“No. My father was a clergyman; not that that would make much difference; besides, he was not of the bookworm sort, and didn’t object to a little fox-hunting and sparring. But I have never believed in anything enough to fight for it. I am like the Duke in ‘Measure for Measure’—a looker-on at life.”
“Ah! I can conceive that such an occupation may be not less arduous than any. But do you confine yourself to that? Do you never record your impressions?—cultivate literature, for example?”
Lancaster’s face flushed a little, and he turned his head toward his companion with a quick, inquiring look. “How came you to think of that?” he asked.
The old gentleman passed his hand down over his mouth and chin, as if to correct an impulse to smile. “It was but a chance word of your own, while I was at work upon your shoulder-joint,” he replied. “You let fall some word implying that you had written poetry. I am very slightly acquainted with modern English literature, and could not speak from personal knowledge of your works were you the most renowned poet of the day. Pardon me the liberty.”
Lancaster looked annoyed for a moment; but the next moment he laughed. “You cannot do me a better service than to show me that I’m a fool,” he said. “I’m apt to forget it. In theory, I care not a penny whether what I write is read or not; but I do care all the same. I pretend to be a looker-on at life from philosophical motives; but, in fact, it’s nothing but laziness. I try to justify myself by scribbling poetry, and am pleased when I find that any one has discovered my justification. But if I were really satisfied with myself, I should leave justification to whom it might concern.”
“My existence has been passed in what are called practical affairs,” Mr. Grant returned; “but I am not ready to say that, considered in themselves, they have as much real life in them as a single verse of true poetry. Poetry and music are things beyond my power to achieve, but not to enjoy. The experience of life which cannot be translated into poetry or music is a lifeless and profitless experience.” He checked himself, and added in his usual tone: “I mean to say that, man of business though I am, I am not unacquainted with the writings of poets, and I take great delight in them. The wisest thing a man can do is, I apprehend, to augment the enjoyment of other men. Commerce and politics aim to develop our own wealth and power at the cost of others; but poetry, like love, gives to all, and asks for nothing except to be received.”
“Have a care, or you will undo the service I have just thanked you for. Besides, as a matter of fact, poetry in our days not only asks to be received, but to be received by publishers, and paid for!”
Something in the young man’s manner of saying this, rather than the saying itself, seemed to strike Mr. Grant, for he glanced at the other with a momentary keenness of scrutiny, and presently said:
“Your father, I think you mentioned, was a clergyman?”
“He was Herbert Lancaster.”
Mr. Grant halted for a moment in his walk to extract his snuff-box from his pocket. After having taken a pinch, he again gave a sharp look at his companion, and observed as he walked on:
“My prolonged absence from my native land has made my recollection of such matters a little rusty, but am I mistaken in supposing there is a title in the family?”
“My uncle is Lord Croftus—the fifth baron.”
“Ah! precisely; yes, yes. Then was it not your father who married a daughter of the Earl of Seabridge? or am I confounding him with another?”
“You are quite right. He married the youngest daughter, Alice; and I am their only child, for lack of a better.”
“Ah! Very singular,” returned Mr. Grant; but he did not explain in what the singularity consisted.
CHAPTER IV.
MRS. LOCKHART’S house at Hammersmith had been considered a good house in its day, and was still decent and comfortable. It stood on a small side street which branched off from the main road in the direction of the river, and was built of dark red brick, with plain white-sashed windows. It occupied the centre of an oblong plot of ground about half an acre in extent, with a high brick wall all round it, except in front, where space was left for a wrought-iron gate, hung between two posts, with an heraldic animal of ambiguous species sitting upright on each of them. The straight path which led from this gate to the front door of the house was paved with broad square flagstones, kept very clean. In the midst of the grass-plot on the left, as you entered, was a dark-hued cedar of Lebanon, whose flattened layers of foliage looked out of keeping with the English climate and the character of English trees. At the back of the house was an orchard, comprising three ancient apple-trees and the lifeless stump of the fourth; some sunflowers and hollyhocks, alternating with gooseberry bushes, were planted along the walls, which, for the most part, were draped in ivy. The interior of the building showed a wide hall, giving access to a staircase, which, after attaining a broad landing, used as a sort of an open sitting-room, and looking out through a window upon the back garden, mounted to the region of bed-rooms. The ground floor was divided into three rooms and a kitchen, all of comfortable dimensions, and containing sober and presentable furniture. In the drawing-room, moreover, hung a portrait, taken in 1805, of the deceased master of the establishment; and a miniature of the same gentleman, in a gold-rimmed oval frame, reposed upon Mrs. Lockhart’s work-table. The sideboard in the dining-room supported a salver and some other articles of plate which had belonged to Mrs. Lockhart’s family, and which, when she surrendered her maiden name of Fanny Pell, had been included in her modest dowry. For the rest, there was a small collection of books, ranged on some shelves sunk into the wall on either side of the drawing-room mantel-piece; and fastened against the walls were sundry spoils of war, such as swords, helmets and flint-lock muskets, which the Major had brought home from his campaigns. Their stern and battle-worn aspect contrasted markedly with the gentle and quiet demeanor of the dignified old lady who sat at the little table by the window, with her sewing in her hands.
Mrs. Lockhart, as has been already intimated, had been a very lovely girl, and, allowing for the modifications wrought by age, she had not, at sixty-six, lost the essential charm which had distinguished her at sixteen. Her social success had, during four London seasons, been especially brilliant; and, although her fortune was at no time great, she had received many highly eligible offers of marriage; and his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales had declared her to be “a doosid sweet little creature.” She had kept the citadel of her heart through many sieges, and, save on one occasion, it had never known the throb of passion up to the period of her marriage with Lieutenant Lockhart. But, two years previous to that event, being then in her eighteenth year, she had crossed the path of the famous Tom Grantley, who, at four-and-thirty years of age, had not yet passed the meridian of his renown. He was of Irish family and birth, daring, fascinating, generous and dangerous with both men and women; accounted one of the handsomest men in Europe, a fatal duelist, a reckless yet fortunate gambler, a well-nigh irresistible wooer in love, and in political debate an orator of impetuous and captivating eloquence. His presence and bearing were lofty and superb; and he was one of those whose fiat in manners of fashion was law. When only twenty-one years old, he had astonished society by eloping with Edith, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Seabridge, a girl not less remarkable for beauty than for a spirit and courage which were a match for Tom Grantley’s own. The Earl had never forgiven this wild marriage, and Tom having already seriously diminished his patrimony by extravagance, the young couple were fain to make a more than passing acquaintance with the seamy side of life. But loss of fortune did not, for them, mean loss either of heart or of mutual love,
