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“It certainly requires the fortune of an earl and the constitution of a prize-fighter to live with him.”
“Yet methinks, Master Charley, you have neither the one nor the other.”
“And therefore I see before me, and at no very great distance, the Bench and—a consumption!” answered Vernon, suppressing a slight yawn.
“‘T is a pity, for you had a fine estate, properly managed; and in spite of your faults, you have the heart of a true gentleman. Come, come!” and the old man spoke with tenderness, “you are young enough yet to reform. A prudent marriage and a good wife will save both your health and your acres.”
“If you think so highly of marriage, my dear Sir Miles, it is a wonder you did not add to your precepts the value of your example.”
“Jackanapes! I had not your infirmities: I never was a spendthrift, and I have a constitution of iron!” There was a pause. “Charles,” continued Sir Miles, musingly, “there is many an earl with a less fortune than the conjoined estates of Vernon Grange and Laughton Hall. You must already have understood me: it is my intention to leave my estates to Lucretia; it is my wish, nevertheless, to think you will not be the worse for my will. Frankly, if you can like my niece, win her; settle here while I live, put the Grange to nurse, and recruit yourself by fresh air and field-sports. Zounds, Charles, I love you, and that’s the truth! Give me your hand!”
“And a grateful heart with it, sir,” said Vernon, warmly, evidently affected, as he started from his indolent position and took the hand extended to him. “Believe me, I do not covet your wealth, nor do I envy my cousin anything so much as the first place in your regard.”
“Prettily said, my boy, and I don’t suspect you of insincerity. What think you, then, of my plan?”
Mr. Vernon seemed embarrassed; but recovering himself with his usual ease, he replied archly: “Perhaps, sir, it will be of little use to know what I think of your plan; my fair cousin may have upset it already.”
“Ha, sir! let me look at you. So, so! you are not jesting. What the deuce do you mean? ‘Gad, man, speak out!”
“Do you not think that Mr. Monderling—Mandolin—what’s his name, eh?—do you not think that he is a very handsome young fellow?” said Mr. Vernon, drawing out his snuffbox and offering it to his kinsman.
“Damn your snuff,” quoth Sir Miles, in great choler, as he rejected the proffered courtesy with a vehemence that sent half the contents of the box upon the joint eyes and noses of the two canine favourites dozing at his feet. The setter started up in an agony; the spaniel wheezed and sniffled and ran off, stopping every moment to take his head between his paws. The old gentleman continued without heeding the sufferings of his dumb friends,—a symptom of rare discomposure on his part.
“Do you mean to insinuate, Mr. Vernon, that my niece—my elder niece, Lucretia Clavering—condescends to notice the looks, good or bad, of Mr. Mainwaring? ‘Sdeath, sir, he is the son of a land-agent! Sir, he is intended for trade! Sir, his highest ambition is to be partner in some fifth-rate mercantile house!”
“My dear Sir Miles,” replied Mr. Vernon, as he continued to brush away, with his scented handkerchief, such portions of the prince’s mixture as his nankeen inexpressibles had diverted from the sensual organs of Dash and Ponto—“my dear Sir Miles, ca n’empeche pas le sentiment!”
“Empeche the fiddlestick! You don’t know Lucretia. There are many girls, indeed, who might not be trusted near any handsome flute-playing spark, with black eyes and white teeth; but Lucretia is not one of those; she has spirit and ambition that would never stoop to a mesalliance; she has the mind and will of a queen,—old Queen Bess, I believe.”
“That is saying much for her talent, sir; but if so, Heaven help her intended! I am duly grateful for the blessings you propose me!”
Despite his anger, the old gentleman could not help smiling.
“Why, to confess the truth, she is hard to manage; but we men of the world know how to govern women, I hope,—much more how to break in a girl scarce out of her teens. As for this fancy of yours, it is sheer folly: Lucretia knows my mind. She has seen her mother’s fate; she has seen her sister an exile from my house. Why? For no fault of hers, poor thing, but because she is the child of disgrace, and the mother’s sin is visited on her daughter’s head. I am a good-natured man, I fancy, as men go; but I am old-fashioned enough to care for my race. If Lucretia demeaned herself to love, to encourage, that lad, why, I would strike her from my will, and put your name where I have placed hers.”
“Sir,” said Vernon, gravely, and throwing aside all affectation of manner, “this becomes serious; and I have no right even to whisper a doubt by which it now seems I might benefit. I think it imprudent, if you wish Miss Clavering to regard me impartially as a suitor to her hand, to throw her, at her age, in the way of a man far superior to myself, and to most men, in personal advantages,—a man more of her own years, well educated, well mannered, with no evidence of his inferior birth in his appearance or his breeding. I have not the least ground for supposing that he has made the slightest impression on Miss Clavering, and if he has, it would be, perhaps, but a girl’s innocent and thoughtless fancy, easily shaken off by time and worldly reflection; but pardon me if I say bluntly that should that be so, you would be wholly unjustified in punishing, even in blaming, her,—it is yourself you must blame for your own carelessness and that forgetful blindness to human nature and youthful emotions which, I must say, is the less pardonable in one who has known the world so intimately.”
“Charles Vernon,” said the old baronet, “give me your hand again! I was right, at least, when I said you had the heart of a true gentleman. Drop this subject for the present. Who has just left Lucretia yonder?”
“Your protege, the Frenchman.”
“Ah, he, at least, is not blind; go and join Lucretia!”
Vernon bowed, emptied the remains of the Madeira into a tumbler, drank the contents at a draught, and sauntered towards Lucretia; but she, perceiving his approach, crossed abruptly into one of the alleys that led to the other side of the house, and he was either too indifferent or too well-bred to force upon her the companionship which she so evidently shunned. He threw himself at length upon one of the benches on the lawn, and leaning his head upon his hand, fell into reflections which, had he spoken, would have shaped themselves somewhat thus into words:—
“If I must take that girl as the price of this fair heritage, shall I gain or lose? I grant that she has the finest neck and shoulders I ever saw out of marble; but far from being in love with her, she gives me a feeling like fear and aversion. Add to this that she has evidently no kinder sentiment for me than I for her; and if she once had a heart, that young gentleman has long since coaxed it away. Pleasant auspices, these, for matrimony to a poor invalid who wishes at least to decline and to die in peace! Moreover, if I were rich enough to marry as I pleased; if I were what, perhaps, I ought to be, heir to Laughton,—why, there is a certain sweet Mary in the world, whose eyes are softer than Lucretia Clavering’s. But that is a dream! On the other hand, if I do not win this girl, and my poor kinsman give her all, or nearly all, his possessions, Vernon Grange goes to the usurers, and the king will find a lodging for myself. What does it matter? I cannot live above two or three years at the most, and can only hope, therefore, that dear stout old Sir Miles may outlive me. At thirty-three I have worn out fortune and life; little pleasure could Laughton give me,—brief pain the Bench. ‘Fore Gad, the philosophy of the thing is on the whole against sour looks and the noose!” Thus deciding in the progress of his revery, he smiled, and changed his position. The sun had set, the twilight was over, the moon rose in splendour from amidst a thick copse of mingled beech and oak; the beams fell full on the face of the muser, and the face seemed yet paler and the exhaustion of premature decay yet more evident, by that still and melancholy light: all ruins gain dignity by the moon. This was a ruin nobler than that which painters place on their canvas,—the ruin, not of stone and brick, but of humanity and spirit; the wreck of man