"'Pon my life, Lady Cicely, you are a most lovely gal," quoth Titmouse, with increasing energy—"and now you're all my own! Though I am only plain Mr. Titmouse, and you'll be Lady Cicely still—I'll make you a good husband!" and again he pressed her hand and kissed her cold cheek. But slow and dull as were the Lady Cecilia's feelings, they were becoming too much excited to admit of her continuing much longer in the room.
"I'm sure—you'll—excuse—me, Mr. Titmouse," said she, rising, and speaking quickly and faintly. When she had regained her room, she wept bitterly for upwards of an hour; and Miss Macspleuchan, well aware of the cause of it, knew not how to console one who had so deliberately immolated herself before the hideous little image of Mammon; who, in degrading herself, had also—and Miss Macspleuchan, a true lady, when alone, shed bitter and scalding tears, and her bosom swelled with wounded pride and indignation at the thought—degraded her whole sex. In due time, however, the Aurora, a fashionable morning London newspaper, thus announced to the public, as an auspicious event, the one which I have so faithfully, feeling much pain the while, described to the reader:—
"It is rumored that Mr. Titmouse, who so lately recovered the very large estates of Yatton, in Yorkshire, and whose appearance in the fashionable world has created so great a sensation, and who is already connected, by consanguinity, with the ancient and noble family of Dreddlington, is about to form a closer alliance with it, and is now the accepted suitor of the lovely and accomplished Lady Cecilia Philippa Leopoldina Plantagenet, sole daughter and heiress of the Right Hon. the Earl of Dreddlington, and next in succession to the barony of Drelincourt, the most ancient, we believe, in the kingdom."
[CHAPTER XI.]
Behold now, thoughtful reader—for in your eyes it is anxiously desired that this history may find favor—the dreadful—the desperate reverse in Mr. Aubrey's circumstances. He has suddenly fallen from a very commanding position in society: from that of a high-born English gentleman, possessed of a fine unencumbered income, and all of luxury and splendor, and of opportunity for gratifying a disposition of noble munificence, that it can secure—and whose qualifications and prospects justified him in aspiring to the highest senatorial distinction:—behold him, I say, with his beloved and helpless family, sunk—lower than into straitened circumstances—beneath even poverty—into the palsying atmosphere of debt—and debt, too, inextricable and hopeless. Seeing that no one can be so secure, but that all this, or something of the like kind, may one day or other happen to him, 'tis hoped that it will be found neither uninteresting nor uninstructive to watch carefully and closely the present condition and conduct of the Aubreys.
Bound hand and foot—so to speak—as Mr. Aubrey felt himself, and entirely at the mercy of Mr. Titmouse and his solicitors, Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, what could he do but submit to almost any terms on which they chose to insist? It will be recollected that Mr. Gammon's proposal was,[28] that Mr. Aubrey should forthwith discharge, without scrutiny, their bill of £3,946, 14s. 6d.; give sufficient security for the payment of the sum of £10,000 to Mr. Titmouse, within twelve or eighteen months' time, and two promissory notes for the sum of £5,000 each, payable at some future period, as to which he had to rely solely on the sincerity and forbearance of Mr. Gammon, and the ratification of his acts by Mr. Titmouse. This proposal was duly communicated by the unfortunate Aubrey to Messrs. Runnington, who obtained from Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, a fortnight's time in which to deliberate upon it. Messrs. Runnington almost immediately advised him to accept the proposed terms as unquestionably fair, and, under the circumstances, much more lenient than could have been expected. This might be so; but yet, how dismaying and hopeless to him the idea of carrying them into effect! How, indeed, was it to be done? First of all, how were Messrs. Runnington's and Mr. Parkinson's bills to be got rid of—the former amounting to £1,670, 12s., the latter to £756? And how were Mr. Aubrey and his family to live in the mean while, and how, moreover, were to be met the expenses of his legal education? As was intimated in a former part of this history, all that Mr. Aubrey had, on settling in London, was £3,000 stock (equal to £2,640 of money) and £423 in his banker's hands:—so that all his cash in hand was £3,063! and if he were to devote the whole of it to the discharge of the three attorneys' bills which he owed, he would still leave a gross balance unpaid of £3,310, 6s. 6d.! And yet for him to talk of giving security for the payment of £10,000 within eighteen months, and his own notes of hand for £10,000 more! It was really almost maddening to sit down and contemplate all this. But he must not fold his arms in impotence and despair—he must look his difficulties straight in the face, and do the best that was in his power. He resolved to devote every farthing he had, except £200, to the liquidation of Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap's account, and (in smaller proportion) of those also of Messrs. Runnington and Mr. Parkinson; if necessary he resolved, though his heart thrilled with anguish at the thought, to sell his books, and the remnant of old family plate that he had preserved. Then he would strain every nerve to contribute towards the support of himself and of his family—poor oppressed soul!