Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.

It was marvellous with what patience and courtesy Lendrick replied to these and such-like, politely assuring the writers how he regretted his inability to meet their wishes, and modestly confessing that he had neither the money nor the time to make his house other than it was.

All these, however, were as nothing to his trials when the day arrived when the house and grounds, in the language of the advertisement, were “on view,” and the world of the curious and idle were free to invade the place, stroll at will through rooms and gardens, comment and criticise not merely the objects before them, but the taste and the fortunes, the habits and the lives of those who had made this their home, and these things part of their own natures.

In a half-jesting humor, but really to save Lendrick from a mortification which, to a nature timid and sensitive as his, would have been torture, Sir Brook and Tom agreed to divide the labors of ciceroneship between them; the former devoting his attentions to the house and furniture, while Tom assumed the charge of grounds and gardens. To complete the arrangement, Lendrick and Lucy were banished to a small summer-house, and strictly enjoined never to venture abroad so long as the stranger horde overran the territory.

“I declare, my dear, I almost think the remedy worse than the disease,” said Lendrick to his daughter, as he paced with short feverish steps the narrow limits of his prison-house. “This isolation here has something secret, something that suggests shame about it. I think I could almost rather face all the remarks our visitors might make than sit down here to fancy and brood over them.”

“I suspect not, dearest papa; I believe the plan will spare us much that might pain us.”

“After all, child, these people have a right to be critical, and they are not bound to know by what associations you and I are tied to that old garden-seat or that bookstand, and we ought to be able to avoid showing them this.”

“Perhaps we ought, papa; but could we do so? that’s-the question.”

“Surely the tradesman affects no such squeamishness about what he offers for sale.”

“True, papa; because none of his wares have caught any clew to his identity. They have never been his in the sense which makes possession pleasure.”

“I wish they would not laugh without there; their coarse laughter sounds to me so like vulgar ridicule. I hardly thought all this would have made me so irritable; even the children’s voices jar on my nerves.”

He turned away his head, but her eyes followed him, and two heavy tears stole slowly along her cheek, and her lip quivered as she looked.

“There, they are going away,” said he, listening; “I am better now.”

“That ‘s right, dearest papa; I knew it was a mere passing pang,” said she, drawing her arm within his, and walking along at his side. “How kind Sir Brook is!”

“How kind every one, we might say. Poor Mills is like a brother, and Tobin too, – I scarcely expected so much heart from him. He gave me his old lancet-case as a keepsake yesterday, and I declare his voice trembled as he said good-bye.”

“As for the poor people, I hear, papa, that one would think they had lost their nearest and dearest. Molly Dew says they were crying in her house this morning over their breakfast as if it was a funeral.”

“Is it not strange, Lucy, that what touches the heart so painfully should help to heal the pang it gives? There is that in all this affection for us that gladdens while it grieves. All, – all are so kind to us! That young fellow – Trafford I think his name is – he was waiting at the post for his letters this morning when I came up, and it seems that Foss-brooke had told him of my appointment, – indiscreet of him, for I would not wish it talked of; but Trafford turned to him and said, ‘Ask Dr. Lendrick, is he decided about going;’ and when he heard that I was, he scarcely said goodbye, but jumped into a cab, and drove off full speed.

“‘What does that mean?’ asked I.

“‘He was so fond of Tom,’ said Fossbrooke, ‘they were never separate this last month or five weeks;’ so you see, darling, each of us has his sphere of love and affection.”

Lucy was crimson over face and neck, but never spoke a word. Had she spoken it would have been, perhaps, to corroborate Sir Brook, and to say how fond the young men were of each other. I do not affirm this, I only hint that it is likely. Where there are blanks in this narrative, the reader has as much right to fill them as myself.

“Sir Brook,” continued Lendrick, “thinks well of the young man; but for my own part I hardly like to see Tom in close companionship with one so much his superior in fortune. He is easily led, and has not yet learned that stern lesson in life, how to confess that there are many things he has no pretension to aspire to.”

“Tom loves you too sincerely, papa, ever to do that which would seriously grieve you.”

“He would not deliberately, – he would not in cold blood, Lucy; but young men, when together, have not many moods of deliberation or cold blood. But let us not speculate on trouble that may never come. It is enough for the present that he and Trafford are separated, if Trafford was even likely to lead him into ways of extravagance.”

“What ‘s that! Is n’t it, Tom? He’s laughing heartily at something. Yes; here he comes.”

