STRUGGLES.
Allerton Court has been in our family since the days of the Tudors. How
the careless scapegrace Egertons kept it so long I cannot imagine;
chiefly, I believe, by the sacrifice of larger and more valuable
estates elsewhere. Its present possessor, my half brother, was a
very different person from his predecessors. My father succeeded to
an impoverished title at an early age, and soon after attaining his
majority, married a wealthy city heiress, who, finding herself uneasy
and misplaced in fashionable life, imagined she was disgusted with the
world and its frivolities, and gave herself up for the remainder of her
"sojourn here below" to quacks, spiritual, and medical. Poor woman! I
believe she sincerely wished to do right, and with this view brought
up her son under an amount of religious pressure that reduced him to
the adamantine condition I have before hinted at. No doubt the various
patent pills and powders she was in the habit of administering to him,
had their share in producing the curious dormant state of his physical
and mental powers. Altogether, Egerton was a problem I never dreamt of
solving, and now that he had suddenly acquired interest in my eyes, I
blushed at the thought of asking his brotherly assistance to settle my
affairs into marriageable shape, almost as deeply as at the idea of
begging from a stranger.
My father remained unmarried for nearly two years after the death
of his first wife, and their son must have been nineteen when the
bright eyes and graceful manners of Lady Mary De Burgh captivated the
disconsolate widower, still young and handsome enough to please the
fancy and interest the heart of a girl, only some few months older
than his heir. I have but slight recollection of my mother. I was the
youngest, and she did not survive my birth more than three years; both
my sister and myself were extremely like her, and adored by my father,
who never could, even in his childhood, caress so rigidly orthodox
a young gentleman as his eldest son. Egerton was a thing apart, and
belonged to his country and the peerage; but we were the darlings of
his heart; spoiled children, reared in luxury and indulgence. How well
I remember the bitter and passionate grief with which I received the
intelligence of his death, and the choking sobs that interrupted my
reproaches to Egerton, for not sending for me in time to let me hear
his voice once more, feeling that every unconscious game of cricket in
which I had joined while he lay struggling between life and death was
an unnatural piece of levity, unpardonable!
All this passed over soon, and my life was happy enough, but Mary used
often to look sad, and was very glad to marry Wentworth, though he was
a good deal older than herself. The large fortune my father's first
wife brought him was, of course, settled on her children, so Mary and I
had but the slender portions usually allotted to the younger Egertons,
but mine was doubled by her husband's refusal to accept hers.
This is more than I meant to have stated about myself, but it was
necessary to show my position.
A cold raw damp November day, with occasional dashes of heavy rain, the
leafless trees bending before the sudden gusts of wind that accompanied
them; and every object ten yards off shrouded in a dark fog that seemed
to blend heaven and earth in one equable gloom. I shivered as I drew up
the windows of the cab into which I had thrown myself at the railway
station, near Allerton, observing how strongly the conveyance appeared
to partake of the general humidity. The avenue seemed interminable; and
when at length my humble vehicle drew up before the portico, I received
the pleasing intelligence, "my Lord is not at home, Captain Egerton,
but will you please to walk in?"
"Why, yes! I intend stopping here for the night; and, Barnard, get me
some mulled port, will you, lots of spice, and hot as the Devil."
"Yes, sir," said the Butler, with a slight shudder at the profanity.
By the time I had roused the slumbering fire into a blaze, the house
steward, an old retainer, entered with the wine, and respectfully
congratulated me on my recovery; a few mutual enquiries followed,
during which I could not help smiling to myself at the formal tone I
felt compelled to adopt towards the grave old man who had known my
boyhood; nothing would be too familiar with Mrs. O'Toole, but the stern
Saxon nature demands a degree of reserve in their superiors, and would
resent any freedom as something derogatory to both. The coldness
between English masters and servants is quite as much the fault of the
latter as the former, and so it must be while the Anglo-Saxon race
exists; anything demonstrative is terribly out of place with them.
_Il ne faut jamais faire agir un homme dans un sens different de son
caractère._
"My Lord takes the chair at a meeting of the Society for converting
the Jews at ---- to-day, sir, but he will return to dinner," said my
informant, as he made his parting bow and retired.
"Heaven send my worthy brother may follow up the object of the meeting
by converting Messrs. Levi and Co. from creditors into non-claimants,
as well as all the other errors of their ways," was my mental
ejaculation as I betook myself to the _Record_ and its advertisements
for pious footmen, and not sober, but serious cooks, as an escape from
my own thoughts.
Egerton returned to dinner, bringing with him two sleek white
neckcloth'd straight-haired gentlemen; "the deputation," he informed
me, from the "Parent Society."
