The Remarkable History of Sir Thomas Upmore, bart., M.P., formerly known as «Tommy Upmore»

But when I was told, for the first time, of their value, I found it very hard to trust my ears. Such a great injustice did it seem to me, (who have an ardent love of fairness) that the cleverest man in the world might work, for sixty years – the entire parenthesis of anybody's meaning here – without earning half of the value of one of the eyes of a barbarous idol.

For the great jewel-merchant in Hatton Garden, to whom Sir Roland took me, could scarcely believe his own eyes at first – the day being of London texture – until he put on a strong jet of light (reflected by white mirrors) and took a double magnifier, and went into the very bottom of both stones. Even then, he was almost afraid of his own judgment, and looked at us doubtfully, and shook his head, and even the hand that held such treasures.

"If I did not know you to be Sir Roland Twentifold, and this young gentleman to be a friend of yours, and therefore above all suspicion, it would be my duty to call in the police, and place these in their charge," he said; "as the produce of some tremendous robbery. I have been in the trade, for more than forty years, and Crown jewels, and those of the great R – family have passed through my hands; but until now, never such a pair of blue diamonds as these are. They must be well known; they must have a great history. I know all the leading gems of Europe; but these are entirely new to me. Is there any reason, why I should not know the story?"

"None whatever," I replied, "if you will receive it first in confidence. And then if you think that my right to them is perfect, I care not how the story spreads."

I told him all I knew; while he listened with deep interest, and so did Sir Roland, who had not heard all till then. I insisted especially upon Uncle William's character, and his great superiority to piracy, or rapine; and enforced the fact that he had not run away with that idol, with any view to its value, but simply as a deed of justice, against a most horrible tribe of cannibals, who had eaten as much as seventeen white men, and had vowed the sole survivor as a sacrifice, to the image with these resplendent eyes. The jeweller's sympathies went warmly with me, and with Uncle Bill in his operations; but he could not help sighing, and I asked him why.

"Because I never had such a chance myself;" he answered, with a candid smile. "And to think of your luck, in escaping all duty! Your Uncle? Why, let me see – three per cent. They could not have been valued for probate, or administration, at less than £150,000; and probably I should have had to appraise them. Since the disappearance of the French blue diamond, there is nothing in that line to come near them. Each of them is worth at least two Hope's; that is, if they cut, as I am sure they will."

"But is there not some ground to fear," I asked, "that when all the facts become known, our Government might insist upon restoring them? They seem to exist for the purpose of surrendering every British right, whether public, or private."

"Undoubtedly they do," he answered sadly; "but your very clever Uncle has provided against that. You can make oath, with clear conscience, that you do not know the name of the place they came from; and if they were there three hundred years, how can they be traced from Borneo? No, you need not have the smallest apprehension about that. They belong to you as absolutely, as the watch now in your pocket. And I congratulate you warmly, upon such a grand possession."

Then I asked him, with some diffidence, what the fee for his opinion was. But he said, "None. Only when you have them cut, I should like it to be done through our house, if you think fit. We are proud to say now that such work can be done in London, as well, or even better than in Amsterdam. It is a new industry, and deserves to be encouraged. And to make a good job of such gems as those, would give a fine impetus to the English art."

This I promised gladly; and after some kind words of caution from him, and of good advice from Roly – who never left anything unhandled – we took a cab direct to "Placid Bower," feeling as important, I do believe, as any two young men in all London.

In the presence of Sir Roland, who dined with us that day, I handed to my mother that one of the two stones, which the jeweller had pointed out, as rather the more precious. But she was so amazed, when we had told her all the story, that it was quite impossible to refrain from laughing.

"You expect me to believe a single word of that!" she cried, having scant faith in youthful verity. "No, no, Master Tommy, I was born before you were. And what would your dear father have said, to hear such things! Your poor Uncle William was a man of such a nature, that if he had twelve pockets, there were twenty-four holes in them. He would have told me, of course, not you; if he had thought them worth speaking of. He had daily opportunity of testing my discretion. Put them under your pillow, Tommy, and don't let me hear any more of them." And she marched away, leaving her blue diamond contemptuously, in the fingerglass.

