Furies. They did hover a little above him; but as for me, I’m scorched; and I mustn’t say where: my mouth is locked: the social laws which forbid the employment of obsolete words arrest my passionate exclamations of despair. I feel as if I were frying on my own conscience. What do you advise me to do?”
“Eh?” quoth Evan, “a tin plate? Is that the foundation of your fortune? Oh, change your suit, and renounce the curricle.”
“Will you measure me?”
“Jack! Jack!” said Evan softly.
“There, pardon me, Harrington, pray. It’s bile. My whole digestion’s seriously deranged.”
“You seemed happy this morning?”
“Yes, but there was still the curst anticipation of its oozing out. I confess I didn’t think I should feel it so acutely. But I’m awfully sensitive. And now it’s known, I don’t seem to live in front. My spirit somehow seems to have faced about. Now I see the malignant nature of that old wretch! I told him over a pint of port—and what noble stuff is that Aurora port!—I told him—I amused him till he was on the point of bursting—I told him I was such a gentleman as the world hadn’t seen—minus money. So he determined to launch me. And he has! Harrington, I’m like a ship. Literally I carry my name behind. ‘John F. Raikes, Gentleman.’ I see the eyes of the world directed on it. It completely blasts my genius. Upon my honour—I got it in your service—and you ought to claim part proprietorship. Oh! I shall give up Fallowfield. Fancy the hustings. It would be like hell! Ungenerous old man! Oh! why didn’t I first—ass that I was!—stipulate for silence. I should never have been in danger then, except when dancing, or in a high wind. All my bright visions are faded.
Evan listened to the tribulations of his friend as he would to those of a doll—the sport of some experimental child. By this time he knew something of old Tom Cogglesby, and was not astonished that he should have chosen John Raikes to play one of his farces on. Jack turned off abruptly the moment he saw they were nearing human figures, but soon returned to Evan’s side, as if for protection, muttering:
“Will you believe it, my dear fellow? I haven’t a single pair without the T. P.!”
“Hoy! Harrington!” shouted Harry, beckoning to him. “Come, make haste! I’m in a deuce of a mess.”
The two Wheedles—Susan and Polly—were standing in front of him, and after his call to Evan, he turned to continue some exhortation, or appeal to the common sense of women, largely indulged in by young men when the mischief is done.
“Harrington, do speak to her. She looks upon you as a sort of parson. I can’t make her believe I didn’t send for her. Of course, she knows I’m fond of her. My dear fellow,” he whispered, “I shall be ruined if my grandmother hears of it. Get her away, please. Promise anything.”
Evan took her hand and asked for the child.
“Quite well, sir,” faltered Susan.
“You should not have come here.”
Susan stared, and commenced whimpering: “Didn’t you wish it, sir?”
“Oh, she’s always thinking of being made a lady of,” cried Polly. “As if Mr. Harry was going to do that. It wants a gentleman to do that.”
“The carriage came for me, sir, in the afternoon,” said Susan, plaintively, “with your compliments, and would I come. I thought”
“What carriage?” asked Evan.
Mr. Raikes, who was ogling Polly, interposed grandly, “Mine!”
“And you sent in my name for this girl to come here?” Evan turned wrathfully on him.
“My dear Harrington, when you hit you knock down. The wise require but one dose of experience. The Countess wished it, and I did despatch.”
“The Countess!” Harry exclaimed; “Jove! do you mean to say that the Countess”
“De Saldar,” added Jack. “In Britain none were worthy found.”
Harry gave a long whistle.
“Leave at once,” said Evan to Susan. “Whatever you may want send to me for. And when you think you can meet your parents, I will take you to them. Remember that is what you must do.”
“Make her give up that stupidness of her’s about being made a lady of, Mr. Harrington,” said the inveterate Polly.
Susan here fell a-weeping:
“I would go, sir,” she said. “I’m sure I would obey you; but I can’t. I can’t go back to the inn. They’re beginning to talk about me, because—because I can’t—can’t pay them, and I’m ashamed.”
Evan looked at Harry.
“I forgot,” the latter mumbled, but his face was crimson. He put his hands in his pockets. “Do you happen to have a note or so?” he asked.
Evan took him aside and gave him what he had; and this amount, without inspection or reserve, Harry offered to Susan. She dashed his hand impetuously from her sight.
“There, give it to me,” said Polly. “Oh, Mr. Harry! what a young man you are!”
Whether from the rebuff, or the reproach, or old feelings reviving, Harry was moved to go forward, and lay his hand on Susan’s shoulder, and mutter something in her ear that softened her.
Polly thrust the notes into her bosom, and with a toss of her nose, as who should say, “Here’s nonsense they’re at again,” tapped Susan on the other shoulder, and said imperiously: “Come, Miss!”
Hurrying out a dozen sentences in one, Harry ended by suddenly kissing Susan’s cheek, and then Polly bore her away; and Harry, with great solemnity, said to Evan:
“’Pon my honour, I think I ought to! I declare I think I love that girl. What’s one’s family? Why shouldn’t you button to the one that just suits you? That girl, when she’s dressed, and in good trim, by Jove! nobody’d know her