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RALPH THE HEIR
it was of course understood that he was not the heir. His father had been too wise on the son’s behalf to encourage any
concealment. The son was very popular, and deserved to be so;
but it was known to all the young men round, and also to all
the maidens, that he would not be Newton of Newton. There
had been no ill-contrived secret, sufficient to make a difficulty,
but not sufficient to save the lad from the pains of his position.
Everybody knew it; and yet it can hardly be said that he was
treated otherwise than he would have been treated had he been
the heir. In the hunting-field there was no more popular man.
A point had been stretched in his favour, and he was a magistrate. Mothers were kind to him, for it was known that his
father loved him well, and that his father had been a prudent
man. In all respects he was treated as though he were the heir.
He managed the shooting, and was the trusted friend of all
the tenants. Doubtless his father was the more indulgent to
him because of the injury that had been done to him. After
all, his life promised well as to material prosperity; for, though
the Squire, in writing to Sir Thomas, had spoken of selling half
the property with the view of keeping the other half for his son,
he was already possessed of means that would enable him to
make the proposed arrangement without such sacrifice as that.
For twenty-four years he had felt that he was bound to make
a fortune for his son out of his own income. And he had made
a fortune, and mothers knew it, and everybody in the county
was very civil to Ralph, — to that Ralph who was not the heir.
But the Squire had never yet quite abandoned the hope
that Ralph who was not the heir might yet possess the place;
and when he heard of his nephew’s doings, heard falsehood as
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
well as truth, from day to day he built up new hopes. He had
not expected any such overture as that which had come from
Sir Thomas; but if, as he did expect, Ralph the heir should
go to the Jews, why should not the Squire purchase the Jews’
interest in his own estate? Or, if Ralph the heir should, more
wisely, deal with some great money-lending office, why should
not he redeem the property through the same? Ralph the heir
would surely throw what interest he had into the market, and
if so, that interest might be bought by the person to whom it
must be of more value than to any other. He had said little
about it even to his son; — but he had hoped; and now had
come this letter from Sir Thomas. The reader knows the letter
and the Squire’s answer.
The Squire himself was a very handsome man, tall, broadshouldered, square-faced, with hair and whiskers almost snowwhite already, but which nevertheless gave to him but little
sign of age. He was very strong, and could sit in the saddle all
day without fatigue. He was given much to farming, and thoroughly understood the duties of a country gentleman. He was
hospitable, too; for, though money had been saved, the Priory had ever been kept as one of the pleasantest houses in
the county. There had been no wife, no child but the one, and
no house in London. The stables, however, had been full of
hunters: and it was generally said that no men in Hampshire
were better mounted than Gregory the father and Ralph
the son. Of the father we will only further say that he was a generous, passionate, persistent, vindictive, and unforgiving man,
a bitter enemy and a staunch friend; a thorough-going Tory,
who, much as he loved England and Hampshire and Newton
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RALPH THE HEIR
Priory, feared that they were all going to the dogs because of
Mr. Disraeli and household suffrage; but who felt, in spite of
those fears, that to make his son master of Newton Priory after
him would be the greatest glory of his life. He had sworn to
the young mother on her death-bed that the boy should be to
him as though he had been born in wedlock. He had been as
good as his word; — and we may say that he was one who had
at least that virtue, that he was always as good as his word.
The son was very like the father in face and gait and bearing, — so like that the parentage was marked to the glance of
any observer. He was tall, as was his father, and broad across
the chest, and strong and active, as his father had ever been.
But his face was of a nobler stamp, bearing a surer impress of
intellect, and in that respect telling certainly the truth. This
Ralph Newton had been educated abroad, his father, with
a morbid feeling which he had since done much to conquer,
having feared to send him among other young men, the sons of
squires and noblemen, who would have known that their comrade was debarred by the disgrace of his birth from inheriting
the property of his father. But it may be doubted whether he
had not gained as much as he had lost. German and French
were the same to him as his native tongue; and he returned to
the life of an English country gentleman young enough to
learn to ride to hounds, and to live as he found others living
around him.
Very little was said, or indeed ever had been said, between
the father and son as to their relative position in reference to
the property. Ralph, — the illegitimate Ralph, — knew well
enough and had always known, that the estate was not to be
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
his. He had known this so long that he did not remember
the day when he had not known it. Occasionally the Squire
would observe with a curse that this or that could not be
done with the property, — such a house pulled down, or
such another built, this copse grupped up, or those trees cut
down, — because of that reprobate up in London. As to pulling
down, there was no probability of interference now, though
there had been much of such interference in the life of the old
rector. “Ralph,” he had once said to his brother the rector, “I’ll
marry and have a family yet if there is another word about
the timber.” “I have not the slightest right or even wish to object to your doing so,” said the rector; “but as long as things
are on their present footing, I shall continue to do my duty.”
