The Tallants of Barton, vol. 2 (of 3) : A tale of fortune and finance

ENTER THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF VERNER.

So swiftly did one incident of change crowd upon another at this period of the lives which we fear we are but faintly sketching, that it seemed as if Fortune had arranged all the concomitant circumstances that were culminating in these few eventful days of autumn.

Fortune, “the great commandress of the world,” had already played strange pranks with those two charming girls at Barton. Until lately their destinies had flowed on smoothly and in peace. They had grown up side by side,--one the mistress, the other the companion and friend,--and until now there had been no jealousy on either hand--until now Amy Somerton had been content with her lot. She had brooded over her lowly birth, in those hours when she had loved and dreamed about her love for Mr. Hammerton, but she had only seemed to look up the higher to her love. She had seen him as miners see the sky, far above her, and with hardly a beam of hope animating the thought that some day he might take her hand and raise her up, as the king selected the beggar maid in the poem.

In those sunny days of doubt and hope and maiden admiration, she had been happy in her own quiet, dreamy fashion, contented with Lionel’s kind words and delicate attentions. He had never, perhaps, told her in so many words that he loved her, but there was that in his voice and manner, when he addressed her, which led her to believe that he took delight in her own undisguised admiration. He had signified his pleasure in her society in a thousand different ways, and for the time being this was enough to satisfy the heart-craving of Amy; but content to be humble, her pride nevertheless rose up against attack, with all the fierceness of injury. On that morning when she learnt that Lionel had left the country without one word at parting, she knew as if by instinct that her love was cast off. He must have known some time before he left that he was going, and yet he had not even deigned to say so. She knew how weak she had been; she knew how little she had striven to hide her love. Lionel Hammerton knew that she had loved him with all her heart and soul. She had not cared to disguise her feelings. She would have given up all the world for him, even like Goethe’s Marguerite. There was no sacrifice she would not have made, if sacrifice had been needed, at the feet of Lionel Hammerton; yet he had treated herself and her love with contempt and indifference.

You have seen how her spirit rebelled against the slight which she imagined was the assertion of rank and fortune over lowly birth. Her whole nature seemed to have undergone a change--a change in which pride took such full possession of her heart, that there was no more room left for love. She who had sat and simpered over Tennyson like a love-sick, romantic girl, dreaming of Cophetua, and Camelot, and A. H. H., now thought of nothing but schemes of revenge and ambition. If she were only in Phœbe Tallant’s place, what would she not do to assert the rights of lowly birth and beauty! She envied her friend at the moment with a hot and a bitter envy, and hated her own more lowly origin.

It was the morning after her return from London. She sat at her bedroom window at the farm, commanding a long reach of the carriage-drive to Barton Hall. The park trees were standing in golden circles of leaves; the great elms were shaking down their last autumnal tributes to mother earth; the old roots were wrapped in soft carpet-like coverings of red and brown and gold; the long carriage-drive was fringed with the same remnants of the dying year, and anon a gust of wind would sweep along the road and carry the leaves high up into the air, like flocks of birds sporting in the sunshine.

But Amy saw only desolation in the scene; she saw all her best and holiest aspirations tossed about the world like the fallen leaves. Whilst she sat there musing and fretting by the window, there entered the drive a carriage drawn by four horses; as it gradually approached, she saw that there were footmen behind, and that the equipage was splendid.

“As there are no fairies and magicians in these days,” she said to herself, “that is not Cinderella’s coach, and I am not Cinderella. Why, it must be Earl Verner’s carriage: his brother is going to call at Barton Hall. I will go there too.”

And as she said so, the carriage swept along, with the leaves flying about the horses’ heads and sporting round the carriage wheels.

Amy was right. This was Earl Verner’s carriage, and his lordship was on his way to pay Mr. Tallant a personal visit. Once, and only once, previously had he honoured Barton Hall with his presence. He was of a quiet, retiring nature; a luxurious and learned nobleman, who cared more for rare books and works of art and old pottery than for anything else.

He was scarcely fifty years of age,--a lithe, supple man, with brown, curly hair, and evidently a quiet, luxurious fellow, who liked to have his own way and take things easily. He had never been married, and never would marry, he said, because it would bore him. It would be impossible, he had often said, for any woman to be happy with him; she would be jealous of his pictures and pottery in less than a month. And then the going into society, and fulfilling those duties of property which people talked about, and laying yourself out for being everybody’s friend but your own:--no, he could not marry; he would leave that, he said, to his brother Lionel.

It was through this brother Lionel that the Earl Verner called at Barton Hall this second time. Mr. Hammerton had, it appeared, not only invested largely himself in some of the bubble concerns of the day, but he had induced his lordship to divert considerable sums of money into the same channel; and now that his lordship’s steward had large demands upon him for calls, Earl Verner said to himself, “I will go over and see Tallant--pay him a visit of condolence, and kill two birds with one stone.”

