Mr Facey Romford's Hounds (66 page)

But Facey, as the reader has seen, was a man of energy and determination. He was yet young, vigorous, and ungrizzled—not at all trammelled with nice feelings or delicacy—and having got in the bulk of his season's subscription for the hounds, he sold the balance to our friend Ten-and-a-half-per-Cent. for fifteen shillings in the pound, and without indulging in any further blandishment about founding the hospital for decayed sportsmen, pocketed the money, and got his hounds and horses away a few hours before poor Lord Lovetin's bailiff threatened to seize for the quarter's rent. Indeed, his Lordship had his misgivings almost as soon as he let his place, particularly with regard to not restricting Mr Romford from the use of the cut pile carpet that Mrs Emmerson and he differed about.

“Fox-hunters,” his Lordship said, “might scrape their feet and wipe the thick of the mud off their boots at the door, but there was a deal that stuck to the upper parts of the legs that he knew dropped off here and there as it liked at its leisure.” All this would tread into the carpet and furniture generally, and he questioned that Mrs Mustard would look very deep for hidden dirt.

Nor were his anxieties diminished by the non-receipt of the quarter's rent when due for Beldon Hall, which, having been let by himself, he expected the pleasure of manipulating without the mulcting process as it passed through Mr Lonnergan's hands. Indeed he had promised himself the pleasure of buying a new black Lyons silk waistcoat with the percentage so saved, an article of raiment that he was greatly in want of. In fact, he had marked two or three down in the Palais Royal that he thought he could compass; but then, like a prudent viscount, he did not like spending the money before he got it. Now he wished he might not be thrown naked and houseless on the world when he had long been looking forward to comparative ease and comfort in his old age.

But his anxieties were not thoroughly aroused until meeting little Jack Lounger in the Rue de la Paix, reading a letter from England, with an account of the splendours of the Beldon Hall ball, which not being insured, it instantly occurred to his Lordship that Romford would infallibly be burning the place down. “Burn it down to a certainty!” exclaimed he, thinking he saw it all in a blaze, the flames bursting out simultaneously from every window, just at they did at Camden House—“Burn it down to a certainty! Statuary, marble, Sèvres china, clocks, cabinets, Apollo, Daphne, and all. That sort of work wouldn't do; he would be reduced to beggary in no time. Great as would be the expense, and ill as he could afford it, he really thought he must go over to England and see how matters stood.” He mistrusted Lonnergan, who he thought would be sure to side with the tenant. And accordingly, after due consideration, his Lordship went with a return-ticket, available for one month, by rail to Boulogne, and then by one of the General Steam Navigation Company's ships to London Bridge Wharf, thence on by rail again to Firfield Station, altogether to the damage of two pound five. Serious work for the silk waistcoat!

It was evening when his Lordship arrived, and Independent Jimmy was at the back of the station, as usual, catching the passengers as they came out, just as a butcher catches sheep coming out of a fold.

“Noo then! where are ye for?” demanded Jimmy getting hold of his Lordship.

“Beldon Hall,” replied the viscount.

“Then
get in!”
exclaimed Jimmy, jerking his capped head towards the open omnibus door. “Noo then! where are ye for?” inquired he of another. And so he went on till the stream of humanity ceased to flow.

He then climbed up on to his box and cut off: shortly after which the process of setting down, “Noo then, this is so-and-so, get oot!” commenced. “Noo then, this be Beldon!—get oot!” at length said he to his Lordship. And his Lordship got out accordingly, slipping his bag into the lodge to be sent for as he passed. He then slipped up to the house by the back way.

Being a lord, and feeling the advantage thereof; moreover remembering Frank Romford's peaceable demeanour at school, and recollecting also that he himself was on a visit of inspection; his Lordship thought he had better assume a little more intimacy than really existed, and affect to come upon his tenant in the way of a friendly, agreeable surprise. So, without ringing, he opened the door and let himself into the house. The spacious hall was dark and gloomy—not even a solitary tallow candle illuminating its monotony; but if a man can find his way anywhere without a light, it is in his own house; and feeling rather comforted than otherwise at the absence of an illumination, his Lordship passed through the echoing hall, and entered the vestibule beyond. Here a light under the bottom of a door indicated residence; and after a momentary pause, he gave a gentle tap.

