The Country Gentleman (3 page)

Mrs. Insel was roused from these thoughts by a fresh burst of laughter from her friend, who had lifted her pen and sat gazing at her. “It has just occurred to me to wonder,” she said, “what manner of person Mr. Highet, Gentleman, might be. Unless he is a saint, I cannot suppose he would have been very happy to meet his new neighbours—had we accepted, that is to say. He would very probably have done what he could to make Cheshire a
living Hell for us. Careless of my great uncle not to foresee that.”

“Perhaps Mr. Highet is unaware of the terms of the will,” Maria suggested.

“Perhaps. I wonder. My great uncle seems to have had little doubt he would fulfill its conditions. From what Mr. Dent writes here, he made no provision for the case of his refusing.”

“Indeed! That does sound rather as if they had agreed upon it,” Maria remarked. “But possibly Mr. Highet is quite settled in his ways. He may be a country gentleman altogether. How old was Mr. Herbert Guilfoyle on his decease?”

“I should think at least five-and-seventy. Perhaps as old as eighty.”

“Then very likely the neighbour for whom he shows so marked a partiality is elderly as well. The observed habits of a lifetime must have reassured Mr. Guilfoyle.”

Anne conceded the likelihood of this explanation and was about to return to her letter when she lifted her pen again and said, “In either case, figure to yourself the pleasure my refusal must occasion. I feel positively virtuous, bringing an old man such satisfaction. I envision him rubbing his frail hands together with glee, then perhaps calling for a horse—if he is still able to ride—and venturing forth to survey his new property.”

“I see him summoning his good wife, a little younger than himself it may be, and obliging her to guess what has occurred.”

“Which she will never guess in a million guesses, he of course assures her—”

“But which, shrewder than he, she will divine at once. Oh yes, Anne, indeed they will be gratified.”

“And let us wish them joy,” Anne murmured, finally bending her head and writing in earnest.

But her pen had not scratched out three lines before Dolphim reappeared, this time bearing a card.

“Ensley,” thought Maria to herself; but,

“The very thing,” Anne announced, when she had read it. “Mr. Dent, in person. Pray show him in, Dolphim.” She crumpled up the letter, then rose to resume the armchair she had vacated before.

Mr. Dent was a white-haired, cherub-cheeked man, benign and compact, much given to hurrying both in speech and movement. He hurried into the room now, his neat head ducking briskly by way of greeting. Anne had known him since she was ten, for he had been her father’s solicitor, then her mother’s, before he was her own. He acted for her in every kind of business: It was he who had first found the house in Holies Street, he who negotiated yearly with the owner for its lease, he who had explained to her the terms of her mother’s will, he who oversaw its execution. Mr. Dent had had white hair and had hurried for as long as Anne could remember. She now returned his bow cordially, for she liked him; but she was surprised to see, on looking more closely into his face, that his cherub cheeks sagged, and his kind eyes were pink.

“Are you well, sir?” she asked seriously, waving him into a chair.

Mr. Dent thanked her, bowed to Mrs. Insel, and sat, immediately drawing from his pocket a large white handkerchief, with which he swabbed his damp brow. “Not well,” he then gasped out, speaking as it seemed with the utmost difficulty.

Anne stood and pulled the bell. “I shall have some orgeat fetched; or do you prefer a cordial?”

Mr. Dent, looking down and again mopping his brow with his left hand, signalled no with his right.

“The heat…” Mrs. Insel began vaguely.

“Exactly. The heat, sir, is very great. I am afraid it must have affected you. Perfectly natural, but—”

At this moment Dolphim, an elderly man himself, appeared, gave an assessing glance to their guest, and vanished again on his commission.

But Mr. Dent repeated his negative gesture, stuffed his handkerchief away, and, with a visible effort, said, “Miss Guilfoyle, I must beg to speak with you privately.”

Anne, tentatively reseating herself, smiled and replied, “Pray consider that we are private, sir, for I have no secret from Mrs. Insel. Indeed, I know what business you are come upon. We were speaking of it just now. I had begun a letter to you—”

But she fell silent, for Mr. Dent had again dropped his head into his left hand and with his right was waving frantically for her to stop.

“Not that, not that,” he managed to squeak out.

Mrs. Insel and Miss Guilfoyle exchanged a glance: Mr. Dent was clearly worse, terribly agitated, perhaps about to faint. “Hartshorn,” Anne mouthed silently, and Maria at once left the room to fetch it.

