CHAPTER VII.
WALTER VISITS ANOTHER OF HIS UNCLE'S FRIENDS.--MR. COURTLAND'S
STRANGE COMPLAINT.--WALTER LEARNS NEWS OF HIS FATHER, WHICH
SURPRISES HIM.--THE CHANGE IN HIS DESTINATION.
God's my life, did you ever hear the like, what a strange man is
this!
What you have possessed me withall, I'll discharge it amply.
--Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour.
Mr. Courtland's house was surrounded by a high wall, and stood at the
outskirts of the town. A little wooden door buried deep within the wall,
seemed the only entrance. At this Walter paused, and after twice applying
to the bell, a footman of a peculiarly grave and sanctimonious
appearance, opened the door.
In reply to Walter's inquiries, he informed him that Mr. Courtland was
very unwell, and never saw "Company."--Walter, however, producing from
his pocket-book the introductory letter given him by his father, slipped
it into the servant's hand, accompanied by half a crown, and begged to be
announced as a gentleman on very particular business.
"Well, Sir, you can step in," said the servant, giving way; "but my
master is very poorly, very poorly indeed."
"Indeed, I am sorry to hear it: has he been long so?"
"Going on for ten--years, sir!" replied the servant, with great gravity;
and opening the door of the house which stood within a few paces of the
wall, on a singularly flat and bare grass-plot, he showed him into a
room, and left him alone.
The first thing that struck Walter in this apartment, was its remarkable
lightness. Though not large, it had no less than seven windows. Two sides
of the wall, seemed indeed all window! Nor were these admittants of the
celestial beam-shaded by any blind or curtain,--
"The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day"
made itself thoroughly at home in this airy chamber. Nevertheless, though
so light, it seemed to Walter any thing but cheerful. The sun had
blistered and discoloured the painting of the wainscot, originally of a
pale sea-green; there was little furniture in the apartment; one table in
the centre, some half a dozen chairs, and a very small Turkey-carpet,
which did not cover one tenth part of the clean, cold, smooth, oak
boards, constituted all the goods and chattels visible in the room. But
what particularly added effect to the bareness of all within, was the
singular and laborious bareness of all without. From each of these seven
windows, nothing but a forlorn green flat of some extent was to be seen;
there was not a tree, or a shrub, or a flower in the whole expanse,
although by several stumps of trees near the house, Walter perceived that
the place had not always been so destitute of vegetable life.
While he was yet looking upon this singular baldness of scene, the
servant re-entered with his master's compliments, and a message that he
should be happy to see any relation of Mr. Lester.
Walter accordingly followed the footman into an apartment possessing
exactly the same peculiarities as the former one; viz. a most
disproportionate plurality of windows, a commodious scantiness of
furniture, and a prospect without, that seemed as if the house had been
built on the middle of Salisbury plain.
Mr. Courtland, himself a stout man, and still preserving the rosy hues
and comely features, though certainly not the same hilarious expression,
which Lester had attributed to him, sat in a large chair, close by the
centre window, which was open. He rose and shook Walter by the hand with
great cordiality.
"Sir, I am delighted to see you! How is your worthy uncle? I only wish he
were with you--you dine with me of course. Thomas, tell the cook to add a
tongue and chicken to the roast beef--no,--young gentleman, I will have
no excuse; sit down, sit down; pray come near the window; do you not find
it dreadfully close? not a breath of air? This house is so choked up;
don't you find it so, eh? Ah, I see, you can scarcely gasp."
"My dear Sir, you are mistaken; I am rather cold, on the contrary: nor
did I ever in my life see a more airy house than yours."
"I try to make it so, Sir, but I can't succeed; if you had seen what it
was, when I first bought it! a garden here, Sir; a copse there; a
wilderness, God wot! at the back: and a row of chesnut trees in the
front! You may conceive the consequence, Sir; I had not been long here,
not two years, before my health was gone, Sir, gone--the d--d vegetable
life sucked it out of me. The trees kept away all the air--I was nearly
suffocated, without, at first, guessing the cause. But at length, though
not till I had been withering away for five years, I discovered the
origin of my malady. I went to work, Sir; I plucked up the cursed garden,
I cut down the infernal chesnuts, I made a bowling green of the
diabolical wilderness, but I fear it is too late. I am dying by inches,--
have been dying ever since. The malaria has effectually tainted my
constitution."
Here Mr. Courtland heaved a deep sigh, and shook his head with a most
gloomy expression of countenance.
"Indeed, Sir," said Walter, "I should not, to look at you, imagine that
you suffered under any complaint. You seem still the same picture of
health, that my uncle describes you to have been when you knew him so
many years ago."
"Yes, Sir, yes; the confounded malaria fixed the colour to my cheeks; the
blood is stagnant, Sir. Would to God I could see myself a shade paler!--
the blood does not flow; I am like a pool in a citizen's garden, with a
willow at each corner;--but a truce to my complaints. You see, Sir, I am
no hypochondriac, as my fool of a doctor wants to persuade me: a
hypochondriac shudders at every breath of air, trembles when a door is
open, and looks upon a window as the entrance of death. But I, Sir, never
can have enough air; thorough draught or east wind, it is all the same to
me, so that I do but breathe. Is that like hypochondria?--pshaw! But tell
me, young gentleman, about your uncle; is he quite well,--stout,--
hearty,--does he breathe easily,--no oppression?"
