The man held a candle in a hand that wavered and strewed tallow
broadcast; the light from this for a moment dazzled the visitors. Then
the draught of air extinguished it, and looking over the servant's
shoulder--he was short and squat--Mr. Thomasson's anxious eyes had a
glimpse of a spacious old-fashioned hall, panelled and furnished in oak,
with here a blazon, and there antlers or a stuffed head. At the farther
end of the hall a wide easy staircase rose, to branch at the first
landing into two flights, that returning formed a gallery round the
apartment.
Between the door and the foot of the staircase, in the warm
glow of an unseen fire, stood a small heavily-carved oak table, with
Jacobean legs, like stuffed trunk-hose. This was strewn with cards,
liquors, glasses, and a china punch-bowl; but especially with cards,
which lay everywhere, not only on the table, but in heaps and batches
beneath and around it, where the careless hands of the players had
flung them.
Yet, for all these cards, the players were only two. One, a man
something under forty, in a peach coat and black satin breeches, sat on
the edge of the table, his eyes on the door and his chair lying at his
feet. It was his voice that had shouted for Jarvey and that now saluted
the arrivals with a boisterous 'Two to one in guineas, it's a catchpoll!
D'ye take me, my lord?'--the while he drummed merrily with his heels on
a leg of the table. His companion, an exhausted young man, thin and
pale, remained in his chair, which he had tilted on its hinder feet; and
contented himself with staring at the doorway.
The latter was our old friend, Lord Almeric Doyley; but neither he nor
Mr. Thomasson knew one another, until the tutor had advanced some paces
into the room. Then, as the gentleman in the peach coat cried, 'Curse
me, if it isn't a parson! The bet's off! Off!' Lord Almeric dropped his
hand of cards on the table, and opening his mouth gasped in a paroxysm
of dismay.
'Oh, Lord,' he exclaimed, at last. 'Hold me, some one! If it isn't
Tommy! Oh, I say,' he continued, rising and speaking in a tone of
querulous remonstrance, 'you have not come to tell me the old man's
gone! And I'd pitted him against Bedford to live to--to--but it's like
him! It is like him, and monstrous unfeeling. I vow and protest it is!
Eh! oh, it is not that! Hal--loa!' He paused there, his astonishment greater even than that which he had
felt on recognising the tutor. His eye had lighted on Julia, whose
figure was now visible on the threshold.
His companion did not notice this. He was busy identifying the tutor.
'Gad! it is old Thomasson!' he cried, for he too had been at Pembroke.
'And a petticoat! And a petticoat!' he repeated. 'Well, I am spun!' The tutor raised his hands in astonishment. 'Lord!' he said, with a fair
show of enthusiasm, 'do I really see my old friend and pupil, Mr.
Pomeroy of Bastwick?' 'Who put the cat in your valise? When you got to London--kittens? You
do, Tommy.' 'I thought so!' Mr. Thomasson answered effusively. 'I was sure of it! I
never forget a face when my--my heart has once gone out to it! And you,
my dear, my very dear Lord Almeric, there is no danger I shall ever--' 'But, crib me, Tommy,' Lord Almeric shrieked, cutting him short without
ceremony, so great was his astonishment, 'it's the Little Masterson!' 'You old fox!' Mr. Pomeroy chimed in, shaking his finger at the tutor
with leering solemnity; he, belonging to an older generation at the
College, did not know her. Then, 'The Little Masterson, is it?' he
continued, advancing to the girl, and saluting her with mock ceremony.
'Among friends, I suppose? Well, my dear, for the future be pleased to
count me among them. Welcome to my poor house! And here's to bettering
your taste--for, fie, my love, old men are naughty. Have naught to do
with them!' And he laughed wickedly. He was a tall, heavy man, with a
hard, bullying, sneering face; a Dunborough grown older.