Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume I Part 32

"'My love to Tom, if with you or within reach of you; and believe me, ever yours affectionately,--Lionel Trafford.'"

"It was the eldest son who died," said Tom, carelessly.

"Yes, the heir. Lionel now succeeds to a splendid fortune and the baronetcy."

"He told me once that his father had made some sort of compact with his eldest son about cutting off the entail, in case he should desire to do it. In fact, he gave me to understand that he was n't a favorite with his father, and that, if by any course of events he were likely to succeed to the estate, it was more than probable his father would use this power, and merely leave him what he could not alienate,--a very small property that pertained to the baronetage."

"With reference to what did he make this revelation to you? What had you been talking of?"

"I scarcely remember. I think it was about younger sons,--how hardly they were treated, and how unfairly."

"Great hardship truly that a man must labor! not to say that there is not a single career in life he can approach without bringing to it greater advantages than befall humbler men,--a better and more liberal education, superior habits as regards society, powerful friends, and what in a country like ours is inconceivably effective,--the prestige of family. I cannot endure this compa.s.sionate tone about younger sons. To my thinking they have the very best opening that life can offer, if they be men to profit by it; and if they are not, I care very little what becomes of them."

"I do think it hard that my elder brother should have fortune and wealth to over-abundance, while my pittance will scarcely keep me in cigars."

"You have no right, sir, to think of his affluence. It is not in the record; the necessities of your position have no-relation to his superfluities. Bethink you of yourself, and if cigars are too expensive for you, smoke cavendish. Trafford was full of this cant about the cruelty of primogeniture, but I would have none of it. Whenever a man tells me that he deems it a hardship that he should do anything for his livelihood, I leave him, and hope never to see more of him."

"Trafford surely did not say so."

"No,--certainly not; there would have been no correspondence between us if he had. But I want to see these young fellows showing the world that they shrink from no compet.i.torship with any. They have long proved that to confront danger and meet death they are second to none. Let me show that in other qualities they admit of no inferiority,--that they are as ready for enterprise, as well able to stand cold and hunger and thirst, to battle with climate and disease. _I_ know well they can do it, but I want the world to know it."

"As to intellectual distinctions," said Tom, "I think they are the equals of any. The best man in Trinity in my day was a fellow-commoner."

This speech seemed to restore the old man to his best humor. He slapped young Lendrick familiarly on the shoulder and said: "It would be a grand thing, Tom, if we could extend the application of that old French adage, 'n.o.blesse oblige,' and make it apply to every career in life and every success. Come along down this street; I want to buy some nails,--we can take them home with us."

They soon made their purchases; and each, armed with a considerably sized brown-paper parcel, issued from the shop,--the old man eagerly following up the late theme, and insisting on all the advantages good birth and blood conferred, and what a grand resource was the gentleman element in moments of pressure and temptation.

"His Excellency wishes to speak to you, sir," said a footman, respectfully standing hat in hand before him "The carriage is over the way."

Sir Brook nodded an a.s.sent, and then, turning to Torn, said, "Have the kindness to hold this for me for a moment; I will not detain you longer;" and placing in young Lendrick's hands a good-sized parcel, he stepped across the street, totally forgetting that over his left arm, the hand of which was in his pocket, a considerable coil of strong rope depended, being one of his late purchases. As he drew nigh the carriage, he made a sign that implied defeat; and mortified as the Viceroy was at the announcement, he could not help smiling at the strange guise in which the old man presented himself.

"And how so, Fossbrooke?" asked he, in answer to the other's signal.

"Simply, he would not see me, my Lord. Our first meeting had apparently left no very agreeable memories of me, and he scarcely cared to cultivate an acquaintance that opened so inauspiciously."

"But you sent him your card with my name?"

"Yes; and his reply was to depute another gentleman to receive me and take my communication."

"Which you refused, of course, to make?"

"Which I refused."

"Do you incline to suppose that the Chief Baron guessed the object of your visit?"

"I have no means of arriving at that surmise, my Lord. His refusal of me was so peremptory that it left me no clew to any guess."

