Kitabı oku: «The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume I», sayfa 11

Albert Jekyl was a proficient in this great art; indeed, his powers developed themselves according to the exigency, so that the more insufferably tiresome his companion, the more seemingly attentive and interested did he become. His features were, in fact, a kind of “bore-ometer,” in which, from the liveliness of the expression, you might calculate the stupidity of the tormentor; and the mercury of his nature rose, not fell, under pressure. And so you would have said had you but seen him that evening, as, seated beside Dalton, he heard, for hours long, how Irish gentlemen were ruined and their fortunes squandered. What jolly times they were when men resisted the law and never feared a debt! Not that, while devouring all the “rapparee” experiences of the father, he had no eye for the daughters, and did not see what was passing around him. Ay, that did he, and mark well how Lady Hester attached herself to Kate Dalton, flattered by every sign of her unbought admiration, and delighted with the wondering homage of the artless girl. He watched Onslow, too, turn from the inanimate charms of Nelly’s sculptured figures, to gaze upon the long dark lashes and brilliant complexion of her sister. He saw all the little comedy that went on around him, even to poor Nelly’s confusion, as she assisted Andy to arrange a tea-table, and, for the first time since their arrival, proceed to make use of that little service of white and gold which, placed on a marble table for show, constitutes the invariable decoration of every humble German drawing-room. He even overheard her, as she left the room, giving Andy her directions a dozen times over, how he was to procure the tea, and the sugar, and the milk, extravagances she did not syllable without a sigh. He saw and heard everything, and rapidly drew his own inferences, not alone of their poverty, but of their unfitness to struggle with it.

“And yet, I’d wager these people,” said he to himself, “are revelling in superfluities; at least, as compared to me! But, so it is, the rock that one man ties round his neck, another would make a stepping-stone of!” This satisfactory conclusion gave additional sweetness to the bland smile with which he took his teacup from Nelly’s hand, while he pronounced the beverage the very best he had ever tasted out of Moscow. And so we must leave the party.

CHAPTER XV. CONTRASTS

“So you think, Grounsell, I may be able to leave this in a day or two?” said Sir Stafford, as, on the day following the events we have just related, he slowly walked up and down his dressing-room.

“By the end of the week, if the weather only continue fine, we may be on the road again.”

“I’m glad of it, heartily glad of it! Not that, as regarded myself, it mattered much where I was laid up in dock; but I find that this isolation, instead of drawing the members of my family more closely together, has but served to widen the breach between them. Lady Hester and Sydney rarely meet; George sees neither of them, and rarely comes near me, so that the sooner we go hence the better for all of us.”

Grounsell gave a dry nod of assent, without speaking.

“Sydney is very anxious to go and pass some time with her aunt Conway; but I foresee that, if I consent, the difference between Lady Hester and her will then become an irreconcilable quarrel. You don’t agree with me, Grounsell?”

“I do not. I never knew the ends of a fractured bone unite by grating them eternally against each other.”

“And, as for George, the lounging habits of his service and cigars have steeped him in an indolence from which there is no emerging. I scarcely know what to do with him.”

“It’s hard enough to decide upon,” rejoined Grounsell; “he has some pursuits, but not one ambition.”

“He has very fair abilities, certainly,” said Sir Stafford, half peevishly.

“Very fair!” nodded Grounsell.

“A good memory, a quick apprehension.”

“He has one immense deficiency, for which nothing can compensate,” said the doctor, solemnly.

“Application, industry?”

“No, with his opportunities a great deal is often acquired with comparatively light labor. I mean a greater and more important element.”

“He wants steadiness, you think?”

“No; I ‘ll tell you what he wants, he wants pluck!”

Sir Stafford’s cheek became suddenly crimson, and his blue eyes grew almost black in the angry expression of the moment.

“Pluck, sir? My son deficient in courage?”

“Not as you understand it now,” resumed Grouusell, calmly. “He has enough, and more than enough, to shoot me or anybody else that would impugn it. The quality I mean is of a very different order. It is the daring to do a thing badly to-day in the certain confidence that you, will do it better to-morrow, and succeed perfectly in it this day twelvemonth. He has not pluck to encounter repeated failures, and yet return every morning to the attack; he has not pluck to be bullied by mediocrity in the sure and certain confidence that he will live to surpass it; in a word, he has not that pluck which resists the dictation of inferior minds, and inspires self-reliance through self-respect.”

