THE
TALLANTS OF BARTON.
A Tale of Fortune and Finance.
BY
JOSEPH HATTON,
Author of “Bitter Sweets: a Love Story;” “Against the Stream,”
etc., etc.
“The wheel of Fortune turns incessantly round, and who can say within
himself, I shall to-day be uppermost?”--_Confucius._
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
1867.
[_The Right of Translation is reserved._]
LONDON:
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I.--ENTER THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF
VERNER 1
II.--CONTAINS IMPORTANT REVELATIONS, AND TERMINATES
FATALLY 21
III.--“ARCADES AMBO,” BUT FLOURISHING NEVERTHELESS 34
IV.--IN WHICH RICHARD TALLANT VISITS BARTON
HALL AGAIN, AND ARTHUR PHILLIPS COMPLETES
A GREAT WORK 50
V.--THE TWO TEMPLES 64
VI.--MRS. DIBBLE AND PAUL SOMERTON JOURNEY TO
SEVERNTOWN 80
VII.--IN WHICH MR. SHUFFLETON GIBBS PRESENTS
HIMSELF IN ANOTHER CHARACTER 92
VIII.--WHAT ARTHUR PHILLIPS SAW THROUGH THE
MIST 108
IX.--IN WHICH AN IMPORTANT WILL IS READ 123
X.--ARTHUR PHILLIPS HAS A HAPPY GLIMPSE OF
THE FUTURE 135
XI.--DURING THE WINTER 145
XII.--DISCOURSES CHIEFLY OF UNREQUITED LOVE 159
XIII.--THE FIRST OBSTRUCTION IN A CERTAIN SCHEME
OF AMBITION AND REVENGE 175
XIV.--OF HAPPY DAYS IN SPRING 193
XV.--FINANCE AND “FINESSE” 212
XVI.--IN WHICH A CERTAIN LIEUTENANT GETS INTO
DEBT, AND TRYING TO GET OUT AGAIN FALLS
WICKEDLY IN LOVE 230
XVII.--CONTINUES THE LIEUTENANT’S ADVENTURE 243
XVIII.--A PICTURE FOR ASMODEO’S CLOAK 255
XIX.--“THE COMING EVENT” 274
CHAPTER I.
ENTER THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF
VERNER.
So swiftly did one incident of change crowd upon another at this period
of the lives which we fear we are but faintly sketching, that it seemed
as if Fortune had arranged all the concomitant circumstances that were
culminating in these few eventful days of autumn.
Fortune, “the great commandress of the world,” had already played
strange pranks with those two charming girls at Barton. Until lately
their destinies had flowed on smoothly and in peace. They had grown
up side by side,--one the mistress, the other the companion and
friend,--and until now there had been no jealousy on either hand--until
now Amy Somerton had been content with her lot. She had brooded over
her lowly birth, in those hours when she had loved and dreamed about
her love for Mr. Hammerton, but she had only seemed to look up the
higher to her love. She had seen him as miners see the sky, far above
her, and with hardly a beam of hope animating the thought that some
day he might take her hand and raise her up, as the king selected the
beggar maid in the poem.
In those sunny days of doubt and hope and maiden admiration, she had
been happy in her own quiet, dreamy fashion, contented with Lionel’s
kind words and delicate attentions. He had never, perhaps, told her
in so many words that he loved her, but there was that in his voice
and manner, when he addressed her, which led her to believe that he
took delight in her own undisguised admiration. He had signified his
pleasure in her society in a thousand different ways, and for the
time being this was enough to satisfy the heart-craving of Amy; but
content to be humble, her pride nevertheless rose up against attack,
with all the fierceness of injury. On that morning when she learnt
that Lionel had left the country without one word at parting, she
knew as if by instinct that her love was cast off. He must have known
some time before he left that he was going, and yet he had not even
deigned to say so. She knew how weak she had been; she knew how little
she had striven to hide her love. Lionel Hammerton knew that she had
loved him with all her heart and soul. She had not cared to disguise
her feelings. She would have given up all the world for him, even like
Goethe’s Marguerite. There was no sacrifice she would not have made, if
sacrifice had been needed, at the feet of Lionel Hammerton; yet he had
treated herself and her love with contempt and indifference.
You have seen how her spirit rebelled against the slight which she
imagined was the assertion of rank and fortune over lowly birth. Her
whole nature seemed to have undergone a change--a change in which
pride took such full possession of her heart, that there was no more
room left for love. She who had sat and simpered over Tennyson like a
love-sick, romantic girl, dreaming of Cophetua, and Camelot, and A. H.
