SIR BROOK FOSSBROOKE
Volume I.
By Charles James Lever,
With Illustrations By E. J. Wheeler
Boston:
Little, Brown, And Company.
1917.
To PHILIP ROSE, Esq.
My dear Rose,—You have often stopped me when endeavouring to express all the gratitude I felt towards you. You cannot do so now, nor prevent my telling aloud how much I owe-how much I esteem you. These volumes were not without interest for me as I wrote them, but they yielded me no such pleasure as I now feel in dedicating them to you; and, with this assurance, believe me,
Your affectionate Friend,
CHARLES LEVER.
Spezia, October 20. 1866.
CONTENTS
[ SIR BROOK FOSSBROOKE. ]
[ CHAPTER I. ] AFTER MESS
[ CHAPTER II. ] THE SWAN'S NEST
[ CHAPTER III. ] A DIFFICULT PATIENT
[ CHAPTER IV. ] HOME DIPLOMACIES
[ CHAPTER V. ] THE PICNIC ON HOLY ISLAND
[ CHAPTER VI. ] WAITING ON
[ CHAPTER VII. ] THE FOUNTAIN OF HONOR
[ CHAPTER VIII. ] A PUZZLING COMMISSION
[ CHAPTER IX. ] A BREAKFAST AT THE VICARAGE
[ CHAPTER X. ] LENDRICK RECOUNTS HIS VISIT TO TOWN
[ CHAPTER XI. ] CAVE CONSULTS SIR BROOK
[ CHAPTER XII. ] A GREAT MAN'S SCHOOLFELLOW
[ CHAPTER XIII. ] LAST DAYS
[ CHAPTER XIV. ] TOM CROSS-EXAMINES HIS SISTER
[ CHAPTER XV. ] MR. HAIRE'S MISSION
[ CHAPTER XVI. ] SORROWS AND PROJECTS
[ CHAPTER XVII. ] A LUNCHEON AT THE PRIORY
[ CHAPTER XVIII. ] THE FIRST LETTER HOME
[ CHAPTER XIX. ] OFFICIAL MYSTERIES
[ CHAPTER XX. ] IN COURT
[ CHAPTER XXI. ] A MORNING CALL
[ CHAPTER XXII. ] COMING-HOME THOUGHTS
[ CHAPTER XXIII. ] A VERY HUMBLE DWELLING
[ CHAPTER XXIV. ] A MORNING AT THE PRIORY
[ CHAPTER XXV. ] AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
[ CHAPTER XXVI. ] SIR BROOK IN CONFUSION
[ CHAPTER XXVII. ] THE TWO LUCYS
[ CHAPTER XXVIII. ] THE NEST WITH STRANGE “BIRDS” IN IT
[ CHAPTER XXIX. ] SEWELL VISITS CAVE
[ CHAPTER XXX. ] THE RACES ON THE LAWN
[ CHAPTER XXXI. ] SEWELL ARRIVES IN DUBLIN
[ CHAPTER XXXII. ] MORNING AT THE PRIORY
[ CHAPTER XXXIII. ] EVENING AT THE PRIORY
[ CHAPTER XXXIV. ] SEWELL'S TROUBLES
[ CHAPTER XXXV. ] BEATTIE'S RETURN
[ CHAPTER XXXVI. ] AN EXIT
[ CHAPTER XXXVII. ] A STORMY MOMENT
[ CHAPTER XXXVIII. ] A LADY'S LETTER
[ CHAPTER XXXIX. ] SOME CONJUGAL COURTESIES
[ CHAPTER XL. ] MR. BALFOUR'S OFFICE
[ CHAPTER XLI. ] THE PRIORY IN ITS DESERTION
[ CHAPTER XLII. ] NECESSITIES OP STATE
[ CHAPTER XLIII. ] MR. BALFOUR'S MISSION
[ CHAPTER XLIV. ] AFTER-DINNER THOUGHTS
[ CHAPTER XLV. ] THE TIDELESS SHORES
SIR BROOK FOSSBROOKE.
CHAPTER I. AFTER MESS
The mess was over, and the officers of H. M.'s —th were grouped in little knots and parties, sipping their coffee, and discussing the arrangements for the evening. Their quarter was that pleasant city of Dublin, which, bating certain exorbitant demands in the matter of field-day and guard-mounting, stands pre-eminently first in military favor.
“Are you going to that great ball in Merrion Square?” asked one., “Not so lucky; not invited.”
“I got a card,” cried a third; “but I 've just heard it's not to come off. It seems that the lady's husband is a judge. He's Chief something or other; and he has been called away.”
“Nothing of the kind, Tomkins; unless you call a summons to the next world being called away. The man is dangerously ill. He was seized with paralysis on the Bench yesterday, and, they say, can't recover.”
There now ensued an animated conversation as to whether, on death vacancies, the men went up by seniority at the bar, or whether a subaltern could at once spring up to the top of the regiment.
“Suppose,” said one, “we were to ask the Colonel's guest his opinion. The old cove has talked pretty nigh of everything in this world during dinner; what if we were to ask him about Barons of the Exchequer?”
“Who is he? what is he?” asked another.
“The Colonel called him Sir Brook Fossbrooke; that's all I know.”
“Colonel Cave told me,” whispered the Major, “that he was the fastest man on town some forty years ago.”
“I think he must have kept over the wardrobe of that brilliant period,” said another. “I never saw a really swallow-tailed coat before.”
“His ring amused me. It is a small smoothing-iron, with a coat-of-arms on it. Hush! here he comes.”
The man who now joined the group was a tall, gaunt figure, with a high narrow head, from which the hair was brushed rigidly back to fall behind in something like an old-fashioned queue. His eyes were black, and surmounted with massive and much-arched eyebrows; a strongly marked mouth, stern, determined, and, except in speaking, almost cruel in expression, and a thin-pointed projecting chin, gave an air of severity and strong will to features which, when he conversed, displayed a look of courteous deference, and that peculiar desire to please that we associate with a bygone school of breeding. He was one of those men, and very distinctive are they, with whom even the least cautious take no liberties, nor venture upon any familiarity. The eccentricities of determined men are very often indications of some deep spirit beneath, and not, as in weaker natures, mere emanations of vanity or offsprings of self-indulgence.
If he was, beyond question, a gentleman, there were also signs about him of narrow fortune: his scrupulously white shirt was not fine, and the seams of his well-brushed coat showed both care and wear.
He had joined the group, who were talking of the coming Derby when the Colonel came up. “I have sent for the man we want, Fossbrooke. I'm not a fisherman myself; but they tell me he knows every lake, river, and rivulet in the island. He has sat down to whist, but we 'll have him here presently.”
“On no account; don't disturb his game for me.”
“Here he comes. Trafford, I want to present you to a very old friend of mine, Sir Brook Fossbrooke,—as enthusiastic an angler as yourself. He has the ambition to hook an Irish salmon. I don't suppose any one can more readily help him on the road to it.”
The young man thus addressed was a large, strongly, almost heavily built young fellow, but with that looseness of limb and freedom that showed activity had not been sacrificed to mere power. He had a fine, frank, handsome face, blue-eyed and bold-looking; and as he stood to receive the Colonel's orders, there was in his air that blending of deference and good-humored carelessness that made up his whole nature.
It was plain to see in him one easy to persuade, impossible to coerce; a fellow with whom the man he liked could do anything, bat one perfectly unmanageable if thrown into the wrong hands. He was the second son of a very rich baronet, but made the mistake of believing he had as much right to extravagance as his elder brother, and, having persisted in this error during two years in the Life Guards, had been sent to do the double penance of an infantry regiment and an Irish station; two inflictions which, it was believed, would have sufficed to calm down the ardor of the most impassioned spendthrift. He looked at Fossbrooke from head to foot. It was not exactly the stamp of man he would have selected for companionship, but he saw at once that he was distinctively a gentleman, and then the prospect of a few days away from regimental duty was not to be despised, and he quickly replied that both he and his tackle were at Sir Brook's disposal. “If we could run down to Killaloe, sir,” added he, turning to the Colonel, “we might be almost sure of some sport.”
