Ralph the Heir Part 62

"They do preserve foxes," pleaded Ralph.

"One man does, and the next don't. You ought to know what that means.

It's the most heart-breaking kind of thing in the world. I'd sooner be without foxes altogether, and ride to a drag;--I would indeed."

This a.s.sertion Mr. Morris made in a sadly solemn tone, such as men use when they speak of some adversity which fate and fortune may be preparing for them. "I'd a deal rather die than bear it," says the melancholy friend; or,--"I'd much sooner put up with a crust in a corner." "I'd rather ride to a drag;--I would indeed," said Mr.

Morris, with a shake of the head, and a low sigh. As for life without riding to hounds at all, Mr. Morris did not for a moment suppose that his friend contemplated such an existence.

But Ralph had made up his mind that, in going out into the world to do something, foxes should not be his first object. He had to seek a home certainly, but more important than his home was the work to which he should give himself; and, as he had once said, he knew nothing useful that he could do except till the land. So he went down into Norfolk among the intermittent fox preservers, and took Beamingham Hall.

Almost every place in Norfolk is a "ham," and almost every house is a hall. There was a parish of Beamingham, four miles from Swaffham, lying between Tillham, Soham, Reepham, and Grindham. It's down in all the maps. It's as flat as a pancake; it has a church with a magnificent square tower, and a new chancel; there is a resident parson, and there are four or five farmers in it; it is under the plough throughout, and is famous for its turnips; half the parish belongs to a big lord, who lives in the county, and who does preserve foxes, but not with all his heart; two other farms are owned by the yeomen who farm them,--men who have been brought up to shoot, and who hate the very name of hunting. Beamingham Hall was to be sold, and by the beginning of May Ralph Newton had bought it. Beamingham Little Wood belonged to the estate, and, as it contained about thirty acres, Ralph determined that he would endeavour to have a fox there.

By the middle of May he had been four months in his new home. The house itself was not bad. It was s.p.a.cious; and the rooms, though low, were large. And it had been built with considerable idea of architectural beauty. The windows were all set in stone and mullioned,--long, low windows, very beautiful in form, which had till some fifteen years back been filled with a mult.i.tude of small diamond panes;--but now the diamond panes had given way to plate gla.s.s. There were three gables to the hall, all facing an old-fas.h.i.+oned large garden, in which the fruit trees came close up to the house, and that which perhaps ought to have been a lawn was almost an orchard.

But there were trim gravel walks, and trim flower-beds, and a trim fish-pond, and a small walled kitchen-garden, with very old peaches, and very old apricots, and very old plums. The plums, however, were at present better than the peaches or the apricots. The fault of the house, as a modern residence, consisted in this,--that the farm-yard, with all its appurtenances, was very close to the back door. Ralph told himself when he first saw it that Mary Bonner would never consent to live in a house so placed.

For whom was such a house as Beamingham Hall originally built,--a house not grand enough for a squire's mansion, and too large for a farmer's homestead? Such houses throughout England are much more numerous than Englishmen think,--either still in good repair, as was Beamingham Hall, or going into decay under the lessened domestic wants of the present holders. It is especially so in the eastern counties, and may be taken as one proof among many that the broad-acred squire, with his throng of tenants, is comparatively a modern invention. The country gentleman of two hundred years ago farmed the land he held. As years have rolled on, the strong have swallowed the weak,--one strong man having eaten up half-a-dozen weak men. And so the squire has been made. Then the strong squire becomes a baronet and a lord,--till he lords it a little too much, and a Manchester warehouseman buys him out. The strength of the country probably lies in the fact that the change is ever being made, but is never made suddenly.

To Ralph the great objection to Beamingham Hall lay in that fear,--or rather certainty,--that it could not be made a fitting home for Mary Bonner. When he first decided on taking it, and even when he decided on buying it, he a.s.sured himself that Mary Bonner's taste might be quite indifferent to him. In the first place, he had himself written to her uncle to withdraw his claim as soon as he found that Newton would never belong to him; and then he had been told by the happy owner of Newton that Mary was still to be asked to share the throne of that princ.i.p.ality. When so told he had said nothing of his own ambition, but had felt that there was another reason why he should leave Newton and its neighbourhood. For him, as a bachelor, Beamingham Hall would be only too good a house. He, as a farmer, did not mean to be ashamed of his own dunghill.

By the middle of May he had heard nothing either of his namesake or of Mary Bonner. He did correspond with Gregory Newton, and thus received tidings of the parish, of the church, of the horses,--and even of the foxes; but of the heir's matrimonial intentions he heard nothing. Gregory did write of his own visits to the metropolis, past and future, and Ralph knew that the young parson would again singe his wings in the flames that were burning at Popham Villa; but nothing was said of the heir. Through March and April that trouble respecting Polly Neefit was continued, and Gregory in his letter of course did not speak of the Neefits. At last May was come, and Ralph from Beamingham made up his mind that he also would go up to London.

