The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly

“I declare,” said Augustus, gravely, “I am much flattered by all the trouble you have taken to blacken my character.”

“Character! bless your heart, so long as you ain’t a Frenchman, these people don’t care about your character. An English conspirator is the most harmless of all creatures. Had you been a Pole or an Italian, the préfet told me, he’d have known every act of your daily life.”

“And so we shall have to leave this, now?” said Ellen, with some vexation in her tone.

“Not a bit of it, if you don’t dislike the surveillance they ‘ll bestow on you; and it ‘ll be the very best protection against rogues and pickpockets; and I’ll go and say that you’re not the man I suspected at all.”

“‘Pray take no further trouble on our behalf, sir,” said Bramleigh, stiffly and haughtily.

“Which being interpreted means – make your visit as short as may be, and go your way, Tom Cutbill; don’t it?”

“I am not prepared to say, sir, that I have yet guessed the object of your coming.”

“If you go to that, I suspect I ‘ll be as much puzzled as yourself. I came to see you because I heard you were in my neighborhood. I don’t think I had any other very pressing reason. I had to decamp from England somewhat hurriedly, and I came over here to be, as they call it, ‘out of the way,’ till this storm blows over.”

“What storm? I ‘ve heard nothing of a storm.”

“You ‘ve not heard that the Lisconnor scheme has blown up? – the great Culduff Mining Company has exploded, and blown all the shareholders sky-high?”

“Not a word of it.”

“Why, there ‘s more writs after the promoters this morning than ever there was scrip for paid-up capital. We ‘re all in for it – every man of us.”

“Was it a mere bubble, then, – a fraud?”

“I don’t know what you call a bubble, or what you mean by a fraud. We had all that constitutes a company: we had a scheme, and we had a lord. t If an over-greedy public wants grandeur and gain besides, it must be disappointed; as I told the general meeting, ‘You don’t expect profit as well as the peerage, do you?’”

“You yourself told me there was coal.”

“So there was. I am ready to maintain it still. Is n’t that money, Bramleigh?” said he, taking a handful of silver from his pocket; “good coin of the realm, with her Majesty’s image? But if you asked me if there was much more where it came from – why, the witness might, as the newspapers say, hesitate and show confusion.”

“You mean, then, in short, there was only coal enough to form a pretext for a company?”

“I tell you what I mean,” said Cutbill, sturdily. “I bolted from London rather than be stuck in a witness-box and badgered by a cross-examining barrister, and I ‘m not going to expose myself to the same sort of diversion here from you.”

“I assure you, sir, the matter had no interest for me, beyond the opportunity it afforded you of exculpation.”

“For the exculpatory part, I can take it easy,” said Cutbill, with a dry laugh. “I wish I had nothing heavier on my heart than the load of my conscience; but I ‘ve been signing my name to deeds, and writing Tom Cutbill across acceptances, in a sort of indiscriminate way, that in the calmer hours before a Commissioner in Bankruptcy ain’t so pleasant. I must say, Bramleigh, your distinguished relative, Culduff, doesn’t cut up well.”

“I think, Mr. Cutbill, if you have any complaint to make of Lord Culduff, you might have chosen a more fitting auditor than his brother-in-law.”

“I thought the world had outgrown the cant of connection. I thought that we had got to be so widely-minded, that you might talk to a man about his sister as freely as if she were the Queen of Sheba.”

“Pray do me the favor to believe me still a bigot, sir.”

“How far is Lord Culduff involved in the mishap you speak of, Mr. Cutbill?” said Nelly, with a courteousness of tone she hoped might restore their guest to a better humor.

“I think he ‘ll net some five-and-twenty thousand out of the transaction; and from what I know of the distinguished Viscount, he ‘ll not lie awake at night fretting over the misfortunes of Tom Cutbill and fellows.”

“Will this – this misadventure,” stammered out Augustus, “prevent your return to England?”

“Only for a season. A man lies by for these things, just as he does for a thunderstorm; a little patience, and the sun shines out, and he walks about freely as ever. If it were not, besides, for this sort of thing, we City men would never have a day’s recreation in life; nothing but work, work, from morning till night. How many of us would see Switzerland, I ask you, if we didn’t smash? The Insolvent Court is the way to the Rhine, Bramleigh, take my word for it, though it ain’t set down in John Murray.”

“If a light heart could help to a light conscience, I must say, Mr. Cutbill, you would appear to possess that enviable lot.”

“There ‘s such a thing as a very small conscience,” said Cutbill, closing one eye, and looking intensely roguish. “A conscience so unobtrusive that one can treat it like a poor relation, and put it anywhere.”

