“Hang Lord This, and the Honourable That!” said Mr Chawleigh. “Try a mouthful of duckling, my lord!”
Adam accepted the duckling, and, while his host carved several slices from the breast, forestalled any further enquiries into his military acquaintances by asking Miss Chawleigh if she had read Lord Byron’s last poem. Her answer surprised him, for instead of going into instant raptures, she gave a quick shake of the head, and said: “No. I don’t mean to, either, for it seems to me to be about another barbarous, Eastern person, and quite as full of dripping swords as the Giaour, which I thought horrid!”
“Oh, hush, Miss Chawleigh!” cried Mrs Quarley-Bix, throwing up her hands in affected dismay. “Divine Byron! How can you talk so? The Bride of Abydos! The opening lines! —
Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime — ”
“Yes, that’s very pretty, but I think the next lines nonsensical. The rage of the vulture may melt into sorrow, though it seems most improbable, but why the love of the turtle should madden to crime I can’t imagine. And, what is more,” she added resolutely, “I don’t believe it!”
“Certainly not!” Adam agreed, considerably entertained by this novel point of view.
“I don’t know anything about the love of turtles, and nor does anyone else, if you were to ask me, but the best way of cooking ’em is the West Indian way, with a good pint and a half of Madeira, and a dozen hard eggs spread over the top, and popped under a salamander,” said Mr Chawleigh.
“Dear Mr Chawleigh, a misapprehension! The poet writes of the turtle-dove!”
“Oh! Well, why can’t he say so? I don’t know that I’ve ever eaten turtle-doves, but I daresay they’re much the same as pigeons. I’m not over and above partial to them myself,” said Mr Chawleigh reflectively, “but when I was a lad we used to have them cooked in batter. Pigeons in a Hole, they were called.”
“Like Toad in the Hole?” enquired Miss Chawleigh.
“My dear Miss Chawleigh, how can you talk so?” protested Mrs Quarley-Bix. “Lord Lynton is looking perfectly shocked!”
“Am I?” Adam said. “My looks belie me, then.” He addressed himself to his hostess, saying, with a slight smile: “I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to encounter a female who doesn’t fall into ecstasies at the mere mention of Byron’s name!”
“Are you quizzing me?” she asked bluntly.
“Of course I’m not! I’m no great judge of poetry, but surely Lord Byron’s verses are extraordinarily over-rated?”
“Well, that’s what I think,” she replied. “But I have for long been aware that, try as I may, I don’t appreciate poetry as I should. I did make the greatest effort to read the Bride of Abydos, however.”
“Unavailing, I collect?”
She nodded, looking a little conscience-stricken. “Yes — though I daresay I should have persevered if the library had not sent me a parcel containing two books which I most particularly wanted to read. I found I could no longer concentrate my mind, and so abandoned the attempt. And one was perfectly respectable!” she said defensively, adding, in response to his lifted eyebrows: “Mr Southey’s Life of Nelson: has it come in your way?”
“Ah, yes! That is a noble work, indeed! Worth all his Thalabas, and Madocs, and Curses! But what, Miss Chawleigh, was the other work — not so respectable! — which hired you away from Abydos?”
“Well, that one was a novel,” she confessed.
“A novel preferred to Lord Byron! Oh, Miss Chawleigh!” exclaimed Mrs Quarley-Bix archly.
“Yes, I did prefer it In fact, I turned to it with the greatest relief, for it is all about quite ordinary, real persons, and not about pirate chiefs, or pashas, and nobody kills anyone in it. Besides, it was excessively diverting, just as I guessed it would be.” She glanced shyly at Adam, and said, with a tiny stammer: “It is by the author of Sense and Sensibility, which — b-but I daresay you might not recall! — I liked, but M-Miss Oversley thought too humdrum. I remember that we argued about it, when you were present.”
“No, I don’t recall the occasion,” he replied, his colour a trifle heightened, “but I know that Miss Oversley prefers the romantic to the humdrum. She is extremely fond, too, of poetry.”
“Well, each to his own taste,” said Mr Chawleigh, who had come to the end of his repast, “but I’m bound to say I don’t see what’s the use of writing poetry, except for children to learn at school, though what good that does ’em I don’t know. Still, it was pretty to hear you recite, Jenny, and wonderfully you used to remember your pieces.”
Mrs Quarley-Bix cast a speaking glance at Adam, but he evaded it, and seized the opportunity offered by his host’s remark to draw Miss Chawleigh into an interchange of reminiscences of the various poems which they had been compelled as children to learn by heart. Miss Chawleigh became much less self-conscious over this game of odious comparisons: a circumstance which led her parent to observe, when the ladies had left the dining-room, that he could see that she and Adam went along like winking together.
Adam knew himself to be stiffening, and tried to overcome repulsion. He was not quite successful, but Mr Chawleigh did not pursue the subject, deeming it of more immediate importance first to ascertain that his port was being properly appreciated; and, next, to discover whether his noble guest’s opinion of Mrs Quarley-Bix tallied with his own. Adam answered this evasively, for while he was by no means enamoured of the lady he thought her situation an uncomfortable one, and so profoundly pitied any person who was obliged to live with Mr Chawleigh that he was reluctant to abuse her.
“Well, to my mind, she’s nothing but a show-off,” said that worthy. “I was hoping you’d give her a set-down, for if there’s one thing I can’t abide it’s sham! No, and I don’t like Smithfield bargains either, which is what I’ve a shrewd notion I got when I hired her to companion Jenny. Mind, I’m not a nipfarthing, but I want value for my blunt, and not a penny do I grudge when I’ve got it, that you may depend on! I dare say you noticed the pearls my Jenny’s wearing? I bought ’em at Rundell & Bridge, and paid eighteen thousand for them without so much as a blink — though I brought them down by a couple of thousand before I said Done! of course.”
It was not difficult to persuade him to talk about his possessions. Before he declared that it was time they joined the ladies, Adam had led him on to describe the circumstances tinder which he had obtained the massive epergne on the table; what he had paid for the various pictures that adorned the walls; how he had had the dinner-service which Adam sincerely admired, straight from the Custom-house; and a great many other pieces of information of the same nature. Despising himself, Adam encouraged him to expatiate on his favourite theme. It was bad, but not so bad as to be asked whether he liked Miss Chawleigh well enough to marry her, which was the question he knew to have been hovering on Mr Chawleigh’s tongue.
When they entered the drawing-room, they found the ladies seated by the fire, Miss Chawleigh being engaged with some embroidery. Mrs Quarley-Bix at once drew Adam’s attention to this, begging him to marvel with her at the exquisite design, which dear Miss Chawleigh had herself drawn, and to declare if he had ever seen anything so beautiful.
“I am for ever saying that she puts me to the blush, with her industry, and her accomplishments. I flatter myself that I’m not an indifferent needlewoman, but her stitches are set so neatly that I am quite ashamed to let my own work be seen. Her music, too! My dear Miss Chawleigh, I hope you mean to indulge us this evening? Allow me to ring for the footman to open the instrument! You, Lord Lynton, I know will be pleased with her performance, which I venture to say, is most superior.”