Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.. Lever Charles James
you, sir, there is more courage in submitting one’s self to the nature of another than in facing a battery.”
Sir Brook grasped the parson’s hand and shook it cordially. The action spoke more than any words. “And the brother, doctor, – what say you of the brother?” whispered he.
“One of those that the old adage says ‘either makes a spoon or spoils the horn.’ That ‘s Master Tom there.”
Low as the words were uttered, they caught the sharp ears of him they spoke of, and with a laughing eye he cried out, “What ‘s that evil prediction you ‘re uttering about me, doctor?”
“I am just telling Sir Brook here that it’s pure head or tail how you turn out. There’s stuff in you to make a hero, but it’s just as likely you ‘ll stop short at a highwayman.”
“I think I could guess which of the two would best suit the age we live in,” said Tom, gayly. “Are we to have another bottle of that Madeira, for I suspect I see the doctor putting up the corkscrew?”
“You are to have no more wine than what’s before you till you land me at the quay of Killaloe. When temperance means safety as well as forbearance, it’s one of the first of virtues.”
The vicar, indeed, soon grew impatient to depart. Fine as the evening was then, it might change. There was a feeling, too, not of damp, but chilliness; at all events, he was averse to being on the water late; and as he was the great promoter of these little convivial gatherings, his word was law.
It is not easy to explain how it happened that Trafford sat beside Lucy. Perhaps the trim of the boat required it; certainly, however, nothing required that the vicar, who sat next Lucy on the other side, should fall fast asleep almost as soon as he set foot on board. Meanwhile Sir Brook and Tom had engaged in an animated discussion as to the possibility of settling in Ireland as a man settles in some lone island in the Pacific, teaching the natives a few of the needs of civilization and picking up a few convenient ways of theirs in turn, Sir Brook warming with the theme so far as to exclaim at last, “If I only had a few of those thousands left me which I lost, squandered, or gave away, I ‘d try the scheme, and you should be my lieutenant, Tom.”
It was one of those projects, very pleasant in their way, where men can mingle the serious with the ludicrous, where actual wisdom may go hand in hand with downright absurdity; and so did they both understand it, mingling, the very sagest reflections with projects the wildest and most eccentric. Their life, as they sketched it, was to be almost savage in freedom, untrammelled by all the tiresome conventionalities of the outer world, and at the same time offering such an example of contentedness and comfort as to shame the condition of all without the Pale.
They agreed that the vicar must join them; he should be their Bishop. He might grumble a little at first about the want of hot plates or finger-glasses, but he would soon fall into their ways, and some native squaw would console him for the loss of Mrs. Brennan’s housekeeping gifts.
And Trafford and Lucy all this time, – what did they talk of? Did they, too, imagine a future and plan out a life-road in company? Far too timid for that, – they lingered over the past, each asking some trait of the other’s childhood, eager to hear any little incident which might mark character or indicate temper. And at last they came down to the present, – to the very hour they lived in, and laughingly wondered at the intimacy that had grown up between them. “Only twelve days to-morrow since we first met,” said Lucy, and her color rose as she said it, “and here we are talking away as if – as if – ”
“As if what?” cried he, only by an effort suppressing her name as it rose to his lips.
“As if we knew each other for years. To me it seems the strangest thing in the world, – I who have never had friendships or companionships. To you, I have no doubt, it is common enough.”
“But it is not,” cried he, eagerly. “Such fortune never befell me before. I have gone a good deal into life, – seen scores of people in country-houses and the like; but I never met any one before I could speak to of myself, – I mean, that I had courage to tell – not that, exactly – but that I wanted them to know I was n’t so bad a fellow – so reckless or so heartless as people thought me.”
“And is that the character you bear?” said she, with, though not visible to him, a faint smile on her mouth.
“I think it’s what my family would say of me, – I mean now, for once on a time I was a favorite at home.”
“And why are you not still?”
“Because I was extravagant; because I went into debt; because I got very easily into scrapes, and very badly out of them, – not dishonorably, mind; the scrapes I speak of were money troubles, and they brought me into collision with my governor. That was how it came about I was sent over here. They meant as a punishment what has turned out the greatest happiness of my life.”
“How cold the water is!” said Lucy, as, taking off her glove, she suffered her hand to dip in the water beside the boat.
“Deliciously cold,” said he, as, plunging in his hand, he managed, as though by accident, to touch hers. She drew it rapidly away, however, and then, to prevent the conversation returning to its former channel, said aloud: “What are you laughing over so heartily, Sir Brook? You and Tom appear to have fallen upon a mine of drollery. Do share it with us.”
“You shall hear it all one of these days, Lucy. Jog the doctor’s arm now and wake him up, for I see the lights at the boat-house, and we shall soon be on shore.”
“And sorry I am for it,” muttered Trafford, in a whisper; “I wish this night could be drawn out to years.”
CHAPTER VI. WAITING ON
On the sixth day after Dr. Lendrick’s arrival in Dublin – a fruitless journey so far as any hope of reconciliation was concerned – he resolved to return home. His friend Beattie, however, induced him to delay his departure to the-next day, clinging to some small hope from a few words-that had dropped from Sir William on that same morning. “Let me see you to-night, doctor; I have a note to show you which I could not to-day with all these people about me.” Now, the people in question resolved themselves into one person, Lady Lendrick, who indeed bustled into the room and out of it, slammed doors and upset chairs in a fashion that might well have excused the exaggeration that converted her into a noun of multitude. A very warm altercation had occurred, too, in the doctor’s presence with reference to some letter from India, which Lady Lendrick was urging Sir William to reply to, but which he firmly declared he would not answer.
“How I am to treat a man subject to such attacks of temper, so easily provoked, and so incessantly irritated, is not clear to me. At all events I will see him to-night, and hear what he has to say to me. I am sure it has no concern with this letter from India.” With these words Beattie induced his friend to defer his journey for another day.
It was a long and anxious day to poor Lendrick. It was not alone that he had to suffer the bitter disappointment of all his hopes of being received by his father and admitted to some gleam of future favor, but he had discovered that certain debts which he had believed long settled by the judge were still outstanding against him, Lady Lendrick having interfered to prevent their payment, while she assured the creditors that if they had patience Dr. Lendrick would one day or other be in a position to acquit them. Between two and three thousand pounds thus hung over him of indebtedness above all his calculations, and equally above all his ability to meet.
“We thought you knew all this, Dr. Lendrick,” said Mr. Hack, Sir William’s agent; “we imagined you were a party to the arrangement, understanding that you were reluctant to bring these debts under the Chief Baron’s eyes, being moneys lent to your wife’s relations.”
“I believed that they were paid,” was all his reply, for the story was a painful one of trust betrayed and confidence abused, and he did not desire to revive it. He had often been told that his stepmother was the real obstacle to all hope of reconciliation with his father, but that she had pushed her enmity to him to the extent of his ruin was more than he was prepared for. They had never met, but at one time letters had frequently passed