England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
Miss Galindo was the daughter of a clergyman in Westmoreland. Her father
was the younger brother of a baronet, his ancestor having been one of
those of James the First’s creation. This baronet-uncle of Miss Galindo
was one of the queer, out-of-the-way people who were bred at that time,
and in that northern district of England. I never heard much of him from
any one, besides this one great fact: that he had early disappeared from
his family, which indeed only consisted of a brother and sister who died
unmarried, and lived no one knew where,—somewhere on the Continent, it
was supposed, for he had never returned from the grand tour which he had
been sent to make, according to the general fashion of the day, as soon
as he had left Oxford. He corresponded occasionally with his brother the
clergyman; but the letters passed through a banker’s hands; the banker
being pledged to secrecy, and, as he told Mr. Galindo, having the
penalty, if he broke his pledge, of losing the whole profitable business,
and of having the management of the baronet’s affairs taken out of his
hands, without any advantage accruing to the inquirer, for Sir Lawrence
had told Messrs. Graham that, in case his place of residence was revealed
by them, not only would he cease to bank with them, but instantly take
measures to baffle any future inquiries as to his whereabouts, by
removing to some distant country.
Sir Lawrence paid a certain sum of money to his brother’s account every
year; but the time of this payment varied, and it was sometimes eighteen
or nineteen months between the deposits; then, again, it would not be
above a quarter of the time, showing that he intended it to be annual,
but, as this intention was never expressed in words, it was impossible to
rely upon it, and a great deal of this money was swallowed up by the
necessity Mr. Galindo felt himself under of living in the large, old,
rambling family mansion, which had been one of Sir Lawrence’s rarely
expressed desires. Mr. and Mrs. Galindo often planned to live upon their
own small fortune and the income derived from the living (a vicarage, of
which the great tithes went to Sir Lawrence as lay impropriator), so as
to put-by the payments made by the baronet, for the benefit of
Laurentia—our Miss Galindo. But I suppose they found it difficult to
live economically in a large house, even though they had it rent free.
They had to keep up with hereditary neighbours and friends, and could
hardly help doing it in the hereditary manner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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