“Good,” breathed Mr. Dent, and began, “I am not ill. I beg you will not alarm yourself—”

He was interrupted by Dolphim, who set down a tray and departed. Anne poured a glass of cool orgeat, gave it to the visitor, and forbade him to speak till he had drunk it all, silently deploring the while that social code which teaches men (even old men) to conceal their frailties. Not until Mr. Dent had handed her his empty glass would she resume her chair; and even then she wished Maria would
return with the hartshorn, for Mr. Dent looked very poorly indeed.

“Miss Guilfoyle,” he brought forth, after a deep, audible breath.

“Mr. Dent,” she answered, meaning to beg him not to continue till Maria rejoined them; but,

“You are ruined,” he at last brought forth, “and I am the cause of it.”

This said, he appeared to breathe more easily; Anne did not. “I beg your pardon?” she said, but at the same time felt her heart begin to race. “I did not understand you.”

“I say, you are ruined. Your fortune, your inheritance…” One hand fumbled for his handkerchief, the other clutched expressively the air. “Gone,” he said.

“Gone?” Anne felt the colour drain from her cheeks, her forehead suddenly go moist and cold. Just then Maria entered, started to move towards Mr. Dent, caught sight of Anne and changed courses. But by the time she reached her, Anne had begun to feel her senses returning. Waving away the hartshorn, she straightened and hoarsely murmured, “Maria, Mr. Dent says—” Her throat seemed to close. She stopped, smiled dazedly, and said, “I cannot say it.” She swallowed and tried again. “Mr. Dent says my fortune is gone.”

Mrs. Insel turned to him questioningly, at the same time holding and chafing Anne’s chilly hands.

“Miss Guilfoyle, are you certain you desire…?” His voice trailed away interrogatively. He seemed stronger now that his news had been broke.

“No secret from Maria,” Anne repeated feebly.

“As you wish it. Let me explain—but before that, pray allow me to say, that if I could change by any act the story
I have to tell—if even my own death could alter it a little—I would not shrink from that act for all the world. You behold me a broken man, Miss Guilfoyle, for you must comprehend—well, but I had best begin at the beginning.”

And so he did. Gradually recovering, if not his vigour, at least his composure, Mr. Dent recalled to Miss Guilfoyle a certain merchant ship, the
Maidstone
, of which he had spoke to her some seven months before. The ship then preparing for a trading journey to the East, and Mr. Dent having received thoroughly reliable information as to its excellent prospects for doubling, nay perhaps trebling, the money of those who cared to invest in it, he had taken the opportunity to increase the wealth not only of Miss Guilfoyle but of some half-dozen of his clients, and for that matter, himself (“But of this I say nothing, this I pass over, mentioning it only to demonstrate, to prove…” his voice trailed away), by putting into this ship the better part, in a few cases all, of their fortunes. He hoped Miss Guilfoyle recalled giving her consent?

Miss Guilfoyle nodded.

Good. Now then, the
Maidstone
had indeed done well; a report received two months ago indicated the likelihood, even the certainty, of the voyage’s fulfilling Mr. Dent’s most sanguine hopes. A month ago she was reported speeding towards home. But— But—

Mr. Dent fortified himself with another glassful of orgeat.

But. The ladies had surely heard of the recent savage acts of certain Algerine pirates off the Barbary coast, in which English vessels were attacked and sunk, their crews murdered. To be brief, then, such had been the fate of the
Maidstone
. This morning early came the report: the
ship lost, all hands lost, and the precious cargo…Alas, Mr. Dent hardly needed to say…

By now Anne had recovered enough to think. Indeed she knew well of the insults practised by the Algerines on English merchants. An expedition was even now preparing under Lord Exmouth to retaliate. She and Ensley had, not a se’ennight ago, discussed what effect the raid would likely have on English relations with Turkey. But how little she had dreamed, then—! All her fortune sunk!

Maria was protesting, “But was not it insured? Surely Lloyd’s…?”

Dent shook his head. “I assumed as you do…The owners assured me…But in fact—” He fell silent, then spoke again. “Naturally I reserved some part of your funds to meet your needs while the ship was yet at sea. Of which funds, some four— Some four—” Mr. Dent’s voice caught in his throat; he coughed, drank, coughed again. “Some four hundred pounds still remain.”

