"Of course, if you don't like it, my dear, it shan't be pressed."
"I thought, perhaps, you'd see him yourself," said Lord Augustus,
turning to his brother. "You'd carry more weight than anybody."
"Of course I will if it be necessary; but it would be
disagreeable,--very disagreeable. The appeal should be made to
his feelings, and that I think would better come through female
influence. As far as I know the world a man is always more prone to
be led in such matters by a woman than by another man."
"If you mean me," said the Duchess, "I don't think I could see him.
Of course, Augustus, I don't wish to say anything hard of Arabella.
The fact that we have all met here to take her part will prove that,
I think. But I didn't quite approve of all that was done here."
Lord Augustus stroked his beard and looked out of the window. "I
don't think, my dear, we need go into that just now," said the Duke.
"Not at all," said the Duchess, "and I don't intend to say a word.
Only if I were to meet Lord Rufford he might refer to things
which,--which,--which--. In point of fact I had rather not."
"I might see him," suggested Lord Mistletoe.
"No doubt that might be done with advantage," said the Duke.
"Only that, as he is my senior in age, what I might say to him would
lack that weight which any observations which might be made on such a
matter should carry with them."
"He didn't care a straw for me," said Lord Augustus.
"And then," continued Lord Mistletoe, "I so completely agree with
what my father says as to the advantage of female influence! With a
man of Lord Rufford's temperament female influence is everything. If
my aunt were to try it?" Lord Augustus blew the breath out of his
mouth and raised his eyebrows. Knowing what he did of his wife, or
thinking that he knew what he did, he did not conceive it possible
that a worse messenger should be chosen. He had known himself to be a
very bad one, but he did honestly believe her to be even less fitted
for the task than he himself. But he said nothing,--simply wishing
that he had not left his whist for such a purpose as this.
"Perhaps Lady Augustus had better see him," said the Duke. The
Duchess, who did not love hypocrisy, would not actually assent to
this, but she said nothing. "I suppose my sister-in-law would not
object, Augustus?"
"G---- Almighty only knows," said the younger brother. The Duchess,
grievously offended by the impropriety of this language, drew herself
up haughtily.
"Perhaps you would not mind suggesting it to her, sir," said Lord
Mistletoe.
"I could do that by letter," said the Duke.
"And when she has assented, as of course she will, then perhaps you
wouldn't mind writing a line to him to make an appointment. If you
were to do so he could not refuse." To this proposition the Duke
returned no immediate answer; but looked at it round and round
carefully. At last, however, he acceded to this also, and so the
matter was arranged. All these influential members of the ducal
family met together at the ducal mansion on Arabella's behalf,
and settled their difficulty by deputing the work of bearding the
lion, of tying the bell on the cat, to an absent lady whom they all
despised and disliked.
That afternoon the Duke, with the assistance of his son, who was a
great writer of letters, prepared an epistle to his sister-in-law and
another to Lord Rufford, which was to be sent as soon as Lady Augusta
had agreed to the arrangement. In the former letter a good deal was
said as to a mother's solicitude for her daughter. It had been felt,
the letter said, that no one could speak for a daughter so well as a
mother;--that no other's words would so surely reach the heart of a
man who was not all evil but who was tempted by the surroundings of
the world to do evil in this particular case. The letter began "My
dear sister-in-law," and ended "Your affectionate brother-in-law,
Mayfair," and was in fact the first letter that the Duke had ever
written to his brother's wife. The other letter was more difficult,
but it was accomplished at last, and confined itself to a request
that Lord Rufford would meet Lady Augustus Trefoil at a place and at
a time, both of which were for the present left blank.
On the Monday Lord Augustus and Lord Mistletoe were driven to the
station in the same carriage, and on this occasion the uncle said a
few strong words to his nephew on the subject. Lord Augustus, though
perhaps a coward in the presence of his brother, was not so with
other members of the family. "It may be very well you know, but it's
all d---- nonsense."
"I'm sorry that you should think so, uncle."
"What do you suppose her mother can do?--a thoroughly vulgar woman.
I never could live with her. As far as I can see wherever she goes
everybody hates her."
"My dear uncle!"
"Rufford will only laugh at her. If Mayfair would have gone himself,
it is just possible that he might have done something."
"My father is so unwilling to mix himself up in these things."
"Of course he is. Everybody knows that. What the deuce was the good
then of our going down there? I couldn't do anything, and I knew
he wouldn't. The truth is, Mistletoe, a man now-a-days may do just
what he pleases. You ain't in that line and it won't do you any good
knowing it, but since we did away with pistols everybody may do just
what he likes."
"I don't like brute force," said Lord Mistletoe.
"You may call it what you please:--but I don't know that it was so
brutal after all." At the station they separated again, as Lord
Augustus was panting for tobacco and Lord Mistletoe for parliamentary
erudition.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SUCCESS OF LADY AUGUSTUS.
Lady Augustus was still staying with the Connop Greens in Hampshire
when she received the Duke's letter and Arabella was with her. The
story of Lord Rufford's infidelity had been told to Mrs. Connop
Green,--and, of course through her to Mr. Connop Green. Both the
mother and daughter affected to despise the Connop Greens;--but it is
so hard to restrain oneself from confidences when difficulties arise!
Arabella had by this time quite persuaded herself that there had been
an absolute engagement, and did in truth believe that she had been
most cruelly ill-used. She was headstrong, fickle, and beyond measure
insolent to her mother. She had, as we know, at one time gone down
to the house of her former lover, thereby indicating that she had
abandoned all hope of catching Lord Rufford. But still the Connop
Greens either felt or pretended to feel great sympathy with her, and
she would still declare from time to time that Lord Rufford had not
heard the last of her. It was now more than a month since she had
seen that perjured lord at Mistletoe, and more than a week since her
father had brought him so uselessly up to London. Though determined
that Lord Rufford should hear more of her, she hardly knew how
to go to work, and on these days spent most of her time in idle
denunciations of her false lover. Then came her uncle's letter, which
was of course shown to her.
She was quite of opinion that they must do as the Duke directed. It
was so great a thing to have the Duke interesting himself in the
matter, that she would have assented to anything proposed by him.
The suggestion even inspired some temporary respect, or at any rate
observance, towards her mother. Hitherto her mother had been nobody
to her in the matter, a person belonging to her whom she had to
regard simply as a burden. She could not at all understand how the
Duke had been guided in making such a choice of a new emissary;--but
there it was under his own hand, and she must now in some measure
submit herself to her mother unless she were prepared to repudiate
altogether the Duke's assistance. As to Lady Augustus herself, the
suggestion gave to her quite a new life. She had no clear conception
what she should say to Lord Rufford if the meeting were arranged,
but it was gratifying to her to find herself brought back into
authority over her daughter. She read the Duke's letter to Mrs.
Connop Green, with certain very slight additions,--or innuendos as to
additions,--and was pleased to find that the letter was taken by Mrs.
Connop Green as positive proof of the existence of the engagement.
She wrote begging the Duke to allow her to have the meeting at the
family house in Piccadilly, and to this prayer the Duke was obliged
to assent. "It would," she said, "give her so much assistance in
speaking to Lord Rufford!" She named a day also, and then spent her
time in preparing herself for the interview by counsel with Mrs.
Green and by exacting explanations from her daughter.
This was a very bad time for Arabella,--so bad, that had she known to
what she would be driven, she would probably have repudiated the Duke
and her mother altogether. "Now, my dear," she began, "you must tell
me everything that occurred first at Rufford, and then at Mistletoe."
"You know very well what occurred, mamma."
"I know nothing about it, and unless everything is told me I will
not undertake this mission. Your uncle evidently thinks that by my
interference the thing may be arranged. I have had the same idea all
through myself, but as you have been so obstinate I have not liked to
say so. Now, Arabella, begin from the beginning. When was it that he
first suggested to you the idea of marriage?"
"Good heavens, mamma!"
"I must have it from the beginning to the end. Did he speak of
marriage at Rufford? I suppose he did because you told me that you
were engaged to him when you went to Mistletoe."
"So I was."
"What had he said?"
"What nonsense! How am I to remember what he said? As if a girl ever
knows what a man says to her."
"Did he kiss you?"
"Yes."
"At Rufford?"
"I cannot stand this, mamma. If you like to go you may go. My uncle
seems to think it is the best thing, and so I suppose it ought to be
done. But I won't answer such questions as you are asking for Lord
Rufford and all that he possesses."
"What am I to say then? How am I to call back to his recollection the
fact that he committed himself, unless you will tell me how and when
he did so?"
"Ask him if he did not assure me of his love when we were in the
carriage together."
"What carriage?"
"Coming home from hunting."
"Was that at Mistletoe or Rufford?"
"At Mistletoe, mamma," replied Arabella, stamping her foot.
"But you must let me know how it was that you became engaged to him
at Rufford."
"Mamma, you mean to drive me mad," exclaimed Arabella as she bounced
out of the room.
There was very much more of this, till at last Arabella found herself
compelled to invent facts. Lord Rufford, she said, had assured her
of his everlasting affection in the little room at Rufford, and had
absolutely asked her to be his wife coming home in the carriage with
her to Stamford. She told herself that though this was not strictly
true, it was as good as true,--as that which was actually done and
said by Lord Rufford on those occasions could have had no other
meaning. But before her mother had completed her investigation,
Arabella had become so sick of the matter that she shut herself up in
her room and declared that nothing on earth should induce her to open
her mouth on the subject again.
When Lord Rufford received the letter he was aghast with new disgust.
