CHAPTER XXXVI.
LADY COKE UPON LITTLETON.
At Coombe Lorraine these things had been known and entered into some time ago. For Sir Roland had not left his son so wholly uncared for in a foreign land as Hilary in his sore heart believed. In his regiment there was a certain old major, lame, and addicted to violent language, but dry and sensible according to his lights, and truthful, and upright, and quarrelsome. Burning to be first, as he always did in every desperate conflict, Major Clumps saw the young fellows get in front of him, and his temper exploded always.
“Come back, come back, you——” condemned offspring of canine lineage, he used to shout; “let an honest man have a fair start with you! Because my feet are—there you go again; no consideration, any of you!”
This Major Clumps was admirably “connected,” being the nephew of Lord de Lampnor, the husband of Lady Valeria’s friend. So that by this means it was brought round that Hilary’s doings should be reported. And Lady Valeria had received a letter in which her grandson’s exploits at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo were so recounted that Alice wept, and the ancient lady smiled with pride; and even Sir Roland said, “Well, after all, that boy can do something.”
The following afternoon the master of Coombe Lorraine was sent for, to have a long talk with his mother about matters of business. Now Sir Roland particularly hated business; his income was enough for all his wants; his ambition (if ever he had any) was a vague and vaporous element; he left to his lawyers all matters of law; and even the management of his land, but for his mother’s strong opposition, he would gladly have left to a steward or agent, although the extent of his property scarcely justified such an appointment. So he entered his mother’s room that day with a languid step and reluctant air.
The lady paid very little heed to that. Perhaps she even enjoyed it a little. Holding that every man is bound to attend to his own affairs, she had little patience and no sympathy with such philosophic indifference. On the other hand, Sir Roland could not deny himself a little quiet smile, when he saw his mother’s great preparations to bring him both to book and deed.
Lady Valeria Lorraine was sitting as upright as she had sat throughout her life, and would sit, until she lay down for ever. On the table before her were several thick and portentously dirty documents, arranged and docketed by her own sagacious hand; and beyond these, and opened at pages for reference, lay certain old law-books of a most deterrent guise and attitude. Sheppard’s “Touchstone” (before Preston’s time), Littleton’s “Tenures,” Viner’s “Abridgment,” Comyn’s “Digest,” Glanville, Plowden, and other great authors, were here prepared to cause delicious confusion in the keenest feminine intellect; and Lady Valeria was quite sure now that they all contradicted one another.
After the formal salutation, which she always insisted upon, the venerable lady began to fuss about a little, and pretend to be at a loss with things. She was always dressed as if she expected a visit from the royal family; and it was as good as a lecture for any slovenly young girls to see how cleverly she avoided soil of dirty book, or dirtier parchment, upon her white cuffs or Flemish lace. Even her delicate pointed fingers, shrunken as they were with age, had a knack of flitting over grime, without attracting it.
“I daresay you are surprised,” she said, with her usual soft and courteous smile, “at seeing me employed like this, and turning lawyer in my old age.”
Sir Roland said something complimentary, knowing that it was expected of him. The ancient lady had always taught him—however erroneous the doctrine—that no man who is at a loss for the proper compliment to a lady deserves to be thought a gentleman. She always had treated her son as a gentleman, dearer to her than other gentlemen; but still to be regarded in that light mainly. And he, perhaps by inheritance, had been led to behave to his own son thus—a line of behaviour warmly resented by the impetuous Hilary.