Chapter Six Two Gentlemen of Wealth and Breeding
It is doubtful if a search prosecuted through the entire extent of the United Kingdoms over which the Prince of Wales ruled as Regent would have brought forth a more debonair or contented individual than Sir Percival Lovelace, gentleman, libertine, and chosen comrade of His Royal Highness. In the eyes of this gallant, morals were a mark of ancient barbarism that gentle breeding and a long line of ancestors should be expected to remove or render forgotten. As these views coincided almost exactly with those cherished by the First Gentleman of Europe, it is not to be wondered that the Prince found in the baronet an agreeable and, more than that, an amusing companion. But even London may pall upon one and, not being hampered by the restrictions limiting the peregrinations of royalty, which were often the cause for much princely profanity at Carlton House, Sir Percival sought change and diversion in a jaunt through Scotland and Wales, finally ending in a tour of Ireland, where, much to his surprise, he stumbled upon certain persons destined to furnish him with more or less food for thought for the next year or two. His companion on his travels was none other than Lord Brooking, nephew of Lord Moira, already known as one of England’s most capable statesmen. The young gentleman first mentioned was quite popular in the Regent’s set, but more widely known in the circles from whence the various arts drew encouragement and patronage. But, in spite of his leanings toward the more cultured pursuits scantily patronized by the profligate society immediately surrounding the Regent, Lord Brooking was much more popular with that noble gentleman than many whose daily and nightly labor was the effort to curry favor with England’s ruler. Lord Brooking was no ordinary personage. There was small flavor of the roué in his character, though it cannot be denied that, following the general current of fashion, he had not hesitated to play his part in the masque of dissipation offered as entertainment to the middle and lower classes by the aristocracy whom they were expected to envy and admire. But in his heart he felt only regret for his own participation in such unworthy extravagance, and, in most instances, a profound contempt for those who found diversion and contentment in such existence. There were two conspicuous exceptions to his lordship’s general condemnation. The first was Richard Brinsley Sheridan, poet, dramatist, and statesman, now in his decadence, who still sought and furnished entertainment in society, a garrulous, drunken, and witty old gentleman, with a heart as young and a thirst as dictatorial as when Fame first brought him well-merited reward. The only enemies owned by this lightsome veteran were those foolish enough to expect eventual settlement of bills or loans that they were so unwise as to allow him to add to his long list of personal indebtedness. It is almost unnecessary to mention that disappointment was the subsequent conclusion of all such hopes of his deluded creditors, for Mr. Sheridan was consistent in one thing to the last—entire lack of financial responsibility.
The other exception was Sir Percival, who was so gay, so generous, so witty that Brooking, blinded by the glitter of a sparklingly brilliant personality, neither saw nor felt the hideous moral imperfections that this winning gentleman hid beneath his splendid exterior. The several peccadilloes really beyond all extenuation or apology of which the baronet had been guilty had never been brought to the attention of his younger friend and so at the time of which this tale is a chronicle it would have been difficult to find two closer cronies than this pair of young noblemen, who were strolling leisurely in the direction of the schoolhouse.
Sir Percival looked at Brooking quizzically.
“You do not approve, lad,” he said with a little laugh. “You ’re too good a fellow, I am afraid.”
“I wish I could be as timid about you,” replied Brooking, pleasantly.
“Can’t you, dear boy? No? Pray, why not?”
“Do you really wish to know?” asked Brooking, hesitating a little.
Sir Percival treated himself daintily to a pinch of snuff and brushed the dust from his coat with an embroidered handkerchief.
“I think you wish to tell me,” he answered, smiling. “It amounts to the same thing between friends, doesn’t it?”
“I think we may as well understand each other now,” said Brooking, in a serious tone.
“I quite agree with you,” remarked Sir Percival, inwardly wondering what this introduction would lead to.
“I have been postponing this conversation from day to day for the last week.”
“Indeed? And why?”
“It is rather a delicate subject.”
“I would prefer one that is indelicate, if it is not inconvenient,” suggested Sir Percival.
“For once in your life, Lovelace, be serious.”
“Even that I will not deny you. Proceed.”
“We have been pals since boyhood. As little lads we blacked each other’s eyes.”
