Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.

CHAPTER III. A DIFFICULT PATIENT

As Dr. Beattie drove off with all speed to the Chief Baron’s house, which lay about three miles from the city, he had time to ponder as he went over his late interview. “Tom Lendrick,” as he still called him to himself, he had known as a boy, and ever liked him. He had been a patient, studious, gentle-tempered lad, desirous to acquire knowledge, without any of that ambition that wants to make the knowledge marketable. To have gained a professorship would have appeared to have been the very summit of his ambition, and this rather as a quiet retreat to pursue his studies further than as a sphere wherein to display his own gifts. Anything more unlike that bustling, energetic, daring spirit, his father, would be hard to conceive. Throughout his whole career at the bar, and in Parliament, men were never quite sure what that brilliant speaker and most indiscreet talker would do next. Men secured his advocacy with a half misgiving whether they were doing the very best or the very worst for success. Give him difficulties to deal with, and he was a giant; let all go smoothly and well, and he would hunt up some crotchet, – some obsolete usage, – a doubtful point, that in its discussion very frequently led to the damage of his client’s cause, and the defeat of his suit.

Display was ever more to him than victory. Let him have a great arena to exhibit in, and he was proof against all the difficulties and all the casualties of the conflict. Never had such a father a son less the inheritor of his temperament and nature; and this same disappointment rankling on through life – a disappointment that embittered all intercourse, and went so far as to make him disparage the high abilities of his son – created a gulf between them that Beattie knew could never be bridged over. He doubted, too, whether as a doctor he could conscientiously introduce a theme so likely to irritate and excite. As he pondered, he opened the two miniatures, and looked at them. The young man was a fine, manly, daring-looking fellow, with a determined brow and a resolute mouth, that recalled his grandfather’s face; he was evidently well grown and strong, and looked one that, thrown where he might be in life, would be likely to assert his own.

The girl, wonderfully like him in feature, had a character of subdued humor in her eye, and a half-hid laughter in the mouth, which the artist had caught up with infinite skill, that took away all the severity of the face, and softened its traits to a most attractive beauty. Through her rich brown hair there was a sort of golden reflet that imparted great brilliancy to the expression of the head, and her large eyes of gray-blue were the image of candor and softness, till her laugh gave them a sparkle of drollery whose sympathy there was no resisting. She, too, was tall and beautifully formed, with that slimness of early youth that only escapes being angular, but has in it the charm of suppleness that lends grace to every action and every gesture.

“I wish he could see the originals,” muttered Beattie. “If the old man, with his love of beauty, but saw that girl, it would be worth all the arguments in Christendom. Is it too late for this? Have we time for the experiment?”

Thus thinking, he drove along the well-wooded approach, and gained the large ground-space before the door, whence a carriage was about to drive away. “Oh, doctor,” cried a voice, “I’m so glad you ‘re come; they are most impatient for you.” It was the Solicitor-General, Mr. Pemberton, who now came up to the window of Beattie’s carriage.

“He has become quite unmanageable, will not admit a word of counsel or advice, resists all interference, and insists on going out for a drive.”

“I see him at the window,” said Beattie; “he is beckoning to me; good-bye,” and he passed on and entered the house.

In the chief drawing-room, in a deep recess of a window, sat the Chief Baron, dressed as if to go out, with an overcoat and even his gloves on. “Come and drive with me, Beattie,” cried he, in a feeble but harsh voice. “If I take my man Leonard, they ‘ll say it was a keeper. You know that the ‘Post’ has it this morning that it is my mind which has given way. They say they ‘ve seen me breaking for years back. Good heavens! can it be possible, think you, that the mites in a cheese speculate over the nature of the man that eats them? You stopped to talk with Pemberton I saw; what did he say to you?”

“Nothing particular, – a mere greeting, I think.”

“No, sir, it was not; he was asking you how many hours there lay between him and the Attorney-Generalship. They ‘ve divided the carcase already. The lion has to assist at his autopsy, – rather hard, is n’t it? How it embitters death, to think of the fellows who are to replace us!”

“Let me feel your pulse.”

“Don’t trust it, Beattie; that little dialogue of yours on the grass plot has sent it up thirty beats; how many is it?”

“Rapid, – very rapid; you need rest, – tranquillity.”

“And you can’t give me either, sir; neither you nor your craft. You are the Augurs of modern civilization, and we cling to your predictions just as our forefathers did, though we never believe you.”

“This is not flattery,” said Beattie, with a slight smile.

