The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly

“If M. Pracontal measure us by the standard of Master Jack,” muttered he, bitterly, “he will opine that the conflict ought not to be a tough one. What fools these sailors are when you take them off their own element; and what a little bit of a world is the quarter-deck of a frigate! Providence has not blessed me with brilliant sons; that is certain. It was through Temple we have come to know Lord Culduff; and I protest I anticipate little of either profit or pleasure from the acquaintanceship. As for Augustus, he is only so much shrewder than the others, that he is more cautious; his selfishness is immensely preservative.” This was not, it must be owned, a flattering estimate that he made of his sons; but he was a man to tell hard truths to himself; and to tell them roughly and roundly too, like one who, when he had to meet a difficulty in life, would rather confront it in its boldest shape.

So essentially realistic was the man’s mind, that, till he had actually under his eyes these few lines describing Pracontal’s look and manner, he had never been able to convince himself that this pretender was an actual bona fide creature. Up to this, the claim had been a vague menace, and no more, a tradition that ended in a threat! There was the whole of it! Kelson had written to Sedley, and Sedley to Kelson. There had been a half-amicable contest, a sort of round with the gloves, in which these two crafty men appeared rather like great moralists than cunning lawyers. Had they been peacemakers by Act of Parliament, they could not have urged more strenuously the advantages of amity and kindliness; how severely they censured the contentious spirit which drove men into litigation! and how beautifully they showed the Christian benefit of an arbitration “under the court,” the costs to be equitably divided!

Throughout the whole drama, however, M. Pracontal had never figured as an active character of the piece; and for all that Bramleigh could see, the machinery might work to the end, and the catastrophe be announced, not only without ever producing him, but actually without his having ever existed. If from time to time he might chance to read in the public papers of a suspicious foreigner, a “Frenchman or Italian of fashionable appearance,” having done this, that, or t’other, he would ask himself at once, “I wonder could that be my man? Is that the adventurer who wants to replace me here?” As time, however, rolled on, and nothing came out of this claim more palpable than a dropping letter from Sedley, to say he had submitted such a point to counsel, or he thought that the enemy seemed disposed to come to terms, Bramleigh actually began to regard the whole subject as a man might the danger of a storm, which, breaking afar off, might probably waste all its fury before it reached him.

Now, however, these feelings of vague, undefined doubt were to give way to a very palpable terror. His own son had seen Pracontal, and sat at table with him. Pracontal was a good-looking, well-mannered fellow, with, doubtless, all the readiness and the aplomb of a clever foreigner; not a creature of mean appearance and poverty-struck aspect, whose very person would disparage his pretensions, but a man with the bearing of the world and the habits of society.

So sudden and so complete was this revulsion, and so positively did it depict before him an actual conflict, that he could only think of how to deal with Pracontal personally, by what steps it might be safest to approach him, and how to treat a man whose changeful fortunes must doubtless have made him expert in difficulties, and at the same time a not unlikely dupe to well-devised and well-applied flatteries.

To have invited him frankly to Castello – to have assumed that it was a case in which a generous spirit might deal far more successfully than all the cavils and cranks of the law, was Bramleigh’s first thought; but to do this with effect, he must confide the whole story of the peril to some at least of the family; and this, for many reasons, he could not stoop to. Bramleigh certainly attached no actual weight to this man’s claim; he did not in his heart believe that there was any foundation for his pretension; but Sedley had told him that there was case enough to go to a jury, and a jury meant exposure, publicity, comment, and very unpleasant comment too, when party hatred should contribute its venom to the discussion. If, then, he shrunk from imparting this story to his sons and daughters, how long could he count on secrecy? – only till next assizes perhaps. At the first notice of trial the whole mischief would be out, and the matter be a world-wide scandal. Sedley advised a compromise, but the time was very unpropitious for this. It was downright impossible to get money at the moment. Every one was bent on “realizing,” in presence of all the crashes and bankruptcies around. None would lend on the best securities, and men were selling out at ruinous loss to meet pressing engagements. For the very first time in his life, Bramleigh felt what it was to want for ready money. He had every imaginable kind of wealth. Houses and lands, stocks, shares, ships, costly deposits and mortgages, – everything in short but gold; and yet it was gold alone could meet the emergency. How foolish it was of him to involve himself in Lord Culduflf’s difficulties at such a crisis; had he not troubles enough of his own? Would that essenced and enamelled old dandy have stained his boots to have served him? That was a very unpleasant query, which would cross his mind, and never obtain anything like a satisfactory reply. Would not his calculation probably be that Bramleigh was amply recompensed for all he could do by the honor of being deemed the friend of a noble lord, so highly placed, and so much thought of in the world?