“You may come out; the last of them has just driven off,” cried Tom, knocking at the door, while he continued to laugh on immoderately.

“What is it, Tom? What are you laughing at?”

“You should have seen it; it’s nothing to tell, but it was wonderful to witness. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”

“But what was it?” asked she, impatiently.

“I thought we had fully done with all our visitors, – and a rum set they were, most of them, not thinking of taking the place, but come out of mere curiosity, – when who should drive up with two postilions and four spicy grays but Lady Drumcarran and a large party, three horsemen following? I just caught the word ‘Excellency,’ and found out from one of the servants that a tall old man with white hair and very heavy eyebrows was the Lord-Lieutenant. He stooped a good deal, and walked tenderly; and as the Countess was most eager about the grounds and the gardens, they parted company very soon, he going into the house to sit down, while she prosecuted her inquiries without doors.

“I took him into the library; we had a long chat about fishing, and fish-curing, and the London markets, and flax, and national education, and land-tenure, and such-like. Of course I affected not to know who he was, and I took the opportunity to say scores of impertinences about the stupidity of the Castle, and the sort of men they send over here to govern us; and he asked me if I was destined for any career or profession, and I told him frankly that whenever I took up anything I always was sure to discover it was the one very thing that didn’t suit me; and as I made this unlucky discovery in law, medicine, and the Church, I had given up my college career, and was now in a sort of interregnal period, wondering what it was to be next. I did n’t like to own that the res angusto had anything to say to it. It was no business of his to know about that.

“‘You surely have friends able and willing to suggest something that would fit you,’ said he. ‘Is not the Chief Baron your grandfather?’

“‘Yes, and he might make me crier of his court; but I think he has promised the reversion to his butler. The fact is, I ‘d not do over well with any fixed responsibilities attached to me. I ‘d rather be a guerilla than serve in the regulars, and so I ‘ll just wait and see if something won’t turn up in that undisciplined force I ‘d like to serve with.’

“‘I ‘ll give you my name,’ said he, ‘before we part, and possibly I may know some one who might be of use to you.’

“I thanked him coolly, and we talked of something else, when there came a short plump little fellow, all beard and gold chains, to say that Lady Drumcarran was waiting for him. ‘Tell her I’m coming,’ said he; ‘and, Balfour,’ he cried out, ‘before you go away, give this gentleman my address, and if he should call, take care that I see him.’

“Balfour eyed me, and I eyed him, with, I take it, pretty much the same result, which said plainly enough, ‘You ‘re not the man for me.’

“‘What in heaven’s name is this?’ cried the Viceroy, as he got outside and saw Lady Drumcarran at the head of a procession carrying plants, slips, and flower-pots down to the carriage.

“‘Her Ladyship has made a raid amongst the greeneries,’ said Balfour, ‘and tipped the head-gardener, that tall fellow there with the yellow rose-tree; as the place is going to be sold, she thought she might well do a little genteel pillage.’ Curious to see who our gardener could be, all the more that he was said to be ‘tall,’ I went forward, and what do you think I saw? Sir Brook, with a flower-pot under one arm, and a quantity of cuttings under the other, walking a little after the Countess, who was evidently giving him ample directions as to her intentions. I could scarcely refrain from an outburst of laughing, but I got away into the shrubbery and watched the whole proceedings. I was too far off to hear, but this much I saw. Sir Brook had deposited his rose-tree and his slips on the rumble, and stood beside the carriage with his hat off. When his Excellency came up, a sudden movement took place in the group, and the Viceroy, seeming to push his way through the others, cried out something I could not catch, and then grasped Sir Brook’s hand with both his own. All was tumult in a moment. My Lady, in evident confusion and shame, – that much I could see, – was courtesying deeply to Sir Brook, who seemed not to understand her apologies – , at least, he appeared stately and courteous, as usual, and not in the slightest degree put out or chagrined by the incident. Though Lady Drumcarran was profuse of her excuses, and most eager to make amends for her mistake, the Viceroy took Sir Brook’s arm and led him off to a little distance, where they talked together for a few moments.

“‘It’s a promise, then, Fossbrooke, – you promise me!’ cried he aloud, as he approached the carriage.

“‘Rely upon me, – and within a week, or ten days at farthest,’ said Sir Brook, as they drove away.

“I have not seen him since, and I scarcely know if I shall be able to meet him without laughing.”

