CHAPTER III.--IN WHICH RICHARD FRERE MENDS THE BACK OF ST. THOMAS

AQUINAS, AND THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO CHARLEY LEICESTER.

Richard Frere lived in a moderate-sized house in a street in the vicinity of Bedford Square. It was not exactly a romantic situation, neither was it aristocratic nor fashionable; but it was respectable and convenient, and therefore had Frere chosen it; for he was a practical man in the proper sense of the term--by which we do not mean that he thought James Watt greater than Shakespeare, but that he possessed that rare quality, good common sense, and regulated his conduct by it; and as in the course of this veracious history we shall hear and see a good deal of Richard Frere, it may tend to elucidate matters if we tell the reader at once who and what he was, and “in point of fact,” as Cousin Phoenix would say, all about him.

Like Robinson Crusoe, Richard Frere was born of respectable parents. His father was the representative of a family who in Saxon days would have been termed “Franklins”--_i.e_., a superior class of yeomen, possessed of certain broad acres, which they farmed themselves. The grandfather Frere having, in a moment of ambition, sent his eldest son to Eton, was made aware of his error when the young hopeful on leaving school declared his intention of going to college, and utterly repudiated the plough-tail. Having a very decided will of his own, and a zealous supporter in his mother, to college he went, and thence to a special pleader, to read for the bar. Being really clever, and determined to prove to his father the wisdom of the course he had adopted, sufficiently industrious also, he got into very tolerable practice. On one occasion, having been retained in a well-known contested peerage case, by his acuteness and eloquence he gained his cause, and at the same time the affections of the successful disputant’s younger sister. His noble client very ungratefully opposed the match, but love and law together proved too powerful for his lordship. One fine evening the young lady made a moonlight flitting of it, and before twelve o’clock on the following morning had become Mrs. Frere. Within a year from this event Richard Frere made his appearance at the cradle terminus of the railroad of life. When he was six years old, his father, after speaking for three hours, in a cause in which he was leader, more eloquently than he had ever before done, broke a blood-vessel, and was carried home a dying man. His wife loved him as woman alone can love--for his sake she had given up friends, fortune, rank, and the pleasures and embellishments of life; for his sake she now gave up life itself. Grief does not always kill quickly, yet Richard’s ninth birthday was spent among strangers. His noble uncle, who felt that by neglecting his sister on her death-bed he had done his duty to his pedigree handsomely, and might now give way to family affection, sent the orphan to school at Westminster, and even allowed him to run wild at Bellefield Park during the holidays.

The _agrémens_ of a public school, acting on a sensitive disposition, gave a tone of bitterness to the boy’s mind, which would have rendered him a misanthrope but for a strong necessity for loving something (the only inheritance his poor mother had left him), which developed itself in attachment to unsympathising silkworms and epicurean white mice during his early boyhood, and in a _bizarre_ but untiring benevolence in after-life, leading him to take endless trouble for the old and unattractive, and to devote himself, body and soul, to forward the interest of those who were fortunate enough to possess his friendship. Of the latter class Lewis Arundel had been one since the day when Frere, a stripling of seventeen, fought his rival, the cock of the school, for having thrashed the new-comer in return for his accidental transgression of some sixth-form etiquette. Ten years had passed over their heads since that day: the cock of the school was a judge in Ceylon, weighed sixteen stone, and had a wife and six little children; Richard Frere was secretary to a scientific institution, with a salary of £400 a year, and a general knowledge of everything of which other people were ignorant; and little Lewis Arundel was standing six feet high, waiting to be let in at the door of his friend’s house, in the respectable and convenient street near Bedford Square, to which he and Faust had found their way, after a prosperous journey by the coach, on the roof of which we left them at the end of the last chapter.

A woman ugly enough to frighten a horse, and old enough for _anything_, replied in the affirmative to Lewis’s inquiry whether her master was at home, and led the way upstairs, glancing suspiciously at Faust as she did so. On reaching the first landing she tapped at the door; a full, rich, but somewhat gruff voice shouted “Come in,” and Lewis, passing his ancient conductress, entered.