"Take her at her word, you millionaire of a Tommy;" Sir Roland said to me, when he had shut the door.

And at first I was so touchy, that I felt inclined to do so. But better sense prevailed; and on the following day, I left both the jewels at our banker's, (one in my mother's name, and the other in my own) locked up in a box, with other valuables. And this was a great weight off my mind; and I said to myself, as I came away, "My blue eye shall never see the light again; unless it is to please a pair of lustrous brown ones, a million times more beautiful than any jewel ever seen. But, alas, I shall never have such luck as that!"

Before I had time to fetch many sighs about it, or even to be certain that I need sigh at all, (for Hope has a liking for my heart, because she finds herself so well treated there) behold, there came to pass a thing, that drove me to the very place, whither I was longing for to go.

"This very day," Sir Roland cried, as he jumped off his horse, and left Grip to mind him, "this very day, Mrs. Upmore, if you please, you must send your dear son down to Larkmount-on-the-hill. The powers of evil are conspiring against him; and nothing but his lovely face, and hair, and the way he lets the sunshine come under his heels, will scatter the devices of the democrats. Now, you hate all democracy; you know you do."

"As far as I understand the nature of it, Sir Roland," said my mother, who was proud of accuracy, "I am not much for it, as a question of degree. They sweep away all degrees, or try to do so. And how can Tommy ever be an M.A. then?"

"You are right – too right I am sorry to say;" Sir Roland replied quite gravely, for he always agreed most warmly with ladies, and by so doing generally converted them; "better had he not attempt to be an M.A., with the present Government in power. He will be exposed to the most fearful risk. If the measures now proposed are passed next year, there are very solid grounds for believing that a bonfire will be made of M.A.'s upon Hampstead Heath, to celebrate the Democratic triumph. You saw the Martyr's Memorial at Oxford, when you went to see what Tommy was up to once?"

"Oh yes, Sir Roland, all cut into small ribs, not as if they had caught fire at all, but as clean as the three Holy Children. But what I thought most of, was the College halls, and kitchens, and the places with a sliding shutter, where the butter is buttery, and no best Dorset."

"Not in vain is it that ladies have such powers of observation. But how would you like to see all that swept away, and instead of it, Board-schools, dissenting chapels, co-operative stores, and social science institutes? And unless you send Tommy down with me to Larkmount, that is all we shall have to look forward to. He alone can save the Country, from the vast deluge of anarchy now pouring in."

"Well, I do feel it hard upon me," dear mother answered, "to be losing him again; almost before he has had time to get into gray mourning for his uncle. But his dear father's foremost principle was, – and he was putting by money, to support it – that Tommy should go into Parliament, and speak up courageously for the boiling interest. It is useless to hope that Jack Windsor could do it, even if there were no other children; he can count sixpennyworth of halfpence; but if you ask him why, he stares at you. But Tommy is always as pat with an answer, as a Cheap-jack, or a Prime-minister; and sometimes more than he should say to the mother, that brought him up, and fermented him. And now it seems a Providence, Sir Roland, to speak without offence to any one, that he should be M.A. and M.P., without paying anything at all expensive; and make the one defend the other, against the people his dear father could never put up with, though many times they promised him their custom."

"And never gave it, I'll answer for that," Sir Roland replied most truly. "Tommy, you have heard what your kind mother says; and I hope you will carry out her principles; all of which are of the very highest order."

This settled everything; and next day, my dear mother packed me up, without more than one tear on the top of my shirts, about which she was most particular. But she looked at me very hard, when she had finished; and said —

"Why, mercy on me, child, what a fidget you have become, about your clothes! When you used to go to Oxford, the trouble always was, to get you to look twice into your chest of drawers. But now, one would think, that your own mother knew nothing about what is fit for you to wear! There is something going on down there, I do believe, that you don't think fit to trust me with. I have always understood that those voters of the public are very crafty people, to have to deal with. And they make you promise almost anything they like. Now, don't you go, and promise to marry any of their daughters, without consulting me about it. You are a great catch now, and entitled to look high. Now, bear my words in mind, although I see that you don't mean to tell me anything. You are just like your father, when it comes to that."

