The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly

“Not think her beautiful?”

“Yes; there is some beauty, – a good deal of beauty, if you like; but somehow it is not allied with that brightness that seems to accentuate beauty. She is tame and cold.”

“I think men generally accuse her of coquetry.”

“And there is coquetry, too; but of that character the French call minauderie, the weapon of a very small enchantress, I assure you.”

“You are, then, for the captivations that give no quarter?” said she, smiling.

“It is a glory to be so vanquished,” said he, heroically.

“My sister declared the other night, after Julia had sung that barcarolle, that you were fatally smitten.”

“And did you concur in the judgment?” asked he, tenderly.

“At first, perhaps I did; but when I came to know you a little better – ”

“After our talk on the terrace?”

“And even before that. When Julia was singing for you, – clearly for you, there was no disguise in the matter, – and I whispered you, ‘What courage you have!’ you said, ‘I have been so often under fire’ – from that instant I knew you.”

“Knew me – how far?”

“Enough to know that it was not to such captivations you would yield, – that you had seen a great deal of that sort of thing.”

“Oh, have I not!”

“Perhaps not always unscathed,” said she, with a sly glance.

“I will scarcely go that far,” replied he, with the air of a man on the best possible terms with himself. “They say he is the best rider who has had the most falls. At least, it may be said that he who has met no disasters has encountered few perils.”

“Now, my Lord, you can see the cottage completely. Is it not very pretty, and very picturesque, and is there not something very interesting – touching almost, in the thought of beauty and captivation – dwelling in this un-travelled wilderness?”

He almost gave a little shudder, as his eye followed the line of the rugged mountain, till it blended with the bleak and shingly shore on which the waves were now washing in measured plash, – the one sound in the universal silence around.

“Nothing but being desperately in love could make this solitude endurable,” said he at last.

“Why not try that resource, my Lord? I could almost promise you that the young lady who lives yonder is quite ready to be adored and worshipped, and all that sort of thing; and it would be such a boon on the frosty days, when the ground is too hard for hunting, to have this little bit of romance awaiting you.”

“Coquetry and French cookery pall upon a man who has lived all his life abroad, and he actually longs for a little plain diet, in manners as well as meals.”

“And then you have seen all the pretty acts of our very pretty neighbor so much better done?”

“Done by real artists,” added he.

“Just so. Amateurship is always a poor thing. This is the way, my Lord. If you will follow me, I will be your guide here; the path here is very slippery, and you must take care how you go.”

“When I fall, it shall be at your feet,” said he, with his hand on his heart.

As they gained the bottom of the little ravine down which the footpath lay, they found Julia, hoe in hand, at work in the garden before the door. Her dark woollen dress and her straw hat were only relieved in color by a blue ribbon round her throat, but she was slightly flushed by exercise, and a little flurried, perhaps, by the surprise of seeing them, and her beauty, this time, certainly lacked nothing of that brilliancy which Lord Culduff had pronounced it deficient in.

“My brother will be so sorry to have missed you, my Lord,” said she, leading the way into the little drawing-room, where, amidst many signs of narrow fortune, there were two or three of those indications which vouch for cultivated tastes and pleasures.

“I had told Lord Culduff so much about your cottage, Julia,” said Marion, “that he insisted on coming to see it, without even apprising you of his intention.”

“It is just as well,” said she artlessly. “A little more or less sun gives the only change in its appearance. Lord Culduff sees it now as it looks nearly every day.”

“And very charming that is,” said he, walking to the window and looking out. And then he asked the name of a headland, and how a small rocky island was called, and on which side lay the village of Portshandon, and at what distance was the church, the replies to which seemed to afford him unmixed satisfaction; for, as he resumed his seat, he muttered several times to himself, “Very delightful indeed; very pleasing in every way!”

“Lord Culduff was asking me, as he came-along,” said Marion, “whether I thought the solitude – I think he called it the savagery of this spot – was likely to be better borne by one native to such wildness, or by one so graced and gifted as yourself, and I protest he puzzled me.”

“I used to think it very lonely when I came here first, but I believe I should be sorry to leave it now,” said Julia, calmly.

“There, my Lord,” said Marion, “you are to pick your answer out of that.”

“As to those resources which you are so flattering as to call my gifts and graces,” said Julia, laughing, “such of them at least as lighten the solitude were all learned here, I never took to gardening before; I never fed poultry.”