My brother received me very graciously, and remarking that I still
looked indifferent after my illness, regretted I was not in time to
attend the meeting to hear the reverend "somebody" hold forth. "Captain
Egerton," said he, during one of the pauses in our repast, noticing,
perhaps, something of carnal impatience in the glances of the Reverend
J. E. Black towards the door, for the appearance of the next _entrée_,
"Captain Egerton has been, and is quartered at Carrington; did you not
reside there, or in its neighbourhood?"
"Yes, my Lord," replied the son of the "Parent Society;" "I had for
some time a wide field of labour at A----."
This individual was a tall man, inclined to _embonpoint_, with heavy
features, a large hooked nose, a thick sensual under lip, and a tuft of
straight coarse hair at each side of his face.
"At A----," said I, glad to exchange a word with any one about a
place so endeared to me; "I was there two days ago. Did you know a Mr.
Winter, of Abbey Gardens? I am indebted to the kindness and care of him
and his wife for my existence."
"Under Providence," he suggested, in a mild sugary voice, which, with a
perpetual placid smile, characterised the revd. gentleman; his manner,
too, was extremely courteous, almost well-bred, though one could not
help perceiving a something lurking below, like the odour of cigars,
when you endeavour to overpower it with _mille fleurs_ or _eau de miel_.
"Of course, of course," said I.
"I was not personally acquainted with him," he observed, "but from his
repute I fear he is not a Christian."
"Well, at least he is a good Samaritan," I replied.
"My brother is a military man, you know, my dear sir," observed Lord
Egerton, and he sighed.
"Come, Egerton," said I, "although we may not be as good as we ought,
we are not so bad after all."
"Indeed, my Lord, there is a little more light in the army than
formerly," said his revd. friend, "when I was a soldier their state of
darkness was awful!"
"Pray, sir, may I ask you how you managed to grope your way out of it,"
I enquired.
Thoughtless as I then was, I felt shocked at the profane familiarity
with sacred things evinced by his reply, nor will I record it. I
noticed merely his hint of having been a soldier, and made a few
languid enquiries as to his Regiment, &c. But Egerton and the
other clerico soon plunged into discussion of things and people
incomprehensible and unknown to me; their occasional awkward attempts
to change or rather descend to topics more congenial to their
unregenerate companion, conveying the pleasant notion that they
looked upon me as a hawk in a dove cot, a wolf among lambs, but that
they would endeavour to let me see they were not too proud of their
superiority. Mr. Black indeed frequently turned to me, endeavouring
to suit his conversation to my depraved taste, by repeating wretched
anecdotes of various London notorieties. By the way, I generally
observe your _parvenu_ always appears to think a familiarity with
steward and housekeeper's room _on dits_ the most certain proof he can
adduce of his own fitness for good society. I took a most unconquerable
dislike to this blessed babe of the Parent Society, especially when
I heard him descanting to Egerton as we sipped our coffee, on the
sinfulness of dancing and the necessity of faith unadorned by works;
nor was I the least surprised on hearing afterwards from Winter, that
he fully carried out his principles in his practice, by leaving every
thing to his faith, and dispensing with those more commonplace duties
less privileged individuals consider binding; his poor wife, neglected
and abused, sought safety in separation; and his sons, ground down
by tyranny and injustice, being left to the unassisted care of that
Providence with whose dispensation he was too pious to let parental
anxieties interfere. But I am giving too much time to a man who annoyed
me through a whole evening; there are not many like him I should hope.
His companion, although tiresome, seemed a simple, straightforward
person.
Never shall I forget that wretched evening: oppressed by the
anticipation of the unpleasant conference before me, and feeling the
difficulty of my task with Egerton more strongly, as every moment
showed me the spirit of self-satisfied devoteeism with which my brother
and his allies seemed to shut out the non-elect from all sympathy or
affection.
There was a great deal of babble about the "Missionary cause," and
advanced Christian and Evangelical views, and many more of the
technical terms which made up their stock-in-trade; while my thoughts
flew back to the real prayer I had heard poor Gilpin pour out when
I lay, to all appearance, insensible, and hovering between life and
death.
I felt disgusted to observe that sleek, shiny Black trying to catch
Egerton with a dun (religious) hackle, while he baited a small hook
with a red one (of what he would call fashionable small talk) for me:
of the two, I preferred the latter, for although far from what I ought
to be, nothing is so revolting to my taste as the attempt to force
solemn subjects into the trivialities of commonplace conversation.
The longest and dreariest evening, and digression too, must come to
an end: I pleaded the excuse of recent illness, and made my retreat,
intimating to Egerton my wish for a private interview in the morning,
to which he very readily assented.
