Wilfrid Cumbermede

‘Oh! I don’t know. Much like other boys. I did think he was a coward at first, but he showed some pluck at last. I shouldn’t wonder if he turns out a good sort of fellow! We were in a fix!’

‘You’re a terrible madcap, Clara! If you don’t settle down as you grow, you’ll be getting yourself into worse scrapes.’

‘Not with you to look after me, papa dear,’ answered Clara, smiling. ‘It was the fun of cheating old Goody Wilson, you know!’

Her father grinned with his whole mouthful of teeth, and looked at her with amusement—almost sympathetic roguery, which she evidently appreciated, for she laughed heartily.

Meantime I was feeling very uncomfortable. Something within told me I had no right to overhear remarks about myself; and, in my slow way, I was meditating how to get out of the scrape.

‘What a nice-looking girl that is!’ said Clara, without lifting her eyes from her plate—‘I mean for a Swiss, you know. But I do like the dress. I wish you would buy me a collar and chains like those, papa.’

‘Always wanting to get something out of your old dad, Clara! Just like the rest of you, always wanting something—eh?’

‘No, papa; it’s you gentlemen always want to keep everything for yourselves. We only want you to share.’

‘Well, you shall have the collar, and I shall have the chains.—Will that do?’

‘Yes, thank you, papa,’ she returned, nodding her head. ‘Meantime, hadn’t you better give me your diamond pin? It would fasten this troublesome collar so nicely!’

‘There, child!’ he answered, proceeding to take it from his shirt. ‘Anything else?’

‘No, no, papa dear. I didn’t want it. I expected you, like everybody else, to decline carrying out your professed principles.’

‘What a nice girl she is,’ I thought, ‘after all!’

‘My love,’ said her father, ‘you will know some day that I would do more for you even than give you my pet diamond. If you are a good girl, and do as I tell you, there will be grander things than diamond pins in store for you. But you may have this if you like.’

He looked fondly at her as he spoke.

‘Oh no, papa!—not now at least. I should not know what to do with it. I should be sure to lose it.’

If my clothes had been dry, I would have slipped away, put them on, and appeared in my proper guise. As it was, I was getting more and more miserable—ashamed of revealing who I was, and ashamed of hearing what the speakers supposed I did not understand. I sat on irresolute. In a little while, however, either the wine having got into my head, or the food and warmth having restored my courage, I began to contemplate the bolder stroke of suddenly revealing myself by some unexpected remark. They went on talking about the country, and the road they had come.

‘But we have hardly seen anything worth calling a precipice,’ said Clara.

‘You’ll see hundreds of them if you look out of the window,’ said her father.

‘Oh! but I don’t mean that,’ she returned. ‘It’s nothing to look at them like that. I mean from the top of them—to look down, you know.’

‘Like from the flying buttress at Moldwarp Hall, Clara?’ I said.

The moment I began to speak, they began to stare. Clara’s hand was arrested on its way towards the bread, and her father’s wine-glass hung suspended between the table and his lips. I laughed.

‘By Jove!’ said Mr Coningham—and added nothing, for amazement, but looked uneasily at his daughter, as if asking whether they had not said something awkward about me.

‘It’s Wilfrid!’ exclaimed Clara, in the tone of one talking in her sleep. Then she laid down her knife, and laughed aloud.

‘What a guy you are!’ she exclaimed. ‘Who would have thought of finding you in a Swiss girl? Really it was too bad of you to sit there and let us go on as we did. I do believe we were talking about your precious self! At least papa was.’

Again her merry laugh rang out. She could not have taken a better way of relieving us.

‘I’m very sorry,’ I said; ‘but I felt so awkward in this costume that I couldn’t bring myself to speak before. I tried very hard.’

‘Poor boy!’ she returned, rather more mockingly than I liked, her violets swimming in the dews of laughter.

By this time Mr Coningham had apparently recovered his self-possession. I say apparently, for I doubt if he had ever lost it. He had only, I think, been running over their talk in his mind to see if he had said anything unpleasant, and now, re-assured, I think, he stretched his hand across the table.

‘At all events, Mr Cumbermede,’ he said, ‘we owe you an apology. I am sure we can’t have said anything we should mind you hearing; but—’

‘Oh!’ I interrupted, ‘you have told me nothing I did not know already, except that Mrs Wilson was a relation, of which I was quite ignorant.’

‘It is true enough, though.’

‘What relation is she, then?’

‘I think, when I gather my recollections of the matter—I think she was first cousin to your mother—perhaps it was only second cousin.’

‘Why shouldn’t she have told me so, then?’

‘She must explain that herself. I cannot account for that. It is very extraordinary.’

‘But how do you know so well about me, sir—if you don’t mind saying?’

‘Oh! I am an old friend of the family. I knew your father better than your uncle, though. Your uncle is not over-friendly, you see.’

‘I am sorry for that.’

‘No occasion at all. I suppose he doesn’t like me. I fancy, being a Methodist—’

‘My uncle is not a Methodist, I assure you. He goes to the parish church regularly.’

‘Oh! it’s all one. I only meant to say that, being a man of somewhat peculiar notions, I supposed he did not approve of my profession. Your good people are just as ready as others, however, to call in the lawyer when they fancy their rights invaded. Ha! ha! But no one has a right to complain of another because he doesn’t choose to like him. Besides, it brings grist to the mill. If everybody liked everybody, what would become of the lawsuits? And that would unsuit us—wouldn’t it, Clara?’

‘You know, papa dear, what mamma would say?’

‘But she ain’t here, you know.’

‘But I am, papa; and I don’t like to hear you talk shop,’ said Clara coaxingly.

‘Very well; we won’t then. But I was only explaining to Mr Cumbermede how I supposed it was that his uncle did not like me. There was no offence in that, I hope, Mr Cumbermede?’

‘Certainly not,’ I answered. ‘I am the only offender. But I was innocent enough as far as intention goes. I came in drenched and cold, and the good people here amused themselves dressing me like a girl. It is quite time I were getting home now. Mr Forest will be in a way about me. So will Charley Osborne.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Mr Coningham, ‘I remember hearing you were at school together somewhere in this quarter. But tell us all about it. Did you lose your way?’

I told them my story. Even Clara looked grave when I came to the incident of finding myself on the verge of the precipice.

‘Thank God, my boy!’ said Mr Coningham kindly. ‘You have had a narrow escape. I lost myself once in the Cumberland hills, and hardly got off with my life. Here it is a chance you were ever seen again, alive or dead. I wonder you’re not knocked up.’