For I felt, that I had no right to tell her a word about Laura Twentifold, until I knew more; and it would have been more than I could bear to have the matter lightly spoken of, and constantly referred to, as a common love-affair; while to me it was so deep, and sacred. And I knew, that she would hurry off at once to Mrs. Windsor, and perhaps Mrs. Chumps, to have a good talk over it; which would have been to me a dreadful profanation. So I made her mind comfortable, and then departed.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

VOTE FOR TOMMY!

It was indeed high time for me to be stirring, if I meant to be returned for Larkmount; about which I cared supremely little, except as a stepping-stone, towards my true love, and ambition. For, although the influence of the Towers should have been paramount in the borough, as a matter of right and long usage, the times were become so perverted that a brisk opposition was got up; and some Liberal orators had been brought down, who had nothing whatever to do with the place, and cared not a farthing for its interests. My competitor was the owner of a paper-mill, out of which he had made a good lump of money; and he announced his intention to spend it freely, for the national good – as he presumed to say. As yet, I had only paid a single visit to the enlightened electors, and their wives; whereas Mr. Squelch had been working hard for months, with his agents, committees, and "organisation" of every kind, in full activity. But Sir Roland was as confident, as ever he could be, and made light of the enemy's start in advance.

"They don't understand human nature," he said; "all their promises will have got stale, and insipid, and all their bolts of clap-trap will have been shot. In fact they will have bored the poor electors so, that we shall be a welcome novelty. We shall have all the ladies on our side, of course; and in these days of ballot, that is everything. An elector may promise as much as he pleases; but he dare not tell a lie about his vote, to his wife."

Also concerning my infinitely higher, and a thousandfold dearer ambition, it was high time for me to be doing my best; and I grew hot and cold, when I thought of it. Hot, when I heard from Sir Roland – who took the pleasure of a cannibal in telling me, while I could only reply, "Oh yes," "To be sure," "Very nice," and such like inanities, because of the compact between us, – how my Lord This, and Sir Somebody That, had been staying at the Towers, and were most agreeable, and had shot very fairly, and had admired the neighbourhood, (discharging far too well, I feared, that duty towards their neighbour) and had promised most readily to come again, for the hunting, and the woodcocks, in November.

And cold I became, (quite as cold as a boy, who wants to have his bed warmed, and a treacle-posset, and his head wrapped up in a blanket) whenever I fell back upon my own poor chances, and knew that I must put them to the trial very soon.

This was quite certain to require all my skill, as well as a great deal of good luck at the moment. And one piece of fortune befriended me; to wit, that none of those owners of the earth were there, at the time of my arrival. Two were to come, in about ten days' time; but I hoped to get on a good bit before that, and talk of them as strangers, by the time they came. For ladies in the country, who have not been spoiled in London, like the faces they are accustomed to.

But in spite of all that, my hopes were low; not only because of my commercial birth, and want of high style, and of dashing disdain, and a dozen other lofty attributes; but also because of my natural deficiency in crass weight, and stolid material.

Somebody might say to the most perfect of all created beings, somebody perhaps, with a foot like a duck, and a back like the bole of a Churchyard yew, – "Well, if I did have a husband at all, I should like one to make a mark, when the ground is wet; I should like one, who could come round a corner safely, without looking for a church-tower, to see what way the wind is. Ah, I see how he manages so well down here – because you've got such a lot of weathercocks! Miss Twentifold, what would you say to yourself, for slighting good solid Englishmen, if your bridegroom made it a honey-moon indeed, by soaring to the moon, and leaving you to weigh the honey?"

Truly, there are people who would say all that; however far beyond their own business it might be. But would they have the chance of saying it? If so, they would be welcome; for the right word would be mine – the word that was worth all the world, and its works.

While I was entering into these thoughts, on the road from the Station to Twentifold Towers, Sir Roland was preparing a little device; in my opinion neither friendly, nor brotherly, nor even seemly. Having returned the day before, he sent a groom with a dog-cart, to bring me and my luggage from the Railway, according to the train agreed upon; and a pleasant drive it would have been, except for the troubles invading my heart. But just as we came to a little gate, opening into the grounds, about half a mile from the house, the man said to me,

"If you please, sir, would you mind taking the short cut here to the front? I have got a little job to do at the blacksmith's; and Sir Roland said, I had better not keep you waiting I shall be home with your traps, about a quarter of an hour after you."

