The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 48

"Well, out with it."

"I 'd have sent for the police, and handed you over to the authorities for either a rogue or a madman."

"Bon soir. I wish you a good-night--pleasant dreams, too, if that be possible."

"Don't go. Sit down. The dawn is just breaking, and you know I ordered the horses for the first light."

"I must go into the air then. I must go where I can breathe."

"Take a cigar, and let us talk of something else."

"That is easy enough for _you_; you who treat everything as a mere pa.s.sing incident, and would make life a series of unconnected episodes.

You turn from this to that, just as you taste of this dish and that at dinner; but I, who want to live a life--_entends-tu?_--to live a life: to be to-morrow the successor of myself to-day, to carry with me an ident.i.ty--how am I to practise your philosophy?"

"Here come the horses; and I must say I am for once grateful to their jingling bells, helping as they do to drown more nonsense than even you usually give way to."

"How did we ever become friends? Can you explain that to me?"

"I suppose it must have been in one of your lucid moments, Anatole--for you have them at times."

"Ah, I have! But if you 're getting complimentary, I 'd better be off.

Will you look to the bill? And I'll take charge of the baggage."

CHAPTER x.x.xI. ON THE ROAD TO ITALY.

"You 'd not guess who our neighbors of last night were, Julia," said L'Estrange, as they sat at breakfast the next morning.

"I need not guess, for I know," said she, laughing. "The fact is, George, my curiosity was so excited to see them that I got up as they were about to start, and though the gray morning was only breaking at the time, there was light enough for me to recognize Mr. Longworth and his French friend, Count Pracontal."

"I know that; but I know more than that, Julia. What do you think of my discovery, when I tell you that this same Count Pracontal is the claimant of the Bramleigh estate?"

"Is it possible?"

"It is beyond a question or a doubt. I was awakened from my sleep last night by their loud talking, and unwittingly made a listener to all they said. I heard the Frenchman deplore how he had ever consented to a compromise of his claim, and then Longworth quizzed him a good deal, and attributed the regret to his not having made a harder bargain. My own conviction is that the man really felt it as a point of honor, and was ashamed at having stooped to accept less than his right."

"So then they have made a compromise, and the Bram-leighs are safe?"

cried she, eagerly.

"That much seems certain. The Count even spoke of the sum he had received. I did not pay much attention to the amount, but I remember it struck me as being considerable; and he also referred to his having signed some doc.u.ment debarring him, as it seemed, from all renewal of his demand. In a word, as you said just now, the Bramleighs are safe, and the storm that threatened their fate has pa.s.sed off harmlessly."

"Oh, you have made me so happy, George. I cannot tell you what joy this news is to me. Poor Nelly, in all her sorrow and privation, has never been out of my thoughts since I read her letter."

"I have not told you the strangest part of all--at least, so it certainly seemed to me. This Count Pracontal actually regretted the compromise, as depriving him of a n.o.ble opportunity of self-sacrifice.

He wished, he said, he could have gone to Augustus Bramleigh, and declared, 'I want none of this wealth. These luxuries and this station are all essential to you, who have been born to them, and regard them as part of your very existence. To me they are no wants--I never knew them.

Keep them, therefore, as your own. All I ask is, that you regard me as one of your kindred and your family. Call me cousin--let me be one of you--to come here, under your roof, when fortune goes ill with me.' When he was saying this, Longworth burst out into a coa.r.s.e laugh, and told him, that if he talked such rotten sentimentality to any sane Englishman, the only impression it would have left would be that he was a consummate knave or an idiot."

"Well, George," asked she, seriously, "that was not the conviction it conveyed to your mind?"

"No, Julia; certainly not; but somehow--perhaps it is my colder northern blood, perhaps it is the cautious reserve of one who has not had enough experience of life--but I own to you I distrust very high-flown declarations, and as a rule I like the men who do generous things, and don't think themselves heroes for doing them."

"Remember, George, it was a Frenchman who spoke thus; and from what I have seen of his nation, I would say that he meant all that he said.

These people do the very finest things out of an exalted self-esteem.

They carry the point of honor so high that there is no sacrifice they are not capable of making, if it only serve to elevate their opinion of themselves. Their theory is, they belong to the 'great nation,' and the motives that would do well enough for you or me would be very ign.o.ble springs of action to him whom Providence had blessed with the higher destiny of being born a Frenchman."

"You disparage while you praise them, Julia."

"I do not mean it, then. I would simply say, I believe in all Count Praoontal said, and I give you my reason for the belief."

"How happy it would have made poor Augustus to have been met in this spirit! Why don't these two men know each other?"

"My dear George, the story of life could no more go on than the story of a novel if there was no imbroglio. Take away from the daily course of events all misunderstandings, all sorrows, and all misconceptions, and there would be no call on humanity for acts of energy, or trustfulness, or devotion. We want all these things just that we may surmount them."

Whether he did not fully concur with the theory, or that it puzzled him, L'Estrange made no reply, and soon after left the room to prepare for their departure. And now they went the road up the valley of the Upper Rhine--that wild and beautiful tract, so grand in outline and so rich in color, that other landscapes seem cold after it. They wound along the Via Mala, and crossed over the Splugen, most picturesque of Alpine pa.s.ses, and at last reached Chiavenna.

"All this is very enjoyable, George," said Julia, as they strolled carelessly in a trellised vine-walk; "but as I am the courier, and carry the money-sack, it is my painful duty to say, we can't do it much longer. Do you know how much remains in that little bag?"

"A couple of hundred francs perhaps," said he, listlessly.

"Not half that--how could there, you careless creature? You forget all the extravagances we have been committing, and this entire week of unheard-of indulgence."

'I was always 'had up' for my arithmetic at school. Old Hoskins used to say my figures would be the ruin of me.

The tone of honest sorrow in which he said this threw Julia into a fit of laughing.

"Here is the total of our worldly wealth," said she, emptying on a rustic table the leather bag, and running her fingers through a ma.s.s of silver in which a few gold coins glittered.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 298]

"It seems very little, Julia," said he, despondingly.

"Worse than that. It is less than it looks, George; these tarnished pieces, with a mock air of silver, are of most ign.o.ble origin; they were born copper, and are only silver by courtesy. Let me see what it all makes."

While she was arranging the money in little piles on the table L'Estrange lighted a cigarette, and puffed it in leisurely fashion.

"Julia," said he, at last, "I hope I haven't committed a dreadful folly in that investment of your two thousand. You know I took the shares I told you of?"

"I remember, George, you said so; but has anything occurred to make you augur ill of the enterprise?"

"No; I know no more of it now than on the first day I heard of it. I was dazzled by the splendid promise of twenty per cent instead of three that you had received heretofore. It seemed to me to be such a paltry fear to hesitate about doing what scores of others were venturing. I felt as if I were turning away from a big fence while half the field were ready to ride at it. In fact, I made it a question of courage, Julia, which was all the more inexcusable as the money I was risking was not my own."

"Oh, George, you must not say that to me."

"Well, well, I know what I think of myself, and I promise you it is not the more favorable because of your generosity."

"My dear George, that is a word that ought never to occur between us.

Our interests are inseparable. When you have done what you believed was the best for me there is no question of anything more. There, now, don't worry yourself further about it. Attend to what I have to say to you here. We have just one hundred and twelve francs to carry us to Milan, where our letter of credit will meet us; so that there must be no more boat excursions; no little picnics, with a dainty basket sent up the mountain at sunrise; none of that charming liberality which lights up the road with pleasant faces, and sets one a-thinking how happy Dives might have been if he had given something better than crumbs to Lazarus.