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Maryon’s strange conduct, that this Bludyer had some power over him which might be exercised to the detriment of the Maryon family, and I was convinced there was some mystery it was my business to penetrate. The following day I went up to The Mere to see if Miss Maryon was desirous of renewing her skating lesson. I found the party in the billiard-room, Agnes marking for her father and the Colonel.
I made such toilet as I could in a most unattainable chamber that was allotted to me, and hurried back to the drawing-room in the hope that I might get a few private words with Agnes. I was not disappointed. She, too, had hurried down, and in a few words I learned that this abominable Bludyer was paying her his coarse attentions, and with, apparently, the full consent of Mr. Maryon.
Colonel Bludyer rose from his chair, placed his cocked hat on his head, and turned the buckle of his sword-belt in front. "The King!" he shouted, raising his hat with one hand and filling a bumper with the other. "The King!" he repeated, scowling fiercely at his two neighbours.
At his present mature age all these pleasures are over: and the times have passed away too. It is but a very very few years since but the time is gone, and most of the men. Bludyer will no more bully authors or cheat landlords of their score. Shandon, the learned and thriftless, the witty and unwise, sleeps his last sleep.
More than this, still, there is a curious fact necessarily known to comparatively few people. Although it was improper of Mr. Bludyer to sell his novel, and dine and drink of the profits before "smashing" it, there were probably not many reviewers who did not get rid of most of their books of this kind, if for no other reasons than that no house, short of a palace, would have held them all.
Fitz-Urse, Sir George takes another of his guests, and proceeds to work upon him. "My dear Mr. Bludyer, how do you do? Mr. Fitz-Boodle, Mr. Bludyer, the brilliant and accomplished wit, whose sallies in the Tomahawk delight us every Saturday. Nay, no blushes, my dear sir; you are very wicked, but oh! SO pleasant. Well, Mr.
So it fell out that Sir Hugh Horsingham and Ned Meredith were supping at the Rose and Thistle in close alliance, the table adjoining them being occupied by those staunch Hanoverians, Colonel Bludyer and Mr. Thornton. "Here's 'The Blackbird,"* said Cousin Edward, tossing off a huge goblet of Bordeaux, and looking round the room with an air of defiance as he proposed so well-known a toast.
He never goes beyond the bounds of politeness, but manages to insinuate a great deal that is disagreeable to an author in the course of twenty lines of criticism. Personally he is quite respectable, and lives with two maiden aunts at Brompton. Nobody, on the contrary, knows where Mr. Bludyer lives.
When I recovered I was told that terrible things had happened at The Mere. Mr. Maryon had been found dead in Sir Henry Benet’s room—an effusion of blood upon the brain, the doctors said—and the body of Colonel Bludyer had been discovered in the snow in an old disused gravel-pit not far from the house.
“The doctor who examined your body gave his opinion, at the inquest, that you had died of apoplexy, caused by strong cerebral excitement. My evidence was to the effect that I believed you had lost a very large sum of money to Captain Bludyer, and that you had told me you were utterly unable to pay it. The jury found their verdict accordingly, and I was left in undisturbed possession of The Mere.
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