Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/430

422 To Harriet, Old Tom had merely nodded. There he sat in the arm-chair, sucking the liquor, with the glimpse of a sour chuckle on his cheeks. Now and then, during the evening, he rubbed his hands sharply, but spoke little. The unbending Harriet did not conceal her disdain of him. When he ventured to allude to the bankruptcy, she cut him short.

“Pray excuse me—I am unacquainted with affairs of business—I cannot even understand my husband.”

“Lord bless my soul!” Old Tom exclaimed, rolling his eyes.

Caroline had informed her sisters up-stairs that their mother was ignorant of Evan’s change of fortune, and that Evan desired her to continue so for the present. Caroline appeared to be pained by the subject, and was glad when Louisa sounded his mysterious behaviour by saying: “Evan has a native love of concealment—he must be humoured.”

At the supper, Mr. John Raikes made his bow. He was modest and reserved. It was known that this young gentleman acted as shopman there. With a tenderness for his position worthy of all respect, the Countess spared his feelings by totally ignoring his presence: whereat he, unaccustomed to such great-minded treatment, retired to bed, a hater of his kind. Harriet and Caroline went next. The Countess said she should wait up for Evan, but hearing that his hours of return were about the chime of matins, she cried exultingly: “Darling papa all over!” and departed likewise. Mrs. Mel, when she had mixed Old Tom’s third glass, wished the brothers good night, and they were left to exchange what sentiments they thought proper for the occasion. The Countess had certainly disappointed Old Tom’s farce in a measure; and he expressed himself puzzled by her. “You ain’t the only one,” said his brother. Andrew, with some effort, held his tongue concerning the news of Evan—his fortune and his folly, till he could talk to the youth in person.

All took their seats at the early breakfast next morning.

“Has Evan not come home yet?” was the Countess’s first question.

Mrs. Mel replied: “No.”

“Do you know where he has gone, dear mama?”

“He chooses his own way.”

“And you fear that it leads somewhere?” added the Countess.

“I fear that it leads to knocking up the horse he rides.”

“The horse, mama! He is out on a horse all night! But don’t you see, dear old pet! his morals, at least, are safe on horseback.”

“The horse has to be paid for, Louisa,” said her mother, sternly; and then, for she had a lesson to read to the guests of her son, “Ready money doesn’t come by joking. What will the creditors think? If he intends to be honest in earnest, he must give up four-feet mouths.”

“Fourteen-feet, ma’am, you mean,” said Old Tom, counting the heads at table.

“Bravo, mama!” cried the Countess, and as she was sitting near her mother, she must show how prettily she kissed, by pouting out her playful lips to her parent. “Do be economical always! And mind! for the sake of the wretched animals, I will intercede for you to be his inspector of stables.”

This, with a glance of intelligence at her sisters.

“Well, Mr. Raikes,” said Andrew, “you keep good hours, at all events—eh?”

“Up with the lark,” said Old Tom. “Ha! ’fraid he won’t be so early when he gets rid of his present habits—eh?”

“Nec dierum numerum, ut nos, sed noctium computantur,” said Mr. Raikes, and both the brothers sniffed like dogs that have put their noses to a hot coal, and the Countess, who was less insensible to the aristocracy of the dead languages than are women generally, gave him the recognition that is occasionally afforded the family tutor.

About the hour of ten Evan arrived. He was subjected to the hottest embrace he had ever yet received from the sister of Louisa.

“Darling!” she called him, before them all. “Oh! how I suffer for this ignominy I see you compelled for a moment to endure. But it is but for a moment. They must vacate; and you will soon be out of this horrid hole.”

“Where he just said he was glad to give us a welcome,” muttered Old Tom.

Evan heard him, and laughed. The Countess laughed too.

“No, we will not be impatient. We are poor insignificant people!” she said; and, turning to her mother, added: “And yet I doubt not you think the smallest of our landed gentry equal to great continental seigneurs. I do not say the contrary.”

“You fill Evan’s head with nonsense till you make him knock up a horse a week, and never go to his natural bed,” said Mrs. Mel, angrily. “Look at him! Is a face like that fit for business?”

“Certainly, certainly not!” said the Countess.

“Well, mother, the horse is dismissed,—you won’t have to complain any more,” said Evan, touching her hand. “Another history commences from to-day.”

The Countess watched him admiringly. Such powers of acting she could not have ascribed to him.

“Another history, indeed!” she said. “By the way, Van, love! was it out of Glamorganshire—were we Tudors, according to papa? or only Powys chieftains? It’s of no moment, but it helps one in conversation.”

“Not half so much as good ale, though!” was Old Tom’s comment.

The Countess did not perceive its fitness, till Evan burst into a laugh, and then she said:

“Oh! we shall never be ashamed of the Brewery. Do not fear that, Mr. Cogglesby.”

Old Tom saw his farce reviving, and encouraged the Countess to patronise him. She did so to an extent that called on her Mrs. Mel’s reprobation, which was so cutting and pertinent, that Harriet was compelled to defend her sister, remarking that perhaps her mother would soon learn that Louisa was justified in not permitting herself and family to be classed too low. At this, Andrew, coming from a