THE CLAIMS OF SOCIETY.
More than an hour after Allan had set forth on his exploring
expedition through his own grounds, Midwinter rose, and enjoyed,
in his turn, a full view by daylight of the magnificence of the
new house.
Refreshed by his long night's rest, he descended the great
staircase as cheerfully as Allan himself. One after another,
he, too, looked into the spacious rooms on the ground floor
in breathless astonishment at the beauty and the luxury which
surrounded him. "The house where I lived in service when I was a
boy, was a fine one," he thought, gayly; "but it was nothing to
this! I wonder if Allan is as surprised and delighted as I am?"
The beauty of the summer morning drew him out through the open
hall door, as it had drawn his friend out before him. He ran
briskly down the steps, humming the burden of one of the old
vagabond tunes which he had danced to long since in the old
vagabond time. Even the memories of his wretched childhood took
their color, on that happy morning. from the bright medium
through which he looked back at them. "If I was not out of
practice," he thought to himself, as he leaned on the fence and
looked over at the park, "I could try some of my old tumbling
tricks on that delicious grass." He turned, noticed two of the
servants talking together near the shrubbery, and asked for news
of the master of the house.
The men pointed with a smile in the direction of the gardens; Mr.
Armadale had gone that way more than an hour since, and had met
(as had been reported) with Miss Milroy in the grounds. Midwinter
followed the path through the shrubbery, but, on reaching the
flower garden, stopped, considered a little, and retraced his
steps. "If Allan has met with the young lady," he said to
himself, "Allan doesn't want me." He laughed as he drew that
inevitable inference, and turned considerately to explore the
beauties of Thorpe Ambrose on the other side of the house.
Passing the angle of the front wall of the building, he descended
some steps, advanced along a paved walk, turned another angle,
and found himself in a strip of garden ground at the back of the
house.
Behind him was a row of small rooms situated on the level of the
servants' offices. In front of him, on the further side of the
little garden, rose a wall, screened by a laurel hedge, and
having a door at one end of it, leading past the stables to a
gate that opened on the high-road. Perceiving that he had only
discovered thus far the shorter way to the house, used by the
servants and trades-people, Midwinter turned back again, and
looked in at the window of one of the rooms on the basement
story as he passed it. Were these the servants' offices? No; the
offices were apparently in some other part of the ground-floor;
the window he had looked in at was the window of a lumber-room.
The next two rooms in the row were both empty. The fourth window,
when he approached it, presented a little variety. It served also
as a door; and it stood open to the garden at that moment.
Attracted by the book-shelves which he noticed on one of the
walls, Midwinter stepped into the room.
The books, few in number, did not detain him long; a glance at
their backs was enough without taking them down. The Waverley
Novels, Tales by Miss Edgeworth, and by Miss Edgeworth's many
followers, the Poems of Mrs. Hemans, with a few odd volumes of
the illustrated gift-books of the period, composed the bulk of
the little library. Midwinter turned to leave the room, when an
object on one side of the window, which he had not previously
noticed, caught his attention and stopped him. It was a statuette
standing on a bracket--a reduced copy of the famous Niobe of the
Florence Museum. He glanced from the statuette to the window,
with a sudden doubt which set his heart throbbing fast. It was a
French window. He looked out with a suspicion which he had not
felt yet. The view before him was the view of a lawn and garden.
For a moment his mind struggled blindly to escape the conclusion
which had seized it, and struggled in vain. Here, close round him
and close before him--here, forcing him mercilessly back from the
happy present to the horrible past, was the room that Allan had
seen in the Second Vision of the Dream.
He waited, thinking and looking round him while he thought.
There was wonderfully little disturbance in his face and manner;
he looked steadily from one to the other of the few objects in
the room, as if the discovery of it had saddened rather than
surprised him. Matting of some foreign sort covered the floor.
Two cane chairs and a plain table comprised the whole of the
furniture. The walls were plainly papered, and bare--broken
to the eye in one place by a door leading into the interior
of the house; in another, by a small stove; in a third, by the
book-shelves which Midwinter had already noticed. He returned
to the books, and this time he took some of them down from the
shelves.