"Was the person deputed to receive you one with whom it was at all possible to indicate such an intimation of your business as might convey to the Chief Baron the necessity of seeing you?"

"Quite the reverse, my Lord; he was one with whom, from previous knowledge, I could hold little converse."

"Then there is, I fear, nothing to be done."

"Nothing."

"Except to thank you heartily, my dear Fossbrooke, and ask you once more, why are you going away?"

"I told you last night I was going to make a fortune. I have--to my own astonishment I own it--begun to feel that narrow means are occasionally most inconvenient; that they limit a man's action in so many ways that he comes at last to experience a sort of slavery; and instead of chafing against this, I am resolved to overcome it, and become rich."

"I hope, with all my heart, you may. There is no man whom wealth will more become, or who will know how to dispense it more reputably."

"Why, we have gathered a crowd around us, my Lord," said Fossbrooke, looking to right and left, where now a number of people had gathered, attracted by the Viceroy's presence, but still more amused by the strange-looking figure with the hank of rope over his arm, who discoursed so freely with his Excellency. "This is one of the penalties of greatness, I take it," continued he. "It's your Excellency's Collar of St. Patrick costs you these attentions--"

"I rather suspect it's _your 'grand cordon_,' Fossbrooke," said the Viceroy, laughing, while he pointed to the rope.

"Bless my stars!" exclaimed Sir Brook, blushing deeply, "how forgetful I am growing! I hope you forgive me. I am sure you could not suppose--"

"I could never think anything but good of you, Fossbrooke. Get in, and come out to 'the Lodge' to dinner."

"No, no; impossible. I am heartily ashamed of myself. I grow worse and worse every day; people will lose patience at last, and cut me; good-bye."

"Wait one moment. I want to ask you something about young Lendrick.

Would he take an appointment in a colonial regiment? Would he--" But Fossbrooke had elbowed his way through the dense crowd by this time, and was far out of hearing,--shocked with himself, and overwhelmed with the thought that in his absurd forgetfulness he might have involved another in ridicule.

"Think of me standing talking to his Excellency with this on my arm, Tom!" said he, flushing with shame and annoyance: "how these absent fits keep advancing on me! When a man begins to forget himself in this fashion, the time is not very distant when his friends will be glad to forget him. I said so this moment to Lord Wilmington, and I am afraid that he agreed with me. Where are the screws, Tom,--have I been forgetting them also?"

"No, sir, I have them here; the holdfasts were not finished, but they will be sent over to us this evening, along with the cramps you ordered."

"So, then, my head was clear so far," cried he, with a smile. "In my prosperous days, Tom, these freaks of mine were taken as good jokes, and my friends laughed at them over my Burgundy; but when a man has no longer Burgundy to wash down his blunders with, it is strange how different becomes the criticism, and how much more candid the critic."

"So that, in point of enlightenment, sir, it is better to be poor."

"It is what I was just going to observe to you," said he, calmly. "Can you give me a cigar?"

CHAPTER XXVII. THE TWO LUCYS

Within a week after this incident, while Fossbrooke and young Lendrick were ploughing the salt sea towards their destination, Lucy sat in her room one morning engaged in drawing. She was making a chalk copy from a small photograph her brother had sent her, a likeness of Sir Brook, taken surrept.i.tiously as he sat smoking at a window, little heeding or knowing of the advantage thus taken of him.

The head was considerably advanced, the brow and the eyes were nearly finished, and she was trying for the third time to get an expression into the mouth which the photograph had failed to convey, but which she so often observed in the original. Eagerly intent on her work, she never heard the door open behind her, and was slightly startled as a very gentle hand was laid on her shoulder.

"Is this a very presumptuous step of mine, dear Lucy?" said Mrs. Sewell, with one of her most bewitching smiles: "have I your leave for coming in upon you in this fashion?"

"Of course you have, my dear Mrs. Sewell; it is a great pleasure to me to see you here."

"And I may take off my bonnet and my shawl and my gloves and my company manner, as my husband calls it?"

"Oh! _you_ have no company manner," broke in Lucy.