H., now thought of nothing but schemes of revenge and ambition. If she
were only in Phœbe Tallant’s place, what would she not do to assert the
rights of lowly birth and beauty! She envied her friend at the moment
with a hot and a bitter envy, and hated her own more lowly origin.
It was the morning after her return from London. She sat at her bedroom
window at the farm, commanding a long reach of the carriage-drive to
Barton Hall. The park trees were standing in golden circles of leaves;
the great elms were shaking down their last autumnal tributes to mother
earth; the old roots were wrapped in soft carpet-like coverings of red
and brown and gold; the long carriage-drive was fringed with the same
remnants of the dying year, and anon a gust of wind would sweep along
the road and carry the leaves high up into the air, like flocks of
birds sporting in the sunshine.
But Amy saw only desolation in the scene; she saw all her best and
holiest aspirations tossed about the world like the fallen leaves.
Whilst she sat there musing and fretting by the window, there entered
the drive a carriage drawn by four horses; as it gradually approached,
she saw that there were footmen behind, and that the equipage was
splendid.
“As there are no fairies and magicians in these days,” she said to
herself, “that is not Cinderella’s coach, and I am not Cinderella. Why,
it must be Earl Verner’s carriage: _his_ brother is going to call at
Barton Hall. I will go there too.”
And as she said so, the carriage swept along, with the leaves flying
about the horses’ heads and sporting round the carriage wheels.
Amy was right. This was Earl Verner’s carriage, and his lordship was
on his way to pay Mr. Tallant a personal visit. Once, and only once,
previously had he honoured Barton Hall with his presence. He was of a
quiet, retiring nature; a luxurious and learned nobleman, who cared
more for rare books and works of art and old pottery than for anything
else.
He was scarcely fifty years of age,--a lithe, supple man, with brown,
curly hair, and evidently a quiet, luxurious fellow, who liked to
have his own way and take things easily. He had never been married,
and never would marry, he said, because it would bore him. It would
be impossible, he had often said, for any woman to be happy with
him; she would be jealous of his pictures and pottery in less than a
month. And then the going into society, and fulfilling those duties of
property which people talked about, and laying yourself out for being
everybody’s friend but your own:--no, he could not marry; he would
leave that, he said, to his brother Lionel.
It was through this brother Lionel that the Earl Verner called at
Barton Hall this second time. Mr. Hammerton had, it appeared, not only
invested largely himself in some of the bubble concerns of the day, but
he had induced his lordship to divert considerable sums of money into
the same channel; and now that his lordship’s steward had large demands
upon him for calls, Earl Verner said to himself, “I will go over and
see Tallant--pay him a visit of condolence, and kill two birds with one
stone.”
So his lordship sent in his card, and followed it into Mr. Tallant’s
library, where he found the merchant engaged at his desk.
“Ah, Mr. Tallant, how do you do?” said his lordship, advancing with
opening hand.
“I hope your lordship is well?” said Mr. Tallant. “May I offer you a
chair?”
Earl Verner seated himself, and rubbed his hands familiarly before the
fire.
“Mine is rather a selfish visit, Tallant,” he said. “I fear you must
have thought me an unneighbourly fellow; but, you see, I am fond of
quiet, and I rarely pay visits. Perhaps I take too little interest in
the county. However, you will believe me when I say that I was grieved
to hear of your domestic trouble--deeply grieved; for I knew you had
set your heart upon making that young fellow a sort of intellectual
Crœsus, and----”
Here his lordship hesitated, seeing that the subject was painful to Mr.
Tallant.
“We will not talk about it, Mr. Tallant, but pray accept my sympathy;
and if there is anything I can do for the young fellow--I have some
little influence, I am told, with the Government----”
“Thank your lordship. Let us act upon your former suggestion, and not
talk about it. Richard Tallant is no longer my son.”
There was something so calm and determined in the merchant’s manner,
that Lord Verner did not attempt to say any more on the subject.
“‘A fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind,’ you know,” he said
by-and-by. “My brother Lionel Hammerton, like everybody else, has been
drawn into considerable speculations, and, what is more, he has led
me into the popular folly. Finance is a splendid game for those who
understand it, no doubt; but it is worse than the turf to a novice.
My steward informs me that I have five hundred shares in the Oriental
Bank, one hundred in the Mardike Mines, and five hundred in the Bank of
Finance. There are calls due upon the whole of them, and two are to be
wound up in Chancery. What shall I do in the matter?”
