‘And as a man of the world, sir,’ said the incorrigible Jasper, ‘I trust you will excuse my saying that I scarcely care to be huddled and hustled into marrying I don’t know whom, unless at a very heavy figure, as my stock-broker, when I was fool enough to go on the Exchange, and burned my fingers over time-bargains, used to say. I can’t think why you should mind my coming next, as concerns Carbery Chase here.’
This was a home question which, if arraigned before the stern tribunal of Minos and Rhadamanthus, Sir Sykes would not have found it easy to answer. He was in the habit of telling himself that Jasper was not a successor to whom the honour and welfare of a great family could with prudence be intrusted. Were he master, the old oaks in the Chase might soon be gambled down from their prescriptive loftiness, and mortgages might spring up like mushrooms. Here was a noble estate unencumbered, like some big diamond without a flaw to mar its lustre, and he was asked to let his spendthrift son inherit as of right. There were Lucy and Blanche to be provided for. They would marry, doubtless, and their husbands would probably expect that the brides’ hands should be heavy with much gold. The bulk of the property would devolve on Captain Denzil; but then it might be tied up with an ingenious testamentary rigour that should keep the future baronet in legal leading-strings through life. Sir Sykes cherished too lively a recollection of the shifts and straits of his own outlawed progenitor Sir Harbottle, to wish the reins of government to pass unreservedly into Jasper’s unsteady hands.
But Sir Sykes had an unavowed motive for rejecting his son’s proposition. He was by no means sure how Enoch Wilkins of St Nicholas Poultney would receive such a suggestion. Mr Wilkins, that over-zealous pilot, who had insisted on assuming the guidance of affairs, might be furious at hearing that Jasper was to be promoted from heir-presumptive to heir-apparent. There was no alliance between the captain and the shrewd turf lawyer, from whom so much of his lightly expended cash had been extracted. Jasper by no means relished the elevation of Mr Wilkins to be his father’s Mentor and right-hand man. Mr Wilkins might guess that Sir Jasper would send his japanned deed-boxes elsewhere than to St Nicholas Poultney. And yet Sir Sykes could not venture to offend Mr Wilkins.
The conversation was protracted for some half-hour or more, since Sir Sykes was sincerely desirous to carry his point; but it languished by degrees, and involved, as conversations on important topics are in real life apt to do, frequent repetitions of some stock phrase or threadbare argument. Sir Sykes essayed threats, veiled ones of course, and not very comprehensible even to himself. Jasper, however, was very little moved by such threats. There are things that a gentleman cannot do, and assuredly one of them is to turn his only son out of doors because he declines a wife of the parent’s choosing. And to no other menace was the captain amenable. He should probably, as a result of his father’s displeasure, get no cheques for the next few months; but this stoppage of pocket-money could not much affect the happiness of a graceless prodigal who, had he once got a sufficient sum in his possession, would have turned his back at once on Carbery and all that belonged thereto.
Jasper, then, was singularly stubborn. He was in general as morally pliable as a jelly-fish, after the fashion of most so-called men of pleasure, but now he seemed for the nonce to have developed a backbone, and to be hard to bend. There was really some lurking sense of injury at his heart, and he felt on better terms with his own conscience than was often the case, as he resisted his father’s instances that he should marry Miss Willis, commence housekeeping on five thousand a year, and be a reformed character as well as a Benedict. He felt that all was not right, and was assured that a bride worth the taking would not be urged on his acceptance with such pertinacity.
‘I do not see,’ repeated Jasper again and again, ‘why I should be in a worse position than other fellows.’
From that formula, behind which, as behind a breastwork, he strongly intrenched himself nothing could drive him. It was not, as he explained with almost unnecessary candour, that he had any undue delicacy with regard to mercenary marriages; but that what he stipulated for was to be on a level with other spendthrifts of his own degree and set, with young Lord Hookham, with Lionel Rattlebury, and wild Lord Viscount Squandercash, and the rest. Entail the estate, so that it must pass to him, Jasper, and post-obits would become practicable, and money be easily raised; and then Miss Willis was welcome to be the partner of his joys and sorrows—such was Jasper’s simple train of reasoning. It was a heavy price, but he stood out for it.
Sir Sykes was not willing to pay the price, at the cost, it might be, of a second contest with Mr Enoch Wilkins, and the negotiation with his son came to no satisfactory conclusion. What was to be done? Hold had named a fortnight as the period of grace that he was disposed to grant; but the baronet was of opinion that it would not be politic to allow the time to expire without communicating with this man—who was in some sense his master. He would inform Hold of Captain Denzil’s unexpected obstinacy, and plead for a further delay, and—yes—he would send money. Money has often a wonderfully lenitive effect upon the temper, and its softening effects should be tried upon this buccaneering fellow.
Sir Sykes penned his letter, touching as lightly as he could on Jasper’s recalcitrancy, and expressing sanguine hopes for the future. He said nothing about the entail, which had been the subject of the haggling debate between himself and the captain. It would hardly be prudent to tell Hold of that, lest Jasper should find an unexpected ally to back his demand.
‘We had better, under the circumstances, give him, as I believe whale-fishers say, a little more line,’ wrote Sir Sykes in his confidential communication to Richard Hold, and he was weak enough to pride himself on his neat use of a nautical metaphor sure to tell with a seafaring man. And he signed a cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds, payable to Mr Richard Hold, or order, and inserted it in the letter, which he despatched by that night’s post. He could scarcely have done a more foolish thing.