“Oh, Mr. Cutbill, you shock me,” said Ellen, trying to look reproachful and grave.

“I ‘m sorry for it, Miss Bramleigh,” said he, with mock sorrow in his manner.

“Had not our friend L’Estrange an interest in this unfortunate speculation?” asked Bramleigh.

“A trifle, – a mere trifle. Two thousand I think it was. Two, or two-five-hundred. I forget exactly which.”

“And is this entirely lost?”

“Well, pretty much the same; they talk of sevenpence dividend, but I suspect they ‘re over-sanguine. I ‘d say five was nearer the mark.”

“Do they know the extent of their misfortune?” asked Ellen, eagerly.

“If they read the ‘Times’ they ‘re sure to see it. The money article is awfully candid, and never attempts any delicate concealment like the reports in a police-court. The fact is, Miss Bramleigh, the financial people always end like Cremorne, with a ‘grand transparency’ that displays the whole company!”

“I ‘m so sorry for the L’Estranges,” said Ellen, feelingly.

“And why not sorry for Tom Cutbill, miss? Why have no compassion for that gifted creature and generous mortal, whose worst fault was that he believed in a lord?”

“Mr. Cutbill is so sure to sympathize with himself and his own griefs that he has no need of me; and then he looks so like one that would have recuperative powers.”

“There, you ‘ve hit it,” cried he, enthusiastically. “That ‘s it! that’s what makes Tom Cutbill the man he is, —flectes non frangis. I hope I have it right; but I mean you may smooth him down, but you can’t smash him; and it ‘s to tell the noble Viscount as much I ‘m now on my way to Italy. I ‘ll say to the distinguished peer, ‘I ‘m only a pawn on the chess-board; but look to it, my Lord, or I ‘ll give check to the king!’ Won’t he understand me? ay, in a second, too!”

“I trust something can be done for poor L’Estrange,” said Augustus. “It was his sister’s fortune; and the whole of it, too.”

“Leave that to me, then. I ‘ll make better terms for him than he ‘ll get by the assignee under the court. Bless your heart, Bramleigh, if it was n’t for a little ‘extramural equity,’ as one might call it, it would go very hard with the widow and the orphan in this world; but we, coarse-minded fellows, as I ‘ve no doubt you ‘d call us, we do kinder things in our own way than commissioners under the act.”

“Can you recover the money for them?” asked Augustus, earnestly. “Can you do that?”

“Not legally – not a chance of it; but I think I ‘ll make a noble lord of our acquaintance disgorge something handsome. I don’t mean to press any claim of my own. If he behaves politely, and asks me to dine, and treats me like a gentleman, I ‘ll not be over hard with him. I like the – not the conveniences – that’s not the word, but the – ”

“‘Convenances,’ perhaps,” interposed Ellen.

“That’s it – the convenances. I like the attentions that seem to say, ‘T. C. is n’t to be kept in a tunnel or a cutting, but is good company at table, with long-necked bottles beside him. T. C. can be talked to about the world: about pale sherry, and pretty women, and the delights of Homburg, and the odds on the Derby; he’s as much at home at Belgravia as on an embankment.’”

“I suspect there will be few to dispute that,” said Augustus, solemnly.

“Not when they knows it, Bramleigh; ‘not when they knows it,’ as the cabbies say. The thing is to make them know it, to make them feel it. There ‘s a rough-and-ready way of putting all men like myself, who take liberties with the letter H, down as snobs; but you see there ‘s snobs and snobs. There ‘s snobs that are only snobs; there ‘s snobs that have nothing distinctive about them but their snobbery, and there ‘s snobs so well up in life, so shrewd, such downright keen men of the world, that their snobbery is only an accident, like a splash from a passing ‘bus; and, in fact, their snobbery puts a sort of accent on their acuteness, just like a trade-mark, and tells you it was town-made – no bad thing, Bramleigh, when that town calls itself London!”

If Augustus vouchsafed little approval of this speech, Ellen smiled an apparent concurrence, while in reality it was the man’s pretension and assurance that amused her.

“You ain’t as jolly as you used to be; how is that?” said Cutbill, shaking Bramleigh jocosely by the arm. “I suspect you are disposed, like Jeremiah, to a melancholy line of life?”

“I was not aware, sir, that my spirits could be matter of remark,” said Augustus, haughtily.

“And why not? You’re no highness, royal or serene, that one is obliged to accept any humor you may be in, as the right thing. You are one of us, I take it.”

“A very proud distinction,” said he, gravely.

