A BUTTERFLY OUT OF PLACE
"I thought as much!" said Joan.
She was standing in a road—a byway—through an oak coppice, in her riding habit beside her horse, and had ungirthed him and removed the saddle.
"Poor old boy, I am sorry for you. You must have suffered, and yet you went bravely along, and splendidly over the fence."
Ruby turned his head at his mistress's voice, snuffed his approval of her sympathy, and stood unmoving, save that the skin twitched about an ugly raw on the shoulder.
"It is that tree again," said Joan. "Some saddlers seem never to grasp the law by which a tree is made to fit. I have sent this saddle twice to Oxley, and he has vowed, by all things blue, on each occasion, that he has rectified the defect. Never, old boy, shall you have this side-saddle on your back again."
Once more the patient horse turned his head, looked at his mistress and snuffed, as though accepting the assurance in full confidence. He knew Joan, knew that she pitied him, knew that he would be cared for.
"I beg your pardon—are you in difficulties? and can I be of any assistance?" asked a young man, breaking through the coppice of sere russet leaves, and descending on his hunter to the road that was cut some two feet below the surface of the shrub and tree clothed hillside. He was not in pink, but in a dark serviceable coat, and wore white corduroy breeches, a stiff velvet hunting cap, and top-boots, and was spurred.
"I am at a loss what to do," answered the girl. "I have acted most inconsiderately. I let my sister Sibyll ride on, and take the groom with her. I lagged because I had a suspicion that something was going wrong with Ruby. Of course I ought to have detained the groom, but my sister was eager, and I did not like to spoil her sport. Next piece of want of consideration that I was guilty of was to dismount here in the wood, to lift the saddle and see if the dear old fellow were rubbed. Look! how badly he has been served. I cannot possibly replace the saddle and remount him. So I shall have to walk all the way to Pendabury House in a riding skirt—and only a lady knows how laborious that is."
"To Pendabury!"
"Yes, that is our home."
Joan now looked for the first time with any interest at the gentleman with whom she had been conversing, and at once perceived that he was not one of the usual party that attended a meet and followed the hunt, but was an entire stranger.
"I am Miss Frobisher," she said.
"I must introduce myself," he at once spoke; "my name is Beaudessart."
"Beaudessart!"
It was now her turn to express surprise.
"Then," said she, "I have a sort of notion that some kind of relationship exists between us!"
"For my sins, none," answered the young man; "in place of relation there has been estrangement. My grandfather married a Mrs. Frobisher, a widow, and your father was her son by a former husband. The families have been in contact, brought so by this marriage, but it has produced friction. However, let us not consider that; let the fact of there having been some connection embolden me to ask your permission to transfer your side-saddle to my mare, and to lead your galled Ruby to his stable."
"You are very good."
"There is not a man in the hunt who would not make the same offer."
"I cheerfully admit that our South Staffordshire hunters are ever courteous and ready to assist a damsel in difficulties. Is not that the quality of Chivalry?"
"The same applies to every gentleman in England," said Mr. Beaudessart. "Wherever he sees need, perplexity, distress, thither he flies with eager heart to assist."
He had already dismounted, and without another word proceeded to remove his own saddle, and to adjust that of the lady to the back of his mare.
"One moment," said Joan Frobisher. "I ought to forewarn you that you are running a risk—the tree of my saddle will fit the back of no living horse."
"It will do no harm so long as my Sally is not galloped, Miss Frobisher. I shall have to lay on you the injunction not to fly away. Besides, I am a stranger in this part of the country. It was that which threw me out, and brought me through the coppice. I do not know my way to Pendabury, and shall need your guidance."
He placed his hands in position to receive Joan's foot, and with a spring she was in the saddle. Then he looked up at her.
She was a tall, well-built girl. In her dark green hunting habit, the collar turned up with scarlet, and brightened with the South Staffordshire hunt buttons, her graceful form was shown to good effect.
She had well-moulded features, the jaw had a bold sweep, and the chin was firmly marked. The eyes were large, lustrous, and soft. If the modelling of the lower portion of her face conveyed a suspicion of hardness, this was at once dispelled by the soft light of the kindly eyes.
Mr. Beaudessart now fitted his own saddle on the back of Ruby so as not to incommode the galled beast.
