SIR PETER had not heard from Kenelm since a letter informing him that
his son had left town on an excursion, which would probably be short,
though it might last a few weeks; and the good Baronet now resolved to
go to London himself, take his chance of Kenelm's return, and if still
absent, at least learn from Mivers and others how far that very
eccentric planet had contrived to steer a regular course amidst the
fixed stars of the metropolitan system. He had other reasons for his
journey. He wished to make the acquaintance of Chillingly Gordon
before handing him over the L20,000 which Kenelm had released in that
resettlement of estates, the necessary deeds of which the young heir
had signed before quitting London for Moleswich. Sir Peter wished
still more to see Cecilia Travers, in whom Kenelm's accounts of her
had inspired a very strong interest.
The day after his arrival in town Sir Peter breakfasted with Mivers.
"Upon my word you are very comfortable here," said Sir Peter, glancing
at the well-appointed table, and round the well-furnished rooms.
"Naturally so: there is no one to prevent my being comfortable. I am
not married; taste that omelette."
"Some men declare they never knew comfort till they were married,
Cousin Miners."
"Some men are reflecting bodies, and catch a pallid gleam from the
comfort which a wife concentres on herself. With a fortune so modest
and secure, what comforts, possessed by me now, would not a Mrs.
Chillingly Mivers ravish from my hold and appropriate to herself!
Instead of these pleasant rooms, where should I be lodged? In a dingy
den looking on a backyard excluded from the sun by day and vocal with
cats by night; while Mrs. Mivers luxuriated in two drawing-rooms with
southern aspect and perhaps a boudoir. My brougham would be torn from
my uses and monopolized by 'the angel of my hearth,' clouded in her
crinoline and halved by her chignon. No! if ever I marry--and I never
deprive myself of the civilities and needlework which single ladies
waste upon me by saying I shall not marry--it will be when women have
fully established their rights; for then men may have a chance of
vindicating their own. Then if there are two drawing-rooms in the
house I shall take one; if not, we will toss up who shall have the
back parlour; if we keep a brougham, it will be exclusively mine three
days in the week; if Mrs. M. wants L200 a year for her wardrobe she
must be contented with one, the other half will belong to my personal
decoration; if I am oppressed by proof-sheets and printers' devils,
half of the oppression falls to her lot, while I take my holiday on
the croquet ground at Wimbledon. Yes, when the present wrongs of
women are exchanged for equality with men, I will cheerfully marry;
and to do the thing generous, I will not oppose Mrs. M.'s voting in
the vestry or for Parliament. I will give her my own votes with
pleasure."
"I fear, my dear cousin, that you have infected Kenelm with your
selfish ideas on the nuptial state. He does not seem inclined to
marry,--eh?"
"Not that I know of."
"What sort of girl is Cecilia Travers?"
"One of those superior girls who are not likely to tower into that
terrible giantess called a 'superior woman.' A handsome,
well-educated, sensible young lady, not spoiled by being an heiress;
in fine, just the sort of girl whom you could desire to fix on for a
daughter-in-law."
"And you don't think Kenelm has a fancy for her?"
"Honestly speaking, I do not."
"Any counter-attraction? There are some things in which sons do not
confide in their fathers. You have never heard that Kenelm has been a
little wild?"
"Wild he is, as the noble savage who ran in the woods," said Cousin
Mivers.
"You frighten me!"
"Before the noble savage ran across the squaws, and was wise enough to
run away from them. Kenelm has run away now somewhere."
"Yes, he does not tell me where, nor do they know at his lodgings. A
heap of notes on his table and no directions where they are to be
forwarded. On the whole, however, he has held his own in London
society,--eh?"
"Certainly! he has been more courted than most young men, and perhaps
more talked of. Oddities generally are."
"You own he has talents above the average? Do you not think he will
make a figure in the world some day, and discharge that debt to the
literary stores or the political interests of his country, which alas,
I and my predecessors, the other Sir Peters, failed to do; and for
which I hailed his birth, and gave him the name of Kenelm?"
"Upon my word," answered Mivers,--who had now finished his breakfast,
retreated to an easy-chair, and taken from the chimney-piece one of
his famous trabucos,--"upon my word, I can't guess; if some great
reverse of fortune befell him, and he had to work for his livelihood,
or if some other direful calamity gave a shock to his nervous system
and jolted it into a fussy, fidgety direction, I dare say he might
make a splash in that current of life which bears men on to the grave.
