HE THAT WILL NOT
WHEN HE MAY

HE THAT WILL NOT
WHEN HE MAY

BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOLUME II.
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1880
The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved

LONDON:
R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor,
BREAD STREET HILL.

CONTENTS.

HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY.

CHAPTER I.

At Markham Chase there had been great wonder and consternation at the sudden departure of the elders of the family. Bell had been called to her mother’s room in the morning, and the morals of the house, so to speak, placed in her hands. She was thirteen, a great age, quite a woman. “Harry will help you: but he is careless, and he is always out. You will promise to be very careful and look after everything,” Lady Markham had said. Bell, growing pale with the solemnity of this strange commission, gave her promise with paling cheek, and a great light of excitement in her eyes; and when they heard of it, the others were almost equally impressed. “There is something the matter with Paul,” Bell said; and when the carriage drove away the solemnity of the great house all to themselves made a still greater impression upon them. It is true that Mrs. Fry showed signs of thinking that she was the virtual head of the establishment, and Brown did not pay that deference to Bell’s orders which she expected as mamma’s deputy to receive; but still they all acknowledged the responsibility that lay upon them to conduct themselves better than girls and boys had ever conducted themselves before. The girls naturally felt this the most. They would not go out with their brothers, but stayed indoors and occupied themselves with various rather grimy pieces of needlework begun on various occasions of penitence or bad weather. To complete them felt like a proper exercise for such an occasion; and Bell caused the door to be shut and all the windows in front of the house. She and Marie established themselves in their mother’s special sanctuary—the west room; where after a while the work languished, and where the elder sister, with a sense of seniority and protection, pointed out all the pictures to Marie, and gave her their names. “That is me, when I was a baby,” said Bell, “just below the Rafil.”

“The Raffle,” said Marie. “I thought a raffle was a thing where you drew lots.”

“So it is,” said the elder with dignity, “but it is a man’s name, too. It is pronounced a little different, and he was a very fine painter. You know,” said the little instructress with great seriousness, “what the subject is—the beautiful lady and the little boy?”

“I know what they all are quite well,” said Marie, impatient of so much superiority; “I have seen them just as often as you have. Mamma has told me hundreds of times. That’s me too as well as you, underneath the big picture, and there’s Alice, and that’s papa—as if I didn’t know!”

“How can you help knowing Alice and papa; any one can do that,” said Bell; “but you don’t know the landscapes. That one is painted by two people, and it is called Both. At least, I suppose they both did a bit, as mamma does sometimes with Alice. There is some one ringing the bell at the hall door! Somebody must be coming to call. Will Brown say ‘My lady is not at home,’ or will he say ‘The young ladies are at home,’ as he does when Alice is here? Oh, there it is again! Can anything have happened? Either it is somebody who is in a great hurry, or it is a telegram, or, Marie, quick, run to the schoolroom and there we can see.”

As they neared the hall they ran across Brown, who was advancing in a leisurely manner to open the door. “Young ladies,” said Brown, “you should not scuttle about like that, frightening people. And I wonder who it was that shut the hall door.”

Bell made no reply, but ran out of the way, and they reached the schoolroom window in time to see what was going to happen. At the door stood some one waiting. “A little gentleman” in light-coloured clothes, with a large white umbrella. There was no carriage, which was one reason why Brown had taken his time in answering the bell. He would not, a person of his importance, have condescended to open the door at all but for a curiosity which had taken possession of him, a certainty in his mind that something of more than ordinary importance was going on in the family. The little gentleman who had rung the bell had walked up the avenue slowly, and had looked about him much. He had the air of being very much interested in the place. At every opening in the trees he had paused to look, and when he came to the open space in front of the house, had stood still for some time with a glass in his eye examining it. He was very brown of hue, very spare and slim, exceedingly neat and carefully dressed, though in clothes that were not quite like English clothes. They fitted him loosely, and they were of lighter material than gentlemen usually wear in England; but yet he was very well dressed. He had neat small feet, most carefully chaussés; and he had carried his large white umbrella, lined with green, over his head as he approached the door. When Brown threw the great door open, he was startled to see this trim figure so near to him upon the highest step. He had put down his white umbrella, and he stood with a small cardcase between his finger and thumb, as ready at once to proclaim himself who he was.

“Sir William Markham?” he asked. The little cardcase had been opened, and the white edge of the card was visible in his hand.

“Not at home, sir,” said Brown.

“Ah! that’s your English way. I am not a novice, though you may think so,” said the little gentleman. “Take in this card and you will see that he will be at home for me.”

“Beg your pardon, sir,” said Brown. Though he had no objection to saying “not at home” when occasion demanded, he felt offended by being supposed to have done so falsely when his statement was true. “Master is not a gentleman that has himself denied when he is here. When I say not at home, I mean it. Sir William left Markham to-day.”

“Left to-day!—that is very unlucky,” said the stranger. He stood quite disconcerted for the moment, and gnawed the ends of his moustache, still with the card half extended between his finger and thumb. “You are sure now,” he added in a conciliatory tone, “that it is not by way of getting rid of intruders? I am no intruder. I am—a relation.”

“Very sorry, sir,” said Brown; “if you were one of the family—if you were Mr. Markham himself, I couldn’t say no different. Sir William, and my lady, and Miss Alice, they went to Oxford this morning by the early train.”

“Mr. Markham himself—who is Mr. Markham?” he said, with a peculiar smile hovering about his mouth. “I am—a relation; but I have never been in England before, and I don’t know much about the family. Is Mr. Markham a son, or brother—perhaps brother to Sir William?”

“The eldest son and heir, sir,” said Brown, with dignity. “You’ll see it in the Baronetage of England all about him, ‘Paul Reginald, born May 6, 18—.’ He came of age this year.”

The brown face of the stranger was full of varying expression while this was said—surprise, a half amusement, mingled with anger; emotions much too personal to be consistent with his ignorance of the family history. Strange, when he did not know anything about it, that he should be so much interested! Brown eyed him very keenly, with natural suspicion, though he did not know what it was he suspected. The little gentleman had closed his card-case, but still held it in his hand.

“So,” he said, “the heir; then perhaps he is at home?”

“There is nobody at home but the young ladies and the young gentlemen,” said Brown, testily. “If any of the grown-up ones had been in the house or about the place, I’d have said so.”

Brown felt himself the master when the heads of the family were away, and this sort of persistency did not please him.

“I’d like to see the young ladies and gentlemen,” said the stranger. “I’d like to see the house. You seem unwilling to let me in; but I am equally unwilling to come such a long distance and then go away——”

“Well, sir,” said Brown, embarrassed, “Markham Chase, though it’s one of the finest places in the county, is not a show-place. I don’t say but what the gardener would take a visitor round the gardens, and by the fish-pond, and that, when the family are away; but it has never been made a practice to show the house. And it cannot even be said at present that the family are away. They’ve gone on some business as far as Oxford. They might be back, Sir William told me, in two days.”

“My man!” said the stranger, “I can promise you your master will give you a good wigging when he hears that you have sent me away.”

“A good—what, sir?”

Brown grew red with indignation; but all the same a chill little doubt stole over him. This personage, who was so very sure of his welcome, might after all turn out to be a person whom he had no right to send away.

“I said a wigging, my good man. Perhaps you don’t understand that in England. We do in our place. Come,” he said, drawing out the card, and with it a very palpable sovereign, “here’s my name. You can see I’m no impostor. You had better let me see the house.”

The card was a very highly glazed foreign-looking piece of pasteboard, and upon it was the name of Mr. Augustus Markham Gaveston, at full length, in old English characters. And now that Brown looked at him again, he seemed to see a certain likeness to Sir William in this pertinacious visitor. He was about the same height, his eyes were the same colour, and there was something in the sound of his voice—Brown thought on the whole it would be best to pocket the indignity and the sovereign, and let the stranger have his way.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said; “Sir William didn’t say nothing to me about expecting a relation, and I’m not one that likes to take liberties in the absence of the family; but if so be as your mind is set upon it, I think I may take it upon me to let you see the house.”

“I thought we should understand each other, sooner or later,” said the stranger, with a smile. “Sir William could not tell you, for he did not know I was coming,” he said, a moment afterwards, with a short laugh. “I’ve come from—a long way off, where people are not—much in the way of writing letters. Besides, it is so long since he’s seen me, I dare say he has forgotten me: but the first glance at my card will bring it all back.”

“I don’t doubt it, sir,” said Brown. He had taken the sovereign, though not without doubts and compunctions, and now he felt himself half unwillingly bound to the service of this unknown personage. He admitted him into the hall with a momentary pang. “The house was built by the great-grandfather of the present baronet,” he said. “This hall is considered a great feature. The pillars were brought from Sicily; they’re no imitation, like what you see in many places, but real marble. On the right is the dining-room, and on the left the drawing-room. There is a fine gallery which is only used for balls and so forth——”

“Ah—we’ll take them in turn,” said the little gentleman. He put down his big white umbrella, and shook himself free of several particles of dust which he perceived on his light coat. “I’ll rest here a moment, thank you,” he said, seating himself in the same big chair in which Colonel Lenny had fallen asleep. “This reminds me of where I’ve come from. I dare say Sir William brought it over. Now fetch me some iced water or seltzer, or cold punch if you’ve got such a thing. Before I start sight-seeing, I’d like a little rest.”

Brown stared with open mouth; his very voice died away in the blank wonder that filled him.

“Cold—punch!” he said.

The stranger laughed.

“Don’t look so much like a boiled goose. I don’t suppose you have cold punch. Get me some seltzer, as I say, or iced water. I don’t suppose a man who has been anywhere where there’s a sun can do without one of them. Oh, yes, there’s a little sun in England now and then. Something to drink!” he added, in peremptory tones.

Brown, though he felt the monstrous folly of this order from a man who had never set foot in the house before, felt himself moving instinctively and very promptly to obey. It was the strangest thing in the world, but he did it, leaving the stranger enthroned in the great chair of Indian bamboo.

Mr. Augustus Markham Gaveston, however, had no inclination to sleep. He sat sunk in the chair, rubbing his hands, looking about him with his little keen blue eyes.

“So this is Markham Chase,” he said to himself. His eyes shone with a mischievous eager light. There was a little triumph in them and some amusement. Though he was far from being a boy, a sort of boyish gleam of malicious pleasure was in his face, as if he had done something which it had not been intended or desired that he should do, and thus had stolen a march upon some one in authority. He pulled off his gloves in a leisurely way, finger by finger, and threw them into his hat, which he had placed at his feet. Then he rubbed his hands again, as if ready for anything or everything.

“The dining-room to the right, the drawing-room to the left, and a fine gallery—for balls and that sort of thing,” he repeated, half under his breath.

The little girls had watched anxiously from the schoolroom window as long as there was anything to see. They had seen the little gentleman come in, which filled them with excitement. It was not a telegram, so there was nothing to be afraid of. Their hearts jumped with excitement and wonder. Who could it be?

“I ought to go and see what he wants,” said Bell. “Mamma left the charge of the house to me.”

“Oh, Bell—a strange gentleman! you would not know what to say to him, though it is only a little gentleman,” said Marie.

“Oh yes, I know quite well. I shall ask him if he wants papa, and that I am so sorry there is no one at home—and could I tell papa any message? that is what Dolly Stainforth says.”

