Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.

“He talked to me long in this strain, and I saw that the effects of this blow to all his hopes had made themselves deeply felt on his chance of recovery. It only needed a great shock to depress him to make his case hopeless. Within two months after his daughter’s arrival he was no more.

“I became Lucy’s guardian. Poor Dillon gave me the entire control over her future fortune, and left me to occupy towards her the place he had himself held. I believe that next to her father I held the best place in her affections, – of such affections, I mean, as are accorded to a parent. I was her godfather, and from her earliest infancy she had learned to love me. The reserve – it was positive coldness – with which Dillon had always treated Sewell had caused a certain distance, for the first time in their lives, between the father and daughter. She thought, naturally enough, that her father was unjust; that, unaccustomed to the new tone of manners which had grown up amongst young men, – their greater ease, their less rigid observance of ceremonial, their more liberal self-indulgence, – he was unfairly severe upon her lover. She was annoyed, too, that Sewells attempts to conciliate the old man should have turned out such complete failures. But none of these prejudices extended to me, and she counted much on the good understanding that she expected to find grow up between us.

“If I could have prevented the marriage, I would. I learned many things of the man that I disliked. There is no worse sign of a man than to be at the same time a man of pleasure and friendless. These he was, – he was foremost in every plan of amusement and dissipation, and yet none liked him. Vain fellows get quizzed for their vanity, and selfish men laughed at for their selfishness, and close men for their avarice; but there is a combination of vanity, egotism, small craftiness, and self-preservation in certain fellows that is totally repugnant to all companionship. Their lives are a series of petty successes, not owing to any superior ability or greater boldness of daring, but to a studious outlook for small opportunities. They are ever alive to know the ‘right man,’ to be invited to the ‘right house,’ to say the ‘right thing.’ Never linked with whatever is in disgrace or misfortune, they are always found backing the winning horse, if not riding him.

“Such men as these, so long as the world goes well with them, and events turn out fortunately, are regarded simply as sharp, shrewd fellows, with a keen eye to their own interests. When, however, the weight of any misfortune comes, when the time arrives that they have to bear up against the hard pressure of life, these fellows come forth in their true colors, swindlers and cheats.

“Such was he. Finding that I was determined to settle the small fortune her father had left her inalienably on herself, he defeated me by a private marriage. He then launched out into a life of extravagance to which their means bore no proportion. I was a rich man in those days, and knew nothing better to do with my money than assist the daughter of my oldest friend. The gallant Captain did not balk my good intentions. He first accepted, he then borrowed, and last of all he forged my name. I paid the bills and saved him, not for his sake, I need not tell you, but for hers, who threw herself at my feet, and implored me not to see them ruined. Even this act of hers he turned to profit. He wrote to me to say that he knew his wife had been to my house, that he had long nurtured suspicions against me, – I that was many years older than her own father, – that for the future he desired all acquaintance should cease between us, and that I should not again cross his threshold.

“By what persuasions or by what menaces he led his wife to the step, I do not know; but she passed me when we met without a recognition. This was the hardest blow of all. I tried to write her a letter; but after a score of attempts I gave it up, and left the place.

“I never saw her for eight years. I wish I had not seen her then. I am an old, hardened man of the world, one whom life has taught all its lessons to in the sternest fashion. I have been so baffled and beaten, and thrown back by all my attempts to think well of the world, that nothing short of a dogged resolution not to desert my colors has rescued me from a cold misanthropy; and yet, till I saw, I did not believe there was a new pang of misery my heart had not tasted. What? it is incredible, – surely that is not she who once was Lucy Dillon, – that bold-faced woman with lustrous eyes and rouged cheeks, – brilliant, indeed, and beautiful, but not the beauty that is allied to the thought of virtue, – whose every look is a wile, whose every action is entanglement. She was leaning on a great man’s arm, and in the smile she gave him told me how she knew to purchase such distinctions. He noticed me, and shook my hand as I passed. I heard him tell her who I was; and I heard her say that I had been a hanger-on, a sort of dependant of her father’s, but she never liked me! I tried to laugh, but the pain was too deep. I came away, and saw her no more.”

