Part 25 (2/2)
”I know that she has money.”
”That's about the tune of it. I would take her without a s.h.i.+lling to-morrow, if she would have me,--because I like her. She is the only girl I ever did like. But what is the use of my liking her? They have painted me so black among them, especially my father, that no decent girl would think of marrying me.”
”Your father can't be angry with you if you do your best to comply with his wishes.”
”I don't care a straw whether he be angry or not. He allows me eight hundred a year, and he knows that if he stopped it I should go to the Jews the next day. I could not help myself. He can't leave an acre away from me, and yet he won't join me in raising money for the sake of paying Laura her fortune.”
”Lady Laura can hardly want money now.”
”That detestable prig whom she has chosen to marry, and whom I hate with all my heart, is richer than ever Croesus was; but nevertheless Laura ought to have her own money. She shall have it some day.”
”I would see Lord Brentford, if I were you.”
”I will think about it. Now tell me about coming down to Willingford.
Laura says you will come some day in March. I can mount you for a couple of days and should be delighted to have you. My horses all pull like the mischief, and rush like devils, and want a deal of riding; but an Irishman likes that.”
”I do not dislike it particularly.”
”I like it. I prefer to have something to do on horseback. When a man tells me that a horse is an armchair, I always tell him to put the brute into his bedroom. Mind you come. The house I stay at is called the Willingford Bull, and it's just four miles from Peterborough.” Phineas swore that he would go down and ride the pulling horses, and then took his leave, earnestly advising Lord Chiltern, as he went, to keep the appointment proposed by his father.
When the morning came, at half-past eleven, the son, who had been standing for half an hour with his back to the fire in the large gloomy dining-room, suddenly rang the bell. ”Tell the Earl,” he said to the servant, ”that I am here and will go to him if he wishes it.”
The servant came back, and said that the Earl was waiting. Then Lord Chiltern strode after the man into his father's room.
”Oswald,” said the father, ”I have sent for you because I think it may be as well to speak to you on some business. Will you sit down?”
Lord Chiltern sat down, but did not answer a word. ”I feel very unhappy about your sister's fortune,” said the Earl.
”So do I,--very unhappy. We can raise the money between us, and pay her to-morrow, if you please it.”
”It was in opposition to my advice that she paid your debts.”
”And in opposition to mine too.”
”I told her that I would not pay them, and were I to give her back to-morrow, as you say, the money that she has so used, I should be stultifying myself. But I will do so on one condition. I will join with you in raising the money for your sister, on one condition.”
”What is that?”
”Laura tells me,--indeed she has told me often,--that you are attached to Violet Effingham.”
”But Violet Effingham, my lord, is unhappily not attached to me.”
”I do not know how that may be. Of course I cannot say. I have never taken the liberty of interrogating her upon the subject.”
”Even you, my lord, could hardly have done that.”
”What do you mean by that? I say that I never have,” said the Earl, angrily.
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