The Heir Presumptive and the Heir Apparent

CHAPTER V.

Mrs. Parke repeated to herself, “Someone Mary knows,” under her breath. She was momentarily disturbed. Could it be a piece of presumption on Mary’s part bringing in someone she knew? But this was so incredible that Letitia dismissed the idea, laying it all upon the broad shoulders of John. “He must have made a mistake again,” she said to herself. She was late, everyone had gone to dress for dinner, and the mistress of the house only lingered for a moment in the drawing-room to see that all was in order, to give a little pull to the curtains, and a little push to the chairs such as the mistress of the house always finds necessary when she is expecting guests, breaking the air of inevitable primness which the best of servants are apt to have. She looked round to see that all was right, and then she went upstairs to her room to dress. Mary was standing on the stairs at the end of the corridor which led to the nursery, evidently waiting for her. “Oh, can I speak a word, Letitia?” she said.

“I don’t see how you can,” said Mrs. Parke, “for I am late, and you know the Witheringhams are coming. I cannot keep them waiting. But come into my room, if you like, while I dress.”

Mary was not coming to dinner on that evening: so that she had no need to dress. She looked pale and anxious standing in the doorway at the end of the nursery passage in her old grey gown. “But I must speak to you alone—not before your maid,” she said.

“Some naughtiness, I suppose,” said Letitia with a little sigh of despairing impatience. “Really, you are too particular. But it must wait till to-morrow, my dear—I have only time to slip on my dress.”

“But oh, Letitia——”

“For goodness sake don’t bother me to death when you know the Witheringhams are coming,” Mrs. Parke said. And she went into her room, leaving her friend standing outside. Letitia did not close the door, but left it possible for Mary to follow her, if the communication was so very urgent. But this Miss Hill did not do. She hesitated a moment, wrung her hands, and then disappeared like a ghost within the narrow portals of the nursery passage. Had Letitia only known the words that were on her lips, had Mary been less frightened, less terrified at the sound of her own voice. But it could not have made much difference after all—the shock would have been perhaps less great—but to do away with it altogether was not in any one’s power.

Letitia dressed in great haste. She had only time to swallow the cup of tea which she had ordered—to put on her new velvet with the point lace and diamonds—a rivière, but nothing much to speak of, which Frogmore had sent her on the birth of the heir—and to pull on one of her gloves, when a sound of carriage wheels in the avenue made her hurry downstairs to be in her place before the Witheringhams arrived. The Witheringhams had never dined at Greenpark before. They were very fine people indeed, the oldest family in the county, though he was only a baron, so rich that they did not know what to do with their money. They lived a great deal abroad, and it so happened that Letitia had never before been able to offer her hospitality to these distinguished persons who were so little in need of a dinner. For the first time it had “suited” to-night, and to have been a moment late, or to have anything out of order, would have been a sin which Letitia, such a model of social propriety as she was, would not have forgiven herself. Happily, she was not only in the drawing-room herself, but two or three of the élite of her guests had come down in good time and stood about like black statues in that irreproachable tenue which specially distinguishes Englishmen. It was a moment indescribable when Letitia placed Lady Witheringham in the easiest chair, and sitting down near her, with the warmest cordiality mingled with respect, made the discovery that this great lady’s diamonds were really after all not as good as her own. She did not betray the consciousness, but it gave her a secret exhilaration. She felt that she approached her guests upon nearer terms.

“It is a pleasure we have wished for so long, dear Lady Witheringham,” she said, “to see you in our own house.”

“We are a great deal away,” said the old lady. “Witheringham can’t stand the winter in England—and to tell the truth when we are at home we are not fond of new people, neither he nor I.”

“I hope,” said Letitia, “that we can scarcely be considered new people now. After nearly seven years—”

She saw her mistake immediately, but Lady Witheringham only smiled. “My husband,” she said, with a slight emphasis, “knew the first Lord Frogmore. He got his title for something or other—services to the government.” Here the old lady laughed, as if there could be nothing more ridiculous than acquiring a peerage in this way. “But I have heard,” she said, after a pause, “that your own family was quite respectable.”

Letitia was not proud of her family, and liked to bring it forward as little as possible, but a natural sentiment still existed in her bosom, which was touched by this remark. “Oh, indeed, I hope so,” she cried, with a slight movement of irritation, which she was not able to conceal.

“I mean, of course, in point of antiquity,” said Lady Witheringham, “in other respects we’re all in the hands of Providence. Nothing, you know, can secure morals, or those sort of things—and less in an old family than in others, I sometimes think—Dear me,” she added, raising a double eyeglass, and looking at the other end of the room with curiosity, “what have we here?”

Letitia looked up, following Lady Witheringham’s glance. I may truly say that if Mrs. Parke were to live for a hundred years she would never forget the spectacle that now presented itself to her eyes. The drawing-room at Greenpark was a long room, opening from an ante-room with large folding doors. In the middle of this ample opening stood a figure in a velvet coat the worse for wear, with a huge beard, long hair and a general air of savagery. He was a little scared apparently by the sight of so many people, and by the looks directed towards him, and stood with a certain hesitation, looking with a half-bold, half-alarmed air at the circle of ladies near the fire. Letitia sprang to her feet, and caught John by the arm. “Go and see who it is? go and send him away,” she said; but even as she spoke her voice went out in a kind of hollow whisper. Oh, heaven and earth! that this should happen to-night.

Everybody was looking towards the same point, and John much surprised, but not daunted, was walking towards this strange intruder, when he seemed to catch sight of Letitia standing thunderstruck by her own hearth. If she had kept her seat and thus kept partially out of sight, things might not have turned out so badly; but everything went against her to-night. The stranger saw her and came forward with a lurch and a shout. “Hallo, Tisch!” he cried. His voice was like a clap of thunder, and shook the pictures on the walls. His big step made the whole house thrill and creak. He caught her in his arms in the middle of all the astonished ladies and gentlemen, and gave her a resounding smack that might have been heard half a mile off. “How are you?” he said, “my lass. I’m as glad to see ye as if ye were the winner in a tip-top race. I began to think I’d been wrong directed and this wasn’t my sister’s house after all.”