"I was in a difficulty," said Joan, as they began to move forward down the roadway. "I might have been run in by the agents of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and had to appear at the next Petty Sessions—before papa—think of that, and be fined sixpence, and costs, eight-and-nine; total, nine-and-threepence. It would have made a hole in my pocket-money."
"Do the costs stand in that proportion to the fine? I really know nothing of English magistrates and their courts."
"Oh, the magistrates have nothing to do with costs. These are inexplicable to the uninitiated. The Greek mysteries are nothing to them."
Then they proceeded a little way without talking, as the road became steep.
On reaching ground less precipitous, Joan asked—
"You say that you are a stranger in these parts?"
"Yes—entirely."
"No, not entirely. Your name is familiar to all. Why, our church is full of Beaudessart monuments, and the county history is prodigal in the matter of pedigree of Beaudessart. For the matter of that, we have any number of pictures of them at Pendabury."
"Are you great in pedigree?" asked the young man with a smile.
"Of a horse. I know nothing of my own, and care little. By the way, it is through a Beaudessart that we came by our home; and"—laughing—"we do not intend to surrender it without a siege. We have a portrait in the dining-room of the last of the Beaudessart squires of Pendabury, a choleric, resolute man, to judge by his counterfeit presentment."
The young man looked up at Joan with a flicker in his eyes and a twinkle of a smile on his lips.
Joan perceived it, and was rendered nervous, lest she might have said something in bad taste, something that had touched him and made him wince, and he had disguised the pain with a smile. Did he really think that she suspected him of making a claim to the Pendabury estate? She scrutinised his face to read his mind, but the smile ambiguously twitching the corners of the mouth had passed away, and he strode forwards serene in countenance, with an elastic tread and a toss of the head, as though he had put from him whatever thought had passed through his mind at the provocation of her words. The young man was upright in carriage, broad in back, his head covered with light hair that rippled over his forehead and curled forth behind from under his velvet cap. Surely when a child he must have had natural ringlets of gold. His face was fresh, open, honest, and careless in expression. His eyes were dark grey. He looked like a man of good feeling, and one who was well bred.
"Mr. Beaudessart," said Joan, "you must have formed a very bad opinion of my intelligence, coming on me as you did, in the depth of a wood and far from assistance. I had put myself into a position of great awkwardness; I got off Ruby to examine his shoulder without a thought that, granted he were sound, I could not girth him up tight enough to remount, and that if I found him badly rubbed I should have to walk home. What can you think of me?"
"I think only of the tenderness of your heart, that put all considerations for self on one side, in solicitude for your horse."
"Thank you. I am very fond of Ruby. Nevertheless, I blame myself for lack of foresight." Then, changing her tone as she changed the subject, she asked, "Have you been long in our neighbourhood?"
"We took the cottage at Rosewood—do you chance to know it?"
Joan made a movement of assent.
"We took it at Lady Day last on a term of years. But we, that is my mother and I, spent all the summer in Switzerland, after we had settled our few sticks of furniture in the house. The garden had been neglected and not stocked, so that it was too late in the year when we came into possession to do very much with it. My mother has great ambition to cultivate a garden. We are not notable gardeners in Canada—she is a Canadian, and I was born there. It will be a new experience here, and one to give her great pleasure. She has read about English ladies and the little paradises they create, in which they pass their innocent hours, and she hopes to acquire the same tastes, and reap the same joys, and to spend her declining years in flowery bliss. She is a dear mother to me," he added, in a tone full of tenderness, and Joan liked him for the words.
Thus conversing, they reached the outskirts of the wood, and were on the highway between hedges in pleasant champaign country.
"I have some excuse for being ignorant of the lie of the land," said Mr. Beaudessart. "I was born, as I told you, in Canada. My father lived and died there."
"And your mother will be happy in England?"
"Oh, she knows that I have to be here; it was my father's urgent request. He hungered after the old fatherland."
"Have you sisters?"
"I have a sister, who is now with my mother, but she is with her only now and then. She has taken her own line, and has become a nurse. I suppose Rosewood is some miles from here—how many I have not the faintest notion."
"If you hunt with us, you will don the pink?"
"I do not know about that. It costs about twenty pounds to blaze out a full-blown poppy, and the suit will last but a season. It is rather like advertising oneself as a man of large fortune, and I am not that. I can live, but cannot be lavish."
