Читать книгу The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly - Lever Charles James - Страница 6

About eighteen miles from Bishop’s Folly, and in the very midst of the Mourne Mountains, a low spur of land projects into the sea by a thin, narrow promontory, so narrow, indeed, that in days of heavy sea and strong wind, the waves have been seen to meet across it. Some benevolent individual had once conceived the idea of planting a small lighthouse here, as a boon to the fishermen who frequent the coast. The lighthouse was built, but never occupied, and after standing some years in a state of half ruin, was turned into a sort of humble inn or shebeen, most probably a mere pretext to cover its real employment as a depot for smuggled goods; for in the days of high duties French silks and brandies found many channels into Ireland besides the road that lay through her Majesty’s customs. Mr., or, as he was more generally called, Tim Mackessy, the proprietor, was a well-known man in those parts. He followed what in Ireland for some years back has been as much a profession as law or physic, and occasionally a more lucrative line than either, – Patriotism. He was one of those ready, voluble, self-asserting fellows, who abound in Ireland, but whose favor is not the less with their countrymen from the fact of their frequency. He had, he said, a father, who suffered for his country in ninety-eight; and he had himself maintained the family traditions by being twice imprisoned in Carrickfergus jail, and narrowly escaping transportation for life. On the credit of this martyrdom, and the fact that Mr. O’Connell once called him “honest Tim Mackessy,” he had lived in honor and repute amongst such of his countrymen as “feel the yoke and abhor the rule of the Saxon.”

For the present, we are, however, less occupied by Tim and his political opinions than by two guests, who had arrived a couple of days before, and were now seated at breakfast in that modest apartment called the best parlor. Two men less like in appearance might not readily be found. One, thin, fresh-looking, with handsome but haughty features, slightly stooped, but to all seeming as much from habit as from any debility, was Lord Culduff; his age might be computed by some reference to the list of his services, but would have been a puzzling calculation from a mere inspection of himself. In figure and build, he might be anything from five-and-thirty to two or three and forty; in face, at a close inspection, he might have been high up in the sixties.

His companion was a middle-sized, middle-aged man, with a mass of bushy curly black hair, a round bullet head, wide-set eyes, and a short nose, of the leonine pattern; his mouth, large and thick-lipped, had all that mobility that denotes talker and eater: for Mr. Cutbill, civil engineer and architect, was both garrulous and gourmand, and lived in the happy enjoyment of being thought excellent company, and a first-rate judge of a dinner. He was musical too; he played the violoncello with some skill, and was an associate of various philharmonics, who performed fantasias and fugues to dreary old ladies and snuffy old bachelors, who found the amusement an economy that exacted nothing more costly than a little patience. Among these Tom Cutbill was a man of wit and man of the world. His career brought him from time to time into contact with persons of high station and rank, and these he ventilated amongst his set in the most easy manner, familiarly talking of Beaufort, and Argyle, and Cleveland, as though they were household words.

It was reported that he had some cleverness as an actor; and he might have had, for the man treated life as a drama, and was eternally representing something, – some imaginary character, – till any little fragment of reality in him had been entirely rubbed out by the process, and he remained the mere personation of whatever the society he chanced to be in wanted or demanded of him.

He had been recommended to Lord Culduff’s notice by his Lordship’s London agent, who had said, “He knows the scientific part of his business as well as the great swells of his profession, and he knows the world a precious sight better than they do. They could tell you if you have coal, but he will do that and more; he will tell you what to do with it.” It was on the advice thus given Lord Culduff had secured his services, and taken him over to Ireland. It was a bitter pill to swallow, for this old broken-down man of fashion, self-indulgent, fastidious, and refined, to travel in such company; but his affairs were in a sad state, from years of extravagance and high living, and it was only by the supposed discovery of these mines on this unprofitable part of his estate that his creditors consented to defer that settlement which might sweep away almost all that remained to him. Cutbill was told, too, – “His Lordship is rather hard up just now, and cannot be liberal as he could wish; but he is a charming person to know, and will treat you like a brother.” The one chink in this shrewd fellow’s armor was his snobbery. It was told of him once, in a very dangerous illness, when all means of inducing perspiration had failed, that some one said, “Try him with a lord; it never failed with Tom yet.” If an untitled squire had proposed to take Mr. Cutbill over special to Ireland for a hundred pound note and his expenses, he would have indignantly refused the offer, and assisted the proposer besides to some unpalatable reflections on his knowledge of life; the thought, however, of journeying as Lord Culduff’s intimate friend, being treated as his brother, thrown, from the very nature of the country they travelled in, into close relations, and left free to improve the acquaintance by all those social wiles and accomplishments on which he felt he could pride himself, was a bribe not to be resisted. And thus was it that these two men, so unlike in every respect, found themselves fellow-travellers and companions.

