CHAPTER XXVI. A FAMILY PARTY
While the interview between Sir Brook and the Chief Baron lasted, – and it was a long time, – the anxiety of those below-stairs was great to know how matters were proceeding. Had the two old men, who differed so strongly in many respects, found out that there was that in each which could command the respect and esteem of the other, and had they gained that common ground where it was certain there were many things they would agree upon?
“I should say,” cried Beattie, “they have become excellent friends before this. The Chief reads men quickly, and Fossbrooke’s nature is written in a fine bold hand, easy to read and impossible to mistake.”
“There, there,” burst in Haire, – “they are laughing, and laughing heartily too. It does me good to hear the Chief’s laugh.”
Lendrick looked gratefully at the old man whose devotion was so unvarying. “Here comes Cheetor, – what has he to say?”
“My Lord will dine below-stairs to-day, gentlemen,” said the butler; “he hopes you have no engagements which will prevent your meeting him at dinner.”
“If we had, we ‘d soon throw them over,” burst out Haire. “This is the pleasantest news I have heard this half-year.”
“Fossbrooke has done it. I knew he would,” said Beattie; “he’s just the man to suit your father, Tom. While the Chief can talk of events, Fossbrooke knows people, and they are sure to make capital company for each other.”
“There’s another laugh! Oh, if one only could hear him now,” said Haire; “he must be in prime heart this morning. I wonder if Sir Brook will remember the good things he is saying.”
“I ‘m not quite so sure about this notion of dining below-stairs,” said Beattie, cautiously; “he may be over-taxing his strength.”
“Let him alone, Beattie; leave him to himself,” said Haire. “No man ever knew how to make his will his ally as he does. He told me so himself.”
“And in these words?” said Beattie, slyly.
“Yes, in those very words.”
“Why, Haire, you are almost as useful to him as Bozzy was to Johnson.”
Haire only caught the last name, and, thinking it referred to a judge on the Irish bench, cried out, “Don’t compare him with Johnston, sir; you might as well liken him to
me!
”
“I must go and find Lucy,” said Lendrick. “I think she ought to go and show Mrs. Sewell how anxious we all are to prove our respect and regard for her in this unhappy moment; the poor thing will need it.”
“She has gone away already. She has removed to Lady Lendrick’s house in Merrion Square; and I think very wisely,” said Beattie.
“There ‘s some Burgundy below, – Chambertin, I think it is, – and Cheetor won’t know where to find it,” said Haire. “I’ll go down to the cellar myself; the Chief will be charmed to see it on the table.”
“So shall I,” chimed in Beattie. “It is ten years or more since I saw a bottle of it, and I half feared it had been finished.”
“You are wrong,” broke in Haire. “It will be nineteen years on the 10th of June next. I ‘ll tell you the occasion. It was when your father, Tom, had given up the Solicitor-Generalship, and none of us knew who was going to be made Chief Baron. Plunkett was dining here that day, and when he tasted the Burgundy he said, ‘This deserves a toast, gentlemen,’ said he. ‘I cannot ask you to drink to the health of the Solicitor-General, for I believe there is no Solicitor-General; nor can I ask you to pledge the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, for I believe there is no Chief Baron; but I can give you a toast about which there can be no mistake nor misgiving, – I give you the ornament of the Irish Bar.’ I think, I hear the cheers yet. The servants caught them up, too, in the hall, and the house rang with a hip-hurrah till it trembled.”
“Well done, Bozzy!” said Beattie. “I’m glad that my want of memory should have recalled so glorious a recollection.”
At last Fossbrooke’s heavy tread was heard descending the stairs, and they all rushed to the door to meet him.
“It is all right!” cried he. “The Chief Baron has taken the whole event in an admirable spirit, and, like a truly generous man, he dwells on every proof of regard and esteem that has been shown him, and forgets the wrongs that others would have done him.”
“The shock, then, did not harm him?” asked Lendrick, eagerly.
