“I'll call upon him this very morning!” said George, half aloud, and with the tone and air of a man who feels he has said a very generous thing, and expressed a sentiment that he is well aware will expose him to a certain amount of reprobation. “Jekyl, after all, is a right good name. Lady Hester said something about Jekyls that she knew, or was related to. Good style of fellow he looked a little tigerish, but that comes of the Continent. If he be really presentable, too, my Lady will be glad to receive him in her present state of destitution. Norwood's ungracious message was a bore, to be sure, but then he need not deliver it there was no necessity of taking trouble to be disagreeable or, better again far better,” thought he, and he burst out laughing at the happy notion, “I 'll misunderstand his meaning, and pay the money. An excellent thought; for as I am about to book up a heavy sum to his Lordship, it 's only deducting twenty pounds and handing it to Jekyl, and I 'll be sworn he wants it most of us all.”
The more Onslow reflected on it, the more delighted was he with this admirable device; and it is but fair to add, that however gratified at the opportunity of doing a kindness, he was even better pleased at the thought of how their acquaintance at the “Grosvenor” and the “Ultras” would laugh at the “sharp viscount's being sold.” There was only one man of all Onslow's set on whom he would have liked to practise this jest, and that man was Norwood. Having decided upon this plan, he next thought of the execution of it, and this he determined should be by letter. A short note, conveying Norwood's message and the twenty pounds, would save all explanation, and spare Jekyl any unpleasant feeling the discussion of a private circumstance might occasion.
Onslow's note concluded with his “thanks for Mr. Jekyl's kindness on the preceding evening,” and expressing a wish to know “at what hour Mr. J. would receive a visit from him.”
Within a very few minutes after the billet was despatched, a servant announced Mr. Albert Jekyl; and that young gentleman, in the glory of a very magnificent brocade dressing-gown, and a Greek cap, with slippers of black velvet embroidered in gold, entered the room.
Onslow, himself a distinguished member of that modern school of dandyism whose pride lies in studs and shirt-pins, in watch-chains, rings, and jewelled canes, was struck by the costly elegance of his visitor's toilette. The opal buttons at his wrists; the single diamond, of great size and brilliancy, on his finger; even the massive amber mouthpiece of the splendid meerschaum he carried in his hand, were all evidences of the most expensive tastes. “Could this by possibility be the man he had seen at supper?” was the question he at once asked himself; but there was no time to discuss the point, as Jekyl, in a voice almost girlish in its softness, said,
“I could not help coming at once to thank you, Mr. Onslow, for your polite note, and say how gratified I feel at making your acquaintance. Maynard often spoke of you to me; and I confess I was twenty times a day tempted to introduce myself.”
“Maynard Sir Horace Maynard!” cried Onslow, with a slight flush, half pleasure, half surprise, for the baronet was the leader of the set George belonged to, a man of great fortune, ancient family, the most successful on the English Turf, and the envy of every young fellow about town. “Do you know Maynard?”
“Oh, very well indeed,” lisped Jekyl; “and like him much.”
Onslow could not help a stare at the man who, with perfect coolness and such an air of patronage, professed his opinion of the most distinguished fashionable of the day.
“He has a very pretty taste in equipage,” continued Jekyl, “but never could attain to the slightest knowledge of a dinner.”
Onslow was thunderstruck. Maynard, whose entertainments were the triumph of the Clarendon, thus criticised by the man he had seen supping like a mouse on a morsel of mouldy cheese!
“Talking of dinners, by the way,” said Jekyl, “what became of Merewater?”
“Lord Merewater? he was in waiting when we left England.”
“A very tidy cook he used to have, a Spaniard called Jose, a perfect hand at all the Provencal dishes. Good creature, Merewater. Don't you think so?”
Ouslow muttered a kind of half-assent; and added, “I don't know him.” Indeed, the lord in question was reputed as insufferably proud, and as rarely admitting a commoner to the honor of his acquaintance.
“Poor Merewater! I remember playing him such a trick: to this hour he does not know who did it. I stole the menu of one of his grand dinners, and gave it to old Lord Bristock's cook, a creature that might have made the messes for an emigrant ship, and such a travesty of an entertainment never was seen. Merewater affected illness, and went away from the table firmly persuaded that the whole was got up to affront him.”
“I thought the Earl of Bristock lived well and handsomely,” said George.
“Down at Brentwood it was very well one was in the country and grouse and woodcocks, and salmon and pheasants, came all naturally and seasonably; besides, he really had some very remarkable Burgundy; and, though few people will drink it nowadays, Chambertin is a Christmas wine.”
The cheese and the decanter of water were uppermost in George's mind, but he said nothing, suffering his companion to run on, which he did, over a wide expanse of titled and distinguished families, with all of whom he appeared to have lived on the closest terms of intimacy. Certainly of those Onslow himself knew, Jekyl related twenty little traits and tokens that showed he was speaking with true knowledge of the parties. Unlike Haggerstone, he rarely, if ever, alluded to any of those darker topics which form the staple of scandal. A very gentle ridicule of some slight eccentricity, a passing quiz of some peculiarity in dress, voice, or manner, was about the extent of Jekyl's criticism, which on no occasion betrayed any malice. Even the oddities that he portrayed were usually done by some passing bit of mimicry of the individual in question. These he threw into the dialogue of his story without halt or impediment, and which, being done with great tact, great command of face, and a most thorough appreciation of humor, were very amusing little talents, and contributed largely to his social success. Onslow laughed heartily at many of the imitations, and thus recognized characters that were introduced into a narrative without the trouble of announcing them.
“You've heard, perhaps, the series of mishaps which compelled us to take refuge here,” said George, leading the way to what he supposed would induce an equal degree of communicativeness on the other side.
“Oh! yes, the landlord told me of your disasters.”
“After all, I believe the very worst of them was coming to this place in such a season.”
“It is certainly seeing it en papillate” said Jekyl, smiling; “and you, perhaps, are not an admirer of beauty unadorned.”
“Say, rather, of Nature at her ugliest; for whatever it may be in summer, with foliage, and clear streams, flowers, smart folk airing and driving about, equipage, music, movement, and merry voices, now it is really too dismal. Pray, how do you get through the day?”
Jekyl smiled one of his quiet, equivocal smiles, and slightly raised his shoulders without speaking.
“Do you shoot?”
“No,” said he.
“But why do I ask? there's nothing to shoot. You ride, then?”
“No.”
“Cigars will do a great deal; but, confound it, there must be a large share of the day very heavy on your hands, even with a reasonable allowance for reading and writing.”
“Seldom do either!” said Jekyl, with his usual imperturbed manner.
“You have n't surely got up a flirtation with some 'Frdulein with yellow hair '?”
“I cannot lay claim to such good fortune. I really do nothing. I have not even the usual English resource of a terrier to jump over my stick, nor was I early enough initiated