“Well, if it’s nothing to crow, it’s nothing to cry for! If the world had nothing but top-sawyers, Bramleigh, there would be precious little work done. Is that clock of yours, yonder, right – is it so late as that?”

“I believe so,” said Augustus, looking at his watch. “I want exactly ten minutes to four.”

“And the train starts at four precisely. That’s so like me. I ‘ve lost my train, all for the sake of paying a visit to people who wished me at the North Pole for my politeness.”

“Oh, Mr. Cutbill,” said Ellen, deprecatingly.

“I hope, Mr. Cutbill, we are fully sensible of the courtesy that suggested your call.”

“And I ‘m fully sensible that you and Miss Ellen have been on thorns for the last half-hour, each muttering to himself, ‘What will he say next?’ or worse than that, ‘When will he go?”’

“I protest, sir, you are alike unjust to yourself and to us. We are so thoroughly satisfied that you never intended to hurt us, that if incidentally touched, we take it as a mere accident.”

“That is quite the case, Mr. Cutbill,” broke in Nelly; “and we know, besides, that, if you had anything harsh or severe to say to us, it is not likely you ‘d take such a time as this to say it.”

“You do me proud, ma’am,” said Cutbill, who was not quite sure whether he was complimented or reprimanded.

“Do, please, Augustus; I beg of you, do,” whispered Nelly in her brother’s ear.

“You’ve already missed your train for us, Mr. Cutbill,” said Augustus; “will you add another sacrifice and come and eat a very humble dinner with us at six o’clock?”

“Will I? I rayther think I will,” cried he, joyfully. “Now that the crisis is over, I may as well tell you I ‘ve been angling for that invitation for the last half-hour, saying every minute to myself, ‘Now it’s coming,’ or ‘No, it ain’t.’ Twice you were on the brink of it, Bramleigh, and you drifted away again, and at last I began to think I ‘d be driven to my lonely cutlet at the ‘Leopold’s Arms.’ You said six; so I ‘ll just finish a couple of letters for the post, and be here sharp. Good-bye. Many thanks for the invite, though it was pretty long a-coming.” And with this he waved an adieu and departed.

CHAPTER XXXVI. AN EVENING WITH CUTBILL

When Nelly retired after dinner on that day, leaving Mr. Cutbill to the enjoyment of his wine – an indulgence she well knew he would not willingly forego – that worthy individual drew one chair to his side to support his arm, and resting his legs on another, exclaimed, “Now, this is what I call cosy. There ‘s a pleasant light, a nice bit of view out of that window, and as good a bottle of St. Julien as a man may desire.”

“I wish I could offer you something better,” began Augustus, but Cutbill stopped him at once, saying, —

“Taking the time of the year into account, there ‘s nothing better! It’s not the season for a Burgundy or even a full-bodied claret. Shall I tell you, Bramleigh, that you gave me a better dinner to-day than I got at your great house, – the Bishop’s Folly?”

“We were very vain of our cook, notwithstanding, in those days,” said Augustus, smiling.

“So you might. I suppose he was as good as money could buy – and you had plenty of money. But your dinners were grand, cumbrous, never-ending feeds, that with all the care a man might bestow on the bill o’ fare, he was sure to eat too much of venison curry after he had taken mutton twice, and pheasant following after fat chickens. I always thought your big dinners were upside down; if one could have had the tail-end first they’d have been excellent. Somehow, I fancy it was only your brother Temple took an interest in these things at your house. Where is he now?”

“He’s at Rome with my brother-in-law.”

“That ‘s exactly the company he ought to keep. A lord purifies the air for him, and I don’t think his constitution could stand without one.”

“My brother has seen a good deal of the world; and, I think, understands it tolerably well,” said Bramleigh, meaning so much of rebuke to the other’s impertinence as he could force himself to bestow on a guest.

“He knows as much about life as a dog knows about decimals. He knows the cad’s life of fetch and carry; how to bow himself into a room and out again; when to smile, and when to snigger; how to look profound when a great man talks, and a mild despair when he is silent; but that ain’t life, Bramleigh, any more than these strawberries are grapes from Fontainebleau!”

“You occasionally forget, Mr. Cutbill, that a man’s brother is not exactly the public.”

“Perhaps I do. I only had one brother, and a greater blackguard never existed; and the ‘Times’ took care to remind me of the fact every year till he was transported; but no one ever saw me lose temper about it.”

“I can admire if I cannot envy your philosophy.”

