MR. MAULE, SENIOR.
The life of Mr. Maurice Maule, of Maule Abbey, the father of Gerard
Maule, had certainly not been prosperous. He had from his boyhood
enjoyed a reputation for cleverness, and at school had done great
things,--winning prizes, spouting speeches on Speech days, playing in
elevens, and looking always handsome. He had been one of those show
boys of which two or three are generally to be found at our great
schools, and all manner of good things had been prophesied on his
behalf. He had been in love before he was eighteen, and very nearly
succeeded in running away with the young lady before he went to
college. His father had died when he was an infant, so that at
twenty-one he was thought to be in possession of comfortable wealth.
At Oxford he was considered to have got into a good set,--men of
fashion who were also given to talking of books,--who spent money,
read poetry, and had opinions of their own respecting the Tracts
and Mr. Newman. He took his degree, and then started himself in the
world upon that career which is of all the most difficult to follow
with respect and self-comfort. He proposed to himself the life of an
idle man with a moderate income,--a life which should be luxurious,
refined, and graceful, but to which should be attached the burden
of no necessary occupation. His small estate gave him but little to
do, as he would not farm any portion of his own acres. He became a
magistrate in his county; but he would not interest himself with the
price of a good yoke of bullocks, as did Mr. Justice Shallow,--nor
did he ever care how a score of ewes went at any fair. There is no
harder life than this. Here and there we may find a man who has so
trained himself that day after day he can devote his mind without
compulsion to healthy pursuits, who can induce himself to work,
though work be not required from him for any ostensible object, who
can save himself from the curse of misusing his time, though he has
for it no defined and necessary use; but such men are few, and are
made of better metal than was Mr. Maule. He became an idler, a man of
luxury, and then a spendthrift. He was now hardly beyond middle life,
and he assumed for himself the character of a man of taste. He loved
music, and pictures, and books, and pretty women. He loved also good
eating and drinking; but conceived of himself that in his love for
them he was an artist, and not a glutton. He had married early, and
his wife had died soon. He had not given himself up with any special
zeal to the education of his children, nor to the preservation of his
property. The result of his indifference has been told in a previous
chapter. His house was deserted, and his children were scattered
about the world. His eldest son, having means of his own, was living
an idle, desultory life, hardly with prospects of better success than
had attended his father.
Mr. Maule was now something about fifty-five years of age, and
almost considered himself young. He lived in chambers on a flat in
Westminster, and belonged to two excellent clubs. He had not been
near his property for the last ten years, and as he was addicted to
no country sport there were ten weeks in the year which were terrible
to him. From the middle of August to the end of October for him there
was no whist, no society,--it may almost be said no dinner. He had
tried going to the seaside; he had tried going to Paris; he had
endeavoured to enjoy Switzerland and the Italian lakes;--but all
had failed, and he had acknowledged to himself that this sad period
of the year must always be endured without relaxation, and without
comfort.
Of his children he now took but little notice. His daughter was
married and in India. His younger son had disappeared, and the father
was perhaps thankful that he was thus saved from trouble. With his
elder son he did maintain some amicable intercourse, but it was very
slight in its nature. They never corresponded unless the one had
something special to say to the other. They had no recognised ground
for meeting. They did not belong to the same clubs. They did not live
in the same circles. They did not follow the same pursuits. They were
interested in the same property;--but, as on that subject there had
been something approaching to a quarrel, and as neither looked for
assistance from the other, they were now silent on the matter. The
father believed himself to be a poorer man than his son, and was very
sore on the subject; but he had nothing beyond a life interest in
his property, and there remained to him a certain amount of prudence
which induced him to abstain from eating more of his pudding,--lest
absolute starvation and the poorhouse should befall him. There still
remained to him the power of spending some five or six hundred a
year, and upon this practice had taught him to live with a very
considerable amount of self-indulgence. He dined out a great deal,
and was known everywhere as Mr. Maule of Maule Abbey.
He was a slight, bright-eyed, grey-haired, good-looking man,
who had once been very handsome. He had married, let us say for
love;--probably very much by chance. He had ill-used his wife, and
had continued a long-continued liaison with a complaisant friend.
This had lasted some twenty years of his life, and had been to him an
intolerable burden. He had come to see the necessity of employing his
good looks, his conversational powers, and his excellent manners on
a second marriage which might be lucrative; but the complaisant lady
had stood in his way. Perhaps there had been a little cowardice on
his part; but at any rate he had hitherto failed. The season for such
a mode of relief was not, however, as yet clean gone with him, and
he was still on the look out. There are women always in the market
ready to buy for themselves the right to hang on the arm of a real
gentleman. That Mr. Maurice Maule was a real gentleman no judge in
such matters had ever doubted.
