Hathercourt

“A lady for Miss Western,” repeated Mrs Greville. “Show her in then, Miller, at once.”

But the lady, it appeared, declined to be “shown in.” She had begged that Miss Western would speak to her for a moment in the hall, not feeling sure that there might not be some mistake.

“What a queer message,” said Mrs Greville. “Take care, Lilias; it is probably some begging person.”

“No,” said Lilias, with a sudden inspiration, as she turned to leave the room, “I don’t think it is. I do believe it is Mrs Brabazon.”

Her intuition was correct. Mrs Brabazon it proved to be. Mrs Brabazon on foot, with none of the apanage of the Brooke wealth about her except her richly comfortable attire and general air of prosperity and well-being. Only her kindly eyes had a somewhat careworn expression, and there were lines in her face which told of past and present anxiety. She received Lilias with cordiality almost approaching affection.

“I am so glad it is you,” she said as she shook hands with Lilias. “I was so afraid it might be some other Miss Western, though the name is uncommon, not like Weston. Do you know what I did? Fancy anything so stupid! I lost your address, which you remember I noted down on a bit of paper in Dr – ’s waiting-room. I could not remember the name of the friends you were staying with, and of course hunting for you in all the hotels in London would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack. And I have so little time, I am always so hurried to get back to Anselm when I am out. It was not till the day before we left town that it occurred to me to try to trace you through Dr – , and when I went to his house for the purpose, he was off to the country! Oh! you don’t know how vexed I was.”

“And how did you find me out here?” asked Lilias, a little bewildered by Mrs Brabazon’s unconcealed eagerness to prosecute the acquaintance so unexpectedly begun.

“By the local paper – the visitor’s guide, or whatever they call it. Of course I was not looking for you, I had no reason to suppose you were here; but the moment I saw the name Western I felt sure it must be you, and Anselm felt sure that Greville was the name of your friends. It really seems quite – what people call providential, though, somehow, I never like using the expression in that way.”

“And how is your nephew – young Mr Brooke?” said Lilias.

Mrs Brabazon shook her head.

“It is Basil over again – ah, it is heart-breaking work,” she said, sadly. “But I forget, I am speaking to you as if you knew all about us.”

“Somehow I feel as if I did,” said Lilias, “the familiar names – one of my brothers is Basil, and another Anselm Brooke, but we call him Brooke always.”

“And which is Basil?”

“The eldest,” said Lilias. “He has got a berth, as he calls it, in an office in the city. It is a good opening, I believe, and he will probably be sent out to India in a year or two. But in the mean time, of course, he gets very little, and – and it keeps us very strait at home,” she added, with a smile.

Mrs Brabazon listened with unfeigned interest.

“I must hear all about them,” she said. “But not today. And I am keeping you out here in the passage all this time.”

“That is my fault,” said Lilias. “Won’t you come in? I know Mrs Greville would be pleased to see you.” (A thoroughly true assertion, as Mrs Greville was already on the verge of that peculiar phase of ennui so apt to seize on active practical people when away from “home” and its duties, stranded in a strange place where they know no one, and never go out without the consciousness of the terrible word “visitors” branded on their foreheads.)

“Not to-day, thank you, my dear. I must run home,” said Mrs Brabazon. “But tell me what day will you spend with us? Can you come to-morrow? We are at the – .”

Lilias might have hesitated to accept too readily the invitation, however cordial, of the rich relations who for so many long years had ignored Margaret Western and her children; but the influence of Mary’s earnest advice was too strong upon her to make her dream of holding back. Besides, it was impossible to look in Mrs Brabazon’s face and doubt her good intentions.

“Thank you,” the girl replied. “I should like to come very much. But I think I must return here early, the evenings are so dull for Mr and Mrs Greville.”

“Of course,” said Mrs Brabazon. “And Anselm is always so tired in the evening. The day-time is the best for us. I will send the carriage for you at half-past twelve – will that do? – and it shall bring you back again at four or five, or any time you like. Possibly Anselm may be going a drive, and would come round this way for you. And pray apologise to Mrs Greville for my unceremonious behaviour.”

“Thank you,” said Lilias. “Yes, that will suit me perfectly. I shall be ready at half-past twelve.”

