“Oh! the Countess! the Countess!” exclaimed Rose to Drummond’s pathetic shake of the head. She and Drummond were fully agreed about the Countess. Drummond mimicking the lady: “In verity, she is most mellifluous!” while Rose sugared her lips and leaned gracefully forward with “De Saldar, let me petition you—since we must endure our title—since it is not to be your Louisa?” and her eyes sought the ceiling, and her hand slowly melted into her drapery, as the Countess was wont to effect it.
Lady Jocelyn laughed, but said: “You’re too hard upon the Countess. The female euphuist is not to be met with every day. It’s a different kind from the Précieuse. She is not a Précieuse. She has made a capital selection of her vocabulary from Johnson, and does not work it badly, if we may judge by Harry and Melville. Euphuism in ‘woman’ is the popular ideal of a Duchess. She has it by nature, or she has studied it: and if so you must respect her abilities.”
“Yes, Harry!” said Rose, who was angry at a loss of influence over her rough brother, “any one could manage Harry! and Uncle Mel’s a goose. You should see what a ‘female euphuist’ Dorry is getting. She says in the Countess’s hearing: ‘Rose! I should in verity wish to play, if it were pleasing to my sweet cousin?’ I’m ready to die with laughing. I don’t do it, mama.”
The Countess, thus being discussed, was closeted with old Mrs. Bonner: not idle. Like Hannibal in Italy, she had crossed her Alps in attaining Beckley Court, and here in the enemy’s country the wary general found herself under the necessity of throwing up entrenchments to fly to in case of defeat. Sir Abraham Harrington of Torquay, who had helped her to cross the Alps, became a formidable barrier against her return.
Meantime Evan was riding over to Fallowfield, and as he rode under black visions between the hedgeways crowned with their hop-garlands, a fragrance of roses saluted his nostril, and he called to mind the red and the white the peerless representative of the two had given him, and which he had thrust sullenly in his breast-pocket: and he drew them out to look at them reproachfully and sigh farewell to all the roses of life, when in company with them he found in his hand the forgotten letter delivered to him on the cricket-field the day of the memorable match. He smelt at the roses, and turned the letter this way and that. His name was correctly worded on the outside. With an odd reluctance to open it, he kept trifling over the flowers, and then broke the broad seal, and these are the words that met his eyes:—
“Mr. Evan Harrington.
“You have made up your mind to be a tailor, instead of a Tomnoddy. You’re right. Not too many men in the world—plenty of nincompoops.
“Don’t be made a weathercock of by a parcel of women. I want to find a man worth something. If you go on with it, you shall end by riding in your carriage, and cutting it as fine as any of them. I’ll take care your belly is not punished while you’re about it.
“From the time your name is over your shop, I give you 300l. per annum.
“Or stop. There’s nine of you. They shall have 40l. per annum a-piece. 9 times 40, eh? That’s better than 300l., if you know how to reckon. Don’t you wish it was ninety-nine tailors to a man! I could do that, too, and it would not break me; so don’t be a proud young ass, or I’ll throw my money to the geese. Lots of them in the world. How many geese to a tailor?
“Go on for five years, and I double it.
“Give it up, and I give you up.
“No question about me. The first tailor can be paid his 40l. in advance, by applying at the offices of Messrs. Grist, Gray’s Inn Square, Gray’s Inn. Let him say he is tailor No. 1, and show this letter, signed Agreed, with your name in full at bottom. That will do—money will be paid—no questions one side or other. So on—the whole nine. The end of the year they can give a dinner to their acquaintance. Send in bill to Messrs. Grist.
“The advice to you to take the cash according to terms mentioned is advice of
“A Friend.”
“P.S. You shall have your wine. Consult among yourselves, and carry it by majority what wine it’s to be. Five carries it. Dozen and half per tailor, per annum—that’s the limit.”
It was certainly a very hot day. The pores of his skin were prickling, and his face was fiery; and yet he increased his pace, and broke into a wild gallop for a mile or so; then suddenly turned his horse’s head back for Beckley. The secret of which evolution was, that he had caught the idea of a plotted insult of Laxley’s in the letter, for when the blood is up we are drawn the way the tide sets strongest, and Evan was prepared to swear that Laxley had written the letter, because he was burning to chastise the man who had injured him with Rose.
Sure that he was about to confirm his suspicion, he read it again, gazed upon Beckley Court in the sultry light, and turned for Fallowfield once more, devising to consult Mr. John Raikes on the subject.
The letter had a smack of crabbed age hardly counterfeit. The savour of an old eccentric’s sour generosity was there. Evan fell into bitter laughter at the idea of Rose glancing over his shoulder and asking him what nine of him to a man meant. He heard her clear voice pursuing him. He could not get away from the mocking sound of Rose beseeching him to instruct her on that point. How if the letter were genuine? He began to abhor the sight and touch of the paper, for it struck division cold as death between him and his darling. He saw now the immeasurable hopes his residence at Beckley had lured him to. Rose had slightly awakened him: this letter was blank day to his soul. He saw the squalid shop, the good, stern, barren-spirited mother, the changeless drudgery, the existence which seemed indeed no better than what the ninth of a man was fit for. The influence of his mother came on him once more. Dared he reject the gift, if true? No spark of gratitude could he feel, but chained, dragged at the heels of his fate, he submitted to think it true; resolving