“Far from it; he said he felt revived and renovated. Yes, Beattie, he told me I had done him more good than all your phials. His phrase was, ‘
Your
bitters, sir, leave no bad flavor behind them.’ I am proud to think I made a favorable impression upon him; for he permitted me not only to state my own views, but to correct some of his. He agrees now to everything. He even went so far as to say that he will employ his first half-hour of strength in writing to Lady Trafford; and he charges you, Beattie, to invite Lionel Trafford to come and pass some days here.”
“
Viva!
” cried Haire; “this is grand news.”
“He asks, also, if Tom could not come over for the wedding, which he trusts may not be long deferred, – as he said with a laugh, ‘At
my
time of life, Sir Brook, it is best to leave as little as possible to
Nisi Prius.
’”
“You must tell me all these again, Sir Brook, or I shall inevitably forget them,” whispered Haire in his ear.
“And shall I tell you, Lendrick, what I liked best in all I saw of him?” said Sir Brook, as he slipped his arm within the other’s, and drew him towards a window. “It was the way he said to me, as I rose to leave the room, ‘One word more, Sir Brook. We are all very happy, and, in consequence, very selfish. Let us not forget that there is one sad heart here, – that there is one upstairs there who can take no part in all this joy. What shall we, what can we, do for her?’ I knew whom he meant at once, – poor Mrs. Sewell; and I was glad to tell him that I had already thought of her. ‘She will join her husband,’ said I, ‘and I will take care that they have wherewithal to live on.’
“‘I must share in whatever you do for her, Sir Brook,’ said your father; ‘she has many attractive qualities; she has some lovable ones. Who is to say what such a nature might not have been, if spared the contamination of such a husband?’
“I’m afraid I shocked, if I did not actually hurt him, by the way I grasped his hands in my gratitude for this speech. I know I said, ‘God bless you for those words!’ and I hurried out of the room.”
“Ah,
you
know him, sir! —
you
read him aright! And how few there are who do it!” cried Haire, warmly.
The old Judge was too weak to appear in the drawing-room; but when the company entered the dining-room, they found him seated at the table, and, though pale and wasted, with a bright eye and a clear, fresh look.
“I declare,” said he, as they took their places, “this repays one for illness. No, Lucy, – opposite me, my dear. Yes, Tom, of course; that is your place, – your old place;” and he smiled benignly as he said it. “Is there not a place too many, Lucy?”
“Yes, grandpapa. It was for Mrs. Sewell, but she sent me a line to say she had promised Lady Lendrick to dine with her.”
The old Chief’s eyes met Fossbrooke’s, and in the glances they exchanged there was much meaning.
“I cannot eat, Sir Brook, till we have had a glass of wine together. Beattie may look as reproachfully as he likes, but it shall be a bumper. This old room has great traditions,” he went on. “Curran and Avonmore and Parsons, and others scarce their inferiors, held their tournaments here.”
“I have my doubts if they had a happier party round the board than we have to-night,” said Haire.
“We only want Tom,” said Dr. Lendrick. “If we had poor Tom with us, it would be perfect.”
“I think I know of another too,” whispered Beattie in Lucy’s ear. “Don’t you?”
“What soft nonsense is Beattie saying, Lucy? It has made you blush,” said the Chief. “It was all my fault, child, to have placed you in such bad company. I ought to have had you at my side here; but I wanted to look at you.”
Leaving them thus in happy pleasantry and enjoyment, let us turn for a moment to a very different scene, – to a drawing-room in Merrion Square, where at that same hour Lady Lendrick and Mrs. Sewell sat in close conference.
Mrs. Sewell had related the whole story of the intended duel, and its finale, and was now explaining to her mother-in-law how impossible it would be for her to continue any longer to live under the Chief Baron’s roof, if even – which she deemed unlikely – he would still desire it.
“He ‘ll not turn you out, dear, – of that I am quite certain. I suspect I am the only one in the world he would treat in that fashion.”
“I must not incur the risk.”
