“Will this evening do as well” said the young man.
“No, indeed!.... Yes, yes, get you gone!” said Mr. Thorpe, looking out upon the sunny landscape.
Sir Charles Temple said nothing in reply, but rang the bell, and carefully placing his gun in a corner drew forward an arm-chair, and seated himself opposite to his old friend, in an attitude of very perfect repose.
It was a boy who now answered the bell; Mrs. Barnes being far too busy even to hear it.
“That’s well, Jem.... You are the man I wanted,” said the young baronet. “Run up to the top of Windmill Hill, will you, and tell Mr. Lloyd, and another young man that you will find there with some dogs, that they must go on without me.... for I am prevented from coming to them by business.”
Jem made a leg, pulled his forelock, and disappeared.
“God bless you, Charles, for all your kindness to an old man!” said Mr. Thorpe, eyeing his companion affectionately; “but I am sorry, you should lose this gaudy day. I’ll answer for it that the wind cuts like a razor, but at your age sunshine makes up for all.”
“Never mind the sunshine, neighbour Thorpe, if I can be of any use or comfort to you,” said Sir Charles, taking up a splendid cat that lay upon the hearth-rug, and making a cradle for it with his arms. “Now let me hear what you have got to say to me.”
“Now is it not odd,” replied the old man, pushing aside his reading desk, “is it not odd, Sir Charles Temple, than an old fellow like me cannot make up his mind to do any single thing of the least importance, without consulting a young fellow like you?.... I must make my will, Charles, I must indeed.... I don’t think I shall live long. That is the job I want to talk about.”
“You do not feel ill, do you, my old friend?” said the young man kindly. “I have seldom seen you look better than you do this morning. I won’t let you take it into your head that you are ill.”
“No, I do not feel ill.... But that letter, Charles, that hateful letter will be the death of me.”
“Make your will, Mr. Thorpe, at any rate,” replied Sir Charles. “It is a duty that no man should neglect, especially when, like you, he has a large unentailed property to dispose of.... But as to that letter, my dear friend, you cannot surely persuade yourself that it conveyed to you any new information? Did you not.... ask yourself the question, did you not feel quite as certain that your son was dead before you received it as you do now?”
“No, Sir Charles, I did not, — certainly, I did not.”
“If so, I am glad you have received it, for it must be better that you should know the’ truth beyond the power of doubting it. But I do not believe that any of those acquainted with the statements which had reached you before, entertained any doubt of the fact. I, for one, have never felt the shadow of a doubt.”
“It may be so.... and the thing is easily accounted for. In no other was there any wish to find it false: my poor erring boy left no one but his father to care much, whether he lived or died... but even I can doubt no longer now. No one but a lawyer, Temple, could have got the fact, and the manner of his death, authenticated as it is here,” continued Mr. Thorpe, drawing forth a letter from his pocket, and, for the second time, putting it into the hands of his young friend. “I am very glad that I made up my mind at last to send out an agent to the East Indies, properly qualified, to set the matter at rest. There can be no hope now, Charles... no shadow of a chance, is there? not even for such a head as mine to work upon!”
“Most assuredly not, sir,” replied Sir Charles, after attentively re-perusing the letter: “the date of his death, the malady which caused it, and the registry of his interment, are all recorded here with a legal precision that can leave no doubt; and I therefore fully agree with you that you did the best thing possible in employing your lawyer upon the subject. His professional sagacity has set the question at rest for ever.”
“Yes.... I think so,” said the old man. Then, after heaving one deep sigh as he replaced the letter in his pocket, he resumed the conversation in a more cheerful tone, saying, Now, then, let us come back to the subject of my will. Is there any hope that you will at last listen to reason, Charles, and let me settle all I have upon you — is there any hope of this?”
“Not the slightest,” replied the young man, laughing.
