“A lady who might have married any one of a score of suitors, every one eligible, has no case to make,” Mr. Coke said.
“I think Cousin Max is right. I think one’s liberty is a great deal,” remarked Maud. “Doctor Malkin said last night what I quite agree in, that it is better to marry never, than once too often.”
“He says that a woman who marries once is a fool,” said Maximilla Medwyn, “but a woman who marries twice is a criminal.”
“Is not that rather violent doctrine?” Mr. Coke inquired.
“I think he only said, who marries within a short time after the death of her husband,” said Maud; “and you recollect the curious stories he told us? There was a woman who would not allow him to bleed her husband, whose life, he said, would certainly have been saved by it, pretending too great a tenderness for him to allow it, and, in a few weeks after his death, she married a person who lived in the house; and there was another story of a woman who married immediately after her husband’s death, without the slightest suspicion, who, ten years later, was convicted of having murdered him, by hammering a nail into his head while he was asleep.”
“But, seriously, I’m a mere slave, and can never command an hour, except when I get to the Continent, and letters can’t find me any longer. Doctor Malkin was here last night? I don’t know the people — which was he?” said the attorney.
“He is a pale man, with a high nose, and dishevelled black whiskers, and good eyes,” Miss Maud answered.
“My dear Maud, that doesn’t describe him,” interposed Miss Max. “In the first place he squints; next, he is bald, and he has a long upper-lip and a short chin, and an odious smile, that I think is both conceited and insincere, and you could fancy him just the doctor, if he did not like you, to bleed you to death, or poison you by mistake.”
“My dear Maximilla, how can you?” said Lady Vernon, gravely, with a glow in both cheeks that comes when she is either angry or otherwise agitated. “My cousin, Mr. Coke, is not acquainted with Doctor Malkin. She does not know him; but I do; and I have the very highest opinion of him. I have great confidence in his skill, and still greater in his integrity. He is as conscientious a person as I ever met in my life. I know no one more entirely trustworthy than Doctor Malkin.”
Lady Vernon spoke coldly after her wont, but she was evidently in earnest.
“Then his countenance does him great wrong,” answered Miss Max, cheerfully, “that’s all I say. It is quite true I don’t know him, and I don’t desire to know him.”
And she sipped her tea.
“I assure you, Mr. Coke, I speak from knowledge; there is no one of whose good sense and truth I have a higher opinion. I wished you to understand that,” said Lady Vernon. “And I have an almost equally high opinion of his skill. For the last fifteen years he has been attending, in every illness, in this house; and he has been so attentive and so successful, it would be impossible not to have the highest opinion of him as a physician.”
Perhaps Mr. Coke thought it a little odd that Lady Vernon should make such a point of his believing this country doctor a paragon; and wondered why the peculiar flush by which she betrayed excitement should glow in her cheeks, and make her broad, cold eyes, fiery.
“Country doctors are often the ablest,” he remarked, letting the subject drop softly; “they get to know the idiosyncrasies of their small circle of patients so thoroughly; and their dispensaries and the rustic population furnish an immense field of observation and experience. Does Lord Verney come to-day?”
“Yes; I’m sorry he does, he is such a bore, poor man; I should have preferred his staying away,” replied Lady Vernon, with plaintive disgust. “Barroden comes, and so does Mr. Hildering.”
“And each, I think, brings his solicitor with him?” asked Mr. Coke.
“I wrote to them, to do so, and I suppose they will,” answered Lady Vernon. “Only Sir Harry Strafford doesn’t come.”
“I don’t think we are likely to hit upon anything very new. I have gone over it so often, and I don’t think anything has escaped us,” ruminated Mr. Coke. “Is there a solicitor to represent Miss Maud Vernon?”
“No, I did not think it necessary. Does it strike you that this room is lighter than it was when you were last here?” inquired Lady Vernon, a little irrelevantly. “I’ll show you how that happens.”
And breakfast being by this time over, she rose and walked to the great window that looks towards the east. Mr. Coke, a little thoughtful, followed her mechanically.
