"What's it to be:--twos and tens?" said Captain Vignolles, arranging the cards and the chairs.

"Not for me," said Mountjoy, who seemed to have been enveloped by a most unusual prudence.

"What! are you afraid,--you who used to fear neither man nor devil?"

"There is so much in not being accustomed to it," said Mountjoy. "I haven't played a game of whist since I don't knew when."

"Twos and tens is heavy against dummy," said Major Moody.

"I'll take dummy, if you like it," said Vignolles. Moody only looked at him.

"We'll each have our own dummy, of course," said Mountjoy.

"Just as you please," said Vignolles. "I'm host here, and of course will give way to anything you may propose. What's it to be, Scarborough?"

"Pounds and fives. I shan't play higher than that." There came across Mountjoy's mind, as he stated the stakes for which he consented to play, a remembrance that in the old days he had always been called Captain Scarborough by this man who now left out the captain. Of course he had fallen since that,--fallen very low. He ought to feel obliged to any man, who had in the old days been a member of the same club with him, who would now greet him with the familiarity of his unadorned name. But the remembrance of the old sounds came back upon his ear; and the consciousness that, before his father's treatment of him, he had been known to the world at large as Captain Scarborough, of Tretton.

"Well, well; pounds and fives," said Vignolles. "It's better than pottering away at ecarte at a pound a game. Of course a man could win something if the games were to run all one way; but where they alternate so quickly it amounts to nothing. You've got the first dummy, Scarborough. Where will you sit? Which cards will you take? I do believe that at whist everything depends upon the cards,--or else on the hinges.

I've known eleven rubbers running to follow the hinges. People laugh at me because I believe in luck. I speak as I find it; that's all. You've turned up an honor already. When a man begins with an honor he'll always go on with honors; that's my observation. I know you're pretty good at this game, Moody, so I'll leave it to you to arrange the play, and will follow up as well as I can. You lead up to the weak, of course." This was not said till the card was out of his partner's hand. "But when your adversary has got ace, king, queen in his own hand there is no weak.

Well, we've saved that, and it's as much as we can expect. If I'd begun by leading a trump it would have been all over with us. Won't you light a cigar, Moody?"

"I never smoke at cards."

"That's all very well for the club, but you might relax a little here.

Scarborough will take another cigar." But even Mountjoy was too prudent.

He did not take the cigar, but he did win the rubber. "You're in for a good thing to-night, I feel as certain of it as though the money were in your pocket."

Mountjoy, though he would not smoke, did drink. What would they have, asked Vignolles. There was champagne, and whiskey, and brandy. He was afraid there was no other wine. He opened a bottle of champagne, and Mountjoy took the tumbler that was filled for him. He always drank whiskey-and-water himself,--so he said, and filled for himself a gla.s.s in which he poured a very small allowance of alcohol. Major Moody asked for barley-water. As there was none, he contented himself with sipping Apollinaris.

A close record of the events of that evening would make but a tedious tale for readers. Mountjoy of course lost his fifty pounds. Alas! he lost much more than his fifty pounds. The old spirit soon came upon him, and the remembrance of what his father was to do for him pa.s.sed away from him, and all thoughts of his adversaries,--who and what they were.

The major pertinaciously refused to increase his stakes, and, worse again, refused to play for anything but ready money. "It's a kind of thing I never do. You may think me very odd, but it's a kind of thing I never do." It was the longest speech he made through the entire evening.

Vignolles reminded him that he did in fact play on credit at the club.

"The committee look to that," he murmured, and shook his head. Then Vignolles offered again to take the dummy, so that there should be no necessity for Moody and Scarborough to play against each other, and offered to give one point every other rubber as the price to be paid for the advantage. But Moody, whose success for the night was a.s.sured by the thirty pounds which he had in his pocket, would come to no terms. "You mean to say you're going to break us up," said Vignolles. "That'll be hard on Scarborough."

"I'll go on for money," said the immovable major.

"I suppose you won't have it out with me at double dummy?" said Vignolles to his victim. "But double dummy is a terrible grind at this time of night." And he pushed all the cards up together, so as to show that the amus.e.m.e.nt for the night was over. He too saw the difficulty which Moody so pertinaciously avoided. He had been told wondrous things of the old squire's intentions toward his eldest son, but he had been told them only by that eldest son himself. No doubt he could go on winning. Unless in the teeth of a most obstinate run of cards, he would be sure to win against Scarborough's apparent forgetfulness of all rules, and ignorance of the peculiarities of the game he was playing.

