Mr. Augustus Markham Gaveston strolled up the village when the children
left him, looking curiously at all the cottages, till he came to the
little whitewashed country inn, which called itself the Markham Arms.
The little gentleman was full of interest in everything. He stopped and
looked in at the windows of the little shop, where everything was sold,
from biscuits to petticoats--gazed in with as much interest as if it had
been a shop in Bond Street. He crossed over the street to see where the
post-office was, and to look at the smithy, where the blacksmith and his
journeyman and apprentice paused to push their caps from their foreheads
and stare at him, as did also the groom from Westland Towers, very trim
and fine, who had brought Mr. Westland’s horse to have his shoes looked
to. They all stared, and the stranger returned their gaze with smiling
complacency, evidently thinking it quite natural that they should stare
at him--a thing to be looked for. And the school children stared at him
whom he met on their way to the rectory. Mr. Augustus did not mind. He
looked at them all paternally, patting the heads of some of the little
ones. The little girls curtsied to him--as you may be sure in schools
superintended by Miss Stainforth they had been taught to do--and this
pleased him greatly. He took off his hat to them, which astonished the
children as much as his white umbrella did, and the strangeness of his
appearance altogether. The village was in a commotion, as was natural,
by reason of the school-feast, and the arrival of so many carriages and
visitors. Half at least of the houses were still pouring forth little
bands in their best clothes, mothers and aunts standing at the door to
watch the effect. So that it was a kind of triumphal progress which he
made through the village street, where everybody was glad to have a new
object to occupy them after the children had disappeared. The Markham
Arms was not a much frequented inn; but it was as clean and neat as it
was quiet and homely, and there was a pretty little parlour with a
bow-window, all clustered with the common sweet clematis, the
travellers’ joy, and honeysuckle, into which Mrs. Boardman ushered the
stranger with secret pride, yet many apologies.
There is a bigger room up stairs, sir; but if so be as you could do with
this till to-morrow----”
“It is the very thing I want,” he said; and he bade her send some one to
the station for his portmanteaus. “Only the portmanteaus. I don’t want
the big cases.” This dazzled the landlady, and indeed there were found
to be three large cases besides the portmanteaus, cases so large that it
was all the little station could do to afford them shelter and safety.
John Boardman fetched the other boxes himself, and was duly impressed by
this evidence of wealth. The name on the luggage, as on the little
gentleman’s card, was Markham Gaveston; but whether by some freak of the
uninstructed artist who had written the name in bold characters of print
upon the cases, the Gaveston was small, and the Markham large, so that
there was some doubt in the minds of the people, both at the station and
the inn, which was the name to call the new-comer by; and what was
still more odd, when they asked him, he only laughed and answered,
“Which you please,” which confused them more and more. He informed John
Boardman, however, that he was a relation of the family, but had been in
foreign parts all his life, and had never seen Markham before; and, as
he brought in the boys from the Chase to dine with him that very
evening, there could be no doubt as to the justice of this claim. Also
the landlord had a letter to put in the post for him that night which
was addressed to Sir William Markham at Oxford. He must be a relation,
but who was he? For the next two days the village was very much
disturbed by this question. There were old people in the place who were
proud to think that they knew Sir William’s relations better than he
himself did; but who this little gentleman was, and what might be the
degree of his cousinship, they found it very hard to make out. He
laughed once more when he was asked if he was “a full cousin,” or a more
distant relation.
“Something of that sort,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye, as if this
was a capital joke. He was so constantly about, and so ready to make
acquaintance with everybody, that in two days the whole village knew
him; and this question weighed upon the mind of the community. At last
one of the old women in the almshouses who had spent half her life in
the nursery at the Chase, by dint of almost superhuman cogitation, found
a clue to the mystery. She remembered that one of the daughters of the
late Mr. Markham of Underwood, who was “full cousin” to Sir William, had
gone abroad after she became a widow, a very long time ago. Most likely
she must have married again and become the mother of this little brown
gentleman, who no doubt looked older than he was, being so spare and so
brown. This was an explanation that satisfied everybody. The lady’s name
had been Willoughby when she left England, but what of that? It took a
weight off the mind of the village to have the stranger thus made out
and set in his right place.
And during the three days he spent in the village Mr. Markham Gaveston
made acquaintance with everybody. His curiosity was insatiable. All day
long he strolled about and questioned everybody. When he saw old Sophy
coming from the woods with her bundle of sticks, he insisted on knowing
where she got them, and how she got them, and all about her. Nothing
escaped him. He found out that it was Lord Westland’s groom that was at
the smithy when he passed, and that the horse belonged to the Honourable
Mr. Westland, and that the Honourable Mr. Westland was always finding
errands to bring him to the rectory. This information he picked up by
the way, as one to whom all news was pleasant; but the Markhams were the
real objects of his inquiries. And when the landlady proceeded to
intimate that Mr. Westland might save himself the trouble, since Miss
Dolly cared more for Mr. Paul’s little finger than for all his grandeur,
and his title, the little gentleman at once owned the stronger spell.
