The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 61

"What if you came and dined here to-morrow, Marion? My sister is wonderfully 'well up' in the place. I warn you as to her execrable dinner; for her cook is Italian, _pur sang_, and will poison you with his national dishes; but we 'll be _en pet.i.t comite_."

"I think we have something for to-morrow," said Marion, coldly, and looking to Lord Culduff.

"To-morrow--Thursday, Thursday?" said he, hesitating. "I can't remember any engagement for Thursday."

"There is something, I'm sure," said Marion, in the same cold tone.

"Then let it be for Friday, and you 'll meet my brother-in-law; it 's the only day he ever dines at home in the week."

Lord Culduff bowed an a.s.sent, and Marion muttered something that possibly meant acquiescence.

"I 've made a little dinner for you for Friday," said Lady Augusta to her sister. "The Culduff s and Monsignore Ratti--that, with Tonino and ourselves, will be six; and I 'll think of another: we can't be an even number. Marion is heart-broken about coming; indeed, I 'm not sure we shall see her, after all."

"Are we so very terrible then?" asked the Countess.

"Not _you_, dearest; it is _I_ am the dreadful one. I took that old fop a canter into the peerage, and he was so delighted to escape from Bramleighia, that he looked softly into my eyes, and held my hand so unnecessarily long, that she became actually sick with anger. Now, I 'm resolved that the old Lord shall be one of my adorers."

"Oh, Gusta!"

"Yes. I say it calmly and advisedly; that young woman must be taught better manners than to pat the ground impatiently with her foot and to toss her head away when one is talking to her husband. Oh, there's that poor Count Pracontal waiting for me, and looking so piteously at me; I forgot I promised to take him a tour through the rooms, and tell him who everybody is."

The company began to thin off soon after midnight, and by one o'clock the Countess and her sister found themselves standing by a fireplace in a deserted salon, while the servants pa.s.sed to and fro extinguis.h.i.+ng the lights.

"Who was that you took leave of with such emphatic courtesy a few minutes ago?" asked Lady Augusta, as she leaned on the chimney-piece.

"Don't you know; don't you remember him?"

"Not in the least."

"It was Mr. Temple Bramleigh."

"What, _mon fils_ Temple! Why didn't he come and speak to me?"

"He said he had been in search of you all the evening, and even asked me to find you out."

"These Sevigne curls do that; no one knows me. Monsignore said he thought I was a younger sister just come out, and was going to warn me of the dangerous rivalry. And that was Temple? His little bit of moustache improves him. I suppose they call him good-looking?"

"Very handsome--actually handsome."

"Oh, dear!" sighed the other, wearily; "one likes these gatherings, but it's always pleasant when they're over; don't you find that?" And not meeting a reply, she went on: "That tiresome man, Sir Marcus Cluff, made a descent upon me, to talk of--what do you think?--the church at Albano.

It seems our parson there has nothing to live on during the winter months, and he is expected to be alive and cheery when spring comes round; and Sir Marcus says, that though seals do this, it 's not so easy for a curate; and so I said, 'Why does n't he join the other army?

There's a cardinal yonder will take him into his regiment;' and Sir Marcus could n't stand this, and left me." She paused, and seemed lost in a deep reverie, and then half-murmured rather than said, "What a nice touch he has on the piano; so light and so liquid withal."

"Sir Marcus, do you mean?"

"Of course I don't," said she, pettishly. "I'm talking of Pracontal. I 'm sure he sings--he says not, or only for himself; and so I told him he must sing for me, and he replied, 'Willingly, for I shall then be beside myself with happiness.' Just fancy a Frenchman trying to say a smart thing in English. I wonder what the Culduffs will think of him?"

"Are they likely to have an opportunity for an opinion?"

"Most certainly they are. I have asked him for Friday. He will be the seventh at our little dinner."

"Not possible, Gusta! You could n't have done this!"

"I have, I give you my word. Is there any reason why I shouldn't?"

"All the reason in the world. You ask your relatives to a little dinner, which implies extreme intimacy and familiarity; and you invite to meet them a man whom, by every sentiment of self-interest, they must abhor."

