THE HEIR PRESUMPTIVE AND
THE HEIR APPARENT

Lovell’s International Series, No. 156.

THE HEIR PRESUMPTIVE AND
THE HEIR APPARENT

BY

MRS. OLIPHANT

AUTHOR OF
“FOR LOVE AND LIFE,” “A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN,” ETC., ETC.


Authorized Edition


NEW YORK
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY
150 WORTH ST., COR. MISSION PLACE

Copyright, 1891,
BY
UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY.

THE HEIR PRESUMPTIVE
AND
THE HEIR APPARENT.

CHAPTER I.

Lord Frogmore was not, however, so entirely actuated by consideration for his brother as his stepmother thought. He was a man who took, and had taken all his life, very great care of himself. Whatever was his reason for not marrying, it was not on account of his brother John. No doubt he was aware that in all probability his brother would be his heir: but he did not dwell on that thought, or indeed contemplate the necessity of an heir at all. He took great care of his health, which was perfect, and had a system of life which secured him the utmost possible comfort and pleasure with the least possible trouble. A man who has no family to interfere with his liberty, plenty of money, perfect control of his own time and actions, and no duties to speak of, can make himself exceedingly comfortable when he sets his mind to it, and this was what Lord Frogmore had done.

He was, however, a little startled but much more amused when John announced to him his intentions. It was at the beginning of the season, before as yet Mr. Parke could have been endangered by any of the blandishments of society, and Lord Frogmore’s mind, which was a very lively one, made a sweep over the country houses at which he knew his brother to have been staying. “Do I know the lady?” he asked, with a twinkle in his eye. He had not a very high opinion of his brother John, in point of intellect at least, and he immediately leapt to the conclusion that it was not John’s intention so much as the lady’s which had decided this important step.

“I don’t think so,” said John. “She is of a good family, but very fond of the country, and they don’t come much to town. She is a Miss Ravelstone, of Grocombe—Yorkshire people—perhaps you may never even have heard the name.”

“No, I can’t say I have ever heard the name,” said Lord Frogmore, with his face lengthening: for there is this unconscious arrogance in people who belong to what is called society that it seems to them as if it was the same as not to exist at all, if you are not at once recognized and identified by the mention of your name.

“No,” said John with something of a blush, “I did not expect you would. Her father has got a nice little estate, but they don’t much mind society. There’s several brothers. I don’t suppose I shall have very much money with her. They’re chiefly a hunting family,” John said.

“Well, that is no harm. But it’s a pity if there is no money,” said Lord Frogmore calmly. “You have not money enough yourself to make you independent of that. What do you mean to do?”

Lord Frogmore looked with great composure at John, who in his turn looked very blank at his brother. John was very much more warmly conscious of being Frogmore’s heir than Frogmore was. He had taken it for granted, though not without cold sensations, that Frogmore would do something, nay, much for him in this emergency. The old gentleman would feel that John was fulfilling a duty to the common family which he himself (thank heaven!) had never taken the trouble to do. John felt indeed that Frogmore ought to be grateful to him for marrying, which was clearly a duty as he was almost the last of the race. Lord Frogmore saw through this with very lively perceptions, but it amused him to play a little on his brother’s fears.

“You will wish to get an appointment of some sort or another,” he said. “It is a thing not very easy to get, but still we must see what can be done for you. But I don’t know how you are to pull through those examinations which are necessary for everything, John.”

John kept silence for a time with a very disconcerted countenance, then he burst forth almost with an explosion. “I thought you would have been pleased, Frogmore——”

“I am not displeased: you are old enough to judge for yourself, and to choose for yourself. Of course, I am delighted that you should be happy,” said Lord Frogmore with his bland smile which always took the fortitude out of John. But when he had reduced the poor fellow almost to a jelly, and made his purpose and his prospects look equally impossible, which was not difficult to do, the elder brother relented: or else it would be better to say he did for John what he had always intended to do, notwithstanding that he could not resist the temptation of turning him outside in. He inquired into the antecedents, or rather into the family of Miss Ravelstone, for she had no antecedents, happily for herself—and discovered that there was at least nothing against them if they were scarcely of the caste of those who usually gave heirs to Frogmore. Her father was a squire in Yorkshire though but of small estate; whose family had been Ravelstones of Grocombe long before the Parkes had ever been heard of. Unfortunately ancient family does not always give refinement or elevation either of mind or manners, and horses, though most estimable animals and the favorite pursuit of the English aristocracy, have still less influence of that description. Horses were the devotion, the vocation, and more or less the living of the Ravelstone family. From father to son all the men of the house were absorbed in the cultivation, the production, the worship of that noble animal. Women there were none in the house save Miss Letitia, who was only so far of the prevailing persuasion that she was an admirable horsewoman. But in her heart she never desired to see a horse again, so long as she lived. She had heard them talked of so long and so much that she hated the very name. The stable talk and the hunting talk were a weariness to her. Her mind was set on altogether different things. To get into society and to make some sort of figure in the world was what she longed for and aspired to. The county society was all she knew of, and that was at first the limit of her wishes. But these desires rose to higher levels after awhile as will hereafter be seen. She had as little prospect of admission into the elevated society of the county as she had of access to the Queen’s court at the moment when kind fate called her forth from her obscurity.

