UNDER WATCH AND WARD
IT seemed strange that the huge building which was the country
residence of the Honourable Edmund Arthur Holwynd, Earl of Waybridge,
should be simply Hollingsby, whilst the smaller, but far prettier home
of the Mountfords, should be styled Hollingsby Hall. But so it was,
and though ignorant strangers would sometimes call the latter Little
Hollingsby by way of distinction, such were always sternly rebuked by
the older dwellers in the neighbourhood.
Everybody knew that the earl was only the representative of a very
modern peerage, and that his rambling house, red brick with white stone
facings, was no old family-seat, but the outcome of a large expenditure
of money with the minimum of taste on the part of his father, the first
peer.
The Hall, on the contrary, was known to occupy part of the site of a
much larger building that had stood there centuries ago, and always
this spot had been owned by a Mountford.
Kathleen's father had told her a good deal about her home and those who
had owned it.
"You ought to know all about it, Kitty," he said, "for it will be yours
some day. The estate which goes with the Hall is not a large one, but
it is large enough to keep up a house of this size. You have heard of
estates being burdened, and even lost, because some foolish owner could
not be satisfied without building a place too large for his means. The
Mountfords of old were wiser in their day and generation."
"One of them, four grandfathers back, I believe, was living like some
who had gone before, in the old Hall, or rather part of it, for it was
too big for the income. So like a wise man he saved enough to pull it
down and to build this pretty nest in which you were born."
"The Mountfords have been very jealous about their lands, and proud of
their name. They would never entail the estate, but trusted to each
generation to pass it on intact to the next. So it has been hitherto,
though, so far, an heir has never been lacking. Now the good name of
the old Mountfords will have to be kept up by a slip of a girl when
I am gone. Remember, dear, ours is an honest name. We have prided
ourselves on living within our means, that we might have something
wherewith to show our love to God by helping our neighbour; on hating
debt and keeping aloof from habits and associates who were likely to
lead us into it."
"Kitty darling, when you are mistress of Hollingsby Hall, keep to
the old Mountford traditions, and show that in all that is lovely
and of good report, a woman need not be a whit behind the men of her
family. If I should be taken from you, you will be lovingly guarded,
and I trust you will look on those to whose care you are committed as
representing your parents, for they have been prayerfully chosen, and
are worthy of your esteem."
Of course Kathleen had wept when she heard these words, and had thrown
herself into her father's arms, ready to promise anything, and feeling
resolved that the old name, home, and estates should never be lowered,
lost, or lessened through her. All the same, she hoped that the dear
father would live to see her quite old, a wish not destined to be
realized.
Mr. Mountford had directed that Kathleen should be educated at
home, and, as Mrs. Ellicott's daughter, Geraldine, or Ger, as her
cousin called her, was only two years older, the girls would study
together happily enough. A liberal income was to be set aside for the
maintenance of the home, and Kathleen was to be brought up with the
same surroundings as she would have been had her father lived.
"Better she should be accustomed to all that her means justify, than be
deprived of what she has been used to from childhood, and then placed
in absolute possession of a large fortune when she comes of age," he
had said.
So Hollingsby Hall showed little change during Kathleen's girlhood. All
the old servants stayed on under Mrs. Ellicott's rule; but the large
sum of money which Mr. Mountford had left to his daughter in addition
to the estate became larger each year, as the income from the latter
more than met all expenses.
Geraldine Ellicott presented a great contrast to the young heiress; but
the cousins were strongly attached to each other, and had many tastes
in common.
Externally they were altogether unlike. Miss Ellicott was very tall,
and too slender for her height, but erect and graceful in spite of
it. She had no decided complexion. Her features would never have been
chosen as models by painter or sculptor, and most people, looking at
her face in repose, would have pronounced her decidedly plain. But her
broad brow suggested intellect, and she was a most thoughtful student
and reader.
Kathleen and she were alike musical, yet with a difference. Each was
naturally gifted; but whilst the one was contented with the facility
which followed a moderate amount of effort, Geraldine was ever working
to turn to the best account every talent she possessed.
"When I play or sing, people listen, smile, and say, 'Thank you so
much! What a charming voice you have, Miss Mountford!' or, 'What a
lovely touch!' When you lift up that grand contralto voice of yours,
there is a silence that one feels, and they pay you the greater
compliment of forgetting to thank you. They are absorbed. They give
little gasps as the last note dies away, and there is a look of awe on
some faces, as if there might be an uncanny element in a voice which so
entrances the hearers. How I envy your power!" Kathleen would often say.
Geraldine would laugh at her cousin's words, but there were many who
felt what Kathleen expressed, and went further still, declaring that
when Miss Ellicott sang, she became positively beautiful, there was so
much soul shining in her eyes, which were as fine as Miss Mountford's,
whilst in herself she was the dearest, kindest creature possible.
Pretty Mrs. Stapleton once ventured to remark that Geraldine Ellicott
was a girl whom every one liked, but no one would ever fall in love
with. The speaker was, however, one whose judgment was not absolutely
infallible.
