The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly

“I think much of the embarrassment might be diminished, Mr. Harding, by his taking you into his counsels.”

“Ah! and that ‘s the very thing I’ll not suffer him to do. No, no, sir; I know the Colonel too well for that. He may, when he is well and about again, he may forgive his son, his son and heir, for having possessed himself with a knowledge of many important details; but he ‘d not forgive the agent, Mr. Harding. I think I can hear the very words he ‘d use. He said once on a time to me, ‘I want no Grand Vizier, Harding; I ‘m Sultan and Grand Vizier too.’ So I said to Mr. Augustus, ‘I ‘ve no head for business after dinner, and particularly when I have tasted your father’s prime Madeira.’ And it is true, sir; true as you stand there. The doctor and I had finished the second decanter before we took our coffee.”

L’Estrange now looked the speaker fully in the face; and to his astonishment saw that signs of his having drank freely – which, strangely enough, had hitherto escaped his notice – were now plainly to be seen there.

“No, sir, not a bit tipsy,” said Harding, interpreting his glance; “not even what Mr. Cutbill calls ‘tight’! I won’t go so far as to say I ‘d like to make up a complicated account; but for an off-hand question as to the value of a standing crop, or an allowance for improvements in the case of a tenant at will, I’m as good as ever I felt. What’s more, sir, it’s seventeen years since I took so much wine before. It was the day I got my appointment to the agency, Mr. L’Estrange. I was weak enough to indulge on that occasion, and the Colonel said to me, ‘As much wine as you like, Harding – a pipe of it, if you please; but don’t be garrulous.’ The word sobered me, sir – sobered me at once. I was offended, I’ll not deny it; but I couldn’t afford to show that I felt it. I shut up; and from that hour to this I never was ‘garrulous’ again. Is it boasting to say, sir, that it’s not every man who could do as much?”

The curate bowed politely, as if in concurrence.

“You never thought me garrulous, sir?”

“Never, indeed, Mr. Harding.”

“No, sir, it was not the judgment the world passed on me. Men have often said Harding is cautious, Harding is reserved, Harding is guarded in what he says; but none have presumed to say I was garrulous.”

“I must say I think you dwell too much on a mere passing expression. It was not exactly polite; but I am sure it was not intended to convey either a grave censure or a fixed opinion.”

“I hope so; I hope so, with all my heart, sir,” said he, pathetically. But his drooping head and depressed look showed how little of encouragement the speech gave him.

“Mr. Augustus begs you ‘ll come to him in the library, sir,” said a footman, entering, and to L’Estrange’s great relief, coming to his rescue from his tiresome companion.

“I think I ‘d not mention the matter now,” said Harding, with a sigh. “They ‘ve trouble and sickness in the house, and the moment would be unfavorable; but you ‘ll not forget it, sir, you’ll not forget that I want that expression recalled, or at least the admission that it was used inadvertently.”

L’Estrange nodded assent, and hurried away to the library.

“The man of all others I wanted to see,” said Augustus, meeting him with an outstretched hand. “What on earth has kept you away from us of late?”

“I fancied you were all a little cold towards me,” said the curate, blushing deeply as he spoke; “but if I thought you wanted me, I’d not have suffered my suspicion to interfere. I ‘d have come up at once.”