“Two great lime-trees stood just there, where you see the grass a little yellow, and they were so shaken by the storm last year, that they were pronounced unsafe, and had to come down; they were beautiful trees, but the room is a great deal lighter.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Coke. “It is rather complicated, you see, and there might be a conflict of interests, and as the meeting is a little formal, it would have relieved me of a responsibility, but I’ll do my best.”
“I don’t see that any conflict can arise, Mr. Coke,” said Lady Vernon, coldly. “At all events, if she wishes to ascertain her rights and opportunities, or whatever they are, separately, there is nothing to prevent her. What we do to-day can’t fetter her in any way, and I thought you were quite competent to protect us both. It would be rather early to anticipate her litigating with her mother. I should hope there won’t be an opportunity.”
“No,” acquiesced Mr. Coke; “I should have preferred that arrangement; but I’ll do my best. At what hour do you expect the trustees, Lady Vernon?”
“They will all be here by three o’clock, if they keep their appointments. I think Mr. Hildering will come at one; he said so.”
Mr. Coke was thoughtful; and when Lady Vernon was gone, he looked over his notebook for a time, and raising his eyes a little after, he saw the slight figure of Miss Maximilla Medwyn walking up and down the long terrace before the house. He went out and joined her.
CHAPTER XX.
LADY VERNON’S EXCURSIONS.
When he overtook that cheerful sentry, he said: “Can you tell me where I should be likely to find Miss Vernon? I have a word to say to her.”
“Lady Vernon sent for her a few minutes ago, but she said she would not keep her long,” said Miss Max; “I told her I should walk up and down here till she came.”
Mr. Coke walked beside her without saying a word, till they had completed a walk to the end, and back again.
“Lady Vernon is as handsome as ever,” he remarked, on a sudden. “Since I last saw her there is really no change that I can see.”
“But that is scarcely a year ago,” answered Miss Max.
“More than four,” replied Mr. Coke, smiling.
“You mean to say you have not seen Barbara for four years!” exclaimed Miss Max, stopping short and turning towards him.
“I come whenever I’m sent for,” said Mr. Coke, with a laugh. “But though I don’t see her very often, I very often hear from her, and very clear and clever letters she writes upon business, I can tell you.”
“But didn’t you know she is in town for some time, every year of her life?”
“I had not an idea. We hear from her generally about once a fortnight. But I should very often have liked a few minutes’ talk with her. Those little points of vivâ voce explanation are very useful in a long correspondence. And so she is every year at Grosvenor-square?”
“I think you had better not say a word about it to Lady Vernon,” said Miss Max.
“Oh! of course not. I leave that to her. But I think it is a mistake, not giving us half an hour when she comes.” Thus Mr. Coke, swinging his stick a little, and looking over the top of the terrace balustrades, across the court, and ponds, and peacocks, and swans, and the close-shorn sward stained with the solemn shadows of the trees, down the perspective of foliage, to the mighty piers and great carved urns of the iron gates, and the gables and twisted chimneys of the gatehouse.
“Yes, that would be only natural, and her not doing so puzzles me
more and more,” replied Maximilla Medwyn; “you are such an old friend, and know everything about the affairs of this family so intimately, that I’ll tell you; but you are not to let it go further, for it is plain she does not want it talked about; and it is simply that which makes me very curious.”
“I’ve learned by this time to hold my tongue and to keep secrets, and I venture to say, this is a very harmless one,” laughed Mr. Coke.
“Well, now, listen — what a time Maud is! Once a year — I think about July or August — my handsome cousin, Lady Vernon, is taken with what my maid terms a fit of the fidgets. She takes her maid, but never Maud with her, mind — never. Maud has never come out. I don’t think she has been six times in London in her life. That is not right, you know; but that is a different matter. Lady Vernon and her maid go up to Grosvenor-square, where the house is all locked up and uncarpeted, all except a room or two, and where there is no one to receive them but an old housekeeper and housemaid. She tells old Mr. Foljambe, the vicar, that it is to consult a London physician. No great testimony, I think, to the surpassing skill of Doctor Malkin. But, I fancy, it is not about any such thing she goes to town, for her stay in Grosvenor-square never outlasts a day or two. Her fidgets continue. She leaves her maid there, and goes alone, I believe, from one watering-place to another.”
