The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly. Lever Charles James
resting; “I wanted to tell – no, I wanted to ask you if the old relations between us are to be considered as bygone, – if I am to go away from this to-day believing that all I have ever said to you, all that you heard – for you did hear me, Julia – ”
“Julia!” repeated she, in mock amazement. “What liberty is this, sir?” and she almost laughed out as she spoke.
“I knew well how it would be,” said he, angrily. “There is a heartless levity in your nature that nothing represses. I asked you to be serious for one brief instant.”
“And you shall find that I can,” said she, quickly. “If I have not been more so hitherto, it has been in mercy to yourself.”
“In mercy to me? To me! What do you mean?”
“Simply this. You came here to give me a lesson this morning. But it was at your sister’s suggestion. It was her criticism that prompted you to the task. I read it all. I saw how ill prepared you were. You have mistaken some things, forgotten others; and, in fact, you showed me that you were far more anxious I should exculpate myself than that you yourself should be the victor. It was for this reason that I was really annoyed, – seriously annoyed, at what you said to me; and I called in what you are so polite as to style my ‘levity’ to help me through my difficulty. Now, however, you have made me serious enough; and it is in this mood I say, Don’t charge yourself another time with such a mission. Reprove whatever you like, but let it come from yourself. Don’t think light-heartedness – I ‘ll not say levity – bad in morals, because it may be bad in taste. There’s a lesson for you, sir.” And she held out her hand as if in reconciliation.
“But you have n’t answered my question, Julia,” said he, tremulously.
“And what was your question?”
“I asked you if the past – if all that had taken place between us – was to be now forgotten?”
“I declare here is George,” said she, bounding towards the window and opening it. “What a splendid fish, George! Did you take it yourself?”
“Yes, and he cost me the top joint of my rod; and I’d have lost him after all if Lafferty had not waded out and landed him. I ‘m between two minds, Julia, whether I ‘ll send him up to the Bramleighs.”
She put her finger to her lip to impose caution, and said, “The admiral,” – the nickname by which Jack was known – “is here.”
“All right,” replied L’Estrange. “We’ll try and keep him for dinner, and eat the fish at home.” He entered as he spoke. “Where ‘s Jack. Did n’t you say he was here?”
“So he was when I spoke. He must have slipped away without my seeing it. He is really gone.”
“I hear he is gazetted; appointed to some ship on a foreign station. Did he tell you of it?”
“Not a word. Indeed, he had little time, for we did nothing but squabble since he came in.”
“It was Harding told me. He said that Jack did not seem overjoyed at his good luck; and declared that he was not quite sure he would accept it.”
“Indeed,” said she, thoughtfully.
“That’s not the only news. Colonel Bramleigh was summoned to town by a telegram this morning, but what about I did n’t hear. If Harding knew – and I ‘m not sure that he did – he was too discreet to tell. But I am not at the end of my tidings. It seems they have discovered coal on Lord Culduff’s estate, and a great share company is going to be formed, and untold wealth to be distributed amongst the subscribers.”
“I wonder why Jack did not tell me he was going away?” said she.
“Perhaps he does not intend to go; perhaps the Colonel has gone up to try and get something better for him; perhaps – ”
“Any perhaps will do, George,” said she, like one willing to change the theme. “What do you say to my decorations? Have you no compliments to make me on my exquisite taste?”
“Harding certainly thinks well of it,” said he, not heeding her question.
“Thinks well of what, George?”
“He’s a shrewd fellow,” continued he; “and if he deems the investment good enough to venture his own money in, I suspect, Ju, we might risk ours.”
“I wish you would tell me what you are talking about; for all this is a perfect riddle to me.”
“It ‘s about vesting your two thousand pounds, Julia, which now return about seventy pounds a year, in the coal speculation. That’s what I am thinking of. Harding says, that taking a very low estimate of the success, there ought to be a profit on the shares of fifteen per cent. In fact, he said he wouldn’t go into it himself for less.”
“Why, George, why did he say this? Is there anything wrong or immoral about coal?”
“Try and be serious for one moment, Ju,” said he, with a slight touch of irritation in his voice. “What Harding evidently meant was, that a speculative enterprise was not to be deemed good if it yielded less. These shrewd men, I believe, never lay out their money without large profit.”
“And, my dear George, why come and consult me about these things? Can you imagine more hopeless ignorance than mine must be on all such questions?”
“You can understand that a sum of money yielding three hundred a year is more profitably employed than when it only returned seventy.”
“Yes; I think my intelligence can rise to that height.”
“And you can estimate, also, what increase of comfort we should have if our present income were to be more than doubled – which it would be in this way.”
“I’d deem it positive affluence, George.”
“That’s all I want you to comprehend. The next question is to get Vickars to consent; he is the surviving trustee, and you’ll have to write to him, Ju. It will come better from you than me, and say – what you can say with a safe conscience – that we are miserably poor, and that, though we pinch and save in every way we can, there’s no reaching the end of the year without a deficit in the budget.”
“I used that unlucky phrase once before, George, and he replied, ‘Why don’t you cut down the estimates?’”
“I know he did. The old curmudgeon meant I should sell Nora, and he has a son, a gentleman commoner at Cambridge, that spends more in wine-parties than our whole income.”
“But it ‘s his own, George. It is not our money he is wasting.”
“Of course it is not; but does that exempt him from all comment? Not that it matters to us, however,” added he, in a lighter tone. “Sit down, and try what you can do with the old fellow. You used to be a great pet of his once on a time.”
“Yes, he went so far as to say that if I had even twenty thousand pounds, he did n’t know a girl he ‘d rather have for a daughter-in-law.”
“He did n’t tell you that, Ju?” said L’Estrange, growing almost purple with shame and rage together.
“I pledge you my word he said it.”
“And what did you say? What did you do?”
“I wiped my eyes with my handkerchief, and told him it was for the first time in my life I felt the misery of being poor.”
“And I wager that you burst out laughing.”
“I did, George. I laughed till my sides ached. I laughed till he rushed out of the room in a fit of passion, and I declare, I don’t think he ever spoke ten words to me after.”
“This gives me scant hope of your chance of success with him.”
“I don’t know, George. All this happened ten months ago, when he came down here for the snipe-shooting. He may have forgiven, or better still, forgotten it. In any case, tell me exactly what I ‘m to write, and I ‘ll see what I can do with him.”
“You’re