The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 23

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And you prefer accompanying _her_ to _me_" said he, reproachfully.

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

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

"So Bramleigh has done nothing," whispered Cutbill, as he bent forward.

"He did not, so far as I gather, even speak of the mine in the City."

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

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

"Sir, I am unable to answer your question. It is my first--I would I may be able to say, and my last--occasion to deal with this cla.s.s of people."

"They 're not a bad set, after all; only you must take them in the way they're used to--the way they understand."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Sir, there are worse inflictions than even this."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XVII. AT CASTELLO.

A private letter from a friend had told Jack Bramleigh that his father's opposition to the Government had considerably damaged his chance of being employed, but that he possibly might get a small command on the African station. With what joy then did he receive the "official,"

marked on H.M.'s service, informing him that he was appointed to the "Sneezer" despatch gunboat, to serve in the Mediterranean, and enjoining him to repair to town without unnecessary delay, to receive further orders.

He had forborne, as we have seen, to tell Julia his former tidings. They were not indeed of a nature to rejoice over, but here was great news.

He only wanted two more years to be qualified for his "Post," and once a captain, he would have a position which might warrant his asking Julia to be his wife, and thus was it that the great dream of his whole existence was interwoven into his career, and his advancement as a sailor linked with his hopes as a lover; and surely it is well for us that ambitions in life appeal to us in other and humbler ways than by the sense of triumph, and that there are better rewards for success than either the favor of princes or the insignia of rank.

To poor Jack, looking beyond that two years, it was not a three-decker, nor even frigate, it was the paradise of a cottage overgrown with sweetbrier and honeysuckle, that presented itself,--and a certain graceful figure, gauzy and floating, sitting in the porch, while he lay at her feet, lulled by the drowsy ripple of the little trout-stream that ran close by. So possessed was he by this vision, so entirely and wholly did it engross him, that it was with difficulty he gave coherent replies to the questions poured in upon him at the breakfast-table, as to the sort of service he was about to be engaged in, and whether it was as good or a better thing than he had been expecting.

"I wish you joy, Jack," said Augustus. "You're a lucky dog to get afloat again so soon. You have n't been full six months on half-pay."

"I wish you joy, too," said Temple, "and am thankful to Fate it is you, and not I, have to take the command of H.M.'s gunboat 'Sneezer.'"

"Perhaps, all things considered, it is as well as it is," said Jack, dryly.

"It is a position of some importance. I mean it is not the mere command of a small vessel," said Marion, haughtily; for she was always eager that every incident that befell the family should redound to their distinction, and subserve their onward march to greatness.

"Oh, Jack," whispered Nelly, "let us walk over to the cottage, and tell them the news;" and Jack blushed as he squeezed her hand in grat.i.tude for the speech.

"I almost wonder they gave you this, Jack," said his father, "seeing how active a part I took against them; but I suppose there is some truth in the saying that Ministers would rather soothe enemies than succor friends."

"Don't you suspect, papa, that Lord Culduff may have had some share in this event? His influence, I know, is very great with his party," said Marion.

"I hope and trust not," burst out Jack; "rather than owe my promotion to that bewigged old dandy, I 'd go and keep a lighthouse."

"A most illiberal speech," said Temple. "I was about to employ a stronger word, but still not stronger than my sense of its necessity."

"Remember, Temple," replied Jack, "I have no possible objection to his being _your_ patron. I only protest that he shan't be _mine_. He may make you something ordinary or extraordinary to-morrow, and I 'll never quarrel about it."

"I am grateful for the concession," said the other, bowing.