I sat musing over my fire until my candle was nearly burnt out,
contrasting in my mind the dreary trio I had just left with the
pleasant, warmhearted, unaffected little circle, amongst whom I had so
lately mingled, a favoured and indulged member--"These people live,
and are happy: they lead no useless unemployed existence either; but
if Egerton's is the road to Heaven, _Dieu m'en preserve_. Oh, what a
strange perversity of fate to make me the younger brother. Egerton
would have made such an admirable curate, and married the best dowered
of his congregation; he looks upon the 'accessories' of his position
as so many hindrances to his advance in holiness, while I!--How well
my poor mother's diamond tiara would look on Kate Vernon's rich brown
hair!"
I never thought I should feel so like a poltroon as I did when the
library door closed on Egerton and myself. Never in the course of our
lives had I asked or received a favour from him: not that any unkind
feeling existed between us, but we had always been blanks to each
other; and now to ask this frigid, pharisaical being, who so evidently
thought there was a great gulf fixed between himself and the great
mass of his fellow-creatures, to help me out of a scrape I ought never
to have got into--to sympathise with my passionate admiration of a
penniless girl!
"You wished to speak to me, Frederic?"
I may observe, Egerton was the only one I was ever intimate with who
troubled himself to give me more than one syllable to my name.
"Yes, I have a great deal to accuse myself of, Egerton, but, in short,
I am in a scrape, and I want you to do a brotherly act, and help me out
of it."
This bold plunge seemed to startle my companion not a little, and
he moved rather restlessly on his seat as he replied, "Indeed! if
in my power to assist you, I trust I shall not be deficient in the
performance of my duty, but remember, I cannot countenance the godless
waste of means entrusted"--
"God knows I do not want to continue any useless expenditure," said I,
"it is with the wish to become free from debt, to live 'cleanly and
like a gentleman,' that I come to bore you with my affairs!"
"Every one smarting under the effects of their folly is ready to
abjure it, but when the sting is removed, you can hardly answer for
yourself," said his Lordship.
"No, but really I have not a single dissipated or extravagant taste;
the more unpardonable, you will say, my getting ahead of my income;
granted, yet you, living here in unbroken quiet, can hardly judge the
force that habit acquires, when your only companions are a set of men
whose occupation is spending, whose excitement is prodigality. It
was the want of some better and deeper interest that threw me into
expensive follies which I now regret; but, Egerton, I have some more
certain guarantee to give for my permanent reformation than a mere
desire to get rid of difficulties. I--there is a Miss--that is, I want
to marry and settle."
"That alters the face of affairs; I shall be happy to do anything I can
to forward this favourable arrangement; have you proposed in form? or
ascertained the amount of the lady's fortune?"
I replied, laughing, "Yes and no, I have not proposed, and her fortune
is like my own--a blank."
"Really, Frederic, there are no limits to the imprudence into which
the impetuosity of a worldly and unchastened spirit hurry those lost
to the knowledge of better things. I do not see how your marriage,
with a penniless girl is to better your position in any point of view,
temporal or spiritual."
"There is such a thing as awakening to better and purer affections," I
replied, "more settled convictions or"--
"It is our duty to curb our affections, which are all depraved and
sinful," interrupted Lord Egerton, "but to return to the point we
started from; what is the scrape, as you term it? substituting, no
doubt, a delusive jest to disguise the real colour of the transaction."
"Why really nothing more dreadful than is done every day;" and I told
him of my bets and horses; of raising the wind through the means of
his _protegées_, the Jews; of their renewal of bills at enormous
interest, and the whole blood-sucking system; that my great object was
to get free from their fangs, to cut the army, marry, and settle down
somewhere as something, I did not know exactly what, but I had an idea
of farming: this last was a happy stroke, I thought, for if Egerton
really wants to make a good boy of me, now is his time; let him offer
me one of his Devonshire farms, for I know that he purchased property
there some years ago. He sat playing with his seals and chain, and
looking confoundedly sour, longer than I could wait with any degree of
patience; at last he said, in a discontented tone, "I suppose you want
me to join you in raising money on your 'younger son's portion?' but
even if I were to consent to so great an inconvenience, it will not, I
should think, forward your matrimonial scheme, which you'll excuse me
for designating as peculiarly absurd under the circumstances."
"You may call it what you like," I replied, "though I am not aware I
asked your opinion about it; of course if I must give it up, I must;
for I would not drag any girl into an abyss of poverty; but it will be
a blow more severe than you think."
"I am no judge, and you can of course decide as you think fit, but
I must say I see no reason why I should be suddenly called on to
inconvenience myself to pay for the extravagance, and gratify the
caprice of my half brother!"
"You have given your opinion on my conduct quite often enough; I did
not come here merely to bow before your animadversions, nor am I aware
you have any right to call me to account; the question is this: I have
a certain charge on your estates, which will more than cover my debts,
and I want you to decide whether you will aid me in getting it into my
own hands or leave me to incur the expenses and difficulty of raising
it indirectly. Come, Egerton, you cannot be such a cold hearted fellow,
and a son of my poor father's. Pitch calculations to the Devil who
invented them, and hold out a hand to help me on _terra firma_!"
