But for the last year, since Dick had so greatly developed in mental
culture, his father had been growing very weary even of the name of
Challoner; it had become a habit with him to decry them on every
possible occasion. "What is in a name?" he would say, when some person
would lament the dead-and-gone glories of Challoner Place. "There is
not a soul belonging to them, except that disreputable Sir Francis;
and he is as good as a beggar."
But since Glen Cottage had given way to the Friary, and the
dressmaking scheme had been carried out, his opposition had become
perfectly frantic: he could have sworn at Dick for his senselessness,
his want of pride, his lamentable deficiency in ambition. "Never, as
long as my name is Richard Mayne, will I give in to that boy," he had
vowed inwardly.
And now there had suddenly started up, like a piece of gilded
clap-trap, this amazing man of inches, calling himself their cousin,
Sir Henry Challoner; a man who was absolutely tired of making
money,--who called Gilsbank, a far finer house than Longmead, a tidy
little place, and who could throw in Glen Cottage, that bijou
residence, as a sort of dower-house for widowed Challoners; a man who
would soon be talked about in Hadleigh, not because he was rich,--most
of the Hadleigh families were rich,--but because he was restoring an
ancient name to something of its old respectability.
Mr. Mayne was essentially a shrewd, far-sighted man. Like other
self-made men, he attached great importance to good blood. In a moment
he realized that Nan Challoner of the Friary was a very different
person from Nan Challoner of Glen Cottage, the cousin of Sir Henry
Challoner. Under the latter circumstances she would be received on
equal terms at Fitzroy Lodge and at the other houses of the
aristocracy. In marrying her, Dick would be at once on an intimate
footing with those very people who only just tolerated his father.
"Well," observed Sir Harry, after a lengthy pause, "what do you say
about the matter, eh? Though I have accumulated a pretty sum of money,
I do not pretend to be a millionaire; and of course, as I may settle
down some day and have a family of my own, I must not treat my cousins
as though they were my sisters. I think of allowing my aunt a
sufficient income during her lifetime to keep up Glen Cottage, and I
do not mind paying the girls three thousand pounds down on their
wedding-day just for pin-money; but more than that cannot be expected
of me."
"Of course not," returned Mr. Mayne; and then he hesitated. Three
thousand pounds was not much of a fortune. Why, the girl he wanted for
Dick had fifteen thousand, at least; but then Dick would not look at
her; and even three thousand was better than nothing. "I had hoped
better things for my son," he went on, stiffly. "I always meant Dick
to marry money."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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