He ceased speaking, and for some time they walked along side by side without a word. At last he broke out: “Don’t believe the people who say that men are taught by anything they experience in life. Outwardly they may affect it. They may assume this or that manner. The heart cannot play the hypocrite, and no frequency of disaster diminishes the smart. The wondrous resemblance Miss Lendrick bears to Lucy Dillon renews to my memory the bright days of her early beauty, when her poor father would call her to sit down at his feet and read to him, that he might gaze at will on her, weaving whole histories of future happiness and joy for her. ‘Is it not like sunshine in the room to see her, Brook?’ would he whisper to me. ‘I only heard her voice as she passed under my window this morning, and I forgot some dark thought that was troubling me.’ And there was no exaggeration in this. The sweet music of her tones “vibrated so softly on the ear, they soothed the sense, just as we feel soothed by the gentle ripple of a stream.

“All these times come back to me since I have been here, and I cannot tell you how the very sorrow that is associated with them has its power over me. Every one knows with what attachment the heart will cling to some little spot in a far-away land that reminds one of a loved place at home, – how we delight to bring back old memories, and how we even like to name old names, to cheat ourselves back into the past. So it is that I feel when I see this girl. The other Lucy was once as my daughter; so, too, do I regard her, and with this comes that dreadful sorrow I have told you of, giving my interest in her an intensity unspeakable. When I saw Trafford’s attention to her, the only thing I thought of was how unlike he was to him who won the other Lucy. His frank, unaffected bearing, his fine, manly trustfulness, the very opposite to the other’s qualities, made me his friend at once. When I say friend, I mean well-wisher, for my friendship now bears no other fruit. Time was when it was otherwise.”

“What is it, William?” cried the vicar, as his servant came hurriedly forward.

“There ‘s a gentleman in the drawing-room, sir, wants to see Sir Brook Fossbrooke.”

“Have I your leave?” said the old man, bowing low. “I ‘ll join you here immediately.”

Within a few moments he was back again. “It was Trafford. He has just got a telegram to call him to his regiment. He suspects something has gone wrong; and seeing his agitation, I offered to go back with him. We start within an hour.”

CHAPTER X. LENDRICK RECOUNTS HIS VISIT TO TOWN

The vicar having some business to transact in Limerick, agreed to go that far with Sir Brook and Trafford, and accompanied them to the railroad to see them off.

A down train from Dublin arrived as they were waiting, and a passenger, descending, hastily hurried after the vicar, and seized his hand. The vicar, in evident delight, forgot his other friends for a moment, and became deeply interested in the new-comer. “We must say good-bye, doctor,” said Fossbrooke; “here comes our train.”

“A thousand pardons, my dear Sir Brook. The unlooked-for arrival of my friend here – but I believe you don’t know him. Lendrick, come here, I want to present you to Sir Brook Fossbrooke. Captain Trafford, Dr. Lendrick.”

“I hope these gentlemen are not departing,” said Lendrick, with the constraint of a bashful man.

“It is our misfortune to do so,” said Sir Brook; “but I have passed too many happy hours in this neighborhood not to come back to it as soon as I can.”

“I hope we shall see you. I hope I may have an opportunity of thanking you, Sir Brook.”

“Dublin! Dublin! Dublin! get in, gentlemen: first class, this way, sir,” screamed a guard, amidst a thundering rumble, a scream, and a hiss. All other words were drowned, and with a cordial shake-hands the new friends parted.

“Is the younger man his son?” asked Lendrick; “I did not catch the name?”

“No; he’s Trafford, a son of Sir Hugh Trafford, – a Lincolnshire man, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know. It was of the other I was thinking. I felt it so strange to see a man of whom when a boy I used to hear so much. I have an old print somewhere of two over-dressed ‘Bloods,’ as they were called in those days, with immense whiskers, styled ‘Fossy and Fussy,’ meaning Sir Brook and the Baron Geramb, a German friend and follower of the Prince.”

“I suspect a good deal changed since that day, in person as well as purse,” said the vicar, sadly.

“Indeed! I heard of his having inherited some immense fortune.”

“So he did, and squandered every shilling of it.”

“And the chicks are well, you tell me?” said Lendrick, whose voice softened as he talked of home and his children.

“Could n’t be better. We had a little picnic on Holy Island yesterday, and only wanted yourself to have been perfectly happy. Lucy was for refusing at first.”