I was rather glad to stretch my legs with a pleasant walk, on such a lovely afternoon; so I took my bit of oak, with which I had gone to encounter Professor Brachipod, and cheerfully entered on the footpath way. But when I had walked about a hundred yards, swinging my stick in defiance of dull care, and indulging in a song (which is a favourite of mine, because I have steered so many crews to triumph with it) —

"The flag that braves a thousand years,The battle, and the breeze!"

Suddenly in a bosky dell, I stood face to face with Sir Roland, and his sister. Laura was amazed; and so was I. And Sir Roland maliciously kept his eyes intent upon his sister's face.

"Why, Tommy, what a nightingale you are!" he said. "We took a little stroll, for the chance of this meeting. Well done, old fellow! I am very glad to see you. I forgot to tell you, Laura, what a treat we might expect. Why, you don't seem at all glad to see friend Tommy!"

"Mr. Upmore knows that I am always glad to see him;" the sweet voice, which always made me tremble, replied; as she put her hand in mine, and faced the sun, with a lovelier blush than he can kindle in the west; "but I did not in the least expect to see him; and in these lonely places, one is taken by surprise."

"I should think so indeed!" I exclaimed, with a glance of great indignation at her brother, who was smiling, as calmly as if he had done nothing; "but Sir Roland thought, doubtless, that it was not worth while, to speak of a visitor so insignificant."

"I am sure it was not that," she answered softly; "but he is now so full of politics, that we must excuse him everything. For an hour, I have had to listen to nothing but a lecture upon the Constitution. Oh, I do think the trees are so much more glorious, than the poor little men who cut them down!"

This was uncommonly clever on her part; for it set her brother off upon his favourite tirade, which he never missed a chance of delivering. And so we walked into the avenue, pretending to listen with the deepest interest; while I only knew that at my side was Laura; and she, to make up for the slight put upon me, gave many kind glances, and one or two delicious smiles.

"To-morrow, remember, no waste of time, to-morrow!" her brother said firmly, as soon as he had got to the bottom of the very deep vials of his wrath, by which time we were at the door almost; "no spooning about trees, or the beauties of nature, or any other beauties, – but good solid work. We shall breakfast early, and have a long day at it. I shall drive you to the "True-Blue Hotel" myself, and take with me a fellow, who has a brother at the paper-mills, I have a grand trick against old Squelch, in the bottom of my turbid heart, as some ancient writer calls it."

"You seem to be getting very fond of tricks;" cried his sister, as she ran away, to dress for dinner; "perhaps some will be played upon you, before long."

Such was my state now of mind, heart, and soul – as well as of body, which had long been in training for a great constitutional effort – that the paper-mill-man might have passed through his mill, as waste paper, the promises made him. Sir Roland had eight or nine carriages sent from the Towers, of three generations, including some now in use for cock-lofts; and we took all the children of Larkmount, in batches, for a drive, with their pinnies full of sugar-plums. There was nothing in the Bribery Acts as yet, to make such a proceeding penal; though now, if a candidate takes a fly out of the eye of a child, he is bound to ask firmly – "My dear, is your father an elector? Oh, then, I must put that fly back into your eye; or else my election will be null and void."

But the way these children enjoyed their drives, in a carriage with two horses – for none of them had less – and a big coat of arms, and a hand sticking up; and the way they drummed their feet, and holloaed – "Vote for Tommy! Down with Squelch!

"Down with the paper-man, brown and old!Up with young Tommy, all curls and gold!"

– it was indeed a day to make one proud of the British Constitution.

"We'll do it again. We'll do it three times; if you are all good true-blue children;" Sir Roland said to the biggest-voiced ones, when the horses had made a good day of it; "blue jackets for the boys, and for the pretty girls blue bonnets, or hats, if they stand to their principles. But no yellow, mind you; touch no dirty yellow. Yellow fever, and jaundice for you, if you do. You shall all have the Gee-gees, to go and vote for Tommy."

