The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 51

This was said as they sat in their little lodgings in the Rue des Moines; for the letter had been sent through an emba.s.sy bag, and consequently had been weeks on the road, besides lying a month on a tray in the Foreign Office till some idle lounger had taken the caprice to forward it.

"Her Majesty's Legation at Naples. Lord Culduff is there special, and Temple is acting as secretary to him."

"And does Marion send no message?"

"Oh, yes. She wants all the trunks and carriage-boxes which she left at Castello to be forwarded to town for transmission abroad. I don't think she remembers us much further. She hopes I will not have her old mare sold, but make arrangements for her having a free paddock for the rest of her life; and she adds that you ought to take the pattern of the slipper on her side-saddle, for if it should happen that you ever ride again, you 'll find it better than any they make now."

"Considerate, at all events. They tell us that love alone remembers trifles. Is n't this a proof of it, Gusty?"

"Read Temple now, and try to put me in better temper with him than I feel at this moment."

"I could n't feel angry with Temple," said she, quietly. "All he does and all he says so palpably springs from consideration of self, that it would be unjust to resent in him what one would not endure from another. In fact, he means no harm to any one, and a great deal of good to Temple Bramleigh."

"And you think that commendable?"

"I have not said so; but it certainly would not irritate me."

She opened the letter after this and read it over leisurely.

"Well, and what do you say now, Nelly?" asked he.

"That it's Temple all over; he does not know why in this shipwreck every one is not helping to make a lifeboat for him. It seems such an obvious and natural thing to do that he regards the omission as scarcely credible."

"Does he not see--does he not care for the ruin that has overtaken us?"

"Yes, he sees it, and is very sorry for it; but he opines, at the same time, that the smallest amount of the disaster should fall to his share.

Here's something very different," said she, taking a letter from her pocket. "This is from Julia. She writes from her little villa at Albano, and asks us to come and stay with them."

"How thoroughly kind and good-natured!"

"Was it not, Gusty? She goes over how we are to be lodged, and is full of little plans of pleasure and enjoyment; she adds, too, what a benefit you would be to poor George, who is driven half wild with the meddlesome interference of the Church magnates. They dictate to him in everything, and a Mrs. Trumpler actually sends him the texts on which she desires him to hold forth; while Lady Augusta persecutes him with projects in which theological discussion, as she understands it, is to be carried on in rides over the Campagna, and picnics to the hills behind Albano.

Julia says that he will not be able to bear it without the comfort and companionship of some kind friend, to whom he can have recourse in his moments of difficulty."

"It would be delightful to go there, Nelly; but it is impossible."

"I know it is," said she, gravely.

"We could not remove so far from England while this affair is yet undetermined. We must remain where we can communicate easily with Sedley."

"There are scores of reasons against the project," said she, in the same grave tone. "Let us not speak of it more."

Augustus looked at her, but she turned away her face, and he could only mark that her cheeks and throat were covered with a deep blush.

"This part of Julia's letter is very curious," said she, turning to the last page. "They were stopping at a little inn, one night, where Pracontal and Longworth arrived, and George, by a mere accident, heard Pracontal declare that he would have given anything to have known you personally; that he desired, above everything, to be received by you on terms of friendship, and even of kindred; that the whole of this unhappy business could have been settled amicably, and, in fact, he never ceased to blame himself for the line into which his lawyer's advice had led him, while all his wishes tended to an opposite direction."

"But Sedley says he has accepted the arrangement, and abandoned all claim in future."

"So he has, and it is for that he blames himself. He says it debars him from the n.o.ble part he desired to take."

"I was no part to this compromise, Nelly; remember that. I yielded to reiterated entreaty a most unwilling a.s.sent, declaring, always, that the law must decide the case between us, and the rightful owner have his own. Let not Mr. Pracontal imagine that all the high-principled action is on his side; from the very first, I declared that I would not enjoy for an hour what I did not regard undisputably as my own. You can bear witness to this, Nelly. I simply a.s.sented to the arrangement, as they called it, to avoid unnecessary scandal. What the law shall decide between us, need call forth no evil pa.s.sions or ill-will. If the fortune we had believed our own belongs to another, let him have it."

The tone of high excitement in which he spoke plainly revealed how far a nervous temperament and a susceptible nature had to do with his present resolve. Nelly had seen this before, but never so fully revealed as now.

She knew well the springs which could move him to acts of self-sacrifice and devotion, but she had not thoroughly realized to herself that it was in a paroxysm of honorable emotion he had determined to accept the reverse of fortune, which would leave him penniless in the world.