“So there’s a love-story going on, is there?” he cried briskly. “Mr.
Paul! that’s my young relation, I suppose? Are they going to marry?
Come, tell me all about it. This interests me.”
“Oh, _marry_, sir; bless you! No, it ain’t gone so far as that,” Mrs.
Boardman cried. And she had to protest that there was nothing but “idle
tales” in what she had said--her own silly fancies, as she added, with
anxious humility, and bits of gossip among the servants. “You won’t say
as I said it, sir,” she added. “I wouldn’t be the one to make mischief
for all the world, nor vex Miss Dolly, so good as she is; and most
likely my lady wouldn’t like it--and I don’t say nothing for Mr. Paul
neither. He is mostly away; it isn’t what you could call keeping
company. Oh, if us women hadn’t got no tongues, what a deal o’
mischief’d be spared!’
“That’s what I’m always telling you,” said John.
“And the men’s worse,” said his wife, going on. “Us women, we lets a
thing slip, and never thinks; but the bad stories, them as sets folks by
the ears, they always comes from the men.”
This amused Mr. Markham Gaveston greatly. He clapped his hands and
encouraged them both to continue.
“At her, John!” he said, behind the good woman’s back; but John shook
his head and retired. He knew better.
And Mrs. Boardman wiped her hands on her apron, and went off “to see to
my dinner.” The dinner naturally was not hers, but her guest’s, who was
a small eater--much too small an eater; a single chop was all he had for
lunch, a chicken served him two days for dinner. There was little credit
in cooking for any one who was so easily satisfied. To be sure he had
suggested one or two eccentric dishes to her when he came, which Mrs.
Boardman had never heard of, and which she had declared could not be
half so good for any one’s “innards” as a plain joint; but since that
the stranger had made no remarks, eating what was set before him without
remonstrance, but too little of it to please his hostess. He was much
more greedy of news than he was of his dinner; and this last piece of
information cost him a great deal of thought.
Next day, the third day of his stay at Markham Royal, Dolly Stainforth
had a little expedition to make by railway. Though she was far from
being an emancipated young lady, and though her father was very careful
that she should have in general all the guardianship that her position
required, yet to be always accompanied by a servant on the little
journeys which she made periodically to see an old aunt only two
stations off was a burden Dolly could not consent to: for which reason
it had become the habit at Markham Royal to appropriate a vacant
carriage to the use of ladies--a carriage over which the guard was
supposed to watch, defending it from all male intruders. In this
compartment old George, the man-servant at the rectory, carefully placed
his young mistress; and all went on as usual till the very moment before
the train started, when old George was gone, and the attention of the
guard distracted; when the door of Dolly’s carriage was suddenly,
swiftly, noiselessly opened, and a little gentleman, in loose,
light-coloured clothes, jumped in.
Dolly was so much startled that it was a minute before she found her
breath, and in that minute the train had glided from the station.
“I fear I have frightened you,” the stranger said.
Dolly was not at all frightened, but she was true to her father’s
precautions.
“Oh, no; but this is a carriage for ladies,” she said.
“Dear me, what a pity!” cried the little man; but it was easy to see by
his countenance that he did not think it a pity. “I am a stranger here,”
he said, “a stranger in England. I don’t know all your ways. I will
change at the next station if I am disagreeable to you.”
“Oh, no,” cried Dolly, horrified to be supposed guilty of rudeness. “It
is not that. It is only that I am supposed always to travel by myself.
Papa insists on a ladies’ carriage. But it does not at all matter,” she
added, with a glance that was not flattering to the special intruder in
question. “Nobody could mind----”
Dear, dear! Dolly thought to herself, this is ruder still; and blushed
crimson.
The stranger, however, did not draw from this any conclusions which were
humiliating to himself. People are not so close to mark our looks and
words as we imagine them to be. He smiled serenely, and as the train was
now plunging along in the fussy yet leisurely manner common to a country
train which stops at all the stations, resumed, with an air of great
satisfaction and complacency--
“I am very glad you don’t mind; for I came into the carriage on
purpose--because I saw you get in. I wanted to speak to you,” said Mr.
Markham Gaveston, with a genial smile.
Then Dolly began to quake a little. Was he mad--or what did he mean? “Do
you know me?” she said, faltering. She had heard of the stranger at the
Markham Arms, but had not seen him.
“I have the pleasure of knowing who you are,” he said, taking off his
hat with the utmost politeness. “My little--relations, the little
Markhams, pointed you out to me.’
“Oh,” cried Dolly again, “then you are----?”