“It’s not philosophy at all; it’s just common sense, learned in the only school for that commodity in Europe, – the City of London. We don’t make Latin verses as well as you at Eton or Rugby, but we begin life somewhat ‘cuter than you, notwithstanding. If we speculate on events, it is not like theoretical politicians, but like practical people, who know that Cabinet Councils decide the funds, and the funds make fortunes. You, and the men like you, advocated a free Greece and a united Italy for sake of fine traditions. We don’t care a rush about Homer or Dante, but we want to sell pig-iron and printed calicoes. Do you see the difference now?”

“If I do, it’s with no shame for the part you assign us.”

“That’s as it may be. There may be up there amongst the stars a planet where your ideas would be the right thing. Maybe Doctor Cumming knows of such a place. I can only say Tom Cutbill does n’t, nor don’t want to.”

For a while neither spoke a word; the conversation had taken a half-irritable tone, and it was not easy to say how it was to be turned into a pleasanter channel.

“Any news of Jack?” asked Cutbill, suddenly.

“Nothing since he sailed.”

Another and a longer pause ensued, and it was evident neither knew how to break the silence.

“These ain’t bad cigars,” said Cutbill, knocking the ash off his cheroot with his finger. “You get them here?”

“Yes; they are very cheap.”

“Thirty, or thirty-five centimes?”

“Ten!”

“Well, it ain’t dear! Ten centimes is a penny – a trifle less than a penny. And now, Bramleigh, will you think it a great liberty of me, if I ask you a question, – a sort of personal question?”

“That will pretty much depend upon the question, Mr. Cutbill. There are matters, I must confess, I would rather not be questioned on.”

“Well, I suppose I must take my chance for that! If you are disposed to bristle up, and play porcupine because I want to approach you, it can’t be helped – better men than Tom Cutbill have paid for looking into a wasp’s nest. It’s no idle curiosity prompts my inquiry, though I won’t deny there is a spice of curiosity urging me on at this moment. Am I free to go on, eh?”

“I must leave you to your own discretion, sir.”

“The devil a worse guide ever you ‘d leave me to. It is about as humble a member of the Cutbill family as I’m acquainted with. So that without any reference to my discretion at all, here ‘s what I want. I want to know how it is that you ‘ve left a princely house, with plenty of servants and all the luxuries of life, to come and live in a shabby corner of an obscure town and smoke penny cigars? There’s the riddle I want you to solve for me.”

For some seconds Bramleigh’s confusion and displeasure seemed to master him completely, making all reply impossible; but at last he regained a degree of calm, and with a voice slightly agitated, said, “I am sorry to balk your very natural curiosity, Mr. Cutbill, but the matter on which you seek to be informed is one strictly personal and private.”

“That’s exactly why I’m pushing for the explanation,” resumed the other, with the coolest imaginable manner. “If it was a public event I ‘d have no need to ask to be enlightened.”

Bramleigh winced under this rejoinder, and a slight contortion of the face showed what his self-control was costing him.

Cutbill, however, went on, “When they told me, at the Gresham, that there was a man setting up a claim to your property, and that you declared you ‘d not live in the house, nor draw a shilling from the estate, till you were well assured it was your own beyond dispute, my answer was, ‘No son of old Montague Bramleigh ever said that. Whatever you may say of that family, they ‘re no fools.’”

“And is it with fools you would class the man who reasoned in this fashion?” said Augustus, who tried to smile and seem indifferent as he spoke.

“First of all, it’s not reasoning at all; the man who began to doubt whether he had a valid right to what he possessed might doubt whether he had a right to his own name – whether his wife was his own, and what not. Don’t you see where all this would lead to? If I have to report whether a new line is safe and fit to be opened for public traffic, I don’t sink shafts down to see if some hundred fathoms below there might be an extinct volcano, or a stratum of unsound pudding-stone. I only want to know that the rails will carry so many tons of merchandise. Do you see my point? – do you take me, Bramleigh?”

“Mr. Cutbill,” said Augustus, slowly, “on matters such as these you have just alluded to there is no man’s opinion I should prefer to yours, but there are other questions on which I would rather rely upon my own judgment. May I beg, therefore, that we should turn to some other topic.”

“It’s true, then – the report was well-founded?” cried Cutbill, staring in wild astonishment at the other’s face.

“And if it were, sir,” said Bramleigh, haughtily, “what then?”

“What then? Simply that you’d be the – no matter what. Your father was very angry with me one night, because I said something of the same kind to him.”

And as he spoke he pushed his glass impatiently from him, and looked ineffably annoyed and disgusted.

“Will you not take more wine, Mr. Cutbill?” said Augustus, blandly, and without the faintest sign of irritation.