He had begun to flatter himself that his interview with Lord Augustus
would be the end of the affair. Looking at it by degrees with
coolness he had allowed himself to think that nothing very terrible
could be done to him. Some few people, particularly interested in
the Mistletoe family, might give him a cold shoulder, or perhaps cut
him directly; but such people would not belong to his own peculiar
circle, and the annoyance would not be great. But if all the family,
one after another, were to demand interviews with him up in London,
he did not see when the end of it would be. There would be the Duke
himself, and the Duchess, and Mistletoe. And the affair would in this
way become gossip for the whole town. He was almost minded to write
to the Duke saying that such an interview could do no good; but at
last he thought it best to submit the matter to his mentor, Sir
George Penwether. Sir George was clearly of opinion that it was Lord
Rufford's duty to see Lady Augustus. "Yes, you must have interviews
with all of them, if they ask it," said Sir George. "You must show
that you are not afraid to hear what her friends have got to say.
When a man gets wrong he can't put himself right without some little
annoyance."
"Since the world began," said Lord Rufford, "I don't think that there
was ever a man born so well adapted for preaching sermons as you
are." Nevertheless he did as he was bid, and consented to meet Lady
Augustus in Piccadilly on the day named by her. On that very day
the hounds met at Impington and Lord Rufford began to feel his
punishment. He assented to the proposal made and went up to London,
leaving the members of the U. R. U. to have the run of the season
from the Impington coverts.
When Lady Augustus was sitting in the back room of the mansion
waiting for Lord Rufford she was very much puzzled to think what she
would say to him when he came. With all her investigation she had
received no clear idea of the circumstances as they occurred. That
her daughter had told her a fib in saying that she was engaged when
she went to Mistletoe, she was all but certain. That something had
occurred in the carriage which might be taken for an offer she
thought possible. She therefore determined to harp upon the carriage
as much as possible and to say as little as might be as to the doings
at Rufford. Then as she was trying to arrange her countenance and her
dress and her voice, so that they might tell on his feelings, Lord
Rufford was announced. "Lady Augustus," said he at once, beginning
the lesson which he had taught himself, "I hope I see you quite well.
I have come here because you have asked me, but I really don't know
that I have anything to say."
"Lord Rufford, you must hear me."
"Oh yes; I will hear you certainly, only this kind of thing is so
painful to all parties, and I don't see the use of it."
"Are you aware that you have plunged me and my daughter into a state
of misery too deep to be fathomed?"
"I should be sorry to think that."
"How can it be otherwise? When you assure a girl in her position in
life that you love her--a lady whose rank is quite as high as your
own--"
"Quite so,--quite so."
"And when in return for that assurance you have received vows of love
from her,--what is she to think, and what are her friends to think?"
Lord Rufford had always kept in his mind a clear remembrance of the
transaction in the carriage, and was well aware that the young lady's
mother had inverted the circumstances, or, as he expressed it to
himself, had put the cart before the horse. He had assured the young
lady that he loved her, and he had also been assured of her love;
but her assurance had come first. He felt that this made all the
difference in the world; so much difference that no one cognisant in
such matters would hold that his assurance, obtained after such a
fashion, meant anything at all. But how was he to explain this to the
lady's mother? "You will admit that such assurances were given?"
continued Lady Augustus.
"Upon my word I don't know. There was a little foolish talk, but it
meant nothing."
"My lord!"
"What am I to say? I don't want to give offence, and I am heartily
sorry that you and your daughter should be under any misapprehension.
But as I sit here there was no engagement between us;--nor, if I must
speak out, Lady Augustus, could your daughter have thought that there
was an engagement."
"Did you not--embrace her?"
"I did. That's the truth."
"And after that you mean to say--"
"After that I mean to say that nothing more was intended." There was
a certain meanness of appearance about the mother which emboldened
him.
"What a declaration to make to the mother of a young lady, and that
young lady the niece of the Duke of Mayfair!"
"It's not the first time such a thing has been done, Lady Augustus."
"I know nothing about that,--nothing. I don't know whom you may have
lived with. It never was done to her before."
"If I understand right she was engaged to marry Mr. Morton when she
came to Rufford."
"It was all at an end before that."
"At any rate you both came from his house."
"Where he had been staying with Mrs. Morton."
"And where she has been since,--without Mrs. Morton."
"Lady Ushant was there, Lord Rufford."
"But she has been staying at the house of this gentleman to whom you
admit that she was engaged a short time before she came to us."
"He is on his death-bed, and he thought that he had behaved badly to
her. She did go to Bragton the other day, at his request,--merely
that she might say that she forgave him."
"I only hope that she will forgive me too. There is really nothing
else to be said. If there were anything I could do to atone to her
for this--trouble."
"If you only could know the brightness of the hopes you have
shattered,--and the purity of that girl's affection for yourself!"
It was then that an idea--a low-minded idea occurred to Lord Rufford.
While all this was going on he had of course made various inquiries
about this branch of the Trefoil family and had learned that Arabella
was altogether portionless. He was told too that Lady Augustus was
much harassed by impecuniosity. Might it be possible to offer a
recompense? "If I could do anything else, Lady Augustus;--but really
I am not a marrying man." Then Lady Augustus wept bitterly; but while
she was weeping, a low-minded idea occurred to her also. It was
clear to her that there could be no marriage. She had never expected
that there would be a marriage. But if this man who was rolling in
wealth should offer some sum of money to her daughter,--something so
considerable as to divest the transaction of the meanness which would
be attached to a small bribe,--something which might be really useful
throughout life, would it not be her duty, on behalf of her dear
child, to accept such an offer? But the beginnings of such dealings
are always difficult. "Couldn't my lawyer see yours, Lady Augustus?"
said Lord Rufford.
"I don't want the family lawyer to know anything about it," said Lady
Augustus. Then there was silence between them for a few moments. "You
don't know what we have to bear, Lord Rufford. My husband has spent
all my fortune,--which was considerable; and the Duke does nothing
for us." Then he took a bit of paper and, writing on it the figures
"£6,000," pushed it across the table. She gazed at the scrap for a
minute, and then, borrowing his pencil without a word, scratched out
his Lordship's figures and wrote "£8,000," beneath them; and then
added, "No one to know it." After that he held the scrap for two or
three minutes in his hands, and then wrote beneath the figures, "Very
well. To be settled on your daughter. No one shall know it." She
bowed her head, but kept the scrap of paper in her possession. "Shall
I ring for your carriage?" he asked. The bell was rung, and Lady
Augustus was taken back to the lodgings in Orchard Street in the
hired brougham. As she went she told herself that if everything else
failed, £400 a year would support her daughter, or that in the event
of any further matrimonial attempt such a fortune would be a great
assistance. She had been sure that there could be no marriage, and
was disposed to think that she had done a good morning's work on
behalf of her unnatural child.
CHAPTER VIII.
"WE SHALL KILL EACH OTHER."
Lady Augustus as she was driven back to Orchard Street and as she
remained alone during the rest of that day and the next in London,
became a little afraid of what she had done. She began to think how
she should communicate her tidings to her daughter, and thinking
of it grew to be nervous and ill at ease. How would it be with her
should Arabella still cling to the hope of marrying the lord? That
any such hope would be altogether illusory Lady Augustus was now
sure. She had been quite certain that there was no ground for such
hope when she had spoken to the man of her own poverty. She was
almost certain that there had never been an offer of marriage made.
In the first place Lord Rufford's word went further with her than
Arabella's,--and then his story had been consistent and probable,
whereas hers had been inconsistent and improbable. At any rate ropes
and horses would not bring Lord Rufford to the hymeneal altar. That
being so was it not natural that she should then have considered
what result would be next best to a marriage? She was very poor,
having saved only some few hundreds a year from the wreck of her own
fortune. Independently of her her daughter had nothing. And in spite
of this poverty Arabella was very extravagant, running up bills for
finery without remorse wherever credit could be found, and excusing
herself by saying that on this or that occasion such expenditure was
justified by the matrimonial prospects which it opened out to her.
And now, of late, Arabella had been talking of living separately from
her mother. Lady Augustus, who was thoroughly tired of her daughter's
company, was not at all averse to such a scheme;--but any such scheme
was impracticable without money. By a happy accident the money would
now be forthcoming. There would be £400 a year for ever and nobody
would know whence it came. She was confident that they might trust
to the lord's honour for secrecy. As far as her own opinion went the
result of the transaction would be most happy. But still she feared
Arabella. She felt that she would not know how to tell her story when
she got back to Marygold Place. "My dear, he won't marry you; but
he is to give you £8,000." That was what she would have to say, but
she doubted her own courage to put her story into words so curt and
explanatory. Even at thirty £400 a year has not the charms which
accompany it to eyes which have seen sixty years. She remained
in town that night and the next day, and went down by train to
Basingstoke on the following morning with her heart not altogether
free from trepidation.
Lord Rufford, the very moment that the interview was over, started
off to his lawyer. Considering how very little had been given to him
the sum he was to pay was prodigious. In his desire to get rid of
the bore of these appeals, he had allowed himself to be foolishly
generous. He certainly never would kiss a young lady in a carriage
again,--nor even lend a horse to a young lady till he was better
acquainted with her ambition and character. But the word had gone
from him and he must be as good as his word. The girl must have her
£8,000 and must have it instantly. He would put the matter into such
a position that if any more interviews were suggested, he might with
perfect safety refer the suggester back to Miss Trefoil. There was to
be secrecy, and he would be secret as the grave. But in such matters
one's lawyer is the grave. He had proposed that two lawyers should
arrange it. Objection had been made to this, because Lady Augustus
had no lawyer ready;--but on his side some one must be employed.