"Vote for Tommy! All curls and gold!"

We heard the clear voices from the hill in chorus, for half a mile, or more, of our homeward road.

Elated as I was, by this triumph of pure principles, and display of unselfish innocence, all I kept asking myself was this – "Will a body, worth the Constituency piled on the top of the Constitution, and the Kingdom on the top of the Continent, ever be persuaded to 'vote for Tommy?' I must know my fate. I can't go on, like this. To-night I shall have to carry on again, as if all I cared about was piano and back-gammon; and tobacco and billiards, afterwards. Roly is full of resources; but I seem somehow to have lost the very simplest move of tactics! Where are all my wits gone? I am only fit to be in the Government."

But if my wits stood me in no stead, Luck (which is a very far higher power, coming immediate from Heaven), she – for beyond any doubt she is female, like the Angels – down she came, and stood at my right hand, and ordered me to listen, while she did my work for me.

"Roly," Lady Twentifold said, when I had sung my song about the flag, which was now become a plague; "he has done a very hard day's work to-day, and he is not made of iron as you are. To-morrow, he shall have a whole holiday, with me and Laura, at Crowton and Sunny Bay. You have got business at Ipswich, I know, and will not be back till dinner-time. But if Tommy will not find it dull to come with us, and the day is as fine as to-day has been, we will go and see Sunny Bay – such a pretty place! – and look for shells, and sharks' teeth, and carnelians. Unless you would rather go practising, Tommy, with the keeper, before they come shooting again? There are plenty of pheasants, in some places, still."

"No; he had better go with you;" Sir Roland answered for me, as he loved to do. "The fates have been against Tommy's shooting so far. He has only been out with me twice at the rabbits, back in the summer; but I find thee apt; and duller should'st thou be than the fat cigar, Tommy – none shall teach thy young idea how to shoot, but I. Go thou with the mother, and play at periwinkles, and sand-hoppers, and cowries; an thou wilt."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

SUNNY BAY

In all the wide world, there are lovelier bays than any to be found upon our eastern coast. But people, whose happiness is only comparative, may hie them away to superlative places, of Italy, or of the Cannibal Islands.

But for me, there is no place that need be more lovely, than Sunny Bay, when there is no sun upon it; except what goes out from the shore into the sea. A bay in the west takes an unfair advantage – it looks at its best, when the world is looking at it. While nobody gets up to see the best time of an easterly bay; or even if he does, he has nobody to admire it with him. And what use to admire a thing, by oneself?

Yet anything, fit to be called a bay, is so rare upon the weary stretch of coast, that it must not be looked in the mouth too closely, nor measured by the red tape of Government survey. If only it have a fairly carven curve, and two definite points not too far apart, a bay it is to be thankful for; and one to be proud of, and rejoice in, if there are hills and trees around it.

Sunny Bay had all of these; and as we drove down the Crowton lane towards it, I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful, the sea being gentle, and the sky clear and sweet. Lady Twentifold was pleased with my delight; for many of her visitors made very little of it.

"It is the prettiest place upon the eastern coast; at least in my humble opinion," she said, "though I do not pretend to be much of a judge. Roly makes light of it, after all his travels. But to me the familiar places are the sweetest; when we think of dear friends, who have seen them with us."

I looked at her eyes, still as beautiful as ever, and full of the warm home-love, which gives soft beauty to the simplest things.

"Laura is like her!" I said to myself; "Laura is like her. What more can be wished; except to share so sweet a heart?"

But the first thing to do was to share the dinner, or luncheon perhaps is the stricter word, if strict words are needful in a matter where none was. The carriage was sent away to the Inn at Crowton; for no house here intruded upon the pleasant meeting of land and sea. The rocks were just of the proper height, for table, chairs, and footstools, with bright green fringes, here and there, and mossy banks above the tide, and a crystal rill for the weaker vessels, and white sand for dainty feet to tap. To me it appeared, that all was perfect; except my clumsy self, with hands that trembled, and a heart that beat too fast.