He had been hard at work during the last four months doing all those wonderfully attractive things with his new property which a man can do when he has money in his pocket,--knocking down hedges, planting young trees or preparing for the planting of them, buying stock, building or preparing to build sheds,--and the rest of it. There is hardly a pleasure in life equal to that of laying out money with a conviction that it will come back again. The conviction, alas, is so often ill founded,--but the pleasure is the same. In regard to the house itself he would do nothing, not even form a plan--as yet.

It might be possible that some taste other than his own should be consulted.

In the second week in May he went up to London, having heard that Gregory would be there at the same time; and he at once found himself consorting with his namesake almost as much as with the parson. It was now a month since the heir had been dismissed from Popham Villa, and he had not since that date renewed his visit. Nor from that day to the present had he seen Sir Thomas. It cannot be said with exact truth that he was afraid of Sir Thomas or ashamed to see the girls.

He had no idea that he had behaved badly to anybody; and, if he had, he was almost disposed to make amends for such sin by marrying Clarissa; but he felt that should he ultimately make up his mind in Clarissa's favour, a little time should elapse for the gradual cure of his former pa.s.sion. No doubt he placed reliance on his position as a man of property, feeling that by his strength in that direction he would be pulled through all his little difficulties; but it was an unconscious reliance. He believed that he was perfectly free from what he himself would have called the dirt and littleness of purse-pride--or acre-pride, and would on some occasions a.s.sert that he really thought nothing of himself because he was Newton of Newton.

And he meant to be true. Nevertheless, in the bottom of his heart, there was a confidence that he might do this and that because of his acres, and among the things which might be thus done, but which could not otherwise have been done, was this return to Clarissa after his little lapse in regard to Mary Bonner.

He was delighted to welcome Ralph from Norfolk to all the pleasures of the metropolis. Should he put down Ralph's name at the famous Carlton, of which he had lately become a member? Ralph already belonged to an old-fas.h.i.+oned club, of which his father had been long a member, and declined the new honour. As for b.a.l.l.s, evening crushes, and large dinner-parties, our Norfolk Ralph thought himself to be unsuited for them just at present, because of his father's death. It was not for the nephew of the dead man to tell the son that eight months of mourning for a father was more than the world now required.

He could only take the excuse, and suggest the play, and a little dinner at Richmond, and a small party to Maidenhead as compromises.

"I don't know that there is any good in a fellow being so heavy in hand because his father is dead," the Squire said to his brother.

"They were so much to each other," pleaded Gregory in return. The Squire accepted the excuse, and offered his namesake a horse for the park. Would he make one of the party for the moors in August? The Squire a.s.serted that he had room for another gun, without entailing any additional expense upon himself. This indeed was not strictly true, as it had been arranged that the cost should be paid per gun; but there was a vacancy still, and Ralph the heir, being quite willing to pay for his cousin, thought no harm to cover his generosity under a venial falsehood. The disinherited one, however, declined the offer, with many thanks. "There is nothing, old fellow, I wouldn't do for you, if I knew how," said the happy heir. Whereupon the Norfolk Ralph unconsciously resolved that he would accept nothing,--or as little as possible,--at the hands of the Squire.

All this happened during the three or four first days of his sojourn in London, in which, he hardly knew why, he had gone neither to the villa nor to Sir Thomas in Southampton Buildings. He meant to do so, but from day to day he put it off. As regarded the ladies at the villa the three young men now never spoke to each other respecting them. Gregory believed that his brother had failed, and so believing did not recur to the subject. Gregory himself had already been at Fulham once or twice since his arrival in town; but had nothing to say,--or at least did say nothing,--of what happened there. He intended to remain away from his parish for no more than the parson's normal thirteen days, and was by no means sure that he would make any further formal offer. When at the villa he found that Clarissa was sad and sober, and almost silent; and he knew that something was wrong. It hardly occurred to him to believe that after all he might perhaps cure the evil.

One morning, early, Gregory and Ralph from Norfolk were together at the Royal Academy. Although it was not yet ten when they entered the gallery, the rooms were already so crowded that it was difficult to get near the line, and almost impossible either to get into or to get out of a corner. Gregory had been there before, and knew the pictures. He also was supposed by his friends to understand something of the subject; whereas Ralph did not know a Cooke from a Hook, and possessed no more than a dim idea that Landseer painted all the wild beasts, and Millais all the little children. "That's a fine picture,"

he said, pointing up at an enormous portrait of the Master of the B.

B., in a red coat, seated square on a seventeen-hand high horse, with his hat off, and the favourite hounds of his pack around him. "That's by Grant," said Gregory. "I don't know that I care for that kind of thing." "It's as like as it can stare," said Ralph, who appreciated the red coat, and the well-groomed horse, and the finely-shaped hounds. He backed a few steps to see the picture better, and found himself encroaching upon a lady's dress. He turned round and found that the lady was Mary Bonner. Together with her were both Clarissa and Patience Underwood.

