by Ellen Wood
A rush of eager hope lighted Lord Temple’s cheek at the vista thus unexpectedly put before him. It was a way of solving the matter he had never thought of; for he had believed he must be a dear man before he could venture to become a married one. But the colour faded from his face again, faded with reflection. “No, no,” he sadly said, “how is it likely that Mr. Danesbury would give her to me, trammelled as I am? I should blush to ask him.”
“You can but try him,” answered Mr. St. George. “I think you should do that, or give her up. She is not looking well, and this uncertainty, this continued disappointment, is enough to break the spirit of any woman. ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick,’ Lord Temple.”
“How do you know that she is not looking well?” demanded Lord Temple, catching at the words.
“I see that she is not. She and her step-mother accompanied Mr. Danesbury to town, and they are staying at my house.”
“You cold, cruel man! Isabel at hand, and you could quietly keep it to yourself! Is she in now? Do you think she is in now?”
Lord Temple, in his eagerness, had approached close to the lawyer. His breath was hurried, his lips were apart with excitement.
“I can not understand you,” emphatically cried Mr. St. George, as he noticed the signs. “You are evidently deeply attached to Miss Danesbury, yet you will not relinquish your wild habits to obtain her. But my opinion is, that you and Miss Danesbury should not meet, unless things between you can go on more satisfactorily. I tell you, my lord, the engagement ought to cease.”
“Perhaps you wish to prohibit my calling at your house to see her?” haughtily spoke Lord Temple.
“Pardon me, my lord. I hope you will never find me guilty of discourtesy; though I can not shut my eyes to what is right and wrong, especially with regard to the interests of Miss Danesbury.”
“If I could marry!” murmured his lordship. “But it is of no use dwelling upon it We could not live upon air.”
Mr. St. George drew in his lips. “Do you live upon air now, Lord Temple?”
“No; of course I don’t. But — to bring Isabel to an unsuitable home, a home unworthy of her! And you know things have come to such a pitch that the estates must be at nurse.”
“I know they must. But a thousand or fifteen hundred a year can be managed out of them.”
Lord Temple opened his eyes and his mouth. He doubted if he heard a right. “Marry upon that!” he slowly uttered, “why, it would take as much, nearly, for Isabel’s court-dress when she was presented! She should not go a fright, I can tell you, and disgrace her own noble beauty, and the coronet of Temple. And there would be the opera box, and her own carriage and servants, and the resetting of the family diamonds — for they have not been renovated since the time of my grandmother — besides the general expenses, housekeeping, and that. I don’t see that ten thousand a year would go very far toward it all: and you talk of one!”
Mr. St. George, though considerably amused, felt angry. “We are speaking at cross purposes. Lord Temple,” he said, taking out his watch, the lawyers’ hint that a conference is up. “When I spoke of your marrying at once, I thought of your living retired for a time, as a private gentleman. I believe I said so. You, it appears, can only contemplate it in accordance with your rank as a peer. I confess that I see no probability of your being enabled to marry as such either now or later.”
Lord Temple ruminated. “I would give all I am worth to have her,” he said. “What is the smallest income I might ask for her upon, without an insult?”
Mr. St. George had grown as stiff as a poker. “Not any income that I shall suggest, Lord Temple. I have said all I have to say, and it has. not found favor with you: were I to urge it farther, you might deem that I, as a relative of Miss Danesbury, had a design to thrust her upon you.”
“Now you are stupid!” retorted his lordship. “I only wish you could thrust her upon me. I should be too thankful. She is far superior to me, St. George.”
“I think she is,” was Mr. St. George’s reply, as he drew up his little figure, and looked fearlessly in the peer’s face. “Although you are my Lord Viscount Temple, and she is only plain Miss Danesbury, the daughter of Danesbury the iron-master, I have long thought that you were not worthy of her. Now you have the truth.”
Lord Temple played with his watch-chain. “My concern is for her, not for myself. If I were put in a first-floor lodging, or a cottage with two rooms, it would be as good to me as a palace, if she were but with me.”
