CHAPTER XVIII.
WHILE the conversation just narrated took place, Kenelm had walked
forth to pay a visit to Will Somers. All obstacles to Will's marriage
were now cleared away; the transfer of lease for the shop had been
signed, and the banns were to be published for the first time on the
following Sunday. We need not say that Will was very happy. Kenelm
then paid a visit to Mrs. Bowles, with whom he stayed an hour. On
reentering the Park, he saw Travers, walking slowly, with downcast
eyes and his hands clasped behind him (his habit when in thought). He
did not observe Kenelm's approach till within a few feet of him, and
he then greeted his guest in listless accents, unlike his usual
cheerful tones.
"I have been visiting the man you have made so happy," said Kenelm.
"Who can that be?"
"Will Somers. Do you make so many people happy that your reminiscence
of them is lost in their number?"
Travers smiled faintly, and shook his head.
Kenelm went on. "I have also seen Mrs. Bowles, and you will be
pleased to hear that Tom is satisfied with his change of abode: there
is no chance of his returning to Graveleigh; and Mrs. Bowles took very
kindly to my suggestion that the little property you wish for should
be sold to you, and, in that case, she would remove to Luscombe to be
near her son."
"I thank you much for your thought of me," said Travers, "and the
affair shall be seen to at once, though the purchase is no longer
important to me. I ought to have told you three days ago, but it
slipped my memory, that a neighbouring squire, a young fellow just
come into his property, has offered to exchange a capital farm, much
nearer to my residence, for the lands I hold in Graveleigh, including
Saunderson's farm and the cottages: they are quite at the outskirts of
my estate, but run into his, and the exchange will be advantageous to
both. Still I am glad that the neighbourhood should be thoroughly rid
of a brute like Tom Bowles."
"You would not call him brute if you knew him; but I am sorry to hear
that Will Somers will be under another landlord."
"It does not matter, since his tenure is secured for fourteen years."
"What sort of man is the new landlord?"
"I don't know much of him. He was in the army till his father died,
and has only just made his appearance in the county. He has, however,
already earned the character of being too fond of the other sex: it is
well that pretty Jessie is to be safely married."
Travers then relapsed into a moody silence from which Kenelm found it
difficult to rouse him. At length the latter said kindly,--
"My dear Mr. Travers, do not think I take a liberty if I venture to
guess that something has happened this morning which troubles or vexes
you. When that is the case, it is often a relief to say what it is,
even to a confidant so unable to advise or to comfort as myself."
"You are a good fellow, Chillingly, and I know not, at least in these
parts, a man to whom I would unburden myself more freely. I am put
out, I confess; disappointed unreasonably, in a cherished wish, and,"
he added, with a slight laugh, "it always annoys me when I don't have
my own way."
"So it does me."
"Don't you think that George Belvoir is a very fine young man?"
"Certainly."
"/I/ call him handsome; he is steadier, too, than most men of his age,
and of his command of money; and yet he does not want spirit nor
knowledge of life. To every advantage of rank and fortune he adds the
industry and the ambition which attain distinction in public life."
"Quite true. Is he going to withdraw from the election after all?"
"Good heavens, no!"
"Then how does he not let you have your own way?"
"It is not he," said Travers, peevishly; "it is Cecilia. Don't you
understand that George is precisely the husband I would choose for
her; and this morning came a very well written manly letter from him,
asking my permission to pay his addresses to her."
"But that is your own way so far."
"Yes, and here comes the balk. Of course I had to refer it to
Cecilia, and she positively declines, and has no reasons to give; does
not deny that George is good-looking and sensible, that he is a man of
whose preference any girl might be proud; but she chooses to say she
cannot love him, and when I ask why she cannot love him, has no other
answer than that 'she cannot say.' It is too provoking."
"It is provoking," answered Kenelm; "but then Love is the most
dunderheaded of all the passions; it never will listen to reason. The
very rudiments of logic are unknown to it. 'Love has no wherefore,'
says one of those Latin poets who wrote love-verses called elegies,--a
name which we moderns appropriate to funeral dirges. For my own part,
I can't understand how any one can be expected voluntarily to make up
his mind to go out of his mind. And if Miss Travers cannot go out of
her mind because George Belvoir does, you could not argue her into
doing so if you talked till doomsday."
Travers smiled in spite of himself, but he answered gravely,
"Certainly, I would not wish Cissy to marry any man she disliked, but
she does not dislike George; no girl could: and where that is the
case, a girl so sensible, so affectionate, so well brought up, is sure
to love, after marriage, a thoroughly kind and estimable man,
especially when she has no previous attachment,--which, of course,
Cissy never had. In fact, though I do not wish to force my daughter's
will, I am not yet disposed to give up my own. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly."
"I am the more inclined to a marriage so desirable in every way,
because when Cissy comes out in London, which she has not yet done,
she is sure to collect round her face and her presumptive inheritance
all the handsome fortune-hunters and titled /vauriens/; and if in love
there is no wherefore, how can I be sure that she may not fall in love
with a scamp?"
"I think you may be sure of that," said Kenelm. "Miss Travers has too
much mind."
"Yes, at present; but did you not say that in love people go out of
their mind?"
"True! I forgot that."
"I am not then disposed to dismiss poor George's offer with a decided
negative, and yet it would be unfair to mislead him by encouragement.
In fact, I'll be hanged if I know how to reply."
"You think Miss Travers does not dislike George Belvoir, and if she
saw more of him may like him better, and it would be good for her as
well as for him not to put an end to that, chance?"
"Exactly so."
"Why not then write: 'My dear George,--You have my best wishes, but my
daughter does not seem disposed to marry at present. Let me consider
your letter not written, and continue on the same terms as we were
before.' Perhaps, as George knows Virgil, you might find your own
schoolboy recollections of that poet useful here, and add, /Varium et
mutabile semper femina/; hackneyed, but true."
"My dear Chillingly, your suggestion is capital. How the deuce at
your age have you contrived to know the world so well?"
Kenelm answered in the pathetic tones so natural to his voice, "By
being only a looker-on; alas!"
Leopold Travers felt much relieved after he had written his reply to
George. He had not been quite so ingenuous in his revelation to
Chillingly as he may have seemed. Conscious, like all proud and fond
fathers, of his daughter's attractions, he was not without some
apprehension that Kenelm himself might entertain an ambition at
variance with that of George Belvoir: if so, he deemed it well to put
an end to such ambition while yet in time: partly because his interest
was already pledged to George; partly because, in rank and fortune,
George was the better match; partly because George was of the same
political party as himself,--while Sir Peter, and probably Sir Peter's
heir, espoused the opposite side; and partly also because, with all
his personal liking to Kenelm, Leopold Travers, as a very sensible,
practical man of the world, was not sure that a baronet's heir who
tramped the country on foot in the dress of a petty farmer, and
indulged pugilistic propensities in martial encounters with stalwart
farriers, was likely to make a safe husband and a comfortable
son-in-law. Kenelm's words, and still more his manner, convinced
Travers that any apprehensions of rivalry that he had previously
conceived were utterly groundless.
