"I know every inch of it. I used to be here after my Rugby half, and I don"t want to recal those days, I promise you."
"They"ve got some nice saddle-horses, too, Sir."
"So they may; and they may ride them, too."
"And the lake is alive with carp, I hear."
"I"ll not diminish their number; I"ll promise them so much. I must stay here as long as the governor does, which, fortunately for me, cannot be many days; but tobacco and patience will see me through it."
"I always said it, Sir: "When Master Dolly comes to his fortune, it"s not an old gaol he"ll sit down to pa.s.s his life in!""
"It"s one of the finest and oldest places in the kingdom," said the young man, angrily, "though perhaps a London cad might prefer Charing Cross to it."
"No other orders, Sir?" said Mr. Fisk, curtly.
"No; you may go. Call me at nine--d"ye hear--at nine; and I"ll breakfast at ten." And now was Mr. Adolphus Ladarelle alone with his own thoughts.
Though he had rebuked so promptly and so sharply the flippant impertinence of his servant, the young gentleman was by no means persuaded that a sojourn at Dalradern was likely to prove lively or agreeable. He thought Sir Within a bore, and he felt--very unmistakably felt--that the old Baronet regarded himself as a sn.o.b. The very way in which the old diplomatist seasoned his talk for his guests, the mode in which he brought all things to the meridian of Piccadilly, showed clearly the estimation in which he held them; and though the elder Ladarelle, whose head carried weightier cares, had no room for such thoughts, the young man brooded over and disliked them.
"By what reprisals should he resent this covert impertinence?" was the question that very often recurred to him. Should he affect to undervalue the place, and all the art treasures? Should he throw out dark hints of how much these tasteful toys might realise at a sale? Should he speculate vaguely on what the Castle would become, if, instead of a show-house, it were to be made what he would call habitable? Or, last of all, what tone should he a.s.sume towards Mademoiselle--should he slight her, or make love to her? In these self-discussions he fell asleep at last.
Long before any of his guests were awake the next morning, Sir Within had called for his writing-desk. It was a pa.s.sion of his to ask for his writing materials before he was up. It smacked of old times, when, remembering something that might very well have been forgotten, he would dash off a few smart lines to a minister or a secretary, "with reference to the brief conversation with which your Excellency honoured me yesterday." He was an adept in little notes; he knew how to throw off those small evasive terms which pa.s.s for epigrams, and give a sort of glitter to a style that was about as real as a theatrical costume.
He had suddenly bethought him of a case for the exercise of his high gift. It was to address a few neat lines to his recently-arrived neighbour at the Cottage, and ask him that day to dinner. To convert that gentleman"s polite attention in sending up to the Castle the pheasant he had shot by mistake, into an excuse for the liberty of inviting him without a previous exchange of visits, const.i.tuted exactly the amount of difficulty he could surmount. It was a low-wall, and he could leap it splendidly. It must be owned that he succeeded. His note was courteous without familiarity. It was a faint foreshadowing of the pleasure the writer had promised himself in the acquaintance of one so thoroughly imbued with the nicest notions of good breeding.
"I hope," he wrote in conclusion, "you will not, by refusing me this honour, rebuke the liberty by which I have presumed to aspire to it;" and with this he signed himself, with every sense of his most distinguished consideration, "Within Wildrington Wardle."
The reply was prompt--a most cordial acceptance. Sir Within scanned the terms of the note, the handwriting, the paper, the signature, and the seal. He was satisfied with everything. The writer was unquestionably a man of the world, and, in the old envoy"s estimation, that meant all, or nearly all, that one could desire in friend or acquaintance; one, in short, who knew how to subordinate pa.s.sions, feelings, emotions, all selfishness, and all personal objects to the laws of a well-regulated conventionality; and who neither did, nor attempted to do, anything but what Society had done already, and declared might be done again.
How far Mr. George Grenfell realised this high estimate, it is not our purpose to inquire; we turn rather to what we are far more sure of, the delight with which he read Sir Within"s invitation.
Grenfell was well known about town to members of two or three good clubs, where he had a certain amount of influence with very young men.
He was an excellent whist-player, and very useful on a wine committee; an admirable judge of a horse, though not remarkable as a rider. He knew everybody, but, somehow, he went nowhere. There were people--very good people, too, as the world calls them--would gladly have had his society at their tables in town, or in their houses at Christmas; but Grenfell saw that, if once launched amongst these, he must abandon all ambition of everything higher; extrication would be impossible; and so, with a self-denial which only a high purpose ever inspires, he refused invitations, here, and rejected advances, there, waiting on for the time when the great world would awaken to the conviction of his merits, and say, This is the very man we wanted!
Now, the great world was not so prompt in making this discovery as it might have been, and Mr. Grenfell was getting on in years, and not fully as hopeful as when his hair had been thicker and his beard bushier. He had begun, not exactly to sulk, but what the French call to "bouder"--a sort of male pouting--and he thought of going abroad, or going into Parliament, or doing something or other which would give him a new start in life; and it was to ruminate over these plans he had written to his friend Vyner, to say, "Let me, or lend me--I don"t care which--your Welsh Cottage for a month or two;" and by return of post came the answer, saying, "It is yours as long as you like it;" and thus was he there.
Sir Within"s note pleased him much. The old envoy was, it is true, a bygone, and a thing of the past: still he was one of those Brahmins whose priesthood always is accredited, and Grenfell knew, that to walk into the Travellers" arm in arm with him, would be a great step in advance; for there was no set or knot of men so unapproachable by the outsiders, as that small clique of religionists who scourge themselves with red tape, and worship the great G.o.d "F. O.!"