“Why so?”

“Some notion she had that you would n’t like it. Some idea about not doing in your absence anything that was not usual when you are here.”

“She is such a true girl, so loyal,” said Lendrick, proudly.

“Well, I take the treason on my shoulders. I made her come. It was a delightful day, and we drank your health in as good a glass of Madeira as ever ripened in the sun. Now for your own news?”

“First let us get on the road. I am impatient to be back at home again. Have you your car here?”

“All is ready, and waiting for you at the gate.”

As they drove briskly along, Lendrick gave the vicar a detailed account of his visit to Dublin. Passing over the first days, of which the reader already has heard something, we take up the story from the day on which Lendrick learned that his father would see him.

“My mind was so full of myself, doctor,” said he, “of all the consequences which had followed from my father’s anger with me, that I had no thought of anything else till I entered the room where he was. Then, however, as I saw him propped up with pillows in a deep chair, his face pale, his eyes colorless, and his head swathed up in a bandage after leeching, my heart sickened, alike with sorrow and shame at my great selfishness.

“I had been warned by Beattie on no account to let any show of feeling or emotion escape me, to be as cool and collected as possible, and in fact, he said, to behave as though I had seen him the day before.

“‘Leave the room, Poynder,’ said he to his man, ‘and suffer no one to knock at the door – mind, not even to knock – till I ring my bell.’ He waited till the man withdrew, and then in a very gentle voice said, ‘How are you, Tom? I can’t give you my right hand, – the rebellious member has ceased to know me!’ I thought I should choke as the words met me; I don’t remember what I said, but I took my chair and sat down beside him.

“‘I thought you might have been too much agitated, Tom, but otherwise I should have wished to have had your advice along with Beattie. I believe, on the whole, however, he has treated me well.’

“I assured him that none could have done more skilfully.

“The skill of the doctor with an old patient is the skill of an architect with an old wall. He must not breach it, or it will tumble to pieces.

“‘Beattie is very able, sir,’ said I.

“‘No man is able,’ replied he, quickly, ‘when the question is to repair the wastes of time and years. Draw that curtain, and let me look at you. No; stand yonder, where the light is stronger. What! is it my eyes deceive me, – is your hair white?’

“‘It has been so eight years, sir.’

“‘And I had not a gray hair till my seventy-second year, – not one. I told Beattie, t’ other day, that the race of the strong was dying out. Good heavens, how old you look! Would any one believe in seeing us that you could be my son?’

“‘I feel perhaps even more than I look it, sir.’

“‘I could swear you did. You are the very stamp of those fellows who plead guilty – “Guilty, my Lord; we throw ourselves on the mercy of the court.” I don’t know how the great judgment-seat regards these pleas, – with me they meet only scorn. Give me the man who says, “Try me, test me.” Drop that curtain, and draw the screen across the fire. Speak lower, too, my dear,’ said he, in a weak soft voice; ‘you suffer yourself to grow excited, and you excite me.’

“‘I will be more cautious, sir,’ said I.

“‘What are these drops he is giving me? They have an acrid sweet taste.’

“‘Aconite, sir; a weak solution.’

“‘They say that our laws never forgot feudalism, but I declare I believe medicine has never been able to ignore alchemy: drop me out twenty, I see that your hand does not shake. Strange thought, is it not, to feel that a little phial like that could make a new Baron of the Exchequer? You have heard, I suppose, of the attempts – the indecent attempts – to induce me to resign. You have heard what they say of my age. They quote the registry of my baptism, as though it were the date of a conviction. I have yet to learn that the years a man has devoted to his country’s service are counts in the indictment against his character. Age has been less merciful to me than to my fellows, – it has neither made me deaf to rancor nor blind to ingratitude. I told the Lord-Lieutenant so yesterday.’

“‘You saw him then, sir?’ asked I.

“‘Yes, he was gracious enough to call here; he sent his secretary to ask if I would receive a visit from him. I thought that a little more tact might have been expected from a man in his station, – it is the common gift of those in high places. I perceive,’ added he, after a pause, ‘you don’t see what I mean. It is this: royalties, or mock royalties, for they are the same in this, condescend to these visits as deathbed attentions. They come to us with their courtesies as the priest comes with his holy cruet, only when they have the assurance that we are beyond recovery. His Excellency ought to have felt that the man to whom he proposed this attention was not one to misunderstand its significance.’