“Which means that you want two days' leave, Trafford.”
“No, sir, four. It will take a day at least to get over there; another will be lost in exploring; all these late rains have sent such a fresh into the Shannon there's no knowing where to try.”
“You see, Fossbrooke, what a casuistical companion I've given you. I 'll wager you a five-pound note that if you come back without a rise he 'll have an explanation that will perfectly explain it was the best thing could have happened.”
“I am charmed to travel in such company,” said Sir Brook, bowing. “The gentleman has already established a claim to my respect for him.”
Trafford bowed too, and looked not at all displeased at the compliment. “Are you an early riser, sir?” asked he.
“I am anything, sir, the occasion exacts; but when I have an early start before me, I usually sit up all night.”
“My own plan too,” cried Trafford. “And there's Aubrey quite ready to join us. Are you a whister, Sir Brook?”
“At your service. I play all games.”
“Is he a whister?” repeated the Colonel. “Ask Harry Greville, ask Tom Newenham, what they say of him at Grahams? Trafford, my boy, you may possibly give him a hint about gray hackles, but I 'll be shot if you do about the odd trick.”
“If you 'll come over to my room, Sir Brook, we 'll have a rubber, and I 'll give orders to have my tax-cart ready for us by daybreak,” said Trafford; and, Fossbrooke promising to be with him so soon as he had given his servant his orders, they parted.
“And are you as equal to this sitting up all night as you used to be, Fossbrooke?” asked the Colonel.
“I don't smoke as many cigars as formerly, and I am a little more choice about my tobacco. I avoid mulled port, and take weak brandy-and-water; and I believe in all other respects I 'm pretty much where I was when we met last,—I think it was at Ceylon?”
“I wish I could say as much for myself. You are talking of thirty-four years ago.”
“My secret against growing old is to do a little of everything. It keeps the sympathies wider, makes a man more accessible to other men, and keeps him from dwelling too much on himself. But tell me about my young companion; is he one of Sir Hugh's family?”
“His second son; not unlike to be his eldest, for George has gone to Madeira with very little prospect of recovery. This is a fine lad; a little wild, a little careless of money, but the very soul of honor and right-mindedness. They sent him to me as a sort of incurable, but I have nothing but good to say of him.”
“There 'a great promise in a fellow when he can be a scamp and a man of honor. When dissipations do not degrade and excesses do not corrupt a man, there is a grand nature ever beneath.”
“Don't tell him that, Fossbrooke,” said the Colonel, laughing.
“I am not likely to do so,” said he, with a grim smile. “I am glad, too, to meet his father's son; we were at Christ Church together; and now I see he has the family good looks. 'Le beau Trafford' was a proverb in Paris once.”
“Do you ever forget a man?” asked the Colonel, in some curiosity.
“I believe not. I forget books, places, dates occasionally, but never people. I met an old schoolfellow t'other day at Dover whom I never saw since we were boys. He had gone down in the world, and was acting as one of the 'commissionnaires' they call them, who take your keys to the Custom-house to have your luggage examined; and when he came to ask me to employ him, I said, “'What! ain't you Jemmy Harper?' 'And who the devil are you?' said he. 'Fossbrooke,' said I. 'Not “Wart”?' said he. That was my school nickname, from a wart I once had on my chin. 'Ay, to be sure,' said I, 'Wart.' I wish you saw the delight of the old dog. I made him dine with us. Lord Brackington was with me, and enjoyed it all immensely.”
“And what had brought him so low?”
“He was cursed, he said, with a strong constitution; all the other fellows of his set had so timed it that when they had nothing to live on they ceased to live; but Jemmy told us he never had such an appetite as now; that he passed from fourteen to sixteen hours a day on the pier in all weathers; and as to gout he firmly believed it all came of the adulterated wines of the great wine-merchants. British gin he maintained to be the wholesomest liquor in existence.”
“I wonder how fellows bear up under such reverses as that,” said the Colonel.
“My astonishment is rather,” cried Fossbrooke, “how men can live on in a monotony of well-being, getting fatter, older, and more unwieldy, and with only such experiences of life as a well-fed fowl might have in a hencoop.”
“I know that's your theory,” said the other, laughing.
“Well, no man can say that I have not lived up to my convictions; and for myself, I can aver I have thoroughly enjoyed my intercourse with the world, and like it as well to-day as on the first morning I made my bow to it.”
“Listen to this, young gentlemen,” said the Colonel, turning to his officers, who now gathered around them. “Now and then I hear some of you complaining of being bored or wearied,—sick of this, tired of that; here's my friend, who knows the whole thing better than any of us, and he declares that the world is the best of all possible worlds, and that so far from familiarity with it inspiring disgust with life, his enjoyment of it is as racy as when first he knew it.”
“It is rather hard to ask these gentlemen to take me as a guide on trust,” said Fossbrooke; “but I have known the fathers of most of those I see around me, and could call many of them as witnesses to character. Major Aylmer, your father and I went up the Nile together, when people talked of it as a journey. Captain Harris, I 'm sure I am not wrong in saying you are the son of Godfrey Harris, of Harrisburg. Your father was my friend on the day I wounded Lord Ecclesmore. I see four or five others too,—so like old companions that I find it hard to believe I am not back again in the old days when I was as young as themselves; and yet I 'm not very certain if I would like to exchange my present quiet enjoyment as a looker-on for all that active share I once took in life and its pleasures.”
Something in the fact that their fathers had lived in his intimacy, something in his manner,—a very courteous manner it was,—and something in the bold, almost defiant bearing of the old man, vouching for great energy and dignity together, won greatly upon the young men, and they gathered around him. He was, however, summoned away by a message from Trafford to say that the whist-party waited for him, and he took his leave with a stately courtesy and withdrew.
“There goes one of the strangest fellows in Christendom,” said the Colonel, as the other left the room. “He has already gone through three fortunes; he dissipated the first, speculated and lost the second, and the third he, I might say, gave away in acts of benevolence and kindness,—leaving himself so ill off that I actually heard the other day that some friend had asked for the place of barrack-master at Athlone for him; but on coming over to see the place, he found a poor fellow with a wife and five children a candidate for it; so he retired in his favor, and is content, as you see, to go out on the world, and take his chance with it.”
Innumerable questions pressed on the Colonel to tell more of his strange friend; he had, however, little beyond hearsay to give them. Of his own experiences, he could only say that when first he met him it was at Ceylon, where he had come in a yacht like a sloop of war to hunt elephants,—the splendor of his retinue and magnificence of his suite giving him the air of a royal personage,—and indeed the gorgeous profusion of his presents to the King and the chief personages of the court went far to impress this notion. “I never met him since,” said the Colonel, “till this morning, when he walked into my room, dusty and travel-stained, to say, 'I just heard your name, and thought I 'd ask you to give me my dinner to-day.' I owe him a great many,—not to say innumerable other attentions; and his last act on leaving Trincomalee was to present me with an Arab charger, the most perfect animal I ever mounted. It is therefore a real pleasure to me to receive him. He is a thoroughly fine-hearted fellow, and, with all his eccentricities, one of the noblest natures I ever met. The only flaw in his frankness is as to his age; nobody has ever been able to get it from him. You heard him talk of your fathers,—he might talk of your grandfathers; and he would, too, if we had only the opportunity to lead him on to it. I know of my own knowledge that he lived in the Carlton House coterie, not a man of which except himself survives, and I have heard him give imitations of Burke, Sheridan, Gavin Hamilton, and Pitt, that none but one who had seen them could have accomplished. And now that I have told you all this, will one of you step over to Trafford's rooms, and whisper him a hint to make his whist-points as low as he can; and, what is even of more importance, to take care lest any strange story Sir Brook may tell—and he is full of them—meet a sign of incredulity, still less provoke any quizzing? The slightest shade of such a provocation would render him like a madman.”
