The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 45

"I protest, my Lord, if my temper sustain me under such insult as this, I think I might be acquitted of ill breeding."

"I live in the hope, madam, that such a charge would be impossible."

"I suppose you mean," said she, with a sneering smile, "when I have taken more lessons--when I have completed the course of instruction you so courteously began with me yesterday?"

"Precisely, madam, precisely. There are no heaven-born courtiers. The graces of manner are as much matter of acquirement as are the notes of music. A delicate organization has the same disadvantage in the one case that a fine ear has in the other. It subst.i.tutes an apt.i.tude for what ought to be pure acquirement. The people who are naturally well mannered are like the people who sing by ear; and I need not say what inflictions are both."

"And you really think, my Lord, that I may yet be able to enter a room and leave it with becoming grace and dignity."

"You enter a room well, madam," said he, with a judicial slowness. "Now that you have subdued the triumphant air I objected to, and a.s.sumed more quietness--the blended softness with reserve--your approach is good, I should say, extremely good. To withdraw is, however, far more difficult.

To throw into the deference of leave-taking--for it is always a permission you seem to ask--the tempered sorrow of departure with the sense of tasted enjoyment, to do this with ease and elegance, and not a touch of the dramatic about it, is a very high success; and I grieve to say, madam," added he, seriously, "it is a success not yet accorded you.

Would you do me the great favor to repeat our lesson of this morning--I mean the courtesy with the two steps retiring, and then the slide?"

"If you do not think me well mannered, my Lord, you must at least believe me very good-tempered," said she, flushing.

"Let me a.s.sure you, my Lady, that to the latter quality I attach no importance whatever. Persons who respect themselves never visit peculiarities of temperament on others. We have our infirmities of nature, as we have our maladies; but we keep them for ourselves, or for our doctor. It is the triumph of the well-bred world to need nothing but good manners."

"What charming people! I take it that heaven must be peopled with lords-in-waiting."

"Let me observe to your Ladyship that there is no greater enormity in manners than an epigram. Keep this smartness for correspondence exclusively, abstain from it strictly in conversation."

"I protest, my Lord, your lessons come so thick that I despair of being able to profit by half of them. Meanwhile, if I am not committing another solecism against good manners, I should like to say good-night."

Lord Culduff arose and walked to the door, to be ready to open it as she approached. Meanwhile, she busied herself collecting her fan and her scent-bottle and her handkerchief, and a book she had been reading.

"Hadn't Virginie better come for these things?" said he, quietly.

"Oh, certainly," replied she, dropping them hurriedly on the table; "I'm always transgressing; but I do hope, my Lord, with time, and with that sincere desire to learn that animates me, I may yet attain to at least so many of the habits of your Lordship's order as may enable me to escape censure."

He smiled and bowed a courteous concurrence with the wish, but did not speak. Though her lip now trembled with indignation, and her cheek was flushed, she controlled her temper, and as she drew nigh the door dropped a low and most respectful courtesy.

"Very nice, very nice, indeed; a thought, perhaps, too formal--I mean for the occasion--but in admirable taste. Your Ladyship is grace itself."

"My Lord, you are a model of courtesy."

"I cannot even attempt to convey what pleasure your words give me," said he, pressing his hand to his heart and bowing low. Meanwhile, with a darkening brow and a look of haughty defiance, she swept past him and left the room.

"Is n't Marion well?" said Temple Bramleigh, as he entered a few minutes later; "her maid told me she had gone to her room."

"Quite well: a little f.a.gged, perhaps, by a day of visiting; nothing beyond that. You have been dining at the emba.s.sy? whom had you there?"

"A family party and a few of the smaller diplomacies."

"To be sure. It was Friday. Any news stirring?"

"Nothing whatever."

"Does Bartleton talk of retiring still?"'

"Yes. He says he is sick of sending in his demand for retirement. That they always say, 'We can't spare you; you must hold on a little longer.

If you go out now, there's Bailey and Hammersmith, and half a dozen others will come insisting on advancement.'"

"Did n't he say Culduff too? eh, didn't he?" said the old lord, with a wicked twinkle of the eye.

"I'm not sure he didn't," said Temple, blushing.

"He did, sir, and he said more--he said, 'Rather than see Culduff here, I 'd stay on and serve these twenty years.'"