“She is seventeen,” said Marie; “and you—you are only so little—he will laugh at you. Bell, don’t go. Oh, I don’t like to go——”

“He is little, too,” said Bell. “You can stay away if you please, but I am going to see what it all means. Mamma left the charge to me.”

Marie followed, shy, but curious.

“Oh, I wish the boys were here,” she said.

“The boys!” cried Bell, with much contempt. “Who would pay any attention to them? But you need not come unless you like. Mamma left the charge to me.”

Whether to be left alone, or to be dragged to the encounter to speak to a strange gentleman, Marie did not know which was worst. It was the first, however, which was most contrary to all her traditions. She scarcely remembered that such a thing had ever happened. So she followed, though ill at ease, holding a corner of Bell’s frock between her fingers. As for Bell, she had the courage of a lion. She walked quite boldly through all the passages, and never felt the slightest inclination to run away, till she suddenly caught a glimpse of two neat little feet, protruding from two lines of light trousers, on the other side of the hall. Then she gave a start and a little cry, and clutched at Marie behind her, who was more frightened than she.

They stopped within the door, in a sudden accès of fright. Nothing was visible but the grey trousers, the little feet in light cloth boots, and two hands rubbing each other; all the rest of the stranger’s person being sunk in the big chair.

When he heard this exclamation, he roused himself, and turned a wideawake head in their direction.

“Ah! the young ladies!” he said. “How are you, my little dears? It is you I most want to see.” And he held out to them the hands which had been seen rubbing themselves together so complacently a moment before.

“We are the Misses Markham. We are never spoken to like that,” said Bell. Then she collected all her courage for the sake of her duty. “I am the eldest,” she said. “Papa and mamma are gone away, if you wanted to see them; but if you have any message you wish to leave——”

“Come here,” he said. “I don’t wish to leave any message. Don’t be frightened. I want to make friends with you. Come here and talk to me. I am not a stranger. I am a—sort of a relation of yours.”

“A relation!” said Bell. And as Brown’s solemn step was heard advancing at this moment, the little girls advanced too. Brown carried a tray with a long glass upon it, a fat little bottle of seltzer water, and a large jug of claret-cup. Colonel Lenny had been very thirsty too when he fell asleep in that same chair, but he had not been served in this way. The little girls came forward, gravely interested, and watched with serious eyes while the little gentleman drank. He nodded at them before he lifted the glass to his lips with a comical air.

“My name is Markham as well as yours,” he said. “I’ve come a long way to make your acquaintance. This respectable person here—what do you call him, Brown?—wanted to send me away; but I hope now that you have come you will extend your protection to me, and not allow him to turn me away.”

“Are you a cousin?” said Bell.

“Well—perhaps not exactly a cousin; and yet something of that sort.”

“Are you one of the Underwood Markhams?” the little girl continued. “The people that nurse says would get Markham if we were all to die?”

“They must be very disagreeable people, I think,” said the stranger, with a smile.

“Oh, dreadful! They never come here. Nurse says they were in such a way when we were all born. They thought papa was going to let them have it—as if it were not much more natural that Paul should have it! You are not one of those people, are you, Mr.—Markham? Is that really your name?”

“I am not one of those people, and my name is Gus. What is yours? I want to know what to call you, and your little sister. And don’t you think you had better take me to see the house?”

“Oh,” cried Bell, looking more serious than ever; “but we could not call a gentleman, quite an old gentleman, like you, Gus.”

“Do you think I am an old gentleman?” he said.

“Well, not perhaps such a very old gentleman,” said Bell, hesitating.

Marie, trusting herself to speak for the first time, said in a half-whisper—

“Oh, no—not very old; just about the same as papa.”

The stranger burst into a laugh. This seemed to amuse him more than the humour of the speech justified.

“There is a difference,” he said; “a slight difference. I am not so old as—papa.”

“Do you know papa? Do you know any of them? You must have met them,” said Bell, “if you are in society. Alice came out this year, and they went everywhere, and saw everybody, in society. Mamma told me so. Alice is the eldest,” the little girl went on, pleased to enter into the fullest explanations as soon as she had got started. “That is, not the eldest of all, you know, but the eldest of the girls. She was at all the balls, and even went out to dinner! but then it is no wonder, she is eighteen, and quite as tall as mamma.”

“Is she pretty?” said the gentleman.

He went on drinking glass after glass of the claret-cup, while Brown stood looking on alarmed, yet respectful. (“Such a little fellow as that, I thought he’d bust hisself,” Brown said.)

“She is not so pretty as mamma,” said the little girl. “Everybody says mamma is beautiful. I am the one that is most like her,” continued Bell, with naïve satisfaction. “There is a picture of her in the drawing-room; you can come and see.”

“Miss Isabel,” cried Brown, taking her aside. There was something important even in the fact of being taken aside to be expostulated with by Brown. “We don’t know nothing about the gentleman, miss,” said Brown. “I don’t doubt that it is all right—still he mightn’t be what he appears to be; and as it is me that is responsible to Sir William——”

“You need not trouble yourself about that, Brown,” said Bell, promptly. “Mamma said I was to have the charge of everything. I shall take him in and show him the pictures and things. I will tell papa that it was me. But Brown,” she added in an undertone, certain doubts coming over her, “don’t go away; come with us all the same. Marie might be frightened; I should like you to come all the same.”

Meantime the stranger had turned to Marie.

“Where do you come in the family?” he said. “Are there any younger than you?”

“No,” said Marie, hanging her head. She was the shy one of the family. She gave little glances at him sidelong, from under her eyelids; but edged a little further off when he spoke.

“Are you afraid? Do you think I would do you any harm?” said the little gentleman. “It is quite the other way. Do you know I have brought some sweetmeats over the sea, I can’t tell you how far, expressly for you.”

“For me!” Marie was fairly roused out of her apathy. “But you didn’t know even our names till you came here.”

“Ah! there’s no telling how much I knew,” said the stranger with a smile.

He had risen up, and he was not very formidable. Though he was not handsome, the smile on his face made it quite pleasant. And to have sweetmeats brought, as he said, all that way, expressly for you, was a very ingratiating circumstance. Marie tried to whisper this wonderful piece of information to Bell when her interview with Brown was over. But Bell had returned to all her dignity of (temporary) head of the house.

“If you will follow me,” she said, trying to look, her sister said afterwards, as if she were in long dresses, and putting on an air of portentous importance, “we will take you to see the house. Brown, you can come with us and open the doors.”

The visitor laughed. He was very little taller than Bell, as she swept on with dignity at the head of the procession. Brown, not quite satisfied to have his rôle taken out of his hands, yet unwilling to leave the children in unknown company, and a little curious himself, and desirous to see what was going on, followed with some perturbation. And there never was a housekeeper more grandiose in description than Bell proved herself, or more eloquently confused in her dates and details. They went over all the house, even into the bedrooms, for the stranger’s curiosity was inexhaustible. He learned all sorts of particulars about the family, lingering over every picture and every chamber. When the boys came in, calling loudly for their sisters, he put his glass in his eye and examined them, as they rushed up the great staircase, where a whispered but quite audible, consultation took place.

“I say, we want our dinner,” cried Harry. “We’re after a wasps’ nest down in the Brentwood Hollow, and if you don’t make haste, you’ll lose all the fun.”

“Oh, a wasps’ nest!” cried Bell; “but we can’t—we can’t: for here is a gentleman who says he is a relation, and we’re showing him over the house.”

“Such a funny little gentleman,” said Marie, “and he says he’s got some sweetmeats (what does one mean by sweetmeats?) for me.”

“I don’t care for your gentleman; I want my dinner,” cried Harry, whose boots were all over mud from the Brentwood swamp. They both brought in a whiff of fresh air like a fresh breeze into the stately house.

“Miss Isabel,” said Brown, coming forward, and speaking in a stage whisper, while the stranger, with his glass in his eye, calmly contemplated all these communings from above, “if the gentleman is really a relation, I don’t think my lady would mind if you asked him to stay lunch.”

To stay lunch! This took away the children’s breath.

“It is a bore to have a man when he doesn’t belong to you,” said Roland.

“He looks a queer little beggar,” said Harry. “I don’t think I like the looks of him.”

“But he is quite nice,” said the little girls in a breath.

Then Bell suddenly gave a lamentable cry—

“Oh, you boys, it is no use even thinking of the wasps’ nest. We have all got to go to the rectory to the school-feast.”

This calamity put the little gentlemen out of their heads. The boys resisted wildly, but the girls began to think better of it, arguing that it was a party, though only a parish party. The introduction of this subject delayed the decision of the question about lunch, until at last a violent appeal from Harry—

“I say, Brown! can’t we have our dinner?” brought about a crisis.

“You go and ask him to come, Harry,” said Bell, seized with an access of shyness, and pushing her brother forward. “You are the biggest.”

“Ask him yourself,” cried the boy. This difficult question however was solved by the little gentleman himself, who came forward, still with his glass in his eye.

“My dear children,” he said, “don’t give yourselves any trouble. I am very hungry, and when Mr. Brown is so kind as to give you your dinner, I will share it with great pleasure.” (“Cheeky little brute—I don’t like the looks of him,” said Harry to Roland. “But it was plucky of him all the same,” said Roland to Harry.) “Allow me to offer Miss Markham my arm,” the stranger added.

To see Bell colour up, look round at them all in alarm, then put on a grand air, and accept the little gentleman’s arm, was, all the children thought, as good as a play. They followed in convulsions of suppressed laughter, the boys pretending to escort each other, while Marie did her best to subdue them. “Oh, boys, boys! when you know mamma says we are never to laugh at people,” cried this small authority. But the meal thus prepared for was very successful, and the young Markhams speedily became quite intimate with their visitor. He told them he was going to stay in the village, and Harry and Roland immediately made him free of the woods. And he asked them a thousand questions about everybody and everything, from their father and mother, to the school-feast where they were going; but except the fact that he was staying in the village, he gave them no information about himself. This Brown noted keenly, who, though not disposed to trouble himself usually with a school-room dinner, condescended to conduct the service on this occasion, keeping both ears and eyes in very lively exercise. Brown felt sure, with the instinct of an old servant, that something was about to happen in the family, and he would not lose an opportunity of making his observations. The stranger remained until the children had got ready for their engagement, and walked with them to the village, still asking questions about everything. They had fallen quite easily into calling him Mr. Gus.

“For I am Markham as well as you,” he said; “there would be no distinction in that;” which was another source of anxiety and alarm to Brown, who knew that on the visitor’s card there was another name.

“Good-bye, Mr. Gus, good-bye!’ the children cried at the rectory-gate. The village inn was further on, and Mr. Gus lingered with perfectly open and unaffected curiosity to look at the fine people who were getting out of their carriages at the gate.

“We will tell papa your message,” said Bell, turning round for a last word; “and remember you are to come again when they come home.”

“Never fear; you will see plenty of me before all is done,” he said; and so went on into the village, waving his hand to them, with his big white umbrella over his head. All the girls and boys who were going to the school-feast, stopped to look at him with wondering eyes. He was very unlike the ordinary Englishman as seen in Markham Royal. But the little Markhams themselves had now no doubt that he was a relation, for his walk, they all agreed, was exactly like papa’s.

