The
Gray Wolf’s Daughter.
BY
GERTRUDE WARDEN,
_Author of “A Race for Love,” “Mam’zelle Bebe,” “The Secret of a
Letter,” etc._
NEW YORK:
THE FEDERAL BOOK COMPANY,
PUBLISHERS.
[COPYRIGHT]
Copyright, 1894,
BY
Edward Harrison.
[_All Rights Reserved._]
CONTENTS.
Prologue. Part I
Prologue. Part II
I.--Knights Errant
II.--Stella
III.--A Siren
IV.--Enemies
V.--Coming Conflicts
VI.--Lord Carthew’s Wooing
VII.--A Kiss Too Long
VIII.--An Old Friend
IX.--The Gypsy’s Prophecy
X.--Father and Daughter
XI.--An Old Story
XII.--For Better, for Worse
XIII.--The Sending of The Token
XIV.--“The Romanys Have not Forgotten”
XV.--The Wedding Eve
XVI.--The Charm
XVII.--A Mad Bride
XVIII.--The Wedding Journey
XIX.--Found!
XX.--Lord Carthew Finds His Wife
XXI. AND LAST.--The Curse Fulfilled
THE GRAY WOLF’S DAUGHTER.
PROLOGUE.--PART I.
On a stormy afternoon in October, in the thirtieth year of Queen
Victoria’s reign, a young doctor sat before the fire in his new home
at the sleepy old Surrey town of Grayling, warming his hands, and
thinking, not too cheerfully, of his prospects.
Ernest Netherbridge was not a genius, but he was a thoughtful,
intelligent, painstaking, and unselfish man. Grayling had not yet
found out his good qualities; the inhabitants, never greatly
distinguished for lucidity of vision, had only had time to discover
that his “bedside manner” was less soothing than that of his
predecessor, and that he had an unpleasant trick of telling them that
they ate and drank too much for their health. Young Dr. Netherbridge
had also the bad taste to ascribe melancholy to “liver,” fainting fits
and ladylike super-sensitiveness to “anæmia,” and hysterics to
ill-temper. Consequently he was not popular, and he knew it.
No one, therefore, was more surprised than he when a handsome closed
carriage, drawn by two splendid bays, was pulled up before his door,
and a footman, after a reverberating rat-tat-tat, delivered a note,
emblazoned with an imposing coat of arms, to Dr. Netherbridge’s
housekeeper for her master.
On breaking the seal the doctor’s surprise increased. The letter was
sent from the Chase, a very large estate, which extended for several
miles in the vicinity of Grayling, and which belonged to Sir Philip
Cranstoun, the representative of one of the oldest families in Surrey,
a man reputed equally wealthy and eccentric, concerning whom wonderful
tales were whispered round Grayling tea-tables. The letter was written
in a small and cramped man’s handwriting, and ran as follows:
“Sir Philip Cranstoun, having heard that Dr. Netherbridge invariably
speaks the truth to his patients, would be glad if he will at once
proceed to the Chase in the carriage sent herewith, and give his
opinion upon a patient there. Sir Philip wishes to inform Dr.
Netherbridge that the abilities of Sir Curtis Clarkson, Sir Percival
Hoare, and Dr. Tracey Wentworth have all been exerted in vain over
this special case, the drawback in every instance being their
inability to speak the truth. This, Sir Philip hopes to hear from Dr.
Netherbridge.”
The doctor put down the letter, surprised and interested. Sir Curtis
Clarkson and Sir Percival Hoare were names to conjure with, London
physicians of great and established reputation, favored by royalty,
and believed in unquestioningly by the wealthier middle classes. Dr.
Tracey Wentworth was a highly popular practitioner from Guildford, in
his profession a triton against a minnow when compared with the
struggling young doctor who was now called to supersede him.
Ernest Netherbridge pondered for a few moments. After all, he
reflected, although he might well fail over a case which had puzzled
better heads than his, at least he could exercise his favorite and
unpopular virtue of candor without fear of the consequences. Should he
succeed in pleasing so great a local magnate as Sir Philip Cranstoun,
a justice of the peace, and one of the largest landowners in the south
of England, it would greatly help to establish his position and
practice in the town of his adoption. The thing was at least worth
trying for. Taking his overcoat and slipping a scarf round his neck,
for he was by no means robust, Dr. Netherbridge stepped out of his
house, and entering the roomy and comfortable carriage in waiting for
him, was soon whirling along a quiet country road toward the great
gates leading to the Chase.
The wind whistled through the scantily clad branches of the swaying
trees, scattering their yellow and russet leaves, and whirling them in
dancing eddies a little way above the moist earth below. Dr.
Netherbridge had never been within the precincts of the great park;
indeed, since his marriage three years previously, Sir Philip
Cranstoun had discouraged visitors, and no one in Grayling appeared to
have even seen Lady Cranstoun, concerning whose remarkable beauty,
however, reports were freely circulated. Considerable interest and
curiosity dominated the young doctor’s mind as he was driven rapidly
along the wide avenue of over-arching giant elmtrees, which formed a
characteristic feature of the Cranstoun Chase enclosure.
The house itself was a great rambling, gray stone mansion, closely
covered with ivy, of ancient origin, and in some of the older portions
possessing a thickness of wall suitable for the old ante-gunpowder
days. From time to time the original building had been added to by
various members of the family, but although numerous additions had
been made in the course of the five hundred years since the first
Squire Cranstoun erected his fortified hunting seat within the forest,
the gray pile was dignified and imposing still, although it resembled
more a fortress than a home.
A very broad flight of shallow steps led to the heavy Gothic entrance,
on either side of which life-sized wolves in stone supported the
Cranstoun arms. For many hundred years the wolf’s head, grasped in a
mail-covered hand, had been the device of the family, to whom
tradition assigned many of the wolf’s characteristics of treachery and
vindictiveness, while the motto, “Cranstoun, Remember!” was said to be
derived from a bloodthirsty legend of long delayed vengeance in the
days of the Norman Conquest.
As the carriage drew up before the entrance, the heavy oak doors were
thrown open and Dr. Netherbridge ascended the steps, and entered the
house. The hall was spacious and impressive as the exterior, hung with
ancient swords and spears, and guarded by four glistening figures in
complete armor, which, as the firelight from a wide hearth below a
massive marble mantelpiece struck them, added to the sombre appearance
of the house.
A stout, elderly man, evidently the butler, and two footmen stood in
the hall. Sir Philip was out, they informed the doctor. He had been
absent since the morning, and had caused a message to be conveyed to
his house, together with a letter for Dr. Netherbridge, which he had
wished to have immediately delivered.
“Has Lady Cranstoun been ill long?” the doctor inquired.
“For some time, sir. But her ladyship’s maid will be able to inform
you as to all that, if you will be so kind as to follow me.”
Lady Cranstoun’s apartments were little less gloomy than the hall. No
flowers, no dainty knick-knacks relieved their mediæval simplicity.
In the bedroom and the adjoining sitting-room the floors were polished
and spread with rugs, the walls covered with moth-eaten tapestry,
while the massive bed and the chairs were formed of dark oak. An oak
settle was drawn before the fire in the sitting-room, which
communicated by a recess draped with heavy velvet curtains with the
bedroom beyond. On a fur rug thrown across the settle, a figure in
white draperies lay with face turned to the firelight. On a chair
near, a white-capped nurse sat, holding in her hand a book from which
she had been reading, while a dark-complexioned, pleasant-faced woman,
evidently a servant, stood at a little distance, with hands tightly
clasped, and a look of keen anxiety printed on her features.
“It is the doctor, my lady,” the servant said, approaching the
motionless, recumbent figure of her mistress.
Lady Cranstoun uttered a low exclamation of impatience.
