The Claverings

  CHAPTER XIX.

  THE BLUE POSTS.

  [Illustration.]

  "Oh; so you 'ave come to see me. I am so glad." With these wordsSophie Gordeloup welcomed Harry Clavering to her room in Mount Streetearly one morning not long after her interview with Captain Archiein Lady Ongar's presence. On the previous evening Harry had receiveda note from Lady Ongar, in which she upbraided him for having leftunperformed her commission with reference to Count Pateroff. Theletter had begun quite abruptly. "I think it unkind of you that youdo not come to me. I asked you to see a certain person on my behalf,and you have not done so. Twice he has been here. Once I was in truthout. He came again the next evening at nine, and I was then ill,and had gone to bed. You understand it all, and must know how thisannoys me. I thought you would have done this for me, and I thought Ishould have seen you.--J." This note he found at his lodgings when hereturned home at night, and on the following morning he went in hisdespair direct to Mount Street, on his way to the Adelphi. It was notyet ten o'clock when he was shown into Madame Gordeloup's presence,and as regarded her dress he did not find her to be quite preparedfor morning visitors. But he might well be indifferent on thatmatter, as the lady seemed to disregard the circumstances altogether.On her head she wore what he took to be a nightcap, though I willnot absolutely undertake to say that she had slept in that veryhead-dress. There were frills to it, and a certain attempt atprettinesses had been made; but then the attempt had been made solong ago, and the frills were so ignorant of starch and all frillishpropensities, that it hardly could pretend to decency. A great whitewrapper she also wore, which might not have been objectionable hadit not been so long worn that it looked like a university collegesurplice at the end of the long vacation. Her slippers had all theease which age could give them, and above the slippers, neatness, tosay the least of it, did not predominate. But Sophie herself seemedto be quite at her ease in spite of these deficiencies, and receivedour hero with an eager, pointed welcome, which I can hardly describeas affectionate, and which Harry did not at all understand.

  "I have to apologize for troubling you," he began.

  "Trouble, what trouble? Bah! You give me no trouble. It is you havethe trouble to come here. You come early and I have not got mycrinoline. If you are contented, so am I." Then she smiled, and satherself down suddenly, letting herself almost fall into her specialcorner in the sofa. "Take a chair, Mr. Harry; then we can talk morecomfortable."

  "I want especially to see your brother. Can you give me his address?"

  "What? Edouard--certainly; Travellers' Club."

  "But he is never there."

  "He sends every day for his letters. You want to see him. Why?"

  Harry was at once confounded, having no answer. "A little privatebusiness," he said.

  "Ah; a little private business. You do not owe him a little money,I am afraid, or you would not want to see him. Ha, ha! You write tohim, and he will see you. There;--there is paper and pen and ink. Heshall get your letter this day."

  Harry, nothing suspicious, did as he was bid, and wrote a note inwhich he simply told the count that he was specially desirous ofseeing him.

  "I will go to you anywhere," said Harry, "if you will name a place."

  We, knowing Madame Gordeloup's habits, may feel little doubt but thatshe thought it her duty to become acquainted with the contents of thenote before she sent it out of her house, but we may also know thatshe learned very little from it.

  "It shall go, almost immediately," said Sophie, when the envelope wasclosed.

  Then Harry got up to depart, having done his work. "What, you aregoing in that way at once? You are in a hurry?"

  "Well, yes; I am in a hurry, rather, Madame Gordeloup. I have gotto be at my office, and I only just came up here to find out yourbrother's address." Then he rose and went, leaving the note behindhim.

  Then Madame Gordeloup, speaking to herself in French, called HarryClavering a lout, a fool, an awkward overgrown boy, and a pig. Shedeclared him to be a pig nine times over, then shook herself inviolent disgust, and after that betook herself to the letter.

  The letter was at any rate duly sent to the count, for before Harryhad left Mr. Beilby's chambers on that day, Pateroff came to himthere. Harry sat in the same room with other men, and therefore wentout to see his acquaintance in a little antechamber that was usedfor such purposes. As he walked from one room to the other, he wasconscious of the delicacy and difficulty of the task before him, andthe colour was high in his face as he opened the door. But when hehad done so, he saw that the count was not alone. A gentleman waswith him, whom he did not introduce to Harry, and before whom Harrycould not say that which he had to communicate.

