Roland Cashel Volume I Part 11

"There,--no inventory, I beg,--the man is very well-looking, I dare say, but I own he strikes me as _tant soit peu sauvage_. Don't you think so?"

"True, his manners--"

"Why, he has none; the man has a certain rakish, free-and-easy demeanor that, with somewhat more breeding, would rise as high as 'tigerism,' but now is detestable vulgarity."

"Oh, dearest, you are severe."

"I rather suspect that you are partial."

"I, my dear! not I, in the least. He is not, by any means, the style of person I like. He can be very amusing, perhaps; he certainly is very odd, very original."

"He is very rich, Livy," said the elder sister, with a most dry gravity.

"That can scarcely be called a fault, still less a misfortune," replied Olivia, slyly.

"Well, well, let us have done with aphorisms, and speak openly. If you are really pleased with his manner and address, say so at once, and I 'll promise never to criticise too closely a demeanor which, I vow, does not impress me highly,--only be candid."

"But I do not see any occasion for such candor, my dear. He is no more to me than he is to _you_. I ask no protestations from _you_ about this Mr. Roland Cashel."

Miss Kennyf.e.c.k bit her lip and seemed to repress a rising temptation to reply, but was silent for a moment, when she said, in a careless, easy tone,--

"Do you know, Livy dearest, that this same manolo you danced this evening is not by any means a graceful performance to look at, at least when danced with long, sweeping drapery, flapping here and flouncing there. It may suit those half-dressed Mexican damsels who want to display a high arched instep and a rounded ankle, and who know that they are not transgressing the ordinary limits of decorum in the display; but certainly your friend Mr. Softly did not accord all his approval. Did you remark him?"

"I did not; I was too much engaged in learning the figure: but Mr.

Softly disapproves of all dancing."

"Oh, I know he does," yawned Miss Kennyf.e.c.k, as if the very mention of his name suggested sleep; "the dear man has his own notions of pleasantry,--little holy jokes about Adam and Eve. There is nothing so intolerable to me as the insipid playfulness of your young parson, except, perhaps, the coa.r.s.e fun of your rising barrister. How I hate Mr.

Clare Jones!"

"He is very underbred."

"He is worse; the rudest person I ever met,--so familiar."

"Why will he always insist on shaking hands?"

"Why will he not at least wash his own, occasionally?"

"And then his jests from the Queen's Bench,--the last _mot_--I'm sure I often wished it were so literally--of some stupid Chief Justice. Well, really, in comparison, your savage friend is a mirror of good looks and good manners."

"Good night, my dear," said Olivia, rising, as though to decline a renewal of the combat.

"Good night," echoed her sister, bluntly, "and pleasant dreams of 'Roland the brave, Roland the true;' the latter quality being the one more in request at this moment." And so, humming the well-known air, she took her candle and retired.

CHAPTER VIII. LOVE v. LAW

Ay! marry--they have wiles, Compared to which, our schemes are honesty.

The Lawyer's Daughter.

Notwithstanding all that we hear said against castle-building, how few among the unbought pleasures of life are so amusing, nor are we certain that these shadowy speculations--these "white lies" that we tell to our own conscience--are not so many incentives to n.o.ble deeds and generous actions. These "imaginary conversations" lift us out of the jog-trot path of daily intercourse, and call up hopes and aspirations that lie buried under the heavy load of wearisome commonplaces of which life is made up, and thus permit a man, immersed as he may be in the fatigues of a profession, or a counting-house, hara.s.sed by law, or worried by the Three per Cents, to be a hero to his own heart at least for a few minutes once a week.

But if "castle-building" be so pleasurable when a mere visionary scheme, what is it when it comes a.s.sociated with all the necessary conditions for accomplishment,--when not alone the plan and elevation of the edifice are there, but all the materials and every appliance to realize the conception?

Just fancy yourself "two or three and twenty," waking out of a sound and dreamless sleep, to see the mellow sun of an autumnal morning straining its rays through the curtains of your bedroom. Conceive the short and easy struggle by which, banis.h.i.+ng all load of cares and duties in which you were once immersed, you spring, as by a bound, to the joyous fact that you are the owner of a princely fortune, with health and ardent spirit, a temper capable of, nay, eager for engagement, a fearless courage, and a heart unchilled. Think of this, and say, Is not the first waking half-hour of such thoughts the brightest spot of a whole existence? Such was the frame of mind in which our hero awoke, and lay for some time to revel in! We could not, if we would, follow the complex tissue of day-dreams that wandered over every clime, and in the luxuriant rapture of power created scenes of pleasure, of ingredients the most far-fetched and remote. The "actual" demands our attention more urgently than the "ideal," so that we are constrained to follow the unpoetical steps of so ign.o.ble a personage as Mr. Phillis,--Cashel's new valet,--who now broke in upon his master's reveries as he entered with hot water and the morning papers.

"What have you got there?" cried Cashel, not altogether pleased at the intrusion.

"The morning papers! Lord Ettlecombe "--his former master, and his universal type--"always read the 'Post,' sir, before he got out of bed."

"Well, let me see it," said Cashel, who, already impressed with the necessity of conforming to a new code, was satisfied to take the law even from so humble an authority as his own man.

