when the word was interpreted to him. Lord Highgate had turned to me. “There was no rudeness, you understand, intended, Mr. Pendennis, but I am down here on some business, and don’t care to wear the handle to my name. Fellows work it so, don’t you understand? never leave you at rest in a country town—that sort of thing. Heard of our friend Clive lately?”
“Whether you ’ave ’andle or no ’andle, Jack, you are always the bien-venu to me. What is thy affair? Old monster! I wager——”
“No, no, no such nonsense,” says Jack, rather eagerly. “I give you my honour, I—I want to—to raise a sum of money—that is, to invest some in a speculation down here—deuced good the speculations down here; and, by the way, if the landlord asks you, I’m Mr. Harris—I’m a civil engineer—I’m waiting for the arrival of the Canada at Liverpool from America, and very uneasy about my brother who is on board.”
“What does he recount to us there? Keep these stories for the landlord, Jack; to us ’tis not the pain to lie. My good Mr. Harris, why have we not seen you at Rosebury? The Princess will scold me if you do not come; and you must bring your dear brother when he arrive too. Do you hear?” The last part of this sentence was uttered for Mr. Taplow’s benefit, who had re-entered the George bearing a tray of wine and biscuit.
The Master of Rosebury and Mr. Harris went out presently to look at a horse which was waiting the former’s inspection in the stableyard of the hotel. The landlord took advantage of his business, to hear a bell which never was rung, and to ask me questions about the guest who had been staying at his house for a week past. Did I know that party? Mr. Pendennis said, “Yes, he knew that party.”
“Most respectable party, I have no doubt,” continues Boniface. “Do you suppose the Prince of Moncontour knows any but respectable parties?” asks Mr. Pendennis—a query of which the force was so great as to discomfit and silence our landlord, who retreated to ask questions concerning Mr. Harris of Florac’s grooms.
What was Highgate’s business here? Was it mine to know? I might have suspicions, but should I entertain them or communicate them, and had I not best keep them to myself? I exchanged not a word on the subject of Highgate with Florac, as we drove home: though from the way in which we looked at one another each saw that the other was acquainted with that unhappy gentleman’s secret. We fell to talking about Madame la Duchesse d’Ivry as we trotted on; and then of English manners by way of contrast, of intrigues, elopements, Gretna Grin, etc., etc. “You are a droll nation!” says Florac. “To make love well, you must absolutely have a chaise-de-poste, and a scandal afterwards. If our affairs of this kind made themselves on the grand route, what armies of postillions we should need!”