The thoughts that passed through Letitia’s mind in the moment of that embrace were too many and too swift to be put on paper. She tore herself out of the huge arms which held her up like an infant, jumping on the floor in a momentary paroxysm of passion, in which if she could she would have killed the inopportune visitor. But even while she did so a whole discussion, argument and counter argument flashed through her mind. She would have liked to have killed him: but he was here, and the butler was at the door announcing that dinner was served, and Lady Witheringham was certainly surveying this big brute, this horrible savage as Letitia called him in her heart—through those double eyeglasses. It was necessary that the mistress of the house should quench every sentiment and keep up appearances. She said, “Ralph!” with a little shriek in which some of her excitement got out. “Gracious goodness!” said Letitia, “I thought you were in Africa. How could you give me such a start without a word of warning. John, it’s Ralph——” She paused a moment, and the desperate emergency put words into her mouth. “He has been after—big game—till he looks like a lion out of the woods himself,” she cried, with another little shriek—this time of laughter. There was a wildness in it which half betrayed her, but she recovered herself with a little stamp of her foot. “John,” she said, “dinner is waiting—don’t let us keep everything back for this little family scene.” She seized her brother by the hand while her guests filed off decorously, almost wounding him with the sharp pressure of her finger nails. “Don’t come to dinner,” she whispered; “Mary Hill’s in the house.”

Ralph gave another great laugh. “As if I didn’t know that,” he said; “but I’m coming to dinner. I want to see you in all your grandeur, Tisch.”

She had to take old Lord Witheringham’s arm while the brute was talking, and to smile into the old gentleman’s face and to sweep past the stranger, leaving him to follow or not as he pleased. Her heart was beating wildly with fury and dismay. “Don’t you think, Lord Witheringham, it is a bad thing when young men go off into the desert—after big game—and grow into savages?” she said. She laughed to blow off some of the excitement, but there was a glare which nobody could have believed possible in her dull eyes.

“That depends very much,” said Lord Witheringham, oracularly. He would not commit himself. “Sometimes it is the best thing a young man can do—sometimes it is not so fortunate.” Letitia, who expected every moment to have a denial thundering over her shoulder about this big game, and who knew very well that her brother Ralph had not gone away for hunting, as the men did among whom she passed her life, but for very different reasons and to very different regions, was very glad to hurry along at the end of the procession listening to what went on behind, hoping against hope that Ralph might do what she suggested; that he might go in search of Mary, and not appear at all among people who so plainly did not want him. She thought for some time with a great relief that this was what had happened. But when she had taken her place in the dining-room between Lord Witheringham on one side and young Lord George Hitherways on the other, that place to which she had looked forward to with so much pride and pleasure, she saw by the little commotion among the detached men who came in last, the men who had no ladies to take care of, that there was no such relief for her. Ralph was in the midst of them conspicuous in his velvet coat. He pushed them about a little so as to get nearer to his sister. “I beg your pardon if I’m taking your place, but I have not seen my sister for ten years,” she heard him saying in his big voice; and when all the guests were settled as near as possible in their right places, lo, there he was planted next to Mrs. Kington, within three of herself. Letitia grew pale when she saw that her brother was so near—then thanked her stars that at least, since it must be, he was within reach where she herself could do what was possible to subdue him. Oh that Mary had but been there! Oh, that Mary had but said that word of warning which she had been so anxious to give. Why did not the fool speak? What did it matter whether the maid was present or not? Three words only were needed—“Ralph is here,” and then she would have known what to do.

Letitia had looked forward to that dinner as her greatest triumph. She meant to have been so brilliant and entertaining that Lord Witheringham, who liked to have amusing young women to talk to him, might have been filled with admiration: but how can you be witty and brilliant when you are straining your ears to hear what somebody else is saying? The conversation flagged in spite of all she could do. Lord Witheringham devoted himself to his dinner with a look of supreme gravity. She herself sat, violently loathing her food, but swallowing it in sheer desperation, feeling every idea that had been in her head desert her. In fact poor Letitia was never brilliant in conversation, but this she did not know.

Meanwhile Mrs. Kington was amusing herself very much, and young Lord George did nothing but laugh and listen to the backwoodsman. “Tell me about the big game,” the lady had said in a little mellifluous voice. “I shoot myself, and my husband has made the most famous bags. He was in Africa too. Pray tell me about the big game. Did you go in for lions or elephants or what was it? It is so interesting to meet with a man fresh from the desert.”

“You are very kind to say so, my lady,” said Ralph, “but it’s all nonsense about big game. That’s only Tisch’s fun. She knows very well I had something quite different in my mind. I’ve had a shot at a kangaroo or a dog, and I’m sorry to say I’ve hit a black fellow more than once by mistake. Perhaps that’s what she calls big game. Well, it is if you come to that, and deuced serious game, too. You may shoot as many tigers as you like, and get a reward for it, as I’ve heard; but if you shoot a black fellow, he’s no use even for his skin; and if it’s known, you get the Government upon your shoulders just the same as if he was a Christian.”

“That is hard,” said Mrs. Kington, in her pretty voice. “I suppose you mean negroes, Mr. ——” She stopped and looked at Letitia with that delightful impertinence of the higher orders which is one of the finest flowers of civilization. “Do you know,” she whispered to Lord George, yet not so low but that Letitia could hear, “John Parke married so much out of our set that I don’t know what was her name.”

“My name is Ravelstone, and I don’t care who knows it,” said Ralph. “We are not very particular about names in the bush. Sometimes you may live for years with a fellow at the same station and never know more than some nick-name that’s been given him. They used to call me——”

“Your name is as old as any in Yorkshire, Ralph,” said Letitia, arresting the revelation. “Dear Lady Witheringham was just saying so. Do you know what she said? That you knew the first Lord Frogmore, Lord Witheringham. We won’t let John hear, but I know what she meant. She meant that the Parkes were nobody to speak of; but I am happy to say Lady Witheringham was quite acquainted with my family. We have never had a title. What is the good of a mushroom title, that dates only from this century?”

“I entirely agree with you, Mrs. Parke,” Lord Witheringham said.

“What is the use,” cried Letitia, “of putting on a gloss of nobility when you have the substance before; and what is the use of plastering over a name that means nothing with titles? For my part I think there’s nothing like real antiquity—a family that has lived in the same place and owned the same ground from the beginning of time.”

“Mrs. Parke, I admire every word you say. Such just feeling is very uncommon,” Lord Witheringham said.