“You are an obstinate, wrongheaded boy,” resumed Mr. Thorpe, “and very unkind to me, into the bargain. You know perfectly well that I love you better than any one left, and yet you refuse to let me serve you. If your estate were not so completely out at elbows, I would not ask you to let me repair it with mine; but as it is, you are guilty of great folly, to say the very least of it.”
“Were not my estate so out at elbows, I should not have one hundredth part so great an objection to accepting what you offer... But, listen to me for one moment, my dear friend, while I just state the case as it stands between us, and then tell me if, in your heart and conscience, you think the bequest you propose would really serve me. My goodnatured father, and my thoughtless mother, contrived between them to cripple the Temple property so completely, as to leave me with somewhat less than a thousand a year to keep up my beautiful old mansion-house, and enact the part of a long-descended young baronet. My dear mother, who, notwithstanding her extravagance, Hove most devotedly, is, as you know, living upon her jointure of double that sum, at Florence; while I, despite the sage counsel of all my uncles and cousins, persist in not letting my beloved house, and divide my time very happily between living like a hermit at Temple, and a dilettante at Florence, but without ever running in debt, observe, anywhere. Now, the worst that can be said of this by my rich neighbours is, that I am a queer fellow, and that my trumpery little income is quite enough for me.... while from the poor ones I know I shall get a kind word. And now, see how it would be with me, Thorpe, were I to consent to what you propose? One of my whims, as you well know, has been the liking you, and your old-world lore, better than either hunting or horse-racing, and, accordingly, about one half the time I pass in England is spent at your house. But, though you let none of them come near you, there are, I believe, a whole host of nephews and nieces, who, you may depend upon it, have not lost sight of you, though you seem pretty completely to have forgotten them; and I will just beg you to reflect a little upon the dignified figure I should make, if at your death it should be discovered that our misanthropic, but very sentimental intimacy, has ended by my coaxing you to leave me your estate.”
“Nonsense, Charles!... what on earth can it signify what they say?... I wish, with all my soul, I bad never consulted you on the subject, but had settled all I have upon you without your knowledge. I was an idiot for having ever said a word to you about it.”
“I give you my word of honour it would not have answered, Thorpe.... I should have sold the whole property, dead stock and live stock included, my friend Pussy, perhaps, excepted, and divided the money with the most exemplary equality between all your relations, advertising for all who in either England or Wales could claim that honour. So what should I have got, dear neighbour, but disgrace and obloquy in the first instance, and labour and toil in the last?”
“Say no more about it, then.... A wilful man, you know, must have his way.... And this point, too, being settled, pass we to the question who is to have my three thousand a year, if you won’t?” c< The worthiest among your kin, if you know which that is; if not, the nearest,” replied the young counsellor.
“But there are many equally near, Charles, and I positively know little or nothing about any of them.”
“Divide it, then.”
“No, I won’t divide it. Though the acres are neither so beautiful, nor so long-descended as those of Temple, they have belonged to us for the respectable term of two hundred years or so, and they shall not be cut up. I tell you what, Charles, terrible as the bore will be, I must see all these people and judge between them; I must, indeed; it is the only thing left me that can satisfy my conscience, now that you have so cruelly decided against me.”
“It will be a bore, I have no doubt of it, but you are quite right to endure it,” said his friend. “And how is it to be managed? Will you creep out of your hole, my old friend, and make a progress amongst them, or will you invite them all to come and be looked at here?”
“Creep out!.... Do you think that all the nephews and nieces upon earth would make me do that? No, they must all come here, and you must help me to do the honours, Charles, and help me to pass judgment, too; a fitting punishment for your obstinacy. I know you will be bored to death, but you must not forsake me.”
“I won’t, Thorpe; I will help you as well as I can; but you know my mother will expect me to get back to Florence in a month or six weeks.”
“We shall get it all over before that time, I hope,” said the old gentleman, sighing with anticipated weariness. “I began about it last night, before I had taken courage to try you once more... that is to say, I ordered Barnes to have all the rooms cleaned....