“Then why need you fear for Isabel? She has not been brought up to the luxuries of high life, and would not miss what she has scarcely been accustomed to.”
“But she would be Lady Temple then.”
“And could wait for her honours. However, do as you think best, my lord.”
A clerk put in his head— “Captain Thomson’s here, sir. He wanted Mr. Serle, but he’ll see you instead. It’s very important, he says.”
“Ask him to wait a minute.”
“I am going,” said Lord Temple. “I expect you will enter this as a double conference, for I have kept you an unconscionable time,” he laughed. ‘‘I have made up my mind to speak to Mr. Danesbury. But about that £3000, St. George. You will not forget to tell Serle?”
“I will tell him. £3000 — it is a large sum. It would have kept your married home for a year or two, if this plan be carried out.”
“I suppose it would,” answered Lord Temple, his brow contracting. “I won’t get into such another mess, but this must be provided for.”
“Was it play?”
Lord Temple nodded.
“I thought you had left off play?”
“You may depend I will leave it off,” fiercely spoke his lordship. “They don’t catch me losing three thousand pounds again. And I had left it off, that’s more; and did not know any thing about losing this. I should not have done it, had I been in my senses.”
“I do not understand you,” said Mr. St. George.
“It was that cursed drink,” returned his lordship.
“Still, I do not understand.”
“Why, it was in St. James’s Street,” explained Lord Temple, kicking the toe of his boot against the fender. “I went in with Anketel, the night before last, three parts gone, for I had been drinking wine freely, and I threw myself on a sofa, and to sleep I went. I declare that is all I remember of it. I no more knew that I woke up and sat down to play than you did, who were not there; and the next morning, when Anketel called upon me, he began blowing me up for playing, when I was not in a state to know one card from another. I was thunderstruck; told him it was a hoax; but he said I should find it no hoax, when I came to pay. And I found I had lost £3000, and had given my I O U for it.”
“Are you sure you gave it? Are you sure they were not hoaxing you, after all?” asked Mr. St George.
“I am sure I gave it. For I would not believe Anketel; and Swallowtail, who holds it, brought it to show me. It was my own writing, plain enough; rather shaky, but still mine.”
“Swallowtail — Swallowtail?” said Mr. St George. Ah! he is much about gambling-houses now. The less you have to do with him the better.”
“I don’t like him, myself; he is as keen as a razor. He is a lawyer, isn’t he?”
“He was,” replied Mr. St. George, emphasizing the second word, “but his practice grew too sharp, and he was struck off the rolls.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it,” carelessly replied Lord Temple. “He has something to do with the establishment in St. James’s Street, I think, for he is always there.”
“Too much to do with it,” muttered the lawyer. “Was it this man who won your money?”
“I suppose so. Or, non-compos as I was, I should hardly have given him an acknowledgment. I have no more recollection of the transaction myself, than the child unborn.”
“But you must surely remember the fact of playing, if you do not remember the details. And you could not give an acknowledgment in your own handwriting witho
ut retaining some consciousness of it”
“I assure you I am totally oblivious of the evening altogether. I have a faint recollection of going into the house, and of seeing Sandlin and Sir Robert Payn, and then, I think, somebody gave me some brandy and water, and I lay down on the sofa to sleep. I have no farther consciousness of any thing, till I woke up next day in my own bed,”
“It is very strange,” exclaimed Mr. St. George.
“So it is,” said his lordship; “but it’s true.”
“Who was in the room when you played?”
“How am I to know? I met Payn just now, and he says he left about three o’clock, with Colonel Neeve and Robert Danesbury. That I was asleep on the sofa then, with no play in me, and Whitehouse and Eden were tossing for sovs. I asked Anketel, yesterday, how on earth he could suffer me to play when in such a state, and he swears I woke up and would play, and there was no preventing me.”
“I don’t like Anketel,” observed Mr. St. George.
