it was in the course of the afternoon of the second day after the departure of mrs. clare that lady pell, accompanied by miss ethel thursby, arrived at withington chase (her maid, in company with the luggage, would follow later on). they had been driven over from the shrublands in mrs. forester's landau. sir gilbert was waiting in the entrance-hall to receive them. as lady pell advanced he went forward with outstretched hand.
"welcome, louisa, thrice welcome to the chase!" he said in his most cordial tones. "it is indeed an immense pleasure to me to see you again after so long a time." with that he drew her closer, and stooping a little--for tall though her ladyship was, he was considerably the taller of the two--imprinted a cousinly salute on her cheek, which might once have been round, but was so no longer.
sir gilbert had never kissed her but once previously, when she was a girl of eighteen, and only a few hours before her mother's illness had summoned her away at a moment's notice. it was a kiss which had given birth in her heart to many delicious hopes, never destined to be fulfilled, and it still lived in her memory like the faint vague fragrance exhaled from a pot-pourri. but to-day her cousin's second kiss, so wholly unexpected, recalled in all its pain and all its sweetness that incident of long ago. for a moment or two her heart throbbed so that she could not speak. then, with a little shiver, she came back to the present.
"it is very kind of you, cousin, to say such pretty things to me," she replied, with a curious little tremor in her voice and a dim wistful smile. then, more composedly: "but, indeed, i must ask you to believe me, when i assure you that i am as pleased to find myself again at the dear old chase as you can possibly be to see me here. and now you must allow me to introduce to you miss ethel thursby, a very dear young friend of mine, who is good enough to keep an old woman company, and put up with her vagaries while her regular companion is incapacitated by illness." then turning to ethel: "child, this is my kinsman, sir gilbert clare, of whom you have many times heard me speak."
"it is a happiness to me to welcome miss thursby under my roof, not merely for my cousin's sake, but also for her own," said the baronet, with simple old-fashioned courtesy as he took ethel's timidly offered hand in his. next moment a thrill went through him from head to foot, which even extended to his fingertips and was perceptible to ethel, while a strangely startled look leapt into his eyes. it was as if a ghost from out the dead past had suddenly confronted him. then he passed his hand across his eyes as if to sweep away the vision, murmuring under his breath as he did so: "no--no; i must indeed be getting into my dotage even to imagine such a thing."
he turned away with a stifled sigh. lady pell had observed nothing. she was gazing round the old entrance-hall, all the features of which had that half-strange, half-familiar air which inanimate things have a way of putting on when we have not seen them for a long time, more particularly when they happen to have formed the framework of some unforgettable episode in our private history.
presently mrs. burton, the housekeeper, conducted the ladies to their rooms, and nothing more was seen of them till after the second dinner gong had sounded. it may be here recorded that when ethel accompanied lady pell on her visit to withington chase, she was wholly unaware that everard lisle was living within half a mile of it, and that there was rarely more than one day out of the seven on which he did not spend some hours there. if the place had ever been mentioned in her hearing as that where everard was now located, it had escaped her memory--which by no means implies that everard himself was forgotten.
to-day, however, lisle had not been asked to dine at the chase, for one reason, because mr. kinaby, the steward, whose health had improved during the last few days, was desirous of his help in going through certain accounts and other matters connected with his stewardship.
on entering the drawing-room the two ladies found both the baronet and luigi there.
"louisa," said sir gilbert, "allow me to introduce to you my grandson, lewis clare, the only son of my late eldest son, john alexander clare, whom i think you met once or twice when he was a youth. lewis--my cousin, lady pell." then, a few seconds later, when her ladyship and the young man had shaken hands: "miss thursby--my grandson."
the young people contented themselves with a simple bow, after which they each drew back a little way. then said sir gilbert aside to her ladyship: "of course you have heard that only quite recently was i made aware of the existence of my grandson."
"it would have been impossible for me not to have heard of it. it is the talk of the county--in everybody's mouth."
"and more than one pretty version of the affair has got into circulation, i do not doubt. some people have more imagination than they are aware of. give them but the merest thread of fact, and they will weave out of it a tissue of romance which does credit to their inventive powers, if to nothing else."
"but is not that your own fault in some measure? the central fact of the affair, that you had found your long-lost grandson and had installed him at the chase, was one which you had evidently no wish to conceal, even had it been in your power to do so. why, then---- but, really, i have no right to question you in the matter."
