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CHAPTER XV. WITH HIS LAWYER

Though Colonel Bramleigh’s visit to town was supposed to be in furtherance of that speculation by which Lord Culduff calculated on wealth and splendor, he had really another object, and while Culduff imagined him to be busy in the City, and deep in shares and stock lists, he was closely closeted with his lawyer, and earnestly poring over a mass of time-worn letters and documents, carefully noting down dates, docketing, and annotating, in a way that showed what importance he attached to the task before him.

“I tell you what, Sedley,” said he, as he threw his pen disdainfully from him, and lay back in his chair, “the whole of this move is a party dodge. It is part and parcel of that vile persecution with which the Tory faction pursued me during my late canvass. You remember their vulgar allusions to my father, the brewer, and their coarse jest about my frothy oratory? This attack is but the second act of the same drama.”

“I don’t think so,” mildly rejoined the other party. “Conflicts are sharp enough while the struggle lasts; but they rarely carry their bitterness beyond the day of battle.”

“That is an agent’s view of the matter,” said Bramleigh, with asperity. “The agent always persists in believing the whole thing a sham fight; but though men do talk a great deal of rot and humbug about their principles on the hustings, their personal feelings are just as real, just as acute, and occasionally just as painful, as on any occasion in their lives; and I repeat to you, the trumped-up claim of this foreigner is neither more nor less than a piece of party malignity.”

“I cannot agree with you. The correspondence we have just been looking at shows how upwards of forty years ago the same pretensions were put forward, and a man calling himself Montagu Lami Bramleigh declared he was the rightful heir to your estates.”

“A rightful heir whose claims could be always compromised by a ten-pound note was scarcely very dangerous.”

“Why make any compromise at all if the fellow was clearly an impostor?”

“For the very reason that you yourself now counsel a similar course: to avoid the scandal of a public trial. To escape all those insolent comments which a party press is certain to pass on a political opponent.”

“That could scarcely have been apprehended from the Bramleigh I speak of, who was clearly poor, illiterate, and friendless; whereas the present man has, from some source or other, funds to engage eminent counsel and retain one of the first men at the bar.”

“I protest, Sedley, you puzzle me,” said Bramleigh, with an angry sparkle in his eye. “A few moments back you treated all this pretension as a mere pretext for extorting money, and now you talk of this fellow and his claim as subjects that may one day be matter for the decision of a jury. Can you reconcile two views so diametrically opposite?”

“I think I can. It is at law as in war. The feint may be carried on to a real attack whenever the position assailed be possessed of an over-confidence or but ill defended. It might be easy enough, perhaps, to deal with this man. Let him have some small success, however; let him gain a verdict, for instance, in one of those petty suits for ejectment, and his case at once becomes formidable.”

“All this,” said Bramleigh, “proceeds on the assumption that there is something in the fellow’s claim?”

“Unquestionably.”

“I declare,” said Bramleigh, rising and pacing the room, “I have not temper for this discussion. My mind has not been disciplined to that degree of refinement that I can accept a downright swindle as a demand founded on justice.”

“Let us prove it a swindle, and there is an end of it.”

“And will you tell me, sir,” said he, passionately, “that every gentleman holds his estates on the condition that the title may be contested by any impostor who can dupe people into advancing money to set the law in motion?”

“When such proceedings are fraudulent a very heavy punishment awaits them.”

“And what punishment of the knave equals the penalty inflicted on the honest man in exposure, shame, insolent remarks, and worse than even these, a contemptuous pity for that reverse of fortune which newspaper writers always announce as an inevitable consummation?”

“These are all hard things to bear, but I don’t suspect they ever deterred any man from holding an estate.”

The half jocular tone of his remark rather jarred on Bramleigh’s sensibilities, and he continued to walk the room in silence; at last, stopping short, he wheeled round and said, —

“Do you adhere to your former opinion? would you try a compromise?”

“I would. The man has a case quite good enough to interest a speculative lawyer – good enough to go before a jury – good enough for everything but success. One half what the defence would cost you will probably satisfy his expectations, not to speak of all you will spare yourself in unpleasantness and exposure.”

“It is a hard thing to stoop to,” said Bramleigh, painfully.

“It need not be, at least not to the extent you imagine; and when you throw your eye over your lawyer’s bill of costs, the phrase ‘incidental expenses’ will spare your feelings any more distinct reference to this transaction.”

“A most considerate attention. And now for the practical part. Who is this man’s lawyer?”

“A most respectable practitioner, Kelson, of Temple Court. A personal friend of my own.”