The Major volunteered to go on this mission, which indeed any of the others would as willingly have accepted, for the old man had interested them deeply, and they longed to hear more about him.
CHAPTER II. THE SWAN'S NEST
As the Shannon draws near Killaloe, the wild character of the mountain scenery, the dreary wastes and desolate islands which marked Lough Derg, disappear, and give way to gently sloping lawns, dotted over with well-grown timber, well-kept demesnes, spacious country-houses, and a country which, in general, almost recalls the wealth and comfort of England.
About a mile above the town, in a little bend of the river forming a small bay, stands a small but pretty house, with a skirt of rich wood projecting at the back, while the lawn in front descends by an easy slope to the river.
Originally a mere farmhouse, the taste of an ingenious owner had taken every advantage of its irregular outline, and converted it into something Elizabethan in character, a style admirably adapted to the site, where all the features of rich-colored landscape abounded, and where varied foliage, heathy mountain, and eddying river, all lent themselves to make up a scene of fresh and joyous beauty.
In the marvellous fertility of the soil, too, was found an ally to every prospect of embellishment. Sheltered from north and east winds, plants grew here in the open air, which in less favored spots needed the protection of the conservatory; and thus in the neatly shaven lawn were seen groups of blossoming shrubs or flowers of rare excellence, and the camellia and the salvia and the oleander blended with the tulip, the moss-rose, and the carnation, to stud the grass with their gorgeous colors.
Over the front of the cottage, for cottage it really was, a South American creeper, a sort of acanthus, grew, its crimson flowers hanging in rich profusion over cornice and architrave; while a passion-tree of great age covered the entire porch, relieving with its softened tints the almost over-brilliancy of the southern plant.
Seen from the water,—and it came suddenly into view on rounding a little headland,—few could forbear from an exclamation of wonder and admiration at this lovely spot; nor could all the pretentious grandeur of the rich-wooded parks, nor all the more imposing architecture of the great houses, detract from the marvellous charm of this simple home.
A tradition of a swan carried away by some rising of the river from the Castle of Portumna, and swept down the lake till it found refuge in the little bay, had given the name to the place, and for more than a hundred years was it known as the Swan's Nest. The Swan, however, no longer existed, though a little thatched edifice at the water-side marked the spot it had once inhabited, and sustained the truth of the legend.
The owner of the place was a Dr. Lendrick: he had come to it about twenty years before the time at which our story opens,—a widower with two children, a son and a daughter. He was a perfect stranger to all the neighborhood, though by name well known as the son of a distinguished judge, Baron Lendrick of the Court of Exchequer.
It was rumored about, that, having displeased his father, first by adopting medicine instead of law as his profession, and subsequently by marrying a portionless girl of humble family, the Baron had ceased to recognize him in any way. Making a settlement of a few hundreds a year on him, he resolved to leave the bulk of his fortune to a step-son, the child of his second wife, a Colonel Sewell, then in India.
It was with no thought of practising his profession that Dr. Lendrick had settled in the neighborhood; but as he was always ready to assist the poor by his advice and skill, and as the reputation of his great ability gradually got currency, he found himself constrained to yield to the insistence of his neighbors, and consent to practise generally. There were many things which made this course unpalatable to him. He was by nature shy, timid, and retiring; he was fastidiously averse to a new acquaintanceship; he had desired, besides, to live estranged from the world, devoting himself entirely to the education of his children; and he neither liked the forced publicity he became exposed to, nor that life of servitude which leaves the doctor at the hourly mercy of the world around him.
If he yielded, therefore, to the professional calls upon him, he resisted totally all social claims: he went nowhere but as the doctor.
No persuasion, no inducement, could prevail on him to dine out; no exigency of time or season prevent him returning to his home at night. There were in his neighborhood one or two persons whose rank might have, it was supposed, influenced him in some degree to comply with their requests,—and, certainly, whose desire for his society would have left nothing undone to secure it; but he was as obdurate to them as to others, and the Earl of Drum-carran and Sir Reginald Lacy, of Lacy Manor, were not a whit more successful in their blandishments than the Vicar of Killaloe—old Bob Mills, as he was irreverently called—or Lendrick's own colleague, Dr. Tobin, who, while he respected his superior ability and admitted his knowledge, secretly hated him as only a rival doctor knows how to hate a brother practitioner.
For the first time for many years had Dr. Lendrick gone up to Dublin. A few lines from an old family physician, Dr. Beattie, had, however, called him up to town. The Chief Baron had been taken ill in Court, and was conveyed home in a state of insensibility. It was declared that he had rallied and passed a favorable night; but as he was a man of very advanced age, at no time strong, and ever unsparing of himself in the arduous labors of his office, grave doubts were felt that he would ever again resume his seat on the Bench. Dr. Beattie well knew the long estrangement that had separated the father from the son; and although, perhaps, the most intimate friend the Judge had in the world, he never had dared to interpose a word or drop a hint as to the advisability of reconciliation.
Sir William Lendrick was, indeed, a man whom no amount of intimacy could render his friends familiar with. He was positively charming to mere acquaintanceship,—his manner was a happy blending of deference with a most polished wit Full of bygone experiences and reminiscences of interesting people and events, he never overlaid conversation by their mention, but made them merely serve to illustrate the present, either by contrast or resemblance. All this to the world and society was he; to the inmates of his house he was a perfect terror! It was said his first wife had died of a broken heart; his second, with a spirit fierce and combative as his own, had quarrelled with him so often, so seriously, and so hopelessly, that for the last fifteen years of life they had occupied separate houses, and only met as acquaintances, accepting and sending invitations to each other, and outwardly observing all the usages of a refined courtesy.
This was the man of whom Dr. Beattie wrote: “I cannot presume to say that he is more favorably disposed towards you than he has shown himself for years, but I would strenuously advise your being here, and sufficiently near, so that if a happier disposition should occur, or an opportunity arise to bring you once more together, the fortunate moment should not be lost. Come up, then, at once, come to my house, where your room is ready for you, and where you will neither be molested by visitors nor interfered with. Manage too, if you can, to remain here for some days.”
It is no small tribute to the character of filial affection when one can say, and say truthfully, that scarcely any severity on a parent's part effaces the love that was imbibed in infancy, and that struck root in the heart before it could know what unkindness was! Over and over again in life have I witnessed this deep devotion. Over and over again have I seen a clinging affection to a memory which nothing short of a hallowed tie could have made so dear,—a memory that retained whatever could comfort and sustain, and held nothing that recalled shame or sorrow.
Dr. Lendrick went up to town full of such emotions. All the wrong—it was heavy wrong too—he had suffered was forgotten, all the Injustice wiped out. He only asked to be permitted to see his father,—to nurse and watch by him. There was no thought for himself. By reconciliation he never meant restoration to his place as heir. Forgiveness and love he asked for,—to be taken back to the heart so long closed against him, to hear himself called Tom by that voice he knew so well, and whose accents sounded through his dreams.
That he was not without a hope of such happiness, might be gathered from one circumstance. He had taken up with him two miniatures of his boy and girl to show “Grandfather,” if good fortune should ever offer a fitting moment.
The first words which greeted him on reaching his friend's house were: “Better. A tolerably tranquil night. He can move his hand. The attack was paralysis, and his speech is also improved.”
