The Martins Of Cro' Martin Volume II Part 31

"I certainly do not accept your intention of marrying beneath you as a proof of it. Must I again tell you, sir, that in such cases it is the poor, weak, patient, forgotten woman pays all the penalty, and that, in the very conflict with the world the man has his reward?"

"If you loved me, Kate," said he, in a tone of deep sorrow, "it is not thus you would discuss this question."

She made no reply, but bending down lower over her drawing, worked away with increased rapidity.

"Still," cried he, pa.s.sionately, "I am not to be deterred by a defeat.

Tell me, at least, how I can win that love, which is to me the great prize of life. You read my faults, you see my shortcomings clearly enough; be equally just, then, to anything there is of good or hopeful about me. Do this, Kate, and I will put my fate upon the issue."

"In plain words," said she, calmly, "you ask me what manner of man I would consent to marry. I 'll tell you. One who with ability enough to attain any station, and talents to gain any eminence, has lived satisfied with that in which he was born; one who has made the independence of his character so felt by the world that his actions have been regarded as standards, a man of honor and of his word; employing his knowledge of life, not for the purposes of overreaching, but for self-correction and improvement; well bred enough to be a peer, simple as a peasant; such a man, in fact, as could afford to marry a governess, and, while elevating her to his station, never compromise his own with his equals. I don't flatter myself," said she, smiling, "that I 'm likely to draw this prize; but I console myself by thinking that I could not accept aught beneath it as great fortune. I see, sir, the humility of my pretensions amuses you, and it is all the better for both of us if we can treat these things jestingly."

"Nay, Kate, you are unfair--unjust," broke in Mas-singbred.

"Mr. Martin begins to feel it chilly, Miss Henderson," said a servant at this moment. "Shall we return to the hotel?"

"Yes, by all means," said she, rising hastily. The next instant she was busily engaged shawling and m.u.f.fling the sick man, who accepted her attentions with the submissive-ness of a child.

"That will do, Molly, thank you, darling," said he, in a feeble voice; "you are so kind, so good to me."

"The evening is fresh, sir, almost cold," said she.

"Yes, dear, the climate is not what it used to be. We have cut down too many of those trees, Molly, yonder." And he pointed with his thin fingers towards the Rhine. "We have thinned the wood overmuch, but they'll grow again, dear, though I shall not be here to see them."

"He thinks I am his niece," whispered Kate, "and fancies himself at Cro'

Martin."

"I suppose they'll advise my trying a warm country, Molly, a milder air," muttered he, as they slowly carried him along. "But home, after all, is home; one likes to see the old faces and the old objects around them,--all the more when about to leave them forever!" And as the last words came, two heavy tears stole slowly along his cheeks, and his pale lips quivered with emotion. Now speaking in a low, weak voice to himself, now sighing heavily, as though in deep depression, he was borne along towards the hotel. Nor did the gay and noisy groups which thronged the thoroughfares arouse him. He saw them, but seemed not to heed them.

His dreary gaze wandered over the brilliant panorama without interest or speculation. Some painful and difficult thoughts, perhaps, did all these unaccustomed sights and sounds bring across his mind, embarra.s.sing him to reconcile their presence with the scene he fancied himself beholding; but even these impressions were faint and fleeting.

As they turned to cross the little rustic bridge in front of the hotel, a knot of persons moved off the path to make way for them, one of whom fixed his eyes steadily on the sick man, gazing with the keen scrutiny of intense interest; then suddenly recalling himself to recollection, he hastily retreated within the group.

"You are right," muttered he to one near him, "he _is_ 'booked;' my bond will come due before the month ends."

"And you'll be an estated gent, Herman, eh?" said a very dark-eyed, hook-nosed man at his side.

"Well, I hope I shall act the part as well as my neighbors," said Mr.

Merl, with that mingled a.s.surance and humility that made up his manner.

"Was n't that Ma.s.singbred that followed them,--he that made the famous speech the other day in Parliament?"