“Oh, he is a good fellow enough, in the main; always at one’s beck and call. Well, I don’t get into such another pit. Tell Serle the money must be ready by the 25th, for that is the day I have promised it. Good-morning, St George.”
Lord Temple ascended to his cab, took the reins from his groom, touched his horse, and was whirled away toward Hyde Park Gardens, where Mr. St. George’s residence was situated.
CHAPTER XI.
THE DEMAND.
Not long had Lord Temple left Bedford Row, when Mr. Danesbury and Mr. Serle returned to it. The latter immediately closeted himself with Captain Thomson, and Mr. St George obtained a moment’s conversation with Mr. Danesbury. Mr. Danesbury was much altered: he was beginning to look quite an old man. The courses pursued by his sons could no longer be concealed from him, apart from their expenditure, and they told upon his health and spirits.
“Lord Temple has just driven from here,” observed Mr. St. George. “I expect he is gone to my house to see Isabel, by the pace at which his cab tore from the door. I fancy he will be making you a proposal to-day, sir.”
“Of what nature?” inquired Mr. Danesbury.
“That he may be allowed to take Isabel at once, for better or for worse. He has been waiting all these years for his affairs to be set straight with a miracle, I suppose, but they only get deeper involved.”
“How is that!” said Mr. Danesbury.
“It is his own fault, sir. He spends ten times more than he ought, and makes no attempt at self-denial. But he associates with other men of his rank — which is but natural — and plunges into all their folly and improvidence. And plunge into it he must, he says, as long as he is a bachelor.”
“I do not see the obligation,” returned Mr. Danesbury.
“Neither do I. But it seems he does, or his want of resolution does for him. I told him to-day — for which interference I hope you will not be displeased with me — that he ought to resign Isabel, or else make arrangements so that he could marry her. He was ready to trample on me for hinting at such a thing as resigning her. I believe his attachment is fervent.”
“Yes, I do think that,” acquiesced Mr. Danesbury. “But there is a serious question in the midst of this, Walter. Are these habits of Lord Temple such as will cling to him after marriage?”
“I sincerely believe not. He has no domestic home in which to spend his evenings, and he goes out with those who have twenty times his rent-roll. Once let him be removed from the wild lot who beset him now, give his naturally good qualities fair play, and he might become an ornament to his order. Isabel’s daily influence would do much. I told him they might live upon a thousand a year, while the estates were righting themselves.”
“What did he say?”
“Stared at me as though I had lost my senses, and wondered what would become of Isabel, restricted to a thousand a year. His notions extended to court-dresses for her, and reset diamonds, and opera-boxes, and gilded carriages, and cauliflowered footmen. In short, he has as much notion of economy as my eldest son and heir has of a whipping, which his mother won’t give him, or let any body else. However, he came to the conclusion at last, that if you would entertain the proposal, and Isabel not think it ‘an insult,’ he should go wild with gratitude at its being adopted.”
“If Isabel were restricted to a thousand a year all her life, she would not be much worse off than she has been,” smiled Mr. Danesbury.
“I told him that, or something equivalent to it; but he has got a crotchet in his head, that though Miss Danesbury may pleasantly ruralize upon a thousand a year, such a calamity would be entirely out of place for the Lady Temple. He but judges according to the prejudices of his rank, sir.”
“Isabel shall not marry without a settlement,” said Mr. Danesbury.
“Most certainly not. That can be effected. A small one. And — pardon me — should Isabel inherit any thing from you, it should also be settled on her.”
Mr. Danesbury sighed deeply. “Isabel shall not suffer, whatever betide the rest of us,” he said. “I set aside long ago, in. my own determination, £10,000 as my daughter’s marriage portion, and she shall have it on her wedding-day; but some of my sons are giving me great anxiety. I have serious calls on my purse now.”
“I am sorry to hear it, sir.”
“It appears to me that young men nowadays think of little besides pleasure and reprehensible pursuits. It was not so when I was young.”