“Pay the calls, and be prepared to pay up the whole of the Finance and
Mining shares, and expect no return,” said Mr. Tallant. “The Orientals
may come right, and will come right if the shareholders and directors
do not succumb to the bears on the Stock Exchange.”
“Hammerton holds similar shares: the same advice will apply with regard
to those?”
“Yes, your lordship; you have nothing to do but pay.”
“Thank you. I knew I should get clear and straightforward advice from
you, Mr. Tallant. I have already occupied your time too long, and I
see you are busy. I will shake hands with Miss Tallant, and take my
leave.”
Mr. Tallant made no reply, but rose, and conducting his lordship to the
drawing-room, bade him good-morning.
In the drawing-room Earl Verner found Miss Tallant and Miss Somerton.
The former he had seen once before, the latter he now saw for the first
time. Phœbe was attired in her ordinary morning style, and looked
fresh and blooming as a rose, but with just a trace of languor in her
manner which did not usually characterise it. Amy had astonished her
friend immensely, only ten minutes previously, by suddenly entering
the room in a favourite delicate white merino, and with unusual signs
of care manifested in her toilette. Her appearance was worthy of that of
a duchess. She looked like a queen in her own right. Her head never
looked nobler; the graceful curves about her mouth and chin seemed to
be full of sunshine and happiness; her eyes sparkled with unwonted
brilliancy, and when Lord Verner entered he found it difficult to
remove his eyes from the lady’s face.
“Pray, present me to your friend,” he said, after he had shaken hands
with Miss Tallant, and without waiting to give Phœbe the voluntary
opportunity of doing so.
Miss Tallant presented Amy accordingly, and his lordship was not
displeased to see how sensibly his rank affected her. His rank? Might
not his appearance have something to do with that faint blush and
unmistakable embarrassment? The thought flashed through his lordship’s
mind in an instant, and it flattered him. He grew quite affable, and
insisted, in his grand way, upon sitting down and having a little chat.
“I am sorry,” he said to Miss Tallant, “to see your father so sensibly
affected by late events; it really grieves me to the heart--such a fine
business gentleman as he was, so full of energy and resource. I must
call again and see him. I fear he is moping. You must cheer him up,
Miss Somerton, you must bring your high spirits to bear upon the poor
gentleman; he is quite downcast.”
“I fear we had best not interfere with him just now, your lordship;
there are troubles which are better nursed and thought over. I hope Mr.
Tallant will soon be well again,” said Amy, sweetly.
“Trouble ought to be quickly dispersed with such companionship as Mr.
Tallant has in his daughter and yourself,” said Lord Verner, bent on
paying Amy a compliment in return for her gracious looks.
“I fear me we scarcely understand all Mr. Tallant’s troubles just now,
and perhaps he does not understand our sympathy and desire to console
him. Your lordship is pleased to be complimentary; but there is little
of woman’s society at Montem Castle, I have always heard, or you would
understand how easy it may be to tire of it.”
“Ah, there you hit me, Miss Somerton; now really that is cruel. Because
I am deserted by the ladies, because I am a mopish, cross-grained, old
bachelor, you think I am a fitting target for your sarcasm. Well, well,
be it so. At least I have not to bear any woman’s taunts and jests at
my own hearth. Ha! ha!--there, there--I think that is one to me. Don’t
you think so, Miss Tallant?” and his lordship laughed merrily at his
own jocularity.
Phœbe smiled a little sadly, and with a puzzled look at Amy, who gave
her no opportunity to reply, but raising her hand slightly to give
point to her words, she said:--
“No, and your lordship has no woman’s sweet smiles at your fireside
either, no chatty sympathising companion in pretty dresses to walk by
your side, and talk to you about all manner of things in which you are
interested; no cheery, pleasant womanly face at the head of your table
making everything brighter about you. There--is not that one to me, as
your lordship puts it?”
Amy smiled so coquettishly, and looked so much all that she had
described, that his lordship soon found himself in an exuberance of
spirits.
“Ah, I am no match for you; it is easy to see that you have lived
in the world, Miss Somerton. Your Belgravian guns are too many for
our poor little pop-guns in the country, eh, Miss Tallant?” said his
lordship.
“Miss Somerton has lived in the country all her life,” said Phœbe.
“You surprise me,” said the Earl.
“And should never desire, I think, to live anywhere else,” said Amy.
“On the whole I think a country life by far the happiest, and the most
independent.”
“Indeed, I think so too,” said his lordship. “There is a certain amount
of solitude in a comparatively retired country life, which allows the
greatest scope for freedom of thought, and for manners and opinions.”
