K fi^ ffr THE ^ NobeL Princess Royal. Katharine Wylde^ Atithor of ^ Mr. Bryanfs Mistake,'''' etc. In Three Volumes. Vol. I. LONDON : RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, PUBLISHERS IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY the QUEEN. 1894. (All rights reserved.) CONTENTS OF VOL. I. c >o» PART I, J Introductory ^ PART II. ^ The Important Party I/) PART III. 3 Remorse .. PAGE 3 44 29 PART IV. Deus ex Machina C 5 241 VOL. I. "Sing of the nature of woman, and then the song shall be surely full of varieties, old crochets, and most sweet closes ; it shall be humour grave, fantastic, loving, melancholy, sprightly, one in all, and all in one." THE PRINCESS ROYAL. PART I. INTRODUCTORY. CHAPTER I. HEN Catharine Palmer first met Stephen Turold, she thought him an angel. He was a boy In looks ; a fair, graceful creature, with Grecian features and a tenor voice, who played most delicately on the violin, and was by birth and education a gentleman. Later she found him a very fallen angel indeed, and suffered many things at his hands. However, she had loved him, had made herself his slave, finally had THE PRINCESS ROYAL. married him ; and, indeed, as his wife, she kept him tolerably straight by sheer force of character and power of affection — the latter only very Indifferently returned. A hard, anxious life she had with this man, crippled by constant poverty ; for Stephen, ejected from his own class, had no talent for making a living in a lower one. Catharine worked for both, unknown to her husband's family and with but little assistance from her brother, who neither understood nor ap- proved her way of life and choice of a husband. Then, a few years later, came a great mis- fortune : Catharine fell ill, and, after linger- ing for several months, a time of great misery to herself and to her helpless husband, she died ; rather suddenly In the end. The man, half-starved, exasperated, and reckless, was away at some wild orgy, and the shock of finding his wife dead on his return seemed to unhinge his brain. At Catharine's funeral every one remarked upon the widow^er's INTRODUCTORY. Strange hilarity as he stepped lightly behind the coffin, carrying his little son, whose rosy cheek formed a striking contrast to his own haggard ghastliness. In the evening, Stephen Turold, still with the baby in his arms, came to visit his brother-in-law, who lived in a model lodging- house near Smithfield. Jack Palmer was foreman in an oil-shop, and had been married for fifteen years to the daughter of a village schoolmaster. The pair were simple, countrified people still, though John had educated himself a good bit in a quiet way, and had a taste for science, and a thoughtful, inventive mind under a dull exterior. When Stephen came in, he was received with the utmost gentleness. Polly put down her sewing, and Jack took a holiday from his chemicals ; for he was experimenting on the mineral oils which he daily handled and sold in his master's shop. He took Stephen's baby on his knee, dandled and danced him, poked his fat cheeks, and felt his firm limbs THE PRINCESS ROYAL. with an air of admiration, suggesting a large bump of phlloprogenltlveness ; and Stephen watched him with hungry eyes, making Httle reply to Mary's well-meant observations of condolence and sympathy. " You have a deal left you to live for, Mr. Turold,'' said good Mrs. Palmer. '' There's a many would give up most all they pos- sessed to have a little lad of their own like that." ''Would yoitV asked Stephen, quickly. John's hand was arrested on the child's golden hair, and he glanced furtively at his brother-in-law. " I have brought the imp to you," continued the father, leaning his chin on his hand and speaking quickly and unsteadily ; '' I'll make you a present of him, if you like." There was a silence, only broken by the child's Innocent breathing. Mary looked at her husband; but beseemed lost in thought, his finger, stained black with his chemicals, still absently twisting the flaxen curls. INTRODUCTORY. " Let me tell you how it is." resumed Stephen, with tremulous eagerness; ''I'm fond of the little chap, and so was Kate. He's healthy enough, and looks as if he might turn up trumps — doesn't he ? — if he got fair play in the game. But what can / do for him '^ I don't see my way to feeding him, let alone to making him a gentleman. It wouldn't be much advantage to him to turn out my style of gentleman. Give me some of that whisky you've got there, Jack ; talking is dry work." " It's spirits of wine," said John, grimly, removing the black bottle. " Go on with what you are saying." '' I'm saying I can teach the boy to drink, and that's about all," said Stephen, in the same agitated tones. " I don't care to drop him into the workhouse. Kate didn't de- serve that treatment for her son. God knows she didn't get much good by her marriage ; but she has brought a fine child into the world, and if he turns out well, 8 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. perhaps, after all, she'll feel she was paid her wao^es." " If," began Mary, *.' she could see you " " I'm not under discussion, thank you ; though I've my own idea about myself. I'm going away from here, Jack, and it's not —at present — my intention to take the brat with me." '' Where are you going ? " *' No matter. Where's the child going .