Twilight had given place to night some hours, and it was high noon in those quarters of the town in which ‘the world’ condescended to dwell — the world being then, as now, of very limited dimensions and easily lodged — when Mr Chester reclined upon a sofa in his dressing-room in the Temple, entertaining himself with a book.
He was dressing, as it seemed, by easy stages, and having performed half the journey was taking a long rest. Completely attired as to his legs and feet in the trimmest fashion of the day, he had yet the remainder of his toilet to perform. The coat was stretched, like a refined scarecrow, on its separate horse; the waistcoat was displayed to the best advantage; the various ornamental articles of dress were severally set out in most alluring order; and yet he lay dangling his legs between the sofa and the ground, as intent upon his book as if there were nothing but bed before him.
‘Upon my honour,’ he said, at length raising his eyes to the ceiling with the air of a man who was reflecting seriously on what he had read; ‘upon my honour, the most masterly composition, the most delicate thoughts, the finest code of morality, and the most gentlemanly sentiments in the universe! Ah Ned, Ned, if you would but form your mind by such precepts, we should have but one common feeling on every subject that could possibly arise between us!’
This apostrophe was addressed, like the rest of his remarks, to empty air: for Edward was not present, and the father was quite alone.
‘My Lord Chesterfield,’ he said, pressing his hand tenderly upon the book as he laid it down, ‘if I could but have profited by your genius soon enough to have formed my son on the model you have left to all wise fathers, both he and I would have been rich men. Shakespeare was undoubtedly very fine in his way; Milton good, though prosy; Lord Bacon deep, and decidedly knowing; but the writer who should be his country’s pride, is my Lord Chesterfield.’
He became thoughtful again, and the toothpick was in requisition.
‘I thought I was tolerably accomplished as a man of the world,’ he continued, ‘I flattered myself that I was pretty well versed in all those little arts and graces which distinguish men of the world from boors and peasants, and separate their character from those intensely vulgar sentiments which are called the national character. Apart from any natural prepossession in my own favour, I believed I was. Still, in every page of this enlightened writer, I find some captivating hypocrisy which has never occurred to me before, or some superlative piece of selfishness to which I was utterly a stranger. I should quite blush for myself before this stupendous creature, if remembering his precepts, one might blush at anything. An amazing man! a nobleman indeed! any King or Queen may make a Lord, but only the Devil himself — and the Graces — can make a Chesterfield.’
Men who are thoroughly false and hollow, seldom try to hide those vices from themselves; and yet in the very act of avowing them, they lay claim to the virtues they feign most to despise. ‘For,’ say they, ‘this is honesty, this is truth. All mankind are like us, but they have not the candour to avow it.’ The more they affect to deny the existence of any sincerity in the world, the more they would be thought to possess it in its boldest shape; and this is an unconscious compliment to Truth on the part of these philosophers, which will turn the laugh against them to the Day of Judgment.
Mr Chester, having extolled his favourite author, as above recited, took up the book again in the excess of his admiration and was composing himself for a further perusal of its sublime morality, when he was disturbed by a noise at the outer door; occasioned as it seemed by the endeavours of his servant to obstruct the entrance of some unwelcome visitor.
‘A late hour for an importunate creditor,’ he said, raising his eyebrows with as indolent an expression of wonder as if the noise were in the street, and one with which he had not the smallest possible concern. ‘Much after their accustomed time. The usual pretence I suppose. No doubt a heavy payment to make up tomorrow. Poor fellow, he loses time, and time is money as the good proverb says — I never found it out though. Well. What now? You know I am not at home.’
‘A man, sir,’ replied the servant, who was to the full as cool and negligent in his way as his master, ‘has brought home the riding-whip you lost the other day. I told him you were out, but he said he was to wait while I brought it in, and wouldn’t go till I did.’
‘He was quite right,’ returned his master, ‘and you’re a blockhead, possessing no judgment or discretion whatever. Tell him to come in, and see that he rubs his shoes for exactly five minutes first.’
The man laid the whip on a chair, and withdrew. The master, who had only heard his foot upon the ground and had not taken the trouble to turn round and look at him, shut his book, and pursued the train of ideas his entrance had disturbed.
‘If time were money,’ he said, handling his snuff-box, ‘I would compound with my creditors, and give them — let me see — how much a day? There’s my nap after dinner — an hour — they’re extremely welcome to that, and to make the most of it. In the morning, between my breakfast and the paper, I could spare them another hour; in the evening before dinner say another. Three hours a day. They might pay themselves in calls, with interest, in twelve months. I think I shall propose it to them. Ah, my centaur, are you there?’