The first that he opened contained lines in a woman's
handwriting, traced in ink that had faded with time. He read the
inscription--"Jane Armadale, from her beloved father. Thorpe
Ambrose, October, 1828." In the second, third, and fourth volumes
that he opened, the same inscription re-appeared. His previous
knowledge of dates and persons helped him to draw the true
inference from what he saw. The books must have belonged to
Allan's mother; and she must have inscribed them with her name,
in the interval of time between her return to Thorpe Ambrose from
Madeira and the birth of her son. Midwinter passed on to a volume
on another shelf--one of a series containing the writings of Mrs.
Hemans. In this case, the blank leaf at the beginning of the book
was filled on both sides with a copy of verses, the writing being
still in Mrs. Armadale's hand. The verses were headed "Farewell
to Thorpe Ambrose," and were dated "March, 1829"--two months only
after Allan had been born.
Entirely without merit in itself, the only interest of the little
poem was in the domestic story that it told.
The very room in which Midwinter then stood was described--with
the view on the garden, the window made to open on it, the
bookshelves, the Niobe, and other more perishable ornaments
which Time had destroyed. Here, at variance with her brothers,
shrinking from her friends, the widow of the murdered man had, on
her own acknowledgment, secluded herself, without other comfort
than the love and forgiveness of her father, until her child was
born. The father's mercy and the father's recent death filled
many verses, happily too vague in their commonplace expression of
penitence and despair to give any hint of the marriage story in
Madeira to any reader who looked at them ignorant of the truth. A
passing reference to the writer's estrangement from her surviving
relatives, and to her approaching departure from Thorpe Ambrose,
followed. Last came the assertion of the mother's resolution to
separate herself from all her old associations; to leave behind
her every possession, even to the most trifling thing she had,
that could remind her of the miserable past; and to date her new
life in the future from the birthday of the child who had been
spared to console her--who was now the one earthly object that
could still speak to her of love and hope. So the old story of
passionate feeling that finds comfort in phrases rather than not
find comfort at all was told once again. So the poem in the faded
ink faded away to its end.
Midwinter put the book back with a heavy sigh, and opened no
other volume on the shelves. "Here in the country house, or
there on board the wreck," he said, bitterly, "the traces of my
father's crime follow me, go where I may." He advanced toward
the window, stopped, and looked back into the lonely, neglected
little room. "Is _this_ chance?" he asked himself. "The place
where his mother suffered is the place he sees in the Dream; and
the first morning in the new house is the morning that reveals
it, not to _him_, but to me. Oh, Allan! Allan! how will it end?"
The thought had barely passed through his mind before he heard
Allan's voice, from the paved walk at the side of the house,
calling to him by his name. He hastily stepped out into the
garden. At the same moment Allan came running round the corner,
full of voluble apologies for having forgotten, in the society
of his new neighbors, what was due to the laws of hospitality
and the claims of his friend.
"I really haven't missed you," said Midwinter; "and I am very,
very glad to hear that the new neighbors have produced such a
pleasant impression on you already."
He tried, as he spoke, to lead the way back by the outside of the
house; but Allan's flighty attention had been caught by the open
window and the lonely little room. He stepped in immediately.
Midwinter followed, and watched him in breathless anxiety as
he looked round. Not the slightest recollection of the Dream
troubled Allan's easy mind. Not the slightest reference to it
fell from the silent lips of his friend.
"Exactly the sort of place I should have expected you to hit on!"
exclaimed Allan, gayly. "Small and snug and unpretending. I know
you, Master Midwinter! You'll be slipping off here when the
county families come visiting, and I rather think on those
dreadful occasions you won't find me far behind you. What's the
matter? You look ill and out of spirits. Hungry? Of course you
are! unpardonable of me to have kept you waiting. This door leads
somewhere, I suppose; let's try a short cut into the house. Don't
be afraid of my not keeping you company at breakfast. I didn't
eat much at the cottage; I feasted my eyes on Miss Milroy, as
the poets say. Oh, the darling! the darling! she turns you
topsy-turvy the moment you look at her. As for her father, wait
till you see his wonderful clock! It's twice the size of the
famous clock at Strasbourg, and the most tremendous striker ever
heard yet in the memory of man!"
