The Country Gentleman Read online

  A soberer and more nervous Maria than had left it returned to Holies Street some eight years later, just when Miss Gully’s retirement could be postponed no longer. She wore black, then lavender, and spoke little of her husband, who was generally understood to have been killed accidentally during manoeuvres. Mrs. Insel’s spirits gradually lightening with the passing of time, the house at Number 3 became first comfortable, then happy again; and thus do we find its occupants this July morning: Maria still in lavender but tolerably cheerful, Anne unmarried, nearly twenty-nine, hearty, merry, and looking forward (as no very great coincidence would have it) to dining at Celia Grypphon’s that night in company with Ensley.

  As to Ensley, Anne had come to accept that he would someday marry. She supposed herself reconciled to the eventuality. Indeed, as he postponed it from year to year, the prospect had aged and mellowed till (she quite believed) it had lost its sting. She understood his position; had he offered for her she would have reproached him for talking nonsense; anyway, the slightly vulgar former Miss Burnham having thus far produced no heir, Ensley’s wife must at the least be quite young, with a good many bearing years before her. An attribute, she needed no one to tell her, which no longer applied to Anne.

  The Garden Saloon was so called on account of its being hung all over with paper that convincingly depicted an ivy-covered trellis. It was a small sitting-room at the back of the house, in which the ladies generally passed together an hour or two of the earlier part of their day. They re-met there on this day more or less punctually, Maria with a basket, Anne with a book. The weather, now they were awake enough to see it, they perceived to be perfectly awful, hot without being sunny, close and hinting at rain without raining. “Too oppressive for exercise or errands,” they agreed, and throwing wide the windows to receive such paltry and fetid ventilation as was to be had from the alley, each settled to her chosen task. Anne obliged herself to read again a particularly dense passage in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, which she was determined to understand if it killed her, while Maria profited by the morning light to work a bit of specially fine filagree. And so, in a silence broke by nothing louder than the turning of a page, they sat together some half hour.

  Into this quiet intruded first the knock, then the venerable head, of Dolphim, Miss Guilfoyle’s butler. He bowed, then presented to his mistress a letter only just arrived—a letter of business, she saw as she took it, from her solicitor, Mr. Nicodemus Dent. Guiltily relieved by the distraction, she closed a silver marker into her Kant and opened the letter at once.

  Maria, who had looked up, seen Dolphim, seen the letter, and looked down at her filagree again, was startled a minute later to hear, “Good heavens!” and again, “Gracious God!” burst from her friend. She dropped her work to her lap and regarded Anne in some alarm; but as the exclamations were immediately followed by a rich peal of laughter, her emotion changed to mere curiosity. She observed Anne turn the paper over, read farther, then heard her laugh again. She was just on the point of demanding to know what was in it when, looking up and waving the paper about in amused delight, Anne addressed her: “My dear Maria, imagine it! I am the beneficiary of a will.”

  Mrs. Insel obligingly responded to this news with eager applications of “Whose?” and “What?”

  Anne settled the page in her lap again and, referring to it now and then, informed her, “My great uncle Herbert Guilfoyle. Do you recall, we saw the notice of his death not long ago?”

  “Of Cheshire, was not he?”

  “The very same.”

  “But you said you remembered meeting him only once, in childhood—”

  “I was twelve. My father had just begun to ail, and his uncle came to see him. What a queer man he was! The veriest eccentric. He refused to speak to me till I had read Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Fancy saying so to a girl of twelve!”

  “Fancy!” Then, as Anne seemed to have fallen into a reverie of sorts, Mrs. Insel hinted, “It is difficult to imagine what he may have left you. Not a copy of La Nouvelle Heloïse, perchance?”

  “Not at all. Or rather, perhaps he has, for he’s left me his entire estate.”

  “But my dear,” Maria said, wondering in this case at her friend’s light tone (for she could not help thinking it would be no small thing to her to be left a home of her own), “that is very fine indeed! How peculiar, yes; but also, how fortunate, how kind.”

