Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.. Lever Charles James

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ had been more cared for. What’s this she says here about a subscription?”

      “That ‘s supervision, – the supervision of a parent.”

      “Supervision of a fiddlestick! the fellow is six feet one inch high, and seven-and-twenty years of age; he’s quite beyond supervision. Ah! brought back all his father’s gout, has he? When will people begin to admit that their own tempers have something to say to their maladies? I curse the cook who made the mulligatawny, but I forget that I ate two platefuls of it. So it’s the doctor’s daughter she objects to. I wish she saw her. I wish you saw her, Cave. You are an old frequenter of courts and drawing-rooms. I tell you you have seen nothing like this doctor’s daughter since Laura Bedingfield was presented, and that was before your day.”

      “Every one has heard of the Beauty Bedingfield; but she was my mother’s contemporary.”

      “Well, sir, her successors have not eclipsed her! This doctor’s daughter, as your correspondent calls her, is the only rival of her that I have ever seen. As to wit and accomplishments, Laura could not compete with Lucy Lendrick.”

      “You know her, then?” asked the Colonel; and then added, “Tell me something about the family.”

      “With your leave, I will finish this letter first. Ah! here we have the whole secret. Lionel Trafford is likely to be that precious prize, an eldest son. Who could have thought that the law of entail could sway a mother’s affections? ‘Contract no ties inconsistent with his station.’ This begins to be intolerable, Cave. I don’t think I can go on.”

      “Yes, yes; read it through.”

      “She asks you if you know any one who knows these Hendrichs or Lendrichs; tell her that you do; tell her that your friend is one of those men who have seen a good deal of life, heard more, too, than he has seen. She will understand that, and that his name is Sir Brook Fossbrooke, who, if needed, will think nothing of a journey over to Lincolnshire to afford her all the information she could wish for. Say this, Cave, and take my word for it, she will put very few more questions to you.”

      “That would be to avow I had already consulted with you. No, no; I must not do that.”

      “The wind-up of the epistle is charming. ‘I have certainly no reason to love Ireland.’ Poor Ireland! here is another infliction upon you. Let us hope you may never come to know that Lady Trafford cannot love you.”

      “Come, come, Fossbrooke, be just, be fair; there is nothing so very unreasonable in the anxiety of a mother that her son, who will have a good name and a large estate, should not share them both with a person beneath him.”

      “Why must she assume that this is the case, – why take it for granted that this girl must be beneath him? I tell you, sir, if a prince of the blood had fallen in love with her, it would be a reason to repeal the Royal Marriage Act.”

      “I declare, Fossbrooke, I shall begin to suspect that your own heart has not escaped scathless,” said Cave, laughing.

      The old man’s face became crimson, but not with anger. As suddenly it grew pale; and in a voice of deep agitation he said, “When an old man like myself lays his homage at her feet, it is not hard to believe how a young man might love her.”

      “How did you come to make this acquaintance?” said Cave, anxious to turn the conversation into a more familiar channel.

      “We chanced to fail in with her brother on the river. We found him struggling with a fish far too large for his tackle, and which at last smashed his rod and got away. He showed not alone that he was a perfect angler, but that he was a fine-tempered fellow, who accepted his defeat manfully and well; he had even a good word for his enemy, sir, and it was that which attracted me. Trafford and he, young-men-like, soon understood each other; he came into our boat, lunched with us, and asked us home with him to tea. There ‘s the whole story. As to the intimacy that followed, it was mostly my own doing. I own to you I never so much as suspected that Trafford was smitten by her; he was always with her brother, scarcely at all in her company; and when he came to tell me he was in love, I asked him how he caught the malady, for I never saw him near the infection. Once that I knew of the matter, however, I made him write home to his family.”

      “It was by your advice, then, that he wrote that letter?”

      “Certainly; I not only advised, I insisted on it, – I read it, too, before it was sent off. It was such a letter as, if I had been the young fellow’s father, would have made me prouder than to hear he had got the thanks of Parliament.”

      “You and I, Fossbrooke, are old bachelors; we are scarcely able to say what we should have done if we had had sons.”

      “I am inclined to believe it would have made us better, not worse,” said Fossbrooke, gravely.

      “At all events, as it was at your instigation this letter was written, I can’t well suggest your name as an impartial person in the transaction, – I mean, as one who can be referred to for advice or information.”

      “Don’t do so, sir, or I shall be tempted to say more than may be prudent. Have you never noticed, Cave, the effect that a doctor’s presence produces in the society of those who usually consult him, – the reserve, – the awkwardness, – the constraint, – the apologetic tone for this or that little indiscretion, – the sitting in the draught or the extra glass of sherry? So is it, but in a far stronger degree, when an old man of the world like myself comes back amongst those he formerly lived with, – one who knew all their past history, how they succeeded here, how they failed there, – what led the great man of fashion to finish his days in a colony, and why the Court beauty married a bishop. Ah, sir, we are the physicians who have all these secrets in our keeping. It is ours to know what sorrow is covered by that smile, how that merry laugh has but smothered the sigh of a heavy heart. It is only when a man has lived to my age, with an unfailing memory too, that he knows the real hollowness of life, – all the combinations falsified, all the hopes blighted, – the clever fellows that have turned out failures, or worse than failures, – the lovely women that have made shipwreck through their beauty. It is not only, however, that he knows this, but he knows how craft and cunning have won where ability and frankness have lost, – how intrigue and trick have done better than genius and integrity. With all this knowledge, sir, in their heads, and stout hearts within them, such men as myself have their utility in life. They are a sort of walking conscience that cannot be ignored. The railroad millionnaire talks less boastfully before him who knew him as an errand-boy; the grande dame is less superciliously insolent in the presence of one who remembered her in a very different character. Take my word for it, Cave, Nestor may have been a bit of a bore amongst the young Greeks of fashion, but he had his utility too.”

      “But how am I to answer this letter? What advice shall I give her?”

      “Tell her frankly that you have made the inquiry she wished; that the young lady, who is as well born as her son, is without fortune, and if her personal qualities count for nothing, would be what the world would call a ‘bad match.’”

      “Yes, that sounds practicable. I think that will do.”

      “Tell her, also, that if she seriously desires that her son should continue in the way of that reformation he has so ardently followed for some time back, and especially so since he has made the acquaintance of this family, such a marriage as this would give her better reasons for confidence than all her most crafty devices in match-making and settlements.”

      “I don’t think I can exactly tell her that,” said Caver smiling.

      “Tell her, then, СКАЧАТЬ