  "Pardon me," said the count, "but we are in railroad hurry. Nobodyever was in such a haste as I and my friend. You are not engagedto-morrow? No, I see. You dine with me and my friend at the BluePosts. You know the Blue Posts?"

  Harry said he did not know the Blue Posts.

  "Then you shall know the Blue Posts. I will be your instructor. Youdrink claret. Come and see. You eat beefsteaks. Come and try. Youlove one glass of port wine with your cheese. No. But you shalllove it when you have dined with me at the Blue Posts. We will dinealtogether after the English way;--which is the best way in the worldwhen it is quite good. It is quite good at the Blue Posts;--quitegood! Seven o'clock. You are fined when a minute late; an extra glassof port wine a minute. Now I must go. Ah; yes. I am ruined already."

  Then Count Pateroff, holding his watch in his hand, bolted out of theroom before Harry could say a word to him.

  He had nothing for it but to go to the dinner, and to the dinner hewent. On that same evening, the evening of the day on which he hadseen Sophie and her brother, he wrote to Lady Ongar, using to herthe same manner of writing that she had used to him, and telling herthat he had done his best, that he had now seen him whom he had beendesired to see, but that he had not been able to speak to him. Hewas, however, to dine with him on the following day,--and would callin Bolton Street as soon as possible after that interview.

  Exactly at seven o'clock, Harry, having the fear of the threatenedfine before his eyes, was at the Blue Posts; and there, standing inthe middle of the room, he saw Count Pateroff. With Count Pateroffwas the same gentleman whom Harry had seen at the Adelphi, and whomthe count now introduced as Colonel Schmoff; and also a littleEnglishman with a knowing eye and a bull-dog neck, and whiskerscut very short and trim,--a horsey little man, whom the count alsointroduced. "Captain Boodle; says he knows a cousin of yours, Mr.Clavering."

  Then Colonel Schmoff bowed, never yet having spoken a word in Harry'shearing, and our old friend Doodles with glib volubility told Harryhow intimate he was with Archie, and how he knew Sir Hugh, and how hehad met Lady Clavering, and how "doosed" glad he was to meet Harryhimself on this present occasion.

  "And now, my boys, we'll set down," said the count. "There's just alittle soup, printanier; yes, they can make soup here; then a cut ofsalmon; and after that the beefsteak. Nothing more. Schmoff, my boy,can you eat beefsteak?"

  Schmoff neither smiled nor spoke, but simply bowed his head gravely,and sitting down, arranged with slow exactness his napkin over hiswaistcoat and lap.

  "Captain Boodle, can you eat beefsteak," said the count; "Blue Posts'beefsteak?"

  "Try me," said Doodles. "That's all. Try me."

  "I will try you, and I will try Mr. Clavering. Schmoff would eat ahorse if he had not a bullock, and a piece of a jackass if he had nota horse."

  "I did eat a horse in Hamboro' once. We was besieged."

  So much said Schmoff, very slowly, in a deep bass voice, speakingfrom the bottom of his chest, and frowning very heavily as he did so.The exertion was so great that he did not repeat it for aconsiderable time.

  "Thank God we are not besieged now," said the count, as the soup washanded round to them. "Ah, Albert, my friend, that is good soup; verygood soup. My compliments to the excellent Stubbs. Mr. Clavering, theexcellent Stubbs is the cook. I am quit
e at home here and they dotheir best for me. You need not fear you will have any of Schmoff'shorse."