^ That's what I ask you. Come, Polly — Jack — if you don't want him, say so, and I'll wring his neck and have done with it." "Oh, John, let us have him !" cried Mrs. Palmer. John held up his hand delayingly. '' We can't make a gentleman of him, Stephen." *' No ; who wants it .^ My people don't. You think my people ought to do something for him ? Well, they won't ; that's flat. Kate had the notion herself; would go INTRODUCTORY. 9 down herself, poor fool, to see my father. Shall I tell you the result ? He frightened her into denying, the brat's very existence, and her own almost, lest the governor should take him to make a o:entleman of My father has treated me like a dog — a cursed and kicked-out dog ; why should I give him the one thing I've got of any value ? Do you think he'd be kind to the child ? Not he. He'd call it a beo^orar for Kate's sake, and a thief for mine. I know my father, I tell you, and all my brothers, and the whole damned lot of 'em. No, no ; wring the child's neck, if you choose, but don't you put him in the way of any one named Turold. Let him earn his bread. If he goes to the dogs like his father — it's most likely in his blood — let him do it obscurely among low-class people, who make no splash when they go under." " I'd bring him up a pledge chap," said John, thoughtfully ; and Stephen Turold laughed loud and long. lO THE PRINCESS ROYAL. " Remember, Jack, there's not a penny to come to him, nor prospect of any, confound it. I'm too low down in the family for rights, and too offensive for favours ; so don't you go bothering the governor for either. It's charity, of course ; but you two, you could have afforded a child, you know, if you had chosen. Kate and I couldn't, but we got him ; and that's how the world wags. Rectify the ways of Providence, Jack. He's not a bad-looking little chap. You'd never have made a child like that, you two. Couldn't you feel grateful to us for doing the job so successfully for you ? Call him your own son, and swallow the admiration you'll get for him. Upon my life, it's a handsome present I'm making you ! Still, here are papers to prove he has a right to my name, if he ever should want it. They might come in handy some day, who knows ? And just see that he learns to spell his name right. Jack. Yoit never take the trouble to write it twice alike." IXTRODUCTOR Y. 1 1 *' If he's to be our boy," said John, thoughtfully, " he had best take our name, for qrood and alL It's an honester one than yours, Stephen." " And better suited to a butcher or a ra^^- man," said Stephen Turold, laughing. And he got up hastily and went out, with an unsteady step as if he had been drinking. John, still holding the child, contemplated the little sleeping face, and Poll}- put her right hand on her husband's, and with her left raised the baby's finger to her lips. " Poor little deserted one ! " she murmured pityingly. After a minute Stephen returned. '' You'll do it, Jack ? Eh, what do you say ? " " We've been wanting a child this many a year," said the man, simply ; '' maybe he'll bring a blessing with him." " He'll have a debt to pay you some day," said Stephen, huskily, and squeezed his brother-in-law's fineers. Then he stumbled 12 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. out again, singing a music-hall ditty on the folly of matrimony. That night Stephen Turold cut his throat in the bare room where his wife had died. His corpse was found in the morning, a look of wild horror on its discoloured face, and one hand reaching out vainly towards a white woolly lamb which Catharine had bought for the child the last time she had been out. Probably he had had some distorted affection for the dead woman and her baby, and, like many another, was less heartless than he seemed. But there was an end of him ; and his father, Charles Turold, of Turold Royal, was at the inquest ; and when the usual charitable verdict had been given, he took the poor corpse hom*e and had it pompously buried with his ancestors in the family vaults. And Stephen, whose career had been concealed as much as possible, was quickly forgotten in the respectability of dull cold marble. The world never knew of the dead man's INTRODUCTORY. 13 wife, and the existence of the blue-eyed baby remained unsuspected. And this was the fashion by which honest John Palmer acquired his handsome, fair- haired son, who grew up the very apple of his eye and the unspeakable delight of all his days. CHAPTER II. LATER. HAT people remarked in the men of the Turold family was that they were all very much alike. There was a certain family ideal upon which they formed them- selves, and it made no difference to any one if the man reigning were a Reginald or a Richard, a Stephen or a Charles. At the present moment it was Gilbert. He was very much in evidence at county boards and on local committees, in the hunting-field, at public balls and magistrates' dinners ; the tenants liked him and called him a real gendeman, but he was too poor to be the ideal landlord of these progressive days, IN TROD UCTOR V. 1 5 and the Molesworthy Radical newspaper denounced him as a tyrant and a land- crrabber. The thing, however, which very few practically remembered was that Gilbert, though regnant, was as yet merely the heir. His father still lived — a lonely, gout-stricken old gentleman, who had made his bow to society