“Well, now, that’s very extraordinary, in the style in which she has been brought up; yet books and all that are so fashionable now, that it’s very natural,” said Lady Clonbrony.
About this time, Mr. Berryl, Lord Colambre’s Cambridge friend, for whom his lordship had fought the battle of the curricle with Mordicai, came to town. Lord Colambre introduced him to his mother, by whom he was graciously received; for Mr. Berryl was a young gentleman of good figure, good address, good family, heir to a good fortune, and in every respect a fit match for Miss Nugent. Lady Clonbrony thought that it would be wise to secure him for her niece before he should make his appearance in the London world, where mothers and daughters would soon make him feel his own consequence. Mr. Berryl, as Lord Colambre’s intimate friend, was admitted to the private evening parties at Lady Clonbrony’s; and he contributed to render them still more agreeable. His information, his habits of thinking, and his views, were all totally different from Mr. Salisbury’s; and their collision continually struck out that sparkling novelty which pleases peculiarly in conversation. Mr. Berryl’s education, disposition, and tastes, fitted him exactly for the station which he was destined to fill in society — that of a country gentleman; not meaning by that expression a mere eating, drinking, hunting, shooting, ignorant, country squire of the old race, which is now nearly extinct; but a cultivated, enlightened, independent English country gentleman — the happiest, perhaps, of human beings. On the comparative felicity of the town and country life; on the dignity, utility, elegance, and interesting nature of their different occupations, and general scheme of passing their time, Mr. Berryl and Mr. Salisbury had one evening a playful, entertaining, and, perhaps, instructive conversation; each party, at the end, remaining, as frequently happens, of their own opinion. It was observed, that Miss Broadhurst ably and warmly defended Mr. Berryl’s side of the question; and in their views, plans, and estimates of life, there appeared a remarkable and, as Lord Colambre thought, a happy coincidence. When she was at last called upon to give her decisive judgment between a town and a country life, she declared that if she were condemned to the extremes of either, she should prefer a country life, as much as she should prefer Robinson Crusoe’s diary to the journal of the idle man in the Spectator.
“Lord bless me! — Mrs. Broadhurst, do you hear what your daughter is saying?” cried Lady Clonbrony, who, from the card-table, lent an attentive ear to all that was going forward. “Is it possible that Miss Broadhurst, with her fortune, and pretensions, and sense, can really be serious in saying she would be content to live in the country?”
“What’s that you say, child, about living in the country?” said Mrs. Broadhurst.
Miss Broadhurst repeated what she had said.
“Girls always think so who have lived in town,” said Mrs. Broadhurst: “they are always dreaming of sheep and sheep-hooks; but the first winter in the country cures them: a shepherdess in winter is a sad and sorry sort of personage, except at a masquerade.”
“Colambre,” said Lady Clonbrony, “I am sure Miss Broadhurst’s sentiments about town life, and all that, must delight you — For do you know, ma’am, he is always trying to persuade me to give up living in town? Colambre and Miss Broadhurst perfectly agree.”
“Mind your cards, my dear Lady Clonbrony,” interrupted Mrs. Broadhurst, “in pity to your partner. Mr. Pratt has certainly the patience of Job — your ladyship has revoked twice this hand.”
Lady Clonbrony begged a thousand pardons, fixed her eyes, and endeavoured to fix her mind on the cards; but there was something said at the other end of the room, about an estate in Cambridgeshire, which soon distracted her attention again. Mr. Pratt certainly had the patience of Job. She revoked again, and lost the game, though they had four by honours.
As soon as she rose from the card-table, and could speak to Mrs. Broadhurst apart, she communicated her apprehensions. “Seriously, my dear madam,” said she, “I believe I have done very wrong to admit Mr. Berryl just now, though it was on Grace’s account I did it. But, ma’am, I did not know Miss Broadhurst had an estate in Cambridgeshire; their two estates just close to one another, I heard them say — Lord bless me, ma’am! there’s the danger of propinquity indeed!”
“No danger, no danger,” persisted Mrs. Broadhurst. “I know my girl better than you do, begging your ladyship’s pardon. No one thinks less of estates than she does.”
