Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 2

Mr. Aubrey was not long in paying his promised visit to Mr. Neville, accompanied by Mrs. Aubrey. 'Twas a long and not very agreeable walk for them towards St. George's in the East; and on reaching a small row of neat houses, only one story high, and being shown into Mr. Neville's very little sitting-room, they found Mrs. Neville lying on a little rickety sofa near the fire, looking very ill, and Mr. Neville sitting before her, with a number of books on the table, and pen, ink, and paper, with which he was occupied preparing his next Sunday's sermon; but there was also a slip of paper on the table of a different description, and which had occasioned both of them great distress; viz. a rather peremptory note from their medical man, touching the payment of his "trifling account" of £14 odd. Where poor Neville was to obtain such a sum, neither he nor his wife knew: they had already almost deprived themselves of necessary food and clothing to enable them to appease another urgent creditor; and this new and sudden demand of an old claim, had indeed grievously disquieted them. They said nothing about it to Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey, who soon made themselves at home, and by their unaffected simplicity and cordiality of manner, relieved their humble hosts from all anxiety. They partook of tea, in a sufficiently homely and frugal style; and before they rose to go they exacted a promise, that, as soon as Mrs. Neville should have recovered, they would both come and spend a long day in Vivian Street. They soon became very intimate; and, Mrs. Neville's health at length being such as to preclude her from attending at all to her needle, the reader will possibly think none the less of Mrs. Aubrey and Kate, when he hears that they insisted on taking that task upon themselves, (a matter in which they were becoming somewhat expert,) and many and many an hour did these two charming women spend, both in Vivian Street and at Mrs. Neville's, in relieving her from her labors—particularly in preparing her slight stock of winter clothing. And now that I am on this point, I may as well mention another not less amiable trait in Kate; that, hearing of a girl's school about to be founded in connection with the church which they attended, and in support of which several ladies had undertaken to prepare various little matters, such as embroidery, lace, pictures, and articles of fancy and ornament, Kate also set to work with her pencil and brushes. She was a very tasteful draughtswoman, and produced four or five such delicate and beautiful sketches, in water color, of scenes in and about Yatton, as made her a very distinguished contributor to the undertaking; each of her sketches producing upwards of two guineas. She also drew a remarkably spirited crayon sketch of the pretty little head of Charles—who accompanied her to the place where her contributions were deposited, and delivered it in with his own hand.—Thus, in short, were this sweet and amiable family rapidly reconciling themselves to their altered circumstances—taking real pleasure in the new scenes which surrounded them, and the novel duties devolving upon them; and as their feelings became calmer, they felt how true it is that happiness in this world depends not upon mere external circumstances, but upon THE MIND—which, contented and well regulated, can turn everything around it into a source of enjoyment and thankfulness—making indeed the wilderness to bloom and blossom as the rose.

They kept up—especially Kate—a constant correspondence with good old Dr. Tatham; who, judging from the frequency and the length of his letters, which were written with a truly old-fashioned distinctness and uniformity of character, must have found infinite pleasure in his task. So also was it with Kate, who, if she had even been writing to her lover—nay, between ourselves, what would Mr. Delamere have given to have had addressed to himself one of the long letters, crossed down to the very postscript, full of sparkling delicacy, good nature, and good sense, which so often found their way to the "Rev. Dr. Tatham, Vicarage, Yatton, Yorkshire!" They were thus apprised of everything of moment that transpired at Yatton, to which their feelings clung with unalienable affection. Dr. Tatham's letters had indeed almost always a painful degree of interest attached to them. From his frequent mention of Mr. Gammon's name—and almost equally favorable as frequent—it appeared that he possessed a vast ascendency over Mr. Titmouse, and was, whenever he was at Yatton, in a manner, its moving spirit. The doctor represented Titmouse as a truly wretched creature, with no more sense of religion than a monkey; equally silly, selfish, and vulgar—unfeeling and tyrannical wherever he had an opportunity of exhibiting his real character.

