Charles Lever - The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly

Mr. Cutbill, as he went to his room, had a certain vague suspicion that he had drunk more wine than was strictly necessary, and that the liquor was not impossibly stronger than he had suspected. He felt, too, in the same vague way, that there had been a passage of arms between his host and himself; but as to what it was about, and who was the victor, he had not the shadow of a conception.

Neither did his ordinary remedy of pouring the contents of his water-jug over his head aid him on this occasion.

“I’m not a bit sleepy; nonsense!” muttered he, “so I’ll go and see what they are doing in the smoking-room.”

Here he found the three young men of the house in that semi-thoughtful dreariness which is supposed to be the captivation of tobacco; as if the mass of young Englishmen needed anything to deepen the habitual gloom of their natures, or thicken the sluggish apathy that follows them into all inactivity.

“How jolly,” cried Cutbill, as he entered. “I ‘ll be shot if I believed as I came up the stairs that there was any one here. You haven’t even got brandy and seltzer.”

“If you touch that bell, they ‘ll bring it,” said Augustus, languidly.

“Some Moselle for me,” said Temple, as the servant entered.

“I’m glad you’ve come, Cutty,” cried Jack; “as old Kemp used to say, anything is better than a dead calm; even a mutiny.”

“What an infernal old hurdy-gurdy! Why haven’t you a decent piano here, if you have one at all?” said Cutbill, as he ran his hands over the keys of a discordant old instrument that actually shook on its legs as he struck the chords.

“I suspect it was mere accident brought it here,” said Augustus. “It was invalided out of the girls’ schoolroom, and sent up here to be got rid of.”

“Sing us something, Cutty,” said Jack; “it will be a real boon at this moment.”

“I’ll sing like a grove of nightingales for you, when I have wet my lips; but I am parched in the mouth, like a Cape parrot. I ‘ve had two hours of your governor below stairs. Very dry work, I promise you.”

“Did he offer you nothing to drink?” asked Jack.

“Yes, we had two bottles of very tidy claret. He called it ‘Mouton.’”

“By Jove!” said Augustus, “you must have been high in the governor’s favor to be treated to his ‘Bra Mouton.’”

“We had a round with the gloves, nevertheless,” said Cutbill, “and exchanged some ugly blows. I don’t exactly know about what or how it began, or even how it ended; but I know there was a black eye somewhere. He’s passionate, rather.”

“He has the spirit that should animate every gentleman,” said Temple.

“That’s exactly what I have. I ‘ll stand anything, I don’t care what, if it be fun. Say it’s a ‘joke,’ and you’ll never see me show bad temper; but if any fellow tries it on with me because he fancies himself a swell, or has a handle to his name, he ‘ll soon discover his mistake. Old Culduff began that way. You ‘d laugh if you saw how he floundered out of the swamp afterwards.”

“Tell us about it, Cutty,” said Jack, encouragingly.

“I beg to say I should prefer not hearing anything which might, even by inference, reflect on a person holding Lord Culduff’s position in my profession,” said Temple, haughtily.

“Is that the quarter the wind ‘s in?” asked Cutbill, with a not very sober expression in his face.

“Sing us a song, Cutty. It will be better than all this sparring,” said Jack.

“What shall it be?” said Cutbill, seating himself at the piano, and running over the keys with no small skill. “Shall I describe my journey to Ireland?”

“By all means let’s hear it,” said Augustus.

“I forget how it goes. Indeed, some verses I was making on the curate’s sister have driven the others out of my head.”

Jack drew nigh, and leaning over his shoulder, whispered something in his ear.

“What!” cried Cutbill, starting up; “he says he’ll pitch me neck and crop out of the window.”

“Not unless you deserve it – add that,” said Jack, sternly.

“I must have an apology for those words, sir. I shall insist on your recalling them, and expressing your sincere regret for having ever used them.”

“So you shall, Cutty. I completely forgot that this tower was ninety feet high; but I ‘ll pitch you downstairs, which will do as well.”

There was a terrible gleam of earnestness in Jack’s eye as he spoke this laughingly, which appalled Cutbill far more than any bluster, and he stammered out, “Let us have no practical jokes; they’re bad taste. You’d be a great fool, admiral” – this was a familiarity he occasionally used with Jack – “you ‘d be a great fool to quarrel with me . I can do more with the fellows at Somerset House than most men going; and when the day comes that they ‘ll give you a command, and you ‘ll want twelve or fifteen hundred to set you afloat, Tom Cutbill is not the worst man to know in the City. Not to say, that if things go right down here, I could help you to something very snug in our mine. Won’t we come out strong then, eh?”

Here he rattled over the keys once more; and after humming to himself for a second or two, burst out with a rattling merry air, to which he sung, —

“A barcarolle, I declare,” said Lord Culduff, entering. “It was a good inspiration led me up here.”

A jolly roar of laughter at his mistake welcomed him; and Cutty, with an aside, cried out, “He’s deaf as a post,” and continued, —

“One of the fishermen’s songs,” said Lord Culduff, as he beat time on the table. “I ‘ve passed many a night on the Bay of Naples listening to them.”

And a wild tumultuous laugh now convulsed the company, and Cutbill, himself overwhelmed by the absurdity, rushed to the door, and made his escape without waiting for more.

Julia L’Estrange was busily engaged in arranging some flowers in certain vases in her little drawing-room, and, with a taste all her own, draping a small hanging lamp with creepers, when Jack Bramleigh appeared at the open window, and leaning on the sill, cried out, “Good-morning.”

“I came over to scold you, Julia,” said he. “It was very cruel of you to desert us last evening, and we had a most dreary time of it in consequence.”

“Come round and hold this chair for me, and don’t talk nonsense.”

“And what are all these fine preparations for? You are decking out your room as if for a village fête,” said he, not moving from his place nor heeding her request.

“I fancy that young Frenchman who was here last night,” said she, saucily, “would have responded to my invitation if I had asked him to hold the chair I was standing on.”