“These boys of yours have been less fortunately situated than you were, sir. You were sheltered in your paternal home and did not leave it; they have been cast abroad in this city of evil without the protection of one. Rely upon it, if we would keep a young man steady, we must give him a home that he can find pleasure in. We must compass him about and shield him, as it were, with home influence. The want of this has been Lord Temple’s bane: he said so this very day.”
“There is a great deal in it,” observed Mr. Danesbury.
“There is every thing in it,” warmly returned Mr. St. George, “provide a young man has good principles. I believe that many a mother, if impressed with the influence it must exercise for good or for evil, would make home pleasanter than she does for her growing sons. A bright, pleasant evening home, where he will find amusement, merry society, and loving faces, is a young man’s greatest safeguard.”
A pang shot across the heart of Mr. Danesbury. His wife had not made home pleasant to their boys. “I can but hope and pray,” he said aloud as he rose, “that as my sons grow in years, they may grow in prudence and wisdom, and redeem what they are doing now.”
“Are you going out again, sir?”
“To see William. I have not seen him yet”
“He returns home in autumn, I hear, for good.”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Danesbury, “he joins us in the Works.”
“You will ask them all three to come and dine with you to-day, sir. Mrs. St. George is expecting them.”
“Thank you. I will tell William; but the question is, where I am to pick up Robert and Lionel. We have not long left Robert, but he may not be to be found again. Lionel I have called on twice, but have not seen him.”
Mr. Danesbury was leaving the room when Mr. Serle came in, having got rid of Captain Thomson.
“Danesbury, my wife says you must all dine with us to-day.”
“We are engaged to Mrs. St George.”
“That’s not fair,” returned Mr. Serle; “Charlotte had you last time. You must promise us for to-morrow.”
“I hope to get this business arranged to-morrow, in time to go back to Eastborough.”
“Not a bit of it,” laughed Mr. Serle. “You don’t know Knighton and Jukes, if you think they are going to get over business in that style. They are the slowest practitioners in London.”
Mr. Danesbury went out Mr. Serle stood with his back to the fireplace for a moment before returning to his own room, while his junior partner sat down to his writing-table.
“What a scamp that Robert Danesbury is getting
!” uttered Mr. Serle.
Mr. St George looked up.
“He has been signing bills wholesale. Must have done it when he was drunk, I say. He will be got out of this mess, but Danesbury will have future trouble with him, as sure as my name’s Mat Serle.”
“Does he drink much?”
“He must. His looks and his shaking hands bespeak it. Besides, he could not be squandering away the money that he is, unless drink played its full share. I smelled it strong this morning when we were speaking to him; I don’t know whether Danesbury did. I think the very demon of mischief possesses the young men. There’s Charley got into a scrape at college through some drunken bout, and a whole lot of money and worry it will take to get him straight.”
“Your son Charles do you mean?” questioned St. George in surprise.
“He, and no other. I had letters from Oxford this morning, one from Mr. Charles, and one from his tutor. A pretty parson he’ll make! And the companions that help him out, pretty parsons they will make! I wonder the heads of the University don’t find means to stop these, their embryo clergymen, from making animals of themselves. They ought. The colleges should be models of morality”
“There is as much drinking going on at Oxford and Cambridge as there is elsewhere,” observed Mr. St. George.
“One may slave and slave forever to little purpose,” irritably continued the senior partner. “ There’s Danesbury, working and laying by in his line; and I am doing the same in mine. Where’s the use? If our children are to spend faster than we gain, where’s the profit?”
Mr. St. George was biting the end of a pen, listening, and ruminating. “I have begun to think lately,” he observed, “that the most, fortunate position a young man can be placed in, is to have no expectations; no money to depend on; nothing but his own exertions. I had nothing else, and the knowledge kept me steady, and I got on. The Danesburys think that they have their father’s money to fly to, your sons think the same: perhaps, if they knew there was nothing, they would lead different lives.”