“Will you always think that of me, Roland, dear? Whatever happens, when I am gone, will you always believe that I did my best?”
Sir Roland was surprised at his mother’s very unusual state of mind. And he saw how her delicate face was softened from its calm composure. And the like emotion moved himself; for he was a man of strong feeling, though he deigned so rarely to let it out, and froze it so often with fatalism.
“My dearest mother,” he answered, bowing his silver hair over her snowy locks, “surely you know me well enough to make such a question needless. A more active and devoted mind never worked for one especial purpose—the welfare of those for whose sake you have abandoned show and grandeur. Ay, mother, and with as much success as our hereditary faults allowed. Since your labours began, we must have picked up fifty acres.”
“Is that all you know of it, Roland?” asked Lady Valeria, with a short sigh; “all my efforts will be thrown away, I greatly fear, when I am gone. One hundred and fifty-six acres and a half have been brought back into the Lorraine rent-roll, without even counting the hedge-rows. And now there are two things to be done, to carry on this great work well. That interloper, Sir Remnant Chapman, a man of comparatively modern race, holds more than two thousand acres of the best and oldest Lorraine land. He wishes young Alice to marry his son, and proposes a very handsome settlement. Why, Roland, you told me all about it—though not quite as soon as you should have done.”
“I do not perceive that I neglected my duty. If I did so, surprise must have ‘knocked me out of time,’ as our good Struan expresses it.”
“Mr. Hales! Mr. Hales, the clergyman! I cannot imagine what he could mean. But it must have been something low, of course; either badger-baiting, or prize-fighting—though people of really good position have a right to like such things. But now we must let that poor stupid Sir Remnant, who cannot even turn a compliment, have his own way about silly Alice, for the sake of more important things.”
“My dear mother, you sometimes try me. What can be more important than Alice? And to what overpowering influence is she to be sacrificed?”
“It is useless to talk like that, Sir Roland. She must do her best, like everybody else who is not of ignoble family. The girl has plenty of pride, and will be the first to perceive the necessity. ’Twill not be so much for the sake of the settlement, for that of course will go with her; but we must make it a stipulation, and have it set down under hand and seal, that Sir Remnant, and after his time his son, shall sell to us, at a valuation, any pieces of our own land which we may be able to repurchase. Now, Roland, you never would have thought of that. It is a most admirable plan, is it not?”
“It is worthy of your ingenuity, mother. But will Sir Remnant agree to it? He is fond of his acres, like all landowners.”
“One acre is as good as another to a man of modern lineage. Some of that land passed from us at the time of the great confiscation, and some was sold by that reckless man, the last Sir Hilary but one. The Chapmans have held very little of it for even so much as two centuries; how then can they be attached to it? No, no. You must make that condition, Roland, the first and the most essential point. As for the settlement, that is nothing; though of course you will also insist upon it. For a girl of Alice’s birth and appearance we could easily get a larger settlement and a much higher position, by sending her to London for one season, under Lady de Lampnor. But how would that help us towards getting back the land?”