Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 3/Evan Harrington - Part 32
EVAN HARRINGTON; or, HE WOULD BE A GENTLEMAN.
BY GEORGE MEREDITH.
CHAPTER XLI.REVEALS AN ABOMINABLE PLOT OF THE BROTHERS COGGLESBY.
A lively April day, with strong gusts from the south-west, and long sweeping clouds, saluted the morning coach from London to Lymport. Thither Tailordom triumphant was bearing its victim at a rattling pace, to settle him, and seal him for ever out of the ranks of gentlemen: Society, meantime, howling exclusion to him in the background: “Out of our halls, degraded youth! The smiles of turbaned matrons; the sighs of delicate maids; genial wit, educated talk, refined scandal, vice in harness, dinners sentineled by stately plush: these, the flavour of life, are not for you, though you stole a taste of them, wretched impostor! Pay for it with years of remorse!”
The coach went rushing against the glorious high wind. It stirred his blood, freshened his cheeks, gave a bright tone of zest to his eyes, as he cast them on the young green country. Not banished from the breath of Heaven, or from self-respect, or from the appetite for the rewards that are to follow duties done! Not banished from the help that is always reached to us when we have fairly taken the right road: and that for him is the road to Lymport. Let the kingdom of Gilt Gingerbread howl as it will! We are no longer children, but men: men who have bitten hard at experience, and know the value of a tooth: who have had our hearts bruised, and cover them with armour: who live not to feed, but look to food that we may live! What matters it that yonder high-spiced kingdom should excommunicate such as we are? We have rubbed off the gilt, and have assumed the command of our stomachs. We are men from this day!
Now, you would have thought Evan’s companions, right and left of him, were the wretches under sentence, to judge from appearances. In contrast with his look of insolent pleasure, Andrew, the moment an eye was on him, exhibited the cleverest impersonation of the dumps ever seen: while Mr. John Raikes was from head to foot nothing better than a moan made visible. Nevertheless, they both agreed to rally Evan, and bid him be of good cheer.
“Don’t be down, Van; don’t be down, my boy,” said Andrew, rubbing his hands gloomily.
“I? do I look it?” Evan answered, laughing.
“Capital acting!” exclaimed Jack. “Try and keep it up.”
“Well, I hope you’re acting, too,” said Evan.
Jack let his chest fall like a collapsing bellows.
At the end of five minutes, he remarked: “I’ve been sitting on it the whole morning! There’s violent inflammation, I’m persuaded. Another hour, and I jump slap from the summit of the coach!”
Evan turned to Andrew.
“Do you think he’ll be let off?”
“Mr. Raikes? Can’t say. You see, Van, it depends upon how Old Tom has taken his bad luck. Ahem! Perhaps he’ll be all the stricter; and as a man of honour, Mr. Raikes, you see, can’t very well”
“By Jove! I wish I wasn’t a man of honour!” Jack interposed heavily.
“You see, Van, Old Tom’s circumstances”—Andrew ducked, to smother a sort of laughter—“are now such that he’d be glad of the money to let him off, no doubt; but Mr. Raikes has spent it, I can’t lend it, and you haven’t got it, and there we all are. At the end of the year he’s free, and he—ha, ha! I’m not a bit the merrier for laughing, I can tell you.”
Catching another glimpse of Evan’s serious face, Andrew fell into louder laughter; checking it with doleful solemnity, as Evan said: “You know, Andrew, that if your brother will come to me with you for a time—I am in his debt doubly: I owe him both for the money, and a lesson; if he doesn’t mind coming, I shall be very happy to receive him.”
Andrew drew his hand tightly down his cheeks and chin, and nodded: “Thank you, Van, thank you, I’m sure. Never doubted your good heart, my boy. Very kind of you.”
“And you are certain to come?”
“’Hem! women in the case, you know, Van!”
“Well, if I may work for you and yours, Andrew, I shall thank my destiny, whatever it is.”
Andrew’s mouth twitched, and his eyelids began blinking fast. With a desperate effort, he avoided either crying or laughing, but at the expense of Evan’s ribs, into which he drove his elbow with a “pooh” and an apology, and then commenced a conversation with the coachman.
Up hill and down hill, and past little homesteads shining with yellow crocuses; across wide brown heaths, whose outlines raised in Evan’s mind the night of his funeral walk, and tossed up old feelings dead as the whirling dust. At last Jack called out:
“The towers of Fallowfield,—heigho!”