“Oh, Julia! have mercy on our illusions!”

“You must tell me what they are, before I can spare them. The curate’s sister has no claim to be thought an enchanted princess.”

“It is all enchantment!” said Lord Culduff, who had only very imperfectly caught what she said.

“Then, I suppose, my Lord,” said Marion, haughtily, “I ought to rescue you before the spell is complete, as I came here in quality of guide.” And she rose as she spoke. “The piano has not been opened to-day, Julia. I take it you seldom sing of a morning?”

“Very seldom, indeed.”

“So I told Lord Culduff; but I promised him his recompense in the evening. You are coming to us to-morrow, ain’t you?”

“I fear not. I think George made our excuses. We are to have Mr. Longworth and a French friend of his here with us.”

“You see, my Lord, what a gay neighborhood we have; here is a rival dinner-party,” said Marion.

“There’s no question of a dinner; they come to tea, I assure you,” said Julia, laughing.

“No, my Lord, it’s useless; quite hopeless. I assure you she ‘ll not sing for you of a morning.” This speech was addressed to Lord Culduff, as he was turning over some music-books on the piano.

“Have I your permission to look at these?” said he to Julia, as he opened a book of drawings in water-colors.

“Of course, my Lord. They are mere sketches taken in the neighorhood here, and, as you will see, very hurriedly done.” \

“And have you such coast scenery as this?” asked he, in some astonishment, while he held up a rocky headland of several hundred feet, out of the caves at whose base a tumultuous sea was tumbling.

“I could show you finer and bolder bits than even that.”

“Do you hear, my Lord?” said Marion, in a low tone, only audible to himself. “The fair Julia is offering to be your guide. I ‘m afraid it is growing late. One does forget time at this cottage. It was only the last day I came here I got scolded for being late at dinner.”

And now ensued one of those little bustling scenes of shawling and embracing with which young ladies separate. They talked together, and laughed, and kissed, and answered half-uttered sentences, and even seemed after parting to have something more to say; they were by turns sad, and playful, and saucy – all of these moods being duly accompanied by graceful action, and a chance display of a hand or foot, as it might be, and then they parted.

“Well, my Lord,” said Marion, as they ascended the steep path that led homewards, “what do you say now? Is Julia as cold and impassive as you pronounced her, or are you ungrateful enough to ignore fascinations all displayed and developed for your own especial captivation?”

“It was very pretty coquetry, all of it,” said he, smiling. “Her eyelashes are even longer than I thought them.”

“I saw that you remarked them, and she was gracious enough to remain looking at the drawing sufficiently long to allow you full time for the enjoyment.”

The steep and rugged paths were quite as much as Lord Culduff could manage without talking, and he toiled along after her in silence, till they gained the beach.

“At last a bit of even ground,” exclaimed he, with a sigh.

“You’ll think nothing of the hill, my Lord, when you’ve come it three or four times,” said she, with a malicious twinkle of the eye.

“Which is precisely what I have no intention of doing.”

“What! not cultivate the acquaintance so auspiciously opened?”

“Not at this price,” said he, looking at his splashed boots.

“And that excursion, that ramble, or whatever be the name for it, you were to take together?”

“It is a bliss, I am afraid, I must deny myself.”

“You are wrong, my Lord, – very wrong. My brothers at least assure me that Julia is charming en tête-à-tête. Indeed, Augustus says one does not know her at all till you have passed an hour or two in such confidential intimacy. He says ‘she comes out’ – whatever that may be – wonderfully.”

“Oh, she comes out, does she?” said he, caressing his whiskers.

“That was his phrase for it. I take it to mean that she ventures to talk with a freedom more common on the Continent than in these islands. Is that coming out, my Lord?”

“Well, I half suspect it is,” said he, smiling faintly.

“And I suppose men like that?”

“I ‘m afraid, my dear Miss Bramleigh,” said he, with a mock air of deploring – “I ‘m afraid that in these degenerate days men are very prone to like whatever gives them least trouble in everything, and if a woman will condescend to talk to us on our own topics, and treat them pretty much in our own way, we like it, simply because it diminishes the distance between us, and saves us that uphill clamber we are obliged to take when you insist upon our scrambling up to the high level you live in.”

“It is somewhat of an ignoble confession you have made there,” said she, haughtily.

