Prologue

I. Bubble and Squeak

II. Billy's *v.* Bashan's

III. Which contains a Fortune

IV. Miss Hazelby is Shocked

V. Valete

VI. At Burlington House

VII. The Hunt Ball

VIII. Barbizon

IX. At King's Charteris

X. After Three Years

XI. In Love's Pleasaunce

XII. Betty in Stepney

XIII. Bagshot on the Rampage

XIV. A Moral Exigency

XV. Aphrodite Smiles and Frowns

XVI. Westchester Cathedral

XVII. Surrender!

XVIII. Ariadne in Naxos

XIX. A Sanatorium in Sutherland

XX. Betty sees a Sprig of Rue

XXI. Recuperation

XXII. On Ben Caryll

XXIII. Hymeneal

XXIV. A Red Tie

XXV. Mark Hears a Bleating

XXVI. Readjustment

XXVII. In Grub Street

XXVIII. A Sunday in Cadogan Place

XXIX. The Procession of Life

XXX. A Note of Interrogation

XXXI. Betty sees Danger Signals

XXXII. Betty makes Good Resolutions

XXXIII. Illumination

XXXIV. Charing Cross

XXXV. Chrysostom Returns to Chelsea

XXXVI. Fenella

XXXVII. Poppy and Mandragora

XXXVIII. Gonzales

XXXIX. At the Miraflores

XL. "Come!"

XLI. The Power Behind the Throne

*BROTHERS*

*PROLOGUE*

Mark Samphire clutched tightly his mother's hand, as the big room began

to fill with people. Some he knew, and these he feared: because they

might speak to him, and then he would stammer, and choke, and make a

piteous spectacle of himself. He wished that he were his brother,

Archibald, standing on the other side of his mother, Archie, the

pink-skinned and golden-haired, a tremendous fellow clad in a new sailor

suit, and tolerably self-possessed, but pinker than usual, because a

lady in lavender silk had hugged him and called him "a darling." Nobody

called Mark a darling except his mother, and that only when they were

alone. The fat butler kept shouting out more names. Mrs. Corrance and

Jim arrived. Mark hoped they would sit near him. Jim was his own

age--a ripe seven--and a sworn friend. Lord Randolph talked to Admiral

Kirtling, the funny man who made everybody laugh. Ah! Jim had pushed

his way through the crowd. In a minute the two boys were whispering

together, nineteen to the dozen, for Mark seldom stammered when he

talked to Jim.

An older person than Mark would have seen on the faces of the assembled

company an air of expectation. Big folding-doors, now shut, divided the

drawing-room from the library. Upon these the eyes of the women

lingered, for behind them stood mystery and--so it was reported--beauty!

Meantime they chattered, talking for the most part about the house,

newly built, and well named The Whim. Miss Selina Lamb, one of the Lambs

from Cranberry-Orcas, who had so many relations that she was never out

of half-mourning, gave information to the Dean of Westchester.

"I assure you, Mr. Dean, that it is a fact. The dear Admiral got into a

fly at Westchester--he carried nothing but a white umbrella, and told

the man, Thomas Pinnick, who has driven me a score of times, to take him

to 'some salubrious locality.' Thomas, quite properly, drove him here

across the downs. The west wind was blowing strongly, and the dear man

thought he was in the chops--it is chops, isn't it?--yes, in the chops

of the Channel. He gave Thomas Pinnick a sovereign, and bought this hill

within the week. Now he has built this remarkable house."

The Dean smiled, admitting that the house might be described as

remarkable. Bedrooms covered the ground floor; above these the

sitting-rooms commanded a fine view of the pastoral county of Slowshire;

at the top of the house were the kitchen and servants' offices!

"I understand," said Mr. Dean, "that food descends like manna from

above, and that the common odours of leek and cabbage ascend, and are

smelled of none, save perhaps the skylarks."