and seldom moved out of his own apartments. Nevertheless, that old gentle- man was really the family despot and governed in rightdown earnest, though he had stepped from his throne and had lifted his kingly crown on to the brow of his son. Gilbert was a good deal afraid of his father, and, you may be quite sure, so was Lilith. Lilith was Gilbert's daughter and only child, consequently the heiress presumptive; for it was accurately arranged in the entail that upon failure of male heirs (and Gilbert was at the present moment the last of these) the inheritance was to pass to the nearest female, who was to retain her name and to l6 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. Start the family afresh. Lllith had taken advantage of her unusual position as female heir to vary the type a little. Possibly she had the family intolerance of interference, and their settled conviction that the Turolds were now and always had been the first family in England. She had too the family blue eyes ; but her hair w^as black and curly and not too abundant, as unlike the smooth, golden braids of her cousin Lady Caroline Vane (a typical Turold) as her slender willowy frame was inferior to that lady's Juno-like and somewhat formidable propor- tions. Lady Caroline and the old grand- father too thought Lilith a poor creature, and he had been extremely cross with her for her sex ; but that was a very long time ago, and now he had acquiesced in the inevitable, only insisting that he should have a very noisy voice In her marriage, and that it should take place the moment she was out of the schoolroom. " Dear papa," said Lilith, *' grandpapa is INTROD UCTOR Y. I 7 SO old, how can he possibly know the sort of person I should like to marry ? I should so very much rather ji'<9?/ settled it." Gilbert Turold smiled and drew her affec- tionately towards him. *' Try and realize your position, Lilith. Noblesse oblige, and Miss Turold must marry the man suitable to her, not merely the man she likes. You owe a debt to your long line of ancestors, my child, and, I hope, to as long a line of your descendants." Sixteen-year-old Lilith pouted. " It would be pleasanter to like him though, papa." '' To be sure, to be sure. Only you mustn't begin with the liking, as the daughter of a country clergyman might be allowed to do." " Papa," said Lilith, " didn't you begin with liking ? " He smiled, pushing the curls off her forehead and kissing it. " That was a little different, my love. VOL, I. 2 5^ 1 8 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. I was not the heir when I married. Your uncles were alive. A little more heroism is demanded of you, Lilith. We must choose for you, my dear ; and, remember, it is only a very ill-regulated mind, impossible in a member of our family, which requires to have duty safeguarded by vulgar passion." '' Oh dear me ! " cried Lilith, blushing scarlet, '' I should certainly never have a passion for anybody ! All I mean is that grandpapa is too old to know in the least the kind of person who would be suitable. He does not dislike that horrid man with the squint and the stammer who dined here on Tuesday. He did not seem sur- prised that such a man had been able to get a wife. I don't think it has occurred to grandpapa that a person with a stammer, or a cork leg, or a crooked nose, or any- thing of that sort, could never be a suit- able hus I mean that I, Lilith Turold, could never bear to live in the house or to sit at table every day with a creature like INTRODUCTORY. 1 9 that. Don't yoic see, papa ? Do please explain to grandpapa. I assure you I care very much indeed what people look like, and I don't know what would become of me if grandpapa tried to make me marry that kind of man ! " Lilith spoke with great earnestness. For only that morning she had overheard a conversation about a certain Lord Beacon, who had presumably been expressing ad- miration for the Princess Royal. '* My heiress cannot marry a peer," she had heard her grandfather say ; '' her long line must not be obliterated by union with a so-called noble one. It is needless, Gilbert, to discuss this young man's pre- tensions further."' But no one had appeared to dislike Lord Beacon for his white eyelashes and his shuf- flino- orait. The damsel therefore felt that her first suitor had been dismissed on the wrone grounds ; and she discerned a divergence of opinion between herself and her elders, 20 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. which might some day assume gigantic dimensions. Whether or not It occurs to any young woman of sixteen, pretty or plain, rich or poor, that she may end by never marrying anybody, I cannot say. Most certainly no such dismal foreboding crossed the mind of Miss Turold, of Turold Royal, for a single instant. Yet she trembled and half wished herself a little maid of fourteen again, too young to be thinking of marriage at all ; and this feeling remained even after her fears about cork les^s and stammers had calmed down a little. For by this time she had seen her cousin Edward Vane, and it would have needed eyes much duller than Lilith's pretty blue ones not to perceive that this young gentleman would be highly suit- able for the vacant situation, if he had a mind to apply for It. Edward had his full complement of limbs and was In every way pleasanter to look upon than Lord Beacon. No doubt Gilbert Turold felt, In presenting this young man as a possible candidate, that INTRODUCTORY. 