“What, Lewis, old boy! how are you? Don’t touch me, I can’t shake hands, I’m all over paste; I have been mending the backs of two of the old Fathers that I picked up, dirt cheap, at a bookstall as I was coming home to-day: one of them is a real _editio princeps_--Why, man, how you are grown! Is that Faust? Come here, dog--what a beauty! Ah! you brute, keep your confounded nose out of the paste-pot, do! I must give Aquinas another dab yet. Sit down, man, if you can find a chair--bundle those books under the table. There we are.”

The speaker, who, as the reader has probably conjectured, was none other than Mr. Richard Frere, presented at that moment as singular an appearance as any gentleman not an Ojibbeway Indian, or other natural curiosity for public exhibition in the good city of London, need to do. His apparent age was somewhat under thirty. His face would have been singularly ugly but for three redeeming points--a high, intellectual forehead; full, restless blue eyes, beaming with intelligence; and a bright benevolent smile, which disclosed a brilliant set of white, even teeth, compensating for the disproportioned width of the mouth which contained them. His hair and whiskers, of a rich brown, hung in elf locks about his face and head, which were somewhat too large for his height; his chest and shoulders were also disproportionately broad, giving him an appearance of great strength, which indeed he possessed. He was attired in a chintz dressing-gown that had once rejoiced in a pattern of gaudy colours, but was now reduced to a neutral tint of (we may as well confess it at once) London smoke. He was, moreover, for the greater convenience of the pasting operation, seated cross-legged on the floor, amidst a hecatomb of ponderous volumes.

“I received your letter this morning,” began Lewis, “and, as you see, lost no time in being with you; and now what is it you have heard of, Frere? But first let me thank you----”

“Thank me!” was the reply, “for what? I have done nothing yet, except writing a dozen lines to tell you to take a dusty journey, and leave green trees and nightingales for smoke and bustle--nothing very kind in that, is there? Just look at the dog’s-ears--St. Augustine’s, I mean, not Faust’s.”

“Don’t tease me, there’s a good fellow,” returned Lewis; “I’m not in a humour for jesting at present. I have gone through a good deal in one way or other since you and I last met, and am no longer the light-hearted boy you knew me, but a man, and well-nigh a desperate one.”

“Ay!” rejoined Frere, “that’s the style of thing, is it? Yes; I know all about it. I met Kirschberg the other day, with a beard like a cow’s tail, and he told me that Gretchen had bolted with the Baron.”

“Never mention her name, if you would not drive me mad,” exclaimed Lewis, springing from his chair and pacing the room impatiently. His friend regarded him attentively for a moment, and then uncrossing his legs, and muttering to himself that he had got the cramp, and should make a shocking bad Turk, rose, approached Lewis, and laying his hand on his shoulder, said gravely--

“Listen to me, Lewis: you trusted, and have been deceived; and, by a not unnatural revulsion of feeling, your faith in man’s honour and woman’s constancy is for the time being destroyed; and just at the very moment when you most require the assistance of your old friends, and the determination to gain new ones, you dislike and despise your fellow-creatures, and are at war in your heart with society. Now this must not be, and at the risk of paining you, I am going to tell you the truth.”

“I know what you would say,” interrupted Lewis vehemently: “you would tell me that my affection was misplaced--that I loved a girl beneath me in mind and station--that I trusted a man whom I deemed my friend, but who, with a specious exterior, was a cold-hearted, designing villain. It was so; I own it; I see it _now_, when it is too late; but I did not see it at the time when the knowledge might have availed me. And why may not this happen again? There is but one way to prevent it: I will avoid the perfidious sex--except Rose, no woman shall ever----”

“My dear boy, don’t talk such rubbish,” interposed his friend; “there are plenty of right-minded, lovable women in the world, I don’t doubt, though I can’t say I have much to do with them, seeing that they are not usually addicted to practical science, and therefore don’t come in my way--household angels, with their wings clipped, and their manners and their draperies modernised, but with all the brightness and purity of heaven still lingering about them,--that’s my notion of women as they should be, and as I believe many are, despite your having been jilted by as arrant a little coquette as ever I had the luck to behold; and as to the Baron, it would certainly be a satisfaction to kick him well; but we can’t obtain all we wish for in this life. What are you grinning at? You don’t mean to say you _have_ polished him off?”