But you see he wants, as he himself very truly says, the two
stimulants to definite action,--poverty and vanity."
"Surely there have been great men who were neither poor nor vain?"
"I doubt it. But vanity is a ruling motive that takes many forms and
many aliases: call it ambition, call it love of fame, still its
substance is the same,--the desire of applause carried into fussiness
of action."
"There may be the desire for abstract truth without care for
applause."
"Certainly. A philosopher on a desert island may amuse himself by
meditating on the distinction between light and heat. But if, on
returning to the world, he publish the result of his meditations,
vanity steps in and desires to be applauded."
"Nonsense, Cousin Mivers, he may rather desire to be of use and
benefit to mankind. You don't deny that there is such a thing as
philanthropy."
"I don't deny that there is such a thing as humbug. And whenever I
meet a man who has the face to tell me that he is taking a great deal
of trouble, and putting himself very much out of his way, for a
philanthropical object, without the slightest idea of reward either in
praise or pence, I know that I have a humbug before me,--a dangerous
humbug, a swindling humbug, a fellow with his pocket full of villanous
prospectuses and appeals to subscribers."
"Pooh, pooh; leave off that affectation of cynicism: you are not a
bad-hearted fellow; you must love mankind; you must have an interest
in the welfare of posterity."
"Love mankind? Interest in posterity? Bless my soul, Cousin Peter, I
hope you have no prospectuses in /your/ pockets; no schemes for
draining the Pontine Marshes out of pure love to mankind; no
propositions for doubling the income-tax, as a reserve fund for
posterity, should our coal-fields fail three thousand years hence.
Love of mankind! Rubbish! This comes of living in the country."
"But you do love the human race; you do care for the generations that
are to come."
"I! Not a bit of it. On the contrary, I rather dislike the human
race, taking it altogether, and including the Australian bushmen; and
I don't believe any man who tells me that he would grieve half as much
if ten millions of human beings were swallowed up by an earthquake at
a considerable distance from his own residence, say Abyssinia, as he
would for a rise in his butcher's bills. As to posterity, who would
consent to have a month's fit of the gout or tic-douloureux in order
that in the fourth thousand year, A. D., posterity should enjoy a
perfect system of sewage?"
Sir Peter, who had recently been afflicted by a very sharp attack of
neuralgia, shook his head, but was too conscientious not to keep
silence.
"To turn the subject," said Mivers, relighting the cigar which he had
laid aside while delivering himself of his amiable opinions, "I think
you would do well, while in town, to call on your old friend Travers,
and be introduced to Cecilia. If you think as favourably of her as I
do, why not ask father and daughter to pay you a visit at Exmundham?
Girls think more about a man when they see the place which he can
offer to them as a home, and Exmundham is an attractive place to
girls,--picturesque and romantic."
"A very good idea," cried Sir Peter, heartily. And I want also to
make the acquaintance of Chillingly Gordon. Give me his address."
"Here is his card on the chimney-piece, take it; you will always find
him at home till two o'clock. He is too sensible to waste the
forenoon in riding out in Hyde Park with young ladies."
"Give me your frank opinion of that young kinsman. Kenelm tells me
that he is clever and ambitious."
"Kenelm speaks truly. He is not a man who will talk stuff about love
of mankind and posterity. He is of our day, with large, keen,
wide-awake eyes, that look only on such portions of mankind as can be
of use to him, and do not spoil their sight by poring through cracked
telescopes to catch a glimpse of posterity. Gordon is a man to be a
Chancellor of the Exchequer, perhaps a Prime Minister."
"And old Gordon's son is cleverer than my boy,--than the namesake of
Kenelm Digby!" and Sir Peter sighed.
"I did not say that. I am cleverer than Chillingly Gordon, and the
proof of it is that I am too clever to wish to be Prime
Minister,--very disagreeable office, hard work, irregular hours for
meals, much abuse and confirmed dyspepsia."
Sir Peter went away rather down-hearted. He found Chillingly Gordon
at home in a lodging in Jermyn Street. Though prepossessed against
him by all he had heard, Sir Peter was soon propitiated in his favour.