“I confess I cannot see that in the station he is likely to occupy such qualities are at all essential,” said Sir Stafford, almost haughtily.

“Twenty thousand a year is a fine thing, and may dispense with a great many gifts in its possessor; and a man like myself, who never owned a twentieth of the amount, may be a precious bad judge of the requisites to spend it suitably; but I ‘ll tell you one thing, Onslow, that organ the phrenologists call ‘Combativeness’ is the best in the whole skull.”

“I think your Irish friend Dalton must have been imparting some of his native prejudices to you,” said Onslow, smiling; “and, by the way, when have you seen him?”

“I went to call there last night, but I found a tea-party, and did n’t go in. Only think of these people, with beggary staring them on every side, sending out for ‘Caravan’ tea at I don’t know how many florins a pound.”

“I heard of it; but then, once and away – ”

“Once and away! Ay, but once is ruin.”

“Well, I hope Prichard has arranged everything by this time. He has gone over this morning to complete the business; so that I trust, when we leave Baden, these worthy people will be m the enjoyment of easier circumstances.”

“I see him crossing over the street now. I’ll leave you together.”

“No, no, Grounsell; wait and hear his report; we may want your advice besides, for I ‘m not quite clear that this large sum of arrears should be left at Dalton’s untrammelled disposal, as Mr. Prichard intended it should be a test of that excellent gentleman’s prudence.”

Mr. Prichard’s knock was now heard at the door, and next moment he entered. His pale countenance was slightly flushed, and in the expression of his face it might be read that he had come from a scene of unusual excitement.

“I have failed, completely failed, Sir Stafford,” said he, with a sigh, as he seated himself, and threw a heavy roll of paper on the table before him.

As Sir Stafford did not break the pause that followed these words, Prichard resumed,

“I told you last night that Mr. Dalton, not being able clearly to understand my communication, which I own, to prevent any searching scrutiny on his part, I did my best to envelop in a covering of technicalities, referred me to his eldest daughter, in whose acuteness he reposes much confidence. If I was not impressed with the difficulty of engaging such an adversary from his description, still less was I on meeting with the young lady this morning. A very quietly mannered, unassuming person, with considerable good looks, which once upon a time must have been actual beauty, was seated alone in the drawing-room awaiting me. Her dress was studiously plain; and were it not for an air of great neatness throughout, I should perhaps call it even poor. I mention all these matters with a certain prolixity, because they bear upon what ensued.

“Without waiting for me to open my communication, she began by a slight apology for her presence there, occasioned, as she said, by her father’s ill-health and consequent incapacity to transact business; after which she added a few words expressive of a hope that I would make my statement in the most simple and intelligible form, divested so far as might be of technical phraseology, and such as, to use her own words, a very unlettered person like herself might comprehend.

“This opening, I confess, somewhat startled me; I scarcely expected so much from her father’s daughter; but I acquiesced and went on. As we concocted the whole plot together here, Sir Stafford, it is needless that I should weary you by a repetition of it. It is enough that I say I omitted nothing of plausibility, either in proof of the bequest, or in the description of the feeling that prompted its fulfilment. I descanted upon the happy event which, in the course of what seemed an accident, had brought the two families together, and prefaced their business intercourse by a friendship. I adverted to the good influence increased comforts would exercise upon her father’s health. I spoke of her sister and her brother in the fuller enjoyment of all that became their name and birth. She heard me to the very end with deep attention, never once interrupting, nor even by a look or gesture expressing dissent.

“At last, when I had concluded, she said, ‘This, then, is a bequest?’

“I replied affirmatively.

“‘In that case,’ said she, ‘the terms on which it is conveyed will solve all the difficulty of our position. If my uncle Godfrey intended this legacy to be a peace-offering, however late it has been in coming, we should have no hesitation in accepting it; if he meant that his generosity should be trammelled by conditions, or subject in any way to the good pleasure of a third party, the matter will have a different aspect. Which is the truth?’

“I hesitated at this point-blank appeal, so different from what I looked for, and she at once asked to see the will. Disconcerted still more, I now prevaricated, stating that I had not brought the document with me; that a memorandum of its provisions would, I had supposed, prove sufficient; and finally assured her that acceptance of the bequest involved neither a condition nor a pledge.