“Lord, Tisch, how do you run on! How father would have stared if he had heard you. A title for us!—oh, by Jove?” cried Ralph. His roar shook the table. Oh, if some one would kill him—poison him—put him out of Letitia’s sight!

CHAPTER VI.

The room swam in Letitia’s eyes; a mist seemed to rise over the sparkling dining-table—over all the faces of the guests. The voices, too, rang in a kind of hubbub, one confused, big noise through which she seemed able to be sure of nothing except the words of Ralph and the laughter, in which all round were so ridiculously, so horribly ready to join. What revelations he might make! How certainly he would prove to the others that he was no elegant prodigal from the fashionable deserts where so many great persons went after big game, but a mere Australian stockman sent there because nobody knew what to do with him at home! She was vaguely aware of talking a great deal herself to stop his talking, if possible, with the dreadful result of merely increasing his outpourings, and of having to subside at last in sheer prostration of faculty, into an alarmed and horrified silence. Ralph, it was evident, amused her guests though he did not amuse Letitia. And that dreadful Mrs. Kington, how she devoted herself to him; how she played upon him and drew him out! When the moment came for the ladies’ withdrawal, Letitia rose with mingled relief and terror. She said to herself that no man could be so dangerous by Ralph’s side as that clever, spiteful woman; and yet at the same time the dreadful consciousness that among men when they were alone revelations still more appalling might be made, and that John knew nothing of this prodigal brother, gave her a new cause of alarm. Even in such dreadful circumstances, however, a woman has to endure and say nothing. She gave Ralph a glance as she passed him which might have annihilated him, but which conveyed no idea to the obtuse mind of the bushman: while he elevated his eyebrows at her, and made a noise with his tongue against his palate. “You are in all your glory, Tisch!” he said, as she passed. But furious and terrified as she was, she had to go like a martyr to the stake and leave him—to do further harm—who could tell? Mary Hill was in the drawing-room when the ladies filed in, wearing a dyed dress which Letitia had given her, with nervous hands clasped tightly together, and anxiety and panic in her eyes. Mrs. Parke gave her an angry grip as she passed, and said in a fierce whisper, “How could you let him come?” to which Mary answered with a confused murmur of anxious explanation. And then the ordeal began once more.

“How amusing your brother is, Mrs. Parke. I don’t know when I have laughed so much. It is so delightful to meet a man like that out of the wilds—and so genuine—and so funny!”

“You had all the fun at your end of the table,” said another lady. “We heard you all in shrieks of laughter, and wanted to know what it was about.”

“It was about everything,” said Mrs. Kington, laughing at the recollection. “He is so delightfully wild, and such a democrat, and so unconventional.”

“Too much so, a great deal, for the comfort of his family,” said Letitia, with a gasp. She was clever enough to seize upon the chance thus afforded her. “It is not so amusing when the person belongs to you, and when you know how he has thrown away all his chances,” she said, panting.

“Ah!” said Lady Witheringham, with sympathy, “young men are so silly; but none of us can throw a stone in that respect.”

This, though Letitia did not know it, was as good as a bombshell to Mrs. Kington, who knew a great deal about prodigals.

“To be silly is one thing and to be amusing is another,” said that lady, “every man is not such fun who sows wild oats abroad. You must make him tell you about the black fellows. I nearly died of laughing. There is one story I must tell you——”

“For my part I would rather not die of laughing,” said the great lady. She took Letitia by the arm and drew her in the direction of the conservatory. “Let me see your flowers,” she said, “and never mind what they say. I know what it is,” she added, shaking her head, “to have a boy in the family that you can make nothing of. I sympathize with your parents, Mrs. Parke.”

The emergency lent a cleverness which she did not possess to Letitia. She said with a half sob, “He had no mother.” This was not a loss which she had ever been specially moved by before; but necessity develops the faculties. Lady Witheringham clasped her arm still more closely. “Ah, poor boy!” she said; “tell me if it does not pain you, dear Mrs. Parke.”

Dear Mrs. Parke! the words inspired Letitia. Was it possible, she asked herself piously, that good was to come out of evil? and she did tell Ralph’s history, with many details unknown to that gentleman himself, to her sympathetic listener. They walked about softly in front of the subdued lights in the conservatory, the old great lady leaning tenderly upon the arm of John Parke’s wife, whom his other guests were describing to each other as a nobody. “He’s not a gentleman at all, and I daresay she was a milliner,” Mrs. Kington said, feeling it very piquant to communicate these conjectures all but within hearing of the person most concerned. And Letitia divined but now did not care, for had she not got Lady Witheringham on her side?

Mary Hill sat alone, not noticed by anyone. She occupied the place which a governess of retiring manners does in such a party. All governesses are not persons of retiring manners, and consequently the rule does not always hold. And Miss Hill was not the governess. She was not a salaried dependent, but a friend who in reality conferred instead of receiving benefits: but it was as a dependent that everybody regarded her. She sat very quiet with a sense of guilt towards Letitia, which was entirely gratuitous, and a confusing feeling that she was somehow to blame. That she would be blamed she was very well aware, and her powers of vindicating and asserting herself were small. Beyond this there was great trouble and confusion in Mary’s mind. The sight of this big, flushed, disorderly, half-savage man had been a revelation to her even more distressing than his sudden appearance had been to her friend. Letitia’s pride was assailed, but in Mary the wound went a great deal deeper. When Ralph had been sent to Australia ten years before, he was young, and his offences, though terrible to a girl’s sensitive innocence and ignorance, had been things to weep and pray over rather than to denounce. Poor Ralph! he had been her sweetheart when they were children, he had supposed himself in love with her years ago, and Mary had carried all these years a softened image of him in her heart. She had sighed to herself over it in many a lonely hour. Poor Ralph! if her expectations of his return had never been clear, it was still always a possibility pleasant to think of. And now he had come, and her faintly visioned idol had fallen prone to the ground, like Dagon in his temple. He had never attained the importance of a demi-god, to whom sacred litanies might be said. But there had been a vague niche for him in the background of the temple. And in a moment he had fallen, with the first sound of his rough voice and sight of his deteriorated countenance. Mary was still under the influence of this shock, and it was complicated by the conviction that she was to blame, that Letitia would think she was to blame, that she would be accused and would not know how to defend herself. She sat alone, trembling over the evening paper which she was pretending to read. She heard the chuchotement of the soft yet venomous voices near, which were tearing Letitia’s pretensions to pieces, and assuring each other that they had always known her to be a nobody, and the other less audible strain of Letitia’s narrative to Lady Witheringham. What romance was she telling about poor Ralph to interest the old lady so—poor Ralph, who never had any story but vulgar dissipation and the sharp remedy of being turned out of his father’s house to do as he pleased!