"Yes, sir. Our arrival is announced very handsomely among the fas.h.i.+onable intelligence, and the 'Dublin Mail' has copied the paragraph stating that we are speedily about to visit our Irish estates."

"Ah, indeed," said Cashel, somewhat flattered at his newborn notoriety; "where is all this?"

"Here, sir, under 'Movements in High Life': 'The Duke of Uxoter to Lord Debbington's beautiful villa at Maulish; Sir Harry and Lady Emeline Morpas, etc.; Rosenorris; Lord Fetcherton--'No, here we have it, sir,--'Mr. Roland Cashel and suite'--Kennyf.e.c.k and self, sir--'from Mivart's, for Ireland. We understand that this millionnaire proprietor is now about to visit his estates in this country, preparatory to taking up a residence finally amongst us. If report speak truly, he is as accomplished as wealthy, and will be a very welcome accession to the ranks of our country gentry.'"

"How strange that these worthy people should affect to know or care anything about me or my future intentions," said Cashel, innocently.

"Oh, sir, they really know nothing,--that little thing is mine."

"Yours,--how yours?"

"Why, I wrote it, sir. When I lived with Sir Giles Heathcote, we always fired off a certain number of these signal-guns when we came to a new place. Once the thing was set a-going, the newspaper fellows followed up the lead themselves. They look upon a well-known name as of the same value as a fire or a case of larceny. I have known a case of seduction by a marquis to take the 'pas' of the last murder in the Edgware Road."

"I have no fancy for this species of publicity," said Cashel, seriously.

"Believe me, sir, there is nothing to be done without it. The Press, sir, is the fourth estate. They can ignore anything nowadays, from a speech in Parliament to the last novel; from the young beauty just come out, to the newly-launched line-of-battle s.h.i.+p. A friend of mine, some time back, tried the thing to his cost, sir. He invented an admirable moustache-paste; he even paid a guinea to an Oxford man for a Greek name for it; well, sir, he would not advertise in the dailies, but only in bills. Mark the consequence. One of the morning journals, in announcing the arrival of the Prince of Koemundkuttingen on a visit to Colonel Sibthorp, mentioned that in the fraternal embrace of these two distinguished personages their moustaches, anointed with the new patent adhesive Eukautherostickostecon, became actually so fastened together (as the fellow said, like two clothes-brushes) that after a quarter of an hour's vain struggle they had to be cut asunder. From that moment, sir, the paste was done up; he sold it as harness stuff the week after, and left the hair and beard line altogether."

As Cashel's dressing proceeded, Mr. Phillis continued to impose upon him those various hints and suggestions respecting costume for which that accomplished gentleman's gentleman was renowned.

"Excuse me, but you are not going to wear that coat, I hope. A morning dress should always incline to what artists call 'neutral tints;' there should also be nothing striking, nothing that would particularly catch the eye, except in those peculiar cases where the wearer, adopting a certain color, not usually seen, adheres strictly to it, Just as we see my Lord Blenneville with his old coffee-colored cut-away, and Sir Francis Heming with his light-blue frock; Colonel Mordaunt's Hessians are the same kind of thing."

"This is all mere trifling," said Casbel, impatiently; "I don't intend to dress like the show-figure in a tailor's shop, to be stared at."

"Exactly so, sir; that is what I have been saying: any notoriety is to be avoided where a gentleman has a real position. Now, with a dark frock, gray trousers, and this plain single-breasted vest, your costume is correct."

If Cashel appeared to submit to these dictations with impatience, he really received them as laws to which he was, in virtue of his station, to be bound. He had taken Mr. Phillis exactly as he had engaged the services of a celebrated French cook, as a person to whom a "department"

was to be intrusted; and feeling that he was about to enter on a world whose habits of thinking and prejudices were all strange, he resolved to accept of guidance, with the implicitness that he would have shown in taking a pilot to navigate him through a newly visited channel. Between the sense of submission, and a certain feeling of shame at the mock importance of these considerations, Casbel exhibited many symptoms of impatience, as Mr. Phillis continued his revelations on dress, and was sincerely happy when that refined individual, having slowly surveyed him, p.r.o.nounced a faint, "Yes, very near it," and withdrew.

There was a half glimmering suspicion, like a struggling ray of sunlight stealing through a torn and ragged cloud, breaking on Roland's mind that if wealth were to entail a great many requirements, no matter how small each, of obedience to the world's prescription, that he, for one, would prefer his untrammelled freedom to any amount of riches. This was but a fleeting doubt, which he had no time to dwell upon, for already he was informed by the butler that Mrs. Kennyf.e.c.k was waiting breakfast for him.

Descending the stairs rapidly, he had just reached the landing opposite the drawing-room, when he heard the sounds of a guitar accompaniment, and the sweet silvery tones of a female voice. He listened, and to his amazement heard that the singer was endeavoring, and with considerable success, too, to remember his own Mexican air that he had sung the preceding evening.

Somehow, it struck him he had never thought the melody so pretty before; there was a tenderness in the plaintive parts he could not have conceived. Not so the singer; for after a few efforts to imitate one of Roland's bolder pa.s.sages, she drew her finger impatiently across the chords, and exclaimed, "It is of no use; it is only the caballero himself can do it."