So his lordship sent in his card, and followed it into Mr. Tallant’s library, where he found the merchant engaged at his desk.

“Ah, Mr. Tallant, how do you do?” said his lordship, advancing with opening hand.

“I hope your lordship is well?” said Mr. Tallant. “May I offer you a chair?”

Earl Verner seated himself, and rubbed his hands familiarly before the fire.

“Mine is rather a selfish visit, Tallant,” he said. “I fear you must have thought me an unneighbourly fellow; but, you see, I am fond of quiet, and I rarely pay visits. Perhaps I take too little interest in the county. However, you will believe me when I say that I was grieved to hear of your domestic trouble--deeply grieved; for I knew you had set your heart upon making that young fellow a sort of intellectual Crœsus, and----”

Here his lordship hesitated, seeing that the subject was painful to Mr. Tallant.

“We will not talk about it, Mr. Tallant, but pray accept my sympathy; and if there is anything I can do for the young fellow--I have some little influence, I am told, with the Government----”

“Thank your lordship. Let us act upon your former suggestion, and not talk about it. Richard Tallant is no longer my son.”

There was something so calm and determined in the merchant’s manner, that Lord Verner did not attempt to say any more on the subject.

“‘A fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind,’ you know,” he said by-and-by. “My brother Lionel Hammerton, like everybody else, has been drawn into considerable speculations, and, what is more, he has led me into the popular folly. Finance is a splendid game for those who understand it, no doubt; but it is worse than the turf to a novice. My steward informs me that I have five hundred shares in the Oriental Bank, one hundred in the Mardike Mines, and five hundred in the Bank of Finance. There are calls due upon the whole of them, and two are to be wound up in Chancery. What shall I do in the matter?”

“Pay the calls, and be prepared to pay up the whole of the Finance and Mining shares, and expect no return,” said Mr. Tallant. “The Orientals may come right, and will come right if the shareholders and directors do not succumb to the bears on the Stock Exchange.”

“Hammerton holds similar shares: the same advice will apply with regard to those?”

“Yes, your lordship; you have nothing to do but pay.”

“Thank you. I knew I should get clear and straightforward advice from you, Mr. Tallant. I have already occupied your time too long, and I see you are busy. I will shake hands with Miss Tallant, and take my leave.”

Mr. Tallant made no reply, but rose, and conducting his lordship to the drawing-room, bade him good-morning.

In the drawing-room Earl Verner found Miss Tallant and Miss Somerton. The former he had seen once before, the latter he now saw for the first time. Phœbe was attired in her ordinary morning style, and looked fresh and blooming as a rose, but with just a trace of languor in her manner which did not usually characterise it. Amy had astonished her friend immensely, only ten minutes previously, by suddenly entering the room in a favourite delicate white merino, and with unusual signs of care manifested in her toilette. Her appearance was worthy of that of a duchess. She looked like a queen in her own right. Her head never looked nobler; the graceful curves about her mouth and chin seemed to be full of sunshine and happiness; her eyes sparkled with unwonted brilliancy, and when Lord Verner entered he found it difficult to remove his eyes from the lady’s face.

“Pray, present me to your friend,” he said, after he had shaken hands with Miss Tallant, and without waiting to give Phœbe the voluntary opportunity of doing so.

Miss Tallant presented Amy accordingly, and his lordship was not displeased to see how sensibly his rank affected her. His rank? Might not his appearance have something to do with that faint blush and unmistakable embarrassment? The thought flashed through his lordship’s mind in an instant, and it flattered him. He grew quite affable, and insisted, in his grand way, upon sitting down and having a little chat.

“I am sorry,” he said to Miss Tallant, “to see your father so sensibly affected by late events; it really grieves me to the heart--such a fine business gentleman as he was, so full of energy and resource. I must call again and see him. I fear he is moping. You must cheer him up, Miss Somerton, you must bring your high spirits to bear upon the poor gentleman; he is quite downcast.”

“I fear we had best not interfere with him just now, your lordship; there are troubles which are better nursed and thought over. I hope Mr. Tallant will soon be well again,” said Amy, sweetly.

“Trouble ought to be quickly dispersed with such companionship as Mr. Tallant has in his daughter and yourself,” said Lord Verner, bent on paying Amy a compliment in return for her gracious looks.

“I fear me we scarcely understand all Mr. Tallant’s troubles just now, and perhaps he does not understand our sympathy and desire to console him. Your lordship is pleased to be complimentary; but there is little of woman’s society at Montem Castle, I have always heard, or you would understand how easy it may be to tire of it.”