On a certain morning just at the end of February Mr. Maule was
sitting in his library,--so-called,--eating his breakfast, at about
twelve o'clock; and at his side there lay a note from his son Gerard.
Gerard had written to say that he would call on that morning, and the
promised visit somewhat disturbed the father's comfort. He was in
his dressing-gown and slippers, and had his newspaper in his hand.
When his newspaper and breakfast should be finished,--as they would
be certainly at the same moment,--there were in store for him two
cigarettes, and perhaps some new French novel which had just reached
him. They would last him till two o'clock. Then he would dress and
saunter out in his great coat, made luxurious with furs. He would
see a picture, or perhaps some china-vase, of which news had reached
him, and would talk of them as though he might be a possible buyer.
Everybody knew that he never bought anything;--but he was a man whose
opinion on such matters was worth having. Then he would call on
some lady whose acquaintance at the moment might be of service to
him;--for that idea of blazing once more out into the world on a
wife's fortune was always present to him. At about five he would
saunter into his club, and play a rubber in a gentle unexcited manner
till seven. He never played for high points, and would never be
enticed into any bet beyond the limits of his club stakes. Were he
to lose £10 or £20 at a sitting his arrangements would be greatly
disturbed, and his comfort seriously affected. But he played well,
taking pains with his game, and some who knew him well declared that
his whist was worth a hundred a year to him. Then he would dress and
generally dine in society. He was known as a good diner out, though
in what his excellence consisted they who entertained him might find
it difficult to say. He was not witty, nor did he deal in anecdotes.
He spoke with a low voice, never addressing himself to any but his
neighbour, and even to his neighbour saying but little. But he looked
like a gentleman, was well dressed, and never awkward. After dinner
he would occasionally play another rubber; but twelve o'clock always
saw him back into his own rooms. No one knew better than Mr. Maule
that the continual bloom of lasting summer which he affected requires
great accuracy in living. Late hours, nocturnal cigars, and midnight
drinkings, pleasurable though they may be, consume too quickly the
free-flowing lamps of youth, and are fatal at once to the husbanded
candle-ends of age.
But such as his days were, every minute of them was precious to him.
He possessed the rare merit of making a property of his time and
not a burden. He had so shuffled off his duties that he had now
rarely anything to do that was positively disagreeable. He had been
a spendthrift; but his creditors, though perhaps never satisfied,
had been quieted. He did not now deal with reluctant and hard-tasked
tenants, but with punctual, though inimical, trustees, who paid to
him with charming regularity that portion of his income which he was
allowed to spend. But that he was still tormented with the ambition
of a splendid marriage it might be said of him that he was completely
at his ease. Now, as he lit his cigarette, he would have been
thoroughly comfortable, were it not that he was threatened with
disturbance by his son. Why should his son wish to see him, and thus
break in upon him at the most charming hour of the day? Of course
his son would not come to him without having some business in hand
which must be disagreeable. He had not the least desire to see his
son,--and yet, as they were on amicable terms, he could not deny
himself after the receipt of his son's note. Just at one, as he
finished his first cigarette, Gerard was announced.
"Well, Gerard!"
"Well, father,--how are you? You are looking as fresh as paint, sir."
"Thanks for the compliment, if you mean one. I am pretty well. I
thought you were hunting somewhere."
"So I am; but I have just come up to town to see you. I find you have
been smoking;--may I light a cigar?"
"I never do smoke cigars here, Gerard. I'll offer you a cigarette."
The cigarette was reluctantly offered, and accepted with a shrug.
"But you didn't come here merely to smoke, I dare say."
"Certainly not, sir. We do not often trouble each other, father; but
there are things about which I suppose we had better speak. I'm going
to be married!"
"To be married!" The tone in which Mr. Maule, senior, repeated the
words was much the same as might be used by any ordinary father if
his son expressed an intention of going into the shoe-black business.
"Yes, sir. It's a kind of thing men do sometimes."
"No doubt;--and it's a kind of thing that they sometimes repent of
having done."
"Let us hope for the best. It is too late at any rate to think about
that, and as it is to be done, I have come to tell you."
"Very well. I suppose you are right to tell me. Of course you know
that I can do nothing for you; and I don't suppose that you can do
anything for me. As far as your own welfare goes, if she has a large
fortune,--"
"She has no fortune."
"No fortune!"
"Two or three thousand pounds perhaps."
"Then I look upon it as an act of simple madness, and can only say
that as such I shall treat it. I have nothing in my power, and
therefore I can neither do you good or harm; but I will not hear
any particulars, and I can only advise you to break it off, let the
trouble be what it may."
"I certainly shall not do that, sir."
"Then I have nothing more to say. Don't ask me to be present, and
don't ask me to see her."
"You haven't heard her name yet."
"I do not care one straw what her name is."
"It is Adelaide Palliser."