It sometimes happens that those whose good looks are their sole
attraction, are unable to understand the attractiveness which exists
and lasts, without them.
When Kathleen returned to the Hall, after her drive to the meet, she
rushed to her cousin's room, and flung herself into an easy-chair
without waiting to take off her outdoor garments.
Miss Ellicott was looking out of the window, but she turned to greet
Kathleen with a bright smile on her face, as if it were reflecting
happy thoughts.
"Well, Kitty, have you enjoyed your drive? I was just thinking how
lovely the colouring would be on the hedgerows, with the sun shining. I
have been revelling in it without leaving home."
"I might as well have stayed here, for the drive only made me
ill-tempered and envious;" and Kathleen gave her cousin an account
of what and whom she had seen on the road, a half-defiant expression
showing itself in face and tone as she alluded to Captain Torrance.
"You must have laughed, Ger, had you seen the way aunty ignored Captain
Jack and gave him the back of her bonnet to contemplate, when he was
dying to speak to her. However, she had to be civil when he came up
afterwards. What a splendid boy little Ralph is!"
"He is a fine little fellow. I always feel so sorry for him," replied
Geraldine, ignoring Kathleen's allusion to Mrs. Ellicott's coolness to
Captain Jack.
"I cannot see much need for pity, Ger. Ralph's father dotes on that
child. It is beautiful to see them together."
"I am sure it is. No one doubts the father's love for Ralph. But who
would not pity a motherless boy, for the best of fathers could not make
up for such a loss, and—" Geraldine paused, and Kathleen completed the
sentence in her own fashion—
"And Ralph has not the best of fathers, I suppose you would say."
"Do not put words into my mouth, Kitty dear. It is not for me to judge,
only, without disparaging Captain Torrance, one can hardly think it is
good for that dear boy to be associated with his father's friends in
all their pursuits. He must see and learn many things that are hardly
fitting for a child to know."
The gentle reply mollified Kathleen, and she replied, "I dare say you
are right, but I really believe Ralph's father is so fond of the boy,
that he cannot bear him out of his sight."
"I can quite understand that, Kitty. You see, Captain Jack is of
an affectionate nature, and the sort of man who could not endure
loneliness."
Geraldine had no desire to prolong a conversation of which Captain
Torrance was the subject. She could not agree with her cousin's
estimate of his character, and would not irritate her by expressing her
own opinion. She could, however, hardly suppress a smile at the idea
of Captain Jack in solitude at Monk's How. Everybody knew that it was
seldom without a crowd of guests, who were helping its owner to get rid
of what was left of his once ample fortune.
"I need not say that my honoured guardian was not at Hollingsby this
morning. Like Aunt Ellicott, he sympathizes with the fox," said
Kathleen, after a pause.
"Mr. Matheson called here whilst you were out."
"Expecting to see me, no doubt. How disappointed he would be at finding
only you!"
She looked archly at her cousin, but in Geraldine's face there was no
self-consciousness.
"I am certain he was disappointed," continued Kathleen. "Perhaps he
came round to make sure that I had not mounted Polly and gone after the
hounds. Eh, Ger?"
"Do not say that, Kitty dear. Such a thought would never enter his
mind. He knows you would never break your promise to your father."
"Yet, after I made it, my poor father himself doubted whether I should
keep it. I cannot tell you, Ger, how the thought of this one thing
troubles me, and all the more, because he had said so much about the
Mountfords, and that I, a girl, need not be a whit behind the noblest
of the men who had gone before me. I am certain something has been
hidden from me. I was just told what everybody else knew, that my
mother's blindness and helplessness were the result of a fall from her
horse. But I am not prohibited from riding. It torments me to think
there is a mystery about the whole thing. I am not a child. I ought to
know all."
Kathleen waited for no reply, but snatched up her gloves and left the
room hastily, that Geraldine might not notice her springing tears.
Mrs. Ellicott entered almost directly afterwards.
"Is anything wrong with Kitty?" she asked. "She rushed past me just
now, and I fancied she was crying. Surely you girls have not been
quarrelling!"
"No fear of that, mother," said Ger; and then she told what had passed,
adding, "Can you not tell her? I do believe the knowledge of the whole
truth about her mother's accident would help poor Kitty to battle
against the fits of wilfulness which come on from time to time."
"Perhaps so, dear. I will think about it."
[Illustration: SHE TOLD HER NIECE THE STORY OF HER MOTHER'S MISFORTUNE.]
Mrs. Ellicott did think, and decided that what Kitty called "a hateful
mystery" should be one no longer. Holding the girl's hand in hers, Mrs.
Ellicott told her niece the story of her mother's misfortune, and what
led to it. Tenderly, we may be sure, and not forgetting to picture the
after penitence and patience of the sufferer.
"I loved your mother so dearly, Kitty," she said, "that it gives me a
great pang to speak of the fault for which she paid so heavy a penalty.