Singing the praises of his new friends in this strain at the top
of his voice, Allan hurried Midwinter along the stone passages on
the basement floor, which led, as he had rightly guessed, to a
staircase communicating with the hall. They passed the servants'
offices on the way. At the sight of the cook and the roaring
fire, disclosed through the open kitchen door, Allan's mind went
off at a tangent, and Allan's dignity scattered itself to the
four winds of heaven, as usual.
"Aha, Mrs. Gripper, there you are with your pots and pans, and
your burning fiery furnace! One had need be Shadrach, Meshach,
and the other fellow to stand over that. Breakfast as soon as
ever you like. Eggs, sausages, bacon, kidneys, marmalade,
water-cresses, coffee, and so forth. My friend and I belong to
the select few whom it's a perfect privilege to cook for.
Voluptuaries, Mrs. Gripper, voluptuaries, both of us. You'll
see," continued Allan, as they went on toward the stairs, "I
shall make that worthy creature young again; I'm better than a
doctor for Mrs. Gripper. When she laughs, she shakes her fat
sides, and when she shakes her fat sides, she exerts her muscular
system; and when she exerts her muscular system-- Ha! here's
Susan again. Don't squeeze yourself flat against the banisters,
my dear; if you don't mind hustling _me_ on the stairs, I rather
like hustling _you_. She looks like a full-blown rose when she
blushes, doesn't she? Stop, Susan! I've orders to give. Be very
particular with Mr. Midwinter's room: shake up his bed like mad,
and dust his furniture till those nice round arms of yours ache
again. Nonsense, my dear fellow! I'm not too familiar with them;
I'm only keeping them up to their work. Now, then, Richard! where
do we breakfast? Oh, here. Between ourselves, Midwinter, these
splendid rooms of mine are a size too large for me; I don't feel
as if I should ever be on intimate terms with my own furniture.
My views in life are of the snug and slovenly sort--a kitchen
chair, you know, and a low ceiling. Man wants but little here
below, and wants that little long. That's not exactly the right
quotation; but it expresses my meaning, and we'll let alone
correcting it till the next opportunity."
"I beg your pardon," interposed Midwinter, "here is something
waiting for you which you have not noticed yet."
As he spoke, he pointed a little impatiently to a letter lying on
the breakfast-table. He could conceal the ominous discovery which
he had made that morning, from Allan's knowledge; but he could
not conquer the latent distrust of circumstances which was now
raised again in his superstitious nature--the instinctive
suspicion of everything that happened, no matter how common or
how trifling the event, on the first memorable day when the new
life began in the new house.
Allan ran his eye over the letter, and tossed it across the table
to his friend. "I can't make head or tail of it," he said, "can
you?"
Midwinter read the letter, slowly, aloud. "Sir--I trust you will
pardon the liberty I take in sending these few lines to wait your
arrival at Thorpe Ambrose. In the event of circumstances not
disposing you to place your law business in the hands of Mr.
Darch--" He suddenly stopped at that point, and considered a
little.
"Darch is our friend the lawyer," said Allan, supposing Midwinter
had forgotten the name. "Don't you remember our spinning the
half-crown on the cabin table, when I got the two offers for the
cottage? Heads, the major; tails, the lawyer. This is the
lawyer."
Without making any reply, Midwinter resumed reading the letter.
"In the event of circumstances not disposing you to place your
law business in the hands of Mr. Darch, I beg to say that I shall
be happy to take charge of your interests, if you feel willing to
honor me with your confidence. Inclosing a reference (should you
desire it) to my agents in London, and again apologizing for this
intrusion, I beg to remain, sir, respectfully yours, A. PEDGIFT,
Sen."
"Circumstances?" repeated Midwinter, as he laid the letter down.
"What circumstances can possibly indispose you to give your law
business to Mr. Darch?"