Gordon had a frank man-of-the-world way with him, and much too fine a
tact to utter any sentiments likely to displease an old-fashioned
country gentleman, and a relation who might possibly be of service in
his career. He touched briefly, and with apparent feeling, on the
unhappy litigation commenced by his father; spoke with affectionate
praise of Kenelm; and with a discriminating good-nature of Mivers, as
a man who, to parody the epigram on Charles II.,
"Never says a kindly thing
And never does a harsh one."
Then he drew Sir Peter on to talk of the country and agricultural
prospects. Learned that among his objects in visiting town was the
wish to inspect a patented hydraulic ram that might be very useful for
his farm-yard, which was ill supplied with water. Startled the
Baronet by evincing some practical knowledge of mechanics; insisted on
accompanying him to the city to inspect the ram; did so, and approved
the purchase; took him next to see a new American reaping-machine, and
did not part with him till he had obtained Sir Peter's promise to dine
with him at the Garrick; an invitation peculiarly agreeable to Sir
Peter, who had a natural curiosity to see some of the more recently
distinguished frequenters of that social club. As, on quitting
Gordon, Sir Peter took his way to the house of Leopold Travers, his
thoughts turned with much kindliness towards his young kinsman.
"Mivers and Kenelm," quoth he to himself, "gave me an unfavourable
impression of this lad; they represent him as worldly, self-seeking,
and so forth. But Mivers takes such cynical views of character, and
Kenelm is too eccentric to judge fairly of a sensible man of the
world. At all events, it is not like an egotist to put himself out of
his way to be so civil to an old fellow like me. A young man about
town must have pleasanter modes of passing his day than inspecting
hydraulic rams and reaping-machines. Clever they allow him to be.
Yes, decidedly clever, and not offensively clever,--practical."
Sir Peter found Travers in the dining-room with his daughter, Mrs.
Campion, and Lady Glenalvon. Travers was one of those men rare in
middle age, who are more often to be found in their drawing-room than
in their private study; he was fond of female society; and perhaps it
was this predilection which contributed to preserve in him the charm
of good breeding and winning manners. The two men had not met for
many years; not indeed since Travers was at the zenith of his career
of fashion, and Sir Peter was one of those pleasant /dilettanti/ and
half humoristic conversationalists who become popular and courted
diners-out.
Sir Peter had originally been a moderate Whig because his father had
been one before him; but he left the Whig party with the Duke of
Richmond, Mr. Stanley (afterwards Lord Derby), and others, when it
seemed to him that that party had ceased to be moderate.
Leopold Travers had, as a youth in the Guards, been a high Tory, but,
siding with Sir Robert Peel on the repeal of the Corn Laws, remained
with the Peelites after the bulk of the Tory party had renounced the
guidance of their former chief, and now went with these Peelites in
whatever direction the progress of the age might impel their strides
in advance of Whigs and in defiance of Tories.
However, it is not the politics of these two gentlemen that are in
question now. As I have just said, they had not met for many years.
Travers was very little changed. Sir Peter recognized him at a
glance; Sir Peter was much changed, and Travers hesitated before, on
hearing his name announced, he felt quite sure that it was the right
Sir Peter towards whom he advanced, and to whom he extended his
cordial hand. Travers preserved the colour of his hair and the neat
proportions of his figure, and was as scrupulously well dressed as in
his dandy days. Sir Peter, originally very thin and with fair locks
and dreamy blue eyes, had now become rather portly,--at least towards
the middle of him,--and very gray; had long ago taken to spectacles;
his dress, too, was very old-fashioned, and made by a country tailor.
He looked quite as much a gentleman as Travers did; quite perhaps as
healthy, allowing for difference of years; quite as likely to last his
time. But between them there was the difference of the nervous
temperament and the lymphatic. Travers, with less brain than Sir
Peter, had kept his brain constantly active; Sir Peter had allowed his
brain to dawdle over old books and lazily delight in letting the hours
slip by. Therefore Travers still looked young, alert,--up to his day,
up to anything; while Sir Peter, entering that drawing-room, seemed a
sort of Rip van Winkle who had slept through the past generation, and
looked on the present with eyes yet drowsy. Still, in those rare
moments when he was thoroughly roused up, there would have been found
in Sir Peter a glow of heart, nay, even a vigour of thought, much more
expressive than the constitutional alertness that characterized
Leopold Travers, of the attributes we most love and admire in the
young.
