PROPOSALS.
Mrs Herbert attended me during the forenoon, but left me after my early
dinner. I made my tea for myself, and a tankard filled from a barrel of
ale of my uncle’s brewing, with a piece of bread and cheese, was my
unvarying supper. The first night I felt very lonely, almost indeed
what the Scotch call _eerie_. The place, although inseparably
interwoven with my earliest recollections, drew back and stood apart
from me--a thing to be thought about; and, in the ancient house, amidst
the lonely field, I felt like a ghost condemned to return and live the
vanished time over again. I had had a fire lighted in my own room; for,
although the air was warm outside, the thick stone walls seemed to
retain the chilly breath of the last Winter. The silent rooms that
filled the house forced the sense of their presence upon me. I seemed
to see the forsaken things in them staring at each other, hopeless and
useless, across the dividing space, as if saying to themselves, ‘We
belong to the dead, are mouldering to the dust after them, and in the
dust alone we meet.’ From the vacant rooms my soul seemed to float out
beyond, searching still--to find nothing but loneliness and emptiness
betwixt me and the stars; and beyond the stars more loneliness and more
emptiness still--no rest for the sole of the foot of the wandering
Psyche--save--one mighty saving--an exception which, if true, must be
the one all-absorbing rule. ‘But,’ I was saying to myself, ‘love
unknown is not even equal to love lost,’ when my reverie was broken by
the dull noise of a horse’s hoofs upon the sward. I rose and went to
the window. As I crossed the room, my brain rather than myself suddenly
recalled the night when my pendulum drew from the churning trees the
unwelcome genius of the storm. The moment I reached the window--there
through the dim Summer twilight, once more from the trees, now as still
as sleep, came the same figure.
Mr Coningham saw me at the fire-lighted window, and halted.
‘May I be admitted?’ he asked ceremoniously.
I made a sign to him to ride round to the door, for I could not speak
aloud: it would have been rude to the memories that haunted the silent
house.
‘May I come in for a few minutes, Mr Cumbermede?’ he asked again,
already at the door by the time I had opened it.
‘By all means, Mr Coningham,’ I replied. ‘Only you must tie your horse
to this ring, for we--I--have no stable here.’
‘I’ve done this before,’ he answered, as he made the animal fast. ‘I
know the ways of the place well enough. But surely you’re not here in
absolute solitude?’
‘Yes, I am. I prefer being alone at present.’
‘Very unhealthy, I must say! You will grow hypochondriacal if you mope
in this fashion,’ he returned, following me up-stairs to my room.
‘A day or two of solitude now and then would, I suspect, do most people
more good than harm,’ I answered. ‘But you must not think I intend
leading a hermit’s life. Have you heard that my aunt--?’
‘Yes, yes.--You are left alone in the world. But relations are not a
man’s only friends--and certainly not always his best friends.’
I made no reply, thinking of my uncle.
‘I did not know you were down,’ he resumed. ‘I was calling at my
father’s, and seeing your light across the park, thought it possible
you might be here, and rode over to see. May I take the liberty of
asking what your plans are?’ he added, seating himself by the fire.
‘I have hardly had time to form new ones; but I mean to stick to my
work, anyhow.’
‘You mean your profession?’
‘Yes, if you will allow me to call it such. I have had success enough
already to justify me in going on.’
‘I am more pleased than surprised to hear it,’ he answered.
‘But what will you do with the old nest?’
‘Let the old nest wait for the old bird, Mr Coningham--keep it to die
in.’
‘I don’t like to hear a young fellow talking that way,’ he
remonstrated. ‘You’ve got a long life to live yet--at least I hope so.
But if you leave the house untenanted till the period to which you
allude, it will be quite unfit by that time even for the small service
you propose to require of it. Why not let it--for a term of years? I
could find you a tenant, I make no doubt.’
‘I won’t let it. I shall meet the world all the better if I have a
place of my own to take refuge in.’
‘Well, I can’t say but there’s good in that fancy. To have any spot of
your own, however small--freehold, I mean--must be a comfort. At the
same time, what’s the world for, if you’re to meet it in that
half-hearted way? I don’t mean that every young man--there are
exceptions--must sow just so many bushels of _avena fatua_. There are
plenty of enjoyments to be got without leading a wild life--which I
should be the last to recommend to any young man of principle. Take my
advice, and let the place. But pray don’t do me the injustice to fancy
I came to look after a job. I shall be most happy to serve you.’