The gentlemen as they came in made the usual diversion, arrested the talk of the ladies, and made an alteration in the groups. But Ralph kept his place among the younger men, standing in a group of them telling his bush stories, keeping up noisy peals of laughter. Somehow the carriages of Lady Witheringham and of Mrs. Kington lingered long that night—or rather, which was a sign that the evening had not been a failure so far as they were concerned, these ladies lingered and showed no inclination to go away. When the great lady got up at last she bestowed a kiss upon her palpitating hostess. “I am so much touched by your confidence in me, my dear,” she said, and actually held out her hand to Ralph with a condescending good-night. “I hope you will find your native country the best now that you have returned to it, Mr. Ravelstone,” she said. Ralph was so dumbfounded that fortunately he could only reply by a bow. But Letitia’s troubles were not over even when her outdoor guests were gone. There were still the visitors in the house, and the familiarity of the smoking-room, in which she was sure her brother would fully unveil himself. She made an attempt to draw him with her when the moment came for the candlesticks. “Come with me to my boudoir, Ralph,” she said in her kindest note. But the monster was not to be cajoled. “Oh, I think I see myself in a bou-duar as you call it when there’s a lot of jolly fellows waiting me.” Letitia caught him by the hand sharply, though without putting her nails into it as she would have liked to do—“Mary’s coming with me,” she said with the most winning notes she could bring forth. Ralph roared over her head, opening a wide cavern of a mouth in the middle of his big head. “Mary—’s an old maid,” he said. As for John Parke, he had a troubled air, and cast curious glances of mingled reproach and interrogation at his wife; but he could not leave his guests in the lurch.

By the time she had escaped from the surveillance of the stranger’s looks and had got half way up the stair, Letitia had come to have one clear purpose in her mind if no more—and that was vengeance. She said to herself that all the miseries of the evening were Mary’s fault; its alleviations, Lady Witheringham’s kindness, and her kiss of sympathy Mrs. Parke felt she had achieved for herself—but for Ralph’s appearance, unannounced, and indeed for his presence at all untimely, it was Mary that was to blame. She paused on the stairs where the passage led off to the nursery apartments where Miss Hill, when her room was appropriated as now, found a refuge, and turning sharp round gripped Mary’s hand, who was so fluttered and frightened that she made a step backward and nearly lost her balance. Letitia held her up with that grip furious and tight upon her arm—“You come with me,” she said fiercely, “I’ve got something to say to you——”

“I’d rather—hear it to-morrow,” said poor Mary.

“No, to-night,” said Letitia between her pale lips. She led her way to the boudoir, which indeed was a room sacred not to sulkiness but to many a conflict. It was where she received her housekeeper, her nurse, her husband when he was in the way, the homely dressmaker who helped Mrs. Parke’s maid with her simple dresses, and Miss Hill; these were the privileged persons who knew and had to listen to the eloquent discourses of Letitia—and they had all a sacred horror of the boudoir. She swept into it this evening with Mary following and flung herself into a chair. Her eyes, not generally bright, had little flames in them. She was pale, and panted for breath. After all her long repression it was an unspeakable relief to get to this sanctuary to give vent to herself, to heap wrath upon everybody who was to blame—

“Well, Mary Hill!” she cried with a snort of passion, turning upon her friend. The diamonds on her neck gave forth little quick gleams as they moved with the panting of her wrath as if they simulated the passion which burned in their mistress’ eyes.

“Well, Letitia,” said the mild Mary, “I see you are very angry——”

“Have I not reason to be angry? Why on earth didn’t you let me know? What motive could you have to keep it a secret? Why, for goodness sake didn’t you tell me? I never will fathom you, Mary Hill! And to think that you should have brought this upon me without a word, without making a sign——”

“I implored you to let me speak to you, Letitia. I waited on the stairs for you.”

“Implored me! Waited for me: why you should have forced me to hear. Do you think if it had been as important as that I should have been content to wait on the stairs? I’d have let any one know that minded as much as you know I’d mind. If they’d killed me I’d have let them know—and to think I’ve tried to be so kind to—oh, oh Mary Hill. To think you should have stood by and seen it all and never lifted a hand!”

“What could I do?” said poor Mary, “I wasn’t even there——”

“And why weren’t you there? There are no risks in such a case as that; you should have dressed and come to dinner and made him take you in and kept him quiet. That’s what you would have done if you had been a true friend.”

“I couldn’t have taken—such a liberty; when you had settled it all.”

“What did it matter about my settling it all. Did I know what was going to happen? And to take the advantage just then of coming when I was out of the way! But I tell you what, Mary Hill. I blame you for more than that. You never should have let him come in at all—you never would had you been a true friend.”

“Oh, Letitia, what could I do? Your own brother.”

“My own brother—such a pleasant visitor, don’t you think?—such a credit to us all—without even an evening coat—like a clown, like a blackguard, like a navvy—— Oh, my patience!” cried Letitia, whose eyes were starting from her head and who had no patience at all. “But I know why you did it,” she added after an angry pause to get breath. “Oh, I remember well enough. It’s not for nothing you’re an old maid, Mary Hill! Don’t I know that you’ve had him in your mind all the while.”

Mary, though she was so mild, was being driven beyond the power of self-restraint. She was all the more easily shaken perhaps that there was a certain truth in it. It was true that Ralph Ravelstone had never been forgotten—and that his shadow had come between her and the only marriage she had ever had it in her power to make—but not, oh, not as he appeared now.

“I think,” she said with some gentle dignity, “that it is very improper of you to say anything of the kind. If I am an old maid it’s at least by my own will, and not because I could not help it.” Mary was very mild, and yet she felt that standing upon the platform of that proposal which was the one instance past in her life of the last years, it was hard to be assailed as an old maid by one who knew her so well.

Letitia stood for a moment surprised—scarcely believing her ears. That Mary should have turned upon her! It was like the proverbial worm that sometimes at unexpected moments will turn when nobody is thinking of it. “I know as well as you do that you refused a good offer. What was it made you do it. Oh, I can see through you, though you don’t think so. I always suspected it, and now I know it. But what did you expect to gain by bringing him here. Why should he be brought here? If you had ever told me, if I had known! a man who has been ten years in the bush, a man with a hand like that, and not an evening coat! Oh Mary, you that I have always been so kind to, how could I ever have expected such a thing of you.”