As for Lady Augusta’s extravagance, it was simply insufferable. He had been most liberal to her because he would not permit that whatever might be the nature of the differences that separated them, money in any shape should enter. There must be nothing sordid or mean in the tone of any discussion between them. She might prefer Italy to Ireland; sunshine to rain, a society of idle, leisure-loving, indolent, soft-voiced men, to association with sterner, severer, and more energetic natures. She might affect to think climate all essential to her, and the society of her sister a positive necessity. All these he might submit to, but he was neither prepared to be ruined by her wastefulness, nor maintain a controversy as to the sum she should spend.

“If we come to figures, it must be a fight,” muttered he, “and an ignoble fight too; and it is to that we are now approaching.”

“I think I can guess what is before me here,” said he, with a grim smile, as he tore open the letter and prepared to read it. Now, though on this occasion his guess was not exactly correct, nor did the epistle contain the graceful little nothings by which her ladyship was wont to chronicle her daily life, we forbear to give it in extenso to our readers; first of all, because it opened with a very long and intricate. explanation of motives which was no explanation at all, and then proceeded by an equally prolix narrative to announce a determination which was only to be final on approval. In two words, Lady Augusta was desirous of changing her religion; but before becoming a Catholic, she wished to know if Colonel Bramleigh would make a full and irrevocable settlement on her of her present allowance, giving her entire power over its ultimate disposal, for she hinted that the sum might be capitalized; the recompense for such splendid generosity being the noble consciousness of a very grand action, and his own liberty. To the latter she adverted with becoming delicacy, slyly hinting that in the church to which he belonged there might probably be no very strenuous objections made, should he desire to contract new ties, and once more re-enter the bonds of matrimony.

The expression which burst aloud from Bramleigh as he finished the letter, conveyed all that he felt on the subject.

“What outrageous effrontery! The first part of this precious document is written by a priest, and the second by an attorney. It begins by informing me that I am a heretic, and politely asks me to add to that distinction the honor of being a beggar. What a woman! I have done, I suppose, a great many foolish things in life, but I shall not cap them so far, I promise you, Lady Augusta, by an endowment of the Catholic Church. No, my Lady, you shall give the new faith you are about to adopt the most signal proof of your sincerity, by renouncing all worldliness at the threshold; and as the nuns cut off their silken tresses, you shall rid yourself of that wealth which we are told is such a barrier against heaven. Far be it from me,” said he with a sardonic bitterness, “who have done so little for your happiness here, to peril your welfare hereafter.”

“I will answer this at once,” said he. “It shall not remain one post without its reply.”

He arose to return to the house; but in his pre-occupation he continued to walk till he reached the brow of the cliff from which the roof of the curate’s cottage was seen about a mile off.. The peaceful stillness of the scene, where not a leaf moved, and where the sea washed lazily along the low strand with a sweeping motion that gave no sound, calmed and soothed him. Was it not to taste that sweet sense of repose that he had quitted the busy life of cities and come to this lone, sequestered spot? Was not this very moment, as he now felt it, the realization of a long-cherished desire? Had the world anything better in all its prizes, he asked himself, than the peaceful enjoyment of an uncheckered existence? “Shall I not try to carry out what once I had planned to myself, and live my life as I intended?”

He sat down on the brow of the crag and looked out over the sea. A gentle, but not unpleasant sadness was creeping over him. It was one of those moments – every man has had them – in which the vanity of life and the frivolity of all its ambitions present themselves to the mind far more forcibly than ever they appear when urged from the pulpit. There is no pathos, no bad taste, no inflated description in the workings of reflectiveness. When we come to compute with ourselves what we have gained by our worldly successes, and to make a total of all our triumphs, we arrive at a truer insight into the nothingness of what we are contending for than we ever attain through the teaching of our professional moralists.