This happened in the following way. A very kind and good-natured family of the neighborhood, one of the few county people who knew the Ravelstones, had as usual a party for the Doncaster races. It was not a good year. There were no horses running which excited the general expectation, nothing very good looked for, and various misfortunes had occurred in the Sillingers’ usual circle. Some were ill and some were in mourning, and some had lost money—more potent reasons for refraining from their usual festivities than the buying of oxen or even the marrying of wives—and the party at Cuppland was reduced in consequence below its usual numbers. It was then that Lady Sillinger, always good-natured, suggested to her daughters that they should ask “Tisch”—which was the very unlucky diminution by which Letitia was known. Poor Tisch had few pleasures in life. She had no mother to take her about—hardly even an aunt. She would enjoy the races for their own sake, the family being so horsey—and she could come in nobody’s way. The Sillinger girls were young and pretty and careless, quite unconcerned about the chance of anyone coming in their way, and very sure that Tisch Ravelstone was the last person in the world to fear as a rival. They agreed to the invitation with the utmost alacrity. Poor Tisch never went anywhere. They were as pleased to give her a holiday as if it had been of some advantage to themselves. And Letitia came much excited and very grateful, with one new dress and something done to each of the old ones to make them more presentable. The result was not very satisfactory among all the fresh toilettes from London and Paris which the Sillingers and their friends had for the races, but Letitia had the good sense to wear dresses of subdued colors which were not much remarked. She was not pretty. She had light hair without color enough in it to be remarkable, and scanty in volume—hair that never could be made to look anything. Her nose was turned up a little at the tip, and was slightly red when the weather was cold. Her lips were thin. She herself was thin, with an absence of roundness and softness which is even more disadvantageous than the want of a pretty face. She was said by everybody to be marked out for an old maid. So it may easily be perceived that Lady Sillinger was right when she said that poor Tisch would come in nobody’s way.

On the other hand, John Parke was a very eligible person, highly presentable, and Lord Frogmore’s heir presumptive, a man about town who knew everybody and who never could have been expected in the ordinary course of affairs to be aware of the existence of such a homely person as Tisch Ravelstone. He did not indeed notice her at all except to say good-morning when they met, and good-night when she joined the procession of ladies with candlesticks going to bed, until the third day. On that fatal morning, before the party set out for the Races, Mr. Parke had an accident. He twisted his foot upon the slippery parquet of the breakfast-room, which was only partially covered by the thick Turkey carpet; and though the twist was supposed not to be serious, it prevented him from accompanying the party. He was very much annoyed by this contretemps, but there was nothing for it but to submit. Before Lady Sillinger set out for Doncaster she had everything arranged for his comfort, so far as it could be foreseen. He was put on a sofa in the library, with a table by his elbow covered with all the morning papers, with the last English novels out of Mudie’s box, and the last yellow books from Paris which had reached the country. There was an inkstand, also a blotting book, pens and pencils—everything a disabled man would be supposed to want.

“I would stay to take care of you,” said kind Lady Sillinger, “but Sir Thomas——”

“Oh, don’t think of such a thing,” said John, “I shall be very comfortable.”

They all came to pity and console him before they drove away—the girls in their pretty dresses, the men all spruce and fresh. He felt it a little hard upon him that after having been invited specially for the Races he should have to stay at home, and he felt very angry with the silly fashion, as he thought it for the moment, of those uncovered floors and slippery polished boards. “What the blank did people have those things for?” he said to himself. Still he did his best to grin and bear it. He settled himself on his sofa and listened to the distant sounds of the setting off, the voices and the calls to one and another. “Tom will come with us——” “No, but I am to have the vacant place in the landau.” “Oh, now, Dora, there is room for you here.” Dora was the youngest of the Sillingers and the one he liked best. He wondered with whom she was to be during the drive. There was another vacancy besides his own. One of the ladies had stayed behind as well as himself. He wondered which it was. If it was Mrs. Vivian, for example, he wished she would come and keep him company. But, perhaps, it was some horrid cold or other which would make her keep her bed.

The sound of their departure died away. They had all gone. No chance of anyone now coming into the room to deliver John Parke from his own society. He would have to make up his mind to spend his day alone. With a great sigh, which nearly blew the paper which he held so carelessly out of his hand, John betook himself to this unusual occupation. He read the whole of the Morning Post and Standard from beginning to end, and then he began upon the Times. There was nothing in the papers. It is astonishing how little there is in them when you particularly want to find something that will amuse you for an hour or two. He felt inclined to fling them to the other corner of the room after he had gone over everything from the beginning to the end. And it was just at this moment, when he was thoroughly tired of himself and would have welcomed anybody, that he heard a movement at the door. He looked up very eagerly and Miss Ravelstone came in. To do her justice Letitia was quite ignorant of the accident and that Mr. Parke had been left behind. She had woke with a violent cold—so bad that she too had been compelled to give up the idea of going out. She had put on her plainest dress, knowing that no one would be back till it was time for dinner, and feeling that her gray gown was quite good enough for the governess and the children with whom she would have to lunch: she had indulged herself by having breakfast in bed, which was quite an unusual luxury. Her nose was more red than usual through the cold, her eyes were suffused with unintended tears. She did not want to see anyone. When she met John Parke’s eager look, Miss Ravelstone would have liked the substantial library floor to open and swallow her up. “Oh, I beg your pardon,” she cried.

“Is that you, Miss Ravelstone,” said John. “Is it possible that you have not gone with the rest?”

“I had such a bad cold,” stammered Tisch—for a moment she actually felt as if she had done something wrong in going into the room.

“And here am I laid by the leg—I mean by the ankle,” said Mr. Parke. Even then Letitia was not fully awakened to the magnitude of the chance which her good fortune had thus put into her hands. She said she was very sorry, and for a moment stood hovering at the door uncertain whether she ought not to retire at once. But John was so much delighted to have somebody to tell his story to that he would not let her go.

“It was all those confounded boards in the breakfast-room,” he said. “Why can’t they have carpets all over the room. When one is abroad one makes up one’s mind to that sort of thing, everything’s slippery and shiny there: but in a house in Yorkshire! I came down like an elephant, Miss Ravelstone. I wonder you did not feel the whole house shake.”

“I was in bed,” said Letitia, “nursing a bad cold.”

“A bad cold is a nasty thing,” said John, “but it is not so bad as a twist in the foot. You can move about at least—and here am I stuck on a sofa—not able even to ring the bell.”

“I will ring the bell for you with pleasure, Mr. Parke.”