So he went to his own solicitor and begged that the thing might be
done quite at once. He was very definite in his instructions, and
would listen to no doubts. Would the lawyer write to Miss Trefoil on
that very day;--or rather not on that very day but the next. As he
suggested this he thought it well that Lady Augustus should have an
opportunity of explaining the transaction to her daughter before the
lawyer's letter should be received. He had, he said, his own reason
for such haste. Consequently the lawyer did prepare the letter to
Miss Trefoil at once, drafting it in his noble client's presence.
In what way should the money be disposed so as best to suit her
convenience? The letter was very short with an intimation that
Lady Augustus would no doubt have explained the details of the
arrangement.
When Lady Augustus reached Marygold the family were at lunch, and as
strangers were present nothing was said as to the great mission. The
mother had already bethought herself how she must tell this and that
lie to the Connop Greens, explaining that Lord Rufford had confessed
his iniquity but had disclosed that, for certain mysterious reasons,
he could not marry Arabella,--though he loved her better than all the
world. Arabella asked some questions about her mother's shopping and
general business in town, and did not leave the room till she could
do so without the slightest appearance of anxiety. Mrs. Connop Green
marvelled at her coolness knowing how much must depend on the answer
which her mother had brought back from London, and knowing nothing of
the contents of the letter which Arabella had received that morning
from the lawyer. In a moment or two Lady Augustus followed her
daughter upstairs, and on going into her own room found the damsel
standing in the middle of it with an open paper in her hand. "Mamma,"
she said, "shut the door." Then the door was closed. "What is the
meaning of this?" and she held out the lawyer's letter.
"The meaning of what?" said Lady Augustus, trembling.
"I have no doubt you know, but you had better read it."
Lady Augustus read the letter and attempted to smile. "He has been
very quick," she said. "I thought I should have been the first to
tell you."
"What is the meaning of it? Why is the man to give me all that
money?"
"Is it not a good escape from so great a trouble? Think what £8,000
will do. It will enable you to live in comfort wherever you may
please to go."
"I am to understand then you have sold me,--sold all my hopes and my
very name and character, for £8,000!"
"Your name and character will not be touched, my dear. As for his
marrying you I soon found that that was absolutely out of the
question."
"This is what has come of sending you to see him! Of course I shall
tell my uncle everything."
"You will do no such thing. Arabella, do not make a fool of
yourself. Do you know what £8,000 will do for you? It is to be your
own,--absolutely beyond my reach or your father's."
"I would sooner go into the Thames off Waterloo Bridge than touch a
farthing of his money," said Arabella with a spirit which the other
woman did not at all understand. Hitherto in all these little dirty
ways they had run with equal steps. The pretences, the subterfuges,
the lies of the one had always been open to the other. Arabella,
earnest in supplying herself with gloves from the pockets of her male
acquaintances, had endured her mother's tricks with complacency. She
had condescended when living in humble lodgings to date her letters
from a well-known hotel, and had not feared to declare that she had
done so in their family conversations. Together they had fished in
turbid waters for marital nibbles and had told mutual falsehoods to
unbelieving tradesmen. And yet the younger woman, when tempted with a
bribe worth lies and tricks as deep and as black as Acheron, now
stood on her dignity and her purity and stamped her foot with honest
indignation!
"I don't think you can understand it," said Lady Augustus.
"I can understand this,--that you have betrayed me; and that I shall
tell him so in the plainest words that I can use. To get his lawyer
to write and offer me money!"
"He should not have gone to his lawyer. I do think he was wrong
there."
"But you settled it with him;--you, my mother;--a price at which he
should buy himself off! Would he have offered me money if he did not
know that he had bound himself to me?"
"Nothing on earth would make him marry you. I would not for a moment
have allowed him to allude to money if that had not been quite
certain."
"Who proposed the money first?"
Lady Augustus considered a moment before she answered. "Upon my word,
my dear, I can't say. He wrote the figures on a bit of paper; that
was the way." Then she produced the scrap. "He wrote the figures
first,--and then I altered them, just as you see. The proposition
came first from him, of course."
"And you did not spit at him!" said Arabella as she tore the scrap
into fragments.
"Arabella," said the mother, "it is clear that you do not look into
the future. How do you mean to live? You are getting old."
"Old!"
"Yes, my love,--old. Of course I am willing to do everything for you,
as I always have done,--for so many years, but there isn't a man in
London who does not know how long you have been about it."
"Hold your tongue, mamma," said Arabella jumping up.
"That is all very well, but the truth has to be spoken. You and I
cannot go on as we have been doing."
"Certainly not. I would sooner be in a workhouse."
"And here there is provided for you an income on which you can live.
Not a soul will know anything about it. Even your own father need
not be told. As for the lawyer, that is nothing. They never talk of
things. It would make a man comparatively poor quite a fit match. Or,
if you do not marry, it would enable you to live where you pleased
independently of me. You had better think twice of it before you
refuse it."
"I will not think of it at all. As sure as I am living here I will
write to Rufford this very evening and tell him in what light I
regard both him and you."
"And what will you do then?"
"Hang myself."
"That is all very well, Arabella, but hanging yourself and jumping
off Waterloo Bridge do not mean anything. You must live, and you must
pay your debts. I can't pay them for you. You go into your own room,
and think of it all, and be thankful for what Providence has sent
you."
"You may as well understand that I am in earnest," the daughter said
as she left the room. "I shall write to Lord Rufford to-day and tell
him what I think of him and his money. You need not trouble yourself
as to what shall be done with it, for I certainly shall not take it."
And she did write to Lord Rufford as follows:
MY LORD,
I have been much astonished by a letter I have received
from a gentleman in London, Mr. Shaw, who I presume is
your lawyer. When I received it I had not as yet seen
mamma. I now understand that you and she between you have
determined that I should be compensated by a sum of money
for the injury you have done me! I scorn your money. I
cannot think where you found the audacity to make such
a proposal, or how you have taught yourself to imagine
that I should listen to it. As to mamma, she was not
commissioned to act for me, and I have nothing to do with
anything she may have said. I can hardly believe that she
should have agreed to such a proposal. It was very little
like a gentleman in you to offer it.
Why did you offer it? You would not have proposed to give
me a large sum of money like that without some reason.
I have been shocked to hear that you have denied that
you ever engaged yourself to me. You know that you were
engaged to me. It would have been more honest and more
manly if you had declared at once that you repented of
your engagement. But the truth is that till I see you
myself and hear what you have to say out of your own mouth
I cannot believe what other people tell me. I must ask you
to name some place where we can meet. As for this offer
of money, it goes for nothing. You must have known that I
would not take it.
ARABELLA.
It was now just the end of February, and the visit of the Trefoil
ladies to the Connop Greens had to come to an end. They had already
overstaid the time at first arranged, and Lady Augustus, when she
hinted that another week at Marygold,--"just till this painful affair
was finally settled,"--would be beneficial to her, was informed that
the Connop Greens themselves were about to leave home. Lady Augustus
had reported to Mrs. Connop Green that Lord Rufford was behaving very
badly, but that the matter was still in a "transition state." Mrs.
Connop Green was very sorry, but--. So Lady Augustus and Arabella
betook themselves to Orchard Street, being at that moment unable to
enter in upon better quarters.
What a home it was,--and what a journey up to town! Arabella had
told her mother that the letter to Lord Rufford had been written and
posted, and since that hardly a word had passed between them. When
they left Marygold in the Connop Green carriage they smiled, and
shook hands, and kissed their friends in unison, and then sank back
into silence. At the station they walked up and down the platform
together for the sake of appearance, but did not speak. In the train
there were others with them and they both feigned to be asleep. Then
they were driven to their lodgings in a cab, still speechless. It was
the mother who first saw that the horror of this if continued would
be too great to be endured. "Arabella," she said in a hoarse voice,
"why don't you speak?"
"Because I've got nothing to say."
"That's nonsense. There is always something to say."
"You have ruined me, mamma; just ruined me."
"I did for you the very best I could. If you would have been advised
by me, instead of being ruined, you would have had a handsome
fortune. I have slaved for you for the last twelve years. No mother
ever sacrificed herself for her child more than I have done for you,
and now see the return I get. I sometimes think that it will kill
me."
"That's nonsense."
"Everything I say is nonsense,--while you tell me one day that you
are going to hang yourself, and another day that you will drown
yourself."
"So I would if I dared. What is it that you have brought me to? Who
will have me in their houses when they hear that you consented to
take Lord Rufford's money?"
"Nobody will hear it unless you tell them."
"I shall tell my uncle and my aunt and Mistletoe, in order that they
may know how it is that Lord Rufford has been allowed to escape.
I say that you have ruined me. If it had not been for your vulgar
bargain with him, he must have been brought to keep his word at last.
Oh, that he should have ever thought it was possible that I was to be
bought off for a sum of money!"
Later on in the evening, the mother again implored her daughter to
speak to her. "What's the use, mamma, when you know what we think of
each other? What's the good of pretending? There is nobody here to
hear us." Later on still she herself began. "I don't know how much
you've got, mamma; but whatever it is, we'd better divide it. After
what you did in Piccadilly we shall never get on together again."
"There is not enough to divide," said Lady Augustus.
"If I had not you to go about with me I could get taken in pretty
nearly all the year round."
"Who'd take you?"
"Leave that to me. I would manage it, and you could join with some
other old person. We shall kill each other if we stay like this,"
said Arabella as she took up her candle.
"You have pretty nearly killed me as it is," said the old woman as
the other shut the door.
CHAPTER IX.
CHANGES AT BRAGTON.
