Barrington Volume I Part 34

"Withering has seen young Conyers," she continued, as her eyes ran over the letter "He called upon him." Barrington made no rejoinder, though she waited for one. "The poor lad was in great affliction; some distressing news from India--of what kind Withering could not guess--had just reached him, and he appeared overwhelmed by it."

"He is very young for sorrow," said Barrington, feelingly.

"Just what Withering said;" and she read out, "'When I told him that I had come to make an _amende_ for the reception he had met with at the cottage, he stopped me at once, and said, "Great grief s are the cure of small ones, and you find me under a very heavy affliction. Tell Miss Barrington that I have no other memories of the 'Fisherman's Home' than of all her kindness towards me."'"

"Poor boy!" said Barrington, with emotion. "And how did Withering leave him?"

"Still sad and suffering. Struggling too, Withering thought, between a proud attempt to conceal his grief and an ardent impulse to tell all about it 'Had _you_ been there,' he writes, 'you'd have had the whole story; but I saw that he could n't stoop to open his heart to a man.'"

"Write to him, Dinah. Write and ask him down here for a couple of days."

"You forget that we are to leave this the day after tomorrow, brother."

"So I did. I forgot it completely. Well, what if he were to come for one day? What if you were to say come over and wish us good-bye?"

"It is so like a man and a man's selfishness never to consider a domestic difficulty," said she, tartly. "So long as a house has a roof over it, you fancy it may be available for hospitalities. You never take into account the carpets to be taken up, and the beds that are taken down, the plate-chest that is packed, and the cellar that is walled up.

You forget, in a word, that to make that life you find so very easy, some one else must pa.s.s an existence full of cares and duties."

"There 's not a doubt of it, Dinah. There 's truth and reason in every word you 've said."

"I will write to him if you like, and say that we mean to be at home by an early day in October, and that if he is disposed to see how our woods look in autumn, we will be well pleased to have him for our guest."

"Nothing could be better. Do so, Dinah. I owe the young fellow a reparation, and I shall not have an easy conscience till I make it."

"Ah, brother Peter, if your moneyed debts had only given you one-half the torment of your moral ones, what a rich man you might have been to-day!"

Long after his sister had gone away and left him, Peter Barrington continued to muse over this speech. He felt it, felt it keenly too, but in no bitterness of spirit.

Like most men of a lax and easy temper, he could mete out to himself the same merciful measure he accorded to others, and be as forgiving to his own faults as to theirs. "I suppose Dinah is right, though," said he to himself. "I never did know that sensitive irritability under debt which insures solvency. And whenever a man can laugh at a dun, he is pretty sure to be on the high-road to bankruptcy! Well, well, it is somewhat late to try and reform, but I'll do my best!" And thus comforted, he set about tying up fallen rose-trees and removing noxious insects with all his usual zeal.

"I half wish the place did not look in such beauty, just as I must leave it for a while. I don't think that j.a.ponica ever had as many flowers before; and what a season for tulips! Not to speak of the fruit There are peaches enough to stock a market. I wonder what Dinah means to do with them? She 'll be sorely grieved to make them over as perquisites to Darby, and I know she 'll never consent to have them sold. No, that is the one concession she cannot stoop to. Oh, here she comes! What a grand year for the wall fruit, Dinah!" cried he, aloud.

"The apricots have all failed, and fully one-half of the peaches are worm-eaten," said she, dryly.

Peter sighed as he thought, how she does dispel an illusion, what a terrible realist is this same sister! "Still, my dear Dinah, one-half of such a crop is a goodly yield."

"Out with it, Peter Barrington. Out with the question that is burning for utterance. What's to be done with them? I have thought of that already. I have told Polly Dill to preserve a quant.i.ty for us, and to take as much more as she pleases for her own use, and make presents to her friends of the remainder. She is to be mistress here while we are away, and has promised to come up two or three times a week, and see after everything, for I neither desire to have the flower-roots sold, nor the pigeons eaten before our return."

"That is an admirable arrangement, sister. I don't know a better girl than Polly!"

"She is better than I gave her credit for," said Miss Barrington, who was not fully pleased at any praise not bestowed by herself. A man's estimate of a young woman's goodness is not so certain of finding acceptance from her own s.e.x! "And as for that girl, the wonder is that with a fool for a mother, and a crafty old knave for a father, she really should possess one good trait or one amiable quality." Barrington muttered what sounded like concurrence, and she went on: "And it is for this reason I have taken an interest in her, and hope, by occupying her mind with useful cares and filling her hours with commendable duties, she will estrange herself from that going about to fine houses, and frequenting society where she is exposed to innumerable humiliations, and worse."

"Worse, Dinah!--what could be worse?"