2 1 he had found some one acceptable no less to pretty Miss Lihth than to the autocrat grandfather. The girl recognized her father's ingenuity ; and suddenly, trembling a little, she felt herself much older and a bit of a coquette : no longer a child, but a grown woman of great importance and an object of attention to suitors. The point was, however, what did Edward Vane think of Lilith ? And who was he .^ Well, he was an important personage too. His father, son of old Charles Turold's sister Maria, though he had grown up under the care of a step-mother almost unknown to the Turolds, was, nevertheless, their nearest relation. And he had married his cousin Lady Caroline Erpingham — the large lady of the golden hair above alluded to — who, like all the Erpinghams, kept up a close connection with her relatives at Turold Royal, and was in all respects herself a typical Turold in appearance and habit of 2 2 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. mind. She had a large progeny, male and female; and all her children, except Edward, were very like herself, and not particularly interesting. Edward was different : a quiet, clever boy, curiously reticent of himself and his interests ; who asserted that he had no tastes and no occupations, worked at his mathematics in secret, and put himself to great inconvenience, locking up his books and scientific instruments and bolting his doors lest he might be surprised at his favourite employments. After taking high university honours, he amazed his family by settling down at Cambridge as a Fellow, living in very luxurious college rooms, and devoting himself ostensibly to the collecting of china. Occasionally he lectured or ex- amined a little to justify his presence at the university, yet, on the whole, he seemed as much a fish out of water there as amone his bustling brothers and sisters at home. Very few people knew that he was in reality a laborious student and an enthusiast in INTRODUCTORY. certain narrow and rather unpractical branches of scientific experiment. Before long, however, his father died ; and after this Edward lived less In college, was oftener seen in his house at Moles- worthy, and more frequently met in society. In person this young man was handsome, but of no great size. His manners were irreproachable. He talked well, and a little cynically ; and you had to know him very intimately before you discovered that on any subject he might have said more than ever he did say, and perhaps some- thing a little different. He had several literary accomplishments ; he danced well, and could make himself very agreeable to women, while speaking of them slightingly and exhibiting no tendency whatever to flirtation. Altogether he was an enigma to his brethren, and rather an annoyance to Lady Caroline ; but, one and all, they were afraid of him, and, in a quiet way, he ruled them with a rod of iron. 24 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. Edward was twenty-seven when he first saw LiHth Turold. Of course the family glory had been dihgently dinned into his ears by his mother, but she had never succeeded in eHciting from him one apparent spark of interest in the subject. '' I was not born hicky," said Edward, yawning ; '' though I am the next heir, you'll find Turold Royal won't come to me as a heritao^e." Lady Caroline suggested that he might marry the heiress, and Edward shrugged his shoulders and said he knezu better. Never- theless he had his own sentiments, and when Gilbert sent him an invitation to the Court, he accepted it. No doubt it was the place he fell in love with first. If he did not find the opulence which Lady Caroline's exaggerations had led him to expect, he discovered poetry and romance which had eluded her prosaic mind. The beauty of the situation excited him ; the green slopes and shadowed glades sur- ISTRODUCTORY. 25 rounding the low red house, part of which dated from the twelfth centun*. Enchant- ment wrapped him round as soon as he had crossed the threshold, had seen the mouldy tapestries, the armour which had fought at Jerusalem or Agincourt, the por- traits of the men whose blood flowed in his veins. He also was a Turold of the Turolds, and from this moment he was greedy of the inheritance. And now enter to him Lilith, the slip of a girl who stood between it and him. Lilith was sixteen, tall and lank, as became her years ; dressed still in a shortish frock, with her hair looped low on her neck in a school- girl knot Yet the frock, donned for the occasion, was a pretty and a stately one. made out of her mothers wedding dress, quite plain, but a little low at the neck, showing the spring of a throat already beautiful and suiting the creamy bloom of a delicate cheek. To Edward, used to his high-coloured and brawny young sisters. 