Tales and Novels Volume VI Part 7

Broadhurst had literally taken it for granted that every thing was to depend upon her daughter's inclinations: she was not mistaken, in the present case, in opining that the young lady would not be averse to Lord Colambre, if he came to what she called a point-blank proposal.

It really never occurred to Mrs. Broadhurst, that any man whom her daughter was the least inclined to favour, could think of any body else. Quick-sighted in these affairs as the matron thought herself, she saw but one side of the question: blind and dull of comprehension as she thought Lady Clonbrony on this subject, Mrs. Broadhurst was herself so completely blinded by her own prejudices, as to be incapable of discerning the plain thing that was before her eyes; _videlicet_, that Lord Colambre preferred Grace Nugent. Lord Colambre made no proposal before the end of the week; but this Mrs. Broadhurst attributed to an unexpected occurrence, which prevented things from going on in the train in which they had been proceeding so smoothly.

Sir John Berryl, Mr. Berryl's father, was suddenly seized with a dangerous illness. The news was brought to Mr. Berryl one evening whilst he was at Lady Clonbrony's. The circ.u.mstances of domestic distress which afterwards occurred in the family of his friend, entirely occupied Lord Colambre's time and attention. All thoughts of love were suspended, and his whole mind was given up to the active services of friends.h.i.+p. The sudden illness of Sir John Berryl spread an alarm among his creditors, which brought to light at once the disorder of his affairs, of which his son had no knowledge or suspicion. Lady Berryl had been a very expensive woman, especially in equipages; and Mordicai, the coachmaker, appeared at this time the foremost and the most inexorable of their creditors. Conscious that the charges in his account were exorbitant, and that they would not be allowed if examined by a court of justice; that it was a debt which only ignorance and extravagance could have in the first instance incurred, swelled afterwards to an amazing amount by interest, and interest upon interest; Mordicai was impatient to obtain payment, whilst Sir John yet lived, or at least to obtain legal security for the whole sum from the heir. Mr. Berryl offered his bond for the amount of the reasonable charges in his account; but this Mordicai absolutely refused, declaring that now he had the power in his own hands, he would use it to obtain the utmost penny of his debt; that he would not let the thing slip through his fingers; that a debtor never yet escaped him, and never should; that a man's lying upon his deathbed was no excuse to a creditor; that he was not a whiffler to stand upon ceremony about disturbing a gentleman in his last moments; that he was not to be cheated out of his due by such niceties; that he was prepared to go all lengths the law would allow; for that, as to what people said of him, he did not care a doit--"Cover your face with your hands, if you like it, Mr. Berryl; you may be ashamed for me, but I feel no shame for myself--I am not so weak." Mordicai's countenance said more than his words; livid with malice, and with atrocious determination in his eyes, he stood. "Yes, sir," said he, "you may look at me as you please--it is possible--I am in earnest. Consult what you'll do now behind my back, or before my face, it comes to the same thing; for nothing will do but my money or your bond, Mr. Berryl.

The arrest is made on the person of your father, luckily made while the breath is still in the body--Yes--start forward to strike me, if you dare--Your father, Sir John Berryl, sick or well, is my prisoner."

Lady Berryl and Mr. Berryl's sisters, in an agony of grief, rushed into the room.

"It's all useless," cried Mordicai, turning his back upon the ladies: "these tricks upon creditors won't do with me; I'm used to these scenes; I'm not made of such stuff as you think. Leave a gentleman in peace in his last moments--No! he ought not, nor sha'n't die in peace, if he don't pay his debts; and if you are all so mighty sorry, ladies, there's the gentleman you may kneel to: if tenderness is the order of the day, it's for the son to show it, not me. Ay, now, Mr. Berryl,"

cried he, as Mr. Berryl took up the bond to sign it, "you're beginning to know I'm not a fool to be trifled with. Stop your hand, if you choose it, sir,--it's all the same to me: the person, or the money, I'll carry with me out of this house."

Mr. Berryl signed the bond, and threw it to him.

"There, monster!--quit the house!"

"_Monster_ is not actionable--I wish you had called me _knave_,"

said Mordicai, grinning a horrible smile; and taking up the bond deliberately, returned it to Mr. Berryl: "This paper is worth nothing to me, sir--it is not witnessed."

Mr. Berryl hastily left the room, and returned with Lord Colambre.

Mordicai changed countenance and grew pale, for a moment, at sight of Lord Colambre.

"Well, my lord, since it so happens, I am not sorry that you should be witness to this paper," said he; "and indeed not sorry that you should witness the whole proceedings; for I trust I shall be able to explain to you my conduct."

"I do not come here, sir," interrupted Lord Colambre, "to listen to any explanations of your conduct, which I perfectly understand;--I come to witness a bond for my friend Mr. Berryl, if you think proper to extort from him such a bond."