CHAPTER II.

The rectory at Markham Royal was a pretty house, situated on a little elevation, with pretty lawns and gardens, and a paddock at the foot of the little height, open to the lawn, where there was a tent erected, and plenty of space for the games. Spectators of the higher class constituted quite another little party in the pretty slope of the gardens, where they were walking about in bright-coloured groups, and paying their various greetings to the rector and his daughter when the little Markhams arrived. Their appearance was a great disappointment to the company in general, and especially to Dolly Stainforth, who was the hostess and the soul of everything that was going on. The rector himself was old, and not able to take much trouble. He had a large family of sons and daughters, who were all married and out in the world, with the exception of the youngest of all, Dolly, who was a little younger than Alice Markham, and a model of everything that a clergyman’s daughter ought to be. Frank, the youngest son, a young barrister, who still called the rectory home, and was generally present on all important occasions, was the only other member of the family in whom Markham Royal took any very great interest; and he was absent to-day, to the great annoyance of his sister, who all the afternoon had been looking out, shading her eyes, directly in the line of the sun, which made the highroad one white and blazing line—looking for the carriage from the Chase, which might, Dolly hoped, bring her the only compensation possible for her brother’s absence. Alice was an unfailing aid in all such emergencies, and Lady Markham’s gracious presence made everything go well among the great people on the lawn. Also, this time at least, there was another possibility that made Dolly’s heart beat. It had been whispered among the girls for some time past that the birthday of Alice being near, and Paul almost certain to come home for that family festivity, he might, in all likelihood, be calculated upon for the rectory too; in which case Alice and he would remain for supper afterwards, and the day would be a white day. Not many entertainments of a lively description came in Dolly’s way. She had to drive out solemnly with her father now and then, and attend garden parties which were not always very amusing, but this day had been marked out as an exception to all others. After the school-feast, which was the laborious part of it, and in which she was to be helped by the people she admired and loved most in the world, there was to be the much more exquisite pleasure of the domestic party after, talks, and songs, and strolls in the moonlight, and a whole little romance of happiness. Frank and Alice, whom it would be almost delight enough to pair together, to see “taking to each other,” and Paul—Perhaps it was part of Dolly’s training as, in a way, mother of the parish, that she should make her little plans with extreme regularity and perfection of all the details. This anticipation had given her strength for all the preparations of the school-feast. There was no curate to take any share of the responsibility; everything came upon her own small shoulders, young and delicate as they were. But what of that! With such aid and such a recompense, Dolly did not care what trouble she took. It was her duty in any case, but duty became a kind of Paradise when pursued in company with Frank and Alice and Paul. Alas! the morning’s post had brought a letter from Frank announcing his inability to appear. Was it for a serious cause which his sister could accept? Alas, no! only for a cricket match, which he preferred—certainly preferred—to the rectory lawn and Alice Markham. Frank was false, but the others must prove true. When did any one ever know the Markhams to fail? When the four children appeared, Dolly detached herself from Lady Westland, whom with a much disturbed attention she had been entertaining:

“Why are they so late?” she cried.

“Oh, Dolly,” said Bell, half pleased to be of so much importance, half sorry to convey bad news; “they are not coming at all! They have gone off to Oxford, papa, mamma, and Alice; there is something the matter with Paul.”

Poor little Dolly never could tell how she bore this blow. Suddenly the whole scene became dim before her, swimming in two big tears which flooded her eyes. She had indeed said to herself that she would not “build upon” the coming of Paul; but Alice at least she had a right to build upon.

“My dear child, what is the matter?” cried Lady Westland, whose eyes were as keen as needles.

Dolly, though she was still blind with the sudden moisture, recovered her wits more quickly than she recovered her eyesight.

“I think I shall cry,” she said. “I can’t help it. Alice is not coming; and Alice was all my hope. There is no one such a help as she is. I don’t know what I shall do without her.”

It was a kind of comfort to Dolly to think that Ada Westland would be wounded by an estimate which showed how little her services were thought of; and this, perhaps, though not at all a right feeling for a good little clergywoman, helped her to recover herself, as it was so necessary she should do.

The children were assembling in the paddock, all in their best clothes, with the schoolmistress and the Sunday-school teachers, and a few favoured villagers. There was the tea to make for them, the games to organise, to keep everything going; and all the garden walks were occupied by idle people who were doing nothing to help, and from whom no help could be expected. Her old maid, who had been her nurse, and who was Dolly’s chief support in the household, and old George the old man-servant, who managed the male department at the rectory, were both required to hand tea, and attend upon these fine people, who did all they could to detain Dolly herself, stopping her as she hurried down to the field of action, to tell her that it was a pretty scene. Dolly was far too good a girl, and too thoroughly trained to the duties of her position to dwell at that moment upon her disappointment. But whenever she paused for a moment, whenever the din of the voices and teacups experienced a lull, it came back to her. Poor little Dolly! She had everything on her shoulders.

There was a line of chairs arranged under the lime-trees on the lawn for the great people of the parish—the Trevors and the Westlands—apart from the crowd of smaller people who came and went. Among these few local magnates the rector meandered, and it was to them that old George’s services were specially dedicated. They had the best of the tea, which Dolly grudged greatly, and the best position, and the best attendance; and considered themselves to be doing a duty which they owed to the parish in thus countenancing the school-feast. They considered that they were doing their duty; but at the same time, in the absence of anything better, they liked it as Bell and Marie did, because, such as it was, it was a party, though only a school-feast. Old Admiral Trevor was seated in the sunniest spot—for warmth, as his daughters explained, was everything to him. He sat there, cooking in the heat of the August afternoon with poor Miss Trevor close by, divided between the necessity of being close to him and the love of the grateful shade behind. The old admiral talked a great deal, mumbling between his toothless gums with the greatest energy, and very indignant when he was asked a second time what he had said. Miss Trevor, though she was deaf and used an ear-trumpet, always heard her father, and was very quick and clever in interpreting him, so as to save what she called “unpleasantness.” Beside the Trevors were the Westlands—the whole four of them—father, mother, son, and daughter. They were new people, and therefore deeply impressed with the necessity of “countenancing” the parish in which they had bought a house and park, and which they tried to patronise as if it belonged to them. They were very rising people, very rich, and fond of finding themselves in good company, even at a school-feast; for naturally such people get on much better in town, where there are all sorts of visitors, than in the country where everybody knows all about their pedigree and belongings. Dolly’s only real help was Miss Matilda Trevor, the second daughter of the admiral, a plain, good woman, but so shortsighted that she had to put her nose into everything before she could see it. Some of the smaller lights of Markham, Mrs. Booth, and her niece, from Rosebank, and young Mrs. Rossiter, the doctor’s wife, might have been of a little use; but their heads were turned by the offer the rector inadvertently made of the chairs reserved for the Markhams on the lawn. When they had such a chance of distinction, of making their “position” quite apparent, and showing their equality with the county people, who could wonder that these ladies threw over the children, and Dolly, though not without many compunctions? Poor ladies! they did not make very much of it; they talked to each other which they could do any day, and now and then got a word from Miss Trevor, who poked out her trumpet for the answer, frightening Mrs. Rossiter out of her wits.

This, however, accomplished Dolly’s discomfiture, leaving her altogether to herself. It was a pretty scene, as everybody said. The people who were walking about the garden dropped off as the afternoon went on, but the great people sat it out; though they paused to say it was a pretty scene, they were busy with their own talk, and had nothing else to do that was of any importance. The admiral had got into an argument with Lord Westland about the new ironclads—if argument that could be called which consisted of vituperation on the part of the old sailor and amiable remonstrances from the new lord.

“Ships,” the bigoted old seaman cried, the foam flying from his lips, “I doncall’em ships.” He ran his words into each other, which made him very difficult to understand. “Shtinking old tin-kettles, old potshanpans, that’s what I call ’em. Set a seaman afloatin’em shlike puttin’emdownamine. I don’ callit afloat.”

“My dear sir,” said Lord Westland, blandly, “there may be something in what you say; but we might as well try to confine the waves of the sea, as a certain king did, as to keep back science. Science, admiral, must have her way.”

“Let’erhav’erway,” cried the old man, “down to the bottom if sheshamind. One good seamansh worth more ’ana shipload o’ph’losophers. Let’emman’erownships; let’em man their own ships. Crew o’ph’losophers ’shtead o’seamen. Bust their boilers’s often ’shtheylike and devil a harm.”

“He says the new ships should have crews of philosophers,” said Miss Trevor, tranquilly, putting up her hand to silence the anxious “I did not catch your last remark,” to which Lord Westland was about to give utterance. The peer shook his indulgent head.

“My dear admiral, philosophers, though it may please you and me, who are old-fashioned, to rail at them, are rapidly becoming the masters of the world.”

“Mashters-o-fiddlshticks,” said the old sailor. “Put’emdown the d——d ratholes, shee how theylikeit’emshelves. Old coalmines under water, call that a ship! None o’ God’s air, noneoGod’s light—all machines an’gasburnersh. Smash ’erownconsortsh—run every thin’ down—’chept enemish!” he sputtered forth triumphantly, with a laugh of angry triumph in his own argument.

“He says they run everything down, except the enemy,” said Miss Trevor. “I should like myself to know why there are so many collisions nowadays. My father says it is all science and boilers. Why is it, Lord Westland?” And she put up that ear-trumpet, of which everybody was afraid, for her noble neighbour’s use.

“Did you hear that last piece of news about the Markhams?” said Lady Westland. “All off at a moment’s notice, the very day they were expected here. They really ought to have waited and showed themselves, and not given colour to all the stories that are about.”

“Are there stories about? I have not heard any. Markham only came home two days ago. Do you mean about the ministry? Is it supposed to be insecure?”

“Oh no,” cried Lady Westland, with an ineffable smile. “The ministry!—oh no, Mr. Stainforth; that is much too well secured with the best and most influential support. The opposition need not trouble themselves about that.”

Lady Westland looked at her husband with honest admiration. He was a consistent supporter of government—and standing, as he did, with his legs wide apart and his shoulders squared, anticipating with dread the necessity of speaking into the trumpet and preparing himself for the effort, he looked a very substantial prop.

“Ah, to be sure,” said the rector. “I forgot for the moment we take different sides.”

“My dear rector, how you, a dignified clergyman and a man of family, can take the Liberal side!” said Lady Westland. “It seems more than one can believe. But, oh no—oh dear no! of course I would not for the world say a word to weaken old ties or change convictions. An opinion that has stood the test of years is a sacred thing. But I did not mean anything political. Don’t you know, dear Mr. Stainforth, the very sad stories that are told everywhere about Paul?”

“What has Paul been doing?” said the old rector. He did not himself very much approve of Paul. Staying up to read was a new sort of idea which had not been thought of in his day. He did not much believe in young fellows reading when a set of them got together. “Much more likely they are staying up for some mischief,” he had said when he heard of it, and in consequence he was not disinclined or unprepared to hear that there were stories about Paul.

“Did not you hear what he did? He brought some frightful Radical agitator, some public-house politician—so they say—to the Chase, and made poor Lady Markham take him in, and gave her all sorts of trouble. I believe Sir William has scarcely spoken to him since for being so silly. But we all know what a devoted mother Lady Markham is. For my part, I think one’s husband has the first claim. And now they say he is inveigled into some engagement, and is going to be sent off to the Colonies and got rid of in that way.”

