It was Rossiter who secured for David the conduct of Lady Shillito's
defence. Arbella[1] Shillito was his second cousin, a Rossiter by
birth, and would fain have married Michael herself, only that he was
not at that time thinking of marriage, and when his thoughts turned
that way--the very day after, as it were--he met Linda Bennet and
her thousands a year. But he retained a half humorous liking for
this handsome young woman.
[Footnote 1: An old Northumbrian variant of Arabella.]
Arbella, disappointed over Michael--though she was a mere slip of a
girl at the time--next decided that she must marry money. When she
was twenty-one she met Grimthorpe Shillito, an immensely rich man of
Newcastle-on-Tyne, whose foundries poured out big guns and many
other things made of iron and steel combined with acids and brains.
Grimthorpe was a curious-looking person, even at forty; in
appearance a mixture of Julius Caesar, several unpleasant-featured
Doges of Venice, and Voltaire in middle age. His looks were not
entirely his fault and doubtless acquired for him, in his moral
character, a worse definition than he deserved. He had travelled
much in his pursuit of metallurgy and chemistry; at forty he saw
rising before him the prospect of a peerage, due either for his
extraordinary discoveries and inventions in our use of steel, or
easily purchasable out of his immense wealth.
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