第47章

Then he thought of the 60,000 pounds which he himself destined for his girl.If the man were to his liking there would be money enough.Though he had been careful to save money, he was not a greedy man, even for his children.Should his daughter insist on marrying this man, he could take care that she should never want a sufficient income.

As a first step,--a thing to be done almost at once,--he must take her away from London.It was now July, and the custom of the family was that the house in Manchester Square should be left for two months, and that the flitting should take place in about the middle of August.Mr Wharton usually liked to postpone the flitting, as he also liked to hasten the return.But now it was a question whether he had not better start at once,--start somewhither, and probably for a much longer period than the usual vacation.Should he take the bull by the horns and declare his purpose of living for the next twelvemonth at ; well, it did not much matter where, Dresden, he thought, was a long way off, and would do as well as any place.Then it occurred to him that his cousin, Sir Alured was in town, and that he had better see his cousin before he came to any decision.They were, as usual, expected at Wharton Hall this autumn, and that arrangement could not be abandoned without explanation.

Sir Alured Wharton was a baronet, with a handsome old family place on the Wye, in Hertfordshire, whose forefathers had been baronets since baronets were first created, and whose earlier forefathers had lived at Wharton Hall much before that time.It may be imagined, therefore, that Sir Alured was proud of his name, of his estate, and of his rank.But there were drawbacks to his happiness.As regarded his name, it was to descend to a nephew whom he specially disliked,--and with good cause.As to his estate, delightful as it was in many respects, it was hardly sufficient to maintain his position with that plentiful hospitality which he would have loved;--and other property he had none.And as to his rank, he had almost become ashamed of it, since,--as he was wont to declare was now the case,--every prosperous tallow-maker throughout the country was made a baronet as a matter of course.So he lived at home through the year with his wife and daughters, not pretending to the luxury of the season for which his modest three or four thousand a year did not suffice;--and so living, apart from all the friction of clubs, parliaments, and mixed society, he did veritably believe that his dear country was going utterly to the dogs.He was so staunch in politics, that during the doings of the last quarter of a century,--from the repeal of the Corn Laws down to the Ballot,--he had honestly declared one side to be as bad as the other.

Thus he felt that all his happiness was to be drawn from the past.There was nothing of joy or glory to which he could look forward either on behalf of his country or his family.His nephew,--and alas, his heir,--was a needy spendthrift, with whom he would hold no communication.The family settlement for his wife and daughters would leave them but poorly off; and though he did struggle to save something, the duty of living as Sir Alured Wharton of Wharton Hall should live made those struggles very ineffective.He was a melancholy, proud, ignorant man, who could not endure a personal liberty, and who thought the assertion of social equality on the part of men of lower rank to amount to the taking of a personal liberty;--who read little or nothing, and thought that he knew the history of his country because he was aware that Charles I had had his head cut off, and that the Georges had come from Hanover.If Charles I had never had had his head cut off, and if the Georges had never come from Hanover, the Whartons would now probably be great people and Britain a great nation.But the Evil One had been allowed to prevail, and everything had gone astray, and Sir Alured now had nothing of this world to console him but a hazy retrospect of past glories, and a delight in the beauty of his own river, his own park, and his own house.Sir Alured, with all his foibles, and with all his faults, was a pure-minded, simple gentleman, who could not tell a lie, who could not do a wrong, and who was earnest in his desire to make those who were dependent on him comfortable, and, if possible, happy.Once a year he came up to London for a week, to see his lawyers, and get measured for a coat, and go to the dentist.These were the excuses which he gave, but it was fancied by some that his wig was the great moving cause.Sir Alured and Mr Wharton were second cousins, and close friends.Sir Alured trusted his cousin altogether in all things, believing him to be the great legal luminary of Great Britain, and Mr Wharton returned his cousin's affection, entertaining something akin to reverence for the man who was the head of his family.He dearly loved Sir Alured,--and loved Sir Alured's wife and two daughters.Nevertheless, the second week at Wharton Hall became very tedious to him, and the fourth, fifth and sixth weeks frightful with ennui.

Perhaps it was with some unconscious dread of this tedium that he made a sudden suggestion to Sir Alured in reference to Dresden.