Earl Verner’s intended wife had not misinterpreted Richard Tallant’s vague threat. The idea had only occurred to him suddenly as an available bit of sarcasm to hurl at his sister; but he had thought of it in the railway, lighted his cigar with it at the junction, and it had cropped up in his thoughts several times since. To be publicly reconciled to his sister, and be seen hand and glove with Lord Verner; to be recorded as giving away his sister to an Earl, would be of great advantage to him, just at that time when it was important he should keep up appearances. So he resolved to write to his sister upon the subject, and Amy was not at all surprised when she received the letter.
Nevertheless, Amy’s first impulse was to explain the whole thing to Lord Verner, and entreat his advice and forgiveness; but her second thoughts were calmer and more worldly, and she wrote a brief acknowledgment of Mr. Tallant’s letter, drove to Avonworth, and posted it herself, that the servants might not know there was any correspondence between her brother and herself. She promised to give the subject her best consideration, and on the next opportunity that offered she again introduced the question to Earl Verner. That she might do so more easily, and with a better chance of success, Mr. Richard Tallant had forwarded a copy of the Severntown Times, in which the following paragraph was marked:
“The Representation of Severntown.—We are authorised to state that at the next election for Severntown, Mr. Richard Tallant, who is well known in the county, will offer himself as a candidate in the Liberal interest. Mr. Tallant is a gentleman of great financial and administrative ability; he is best known as the managing director of that great and flourishing corporation, the Meter Iron Works Company. Added to his high position in the commercial world, our readers have had many proofs of his benevolence. He is a subscriber to all our local institutions, and we happen to know that his private charities are equally liberal. With regard to his politics we believe him to be a Liberal in the best sense of the term; but upon that point the electors will form their own judgment at the proper time. It is pretty well understood that we shall have a general election during the next six months.”
“I had thought of my brother Lionel for Severntown,” said Lord Verner, when Amy showed his lordship the paragraph; “but I have given that up, of course,—he was too extravagant.”
Miss Tallant made no remark about Lionel; but endeavoured to impress his lordship with the growing importance of her brother, and what a position he might have held had he made his peace with his father before he died; then by degrees she presented herself in the light of an ungrateful sister, and talked about the duty of forgiveness.
Need we say that in the end she gained her point, which was not exactly permission to invite her brother to be present at the ceremony, but that Earl Verner should himself suggest that perhaps it would be best that Mr. Richard Tallant should be asked to act the paternal part on the interesting occasion. He had called upon her, Amy explained, and this newspaper was directed to her by himself. He had made overtures of peace; was it not her place as the inheritor of so much property, which ought to have been his, to respond, and thus give him an additional inducement to blot out the past, and make reparation to society and to his father’s memory? Of course it was. Lord Verner was too liberal a man not to see this at once, and not to love his intended wife all the more for her generous and noble advocacy of her brother.
CHAPTER XVI.
IN WHICH A CERTAIN LIEUTENANT GETS INTO DEBT, AND TRYING TO GET OUT AGAIN FALLS WICKEDLY IN LOVE.
The regiment to which Ensign afterwards Lieutenant Somerton was attached had its station in London, and this gave him an opportunity of keeping up his friendship with Mr. Williamson.
The Lieutenant had become quite a dashing young officer, and his adventures began early, as we shall learn from an elaborate confession which he made to Mr. Williamson before he had worn his epaulettes six months.
They were sitting at the window of a famous hotel at Brighton, whither they had gone together for a day’s lounge. It was a pleasant summer day, and after dinner, when Paul, smoking a cigar somewhat rapidly and drinking a little more wine than was customary for him to drink, said: