"The rest, sir, is not with you, nor even with me. Do me, then, the great favor to bear my message."
Although seeing the absurdity of the situation, and vaguely forecasting the way Julia might possibly hear the proposition, L"Estrange was always so much disposed to yield to the earnestness of any one who persisted in a demand, that he bowed and left the room.
"Well, George, he has proposed?" cried Julia, as her brother entered the room, where she sat with Nelly Bram-leigh.
He nodded only, and the two girls burst out into a merry laugh.
"Come, come, Julia," said he, reprovingly. "Absurd as it may seem, the man is in earnest, and must be treated with consideration."
"But tell us the whole scene. Let us have it all as it occurred."
"I "ll do nothing of the kind. It "s quite enough to say that he declares he has a good fortune, and wishes to share it with you; and I think the expression of that wish should secure him a certain deference and respect."
"But who refuses, who thinks of refusing him all the deference and respect he could ask for? Not I, certainly. Come now, like a dear good boy, let us hear all he said, and what you replied. I suspect there never was a better bit of real-life comedy. I only wish I could have had a part in it."
"Not too late yet, perhaps," said Nelly, with a dry humor. "The fifth act is only beginning."
"That is precisely what I am meditating. George will not tell me accurately what took place in his interview, and I think I could not do better than go and learn Sir Marcus" sentiments for myself."
She arose and appeared about to leave the room, when L"Estrange sprang towards the door, and stood with his back against it.
"You "re not serious, Ju?" cried he, in amazement.
"I should say very serious. If Sir Marcus only makes out his case, as favorably as you, with all your bungling, can"t help representing it, why--all things considered, eh, Nelly? _you_, I know, agree with me--I rather suspect the proposition might be entertained."
"Oh, this is too monstrous. It is beyond all belief," cried L"Estrange.
And he rushed from the room in a torrent of pa.s.sion, while Julia sank back in a chair, and laughed till her eyes ran over with tears of merriment.
"How could you, Julia! Oh, how could you!" said Nelly, as she leaned over her and tried to look reproachful.
"If you mean, how could I help quizzing him, I can understand you; but I could not--no, Nelly, I could not help it! It is my habit to seize on the absurd side of any embarra.s.sment; and you may be sure there is always one if you only look for it; and you "ve no idea how much pleasanter--ay, and easier, too--it is to laugh oneself out of difficulties than to grieve over them. You "ll see George, now, will be spirited up, out of pure fright, to do what he ought; to tell this man that his proposal is an absurdity, and that young women, even as dest.i.tute of fortune as myself, do not marry as nursetenders. There! I declare that is Sir Marcus driving away already. Only think with what equanimity I can see wealth and t.i.tle taking leave of me. Never say after that that I have not courage."
CHAPTER XLVII. "A TELEGRAM"
"This is a very eventful day for me, George," said Augustus, as they strolled through the garden after breakfast. "The trial was fixed for the 13th, and to-day is the 14th; I suppose the verdict will be given to-day."
"But you have really no doubt of the result? I mean, no more than anxiety on so momentous a matter must suggest?"
"Pardon me. I have grave doubts. There was such a marriage, as is alleged, formed by my grandfather; a marriage in every respect legal.
They may not have the same means of proving that which we have; but we know it. There was a son born to that marriage. We have the letter of old Lami, asking my grandfather to come over to Bruges for the christening, and we have the receipt of Hodges and Smart, the jewellers, for a silver gilt ewer and cup which were engraved with the Bramleigh crest and cypher, and despatched to Belgium as a present; for my grandfather did not go himself, pretexting something or other, which evidently gave offence; for Lami"s next letter declares that the present has been returned, and expresses a haughty indignation at my grandfather"s conduct I can vouch for all this. It was a sad morning when I first saw those papers; but I did see them, George, and they exist still. That son of my grandfather"s they declare to have married, and his son is this Pracontal. There is the whole story, and if the latter part of the narrative be only as truthful as I believe the first to be, he, and not I, is the rightful owner of Castello."
L"Estrange made no reply; he was slowly going over in his mind the chain of connection, and examining, link by link, how it held together.
"But why," asked he at length, "was not this claim preferred before? Why did a whole generation suffer it to lie dormant?"
"That is easily--too easily explained. Lami was compromised in almost every country in Europe; and his son succeeded him in his love of plot and conspiracy. Letters occasionally reached my father from this latter; some of them demanding money in a tone of actual menace. A confidential clerk, who knew all my father"s secrets, and whom he trusted most implicitly, became one day a defaulter, and absconded, carrying with him a quant.i.ty of private papers, some of which were letters written by my father, and containing remittances which Montague Lami,--or Louis Langrange, or whatever other name he bore,--of course, never received, and indignantly declared he believed had never been despatched. This clerk, whose name was Hesketh, made Lami"s acquaintance in South America, and evidently encouraged him to prefer his claim with greater a.s.surance, and led him to suppose that any terms he preferred must certainly be complied with! But I cannot go on, George; the thought of my poor father struggling through life in this dark conflict rises up before me, and now I estimate the terrible alternation of hope and fear in which he must have lived, and how despairingly he must have thought of a future, when this deep game should be left to such weak hands as mine. I thought they were cruel words once, in which he spoke of my unfitness to meet a great emergency--but now I read them very differently."
