CHAPTER L.
SHREDS AND PATCHES.
Lord Welter was now Lord Ascot. I was thinking at one time that I wouldcontinue to call him by his old title, as being the one most familiar toyou. But, on second thoughts, I prefer to call him by his real name, asI see plainly that to follow the other course would produce still worseconfusion. I only ask that you will bear his change of title in mind.The new Lady Ascot I shall continue to call Adelaide, choosing rather toincur the charge of undue familiarity with people so far above me insocial position, than to be answerable for the inevitable confusionwhich would be caused by my speaking, so often as I shall have to speak,of two Ladies Ascot, with such a vast difference between them of age andcharacter.
Colonel Whisker, a tenant of Lord Ascot's, had kindly placed his houseat the disposal of his lordship for his father's funeral. Never wasthere a more opportune act of civility, for Ranford was dismantled; andthe doors of Casterton were as firmly closed to Adelaide as the gates ofthe great mosque at Ispahan to a Christian.
Two or three days after Lord Ascot's death, it was arranged that heshould be buried at Ranford. That night the new Lord Ascot came to hiswife's dressing-room, as usual, to plot and conspire.
"Ascot," said she, "they are all asked to Casterton for the funeral. Doyou think she will ask me?"
"Oh dear no," said Lord Ascot.
"Why not?" said Adelaide. "She ought to. She is civil enough to me."
"I tell you I know she won't. He and I were speaking about it to-day."
He was looking over her shoulder into the glass, and saw her bite herlip.
"Ah," said she. "And what did he say?"
"Oh, he came up in his infernal, cold, insolent way, and said that heshould be delighted to see me at Casterton during the funeral, but LadyHainault feared that she could hardly find rooms for Lady Ascot and hermaid."
"Did you knock him down? Did you kick him? Did you take him by thethroat and knock his hateful head against the wall?" said Adelaide, asquietly as if she was saying "How d'ye do?"
"No, my dear, I didn't," said Lord Ascot. "Partly, you see, because Idid not know how Lord Saltire would take it. And remember, Adelaide, Ialways told you that it would take years, years, before people of thatsort would receive you."
"What did you say to him?"
"Well, as much as you could expect me to say. I sneered as insolently,but much more coarsely, than he could possibly sneer; and I said that Ideclined staying at any house where my wife was not received. And so webowed and parted."
Adelaide turned round and said, "That was kind and manly of you, Welter.I thank you for that, Welter."
And so they went down to Colonel Whisker's cottage for the funeral. Thecolonel probably knew quite how the land lay, for he was a man of theworld, and so he had done a very good-natured action just at the righttime. She and Lord Ascot lived for a fortnight there, in the mostcharming style; and Adelaide used to make him laugh, by describing whatit was possible the other party were doing up at the solemn oldCasterton. She used to put her nose in the air and imitate young LadyHainault to perfection. At another time she would imitate old LadyHainault and her disagreeable sayings equally well. She was very amusingthat fortnight, though never affectionate. She knew that was useless;but she tried to keep Lord Ascot in good humour with her. She had areason. She wanted to get his ear. She wanted him to confide entirely toher the exact state of affairs between Lord Saltire and himself. Herewas Lord Ascot dead, Charles Ravenshoe probably at Alyden in the middleof the cholera, and Lord Saltire's vast fortune, so to speak, goinga-begging. If he were to be clumsy now--now that the link formed by hisfather, Lord Ascot, between him and Lord Saltire was taken away--theywere ruined indeed. And he was so terribly outspoken!
And so she strained her wits, till her face grew sharp and thin, to keephim in good humour. She had a hard task at times; for there wassomething lying up in the deserted house at Ranford which made LordAscot gloomy and savage now and then, when he thought of it. I believethat the man, coarse and brutal as he was, loved his father, in his ownway, very deeply.
A night or so after the funeral, there was a dressing-room conferencebetween the two; and, as the conversation which ensued was veryimportant, I must transcribe it carefully.
When he came up to her, she was sitting with her hands folded on herlap, looking so perfectly beautiful that Lord Ascot, astonished andanxious as he was at that moment, remarked it, and felt pleased at, andproud of, her beauty. A greater fool than she might probably have methim with a look of love. She did not. She only raised her great eyes tohis, with a look of intelligent curiosity.
He drew a chair up close to her, and said--
"I am going to make your hair stand bolt up on end, Adelaide, in spiteof your bandoline."