“And his mind? how is his mind?”
“Clear as ever it was,—intensely eager to hear what is said about his illness, and insatiable as to the newspaper versions of the attack.”
“Does he speak? Has he spoken of—his family at all?” said he, falteringly.
“Only of Lady Lendrick. He desired to see her. He dictated a note to me, in terms of very finished courtesy, asking her if, without incurring inconvenience, she would favor him with an early call. The whole thing was so like himself that I saw at once he was getting better.”
“And so you think him better?” asked Lendrick, eagerly.
“Better! Yes—but not out of danger. I fear as much from his irritability as his malady. He will insist on seeing the newspapers, and occasionally his eye falls on some paragraph that wounds him. It was but yesterday that he read a sort of querulous regret from some writer that 'the learned Judge had not retired some years ago, and before failing health, acting on a very irascible temperament, had rendered him a terror alike to the bar and the suitors.' That unfortunate paragraph cost twenty leeches and ice to his temples for eight hours after.”
“Cannot these things be kept from him? Surely your authority ought to be equal to this!”
“Were I to attempt it, he would refuse to see me. In fact, any utility I can contribute depends on my apparent submission to him in everything. Almost his first question to me every morning is, 'Well, sir, who is to be my successor?' Of course I say that we all look with a sanguine hope to see him soon back in his court again. When I said this yesterday, he replied, 'I will sit on Wednesday, sir, to hear appeals; there will be little occasion for me to speak, and I trust another day or two will see the last of this difficulty of utterance. Pemberton, I know, is looking to the Attorney-Generalship, and George Hayes thinks he may order his ermine. Tell them, however, from me, that the Chief Baron intends to preside in his court for many a year to come; that the intellect, such as it is, with which Providence endowed him, is still unchanged and unclouded.' This is his language,—this his tone; and you may know how such a spirit jars with all our endeavors to promote rest and tranquillity.”
Lendrick walked moodily up and down the room, his head sunk, and his eyes downcast. “Never to speak of me,—never ask to see me,” muttered he, in a voice of intense sadness.
“I half suspected at one time he was about to do so, and indeed he said, 'If this attack should baffle you, Beattie, you must not omit to give timely warning. There are two or three things to be thought of.' When I came away on that morning, I sat down and wrote to you to come up here.”
A servant entered at this moment and presented a note to the doctor, who read it hastily and handed it to Lendrick. It ran thus:—
“Dear Dr. Beattie,—The Chief Baron has had an unfavorable turn, partly brought on by excitement. Lose no time in coming here; and believe me, yours sincerely,
“CONSTANTIA LENDRICK.”
“They've had a quarrel; I knew they would. I did my best to prevent their meeting; but I saw he would not go out of the world without a scene. As he said last night, 'I mean her to hear my “charge.” She must listen to my charge, Beattie;' and I 'd not be astonished if this charge were to prove his own sentence.”
“Go to him at once, Beattie; and if it be at all possible, if you can compass it in any way, let me see him once again. Take these with you; who knows but their bright faces may plead better than words for us?” and thus saying, he gave him the miniatuies; and overcome with emotion he could not control, turned away and left the room.
CHAPTER III. A DIFFICULT PATIENT
As Dr. Beattie drove off with all speed to the Chief Baron's house, which lay about three miles from the city, he had time to ponder as he went over his late interview. “Tom Lendrick,” as he still called him to himself, he had known as a boy, and ever liked him. He had been a patient, studious, gentle-tempered lad, desirous to acquire knowledge, without any of that ambition that wants to make the knowledge marketable. To have gained a professorship would have appeared to have been the very summit of his ambition, and this rather as a quiet retreat to pursue his studies further than as a sphere wherein to display his own gifts. Anything more unlike that bustling, energetic, daring spirit, his father, would be hard to conceive. Throughout his whole career at the bar, and in Parliament, men were never quite sure what that brilliant speaker and most indiscreet talker would do next. Men secured his advocacy with a half misgiving whether they were doing the very best or the very worst for success. Give him difficulties to deal with, and he was a giant; let all go smoothly and well, and he would hunt up some crotchet,—some obsolete usage,—a doubtful point, that in its discussion very frequently led to the damage of his client's cause, and the defeat of his suit.
Display was ever more to him than victory. Let him have a great arena to exhibit in, and he was proof against all the difficulties and all the casualties of the conflict. Never had such a father a son less the inheritor of his temperament and nature; and this same disappointment rankling on through life—a disappointment that embittered all intercourse, and went so far as to make him disparage the high abilities of his son—created a gulf between them that Beattie knew could never be bridged over. He doubted, too, whether as a doctor he could conscientiously introduce a theme so likely to irritate and excite. As he pondered, he opened the two miniatures, and looked at them. The young man was a fine, manly, daring-looking fellow, with a determined brow and a resolute mouth, that recalled his grandfather's face; he was evidently well grown and strong, and looked one that, thrown where he might be in life, would be likely to assert his own.
The girl, wonderfully like him in feature, had a character of subdued humor in her eye, and a half-hid laughter in the mouth, which the artist had caught up with infinite skill, that took away all the severity of the face, and softened its traits to a most attractive beauty. Through her rich brown hair there was a sort of golden reflet that imparted great brilliancy to the expression of the head, and her large eyes of gray-blue were the image of candor and softness, till her laugh gave them a sparkle of drollery whose sympathy there was no resisting. She, too, was tall and beautifully formed, with that slimness of early youth that only escapes being angular, but has in it the charm of suppleness that lends grace to every action and every gesture.
“I wish he could see the originals,” muttered Beattie. “If the old man, with his love of beauty, but saw that girl, it would be worth all the arguments in Christendom. Is it too late for this? Have we time for the experiment?”
Thus thinking, he drove along the well-wooded approach, and gained the large ground-space before the door, whence a carriage was about to drive away. “Oh, doctor,” cried a voice, “I'm so glad you 're come; they are most impatient for you.” It was the Solicitor-General, Mr. Pemberton, who now came up to the window of Beattie's carriage.
“He has become quite unmanageable, will not admit a word of counsel or advice, resists all interference, and insists on going out for a drive.”
“I see him at the window,” said Beattie; “he is beckoning to me; good-bye,” and he passed on and entered the house.
In the chief drawing-room, in a deep recess of a window, sat the Chief Baron, dressed as if to go out, with an overcoat and even his gloves on. “Come and drive with me, Beattie,” cried he, in a feeble but harsh voice. “If I take my man Leonard, they 'll say it was a keeper. You know that the 'Post' has it this morning that it is my mind which has given way. They say they 've seen me breaking for years back. Good heavens! can it be possible, think you, that the mites in a cheese speculate over the nature of the man that eats them? You stopped to talk with Pemberton I saw; what did he say to you?”
“Nothing particular,—a mere greeting, I think.”
“No, sir, it was not; he was asking you how many hours there lay between him and the Attorney-Generalship. They 've divided the carcase already. The lion has to assist at his autopsy,—rather hard, is n't it? How it embitters death, to think of the fellows who are to replace us!”
“Let me feel your pulse.”
“Don't trust it, Beattie; that little dialogue of yours on the grass plot has sent it up thirty beats; how many is it?”
“Rapid,—very rapid; you need rest,—tranquillity.”
“And you can't give me either, sir; neither you nor your craft. You are the Augurs of modern civilization, and we cling to your predictions just as our forefathers did, though we never believe you.”
“This is not flattery,” said Beattie, with a slight smile.