Tears of rage came to the relief of Letitia’s overburdened soul. But she suddenly regained command of herself in a moment, dried her eyes and turned to the door. It was now her own part to stand on the defensive, to prepare, to give explanations and excuses. There was no mistaking the step which was approaching, the heavy step of the outraged husband, he who had never even heard of Ralph’s existence. John Parke was not a man before whom his wife was accustomed to tremble. But she did not know what John might be about to pour forth upon her now.

CHAPTER VII.

It took Letitia some time to understand; her mind was so preoccupied by the other subject that she could not distract her thoughts from it. Frogmore—Frogmore or Ralph—which was it? She tried to shake herself together and grasp the sense of the words at which she was gazing:

“Was there ever such a bore?” John continued saying. “The first time he has proposed to come. And we’ve got the house crammed, and not a corner to put him in. What am I to do?”

“Frogmore!” Letitia murmured again to herself; and John went on saying, with a monotony which is natural to many men, the same burden of regret, “The house full of men and not a corner to put him in,” as if, in some way, the repeated statement of that fact might make a change.

“I don’t know what you are thinking of,” said Letitia at length with much relief in the sense that her own brother would be forgotten in the importance of his. “Of course, Frogmore must come, and there is an end of it. I hope you answered his telegram at once.”

“How could I answer the telegram—when the house is crowded with men and we have not a——”

“Yes, yes,” she said, “we know all that. Of course, he must come. If I should have to give him my own room; of course, he must come. There are so many things I want done. It would be tempting Providence to refuse Frogmore. I want a new nursery, and a cottage for the gardener, and I don’t know how many things. You had better write a telegram, and give it to Saunders to be sent the first thing in the morning.”

“But, Letitia, when you know the house is crowded, and there is not a——”

“Oh, don’t bother me,” said Letitia, “as if I had not enough without that! It is not a corner that will do for Frogmore. He must have, of course, the best room in the house. For goodness sake, John, go back to your men in the smoking-room, and tell them you have a very bad account of the covers, and that there are no birds to speak of. Say you’re dreadfully sorry, and that you find you’ve asked them on false pretences.”

“But——” said John. “Why Letitia! I have heard nothing of the kind.”

“I have, then,” she said. “They didn’t like to tell you—scarcely a bird. Those sort of accidents will happen. Go and tell them. Say you don’t know what to make of it.”

“I don’t, indeed,” said John; “I can’t understand it. Martin never said a word to me on the subject. That’s bad news, indeed. The men will think—I don’t know what they will think.” He turned to go away, looking more gloomy than ever; but when he got to the door of the boudoir turned round for a moment. “That brother of yours,” he said, “is a very queer fish.”

“Ralph! Oh, goodness gracious, do you think it’s necessary to tell me that?”

“He’s a very queer fish,” said John, with a laugh. “Those fellows are drawing him out. He is telling them all kinds of bush stories. I don’t believe half of them are true. Why did you never tell me you had a brother in the bush.”

“I thought he was dead,” she said. “I wish he had been dead before he came here. If I had only been at home it never would have happened. What’s the good of you, a man, if you can’t turn a fellow like that out of the house?”

John turned round upon her with amazement. “My wife’s brother!” he said.

“I don’t want to think of him as my brother. For goodness sake if you want me to have any peace turn him out of the house.”

“Letitia,” said John, “in most things you have your own way, and if you like to do a nasty thing yourself I never interfere; but as for turning your brother out of my house——”

“I’m ready to give up even my own comfort to your brother,” she said.

John stood for a moment feeling that there was something strained in the parallel—but not quite clever enough to perceive what it was. “Oh, as for that!” he said vaguely. Then he gave it up, the puzzle being too much for him. “And so would I,” he said, “do a great deal to please you, Letitia—but I can’t turn a man out of my house. If you have nothing more to say than that, I’ll go and tell those fellows about the birds.”

Letitia sat clenching her hands to keep in her wrath until he had closed the door, and his heavy foot sounded remote and far off as he went down the stairs. She then turned to Mary, who had made several attempts to go away, but had been retained by a gesture more and more imperative at every move she made. “Mary, I hope you know how much you owe me,” she said.

“You have been very—kind, Letitia—” said Mary faltering.

“You’ve been no expense to your father and mother for a whole year, not even for dress—you know there’s not many friends would do that.”

Mary hung her head and made no reply. She had not the courage to say that she had done something in return—scarcely even to think so, being very humble-minded—and yet—It was not generous to remind her so often of what was done for her, and the gratitude thus called for would not form itself into words.

“Well, now, you must do something for me. You must get Ralph out of this house.”

“I!” said Mary, in dismay.

“Yes, you. He came for you. Don’t deny it, for I am sure of it. What else would have brought him here? He and I were never friends. He knew I wouldn’t have him at any price, but he thought that through you, as you were always his sweetheart——”

“I never was anything to Ralph—never! He went away without so much as saying good-bye,” Mary said, with indignation.

“That proves exactly what I say. If he had been nothing to you you would not have remembered that he went away without saying good-bye—you needn’t try to deceive me, Mary. Now, you must get him out of this house.”

“Oh, Tisch!” said Mary, in forgetfulness of all injunctions. Their youth together and all its incidents came rushing back upon her mind. “Oh,” she said, “if you will remember, mother was kind to you then. Oh, don’t you remember how often you were all at the vicarage then? Oh, Letitia, I beg your pardon, I didn’t mean to say that, but don’t—don’t be so hard upon me now!”

Letitia rose up with her eyes and her diamonds sending forth kindred gleams. “Do you dare to compare your mother’s kindness with mine,” she said. “What was it?—a bit of cake to a child—and I’ve taken all your expenses off them for a whole year. Where did you get that dress you are wearing, Mary Hill? Who is it that keeps a roof over your head and a fire in your room, and everything as comfortable as if you were a duke’s daughter? Your mother kind to me? I wonder you dare to look me in the face.”

