Part 50 (2/2)

”A young man of his expectations!” exclaimed Mrs. M'Catchley, artfully.

”Expectations!” repeated Richard, firing up. ”Has he been talking to you of his expectations?”

”No, indeed, sir. But the nephew of the rich Mr. Avenel! Ah, one hears a great deal, you know, of rich people; it is the penalty of wealth, Mr.

Avenel!”

Richard was very much flattered. His crest rose.

”And they say,” continued Mrs. M'Catchley, dropping out her words very slowly, as she adjusted her blonde scarf, ”that Mr. Avenel has resolved not to marry.”

”The devil they do, ma'am!” bolted out Richard, gruffly; and then, ashamed of his lapsus linguae, screwed up his lips firmly, and glared on the company with an eye of indignant fire.

Mrs. M'Catchley observed him over her fan. Richard turned abruptly, and she withdrew her eyes modestly, and raised the fan.

”She's a real beauty,” said Richard, between his teeth. The fan fluttered.

Five minutes afterwards, the widow and the bachelor seemed so much at their ease that Mrs. Pompley, who had been forced to leave her friend, in order to receive the dean's lady, could scarcely believe her eyes when she returned to the sofa.

Now, it was from that evening that Mr. Richard Avenel exhibited the change of mood which I have described; and from that evening he abstained from taking Leonard with him to any of the parties in the Abbey Gardens.

CHAPTER IX.

Some days after this memorable soiree, Colonel Pompley sat alone in his study (which opened pleasantly on an old-fas.h.i.+oned garden), absorbed in the house bills. For Colonel Pompley did not leave that domestic care to his lady,--perhaps she was too grand for it. Colonel Pompley with his own sonorous voice ordered the joints, and with his own heroic hands dispensed the stores. In justice to the colonel, I must add--at whatever risk of offence to the fair s.e.x--that there was not a house at Screwstown so well managed as the Pompleys'; none which so successfully achieved the difficult art of uniting economy with show. I should despair of conveying to you an idea of the extent to which Colonel Pompley made his income go. It was but seven hundred a year; and many a family contrived to do less upon three thousand. To be sure, the Pompleys had no children to sponge upon them. What they had they spent all on themselves. Neither, if the Pompleys never exceeded their income, did they pretend to live much within it. The two ends of the year met at Christmas,--just met, and no more.

Colonel Pompley sat at his desk. He was in his well-brushed blue coat, b.u.t.toned across his breast, his gray trousers fitted tight to his limbs, and fastened under his boots with a link chain. He saved a great deal of money in straps. No one ever saw Colonel Pompley in dressing-gown and slippers. He and his house were alike in order--always fit to be seen

”From morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve.”

The colonel was a short compact man, inclined to be stout,--with a very red face, that seemed not only shaved, but rasped. He wore his hair cropped close, except just in front, where it formed what the hairdresser called a feather, but it seemed a feather of iron, so stiff and so strong was it. Firmness and precision were emphatically marked on the colonel's countenance. There was a resolute strain on his features, as if he was always employed in making the two ends meet!

So he sat before his house-book, with his steel-pen in his hand, and making crosses here and notes of interrogation there.

”Mrs. M'Catchley's maid,” said the colonel to himself, ”must be put upon rations. The tea that she drinks! Good heavens!--tea again!”

There was a modest ring at the outer door. ”Too early for a visitor!”

thought the colonel. ”Perhaps it is the water-rates.”

The neat man-servant--never seen beyond the offices, save in grande tenue, plushed and powdered-entered and bowed. ”A gentleman, sir, wishes to see you.”

”A gentleman,” repeated the colonel, glancing towards the clock. ”Are you sure it is a gentleman?”

The man hesitated. ”Why, sir, I ben't exactly sure; but he speaks like a gentleman. He do say he comes from London to see you, sir.”

A long and interesting correspondence was then being held between the colonel and one of his wife's trustees touching the investment of Mrs. Pompley's fortune. It might be the trustee,--nay, it must be. The trustee had talked of running down to see him.

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