CHAPTER XXX
.
THE TWO ANTIPHOLI.
It was while the schemer was waiting that an event occurred which had some influence upon the current of his life.
His elder brother, heir to all that Robert Lowther, of Lowther Hall, Hampshire, had to leave, and expectant heir to the more important possessions of a very wealthy maiden aunt, returned unexpectedly from Belgium, where he had been established for some time as a member of the _Corps Diplomatique_, and dropped unannounced into Mr. Lowther’s lodging while that gentleman was lounging over his breakfast.
The meeting between the two brothers was not remarkable for its enthusiasm. Roderick Lowther strolled lazily into the room, dropped into an easy-chair, and indulged in a long leisurely stretch and a loud yawn before he addressed his astonished relative.
“Didn’t expect to see me yet awhile, did you, old boy? Been travelling all night, and feel as if my bones were not so much bones as rheumatism,--some fellow says something like that in a book, doesn’t he? Came over in the _Baron Osy_; very bad passage, jolting and tumbling about all night, waves mountains high, as people say in books. So you’ve cut the line, dear boy, and are living on the proceeds of your commission, I suppose? The warrior blood of the Lowthers who fought at Bosworth and Flodden seems to have lost a little of its fiery quality in filtering through three centuries of country gentlemen. There was a Lowther who distinguished himself at bloody Malplaquet, by the bye, and another who was with young General Wolfe on the heights of Quebec. But we’ve done with all that nowadays. We are peacefully disposed, and sell out on the earliest opportunity; and we steal a march on our beloved brother, and come home on the quiet to cultivate our maiden aunt.”
“That’s a lie,” replied Harcourt, very coolly. “I haven’t been near her since I came home.”
“What did you come home for then?” asked the other. _“You came for something.”_
The two men looked at each other. They were very much alike. There was the same steelly light in the blue eyes, the same tight contraction of the thin lips. The elder looked at the younger with a glance of shrewd inquiry; the younger looked back sulky defiance.
“Come,” said the traveller, after a second leisurely stretch and a second prolonged yawn, “what is it, then, the little game? Say, my friend. You didn’t sell out of her Majesty’s service without a motive, and you didn’t come home without a motive. By Jove! you never did anything in your life without a motive. You are a schemer, my dear Harcourt. The schemer is born, and not made, and he must obey his instincts. Dear boy, I know your organization, and in these days of physiological science no man can keep himself quite dark. Iago would have been a failure if Othello had studied his Lavater. Be candid, Harcourt, and tell me what noble vessel, laden with the spoils of a new Peru, flaunts her white sails upon the wind, and invites the attention of the pirate.”
“You are so deuced confiding yourself, that you’ve a right to demand another fellow’s confidence,” Harcourt responded, moodily. “When I want your help, I’ll tell you my secrets. That has been _your_ way of managing matters, I believe.”
“My Harcourt bears malice!” exclaimed Roderick. “Antipholus of Ephesus reproaches Antipholus of Syracuse. Dear boy, I suppose it’s our misfortune to be too much alike. Perhaps, if you won’t give me your confidence, you will at least oblige me with a chop. There was an atmosphere of smoky chimneys and warm train-oil on board the _Baron_ which incapacitated me for breakfast.”
Mr. Lowther the elder possessed himself of the teapot, and appropriated his brother’s breakfast-cup, while Harcourt rang the bell and gave an order for additional rolls and chops.
“I didn’t know you were coming to England,” Mr. Lowther the younger said, after a pause, in which he had stared moodily at his brother.
“I suppose not,” answered the other; “and I can’t say that the heartiness of your welcome is very encouraging to the returning prodigal. However, as I have not been in these dominions for the last three years or more, and as my father and I are not the best friends,--there’s nothing so economical for a parent as a long-standing quarrel with all his children, by the way,--I shall look to you, my dear Harcourt, for any friendly offices I may require. I have three months’ leave of absence, and I have not--_le sou_. I come to England to recuperate, as brother Jonathan has it. I want to get on the blind side of my beloved aunt to the tune of a few hundreds; and I want to marry an heiress.”
“Oh,” said Harcourt, thoughtfully, “you want to marry an heiress?”
“Yes; can you help me to do it?”
“I think not.”
“Humph! perhaps if I could make it worth your while to assist me you’d tell another story. However, you can introduce me to some nice people, I suppose?”
Harcourt nodded moodily.
“And I must look up my own old set. Not that I know many people, for I lived such a hide-and-seek sort of life when I was in England. Can you get me rooms in this house? We can commonize, you know. I left my portmanteaus on board the _Baron_. I suppose there’s a boots, or a somebody of the scout species appertaining to this establishment, who can take a cab, and fetch them for me?”
Thus unceremoniously did Antipholus of Syracuse establish himself in the abode of his ungracious brother. Frankenstein, pursued by the monster of his creation, could scarcely have seemed more ill at ease than Harcourt Lowther under the infliction of his brother’s society. Was it that these men were too much alike? Did Harcourt think that the keen eyes of his brother would follow every thread in the intricate network of his scheme, and the subtle brain of his brother would apply itself to plotting against him?
But the coolness so apparent in Harcourt’s reception of the returning wanderer made no impression whatever on that gentleman. Roderick Lowther stretched his long legs upon his brother’s hearth-rug, and smoked his brother’s cigars, with a serene indifference as to his brother’s feelings.
“If you dine anywhere to-day you can take me with you,” he said, blandly; “and to-morrow I’ll introduce you to a splendid set of fellows at the ‘Travellers’.’ You haven’t thought of an heiress yet, I suppose?”
“No.”