"Adelaide Muggins would be exactly the same thing to me. My dear
Gerard, I have lived too long in the world to believe that men can
coin into money the noble blood of well-born wives. Twenty thousand
pounds is worth more than all the blood of all the Howards, and
a wife even with twenty thousand pounds would make you a poor,
embarrassed, and half-famished man."
"Then I suppose I shall be whole famished, as she certainly has not
got a quarter of that sum."
"No doubt you will."
"Yet, sir, married men with families have lived on my income."
"And on less than a quarter of it. The very respectable man who
brushes my clothes no doubt does so. But then you see he has been
brought up in that way. I suppose that you as a bachelor put by every
year at least half your income?"
"I never put by a shilling, sir. Indeed, I owe a few hundred pounds."
"And yet you expect to keep a house over your head, and an expensive
wife and family, with lady's maid, nurses, cook, footman, and grooms,
on a sum which has been hitherto insufficient for your own wants! I
didn't think you were such an idiot, my boy."
"Thank you, sir."
"What will her dress cost?"
"I have not the slightest idea."
"I dare say not. Probably she is a horsewoman. As far as I know
anything of your life that is the sphere in which you will have made
the lady's acquaintance."
"She does ride."
"No doubt, and so do you; and it will be very easy to say whither you
will ride together if you are fools enough to get married. I can only
advise you to do nothing of the kind. Is there anything else?"
There was much more to be said if Gerard could succeed in forcing his
father to hear him. Mr. Maule, who had hitherto been standing, seated
himself as he asked that last question, and took up the book which
had been prepared for his morning's delectation. It was evidently
his intention that his son should leave him. The news had been
communicated to him, and he had said all that he could say on the
subject. He had at once determined to confine himself to a general
view of the matter, and to avoid details,--which might be personal to
himself. But Gerard had been specially required to force his father
into details. Had he been left to himself he would certainly have
thought that the conversation had gone far enough. He was inclined,
almost as well as his father, to avoid present discomfort. But when
Miss Palliser had suddenly,--almost suddenly,--accepted him; and
when he had found himself describing the prospects of his life in
her presence and in that of Lady Chiltern, the question of the
Maule Abbey inheritance had of necessity been discussed. At Maule
Abbey there might be found a home for the married couple, and,--so
thought Lady Chiltern,--the only fitting home. Mr. Maule, the father,
certainly did not desire to live there. Probably arrangements might
be made for repairing the house and furnishing it with Adelaide's
money. Then, if Gerard Maule would be prudent, and give up hunting,
and farm a little himself,--and if Adelaide would do her own
housekeeping and dress upon forty pounds a year, and if they would
both live an exemplary, model, energetic, and strictly economical
life, both ends might be made to meet. Adelaide had been quite
enthusiastic as to the forty pounds, and had suggested that she would
do it for thirty. The housekeeping was a matter of course, and the
more so as a leg of mutton roast or boiled would be the beginning
and the end of it. To Adelaide the discussion had been exciting and
pleasurable, and she had been quite in earnest when looking forward
to a new life at Maule Abbey. After all there could be no such great
difficulty for a young married couple to live on £800 a year, with
a house and garden of their own. There would be no carriage and no
man servant till,--till old Mr. Maule was dead. The suggestion as to
the ultimate and desirable haven was wrapped up in ambiguous words.
"The property must be yours some day," suggested Lady Chiltern.
"If I outlive my father." "We take that for granted; and then, you
know--" So Lady Chiltern went on, dilating upon a future state of
squirearchal bliss and rural independence. Adelaide was enthusiastic;
but Gerard Maule,--after he had assented to the abandonment of his
hunting, much as a man assents to being hung when the antecedents of
his life have put any option in the matter out of his power,--had
sat silent and almost moody while the joys of his coming life were
described to him. Lady Chiltern, however, had been urgent in pointing
out to him that the scheme of living at Maule Abbey could not be
carried out without his father's assistance. They all knew that Mr.
Maule himself could not be affected by the matter, and they also
knew that he had but very little power in reference to the property.
But the plan could not be matured without some sanction from him.
Therefore there was still much more to be said when the father had
completed the exposition of his views on marriage in general. "I
wanted to speak to you about the property," said Gerard. He had been
specially enjoined to be staunch in bringing his father to the point.
"And what about the property?"
"Of course my marriage will not affect your interests."
"I should say not. It would be very odd if it did. As it is, your
income is much larger than mine."
"I don't know how that is, sir; but I suppose you will not refuse to
give me a helping hand if you can do so without disturbance to your
own comfort."
"In what sort of way? Don't you think anything of that kind can be
managed better by the lawyer? If there is a thing I hate, it is
business."
Gerard, remembering his promise to Lady Chiltern, did persevere,
though the perseverance went much against the grain with him. "We
thought, sir, that if you would consent we might live at Maule
Abbey."