"I don't think so," said she; but she looked startled, nevertheless.
"I am. What do you think of this?"
"This? I think that is the _Times_ newspaper. Is there anything in it?"
"Read," said he, and pointed to the list of deaths. She read.
"Drowned, while bathing in Ravenshoe Bay, Cuthbert Ravenshoe, Esq., ofRavenshoe Hall. In the faith that his forefathers bled and diedfor.--R.I.P."
"Poor fellow!" she said, quietly. "So _he's_ gone, and brother William,the groom, reigns in his stead. That is a piece of nonsense of thepriests about their dying for the faith. I never heard that any of themdid that. Also, isn't there something wrong about the grammar?"
"I can't say," said Lord Ascot. "I was at Eton, and hadn't the advantagethat you had of learning English grammar. Did you ever play the game oftrying to read the _Times_ right across, from one column to another, andsee what funny nonsense it makes?"
"No. I should think it was good fun."
"Do it now."
She did. Exactly opposite the announcement of Cuthbert's death was theadvertisement we have seen before--Lord Saltire's advertisement for themissing register.
She was attentive and eager enough now. After a time, she said, "Oho!"
Lord Ascot said, "Hey! what do you think of that, Lady Ascot?"
"I am all abroad."
"I'll see if I can fetch you home again. Petre Ravenshoe, in 1778,married a milkmaid. She remembered the duties of her position so far asto conveniently die before any of the family knew what a fool he hadmade of himself; but so far forgot them as to give birth to a boy, wholived to be one of the best shots, and one of the jolliest old cocks Iever saw--Old James, the Ravenshoe keeper. Now, my dearly belovedgrandmother Ascot is, at this present speaking, no less than eighty-sixyears old, and so, at the time of the occurrence, was a remarkablyshrewd girl of ten. It appears that Petre Ravenshoe, sneaking away hereand there with his pretty Protestant wife, out of the way of thepriests, and finding life unendurable, not having had a single chance toconfess his sins for two long years, came to the good-natured Sir CingleHeadstall, grandmamma's papa, and opened his griefs, trying to persuadehim to break the matter to that fox-hunting old Turk of a father of his,Howard. Sir Cingle was too cowardly to face the old man for a time; andbefore the pair of them could summon courage to speak, the poor youngthing died at Manger Hall, where they had been staying with theHeadstalls some months. This solved the difficulty, and nothing was saidabout the matter. Petre went home. They had heard reports about hisliving with a woman and having had a baby born. They asked very fewquestions about the child or his mother, and of course it was allforgotten conveniently, long before his marriage with my grandaunt, LadyAlicia Staunton, came on the tapis, which took place in 1782, whengrandma was fourteen years of age. Now grandma had, as a girl of ten,heard this marriage of Petre Ravenshoe with Maria Dawson discussed inher presence, from every point of view, by her father and Petre. Nightand morning, at bed-time, at meal-times, sober, and very frequentlydrunk. She had heard every possible particular. When she heard of hissecond marriage (my mouth is as dry as dust with this talking; ring thebell, and send your maid down for some claret and water)--when she heardof his second marriage, she never dr
eamt of saying anything, ofcourse--a chit of fourteen, with a great liability to having her earsboxed. So she held her tongue. When, afterwards, my grandfather madelove to her, she held it the tighter, for my grandaunt's sake, of whomshe was fond. Petre, after a time, had the boy James home to Ravenshoe,and kept him about his own person. He made him his gamekeeper, treatedhim with marked favour, and so on; but the whole thing was a sort ofmisprision of felony, and poor silly old grandma was a party to it."
"You are telling this very well, Ascot," said Adelaide. "I will, as areward, go so far out of my usual habits as to mix you some claret andwater. I am not going to be tender, you know; but I'll do so much. Nowthat's a dear, good fellow; go on."
"Now comes something unimportant, but inexplicable. Old Lady Hainaultknew it, and held _her_ tongue. How or why is a mystery we cannotfathom, and don't want to. Grandma says that she would have marriedPetre herself, and that her hatred for grandma came from the belief thatgrandma could have stopped the marriage with my grandaunt by speaking.After it was over, she thinks that Lady Hainault had sufficient loveleft for Petre to hold her tongue. But this is nothing to the purpose.This James, the real heir of Ravenshoe, married an English girl, adaughter of a steward on one of our Irish estates, who had been born inIreland, and was called Nora. She was, you see, Irish enough at heart;for she committed the bull of changing her own child, poor dear Charles,the real heir, for his youngest cousin, William, by way of bettering hisposition, and then confessed the whole matter to the priest. Now thisnew discovery would blow the honest priest's boat out of the water;but----"
"Yes!"