Colonel Bramleigh had made considerable progress along this peaceful track since he sat down there. Could he only be sure to accept the truths he had been repeating to himself without any wavering or uncertainty; could he have resolution enough to conform his life to these convictions – throw over all ambitions, and be satisfied with mere happiness – was this prize not within his reach? Temple and Marion, perhaps, might resist; but he was certain the others would agree with him. While he thus pondered, he heard the low murmur of voices, apparently near him; he listened, and perceived that some persons were talking as they mounted the zigzag path which led up from the bottom of the gorge, and which had to cross and re-cross continually before it gained the summit. A thick hedge of laurel and arbutus fenced the path on either side so completely as to shut out all view of those who were walking along it, and who had to pass and re-pass quite close to where Bramleigh was sitting.

To his intense astonishment it was in French they spoke: and a certain sense of terror came over him as to what this might portend. Were these spies of the enemy, and was the mine about to be sprung beneath him? One was a female voice, a clear, distinct voice – which he thought he knew well, and oh, what inexpressible relief to his anxiety was it when he recognized it to be Julia L’Estrange’s. She spoke volubly, almost flippantly, and, as it seemed to Bramleigh, in a tone of half sarcastic raillery, against which her companion appeared to protest, as he more than once repeated the word “sérieuse” in a tone almost reproachful.

“If I am to be serious, my Lord,” said she, in a more collected tone, “I had better get back to English. Let me tell you then, in a language which admits of little misconception, that I have forborne to treat your Lordship’s proposal with gravity, partly out of respect for myself, partly out of deference to you.”

“Deference to me? What do you mean? what can you mean?”

“I mean, my Lord, that all the flattery of being the object of your Lordship’s choice could not obliterate my sense of a disparity, just as great between us in years as in condition. I was nineteen my last birthday, Lord Culduff;” and she said this with a pouting air of offended dignity.

“A peeress of nineteen would be a great success at a drawing-room,” said he, with a tone of pompous deliberation.

“Pray, my Lord, let us quit a theme we cannot agree upon. With all your Lordship’s delicacy, you have not been able to conceal the vast sacrifices it has cost you to make me your present proposal I have no such tact. I have not even the shadow of it; and I could never hope to hide what it would cost me to become grande dame.”

“A proposal of marriage; an actual proposal,” muttered Bramleigh, as he arose to move away. “I heard it with my own ears; and heard her refuse it, besides.”

An hour later, when he mounted the steps of the chief entrance, he met Marion, who came towards him with an open letter. “This is from poor Lord Culduff,” said she; “he has been stopping these last three days at the L’Estranges’, and what between boredom and bad cookery, he could n’t hold out any longer. He begs he may be permitted to come back here; he says, ‘Put me below the salt, if you like, – anywhere, only let it be beneath your roof, and within the circle of your fascinating society.’ Shall I say Come, papa?”

“I suppose we must,” muttered Bramleigh, sulkily, and passed on to his room.

CHAPTER XXI. GEORGE AND JULIA

It was after a hard day with the hounds that George L’Estrange reached the cottage to a late dinner. The hunting had not been good. They had found three times, but each time lost their fox after a short burst, and though the morning broke favorably, with a low cloudy sky and all the signs of a good scenting day, towards the afternoon a brisk northeaster had sprung up, making the air sharp and piercing, and rendering the dogs wild and uncertain. In fact, it was one of those days which occasionally irritate men more than actual “blanks;” there was a constant promise of something, always ending in disappointment. The horses, too, were fretful and impatient, as horses are wont to be with frequent checks, and when excited by a cold and cutting wind.

Even Nora, perfection that she was of temper and training, had not behaved well. She had taken her fences hotly and impatiently, and actually chested a stiff bank, which cost herself and her rider a heavy fall, and a disgrace that the curate felt more acutely than the injury.

“You don’t mean to say you fell, George?” said Julia, with a look of positive incredulity.