“Well, I only know I heard her talking of them, and earnestly too.”
“Yes, very likely; but don’t you know that girls never think of what they are talking about, or rather never talk of what they are thinking about? And they have always ten times more to say to the man they don’t care for than to him they do.”
“Very extraordinary!” said Lady Clonbrony: “I only hope you are right.”
“I am sure of it,” said Mrs. Broadhurst. “Only let things go on, and mind your cards, I beseech you, to-morrow night better than you did to-night; and you will see that things will turn out just as I prophesied. Lord Colambre will come to a point-blank proposal before the end of the week, and will be accepted, or my name’s not Broadhurst. Why, in plain English, I am clear my girl likes him; and when that’s the case, you know, can you doubt how the thing will end?”
Mrs. Broadhurst was perfectly right in every point of her reasoning but one. From long habit of seeing and considering that such an heiress as her daughter might marry whom she pleased, — from constantly seeing that she was the person to decide and to reject, — Mrs. Broadhurst had literally taken it for granted that every thing was to depend upon her daughter’s inclinations: she was not mistaken, in the present case, in opining that the young lady would not be averse to Lord Colambre, if he came to what she called a point-blank proposal. It really never occurred to Mrs. Broadhurst, that any man whom her daughter was the least inclined to favour, could think of any body else. Quick-sighted in these affairs as the matron thought herself, she saw but one side of the question: blind and dull of comprehension as she thought Lady Clonbrony on this subject, Mrs. Broadhurst was herself so completely blinded by her own prejudices, as to be incapable of discerning the plain thing that was before her eyes; videlicet, that Lord Colambre preferred Grace Nugent. Lord Colambre made no proposal before the end of the week; but this Mrs. Broadhurst attributed to an unexpected occurrence, which prevented things from going on in the train in which they had been proceeding so smoothly. Sir John Berryl, Mr. Berryl’s father, was suddenly seized with a dangerous illness. The news was brought to Mr. Berryl one evening whilst he was at Lady Clonbrony’s. The circumstances of domestic distress which afterwards occurred in the family of his friend, entirely occupied Lord Colambre’s time and attention. All thoughts of love were suspended, and his whole mind was given up to the active services of friendship. The sudden illness of Sir John Berryl spread an alarm among his creditors, which brought to light at once the disorder of his affairs, of which his son had no knowledge or suspicion. Lady Berryl had been a very expensive woman, especially in equipages; and Mordicai, the coachmaker, appeared at this time the foremost and the most inexorable of their creditors. Conscious that the charges in his account were exorbitant, and that they would not be allowed if examined by a court of justice; that it was a debt which only ignorance and extravagance could have in the first instance incurred, swelled afterwards to an amazing amount by interest, and interest upon interest; Mordicai was impatient to obtain payment, whilst Sir John yet lived, or at least to obtain legal security for the whole sum from the heir. Mr. Berryl offered his bond for the amount of the reasonable charges in his account; but this Mordicai absolutely refused, declaring that now he had the power in his own hands, he would use it to obtain the utmost penny of his debt; that he would not let the thing slip through his fingers; that a debtor never yet escaped him, and never should; that a man’s lying upon his deathbed was no excuse to a creditor; that he was not a whiffler to stand upon ceremony about disturbing a gentleman in his last moments; that he was not to be cheated out
of his due by such niceties; that he was prepared to go all lengths the law would allow; for that, as to what people said of him, he did not care a doit—”Cover your face with your hands, if you like it, Mr. Berryl; you may be ashamed for me, but I feel no shame for myself — I am not so weak.” Mordicai’s countenance said more than his words; livid with malice, and with atrocious determination in his eyes, he stood. “Yes, sir,” said he, “you may look at me as you please — it is possible — I am in earnest. Consult what you’ll do now behind my back, or before my face, it comes to the same thing; for nothing will do but my money or your bond, Mr. Berryl. The arrest is made on the person of your father, luckily made while the breath is still in the body — Yes — start forward to strike me, if you dare — Your father, Sir John Berryl, sick or well, is my prisoner.”
Lady Berryl and Mr. Berryl’s sisters, in an agony of grief, rushed into the room.