“We did,” admitted Sir Percival, laughing gently, “and bled each other’s noses, too.”
“We licked the same stick of candy.”
“Gad, yes. My favorite was peppermint. I remember it as well as though it were but yesterday.”
“We grew up to manhood together,” continued Brooking, half sadly. “A pretty couple of rakes we were, too.”
“We are still, dear lad,” corrected Sir Percival. “Two very pretty little libertines, upon my honor.”
“In London, where we were well known as an unworthy couple, I have no fault to find with you.”
“No?” said the baronet in surprise. “To tell the truth, that statement causes me some little astonishment.”
“We sailed under our true colors there—”
“But,” interrupted Sir Percival, “the same flag is still flying, old man.”
“Ah,” said his lordship, “while that is true, it must be remembered that they do not understand its meaning down here. I haven’t much to brag of in the way of morals, more is the pity, but no woman has ever wept of shame from my wrong doing, nor will a woman ever do so.”
Sir Percival gave his companion a smile of interrogation.
“And I?” he asked.
“I am not so sure about you,” responded Lord Brooking, deliberately, “but in London, where you are known, the folly of a girl in trusting you would be so inexcusable that indiscretion upon your part might be readily condoned; but here in this peaceful, simple old town it is very different.”
“Come to the point, Brooking. You are almost tiresomely wordy to-day.”
“It amounts to this, Percy. I have done some things I ’m heartily ashamed of and I intend in the future to be a better fellow.”
“Very commendable, indeed,” observed the baronet, a trifle bored, “Does my approval encourage you?”
“What do you intend to do with Bessie Dyke?” demanded the younger man, halting as he spoke.
Sir Percival paused and pensively cut down a weed or two with his walking stick.
“Hum,” he said slowly. “As I thought.”
“Do you mean honestly by the girl?”
“Your last words are quite correct,” said the baronet, coolly. “Buy the girl—I mean to do that, Brooking.”
“You frankly avow that is your object?” began Brooking, genuinely shocked.
“Tut—tut!” interrupted his companion, good humoredly. “She is a pretty creature, is n’t she? Clever, too, in her own innocent, foolish, little way. For her smiles and bread-and-buttery love—a welcome change, by the way, from the London brand of petulant passion—I ’ll give her a carriage, horses, fine dresses, a necklace or two, and lastly my own charming self for—er—for probably as long a time as several months.”
“And then, what will become of her?”
“Really, I don’t know,” answered Sir Percival. “Can’t imagine, and I shan’t bore myself by wondering. Perhaps she will marry some clodhopper like this Tom Moore. No doubt he would think her doubly valuable when I have finished with her.”
“You are not in earnest,” stammered Brooking, incredulously.
“Quite in earnest, my dear old chap. Ah, you think that I will not succeed? Pshaw, Brooking! Not here, perhaps, in this deliciously moral atmosphere, but elsewhere, yes. And I intend that she shall be elsewhere. Brooking, I shall fetch this rural beauty to London.”
“She will not go,” asserted his lordship.
“No?” returned the baronet. “Who, think you, will prevent her?”
“Tom Moore, or I am much mistaken,” answered Brooking, confidently.
“Tut!” said Sir Percival, incredulously. “You do not give my tact sufficient consideration. I ’ll wager the objections Mr. Moore may see fit to make will prove of no avail in influencing the lady. In fact, if I do say it myself, my plans are clever enough to discount the efforts of a dozen bogtrotters, let alone one and he a rhymester. To begin with I have read and gone in raptures over old Robin Dyke’s verses. Egad, I have pronounced them beautiful, and really they are not half bad, Brooking. If they were not so crammed with anarchy they would sell in London. The old boy is a socialist, you know. Yes, i’ faith, he bastes the Prince and Castlereagh soundly,” and this ardent royalist chuckled gleefully at the memory.
“Then you have broached the subject to Mr. Dyke?” asked Lord Brooking, as they continued their stroll in the direction of the schoolhouse. Sir Percival nodded his head.
“Yes, Brooking, the old scribbler is half persuaded already. I have promised him my support and patronage in London if he comes.”
“And the girl?”