  Anne laughed again. “You have not heard all, my love; I told you he was eccentric. My great uncle leaves me—” She scanned the page, frowning lightly, for some particular word. “Here it is. ‘Linfield, at Faulding Chase in Cheshire, its house, its land, and its income’—providing I reside there ten months a year! Having—let me see, where is it? Oh yes, here: ‘Having a horror most particular and principled of a landlord who knows not the condition and character of his tenants, his lands, his etc. etc…’ Hm; Oh yes, here we are again. ‘Having such a particular horror, the estate is left to his only surviving relation of whom he at least knows no certain evil—’” Anne paused to smile at the thought of Frederick hearing that. “‘The estate is left to his great niece Anne Guilfoyle on condition she reside there—’ Well, what I told you. ‘In the event the above-named Miss Guilfoyle prove whether unwilling or unable to conform to this provision, either now or at any future time, the estate and all its’ so on and so forth ‘to pass irreversibly to—’” Anne ran a finger along the lines, searching again. “Ah, to ‘Mr. Henry Highet, Gentleman, Fevermere, Faulding Chase, Cheshire—’” She folded the letter and looked up, finishing, “Whose lands apparently adjoin those of my great uncle.”

  Mrs. Insel, who did not appear to share her friend’s hilarity, inquired, “But surely you may sell it? It is not to pass to Mr.—Mr. Highet for nothing?”

  “As I read it, it is indeed.”

  “But how unkind of your great uncle. To offer such a gift, yet at the same time remove it by his terms.”

  “I am relieved to hear you say so; for a moment I half feared, from the seriousness of your countenance, that you intended to suggest I accept the bargain.”

  “No, indeed not. It is only that I dislike to see such a boon pass through your hands.”

  “Your concern is generous,” Anne smiled, “but pray recollect this particular boon is, thank heaven, as unneeded by us as it was unlooked for. If we accepted only half the invitations we receive to stop in the country we should never be in London at all; what use have we for an estate? I know nothing of farming and less of Cheshire, and the more I think of that the better I like it. Imagine passing ten months a year in the country—the deepest country! It makes one’s blood run cold. Why, every thing to make life agreeable, to give it order and pleasure”—Maria knew she thought of Ensley—“is in London. And consider: it must be a two days’ journey at least from here to Chester. That would leave us…let me see, taking July and August in town, since they are the two longest together—fifty-eight days in London annually. Good God! ’Tis not to be thought of.” And she rose at once to go to a large library table. “I shall tell Mr. Dent I decline the legacy with respectful thanks,” she went on, sitting down and collecting paper and pen, “and you and I, my dear, will never mention this painful, I may even say cruel, suggestion again.” She dipped her pen. “‘3 July, 1816,’” she read aloud as she wrote. “‘My dear Mr. Dent—’”

  “You don’t suppose we ought at least to visit the property before you refuse it,” Maria suggested timidly. “After all, the Season will shortly dwindle to nothing, and we might spare a week or two—”

  “Have you forgot we are engaged to go down to Devonshire?” Anne interrupted rather sharply.

  Mrs. Insel had not forgot. Lord and Lady Bambrick had invited them, and Lord Ensley was to be there too, until Parliament reconvened. At which time, Mrs. Insel had no doubt, Anne would discover some business to bring her back to town as well. Maria sighed. She would have been glad to see a little less, all in all, of Lord Ensley. She esteemed him very much; but she could not help
feeling he had done her friend an ill service over the years. His constant attendance on Anne had done more than delay his own marriage: it had impeded—practically speaking, had prevented—hers. In the last weeks, moreover, Mrs. Insel had heard, not rumours exactly, but hints, intimations of the coming of an announcement she doubted very much Miss Guilfoyle was prepared for. Though perhaps she was prepared; perhaps Ensley had told her. One couldn’t know with them, they were very deep and secret together. At all events, she let drop the idea of a visit to Cheshire. Really, it was an impossible offer. Mr. Herbert Guilfoyle must surely have been a quite impossible man.