"don't say that. why, then, you were about to add, throw any cloak of concealment round the subordinate facts of the case? i will tell you why, my dear louisa. simply because, although i have chosen to acknowledge my grandson and to instal him in that position which the world--very mistakenly--regards as his by inalienable right, it by no means follows that there are not circumstances connected with the antecedents and personal history both of himself and his mother which i have no intention, if i can anyhow avoid it, of allowing to become public property. you, however, are in an altogether different position; from you i desire to have no concealments in the affair, and after dinner i will tell you all there is to tell."
it was with a curious mixture of sulkiness and gratification that luigi took miss thursby in to dinner. his sulkiness arose from the fact that in the company of this beautiful girl he felt strangely bashful and out of his element; for once he was possessed by a vivid consciousness of being the very inferior creature that he really was, and it was one of those unsought conclusions which we prefer not to have forced upon us. his gratification arose from the fact that for the first time in his life he found himself in a position to treat a being in every other way so much above him, not merely as his social equal but as his inferior; for one of the parlour-maids who was deeply smitten with luigi's good looks, and acted as a sort of house spy for him, had already whispered in his ear that the extremely pretty girl whom lady pell had brought with her was nothing more than her ladyship's companion.
only a paid companion, and, as such, one who ought to feel herself honoured by whatever attentions the grandson of sir gilbert clare might choose to pay her (for by this time luigi had got into the way of taking himself and his position quite seriously), and yet, try as he might, he could not feel himself at home in her company. he felt altogether different when in the society of miss jennings, the barmaid at the king's head, who, in her way, was a very pretty girl, and also a good girl. when with miss j., as she was generally called by the young men of the billiard-room, he never felt in the slightest degree bashful, or ill at ease, and certainly never at a loss for words. why, they two would go on "chaffing" each other for half an hour at a stretch when miss j. happened to be in the humour and to have no other customers to claim her attention. and yet for all that, although he could not have told himself why, in his secret heart he did not wish miss thursby to be a bit different from what she was, for she was a revelation to him.
what on earth was he to talk to her about? he asked himself. his grandfather and lady pell were immersed in their recollections, and to go on sitting by miss thursby like a dummy was fast becoming intolerable. evidently he must make a plunge of some kind.
"i suppose--er--that you and lady pell have knocked about a good deal together," at length he ventured to observe. then seeing ethel's look of surprise, he added hastily: "i mean that you have been great travellers, you know. i heard her ladyship say just now that something--er--put her in mind of--of something else she had seen abroad."
"i have only had the pleasure of knowing lady pell for about a couple of months," answered ethel. "i believe she has been a considerable traveller in her time; indeed, she was to have gone to france this autumn had not sickness broken out in the house of the friend whom she was about to visit." it was a relief to luigi to find that miss thursby was not a travelled person, as, in that case, she might have chosen to talk about things of which he knew next to nothing, and so have made his ignorance more patent than was desirable.
"i suppose, now, that you are pretty well acquainted with london," was his next remark. he was beginning to feel more at his ease.
ethel shook her head. "my knowledge of london is very limited indeed. i spent a fortnight there once with my aunts, but that is the only time i have been there. i was brought up in a small provincial town, and know very little of the world beyond its narrow limits."
"i hope lady pell intends making a long stay at the chase," he presently ventured to remark, "as, in that case, we shall also have the pleasure of your society, miss thursby. it's precious dull here, i can tell you. my grandfather goes nowhere, and only by rare chance does a visitor find his way to the chase. of course one can get through the day pretty well, but the evenings are awful. most nights grandad has his secretary fellow to play chess, or backgammon with him, and there's poor me left without a soul to talk to. it's something cruel, i can assure you."
there was quite a pathetic note in luigi's voice as he spoke the last words. having once begun to touch on the subject of his own imaginary grievances, he could be fluent enough.
"but no doubt you have resources within yourself, mr. clare, sufficient to cause the time not to hang too heavily on your hands. books and music, for instance, and--and probably other things."
"i don't know so much about that, miss thursby. i'm not much of a reading man, not built that way, don't you know. and one can't be everlastingly jingling by oneself on the piano; besides, sir gilbert wouldn't stand it when he's deep in a game of chess. no; what i do is to get through an awful amount of yawning, mixed with a little bit of drawing, for which--the drawing, not the yawning--there are people who say i have something of a gift. all the same it's inf--uncommonly slow work, miss thursby, i give you my word."