“I am tempting Bessie with the promise of a place at Old Drury, where, as you know, I am not without influence. Stab me! with her eyes and rosy red cheeks she would need neither paint nor powder to make her an ornament to the boards. Like most clever women, she has ambitions of a histrionic nature. She will come to London, Brooking, and once there!—once there—she is mine, dear lad, she is mine.”
Brooking’s anger and disgust refused to be longer pent up beneath his calm, almost indifferent, demeanor.
“What a low scoundrel you are!” he ejaculated, much to Sir Percival’s surprise. The baronet for a moment regarded him quizzically, as though suspicious that this uncomplimentary description of his character was intended as a humorous remark, but seeing severity in his lordship’s face, he smiled pleasantly and refused to take offence.
“Don’t be so serious, old cock,” he drawled. “Earnestness is so tiresome. Ah, life at its best bores me. My friends bore me. Even you, Brooking, bore me at times. Toss me, if I know anything that does not bore me sooner or later.”
“Sir Percival,” said the younger gentleman, “if I whispered one half that you have said to me in Tom Moore’s ear he would choke the life out of you and sink your body in the pond.”
“And spoil the drinking water? Well, such treatment as you describe would not bore me at all events. ’T would be exciting, even unpleasant, ’t is true, but interesting in the extreme, and anything which is not tedious is worthy of all consideration.”
Brooking laughed, amused in spite of his disapproval.
“You are incorrigible,” he said.
“Permit me to explain my view of the matter,” continued Sir Percival, amiably.
“By all means, Percy.”
“This piquant country damsel pleases me rarely. She is a sweet little thing whose view of life is about as comprehensive as that of a day-old kitten. She shall be educated, Brooking, and I will serve as tutor. You saw me stoop and pluck a primrose from beside the road as we walked this way, did you not? Here it is in my button-hole. This girl is a primrose, Brooking; I ’ll wear her till she is faded,—then, like this wilted blossom, I will toss her aside. And why? Because there are other primroses as fair and sweet, unplucked and unfaded, that grow beside my path farther on, and I like fresh flowers and new faces.”
This very pretty gentleman helped himself to snuff, and then beamed benevolently upon his companion. Brooking saw the baronet was in sober earnest in spite of his pleasant manner and humorous tone. A new comprehension of his friend’s real character dawned upon his mind, and for the first time in the long years of their acquaintance and fellowship he was able to strip from the libertine the exterior of the winning and courtly gentleman that had hitherto served to conceal his imperfections. In that one moment vanished the affection and admiration the younger man had felt for the elder, leaving only the colder and less exacting friendship existing between men of the same circle in society, who find much to interest and amuse in each other’s company, but nothing to love or respect.
There was a slight pause before his lordship spoke, but when he did so there was a new ring to his voice.
“If you harm this little girl, I ’ll never take your hand in mine again. You hear, Percy? Do as you have said, and we are strangers forever.”
“And why?” demanded his companion.
“Because I ’ll not own friendship with so filthy a rogue as you will have proved yourself to be.”
“Hum!” murmured Sir Percival, thoughtfully. “Then you will probably constitute yourself her protector?”
“If necessary, yes.”
“And will no doubt seek to balk me by telling her what a villain you think me, lad?”
“You know better than that,” replied Brooking, a reproachful tone perceptible in his voice.
“So I do,” assented the baronet. “What do you say to making it a game? One hundred guineas I win.”
The instinct of the gamester, without which no buck of the times was considered completely a gentleman in society’s interpretation of the word, stirred in the blood of his lordship.
“Done,” said he.
“Good lad,” commented Sir Percival. “My cards are wealth and fame, London and Drury Lane.”
“Mine are the girl’s honesty and Tom Moore.”
“Tom Moore?” repeated the other, inquiringly.
“Yes,” answered Brooking, “for if Bessie Dyke does go to London with you as her patron, I ’ll bring Tom Moore there and be his.”
“Just as you like,” said Sir Percival.
Reaching the door of the schoolhouse a moment later, the two bloods knocked vigorously and stood on the stone threshold, waiting patiently for a response from the interior. As this was not forthcoming, after another moment’s delay, Sir Percival opened the door and led the way into the schoolroom.