Part 7 (1/2)

The bell in the private room rang at that moment; and the landlady's daughter, it is needless to say, took the opportunity of forming her own opinion of Mr. Hugh Mountjoy.

She returned with a letter in her hand, consumed by a vain longing for the advantages of gentle birth. ”Ah, mother, if I was a young lady of the higher cla.s.ses, I know whose wife I should like to be!” Not particularly interested in sentimental aspirations, the landlady asked to see Mr. Mountjoy's letter. The messenger who delivered it was to wait for an answer. It was addressed to: ”Miss Henley, care of Clarence Vimpany, Esquire, Honeybuzzard.” Urged by an excited imagination, the daughter longed to see Miss Henley. The mother was at a loss to understand why Mr. Mountjoy should have troubled himself to write the letter at all. ”If he knows the young lady who is staying at the doctor's house,” she said, ”why doesn't he call on Miss Henley?” She handed the letter back to her daughter. ”There! let the ostler take it; he's got nothing to do.”

”No, mother. The ostler's dirty hands mustn't touch it--I'll take the letter myself. Perhaps I may see Miss Henley.” Such was the impression which Mr. Hugh Mountjoy had innocently produced on a sensitive young person, condemned by destiny to the barren sphere of action afforded by a country inn!

The landlady herself took the dinner upstairs--a first course of mutton chops and potatoes, cooked to a degree of imperfection only attained in an English kitchen. The sour French wine was still on the good woman's mind. ”What would you choose to drink, sir?” she asked. Mr. Mountjoy seemed to feel no interest in what he might have to drink. ”We have some French wine, sir.”

”Thank you, ma'am; that will do.”

When the bell rang again, and the time came to produce the second course of cheese and celery, the landlady allowed the waiter to take her place. Her experience of the farmers who frequented the inn, and who had in some few cases been induced to taste the wine, warned her to antic.i.p.ate an outbreak of just anger from Mr. Mountjoy. He, like the others, would probably ask what she ”meant by poisoning him with such stuff as that.” On the return of the waiter, she put the question: ”Did the gentleman complain of the French wine?”

”He wants to see you about it, ma'am.”

The landlady turned pale. The expression of Mr. Mountjoy's indignation was evidently reserved for the mistress of the house. ”Did he swear,”

she asked, ”when he tasted it?”

”Lord bless you, ma'am, no! Drank it out of a tumbler, and--if you will believe me--actually seemed to like it.”

The landlady recovered her colour. Grat.i.tude to Providence for having sent a customer to the inn, who could drink sour wine without discovering it, was the uppermost feeling in her ample bosom as she entered the private room. Mr. Mountjoy justified her antic.i.p.ations. He was simple enough--with his tumbler before him, and the wine as it were under his nose--to begin with an apology.

”I am sorry to trouble you, ma'am. May I ask where you got this wine?”

”The wine, sir, was one of my late husband's bad debts. It was all he could get from a Frenchman who owed him money.”

”It's worth money, ma'am.”

”Indeed, sir?”

”Yes, indeed. This is some of the finest and purest claret that I have tasted for many a long day past.”

An alarming suspicion disturbed the serenity of the landlady's mind.

Was his extraordinary opinion of the wine sincere? Or was it Mr.

Mountjoy's wicked design to entrap her into praising her claret and then to imply that she was a cheat by declaring what he really thought of it? She took refuge in a cautious reply:

”You are the first gentleman, sir, who has not found fault with it.”

”In that case, perhaps you would like to get rid of the wine?” Mr.

Mountjoy suggested.

The landlady was still cautious. ”Who will buy it of me, sir?”

”I will. How much do you charge for it by the bottle?”

It was, by this time, clear that he was not mischievous--only a little crazy. The worldly-wise hostess took advantage of that circ.u.mstance to double the price. Without hesitation, she said: ”Five s.h.i.+llings a bottle, sir.”

Often, too often, the irony of circ.u.mstances brings together, on this earthly scene, the opposite types of vice and virtue. A lying landlady and a guest incapable of deceit were looking at each other across a narrow table; equally unconscious of the immeasurable moral gulf that lay between them, Influenced by honourable feeling, innocent Hugh Mountjoy lashed the landlady's greed for money to the full-gallop of human cupidity.

”I don't think you are aware of the value of your wine,” he said. ”I have claret in my cellar which is not so good as this, and which costs more than you have asked. It is only fair to offer you seven-and-sixpence a bottle.”