“And what terms would you propose?”

“I ‘d offer five thousand, and be prepared to go to eight, possibly to ten.”

“To silence a mere menace?”

“Exactly. It’s a mere menace to-day, but six months hence it may be something more formidable. It is a curious case, cleverly contrived and ingeniously put together. Don’t say that we could n’t smash it; such carpentry always has a chink or an open somewhere. Meanwhile the scandal is spreading over not only England, but over the world, and no matter how favorable the ultimate issue, there will always remain in men’s minds the recollection that the right to your estate was contested, and that you had to defend your possession.”

“I had always thought till now,” said Bramleigh, slowly, “that the legal mind attached very little importance to the flying scandals that amuse society. You appear to accord them weight and influence.”

“I am not less a man of the world because I am a lawyer, Colonel Bramleigh,” said the other, half tartly.

“If this must be done the sooner it be over the better. A man of high station – a peer – is at this moment paying such attention to one of my daughters that I may expect at any moment, to-day perhaps, to receive a formal proposal for her hand. I do not suspect that the threat of an unknown claimant to my property would disturb his Lordship’s faith in my security or my station, but the sensitive dislike of men of his class to all publicity that does not redound to honor or distinction – the repugnance to whatever draws attention to them for aught but court favor or advancement – might well be supposed to have its influence with him, and I think it would be better to spare him – to spare us, too – this exposure.”

“I ‘ll attend to it immediately. Kelson hinted to me that the claimant was now in England.”

“I was not aware of that.”

“Yes, he is over here now, and I gather, too, has contrived to interest some people in his pretensions.”

“Does he affect the station of a gentleman?”

“Thoroughly; he is, I am told, well-mannered, prepossessing in appearance, and presentable in every respect.”

“Let us ask him over to Castello, Sedley,” said Bramleigh, laughing.

“I ‘ve known of worse strategy,” said the lawyer, dryly.

“What! are you actually serious?”

“I say that such a move might not be the worst step to an amicable settlement. In admitting the assailant to see all the worth and value of the fortress, it would also show him the resources for defence, and he might readily compute what poor chances were his against such odds.”

“Still, I doubt if I could bring myself to consent to it. There is a positive indignity in making any concession to such a palpable imposture.”

“Not palpable till proven. The most unlikely cases have now and then pushed some of our ablest men to upset. Attack can always choose its own time, its own ground, and is master of almost every condition of the combat.”

“I declare, Sedley, if this man had retained your services to make a good bargain for him, he could scarcely have selected a more able agent.”

“You could not more highly compliment the zeal I am exercising in your service.”

“Well, I take it I must leave the whole thing in your hands. I shall not prolong my stay in town. I wanted to do something in the city, but I find these late crashes in the banks have spread such terror and apprehension, that nobody will advance a guinea on anything. There is an admirable opening just now – coal.”

“In Egypt?”

“No, in Ireland.”

“Ah, in Ireland? That’s very different. You surely cannot expect capital will take that channel?”

“You are an admirable lawyer, Sedley. I am told London has not your equal as a special pleader, but let me tell you you are not either a projector or a politician. I am both, and I declare to you that this country which you deride and distrust is the California of Great Britain. Write to me at your earliest; finish this business if you can, out of hand, and if you make good terms for me I ‘ll send you some shares in an enterprise – an Irish enterprise – which will pay you a better dividend than some of your East county railroads.”

“Have you changed the name of your place? Your son, Mr. John Bramleigh, writes ‘Bishop’s Folly’ at the top of his letter.”

“It is called Castello, sir. I am not responsible for the silly caprices of a sailor.”

CHAPTER XVI.. SOME MISUNDERSTANDINGS

Lord Culduff and Colonel Bramleigh spoke little to each other as they journeyed back to Ireland. Each fell back upon the theme personally interesting to him, and cared not to impart it to his neighbor. They were not like men who had so long travelled the same road in life that by a dropping word a whole train of associations can be conjured up, and familiar scenes and people be passed in review before the mind.

A few curt sentences uttered by Bramleigh told how matters stood in the City – money was “tight” being the text of all he said; but of that financial sensitiveness that shrinks timidly from all enterprise after a period of crash and bankruptcy, Culduff could make nothing. In his own craft nobody dreaded the fire because his neighbor’s child was burned, and he could not see why capitalists should not learn something from diplomacy.