The old man closed his eyes, and passed his hand slowly over his forehead. “I suppose I was dreaming, Beattie, just before you came up; but I thought I saw them all in the Hall, talking and laughing over my death. Burrowes was telling how old I must be, because I moved the amendment to Flood in the Irish Parliament in '97; and Eames mentioned that I was Curran's junior in the great Bagenal record; and old Tysdal set them all in a roar by saying he had a vision of me standing at the gate of heaven, and instead of going in, as St. Peter invited me, stoutly refusing, and declaring I would move for a new trial! How like the rascals!”
“Don't you think you'd be better in your own room? There's too much light and glare here.”
“Do you think so?”
“I am sure of it. You need quiet, and the absence of all that stimulates the action of the brain.”
“And what do you, sir,—what does any one,—know about the brain's operations? You doctors have invented a sort of conventional cerebral organ, which, like lunar caustic, is decomposed by light; and in your vulgar materialism you would make out that what affects your brain must act alike upon mine. I tell you, sir, it is darkness—obscurity, physical or moral, it matters not which—that irritates me, just as I feel provoked this moment by this muddling talk of yours about brain.”
“And yet I 'm talking about what my daily life and habits suggest some knowledge of,” said Beattie, mildly.
“So you are, sir, and the presumption is all on my side. If you'll kindly lend me your arm, I'll go back to my room.”
Step by step, slowly and painfully, he returned to his chamber, not uttering a word as he went.
“Yes, this is better, doctor; this half light soothes; it is much pleasanter. One more kindness. I wrote to Lady Lendrick this morning to come up here. I suppose my combative spirit was high in me, and I wanted a round with the gloves,—or, indeed, without them; at all events, I sent the challenge. But now, doctor, I have to own myself a craven. I dread the visit Could you manage to interpose? Could you suggest that it is by your order I am not permitted to receive her? Could you hint”—here he smiled half maliciously—“that you do not think the time has come for anodynes,—eh, doctor?”
“Leave it to me. I 'll speak to Lady Lendrick.”
“There 's another thing: not that it much matters; but it might perhaps be as well to send a few lines to the morning papers, to say the accounts of the Chief Baron are more favorable to-day; he passed a tranquil night, and so on. Pemberton won't like it, nor Hayes; but it will calm the fears of a very attached friend who calls here twice daily. You'd never guess him. He is the agent of the Globe Office, where I 'm insured. Ah, doctor, it was a bright thought of Philanthropy to establish an industrial enterprise that is bound, under heavy recognizances, to be grieved at our death.”
“I must not make you talk, Sir William. I must not encourage you to exert yourself. I 'll say good-bye, and look in upon you this afternoon.”
“Am I to have a book? Well; be it so. I I 'll sit and muse over the Attorney-General and his hopes.”
“I have got two very interesting miniatures here. I 'll leave them with you; you might like to look at them.”
“Miniatures! whose portraits are they?” asked the other, hastily, as he almost snatched them from his hand. “What a miserable juggler! what a stale trick this!” said he, as he opened the case which contained the young man's picture. “So, sir, you lend yourself to such attempts as these.”
“I don't understand you,” said Beattie, indignantly.
“Yes, sir, you understand me perfectly. You would do, by a piece of legerdemain, what you have not the courage to attempt openly. These are Tom Lendrick's children.”
“They are.”
“And this simpering young lady is her mother's image; pretty, pretty, no doubt; and a little—a shade, perhaps—of espièglerie above what her mother possessed. She was the silliest woman that ever turned a fool's head. She had the ineffable folly, sir, to believe she could persuade me to forgive my son for having married her; and when I handed her to a seat,—for she was at my knees,—she fainted.”
“Well. It is time to forgive him now. As for her, she is beyond forgiveness, or favor, either,” said Beattie, with more energy than before.
“There is no such trial to a man in a high calling as the temptation it offers him to step beyond it. Take care, sir, that with all your acknowledged ability, this temptation be not too much for you.” The tone and manner in which the old judge delivered these words recalled the justice-seat. “It is an honor to me to have you as my doctor, sir. It would be to disparage my own intelligence to accept you as my confessor.”
“A doctor but discharges half his trust when he fails to warn his patient against the effects of irritability.”
“The man who would presume to minister to my temper or to my nature should be no longer medico of mine. With what intention, sir, did you bring me these miniatures?”
“That you might see two bright and beautiful faces whose owners are bound to you by the strongest ties of blood.”
“Do you know, sir,—have you ever heard,—how their father, by his wilfulness, by his folly, by his heartless denial of my right to influence him, ruined the fortune that cost my life of struggle and labor to create?”
The doctor shook his head, and the other continued: “Then I will tell it to you, sir. It is more than seventeen years to-day when the then Viceroy sent for me, and said, 'Baron Lendrick, there is no man, after Plunkett, to whom we owe more than to yourself.' I bowed, and said, 'I do not accept the qualification, my Lord, even in favor of the distinguished Chancellor. I will not believe myself second to any.' I need not relate what ensued; the discussion was a long one,—it was also a warm one; but he came back at last to the object of the interview, which was to say that the Prime Minister was willing to recommend my name to her Majesty for the Peerage,—an honor, he was pleased to say, the public would see conferred upon me with approval; and I refused! Yes, sir, I refused what for thirty-odd years had formed the pride and the prize of my existence! I refused it, because I would not that her Majesty's favor should descend to one so unworthy of it as this fellow, or that his low-born children should inherit a high name of my procuring. I refused, sir, and I told the noble Marquess my reasons. He tried—pretty much as you have tried—to bring me to a more forgiving spirit; but I stopped him by saying, 'When I hear that your Excellency has invited to your table the scurrilous author of the lampoon against you in the “Satirist,” I will begin to listen to the claims that may be urged on the score of forgiveness; not till then.'”
“I am wrong—very wrong—to let you talk on themes like this; we must keep them for calmer moments.” Beattie laid his finger on the pulse as he spoke, and counted the beats by his watch.
“Well, sir, what says Death? Will he consent to a 'nolle prosequi,' or must the cause go on?”
“You are not worse; and even that, after all this excitement, is something. Good-bye now till evening. No books,—no newspapers, remember. Doze; dream; do anything but excite yourself.”
“You are cruel, sir; you cut off all my enjoyments together. You deny me the resources of reading, and you deny me the solace of my wife's society.” The cutting sarcasm of the last words was shown in the spiteful sparkle of his eye, and the insolent curl of his mouth; and as the doctor retired, the memory of that wicked look haunted him throughout the day.
CHAPTER IV. HOME DIPLOMACIES
“Well, it 's done now, Lucy, and it can't be helped,” said young Lendrick to his sister, as, with an unlighted cigar between his lips, and his hands in the pockets of his shooting-jacket, he walked impatiently up and down the drawing-room. “I 'm sure if I only suspected you were so strongly against it, I 'd not have done it.”
“My dear Tom, I'm only against it because I think papa would be so. You know we never see any one here when he is at home, and why should we now, because he is absent?”
“Just for that reason. It's our only chance, girl.”
“Oh, Tom!”
“Well, I don't mean that exactly, but I said it to startle you. No, Lucy; but, you see, here's how the matter stands. I have been three whole days in their company. On Tuesday the young fellow gave me that book of flies and the top-joint of my rod. Yesterday I lunched with them. To-day they pressed me so hard to dine with them that I felt almost rude in persisting to refuse; and it was as much to avoid the awkwardness of the situation as anything else that I asked them up to tea this evening.”
“I'm sure, Tom, if it would give you any pleasure—”
“Of course it gives me pleasure,” broke he in; “I don't suspect that fellows of my age like to live like hermits. And whom do I ever see down here? Old Mills and old Tobin, and Larry Day, the dog-breaker. I ask his pardon for putting him last, for he is the best of the three. Girls can stand this sort of nun's life, but I 'll be hanged if it will do for us.”
