George Gissing - Our Friend the Charlatan

"I don't know him," said Lady Ogram.

"That doesn't surprise me. He leads an extremely retired life. But I am sure you would find him a very pleasant acquaintance."

Lashmar occasionally had a fine discretion. He knew when to cheek the flood of his eloquence: a glance at this face and that, and he said within himself: Sat prata biberunt . Soon after this, Lady Ogram rose, and led the company into her verdurous drawing-room. She was beginning to show signs of fatigue; seated in her throne-like chair, she let her head lie back, and was silent. Constance Bride, ever tactful, began to take a more prominent part in the conversation, and Breakspeare was delighted to talk with her about ordinary things. Presently, Lashmar, in reply to some remark, mentioned that he was returning to London this evening whereupon his hostess asked:

"When are you coming back again?"

"Before long, I hope, Lady Ogram. The pleasure of these two days—"

She interrupted him.

"Could you come down in a fortnight?"

"Easily, and gladly."

"Then do so. Don't go to Hollingford; your room will be ready for you here. Just write and let me know when you will arrive."

In a few minutes, both men took their leave, and went back to Hollingford together, driving in a fly which Breakspeare had ordered. For the first minutes they hardly talked; they avoided each other's look, and exchanged only insignificant words. Then the editor, with his blandest smile, said in a note of sudden cordiality:

"It has been a great pleasure to me to meet you, Mr. Lashmar. May I, without indiscretion, take it for granted that we shall soon be fighting the good fight together?"

"Why, I think it likely," answered Dyce, in a corresponding tone. "I have not quite made up my mind—"

"No, no. I understand. There's just one point I should like to touch upon. To-day we have enjoyed a veritable symposium—for me, I assure you, a high intellectual treat. But, speaking to you as to one who does not know Hollingford, I would suggest to you that our Liberal electors are perhaps hardly ripe for such a new and bracing political philosophy—"

Dyce broke into gay laughter.

"My dear sir, you don't imagine that I thought of incorporating my philosophy in an electioneering address? Of course one must use common sense in these matters. Practical lessons come before theory. If I stand for Hollingford—" he rolled the words, and savoured them—"I shall do so as a very practical politician indeed. My philosophical creed will of course influence me, and I shall lose no opportunity of propagating it: but have no fear of my expounding bio-sociology to Hollingford shopkeepers and artisans."

Breakspeare echoed the speaker's mirth, and they talked on about the practical aspects of the next election in the borough.

Meanwhile, Lady Ogram had sat in her great chair, dozing. Constance, accustomed to this, read for half an hour, or let her thoughts wander. At length overcoming her drowsiness, the old lady fixed a curious gaze upon Miss Bride, a gaze of benevolent meditation.

"We shall have several letters to write to-morrow morning," she said presently.

"Political letters?" asked Constance.

"Yes. By the bye, do you know anything about Lord Dymchurch?"

"Nothing at all."

"Then find out about him as soon as possible.—What are Mr. Lashmar's means?"

"I really can't tell you," answered Constance, slightly confused by the unexpected question. "I believe his father is very well-to-do; I have heard him spoken of as a man of private fortune."

"Then our friend is independent—or at all events not pinched. So much the better."

Again Lady Ogram fell into musing; the countless wrinkles about her eyes, eloquent as wrinkles always are, indicated that her thoughts had no disagreeable tenor.

"Mr. Lashmar impresses you favourably?" Constance at length ventured to ask.

Lady Ogram delayed her answer for a moment, then, speaking thickly in her tired voice, and with slow emphasis:

"I'm glad to know him. Beyond a doubt, he is the coming man."

On his return, Lashmar found a letter from Mrs. Woolstan awaiting him at Upper Woburn Place. The lady wrote in rather an agitated strain; she had to report that Leonard was already packed off to school, the imperious Wrybolt having insisted on sending him away as soon as he had recovered from his cold, on a pretence that the boy ought not to lose any part of the new term. "It is really very hard on me, don't you think? I know nothing whatever about the school, which is a long way off, right away in Devonshire: And it does so grieve me that you couldn't say good-bye to the poor little fellow. He says he shall write to you, and it would be so kind, dear Mr. Lashmar, if you could find a moment to answer him. I know how grateful dear Len would be. But we will talk about these things, for of course you will come and lunch all the same, at least I hope you will. Shall we say Thursday? I am not at all pleased with Mr. Wrybolt's behaviour. Indeed it seems to me very high-handed, very! And I told him very plainly what I thought. You can have no idea how galling is a woman's position left at the mercy of a trustee—a stranger too. And now that I am quite alone in the house—but I know you don't like people who complain. It's all very well for you , you know. Ah! if I had your independence! What I would make of my life!—Till Thursday, then, and don't, please, be bored with my letters."

This Mrs. Woolstan wrote and posted before luncheon. At three o'clock in the afternoon, just when she was preparing to go out, the servant made known to her that Mr. Wrybolt had called. What, Mr. Wrybolt again! With delay which was meant to be impressive, she descended to the drawing-room, and coldly greeted the gentleman of the red neck and heavy eyelids. Mr. Wrybolt's age was about five and forty; he had the well-groomed appearance of a flourishing City man, and presented no sinister physiognomy; one augured in him a disposition to high-feeding and a masculine self-assertiveness. Faces such as his may be observed by the thousand round about the Royal Exchange; they almost invariably suggest degradation, more or less advanced, of a frank and hopeful type of English visage; one perceives the honest, hearty schoolboy, dimmed beneath self-indulgence, soul-hardening calculation, debasing excitement and vulgar routine. Mr. Wrybolt was a widower, without children; his wife, a strenuous sportswoman, had been killed in riding to hounds two or three years ago. This afternoon he showed a front all amiability. He had come, he began by declaring, to let Mrs. Woolstan know that the son of a common friend of theirs had just, on his advice, been sent to the same school as Leonard; the boys would be friends, and make each other feel at home. This news Mrs. Woolstan received with some modification of her aloofness; she was very glad; after all, perhaps it had been a wise thing to send Leonard off with little warning; she would only have made herself miserable in the anticipation of parting with him. That, said Mr. Wrybolt, was exactly what he had himself felt. He was quite sure that in a few days Mrs. Woolstan would see that all was for the best. The fact of the matter was that Len's tutor, though no doubt a very competent man, had been guilty of indiscretion in unsettling the boy's ideas on certain very important subjects. Well, admitted the mother, perhaps it was so; she would say no more; Mr. Wrybolt, as a man of the world, probably knew best. And now—as he was here, she would use the opportunity to speak to him on a subject which had often been in her mind of late. It was a matter of business. As her trustee was aware, she possessed a certain little capital which was entirely at her own disposal. More than once Mr. Wrybolt had spoken to her about it—had been so kind as to express a hope that she managed that part of her affairs wisely, and to offer his services if ever she desired to make any change in her investments. The truth was, that she had thought recently of trying to put out her money to better advantage, and she would like to talk the matter over with him. This they proceeded to do, Mr. Wrybolt all geniality and apt suggestiveness. As the colloquy went on, a certain change appeared in the man's look and voice; he visibly softened, he moved his chair a little nearer, and all at once, before Mrs. Woolstan had had time to reflect upon these symptoms, Wrybolt was holding her hand and making her an offer of marriage.