“I think there must be some mistake,” said the rector. “Men don’t send their heirs to the Colonies, nor get rid of them, except for very serious causes.”

“Oh, I am so glad you stand up for Paul! I will never believe it,” said Ada Westland. “Paul inveigled into any engagement! How could you believe it, Mr. Stainforth? He is as proud as Lucifer. He thinks none of us fit to pick up his handkerchief. Oh, I know, we are all supposed to be on our promotion, waiting till he may be pleased to look at us. I—and Dolly too—— but he never did condescend to look at us. If he were to marry, after that, a girl off the streets——”

“Ada, my love, for Heaven’s sake, take care how you talk!”

“Oh, there is nobody but the rector, mamma, and he knows we girls are not such fools as we are made to look. If Paul Markham were to marry that sort of person, I should laugh. It would be our revenge—Dolly’s and mine—whom he never would condescend to look at. It would be nuts to me.”

“Did you ever hear anything so vulgar?” said Mrs. Booth to Mrs. Rossiter. “I never could abide that girl. They have all thrown her and themselves at Paul Markham’s head. New people as they are, and shoddy people, they would give their eyes to have her married into such an old county family.”

“But it is not true about Dolly,” said the doctor’s wife. “Dolly has not such a notion in her head. Her mind is full of the parish, and her father, and Frank. I don’t believe such an idea as getting married ever crossed her mind at all.”

“Hem!” said Mrs. Booth, with a doubtful little cough, “I should not like to swear to that. What did you say, Lady Westland—haven’t I heard it? Well, I have heard something about strange visitors. It appears there have been several people at Markham lately whom nobody has been asked to meet.”

“That is very significant; I call it very significant. When one’s own friends cease to introduce their friends to us, it is a token that all is not well. Don’t you think so?” said Lady Westland, softly smiling on the doctor’s wife.

Mrs. Rossiter’s sympathies were all with the victims who were being assailed. But the Westlands were very fine people, much more “difficult to know” than the Markhams, and the doctor had not yet got a very distinct footing at the Towers. His young wife thought of her husband’s position, and acquiesced with a sigh.

“But it is not like them,” she said. “The Markhams are so hospitable; they are such nice people; they are always kind.”

“Yes, they ask all sorts of people. It is extraordinary the people one meets there,” Lady Westland said; which made Mrs. Rossiter’s cheek flame, and was a very just recompense to her for her infidelity. And then there was a pause, and the boom of Admiral Trevor’s bass, and the titillation of his sh’s came in like the chorus. He was still holding forth on the subject of the Devastation.

“I don’t wish ’em any harm,” said the old sailor; “I wish-e-may all go down in port like that one t’other day. Wish-em wher-er shure to be looked after. No, blesh us all—no harm!”

Meanwhile the games were going on merrily enough in the paddock. Dolly flew about for three people. She set the little ones afloat in one game, and the big ones in another. The Markhams were still her best allies, Bell throwing herself into the rounds and dances of the infants with characteristic vigour; but Harry and Roland stood apart and whispered to each other, with their hands in their pockets. They would have taken the boys off to play cricket, had that been in the programme.

“No, I will not have it,” Dolly said. “For once in a way they shall be together. It’s bad enough when they grow up, when all the boys troop off for their own pleasure, and never think what the girls are doing. It’s time enough to break up a party and make sects when they’re grown up,” Dolly said. The boys stared, and did not understand her. But it was natural enough that she should be angry. Frank’s cricket match was rankling in his sister’s mind. And Dolly thought that “for once in a way” Paul Markham might have thought of old friends. It was sure to be his fault that even Alice had failed her; Dolly had no idea how it could be his fault, but she was sure of it. Her heart was full of fury as she flew about from one group of children to another, struggling against their tendency to fall into detached parties, and let the amusements flag. “It is far more their parish than it is mine; they will always have it,” she said to herself. When it began to be time for the children to disperse, and the conclusion of her labours approached, she was so far carried away by her feelings as to forget that the Miss Trevor who had helped her with the tea, but had been standing helplessly about since, always in the way, was the shortsighted one, and not the deaf one. “Oh, I wonder why all these people don’t go away?” she cried. “Haven’t they got dinners waiting at home? Why do they stay so long? I am sure I don’t want to have to go and entertain them after the children go away.” And then poor Dolly recollected with horror that Mrs. Booth and Mrs. Rossiter were to stay for a high tea, and that the doctor was to come in to join them. “Oh,” she cried, in her vexation, “I shall not get rid of them to-night.”

“Of whom are you speaking, my dear?” said Miss Trevor, astonished—which brought Dolly to herself; and, fortunately, Miss Trevor could not see that it was her own party, and the rest of the people on the lawn, whom Dolly meant. “I am afraid we must be going very soon,” she added, with regret. “I am sorry not to stay and help you to the end. But dear papa must not be exposed to the night dews.”

Dolly had to marshal the children for a march round, leading them in front of the company on the lawn, and conducting the chorale (as the schoolmistress called it) which they sang before they broke up. This was what the fine people had remained for, and all the parish would have been disappointed had they not stayed. But, notwithstanding, it was hard upon her, tired as she was, to have to stand and receive their compliments, and to be told that it had been “such a pretty scene.”

“I enjoyed it very much,” said Lady Westland, “I assure you; I only came to do a duty and countenance you, my dear Dolly; but I quite enjoyed it.”

“We came to scoff, and we remained to play,” said Ada; while Lord Westland squared his shoulders, and threw out his chest, and repeated his wife’s observation about the pretty scene.

“And I hope you will always calculate on me to give my countenance whenever it is wanted,” he said.

Dolly, though so tired, had to stand and smile, and look gratified by all their compliments. And what was worse, when they had all at last been got away, there rose up from behind the chairs on which Mrs. Booth and Mrs. Rossiter, waiting with the ease of habitués till all was over, had seated themselves again after their leave-takings, a tall and gawky figure, dark in the fading light.

“Mr. Westland is going to stay, Dolly, to share our evening meal, though I have told him it will be a homely one,” the rector said, not without a tone of apology in his voice. Another voice, high up in the air, muttered something about the greatest pleasure. But Dolly took no notice. This was the worst infliction of all. She let herself drop into the wicker-work chair with the cushions, which Lady Westland had declared to be so comfortable.

“I thought they were never going away,” she said with angry candour. “I am so tired. I so wanted a little peace.”

The rector and young Westland both knew the meaning of this speech, but neither ventured to reply.

Mrs. Booth, however, stretched out her hand and gave the girl a friendly pinch. “They are the most important people in the county, Dolly.”

“No, indeed, that they are not” the girl cried loud out. She was not one to desert her friends, even though they might not be so good to her as she had hoped. But as Mrs. Booth’s remark had been made in a whisper, no one knew exactly to what this prompt contradiction referred.

At supper Mr. Westland was of course placed at Dolly’s right hand. If he was not the most important young man in the neighbourhood, he was nominally of the highest rank, and would no doubt have taken precedence anywhere of Paul Markham. He was very tall, and very lean, an overgrown, lanky boy, with big projecting eyes, which were full of meaning when he looked at Dolly—or at least of something which he intended for meaning. He did not talk very much, but he gazed at her constantly, which was very irritating to Dolly. Mr. Rossiter was a much more lively person. He came in in a state of high good-humour, which none of the party already assembled shared. Both the ladies who were Dolly’s guests had grievances. They had sat on uncomfortable chairs all the afternoon by way of showing their identity with the best families, but the Westlands and the Trevors had taken very little notice of them. The doctor’s wife for one felt that she had not been of that service to Dolly which Dolly had a right to expect, and yet that she had not asserted her husband’s position in anything like a satisfactory way by this failure in friendship. The supper-table was not as lively as a supper-table ought to be after a bright afternoon out of doors.

“I hope it all went off well,” the doctor said as he looked round the languid party, and saw how little response there was in their faces to his cheery address and simple jokes.

“Oh, beautifully!” said young Westland, finding his voice with an effort; “like everything Miss Stainforth has to do with.”

There was no murmur of response; and Dolly gave her champion a glance which drove him back trembling upon himself. Then Mrs. Booth said, stopping her knife and fork, “I think we missed Lady Markham.” She said this as if it were a conclusion she had arrived at by a long process of reasoning; and then she returned to her cold chicken with renewed zest.

“That was it,” cried Mrs. Rossiter, glad to hit upon something which relieved her own sense of guilt. “It was Lady Markham we wanted. She makes everything go smooth. She makes you feel that she takes an interest in you, and wants you to be comfortable.”

“It is a pity,” said the rector, “that such a pleasant type of character should so seldom be sincere.”

“Papa,” said Dolly, “I can bear a great deal—but if any one says any harm of the Markhams I will not put up with it. If they had been here I should not have had everything to do myself. If they had been here those tiresome people would have gone away at the right time, and everything would have gone right. Sincere! Do you think it is sincere to say nasty things, and get out of temper when one is tired—like me?”

And poor Dolly nearly cried; till the doctor threatened her with a mixture to be taken three times a day; when she made a great effort, and shook off her evil disposition. Besides she had fired her shots right and left, wounding two bosoms at least, and there was an ease to the mind in that which could not be gainsaid.

“But I hear there are unpleasant stories afloat about the Markhams,” the rector said at his end of the table. “I hope my old friend, Sir William, has not been remiss in his duties. A father should never give up his authority, even to his wife. I fear among them,” he added, shaking his white head, “they have done everything they could to spoil Paul.”

“So I hear,” said Mrs. Booth, shaking hers. But nobody knew what was the real charge against the Markhams, or what it was that Paul had done. And after Dolly’s profession of faith in them, which was something like an accusation against the others, these others might shake their wise heads, and communicate between themselves their adverse opinions. But before Dolly there was not another word to say.

CHAPTER III.

