I suppose he meant Dorothea to publish his researches, eh? and she'll do it, you know; she has gone into his studies uncommonly.""My dear sir," said Sir James, impatiently, "that is neither here nor there. The question is, whether you don't see with me the propriety of sending young Ladislaw away?""Well, no, not the urgency of the thing. By-and-by, perhaps, it may come round. As to gossip, you know, sending him away won't hinder gossip. People say what they like to say, not what they have chapter and verse for," said Mr Brooke, becoming acute about the truths that lay on the side of his own wishes. "I might get rid of Ladislaw up to a certain point--take away the `Pioneer' from him, and that sort of thing; but I couldn't send him out of the country if he didn't choose to go--didn't choose, you know."Mr. Brooke, persisting as quietly as if he were only discussing the nature of last year's weather, and nodding at the end with his usual amenity, was an exasperating form of obstinacy.
"Good God!" said Sir James, with as much passion as he ever showed, "let us get him a post; let us spend money on him. If he could go in the suite of some Colonial Governor! Grampus might take him--and I could write to Fulke about it."
"But Ladislaw won't be shipped off like a head of cattle, my dear fellow;Ladislaw has his ideas. It's my opinion that if he were to part from me to-morrow, you'd only hear the more of him in the country.
With his talent for speaking and drawing up documents, there are few men who could come up to him as an agitator--an agitator, you know.""Agitator!" said Sir James, with bitter emphasis, feeling that the syllables of this word properly repeated were a sufficient exposure of its hatefulness.
"But be reasonable, Chettam. Dorothea, now. As you say, she had better go to Celia as soon as possible. She can stay under your roof, and in the mean time things may come round quietly.
Don't let us be firing off our guns in a hurry, you know.
Standish will keep our counsel, and the news will be old before it's known. Twenty things may happen to carry off Ladislaw--without my doing anything, you know."
"Then I am to conclude that you decline to do anything?""Decline, Chettam?--no--I didn't say decline. But I really don't see what I could do. Ladislaw is a gentleman.""I am glad to hear It!" said Sir James, his irritation ****** him forget himself a little. "I am sure Casaubon was not.""Well, it would have been worse if he had made the codicil to hinder her from marrying again at all, you know.""I don't know that," said Sir James. "It would have been less indelicate.""One of poor Casaubon's freaks! That attack upset his brain a little.
It all goes for nothing. She doesn't WANT to marry Ladislaw.""But this codicil is framed so as to make everybody believe that she did.
I don't believe anything of the sort about Dorothea," said Sir James--then frowningly, "but I suspect Ladislaw. I tell you frankly, I suspect Ladislaw.""I couldn't take any immediate action on that ground, Chettam. In fact, if it were possible to pack him off--send him to Norfolk Island--that sort of thing--it would look all the worse for Dorothea to those who knew about it. It would seem as if we distrusted her--distrusted her, you know."
That Mr. Brooke had hit on an undeniable argument, did not tend to soothe Sir James. He put out his hand to reach his hat, implying that he did not mean to contend further, and said, still with some heat--"Well, I can only say that I think Dorothea was sacrificed once, because her friends were too careless. I shall do what I can, as her brother, to protect her now.""You can't do better than get her to Freshitt as soon as possible, Chettam. I approve that plan altogether," said Mr. Brooke, well pleased that he had won the argument. It would have been highly inconvenient to him to part with Ladislaw at that time, when a dissolution might happen any day, and electors were to be convinced of the course by which the interests of the country would be best served. Mr. Brooke sincerely believed that this end could be secured by his own return to Parliament: he offered the forces of his mind honestly to the nation.
