“Perhaps not—but what then?—I may have seen her picture, as Puff says in the Critic, or fallen in love with her from rumour—or, to save farther suppositions, as I see they render you impatient, I may be satisfied with knowing that she is a beautiful and accomplished young lady, with a large fortune.”
“What fortune do you mean, my lord?” said Mowbray, recollecting with alarm some claims, which, according to Meiklewham's view of the subject, his sister might form upon his property.—“What estate?—there is nothing belongs to our family, save these lands of St. Ronan's, or what is left of them; and of these I am, my lord, an undoubted heir of entail in possession.”
“Be it so,” said the Earl, “for I have no claim on your mountain realms here, which are, doubtless,
——‘renown'd of old For knights, and squires, and barons bold;’
my views respect a much richer, though less romantic domain—a large manor, hight Nettlewood. House old, but standing in the midst of such glorious oaks—three thousand acres of land, arable, pasture, and woodland, exclusive of the two closes, occupied by Widow Hodge and Goodman Trampclod—manorial rights—mines and minerals—and the devil knows how many good things besides, all lying in the vale of Bever.”
“And what has my sister to do with all this?” asked Mowbray, in great surprise.
“Nothing; but that it belongs to her when she becomes Countess of Etherington.”
“It is, then, your lordship's property already?”
“No, by Jove! nor can it, unless your sister honours me with her approbation of my suit,” replied the Earl.
“This is a sorer puzzle than one of Lady Penelope's charades, my lord,” said Mr. Mowbray; “I must call in the assistance of the Reverend Mr. Chatterly.”
“You shall not need,” said Lord Etherington; “I will give you the key, but listen to me with patience.—You know that we nobles of England, less jealous of our sixteen quarters than those on the continent, do not take scorn to line our decayed ermines with the little cloth of gold from the city; and my grandfather was lucky enough to get a wealthy wife, with a halting pedigree,—rather a singular circumstance, considering that her father was a countryman of yours. She had a brother, however, still more wealthy than herself, and who increased his fortune by continuing to carry on the trade which had first enriched his family. At length he summed up his books, washed his hands of commerce, and retired to Nettlewood, to become a gentleman; and here my much respected grand- uncle was seized with the rage of making himself a man of consequence. He tried what marrying a woman of family would do; but he soon found that whatever advantage his family might derive from his doing so, his own condition was but little illustrated. He next resolved to become a man of family himself. His father had left Scotland when very young, and bore, I blush to say, the vulgar name of Scrogie. This hapless dissyllable my uncle carried in person to the herald office in Scotland; but neither Lyon, nor Marchmont, nor Islay, nor Snadoun, neither herald nor pursuivant, would patronise Scrogie.—Scrogie!—there could nothing be made out of it—so that my worthy relative had recourse to the surer side of the house, and began to found his dignity on his mother's name of Mowbray. In this he was much more successful, and I believe some sly fellow stole for him a slip from your own family tree, Mr. Mowbray of St. Ronan's, which, I daresay, you have never missed. At any rate, for his
“Why, faith, betwixt the two,” said Mowbray, “I own I should have preferred my own name, and I think the old gentleman's taste rather better than the young one's.”
“True; but both were wilful, absurd originals, with a happy obstinacy of temper, whether derived from Mowbray or Scrogie I know not, but which led them so often into opposition, that the offended father, Reginald S. Mowbray, turned his recusant son Scrogie fairly out of doors; and the fellow would have paid for his plebeian spirit with a vengeance, had he not found refuge with a surviving partner of the original Scrogie of all, who still carried on the lucrative branch of traffic by which the family had been first enriched. I mention these particulars to account, in so far as I can, for the singular predicament in which I now find myself placed.”
“Proceed, my lord,” said Mr. Mowbray; “there is no denying the singularity of your story, and I presume you are quite serious in giving me such an extraordinary detail.”
“Entirely so, upon my honour—and a most serious matter it is, you will presently find. When my worthy uncle, Mr. S. Mowbray, (for I will not call him Scrogie even in the grave,) paid his debt to nature, every body concluded he would be found to have disinherited his son, the unfilial Scrogie, and so far every body was right— But it was also generally believed that he would settle the estate on my father, Lord Etherington, the son of his sister, and therein every one was wrong. For my excellent grand-uncle had pondered with himself, that the favoured name of Mowbray would take no advantage, and attain no additional elevation, if his estate of Nettlewood (otherwise called Mowbray-Park) should descend to our family without any condition; and with the assistance of a sharp attorney, he settled it on me, then a schoolboy,
“And a very extraordinary one it is,” replied Mowbray, thoughtfully.
“Confess the truth,” said Lord Etherington, laying his hand on his shoulder; “you think the story will bear a grain of a scruple of doubt, if not a whole scruple itself?”
“At least, my lord,” answered Mowbray, “your lordship will allow, that, being Miss Mowbray's only near relation, and sole guardian, I may, without offence, pause upon a suit for her hand, made under such odd circumstances.”
“If you have the least doubt either respecting my rank or fortune, I can give, of course, the most satisfactory references,” said the Earl of Etherington.
“That I can easily believe, my lord,” said Mowbray; “nor do I in the least fear deception, where detection would be so easy. Your lordship's proceedings towards me, too,” (with a conscious glance at the bills he still held in his hand,) “have, I admit, been such as to intimate some such deep cause of interest as you have been pleased to state. But it seems strange that your lordship should have permitted years to glide away, without so much as enquiring after the young lady, who, I believe, is the only person qualified as your grand-uncle's will requires, with whom you can form an alliance. It appears to me, that long before now, this matter ought to have been investigated; and that, even now, it would have been more natural and more decorous to have at least seen my sister before proposing for her hand.”
“On the first point, my dear Mowbray,” said Lord Etherington, “I am free to own to you, that, without meaning your sister the least affront, I would have got rid of this clause if I could; for every man would fain choose a wife for himself, and I feel no hurry to marry at all. But the rogue-lawyers, after taking fees, and keeping me in hand for years, have at length roundly told me the clause must be complied with, or Nettlewood must have another master. So I thought it best to come down here in person, in order to address the fair lady; but as accident has hitherto prevented my seeing her, and as I found in her brother a man who understands the world, I hope you will not think the worse of me, that I have endeavoured in the outset to make you my friend. Truth is, I shall be twenty-five in the course of a month; and without your favour, and the opportunities which only you can afford me, that seems a short time to woo and win a lady of Miss Mowbray's merit.”
“And what is the alternative if you do not form this proposed alliance, my lord?” said Mowbray.
“The bequest of my grand-uncle lapses,” said the Earl, “and fair Nettlewood, with its old house, and older oaks, manorial rights, Hodge Trampclod, and all, devolves on a certain cousin-german of mine, whom Heaven of his mercy confound!”
“You have left yourself little time to prevent such an event, my lord,” said Mowbray; “but things being as I now see them, you shall have what interest I can give you in the affair.—We must stand, however, on more equal terms, my lord—I will condescend so far as to allow it would have been inconvenient for me at this moment to have lost that game, but I cannot in the circumstances think of acting as if I had fairly won it. We must draw stakes, my lord.”
