Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood Part 84

"Then you wish me to tell him that he is to take your silence as a release from you."

"I authorise nothing," she said. "I hate it all."

"Look here, Elvira," said Jock, "do you know your own mind? n.o.body wants you to take Allen. In fact, I think he is much better quit of you; but it is due to him, and still more to yourself, to cancel the old affair before beginning a new one."

"Who told you I was beginning a new one?" asked she pertly.

"No one can blame you, provided you let him loose first. It is considered respectable, you know, to be off with the old love before you are on with the new. Nay, it may be only a superst.i.tion."

"Superst.i.tion!" she repeated in an awed voice that gave him his cue, and he went on--"Oh yes, a lady has been even known to come and shake hands with the other party after he had been hanged to give back her troth, lest he should haunt her."

"Allen isn't hanged," said Elvira, half frightened, half cross. "Why doesn't he come himself?"

"Shall he?" said Jock.

"My dear child, I've been running madly up and down for you!" cried Lady Flora, suddenly descending on them, and carrying off her charge with a cursory nod to the Guardsman, marking the difference between a detrimental and even the third son of a millionaire.

He saw Elvira no more that night, and the next post carried a note to Belforest.

31st May.

DEAR ALLEN--I don't know whether you will thank me, but I tried to get a something definite out of your tricksy Elf, and the chief result, so far as I can understand the elfish tongue, is, that she sought no change, and the final sentence was, 'Why doesn't he come himself?' I believe it is her honest wish to go on, when she is left to her proper senses; but that is seldom. You must take this for what it is worth from the buffoon, J. L. B.

Allen came full of hope, and called the next morning. Miss Menella was out riding. He got a card for a party where she was sure to be present, and watched the door, only to see her going away on the arm of Lord Clanmacnalty to some other entertainment. He went to Mr. Folliott's door, armed with a note, and heard that Lady Flora and Miss Menella were gone out of town for a few days. So it went on, and he turned upon Jock with indignation at having been summoned to be thus deluded.

The undignified position added venom to the smart of the disregarded affection and the suspense as to the future, and Jock had much to endure after every disappointment, though Allen clung to him rather than to any one else because of his impression that Elvira's real preference was unchanged (such as it was), and that these failures were rather due to her friend than to herself.

This became more clear through Mrs. Evelyn. Her family had connections in common with the Dowager Lady Clanmacnalty, and the two ladies met at the house of their relation. Listening in the way of duty to the old Scottish Countess's profuse communications, she heard what explained a good deal.

Did she know the Spanish girl who was with Flora--a handsome creature and a great heiress? Oh yes; she had presented her. Strange affair!

Flora understood that there was a deep plot for appropriating the young lady and her fortune.

"She had been engaged to Mr. Brownlow long before claims were known,"

began Mrs. Evelyn.

"Oh yes! It was very ingeniously arranged, only the discovery was made too soon. I have it on the best authority. When the girl came to stay with Flora, her aunt asked for an interview--such a nice sensible woman--so completely understanding her position. She said it was such a distress to her not to be qualified to take her niece into society, yet she could not take her home, living so near, to be hara.s.sed by this young man's pursuit."

"I saw Mrs. Gould myself," said Mrs. Evelyn. "I cannot say I was favourably impressed."

"Oh, we all know she is not a lady; never professes it poor thing. She is quite aware that her niece must move in a different sphere, and all she wants is to have her guarded from that young Brownlow. He follows them everywhere. It is quite the business of Flora's life to avoid him."

"Perhaps you don't know that Mrs. Brownlow took that girl out of a farmhouse, and treated her like a daughter, merely because they were second or third cousins. The engagement to Allen Brownlow was made when the fortune was entirely on his side."

"Precaution or conscience, eh?" said the old lady, laughing. "By the by, you were intimate with Mrs. Brownlow abroad. How fortunate for you that nothing took place while they had such expectations! Of no family, I hear, of quite low extraction. A parish doctor he was, wasn't he?"

"A distinguished surgeon."

"And _she_ came out of some asylum or foundling hospital?"

"Only the home for officers' daughters," said Mrs. Evelyn, not able to help laughing. "Her father, Captain Allen, was in the same regiment with Colonel Brownlow, her husband's brother. I a.s.sure you the Menellas and Goulds have no reason to boast."

"A n.o.ble Spanish family," said the dowager. "One can see it every gesture of the child."

It was plain that the old lady intended Mr. Barnes's h.o.a.rds to repair the ravages of dissipation on the never very productive estates of Clanmacnalty, and that while Elvira continued in Lady Flora's custody, there was little chance of a meeting between her and Allen. The girl seemed to be submitting pa.s.sively, and no doubt her new friends could employ tact and flattery enough to avoid exciting her perverseness.