“‘Did he remain long, sir?’

“‘Two hours and forty minutes. I measured it by my watch.’

“‘Was the fatigue not too much for you?’

“‘Of course it was; I fainted before he got to his carriage. He twice rose to go away, but on each occasion I had something to say that induced him to sit down again. It was the whole case of Ireland we reviewed, – that is, I did. I deployed the six millions before him, and he took the salute. Yes, sir, education, religious animosities, land-tenure, drainage, emigration, secret societies, the rebel priest and the intolerant parson, even nationality and mendicant insolence, all marched past, and he took the salute! “And now, my Lord,” said I, “it is the man who tells you these things, who has the courage to tell and the ability to display them, and it is this man for whose retirement your Ex-lency is so eager, that you have actually deigned to make him a visit, that he may carry away into the next world, perhaps, a pleasing memory of this; it is this man, I say, whom you propose to replace – and by what, my Lord, and by whom? Will a mere lawyer, will any amount of nisi prius craft or precedent, give you the qualities you need on that bench, or that you need, sadly need, at this council-board? Go back, my Lord, and tell your colleagues of the Cabinet that Providence is more merciful than a Premier, and that the same overruling hand that has sustained me through this trial will uphold me, I trust, for years to serve my country, and save it for some time longer from your blundering legislation.”

“‘He stood up, sir, like a prisoner when under sentence; he stood up, sir, and as he bowed, I waved my adieu to him as though saying, You have heard me, and you are not to carry away from this place a hope, the faintest, that any change will come over the determination I have this day declared.

“‘He went away, and I fainted. The exertion was too long sustained, too much for me. I believe, after all,’ added he, with a smile, ‘his Excellency bore it very little better. He told the Archbishop the same evening that he’d not go through another such morning for “the garter.” Men in his station hear so little of truth that it revolts them like coarse diet. They ‘d rather abstain altogether till forced by actual hunger to touch it. When they come to me, however, it is the only fare they will find before them.’

“There was a long pause after this,” continued Lendrick. “I saw that the theme had greatly excited him, and I forbore to say a word, lest he should be led to resume it. ‘Too old for the bench!’ burst he out suddenly; ‘my Lord, there are men who are never too old, as there are those who are never too young. The oak is but a sapling when the pine is in decay. Is there that glut of intellect just now in England, are we so surfeited with ability that, to make room for the coming men, we, who have made our mark on the age, must retire into obscurity?’ He tried to rise from his seat; his face was flushed, and his eyes flashing; he evidently forgot where he was, and with whom, for he sank back with a faint sigh, and said, ‘Let us talk of it no more. Let us think of something else. Indeed, it was to talk of something else I desired to see you.’ He went on, then, to say that he wished something could be done for me. His own means were, he said, sadly crippled; he spoke bitterly, resentfully, I thought. ‘It is too long a story to enter on, and were it briefer, too disagreeable a one,’ added he. ‘I ought to be a rich man, and I am poor; I should be powerful, and I have no influence. All has gone ill with me.’ After a silence, he continued, ‘They have a place to offer you: the inspectorship, I think they call it, of hospitals at the Cape; it is worth, altogether, nigh a thousand a year, a thing not to be refused.’

“‘The offer could only be made in compliment to you, sir; and if my acceptance were to compromise your position – ’

“‘Compromise me!’ broke he in. ‘I ‘ll take care it shall not. No man need instruct me in the art of self-defence, sir. Accept at once.’

“‘I will do whatever you desire, sir,’ was my answer.

“‘Go out there yourself, alone, – at first, I mean. Let your boy continue his college career; the girl shall come to me.’

“‘I have never been separated from my children, sir,’ said I, almost trembling with anxiety.

“‘Such separations are bearable,’ added he, ‘when it is duty dictates them, not disobedience.’

“He fixed his eyes sternly on me, and I trembled as I thought that the long score of years was at last come to the reckoning. He did not dwell on the theme, however, but in a tone of much gentler meaning, went on: ‘It will be an act of mercy to let me see a loving face, to hear a tender voice. Your boy would be too rough for me.’