Soon after that it had come to pass that the brothers so quarrelled that all intercourse between them was at an end. Such
revenge, such absolute punishment as that which the Squire
had threatened, would have been very pleasant to him; — but
not even for such pleasure as that would he ruin the boy whom
he loved. He did not marry, but saved money, and dreamed of
buying up the reversion of his nephew’s interest.
His son was just two years older than our Ralph up in London, and his father was desirous that he should marry. “Your
wife would be mistress of the house, — as long as I live, at least,”
he had once said. “There are difficulties about it,” said the son.
Of course there were difficulties. “I do not know whether it is
not better that I should remain unmarried,” he said, a few minutes later. “There are men whom marriage does not seem to
suit, — I mean as regards their position.” The father turned
away, and groaned aloud when he was alone. On the evening of
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that day, as they were sitting together over their wine, the son
alluded, not exactly to the same subject, but to the thoughts
which had arisen from it within his own mind. “Father,” he
said, “I don’t know whether it wouldn’t be better for you to
make it up with my cousin, and have him down here.”
“What cousin?” said the Squire, turning sharply round.
“With Gregory’s eldest brother.” The reader will perhaps
remember that the Gregory of that day was the parson. “I believe he is a good fellow, and he has done you no harm.”
“He has done me all harm.”
“No; father; no. We cannot help ourselves, you know. Were
he to die, Gregory would be in the same position. It would be
better that the family should be kept together.”
“I would sooner have the devil here. No consideration
on earth shall induce me to allow him to put his foot upon this
place. No; — not whilst I live.” The son said nothing further, and
they sat together in silence for some quarter of an hour, — after which the elder of the two rose from his chair, and, coming round the table, put his hand on the son’s shoulder, and
kissed his son’s brow. “Father,” said the young man, “you think
that I am troubled by things which hardly touch me at all.”
“By God, they touch me close enough!” said the elder. This had
taken place some month or two before the date of Sir Thomas’s
letter; — but any reference to the matter of which they were
both no doubt always thinking was very rare between them.
Newton Priory was a place which a father might well wish to
leave unimpaired to his son. It lay in the north of Hampshire,
where that county is joined to Berkshire; and perhaps in England there is no prettier district, no country in which moorland
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
and woodland and pasture are more daintily thrown together to please the eye, in which there is a sweeter air, or a more
thorough seeming of English wealth and English beauty and
English comfort. Those who know Eversley and Bramshill and
Heckfield and Strathfieldsaye will acknowledge that it is so. But
then how few are the Englishmen who travel to see the beauties of their own country! Newton Priory, or Newton Peele as
the parish was called, lay somewhat west of these places, but
was as charming as any of them. The entire parish belonged to
Mr. Newton, as did portions of three or four parishes adjoining. The house itself was neither large nor remarkable for its
architecture; — but it was comfortable. The rooms indeed were
low, for it had been built in the ungainly days of Queen Anne,
with additions in the equally ungainly time of George II., and
the passages were long and narrow, and the bedrooms were up
and down stairs, as though pains had been taken that no two
should be on a level; and the windows were of ugly shape,
and the whole mass was uncouth and formless, — partaking
neither of the Gothic beauty of the Stuart architecture, nor of
the palatial grandeur which has sprung up in our days; and it
stood low, giving but little view from the windows. But, nevertheless, there was a family comfort and a warm solidity about
the house, which endeared it to those who knew it well. There
had been a time in which the present Squire had thought of
building for himself an entirely new house, on another site, —
on the rising brow of a hill, some quarter of a mile away from
his present residence; — but he had remembered that as he
could not leave his estate to his son, it behoved him to spend
nothing on the property which duty did not demand from him.
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RALPH THE HEIR
The house stood in a park of some two hundred acres, in
which the ground was poor, indeed, but beautifully diversified by rising knolls and little ravines, which seemed to
make the space almost unlimited. And then the pines which
waved in the Newton woods sighed and moaned with a melody which, in the ears of their owner, was equalled by that of
no other fir trees in the world. And the broom was yellower
at Newton than elsewhere, and more plentiful; and the heather was sweeter; — and wild thyme on the grass more fragrant.