“Nora did, which comes pretty much to the same thing. We were coming out of Gore’s Wood, and I was leading. There’s a high bank with a drop into Longworth’s lawn. It’s a place I have taken scores of times. One can’t fly it; you must ‘top,’ and Nora can do that sort of thing to perfection; and as I came on I had to swerve a little to avoid some of the dogs that were climbing up the bank. Perhaps it was that irritated her, but she rushed madly on, and came full chest against the gripe, and – I don’t remember much more till I found myself actually drenched with vinegar that old Catty Lalor was pouring over me, when I got up again, addled and confused enough; but I’m all right now. Do you know, Ju,” said he, after a pause, “I was more annoyed by a chance remark I heard as I was lying on the grass than by the whole misadventure?”

“What was it, George?”

“It was old Curtis was riding by, and he cried out, ‘Who’s down?’ and some one said, ‘L’Estrange.’ ‘By Jove,’ said he, ‘I don’t think that fellow was ever on his knees before;’ and this because I was a parson.”

“How unfeeling; but how like him!”

“Wasn’t it? After all, it comes of doing what is not exactly right. I suppose it’s not enough that I see nothing wrong in a day with the hounds. I ought to think how others regard it; whether it shocks them, or exposes my cloth to sarcasm or censure. Is it not dinner-hour?”

“Of course it is, George. It’s past eight.”

“And where’s our illustrious guest; has he not appeared?”

“Lord Culduff has gone. There came a note to him from Castello in the afternoon, and about five o’clock the phaeton appeared at the door – only with the servants – and his Lordship took a most affectionate leave of me, charging me with the very sweetest messages for you, and assurances of eternal memory of the blissful hours he had passed here.”

“Perhaps it’s not the right thing to say, but I own to you I ‘m glad he ‘s gone.”

“But why, George; was he not amusing?”

“Yes, I suppose he was; but he was so supremely arrogant, so impressed with his own grandness, and our littleness, so persistently eager to show us that we were enjoying an honor in his presence, that nothing in our lives could entitle us to, that I found my patience pushed very hard to endure it.”

“I liked him. I liked his vanity and conceit; and I wouldn’t for anything he had been less pretentious.”

“I have none of your humoristic temperament, Julia, and I never could derive amusement from the eccentricities or peculiarities of others.”

“And there’s no fun like it, George. Once that you come to look on life as a great drama, and all the men and women as players, it’s the best comedy ever one sat at.”

“I ‘m glad he ‘s gone for another reason, too. I suppose it’s shabby to say it, but it ‘s true, all the same. He was a very costly guest, and I was n’t disposed, like Charles the Bold or that other famous fellow, to sell a province to entertain an emperor.”

“Had we a province to sell, George?” said she, laughing.

“No, but I had a horse, and unfortunately Nora must go to the hammer now.”

“Surely not for this week’s extravagance?” cried she, anxiously.

“Not exactly for this, but for everything. You know old Curtis’s saying, – ‘It’s always the last glass of wine makes a man tipsy.’ But here comes the dinner, and let us turn to something pleasanter.”

It was so jolly to be alone again, all restraint removed, all terror of culinary mishaps withdrawn, and all the consciousness of little domestic shortcomings obliterated, that L’Estrange’s spirit rose at every moment, and at last he burst out, “I declare to you, Julia, if that man had n’t gone, I ‘d have died out of pure inanition. To see him day after day trying to conform to our humble fare, turning over his meat on his plate, and trying to divide with his fork the cutlet that he would n’t condescend to cut, and barely able to suppress the shudder our little light wine gave him; to witness all this, and to feel that I mustn’t seem to know, while I was fully aware of it, was a downright misery. I ‘d like to know what brought him here.”

“I fancy he could n’t tell you himself. He paid an interminable visit, and we asked him to stop and dine with us. A wet night detained him, and when his servant came over with his dressing-bag or portmanteau, you said, or I said – I forget which – that he ought not to leave us without a peep at our coast scenery.”

“I remember all that; but what I meant was, that his coming here from Castello was no accident. He never left a French cook and Château Lafitte for cold mutton and sour sherry without some reason for it.”