The old man closed his eyes, and passed his hand slowly over his forehead. “I suppose I was dreaming, Beattie, just before you came up; but I thought I saw them all in the Hall, talking and laughing over my death. Burrowes was telling how old I must be, because I moved the amendment to Flood in the Irish Parliament in ‘97; and Eames mentioned that I was Curran’s junior in the great Bagenal record; and old Tysdal set them all in a roar by saying he had a vision of me standing at the gate of heaven, and instead of going in, as St. Peter invited me, stoutly refusing, and declaring I would move for a new trial! How like the rascals!”

“Don’t you think you’d be better in your own room? There’s too much light and glare here.”

“Do you think so?”

“I am sure of it. You need quiet, and the absence of all that stimulates the action of the brain.”

“And what do you, sir, – what does any one, – know about the brain’s operations? You doctors have invented a sort of conventional cerebral organ, which, like lunar caustic, is decomposed by light; and in your vulgar materialism you would make out that what affects your brain must act alike upon mine. I tell you, sir, it is darkness – obscurity, physical or moral, it matters not which – that irritates me, just as I feel provoked this moment by this muddling talk of yours about brain.”

“And yet I ‘m talking about what my daily life and habits suggest some knowledge of,” said Beattie, mildly.

“So you are, sir, and the presumption is all on my side. If you’ll kindly lend me your arm, I’ll go back to my room.”

Step by step, slowly and painfully, he returned to his chamber, not uttering a word as he went.

“Yes, this is better, doctor; this half light soothes; it is much pleasanter. One more kindness. I wrote to Lady Lendrick this morning to come up here. I suppose my combative spirit was high in me, and I wanted a round with the gloves, – or, indeed, without them; at all events, I sent the challenge. But now, doctor, I have to own myself a craven. I dread the visit Could you manage to interpose? Could you suggest that it is by your order I am not permitted to receive her? Could you hint” – here he smiled half maliciously – “that you do not think the time has come for anodynes, – eh, doctor?”

“Leave it to me. I ‘ll speak to Lady Lendrick.”

“There ‘s another thing: not that it much matters; but it might perhaps be as well to send a few lines to the morning papers, to say the accounts of the Chief Baron are more favorable to-day; he passed a tranquil night, and so on. Pemberton won’t like it, nor Hayes; but it will calm the fears of a very attached friend who calls here twice daily. You’d never guess him. He is the agent of the Globe Office, where I ‘m insured. Ah, doctor, it was a bright thought of Philanthropy to establish an industrial enterprise that is bound, under heavy recognizances, to be grieved at our death.”

“I must not make you talk, Sir William. I must not encourage you to exert yourself. I ‘ll say good-bye, and look in upon you this afternoon.”

“Am I to have a book? Well; be it so. I I ‘ll sit and muse over the Attorney-General and his hopes.”

“I have got two very interesting miniatures here. I ‘ll leave them with you; you might like to look at them.”

“Miniatures! whose portraits are they?” asked the other, hastily, as he almost snatched them from his hand. “What a miserable juggler! what a stale trick this!” said he, as he opened the case which contained the young man’s picture. “So, sir, you lend yourself to such attempts as these.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Beattie, indignantly.

“Yes, sir, you understand me perfectly. You would do, by a piece of legerdemain, what you have not the courage to attempt openly. These are Tom Lendrick’s children.”

“They are.”

“And this simpering young lady is her mother’s image; pretty, pretty, no doubt; and a little – a shade, perhaps – of espièglerie above what her mother possessed. She was the silliest woman that ever turned a fool’s head. She had the ineffable folly, sir, to believe she could persuade me to forgive my son for having married her; and when I handed her to a seat, – for she was at my knees, – she fainted.”

“Well. It is time to forgive him now. As for her, she is beyond forgiveness, or favor, either,” said Beattie, with more energy than before.

“There is no such trial to a man in a high calling as the temptation it offers him to step beyond it. Take care, sir, that with all your acknowledged ability, this temptation be not too much for you.” The tone and manner in which the old judge delivered these words recalled the justice-seat. “It is an honor to me to have you as my doctor, sir. It would be to disparage my own intelligence to accept you as my confessor.”

“A doctor but discharges half his trust when he fails to warn his patient against the effects of irritability.”

“The man who would presume to minister to my temper or to my nature should be no longer medico of mine. With what intention, sir, did you bring me these miniatures?”

“That you might see two bright and beautiful faces whose owners are bound to you by the strongest ties of blood.”

“Do you know, sir, – have you ever heard, – how their father, by his wilfulness, by his folly, by his heartless denial of my right to influence him, ruined the fortune that cost my life of struggle and labor to create?”