There are many of them that I have never entered since my wife died; and I am such an old fool that I want you to go with me into them for the first time.”
“With all my heart.... I shall like exceedingly to see what this wide-spreading old pile may contain; for it is a positive fact that I have never entered more than three rooms; this one, the epitome of all comfort; the library, and the dining-room.”
“None other have had the windows open, I believe, since you took to me, Charles. I will have Barnes in at once, and we will set off on our progress without the delay of a moment.”
The good dame was summoned, and this time was really many minutes before she entered, having various alterations to make in her toilette before it was possible she should appear before her master and the young baronet; at length, however, she came in with a cap and apron which had evidently taken no part in the scouring, and with as much composure of mien as it was possible to assume when arrested in labours so vehement.
“Now, Barnes, then,” said her master, “let us set off. Sir Charles has given up a day’s sport on purpose to see our old rooms. Lead the way, there’s a good woman.”
“Dear me! dear me!” exclaimed the poor housekeeper, greatly distressed; “didn’t you tell me, sir, it should be for to morrow? Don’t you please to remember you did, sir?”
“Did I?.... Perhaps I did, Barnes; but what does that signify? Open the windows at once, and if we see dust and cob webs now, we shall admire you the more if they all disappear hereafter.”
“As to opening the windows, sir, I should be sorry if that had not been done many hours ago.”
“That’s a good woman.... Now, then, your arm, Sir Charles. When I am ready for any great work, I can’t bear to be stopped.” The strangely matched pair of dear friends then set off upon an exploring expedition, which lasted for above two hours. The house was a large one, and in addition to the great object of deciding what it might be necessary to do, in order to make the long-neglected rooms assume an aspect of comfort, Sir Charles found many things to stop him. There were a few very good pictures, which, thanks to Mrs. Barnes, were not at all the worse for their long seclusion; and there were Indian screens, and ivory pagodas, and ebony cabinets in abundance, not to mention a very respectable collection of china monsters, all exceedingly well deserving of admiration, as indicative of the elegant style of decoration which “sixty years since” drained the purses of all persons of taste as effectually as carved oak and heavy gilding do now. But while these venerable objects were exciting the admiration of the young baronet, the owner of them looked round with an air of melancholy that at length relieved itself in words.
“I remember all these queer things as well as if I had turned away from them but yesterday,” said he. “They were, I know, considered to be rather in a by-gone taste twenty years ago, but now I suppose they look to you, Charles, as curiosities that might have made part of the decoration of the ark. Nobody cares for such sort of lumber now.”
“They look venerable, but by no means obsolete,” replied his friend; “and many a fine lady that I know of, would still hold these eastern spoils in great respect — Were there curtains and carpets now in these two handsome rooms, and plenty of wax-lights to show off your magnificent mirrors, there would be little to find fault with, in your receiving rooms, Mr. Thorpe.”
“Carpets and curtains?” — repeated the old gentleman:
“If I don’t forget, there were very rich carpets and curtains here; but I suppose they are all worn out by this time, Mrs. Barnes?”
“Worn out, sir?... What should have worn ’em out? Nobody has ever set eyes upon the carpets or curtains either, except one of the maids and me, twice every year, to see that there was no moths at work upon them. If you had but have waited, sir, till to-morrow morning, you would have seen that nothing has been neglected; by that time everything would have been in its right place,” replied Mrs. Barnes with dignity.
“Egad! that’s good hearing, Charles.... I would rather leave my old woman here a little money as a reward for her care, than spend it in carpets and curtains that might be used for a fortnight, perhaps, at farthest.... And the bed-rooms, Barnes, and the dressing-rooms, and all the rest of it?.... You must forget nothing, or I shall be in a terrible rage, you may depend upon it.”
“I hope nothing will be forgotten, sir. It is a long time certainly since I have been called upon to prepare things for company; but I have not forgotten what, as I may say, I was brought up to, and by the twenty-fourth of next month.... ’twas Christmas day you said, sir, wasn’t it?....”
