'I don't see any good in telling you, dear, nor, to say the truth, any great harm either.'

'No--now that's _quite_ true--no harm. There _can't_ be, for I _must_ know it all some day, you know, and better now, and from _you_, than perhaps from a stranger, and in a less favourable way.'

'Upon my word, it is a wise little woman; and really, that's not such bad sense after all.'

So we poured out another cup of tea each, and sipped it very comfortably by the fire, while Lady Knollys talked on, and her animated face helped the strange story.

'It is not very much, after all. Your uncle Silas, you know, is living?'

'Oh yes, in Derbyshire.'

'So I see you do know something of him, sly girl! but no matter. You know how very rich your father is; but Silas was the younger brother, and had little more than a thousand a year. If he had not played, and did not care to marry, it would have been quite enough--ever so much more than younger sons of dukes often have; but he was--well, a _mauvais sujet_--you know what that is. I don't want to say any ill of him--more than I really know--but he was fond of his pleasures, I suppose, like other young men, and he played, and was always losing, and your father for a long time paid great sums for him. I believe he was really a most expensive and vicious young man; and I fancy he does not deny that now, for they say he would change the past if he could.

I was looking at the pensive little boy in the oval frame--aged eight years--who was, a few springs later, 'a most expensive and vicious young man,' and was now a suffering and outcast old one, and wondering from what a small seed the hemlock or the wallflower grows, and how microscopic are the beginnings of the kingdom of G.o.d or of the mystery of iniquity in a human being's heart.

'Austin--your papa--was very kind to him--_very_; but then, you know, he's an oddity, dear--he _is_ an oddity, though no one may have told you before--and he never forgave him for his marriage. Your father, I suppose, knew more about the lady than I did--I was young then--but there were various reports, none of them pleasant, and she was not visited, and for some time there was a complete estrangement between your father and your uncle Silas; and it was made up, rather oddly, on the very occasion which some people said ought to have totally separated them. Did you ever hear anything--anything _very_ remarkable--about your uncle?'

'No, never, they would not tell me, though I am sure they know. Pray go on.'

'Well, Maud, as I have begun, I'll complete the story, though perhaps it might have been better untold. It was something rather shocking--indeed, _very_ shocking; in fact, they insisted on suspecting him of having committed a murder.'

I stared at my cousin for some time, and then at the little boy, so refined, so beautiful, so _funeste_, in the oval frame.

'Yes, dear,' said she, her eyes following mine; 'who'd have supposed he could ever have--have fallen under so horrible a suspicion?'

'The wretches! Of course, Uncle Silas--of course, he's innocent?' I said at last.

'Of course, my dear,' said Cousin Monica, with an odd look; 'but you know there are some things as bad almost to be suspected of as to have done, and the country gentlemen chose to suspect him. They did not like him, you see. His politics vexed them; and he resented their treatment of his wife--though I really think, poor Silas, he did not care a pin about her--and he annoyed them whenever he could. Your papa, you know, is very proud of his family--_he_ never had the slightest suspicion of your uncle.'

'Oh no!' I cried vehemently.

'That's right, Maud Ruthyn,' said Cousin Monica, with a sad little smile and a nod. 'And your papa was, you may suppose, very angry.'

'Of course he was,' I exclaimed.

'You have no idea, my dear, _how_ angry. He directed his attorney to prosecute, by wholesale, all who had said a word affecting your uncle's character. But the lawyers were against it, and then your uncle tried to fight his way through it, but the men would not meet him. He was quite slurred. Your father went up and saw the Minister. He wanted to have him a Deputy-Lieutenant, or something, in his county. Your papa, you know, had a very great influence with the Government. Beside his county influence, he had two boroughs then. But the Minister was afraid, the feeling was so very strong. They offered him something in the Colonies, but your father would not hear of it--that would have been a banishment, you know. They would have given your father a peerage to make it up, but he would not accept it, and broke with the party. Except in that way--which, you know, was connected with the reputation of the family--I don't think, considering his great wealth, he has done very much for Silas. To say truth, however, he was very liberal before his marriage. Old Mrs. Aylmer says he made a vow _then_ that Silas should never have more than five hundred a year, which he still allows him, I believe, and he permits him to live in the place. But they say it is in a very wild, neglected state.'

'You live in the same county--have you seen it lately, Cousin Monica?'

'No, not very lately,' said Cousin Monica, and began to hum an air abstractedly.

CHAPTER XIII

_BEFORE AND AFTER BREAKFAST_

Next morning early I visited my favourite full-length portrait in the chocolate coat and top-boots. Scanty as had been my cousin Monica's notes upon this dark and eccentric biography, they were everything to me. A soul had entered that enchanted form. Truth had pa.s.sed by with her torch, and a sad light shone for a moment on that enigmatic face.

There stood the _roue_--the duellist--and, with all his faults, the hero too! In that dark large eye lurked the profound and fiery enthusiasm of his ill-starred pa.s.sion. In the thin but exquisite lip I read the courage of the paladin, who would have 'fought his way,' though single-handed, against all the magnates of his county, and by ordeal of battle have purged the honour of the Ruthyns. There in that delicate half-sarcastic tracery of the nostril I detected the intellectual defiance which had politically isolated Silas Ruthyn and opposed him to the landed oligarchy of his county, whose retaliation had been a hideous slander. There, too, and on his brows and lip, I traced the patience of a cold disdain. I could now see him as he was--the prodigal, the hero, and the martyr. I stood gazing on him with a girlish interest and admiration. There was indignation, there was pity, there was hope. Some day it might come to pa.s.s that I, girl as I was, might contribute by word or deed towards the vindication of that long-suffering, gallant, and romantic prodigal. It was a flicker of the Joan of Arc inspiration, common, I fancy, to many girls. I little then imagined how profoundly and strangely involved my uncle's fate would one day become with mine.