“Of what use is a doctor to me?” she murmured. “Send him away,
Margaret! What good have they done me yet?”
“But this is a new doctor, my lady. If you would only let him see
you.”
The nurse rose at this point and added her entreaties to those of the
old servant, before crossing the room to where the doctor stood.
“Lady Cranstoun lies like that hour after hour,” she whispered. “She
neither eats nor sleeps, and she can hardly bear to be spoken to.”
Dr. Netherbridge came quietly forward, and placing himself between the
oak settle and the fire, looked directly into Lady Cranstoun’s face.
The invalid, raising her hollow eyes, perceived a small, slight man of
about thirty, with a pale face, a dark mustache and beard, and
singularly penetrating and reliable dark blue eyes. He on his part
beheld a tall young woman of apparently not more than twenty years of
age, and of truly remarkable beauty, even though her face and arms
were now slender to emaciation, and her pallor was almost corpselike.
Her face was small, her features were delicate, and her hair, of which
she possessed a wavy abundance, was the blackest he had ever seen. But
her beauty and her fragility, both of which were strongly apparent,
were forgotten by the doctor in the effect produced upon him by her
eyes, surely the largest, darkest, and most hopelessly sad in
expression that ever gazed out of a despairing woman’s face.
Almost mechanically he raised her wrist, and began to feel her quick,
feverish pulse. Her hand was extremely cold, although her dry, red
lips looked hot and parched. A strong sympathy for her filled his mind
as he drew a chair up to the oak settle, and began asking her some
questions concerning her illness.
At first she answered in monosyllables and evidently at random,
staring into the fire, and speaking in a scarcely audible voice.
Gradually, however, she took to watching his face, and at last,
sitting up with some show of energy, she asked the nurse to wait in
the adjoining room while she described her symptoms to the doctor.
“Seeing you sitting there fidgets me,” she said. “I can’t collect my
thoughts.”
She spoke English correctly enough, in a sweet, rich voice, yet
something in her manner struck the doctor as rough and unusual in a
woman of birth and breeding. As soon as the nurse had moved away, Lady
Cranstoun turned impulsively to the dark-complexioned servant.
“Go after her, and prevent her from listening,” she whispered,
rapidly, and the woman obeyed.
“Now draw your chair close up,” she said, imperiously, to the doctor.
“I have a great deal to say. There is something about your face which
makes me think I can trust you. And I do so badly need some one to
trust. Stay, though; do you know Sir Philip Cranstoun?”
“I have never seen him in my life.”
“I’m glad of that! How did you come to be sent for?”
Thinking it might help him to gain her confidence, Dr. Netherbridge
drew from his pocket Sir Philip’s summons.
Lady Cranstoun read it eagerly. After she had returned it to him,
silence reigned for a few seconds. Her next question appeared
startlingly irrelevant.
“The sessions are on at Guildford to-day, are they not?”
“I believe so.”
“And Sir Philip’s note was sent here from Guildford ordering the
carriage to go for you?”
“No doubt he was very anxious about you,” said the doctor, hardly
realizing what he was expected to say.
She stared at him for a few seconds, and then broke into a bitter,
mirthless laugh.
“You don’t know, then?” she said. “After all, why should you? Yet I
feel sure I can trust you. What is your name?”
“Ernest Netherbridge.”
“Dr. Netherbridge, Sir Philip hates me only a little less than I hate
him.”
Silence again. It was obviously impossible to comment upon such an
unexpected statement.
She stared at the fire, and then, suddenly clasping her thin white
hands, she fixed her great eyes beseechingly upon his face.
“Will you help me?” she asked, in a whisper full of intensity. “I
haven’t a friend in the house except Margaret. Every one is against
me.”
“Surely your illness makes you fanciful,” he was beginning, when she
cut him short impatiently.
“Ah! don’t talk like that--like the others did! Sir Philip so longs
for an heir. We had a child, a boy, who died--I am glad, very glad
that he is dead--and he wishes me to have every care now, not for my
sake, but for the sake of the family name. I have been trying to
starve myself; I suppose you can see that; but if you will give me the
information I want, I will take your medicines or anything.”
“Tell me what you want me to do, Lady Cranstoun.”
“Find out for me all that took place in court to-day. Sir Philip went
to Guildford early--I found out so much--but they will not let me see
the papers, they will not let me hear!”
She was quivering from head to foot in fierce, ungovernable
excitement, and her eyes were shining with a feverish glitter.
“There is some great anxiety on your mind,” he said, kindly. “Will you
not confide in me more fully?”
She glanced nervously about her, and finally thrust her hand among the
folds of her dress about her neck, and slipped in his hand a crumpled
letter, ill-spelt, and written evidently by an imperfectly educated
person.
“My Own Daughter Clare” (it began),
“Your brother Jim sets sail for America on Tuesday next, and we all
hope if once he gets out in Canada with Uncle Pete he’ll do well. But
you know what the boy always was about you. It was ever Clare first,
and the rest of us nowhere. He won’t budge a foot without seeing you,
and giving a good-by kiss to his little sister, for all she’s a great
lady now. Now, my girl, it’s hard enough to have had never a sight of
you for them three years, save now and again as you’ve drove past in
your carriage, and that one time you contrived to slip off to the old
cottage for half an hour. I’m hungering to speak to my beautiful girl.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve thought I seen a sad look on your face of
late. It’s wicked and unnatural for Sir Philip to part flesh and
blood, and as to us not being gentlefolks, he should have thought of
that afore he took ye. What you say he threatened about shooting as
poachers any on us as come within his property, that’s mere tall talk.
What harm to anybody will it do for your father and brother to see you
for ten minutes or so, and give you a good-by kiss, and tell you how
dear you are to us still? So, my girl, to-morrow night, at any time
between nine and eleven, do you slip out to the shrubbery at the back
of the paddock. If it rains hard we shan’t expect you, but if it’s
fine, seeing as the gray wolf is away, we know you’ll come, my pretty,
to your loving brother, and your old father.”
Dr. Netherbridge read the letter carefully, and returned it to Lady
Cranstoun. He was beginning to understand several things which had
puzzled him. One point was very clear--Sir Philip Cranstoun had
married beneath him, and had forbidden his young wife from
communicating in any way with her relations.
“Did you go?” the doctor asked.
She supported herself on her elbow, and spoke in quick, gasping tones:
“It was a beautifully clear night. I thought Sir Philip was away, but
he had returned from London without my knowledge. Somehow, some
one--one of the spies who are about me, waking and sleeping--picked up
and read this letter. I can only suppose this, for all I know is that
as I crept out of the house at about half-past nine I was followed.
Just as I reached the shrubbery, and caught sight in the moonlight of
my father and brother in waiting under the dark shadow of the trees, I
was seized from behind, something was thrust into my mouth and over my
eyes, and I was carried back into the house. I fought and struggled,
but to no purpose, and I could plainly hear several shots, the sound
of a scuffle, and a great cry as of a man in mortal agony. From that
day to this I have been able to learn nothing of what happened on that
night. But yesterday Margaret overheard Sir Philip telling his steward
that he was going to Guildford to-day, where the sessions are held, to
appear as a witness against some poachers who were found in his
grounds several weeks ago, and who have been in jail ever since. Dr.
Netherbridge, I am certain he meant my father and my brother!”
“But how could that be?” he asked, trying to allay her fierce
excitement. “Your father and brother are not poachers surely?”
A faint red color stole into her white cheeks.