The rectory of Markham Royal was a very good living—a living intended for the second son of the reigning family when there was a second son; and indeed it was more than probable that Roland Markham, when he grew up, would have to “go in for” the Church, in order to take advantage of this family provision. Sir William, being in his own person the third son of his family, and the youngest, there was nobody who had a claim upon it when he came into possession of the title and estates; for the Markhams of Underwood, who were the next heirs, and who had been very confident in their hopes up to the moment of Sir William’s marriage—a wrong which they had never forgiven—had but one son, who was too old to be cut into clerical trim. This was how Mr. Stainforth had got the living. He had held it for nearly thirty-five years, and had been a good rector enough, jogging on very easily, harming nobody, and if not particularly active in his parish, at least quite amiable and inoffensive, friendly with all the best families, and not uncharitable to the poor. He had a little money of his own, and had kept a good table, and returned to a certain degree the civilities of his richer neighbours. And he had been able to keep a pretty little carriage for his wife as long as she lived, and for his daughter; and altogether to maintain the traditionary position which the rector of Markham Royal had always held in the county. Perhaps an inoffensive man who disturbs nobody is the one who can hold such a position best; just as it is better (though this rule has at present a brilliant exception) for a president of the Royal Academy to be not too distinguished a painter, and even sometimes for a bishop not to be too great a divine. Society prefers the suave and mediocre, and when a man acquires a high place in its ranks by reason of his profession, requires of him that he should be as little professional as possible. Mr. Stainforth was of the good old order of the squire-parson, the clerical country gentleman who respects abuses which are venerable, and deprecates any great eagerness about the way to heaven. Perhaps he had not very distinct views about heaven at all. Now and then he would preach a sermon about golden gates, and harps, and shining raiment, but it was seldom, if ever, of his own composition. In his own practice he thought it best to think as little about dying as possible, and he did not try to impose a different rule on his neighbours. He thought that it would most likely all come right somehow or other in the end, and that in the meantime there was not much good to be done by too much dwelling on the subject, which indeed is a view of the subject which a great many people are disposed to take. He had lived long enough to see all his sons and daughters established in life, which was a great matter. He had two girls who were very well married, and two sons with capital appointments, besides Frank, who was scrambling for his living somehow, and could manage to “get on”—and Dolly, who was too young to cost very much. There was enough to provide for Dolly when the rector should die—and he felt that he had fully done his duty to his family. And he had done his duty to his parish. There was no more dissent than was inevitable; and Mr. Stainforth treated it as inevitable, and did not interfere with it. He was very reasonable on this subject—so reasonable that the curates he had generally disagreed with him violently; and he was at the present period taking the duty alone, though it was somewhat laborious, rather than attempt to regulate the young assistant priest who set up confessions, or the muscular young parson who instituted games.

“Let the people alone,” was Mr. Stainforth’s rule, to which these hot-headed young neophytes without experience would give no faith. Sometimes he would be quite eloquent on the subject. “Let the chapel alone,” he would say. “What can we do in the Church with the emotions, especially among the poor? A washerwoman who has feelings wants her chapel. It makes her a great deal happier than you or I could do. All that does the Church good. And let the others peg away at me if they please. It keeps Spicer amused, and keeps him out of more mischief.”

Spicer was the village grocer, against whom all the young men hurled themselves and their arguments in vain. But the rector dealt with Spicer, and always had a chat with him when he passed the shop-door. There was a mutual respect between them.

“But our rector, I don’t say nothing against him,” Spicer would say at the end of his speech, when there was any demonstration in the neighbourhood in the dissenting interest; “he mayn’t be much of a one for work, but he’s a credit to the place.” There was a great deal to be said for the head of the parish hierarchy who continued to get his things from you, blandly indifferent to the fact that you were a dissenter, and in despite of all those co-operative societies which drive grocers to a keener frenzy than any Church establishment. Lord Westland got all his things down from town, and so did the doctor and the smaller magnates; while even the chapel minister was known to have a clandestine hamper, given out to be a present from some supporter, but arriving suspiciously once a month. The rector, however, never swerved. To him the parish was the parish, and a Markham Royal grocer the proper grocer for Markham Royal—a principle which could not but have its reward.

This was the chief reason, and not economy, as many people said, why Mr. Stainforth did the duty himself, and had no curate. Dolly was his curate. She had been born in the order, so to speak, and none could recollect the time when she had not felt it her duty to set an example, and carried more or less the burden of the parish upon her shoulders. She had been dedicated, like young Samuel, from her earliest years to the service of the Temple. She set out upon her round of visits every day as regularly as any curate could have done, had her days for the schools, and her clothing clubs, and her mother’s meetings, at which the seventeen-year-old creature discoursed the women about their duties to their families in a way which was beautiful to hear. How she could know so much about children was a standing wonder to the women; but it was just as astounding to see her calculate the interest upon elevenpence ha’penny at four and a half per cent; indeed a great deal more miraculous to some of us. She played the organ in church; she took charge of the decorations. She watched all the sick people, careful to observe just the right moment when it was expedient “to send papa;” and the parish got on very pleasantly under the joint sway of the father and daughter. It did not make a very great appearance in the diocesan lists of subscriptions, and there was no doubt that a great many of the people who had feelings, as the rector said, went to the little Wesleyan chapel. But Mr. Stainforth did not mind that. It was a safety valve, and so was the Bethel chapel, in the nearest town, to which Spicer went every Sunday, which was much less tolerant than Bethesda, and hurled all manner of denunciations against the Church. Sometimes the neighbouring incumbents would warn the rector that his village was a hotbed of mischief, and be very severe on the subject of his excessive tolerance. But Mr. Stainforth was seventy-six, and not likely to live long enough to see any of the great earthquakes with which they threatened him. “There will be peace in my time,” he said.

This supineness did not displease Sir William, who, though in opposition, held fast to the old Whig maxims of freedom of opinion, and preferred to conciliate the dissenters, with an eye to the general elections and their political support generally. He went very regularly to church at the head of his fine family, but there was always a consciousness in him that, much as he should regret it, it might possibly be his duty one day or other to assail the establishment; and he thought it a point of honour not to show any exaggerated attachment to it now which might be turned into reproaches afterwards. Neither did the Trevors object at all to Mr. Stainforth’s easy good temper. The things they were afraid of were the Pope, and the Jesuits, whom they supposed to be lurking under every hedgerow. So long as the rector kept ritualism at bay they found no fault with him. The Westlands, however, were very strong on the opposite side. They were people who endeavoured always to do as persons of their rank ought to do, and they liked a high ritual just as they liked high life. Though they “countenanced” the school-feast, and were always ready to do their duty in this way in the parish, yet they never let slip an opportunity of expressing their opinion of the rector’s weakness.

“But we have no influence,” Lady Westland said. “The living is in the hands of the Markhams. Though they are commoners they were settled here before us, and therefore have the advantage of us in a great many ways.”

It was a bold thing to say this in the very district where it was well known the Markhams had been established for centuries, and where Lord Westland had acquired the Towers by purchase only about a dozen years before. But if there was one quality upon which Lady Westland prided herself it was courage. She was somewhat bitter about the Markhams altogether. There were so many things in which they had the advantage of her. To be sure, she took precedence of Lady Markham whenever they met, and walked triumphantly out of the room before her; but she could not but be aware that in most other ways the baronet’s wife had the best of it. The Chase had been in the Markham family for generations, whereas Westland Towers was painfully new; and to come to still more intimate particulars, Paul Markham was a young man of distinction, whereas George Westland, though an honourable, was nothing but an overgrown school-boy. Ada, indeed, was quite as handsome, perhaps handsomer, than Alice, and much cleverer: but she did not receive the same attention. Ada was withal rather a difficult young woman, who gave her parents a great deal of trouble. She took a pleasure in running her talk to the very edge of evil, and made every kind of daring revelation about herself and her family, putting her mother’s secret intentions into large type and publishing them abroad. She liked to see the flutter of semi-horror, semi-incredulity with which her bold sayings were received. She liked to shock people; but perhaps, at the same time, she made a shrewd calculation that, when she published what seemed to be to her own disadvantage, nobody would believe her. This, however, was not so successful an expedient as appeared. When she said that Paul had been expected to throw his handkerchief at her, nobody took it for an impertinent volley of extravagance on her part. It was vain that she involved Dolly in it. In the very faces of her auditors Ada saw the truth reflected back to her; and thus, though she would not have hesitated to marry the heir of the Markhams, she could not excuse the family for what they brought upon her. Lord Westland was not a man to feel the stings which hurt his wife and daughter. He was protected by a much higher opinion of himself; but even he felt a certain annoyance with “my friend Markham,” who was listened to more respectfully, and looked up to with much more trust than he. Lord Westland took this as an instance of the folly and stupidity of country people, but yet he felt it in his heart.

Thus the one family was to the other what Mordecai was to Haman. Lady Westland kept her ears always open to hear anything to the disadvantage of the Markhams. Paul’s youthful vagaries, and even the little scrapes which Harry and Roland got into at school she seized upon with eagerness. She was as much interested in chronicling these misdeeds as if they had been so many items to her advantage; but, notwithstanding everything, the Markhams always came off the best. George Westland got into more scrapes at school than all of them put together; and now that he had come home, and had finished his education, what must he do, this heir to a peerage, this only son of so rich and important a house, but go sighing and gaping after Dolly Stainforth, who was no more than the parson’s daughter? His mother and sister were driven almost wild by the mere suspicion of this. And not only was it day by day more evidently true, but it even became apparent to them that George for once had reached a point from which he would neither be bullied nor frightened. He let them say whatever they pleased, but he took his own way.

What Dolly thought of this has been already seen. Dolly, who was angry at her brother’s defection and sadly wounded by the failure of the Markhams, resented George Westland’s presence more than she did the absence of the others, and turned her back upon him, rejecting his services. She treated him with absolute contumely, impatient of his very look. Why is it that the wrong person will always present himself in such cases? Why, when a girl’s fancy is caught by one youth, will another attach himself to her side, and devote himself to her service, to have all the little carelessnesses of the other resented upon him? Dolly had not a word to say to young Westland. She would have liked to have pushed him aside out of her way; and Paul perhaps had not given one thought to Dolly since they danced together at the children’s balls at the Chase, while he was still a schoolboy. Thus the threads in the shuttle of life mix themselves up and get all woven the wrong way.

The Trevors were happily beyond the reach of all tremors of this kind. The old admiral lived a kind of mummy life, swathed in flannels against the rheumatism, and in bandages against the gout, with his food weighed out to him, and his wine measured by the too-scrupulous care of his daughter, whose life was spent in guarding him against cold and indigestion and excitement. Miss Trevor, the eldest, though she was deaf, always heard and understood what he said; but Miss Matilda, the second, never understood her dear papa, and had constantly to have his commands repeated to her. Between her parish work, in which she was assiduous, and her dear papa, this good soul’s existence was full. She was very humble-minded, and anxious to please everybody, but yet she was constantly giving offence to Mrs. Booth, whom she sometimes passed in the road, and sometimes brushed against at the church door, without seeing. Thus her inoffensive life was diversified by a succession of little quarrels, wholly unintentional, and which the poor lady could not understand. But these were the only palpitations in her calm existence; and her sister was free even from such agitation. She gave herself up to the housekeeping, and to reading the newspapers, which she did every morning, from beginning to end, specially dwelling upon all the naval debates and letters about the construction of ships. To give the admiral his “nourishment” at the proper time, to see that the carriage came round exactly at the right moment, to regulate the length of the drive to a moment, this was “a woman’s work,” and absorbed the admiral’s daughter in all the rigidity of routine. Thus life went on—as if it would never end.

