Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.

CHAPTER XVII. A LUNCHEON AT THE PRIORY

It was well for poor Lendrick that he was not to witness the great change which, in a few short weeks, had been effected in his once home. So complete, indeed, was the transformation, there was but very little left beyond the natural outline of the scenery to remind one of that lovely nook in which the tasteful cottage nestled. The conservatory had been converted into a dining-room; the former dinner-room being fitted up for a billiard-room. The Swiss cowhouse, a pretty little conceit, on which Lendrick had lavished some money and more time, was turned into a stable, with three loose boxes; and the neat lawn, whose velvet sward was scarce less beautiful than the glittering flower-beds that studded it, was ruthlessly cut up into a racecourse, with hurdles and fences and double ditches, to represent a stiff country, and offer all the features of a steeple-chase.

It needed not the assurance of Mr. Kimball, the house-agent, to proclaim that his client was very unlike the last occupant of the place. “He was no recluse, no wretched misanthropist, hiding his discontent amongst shrubs and forcing-beds; he was a man of taste and refinement, with knowledge of life and its requirements. He would be an acquisition to any neighborhood.”

Now, the last phrase – and he invariably made it his peroration – has a very wide and sweeping acceptation. It appeals to the neighborhood with all the charms that pertain to social intercourse; a guest the more and a host the more are no small claims in small places. It appeals to the parson, as another fountain from which to draw draughts of benevolence. To the doctor it whispers fees and familiar dinners. Galen knows that the luckiest of men are not exempt from human ills, and that gout comes as a frequent guest where the cook is good and the wine tempting; and the butcher himself revels in the thought of a “good family” that consumes sirloins and forestalls sweetbreads.

It was somewhat trying to young Tom Lendrick, who had gone down to the Nest to fetch away some remnants of fishing-tackle he had left there, to hear these glowing anticipations of the new-comer, so evidently placed in contrast with the quiet and inexpensive life his father had led. How unlike were his father and this “acquisition to any neighborhood,” was impressed upon him at any moment! How could a life of unobtrusive kindness, of those daily ministerings to poor men’s wants, compete with the glitter and display which were to adorn a neighborhood?

Already were people beginning to talk of Lendrick as odd, eccentric, peculiar; to set down his finest qualities as strange traits of a strange temperament, and rather, on the whole, to give themselves credit for the patience and forbearance which they had shown to one who, after all, was “simply an egotist.”

Yes, such are not unfrequent judgments in this same world of ours; and if you would have men’s suffrages for the good you do, take care that you do it conventionally. Be in all things like those around you; and if there be a great man in your vicinity, whenever a doubt arises in your mind as to any course of action, do as you may imagine he might do.

Young Lendrick came away not a little disgusted with this taste of human fickleness. The sight of their old home changed even to desecration was bad enough, but this cold ingratitude was worse.

Had he gone into the cabins of the poor, had he visited the humble dwellings where his father’s generous devotion had brought him face to face with famine and fever, he would have heard much to redress the balance of these opinions. He would have heard those warm praises that come from sorrow-stricken hearts, the wail of the friendless and forlorn. Tom heard not these, and he returned to town with a feeling of anger and resentment against the world he had never known before.

“How absurd it is in old Fossbrooke,” thought he, “to go on saying money cannot do this, that, and t’other! Why, it can do everything. It does not alone make a man great, powerful, and influential, but it gains him the praise of being good and kind and generous. Look at my poor father, who never had a thought but for others, who postponed himself to all around him; and yet here is some one, whose very name is unknown, more eagerly looked for, more ardently desired, than would he be were it to be announced to-morrow he was coming back to live amongst them. What nonsense it is to say that the world cares for any qualities save those it can utilize; and I am only amazed how a man could have seen so much of life as Sir Brook and gained so little by his experience.”

It was in this mood he got back to the little lodging in a humble suburb called Cullen’s Wood, where Sir Brook awaited him. It is not impossible that the disparities of temperament in this world are just as beneficial, just as grateful, as are the boundless variety and change we find in nature. To Tom Lendrick’s depression, almost disgust with life, Sir Brook brought that bright, hopeful, happy spirit which knew how to throw sunlight on every path to be travelled.

He had received good news, or what he thought was good news, from Sardinia. A new vein of ore had been struck, – very “fat” ore they called it, – some eighty-odd per cent, and a fair promise of silver in it. “They ask me for thirty thousand francs, though, Tom,” said he, with a smile; “they might as well have written ‘pounds’ when they were about it. They want to repair the engine and erect a new crane. They say, too, the chains are worn and unsafe, – a thing to be looked to, or we shall have some accidents. In fact, they need fully double what they ask for; and seeing how impossible was the performance, I am astonished at their modesty.”

“And what do you mean to do, sir?” asked Tom, bluntly.