But he would more probably obtain payment of the two hundred and thirty pounds now due to him,--that or nearly that,--than of a larger sum. He already had in his possession the other twenty pounds which poor Mountjoy had brought with him. So he let the victim go. Moody went first, and Vignolles then demanded the performance of a small ceremony.

"Just put your name to that," said Vignolles. It was a written promise to pay to Captain Vignolles the exact sum of two hundred and twenty-seven pounds on or before that day week. "You'll be punctual, won't you?"

"Of course I'll be punctual," said Mountjoy, scowling.

"Well, yes; no doubt. But there have been mistakes."

"I tell you you'll be paid. Why the devil did you win it of me if you doubt it?"

"I saw you just roaming about, and I meant to be good-natured."

"You know as well as any man what chances you should run, and when to hold your hand. If you tell me about mistakes, I shall make it personal."

"I didn't say anything, Scarborough, that ought to be taken up in that way."

"Hang your Scarborough! When one gentleman talks another about mistakes he means something." Then he smashed down his hat upon his head and left the room.

Vignolles emptied the bottle of champagne, in which one gla.s.s was left, and sat himself down with the doc.u.ment in his hand. "Just the same fellow," he said to himself; "overbearing, reckless, pig-headed, and a bully. He'd lose the Bank of England if he had it. But then he don't pay! He hasn't a scruple about that. If I lose I have to pay. By Jove, yes! Never didn't pay a shilling I lost in my life! It's deuced hard, when a fellow is on the square like that, to make two ends meet when he comes across defaulters. Those fellows should be hung. They're the very sc.u.m of the earth. Talk of welchers! They're worse than any welcher.

Welcher is a thing you needn't have to do with if you're careful. But when a fellow turns round upon you as a defaulter at cards, there is no getting rid of him. Where the play is all straightforward and honorable, a defaulter when he shows himself ought to be well-nigh murdered."

Such were Captain Vignolles's plaints to himself, as he sat there looking at the suspicious doc.u.ment which Mountjoy had left in his hands.

To him it was a fact that he had been cruelly used in having such a bit of paper thrust upon him instead of being paid by a check which on the morning would be honored. And as he thought of his own career; his ready-money payments; his obedience to certain rules of the game,--rules, I mean, against cheating; as he thought of his hands, which in his own estimation were beautifully clean; his diligence in his profession, which to him was honorable; his hard work; his late hours; his devotion to a task which was often tedious; his many periods of heart-rending loss, which when they occurred would drive him nearly mad; his small customary gains; his inability to put by anything for old age; of the narrow edge by which he himself was occasionally divided from defalcation, he spoke to himself of himself as of an honest, hard-working professional man upon whom the world was peculiarly hard.

But Major Moody went home to his wife quite content with the thirty pounds which he had won.

CHAPTER XLIII.

MR. PROSPER IS VISITED BY HIS LAWYERS.

Mr. Prosper had not been in good spirits at the time at which Mountjoy Scarborough had visited him. He had received some time previously a letter from Mr. Grey, as described in a previous chapter, and had also known exactly what proposal had been made by Mr. Grey to Messrs. Soames & Simpson. An equal division of the lady's income, one half to go to the lady herself, and the other half to Mr. Prosper, with an annuity of two hundred and fifty pounds out of the estate for the lady if Mr. Prosper should die first: these were the terms which had been offered to Miss Thoroughbung with the object of inducing her to become the wife of Mr.

Prosper. But to these terms Miss Thoroughbung had declined to accede, and had gone about the arrangement of her money-matters in a most precise and business-like manner. A third of her income she would give up, since Mr. Prosper desired it; but more than that she "would owe it to herself and her friends to decline to abandon." The payment for the fish and the champagne must be omitted from any agreement on her part.

As to the ponies, and their harness, and the pony-carriage, she would supply them. The ponies and the carriage would be indispensable to her happiness. But the maintenance of the ponies must be left to Mr.

Prosper. As for the dower, she could not consent to accept less than four hundred--or five hundred, if no house was to be provided. She thought that seven hundred and fifty would be little enough if there were no children, as in that case there was no heir for whom Mr. Prosper was especially anxious. But as there probably would be children, Miss Thoroughbung thought that this was a matter to which Mr. Prosper would not give much consideration. Throughout it all she maintained a beautiful equanimity, and made two or three efforts to induce Mr.

Prosper to repeat his visit to Marmaduke Lodge. She herself wrote to him saying that she thought it odd that, considering their near alliance, he should not come and see her. Once she said that she had heard that he was ill, and offered to go to Buston Hall to visit him.