"Why, grandma can't, for the life of her, remember where they weremarried. She is certain that it was in the north of Hampshire, she says.Why or wherefore, she can't say. She says they resided the necessarytime, and were married by license. She says she is sure of it, becauseshe heard him, more than once, say to her father that he had been socareful of poor Maria's honour, that he sent her from Ravenshoe to thehouse of the clergyman who married them, who was a friend of his;farther than this she knows nothing."
"Hence the advertisement, then. But why was it not inserted before?"
"Why, it appears that, when the whole _esclandre_ took place, and whenyou, my Lady Ascot, jilted the poor fellow for a man who is not worthhis little finger, she communicated with Lord Saltire at once, and theresult was, that she began advertising in so mysterious a manner thatthe advertisement was wholly unintelligible. It appears that she andLord Saltire agreed not to disturb Cuthbert till they were perfectlysure of everything. But, now he is dead, Lord Saltire has insisted oninstantly advertising in a sensible way. So you see his advertisementappears actually in the same paper which contains Cuthbert's death, thenews of which William got the night before last by telegraph."
"William, eh? How does he like the cup being dashed from his lips likethis?"
Lord Ascot laughed. "That ex-groom is a born fool, Lady Ascot. He loveshis foster-brother better than nine thousand a year, Lady Ascot. He isgoing to start to Varna, and hunt him through the army and bring himback."
"It is incredible," said Adelaide.
"I don't know. I might have been such a fool myself once, who knows?"
"Who knows indeed," thought Adelaide, "who knows now?" "So," she saidaloud, "Charles is heir of Ravenshoe after all."
"Yes. You were foolish to jilt him."
"I was. Is Alyden healthy?"
"You know it is not. Our fellows are dying like dogs."
"Do they know what regiment he is in?"
"They think, from Lady Hainault's and Mary Corby's description, that itis the 140th."
"Why did not William start on this expedition before?"
"I don't know. A new impulse. They have written to all sorts ofcommanding officers, but he won't turn up till he chooses, if I know himright."
"If William brings him back?"
"Why, then he'll come into nine, or more probably twelve thousand ayear. For those tin lodes have turned up trumps."
"And the whole of Lord Saltire's property?"
"I suppose so."
"And we remain beggars?"
"I suppose so," said Lord Ascot. "It is time to go to bed, Lady Ascot."
This is exactly the proper place to give the results of William'sexpedition to Varna. He arrived there just after the army had goneforward. Some men were left behind invalided, among whom were two orthree of the 140th. One of these William selected as being a likely manfrom whom to make inquiries.
He was a young man, and, likely enough, a kind-hearted one; but when hefound himself inquired of by a handsome, well-dressed young gentleman,obviously in search of a missing relative, a lying spirit entered intohim, and he lied horribly. It appeared that he had been the intimate andcherished comrade of Charles Horton (of whom he had never heard in hislife). That they had ridden together, drunk together, and slept side byside. That he had nursed him through the cholera, and then (seeing noother way out of the maze of falsehood in which he had entangledhimself), that he assisted to bury him with his own hands. Lastly, lyingon through mere recklessness, into desperation, and so into a kind ofsublimity, he led William out of the town, and pointed out to himCharles's untimely grave. When he saw William pick some dry grass fromthe grave, when he saw him down on his knees, with his cheek on theearth, then he was sorry for what he had done. And, when he was alone,and saw William's shadow pass across the blazing white wall, for oneinstant, before he went under the dark gateway of the town, then thechinking gold pieces fell from his hand on the burning sandy ground, andhe felt that he would have given them, and ten times more, to havespoken the truth.
So Charles was dead and buried, was he? Not quite yet, if you please.Who is this riding, one of a gallant train, along the shores of the bayof Eupatoria towards some dim blue mountains? Who is this that keepslooking each minute to the right, at the noble fleet which is keepingpace with the great scarlet and blue rainbow which men call the alliedarmies? At the great cloud of smoke floating angrily seaward, and thecalm waters of the bay beaten into madness by three hundred throbbingpropellers?