"is it asking too much to be allowed to see your drawings, mr. clare?" queried ethel. "not that i have the slightest pretension to set myself up as a critic," she made haste to add, "being all but destitute of technical knowledge, and only able to appreciate a work of art of any kind in so far as it satisfies my conceptions of the beautiful, or appeals to my sense of humour, or pathos, or teaches me something which i feel it is good for me that i should know."
luigi felt that the conversation was getting a little beyond him, so he contented himself with saying: "oh, my sketches are quite at your service, you know; but i give you my word that you will find them awful rubbish."
after dinner, the evening was so sunny and pleasant, that sir gilbert caused a couple of lounging chairs to be placed on the terrace, where he and lady pell stationed themselves, ostensibly to watch the sunset, but in reality that they might enjoy a tête-à-tête without any risk of being overheard by the young people. at dinner their talk had mostly concerned itself with reminiscences of people whom they had known when they were forty years younger.
meanwhile, ethel, with luigi standing by her, his hands deep in his pockets, was going through the latter's portfolio of drawings.
"and now," said lady pell presently, settling herself in her chair with a comfortable conviction that she was about to listen to a most interesting recital, "and now, cousin gilbert, for your chapter of family romance. i confess that i am dying to hear the genuine version of the affair."
for a couple of minutes or so sir gilbert lay back with closed eyes, as if endeavouring to concentrate his thoughts on the task he had set himself to go through with. then, in a low voice, slowly and hesitatingly at first, he began to tell that story with which the reader is already familiar. with some of its earlier incidents lady pell was acquainted; for instance, she knew that alec clare had left home in consequence of having quarrelled with his father about money matters, that, later on, he had settled in the united states, and there, some few years afterwards, had come to an untimely end. but the rest of sir gilbert's narrative, from the incident of the cutting off of the entail to his daughter-in-law's presentation of herself at the chase, and his ultimate acknowledgment of his grandson, had for lady pell all the charm of novelty. she knew how much sir gilbert disliked being interrupted, and she listened to him in silence, but she causedand three minutes him to feel that it was the silence of one who was deeply interested in all he had to tell her. neither was she in a hurry to speak when at length he had come to an end.
her first words were: "thank you, cousin gilbert." then, after a momentary pause: "i appreciate to the full the confidence you have seen fit to repose in me, and i need scarcely tell you it will be as sacred with me as if it had been poured into the ear of a father confessor. certainly your narrative is a most extraordinary one; but one has only to read 'the romance of the peerage' to discover that still stranger things, and all duly authenticated, are associated with the private histories of some of our oldest families. still, with all due deference, i must say that in this italian-looking grandson of yours, i am unable to find a single trait which helps to recall his father to my memory, if, indeed, poor alec was his father."
sir gilbert gave vent to a little angry snort.
"do you mean to imply, louisa, that----"
lady pell laid a hand on his sleeve.
"i mean to imply nothing. i only hope that you sifted the evidence most thoroughly before bringing yourself to accept this young man as your dead son's offspring."
"what do you take me for, louisa? there was no flaw in the evidence--none whatever."
lady pell tapped her teeth with her fan. "do you know, gilbert," she said, "that i felt quite grieved when one day in the times obituary i came across a notice of the death of mr. page, your old adviser, whom i remember quite well. what a pity it is he did not live a few years longer."
the old man's shaggy brows came together for a moment, but that was the only notice he took.
"and this daughter-in-law of yours has gone back to italy," continued her ladyship presently. "i should very much like to have seen her."
"you have only to extend your visit at the chase in order to do so. i presume that mrs. clare will not be gone more than a month at the most."
lady pell shook her head. "i am only awaiting a letter from madame de bellecour in order to----"
at this juncture luigi stepped out through the long window, and crossing to his grandfather, said: "have you any objection, sir, to miss thursby playing the piano? if it will annoy you in the slightest degree, of course----"
"not at all--not at all," broke in sir gilbert a little brusquely. "let her play by all means. why should it annoy me, eh?"
"not a bit like poor alec--not one little bit," remarked lady pell as if to herself; but, for a man of his years, sir gilbert's hearing was extraordinarily keen, and her words reached him.
his first impulse was to indulge in a little explosion, his second was to think better of it. after all, his cousin was merely enunciating a truth of which no one could be more unpleasantly conscious than he was; still, it is not always agreeable to have truths which we cannot deny, but would fain ignore, stated thus bluntly by another.
