Things were not going on any better at Hamley Hall. Nothing had occurred to change the state of dissatisfied feeling into which the squire and his eldest son had respectively fallen; and the long continuance merely of dissatisfaction is sure of itself to deepen the feeling. Roger did all in his power to bring the father and son together; but sometimes wondered if it would not have been better to leave them alone; for they were falling into the habit of respectively making him their confidant, and so defining emotions and opinions which would have had less distinctness if they had been unexpressed. There was little enough relief in the daily life at the Hall to help them all to shake off the gloom; and it even told on the health of both the squire and Osborne. The squire became thinner, his skin as well as his clothes began to hang loose about him, and the freshness of his colour turned to red streaks, till his cheeks looked like Eardiston pippins, instead of resembling ‘a Katherine pear on the side that’s next the sun.’ Roger thought that his father sate indoors and smoked in his study more than was good for him, but it had become difficult to get him far afield; he was too much afraid of coming across some sign of the discontinued drainage works, or being irritated afresh by the sight of his depreciated timber. Osborne was wrapt up in the idea of arranging his poems for the press, and so working out his wish for independence. What with daily writing to his wife — taking his letters himself to a distant post-office, and receiving hers there — touching up his sonnets, &c., with fastidious care; and occasionally giving himself the pleasure of a visit to the Gibsons, and enjoying the society of the two pleasant girls there, he found little time for being with his father. Indeed Osborne was too self-indulgent or ‘sensitive,’ as he termed it, to bear well with the squire’s gloomy fits, or too frequent querulousness. The consciousness of his secret, too, made Osborne uncomfortable in his father’s presence. It was very well for all parties that Roger was not ‘sensitive,’ for, if he had been, there were times when it would have been hard to bear little spurts of domestic tyranny, by which his father strove to assert his power over both his sons. One of these occurred very soon after the night of the Hollingford charity-ball.
Roger had induced his father to come out with him; and the squire had, on his son’s suggestion, taken with him his long unused spud. The two had wandered far afield; perhaps the elder man had found the unwonted length of exercise too much for him, for, as he approached the house, on his return, he became what nurses call in children ‘fractious,’ and ready to turn on his companion for every remark he made. Roger understood the case by instinct, as it were, and bore it all with his usual sweetness of temper. They entered the house by the front door; it lay straight on their line of march. On the old cracked yellow-marble slab, there lay a card with Lord Hollingford’s name on it, which Robinson, evidently on the watch for their return, hastened out of his pantry to deliver to Roger.
‘His lordship was very sorry not to see you, Mr. Roger, and his lordship left a note for you. Mr. Osborne took it, I think, when he passed through, I asked his lordship if he would like to see Mr Osborne, who was indoors, as I thought. But his lordship said he was pressed for time, and told me to make his excuses.’
‘Didn’t he ask for me?’ growled the squire.
‘No, sir; I can’t say as his lordship did. He would never have thought of Mr. Osborne, sir, if I hadn’t named him. It was Mr. Roger he seemed so keen after.’
‘Very odd,’ said the squire. Roger said nothing, although he naturally felt some curiosity. He went into the drawing-room, not quite aware that his father was following him. Osborne sate at a table near the fire, pen in hand, looking over one of his poems, and dotting the i’s, crossing the t’s, and now and then pausing over the alteration of a word.
‘Oh, Roger!’ he said, as his brother came in, ‘here’s been Lord Hollingford wanting to see you.’
‘I know,’ replied Roger.
‘And he’s left a note for you. Robinson tried to persuade him it was for my father, so he’s added a “junior” (Roger Hamley, Esq., junior) in pencil.’ The squire was in the room by this time, and what he had overheard rubbed him up still more the wrong way. Roger took his unopened note and read it.
‘What does he say?’ asked the squire.
Roger handed him the note. It contained an invitation to dinner to meet M. Geoffroi St H — ’ whose views on certain subjects Roger had been advocating in the article Lord Hollingford had spoken about to Molly, when he danced with her at the Hollingford ball. M. Geoffroi St H— was in England now, and was expected to pay a visit at the Towers in the course of the following week. He had expressed a wish to meet the author of the paper which had already attracted the attention of the French comparative anatomists; and Lord Hollingford added a few words as to his own desire to make the acquaintance of a neighbour whose tastes were so similar to his own; and then followed a civil message from Lord and Lady Cumnor.
Lord Hollingford’s hand was cramped and rather illegible. The squire could not read it all at once, and was enough put out to decline any assistance in deciphering it. At last he made it out.
‘So my lord lieutenant is taking some notice of the Hamleys at last. The election is coming on, is it? But I can tell him we’re not to be got so easily. I suppose this trap is set for you, Osborne? What’s this you’ve been writing that the French mounseer is so taken with?’
‘It is not me, sir!’ said Osborne. ‘Both note and call are for Roger.’
‘I don’t understand it,’ said the squire. ‘These Whig fellows have never done their duty by me; not that I want it of them. The Duke of Debenham used to pay the Hamleys a respect due to ’em-the oldest landowners in the county — but since he died, and this shabby Whig lord has succeeded him, I’ve never dined at the lord lieutenant’s once — no, not once.’
‘But I think, sir, I’ve heard you say Lord Cumnor used to invite you — only you did not choose to go,’ said Roger.
‘Yes. What d’ye mean by that? Do you suppose I was going to desert the principles of my family, and curry favour of the Whigs? No! leave that to them. They can ask the heir of the Hamleys fast enough when a county election is coming on.’
‘I tell you, sir,’ said Osborne, in the irritable tone he sometimes used when his father was particularly unreasonable, ‘it is not me Lord Hollingford is inviting; it is Roger. Roger is making himself known for what he is, a first-rate fellow,’ continued Osborne — a sting of self-reproach mingling with his generous pride in his brother —‘and he is getting himself a name; he’s been writing about these new French theories and discoveries, and this foreign savant very naturally wants to make his acquaintance, and so Lord Hollingford asks him to dine. It’s as clear as can be,’ lowering his tone, and addressing himself to Roger, ‘it has nothing to do with politics, if my father would but see it.’
Of course the squire heard this little aside with the unlucky uncertainty of hearing which is a characteristic of the beginning of deafness; and its effect on him was perceptible in the increased acrimony of his next speech.
‘You young men think you know everything. I tell you it’s a palpable Whig trick. And what business has Roger — if it is Roger the man wants — to go currying favour with the French? In my day we were content to hate ’em and to lick ’em. But it’s just like your conceit, Osborne, setting yourself up to say it’s your younger brother they’re asking, and not you; I tell you it’s you. They think the eldest son was sure to be called after his father, Roger — Roger Hamley, junior. It’s as plain as a pike-staff. They know they can’t catch me with chaff, but they’ve got up this French dodge. What business had you to go writing about the French, Roger? I should have thought you were too sensible to take any notice of their fancies and theories; but if it is you they’ve asked, I’ll not have you going and meeting these foreigners at a Whig house. They ought to have asked Osborne. He’s the representative of the Hamleys, if I’m not; and they can’t get me, let them try ever so. Besides, Osborne has got a bit of the mounseer about him, which he caught with being so fond of going off to the Continent, instead of coming back to his good old English home.’
He went on, repeating much of what he had said before, till he left the room. Osborne had kept on replying to his unreasonable grumblings, which had only added to his anger; and as soon as the squire had fairly gone, Osborne turned to Roger, and said —
‘Of course you’ll go, Roger? ten to one he’ll be in another............