The Golden Calf Part 49

'This is partridge, isn't it?' asked Vernie. 'I like partridge. We always have nice dinners now--jellies, and creams, and wine that goes fizz; and we all have the same as pa. We didn't in France, you know,' explained the boy, unconscious of any reason for suppressing facts in the presence of the waiter.

'Mamma and I used to have any little bits--it didn't matter for us, you know--we could pinch. Mamma was used to it, and it was good for me, you know, because I'm often bilious--and it's better to go without rich things than to take Gregory's powder, isn't it?'

'Decidedly,' said Brian, who was not too old to remember that bugbear of the Edinburgh pharmacopoeia.

'And now we have dessert every day,' continued Vernie; 'lovely dessert--almonds and raisins, and pears, and nuts, and things, just like Christmas Day. I thought that kind of dessert was only meant for Christmas Day. And we have men to wait upon us, dressed like clergymen, just like him,' added the child, pointing to the waiter.

'Oh, Vernie, it's so rude to point,' murmured Ida.

'Not for me; I can't be rude,' replied the boy, with conviction. 'I'm a baronet's son. I shall be a baronet myself some day. Mamma told me. I may do what I like.'

'No, pet, you must be a gentleman. If you were a king's son you would have to be that.'

'Then I wouldn't. What's the use of being rich if you can't do what you like?' demanded Vernie, who already began to have ideas, and who was as sharp for his age as the chicken which begins to catch flies directly its head is out of the sh.e.l.l.

'What's the good of being somebody if you have to behave just as well as if you were n.o.body?' said Brian. 'Little Vernon has the feudal idea strongly developed; no doubt; in evolution from some long-departed ancestor, who lived in the days when there were different laws for the knight and the villain. Now, how are we going to amuse this young gentleman? I have leave to keep him till half-past seven, when we are all three to dine with Sir Reginald and Lady Palliser at the Grosvenor.'

Vernie, who was half way through his second gla.s.s of sparkling moselle, burst out laughing.

'Lady Palliser!' he exclaimed, 'it's so funny to hear mamma called Lady: because she isn't a lady, you know. She used to run about the house all day with her sleeves tucked up, and she used to cook; and Jane, our English servant, said no lady ever did that. Jane and mamma used to quarrel,' explained the infant, calmly.

'Jane knew very little about what makes a lady or not a lady,' said Ida, grieved to find a want of elevation in the little man's ideas. 'Some of the truest and n.o.blest ladies have worked hard all their lives.'

'But not with their sleeves tucked up,' argued the boy; 'no lady would do that. Papa told mamma so one day, and _he_ must know. He told her she was cook, slush, and bottle-washer. Wasn't that funny? You worked hard too, didn't you, Ida?' interrogated Vernon. 'Papa paid you were a regular drudge at Miss Pew's. He said it was a hard thing that such a handsome girl as you should be a drudge, but his poverty and not his will consented.'

'Vernie quotes Shakespeare,' exclaimed Brian, trying to take the thing lightly, but painfully conscious of the head waiter, who was deliberately removing crumbs with a silver sc.r.a.per. It could not matter to any one what the waiter--a waif from Whitechapel or the Dials most likely--knew or did not know of Mr. and Mrs. Wendover's family affairs; but there is an instinctive feeling that any humiliating details of life should be kept from these menials. They should be maintained in the delusion that the superior cla.s.s which employs them has never known want or difficulty.

Perhaps the maintenance of this great sham is not without its evil, as it is apt to make the waiter cla.s.s rapacious and exacting, and ready to impute meanness to that superior order which has wallowed in wealth from the cradle.

'Suppose we go to the Tower?' inquired Brian. 'Perhaps Vernie has never seen the Tower?'

Neither Vernon nor Ida had seen that stony page of feudal history, and Vernon had to be informed what manner of building it was, his sole idea of a tower being Babel, which he had often tried to reproduce with his wooden bricks, with no happier result than was obtained in the original attempt. So another Hansom was chartered, and they all went off to the Tower, Vernon sitting between them, perky and loquacious, and intensely curious about every object they pa.s.sed on their way.

Interested in the a.s.sociations of the grim old citadel, amused and pleaded by little Vernon's prattle as he trotted about holding his sister's hand, Ida forgot to be unhappy upon that particular afternoon.

The whole history of her marriage was a misery to her; the marriage itself was a mistake; but there are hours of respite in the saddest life, and she was brave enough to try and make the best of hers. Above all, she was too generous to wish her husband to be painfully conscious of the change in their relative positions, that he was now in a manner dependent upon her father. Her own proud nature, which would have profoundly felt the humiliation of such a position as that which Brian Walford now occupied, was moved to pity for those feelings of shame and degradation which he might or might not experience, and she was kinder to him on this account than she would have been otherwise.

The dinner at the Grosvenor went off with as much appearance of goodwill and proper family feeling as if there had been no flaw in Ida's matrimonial bliss. Sir Reginald was full of kindness for his new son-in-law: as he would have been for any other human creature whom he had asked to dinner. Hospitality was a natural instinct of his being, and he invited Brian Wendover to take up his abode at Wimperfield as easily as he would have offered him a cigar.