“Yes, exactly,” he said, smiling, “that is what I am. I have come from
the tropics, and I do not know much about England. If I say anything
that is very unusual, I hope you will excuse me. It is disagreeable that
they should be away just when I have come so far to see them.”
“Yes,” said Dolly, hesitating. She could not refuse to answer him; but
to discuss her friends with a stranger was a thing against which her
heart revolted. “They did not expect to be away; it was quite
unexpected,” she said.
“And I have no reason to complain, for they did not know I was coming.
All the same, one may say it is disagreeable, don’t you think? I have to
put up in the inn, instead of being in my--instead of being among my own
people.”
“Do you know the Markhams, sir?” said Dolly.
She had a way of saying “sir” to men whom she considered old men; but
happily Mr. Markham Gaveston did not know what was his title to so
respectful an address.
“I know the little boys and the little girls,” he said. “I could wish
there were no more.”
“Why?”
Dolly turned upon him with a flash of indignation, with eyes wide open
and lips apart.
“Ah! what a silly thing to say, wasn’t it?” he said. “You may be sure I
couldn’t have meant it. I want you to tell me about the others--the
eldest girl and the boy.”
“I! tell you--about the others!”
Dolly grew pale, and then red again. Either he must be mad, which had
been her first thought, or else----
“Yes,” he said, quite calmly, “don’t be frightened. I want to have a
good account of them and that is what has brought me to you.”
Once more Dolly stared at him in consternation. She wanted to be angry
and think him impertinent, but he was not impertinent.
“Don’t be frightened,” her strange companion went on. “I want to hear
all that is good of them. They tell me that I won’t hear anything that
is not good from you.”
“Mr. ---- sir! ---- How can I talk,” cried Dolly, with crimson cheeks, “of
my friends to you? I--don’t know you. Why do you want to question any
one about them? Who told you I would say nothing that was not good? Does
anybody think,” cried Dolly, her eyes flaming, “that I would say either
good or bad, for any one, that was not true?”
“I cannot answer so many questions at once,” said the little gentleman;
“besides, that is not what I want; I want to ask, not to answer. I want
to know about my--relations. When I see them, perhaps they may not be
very civil to me; they may think me a bore.”
“Oh!” cried Dolly, “certainly they will be civil. Alice is too kind for
anything else, and Paul--Paul is a gentleman,” she said, raising her
head. A softness came over the girl’s eyes. She had no thought of
betraying herself; perhaps indeed she was not aware that there was
anything to betray; but in spite of herself, a certain subdued and
dreamy glow, a kind of haze of golden light, came into her brown eyes at
Paul’s name.
“Well, that is something,” said the stranger; “you don’t think then that
they will take to me much? but because the one is kind, and the other a
gentleman----”
“That was not what I meant. Am I to pay you compliments to your face?”
said Dolly, stopping short and looking suddenly up, half impatient, half
amused.
“Certainly, if you wish to,” he cried, promptly. “Oh, yes--do not be
shy. I should not at all mind a compliment or two; indeed I think I
should like them. Do not stand upon ceremony. If you can say seriously
that you think me so nice that Alice will like me at once, and your Paul
claim me as a brother----”
“He is not my Paul,” cried Dolly, with another hot blush. “I do not like
such a way of speaking. And, Mr. ----”
She paused for his name, but the little man was malicious, and would not
give it. He nodded his head two or three times.
“Just so,” he said. “That is quite right,” smiling with a mischievous
smile.
“Mr.--Markham,” Dolly said with a burst. “If that is not your right
name, it is not my fault. How could Paul receive you as a brother? You
must mean as--an uncle perhaps. Do you know that Paul is only just come
of age, and Alice is but six months older than I?”
“Ah,” said Mr. Markham Gaveston, stroking his moustache. “I did not
think of that,” and he looked at her with an expression half comic, half
sad, slightly discomfited there could be no doubt. From this he shook
himself free, however, and asked suddenly, “How old may Sir William be?”
“Sir William? Oh, quite old,” said Dolly. She gave a furtive glance at
him this time, anxious to keep on the safe side, and making a
calculation in her own mind how old this little brown gentleman himself
could be. Fifty, sixty? these two ages were much the same to Dolly.
There was not to her any appreciable difference in their extreme oldness
and far-offness. Even forty was very old. Her mind wandered hazily,
confused on these grey and misty heights. “He is not so old as papa,”
she said with hesitation, “for papa, you know, was his tutor at college;
but he is a great deal older than Lady Markham. He did not marry till he
was about--I don’t quite know how much--about forty, I think I have
heard people say,” said Dolly, with a certain awe in her voice.
“And that seems quite old to you?”
“It is old to be married, is it not? And Lady Markham was so beautiful,
everybody says. She is beautiful still. I don’t know any one so lovely.
I tell Alice often though I love her dearly, she is not half, oh, not a
quarter so pretty as her mamma.”