“That’s just one of the last things one would ask a lady to do,” cried John, “and I don’t know why you should ring the bell for me. If the fellow was here I don’t know what I want. I couldn’t tell him to sit down and talk to me. It’s such a bore to be left here alone, and everyone else away.”

“I’ll sit down and talk to you if you like,” said Tisch, with a laugh. Her eyes recovered in the most marvelous manner. She felt inclined to sneeze, but shook it off. She began to wake up and see what was before her. Heir presumptive to Lord Frogmore! She had made up her mind that she was likely to meet somebody of importance on this great visit—and had no intention of neglecting any opportunity—though she had never even supposed, never hoped, to have such a captive delivered into her hands in this easy way.

“I wish you would,” said John. “I’m afraid I’m not very lively, and this confounded ankle hurts; but perhaps we can find something to talk about. Are you fond of playing games, Miss Ravelstone? I wonder if there are any here?”

“There is a chess board, I know,” said Letitia; “but I don’t know much about chess: and there’s bezique, and I have a ‘go bang’ of my own.”

“Oh, if it’s not too much to ask, please fetch the go bang,” cried John.

Miss Letitia nodded her head, she disappeared, and in two minutes returned a little out of breath with the box containing that intellectual amusement in her hand. She had done something to herself in the meantime, John felt, but though he was trained in the things that ladies “do” to make themselves more attractive he could not make out what it was. They played about twenty games at go bang, and time which had been so leaden-footed flew. But everything exhausts itself after a while. When an hour and a half had passed thus, John began to fidget again, and wonder what o’clock it was, and if it would soon be time for luncheon—which was at two in this late house: and it was now only one o’clock, another lingering hour.

“Should you like,” said Miss Ravelstone, “to hear a great secret about Cobweb?” Now Cobweb was the favorite for the next day’s race, and John Parke had, as he would himself have said, a pot of money on that horse.

“Anything about the race? Why, to be sure, of all things in the world,” he said.

It has already been mentioned that the Ravelstones were all horsey to the last degree except Tisch, who was not of that persuasion; but she had heard horses talked of all her life, and while she entered into the biography of Cobweb, John Parke listened with eager eyes.

CHAPTER II.

This was how it all began; how it went on was more than anyone could say, certainly not John himself, who woke up one morning to feel himself an engaged man with a more startled sensation than words could express. He knew that it was all right; that Letitia had been everything that was nice and proper, and had even spoken humbly of her own merits as not good enough for such a distinguished person as himself; but what were the steps that lead up to it, or how it had come about, John could give no clear account. He spoke of the incident with a kind of awe. How it happened, or what had come to pass before it happened, was something too great for him, which he could not follow; but from the very first moment he was aware that it was, and could neither be got rid of nor explained away. John was not a very triumphant lover. He was a little subdued indeed, scarcely knowing how to announce it to his friends; but Letitia took it upon her instantly to bear his burdens, and it was she who told Lady Sillinger, who told everybody, and so that matter was got over. I do not mean to say that it was all settled during the Doncaster week at the Sillingers; for however Letitia might have felt, John could never have been got to be so prompt as that. But another benevolent lady who saw how the tide was turning, and who thought it a great pity that a girl should not have her chance, invited Letitia and also John, who happened to have no other pressing engagement, and in a fortnight more great things were done. I have said before that he never could tell how it was, but he very soon came to understand that it was all settled, and that it necessitated a great many other arrangements. One of them was the conversation with Lord Frogmore with which this story began. John Parke was still a little dazed and overawed by the great event when he informed his brother, and the manner in which Lord Frogmore at first received his confidence at once bewildered and disconcerted him. But afterwards everything came right, and the arrangements made were satisfactory in every way. Lord Frogmore paid his brother’s debts. He gave Miss Ravelstone a very handsome wedding present, and he made such an allowance as became the conditions and expectations of his heir. He did, indeed, everything that could have been expected in the circumstances. He did not say “I shall never marry, and of course you will have everything when I am gone,” which Letitia thought he ought to have said, considering everything; but he acted exactly as if he had said this. You do not make your younger brother an allowance of three thousand a year unless your intentions towards him are of the most decided character; nor, indeed, was it in the least probable that anything could come to snatch the cup from John Parke’s lips.

When the time came for the wedding it was discovered by all parties that Grocombe was too far off among the fells—too much out of order, too bare, and—in a word—too shabby for such a performance. Letitia had felt this from the very first moment, and had been strongly conscious of it when she wrote to Lady Sillinger on the very evening on which the engagement took place. She had told her kind friend that she was the happiest girl in the world, and that nobody knew how much there was in John; but even at that early period when she had said something modestly of her lover’s ardor and desire to have the marriage soon, she added: “But oh! dear Lady Sillinger, when I think of Grocombe and old Mr. Hill, our vicar, my heart sinks. How can I ever—ever be married there?”

As Lady Sillinger entered with great enthusiasm into a marriage which she might be said to have made, Miss Ravelstone had many opportunities of repeating this sentiment, and the conclusion of all was that this kind-hearted woman invited her young friend to be married from Cuppland if she pleased. “It will be such fun for the children,” Lady Sillinger said. It was therefore amid all the surroundings of a great house that Lord Frogmore first saw his brother’s bride. John did not ask any questions as to the impression Letitia had made. He had a dull kind of sense that it might be better to ask no questions. He was not himself at all deceived about her appearance, nor did he expect his friends to admire her. He took the absence of all enthusiasm on their part with judicious calm. He was not himself enthusiastic, but he had a sober satisfaction in the consciousness that his income was more than doubled, and that he was likely to be very comfortable until the time should come when Frogmore would in the course of nature die. And then, of course, he knew very well what the succession would be. Letitia knew it too. She had read a hundred times over every detail in the paragraph. She managed to get a copy of the county history and study everything that was known about the family of the Parkes and their possessions. She had even managed to find an old dressmaker who had once been maid to one of the ladies of the family, and who told her about the jewels which must eventually be hers. By dint of industry and constant questioning Letitia had discovered everything about the Parkes before she became one of them. And it was all very satisfactory—more so to her, perhaps, than to any other of the family. John’s mother was not at all pleased, but what did it matter about that? She was only the Dowager, and, except so far as her own little savings were concerned, had no power.