  Mrs. Insel was roused from these thoughts by a fresh burst of laughter from her friend, who had lifted her pen and sat gazing at her. “It has just occurred to me to wonder,” she said, “what manner of person Mr. Highet, Gentleman, might be. Unless he is a saint, I cannot suppose he would have been very happy to meet his new neighbours—had we accepted, that is to say. He would very probably have done what he could to make Cheshire a living Hell for us. Careless of my great uncle not to foresee that.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Highet is unaware of the terms of the will,” Maria suggested.

  “Perhaps. I wonder. My great uncle seems to have had little doubt he would fulfill its conditions. From what Mr. Dent writes here, he made no provision for the case of his refusing.”

  “Indeed! That does sound rather as if they had agreed upon it,” Maria remarked. “But possibly Mr. Highet is quite settled in his ways. He may be a country gentleman altogether. How old was Mr. Herbert Guilfoyle on his decease?”

  “I should think at least five-and-seventy. Perhaps as old as eighty.”

  “Then very likely the neighbour for whom he shows so marked a partiality is elderly as well. The observed habits of a lifetime must have reassured Mr. Guilfoyle.”

  Anne conceded the likelihood of this explanation and was about to return to her letter when she lifted her pen again and said, “In either case, figure to yourself the pleasure my refusal must occasion. I feel positively virtuous, bringing an old man such satisfaction. I envision him rubbing his frail hands together with glee, then perhaps calling for a horse—if he is still able to ride—and venturing forth to survey his new property.”

  “I see him summoning his good wife, a little younger than himself it may be, and obliging her to guess what has occurred.”

  “Which she will never guess in a million guesses, he of course assures her—”

  “But which, shrewder than he, she will divine at once. Oh yes, Anne, indeed they will be gratified.”

  “And let us wish them joy,” Anne murmured, finally bending her head and writing in earnest.

  But her pen had not scratched out three lines before Dolphim reappeared, this time bearing a card.

  “Ensley,” thought Maria to herself; but,

  “The very thing,” Anne announced, when she had read it. “Mr. Dent, in person. Pray show him in, Dolphim.” She crumpled up the letter, then rose to resume the armchair she had vacated before.

  Mr. Dent was a white-haired, cherub-cheeked man, benign and compact, much given to hurrying both in speech and movement. He hurried into the room now, his neat head ducking briskly by way of greeting. Anne had known him since she was ten, for he had been her father’s solicitor, then her mother’s, before he was her own. He acted for her in every kind of business: It was he who had first found the house in Holies Street, he who negotiated yearly with the owner for its lease, he who had explained to her the terms of her mother’s will, he who oversaw its execution. Mr. Dent had had white hair and had hurried for as long as Anne could remember. She now returned his bow cordially, for she liked him; but she was surprised to see, on looking more closely into his face, that his cherub cheeks sagged, and his kind eyes were pink.

  “Are you well, sir?” she asked seriously, waving him into a chair.

  Mr. Dent thanked her, bowed to Mrs. Insel, and sat, immediately drawing from his pocket a large white handkerchief, with which he swabbed his damp brow. “Not well,” he then gasped out, speaking as it seemed with the utmost difficulty.

  Anne stood and pulled the bell. “I shall have some orgeat fetched; or do you prefer a cordial?”

  Mr. Dent, looking down and again mopping his brow with his left hand, signalled no with his right.

  “The heat…” Mrs. Insel began vaguely.

  “Exactly. The heat, sir, is very great. I am afraid it must have affected you. Perfectly natural, but—”

  At this moment Dolphim, an elderly man himself, appeared, gave an assessing glance to their guest, and vanished again on his commission.

  But Mr. Dent repeated his negative gesture, stuffed his handkerchief away, and, with a visible effort, said, “Miss Guilfoyle, I must beg to speak with you privately.”

  Anne, tentatively reseating herself, smiled and replied, “Pray consider that we are private, sir, for I have no secret from Mrs. Insel. Indeed, I know what business you are come upon. We were speaking of it just now. I had begun a letter to you—”

  But she fell silent, for Mr. Dent had again dropped his head into his left hand and with his right was waving frantically for her to stop.

  “Not that, not that,” he managed to squeak out.