In reply, Lewis drew his left arm out of his coat, and rolling up his shirt-sleeve above the elbow, exposed to view a newly-healed wound in the fleshy part of his arm, then said quietly, “We fought with small swords in a ring formed by the students; we were twenty minutes at it; he marked me as you see; at length I succeeded in disarming him--in the struggle he fell, and placing my foot upon his neck and my sword point to his heart, I forced him to confess his treachery, and beg his hateful life of me before them all.”

Frere’s face grew dark. “Duelling!” he said. “I thought your principles would have preserved you from that vice--I thought----”

A growl from Faust, whose quick ear had detected a footstep on the stairs, interrupted him, and in another moment a voice exclaimed, “Hello, Frere! where are you, man?” and the speaker, without waiting for an answer, opened the door and entered.

The new-comer was a fashionably-dressed young man, with a certain air about him as if he were somebody, and knew it--he was good-looking, had dark hair, most desirably curling whiskers; and, though he was in a morning costume, was evidently “got up” regardless of expense.

He opened his large eyes and stared with a look of languid wonder at Lewis, then, turning to Frere, he said, “Ah! I did not know you were engaged, Richard, or I would have allowed your old lady to announce me in due form; as it was, I thought, in my philanthropy, to save her a journey upstairs was a good deed, for she is getting a little touched in the wind. May I ask,” he continued, glancing at Lewis’s bare arm, “were you literally, and not figuratively, bleeding your friend?”

“Not exactly,” replied Frere, laughing. “But you must know each other: this is my particular friend, Lewis Arundel, whom I was telling you of,--Lewis, my cousin Charles Leicester, Lord Ashford’s youngest son.”

“Worse luck,” replied the gentleman thus introduced; “younger sons being one of those unaccountable mistakes of Nature which it requires an immense amount of faith to acquiesce in with proper orthodoxy: the popular definition of a younger son’s portion, ‘A good set of teeth, and nothing to eat,’ shows the absurdity of the thing. Where do you find any other animal in such a situation? Where----But perhaps we have scarcely time to do the subject proper justice at present; I have some faint recollection of your having asked me to dine at half-past six, on the strength of which I cut short my canter in the park, and lost a chance of inspecting a prize widow, whom Sullivan had marked down for me!”

“Why, you don’t mean to say it is as late as that?” exclaimed Frere. “Thomas Aquinas has taken longer to splice than I was aware of; to be sure, his back was dreadfully shattered. Excuse me half a minute; I’ll just wash the paste off my hands, make myself decent, and be with you in no time.” As he spoke he left the room.

“What a life for a reasonable being to lead!” observed Leicester, flinging himself back in Frere’s reading-chair. “Now that fellow was as happy with his paste-pot as I should be if some benevolent individual in the Fairy Tale and Good Genius line were to pay my debts and marry me to an heiress with £10,000 a year. An inordinate affection for books will be that man’s destruction. You have known him some years, I think, Mr. Arundel?”