"My dear Sir Peter, is it you? I am so glad to see you again," said
Travers. "What an age since we met, and how condescendingly kind you
were then to me; silly fop that I was! But bygones are bygones; come
to the present. Let me introduce to you, first, my valued friend,
Mrs. Campion, whose distinguished husband you remember. Ah, what
pleasant meetings we had at his house! And next, that young lady of
whom she takes motherly charge, my daughter Cecilia. Lady Glenalvon,
your wife's friend, of course needs no introduction: time stands still
with her."
Sir Peter lowered his spectacles, which in reality he only wanted for
books in small print, and gazed attentively on the three ladies,--at
each gaze a bow. But while his eyes were still lingeringly fixed on
Cecilia, Lady Glenalvon advanced, naturally in right of rank and the
claim of old acquaintance, the first of the three to greet him.
"Alas, my dear Sir Peter! time does not stand still for any of us;
but what matter, if it leaves pleasant footprints? When I see you
again, my youth comes before me,--my early friend, Caroline
Brotherton, now Lady Chillingly; our girlish walks with each other;
wreaths and ball-dresses the practical topic; prospective husbands,
the dream at a distance. Come and sit here: tell me all about
Caroline."
Sir Peter, who had little to say about Caroline that could possibly
interest anybody but himself, nevertheless took his seat beside Lady
Glenalvon, and, as in duty bound, made the most flattering account of
his She Baronet which experience or invention would allow. All the
while, however, his thoughts were on Kenelm, and his eyes on Cecilia.
Cecilia resumes some mysterious piece of lady's work, no matter
what,--perhaps embroidery for a music-stool, perhaps a pair of
slippers for her father (which, being rather vain of his feet and
knowing they looked best in plain morocco, he will certainly never
wear). Cecilia appears absorbed in her occupation; but her eyes and
her thoughts are on Sir Peter. Why, my lady reader may guess. And
oh, so flatteringly, so lovingly fixed! She thinks he has a most
charming, intelligent, benignant countenance. She admires even his
old-fashioned frock-coat, high neckcloth, and strapped trousers. She
venerates his gray hairs, pure of dye. She tries to find a close
resemblance between that fair, blue-eyed, plumpish, elderly gentleman
and the lean, dark-eyed, saturnine, lofty Kenelm; she detects the
likeness which nobody else would. She begins to love Sir Peter,
though he has not said a word to her.
Ah! on this, a word for what it is worth to you, my young readers.
You, sir, wishing to marry a girl who is to be deeply, lastingly in
love with you, and a thoroughly good wife practically, consider well
how she takes to your parents; how she attaches to them an
inexpressible sentiment, a disinterested reverence; even should you
but dimly recognize the sentiment, or feel the reverence, how if
between you and your parents some little cause of coldness arise, she
will charm you back to honour your father and your mother, even though
they are not particularly genial to her: well, if you win that sort of
girl as your wife think you have got a treasure. You have won a woman
to whom Heaven has given the two best attributes,--intense feeling of
love, intense sense of duty. What, my dear lady reader, I say of one
sex, I say of another, though in a less degree; because a girl who
marries becomes of her husband's family, and the man does not become
of his wife's. Still I distrust the depth of any man's love to a
woman, if he does not feel a great degree of tenderness (and
forbearance where differences arise) for her parents. But the wife
must not so put them in the foreground as to make the husband think he
is cast in the cold of the shadow. Pardon this intolerable length of
digression, dear reader: it is not altogether a digression, for it
belongs to my tale that you should clearly understand the sort of girl
that is personified in Cecilia Travers.
"What has become of Kenelm?" asked Lady Glenalvon.
"I wish I could tell you," answered Sir Peter. "He wrote me word that
he was going forth on rambles into 'fresh woods and pastures new,'
perhaps for some weeks. I have not had a word from him since."
"You make me uneasy," said Lady Glenalvon. "I hope nothing can have
happened to him: he cannot have fallen ill."
Cecilia stops her work, and looks up wistfully.
"Make your mind easy," said Travers with a laugh; "I am in this
secret. He has challenged the champion of England, and gone into the
country to train."
