The Caxtons: A Family Picture Part 17

The fair f.a.n.n.y laughed. "I don't think he knows one from another."

"Nor I either," said I,--"that is, when I fairly lose sight of a rose or a hollyhock."

"The farm will interest you more," said Lady Ellinor.

We came to farm buildings recently erected, and no doubt on the most improved principle. Lady Ellinor pointed out to me machines and contrivances of the newest fashion for abridging labor and perfecting the mechanical operations of agriculture.

"Ah! then Mr. Trevanion is fond of farming?" The pretty f.a.n.n.y laughed again.

"My father is one of the great oracles in agriculture, one of the great patrons of all its improvements; but as for being fond of farming, I doubt if he knows his own fields when he rides through them."

We returned to the house; and Miss Trevanion, whose frank kindness had already made too deep an impression upon the youthful heart of Pisistratus the Second, offered to show me the picture-gallery. The collection was confined to the works of English artists; and Miss Trevanion pointed out to me the main attractions of the gallery.

"Well, at least Mr. Trevanion is fond of pictures?"

"Wrong again," said f.a.n.n.y, shaking her arched head. "My father is said to be an admirable judge; but he only buys pictures from a sense of duty,--to encourage our own painters. A picture once bought, I am not sure that he ever looks at it again."

"What does he then--" I stopped short, for I felt my meditated question was ill-bred.

"What does he like then? you were about to say. Why, I have known him, of course, since I could know anything; but I have never yet discovered what my father does like. No,--not even politics; though he lives for politics alone. You look puzzled; you will know him better some day, I hope; but you will never solve the mystery--what Mr. Trevanion likes."

"You are wrong," said Lady Ellinor, who had followed us into the room, unheard by us. "I can tell you what your father does more than like,--what he loves and serves every hour of his n.o.ble life,--justice, beneficence, honor, and his country. A man who loves these may be excused for indifference to the last geranium or the newest plough, or even (though that offends you more, f.a.n.n.y) the freshest masterpiece by Lanseer, or the latest fashion honored by Miss Trevanion."

"Mamma!" said f.a.n.n.y, and the tears sprang to her eyes. But Lady Ellinor looked to me sublime as she spoke, her eyes kindled, her breast heaved.

The wife taking the husband's part against the child, and comprehending so well what the child felt not, despite its experience of every day, and what the world would never know, despite all the vigilance of its praise and its blame, was a picture, to my taste, finer than any in the collection.

Her face softened as she saw the tears in f.a.n.n.y's bright hazel eyes; she held out her hand, which her child kissed tenderly; and whispering, "'T is not the giddy word you must go by, mamma, or there will be something to forgive every minute," Miss Trevanion glided from the room.

"Have you a sister?" asked Lady Ellinor.

"No."

"And Trevanion has no son," she said, mournfully. The blood rushed to my cheeks. Oh, young fool again! We were both silent, when the door opened, and Mr. Trevanion entered. "Humph!" said he, smiling as he saw me,--and his smile was charming, though rare. "Humph, young sir, I came to seek for you,--I have been rude, I fear; pardon it. That thought has only just occurred to me, so I left my Blue Books, and my amanuensis hard at work on them, to ask you to come out for half an hour,--just half an hour, it is all I can give you: a deputation at one! You dine and sleep here, of course?"

"Ah, sir, my mother will be so uneasy if I am not in town to-night!"

"Pooh!" said the member; "I'll send an express."

"Oh, no indeed; thank you."

"Why not?"

I hesitated. "You see, sir, that my father and mother are both new to London; and though I am new too, yet they may want me,--I may be of use." Lady Ellinor put her hand on my head and sleeked down my hair as I spoke.

"Right, young man, right; you will do in the world, wrong as that is.

I don't mean that you'll succeed, as the rogues say,--that's another question; but if you don't rise, you'll not fall. Now put on your hat and come with me; we'll walk to the lodge,--you will be in time for a coach."

