_ BOOK VII CHAPTER II
MA fortune va prendre une face nouvelle.*
RACINE. _Androm_., Act i. sc. 1.
* "My fortune is about to take a turn."
THE next morning Vargrave inquired the way to Mr. Winsley's, and walked alone to the house of the brewer. The slim secretary went to inspect the cathedral.
Mr. Winsley was a little, thickset man, with a civil but blunt electioneering manner. He started when he heard Lord Vargrave's name, and bowed with great stiffness. Vargrave saw at a glance that there was some cause of grudge in the mind of the worthy man; nor did Mr. Winsley long hesitate before he cleansed his bosom of its perilous stuff.
"This is an unexpected honour, my lord: I don't know how to account for it."
"Why, Mr. Winsley, your friendship with my late uncle can, perhaps, sufficiently explain and apologize for a visit from a nephew sincerely attached to his memory."
"Humph! I certainly did do all in my power to promote Mr. Templeton's interests. No man, I may say, did more; and yet I don't think it was much thought of the moment he turned his back upon the electors of C-----. Not that I bear any malice; I am well to do, and value no man's favour,--no man's, my lord!"
"You amaze me! I always heard my poor uncle speak of you in the highest terms."
"Oh, well, it don't signify; pray say no more of it. Can I offer your lordship a glass of wine?"
"No, I am much obliged to you; but we really must set this little matter right. You know that after his marriage my uncle never revisited C-----; and that shortly before his death he sold the greater part of his interest in this city. His young wife, I suppose, liked the neighbourhood of London; and when elderly gentlemen _do_ marry, you know they are no longer their own masters; but if you had ever come to Fulham--ah! then, indeed, my uncle would have rejoiced to see his old friend."
"Your lordship thinks so," said Mr. Winsley with a sardonic smile. "You are mistaken; I did call at Fulham; and though I sent in my card, Lord Vargrave's servant (he was then My Lord) brought back word that his lordship was not at home."
"But that must have been true; he was out, you may depend on it."
"I saw him at the window, my lord," said Mr. Winsley, taking a pinch of snuff.
"Oh, the deuce! I'm in for it," thought Lumley.--"Very strange, indeed! but how can you account for it? Ah, perhaps the health of Lady Vargrave--she was so very delicate then, and my poor uncle lived for her--you know that he left all his fortune to Miss Cameron?"
"Miss Cameron! Who is she, my lord?"
"Why, his daughter-in-law; Lady Vargrave was a widow,--a Mrs. Cameron."
"Mrs. Cam--I remember now,--they put Cameron in the newspapers; but I thought it was a mistake. But, perhaps" (added Winsley, with a sneer of peculiar malignity),--"perhaps, when your worthy uncle thought of being a peer, he did not like to have it known that he married so much beneath him."
"You quite mistake, my dear sir; my uncle never denied that Mrs. Cameron was a lady of no fortune or connections,--widow to some poor Scotch gentleman, who died I think in India."
"He left her very ill off, poor thing; but she had a great deal of merit, and worked hard; she taught my girls to play--"
"Your girls! did Mrs. Cameron ever reside in C-----?"
"To be sure; but she was then called Mrs. Butler--just as pretty a name to my fancy."
"You must make a mistake: my uncle married this lady in Devonshire."
"Very possibly," quoth the brewer, doggedly. "Mrs. Butler left the town with her little girl some time before Mr. Templeton married."
"Well, you are wiser than I am," said Lumley, forcing a smile. "But how can you be sure that Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Cameron are one and the same person? You did not go into the house, you could not have seen Lady Vargrave" (and here Lumley shrewdly guessed--if the tale were true--at the cause of his uncle's exclusion of his old acquaintance).
"No! but I saw her ladyship on the lawn," said Mr. Winsley, with another sardonic smile; "and I asked the porter at the lodge as I went out if that was Lady Vargrave, and he said, 'yes.' However, my lord, bygones are bygones,--I bear no malice; your uncle was a good man: and if he had but said to me, 'Winsley, don't say a word about Mrs. Butler,' he might have reckoned on me just as much as when in his elections he used to put five thousand pounds in my hands, and say, 'Winsley, no bribery,--it is wicked; let this be given in charity.' Did any one ever know how that money went? Was your uncle ever accused of corruption? But, my lord, surely you will take some refreshment?"
