The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

Alfred’s? And if there was so much cause to fear Lord Alfred that it was necessary to throw him a bone, why should not they also make themselves feared? Lord Alfred passed all his time with Melmotte⁠—had, as these young men said, become Melmotte’s head valet⁠—and therefore had to be paid. But that reason did not satisfy the young men.

“You haven’t sold any shares;⁠—have you?” This question Sir Felix asked Lord Nidderdale at the club. Nidderdale was constant in his attendance at the Board, and Felix was not a little afraid that he might be jockied also by him.

“Not a share.”

“Nor got any profits?”

“Not a shilling of any kind. As far as money is concerned my only transaction has been my part of the expense of Fisker’s dinner.”

“What do you get then, by going into the city?” asked Sir Felix.

“I’m blessed if I know what I get. I suppose something will turn up some day.”

“In the meantime, you know, there are our names. And Grendall is making a fortune out of it.”

“Poor old duffer,” said his lordship. “If he’s doing so well, I think Miles ought to be made to pay up something of what he owes. I think we ought to tell him that we shall expect him to have the money ready when that bill of Vossner’s comes round.”

“Yes, by George; let’s tell him that. Will you do it?”

“Not that it will be the least good. It would be quite unnatural to him to pay anything.”

“Fellows used to pay their gambling debts,” said Sir Felix, who was still in funds, and who still held a considerable assortment of I.O.U.s.

“They don’t now⁠—unless they like it. How did a fellow manage before, if he hadn’t got it?”

“He went smash,” said Sir Felix, “and disappeared and was never heard of any more. It was just the same as if he’d been found cheating. I believe a fellow might cheat now and nobody’d say anything!”

“I shouldn’t,” said Lord Nidderdale. “What’s the use of being beastly ill-natured? I’m not very good at saying my prayers, but I do think there’s something in that bit about forgiving people. Of course cheating isn’t very nice: and it isn’t very nice for a fellow to play when he knows he can’t pay; but I don’t know that it’s worse than getting drunk like Dolly Longestaffe, or quarrelling with everybody as Grasslough does⁠—or trying to marry some poor devil of a girl merely because she’s got money. I believe in living in glass houses, but I don’t believe in throwing stones. Do you ever read the Bible, Carbury?”

“Read the Bible! Well;⁠—yes;⁠—no;⁠—that is, I suppose, I used to do.”

“I often think I shouldn’t have been the first to pick up a stone and pitch it at that woman. Live and let live;⁠—that’s my motto.”

“But you agree that we ought to do something about these shares?” said Sir Felix, thinking that this doctrine of forgiveness might be carried too far.

“Oh, certainly. I’ll let old Grendall live with all my heart; but then he ought to let me live too. Only, who’s to bell the cat?”

“What cat?”

“It’s no good our going to old Grendall,” said Lord Nidderdale, who had some understanding in the matter, “nor yet to young Grendall. The one would only grunt and say nothing, and the other would tell every lie that came into his head. The cat in this matter I take to be our great master, Augustus Melmotte.”

This little meeting occurred on the day after Felix Carbury’s return from Suffolk, and at a time at which, as we know, it was the great duty of his life to get the consent of old Melmotte to his marriage with Marie Melmotte. In doing that he would have to put one bell on the cat, and he thought that for the present that was sufficient. In his heart of hearts he was afraid of Melmotte. But then, as he knew very well, Nidderdale was intent on the same object. Nidderdale, he thought, was a very queer fellow. That talking about the Bible, and the forgiving of trespasses, was very queer; and that allusion to the marrying of heiresses very queer indeed. He knew that Nidderdale wanted to marry the heiress, and Nidderdale must also know that he wanted to marry her. And yet Nidderdale was indelicate enough to talk about it! And now the man asked who should bell the cat! “You go there oftener than I do, and perhaps you could do it best,” said Sir Felix.

“Go where?”

“To the Board.”

“But you’re always at his house. He’d be civil to me, perhaps, because I’m a lord: but then, for the same reason, he’d think I was the bigger fool of the two.”

“I don’t see that at all,” said Sir Felix.

“I ain’t afraid of him, if you mean that,” continued Lord Nidderdale. “He’s a wretched old reprobate, and I don’t doubt but he’d skin you and me if he could make money off our carcasses. But as he can’t skin me, I’ll have a shy at him. On the whole I think he rather likes me, because I’ve always been on the square with him. If it depended on him, you know, I should have the girl tomorrow.”

“Would you?” Sir Felix did not at all mean to doubt his friend’s assertion, but felt it hard to answer so very strange a statement.

“But then she don’t want me, and I ain’t quite sure that I want her. Where the devil would a fellow find himself if the money wasn’t all there?” Lord Nidderdale then sauntered away, leaving the baronet in a deep study of thought as to such a condition of things as that which his lordship had suggested. Where the⁠—mischief would he, Sir Felix Carbury, be, if he were to marry the girl, and then to find that the money was not all there?

On the following Friday, which was the Board day, Nidderdale went to the great man’s offices in Abchurch Lane, and so contrived that he