The Essential George Meredith Collection. George Meredith
hard, and shaking his great ash-branch.
"He seems incapable, my dear boy. What have you been up to?--Benson! Benson!--I say, Ricky, this looks bad."
"He's shamming!" Richard clamoured like a savage. "Spy upon me, will he? I tell you, he's shamming. He hasn't had half enough. Nothing's too bad for a spy. Let him getup!"
"Insatiate youth! do throw away that enormous weapon."
"He has written to my father," Richard shouted. "The miserable spy! Let him get up!"
"Ooogh? I won't!" huskily groaned Benson. "Mr. Hadrian, you're a witness--he's my back!"--Cavernous noises took up the tale of his maltreatment.
"I daresay you love your back better than any part of your body now," Adrian muttered. "Come, Benson! be a man. Mr. Richard has thrown away the stick. Come, and get off home, and let's see the extent of the damage."
"Ooogh! he's a devil! Mr. Hadrian, sir, he's a devil!" groaned Benson, turning half over in the road to ease his aches.
Adrian caught hold of Benson's collar and lifted him to a sitting posture. He then had a glimpse of what his hopeful pupil's hand could do in wrath. The wretched butler's coat was slit and welted; his hat knocked in; his flabby spirit so broken that he started and trembled if his pitiless executioner stirred a foot. Richard stood over him, grasping his great stick; no dawn of mercy for Benson in any corner of his features.
Benson screwed his neck round to look up at him, and immediately gasped, "I won't get up! I won't! He's ready to murder me again!--Mr. Hadrian! if you stand by and see it, you're liable to the law, sir--I won't get up while he's near." No persuasion could induce Benson to try his legs while his executioner stood by.
Adrian took Richard aside: "You've almost killed the poor devil, Ricky. You must be satisfied with that. Look at his face."
"The coward bobbed while I struck" said Richard. "I marked his back. He ducked. I told him he was getting it worse."
At so civilized piece of savagery, Adrian opened his mouth wide.
"Did you really? I admire that. You told him he was getting it worse?"
Adrian opened his mouth again to shake another roll of laughter out.
"Come," he said, "Excalibur has done his word. Pitch him into the lake. And see--here comes the Blandish. You can't be at it again before a woman. Go and meet her, and tell her the noise was an ox being slaughtered. Or say Argus."
With a whirr that made all Benson's bruises moan and quiver, the great ash-branch shot aloft, and Richard swung off to intercept Lady Blandish.
Adrian got Benson on his feet. The heavy butler was disposed to summon all the commiseration he could feel for his bruised flesh. Every half-step he attempted was like a dislocation. His groans and grunts were frightful.
"How much did that hat cost, Benson?" said Adrian, as he put it on his head.
"A five-and-twenty shilling beaver, Mr. Hadrian!" Benson caressed its injuries.
"The cheapest policy of insurance I remember to have heard of!" said Adrian.
Benson staggered, moaning at intervals to his cruel comforter.
"He's a devil, Mr. Hadrian! He's a devil, sir, I do believe, sir. Ooogh! he's a devil!--I can't move, Mr. Hadrian. I must be fetched. And Dr. Clifford must be sent for, sir. I shall never be fit for work again. I haven't a sound bone in my body, Mr. Hadrian."
"You see, Benson, this comes of your declaring war upon Venus. I hope the maids will nurse you properly. Let me see: you are friends with the housekeeper, aren't you? All depends upon that."
"I'm only a faithful servant, Mr. Hadrian," the miserable butler snarled.
"Then you've got no friend but your bed. Get to it as quick as possible, Benson."
"I can't move." Benson made a resolute halt. "I must be fetched," he whinnied. "It's a shame to ask me to move, Mr. Hadrian."
"You will admit that you are heavy, Benson," said Adrian, "so I can't carry you. However, I see Mr. Richard is very kindly returning to help me."
At these words heavy Benson instantly found his legs, and shambled on.
Lady Blandish met Richard in dismay.
"I have been horribly frightened," she said. "Tell me, what was the meaning of those cries I heard?"
"Only some one doing justice on a spy," said Richard, and the lady smiled, and looked on him fondly, and put her hand through his hair.
"Was that all? I should have done it myself if I had been a man. Kiss me."
CHAPTER XXI
By twelve o'clock at noon next day the inhabitants of Raynham Abbey knew that Berry, the baronet's man, had arrived post-haste from town, with orders to conduct Mr. Richard thither, and that Mr. Richard had refused to go, had sworn he would not, defied his father, and despatched Berry to the Shades. Berry was all that Benson was not. Whereas Benson hated woman, Berry admired her warmly. Second to his own stately person, woman occupied his reflections, and commanded his homage. Berry was of majestic port, and used dictionary words. Among the maids of Raynham his conscious calves produced all the discord and the frenzy those adornments seem destined to create in tender bosoms. He had, moreover, the reputation of having suffered for the sex; which assisted his object in inducing the sex to suffer for him. What with his calves, and his dictionary words, and the attractive halo of the mysterious vindictiveness of Venus surrounding him, this Adonis of the lower household was a mighty man below, and he moved as one.
On hearing the tumult that followed Berry's arrival, Adrian sent for him, and was informed of the nature of his mission, and its result.
"You should come to me first," said Adrian. "I should have imagined you were shrewd enough for that, Berry?"
"Pardon me, Mr. Adrian," Berry doubled his elbow to explain. "Pardon me, sir. Acting recipient of special injunctions I was not a free agent."
"Go to Mr. Richard again, Berry. There will be a little confusion if he holds back. Perhaps you had better throw out a hint or so of apoplexy. A slight hint will do. And here--Berry! when you return to town, you had better not mention anything--to quote Johnson--of Benson's spiflication."
"Certainly not, sir."
The wise youth's hint had the desired effect on Richard.
He dashed off a hasty letter by Tom to Belthorpe, and, mounting his horse, galloped to the Bellingham station.
Sir Austin was sitting down to a quiet early dinner at his hotel, when the Hope of Raynham burst into his room.
The baronet was not angry with his son. On the contrary, for he was singularly just and self-accusing while pride was not up in arms, he had been thinking all day after the receipt of Benson's letter that he was deficient in cordiality, and did not, by reason of his excessive anxiety, make himself sufficiently his son's companion: was not enough, as he strove to be, mother and father to him; preceptor and friend; previsor and associate. He had not to ask his conscience where he had lately been to blame towards the System. He had slunk away from Raynham in the very crisis of the Magnetic Age, and this young woman of the parish (as Benson had termed sweet Lucy in his letter) was the consequence.
Yes! pride and sensitiveness were his chief foes, and he would trample on them. To begin, he embraced his son: hard upon an Englishman at any time--doubly so to one so shamefaced at emotion in cool blood, as it were. It gave him a strange pleasure, nevertheless. And the youth seemed to answer to it; he was excited. Was his love, then, beginning to correspond with his father's as in those intimate days before the Blossoming Season?
But