Lewis replied in the affirmative, and Leicester continued--

“Don’t you perceive that he is greatly altered? He stoops like an old man, sir; his eyes are getting weak,--it’s an even chance whether he is shaved or not; he looks upon brushes as superfluities, and eschews bears’ grease entirely, not to mention a very decided objection to the operations of the hair-cutter; then the clothes he wears,--where he contrives to get such things I can’t conceive, unless they come out of Monmouth Street, and then they would be better cut; but the worst of it is, he has no proper feeling about it,--perfectly callous!” He sighed, and then resumed. “It was last Saturday, I think,-- ’pon my word, you will scarcely believe it, but it’s true, I do assure you: I had given my horse to the groom, and was lounging by the Serpentine, with Egerton of the Guards, and Harry Vain, who is about the best dressed man in London, a little after five o’clock, and the park as full as it could hold, when who should I see, striding along like a postman among the swells, but Master Richard Frere! And how do you suppose he was dressed? We’ll begin at the top, and take him downwards: Imprimis, a shocking bad hat, set on the back of his head, after the fashion of the _he_ peasants in a pastoral chorus at the Opera House; a seedy black coat, with immense flaps, and a large octavo edition of St. Senanus, or some of them, sticking out of the pocket; a white choker villainously tied, which looked as if he had slept in it the night before; a most awful waistcoat, black-and-white plaid trousers guiltless of straps, worsted stockings, and a clumsy species of shooting shoes; and because all this was not enough, he had a large umbrella, although the day was lovely, and a basket in his hand, with the neck of a black bottle peeping out of it, containing port wine, which it seems he was conveying to a superannuated nurse of his who hangs out at Kensington. I turned my head away, hoping that as he was staring intently at something in the water, he might not recognise me; but it was of no use. Just as Egerton, who did not know him, exclaimed, ‘Here’s a natural curiosity! Did you ever see such a Guy in your life?’ he looked up and saw me: in another minute his great paw was laid upon my shoulder, and I was accosted thus:--‘Ah, Leicester! you here? Just look at that duck with the grey bill; that’s a very rare bird indeed; it comes from Central Asia. I did not know they had a specimen in this country; it is one of the Teal family,--_Querquedula Glocitans_, the bimaculated teal,--so called from two bright spots near the eye. Look, you can see them now,--very rare bird,--very rare bird indeed!’ And so he ran on, till suddenly recollecting that he was in a hurry, he shook my hand till my arm ached (dropping the umbrella on Vain’s toes as he did so) and posted off, leaving me to explain to my companions how it was possible such an apparition should have been seen in any place except Bedlam. Richard Frere’s a right good fellow, and I have an immense respect for him, but he is a very trying relative to meet in Hyde Park during the London season.”

Having delivered himself of this sentiment, the Honourable Charles, or, as he was more commonly denominated by his intimates, Charley Leicester, leaned back in his chair, apparently overcome by the recollections his tale had excited, in which position he remained, cherishing his whiskers, till their host reappeared.

The dinner was exactly such a meal as one gentleman of moderate income should give to two others, not particularly gourmands; that is, there was enough to eat and drink, and everything was excellent of its kind; one of those mysterious individuals who exist only in large cities and fairy tales having provided the entire affair, and waited at table like a duke’s butler into the bargain. When the meal was concluded, and the good genius had vanished, after placing before them a most inviting magnum of claret, and said “Yessir” for the last time, Frere turned to Lewis, and observed, “By the way, Arundel, I dare say you are anxious to hear about this appointment, or situation, or whatever the correct term may be,--the thing I mentioned to you. My cousin Charles can tell you all there is to hear concerning the matter, for the good folks are his friends, and not mine; indeed, I scarcely know them.”

Thus appealed to, Charley Leicester filled a bumper of claret, seated himself in an easy attitude, examined his well-turned leg and unexceptionable boot with a full appreciation of their respective merits, and then sipping his wine and addressing Lewis, began as follows:--

“Well, Mr. Arundel, this is the true state of the case, as far as I know about it. You may perhaps be acquainted with the name of General Grant?”