“Come in!”
roared Romford, thinking it was the strong, persevering man who cleaned horses.
“Come in!”
repeated he still louder, the first summons not being obeyed.

His Lordship then did as desired, and disclosed a
tableau
of considerable strength and variety. Before a bright, partly coal and partly wood, fire, on a small round table of the finest buhl and red tortoiseshell, stood Facey's old friend the ginbottle, flanked with a half-emptied tumbler and a well-stocked bag of tobacco; our Master was stretched at full length on a richly carved and gilt sofa, covered in old Gobelin tapestry, the elbows and back in green Genoa velvet, smoking his pipe at his ease. On the left of the table, shaded from the fire by a clothes-horse containing sundry articles of male attire, sat Mrs Somerville, in a reclining chair covered with rich purple and amber satin damask, darning a pair of Mr Romford's old stockings. Having a good front view, each started with astonishment at the sight of the other.

However much boys may change as they grow up into men, there will generally be some distinguishing feature by which they can be recognised; but under no possible process could the little dark-beady black-eyed Romford of his Lordship's early days have grown up into the great shaggy Herculean monster that now arose from his lair before him.

His Lordship started, for he thought to give his old schoolfellow an agreeable surprise; and Romford started, for he was not accustomed to intruders, and didn't want to be troubled. They then stood staring at one another like Spanish pointers, each wondering who the other was.

Lord Lovetin at length broke silence. “Beg pardon,” said he, “but I thought it was Mr Romford.”

“Romford it is,” said Facey, yawning, and stretching out his great arms as if to show the intruder what he had to contend with. (He half thought it was somebody come after old Fog's £50.)

“But not the Romford I was at school with,” observed his Lordship, eyeing him intently.

“Don't know who you are, to begin with,” replied Facey; “but moy name's Romford,” observed he;
“that oi'll swear to.”

“I'm Lord Lovetin,” replied his Lordship, mildly.

If his Lordship had put a pistol to our Master's head he could not have given him a greater shock; and forthwith all his acts of omission and commission rushed to his mind with terrible velocity: the trifle of rent, the conversion of the coach-horses, the spurious sister, the turbot-on-its-tail seal.

We need not follow our friends through the
dénouement
that ensued on the discovery by his Lordship of the mistake he had made in jumping to the conclusion that there was only one Mr Romford in the world, nor relate how Mr Facey Romford not only insisted upon sitting rent free during the time he had been at Beldon Hall, but also upon receiving a handsome bonus for going out, which his Lordship, albeit almost heartbroken at the sacrifice, thought it better to do than submit to any further devastation and deterioration of property. Oh, what a shock it was to him! Knocked ten years out of his life, he said. The more his Lordship saw, the less he liked what had been going on.

The place was indeed in shocking confusion: everything converted into what it was not intended for. Betsy's old brass-eyed Balmorals stuffed into the richly-carved Indian cabinet; a pound of sugar and a nip of tea placed under the shade of the figured and flowered Dresden timepiece, now left without any protection; a statuary marble figure of Psyche crowned with Facey's ten-penny wide-awake; and Mrs Somerville's dirty goloshes tucked under the arm of a companion figure of Cupid. A mojolica cup, with crest and coronet, was filled with shot; and in a Sèvres tray, with turquoise-and-gold border, reposed a battered old powder-flask.

And here let us say that we take shame unto ourselves for not as yet having introduced the noble viscount personally to the reader. Take then a short but faithful sketch, executed in the field in the detective style. Say five-and-forty years of age, five feet ten inches high, sallow complexion, long visage, dark hair, thin on the top [like the passionate gentleman's in “Punch”], dark hazel eyes, arched eyebrows, narrow feet and a very narrow mind, short whiskers and long spiral moustache, stoutish build with a military air; dressed in a complete “Ditto” suit of brown, with a French wallet slung over his shoulder, and a peaky French travelling-cap held in his hand; added to this, a peculiarity when speaking of shrugging up his shoulders continually.

The news soon spread that his Lordship had cast-up—dropped in “quite promiscuous,” as the saying is, and was very ill-pleased with all he had found.

