Colonel Bramleigh's malady took a strange form, and one which much
puzzled his physicians. His feverish symptoms gradually disappeared, and
to his paroxysms of passion and excitement there now succeeded a sort of
dreary apathy, in which he scarcely uttered a word, nor was it easy to
say whether he heard or heeded the remarks around him. This state was
accompanied by a daily increasing debility, as though the powers of life
were being gradually exhausted, and that, having no more to strive for
or desire, he cared no more to live.
The whole interest of his existence now seemed to centre around the
hour when the post arrived. He had ordered that the letter-bag should be
opened in his presence, and as the letters were shown him one by one,
he locked them, unopened and unread, in a despatch-box, so far strictly
obedient to the dictates of the doctor, who had forbidden him all
species of excitement. His family had been too long accustomed to the
reserve and distance he observed towards them to feel surprised that
none were in this critical hour admitted to his confidence, and that
it was in presence of his valet, Dorose, the letters were sorted and
separated, and such as had no bearing on matters of business sent down
to be read by the family.
It was while he continued in this extraordinary state, intermediate, as
it seemed, between sleeping and waking, a telegram came from Sedley to
Augustus, saying, “Highly important to see your father. Could he confer
with me if I go over? Reply at once.” The answer was, “Unlikely that you
can see him; but come on the chance.”
Before sending off this reply, Augustus had taken the telegram up to
Marion's room, to ask her advice in the matter. “You are quite right,
Gusty,” said she; “for if Sedley cannot see papa, he can certainly see
Lord Culduff.”
“Lord Culduff,” cried he, in amazement “Why, what could Lord Culduff
possibly know about my father's affairs? How could he be qualified to
give an opinion upon them?”
“Simply on the grounds of his great discrimination, his great acuteness,
joined to a general knowledge of life, in which he has admittedly few
rivals.”
“Grant all that; but here are special questions, here are matters
essentially personal; and with all his Lordship's tact and readiness,
yet he is not one of us.”
“He may be, though, and very soon, too,” replied she, promptly.
“What do you mean?” asked he, in a voice of almost dismay.
“Just what I say, Augustus; and I am not aware it is a speech that need
excite either the amazement or the terror I see in your face at this
moment.”
“I _am_ amazed; and if I understand you aright, I have grounds to be
shocked besides.”
“Upon my word,” said she, in a voice that trembled with passion, “I
have reason to congratulate myself on the score of brotherly affection.
Almost the last words Jack spoke to me at parting were, 'For God's
sake, shake off that old scamp;' and now you--that hold a very different
position amongst us--you, who will one day be the head of the family,
deliberately tell me you are shocked at the prospect of my being allied
to one of the first names in the peerage.”
“My dear Marion,” said he, tenderly, “it is not the name, it is not the
rank I object to.”
“It is his fortune, then? I'm sure it can't be his abilities.”
“It is neither. It is simply that the man might be your grandfather.”
“Well, sir,” said she, drawing herself up, and assuming a manner of
intense hauteur, “and if _I_,--I conclude I am the person most to
be consulted,--if I do not regard this disparity of years as an
insurmountable obstacle, by what right can one of my family presume to
call it such?”
“My dear sister,” said he, “can you not imagine the right of a brother
to consult for your happiness?”
“Happiness is a very large word. If it were for Nelly that you were
interesting yourself, I 've no doubt your advice and counsel ought to
have great weight; but I am not one of your love-in-a-cottage young
ladies, Gusty. I am, I must own it, excessively worldly. Whatever
happiness I could propose to myself in life is essentially united to a
certain ambition. We have as many of the advantages of mere wealth as
most people: as fine equipage, as many footmen, as good a cook, and
as costly silver; and what do they do for us? They permit us simply to
enter the lists with a set of people who have high-stepping horses and
powdered lackeys like ourselves, but who are no more the world, no more
society, than one of papa's Indiamen is a ship of the Royal Navy. Why do
I say this to you, who were at Oxford, who saw it all--ay, and felt it
all--in those fresh years of youth when these are sharp sufferings? You
know well--you told me your griefs at the time--that you were in a set
without being 'of it;' that the stamp of inequality was as indelibly
fixed upon you as though you were a corporal and wore coarse cloth.
Now, these things are hard to bear for a man; for a woman they are
intolerable. She has not the hundred and one careers in life in which
individual distinction can obliterate the claims of station. She has but
one stage,--the _salon_; but, to her, this narrow world, soft-carpeted
and damask-curtained, is a very universe, and without the recognized
stamp of a certain rank in it, she is absolutely nothing.”
“And may not all these things be bought too dearly, Marion?”
“I don't know the price I 'd call too high for them.”
“What! Not your daily happiness? not your self-esteem! not the want of
the love of one who would have your whole heart in his keeping?”
“So he may, if he can give me the rank I care for.”
“Oh, Marion! I cannot think this of you,” cried he, bitterly.