  Mrs. Insel and Miss Guilfoyle exchanged a glance: Mr. Dent was clearly worse, terribly agitated, perhaps about to faint. “Hartshorn,” Anne mouthed silently, and Maria at once left the room to fetch it.

  “Good,” breathed Mr. Dent, and began, “I am not ill. I beg you will not alarm yourself—”

  He was interrupted by Dolphim, who set down a tray and departed. Anne poured a glass of cool orgeat, gave it to the visitor, and forbade him to speak till he had drunk it all, silently deploring the while that social code which teaches men (even old men) to conceal their frailties. Not until Mr. Dent had handed her his empty glass would she resume her chair; and even then she wished Maria would return with the hartshorn, for Mr. Dent looked very poorly indeed.

  “Miss Guilfoyle,” he brought forth, after a deep, audible breath.

  “Mr. Dent,” she answered, meaning to beg him not to continue till Maria rejoined them; but,

  “You are ruined,” he at last brought forth, “and I am the cause of it.”

  This said, he appeared to breathe more easily; Anne did not. “I beg your pardon?” she said, but at the same time felt her heart begin to race. “I did not understand you.”

  “I say, you are ruined. Your fortune, your inheritance…” One hand fumbled for his handkerchief, the other clutched expressively the air. “Gone,” he said.

  “Gone?” Anne felt the colour drain from her cheeks, her forehead suddenly go moist and cold. Just then Maria entered, started to move towards Mr. Dent, caught sight of Anne and changed courses. But by the time she reached her, Anne had begun to feel her senses returning. Waving away the hartshorn, she straightened and hoarsely murmured, “Maria, Mr. Dent says—” Her throat seemed to close. She stopped, smiled dazedly, and said, “I cannot say it.” She swallowed and tried again. “Mr. Dent says my fortune is gone.”

  Mrs. Insel turned to him questioningly, at the same time holding and chafing Anne’s chilly hands.

  “Miss Guilfoyle, are you certain you desire…?” His voice trailed away interrogatively. He seemed stronger now that his news had been broke.

  “No secret from Maria,” Anne repeated feebly.

  “As you wish it. Let me explain—but before that, pray allow me to say, that if I could change by any act the story I have to tell—if even my own death could alter it a little—I would not shrink from that act for all the world. You behold me a broken man, Miss Guilfoyle, for you must comprehend—well, but I had best begin at the beginning.”

  And so he did. Gradually recovering, if not his vigour, at least his composure, Mr. Dent recalled to Miss Guilfoyle a certain merchant ship, the Maidstone, of which he had spoke to her some seven months before. The ship then preparing for a trading journey to the East, and Mr. Dent having received thoroughl
y reliable information as to its excellent prospects for doubling, nay perhaps trebling, the money of those who cared to invest in it, he had taken the opportunity to increase the wealth not only of Miss Guilfoyle but of some half-dozen of his clients, and for that matter, himself (“But of this I say nothing, this I pass over, mentioning it only to demonstrate, to prove…” his voice trailed away), by putting into this ship the better part, in a few cases all, of their fortunes. He hoped Miss Guilfoyle recalled giving her consent?

  Miss Guilfoyle nodded.

  Good. Now then, the Maidstone had indeed done well; a report received two months ago indicated the likelihood, even the certainty, of the voyage’s fulfilling Mr. Dent’s most sanguine hopes. A month ago she was reported speeding towards home. But— But—

  Mr. Dent fortified himself with another glassful of orgeat.

  But. The ladies had surely heard of the recent savage acts of certain Algerine pirates off the Barbary coast, in which English vessels were attacked and sunk, their crews murdered. To be brief, then, such had been the fate of the Maidstone. This morning early came the report: the ship lost, all hands lost, and the precious cargo…Alas, Mr. Dent hardly needed to say…

  By now Anne had recovered enough to think. Indeed she knew well of the insults practised by the Algerines on English merchants. An expedition was even now preparing under Lord Exmouth to retaliate. She and Ensley had, not a se’ennight ago, discussed what effect the raid would likely have on English relations with Turkey. But how little she had dreamed, then—! All her fortune sunk!