Careering up to this said house on the morning of a fine spring day, when the green hedges were budding and the birds sang in the trees, went a pony-gig, driven by a gentleman. A tall, slender young fellow of seven-and-twenty, with golden hair that shone in the sun and eyes as blue and bright as the sky. Leaving the pony to be taken care of by a labouring boy who chanced to be loitering about, he rang the bell at the iron gates, and inquired of the answering servant whether Mr. Brandon was at home.
“Yes, sir,” was the answer of the man, as he led the way in. “But I am not sure that he can see you. What name?” And the applicant carelessly took a card from his waistcoat-pocket, and was left in the drawing-room. Which card the servant glanced at as he carried it away.
“Mr. Francis Radcliffe.”
People say there’s sure to be a change every seven years. Seven years had gone by since the death of old Mr. Radcliffe and the inheritance by Francis of the portion that fell to him; three hundred a-year. There were odd moments when Frank, in spite of himself, would look back at those seven years; and he did not at all like the retrospect. For he remembered the solemn promise he had made to his mother when she was dying, to put away those evil habits which had begun to creep upon him, more especially that worst of all bad habits that man, whether young or old, can take to—drinking—and he had not kept the promise. He had been called to the Bar in due course, but he made nothing by his profession. Briefs did not come to him. He just wasted his time and lived a fast life on the small means that were his. He pulled up sometimes, turned his back on folly, and read like a house on fire: but his wild companions soon got hold of him again, and put his good resolutions to flight. Frank put it all down to idleness. “If I had work to do, I should do it,” he said, “and that would keep me straight.” But at the close of this last winter he had fallen into a most dangerous illness, resulting from the draughts of ale, and what not, that he had made too free with, and he got up from it with a resolution never to drink again. Knowing that the resolution would be more easy to keep if he turned his back on London and the companions who beset him, down he came to his native place, determined to take a farm and give up the law. For the second time in his life some money had come to him unexpectedly; which would help him on. And so, after a seven years’ fling, Frank Radcliffe was going in for a change.
He had never stayed at Sandstone Torr since his father’s death. His brother Stephen’s surly temper, and perhaps that curious warning of his mother’s, kept him out of it. He and Stephen maintained a show of civility to one another; and when Frank was in the neighbourhood (but that had only happened twice in the seven years), he would call at the Torr and see them. The last time he came down, Frank was staying at a place popularly called Pitchley’s Farm. Old Pitchley—who had lived on it, boy and man, for seventy years—liked him well. Frank made acquaintance that time with Annet Skate; fell in love with her, in fact, and meant to marry her. She was a pretty girl, and a good girl, and had been brought up to be thoroughly useful as a farmer’s daughter: but neither by birth nor position was she the equal of Frank Radcliffe. All her experience of life lay in her own secluded, plain home: in regard to the world outside she was as ignorant as a young calf, and just as mild and soft as butter.
So Frank, after his spell of sickness and reflection, had thrown up London, and come down to settle in a farm with Annet, if he could get one. But there was not a farm to be let for miles round. And it was perhaps a curious thing that while Frank was thinking he should have to travel elsewhere in search of one, Pitchley’s should turn up. For old Pitchley suddenly died. Pitchley’s Farm belonged to Mr. Brandon. It was a small compact farm; just the size Frank wanted. A large one would have been beyond his means.
Mr. Brandon sat writing letters at the table in his library, in his geranium-coloured Turkish cap, with its purple tassel, when his servant went in with the card.
“Mr. Francis Radcliffe!” read he aloud, in his squeaky voice. “What, is he down here again? You can bring him in, Abel—though I’m sure I don’t know what he wants with me.” And Abel went and brought him.
“We heard you were ill, young man,” said Mr. Brandon, peering up into Frank’s handsome face as he shook hands, and detecting all sorts of sickly signs in it.
“So I have been, Mr. Brandon; very ill. But I have left London and its dissipations for good, and have come here to settle. It’s about time I did,” he added, with the candour natural to him.
“I should say it was,” coughed old Brandon. “You’ve been on the wrong tack long enough.”
“And I have come to you—I hope I am first in the field—to ask you to let me have the lease of Pitchley’s Farm.”
Mr. Brandon could not have felt more surprised had Frank asked for a lease of the moon, but he did not show it. His head went up a little, and the purple tassel took a sway backwards.
“Oh,” said he. “You take Pitchley’s Farm! How do you think to stock it?”
“I shall take to the stock at present on it, as far as my means will allow, and give a bond for the rest. Pitchley’s executors will make it easy for me.”
“What are your means?” curtly questioned old Brandon.
“In all, they will be two thousand pounds. Taking mine and Miss Skate’s together.”
“That’s a settled thing, is it, Master Francis?”—alluding to the marriage.
“Yes, it is,” said Frank. “Her portion is just a thousand pounds, and her friends are willing to put it on the farm. Mine is another thousand.”
“Where does yours come from?”
“Do you recollect, Mr. Brandon, that when I was a little fellow at school I had a thousand pounds left me by a clergyman—a former friend of my grandfather Elliot?”
Mr. Brandon nodded. “It was Parson Godfrey. He came down once or twice to the Torr to see your mother and you.”
“Just so. Well, his widow has now recently died; she was considerably younger than he; and she has left me another thousand. If I can have Pitchley’s Farm, I shall be sure to get on at it,” he added in his sanguine way. For, if ever there was a sanguine, sunny-natured fellow in this world, it was Frank Radcliffe.
Old Brandon pushed his geranium cap all aside and gave a flick to the tassel. “My opinion lies the contrary way, young man: that you will be sure not to get on at it.”
“I understand all about farming,” said Frank eagerly. “And I mean to be as steady as steady can be.”
“To begin with a debt on the farm will cripple the best man going, sir.”
“Oh, Mr. Brandon, don’t turn against me!” implored Frank, who was feeling terribly in earnest. “Give me a chance! Unless I can get some constant work, some interest to occupy my hands and my mind, I might be relapsing back to the old ways again from sheer ennui. There’s no resource but a farm.”
Mr. Brandon did not seem to be in a hurry to answer. He was looking straight at Frank, and nodding little nods to himself, following out some mental argument. Frank leaned forward in his chair, his voice low, his face solemn.
“When my poor mother was dying, I promised her to give up bad habits, Mr. Brandon. I hope—I think—I fully intend to do so now. Won’t you help me?”
“What do you wish me to understand by ‘bad’ habits, young man?” queried Mr. Brandon in his hardest tones. “What have been yours?”
“Drink,” said Frank shortly. “And I am ashamed enough to have to say it. It is not that I have been a constant drinker, or that I have taken much, in comparison with what very many men drink; but I have, sometimes for weeks together, taken it very recklessly. That is what I meant by speaking of my bad habits, Mr. Brandon.”
“Couldn’t speak of a worse habit, Frank Radcliffe.”
“True.