Lord Nidderdale was greatly disgusted with his own part of the performance when he left the House of Commons, and was, we may say, disgusted with his own position generally, when he considered all its circumstances. That had been at the commencement of the evening, and Melmotte had not then been tipsy; but he had behaved with unsurpassable arrogance and vulgarity, and had made the young lord drink the cup of his own disgrace to the very dregs. Everybody now knew it as a positive fact that the charges made against the man were to become matter of investigation before the chief magistrate for the City, everybody knew that he had committed forgery upon forgery, everybody knew that he could not pay for the property which he had pretended to buy, and that actually he was a ruined man; — and yet he had seized Nidderdale by the hand, and called the young lord ‘his dear boy’ before the whole House.
And then he had made himself conspicuous as this man’s advocate. If he had not himself spoken openly of his coming marriage with the girl, he had allowed other men to speak to him about it. He had quarrelled with one man for saying that Melmotte was a rogue, and had confidentially told his most intimate friends that in spite of a little vulgarity of manner, Melmotte at bottom was a very good fellow. How was he now to back out of his intimacy with the Melmottes generally? He was engaged to marry the girl, and there was nothing of which he could accuse her. He acknowledged to himself that she deserved well at his hands. Though at this moment he hated the father most bitterly, as those odious words, and the tone in which they had been pronounced, rang in his ears, nevertheless he had some kindly feeling for the girl. Of course he could not marry her now. That was manifestly out of the question. She herself, as well as all others, had known that she was to be married for her money, and now that bubble had been burst. But he felt that he owed it to her, as to a comrade who had on the whole been loyal to him, to have some personal explanation with herself. He arranged in his own mind the sort of speech that he would make to her. ‘Of course you know it can’t be. It was all arranged because you were to have a lot of money, and now it turns out that you haven’t got any. And I haven’t got any, and we should have nothing to live upon. It’s out of the question. But, upon my word, I’m very sorry, for I like you very much, and I really think we should have got on uncommon well together.’ That was the kind of speech that he suggested to himself, but he did not know how to find for himself the opportunity of making it. He thought that he must put it all into a letter. But then that would be tantamount to a written confession that he had made her an offer of marriage, and he feared that Melmotte — or Madame Melmotte on his behalf, if the great man himself were absent, in prison — might make an ungenerous use of such an admission.
Between seven and eight he went into the Beargarden, and there he saw Dolly Longestaffe and others. Everybody was talking about Melmotte, the prevailing belief being that he was at this moment in custody. Dolly was full of his own griefs; but consoled amidst them by a sense of his own importance. ‘I wonder whether it’s true,’ he was saying to Lord Grasslough. ‘He has an appointment to meet me and my governor at twelve o’clock to-morrow, and to pay us what he owes us. He swore yesterday that he would have the money to-morrow. But he can’t keep his appointment, you know, if he’s in prison.’
‘You won’t see the money, Dolly, you may swear to that,’ said Grasslough.
‘I don’t suppose I shall. By George, what an ass my governor has been. He had no more right than you have to give up the property. Here’s Nidderdale. He could tell us where he is; but I’m afraid to speak to him since he cut up so rough the other night.’
In a moment the conversation was stopped; but when Lord Grasslough asked Nidderdale in a whisper whether he knew anything about Melmotte, the latter answered out loud, ‘Yes I left him in the House half an hour ago.’
‘People are saying that he has been arrested.’
‘I heard that also; but he certainly had not been arrested when I left the House.’ Then he went up and put his hand on Dolly Longestaffe’s shoulder, and spoke to him. ‘I suppose you were about right the other night and I was about wrong; but you could understand what it was that I meant. I’m afraid this is a bad look out for both of us.’
‘Yes; — I understand. It’s deuced bad for me,’ said Dolly. ‘I think you’re very well out of it. But I’m glad there’s not to be a quarrel. Suppose we have a rubber of whist.’
Later on in the night news was brought to the club that Melmotte had tried to make a speech in the House, that he had been very drunk, and that he had tumbled over, upsetting Beauchamp Beauclerk in his fall. ‘By George, I should like to have seen that!’ said Dolly.
‘I am very glad I was not there,’ said Nidderdale. It was three o’clock before they left the card table, at which time Melmotte was lying dead upon the floor in Mr Longestaffe’s house.
On the following morning, at ten o’clock, Lord Nidderdale sat at breakfast with his father in the old lord’s house in Berkeley Square. From thence the house which Melmotte had hired was not above a few hundred yards distant. At this time the young lord was living with his father, and the two had now met by appointment in order that something might be settled between them as to the proposed marriage. The Marquis was not a very pleasant companion when the affairs in which he was interested did not go exactly as he would have them. He could be very cross and say most disagreeable words — so that the ladies of the family, and others connected with him, for the most part, found it impossible to live with him. But his eldest son had endured him; — partly perhaps because, being the eldest, he had been treated with a nearer approach to courtesy, but chiefly by means of his own extreme good humour. What did a few hard words matter? If his father was ungracious to him, of course he knew what all that meant. As long as his father would make fair allowance for his own peccadilloes — he also would make allowances for his father’s roughness. All this was based on his grand theory of live and let live. He expected his father to be a little cross on this occasion, and he acknowledged to himself that there was cause for it.
He was a little late himself, and he found his father already buttering his toast. ‘I don’t believe you’d get out of bed a moment sooner than you liked if you could save the whole property by it.’
‘You show me how I can make a guinea by it, sir, and see if I don’t earn the money.’ Then he sat down and poured himself out a cup of tea, and looked at the kidneys and looked at the fish.
‘I suppose you were drinking last night,’ said the old lord.
‘Not particular.’ The old man turned round and gnashed his teeth at him. ‘The fact is, sir, I don’t drink. Everybody knows that.’
‘I know when you’re in the country you can’t live without champagne. Well; — what have you got to say about all this?’
‘What have you got to say?’
‘You’ve made a pretty kettle of fish of it.’
‘I’ve been guided by you in everything. Come, now; you ought to own that. I suppose the whole thing is over?’
‘I don’t see why it should be over. I’m told she has got her own money.’ Then Nidderdale described to his father Melmotte’s behaviour in the House on the preceding evening. &lsq............