And Andrew said:
“Now, then, Van: if old Tom’s anywhere, he’s here. You get down at the Dragon, and don’t you talk to me, but let me go in. It’ll be just the hour he dines in the country. Isn’t it a shame of him to make me face every man of the creditors—eh?”
Evan gave Andrew’s hand an affectionate squeeze, at which Andrew had to gulp down something—reciprocal emotion, doubtless.
“Hark!” said Jack, as the horn of the guard was heard. “Once that sound used to set me caracoling before an abject multitude. I did wonders. All London looked on me! It had more effect on me than champagne. Now I hear it—the whole charm has vanished! I can’t see a single old castle. Would you have thought it possible that a small circular bit of tin could produce such total changes in a man?”
“I suppose,” said Evan, “it’s just as natural to you as the effect produced by a small circular tube of brass.”
“Ugh! here we are,” Jack returned, as they drew up under the sign of the hospitable Dragon. “This is the first coach I ever travelled with, without making the old whip burst with laughing. I ain’t myself. I’m haunted. I’m somebody else!”
The three passengers having descended, a controversy commenced between Evan and Andrew as to which should pay. Evan had his money out; Andrew dashed it behind him; Evan remonstrated.
“Well, you mustn’t pay for us two, Andrew. I would have let you do it once, but”
“Stuff!” cried Andrew. “I ain’t paying—it’s the creditors of the estate, my boy!”
Evan looked so ingenuously surprised and hurt at his lack of principle, that Andrew chucked a sixpence to a small boy, saying:
“If you don’t let me have my own way, Van, I’ll shy my purse after it. What do you mean, sir, by treating me like a beggar?”
“Our friend Harrington can’t humour us,” quoth Jack. “For myself, I candidly confess, I prefer being paid for;” and he leaned contentedly against one of the posts of the inn till the filthy dispute was arranged to the satisfaction of the ignobler mind. There Andrew left them, and went to Mrs. Sockley, who, recovered from her illness, smiled her usual placid welcome to a guest.
“You know me, ma’am?”
“Oh, yes! The London Mr. Cogglesby!”
“Now, ma’am, look here. I’ve come for my brother. Don’t be alarmed. No danger as yet. But, mind! if you attempt to conceal him from his lawful brother, I’ll summon here the myrmidons of the law.”
Mrs. Sockley showed a serious face.
“You know his habits, Mr. Cogglesby; and one daresn’t go against any one of his whimsies, or there’s consequences: but the house is open to you, sir. I dont wish to hide him.”
Andrew accepted this intelligent evasion of Tom Cogglesby’s orders as sufficient, and immediately proceeded up-stairs. A door shut on the first landing. Andrew went to this door, and knocked. No answer. He tried to open it, but found that he had been forestalled. After threatening to talk business through the keyhole, the door was unlocked, and Old Tom appeared.
“So! now you’re dogging me into the country. Be off; make an appointment. Saturday’s my holiday. You know that.”
Andrew pushed through the doorway, and, by way of an emphatic reply and a silencing one, delivered a punch slap into Old Tom’s belt.
“Confound you, Nan!” said Old Tom, grimacing, but friendly, as if his sympathies had been irresistibly assailed.
“It’s done, Tom! I’ve done it. Won my bet, now,” Andrew exclaimed. “The women—poor creatures! What a state they’re in. I pity ’em.”
Old Tom pursed his lips, and eyed his brother incredulously, but with curious eagerness.
“Oh, Lord! what a face I’ve had to wear!” Andrew continued, and while he sank into a chair rubbed his handkerchief over his crisp hair, Old Tom let loose a convinced and exulting, “ha! ha!”
“Yes, you may laugh. I’ve had all the bother,” said Andrew.
“Serve ye right—marrying such cattle,” Old Tom snapped at him.
“They believe we’re bankrupt—owe fifty thousand clear, Tom!”
“Ha! ha!”
“Brewery stock and household furniture to be sold by general auction, Friday week.”
“Ha! ha!”
“Not a place for any of us to poke our heads into. I talked about ‘pitiless storms’ to my poor Harry—no shelter to be had unless we go down to Lymport, and stop with their brother in the shop!”
Old Tom did enjoy this. He took a great gulp of air for a tremendous burst of laughter, and when this was expended and reflection came, his features screwed, as if the acidest of flavours had ravished his palate.
“Bravo, Nan! Didn’t think you were man enough. Ha! ha! Nan—I say—eh? how did ye get on behind the curtains?”