The doctor shook his head, and the other continued: “Then I will tell it to you, sir. It is more than seventeen years to-day when the then Viceroy sent for me, and said, ‘Baron Lendrick, there is no man, after Plunkett, to whom we owe more than to yourself.’ I bowed, and said, ‘I do not accept the qualification, my Lord, even in favor of the distinguished Chancellor. I will not believe myself second to any.’ I need not relate what ensued; the discussion was a long one, – it was also a warm one; but he came back at last to the object of the interview, which was to say that the Prime Minister was willing to recommend my name to her Majesty for the Peerage, – an honor, he was pleased to say, the public would see conferred upon me with approval; and I refused! Yes, sir, I refused what for thirty-odd years had formed the pride and the prize of my existence! I refused it, because I would not that her Majesty’s favor should descend to one so unworthy of it as this fellow, or that his low-born children should inherit a high name of my procuring. I refused, sir, and I told the noble Marquess my reasons. He tried – pretty much as you have tried – to bring me to a more forgiving spirit; but I stopped him by saying, ‘When I hear that your Excellency has invited to your table the scurrilous author of the lampoon against you in the “Satirist,” I will begin to listen to the claims that may be urged on the score of forgiveness; not till then.’”

“I am wrong – very wrong – to let you talk on themes like this; we must keep them for calmer moments.” Beattie laid his finger on the pulse as he spoke, and counted the beats by his watch.

“Well, sir, what says Death? Will he consent to a ‘nolle prosequi,’ or must the cause go on?”

“You are not worse; and even that, after all this excitement, is something. Good-bye now till evening. No books, – no newspapers, remember. Doze; dream; do anything but excite yourself.”

“You are cruel, sir; you cut off all my enjoyments together. You deny me the resources of reading, and you deny me the solace of my wife’s society.” The cutting sarcasm of the last words was shown in the spiteful sparkle of his eye, and the insolent curl of his mouth; and as the doctor retired, the memory of that wicked look haunted him throughout the day.

CHAPTER IV. HOME DIPLOMACIES

“Well, it ‘s done now, Lucy, and it can’t be helped,” said young Lendrick to his sister, as, with an unlighted cigar between his lips, and his hands in the pockets of his shooting-jacket, he walked impatiently up and down the drawing-room. “I ‘m sure if I only suspected you were so strongly against it, I ‘d not have done it.”

“My dear Tom, I’m only against it because I think papa would be so. You know we never see any one here when he is at home, and why should we now, because he is absent?”

“Just for that reason. It’s our only chance, girl.”

“Oh, Tom!”

“Well, I don’t mean that exactly, but I said it to startle you. No, Lucy; but, you see, here’s how the matter stands. I have been three whole days in their company. On Tuesday the young fellow gave me that book of flies and the top-joint of my rod. Yesterday I lunched with them. To-day they pressed me so hard to dine with them that I felt almost rude in persisting to refuse; and it was as much to avoid the awkwardness of the situation as anything else that I asked them up to tea this evening.”

“I’m sure, Tom, if it would give you any pleasure – ”

“Of course it gives me pleasure,” broke he in; “I don’t suspect that fellows of my age like to live like hermits. And whom do I ever see down here? Old Mills and old Tobin, and Larry Day, the dog-breaker. I ask his pardon for putting him last, for he is the best of the three. Girls can stand this sort of nun’s life, but I ‘ll be hanged if it will do for us.”

“And then, Tom,” resumed she, in the same tone, “remember they are both perfect strangers. I doubt if you even know their names.”

“That I do, – the old fellow is Sir Brook something or other. It ‘s not Fogey, but it begins like it; and the other is called Trafford, – Lionel, I think, is his Christian name. A glorious fellow, too; was in the 9th Lancers and in the blues, and is now here with the fifty – th because he went it too hard in the cavalry. He had a horse for the Derby two years ago.” The tone of proud triumph in which he made this announcement seemed to say, Now, all discussion about him may cease. “Not but,” added he, after a pause, “you might like the old fellow best; he has such a world of stories, and he draws so beautifully. The whole time we were in the boat he was sketching something; and he has a book full of odds and ends; a tea-party in China, quail-shooting in Java, a wedding in Candia, – I can’t tell what more; but he ‘s to bring them up here with him.”

“I was thinking, Tom, that it might be as well if you ‘d go down and ask Dr. Mills to come to tea. It would take off some of the awkwardness of our receiving two strangers.”

“But they ‘re not strangers, Lucy; not a bit of it. I call him Trafford, and he calls me Lendrick; and the old cove is the most familiar old fellow I ever met.”

“Have you said anything to Nicholas yet?” asked she, in some eagerness.

“No; and that’s exactly what I want you to do for me. That old bear bullies us all, so that I can’t trust myself to speak to him.”

“Well, don’t go away, and I’ll send for him now;” and she rang the bell as she spoke. A smart-looking lad answered the summons, to whom she said, “Tell Nicholas I want him.”

