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THE THREE BROTHERS. Complete
THE THREE BROTHERS.
VOLUME I.
THE THREE BROTHERS.
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT,
AUTHOR OF
‘CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,’
‘SALEM CHAPEL,’ ‘THE MINISTER’S WIFE,’
ETC. ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1870.
_The Right of Translation is Reserved._
LONDON:
STRANGEWAYS AND WALDEN, PRINTERS,
28 Castle St. Leicester Sq.
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
PAGE
I. THEIR FATHER 1
II. THE WILL 17
III. THE NEW CAREER 32
IV. THE ELDEST SON 49
V. THE MAGICIAN’S CAVE 66
VI. THE WORKING OF THE SPELL 86
VII. PUT TO THE TOUCH 103
VIII. MRS. TRACY’S I. O. U. 120
IX. BEN’S REWARD 134
X. THE LAST INTERVIEW 152
XI. MRS. BARTON’S LITTLE BILL 161
XII. MILLICENT’S NEW START 179
XIII. REACTION 188
XIV. MARY’S OPINION 197
XV. KENSINGTON GORE 218
XVI. WELBY, R.A. 232
XVII. THE PADRONA 248
XVIII. THE TEA-TABLE 264
XIX. CHARLOTTE STREET, FITZROY SQUARE 279
XX. LAURIE’S WORK 297
XXI. WHAT THEY THOUGHT OF IT IN THE SQUARE 316
THE THREE BROTHERS.
CHAPTER I.
THEIR FATHER.
The reason why Mr. Renton’s sons were sent out into the world in the
humble manner, and with the results we are about to record, must be
first told, in order that their history may be comprehensible to the
reader. Had they been a poor man’s sons no explanation would have been
necessary; but their father was anything but a poor man. The family was
one of those exceptional families which add active exertion to
hereditary endowments. Though the Rentons had been well-known people in
Berks for two or three centuries, it had almost been a family tradition
that each successive heir, instead of resting content with the good
things Providence had given him, should add by his own efforts to the
family store. There had been pirates among them in Elizabeth’s time.
They had made money when everybody else lost money in the time of the
‘South Sea.’ Mr. Renton’s father had gone to India young, and had
returned, what was then called, a ‘Nabob.’ Mr. Renton himself was sent
off in his turn to Calcutta, as remorselessly as though he had not been
the heir to heaven knows how many thousands a-year; and he too had
increased the thousands. There was not a prettier estate nor a more
commodious house in the whole county than Renton Manor. The town-house
was in Berkeley Square. The family had everything handsome about them,
and veiled their bonnet to none. Mr. Renton was a man who esteemed
wealth as a great power; but he esteemed energy still more, and placed
it high above all other qualities. As he is just about to die, and
cannot have time to speak for himself in these pages, we may be
permitted to describe a personage so important to this history. He was a
spare, middle-sized man, with a singular watchfulness and animation in
his looks; his foot springy and light; his sight, and hearing, and all
his senses, unusually keen;--a man always on the alert, body and mind,
yet not incapable of repose. Restless was not an epithet you could apply
to him. A kind of vigilant, quiet readiness and promptitude breathed out
from him. He would have sooner died than have taken an unfair advantage
over any one; but he was ready to seize upon any and every advantage
which was fair and lawful, spying it out with the eyes of an eagle, and
coming down upon it with the spring of a giant. Twice, or rather let us
say four times in his life he had departed from the traditions of the
Rentons. Instead of the notable, capable woman whom they had been wont
to choose, and who had helped to make the family what it was, he had
married a pretty, useless wife, for no better reason than that he loved
her. And partly under her influence, partly by reason of a certain
languor and inclination towards personal ease which had crept over him,
he had been--as he sometimes felt--basely neglectful of the best
interests of his sons. The eldest, Ben, had not been sent to India at
sixteen, as his father was; nor had Laurie, the second, gone off to the
Colonies, as would have been natural; and as for Frank, his father’s
weakness had gone so far as to permit of the purchase of a commission
for him when the boy had fallen in love with a red coat. Frank was a
Guardsman, and he a Renton! Such a thing had never been heard of in the
family before.