“Good-bye, then, for the present. I shall have a great deal to talk to you about to-morrow. I want to hear everything about your brothers and sisters and everybody,” said Mrs Brabazon, as she shook hands in farewell.

Lilias went back to the drawing-room to tell her surprising news to her friends. Mrs Greville was full of interest and excitement, Mr Greville somewhat inclined to question the advisability of this sudden friendship.

“Have you ever heard your mother speak of this Mrs Brabazon? Are you quite sure she is what she represents herself to be?” he said, doubtfully.

Lilias smiled.

“Oh, yes,” she replied. “I am quite sure of that. Mamma remembered Mrs Brabazon by name. She was a Miss Brooke, and her father and my grandfather were first cousins. These Brookes are the elder branch.”

“But who are they? – I mean, how many are there of them?” asked Mrs Greville. “Why is Mrs Brabazon always with them?”

“The mother is dead, I am sure of that,” said Lilias, “and I think Mrs Brabazon has kept house for Mr Brooke since her death. It was Mary that told us all we knew, and she heard it from some ladies she met at your house.”

“Of course,” exclaimed Mrs Greville, in a tone of relief, “the Morpeths – you remember, Charles? Oh, yes, of course, it is all right. Frances Morpeth was always saying how nice Mrs Brabazon was. I am sure you are quite right to cultivate the acquaintance, Lilias. Don’t you agree with me, Mr Greville?”

“I suppose so,” said Mr Greville, lazily. “But I hope the cultivation of it will not absorb you altogether, Lilias. It would be wretchedly dull in these stupid lodgings without you, my dear, to argue with and contradict, and look at.”

“You need not be afraid. I am not going to desert you,” said Lilias, laughing, as she left the room.

“That girl really grows prettier and prettier,” said Mr Greville. “She is much more amusing, too, than her sister Mary. I fancy Mary is something of a prig; there was no getting a smile out of her the last time she was over with us. Lilias is brighter than ever I knew her, full of fun and pleased with everything.”

“She is very nice,” agreed Mrs Greville. “But they are both very nice. I am not at all sure but that it is Mary who has the lion’s share of the work at home. How pleased I shall be if anything comes of these new relations.”

“Umph,” said Mr Greville.

“Mr Brooke’s carriage” came for Miss Western at half past twelve. Whether “Mr Brooke” referred to the young man she had already seen, or to a father whom she had as yet heard nothing of, Lilias felt in some doubt. But before the day was over Mrs Brabazon’s extreme communicativeness had put her in full possession of the family history past and present, and had, besides, suggested hints which made the poor girl giddy with surprise and bewilderment, and an utterly novel sense of perplexity.

“I must consult some one,” she said to herself, when she got back to Mrs Greville’s lodgings. “I feel too confused and amazed to decide what to do. I had better tell the Grevilles, they are sensible and kind and really interested in us, and they will advise me as to whether I should write home about what I have heard.”

So to Mrs Greville’s inquiries as to how she had got on, what she had heard, etc, etc, Lilias was very ready to give most comprehensive answers.

“I got on very well indeed, thank you,” she said. “They were as cordial and kind as possible. Mr Brooke, Anselm’s father, is to be down here on Friday, and Mrs Brabazon wants me to spend Saturday with them to see him, and what’s more, she made me write from the hotel to Basil, to ask him to come to them from Saturday to Monday if he can get off, which I am sure he can. She told me to tell him she would ‘frank’ him both ways. Wasn’t that considerate, Mrs Greville?”

“Very,” replied Mrs Greville, heartily. “I am exceedingly glad to hear it.”

“I am sure Basil will come,” continued Lilias, “for I told him papa and mamma would wish it. But, oh! Mrs Greville, you will really think I am dreaming when I tell you what else Mrs Brabazon told me.”

She looked up in Mrs Greville’s face, her blue eyes bright with excitement, her cheeks glowing with eagerness. Even lazy Mr Greville’s curiosity was aroused.

“Why, let us guess,” he said, jokingly. “Is old Mr Brooke going to adopt you and make you his heiress? Why, you would be irresistible then, Lilias! But, by-the-bye, he has a son and heir, so it can’t be that.”

“No,” said Lilias, “not exactly. But it’s something quite as wonderful. What do you think Mrs Greville – Mrs Brabazon gave me to understand – in fact, she said so plainly – that after Anselm, Mr Brooke’s only remaining child, mamma is heir to all, or, at least, to a great part of their property.”

