Rhoda Fleming. Complete. George Meredith
Reward of merit!—Mr. Anthony Hackbut is going to receive ten pounds a year extra. That’s for his honesty. I wonder whether I could earn a reputation for the sake of a prospect of ten extra pounds to my salary. I’ve got a salary! hurrah! But if they keep me to my hundred and fifty per annum, don’t let them trust me every day with the bags, as they do that old fellow. Some of the men say he’s good to lend fifty pounds at a pinch.—Are the chops coming, Ned?”
“The chops are coming,” said Edward, who had thrown on a boating-coat and plunged into a book, and spoke echoing.
“Here’s little Peggy Lovell.” Algernon faced this portrait. “It don’t do her justice. She’s got more life, more change in her, more fire. She’s starting for town, I hear.”
“She is starting for town,” said Edward.
“How do you know that?” Algernon swung about to ask.
Edward looked round to him. “By the fact of your not having fished for a holiday this week. How did you leave her yesterday, Algy? Quite well, I hope.”
The ingenuous face of the young gentleman crimsoned.
“Oh, she was well,” he said. “Ha! I see there can be some attraction in your dark women.”
“You mean that Judith? Yes, she’s a good diversion.” Edward gave a two-edged response. “What train did you come up by last night?”
“The last from Wrexby. That reminds me: I saw a young Judith just as I got out. She wanted a cab. I called it for her. She belongs to old Hackbut of the Bank—the old porter, you know. If it wasn’t that there’s always something about dark women which makes me think they’re going to have a moustache, I should take to that girl’s face.”
Edward launched forth an invective against fair women.
“What have they done to you-what have they done?” said Algernon.
“My good fellow, they’re nothing but colour. They’ve no conscience. If they swear a thing to you one moment, they break it the next. They can’t help doing it. You don’t ask a gilt weathercock to keep faith with anything but the wind, do you? It’s an ass that trusts a fair woman at all, or has anything to do with the confounded set. Cleopatra was fair; so was Delilah; so is the Devil’s wife. Reach me that book of Reports.”
“By jingo!” cried Algernon, “my stomach reports that if provision doesn’t soon approach–why don’t you keep a French cook here, Ned? Let’s give up the women, and take to a French cook.”
Edward yawned horribly. “All in good time. It’s what we come to. It’s philosophy—your French cook! I wish I had it, or him. I’m afraid a fellow can’t anticipate his years—not so lucky!”
“By Jove! we shall have to be philosophers before we breakfast!” Algernon exclaimed. “It’s nine. I’ve to be tied to the stake at ten, chained and muzzled—a leetle-a dawg! I wish I hadn’t had to leave the service. It was a vile conspiracy against me there, Ned. Hang all tradesmen! I sit on a stool, and add up figures. I work harder than a nigger in the office. That’s my life: but I must feed. It’s no use going to the office in a rage.”
“Will you try on the gloves again?” was Edward’s mild suggestion.
Algernon thanked him, and replied that he knew him. Edward hit hard when he was empty.
They now affected patience, as far as silence went to make up an element of that sublime quality. The chops arriving, they disdained the mask. Algernon fired his glove just over the waiter’s head, and Edward put the ease to the man’s conscience; after which they sat and ate, talking little. The difference between them was, that Edward knew the state of Algernon’s mind and what was working within it, while the latter stared at a blank wall as regarded Edward’s.
“Going out after breakfast, Ned?” said Algernon. “We’ll walk to the city together, if you like.”
Edward fixed one of his intent looks upon his cousin. “You’re not going to the city to-day?”
“The deuce, I’m not!”
“You’re going to dance attendance on Mrs. Lovell, whom it’s your pleasure to call Peggy, when you’re some leagues out of her hearing.”
Algernon failed to command his countenance. He glanced at one of the portraits, and said, “Who is that girl up there? Tell us her name. Talking of Mrs. Lovell, has she ever seen it?”
“If you’ll put on your coat, my dear Algy, I will talk to you about Mrs. Lovell.” Edward kept his penetrative eyes on Algernon. “Listen to me: you’ll get into a mess there.”
“If I must listen, Ned, I’ll listen in my shirt-sleeves, with all respect to the lady.”
“Very well. The shirt-sleeves help the air of bravado. Now, you know that I’ve what they call ‘knelt at her feet.’ She’s handsome. Don’t cry out. She’s dashing, and as near being a devil as any woman I ever met. Do you know why we broke? I’ll tell you. Plainly, because I refused to believe that one of her men had insulted her. You understand what that means. I declined to be a chief party in a scandal.”
“Declined to fight the fellow?” interposed Algernon. “More shame to you!”
“I think you’re a year younger than I am, Algy. You have the privilege of speaking with that year’s simplicity. Mrs. Lovell will play you as she played me. I acknowledge her power, and I keep out of her way. I don’t bet; I don’t care to waltz; I can’t keep horses; so I don’t lose much by the privation to which I subject myself.”
“I bet, I waltz, and I ride. So,” said Algernon, “I should lose tremendously.”
“You will lose, mark my words.”
“Is the lecture of my year’s senior concluded?” said Algernon.
“Yes; I’ve done,” Edward answered.
“Then I’ll put on my coat, Ned, and I’ll smoke in it. That’ll give you assurance I’m not going near Mrs. Lovell, if anything will.”
“That gives me assurance that Mrs. Lovell tolerates in you what she detests,” said Edward, relentless in his insight; “and, consequently, gives me assurance that she finds you of particular service to her at present.”
Algernon had a lighted match in his hand. He flung it into the fire. “I’m hanged if I don’t think you have the confounded vanity to suppose she sets me as a spy upon you!”
A smile ran along Edward’s lips. “I don’t think you’d know it, if she did.”
“Oh, you’re ten years older; you’re twenty,” bawled Algernon, in an extremity of disgust. “Don’t I know what game you’re following up? Isn’t it clear as day you’ve got another woman in your eye?”
“It’s as clear as day, my good Algy, that you see a portrait hanging in my chambers, and you have heard Mrs. Lovell’s opinion of the fact. So much is perfectly clear. There’s my hand. I don’t blame you. She’s a clever woman, and like many of the sort, shrewd at guessing the worst. Come, take my hand. I tell you, I don’t blame you. I’ve been little dog to her myself, and fetched and carried, and wagged my tail. It’s charming while it lasts. Will you shake it?”
“Your tail, man?” Algernon roared in pretended amazement.
Edward eased him back to friendliness by laughing. “No; my hand.”
They shook hands.
“All right,” said Algernon. “You mean well. It’s very well for you to preach virtue to a poor devil; you’ve got loose, or you’re regularly in love.”
“Virtue! by heaven!” Edward cried; “I wish I were entitled to preach it to any man on earth.”
His face flushed. “There, good-bye, old fellow,” he added.
“Go to the city. I’ll dine with you to-night, if you like; come and dine with me at my Club. I shall be disengaged.”
Algernon