THE FOG PRINCES
BY
FLORENCE WARDEN
Author of “St. Cuthbert’s Tower,” “The House on the Marsh,” Etc.
NEW YORK
FRANK F. LOVELL, & COMPANY,
142 and 144 Worth Street
[IMPRINT.]
Copyright, 1889,
BY
JOHN W. LOVELL.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE FOG PRINCES.
CHAPTER I.
Among the noblemen’s seats of the United Kingdom there are many more
imposing, many more ancient, than Llancader Castle; but there are none
better adapted to the requirements of modern life, none where lifts
and electric bells combine more harmoniously with old tapestry and
heavily decorated ceilings. It is built in the hybrid classical style
of the Jacobean period, and is pleasantly placed among lawns and trees
and artificial fishponds not far from the banks of the River Wye.
The Earl of St. Austell, by far the largest landowner in this part of
the country, and possessor of estates rich in relics of the past, knew
how to avail himself of all the resources of the present. He had the
reputation in the country of being a good and beneficent landlord;
while in town, in the greenrooms of theatres where ballet was the
principal attraction, he had a reputation for munificence of quite
another sort.
Lady St. Austell was an amiable and still handsome woman, easy-going
to a fault, whose chief grief and grievance was, not her husband’s
peccadilloes, but the fact that she had not borne him an heir. In
their three daughters the earl took but slight interest; and the
countess being allowed full liberty to conduct their education on what
principles she pleased, tried to make up for their not being sons by
giving them the same education as if they had been.
If these young ladies had possessed brains or strength of character
out of the common, this system might have answered very well.
Unluckily, however, they were commonplace girls, and their unusual
training only served to foster a belief in their own superiority, and
thus to emphasize a certain lack of feminine grace and charms which,
considering their parentage, was difficult to account for.
On a warm afternoon in early August the eldest and the youngest
daughter were sitting at work in a pleasant room, pannelled with light
oak and hung with large flowered cretonne, which looked out on to a
wide lawn dotted with trees and brightened with flower-beds. In the
distance could be seen, through a clearing made specially in the thick
groves which line the banks of the winding Wye, the rugged grey walls
of ruined Carstow Castle.
“Where’s Marion?” asked Lady Catherine suddenly, looking up from a
Latin exercise she was preparing for her tutor.
Lady Catherine was a reddish-haired, freckled little girl of sixteen,
very plump and very merry looking.
“Oh, wherever Rees Pennant is, I suppose,” answered her eldest sister,
Elizabeth, glancing out of window between the stitches of crewel work
over which she was bending.
Lady Elizabeth was, like her younger sister, round-cheeked and
blue-eyed; she had a fair complexion, golden hair, eyebrows and eye
lashes, a self-satisfied expression, and a figure which all the
back-boards, reclining boards, and all the dancing masters in Europe
could never have saved from being round-shouldered and “dumpy.”
Lady Catherine burst into a merry laugh, and from a sofa in the
shadier depths of the long room a plaintive, but cracked, voice wailed
out a request in French that “miladi Katte” would be quieter, and
would remember that “madame la comtesse,” her mother, wished her to
overcome her propensity to unladylike outbursts of merriment.
Mademoiselle de Laval, the duenna of the earl’s daughters, had been
specially chosen for the post for her abnormal ugliness, Lord St.
Austell holding that women’s virtue was always in inverse proportion
to their beauty. He had over-reached himself, however, for
mademoiselle, being a martyr to neuralgia and rheumatism, and finding
herself very comfortable in her Welsh home, would not for worlds have
endangered her situation by any indiscreet prying into the amusements
of her charges.
Lady Kate, with a grimace in her direction, crossed the room to her
sister, and sat down on a footstool by her side, with a scandal-loving
expression on her face.
“Rees Pennant,” she repeated in a hissing whisper; “do you think she
is in love with him?”