The greetings between them all were pleasant, and the girls were unaffectedly pleased to find friends whom they knew well enough to accept as guides and monitors in the room. "Now we shall be told all about everything," said Clarissa, as the young parson shook hands first with her sister and then with her. "Do take us round to the best dozen, Mr. Newton. That's the way I like to begin." Her tone was completely different from what it had been down at the villa.

"That gentleman in the red coat is my cousin's favourite," said Gregory.

"I don't care a bit about that." said Clarissa.

"That's because you don't hunt," said Ralph.

"I wish I hunted," said Mary Bonner.

Mary, when she first saw the man, of whom she had once been told that he was to be her lover, and, when so told, had at least been proud that she was so chosen,--felt that she was blus.h.i.+ng slightly; but she recovered herself instantly, and greeted him as though there had been no cause whatever for disturbance. He was struck almost dumb at seeing her, and it was her tranquillity which restored him to composure. After the first greetings were over he found himself walking by her side without any effort on her part to avoid him, while Gregory and the two sisters went on in advance. Poor Ralph had not a word to say about the pictures. "Have you been long in London?"

she asked.

"Just four days."

"We heard that you were coming, and did think that perhaps you and your cousin might find a morning to come down and see us;--your cousin Gregory, I mean."

"Of course I shall come."

"My uncle will be so glad to see you;--only, you know, you can't always find him at home. And so will Patience. You are a great favourite with Patience. You have gone down to live in Norfolk,--haven't you?"

"Yes--in Norfolk."

"You have bought an estate there?"

"Just one farm that I look after myself. It's no estate, Miss Bonner;--just a farm-house, with barns and stables, and a horse-pond, and the rest of it." This was by no means a fair account of the place, but it suited him so to speak of it. "My days for having an estate were quickly brought to a close;--were they not?" This he said with a little laugh, and then hated himself for having spoken so foolishly.

"Does that make you unhappy, Mr. Newton?" she asked. He did not answer her at once, and she continued, "I should have thought that you were above being made unhappy by that."

"Such disappointments carry many things with them of which people outside see nothing."

"That is true, no doubt."

"A man may be separated from every friend he has in the world by such a change of circ.u.mstances."

"I had not thought of that. I beg your pardon," said she, looking into his face almost imploringly.

"And there may be worse than that," he said. Of course she knew what he meant, but he did not know how much she knew. "It is easy to say that a man should stand up against reverses,--but there are some reverses a man cannot bear without suffering." She had quite made up her mind that the one reverse of which she was thinking should be cured; but she could take no prominent step towards curing it yet.

But that some step should be taken sooner or later she was resolved.

It might be taken now, indeed, if he would only speak out. But she quite understood that he would not speak out now because that house down in Norfolk was no more than a farm. "But I didn't mean to trouble you with all that nonsense," he said.

"It doesn't trouble me at all. Of course you will tell us everything when you come to see us."

"There is very little to tell,--unless you care for cows and pigs, and sheep and horses."

"I do care for cows and pigs, and sheep and horses," she said.

"All the same, they are not pleasant subjects of conversation. A man may do as much good with a single farm as he can with a large estate; but he can't make his affairs as interesting to other people." There was present to his own mind the knowledge that he and his rich namesake were rivals in regard to the affections of this beautiful girl, and he could not avoid allusions to his own inferiority. And yet his own words, as soon as they were spoken and had sounded in his ear, were recognised by himself as being mean and pitiful,--as whining words, and sorry plaints against the trick which fortune had played him. He did not know how to tell her boldly that he lamented this change from the estate to the farm because he had hoped that she would share the one with him, and did not dare even to ask her to share the other. She understood it all, down to the look of displeasure which crossed his face as he felt the possible effect of his own speech. She understood it all, but she could not give him much help,--as yet. There might perhaps come a moment in which she could explain to him her own ideas about farms and estates, and the reasons in accordance with which these might be selected and those rejected. "Have you seen much of Ralph Newton lately?" asked the other Ralph.

"Of your cousin?"

"Yes;--only I do not call him so. I have no right to call him my cousin."

"No; We do not see much of him." This was said in a tone of voice which ought to have sufficed for curing any anxiety in Ralph's bosom respecting his rival. Had he not been sore and nervous, and, as it must be admitted, almost stupid in the matter, he could not but have gathered from that tone that his namesake was at least no favourite with Miss Bonner. "He used to be a great deal at Popham Villa," said Ralph.

"We do not see him often now. I fancy there has been some cause of displeasure between him and my uncle. His brother has been with us once or twice. I do like Mr. Gregory Newton."

"He is the best fellow that ever lived," exclaimed Ralph with energy.

"So much nicer than his brother," said Mary;--"though perhaps I ought not to say so to you."

This at any rate could not but be satisfactory to him. "I like them both," he said; "but I love Greg dearly. He and I have lived together like brothers for years, whereas it is only quite lately that I have known the other."