“‘It may, however, involve an obligation, sir,’ said she, firmly. ‘Let us learn if such be the case.’

“‘Are you so proud, Miss Dalton,’ said I, ‘that you cannot even submit to an obligation?’

“She blushed deeply, and with a weak voice answered,

“‘We are too poor to incur a debt.’

“Seeing it was useless to dwell longer on this part of the subject, I adverted to her father’s increasing age, his breaking health, and the necessity of affording him a greater share of comforts; but she suddenly stopped me, saying, “‘You may make my refusal of this favor for such it is, and nothing less a more painful duty than I deemed it, but you cannot alter my resolution, sir. Poverty, so long as it is honorable, has nothing mean nor undeserving about it, but dependence can never bestow happiness. It is true, as you say, that my dear father might have around him many of those little luxuries that he once was used to; but with what changed hearts would not his children minister them to him? Where would be that high prompting sense of duty that every self-sacrifice is met by now? Where that rich reward of an approving spirit that lightens toil and makes even weariness blessed? Our humble fortunes have linked us closer together; the storms of the world have made us draw nearer to each other, have given us one heart, hope, and love alike. Leave us, then, to struggle on, nor cast the gloom of dependence over days that all the ills of poverty could not darken. We are happy now; who can tell what we should become hereafter?’

“I tried to turn her thoughts upon her brother, but she quickly stopped me, saying,

“‘Frank is a soldier; the rewards in his career are never withheld from the deserving; at all events, wealth would be unsuitable to him. He never knew but narrow fortunes, and the spirit that becomes a more exalted condition is not the growth of a day.’

“I next ventured, but with every caution and delicacy, to inquire whether your aid and influence might not avail them in any future plans of life they might form?

“‘We have no plans,” said she, simply; ‘or, rather, we have had so many that they all resolve themselves into mere castle-building. My dear father longs for Ireland again, for home as he still calls it, forgetting that we have no longer a home there. He fancies warm-hearted friends and neighbors, an affectionate people, attached to the very traditions of his name; but it is now wiser to feed this delusion than destroy it, by telling him that few, scarcely one, of his old companions still live, that other influences, other fortunes, other names, have replaced ours; we should go back there as strangers, and without even the stranger’s claim to kind acceptance. Then, we had thought of the new world beyond seas; but these are the lauds of the young, the ardent, and the enterprising, high in hope and resolute of heart; and so, at last, we deemed it wisest to seek out some quiet spot, in some quiet country, where our poverty would, at least, present nothing remarkable, and there to live for each other; and we are happy, so happy that, save the passing dread that this delicious calm of life may not be lasting, we have few sorrows.’

“Again and again I tried to persuade her to recall her decision, but in vain. Once only did she show any sign of hesitation. It was when I charged her with pride as the reason of refusal. Then suddenly her eyes filled up, and her lip trembled, and such a change came over her features that I grew shocked at my own words.

“‘Pride!’ cried she. ‘If you mean that inordinate self-esteem that prefers isolation to sympathy, that rejects an obligation from mere haughtiness, I know not the feeling. Our pride is not in our self-sufficiency, for every step in life teaches us how much we owe to others; but in this, that low in lot, and humble in means, we have kept, and hope still to keep, the motives and principles that guided us in happier fortunes. Yes, you may call us proud, for we are so, proud that our poverty has not made us mean; proud that in a strange land we have inspired sentiments of kindness, and even of affection; proud that, without any of the gifts or graces which attract, we have drawn towards us this instance of noble generosity of which you are now the messenger. I am not ashamed to own pride in all these.’

“To press her further was useless; and only asking, that if by any future change of circumstances she might be induced to alter her resolve, she would still consider the proposition as open to her acceptance, I took my leave.”

“This is most provoking,” exclaimed Onslow.

“Provoking!” cried Grounsell; “you call it provoking! That where you sought to confer a benefit you discover a spirit greater than all the favors wealth ever gave, or ever will give! A noble nature, that soars above every accident of fortune, provoking!”

“I spoke with reference to myself,” replied Onslow, tartly; “and I repeat, it is most provoking that I am unable to make a recompense where I have unquestionably inflicted a wrong!”