“Without her maid, you say?”
“Yes, without her maid.”
“And how do they know she goes to watering-places?”
“They never know where she is going. The only clue is, that now and then she sends a note of directions to her maid, in London, or to the house-steward, or the housekeeper, down here; and these indicate her capricious and feverish changes of place, which you’ll allow contrast oddly with the stillness and monotony of her life, when she is at home. Then, after six weeks or so spent in this mysterious way, she appears again, suddenly, at her town house, tells her maid that she is better, and so they return here. It is very whimsical, isn’t it? Can you understand it?”
“Restlessness, and perhaps a longing for a little holiday,” he answered. “She has, I may say, a very peculiar position in what they call the religious world; and the correspondence she directs, and even conducts with her own hand, is very large. Altogether, I think, she makes her life too laborious.”
“Well, as you and she, and you and I, are all old friends, I don’t mind telling you that I don’t think that’s it. I don’t believe a word of it. There is more in it than that; but what I can’t divine; and, indeed, it does not trouble me much; if Barbara would only do what she ought about Maud, I should be very well satisfied. But she has never been presented, nor been to town for a single season, and Lady Vernon has never taken her out, and I don’t think has any idea of doing so. Of course, you’ll say that, with all her advantages, it can’t matter much. But there can be no advantage in people’s saying that she has lived all her life like a recluse; and I think there is always a disadvantage in despising what is usual. And really, Mr. Coke, as a confidential friend, I think you might very well say a word about it.”
He smiled, and shook his head.
“All that sort of thing is quite out of my line. But I think with you, it doesn’t much matter; for she’s the greatest heiress in England; and she is so beautiful, and — here’s Miss Vernon at last.”
As Maud came down the steps she looked to the right and left, and seeing Miss Max, smiled and nodded, and quickened her approach.
Mr. Coke advanced a step or two to meet her, with his business looks on.
“I have been wishing to say a word if you will allow me. I think it would be advisable that you should be represented at the conference we are to hold to-day, to prevent any course being determined on that might embarrass your interests under the will; and if you authorise me to do so, I will watch them for you this afternoon; and, in any case, I’ll mention that a solicitor should be retained for you, as the instrument is unusually complicated, and you will be of age in a very little time.”
“I don’t understand these things, Mr. Coke, but whatever mamma and you think right, I shall be very much obliged to you to do. What a charming day it is! I hope you are not to be shut up all day. When you were last here it was winter, and you will hardly know the place now; you ought to see Rymmel’s Hoe to-day, it is looking quite beautiful,” said Miss Maud Vernon.
“I’m off, I’m afraid, to town this evening,” he answered; “a thousand thanks. I must now go in and see Lady Vernon, if she’s at leisure.”
So with a smile that quickly disappeared, he turned and walked up the steps.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE CONFERENCE.
Of this muster of trustees, Miss Maud Vernon gave this account in one of her long letters to her friend, Miss Mary Mainard.
“On Tuesday we had a little parliament of trustees, opened with great solemnity by mamma. She was aided by an attorney, a Mr. Coke, who says that your humble servant ought also to have been furnished with an adviser of the same profession. Old Lord Verney came similarly attended; and Lord Barroden also brought his attorney; Mr. Hildering, a great man in ‘the City,’ I am told, dispensed with that assistance, and, I suppose, relied on his native roguery. Still there was an imposing court of attorneys, sitting as assessors with the more dignified members of the assembly. Sir Harry Strafford, who is also a trustee named in grandpapa’s will, did not attend. As all these were men of importance twenty years ago, when they were named in his will, you may suppose what a juvenile air the assembly presented.