“And then, Tom,” resumed she, in the same tone, “remember they are both perfect strangers. I doubt if you even know their names.”
“That I do,—the old fellow is Sir Brook something or other. It 's not Fogey, but it begins like it; and the other is called Trafford,—Lionel, I think, is his Christian name. A glorious fellow, too; was in the 9th Lancers and in the blues, and is now here with the fifty—th because he went it too hard in the cavalry. He had a horse for the Derby two years ago.” The tone of proud triumph in which he made this announcement seemed to say, Now, all discussion about him may cease. “Not but,” added he, after a pause, “you might like the old fellow best; he has such a world of stories, and he draws so beautifully. The whole time we were in the boat he was sketching something; and he has a book full of odds and ends; a tea-party in China, quail-shooting in Java, a wedding in Candia,—I can't tell what more; but he 's to bring them up here with him.”
“I was thinking, Tom, that it might be as well if you 'd go down and ask Dr. Mills to come to tea. It would take off some of the awkwardness of our receiving two strangers.”
“But they 're not strangers, Lucy; not a bit of it. I call him Trafford, and he calls me Lendrick; and the old cove is the most familiar old fellow I ever met.”
“Have you said anything to Nicholas yet?” asked she, in some eagerness.
“No; and that's exactly what I want you to do for me. That old bear bullies us all, so that I can't trust myself to speak to him.”
“Well, don't go away, and I'll send for him now;” and she rang the bell as she spoke. A smart-looking lad answered the summons, to whom she said, “Tell Nicholas I want him.”
“Take my advice, Lucy, and merely say there are two gentlemen coming to tea this evening; don't let the old villain think you are consulting him about it, or asking his advice.”
“I must do it my own way,” said she; “only don't interrupt. Don't meddle,—mind that, Tom.” The door opened, and a very short, thick-set old man, dressed in a black coat and waistcoat, and drab breeches and white stockings, with large shoe-buckles in his shoes, entered. His face was large and red, the mouth immensely wide, and the eyes far set from each other, his low forehead being shadowed by a wig of coarse red hair, which moved when he spoke, and seemed almost to possess a sort of independent vitality.
He had been reading when he was summoned, and his spectacles had been pushed up over his forehead, while he still held the county paper in his hand,—a sort of proud protest against being disturbed.
“You heard that Miss Lucy sent for you?” said Tom Lendrick, haughtily, as his eye fell upon the newspaper.
“I did,” was the curt answer, as the old fellow, with a nervous shake of the head, seemed to announce that he was ready for battle.
“What I wanted, Nicholas, was this,” interposed the girl, in a voice of very winning sweetness; “Mr. Tom has invited two gentlemen this evening to tea.”
“To tay!” cried Nicholas, as if the fact staggered all credulity.
“Yes, to tea; and I was thinking if you would go down to the town and get some biscuits, or a sponge-cake, perhaps—whatever, indeed, you thought best; and also beg Dr. Mills to step in, saying that as papa was away—”
“That you was going to give a ball?”
“No. Not exactly that, Nicholas,” said she, smiling; “but that two friends of my brother's—”
“And where did he meet his friends?” cried he, with a marked emphasis on the “friends.” “Two strangers. God knows who or what! Poachers as like as anything else. The ould one might be worse.”
“Enough of this,” said Tom, sternly. “Are you the master here? Go off, sir, and do what Miss Lucy has ordered you.”
“I will not,—the devil a step,” said the old man, who now thrust the paper into a capacious pocket, and struck each hand on a hip. “Is it when the 'Jidge' is dying, when the newpapers has a column of the names that 's calling to ask after him, you are to be carousing and feastin' here?”
“Dear Nicholas, there's no question of feasting. It is simply a cup of tea we mean to give; sorely there's no carousing in that. And as to grandpapa, papa says that he was certainly better yesterday, and Dr. Beattie has hopes now.”
“I have n't, then, and I know him better than Dr. Beattie.”
“What a pity they have n't sent for you for the consultation!” said Tom, ironically.
“And look here, Nicholas,” said Lucy, drawing the old man towards the door of a small room that led off the drawing-room, “we could have tea here; it will look less formal, and give less trouble; and Mears could wait,—he does it very well; and you need n't be put out at all.” These last words fell to a whisper; but he was beyond reserve, beyond flattery. The last speech of her brother still rankled in his memory, and all that fell upon his ear since that fell unheeded.
“I was with your grandfather, Master Tom,” said the old man, slowly, “twenty-one years before you were born! I carried his bag down to Court the day he defended Neal O' Gorman for high treason, and I was with him the morning he shot Luke Dillon at Castle Knock; and this I 'll say and stand to, there 's not a man in Ireland, high or low, knows the Chief Baron better than myself.”
“It must be a great comfort to you both,” said Tom; but his sister had laid her hand on his mouth and made the words unintelligible.
“You'll say to Mr. Mills, Nicholas,” said she, in her most coaxing way, “that I did not write, because I preferred sending my message by you, who could explain why I particularly wanted him this evening.”
“I'll go, Miss Lucy, resarving the point, as they say in the law,—resarving the point! because I don't give in that what you're doin' is right; and when the master comes home, I'm not goin' to defend it.”
“We must bear up under that calamity as well as we can,” said the young man, insolently; but Nicholas never looked towards or seemed to hear him.
“A barn-a-brack is better than a spongecake, because if there 's some of it left it does n't get stale, and one-and-six-pence will be enough; and I suppose you don't need a lamp?”
“Well, Nicholas, I must say, I think it would be better; and two candles on the small table, and two on the piano.”
“Why don't you mentiou a fiddler?” said he, bitterly. “If it's a ball, there ought to be music?”
Unable to control himself longer, young Lendrick wrenched open the sash-door, and walked out into the lawn.
“The devil such a family for temper from this to Bantry!” said Nicholas; “and here's the company comin' already, or I 'm mistaken. There 's a boat makin' for the landing-place with two men in the stern.”
Lucy implored him once more to lose no time on his errand, and hastened away to make some change in her dress to receive the strangers. Meanwhile Tom, having seen the boat, walked down to the shore to meet his friends.
Both Sir Brook and Trafford were enthusiastic in their praises of the spot. Its natural beauty was indeed great, but taste and culture had rendered it a marvel of elegance and refinement. Not merely were the trees grouped with reference to foliage and tint, but the flower-beds were so arranged that the laws of color should be respected, and thus these plats of perfume were not less luxuriously rich in odor than they were captivating as pictures.
“It is all the governor's own doing,” said Tom, proudly, “and he is continually changing the disposition of the plants. He says variety is a law of the natural world, and it is our duty to imitate it. Here comes my sister, gentlemen.”
As though set in a beautiful frame, the lovely girl stood for an instant in the porch, where drooping honeysuckles and the tangled branches of a vine hung around her, and then came courteously to meet and welcome them.
“I am in ecstasy with all I see here, Miss Lendrick,” said Sir Brook. “Old traveller that I am, I scarcely know where I have ever seen such a combination of beauty.”
“Papa will be delighted to hear this,” said she, with a pleasant smile; “it is the flattery he loves best.”
“I 'm always saying we could keep up a salmon-weir on the river for a tithe of what these carnations and primroses cost us,” said Tom.
“Why, sir, if you had been in Eden you 'd have made it a market garden,” said the old man.
“If the governor was a Duke of Devonshire, all these-caprices might be pardonable; but my theory is, roast-beef before roses.”
While young Lendrick attached himself to Trafford, and took him here and there to show him the grounds, Sir Brook walked beside Lucy, who did the honors of the place with a most charming courtesy.