"You always put things so poetically," murmured Miss Lamb. "Yes, you

are right. The still-room is just above the library."

"Where it should be, my dear Miss Lamb. I hope the Admiral's

housekeeper wears list slippers."

Miss Lamb, sensible that the Dean was making a joke which she could not

quite understand, smiled, showing large even teeth, and asked if Mr.

Dean had ever met the young lady in whose honour they had gathered

together. Mr. Dean had not met the young lady, but he had known,

intimately, her mother. Miss Lamb blushed.

"She was charming," murmured the Dean absently, "the most fascinating

creature."

The spinster sniffed her surprise, reflecting that her companion was a

radical. A true blue, the bishop, for instance, would not have

mentioned the mother at all. She felt it her duty to bleat a feeble

protest.

"She behaved so shockingly, Mr. Dean."

"True, true, but she was very young, Miss Lamb. Poor, pretty creature!

And now--dead!"

Miss Lamb closed her thin lips, and her large, too prominent, china-blue

eyes settled upon a portrait just opposite: the portrait of Colonel

Kirtling, the Admiral's elder brother, the father of the mystery behind

the folding-doors, and the husband of the pretty creature who had

behaved so shockingly. The picture, painted by Richmond, was not unlike

the famous portrait of Lord Byron. Colonel Fred Kirtling had been one

of the handsomest men in the Guards. Richmond reproduced his curling

auburn hair, his short upper lip, his finely modelled nose, his round

chin with a distracting (the adjective was Lady Blessington's) dimple in

it, and his "wicked" (Lady B. again) eyes.

"Did you know Colonel Kirtling, Mr. Dean?"

"Yes. A sad scamp, Miss Lamb, a scamp when he married--at sixty!"

He began to speak of the Kirtling family. Admiral Kirtling was the

fourth son of the sixteenth Lord Kirtling, of Kirtling, in the county of

Cumberland, who married a Penberthy from Cornwall, an heiress with a

large fortune settled upon herself and her children. The seventeenth

lord inherited whatever his sire had been unable to sell: Kirtling

heavily mortgaged and stripped of its huge leaden roof (gambled away at

hazard) and the wild moors which encompass it. This nobleman lived and

died in chronic resentment against the poverty his father had inflicted

upon him. His brother succeeded, and was the father of a son whom we

shall meet by and by. Fred, the third brother, who had a royal duke for

a godfather, married Louise de Courcy, a beauty with French blood in her

veins. It is certain that she married Fred for love and against the

wishes of her parents; and it is equally certain that she left him--just

four years afterwards--because she loved somebody else much better.

This somebody, who happened to be a peer and a famous soldier, offered

Fred such satisfaction as one gentleman, even in those latter days,

might tender an injured husband. Fred, however, wrote in reply that he

was under an obligation to his lordship for taking off his hands the

most ungrateful hussy in the kingdom. Fred's word, be it added, was

little better than his bond (the children of Israel knew that to be

worthless); and it is significant that Mrs. Kirtling's family, both

French and Irish, abused Fred to all-comers: asserting that he had

deceived dozens of women in his time, and none more cruelly than his

charming wife. Death shut the mouths of the gossips by carrying off both

Fred and Louise within six months of the latter's elopement.

By this time the Admiral, a bachelor of some eccentricity, had just

settled into his new house at King's Charteris, near Westchester, and

was known to be averse to leaving it. Yet he had to answer the

question: "Who will take care of Fred's baby?" Lady Randolph, a

kinswoman, was called into council.

"Children are the devil," said the Admiral gloomily. "Think of my

nymphs." (He had some beautiful china).

"This one may prove the prettiest of them all," said Lady Randolph.

"Yes, yes; father and mother the handsomest couple, even if forty years

were between 'em. Well, well, I lean on you, dear lady."

Lady Randolph did not fail him. She fetched the child from town, gave

the nurse, an impudent town minx, twenty-four hours' notice, and

installed in her place a respectable girl, Esther Gear, out of her own

village of Birr Wood.