“I know it – I feel it – I deplore it,” said he, affectedly.

“If men will, out of mere indolence – no matter,” said she, biting her lip. “I ‘ll not say what I was going to say.”

“Pray do. I beseech you finish what you have so well begun.”

“Were I to do so, my Lord,” said she, gravely, “it might finish more than that. It might at least go some way towards finishing our acquaintanceship. I ‘m sorely afraid you ‘d not have forgiven me had you heard me out.”

“I ‘d never have forgiven myself, if I were the cause of it.”

For some time they walked along in silence, and now the great house came into view – its windows all glowing and glittering in the blaze of a setting sun, while a faint breeze lazily moved the heavy folds of the enormous flag that floated over the high tower.

“I call that a very princely place,” said he, stopping to admire it.

“What a caprice to have built it in such a spot,” said she. “The country people were not far wrong when they called it Bishop’s Folly.”

“They gave it that name, did they?”

“Yes, my Lord. It is one of the ways in which humble folk reconcile themselves to lowly fortune; they ridicule their betters.” And now she gave a little low laugh to herself, as if some unuttered notion had just amused her.

“What made you smile?” asked he.

“A very absurd fancy struck me.”

“Let me hear it. Why not let me share in its oddity?”

“It might not amuse you as much as it amused me.”

“I am the only one who can decide that point.”

“Then I ‘m not so certain it might not annoy you.”

“I can assure you on that head,” said he, gallantly.

“Well, then, you shall hear it. The caprice of a great divine has, so to say, registered itself yonder, and will live, so long as stone and mortar endure, as Bishop’s Folly; and I was thinking how strange it would be if another caprice just as unaccountable were to give a name to a less pretentious edifice, and a certain charming cottage be known to posterity as the Viscount’s Folly. You’re not angry with me, are you?”

“I’d be very angry indeed with you, with myself, and with the whole world, if I thought such a casualty a possibility.”

“I assure you, when I said it I did n’t believe it, my Lord,” said she, looking at him with much graciousness; “and, indeed, I would never have uttered the impertinence if you had not forced me. There, there goes the first bell; we shall have short time to dress.” And, with a very meaning smile and a familiar gesture of her hand, she tripped up the steps and disappeared.

“I think I ‘m all right in that quarter,” was his lordship’s reflection as he mounted the stairs to his room.

CHAPTER XII. AN EVENING BELOW AND ABOVE STAIRS

It was not very willingly that Mr. Cutbill left the drawing-room, where he had been performing a violoncello accompaniment to one of the young ladies in the execution of something very Mendelssohnian and profoundly puzzling to the uninitiated in harmonics. After the peerage he loved counterpoint; and it was really hard to tear himself away from passages of almost piercing shrillness, or those still more suggestive moanings of a double bass, to talk stock and share-list with Colonel Bramleigh in the library. Resisting all the assurances that “papa wouldn’t mind it, that any other time would do quite as well,” and such like, he went up to his room for his books and papers, and then repaired to his rendezvous.

“I ‘m sorry to take you away from the drawing-room, Mr. Cutbill,” said Bramleigh, as he entered; “but I am half expecting a summons to town, and could not exactly be sure of an opportunity to talk over this matter on which Lord Culduff is very urgent to have my opinion.”

“It is not easy, I confess, to tear oneself away from such society. Your daughters are charming musicians, Colonel. Miss Bramleigh’s style is as brilliant as Meyer’s; and Miss Eleanor has a delicacy of touch I have never heard surpassed.”

“This is very flattering, coming from so consummate a judge as yourself.”

“All the teaching in the world will not impart that sensitive organization which sends some tones into the heart like the drip, drip of water on a heated brow. Oh, dear! music is too much for me; it totally subverts all my sentiments. I ‘m not fit for business after it, Colonel Bramleigh, that’s the fact.”

“Take a glass of that ‘Bra Mouton.’ You will find it good. It has been eight-and-thirty years in my cellar, and I never think of bringing it out except for a connoisseur in wine.”

“Nectar, – positively nectar,” said he, smacking his lips. “You are quite right not to give this to the public. They would drink it like a mere full-bodied Bordeaux. That velvety softness – that subdued strength, faintly recalling Burgundy, and that delicious bouquet, would all be clean thrown away on most people. I declare, I believe a refined palate is just as rare as a correct ear; don’t you think so?”