So they talked, falling into half confidences; and presently many evidences appeared of approach to a gentleman's seat of some importance. The trees stood in clumps. Hedges no longer divided the fields; they were parted by wire fences. Ploughed land gave way to pasturage. Then were heard the sounds of rooks cawing, and a church spire pierced the rounded banks of trees, that had not all lost their foliage, though that foliage was turned to copper.
And presently they came to the gates.
At that moment up trotted Joan's sister Sibyll, with the groom following her. The younger Miss Frobisher was but eighteen; she was a very pretty and graceful girl, with a high colour and dancing eyes. She was now in great spirits, and, riding up to her sister, exclaimed—
"Oh, Joan! give me joy! I am the happiest girl on earth. On this, the first meet of the season, I was in at the death. Look! I have had my cheeks painted; and see! I have the brush, and am promised the mask when it is mounted."
Then she noticed the gentleman leading Ruby, and raised her eyebrows.
"What ails your horse?" she inquired.
"Sibylla—this is Mr. Beaudessart. Sir—my sister. Mr. Beaudessart has been so very kind. My poor Ruby is frightfully rawed; I could not ride him home, so this gentleman has most generously lent me his mount and has led my horse." Then to the young man: "Mr. Beaudessart, you must come into Pendabury and have a cup of tea or a glass of wine. You have eight or nine miles to cover before reaching home, and I have spoiled your day's hunting. Moreover, you positively must see the original Beaudessart Stammburg, as the Germans would term it."
He bowed, and said in reply—
"Are you sure that your father would desire it?"
"Quite so. How could he do other?" Still he hesitated. Joan saw that he was desirous of accepting her invitation, but was unwilling to intrude.
"No!" she said, "I will not take a refusal. A lady's invitation carries all the force of a command. If it be not accepted, she is mortally affronted."
"In that case I have no alternative."
They passed through the great gates into the grounds that unfolded before them as they proceeded, sweeping lawns, park-like, with the house, a Queen Anne mansion, square and stately, standing back against a well-wooded hill, the sun flashing golden in the long windows that looked to the west.
"It is a beautiful spot," said the young man in a grave tone, and a change came over his face.
"Oh, Joan!" exclaimed Sibyll, riding beside her sister, "such fun! I had never been in at the death before. And fancy! when puss was in extremis, fallen on and torn to pieces by the hounds—will you believe me? there was a butterfly flickering above the scene of blood and death-agony unconcernedly. Conceive! a butterfly at this period of the year; so out of season!"
"So out of place," said Joan.
PENDABURY
Steps led to the front door, that was under a portico composed of Ionic pillars of Bath stone, that contrasted, as did the white coigns, with the red sandstone of which the house was built, one of the warmest and best of building materials. The long windows had casements painted creamy white, and the roof of the house was concealed by a balustrade of white stone.
At the steps the ladies dismounted, and the groom and a boy who had run from the stables took the horses.
Then the two girls, gathering up their habits, mounted to the door, and Joan, as she ascended, turned with a slight bow and a smile of encouragement to the young man, feeling at the same time not a little puzzled at the hesitation, even reluctance, that he manifested in accompanying her within.
The butler opened the glass doors, and all then entered the lofty hall, out of which the staircase ascended to the upper apartments. It was a fine hall, rich with plaster work, and hung with full-length portraits.
"Matthews," said Miss Frobisher, "will you kindly inform your master that a gentleman is here—Mr. Beaudessart? Yet stay, we will drink tea in the dining-room. Please to put cold meat and wine on the sideboard."
"Yes, miss."
The man withdrew with a bow.
"Joan," said Sibyll," I am going to rid myself of my boots and shed my habit."
"Have your tea first," urged. the elder. "There is no occasion for such a hurry."
"Yes there is," answered the young girl. "It is all very well for you to sit down at once to a meal—you have been muddling along at a snail's pace on Ruby with a sore shoulder, but I have been in the swim all day, and was at the finish. I say, Joan, am I really much painted? It is rather horrible, is it not?—but such fun to have Reynard's blood on one's cheek. Only I suspect the painting was done in the slightest possible manner. I must send for the keeper to dress the brush for me. What is put on—borax? He will know. I will ring for Matthews to send after him."
"You really must postpone changing for ten minutes. Papa will be so interested to hear of your adventures and success."