"Sir, he enjoys exceedingly good health: he did please himself with the
hope that I should give him good tidings of yourself, and another of his
old friends whom I accidentally saw yesterday,--Sir Peter Hales."
"Hales, Peter Hales!--ah! a clever little fellow that: how delighted
Lester's good heart will be to hear that little Peter is so improved;--no
longer a dissolute, harum-scarum fellow, throwing away his money, and
always in debt. No, no; a respectable steady character, an excellent
manager, an active member of Parliament, domestic in private life,--Oh! a
very worthy man, Sir, a very worthy man!"
"He seems altered indeed, Sir," said Walter, who was young enough in the
world to be surprised at this eulogy; "but is still agreeable and fond of
anecdote. He told me of his race with you for a thousand guineas."
"Ah, don't talk of those days," said Mr. Courtland, shaking his head
pensively, "it makes me melancholy. Yes, Peter ought to recollect that,
for he has never paid me to this day; affected to treat it as a jest, and
swore he could have beat me if he would. But indeed it was my fault, Sir;
Peter had not then a thousand farthings in the world, and when he grew
rich, he became a steady character, and I did not like to remind him of
our former follies. Aha! can I offer you a pinch of snuff?--You look
feverish, Sir; surely this room must affect you, though you are too
polite to say so. Pray open that door, and then this window, and put your
chair right between the two. You have no notion how refreshing the
draught is."
Walter politely declined the proffered ague, and thinking he had now made
sufficient progress in the acquaintance of this singular non-
hypochondriac to introduce the subject he had most at heart, hastened to
speak of his father.
"I have chanced, Sir," said he, "very unexpectedly upon something that
once belonged to my poor father;" here he showed the whip. "I find from
the saddler of whom I bought it, that the owner was at your house some
twelve or fourteen years ago. I do not know whether you are aware that
our family have heard nothing respecting my father's fate for a
considerably longer time than that which has elapsed since you appear to
have seen him, if at least I may hope that he was your guest, and the
owner of this whip; and any news you can give me of him, any clue by
which he can possibly be traced, would be to us all--to me in particular-
-an inestimable obligation."
"Your father!" said Mr. Courtland. "Oh,--ay, your uncle's brother. What
was his Christian name?--Henry?"
"Geoffrey."
"Ay, exactly; Geoffrey! What, not been heard of?--his family not know
where he is? A sad thing, Sir; but he was always a wild fellow; now here,
now there, like a flash of lightning. But it is true, it is true, he did
stay a day here, several years ago, when I first bought the place. I can
tell you all about it;--but you seem agitated,--do come nearer the
window:--there, that's right. Well, Sir, it is, as I said, a great many
years ago,--perhaps fourteen,--and I was speaking to the landlord of the
Greyhound about some hay he wished to sell, when a gentleman rode into
the yard full tear, as your father always did ride, and in getting out of
his way I recognised Geoffrey Lester. I did not know him well--far from
it; but I had seen him once or twice with your uncle, and though he was a
strange pickle, he sang a good song, and was deuced amusing. Well, Sir, I
accosted him, and, for the sake of your uncle, I asked him to dine with
me, and take a bed at my new house. Ah! I little thought what a dear
bargain it was to be. He accepted my invitation, for I fancy--no offence,
Sir,--there were few invitations that Mr. Geoffrey Lester ever refused to
accept. We dined tete-a-tete,--I am an old bachelor, Sir,--and very
entertaining he was, though his sentiments seemed to me broader than
ever. He was capital, however, about the tricks he had played his
creditors,--such manoeuvres,--such escapes! After dinner he asked me if I
ever corresponded with his brother. I told him no; that we were very good
friends, but never heard from each other; and he then said, 'Well, I
shall surprise him with a visit shortly; but in case you should
unexpectedly have any communication with him, don't mention having seen
me; for, to tell you the truth, I am just returned from India, where I
should have scraped up a little money, but that I spent it as fast as I
got it. However, you know that I was always proverbially the luckiest
fellow in the world--(and so, Sir, your father was!)--and while I was in
India, I saved an old Colonel's life at a tiger-hunt; he went home
shortly afterwards, and settled in Yorkshire; and the other day on my
return to England, to which my ill-health drove me, I learned that my old
Colonel was really dead, and had left me a handsome legacy, with his
house in Yorkshire. I am now going down to Yorkshire to convert the
chattels into gold--to receive my money, and I shall then seek out my
good brother, my household gods, and, perhaps, though it's not likely,
settle into a sober fellow for the rest of my life.' I don't tell you,
young gentleman, that those were your father's exact words,--one can't
remember verbatim so many years ago;--but it was to that effect. He left
me the next day, and I never heard any thing more of him: to say the
truth, he was looking wonderfully yellow, and fearfully reduced. And I
fancied at the time, he could not live long; he was prematurely old, and
decrepit in body, though gay in spirit; so that I had tacitly imagined in
never hearing of him more--that he had departed life. But, good Heavens!
did you never hear of this legacy?"