Lewis replied in the negative, and Leicester continued--

“Ah! yes, I forgot, you have been on the Continent for some time; however, the General is member for A--------, and a man very well known about town. Now, he happens to be a sort of cousin of mine--my mother, Lady Ashford, was a Grant; and for that reason, or some other, the General has taken a liking to me, and generously affords me his countenance and protection. So, when I have nothing better to do, I go and vegetate at Broadhurst, an old rambling place in H------shire, that has been in his family since the flood--splendid shooting, though; he preserves strictly, and transports a colony of poachers every year. I was sitting with him the other day, when he suddenly began asking about Frere, where he was, what he was doing, and all the rest of it. So I related that he was secretary to a learned society, and was popularly supposed to know more than all the _scavans_ in Europe and the Dean of Dustandstir put together. Whereupon he began muttering, ‘Unfortunate!-- he was just the person--learned man--good family--well connected--most unlucky!’ ‘What’s the matter, General?’ said I. ‘A very annoying affair, Charles--a very great responsibility has devolved upon me, a matter of extreme moment--clear;£ 12,000 a year, and a long minority.’ ‘Has;£12,000 a year devolved upon you, sir?’ returned I. ‘I wish Dame Fortune would try me with some such responsibility.’ In reply he gave me the following account:--

“It appeared that one of his most intimate friends and neighbours, an old baronet, had lately departed this life; the title and estates descend to a grandson, a minor, and General Grant had been appointed guardian. All this was bad enough, but the worst was yet to come--he had promised his dying friend that the boy should reside in his house. Now it seems that, as a sort of set-off against his luck in coming into the world with a gold spoon in his mouth, the said boy was born with even less brains than usually fall to the lot of Fortune’s favourites--in plain English, he is half an idiot. Accordingly, the General’s first care was to provide the young bear with a leader, and in his own mind he had fixed on Frere, whom he knew by reputation, as the man, and was grievously disappointed when he found he was bespoke. I suggested that, although he could not undertake the duty himself, he might possibly know some one who could, and offered to ascertain. The General jumped at the idea--_hinc illae lachrymae_--hence the whole business.”

“Just as I received your letter,” began Frere, “Leicester came in to make the inquiry. In fact the thing fitted like the advertisements in _The Times_--‘Wants a situation as serious footman in a pious family; wages not so much an object as moral cultivation.’--‘Wanted in a pious family, a decidedly serious footman, wages moderate, but the spiritual advantages unexceptionable.’--‘If A. B. is not utterly perfidious, and lost to all the noblest feelings of humanity, he will forward a small enclosure to C. D. at Mrs. Bantam’s, oilman, Tothill Street.’--‘A. B. is desirous of communicating with C. D.; if forgiven, he will never do so no more, at any price.’ You may see lots of them in the advertising sheet; they are like angry women, sure to answer one another if you leave them alone. And now, what do you think of the notion, Lewis?”

“Why, there are one or two points to be considered,” replied Lewis. “In the first place, what would be the duties of the situation? In the second, am I fitted to perform them? In the third---- But, however, I have named the most important.”

“As to the duties,” replied Leicester, “I should fancy they would be anything but overpowering--rather in the nothing-to-do-and-a-man-to help-you style than otherwise. All the General said was, ‘Mind, I must have a _gentleman_, a person who is accustomed to the rank of life in which he will have to move--he must be a young man, or he will not readily fall into my habits and wishes. As he is to live in my family, he must be altogether presentable. His chief duty will be to endeavour to develop my ward’s mind, and fit him for the position which his rank and fortune render it incumbent on him to occupy.’ To which speech, delivered in a very stately manner, I merely said, ‘Yes, exactly;’ a style of remark to which no exception could reasonably be taken, unless on the score of want of originality.”

“Is the General in town, Charley?” asked Frere.

“Yes; he is waiting about this very business,” was the reply.

“Well then, the best thing will be for you to take Arundel there to-morrow morning, and bring them face to face; that is the way to do business, depend upon it.”

“Will not that be giving Mr. Leicester a great deal of trouble?” suggested Lewis.

“Not at all, my dear sir,” replied Leicester, good-naturedly; “I’ll call for you at twelve o’clock, and drive you up to Park Crescent in my cab. Having once taken the matter in hand, I am anxious to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion--besides, a man must lunch, and the General’s pale ale is by no means to be despised.”

At this moment the servant entered, and handing Frere a card, informed him the gentleman wished to speak with him.

