Possessed of an old title, a handsome person, and specious manners, when it suited him to disguise his natural disposition, he was not long before he gained a lady who, as far as money was concerned, was unexceptionable. Miss Brabazon was the only daughter of a wealthy banker. She was nine-and-twenty, but acknowledged only three-and-twenty summers; was very tall, very masculine, and exceedingly plain. Her dependants and domestics declared she had a violent and headstrong temper. The world, in general, supposed her to be the reverse. We do not always display our amiable qualities to our friends, and, for the same reason, we suppose, we keep back our little foibles. Miss Euphemia Brabazon started in life with the intention of captivating at least an earl’s son. Eighty thousand pounds fortune, her father having been heard to declare would be his daughter’s portion. She had waited from the age of eighteen to two-and-twenty very patiently for a coronet, but those pretty appendages were not to be had at that period quite so readily as some years afterwards. Four years passed, and she remained a spinster. Ominous nine-and-twenty came, but no earl. At a civic entertainment Miss Brabazon was introduced to Sir Howard Etherton, who was looking for eighty or one hundred thousand pounds, if they were to be had. He did not see Miss Brabazon’s countenance when he danced with her, for a draft on the bank of Brabazon, Brassington, and Blinkiron floated in the air between her sharp features and the baronet’s eyes. Finally, the baronet proposed. Miss Euphemia thought of her next birthday: she would be thirty! A baronet, and of a long line of ancestors, wealthy and handsome, much superior to many of the lords she had seen years back, and thought so much of. Besides, Sir Howard, with a rent-roll of fifteen thousand a year, must have been fascinated with her person. Sir Howard proposed, and was blushingly accepted. Mr. Brabazon unhesitatingly gave his consent, and they were married. Somehow, the banker induced his son-in-law, by laying before him a plan for increasing his eighty thousand to two hundred thousand pounds in a year or two, to allow the eighty thousand to remain in the bank, and Sir Howard became a sleeping partner.
It is said that persons of a similarity of dispositions always agree. We do not pretend to dispute this question. All we can say is, that Lady Howard and Miss Etherton resembled one another to an extraordinary degree in despotism; but, alas! Etherton Hall, though a large and spacious mansion, was not nearly large enough to hold the wife and sister of Sir Howard.
Consequently, Miss Etherton abandoned the field in one short month, and took herself off, and went to live with her mother; and as no human being ever doubted her being of age, she demanded her fortune, with interest. Her brother, who never parted with money till forced, refused the interest; so Miss Jane placed her cause in the hands of a solicitor, who not only perfectly agreed with Miss Etherton as to her rights, but also agreed to take herself and fortune, for better and worse, and thus save costs. This offer Miss Jane accepted, and the last in the female line of the Ethertons resigned her maiden name. Mr. Chatterton, the solicitor, soon forced Sir Howard to pay, not only the fortune, but a bill of costs, proportioned to the value of his spouse. Lady Etherton declared her to be an unnatural, degenerate girl, to marry an attorney. “Heavens! what has the world come to?”
Such was the posture of affairs at Etherton Hall; the only difference perceptible to the domestics was, now that they had a mistress and no master, for, strange to say, Lady Etherton had completely gained the ascendancy. They had one child, a boy, the future heir, as Lady Etherton declared, of unbounded wealth; for the firm of Brabazon, Brassington, and Blinkiron was in a most prosperous state; their speculations numerous, and their gains astounding. Sir Howard was led to believe that in two years more his share would be near three hundred thousand pounds.
One morning at breakfast Lady Etherton happened to be reading the Morning Post, whilst Sir Howard was examining into the merits of a peregord pie.
“Good Heaven, Howard!” exclaimed her ladyship, dropping the paper and turning pale, “what is the meaning of this?”
“Of what, my dear?” returned the amiable husband, suspending his operations.
“Why, good God! there can be no meaning in this strange paragraph. Who is Sir Oscar de Bracy? and what Mr. Julian Arden is this who has the presumption to claim your family name, and not only claims the name, but the editor of this paper says is a claimant to the Etherton title and estates? It must be a vile libel, and the fellow ought to be horsewhipped and then prosecuted.”
The knife and fork fell from Sir Howard’s hands; he turned exceedingly pale, saying, “Good God! how odd! Pray show me the paper.”
“Why, you look as pale as a ghost, Howard!” said her ladyship. “Is there really anything in this paragraph?” And she handed her spouse the paper. Sir Howard’s hand shook as he took it, and read the same account of the brilliant action between the Onyx and the Virginie that Madame Coulancourt and Mabel had read that very morning in the Times, only that in the Morning Post there was a great deal more of family concerns, the writer seeming to be well informed as to how matters stood with respect to the Etherton title and estate.