It exquisitely pained them, moreover, to find pretty distinct indications of a sterner and stricter rule being apparent at Yatton, than had ever been known there before, so far as the tenants and villagers were concerned. Rents were now required to be paid with the utmost punctuality; many of them were raised, and harsher terms introduced into their leases and agreements. In Mr. Aubrey's time a distress or an action for rent was a thing literally unheard of in any part of the estate; but nearly a dozen had occurred since the accession of Mr. Titmouse. If this had been at the instance of the ruling spirit, Mr. Gammon personally had certainly got none of the odium of the proceeding; every letter announcing a resort to hostile measures expressly purporting to be authorized by Mr. Titmouse himself; Mr. Gammon on most of such occasions, putting in a faint word or two in favor of the tenant, but ineffectually. The legal proceedings were always conducted in the name of "Bloodsuck and Son," whose town agents were, "Quirk, Gammon, and Snap;" but their names never came under the eye of the defendants! No longer could the poor villagers, and poorer tenants, reckon on their former assistance from the Hall in the hour of sickness and distress: cowslip wine, currant wine, elderberry wine, if made, were consumed in the Hall. In short, there was a discontinuance of all those innumerable little endearing courtesies, and charities, and hospitalities, which render a good old country mansion the very heart of the neighborhood. The doctor in one of his letters, intimated, with a sort of agony, that he had heard it mentioned by the people at the Hall as probable, that Mr. Titmouse—the little Goth—would pull down that noble old relic, the turreted gateway; but that Mr. Gammon was vehemently opposed to such a measure; and that, if it were preserved after all, it would be entirely owing to the taste and the influence of that gentleman. Had Dr. Tatham chosen, he could have added a fact which would indeed have saddened his friends—viz. that the old sycamore, which had been preserved at the fond entreaties of Kate, and which was hallowed by so many sad and tender associations, had been long ago removed, as a sort of eyesore: Mr. Gammon had, in fact, directed it to be done; but he repeatedly expressed to Dr. Tatham, confidentially, his regret at such an act on the part of Titmouse. The doctor could also have told them that there had been a dog-fight in the village, at which Mr. Titmouse was present! Persons were beginning to make their appearance too, at Yatton, of a very different description from any who had been seen there in the time of the Aubreys—persons, now and then, of loose, and wild, and reckless characters. Mr. Titmouse would often get up a fight in the village, and reward the victor with five or ten shillings! Then the snug and quiet little "Aubrey Arms" was metamorphosed into the "Titmouse Arms" and another set up in opposition to it, and called "The Toper's Arms;" and it was really painful to see the increasing trade driven by each of them. They were both full every night, and often during the day also; and the vigilant, and affectionate, and grieved eye of the good vicar noticed several seats in the church, which had formerly been occupied every Sunday morning and afternoon, to be—empty! In his letters, he considerately sank the grosser features of Titmouse's conduct, which would have only uselessly grieved and disgusted his beloved correspondents. He informed them, however, from time to time, of the different visitors at the Hall, particularly of the arrival and movements of their magnificent kinsfolk, the Earl of Dreddlington and Lady Cecilia, the Marquis Gants-Jaunes de Millefleurs and Mr. Tuft—the novel state and ceremony which had been suddenly introduced there—at which they all ceased reading for a moment, and laughed, well knowing the character of Lord Dreddlington. At length, some considerable time after Mr. Titmouse's grand visitors had been at the Hall, there came a letter from Dr. Tatham, sent by a private hand, and not reaching Vivian Street till the evening, when they were sitting together, after dinner, as usual, and which contained intelligence that was received in sudden silence, and with looks of astonishment; viz. that Mr. Titmouse had become the acknowledged suitor of the Lady Cecilia!! Mr. Aubrey, after a moment's pause, laughed more heartily than they had heard him laugh for many months—getting up, at the same time, and walking once or twice across the room—Mrs. Aubrey and Miss Aubrey gazed at each other for a few moments, without speaking a word; and you could not have told whether their fair countenances showed more of amusement or of disgust at the intelligence. "Well! it is as I have often told you, Kate," commenced Mr. Aubrey, after a while resuming his seat, and addressing his sister with an air of good-humored raillery; "you've lost your chance—you've held your head so high. Ah, 'tis all over now—and our fair cousin is mistress of Yatton!"

"Indeed, Charles," quoth Kate, earnestly, "I do think it's too painful a subject for a joke."

