Lord Frogmore had divined the course that would be taken by the ladies,
and as soon as he escaped he hurried off in the opposite direction, from
which, when Mary reached the door, he was visible tranquilly sauntering
towards the house. He called to Mary as soon as he saw her at the door.
“Miss Hill! I have been trying in vain to find my way to Marsham Ponds.
Have you time to show me how to go?”
Mary begged him to wait a moment and returned to reassure Letitia.
“Whoever it was it was not Lord Frogmore. He is out in the West
shrubbery trying to find the way to Marsham, and he wants me to show
him. Whoever it was it could not be he.”
Letitia drew a long breath of relief. “Well,” she said, “no one else
matters much; but for goodness sake never let us begin to talk again
without seeing if there’s anybody there.”
“Do you want me,” said Mary, “or can I go? I will tell Felicie to come
down and give you your tea.”
“Oh, you can go--it’s better there should be someone to amuse Frogmore:
but don’t you think you’ll get anything out of him, for every penny he
has should come to the children. Now remember what I say.”
“I want none of his pennies,” said Mary indignantly--but it was with a
sense of relief that she got her hat and went out to Lord Frogmore, who
was more kind and understanding than any other visitor at Greenpark had
ever been. They had all taken her undisguisedly for a dependent, all
treated her in the easy and unguarded way which unfortunately is the
common way of treating a governess or companion, with that manner of
contempt--or perhaps it would be most kind to say indifference--which an
old maid who is poor and modest is apt to meet with. Her remarks were
not noted--her opinions elicited no response; if she was silent, as she
most frequently was, nobody cared. But Lord Frogmore always heard her
when she said anything, and asked her what she thought of this thing
and that. It pleased poor Mary to be considered like other people, on
the same level as the rest--whom inevitably in her own mind she had
begun to regard with an involuntary responsive scorn as stupid and
without feeling. She thought better of her neighbors because she herself
was placed in her right position by the sense, the appreciation, or--as
she called it--the kindness of old Lord Frogmore.
They went along together through the copsewood which surrounded the trim
clearing of garden and tiny park in which the house was enclosed. It was
brown and red with autumnal color and shining in the sun with autumn
damp, the heavy dews of the morning which had settled down in the
afternoon to a sort of suspended wateriness which made the bushes and
the grass glisten. But it was not cold, the afternoon sun diffused a
ruddy glow through the air, to which the red and yellow trees added each
their suggestion of a contributed light. They had talked about the
house, about the weather, so fine for the time of the year, and about
Marsham Ponds, which made a picturesque point in the landscape, as they
went along, and it was after a little pause that Lord Frogmore began.
“I am going to say something to you, Miss Hill, which perhaps you will
consider I have no right to say--but you must remember that I am an old
man.”
“You may say what you please, Lord Frogmore. I know it will be kind,”
said Mary: and she added after a moment with a smile, “But I think it is
a mistake to suppose that age can be counted merely by years.”
“I am glad you are of that opinion,” said the old lord. “I sometimes
think so myself; but one is never a good judge in one’s own case. Don’t
you think, however, my dear young lady, that you are yourself in rather
a false position here.”
Mary looked at him with a quick change of color and a glance of
interrogation.
“You know,” he said, “I took you for the governess. I have never ceased
to be ashamed----”
“There was nothing to be ashamed about, Lord Frogmore. I wish I were the
governess--then I should not be in a false position--but I don’t know
enough to teach any one.”
“Not even Duke?” he said with a smile. “You are too humble minded, Miss
Hill; but that would not suit Mrs. Parke so well as having all the
advantage of you as you are. May I ask, is there any relationship to
give her such a claim upon you?”
“Oh, no! But we are very old friends. My father is the Vicar of
Grocombe, where all the Ravelstones live.”
“Ah,” said Lord Frogmore, with a look of satisfaction, “that explains
the familiarity of that big fellow--that Australian: not so bad a fellow
as his sister seems to think.”