“Your mother!” exclaimed Mrs Greville, apparently too astonished to say more. Mrs Western, she knew, had been a governess when her husband fell in love with and married her, and though she had always known her to be what is vaguely termed “well-connected,” she had somehow never associated her with possible riches or “position;” she had, on the contrary, often annoyed the Western girls by a slight shade of patronage in her tone of speaking of their mother, whom she looked upon as an amiable, decidedly unsophisticated and unworldly woman – “sair hauden doun” by the small means and large family at the Rectory.

“Your mother!” she repeated.

But Mr Greville’s worldly wisdom prevented his losing his head at the news.

“After Mr Brooke’s son, you say,” he observed. “But that makes all the difference. Lots of people are next heir but one to a fortune without ever coming any nearer it. What’s to prevent this Mr Anselm marrying and having half a dozen sons and daughters of his own?”

“That is the thing,” said Lilias, “that – Anselm, I mean, is, of course, what the whole depends upon. Had he been strong and well we should probably never have heard or known of our – of mamma’s position. But – it seems so horrid to talk about it so coolly – Anselm will never grow up and marry, Mr Greville – he is only sixteen now – for he is dying.”

“Dear me, dear me,” said Mr Greville, “how very, very sad!”

But underneath his not altogether conventional expression of sympathy, Lilias could plainly detect the reflection – “That very decidedly alters the state of the case.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “it is terribly sad.”

“And under these circumstances – for you speak of this son as an only child, and he has probably long been delicate,” pursued Mr Greville – “how is it, may I ask, that these Brookes have never before looked up your mother? Their meeting with you now is purely accidental, and more Mrs Brabazon’s doing than Mr Brooke’s, it seems to me.”

“She explained all that,” said Lilias. “It is only very lately that Anselm has been an only child. There was quite a large family of them, and five, I think, lived to grow up. But one by one they have dropped off – all died of consumption like their mother. Basil, the second son, and apparently the strongest, lived to be six-and-twenty, and only died last year, having caught cold at some races – regimental races, I mean; he was in the Dragoons,” her colour rising unaccountably as she mentioned the regiment. “Before his death, Mrs Brabazon says, he was very anxious to look us up, for he never expected that Anselm would live long. But his father has been in such a broken-down state that Mrs Brabazon could never get him to take any interest in the matter. She does; it is wonderful how she can do so, I think, when one remembers how she has seen her own nephews and nieces die one by one.”

“There is no chance, I suppose, of old Mr Brooke’s marrying again,” said Mr Greville, consideringly.

“None whatever. He is nearly seventy, fifteen years older than his sister, and thoroughly aged by trouble, she says.”

“Then the estates are entailed?”

“Principally, not altogether. But they have never been separated, and that was why Basil Brooke wanted his father to look us up. He was anxious that the alienable – is that the word? – part of the property should go with the entailed if the next heir were a desirable sort of person. For I must explain Basil is the real heir; mamma would only have a certain life-rent, a very ample one though, she could provide for all her other children out of it. The entail is somehow rather peculiar. Mrs Brabazon comes in for nothing, though so much nearer than mamma, because she has no son.”

“And has your mother no idea of all this?” inquired Mr Greville.

“None whatever,” said Lilias, decidedly. “She knew there had been an unprecedented number of deaths among the Brookes, but she has always had a vague idea there were scores of them left still. Then she never associated herself, being a woman, with the possibility of succession. There were several female Brookes only a few years ago, but of the three now left not one has a son, and they are all old, Mrs Brabazon the youngest. Now, dear Mr Greville, the question is this – what, or how much should I write home of all that I have heard?”

“Why not all?” said Mrs Greville.

“I don’t know,” said Lilias. “I suppose it is from a vague fear of rousing hopes that may possibly be – no, not disappointed, there hardly seems any chance of that – but deferred, long deferred, possibly. Anselm may live some months, but there can be no question of his recovery. He spoke to me about it himself; he is nearly as anxious for his father to recognise us and settle things as his brother Basil was, Mrs Brabazon says. But Mr Brooke may live a good many years, may quite possibly outlive papa,” the girl added, with a sad little drop in her voice.