All this was extremely distressing to a gentleman of Mr. Prosper's delicate feelings. As to the proposals in regard to money, the letters from Soames & Simpson to Grey & Barry, all of which came down to Buston Hall, seemed to be innumerable.

With Soames & Simpson Mr. Prosper declined to have any personal communication. But every letter from the Buntingford attorneys was accompanied by a farther letter from the London attorneys, till the correspondence became insupportable. Mr. Prosper was not strong enough to stick firmly to his guns as planted for him by Messrs. Grey & Barry.

He did give way in some matters, and hence arose renewed letters which nearly drove him mad. Messrs. Soames & Simpson's client was willing to accept four hundred pounds as the amount of the dower without reference to the house, and to this Mr. Prosper yielded. He did not much care about any heir as yet unborn, and felt by no means so certain in regard to children as did the lady. But he fought hard about the ponies. He could not undertake that his wife should have ponies. That must be left to him as master of the house. He thought that a pair of carriage-horses for her use would be sufficient. He had always kept a carriage, and intended to do so. She might bring her ponies if she pleased, but if he thought well to part with them he would sell them. He found himself getting deeper and deeper into the quagmire, till he began to doubt whether he should be able to extricate himself unmarried if he were anxious to do so. And all the while there came affectionate little notes from Miss Thoroughbung asking after his health, and recommending him what to take, till he entertained serious thoughts of going to Cairo for the winter.

Then Mr. Barry came down to see him after Mountjoy had made his visit.

It was now January, and the bargaining about the marriage had gone on for more than two months. The letter which he had received from the Squire of Tretton had moved him; but he had told himself that the property was his own, and that he had a right to enjoy it as he liked best.

Whatever might have been Harry's faults in regard to that midnight affair, it had certainly been true that he had declined to hear the sermons. Mr. Prosper did not exactly mention the sermons to himself, but there was present to him a feeling that his heir had been wilfully disobedient, and the sermons no doubt had been the cause. When he had read the old squire's letter he did not as yet wish to forgive his nephew. He was becoming very tired of his courtship, but in his estimation the wife would be better than the nephew. Though he had been much put out by the precocity of that embrace, there was nevertheless a sweetness about it which lingered on his lips. Then Mountjoy had come down, and he had answered Mountjoy very stoutly: "A lie!" he had exclaimed. "Did he tell a lie?" he had asked, as though all must be over with a young man who had once allowed himself to depart from the rigid truth. Mountjoy had made what excuse he could, but Mr. Prosper had been very stern.

On the very day after Mountjoy's coming Mr. Barry came. His visit had been arranged, and Mr. Prosper was, with great care, prepared to encounter him. He was wrapped in his best dressing-gown, and Matthew had shaved him with the greatest care. The girls over at the parsonage declared that their uncle had sent into Buntingford for a special pot of pomatum. The story was told to Joe Thoroughbung in order that it might be pa.s.sed on to his aunt, and no doubt it did travel as it was intended.

But Miss Thoroughbung cared nothing for the pomatum with which the lawyer from London was to be received. It would be very hard to laugh her out of her lover while the t.i.tle-deeds to Buston held good. But Mr.

Prosper had felt that it would be necessary to look his best, so that his marriage might be justified in the eyes of the lawyer.

Mr. Barry was shown into the book-room at Buston, in which Mr. Prosper was seated ready to receive him. The two gentlemen had never before met each other, and Mr. Prosper did no doubt a.s.sume something of the manner of an aristocratic owner of land. He would not have done so had Mr. Grey come in his partner's place. But there was a humility about Mr. Barry on an occasion such as the present, which justified a little pride on the part of the client. "I am sorry to give you the trouble to come down, Mr. Barry," he said. "I hope the servant has shown you your room."

"I shall be back in London to-day, Mr. Prosper, thank you. I must see these lawyers here, and when I have received your final instructions I will return to Buntingford." Then Mr. Prosper pressed him much to stay.

He had quite expected, he said, that Mr. Barry would have done him the pleasure of remaining at any rate one night at Buston. But Mr. Barry settled the question by saying that he had not brought a dress-coat. Mr.

Prosper did not care to sit down to dinner with guests who did not bring their dress-coats. "And now," continued Mr. Barry, "what final instructions are we to give to Soames & Simpson?"

"I don't think much of Messrs. Soames & Simpson."

"I believe they have the name of being honest pract.i.tioners."