The eldest surviving aunt, Mrs. Westbury, who was full of Renton
traditions, almost went mad of this event, so afflicted was she by such
a departure from use and wont. She had two boys of her own, whom she had
steadfastly kept in the family groove, and, accordingly, had the very
best grounds for her indignation. ‘But what was to be expected,’ she
said, ‘from such a wife?’ Mrs. Renton was as harmless a soul as ever lay
on a sofa, and had little more than a passive influence in the affairs
of her family; but her husband’s sister, endowed with that contempt for
the masculine understanding which most women entertain, put all the
blame upon her soft shoulders. Two men-about-town, and a boy in the
Guards! ‘Is Laurence mad?’ said Mrs. Westbury. It was her own son who
had gone to the house in Calcutta, which might have mollified her; but
it did not. ‘My boy has to banish himself, and wear out the best of his
life in that wilderness,’ she said, vehemently, ‘while Ben Renton makes
a fool of himself at home.’ When they brought their fine friends to the
Manor for shooting or fishing, she had always something to say of her
boy who was banished from all these pleasures; though, indeed, there had
been a great rejoicing in the Westbury household when Richard got the
appointment. It was but a very short time before her brother’s death
that Aunt Lydia’s feelings became too many for her, and she felt that
for once she must speak and deliver her soul.
‘Ben is to succeed you, I suppose?’ she said, perhaps in rather an
unsympathetic way, as she took Mr. Renton to the river-side for a walk,
under pretence of speaking to him ‘about the boys.’ He thought, poor
man, that it was her own boys she meant, and was very good-natured about
it. And then it was his favourite walk. The river ran through the Renton
woods, at the foot of a steep bank, and was visible from some of the
windows of the Manor. The road to it was a charming woodland walk,
embowered in great beeches, the special growth of Berks. Through their
vast branches, and round about their giant trunks, playing with the
spectator’s charmed vision like a child, came glimpses of the broad,
soft water, over which willows hung fondly, and the swans and
water-lilies shone. Mr. Renton was not sentimental, but he had known the
river all his life, and was fond of it;--perhaps all the more so as he
found out what mistakes he had made, and that life had not been expended
to so much purpose as it ought to have been; so that he walked down very
willingly with his sister, and inclined his ear with much patience and
good-nature to hear what she had to say about her boys.
‘Ben will succeed you, I suppose?’ she said, looking at him in a
disapproving way, as they came to the very margin of the stream where
Laurie’s boat, with its brightly painted sides and red cushions
reflected in the water, lay moored by the bank. It was a fantastic
little toy, meant for speed, and not for safety; and Mrs. Westbury would
have walked ten miles round by Oakley Bridge rather than have trusted
herself to that arrowy bark. She sighed as her eyes fell upon it. ‘Poor
Laurie! poor boy!’ she said, shaking her head. The sight seemed to fill
her with a compassion beyond words.
‘Why poor Laurie?’ said Mr. Renton; but he knew what she meant, and it
made him angry. ‘Of course Ben will succeed me. I succeeded my father.
It is his right.’
‘Ah, Laurence, but how did you succeed your father?’ said Mrs. Westbury.
‘You had the satisfaction of being the greatest comfort to dear papa.
He felt the property would be safe in your hands, and be improved, as it
has always been. People say we are such a lucky family, but you and I
know better. We know it is work that has always done it,--alas! until
now!’ she said, suddenly lifting up her eyes to heaven. Truth compels us
to add that Mr. Renton was very much disconcerted. He could not bear to
hear his own family attacked; but he felt the justice of all she said.
‘Well, Lydia, manners change,’ he said. ‘It seemed natural enough in our
time; but, when you come to consider it, I don’t see what reason I have
for sending the boys away. I can leave them very well off. We were never
so well off as we are now. You know I managed to buy that last farm my
father had set his mind upon. I don’t see why I should have broken their
mother’s heart.’
‘Ah, I knew it would come out,’ said Mrs. Westbury, with a little
bitterness. ‘Why should Mary’s heart be more tender than other people’s?