As this history is for once to dwell in the highest circles, and deal only with people who may be called county people, and were of the highest importance in the district, it is scarcely necessary to speak of the smaller gentry. There were one or two small proprietors who farmed their own land, or who had so little land that it was scarcely worth farming, who lived about the skirts of the parish, and scarcely counted among its aristocracy. Some of these were so much nearer other parish churches that they did not even come to church at Markham Royal. Sir William Markham owned almost the whole of the parish. He had widened out his borders year by year during the long time he had held the property, and swallowed up various decaying houses of old squires. Such a little villa as Rosebank could not make any claim to be considered among the very smallest proprietors, and it was more to her devotion to the church than to anything else that Mrs. Booth owed her social elevation. She was very good in the parish. She and her niece visited the poor assiduously, and were familiar every-day visitors at the rectory, and so insensibly saw themselves received everywhere. They were the agents of almost every scheme of social improvement, always ready to act for the greater ladies, who had less time to spare, and content to pick up the crumbs of society from these great folks’ tables. Though they were quite insignificant in themselves they were in the midst of everything, and not unimportant members of the society which admitted them on sufferance, yet ended by being somewhat dependent upon them. If ever Miss Trevor enjoyed a holiday from her close attendance on her father, it was when Mrs. Booth had the carriage sent for her before luncheon and came to spend the day, with her dinner-dress and her cap in a little box. She could manage to guess at what the admiral meant, and she would play at backgammon with him, or read the newspapers, while Jane Trevor rested her weary soul in her own room, writing a detailed report to her aurist, or putting a few new verses into a book with a Bramah lock, which held the confidences of her life. It was Miss Booth who was the most popular of the two at Westland Towers, where Ada liked to have a hanger-on. But in the rectory they were both in their element—more familiar, and constantly interfering with Dolly, whom they both were very fond of, and whom they worried considerably. Rosebank had a balance and pendant in Elderbower, where lived an Indian officer and his family, but the Elders were a large family very much occupied with each other, with the cares of education, and making both ends meet; and consequently they took little part in what was going on, and need not be counted at all.

This was the circle which encompassed the Markhams like a chorus, like the ring of spectators which is always found encircling combatants in all classes. In this arena, round which were ranged all the bystanders, was about to be enacted the drama of their family life.

CHAPTER IV.

Mr. Augustus Markham Gaveston strolled up the village when the children left him, looking curiously at all the cottages, till he came to the little whitewashed country inn, which called itself the Markham Arms. The little gentleman was full of interest in everything. He stopped and looked in at the windows of the little shop, where everything was sold, from biscuits to petticoats—gazed in with as much interest as if it had been a shop in Bond Street. He crossed over the street to see where the post-office was, and to look at the smithy, where the blacksmith and his journeyman and apprentice paused to push their caps from their foreheads and stare at him, as did also the groom from Westland Towers, very trim and fine, who had brought Mr. Westland’s horse to have his shoes looked to. They all stared, and the stranger returned their gaze with smiling complacency, evidently thinking it quite natural that they should stare at him—a thing to be looked for. And the school children stared at him whom he met on their way to the rectory. Mr. Augustus did not mind. He looked at them all paternally, patting the heads of some of the little ones. The little girls curtsied to him—as you may be sure in schools superintended by Miss Stainforth they had been taught to do—and this pleased him greatly. He took off his hat to them, which astonished the children as much as his white umbrella did, and the strangeness of his appearance altogether. The village was in a commotion, as was natural, by reason of the school-feast, and the arrival of so many carriages and visitors. Half at least of the houses were still pouring forth little bands in their best clothes, mothers and aunts standing at the door to watch the effect. So that it was a kind of triumphal progress which he made through the village street, where everybody was glad to have a new object to occupy them after the children had disappeared. The Markham Arms was not a much frequented inn; but it was as clean and neat as it was quiet and homely, and there was a pretty little parlour with a bow-window, all clustered with the common sweet clematis, the travellers’ joy, and honeysuckle, into which Mrs. Boardman ushered the stranger with secret pride, yet many apologies.

There is a bigger room up stairs, sir; but if so be as you could do with this till to-morrow——”

“It is the very thing I want,” he said; and he bade her send some one to the station for his portmanteaus. “Only the portmanteaus. I don’t want the big cases.” This dazzled the landlady, and indeed there were found to be three large cases besides the portmanteaus, cases so large that it was all the little station could do to afford them shelter and safety. John Boardman fetched the other boxes himself, and was duly impressed by this evidence of wealth. The name on the luggage, as on the little gentleman’s card, was Markham Gaveston; but whether by some freak of the uninstructed artist who had written the name in bold characters of print upon the cases, the Gaveston was small, and the Markham large, so that there was some doubt in the minds of the people, both at the station and the inn, which was the name to call the new-comer by; and what was still more odd, when they asked him, he only laughed and answered, “Which you please,” which confused them more and more. He informed John Boardman, however, that he was a relation of the family, but had been in foreign parts all his life, and had never seen Markham before; and, as he brought in the boys from the Chase to dine with him that very evening, there could be no doubt as to the justice of this claim. Also the landlord had a letter to put in the post for him that night which was addressed to Sir William Markham at Oxford. He must be a relation, but who was he? For the next two days the village was very much disturbed by this question. There were old people in the place who were proud to think that they knew Sir William’s relations better than he himself did; but who this little gentleman was, and what might be the degree of his cousinship, they found it very hard to make out. He laughed once more when he was asked if he was “a full cousin,” or a more distant relation.

“Something of that sort,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye, as if this was a capital joke. He was so constantly about, and so ready to make acquaintance with everybody, that in two days the whole village knew him; and this question weighed upon the mind of the community. At last one of the old women in the almshouses who had spent half her life in the nursery at the Chase, by dint of almost superhuman cogitation, found a clue to the mystery. She remembered that one of the daughters of the late Mr. Markham of Underwood, who was “full cousin” to Sir William, had gone abroad after she became a widow, a very long time ago. Most likely she must have married again and become the mother of this little brown gentleman, who no doubt looked older than he was, being so spare and so brown. This was an explanation that satisfied everybody. The lady’s name had been Willoughby when she left England, but what of that? It took a weight off the mind of the village to have the stranger thus made out and set in his right place.

And during the three days he spent in the village Mr. Markham Gaveston made acquaintance with everybody. His curiosity was insatiable. All day long he strolled about and questioned everybody. When he saw old Sophy coming from the woods with her bundle of sticks, he insisted on knowing where she got them, and how she got them, and all about her. Nothing escaped him. He found out that it was Lord Westland’s groom that was at the smithy when he passed, and that the horse belonged to the Honourable Mr. Westland, and that the Honourable Mr. Westland was always finding errands to bring him to the rectory. This information he picked up by the way, as one to whom all news was pleasant; but the Markhams were the real objects of his inquiries. And when the landlady proceeded to intimate that Mr. Westland might save himself the trouble, since Miss Dolly cared more for Mr. Paul’s little finger than for all his grandeur, and his title, the little gentleman at once owned the stronger spell.

“So there’s a love-story going on, is there?” he cried briskly. “Mr. Paul! that’s my young relation, I suppose? Are they going to marry? Come, tell me all about it. This interests me.”

“Oh, marry, sir; bless you! No, it ain’t gone so far as that,” Mrs. Boardman cried. And she had to protest that there was nothing but “idle tales” in what she had said—her own silly fancies, as she added, with anxious humility, and bits of gossip among the servants. “You won’t say as I said it, sir,” she added. “I wouldn’t be the one to make mischief for all the world, nor vex Miss Dolly, so good as she is; and most likely my lady wouldn’t like it—and I don’t say nothing for Mr. Paul neither. He is mostly away; it isn’t what you could call keeping company. Oh, if us women hadn’t got no tongues, what a deal o’ mischief’d be spared!’

“That’s what I’m always telling you,” said John.

“And the men’s worse,” said his wife, going on. “Us women, we lets a thing slip, and never thinks; but the bad stories, them as sets folks by the ears, they always comes from the men.”

This amused Mr. Markham Gaveston greatly. He clapped his hands and encouraged them both to continue.

“At her, John!” he said, behind the good woman’s back; but John shook his head and retired. He knew better.

And Mrs. Boardman wiped her hands on her apron, and went off “to see to my dinner.” The dinner naturally was not hers, but her guest’s, who was a small eater—much too small an eater; a single chop was all he had for lunch, a chicken served him two days for dinner. There was little credit in cooking for any one who was so easily satisfied. To be sure he had suggested one or two eccentric dishes to her when he came, which Mrs. Boardman had never heard of, and which she had declared could not be half so good for any one’s “innards” as a plain joint; but since that the stranger had made no remarks, eating what was set before him without remonstrance, but too little of it to please his hostess. He was much more greedy of news than he was of his dinner; and this last piece of information cost him a great deal of thought.

Next day, the third day of his stay at Markham Royal, Dolly Stainforth had a little expedition to make by railway. Though she was far from being an emancipated young lady, and though her father was very careful that she should have in general all the guardianship that her position required, yet to be always accompanied by a servant on the little journeys which she made periodically to see an old aunt only two stations off was a burden Dolly could not consent to: for which reason it had become the habit at Markham Royal to appropriate a vacant carriage to the use of ladies—a carriage over which the guard was supposed to watch, defending it from all male intruders. In this compartment old George, the man-servant at the rectory, carefully placed his young mistress; and all went on as usual till the very moment before the train started, when old George was gone, and the attention of the guard distracted; when the door of Dolly’s carriage was suddenly, swiftly, noiselessly opened, and a little gentleman, in loose, light-coloured clothes, jumped in.

Dolly was so much startled that it was a minute before she found her breath, and in that minute the train had glided from the station.

“I fear I have frightened you,” the stranger said.

Dolly was not at all frightened, but she was true to her father’s precautions.

“Oh, no; but this is a carriage for ladies,” she said.

“Dear me, what a pity!” cried the little man; but it was easy to see by his countenance that he did not think it a pity. “I am a stranger here,” he said, “a stranger in England. I don’t know all your ways. I will change at the next station if I am disagreeable to you.”

“Oh, no,” cried Dolly, horrified to be supposed guilty of rudeness. “It is not that. It is only that I am supposed always to travel by myself. Papa insists on a ladies’ carriage. But it does not at all matter,” she added, with a glance that was not flattering to the special intruder in question. “Nobody could mind——”

Dear, dear! Dolly thought to herself, this is ruder still; and blushed crimson.

The stranger, however, did not draw from this any conclusions which were humiliating to himself. People are not so close to mark our looks and words as we imagine them to be. He smiled serenely, and as the train was now plunging along in the fussy yet leisurely manner common to a country train which stops at all the stations, resumed, with an air of great satisfaction and complacency—

“I am very glad you don’t mind; for I came into the carriage on purpose—because I saw you get in. I wanted to speak to you,” said Mr. Markham Gaveston, with a genial smile.

Then Dolly began to quake a little. Was he mad—or what did he mean? “Do you know me?” she said, faltering. She had heard of the stranger at the Markham Arms, but had not seen him.

“I have the pleasure of knowing who you are,” he said, taking off his hat with the utmost politeness. “My little—relations, the little Markhams, pointed you out to me.’

“Oh,” cried Dolly again, “then you are——?”

“Yes, exactly,” he said, smiling, “that is what I am. I have come from the tropics, and I do not know much about England. If I say anything that is very unusual, I hope you will excuse me. It is disagreeable that they should be away just when I have come so far to see them.”

“Yes,” said Dolly, hesitating. She could not refuse to answer him; but to discuss her friends with a stranger was a thing against which her heart revolted. “They did not expect to be away; it was quite unexpected,” she said.

“And I have no reason to complain, for they did not know I was coming. All the same, one may say it is disagreeable, don’t you think? I have to put up in the inn, instead of being in my—instead of being among my own people.”

“Do you know the Markhams, sir?” said Dolly.

She had a way of saying “sir” to men whom she considered old men; but happily Mr. Markham Gaveston did not know what was his title to so respectful an address.

“I know the little boys and the little girls,” he said. “I could wish there were no more.”

“Why?”

Dolly turned upon him with a flash of indignation, with eyes wide open and lips apart.

