Mr. Buxton was nearer happiness at this reply than he had ever been since his wife’s death; for the only way he could devise to satisfy his reproachful conscience towards his neglected and unhappy sister, was to plan a marriage between his son and her child. He rubbed his hands and drank two extra glasses of wine.
“We’ll have the Brownes to dinner, as usual, next Thursday,” said he, “I am sure your mother would have been hurt if we had omitted it; it is now nine years since they began to come, and they have never missed one Christmas since. Do you see any objection, Frank?”
“None at all, sir,” answered he. “I intend to go up to town soon after Christmas, for a week or ten days, on my way to Cambridge. Can I do anything for you?”
“Well, I don’t know. I think I shall go up myself some day soon. I can’t understand all these lawyer’s letters, about the purchase of the Newbridge estate; and I fancy I could make more sense out of it all, if I saw Mr. Hodgson.”
“I wish you would adopt my plan, of having an agent, sir. Your affairs are really so complicated now, that they would take up the time of an expert man of business. I am sure all those tenants at Dumford ought to be seen after.”
“I do see after them. There’s never a one that dares cheat me, or that would cheat me if they could. Most of them have lived under the Buxtons for generations. They know that if they dared to take advantage of me, I should come down upon them pretty smartly.”
“Do you rely upon their attachment to your family—or on their idea of your severity?”
“On both. They stand me instead of much trouble in account-keeping, and those eternal lawyers’ letters some people are always dispatching to their tenants. When I’m cheated, Frank, I give you leave to make me have an agent, but not till then. There’s my little Erminia singing away, and nobody to hear her.”
CHAPTER V.
Christmas-Day was strange and sad. Mrs. Buxton had always contrived to be in the drawing-room, ready to receive them all after dinner. Mr. Buxton tried to do away with his thoughts of her by much talking; but every now and then he looked wistfully toward the door. Erminia exerted herself to be as lively as she could, in order, if possible, to fill up the vacuum. Edward, who had come over from Woodchester for a walk, had a good deal to say; and was, unconsciously, a great assistance with his never-ending flow of rather clever small-talk. His mother felt proud of her son, and his new waistcoat, which was far more conspicuously of the latest fashion than Frank’s could be said to be. After dinner, when Mr. Buxton and the two young men were left alone, Edward launched out still more. He thought he was impressing Frank with his knowledge of the world, and the world’s ways. But he was doing all in his power to repel one who had never been much attracted toward him. Worldly success was his standard of merit. The end seemed with him to justify the means; if a man prospered, it was not necessary to scrutinize his conduct too closely. The law was viewed in its lowest aspect; and yet with a certain cleverness, which preserved Edward from being intellectually contemptible. Frank had entertained some idea of studying for a barrister himself: not so much as a means of livelihood as to gain some idea of the code which makes and shows a nation’s conscience: but Edward’s details of the ways in which the letter so often baffles the spirit, made him recoil. With some anger against himself, for viewing the profession with disgust, because it was degraded by those who embraced it, instead of looking upon it as what might be ennobled and purified into a vast intelligence by high and pure-minded men, he got up abruptly and left the room.