“God bless you, Gumbo!” Harry said, laying his hand on the lad's woolly head. “You are free if I am not, and Heaven forbid I should not take the offered help of such a friend as you. Bring me some supper: but the pipe too, mind—the pipe too!” And Harry ate his supper with a relish: and even the turnkeys and bailiff's followers, when Gumbo went out of the house that night, shook hands with him, and ever after treated him well.
CHAPTER XLVII. Visitors in Trouble
Mr. Gumbo's generous and feeling conduct soothed and softened the angry heart of his master, and Harry's second night in the spunging-house was passed more pleasantly than the first. Somebody at least there was to help and compassionate with him. Still, though softened in that one particular spot, Harry's heart was hard and proud towards almost all the rest of the world. They were selfish and ungenerous, he thought. His pious Aunt Warrington, his lordly friend March, his cynical cousin Castlewood,—all had been tried, and were found wanting. Not to avoid twenty years of prison would he stoop to ask a favour of one of them again. Fool that he had been, to believe in their promises, and confide in their friendship! There was no friendship in this cursed, cold, selfish country. He would leave it. He would trust no Englishman, great or small. He would go to Germany, and make a campaign with the king; or he would go home to Virginia, bury himself in the woods there, and hunt all day; become his mother's factor and land-steward; marry Polly Broadbent, or Fanny Mountain; turn regular tobacco-grower and farmer; do anything, rather than remain amongst these English fine gentlemen. So he arose with an outwardly cheerful countenance, but an angry spirit; and at an early hour in the morning the faithful Gumbo was in attendance in his master's chamber, having come from Bond Street, and brought Mr. Harry's letters thence. “I wanted to bring some more clothes,” honest Gumbo said; “but Mr. Ruff, the landlord, he wouldn't let me bring no more.”
Harry did not care to look at the letters: he opened one, two, three; they were all bills. He opened a fourth; it was from the landlord, to say that he would allow no more of Mr. Warrington's things to go out of the house,—that unless his bill was paid he should sell Mr. W.'s goods and pay himself: and that his black man must go and sleep elsewhere. He would hardly let Gumbo take his own clothes and portmanteau away. The black said he had found refuge elsewhere—with some friends at Lord Wrotham's house. “With Colonel Lambert's people,” says Mr. Gumbo, looking very hard at his master. “And Miss Hetty she fall down in a faint, when she hear you taken up; and Mr. Lambert, he very good man, and he say to me this morning, he say, 'Gumbo, you tell your master if he want me he send to me, and I come to him.'”
Harry was touched when he heard that Hetty had been afflicted by his misfortune. He did not believe Gumbo's story about her fainting; he was accustomed to translate his black's language and to allow for exaggeration. But when Gumbo spoke of the Colonel the young Virginian's spirit was darkened again. “I send to Lambert” he thought, grinding his teeth, “the man who insulted me, and flung my presents back in my face! If I were starving I would not ask him for a crust!” And presently, being dressed, Mr. Warrington called for his breakfast, and despatched Gumbo with a brief note to Mr. Draper in the Temple, requiring that gentleman's attendance.
“The note was as haughty as if he was writing to one of his negroes, and not to a freeborn English gentleman,” Draper said; whom indeed Harry had always treated with insufferable condescension. “It's all very well for a fine gentleman to give himself airs; but for a fellow in a spunging-house! Hang him!” says Draper, “I've a great mind not to go!” Nevertheless, Mr. Draper did go, and found Mr. Warrington in his misfortune even more arrogant than he had ever been in the days of his utmost prosperity. Mr. W. sat on his bed, like a lord, in a splendid gown with his hair dressed. He motioned his black man to fetch him a chair.
“Excuse me, madam, but such haughtiness and airs I ain't accustomed to!” said the outraged attorney.
“Take a chair and go on with your story, my good Mr. Draper!” said Madame de Bernstein, smiling, to whom he went to report proceedings. She was amused at the lawyer's anger. She liked her nephew for being insolent in adversity.
The course which Draper was to pursue in his interview with Harry had been arranged between the Baroness and her man of business on the previous day. Draper was an able man, and likely in most cases to do a client good service: he failed in the present instance because he was piqued and angry, or, more likely still, because he could not understand the gentleman with whom he had to deal. I presume that he who casts his eye on the present page is the most gentle of readers. Gentleman, as you unquestionably are, then, my dear sir, have you not remarked in your dealings with people who are no gentlemen, that you offend them not knowing the how or the why? So the man who is no gentleman offends you in a thousand ways of which the poor creature has no idea himself. He does or says something which provokes your scorn. He perceives that scorn (being always on the watch, and uneasy about himself, his manners and behaviour) and he rages. You speak to him naturally, and he fancies still that you are sneering at him. You have indifference towards him, but he hates you, and hates you the worse because you don't care. “Gumbo, a chair to Mr. Draper!” says Mr. Warrington, folding his brocaded dressing-gown round his legs as he sits on the dingy bed. “Sit down, if you please, and let us talk my business over. Much obliged to you for coming so soon in reply to my message. Had you heard of this piece of ill-luck before?”