Your father gave me permission to tell you all, if it would be for your
good to know it. He only concealed so much because it seemed hard to
expose a mother's fault to her child, especially as you only knew her
during those last years. You remember how lovely and how patient she
was. Your father thought it would be best for you to picture her just
as you saw her after—"
Mrs. Ellicott stopped to wipe the tears from her eyes.
"I am ashamed of myself!" cried Kathleen. "I might have been sure that
my father was silent for a good reason; and here have I been giving way
to pettishness and ill-temper, because he, in tenderness to my mother's
memory, and out of love to me, withheld this sorrowful story from me.
Forgive me for the trouble I have given you, aunty! I hope what I have
heard will be a lesson and a help to me. I would not be without the
memory of my sweet mother's face for all the world, and now I know
everything, I grieve for her more than I can tell you."
Mrs. Ellicott could not regret having told Kathleen the truth, for
she became much more gentle for a time and watchful over herself. An
incident which occurred the same evening made her specially hopeful on
the girl's account.
As Mountain was returning to his cottage, after a visit to the stables,
he was accosted by a smart groom, whose face was strange to him, but
whose livery showed that he was in the service of Captain Torrance.
"This is Little Hollingsby, isn't it?" asked the man.
"Not that I know of," replied Mountain.
"Why, don't you live here?" pointing to the Hall.
"I live there!" returned Mountain, indicating his humbler dwelling by
pointing his thumb at it.
"Oh, come now, you know what I mean well enough! I have a message and
something else for Miss Mountford, and I was told she lived at Little
Hollingsby."
"There is no place o' that name," responded Mountain, looking as obtuse
as he knew how.
"Can you tell me which is Miss Mountford's house?"
"I can."
"Then do, if you please."
"Since you, ask me in a mannerly way I will. That is the house, at
least that is the way that leads to the back of it. I suppose you don't
want the front entrance," replied Mountain.
"Why, you said this was not Little Hollingsby."
"No more it is. There is no place o' that name, as I've told you once
already."
"You needn't be so short-tempered when I ask you a civil question!"
retorted the groom indignantly. "What do you call this house, then?"
"It isn't what I call it, but the house is Hollingsby Hall, as
everybody hereabouts knows, or ought to, by this time." The groom gave
a prolonged whistle.
"Well, I never. Anybody would have thought that big place of the earl's
was the Hall, not this—"
"I'd have you to know, young man," interrupted Mountain, in high
indignation at the contemptuous stress laid on the last word, "I'd
have you to know that Hollingsby Hall has been this place, and called
nothing else for ages before that place of the earl's, which is as ugly
as it is big, was thought of. Ay, or an earl to live in it, for the
title and Hollingsby are new alike, though the village is old enough."
"Well, how was I to know? I have only been at the captain's place for a
month or so, and I can't remember ages back, if you can!" retorted the
groom.
"Who said I could? but let me tell you it's matter of history about
the Hall, and the Mountfords, who used to have a bigger house than the
earl's, but they pulled it down and built this, as better suited to
their means. Not like some people as shall be nameless, that waste and
spend all before them, and soon won't have a pigsty to call their own."
Mountain spoke severely, but looked triumphant, as if he had "about
settled this puppy of a groom from Monk's How."
But the puppy in question was getting impatient, and not knowing to
what lengths the speaker might go, he ventured to interrupt Mountain's
tirade.
"It's all very interesting, no doubt; but as the family are strangers
to me, and I've no partickler taste for history, I'll not trouble you
to tell me any more. And as to people spending themselves out of house
and home, and running into debt, I shan't put myself out for them. I
shall manage to find a place, I dare say, and we shall neither of us be
asked to pay anybody's debts but our own—if we have any. What I want to
know is, how to deliver my message, and cetera, to Miss Mountford?"
"That's an easy matter, now you know your way to the back door."
"You don't mean to say that Miss Mountford will come to the back door
to answer it, do you?" sneered the groom, who was waxing more and more
indignant at Mountain's mode of replying.
"No, I don't. Neither would she answer the Hall door, if you went
to that. She keeps servants enough to take the messages which other
people's servants bring. One of 'em will take yours, if you give 'em a
chance;" and turning on his heel, Mountain marched rapidly towards his
own dwelling, without waiting for more words.
"If the indoor servants aren't pleasanter to speak to than the outdoor
ones, it will be a pity!" shouted the groom after the retreating
figure; adding to himself, "Captain Torrance told me to put what he
sent into the hands of the young lady herself; and I mean to do it,
specially as he promised me a five-shilling tip if I managed it, and
brought an answer. I'm not often beat when I take a thing to do, and
the captain said, 'Jem Capes, I can trust you better than most. You
have got a head on your shoulders, and not a something which might as
well be a turnip, for any sense there is in it.' And sure enough there
are a many turnip heads about, particularly in these country places."
As Mr. Jem Capes finished his soliloquy he vigorously used the knocker
to the back entrance of Hollingsby Hall.