The Dirties had come in for their share of the censure, and promulgated what passed pretty freely. And when a story once gets admission into a house, it soon finds its way into the drawing-room.

Still Facey had his friends in the hunting-field, men who said he was the right Romford—the right man in the right place, as far as they were concerned. He could kill a fox with any one, and had as good a pack of hounds as ever came into a country. If he wasn't a man of much blandishment, as Independent Jimmy said, still he could go across country like a comet; and nothing pleases people so much as a dashing, fearless rider.

Facey, moreover, who, as our readers will perhaps have seen, had assurance enough for anything, went on in his usual routine way, hunting his country with great fairness and impartiality, contending—with some degree of plausibility—that nobody had anything to do with anything but his hounds. They might hunt with him or not, just as they liked, he said; but he would be master of his own house (as he continued to call Beldon Hall), so he just advertised his meets as before.

And indeed, but for a certain interesting circumstance, we don't know but he would have continued to hunt the country up to the present time, and that circumstance we shall now proceed to relate. Amid all the snubbing and cold-shouldering that ensued, one house remained firm and faithful to our Facey, and that was the house of our distinguished friend Willy Watkins. Nobody there would hear anything against Mr Romford. They didn't “want to hear anything against Mr Romford.” “They wouldn't hear anything against Mr Romford. They begged that nobody would trouble themselves to tell them anything against Mr Romford. The world was made up of spite and ill-nature, and people generally spoke from an interested motive.” [This latter observation was levelled at Mrs Hazey.] “Lord Lovetin was a notorious screw, and doubtless wanted to cheat Mr Romford. Mr Romford was quite right in resisting him.” And poor Willy was sent out hunting twice a week, in order to keep up appearances; this, too, when the now diminished fields made the risk extra hazardous in the way of fencing, few caring to break them for him.

And considering how the men were divided in opinion as to whether Mr Facey was the right Romford or not, there is nothing extraordinary in a lady who knew so little about hunting as to suppose that a bag-fox, or a day with Mr Stotfold's stag-hounds, would be acceptable to our Master, mistaking the controversy about the keenness for the real question as to the ownership of Abbeyfield Park, and as there was a doubt about the matter, giving the benefit of the doubt to the party she was interested in, viz., to our Mr Romford. As the men couldn't marry Mr Facey, they didn't care whether he was the owner of Abbeyfield Park or not; but it made all the difference to Mrs Watkins. There was, when she made her mistake, a very natural one. He was the right Romford to the gentlemen, but not the ladies.

So Facey continued to visit at Dalberry Lees with his flute, taking an occasional spin for a perch in the Trent as he passed; and nothing could be more cordial or encouraging than the family.

The reader will be surprised at the promotion of the match under such circumstances, but the cause is easily explained. The fact was, that the accounts from Australia had latterly been very discouraging. The worthy papa had been much outwitted of late, and had made some very improvident speculations, as well with Willy's money as his own.

Nor were the Honourable, and the lady
who was very nearly an honourable,
the only ones who sought the secret services of the Church at this memorable epoch. Strange as it may seem, our most sagacious friend Facey led to the hymeneal altar our lofty-minded friend Cassandra Cleopatra, with the full consent of her august parents. Nay, it was difficult to say whether the Watkinses or Facey were most anxious to hurry on the match, the Watkinses considering that Cassandra would be perfectly safe with her ample dower out of Abbeyfield Park, while friend Facey thought it would be a very good thing to have Dalberry Lees to fall back upon when matters should burst up at Beldon Hall.

Our fair readers will perhaps think that there is not sufficient inducement here shown for our lisping friend foregoing that greatest triumph of female life, the excitement and preparation of a grand wedding. Men always wish them over as quietly as possible: ladies can never make fuss and display enough. Well, but there was a reason for it, notwithstanding, as we have before intimated. The fact was, that the worthy old convict whom we left in the colony to manage his own and his son-in-law's affairs, while the latter and his wife, or lady, as her husband called her, came over to England to see if there was anybody good enough for the daughter, had had the misfortune to make some very bad speculations, and had lost the greater part of that wealth which Willy had lost the greater part of his hair in obtaining.