26 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. this girl seemed all daintiness and grace, exquisite in her freshness, her pretty pride in her position, her joyous appreciation of her opening life and the attention she was to meet with from the world. At once gracefully shy and delicately daring in her manner to himself, Lilith irresistibly attracted her cousin's eyes and fixed his interest. He had been but a few moments in her presence when it struck him, agitatingly, why her parents had sent for him to Turold Royal. He paused in the middle of a sentence, his face suddenly paling, which was his manner of showing emotion, and his quick mind remembering many things in a lightning flash. These pleasant people, father and mother, who were watching with the greatest interest the progress of their experiment, were offering him, actually offering him this romantic place, this delicate damsel, both of which he already coveted. And, half-stunned by the novelty of the question, Edward heard his own heart asking him persistently, INTRODUCTORY. ''Why not? In a little while, why not i^ " Yet he did not at once come forward as a suitor, perhaps because Lilith was only sixteen. At least, he gave his impatient mother no other reason for delay ; and he kept up a close intimacy with the girl and her parents. m\^[W[mr^[mmmmmm[^m\m\mr^r^[^r^^r^^r^'mmm CHAPTER III. T Is explained that Turold was a very, very old name. There it is on the Bayeux tapestry ; and William the Con- queror had a preceptor of the name, who was afterwards a Grand Constable, and sent on an embassy to Guy of Ponthieu. Two of the Constables sons came to England and are mentioned In the Domesday Book ; and of one of these Gilbert Turold was now the last male heir in a direct and un- broken descent. Turold Royal came Into the possession of the family by gift of King Stephen. The house, of which the ancient form was still to be traced at the core of the present Tudor building, stood on a gentle hill, sur- INTRODUCTORY. 29 rounded by terraced gardens, which sloped away to parks and woods. All the furniture was old, and from one end to the other the old house was chockful of relics. There were two royal beds and half a hundred locks of hair. There were autographs, rapiers, shields, shoes, fans, posy rings, innumerable ; and at least three ghosts dating from three different centuries. There were a few good portraits and a great many bad ones. There was the christening robe of Henry VII., the warming-pan of the Count of Edessa, Queen Eleanor's stoneware jug, and three letters from Katharine of Arragon. The andirons in the hall bore Henry VIII.'s initials, and a drawing-room chair was of yellow silk, flowered in silver by a lady of Charles II. Perkin Warbeck's head sat under a glass case ; and beside it were three notable cauls, Michael Scott's showstone, a divining rod, and two of the fingers of Christopher Marlowe. But of one thing there was ever but scanty store at 30 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. Turold Royal — a thing spoken of there as a vulgar triviality, which is yet generally a useful article enough — mo7iey. Alas, and alas ! the want of money is the root of all evil ; and under Gilbert's rdgime even the Turolds of Turold Royal were beginning to be dimly aware of the fact. Expenses had a tiresome habit of increasing. For example, the stables tumbled down, and the church, which was a prized family re- sponsibility, had its steeple struck by light- ning. There was a murrain among the deer ; and a catastrophe, which entailed extensive doctoring fees, among the farm servants. Finally, the very extravagant Local Board undertook the repair of a road skirting the park, and sent in a monstrous bill. Mr. Turold felt that the very last straw had now been l^id on the camels back, and he summoned the family lawyer for advice on the financial position. Mr. Wilkinson scratched his head thoughtfully. *' Follow, sir, the Duke of Hampstead's INTRODUCTORY. example — sell your Velasquez, or the two Vandycks, and Peg Woffington's powder- pot." ''We will not," said IMr. Turold. (That, of course, means Gilbert. The old gentle- man will never appear in these pages without a flourish of trumpets before his entrance.) *' We will not," repeated Gilbert Turold to several further suggestions, some of which seemed sacrilegious to the embarrassed gentleman, some merely insufficient. At last he decided to sell a parcel of land ad- joining the estate, which had recently fallen in from a great aunt, and which, not being included in the original property, was insig- nificant in the family eyes. It consisted of about fifty acres, chiefly woodland, opposite to the drawing-room windows of Turold Royal ; and far away, concealed among the trees, was the pretty cottage where the deceased lady had lived with her parrots and her pugs. Mr. Turold imag-ined that "To be Sold" 32 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. having been stuck upon a board beside this Httle house, purchasers would immediately fieht for It. He was in error. Weeks passed before any notice was taken ; then one or two persons Inspected, inquired, shied at the price, made offers and were refused. " If, sir," suggested the land-agent, '' I might put it up in lots for villas " ''Villas?'' said Mr. Turold, incensed. *' Certainly not. Villas mean tradespeople, and we owe a duty to county society. The only person I can import into the neighbour- hood is a gentleman, say a retired Indian General of good descent, or the son of a respectable peer." "Sir," said Mr. Letterby, meekly, "you must, I fear, lower your price." " If my purchaser is a gentleman," said Mr. Turold, " he will not be on the look-out for a bargain." Mr. Letterby consequently expected that Sllcote Dene — so the little estate was called — INTRODUCTORY. 