“My people don’t see that the rich are injured by the loss of a hare
or a rabbit now and again,” she muttered with lowered eyelids. “They
should belong to the people, wild game like that, and a bird or
two--but that’s not what we were talking of. It was no poaching
brought out Jim and father that night. Sir Philip knew that right
enough. He made me take a solemn oath never to betray to anybody what
he called my disgraceful origin. Disgraceful!” she repeated, with
burning cheeks. “A Carewe’s as good as a Cranstoun any day, as I’ve
told him often enough. I’ve never broken my vow until to-day; not even
Margaret knows who my people are. But I’ve told you, because I must
and will know what has happened to my father and my brother Jim
to-day.”
As he watched her talking, and noted the English nature of her beauty,
the intense blue-blackness of her hair, and a certain touch of
wildness about her free, graceful gestures and rapid speech, another
conviction came home to Ernest Netherbridge’s mind, and this was that
Lady Cranstoun, wife of Sir Philip Cranstoun, of the Chase, Surrey,
Cranstoun Hall, in Aberdeenshire, and Berkeley Square, London, had in
her veins the untamable blood of the true “Egyptian,” those despised
wanderers over the face of the earth who are found and hated in all
the chief countries of Europe.
In spite of his patient’s beauty, Dr. Netherbridge could not help
wondering how so proud a man as Sir Philip was considered had ever
been so far carried away by his feelings as to wed a girl of gypsy
origin. Lady Cranstoun seemed to divine what was passing in his mind.
Raising herself to a sitting position, she tapped one slender
well-arched foot upon the ground while she said, as though in answer
to his thought:
“Of course, you wonder how Sir Philip came to marry me. I can see that
in your face. When I was only eight years old I got blamed for
something, as we were on the road going from fair to fair in the
summer. So I ran away in a rage, and walked till I was tired and fell
asleep under a hedge by the wayside, in Devonshire. A rich lady drove
by, the Hon. Mrs. Neville, a widow without children, Sir Philip
Cranstoun’s eldest sister. Because I was so pretty, she had me lifted
into her carriage, and took me to her beautiful home and had me
educated, taught French, and music, and dancing, and drawing, and all
that, meaning me to be a governess. Every now and then I broke loose
and went tramping through the fields and lanes after my own people,
whom I loved the best all along. Often and often, when my fingers
ached with practising the piano, and I felt all stiff in tight clothes
and shoes, I’d long for the old free life again. But when I saw my
people, stealing out at night to them, they begged me to stay where I
was. I could help them with money, and times were hard. Before my
mother died she made me promise to remain a lady, and Mrs. Neville was
kind enough to me by fits and starts, and very proud of what training
and education had done. She used to show me off as a sort of
successful experiment, too, before people, and that made me mad. She
was a hard, capricious woman, like all the Cranstouns in nature, and
was all for breaking what she called my absurd pride, and reminding me
I’d only been a vagrant after all. But she didn’t do so much of that
as she’d have liked, because I told her I’d run away, and that
wouldn’t have suited her, as I played and read to her, and amused her,
and she couldn’t well do without me. But I never could be reconciled
to the notion of being a dependent, and so when Sir Philip Cranstoun
came on a visit--he was a handsome enough man of five-and-twenty then,
and me only a little bit over sixteen--and he glared at me, and could
hardly let me out of his sight, and said he loved me, I got all
excited between the notion of being a great lady and being loved and
being free from Mrs. Neville’s taunts. But Philip wanted me to run
away with him, but I wouldn’t hear of it, and refused to speak to him.
I was very pretty then, prettier than you can think just seeing me
now, and he was regularly crazy about me. So, early one morning, he
made me meet him in a church at Torquay, and we were married. Just
three years ago it was yesterday, a day I shall curse as long as I
live!”
“Surely,” said the doctor, as she paused, apparently lost in sombre
thought, “Sir Philip must have been very deeply attached to you?”
“Yes,” she returned, bitterly, “and for how long? First, nothing was
too good for me, but that state lasted only a few weeks, and even then
I was afraid of him. Then violent, raging scenes of jealousy if, when
we were in Italy, I so much as looked at a waiter and asked him for
bread. Then, forever storming at me, and reproaching me, if a
gondolier so much as called me the ‘beautiful signora.’ And, after
that, scenes constantly. I’ve a temper like fire myself, I own. We
Carewes have never been known for meekness, and even when I was a baby
child I’d been taught to think myself a princess. All his life Sir
Philip had his own way in everything, and all who came in his path had
obeyed him, cowed by his masterful temper and sullen fury. But I
withstood him. I thought he loved me well enough to let me have my
way, and when I found out my mistake I began to hate him, and more
than once tried to run away from him. But he followed, and swore he
would murder me if I dared, gypsy as I was, to bring disgrace upon his
ancient name. Gradually, my will and my health seemed to be breaking
down. Our first child pined away and died, because I could not care
for it--could not look at it. It was his child, like him, I thought,
even at that age, and so I could not love it. When his son died, Sir
Philip was mad with anger, but I had grown past caring. It isn’t all
my fault, Dr. Netherbridge,” she added, suddenly, while big tears
rolled down her cheeks. “I may have been silly when I married, but I
tried my utmost for over a year to love Sir Philip, and to please him,
but he is more a fiend than a man, I think, and I would rather die
than see a child of mine grow up resembling him. It is all these
thoughts which, together with my awful anxiety for my father and Jim,
are breaking my heart, and ruining my health. It is hate, and terror,
and misery, and cruel, cruel anxiety, which make me starve myself and
hope to die. But now that I have trusted you, and told you everything,
you will befriend me, will you not? Come to-morrow early, and let me
know everything--everything, mind--that took place in court to-day,
and I will let you cure me, if you choose. Will you promise?”
“I promise,” he said, “to do everything in my power to serve you,” and
with that assurance he took his leave.
PROLOGUE.--PART II.
As Dr. Netherbridge left Lady Cranstoun’s apartments, and proceeded
down the broad oak staircase to the ground floor, he found a man
servant waiting for him in the hall.
“Sir Philip has just arrived, sir, and wishes to see you before you
go. Will you kindly come to the library?”
The little doctor followed the man, filled with considerable curiosity
as to what manner of man could have inspired so strong a sensation of
fear and dislike in the breast of his young wife. Lady Cranstoun’s
father had spoken of the son-in-law who would not acknowledge his
existence as the “gray wolf.” But then Gypsy Carewe was hardly an
unprejudiced person, and Dr. Netherbridge, who always desired to
preserve an impartial mind, reminded himself of the fact that a girl
of Clare Cranstoun’s undisciplined, keenly emotional nature would
necessarily be an extremely trying companion to a man as reserved and
proud as Sir Philip was popularly supposed to be.
“Dr. Netherbridge, sir.”
The servant threw open the library door after a deferential tap on its
panels, which was followed by a curt “Come in!” The young doctor found
himself in a spacious apartment completely lined with oaken book-cases
well filled with volumes. Before the fire, in the Englishman’s
favorite attitude, his hands behind him, and his feet set rather wide
apart on a lion-skin rug, stood a broad-shouldered and deep-chested
man, rather below the medium height, with a square pale face, and
black hair which, in spite of the fact that he was but
eight-and-twenty, was already streaked with gray. In some indefinable
way Sir Philip impressed all who saw him with the sense of power, of
mental as well as physical force of very exceptional kind. In features
he somewhat resembled the first Napoleon Bonaparte, but, if anything,
his mouth was even more rigidly compressed and hard in outline than
that of the great conqueror. He appeared to be a man of superb health
and physique, notwithstanding his exceptional pallor, which contrasted
strangely with the inky blackness of his eyebrows, and of the lashes
which bordered his deep-set, glittering, steel-gray eyes. He gazed
keenly at the doctor, and then with haughty condescension waved his
long white hand toward a chair, which the latter did not take, but
remained standing.
“You have seen Lady Cranstoun?” Sir Philip began abruptly, in a
low-pitched but peculiarly grating voice.
