A Whim, and Its Consequences / Collection of British Authors Vol. CXIV

by G. P. R. James

Chandos made no answer, but walked on, passing from room to room, along the wide front of the building. He gazed around him as he went with a slow pace, but only twice he stopped. Once it was to look at a picture; that of a lady in a riding habit. It was an early portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence, with great breadth and power, and some careless drawing and want of finish, in subsidiary parts. But the face was full of life. The liquid eyes, with the clear light streaming through the cornea, and illuminating the iris, seemed gazing into your heart. The lips spoke to you; but there was a sadness in the tones, which poured melancholy into the gazer.

"Ay, she had an unhappy life of it, poor thing," said Lockwood, at once interpreting the expression in the portrait, and the feelings in his companion's heart. "I, of course, had no reason to love her; but yet, I grieved for her from my soul."

Chandos turned abruptly round, laid his left hand upon Lockwood's shoulder, and seemed about to reply almost bitterly. But then he stopped suddenly, looked him full in the face, with the finger of his right hand extended to his companion's breast, and with a sad shake of the head, moved away. The next time he stopped, it was before a small work-table, which he gazed at for a minute or two, and then said, "If there is a sale, Lockwood, as I dare say there will be, I should like to have that. Purchase it for me; it cannot sell for much."

He then quickened his pace, and proceeded without a pause to the abbot's kitchen. There was apparent, however, as he went along, a quivering of the lip at times, and an occasional wide expansion of the nostril, which made Lockwood think that strong emotions were busy within him. Whatever they were, he threw off his gloom when he joined the good keeper and his wife at their meal; and though not gay, he chatted with the rest, and sometimes laughed; ate their good cheer with a hearty appetite, and drank more than one glass of old ale. The dinner was over, and they were sitting, about two o'clock, with that pause for digestion, the necessity for which all animals feel, when a grating sound, as of carriage wheels, was heard; and going to the window, the three men saw a post-chaise, dragged on slowly by two sorry jades, through the loose stuff of the long-neglected road.

"My goody! who can that be?" cried the keeper's wife, looking over her husband's shoulder.

"It is Roberts, the steward," said Chandos, with a grave face. "Do not let him be brought in here, Lockwood. I will see him afterwards; but it must be alone."

Lockwood nodded his head significantly, and went out with the keeper, who hurried to the principal entrance of Winslow Abbey, towards which the chaise directed its course.

"Don't say anything at present of the young gentleman being here," whispered Lockwood to the keeper, as the latter unbolted the great doors. An acquiescent nod was the reply, and the next moment Mr. Roberts approached the entrance.

I must pause, both upon the character and appearance of that person; for he was not an ordinary one. Richard Roberts was diminutive in person, though exceedingly well formed; most of his features were plain; and he was a good deal marked with the small-pox; but his eyes were fine, large, and expressive; and his brow was both broad and high. He had been educated as an attorney by his father, who was an attorney also; but the father and the son were different. The father was a keen, shrewd, money-making man, who had no scruples within the law. He had married the daughter of a country banker, and treated her very harshly from the hour the bank broke. He had been very civil before. She bore all patiently; for she had a very high sense of duty, which she transmitted to her son; but she died early; for she was too gentle and affectionate to endure unkindness long. The young man submitted to his father's pleasure, though the desk and the red tape were an abomination to him; and he went on studying deeply till he was out of his clerkship, when he entered into partnership with his father. The father, who was a thick-necked man, ate too much, and drank too much, at a hot corporation-dinner; and a thin alderman--for there are such things--remarked, that Roberts had eaten and drank enough that night to serve him his whole life. So it did, too; for, just as he was peeling his third orange after dinner, and somebody was getting up to make a speech, which nobody was likely to attend to, Mr. Roberts leaned amicably upon his next neighbour's breast; and that gentleman at first imagined--notwithstanding the improbability of the thing--that Roberts was drunk. When he was set up in his chair again, he moved not, except to fall slowly to the other side; and then it began to strike people, that a man might be dead instead of drunk, even at a corporation-dinner. So it proved; and the firm was changed from "Roberts and Son," to "Richard Roberts." To the surprise of everybody, however, the whole business of Mr. Roberts's office was wound up within three months, and the office closed. Every one knew, that the old man had been of a money-making turn; but still, they argued, that he could not have left enough for young Roberts to turn gentleman upon. This was true; and shortly after he accepted the situation of steward and law-agent to Sir Harry Winslow, rejecting all fees, and doing the whole business for a moderate fixed salary, which, with what his father had left him, was sufficient for his ambition. Thus he had gone on for five-and-twenty years. The tenants were always well pleased with him; for he forced no man to take a lease, when an agreement for one would do as well; but never refused a lease when it was required. Sir Harry was not always well pleased; for there was a rigidity about Mr. Roberts, and about his notions, which did not quite suit him; but Mr. Roberts, like an indispensable minister, was always ready to resign. He was now a man of more than fifty years of age, with very white hair, very black eyebrows, and a pale, thoughtful complexion; and, as he walked up from the chaise to the house, his step, though not exactly feeble, had none of the buoyancy of youth and strong health about it.

"Good morning, Garbett. Good morning, Mr. Lockwood. You have got my letter, I hope?"