"In asking for the Cottage," Grenfell had said, "I should like to have an introduction of some sort to your quondam neighbour, Wardle, who, though too profligate for his neighbours, will not, I apprehend, endanger my morals. Let me have, therefore, a few lines to accredit me, as one likely to suit his humour." To this Vyner replied, not very clearly: "The intimacy they had used to have with Sir Within had ceased; they held no correspondence now. It was a long story, and would not be worth the telling, nor very intelligible, perhaps, when told; but it was enough to say, that even should they meet now personally, it was by no means sure if they would recognise or address each other. You will use this knowledge for your guidance in case you ever come to know him, and which I hope you may, for he is a very delightful acquaintance, and full of those attentions which render a neighbourhood pleasant. I do not say so that you may repeat it; but simply as an admission of what is due--that I deeply regret our estrangement, though I am not certain that it was avoidable." This, which Grenfell deemed somewhat contradictory, served, at all events, to show that he could not make Sir Within"s acquaintance through this channel, and he was overjoyed when another and a more direct opening presented itself.
"The hen pheasant I thought would do it," muttered Grenfell, as he read the note. "A punster would say, I had shot up into his acquaintance."
CHAPTER x.x.xV. A WALK BEFORE DINNER
Poor Sir Within! What a change is all this for you! Instead of that pleasant little pottering about from terrace to garden, and from garden to gallery; now in ecstasy over some grand effect of light on a favourite picture, some rich promise of beauty in an opening flower, or, better than either, a chance peep at the fair "ward" as she flitted past, a vision of beauty she well knew how to exaggerate by infrequency--for it was her especial habit to be rarely, if ever, seen of a morning--now, he had to devote himself to his guest, the elder Ladarelle, and not even in the office of Cicerone or guide over the grounds and the woods, but as the apologist of this, and the explainer of that. It had been settled by law that a certain sum should be expended each year on the demesne at the wise discretion of the life tenant, and now came the moment in which this same wisdom was to be arraigned, and all its tasteful exercise brought to the cold and terrible test of what is called permanency. The rock-work grottos, the temples, the rustic bridges, and cane paG.o.das--all that Horace Walpoleism, in fact, by which the area of domesticity can be so enlarged as to embrace the field, the garden, and the shrubbery--all this, with its varied luxury, and elegance, and beauty, and bad taste, was so repugnant to the mind of the old banker, that he regarded the whole as a tawdry and tasteless extravagance. Structures in stone and iron he could understand. He wanted permanency; and though the old envoy, with a little faint jest, begged to insinuate that he asked more than was supposed to be accorded by the laws of nature, the stern intelligence of the other rejected the pleasantry, and vaguely hinted at a "bill in equity."
"None of these, Sir, not one of them, would be "allowed,"" was the phrase he repeated again and again. "The discretionary power vested in _you_ to-day, or in me, as it might be, to-morrow----"
"I ask pardon," broke in the minister; "it is not my present intention to impose the burden upon you so soon. I hope still to live a little longer, with the kind permission of my friends and successors."
"Humph!" muttered the other, and turned away his head.
"There was an arrangement, however, which I submitted to you four years ago. I am ready--not very willingly, perhaps--but still ready to return to it."
"You mean, to commute the life-interest into a sum for immediate surrender of the estate? I remember, we did discuss it formerly. Your demand was, I think, sixty thousand pounds--equal to very close on six years" income?"
"Yes; that was the sum fixed on."
"Well, suppose we were to entertain the question now. What proposal are you prepared to make, Sir Within?"
"I am ready to repeat my former offer, Sir."
"Made four years and five months ago?"
"Precisely," said Sir Within, colouring deeply.
"Four years and a half, Sir Within, at your age or at mine, are a very considerable s.p.a.ce of time."
"I do not deny it, Sir; but I feel in the enjoyment of excellent health.
I rise at the same hour, and eat my meals as heartily as I did then; with every regret for the inconvenience I"m occasioning, I still profess to believe that my chances of life are pretty much as they were."
"Actuaries are the only people to entertain these points. Indeed, friends should not discuss them."
"Our friendship has stood the test of very delicate details so beautifully this morning, that I see no reason why we should not take all the benefit we can get out of it."
The fine sarcasm with which he spoke was thoroughly understood, though unnoticed, by the other, who went on:
"When I mentioned actuaries, I merely meant to say that demands of this kind are not arbitrary or capricious--that they are based on laws established by long and abstruse calculations."
"Perhaps it is my fancy to imagine myself an exceptional case," said Sir Within, with a faint smile.
"They would take little count of this. They would say, "Here is a man aged----"" he paused for the other to fill up the blank.
"Let us say one hundred," said Sir Within, bowing.
"Who has lived long in warm climates----"
"Partic.i.p.ating freely in the dissipations of his cla.s.s and order," said Sir Within, throwing back his head, and looking as though, with all the daring of this avowal, he defied scrutiny.
"They"d not say forty thousand. I have my doubts if they"d give you five-and-thirty," said the banker, curtly.
"And under these circ.u.mstances, I should consider it my duty to break off the negotiation, and retire from the conference."
"Let us suppose, for talk sake, the arrangement possible. I conclude you would not insist upon that other matter--the settlement clause, I mean.
You remember that Sir Hugh Rivers decided it was not to be maintained in law?"