“Rather thank God that in this age of money-seeking and gold-hunting there lives one whose heart is uncorrupted and incorruptible,” cried Grouusell.

“If I had not seen it I could not have believed it!” said Prichard.

“Of course not, sir,” chimed in Grounsell, bluntly. “Yours is not the trade where such instances are frequently met with; nor have I met with many myself!”

“I beg to observe,” said Prichard, mildly, “that even in my career I have encountered many acts of high generosity.”

“Generosity! Yes, I know what that means. A sister who surrenders her legacy to a spendthrift brother; a childless widow that denies herself the humblest means of comfort to help the ruined brother of her lost husband; a wife who places in a reckless husband’s hand the last little remnant of fortune that was hoarded against the day of utter destitution; and they are always women who do these things, saving, scraping, careful creatures, full of self-denial and small economies. Not like your generous men, as the world calls them, whose free-heartedness is nothing but selfishness, whose liberality is the bait to catch flattery. But it is not of generosity I speak here. To give, even to one’s last farthing, is far easier than to refuse help when you are needy. To draw the rags of poverty closer, to make their folds drape decently, and hide the penury within, that is the victory, indeed.”

“Mark you,” cried Onslow, laughing, “it is an old bachelor says all this.”

Grounsell’s face became scarlet, and as suddenly pale as death; and although he made an effort to speak, not a sound issued from his lips. For an instant the pause which ensued was unbroken, when a tap was heard at the door. It was a message from Lady Hester, requesting, if Sir Stafford were disengaged, to be permitted to speak with him.

“You’re not going, Grounsell?” cried Sir Stafford, as he saw the doctor seize his hat; but he hastened out of the room without speaking, while the lawyer, gathering up his papers, prepared to follow him.

“We shall see you at dinner, Prichard?” said Sir Stafford. “I have some hope of joining the party myself to-day.”

Mr. Prichard bowed his acknowledgments and departed.

And now the old baronet sat down to ponder in his mind the reasons for so strange an event as a visit in the forenoon from Lady Hester. “What can it mean? She can’t want money,” thought he; “‘t is but the other day I sent her a large check. Is she desirous of going back to England again? Are there any new disagreements at work?” This last thought reminded him of those of whom he had been so lately hearing, of those whose narrow fortunes had drawn them nearer to each other, rendering them more tolerant and more attached, while in his own family, where affluence prevailed, he saw nothing but dissension.

As he sat pondering over this not too pleasant problem, a tall and serious-looking footman entered the room, rolling before him an armchair. Another and not less dignified functionary followed, with cushions and a foot-warmer, signs which Sir Stafford at once read as indicative of a long interview; for her Ladyship’s preparations were always adopted with a degree of forethought and care that she very rarely exhibited in matters of real consequence.

Sir Stafford was contemplating these august demonstrations, when the solemn voice of an upper servant announced Lady Hester; and, after a second’s pause, she swept into the room in all that gauzy amplitude of costume that gives to the wearer a seeming necessity of inhabiting the most spacious apartments of a palace.

“How d’ye do?” said she, languidly, as she sank down into her chair. “I had not the least notion how far this room was off; if Clements has not been taking me a tour of the whole house.”

Mr. Clements, who was still busily engaged in disposing and arranging the cushions, blandly assured her Ladyship that they had come by the most direct way.

“I’m sorry for it,” said she, peevishly, “for I shall have the more fatigue in going back again. There, you ‘re only making it worse. You never can learn that I don’t want to be propped up like an invalid. That will do; you may leave the room. Sir Stafford, would you be good enough to draw that blind a little lower? the sun is directly in my eyes. Dear me, how yellow you are! or is it the light in this horrid room? Am I so dreadfully bilious-looking?”

“On the contrary,” said he, smiling, “I should pronounce you in the most perfect enjoyment of health.”

“Oh, of course, I have no doubt of that. I only wonder you didn’t call it ‘rude health.’ I cannot conceive anything more thoroughly provoking than the habit of estimating one’s sufferings by the very efforts made to suppress them.”

“Sufferings, my dear? I really was not aware that you had sufferings.”