But, indeed, poor Mary did not look her in the face. She had put down her head in her hands, beaten by this storm. Though it was but the most timid reprisals, Mary felt that it was ungenerous to speak of her mother’s kindness—and, after all, was not Letitia right? for there never had been much in the vicarage to give. And it was true about the dress—it was that dyed silk which Mrs. Parke had given her, a silk richer than anything poor Mary would have bought for herself. It was true, also, about the fire in the bedroom, which was a luxury impossible in the vicarage. It might not be generous to remind her of these things, but still it was true.

Letitia drew an angry breath of relief. She sat down again with the satisfaction of one who has achieved a logical triumph and silenced an adversary. “Look here,” she said. “I don’t think anything can be done to-night. We must just leave it. He’s done as much harm as he can. But if Lord Frogmore were to come to-morrow and find Ralph I should die. That is all about it. I should just die, rather than let that horrid old man see my brother in a velveteen coat, like a gamekeeper, and with the manners of a groom, I’d—— take chloral, or something. Now you know! I can’t bear it, and I won’t bear it. The Parkes were never very nice to me. And that old man as good as said—No, I will not bear it, Mary Hill. If he comes before Ralph is gone I shall be found dead in my bed, and you will be answerable, for without you he never could have got admission here.”

“Oh, Letitia! don’t say such dreadful things,” cried Mary, raising a horror-stricken face.

“No, I shall not say them, but I shall do them,” said Mrs. Parke. She was like one who has given a final decision, as she gathered up in her hands the train of her heavy velvet dress. “Good-night,” she said; “I may never say it again.”

“Letitia!” Mary’s horror and trouble could find no words.

“I can’t think—that you’d kiss me like Judas—and mean to kill me all the same,” said the possible martyr, withdrawing within the curtains which screened the door of her bedchamber. She heard the still more horror-stricken tone of Mary’s protest. “Oh, Letitia!” as she disappeared. Mrs. Parke was not afraid of a bold simile. She dropped her excitement as she dropped her velvet skirt, as soon as the door had closed upon her, and submitted herself to the hands of her maid with much calm. She had not the least doubt that Mary would lie awake all night, trembling over that threat, and that in the morning, by some means or other, her commands would be done.

Mary fulfilled these prognostications to the letter. She never closed her eyes all night, but pictured to herself all the horrors of suicide; the discovery of what had happened, the guilt of which she would never feel herself free all her life. She said to herself, indeed, a hundred times that people who threaten such dreadful acts never perform them, but then reflected that many people had taken comfort from such a thought and then found themselves confronted by a horrible fact contradicting everything. It might be folly for a hundred times, yet if once it should come true! Mary, who had never seen old Lord Frogmore, figured to herself a sneering dreadful old man, whose satirical looks would be enough to make life intolerable. She had read of such men in books, and specially of the relations of the husband who would pursue with rancour or contempt a wife whom they did not approve. She went over it so often in her waking dreams that she seemed to see the dreadful old cynic whose very glance would be like a sharp arrow. Poor Letitia! It was bad enough to have a brother like Ralph without exhibiting him at his very worst to the old lord. Though the sight of the man, who had once been her hero, in his fallen state was dreadful to poor Mary, it became more and more plain to her that she must see him; that she must even ask him to see her, and execute Letitia’s will and clear this obstacle out of her friend’s path even if she herself were to die of it, as Letitia threatened she would. Mary’s heart jumped up in her throat and beat like a fluttering bird as if it would escape altogether from her bosom at the thought. How was she to speak to him, to argue with him, to persuade him? What words could she find to bid him leave his sister’s house and never show himself there again. Poor Ralph! Her tender heart pitied him too—he was a terrible apparition, shaming the past, a scare and horror in the present, but what could be so dreadful for a man coming back after so many years as to be disowned and turned away by his nearest relations—to be forbidden his sister’s house? Mary thought, but with a thrill of horror, what she would have done had he been her own brother, or if Will or Harry should come back like that. What misery would be so dreadful, what misfortune so terrible! But Mary knew well that she would never turn her back upon “the boys” whatever happened. The worse things were, they would have the more need of her. She would stand up for them, cover their faults, invent virtues for them if they had not any, make everybody but herself believe that they were guiltless. Oh! nobody should say a word against those who were dear to her—no one! Not husband nor husband’s kin—no one, not even if it was the Queen herself. Mary said this to herself with a burst of generous indignation—and then her heart sank down, down into the depths, thinking of Letitia’s threat, of Letitia perhaps possibly—if it were only possible that was bad enough—doing what she said! And the horror in the morning; the little children weeping, John Parke confounded, not knowing what to think, looking dully at the bed.

Mary got up in the horror of this thought in the dusk of the October morning, before daylight. She heard with a tremor that Mrs. Parke was not very well, was not coming downstairs, but was consoled by the sight of the plentiful breakfast which was being carried up to Letitia. Her maid would not have carried up a breakfast like that if there had been anything wrong; and besides nothing would have gone wrong so far, for there had been no time as yet for sending Ralph away. The dreadful thing was that he did not appear to breakfast any more than his sister. Mary, as she sat behind the tea urn, heard the gentlemen laughing over the previous night. They were sure the bushman would not come up to the scratch this morning they said. If he appeared in time for lunch that would be all that could be looked for. Mary, listening with an anxiety which she could scarcely conceal, soon discovered that one at least of the guests was going away, called as he said by sudden business. If Ralph did not come down till luncheon what should she do? Lord Frogmore might come early, he might meet the prodigal brother—and then! Mary trembled from head to foot. She said to herself that it was folly, that nothing would happen, that Letitia was not that kind—and then she said to herself who could tell, who knows what might happen? By dint of thinking one thing and another her brain was in a whirl. What was she to do?

Sometimes it happens that by dint of mere terror a coward will do a more daring thing than the bravest person would undertake in command of his faculties. Mary ended by sending to Ralph, while he was still sleeping off the whisky of the smoking-room, a note with these words——

“Dear Ralph,—I must speak to you. Come to me for God’s sake in the garden by the sundial at twelve o’clock. It may be a matter of life and death.”

She sent this up after breakfast, and for a little while Mary was more calm. At least she would do what she could for Letitia. For herself and for what he might think of her, or how he might pronounce on her summons, she thought nothing at all.

CHAPTER VIII.

