The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly. Lever Charles James
Lordship winced a little at the thought of such a liberty, even for a disguise, but he was now engaged with the note, and read on without speaking.
“Nothing could be more courteous, certainly,” said he, folding it up, and laying it beside him on the table. “They invite me over to – what’s the name? – Castello, and promise me perfect liberty as regards my time. ‘To make the place my headquarters,’ as he says. Who are these Bramleighs? You know every one, Cutbill; who are they?”
“Bramleigh and Underwood are bankers, very old established firm. Old Bramleigh was a brewer, at Slough; George the Third never would drink any other stout than Bramleigh’s. There was a large silver flagon, called the ‘King’s Quaigh,’ always brought out when his Majesty rode by, and very vain old Bramleigh used to be of it, though I don’t think it figures now on the son’s sideboard, – they have leased the brewery.”
“Oh, they have leased the brewery, have they?”
“That they have; the present man got himself made Colonel of militia, and meant to be a county member, and he might, too, if he had n’t been in too great a hurry about it; but county people won’t stand being carried by assault. Then they made other mistakes; tried it on with the Liberals, in a shire where everything that called itself gentleman was Tory; in fact, they plunged from one hole into another, till they regularly swamped themselves; and as their house held a large mortgage on these estates in Ireland, they paid off the other incumbrances and have come to live here. I know the whole story, for it was an old friend of mine who made the plans for restoring the mansion.”
“I suspect that the men in your profession, Cutbill, know as much of the private history of English families as any in the land?”
“More, my Lord; far more even than the solicitors, for people suspect the solicitors, and they never suspect us. We are detectives in plain clothes.”
The pleasant chuckle with which Mr. Cutbill finished his speech was not responded to by his Lordship, who felt that the other should have accepted his compliment, without any attempt on his own part to “cap” it.
“How long do you imagine I may be detained here, Cutbill?” asked he, after a pause.
“Let us say a week, my Lord, or ten days at furthest. We ought certainly to see that new pit opened, before you leave.”
“In that case I may as well accept this invitation. I can bear a little boredom if they have only a good cook. Do you suppose they have a good cook?”
“The agent, Jos Harding, told me they had a Frenchman, and that the house is splendidly got up.”
“What’s to be done with you, Cutbill, eh?”
“I am at your Lordship’s orders,” said he, with a very quiet composure.
“You have nothing to do over at that place just now? – I mean at the mine.”
“No, my Lord. Till Pollard makes his report, I have nothing to call me over there.”
“And here, I take it, we have seen everything,” and he gave a very hopeless look through the little window as he spoke.
“There it is, my Lord,” said Cutbill, taking up the colored picture of the pier, with its busy crowds, and its bustling porters. “There it is!”
“I should say, Cutbill, there it is not!” observed the other, bitterly. “Anything more unlike the reality is hard to conceive.”
“Few things are as unlike a cornet in the Life Guards as a child in a perambulator – ”
“Very well, all that,” interrupted Lord Culduff, impatiently. “I know that sort of argument perfectly. I have been pestered with the acorn, or, rather, with the unborn forests in the heart of the acorn, for many a day. Let us get a stride in advance of these platitudes. Is the whole thing like this?” and he threw the drawing across the table contemptuously as he spoke. “Is it all of this pattern, eh?”
“In one sense it is very like,” said the other, with a greater amount of decision in his tone than usual.
“In which case, then, the sooner we abandon it the better,” said Lord Culduff, rising, and standing with his back to the fire, his head high, and his look intensely haughty.
“It is not for me to dictate to your Lordship, – I could never presume to do so, – but certainly it is not every one in Great Britain who could reconcile himself to relinquish one of the largest sources of wealth in the kingdom. Taking the lowest estimate of Carrick Nuish mine alone, – and when I say the lowest, I mean throwing the whole thing into a company of shareholders and neither working nor risking a shilling yourself, – you may put from twenty to five-and-twenty thousand pounds into your pocket within a twelvemonth.”
“Who will guarantee that, Cutbill?” said Lord Culduff, with a faint smile.
“I am ready myself to do so, provided my counsels be strictly followed. I will do so, with my whole professional reputation.”
“I am charmed to hear you say so. It is a very gratifying piece of news for me. You feel, therefore, certain that we have struck coal?”
“My Lord, when a young man enters life from one of the universities, with a high reputation for ability, he can go a long way, – if he only be prudent, – living on his capital. It is the same thing in a great industrial enterprise; you must start at speed, and with a high pressure, – get way on you, as the sailors say, – and you will skim along for half a mile after the steam is off.”
“I come back to my former question. Have we found coal?”
“I hope so. I trust we have. Indeed, there is every reason to say we have found coal. What we need most at this moment is a man like that gentleman whose note is on the table, – a large capitalist, a great City name. Let him associate himself in the project, and success is as certain as that we stand here.”
“But you have just told me he has given up his business life, – retired from affairs altogether.”
“My Lord, these men never give up. They buy estates, they can live at Rome or Paris, and take a chateau at Cannes, and try to forget Mincing Lane and the rest of it; but if you watch them, you ‘ll see it’s the money article in the ‘Times’ they read before the leader. They have but one barometer for everything that happens in Europe, – how are the exchanges? and they are just as greedy of a good thing as on any morning they hurried down to the City in a hansom to buy in or sell out. See if I ‘m not right. Just throw out a hint, no more, that you ‘d like a word of advice from Colonel Bramleigh about your project; say it’s a large thing, – too large for an individual to cope with, – that you are yourself the least possible of a business man, being always engaged in very different occupations, – and ask what course he would counsel you to take.”
“I might show him these drawings, – these colored plans.”
“Well, indeed, my Lord,” said Cutbill, brushing his mouth with his hand, to hide a smile of malicious drollery, “I’d say I’d not show him the plans. The pictorial rarely appeals to men of his stamp. It’s the multiplication-table they like, and if all the world were like them one would never throw poetry into a project.”
“You ‘ll have to come with me, Cutbill; I see that,” said his Lordship, reflectingly.
“My Lord, I am completely at your orders.”
“Yes; this is a sort of negotiation you will conduct better than myself. I am not conversant with this sort of thing, nor the men who deal in them. A great treaty, a question of boundary, a royal marriage, – any of these would find me ready and prepared, but with the diplomacy of dividends, I own myself little acquainted. You must come with me.” Cutbill bowed in acquiescence, and was silent.
CHAPTER VII. AT LUNCHEON
As the family at the great house were gathered together at luncheon on the day after the events we have just recorded, Lord Culduff’s answer to Temple Bramleigh’s note was fully and freely discussed.
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