I have to send my boys away, though I love them as well as she does
hers; and people congratulate me on having such a good appointment for
Richard. It never occurs to anybody that I shall break my heart.’
‘You are a Renton,’ said her brother, with some dexterity. ‘I often
think you are the best Renton of us all. But if poor Westbury had lived,
you know, he might have contrived to spare you the parting, as I have
spared Mary; and---- The short and the long of it is the boys are doing
very well. I have no fault to find with them, and I mean to take my own
way with my own family, Lydia; no offence to you.’
‘Oh, no; no offence,’ said Mrs. Westbury, with a little toss of her
head. ‘It is all for my advantage, I am sure. When my Richard comes home
at a proper time with the fortune your Ben ought to have made, I shall
have no reason to complain for one.’
‘Ben will be very well off,’ said Mr. Renton, but with an uncomfortable
smile.
‘Oh, very well off, no doubt,’ said his sister, with a touch of
contempt; ‘a vapid squire, like the rest of them. People used to say the
Rentons were like a fresh breeze blowing in the county. Always motion
and stir where they were! And, poor Laurie!’ she added once more, with
offensive compassion, as they turned and came again face to face with
Laurie’s boat.
‘I should like to know why Laurie so particularly excites your pity,’
said Mr. Renton, much irritated. Laurie was his own namesake and
favourite, and this was the animadversion which he could least bear.
‘Poor boy! I don’t know who would not pity him,’ said Aunt Lydia; ‘it
would melt a heart of stone to see a boy with such abilities all going
to wrack and ruin. It is all very well as long as he is at home; but
when he comes to have his own money what will he do with it? Spend it
on pictures and nonsense, and encourage a set of idle people about him
to eat him up. Laurence, you mark my words--that is just the kind of boy
to be eaten up by everybody, and to come to poverty in the end. Whereas,
if he had been taught from the first that work was the natural destiny
of man----’
‘There, Lydia,--there,--I wish you would make an end of this croaking,’
cried Mr. Renton. ‘I am not quite well to-day, and can’t bear it. That’s
enough for one time.’
‘As for Frank, I give him up,’ said Mrs. Westbury,--‘a soldier, that can
never make a penny,--and, of all soldiers, a Guardsman! I am very sorry
for you, Laurence, I am sure. How a man of your sense could give in so
to Mary’s whims I can’t understand.’
‘Mary had nothing to do with it,’ said Mr. Renton angrily; and he led
the way up the bank, and changed the subject abruptly. Mrs. Westbury,
though she was not susceptible, felt that she must say no more; and they
returned in comparative silence to the house. This walk had been taken
late in a summer evening after dinner, and in the solemnity of evening
dress, over which, Aunt Lydia, who was stout and felt the heat, had
thrown a little shawl. As they reached the lawn in front of the Manor
they came upon a pretty scene. Mrs. Renton, who was feebly pretty still,
lay on a sofa, which had been brought out and placed in the shadow of
the trees. Mary Westbury, her godchild, who bore a curious softened
resemblance to her mother, sat upright on a footstool by her aunt’s
side, working and talking to her. The third figure was Laurie, lying at
full length on the soft grass. Probably since dinner he had been having
a cigar; for instead of the regular evening coat he wore a fantastic
velvet vestment, which half veiled the splendour of his white linen and
white tie. He was lying stretched out on his back,--handsome, lazy, and
contented,--a practical commentary on his aunt’s speech. There were
books lying about, which his energetic cousin had been coaxing and
boring him to read aloud; but Laurie had only shaken his head at her,
ruffling his chestnut locks against the grass: and a little sketch-book
lay by his side, where it had fallen from his indolent hand. Mrs.
Westbury looked at him and then at her brother. What words could say as
much? There lay lazy Laurence, with an unspeakable sentiment of _far
niente_, in every line of him; and he a Renton, whose very ease had
always been energetic! Mr. Renton saw it, too, and, for once in his
life, was heartily ashamed of his favourite son.
‘There you lie,’ said Aunt Lydia, ‘resting after your hard day’s work.
