Upsidonia Part 11

[17] The contempt for pretty clothes amongst the girl children of Culbut was a question of form. See page 52.

[18] The Lady Cynthia Maxted, younger daughter of the Earl of Blueberry by his marriage with Sarah, daughter of Giles Ploughshare, Esq.

[19] The public parks of Culbut, as well as the semi-private ones (see chapter xiv), were entirely closed to the rich. This had not always been so, but an agitation had been made by the mothers of the poor children who played there some years before, and the Munic.i.p.ality had legislated in their favour. Edward Perry considered this a very bad business.

CHAPTER XI

It was quite time for me to go and get ready to join Mr. Perry. Indeed, it was more than time, as I found when I went upstairs, and was greeted by Lord Arthur with the remark that if I wasn't in the hall ready for the carriage when it came round I should hear about it.

But I found him a good deal more anxious to be friendly than before, and presently discovered that the reason for this was that it had got about in the household that I was a "Highlander." I did not contradict the report, but refrained from giving him any information about where I really had come from, for one thing because I didn't think he would believe me, and for another because I thought it might not be a bad thing to be looked upon as the altogether superior being which the dwellers in that remote part of Upsidonia were evidently considered to be.

Fortunately, I was just ready to step into the carriage when it came round, and thus escaped an expression of censure from the coachman, who drove off quickly towards Culbut.

We picked up Mr. Perry, and as we drove on to his club I managed to bring into the conversation a reference to the Highlands. He expressed considerable surprise to hear that I was an inhabitant of that region, which was not altogether gratifying. But he explained that, having first met me on the opposite side of the city, it had not occurred to him that I was a Highlander, otherwise he would certainly have guessed it from my perfect manners.

We arrived at the club very well pleased with one another. It was a large building, luxuriously furnished, but in very bad taste. There were some atrocious pictures on the walls, and the decorations were garish.

The big room into which we first went was full of opulent-looking gentlemen, lounging in easy chairs, drinking and smoking and talking to one another. We joined a group of them, and Mr. Perry introduced me to one or two, addressing them in a genially patronising manner. He did not tell them that I was a Highlander, and I suppose they took me for one of themselves, for their greeting was not ceremonious.

However, one of them was good enough to ask me what I would take, and I said a small whisky and soda. This was brought by a haughty-looking servant in a powdered wig and crimson plush breeches, who held out his salver, not to my entertainer but to me, and I paid for my drink and his as well, as it seemed to be expected of me.

The talk was all about money. One gentleman with thick lips and a hooked nose said that he had done good business that afternoon. He had bought ten thousand Northern Railways, having received private information that the men had decided to strike for an all-round decrease in wages, and they had fallen three points when the news had become public. He had dropped quite a tidy little sum.

Another man said that that sort of business was too risky for him. He believed in doing a steady safe business. If he lost fifteen per cent on his capital every year he was quite satisfied.

Another said he had been looking all his life for a safe investment that would lose ten per cent without your having to worry about it, and he didn't believe it was to be found.

All these men talked in quite an uneducated way, and their manners were not attractive. They wore a good deal of heavy jewellery, and clothes that looked as if they were new, but not one of them looked or spoke like a gentleman.

Mr. Perry, who had taken his part in the conversation, and had been treated with some deference, drew me away towards another group, saying as we crossed the room that he wanted me to see all sorts, and I must try to make myself as much one of them as possible. I should now be introduced to some racing men.

But before we reached them, Mr. Perry was hailed in a cheery but somewhat vinous voice by a man who was reclining in the depths of an easy chair by an open window, with a table at his side on which was a bottle of Maraschino half empty, and a good-sized gla.s.s of the same half full. His appearance was not markedly different from that of dozens of elderly men whom you may see after lunch at any London club, taking their ease, and perhaps their little nap, and never far removed in point of time or s.p.a.ce from refreshment of a spirituous nature. He was sleek and well-groomed, and the tint of his face was only a trifle more plum-coloured than might betoken abstemious living.

"Well, old Perry," said this cheerful gentleman in his mellow voice, but without s.h.i.+fting his semi-rec.u.mbent position, "what are you going to do to raise us this afternoon? Come and help me buzz this bottle, and show your sympathy with the rich."

Mr. Perry seemed to look at the speaker, the bottle, and me, all at the same time, but with a different expression for each.

"Allow me," he said, "to introduce my young friend, John Howard, who comes from the Highlands--Lord Charles Delagrange. He is anxious to see something of life amongst the rich, and I am showing him round.

Naturally, he has never been in a place like this before, and----"

"And we must behave ourselves, eh?" interrupted Lord Charles. "Come now, old Perry, don't pretend to be above your company. You don't like poverty any more than I do. Sit down and make yourself comfortable, and touch that bell for another gla.s.s--two more gla.s.ses, if Mr. Howard will join us."