A number of papers, plans, and drawings littered the breakfast table at which they were seated, and one of these, representing the little promontory of arid rock, tastefully colored and converted into a handsome pier, with flights of steps descending to the water, and massive cranes swinging bulky masses of merchandise into tall-masted ships, was just then beneath his Lordship’s double eyeglass.

“Where may all this be, Cutbill? is it Irish?” asked he.

“It is to be out yonder, my Lord,” said he, pointing through the little window to the rugged line of rocks, over which the sea was breaking in measured rhythm.

“You don’t mean there?” said Lord Culduff, half horrified.

“Yes, my Lord, there! Your Lordship is doubtless not aware that of all her Majesty’s faithful lieges the speculative are the least gifted with the imaginative faculty, and to supply this unhappy want in their natures, we whose function it is to suggest great industrial schemes or large undertakings – we ‘promoters,’ as we are called, are obliged to supply, not merely by description, but actually pictorially, the results which success will in due time arrive at. We have, as the poet says, to annihilate ‘both time and space,’ and arrive at a goal which no effort of these worthy people’s minds could possibly attain to. What your Lordship is now looking at is a case in point, and however little promising the present aspect of that coast-line may seem, time and money – yes, my Lord, time and money – the two springs of all success – will make even greater change than you see depicted here.”

Mr. Cutbill delivered these words with a somewhat pompous tone, and in a voice such as he might have used in addressing an acting committee or a special board of works; for one of his fancies was to believe himself an orator of no mean power.

“I trust – I fervently trust, Mr. Cutbill,” said his Lordship, nervously, “that the coal-fields are somewhat nigher the stage of being remunerative than that broken line of rock is to this fanciful picture before me.”

“Wealth, my Lord, like heat, has its latent conditions.”

“Condescend to a more commonplace tone, sir, in consideration of my ignorance, and tell me frankly, is the mine as far from reality as that reef there?”

Fortunately for Mr. Cutbill, perhaps, the door was opened at this critical juncture, and the landlord presented himself with a note, stating that the groom who brought it would wait for the answer.

Somewhat agitated by the turn of his conversation with the engineer, Lord Culduff tore open the letter, and ran his eyes towards the end to see the signature.

“Who is Bramleigh – Temple Bramleigh? Oh, I remember, – an attaché. What’s all this about Castello? Where ‘s Castello?”

“That’s the name they give the Bishop’s Folly, my Lord,” said the landlord, with a half grin.

“What business have these people to know I am here at all? Why must they persecute me? You told me, Cutbill, that I was not to be discovered.”

“So I did, my Lord, and I made the ‘Down Express’ call you Mr. Morris, of Charing Cross.”

His Lordship winced a little at the thought of such a liberty, even for a disguise, but he was now engaged with the note, and read on without speaking.

“Nothing could be more courteous, certainly,” said he, folding it up, and laying it beside him on the table. “They invite me over to – what’s the name? – Castello, and promise me perfect liberty as regards my time. ‘To make the place my headquarters,’ as he says. Who are these Bramleighs? You know every one, Cutbill; who are they?”

“Bramleigh and Underwood are bankers, very old established firm. Old Bramleigh was a brewer, at Slough; George the Third never would drink any other stout than Bramleigh’s. There was a large silver flagon, called the ‘King’s Quaigh,’ always brought out when his Majesty rode by, and very vain old Bramleigh used to be of it, though I don’t think it figures now on the son’s sideboard, – they have leased the brewery.”

“Oh, they have leased the brewery, have they?”

“That they have; the present man got himself made Colonel of militia, and meant to be a county member, and he might, too, if he had n’t been in too great a hurry about it; but county people won’t stand being carried by assault. Then they made other mistakes; tried it on with the Liberals, in a shire where everything that called itself gentleman was Tory; in fact, they plunged from one hole into another, till they regularly swamped themselves; and as their house held a large mortgage on these estates in Ireland, they paid off the other incumbrances and have come to live here. I know the whole story, for it was an old friend of mine who made the plans for restoring the mansion.”

“I suspect that the men in your profession, Cutbill, know as much of the private history of English families as any in the land?”

“More, my Lord; far more even than the solicitors, for people suspect the solicitors, and they never suspect us. We are detectives in plain clothes.”

The pleasant chuckle with which Mr. Cutbill finished his speech was not responded to by his Lordship, who felt that the other should have accepted his compliment, without any attempt on his own part to “cap” it.