When Lord Frogmore first saw his sister-in-law she was in all the importance and excitement of a young lady on the eve of marriage surrounded by dressmakers and by presents. The dressmakers were many and obsequious, the presents were few and did not make a very great show. This was got over, however, by the explanation that most of her wedding gifts had been sent to Grocombe, and that the show at Cuppland was only accidental, not contributed by her old family friends, by whom, of course, the most important were sure to be supplied. The head of the family of the Parkes, when he was asked into Lady Sillinger’s boudoir to make acquaintance with his sister-in-law, had a small packet in his hand, to which he saw her eyes turn almost before she looked at himself. Her eyes were light, and not very bright by nature, but there was a glow in them as they shot that glance at the packet in his hand. Did she think it was but a small packet? Lord Frogmore could not help asking himself. The jeweller’s box, which he carried done up in silver paper, thus became the chief and first thought on both sides. Letitia was in a pale pink dress which was not becoming to her. It made her thin hair and colorless complexion more colorless than ever. It threw up the faint flush on the tip of her nose. She rose quickly, and came forward holding out her hand, and rising suggestively on her toes. Did she mean to kiss him? the old gentleman asked himself, which was certainly what Letitia meant to do; but in such a salutation in such circumstances the initiative should at least be taken by the elderly brother-in-law, not by the bride. She stood suspended, however, for a moment, as it were in the air, with that expectation, and then resumed her seat with a little shake out of her draperies like a ruffled bird.

“I am very glad to make your acquaintance, Miss Ravelstone,” said Lord Frogmore.

“Oh, I am sure so am I,” said Letitia. “Dear John’s brother.”

She simpered and held down her head a little, while Lord Frogmore did not know whether to laugh or be angry. He was not accustomed to this way of stating the relationship.

“Yes, to be sure dear John is my brother,” he said, “and as I don’t doubt you are going to make him a very happy man, the family will all be much indebted to you, Miss Ravelstone. In view of the coming event I have brought my little offering.” He began to open it out, fumbling at the string in a way which was very tantalizing to Letitia, who would have liked to pounce upon it and take it out of his hand.

“Let me cut it,” she said, producing scissors from the dressmaker’s box which was on the table, and once more her eyes gave a gleam enough to set that troublesome paper on fire.

“Thank you, but I like to save the string,” said the old peer. He felt himself, however, though he rather liked to tantalize her, that all this delay would make his present look still unimportant in her eyes. It was a pearl necklace with a pendant of pearls and diamonds, and it had in reality cost him a good deal, and was more valuable than Letitia thought. She drew a long breath when it was at last disclosed.

“Oh!” she said (adding within herself “it’s not diamonds after all.”) “Oh, how very pretty; oh, how sweetly pretty; oh, what a delightful little necklace. Oh, Lord Frogmore, it looks like someone younger and much, much prettier than me.”

“I am very glad you like it,” said Lord Frogmore.

“Oh, Lord Frogmore, any girl would like it. I am sure it is quite beautiful. I thought married ladies didn’t wear pearls; but only just to keep in the box and look at it would do one good. It is the loveliest little thing I ever saw.”

“You are mistaken I am sure about the married ladies, Miss Ravelstone.”

“Am I?” she said, looking up at him with engaging candor, “I am so inexperienced I don’t know, but someone told me so; dull stones for girls and bright ones for married ladies is what I was told; but I daresay that was all wrong and you know best——”

“I really don’t know what you mean by dull stones,” said Lord Frogmore stiffly.

“Oh, I mean pearls and torquoises and such things, and the others are rubies and emeralds and diamonds; but I don’t at all understand such questions, I only know they are lovely. How am I to thank you, Lord Frogmore?”

“I am quite sufficiently thanked if you are pleased, Miss Ravelstone.”

“Oh, but that is so cold,” said Letitia. “I know what I should do if it was my father, or my uncle, or any old friend. But when it is Lord Frogmore——” She stopped with the same arrested motion which had startled him so when they had first met. Decidedly the girl meant to kiss him. He started rather abruptly to his feet and made her a very elaborate bow.

“I am more than repaid, Miss Ravelstone, if you are good enough to be pleased with my little present,” he said.

“Oh! please call me Letitia—at least,” said the too affectionate bride.

If Lady Sillinger had not come forward at this moment to relieve the strain of the situation by boundless praise and admiration of the necklace, Frogmore did not know to what extremities he might have been driven. He withdrew as soon as he could without any demonstrations of tenderness—and hurrying through the suite of rooms came, to his confusion, upon Lady Frogmore, his stepmother, John’s mother, a woman a little younger than himself, and of whom he had always been a little afraid. She was very large, as so many ladies become in their maturity, and had a way of constantly fanning herself, which was disturbing to most men and to her stepson most of all. But as they had naturally perceived each other some way off there was no avoiding an encounter. The dowager Lady Frogmore had a voice not unlike a policeman’s rattle, and as she spoke her large bosom heaved as if with the effort to bring it forth.

“Well, Frogmore,” she said, “you have been paying your respects to the bride?”

“I have indeed,” he replied, with much gravity, and a nervous glance behind him.

“You look, my dear Frogmore, as if you were running away.”

“Something like it, I don’t deny. I—I thought she would have kissed me,” he said, with a burst of feeling. It might have seemed comical to some people, but it was not at all comical to Lord Frogmore.

The dowager Lady Frogmore stopped fanning herself. “She kissed me,” she said, in sepulchral tones; “actually got up upon her toes, and, before I knew what she was about, kissed me. I never was so taken by surprise in my life. If there is any kissing to be done it is the family, certainly, that should begin.”