“In what is called society, you sacrifice your liberty, you lose your
own individuality,” said Amy, taking up the theme in a manner that
she knew would be highly pleasing to Lord Verner, for she had an ample
knowledge of his whims and peculiarities, and she was bent upon playing
her new part in the most effective manner possible.
“Hear, hear!--admirably well illustrated!” said Earl Verner. “In the
country one is not bored with all the trumpery little gossip of town.
The news gets fairly sifted before it reaches us, as Gibbon, I think,
somewhere says. We are the lookers-on, and we can rest or give up when
we cease to be interested. In society, as you say, we are mixed up in
the throng, we are part of all that is going on, we must be interested
in all the frivolous nonsense. O, no, nothing like the country, and
especially when you can occupy the mind.”
From this topic, in which Phœbe took great interest, the Earl glided
into more lively subjects, and talked of pictures and new books; and he
was surprised at the smartness and learning evinced in some of Miss
Somerton’s replies. She seemed to know a little of everything, and to
express herself with such charming deference to his lordship’s greater
wisdom, that Earl Verner was quite delighted. He was not bored a bit;
he had never before been in the society of women, who knew anything
about books, without being bored; he hated women who were at all clever
as a rule; but there was an unaffected modesty, a charming _naïveté_
about this lady’s manner, which left its fascinating spirit upon Lord
Verner long after he had left Barton Hall. Who could she be, this
splendid specimen of common sense and beauty?
When he had fairly left the house, Miss Somerton made a curtsey to
herself in a mirror, and said, “_Très bonne, Mademoiselle_, your acting
is really most natural.”
Then turning round upon Phœbe, who was gazing at her friend with an
expression of the most profound astonishment, she said:--
“Pray forgive me, Miss Tallant; you won’t cast me off for trying to
outshine you this morning? You will not show me the door because I am
only a bailiff’s daughter, and not rich?”
Amy’s sarcasm astonished Phœbe more than her previously extraordinary
manner had done, and she could only think that poor Amy was not quite
right in her mind.
“You surely cannot be in your right senses, Amy?” said Miss Tallant.
“Oh yes I am, dear. I was a poor foolish creature once; but I am going
to appear in a new character in future. I will tell you all about
it, like a dutiful companion and bailiff’s daughter, if you will not
denounce me.”
“I fail to understand you, Amy,” said Phœbe, a little piqued at this
undeserved reference to their relative positions.
Any further explanation on Amy’s part was prevented at that time by an
unexpected message from the farm. Mrs. Somerton was seriously ill, and
Luke had sent for his daughter, who went hurriedly to the bedroom which
was set apart for her at the Hall, changed her dress, and obeyed her
father’s summons.
Mrs. Somerton had been ailing for several days. The shock which she had
sustained by the news of her son’s imprisonment had been but little
relieved by the intelligence of his release. She had persisted in
thinking that his life was ruined. The taint of dishonesty, though it
had only attached to him in imagination, was upon him. He could not
hope, she thought, to make a name after that. Everything, she said,
went wrong with them, and she was well punished. This had been the
substance of her talk half the night when she should have been asleep,
and in the morning, whilst Amy was acting her new part before Lord
Verner, she had fallen from her chair, and her husband had carried her
to bed.
When Amy appeared at her bedside, the mother turned her head away
sobbing and weeping.
“I’m very ill, Amy,” she said, by-and-by, “very ill. The longest day
will come to an end at last. I hope the doctor will be here soon.”
“Dear mother, you must not give way so,” Amy said, kissing her
forehead. “What shall I get for you?”
“Nothing, nothing. There’s no salve for sores of the mind, my girl,”
replied the sick woman. “Let me have a doctor soon,” and then she
closed her eyes.
It happened that Luke’s messenger to Avonworth met the doctor at the
cross roads, returning from Berne; and he came therefore soon after Amy
entered the room. Her mother looked at him eagerly as the doctor felt
her pulse.
“Is there any danger, doctor?” she asked earnestly; “shall I die? pray
do not deceive me. I am not a young woman, and don’t expect to live
longer than my time; but do tell me if it has come?”
“There is no danger, I assure you,” said the doctor. “You have been
excited lately, by some trouble perhaps--that affair of your son’s,
which has come all right, I am glad to hear. Your greatest want is
quiet and repose. You must not alarm or excite yourself: you will soon
be better.”
Amy and her father followed the doctor down-stairs to obtain a
verification of this statement; and as they left her, Mrs. Somerton
repeated slowly to herself, “quiet and repose.”