"Temptations are worse, Peter Barrington, even when not yielded to; for like a noxious climate, which, though it fails to kill, it is certain to injure the const.i.tution during a lifetime. Take my word for it, she 'll not be the better wife to the Curate for the memory of all the fine speeches she once heard from the Captain. Very old and ascetic notions I am quite aware, Peter; but please to bear in mind all the trouble we take that the roots of a favorite tree should not strike into a sour soil, and bethink you how very indifferent we are as to the daily a.s.sociates of our children!"

"There you are right, Dinah, there you are right,--at least, as regards girls."

"And the rule applies fully as much to boys. All those manly accomplishments and out-of-door habits you lay such store by, could be acquired without the intimacy of the groom or the friendship of the gamekeeper. What are you muttering there about old-maids' children? Say it out, sir, and defend it, if you have the courage!"

But either that he had not said it, or failed in the requisite boldness to maintain it, he blundered out a very confused a.s.surance of agreement on every point.

A woman is seldom merciful in argument; the consciousness that she owes victory to her violence far more than to her logic, prompts persistence in the course she has followed so successfully, and so was it that Miss Dinah contrived to gallop over the battlefield long after the enemy was routed! But Barrington was not in a mood to be vexed; the thought of the journey filled him with so many pleasant antic.i.p.ations, the brightest of all being the sight of poor George's child! Not that this thought had not its dark side, in contrition for the long, long years he had left her unnoticed and neglected. Of course he had his own excuses and apologies for all this: he could refer to his overwhelming embarra.s.sments, and the heavy cares that surrounded him; but then she--that poor friendless girl, that orphan--could have known nothing of these things; and what opinion might she not have formed of those relatives who had so coldly and heartlessly abandoned her! Barrington took down her miniature, painted when she was a mere infant, and scanned it well, as though to divine what nature might possess her! There was little for speculation there,--perhaps even less for hope! The eyes were large and l.u.s.trous, it is true, but the brow was heavy, and the mouth, even in infancy, had something that seemed like firmness and decision,--strangely at variance with the lips of childhood.

Now, old Barrington's heart was deeply set on that lawsuit--that great cause against the Indian Government--that had formed the grand campaign of his life. It was his first waking thought of a morning, his last at night. All his faculties were engaged in revolving the various points of evidence, and imagining how this and that missing link might be supplied; and yet, with all these objects of desire before him, he would have given them up, each and all, to be sure of one thing,--that his granddaughter might be handsome! It was not that he did not value far above the graces of person a number of other gifts; he would not, for an instant, have hesitated, had he to choose between mere beauty and a good disposition. If he knew anything of himself, it was his thorough appreciation of a kindly nature, a temper to bear well, and a spirit to soar n.o.bly; but somehow he imagined these were gifts she was likely enough to possess. George's child would resemble him; she would have his light-heartedness and his happy nature, but would she be handsome? It is, trust me, no superficial view of life that attaches a great price to personal atractions, and Barrington was one to give these their full value. Had she been brought up from childhood under his roof, he had probably long since ceased to think of such a point; he would have attached himself to her by the ties of that daily domesticity which grow into a nature. The hundred little cares and offices that would have fallen to her lot to meet, would have served as links to bind their hearts; but she was coming to them a perfect stranger, and he wished ardently that his first impression should be all in her favor.

Now, while such were Barrington's reveries, his sister took a different turn. She had already pictured to herself the dark-orbed, heavy-browed child, expanded into a sallow-complexioned, heavy-featured girl, ungainly and ungraceful, her figure neglected, her very feet spoiled by the uncouth shoes of the convent, her great red hands untrained to all occupation save the coa.r.s.e cares of that half-menial existence. "As my brother would say," muttered she, "a most unpromising filly, if it were not for the breeding."

Both brother and sister, however, kept their impressions to themselves, and of all the subjects discussed between them not one word betrayed what each forecast about Josephine. I am half sorry it is no part of my task to follow them on the road, and yet I feel I could not impart to my reader the almost boylike enjoyment old Peter felt at every stage of the journey. He had made the grand tour of Europe more than half a century before, and he was in ecstasy to find so much that was unchanged around him. There were the long-eared caps, and the monstrous earrings, and the sabots, and the heavily ta.s.selled team horses, and the chiming church-bells, and the old-world equipages, and the strangely undersized soldiers,--all just as he saw them last! And every one was so polite and ceremonious, and so idle and so unoccupied, and the theatres were so large and the newspapers so small, and the current coin so defaced, and the order of the meats at dinner so inscrutable, and every one seemed contented just because he had nothing to do.

"Isn't it all I have told you, Dinah dear? Don't you perceive how accurate my picture has been? And is it not very charming and enjoyable?"

"They are the greatest cheats I ever met in my life, brother Peter; and when I think that every grin that greets us is a matter of five francs, it mars considerably the pleasure I derive from the hilarity."