“That is quite my opinion,” said Frogmore; “but I suppose she means it for the best.”

Lady Frogmore shook her head. She shook it so long and so persistently that the flowers upon her bonnet began to shed little bits of feather and tinsel. “Frogmore,” she said, solemnly, “mark my words. She will lead John a life!”

“Let’s hope not,” said his brother.

“Oh! don’t tell me. Men never understand. She will lead him a life.”

“At all events it is his own doing,” said Frogmore.

“I don’t believe it is his own doing. He could not give me a rational account of it when I asked him. I believe she’s a scheming minx, and this Lady Sillinger’s a designing woman.”

“What good will it do her? She’s got daughters of her own.”

“That is just the danger of it,” said Lady Frogmore, nodding her head. “If it had been one of her own daughters I would not have said a word. Her own daughters are well enough, but this girl! My poor dear John has been made a victim, Frogmore. He has been made a victim. I wish he had broken his leg or something before he came to this house.”

“Nonsense,” said Lord Frogmore, “he might have met her anywhere else as well as in this house.”

“It’s all a deep laid scheme,” continued the dowager, behind her fan. “What that woman has against my poor dear John I can’t tell, but it is she that has done it. And mark my words, Frogmore——”

“How many more words am I to mark,” said Frogmore peevishly—then he added, in the freedom of close relationship: “All you say about poor Lady Sillinger is the merest nonsense. She’s as good a woman as ever lived.”

“Mark my words, Frogmore,” repeated the dowager, “that girl will never rest till she has got you out of the way.”

“Me!” he laughed, “set your mind at rest,” he said, “I am not in her way at all. She means to make a friend of me.”

“She’ll make a friend of you, and then she’ll make you something quite different. She will never be happy,” said Lady Frogmore, “till she has got us all out of the way.”

“Oh! come, come! We don’t live in the fourteenth century,” Frogmore said.

And next day, notwithstanding all these prognostications of harm, John and Letitia were married, and set off for their honeymoon. And whatever her intentions might be there was no longer any possibility of shutting out the Honorable Mrs. John Parke from the amenities of the family. She was kissed. She was blessed. Old slippers were flung after her, and if she had been the most desirable wife in the world, no more could have been done by the family to put the best face upon this event before the eyes of a too quick-sighted world.

CHAPTER III.

She made a capital wife. She knew a great deal about housekeeping and how to make a little go a long way, and as she was very quick and kept her eyes wide open wherever she went, she very soon picked up those minutiæ of comfort and domestic luxury which were not understood at Grocombe. Grocombe, in fact, passed away altogether like a dissolving view. Sometimes when she sat in the boudoir which everybody said she had made so delightful, with its soft chairs and mossy carpets, and bewildering drapery, there would come before Letitia’s eyes a vision of the shabby parlor at home with its horsehair sofa and thin Kidderminster. The curtains were maroon rep in that family abode. The cover on the table was red and blue worsted: there was not a cosy chair in the place. It is true that there was a drawing-room in Grocombe, but everything in it was falling to pieces and it was never used. What a house to have been brought up in! And what a difference between Tisch Ravelstone, the hard-riding squire’s neglected daughter, who had never been educated, or dressed, or looked after by any one, whom the parson’s wife had been sorry for, who had been invited to the vicarage out of kindness, who had once thought the vicar’s son when he returned from Oxford the most splendid of young persons, and the Honorable Mrs. John Parke in her own beautiful boudoir, with her fine dresses and respectful servants and luxurious prosperity! What a difference! Letitia never permitted it to be seen or even divined that such luxury was new to her. But sometimes there would gleam before her a fading dissolving vision of that other life, and she would ask herself was it possible? Could it ever have been? To go back to such a state of affairs now would be the most horrible misfortune. She said to herself that she would rather die. It is true that the moors were glorious round about that Yorkshire house, but Letitia had seen too much of them to care for the moors: and the stables were admirably arranged, the pride of the district, but Letitia had seen a great deal too much of them and hated stables. And when she thought of the miry ways through which she used to tramp in her Wellington boots and short skirts, and the wintry blighted fir wood, all blown one way as if the trees were shabby pilgrims going to the west, which surrounded the house and the garden in which a few straggling rose bushes and old-fashioned flowers formed a respectful border to the cabbages, Letitia drew a long breath. Oh-h! she said to herself. What a difference! what a difference! But this breath of wondering transport was only breathed when she sat alone in her boudoir and John was well out of the way, and could not look up with an “Eh? did you speak?”

There were some things, however, not so easily dropped as Grocombe—and these were its inhabitants. Letitia had five brothers, such a number for a young woman on her promotion, whose aspirations were so far removed from anything they could understand. They could all ride like centaurs, they could doctor horses as well as any vet., harness them as well as any groom, and were as conversant with the pedigrees of their quadruped nobility as the Garter-King-at-Arms is with the precedence and qualifications of dukes and earls. Letitia was not unaware that knowledge of this kind is sometimes very valuable, and that in the society of a hunting country it is much esteemed. She knew there were distinguished houses in the neighborhood in which the stud-groom was a person highly prized for his conversation and social qualities; and on such a dreadful emergency as the appearance of Will, or Jack, or Ted, or Harry at Greenpark, she had already settled in her own mind how to make the best of their qualities: but it was a thought which made her shiver. She had made up her mind that intercourse with her old home was a thing to be gradually dropped altogether. Heaven be praised there were no sisters. Had there been sisters they would not have been so easily shaken off, they would probably have insisted upon sharing Tisch’s good luck, and getting “their chance” also through her means. “Tisch!” think only of hearing that name again ringing through the house in the stentorian voice of one of the boys! If there were no more than this to be avoided it would be enough. Letitia put her hands up to her ears as if to shut out the horrible sound. No, fortunately, nobody here, nobody in her new world had ever heard that dreadful name: the Sillingers, indeed—but they were people who knew better than to perpetuate such an injury. And on the whole Letitia thought it advisable to drop them also. They were so far off. The north of Yorkshire is a long way from Berks. It is much further off than either place is, for instance, from London. Mrs. John Parke lamented in her new neighborhood that she was so far off from the old; but on the whole it was a dispensation of Providence with which she was well pleased.

