“As a money-lender,” added the baron, laughing pleasantly. “No, mon cher, I will still lend you half the sum required in advance, but the other half is more than I can afford as friend, or hazard as money-lender; and it would damage my character,—be out of all rule,—if, the estates falling by your default of payment into my own hands, I should appear to be the real purchaser of the property of my own distressed client. But, now I think of it, did not Squire Hazeldean promise you his assistance in this matter?”
“He did so,” answered Randal, “as soon as the marriage between Frank and Madame di Negra was off his mind. I meant to cross over to Hazeldean immediately after the election. How can I leave the place till then?”
“If you do, your election is lost. But why not write to the squire?”
“It is against my maxim to write where I can speak. However, there is no option; I will write at once. Meanwhile, communicate with Thornhill; keep up his hopes; and be sure, at least, that he does not close with this greedy alderman before the day fixed for decision.”
“I have done all that already, and my letter is gone. Now, do your part: and if you write as cleverly as you talk, you would coax the money out from a stonier heart than poor Mr. Hazeldean’s. I leave you now; good-night.”
Levy took up his candlestick, nodded, yawned, and went. Randal still suspended the completion of his speech, and indited the following epistle:—
MY DEAR MR. HAZELDEAN,—I wrote to you a few hasty lines on leaving
town, to inform you that the match you so dreaded was broken off,
and proposing to defer particulars till I could visit your kind and
hospitable roof, which I trusted to do for a few hours during my
stay at Lansmere, since it is not a day’s journey hence to
Hazeldean. But I did not calculate on finding so sharp a contest.
In no election throughout the kingdom do I believe that a more
notable triumph, or a more stunning defeat, for the great landed
interest can occur. For in this town—so dependent on agriculture—
we are opposed by a low and sordid manufacturer, of the most
revolutionary notions, who has, moreover, the audacity to force his
own nephew—that very boy whom I chastised for impertinence on your
village green, son of a common carpenter—actually the audacity, I
say, to attempt to force this peasant of a nephew, as well as
himself, into the representation of Lansmere, against the earl’s
interest, against your distinguished brother,—of myself I say
nothing. You should hear the language in which these two men
indulge against all your family! If we are beaten by such persons
in a borough supposed to be so loyal as Lansmere, every one with a
stake in the country may tremble at such a prognostic of the ruin
that must await not only our old English Constitution, but the
existence of property itself. I need not say that on such an
occasion I cannot spare myself. Mr. Egerton is ill too. All the
fatigue of the canvass devolves on me. I feel, my dear and revered
friend, that I am a genuine Hazeldean, fighting your battle; and
that thought carries me through all. I cannot, therefore, come to
you till the election is over; and meanwhile you, and my dear Mrs.
Hazeldean, must be anxious to know more about the affair that so
preyed on both your hearts than I have yet informed you, or can well
trust to a letter. Be assured, however, that the worst is over; the
lady has gone abroad. I earnestly entreated Frank (who showed me
Mrs. Hazeldean’s most pathetic letter to him) to hasten at once to
the Hall and relieve your minds. Unfortunately he would not be
ruled by me, but talked of going abroad too—not, I trust (nay, I
feel assured), in pursuit of Madame di Negra; but still—In short, I
should be so glad to see you, and talk over the whole. Could you
not come hither—I pray do. And now, at the risk of your thinking
that in this I am only consulting my own interest (but no—your
noble English heart will never so misiudge me!), I will add with
homely frankness, that if you could accommodate me immediately with
the loan you not long since so generously offered, you would save
those lands once in my family from passing away from us forever. A
city alderman—one Jobson—is meanly taking advantage of Thornhill’s
necessities, and driving a hard bargain for those lands. He has
fixed the —th inst. for Thornhill’s answer, and Levy (who is here
assisting Mr. Egerton’s election) informs me that Thornhill will
accept his offer, unless I am provided with L10,000 beforehand; the
other L10,000, to complete the advance required, Levy will lend me.
Do not be surprised at the usurer’s liberality; he knows that I am
about shortly to marry a very great heiress (you will be pleased
when you learn whom, and will then be able to account for my
indifference to Miss Sticktorights), and her dower will amply serve
to repay his loan and your own, if I may trust to your generous
affection for the grandson of a Hazeldean! I have the less scruple
in this appeal to you, for I know bow it would grieve you that a
Jobson, who perhaps never knew a grandmother, should foist your own
kinsman from the lands of his fathers. Of one thing I am
convinced,—we squires and sons of squires must make common cause
against those great moneyed capitalists, or they will buy us all out
in a few generations. The old race of country gentlemen is already
much diminished by the grasping cupidity of such leviathans; and if
the race be once extinct, what will become of the boast and strength
of England?
Yours, my dear Mr. Hazeldean, with most affectionate and grateful
respect,
RANDAL LESLIE.
CHAPTER XXII.
Nothing to Leonard could as yet be more distasteful or oppressive than his share in this memorable election. In the first place, it chafed the secret sores of his heart to be compelled to resume the name of Fairfeld, which was a tacit disavowal of his birth. It had been such delight to him that the same letters which formed the name of Nora should weave also that name of Oran, to which he had given distinction, which he had associated with all his nobler toils, and all his hopes of enduring fame,—a mystic link between his own career and his mother’s obscurer genius. It seemed to him as if it were rendering to her the honours accorded to himself,—subtle and delicate fancy of the affections, of which only poets would be capable, but which others than poets may perhaps comprehend! That earlier name of Fairfield was connected in his memory with all the ruder employments, the meaner trials of his boyhood; the name of Oran, with poetry and fame. It was his title in the ideal world, amongst all fair shapes and spirits. In receiving the old appellation, the practical world, with its bitterness and strife, returned to him as at the utterance of a spell. But in coming to Lansmere he had no choice. To say nothing of Dick, and Dick’s parents with whom his secret would not be safe, Randal Leslie knew that he had gone by the name of Fairfield,—knew his supposed parentage, and would be sure to proclaim them. How account for the latter name without setting curiosity to decipher the anagram it involved, and perhaps guiding suspicion to his birth from Nora, to the injury of her memory, yet preserved from stain?