“I’m glad you like the wine. Don’t spare it. The cellar is not far off. Now then, let us see. These papers contain Mr. Stebbing’s report. I have only glanced my eye over it, but it seems like every other report. They have, I think, a stereotyped formula for these things. They all set out with their bit of geological learning; but you know, Mr. Cutbill, far better than I can tell you, you know sandstone doesn’t always mean coal?”

“If it does n’t, it ought to,” said Cutbill, with a laugh, for the wine had made him jolly, and familiar besides.

“There are many things in this world which ought to be, but which, unhappily, are not,” said Bramleigh, in a tone evidently meant to be half-reproachful. “And as I have already observed to you, mere geological formation is not sufficient. We want the mineral, sir; we want the fact.”

“There you have it; there it is for you,” said Cutbill, pointing to a somewhat bulky parcel in brown paper in the centre of the table.

“This is not real coal, Mr. Cutbill,” said Bramleigh, as he tore open the covering, and exposed a black misshapen lump. “You would not call this real coal?”

“I ‘d not call it Swansea nor Cardiff, Colonel, any more than I ‘d say the claret we had after dinner to-day was ‘Mouton;’ but still I’d call each of them very good in their way.”

“I return you my thanks, sir, in the name of my wine-merchant. But to come to the coal question – what could you do with this?”

“What could I do with it? Scores of things – if I had only enough of it. Burn it in grates – cook with it – smelt metals with it – burn lime with it – drive engines, not locomotives, but stationaries, with it. I tell you what, Colonel Bramleigh,” said he, with the air of a man who was asserting what he would not suffer to be gainsaid. “It’s coal quite enough to start a company on; coal within the meaning of the act, as the lawyers would say.”

“You appear to have rather loose notions of joint-stock enterprises, Mr. Cutbill,” said Bramleigh, haughtily.

“I must say, Colonel, they do not invariably inspire me with sentiments of absolute veneration.”

“I hope, however, you feel, sir, that in any enterprise – in any undertaking – where my name is to stand forth, either as promoter or abetter, that the world is to see in such guarantee the assurance of solvency and stability.”

“That is precisely what made me think of you; precisely what led me to say to Culduff, ‘Bramleigh is the man to carry the scheme out.’”

Now the familiarity that spoke of Culduff thus unceremoniously in great part reconciled Bramleigh to hear his own name treated in like fashion, all the more that it was in a quotation; but still he winced under the cool impertinence of the man, and grieved to think how far his own priceless wine had contributed towards it. The Colonel therefore merely bowed his acknowledgment and was silent.

“I’ll be frank with you,” said Cutbill, emptying the last of the decanter into his glass as he spoke. “I ‘ll be frank with you. We ‘ve got coal; whether it be much or little, there it is. As to quality, as I said before, it is n’t Cardiff. It won’t set the Thames on fire, any more than the noble lord that owns it; but coal it is, and it will burn as coal – and yield gas as coal – and make coke as coal, and who wants more? As to working it himself, Culduff might just as soon pretend he ‘d pay the National Debt. He is over head and ears already; he has been in bondage with the children of Israel this many a day, and if he was n’t a peer he could not show; but that’s neither here nor there. To set the concern a-going we must either have a loan or a company. I ‘m for a company.”

“You are for a company,” reiterated Bramleigh, slowly, as he fixed his eyes calmly but steadily on him.

“Yes, I ‘m for a company. With a company, Bramleigh,” said he, as he tossed off the last glass of wine, “there ‘s always more of P. E.”

“Of what?”

“Of P. E. – Preliminary expenses! There ‘s a commission to inquire into this, and a deputation to investigate that. No men on earth dine like deputations. I never knew what dining was till I was named on a deputation. It was on sewerage. And didn’t the champagne flow! There was a viaduct to be constructed to lead into the Thames, and I never think of that viaduct without the taste of turtle in my mouth, and a genial feeling of milk-punch all over me. The assurance offices say that there was scarcely such a thing known as a gout premium in the City till the joint-stock companies came in; now they have them every day.”

“Revenons à nos moutons, as the French say, Mr. Cutbill,” said Bramleigh, gravely.

“If it’s a pun you mean, and that we ‘re to have another bottle of the same, I second the motion.”

Bramleigh gave a sickly smile as he rang the bell, but neither the jest nor the jester much pleased him.

