Collected Works of Frances Trollope

by Frances Milton Trollope

  It must be remembered that at this time, Sir Charles Temple knew nothing whatever of this strange-looking Mr. Jenkins, except that he professed to have been formerly on intimate terms With the late Mr. Thorpe. Notwithstanding the improved style of toilet in which he bad appeared at dinner on the preceding day (the only time at which Sir Charles had seen him) there was still something so un-English in his appearance, that the young baronet doubted not but that his intimacy with Mr. Thorpe must have been formed while that gentleman was residing as ambassador at Madrid With this impression, he was considerably puzzled on receiving the above note, to divine what motive he could possibly have for desiring a tête-à-tête interview with him.... till it suddenly occurred to him, that he might possibly intend to offer his hand in marriage to the heiress of Thorpe-Combe.

  “Why not address himself to Major Heathcote?.... Stupid fellow.... The Major is her personal guardian, and not!”.... murmured the baronet, as he thought of the eyes of Florence, turned towards the door of the banqueting-room to look for him, in vain; and his first idea as he sat down to his writing-table, was to refer his threatened visitor to that gentleman. But a second glance at the note he Was about to answer, showed that this would not do, inasmuch as it contained not the slightest hint of the writer’s having anything to say concerning his ward. Constrained therefore, most sorely against his will, to endure this most unwelcome interruption, he named eleven o’clock for it, determined to see his friends in the garden room first, and explain to them the cause of his breaking in, for a hateful half hour at least, upon their new-established mode of spending the morning together.

  Florence was venturing to steal a bouquet from the flowerbeds before the windows, all of which had of late received the most assiduous attention from the old gardener, when Sir Charles approached, holding Mr. Jenkins’ letter in his hand. He thrust it into his pocket that he might assist Florence in her selection; but even this employment, which perhaps he loved better than any other, could not restore the harmony of his spirits, for in a more vexed tone of voice than she had ever heard from him before, he said, “Florence! There is a hateful man coming to call upon me this morning.... and I must go to the house to receive him.” The intelligence was probably not particularly agreeable to the young lady; for there was a scheme afoot for the morning, invented by Algernon, and about to be communicated to Sir Charles, which was to send them far a field along the margin of the stream, to a spot of peculiar beauty discovered by the Major and little Frederic in one of their fishing expeditions.... And there the strawberries were to be taken, and there Sir Charles was to read a play to them (out of hearing of the Major’s fish,) and in short, the scheme thus broken in upon, was intended to be one of great felicity. But Florence behaved a great deal better than Sir Charles; for she made the best of it, and only stopped rather abruptly short in her flower-picking, saying, “Then let us go in to mamma at once, Sir Charles, and tell her so.... for I know she is busy in making preparations.... But be sure to tell Frederic that you will go to-morrow, for his delight at the idea of being our leader, as he calls it, is extreme.”

  All the little party in the banqueting-room looked blank and disappointed when these tidings were announced; but Algernon, after the meditation of a moment, burst into a fit of laughter. “Sir Charles!” he exclaimed, “I am quite sure I know what he is come for.”

  “You guess, Algernon, do you?” replied the baronet, “and so do I too.... It is very absurd, I think; the disparity of age makes it ridiculous, if everything else were perfectly desirable.... which I think is exceedingly doubtful. Besides it would be much more proper that he should speak to your father than to me.”

  Algernon stared at him. “How is it possible,” he said, “that if you have found out what this very agreeable but very distracted gentleman has got into his head, how is it possible, Sir Charles, that you can speak of it so gravely?”

  “I am too cross at this moment, to make a jest of anything,” replied his friend. “Besides, I dare say it is not at all more absurd than a multitude of other propositions for the fair hand of the heiress, which, like all other young ladies so situated, she is pretty sure to receive as long as herself and her acres remain to be disposed of.”

  “But will you be so good, Sir Charles,” said the boy still laughing, and rubbing his hands with the air of being infinitely amused, “will you be so good as to tell me what answer you intend to make to his proposal?”

  “I suppose that must depend upon circumstances, Algernon,” replied Sir Charles, bearing with less philosophy than usual the interruption, which caused him to suspend some important observations which he was addressing to Florence.... “I shall probably refer him to the lady for his answer.”

  “No, no, no, for Heaven’s sake don’t do that!” returned Algernon, bursting anew into immoderate laughter. “I do beg and entreat. Sir Charles, that you will refer him to my mother, and to nobody else. I particularly wish that the affair should be left wholly to her decision, to the which I promise and vow that I will pay the most abject and absolute obedience.”

  “What are you talking about, Algernon?” said the baronet. “What have you to do with Miss Martin Thorpe’s marrying or not marrying Mr. Jenkins?”

  “Mr. Jenkins!” shouted Algernon. “My dear fellow, it is ME Mr. Jenkins wants her to marry, and not himself.” And then, more soberly, he entered into his reasons for so thinking, which were confessed to be perfectly satisfactory, and which occasioned pretty nearly as much mirth to Florence as to himself. But Mrs. Heathcote fully justified the boy’s appeal to her protecting influence; for she exclaimed with such unfeigned horror, “Algernon marry Sophy Martin!” that all Sir Charles’ vexation gave way, and he laughed as heartily as any of them... But though he laughed, he declared himself ten times more angry than before, as it certainly now appeared evident that he was called away, at the expense of the very happiest hours of his existence, to listen to a proposition too preposterously absurd to be treated seriously.

  It was therefore with much less amenity of manner than was usual with him, that Sir Charles Temple rose from his chair to receive the visitor who exactly at eleven o’clock made his appearance in his library.

  Mr. Jenkins on this occasion wore neither skull-cap nor puckered pantaloons; neither had he his richly inlaid smoking apparatus suspended from his button-hole, but his appearance was altogether as much like that of other people as it was probably in his power to make it. He entered however with his hat on his head, and when the servant who had introduced him closed the door of the room, leaving him tète à tête with the baronet, he walked up towards him, and silently stationed himself within two paces of the spot where he stood, without removing it. Sir Charles stared at him, and it was sufficiently evident, perhaps, that his singular mode of presentation caused more surprise than satisfaction.

  “You do not know me then, Sir Charles Temple?” said Mr. Jenkins, at length taking off his hat. “I had fancied that the baldness of my head was the greatest security against my being known. But even with my hat on, you do not know me.”

  “Know you!” exclaimed Sir Charles, his eyes distended as he gazed upon him, very much in the manner that they might have been, had he seen a ghost. “Know you?...! It is impossible!”

  “Impossible that you should know me?”.... returned the other with a smile, “or only impossible that I should be him whom you see I am?”

  “Cornelius Thorpe!.... May I believe my eyes?” said Sir Charles, stretching out both his hands towards him.

  “When backed by my own testimony, I think you may, Temple,” returned the wanderer, receiving them.

  “Then why, for God’s sake tell me why, did you leave your poor father to pine and die in the belief that you were no more?” said the baronet with strong emotion.

  “Sir Charles Temple,” returned the resuscitated Mr. Thorpe, it will certainly be in your power to repeat that hateful, blasting question to me, both by voice and eye, incessantly, unceasingly, without intermission, mi
tigation or mercy, as long as I consider it necessary to remain within your reach. But let me tell you, before you proceed any farther with this sort of discipline, that you can do no more to torture me in this way, than I do myself... And I will, this once, make you the same answer I receive my self from the tormented spirit within. I left my father because he had chafed my spirit more than I chose to bear. I remained away from him, because I would not return to confess that he was right and I wrong; and I fabricated and sent him home the report of my death, because I would rather, had it been needful, have turned that lie into a truth, than have submitted to appear again in his presence, and in that of your honourable self, sir, and the neighbourhood in general, like a flogged cur crouching to ask for pardon. For the which unchristian-like, inhuman, and unfilial pertinacity of resentment, I deserve precisely the degree of punishment I carry about with me. I defy you to make it greater, sir. But as I am returned to England for a few months only, upon what I consider to be business of importance, I could wish that as little demonstration should be made of what I know you feel towards me, as may be; inasmuch as it might interfere materially with what I am about to do, as far, at least, as concerns the manner of it, and can be productive of good to no one.”

  “You will hear no reproaches from me, Mr. Thorpe,” replied Sir Charles, with a sigh of irrepressible regret. “That your return is not the matter of ecstacy that it would have been, had it happened... earlier, I will not pretend to deny; but the beloved son of my dear old friend is too profoundly an object of interest to me, for there to be any danger that I should wilfully torment him. If, on the contrary, there is anything I can do to pleasure or to serve you, rely upon it you may command me freely.”

  “I thank you, Sir Charles Temple,” replied the sallow-faced wanderer, who really looked as if he bore about him the branded mark of his self-inflicted banishment; “and I thank you too, more sincerely perhaps than you will easily believe, for the manner in which you have for years supplied my place near my poor father. Old Arthur Giles has told me much of this, and the feelings created by it make your present gentleness of rebuke doubly precious to me. It would have given me another very bitter pang, bad I found you disposed to treat me harshly.”

  “No one who loved your father as I did, Mr. Thorpe, could act in a manner so much at variance with what his own feelings would have dictated. Tell me, sir, can I be of any use to you? Perhaps you may wish me to undertake the making this most unexpected event known to my ward? It will be rather a severe trial to her young philosophy; but of course it should be done Immediately.”

  “Of course,” replied Mr. Thorpe. “But this is one subject among many, upon which I shall most especially wish to receive your opinion and advice. I have led a life of strange and stirring adventure, Sir Charles, since I left you setting off to take your place in the sixth form at Harrow.... and if I had met the fate which my reckless daring projects deserved, I should probably have returned long ago, as penniless, if not as repentant as the prodigal son in the parable. But Fate willed it otherwise, and I am at this moment known at Madras, by the name of Jenkins, as one of the richest merchants ever established there. I am not married, nor at all likely to be so, and therefore the reclaiming my property here, the right to which I understand my dear father carefully preserved to me, would be matter of little moment, did I not wish, at last, to do what was right, if I could find out the way how. My intimacy with the present Earl of Broughton while at Eton, and the close bond cemented between us afterwards, by our fellowship in many a wild scrape which preceded my departure, were all too long before your time for you to remember much about it... But I knew that with all his wildness, I might trust securely to his discretion if I confided my secret to him, and accordingly I made myself known to him, and him only, upon my first arrival. My purpose was to become acquainted, under the shelter of my incognito, with all my cousins.... to confirm the disposition which my father had made of his estate, if I had reason to believe that.... the trial of possession made.... his choice was such as he would have himself approved; and, if I found any of the others in a situation at all to require my assistance, I intended to gratify myself, and honour his memory by bestowing it. All this might have been done very easily, and without the embarrassment of any discovery at all, had not several circumstances come to my knowledge which incline me to believe that I shall not be acting the conscientious part I really wish to perform, without reclaiming my property here, and altering the disposition of it.”

  Sir Charles Temple listened to all this, with earnest but completely mute attention, and when Mr. Thorpe ceased to speak, and appeared to await a reply, he still continued silent, till the awkwardness of remaining so became too great, and then he said, “Pray, sir, go on.”

  “I would now rather listen to you, my good friend,” replied Mr. Thorpe “I shall be greatly obliged by your freely giving me your opinion respecting all these young people.”

  “Impossible, sir!” said Sir Charles, with an air of resolute decision. “A moment’s reflection will, I am sure, lead you to perceive that whatever my opinions may be on this subject, I should be perfectly inexcusable if I brought them forward; and the more disposed I believe you to be to listen to them, the more averse I ought to become, to making them known. I should feel this to be the case even had your father not commissioned me by his will to watch over the interests of Miss Martin Thorpe, but, as it is, the disclosures you require of me would be most unjustifiable.”