"Why, Kate!—You must bear it as well"–

"Pho, pho—nonsense, Charles! To be serious—did you ever hear anything so shocking as"–

"Do you mean to tell me, Kate," commenced her brother, assuming suddenly such a serious air as for a moment imposed on his sister, "that to become mistress of dear old Yatton—which was offered to you, you know—you would not have consented, when it came to the point, to become—Mrs. Titmouse?" For an instant, Kate looked as if she would have made, in the eye of the statuary, an exquisite model of beautiful disdain—provoked by the bare idea even, and put forward, as she knew, in raillery only. "You know, Charles," said she at length, calmly, her features relaxing into a smile, "that if such a wretch had ten thousand Yattons, I would, rather than marry him—oh!"—she shuddered—"spring from Dover cliff into the sea!"

"Ah, Kate, Kate!" exclaimed her brother, with a look of infinite pride and fondness. "Even supposing for a moment that you had no prev"–

"Come, Charles, no more nonsense," said Kate, patting his cheek, and slightly coloring.

"I say, that even if"–

"Only fancy," interrupted Kate, "Lady Cecilia—Titmouse! I see her before me now. Well, I protest it is positively insufferable; I could not have thought that there was a woman in the whole world—why"—she paused, and added laughingly, "how I should like to see their correspondence!"

"What!" said Mrs. Aubrey, with a sly smile, first at her husband, and then at Kate, "as a model for a certain other correspondence that I can imagine—eh, Kate!"

"Nonsense, nonsense, Agnes!—what a provoking humor you are both in this evening," interrupted Kate, with a slight pettishness; "what we've heard makes me melancholy enough, I assure you!"

"I suppose that about the same time that Lady Cecilia Titmouse goes to court," said her brother, "so will the Honorable Mrs. Dela"–

"If you choose to tease me, Charles, of course I cannot help it," quoth Kate, coloring still more; but it required no very great acuteness to detect that the topic was not excessively offensive.

"Mrs. De"–

"Have done, Charles!" said she, rising; and, putting her arm round his neck, she pressed her fair hand on his mouth; but he pushed it aside laughingly.

"Mrs. De—Dela—Delamere," he continued.

"I will finish it for you, Charles," said Mrs. Aubrey, "the Honorable Mr. and Mrs. Delamere"–

"What! do you turn against me too?" inquired Kate, laughing very good-humoredly.

"I wonder what her stately Ladyship's feelings were," said Aubrey, after a pause, "the first time that her elegant and accomplished lover saluted her!!"

"Eugh!" exclaimed both Kate and Mrs. Aubrey, in a breath, and with a simultaneous shudder of disgust.

"I dare say poor old Lord Dreddlington's notion is, that this will be a fine opportunity for bringing about his favorite scheme of reuniting the families—Heaven save the mark!" said Mr. Aubrey, just as the twopenny postman's knock at the door was heard; and within a few moments' time the servant brought up-stairs a letter addressed to Mr. Aubrey. The very first glance at its contents expelled the smile from his countenance, and the color from his cheek: he turned, in fact, so pale, that Mrs. Aubrey and Kate also changed color—and came and stood with beating hearts, and suddenly suspended breath, one on each side of him, looking over the letter while he was reading it. As I intend presently to lay a copy of it before the reader, I shall first state a few circumstances, which will make it appear that this same letter may be compared to a shell thrown into a peaceful little citadel, by a skilful, though distant and unseen engineer—in short, I mean Mr. Gammon.