“I have just left her.”
“What is your opinion?”
“She is extremely ill, but more so in mind than in body.”
Sir Philip smothered an exclamation of impatience.
“As I presume your business doesn’t extend to the mind, perhaps you
will be good enough to tell me what is wrong with the body?”
“Certainly, Sir Philip. Lady Cranstoun is deliberately starving
herself because she does not wish to live.”
Sir Philip’s black eyebrows bent heavily over his eyes, which gleamed
with suppressed anger.
“Can’t she be made insensible by drugs, and food be administered to
her then?” he asked, harshly.
“Scarcely. But she has promised me to take the medicine which I shall
send her as soon as I get back; and there will be no possibility of
her death from inanition while she takes that. She seems to me to have
naturally a splendid constitution, and there is no doubt that if she
can be persuaded to take nourishment, and to cease from worrying, her
health will be all that can be desired.”
“You seem to have had exceptional success with your patient,” sneered
Sir Philip, with a short and very unpleasant laugh. “Her other doctors
couldn’t get a word out of her. Pray what method did you adopt to
loosen her tongue?”
Ernest Netherbridge was a quiet tempered man, by no means easily
roused to wrath. But there was something in the hard contempt of the
Baronet’s manner which seemed to rouse all the latent aggressiveness
of his nature. Looking Sir Philip full in the eyes, he answered his
question steadily.
“I was extremely sorry for Lady Cranstoun, Sir Philip, and possibly I
made up in sympathy for what I lacked in skill.”
A very slight flush passed over Sir Philip’s colorless face.
“I am extremely grateful for your most kind pity for my wife,” he
said, with biting sarcasm. “In her name and my own I offer you my
hearty thanks for your sympathy. May I ask how she has merited it?”
“Certainly. Lady Cranstoun is very young. I understood her to say she
is still under twenty. She appears to be very dull and lonely, and a
prey to great depression. Also, she had not, so she told me, been
outside the house for two months. Hers is a temperament imperatively
demanding fresh air, plenty of exercise and change of scene, and
bright and sympathetic society. Had she more of these things, I think
it unlikely that she would entertain the idea of suicide, and require
such constant watching as she does now.”
“I am deeply obliged to you for your valuable advice as to how my wife
should be treated. Perhaps it is a little outside your province as a
general country practitioner; but I am none the less sensible of your
generosity in conferring it upon me.”
“Sir Philip,” returned the little doctor, taking his hat from the
table, “in your letter you requested me to speak the truth.
Unfortunately for my success in my profession, I am unable to do
otherwise, and I can only regret that it has been unpalatable to you.
I wish you good evening.”
“Stop!” Sir Philip called out, imperiously, as Dr. Netherbridge
reached the door. “You will please send Lady Cranstoun’s medicine, and
call to see her to-morrow. I will send the carriage for you at noon.
If she has taken the whim in her head to be cured by you, she must
have her way. Oh, by the bye, I may mention to you what you have no
doubt found out for yourself. Lady Cranstoun’s father, Mr. Carewe, of
Yorkshire, died in a madhouse, and I have often reason to fear my wife
has inherited a touch of the complaint. Her statements since her
illness began are incoherent in the extreme, and totally unreliable.
But you will, of course, make allowance for that. Good-evening.”
“Good-evening, Sir Philip.”
Dr. Netherbridge seemed to breathe more freely when he found himself
outside the gray fortress-like walls of the Chase. No patient he had
ever yet had could approach in interest that fragile creature with the
deathly white face and great dark eyes, whose husband was her worst
enemy, and whose servants were her spies.
“You will be my friend, will you not?”
The words and the pathetic look which accompanied them haunted the
young man. Especially since he had seen her husband a deep pity for
her had taken possession of his mind. In speaking of his wife, Sir
Philip’s voice, naturally hard, grew harder still, and the cold gleam
of his eyes appeared absolutely diabolical. The whole of the
Cranstouns’ miserable married life seemed to be laid bare before the
doctor as he made his way thoughtfully toward his bachelor home, borne
along the dark roads in the comfortable carriage in which he had come.
He pictured to himself the spoiled, impulsive girl, little more than a
child, whose strange beauty and proud maidenliness had won Sir Philip
Cranstoun’s short-lived but passionate love. Such a union could only
end in one way between so ill-matched a pair, and the woman who, with
kind and tender but firm treatment, might have proved herself a loving
and devoted wife and mother, had been cowed, terrified, sneered at,
and repressed, until she had become the miserable nerve-wracked
creature whom he had just seen.
It was with some approach to excitement that the little doctor
prepared to inquire of his housekeeper--a garrulous, gossiping, stout
woman--concerning what had taken place before the Recorder that day.
But the initiative was taken by Mrs. Brooks herself, who, as she laid
his frugal supper on the table, plunged at once into the subject on
her mind:
“Lor’, sir! to think of your going off in the Cranstoun carriage, like
that! It’ll make some folks I know that live in a great house outside
the town, with a brass plate, and a boy in buttons to carry round the
medicine-bottles in a basket, fit to burst themselves of envy. When
you’re rested, sir, I’m just longing to know all about the Chase. I’ve
always heard tell it’s such a fine place, grand enough for a royal
dook. But to think of poor Sir Philip having such things said to him
in court to-day, and all along of an impudent poacher fellow, who, I
dare say, fully deserves his five years and more if the truth be
known.”
The doctor put down his knife and fork.
“What do you mean, Mrs. Brooks?” he asked. “Tell me just what
happened.”
“Willingly, sir. If I might make so bold as to take a chair, being
rather bad like, with rheumatism in the knees. It was this way, sir.
My young sister-in-law, my brother William’s wife, you know, sir, she
lives just across the way to the court-house, and William being in the
force, she gets in to see the cases, and mostly drops in to tea with
me afterward, to tell me about them; well, to-day she says there was a
big, dark, young man, and well enough looking for his class of life,
as was brought up on a charge of unlawfully wounding one of Sir Philip
Cranstoun’s gamekeepers in a plantation near the Chase some few weeks
ago. It appears it was about ten or a little before, and two of Sir
Philip’s men, one of them with his arm all bandaged up, and a wound in
his head, gave evidence as they were on the lookout for poachers, when
they caught sight of this young man and another in a plantation near
the Chase. Both were well-known poachers, and awful desperate men. The
gamekeepers crept silently until they came upon them; but the poachers
were very powerfully built and violent, and in the fight Sir Philip’s
men were getting the worst of it, and the older ruffian had his knife
out to murder the gamekeeper, as he knelt on his chest, pinning him to
the ground, when Sir Philip himself, who was in the woods with his
gun, hearing the scuffle, came up in the nick of time, and shot the
poacher dead.”
Dr. Netherbridge started from his chair.
“Dead, do you say?” he asked. “Be quite sure. Do you really mean that
Sir Philip Cranstoun, with his own hand, shot one of the poachers
dead?”
“With his own gun, sir, most certainly. The man’s been buried for
weeks now. It all came out at the inquest, when Sir Philip and his
gamekeeper attended to explain the accident. Didn’t you read of it in
the papers?”
“No; or if I did, I did not attach much importance to it _then_. It is
different now, and horrible, most horrible! What was the dead man’s
name?”
“Hiram Carewe, sir, a man of forty-one, a gypsy fellow, against whom
more than one could bear witness he was a confirmed poacher, as was
his precious son, James Carewe, who is now starting his five years.
But you never heard anything like the savage way in which he turned
upon Sir Philip when he saw him in the witness-box. ‘You murdered my
father,’ he shouted out. ‘You, Philip Cranstoun, liar, and coward!