I took my leave of Lady Ellinor, and longed to say something about "compliments to Miss f.a.n.n.y;" but the words stuck in my throat, and my host seemed impatient.

"We must see you soon again," said Lady Ellinor, kindly, as she followed us to the door.

Mr. Trevanion walked on briskly and in silence, one hand in his bosom, the other swinging carelessly a thick walkingstick.

"But I must go round by the bridge," said I, "for I forgot my knapsack.

I threw it off when I made my leap, and the old lady certainly never took charge of it."

"Come, then, this way. How old are you?"

"Seventeen and a half."

"You know Latin and Greek as they know them at schools, I suppose?"

"I think I know them pretty well, sir."

"Does your father say so?"

"Why, my father is fastidious; however, he owns that he is satisfied on the whole."

"So am I, then. Mathematics?"

"A little."

"Good."

Here the conversation dropped for some time. I had found and restrapped the knapsack, and we were near the lodge, when Mr. Trevanion said abruptly, "Talk, my young friend, talk; I like to hear you talk,--it refreshes me. n.o.body has talked naturally to me these last ten years."

The request was a complete damper to my ingenuous eloquence; I could not have talked naturally now for the life of me.

"I made a mistake, I see," said my companion, good-humoredly, noticing my embarra.s.sment. "Here we are at the lodge. The coach will be by in five minutes: you can spend that time in hearing the old woman praise the Hogtons and abuse me. And hark you, sir, never care three straws for praise or blame,--leather and prunella! Praise and blame are here!"

and he struck his hand upon his breast with almost pa.s.sionate emphasis.

"Take a specimen. These Hogtons were the bane of the place,--uneducated and miserly; their land a wilderness, their village a pig-sty. I come, with capital and intelligence; I redeem the soil, I banish pauperism, I civilize all around me: no merit in me, I am but a type of capital guided by education,--a machine. And yet the old woman is not the only one who will hint to you that the Hogtons were angels, and myself the usual ant.i.thesis to angels. And what is more, sir, because that old woman, who has ten shillings a week from me, sets her heart upon earning her sixpences,--and I give her that privileged luxury,--every visitor she talks to goes away with the idea that I, the rich Mr. Trevanion, let her starve on what she can pick up from the sightseers. Now, does that signify a jot? Good-by! Tell your father his old friend must see him,--profit by his calm wisdom; his old friend is a fool sometimes, and sad at heart. When you are settled, send me a line to St. James's Square, to say where you are. Humph! that's enough."

Mr. Trevanion wrung my hand, and strode off.

I did not wait for the coach, but proceeded towards the turn-stile, where the old woman (who had either seen, or scented from a distance that tizzy of which I was the impersonation),--

"Hushed in grim repose, did wait her morning prey."

My opinions as to her sufferings and the virtues of the departed Ho-tons somewhat modified, I contented myself with dropping into her open palm the exact sum virtually agreed on. But that palm still remained open, and the fingers of the other clawed hold of me as I stood, impounded in the curve of the turn-stile, like a cork in a patent corkscrew.

"And threepence for nephy Bob," said the old lady.

"Threepence for nephew Bob, and why?"

"It is his parquisites when he recommends a gentleman. You would not have me pay out of my own earnings; for he will have it, or he'll ruin my bizziness. Poor folk must be paid for their trouble."

Obdurate to this appeal, and mentally consigning Bob to a master whose feet would be all the handsomer for boots, I threaded the stile and escaped.

Towards evening I reached London. Who ever saw London for the first time and was not disappointed? Those long suburbs melting indefinably away into the capital forbid all surprise. The gradual is a great disenchanter. I thought it prudent to take a hackney-coach, and so jolted my way to the Hotel, the door of which was in a small street out of the Strand, though the greater part of the building faced that noisy thoroughfare. I found my father in a state of great discomfort in a little room, which he paced up and down like a lion new caught in his cage. My poor mother was full of complaints: for the first time in her life, I found her indisputably crossish. It was an ill time to relate my adventures.