“I have been thinking of two courses: my first thought was to make a formal conveyance of the mine to you and your sister, for your joint use and benefit. This done, and I standing aloof from all possible interest in it, I bethought me of a loan to be raised on the security of the property, – not publicly, not generally, but amongst your father’s friends and well-wishers, – beginning with the neighborhood where he has lived so long, and around which he has sowed the seeds of such benefits as needs must ripen in gratitude.”

“Indulge no delusions on that score, sir. There is not a man in the county, except old Mills the vicar, perhaps, has a good word for us; and as to going to one of them for assistance, I ‘d rather sweep a crossing. You shake your head, Sir Brook, and you smile at my passionate denunciation; but it is true, every word of it. I heard, in the few hours I spent there, scores of stories of my poor father’s eccentricity, – his forgetfulness, his absence, and what not, – but never a syllable of his noble liberality, his self-sacrifice, or his gentleness.”

“My dear Tom,” said the old man, solemnly, “when you have lived to one-half my age, you will discover that the world is not so much cursed with ill-nature as with levity, and that when men talk disparagingly of their fellows, they do so rather to seem witty than to be just. There was not, perhaps, one of those who tried to raise a laugh at your father’s oddities, or who assumed to be droll at his expense, who would not in a serious mood have conceded to him every good and great trait of his nature. The first step in worldly knowledge is to rise above all consideration of light gossip. Take my word for it, we often confirm men in wrong thinking by opposition, who, if left to themselves and their own hearts, would review their judgments, and even retract them.”

Tom took a hasty turn up and down the room; a ready reply was on his lip; indeed, it was with difficulty he repressed it, but he did so, and stood in seeming acquiescence to what he had heard. At last he said, “And the other plan, Sir Brook, – what was that?”

“Perhaps a more likely one, Tom,” said the old man, cheerfully. “It was to apply directly to your grandfather, a man whose great intelligence would enable him to examine a project with whose details he had not ever before versed himself, and ask whether he would not make the advance we require on mortgage or otherwise.”

“I don’t think I ‘d like to ask him,” said Tom, with a grim smile.

“The proposal could come from me,” said Sir Brook, proudly, “if he would graciously accord me an interview.”

Tom turned away to hide a smile, for he thought, if such a meeting were to take place, what he would give to be an unseen witness of it, – to watch the duel between antagonists so different, and whose weapons were so unlike.

“My sister knows him better than any of us,” said Tom, at last; “might I consult her as to the likelihood of any success with him?”

“By all means; it is what I would have myself advised.”

“I will do so, then, to-day. I ought to have gone to see her yesterday; but I will go to-day, and report progress when I come back. I have a long budget for her,” added he, with a sigh, – “a catalogue of all the things I am not going to do. I am not going to be a medallist, nor win a fellowship, nor even be a doctor; it will, however, give me great courage if I can say, I ‘ll be a miner.”

Tom Lendrick was right when he said he should have gone to see his sister on the day before, though he was not fully aware how right. The Chief Baron, in laying down a few rules for Lucy’s guidance, made a point of insisting that she should only receive visitors on one day of the week; and in this regulation he included even her brother. So averse was the old man to be exposed to even a passing meeting with strangers, that on these Tuesdays he either kept his room or retired to a little garden of which he kept the key, and from whose precincts all were rigorously excluded.

Well knowing her brother’s impatience of anything like restricted liberty, and how rapidly he would connect such an injunction as this with a life of servitude and endurance, Lucy took care to make the time of receiving him appear a matter of her own choice and convenience, and at the time of parting would say, “Good-bye till Tuesday, Tom; don’t forget Tuesday, for we shall be sure to be alone and to ourselves.” He the more easily believed this, that on these same Tuesdays the whole place seemed deserted and desolate. The grave-looking man in black, who preceded him up the stairs, ushered him along the corridor, and finally announced him, awaited him like a piece of machinery, repeating every movement and gesture with an unbroken uniformity, and giving him to understand that not only his coming was expected, but all the details of his reception had been carefully prescribed and determined on.

“As I follow that fellow along the passage, Lucy,” said Tom, one day, “I can’t help thinking that I experience every sensation of a man going to be hanged, – his solemn face, his measured tread, the silence, and the gloom, – only needing pinioned arms to make the illusion perfect.”

“Tie them around me, dearest Tom,” said she, laughing, and drawing him to a seat beside her on the sofa; “and remember,” added she, “you have a long day. Your sentence will not come off for another week;” and thus jestingly did she contrive to time his coming without ever letting him know the restrictions that defined his visits.