“It’s all useless,” cried Mordicai, turning his back upon the ladies: “these tricks upon creditors won’t do with me; I’m used to these scenes; I’m not made of such stuff as you think. Leave a gentleman in peace in his last moments — No! he ought not, nor sha’n’t die in peace, if he don’t pay his debts; and if you are all so mighty sorry, ladies, there’s the gentleman you may kneel to: if tenderness is the order of the day, it’s for the son to show it, not me. Ay, now, Mr. Berryl,” cried he, as Mr. Berryl took up the bond to sign it, “you’re beginning to know I’m not a fool to be trifled with. Stop your hand, if you choose it, sir, — it’s all the same to me: the person, or the money, I’ll carry with me out of this house.”
Mr. Berryl signed the bond, and threw it to him.
“There, monster! — quit the house!”
“Monster is not actionable — I wish you had called me knave,” said Mordicai, grinning a horrible smile; and taking up the bond deliberately, returned it to Mr. Berryl: “This paper is worth nothing to me, sir — it is not witnessed.”
Mr. Berryl hastily left the room, and returned with Lord Colambre. Mordicai changed countenance and grew pale, for a moment, at sight of Lord Colambre.
“Well, my lord, since it so happens, I am not sorry that you should be witness to this paper,” said he; “and indeed not sorry that you should witness the whole proceedings; for I trust I shall be able to explain to you my conduct.”
“I do not come here, sir,” interrupted Lord Colambre, “to listen to any explanations of your conduct, which I perfectly understand; — I come to witness a bond for my friend Mr. Berryl, if you think proper to extort from him such a bond.”
“I extort nothing, my lord. Mr. Berryl, it is quite a voluntary act, take notice, on your part; sign or not, witness or not, as you please, gentlemen,” said Mordicai, sticking his hands in his pockets, and recovering his look of black and fixed determination.
“Witness it, witness it, my dear lord,” said Mr. Berryl, looking at his mother and weeping sisters; “witness it, quick!”
“Mr. Berryl must just run over his name again in your presence, my lord, with a dry pen,” said Mordicai, putting the pen into Mr. Berryl’s hand.
“No, sir,” said Lord Colambre, “my friend shall never sign it.”
“As you please, my lord — the bond or the body, before I quit this house,” said Mordicai.
“Neither, sir, shall you have: and you quit this house directly.”
“How! how! — my lord, how’s this?”
“Sir, the arrest you have made is as illegal as it is inhuman.”
“Illegal, my lord!” said Mordicai, startled.
“Illegal, sir. I came into this house at the moment when your bailiff asked and was refused admittance. Afterwards, in the confusion of the family above stairs, he forced open the house-door with an iron bar — I saw him — I am ready to give evidence of the fact. Now proceed at your peril.”
Mordicai, without reply, snatched up his hat, and walked towards the door; but Lord Colambre held the door open — it was immediately at the head of the stairs — and Mordicai, seeing his indignant look and proud form, hesitated to pass; for he had always heard that Irishmen are “quick in the executive part of justice.”
“Pass on, sir,” repeated Lord Colambre, with an air of ineffable contempt: “I am a gentleman — you have nothing to fear!”
Mordicai ran down stairs; Lord Colambre, before he went back into the room, waited to see him and his bailiff out of the house. When Mordicai was fairly at the bottom of the stairs, he turned, and, white with rage, looked up at Lord Colambre.
“Charity begins at home, my lord,” said he. “Look at home — you shall pay for this,” added he, standing half-shielded by the house-door, for Lord Colambre moved forward as he spoke the last words; “and I give you this warning, because I know it will be of no use to you — Your most obedient, my lord.” The house-door closed after him.
“Thank Heaven,” thought Lord Colambre, “that I did not horsewhip that mean wretch! — This warning shall be of use to me. But it is not time to think of that yet.”