‘I am exceedingly obliged to you,’ I answered. ‘If you could let the
farm for me for the rest of the lease, of which there are but a few
years to run, that would be of great consequence to me. Herbert, my
uncle’s foreman, who has the management now, is a very good fellow, but
I doubt if he will do more than make both ends meet without my aunt,
and the accounts would bother me endlessly.’
‘I shall find out whether Lord Inglewold would be inclined to resume
the fag-end. In such case, as the lease has been a long one, and land
has risen much, he would doubtless pay a part of the difference. Then
there’s the stock, worth a good deal, I should think. I’ll see what can
be done. And then there’s the stray bit of park?’
‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked. ‘We have been in the way of
calling it the _park_, though why I never could tell. I confess it does
look like a bit of Sir Giles’s that had wandered beyond the gates.’
‘There _is_ some old story or other about it, I believe. The possessors
of the Moldwarp estate have, from time immemorial, regarded it as
properly theirs. I know that.’
‘I am much obliged to them, certainly. _I_ have been in the habit of
thinking differently.’
‘Of course, of course,’ he rejoined, laughing. ‘But there may have been
some--mistake somewhere. I know Sir Giles would give five times its
value for it.’
‘He should not have it if he offered the Moldwarp estate in exchange,’
I cried indignantly; and the thought flashed across me that this
temptation was what my uncle had feared from the acquaintance of Mr
Coningham.
‘Your sincerity will not be put to so great a test as that,’ he
returned, laughing quite merrily. ‘But I am glad you have such a
respect for real property. At the same time--how many acres are there
of it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I answered, curtly and truly.
‘It is of no consequence. Only if you don’t want to be tempted, don’t
let Sir Giles or my father broach the subject. You needn’t look at me.
_I_ am not Sir Giles’s agent. Neither do my father and I run in double
harness. He hinted, however, this very day, that he believed the old
fool wouldn’t stick at £500 an acre for this bit of grass--if he
couldn’t get it for less.’
‘If that is what you have come about, Mr Coningham,’ I rejoined,
haughtily I dare say, for something I could not well define made me
feel as if the dignity of a thousand ancestors were perilled in my
own,’ I beg you will not say another word on the subject, for sell this
land I _will not_.’
He was looking at me strangely. His eye glittered with what, under
other circumstances, I might have taken for satisfaction; but he turned
his face away and rose, saying with a curiously altered tone, as he
took up his hat,
‘I’m very sorry to have offended you, Mr Cumbermede. I sincerely beg
your pardon. I thought our old--friendship may I not call it?--would
have justified me in merely reporting what I had heard. I see now that
I was wrong. I ought to have shown more regard for your feelings at
this trying time. But again I assure you I was only reporting, and had
not the slightest intention of making myself a go-between in the
matter. One word more: I have no doubt I could _let_ the field for
you--at good grazing rental. That I think you can hardly object to.’
‘I should be much obliged to you,’ I replied--‘for a term of not more
than seven years--but without the house, and with the stipulation
expressly made that I have right of way in every direction through it.’
‘Reasonable enough,’ he answered.
‘One thing more,’ I said: ‘all these affairs must be pure matters of
business between us.’
‘As you please,’ he returned, with, I fancied, a shadow of
disappointment, if not of displeasure, on his countenance. ‘I should
have been more gratified if you had accepted a friendly office; but I
will do my best for you, notwithstanding.’
‘I had no intention of being unfriendly, Mr Coningham,’ I said. ‘But
when I think of it, I fear I may have been rude, for the bare proposal
of selling this Naboth’s vineyard of mine would go far to make me rude
to any man alive. It sounds like an invitation to dishonour myself in
the eyes of my ancestors.’
‘Ah! you do care about your ancestors?’ he said, half musingly, and
looking into his hat.
‘Of course I do. Who is there does not?’
‘Only some ninety-nine hundredths of the English nation.’
‘I cannot well forget,’ I returned, ‘what my ancestors have done for
me.’
‘Whereas most people only remember that their ancestors can do no more
for them. I declare I am almost glad I offended you. It does one good
to hear a young man speak like that in these degenerate days, when a
buck would rather be the son of a rich brewer than a decayed gentleman.
I will call again about the end of the week--that is if you will be
here--and report progress.’
His manner, as he took his leave, was at once more friendly and more
respectful than it had yet been--a change which I attributed to his
having discovered in me more firmness than he had expected, in regard,
if not of my rights, at least of my social position.