“I am sure of it!” cried Elizabeth, with all the superiority in such
matters which twenty possesses over sixteen.
Lady Kate chuckled to herself with intense amusement.
“Of course he isn’t in love with her,” she suggested, with a sister’s
partiality. “Marion is so gawky and Rees is so handsome. It would be
like a figure of Raffaele falling in love with an Anglo-Saxon saint.”
“What’s the use of their falling in love, either of them?” said
Elizabeth prosaically. “They can’t marry.”
“Why not? He is the eldest son, and Captain Pennant’s family is as old
as ours. And look at us! We’re not beauties, and I know papa does not
mean to give us very handsome fortunes, or else you would have had an
offer before this. You’re twenty, you know.”
“Certainly. And I don’t want any offer,” answered her sister, not
without a pardonable suspicion of tartness. “But I certainly shouldn’t
condescend to flirt with a man beneath me in rank, and without a
penny. And there must be madness in the family, or Captain Pennant
would never have adopted a fisherman’s baby and brought it up as his
own child.”
“Deborah’s very pretty,” said Lady Kate, thoughtfully. “If we were
half as good-looking we should have been photographed all over the
place as beauties.”
“Pretty! Do you think so?” asked her sister, with an air of
matter-of-fact impartiality. “I don’t admire those big, coarse-looking
women. I like a face which shows signs of the higher intelligence, a
face which lights up. And Deborah has no conversation. I can’t admire
a girl without conversation.”
“Papa can though,” said Kate, rather maliciously. “He admires Deborah,
and I am sure you can’t say he likes coarse-looking women.”
“A gentlemen’s taste in beauty is not the same as a lady’s,” said
Elizabeth, moving restlessly, and wishing that her persistent little
sister would let her change this awkward subject.
“I know it isn’t. I expect some women would admire Mademoiselle de
Laval,” whispered Kate, glancing towards the dozing French governess,
whose wide nose and mouth, leathern complexion and well-defined
moustache formed a combination of feminine attractions rarely to be
met with. “But do you know, Betty, after mature consideration of the
subject, I would rather be pretty according to the gentlemen’s
standard than according to the ladies’.”
Lady Elizabeth, who, although extremely erudite, was rather dull, did
not perceive all the point of this speech, but felt that the pert girl
was slyly laughing at her. She was too good-tempered to grow cross,
however; she only grew didactic.
“You can’t expect much refinement from a fisherman’s daughter, of
course,” she said in obstinate tone. “I’ve always pitied poor Mrs.
Pennant--who comes of one of the oldest families in England, better
than her husband’s--for having to submit to such an absurd caprice of
his. She feels it, poor thing, dreadfully.”
“Yes, and turns up her eyes over it, and acts quite a pretty pantomime
of resignation over it still, though Deborah’s been one of the family
eighteen years. The consequence is that the boys have never learnt to
look upon her as a sister, and so they’re falling in love with her.
Godwin, and Hervey--yes, and Rees too, whatever Marion may like to
think.”
“So much the better. Then Rees can marry the girl, though I think one
of the gamekeepers would be a more suitable match.”
“Betty, how can you? You talk just like an ordinary spiteful girl.
Deborah is as much a lady as we are ourselves.”
“Very well then. Don’t let’s talk any more about it. We shall only
quarrel. And all about a girl who thinks that a smattering of French,
German and the piano form a good education.”
There was a pause. But Kate, who always liked to worry a subject to
death, soon broke out again.
“Betty, why do you think papa wouldn’t let Rees marry Marion? He’s so
fond of Rees, he really treats him almost as if he were his own son.”
“You don’t understand papa,” said Elizabeth, with authority. “He
always seems so easy-going that people don’t guess that he’s just like
a rock underneath. Nobody thinks so much of class distinctions and
money distinctions--those are almost the same thing nowadays--as he
does. Rees would have no more chance as a son-in-law than--than Amos
Goodhare,” she ended contemptuously.