It was a dull morning, one of those grey days which sometimes come in autumn, when all the winds are still, when the changed and ruddy foliage hangs like a sort of illumination against the colorless atmosphere, and the air is soft and warm, though without sunshine. There had been a great deal of stir in the house in the morning. Two of the visitors had gone hastily away, summoned by urgent business which coincided strangely with the despairing account of the covers which John, prompted by Letitia, had carried to the smoking room on the previous night. These gentlemen had been driven from the door, one in the dogcart, one in Letitia’s own brougham, and the going away had caused a little bustle and commotion. The others had gone out late to the discredited covers, not expecting much sport. But by noon all was quiet about the house, where, as yet, Mrs. Parke was not visible, nor yet the unwelcome visitor who occupied Mary’s room, making her wonder, with a sense of disgust, whether she ever could go into it again. She went to the sundial with great perturbation and excitement, just as the stable clock was preparing, with a loud note of warning, which made a great sound in the still air, to strike twelve. The sundial was at some little distance from the house, in a little dell on the outer edge of the gardens, surrounded by blooming shrubs on one side and on the other by some of the large trees of the little park—a very small one, but made the most of—which surrounded the house. It was fully open to the gray still light in which there were no shadows, and a little damp with the autumnal mists. Mary wondered at herself for having given this rendezvous when she came to think of it. She might just as well have asked Ralph to meet her in the drawing-room or the library, where at this time of the day there was nobody. There were, indeed, two lady visitors in the house, but the morning room was their usual haunt; and she now reflected that she was much more likely to be seen by them in this opening, which was swept from end to end by the full daylight, than in any room in the house. She asked herself whether it was some romantic association—some thought of what people did in novels—which had made her suggest a meeting out of doors. How ridiculous it was! How much more likely to be remarked! But it was too late to think of this. She wandered through the garden, gathering a few late blossoms from the geraniums, which were just about to be taken up for the winter, and a handful of the straggling long stalks of mignonnette, which had a kind of melancholy sweetness in which there was a touch of frost and decay. Mary could never in all her life after endure the scent of mignonnette.

She saw him after awhile coming, directed by the footman, whom he had evidently asked the way without any veiling of intention, rather—as she suddenly perceived to be quite natural, and the thing she ought to have expected—with an ostentatious disclosure of what he wanted. She could almost imagine him saying that he had an appointment with a lady. The shock which had been produced in Mary’s mind by the sudden destruction of her youthful ideal in the person of this (as she now thought) dreadful man made her perhaps unjust to Ralph. He came towards the sundial, however, in the full revelation of the grey light with a smile of self-satisfaction on his face which strengthened the supposition. He had a habitual lurch in his walk, and his large, broad figure was made all the broader and more loose and large in the light suit of large checks which he wore. He had a flaming red necktie to accentuate the redness of his broad face. Mary felt with a shudder that there was reason in Letitia’s horror. To let this man be seen by a fastidious, aristocratic, cynical old gentleman, natural critic and antagonist of his brother’s wife—oh, no!—she understood Letitia now. If Will or Harry should come home like that! But the idea was too horrible to be entertained for a moment. Ralph came up to the sundial. She had hidden herself behind a clump of lilac bushes to watch him, with that smirk upon his face and a swing and swagger of conquest about him. He leant upon it, arranging himself in a triumphant pose to wait. Then he began to whistle, then he called “Hi!” and “Here!” under his breath. After a minute he became impatient and whistled more loudly, and detaching himself from the sundial looked round. “Hi, Mary!” he cried. “Hallo, my lass!” He caught sight at last of her dark dress among the lilacs, and turned round with a loud snap of his fingers. “Oh, there you are!” he cried, “and by Jove right you are, Mary, my girl. It’s too open here.”

He strolled across the grass towards her with a swing and a lurch of his great person more triumphant than ever. “Right you are,” he said, with a laugh. “It’s a deal too open. I like your sense, Mary, my dear.”

Mary hurried forward, feeling herself crimson with shame, and met him in the middle of the glade. “It can’t be too open for what I have to say to you,” she said; then added most inconsiderately, “We had surely better go back to the house. We shall be less remarked there.”

“I don’t think you know what you mean,” he said, thrusting his arm through hers, and holding it as though to lean upon her. “That’s a woman all over. Gives you a meeting and then’s frightened to keep it. I’ve been a rover, I don’t deny it, and I know their ways. You like me all the better now, don’t you, for knowing all your little ways?”

He held her arm, drawing her close to him, and bending over her, surrounding the prim and gentle Mary, fastidious old maid as she was, with that atmosphere of stale tobacco and half-exhausted spirits which breathes from some men. He reminded her of the sensations she had experienced in passing the village public-house, but she was not passing it, she was involved in it now, surrounded by its sickening breath. Every kind of humiliation and horror was in that contact to Mary. She tried in vain to draw herself out of his hold.

“Ralph, oh, please let me go. I have got a message for you. That was why I asked you to come here.”

He laughed and leaned over her more than ever, disgusting more than words could say this shrinking woman, whom he believed in his heart he was treating as women love best to be treated. “Come, now,” he said, “Mary, my love, don’t go on pretending: as if I wasn’t up to all these dodges. Say honest you wanted a word with your old sweetheart without Tisch spying on you with them sharp eyes of hers. And how she’s gone off. She’s as ugly as a toad—and stuck up! I daresay she’d think her brother was demeaning himself to the governess—eh? You’re the governess, ain’t you?” Mr. Ravelstone said.

“I am not the governess; and if either you or she think I would demean myself——” Mary’s habitual gentleness made her all the more fiery and impassioned now—the fierceness of a dove. She disengaged herself from his hold with the vehemence of her sudden movement. She stood panting beyond his reach and addressed him. “Don’t come a step nearer! I have a message to you from Tisch. Can’t you see, if you have any sense at all, that she cannot want you here?”

He gave her a strange and angry look. “What do you mean? Tisch—my own sister: you’ve gone out of your mind, Mary Hill.”

“It is you that have gone out of your mind. Look at her house, and the way she lives. Look at her husband, a gentleman. Mr. Parke may be stupid, but he is a gentleman. Didn’t you understand last night how she was feeling? What has a man like you to do here? Why, at Grocombe—even at Grocombe they would feel it; and fancy what it must be here.”

“What would they feel at Grocombe?” said Ralph, growing doubly red, and looking at her with a threatening air.

