"Married already?"
"No, but I may be within a few weeks. In fact, I mean to place myself in such a position, that no one holding your office can pa.s.s me over by a pretext, or affect to ignore my claim by affirming that I labor under a disability."
"This sounds like menace, does it not?" said the other as he threw his cigar impatiently from him.
"A mere protocol, my Lord, to denote intention."
"Well, I"ll submit your name. I"ll go further,--I"ll support it. Don"t leave town for a day or two. Call on Beadlesworth and see Repsley; tell him what you "ve said to me. If you could promise it was one of his old maiden sisters that you thought of making Lady Culduff, the thing could be clenched at once. But I take it you have other views?"
"I have other views," said he, gravely.
"I"m not indiscreet, and I shall not ask you more on that head. By the way, is n"t your leave up, or nearly up?"
"It expired on Wednesday last, and I want it renewed for two months."
"Of course, if we send you on this mission, you "ll not want the leave.
I had something else to say. What was it?"
"I have not the very vaguest idea."
"Oh! I remember. It was to recommend you not to take your wife from the stage. There"s a strong prejudice in a certain quarter as to that--in fact, I may say it couldn"t be got over."
"I may relieve you of any apprehensions on that score. Indeed, I don"t know what fact in my life should expose me to the mere suspicion."
"Nothing, nothing--except that impulsive generosity of your disposition, which might lead you to do what other men would stop short to count the cost of."
"It would never lead me to derogate, my Lord," said he, proudly, as he took his hat, and bowing haughtily left the room.
"The greatest a.s.s in the whole career, and the word is a bold one,"
said the Minister, as the door closed. "Meanwhile, I must send in his name for this mission, which he is fully equal to. What a happy arrangement it is, that in an age when our flunkies aspire to be gentlemen, there are gentlemen who ask nothing better than to be flunkies!"
CHAPTER XV. WITH HIS LAWYER.
Though Colonel Bramleigh"s visit to town was supposed to be in furtherance of that speculation by which Lord Culduff calculated on wealth and splendor, he had really another object, and while Culduff imagined him to be busy in the City, and deep in shares and stock lists, he was closely closeted with his lawyer, and earnestly poring over a ma.s.s of time-worn letters and doc.u.ments, carefully noting down dates, docketing, and annotating, in a way that showed what importance he attached to the task before him.
"I tell you what, Sedley," said he, as he threw his pen disdainfully from him, and lay back in his chair, "the whole of this move is a party dodge. It is part and parcel of that vile persecution with which the Tory faction pursued me during my late canva.s.s. You remember their vulgar allusions to my father, the brewer, and their coa.r.s.e jest about my frothy oratory? This attack is but the second act of the same drama."
"I don"t think so," mildly rejoined the other party. "Conflicts are sharp enough while the struggle lasts; but they rarely carry their bitterness beyond the day of battle."
"That is an agent"s view of the matter," said Bramleigh, with asperity.
"The agent always persists in believing the whole thing a sham fight; but though men do talk a great deal of rot and humbug about their principles on the hustings, their personal feelings are just as real, just as acute, and occasionally just as painful, as on any occasion in their lives; and I repeat to you, the trumped-up claim of this foreigner is neither more nor less than a piece of party malignity."
"I cannot agree with you. The correspondence we have just been looking at shows how upwards of forty years ago the same pretensions were put forward, and a man calling himself Montagu Lami Bramleigh declared he was the rightful heir to your estates."
"A rightful heir whose claims could be always compromised by a ten-pound note was scarcely very dangerous."
"Why make any compromise at all if the fellow was clearly an impostor?"
"For the very reason that you yourself now counsel a similar course: to avoid the scandal of a public trial. To escape all those insolent comments which a party press is certain to pa.s.s on a political opponent."
"That could scarcely have been apprehended from the Bramleigh I speak of, who was clearly poor, illiterate, and friendless; whereas the present man has, from some source or other, funds to engage eminent counsel and retain one of the first men at the bar."
"I protest, Sedley, you puzzle me," said Bramleigh, with an angry sparkle in his eye. "A few moments back you treated all this pretension as a mere pretext for extorting money, and now you talk of this fellow and his claim as subjects that may one day be matter for the decision of a jury. Can you reconcile two views so diametrically opposite?"
"I think I can. It is at law as in war. The feint may be carried on to a real attack whenever the position a.s.sailed be possessed of an over-confidence or but ill defended. It might be easy enough, perhaps, to deal with this man. Let him have some small success, however; let him gain a verdict, for instance, in one of those petty suits for ejectment, and his case at once becomes formidable."
"All this," said Bramleigh, "proceeds on the a.s.sumption that there is something in the fellow"s claim?"
"Unquestionably."
"I declare," said Bramleigh, rising and pacing the room, "I have not temper for this discussion. My mind has not been disciplined to that degree of refinement that I can accept a downright swindle as a demand founded on justice."
"Let us prove it a swindle, and there is an end of it."
"And will you tell me, sir," said he, pa.s.sionately, "that every gentleman holds his estates on the condition that the t.i.tle may be contested by any impostor who can dupe people into advancing money to set the law in motion?"
"When such proceedings are fraudulent a very heavy punishment awaits them."
"And what punishment of the knave equals the penalty inflicted on the honest man in exposure, shame, insolent remarks, and worse than even these, a contemptuous pity for that reverse of fortune which newspaper writers always announce as an inevitable consummation?"
"These are all hard things to bear, but I don"t suspect they ever deterred any man from holding an estate."
The half jocular tone of his remark rather jarred on Bramleigh"s sensibilities, and he continued to walk the room in silence; at last, stopping short, he wheeled round and said,--
"Do you adhere to your former opinion? would you try a compromise?"
"I would. The man has a case quite good enough to interest a speculative lawyer--good enough to go before a jury--good enough for everything but success. One half what the defence would cost you will probably satisfy his expectations, not to speak of all you will spare yourself in unpleasantness and exposure."
"It is a hard thing to stoop to," said Bramleigh, painfully.
"It need not be, at least not to the extent you imagine; and when you throw your eye over your lawyer"s bill of costs, the phrase "incidental expenses" will spare your feelings any more distinct reference to this transaction."
"A most considerate attention. And now for the practical part. Who is this man"s lawyer?"
"A most respectable pract.i.tioner, Kelson, of Temple Court. A personal friend of my own."
"And what terms would you propose?"
"I "d offer five thousand, and be prepared to go to eight, possibly to ten."
"To silence a mere menace?"
"Exactly. It"s a mere menace to-day, but six months hence it may be something more formidable. It is a curious case, cleverly contrived and ingeniously put together. Don"t say that we could n"t smash it; such carpentry always has a c.h.i.n.k or an open somewhere. Meanwhile the scandal is spreading over not only England, but over the world, and no matter how favorable the ultimate issue, there will always remain in men"s minds the recollection that the right to your estate was contested, and that you had to defend your possession."
"I had always thought till now," said Bramleigh, slowly, "that the legal mind attached very little importance to the flying scandals that amuse society. You appear to accord them weight and influence."