What a laborious young man you must be, Laurie! I never saw any one who
wanted so much rest.’
‘Thanks,’ said Laurence, with a little nod of his chin from the grass.
‘My constitution requires a great deal of rest, as you say. If you
don’t mind moving a little, Aunt Lydia, you are sitting on my note-book.
Thanks. There are some swans there I should not like to lose.’
‘And of what use are swans?’ said Mrs. Westbury. ‘I wish you would tell
me, Laurie; I am such an ignorant creature, and I should like to know.’
‘Use?’ said Laurie, opening his eyes. ‘They don’t get made into patties,
as far as I know;--but they are of about as much use as the most of us,
I suppose.’
‘The most of us have a great deal to do in the world,’ said Aunt Lydia,
growing very red, for she was fond of _pâtés_; ‘if you knew how many
things have to pass through my hands from morning to night----’
‘Yes, I know,’ said lazy Laurence, raising his hand in soft deprecation.
‘Mary has been telling us;--but what is the use of that, Aunt Lydia? Why
should you worry yourself? Things would go on just as well if you let
them alone,--that’s what I always tell Ben. What’s the good of
fidgeting? If you’ll believe,’ continued Laurie, raising himself a
little on one elbow, ‘all the people who have ever made any mark in the
world have been people who knew how to keep quiet and let things work
themselves out. There’s your Queen Elizabeth,’ he said, warming to his
subject, and giving a slight kick with his polished boot to a big volume
on the grass; ‘the only quality she had was a masterly inaction. She
kept quiet, and things settled themselves.’
‘Oh, Laurie! not when she killed that poor, dear, Queen Mary!’ cried his
mother from the sofa. ‘I hate that woman’s very name.’
‘No,’ said Laurie, gracefully sinking down again among the grass,
‘that’s an instance of energy, mother,--a brutal quality, that always
comes to harm.’
‘Laurence, you are a fool!’ said Mr. Renton sharply, to his son’s
surprise; and he turned his back upon them all abruptly, and went in
across the soft grass, through the magical, evening atmosphere that
tempted all the world to rest. His sister had taken all restfulness out
of him. Though he was a sensible man, he was a Renton; and the family
traditions when thus recalled to his mind had a great power over him. He
went into the library, which looked out upon a dark corner of the
grounds full of mournful evergreens; the blank wall of the
kitchen-garden showed a little behind them, and the room at this time of
day was a very doleful room. It was a kind of penance to put upon
himself to come in from that air, all full of lingering hues of sunset
and soft suggestions of falling dew, to the grim-luxurious room, in
which he already wanted artificial light. Here he sat and pondered over
his own life, and that of his boys. Up to this moment they had been a
great deal happier than he had been. Like a gust of air from the old
plains of his youth, a remembrance came over him of loneliness and
wistfulness, and a certain impossible longing for a little pleasure now
and then, and some love to brighten the boyish days. He had not been
aware of wanting those vanities then; but he saw now that he had done
so, and that his youth had been very bare and unlovely. He had scattered
roses before his sons, while only thorns had been in his own path; but
what if he had kept from them the harder training which should make them
men? He sat till the darkness grew almost into night thinking over these
things. They were men now,--the lads. Ben was five-and-twenty; Laurie
but a year younger; and Frank, the happy boy, was only twenty, glorious
in his red coat. Mr. Renton pondered long, and when the lamp came he
made a great many notes and calculations, which he locked up carefully
in his desk. He had a headache, which was very unusual. It was his
wife’s _rôle_ in the family to have the headaches; and it did not occur
to Mr. Renton that there could be anything the matter with him. It was
the heat, no doubt, or a little worry. The ladies had come into the
drawing-room when his ponderings were over. It was a large room, full of
windows, with one large bow projecting out upon the cliff, from which
you could see the river through the cloud of intervening beeches. On the
other side the room was open to the soft darkness of the lawn. There
were two lamps in it, but both were shadowed; for Mrs. Renton’s eyes,
like her head, were weak; and the cool air of night breathed in, odorous
and soft, making a scarcely perceptible draught from window to window.