"Nothing can indispose me," said Allan. "Besides being the family
lawyer here, Darch was the first to write me word at Paris of my
coming in for my fortune; and, if I have got any business to
give, of course he ought to have it."
Midwinter still looked distrustfully at the open letter on the
table. "I am sadly afraid, Allan, there is something wrong
already," he said. "This man would never have ventured on the
application he has made to you, unless he had some good reason
for believing he would succeed. If you wish to put yourself right
at starting, you will send to Mr. Darch this morning to tell him
you are here, and you will take no notice for the present of Mr.
Pedgift's letter."
Before more could be said on either side, the footman made his
appearance with the breakfast tray. He was followed, after an
interval, by the butler, a man of the essentially confidential
kind, with a modulated voice, a courtly manner, and a bulbous
nose. Anybody but Allan would have seen in his face that he had
come into the room having a special communication to make to his
master. Allan, who saw nothing under the surface, and whose head
was running on the lawyer's letter, stopped him bluntly with the
point-blank question: "Who's Mr. Pedgift?"
The butler's sources of local knowledge opened confidentially on
the instant. Mr. Pedgift was the second of the two lawyers in the
town. Not so long established, not so wealthy, not so universally
looked up to as old Mr. Darch. Not doing the business of the
highest people in the county, and not mixing freely with the best
society, like old Mr. Darch. A very sufficient man, in his way,
nevertheless. Known as a perfectly competent and respectable
practitioner all round the neighborhood. In short, professionally
next best to Mr. Darch; and personally superior to him (if the
expression might be permitted) in this respect--that Darch was a
Crusty One, and Pedgift wasn't.
Having imparted this information, the butler, taking a wise
advantage of his position, glided, without a moment's stoppage,
from Mr. Pedgift's character to the business that had brought him
into the breakfast-room. The Midsummer Audit was near at hand;
and the tenants were accustomed to have a week's notice of the
rent-day dinner. With this necessity pressing, and with no orders
given as yet, and no steward in office at Thorpe Ambrose, it
appeared desirable that some confidential person should bring the
matter forward. The butler was that confidential person; and he
now ventured accordingly to trouble his master on the subject.
At this point Allan opened his lips to interrupt, and was himself
interrupted before he could utter a word.
"Wait!" interposed Midwinter, seeing in Allan's face that he was
in danger of being publicly announced in the capacity of steward.
"Wait!" he repeated, eagerly, "till I can speak to you first."
The butler's courtly manner remained alike unruffled by
Midwinter's sudden interference and by his own dismissal from
the scene. Nothing but the mounting color in his bulbous nose
betrayed the sense of injury that animated him as he withdrew.
Mr. Armadale's chance of regaling his friend and himself that day
with the best wine in the cellar trembled in the balance, as the
butler took his way back to the basement story.
"This is beyond a joke, Allan," said Midwinter, when they were
alone. "Somebody must meet your tenants on the rent-day who is
really fit to take the steward's place. With the best will in the
world to learn, it is impossible for _me_ to master the business
at a week's notice. Don't, pray don't let your anxiety for my
welfare put you in a false position with other people! I should
never forgive myself if I was the unlucky cause--"
"Gently gently!' cried Allan, amazed at his friend's
extraordinary earnestness. "If I write to London by to-night's
post for the man who came down here before, will that satisfy
you?"
Midwinter shook his head. "Our time is short," he said; "and the
man may not be at liberty. Why not try in the neighborhood first?
You were going to write to Mr. Darch. Send at once, and see if he
can't help us between this and post-time."
Allan withdrew to a side-table on which writing materials were
placed. "You shall breakfast in peace, you old fidget," he
replied, and addressed himself forthwith to Mr. Darch, with his
usual Spartan brevity of epistolary expression. "Dear Sir--Here
I am, bag and baggage. Will you kindly oblige me by being my
lawyer? I ask this, because I want to consult you at once. Please
look in in the course of the day, and stop to dinner if you
possibly can. Yours truly. ALLAN ARMADALE." Having read this
composition aloud with unconcealed admiration of his own rapidity
of literary execution, Allan addressed the letter to Mr. Darch,
and rang the bell. "Here, Richard, take this at once, and wait
for an answer. And, I say, if there's any news stirring in the
town, pick it up and bring it back with you. See how I manage
my servants!" continued Allan, joining his friend at the
breakfast-table. "See how I adapt myself to my new duties! I
haven't been down here one clear day yet, and I'm taking an
interest in the neighborhood already."
