'Lord bless me! Mrs. Broadhurst, do you hear what your daughter is saying?' cried Lady Clonbrony, who, from the card-table, lent an attentive ear to all that was going forward. 'Is it possible that Miss Broadhurst, with her fortune, and pretensions, and sense, can really be serious in saying she would be content to live in the country?'
'What's that you say, child, about living in the country?' said Mrs. Broadhurst.
Miss Broadhurst repeated what she had said.
'Girls always think so who have lived in town,' said Mrs. Broadhurst. 'They are always dreaming of sheep and sheephooks; but the first winter the country cures them; a shepherdess, in winter, is a sad and sorry sort of personage, except at a masquerade.'
'Colambre,' said Lady Clonbrony, 'I am sure Miss Broadhurst's sentiments about town life, and all that, must delight you; for do you know, ma'am, he is always trying to persuade me to give up living in town? Colambre and Miss Broadhurst perfectly agree.'
'Mind your cards, my dear Lady Clonbrony,' interrupted Mrs. Broadhurst, 'in pity to your partner. Mr. Pratt has certainly the patience of Job—your ladyship has revoked twice this hand.'
Lady Clonbrony begged a thousand pardons, fixed her eyes and endeavoured to fix her mind on the cards; but there was something said at the other end of the room, about an estate in Cambridgeshire, which soon distracted her attention again. Mr. Pratt certainly had the patience of Job. She revoked, and lost the game, though they had four by honours.
As soon as she rose from the card-table, and could speak to Mrs. Broadhurst apart, she communicated her apprehensions.
'Seriously, my dear madam,' said she, 'I believe I have done very wrong to admit Mr. Berryl just now, though it was on Grace's account I did it. But, ma'am, I did not know Miss Broadhurst had an estate in Cambridgeshire; their two estates just close to one another, I heard them say. Lord bless me, ma'am! there's the danger of propinquity indeed!'
'No danger, no danger,' persisted Mrs. Broadhurst. 'I know my girl better than you do, begging your ladyship's pardon. No one thinks less of estates than she does.'
'Well, I only know I heard her talking of them, and earnestly too.'
'Yes, very likely; but don't you know that girls never think of what they are talking about, or rather never talk of what they are thinking about? And they have always ten times more to say to the man they don't care for, than to him they do.'
'Very extraordinary!' said Lady Clonbrony. 'I only hope you are right.'
'I am sure of it,' said Mrs. Broadhurst. 'Only let things go on, and mind your cards, I beseech you, to-morrow night better than you did to-night; and you will see that things will turn out just as I prophesied. Lord Colambre will come to a point-blank proposal before the end of the week, and will be accepted, or my name's not Broadhurst. Why, in plain English, I am clear my girl likes him; and when that's the case, you know, can you doubt how the thing will end?'
Mrs. Broadhurst was perfectly right in every point of her reasoning but one. From long habit of seeing and considering that such an heiress as her daughter might marry whom she pleased—from constantly seeing that she was the person to decide and to reject—Mrs. Broadhurst had literally taken it for granted that everything was to depend upon her daughter's inclinations: she was not mistaken, in the present case, in opining that the young lady would not be averse to Lord Colambre, if he came to what she called a point-blank proposal. It really never occurred to Mrs. Broadhurst that any man, whom her daughter was the least inclined to favour, could think of anybody else. Quick-sighted in these affairs as the matron thought herself, she saw but one side of the question: blind and dull of comprehension as she thought Lady Clonbrony on this subject, she was herself so completely blinded by her own prejudices, as to be incapable of discerning the plain thing that was before her eyes; VIDELICET, that Lord Colambre preferred Grace Nugent. Lord Colambre made no proposal before the end of the week, but this Mrs. Broadhurst attributed to an unexpected occurrence, which prevented things from going on in the train in which they had been proceeding so smoothly. Sir John Berryl, Mr. Berryl's father, was suddenly seized with a dangerous illness. The news was brought to Mr. Berryl one evening whilst he was at Lady Clonbrony's. The circumstances of domestic distress, which afterwards occurred in the family of his friend, entirely occupied Lord Colambre's time and attention. All thoughts of love were suspended, and his whole mind was given up to the active services of friendship. The sudden illness of Sir John Berryl spread an alarm among his creditors which brought to light at once the disorder of his affairs, of which his son had no knowledge or suspicion. Lady Berryl had been a very expensive woman, especially in equipages; and Mordicai, the coachmaker, appeared at this time the foremost and the most inexorable of their creditors. Conscious that the charges in his account were exorbitant, and that they would not be allowed if examined by a court of justice; that it was a debt which only ignorance and extravagance could have in the first instance incurred, swelled afterwards to an amazing amount by interest, and interest upon interest; Mordicai was impatient to obtain payment whilst Sir John yet lived, or at least to obtain legal security for the whole sum from the heir. Mr. Berryl offered his bond for the amount of the reasonable charges in his account; but this Mordicai absolutely refused, declaring that now he had the power in his own hands, he would use it to obtain the utmost penny of his debt; that he would not let the thing slip through his fingers; that a debtor never yet escaped him, and never should; that a man's lying upon his deathbed was no excuse to a creditor; that he was not a whiffler, to stand upon ceremony about disturbing a gentleman in his last moments; that he was not to be cheated out of his due by such niceties; that he was prepared to go all lengths the law would allow; for that, as to what people said of him, he did not care a doit—'Cover your face with your hands, if you like it, Mr. Berryl; you may be ashamed for me, but I feel no shame for myself—I am not so weak.' Mordicai's countenance said more than his words; livid with malice, and with atrocious determination in his eyes, he stood. 'Yes, sir,' said he, 'you may look at me as you please—it is possible I am in earnest. Consult what you'll do now, behind my back or before my face, it comes to the same thing; for nothing will do but my money or your bond, Mr. Berryl. The arrest is made on the person of your father, luckily made while the breath is still in the body. Yes—start forward to strike me, if you dare—your father, Sir John Berryl, sick or well, is my prisoner.'
Lady Berryl and Mr. Berryl's sisters, in an agony of grief, rushed into the room.
'It's all useless,' cried Mordicai, turning his back upon the ladies; 'these tricks upon creditors won't do with me; I'm used to these scenes; I'm not made of such stuff as you think. Leave a gentleman in peace in his last moments. No! he ought not, nor shan't die in peace, if he don't pay his debts; and if you are all so mighty sorry, ladies, there's the gentleman you may kneel to; if tenderness is the order of the day, it's for the son to show it, not me. Ay, now, Mr. Berryl,' cried he, as Mr. Berryl took up the bond to sign it, 'you're beginning to know I'm not a fool to be trifled with. Stop your hand, if you choose it, sir—it's all the same to me; the person, or the money, I'll carry with me out of this house.'
Mr. Beryl signed the bond, and threw it to him.
'There, monster!—quit the house!'
'Monster