"Oh, I shall run to him in the library on my way, and show him the badges of war and trophies of victory. I must go—I shall be down again in a trice. I have torn my skirt in a thorn bush, and am plastered with mud. Tally-ho! ta-ra-ra!"
Then she departed, twittering, "We will all go a-hunting to-day."
Joan turned to the young man with a pleasant smile, and said—
"My sister is somewhat wilful. You must excuse her—she is the spoilt child of the house. My father dotes on her, and every man, woman, and child in the place is her humble servant. Now look about you. Here all the faces and figures that adorn the walls are Beaudessarts, from that grim-visaged gentleman in trunk hose and spindle legs, which is the earliest portrait we have. Is there, by the way, anything you would like? A whisky and soda? Perhaps a wash above all things? I will call the footman. I shall be making tea, and you can come to me in the dining-room. Papa will be there. The servant, Joseph, will be your guide."
Joan expected her father to appear at once, but he did not arrive. Matthews had not found him in the study, he had gone forth into the grounds.
Sibylla, as well, was disappointed; she had bounded into the library to display her spoils.
Joan put tea in the silver pot over the lamp, and saw that the sideboard was well supplied with cold beef and pheasant, and that spirits and wine were set out; then she went to a glass and hastily arranged her hair.
Mr. Beaudessart was shown in by Joseph.
"Now," said the girl, "whilst the tea is brewing I am entirely at your service to show you the pictures. That over the mantelpiece is my father, and yonder is my mother, who was taken from us sixteen years go. She was a beautiful woman when young, and you can see that in middle age the traces were not gone Yonder is the portrait I told you of, Squire Hector Beaudessart, the last of the family in Pendabury. After his death the property fell to papa, though how it came about I cannot inform you. I believe it was a complicated affair."
The young man walked up to the picture and stood before it, gazing intently on the canvas. The evening sun shone into the room, not, happily, on the painting itself, but on a side wall, and the reflected light illumined the picture sufficiently for him to be able to see it distinctly.
"It is very well painted, I believe. Do you not consider it so?" asked Joan. "The artist was Knight, the academician."
"It is admirable. It portrays not only the outward features, as nose and eyes, but the inner character, resolution and remorselessness."
"I have heard that he was considered a determined old gentleman," said the girl.
"Pertinacious in pursuing his own course, impatient of contradiction, implacable in his resentments, and then—proud."
"If we have any good in us we are proud," said Joan. "Pride is a necessary factor in a man up to a certain point. It implies strength, or furnishes it. But vanity is mere weakness."
"Yes," answered the young man, "we must all have self-respect, but at the same time respect others. That I do not think my grandfather ever did if they dared to differ from him."
"Your grandfather!"
A cough behind them, as they stood contemplating the picture.
Joan knew it, whisked about, and saw her father entering the room with his stick in his hand.
"Oh, papa! I am so glad that you have arrived. Here is Mr. Beaudessart from Canada, so interested in the family portraits."
"Mr. Beaudessart," said Mr. Frobisher stiffly; "pray what Mr. Beaudessart?"
"I must apologise, sir, for my intrusion," said the young man, feeling at once a sense of chill from the presence of the squire. "I have ventured to ask Miss Frobisher to permit me to see the pictures."
"Papa!" said Joan, also aware of the coldness of her father's manner," I insisted on Mr. Beaudessart coming in, he has been so kind. Ruby was frightfully rubbed, and he lent me his mare. Had he not done so I should have had to walk home from Littlefold Wood."
"What Mr. Beaudessart may this gentleman be?" asked the squire, with a freezing manner. He was an old, spare man, with shrivelled legs, about which his trousers hung loosely, with a long, knife-like face, his hair very grey and curled about the temples. His nose was aquiline, his eyebrows thick and white, and his eyes bright and hard.
He wore a grey suit that, however, did not become him. He was one of those men with face and figure belonging to the first half of the nineteenth century, who look ill fitted in modern costume, one whom nothing would become save the high-collared coat, and the short waistcoat and abundant necktie of the reign of William IV. The studied absence of graciousness of manner assumed by Mr. Frobisher affected both the young people with a feeling of discomfort.
"My father was Walter," said the stranger; "he was son to that old gentleman yonder. My name is the same as that of my grandfather—Hector Beaudessart."