CHAPTER XII

The astute and determined person mentioned at the close of our last chapter, had long been bent upon securing one object—namely, access to Mr. Aubrey's family circle, for reasons which have been already communicated to the reader. That Mr. Aubrey was, at all events, by no means anxious for such a favor, had been long before abundantly manifest to Gammon, and yet not in a way to give him any legitimate, or excusable, grounds of offence. The Aubreys had, he acknowledged, and especially in their present circumstances, an unquestionable right to receive or reject, as they thought fit, any overtures to acquaintance. Nothing, he felt, could be more unexceptionably courteous than Mr. Aubrey's demeanor; yet had it been such as to satisfy him, that unless he resorted to some means of unusual efficacy, he never could get upon visiting terms with the Aubreys. The impression which Miss Aubrey had originally produced in his mind, remained as distinct and vivid as ever. Her beauty, her grace, her elevated character, (of which he had heard much on all hands,) her accomplishments, her high birth—all were exquisitely appreciated by him, and conspired to constitute a prize, for the gaining of which he deemed no exertion too great, no sacrifice too serious, no enterprise too hazardous. He had, moreover, other most important objects in view, to which a union with Miss Aubrey was in fact essential. She was, again, the only person, the sight of whom had in any measure given vitality to his marble heart, exciting totally new thoughts and desires, such as stimulated him to a fierce and inflexible determination to succeed in his purposes. He was, in short, prepared to make almost any sacrifice, to wait any length of time, to do or suffer anything that man could do or suffer, whether derogatory to his personal honor or not—in order either to secure the affections of Miss Aubrey, or, at all events, her consent to a union with him. Having early discovered the spot where Mr. Aubrey had fixed his residence, Mr. Gammon had made a point of lying in wait on a Sunday morning, for the purpose of ascertaining the church to which they went; and having succeeded, he became a constant, an impassioned, though an unseen observer of Miss Aubrey, from whom he seldom removed his eyes during the service. But this was to him a highly unsatisfactory state of things: he seemed, in fact, not to have made, nor to be likely to make, the least progress towards the accomplishment of his wishes, though much time had already passed away. He was so deeply engrossed with the affairs of Titmouse—which required his presence very frequently at Yatton, and a great deal of his attention in town—as to prevent his taking any decisive steps for some time in the matter nearest his heart. At length, not having seen or heard anything of Mr. Aubrey for some weeks, during which he—Gammon—had been in town, he resolved on a new stroke of policy.

"Mr. Quirk," said he one day to his excellent senior partner, "I fancy you will say that I am come to flatter you; but, Heaven knows!—if there is a man on the earth with whom I lay aside disguise, that man is my friend Mr. Quirk. Really, it does seem, and mortifying enough it is to own it, as if events invariably showed that you are right—that I am wrong"—(Here Mr. Quirk's appearance might have suggested the idea of a great old tom-cat who is rubbed down the right way of the fur, and does everything he can to testify the delight it gives him, by pressing against the person who affords him such gratification,)—"especially in financial matters"–

"Ah, Gammon, Gammon! you're really past finding out!—Sometimes, now, I declare I fancy you the very keenest dog going in such matters, and at other times, eh?—not particularly brilliant. When you've seen as much of this world's villany, Gammon, as I have, you'll find it as necessary as I have found it, to lay aside one's—one's—I say—to lay aside all scrup–that is—I mean—one's fine feelings, and so forth; you understand, Gammon?"

"Perfectly, Mr. Quirk"–

"Well—and may I ask, Gammon, what is the particular occasion of that screwed-up forehead of yours? Something in the wind?"

"Only this, Mr. Quirk—I begin to suspect that I did very wrong in recommending you to give an indefinite time to that Mr. Aubrey for payment of the heavy balance he owes us—by Heavens!—see how coolly he treats us!"

"Indeed, Gammon, I think so!—Besides—'tis an uncommon heavy balance to owe so long, eh?—Fifteen hundred pounds, or thereabouts?—Gad, it's that, at least!"—Gammon shrugged his shoulders and bowed, as if resigned to any step which Mr. Quirk might think proper to take.

"He's a villanous proud fellow, that Aubrey, eh?—Your tip-top debtors generally are, though—when they've got a bit of a hardship to harp upon"–

"Certainly we ought, when we had him in our power"–

"Ah!—D'ye recollect, Gammon? the thumbscrew? eh? whose fault was it that it wasn't put on? eh? Tell me that, friend Gammon! Are you coming round to old Caleb Quirk's matter-of-fact way of doing business? Depend on't, the old boy has got a trick or two left in him yet, gray as his hair's grown."

"I bow, my dear sir—I own myself worsted—and all through that absurd weakness I have, which some choose to call"–

"Oh Lord, Gammon! Bubble, bubble and botheration—ah, ha!—Come, there's nobody here but you and me—and eh? old Bogy perhaps—so, why that little bit of blarney?"

"Oh! my dear Mr. Quirk, spare me that cutting irony of yours. Surely when I have made the sincere and humiliating submission to which you have been listening—but, to return to business. I assure you that I think we ought to lose not a moment in getting in our balance, or at least coming to some satisfactory and definite arrangement concerning it. Only pinch him, and he'll bleed freely, depend on it."