“‘You would like him, sir. He is thoroughly truthful and honest.’

“‘So he may, and yet be self-willed, be noisy, be over-redolent of that youth which age resents like outrage. Give me the girl, Tom; let her come here, and bestow some of those loving graces on the last hours of my life her looks show she should be rich in. For your sake she will be kind to me. Who knows what charm there may be in gentleness, even to a tiger-nature like mine? Ask her, at least, if she will make the sacrifice.’

“I knew not what to answer. If I could not endure the thought of parting from Lucy, yet it seemed equally impossible to refuse his entreaty, – old, friendless, and deserted as he was. I felt, besides, that my only hope of a real reconciliation with him lay through this road; deny him this, and it was clear he would never see me more. He said, too, it should only be for a season. I was to see how the place, the climate, suited for a residence. In a word, every possible argument to reconcile me to the project rushed to my mind, and I at last said, ‘Lucy shall decide, sir. I will set out for home at once, and you shall have her own answer.’

“‘Uninfluenced, sir,’ cried he, – ‘mind that. If influence were to be used, I could perhaps tell her what might decide her at once; but I would not that pity should plead for me, till she should have seen if I be worth compassion! There is but one argument I will permit in my favor, – tell her that her picture has been my pleasantest companion these three long days. There it lies, always before me. Go now, and let me hear from you as soon as may be.’ I arose, but somehow my agitation, do what I would, mastered me. It was so long since we had met! All the sorrows the long estrangement had cost me came to my mind, together with little touches of his kindness in long-past years, and I could not speak. ‘Poor Tom! poor Tom!’ said he, drawing me towards him; and he kissed me.”

As Lendrick said this, emotion overcame him, and he covered his face with his hands, and sobbed bitterly. More than a mile of road was traversed before a word passed between them. “There they are, doctor! There ‘s Tom, there’s Lucy! They are coming to meet me,” cried he. “Good-bye, doctor; you ‘ll forgive me, I know, – goodbye;” and he sprang off the car as he spoke, while the vicar, respecting the sacredness of the joy, wheeled his horse round, and drove back towards the town.

CHAPTER XI. CAVE CONSULTS SIR BROOK

A few minutes after the Adjutant had informed Colonel Cave that Lieutenant Traflford had reported himself, Sir Brook entered the Colonel’s quarters, eager to know what was the reason of the sudden recall of Traflford, and whether the regiment had been unexpectedly ordered for foreign service.

“No, no,” said Cave, in some confusion. “We have had our turn of India and the Cape; they can’t send us away again for some time. It was purely personal; it was, I may say, a private reason. You know,” added he, with a slight smile, “I am acting as a sort of guardian to Trafford just now. His family sent him over to me, as to a reformatory.”

“From everything I have seen of him, your office will be an easy one.”

“Well, I suspect that, so far as mere wildness goes, – extravagance and that sort of thing, – he has had enough of it; but there are mistakes that a young fellow may make in life – mistakes in judgment – which will damage him more irreparably than all his derelictions against morality.”

“That I deny, – totally, entirely deny. I know what you mean, – that is, I think I know what you mean; and if I guess aright, I am distinctly at issue with you on this matter.”

“Perhaps I could convince you, notwithstanding. Here’s a letter which I have no right to show you; it is marked ‘Strictly confidential and private.’ You shall read it, – nay, you must read it, – because you are exactly the man to be able to give advice on the matter. You like Traflford, and wish him well. Read that over carefully, and tell me what you would counsel.”

Fossbrooke took out his spectacles, and, having seated himself comfortably, with his back to the light, began in leisurely fashion to peruse the letter. “It’s his mother who writes,” said he, turning to the signature, – “one of the most worldly women I ever met. She was a Lascelles. Don’t you know how she married Trafford?”

“I don’t remember, if I ever heard.”

“It was her sister that Trafford wanted to marry, but she was ambitious to be a peeress; and as Bradbrook was in love with her, she told Sir Hugh, ‘I have got a sister so like me nobody can distinguish between us. She ‘d make an excellent wife for you. She rides far better than me, and she is n’t half so extravagant. I ‘ll send for her.’ She did so, and the whole thing was settled in a week.”