"Never: not a word!" said Walter, who had listened to these particulars
in great surprise. "And to what part of Yorkshire did he say he was
going?"
"That he did not mention."
"Nor the Colonel's name?"
"Not as I remember; he might, but I think not. But I am certain that the
county was Yorkshire, and the gentleman, whatever was his name, was a
Colonel. Stay! I recollect one more particular, which it is lucky I do
remember. Your father in giving me, as I said before, in his own humorous
strain, the history of his adventures, his hair-breadth escapes from his
duns, the various disguises, and the numerous aliases he had assumed,
mentioned that the name he had borne in India, and by which, he assured
me, he had made quite a good character--was Clarke: he also said, by the
way, that he still kept to that name, and was very merry on the
advantages of having so common an one. 'By which,' he said wittily, 'he
could father all his own sins on some other Mr. Clarke, at the same time
that he could seize and appropriate all the merits of all his other
namesakes.' Ah, no offence; but he was a sad dog, that father of yours!
So you see that, in all probability, if he ever reached Yorkshire, it was
under the name of Clarke that he claimed and received his legacy."
"You have told me more," said Walter joyfully, "than we have heard since
his disappearance, and I shall turn my horses' heads northward to-morrow,
by break of day. But you say, 'if he ever reached Yorkshire,'--What
should prevent him?"
"His health!" said the non-hypochondriac, "I should not be greatly
surprised if--if--In short you had better look at the grave-stones by the
way, for the name of Clarke."
"Perhaps you can give me the dates, Sir," said Walter, somewhat cast down
from his elation.
"Ay! I'll see, I'll see, after dinner; the commonness of the name has its
disadvantages now. Poor Geoffrey!--I dare say there are fifty tombs, to
the memory of fifty Clarkes, between this and York. But come, Sir,
there's the dinner-bell."
Whatever might have been the maladies entailed upon the portly frame of
Mr. Courtland by the vegetable life of the departed trees, a want of
appetite was not among the number. Whenever a man is not abstinent from
rule, or from early habit, as in the case of Aram, Solitude makes its
votaries particularly fond of their dinner. They have no other event
wherewith to mark their day--they think over it, they anticipate it,
they nourish its soft idea with their imagination; if they do look
forward to any thing else more than dinner, it is--supper!
Mr. Courtland deliberately pinned the napkin to his waistcoat, ordered
all the windows to be thrown open, and set to work like the good Canon in
Gil Blas. He still retained enough of his former self, to preserve an
excellent cook; so far at least as the excellence of a she-artist goes;
and though most of his viands were of the plainest, who does not know
what skill it requires to produce an unexceptionable roast, or a
blameless boil? Talk of good professed cooks, indeed! they are plentiful
as blackberries: it is the good, plain cook, who is the rarity!
Half a tureen of strong soup; three pounds, at least, of stewed carp; all
the under part of a sirloin of beef; three quarters of a tongue; the
moiety of a chicken; six pancakes and a tartlet, having severally
disappeared down the jaws of the invalid,
"Et cuncta terrarum subacta
Praeter atrocem animum Catonis,"
[And everything of earth subdued,
except the resolute mind of Cato.]
he still called for two deviled biscuits and an anchovy!
When these were gone, he had the wine set on a little table by the
window, and declared that the air seemed closer than ever. Walter was no
longer surprised at the singular nature of the nonhypochondriac's
complaint.
Walter declined the bed that Mr. Courtland offered him--though his host
kindly assured him that it had no curtains, and that there was not a
shutter to the house--upon the plea of starting the next morning at
daybreak, and his consequent unwillingness to disturb the regular
establishment of the invalid: and Courtland, who was still an excellent,
hospitable, friendly man, suffered his friend's nephew to depart with
regret. He supplied him, however, by a reference to an old note-book,
with the date of the year, and even month, in which he had been favoured
by a visit from Mr. Clarke, who, it seemed, had also changed his
Christian name from Geoffrey, to one beginning with D--; but whether it
was David or Daniel the host remembered not. In parting with Walter,
Courtland shook his head, and observed:--"Entre nous, Sir, I fear this
may be a wildgoose chase. Your father was too facetious to confine
himself to fact--excuse me, Sir--and perhaps the Colonel and the legacy
were merely inventions--pour passer le temps--there was only one reason
indeed, that made me fully believe the story."
"What was that, Sir?" asked Walter, blushing deeply, at the universality
of that estimation his father had obtained.
"Excuse me, my young friend."
"Nay, Sir, let me press you."
"Why, then, Mr. Geoffrey Lester did not ask me to lend him any money."
The next morning, instead of repairing to the gaieties of the metropolis,
Walter had, upon this slight and dubious clue, altered his journey
northward, and with an unquiet yet sanguine spirit, the adventurous son
commenced his search after the fate of a father evidently so unworthy of
the anxiety he had excited.