“Dear me, have you not been running risks all your life, Lucy? Besides, what else have you open to you?”
“Join my husband, I suppose, whenever he sends for me, – whenever he says he has a home to receive me.” “Dudley, I ‘m certain, will do his best,” said Lady Lendrick, stiffly. “It is not very easy for a poor man to make these arrangements in a moment. But, with all his faults, – and even his mother must own that he has many faults, – yet I have never known him to bear malice.” “Certainly, Madam, you are justified in your panegyric by his conduct on the present occasion; he has, indeed, displayed a most forgiving nature.”
“You mean by not fighting Trafford, I suppose; but come now, Lucy, we are here alone, and can talk freely to each other; why should he fight him?”
“I will not follow you, Lady Lendrick, into that inquiry, nor give you any pretext for saying to me what your candor is evidently eager for. I will only repeat that the one thing I ever knew Colonel Sewell pardon was the outrage that no gentleman ever endures.”
“He fought once before, and was greatly condemned for it.”
“I suppose you know why, Madam. I take it you have no need I should tell you the Agra story, with all its shameful details?”
“I don’t want to hear it; and if I did I would certainly hesitate to listen to it from one so deeply and painfully implicated as yourself.”
“Lady Lendrick, I will have no insinuations,” said she, haughtily. “When I came here, it never occurred to me I was to be insulted.”
“Sit down again, Lucy, and don’t be angry with me,” said Lady Lendrick, pressing her back into her chair. “Your position is a very painful one, – let us not make it worse by irritation; and to avoid all possibility of this, we will not look back at all, but only regard the future.”
“That may be more easy for
you
to do than for
me
”
“Easy or not easy, Lucy, we have no alternative; we cannot change the past.”
“No, no, no! I know that, – I know that,” cried she, bitterly, as her clasped hands dropped upon her knee.
“For that reason then, Lucy, forget it, ignore it. I have no need to tell you, my dear, that my own life has not been a very happy one, and if I venture to give advice, it is not without having had my share of sorrows. You say you cannot go back to the Priory?”
“No; that is impossible.”
“Unpleasant it would certainly be, and all the more so with these marriage festivities. The wedding, I suppose, will take place there?”
“I don’t know; I have not heard;” and she tried to say this with an easy indifference.
“Trafford is disinherited, is he not? – passed over in the entail, or something or other?”
“I don’t know,” she muttered out; but this time her confusion was not to be concealed.
“And will this old man they talk of – this Sir Brook somebody – make such a settlement on them as they can live on?”
“I know nothing about it at all.”
“I wonder, Lucy dear, it never occurred to you to fascinate Dives yourself. What nice crumbs these would have been for Algy and Cary!”
“You forget, Madam, what a jealous husband I have!” and her eyes now darted a glance of almost wild malignity.
“Poor Dudley, how many faults we shall find in you if we come to discuss you!”
“Let us not discuss Colonel Sewell, Madam; it will be better for all of us. A thought has just occurred; it was a thing I was quite forgetting. May I send one of your servants with a note, for which he will wait the answer?”
“Certainly. You will find paper and pens there.”
The note was barely a few lines, and addressed to George Kincaid, Esq., Ely Place. “You are to wait for the answer, Richard,” said she, as she gave it to the servant.
“Do you expect he will let you have some money, Lucy?” asked Lady Lendrick, as she heard the name.
“No; it was about something else I wrote. I’m quite sure he would not have given me money if I asked for it.”
“I wish
I
could, my dear Lucy; but I am miserably poor. Sir William, who was once the very soul of punctuality, has grown of late most neglectful. My last quarter is over-due two months. I must own all this has taken place since Dudley went to live at the Priory. I hear the expenses were something fabulous.”
“There was a great deal of waste; a great deal of mock splendor and real discomfort.”
“Is it true the wine bill was fifteen hundred pounds for the last year?”
“I think I heard it was something to that amount.”
“And four hundred for cigars?”
“No; that included pipes, and amber mouthpieces, and meerschaums for presents, – it rained presents!”
