The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 46

Lord Culduflf walked quietly towards the chimney-piece as Temple concluded, and took up a small tobacco-box of chased silver, from which he proceeded to manufacture a cigarette--a process on which he displayed considerable skill and patience; having lighted which, and taken a couple of puffs, he said, "You'll have to go to Bogota, Temple, that's clear."

"Go to Bogota! I declare I don't see why."

"Yes, you'll have to go; every man has to take his turn of some objectionable post, his Gaboon and yellow fever days. I myself pa.s.sed a year at Stutgard. The Bramleighs are now events of the past. There's no use in fighting against these things. They were, and they are not: that's the whole story. It's very hard on every one, especially hard upon _me_. Reverses in life sit easily enough on the cla.s.s that furnishes adventurers, but in _my_ condition there are no adventurers.

You and others like you descend to the ranks, and n.o.body thinks the worse of you. _We_--we cannot! that's the pull you have. We are born with our epaulettes, and we must wear them till we die."

"It does not seem a very logical consequence, notwithstanding, to me, that because my brother may have to defend his t.i.tle to his estate, that I must accept a post that is highly distasteful to me."

"And yet it is the direct consequence. Will you do me the favor to touch that bell. I should like some claret-cup. The fact is, we all of us take too little out of our prosperity! Where we err is, we experiment on good fortune: now we should n't do that, we should realize. You, for instance, ought to have made your 'running' while your father was entertaining all the world in Belgravia The people could n't have ignored _you_, and dined with _him_; at least, you need not have let them."

"So that your Lords.h.i.+p already looks upon us as bygones, as things of the past?"

"I am forced to take this very disagreeable view. Will you try that cup?

it is scarcely iced enough for my liking. Have you remarked that they never make cup properly in an hotel? The clubs alone have the secret."

"I suppose you will confer with Cutbill before you return an answer to Augustus?" said Temple, stiffly.

"I may--that is, I may listen to what that very plausible but not very polished individual has to say, before I frame the exact terms of my reply. We are all of us, so to say, 'dans des mauvais draps.' _You_ are going where you hate to go, and I, who really should have had no share in this general disaster, have taken my ticket in the lottery when the last prize has just been paid over the counter."

"It is very hard on you indeed," said the other, scornfully.

"Nothing less than your sympathy would make it endurable;" and as he spoke he lighted a bedroom candle and moved towards the door. "Don't tell them at F. O. that you are going out unwillingly, or they'll keep you there. Trust to some irregularity when you are there, to get recalled, and be injured. If a man can only be injured and brought before the House, it's worth ten years' active service to him. The first time I was injured I was made secretary of emba.s.sy. The second gave me my K. C. B., and I look to my next misfortune for the Grand Cross.

Good-bye. Don't take the yellow fever, don't marry a squaw."

And with a graceful move of the hand he motioned an adieu, and disappeared.

CHAPTER x.x.x. ON THE ROAD

L'Estrange and his sister were on their way to Italy. The curate had been appointed to the church at Albano, and he was proceeding to his destination with as much happiness as is permitted to a man who, with a very humble opinion of himself, feels called on to a.s.sume a position of some importance.

Wis.h.i.+ng, partly from motives of enjoyment, partly from economy, to avoid the route most frequented by travellers, they had taken the road through Zurich and the valley of the Upper Rhine, and had now reached the little village of Dornbirn in the Vorarlberg--a spot of singular beauty, in the midst of a completely pastoral country. High mountains, snow-capped above, pine-clad lower down, descended by gra.s.sy slopes into rich pasture-lands, traversed by innumerable streams, and dotted over with those cottages of framed wood, which, with their ornamented gables and quaint galleries, are the most picturesque peasant houses in existence.

Beautiful cattle covered the hills, their tinkling bells ringing out in the clear air, and blending their tones with the ceaseless flow of falling water, imparting just that amount of sound that relieved the solemn character of the scene, and gave it vitality.

Day after day found our two travellers still lingering here. There was a charm in the spot, which each felt, without confessing it to the other, and it was already the fourth evening of their sojourn as they were sitting by the side of a little rivulet, watching the dipping flies along the stream, that Julia said suddenly,--

"You'd like to live your life here, George; isn't that so?"

"What makes you think so, Julia?" said he, coloring slightly as he spoke.