Day after day old Mrs. Morton urged her purpose with her grandson at
Bragton, not quite directly as she had done at first, but by gradual
approaches and little soft attempts made in the midst of all the
tenderness which, as a nurse, she was able to display. It soon came
to pass that the intruders were banished from the house, or almost
banished. Mary's daily visits were discontinued immediately after
that last walk home with Reginald Morton which has been described.
Twice in the course of the next week she went over, but on both
occasions she did so early in the day, and returned alone just as he
was reaching the house. And then, before a week was over, early in
March, Lady Ushant told the invalid that she would be better away.
"Mrs. Morton doesn't like me," she said, "and I had better go. But I
shall stay for a while at Hoppet Hall, and come in and see you from
time to time till you get better." John Morton replied that he should
never get better; but though he said so then, there was at times
evidence that he did not yet quite despond as to himself. He could
still talk to Mrs. Morton of buying Chowton Farm, and was very
anxious that he should not be forgotten at the Foreign Office.
Lady Ushant had herself driven to Hoppet Hall, and there took up her
residence with her nephew. Every other day Mr. Runciman's fly came
for her and carried her backwards and forwards to Bragton. On those
occasions she would remain an hour with the invalid, and then would
go back again, never even seeing Mrs. Morton, though always seen by
her. And twice after this banishment Reginald walked over. But on the
second occasion there was a scene. Mrs. Morton to whom he had never
spoken since he was a boy, met him in the hall and told him that his
visits only disturbed his sick cousin. "I certainly will not disturb
him," Reginald had said. "In the condition in which he is now he
should not see many people," rejoined the lady. "If you will ask Dr.
Fanning he will tell you the same." Dr. Fanning was the London doctor
who came down once a week, whom it was improbable that Reginald
should have an opportunity of consulting. But he remembered or
thought that he remembered, that his cousin had been fretful and
ill-pleased during his last visit, and so turned himself round and
went home without another word.
"I am afraid there may be--I don't know what," said Lady Ushant to
him in a whisper the next morning.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know what I mean. Perhaps I ought not to say a word. Only so
much does depend on it!"
"If you are thinking about the property, aunt, wipe it out of your
mind. Let him do what he pleases and don't think about it. No one
should trouble their minds about such things. It is his, to do what
he pleases with it."
"It is not him that I fear, Reginald."
"If he chooses to be guided by her, who shall say that he is wrong?
Get it out of your mind. The very thinking about such things is
dirtiness!" The poor old lady submitted to the rebuke and did not
dare to say another word.
Daily Lady Ushant would send over for Mary Masters, thinking it cruel
that her young friend should leave her alone and yet understanding
in part the reason why Mary did not come to her constantly at Hoppet
Hall. Poor Mary was troubled much by these messages. Of course
she went now and again. She had no alternative but to go, and yet,
feeling that the house was his house, she was most unwilling to enter
it. Then grew within her a feeling, which she could not analyse, that
he had ill-used her. Of course she was not entitled to his love. She
would acknowledge to herself over and over again that he had never
spoken a word to her which could justify her in expecting his love.
But why had he not let her alone? Why had he striven by his words and
his society to make her other than she would have been had she been
left to the atmosphere of her stepmother's home? Why had he spoken so
strongly to her as to that young man's love? And then she was almost
angry with him because, by a turn in the wheel of fortune, he was
about to become, as she thought, Squire of Bragton. Had he remained
simply Mr. Morton of Hoppet Hall it would still have been impossible.
But this exaltation of her idol altogether out of her reach was an
added injustice. She could remember, not the person, but all the
recent memories of the old Squire, the veneration with which he was
named, the masterdom which was attributed to him, the unequalled
nobility of his position in regard to Dillsborough. His successor
would be to her as some one crowned, and removed by his crown
altogether from her world. Then she pictured to herself the stately
dame who would certainly come, and she made fresh resolutions with a
sore heart.
"I don't know why you should be so very little with me," said Lady
Ushant, almost whining. "When I was at Cheltenham you wanted to come
to me."
"There are so many things to be done at home."
"And yet you would have come to Cheltenham."
"We were in great trouble then, Lady Ushant. Of course I would like
to be with you. You ought not to scold me, because you know how I
love you."
"Has the young man gone away altogether now, Mary?"
"Altogether."
"And Mrs. Masters is satisfied?"
"She knows it can never be, and therefore she is quiet about it."
"I was sorry for that young man, because he was so true."
"You couldn't be more sorry than I was, Lady Ushant. I love him as
though he were a brother. But--"
"Mary, dear Mary, I fear you are in trouble."
"I think it is all trouble," said Mary, rushing forward and hiding
her face in her old friend's lap as she knelt on the ground before
her. Lady Ushant longed to ask a question, but she did not dare. And
Mary Masters longed to have one friend to whom she could confide her
secret,--but neither did she dare.
On the next day, very early in the morning, there came a note from
Mrs. Morton to Mr. Masters, the attorney. Could Mr. Masters come
out on that day to Bragton and see Mrs. Morton. The note was very
particular in saying that Mrs. Morton was to be the person seen.
The messenger who waited for an answer, brought back word that Mr.
Masters would be there at noon. The circumstance was one which
agitated him considerably, as he had not been inside the house at
Bragton since the days immediately following the death of the old
Squire. As it happened, Lady Ushant was going to Bragton on the same
day, and at the suggestion of Mr. Runciman, whose horses in the
hunting season barely sufficed for his trade, the old lady and the
lawyer went together. Not a word was said between them as to the
cause which took either of them on their journey, but they spoke much
of the days in which they had known each other, when the old Squire
was alive, and Mr. Masters thanked Lady Ushant for her kindness to
his daughter. "I love her almost as though she were my own," said
Lady Ushant. "When I am dead she will have half of what I have got."
"She will have no right to expect that," said the gratified father.
"She will have half or the whole,--just as Reginald may be situated
then. I don't know why I shouldn't tell her father what it is I mean
to do." The attorney knew to a shilling the amount of Lady Ushant's
income and thought that this was the best news he had heard for many
a day.
While Lady Ushant was in the sick man's room, Mrs. Morton was
closeted with the attorney. She had thought much of this step before
she had dared to take it and even now doubted whether it would avail
her anything. As she entered the book-room in which Mr. Masters
was seated she almost repented. But the man was there and she was
compelled to go on with her scheme. "Mr. Masters," she said, "it is
I think a long time since you have been employed by this family."
"A very long time, Madam."
"And I have now sent for you under circumstances of great
difficulty," she answered; but as he said nothing she was forced to
go on. "My grandson made his will the other day up in London, when he
thought that he was going out to Patagonia." Mr. Masters bowed. "It
was done when he was in sound health, and he is now not satisfied
with it." Then there was another bow, but not a word was spoken. "Of
course you know that he is very ill."
"We have all been very much grieved to hear it."
"I am sure you would be, for the sake of old days. When Dr. Fanning
was last here he thought that my grandson was something better. He
held out stronger hopes than before. But still he is very ill. His
mind has never wavered for a moment, Mr. Masters." Again Mr. Masters
bowed. "And now he thinks that some changes should be made;--indeed
that there should be a new will."
"Does he wish me to see him, Mrs. Morton?"
"Not to-day, I think. He is not quite prepared to-day. But I wanted
to ask whether you could come at a moment's notice,--quite at a
moment's notice. I thought it better, so that you should know why we
sent for you if we did send,--so that you might be prepared. It could
be done here, I suppose?"
"It would be possible, Mrs. Morton."
"And you could do it?"
Then there was a long pause. "Altering a will is a very serious
thing, Mrs. Morton. And when it is done on what perhaps may be a
death-bed, it is a very serious thing indeed. Mr. Morton, I believe,
employs a London solicitor. I know the firm and more respectable
gentlemen do not exist. A telegram would bring down one of the firm
from London by the next train."
A frown, a very heavy frown, came across the old woman's brow.
She would have repressed it had it been possible;--but she could
not command herself, and the frown was there. "If that had been
practicable, Mr. Masters," she said, "we should not have sent for
you."
"I was only suggesting, madame, what might be the best course."
"Exactly. And of course I am much obliged. But if we are driven to
call upon you for your assistance, we shall find it?"
"Madame," said the attorney very slowly, "it is of course part of my
business to make wills, and when called upon to do so, I perform my
business to the best of my ability. But in altering a will during
illness great care is necessary. A codicil might be added--"
"A new will would be necessary."
A new will, thought the attorney, could only be necessary for
altering the disposition of the whole estate. He knew enough of the
family circumstances to be aware that the property should go to
Reginald Morton whether with or without a will,--and also enough to
be aware that this old lady was Reginald's bitter enemy. He did not
think that he could bring himself to take instructions from a dying
man,--from the Squire of Bragton on his death-bed,--for an instrument
which should alienate the property from the proper heir. He too had
his strong feelings, perhaps his prejudices, about Bragton. "I would
wish that the task were in other hands, Mrs. Morton."
"Why so?"
"It is hard to measure the capacity of an invalid."
"His mind is as clear as yours."
"It might be so,--and yet I might not be able to satisfy myself that
it was so. I should have to ask long and tedious questions, which
would be offensive. And I should find myself giving advice,--which
would not be called for. For instance, were your grandson to wish to
leave this estate away from the heir--"
"I am not discussing his wishes, Mr. Masters."
"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Morton, for making the suggestion;--but as I
said before, I should prefer that he should employ--some one else."
"You refuse then?"
"If Mr. Morton were to send for me, I should go to him instantly.
But I fear I might be slow in taking his instructions;--and it is
possible that I might refuse to act on them." Then she got up from
her chair and bowing to him with stately displeasure left the room.