“I am quite sure of that; nor is it my habit to afflict others with complaint. I ‘m sure your friend, Mr. Grounsell, would be equally unable to acknowledge their existence. How I do hate that man! and I know, Stafford, he hates us. Oh, you smile, as if to say, ‘Only some of us; ‘but I tell you he detests us all, and his old school-fellow, as he vulgarly persists in calling you, as much as the others.”

“I sincerely hope you are mistaken.”

“Polite, certainly; you trust that his dislike is limited to myself. Not that, for my own part, I have the least objection to any amount of detestation with which he may honor me; it is the tribute the low and obscure invariably render the well-born, and I am quite ready to accept it; but I own it is a little hard that I must submit to the infliction beneath my own roof.”

“My dear Hester, how often have I assured you that you were mistaken; and that what you regard as disrespect to yourself is the roughness of an unpolished but sterling nature. The ties which have grown up between him and me since we were boys together ought not to be snapped for the sake of a mere misunderstanding; and if you cannot or will not estimate him for the good qualities he unquestionably possesses, at least bear with him for my sake.”

“So I should, so I strive to do; but the evil does not end there; he inspires everybody with the same habits of disrespect and indifference. Did you remark Clements, a few moments since, when I spoke to him about that cushion?”

“No, I can’t say that I did.”

“Why should you? nobody ever does trouble his head about anything that relates to my happiness! Well, I remarked it, and saw the supercilious smile he assumed when I told him that the pillow was wrong. He looked over at you, too, as though to say, ‘You see how impossible it is to please her’.”

“I certainly saw nothing of that.”

“Even Prichard, that formerly was the most diffident of men, is now so much at his ease, so very much at home in my presence, it is quite amusing. It was but yesterday he asked me to take wine with him at dinner. The anachronism was bad enough, but only fancy the liberty!”

“And what did you do?” asked Sir Stafford, with difficulty repressing a smile.

“I affected not to hear, hoping he would not expose himself before the servants by a repetition of the request. But he went on, ‘Will your Ladyship’ I assure you he said that ‘will your Ladyship do me the honor to drink wine with me?’ I merely stared at him, but never took any notice of his speech. Would you believe it? he returned to the charge again, and with his hand on his wine-glass, began, ‘I have taken the liberty’ I could n’t hear more; so I turned to George, and said, ‘George, will you tell that man not to do that?’”

Sir Stafford could not restrain himself any longer, but broke out into a burst of hearty laughter. “Poor Prichard,” said he, at last, “I almost think I see him before me!”

“You never think of saying, ‘Poor Hester, these are not the associates you have been accustomed to live with!’ But I could be indifferent to all these if my own family treated me with proper deference. As for Sydney and George, however, they have actually coventried me; and although I anticipated many sacrifices when I married, this I certainly never speculated upon. Lady Wallingcroft, indeed, warned me to a certain extent of what I should meet with; but I fondly hoped that disparity of years and certain differences, the fruits of early prejudices and habits, would be the only drawbacks on my happiness; but I have lived to see my error!”

“The event has, indeed, not fulfilled what was expected from it,” said Sir Stafford, with a slow and deliberate emphasis on each word.

“Oh, I comprehend you perfectly,” said she, coloring slightly, and for the first time displaying any trait of animation in her features. “You have been as much disappointed as I have. Just what my aunt Wallingcroft prophesied. ‘Remember,’ said she, and I ‘m sure I have had good cause to remember it, ‘their ideas are not our ideas; they have not the same hopes, ambitions, or objects that we have; their very morality is not our morality!’”

“Of what people or nation was her Ladyship speaking?” asked Sir Stafford, mildly.

“Of the City, generally,” replied Lady Hester, proudly.

“Not in ignorance, either,” rejoined Sir Stafford; “her own father was a merchant in Lombard Street.”

“But the family are of the best blood in Lancashire, Sir Stafford.”

“It may be so; but I remember Walter Crofts himself boasting that he had danced to warm his feet on the very steps of the door in Grosvenor Square which afterwards acknowledged him as the master; and as he owed his wealth and station to honest industry and successful enterprise, none heard the speech without thinking the better of him.”

“The anecdote is new to me,” said Lady Hester, superciliously; “and I have little doubt that the worthy man was merely embellishing an incident to suit the tastes of his company.”