The tale, to guess by Andrew’s face, appeared to be too strongly infused with pathos for revelation.
“Will they go, Nan, eh? d’ye think they’ll go?”
“Where else can they go, Tom? They must go there, and on the parish, you know.”
“They’ll all troop down to the young tailor—eh?”
“They can’t sleep in the parks, Tom.”
“No. They can’t get into Buckingham Palace, neither—’cept as housemaids. ’Gad, they’re howling like cats, I’d swear—nuisance to the neighbourhood—ha! ha!”
Somehow, Old Tom’s cruel laughter made Andrew feel for the unhappy ladies. He struck his forehead, and leaned forward, saying: “I don’t know—’pon my honour, I don’t know—can’t think we’ve quite done right to punish ’em so.”
This acted like cold water on Old Tom’s delight. He pitched it back in the shape of a doubt of what Andrew had told him. Whereupon Andrew defied him to face three miserable women on the verge of hysterics; and Old Tom, beginning to chuckle again, rejoined that it would bring them to their senses, and emancipate him.
“You may laugh, Mr. Tom,” said Andrew; “but if poor Harry should find me out, deuce a bit more home for me.”
Old Tom looked at him keenly, and rapped the table. “Swear you did it, Nan.”
“You promise you’ll keep the secret,” said Andrew.
“Never make promises.”
“Then there’s a pretty life for me! I did it for that poor dear boy. You were only up to one of your jokes—I see that. Confound you, Old Tom, you’ve been making a fool of me.”
The flattering charge was not rejected by Old Tom, who now had his brother to laugh at as well. Andrew affected to be indignant and desperate.
“If you’d had a heart, Tom, you’d have saved the poor fellow without any bother at all. What do you think? When I told him of our smash—ha! ha! it isn’t such a bad joke—well, I went to him, hanging my head, and he offered to arrange our affairs—that is—”
“Damned meddlesome young dog!” cried Old Tom, quite in a rage.
“There—you’re up in a twinkling,” said Andrew. “Don’t you see he believed it, you stupid Old Tom? Lord! to hear him say how sorry he was, and to see how glad he looked at the chance of serving us!”
“Serving us!” Tom sneered.
“Ha!” went Andrew. “Yes. There. You’re a deuced deal prouder than fifty peers. You’re an upside-down old despot!”
No sharper retort rising to Old Tom’s lips, he permitted his brother’s abuse of him to pass, declaring that bandying words was not his business, he not being a Parliament man.
“How about the Major, Nan? He coming down, too?”
“Major!” cried Andrew. “Lucky if he keeps his commission. Coming down? No. He’s off to the Continent.”
“Find plenty of scamps there to keep him company,” added Tom. “So he’s broke—eh? ha! ha!”
“Tom,” said Andrew, seriously, “I’ll tell you all about it, if you’ll swear not to split on me, because it would really upset poor Harry so. She’d think me such a beastly hypocrite, I couldn’t face her afterwards.”
“Lose what pluck you have—eh?” Tom jerked out his hand, and bade his brother continue.
Compelled to trust in him without a promise, Andrew said: “Well, then, after we’d arranged it, I went back to Harry, and begged her to have poor Van at the house: told her what I hoped you’d do for him about getting him into the Brewery. She’s very kind, Tom, ’pon my honour she is. She was willing, only—”
“Only—eh?”
“Well, she was so afraid it’d hurt her sisters to see him there.”
Old Tom saw he was in for excellent fun, and wouldn’t spoil it for the world.
“Yes, Nan?”
“So I went to Caroline. She was easy enough; and she went to the Countess.”
“Well, and she—?”