All this she had done without any authority from her grandson, simply
encouraged in her object by his saying in his weakness that he would
think of her proposition. So intent was she on her business that
she was resolved to have everything ready if only he could once be
brought to say that Peter Morton should be his heir. Having abandoned
all hopes for her noble cousin she could tell her conscience that she
was instigated simply by an idea of justice. Peter Morton was at any
rate the legitimate son of a well-born father and a well-born mother.
What had she or any one belonging to her to gain by it? But forty
years since a brat had been born at Bragton in opposition to her
wishes,--by whose means she had been expelled from the place; and now
it seemed to her to be simple justice that he should on this account
be robbed of that which would otherwise be naturally his own. As
Mr. Masters would not serve her turn she must write to the London
lawyers. The thing would be more difficult; but, nevertheless, if
the sick man could once be got to say that Peter should be his heir
she thought that she could keep him to his word. Lady Ushant and Mr.
Masters went back to Dillsborough in Runciman's fly, and it need
hardly be said that the attorney said nothing of the business which
had taken him to Bragton.
This happened on a Wednesday,--Wednesday the 3rd of March. On Friday
morning, at 4 o'clock, during the darkness of the night, John Morton
was lying dead on his bed, and the old woman was at his bedside. She
had done her duty by him as far as she knew how in tending him,--had
been assiduous with the diligence of much younger years; but now as
she sat there, having had the fact absolutely announced to her by Dr.
Nupper, her greatest agony arose from the feeling that the roof which
covered her, probably the chair in which she sat, were the property
of Reginald Morton--"Bastard!" she said to herself between her teeth;
but she so said it that neither Dr. Nupper, who was in the room, nor
the woman who was with her should hear it.
Dr. Nupper took the news into Dillsborough, and as the folk sat down
to breakfast they all heard that the Squire of Bragton was dead.
The man had been too little known, had been too short a time in the
neighbourhood, to give occasion for tears. There was certainly more
of interest than of grief in the matter. Mr. Masters said to himself
that the time had been too short for any change in the will, and
therefore felt tolerably certain that Reginald would be the heir.
But for some days this opinion was not general in Dillsborough. Mr.
Mainwaring had heard that Reginald had been sent away from Bragton
with a flea in his ear, and was pretty certain that when the will was
read it would be found that the property was to go to Mrs. Morton's
friends. Dr. Nupper was of the same opinion. There were many in
Dillsborough with whom Reginald was not popular;--and who thought
that some man of a different kind would do better as Squire of
Bragton. "He don't know a fox when he sees 'un," said Tony Tuppett to
Larry Twentyman, whom he had come across the county to call upon and
to console.
CHAPTER X.
THE WILL.
On that Saturday the club met at Dillsborough,--even though the
Squire of Bragton had died on Friday morning. Through the whole of
that Saturday the town had been much exercised in its belief and
expressions, as to the disposition of the property. The town knew
very well that Mr. Masters, the attorney, had been sent for to
Bragton on the previous Wednesday,--whence the deduction as to a new
will, made of course under the auspices of Mrs. Morton,--would have
been quite plain to the town, had not a portion of the town heard
that the attorney had not been for a moment with the dying man during
his visit. This latter piece of information had come through Lady
Ushant, who had been in her nephew's bedroom the whole time;--but
Lady Ushant had not much personal communication with the town
generally, and would probably have said nothing on this subject had
not Mr. Runciman walked up to Hoppet Hall behind the fly, after
Mr. Masters had left it; and, while helping her ladyship out, made
inquiry as to the condition of things at Bragton generally. "I was
sorry to hear of their sending for any lawyer," said Mr. Runciman.
Then Lady Ushant protested that the lawyer had not been sent for by
her nephew, and that her nephew had not even seen him. "Oh, indeed,"
said Mr. Runciman, who immediately took a walk round his own paddock
with the object of putting two and two together. Mr. Runciman was a
discreet man, and did not allow this piece of information to spread
itself generally. He told Dr. Nupper, and Mr. Hampton, and Lord
Rufford,--for the hounds went out on Friday, though the Squire of
Bragton was lying dead;--but he did not tell Mr. Mainwaring, whom he
encountered in the street of the town as he was coming home early,
and who was very keen to learn whatever news there was.
Reginald Morton on Friday did not go near Bragton. That of course
was palpable to all, and was a great sign that he himself did not
regard himself as the heir. He had for awhile been very intimate at
the house, visiting it daily--and during a part of that time the
grandmother had been altogether absent. Then she had come back, and
he had discontinued his visits. And now he did not even go over to
seal up the drawers and to make arrangements as to the funeral. He
did not at any rate go on the Friday,--nor on the Saturday. And on
the Saturday Mr. Wobytrade, the undertaker, had received orders from
Mrs. Morton to go at once to Bragton. All this was felt to be strong
against Reginald. But when it was discovered that on the Saturday
afternoon Mrs. Morton herself had gone up to London, not waiting even
for the coming of any one else to take possession of the house,--and
that she had again carried all her own personal luggage with
her,--then opinion in Dillsborough again veered. Upon the whole the
betting was a point or two in favour of Reginald, when the club met.
Mrs. Masters, who had been much quelled of late, had been urgent
with her husband to go over to the Bush; but he was unwilling, he
said, to be making jolly while the Squire of Bragton was lying
unburied. "He was nothing to you, Gregory," said his wife, who had
in vain endeavoured to learn from him why he had been summoned to
Bragton--"You will hear something over there, and it will relieve
your spirits." So instigated he did go across, and found all the
accustomed members of the club congregated in the room. Even Larry
Twentyman was present, who of late had kept himself aloof from all
such meetings. Both the Botseys were there, and Nupper and Harry
Stubbings, and Ribbs the butcher. Runciman himself of course was in
the room, and he had introduced on this occasion Captain Glomax, the
master of the hunt, who was staying at his house that night,--perhaps
with a view to hunting duties on the Monday, perhaps in order that he
might hear something as to the Bragton property. It had already been
suggested to him that he might possibly hire the house for a year or
two at little more than a nominal rent, that the old kennels might
be resuscitated, and that such arrangements would be in all respects
convenient. He was the master of the hunt, and of course there was no
difficulty as to introducing him to the club.
Captain Glomax was speaking in a somewhat dictatorial voice,--as
becomes a Master of Hounds when in the field, though perhaps it
should be dropped afterwards--when the Attorney entered. There was
a sudden rise of voices striving to interrupt the Captain, as it
was felt by them all that Mr. Masters must be in possession of
information; but the Captain himself went on. "Of course it is the
place for the hounds. Nobody can doubt that who knows the country and
understands the working of it. The hunt ought to have subscribed and
hired the kennels and stables permanently."
"There would have wanted two to that bargain, Captain," said Mr.
Runciman.
"Of course there would, but what would you think of a man who would
refuse such a proposition when he didn't want the place himself?
Do you think if I'd been there foxes would have been poisoned in
Dillsborough wood? I'd have had that fellow Goarly under my thumb."
"Then you'd have had an awful blackguard under your thumb, Captain
Glomax," said Larry, who could not restrain his wrath when Goarly's
name was mentioned.
"What does that matter, if you get foxes?" continued the Master. "But
the fact is, gentlemen in a county like this always want to have
everything done for them, and never to do anything for themselves.
I'm sick of it, I know. Nobody is fonder of hunting a country than I
am, and I think I know what I'm about."
"That you do," said Fred Botsey, who, like most men, was always ready
to flatter the Master.
"And I don't care how hard I work. From the first of August till the
end of May I never have a day to myself, what with cubbing and then
the season, and entering the young hounds, and buying and selling
horses, by George I'm at it the whole year!"
"A Master of Hounds looks for that, Captain," said the innkeeper.
"Looks for it! Yes; he must look for it. But I wouldn't mind that,
if I could get gentlemen to pull a little with me. I can't stand
being out of pocket as I have been, and so I must let them know.
If the country would get the kennels and the stables, and lay out
a few pounds so that horses and hounds and men could go into them,
I wouldn't mind having a shot for the house. It's killing work
where I am now, the other side of Rufford, you may say." Then he
stopped;--but no one would undertake to answer him. The meaning of
it was that Captain Glomax wanted £500 a year more than he received,
and every one there knew that there was not £500 a year more to be
got out of the country,--unless Lord Rufford would put his hand into
his pocket. Now the present stables and the present kennels had been
"made comfortable" by Lord Rufford, and it was not thought probable
that he would pay for the move to Bragton.
"When's the funeral to be, Mr. Masters?" asked Runciman,--who knew
very well the day fixed, but who thought it well to get back to the
subject of real interest in the town.
"Next Thursday, I'm told."
"There's no hurry with weather like this," said Nupper
professionally.
"They can't open the will till the late squire is buried," continued
the innkeeper, "and there will be one or two very anxious to know
what is in it."
"I suppose it will all go to the man who lives up here at Hoppet
Hall," said the Captain,--"a man that was never outside a horse in
his life!"
"He's not a bad fellow," said Runciman.
"He is a very good fellow," said the Attorney, "and I trust he may
have the property. If it be left away from him, I for one shall think
that a great injustice has been done." This was listened to with
attention, as every one there thought that Mr. Masters must know.
"I can't understand," said Glomax, "how any man can be considered a
good fellow as a country gentleman who does not care for sport. Just
look at it all round. Suppose others were like him what would become
of us all?"
"Yes indeed, what would become of us?" asked the two Botseys in a
breath.
"Ho'd 'ire our 'orses, Runciman?" suggested Harry Stubbings with a
laugh.