“I am almost ashamed, sir,” said she, as they turned towards the house, “to have asked you to see such humble objects as these to which we attach value, for my brother tells me you are a great traveller; but it is just possible you have met in your journeys others who, like us, lived so much out of the world that they fancied they had the prettiest spot in it for their own.”
“You must not ask me what I think of all I have seen: here, Miss Lendrick, till my enthusiasm calms down;” and his look of admiration, so palpably addressed to herself, sent a flush to her cheek. “A man's belongings are his history,” said Sir Brook, quickly turning the conversation into an easier channel: “show me his study, his stable, his garden; let me see his hat, his cane, the volume he thrusts into his pocket, and I 'll make you an indifferent good guess about his daily doings.”
“Tell me of papa's. Come here, Tom,” cried she, as the two young men came towards her, “and listen to a bit of divination.”
“Nay, I never promised a lecture. I offered a confidence,” said he, in a half whisper; but she went on: “Sir Brook says that he reads people pretty much as Cuvier pronounced on a mastodon, by some small minute detail that pertained to them. Here's Tom's cigar-case,” said she, taking it from his pocket; “what do you infer from that, sir?”
“That he smokes the most execrable tobacco.”
“But can you say why?” asked Tom, with a sly twinkle of his eye.
“Probably for the same reason I do myself,” said Sir Brook, producing a very cheap cigar.
“Oh, that's a veritable Cuban compared to one of mine,” cried Tom; “and by way of making my future life miserable, here has been Mr. Trafford filling my pocket with real havannahs, giving me a taste for luxuries I ought never to have known of.”
“Know everything, sir, go everywhere, see all that the world can show you; the wider a man's experiences the larger his nature and the more open his heart,” said Foss-brooke, boldly.
“I like the theory,” said Trafford to Miss Lendrick; “do you?”
“Sir Brook never meant it for women, I fancy,” said she, in a low tone; but the old man overheard her, and said: “You are right. The guide ought to know every part of the mountain; the traveller need only know the path.”
“Here comes a guide who is satisfied with very short excursions,” cried Tom, laughing; “this is our parson, Dr. Mills.”
The little, mellow-looking, well-cared-for person who now joined them was a perfect type of old-bachelorhood, in its aspect of not unpleasant selfishness. Everything about him was neat, orderly, and appropriate; and though you saw at a glance it was all for himself and his own enjoyment it was provided, his good manners and courtesy were ever ready to extend its benefits to others; and a certain genial look he wore, and a manner that nature had gifted him with, did him right good service in life, and made him pass for “an excellent fellow, though not much of a parson.”
He was of use now, if only that by his presence Lucy felt more at ease, not to say that his violoncello, which always remained at the Nest, made a pleasant accompaniment when she played, and that he sang with much taste some of those lyrics which arc as much linked to Ireland by poetry as by music.
“I wish he was our chaplain,—by Jove I do!” whispered Trafford to Lendrick; “he's the jolliest fellow of his cloth I have ever met.”
“And such a cook,” muttered the other.
“A cook!”
“Ay, a cook. I 'll make him ask us to dinner, and you 'll tell me if you ever ate fish as he gives it, or tasted macaroni as dressed by him. I have a salmon for you, doctor, a ten-pound fish. I wish it were bigger! but it is in splendid order.”
“Did you set it?” asked the parson, eagerly.
“What does he mean by set it?” whispered Trafford.
“Setting means plunging it in very hot water soon after killing it, to preserve and harden the 'curd.' Yes; and I took your hint about the arbutus leaves, too, doctor. I covered it all up with them.”
“You are a teachable youth, and shall be rewarded. Come and eat him to-morrow. Dare I hope that these gentlemen are disengaged, and will honor my poor parsonage? Will you favor me with your company at five o'clock, sir?”
Sir Brook bowed, and accepted the invitation with pleasure.
“And you, sir?”
“Only too happy,” said Trafford.
“Lucy, my dear, you must be one of us.”
“Oh, I could not; it is impossible, doctor,—you know it is.”
“I know nothing of the kind.”
“Papa away,—not to speak of his never encouraging us to leave home,” muttered she, in a whisper.
“I accept no excuses, Lucy; such a rare opportunity may not occur to me in a hurry. Mrs. Brennan, my housekeeper, will be so proud to see you, that I 'm not sure she 'll not treat these gentlemen to her brandy peaches,—a delicacy, I feel bound to say, she has never conceded to any one less than the bishop of the diocese.”
“Don't ask me, doctor. I know that papa—”
But he broke in, saying,—“'You know I 'm your priest, and your conscience is mine;' and besides, I really do want to see how the parsonage will look with a lady at the top of the table: who knows what it may lead to?”
“Come, Lucy, that's the nearest thing to a proposal I 've heard for some time. You really must go now,” said Tom.
“Papa will not like it,” whispered she in his ear.
“Then he'll have to settle the matter with me, Lucy,” said the doctor, “for it was I who overruled you.”
“Don't look to me, Miss Lendrick, to sustain you in your refusal,” said Sir Brook, as the young girl turned towards him. “I have the strongest interest in seeing the doctor successful.”
If Trafford said nothing, the glance he gave her more than backed the old man's speech, and she turned away half vexed, half pleased, puzzled how to act, and flattered at the same time by an amount of attention so new to her and so strange. Still she could not bring herself to promise she would go, and wished them all good-night at last, without a pledge.
“Of course she will,” muttered Tom in the doctor's ear. “She's afraid of the governor; but I know he'll not be displeased,—you may reckon on her.”
CHAPTER V. THE PICNIC ON HOLY ISLAND
From the day that Sir Brook made the acquaintance of Tom Lendrick and his sister, he determined he would “pitch his tent,” as he called it, for some time at Killaloe. They had, so to say, captivated the old man. The young fellow, by his frank, open, manly nature, his ardent love of sport in every shape, his invariable good-humor, and more than all these, by the unaffected simplicity of his character, had strongly interested him; while Lucy had made a far deeper impression by her gentleness, her refinement, an elegance in deportment that no teaching ever gives, and, along with these, a mind stored with thought and reflectiveness. Let us, however, be just to each, and own that her beauty and the marvellous fascination of her smile gave her, even in that old man's eyes, an irresistible charm. It was a very long bygone, but he had once been in love, and the faint flicker of the memory had yet survived in his heart. It was just as likely Lucy bore no resemblance to her he had loved, but he fancied she did,—he imagined that she was her very image. That was the smile, the glance, the tone, the gesture which once had set his heart a-throbbing, and the illusion threw around her an immense fascination.
She liked him too. Through all the strange incongruities of his character, his restless love of adventure and excitement, there ran a gentle liking for quiet pleasures. He loved scenery passionately, and with a painter's taste for color and form; he loved poetry, which he read with a wondrous charm of voice and intonation. Nor was it without its peculiar power, this homage of an old, old man, who rendered her the attentive service of a devoted admirer.
There is very subtle flattery in the obsequious devotion of age to youth. It is, at least, an honest worship, an unselfish offering, and in this way the object of it may well feel proud of its tribute.
From the vicar, Dr. Mills, Fossbrooke had learned the chief events of Dr. Lendrick's history, of his estrangement from his father, his fastidious retirement from the world, and, last of all, his narrow fortune, apparently now growing narrower, since within the last year he had withdrawn his son from the University on the score of its expense.
A gold-medallist and a scholar, Dr. Lendrick would have eagerly coveted such honors for his son. It was, probably, the one triumph in life he would have set most store by, but Tom was one not made for collegiate successes. He had abilities, but they were not teachable qualities; he could pick up a certain amount of almost anything,—he could learn nothing. He could carry away from a chance conversation an amount of knowledge it had cost the talkers years to acquire, and yet set him down regularly to work book-fashion, and either from want of energy, or concentration, or of that strong will which masters difficulties just as a full current carries all before it—whichever of these was his defect,—he arose from his task wearied, worn, but unadvanced.