“Four hundred?” Anne echoed, almost inaudibly. It was a pittance, a nothing. Twenty pounds a year to live on, and Maria to keep as well, not to mention—

“If I had any money,” Mr. Dent was saying, “God knows I would give it you gladly. When I think of Sir James’ trust in me, when I recollect—” Mr. Dent shuddered and could not go on. Anne understood for the first time that his eyes were pink from crying. Probably this was not the first call of this nature he had made that morning. Her initial flare of anger at him softened: If she knew anything, she knew that Mr. Dent wished her nothing but good. If he had erred, he had done so from a generous wish to enrich her, nothing else. The realization of what his feelings must be eased hers a little.

“Dear sir,” she said in a low tone, “I beg you will not
distress yourself. I am fully conscious of your many kind acts—”

But as Mr. Dent looked like weeping again, she stopped. “I recommend to you, Miss Guilfoyle,” he said, swallowing hard, “that you remove to Northamptonshire at once and take up residence at Overton again. Your Uncle Frederick will, I am certain, gladly receive you, and I believe that if you remove at once, I can persuade the owners of this house to restore to you the balance…” His voice faded away again before he added, as delicately as possible, “You see, to stop here any longer would be a gross extravagance, given your—given your position.” Here Mr. Dent once more produced his capacious handkerchief and this time buried his whole face in its folds.

Maria had never ceased to hold Anne’s hand. Now she squeezed it valiantly and whispered, “Do not think of me, my dear. I shall do very well.” For, as anyone could tell from the colour of Mrs. Insel’s face, she lived entirely dependent of Miss Guilfoyle.

Anne straightened. “Nonsense,” she said. “I had rather take up pickpocketing than live with Frederick. No doubt he would take me in—and you too,” she added, with an answering squeeze to Maria, though in truth she doubted it very much, “But it is not to be thought of. Mr. Frederick Guilfoyle deeply insulted my father, my mother, and me. I will not return to Overton.”

What she was really thinking as she made this proud declaration, was that she had to provide not only for herself and Maria, but for Dolphim, and her abigail, Lizzie, and Cook, and Mrs. Dolphim, who kept house, and the parlour-maid, Minna, and John Coachman, and that little Sally he had just taken to wife, and…The world
seemed to waver before her. To think she had waked that morning with nothing on her mind save breakfast!

“If you would consider it,” Mr. Dent was saying, his voice brimming with anguished shyness, “Mrs. Dent and I would be extremely honoured by your presence in our household. Both your presences,” he added to Mrs. Insel, though obviously wondering at the same time he said it where on earth he would put these ladies should they accept. “It is only the most humble cottage in—”

“Bless you, Mr. Dent,” Anne broke in firmly, “but we could not think of so burdening you. We will never forget your generous offer.”

“But in that case,” Mr. Dent objected, though ceasing to urge his most recent suggestion, “where in the world will you live?”

Anne was silent, thinking. Could they traipse about like gypsies, stopping first with one friend, then another? It might answer for the summer, but—how would she pay the servants, how cover the expense of travelling? And how long could—

“Cheshire,” Maria Insel declared.

“My dear?”

“We must take your great uncle’s house in Cheshire.”

“Gracious God! I had completely forgot it,” Anne exclaimed.

“I too. Since this morning, I have no thought but…” Mr. Dent subsided. The truth was, unless his son assisted him, he was destitute.

Maria, for the moment the only one of the three not in danger of dissolving into tears, inquired as calmly as she could whether Mr. Dent had ever visited Linfield.

Mr. Dent had not. Mr. Herbert Guilfoyle had been in the habit of coming up to town once every five years (the
ladies heard this number with a shiver) to transact his business with Mr. Dent. In the most recent years, advancing age having made travel inadvisable, Mr. Guilfoyle had sent his steward, an excellent man by the name of Rand, if Mr. Dent’s memory served him.

But did Mr. Dent know anything of the property?

Only that it was a fair one, well run from the look of the proceeds (here Mr. Dent named a good figure of income likely to be seen in a year), a dairy farm in chief, he rather thought, with some dozen or fifteen tenant houses. Mr. Guilfoyle, a younger son and a lifelong bachelor, had bought it as a youth and there resided till his decease.

But the house? Had it a park? Gardens? A view? Any amenities?

Mr. Dent confessed his ignorance, but added that, since Mr. Guilfoyle had been an admirer of Robert Owen, the house was at the least likely to be healthful in its situation, and well maintained.