"I did n't hear him say that, certainly."

"No, sir, perhaps not, but he said it to himself, as sure as I stand here. There is n't a country in Europe--I say it advisedly--where intellect--I mean superior intellect--is so persistently persecuted as in England. I don't want my enemy to have any heavier misfortune than to be born a man of brains and a Briton! Once that it's known that you stand above your fellow-men, the whole world is arrayed against you.

Who knows that better than he who now speaks to you? Have I ever been forgiven the Erzeroum convention? Even George Canning--from whom one might have expected better--even he used to say, 'How well Culduff managed that commercial treaty with the Hanse Towns!' he never got over it, sir, never! You are a young fellow entering upon life--let me give you a word of counsel. Always be inferior to the man you are, for the time being, in contact with. Outbid him, outjockey him, overreach him, but never forget to make him believe he knows more of the game than you do. If you have any success over him, ascribe it to 'luck,' mere 'luck.'

The most envious of men will forgive 'luck,' all the more if they despise the fellow who has profited by it. Therefore, I say, if the intellectual standard of your rival is only four feet, take care that with your tallest heels on, you don't stand above three feet eleven! No harm if only three ten and a half."

The little applauding ha! ha! ha! with which his Lordship ended was faintly chorussed by the secretary.

"And what is your news from home; you 've had letters, have n't you?"

"Yes. Augustus writes me in great confusion. They have not found the will, and they begin to fear that the very informal sc.r.a.p of paper I already mentioned is all that represents one."

"What! do you mean that memorandum stating that your father bequeathed all he had to Augustus, and trusted he would make a suitable provision for his brothers and sisters?"

"Yes; that is all that has been found. Augustus says in his last letter, my poor father would seem to have been most painfully affected for some time back by a claim put forward to the t.i.tle of all his landed property, by a person a.s.suming to be the heir of my grandfather, and this claim is actually about to be a.s.serted at law. The weight of this charge and all its consequent publicity and exposure appear to have crushed him for some months before his death, and he had made great efforts to effect a compromise."

A long, low, plaintive whistle from Lord Culduff arrested Temple's speech, and for a few seconds there was a dead silence in the room.

"This, then, would have left you all ruined--eh?" asked Culduff, after a pause.

"I don't exactly see to what extent we should have been liable--whether only the estated property, or also all funded moneys."

"Everything; every stick and stone; every scrip and debenture, you may swear. The rental of the estates for years back would have to be accounted for--with interest."

"Sedley does not say so," said Temple, in a tone of considerable irritation.

"These fellows never do; they always imply there is a game to be played, an issue to be waited for, else their occupation were gone. How much of all this story was known to your sister Marion?"

"Nothing. Neither she nor any of us ever suspected it."

"It's always the same thing," said the Viscount, as he arose and settled his wig before the gla.s.s. "The same episode goes on repeating itself forever. These trade fortunes are just card-houses; they are raised in a night, and blown away in the morning."

"You forget, my Lord, that my father inherited an entailed estate."

"Which turns out not to have been his," replied he, with a grin.

"You are going too fast, my Lord, faster than judge and jury. Sedley never took a very serious view of this claim, and he only concurred in the attempt to compromise it out of deference to my father's dislike to public scandal."

"And a very wise antipathy it was, I must say. No gentleman ever consulted his self-respect by inviting the world to criticise his private affairs. And how does this pleasing incident stand now? In which act of the drama are we at this moment? Is there an action at law, or are we in the stage of compromise?"

"This is what Augustus says," said Temple, taking the letter from his pocket and reading: "'Sedley thinks that a handsome offer of a sum down--say twenty thousand pounds--might possibly be accepted; but to meet this would require a united effort by all of us. Would Lord Culduff be disposed to accept his share in this liability? Would he, I mean, be willing to devote a portion of Marion's fortune to this object, seeing that he is now one of us? I have engaged Cutbill to go over to Paris and confer with him, and he will probably arrive there by Tuesday. Nelly has placed at my disposal the only sum over which she has exclusive control--it is but two thousand pounds. As for Jack, matters have gone very ill with him, and rather than accept a court-martial, he has thrown up his commission and left the service. We are expecting him here to-night, but only to say good-bye, as he sails for China on Thursday.'"