Charles Lever - The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly

“This is very flattering, coming from so consummate a judge as yourself.”

“All the teaching in the world will not impart that sensitive organization which sends some tones into the heart like the drip, drip of water on a heated brow. Oh, dear! music is too much for me; it totally subverts all my sentiments. I ‘m not fit for business after it, Colonel Bramleigh, that’s the fact.”

“Take a glass of that ‘Bra Mouton.’ You will find it good. It has been eight-and-thirty years in my cellar, and I never think of bringing it out except for a connoisseur in wine.”

“Nectar, – positively nectar,” said he, smacking his lips. “You are quite right not to give this to the public. They would drink it like a mere full-bodied Bordeaux. That velvety softness – that subdued strength, faintly recalling Burgundy, and that delicious bouquet, would all be clean thrown away on most people. I declare, I believe a refined palate is just as rare as a correct ear; don’t you think so?”

“I’m glad you like the wine. Don’t spare it. The cellar is not far off. Now then, let us see. These papers contain Mr. Stebbing’s report. I have only glanced my eye over it, but it seems like every other report. They have, I think, a stereotyped formula for these things. They all set out with their bit of geological learning; but you know, Mr. Cutbill, far better than I can tell you, you know sandstone doesn’t always mean coal?”

“If it does n’t, it ought to,” said Cutbill, with a laugh, for the wine had made him jolly, and familiar besides.

“There are many things in this world which ought to be, but which, unhappily, are not,” said Bramleigh, in a tone evidently meant to be half-reproachful. “And as I have already observed to you, mere geological formation is not sufficient. We want the mineral, sir; we want the fact.”

“There you have it; there it is for you,” said Cutbill, pointing to a somewhat bulky parcel in brown paper in the centre of the table.

“This is not real coal, Mr. Cutbill,” said Bramleigh, as he tore open the covering, and exposed a black misshapen lump. “You would not call this real coal?”

“I ‘d not call it Swansea nor Cardiff, Colonel, any more than I ‘d say the claret we had after dinner to-day was ‘Mouton;’ but still I’d call each of them very good in their way.”

“I return you my thanks, sir, in the name of my wine-merchant. But to come to the coal question – what could you do with this?”

“What could I do with it? Scores of things – if I had only enough of it. Burn it in grates – cook with it – smelt metals with it – burn lime with it – drive engines, not locomotives, but stationaries, with it. I tell you what, Colonel Bramleigh,” said he, with the air of a man who was asserting what he would not suffer to be gainsaid. “It’s coal quite enough to start a company on; coal within the meaning of the act, as the lawyers would say.”

“You appear to have rather loose notions of joint-stock enterprises, Mr. Cutbill,” said Bramleigh, haughtily.

“I must say, Colonel, they do not invariably inspire me with sentiments of absolute veneration.”

“I hope, however, you feel, sir, that in any enterprise – in any undertaking – where my name is to stand forth, either as promoter or abetter, that the world is to see in such guarantee the assurance of solvency and stability.”

“That is precisely what made me think of you; precisely what led me to say to Culduff, ‘Bramleigh is the man to carry the scheme out.’”

Now the familiarity that spoke of Culduff thus unceremoniously in great part reconciled Bramleigh to hear his own name treated in like fashion, all the more that it was in a quotation; but still he winced under the cool impertinence of the man, and grieved to think how far his own priceless wine had contributed towards it. The Colonel therefore merely bowed his acknowledgment and was silent.

“I’ll be frank with you,” said Cutbill, emptying the last of the decanter into his glass as he spoke. “I ‘ll be frank with you. We ‘ve got coal; whether it be much or little, there it is. As to quality, as I said before, it is n’t Cardiff. It won’t set the Thames on fire, any more than the noble lord that owns it; but coal it is, and it will burn as coal – and yield gas as coal – and make coke as coal, and who wants more? As to working it himself, Culduff might just as soon pretend he ‘d pay the National Debt. He is over head and ears already; he has been in bondage with the children of Israel this many a day, and if he was n’t a peer he could not show; but that’s neither here nor there. To set the concern a-going we must either have a loan or a company. I ‘m for a company.”

“You are for a company,” reiterated Bramleigh, slowly, as he fixed his eyes calmly but steadily on him.

“Yes, I ‘m for a company. With a company, Bramleigh,” said he, as he tossed off the last glass of wine, “there ‘s always more of P. E.”

“Of what?”

“Of P. E. – Preliminary expenses! There ‘s a commission to inquire into this, and a deputation to investigate that. No men on earth dine like deputations. I never knew what dining was till I was named on a deputation. It was on sewerage. And didn’t the champagne flow! There was a viaduct to be constructed to lead into the Thames, and I never think of that viaduct without the taste of turtle in my mouth, and a genial feeling of milk-punch all over me. The assurance offices say that there was scarcely such a thing known as a gout premium in the City till the joint-stock companies came in; now they have them every day.”

“ Revenons à nos moutons , as the French say, Mr. Cutbill,” said Bramleigh, gravely.

“If it’s a pun you mean, and that we ‘re to have another bottle of the same, I second the motion.”

Bramleigh gave a sickly smile as he rang the bell, but neither the jest nor the jester much pleased him.

“Bring another bottle of ‘Mouton,’ Drayton, and fresh glasses,” said he, as the butler appeared.

“I ‘ll keep mine; it is warm and mellow,” said Cutbill. “The only fault with that last bottle was the slight chill on it.”

“You have been frank with me, Mr. Cutbill,” said Bramleigh, as soon as the servant withdrew, “and I will be no less so with you. I have retired from the world of business – I have quitted the active sphere where I have passed some thirty odd years, and have surrendered ambition, either of money-making, or place, or rank, and come over here with one single desire, one single wish – I want to see what’s to be done for Ireland.”

Cutbill lifted his glass to his lips, but scarcely in time to hide the smile of incredulous drollery which curled them, and which the other’s quick glance detected.

“There is nothing to sneer at, sir, in what I said, and I will repeat my words. I want to see what’s to be done for Ireland.”

“It ‘s very laudable in you, there can be no doubt,” said Cutbill, gravely.

“I am well aware of the peril incurred by addressing to men like yourself, Mr. Cutbill, any opinions – any sentiments – which savor of disinterestedness, or – or – ”

“Poetry,” suggested Cutbill.

“No, sir; patriotism was the word I sought for. And it is not by any means necessary that a man should be an Irishman to care for Ireland. I think, sir, there is nothing in that sentiment at least which will move your ridicule.”

“Quite the reverse. I have drunk ‘Prosperity to Ireland’ at public dinners for twenty years; and in very good liquor too, occasionally.”

“I am happy to address a gentleman so graciously disposed to listen to me,” said Bramleigh, whose face was now crimson with anger. “There is only one thing more to be wished for – that he would join some amount of trustfulness to his politeness; with that he would be perfect.”