“Mamma did not choose that I should attend, telling me that I should be sent for, if required; and I had begun to hope that my assistance had been unanimously dispensed with, when a servant came to tell me that mamma wished to see me in the library. Thither I repaired, and found her presiding at her cabinet.
“Lord Verney and Mr. Hildering were a little red, and I fancy had been snubbing one another, for Mr. Coke mentioned, afterwards, that they are members of the same boards in London, and fight like ‘cat and dog’ whenever they meet. Mamma looked, as usual, serene, and old Lord Barroden was, I am sure, asleep, for he was the only gentleman of the company who did not rise to receive me. There were printed copies of grandpapa’s will, one of which was given to me; so I took a chair beside mamma, and listened while they talked in a language which I did not the least understand, about what they called real and personal reversions, contingent remainders, and vested remainders, and fees and tails, and more unintelligible names and things than I could remember or reckon up in an hour.
“They all seemed to treat mamma with great deference; not complimentary, but real; and I remarked that they said very little across the table to one another; but whenever they had anything to ask or to say, they looked to her, and she seemed to understand everything about it, better than any one else in the room, and Mr. Coke told me, afterwards, she is one of the best lawyers he ever met, and he explained a great deal that I did not then understand.
“The conference lasted nearly three hours! You can’t imagine anything so dull; and I came away just as wise as I went there, except, perhaps, that I had learned a little patience.
“The Rose and the Key, which, as you know, figure on our shield, were talked of a good deal, and are mentioned very often in the will, as indicating the families which are named particularly. Old Lord Barroden woke up at this part of the conversation, and talked a great deal of heraldry, whether good or bad I can’t say; and then, as they were still very garrulous upon crests, supporters, shields, chevrons, and all the rest, mamma led the way to the state dining-room. I don’t know why, we never dine there now; I think it about the prettiest room in the house — I don’t think you saw it, when you were with us. It has great stone shields let into the wall all round, and ours, over the mantelpiece. They are all carved in relief, and painted and gilded, according to heraldry; and you can’t think how stately and brilliant it looks. Old Mr. Puntles, who is our antiquary in this part of the world, says that it was an old English custom, when a hou
se was being built, for the owner to place the arms of the principal families in the county, thus, round the state dining-room, by way of a compliment to them, and now I saw what I never observed before, that in every second one, or oftener, our device, the Rose and the Key, is quartered in the corner. The rose, red; and the key, gold; gules and or, they call them, on a field azure: you see how learned I have grown.”
Then the writer ran away to subjects more likely to amuse her and her friend.
Mr. Coke did not stay to dinner. He took his leave nearly three hours before that solemn meal. As he came downstairs from his room he encountered Miss Vernon, who was going to dress.
“You are going to hear the bishop’s sermon, and see the statue unveiled?” he inquired, stopping before her in the gallery.
“Yes, Miss Medwyn and I; mamma has a headache, and says she can’t come,” she replied.
“I’m afraid our long consultation tired her; I’m sure it tired you, and I don’t think you can have understood half we said. If you have five minutes, I’ll describe to you now, just in outline, the leading provisions of your grandfather’s will.”
“I have more than five minutes, I’m sure,” she answered; but not so much interested as Mr. Coke thought she might have been.
Young ladies are so much in the habit of being taken care of by others, that they can without much magnanimity dispense with the drudgery of taking care of themselves. They like whole bones as well as we do, but the vicious habit of being taken care of prevails, and what woman is quite capable of taking care of herself over a crossing?
“You must have for life, if you outlive your mother, Lady Vernon, at least ten thousand pounds a year, and you may have ultimately one hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year, in land, and a great deal of money beside — I don’t think there is any lady of your age, in England, with such magnificent prospects. If Lady Vernon should marry, and have a son, the estates will go to him charged with ten thousand a year for you. If she should not marry, then, on her death, they go to you. If you marry, then your mother’s power over the whole property will be very limited indeed. If neither you nor she should marry, then on your death the estates will go to some one to be appointed among certain families who are connected with yours, and who have a right to quarter the family device of the Rose and the Key.”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 577