"and is it the boy's fault, louisa, that he resembles in no way his father?" asked sir gilbert presently, but without any trace of irritability. "which of us can help our looks?"
lady pell felt a touch of compunction. without intending it, she had pricked her kinsman in a sore place. "of course the young man is in no way to blame," she replied, "and it would be nonsense to impute any such meaning to my words. i could not help saying what i did because for hundreds of years back there has not been a clare in the direct line whose features did not bear the unmistakable clare stamp. if you dispute what i say, your own portrait gallery will suffice to convince you that i am right. but, as you are well aware, you can't dispute my dictum. why, as far as features and expression go, you yourself are as like the maurice clare who fell at marston moor as one pea is like another. still, as you justly observe, your grandson can in no way be held answerable for the misfortune of his looks, and if in other respects he fulfils your expectations, there's not a word more to be said."
there was a little space of silence; then, with a half sigh, sir gilbert said: "between you and me, louisa, that is just where the shoe pinches. unfortunately, lewis does not fulfil my expectations--far from it. but then, as i sometimes put it to myself, considering the way he was brought up, am i not asking more of him than i have any right to expect?"
"that certainly is a point of view which should not be lost sight of," responded her ladyship. "but what is it in particular that you complain of in him?"
"oh, i am not complaining--nothing of the kind. i should not feel myself justified in doing so. it is simply that i am disappointed." then placing a hand lightly on her arm, he added: "my great fear is that i shall never succeed in making a gentleman of him."
"that would indeed be a misfortune. he would be the first clare against whom such an allegation could be brought."
"knowing, as i did," resumed sir gilbert, "(for, as far as i am aware, his mother hid nothing from me), the defects under which he laboured as regards his education and upbringing, i determined to have them remedied as far as it might be possible to do at this late time of day. accordingly i arranged with the vicar of st. michael's, an old cambridge man, to do what he could in the way of introducing lewis to some, at least, of the great writers of antiquity. of course i knew it was too late to do much unless the boy took kindly to the vicar's teaching. i also engaged a man to give him riding lessons. well, i waited till several weeks had gone by without making any inquiry as to the progress he was making. i did not want it to seem as if i were in anyway hurrying the boy. the other day, however, i made it my business to call both on the vicar and on marsh, the livery-stable keeper. from both i heard the same story, reluctantly told, of incompetence and hopeless failure. 'he'll never look anything but a figure of fun on horseback, sir; he's no more nerve than a mouse,'--was marsh's uncompromising verdict; and from the vicar i had no better a report. 'i am grieved to say that it is simply a waste of time and money to endeavour to impart even a smattering of classical knowledge to mr. clare,' was what he had to say to me."
"that must be excessively disheartening for you," remarked her ladyship in her most sympathetic tones.
"disheartening indeed, louisa; still, all that might be overlooked and forgiven him in consideration of his bringing up, but unfortunately he seems to have contracted a number of low tastes, and to be addicted to a class of company which cannot but tend to degrade him still further. some men's weaknesses and shortcomings are accidents of their lives and are more or less curable, others seem as if they had been bred in the system and cannot be eradicated. i greatly fear that my grandson's failings belong to the latter category."
"it grieves me greatly that you should have cause to say this of one who ought to be the comfort and stay of your declining years."
"the necessity is indeed a grievous one; but it is a relief to have someone to unburden my mind to. it was not till the evening of the day before yesterday that sundry of lewis's shortcomings were brought under my notice, of which i had hitherto been purposely kept in ignorance. it appears that trant, my butler, has a nephew who is billiard marker at the king's head hotel in mapleford. the two had not seen each other for some months till they met the other day. then the young man revealed to his uncle certain facts which the latter deemed it his duty at once to lay before me. it seems that on two or three afternoons in each week, presumably when his lessons are over at the vicarage, where he generally stays for luncheon, lewis finds his way to the billiard room in question, which at that hour of the day is frequented by a number of idle and fast young men, where he poses as the grandson of sir gilbert clare, and the great man of the company, treating all who care to drink at his expense, in other words, everybody who happens to be there. nor is that all. one revelation led to another, and a little questioning on my part elicited the fact that, for some weeks past, lewis has been in the habit, after he was supposed to have retired for the night, of stealing out of the house by one of the back entrances and making his way to the saddle-room, where he and snell, a groom whom i took into my service about a year ago (for i keep a couple of horses still, although i make very little use of them), are in the habit of hobnobbing together over short pipes and whisky till long after midnight. needless to say, snell was packed off at a moment's notice, although i hold that he was by far the less blameworthy of the two."