“Here he comes,” cried Lucy; “and take care, Tom, that you do nothing that might offend him.”

The caution was so far unnecessary that Sir Brook’s manner, as he drew near, had a certain stately dignity that invited no raillery.

“You have been detained a long time a prisoner, Dr. Len-drick,” said Fossbrooke, calmly; “but your visitors were so charmed with all they saw that they lingered on, unwilling to take their leave.”

“Tom tells me we had some of our county notabilities, – Lord and Lady Drumcarran, the Lacys, and others,” said Lendrick.

“Yes; and the Lord-Lieutenant, too, whom I used to know at Christ Church. He would have been well pleased to have met you. He told me your father was the ablest and most brilliant talker he ever knew.”

“Ah! we are very unlike,” said Lendrick, blushing modestly. “Did he give any hint as to whether his party are pleased or the reverse with my father’s late conduct?”

“He only said, ‘I wish you knew him, Fossbrooke; I sincerely wish you knew him, if only to assure him that he will meet far more generous treatment from us than from the Opposition.’ He added that we were men to suit each other; and this, of course, was a flattery for which I am very grateful.”

“And the tall man with the stoop was the Lord-Lieutenant?” asked Tom. “I passed half an hour or more with him in the library, and he invited me to call upon him, and told a young fellow, named Balfour, to give me his address, which he forgot to do.”

“We can go together, if you have no objection; for I, too, have promised to pay my respects,” said Sir Brook.

Tom was delighted at the suggestion, but whispered in his sister’s ear, as they passed out into the garden, “I thought I ‘d have burst my sides laughing when I met him; but it’s the very last thing in my thoughts now. I declare I ‘d as soon pull a tiger’s whiskers as venture on the smallest liberty with him.”

“I think you are right, Tom,” said she, squeezing his arm affectionately, to show that she not alone agreed with him, but was pleased that he had given her the opportunity of doing so.

“I wonder is he telling the governor what happened this morning? It can scarcely be that, though, they look so grave.”

“Papa seems agitated too,” said Lucy.

“I just caught Trafford’s name as they passed. I hope he ‘s not saying anything against him. It is not only that Lionel Trafford is as good a fellow as ever lived, but that he fully believes Fossbrooke likes him. I don’t think he could be so false; do you, Lucy?”

“I ‘m certain he is not. There, papa is beckoning to you; he wants you;” and Lucy turned hurriedly away, anxious to conceal her emotion, for her cheeks were burning, and her lips trembled with agitation.

CHAPTER XIV. TOM CROSS-EXAMINES HIS SISTER

It was decided on that evening that Sir Brook and Tom should set out for Dublin the next morning. Lucy knew not why this sudden determination had been come to, and Tom, who never yet had kept a secret from her, was now reserved and uncommunicative. Nor was it merely that he held aloof his confidence, but he was short and snappish in his manner, as though she had someway vexed him, and vexed him in some shape that he could not openly speak of or resent.

This was very new to her from him, and yet how was it? She had not courage to ask for an explanation. Tom was not exactly one of those people of whom it was pleasant to ask explanations., Where the matter to be explained might be one of delicacy, he had a way of abruptly blurting out the very thing one would have desired might be kept back. Just as an awkward surgeon will tear off the dressing, and set a wound a-bleeding, would he rudely destroy the work of time in healing by a moment of rash impatience. It was knowing this – knowing it well – that deterred Lucy from asking what might lead to something not over-agreeable to hear.

“Shall I pack your portmanteau, Tom?” asked she. It was a task that always fell to her lot.

“No; Nicholas can do it, – any one can do it,” said he, as he mumbled with an unlit cigar between his teeth.

“You used to say I always did it best, Tom, – that I never forgot anything,” said she, caressingly.

“Perhaps I did, – perhaps I thought so. Look here, Lucy,” said he, as though by an immense effort he had got strength to say what he wanted, “I am half vexed with you, if not more than half.”

“Vexed with me, Tom, – vexed with me! and for what?”

“I don’t think that you need ask. I am inclined to believe that you know perfectly well what I mean, and what I would much rather not say, if you will only let me.”

“I do not,” said she, slowly and deliberately.

“Do you mean to say, Lucy,” said he, and his manner was almost stern as he spoke, “that you have no secrets from me, that you are as frank and outspoken with me today as you were three months ago?”

“I do say so.”

