My Novel Part 16

MR. MAYOR.--"Well, I guess you speak handsome, sir. But you'd be glad to have two members to support ministers after the next election."

MR. EGERTON (smiling).--"Unquestionably, Mr. Mayor."

MR. MAYOR.--"And I can do it, Mr. Egerton. I may say I have the town in my pocket; so I ought,--I spend a great deal of money in it. Now, you see, Mr. Egerton, I have pa.s.sed a part of my life in a land of liberty--the United States--and I come to the point when I speak to a man of the world. I'm a man of the world myself, sir. And so, if the Government will do something for me, why, I'll do something for the Government. Two votes for a free and independent town like ours,--that's something, isn't it?"

MR. EGERTON (taken by surprise).--"Really, I--"

MR. MAYOR (advancing his chair still nearer, and interrupting the official).--"No nonsense, you see, on one side or the other. The fact is, that I've taken it into my head that I should like to be knighted.

You may well look surprised, Mr. Egerton,--trumpery thing enough, I dare say; still, every man has his weakness, and I should like to be Sir Richard. Well, if you can get me made Sir Richard, you may just name your two members for the next election,--that is, if they belong to your own set, enlightened men, up to the times. That's speaking fair and manful, is n't it?"

MR. EGERTON (drawing himself up).--"I am at a loss to guess why you should select me, sir, for this very extraordinary proposition."

MR. MAYOR (nodding good-humouredly).--"Why, you see, I don't go along with the Government; you're the best of the bunch. And may be you'd like to strengthen your own party. This is quite between you and me, you understand; honour's a jewel!"

MR. EGERTON (with great gravity).--"Sir, I am obliged by your good opinion; but I agree with my colleagues in all the great questions that affect the government of the country, and--"

MR. MAYOR (interrupting him).--"Ah, of course, you must say so; very right. But I guess things would go differently if you were Prime Minister. However, I have another reason for speaking to you about my little job. You see you were member for Lansmere once, and I think you only came in by a majority of two, eh?"

MR. EGERTON.--"I know nothing of the particulars of that election; I was not present."

MR. MAYOR.--"No; but luckily for you, two relations of mine were, and they voted for you. Two votes, and you came in by two. Since then, you have got into very snug quarters here, and I think we have a claim on you--"

MR. EGERTON.--"Sir, I acknowledge no such claim; I was and am a stranger to Lansmere; and if the electors did me the honour to return me to parliament, it was in compliment rather to--"

MR. MAYOR (again interrupting the official).--"Rather to Lord Lansmere, you were going to say; unconst.i.tutional doctrine that, I fancy. Peer of the realm. But never mind, I know the world; and I'd ask Lord Lansmere to do my affair for me, only he is a pompous sort of man; might be qualmish: antiquated notions. Not up to snuff like you and me."

MR. EGERTON (in great disgust, and settling his papers before him).--"Sir, it is not in my department to recommend to his Majesty candidates for the honour of knighthood, and it is still less in my department to make bargains for seats in parliament."

MR. MAYOR.--"Oh, if that's the case, you'll excuse me; I don't know much of the etiquette in these matters. But I thought that if I put two seats in your hands for your own friends, you might contrive to take the affair into your department, whatever it was. But since you say you agree with your colleagues, perhaps it comes to the same thing. Now, you must not suppose I want to sell the town, and that I can change and chop my politics for my own purpose. No such thing! I don't like the sitting members; I'm all for progressing, but they go too much ahead for me; and since the Government is disposed to move a little, why, I'd as lief support them as not. But, in common grat.i.tude, you see," added the mayor, coaxingly, "I ought to be knighted! I can keep up the dignity, and do credit to his Majesty."

MR. EGERTON (without looking up from his papers).--"I can only refer you, sir, to the proper quarter."

MR. MAYOR (impatiently).--"Proper quarter! Well, since there is so much humbug in this old country of ours, that one must go through all the forms and get at the job regularly, just tell me whom I ought to go to."

MR. EGERTON (beginning to be amused as well as indignant).--"If you want a knighthood, Mr. Mayor, you must ask the Prime Minister; if you want to give the Government information relative to seats in parliament, you must introduce yourself to Mr. ------, the Secretary of the Treasury."

MR. MAYOR.--"And if I go to the last chap, what do you think he'll say?"

