THE BRANDON CONSERVATORY.
Captain Lake did look in at the Lodge in the morning,
and remained an hour in conference with Mr. Jos.
Larkin. I suppose everything went off pleasantly.
For although Stanley Lake looked very pale and vicious
as he walked down to the iron gate of the Lodge among
the evergreens and bass-mats, the good attorney’s
countenance shone with a serene and heavenly light,
so pure and bright, indeed, that I almost wonder his
dazzled servants, sitting along the wall while he read
and expounded that morning, did not respectfully petition
that a veil, after the manner of Moses, might be suspended
over the seraphic effulgence.
Somehow his ‘Times’ did not interest him
at breakfast; these parliamentary wrangles, commercial
speculations, and foreign disputes, are they not,
after all, but melancholy and dreary records of the
merest worldliness; and are there not moments when
they become almost insipid? Jos. Larkin
tossed the paper upon the sofa. French politics,
relations with Russia, commercial treaties, party
combinations, how men can so wrap themselves
up in these things!
And he smiled ineffable pity over the crumpled newspaper—on
the poor souls in that sort of worldly limbo.
In which frame of mind he took from his coat pocket
a copy of Captain Lake’s marriage settlement,
and read over again a covenant on the captain’s
part that, with respect to this particular estate
of Five Oaks, he would do no act, and execute no agreement,
deed, or other instrument whatsoever, in any wise affecting
the same, without the consent in writing of the said
Dorcas Brandon; and a second covenant binding him
and the trustees of the settlement against executing
any deed, &c., without a similar consent; and especially
directing, that in the event of alienating the estate,
the said Dorcas must be made an assenting party to
the deed.
He folded the deed, and replaced it in his pocket
with a peaceful smile and closed eyes, murmuring—
‘I’m much mistaken if the gray mare’s
the better horse in that stud.’
He laughed gently, thinking of the captain’s
formidable and unscrupulous nature, exhibitions of
which he could not fail to remember.
‘No, no, Miss Dorkie won’t give us much
trouble.’
He used to call her ‘Miss Dorkie,’ playfully
to his clerks. It gave him consideration, he
fancied. And now with this Five Oaks to begin
with—L1,400 a year—a great capability,
immensely improvable, he would stake half he’s
worth on making it more than L2,000 within five years;
and with other things at his back, an able man like
him might before long look as high as she. And
visions of the grand jury rose dim and splendid—an
heiress and a seat for the county; perhaps he and Lake
might go in together, though he’d rather be
associated with the Hon. James Cluttworth, or young
Lord Griddlestone. Lake, you see, wanted weight,
and, nothwithstanding his connections, was, it could
not be denied, a new man in the county.