"First tell me if I have not read you aright? You like this quiet, dreamy landscape. You want no other changes than in the varying effects of cloud, and shadow, and mist; and you 'd like to think this a little haven against the storms and s.h.i.+pwrecks of life?"

"And if I really did think all this, would my choice of an existence be a very bad one, Julia?"

"No. Not if one could insure the same frame of mind in which first he tasted the enjoyment. I, for instance, like what is called the world very much. I like society, life, and gayety. I like the attentions, I like the flatteries one meets with, but if I could be always as happy, always as tranquil as we have felt since we came here, I 'd be quite willing to sign a bond to live and die here."

"So that you mean our present enjoyment of the place could not last."

"I am sure it could not. I am sure a great deal of the pleasure we now feel is in the relief of escaping from the turmoil and bustle of a world that we don't belong to. The first sense of this relief is repose, the next would be ennui."

"I don't agree with you, Julia. There is a calm acceptance of a humble lot in life, quite apart from ennui."

"Don't believe it. There is no such philosophy. A great part of your happiness here is in fact that you can afford to live here. Oh, hold up your hands, and be horrified. It is very shocking to have a sister who will say such vulgar things, but I watched you, George, after you paid the bill this morning, and I marked the delighted smile in which you pointed out some effect of light on the 'Sentis,' and I said to myself, 'It is the landlord has touched up the landscape.'"

"I declare, Julia, you make me angry. Why will you say such things?"

"Why are we so poor, George? Tell me that, brother mine. Why are we so poor?"

"There are hundreds as poor; thousands poorer."

"Perhaps they don't care, don't fret about it, don't dwell on all the things they are debarred from, don't want this or that appliance to make life easier. Now look there! what a difference in one's existence to travel that way."

As she spoke, she pointed to a travelling-carriage which swept over the bridge, with all the speed of four posters, and, with all the clatter of cracking whips and sounding horns, made for the inn of the village.

"How few travel with post now, in these days of railroad," said he, not sorry to turn the conversation into another channel.

"I hope they are going on. I trust they 'll not stop here. We have been the great folk of the place up to this, but you 'll see how completely the courier or the _femme de chambre_ will eclipse us now," said she, rising. "Let us go back, or perhaps they 'll give our very rooms away."

"How can you be so silly, Julia?"

"All because we are poor, George. Let me be rich, and you 'll be surprised, not only how generous I shall be, but how disposed to think well of every one. Poverty is the very mother of distrust."

"I never heard you rail at our narrow fortune like this before."

"Don't be angry with me, dear George, and I'll make a confession to you.

I was not thinking of ourselves, nor of our humble lot all this while; it was a letter I got this morning from Nelly Bramleigh was running in my mind. It has never been out of my thoughts since I received it."

"You never told me of this."

"No. She begged of me not to speak of it; and I meant to have obeyed her, but my temper has betrayed me. What Nelly said was, 'Don't tell your brother about these things till he can hear the whole story, which Augustus will write to him as soon as he is able.'"

"What does she allude to?"

"They are ruined--actually ruined."

"The Bramleighs--the rich Bramleighs?"

"Just so. They were worth millions--at least they thought so--a few weeks back, and now they have next to nothing."

"This has come of over speculation."

"No. Nothing of the kind. It is a claimant to the estate has arisen, an heir whose rights take precedence of their father's; in fact, the grandfather had been privately married early in life, and had a son of whom nothing was heard for years, but who married and left a boy, who, on attaining manhood, preferred his claim to the property. All this mysterious claim was well known to Colonel Bramleigh; indeed, it would appear that for years he was engaged in negotiations with this man's lawyers, sometimes defiantly challenging an appeal to the law, and sometimes entertaining projects of compromise. The correspondence was very lengthy, and, from its nature, must have weighed heavily on the Colonel's mind and spirits, and ended, as Nelly suspects, by breaking up his health.

"It was almost the very first news that met Augustus on his accession to his fortune, and so stunned was he that he wrote to Mr. Sedley to say, 'I have such perfect reliance on both your integrity and ability, that if you a.s.sure me this claim is well founded and this demand a just one, I will not contest it.' He added--'I am not afraid of poverty, but a public shame and a scandal would be my death.'"

"Just what I should expect from him. What did Sedley say?"