"Think what England would be!" said the Captain. "When I hear of a
country gentleman sticking to books and all that, I feel that the
glory is departing from the land. Where are the sinews of war to come
from? That's what I want to know."
"Who will it be, Mr. Masters, if the gent don't get it?" asked Ribbs
from his corner on the sofa.
This was felt to be a pushing question. "How am I to know, Mr.
Ribbs?" said the Attorney. "I didn't make the late squire's
will;--and if I did you don't suppose I should tell you."
"I'm told that the next is Peter Morton," said Fred Botsey. "He's
something in a public office up in London."
"It won't go to him," said Fred's brother. "That old lady has
relations of her own who have had their mouths open for the last
forty years."
"Away from the Mortons altogether!" said Harry. "That would be an
awful shame!"
"I don't see what good the Mortons have done this last half century,"
said the Captain.
"You don't remember the old squire, Captain," said the innkeeper,
"and I don't remember him well. Indeed I was only a little chap when
they buried him. But there's that feeling left behind him to this
day, that not a poor man in the country wouldn't be sorry to think
that there wasn't a Morton left among 'em. Of course a hunting
gentleman is a good thing."
"About the best thing out," said the Captain.
"But a hunting gentleman isn't everything. I know nothing of the old
lady's people,--only this that none of their money ever came into
Dillsborough. I'm all for Reginald Morton. He's my landlord as it is,
and he's a gentleman."
"I hate foreigners coming," said Ribbs.
"'E ain't too old to take it yet," said Harry. Fred Botsey declared
that he didn't believe in men hunting unless they began young.
Whereupon Dr. Nupper declared that he had never ridden over a fence
till he was forty-five, and that he was ready now to ride Fred across
country for a new hat. Larry suggested that a man might be a good
friend to sport though he didn't ride much himself;--and Runciman
again asserted that hunting wasn't everything. Upon the whole
Reginald was the favourite. But the occasion was so special that a
little supper was ordered, and I fear the attorney did not get home
till after twelve.
Till the news reached Hoppet Hall that Mrs. Morton had taken herself
off to London, there was great doubt there as to what ought to be
done, and even then the difficulty was not altogether over. Till she
was gone neither Lady Ushant nor her nephew would go there, and he
could only declare his purpose of attending the funeral whether he
were asked or not. When his aunt again spoke of the will he desired
her with much emphasis not to allude to the subject. "If the property
is to come to me," he said, "anything of good that may be in it
cannot be much sweeter by anticipation. And if it is not I shall only
encourage disappointment by thinking of it."
"But it would be such a shame."
"That I deny altogether. It was his own to do as he liked with it.
Had he married I should not have expected it because I am the heir.
But, if you please, aunt, do not say a word more about it."
On the Sunday morning he heard that Mrs. Morton was gone to London,
and then he walked over to Bragton. He found that she had locked and
sealed up everything with so much precision that she must have worked
hard at the task from the hour of his death almost to that of her
departure. "She never rested herself all day," said Mrs. Hopkins,
"till I thought she would sink from very weariness." She had gone
into every room and opened every drawer, and had had every piece of
plate through her fingers, and then Mrs. Hopkins told him that just
as she was departing she had said that the keys would be given to the
lawyer. After that he wandered about the place, thinking what his
life would be should he find himself the owner of Bragton. At this
moment he almost felt that he disliked the place, though there had
been times in which he had thought that he loved it too well. Of one
thing he was conscious,--that if Bragton should become his, it would
be his duty to live there. He must move his books, and pipes, and
other household gods from Hoppet Hall and become an English Squire.
Would it be too late for him to learn to ride to hounds? Would it be
possible that he should ever succeed in shooting a pheasant, if he
were to study the art patiently? Could he interest himself as to the
prevalence or decadence of ground game? And what must he do with his
neighbours? Of course he would have to entertain Mr. Mainwaring and
the other parsons, and perhaps once in the year to ask Lord Rufford
to dine with him. If Lord Rufford came, what on earth would he say to
him?
And then there arose another question. Would it not be his duty to
marry,--and, if so, whom? He had been distinctly told that Mary
Masters had given her heart to some one, and he certainly was not the
man to ask for the hand of a girl who had not a heart to give. And
yet he thought that it would be impossible that he should marry any
other person. He spent hours in walking about the grounds, looking at
the garden and belongings which would so probably be his own within a
week, and thinking whether it would be possible that he should bring
a mistress to preside over them. Before he reached home he had made
up his mind that only one mistress would be possible, and that she
was beyond his reach.
On the Tuesday he received a scrawl from Mrs. Hopkins with a letter
from the lawyer--addressed to her. The lawyer wrote to say that he
would be down on Wednesday evening, would attend the funeral, and
read his client's will after they had performed the ceremony. He
went on to add that in obedience to Mrs. Morton's directions he
had invited Mr. Peter Morton to be present on the occasion. On the
Wednesday Reginald again went over, but left before the arrival of
the two gentlemen. On the Thursday he was there early, and of course
took upon himself the duty of chief mourner. Peter Morton was there
and showed, in a bewildered way, that he had been summoned rather to
the opening of the will than to the funeral of a man he had never
seen.
Then the will was read. There were only two names mentioned in it.
John Morton left £5,000 and his watch and chain and rings to Arabella
Trefoil, and everything else of which he was possessed to his cousin
Reginald Morton.
"Upon my word I don't know why they sent for me," said the other
cousin, Peter.
"Mrs. Morton seemed to think that you would like to pay a tribute of
respect," said the lawyer. Peter looked at him and went upstairs and
packed his portmanteau. The lawyer handed over the keys to the new
squire, and then everything was done.
CHAPTER XI.
THE NEW MINISTER.
"Poor old Paragon!" exclaimed Archibald Currie, as he stood with his
back to the fire among his colleagues at the Foreign Office on the
day after John Morton's death.
"Poor young Paragon! that's the pity of it," said Mounser Green. "I
don't suppose he was turned thirty, and he was a useful man,--a very
useful man. That's the worst of it. He was just one of those men that
the country can't afford to lose, and whom it is so very hard to
replace." Mounser Green was always eloquent as to the needs of the
public service, and did really in his heart of hearts care about his
office. "Who is to go to Patagonia, I'm sure I don't know. Platitude
was asking me about it, and I told him that I couldn't name a man."
"Old Platitude always thinks that the world is coming to an end,"
said Currie. "There are as good fish in the sea as ever were caught."
"Who is there? Monsoon won't go, even if they ask him. The Paragon
was just the fellow for it. He had his heart in the work. An immense
deal depends on what sort of man we have in Patagonia at the present
moment. If Paraguay gets the better of the Patagonese all Brazil will
be in a ferment, and you know how that kind of thing spreads among
half-caste Spaniards and Portuguese. Nobody can interfere but the
British Minister. When I suggested Morton I knew I had the right man
if he'd only take it."
"And now he has gone and died!" said Hoffmann.
"And now he has gone and died," continued Mounser Green. "'I never
nursed a dear gazelle,' and all the rest of it. Poor Paragon! I fear
he was a little cut about Miss Trefoil."
"She was down with him the day before he died," said young Glossop.
"I happen to know that."
"It was before he thought of going to Patagonia that she was at
Bragton," said Currie.
"That's all you know about it, old fellow," said the indignant young
one. "She was there a second time, just before his death. I had it
from Lady Penwether who was in the neighbourhood."
"My dear little boy," said Mounser Green, "that was exactly what was
likely to happen, and he yet may have broken his heart. I have seen
a good deal of the lady lately, and under no circumstances would she
have married him. When he accepted the mission that at any rate was
all over."
"The Rufford affair had begun before that," said Hoffmann.
"The Rufford affair as you call it," said Glossop, "was no affair at
all."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Currie.
"I mean that Rufford was never engaged to her,--not for an instant,"
said the lad, urgent in spreading the lesson which he had received
from his cousin. "It was all a dead take-in."
"Who was taken in?" asked Mounser Green.
"Well;--nobody was taken in as it happened. But I suppose there can't
be a doubt that she tried her best to catch him, and that the Duke
and Duchess and Mistletoe, and old Trefoil, all backed her up. It was
a regular plant. The only thing is, it didn't come off."
"Look here, young shaver;"--this was Mounser Green again;--"when you
speak of a young lady do you be a little more discreet."
"But didn't she do it, Green?"
"That's more than you or I can tell. If you want to know what I
think, I believe he paid her a great deal of attention and then
behaved very badly to her."
"He didn't behave badly at all," said young Glossop.
"My dear boy, when you are as old as I am, you will have learned how
very hard it is to know everything. I only say what I believe, and
perhaps I may have better ground for believing than you. He certainly
paid her a great deal of attention, and then her friends,--especially
the Duchess,--went to work."
"They've wanted to get her off their hands these six or eight years,"
said Currie.
"That's nonsense again," continued the new advocate, "for there is no
doubt she might have married Morton all the time had she pleased."
"Yes;--but Rufford!--a fellow with sixty thousand a year!" said
Glossop.
"About a third of that would be nearer the mark, Glossy. Take my
word for it, you don't know everything yet, though you have so many
advantages." After that Mounser Green retreated to his own room with
a look and tone as though he were angry.
"What makes him so ferocious about it?" asked Glossop when the door
was shut.
"You are always putting your foot in it," said Currie. "I kept on
winking to you but it was no good. He sees her almost every day now.
She's staying with old Mrs. Green in Portugal Street. There has been
some break up between her and her mother, and old Mrs. Green has
taken her in. There's some sort of relationship. Mounser is the old
woman's nephew, and she is aunt by marriage to the Connop Greens down
in Hampshire, and Mrs. Connop Green is first cousin to Lady
Augustus."