33 would remain in the market. He also was proved to be mistaken. For one da}*, ]\Iiss Kidson, daughter of the chairman of the Molesworthy Local Board and editor of the Radical paper, was riding with her friend Tom Palmer. ]\Iiss Kidson had scant consciousness of her own very remarkable personal beauty, but she knew quite well she was clever. She had just come home from Newnham College, liaving taken honours in Science and Moral Philosophy. She was an advanced young lady ; philanthropic of course, and with a passion for reforming the world. At the present moment she was unmercifully boring Tom Palmer with her hobbies ; and he was thinkinor more of the fresh o^reen leaves and the spring sunshine than of her criticisms and queries, and of his own very perfunctory- replies when she appeared to him to be expecting an answer. *' The difference between men and women," said Grace Kidson, *' is that women are more VOL. I. ^ 34 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. m earliest. I mQ^n awa/ce7ied -womQn. Don't you think so, Tom ? Otherwise, with your grand talents and your superb strength, you would accomplish ten thousand times more. Earnestness is 07ir gift. You yourself, Tom, — your music now — you don't labour at it. If / had your ear, your voice, your fingers, you careless boy, do you know what I would do ? " *'Yes, Gracie, I know," said Tom; ''you would bore the old folk." " Oh, Tom, you are so wrong ! You might be educating their taste. But if I were you, rd go to Germany and study. You might be a Wagner, Tom, or at any rate a Brahms. Oh, if I had but half your talent! Tom, you vegetate. You are a drone — a mere drone. It is too bad of you." ** Hallo!" interrupted Tom, "look at this pretty ivy-covered cottage to be sold ! " Grace stopped her horse, wheeled round, and was off on another subject. *'Oh yes! I w^as near forgetting. I INTRODUCTORY. brought you this way on purpose to show it to you. I want you to inspect it, Tom, and see if it won't do exactly for my Conva- lescent Home. I am determined to enlarge the Home this year, and to move it to a brighter situation. And indeed, Tom, your subscription is overdue, and Mr. Palmer's. Please don't forget to remind him." *' There are fifty acres to be sold with this house," said Tom ; *' it won't suit you, Gracie." *' Fifty acres ! Oh, why didn't I notice that before ! " cried Grace, in dismay. *' I have mentally had my patients living in this house for a fortnight. Such a dear, con- sumptive woman I have now, Tom, deserted by her husband. Do let me tell you about her. She is dying, poor thing. I never had such a responsive, grateful, interesting creature before. But fifty acres ! No, it won't do. Come away." *' Let's get down and look at it, though," said Tom ; "it takes my fancy." 36 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. They dismounted, giving their horses to the caretaker to hold while they went in. The cottage drawing-room opened by French windows on to a weed-grown garden, where white convolvulus strangled the syringa bushes, and tall grass quivered golden before the sombre evergreens. Tom stepped out, Grace followinor him. It was evening-, and the thrushes sang their loudest on the tops of the poplar trees ; now and then a few nightingale notes bubbled forth from the lower shrubs. The ground below the garden fell rapidly to the valley, where a tiny river shone like a golden thread. Beyond, rose the sloping emerald park-lands of Turold Royal, with herds of deer reposing under beech and ash ; on the crest of the hill were the low red walls and the turreted battle- ments of the old house, h. figure in white was just visible; standing on the terrace, and perhaps watching the gambols of the great dog whose bark boomed faintly across the valley to the distant cottage. INTRODUCTORY. " That's the prettiest thing I ever saw in my life ! " cried Tom Palmer. "I'd like to live in this cottac^e." And he added im- pulslvely, — his nostrils tickled by the scent of the syrlnga, the bubbling bird-notes sending a shudder of delight down nerves which vibrated to every voice of music, while the sunset sky, the dark house, and the white figure were painted on his eyes like a vision In a pleasant dream, — '' Fifty acres is exactly the size father is looking for ! " It was consequent on Tom's ride with Grace Kidson that a purchaser appeared for Silcote Dene, who made no demur about the price, nor difficulties of any sort. But he wasn't the son of a lord nor even a retired Indian General. The matter was concluded before Gilbert Turold could look round, or fully realize what it was that he had done. When he did realize It, he felt thoroughly vexed, if not a little ashamed of himself. " But who Is it, papa," asked Lilith, see- 38 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. ing him disturbed ; " who has bought the Dene ? " " Poverty leads one into strange tempta- tions," moralized Mr. Turold. '* Lilith, when you marry, you must marry a wealthy man, my dear child ! " " What have you done, Gilbert ? " asked his wife. " I have committed a social error, Evelyn. I have, I am sorry to say, introduced into our neighbourhood a member of the very class which I least wish to see in society — the class whose only title to consideration is money." ''But who, papa ? — who ? " " A tradesman who advertises in every penny paper." '' My dearest Gilbert ! Not the Moles- worthy butcher ? " " Nothing so respectable, Evelyn. This man is a noisy, speculating humbug. Bah ! you know his name well enough." " Surr's Soap, papa ? " INTRODUCTORY. 