"Well, Frederic, I am not cold hearted, but my principles are opposed
to yielding to impulses which, prompted by our fallen nature, must
always be evil; you certainly have a right to a sum of £10,000, the
interest of which I have hitherto paid you, and could as certainly put
difficulties in the way of your getting possession of it. I do not
intend, however, to do so, my observations were merely to show that it
was not such an easy matter for me to give you £10,000 at a moment's
warning; I will, however, write to Harris about it at once; let me see,
you say your debt to these Jews is between six and seven thousand, and
your smaller debts something under two thousand; well, that will leave
you, say, fifteen hundred to begin afresh with. I am endeavouring to
serve you at my own inconvenience, I repeat. That property I purchased
in Devonshire cost me more than it is worth, and situated as Providence
has seen fit to place me, at the head of a strong Evangelical
movement, it is my lot to contribute largely towards the spread of the
gospel, and Heaven forbid that I should permit the extravagance of a
young wordling to curtail my means of advancing the missionary cause;
therefore remember, Frederic, that this is the last time I can yield
to the weakness of my disposition and furnish you with the means of
clearing yourself from debt; you are old enough to judge for yourself,
and if you choose to commit the folly of marrying on £1,500 or £2,000,
and a commission in one of the most expensive regiments in the service
our besotted rulers ever embodied, you must bear the consequences; I
have told you my final decision."
"It is just what I might have expected; but, I say, Egerton, though
I am perfectly aware I have no claims on you, do you mean to say you
will not give me a helping hand to settle, and lead 'a new life,' as
you call it. I have been brought up in luxury and expensive habits;
I am incapacitated by education and association from pushing my own
fortune, and now, when these seeds have brought forth their fruit, I am
to be cut adrift on a raft of £1,500; I would not ask you to injure or
cramp yourself in the slightest degree, but is there nothing to which
you can assist me, if you look about you in a brotherly spirit?"
"Really, Captain Egerton, I am at a loss to imagine what more you can
expect from me; unless you wish me to resign Allerton into your own
hands. I am ready to place your fortune in your own hands at once, and
now you seem to think I have not done enough. Am I to supply you with
the means of gratifying your whims out of my own pocket, at the expense
of far higher claims?"
"Enough! enough!" cried I, "by Heavens I would rather accept a
settlement in the parochial workhouse than from you, or any one,
that would give it reluctantly. I do not know how you interpret the
Bible, Egerton, but I remember a verse in it, that used to strike my
fancy, when the plate was being handed round after a charity sermon;
something about compassionating a needy brother, and the concluding
question, 'how dwelleth the love of God in him?' I suppose your
universal brotherhood with believers leaves but a scanty remnant for
the one nature provided you with; however, you say truly, I have no
right to expect you will inconvenience yourself for me; pray forget
that I ever lowered myself so much as to hint at such a proceeding. I
shall content myself with what I am rigidly entitled to, and equally
free from debt and obligation, try to find in India a wider field for
ambition, or as you would term it, of 'usefulness;' let us see which of
us will reap most honours."
"I am well accustomed to bear the sneers a Christian must meet in his
conflict with the world; I endeavour to act up to my principles, and I
hope you may see the error of your ways before it is too late."
"Oh! pious martyr! I wish it was my lot to encounter persecutions on
the same terms, though, by Jove, I am not sure whether in my darkened
intellect, I might not consider 'Smithfield,' almost counterbalanced
by a couple of hours' exhortation from some Rev. Holdforth. Don't look
shocked, Egerton; but you and your dogmas have sent me three steps
lower down, at least, since I came here. Religion! you conspire against
its prevalence. But I need not excruciate you any longer;--any commands
for town? I intend taking that particular road to ruin this evening."
"I never use strong language," said his Lordship, "it is opposed to all
my principles, but I confess, Frederic, you have infinitely disgusted
me: I wish you a safe journey, and, as I have promised to show the Rev.
Mr. Black my model schools, the fame of which, he says, reached him
even at A----, I shall now bid you good morning." He bowed formally.
"Egerton, good bye: and not for all the wealth and influence you
possess, nor even for the privilege of clerical toad-eaters, would I
change with you!"
So it was all up with me in a few minutes; all my plans for getting
inside the shell of my brother's heart vain--or rather, there was
nothing inside to get at. Good bye to peace and love, but I will have
action: where were my wits that I did not go to India long ago, instead
of loitering away the best years of my life in aimless frivolity? Oh!
the irremediable past.
In the bitterness of self-reproach I forgot Egerton; why should I
be angry with him? he acted according to the dictates of his cold
nature. Quietness was torment, and a couple of hours after the above
conversation I was steaming to London, _en route_ to my agent,
breathless to be doing something--anything.