“It is of that I am thinking,” said Mr Greville, turning to Lilias with a kind earnestness of manner contrasting strongly with his usual easy indifference. “By ‘that’ I mean your father’s state of health and spirits. It seems to me it would be cruel to keep all this from him for fear of possible delay in its coming to pass. The relief to him of knowing you all would have something to look to in case of his death would be great enough to be almost like a new lease of life. And surely, if things were turning out as Mrs Brabazon says, – surely if any such need were to arise, Mr Brooke would do something for your mother at once.”

“I think so,” said Lilias. “Mrs Brabazon did not say so exactly, but she certainly inferred it. When speaking of Basil, and hearing of his being in an office in the City, she and Anselm looked at each other. ‘That is just what we heard,’ Mrs Brabazon said, and Anselm asked if he did not dislike the life very much. I said, ‘No, not so very much – he was glad to be doing anything, though his great wish had been to go into the army,’ and poor Anselm said he did not see why that might not still be arranged.”

“Curious unselfishness, surely, to take such an interest in the one who, he believes, will eventually take his place,” observed Mr Greville.

“Yes,” said Lilias, “it struck me as strangely unselfish. But Mrs Brabazon says Anselm has never cared to live since his brother’s death. Basil was the strong one, and Anselm leaned on him for everything, he has always been so delicate, ‘living with a doom over him ever since he was born,’ Mrs Brabazon called it.”

“Consumption, I suppose?” said Mr Greville. “But your mother does not look as if she came from a consumptive family.”

“No, it is not from the Brookes, but from their mothers side that they are consumptive,” said Lilias. “The deaths among the other Brookes have been in many cases from accidental causes.”

There fell a little pause; Lilias, eager for decision, was just about to break it with a repeated request for advice, when Mr Greville intercepted her intention.

“I’ll tell you what I’d do in your place, my dear,” he said, suddenly. “Write the whole to your sister Mary. She’s as sensible a girl as one often meets with, and, being on the spot, can judge as to the effect the news is likely to have on your father.”

“Yes,” said Lilias, “I think I shall. She is on the spot, as you say, and could tell it less startlingly than I could write it. Besides,” she added, with a slight touch of filial jealousy, “she can consult mamma.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Mrs Greville, in a conventionally proper tone.

“And, after all,” said Mr Greville, a little maliciously, ”‘Mamma’ is really the chief person concerned.”

He was shrewd enough to suspect that notwithstanding his wife’s honest pleasure in good fortune coming to her old friends, she would have preferred its not coming to them through their mother, the quiet, reserved woman whom she had somehow never been able quite to understand, who met her good-natured patronage with an unruffled dignity which always prevented hearty Mrs Greville from feeling quite at ease in her presence, though mentally considering her as rather a poor creature than otherwise.

It was late that night, or early, rather, the next morning, before Lilias went to bed. For, till her letter to Mary was written, she felt she could not rest. If only she could have written one other letter too!

“Oh, Arthur,” she said to herself, “what good fortune your love seems to have brought us already! And should you become poor for my sake, what happiness if it should ever be in my power to restore to you any of what you may have sacrificed! My sisters and I would have daughters’ portions, Mrs Brabazon said; and mine could not, at the worst, but be enough for us to live on. How strange that the Brookes should know him!”

For in the course of conversation that day, it had been mentioned, à propos of the Cheviotts’ meeting with Mrs Brabazon in Paris, that Arthur Beverley and Basil Brooke had been brother officers and great friends.

Chapter Twenty Six

Sir Ingram de Romary

“Raged the loud storm…The lightning o’er his pathFlashed horribly – the thunder pealed – the windsMournfully blew; yet still his desperate courseHe held; and fierce he urged his gallant steedFor many a mile. The torrent lifted high its voice.”Lydford Bridge.

Hathercourt letters sometimes came of an evening. When any thoughtful or good-natured neighbour happened to pass the Withenden post-office at or after three o’clock in the afternoon, it was a favourite attention to call for the Rectory letters. And sometimes it happened that the owners of the letters were not sorry to receive them in private, for even among the least reserved or secretive natures it is not always pleasant to have one’s affairs discussed or guessed at by half a dozen inquisitive young people round a breakfast table.

