RECEIVED BY THE COUNTY.
At half-past twelve o’clock on the following day Sibyl and Mr.
Trenchard start on their drive to the How. It is more than an hour’s
drive, even with Mr. Trenchard’s well-fed horses, who are used so
little that they are in a chronic state of either wanting to run away
or languishing into a crawl. Their paces between Redcastle and the
How are an alternate bolt and dawdle, and perhaps, on the whole, they
take more time about the journey than the less pampered steeds which
ply for hire at Redcastle station.
Sir Wilford Cardonnel is smoking his cigar on the grassy walk inside
the moat as Mr. Trenchard’s carriage drives through the gateway. The
How is a good old place of the moated grange order. Tudor gables and
windows in front; roofs and chimneys at the back of the premises
of an earlier period; a fine old chapel, which has been converted
into a drawing-room; a monkish refectory, which has been made a
billiard-room. The gardens are lovely, and that deep wide moat, with
its dark still water and smooth green banks, adds not a little to
their beauty. A swan comes sailing down the dark shining water as
Sibyl alights, assisted by Sir Wilford, who has thrown away his cigar
and come to welcome his guests.
‘How late you are!’ he exclaims. ‘I have been expecting you for the
last two hours. Now what will you see first?--the stables or the
gardens?’
Sibyl is going to say the gardens, but Mr. Trenchard, who knows that
his host’s tastes are turfy, votes for the stables.
‘I’m so glad you like stables,’ exclaims Sir Wilford, addressing
himself to Sibyl, as if the choice were hers. ‘I’m rather proud
of mine, you know. I’ve spent a good deal of money upon ’em. They
were regular pigsties when I inherited the place. My poor father
didn’t care about his stables, you know. As long as he had a couple
of carriage horses to drag the family about, a weight-carrying
cob for his own use, and a pony or two for us children, he was
satisfied. His horses weren’t members of his family. Why, in his
time the gardeners and farm labourers were as well accommodated as
the horses,’ concludes Sir Wilford, as if this were the summit of
iniquity.
They traverse a shrubbery, and find themselves in the stable
department, a spacious quadrangle, stone-paved, with a stone basin
of water in the middle. Numbered doors, and windows adorned with
flower-boxes, surround this neat square quadrangle, each door opening
into a loose box, each number belonging to a special quadruped in Sir
Wilford’s stud. Within, the loose boxes are as neat as a spinster
annuitant’s best parlour. Each horse is provided with a cat or dog
for company, while one animal, more social than the rest, is not
satisfied without the society of a stable boy, who sits in a corner
of his box reading the paper all the summer afternoon, while the
lordly beast stares dreamily at him across the swinging door, and
makes an occasional snap at him, displaying an appalling range of
long yellow teeth, in pure playfulness.
Sibyl is introduced severally to the horses, who are swathed in
double sets of clothing, as if they were in Siberia.
‘Why are the poor things wrapped up so this warm weather?’ inquires
Sibyl.
‘That’s to keep up the beauty of their coats, mum,’ says a stable boy.
Numerous animals are unclothed, and brought out in the sunny
quadrangle to display their various graces. They all seem pretty
much alike to Sibyl, except that some are thin and some thick. Sibyl
admires the slimmer animals, but Sir Wilford, Mr. Trenchard, and
the stud groom go into raptures about the thicker and more stalwart
quadrupeds.
‘There’s a shoulder!’ says the groom, punching a bull-necked brute.
‘Carry a church.’
‘There are legs,’ cries Sir Wilford, ‘regular gateposts!’
‘Shall I bring out Bull of Bashan, sir?’ inquires the stud groom,
and another thick-set beast is led forth, plunging viciously to the
rearwards as he emerges from his cool retreat.
Bull of Bashan is the gem of the stud. His leading qualification is
cobbiness, thick neck, thick legs, a straight line from hock to
fetlock, short barrel, broad chest, an eye like Jove to threaten or
command, and not a white hair about him, as the stud groom remarks
complacently. Time was when Bull of Bashan would have been esteemed a
serviceable horse for a village miller, or a tenant farmer. To-day he
is the last fashion for a gentleman of fortune.
‘Ran away with a stable boy yesterday morning when he was being
exercised,’ says Sir Wilford, approvingly, patting the beast’s solid
shoulder, which familiarity the Bull resents by sticking his ears
back till he appears to be unprovided with those appendages, and
giving a vicious kick in the direction of his master’s shins.
‘How do you like the Bull, Miss Faunthorpe?’
‘Isn’t he rather bad tempered?’ inquires Sibyl, doubtfully.
‘Oh, he’s a lively horse, I admit, but the best goer in the stable.
The men don’t care about riding him, but he and I understand each
other,--don’t we, Bull? There, take him in, Chanter.’
They look into other loose boxes, and Sibyl begins to think there is
no end to the horses; but the stable inspection is over at last, and
they go back to the gardens, where the baronet’s sisters condescend
to join them.
