No secrets between us, thought Lygon.
And what a secret he, if he chose, could tell the man who was thus addressing him!
“No secrets, I tell you, Arthur. We are a couple of honest men, who have married a couple of honest women, and as they are sisters, we should be brothers. Is that true, Mr. Arthur?”
“I hope so,” said Arthur.
“Very well, that’s confessed. Now, what is your trouble? Because that you are in trouble a man that has both his eyes sharpened by liking, which I take to be the best eye-ointment in the world, can see with half of one of them.”
“I told you I was ill, my dear Robert.”
“You told me, begging your pardon, that which was only true in a sense, as the devil said when the monkey called him cousin, and I know better. You are a plucky fellow, as well as a clever one, and if anything was the matter you would go to one of those d—d doctors, and be cured, and meantime you would hold up your head and look like a man. Now you are all down in the mouth, you don’t eat, you do drink, and instead of smoking that prime weed like a Christian man, you are sucking it to death as if for a wager. There’s something on your mind.”
“You are determined to have it so,” said Arthur, with a faint smile.
“I’m determined to know all about it, my man. And as I know that some men don’t like to break the ice, and I do, I shall just take the liberty of breaking it myself. And if I make a good guess, you’ll answer truthfully.”
“Yes,” said Arthur, with his lips. His heart’s answer need not be set down.
“Done. And you’ll not be offended?”
“What, with you?”
“That’s the first decent word you’ve spoken to-day. But I’ll have some more out of you before you’ve done. Now then, how much will see you out of the mess, and ready to snap your fingers at the world, the flesh, and the devil?”
“How much?” repeated Arthur.
“Come, come, walk uprightly, and according to your lights, or you’ll be in for something bad. You know what I mean, my man. We’ve been having a bit of a race with the constable, and being young and active, we’ve licked the old fellow, as was natural.”
“What—you think that I am in debt. My dear Robert!”
“I know you are, and there’s an end of that. I suppose you have come over here to be out of the way, while things are being put right, and that Laura is managing that for you. Very sensible, too, and all I ask is to be allowed to put on some more coal, and get the journey done at a wee bit better pace.”
“You have the kindest heart in the world, Robert,” said Lygon, touched.
“I’ve just got nothing of the sort, I am proud to say,” said his brother-in-law. “I would be very sorry to be the biggest fool of my acquaintance. But that’s not the question. Do you mean to let me have the pleasure of helping you?”
“If I wanted such help, I would come to you before any man I know in the world,” said Arthur.
“And you do. For your wife’s sake, Arthur, I think that you are bound to avail yourself of any lawful means of putting matters right. It is not well for a young wife to be left without her husband, and it’s bad for the bairns to be accustomed to see their father away, let alone the cackle of the fools outside, who are sure to have something to say if you give them a chance. You must take a bit of paper, and write an I.O.U. for the amount you need, and before we get to our dinner—which, please God! we’ll make a bit cheerfuller than our lunch—I’ll have got the money for you in English notes. Then we’ll talk about paying back, or else your proud English prelatical stomach will have no digestion. Do you see all that, my man?”
To Lygon, this kindly speech, in which his home, his comfort, his honour, his pride were all cared for by the Scot, suggested a refuge from the immediate pressure upon him—a mode in which he could escape from the slow torture to which he was being exposed. It could do no harm to let Urquhart think that he was right, and to return the money, with an explanatory letter, would be an easier course than the talking down the impression which Robert had formed. At all events, in Lygon’s state of mind it seemed a most desirable loophole.
“I feel all your kindness, Robert.”
“And accept my proposals. Of course you do. That is the only course for a man and a Christian.”
“I don’t feel like either just now.”
“No, but you will by and by. Now I tell you what. Turn over in your own mind, while we drive about in this beast of a carriage, which bumps like the very devil, how much will answer our purpose, and mind you leave a margin for something handsome, which you are bound to buy for Laura for not bringing her to Paris. Turn it over, I say, and while you are doing it, I’ll get through a bit of calculation of my own, which I can do in my head if I am not talked to, and which is for the benefit of my friends those beggars that let my railway down, and be hanged to them. So here goes for a think, my man.”
And with this last touch of consideration the warm-hearted Robert Urquhart ceased to speak, nor did the brothers-in-law exchange another word until they alighted, hours after, at the Palais Royal.
But when Urquhart, at the table of the Trois Frères, pushed a piece of paper across to Lygon, and said “Write,” Arthur felt it impossible to perform that piece of deception. Anything of the kind had always been foreign to his frank nature, and though in the state of wretchedness in which he found himself he might have permitted his friend to insist on deceiving himself, Lygon could not put his hand even to what might have almost been called a pious fraud.
“Robert,” he said, “you are the best fellow in the world”
“That’s not writing,” said Urquhart, impatiently.
“Listen to me. I have been thinking very deeply over a great number of things, and have finally made up my mind what to do. The advancing this money would not remove the weight