“Tell him to walk in. Say that I have one or two friends taking wine with me, and that I hope he will join us. Now, Lewis, I will introduce you to an original--you know him, Leicester--Marmaduke Grandeville.”

“_De_ Grandeville, my dear fellow--don’t forget the _De_ unless you intend him to call you out. What, is ‘the Duke’ coming? Yes, I certainly do know him, _rather_--just a very little.” Then, speaking in an affected yet pompous tone, he continued--“Ar--really--yes--_the_ De Grandevilles--very old Yorkshire family in the West Riding--came in with the Conqueror.”

“That’s exactly like him,” exclaimed Frere, laughing. “Hush! here he is.”

As he spoke the door opened slowly, and a head with a hat on first appeared, then followed a pair of broad shoulders, and lastly the whole man entered bodily. Drawing himself up with a stiff military air, he closed the door, and slightly raising his hat, shaded his eyes with it, while he reconnoitred the company.

“There, come along in, man; you know Charles Leicester--this is an old Westminster friend of mine, Lewis Arundel: now here’s a clean glass; take some claret.”

The individual thus addressed made the slightest possible acknowledgment on being introduced to Lewis, favoured Leicester with a military salute, laid a large heavy hand adorned with a ring of strange and antique fashion patronisingly on Frere’s shoulder, poured himself out a glass of wine, and then wheeling round majestically to the fire, and placing his glass on the chimney-piece, faced the company with an air equally dignified and mysterious, thereby affording Lewis a good opportunity of examining his appearance. He was above the middle height and powerfully made, so much so as to give his clothes, which were fashionably cut, the air of being a size too small for him. He wore his coat buttoned tightly across his chest, which he carried well forward after the manner of a cuirassier; indeed, his whole gait and bearing were intensely military. His age might be two or three-and-thirty; he had dark hair and whiskers, good though rather coarse features, and a more ruddy complexion than usually falls to the lot of a Londoner. After sipping his wine leisurely, he folded his arms with an air of importance, and fixing his eyes significantly on the person addressed, said, “Ar--Leicester, how is it Lord Ashford happens to be out of town just now?”

“’Pon my word, I don’t know,” was the reply; “my father is not usually in the habit of explaining his movements, particularly to such an unimportant individual as myself. I have a vague idea Bellefield wrote to beg him to come down for something--he’s at the Park, at all events.”

“Ar--yes, you must not be surprised if you see him in Belgrave Square to-morrow; _we_ want him; he’s been--ar--written to to-night.”

“How the deuce do you know that?” inquired Frere. “I never can make out where you contrive to pick up those things.”

“Who are _we?_” inquired Lewis in an undertone of Leicester, near whom he was seated. “Does Mr. Grandeville belong to the Government?”

“Not really, only in imagination,” was the reply. “_We_ means himself and the other Whig magnates of the land, in this instance.”

“Then you did not really know Graves was dead?” continued Grandeville.

“I am not quite certain that I even knew he was alive,” replied Leicester. “Who was he?”

A significant smile, saying plainly, “Don’t fancy I am going to believe you as ignorant as you pretend,” floated across Grandeville’s face ere he continued: “You need not be so cautious with me, I can assure you. The moment I heard Graves was given over, I wrote--ar--that is, I gave the hint to a man who wrote to Lord Bellefield to say the county was his; he had only to declare himself, and he would walk over the course.”

“Extremely kind of you, I’m sure,” replied Leicester; then turning to Lewis, while Grandeville was making some mysterious communication to Frere, he added in an undertone, “That’s a lie from beginning to end. I had a note from Bellefield (he’s my _frere aîné_, you know) this morning, in which he says, ‘Our county member has been dangerously ill, but is now better;’ and he adds, ‘Some of the fools about here wanted me to put up for the county if he popped oft, but I am not going to thrust my neck into the collar to please any of them.’ Bell’s too lazy by half for an M.P., and small blame to him either.” Frere having listened to De Grandeville’s whispered communication, appeared for a moment embarrassed, and then observed--but an adventure so important as that to which his observation related deserves a fresh chapter.