‘Here I am,’ replied Hugh, striding in, followed by a dog, as rough and sullen as himself; ‘and trouble enough I’ve had to get here. What do you ask me to come for, and keep me out when I DO come?’
‘My good fellow,’ returned the other, raising his head a little from the cushion and carelessly surveying him from top to toe, ‘I am delighted to see you, and to have, in your being here, the very best proof that you are not kept out. How are you?’
‘I’m well enough,’ said Hugh impatiently.
‘You look a perfect marvel of health. Sit down.’
‘I’d rather stand,’ said Hugh.
‘Please yourself my good fellow,’ returned Mr Chester rising, slowly pulling off the loose robe he wore, and sitting down before the dressing-glass. ‘Please yourself by all means.’
Having said this in the politest and blandest tone possible, he went on dressing, and took no further notice of his guest, who stood in the same spot as uncertain what to do next, eyeing him sulkily from time to time.
‘Are you going to speak to me, master?’ he said, after a long silence.
‘My worthy creature,’ returned Mr Chester, ‘you are a little ruffled and out of humour. I’ll wait till you’re quite yourself again. I am in no hurry.’
This behaviour had its intended effect. It humbled and abashed the man, and made him still more irresolute and uncertain. Hard words he could have returned, violence he would have repaid with interest; but this cool, complacent, contemptuous, self-possessed reception, caused him to feel his inferiority more completely than the most elaborate arguments. Everything contributed to this effect. His own rough speech, contrasted with the soft persuasive accents of the other; his rude bearing, and Mr Chester’s polished manner; the disorder and negligence of his ragged dress, and the elegant attire he saw before him; with all the unaccustomed luxuries and comforts of the room, and the silence that gave him leisure to observe these things, and feel how ill at ease they made him; all these influences, which have too often some effect on tutored minds and become of almost resistless power when brought to bear on such a mind as his, quelled Hugh completely. He moved by little and little nearer to Mr Chester’s chair, and glancing over his shoulder at the reflection of his face in the glass, as if seeking for some encouragement in its expression, said at length, with a rough attempt at conciliation,
‘ARE you going to speak to me, master, or am I to go away?’
‘Speak you,’ said Mr Chester, ‘speak you, good fellow. I have spoken, have I not? I am waiting for you.’
‘Why, look’ee, sir,’ returned Hugh with increased embarrassment, ‘am I the man that you privately left your whip with before you rode away from the Maypole, and told to bring it back whenever he might want to see you on a certain subject?’
‘No doubt the same, or you have a twin brother,’ said Mr Chester, glancing at the reflection of his anxious face; ‘which is not probable, I should say.’
‘Then I have come, sir,’ said Hugh, ‘and I have brought it back, and something else along with it. A letter, sir, it is, that I took from the person who had charge of it.’ As he spoke, he laid upon the dressing-table, Dolly’s lost epistle. The very letter that had cost her so much trouble.
‘Did you obtain this by force, my good fellow?’ said Mr Chester, casting his eye upon it without the least perceptible surprise or pleasure.
‘Not quite,’ said Hugh. ‘Partly.’
‘Who was the messenger from whom you took it?’
‘A woman. One Varden’s daughter.’
‘Oh indeed!’ said Mr Chester gaily. ‘What else did you take from her?’
‘What else?’
‘Yes,’ said the other, in a drawling manner, for he was fixing a very small patch of sticking plaster on a very small pimple near the corner of his mouth. ‘What else?’
‘Well a kiss,’ replied Hugh, after some hesitation.
‘And what else?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I think,’ said Mr Chester, in the same easy tone, and smiling twice or thrice to try if the patch adhered —‘I think there was something else. I have heard a trifle of jewellery spoken of — a mere trifle — a thing of such little value, indeed, that you may have forgotten it. Do you remember anything of the kind — such as a bracelet now, for instance?’
Hugh with a muttered oath thrust his hand into his breast, and drawing the bracelet forth, wrapped in a scrap of hay, was about to lay it on the table likewise, when his patron stopped his hand and bade him put it up again.
‘You took that for yourself my excellent friend,’ he said, ‘and may keep it. I am neither a thief nor a receiver. Don’t show it to me. You had better hide it again, and lose no time. Don’t let me see where you put it either,’ he added, turning away his head.
‘You’re not a receiver!’ said Hugh bluntly, despite the increasing awe in which he held him. ‘What do you call THAT, master?’ striking the letter with his heavy hand.
‘I call that quite another thing,’ said Mr Chester coolly. ‘I shall prove it presently, as ............