Your men are liars and perjurers, too. You know right well what father
and I came to the Chase for, and that we never struck a blow but in
self-defence. We hadn’t a weapon about us but our clasp-knives, and
after you’d murdered my father you were three to one against me, and I
had to fight for my life. You’re a perjurer and a villain, but I swear
I’ll be even with you yet.’ He was hushed down, of course, and when
the doctors had proved how bad the gamekeeper’s wounds were, he being
dreadfully hacked about the neck and shoulders by James Carewe’s
knife, the jury found him guilty of unlawfully wounding with intent to
kill, and gave him five years, as served him right. But, lor’, sir,
that wasn’t the end of it, for poor Sir Philip, who in his evidence
said all he could to screen the man, I’m sure, as soon as he was
leaving the building to get on his horse, as his groom was holding for
him, up comes a ragged, wicked-looking, old gray-haired gypsy woman,
all yellow and wrinkled, with a pair of eyes like burning coals, so
William’s wife told me. ‘Where’s my son’s murderer?’ she yelled.
‘Where’s the man who’s killing my Hiram’s child?’ Up she come close to
Sir Philip, before any one could stop her, and flings in his face a
handful of mud she picked up in the roadway. Sir Philip he swears, and
the witch she shrieks with laughter. Then suddenly she stops, lifts
her finger, and rolls out the most awful curse a body ever heard.
William’s wife said it made her cold to her bones to listen. The woman
cursed his whole life and all that he did. He should lose wife and
child, she said, his name should become a scoff and a byword
throughout the land; he should be wretched at home and hated abroad;
no one should ever love him again; and she would live, if it was for
fifty years, to laugh at him, as he lay dying in a miserable hovel,
deserted and alone.
“She took such a tone of command, and looked so terrible, that the
people about seemed afraid to stop her; and even Sir Philip himself,
as he stood wiping the mud from his face, seemed sort of dazed like
for the minute. As soon as she’d finished, he was for calling for the
police, but not as if he was in much of a hurry for them, and no one
meddled with the old woman, who went off muttering and cursing. But
there was a sharp stone in the mud she threw, and William’s wife saw
the blood running down the side of Sir Philip’s face as he wiped it
with his handkerchief. But, poor man! what a day for him, to be
insulted like that, and out of court, all on account of a pack of
filthy gypsies. And they do say, though, of course, I’m not so silly
as to believe it, that those gypsies have the evil eye, and that it’s
most awful unlucky to be cursed by one of them. William’s wife said
she felt she’d rather have died at once than have such things said to
her. The old woman’s eyes looked that dreadful that William’s wife was
taken with hysterics as she was telling me about the affair. Lor’,
sir, I do hope nothing dreadful will happen in consequence.”
Dr. Netherbridge dismissed Mrs. Brooks presently, and going over to
the Boar’s Head Hotel, where the latest local gossip was always to be
heard, he found that his housekeeper’s account had been in no way
exaggerated. James Carewe’s threats in court occupied a measure of
public attention, but the gypsy woman’s curse was the cream of the
news, and much solemn head-wagging took place over it. Not one person
there, however, had the slightest suspicion of the relationship which
existed between these poachers and gypsies and the lovely wife of Sir
Philip Cranstoun, and Dr. Netherbridge returned to his home oppressed
by the terrible responsibility which developed upon him of imparting
the news of her father’s death and her brother’s imprisonment to Lady
Cranstoun in her present critical state of health.
As to the chief actor in these scenes, Sir Philip Cranstoun, he was in
his secret heart less unmoved by to-day’s events than he made himself
appear. Old Mrs. Carewe’s curse lingered in his ears as he sat by his
lonely dinner-table, trying vainly to dim his recollection of that
unpleasant scene outside the court-house by deep draughts of rare old
wine. But no amount of drinking had ever yet clouded his faculties,
which to-night seemed abnormally on the alert.
His marriage had been a great, a terrible mistake, he told himself, as
he sat in a deep, comfortable arm-chair before the great fire-place.
Disdaining women of his own rank as silly, and those of a lower
position in life as coarse and vulgar, nature had suddenly revenged
herself upon him for his indifference to the other sex by inspiring in
him a mad love for his sister’s beautiful gypsy _protégée_. In the
height of this he had married her, and his passion had cooled almost
as rapidly as it had grown hot. Instead of a docile and humble tool,
he found a proud and self-willed girl, who seemed in no way impressed
by his extraordinary condescension and kindness in making her Lady
Cranstoun. Very speedily his love turned to a sombre dislike, and he
set himself to work to crush all opposition out of her nature. On one
point particularly he had insisted from the first. She must utterly
and forever renounce her kindred, whose very existence he considered
as an insult to him. His last remaining spark of affection for her was
extinguished when he discovered that she had disobeyed his strenuous
orders on this point, and had contrived to see and speak with her
relatives. But his wish for an heir, and his fear lest the estates,
which were strictly entailed, should pass to his brother, whom he
heartily detested, forced him to tolerate his wife’s presence, and his
anger, therefore, knew no bounds when, owing, as he believed to
Clare’s indifference and neglect, his infant son’s life faded away. On
that unlucky night when Hiram Carewe met his death, Sir Philip, who
had been informed of the gypsies’ intention to visit his daughter, set
his men on to seize the Carewes as poachers, and drive them out of the
grounds. His men, over-zealous in executing their master’s orders,
attacked the Carewes so savagely that, the wild gypsy blood of the
latter being roused, one of the gamekeepers might well have paid for
his obedience with his life but for Sir Philip’s shot. The Baronet had
no intention of killing his wife’s father, although he was viciously
glad of an opportunity to wound him. He hated Lady Cranstoun’s gypsy
kindred most heartily, and wished them all out of the world; but it
was a momentary matter of regret with him that his hand had fired the
fatal shot which made Clare a orphan. After that point, affairs seemed
taken out of his hands. The police interference, the inquest, and
James Carewe’s trial, had all taken place without any impetus on his
side; the one imperative necessity was that Lady Cranstoun should be,
for some time at least, kept in ignorance of the fate of her father
and brother.
Even as he thus reasoned, the door of the dining-room was suddenly
opened, and Clare Cranstoun, corpse-like in her pallor, her long black
hair dishevelled about her shoulders, and her eyes gleaming with what
looked like madness, advanced toward him, ghost-like in her loose
white dressing-gown, and he knew in an instant that she had learned
the truth.
Sir Philip’s groom had, indeed, described to Margaret the scene
outside the courthouse that afternoon, and the woman, totally ignorant
of the interests at stake, had retailed the story to her mistress as
she was brushing her hair for the night.
“My father! My brother!” Lady Cranstoun murmured, with parched lips,
as she staggered forward into the room. “What have you done with
them?”
Looking at her, he realized that it was impossible to deceive her
longer. He pushed a chair toward her, but she impatiently declined it.
“I am sorry to say,” he answered then, in those hard, level tones of
his, “that your father and your brother plotted with you to disobey my
orders. It is you who are to blame for the consequences.”
“Where are they?” she cried, wildly.
“Your father was mistaken for a poacher, and was accidentally shot in
a scuffle----”
“Murdered! Murdered by you!” she shrieked, wringing her hands as one
distraught. “My father--my poor father!”
Sir Philip laid his hand on the bell-rope.
“For three years,” he said, coldly, “I have been trying to prove to
you that it is worse than useless to try to disobey my orders. This
unfortunate accident will, I hope, convince you of your folly. As to
the other poaching gypsy, James Carewe, I did what I could to get him
off, but he had savagely assaulted one of my keepers, and has got five
years for it. In future you will know better than to attempt to hold
any communication with your disreputable family.”
She stared at him with distended eyes.
“In future!” she repeated, in a low, altered voice. “What have you to
do with my future?”