MR. EGERTON (the amus.e.m.e.nt preponderating over the indignation).--"He will say, I suppose, that you must not put the thing in the light in which you have put it to me; that the Government will be very proud to have the confidence of yourself and your brother electors; and that a gentleman like you, in the proud position of mayor, may well hope to be knighted on some fitting occasion; but that you must not talk about the knighthood just at present, and must confine yourself to converting the unfortunate political opinions of the town."

MR. MAYOR.--"Well, I guess that chap there would want to do me! Not quite so green, Mr. Egerton. Perhaps I'd better go at once to the fountain-head. How d' ye think the Premier would take it?"

MR. EGERTON (the indignation preponderating over the amus.e.m.e.nt).--"Probably just as I am about to do."

Mr. Egerton rang the bell; the attendant appeared. "Show Mr. Mayor the way out," said the minister.

The mayor turned round sharply, and his face was purple. He walked straight to the door; but suffering the attendant to precede him along the corridor, he came back with a rapid stride, and clenching his hands, and with a voice thick with pa.s.sion, cried, "Some day or other I will make you smart for this, as sure as my name's d.i.c.k Avenel!"

"Avenel!" repeated Egerton, recoiling,--"Avenel!" But the mayor was gone.

Audley fell into a deep and musing revery, which seemed gloomy, and lasted till the attendant announced that the horses were at the door.

He then looked up, still abstractedly, and saw his letter to Harley L'Estrange open on the table. He drew it towards him, and wrote, "A man has just left me, who calls himself Aven--" In the middle of the name his pen stopped. "No, no," muttered the writer, "what folly to reopen the old wounds there!" and he carefully erased the words.

Audley Egerton did not ride in the Park that day, as was his wont, but dismissed his groom; and, turning his horse's head towards Westminster Bridge, took his solitary way into the country. He rode at first slowly, as if in thought; then fast, as if trying to escape from thought. He was later than usual at the House that evening, and he looked pale and fatigued. But he had to speak, and he spoke well.

CHAPTER VII.

In spite of all his Machiavellian wisdom, Dr. Riccabocca had been foiled in his attempt to seduce Leonard Fairfield into his service, even though he succeeded in partially winning over the widow to his views. For to her he represented the worldly advantages of the thing. Lenny would learn to be fit for more than a day-labourer; he would learn gardening, in all its branches,--rise some day to be a head gardener. "And,"

said Riccabocca, "I will take care of his book-learning, and teach him whatever he has a head for."

"He has a head for everything," said the widow.

"Then," said the wise man, "everything shall go into it." The widow was certainly dazzled; for, as we have seen, she highly prized scholarly distinction, and she knew that the parson looked upon Riccabocca as a wondrous learned man. But still Riccabocca was said to be a Papist, and suspected to be a conjuror. Her scruples on both these points, the Italian, who was an adept in the art of talking over the fair s.e.x, would no doubt have dissipated, if there had been any use in it; but Lenny put a dead stop to all negotiations. He had taken a mortal dislike to Riccabocca: he was very much frightened by him,--and the spectacles, the pipe, the cloak, the long hair, and the red umbrella; and said so st.u.r.dily, in reply to every overture, "Please, sir, I'd rather not; I'd rather stay along with Mother," that Riccabocca was forced to suspend all further experiments in his Machiavellian diplomacy. He was not at all cast down, however, by his first failure; on the contrary, he was one of those men whom opposition stimulates; and what before had been but a suggestion of prudence, became an object of desire. Plenty of other lads might no doubt be had on as reasonable terms as Lenny Fairfield; but the moment Lenny presumed to baffle the Italian's designs upon him, the special acquisition, of Lenny became of paramount importance in the eyes of Signor Riccabocca.

Jackeymo, however, lost all his interest in the traps, snares, and gins which his master proposed to lay for Leonard Fairfield, in the more immediate surprise that awaited him on learning that Dr. Riccabocca had accepted an invitation to pa.s.s a few days at the Hall.

"There will be no one there but the family," said Riccabocca. "Poor Giacomo, a little chat in the servants' hall will do you good; and the squire's beef is more nouris.h.i.+ng, after all, than the sticklebacks and minnows. It will lengthen your life."

"The padrone jests," said Jackeymo, statelily; "as if any one could starve in his service."

