If you think so highly of marriage, my dear Sir Miles, it is a wonder you did not add to your precepts the value of your example.
Jackanapes! I had not your infirmities: I never was a spendthrift, and I have a constitution of iron! There was a pause. Charles, continued Sir Miles, musingly, there is many an earl with a less fortune than the conjoined estates of Vernon Grange and Laughton Hall. You must already have understood me: it is my intention to leave my estates to Lucretia; it is my wish, nevertheless, to think you will not be the worse for my will. Frankly, if you can like my niece, win her; settle here while I live, put the Grange to nurse, and recruit yourself by fresh air and field-sports. Zounds, Charles, I love you, and thats the truth! Give me your hand!
And a grateful heart with it, sir, said Vernon, warmly, evidently affected, as he started from his indolent position and took the hand extended to him. Believe me, I do not covet your wealth, nor do I envy my cousin anything so much as the first place in your regard.
Prettily said, my boy, and I dont suspect you of insincerity. What think you, then, of my plan?
Mr. Vernon seemed embarrassed; but recovering himself with his usual ease, he replied archly: Perhaps, sir, it will be of little use to know what I think of your plan; my fair cousin may have upset it already.
Ha, sir! let me look at you. So, so! you are not jesting. What the deuce do you mean? Gad, man, speak out!
Do you not think that Mr. MonderlingMandolinwhats his name, eh?do you not think that he is a very handsome young fellow? said Mr. Vernon, drawing out his snuffbox and offering it to his kinsman.
Damn your snuff, quoth Sir Miles, in great choler, as he rejected the proffered courtesy with a vehemence that sent half the contents of the box upon the joint eyes and noses of the two canine favourites dozing at his feet. The setter started up in an agony; the spaniel wheezed and sniffled and ran off, stopping every moment to take his head between his paws. The old gentleman continued without heeding the sufferings of his dumb friends,a symptom of rare discomposure on his part.
Do you mean to insinuate, Mr. Vernon, that my niecemy elder niece, Lucretia Claveringcondescends to notice the looks, good or bad, of Mr. Mainwaring? Sdeath, sir, he is the son of a land-agent! Sir, he is intended for trade! Sir, his highest ambition is to be partner in some fifth-rate mercantile house!
My dear Sir Miles, replied Mr. Vernon, as he continued to brush away, with his scented handkerchief, such portions of the princes mixture as his nankeen inexpressibles had diverted from the sensual organs of Dash and Pontomy dear Sir Miles, ca nempeche pas le sentiment!
Empeche the fiddlestick! You dont know Lucretia. There are many girls, indeed, who might not be trusted near any handsome flute-playing spark, with black eyes and white teeth; but Lucretia is not one of those; she has spirit and ambition that would never stoop to a mesalliance; she has the mind and will of a queen,old Queen Bess, I believe.
That is saying much for her talent, sir; but if so, Heaven help her intended! I am duly grateful for the blessings you propose me!
Despite his anger, the old gentleman could not help smiling.
Why, to confess the truth, she is hard to manage; but we men of the world know how to govern women, I hope,much more how to break in a girl scarce out of her teens. As for this fancy of yours, it is sheer folly: Lucretia knows my mind. She has seen her mothers fate; she has seen her sister an exile from my house. Why? For no fault of hers, poor thing, but because she is the child of disgrace, and the mothers sin is visited on her daughters head. I am a good-natured man, I fancy, as men go; but I am old-fashioned enough to care for my race. If Lucretia demeaned herself to love, to encourage, that lad, why, I would strike her from my will, and put your name where I have placed hers.
Sir, said Vernon, gravely, and throwing aside all affectation of manner, this becomes serious; and I have no right even to whisper a doubt by which it now seems I might benefit. I think it imprudent, if you wish Miss Clavering to regard me impartially as a suitor to her hand, to throw her, at her age, in the way of a man far superior to myself, and to most men, in personal advantages,a man more of her own years, well educated, well mannered, with no evidence of his inferior birth in his appearance or his breeding. I have not the least ground for supposing that he has made the slightest impression on Miss Clavering, and if he has, it would be, perhaps, but a girls innocent and thoughtless fancy, easily shaken off by time and worldly reflection; but pardon me if I say bluntly that should that be so, you would be wholly unjustified in punishing, even in blaming, her,it is yourself you must blame for your own carelessness and that forgetful blindness to human nature and youthful emotions which, I must say, is the less pardonable in one who has known the world so intimately.