Nor was Colonel Bramleigh, on his side, much better able to follow the subjects which had interest for his companion. The rise and fall of kingdoms, the varying fortunes of states, impressed themselves upon the City man by the condition of financial credit they implied, and a mere glance at the price of a foreign loan conveyed to his appreciation a more correct notion of a people than all the blue-books and all the correspondence with plenipotentiaries.

These were not Culduffs views. His code – it is the code of all his calling – was: No country of any pretensions, no more than any gentleman of blood and family, ever became bankrupt. Pressed, hard-pushed, he would say, Yes! we all of us have had our difficulties, and to surmount them occasionally we are driven to make unprofitable bargains, but we “rub through,” and so will Greece and Spain and those other countries where they are borrowing at twelve or twenty per cent, and raise a loan each year to discharge the dividends.

Not only, then, were these two little gifted with qualities to render them companionable to each other, but from the totally different way every event and every circumstance presented itself to their minds, each grew to conceive for the other a sort of depreciatory estimate as of one who only could see a very small part of any subject, and even that colored and tinted by the hues of his own daily calling.

“So, then,” said Culduff, after listening to a somewhat lengthy explanation from Bramleigh of why and how it was that there was nothing to be done financially at the moment, – “so, then, I am to gather the plan of a company to work the mines is out of the question?”

“I would rather call it deferred than abandoned,” was the cautious reply.

“In my career what we postpone we generally prohibit. And what other course is open to us?”

“We can wait, my Lord, we can wait. Coal is not like indigo or tobacco; it is not a question of hours – whether the crop be saved or ruined. We can wait.”

“Very true, sir; but I cannot wait. There are some urgent calls upon me just now, the men who are pressing which will not be so complaisant as to wait either.”

“I was always under the impression, my Lord, that your position as a peer, and the nature of the services that you were engaged in, were sufficient to relieve you from all the embarrassments that attach to humbler men in difficulties?”

“They don’t arrest, but they dun us, sir; and they dun with an insistence and an amount of menace, too, that middle-class people can form no conception of. They besiege the departments we serve under with their vulgar complaints, and if the rumor gets abroad that one of us is about to be advanced to a governorship or an embassy, they assemble in Downing Street like a Reform demonstration. I declare to you I had to make my way through a lane of creditors from the Privy Council Office to the private entrance to F. O., my hands full of their confounded accounts – one fellow, a boot-maker, actually having pinned his bill to the skirt of my coat as I went. And the worst of these impertinences is, that they give a Minister who is indisposed towards you a handle for refusing your just claims. I have just come through such an ordeal: I have been told that my debts are to be a bar to my promotion.”

The almost tremulous horror which he gave to this last expression – as of an outrage unknown to mankind – warned Bramleigh to be silent.

“I perceive that you do not find it easy to believe this, but I pledge my word to you it is true. It is not forty-eight hours since a Secretary of State assumed to make my personal liabilities – the things which, if any things are a man’s own, are certainly so – to make these an objection to my taking a mission of importance. I believe he was sorry for his indiscretion; I have reason to suppose that it was a blunder he will not readily repeat.”

“And you obtained your appointment?” asked Bramleigh.

“Minister extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the court of Hochmaringen,” said Culduff, with a slow and pompous enunciation.

Bramleigh, pardonably ignorant of the geography of the important state alluded to, merely bowed in acknowledgment. “Is there much – much to do at one of these courts?” asked he, diffidently, after a pause.

“In one sense there is a great deal. In Germany the action of the greater cabinets is always to be discovered in the intrigues of the small dukedoms, just as you gather the temper of the huntsman from the way he lashes the hounds. You may, therefore, send a ‘cretin,’ if you like, to Berlin or Vienna; you want a man of tact and address at Sigmaringen or Kleinesel-stadt. They begin to see that here at home, but it took them years to arrive at it.”

Whether Bramleigh was confounded by the depth of this remark, or annoyed by the man who made it, he relapsed into a dreamy silence that soon passed into sleep, into which state the illustrious diplomatist followed, and thus was the journey made till the tall towers of Castello came into view, and they found themselves rapidly careering along with four posters towards the grand entrance. The tidings of their coming soon reached the drawing-room, and the hall was filled by the young members of the family to welcome them. “Remember,” said Bramleigh, “we have had nothing but a light luncheon since morning. Come and join us, if you like, in the dining-room, but let us have some dinner as soon as may be.”