“You’re a good fellow, and I believe you thoroughly. There has been no coldness; at least, I can swear, none on my part, nor any that I know of elsewhere. We are in great trouble. You ‘ve heard about my poor father’s seizure – indeed you saw him when it was impending, and now here am I in a position of no common difficulty. The doctors have declared that they will not answer for his life, or, if he lives, for his reason, if he be disturbed or agitated by questions relating to business. They have, for greater impressiveness, given this opinion in writing, and signed it. I have telegraphed the decision to the firm, and have received this reply, ‘Open all marked urgent, and answer.’ Now, you don’t know my father very long, or very intimately, but I think you know enough of him to be aware what a dangerous step is this they now press me to take. First of all, I know no more of his affairs than you do. It is not only that he never confided anything to me, but he made it a rule never to advert to a matter of business before any of us. And to such an extent did he carry his jealousy – if it was jealousy – in this respect, that he would immediately interpose if Underwood or the senior clerk said anything about money matters, and remark, ‘These young gentlemen take no interest in such subjects; let us talk of something they can take their share in.’, Nor was this abstention on his part without a touch of sarcasm, for he would occasionally talk a little to my sister Marion on bank matters, and constantly said, ‘Why were n’t you a boy, Marion? You could have taken the helm when it was my watch below.’ This showed what was the estimate he had formed of myself and my brothers. I mention all these things to you now, that you may see the exact danger of the position I am forced to occupy. If I refuse to act, if I decline to open the letters on pressing topics, and by my refusal lead to all sorts of complications and difficulties, I shall but confirm him, whenever he recovers, in his depreciatory opinion of me; and if, on the other hand, I engage in the correspondence, who is to say that I may not be possessing myself of knowledge that he never intended I should acquire, and which might produce a fatal estrangement between us in future? And this is the doubt and difficulty in which you now find me. Here I stand surrounded with these letters – look at that pile yonder – and I have not courage to decide what course to take.”

“And he is too ill to consult with?”

“The doctors have distinctly forbidden one syllable on any business matter.”

“It’s strange enough that it was a question which bore upon all this brought me up here to-night. Your father had promised me a letter to Lady Augusta at Rome, with reference to a chaplaincy I was looking for, and he told Belton to inform me that he had written the letter and sealed it, and left it on the table in the library. We found it there, as he said, only not sealed; and though that point was not important, it suggested a discussion between Julia and myself whether I had or had not the right to read it, being a letter of presentation, and regarding myself alone. We could not agree as to what ought to be done, and resolved at last to take the letter over to you, and say, If you feel at liberty to let me hear what is in this, read it for me: if you have any scruples on the score of reading, seal it, and the matter is ended at once. This is the letter.”

Augustus took it, and regarded it leisurely for a moment.

“I think I need have no hesitation here,” said he. “I break no seal, at least.”

He withdrew the letter carefully from the envelope, and opened it.

“‘Dear Sedley,’” read he, and stopped. “Why, this is surely a mistake; this was not intended for Lady Augusta;” and he turned to the address, which ran, “The Lady Augusta Bramleigh, Villa Altieri, Rome.” “What can this mean?”

“He has put it in a wrong envelope.”

“Exactly so, and probably sealed the other, which led to his remark to Belton. I suppose it may be read now. ‘Dear Sedley – Have no fears about the registry. First of all, I do not believe any exists of the date required; and secondly, there will be neither church, nor parson, nor register here in three months hence.’” Augustus stopped and looked at L’Estrange. Each face seemed the reflex of the other, and the look of puzzled horror was the same on both. “I must go on, I can’t help it,” muttered Augustus, and continued: “‘I have spoken to the dean, who agrees with me that Portshandon need not be retained as a parish. Something, of course, must be done for the curate here. You will probably be able to obtain one of the smaller livings for him in the Chancellor’s patronage. So much for the registry difficulty, which indeed was never a difficulty at all till it occurred to your legal acuteness to make it such.’

“There is more here, but I am unwilling to read on,” said Augustus, whose face was now crimson, “and yet, L’Estrange,” added he, “it may be that I shall want your counsel in this very matter. I’ll finish it.” And he read, “‘The more I reflect on the plan of a compromise the less I like it, and I cannot for the life of me see how it secures finality. If this charge is to be revived in my son’s time, it will certainly not be met with more vigor or more knowledge than I can myself contribute to it. Every impostor gains by the lapse of years – bear that in mind. The difficulties which environ explanations are invaribly in favor of the rogue, just because fiction is more plausible often than truth. It is not pleasant to admit, but I am forced to own that there is not one amongst my sons who has either the stamina or the energy to confront such a peril; so that, if the battle be really to be fought, let it come on while I am yet here, and in health and vigor to engage in it.

“‘There are abundant reasons why I cannot confide the matter to any of my family – one will suffice: there is not one of them except my eldest daughter who would not be crushed by the tidings, and though she has head enough, she has not the temper for a very exciting and critical struggle.