"No, indeed; but if you will let me dine with you tomorrow, you'll oblige me much; and, whatever my uncle's faults (and latterly, poor man, he was hardly in his senses; what a will he made!) let not the nephew suffer for them. Come, Mr. Winsley," and Lumley held out his hand with enchanting frankness, "you know my motives are disinterested; I have no parliamentary interest to serve, we have no constituents for our Hospital of Incurables; and--oh! that's right,--we're friends, I see! Now I must go and look after my ward's houses. Let me see, the agent's name is--is--"
"Perkins, I think, my lord," said Mr. Winsley, thoroughly softened by the charm of Vargrave's words and manner. "Let me put on my hat, and show you his house."
"Will you? That's very kind; give me all the election news by the way--you know I was once within an ace of being your member."
Vargrave learned from his new friend some further particulars relative to Mrs. Butler's humble habits and homely mode of life at C-----, which served completely to explain to him why his proud and worldly uncle had so carefully abstained from all intercourse with that city, and had prevented the nephew from standing for its vacant representation. It seemed, however, that Winsley--whose resentment was not of a very active or violent kind--had not communicated the discovery he had made to his fellow townspeople; but had contented himself with hints and aphorisms, whenever he had heard the subject of Mr. Templeton's marriage discussed, which had led the gossips of the place to imagine that he had made a much worse selection than he really had. As to the accuracy of Winsley's assertion, Vargrave, though surprised at first, had but little doubt on consideration, especially when he heard that Mrs. Butler's principal patroness had been the Mrs. Leslie, now the intimate friend of Lady Vargrave. But what had been the career, what the earlier condition and struggles of this simple and interesting creature? With her appearance at C-----, commenced all that surmise could invent. Not greater was the mystery that wrapped the apparition of Manco Capac by the lake Titiaca, than that which shrouded the places and the trials whence the lowly teacher of music had emerged amidst the streets of C------.
Weary, and somewhat careless, of conjecture, Lord Vargrave, in dining with Mr. Winsley, turned the conversation upon the business on which he had principally undertaken his journey,--namely, the meditated purchase of Lisle Court.
"I myself am not a very good judge of landed property," said Vargrave; "I wish I knew of an experienced surveyor to look over the farms and timber: can you help me to such a one?"
Mr. Winsley smiled, and glanced at a rosy-cheeked young lady, who simpered and turned away. "I think my daughter could recommend one to your lordship, if she dared."
"Oh, Pa!"
"I see. Well, Miss Winsley, I will take no recommendation but yours."
Miss Winsley made an effort.
"Indeed, my lord, I have always heard Mr. Robert Hobbs considered very clever in his profession."
"Mr. Robert Hobbs is my man! His good health--and a fair wife to him."
Miss Winsley glanced at Mamma, and then at a younger sister; and then there was a titter, and then a fluttering, and then a rising, and Mr. Winsley, Lord Vargrave, and the slim secretary were left alone.
"Really, my lord," said the host, resettling himself, and pushing the wine, "though you have guessed our little family arrangement, and I have some interest in the recommendation, since Margaret will be Mrs. Robert Hobbs in a few weeks, yet I do not know a more acute, intelligent young man anywhere. Highly respectable, with an independent fortune; his father is lately dead, and made at least thirty thousand pounds in trade. His brother Edward is also dead; so he has the bulk of the property, and he follows his profession merely for amusement. He would consider it a great honour."
"And where does he live?"
"Oh, not in this county,--a long way off; close to -----; but it is all in your lordship's road. A very nice house he has, too. I have known his family since I was a boy; it is astonishing how his father improved the place,--it was a poor little lath-and-plaster cottage when the late Mr. Hobbs bought it, and it is now a very excellent family house."
"Well, you shall give me the address and a letter of introduction, and so much for that matter. But to return to politics;" and here Lord Vargrave ran eloquently on, till Mr. Winsley thought him the only man in the world who could save the country from that utter annihilation, the possibility of which he had never even suspected before.
It may be as well to add, that, on wishing Lord Vargrave good-night, Mr. Winsley whispered in his ear, "Your lordship's friend, Lord Staunch, need be under no apprehension,--we are all right!" _