[CHAPTER XIII]
Delamere continued in Norfolk only a few weeks after his father and the family came thither. During that time, he appeared restless and dissatisfied; his former vivacity was quite lost; he shunned society; and passed almost all his time in the fields, under pretence of hunting or shooting, tho' the greatest satisfaction those amusements now afforded him was the opportunity they gave him of absenting himself from home. He seldom returned thither 'till six or seven o'clock; dined alone in his own apartment; and affected to be too much fatigued to be able to meet the party who assembled to cards in the evening.
Lady Mary Otley and her daughter, a widow lady of small fortune in the neighbourhood, with Lord and Lady Montreville and their eldest daughter, made up a party without him. Augusta Delamere had been left in their way from the North, with a relation of his Lordship's who lived near Scarborough, with whom she was to remain two months.
The party at Audley-Hall was soon encreased by Sir Richard Crofts and his eldest son, who came every autumn on a visit to Lord Montreville, and who was his most intimate friend.
Lord Montreville, during the short time he studied at the Temple, became acquainted with Sir Richard, then clerk to an attorney in the city; who, tho' there was a great difference in their rank, had contrived to gain the regard and esteem of his Lordship (then Mr. Frederic Mowbray) and was, when he came to his estate, entrusted with it's management; a trust which he appeared to execute with such diligence and integrity, that he soon obtained the entire confidence of his patron; and by possessing great ductility and great activity, he was soon introduced into a higher line of life, and saw himself the companion and friend of those, to whom, at his setting out, he appeared only an humble retainer.
Born in Scotland, he boasted of his ancestry, tho' his immediate predecessors were known to be indigent and obscure; and tho' he had neither eminent talents, nor any other education than what he had acquired at a free-school in his native town, he had, by dint of a very common understanding, steadily applied to the pursuit of one point; and assisted by the friendship of Lord Montreville, acquired not only a considerable fortune, but a seat in Parliament and a great deal of political interest, together with the title of a Baronet.
He had less understanding than cunning; less honesty than industry; and tho' he knew how to talk warmly and plausibly of honour, justice, and integrity, he was generally contented only to talk of them, seldom so imprudent as to practice them when he could get place or profit by their sacrifice.
He had that sort of sagacity which enabled him to enter into the characters of those with whom he conversed: he knew how to humour their prejudices, and lay in wait for their foibles to turn them to his own advantage.
To his superiors, the cringing parasite; to those whom he thought his inferiors, proud, supercilious, and insulting; and his heart hardening as his prosperity encreased, he threw off, as much as he could, every connection that reminded him of the transactions of his early life, and affected to live only among the great, whose luxuries he could now reach, and whose manners he tried to imitate.