“‘What you tell me of Jack and his indiscretion will serve to show you how safe I should be in the hands of my sons, and he is possibly about as wise as his brothers, though less pretentious than the diplomatist; and as for Augustus, I have great misgivings. If the time should ever come when he should have convinced himself that this claim was good – and sentimental reasons would always have more weight with him than either law or logic – I say, if such a time should arrive, he ‘s just the sort of nature that would prefer the martyrdom of utter beggary to the assertion of his right, and the vanity of being equal to the sacrifice would repay him for the ruin. There are fellows of this stamp, and I have terrible fears that I have one of them for a son.’”

Augustus laid down the letter and tried to smile, but his lip trembled hysterically, and his voice was broken and uncertain as he said: “This is a hard sentence, George – I wish I had never read it. What can it all mean?” cried he, after a minute or more of what seemed cruel suffering. “What is this claim? Who is this rogue? and what is this charge that can be revived and pressed in another generation? Have you ever heard of this before? or can you make anything out of it now? Tell me, for mercy’s sake, and do not keep me longer in this agony of doubt and uncertainty.”

“I have not the faintest clew to the meaning of all this. It reads as if some one was about to prefer a claim to your father’s estate, and that your lawyer had been advising a compromise with him.”

“But a compromise is a sort of admission that the claimant was not an impostor – that he had his rights!”

“There are rights, and rights! There are demands, too, that it is often better to conciliate than to defy – even though defiance would be successful.”

“And how is it that I never heard of this before?” burst he out, indignantly. “Has a man the right to treat his son in this fashion? to bring him up in the unbroken security of succeeding to an inheritance that the law may decide he has no title to?”

“I think that is natural enough. Your father evidently did not recognize this man’s right, and felt there was no need to impart the matter to his family.”

“But why should my father be the judge in his own cause?”

L’Estrange smiled faintly: the line in the Colonel’s letter, in which he spoke of his son’s sensitiveness, occurred to him at once.

“I see how you treat my question,” said Augustus. “It reminds you of the character my father gave me. What do you say then to that passage about the registry? Why, if we be clean-handed in this business, do we want to make short work of all records?”

“I simply say I can make nothing of it.”

“Is it possible, think you, that Marion knows this story?”

“I think it by no means unlikely.”

“It would account for much that has often puzzled me,” said Augustus, musing as he spoke. “A certain self-assertion that she has, and a habit, too, of separating her own interests from those of the rest of us, as though speculating on a time when she should walk alone. Have you remarked that?”

“I I,” said L’Estrange, smiling, “remarked nothing! there is not a less observant fellow breathing.”

“If it were not for those words about the parish registry, George,” said the other, in a grave tone, “I ‘d carry a light heart about all this; I’d take my father’s version of this fellow, whoever he is, and believe him to be an impostor; but I don’t like the notion of foul play, and it does mean foul play.”

L’Estrange was silent, and for some minutes neither spoke.

“When my father,” said Augustus – and there was a tone of bitterness now in his voice – “when my father drew that comparison between himself and his sons, he may have been flattering his superior intellect at the expense of some other quality.”

Another and a longer pause succeeded.

At last L’Estrange spoke: —

“I have been running over in my head all that could bear upon this matter, and now I remember a couple of weeks ago that Longworth, who came with a French friend of his to pass an evening at the cottage, led me to talk of the parish church and its history; he asked me if it had not been burnt by the rebels in ‘98, and seemed surprised when I said it was only the vestry-room and the books that had been destroyed. ‘Was not that strange?’ asked he; ‘did the insurgents usually interest themselves about parochial records?’ I felt a something like a sneer in the question, and made him no reply.”

“And who was the Frenchman?”

“A certain Count Pracontal, whom Longworth met in Upper Egypt. By the way, he was the man Jack led over the high bank, where the poor fellow’s leg was broken.”

“I remember; he, of course, has no part in the story we are now discussing. Longworth may possibly know something. Are you intimate with him?”

“No, we are barely acquainted. I believe he was rather flattered by the very slight attention we showed himself and his friend; but his manner was shy, and he is a diffident, bashful sort of man, not easy to understand.”

