Can you help me? Of course I know that I have been a fool. Percival knows what he is about and plays regularly for money. When I began I didn’t think that I could lose above twenty or thirty pounds. But it got on from one thing to another, and when I woke this morning I felt I didn’t know what to do with myself. You can’t think how the luck went against me. Everybody says that they never saw such cards.
And now do tell me how I am to get out of it. Could you manage it with Mr. Moreton? Of course I will make it all right with you some day. Moreton always lets you have whatever you want. But perhaps you couldn’t do this without letting the governor know. I would rather anything than that. There is some money owing at Oxford also, which of course he must know.
I was thinking that perhaps I might get it from some of those fellows in London. There are people called Comfort and Criball, who let men have money constantly. I know two or three up at Oxford who have had it from them. Of course I couldn’t go to them as you could do, for, in spite of what the governor said to us up in London one day, there is nothing that must come to me. But you could do anything in that way, and of course I would stand to it.
I know you won’t throw me over, because you always have been such a brick. But above all things don’t tell the governor. Percival is such a nasty fellow, otherwise I shouldn’t mind it. He spoke this morning as though I was treating him badly—though the money was only lost last night; and he looked at me in a way that made me long to kick him. I told him not to flurry himself, and that he should have his money. If he speaks to me like that again I will kick him.
I will be at Matching as soon as possible, but I cannot go till this is settled. Nid—
meaning Lord Nidderdale
—is a brick.
The other was from Nidderdale, and referred to the same subject.
Dear Silverbridge,
Here has been a terrible nuisance. Last night some of the men got to playing cards, and Gerald lost a terribly large sum to Percival. I did all that I could to stop it, because I saw that Percival was going in for a big thing. I fancy that he got as much from Dolly Longstaff as he did from Gerald;—but it won’t matter much to Dolly; or if it does, nobody cares. Gerald told me he was writing to you about it, so I am not betraying him.
What is to be done? Of course Percival is behaving badly. He always does. I can’t turn him out of the house, and he seems to intend to stick to Gerald till he has got the money. He has taken a cheque from Dolly dated two months hence. I am in an awful funk for fear Gerald should pitch into him. He will, in a minute, if anything rough is said to him. I suppose the straightest thing would be to go to the Duke at once, but Gerald won’t hear of it. I hope you won’t think me wrong to tell you. If I could help him I would. You know what a bad doctor I am for that sort of complaint.
The dinner-bell had rung before Silverbridge had come to an end of thinking of this new vexation, and he had not as yet made up his mind what he had better do for his brother. There was one thing as to which he was determined—that it should not be done by him, nor, if he could prevent it, by Gerald. There should be no dealings with Comfort and Criball. The Duke had succeeded, at any rate, in filling his son’s mind with a horror of aid of that sort. Nidderdale had suggested that the “straightest” thing would be to go direct to the Duke. That no doubt would be straight—and efficacious. The Duke would not have allowed a boy of his to be a debtor to Lord Percival for a day, let the debt have been contracted how it might. But Gerald had declared against this course—and Silverbridge himself would have been most unwilling to adopt it. How could he have told that story to the Duke, while there was that other infinitely more important story of his own, which must be told at once?
In the midst of all these troubles he went down to dinner. “Lady Mabel,” said the Duke, “tells me that you two have been to see Sir Guy’s lookout.”
She was standing close to the Duke and whispered a word into his ear. “You said you would call me Mabel.”
“Yes, sir,” said Silverbridge, “and I have made up my mind that Sir Guy never stayed there very long in winter. It was awfully cold.”
“I had furs on,” said Mabel. “What a lovely spot it is, even in this weather.” Then dinner was announced. She had not been cold. She could still feel the tingling heat of her blood as she had implored him to love her.
Silverbridge felt that he must write to his brother by