'There are no end of rooms. It is a regular barrack,' he said. 'You and Ida can be very comfortable without putting my little woman or me out of the way.'

This had happened just six weeks ago, and now Ida and her half-brother were wandering about among the ferny hollows and breezy heights of the park, or roving off to adjacent heaths and hills, and it seemed almost as if they had lived there all their lives. Vernon had been quick to make himself at home in the stately old house, rummaging and foraging in every room, routing out all manner of forgotten treasures, riding his father's old rocking-horse, exploring stables and lofts, saddle-rooms, and long-disused holes and corners, going up ladders, climbing walls, and endangering life and limbs in every possible way which infantine ingenuity could suggest.

'Mamma, however could we live so long in that horrid little house in France?' he demanded one day, as he prowled about his mother's s.p.a.cious morning-room in the autumn dusk, dragging fine old folios out of a book shelf in his search for picture-books, while Lady Palliser and her stepdaughter sat at tea by the fire.

The lady of the house gave a faint sigh.

'I don't know, Vernie,' she said. 'I almost think I was happier there than I am here. It was a poor little place, but I felt it was my own house, and I never feel that here.'

'It will be my house when papa's dead,' replied Vernon, cheerfully, seating himself on the ground in front of the broad bay window and turning over Gell's 'Pompeiianai'; 'everything will be mine. Is that why you don't feel as if it was yours now?'

'No, Vernie, that's not it. I hope it will be a great many years before your father is taken away.'

'But you don't think so,' argued Vernon. 'You told him the other day that if he did not walk more, and take less champagne, he would soon kill himself.'

'But I didn't mean it, darling. I only spoke for his good. The doctor says he must take no champagne, or only the dryest of the dry.'

'What a silly that doctor must be!' interrupted Vernon; 'all wine is wet.'

'The doctor meant wine that is not sweet, dear.'

'Then he should have said so,' remarked Vernon, sententiously. He had lived all his little life in grown-up society, and had been allowed to hear everything, and to talk about everything, whereby he had come to consider himself an oracle.

'The doctor thinks your poor papa has a lym--lym--'

'Lymphatic temperament?' suggested Ida.

'Yes, dear, that's the name of his complaint,' replied Lady Palliser, who was not scientific. 'He has a--well, that particular disease,' continued the little woman, breaking down again, 'and he ought to diet himself and take regular exercise; and he won't diet himself, and he won't walk or ride; and I lay awake at nights thinking of it,' she concluded, piteously.

'You can't lay awake,' said the boy; 'Ida says you can't. You can lay down your hat or your umbrella, but _you_ can't lay. It's impossible.

'But I tell you I do, Vernie; I lay awake night after night,' protested Lady Palliser, not seeing the grammatical side of the question. 'Oh, Vernie!' as the folio plates gave an alarming crackle, 'you are tearing that beautiful big book which cost your grandfather so much money.'

'It's a nasty book,' said Vernon, 'all houses and posts and things. Show me some nice books, Ida; please, do.'

Ida was sitting on the carpet beside him in the next minute and together they went through a bulky quarto Shakespeare with awe-inspiring ill.u.s.trations by Fuseli. She told him what the pictures meant, and this naturally compelled her to tell the stories of the plays, and in this manner she kept him amused till it was time to dress for dinner, and almost bedtime for the little man. The happiest hours of her life were those in which she devoted herself mentally and bodily to her young brother. If he had loved her in adversity a year ago, he loved her still better in prosperity, when she was able to do so much more for his comfort and amus.e.m.e.nt. He was rarely out of her sight, the companion of all her rides and rambles, the exacting charge of her life. Brian Walford was not slow to perceive that the boy took precedence of him in all his wife's thoughts, that the boy's society was more agreeable to her than that of her husband, and his health and happiness of more importance. As a wife she was amiable, submissive, dutiful; but it needed no hypersensitiveness on the husband's part to warn him that she gave him duty without love, submission without reverence or esteem The consciousness of his wife's indifference made Mr. Wendover less agreeable than he had been during that brief courts.h.i.+p among the willows and rushes by the river. He was inclined to be captious, and did not conceal his jealousy of the boy from Ida, although he set a watch upon his tongue in the presence of Vernon's father and mother.

After all it was a rather pleasant thing to have free quarters at Wimperfield, to have hunters to ride, and covers to shoot over which were almost as much his own as if they had belonged to him. Sir Reginald Palliser had a large way of conferring benefits, which was instinctive in a man of his open and careless temper. Having given Brian Wendover what he called the run of his teeth at Wimperfield, he had no idea of limiting the privileges of residence there. Even when the stud-groom grumbled at the laming of a fine horse by injudicious bucketting up hill and down hill in a lively run with the Petersfield Harriers Sir Reginald made light of the injury, and sent Pepperbox into the straw-yard to recover at his leisure. His own use of the stable was restricted to an occasional ride on an elderly brown cob, of aristocratic lineage and manners that would have been perfect but for the old-gentleman-like habit of dropping asleep over his work. The new baronet was too lazy to hunt, too liberal to put down the hunting stable established by his predecessor. The horses were there--let Ida and Brian ride them. Of those good things which the blind G.o.ddess had flung into his lap nothing was too good for his daughter or his daughter's husband in Sir Reginald's opinion.