  This was all very pleasant, and Harry Clavering sat down to hisdinner prepared to enjoy it; but there was a sense about him duringthe whole time that he was being taken in and cheated, and thatthe count would cheat him and actually escape away from him onthat evening without his being able to speak a word to him. Theywere dining in a public room, at a large table which they had tothemselves, while others were dining at small tables round them.Even if Schmoff and Boodle had not been there, he could hardly havediscussed Lady Ongar's private affairs in such a room as that. Thecount had brought him there to dine in this way with a premeditatedpurpose of throwing him over, pretending to give him the meeting thathad been asked for, but intending that it should pass by and be of noavail. Such was Harry's belief, and he resolved that, though he mighthave to seize Pateroff by the tails of his coat, the count should notescape him without having been forced at any rate to hear what he hadto say. In the meantime the dinner went on very pleasantly.

  "Ah," said the count, "there is no fish like salmon early in theyear; but not too early. And it should come alive from Grove, and becooked by Stubbs."

  "And eaten by me," said Boodle.

  "Under my auspices," said the count, "and then all is well. Mr.Clavering, a little bit near the head? Not care about any particularpart? That is wrong. Everybody should always learn what is the bestto eat of everything, and get it if they can."

  "By George, I should think so," said Doodles. "I know I do."

  "Not to know the bit out of the neck of the salmon from any otherbit, is not to know a false note from a true one. Not to distinguisha '51 wine from a '58, is to look at an arm or a leg on the canvas,and to care nothing whether it is in drawing, or out of drawing. Notto know Stubbs' beefsteak from other beefsteaks, is to say that everywoman is the same thing to you. Only, Stubbs will let you have hisbeefsteak if you will pay him,--him or his master. With the beautifulwoman it is not always so;--not always. Do I make myself understood?"

  "Clear as mud," said Doodles. "I'm quite along with you there. Whyshould a man be ashamed of eating what's nice? Everybody does it."

  "No, Captain Boodle; not everybody. Some cannot get it, and some donot know it when it comes in their way. They are to be pitied. I dopity them from the bottom of my heart. But there is one poor fellowI do pity more even than they."

  There was something in the tone of the count's words,--a simplepathos, and almost a melody, which interested Harry Clavering. No oneknew better than Count Pateroff how to use all the inflexions of hisvoice, and produce from the phrases he used the very highest interestwhich they were capable of producing. He now spoke of his pity in away that might almost have made a sensitive man weep. "Who is it thatyou pity so much?" Harry asked.

  "The man who cannot digest," said the count, in a low clear voice.Then he bent down his head over the morsel of food on his plate,as though he were desirous of hiding a tear. "The man who cannotdigest!" As he repeated the words he raised his head again, andlooked round at all their faces.

  "Yes, yes;--mein Gott, yes," said Schmoff, and even he appeared asthough he were almost moved from the deep quietude of his inwardindifference.

  "Ah; talk of blessings! What a blessing is digestion!" said thecount. "I do not know whether you have ever thought of it, CaptainBoodle? You are young, and perhaps not. Or you, Mr. Clavering? It isa subject worthy of your thoughts. To digest! Do you know what itmeans? It is to have the sun always shining, and the shade alwaysready for you. It is to be met with smiles, and to be greeted withkisses. It is to hear sweet sounds, to sleep with sweet dreams, tobe touched ever by gentle, soft, cool hands. It is to be in paradise.Adam and Eve were in paradise. Why? Their digestion was good. Ah!then they took liberties, eat bad fruit,--things they could notdigest. They what we call, ruined their constitutions, destroyedtheir gastric juices, and then they were expelled from paradise by anangel with a flaming sword. The angel with the flaming sword, whichturned two ways, was indigestion! There came a great indigestion uponthe earth because the cooks were bad, and they called it a deluge.Ah, I thank God there is to be no more deluges. All the evils comefrom this. Macbeth could not sleep. It was the supper, not themurder. His wife talked and walked. It was the supper again. Miltonhad a bad digestion because he is always so cross; and your Carlylemust have the worst digestion in the world, because he never saysany good of anything. Ah, to digest is to be happy! Believe me, myfriends, there is no other way not to be turned out of paradise by afiery two-handed turning sword."

  "It is true," said Schmoff; "yes, it is true."

  "I believe you," said Doodles. "And how well the count describes it,don't he, Mr. Clavering? I never looked at it in that light; but,after all, digestion is everything. What is a horse worth, if hewon't feed?"