It is not pleasant, perhaps, to be talked to while eating by persons quite unemployed by the pleasures of the table; but there is a sort of “free and easy” at such times not wholly unconducive to agreeable intercourse, and many little cares and attentions, impossible or unmeaning in the more formal habits of the table, are now graceful adjuncts to the incident. Thus was it that Marion contrived by some slight service or other to indicate to Lord Culduff that he was an honored guest; and when she filled his glass with champagne, and poured a little into her own to pledge him, the great man felt a sense of triumph that warmed the whole of that region where, anatomically, his heart was situated. While the others around were engaged in general conversation, she led him to talk of his journey to town, and what he had done there; and he told her somewhat proudly of the high mission about to be entrusted to him, not omitting to speak of the haughty tone he had used towards the Minister, and the spirit he had evinced in asserting his just claims. “We had what threatened at one time to be a stormy interview. When a man like myself has to recall the list of his services, the case may well be considered imminent. He pushed me to this, and I accepted his challenge. I told him, if I am not rich, it is because I have spent my fortune in maintaining the dignity of the high stations I have filled. The breaches in my fortune are all honorable wounds. He next objected to what I could not but admit as a more valid barrier to my claims. Can you guess it?”

She shook her head in dissent. It could not be his rank, or anything that bore upon his rank. Was it possible that official prudery had been shocked by the noble Lord’s social derelictions? Had the scandal of that old elopement survived to tarnish his fame and injure his success? and she blushed as she thought of the theme to which he invited her approach.

“I see you do divine it,” said he, smiling courteously.

“I suspect not,” said she, diffidently, and still blushing deeper.

“It would be a great boon to me – a most encouraging assurance,” said he, in a low and earnest voice, “if I could believe that your interest in me went so far as actually to read the story and anticipate the catastrophe of my life. Tell me then, I entreat you, that you know what I allude to.”

She hesitated. “Was it possible,” thought she, “that he wished me to admit that my opinion of him was not prejudiced by this ‘escapade’ of thirty years ago? Is he asking me to own that I am tolerant towards such offences?” His age, his tone generally, his essentially foreign breeding, made this very possible. Her perplexity was great, and her confusion increased with every minute.

At this critical moment there was a general move to go into the drawing-room, and as he gave her his arm, Lord Culduff drew her gently towards him, and said in his most insinuating voice, “Let me hear my fate.”

“I declare, my Lord,” said she, hesitatingly, “I don’t know what to say. Moralists and worldly people have two different measures for these things. I have no pretensions to claim a place with the former, and I rather shrink from accepting all the ideas of the latter. At all events, I would suppose that after a certain lapse of time, when years have gone over – profitably, I would hope – in fact, I mean – in short, I do not know what I mean.”

“You mean, perhaps, that it is not at my time of life men take such a step with prudence. Is that it?” asked he, trying in vain to keep down the irritation that moved him.

“Well, my Lord, I believe about the prudence there can scarcely be two opinions, whether a man be young or old. These things are wrong in themselves, and nothing can make them right.”

“I protest I am unable to follow you,” said he, tartly.

“All the better, my Lord, if I be only leading you where you have no inclination to wander. I see Nelly wants me at the piano.”

“And you prefer accompanying her to me” said he, reproachfully.

“At least, my Lord, we shall be in harmony, which is scarcely our case here.”

He sighed, almost theatrically, as he relinquished her arm, and retiring to a remote part of the room, affected to read a newspaper. Mr. Cutbill, however, soon drew a chair near, and engaged him in conversation.

“So Bramleigh has done nothing,” whispered Cutbill, as he bent forward. “He did not, so far as I gather, even speak of the mine in the City.”

“He said it was of no use; the time was unfavorable.”

“Did you ever know it otherwise? Is n’t it with that same cant of an unfavorable time these men always add so much to the premium on every undertaking?”

“Sir, I am unable to answer your question. It is my first – I would I may be able to say, and my last – occasion to deal with this class of people.”

“They ‘re not a bad set, after all; only you must take them in the way they’re used to – the way they understand.”

“It is a language I have yet to learn, Mr. Cutbill.”

“The sooner your Lordship sets to work at it the better then.”

Lord Culduff wheeled round in his chair, and stared with amazement at the man before him. He saw, however, the unmistakable signs of his having drunk freely, and his bloodshot eyes declared that the moment was not favorable for calm discussion.

“It would be as well, perhaps, to adjourn this conversation,” said Culduff.

“I’m for business – anywhere and at any moment. I made one of the best hits I ever chanced upon after a smash on the Trent Valley line. There was Boulders – of the firm of Skale and Boulders Brothers – had his shoulder dislocated and two of his front teeth knocked out. He was lying with a lot of scantling and barrel-staves over him, and he cried out, ‘Is there any one there?’ I said, ‘Yes; Cutbill. Tom Cutbill, of Viceregal Terrace, St. John’s Wood.’”