Breakfast over, the two friends went out to idle away the morning
under the shade of a tree in the park. Noon came, and Richard
never appeared. One o'clock struck, and still there were no signs
of an answer from Mr. Darch. Midwinter's patience was not proof
against the delay. He left Allan dozing on the grass, and went to
the house to make inquiries. The town was described as little
more than two miles distant; but the day of the week happened to
be market day, and Richard was being detained no doubt by some of
the many acquaintances whom he would be sure to meet with on that
occasion.
Half an hour later the truant messenger returned, and was sent
out to report himself to his master under the tree in the park.
"Any answer from Mr. Darch?" asked Midwinter, seeing that Allan
was too lazy to put the question for himself.
"Mr. Darch was engaged, sir. I was desired to say that he would
send an answer."
"Any news in the town?" inquired Allan, drowsily, without
troubling himself to open his eyes.
"No, sir; nothing in particular."
Observing the man suspiciously as he made that reply, Midwinter
detected in his face that he was not speaking the truth. He was
plainly embarrassed, and plainly relieved when his master's
silence allowed him to withdraw. After a little consideration,
Midwinter followed, and overtook the retreating servant on the
drive before the house.
"Richard," he said, quietly, "if I was to guess that there _is_
some news in the town, and that you don't like telling it to your
master, should I be guessing the truth?"
The man started and changed color. "I don't know how you have
found it out," he said; "but I can't deny you have guessed
right."
"If you let me hear what the news is, I will take the
responsibility on myself of telling Mr. Armadale."
After some little hesitation, and some distrustful consideration,
on his side, of Midwinter's face, Richard at last prevailed on
himself to repeat what he had heard that day in the town.
The news of Allan's sudden appearance at Thorpe Ambrose had
preceded the servant's arrival at his destination by some hours.
Wherever he went, he found his master the subject of public
discussion. The opinion of Allan's conduct among the leading
townspeople, the resident gentry of the neighborhood, and the
principal tenants on the estate was unanimously unfavorable. Only
the day before, the committee for managing the pubic reception of
the new squire had sketched the progress of the procession; had
settled the serious question of the triumphal arches; and had
appointed a competent person to solicit subscriptions for the
flags, the flowers, the feasting, the fireworks, and the band. In
less than a week more the money could have been collected, and
the rector would have written to Mr. Armadale to fix the day. And
now, by Allan's own act, the public welcome waiting to honor him
had been cast back contemptuously in the public teeth! Everybody
took for granted (what was unfortunately true) that he had
received private information of the contemplated proceedings.
Everybody declared that he had purposely stolen into his own
house like a thief in the night (so the phrase ran) to escape
accepting the offered civilities of his neighbors. In brief, the
sensitive self-importance of the little town was wounded to the
quick, and of Allan's once enviable position in the estimation
of the neighborhood not a vestige remained.
For a moment, Midwinter faced the messenger of evil tidings in
silent distress. That moment past, the sense of Allan's critical
position roused him, now the evil was known, to seek the remedy.
"Has the little you have seen of your master, Richard, inclined
you to like him?" he asked.
This time the man answered without hesitation, "A pleasanter and
kinder gentleman than Mr. Armadale no one could wish to serve."
"If you think that," pursued Midwinter, "you won't object to give
me some information which will help your master to set himself
right with his neighbors. Come into the house."
He led the way into the library, and, after asking the necessary
questions, took down in writing a list of the names and addresses
of the most influential persons living in the town and its
neighborhood. This done, he rang the bell for the head footman,
having previously sent Richard with a message to the stables
directing an open carriage to be ready in an hour's time.