  "I never thought much about it," said Harry.

  "That is very good," said the great preacher. "Not to think about itever is the best thing in the world. You will be made to think aboutit if there be necessity. A friend of mine told me he did not knowwhether he had a digestion. My friend, I said, you are like thehusbandmen; you do not know your own blessings. A bit more steak, Mr.Clavering; see, it has come up hot, just to prove that you have theblessing."

  There was a pause in the conversation for a minute or two, duringwhich Schmoff and Doodles were very busy giving the required proof;and the count was leaning back in his chair, with a smile ofconscious wisdom on his face, looking as though he were in deepconsideration of the subject on which he had just spoken with so mucheloquence. Harry did not interrupt the silence, as, foolishly, he wasallowing his mind to carry itself away from the scene of enjoymentthat was present, and trouble itself with the coming battle which hewould be obliged to fight with the count. Schmoff was the first tospeak. "When I was eating a horse at Hamboro'--" he began.

  "Schmoff," said the count, "if we allow you to get behind theramparts of that besieged city, we shall have to eat that horse forthe rest of the evening. Captain Boodle, if you will believe me, Ieat that horse once for two hours. Ah, here is the port wine. Now,Mr. Clavering, this is the wine for cheese;--'34. No man should drinkabove two glasses of '34. If you want port after that, then have'20."

  Schmoff had certainly been hardly treated. He had scarcely spoken aword during dinner, and should, I think, have been allowed to saysomething of the flavour of the horse. It did not, however, appearfrom his countenance that he had felt, or that he resented theinterference; though he did not make any further attempt to enliventhe conversation.

  They did not sit long over their wine, and the count, in spite ofwhat he had said about the claret, did not drink any. "CaptainBoodle," he said, "you must respect my weakness as well as mystrength. I know what I can do, and what I cannot. If I were a realhero, like you English,--which means, if I had an ostrich in myinside,--I would drink till twelve every night, and eat broiledbones till six every morning. But alas! the ostrich has not beengiven to me. As a common man I am pretty well, but I have no heroiccapacities. We will have a little chasse, and then we will smoke."

  Harry began to be very nervous. How was he to do it? It had becomeclearer and clearer to him through every ten minutes of the dinner,that the count did not intend to give him any moment for privateconversation. He felt that he was cheated and ill-used, and waswaxing angry. They were to go and smoke in a public room, and heknew, or thought he knew, what that meant. The count would sit theretill he went, and had brought the Colonel Schmoff with him, so thathe might be sure of some ally to remain by his side and ensuresilence. And the count, doubtless, had calculated that when CaptainBoodle went, as he soon would go, to his billiards, he, HarryClavering, would feel himself compelled to go also. No! It should notresult in that way. Harry resolved that he would not go. He had hismission to perform and he would perform it, even if he were compelledto do so in the presence of Colonel Schmoff.

  Doodles soon went. He could not sit long with the simplegratification of a cigar, withou
t gin-and-water or other comfortof that kind, even though the eloquence of Count Pateroff might beexcited in his favour. He was a man, indeed, who did not love to sitstill, even with the comfort of gin-and-water. An active little manwas Captain Boodle, always doing something or anxious to do somethingin his own line of business. Small speculations in money, soconcocted as to leave the risk against him smaller than the chance onhis side, constituted Captain Boodle's trade; and in that trade hewas indefatigable, ingenious, and, to a certain extent, successful.The worst of the trade was this: that though he worked at it abovetwelve hours a day, to the exclusion of all other interests inlife, he could only make out of it an income which would have beenconsidered a beggarly failure at any other profession. When he netteda pound a day he considered himself to have done very well; but hecould not do that every day in the week. To do it often requiredunremitting exertion. And then, in spite of all his care, misfortuneswould come. "A cursed garron, of whom nobody had ever heard the name!If a man mayn't take a liberty with such a brute as that, when ishe to take a liberty?" So had he expressed himself plaintively,endeavouring to excuse himself, when on some occasion a race had beenwon by some outside horse which Captain Boodle had omitted to makesafe in his betting-book. He was regarded by his intimate friendsas a very successful man; but I think myself that his life was amistake. To live with one's hands ever daubed with chalk from abilliard-table, to be always spying into stables and rubbing againstgrooms, to put up with the narrow lodgings which needy men encounterat race meetings, to be day after day on the rails running afterplaters and steeplechasers, to be conscious on all occasions of theexpediency of selling your beast when you are hunting, to be countingup little odds at all your spare moments;--these things do not, Ithink, make a satisfactory life for a young man. And for a man thatis not young, they are the very devil! Better have no digestion whenyou are forty than find yourself living such a life as that! CaptainBoodle would, I think, have been happier had he contrived to gethimself employed as a tax-gatherer or an attorney's clerk.