"I extort nothing, my lord. Mr. Berryl, it is quite a voluntary act, take notice, on your part; sign or not, witness or not, as you please, gentlemen," said Mordicai, sticking his hands in his pockets, and recovering his look of black and fixed determination.

"Witness it, witness it, my dear lord," said Mr. Berryl, looking at his mother and weeping sisters; "witness it, quick!"

"Mr. Berryl must just run over his name again in your presence, my lord, with a dry pen," said Mordicai, putting the pen into Mr.

Berryl's hand.

"No, sir," said Lord Colambre, "my friend shall never sign it."

"As you please, my lord--the bond or the body, before I quit this house," said Mordicai.

"Neither, sir, shall you have: and you quit this house directly."

"How! how!--my lord, how's this?"

"Sir, the arrest you have made is as illegal as it is inhuman."

"Illegal, my lord!" said Mordicai, startled.

"Illegal, sir. I came into this house at the moment when your bailiff asked and was refused admittance. Afterwards, in the confusion of the family above stairs, he forced open the house-door with an iron bar--I saw him--I am ready to give evidence of the fact. Now proceed at your peril."

Mordicai, without reply, s.n.a.t.c.hed up his hat, and walked towards the door; but Lord Colambre held the door open--it was immediately at the head of the stairs--and Mordicai, seeing his indignant look and proud form, hesitated to pa.s.s; for he had always heard that Irishmen are "quick in the executive part of justice."

"Pa.s.s on, sir," repeated Lord Colambre, with an air of ineffable contempt: "I am a gentleman--you have nothing to fear!"

Mordicai ran down stairs; Lord Colambre, before he went back into the room, waited to see him and his bailiff out of the house. When Mordicai was fairly at the bottom of the stairs, he turned, and, white with rage, looked up at Lord Colambre.

"Charity begins at home, my lord," said he. "Look at home--you shall pay for this," added he, standing half-s.h.i.+elded by the house-door, for Lord Colambre moved forward as he spoke the last words; "and I give you this warning, because I know it will be of no use to you--Your most obedient, my lord." The house-door closed after him.

"Thank Heaven," thought Lord Colambre, "that I did not horsewhip that mean wretch!--This warning shall be of use to me. But it is not time to think of that yet."

Lord Colambre turned from his own affairs to those of his friend, to offer all the a.s.sistance and consolation in his power. Sir John Berryl died that night. His daughters, who had lived in the highest style in London, were left totally unprovided for. His widow had mortgaged her jointure. Mr. Berryl had an estate now left to him, but without any income. He could not be so dishonest as to refuse to pay his father's just debts; he could not let his mother and sisters starve. The scene of distress to which Lord Colambre was witness in this family made a still greater impression upon him than had been made by the warning or the threats of Mordicai. The similarity between the circ.u.mstances of his friend's family and of his own struck him forcibly.

All this evil had arisen from Lady Berryl's pa.s.sion for living in London and at watering places. She had made her husband an ABSENTEE--an absentee from his home, his affairs, his duties, and his estate. The sea, the Irish Channel, did not, indeed, flow between him and his estate; but it was of little importance whether the separation was effected by land or water--the consequences, the negligence, the extravagance, were the same.

Of the few people of his age who are capable of benefiting by the experience of others, Lord Colambre was one. "Experience," as an elegant writer has observed, "is an article that may be borrowed with safety, and is often dearly bought."

CHAPTER V.

In the mean time, Lady Clonbrony had been occupied with thoughts very different from those which pa.s.sed in the mind of her son. Though she had never completely recovered from her rheumatic pains, she had become inordinately impatient of confinement to her own house, and weary of those dull evenings at home, which had, in her son's absence, become insupportable. She told over her visiting tickets regularly twice a day, and gave to every card of invitation a heartfelt sigh.

Miss Pratt alarmed her ladys.h.i.+p, by bringing intelligence of some parties given by persons of consequence, to which she was not invited.

She feared that she should be forgotten in the world, well knowing how soon the world forgets those they do not see every day and every where. How miserable is the fine lady's lot, who cannot forget, and who is forgotten by the world in a moment! How much more miserable still is the condition of a would-be fine lady, working her way up in the world with care and pains! By her, every the slightest failure of attention, from persons of rank and fas.h.i.+on, is marked and felt with a jealous anxiety, and with a sense of mortification the most acute--an invitation omitted is a matter of the most serious consequence, not only as it regards the present but the future; for if she be not invited by Lady A, it will lower her in the eyes of Lady B, and of all the ladies in the alphabet. It will form a precedent of the most dangerous and inevitable application. If she have nine invitations, and the tenth be wanting, the nine have no power to make her happy.

This was precisely Lady Clonbrony's case--there was to be a party at Lady St. James's, for which Lady Clonbrony had no card.

"So ungrateful, so monstrous, of Lady St. James!--What! was the gala so soon forgotten, and all the marked attentions paid that night to Lady St. James!--attentions, you know, Pratt, which were looked upon with a jealous eye, and made me enemies enough, I am told, in another quarter!--Of all people, I did not expect to be slighted by Lady St.