It was in this spirit they journeyed till they arrived at Brussels.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE COLONEL'S COUNSELS

When Conyers had learned from Colonel Hunter all that he knew of his father's involvement, it went no further than this, that the Lieutenant-General had either resigned or been deprived of his civil appointments, and Hunter was called upon to replace him. With all his habit of hasty and impetuous action, there was no injustice in Fred's nature, and he frankly recognized that, however painful to him personally, Hunter could not refuse to accede to what the Prince had distinctly pressed him to accept.

Young Conyers had heard over and over again the astonishment expressed by old Indian officials how his father's treatment of the Company's orders had been so long endured. Some prescriptive immunity seemed to attach to him, or some great patronage to protect him, for he appeared to do exactly as he pleased, and the despotic sway of his rule was known far and near. With the changes in the const.i.tution of the Board, some members might have succeeded less disposed to recognize the General's former services, or endure so tolerantly his present encroachments, and Fred well could estimate the resistance his father would oppose to the very mildest remonstrance, and how indignantly he would reject whatever came in the shape of a command. Great as was the blow to the young man, it was not heavier in anything than the doubt and uncertainty about it, and he waited with a restless impatience for his father's letter, which should explain it all. Nor was his position less painful from the estrangement in which he lived, and the little intercourse he maintained with his brother-officers. When Hunter left, he knew that he had not one he could call friend amongst them, and Hunter was to go in a very few days, and even of these he could scarcely spare him more than a few chance moments!

It was in one of these flitting visits that Hunter bethought him of young Dill, of whom, it is only truth to confess, young Conyers had forgotten everything. "I took time by the forelock, Fred, about that affair," said he, "and I trust I have freed you from all embarra.s.sment about it."

"As how, sir?" asked Conyers, half in pique.

"When I missed you at the 'Fisherman's Home,' I set off to pay the doctor a visit, and a very charming visit it turned out; a better pigeon-pie I never ate, nor a prettier girl than the maker of it would I ask to meet with. We became great friends, talked of everything, from love at first sight to bone spavins, and found that we agreed to a miracle. I don't think I ever saw a girl before who suited me so perfectly in all her notions. She gave me a hint about what they call 'mouth lameness' our Vet would give his eye for. Well, to come back to her brother,--a dull dog, I take it, though I have not seen him,--I said, 'Don't let him go to India, they 've lots of clever fellows out there; pack him off to Australia; send him to New Zealand.' And when she interrupted me, 'But young Mr. Conyers insisted,--he would have it so; his father is to make Tom's fortune, and to send him back as rich as a Begum,' I said, 'He has fallen in love with you, Miss Polly, that's the fact, and lost his head altogether; and I don't wonder at it, for here am I, close upon forty-eight,--I might have said forty-nine, but no matter,--close upon forty-eight, and I 'm in the same book!' Yes, if it was the sister, _vice_ the brother, who wanted to make a fortune in India, I almost think I could say, 'Come and share mine!'"

"But I don't exactly understand. Am I to believe that they wish Tom to be off--to refuse my offer--and that the rejection comes from them?"

"No, not exactly. I said it was a bad spec, that you had taken a far too sanguine view of the whole thing, and that as I was an old soldier, and knew more of the world,--that is to say, had met a great many more hard rubs and disappointments,--my advice was, not to risk it. 'Young Conyers,' said I, 'will do all that he has promised to the letter.

You may rely upon every word that he has ever uttered. But bear in mind that he's only a mortal man; he's not one of those heathen G.o.ds who used to make fellows invincible in a battle, or smuggle them off in a cloud, out of the way of demons, or duns, or whatever difficulties beset them.

He might die, his father might die, any of us might die.' Yes, by Jove!

there's nothing so uncertain as life, except the Horse Guards.' And putting one thing with another, Miss Polly,' said I, 'tell him to stay where he is,'--open a shop at home, or go to one of the colonies,--Heligoland, for instance, a charming spot for the bathing-season."

"And she, what did she say?"

"May I be cashiered if I remember! I never do remember very clearly what any one says. Where I am much interested on my own side, I have no time for the other fellow's arguments. But I know if she was n't convinced she ought to have been. I put the thing beyond a question, and I made her cry."

"Made her cry!"

"Not cry,--that is, she did not blubber; but she looked gla.s.sy about the lids, and turned away her head. But to be sure we were parting,--a rather soft bit of parting, too,--and I said something about my coming back with a wooden leg, and she said, 'No! have it of cork, they make them so cleverly now.' And I was going to say something more, when a confounded old half-pay Major came up and interrupted us, and--and, in fact, there it rests."

"I 'm not at all easy in mind as to this affair. I mean, I don't like how I stand in it."

"But you stand out of it,--out of it altogether! Can't you imagine that your father may have quite enough cares of his own to occupy him without needing the embarra.s.sment of looking after this b.u.mpkin, who, for aught you know, might repay very badly all the interest taken in him? If it had been the girl,--if it had been Polly--" "I own frankly," said Conyers, tartly, "it did not occur to me to make such an offer to _her!_"