"Yes," said Merl. "I 've got a bit of 'stiff' with his endors.e.m.e.nt in my pocket this minute for one hundred and fifty."

"What's it worth, Merl?"

"Perhaps ten shillings; but I 'd not part with it quite so cheaply.

He'll not always be an M.P., and we shall see if he can afford to swagger by an old acquaintance without so much as a 'How d' ye do?'"

"There, he is coming back again," said the other. And at the same moment Ma.s.singbred walked slowly up to the spot, his easy smile upon his face, and his whole expression that of a careless, unburdened nature.

"I just caught a glimpse of you as I pa.s.sed, Merl," said he, with a familiar nod; "and you were exactly the man I wanted to see."

"Too much honor, sir," said Merl, affecting a degree of haughty distance at the familiarity of this address.

Ma.s.singbred smiled at the mock dignity, and went on; "I have something to say to you. Will you give me a call this evening at the Cour de Bade, say about nine or half-past?"

"I have an engagement this evening."

"Put it off, then, that's all, Master Merl, for mine is an important matter, and very nearly concerns yourself."

Merl was silent. He would have liked much to display before his friends a little of the easy dash and swagger that he had just been exhibiting, to have shown them how cavalierly he could treat a rising statesman and a young Parliamentary star of the first order; but the question crossed him, Was it safe? what might the luxury cost him? "Am I to bring that little acceptance of yours along with me?" said he, in a half whisper, while a malicious sparkle twinkled in his eye.

"Why not, man? Certainly, if it gives you the least pleasure in life; only don't be later than half-past nine." And with one of his sauciest laughs Ma.s.singbred moved away, leaving the Jew very far from content with "the situation."

Merl, however, soon rallied. He had been amusing his friends, just before this interruption, with a narrative of his Irish journey: he now resumed the theme. All that he found faulty, all even that he deemed new or strange or unintelligible in that unhappy country, he had dressed up in the charming colors of his c.o.c.kney vocabulary, and his hearers were worthy of him! There is but little temptation, however, to linger in their company, and so we leave them.

CHAPTER XXI. LADY DOROTHEA

The Cour de Bade, at which excellent hotel the Martins were installed, received on the day we have just chronicled a new arrival. He had come by the diligence, one of that undistinguishable ten thousand England sends off every week from her sh.o.r.es to represent her virtues or her vices, her oddities, vulgarities, and pretensions, to the critical eyes of continental Europe.

Perfectly innocent of any foreign language, and with a delightful ambiguity as to the precise geography of where he stood, he succeeded, after some few failures, in finding out where the Martins stopped, and had now sent up his name to Lady Dorothea, that name being "Mr. Maurice Scanlan."

Lady Dorothea Martin had given positive orders that except in the particular case of this individual she was not to be interrupted by any visitor. She glanced her eye at the card, and then handed it across the table to her son, who coolly read it, and threw it from him with the air of one saying to himself, "Here's more of it! more complication, more investigation, deeper research into my miserable difficulties, and consequently more unhappiness." The table at which they were seated was thickly covered with parchments, papers, doc.u.ments, and letters of every shape and size. There were deeds, and bonds, and leases, rent-rolls, and valuations, and powers of attorney, and all the other imposing accessories of estated property. There were also voluminous bills of costs, formidable long columns of figures, "carried over" and "carried over" till the very eye of the reader wearied of the dread numerals and turned recklessly to meet the awful total at the bottom! Terrified by the menacing applications addressed to Mr. Martin on his son's account, and which arrived by every post, Lady Dorothea had resolved upon herself entering upon the whole state of the Captain's liabilities, as well as the complicated questions of the property generally.

Distrust of her own powers was not in the number of her Ladyship's defects. Sufficiently affluent to be always able to surround herself with competent subordinates, she fancied--a not very uncommon error, by the way--that she individually accomplished all that she had obtained through another. Her taste in the fine arts, her skill in music, her excellence as a letter-writer, were all accomplishments in this wise; and it is not improbable that, had she been satisfied to accept her success in finance through a similar channel, the result might have proved just as fortunate. A shrinking dislike, however, to expose the moneyed circ.u.mstances of the family, and a feeling of dread as to the possible disclosures which should come out, prevented her from accepting such co-operation. She had, therefore, addressed herself to the task with no other aid than that of her son,--a partnership, it must be owned, which relieved her very little of her burden.