"Very likely," said Sir Peter, quietly: "I should not be in the least
surprised; should you, Miss Travers?"
"I think it more probable that Mr. Chillingly is doing some kindness
to others which he wishes to keep concealed."
Sir Peter was pleased with this reply, and drew his chair nearer to
Cecilia's. Lady Glenalvon, charmed to bring those two together, soon
rose and took leave.
Sir Peter remained nearly an hour talking chiefly with Cecilia, who
won her way into his heart with extraordinary ease; and he did not
quit the house till he had engaged her father, Mrs. Campion, and
herself to pay him a week's visit at Exmundham, towards the end of the
London season, which was fast approaching.
Having obtained this promise, Sir Peter went away, and ten minutes
after Mr. Chillingly Gordon entered the drawing-room. He had already
established a visiting acquaintance with the Traverses. Travers had
taken a liking to him. Mrs. Campion found him an extremely
well-informed, unaffected young man, very superior to young men in
general. Cecilia was cordially polite to Kenelm's cousin. Altogether
that was a very happy day for Sir Peter. He enjoyed greatly his
dinner at the Garrick, where he met some old acquaintance and was
presented to some new "celebrities." He observed that Gordon stood
well with these eminent persons. Though as yet undistinguished
himself, they treated him with a certain respect, as well as with
evident liking. The most eminent of them, at least the one with the
most solidly established reputation, said in Sir Peter's ear, "You may
be proud of your nephew Gordon!"
"He is not my nephew, only the son of a very distant cousin."
"Sorry for that. But he will shed lustre on kinsfolk, however
distant. Clever fellow, yet popular; rare combination,--sure to
rise."
Sir Peter suppressed a gulp in the throat. "Ah, if some one as
eminent had spoken thus of Kenelm!"
But he was too generous to allow that half-envious sentiment to last
more than a moment. Why should he not be proud of any member of the
family who could irradiate the antique obscurity of the Chillingly
race? And how agreeable this clever young man made himself to Sir
Peter!
The next day Gordon insisted on accompanying him to see the latest
acquisitions in the British Museum, and various other exhibitions, and
went at night to the Prince of Wales's Theatre, where Sir Peter was
infinitely delighted with an admirable little comedy by Mr. Robertson,
admirably placed on the stage by Marie Wilton. The day after, when
Gordon called on him at his hotel, he cleared his throat, and thus
plunged at once into the communication he had hitherto delayed.
"Gordon, my boy, I owe you a debt, and I am now, thanks to Kenelm,
able to pay it."
Gordon gave a little start of surprise, but remained silent.
"I told your father, shortly after Kenelm was born, that I meant to
give up my London house, and lay by L1000 a year for you, in
compensation for your chance of succeeding to Exmundham should I have
died childless. Well, your father did not seem to think much of that
promise, and went to law with me about certain unquestionable rights
of mine. How so clever a man could have made such a mistake would
puzzle me, if I did not remember that he had a quarrelsome temper.
Temper is a thing that often dominates cleverness,--an uncontrollable
thing; and allowances must be made for it. Not being of a quarrelsome
temper myself (the Chillinglys are a placid race), I did not make the
allowance for your father's differing, and (for a Chillingly)
abnormal, constitution. The language and the tone of his letter
respecting it nettled me. I did not see why, thus treated, I should
pinch myself to lay by a thousand a year. Facilities for buying a
property most desirable for the possessor of Exmundham presented
themselves. I bought it with borrowed money, and though I gave up the
house in London, I did not lay by the thousand a year."
"My dear Sir Peter, I have always regretted that my poor father was
misled--perhaps out of too paternal a care for my supposed
interests--into that unhappy and fruitless litigation, after which no
one could doubt that any generous intentions on your part would be
finally abandoned. It has been a grateful surprise to me that I have
been so kindly and cordially received into the family by Kenelm and
yourself. Pray oblige me by dropping all reference to pecuniary
matters: the idea of compensation to a very distant relative for the
loss of expectations he had no right to form, is too absurd, for me at
least, ever to entertain."