"If Dick's sister married Tom's brother what relation would Dick
be to Tom's mother? That's the kind of thing, isn't it?" suggested
Hoffmann.
"At any rate there she is, and Mounser sees her every day."
"It don't make any difference about Rufford," said young Glossop
stoutly.
All this happened before the will had been declared,--when Arabella
did not dream that she was an heiress. A day or two afterwards she
received a letter from the lawyer, telling her of her good fortune,
and informing her that the trinkets would be given up to her and the
money paid,--short of legacy duty,--whenever she would fix a time and
place. The news almost stunned her. There was a moment in which she
thought that she was bound to reject this money, as she had rejected
that tendered to her by the other man. Poor as she was, greedy as
she was, alive as she was to the necessity of doing something for
herself,--still this legacy was to her at first bitter rather than
sweet. She had never treated any man so ill as she had treated this
man;--and it was thus that he punished her! She was alive to the
feeling that he had always been true to her. In her intercourse with
other men there had been generally a battle carried on with some
fairness. Diamond had striven to cut diamond. But here the dishonesty
had all been on one side, and she was aware that it had been so. In
her later affair with Lord Rufford, she really did think that she had
been ill used; but she was quite alive to the fact that her treatment
of John Morton had been abominable. The one man, in order that he
might escape without further trouble, had in the grossest manner,
sent to her the offer of a bribe. The other,--in regard to whose end
her hard heart was touched, even her conscience seared,--had named
her in his will as though his affection was unimpaired. Of course
she took the money, but she took it with inward groans. She took the
money and the trinkets, and the matter was all arranged for her by
Mounser Green.
"So after all the Paragon left her whatever he could leave," said
Currie in the same room at the Foreign Office. A week had passed
since the last conversation, and at this moment Mounser Green was not
in the room.
"Oh, dear no," said young Glossy. "She doesn't have Bragton. That
goes to his cousin."
"That was entailed, Glossy, my boy."
"Not a bit of it. Everybody thought he would leave the place
to another Morton, a fellow he'd never seen, in one of those
Somerset House Offices. He and this fellow who is to have it, were
enemies,--but he wouldn't put it out of the right line. It's all very
well for Mounser to be down on me, but I do happen to know what goes
on in that country. She gets a pot of money, and no end of family
jewels; but he didn't leave her the estate as he might have done."
At that moment Mounser Green came into the room. It was rather later
than usual, being past one o'clock;--and he looked as though he were
flurried. He didn't speak for a few minutes, but stood before the
fire smoking a cigar. And there was a general silence,--there being
now a feeling among them that Arabella Trefoil was not to be talked
about in the old way before Mounser Green. At last he spoke himself.
"I suppose you haven't heard who is to go to Patagonia after all?"
"Is it settled?" asked Currie.
"Anybody we know?" asked Hoffmann.
"I hope it's no d---- outsider," said the too energetic Glossop.
"It is settled;--and it is somebody you know;--and it is not a d----
outsider; unless, indeed, he may be considered to be an outsider in
reference to that branch of the service."
"It's some consul," said Currie. "Backstairs from Panama, I'll bet a
crown."
"It isn't Backstairs, it isn't a consul. Gentlemen, get out your
pocket-handkerchiefs. Mounser Green has consented to be expatriated
for the good of his country."
"You going to Patagonia!" said Currie. "You're chaffing," said
Glossop. "I never was so shot in my life," said Hoffmann.
"It's true, my dear boys."
"I never was so sorry for anything in all my born days," said
Glossop, almost crying. "Why on earth should you go to Patagonia?"
"Patagonia!" ejaculated Currie. "What will you do in Patagonia?"
"It's an opening, my dear fellow," said Mounser Green leaning
affectionately on Glossop's shoulder. "What should I do by remaining
here? When Drummond asked me I saw he wanted me to go. They don't
forget that kind of thing." At that moment a messenger opened the
door, and the Senator Gotobed, almost without being announced,
entered the room. He had become so intimate of late at the Foreign
Office, and his visits were so frequent, that he was almost able to
dispense with the assistance of any messenger. Perhaps Mounser Green
and his colleagues were a little tired of him;--but yet, after their
fashion, they were always civil to him, and remembered, as they were
bound to do, that he was one of the leading politicians of a great
nation. "I have secured the hall," he said at once, as though aware
that no news could be so important as the news he thus conveyed.
"Have you indeed?" said Currie.
"Secured it for the fifteenth. Now the question is--"
"What do you think," said Glossop, interrupting him without the
slightest hesitation. "Mounser Green is going to Patagonia, in place
of the poor Paragon."
"I beg to congratulate Mr. Green with all my heart."
"By George I don't," said the juvenile clerk. "Fancy congratulating
a fellow on going to Patagonia! It's what I call an awful sell for
everybody."
"But as I was saying I have the hall for the fifteenth."
"You mean to lecture then after all," said Green.
"Certainly I do; I am not going to be deterred from doing my duty
because I am told there is a little danger. What I want to know is
whether I can depend on having a staff of policemen."
"Of course there will be police," said Green.
"But I mean some extra strength. I don't mind for myself, but I
should be so unhappy if there were anything of a commotion." Then he
was assured that the officers of the police force would look to that,
and was assured also that Mounser Green and the other gentlemen in
the room would certainly attend the lecture. "I don't suppose I shall
be gone by that time," said Mounser Green in a melancholy tone of
voice.
CHAPTER XII.
"I MUST GO."
Rufford, March 5th.
MY DEAR MISS TREFOIL,
I am indeed sorry that I should have offended you by
acceding to a suggestion which, I think I may say,
originated with your mother. When she told me that her
circumstances and yours were not in a pecuniary point of
view so comfortable as they might be, I did feel that it
was in my power to alleviate that trouble. The sum of
money mentioned by my lawyer was certainly named by your
mother. At any rate pray believe that I meant to be of
service.
As to naming a place where we might meet, it really could
be of no service. It would be painful to both of us and
could have no good result. Again apologizing for having
inadvertently offended you by adopting the views which
Lady Augustus entertained, I beg to assure you that I am,
Yours faithfully,
RUFFORD.
This letter came from the peer himself, without assistance. After his
interview with Lady Augustus he simply told his Mentor, Sir George,
that he had steadfastly denied the existence of any engagement,
not daring to acquaint him with the offer he had made. Neither,
therefore, could he tell Sir George of the manner in which the young
lady had repudiated the offer. That she should have repudiated it was
no doubt to her credit. As he thought of it afterwards he felt that
had she accepted it she would have been base indeed. And yet, as he
thought of what had taken place at the house in Piccadilly, he was
confident that the proposition had in some way come from her mother.
No doubt he had first written a sum of money on the fragment of
paper which she had preserved;--and the evidence would so far go
against him. But Lady Augustus had spoken piteously of their joint
poverty,--and had done so in lieu of insisting with a mother's
indignation on her daughter's rights. Of course she had intended to
ask for money. What other purpose could she have had? It was so he
had argued at the moment, and so he had argued since. If it were so
he would not admit that he had behaved unlike a gentleman in offering
the money. Yet he did not dare to tell Sir George, and therefore was
obliged to answer Arabella's letter without assistance.
He was not altogether sorry to have his £8000, being fully as much
alive to the value of money as any brother peer in the kingdom, but
he would sooner have paid the money than be subject to an additional
interview. He had been forced up to London to see first the father
and then the mother, and thought that he had paid penalty enough
for any offence that he might have committed. An additional
interview with the young lady herself would distress him beyond
anything,--would be worse than any other interview. He would sooner
leave Rufford and go abroad than encounter it. He promised himself
that nothing should induce him to encounter it. Therefore, he wrote
the above letter.
Arabella, when she received it, had ceased to care very much about
the insult of the offer. She had then quarrelled with her mother, and
had insisted on some separation even without any arrangement as to
funds. Requiring some confidant, she had told a great deal, though
not quite all, to Mrs. Connop Green, and that lady had passed her on
for a while to her husband's aunt in London. At this time she had
heard nothing of John Morton's will, and had perhaps thought with
some tender regret of the munificence of her other lover, which she
had scorned. But she was still intent on doing something. The fury of
her despair was still on her, so that she could not weigh the injury
she might do herself against some possible gratification to her
wounded spirit. Up to this moment she had formed no future hope. At
this epoch she had no string to her bow. John Morton was dead;--and
she had absolutely wept for him in solitude, though she had certainly
never loved him. Nor did she love Lord Rufford. As far as she knew
how to define her feelings, she thought that she hated him. But
she told herself hourly that she had not done with him. She was
instigated by the true feminine Medea feeling that she would find
some way to wring his heart,--even though in the process she might
suffer twice as much as he did. She had convinced herself that in
this instance he was the offender. "Painful to both of us!" No doubt!
But because it would be painful to him, it should be exacted. Though
he was a coward and would fain shirk such pain, she could be brave
enough. Even though she should be driven to catch him by the arm in
the open street, she would have it out with him. He was a liar and a
coward, and she would, at any rate, have the satisfaction of telling
him so.
She thought much about it before she could resolve on what she would
do. She could not ask old Mrs. Green to help her. Mrs. Green was a
kind old woman, who had lived much in the world, and would wish to
see much of it still, had age allowed her. Arabella Trefoil was at
any rate the niece of a Duke, and the Duke, in this affair with Lord
Rufford, had taken his niece's part. She opened her house and as much
of her heart as was left to Arabella, and was ready to mourn with
her over the wicked lord. She could sympathise with her too, as to
the iniquities of her mother, whom none of the Greens loved. But she
would have been frightened by any proposition as to Medean vengeance.