"Then do you really think he regarded this claim as rightful and just?"
"I cannot tell that; at moments I have leaned to this impression; but many things dispose me to believe that he saw or suspected some flaw that invalidated the claim, but still induced him to silence the pretension by hush money."
"And you yourself--"
"Don"t ask me, my dear friend; do not ask me the question I see is on your lips. I have no courage to confess, even to you, through how many moods I pa.s.s every day I live. At moments I hope and firmly believe I rise above every low and interested sentiment, and determine I will do as I would be done by; I will go through this trial as though it were a matter apart from me, and in which truth and justice were my only objects. There are hours in which I feel equal to any sacrifice, and could say to this man:--There! take it; take all we have in the world.
We have no right to be here; we are beggars and outcasts. And then--I can"t tell how or why--it actually seems as if there was a real Tempter in one"s nature, lying in wait for the moment of doubt and hesitation; but suddenly, quick as a flash of lightning, a thought would dart across my mind, and I would begin to canva.s.s this and question that; not fairly, not honestly, mark you, but casuistically and cunningly; and worse, far worse than all this--actually hoping, no matter on which side lay the right, that _we_ should come out victorious."
"But have you not prejudiced your case by precipitancy? They tell me that you have given the others immense advantage by your openly declared doubts as to your t.i.tle."
"That is possible. I will not deny that I may have acted imprudently.
The compromise to which I at first agreed struck me, on reflection, as so ign.o.ble and dishonorable, that I rushed just as rashly into the opposite extreme. I felt, in fact, George, as though I owed this man a reparation for having ever thought of stifling his claim; and I carried this sentiment so far that Sedley asked me one day, in a scornful tone, what ill my family had done me, I was so bent on ruining them? Oh, my dear friend, if it be a great relief to me to open my heart to you, it is with shame I confess that I cannot tell you truthfully how weak and unable I often feel to keep straight in the path I have a.s.signed myself.
How, when some doubt of this man"s right shoots across me, I hail the hesitation like a blessing from heaven. What I would do, what I would endure that he could not show his claim to be true, I dare not own. I have tried to reverse our positions in my own mind, and imagine I was he; but I cannot pursue the thought, for whenever the dread final rises before me, and I picture to myself our ruin and dest.i.tution, I can but think of him, as a deadly implacable enemy. This sacrifice, then, that I purpose to make with a pure spirit and a high honor, is too much for me.
I have not courage for that I am doing; but I"ll do it still!"
L"Estrange did his utmost to rally him out of his depression, a.s.suring him that, as the world went, few men would have attempted to do what he had determined on, and frankly owning, that in talking over the matter with Julia, they were both disposed to regard his conduct as verging on Quixotism.
"And that is exactly the best thing people will say of it. I am lucky if they will even speak so favorably."
"What"s this,--a telegram?" cried L"Estrange, as the servant handed him one of those square-shaped missives, so charged with destiny that one really does not know whether to bless or curse the invention, which, annihilating s.p.a.ce, brings us so quickly face to face with fortune.
"Read it, George; I cannot," muttered Bramleigh, as he stood against a tree for support.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 438]
"Ten o"clock. Court-house, Navan. Jury just come out--cannot agree to verdict--discharged. New trial. I write post.
"Sedley."
"Thank heaven, there is at least a respite," said Bramleigh; and he fell on the other"s shoulder, and hid his face.
"Bear up, my poor fellow. You see that, at all events, nothing has happened up to this. Here are the girls coming. Let them not see you in such emotion."
"Come away, then; come away. I can"t meet them now; or do you go and tell Nelly what this news is--she has seen the messenger, I "m sure."
L"Estrange met Nelly and Julia in the walk, while Augustus hastened away in another direction. "There has been no verdict. Sedley sends his message from the court-house this morning, and says the jury cannot agree, and there will be another trial."
"Is that bad or good news?" asked Nelly, eagerly.
"I"d say good," replied he; "at least, when I compare it with your brother"s desponding tone this morning. I never saw him so low."
"Oh, he is almost always so of late. The coming here and the pleasure of meeting you rallied him for a moment, but I foresaw his depression would return. I believe it is the uncertainty, the never-ceasing terror of what next, is breaking him down; and if the blow fell at once, you would see him behave courageously and n.o.bly."
"He ought to get away from this as soon as possible," said L"Estrange.
"He met several acquaintances yesterday in Rome, and they teased him to come to them, and worried him to tell where he was stopping. In his present humor he could not go into society, but he is ashamed to his own heart to admit it."