Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume I Part 47

"Don't call tolerance, sir, what there is a better word for,--subserviency. I am amazed how you endured this woman."

"Remember--it is to'be remembered--that in my version of her I have condensed the conversation of some hours, and given you, as it were, the substance of much talking; and also that I have not attempted to convey what certainly was a very perfect manner. She had no small share of good looks, a very sweet voice, and considerable attraction in point of breeding."

"I will accept none of these as alleviations, sir; her blandishments cannot blind the Court."

"I will not deny their influence upon myself," said Beattie, gently.

"I can understand you, sir," said the Judge, pompously. "The habits of your profession teach you to swallow so much that is nauseous in a sweet vehicle, that you carry the same custom into morals."

Beattie laughed so heartily at the a.n.a.logy that the old man's good-humor returned to him, and he bade him continue his narrative.

"I have not much more to tell. We reached the house by about eleven o'clock at night, and my fellow-traveller sat in the carriage till I announced her to Mrs. Sewell. My own cares called me to the sick-room, and I saw no more of the ladies till this morning, just before I came away."

"She is, then, domesticated there? She has taken up her quarters at the Sewells' house?"

"Yes. I found her maid, too, had taken possession of Colonel Sewell's dressing-room, and dispossessed a number of his chattels to make room for her own."

"It is a happy thing, a very happy thing for me, that I have not been tried by these ordeals," said the Judge, with a long-drawn breath. "I wonder how Colonel Sewell will endure it."

"I have no means of knowing; he arrived late at night, and was still in bed and asleep when I left."

"You have not told me these people's name?"

"Trafford,--Sir Hugh Beecham Trafford, of Holt-Trafford, Staffords.h.i.+re."

"I have met the man, or rather his father, for it was nigh fifty years ago,--an old family, and of Saxon origin; and his wife,--who was she?"

"Her name was Merivale. Her father, I think, was Governor of Madras."

"If so, sir, she has hereditary claims for impertinence and presumption.

Sir Ulysses Merivale enjoyed the proud distinction of being the most insolent man in England. It is well that you have told me who she was, Beattie, for I might have made a very fatal blunder. I was going to write to Sewell to say, 'As this is a great issue, I would advise you to bring down your mother, "special,"' but I recall my intention. Lady Lendrick would have no chance against Lady Trafford. Irish insolence has not the finish of the English article, and we put an alloy of feeling in it that destroys it altogether. Will the young man recover?"

"He is going on favorably, and I see nothing to apprehend, except, indeed, that the indiscretions of his mother may prejudice his case. She is very likely to insist on removing him; she hinted it to me as I took my leave."

"I will write to the Sewells to come up here at once. They shall evacuate the territory, and leave her in possession. As persons closely connected with my family, they must not have this outrage put upon them." He rang the bell violently, and desired the servant to request Miss Lendrick to come to him.

"She is not very well, my Lord, and has gone to her room. She told Mrs.

Beales to serve your Lords.h.i.+p's tea when you were ready for it."

"What is this? What does all this mean?" said the old Judge, eagerly; for the idea of any one presuming to be ill without duly apprising him--without the preliminary step of ascertaining that it could not inconvenience him--was more than he was fully prepared for.

"Tell Mrs. Beales I want her," said he, as he rose and left the room.

Muttering angrily as he went, he ascended the stairs and traversed the long corridor which led to Lucy's room; but before he had reached the door the housekeeper was at his side.

"Miss Lucy said she 'd like to see your Lords.h.i.+p, if it was n't too much trouble, my Lord."

"I am going to see her. Ask her if I may come in."

"Yes, my Lord," said Mrs. Beales from the open door. "She is awake."

"My own dear grandpapa," said Lucy, stretching out her arms to him from her bed, "how good and kind of you to come here!"

"My dear, dear child," said he, fondly; "tell me you are not ill; tell me that it is a mere pa.s.sing indisposition."

"Not even so much, grandpapa. It is simply a headache. I was crying, and I was ashamed that you should see it; and I walked out into the air; and I came back again, trying to look at ease; and my head began to throb and to pain me so that I thought it best to go to bed. It was a letter I got,--a letter from Cagliari. Poor Tom has had the terrible fever of the island. He said nothing about it at first, but now he has relapsed.

There are only three lines in his own hand,--the rest is from his friend. You shall see what he says. It is very short, and not very hard to read."

The old man put on his spectacles and read:--

"'My very dear Lucy.'

"Who presumes to address you in this way? 'Brook Fossbrooke?' What! is this the man who is called Sir Brook Fossbrooke? By what means have you become so intimate with a person of his character?"

"I know nothing better, nothing more truly n.o.ble and generous, than his character," said she, holding her temples as she spoke, for the pain of'

her head was almost agony. "Do read on,--read on, dearest grandpapa."

He turned again to the letter, and read it over in silence till he came to the few words in Tom's hand, which he read aloud: "Darling Lu--I shall be all right in a week. Don't fret, but write me a long--long"--he had forgotten the word "letter,"--"and love me always."

She burst into tears, as the old man read the words, for by some strange magic, the syllables of deep affection, uttered by one unmoved, smite the heart with a pang that is actual torture.

"I will take this letter down to Beattie, Lucy, and hear what he says of it," said the old man, and left the room.

"Read this, Beattie, and tell me what you say to it," said the Chief Baron, as he handed the doctor Sir Brook's letter; "I'll tell you of the writer when you have read it."

Beattie read the note in silence, and as he laid it on the table said, "I know the man, and his strange old-fas.h.i.+oned writing would have recalled him without his name."

"And what do you know of him, sir?" asked the Judge, sternly.

"I can tell you the story in three words: He came to consult me one morning, about six or eight months ago. It was about an insurance on his life,--a very small sum he wanted to raise, to go out to this very place he writes from. He got to talk about the project, and I don't exactly know how it came about,--I forget the details now,--but it ended by my lending him the money myself."

"What, sir! do you combine usury with physic?"

"On that occasion I appear to have done so," said Beattie, laughing.

"And you advanced a sum of money to a man whom you saw for the first time, simply on his showing that his life was too insecure to guarantee repayment?"

"That puts the matter a little too nakedly."

"It puts it truthfully, sir, I apprehend."

"If you mean that the man impressed me so favorably that I was disposed to do him a small service, you are right."

"You and I, Beattie, are too old for this impulsive generosity,--too old by thirty years! After forty philanthropy should take a chronic form, and never have paroxysms. I think I am correct in my medical language."

"Your medicine pleases me more than your morality," said Beattie, laughing; "but to come back to this Sir Brook, I wish you had seen him."

"Sir, I have seen him, and I have heard of him, and if not at liberty to say what I have heard of him, it is quite enough to state that _my_ information cannot corroborate _your_ opinion."

"Well, my Lord, the possibility of what I might hear will not shake the stability of what I have seen. Remember that we doctors imagine we read human nature by stronger spectacles than the laity generally."