When, therefore, his father would speak, as he sometimes did, in confidence to the vicar, in a tone of depression about Tom's deficiencies, the honest parson would feel perfectly lost in amazement at what he meant. To his eyes Tom Lendrick was a wonder, a prodigy. There was not a theme he could not talk on, and talk well too. “It was but the other day he told the chief engineer of the Shannon Company more about the geological formation of the river-basin than all his staff knew. Ay, and what's stranger,” added the vicar, “he understands the whole Colenso controversy better than I do myself.” It is just possible that in the last panegyric there was nothing of exaggeration or excess. “And with all that, sir, his father goes on brooding over his neglected education, and foreshadowing the worst results from his ignorance.”
“He is a fine fellow,” said Fossbrooke, “but not to be compared with his sister.”
“Not for mere looks, perhaps, nor for a graceful manner, and a winning address; but who would think of ranking Lucy's abilities with her brother's?”
“Not I,” said Fossbrooke, boldly, “for I place hers far and away above them.”
A sly twinkle of the parson's eye showed to what class of advantages he ascribed the other's preference; but he said no more, and the controversy ended.
Every morning found Sir Brook at the “Swan's Nest.” He was fond of gardening, and had consummate taste in laying out ground, so that many pleasant surprises had been prepared for Dr. Lendrick's return. He drew, too, with great skill, and Lucy made considerable progress under his teaching; and as they grew more intimate, and she was not ashamed of the confession that she delighted in the Georgics of Virgil, they read whole hours together of those picturesque descriptions of rural life and its occupations, which are as true to nature at this hour as on the day they were written.
Perhaps the old man fancied that it was he who had suggested this intense appreciation of the poet. It is just possible that the young girl believed that she had reclaimed a wild, erratic, eccentric nature, and brought him back ta the love of simple pleasures and a purer source of enjoyment. Whichever way the truth inclined, each was happy, each contented. And how fond are we all, of every age, of playing the missionary, of setting off into the savage districts of our neighbors' natures and combating their false idols, their superstitions and strange rites! The least adventurous and the least imaginative have these little outbursts of conversion, and all are more or less propagandists.
It was one morning, a bright and glorious one too, that, while Tom and Lucy were yet at breakfast, Sir Brook arrived and entered the breakfast-room.
“What a day for a gray hackle, in that dark pool under the larch-trees!” cried Tom, as he saw him.
“What a day for a long walk to Mount Laurel!” said Lucy. “You said, t'other morning, you wanted cloud effects on the upper lake. I 'll show you splendid ones to-day.”
“I 'll promise you a full basket before four o'clock,” broke in Tom.
“I 'll promise you a full sketch-book,” said Lucy, with one of her sweetest smiles.
“And I 'm going to refuse both; for I have a plan of my own, and a plan not to be gainsaid.”
“I know it, You want us to go to work on that fish-pond. I'm certain it's that.”
“No, Tom; it's the catalogue,—the weary catalogue that he told me, as a punishment for not being able to find Machiavelli's comedies last week, he 'd make me sit down to on the first lovely morning that came.”
“Better that than those dreary Georgics which remind one of school, and the third form. But what 's your plan, Sir Brook? We have thought of all the projects that can terrify us, and you look as if it ought to be a terror.”
“Mine is a plan for pleasure, and pleasure only; so pack up at once and get ready. Trafford arrived this morning.”
“Where is he? I am so glad! Where's Trafford?” cried Tom, delighted.
“I have despatched him with the vicar and two well-filled hampers to Holy Island, where I mean that we shall all picnic. There 's my plan.”
“And a jolly plan too! I adhere unconditionally.”
“And you, Lucy, what do you say?” asked Sir Brook, as the young girl stood with a look of some indecision and embarrassment.
“I don't say that it's not a very pleasant project, but—”
“But what, Lucy? Where 's the but?”
She whispered a few words in his ear, and he cried out: “Is n't this too bad? She tells me Nicholas does not like all this gayety; that Nicholas disapproves of our mode of life.”
“No, Tom; I only said Nicholas thinks that papa would not like it.”
“Couldn't we see Nicholas? Couldn't we have a commission to examine Nicholas?” asked Sir Brook, laughingly.
“I 'll not be on it, that 's all I know; for I should finish by chucking the witness into the Shannon. Come along, Lucy; don't let us lose this glorious morning. I 'll get some lines and hooks together. Be sure you 're ready when I come back.”
As the door closed after him, Sir Brook drew near to Lucy, where she stood in an attitude of doubt and hesitation. “I mustn't risk your good opinion of me rashly. If you really dislike this excursion, I will give it up,” said he, in a low, gentle voice.
“Dislike it? No; far from it. I suspect I would enjoy it more than any of you. My reluctance was simply on the ground that all this is so unlike the life we have been leading hitherto. Papa will surely disapprove of it. Oh, there comes Nicholas with a letter!” cried she, opening the sash-window. “Give it to me; it is from papa.”
She broke the seal hurriedly, and ran rapidly over the lines. “Oh, yes! I will go now, and go with delight too. It is full of good news. He is to see grandpapa, if not to-morrow, the day after. He hopes all will be well. Papa knows your name, Sir Brook. He says, 'Ask your friend Sir Brook if he be any relative of a Sir Brook Foss-brooke who rescued Captain Langton some forty years ago from a Neapolitan prison. The print-shops were filled with his likeness when I was a boy.' Was he one of your family?” inquired she, looking at him.
“I am the man,” said he, calmly and coldly. “Langton was sentenced to the galleys for life for having struck the Count d'Aconi across the face with his glove; and the Count was nephew to the King. They had him at Capri working in chains, and I landed with my yacht's crew and liberated him.”
“What a daring thing to do!”
“Not so daring as you fancy. The guard was surprised, and fled. It was only when reinforced that they showed fight. Our toughest enemies were the galley-slaves, who, when they discovered that we never meant to liberate them, attacked us with stones. This scar on my temple is a memorial of the affair.”
“And Langton, what became of him?”
“He is now Lord Burrowfield. He gave me two fingers to shake the last time I met him at the Travellers'.”
“Oh, don't say that! Oh, don't tell me of such ingratitude!”
“My dear child, people usually regard gratitude as a debt which, once acknowledged, is acquitted; and perhaps they are right. It makes all intercourse freer and less trammelled.”
“Here comes Tom. May I tell him this story, or will you tell him yourself?”
“Not either, my dear Lucy. Your brother's blood is over-hot as it is. Let him not have any promptings to such exploits as these.”
“But may I tell papa?”
“Just as well not, Lucy. There were scores of wild things attributed to me in those days. He may possibly remember some of them, and begin to suspect that his daughter might be in better company.”
“How was it that you never told me of this exploit?” asked she, looking, not without admiration, at the hard stern features before her.
“My dear child, egotism is the besetting sin of old people, and even the most cautious lapse into it occasionally. Set me once a-talking of myself, all my prudence, all my reserve vanishes; so that, as a measure of safety for my friends and myself too, I avoid the theme when I can. There! Tom is beckoning to us. Let us go to him at once.”
Holy Island, or Inishcaltra, to give it its Irish name, is a wild spot, with little remarkable about it, save the ruins of seven churches and a curious well of fabulous depth. It was, however, a favorite spot with the vicar, whose taste in localities was somehow always associated with some feature of festivity, the great merit of the present spot being that you could dine without any molestation from beggars. In such estimation, indeed, did he hold the class, that he seriously believed their craving importunity to be one of the chief reasons of dyspepsia, and was profoundly convinced that the presence of Lazarus at his gate counterbalanced many of the goods which fortune had bestowed upon Dives.