So much, and little more, was known to the company assembled in the

Admiral's drawing-room.

Presently the big folding-doors were flung open, and Lady Randolph

passed through, leading by the hand little Elizabeth Kirtling. A buzz

of admiration greeted Betty. She wore a delicate India muslin frock,

encircled by a rose-coloured sash. Rose-coloured shoes embellished her

tiny feet, and a knot of the same coloured riband glowed in her dark

curls, which framed an oval face. The Admiral had told Esther Gear that

he would tolerate no black, which came, he said, into people's lives

soon enough. Round her neck was a string of coral beads which matched

the tints of her cheeks. Her great hazel eyes shone demurely beneath

their thick black lashes, and when she smiled her lips parted, revealing

a fairy's set of teeth between two dimples. The Admiral met his niece on

the threshold of the room, took her hand, and patted it softly. Then he

led her forward. The finely proportioned saloon, filled with rare and

beautiful things, the silver light of an October afternoon, the many

faces--young and old alike touched and interested--served as a setting

for the grizzled veteran, with his whimsical weather-beaten face seamed

by a thousand lines, and the diminutive creature at his side. Mrs.

Samphire let two tears trickle unheeded down her thin cheeks, but her

pretty mouth was smiling. Mark felt that his mother's grasp had

tightened. Perhaps she foresaw, poor lady, that the time appointed for

her to leave her sons was near at hand. Mark stared hard at the little

girl as if indeed--as was true--he had never seen her like.

Now it seems that the Admiral had told his niece, with a twinkle in his

kind eyes, that the drawing-room was her room: the state apartment of

the only lady of his house. And so, when Betty looked up and saw many

strange faces about her she recalled an adjective too often in her

father's mouth, and said clearly and loudly: "Uncle, what are all dese

dam peoples doing in my room?"

When the laughter died down, the Admiral said with his queer chuckle:

"Egad! this is a maid of surprises"; but he was careful to explain to

his niece that his friends were her friends, to be honoured and loved by

her. The child's mouth puckered, and her great eyes were troubled.

"I can't love all dese peoples," she protested, on the edge of tears.

The Admiral laughed.

"You must pick and choose, Betty. 'Tis the privilege of your sex. Come

now, who pleases you best?"

She understood perfectly: examining the company with dignified

curiosity. Finally, her eyes rested upon the three boys at Mrs.

Samphire's side.

"I like dem boys," she said clearly.

The three boys were confused but charmed.

"She likes the boys, the coquette!" exclaimed the Admiral. "And which

of the three, missie, do you like best?"

The boys blushed because the company stared at them. Archie, the

handsome one, stood nearest to little Betty, and seeing her hesitation

held out his hands; Jim Corrance smiled invitingly; Mark, the stammerer,

attempted no lure, dismally conscious that he could not compete against

the others, but his forget-me-not blue eyes, the only fine feature he

possessed, suffused a soft radiance.

"I love him!" cried Betty, running forward. She passed Archie and Jim,

flinging her arms round Mark's neck, who bashfully returned her eager

kisses.

"Um!" said the Admiral, half smiling, half frowning, "as I remarked just

now, here is a Maid of Surprises."

*CHAPTER I*

*BUBBLE AND SQUEAK*

This is the history of a fighter, a fighter against odds, whose weapons

were forged at Harrow-on-the-Hill. Afterwards, in Mark Samphire's eyes,

all school buildings, even the humblest, had a certain sanctity, because

they are strewn with precious dust, the _pulverem Olympicum_, so pungent

to the nostrils of a combatant. To him, for instance, the ancient

Fourth Form Room at Harrow was no battered mausoleum of dead names, but

a glorious Campus Martius, where Byron, Peel, and other immortal youths

wrestled with their future, even as Jacob wrestled with the angel.

