"Lived abroad a great deal, I believe." Sir Peter was anxious to throw a
vaguely charitable light on his neighbor's escapades.
"Got into some scrape about a woman, I fancy. Anyhow he left a pile of
debts behind him, and the old man ruined himself paying them."
Bristling with curiosity, Sir Peter endeavored to look detached. But at
this point Mr. Vance, remembering, perhaps, that Mr. Nevill Tyson was a
great man in his customer's county, and chilled a little by Sir Peter's
manner, checked the flow of his reminiscences. "He was a wild young
scamp--another two inches round the waist, sir--but I daresay he's
settled down steady enough by this time."
"No doubt he has," said Sir Peter, a little loftily. He was disgusted
with Vance.
But though Vance's conduct was disgusting, after all he had told him what
he was dying to know. The antecedents of old Tyson of Thorneytoft had
been wrapped in a dull mystery which nobody had ever taken the trouble to
penetrate. He had been in business--that much was known; and as he was
highly respectable, it was concluded that his business had been highly
respectable too. And then he had retired for ten years before he came to
Thorneytoft. Those ten years might be considered a season of purification
before entering on his solemn career as a country gentleman. Old Tyson
had cut himself adrift from his own origins. And as the years went on he
wrapped himself closer in his impenetrable garment of respectability; he
was only Mr. Tyson, the gentle cultivator of orchids, until, gradually
receding from view, he became a presence, a myth, a name. But when the
amazing Mr. Nevill Tyson dashed into his uncle's place, he drew all eyes
on him by the very unexpectedness of his advent. And now it seemed that
Tyson, the cosmopolitan adventurer, the magnificent social bandit who
trampled, so to speak, on the orchids of respectability, and rode
rough-shod over the sleek traditions of Thorneytoft, was after all
nothing better than a little City tailor's son.
Of course it didn't matter in the very least. A man's a man for all that;
but when the man, in his brilliant oratorical way, has intimated that you
don't ride straight, and that you funk your fences, you may be forgiven
if you smile a sly private smile at his expense.
And Sir Peter did more than smile, he laughed.
"So that was the goose that laid the golden eggs?" (Ha, ha! Sir Peter had
made a joke.) He went home merrily at the end of the week in his new clothes with his
new idea; and as he sat in the train he kept turning that little bit of
gossip over and over, and tasting it. It lasted him all the way from St.
Pancras to Drayton Parva. Sir Peter did not greatly care for women's
gossip; but he liked his own. And really the provocation had been
intense. It was tit for tat, quid pro quo, what was sauce for the
goose--the goose again! Ha! ha! ha! It was a good thing for Sir Peter
that Vance had given him another two inches round the waist.