“The twenty-third, say the twenty-third, Barnes. Never mind money.... only let me know what, you want.... Have you got linen?.... china?.... all, and everything? I cannot undertake to think about it; I can only answer for the money.”‘
“And that of course is the chief thing, sir,” observed the sagacious housekeeper, leading the way up stairs, and occasionally turning round as she proceeded; “but I hope there will be less of that wanted than you expect. As for linen, dear me! there’s enough of the finest and best to last the house for years, if it was as full of company as it could hold all the time; and for the tea and breakfast services, we are quite perfect; but I am afraid with as many as you talk of, sir, we shall want dishes and plates too, for the dinners.” telling her husband one day, when they were dining here, that they must buy a service of plate, because it was so very economical on account of its never breaking, and sure enough there was a service of plate at Temple the day you were christened.... but the dear lady forgot that I paid nothing for mine. My embassy gave me that, and now, I suppose, I shall profit by the enduring qualities she so justly commended.... The plate can be cleaned up, Barnes, and save the buying china — can’t it?”
“Well, if you must, you must, Barnes.... But why won’t the old plate do?.... I remember, Charles, your beautiful mother “Is there to be a plate dinner every day, sir?” said the startled housekeeper. “I didn’t understand that by what you said.”
“And why not?.... It will save money, I tell you.”
“Yes, sir, that’s very true.... Only, we always reckon that a dinner served on plate should be a little more elegant than is usual for family parties that is to he repeated every day. A plain family dinner looks just nothing upon plate.”
“Never mind that, goody Barnes; I don’t mean to starve my kindred. Every soul of them will come expecting to be my heir, and as every soul of them, save one (and God teach me to choose well!) will be disappointed, the least I can do is to feed them well while they remain under inspection.”
* * * * * *
The progress through all the best apartments of the old mansion having been satisfactorily completed, the two gentlemen returned to the usual sitting-room, when Sir Charles Temple, looking out upon the party-coloured lawn, half green, half white, which was still bright in sunshine, ventured to ask if his old friend had any further need of him for the present.
“Yes, to be sure I have,” was Mr. Thorpe’s reply, “I have a
lways need of you;” however, he added, following the direction of the young man’s eye, “I see you are longing to take a draught of the frost with a penny-weight of this sunshine to correct it So go your ways, boy; only I wish you would come back and dine with me. I suppose you know that you are to get for me a carriage, horses, coachman, butler, footman, and groom? Besides writing the invitations, and everything else that does not come under the head of the Barnes’ department.”
“Am I?” said Sir Charles, laughing. “Where am I to get the people from? Having so very little to do with servants myself, I am about the last man you should apply to. Where am I to find these fellows, Thorpe?”
“Where you please, my dear boy, and you may give a year’s wages for a month’s service if you will; but have them I must, that is quite certain; but where to look for them, unless you help me, Heaven only knows. For pity’s sake, Temple, don’t leave me in the lurch!”
“I will do my beet for you, depend upon it,” replied the young man. “As to a coachman, by the way, I know I can suit you. My mother’s old master of the horse, as she used to call Bridges, will be delighted to get such a job; and his son Dick will serve for a groom well enough. I will lend you my Frenchman, if you will, by way of a footman; and the landlord of the Temple Arms, our sometime butler, will resume his style and state in front of your sideboard without making any difficulty about it, if I ask it as a favour.”
“Then ask it as a favour by all means, my dear friend.... Did ever man hit upon so able an adviser?.... I had no idea of your genius. But go on, Charles: where are my coach-horses stabled at present?”
“On the premises of your butler, I suspect. Joe Grimstone has a pair or two of first-rate posters, and they shall be put upon double allowance forthwith.... and now for the carriage. Where shall we find that, neighbour Thorpe? There positively must be a carriage, you know.”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 278