In his ordinary and every-day look, no man ever seemed a more perfect representative of worldly success and prosperity than Colonel Bramleigh. He was personally what would be called handsome, had a high bold forehead, and large gray eyes, well set and shaded by strong full eyebrows, so regular in outline and so correctly defined as to give a half-suspicion that art had been called to the assistance of nature. He was ruddy and fresh-looking, with an erect carriage, and that air of general confidence that seemed to declare he knew himself to be a favorite of fortune, and gloried in the distinction.
“I can do scores of things others must not venture upon,” was a common saying of his. “I can trust to my luck,” was almost a maxim with him. And in reality, if the boast was somewhat vainglorious, it was not without foundation; a marvellous, almost unerring, success attended him through life. Enterprises that were menaced with ruin and bankruptcy would rally from the hour that he joined them, and schemes of fortune that men deemed half desperate would, under his guidance, grow into safe and profitable speculations. Others might equal him in intelligence, in skill, in ready resource and sudden expedient; but he had not one to rival him in luck. It is strange enough that the hard business mind, the men of realism par excellence, can recognize such a thing as fortune; but so it is, there are none so prone to believe in this quality as the people of finance. The spirit of the gambler is, in fact, the spirit of commercial enterprise, and the “odds” are as carefully calculated in the counting-house as in the betting-ring. Seen as he came into the breakfast room of a morning, with the fresh flush of exercise on his cheek, or as he appeared in the drawing-room, before dinner, with that air of ease and enjoyment that marked all his courtesy, one would have said, “There is one certainly with whom the world goes well.” There were caustic, invidious people, who hinted that Bramleigh deserved but little credit for that happy equanimity and that buoyant spirit which sustained him. They said, “He has never had a reverse; wait till he be tried.” And the world had waited and waited, and to all seeming the eventful hour had not come; for there he was, a little balder, perhaps, a stray gray hair in his whiskers, and somewhat portlier in his presence, but, on the whole, pretty much what men had known him to be for fifteen or twenty years back.
Upon none did the well-to-do, blooming, and prosperous rich man produce a more powerful impression than on the young curate, who, young, vigorous, handsome as he was, could yet never sufficiently emerge from the res angusto domi to feel the ease and confidence that come of affluence.
What a shock was it then to L'Estrange, as he entered the library, to see the man whom he had ever beheld as the type of till that was happy and healthful and prosperous, haggard and careworn, his hand tremulous, and his manner abrupt and uncertain, with a certain furtive dread at moments, followed by outbursts of passionate defiance, as though he were addressing himself to others besides him who was then before him.
Though on terms of cordial intimacy with the curate, and always accustomed to call him by his name, he received him as he entered the room with a cold and formal politeness, apologized for having taken the liberty to send after and recall him, and ceremoniously requested him to be seated.
“We were sorry you and Miss L'Estrange could not join the picnic to-day,” said Bramleigh; “though, to be sure, it is scarcely the season yet for such diversions.”
L'Estrange felt the awkwardness of saying that they had not been invited, and muttered something not very intelligible about the uncertainty of the weather.
“I meant to have gone over myself,” said Bramleigh, hurriedly; “but all these,”—and he swept his hand, as he spoke, through a mass of letters on the table,—“all these have come since morning, and I am not half through them yet. What 's that the moralist says about calling no man happy till he dies? I often think one cannot speculate upon a pleasant day till after the post-hour.”
“I know very little of either the pains or pleasures of the letter-bag. I have almost no correspondence.”
“How I envy you!” cried he, fervently.