“She was willing, too, till Lady Jocelyn came and took Miss Bonner home to Beckley, and because Evan had written to my lady to fetch her the Countess she was angry. That was all. Because of that, you know. But yet she agreed. But when Miss Bonner was gone, it turned out that the Major was the obstacle. They were all willing enough to have Evan there, but the Major refused. I didn’t hear him. I wasn’t going to ask him. I mayn’t be a match for three women, but man to man, eh, Tom? You’d back me there? So Harry said the Major’d make Caroline miserable, if his wishes were disrespected. By jingo! I wish I’d known, then. Don’t you think it odd, Tom, now! There’s a Duke of Belfield the fellow had hooked into his Company; and—through Evan I heard—the Duke had his name struck off. After that, the Major swore at the Duke once or twice, and said Caroline wasn’t to go out with him. Suddenly he insists that she shall go. Days the poor thing kept crying! One day, he makes her go. She hasn’t the spirit of my Harry, or the Countess. By good luck, Van, who was hunting ferns for some friends of his, met them on Sunday in Richmond Park, and Van took her away from the Duke. But, Tom, think of Van seeing a fellow watching her wherever she went, and hearing the Duke’s coachman tell that fellow he had orders to drive his master and a lady hard on to the sea that night. I don’t believe it—it wasn’t Caroline! But what do you think of our finding out that beast of a spy to be in the Major’s pay? We did. Van put a constable on his track; we found him out, and he confessed it. A fact, Tom! That decided me. If it was only to get rid of a brute, I determined I’d do it; and I did. Strike came to me to get my name for a bill that night. ’Gad, he looked blanker than his bill, when he heard of us two bankrupt. I showed him one or two documents I’d got ready. Says he: ‘Never mind; it’ll only be a couple of hundred more in the schedule. Stop, Tom! he’s got some of our blood. I don’t think he meant it. He is hard pushed. Well, I gave him a twentier, and he was off the next night. You’ll soon see all about the Company in the papers.’”
At the conclusion of Andrew’s recital, Old Tom thrummed and looked on the floor under a heavy frown. His mouth worked dubiously, and, from moment to moment, he plucked at his waistcoat and pulled it down, throwing back his head and glaring.
“I’ve knocked that fellow over once,” he said. “Wish he hadn’t got up again.”
Andrew nodded.
“One good thing, Nan. He never boasted of our connection. Much obliged to him.”
“Yes,” said Andrew, who was gladly watching Old Tom’s change of mood with a quiescent aspect.
“’Um!—must keep it quiet from his poor old mother.”
Andrew again affirmatived his senior’s remarks. That his treatment of Old Tom was sound, he presently had proof of. The latter stood up, and after sniffing in an injured way for about a minute, launched out his right leg, and vociferated that he would like to have it in his power to kick all the villains out of the world: a modest demand Andrew at once chimed in with; adding that, were such a faculty extended to him, he would not object to lose the leg that could benefit mankind so infinitely, and consented to its following them. Then, Old Tom, who was of a practical turn, meditated, swung his foot, and gave one grim kick at the imaginary bundle of villains, discharged them headlong straight into space. Andrew, naturally imitative, and seeing that he had now to kick them flying, attempted to excel Old Tom in the vigour of his delivery. No wonder that the efforts of both were heating: they were engaged in the task of ridding the globe of the larger half of its inhabitants. Tom perceived Andrew’s useless emulation, and, with a sound translated by “yack,” sent his leg out a long way. Not to be out-done, Andrew immediately, with a still louder “yack,” committed himself to an effort so violent that the alternative between his leg coming off, or his being taken off his leg, was propounded by nature, and decided by the laws of gravity in a trice. Joyful grunts were emitted by Old Tom at the sight of Andrew prostrate, rubbing his pate. But Mrs. Sockley, to whom the noise of Andrew’s fall had suggested awful fears of a fratricidal conflict up-stairs, hurried forthwith to announce to them that the sovereign remedy for human ills, the promoter of concord, the healer of feuds, the central point of man’s destiny in the flesh,—Dinner was awaiting them.
To the dinner they marched.
Of this great festival be it simply told that the supply was copious and of good quality—much too good and copious for a bankrupt host: that Evan and Mr. John Raikes were formally introduced to old Tom before the repast commenced, and welcomed some three minutes after he had decided the flavour of his first glass: that Mr. John Raikes in due time preferred his petition for release, and furnished vast amusement to the company under old Tom’s hand, until by chance he quoted a scrap of Latin, at which the brothers Cogglesby, who would have faced peers and princes without being disconcerted or performing mental genuflexions, shut their mouths and looked injured, unhappy, and in the presence of a superior: Mr. John Raikes not being the man to spare them. Moreover, a surprise was afforded to Evan. Andrew stated to Old Tom that the hospitality of Main Street, Lymport, was open to him. Strange to say, Old Tom accepted it on the spot, observing, “You’re master of the house—can do what you like, if you’re man enough,” and adding that he thanked him, and would come in a day or two. The case of Mr. John Raikes was still left uncertain, for as the bottle circulated, he exhibited such a faculty for apt, but to the brothers totally incomprehensible quotation, that they fled from him without leaving him time to remember what special calamity was on his mind, or whether this earth was other than an abode conceived in great jollity for his life-long entertainment.