"But I am absurd enough to entertain it, though you express yourself
in a very high-minded way. To come to the point, Kenelm is of age,
and we have cut off the entail. The estate of course remains
absolutely with Kenelm to dispose of, as it did before, and we must
take it for granted that he will marry; at all events he cannot fall
into your poor father's error: but whatever Kenelm hereafter does with
his property, it is nothing to you, and is not to be counted upon.
Even the title dies with Kenelm if he has no son. On resettling the
estate, however, sums of money have been realized which, as I stated
before, enable me to discharge the debt which Kenelm heartily agrees
with me is due to you. L20,000 are now lying at my bankers' to be
transferred to yours; meanwhile, if you will call on my solicitor, Mr.
Vining, Lincoln's-inn, you can see the new deed and give to him your
receipt for the L20,000, for which he holds my cheque. Stop! stop!
stop! I will not hear a. word: no thanks; they are not due."
Here Gordon, who had during this speech uttered various brief
exclamations, which Sir Peter did not heed, caught hold of his
kinsman's hand, and, despite of all struggles, pressed his lips on it.
"I must thank you; I must give some vent to my emotions," cried
Gordon. "This sum, great in itself, is far more to me than you can
imagine: it opens my career; it assures my future."
"So Kenelm tells me; he said that sum would be more use to you now
than ten times the amount twenty years hence."
"So it will,--it will. And Kenelm consents to this sacrifice?"
"Consents! urges it."
Gordon turned away his face, and Sir Peter resumed: "You want to get
into Parliament; very natural ambition for a clever young fellow. I
don't presume to dictate politics to you. I hear you are what is
called a Liberal; a man may be a Liberal, I suppose, without being a
Jacobin."
"I hope so, indeed. For my part I am anything but a violent man."
"Violent, no! Who ever heard of a violent Chillingly? But I was
reading in the newspaper to-day a speech addressed to some popular
audience, in which the orator was for dividing all the lands and all
the capital belonging to other people among the working class, calmly
and quietly, without any violence, and deprecating violence: but
saying, perhaps very truly, that the people to be robbed might not
like it, and might offer violence; in which case woe betide them; it
was they who would be guilty of violence; and they must take the
consequences if they resisted the reasonable, propositions of himself
and his friends! That, I suppose, is among the new ideas with which
Kenelm is more familiar than I am. Do you entertain those new ideas?"
"Certainly not: I despise the fools who do."
"And you will not abet revolutionary measures if you get into
Parliament?"
"My dear Sir Peter, I fear you have heard very false reports of my
opinions if you put such questions. Listen," and therewith Gordon
launched into dissertations very clever, very subtle, which committed
him to nothing, beyond the wisdom of guiding popular opinions into
right directions: what might be right directions he did not define; he
left Sir Peter to guess them. Sir Peter did guess them, as Gordon
meant he should, to be the directions which he, Sir Peter, thought
right; and he was satisfied.
That subject disposed of, Gordon said, with much apparent feeling,
"May I ask you to complete the favours you have lavished on me? I
have never seen Exmundham, and the home of the race from which I
sprang has a deep interest for time. Will you allow me to spend a few
days with you, and under the shade of your own trees take lessons in
political science from one who has evidently reflected on it
profoundly?"
"Profoundly, no; a little,--a little, as a mere bystander," said Sir
Peter, modestly, but much flattered. "Come, my dear boy, by all
means; you will have a hearty welcome. By the by, Travers and his
handsome daughter promised to visit me in about a fortnight, why not
come at the same time?"
A sudden flash lit up the young man's countenance.
"I shall be so delighted," he cried. "I am but slightly acquainted
with Mr. Travers, but I like him much, and Mrs. Campion is so well
informed."
"And what say you to the girl?"
"The girl, Miss Travers. Oh, she is very well in her way. But I
don't talk with young ladies more than I can help."
"Then you are like your cousin Kenelm?"
"I wish I were like him in other things."
"No, one such oddity in a family is quite enough. But though I would
not have you change to a Kenelm, I would not change Kenelm for the
most perfect model of a son that the world can exhibit." Delivering
himself of this burst of parental fondness, Sir Peter shook hands with
Gordon, and walked off to Mivers, who was to give him luncheon and
then accompany him to the station. Sir Peter was to return to
Exmundham by the afternoon express.