"When the late Mr. Blanchard went out to make calls in the
neighborhood, it was your place to go with him, was it not?"
he asked, when the upper servant appeared. "Very well. Be ready
in an hour's time, if you please, to go out with Mr. Armadale."
Having given that order, he left the house again on his way back
to Allan, with the visiting list in his hand. He smiled a little
sadly as he descended the steps. "Who would have imagined,"
he thought, "that my foot-boy's experience of the ways of
gentlefolks would be worth looking back at one day for Allan's
sake?"
The object of the popular odium lay innocently slumbering on
the grass, with his garden hat over his nose, his waistcoat
unbuttoned, and his trousers wrinkled half way up his
outstretched legs. Midwinter roused him without hesitation,
and remorselessly repeated the servant's news.
Allan accepted the disclosure thus forced on him without the
slightest disturbance of temper. "Oh, hang 'em!" was all he said.
"Let's have another cigar." Midwinter took the cigar out of his
hand, and, insisting on his treating the matter seriously, told
him in plain words that he must set himself right with his
offended neighbors by calling on them personally to make his
apologies. Allan sat up on the grass in astonishment; his eyes
opened wide in incredulous dismay. Did Midwinter positively
meditate forcing him into a "chimney-pot hat," a nicely brushed
frock-coat, and a clean pair of gloves? Was it actually in
contemplation to shut him up in a carriage, with his footman on
the box and his card-case in his hand, and send him round from
house to house, to tell a pack of fools that he begged their
pardon for not letting them make a public show of him? If
anything so outrageously absurd as this was really to be done,
it could not be done that day, at any rate. He had promised to go
back to the charming Milroy at the cottage and to take Midwinter
with him. What earthly need had he of the good opinion of the
resident gentry? The only friends he wanted were the friends he
had got already. Let the whole neighborhood turn its back on him
if it liked; back or face, the Squire of Thorpe Ambrose didn't
care two straws about it.
After allowing him to run on in this way until his whole stock
of objections was exhausted, Midwinter wisely tried his personal
influence next. He took Allan affectionately by the hand. "I am
going to ask a great favor," he said. "If you won't call on these
people for your own sake, will you call on them to please _me_?"
Allan delivered himself of a groan of despair, stared in mute
surprise at the anxious face of his friend, and good-humoredly
gave way. As Midwinter took his arm, and led him back to the
house, he looked round with rueful eyes at the cattle hard by,
placidly whisking their tails in the pleasant shade. "Don't
mention it in the neighborhood," he said; "I should like to
change places with one of my own cows."
Midwinter left him to dress, engaging to return when the carriage
was at the door. Allan's toilet did not promise to be a speedy
one. He began it by reading his own visiting cards; and he
advanced it a second stage by looking into his wardrobe, and
devoting the resident gentry to the infernal regions. Before he
could discover any third means of delaying his own proceedings,
the necessary pretext was unexpectedly supplied by Richard's
appearance with a note in his hand. The messenger had just called
with Mr. Darch's answer. Allan briskly shut up the wardrobe, and
gave his whole attention to the lawyer's letter. The lawyer's
letter rewarded him by the following lines:
"SIR--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of to-day's
date, honoring me with two proposals; namely, ONE inviting me to
act as your legal adviser, and ONE inviting me to pay you a visit
at your house. In reference to the first proposal, I beg
permission to decline it with thanks. With regard to the second
proposal, I have to inform you that circumstances have come to
my knowledge relating to the letting of the cottage at Thorpe
Ambrose which render it impossible for me (in justice to myself)
to accept your invitation. I have ascertained, sir, that my offer
reached you at the same time as Major Milroy's; and that, with
both proposals thus before you, you gave the preference to a
total stranger, who addressed you through a house agent, over a
man who had faithfully served your relatives for two generations,
and who had been the first person to inform you of the most
important event in your life. After this specimen of your
estimate of what is due to the claims of common courtesy and
common justice, I cannot flatter myself that I possess any of the
qualities which would fit me to take my place on the list of your
friends.
"I remain, sir, your obedient servant,
"JAMES DARCH."