—by his literary exertions, in every moment that he could spare from his legal studies; and practise the severest economy that was consistent with health, and the preservation of a respectable exterior. He resolved also, though with a shudder, to commit himself to Gammon and Titmouse's mercy, by handing to them (though a fearful farce it seemed) his two notes of hand for £10,000—payable on demand—for such Gammon intimated was usual in such a case, and would be required in the present one. But whither was he to look for security for the payment of £10,000 within eighteen months' time? This was a matter which indeed staggered him, and almost prostrated his energies whenever he directed them to the subject; it occasioned him inexpressible agitation and anguish. Individuals there were, he believed—he knew—who would cheerfully enter into the desired security on his behalf; but what a mockery! For them to be asked to secure his payment of the sum, at the time mentioned, was, in effect, palpably asking them to pay the money for him; and in that light they could not but view such an application. The reader will easily understand the potency of such considerations upon so sensitive and high-minded a person as Mr. Aubrey. While revolving these distracting and harassing topics in his mind, the name of Lord De la Zouch always presented itself to him. Had he not solemnly—repeatedly—pledged himself to communicate with that kind, and wealthy, and generous nobleman, in such an emergency as the present? His Lordship's income was at least eighty or a hundred thousand pounds a-year; his habits were simple and unostentatious, though he was of a truly munificent disposition; and he had not a large and expensive family—his only child being Mr. Delamere. He had ever professed, and, as far as he had hitherto had an opportunity, proved himself to be a devoted, a most affectionate friend to Mr. Aubrey:—did not Providence, then, seem to point him out distinctly as one who should be applied to, to rescue from destruction a fallen friend? And why should Aubrey conjure up an array of imaginary obstacles, arising out of a diseased delicacy? And whom were such scruples reducing to destitution along with him!—his wife, his children, his devoted and noble-minded sister! But, alas! the thought of sweet Kate suggested another source of exquisite pain and embarrassment to Aubrey, who well knew the ardent and inextinguishable passion for her entertained by young Delamere. 'Twas true that, to pacify his father, and also not to grieve or harass Miss Aubrey by the constant attentions with which he would have otherwise followed her, he had consented to devote himself with great assiduity and ardor to his last year's studies at Oxford; yet was he by no means an infrequent visitor at Vivian Street, resolutely regardless of the earnest entreaties of Miss Aubrey, and even of her brother. Not that there was ever anything indelicate or obtrusive in his attentions;—how could it be? Alas! Kate really loved him, and it required no very great acuteness in Delamere to discover it. He was as fine, handsome a young fellow as you could see anywhere; frank, high-spirited, accomplished, with an exceedingly elegant deportment, and simple, winning manners—and could she but be touched with a lively sense of the noble disinterestedness of his attachment to her! I declare that Kate wrote him several letters, in bonâ fide dissuasion of his addresses, and which wore such a genuine and determined air of repulsion, as would have staggered most men; but young Delamere cared not one straw for any of them: let Kate vary her tone as she pleased, he told her simply that he had sent them to his mother, who said they were very good letters indeed; so he would make a point of reading all she would send him, and so forth. When Kate, with too solemn an emphasis to be mistaken or encountered with raillery, assured him that nothing upon earth should prevail upon her to quit her present station in her brother's family, at all events until he had completely surmounted all his troubles, Delamere, with looks of fond admiration, would reply that it signified nothing, as he was prepared to wait her pleasure, and submit to any caprice or unkindness in which her heart would allow her to indulge. I must own that poor Kate was, on more than one occasion of his exhibiting traits of delicate generosity towards her brother, so moved and melted towards her lover, that she could—shall I say it?—have sunk into his arms in silent and passionate acquiescence; for her heart had, indeed, long been really his.—But whither am I wandering?—To return, then—I say, that when Mr. Aubrey adverted for a moment to this state of things, was it not calculated a thousand-fold to enhance the difficulty of his applying to the father of Delamere? So indeed it was; and, torn with conflicting emotions and considerations of this kind, nearly the whole of the fortnight granted to him for deliberation had elapsed, before he could make up his mind to apply to Lord De la Zouch. At length, however, with a sort of calm desperation, he determined to do so; and when he had deposited in the Post-Office his letter—one in every line of which the noble and generous person to whom it was addressed might easily detect the writhings of its writer's wounded spirit—the quiverings of a broken heart—he looked indeed a melancholy object. The instant that, by dropping his letter into the box, he had irrecoverably parted with all control over it, and to Lord De la Zouch it must go, Aubrey felt as if he would have given the world to recall it. Never had he heaved so many profound sighs, and felt so utterly miserable and destitute, as during his walk homeward that afternoon. Those dear beings did not know of the step he had intended to take; nor did he tell them that he had taken it. When he saw his sister he felt sick at heart; and during the whole of the evening was so oppressed and subdued, that the faint anxious raillery of lovely Mrs. Aubrey and Kate, and the unconscious sportiveness of his children, served only to deepen the gloom which was around his spirit!—He had requested Lord De la Zouch to address his answer to him at the Temple; and sure enough, by return of post, Mr. Aubrey found lying on his desk, on reaching the Temple three or four mornings afterwards, a letter addressed, "Charles Aubrey, Esq., at —— Weasel's, Esq., No. 3, Pomegranate Court, Temple, London;" and franked, "De la Zouch."
"I shall return presently," said Mr. Aubrey to the clerk, with as much calmness as he could assume, having put the letter into his pocket, resolving to go into the Temple gardens and there read it, where any emotion which it might excite, would be unobserved. Having at length seated himself on a bench, under one of the old trees near the river, with a somewhat tremulous hand he took out, and opened the letter, and read as follows:—
"Fotheringham Castle, 18th July 18—.
"My very dear Aubrey,