In the meantime Letitia began without delay to do her duty in the station to which she had been so fortunately called. She produced with much fortitude and pride a son and heir at the end of the first year, and after that judiciously, and not with too much haste, other little Parkes, one after the other, two boys and two girls, thus establishing the family upon a broad and sturdy basis, which precluded all fear of extinction to the family honors. Three sons—such a thing had not been known in the Frogmore family since the creation of the title, which was not, however, a very old one. There could be no doubt that Lord Frogmore was pleased. He sent Mrs. John some of the family diamonds, those jewels which she had so coveted, but which were by no means as splendid as she had hoped, after the first of these events—and he made a great many jokes with his brother as the family increased. But, in fact, he was very considerate indeed, making more than jokes, a considerable addition to John’s income, and also giving up to his brother the house in Mount Street, which Mrs. John had so long coveted. It is very evident, therefore, that Letitia’s course of prosperity for the first eight years of her married life was as nearly perfect as falls to the lot of woman. Her new family had forgotten that she was plain—they all had a respect for her as a very clever woman, who had done her duty by the race. She was not, perhaps, all that they could have desired; “not what I should have chosen for my dear boy,” said Lady Frogmore. “A little sharp for my taste—but then my taste had nothing to do with it,” said the old lord. But a woman against whom nothing was to be said. Her first season in London—the first season in which she had actually a house of her own, and could be said to take the place which the future Lady Frogmore had a right to aspire to, was not, indeed, triumphant—Letitia did not aspire to triumphs—but it was, as all her progress had been, a gradual and steady advance. She did not wish to take an insecure place among the fast duchesses and the wild millionaires. She disapproved of all the votaries of dissipation. “We come to town to meet our friends, and pay our duty to our Sovereign, and see what is going on,” she said, “but our delight is in our country home.” She had said ’ome at first, as, indeed, many very well-bred persons do; but Letitia had outgrown any weakness of that kind. And she was making her way. When she met the Sillingers now she was in a position to patronize them. The girls had not made very good marriages; and what was Lady Sillinger, after all, but the wife of a country baronet, well off, but not very rich, with a nice house and very hospitable in their way, but not a great country place. The Honble. Mrs. John Parke, the future Lady Frogmore, was very good-natured, and glad to be of use to her old friends.

There was another old friend who at this period was brought to her mind by an unexpected encounter at one of the exhibitions, which is a place where the poor may meet the rich without anything surprising being in it. Letitia, in the course of her cursory survey of the pictures, found before her a group which she recognized—or rather it would be more just to say she recognized one of the members of it. She looked, she turned away her head, she looked again. Yes, certainly, it was! it was! the very vicar’s daughter who had always been kind to Letitia Ravelstone, who had been held up to her as a model, whose neat frocks and pinafores it had been a vain effort to emulate. The name of the vicar’s daughter was Mary Hill, one of the most commonplace of names, yet capable of no such horrible travesty as that nickname of Tisch, which had been the burden of Letitia’s youth—yet she had always been prettier than Letitia, as well as more neat and carefully dressed. Mrs. John Parke stood in her fashionable London garments, in what might be called the height of her dignified maternal—but not too maternal—position (for Letitia had preserved her figure and was still slim) and gazed upon the companion of her youth. Miss Hill looked forty, though she was not quite so much as that. She was dressed in a grey alpaca, very simply made. She had a close little bonnet of the same color, tied with pink ribbons under her chin. She was as neat as she used to be in the old days when she was held up as an example to Tisch Ravelstone. She was accompanied by two elderly ladies of homely respectability, one of whom called to her continually, “Mary, Mary, you have not looked at this.” They were doing the honors of the pictures to her, not sparing her one. She had a catalogue in her hand, but between that and the lady who called Mary, Mary, and the other who stopped before all the worst pictures and said, with a wave of her hand, “This is one that has been a great deal talked about,” their gentle country cousin was evidently a little confused. She smiled, and allowed herself to be dragged in two directions at once. Letitia stood and watched with a sensation which was very mingled. There was good in it and there was evil, a sense of triumph which so swelled her bosom that had her dress not been so perfectly fitted some of the buttons must certainly have burst, but along with this a certain sense of kindness, of pleasure in such a kind face. If it had been anybody but Mary Hill not even the delight of showing how different she herself was from Tisch Ravelstone would have made Mrs. Parke pause. But a softer impulse touched her breast. She stood still where she was until Mary, in one of the many gyrations she had to make to please her companions, turned round full upon her and recognized her with a start and a cry. Letitia, in the excitement of the moment, actually forgave her old friend, whose cry was “Tisch!”

“It is surely Mary Hill,” she said, advancing in her turn, with all the magnificence of which she was capable, and that was no small matter. “I have been looking at you for five minutes wondering; but it is you. And you have not changed a bit.”

“Oh, no; how should I change? But you; now I look at you again I wonder that I recognized you at all. It was the first glance. I felt it could be no one else.”

“It makes a great difference to be married and have a number of children,” said Letitia with genial dignity. “You have never married, Mary.”

“Oh, no,” said Mary, with a faint laugh.

“And are you just at home—as you used to be?”

“Just at home—as I used to be. We are all older, the boys are out in the world, and little Fanny too, as a governess; but Annie and I are just the same, taking care of father and mother.”

“They can’t want two of you to take care of them.”

“That is true,” said Mary, with a faint change of color, “but we had no education—we elder ones—and we can’t teach, and there’s nothing else for a girl to do.”

