About this time I began to take personal interest in the affairs of the neighbourhood, though my own were now of a nature to engross my attention. By my grandfather's death, I had recently come into the enjoyment of the small inheritance which has sufficed to the happiness of my life; and, renouncing the profession for which I was educated, settled myself permanently at Lexley.
Well do I remember the melancholy face with which the good old rector, the very first evening we spent together, related to me in confidence that he had three years' dues in arrear to him from Lexley Hall; but that so wretched was said to be the state of Sir Laurence's embarrassments, that, for more than a year, his dread of arrest had kept him a close prisoner in his house in London.
"We have not seen him here these six years!" observed Dr Whittingham; "and I doubt whether he will ever again set foot in the county. Since an execution was put into the Hall, he has never crossed the threshold, and I suspect never will. Far better were he to dispose of the property at once! Dismembered as it is, what pleasure can it afford him? And, since he is unlikely to marry and have heirs, there is less call upon him to retain this remaining relic of family pride; yet I am assured—nay, have good reason to know, that he has refused a very liberal offer on the part of Mr Sparks. Malicious people do say, by the way, that it was by the advice of Sparks's favourite attorneys the execution was enforced, and that no means have been left unattempted to disgust him with the place. Yet he is firm, you see, and persists in disappointing his creditors, and depriving himself of the comforts of life, merely in order that he may die, as his fathers did before him—the lord of Lexley Hall!"
"I don't wonder!" said I, with the dawning sentiments of a landed proprietor—"'Tis a splendid old house, even in its present state of degradation; and, by Jove! I honour his pertinacity."
Thus put upon the scent, I sometimes fancied I could detect wistful looks on the part of my prosperous neighbour of the Park, when, in the course of Dr Whittingham's somewhat lengthy sermons, he directed his eyes towards the carved old Gothic tribune, containing the family-pew of the Althams, in the parish church; and, whenever I happened to encounter him in the neighbourhood of the Hall, his face was so pointedly averted from the house, as if the mere object were an offence. I could not but wonder at his vexation; being satisfied in my own mind, that sooner or later the remaining heritage of the spendthrift must fall to his share.
Judge, therefore, of my surprise, when one fine morning, as I sauntered into the village, I found the whole population gathered in groups on the little market-place, and discovered from the incoherent exclamations of the crowd, that "the new proprietor of the Hall had just driven through in a chaise-and-four!"
Yes—"the new proprietor!" The place was sold! The good doctor's prediction was verified. Sir Laurence was never more to return to Lexley Hall!
The satisfaction of the villagers almost equalled their surprise on finding that General Stanley was their new landlord. It suited them much better that there should be two families settled on the property than one; and as it was pretty generally reported, that, in the event of Sparks becoming the purchaser, he intended to demolish the old house, and reconsolidate the estate around his own more commodious mansion, they were right glad to find it rescued from such a sentence—General Stanley, who was the father of a family, would probably settle the hall on one of his daughters, after placing it in the state of repair so much needed.
When the chaise-and-four returned, therefore, a few hours afterwards, through the village, the General was loudly cheered by his subjects. His partiality for the place was so well known at Lexley, that already these people seemed to behold in him the guardian of a monument so long the object of their pride.
For my own part, nothing surprised me so much in the business as that Sparks should have allowed the purchase to slip through his fingers. It was worth thrice as much to him as to any body else. It was the keystone of his property. It was the one thing needful to render Lexley Park the most perfect seat in the county. But I was not slow in learning (for every thing transpires in a small country neighbourhood) that whatever my surprise on finding that the old Hall had changed its master, that of Sparks was far more overwhelming; that he was literally frantic on finding himself frustrated in expectations which formed the leading interest of his declining years. For the progress of time which had made me a man and a landed proprietor, had converted the stout active squire into an infirm old man; and it was his absorbing wish to die sole owner of the whole property to which the baronets of the Altham family were born.