  On this occasion Doodles soon went, as had been expected, and Harryfound himself smoking with the two foreigners. Pateroff was no longereloquent, but sat with his cigar in his mouth as silent as ColonelSchmoff himself. It was evidently expected of Harry that he shouldgo.

  "Count," he said at last, "you got my note?" There were seven oreight persons sitting in the room besides the party of three to whichHarry belonged.

  "Your note, Mr. Clavering! which note? Oh, yes; I should not have hadthe pleasure of seeing you here to-day but for that."

  "Can you give me five minutes in private?"

  "What! now! here! this evening! after dinner? Another time I willtalk with you by the hour together."

  "I fear I must trouble you now. I need not remind you that I couldnot keep you yesterday morning; you were so much hurried."

  "And now I am having my little moment of comfort! These specialbusiness conversations after dinner are so bad for the digestion!"

  "If I could have caught you before dinner, Count Pateroff, I wouldhave done so."

  "If it must be, it must. Schmoff, will you wait for me ten minutes?I will not be more than ten minutes." And the count as he made thispromise looked at his watch. "Waiter," he said, speaking in a sharptone which Harry had not heard before, "show this gentleman andme into a private room." Harry got up and led the way out, notforgetting to assure himself that he cared nothing for the sharpnessof the count's voice.

  "Now, Mr. Clavering, what is it?" said the count, looking full intoHarry's eye.

  "I will tell you in two words."

  "In one if you can."

  "I came with a message to you from Lady Ongar."

  "Why are you a messenger from Lady Ongar?"

  "I have known her long and she is connected with my family."

  "Why does she not send her messages by Sir Hugh,--herbrother-in-law?"

  "It is hardly for you to ask that!"

  "Yes; it is for me to ask that. I have known Lady Ongar well, andhave treated her with kindness. I do not want to have messages byanybody. But go on. If you are a messenger, give your message."

  "Lady Ongar bids me tell you that she cannot see you."

  "But she must see me. She shall see me!"

  "I am to explain to you that she declines to do so. Surely, CountPateroff, you must understand--"

  "Ah, bah; I understand everything;--in such matters as these, better,perhaps, than you, Mr. Clavering. You have given your message. Now,as you are a messenger, will you give mine?"

  "That will depend altogether on its nature."

  "Sir, I never send uncivil words to a woman, though sometimes Imay be tempted to speak them to a man; when, for instance, a maninterferes with me; do you understand? My message is this:--tell herladyship, with my compliments, that it will be better for her to seeme,--better for her, and for me. When that poor lord died,--and hehad been, mind, my friend for many years before her ladyship hadheard his name,--I was with him; and there were occurrences of whichyou know nothing and need know nothing. I did my best then to becourteous to Lady Ongar, which she returns by shutting her door inmy face. I do not mind that. I am not angry with a woman. But tellher that when she has heard what I now say to her by you, she will,I do not doubt, think better of it; and therefore I shall do myselfthe honour of presenting myself at her door again. Good-night, Mr.Clavering; au revoir; we will have another of Stubbs' little dinnersbefore long." As he spoke these last words the count's voice wasagain changed, and the old smile had returned to his face.

  Harry shook hands with him and walked away homewards, not without afeeling that the count had got the better of him, even to the end.He had, however, learned how the land lay, and could explain to LadyOngar that Count Pateroff now knew her wishes and was determined todisregard them.