Joan was aware that something grated on and angered her father.
"My dear papa," she said, "you have no idea what a generous assistance Mr. Beaudessart has rendered me—at the sacrifice of his day's sport and pleasure. How I could have got home without his courteous and ready help I cannot tell. And having seen me to the Pendabury gates, he proposed returning home. But I would not hear of it; I insisted on his coming in and having some refreshment. Sibyll followed the hounds to the grim death, but I was brought to a full stop in the wood by the condition of Ruby."
"Sir," said Mr. Frobisher, looking straight at Mr. Beaudessart and ignoring his daughter, "I take it as a most surprising piece of assurance, your thrusting yourself into this house."
The young man coloured up, and replied with dignity—
"I grieve to my heart that you should so regard it; I am aware that there was some ill-feeling existing between yourself and my father, but I can assure you I do not share it, and I trusted that you, on your part, would have laid aside any sentiment that was bitter when the earth closed over his head. Allow me to relieve you of my presence."
"Sir," said Mr. Frobisher, bridling up and pointing at him with his stick," I repeat, and emphasise my opinion, I consider it a gross, an unwarrantable piece of effrontery your intrusion here, taking advantage of my daughter's ignorance of the world, and of circumstances that must for ever estrange our families. Your deceased father's conduct"-
"Excuse me, sir. I may be to blame for my thoughtlessness, or for my belief that human nature was gentler than I find it, but I can hear nothing against my father. He behaved always as an honourable man. What charge can you or anyone lay against him?"
"That of having formed and obstinately maintained opinions contrary to those held by his father, the author of his being and the squire of the parish!" He flourished his stick and pointed to the picture of the old Squire Hector. "He might at least have kept his views to himself. I maintain that, by his conduct, he lost the blessing which is pronounced upon dutiful sons."
"A man is free to form his own opinions," said the young Hector, "and it would be unworthy of a man to keep them to himself. If he is worth his salt he will maintain them. My father did not disguise what he felt in his heart, and he suffered for his independence. I wish you a good-day."
He bowed and looked hastily at Miss Frobisher, whose cheek burned with shame. She could not meet his eye; her own were lowered and full of tears.
"Oh, papa! Papa!" she gasped.
Mr. Beaudessart was gone.
"Papa, how could you treat him so after his great civility to me? It was I who asked him in. He was most reluctant to come here, but I insisted."
"Like a fatuous girl, you did wrong out of sheer dulness. It was a piece of outrageous impertinence in him, poking his nose into this house. I am, thank God, not dead yet, and till I am—But there, I have no patience to speak of the fellow. To come prying here! Desirous to see the pictures, indeed! He wanted to peer about at everything—take stock of all there is in the house."
"But why so, papa?"
"Why!—because, forsooth, some day Pendabury will be his."
"His—Mr. Beaudessart's!"
Joan was startled.
"Yes, his; but not one minute before I am laid in the churchyard."
"How can that be? The estate has left the Beaudessarts and come to us Frobishers."
"It has left them only during my life. Mr. Hector yonder"—he pointed with his stick to the portrait of the old squire—"his grandfather, very rightly was incensed with his son, Walter, for taking up with liberal views in politics, and for being bitten with advanced church opinions, such as were promulgated by the Oxford tract writers. Young fools at the time were up in the clouds with all sorts of inflated notions. Mr. Hector, the old squire, was furious with his son. As Walter would not abandon his opinions, the old man washed his hands of him, would not speak to him or admit him over his doorstep. He left the estate to me, his second wife's son by her former marriage, for my life, to revert to the Beaudessarts only after my decease and that of his son Walter, who, he protested, should be excluded entirely from the property."
"Really, papa, I think that Walter was very hardly treated. Young men are hot-headed and enthusiastic, but they cool down as they grow older."
"I do not see that he was hardly treated. I do not see it at all. It is I, or you, who meet with unfair treatment. If I had been so happy as to have had a son of my own, would I not have desired to transmit Pendabury to him? Is it not a monstrous injustice that I should be debarred from so doing? And you. I should have liked to constitute you heiress, so that, on your marriage, you would have carried this place to your husband. But it cannot be. This Beaudessart cub intervenes. When I depart this life you will have to pack your portmanteaus and turn out. It is atrocious, inhuman, unchristian."