“Oh,” cried Mary, with a shudder, “he is very rough and very coarse. He
has always been the trouble of the family. I am afraid of Ralph, too;
but I knew him very well as I knew them all when we were children.
Letitia used to come a great deal to the vicarage----”
“I will be bound she came for help for herself, not for you?”
“Oh, don’t say so, please. I am sure she was fond of mamma. She had no
mother of her own. And she is very kind now. Lord Frogmore, I need not
conceal,” said Mary, with a sudden flush, “that we are poor. It is quite
a poor living, and my father has had to send all the boys out in the
world. Unfortunately, we girls have not any education or we might have
helped.”
“So much the better, Miss Hill.”
“Oh, don’t say so!” said Mary, “if you knew what it was to feel so
helpless, not to be able to do anything: and just to have to live on and
on dependent on your father, good for nothing, with nothing to look
forward to. I am saying a great deal more to you than I ever said to
anyone, Lord Frogmore. Letitia has been very kind. She asked me to come
for a long visit so that I might be no expense at home.”
“And reminds you of it every day,” said the old gentleman.
“Oh,” said Mary, off her guard, “how should you know?--not every
day--oh, no, no! Sometimes I need to be reminded, for a thing that
becomes familiar one is apt to forget. They are very kind at home, and
say they miss me more than the good it does them. But I know it is an
ease to my father’s mind. He thinks it is one at least provided for.”
“Do you think you are provided for, Miss Hill?”
Mary hung her head. “I am for the moment. I am sure Letitia is very
kind; but if there was any change, or when she really has to get a
governess----”
“Should you be sorry to go away?”
“Oh, never sorry to go home,” said Mary, with a gleam of light in her
face. “I’d rather starve with them than feast with others--but so long
as it is an ease to poor papa’s mind. He is not so strong as he was--he
is getting old.”
“About my age, I suppose?” said Lord Frogmore.
“Oh, a great deal more, certainly a great deal more!” cried Mary. She
gave, however, a sidelong glance at Lord Frogmore’s face to make quite
sure. “And he has had a hard life. That makes a man old more than
years.”
“You were good enough to say the same thing before,” said the old lord,
“that age cannot be counted by years. That is always a pleasant thing to
be said by the young to the old.”
“But I am not young,” said Mary, with a little, frank laugh. “I am
middle-aged, which many people think is the worst of all.”
“In that case I must borrow your formula, and say age is not counted by
years,” said the old gentleman. “You have a face on which peace is
written. You have not had much trouble, I think, in your life.”
Mary grew very serious, for this is an imputation which few people can
accept without a protest. But as she was very sincere she assented,
after a moment, “No; only being poor. And what is that when all the
boys, thank God, have done so well?”
“Is that the only trouble you can think of?” said Lord Frogmore.
“The chief--the greatest. When you have to be ashamed of a brother, or
to watch him going wrong, and able to do nothing, and never to trust
him. There is nothing in the world so dreadful as that. I can forgive
Letitia anything,” cried Mary, almost with vehemence, “when I think how
well all our boys have done, and that two of the Ravelstones---- That is
the most dreadful of all.”
“I don’t think it will interfere with Mrs. Parke’s rest,” said Lord
Frogmore, calmly. “And I saw no harm in the Australian. Will you tell me
what the boys are doing who have done so well?”
He listened with great interest while Mary, with a brightened
countenance and many smiles, made him aware of the successes of “the
boys.” They were not very great successes from Lord Frogmore’s point of
view, but he listened as if he had been hearing of bishoprics and
woolsacks, while Mary told of the advantages of John, who was in New
Zealand, and George, who was farming in Canada, and the missionary who
had won golden opinions, if not joys, in Africa, and the soldier, who
was in India with his regiment, but could not afford to come home
because of the lessened pay. They were all “abroad” for it was so
difficult to get things at home, but all so approved, so well spoken of,
so thoroughly satisfactory! It went to the old lord’s heart to see her
face of exultation, her happy pride in her family. “Perhaps you will
think it is nasty of me to rejoice so over them, when there is poor
Ralph so different,” said Mary, “but of course there was a great, a very
great, difference in their upbringing, though that doesn’t always tell,
as perhaps you know, Lord Frogmore.”