“How does Alice like that? It will not please her much, I should think.
I should not say that if I wanted her to like me.”
The disdain with which Dolly erected her small head, and looked at him!
“That only shows,” she said, “how little you know. Any girl would be a
great deal more proud of her beautiful mamma than if she were ever so
pretty herself. And Alice is very pretty. She has the sweetest eyes you
ever saw. Quite blue like the sky--the deep sky. Not this little bit of
no colour at all,” she said, pointing upwards to the hazy grey-blue of
heat: “but the deep, deep sky--the blue-blue behind the clouds.
Everything about her is pretty; but she is not so handsome, so
beautiful, as Lady Markham. Being beautiful, and being pretty, are two
different things.”
Her companion did not pay much attention to Dolly’s reflections. He
broke the thread of them quite abruptly by asking all at once--
“And Paul?”
“Paul!” Dolly raised her slight figure bolt upright as though she had
been fifty. “You are very much interested in Paul, Mr.--Markham; but
then you don’t know them. I care for Alice most.”
He answered by a laugh. What did he laugh at, this very strange
disagreeable little gentleman? Dolly had thoughts of turning her back
upon him, of saying no more to him, of requesting him to change into
another carriage at the station which they were approaching. But after
all she did not want to be rid of him. She could not help liking to talk
about the Markhams. What could be more natural? Were they not her oldest
friends? her nearest neighbours? the people to whom she owed most of her
pleasures? It was not doing any harm to them; on the contrary, it might
be doing them good. Dolly tried to remember, though her heart fluttered,
whether she had ever heard of any rich uncle or benevolent relation who
might intend to surprise them, to come home _incognito_, and find out
their characters before he left them all his money. If this was so,
might it not be for their very highest advantage that she should talk of
them? Mr. Markham Gaveston was the ideal of a rich uncle travelling
_incognito_, such as appears now and then in novels. Perhaps he might
intend to represent himself as a poor, not a rich, relation in order to
try them. Dolly smiled within herself as this idea crossed her mind.
Then indeed it was quite certain who his money would come to! He would
be received as if he were a prince. Lady Markham and Alice would not
know how to do enough for him. They would try to make him forget his
imaginary troubles; they would comfort him for all his losses. If this
was what he meant to do, Dolly smiled to think of the certain issue.
Before she came to this smile, she had made a long circuit in her
thoughts, and had half or wholly forgotten the laugh which had for a
moment roused her indignation. And when he saw her smile, her companion
took it as a sign of amnesty, and himself resumed the conversation.
“Come,” he said, “you have told me about the ladies; it is the turn of
the others now; so if you please, let us return to the most important. I
want to know about Paul.”
“Is he the most important?” said Dolly, doing her best to move her
pretty upper lip into a semblance of scorn; then she dropped from this
height of proud disdain, and admitted in a cheerful tone, “I suppose he
will be to gentlemen. I do not know Paul so well; that is natural. He
has been away a great deal--not always at home like Alice; he was at
school first, and now he has been nearly three years at Oxford. I have
seen him only in the holidays. That makes a great difference,” said
Dolly, demurely. She looked at her questioner with quiet defiance. If he
thought she was going to betray herself a second time! And Mr. Markham
laughed too. They established a little tacit confidence on this
point--not that Dolly would have owned to it for any inducement--but the
stranger was quick, and understood.
“Shall you go and stay with them,” she said, beginning to carry the war
into the enemy’s country, “when they come back?”
“If they will have me,” he said.
“Oh, I am sure they will have you. If you take my advice, Mr.--Markham,
this is what you must do. Pretend to be quite poor. Say you have lost
everything, and that instead of coming to England rich as you had hoped,
you have come with nothing. Oh, what fun it will be,” cried Dolly. “I
will back you up in everything you say. I will pretend you _told_ me
about it. Do this, Mr. Markham, and you shall see what will happen.”
“What would happen in many houses would be that I should be turned to
the door. But how do you know that I am not poor? then it would be no
fun at all.”
Dolly’s laugh was a pleasure to hear; it was so honest, and simple, and
sure. She had no doubt whatever on the question. Her theory explained
everything delightfully. She did not even take the trouble to reply to
this suggestion. She said--
“We are coming to the Pemberton station. Do you mean to change here as
you said?”
“I will go certainly, if you turn me out.”
Here Dolly’s laughing countenance suddenly clouded over. She cast at him
a quick glance of entreaty.
“Oh, no, don’t go, don’t go,” she cried. And then she added, in a tone
of annoyance, “I think everybody is travelling to-day. Some people are
always travelling. It is horrid,” cried Dolly, “to see the same faces
and hear the same voices wherever one goes.”
The cause of this ebullition of temper was easily explained. It was
George Westland, very deprecating and humble, who had opened the
carriage door.