“And did Sir William make no remark or remonstrance about this?”
“I believe not. I rather think I heard that he liked it. They persuaded him that all these indiscretions, like his new wigs, and his rouge, and his embroidered waistcoats, made him quite juvenile, and that nothing made a man so youthful as living beyond his income.”
“It is easy enough to see how I was left in arrear; and
you
, dear, were you forgotten all this while and left without a shilling?”
“Oh, no; I could make as many debts as I pleased; and I pleased to make them, too, as they will discover one of these days. I never asked the price of anything, and therefore I enjoyed unlimited credit. If you remark, shopkeepers never dun the people who simply say, ‘Send that home.’ – How quickly you did your message, Richard! Have you brought an answer? Give it to me at once.”
She broke open the note with eager impatience, but it fell from her fingers as she read it, and she lay back almost fainting in her chair.
“Are you ill, dear, – are you faint?” asked Lady Len-drick.
“No; I ‘m quite well again. I was only provoked, – put out;” and she stooped and took up the letter. “I wrote to Mr. Kincaid to give me certain papers which were in his hands, and which I know Colonel Sewell would wish to have in his own keeping, and he writes me this: —
“Dear Madam, – I am sorry that it is not in my power to comply with the request of your note, inasmuch as the letters referred to were this morning handed over to Sir Brook Fossbrooke on his producing an order from Colonel Sewell to that intent. – I am, Madam, your most obedient servant,
“George Kincaid.”
“They were letters, then?”
“Yes, Lady Lendrick, they were letters,” said she, dryly, as she arose and walked to the window, to hide an agitation she could no longer subdue. After a few minutes she turned round and said, “You will let me stay here to-night?”
“Certainly, dear; of course I will.”
“But the children must be sent for, – I can’t suffer them to remain there. Will you send for them?”
“Yes; I ‘ll tell Rose to take the carriage and bring them over here.”
“This is very kind of you; I am most grateful. We shall not be a burden beyond to-morrow.”
“What do you mean to do?”
“To join my husband, as I told you awhile ago. Sir Brook Fossbrooke made that the condition of his assisting us.”
“What does he call assisting you?”
“Supporting us, – feeding, housing, clothing us; we shall have nothing but what he will give us.”
“That is very generous, indeed.”
“Yes; it is generous, – more generous than you dream of, for we did not always treat him very well; but
that
also is a bygone, and I ‘ll not return to it.”
“Come down and have some dinner, – it has been on the table this half-hour; it will be nigh cold by this.”
“Yes; I am quite ready. I’d like to eat, too, if I could. What a great resource it is to men in their dark hours that they can drink and smoke! I think I could do both to-day if I thought they would help me to a little insensibility.”
CHAPTER XXVII. PROJECTS
Trafford arrived from England on the evening after, and hastened off to Howth, where he found Sir Brook deeply engaged over the maps and plans of his new estate; for already the preliminaries had so far advanced that he could count upon it as his own.
“Look here, Trafford,” he cried, “and see what a noble extension we shall give to the old grounds of the Nest. The whole of this wood – eleven hundred and seventy acres – comes in, and this mountain down to that stream there is ours, as well as all these meadow-lands between the mountain and the Shannon, – one of the most picturesque estates it will be in the kingdom. If I were to have my own way, I ‘d rebuild the house. With such foliage – fine old timber much of it – there ‘s nothing would look better than one of those Venetian villas, those half-castellated buildings one sees at the foot of the mountains of Conigliano; and they are grand spacious places to live in, with wide stairs, and great corridors, and terraces everywhere. I see, however, Lendrick’s heart clings to his old cottage, and we must let him have his way.”
“What is this here?” asked Trafford, drawing out from the mass of papers the plan of a very pretty but very diminutive cottage.