“Then what’s the meaning of this letter?” cried he, as, carried away by a burst of passion, he overstepped all the prudential reserve he had sworn to himself to regard. “What does this mean?”

“I know nothing of that letter, nor what it contains,” said she, blushing till her very brow became crimson.

“I don’t suppose you do, for though it is addressed to you, the seal is unbroken; but you know whose handwriting it’s in, and you know that you have had others from the same quarter.”

“I believe the writing is Mr. Trafford’s,” said she, as a deathlike paleness spread over her face, “because he himself once asked me to read a letter from him in the same handwriting.”

“Which you did?”

“No; I refused. I handed the letter back to him unopened, and said that, as I certainly should not write to him without my father’s knowledge and permission, I would not read a letter from him without the same.”

“And what was the epistle, then, that the vicar’s housekeeper handed him from you?”

“That same letter I have spoken of. He left it on my table, insisting and believing that on second thoughts I would read it. He thought so because it was not to me, though addressed to me, but the copy of a letter he had written to his mother, about me certainly.” Here she blushed deeply again. “As I continued, however, of the same mind, determined not to see what the letter contained, I re-enclosed it and gave it to Mrs. Brennan to hand to him.”

“And all this you kept a secret from me?”

“It was not my secret. It was his. It was his till such time as he could speak of it to my father, and this he told me had not yet come.”

“Why not?”

“I never asked him that. I do not think, Tom,” said she, with much emotion, “it was such a question as you would have had me ask.”

“Do you love – Come, darling Lucy, don’t be angry with me. I never meant to wound your feelings. Don’t sob that way, my dear, dear Lucy. You know what a rough coarse fellow I am; but I’d rather die than offend you. Why did you not tell me of all this? I never liked any one so well as Trafford, and why leave me to the chance of misconstruing him? Would n’t it have been the best way to have trusted me as you always have?”

“I don’t see what there was to have confided to you. Mr. Trafford might, if he wished. I mean, that if there was a secret at all. I don’t know what I mean,” cried she, covering her face with her handkerchief, while a convulsive motion of her shoulders showed how she was moved.

“I am as glad as if I had got a thousand pounds, to know you have been so right, so thoroughly right, in all this, Lucy; and I am glad, too, that Trafford has done nothing to make me think less well of him. Let’s be friends; give me your hand, like a dear, good girl, and forgive me if I have said what pained you.”

“I am not angry, Tom,” said she, giving her hand, but with her head still averted.

“God knows it’s not the time for us to fall out,” said he, with a shaking voice. “Going to separate as we are, and when to be together again not so easy to imagine.”

“You are surely going out with papa?” asked she, eagerly.

“No; they say not.”

“Who says not?”

“The governor himself – Sir Brook – old Mills – everybody, in fact. They have held a committee of the whole house on it. I think Nicholas was present too; and it has been decided that as I am very much given to idleness, bitter beer, and cigars, I ought not to be anywhere where these ingredients compose the chief part of existence. Now the Cape is precisely one of these places; and if you abstract the idleness, the bitter beer, and the tobacco, there is nothing left but a little Hottentotism, which is neither pleasant nor profitable. Voted, therefore, I am not to go to the Cape. It is much easier, however, to open the geography books, and show all the places I am unfit for, than to hit upon the one that will suit me. And so I am going up to Dublin to-morrow with Sir Brook to consult – I don’t well know whom, perhaps a fortune-teller – what ‘s to be done with me. All I do know is, I am to see my grandfather, and to wait on the Viceroy, and I don’t anticipate that any of us will derive much pleasure from either event.”

“Oh, Tom! what happiness it would be to me if grandpapa – ” She stopped, blushed, and tried in vain to go on.

“Which is about the least likely thing in the world, Lucy,” said he, answering her unspoken sentence. “I am just the sort of creature he could n’t abide, – not to add that, from all I have heard of him, I ‘d rather take three years with hard labor at the hulks than live with him. It will do very well with you. You have patience, and a soft forgiving disposition. You ‘ll fancy yourself, besides, Heaven knows what of a heroine, for submitting to his atrocious temper, and imagine slavery to be martyrdom. Now, I could n’t. I ‘d let him understand that I was one of the family, and had a born right to be as ill-tempered, as selfish, and as unmannerly as any other Lendrick.”

“But if he should like you, Tom? If you made a favorable impression upon him when you met?”