“Look here, L’Estrange,” said Augustus, laying his hand on the other’s shoulder; “all that has passed between us here to-night is strictly confidential, to be divulged to no one, not even your sister. As for this letter, I ‘ll forward it to Sedley, for whom it was intended. I ‘ll tell him how it chanced that I read it; and then – and then – the rest will take its own course.”

“I wonder if Julia intends to come back with me?” said L’Estrange, after a pause.

“No. Nelly has persuaded her to stay here, and I think there is no reason why you should not also.”

“No, I ‘m always uncomfortable away from my own den; but I ‘ll be with you early to-morrow. Good-night.”

Nelly and Julia did not go to bed till daybreak. They passed the night writing a long letter to Jack, – the greater part ‘being dictated by Julia while Nelly wrote. It was an urgent entreaty to him to yield to the advice of his brother officers, and withdraw the offensive words he had used to the Admiral. It was not alone his station, his character, and his future in life were pressed into the service, but the happiness of all who loved him and wished him well, with a touching allusion to his poor father’s condition, and the impossibility of asking any aid or counsel from him. Nelly went on: “Remember, dear Jack, how friendless and deserted I shall be if I lose you; and it would be next to losing you to know you had quitted the service, and gone Heaven knows where, to do Heaven knows what.” She then adverted to home, and said, “You know how happy and united we were all here, once on a time. This is all gone; Marion and Temple hold themselves quite apart, and Augustus, evidently endeavoring to be neutral, is isolated. I only say this to show you how, more than ever, I need your friendship and affection; nor is it the least sad of all my tidings, the L’Estranges are going to leave this. There is to be some new arrangement by which Portshandon is to be united to Killmulluck, and one church to serve for the two parishes. George and Julia think of going to Italy. I can scarcely tell you how I feel this desertion of me now, dearest Jack. I ‘d bear up against all these and worse – if worse there be – were I only to feel that you were following out your road to station and success, and that the day was coming when I should be as proud as I am fond of you. You hate writing, I know; but you will, I ‘m sure, not fail to send me half a dozen lines to say that I have not pleaded in vain. I fear I shall not soon be able to send you pleasant news from this, the gloom thickens every day around us; but you shall hear constantly.” The letter ended with a renewed entreaty to him to place himself in the hands and under the guidance of such of his brother officers as he could rely on for sound judgment and moderation. “Remember, Jack, I ask you to do nothing that shall peril honor; but also nothing in anger, nothing out of wounded self-love.”

“Add one line, – only one, Julia,” said she, handing the pen to her, and pushing the letter before her; and without a word Julia wrote: “A certain coquette of your acquaintance – heartless, of course, as all her tribe – is very sorry for your trouble, and would do all in her power to lessen it. To this end she begs you to listen patiently to the counsels of the present letter, every line of which she has read, and to believe that in yielding something – if it should be so – to the opinion of those who care for you, you acquire a new right to their affection, and a stronger title to their love.”

Nelly threw her arm around Julia’s neck, and kissed her again and again.

“Yes, darling, these dear words will sink into his heart, and he will not refuse our prayer.”

CHAPTER XXV. MARION’S AMBITIONS

Colonel Bramleigh’s malady took a strange form, and one which much puzzled his physicians. His feverish symptoms gradually disappeared, and to his paroxysms of passion and excitement there now succeeded a sort of dreary apathy, in which he scarcely uttered a word, nor was it easy to say whether he heard or heeded the remarks around him. This state was accompanied by a daily increasing debility, as though the powers of life were being gradually exhausted, and that, having no more to strive for or desire, he cared no more to live.

The whole interest of his existence now seemed to centre around the hour when the post arrived. He had ordered that the letter-bag should be opened in his presence, and as the letters were shown him one by one, he locked them, unopened and unread, in a despatch-box, so far strictly obedient to the dictates of the doctor, who had forbidden him all species of excitement. His family had been too long accustomed to the reserve and distance he observed towards them to feel surprised that none were in this critical hour admitted to his confidence, and that it was in presence of his valet, Dorose, the letters were sorted and separated, and such as had no bearing on matters of business sent down to be read by the family.

