Mountjoy began to be interested. "How do you know," he asked, "that Lord Harry and the doctor have quarrelled?"
Without the slightest appearance of embarrassment, Fanny Mere informed him that she had listened at the door, while her master and his friend were talking of their secrets. She had also taken an opportunity of looking through the keyhole. "I suppose, sir," said this curious woman, still speaking quite respectfully, "you have never tried that way yourself?"
"Certainly not!"
"Wouldn't you do it to serve my mistress?"
"No."
"And yet, you're fond of her! You are a merciful one—the only merciful one, so far as I know—among men. Perhaps, if you were frightened about her, you might be more ready with your help. I wonder whether I can frighten you? Will you let me try?"
The woman's faithful attachment to Iris pleaded for her with Hugh. "Try, if you like," he said kindly.
Speaking as seriously as ever, Fanny proceeded to describe her experience at the keyhole. What she had seen was not worth relating. What she had heard proved to be more important.
The talk between my lord and the doctor had been about raising money. They had different notions of how to do that. My lord's plan was to borrow what was wanted, on his life-insurance. The doctor told him he couldn't do that, till his insurance had been going on for three or four years at least. "I have something better and bolder to propose," says Mr. Vimpany. It must have been also something wicked—for he whispered it in the master's ear. My lord didn't take to it kindly. "How do you think I could face my wife," he says, "if she discovered me?" The doctor says: "Don't be afraid of your wife; Lady Harry will get used to many things which she little thought of before she married you." Says my lord to that: "I have done my best, Vimpany, to improve my wife's opinion of you. If you say much more, I shall come round to her way of thinking. Drop it!"—"All right," says the doctor, "I'll drop it now, and wait to pick it up again till you come to your last bank note." There the talk ended for that day—-and Fanny would be glad to know what Mr. Mountjoy thought of it.
"I think you have done me a service," Hugh replied.
"Tell me how, sir."
"I can only tell you this, Fanny. You have shown me how to relieve your mistress of the doctor."
For the first time, the maid's impenetrable composure completely failed her. The smouldering fire in Fanny Mere flamed up. She impulsively kissed Mountjoy's hand. The moment her lips touched it she shrank back: the natural pallor of her face became whiter than ever. Startled by the sudden change, Hugh asked if she was ill.
She shook her head.
"It isn't that. Yours is the first man's hand I have kissed, since—" She checked herself. "I beg you won't ask me about it. I only meant to thank you, sir; I do thank you with all my heart—I mustn't stay here any longer."
As she spoke the sound of a key was heard, opening the lock of the cottage-door. Lord Harry had returned.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE CONQUEST OF MR. VIMPANY
THE Irish lord came in—with his medical friend sulkily in attendance on him. He looked at Fanny, and asked where her mistress was.
"My lady is in her room, sir."
Hearing this, he turned sharply to Mountjoy. On the point of speaking, he seemed to think better of it, and went to his wife's room. The maid followed. "Get rid of him now," she whispered to Hugh, glancing at the doctor. Mr. Vimpany was in no very approachable humour—standing at the window, with his hands in his empty pockets, gloomily looking out. But Hugh was not disposed to neglect the opportunity; he ventured to say: "You don't seem to be in such good spirits as usual."
The doctor gruffly expressed his opinion that Mr. Mountjoy would not be particularly cheerful, in his place. My lord had taken him to the office, on the distinct understanding that he was to earn a little pocket-money by becoming one of the contributors to the newspaper. And how had it ended? The editor had declared that his list of writers was full, and begged leave to suggest that Mr. Vimpany should wait for the next vacancy. A most impertinent proposal! Had Lord Harry—a proprietor, remember—exerted his authority? Not he! His lordship had dropped the doctor "like a hot potato," and had meanly submitted to his own servant. What did Mr. Mountjoy think of such conduct as that?
Hugh answered the question, with his own end in view. Paving the way for Mr. Vimpany's departure from the cottage at Passy, he made a polite offer of his services.
"Can't I help you out of your difficulty?" he said.
"You!" cried the doctor. "Have you forgotten how you received me, sir, when I asked for a loan at your hotel in London?"
Hugh admitted that he might have spoken hastily. "You took me by surprise," he said, "and (perhaps I was mistaken, on my side) I thought you were, to say the least of it, not particularly civil. You did certainly use threatening language when you left me. No man likes to be treated in that way."
Mr. Vimpany's big bold eyes stared at Mountjoy in a state of bewilderment. "Are you trying to make a fool of me?" he asked.
"I am incapable, Mr. Vimpany, of an act of rudeness towards anybody."
"If you come to that," the doctor stoutly declared, "I am incapable too. It's plain to me that we have been misunderstanding each other. Wait a bit; I want to go back for a moment to that threatening language which you complained of just now. I was sorry for what I had said as soon as your door was shut on me. On my way downstairs I did think of turning back and making a friendly apology before I gave you up. Suppose I had done that?" Mr. Vimpany asked, wondering internally whether Mountjoy was foolish enough to believe him.
Hugh advanced a little nearer to the design that he had in view.
"You might have found me more kindly disposed towards you," he said, "than you had anticipated."
This encouraging reply cost him an effort. He had stooped to the unworthy practice of perverting what he had said and done on a former occasion, to serve a present interest. Remind himself as he might of the end which, in the interests of Iris, did really appear to justify the means, he still sank to a place in his own estimation which he was honestly ashamed to occupy.
Under other circumstances his hesitation, slight as it was, might have excited suspicion. As things were, Mr. Vimpany could only discover golden possibilities that dazzled his eyes. "I wonder whether you're in the humour," he said, "to be kindly disposed towards me now?"
It was needless to be careful of the feelings of such man as this. "Suppose you had the money you want in your pocket," Hugh suggested, "what would you do with it?"
"Go back to London, to be sure, and publish the first number of that work of mine I told you of."
"And leave your friend, Lord Harry?"
"What good is my friend to me? He's nearly as poor as I am—he sent for me to advise him—I put him up to a way of filling both our pockets, and he wouldn't hear of it. What sort of a friend do you call that?"
Pay him and get rid of him. There was the course of proceeding suggested by the private counsellor in Mountjoy's bosom.
"Have you got the publisher's estimate of expenses?" he asked.
The doctor instantly produced the document.
To a rich man the sum required was, after all, trifling enough. Mountjoy sat down at the writing-table. As he took up a pen, Mr. Vimpany's protuberant eyes looked as if they would fly out of his head.
"If I lend you the money—" Hugh began.
"Yes? Yes?" cried the doctor.
"I do so on condition that nobody is to know of the loan but ourselves."
"Oh, sir, on my sacred word of honour—" An order on Mountjoy's bankers in Paris for the necessary amount, with something added for travelling expenses, checked Mr. Vimpany in full career of protestation. He tried to begin again: "My friend! my benefactor—"