"Ah, ha! Pinch him, and he'll bleed! That's my thunder, Gammon, ah, ha, ha!—By Jove! that's it to a T!—I always thought the fellow had blood enough in him if we only squeezed him a little. So let Snap be off and have a writ out against Master Aubrey."

"Forgive me, my dear Mr. Quirk," interrupted Gammon, blandly—"we must go very cautiously to work, or we shall only injure ourselves, and prejudice our most important—and permanent interests. We must take care not to drive him desperate, poor devil, or he may take the benefit of the act, and"–

"What a cursed scamp he would be to"–

"Certainly; but we should suffer more than he"–

"Surely, Gammon, they'd remand him! Eighteen months at the very least."

"Not an hour—not a minute, Mr. Quirk," said Gammon, very earnestly.

"The deuce they wouldn't? Well, Law's come to a pretty point! And so lenient as we've been!"

"What occurs to me as the best method of procedure," said Gammon, after musing for a moment—"is, for you to write a letter to him immediately—civil but peremptory—just one of those letters of yours, my dear sir, in which no living man can excel you—suaviter in modo, fortiter in re, Mr. Quirk."

"Gammon, you're a gentleman, every inch of you—you are, upon my soul! If there is one thing in which I–but you're a hand at a letter of that sort, too! And you have managed these people hitherto; why not go on to the end of the chapter?"

"Mr. Quirk, I look upon this letter as rather an important one—it ought to come from the head of the firm, and to be decisively and skilfully expressed, so as at once to–eh? but you know exactly what ought to be done."

"Well—leave it to me,—leave it to me, Gammon: I think I do know how to draw up a teaser—egad! You can just cast your eye over it as soon as"–

"If I return in time from Clerkenwell, I will, Mr. Quirk," replied Gammon, who had, however, determined not to disable himself from saying with literal truth that he had not seen one line of the letter which might be sent! and, moreover, resolving to make his appearance at Mr. Aubrey's almost immediately after he should, in the course of the post, have received Mr. Quirk's communication:—with every appearance and expression of distress, agitation, and even disgust; indignantly assuring Mr. Aubrey that the letter had been sent without Mr. Gammon's knowledge—against his will—and was entirely repudiated by him; and that he would take care, at all hazards to himself, to frustrate any designs on the part of his coarse and hard-hearted senior partner to harass or oppress Mr. Aubrey. With this explanation of precedent circumstances, I proceed to lay before the reader an exact copy of the elegant letter of that old cat's-paw, Mr. Quirk, to Mr. Aubrey, the arrival of which had produced the sensation to which I have already alluded.

"Saffron Hill, 30th September 18—.

"Sir,—We trust you will excuse our reminding you of the very large balance (£1,446, 14s. 6d.) still remaining due upon our account—and which we understood, at the time when the very favorable arrangement to you, with respect to Mr. Titmouse, was made, was to have been long before this liquidated. Whatever allowances we might have felt disposed, on account of your peculiar situation, to have made, (and which we have made,) we cannot but feel a little surprised at your having allowed several months to elapse without making any allusion thereto. We are satisfied, however, that you require only to be reminded thereof, to have your immediate attention directed thereto, and to act in that way that will conduce to liquidate our very heavy balance against you. We are sorry to have to press you; but being much pressed ourselves with serious outlays, we are obliged to throw ourselves (however reluctantly) upon our resources; and it gives us pleasure to anticipate, that you must by this time have made those arrangements that will admit of your immediate attention to our over-due account, and that will render unnecessary our resorting to hostile and compulsory proceedings of that extremely painful description that we have always felt extremely reluctant to, particularly with those gentlemen that would feel it very disagreeable. We trust that in a week's time we shall hear from you to that effect, that will render unnecessary our proceeding to extremities against you, which would be extremely painful to us.—We remain, sir, yours, most obediently,

"Quirk, Gammon, & Snap.

"Charles Aubrey, Esq.

"P. S.—We should have no objection, if it would materially relieve you, to take your note of hand for the aforesaid balance (£1,446, 14s. 6d.) at two months, with interest, and good security. Or say, £800 down in two months, and a warrant of attorney for the remainder, at two months more."

As soon as they had finished reading the above letter, in the way I have described, Mrs. Aubrey threw her arms round her silent and oppressed husband's neck, and Kate, her bosom heaving with agitation, returned to her seat without uttering a word.