Mark and his friend Jim Corrance became Harrovians when they were

fourteen, taking their places in the First Shell, the highest form but

one open to new boys. Archibald Samphire, their senior by eighteen

months, had just reached the Upper Remove, two forms ahead of the First

Shell.

The three boys travelled together from King's Charteris to London; but

at Euston Mark and Jim were bundled by Archie into a first-class

carriage, with instructions to sit still and not "swagger." Archie

joined some swells on the platform. One of these Olympians lighted a

cigar, which he smoked for a couple of minutes, throwing it away with

the observation that really he must tell the dear old governor to buy

better weeds.

"How do you feel, Mark?" whispered Jim.

"If I l-looked as small as I f-f-feel," said Mark, "you wouldn't be able

to s-s-see me."

An hour later they stood in the schoolyard. Here "bill" was called;

here yard-cricket, beloved by many generations of boys, was played;

here, peering out of his cell, might be seen the rosy, clean-shaven face

of old Sam, _Custos_, as the Doctor called him; that sly old Sam who

sold all things pertaining to Harrow games at a preposterous profit; who

prepared the rods, who was present when those rods fell hurtling upon

the bare flesh--Sam of the fair, round belly, Sam of the ripe,

ruby-coloured nose, who has led bishops, statesmen, field-marshals,

peers and baronets, members of Parliament, members of the Bar, members

of the Stock Exchange--to the BLOCK! Can it be possible that Sam has

passed away? Surely not. Is he not part and parcel of the Yard? And

when the Yard lies silent and deserted, when the moonbeams alone play

upon it, when the school clock tolls midnight, does not the ghost of old

Sam fare forth on his familiar rounds, keeping watch and ward in the

ancient precincts?

From the Yard Archibald escorted Mark and Jim to Billy's, their

boarding-house, where the boys found themselves joint tenants of a

two-room, a piece of good fortune (for there were several three-rooms

and one four-room) which they owed partly to Archie, as he was careful

to inform them, and partly to the high places they had taken in the

school. Long and narrow, with a door at one end and a window at the

other, this room contained two battered fold-up bedsteads, two

washhand-stands, two bureaux, a shabby carpet, a table, a fireplace, and

three Windsor chairs. Here the boys were expected to work, to sleep,

and to eat breakfast and tea. No room, according to Mark, has since

given him the pleasure and pride which he derived from this. And Jim

Corrance, after he had made his enormous fortune, liked to speak of the

first sporting-prints which he bought and of the moth-eaten head of a

red deer, a nine-pointer, found in an attic at Pitt Hall, the home of

the Samphires.

This first summer half was as pleasant as any Mark spent at Harrow. He

learned to swim in "Ducker," the school bathing-place, a puddle in those

days, but since greatly enlarged and improved; he was taught to play

cricket with a straight bat; he lay upon the green slopes of the Sixth

Form Ground and ate ices; he spent his _exeat_ at Randolph House in

Belgrave Square, and witnessed at "Lord's" the defeat of the Eton eleven

from the top of Lord Randolph's coach, returning to Harrow with a

sovereign in his pocket, pride in his heart, and heaven knows what

mixture of pie and pudding and champagne in his small stomach!

At Billy's the colour, tone, and texture of the "house" were

exceptionally good. Billy treated his boys as gentlemen. Some dominies

play the spy, thereby turning boys into enemies instead of friends;

Billy always coughed discreetly when making his rounds. And if he had

reason to suspect a boy of conduct unbecoming an Harrovian, he would

send for him and speak to him quietly, or perhaps, if the offender was a

good fellow, ask him to breakfast or dinner, heaping food upon his plate

and coals of fire upon his head. His favourite warning may be quoted:

"I have had my eye on you for some time." But Mark knew, even then,

that Billy's eyes were none of the best, and that often they pretended

not to see much that a wise man overlooks.