Her tone was so singular that he looked into her face for the first
time during this interview, and read there a burning hate, stronger
and deeper than ever he was capable of cherishing. Without a word she
turned from him, and left the room as the servant entered it in
response to his master’s ring.
That night, in a storm of wind and rain, an old woman and a lad of
sixteen waited in the woods outside the Chase, with a horse stolen
from Sir Philip’s stables, the bridle of which was held by Brian
Carewe. And at one o’clock a figure, in the black cloak, bonnet, and
long veil of a nurse, stole from the great oak doors, and over the
slippery dead leaves that cumbered the steps, to join them. The old
woman helped her on the horse and mounted it behind her, the lad held
the bridle; and so by devious ways through the forest, known only to
gypsies, Lady Cranstoun, of the Chase, left her husband’s home never
to return.
Rather more than a month later, while still the hue and cry over Lady
Cranstoun’s disappearance, as it was rumored during an attack of
delirium and fever, rang through the countryside, Dr. Ernest
Netherbridge, reading a medical work before his study fire at
midnight, was disturbed by a late caller.
His housekeeper was in bed, and he himself opened the door upon a
tall, handsome, black-browed lad, and a covered cart, drawn by a
powerfully-built horse, with flanks steaming in the frosty air.
It was a case of life and death, the lad said, and the patient was his
sister. Dr. Netherbridge was an absolutely unselfish man in following
his profession, and slipping on his overcoat, he entered the cart, and
was driven for over an hour and a half through the dark country roads
until the driver, who had been monosyllabic or silent on the way, drew
up near a thatched cottage a little back from the road.
“You’ll find my sister and her grandmother within. I’ll wait here to
drive you home,” he said.
Dr. Netherbridge tapped at the cottage door, which was opened by an
evil-looking old woman, with unkempt hair bound with a bright-colored
kerchief. After hearing his name, she conducted him to the invalid’s
room, where two women, apparently nurses, were busy, the one in trying
to quiet a baby ten days old, the other bending over the still figure
of its mother stretched upon the bed.
One glance at the waxen face, the blue-black hair, delicate features
and great dark eyes told Dr. Netherbridge that this mysterious patient
was none other than the missing Lady Cranstoun, and that the baby girl
whose fretful cries filled the room was the child concerning whom the
Baronet was so anxious.
The mother was intensely weak, hardly, indeed, alive at all. Dr.
Netherbridge administered and prescribed what remedies he could. But
before leaving he thought well to inform old Mrs. Carewe, the sick
woman’s grandmother, that he had recognized the patient, and should at
once communicate the fact to her husband.
“That is just why I sent for you,” said the old woman, while a smile
of malevolent cunning lit up her face. “As soon as my Clare is dead,
and she won’t live above a few hours now, doctor or no doctor, that
child will be sent to her father, Sir Philip Cranstoun. Poor folks
like us, with no men to work for us, can’t afford to bring up a
Baronet’s daughter properly. And your word will be needed in proof of
her identity.”
On the following day, when he called at the Chase with his statement,
Dr. Netherbridge learned that a neighboring farmer had been
commissioned to bring a basket to the house, within which reposed an
infant eleven days old, upon whose gown was pinned a paper with the
following words:
“This is Stella Cranstoun, daughter of Sir Philip Cranstoun and Clare
his wife, formerly Clare Carewe. She was born on the twelfth of
November. Her mother, Lady Cranstoun, died at four o’clock this
morning.--Signed, Sarah Carewe; Mary Wrexham, nurse; Julia Tait,
nurse;” and dated carefully.
Thus was Sir Philip freed from his matrimonial perplexities, and left
with an altogether undesired infant daughter on his hands.
CHAPTER I.
KNIGHTS ERRANT.
Eighteen years had passed since the flight of Clare Lady Cranstoun
and the birth of her daughter Stella.
The touch of spring was upon the Surrey meads and Surrey hills, and a
tender gray-green veil adorned the boughs laid bare by winter winds.
Before an ideal country-house, low and rambling, with plentiful green
lattice-work for the creepers beginning now to bud, and broad terraces
sheltered by verandas overlooking a trim tennis-lawn and a
flower-garden gay with hyacinths and daffodils, in joyous flower, a
comely group was gathered. Two young men, who had been for three days
guests, were taking leave of Mr. and Mrs. Braithwaite, the three
pretty Misses Braithwaite, their still prettier cousin, and the two
young brothers of the family.
A more attractive and typically English group could hardly be
imagined. Father and mother, plump, handsome, and well-fed, surveying,
with excusable pride, their three fair-haired girls, all of whom
possessed wide shoulders, slender waists, fresh complexions, and clear
gray eyes. The Misses Braithwaite and their cousin could all ride,
drive, play lawn tennis and the newest dance music, and they one and
all looked forward to the time when they should marry “well,” and
spend every season in London. Between these four young ladies there
existed a marked and charming likeness; but the two young men, from
one of whom at least they were so regretfully parting, were extremely
dissimilar in appearance, voice, and manner.
The elder was a man of seven-and-twenty, fully six feet four inches in
height, and of massive build and proud, erect carriage, which made him
appear even taller than he really was. His hair, of a golden-brown
color, curled closely over his handsome head, which was set upon his
broad shoulders like that of a young Hercules. His features were well
cut, his brown eyes as clear and beautiful in color as those of a
collie-dog, and a drooping yellow mustache shaded the outlines of a
mouth which at times, when closely shut, gave a look of hardness to
his expression. In a word, he was a superb specimen of young English
manhood, and as if nature had never wearied in her gifts, she united
to a superb frame and handsome face a particularly rich and mellow
voice.
And yet there was but little doubt that if the eyes of the four young
ladies occasionally rested upon him with admiration, their serious
attentions were all reserved for his companion, who could not, by the
grossest flattery, have been termed even ordinarily good-looking.
A short, slight man of five-and-twenty, pale and sallow of skin, with
close-cropped black hair, penetrating light gray eyes, set too near
together in his head, a long, clean-shaved upper lip, short nose and
wide mouth, of which the lower jaw slightly protruded; he was not as
directly ugly as this description would suggest, but was fatally
plain, insignificant, and uninteresting. His manners, too, in contrast
with the easy geniality of his friend, were abrupt and sarcastic, and
his voice was far from pleasant. To some men he was attractive by
reason of his unusual intelligence and originality; but to the
ordinary lawn-tennis-playing young lady there was nothing to recommend
his appearance or his manners.
The attention shown to him by the entire Braithwaite family was the
more remarkable in that he took very little notice of the girls,
scarcely even troubling himself to look at them, and showing clearly
his wish to escape from their friendly blandishments. Mrs. Braithwaite
was his mother’s second cousin, which accounted somewhat for the favor
shown him over and above what was displayed toward his companion; but
to his own cynical mind the true reason of the family attentions was
that here were four marriageable girls, all in want of a wealthy
husband, and that he, Viscount Carthew, only son of the Earl of
Northborough, and heir to a splendid rent-roll as well as to the
fortune of his mother, who had been an American heiress, was an
admirable _parti_, whereas the handsome young giant beside him
possessed little in the world but his muscles and sinews and the big
black mare, who stood now pawing the ground, impatient to set off
again upon their travels.
When at last the two friends had ridden down the gravel drive, passed
out of the gates, and waved a last good-by to Mr. Braithwaite’s pretty
niece and daughters, Lord Carthew was not slow in expressing his
opinion concerning them.
“Isn’t it truly disgusting, Hilary,” he began, “to see four healthy
young women with good looks, for such as admire well-groomed animals
without expression, each and every one of them trained to set her cap
at an ugly and ill-tempered young man, solely because he will have
money and a title? If I were passably good-looking or attractive in
manner, I could find it in my heart to make excuses for them. But as
it is, they make me long to ‘take some savage woman,’ as the fellow in
‘Locksley Hall’ suggested, and go and live with her in some island
where the currency is cowrie shells, and the title of lord means no
more than that of chimney sweep.”