"this is dreadful. have you spoken to your grandson?"
"not yet--not yet," answered sir gilbert a little wearily, "i have, perhaps weakly, delayed doing so. it is not merely a question of what i ought to say to him; that is a very simple matter--but of what i ought to do, in short, of what steps it behoves me to take in order to break him of his wretched propensities at once and for ever. that he will make me all sorts of fine promises i do not doubt, but can i trust his promises? i am afraid not. at the time he may fully intend to keep them, but the moment temptation comes in his way they will be powerless to restrain him. of late i have made it my business to study him. he puzzled me at first, but after trant's revelation--well, well!" he was silent and sat rubbing one hand slowly and softly within the other, a look of perplexity and distress clouding his grand old features. then after a pause he added with an unwonted quaver in his voice: "he is my grandson and i cannot cast him adrift. to do so now, to relegate him to the position from which i raised him, would merely be to put a premium on his ruin."
to this lady pell apparently found nothing to reply.
for the last few minutes, the sound of music had reached them from the drawing-room, but now came a burst of song, so clear, so sweet, so penetrating, that they both listened, spell-bound. not a word passed between them till the song had come to an end. then sir gilbert said: "i have not enjoyed anything so much for a long time. miss thursby is not only possessed of an exquisite organ, but she has been taught how to use it to the best advantage. she sings with taste, brio and expression. in her, louisa, you have evidently secured a treasure."
"she's a dear, good girl--which is far better than having an exquisite organ, as you term it--and if she were my own daughter could scarcely love her more than i do."
"the sun has set, and the evening is growing chilly; suppose we go indoors. miss thursby must sing to us again."
miss thursby was only too pleased to find that her song had afforded sir gilbert so much pleasure, and, at his request, she sang again and again, luigi standing by her meanwhile and turning over her music. a spell was upon him, under the influence of which he felt as if he scarcely knew himself. emotions and feelings were at work within him to which he had heretofore been a stranger. he caught flying gleams of something higher and better than existence had yet revealed to him. he thought of "miss j." and scorned himself for his fatuity.
outside on the terrace it was grey dusk. the long windows were still wide open. a single lamp had been lighted in the drawing-room, which shone on the two figures at the piano. in the semi-obscurity which shrouded the rest of the room, sat sir gilbert and lady pell, dim figures faintly outlined. miss thursby, at sir gilbert's request, was singing "robin adair." she had just begun the second verse when all in the room were startled by three or four piercing shrieks following quickly on each other, and evidently proceeding from someone on the terrace. ethel stopped singing on the moment and sprang to her feet, as did lady pell. sir gilbert, with surprising agility for a man of his years, made a dash for the open window, followed more leisurely by luigi. but scarcely had the baronet set foot on the terrace before a female figure almost literally stumbled into his arms. so taken aback was he that he could only splutter out: "what! what! who are you? what's amiss?"
at the sound of his voice the girl--who was none other than bessie ogden, the under-housemaid--started back as if she had been shot, and although she was shaking in every limb and the pallor of her face was discernible through the dusk, she contrived to bob a little curtsey. "oh, sir," she said, "i humbly beg your pardon. i had no idea it was you i run against, but i was so frightened that i quite lost my head."
"but what was it that frightened you?" demanded sir gilbert, who had recognised the girl, a little impatiently.
then bessie, half crying and still trembling from the shock she had undergone, contrived to tell her tale. it had been her "afternoon out," and in coming back she had taken a short cut across the terrace (which she had no business to do), and when opposite the drawing-room windows had been confronted by a tall, dark, hooded figure, which had appeared suddenly from behind a clump of evergreens, and, a few seconds later, had vanished as mysteriously as it had come.
by this time trant and mrs. burton, followed by the rest of the servants, had appeared on the scene, drawn thither by bessie's shrieks.
sir gilbert gave vent to an impatient snort. "here, mrs. burton," he said in a tone of grave displeasure, "take this idiot away and give her a good talking to. if i hear any more of this nonsense she shall be sent about her business at a moment's notice."
lady pell, ethel, and luigi were standing together just outside the window.
"it is the grey brother whom the girl believes she has seen."
"and who is the grey brother, lady pell, if i may take the liberty of asking?" queried luigi.
lady pell bit her lip. she had spoken aloud without intending to do so. "the grey brother, mr. clare, is the family spectre," she said behind her fan. "but not a word of this before your grandfather, unless you wish to have your head snapped off."
