"My nurse?"
"Ay, ay. And the pretty girl, Ellen; how is she?"
"Poor Ellen! She has run away, Welter; gone on the bad, I fear."
Lord Welter sat in just the same position, gazing on the fire. He then said, in a very deliberate voice:--
"The deuce she is! I am very sorry to hear that. I was in hopes of renewing our acquaintance."
The days flew by, and, as you know, there came no news from Ellen. The household had been much saddened by her disappearance and by Norah's death, though not one of the number ever guessed what had passed between Mary and Marston. They were not a very cheerful household; scarce one of them but had some secret trouble. Father Tiernay came back after a week or so; and, if good-natured, kindly chatter could have cheered them at all, he would have done it. But there was a settled gloom on the party, which nothing could overcome. Even Lord Welter, boisterous as his spirits usually were, seemed often anxious and distraught; and, as for poor Cuthbert, he would, at any time, within the knowledge of man, have acted as a "damper" on the liveliest party. His affection for Charles seemed, for some reason, to increase day by day, but it was sometimes very hard to keep the peace between Welter and him. If there was one man beyond another that Cuthbert hated, it was Lord Welter; and sometimes, after dinner, such a scene as this would take place.
You will, perhaps, have remarked that I have never yet represented Cuthbert as speaking to Mary. The real fact is, that he never did speak to her, or to any woman, anything beyond the merest commonplaces--a circumstance which made Charles very much doubt the truth of Ellen's statement--that the priest had caught them talking together in the wood.
However, Cuthbert was, in this way, fond enough of the bonny little soul (I swear I am in love with her myself, over head and ears); and so, one day, when she came crying in, and told him--as being the first person she met--that her little bantam-cock had been killed by the Dorking, Cuthbert comforted her, bottled up his wrath, till his father had gone into the drawing-room with her after dinner, and the others were sitting at their wine. Then he said, suddenly--
"Welter, did you have any cock-fighting to-day?"
"Oh, yes, by the by, a splendid turn-up. There was a noble little bantam in an inclosed yard challenging a great Dorking, and they both seemed so very anxious for sport that I thought it would be a pity to baulk them; so I just let the bantam out. I give you my word, it is my belief that the bantam would have been the best man, but that he was too old. His attack was splendid; but he met the fate of the brave."
"You should not have done that, Welter," said Charles; "that was Mary's favourite bantam."
"I don't allow any cock-fighting at Ravenshoe, Welter," said Cuthbert.
"You don't allow it!" said Lord Welter, scornfully.
"No, by heaven," said Cuthbert, "I don't allow it!"
"Don't you?" said Welter; "you are not master here, nor ever will be. No Ravenshoe was ever master of his own house yet."
"I am absolute master here," said Cuthbert, with a rising colour. "There is no appeal against me here."
"Only to the priest," said Welter. (I must do him justice to say that neither Mackworth nor Tiernay was in the room, or he would not have said it.)
"You are insolent, Welter, and brutal. It is your nature to be so," said Cuthbert, fiercely.
Marston, who had been watching Welter all this time, saw a flash come from his eyes, and, for one moment, a terrible savage setting of the teeth. "Ha, ha! my friend," thought he, "I thought that stupid face was capable of some such expression as that. I am obliged to you, my friend, for giving me one little glimpse of the devil inside."
"By gad, Cuthbert," said Lord Welter, "if you hadn't been at your own table, you shouldn't have said that, cousin or no cousin, twice."
"Stop, now," said Charles, "don't turn the place into a bear-pit.
Cuthbert, do be moderate. Welter, you shouldn't have set the cocks fighting. Now don't begin quarrelling again, you two, for heaven's sake!"
And so the peace was made: but Charles was very glad when the time came for the party to break up; and he went away to Ranford with Welter, preparatory to his going back to Oxford.
His father was quite his own old self again, and seemed to have rallied amazingly; so Charles left him without much anxiety; and there were reasons we know of why his heart should bound when he heard the word Ranford mentioned, and why the raging speed of the Great Western Railway express seemed all too slow for him. Lord Ascot's horses were fast, the mail-phaeton was a good one, and Lord Welter's worst enemies could not accuse him of driving slow; yet the way from Didcot to Ranford seemed so interminably long that he said:--
"By Jove, I wish we had come by a slower train, and gone on to Twyford!"