So at least Mr. Newton was always ready to swear. And all this
he could not leave behind him to his son; — but must die with
the knowledge, that as soon as the breath was out of his body,
it would become the property of a young man whom he hated! He might not cut down the pine woods, nor disturb those
venerable single trees which were the glory of his park; — but
there were moments in which he thought that he could take
a delight in ploughing up the furze, and in stripping the hillsides of the heather. Why should his estate be so beautiful for
one who was nothing to him? Would it not be well that he
should sell everything that was saleable in order that his own
son might be the richer?
On the day after he had written his reply to Sir Thomas he
was rambling in the evening with his son through the woods.
Nothing could be more beautiful than the park was now; — and
Ralph had been speaking of the glory of the place. But something had occurred to make his father revert to the condition of a certain tenant, whose holding on the property was
by no means satisfactory either to himself or to his landlord.
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
“You know, sir,” said the son, “I told you last year that Darvell
would have to go.”
“Where’s he to go to?”
“He’ll go to the workhouse if he stays here. It will be much
better for him to be bought out while there is still something
left for him to sell. Nothing can be worse than a man sticking
on to land without a shilling of capital.”
“Of course it’s bad. His father did very well there.”
“His father did very well there till he took to drink and
died of it. You know where the road parts Darvell’s farm and
Brownriggs? Just look at the difference of the crops. There’s
a place with wheat on each side of you. I was looking at them
before dinner.”
“Brownriggs is in a different parish. Brownriggs is in
Bostock.”
“But the land is of the same quality. Of course Walker is
a different sort of man from Darvell. I believe there are nearly
four hundred acres in Brownriggs.”
“All that,” said the father.
“And Darvell has about seventy; — but the land should be
made to bear the same produce per acre.”
The Squire paused a moment, and then asked a question.
“What should you say if I proposed to sell Brownriggs?” Now
there were two or three matters which made the proposition to sell Brownriggs a very wonderful proposition to come
from the Squire. In the first place he couldn’t sell an acre of
the property at all, — of which fact his son was very well
aware; and then, of all the farms on the estate it was, perhaps,
the best and most prosperous. Mr. Walker, the tenant, was
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RALPH THE HEIR
a man in very good circumstances, who hunted, and was popular, and was just the man of whose tenancy no landlord would
be ashamed.
“Sell Brownriggs!” said the young man. “Well, yes; I should
be surprised. Could you sell it?”
“Not at present,” said the Squire.
“How could it be sold at all?” They were now standing at a gate leading out of the park into a field held by
the Squire in his own hands, and were both leaning on it.
“Father,” said the son, “I wish you would not trouble yourself
about the estate, but let things come and go just as they have
been arranged.”
“I prefer to arrange them for myself, — if I can. It comes to
this, that it may be possible to buy the reversion of the property. I could not buy it all; — or if I did, must sell a portion of
it to raise the money. I have been thinking it over and making
calculations. If we let Walker’s farm go, and Ingram’s, I think
I could manage the rest. Of course it would depend on the value of my own life.”
There was a long pause, during which they both were still
leaning on the gate. “It is a phantom, sir!” the young man said
at last.
“What do you mean by a phantom? I don’t see any phantom. A reversion can be bought and sold as well as any other
property. And if it be sold in this case, I am as free to buy it as
any other man.”
“Who says it is to be sold, sir?”
“I say so. That prig of a barrister, Sir Thomas Underwood, has already made overtures to me to do something for
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ANTHONY TROLLOPE
that young scoundrel in London. He is a scoundrel, for he is
spending money that is not his own. And he is now about to
make a marriage that will disgrace his family.” The Squire
probably did not at the moment think of the disgrace which
he had brought upon the family by not marrying. “The fact
is, that he will have to sell all that he can sell. Why should
I not buy it!”
“If he were to die?” suggested the son.
“I wish he would,” said the father.
“Don’t say that, sir. But if he were to die, Gregory here, who
is as good a fellow as ever lived, would come into his shoes.
Ralph could sell no more than his own chance.”
“We could get Gregory to join us,” said the energetic Squire.
“He, also, could sell his right.”
“You had better leave it as it is, sir,” said the son, after another pause. “I feel sure that you will only get yourself into
trouble. The place is yours as long as you live, and you should
enjoy it.”
“And know that it is going to the Jews after me! Not if
I can help it. You won’t marry, as things are; but you’d marry
quick enough if you knew you would remain here after my
death; — if you were sure that a child of yours could inherit
the estate. I mean to try it on, and it is best that you should
know. Whatever he can make over to the Jews he can make
over to me; — and as that is what he is about, I shall keep
my eyes open. I shall go up to London about it and see Carey
next week. A man can do a deal if he sets himself thoroughly to work.”
“I’d leave it alone if I were you,” said the young man.
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