"But, papa, it is we who are the interlopers. It is the Beaudessarts who have been unjustly treated."
"Interlopers! Oh, you think that jackanapes is defrauded of his rights by your own father? Is that an opinion a child of mine dares to entertain? There is filial respect, indeed! There is reverence for my grey hairs! Is contrariety a thing bred in these walls? Does a curse rest on Pendabury, that the child there should rise up and call its parent opprobrious names?"
"Oh, papa, I never did that! If any wrong were committed, it was not by you, but by the old Squire Hector. However, let all that be—I really know nothing of the particulars except what you have divulged. But do consider in what a painful, humiliating position I was placed by your speaking to the young Mr. Beaudessart as you did, and practically turning him out of the house."
"It was due to your own thoughtlessness."
"I knew nothing of what you have now told me; if I had I would have hesitated about asking him in."
"But he was aware, and should not have taken advantage of your ignorance. Enough of this—pour me out some tea. Ha, shrimps! Tea is the only meal at which I care for them, and then—if fresh—I love them."
AN ORANGE ENVELOPE
Sibylla came singing into the dining-room in bounding spirits.
"Oh, I am hungry! So glad there is cold beef. I must have some beer. I cannot stand your tea slops after a hard day. Papa, congratulate me! I have had the most splendid day in my life; a day to be marked with white chalk, a day never to be forgotten."
Then ensued an account of how she was in at the finish, with its concomitants.
"There were but five at the last," she added. "Joan dropped out very early over some scruple about Ruby. Bless me, Joan, why did you look? If you had not seen the raw, you might have gone on with a safe conscience. Do not pry, and seek to discover what is best not known. Take it for granted that all is well, till you have the contrary forced upon you. That is my doctrine and philosophy."
"Prying—exactly!" said Mr. Frobisher, looking up from his shrimps. "We have had an exemplification of prying here, that I have very properly exposed. Joan, did that cub happen to ask the sizes of the several rooms, so as to enable him to provide carpets? and the height of the windows for the furnishing of curtains?"
"Papa," answered Miss Frobisher, with pain in her face and in her tone, "I take the entire blame upon myself, as I have already assured you; he was most reluctant to intrude, but I insisted. I put it in such a way as to leave him no option but to come here. Sibyll is my witness. Even had I known that he was the man to whom Pendabury must eventually fall, I do not think that such knowledge would have weighed heavily with me. Usually the heir to an estate is not kept at a distance from it, and treated as an enemy by him who is in present enjoyment. If that were the usual condition of affairs, a father would be invariably at daggers drawn with his eldest son."
"Joan, the circumstances in this case are peculiar."
"I know no more of them than what I have just been told. I daresay that I have judged hastily from insufficient acquaintance with the particulars. Let this pass, papa. I had no intention of causing you annoyance, I can well assure you; and no one can regret more than I do that this contretemps has occurred."
"What is all this ruction about?" asked Sibylla, and then, without waiting for an answer, which, a she saw, neither was disposed to give, she went on, "Papa, Joan, who are coming to dinner to-night?"
"The rector and Mrs. Barker, and the young lady who is staying at Westholt,—I forget her name,—Colonel Wood, and Mr. Prendergast."
"Let me see," said the younger girl. "Papa takes in mother Frump; you are led by the rector; Colonel Wood gives his arm to Miss Somebody or other; and I am consigned to Jack Prendergast, the rector's pupil. Thank you. I shall have a headache and not appear."
"But, Sibyll, you must."
"A lively dinner for me, indeed, with that hobble-de-hoy, who can talk of nothing but his dog, and whose notions of sport rise no higher than ratting. Last time I sat by him he took my appetite away, because he would talk of his dog's distemper—and diagnose the disorder minutely. I am tired through hunting; I shall not come down."
"But, Sibyll, indeed you must remember what is due to our guests."
"Other people may be ill when they please, why not I?"
"But, remember, you are the heroine of this day."
"Ah, I forgot! Yes; I shall be down. I'll open Jack Prendergast's dull eyes. Why does he not come out?"
"He has not got a horse."
"But he should have one."
"I suppose he or his father cannot afford it."
"Then I do not see that we have any call to show him civility. A man who does not keep his hunter should know that his level is not ours."
"My dear Sibyll, it is not a note of gentility to have a well-stuffed purse. A man may be nice and yet poor."