"Why so?"
"I don't know. I think it is pleasanter driving through Wargrave and Henley."
Lord Welter laughed, and Charles wondered why. There were no visitors at Ranford; and, when they arrived, Welter of course adjourned to the stables, while Charles ran upstairs and knocked at Lady Ascot's door.
He was bidden to come in by the old lady's voice. Her black-and-tan terrier, who was now so old that his teeth and voice were alike gone, rose from the hearth, and went through the motion and outward semblance of barking furiously at Charles, though without producing any audible sound. Lady Ascot rose up and welcomed him kindly.
"I am so glad to see your honest face, my dear boy. I have been sitting here all alone so long. Ascot is very kind, and comes and sits with me, and I give him some advice about his horses, which he never takes. But I am very lonely."
"But where is Adelaide, aunt, dear?"
"She's gone."
"Gone! My dear aunt, where to?"
"Gone to stay ten days with Lady Hainault."
Here was a blow.
"I know you are very disappointed, my poor boy, and I told Welter so expressly to tell you in my last letter. He is so shockingly careless and forgetful!"
"So Welter knew of it," said Charles to himself. "And that is what made him laugh at my hurry. It is very ungentlemanly behaviour."
But Charles's anger was like a summer cloud. "I think, aunt," he said, "that Welter was having a joke with me; that was all. When will she be back?"
"The end of next week."
"And I shall be gone to Oxford. I shall ride over to Casterton and see her."
"You knew Hainault at Shrewsbury? Yes. Well, you had better do so, child. Yes, certainly."
"What made her go, aunt, I wonder?"
"Lady Hainault was ill, and would have her, and I was forced to let her go."
Oh, Lady Ascot, Lady Ascot, you wicked old fibster! Didn't you hesitate, stammer, and blush, when you said that? I am very much afraid you didn't. Hadn't you had, three days before, a furious _fracas_ with Adelaide about something, and hadn't it ended by her declaring that she would claim the protection of Lady Hainault? Hadn't she ordered out the pony-carriage and driven off with a solitary bandbox, and what I choose to call a crinoline-chest? And hadn't you and Lady Hainault had a brilliant passage of arms over her ladyship's receiving and abetting the recalcitrant Adelaide?
Lady Ascot was perfectly certain of one thing--that Charles would never hear about this from Adelaide; and so she lied boldly and with confidence. Otherwise, she must have made a dead failure, for few people had practised that great and difficult art so little as her ladyship.
That there had been a furious quarrel between Lady Ascot and Adelaide about this time, I well know from the best authority. It had taken place just as I have described it above. I do not know for certain the cause of it, but can guess; and, as I am honestly going to tell you all I know, you will be able to make as good a guess as I hereafter.
Lady Ascot said, furthermore, that she was very uneasy in her mind about Ascot's colt, which she felt certain would not stay over the Derby course. The horse was not so well ribbed up as he should be, and had hardly quarter enough to suit her. Talking of that, her lumbago had set in worse than ever since the frost had come on, and her doctor had had the impudence to tell her that her liver was deranged, whereas, she knew it proceeded from cold in the small of her back. Talking of the frost, she was told that there had been a very good sheet of ice on the carp-pond, where Charles might have skated, though she did hope he would never go on the ice till it was quite safe--as, if he were to get drowned, it would only add to her vexation, and surely she had had enough of that, with that audacious chit of a girl, Adelaide, who was enough to turn one's hair grey; though for that matter it had been grey many years, as all the world might see.
"Has Adelaide been vexing you, aunt, dear?" interrupted Charles.
"No, my dear boy, no," replied the old woman. "She is a little tiresome sometimes, but I dare say it is more my fault than hers."
"You will not be angry with her, aunt, dear? You will be long-suffering with her, for my sake?"
"Dear Charles," said the good old woman, weeping, "I will forgive her till seventy times seven. Sometimes, dear, she is high-spirited, and tries my temper. And I am very old, dear, and very cross and cruel to her. It is all my fault, Charles, all my fault."