“If I should, I think I ‘d go over to South Carolina, and ask some one to buy me as a negro, for I ‘d know in my heart it was all I could be fit for.”

“Oh, my dear, dear Tom, I wish you would meet him in a different spirit, if only for poor papa’s sake. You know what store he lays by grandpapa’s affection.”

“I see it, and it puzzles me. If any one should continue to ill-treat me for five-and-twenty years, I ‘d not think of beginning to forgive him till after fifty more, and I ‘m not quite sure I ‘d succeed then.”

“But you are to meet him, Tom,” said she, hopefully. “I trust much to your meeting.”

“That ‘s more than I do, Lucy. Indeed, I ‘d not go at all, except on the condition which I have made with myself, to accept nothing from him. I had not meant to tell you this; but it has escaped me, and can’t be helped. Don’t hang your head and pout your lip over that bad boy, brother Tom. I intend to be as submissive and as humble in our interview as if I was going to owe my life to him, just because I want him to be very kind and gracious to you; and I ‘d not wish to give him any reason for saying harsh things of me, which would hurt you to listen to. If I only knew how – and I protest I do not – I’d even try and make a favorable impression upon him, for I ‘d like to be able to come and see you, Lucy, now and then, and it would be a sore blow to me if he forbade me.”

“You don’t think I’d remain under his roof if he should do so?” asked she, indignantly.

“Not if you saw him turn me away, – shutting the door in my face; but what scores of civil ways there are of intimating that one is not welcome! But why imagine all these? – none of them may happen; and, as Sir Brook says, the worst misfortunes of life are those that never come to us; and I, for one, am determined to deal only with real, actual, present enemies. Is n’t he a rare old fellow? – don’t you like him, Lucy?”

“I like him greatly.”

“He loves you, Lucy, – he told me so; he said you were so like a girl whose godfather he was, and that he had loved her as if she were his own. Whether she had died, or whether something had happened that estranged them, I could n’t make out; but he said you had raised up some old half-dead embers in his heart, and kindled a flame where he had thought all was to be cold forever; and the tears came into his eyes, and that great deep voice of his grew fainter and fainter, and something that sounded like a sob stopped him. I always knew he was a brave, stout-hearted, gallant fellow; but that he could feel like this I never imagined. I almost think it was some girl he was going to be married to once that you must be so like. Don’t you think so?” “I don’t know; I cannot even guess,” said she, slowly. “It’s not exactly the sort of nature where one would expect to find much sentiment; but, as he said one day, some old hearts are like old chateaux, with strange old chambers in them that none have traversed for years and years, and with all the old furniture moth-eaten and crumbling, but standing just where it used to be. I ‘d not wonder if it was of himself he was speaking.”

She remained silent and thoughtful, and he went on, – “There’s a deal of romance under that quaint stern exterior. What do you think he said this morning? – ‘Your father’s heart is wrapped up in this place, Tom; let us set to work to make money and buy it for him. ‘I did not believe he was serious, and I said some stupid nonsense about a diamond necklace and ear-rings for you on the day of presentation; and he turned upon me with a fierce look, and in a voice trembling with anger, said, ‘Well, sir, and whom would they become better? Is it her birth or her beauty would disparage them, if they were the jewels of a crown?’ I know I ‘ll not cross another whim of his in the same fashion again; though he came to my room afterwards to make an apology for the tone in which he had spoken, and assured me it should never be repeated.” “I hope you told him you had not felt offended.” “I did more, – I did, at least, what pleased him more, – I said I was delighted with that plan of his about buying up the Nest, and that the very thought gave a zest to any pursuit I might engage in; and so, Lucy, it is settled between us that if his Excellency won’t make me something with a fine salary and large perquisites, Sir Brook and I are to set out I’m not very sure where, and we are to do I’m not quite certain what; but two such clever fellows, uniting experience with energy, can’t fail, and the double event – I mean the estate and the diamonds – are just as good as won already. Well, what do you want, Nicholas?” cried Tom, as the grim old man put his head inside the door and retired again, mumbling something as he went. “Oh, I remember it now; he has been tormenting the governor all day about getting him some place, – some situation or other; and the old rascal thinks we are the most ungrateful wretches under the sun, to be so full of our own affairs and so forgetful of his: we are certainly not likely to leave him unprovided for; he can’t imagine that. Here he comes again. My father is gone into Killaloe, Nicholas; but don’t be uneasy, he ‘ll not forget you.”