“Bring another bottle of ‘Mouton,’ Drayton, and fresh glasses,” said he, as the butler appeared.

“I ‘ll keep mine; it is warm and mellow,” said Cutbill. “The only fault with that last bottle was the slight chill on it.”

“You have been frank with me, Mr. Cutbill,” said Bramleigh, as soon as the servant withdrew, “and I will be no less so with you. I have retired from the world of business – I have quitted the active sphere where I have passed some thirty odd years, and have surrendered ambition, either of money-making, or place, or rank, and come over here with one single desire, one single wish – I want to see what’s to be done for Ireland.”

Cutbill lifted his glass to his lips, but scarcely in time to hide the smile of incredulous drollery which curled them, and which the other’s quick glance detected.

“There is nothing to sneer at, sir, in what I said, and I will repeat my words. I want to see what’s to be done for Ireland.”

“It ‘s very laudable in you, there can be no doubt,” said Cutbill, gravely.

“I am well aware of the peril incurred by addressing to men like yourself, Mr. Cutbill, any opinions – any sentiments – which savor of disinterestedness, or – or – ”

“Poetry,” suggested Cutbill.

“No, sir; patriotism was the word I sought for. And it is not by any means necessary that a man should be an Irishman to care for Ireland. I think, sir, there is nothing in that sentiment at least which will move your ridicule.”

“Quite the reverse. I have drunk ‘Prosperity to Ireland’ at public dinners for twenty years; and in very good liquor too, occasionally.”

“I am happy to address a gentleman so graciously disposed to listen to me,” said Bramleigh, whose face was now crimson with anger. “There is only one thing more to be wished for – that he would join some amount of trustfulness to his politeness; with that he would be perfect.”

“Here goes, then, for perfection,” cried Cutbill, gayly. “I ‘m ready from this time to believe anything you tell me.”

“Sir, I will not draw largely on the fund you so generously place at my disposal. I will simply ask you to believe me a man of honor.”

“Only that? No more than that?”

“No more, I pledge you my word.”

“My dear Bramleigh, your return for the income-tax is enough to prove that. Nothing short of high integrity ever possessed as good a fortune as yours.”

“You are speaking of my fortune, Mr. Cutbill, not of my character.”

“Ain’t they the same? Ain’t they one and the same? Show me your dividends, and I will show you your disposition – that’s as true as the Bible.”

“I will not follow you into this nice inquiry. I will simply return to where I started from, and repeat, I want to do something for Ireland.”

“Do it, in God’s name; and I hope you ‘ll like it when it ‘s done. I have known some half-dozen men in my time who had the same sort of ambition. One of them tried a cotton-mill on the Liffey, and they burned him down. Another went in for patent fuel, and they shot his steward. A third tried Galway marble, and they shot himself. But after all there ‘s more honor where there ‘s more danger, What, may I ask, is your little game for Ireland?”

“I begin to suspect that a better time for business, Mr. Cutbill, might be an hour after breakfast. Shall we adjourn till to-morrow morning?”

“I am completely at your orders. For my own part, I never felt clearer in my life than I do this minute. I ‘m ready to go into coal with you: from the time of sinking the shaft to riddling the slack, my little calculations are all made. I could address a board of managing directors here as I sit; and say, what for dividend, what for repairs, what for a reserved fund, and what for the small robberies.”

The unparalleled coolness of the man had now pushed Bramleigh’s patience to its last limit; but a latent fear of what such a fellow might be in his enmity, restrained him and compelled him to be cautious.

“What sum do you think the project will require, Mr. Cutbill?”

“I think about eighty thousand; but I’d say one hundred and fifty – it’s always more respectable. Small investments are seldom liked; and then the margin – the margin is broader.”

“Yes, certainly; the margin is much broader.”

“Fifty-pound shares, with a call of five every three months, will start us. The chief thing is to begin with a large hand.” Here he made a wide sweep of his arm.

“For coal like that yonder,” said Bramleigh, pointing to the specimen, “you ‘d not get ten shillings the ton.”

“Fifteen – fifteen. I’d make it the test of a man’s patriotism to use it. I ‘d get the Viceroy to burn it, and the Chief Secretary, and the Archbishop, and Father Cullen. I ‘d heat St. Patrick’s with it, and the national schools. There could be no disguise about it; like the native whiskey, it would be known by the smell of the smoke.”