It was while he continued in this extraordinary state, intermediate, as it seemed, between sleeping and waking, a telegram came from Sedley to Augustus, saying, “Highly important to see your father. Could he confer with me if I go over? Reply at once.” The answer was, “Unlikely that you can see him; but come on the chance.”

Before sending off this reply, Augustus had taken the telegram up to Marion’s room, to ask her advice in the matter. “You are quite right, Gusty,” said she; “for if Sedley cannot see papa, he can certainly see Lord Culduff.”

“Lord Culduff,” cried he, in amazement “Why, what could Lord Culduff possibly know about my father’s affairs? How could he be qualified to give an opinion upon them?”

“Simply on the grounds of his great discrimination, his great acuteness, joined to a general knowledge of life, in which he has admittedly few rivals.”

“Grant all that; but here are special questions, here are matters essentially personal; and with all his Lordship’s tact and readiness, yet he is not one of us.”

“He may be, though, and very soon, too,” replied she, promptly.

“What do you mean?” asked he, in a voice of almost dismay.

“Just what I say, Augustus; and I am not aware it is a speech that need excite either the amazement or the terror I see in your face at this moment.”

“I am amazed; and if I understand you aright, I have grounds to be shocked besides.”

“Upon my word,” said she, in a voice that trembled with passion, “I have reason to congratulate myself on the score of brotherly affection. Almost the last words Jack spoke to me at parting were, ‘For God’s sake, shake off that old scamp;’ and now you – that hold a very different position amongst us – you, who will one day be the head of the family, deliberately tell me you are shocked at the prospect of my being allied to one of the first names in the peerage.”

“My dear Marion,” said he, tenderly, “it is not the name, it is not the rank I object to.”

“It is his fortune, then? I’m sure it can’t be his abilities.”

“It is neither. It is simply that the man might be your grandfather.”

“Well, sir,” said she, drawing herself up, and assuming a manner of intense hauteur, “and if I, – I conclude I am the person most to be consulted, – if I do not regard this disparity of years as an insurmountable obstacle, by what right can one of my family presume to call it such?”

“My dear sister,” said he, “can you not imagine the right of a brother to consult for your happiness?”

“Happiness is a very large word. If it were for Nelly that you were interesting yourself, I ‘ve no doubt your advice and counsel ought to have great weight; but I am not one of your love-in-a-cottage young ladies, Gusty. I am, I must own it, excessively worldly. Whatever happiness I could propose to myself in life is essentially united to a certain ambition. We have as many of the advantages of mere wealth as most people: as fine equipage, as many footmen, as good a cook, and as costly silver; and what do they do for us? They permit us simply to enter the lists with a set of people who have high-stepping horses and powdered lackeys like ourselves, but who are no more the world, no more society, than one of papa’s Indiamen is a ship of the Royal Navy. Why do I say this to you, who were at Oxford, who saw it all – ay, and felt it all – in those fresh years of youth when these are sharp sufferings? You know well – you told me your griefs at the time – that you were in a set without being ‘of it;’ that the stamp of inequality was as indelibly fixed upon you as though you were a corporal and wore coarse cloth. Now, these things are hard to bear for a man; for a woman they are intolerable. She has not the hundred and one careers in life in which individual distinction can obliterate the claims of station. She has but one stage, – the salon; but, to her, this narrow world, soft-carpeted and damask-curtained, is a very universe, and without the recognized stamp of a certain rank in it, she is absolutely nothing.”

“And may not all these things be bought too dearly, Marion?”

“I don’t know the price I ‘d call too high for them.”

“What! Not your daily happiness? not your self-esteem! not the want of the love of one who would have your whole heart in his keeping?”

“So he may, if he can give me the rank I care for.”

“Oh, Marion! I cannot think this of you,” cried he, bitterly.

“That is to say, that you want me to deceive you with false assurances of unbought affection and the like; and you are angry because I will not play the hypocrite. Lord Culduff has made me an offer of his hand, and I have accepted it. You are aware that I am my own mistress. Whatever I possess, it is absolutely my own; and though I intend to speak with my father, and, if it may be, obtain his sanction, I will not say that his refusal would induce me to break off my engagement.”