Phœbe Cardonnel is a little more inclined to be civil to-day than
she showed herself at Lancaster Lodge yesterday. She tells Sibyl the
names of roses and ferns, and makes herself otherwise agreeable. This
amelioration of the young lady’s manners has been brought about by a
domestic process which Sir Wilford calls ‘a jolly good setting down.’
The baronet has informed his sisters in the plainest language that he
considers Miss Faunthorpe the nicest girl he has met for a long time,
that he has been informed that she has large expectations from the
old Indian beggar, meaning Stephen Trenchard, and that in his, Sir
Wilford’s opinion, she would suit him admirably for a wife.
Whereupon the two sisters, Phœbe and Lavinia, as with one voice,
exclaim in the words of Mrs. Stormont,--
‘Wilford! a girl of no family.’
‘Hang family!’ ejaculates Sir Wilford. ‘We’ve got pedigree enough
and to spare. The needful thing is ready money.’
‘Oh, Wilford, you are rich enough surely.’
‘Oh, I can rub along, if that’s what you mean,’ answers the baronet.
‘But I could buy the Longley Bottom Estate if I had fifty thousand to
dispose of, and then I should be the largest landowner between this
and York. There’s an upland meadow that would make the finest gallop
in England, and you know how badly I want some good training-ground.’
‘Well, Wilford, if I were the head of the family I wouldn’t degrade
myself by a plebeian marriage for the sake of a few paltry thousands.
You might have Lady Malvina Vielleroche for the asking.’
‘But I never shall ask,’ answers Sir Wilford decisively. ‘Lady
Malvina is a good deal too weedy for my money, and I don’t like ’em
that colour. I’d marry Miss Faunthorpe if she hadn’t a sixpence, but
of course I take all the more kindly to the notion on account of that
old chap’s cash. I shouldn’t like to see Longley Manor owned by some
three-quarter bred cockney.’
The result of this conversation, which took place after dinner
yesterday evening, is Phœbe Cardonnel’s amiable welcome of to-day.
She takes Sibyl up to her own room to take off her hat before
luncheon, and Sibyl admires the fine old house with its spacious
corridors, massive Tudor windows, and innumerable rooms. It is all
so different from the formal splendour of Lancaster Lodge. Here all
is picturesque, full of old associations, suggestive of ruffs and
farthingales, silken hose, and jewelled sword-hilts. There must be a
family ghost, of course, in such a house.
‘It is a place whose mistress must feel like a queen,’ thinks Sibyl,
as she stands before the carved oak dressing-table, with its old
Venice mirror, not quite so convenient as a modern dressing-table,
but wondrous stately. From the wide mullioned window she sees the
gardens and park spreading far away to the summer woods, and woods as
well as park and gardens belong to Sir Wilford Cardonnel.
She can but think what a mighty conquest she has made, if Sir Wilford
is really in love with her, as she can hardly doubt. She is just a
little intoxicated by the idea. She feels as if she had been raised
suddenly to a dizzy height, from which she must come toppling down
presently. She feels as she has often felt in a dream years ago at
Miss Worrie’s boarding school, when her slumbers were frequently
visited by a vision of pride in which she saw herself wooed by some
rich and noble suitor, and from which she awoke at the shrill peal of
the school-bell, to find herself in the bleak bare dormitory, with
the prospect of a winter day’s dreary toil before her.
Luncheon at the How is a bounteous and hospitable meal, in an
oak-paneled dining-room. After luncheon they explore the old house,
which although not a show place, is well worthy that honour. They
look at the family pictures, which seem to Sibyl rather a collection
of wigs than of faces, so much more distinctive are the wigs than the
countenances they embellish. The portrait gallery is, of course, a
compendium of the family history, and Sibyl here discovers that the
Cardonnels have produced alternate commanders by land and sea, for
the protection of their country, and have occasionally blossomed into
a judge.
Stephen Trenchard takes his part in the day’s proceedings with
supreme patience; admires the family portraits just as he admired Sir
Wilford’s horses; and makes himself generally agreeable. It is only
when he is seated in the carriage with his niece that the tension
of the bow is relaxed, and weariness overshadows the Anglo-Indian’s
sallow countenance.
‘Rather a long morning, Sibyl,’ he says, ‘and more sight-seeing than
I care about; but I have borne it all for your sake. It will be a
proud day for me if I live to see you mistress of that place. Yes, my
dear, one of the proudest days of my life; and yet I have made many a
conquest over fortune since I left Redcastle, more than fifty years
ago, a gaunt hungry lad--turned my back resolutely on my native town,
knowing very well that there was nothing but starvation for me if I
stayed there any longer.’
Sibyl is silent. It would be cruel to dispel a fancy which evidently
gives the old man pleasure. Let him dream on. If what Mrs. Stormont
says is true--and Stephen Trenchard’s strength is dwindling
fast,--the end may come before he is awakened from his dream.
‘And it will please him better to leave me his money if he thinks
that I am going to be a rich baronet’s wife,’ reasons Sibyl within
herself. ‘To add riches to riches is the delight of such men.’