Charles Lever - Barrington. Volume 1

“Travellers will do these things, Dinah.”

“And if they do, they shall be shown the door for it, as sure as my name is Dinah Barrington.”

“Let us give up the inn altogether, then,” said he, with a sudden impatience.

“The very thing I was going to propose, Peter,” said she, solemnly.

“What! – how?” cried he, for the acceptance of what only escaped him in a moment of anger overwhelmed and stunned him. “How are we to live, Dinah?”

“Better without than with it, – there’s my answer to that. Let us look the matter fairly in the face, Peter,” said she, with a calm and measured utterance. “This dealing with the world ‘on honor’ must ever be a losing game. To screen ourselves from the vulgar necessities of our condition, we must submit to any terms. So long as our intercourse with life gave us none but gentlemen to deal with, we escaped well and safely. That race would seem to have thinned off of late, however; or, what comes to the same, there is such a deluge of spurious coin one never knows what is real gold.”

“You may be right, Dinah; you may be right.”

“I know I am right; the experience has been the growth of years too. All our efforts to escape the odious contact of these people have multiplied our expenses. Where one man used to suffice, we keep three. You yourself, who felt it no indignity to go out a-fishing formerly with a chance traveller, have to own with what reserve and caution you would accept such companionship now.”

“Nay, nay, Dinah, not exactly so far as that – ”

“And why not? Was it not less than a fortnight ago three Birmingham men crossed the threshold, calling out for old Peter, – was old Peter to the good yet?”

“They were a little elevated with wine, sister, remember that; and, besides, they never knew, never had heard of me in my once condition.”

“And are we so changed that they cannot recognize the class we pertain to?”

“Not you , Dinah, certainly not you; but I frankly own I can put up with rudeness and incivility better than a certain showy courtesy some vulgar people practise towards me. In the one case I feel I am not known, and my secret is safe. In the other, I have to stand out as the ruined gentleman, and I am not always sure that I play the part as gracefully as I ought.”

“Let us leave emotions, Peter, and descend to the lowland of arithmetic, by giving up two boatmen, John and Terry – ”

“Poor Terry!” sighed he, with a faint, low accent

“Oh! if it be ‘poor Terry!’ I ‘ve done,” said she, closing the book, and throwing it down with a slap that made him start.

“Nay, dear Dinah; but if we could manage to let him have something, – say five shillings a week, – he ‘d not need it long; and the port wine that was doing his rheumatism such good is nearly finished; he’ll miss it sorely.”

“Were you giving him Henderson’s wine, – the ‘11 vintage?” cried she, pale with indignation.

“Just a bottle or two, Dinah; only as medicine.”

“As a fiddlestick, sir! I declare I have no patience with you; there ‘s no excuse for such folly, not to say the ignorance of giving these creatures what they never were used to. Did not Dr. Dill tell you that tonics, to be effective, must always have some relation to the daily habits of the patient?”

“Very true, Dinah; but the discourse was pronounced when I saw him putting a bottle of old Madeira in his gig that I had left for Anne M’Cafferty, adding, he ‘d send her something far more strengthening.”

“Right or wrong, I don’t care; but this I know, Terry Dogherty is n’t going to finish off Henderson’s port. It is rather too much to stand, that we are to be treating beggars to luxuries, when we can’t say to-morrow where we shall find salt for our potatoes.” This was a somewhat favorite illustration of Miss Barrington, – either implying that the commodity was an essential to human life, or the use of it an emblem of extreme destitution.

“I conclude we may dispense with Tom Divett’s services,” resumed she. “We can assuredly get on without a professional rat-catcher.”

“If we should, Dinah, we’ll feel the loss; the rats make sad havoc of the spawn, and destroy quantities of the young fish, besides.”

“His two ugly terriers eat just as many chickens, and never leave us an egg in the place. And now for Mr. Darby – ”

“You surely don’t think of parting with Darby, sister Dinah?”

“He shall lead the way,” replied she, in a firm and peremptory voice; “the very first of the batch! And it will, doubtless, be a great comfort to you to know that you need not distress yourself about any provision for his declining years. It is a care that he has attended to on his own part. He ‘ll go back to a very well-feathered nest, I promise you.”

Barrington sighed heavily, for he had a secret sorrow on that score. He knew, though his sister did not, that he had from year to year been borrowing every pound of Darby’s savings to pay the cost of law charges, always hoping and looking for the time when a verdict in his favor would enable him to restore the money twice told. With a very dreary sigh, then, did he here allude “to the well-feathered nest” of one he had left bare and destitute. He cleared his throat, and made an effort to avow the whole matter; but his courage failed him, and he sat mournfully shaking his head, partly in sorrow, partly in shame. His sister noticed none of these signs; she was rapidly enumerating all the reductions that could be made, – all the dependencies cut off; there were the boats, which constantly required repairs; the nets, eternally being renewed, – all to be discarded; the island, a very pretty little object in the middle of the river, need no longer be rented. “Indeed,” said she, “I don’t know why we took it, except it was to give those memorable picnics you used to have there.”

“How pleasant they were, Dinah; how delightful!” said he, totally overlooking the spirit of her remark.

“Oh! they were charming, and your own popularity was boundless; but I ‘d have you to bear in mind, brother Peter, that popularity is no more a poor man’s luxury than champagne. It is a very costly indulgence, and can rarely be had on ‘credit.’”

Miss Barrington had pared down retrenchment to the very quick. She had shown that they could live not only without boatmen, rat-catchers, gardener, and manservant, but that, as they were to give up their daily newspaper, they could dispense with a full ration of candle-light; and yet, with all these reductions, she declared that there was still another encumbrance to be pruned away, and she proudly asked her brother if he could guess what it was?

Now Barrington felt that he could not live without a certain allowance of food, nor would it be convenient, or even decent, to dispense with raiment; so he began, as a last resource, to conjecture that his sister was darkly hinting at something which might be a substitute for a home, and save house-rent; and he half testily exclaimed, “I suppose we ‘re to have a roof over us, Dinah!”

“Yes,” said she, dryly, “I never proposed we should go and live in the woods. What I meant had a reference, to Josephine – ”

Barrington’s cheek flushed deeply in an instant, and, with a voice trembling with emotion, he said, —

“If you mean, Dinah, that I’m to cut off that miserable pittance – that forty pounds a year – I give to poor George’s girl – ” He stopped, for he saw that in his sister’s face which might have appalled a bolder heart than his own; for while her eyes flashed fire, her thin lips trembled with passion; and so, in a very faltering humility, he added: “But you never meant that sister Dinah. You would be the very last in the world to do it.”