Hilary Pritchard laughed with the easy-going good nature
characteristic of big young men.
“You talk as if savages were all radicals,” he said. “I’d bet you
anything you like that rank and money are quite as much esteemed among
them as here with us, and a lady whose husband can hang up fourteen
scalps over her front door would think twice before she called on
another woman with only six or seven of such trophies. Look at the way
in which Africans kow-tow to their chiefs. Rank and titles are visible
signs of power, and power will always be reverenced.”
“Yes; but not fallen in love with. Conceive the notion that those
nasty girls played at me, sang at me, rode and drove at me for two
mortal days, and all in the hope of what? Securing my affection? Not a
bit of it. Just with the idea of persuading me that they were in love
with me, so that one of them might run a chance of becoming some day
Countess of Northborough.”
“How bitter you are against women!” exclaimed his friend, lighting a
cigar. “Now _I_ thought them very nice and very pretty girls.”
“_You_ can appreciate them, because you stand on your own merits,”
grumbled Lord Carthew. “When you fall in love with a girl, you will
know her affection is disinterested. I don’t see how girls can help
falling in love with a fellow like you,” he added, glancing with
envious admiration at Pritchard’s fine figure.
“My dear Claud, that speech shows how little you understand women’s
tastes. Last season I went about a good bit with an aunt who is fond
of society, and I never had the ghost of a chance of talking to any
specially agreeable women. The little men, writer-chaps, or
long-haired, foreign musicians, or else your dapper little, well-oiled
and varnished tea-and-scandal-loving exquisites--those are the men who
win women’s hearts. I assure you that after remarking with surprise
how large I am, they take no more interest in me than if I were so
much beef.”
“That’s all your confounded modesty. A man of six feet four can afford
to be modest. All this discontent of mine arises from intense
self-appreciation. The fact is, I have something of the ridiculous
sentimental schoolgirl notion of being ‘loved for myself alone,’ isn’t
that the expression? And it chafes me to think, now that my people are
forever worrying me to get married, that there is nothing about me but
my money and my position to make a girl care for me. Absurd, isn’t
it?--and rather _bourgeois_ to cherish these conventional notions
about marriage. But I have no doubt I shall live them down, and within
the next year or so shall lead to the altar, at St. Paul’s,
Knightsbridge, or St. Margaret’s, Westminster, quite the conventional
young English lady, fair-haired, gray-eyed, pink-skinned, with a waist
squeezed into the smallest possible breathing compass, and a train of
brocade carried by two dressed-up little boys, and from six to ten
bridesmaids, all equally well-born and well-looking, who would all
have been equally ready to marry my name and position if I had asked
them, unless any other man with more to offer had made a higher bid
for their valuable affections.”
He spoke in hard, level tones, but Hilary, who had been Lord Carthew’s
chum at Oxford, and both knew and understood him, realized by the
slight nervous twitching of the speaker’s eyes and eyebrows how much
of truth and of genuine feeling lay under this pretence of cynical
indifference.
Very few people thoroughly understood Claud Viscount Carthew. Great
things had been expected of him during his University career, where he
had distinguished himself by his brilliant acquirements as much as by
his notable eccentricities. In politics he was theoretically a radical
of radicals, but Hilary, one of the very few men of his time with whom
he was really intimate, understood quite well the intensity of the
pride which was masked under an affectation of socialistic doctrines.
The Earl of Northborough, a powerful and prominent Conservative peer,
trusted to time to cure his only son of his levelling tendencies, and
was strongly desirous of seeing him married to some lady in his own
rank of life, who might be trusted to tone down Lord Carthew’s
idiosyncracies.
Whether owing or not to the sturdy and independent spirit brought into
the family on the side of his mother, a Pennsylvania heiress of old
Puritan stock, certain it was that Claud Bromley Viscount Carthew was
utterly unlike any other heir to an earldom in England. He was
singularly free from vices, and unfashionable enough to be strictly
honorable in paying his debts. He held the unusual opinion that it was
as necessary and important to pay a tailor for a coat as a friend for
a gambling debt. He also worked as hard for his exams as though he
intended to be a parson or a schoolmaster, or as though a couple of
letters after his name could be of any material value to a man who
would some day be worth fifty thousand a year. His theories on
marriage were also archaic in the extreme, in the opinion of his
equals. He was anxious not only to marry a woman he loved, but a woman
who loved him, and until she appeared on the scene he had not the
slightest desire to amuse himself in the society of less estimable
sirens. Music-halls bored him, and he had too much respect for his own
intelligence to cloud it by drink. In field sports and out-door
exercises he did not shine, but he liked them, and he heartily admired
physical courage, strength, and endurance. Hilary Pritchard, the son
of a Yorkshire “gentleman farmer” of very moderate means, had first
attracted Lord Carthew’s attention by the ease with which he excelled
in running, jumping, leaping, and “putting the stone.” Young Pritchard
was as bad at study as he was admirable in athletics, and Lord Carthew
was filled with enthusiasm by the evidences in him of just those
qualities which he himself lacked. The farmer’s son’s disposition was
also a happy foil to that of the Earl of Northborough’s heir. Hilary’s
was in no sense an introspective, analytical, or self-torturing mind.
He enjoyed life thoroughly in a simple and manly fashion, took people
in general as he found them, was cautious in his friendships, shrewd
in his judgments, strong and rooted in his rare loves and hates, and
for the rest, a most cheery and optimistic companion, of untiring
physical strength and unfailing good humor.
For five years the two young men had been great friends; but a break
was soon to come between them. It had been arranged in the Pritchard
family that in the autumn of the year Hilary was to proceed to Canada,
there to start farming on his own account on some land left to him by
a relative. Almost at the same time the question of Lord Carthew’s
marriage had been prominently discussed in the Earl of Northborough’s
family circle, and Claud was well aware that his parents hoped to see
it take place within the year, if only a suitable bride could be
found.
In view of these coming changes, the two college chums had resolved in
this springtime of the year to carry out an oft-proposed plan for a
journey in Kent, Surrey, and Hampshire, of about three weeks’
duration, on horseback, and unattended, carrying what luggage they
required in their knapsacks on their saddles.
Hilary Pritchard on “Black Bess,” and Lord Carthew on a chestnut cob,
had therefore started some ten days previously from a country seat in
the Isle of Wight, belonging to the latter’s father. They had had
lovely weather, and a very enjoyable tour, but so far no adventures
worth mentioning, and the only point which had particularly struck
Lord Carthew was what he considered as the unnecessary deference and
snobbish attentions paid to him by hotel servants and chance
strangers, solely because he was a son to Lord Northborough.
After riding on without speaking a short time, Claud suddenly turned
in his saddle, and addressed his friend with twinkling eyes, and a
look of great satisfaction.
“Look here, Hilary!” he exclaimed, “you won’t believe me on this
subject of the disgusting sycophancy shown toward a title? You won’t
admit that everybody treats me much better than they do you? Very
well. I have a proposal to make. We have planned out about a fortnight
longer of wandering. For the remainder of the time we will change
_rôles_. You shall be Lord Carthew, and I will be Hilary Pritchard.”
“Nonsense!”
“No; but I mean it seriously. In the first place, to convince you that
I am right; then again for the humor of the thing. My third reason
will sound so ridiculous that I can hardly put it into words. One of
my favorite theories is that events happen to us, and opportunities
come in our way, just when we are ripe for them. Sometimes a
premonition warns us beforehand. Often enough we disregard it, and
miss the opportunity. There’s more than you think in the old Jewish
notion of being ‘warned in a dream.’ My grandmother was a Scotchwoman,
you know, Lady Kate Douglas, and great at second sight. Before I could
speak plainly, she had communicated some of her beliefs to me.”