Had the Captain been called away from the pleasures and amus.e.m.e.nts of life to investigate the dry records of some far-away cousin's embarra.s.sments,--to dive into the wearisome narrative of money-borrowing, bill-renewing, and the rest of it, by one whom he had scarcely known or seen,--his manner and bearing could not possibly have betrayed stronger signs of utter weariness and apathy than he now exhibited. Smoking his cigar, and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g his nails with a very magnificent penknife, he gave short and listless replies to her Ladyship's queries, and did but glance at the papers which from time to time she handed to him for explanation or inquiry.

"So he is come at last!" exclaimed she, as the Captain threw down the visiting-card. "Shall we see him at once?"

"By Jove! I think we've had enough of 'business,'as they call it, for one morning," cried he. "Here have we been since a little after eleven, and it is now four, and I am as sick of accounts and figures as though I were a Treasury clerk."

"We have done next to nothing, after all!" said she, peevishly.

"And I told you as much when you began," said he, lighting a fresh cigar. "There's no seeing one's way through these kind of things after the lapse of a year or two. Fordyce gets hold of the bills you gave Mossop, and Rawkins buys up some of the things you had given renewals for, and then all that trash you took in part payment of your acceptances turns up, some day or other, to be paid for; and what between the bills that never were to be negotiated--but somehow do get abroad--and the sums sent to meet others applied in quite a different direction, I'll lay eighty to fifty in tens or ponies there's no gentleman living ever mastered one of these embarra.s.sments. One must be bred to it, my Lady, take my word for it. It's like being a crack rider or a poet,--it's born with a man. 'The Henderson,'" added he, after a pause, "she can do it, and I should like to see what she couldn't!"

"I am curious to learn how you became acquainted with these financial abilities of Miss Henderson?" said Lady Dorothea, haughtily.

"Simply enough. I was poring over these confounded accounts one day at Manheim, and I chanced to ask her a question,--something about compound interest, I think it was,--and so she came and looked over what I was doing, or rather endeavoring to do. It was that affair with Throgmorton, where I was to meet one third of the bills, and Merl and he were to look to the remainder; but there was a reservation that if Comus won the Oaks, I was to stand free--no, that's not it--if Comus won the double event--"

"Never mind your stupid contract. What of Miss Henderson?" broke in Lady Dorothea.

"Well, she came over, as I told you, and took up a pencil and began working away with all sorts of signs and crosses,--regular algebra, by Jove!--and in about five minutes out came the whole thing, all square, showing that I stood to win on either event, and came off splendidly if the double should turn up. 'I wish,' said I to her, 'you 'd just run your eye over my book and see how I stand.' She took it over to the fire, and before I could well believe she had glanced at it, she said: 'This is all full of blunders. You have left yourself open to three casualties, any one of which will sweep away all your winnings. Take the odds on Roehampton, and lay on Slingsby a couple of hundred more,--three, if you can get it,--and you 'll be safe enough. And when you 've done that,' said she, 'I have another piece of counsel to give; but first say will you take it?' 'I give you my word upon it,' said I. 'Then it is this,' said she: 'make no more wagers on the turf. You haven't skill to make what is called a "good book," and you 'll always be a sufferer.'"

"Did n't she vouchsafe to offer you her admirable a.s.sistance?" asked her Ladyship, with a sneer.

"No, by Jove!" said he, not noticing the tone of sarcasm; "and when I asked her, 'Would not she afford me a little aid?' she quickly said, 'Not on any account. You are now in a difficulty, and I willingly come forward to extricate you. Far different were the case should I conspire with you to place others in a similar predicament. Besides, I have your pledge that you have now done with these transactions, and forever.'"