Lord Culduff s patience could stand no more, and he arose with a slight bow and moved haughtily away. Cutbill, however, was quickly at his side. “You must hear the rest of this; it was a matter of close on ten thousand pounds to me, and this is the way it came out – ”

“I felicitate you heartily, sir, on your success, but beg I may be spared the story of it.”

“You’ve heard worse. Egad, I’d not say you haven’t told worse. It’s not every fellow, I promise you, has his wits about him at a moment when people are shouting for help, and an express train standing on its head in a cutting, and a tender hanging over a viaduct.”

“Sir, there are worse inflictions than even this.”

“Eh, what?” said Cutbill, crossing his arms on his chest, and looking fully in the other’s face; but Lord Culduff moved quietly on, and, approaching a table where Ellen was seated, said, “I’m coming to beg for a cup of tea;” not a trace of excitement or irritation to be detected in his voice or manner. He loitered for a few moments at the table, talking lightly and pleasantly on indifferent subjects, and then moved carelessly away till he found himself near the door, when he made a precipitate escape and hurried up to his room.

It was his invariable custom to look at himself carefully in the glass whenever he came home at night. As a general might have examined the list of killed and wounded after an action, computing with himself the cost of victory or defeat, so did this veteran warrior of a world’s campaign go carefully over all the signs of wear and tear, the hard lines of pain or checkered coloring of agitation, which his last engagement might have inflicted.

As he sat down before his mirror now, he was actually shocked to see what ravages a single evening had produced. The circles around his eyes were deeply indented, the corners of his mouth drawn down so fixedly and firmly that all attempts to conjure up a smile were failures, while a purple tint beneath his rouge totally destroyed that delicate coloring which was wont to impart the youthful look to his features.

The vulgar impertinence of Cutbill made indeed but little impression upon him. An annoyance while it lasted, it still left nothing for memory that could not be dismissed with ease. It was Marion. It was what she had said that weighed so painfully on his heart, wounding where he was most intensely and delicately sensitive. She had told him – what had she told him? He tried to recall her exact words, but he could not. They were in reply to remarks of his own, and owed all their significance to the context. One thing she certainly had said – that there were certain steps in life about which the world held but one opinion, and the allusion was to men marrying late in life; and then she added a remark as to the want of “sympathy” – or was it “harmony” she called it? – between them. How strange that he could not remember more exactly all that passed, he, who, after his interviews with Ministers and great men, could go home and send off in an official despatch the whole dialogue of the audience. But why seek for the precise expressions she employed? The meaning should surely be enough for him, and that was – there was no denying it – that the disparity of their ages was a bar to his pretensions. “Had our ranks in life been alike, there might have been force in her observation; but she forgets that a coronet encircles a brow like a wreath of youth;” and he adjusted the curls of his wig as he spoke, and smiled at himself more successfully than he had done before.

“On the whole, perhaps it is better,” said he, as he arose and walked the room. “A mésalliance can only be justified by great beauty or great wealth. One must do a consumedly rash thing, or a wonderfully sharp one, to come out well with the world. Forty thousand, and a good-looking girl – she is n’t more – would not satisfy the just expectations of society, which, with men like myself, are severely exacting.”

He had met with a repulse, he could not deny it, and the sense of pain it inflicted galled him to the quick. To be sure, the thing occurred in a remote, out-of-the-way spot, where there were no people to discover or retail the story. It was not as if it chanced in some cognate land of society where such incidents get immediate currency and form the gossip of every coterie. Who was ever to hear of what passed in an Irish country-house? Marion herself indeed might write it – she most probably would – but to whom?

To some friend as little in the world as herself, and none knew better than Lord Culduff of how few people the “world” was composed. It was a defeat, but a defeat that need never be gazetted. And, after all, are not the worst things in all our reverses, the comments that are passed upon them? Are not the censures of our enemies and the condolences of our friends sometimes harder to bear than the misfortunes that have evoked them?

What Marion’s manner towards him might be in future, was also a painful reflection. It would naturally be a triumphant incident in her life to have rejected such an offer. Would she be eager to parade this fact before the world? Would she try to let people know that she had refused him? This was possible. He felt that such a slight would tarnish the whole glory of his life, whose boast was to have done many things that were actually wicked, but not one that was merely weak.

The imminent matter was to get out of his present situation without defeat. To quit the field, but not as a beaten army; and revolving how this was to be done he sunk off to sleep.