39 ''No; Palmers Prepared Paraffin, Lilith." " My dear Gilbert ! " exclaimed Mrs. Turold, and thought she detected a frown on the stern countenance of the Reginald who had fought for the king at Naseby, and was now in a picture-frame over the door. Lilith laughed. " Look here, papa ! All over the back of the Guardian, ' Buy Palmer's Paraffin ! ' And near Oxford the other day I saw a great board in a field, ' Burn Palmer's Prepared Paraffin ; ' and two ladies in our railway carriage turned to each other and said, both at once, * Do yoic burn Palmer's Paraffin ? It's the best ! ' Don't you think they were paid to do it, papa ? " At this moment old Mr. Turold, who had graciously joined the family circle, bumped his hand-gong noisily ; and when his valet came, got himself and his wheeled chair conveyed out of the room. '' Why, grandpapa, how early you are running away ! " said Lilith. 40^ THE PRINCESS ROYAL. "Your lamps smell to-night, my dear," said he. She clapped her hands. ''Impossible, grandpapa! It's Palmer's Prepared Paraffin ! " '' Exactly ; the whole room reeks of it. Good night, Gilbert. Allow me to say you have mismanaged this affair from beginning to end." And every one felt sorry for the Prince- regent thus publicly rebuked by the abdi- cated monarch, and Lilith kissed the top of her father's head sympathetically. One morning, a few weeks later, Mr. Turold, looking out of his window and frowning because his eye lighted on the pleasant woods of Silcote Dene, perceived that a clearance had been made, and that even at this moment woodmen were enlarg- ing the space, already an eyesore. A cold shudder ran down the gentleman's back. He ordered his horse, and trotted off at once to Silcote Dene, a distance of four INTROD UCTOR Y. 4 1 miles by road. The ivy cottage was in- habited, but not yet improved. Mr. Turold looked with disgust at a gaudy, half-worn and ill-fitting carpet in the principal room ; and at the wall, still stained by flood from frost-burst pipes in the preceding winter. ''The people must be pigs," he told him- self in disgust. " What would poor Aunt Deborah say ? " Then entered a short, bald personage, coatless, and smoking a pipe. " I am Mr. Turold," said the gentleman. " The pro- prietor," he added rashly, irritated by the bald man's stare. *' There's some mistake," said the bald man. " I'm Salt, the builder, and living in these premises to hact for Palmer — for Palmer of Palmer's Prepared Paraffin, you know." '' I have come to inquire why Mr. Palmer is cutting down trees on the hill opposite my house." Mr. Salt stared again. Still he answered mildly — 42 THE PRINCESS ROYAL, ''Jack Palmer's the last man to displease any one ; but I ask you, sir, how could he build his 'ouse without a bit of a clear space ? " " Build a house ! You don't mean to say he is ^oing to build a house ? What can he want with two houses ? " cried Gilbert. *' You don't call this 'ere an 'ouse, do you ? " said Salt, kicking the wall with derision. '' A house ! God bless me ! " said the poor gentleman. '' But I can't possibly have it exactly opposite mine ! I shall write to your employer myself." " As you please, sir," said Salt, meekly. The cutting down of the trees suffered no check, but Gilbert sent his letter. Greatly distressed, good Mr. Palmer got Tom to answer it for him — Tom, who knew more about gentlemen than he did, and who wrote a better hand than his father's. Tom, indeed, wrote so distinctly INTRODUCTORY. 43 that Mr. Tiirold at once recognized his absolute helplessness, and said no more. Down came the trees, and up rose the house. No cottage this time. No, a pre- tentious, sham antique, tasteless, abominable villa, with all the modern improvements, and excessively proud of itself; without even a creeper on its walls (being new) to veil its nakedness. On its right was a great stable ; on its left a huge, dome-topped glasshouse, suitable for Kew. At the en- trance was an immense and fantastic lamp, emitting a very brilliant light. *' There is only one thing wanting," said Princess Lilith. '' Some night we shall wake and see it there — a vast oily comet flaming across the sky in the form of writing, ' Behold Palmer's Paraffin ! ' " '* I don't think," murmured her father, " that my most ingenious enemy could have contrived for me a greater annoyance." ll„J2 Mi.»Ai.L^Ll^^ !^ ^.LJJL.,'..'.,,. »*■■■, ir^ PART II. THE IMPORTANT PARTY. CHAPTER I. T was o-ettlno- near the end of the ^V.V,l.XXX^ season at Luxor. The English physician had gone from the hotel and the head-waiter; and If you asked for sundry delicacies, before abundant, you only got a lamentable headshake and the explanation, " Limes " (or soap, or whatever It might be) ''all finished." A scorpion had ijfeen seen In the dining-room and a yellow snake in the saloon ; no more Cook's tourists were expected, and the visitors still in the hotel were packing up for their return voyage to Cairo. They were few. A French architect, measuring the temples for a guide-book ; a THE IMPORTANT PARTY. 