  Mr. Thorpe took a minute or two to consider of this answer, and then, slightly smiling, replied.... “You are quite right, Sir Charles; I will not again harass you by asking for your opinion, nor will I seek to embarrass you by dwelling on the obvious fact, that your declining to give it is the strongest testimony that you could possibly offer. But the same right feeling which prevents your interfering to influence my opinion, will prevent your rendering my acting upon the principles which I hold to be right, more difficult than is necessary. Without entering with you at present, the least in the world, into the question of right and wrong, I must inform you, Sir Charles, that by virtue of the will which renders you, conditionally, trustee and guardian to Sophia Martin, now erroneously called Sophia Martin Thorpe, I exonerate you from this conditional trust and guardianship, by declaring myself the identical Cornelius Thorpe, in default of whose appearance, alone your appointment stands good. Are you satisfied of that identity, Sir Charles Temple? Or shall you deem it necessary, before you resign your trust, to receive the testimony of others to the fact?”

  “No, Mr. Thorpe,” replied the baronet, endeavouring got to return the smile which still rested on the features of the restored heir, “no; the duties vested in me by my friend’s will cannot render it either honest or honourable to deny a fact of which I am perfectly convinced. I feel quite aware that I am no longer Miss Martin’s guardian; but, till she shall have learned this fact from you, I would rather hold no farther conversation with you on the subject.”

  “I will leave you instantly, my dear sir,” replied Mr. Thorpe, still looking rather too obviously amused at the struggle so visible in his companion’s manner and countenance, between the proper regrets of the guardian and the exceeding satisfaction of the man..... “I will not detain you for a moment.... excepting just to say, that I had hoped you would have had the kindness, in your official character, to announce to this young lady the change in her circumstances, occasioned by my return. Am I to understand that you decline this?”

  “Most assuredly, Mr. Thorpe. It is by no means a part of my duty, and I certainly shall not undertake it, by way of a pleasure. Perhaps if you shrink from it yourself, the best person to employ will be Mr. Westley, the lawyer who made the will, and who is in every way a very respectable and proper person.”

  “I may have recourse to him perhaps, if I can hit upon no method of performing the business which shall please me belter. But you must make me one promise, Sir Charles, before I take my leave, and I trust you will not think it unreasonable; as y
ou have declined breaking the news of my return, to your ward, I make a particular point of your not communicating the fact to any one else. Will you promise this?”

  “I shall consider myself obliged to do so, if you require it, Mr. Thorpe; but I confess that I should be well pleased if my coguardian and his family could be exempted from the restriction,” replied the baronet.

  “It is especially on their account that I make it, Temple,” returned his companion, again smiling, and with a certain expressive sort of nod which brought a considerable augmentation of colour to the cheeks of the conscious Sir Charles. He replied, however, with a very good grace, that Mr. Thorpe was quite at liberty to make his own laws upon the subject, and that they should be scrupulously obeyed.

  The two gentlemen then parted; Mr. Thorpe considerably relieved from having so far disembarrassed himself from his incognito; and Sir Charles, flushed and anxious, with his thoughts continually reverting to his much-loved Algernon, and the possible result to him, of this strange discovery, and his conscience vainly tormenting him with reproaches for the very pleasant sensations of which he was conscious, and which he condemned as being false to the interests of his ward. But whatever the amount of blame involved in this hilarity of spirits, the young man had no power of escaping from it, for the more he thought on the subject, the more his pleasant anticipations took form and strength, till by the time he reached the impatiently expectant party in the banqueting-room, his whole aspect was redolent of agitation and joy.

  But here his treason stopped. To look, at that moment, composed and indifferent was beyond his power; but nothing.... not even the eyes and voice of Florence united, accusing him of having something upon his mind which he would not tell her, could induce him to utter a syllable in explanation of the emotion which he had not the skill to hide. Yet he was sore bestead, too, with questionings; and Algernon, in particular, took the liberty of tormenting him with very little moderation; till, at length, in answer to his saying.... “I am sure you have heard news to-day that has pleased you, Sir Charles!.... Why are you such a niggard of it?”.... the young baronet replied with the gravest look be could muster.... How do you know, Algernon, but that I may have recovered some little hopeless arrear of rent, which to a poor over-housed fellow like me might be particularly convenient?”