“Take my advice, Lucy, and merely say there are two gentlemen coming to tea this evening; don’t let the old villain think you are consulting him about it, or asking his advice.”

“I must do it my own way,” said she; “only don’t interrupt. Don’t meddle, – mind that, Tom.” The door opened, and a very short, thick-set old man, dressed in a black coat and waistcoat, and drab breeches and white stockings, with large shoe-buckles in his shoes, entered. His face was large and red, the mouth immensely wide, and the eyes far set from each other, his low forehead being shadowed by a wig of coarse red hair, which moved when he spoke, and seemed almost to possess a sort of independent vitality.

He had been reading when he was summoned, and his spectacles had been pushed up over his forehead, while he still held the county paper in his hand, – a sort of proud protest against being disturbed.

“You heard that Miss Lucy sent for you?” said Tom Lendrick, haughtily, as his eye fell upon the newspaper.

“I did,” was the curt answer, as the old fellow, with a nervous shake of the head, seemed to announce that he was ready for battle.

“What I wanted, Nicholas, was this,” interposed the girl, in a voice of very winning sweetness; “Mr. Tom has invited two gentlemen this evening to tea.”

“To tay!” cried Nicholas, as if the fact staggered all credulity.

“Yes, to tea; and I was thinking if you would go down to the town and get some biscuits, or a sponge-cake, perhaps – whatever, indeed, you thought best; and also beg Dr. Mills to step in, saying that as papa was away – ”

“That you was going to give a ball?”

“No. Not exactly that, Nicholas,” said she, smiling; “but that two friends of my brother’s – ”

“And where did he meet his friends?” cried he, with a marked emphasis on the “friends.” “Two strangers. God knows who or what! Poachers as like as anything else. The ould one might be worse.”

“Enough of this,” said Tom, sternly. “Are you the master here? Go off, sir, and do what Miss Lucy has ordered you.”

“I will not, – the devil a step,” said the old man, who now thrust the paper into a capacious pocket, and struck each hand on a hip. “Is it when the ‘Jidge’ is dying, when the newpapers has a column of the names that ‘s calling to ask after him, you are to be carousing and feastin’ here?”

“Dear Nicholas, there’s no question of feasting. It is simply a cup of tea we mean to give; sorely there’s no carousing in that. And as to grandpapa, papa says that he was certainly better yesterday, and Dr. Beattie has hopes now.”

“I have n’t, then, and I know him better than Dr. Beattie.”

“What a pity they have n’t sent for you for the consultation!” said Tom, ironically.

“And look here, Nicholas,” said Lucy, drawing the old man towards the door of a small room that led off the drawing-room, “we could have tea here; it will look less formal, and give less trouble; and Mears could wait, – he does it very well; and you need n’t be put out at all.” These last words fell to a whisper; but he was beyond reserve, beyond flattery. The last speech of her brother still rankled in his memory, and all that fell upon his ear since that fell unheeded.

“I was with your grandfather, Master Tom,” said the old man, slowly, “twenty-one years before you were born! I carried his bag down to Court the day he defended Neal O’ Gorman for high treason, and I was with him the morning he shot Luke Dillon at Castle Knock; and this I ‘ll say and stand to, there ‘s not a man in Ireland, high or low, knows the Chief Baron better than myself.”

“It must be a great comfort to you both,” said Tom; but his sister had laid her hand on his mouth and made the words unintelligible.

“You’ll say to Mr. Mills, Nicholas,” said she, in her most coaxing way, “that I did not write, because I preferred sending my message by you, who could explain why I particularly wanted him this evening.”

“I’ll go, Miss Lucy, resarving the point, as they say in the law, – resarving the point! because I don’t give in that what you’re doin’ is right; and when the master comes home, I’m not goin’ to defend it.”

“We must bear up under that calamity as well as we can,” said the young man, insolently; but Nicholas never looked towards or seemed to hear him.

“A barn-a-brack is better than a spongecake, because if there ‘s some of it left it does n’t get stale, and one-and-six-pence will be enough; and I suppose you don’t need a lamp?”

“Well, Nicholas, I must say, I think it would be better; and two candles on the small table, and two on the piano.”

“Why don’t you mentiou a fiddler?” said he, bitterly. “If it’s a ball, there ought to be music?”

Unable to control himself longer, young Lendrick wrenched open the sash-door, and walked out into the lawn.

“The devil such a family for temper from this to Bantry!” said Nicholas; “and here’s the company comin’ already, or I ‘m mistaken. There ‘s a boat makin’ for the landing-place with two men in the stern.”

Lucy implored him once more to lose no time on his errand, and hastened away to make some change in her dress to receive the strangers. Meanwhile Tom, having seen the boat, walked down to the shore to meet his friends.