"Um," said Riccabocca. "At least, faithful friend, you have tried that experiment as far as human nature will permit;" and he extended his hand to his fellow-exile with that familiarity which exists between servant and master in the usages of the Continent. Jackeymo bent low, and a tear fell upon the hand he kissed.

"Cospetto!" said Dr. Riccabocca, "a thousand mock pearls do not make up the cost of a single true one! The tears of women--we know their worth; but the tears of an honest man--Fie, Giacomo!--at least I can never repay you this! Go and see to our wardrobe."

So far as his master's wardrobe was concerned, that order was pleasing to Jackeymo; for the doctor had in his drawers suits which Jackeymo p.r.o.nounced to be as good as new, though many a long year had pa.s.sed since they left the tailor's hands. But when Jackeymo came to examine the state of his own clothing department, his face grew considerably longer. It was not that he was without other clothes than those on his back,--quant.i.ty was there, but the quality! Mournfully he gazed on two suits, complete in three separate members of which man's raiments are composed: the one suit extended at length upon his bed, like a veteran stretched by pious hands after death; the other brought piecemeal to the invidious light,--the torso placed upon a chair, the limbs dangling down from Jackeymo's melancholy arm. No bodies long exposed at the Morgue could evince less sign of resuscitation than those respectable defuncts!

For, indeed, Jackeymo had been less thrifty of his apparel, more profusus sui, than his master. In the earliest days of their exile, he preserved the decorous habit of dressing for dinner,--it was a respect due to the padrone,--and that habit had lasted till the two habits on which it necessarily depended had evinced the first symptoms of decay; then the evening clothes had been taken into morning wear, in which hard service they had breathed their last.

The doctor, notwithstanding his general philosophical abstraction from such household details, had more than once said, rather in pity to Jackeymo than with an eye to that respectability which the costume of the servant reflects on the dignity of the master, "Giacomo, thou wantest clothes; fit thyself out of mine!"

And Jackeymo had bowed his grat.i.tude, as if the donation had been accepted; but the fact was that that same fitting out was easier said than done. For though-thanks to an existence mainly upon sticklebacks and minnows--both Jackeymo and Riccabocca had arrived at that state which the longevity of misers proves to be most healthful to the human frame,--namely, skin and bone,--yet the bones contained in the skin of Riccabocca all took longitudinal directions; while those in the skin of Jackeymo spread out lat.i.tudinally. And you might as well have made the bark of a Lombardy poplar serve for the trunk of some dwarfed and pollarded oak--in whose hollow the Babes of the Wood could have slept at their ease--as have fitted out Jackeymo from the garb of Riccabocca.

Moreover, if the skill of the tailor could have accomplished that undertaking, the faithful Jackeymo would never have had the heart to avail himself of the generosity of his master. He had a sort of religious sentiment, too, about those vestments of the padrone. The ancients, we know, when escaping from s.h.i.+pwreck, suspended in the votive temple the garments in which they had struggled through the wave.

Jackeymo looked on those relics of the past with a kindred superst.i.tion.

"This coat the padrone wore on such an occasion. I remember the very evening the padrone last put on those pantaloons!" And coat and pantaloons were tenderly dusted, and carefully restored to their sacred rest.

But now, after all, what was to be done? Jackeymo was much too proud to exhibit his person to the eyes of the squire's butler in habiliments discreditable to himself and the padrone. In the midst of his perplexity the bell rang, and he went down into the parlour.

Riccabocca was standing on the hearth under his symbolical representation of the "Patriae Exul."

"Giacomo," quoth he, "I have been thinking that thou hast never done what I told thee, and fitted thyself out from my superfluities. But we are going now into the great world: visiting once begun, Heaven knows where it may stop. Go to the nearest town and get thyself clothes.

Things are dear in England. Will this suffice?" And Riccabocca extended a five-pound note.

Jackeymo, we have seen, was more familiar with his master than we formal English permit our domestics to be with us; but in his familiarity he was usually respectful. This time, however, respect deserted him.

"The padrone is mad!" he exclaimed; "he would fling away his whole fortune if I would let him. Five pounds English, or a hundred and twenty-six pounds Milanese! Santa Maria! unnatural father! And what is to become of the poor signorina? Is this the way you are to marry her in the foreign land?"