"_Cara mia_, I can't listen to such a vulgar argument. Monsieur de Pracontal has charming personal qualities. I chatted about an hour with him, and he is delightfully amusing; he 'll no more obtrude his claims or his pretensions than Lord Culduff will speak of his fifty years of diplomatic service. There is no more perfect triumph of good-breeding than when it enables us to enjoy each other's society irrespective of scores of little personal accidents, political estrangements, and the like; and to show you that I have not been the inconsiderate creature you think me, I actually did ask Pracontal if he thought that meeting the Culduffs would be awkward or unpleasant for him, and he said he was overjoyed at the thought; that I could not have done him a favor he would prize more highly."

"_He_, of course, is very vain of the distinction. It is an honor he never could have so much as dreamed of."

"I don't know that. I half suspect he is a gentleman who does not take a depreciatory estimate of either himself or his prospects."

"At all events, Gusta, there shall be no ambuscade in the matter, that I 'm determined on. The Culduffs shall know whom they are to meet. I 'll write a note to them before I sleep."

"How angry you are for a mere nothing! Do you imagine that the people who sit round a dinner-table have sworn vows of eternal friends.h.i.+p before the soup?"

"You are too provoking, too thoughtless," said the other, with much asperity of voice; and taking up her gloves and her fan from the chimney-piece, she moved rapidly away and left the room.

CHAPTER XLI. SOME "SALON DIPLOMACIES"

Lord Culduff, attired in a very gorgeous dressing-gown and a cap whose gold ta.s.sel hung down below his ear, was seated at a writing-table, every detail of whose appliances was an object of art. From a little golden censer at his side a light blue smoke curled, that diffused a delicious perfume through the room, for the n.o.ble Lord held it that these advent.i.tious aids invariably penetrated through the sterner material of thought, and relieved by their graceful influence the more labored efforts of the intellect.

He had that morning been preparing a very careful confidential despatch; he meant it to be a state paper. It was a favorite theory of his, that the Pope might be _exploite_,--and his own phrase must be employed to express his meaning,--that is, that for certain advantages, not very easily defined, nor intelligible at first blush, the Holy Father might be most profitably employed in governing Ireland. The Pope, in fact, in return for certain things which he did not want, and which we could not give him if he did, was to do for us a number of things perfectly impossible, and just as valueless had they been possible. The whole was a grand dissolving view of millennial Ireland, with all the inhabitants dressed in green broadcloth, singing, "G.o.d save the Queen;" while the Pope and the Sacred College were to be in ecstasy over some imaginary concessions of the British Government, and as happy over these supposed benefits as an Indian tribe over a present of gla.s.s beads from Birmingham.

The n.o.ble diplomatist had just turned a very pretty phrase on the peculiar nature of the priest; his one-sided view of life, his natural credulity, nurtured by church observances, his easily satisfied greed, arising from the limited nature of his ambitions, and, lastly, the simplicity of character engendered by the want of those relations of the family which suggest acute study of moral traits, strongly tinctured with worldliness. Rising above the dialectics of the "Office," he had soared into the style of the essayist. It was to be one of those despatches which F. O. prints in blue-books, and proudly points to, to show that her sons are as distinguished in letters as they are dexterous in the conduct of negotiations. He had just read aloud a very high-sounding sentence, when Mr. Temple Bramleigh entered, and in that nicely subdued voice which private-secretarys.h.i.+p teaches, said, "Mr.

Cutbill is below, my Lord; will you see him?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: 372]

"On no account! The porter has been warned not to admit him, on pain of dismissal See to it that I am not intruded on by this man."

"He has managed to get in somehow,--he is in my room this moment."

"Get rid of him, then, as best you can. I can only repeat that here he shall not come."

"I think, on the whole, it might be as well to see him; a few minutes would suffice," said Temple, timidly.

"And why, sir, may I ask, am I to be outraged by this man's vulgar presence, even for a few minutes? A few minutes of unmitigated rudeness is an eternity of endurance!"

"He threatens a statement in print; he has a letter ready for the 'Times,'" muttered Temple.

"This is what we have come to in England. In our stupid wors.h.i.+p of what we call public opinion, we have raised up the most despotic tribunal that ever decided a human destiny. I declare solemnly, I 'd almost as soon be an American. I vow to heaven that, with the threat of Printing-House Square over me, I don't see how much worse I had been if born in Kansas or Ohio!"

"It is a regular statement of the Lisconnor Mine, drawn up for the money article, and if only a t.i.the of it be true--"