“How long do you imagine I may be detained here, Cutbill?” asked he, after a pause.

“Let us say a week, my Lord, or ten days at furthest. We ought certainly to see that new pit opened, before you leave.”

“In that case I may as well accept this invitation. I can bear a little boredom if they have only a good cook. Do you suppose they have a good cook?”

“The agent, Jos Harding, told me they had a Frenchman, and that the house is splendidly got up.”

“What’s to be done with you, Cutbill, eh?”

“I am at your Lordship’s orders,” said he, with a very quiet composure.

“You have nothing to do over at that place just now? – I mean at the mine.”

“No, my Lord. Till Pollard makes his report, I have nothing to call me over there.”

“And here, I take it, we have seen everything,” and he gave a very hopeless look through the little window as he spoke.

“There it is, my Lord,” said Cutbill, taking up the colored picture of the pier, with its busy crowds, and its bustling porters. “There it is!”

“I should say, Cutbill, there it is not!” observed the other, bitterly. “Anything more unlike the reality is hard to conceive.”

“Few things are as unlike a cornet in the Life Guards as a child in a perambulator – ”

“Very well, all that,” interrupted Lord Culduff, impatiently. “I know that sort of argument perfectly. I have been pestered with the acorn, or, rather, with the unborn forests in the heart of the acorn, for many a day. Let us get a stride in advance of these platitudes. Is the whole thing like this?” and he threw the drawing across the table contemptuously as he spoke. “Is it all of this pattern, eh?”

“In one sense it is very like,” said the other, with a greater amount of decision in his tone than usual.

“In which case, then, the sooner we abandon it the better,” said Lord Culduff, rising, and standing with his back to the fire, his head high, and his look intensely haughty.

“It is not for me to dictate to your Lordship, – I could never presume to do so, – but certainly it is not every one in Great Britain who could reconcile himself to relinquish one of the largest sources of wealth in the kingdom. Taking the lowest estimate of Carrick Nuish mine alone, – and when I say the lowest, I mean throwing the whole thing into a company of shareholders and neither working nor risking a shilling yourself, – you may put from twenty to five-and-twenty thousand pounds into your pocket within a twelvemonth.”

“Who will guarantee that, Cutbill?” said Lord Culduff, with a faint smile.

“I am ready myself to do so, provided my counsels be strictly followed. I will do so, with my whole professional reputation.”

“I am charmed to hear you say so. It is a very gratifying piece of news for me. You feel, therefore, certain that we have struck coal?”

“My Lord, when a young man enters life from one of the universities, with a high reputation for ability, he can go a long way, – if he only be prudent, – living on his capital. It is the same thing in a great industrial enterprise; you must start at speed, and with a high pressure, – get way on you, as the sailors say, – and you will skim along for half a mile after the steam is off.”

“I come back to my former question. Have we found coal?”

“I hope so. I trust we have. Indeed, there is every reason to say we have found coal. What we need most at this moment is a man like that gentleman whose note is on the table, – a large capitalist, a great City name. Let him associate himself in the project, and success is as certain as that we stand here.”

“But you have just told me he has given up his business life, – retired from affairs altogether.”

“My Lord, these men never give up. They buy estates, they can live at Rome or Paris, and take a chateau at Cannes, and try to forget Mincing Lane and the rest of it; but if you watch them, you ‘ll see it’s the money article in the ‘Times’ they read before the leader. They have but one barometer for everything that happens in Europe, – how are the exchanges? and they are just as greedy of a good thing as on any morning they hurried down to the City in a hansom to buy in or sell out. See if I ‘m not right. Just throw out a hint, no more, that you ‘d like a word of advice from Colonel Bramleigh about your project; say it’s a large thing, – too large for an individual to cope with, – that you are yourself the least possible of a business man, being always engaged in very different occupations, – and ask what course he would counsel you to take.”

“I might show him these drawings, – these colored plans.”

“Well, indeed, my Lord,” said Cutbill, brushing his mouth with his hand, to hide a smile of malicious drollery, “I’d say I’d not show him the plans. The pictorial rarely appeals to men of his stamp. It’s the multiplication-table they like, and if all the world were like them one would never throw poetry into a project.”

“You ‘ll have to come with me, Cutbill; I see that,” said his Lordship, reflectingly.

“My Lord, I am completely at your orders.”

“Yes; this is a sort of negotiation you will conduct better than myself. I am not conversant with this sort of thing, nor the men who deal in them. A great treaty, a question of boundary, a royal marriage, – any of these would find me ready and prepared, but with the diplomacy of dividends, I own myself little acquainted. You must come with me.” Cutbill bowed in acquiescence, and was silent.