“You’re just like the rest of these very clever fellows,” said his
friend, indulgently. “When you’ve left off believing in everything
else, you’re bound to have faith in some superstitious fad. Well, and
what have you been dreaming about now?”
No one had ever yet succeeded in laughing Lord Carthew out of any
idea, however erratic.
“I started this tour,” he said, quietly, “in search of adventures, you
know, and so far we haven’t had any. But you must remember I am also
in search of a wife, and I have a rooted conviction that if I find one
to my liking it won’t be in the beaten track, but that I shall have to
go out of my way to seek her out.”
“My dear Claud,” Hilary began, in a tone of some alarm, “does this
mean that your radicalism is going to land you in the arms of a
milkmaid? A rustic countess, with red elbows and a strong dialect?”
“I should never dream of marrying any woman without good breeding and
refinement,” the other returned in quiet, decided tones. “But if she
be a lady, it will be immaterial to me whether her parents are
received at Court or not. Only she must be something unlike the girls
I am used to meeting. My sisters, and my sisters’ friends, and girls
like the Braithwaites, I cannot tell you how they bore me. I don’t
quite know what I do want, but most certainly I don’t want them.”
“Granted. But what has all this to do with your mad proposal to
exchange names with me? Of course, I shouldn’t consent. But what
possible connection is there between your ideal ladylove, and your
last crazy notion?”
“More than you think. If we should meet her--don’t laugh, anything is
possible--if we should, as I say, during the next fortnight, happen to
light upon just the woman I am waiting for, I am eccentric enough to
wish to stand before her on my own poor merits, with my plain face,
and insignificant appearance, my bad temper, and all the rest of
it--just Mr. Pritchard, going out to Canada to make his fortune in the
autumn. Then I should endeavor to gain her interest, and in time her
affection.”
“What an extraordinary chap you are for talking nonsense seriously!
One would think you expected your ideal young woman to drop from the
clouds at the present moment.”
“Perhaps I do. Did I ever tell you of my visit to Kyro, the
fashionable fate-reader, in Bond Street, last Christmas?”
“You don’t mean to say, Carthew, that you are going to take on
palmistry?”
“I had an hour to fill in before meeting my father,” Lord Carthew
continued, quite unmoved by his companion’s raillery, “and as it was
too cold to study the shops, and there were no picture-galleries worth
seeing open, I dropped into Mlle. Kyro’s. You know what a success she
made of it until the police, tired of running in old women for getting
sixpences out of servant girls, shut up her entertainment. Well, she
was a very charming woman, and didn’t go in for any ‘fee, faw, fum,’
at all. She studied my face and my hands, and after some very happy
guessing at what had already happened to me, she proceeded to foretell
that in the spring of this year I should meet unexpectedly, while on a
journey, a lady with whom I should fall madly in love. Meeting her
would, so she declared, alter the whole course of my life.
Furthermore, I should marry, and go through a whole sea of trouble,
and as far as she would tell me, even worse misfortunes were in store.
Kyro, however, with tears in her eyes--very pretty eyes, by the
way--begged me to be the arbiter of my own fate. All these troubles
could be avoided, so she assured me, if I would be guided by reason
and not by passion. I thanked her for her good advice; she gave me a
cup of tea and I left the fee on the table, and there is the end of
it--or perhaps, the beginning.”
“You are not going to tell me,” exclaimed Hilary, “that a man of your
intellectual attainments attaches the slightest importance to such
utter nonsense as professional fortune-telling? I shall begin to
believe study has turned your brain.”
“Just as you like,” said Lord Carthew, shrugging his shoulders with
sudden indifference. “But to return to our former subject, grant me
this favor, Hilary. It will certainly be our last outing together for
a long time, possibly forever. You are going to settle out there, you
will marry----”
“Not exactly,” broke in Hilary, with hearty emphasis. “Marriage isn’t
part of my programme, by any means. I’ve got to make my way and to
make money, and I don’t want a burden around my neck to start with.”
“Anyhow, our ways will widen apart. It will do you no harm to lend me
your name for a few days. I will solemnly vow not to bring it into
discredit, and if the trick be found out, it will only be considered
as another freak of ‘mad Carthew,’ as they call me at Oxford.”
“I don’t care to go masquerading about the country in borrowed
plumes----”
“Still, you must, just for a day or two, until I have made you own I
was in the right, about the snobbishness and all that. How can it
affect you? We shall probably only meet innkeepers, chance visitors,
waiters, and hostlers, and you are just leaving England and not in the
least likely to see any of them again.”
He was so persistent in his arguments that Hilary at length agreed,
for peace and quiet, to fall in with his views, at least tacitly.
“But you must do all the lying,” he stipulated. “I lie with the most
confounded clumsiness. Besides, I don’t like it. I’ll humor your whim
so far as to call you Claud only and not Carthew, and to answer to my
own name. And on your head be all the complications which may arise
from your silly freak.”
The time had passed swiftly by in talk, and the shadows had grown
longer in the lanes, where the air was sweet with budding hawthorn,
and birds twittered in the hedges. For the past hour their way had led
them alongside of a very spacious and thickly-wooded park, and at this
point Lord Carthew, curious as to its ownership, questioned a passing
field laborer, who looked at him in surprise.
“That’s the Chase, sir, Sir Philip Cranstoun’s place,” he said, with
evident compassion for the inquirer’s ignorance as he passed on.
“Cranstoun?” Lord Carthew repeated the name meditatively. “He’s a
Baronet, to be sure, and has a capital place, Cranstoun Hall, near
Balmoral. Splendid shooting. He’s a distant connection of ours through
his wife, who was Lady Gwendolen Douglas, daughter of the Duke of
Lanark. She was my grandmother’s niece; consequently, she is some
relation to me, but what I can scarcely define.”
“Are you going to look her up, too, on the strength of it?”
“Not exactly. I know other members of the family. The type is
unmistakable. Long, lean, fair, with watery blue eyes, sandy hair,
high noses, and the most extraordinary amount of pride and narrowness.
I wish Sir Philip Cranstoun joy of his bargain.”
“Do you know him?”
“No. But I’ve heard about him from men who have shot at his Scotch
place. Hard as nails and proud as Lucifer, that is the character his
guests give him. He has some children, I believe, but I don’t know how
many. They must be a most unpleasant lot, if there’s anything in
heredity. For myself, I can’t imagine a more disagreeable blend than a
Cranstoun and a Douglas.”
They had ridden many miles since lunch, and by six o’clock, when they
arrived at a little wayside inn, the Cranstoun Arms, they were both
hungry enough to be glad of the simple fare provided. The landlord had
not been settled there for more than three years. He was a cheerful
and garrulous person, and quite ready to chat about Sir Philip, whom,
however, he had only seen on two occasions. As to Lady Cranstoun and
the young lady, the former was an invalid, and never drove about
except in a closed carriage accompanied by her daughter, and the
landlord could not personally express an opinion concerning them.
Concerning Sir Philip’s hard, stern character he had much to impart.
The Baronet was especially renowned for his rancor against gypsies. If
any one of that nomadic tribe was found trespassing upon his land, he
would invariably contrive to have them accused of poaching or
thieving.
“Sir Philip, he’d go five miles to hang a gypsy, they say about here.
It’s wonderful how he do hate them. There’s a story that some twenty
odd years ago one of ’em cursed him in the market-place, nigh the
court-house. Folks say a gypsy’s curse sticks. But lor’! what won’t
people say?”