In these days,--still winter days, and not open to much feminine
gaiety in London, even if, in the present constitution of her
circumstances, gaiety would have come in her way,--in these days the
hours in her life which interested her most, were those in which Mr.
Mounser Green was dutifully respectful to his aunt. Patagonia had not
yet presented itself to him. Some four or five hundred a year, which
the old lady had at her own disposal, had for years past contributed
to Mounser's ideas of duty. And now Arabella's presence at the
small house in Portugal Street certainly added a new zest to those
ideas. The niece of the Duke of Mayfair, and the rejected of Lord
Rufford, was at the present moment an interesting young woman in
Mounser Green's world. There were many who thought that she had been
ill-used. Had she succeeded, all the world would have pitied Lord
Rufford;--but as he had escaped, there was a strong party for the
lady. And gradually Mounser Green, who some weeks ago had not thought
very much of her, became one of the party. She had brought her maid
with her; and when she found that Mounser Green came to the house
every evening, either before or after dinner, she had recourse
to her accustomed lures. She would sit quiet, dejected, almost
broken-hearted in the corner of a sofa; but when he spoke to her she
would come to life and raise her eyes,--not ignoring the recognised
dejection of her jilted position, not pretending to this minor stag
of six tines that she was a sprightly unwooed young fawn, fresh out
of the forest,--almost asking him to weep with her, and playing her
accustomed lures, though in a part which she had not hitherto filled.
But still she was resolved that her Jason should not as yet be quit
of his Medea. So she made her plot. She would herself go down to
Rufford and force her way into her late lover's presence in spite of
all obstacles. It was possible that she should do this and get back
to London the same day,--but, to do so, she must leave London by an
early train at 7 A.M., stay seven or eight hours at Rufford, and
reach the London station at 10 P.M. For such a journey there must be
some valid excuse made to Mrs. Green. There must be some necessity
shown for such a journey. She would declare that a meeting was
necessary with her mother, and that her mother was at any town she
chose to name at the requisite distance from London. In this way she
might start with her maid before daylight, and get back after dark,
and have the meeting with her mother--or with Lord Rufford as the
case might be. But Mounser Green knew very well that Lady Augustus
was in Orchard Street, and knew also that Arabella was determined not
to see her mother. And if she declared her purpose, without a caution
to Mounser Green, the old woman would tell her nephew, and the nephew
would unwittingly expose the deceit. It was necessary therefore that
she should admit Mounser Green to, at any rate, half a confidence.
This she did. "Don't ask me any questions," she said. "I know I can
trust you. I must be out of town the whole day, and perhaps the next.
And your aunt must not know why I am going or where. You will help
me?" Of course he said that he would help her; and the lie, with a
vast accompaniment of little lies, was told. There must be a meeting
on business matters between her and her mother, and her mother was
now in the neighbourhood of Birmingham. This was the lie told to Mrs.
Green. She would go down, and, if possible, be back on the same day.
She would take her maid with her. She thought that in such a matter
as that she could trust her maid, and was in truth afraid to travel
alone. "I will come in the morning and take Miss Trefoil to the
station," said Mounser, "and will meet her in the evening." And so
the matter was arranged.
The journey was not without its drawbacks and almost its perils.
Summer or winter Arabella Trefoil was seldom out of bed before nine.
It was incumbent on her now to get up on a cold March morning,--when
the lion had not as yet made way for the lamb,--at half-past five.
That itself seemed to be all but impossible to her. Nevertheless she
was ready and had tried to swallow half a cup of tea, when Mounser
Green came to the door with a cab a little after six. She had
endeavoured to dispense with this new friend's attendance, but he
had insisted, assuring her that without some such aid no cab would
be forthcoming. She had not told him and did not intend that he
should know to what station she was going. "You begged me to ask no
questions," he said when he was in the cab with her, the maid having
been induced most unwillingly to seat herself with the cabman on the
box,--"and I have obeyed you. But I wish I knew how I could help
you."
"You have helped me, and you are helping me. But do not ask anything
more."
"Will you be angry with me if I say that I fear you are intending
something rash?"
"Of course I am. How could it be otherwise with me? Don't you think
there are turns in a person's life when she must do something rash.
Think of yourself. If everybody crushed you; if you were ill-treated
beyond all belief; if the very people who ought to trust you doubted
you, wouldn't you turn upon somebody and rend him?"
"Are you going to rend anybody?"
"I do not know as yet."
"I wish you would let me go down with you."
"No; that you certainly cannot. You must not come even into the
station with me. You have been very good to me. You will not now turn
against me."
"I certainly will do nothing but what you tell me."
"Then here we are,--and now you must go. Jane can carry my hand-bag
and cloak. If you choose to come in the evening at ten it will be an
additional favour."
"I certainly will do so. But Miss Trefoil, one word." They were now
standing under cover of the portico in front of the railway station,
into which he was not to be allowed to enter. "What I fear is
this;--that in your first anger you may be tempted to do something
which may be injurious to--to your prospects in life."
"I have no prospects in life, Mr. Green."
"Ah;--that is just it. There are for most of us moments of
unhappiness in which we are tempted by our misery to think that we
are relieved at any rate from the burden of caution, because nothing
that can occur to us can make us worse than we are."
"Nothing can make me worse than I am."
"But in a few months or weeks," continued Mounser Green, bringing up
in his benevolence all the wisdom of his experience, "we have got a
new footing amidst our troubles, and then we may find how terrible
is the injury which our own indiscretion has brought on us. I do not
want to ask any questions, but--it might be so much better that you
should abandon your intention, and go back with me."
She seemed to be almost undecided for a moment as she thought over
his words. But she remembered her pledge to herself that Lord Rufford
should find that she had not done with him yet. "I must go," she said
in a hoarse voice.
"If you must--"
"I must go. I have no way out of it. Good-bye, Mr. Green; I cannot
tell you how much obliged to you I am." Then he turned back and she
went into the station and took two first-class tickets for Rufford.
At that moment Lord Rufford was turning himself comfortably in his
bed. How would he have sprung up, and how would he have fled, had he
known the evil that was coming upon him! This happened on a Thursday,
a day on which, as Arabella knew, the U. R. U. did not go out;--the
very Thursday on which John Morton was buried and the will was read
at Bragton.
She was fully determined to speak her mind to the man and to be
checked by no feminine squeamishness. She would speak her mind to him
if she could force her way into his presence. And in doing this she
would be debarred by no etiquette. It might be that she would fail,
that he would lack the courage to see her, and would run away, even
before all his servants, when he should hear who was standing in his
hall. But if he did so she would try again, even though she should
have to ride out into the hunting-field after him. Face to face she
would tell him that he was a liar and a slanderer and no gentleman,
though she should have to run round the world to catch him. When she
reached Rufford she went to the town and ordered breakfast and a
carriage. As soon as she had eaten the meal she desired the driver in
a clear voice to take her to Rufford Hall. Was her maid to go with
her? No. She would be back soon, and her maid would wait there till
she had returned.
CHAPTER XIII.
IN THE PARK.
This thing that she was doing required an infinite amount of
pluck,--of that sort of hardihood which we may not quite call
courage, but which in a world well provided with policemen is
infinitely more useful than courage. Lord Rufford himself was endowed
with all the ordinary bravery of an Englishman, but he could have
flown as soon as run into a lion's den as Arabella was doing. She had
learned that Lady Penwether and Miss Penge were both at Rufford Hall,
and understood well the difficulty there would be in explaining her
conduct should she find herself in their presence. And there were
all the servants there to stare at her, and the probability that she
might be shown to the door and told that no one there would speak to
her. She saw it all before her, and knew how bitter it might be;--but
her heart was big enough to carry her through it. She was dressed
very simply, but still by no means dowdily, in a black silk dress,
and though she wore a thick veil when she got out of the fly and rang
the door bell, she had been at some pains with her hair before she
left the inn. Her purpose was revenge; but still she had an eye to
the possible chance,--the chance barely possible of bringing the man
to submit.
When the door was opened she raised her veil and asked for Lord
Rufford;--but as she did so she walked on through the broad passage
which led from the front door into a wide central space which they
called the billiard-room but which really was the hall of the house.
This she did as a manifesto that she did not mean to leave the house
because she might be told that he was out or could not be seen, or
that he was engaged. It was then nearly one o'clock, and no doubt
he would be there for luncheon. Of course he might be in truth away
from home, but she must do her best to judge of that by the servant's
manner. The man knew her well, and not improbably had heard something
of his master's danger. He was, however, very respectful and told her
that his lordship was out in the grounds;--but that Lady Penwether
was in the drawing-room. Then a sudden thought struck her, and she
asked the man whether he would show her in what part of the grounds
she might find Lord Rufford. Upon that he took her to the front door
and pointing across the park to a belt of trees, showed her three or
four men standing round some piece of work. He believed, he said,
that one of those men was his lordship.
She bowed her thanks and was descending the steps on her way to join
the group, when whom should she see but Lady Penwether coming into
the house with her garden-hat and gloves. It was unfortunate; but
she would not allow herself to be stopped by Lady Penwether. She
bowed stiffly and would have passed on without a word, but that was
impossible. "Miss Trefoil!" said Lady Penwether with astonishment.
"Your brother is just across the park. I think I see him and will go
to him."
"I had better send and tell him that you are here," said her
ladyship.
"I need not trouble you so far. I can be my own messenger.
Perhaps you will allow the fly to be sent round to the yard for
half-an-hour." As she said this she was still passing down the steps.