No doubt she had been hara.s.sed by Allen's exaction of response to his ardent affection, and wearied of his monopoly of her. Maiden coyness and love of liberty might make her as willing to elude his approach as her friends could wish.

Once only, at a garden party, did he touch the tips of her fingers, but no more. She never met his eye, but threw herself into eager flirtation with the men he most disliked, while the lovely carnation was mounting in her cheek, and betraying unusual excitement. It became known that she was going early in July into the country with some gay people who were going to give a series of fetes on some public occasion, and then that she was to go with Lady Clanmacnalty and her unmarried daughter to Scotland, to help them entertain the grouse-shoot-party.

Allen's stay in London was clearly of no further use, as Jock perceived with a sensation of relief, for all his pity could not hinder him from being bored with Allen's continual dejection, and his sighs over each unsuccessful pursuit. He was heartily tired of the part of confidant, which was the more severe, because, whenever Allen had a fit of shame at his own undignified position, he vented it in reproaches to Jock for having called him up to London; and yet as long as there was a chance of seeing Elvira, he could not tear himself away, was wild to get invitations to meet her, and lived at his club in the old style and expense.

Bobus was brief with Allen, and ironical on Jock's folly in having given the summons. For his own part he was much engrossed with his appointment, going backwards and forwards between Oxford and London, with little time for the concerns of any one else; but the evening after this unfortunate garden party, when Jock had accompanied his eldest brother back to his rooms, and was endeavouring, by the help of a pipe, to endure the reiteration of mournful vituperations of destiny in the shape of Lady Flora and Mrs. Gould, the door suddenly opened and Bobus stood before them with his peculiarly brisk, self-satisfied air, in itself an aggravation to any one out of spirits.

"All right," he said, "I didn't expect to find you in, but I thought I would leave a note for the chance. I've heard of the very identical thing to suit you, Ali, my boy."

"Indeed," said Allen, not prepared with grat.i.tude for his younger brother's patronage.

"I met Bulstrode at Balliol last night, and he asked if I knew of any one (a perfect gentleman he must be, that matters more than scholarship) who would take a tutorship in a Hungarian count's family. Two little boys, who live like princes, tutor the same, salary anything you like to ask. It is somewhere in the mountains, a feudal castle, with capital sport."

"Wolves and bears," cried Jock, starting up with his old boyish animation. "If I wasn't going pig-sticking in India, what wouldn't I give for such a chance. The tutor will teach the young ideas how to shoot, of course."

"Of course," said Bobus. "The Count is a diplomate, and there's not a bad chance of making oneself useful, and getting on in that line. I should have jumped at it, if I hadn't got the j.a.ps on my hands."

"Yes, you," said Allen languidly.

"Well, you can do quite as well for a thing like this," said Bobus, "or better, as far as looking the gentleman goes. In fact, I suspect as much cla.s.sics as Mother Carey taught us at home would serve their countships'

turn. Here's the address. You had better write by the first post to-morrow, for one or two others are rising at it; but Bulstrode said he would wait to hear from you. Here's the letter with all the details."

"Thank you. You seem to take a good deal for granted," said Allen, not moving a finger towards the letter.

"You won't have it?"

"I have neither spirits nor inclination for turning bear-leader, and it is not a position I wish to undertake."

"What position would you like?" cried Jock. "You could take that rifle you got for Algeria, and make the Magyars open their eyes. Seriously, Allen, it is the right thing at the right time. You know Miss Ogilvie always said the position was quite different for an English person among these foreigners."

"Who, like natives, are all the same nation," quietly observed Allen.

"For that matter," said Jock, "wasn't it in Hungarie that the beggar of low degree married the king's daughter? There's precedent for you, Ali!"

Allen had taken up the letter, and after glancing it slightly over, said--

"Thanks, Vice-princ.i.p.al, but I won't stand in the light of your other aspirants."

"What can you want better than this?" cried Jock. "By the time the law business is over, one may look in vain for such a chance. It is a new country too, and you always said you wanted to know how those fellows with long-tailed names lived in private life."

Both brothers talked for an hour, till they hoped they had persuaded him that even for the most miserable and disappointed being on earth the Hungarian castle might prove an interesting variety, and they left him at last with the letter before him, undertaking to write and make further inquiries.

The next day, however, just as Jock was about to set forth, intending, as far as might be, to keep him up to the point, Bobus made his appearance, and scornfully held out an envelope. There was the letter, and therewith these words:--