James!"

Miss Pratt, who was ever ready to undertake the defence of any person who had a t.i.tle, pleaded, in mitigation of censure that perhaps Lady St. James might not be aware that her ladys.h.i.+p was yet well enough to venture out.

"Oh, my dear Miss Pratt, that cannot be the thing; for, in spite of my rheumatism, which really was bad enough last Sunday, I went on purpose to the Royal Chapel, to show myself in the closet, and knelt close to her ladys.h.i.+p.--And, my dear, we curtsied, and she congratulated me, after church, upon my being abroad again, and was so happy to see me look so well, and all that--Oh! it is something very extraordinary and unaccountable!"

"But, I dare say, a card will come yet," said Miss Pratt.

Upon this hint, Lady Clonbrony's hope revived; and, staying her anger, she began to consider how she could manage to get herself invited.

Refres.h.i.+ng tickets were left next morning at Lady St. James's with their corners properly turned up; to do the thing better, separate tickets from herself and Miss Nugent were left for each member of the family; and her civil messages, left with the footmen, extended to the utmost possibility of remainder. It had occurred to her ladys.h.i.+p, that for Miss Somebody, _the companion_, of whom she had never in her life thought before, she had omitted to leave a card last time, and she now left a note of explanation; she farther, with her rheumatic head and arm out of the coach-window, sat, the wind blowing keen upon her, explaining to the porter and the footman, to discover whether her former tickets had gone safely up to Lady St. James; and on the present occasion, to make a.s.surance doubly sure, she slid handsome expedition money into the servant's hand--"Sir, you will be sure to remember"--"Oh, certainly, your ladys.h.i.+p."

She well knew what dire offence has frequently been taken, what sad disasters have occurred in the fas.h.i.+onable world, from the neglect of a porter in delivering, or of a footman in carrying up, one of those talismanic cards. But, in spite of all her manoeuvres, no invitation to the party arrived next day. Pratt was next set to work. Miss Pratt was a most convenient go-between, who, in consequence of doing a thousand little services, to which few others of her rank in life would stoop, had obtained the entree to a number of great houses, and was behind the scenes in many fas.h.i.+onable families. Pratt could find out, and Pratt could hint, and Pratt could manage to get things done cleverly--and hints were given, in all directions, to _work round_ to Lady St. James. But still they did not take effect. At last Pratt suggested, that perhaps, though every thing else had failed, dried salmon might be tried with success. Lord Clonbrony had just had some uncommonly good from Ireland, which Pratt knew Lady St. James would like to have at her supper, because a certain personage, whom she would not name, was particularly fond of it--Wheel within wheel in the fine world, as well as in the political world!--Bribes for all occasions and for all ranks!--The timely present was sent, accepted with many thanks, and understood as it was meant. Per favour of this propitiatory offering, and of a promise of half a dozen pair of real Limerick gloves to Miss Pratt--a promise which Pratt clearly comprehended to be a conditional promise--the grand object was at length accomplished. The very day before the party was to take place came cards of invitation to Lady Clonbrony and to Miss Nugent, with Lady St. James's apologies: her ladys.h.i.+p was concerned to find that, by some negligence of her servants, these cards were not sent in proper time. "How slight an apology will do from some people!" thought Miss Nugent; "how eager to forgive, when it is for our interest or our pleasure! how well people act the being deceived, even when all parties know that they see the whole truth! and how low pride will stoop to gain its object!"

Ashamed of the whole transaction, Miss Nugent earnestly wished that a refusal should be sent, and reminded her aunt of her rheumatism; but rheumatism and all other objections were overruled--Lady Clonbrony would go. It was just when this affair was thus, in her opinion, successfully settled, that Lord Colambre came in, with a countenance of unusual seriousness, his mind full of the melancholy scenes he had witnessed in his friend's family.

"What is the matter, Colambre?"

He related what had pa.s.sed; he described the brutal conduct of Mordicai; the anguish of the mother and sisters; the distress of Mr. Berryl. Tears rolled down Miss Nugent's cheeks--Lady Clonbrony declared it was very _shocking_; listened with attention to all the particulars; but never failed to correct her son, whenever he said Mr.

Berryl--

"_Sir Arthur_ Berryl, you mean."

She was, however, really touched with compa.s.sion when he spoke of Lady Berryl's dest.i.tute condition; and her son was going on to repeat what Mordicai had said to him, but Lady Clonbrony interrupted, "Oh, my dear Colambre! don't repeat that detestable man's impertinent speeches to me. If there is any thing really about business, speak to your father.

At any rate don't tell us of it now, because I've a hundred things to do," said her ladys.h.i.+p, hurrying out of the room--"Grace, Grace Nugent! I want you!"

Lord Colambre sighed deeply.