Charles Vernon, said the old baronet, give me your hand again! I was right, at least, when I said you had the heart of a true gentleman. Drop this subject for the present. Who has just left Lucretia yonder?
Your protege, the Frenchman.
Ah, he, at least, is not blind; go and join Lucretia!
Vernon bowed, emptied the remains of the Madeira into a tumbler, drank the contents at a draught, and sauntered towards Lucretia; but she, perceiving his approach, crossed abruptly into one of the alleys that led to the other side of the house, and he was either too indifferent or too well-bred to force upon her the companionship which she so evidently shunned. He threw himself at length upon one of the benches on the lawn, and leaning his head upon his hand, fell into reflections which, had he spoken, would have shaped themselves somewhat thus into words:
If I must take that girl as the price of this fair heritage, shall I gain or lose? I grant that she has the finest neck and shoulders I ever saw out of marble; but far from being in love with her, she gives me a feeling like fear and aversion. Add to this that she has evidently no kinder sentiment for me than I for her; and if she once had a heart, that young gentleman has long since coaxed it away. Pleasant auspices, these, for matrimony to a poor invalid who wishes at least to decline and to die in peace! Moreover, if I were rich enough to marry as I pleased; if I were what, perhaps, I ought to be, heir to Laughton,why, there is a certain sweet Mary in the world, whose eyes are softer than Lucretia Claverings. But that is a dream! On the other hand, if I do not win this girl, and my poor kinsman give her all, or nearly all, his possessions, Vernon Grange goes to the usurers, and the king will find a lodging for myself. What does it matter? I cannot live above two or three years at the most, and can only hope, therefore, that dear stout old Sir Miles may outlive me. At thirty-three I have worn out fortune and life; little pleasure could Laughton give me,brief pain the Bench. Fore Gad, the philosophy of the thing is on the whole against sour looks and the noose! Thus deciding in the progress of his revery, he smiled, and changed his position. The sun had set, the twilight was over, the moon rose in splendour from amidst a thick copse of mingled beech and oak; the beams fell full on the face of the muser, and the face seemed yet paler and the exhaustion of premature decay yet more evident, by that still and melancholy light: all ruins gain dignity by the moon. This was a ruin nobler than that which painters place on their canvas,the ruin, not of stone and brick, but of humanity and spirit; the wreck of man prematurely old, not stricken by great sorrow, not bowed by great toil, but fretted and mined away by small pleasures and poor excitements,small and poor, but daily, hourly, momently at their gnome-like work. Something of the gravity and the true lesson of the hour and scene, perhaps, forced itself upon a mind little given to sentiment, for Vernon rose languidly and muttered,
My poor mother hoped better things from me. It is well, after all, that it is broken off with Mary. Why should there be any one to weep for me? I can the better die smiling, as I have lived.
Meanwhile, as it is necessary we should follow each of the principal characters we have introduced through the course of an evening more or less eventful in the destiny of all, we return to Mainwaring and accompany him to the lake at the bottom of the park, which he reached as its smooth surface glistened in the last beams of the sun. He saw, as he neared the water, the fish sporting in the pellucid tide; the dragonfly darted and hovered in the air; the tedded grass beneath his feet gave forth the fragrance of crushed thyme and clover; the swan paused, as if slumbering on the wave; the linnet and finch sang still from the neighbouring copses; and the heavy bees were winging their way home with a drowsy murmur. All around were images of that unspeakable peace which Nature whispers to those attuned to her music; all fitted to lull, but not to deject, the spirit,images dear to the holiday of the world-worn man, to the contemplation of serene and retired age, to the boyhood of poets, to the youth of lovers. But Mainwarings step was heavy, and his brow clouded, and Nature that evening was dumb to him. At the margin of the lake stood a solitary angler who now, his evenings task done, was employed in leisurely disjointing his rod and whistling with much sweetness an air from one of Izaak Waltons songs. Mainwaring reached the angler and laid his hand on his shoulder.
What sport, Ardworth?
A few large roach with the fly, and one pike with a gudgeon,a noble fellow! Look at him! He was lying under the reeds yonder; I saw his green back, and teased him into biting. A heavenly evening! I wonder you did not follow my example, and escape from a set where neither you nor I can feel very much at home, to this green banquet of Nature, in which at least no man sits below the salt-cellar. The birds are an older family than the St. Johns, but they dont throw their pedigree in our teeth, Mainwaring.
Nay, nay, my good friend, you wrong old Sir Miles; proud he is, no doubt, but neither you nor I have had to complain of his insolence.