“You forget, George, he was on his way to Lisconnor when he came here. He was going to visit the mines.”

“By the by, that reminds me of a letter I got this evening. I put it in my pocket without reading. Is n’t that Vickars’ hand?”

“Yes; it is his reply, perhaps, to my letter. He is too correct and too prudent to write to myself, and sends the answer to you.”

“As our distinguished guest is not here to be shocked, Julia, let us hear what Vickars says.”

“‘My dear Mr. L’Estrange, I have before me a letter from your sister, expressing a wish that I should consent to the withdrawal of the sum of two thousand pounds, now vested in consols under my trusteeship, and employ these moneys in a certain enterprise which she designates as the coal-mines of Lisconnor. Before acceding to the grave responsibility which this change of investment would impose upon me, even supposing that the Master’ – who is the Master, George?”

“Go on; read further,” said he, curtly.

“‘ – that the Master would concur with such a procedure, I am desirous of hearing what you yourself know of the speculation in question. Have you seen and conversed with the engineers who have made the surveys? Have you heard from competent and unconcerned parties – ?’ Oh, George, it ‘s so like the way he talks. I can’t read on.”

L’Estrange took the letter from her and glanced rapidly over the lines; and then turning to the last page read aloud: “‘How will the recommendation of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners affect you touching the union of Portshandon with Kilmullock? Do they simply extinguish you, or have you a claim for compensation?’”

“What does he mean, George?” cried she, as she gazed at the pale face and agitated expression of her brother as he laid down the letter before her.

“It is just extinguishment; that’s the word for it,” muttered he. “When they unite the parishes, they suppress me.”

“Oh, George, don’t say that; it has not surely come to this?”

“There ‘s no help for it,” said he, putting away his glass, and leaning his head on his hand. “I was often told they ‘d do something like this; and when Grimsby was here to examine the books and make notes, – you remember it was a wet Sunday, and nobody came but the clerk’s mother, – he said, as we left the church, ‘The congregation is orderly and attentive, but not numerous. ‘”

“I told you, George, I detested that man. I said at the time he was no friend to you.”

“If he felt it his duty – ”

“Duty, indeed! I never heard of a cruelty yet that had n’t the plea of a duty. I ‘m sure Captain Craufurd comes to church, and Mrs. Bayley comes, and as to the great house, there ‘s a family there of not less than thirty persons.”

“When Grimsby was here Castello was not occupied.”

“Well, it is occupied now; and if Colonel Bramleigh be a person of the influence he assumes to be, and if he cares – as I take it he must care – not to live like a heathen, he ‘ll prevent this cruel wrong. I ‘m not sure that Nelly has much weight; but she would do anything in the world for us, and I think Augustus, too, would befriend us.”

“What can they all do? It’s a question for the Commissioners.”

“So it may; but I take it the Commissioners are human beings.”

He turned again to the letter which lay open on the table, and read aloud, “‘They want a chaplain, I see, at Albano, near Rome. Do you know any one who could assist you to the appointment? – always providing that you would like it.’ I should think I would like it.”

“You were thinking of the glorious riding over the Campagna, George, that you told me about long ago?”

“I hope not,” said he, blushing deeply, and looked overwhelmed with confusion.

“Well, I was, George. Albano reminded me at once of those long moonlight canters you told me about, with the grand old city in the distance. I almost fancy I have seen it all. Let us bethink us of the great people we know, and who would aid us in the matter.”

“The list begins and ends with the Lord Culduff, I suspect.”

“Not at all. It is the Bramleighs can be of use here. Lady Augusta lives at Rome; she must be, I’m sure, a person of influence there, and be well known too, and know all the English of station. It’s a downright piece of good fortune for us she should be there. There, now, be of good heart, and don’t look wretched. We ‘ll drive over to Castello to-morrow.”

“They ‘ve been very cool towards us of late.”

“As much our fault as theirs, George; some, certainly, was my own.”

“Oh, Vickars has heard of her. He says here, ‘Is the Lady Augusta Bramleigh, who has a villa at Albano, any relative of your neighbor Colonel Bramleigh? She is very eccentric, – some say mad; but she does what she likes with every one. Try and procure a letter to her.’”