“That’s to be mine. This window you see here will project over the river, and that little terrace will be carried on arches all along the river bank. I have designed everything, even to the furniture. You shall see a model cottage, Trafford; not one of those gingerbread things to be shown to strangers by ticket on Tuesdays or Saturdays, with a care-taker to be tipped, and a book to be scribbled full of vulgar praises of the proprietor, or doggerel ecstasies over some day of picnicking. But come and report yourself, – where have you been, and what have you done since I saw you?”
“I have a long budget for you. First of all, read that;” and he handed Sir Brook Sewell’s letter.
“What! do you mean to say that you met him?”
“No; I rejoice to say I have escaped that mischance; but you shall hear everything, and in as few words as I can tell it. I have already told you of Mrs. Sewell’s visit here, and I have not a word to add to that recital. I simply would say that I pledge my honor to the strict truth of everything I have told you. You may imagine, then, with what surprise I was awoke from my sleep to read that note. My first impression was to write him a full and explicit denial of what he laid to my charge; but as I read the letter over a third and even a fourth time, I thought I saw that he had written it on some sort of compulsion, – that, in fact, he had been instigated to the step, which was one he but partly concurred in. I do not like to say more on this head.”
“You need not. Go on.”
“I then deemed that the best thing to do was to let him have his shot, after which my explanation would come more forcibly; and as I had determined not to fire at him, he would be forced to see that he could not persist in his quarrel.”
“There you mistook your man,” cried Sir Brook, fiercely.
“I don’t think so; but you shall hear. We must have crossed over in the same packet, but we never met. Stanhope, who went with me, thought he saw him on the landing-slip at Holyhead, but was not quite sure. At all events, we reached the inn at the Head, and had just sat down to luncheon, when the waiter brought in this note, asking which of us was Major Trafford. Here it is: —
“‘Pray accept my excuses for having given you a rough sea passage; but, on second thoughts, I have satisfied myself that there is no valid reason why I should try to blow your brains out, “
et pour si peu de chose
.” As I can say without any vanity that I am a better pistol-shot than you, I have the less hesitation in taking a step which, as a man of honor and courage, you will certainly not misconstrue. With this assurance, and the not less strong conviction that my conduct will be safely treated in any representation you make of this affair, I am your humble and faithful servant,
“‘Dudley Sewell.’
“I don’t think I was ever so grateful to any man in the world as I felt to him on reading his note, since, let the event take what turn it might, it rendered my position with the Lendricks a most perilous one. I made Stanhope drink his health, which I own he did with a very bad grace, telling me at the same time what good luck it was for me that
he
had been my friend on the occasion, for that any man but himself would have thought me a regular poltroon. I was too happy to care for his sarcasms, such a load had been removed from my heart, and such terrible forebodings too.
“I started almost immediately for Holt, and got there by midnight. All were in bed, and my arrival was only known when I came down to breakfast. My welcome was all I could wish for. My father was looking well, and in great spirits. The new Ministry have offered him his choice of a Lordship of the Admiralty, or something else – I forget what; and just because he has a fine independent fortune and loves his ease, he is more than inclined to take office, one of his chief reasons being ‘how useful he could be to me.’ I must own to you frankly that the prospect of all these new honors to the family rather frightened than flattered me, for I thought I saw in them the seeds of more strenuous opposition to my marriage; but I was greatly relieved when my mother – who you may remember had been all my difficulty hitherto – privately assured me that she had brought my father round to her opinion, and that he was quite satisfied – I am afraid her word was reconciled, but no matter – reconciled to the match. I could see that you must have been frightening her terribly by some menaced exposure of the family pretensions, for she said over and over again, ‘Why is Sir Brook so angry with me? Can’t you manage to put him in better temper with us? I have scarcely had courage to open his letters of late. I never got such lectures in my life.’ And what a horrid memory you seem to have! She says she ‘d be afraid to see you. At all events, you have done me good service. They agree to everything; and we are to go on a visit to Holt, – such, at least, I believe to be the object of the letter which my mother has written to Lucy.”
“All this is excellent news, and we ‘ll announce it to-night at the Priory. As for