"But he is not nice at all. He is not worth the trouble of talking to."
"If he had a horse, he would yarn about that; as he has only a dog, that interests him, and it is your duty to condescend to him, and maintain a doggy conversation."
"I will not trouble myself to discuss what does not interest me, and with a fellow so dull. He is reading with Mr. Barker for the university, and is safe to be plucked. He will disappear and subside into some business or other, and we shall happily see him no more."
The butler entered with a salver, and presented to the squire an orange envelope containing a telegraphic despatch.
Mr. Frobisher dipped his fingers in water, and leisurely wiped them on his napkin. Then be adjusted his pince-nez, and tore open the envelope.
Joan noticed that his face suddenly changed—a shadow fell over it, and it became grey as his hair.
He rose, staggering, to his feet
"Matthews, order Fashion to be saddled and brought round. I must at once to Lichfield."
"Papa, not now!" exclaimed Sibyll. "You will hardly be back for dinner."
"Papa, not Fashion," urged Joan; "he is given to shying. Let Thomas drive you in."
"Bid them saddle Fashion at once," said Mr. Frobisher, putting out his hand, groping for his stick.
"Yes, sir. Is it to be immediately?" asked the butler.
"At once."
"What is the matter, papa?" asked Joan, as soon as the butler had withdrawn. At the same time she found the stick and placed it in her father's hand.
"Matter? You heard. I must go to Lichfield. If I am not back at the time our guests arrive, make my excuses. Say that urgent business has called me away."
"But you must be back," said his youngest daughter. "You must. Who else is to lead in Mrs. Barker?"
"We will settle that," said Joan to her sister; and then to her father, "I wish you would let Thomas drive you over in the dogcart."
"No, no," he answered impatiently. "I shall be there quicker if I ride. Besides, I do not want company of any kind."
"Joy!" exclaimed Sibyll, "Colonel Wood will take Mrs. Barker in, and Jack Prendergast will bring in the young lady, and I shall thrust myself on the left of Colonel Wood—he is a blasé old fool, but amusing, and better company than Jack Prendergast." She hummed a tune. "Joan, what was that tiff about between you and the daddy?" she asked, so soon as her father had left the room.
"It was due to me. I brought in Mr. Beaudessart, and he did not like it."
"What nonsense! Of course, whenever the hunters come this way we must offer them some refreshment. I don't care whether papa growls and grumps—I shall go on doing so."
"It was the name of Beaudessart that ruffled him."
"A man cannot help his name. And Beaudessart is a good name, and is connected with this place."
"That is just it. You see, Sibyll, we are, though papa may not relish the term, yet manifestly and undoubtedly interlopers. This is a Beaudessart house and estate, that has by some irregularity devolved upon us. I do not quite riddle it out, but as far as I can understand, old Mr. Hector Beaudessart passed over his son, and left the place to papa, although no blood relation whatsoever."
"I will get the new County History that is being issued in parts," said Sibyll; "it is in the room, and our parish comes into one of the earlier numbers. It is kept over yonder."
She went to the bookstand, and drew out some paper-covered, octavo-sized parts.
"Here we are, Joan, and here is a view of the house. What do you want? nothing about the parish, and the church, and all that. Here is Pendabury! Listen! 'Pendabury is a noble seat, formerly in the possession of the Beaudessart family; the mansion stands with its back to a red sandstone hill crowned with entrenchments, supposed to have been occupied by the renowned Penda, King of the Mercians.' We don't want all this. Now to the point. 'This beautiful estate and residence was devised by the late Mr. Hector Beaudessart to his wife's son by a former husband, the present much esteemed possessor, Martin Frobisher, Esq.' Well, that is all right! It was left to papa, and here papa and we are. What more would you have?"
"Is there a pedigree of the Beaudessarts in the book?" asked Joan.
"Yes, a long one—generations of them, since the Conquest."
"How does it conclude?"
"Here—'Hector Beaudessart of Pendabury, Esq., J.P., D.L., a former High Sheriff of the County, married, in the first place, Prudence, daughter of Herbert Knight, Esq., and had issue Walter of Montreal, Canada, who married Josephine, daughter of Henry Perleux of Les Rapides, Esq., and has issue, in addition to a daughter, Julia, one son, Hector.'"
"That was the young man who helped me home. Go on, Sibyll."