Read Ebook: Jilted! Or My Uncle's Scheme Volume 1 by Russell William Clark

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Ebook has 559 lines and 31592 words, and 12 pages

"Where are you going to drive me to?" I asked.

"To Mr. Hargrave's, sir," replied the man.

"Do you know if he has procured any lodgings for me in the town?"

"I really can't say, sir. Master ordered me to drive you to Grove End. Them was my orders, sir."

I wondered if it could be possible that my uncle had determined I should live in his house? I was resolved that no tyranny of hospitality should tame me into submission. I had made up my mind to live in lodgings, and nothing human, I said to myself, shall induce me to abandon that resolution. How was I to know the sort of treatment I might have to submit to? Mightn't the butler--if they kept one--sneer at me from behind his master's chair, and flatter himself that there was no comparison between the respectability of his position as a butler, and mine as a banker's clerk? Mightn't my aunt send me upon menial errands, treat me as a kind of upper footman, and if I remonstrated, inquire with a scowl what I thought her husband gave me a hundred and fifty pounds a year for?

Meanwhile, I was being driven through a country so exceedingly pretty, that in the face of it, my fretful and feverish fancies died away, and I found myself incapable of more than admiration. Updown, the coachman told me, was three miles from the station. We had driven a mile by this time, but I could see nothing of the town. The country was hilly, with ridges richly shagged with wood. It was a glorious May afternoon, with a warm breeze that swept by, charged with indescribable aromas, and with the most delicate blue sky that ever I saw, across which great bright clouds were rolling, dimming the sun at intervals, and mellowing and deepening with shadows the manifold colours of hills and plains. We had long ago left the green lane and were now bowling along a very good turnpike road, which rose and fell as far as the horizon behind us, but which grew very devious and vanishing as we advanced. I was struck by the air of cultivated beauty the country exhibited. I had never seen anything like it about Longueville. I noticed the vivid green of the grass, the sturdy and sheltering aspect of the trees, the cosiness and permanency of the farm-houses and wayside buildings, and the rugged and vigorous frames of the country people we overtook and passed. Presently we rattled over a broad bridge, and I looked along a bright river with so smooth a surface that the shores were as accurately mirrored in it as if it had been a looking-glass. I thought of Izaak Walton and hearty, cheerful Mr. Cotton, and wondered if they had ever thrown their quills in that water; and as the "Compleat Angler" was a book I had often read, and was passionately fond of, it is not surprising that the rich and sweet description of Maudlin, and her syllabubs and song, should come into my memory to gild the brief glimpse I had caught with the radiance of an imperishable poem.

On coming to a bend of the road, I saw on my right the red roofs and church spires and glittering vanes, and smoking chimneys of a town built on the sloping sides of two hills.

"Is that Updown?" I asked. The coachman said it was. I gazed at it with interest. Distance softened all rude and commonplace details, and, in the silver sunshine, the town looked fairy-like. The central street, which ran straight as a line through the heart of the valley, was made wonderfully picturesque by a great archway. We branched off just as we were getting near enough to see the houses distinctly, and, in about ten minutes, drove through a gate, along a pleasant avenue, and stopped before an exceedingly pretty house, with gleaming conservatories on either side, and hedged about with a great profusion of shrubbery. I saw a girl's face at one of the windows, and, in a moment or two, the door was thrown open, and forth stepped--my uncle: a spare, dry-faced man, with very high shirt-collars, and a very shiny black satin cravat, and dressed in a suit of shepherd's plaid. Of course I had no idea who he was, for there was no more resemblance between him and my father than there was between his coachman and me. But the moment he smiled, I knew he must be a Hargrave.

I got out of the phaeton, and he came up to me, and took my hand, and held it without speaking, whilst he ran his eye over me.

And catching me by the arm, he led me up the steps, and through the hall into a drawing-room full of flowers and china--so it appeared to me--calling "Conny! Conny!" loudly as we passed in.

My aunt was a stout, healthy-looking woman, red-cheeked, with a most amiable cast of countenance. I was impressed by the size of her cap, and her walk, which was a waddle. My uncle pushed a chair forwards for me to be seated; he and the ladies then ranged themselves round me, and we began to converse.

"I was delighted to hear from my brother. How is he?"

"Very well indeed. He begged me to thank you heartily for the kindness of your offer to me, and to convey his love to you and Mrs. Hargrave, and your daughter."

"What a time he has lived at Longueville! Isn't he sick of the place?"

"No. We are both of us very fond of Longueville. I left it with great regret, I assure you."

"I wanted papa to take us there this summer," said Conny, timidly, and then starting; like Fear in Collins' Ode, at the sound she herself had made.

"I dread the water, Mr. Charles," observed my aunt.

"And so does my father, or he would have been glad to accept your kind invitation."

"Is it long since you were in England?" asked Conny.

"I have not been in England since I was six years old."

