“I think I shall go down. It’s never any use trying to hunt here after the middle of March.”
“You’re rather short of foxes, are you not?” said the rector, making an attempt to join the conversation.
“Upon my word I don’t know anything about it,” said Sir Hugh.
“There are foxes at Clavering,” said Archie, recommencing his duty. “The hounds will be here on Saturday, and I’ll bet three to one I find a fox before twelve o’clock, or, say, half-past twelve—that is, if they’ll draw punctually and let me do as I like with the pack. I’ll bet a guinea we find, and a guinea we run, and a guinea we kill; that is, you know, if they’ll really look for a fox.”
The rector had been willing to fall into a little hunting talk for the sake of society, but he was not prepared to go the length that Archie proposed to take him, and therefore the subject dropped.
“At any rate I shan’t stay here after tomorrow,” said Sir Hugh, still addressing himself to his brother. “Pass the wine, will you, Harry; that is, if your father is drinking any.”
“No more wine for me,” said the rector, almost angrily.
“Liberty Hall,” said Sir Hugh; “everybody does as they like about that. I mean to have another bottle of claret. Archie, ring the bell, will you?” Captain Clavering, though he was further from the bell than his elder brother, got up and did as he was bid. The claret came, and was drunk almost in silence. The rector, though he had a high opinion of the cellar of the great house, would take none of the new bottle, because he was angry. Harry filled his glass, and attempted to say something. Sir Hugh answered him by a monosyllable, and Archie offered to bet him two to one that he was wrong.
“I’ll go into the drawing-room,” said the rector, getting up.
“All right,” said Sir Hugh; “you’ll find coffee there, I daresay. Has your father given up wine?” he asked, as soon as the door was closed.
“Not that I know of,” said Harry.
“He used to take as good a whack as any man I know. The bishop hasn’t put his embargo on that as well as the hunting, I hope?” To this Harry made no answer.
“He’s in the blues, I think,” said Archie. “Is there anything the matter with him, Harry?”
“Nothing as far as I know.”
“If I were left at Clavering all the year, with nothing to do, as he is, I think I should drink a good deal of wine,” said Sir Hugh. “I don’t know what it is—something in the air, I suppose—but everybody always seems to me to be dreadfully dull here. You ain’t taking any wine either. Don’t stop here out of ceremony, you know, if you want to go after Miss Burton.” Harry took him at his word, and went after Miss Burton, leaving the brothers together over their claret.
The two brothers remained drinking their wine, but they drank it in an uncomfortable fashion, not saying much to each other for the first ten minutes after the other Claverings were gone. Archie was in some degree afraid of his brother, and never offered to make any bets with him. Hugh had once put a stop to this altogether. “Archie,” he had said, “pray understand that there is no money to be made out of me, at any rate not by you. If you lost money to me, you wouldn’t think it necessary to pay; and I certainly shall lose none to you.” The habit of proposing to bet had become with Archie so much a matter of course, that he did not generally intend any real speculation by his offers; but with his brother he had dropped even the habit. And he seldom began any conversation with Hugh unless he had some point to gain—an advance of money to ask, or some favour to beg in the way of shooting, or the loan of a horse. On such occasions he would commence the negotiation with his usual diplomacy, not knowing any other mode of expressing his wishes; but he was aware that his brother would always detect his manoeuvres, and expose them before he had got through his first preface; and, therefore, as I have said, he was afraid of Hugh.
“I don’t know what’s come to my uncle of late,” said Hugh, after a while. “I think I shall have to drop them at the rectory altogether.”
“He never had much to say for himself.”
“But he has a mode of expressing himself without speaking, which I do not choose to put up with at my table. The fact is they are going to the mischief at the rectory. His eldest girl has just married a curate.”
“Fielding has got a living.”
“It’s something very small then, and I suppose Fanny will marry that prig they have here. My uncle himself never does any of his own work, and now Harry is going to make a fool of himself. I used to think he would fall on his legs.”
“He is a clever fellow.”
“Then why is he such a fool as to marry such a girl as this, without money, good looks, or breeding? It’s well for you he is such a fool, or else you wouldn’t have a chance.”
“I don’t see that at all,” said Archie.
“Julia always had a sneaking fondness for Harry, and if he had waited would have taken him now. She was very near making a fool of herself with him once, before Lord Ongar turned up.”
To this Archie said nothing, but he changed colour, and it may almost be said of him that he blushed. Why he was affected in so singular a manner by his brother’s words will be best explained by a statement of what took place in the back drawing-room a little later in the evening.
When Harry reached the drawing-room he went up to Lady Clavering, but she