Lord Colambre turned from his own affairs to those of his friend, to offer all the assistance and consolation in his power. Sir John Berryl died that night. His daughters, who had lived in the highest style in London, were left totally unprovided for. His widow had mortgaged her jointure. Mr. Berryl had an estate now left to him, but without any income. He could not be so dishonest as to refuse to pay his father’s just debts; he could not let his mother and sisters starve. The scene of distress to which Lord Colambre was witness in this family made a still greater impression upon him than had been made by the warning or the threats of Mordicai. The similarity between the circumstances of his friend’s family and of his own struck him forcibly.
All this evil had arisen from Lady Berryl’s passion for living in London and at watering places. She had made her husband an ABSENTEE — an absentee from his home, his affairs, his duties, and his estate. The sea, the Irish Channel, did not, indeed, flow between him and his estate; but it was of little importance whether the separation was effected by land or water — the consequences, the negligence, the extravagance, were the same.
Of the few people of his age who are capable of benefiting by the experience of others, Lord Colambre was one. “Experience,” as an elegant writer has observed, “is an article that may be borrowed with safety, and is often dearly bought.”
CHAPTER V.
In the mean time, Lady Clonbrony had been occupied with thoughts very different from those which passed in the mind of her son. Though she had never completely recovered from her rheumatic pains, she had become inordinately impatient of confinement to her own house, and weary of those dull evenings at home, which had, in her son’s absence, become insupportable. She told over her visiting tickets regularly twice a day, and gave to every card of invitation a heartfelt sigh. Miss Pratt alarmed her ladyship, by bringing intelligence of some parties given by persons of consequence, to which she was not invited. She feared that she should be forgotten in the world, well knowing how soon the world forgets those they do not see every day and every where. How miserable is the fine lady’s lot, who cannot forget, and who is forgotten by the world in a moment! How much more miserable still is the condition of a would-be fine lady, working her way up in the world with care and pains! By her, every the slightest failure of attention, from persons of rank and fashion, is marked and felt with a jealous anxiety, and with a sense of mortification the most acute — an invitation omitted is a matter of the most serious consequence, not only as it regards the present but the future; for if she be not invited by Lady A, it will lower her in the eyes of Lady B, and of all the ladies in the alphabet. It will form a precedent of the most dangerous and inevitable application. If she have nine invitations, and the tenth be wanting, the nine have no power to make her happy. This was precisely Lady Clonbrony’s case — there was to be a party at Lady St. James’s, for which Lady Clonbrony had no card.
“So ungrateful, so monstrous, of Lady St. James! — What! was the gala so soon f
orgotten, and all the marked attentions paid that night to Lady St. James! — attentions, you know, Pratt, which were looked upon with a jealous eye, and made me enemies enough, I am told, in another quarter! — Of all people, I did not expect to be slighted by Lady St. James!”
Miss Pratt, who was ever ready to undertake the defence of any person who had a title, pleaded, in mitigation of censure that perhaps Lady St. James might not be aware that her ladyship was yet well enough to venture out.
“Oh, my dear Miss Pratt, that cannot be the thing; for, in spite of my rheumatism, which really was bad enough last Sunday, I went on purpose to the Royal Chapel, to show myself in the closet, and knelt close to her ladyship. — And, my dear, we curtsied, and she congratulated me, after church, upon my being abroad again, and was so happy to see me look so well, and all that — Oh! it is something very extraordinary and unaccountable!”
“But, I dare say, a card will come yet,” said Miss Pratt.
Upon this hint, Lady Clonbrony’s hope revived; and, staying her anger, she began to consider how she could manage to get herself invited. Refreshing tickets were left next morning at Lady St. James’s with their corners properly turned up; to do the thing better, separate tickets from herself and Miss Nugent were left for each member of the family; and her civil messages, left with the footmen, extended to the utmost possibility of remainder. It had occurred to her ladyship, that for Miss Somebody, the companion, of whom she had never in her life thought before, she had omitted to leave a card last time, and she now left a note of explanation; she farther, with her rheumatic head and arm out of the coach-window, sat, the wind blowing keen upon her, explaining to the porter and the footman, to discover whether her former tickets had gone safely up to Lady St. James; and on the present occasion, to make assurance doubly sure, she slid handsome expedition money into the servant’s hand—”Sir, you will be sure to remember”—”Oh, certainly, your ladyship.”
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