Happily for the domestic peace, Lady Palliser was able to get on harmoniously with her stepdaughter's husband, and was not disposed to grudge him the luxuries of Wimperfield.

Brian Walford had been quick to take that good-hearted little woman's intellectual measure. He flattered her small vanities, and made her so pleased with herself that she was naturally pleased with him. His shallow and frivolous nature made him livelier company than a man of profounder thought and deeper feeling. He sang light and lively music from the comic operas of the day, nay, would even stoop to some popular strain from the music-halls. He was clever at all round games and drawing-room amus.e.m.e.nts. He enlivened conversation with puns, which ranged from the utterly execrable to the tolerably smart. He quoted all the plays and burlesques that had been acted in London during the last five years; he could imitate all the famous actors; and he was a past master of modern slang. There was not much society within an easy drive of Wimperfield, but the few jog-trot county people who dined, or lunched, or afternoon-tea'd with the Pallisers were enlivened by Mr. Wendover's social gifts, and talked of him afterwards as a talented young man.

So far Mr. Wendover had taken the goods the G.o.ds provided with a placid acceptance, and had shown no avidity for independence. He was silent as to his professional prospects, although Sir Reginald had told him in the beginning of things that if he wanted to make his way at the Bar any money required for the smoothing of his path should be provided.

'You are too good,' Brian answered lightly; 'but it isn't a question of money--it's a question of time. The Bar is a horribly slow profession. A man has to eat his heart out waiting for briefs.'

'Yes, I have always heard as much,' said Sir Reginald; 'but will it do as well for you to eat your heart out down here as in the Temple? Will the briefs follow you to Wimperfield when the propitious time comes?'

'I believe they are about as likely to find me here as anywhere else,'

answered Brian, moodily,--he was apt to turn somewhat sullen at any suggestion of hard work--'and in the meanwhile I am not wasting my time.

I can go on writing for the magazines.'

That writing for the magazines was an unknown quant.i.ty. The young man occasionally shut himself in a little upstairs study on a wet day, smoked excessively, and was supposed to be writing laboriously, his intellect being fed and sustained by tobacco. Sometimes the result of the day was a fat package of ma.n.u.script despatched to the post-office; sometimes there was no result except a few torn sheets of foolscap in the waste-paper basket Sometimes the ma.n.u.script came back to the writer after a considerable interval; and at other times Mr. Wendover informed his wife vaguely that 'those fellows' had accepted his contribution. Whatever honorarium he received for his work was expended upon his _menus plaisirs_--or may be said rather to have dribbled from his waistcoat pocket in a series of trivial ex-travagances which won him a reputation for generosity among grooms and such small deer. To his wife he gave nothing: she was amply provided with money by her father, who would have lavished his newly-acquired wealth upon her if she had been disposed to spend it; but she was not. Her desires were no more extravagant now than when she was receiving ten pounds a quarter from Miss Wendover. Sooth to say, the temptations to extravagance at Wimperfield were not manifold.

Ida's only need for money was that she might give it to the poor, and that, according to Jeremy Taylor, is to send one's cash straight to heaven.

The few old-established inhabitants of the neighbourhood, mostly sons of the soil, who attended the village church, were very plain in their raiment, knowing that they occupied a position in the general regard which no finery of velvets or satins could modify. Did not everybody about Wimperfield know everybody else's income, how much or how little the various estates were enc.u.mbered, the poverty or richness of the soil, and the rent of every farm upon it? It was only when Lady Pontifex of Heron Court came down from town, bringing gowns and cloaks and bonnets from Regent Street or the Rue de la Paix, that a transitory flash of splendour lighted up the shadowy old nave with the glow of newly-invented hues and the sheen of newly-woven fabrics. But the natives only gazed and admired. There was n.o.body adventurous enough to imitate the audacities of a lady of fas.h.i.+on. Miss Emery, of Petersfield, was quite good enough for the landed gentry of this quiet region. She had the fas.h.i.+ons direct from Paris in the gaily-coloured engravings of _Le Follet_, and what could anyone want more fas.h.i.+onable than Paris fas.h.i.+ons? True that Miss Emery's conscientious cutting and excellent workmans.h.i.+p imparted a certain heaviness to Parisian designs; but who would care to have a gown blown together, as it were, by girls who were not allowed to sit down at their work?

The life at Wimperfield was a pleasant life, albeit exceedingly quiet.

There were times when Brian Walford felt the dulness of this rustic existence somewhat oppressive; but if life indoors was monotonous and uneventful, he had a good deal of amus.e.m.e.nt out of doors--hunting, shooting, football, and an occasional steeple-chase within a day's drive.