“Ah! what a silly thing to say, wasn’t it?” he said. “You may be sure I couldn’t have meant it. I want you to tell me about the others—the eldest girl and the boy.”

“I! tell you—about the others!”

Dolly grew pale, and then red again. Either he must be mad, which had been her first thought, or else——

“Yes,” he said, quite calmly, “don’t be frightened. I want to have a good account of them and that is what has brought me to you.”

Once more Dolly stared at him in consternation. She wanted to be angry and think him impertinent, but he was not impertinent.

“Don’t be frightened,” her strange companion went on. “I want to hear all that is good of them. They tell me that I won’t hear anything that is not good from you.”

“Mr. —— sir! —— How can I talk,” cried Dolly, with crimson cheeks, “of my friends to you? I—don’t know you. Why do you want to question any one about them? Who told you I would say nothing that was not good? Does anybody think,” cried Dolly, her eyes flaming, “that I would say either good or bad, for any one, that was not true?”

“I cannot answer so many questions at once,” said the little gentleman; “besides, that is not what I want; I want to ask, not to answer. I want to know about my—relations. When I see them, perhaps they may not be very civil to me; they may think me a bore.”

“Oh!” cried Dolly, “certainly they will be civil. Alice is too kind for anything else, and Paul—Paul is a gentleman,” she said, raising her head. A softness came over the girl’s eyes. She had no thought of betraying herself; perhaps indeed she was not aware that there was anything to betray; but in spite of herself, a certain subdued and dreamy glow, a kind of haze of golden light, came into her brown eyes at Paul’s name.

“Well, that is something,” said the stranger; “you don’t think then that they will take to me much? but because the one is kind, and the other a gentleman——”

“That was not what I meant. Am I to pay you compliments to your face?” said Dolly, stopping short and looking suddenly up, half impatient, half amused.

“Certainly, if you wish to,” he cried, promptly. “Oh, yes—do not be shy. I should not at all mind a compliment or two; indeed I think I should like them. Do not stand upon ceremony. If you can say seriously that you think me so nice that Alice will like me at once, and your Paul claim me as a brother——”

“He is not my Paul,” cried Dolly, with another hot blush. “I do not like such a way of speaking. And, Mr. ——”

She paused for his name, but the little man was malicious, and would not give it. He nodded his head two or three times.

“Just so,” he said. “That is quite right,” smiling with a mischievous smile.

“Mr.—Markham,” Dolly said with a burst. “If that is not your right name, it is not my fault. How could Paul receive you as a brother? You must mean as—an uncle perhaps. Do you know that Paul is only just come of age, and Alice is but six months older than I?”

“Ah,” said Mr. Markham Gaveston, stroking his moustache. “I did not think of that,” and he looked at her with an expression half comic, half sad, slightly discomfited there could be no doubt. From this he shook himself free, however, and asked suddenly, “How old may Sir William be?”

“Sir William? Oh, quite old,” said Dolly. She gave a furtive glance at him this time, anxious to keep on the safe side, and making a calculation in her own mind how old this little brown gentleman himself could be. Fifty, sixty? these two ages were much the same to Dolly. There was not to her any appreciable difference in their extreme oldness and far-offness. Even forty was very old. Her mind wandered hazily, confused on these grey and misty heights. “He is not so old as papa,” she said with hesitation, “for papa, you know, was his tutor at college; but he is a great deal older than Lady Markham. He did not marry till he was about—I don’t quite know how much—about forty, I think I have heard people say,” said Dolly, with a certain awe in her voice.

“And that seems quite old to you?”

“It is old to be married, is it not? And Lady Markham was so beautiful, everybody says. She is beautiful still. I don’t know any one so lovely. I tell Alice often though I love her dearly, she is not half, oh, not a quarter so pretty as her mamma.”

“How does Alice like that? It will not please her much, I should think. I should not say that if I wanted her to like me.”

The disdain with which Dolly erected her small head, and looked at him!

“That only shows,” she said, “how little you know. Any girl would be a great deal more proud of her beautiful mamma than if she were ever so pretty herself. And Alice is very pretty. She has the sweetest eyes you ever saw. Quite blue like the sky—the deep sky. Not this little bit of no colour at all,” she said, pointing upwards to the hazy grey-blue of heat: “but the deep, deep sky—the blue-blue behind the clouds. Everything about her is pretty; but she is not so handsome, so beautiful, as Lady Markham. Being beautiful, and being pretty, are two different things.”

Her companion did not pay much attention to Dolly’s reflections. He broke the thread of them quite abruptly by asking all at once—

“And Paul?”

“Paul!” Dolly raised her slight figure bolt upright as though she had been fifty. “You are very much interested in Paul, Mr.—Markham; but then you don’t know them. I care for Alice most.”

He answered by a laugh. What did he laugh at, this very strange disagreeable little gentleman? Dolly had thoughts of turning her back upon him, of saying no more to him, of requesting him to change into another carriage at the station which they were approaching. But after all she did not want to be rid of him. She could not help liking to talk about the Markhams. What could be more natural? Were they not her oldest friends? her nearest neighbours? the people to whom she owed most of her pleasures? It was not doing any harm to them; on the contrary, it might be doing them good. Dolly tried to remember, though her heart fluttered, whether she had ever heard of any rich uncle or benevolent relation who might intend to surprise them, to come home incognito, and find out their characters before he left them all his money. If this was so, might it not be for their very highest advantage that she should talk of them? Mr. Markham Gaveston was the ideal of a rich uncle travelling incognito, such as appears now and then in novels. Perhaps he might intend to represent himself as a poor, not a rich, relation in order to try them. Dolly smiled within herself as this idea crossed her mind. Then indeed it was quite certain who his money would come to! He would be received as if he were a prince. Lady Markham and Alice would not know how to do enough for him. They would try to make him forget his imaginary troubles; they would comfort him for all his losses. If this was what he meant to do, Dolly smiled to think of the certain issue. Before she came to this smile, she had made a long circuit in her thoughts, and had half or wholly forgotten the laugh which had for a moment roused her indignation. And when he saw her smile, her companion took it as a sign of amnesty, and himself resumed the conversation.

“Come,” he said, “you have told me about the ladies; it is the turn of the others now; so if you please, let us return to the most important. I want to know about Paul.”

“Is he the most important?” said Dolly, doing her best to move her pretty upper lip into a semblance of scorn; then she dropped from this height of proud disdain, and admitted in a cheerful tone, “I suppose he will be to gentlemen. I do not know Paul so well; that is natural. He has been away a great deal—not always at home like Alice; he was at school first, and now he has been nearly three years at Oxford. I have seen him only in the holidays. That makes a great difference,” said Dolly, demurely. She looked at her questioner with quiet defiance. If he thought she was going to betray herself a second time! And Mr. Markham laughed too. They established a little tacit confidence on this point—not that Dolly would have owned to it for any inducement—but the stranger was quick, and understood.

“Shall you go and stay with them,” she said, beginning to carry the war into the enemy’s country, “when they come back?”

“If they will have me,” he said.

“Oh, I am sure they will have you. If you take my advice, Mr.—Markham, this is what you must do. Pretend to be quite poor. Say you have lost everything, and that instead of coming to England rich as you had hoped, you have come with nothing. Oh, what fun it will be,” cried Dolly. “I will back you up in everything you say. I will pretend you told me about it. Do this, Mr. Markham, and you shall see what will happen.”

“What would happen in many houses would be that I should be turned to the door. But how do you know that I am not poor? then it would be no fun at all.”

Dolly’s laugh was a pleasure to hear; it was so honest, and simple, and sure. She had no doubt whatever on the question. Her theory explained everything delightfully. She did not even take the trouble to reply to this suggestion. She said—

“We are coming to the Pemberton station. Do you mean to change here as you said?”

“I will go certainly, if you turn me out.”

Here Dolly’s laughing countenance suddenly clouded over. She cast at him a quick glance of entreaty.

“Oh, no, don’t go, don’t go,” she cried. And then she added, in a tone of annoyance, “I think everybody is travelling to-day. Some people are always travelling. It is horrid,” cried Dolly, “to see the same faces and hear the same voices wherever one goes.”

The cause of this ebullition of temper was easily explained. It was George Westland, very deprecating and humble, who had opened the carriage door.

CHAPTER V.

“Good morning, Miss Stainforth.”

“Good morning,” Dolly replied, with a forbidding face.

“Is there any room in your carriage? I am going only as far as Birtwood.”

“There is always room in my carriage,” said Dolly, “for it is a ladies’ carriage. This gentleman got in in a hurry just as we were starting, but he is to leave if any ladies come and want his place. I could not let any other gentleman come in, but if Ada is with you——”

George Westland’s countenance fell. It was a heavy and not a lovely face, but there was feeling in it, and a flicker of hope and pleasure had made his eyes bright. Now the light went out of it suddenly. He uttered a blank “Oh!” of disappointment, and stood looking at her with a vacant look. Her companion in the carriage was not a likely person to excite any young lover’s jealousy, but yet——

“No, Ada is not with me,” he said, fixing an anxious look upon the stranger, who had retired to the other window, and was ostentatiously abstracting himself from the conversation. (She would surely never have anything to say to a bit of a little old fellow like that, poor George thought within himself.) He lingered at the window, not knowing what to say more, for conversation was not his forte. At last he remembered a subject which could not fail to be successful. “Have you heard,” he said—“but of course you must have heard—that Sir William is ill? He has been to Oxford—something about Paul. What Paul has been doing, I don’t know,” the young man went on with increasing vigour, “but something to make his people uneasy. And Sir William is ill; some one said just now they were bringing him home to-day.”

“Sir William ill! Oh, no, I have not heard anything about it. It must be a mistake,” said Dolly, “for I am sure the children did not know, and they would be sure to hear.”

“I am afraid it is quite true,” said the young man. But with this he had to make an abrupt disappearance, as the train was about setting off again. When he had gone, Mr. Markham Gaveston drew near from the other end of the carriage.

“I did not want to interfere with your conversation,” he said, with comical demureness. “He was not so bold as I; I did not ask leave. But indeed, poor young man, as I am already in possession, it would not have done him very much good.”

Dolly did not think it necessary to take any notice, and the distance to Birtwood was very short and left little time for further talk. Her companion, on his side, did not take any notice of the news about Sir William, which Dolly hoped was not true. “The Westlands always know before any one else if there is anything the matter with the Markhams; they seem to like to tell one,” she complained, with a contradiction of her own hope. But though he had been so profuse in his inquiries before, the stranger said nothing more now. A certain sternness had crept into his brown face; the habitual smile, half mocking, half complacent, died away from his mouth, his upper lip set firmly upon the other. But Dolly, who was not very deeply interested in the Markhams’ relation, did not notice these changes.

