Man and Wife, Wilkie Collins [best ebook reader android .TXT] 📗

“I’m in earnest!” cried Arnold, reckless by this time of every consideration but one. “Put me to the test, Sir! put me to the test!”

“Oh, very well. The test is easily put.” He looked at Arnold, with the irrepressible humor twinkling merrily in his eyes, and twitching sharply at the corners of his lips. “My niece has a beautiful complexion. Do you believe in her complexion?”

“There’s a beautiful sky above our heads,” returned Arnold. “I believe in the sky.”

“Do you?” retorted Sir Patrick. “You were evidently never caught in a shower. My niece has an immense quantity of hair. Are you convinced that it all grows on her head?”

“I defy any other woman’s head to produce the like of it!”

“My dear Arnold, you greatly underrate the existing resources of the trade in hair! Look into the shopwindows. When you next go to London pray look into the show-windows. In the meantime, what do you think of my niece’s figure?”

“Oh, come! there can’t be any doubt about that! Any man, with eyes in his head, can see it’s the loveliest figure in the world.”

Sir Patrick laughed softly, and crossed his legs again.

“My good fellow, of course it is! The loveliest figure in the world is the commonest thing in the world. At a rough guess, there are forty ladies at this lawn-party. Every one of them possesses a beautiful figure. It varies in price; and when it’s particularly seductive you may swear it comes from Paris. Why, how you stare! When I asked you what you thought of my niece’s figure, I meant⁠—how much of it comes from nature, and how much of it comes from the shop? I don’t know, mind! Do you?”

“I’ll take my oath to every inch of it!”

“Shop?”

“Nature!”

Sir Patrick rose to his feet; his satirical humor was silenced at last.

“If ever I have a son,” he thought to himself, “that son shall go to sea!” He took Arnold’s arm, as a preliminary to putting an end to Arnold’s suspense. “If I can be serious about anything,” he resumed, “it’s time to be serious with you. I am convinced of the sincerity of your attachment. All I know of you is in your favor, and your birth and position are beyond dispute. If you have Blanche’s consent, you have mine.” Arnold attempted to express his gratitude. Sir Patrick, declining to hear him, went on. “And remember this, in the future. When you next want anything that I can give you, ask for it plainly. Don’t attempt to mystify me on the next occasion, and I will promise, on my side, not to mystify you. There, that’s understood. Now about this journey of yours to see your estate. Property has its duties, Master Arnold, as well as its rights. The time is fast coming when its rights will be disputed, if its duties are not performed. I have got a new interest in you, and I mean to see that you do your duty. It’s settled you are to leave Windygates today. Is it arranged how you are to go?”

“Yes, Sir Patrick. Lady Lundie has kindly ordered the gig to take me to the station, in time for the next train.”

“When are you to be ready?”

Arnold looked at his watch. “In a quarter of an hour.”

“Very good. Mind you are ready. Stop a minute! you will have plenty of time to speak to Blanche when I have done with you. You don’t appear to me to be sufficiently anxious about seeing your own property.”

“I am not very anxious to leave Blanche, Sir⁠—that’s the truth of it.”

“Never mind Blanche. Blanche is not business. They both begin with a B⁠—and that’s the only connection between them. I hear you have got one of the finest houses in this part of Scotland. How long are you going to stay in Scotland? How long are you going to stay in it?”

“I have arranged (as I have already told you, Sir) to return to Windygates the day after tomorrow.”

“What! Here is a man with a palace waiting to receive him⁠—and he is only going to stop one clear day in it!”

“I am not going to stop in it at all, Sir Patrick⁠—I am going to stay with the steward. I’m only wanted to be present tomorrow at a dinner to my tenants⁠—and, when that’s over, there’s nothing in the world to prevent my coming back here. The steward himself told me so in his last letter.”

“Oh, if the steward told you so, of course there is nothing more to be said!”

“Don’t object to my coming back! pray don’t, Sir Patrick! I’ll promise to live in my new house when I have got Blanche to live in it with me. If you won’t mind, I’ll go and tell her at once that it all belongs to her as well as to me.”

“Gently! gently! you talk as if you were married to her already!”

“It’s as good as done, Sir! Where’s the difficulty in the way now?”

As he asked the question the shadow of some third person, advancing from the side of the summerhouse, was thrown forward on the open sunlit space at the top of the steps. In a moment more the shadow was followed by the substance⁠—in the shape of a groom in his riding livery. The man was plainly a stranger to the place. He started, and touched his hat, when he saw the two gentlemen in the summerhouse.

“What do you want?” asked Sir Patrick.

“I beg your pardon, Sir; I was sent by my master⁠—”

“Who is your master?”

“The Honorable Mr. Delamayn, Sir.”

“Do you mean Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn?” asked Arnold.

“No, Sir. Mr. Geoffrey’s brother⁠—Mr. Julius. I have ridden over from the house, Sir, with a message from my master to Mr. Geoffrey.”

“Can’t you find him?”

“They told me I should find him hereabouts, Sir. But I’m a stranger, and don’t rightly know where to look.” He stopped, and took a card out of his pocket. “My master said it was very important I should deliver this immediately. Would you