"Oh;--you did; did you?"
"Is there any objection?"
"Simply the fact that it is my house, and not yours."
"It belongs, I suppose, to the property; and as--"
"As what?" asked the father, turning upon the son with sharp angry
eyes, and with something of real animation in his face.
Gerard was very awkward in conveying his meaning to his father. "And
as," he continued,--"as it must come to me, I suppose, some day, and
it will be the proper sort of thing that we should live there then,
I thought that you would agree that if we went and lived there now it
would be a good sort of thing to do."
"That was your idea?"
"We talked it over with our friend, Lady Chiltern."
"Indeed! I am so much obliged to your friend, Lady Chiltern, for the
interest she takes in my affairs. Pray make my compliments to Lady
Chiltern, and tell her at the same time that, though no doubt I have
one foot in the grave, I should like to keep my house for the other
foot, though too probably I may never be able to drag it so far as
Maule Abbey."
"But you don't think of living there."
"My dear boy, if you will inquire among any friends you may happen
to know who understand the world better than Lady Chiltern seems
to do, they will tell you that a son should not suggest to his
father the abandonment of the family property, because the father
may--probably--soon--be conveniently got rid of under ground."
"There was no thought of such a thing," said Gerard.
"It isn't decent. I say that with all due deference to Lady
Chiltern's better judgment. It's not the kind of thing that men
do. I care less about it than most men, but even I object to such
a proposition when it is made so openly. No doubt I am old." This
assertion Mr. Maule made in a weak, quavering voice, which showed
that had his intention been that way turned in his youth, he might
probably have earned his bread on the stage.
"Nobody thought of your being old, sir."
"I shan't last long, of course. I am a poor feeble creature. But
while I do live, I should prefer not to be turned out of my own
house,--if Lady Chiltern could be induced to consent to such an
arrangement. My doctor seems to think that I might linger on for a
year or two,--with great care."
"Father, you know I was thinking of nothing of the kind."
"We won't act the king and the prince any further, if you please.
The prince protested very well, and, if I remember right, the father
pretended to believe him. In my weak state you have rather upset me.
If you have no objection I would choose to be left to recover myself
a little."
"And is that all that you will say to me?"
"Good heavens;--what more can you want? I will not--consent--to give
up--my house at Maule Abbey for your use,--as long as I live. Will
that do? And if you choose to marry a wife and starve, I won't think
that any reason why I should starve too. Will that do? And your
friend, Lady Chiltern, may--go--and be d----d. Will that do?"
"Good morning, sir."
"Good morning, Gerard." So the interview was over, and Gerard Maule
left the room. The father, as soon as he was alone, immediately lit
another cigarette, took up his French novel, and went to work as
though he was determined to be happy and comfortable again without
losing a moment. But he found this to be beyond his power. He had
been really disturbed, and could not easily compose himself. The
cigarette was almost at once chucked into the fire, and the little
volume was laid on one side. Mr. Maule rose almost impetuously from
his chair, and stood with his back to the fire, contemplating the
proposition that had been made to him.
It was actually true that he had been offended by the very faint idea
of death which had been suggested to him by his son. Though he was
a man bearing no palpable signs of decay, in excellent health, with
good digestion,--who might live to be ninety,--he did not like to
be warned that his heir would come after him. The claim which had
been put forward to Maule Abbey by his son had rested on the fact
that when he should die the place must belong to his son;--and the
fact was unpleasant to him. Lady Chiltern had spoken of him behind
his back as being mortal, and in doing so had been guilty of an
impertinence. Maule Abbey, no doubt, was a ruined old house, in
which he never thought of living,--which was not let to a tenant by
the creditors of his estate, only because its condition was unfit
for tenancy. But now Mr. Maule began to think whether he might not
possibly give the lie to these people who were compassing his death,
by returning to the halls of his ancestors, if not in the bloom of
youth, still in the pride of age. Why should he not live at Maule
Abbey if this successful marriage could be effected? He almost knew
himself well enough to be aware that a month at Maule Abbey would
destroy him; but it is the proper thing for a man of fashion to have
a place of his own, and he had always been alive to the glory of
being Mr. Maule of Maule Abbey. In preparing the way for the marriage
that was to come he must be so known. To be spoken of as the father
of Maule of Maule Abbey would have been fatal to him. To be the
father of a married son at all was disagreeable, and therefore
when the communication was made to him he had managed to be very
unpleasant. As for giving up Maule Abbey,--! He fretted and fumed
as he thought of the proposition through the hour which should have
been to him an hour of enjoyment; and his anger grew hot against
his son as he remembered all that he was losing. At last, however,
he composed himself sufficiently to put on with becoming care his
luxurious furred great coat, and then he sallied forth in quest of
the lady.