I was interrupted by Captain Oakley's voice at the window. He was leaning on the window-sill, and looking in with a smile--the window being open, the morning sunny, and his cap lifted in his hand.

'Good-morning, Miss Ruthyn. What a charming old place! quite the setting for a romance; such timber, and this really _beautiful_ house. I _do_ so like these white and black houses--wonderful old things. By-the-by, you treated us very badly last night--you did, indeed; upon my word, now, it really was too bad--running away, and drinking tea with Lady Knollys--so she says. I really--I should not like to tell you how very savage I felt, particularly considering how very short my time is.'

I was a shy, but not a giggling country miss. I knew I was an heiress; I knew I was somebody. I was not the least bit in the world conceited, but I think this knowledge helped to give me a certain sense of security and self-possession, which might have been mistaken for dignity or simplicity.

I am sure I looked at him with a fearless enquiry, for he answered my thoughts.

'I do really a.s.sure you, Miss Ruthyn, I am quite serious; you have no idea how very much we have missed you.'

There was a little pause, and, like a fool, I lowered my eyes, and blushed.

'I--I was thinking of leaving today; I am so unfortunate--my leave is just out--it is so unlucky; but I don't quite know whether my aunt Knollys will allow me to go.'

'_I_?--certainly, my dear Charlie, _I_ don't want you at all,' exclaimed a voice--Lady Knollys's--briskly, from an open window close by; 'what could put that in your head, dear?'

And in went my cousin's head, and the window shut down.

'She is _such_ an oddity, poor dear Aunt Knollys,' murmured the young man, ever so little put out, and he laughed. 'I never know quite what she wishes, or how to please her; but she's _so_ good-natured; and when she goes to town for the season--she does not always, you know--her house is really very gay--you can't think----'

Here again he was interrupted, for the door opened, and Lady Knollys entered. 'And you know, Charles,' she continued, 'it would not do to forget your visit to Snodhurst; you wrote, you know, and you have only to-night and to-morrow. You are thinking of nothing but that moor; I heard you talking to the gamekeeper; I know he is--is not he, Maud, the brown man with great whiskers, and leggings? I'm very sorry, you know, but I really must spoil your shooting, for they do expect you at Snodhurst, Charlie; and do not you think this window a little too much for Miss Ruthyn? Maud, my dear, the air is very sharp; shut it down, Charles, and you'd better tell them to get a fly for you from the town after luncheon. Come, dear,' she said to me. 'Was not that the breakfast bell? Why does not your papa get a gong?--it is so hard to know one bell from another.'

I saw that Captain Oakley lingered for a last look, but I did not give it, and went out smiling with Cousin Knollys, and wondering why old ladies are so uniformly disagreeable.

In the lobby she said, with an odd, goodnatured look--

'Don't allow any of his love-making, my dear. Charles Oakley has not a guinea, and an heiress would be very convenient. Of course he has his eyes about him. Charles is not by any means foolish; and I should not be at all sorry to see him well married, for I don't think he will do much good any other way; but there are degrees, and his ideas are sometimes very impertinent.'

I was an admiring reader of the _Alb.u.ms_, the _Souvenirs_, the _Keepsakes_, and all that flood of Christmas-present lore which yearly irrigated England, with pretty covers and engravings; and floods of elegant twaddle--the milk, not dest.i.tute of water, on which the babes of literature were then fed. On this, my genius throve. I had a little alb.u.m, enriched with many gems of original thought and observation, which I jotted down in suitable language. Lately, turning over these faded leaves of rhyme and prose, I lighted, under this day's date, upon the following sage reflection, with my name appended:--

'Is there not in the female heart an ineradicable jealousy, which, if it sways the pa.s.sions of the young, rules also the _advice_ of the _aged_? Do they not grudge to youth the sentiments (though Heaven knows how _shadowed_ with sorrow) which they can _no longer inspire_, perhaps even _experience_; and does not youth, in turn, sigh over the envy which has _power to blight_?

MAUD AYLMER RUTHYN.'

'He has not been making love to me,' I said rather tartly, 'and he does not seem to me at all impertinent, and I really don't care the least whether he goes or stays.'

Cousin Monica looked in my face with her old waggish smile, and laughed.

'You'll understand those London dandies better some day, dear Maud; they are very well, but they like money--not to keep, of course--but still they like it and know its value.'

At breakfast my father told Captain Oakley where he might have shooting, or if he preferred going to Dilsford, only half an hour's ride, he might have his choice of hunters, and find the dogs there that morning.

The Captain smiled archly at me, and looked at his aunt. There was a suspense. I hope I did not show how much I was interested--but it would not do. Cousin Monica was inexorable.

'Hunting, hawking, fishing, fiddle-de-dee! You know, Charlie, my dear, it is quite out of the question. He is going to Snodhurst this afternoon, and without quite a rudeness, in which I should be involved too, he really can't--you know you can't, Charles! and--and he _must_ go and keep his engagement.'

So papa acquiesced with a polite regret, and hoped another time.