"No, Nelly!" said he, as he arose and walked the room, with head erect, and a firm step. "We shall not suffer these people who talk slightingly of the newly risen gentry to have their scoff unchallenged! It is the cant of the day to talk of mercantile honor and City notions of what is high-minded and right, and I shall show them that _we_--'Lombard Street people,' as some newspaper scribe called us the other day--that we can do things the proudest earl in the peerage would shrink back from as from a sacrifice he could not dare to face. There can be no sneer at a cla.s.s that can produce men who accept beggary rather than dishonor. As that Frenchman said, these habits of luxury and splendor were things he had never known,--the want of them would leave no blank in _his_ existence. Whereas to us they were the daily accidents of life; they entered into our ways and habits, and made part of our very natures; giving them up was like giving up ourselves,--surrendering an actual ident.i.ty. You saw our distinguished connection, Lord Culduff, how he replied to my letter,--a letter, by the way, I should never have stooped to write; but Sedley had my ear at the time, and influenced me against my own convictions. The n.o.ble Viscount, however, was free from all extraneous pressure, and he told us as plainly as words could tell it, that he had paid heavily enough already for the honor of being connected with us, and had no intention to contribute another sacrifice. As for Temple,--I won't speak of him; poor Jack, how differently he would have behaved in such a crisis."

Happy at the opportunity to draw her brother away, even pa.s.singly, from a theme that seemed to press upon him unceasingly, she drew from the drawer of a little work-table a small photograph, and handed it to him, saying, "Is it not like?"

"Jack!" cried he. "In a sailor's jacket, too! What is this?"

"He goes out as a mate to China," said she, calmly. "He wrote me but half a dozen lines, but they were full of hope and cheerfulness. He said that he had every prospect of getting a ship, when he was once out; that an old messmate had written to his father--a great merchant at Shanghai--about him, and that he had not the slightest fears for his future."

"Would any one believe in a reverse so complete as this?" cried Augustus, as he clasped his hands before him. "Who ever heard of such ruin in so short a time?"

"Jack certainly takes no despairing view of life," said she, quietly.

"What! does he pretend to say it is nothing to descend from his rank as an officer of the navy, with a brilliant prospect before him, and an affluent connection at his back, to be a common sailor, or, at best, one grade removed from a common sailor, and his whole family beggared? Is this the picture he can afford to look on with pleasure or with hope?

The man who sees in his downfall no sacrifice or no degradation, has no sympathy of mine. To tell me that he is stout-hearted is absurd; he is simply unfeeling."

Nelly's face and even her neck became crimson, and her eyes flashed indignantly; but she repressed the pa.s.sionate words that were almost on her lips, and taking the photograph from him, replaced it in the drawer, and turned the key.

"Has Marion written to you?" asked he, after a pause.

"Only a few lines. I 'm afraid she 's not very happy in her exalted condition, after all, for she concluded with these words: 'It is a cruel blow that has befallen you, but don't fancy that there are not miseries as hard to bear in life as those which display themselves in public and flaunt their sufferings before the world.'"

"That old fop's temper, perhaps, is hard to bear with," said he, carelessly.

"You must write to George L'Estrange, Gusty," said she, coaxingly.

"There are no letters he likes so much as yours. He says you are the only one who ever knew how to advise without taking that tone of superiority that is so offensive, and he needs advice just now,--he is driven half wild with dictation and interference."

She talked on in this strain for some time, till he grew gradually calmer; and his features, losing their look of intensity and eagerness, regained their ordinary expression of gentleness and quiet.

"Do you know what was pa.s.sing through my mind just now?" said he, smiling half sadly. "I was wishing it was George had been Marion's husband instead of Lord Culduff. We 'd have been so united, the very narrowness of our fortunes would have banded us more closely together, and I believe, firmly believe, we might have been happier in these days of humble condition than ever we were in our palmy ones; do you agree with me, Nelly?"

Her face was now crimson; and if Augustus had not been the least observant of men, he must have seen how his words had agitated her. She merely said, with affected indifference, "Who can tell how these things would turn out? There 's a nice gleam of sunlight, Gusty. Let us have a walk. I'll go for my hat."

She fled from the room before he had time to reply, and the heavy clap of a door soon told that she had reached her chamber.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV. AT LOUVAIN

There are few delusions more common with well-to-do people than the belief that if "put to it" they could earn their own livelihood in a variety of ways. Almost every man has some two or three or more accomplishments which he fancies would be quite adequate to his support; and remembering with what success the exercise of these gifts has ever been hailed in the society of his friends, he has a sort of generous dislike to be obliged to eclipse some poor drudge of a professional, who, of course, will be consigned to utter oblivion after his own performance.

Augustus Bramleigh was certainly not a conceited or a vain man, and yet he had often, in his palmy days, imagined how easy it would be for him to provide for his own support; he was something of a musician, he sang pleasingly, he drew a little, he knew something of three or four modern languages, he had that sort of smattering acquaintance with questions of religion, politics, and literature which the world calls being "well-informed;" and yet nothing short of grave Necessity revealed to him that, towards the object of securing a livelihood, a cobbler in his bulk was out and out his master.

The world has no need of the man of small acquirements, and would rather have its shoes mended by the veriest botch of a professional than by the cleverest amateur that ever studied a Greek sandal.