Mrs. Renton lay quite out of this current of air, which naturally she
was afraid of, on another sofa. Mary made tea in a corner, with the
light of one of the lamps falling concentrated upon her pretty hands in
twinkling motion about the brilliant little spots of china and silver.
She had a ring or two upon her pink transparent fingers, and a bracelet,
which sparkled in the light. Mrs. Westbury sat apart in a great chair,
and fanned herself. Now and then, with a dash against the delicate
_abat-jour_ of the lamp, came a mad moth, bent on self-destruction. Mr.
Renton dropped into the first chair he could find, not knowing why he
was so uncomfortable, and Mary brought him some tea. The weather had
been very warm, and everybody was languid with the heat. They all sat a
great way apart from each other, and were not energetic enough for
conversation. ‘Where is Laurie?’ Mr. Renton asked; and they told him
that Laurie, with his usual wilfulness, had gone down to the river.
‘There will be a moon to-night,’ Mrs. Renton said, with some
fretfulness; for she liked to have one of her boys by her, if only lying
on the grass, or on the deep mossy carpet, which was almost as soft as
the grass.
‘He has gone off to his moonlight, and his swans, and his water-lilies,’
said Mrs. Westbury, with disdain; but even she felt the heat too much to
proceed.
‘The water-lilies are closed at night,’ said Mary apologetically;
venturing to this extent to take her cousin’s part; lazy Laurence was a
favourite with most people, though he had no energy. Then, all at once,
a larger swoop than usual went circling through the dim upper atmosphere
of the room, and Mrs. Renton gave a scream.
‘It is a bat!’ she cried. ‘Ring, Mary, ring,--I am so superstitious
about bats; and Laurie out all by himself on that river. Mr. Renton, I
wish you would put a stop to it. I never can think it is safe. Oh, tell
them to drive out that creature, Mary! I always know something must
happen when a bat comes into one’s room.’
‘No, godmamma, never mind,’ said Mary. ‘It is only the light. How should
a bat know anything that was going to happen? They come into the Cottage
every evening, and we never mind.’
‘Then you will be found some morning dead in your beds,’ said Mrs.
Renton; ‘I know you will. Oh, it makes me so unhappy, Mary! and Laurie
all by himself in that horrid little boat!’
‘Laurie is all right,’ said Mr. Renton; ‘he knows how to manage a boat,
if he knows nothing else.’ This was muttered half to himself and half
aloud; and then he went to the bow-window and looked out upon the river.
The moon had just risen, and was shining straight down upon one gleam of
water which blazed intensely white amid all the darkling shadows. As
Mr. Renton stood looking out, a boat shot into this gleaming spot, with
long oars glistening, balancing, touching the water like wings of a
bird. ‘Laurie is all right,’ he said to himself, in a mechanical way. He
did not himself care for a thousand bats. But his wife’s alarm struck
into his own uneasiness like a key-note,--the key-note to something he
could not tell what. It was all so lovely and peaceful as he looked,
soft glooms, soft light, rustling rhythm of foliage, wistful breathing
of the night air over that pleasant landscape he knew so well. After
all, was it not better to have the boy there in his boat, than scorching
out in India or toiling like a slave in some Canadian or Australian
forest? What is the good of the father’s work but to better the
condition of the sons? But, on the other hand, if life when it came
should find the sons incapable? Mr. Renton had been a prosperous man;
but he knew that life was no holiday. When it came like an armed man
with temptations, and cares, and responsibilities upon that silken boy,
how would he meet it? These were the father’s thoughts as the bat was
hunted out with much commotion, and his wife lay sighing on her sofa. If
he had been well, probably, Mrs. Westbury’s talk would have had no such
effect upon him; but he was not well; and it had made him very ill at
ease.
Next day his lawyer came, and was closeted for a long time with him, and
there were witnesses called in,--the Rector who happened to be calling,
and the lawyer’s clerk--to witness Mr. Renton’s signature. And within a
week, though he was still in what is called the prime of life, the
father of the house was dead; and his will alone remained behind him to
govern the fate of his three sons.