“That is to say, that you want me to deceive you with false assurances
of unbought affection and the like; and you are angry because I will not
play the hypocrite. Lord Culduff has made me an offer of his hand, and
I have accepted it. You are aware that I am my own mistress. Whatever I
possess, it is absolutely my own; and though I intend to speak with my
father, and, if it may be, obtain his sanction, I will not say that his
refusal would induce me to break off my engagement.”
“At all events, you are not yet this man's wife, Marion,” said he, with
more determination than he had yet shown; “and I forbid you positively
to impart to Lord Culduff anything regarding this telegram.”
“I make no promises.”
“You may have no regard for the interests of your family, but possibly
you will care for some of your own,” said he, fiercely. “Now, I tell
you distinctly, there are very grave perils hanging over us at
this moment,--perils of which I cannot measure the amount nor the
consequences. I can only dimly perceive the direction from which they
come; and I warn you, for your own sake, make no confidences beyond the
bounds of your own family.”
“You are superbly mysterious, Gusty; and if I were impressionable on
this kind of matter, I half suspect you might terrify me. Papa ought to
have committed a forgery, at least, to justify your dark insinuations.”
“There is no question of a forgery; but there may be that which, in the
end, will lead to a ruin as complete as any forgery.”
“I know what you mean,” said she, in a careless, easy tone. “The bank
has made use of private securities and title-deeds, just as those other
people did--I forget their names--a couple of years ago.”
“It is not even that; but I repeat, the consequences may be to the full
as disastrous.”
“You allude to this unhappy scrape of Jack's.”
“I do not. I was not then thinking of it.”
“Because, as to that, Lord Culduff said there never yet grew a tree
where there was n't a branch or two might be lopped off with advantage.
If Jack does n't think his station in life worth preserving, all the
teaching in the world won't persuade him to maintain it.”
“Poor Jack!” said he, bitterly.
“Yes, I say, poor Jack! too. I think it's exactly the epithet to apply
to one whose spirit is so much beneath his condition.”
“You are terribly changed, Marion. I do not know if you are aware of
it?”
“I hope I am. I trust that I look at the events around me from a higher
level than I have been accustomed to hitherto.”
“And is my father in a state to be consulted on a matter of this
importance?” asked he, half indignantly.
“Papa has already been spoken to about it; and it is by his own desire
we are both to see him this evening.”
“Am I the only one here who knew nothing of all this?”
“You should have been told formally this morning, Augustus. Lord Culduff
only waited for a telegram from Mr. Cutbill, to announce to you his
intentions and his--hopes.” A slight hesitation delayed the word.
“These things I can't help,” said he, bitterly, and as if speaking to
himself. “They have been done without my knowledge, and regardless of me
in every way; but I do protest--strongly protest--against Lord Culduff
being introduced into matters which are purely our own.”
“I never knew till now that we had family secrets,” said she, with an
insolent air.
“You may learn it later on, perhaps, and without pleasure.”
“So, then, these are the grave perils you tried to terrify me with
a while ago. You forget, Augustus, that I have secured my passage in
another ship. Personally, at least, I am in no danger.”
“I did forget that. I did indeed forget how completely you could
disassociate yourself from the troubles of your family.”
“But what is going to happen to us? They can't shoot Jack because he
called his commanding officer an ugly name. They can't indite papa
because he refused to be high-sheriff. And if the world is angry with
you, Gusty, it is not certainly because you like the company of men of
higher station than your own.”
He flushed at the sarcasm that her speech half revealed, and turned away
to hide his irritation.
“Shall I tell you frankly, Gusty,” continued she, “that I believe
nothing--absolutely nothing--of these impending calamities? There is no
sword suspended over us; or if there be, it is by a good strong cord,
which will last our time. There are always plenty of dark stories in the
City. Shares fall, and great houses tumble; but papa told me scores of
times that he never put all his eggs into one basket; and Bramleigh and
Underwood will be good names for many a day to come. Shall I tell you,
my dear Augustus, what I suspect to be the greatest danger that now
hangs over us? And I am quite ready to admit it is a heavy one.”
“What is it?”
“The peril _I_ mean is that your sister Nelly will marry the curate.
Oh, you may look shocked and incredulous, and cry impossible, if you
like; but we girls are very shrewd detectives over each other, and what
I tell you is only short of certainty.”
“He has not a shilling in the world; nor has she, independently of my
father.”
“That's the reason. That's the reason. These are the troths that are
never broken. There is nothing aids fidelity like beggary.”
“He has neither friends nor patrons; he told me himself he has not the
vaguest hope of advancement.”
“Exactly so; and just for that they will be married. Now it reminds me,”
said she, aloud, “of what papa once said to me. The man who wants to
build up a name and a family ought to have few children. With a large
household, some one or other will make an unhappy alliance, and one
deserter disgraces the army.”
“A grave consideration for Lord Culduff at this moment,” said he, with a
humorous twinkle of the eye.
“We have talked it over already,” said she.
“Once for all, Marion, no confidences about what I have been talking
of.” And so saying, he went his way.