Left alone, Gordon indulged in one of those luxurious guesses into the
future which form the happiest moments in youth when so ambitious as
his. The sum Sir Peter placed at his disposal would insure his
entrance in Parliament. He counted with confidence on early successes
there. He extended the scope of his views. With such successes he
might calculate with certainty on a brilliant marriage, augmenting his
fortune, and confirming his position. He had previously fixed his
thoughts on Cecilia Travers. I will do him the justice to say not
from mercenary motives alone, but not certainly with the impetuous
ardour of youthful love. He thought her exactly fitted to be the wife
of an eminent public man, in person, acquirement, dignified yet
popular manners. He esteemed her, he liked her, and then her fortune
would add solidity to his position. In fact, he had that sort of
rational attachment to Cecilia which wise men, like Lord Bacon and
Montaigne, would commend to another wise man seeking a wife. What
opportunities of awaking in herself a similar, perhaps a warmer,
attachment the visit to Exmundham would afford! He had learned when
he had called on the Traverses that they were going thither, and hence
that burst of family sentiment which had procured the invitation to
himself.
But he must be cautious, he must not prematurely awaken Travers's
suspicions. He was not as yet a match that the squire could approve
of for his heiress. And, though he was ignorant of Sir Peter's
designs on that, young lady, he was much too prudent to confide his
own to a kinsman of whose discretion he had strong misgivings. It was
enough for him at present that way was opened for his own resolute
energies. And cheerfully, though musingly, he weighed its obstacles,
and divined its goal, as he paced his floor with bended head and
restless strides, now quick, now slow.
Sir Peter, in the meanwhile, found a very good luncheon prepared for
him at Mivers's rooms, which he had all to himself, for his host never
"spoilt his dinner and insulted his breakfast" by that intermediate
meal. He remained at his desk writing brief notes of business, or of
pleasure, while Sir Peter did justice to lamb cutlets and grilled
chicken. But he looked up from his task, with raised eyebrows, when
Sir Peter, after a somewhat discursive account of his visit to the
Traverses, his admiration of Cecilia, and the adroitness with which,
acting on his cousin's hint, he had engaged the family to spend a few
days at Exmundham, added, "And, by the by, I have asked young Gordon
to meet them."
"To meet them! meet Mr. and Miss Travers! you have? I thought you
wished Kenelm to marry Cecilia. I was mistaken, you meant Gordon!"
"Gordon," exclaimed Sir Peter, dropping his knife and fork.
"Nonsense, you don't suppose that Miss Travers prefers him to Kenelm,
or that he has the presumption to fancy that her father would sanction
his addresses?"
"I indulge in no suppositions of the sort. I content myself with
thinking that Gordon is clever, insinuating, young; and it is a very
good chance of bettering himself that you have thrown in his way.
However, it is no affair of mine; and though on the whole I like
Kenelm better than Gordon, still I like Gordon very well, and I have
an interest in following his career which I can't say I have in
conjecturing what may be Kenelm's--more likely no career at all."
"Mivers, you delight in provoking me; you do say such uncomfortable
things. But, in the first place, Gordon spoke rather slightingly of
Miss Travers."
"Ah, indeed; that's a bad sign," muttered Mivers.
Sir Peter did not hear him, and went on.
"And, besides, I feel pretty sure that the dear girl has already a
regard for Kenelm which allows no room for a rival. However, I shall
not forget your hint, but keep a sharp lookout; and, if I see the
young man wants to be too sweet on Cecilia, I shall cut short his
visit."
"Give yourself no trouble in the matter; it will do no good.
Marriages are made in heaven. Heaven's will be done. If I can get
away I will run down to you for a day or two. Perhaps in that case
you can ask Lady Glenalvon. I like her, and she likes Kenelm. Have
you finished? I see the brougham is at the door, and we have to call
at your hotel to take up your carpet-bag."
Mivers was deliberately sealing his notes while he thus spoke. He now
rang for his servant, gave orders for their delivery, and then
followed Sir Peter down stairs and into the brougham. Not a word
would he say more about Gordon, and Sir Peter shrank from telling him
about the L20,000. Chillingly Mivers was perhaps the last person to
whom Sir Peter would be tempted to parade an act of generosity.
Mivers might not unfrequently do a generous act himself, provided it
was not divulged; but he had always a sneer for the generosity of
others.