Lady Kate laughed and pretended to shudder.
“Oh, old Amos,” she cried with real disgust. “Don’t speak of that man.
I can’t bear him. I think he has such shifting eyes and such a bad,
horrible face. I never could understand why papa allowed such a man
into the house at all.”
“He is really a well-read man, and he looks just such a man as a
librarian ought to look,” said Elizabeth, in a reserved tone, as if
she knew more than she intended to tell.
Kate looked hard at her sister, and then edged her footstool close up
to her side.
“Betty,” she whispered, with a very curious expression, “did you ever
notice the extraordinary likeness there is between Mr. Goodhare
and--papa?”
“Nonsense, child,” said Lady Elizabeth, blushing violently, and trying
to rise.
But Lady Kate, who was a sturdily built girl, with little fat, but
muscular hands, held her down.
“Of course, he looks much older, because he doesn’t dye his hair and
mustache, as papa does, and because he wears a beard. But really, do
you know, Betty, I’ve sometimes thought----”
But here Lady Elizabeth, who was also a robust young woman, disengaged
herself, with no great gentleness, from her sister’s clasp, and with
an almost frightened, “Hush, Kitty, hush; you mustn’t let your tongue
run on so,” left her to form her own opinion on the subject of this
sudden closure of the discussion.
Lady Kate mused for some time on this point, until at length it
occurred to her to get a peep at Mr. Goodhare by the light of her new
suspicions. She knew where he was to be found, for, to do him justice,
the librarian loved his books, and appeared to live for nothing else.
He had lately been employed in collecting papers and documents and
books of reference bearing on the history of Carstow Castle, of which
most interesting ruin Lady Marion proposed to compile an exhaustive
chronicle.
No subject more fascinating could well have been chosen. The old
place, after having suffered many vicissitudes of fortune under
Plantagenets and Tudors, had been almost destroyed during the Great
Rebellion, when it was held for King Charles by a brave little
garrison, who did not surrender until all hope of escape had been cut
off by a fearless Puritan soldier. Swimming across the river with a
knife in his mouth, he cut adrift the boat on which the defenders of
the castle counted for their flight. Some years later a tower of the
desolated castle was patched up into a prison for one of the
“regicides,” who passed there a pleasantly mitigated captivity, and
was buried in the churchyard of the quiet little old town.
From these events Lady Marion had determined to construct a strictly
impartial chronicle, which should, however, illustrate in a marked
manner her own strictly impartial views on the subject of hereditary
monarchy and the powers of Parliament. Therefore, Amos Goodhare, the
librarian, had been for the past few weeks employed in digging out,
from the vast hoards of accumulated records of the past with which not
only the library, but various corners of roomy Llancader were filled,
such documents as seemed likely to be of use to the young lady in her
vast undertaking.
It was among the nooks and crannies of the castle, therefore, that
Lady Kate set about her search for the librarian; and it was in one of
the dustiest corners of a scarcely used wing of the building that,
after a long hunt, she found him.
There was here a little awkward staircase, which led up to a tower,
long since given up, for its draughtiness, to the bats and the mice.
Underneath this staircase was an oddly-shaped recess, as large as a
small room, where, behind some boxes, boards, and similar lumber, a
rough chest, full to the top of yellow and musty papers, had that very
day been unearthed by the indefatigable librarian. Lady Kate, creeping
about the corridors and staircases with careful feet, heard the rustle
of papers as soon as she entered the passage in which the tower
staircase was. She stopped, listened, advanced on tiptoe until she was
close to the outer pile of lumber. She did not at first dare to peep
round at Amos Goodhare, for she wanted to get an opportunity of
studying his face unseen by him. She knew he was there, though, for
whenever Amos found anything which interested him he omitted a series
of low grunts of satisfaction. And now he was grunting at a great
rate.