“Indeed I do know: sometimes the most carefully trained go astray. I
have known many instances.”
“And the most neglected,” cried Mary, “whom nobody could have expected
anything from, sometimes turn out so well! So that shows it is
individual--it is in them, whatever may be their education. Ah, here we
are,” she said, suddenly, with a calming down which was very evident
from the fervor of her previous tone, “at Marsham Ponds.” One would have
said Mary was disappointed to find herself so soon at the end of her
walk.
Marsham Ponds were a series of fishponds, a trace of the old time, when
a great abbey had stood near, and the supply of fish for Lenten fare was
a pressing necessity which had to be provided for. “I think I must turn
back now,” said Mary, “you will find your way quite easily, Lord
Frogmore.”
“Stop a little; we may as well return together. I wanted the walk, not
to see the ponds. I have seen them often before,” said Lord Frogmore.
“We lived at Greenpark in the old days when I was a child--if you can
suppose I ever was a child.” He laughed and paused a little, then
resumed, “I remember--it must be about a hundred years ago--my father
bringing me here when he came to the title. He succeeded his grandfather
you may have heard. He brought me here, and lifted me up to see the
view. It’s not much of a view,” said Lord Frogmore, in a parenthesis,
“but seen in one particular light it is not without interest. He said
to me, ‘Look there, Duke, that’s all ours----’” Here he paused again,
looked over the wide landscape, which was flat and fell away into long
blue depths of distance, and then burst into a laugh. “That is what John
will be saying to another little Duke one of these days. They are both
quite primed for it,” he said.
“Oh, Lord Frogmore, not Mr. Parke--that is not in his thoughts.”
The old lord turned round upon her with a little moisture in the corner
of his eye. He put out his hand to her hastily, “Thank you, Miss Hill. I
think you are right. My brother is free from such thoughts.”
“Nobody has any such thoughts,” said Mary, but not in the same assured
tone.
He shook his head and looked at her smiling, “Not after what your friend
said--that all I had belonged to the children, every penny--that it was
their right. Mrs. Parke was very explicit, Miss Hill.”
“Oh,” said Mary, in a tone of horror, “then it was you after all, and
you heard what we said.”
“I heard you say nothing that did not do you honor. The other did not
surprise me at all. It may be a little premature. Things may not be so
certain.” He paused a little as if he would have said something more. He
was a very neat, well-preserved model of an old gentleman, not so old as
the Parkes concluded; with a good color, a good figure, a firm light
footstep; active and lively notwithstanding his age. The thought of
little Duke, who was to be Lord Frogmore some day, and of all his
property and possessions, which were being discounted by Mrs. John as
belonging to the children, made him not sad but angry. He had never been
disposed to be a passive person, to be managed by those about him; and
no one could be less likely to consent to being powerless or helpless
now. No one thing of all the many things they calculated upon was
certain. His property was still in his own hands--even his title. Many
things surged up in the old gentleman’s head. Suggestions which
disturbed and excited him, but not unpleasantly. What if they might be
disappointed altogether, the scheming woman, the silly little boy.
John--Ah! John! Lord Frogmore turned upon Mary Hill, who was walking by
his side, much agitated and in a great tremor; and put his hand upon her
arm. “Miss Hill,” he said, “I can’t tell you how much I am obliged to
you for doing justice to my brother John.”
“Oh, Lord Frogmore, Letitia is like all mothers, she thinks only of her
children. She did not mean what you think. She is not without heart. She
is----”
“We’ll say nothing about Letitia,” said the old lord. “But I am thankful
to you for doing justice, and making me do justice, to my brother
John.”