Of his insolence, certainly not; of his condescension, yes! Hang it, William, it is his very politeness that galls me. Dont you observe that with Vernon, or Lord A, or Lord B, or Mr. C, he is easy and off-hand; calls them by their names, pats them on the shoulder, rates them, and swears at them if they vex him. But with you and me and his French parasite, it is all stately decorum and punctilious courtesy: Mr. Mainwaring, I am delighted to see you; Mr. Ardworth, as you are so near, dare I ask you to ring the bell? Monsieur Dalibard, with the utmost deference, I venture to disagree with you. However, dont let my foolish susceptibility ruffle your pride. And you, too, have a worthy object in view, which might well detain you from roach and jack-fish. Have you stolen your interview with the superb Lucretia?
Yes, stolen, as you say; and, like all thieves not thoroughly hardened, I am ashamed of my gains.
Sit down, my boy,this is a bank in ten thousand; there, that old root to lean your elbow on, this soft moss for your cushion: sit down and confess. You have something on your mind that preys on you; we are old college friends,out with it!
There is no resisting you, Ardworth, said Mainwaring, smiling, and drawn from his reserve and his gloom by the frank good-humour of his companion. I should like, I own, to make a clean breast of it; and perhaps I may profit by your advice. You know, in the first place, that after I left college, my father, seeing me indisposed for the Church, to which he had always destined me in his own heart, and for which, indeed, he had gone out of his way to maintain me at the University, gave me the choice of his own business as a surveyor and land-agent, or of entering into the mercantile profession. I chose the latter, and went to Southampton, where we have a relation in business, to be initiated into the elementary mysteries. There I became acquainted with a good clergyman and his wife, and in that house I passed a great part of my time.
With the hope, I trust, on better consideration, of gratifying your fathers ambition and learning how to starve with gentility on a cure.
Not much of that, I fear.
Then the clergyman had a daughter?
You are nearer the mark now, said Mainwaring, colouring,though it was not his daughter. A young lady lived in his family, not even related to him; she was placed there with a certain allowance by a rich relation. In a word, I admired, perhaps I loved, this young person; but she was without an independence, and I not yet provided even with the substitute of money,a profession. I fancied (do not laugh at my vanity) that my feelings might be returned. I was in alarm for her as well as myself; I sounded the clergyman as to the chance of obtaining the consent of her rich relation, and was informed that he thought it hopeless. I felt I had no right to invite her to poverty and ruin, and still less to entangle further (if I had chanced to touch at all) her affection. I made an excuse to my father to leave the town, and returned home.
Prudent and honourable enough, so far; unlike me,I should have run off with the girl, if she loved me, and old Plutus, the rascal, might have done his worst against Cupid. But I interrupt you.
I came back when the county was greatly agitated,public meetings, speeches, mobs; a sharp election going on. My father had always taken keen interest in politics; he was of the same party as Sir Miles, who, you know, is red-hot upon politics. I was easily ledpartly by ambition, partly by the effect of example, partly by the hope to give a new turn to my thoughtsto make an appearance in public.
And a devilish creditable one too! Why, man, your speeches have been quoted with rapture by the London papers. Horribly aristocratic and Pittish, it is true,I think differently; but every man to his taste. Well
My attempts, such as they were, procured me the favour of Sir Miles. He had long been acquainted with my father, who had helped him in his own elections years ago. He seemed cordially delighted to patronize the son; he invited me to visit him at Laughton, and hinted to my father that I was formed for something better than a counting-house: my poor father was intoxicated. In a word, here I am; here, often for days, almost weeks, together, have I been a guest, always welcomed.
You pause. This is the primordium,now comes the confession, eh?
Why, one half the confession is over. It was my most unmerited fortune to attract the notice of Miss Clavering. Do not fancy me so self-conceited as to imagine that I should ever have presumed so high, but for
But for encouragement,I understand! Well, she is a magnificent creature, in her way, and I do not wonder that she drove the poor little girl at Southampton out of your thoughts.
Ah! but there is the sore,I am not sure that she has done so. Ardworth, I may trust you?
With everything but half-a-guinea. I would not promise to be rock against so great a temptation! and Ardworth turned his empty pockets inside out.
Tush! be serious, or I go.
Serious! With pockets like these, the devils in it if I am not serious. Perge, precor.
Ardworth, then, said Mainwaring, with great emotion, I confide to you the secret trouble of my heart. This girl at Southampton is Lucretias sister,her half-sister; the rich relation on whose allowance she lives is Sir Miles St. John.