The first year passed quickly. Mark and Jim found themselves in the

Lower Remove at the beginning of the winter half, where they achieved

the distinction of a "double," jumping over the Upper Remove into the

Third Fifth, known as "Paradise," a place so pleasant that some boys

refused to leave it. One could say to aunts and uncles, "Oh, I'm in the

Fifth," and few were unkind enough to ask, "Which Fifth?" Here they

found Archie and a friend of his, Lubber West, who in these latter days

doubtless would have been superannuated, and not without cause. Archie

and the Lubber practised what they called the "co-operative system of

work." They would come to Mark's room and sit upon the sofa with a

large gallipot of strawberry-ice between them. Then Mark and Jim were

instructed to "mug up" forty lines of Euripides. This took time, and

meanwhile the ice was consumed and anything else in the form of light

refreshment which might be offered. When Mark was ready to construe,

Archie and the Lubber produced a couple of battered books, and listened

attentively enough to what Mark had to say, noting in light pencil marks

unfamiliar verbs and nouns. In this way, as Archie observed, much

valuable time was saved, and the lesson honourably learned. Archie had

a number of "cribs," but, as elder brother, he denounced their use by

Mark as immoral. "Samphire major has given us a very 'Smart'[#]

translation," was one of Billy's bon mots, not original with him by any

means, but accepted by his pupils as proof of wit and gentlemanlike

satire.

[#] Horace was translated by Smart.

During this half, Archibald was working hard at cricket, under the

kindly eyes of those famous coaches, the late Lord Bessborough and Mr.

Robert Grimston. He had more than a chance of playing for the school;

and accordingly he pointed out to Mark that it was the minor's duty to

help his major with Greek and Latin. "If I do get my straw,"[#] he

said, "you will reap your reward." This unconscious humorist was now a

glorious specimen of Anglo-Saxon youth. He had crisp yellow hair,

curling tightly over a round, well-proportioned head, the clear, ruddy

skin which from the days of David has always commanded admiration, and a

tenor voice of peculiarly fine quality. Mark was his humble and adoring

slave. Now, it chanced that in a shop half-way down Harrow Hill two

young women possessed of bright complexions and waspish waists served

hot chocolate and buttered toast to boys coming up from the playing

fields, and in particular to certain boys of Billy's. Behind the shop

was a back room, into which two or three big fellows were admitted. In

a certain set it became the thing to drop into Brown's at half-past four

and have a lark with the girls. The girls were able to take care of

themselves; the boys lost their heads. Because Archie's head was a

pretty one, the girls were not particularly anxious that he should find

it. During the Christmas term he and a boy from another house were in

and out of Brown's half a dozen times a day, and the school wondered

what would happen.

[#] The black-and-white straw hat only worn by members of the school

eleven.

"I l-l-loathe those girls," said Mark; "one b-b-bubbles and one

squeaks."

Billy's seized the phrase. Within a week the girls were known as Bubble

and Squeak. One of the fags pinned a card to Archie's door:--

"Which do you like best: chocolate and buttered toast or Bubble and

Squeak?"

"What can we do?" said Mark to Jim.

"Is it Bubble or Squeak?" Jim asked.

"I d-d-don't know or care; they're vulgar b-b-beasts. Old Archie has a

lock of hair. They've given away tons of it: enough to stuff a sofa."

"They can get more from the same old place," said Jim.

"Oh, it's their own," said Mark. "I hate marmalade-coloured hair--don't

you?"

It was after this brief dialogue that Jim noticed a falling off of

Mark's interest in his work. For the first time a copy of Iambics

deserved some of the remarks which the form-master made upon them.

During the next fortnight this negligence, coupled with his stutter and

a temporary deafness, sent Mark to the bottom of his class. Jim asked

for an explanation.

"It's old Archie. He's playing the devil with himself."

"Let him," said Jim, who was no altruist. "What's the good of worrying?

We can't do anything."

"Perhaps we c-c-can," said Mark. "We _must_," he added.

"You have a scheme?"