Birtwood was a railway junction, an important place in those regions. All the traffic of the district, all the comings and goings, had to concentrate there. Through all the county it was well known that you were more apt to see your friends at Birtwood than anywhere else. It did not matter where they were going, everybody passed by this point of union. People met as they crossed each other to take the trains up and down; there were all sorts of little services which one could render to another; and it was said that many marriages had been made and friendships cemented during the intervals of waiting which were inevitable, in the tedium of that new ill which modern flesh is heir to—the necessity of waiting for your train. The train in which Dolly and Mr. Markham Gaveston were was a little local train, and therefore used with indignity. It was pushed about, now to one side, now to the other, before it was permitted to approach the platform, another more important line of carriages being brought up and allowed to disgorge its passengers before the very eyes of the humble travellers who were kept behind, making little runs up and down, though they had arrived before the train which was thus preferred to them. Dolly, though she was used to this, felt it incumbent upon her to put on a show of indignation, for she did not want a stranger to suppose that this was how the trains from Markham Royal were always used. “I will make papa write about it,” she said. She was standing in front of the window when at last the train drew up, obscuring the scene for the little man behind, who took it patiently enough. When, however, Dolly uttered a little cry, and, leaning out head and shoulders, made eager signs to some one already standing on the platform, exclaiming, “Oh, Alice! Alice! wait a moment,” his interest was instantly roused. As soon as the carriage stopped, the girl precipitated herself out of it, and rushed towards two ladies who were waiting. Mr. Markham Gaveston made no attempt to follow. He placed himself at the window of the carriage and looked out, his brown face wholly changed in aspect, his eyebrows contracted, his lips set firm. Two women, mother and daughter, one in full maturity, the other in the sweetest bloom of youth, with their face turned towards a third person, who came slowly along leaning upon the arm of a young man. Dolly, rushing towards them, was received by the other girl with a hurried gesture of her hand, half salutation, half intended to draw the new-comer out of the way; while the elder lady took no notice, her face, which was full of anxiety, being turned towards the advancing group. All the people about followed more or less that anxious look, and the officials of the place were crowding round in respectful attendance. The spectator at the window, who had grown very pale through his brownness, saw an old man walking slowly and feebly along, leaning heavily upon his companion’s arm. He seemed to say something as they made their way along, for the young man turned round and waved his disengaged hand to warn the bystanders away. The blood rushed into Gus Markham’s ears, tingling and throbbing, as he saw this little procession pass, so close to where he sat at his window that he could have touched the chief figure. Sir William was ashy pale, his under lip drooped, one of his hands hung with a look of useless limpness by his side, he shuffled slightly with one foot. The air of a man stricken and broken down as by some great blow was upon him. The spectator gazed with the strangest pang, eagerly, keenly at the face he had never consciously seen before. Not a doubt of who it was crossed his mind. He had expected to meet him coldly, perhaps to be received with doubt and antagonism; but it had never occurred to Gus’s somewhat superficial but not unamiable spirit that anything tragical would be involved in the encounter. Gradually indeed, a sense of issues more serious than any that had ever occurred to him before had been invading the kindly self-satisfaction of his nature. Now he sat and gazed as under a spell. They had shown him Sir William’s portrait at the Chase. Was it he that had made the difference between that self-possessed, dignified, imposing little statesman and this broken and suffering old man? Gus gazed as one who cannot detach his eyes. The whole scene passed before him like a picture. The beautiful, anxious woman, gazing with such circles of trouble round her eyes, watching every step her husband made; the beautiful girl, putting her young companion aside, watching her father creep along through the sunshine; the young man—but here Gus’s thoughts broke off short. Was that Paul? It did not seem to him like the idea of Paul which he had got from all that had been said. The young man was not like any of the others. He had none of that “family look” which distinguishes even in unlikeness members of the same race. His face was serious, but not anxious like the others; he had an air of kind solicitude, not of family trouble. Was it Paul? Was it Sir William’s heir? They passed slowly before him, all the rest of the faces round looking after them, turned towards them, making them the centre, as this far more deeply interested spectator did.

He felt himself drawn after them, he could not tell how, and stole quite quietly out of the carriage as soon as they had passed. They were going further on to another train—a special one—which was going back to Markham Royal. Gus followed slowly among the other bystanders, walking as near the principal persons as he could, following as at a funeral. Was it his doing? Was it his fault? He heard the murmurs of the people with a strange sense of guiltiness. “He’s aged ten years,” he heard one say to another, “since the other day.” “Ah, sons has a deal to answer for,” said another. This speech went buzzing through his mind like a winged and stinging insect. It hurt him, though nobody could have thought of him in saying it. He saw the sick man put carefully into the carriage, watching every movement, and feeling as if he himself were hurt by the little stumble of his foot as he went in—the jar of unexpected motion in the train. Lady Markham passed him slowly, as he stood looking with a woful face, deadly serious and awe-stricken, after the sufferer, and gave him a grateful glance, seeing what she thought the sympathy in his eyes. But it was not sympathy; it was a far stronger, more personal feeling. He stood gazing while everything was arranged for Sir William’s comfort, and started to hear his voice coming out of the midst of the anxious group. It was not much he said—nothing, indeed, but a “That will do—that will do!” half querulous, half grateful. But the sound gave the looker-on a shock; it sounded to him reproachful, almost terrible. He kept standing there, staring, seeing nothing except the man whom he had never seen before—whom, for all he knew—was it possible?—his letter had killed.

Then suddenly the sound of other voices came to his ears—a whispering conversation. The two girls were behind him, not conscious of his presence.

“Very ill,” one was saying. “Oh, Dolly, yesterday we thought he would have died. But he is so much better now. The doctor was quite perplexed; he said he never saw anything so momentary; he could not call it a fit—it lasted so short a time. He thinks in a day or two he will be quite well again.”

“Alice!” said the other’s whispering voice, “don’t tell me if it vexes you; but I will never—never say a word. Oh, tell me! I can’t think of anything else—was it Paul?”

“Paul!” with a tone of indignation. Then the voice softened. “Dolly, dear, I know why you ask. Paul has been—very—wilful: he has given us a great deal of grief. I don’t know how to tell you. But it was not Paul. Oh, there have been so many things! and he had letters—that worried him.”

“Was that all?”

She was standing close by the man into whose heart these words sank like a stone.

“Everybody,” said Dolly, “is worried by letters; and now that he is safely here, you and your mamma will be able to take care of him, and keep everything that is bad for him out of his way.”

“I hope so,” said Alice doubtfully. And then she passed Gus Markham so closely that her dress touched him. He withdrew from the touch hastily, and looked at her with anxious eyes. If she had known! but she did not look at him; far less had she any thought that he was involved in the catastrophe that had happened. He stood quite still, paying no attention to Dolly, watching them as Alice joined her mother in the carriage. Then he hurried on to another compartment and got in. What a home-coming it would be!—the children that had been so merry subdued and silenced at once—the big house that had looked so peaceful, filled full of apprehension and trouble. He got into one of the carriages that followed, with a sense that nothing could disassociate him henceforward from this troubled family.

Dolly, standing wistful on the platform to watch her friend go away, caught sight of him, too, as the train passed, and a gleam of wonder shot over her little pale face. Yes, they would all wonder, no doubt. It would seem strange—very strange to everybody. But it was clear that wherever this party went he must follow them. His lot was cast in with theirs, once for all.

CHAPTER VI.

On the morning when Lady Markham went upon that unfortunate visit to Spears in his shop, which has been already recorded, both her husband and daughter were early astir—astir in that way which so often occurs in a family disturbed by domestic anxiety, when all are roused and in movement before the ordinary time, yet all unwilling to begin the day, to meet, to breakfast, to return once more to painful discussions of a trouble which no discussions ever diminish. Lady Markham stole out, thinking that both were asleep, while, on the other hand, both father and daughter respected her restlessness, and used what expedients were in their power to soothe their own.

Sir William had his writing-case, and the despatchbox which he carried everywhere with him, taken down stairs, to the big, bare sitting-room, in which his wife and he had discussed Paul on the previous night—a high square room, like a box, as blank and featureless; and there sat down, and made a pretence of writing his letters,—nay, more than a pretence, for his mind was preternaturally clear, stirred into activity and wakefulness more strenuous even than its wont, by the care which was the undercurrent of all his thoughts, and perpetually present with him. He wrote several letters about business, public and private, in which his well-known terse and concentrated style was more concentrated and terse than ever. And by times he laid down his pen, and breathed a sigh out of the very depths of his chest, from the bottom of his heart. This was all the sign he gave of the distractions which were in his mind. It was much from him. He was not so overwhelmed as his wife by the suggestion of Paul’s possible entanglement, but he was much more angry, annoyed, and impatient of the folly which all his wisdom could not cure. What can be more irritating, confusing, bewildering to a man who knows himself a power and influence in the world: not to be able to influence the being nearest to him to persuade his own son to hear reason! There could not be a greater irony of fate. And behind this irritation and annoyance there was the other mystery, which only he knew of—the danger which menaced Paul in those prospects which Paul held so lightly, and was ready to throw away on the lightest inducement. Would he care as little for them if they were to disappear from him at the will of another, not his own? To find himself thus, between two impossibilities—between his young son whom he could no more move than he could move a mountain, and another unknown being who for aught he knew might be as little manageable as Paul, he was held fast and his mind driven to bay. He kept himself out of the whirl of thought and feeling which these perplexities raised by mere force of will, and sat perfectly self-controlled at the bare table writing his letters, himself as neat as usual, every fold of his trim attire in its right place, his tie tied with all the usual exactitude, his sentences more sharply cut, more tersely defined than ever. The suppressed excitement in him acted as a powerful stimulant, quickening his heart’s action, and intensifying the clearness of his brain; but now and then he put down his pen, forgot the imperial problems which were easier to solve than these private ones, and relieved his full heart with the labouring of a profound sigh; then set to work once more.

The breakfast was brought in before Lady Markham appeared. Alice had been up in her own room for, she thought, hours—trying to read, trying to find any little trivial occupation, wandering to the window to gaze out blindly, seeing nothing, fulfilling all the tricks of anxiety, as if she, happy child, had been born to it, or had lived in no other atmosphere all her days. And yet it was but a short time since the very a, b, c, of this devouring absorbing passion, had been unknown to her—so easily are all its habits learnt. She went down stairs when the hour for breakfast arrived, and found Sir William very busy over his papers.

“Where is your mother?” he said.

Alice did not know; but they easily concluded that being ready early she had gone—it was not far—to see her boy in his rooms, perhaps to use some argument with him which had been taught to her in the counsels of the night.

“She will have gone to bring Paul to breakfast,” Alice said, feeling it was her business to smile, and keep what show of liveliness was possible. Then she made the tea, and going to the window once more stood looking out, hearing in the silence the scratch of her father’s pen upon the paper, and the bubbling and boiling of the urn upon the table.

By and by they sat down to breakfast. Lady Markham possibly was staying with Paul. Perhaps he was late, as usual, and kept her waiting. It seemed a cheerful token, a sign of good, to fall back upon Paul’s lateness—that familiar home grievance which they all had laughed and scolded about a hundred times. To say that he was “late as usual,” that mamma no doubt had found him in bed, and was waiting for him, lazy fellow, seemed to break the new and gloomy spell.

Just then, however, a step approached, and some one knocked; a servant, and after him, their friend of yesterday, young Fairfax, very shamefaced and blushing, who came to say that Lady Markham had sent him, that she was taking off her hat up stairs, and would be down directly; and that he was under her orders to wait here for something she wanted him to do.

Fairfax blushed to the roots of his hair, and was full of apologies.

“I am so sorry,” he said, “to disturb you; but Lady Markham——”

“Bring another cup,” said Sir William.