Lady Kate, after half choking with suppressed laughter at his curious
little cries and murmurs of excitement, decided that he was too deeply
interested in something he had discovered to take any notice of her.
So, with cautious steps, holding her breath, she crept through the
space between the piled-up boxes and the staircase. He could not have
been more favorably placed for her proposed inspection. A long lancet
window lighted the staircase, and the bottom panes came low enough to
illuminate the space below. Standing close under the little patch of
dusty glass was the librarian, holding in his hands some large sheets
of paper, which Lady Kate perceived to be old and yellow-looking. He
was far too intent upon deciphering the contents of the papers to
notice the plump and curious girl’s face peering up at him a couple of
feet from the floor.
Lady Kate’s design of comparing the librarian’s face with her father’s
was forgotten with her first glance at Amos Goodhare, who was a tall,
slender, eminently gentlemanly-looking man, with grey hair and beard,
grey eyes, which gazed habitually on the ground, and slightly stooping
shoulders. For she saw his usually composed features lighted up with
excitement so strong that his nostrils were dilated, his breath came
fast and his eyes looked fierce, wide open and almost lurid. His long,
white hands shook as he clutched at the yellowing papers, or passed
his fingers, in feverish restlessness, through his still thick and
curly grey hair.
Little Lady Kate’s plump face grew white with horror; she thought the
librarian had gone mad. Over-devotion to the books had done it, she
supposed. At any rate, she was too much frightened to stay and
speculate as to the cause of this horrible event. She crept back into
the passage on all fours, as she had come, and fled away as softly as
she could.
On the floor below she met her sister Marion, who had just come in,
and who was, as Kate afterwards described it, “looking sentimental.”
Lady Marion was, on the whole, the least attractive of the three
sisters. She had not the stolid, but “comfortable,” look of the
eldest, nor the merry eyes and laughing little pursed-up mouth of the
youngest. She was a tall, bony, angular girl, fair, like the others,
but without the pink color they had in their cheeks. Her hair was a
little darker than theirs, and of an unpleasing length, as it had been
cut quite short and then allowed to grow, the result of which was that
little ends and tufts stuck out straight in all directions from the
tiny little knob she wore at the back of her neck. Her nose was long,
her mouth was wide, and her light blue eyes were without fire.
Nevertheless there was a certain look, not only of good nature, but of
gentleness and affection, in her face, which made her affectation of
masculine manners and speech rather pathetic. For Lady Marion had the
warmest and deepest nature of the three sisters, therefore it was on
her that their anomalous education had worked the most disastrous
effects. She was always yearning to show “strength of mind,” when, as
a matter of fact, the strength her character really possessed did not
lie at all in mental attributes, but in the more womanly qualities
which she despised.
When her younger sister fell against her, whispering fearsomely, “Oh,
Marion, Mr. Goodhare’s gone mad!” Lady Marion instantly assumed a
manly and devil-may-care front, and said in a deep voice:
“Where is he?”
Whereas, if she had been really a person of much common sense, she
would have decided at once that her sister’s statement was a wild
exaggeration.
Lady Kate briefly described where and how she had found him. Then a
happier idea crossed Marion’s mind.
“Perhaps he’s got hold of something,” she mused. “And I believe he’s
quite capable of keeping back important papers, and bringing out a
rival work to mine, compiled from authorities he has kept from me.”
For Lady Marion shared the common mistrust of Amos Goodhare, which
was, perhaps, only a result of his extreme reserve.
“He looks wickeder than ever, at any rate,” murmured Kate, as the
sisters went softly up the stairs together.
“Look here,” whispered Marion, when they had reached the upper floor,
and come in sight of the tower staircase at the other end of a long,
dark corridor. “You call him out suddenly, as if something had
happened, and I’ll watch him on the stairs from the space between the
staircase and the window. Then I’ll see what he does with the papers,
and try to get in and have a look at them.”
“All right,” whispered Lady Kate.
And they stole along the corridor to the further end.