"Stop the messenger!" cried Allan, leaping to his feet, his ruddy
face aflame with indignation. "Give me pen, ink, and paper! By
the Lord Harry, they're a nice set of people in these parts; the
whole neighborhood is in a conspiracy to bully me!" He snatched
up the pen in a fine frenzy of epistolary inspiration. "Sir--I
despise you and your letter.--" At that point the pen made a
blot, and the writer was seized with a momentary hesitation. "Too
strong," he thought; "I'll give it to the lawyer in his own cool
and cutting style." He began again on a clean sheet of paper.
"Sir--You remind me of an Irish bull. I mean that story in 'Joe
Miller' where Pat remarked, in the hearing of a wag hard by, that
'the reciprocity was all on one side.' _Your_ reciprocity is all
on one side. You take the privilege of refusing to be my lawyer,
and then you complain of my taking the privilege of refusing to
be your landlord." He paused fondly over those last words.
"Neat!" he thought. "Argument and hard hitting both in one. I
wonder where my knack of writing comes from?" He went on, and
finished the letter in two more sentences. "As for your casting
my invitation back in my teeth, I beg to inform you my teeth are
none the worse for it. I am equally glad to have nothing to say
to you, either in the capacity of a friend or a tenant.--ALLAN
ARMADALE." He nodded exultantly at his own composition, as he
addressed it and sent it down to the messenger. "Darch's hide
must be a thick one," he said, "if he doesn't feel _that_!"
The sound of the wheels outside suddenly recalled him to the
business of the day. There was the carriage waiting to take him
on his round of visits; and there was Midwinter at his post,
pacing to and fro on the drive.
"Read that," cried Allan, throwing out the lawyer's letter; "I've
written him back a smasher."
He bustled away to the wardrobe to get his coat. There was a
wonderful change in him; he felt little or no reluctance to pay
the visits now. The pleasurable excitement of answering Mr. Darth
had put him in a fine aggressive frame of mind for asserting
himself in the neighborhood. "Whatever else they may say of me,
they shan't say I was afraid to face them." Heated red-hot with
that idea, he seized his hat and gloves, and hurrying out of the
room, met Midwinter in the corridor with the lawyer's letter in
his hand.
"Keep up your spirits!" cried Allan, seeing the anxiety in his
friend's face, and misinterpreting the motive of it immediately.
"If Darch can't be counted on to send us a helping hand into the
steward's office, Pedgift can."
"My dear Allan, I was not thinking of that; I was thinking of Mr.
Darch's letter. I don't defend this sour-tempered man; but I am
afraid we must admit he has some cause for complaint. Pray don't
give him another chance of putting you in the wrong. Where is
your answer to his letter?"
"Gone!" replied Allan. "I always strike while the iron's hot--a
word and a blow, and the blow first, that's my way. Don't,
there's a good fellow, don't fidget about the steward's books
and the rent-day. Here! here's a bunch of keys they gave me last
night: one of them opens the room where the steward's books are;
go in and read them till I come back. I give you my sacred word
of honor I'll settle it all with Pedgift before you see me
again."
"One moment," interposed Midwinter, stopping him resolutely on
his way out to the carriage. "I say nothing against Mr. Pedgift's
fitness to possess your confidence, for I know nothing to justify
me in distrusting him. But he has not introduced himself to your
notice in a very delicate way; and he has not acknowledged (what
is quite clear to my mind) that he knew of Mr. Darch's unfriendly
feeling toward you when he wrote. Wait a little before you go to
this stranger; wait till we can talk it over together to-night."
"Wait!" replied Allan. "Haven't I told you that I always strike
while the iron's hot? Trust my eye for character, old boy, I'll
look Pedgift through and through, and act accordingly. Don't keep
me any longer, for Heaven's sake. I'm in a fine humor for
tackling the resident gentry; and if I don't go at once, I'm
afraid it may wear off."
With that excellent reason for being in a hurry, Allan
boisterously broke away. Before it was possible to stop him
again, he had jumped into the carriage and had left the house.