Charles Lever - Barrington. Volume 2

There are, doubtless, people in this world – I almost fancy I have met one or two such myself – who would not have felt peculiar difficulty in obeying this command; who would have gone down to the drawing-room and talked coolly to the visitor, discussing commonplaces, easily and carelessly, noting the while how at every pause of the conversation each was dwelling on the self-same point, and yet, with a quiet abstinence, never touching it, till with a sigh, that was half a malediction, the uninvited would rise to take leave. Barrington was not of this number. The man who sat under his roof was sacred. He could have no faults; and to such a pitch had this punctilio carried him, that had an actual enemy gained the inside of his threshold, he would have spared nothing to treat him with honor and respect.

“Well, well,” muttered he, as he slowly descended the stairs, “it will be the first time in my life I ever did it, and I don’t know how to go about it now.”

When a frank and generous man is about to do something he is ashamed of, how readily will a crafty and less scrupulous observer detect it! M’Cormick read Barrington’s secret before he was a minute in the room. It was in vain Peter affected an off-hand easy manner, incidentally dropping a hint that the Attorney-General and another friend had just arrived, – a visit, a mere business visit it was, to be passed with law papers and parchments. “Poor fun when the partridges were in the stubble, but there was no help for it. Who knew, however, if he could not induce them to give him an extra day, and if I can, Major, you must promise to come over and meet them. You ‘ll be charmed with Withering, he has such a fund of agreeability. One of the old school, but not the less delightful to you and me. Come, now, give me your word – for – shall we say Saturday? – Yes, Saturday!”

“I ‘ve nothing to say against it,” grumbled out M’Cormick, whose assent was given, as attorneys say, without prejudice to any other claim.

“You shall hear from me in the morning, then,” said Peter. “I ‘ll send you a line to say what success I have had with my friends.”

“Any time in the day will do,” said the Major, unconcernedly; for, in truth, the future never had in his estimation the same interest as the present. As for the birds in the bush, he simply did not believe in them at all.

“No, no,” said Barrington, hurriedly. “You shall hear from me early, for I am anxious you should meet Withering and his companion, too, – a brother-soldier.”

“Who may he be?” asked M’Cormick.

“That’s my secret, Major, – that’s my secret,” said Peter, with a forced laugh, for it now wanted but ten minutes to six; “but you shall know all on Saturday.”

Had he said on the day of judgment, the assurance would have been as palatable to M’Cormick. Talking to him of Saturday on a Monday was asking him to speculate on the infinite. Meanwhile he sat on, as only they sit who understand the deep and high mystery of that process. Oh, if you who have your fortunes to make in life, without any assignable mode for so doing, without a craft, a calling, or a trade, knew what success there was to be achieved merely by sitting – by simply being “there,” eternally “there” – a warning, an example, an illustration, a what you will, of boredom or infliction; but still “there.” The butt of this man, the terror of that, – hated, feared, trembled at, – but yet recognized as a thing that must be, an institution that was, and is, and shall be, when we are all dead and buried.

Long and dreary may be the days of the sitter, but the hour of his reward will come at last. There will come the time when some one – any one – will be wanted to pair off with some other bore, to listen to his stories and make up his whist-table; and then he will be “there.” I knew a man who, merely by sitting on patiently for years, was at last chosen to be sent as a Minister and special Envoy to a foreign Court just to get rid of him. And for the women sitters, – the well-dressed and prettily got-up simperers, who have sat their husbands into Commissionerships, Colonial Secretaryships, and such like, – are they not written of in the Book of Beauty?

“Here ‘s M’Cormick, Dinah,” said Barrington, with a voice shaking with agitation and anxiety, “whom I want to pledge himself to us for Saturday next. Will you add your persuasions to mine, and see what can be done?”

“Don’t you think you can depend upon me?” cackled out the Major.

“I am certain of it, sir; I feel your word like your bond on such a matter,” said Miss Dinah. “My grandniece, Miss Josephine Barrington,” said she, presenting that young lady, who courtesied formally to the unprepossessing stranger.

“I’m proud of the honor, ma’am,” said M’Cormick, with a deep bow, and resumed his seat; to rise again, however, as Withering entered the room and was introduced to him.

“This is intolerable, Peter,” whispered Miss Barrington, while the lawyer and the Major were talking together. “You are certain you have not asked him?”

“On my honor, Dinah! on my honor!”

“I hope I am not late?” cried Stapylton, entering; then turning hastily to Barrington, said, “Pray present me to your niece.”

“This is my sister, Major Stapylton; this is my granddaughter;” and the ladies courtesied, each with a degree of satisfaction which the reader shall be left to assign them.

After a few words of commonplace civility, uttered, however, with a courtesy and tact which won their way for the speaker, Stapylton recognized and shook hands with M’Cormick.

“You know my neighbor, then?” said Barrington, in some surprise.

“I am charmed to say I do; he owes me the denouement of a most amusing story, which was suddenly broken off when we last parted, but which I shall certainly claim after dinner.”

“He has been kind enough to engage himself to us for Saturday,” began Dinah. But M’Cormick, who saw the moment critical, stepped in, —

“You shall hear every word of it before you sleep. It’s all about Walcheren, though they think Waterloo more the fashion now.”

“Just as this young lady might fancy Major Stapylton a more interesting event than one of us,” said Withering, laughing. “But what ‘s become of your boasted punctuality, Barrington? A quarter past, – are you waiting for any one?”

“Are we, Dinah?” asked Barrington, with a look of sheepishness.

“Not that I am aware of, Peter. There is no one to come ;” and she laid such an emphasis on the word as made the significance palpable.

To Barrington it was painful as well as palpable; so painful, indeed, that he hurriedly rang the bell, saying, in a sharp voice, “Of course, we are all here, – there are six of us. Dinner, Darby!”

The Major had won, but he was too crafty to show any triumph at his victory, and he did not dare even to look towards where Miss Barrington stood, lest he should chance to catch her eye. Dinner was at length announced. Withering gave his arm to Miss Barrington, Stapylton took charge of Josephine, and old Peter, pleasantly drawing his arm within M’Cormick’s, said, “I hope you ‘ve got a good appetite, Major, for I have a rare fish for you to-day, and your favorite sauce, too, – smelt, not lobster.”

Poor Barrington! it was a trying moment for him, that short walk into the dinner-room, and he felt very grateful to M’Cormick that he said nothing peevish or sarcastic to him on the way. Many a dinner begins in awkwardness, but warms as it proceeds into a pleasant geniality. Such was the case here. Amongst those, besides, who have not the ties of old friendship between them, or have not as yet warmed into that genial good-fellowship which is, so to say, its foster-brother, a character of the M’Cormick class is not so damaging an element as might be imagined, and at times there is a positive advantage in having one of whose merits, by a tacit understanding, all are quite agreed. Withering and Stapylton both read the man at once, and drew out his salient points – his parsimony, his malice, and his prying curiosity – in various ways, but so neatly and so advisedly as to make him fancy he was the attacking party, and very successful, too, in his assaults upon the enemy. Even Barrington, in the honest simplicity of his nature, was taken in, and more than once thought that the old Major was too severe upon the others, and sat in wondering admiration of their self-command and good temper. No deception of this sort prevailed with Miss Barrington, who enjoyed to the fullest extent the subtle raillery with which they induced him to betray every meanness of his nature, and yet never suffered the disclosure to soar above the region of the ludicrous.