"Why, you must be a perfect Frenchman!" cried out my uncle and aunt in a breath. And then said my uncle: "You'll find French very useful to you in business. How do you like the idea of being a banker?"

"I know nothing about it," I answered.

I was proud of my ignorance. I believed it would impress Conny. I felt, in short, like the West-end gentleman who asked a friend where the city was.

"We'll soon teach you," said my uncle, cheerily. "I wish you had made up your mind to live with us. I have taken lodgings for you in the town, as you desired, but I am sure you would have been more comfortable here."

I felt disposed to agree with him. Certainly the house appeared a very delightful one, and I must say that I had had no idea I owned such a pretty cousin as Conny. But still I reflected that the habits of the old people might be entirely opposed to mine; and it would be hideous to have to submit to any kind of restraint, after the long years of billiards, tobacco, and freedom I had enjoyed at Longueville.

"At all events," said my aunt, "you can always come here if you don't find your quarters comfortable. Your landlady was recommended to me by our laundress, who is a very respectable woman; Conny and I inspected your rooms, before taking them, and they seem pretty comfortable. They are very clean, which is a great thing in lodgings."

I looked at Conny, who was watching me; her eyes fell when mine met them. There seemed a little more keenness and slyness in their glance than I should have thought such innocent, maidenly, tender, blue eyes capable of. But oh, Eugenio! what is there more deceitful in life than a pretty girl? Does thy heart bleed? Mine has bled. I have tried to pick a rose, and have pulled away nothing but four fingers and a thumb stuffed with thorns.

"You will dine with us to-day," said my uncle. "Afterwards, James shall drive you to your quarters. There is no need to go to work before Monday. You can pass the rest of the week in looking about you, and sending home your impressions to my brother, the major, who I daresay will be anxious to know how you like the place."

"Your kindness," I answered, "will give me plenty to tell him about."

So I maintain that my father was right when he exhorted me to treat life as a court-dress affair. The world is so full of hero-worshippers, that no man can think himself too important.

My uncle gained upon me. Yellow, and spare, and shrewd as his face was, a great deal of heart and amiability were mixed up in it. He was five years younger than my father, but was one of those men who look fifty when they are thirty, and forty when they are sixty. He had lank black hair, and a long nose, and a spasmodic way of speaking, as if, after delivering himself of a few sentences, he found difficulty in breathing.

I asked him what time the bank closed.

"At four," he answered. "The clerks generally get away by half-past."

"Do you like the idea of being a banker's clerk?" inquired Conny, with a gleam of mischief in her blue unfathomable eyes.

"I haven't the least notion," I replied. "All that I know about banks is that they are places where you offer cheques and receive money for them."

"True," said my uncle, with a laugh; "but people must work very hard in order to induce the banks to change those cheques into money."

"I wonder your papa didn't put you into the army," said Conny. "Would not you have liked to be a soldier?"

"It is immaterial to me what I am, provided I am easy in my mind, and have time now and then to smoke a cigar," answered I, with the lofty languor of an exquisite of the first water.

"Yes," he answered; "why doesn't he come and see us? I should find him aged, no doubt; but he was always a handsome man." And he began to tell us stories of his and his brother's young days, and how a certain young lady broke her heart when my father went to India, and how another young lady turned Roman Catholic, and faded into a white veil, when my father married. I thought Conny looked sentimental whilst she listened. I caught her eye once, during these startling revelations, but saw that she was not thinking of me by her abstracted air.

I don't know if my uncle was impressed; but my aunt was, and I rather think Conny was, too. An irresistible thrill of pride ran through me, when my aunt, leaning across the table, said with great earnestness,

"I am afraid, Mr. Charles, you will despise the position Thomas has offered you; but though the profession of banking has sunk rather low since our day, there are still plenty of gentlemen engaged in it."

There was no sneer in this; I should have instantly felt it had there been.

"Banking may have sunk low in other places," said Conny, with a heightened colour, "but I am sure papa's clerks are gentlemen."

"I am not so sure," replied my aunt, who every moment was proving herself to be a deliciously candid woman.

"Oh, Curling's a gentleman," said my uncle, "and so is Spratling, though his name might be grander."

"Mr. Curling is gentlemanly, I admit, but I don't consider him to be a gentleman," exclaimed my aunt.

Conny picked at a bit of bread and twisted the fragments into little balls.

"Oh, I am sure I shall like banking, Mrs. Hargrave," said I, with fine condescension. "Of course," I continued, waving my hand in imitation of my father, who would gesticulate in that manner in a very impressive and polished way: "if I had an income of my own, however small, I should have preferred to continue as I was. But necessity is one of those things to which noblemen as well as ploughmen must submit."

"True," said my uncle with a nod. "Help yourself to more wine."

"I should have thought," observed my candid aunt with a face full of sober honesty, and in a tone that quite forbade all notion that any irony was intended, "that you would have been able to marry very well."

"Oh, oh! give him time--give him time!" chuckled my uncle.

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