The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope [good story books to read .txt] 📗

they are there. What can be more natural? Everybody goes out of town at Whitsuntide; and why shouldn’t we run down to the family place?”

“All very natural if you can manage it, mother.”

“And you’ll come?”

“If Marie Melmotte goes, I’ll be there at any rate for one day and night,” said Felix.

His mother thought that, for him, the promise had been graciously made.

XIII The Longestaffes

Mr. Adolphus Longestaffe, the squire of Caversham in Suffolk, and of Pickering Park in Sussex, was closeted on a certain morning for the best part of an hour with Mr. Melmotte in Abchurch Lane, had there discussed all his private affairs, and was about to leave the room with a very dissatisfied air. There are men⁠—and old men too, who ought to know the world⁠—who think that if they can only find the proper Medea to boil the cauldron for them, they can have their ruined fortunes so cooked that they shall come out of the pot fresh and new and unembarrassed. These great conjurors are generally sought for in the City; and in truth the cauldrons are kept boiling though the result of the process is seldom absolute rejuvenescence. No greater Medea than Mr. Melmotte had ever been potent in money matters, and Mr. Longestaffe had been taught to believe that if he could get the necromancer even to look at his affairs everything would be made right for him. But the necromancer had explained to the squire that property could not be created by the waving of any wand or the boiling of any cauldron. He, Mr. Melmotte, could put Mr. Longestaffe in the way of realising property without delay, of changing it from one shape into another, or could find out the real market value of the property in question; but he could create nothing. “You have only a life interest, Mr. Longestaffe.”

“No; only a life interest. That is customary with family estates in this country, Mr. Melmotte.”

“Just so. And therefore you can dispose of nothing else. Your son, of course, could join you, and then you could sell either one estate or the other.”

“There is no question of selling Caversham, sir. Lady Pomona and I reside there.”

“Your son will not join you in selling the other place?”

“I have not directly asked him; but he never does do anything that I wish. I suppose you would not take Pickering Park on a lease for my life.”

“I think not, Mr. Longestaffe. My wife would not like the uncertainty.”

Then Mr. Longestaffe took his leave with a feeling of outraged aristocratic pride. His own lawyer would almost have done as much for him, and he need not have invited his own lawyer as a guest to Caversham⁠—and certainly not his own lawyer’s wife and daughter. He had indeed succeeded in borrowing a few thousand pounds from the great man at a rate of interest which the great man’s head clerk was to arrange, and this had been effected simply on the security of the lease of a house in town. There had been an ease in this, an absence of that delay which generally took place between the expression of his desire for money and the acquisition of it⁠—and this had gratified him. But he was already beginning to think that he might pay too dearly for that gratification. At the present moment, too, Mr. Melmotte was odious to him for another reason. He had condescended to ask Mr. Melmotte to make him a director of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway, and he⁠—Adolphus Longestaffe of Caversham⁠—had had his request refused! Mr. Longestaffe had condescended very low. “You have made Lord Alfred Grendall one!” he had said in a complaining tone. Then Mr. Melmotte explained that Lord Alfred possessed peculiar aptitudes for the position. “I’m sure I could do anything that he does,” said Mr. Longestaffe. Upon this Mr. Melmotte, knitting his brows and speaking with some roughness, replied that the number of directors required was completed. Since he had had two duchesses at his house Mr. Melmotte was beginning to feel that he was entitled to bully any mere commoner, especially a commoner who could ask him for a seat at his board.

Mr. Longestaffe was a tall, heavy man, about fifty, with hair and whiskers carefully dyed, whose clothes were made with great care, though they always seemed to fit him too tightly, and who thought very much of his personal appearance. It was not that he considered himself handsome, but that he was specially proud of his aristocratic bearing. He entertained an idea that all who understood the matter would perceive at a single glance that he was a gentleman of the first water, and a man of fashion. He was intensely proud of his position in life, thinking himself to be immensely superior to all those who earned their bread. There were no doubt gentlemen of different degrees, but the English gentleman of gentlemen was he who had land, and family title-deeds, and an old family place, and family portraits, and family embarrassments, and a family absence of any useful employment. He was beginning even to look down upon peers, since so many men of much less consequence than himself had been made lords; and, having stood and been beaten three or four times for his county, he was of opinion that a seat in the House was rather a mark of bad breeding. He was a silly man, who had no fixed idea that it behoved him to be of use to anyone; but, yet, he had compassed a certain nobility of feeling. There was very little that his position called upon him to do, but there was much that it forbad him to do. It was not allowed to him to be close in money matters. He could leave his tradesmen’s bills unpaid till the men were clamorous, but he could not question the items in their accounts. He could be tyrannical to his servants, but he could not make inquiry as to the consumption of his wines in the servants’ hall. He