“A girl!” said Letitia under her breath, looking at Mary in her gentle middle-agedness from top to toe. But she perceived that the two elderly ladies, who had hitherto kept at a distance overawed by her fashionable appearance, were now consulting together with evident intention of advancing, so she added quickly, “I am so glad to have seen you. Come and see me, please, in the morning before one, at 300, Mount street, Berkeley Square—the park end—will you? Come to-morrow, Mary, please.”

“I will indeed,” said Mary, with fervor. “It is the finest thing I have seen in London, dear Tishy, the face of an old friend: and as kind as ever,” she said with a glance of tender gratitude. She had not perhaps quite expected, nor had Letitia expected, that any such soft sentiment should have arisen in her bosom, if truth be told.

“Don’t call me that, for heaven’s sake,” cried Letitia, waving her hand as she hurried away. And so the two elderly ladies were balked, and Mrs. Parke left the exhibition with a new plan taking form in her mind—a plan which would be a great kindness, yet very useful to herself—a plan which was to produce fruits of an importance almost awful to Letitia, yet at this moment altogether hidden, and the very possibility of them, from her eyes.

CHAPTER IV.

“They are generally a bore,” said Mrs. Parke; “they remind you of things you want to forget and people you hate. But not this one. It is Mary Hill. She is the vicar’s daughter at Grocombe. Poor people, they are very poor. It will be a kindness to them. A mouth to feed in such a house is a great matter.”

“It is very kind of you, Letitia, to think of it.”

“Oh, as for that! and she would be so useful to me. I do feel sometimes the burden of all I have to do—the housekeeping—to make a good show on such a limited income, and to keep up one’s social duties; and then the children always wanting something. I don’t know how I have borne it so long without any help.”

“But I don’t see,” said John, “how having a friend in the house would mend that.”

“No,” said Letitia with a sigh; “I did not expect you to see it. But so long as I see it!—all I want is to make sure that you won’t go on as so many men do. ‘How long is that Miss Hill going to stay? I can never say a word to you without that Miss Hill hearing everything! Is that Miss Hill to be always here?’ Now you must have heard men going on just so, making their wives’ lives a burden.”

“I hope I shall never do that,” said John, mildly.

“Mind you don’t,” said Letitia. And that was all that was said. But when Miss Hill came next morning with a pretty flush of pleasure on her face, and her grey dress looking so prim and old-maidish, and everything about her showing a life arrested just at the point where Letitia had left her—Letitia who had made so much progress—Mrs. Parke’s resolution became firmer than ever. She showed her visitor all over the house, apologizing for its small size and imperfections. “We must put up with many things,” she said, “in our present circumstances, you know. Frogmore is very nice to us, but so long as he lives we can only have the second place.”

“I wish I had only a hundred times as much to put up with,” said Mary, smiling. “It all looks very delightful to me.”

“You should see Greenpark,” said Letitia. “We have a great deal more room there. But we are only in town for a short season, and, of course, I don’t bring all the children. Yes, baby is just about ten months. They are all troublesome children. They give me a great deal to do. I often think I shall die of it if it goes on long. And there you are, Mary, a lady of leisure at home with next to nothing to do.”

Mary’s countenance changed. “I have more than you think,” she said, “but not in your way.”

“Oh, no, not in my way. When you are not married you can form no idea of the troubles one has. But I do wonder you should stay at home when there is so little for you all. Your poor mother must grudge it so. Two daughters to feed and clothe and no likelihood of any change.”

“Oh, Tishy, it is cruel to tell me so! Don’t I feel it to the bottom of my heart.”

“Don’t call me by that horrible name. If I was you I should certainly do something for myself. Who were the two—— whom you were with at the exhibition?”

“It was my aunt—— and a friend of mine. They live together,” said Mary.

“You should go and live with them,” said Letitia, boldly.

Mary shook her head. “My aunt is as poor as we are at home. She has asked me for a short visit, that is all she can do. But please Tis—— I mean Letitia, don’t make me wretched to-day. I want to get a little pleasure out of this day.”

“If I make you wretched it is for your good,” said Letitia. “If you have only come for a short visit it is not worth your while. Your railway fare would cost you more than all the relief it would be at home.”

“They were glad I should have the change,” said Mary, “but I’m afraid what you say is true, and it was perhaps selfish to come.”

“I should say it was very selfish to come if it’s only for a short visit. But you are dreadfully thoughtless people about money and always were. If I did not count up everything and calculate whether it was worth while, I don’t know what I should do. Now getting to town and back again from Yorkshire must have cost you two pounds at least, even second class——”

“I came third class,” said Mary, much downcast.

“But I am sure it cost you two pounds—why there must have been a cab from the station, and there will be a cab back again to the station, and I should not at all wonder if you gave the porter sixpence, though probably he is much better off than you are. And how long are you to stay with your aunt?”

“A fortnight,” said Mary almost inaudibly, hanging her head.

“A fortnight! You don’t imagine it can cost your father and mother a pound a week to keep you at home? Ten shillings is the very outside I should say. Well, then, you have thrown away a whole pound on this visit, and probably you got a new frock for it, or a bonnet or something. Oh, that is not the way to get on in the world! At this rate you will always be poor——”

“They were very glad I should have the change,” said Mary, pale but plucking up a little courage. “They don’t count up every penny like that. Oh, Ti—Letitia, I am sure you mean to be kind; but when you put things before one like that it is like flaying one alive! For what can I do? I can’t be a governess, and there is nothing else that I can be——”

“You might have married,” said Letitia, “if you had played your cards as you ought.”

At this Mary gave her friend a startled glance and grew very red, but then turned away her head and said nothing. Letitia saw and understood, but took no notice. She went on—

“You might have married old Captain Taylor when he came home from abroad. And what a nice house he had, and plenty of money, and only think how comfortable you might have been. But you just threw him into Cecilia Foster’s hands—I don’t mean to reproach you, Mary; but it is all the same sort of thing. You never calculate beforehand—now how are you to make up that pound?”