Now, the day before this conversation between Sir Brook and Tom took place being a Tuesday, Lucy had watched long and anxiously for his coming. She knew he had gone down to Killaloe on the preceding Saturday, but he had assured her he would be back and be with her by Tuesday. Lucy’s life was far from unhappy, but it was one of unbroken uniformity, and the one sole glimpse of society was that meeting with her brother, whose wayward thoughts and capricious notions imparted to all he said a something striking and amusing. He usually told her how his week had been passed, – where he had been and with whom, – and she had learned to know his companions, and ask after them by name. Her chief interest was, however, about Sir Brook, from whom Tom usually brought a few lines, but always in an unsealed envelope, inscribed, “By the favor of Mr. Lendrick, jun.”

How often would Tom quiz her about the respectful devotion of her old admirer, and jestingly ask her if she could consent to marry him. “I know he’ll ask you the question one of these days, Lucy, and it’s your own fault if you give him such encouragement as may mislead him.” And then they would talk over the romance of the old man’s nature, wondering whether the real world would be rendered more tolerable or the reverse by that ideal tone which so imaginative a temperament could give it “Is it not strange,” said Tom, one day, “that I can see all the weakness of his character wherever my own interests do not come, but the moment he presents before me some bright picture of a splendid future, a great name to achieve, a great fortune to make, that moment he takes me captive, and I regard him not as a visionary or a dreamer, but as a man of consummate shrewdness and great knowledge of life?”

“In this you resemble Sancho Panza, Tom,” said she, laughing. “He had little faith in his master’s chivalry, but he implicitly believed in the island he was to rule over;” and from that day forward she called her brother Sancho and Sir Brook the Don.

On the day after that on which Tom’s visit should have been but was not paid, Lucy sat at luncheon with her grandfather in a small breakfast-room which opened on the lawn. The old Judge was in unusual spirits; he had just received an address from the Bar, congratulating him on his recovery, and expressing hope that he might be soon again seen on that Bench he had so much ornamented by his eloquence and his wisdom. The newspapers, too, with a fickleness that seems their most invariable feature, spoke most flatteringly of his services, and placed his name beside those who had conferred highest honor on the judgeship.

“It is neatly worded, Lucy,” said the old man, taking up the paper on which the address was written; “and the passage that compares me with Mansfield is able as well as true. Both Mansfield and myself understood how there stands above all written law that higher, greater, grander law, that is based in the heart of all humanity, in the hope of an eternal justice, and soars above every technicality, by the intense desire of truth. It would have been, however, no more than fair to have added that, to an intellect the equal of Mansfield, I brought a temper which Mansfield had not, and a manner which if found in the courts of royalty, is seldom met with on the Bench. I do not quite like that phrase, ‘the rapid and unerring glance of Erskine.’ Erskine was brilliant for a Scotchman, but a brilliant Scotchman is but a third-rate Irishman. They who penned this might have known as much. I am better pleased with the words, ‘the noble dignity of Lord Eldon.’ There, my child, there, they indeed have hit upon a characteristic. In Eldon nature seemed to have created the judicial element in a high degree. It would be the vulgarity of modesty to pretend not to recognize in my own temperament a like organization.

“May I read you, Lucy, the few words in which I mean to reply to this courteous address? Will it bore you, my dear?”

“On the contrary, sir, I shall feel myself honored as well as interested.”

“Sit where you are, then, and I will retire to the far corner of the room. You shall judge if my voice and delivery be equal to the effort; for I mean to return my thanks in person, Lucy. I mean to add the force of my presence to the vigor of my sentiments. I have bethought me of inviting those who have signed this document to luncheon here; and it may probably be in the large drawing-room that I shall deliver this reply. If not, it may possibly be in my court before rising, – I have not fully determined.” So saying, he arose, and with feeble steps – assisting himself, as he went, by the table, and then grasping a chair – he moved slowly across the room. She knew him too well to dare to offer her arm, or appear in any way to perceive his debility. That he felt, and felt bitterly, “the curse of old age,” as he once profanely called it, might be marked in the firm compression of his lips and the stern frown that settled on him, while, as he sank into a seat, a sad weary sigh declared the utter exhaustion that overcame him.

It was not till after some minutes that he rallied sufficiently to unroll his manuscript and adjust his spectacles. The stillness in the room was now perfect; not a sound was heard save the faint hum of a bee which had strayed into the room, and was vaguely floating about to find an exit. Lucy sat in an attitude of patient attention, – her hands crossed before her, and her eyes slightly downcast.

A faint low cough, and he began, but in a voice tremulous and faint, “‘Mr. Chief Sergeant, and Gentlemen of the Bar’ – do you hear me, Lucy?”

“Yes, sir, I hear you.”

“I will try to be more audible; I will rest for a moment.” fie laid his paper on his knees, closed his eyes, and sat immovable for some seconds.

It was at this moment, when to the intense stillness was added a sense of expectancy, the honeysuckle that grew across the window moved, the frail branches gave way, and a merry voice called out, “Scene the first: a young lady discovered at luncheon!” and with a spring Tom Lendrick bounced into the room, and, ere her cry of alarm had ended, was clasping his sister in his arms.