“No; not a drop. I’m sorry I’ve taken so much. I began by filling my glass whenever I saw the decanter near me – thinking, like a confounded fool as I was, we were in for a quiet confidential talk, and knowing that I was just the sort of fellow a man of your own stamp needs and requires; a fellow who does nothing from the claims of a class – do you understand? – nothing because he mixes with a certain set and dines at a certain club; but acts independent of all extraneous pressure – a bit of masonry, Bramleigh, that wants no buttress. Can you follow me, eh?”

“I believe I can appreciate the strength of such a character as you describe.”

“No, you can’t, not a bit of it. Some flighty fool that would tell you what a fine creature you were, how greathearted – that’s the cant, great-hearted! – would have far more of your esteem and admiration than Tom Cutbill, with his keen knowledge of life and his thorough insight into men and manners.”

“You are unjust to each of us,” said Bramleigh, quietly.

“Well, let us have done with it. I ‘ll go and ask Miss Ellen for a cup of tea, and then I ‘ll take my leave. I ‘m sure I wish I ‘d never have come here. It’s enough to provoke a better temper than mine. And now let me just ask you, out of mere curiosity – for, of course, I must n’t presume to feel more – but just out of curiosity let me ask you, do you know an art or an industry, a trade or a calling, that would bring you in fifty pounds a year? Do you see your way to earning the rent of a lodging even as modest as this?”

“That is exactly one of the points on which your advice would be very valuable to me, Mr. Cutbill.”

“Nothing of the kind. I could no more tell a man of your stamp how to gain his livelihood than I could make a tunnel with a corkscrew. I know your theory well enough. I ‘ve heard it announced a thousand times and more. Every fellow with a silk lining to his coat and a taste for fancy jewelry imagines he has only to go to Australia to make a fortune; that when he has done with Bond Street he can take to the bush. Isn’t that it, Bramleigh – eh? You fancy you ‘re up to roughing it and hard work because you have walked four hours through the stubble after the partridges, or sat a ‘sharp thing’ across country in a red coat! Heaven help you! It isn’t with five courses and finger-glasses a man finishes his day at Warra-Warra.”

“I assure you, Mr. Cutbill, as regards my own case, I neither take a high estimate of my own capacity nor a low one of the difficulty of earning a living.”

“Humility never paid a butcher’s bill, any more than conceit!” retorted the inexorable Cutbill, who seemed bent on opposing everything. “Have you thought of nothing you could do? for, if you ‘re utterly incapable, there’s nothing for you but the public service.”

“Perhaps that is the career would best suit me,” said Bramleigh, smiling; “and I have already written to bespeak the kind influence of an old friend of my father’s on my behalf.”

“Who is he?”

“Sir Francis Deighton.”

“The greatest humbug in the Government! He trades on being the most popular man of his day, because he never refused anything to anybody – so far as a promise went; but it’s well known that he never gave anything out of his own connections. Don’t depend on Sir Francis, Bramleigh, whatever you do.”

“That is sorry comfort you give me.”

“Don’t you know any women?”

“Women – women? I know several.”

“I mean women of fashion. Those meddlesome women that are always dabbling in politics and the Stock Exchange – very deep where you think they know nothing, and perfectly ignorant about what they pretend to know best. They ‘ve two-thirds of the patronage of every government in England; you may laugh, but it’s true.”

“Come, Mr. Cutbill, if you ‘ll not take more wine we ‘ll join my sister,” said Bramleigh, with a faint smile.

“Get them to make you a Commissioner – it doesn’t matter of what – Woods and Forests – Bankruptcy – Lunacy – anything; it ‘s always two thousand a year, and little to do for it. And if you can’t be a Commissioner, be an Inspector, and then you have your travelling expenses;” and Cutbill winked knowingly as he spoke, and sauntered away to the drawing-room.

CHAPTER XXXVII. THE APPOINTMENT

“What will Mr. Cutbill say now?” cried Ellen, as she stood leaning on her brother’s shoulder, while he read a letter marked’ “On Her Majesty’s Service,” and sealed with a prodigious extravagance of wax. It ran thus: —

Downing Street, September 10th Sir, – I have received instructions from Sir Francis Deighton, Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, to acknowledge your letter of the 9th instant; and while expressing his regret that he has not at this moment any post in his department which he could offer for your acceptance, to state that Her Majesty’s Secretary for Foreign Affairs will consent to appoint you consul at Cattaro, full details of which post, duties, salary, &c, will be communicated to you in the official despatch from the Foreign Office.