“We were in the first batch of baronets,” said Sir Vavasour.
“Forget the baronets for a while,” said Hatton. “Tell me, what was your family before James the First?”
“They always lived on their lands,” said Sir Vavasour. “I have a room full of papers that would perhaps tell us something about them. Would you like to see them?”
“By all means: bring them all here. Not that I want them to inform me of your rights: I am fully acquainted with them. You would like to be a peer, sir. Well, you are really Lord Vavasour, but there is a difficulty in establishing your undoubted right from the single writ of summons difficulty. I will not trouble you with technicalities, Sir Vavasour: sufficient that the difficulty is great though perhaps not unmanageable. But we have no need of management. Your claim on the barony of Lovel is very good: I could recommend your pursuing it, did not another more inviting still present itself. In a word, if you wish to be Lord Bardolf, I will undertake to make you so, before, in all probability, Sir Robert Peel obtains office; and that I should think would gratify Lady Firebrace.”
“Indeed it would,” said Sir Vavasour, “for if it had not been for this sort of a promise of a peerage made—I speak in great confidence Mr Hatton—made by Mr Taper, my tenants would have voted for the whigs the other day at the ——shire election, and the conservative candidate would have been beaten. Lord Masque had almost arranged it, but Lady Firebrace would have a written promise from a high quarter, and so it fell to the ground.”
“Well we are independent of all these petty arrangements now,” said Mr Hatton.
“It is very wonderful,” said Sir Vavasour, rising from his chair and speaking as it were to himself. “And what do you think our expenses will be in this claim?” he inquired.
“Bagatelle!” said Mr Hatton. “Why a dozen years ago I have known men lay out nearly half a million in land and not get two per cent for their money, in order to obtain a borough influence which might ultimately obtain them a spick and span coronet; and now you are going to put one on your head, which will give you precedence over every peer on the roll, except three (and I made those), and it will not cost you a paltry twenty or thirty thousand pounds. Why I know men who would give that for the precedence alone.—Here!” and he rose and took up some papers from a table: “Here is a case; a man you know, I dare say; an earl, and of a decent date as earls go: George the First. The first baron was a Dutch valet of William the Third. Well I am to terminate an abeyance in his favour through his mother, and give him one of the baronies of the Herberts. He buys off the other claimant who is already ennobled with a larger sum than you will expend on your ancient coronet. Nor is that all. The other claimant is of French descent and name; came over at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Well, besides the hush money, my client is to defray all the expense of attempting to transform the descendant of the silkweaver of Lyons into the heir of a Norman conqueror. So you see, Sir Vavasour, I am not unreasonable. Pah! I would sooner gain five thousand pounds by restoring you to your rights, than fifty thousand in establishing any of these pretenders in their base assumptions. I must work in my craft, Sir Vavasour, but I love the old English blood, and have it in my veins.”
“I am satisfied, Mr Hatton.” said Sir Vavasour: “let no time be lost. All I regret is, that you did not mention all this to me before; and then we might have saved a great deal of trouble and expense.”
“You never consulted me,” said Mr Hatton. “You gave me your instructions, and I obeyed them. I was sorry to see you in that mind, for to speak frankly, and I am sure now you will not be offended, my lord, for such is your real dignity, there is no title in the world for which I have such a contempt as that of a baronet.”