Mr. Perry touched the bell, as requested, and said with an agreeable smile: "You will have your little joke, Lord Charles. You know very well that all self-indulgence is extremely distasteful to me; but in this place I do not wish to put myself on a pedestal."

"You put yourself in that chair, old Perry," said Lord Charles, indicating one only a little less deep and easy than his own, "and don't be a humbug. Well, Mr. Howard, this must be an agreeable change to you from the Highlands. You live on porridge and Plato there, I believe. You did well to put yourself into the hands of old Perry. He'll do you top notch--n.o.body knows how to better than he--and send you home to spread the gospel of high living and plain thinking among the benighted toilers with whom you have been brought up."

"I hope," said Mr. Perry, "that Mr. Howard will go back with no such lesson. If you are going to try to persuade him that my efforts to uplift the wealthy cla.s.ses are a cloak for vicious desires of my own, Lord Charles, I shall not shrink from holding you up to him as an example of what to avoid."

Lord Charles hoisted himself up in his seat to pour out three gla.s.ses of the liqueur. "Fire away, old Perry," he said. "Tell him my awful story.

But get outside this first; it will do you a world of good."

Mr. Perry got outside it, and began:

"Lord Charles is a younger son of the late Duke of Trumps, a man respected and beloved for his many virtues."

"A fine old boy, my governor," Lord Charles agreed, "and the best hedger and ditcher to be found in Upsidonia. But he liked his gla.s.s of beer, old Perry; don't forget that. Don't forget that he liked his gla.s.s of beer."

"I have no doubt that his Grace permitted himself moderate relaxation after the labours of the day were over," said Mr. Perry. "But it would have shocked him deeply to know that a son of his would ever sink to the level of glorying in a life of ease and sloth."

"I dare say it would," said Lord Charles indulgently. "I dare say it would. You're not smoking, old Perry. Try one of these weeds; they're in very good condition. I'll do the same by you some day."

Mr. Perry accepted a cigar, lit it, and continued:

"Lord Charles, here, was brought up to an agricultural career, which is a tradition in his family. There are no better farm-labourers in Upsidonia than the Delagranges, and his brother, the present Duke of Trumps, who is a carter, has several times taken the first prize at the May Day parade of cart-horses. But Lord Charles grew tired of that simple, uplifting life."

"Have you ever tried uplifting hay on to a stack all through a long summer day?" asked Lord Charles, "or getting up at five o'clock on a winter's morning to look after somebody else's horses? Yes, I got tired of it."

"His temptation came," said Mr. Perry, "when he went on to a farm on the Downs, near Pepsom, and attended his first race-meeting."

"Never touched a winner all day," said Lord Charles, "and came away with a pot of money."

"Which, of course, he had to spend," said Mr. Perry. "It is often the beginning of such a downfall as his. He allowed himself to take a pleasure in surrept.i.tious spending, and when his father, the duke, died, he threw up his situation and became a man about town."

"Haven't a care in the world," said Lord Charles, "except the confounded inspectors. But they are never hard on a man of my birth, and I manage to escape acc.u.mulating more than I can conveniently spend. The fact is, Mr. Howard, I hate work, and I like making myself comfortable. There are plenty of others like me. Old Perry is one of them, but, of course, he has a family, and must keep up appearances."

"Mr. Howard already knows me too well not to believe that all I do is dictated by humanitarianism," said Mr. Perry. "Lord Charles is cut off from the society of his equals. His family has disowned him. At first they combined to take small sums of money from him, and tried to help him out of the mora.s.s into which he had sunk. But they have long since given it up. He now, as you see, wallows--absolutely wallows--in his degradation, and I fear he is past all hope."

"Not a bit," said Lord Charles, again hoisting himself in his chair. "I am hoping to have a very good dinner to-night, and another one to-morrow. Now I am going to play bridge. I don't know whether you would care for a rubber, Mr. Howard?"

For some reason Mr. Perry seemed to desire me to accept this invitation.

He said he had some important business to think over, and we might leave him where he was.

"Old Perry can't put away the liquor he used to," said Lord Charles, as we went out of the room. "He's had too much of it. He wants a little nap now. He's a nice old fellow, and you'll have a good time at Magnolia Hall as long as you stay there."

CHAPTER XII

The card-room was well occupied. We cut into a table with two other men, one of whom was the stockbroker who had made the lucky _coup_ that afternoon, and the other was a disagreeable sort of fellow who, I learnt afterwards, had inherited a great deal of money and had done little all his life to diminish it. His name was Brummer; he had the manners of a costermonger, and not of one in the higher walks of that calling, if there are such.

Lord Charles treated both of them with a careless good-nature which seemed to subdue somewhat the exuberance of their vulgarity; but I thought that before we made up our table they looked about as if they would rather have joined another one. And it was evident that they suspected me of being what Brummer called contemptuously "a ---- philanthropist," when the stockbroker told him I had come into the club with Mr. Perry.