“It was the company around his table, as Lord Mayor of London!”

“I could have sworn it,” said she, laughing; “but what has all this to do with what I wished to speak about if I could but remember what it was! These eternal digressions have made me forget everything.”

Although the appeal was palpably directed to Sir Stafford, he sat silent and motionless, patiently awaiting the moment when recollection might enable her to resume.

“Dear me! how tiresome it is! I cannot think of what I came about, and you will not assist me in the least.”

“Up to this moment you have given me no clew to it,” said Sir Stafford, with a smile. “It was not to speak of Grounsell?”

“Of course not. I hate even to think of him!”

“Of Prichard, perhaps?” he said, with a half-sly twinkle of the eye.

“Just as little!”

“Possibly your friend Colonel Haggerstone was in your thoughts?”

“Pray do not call him my friend. I know very little of the gentleman; I intend even to know less. I declined to receive him this morning, when he sent up his card.”

“An attention I fear he has not shown that poor creature he wounded, Grounsell tells me.”

“Oh, I have it!” said she, suddenly; the allusion to Hans at once recalling the Daltons, and bringing to mind the circumstances she desired to remember. “It was exactly of these poor people I came to speak. You must know, Sir Stafford, that I have made the acquaintance of a most interesting family here, a father and two daughters named Dalton.”

“Grounsell has already told me so,” interrupted Sir Stafford.

“Of course, then, every step I have taken in this intimacy has been represented in the most odious light. The amiable doctor will have, doubtless, imputed to me the least worthy motives for knowing persons in their station?”

“On the contrary, Hester. If he expressed any qualification to the circumstance, it was in the form of a fear lest the charms of your society and the graces of your manner might indispose them to return with patience to the dull round of their daily privations.”

“Indeed!” said she, superciliously. “A weak dose of his own acquaintance would be, then, the best antidote he could advise them! But, really, I must not speak of this man; any allusion to him is certain to jar my nerves, and irritate my feelings for the whole day after. I want to interest you about these Daltons.”

“Nothing more easy, my dear, since I already know something about them.”

“The doctor being your informant,” said she, snappishly.

“No, no, Hester; many, many years ago, certain relations existed between us, and I grieve to say that Mr. Dalton has reason to regard me in no favorable light; and it was but the very moment I received your message I was learning from Prichard the failure of an effort I had made to repair a wrong. I will not weary you with a long and a sad story, but briefly mention that Mr. Dalton’s late wife was a distant relative of my own.”

“Yes, yes; I see it all. There was a little love in the business, an old flame revived in after life; nothing serious, of course but jealousies and misconstructions to any extent. Dear me, and that was the reason she died of a broken heart!” It was hard to say if Sir Stafford was more amused at the absurdity of this imputation, or stung by the cool indifference with which she uttered it; nor was it easy to know how the struggle, within him would terminate, when she went on: “It does appear so silly to see a pair of elderly gentlemen raking up a difference out of an amourette of the past century. You are very fortunate to have so quiet a spot to exhibit in!”

“I am sorry to destroy an illusion so very full of amusement, Lady Hester; but I owe it to all parties to say that your pleasant fancy has not even the shadow of a color. I never even saw Mrs. Dalton; never have yet met her husband. The event to which I was about to allude, when you interrupted me, related to a bequest – ”

“Oh, I know the whole business, now! It was at your suit that dreadful mortgage was foreclosed, and these dear people were driven away from their ancient seat of Mount Dalton. I ‘m sure I ‘ve heard the story at least ten times over, but never suspected that your name was mixed up with it. I do assure you, Sir Stafford, that they have never dropped the most distant hint of you in connection with that sad episode.”

“They have been but just, Lady Hester,” said he, gravely. “I never did hold a mortgage over this property; still less exercised the severe right you speak of. But it is quite needless to pursue a narrative that taxes your patience so severely; enough to say, that through Prichard’s mediation I have endeavored to persuade Mr. Dalton that I was the trustee, under a will, of a small annuity on his life. He has peremptorily refused to accept it, although, as I am informed, living in circumstances of great poverty.”

“Poor they must be, certainly. The house is wretchedly furnished, and the girls wear such clothes as I never saw before; not that they are even the worn and faded finery of better days, but actually the coarse stuffs such as the peasants wear!”