Mary paused. To hurt anyone was impossible to her—she could not do it. She looked at him; at the droop of his features, from which the jaunty air of complacence had gone, and at his debasement and deterioration, which were so evident in her eyes, not to be mistaken; and her courage failed her. “Oh! Ralph,” she said, “there is a difference. It’s not only money, or the want of money. You know there is a difference. She wants you to go away.”

“Who wants me to go away?”

His countenance grew darker and darker. He looked at her as if he would have struck her. It was she—his old playfellow—who was thus humiliating him to the earth.

Mary grew more and more compunctious. “It is her way of looking at things,” she said, faltering. “She is not like you, or me. She thinks so much of what people say. You came to dinner,” said Mary, suddenly, thinking of something that might break the blow, “in your velveteen coat.”

An air of relief came over Ralph’s face. He laughed loudly, yet with evident ease. “So that’s what it is!” he said. “You’re ashamed of my clo’es, you two young women. Well, I must say women are the meanest beggars I ever saw, and I’ve met all sorts. Ashamed of my clo’es!”

Mary was relieved beyond measure that he should so take it. She drew a long breath. “It’s so much thought of in this kind of a house,” she said; “and they are expecting Lord Frogmore. Oh, Ralph, don’t take it amiss. Letitia is not very strong. She has, perhaps, been spoilt a little, always getting her own way; and she has no room to give her brother-in-law. They get everything from him,” she added, hurriedly. “He is so rich: oh! Ralph, how can I say it. I would not for the world hurt your feelings. She wants you to go—while Lord Frogmore is here.”

“She has no room to give her brother-in-law, and she prefers my room to my company, eh?” he said, with a harsh laugh. “I’m not good enough to meet that old fogey in my velvet coat. Why I thought velvet was all the fashion. They said so in the papers, Mary.”

“Not in the evening, Ralph,” said Mary, with a sense of duplicity which made her turn away her face.

“Not in the evening, eh? I suppose this fellow must have swallow-tails? Well, it’s a poor thing to snub your brother for, ain’t it, Mary? You wouldn’t do that to a brother of yours.”

“I don’t think I should, Ralph; but then Letitia has married into a—grand family, and she has her husband’s people to think of.”

“By George!” he cried, “her husband’s people! and me her own brother!” Mary could not refrain from one glance of sympathy—which he caught in the momentary raising of her eyes, and which was so kind yet timid that he burst into a sudden laugh.

“Mary,” he said, endeavoring again to put his arm through hers—“You’ve never got a husband, my lass. Tell me how it is: for you were always a great deal prettier than Tisch, with nice little ways.”

“Don’t, Ralph—I prefer to walk alone, if you please.”

“You’re afraid to be seen, you little goose!” he said. “I know your dodges. Come, tell us how it was. If there was one lass in Grocombe that was sure to get a husband I should have said it was you. Come, Mary, tell! I think I know the reason why.”

Mary looked at him with a little air which she intended to check impertinence, but which had no effect on Ralph. “I should think it was enough—that I preferred to stay as I am—without any other reason,” she said.

“Oh, tell that to——anyone that will believe it,” cried Ralph. “I know women a little better than that. I’ll tell you what it was, and deny it, Mary, if you can. You are waiting for an old sweetheart to come home. Ah, now, I’ve made you jump. That’s your little secret. As if I didn’t know it the moment I set eyes on you, my dear.”

“You are quite, quite wrong—whatever you mean—and I don’t know what you mean,” said Mary, very angry. It was not true: and yet yesterday, before he had shown himself, there was just so much possibility in the supposition that it might have been true.

He laughed in his triumph over her, and sense of manly superiority, the sweetheart for whom she had waited, but who had no immediate intention of rewarding her for her constancy.

“We haven’t a chance you know,” he said, “my dear, for being as faithful as that: for you see a man has women after him wherever he goes. Oh, I’ve been a rover, Mary, I’ll not deny it. A fellow like me can’t help himself. I’ve never married, and you may think if you like it is because I hadn’t forgotten you; but I’ve had plenty more ready to fling themselves at my head: so you mustn’t be surprised if I can’t make up my mind to buy the ring all at once.”

“Will you tell me your answer for Letitia?” cried Mary, with a crimson countenance, looking him as steadily as she could in the face.

“An answer for Tisch—bother Tisch! if you want an answer for yourself, my dear——”

“Will you leave Greenpark to-day?” cried Mary, with lamblike fury. “Will you go away directly—this moment? I’ll go and tell the footman to put up your things for you, Mr. Ravelstone. Mrs. Parke wishes you to go—directly. Do you hear what I say?”

“Why, then, what a little hussy you are—as bad as Tisch herself. And what have I done? You could not expect me to have the ring in my pocket——”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Mary, “if she does kill herself or if they all kill themselves. I will not stand to be insulted one moment longer. Stay if you please in a place where they hate you and scorn you, and will not speak a word to you. Oh, stay if you please and shame them! But you can’t shame me, for I have nothing to do with you; only I hope I shall never see you or hear your horrid name again.”

She turned from him and fled across the grass and along the garden paths with the swiftness of a girl of sixteen and with an energy of scorn which the most complacent of men could not have mistaken. Ralph Ravelstone stood looking after her with a face full of amazement. He did not understand it. A woman of Mary’s age is supposed by men of his class to be very open to any overture and not too fastidious as to the terms of it. Besides he had meant to be an amiable conqueror; not to be disrespectful at all. He turned slowly after her with his countenance a great deal longer than when he had first approached. The reality of this repulse struck him more than anything she could have said. He was in his way an homme à bonnes fortunes, not used to be repulsed by the kind of women he had known. Mary was something different, something finer, though she was only an old maid. His self-confidence was not very deep, and in the bottom of his heart perhaps he suspected that he was not the most creditable of suitors or of brothers. He stood pulling his big beard and looking after the hurrying figure which never slackened pace nor looked back till it had disappeared into the house. And then he walked slowly after, with certain words coming back to his ears. “Stay in a place where they hate you and scorn you!” He remembered how his sister had jumped out of his arms, how she had looked at him with staring eyes. “By Jove!” he said to himself, quickening his pace, and strode into the house and rang the bell in his room (he was not much accustomed to bells) till he pulled it down, filling the house with the furious tinkling, and bringing the footman and a stray housemaid from different corners of the house, stumbling up the unaccustomed stairs—for Mary’s room was in a remote corner of the house, and Miss Hill’s bell did not ring three times in a year.