Letitia said these words with the greatest deliberation and emphasis, looking her friend almost sternly in the face. And to poor Mary a pound was no small matter. She had never thought of it before in this light, and an almost hysterical constriction came into her throat. Make up a pound! It is but a small sum of money, but she did not know how to do it any more than she knew how to fly.

When Letitia had thus brought her friend down to the very earth, she suddenly made a rush at her and gave her a little dab of a kiss. “I will tell you, you dear old thing,” she said; “you shall come and pay a long visit to me.”

“Tishy! I mean Letitia, oh what do you mean?” said Mary in her surprise.

Letitia threatened her with a forefinger. “I will kill you if you call me that again! What do I mean? I mean just what I say. You shall come and pay me a long, long visit—as long as you like—as long as—you live—or let’s say till you are married,” cried Mrs. Parke with a somewhat mocking laugh.

“You know very well I shall never marry,” said Mary, reproachfully.

“Well, never mind—wait till you have seen all the people at Greenpark. You shall come to me as soon as you have done your fortnight with your aunt, and you shall go down with us when we go to the country, and you will keep me company when John is away, and talk to me when I am lonely, and make friends with the children. That will be worth your while, not like a fortnight in London, where you must always be spending shillings and sixpences. Now is it settled, or must you write home and ask if you may come? For it is a real long visit I shall want.”

“Oh, Letitia,” said Mary, with tears in her eyes, “is it possible you can be so very, very kind, when we have not met for years, and when I thought——”

“What did you think? That I had forgotten my old friends? I am one that never, never forgets,” said Mrs. Parke. “The first moment that I set eyes upon you I said to myself, ‘It’s Mary! and she must come to me for a long, long visit.’ I can see no use in asking people for a fortnight. It only costs money, and it is not a bit of relief at home.”

“I am sure you are quite right,” said Mary. “I have been thinking so myself; but then they all thought it would be a change, and though I am fonder of Grocombe than of any place in the world——”

“You are a hypocrite, Mary,” said Letitia. “I never was fond of Grocombe at all. It is the dullest place in England—there is never anything going on. Oh, here is Mr. Parke, whom you don’t know yet. John, this is Miss Hill, who is coming to us for a long visit. I told you what a dear friend she was of mine.”

“How do you do, Miss Hill,” said John, and then he added, the only thing it occurred to him to say to a stranger, “What fine weather we are having. Have you been in the Park to-day?”

This was how it came about that Mary Hill became an inmate of Greenpark. She paid Letitia a long—very long—visit, so long that it looked as if it never would end. Mrs. Parke stood on no ceremony at all with her friend. She confided her children to her with as much freedom as if she had been the nursery governess. She suggested to her that her place was wanted at table when there was a dinner party, and her room when the house was very full for the shooting. She made use of her to interview the housekeeper, and to write the menus for dinner. Mary soon came to occupy the position which is sacred to the poor relation—the unsalaried dependent in a house. She sometimes replaced the mistress of the house, sometimes the nurse, sometimes the lady’s maid. She was always at hand and ready whatever was wanted. “Oh, ask Miss Hill! Don’t, for heaven’s sake, bother me about everything,” was what Letitia learned to say. She made the children’s clothes, because she liked needlework. She arranged the bouquets for the table because she was so fond of flowers. She even helped the maid to arrange any changes that were necessary in Letitia’s toilettes because she had so much taste. Mary was a very long time in finding out why it was that her friend was, as she said, “so kind.” Perhaps she never entirely discovered the reason of it. She began, when her visit had extended to months, to discover that Letitia was not, perhaps, so invariably kind as she had supposed. But that was a very natural discovery, for nobody is perfect; and to do Mrs. Parke justice, it was only when there was a very large party for the shooting, or a very important dinner, that Mary was ever disturbed either in her room or her place. She appreciated the value of such a friend. When anything was said of Mary’s visit coming to an end, Letitia was in despair. “Oh, Mary, how could you go and leave me when you see how much I have to do? Oh, Mary, how could you desert the children, who are so fond of you? And don’t you think it is far better to be here, costing them nothing, than to go back to be a burden at home?” These mingled arguments overcame the humble-minded woman. Though it was bitter to hear it said that she was a burden at home, no doubt it was true. And thus it happened that she stayed, always under pretence of being on a long visit, an unremunerated, much exercised upper servant at Letitia’s beck and call, for one whole long year.

It is true that nobody would have divined what confusion of all Mrs. Parke’s plans was to result from this expedient of hers; yet it was apparent enough to various people concerned that she was less long-sighted than usual upon this occasion—apparent, that is to say, after the event which proved it. There could be no doubt that Mary’s presence in the house made an opening for other persons to appear who were likely to be much less acceptable to Letitia, and whom, indeed, she had carefully kept at arm’s length up to this time, when that brilliant idea of seizing a domestic slave for herself entered into her mind. The world could never get on at all if the selfish people in it were always long-sighted and never forgot themselves. But for the first year all went very well—so well that Mrs. Parke was used to congratulate herself on her own cleverness and success. And everybody was pleased: Mary, who wrote home that she was so happy to be able to save dear Letitia in many little things, and it was quite a pleasure to do anything for her; and the people at the Vicarage, who were never weary of saying how kind Mrs. Parke was to Mary, and how many nice people she saw, and what a delightful, long visit she was having; and John, who declared that Miss Hill was the most good-natured and the nicest to the children of anyone he ever saw. An arrangement which brought so much satisfaction to all concerned must surely have been an admirable arrangement. And how it could lead to any upsetting of the life and purpose of the Honorable Mrs. John Parke, or dash the full breeze of prosperity that filled the sails, or in any way endanger her career, was what nobody could have divined. But the great drawback of all mortal chances and successes is that you never can tell, nor can the wisest of mankind, what strange things may be effected in a single day.