Lilias had not written quite as much to Mary as usual of late, finding it difficult to make time for more than the almost daily lengthy and amusing letters she sent to her father. So when Mr Wills from the Edge, who, since her residence under his roof, had taken “Miss Mary” into special favour, called with a thick budget addressed in Lilias’s hand, Mary felt surprised as well as delighted.

But her pleasure was somewhat tinged with alarm when she read the few words which, at the top of the sheet, first met her glance:

“Read this when you are alone, and likely to be uninterrupted. It is nothing wrong. Don’t be frightened.”

But frightened of course she was, and thankful to be able at once to satisfy herself.

“Nothing wrong!” It would have been difficult to judge from Mary’s face, when she looked up after finishing the letter, what had been the nature of its contents. Like Lilias, her first impression was one of such utter bewilderment that it seemed as if her brain were refusing to take in the facts before her. She got up from her seat, pushed her hair back from her forehead, and tried to think reasonably and rationally. But it was difficult.

“Can I be dreaming?” she said to herself. “Mamma heir to all the Brookes’ property! Can it be true? Oh, papa, poor papa – he must be told. Only last night again he was talking to me of his racking anxiety about our future; it is so impressed on him that he is not going to live long. And, as Lilias says, this news may be fresh life to him.”

She sat down again, and for some minutes allowed her fancy to run riot in the new world so suddenly opened before her. To be rich! How extraordinary the idea seemed to her – no more furrows on her father’s face of anxiety as to the future, no more daily worries for her mother about butchers’ and grocers’ books and servants’ wages and everlasting new boots for the boys; plenty of books and music, and pretty dresses even, which in her heart Mary was by no means given to despise, for herself and Lilias; a first-rate governess for the girls – unlimited power as well as will to help their poorer neighbours – a pretty and luxurious home, something like Romary, perhaps! A flush rose to Mary’s cheek at the thought – what would the Cheviotts think of this marvellous news? Would it increase or diminish the separation between them? Was it possible that even yet all might come right between Lilias and Arthur Beverley, or had Lilias quite left off caring for him? Was it – ? Her speculations were suddenly brought to a close – a tap at the door reminded her of the present, and recalled her to the consideration of how and when she should first break this astonishing revelation to her parents.

“Consult with mamma,” Lilias had said. Yes, of course, that was the first thing to be done. But to get hold of her mother alone for an uninterrupted talk was by no means so easy as it seemed, just now especially, since Mr Western’s failing health had rendered him exigeant and capricious in a way quite foreign to his ordinary character.

The tap at the door was repeated.

“Come in,” cried Mary, starting up as she spoke.

“How can I when the door is locked?” said her mother’s voice.

Mary hastened to unlock it.

“I am so sorry for keeping you waiting,” she said, penitently, as she did so. “I had no idea it was you, mother.”

“I have been looking for you all over the house, and began to think you must have gone out,” said her mother, in a slightly aggrieved tone. “It is nearly tea-time, and I want to hasten it, for possibly a cup of tea may do your father good. It is about him I wanted you, Mary. He seems to me decidedly less well this evening, and I have just been wondering if we should not ask Dr Brandreth to come to see him to-morrow. The postman will be here directly. What do you think?”

“Would papa not mind?” said Mary, consideringly.

“I don’t know – that is the difficulty. He is always pleased to see Dr Brandreth, and often enjoys a talk with him; but whenever I have proposed it lately, he has begun worrying about the expense. Dr Brandreth is very kind – to do any good to your father I know he would gladly come for nothing at all; but your father would not have that. He has always paid our doctor’s charges to the full, and would be miserable not to do so. But it can’t be helped; we are certainly unusually short of money just now, but where your father is concerned, Mary dear, I seem to grow reckless.”

Mary had drawn her mother within the threshold of her room. They stood talking near the door-way in low tones.

“If that is the only hesitation,” the girl replied, eagerly, with a suppressed excitement in her voice which, had she been a whit less preoccupied, her mother could not but have noticed, “if that is the only difficulty, oh! mother dear, don’t hesitate an instant.”

Mrs Western sighed. Her heart only too thoroughly agreed with Mary, but, alas! to her life experience of poverty it seemed no longer unendurable and inconceivable, no longer anything but sadly inevitable that, even in such a matter as a question of health or sickness, possibly even of life or death, considerations of pounds, shillings, and pence should force themselves to the front. She only sighed and hesitated.