“Ah, you’ll hit upon something in that way presently, I dare say, if you run your mind’s eye over your visiting list. I’m in no hurry. Three months is a small eternity in these days of railroads and photography.”
“And you really would marry?” said Harcourt again, very thoughtfully.
“Really would? Of course I would, if I could get the chance of making an advantageous match, and propitiate my aunt Dorothea by the sacrifice. You know how bent the prudent old lady has always been on my making a great marriage, and restoring the forgotten glories of the Lowthers. Yes, Harcourt, I come prepared for victory, and I trust to your brotherly friendship to help me to see and conquer.”
“Humph! By the bye, I suppose you have heard nothing of----”
“Not a word,” answered Roderick, rather hastily; “I know what you’re going to talk about, and as that’s rather an unpleasant subject to me, we may as well agree to avoid it. I wrote a letter, candid, explanatory, and so forth; promising to do what I considered my duty. I don’t profess to be a generous man, and I freely acknowledge that I’m a very poor one; so the modest annual sum, which I considered my duty, was----well, _very modest_! However, the letter was unanswered. People drop through, you see,” concluded Mr. Lowther the elder, blowing away a slender puff of blue vapour, as if he had been blowing away a troublesome subject; “and when people do, of their own election, drop through, I can’t see that it’s any fellow’s duty to dig them up again. _You_ haven’t heard anything, I suppose?”
“Not a word.”
“Fortunate for you! Sometimes that sort of person fastens on to one’s relations. However, as I observed before, we’ll agree to avoid the subject. Suppose we discuss your affairs?”
“I had much rather we did not.”
“Of course, dear boy; but as I am candidly disposed myself, I don’t mean to be kept in the dark by the most saturnine of brothers who ever sulked in the face of an amiable relative. _You_ used to be engaged to an heiress--something in the Moorgate-Street line--Australian merchandise, wasn’t it? a Miss Hillersdon, or Hillary, eh, dear boy? There used to be something of that sort on the cards, I believe?”
“There used to be, but there has ceased to be for the last twelve months. Will that do for you?”
“Ah, Miss Hillersdon--or Hillary--has jilted you, I suppose?”
“She has.”
“And the man she has married----”
“Is my very good friend, the happy possessor of a charming wife and a large fortune, and the man at whose house I dine to-day.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Roderick Lowther, lengthening the ejaculation to its extremest capacity of extension--“Oh, I think I begin to understand your policy. Miss Hillary has married a rich man, and you are intimate with the husband and _au mieux_ with the wife. The husband is a sickly fellow--consumptive--apoplectic, eh, dear boy?”
“The husband is something over six feet high, and has the shoulders of a lifeguardsman; and, if it were not for his dissipated habits, might live to be ninety.”
“Ah, if it were not for his dissipated habits. And you are his intimate friend? My dear Harcourt, what a very transparent game you are playing! and what a consummate fool you must be if you supposed that I shouldn’t see through it! Why not a bond of union between us--all for one, and one for all, like Dumas’s musketeers? Help me to find an heiress, and I’ll help you _auprès de_ Mrs. ----, what’s the lady’s name, by the bye?”
Harcourt Lowther allowed this last piece of information to be screwed out of him, and parted with it as grudgingly as he had parted with the rest. It is not a pleasant thing when you are playing a very difficult game with the odds against you, to have an inconvenient brother swooping down upon you and insisting on looking over your hand.
There was no affection between these two brothers; the likeness which they bore to each other, morally as well as physically, seemed to have a blighting influence upon their relations. They knew each other, and they distrusted each other. Perhaps it would have been scarcely too much to say they hated each other.
But they went out to dinner together nevertheless, and Harcourt smilingly introduced his brother to Mrs. Tredethlyn and Miss Desmond. They had plenty of time to grow quite intimate in the drawing-room while they were waiting for Francis, who came in, flushed with a hurried toilet, at ten minutes to eight. He had been absent upon one of his mysterious excursions a little way out of town.
Roderick Lowther was received very graciously by the two ladies, and cordially welcomed by Mr. Tredethlyn. Harcourt, watching his brother ensconced in a nook of Maude’s favourite ottoman, and discoursing at his ease upon Belgian notabilities, was troubled by dark misgivings of danger.
“I must find the fellow a quarry for himself,” he thought, “or he’ll be trying to stalk my game. He asks me to introduce him to an eligible _parti_ as coolly as if life were a five-act comedy, with the traditional heiress always waiting to fall a prey to the traditional adventurer. An heiress! in these days of marvellous commercial successes there must be such things as heiresses. But the question is where to look for them.”
One of Mr. Tredethlyn’s pompous retainers opened the drawing-room door at this moment and announced--
“Mr. and Miss Grunderson.”
“Egad!” thought Harcourt Lowther, “there’s the solution of my difficulty. Why not Miss Grunderson? Miss Grunderson is an heiress, or ought to be, if there is stability in any part of the commercial universe.”
A young lady with a very rosy face, a young lady decidedly inclined to that quality which in the fair sex is elegantly entitled _embonpoint_, a young lady who was surrounded by surging flounces of pink areophane, dotted about with more pink rosebuds and larger full-blown roses than were ever worn by any young lady with a judicious recollection of the sweeps on Mayday, bounced into the room, and bounced up to Mrs. Tredethlyn; while an elderly gentleman, who was evidently the young lady’s papa, beamed mildly at the company across an enormous expanse of embroidered shirt-front and black waistcoat.
But in the network that Harcourt Lowther has woven Miss Grunderson is destined to be considerably entangled, and deserves to be introduced more ceremoniously in a fresh chapter.
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