45 German philosopher, writing a treatise on the '' Manners and Methods of Cultivation of the ancient Egyptians, as compared with the Habits of Life and Customs of Ao:ri- culture among the To-day-Nile-bordering- village-inhabiting-Fellaheen ; " an English spinster ; a widow and her eldest son named Vane, and with them a young relative still in mourning for her mother, Miss Turold — Lilith, of course ; there was only one Miss Turold. On this 22nd of March, Lady Caroline Vane wrote to her cousin Gilbert : " It is useless hurrying these matters. It will not be arranged just yet, but all is admirably en tramr Which, of course, was her ladyship's way of confessing that a certain match-making manoeuvre of hers had failed again. While she was writing, the hotel-keeper received from Cairo a telegram, which flung him into a o^reat fever of agitation — " Prepare for an important party." Was it the Queen of England who was on her 46 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. way ? and at this most unlucky moment when his wines, his fowls, and indeed his servants too were "all finished!" He con- sulted Edward Vane ; who smiled sarcasti- cally, and repeated the telegram as a jest at dinner. The " LP.," as the new-comers were nick-named, became famous even before their arrival. A few days passed, and then one sultry afternoon the Amenartas came (for the tourist-boats were discontinued) and brought the Important Party. It was the hour of siesta, but the LP. murdered sleep. For an hour there was an incessant trampling of many feet, a shouting of many voices, a dragging hither and thither of heavy boxes. Curiosity constrained Lilith, who was only eighteen and a wee bit tired of the hotel party. *' Edward," she whispered through her cousin's door, '' they've come ! I do so want to see them. It's early, but come down with me now for tea." THE IMPORTANT PARTY. 47 Lilith had not known Edward for three years ; but because she had made his acquaintance In her schoolroom days and was grown up now, she considered him a very old friend indeed, and they were on terms of the most comfortable Intimacy. To him she still seemed much of a child ; but he admired her, and he Intended her for his wife. "■ My dear Lilith ! " said Edward, re- provingly. However, he acceded. Afternoon tea at the Luxor Hotel is proverbially good. It seemed exhilarating to the Important Party, who had just landed after four days on the postal steamer. " They are very cheerful people," whis- pered Lilith, from behind her teapot. And Edward replied — " They are precisely what I expected.'' The LP. consisted of five gentlemen and four ladles, a dragoman, three English men- servants, and two lady's-maids ; and they had a great deal of luggage. One gentle- 48 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. man was elderly, and royally addressed as *' Sir ; " he was bald and stout, had a very loud voice, and wore a white alpaca coat, in which he still seemed far too hot. The elderly lady was obviously his wife. She was dressed in ** Jaeger," and also seemed too hot. Then there was a very young and very showy couple, with a pert and pretty sister-in-law ; these were friends of the elderly pair, and the owners of the enormous travelling trunks. Next came three men, all under thirty, all well grown, and all dressed alike in sun- helmets and other over-tropical garb ; lastly, a youngish, rather plain but not displeasing lady, the wife of the eldest of the three, whom she called Jim. " I say, waiter," sang out a member of this party, *' send me a boy to fan the flies off." The person addressed was the landlord, who was too much awed by the I. P. to object to anything. He called his little son, THE IMPORTANT PARTY. 49 and the child stationed himself solemnly behind the big gentleman, with a fly-whisk, which he waved gravely and ineffectually. A great laugh arose at the unexpected execution of the order. " I say, doctor," said Jim, " you're a sybarite." ''Well.^" said the doctor, ''it's like we always did in Burmah, don't you know ? " And the pert young lady asked who '' sybarite " was when he was at home. *' Him," replied the doctor, imperturbably, pointing with his thumb to a picture on the wall, copied from the tomb of Ti at Sakkarah. Renewed laughter, the pictures seeming irresistibly ludicrous. "• There's your portrait. Loo," said Jim, pointing one out to his wife. " Oh law, Tom ! " said she, leaning across to another of the party ; '' isn't that a com- pliment Jim's paying me ? " '' It's Cleopatra," said the doctor, spell- ing out with difficulty some letters placed VOL. I. 4 50 THE PRINCESS ROYAL. one above the other. General laughter again. '' Tom's in a brown study," said Mrs. Jim, pouring fresh tea into his cup. *' Have it strong, Tom, do ; it'll wake you up." Tom had been silently examining the room and its occupants with a calm survey from a pair of frank, unabashed, blue eyes, which had never quailed before any one. He saw windows opening upon a bushy garden, across which the sun streamed mer- cilessly ; he saw a second long table, with a white cloth for dinner ; he saw at the end of the table at which he himself sat, a ridiculous little Frenchman (Tom was still at the stage in which all Frenchmen appear ridiculous) ; he saw an Englishman, whose good looks gave him the impression that he had somewhere and somewhen certainly seen him before. And then he saw a young English lady. Tom got no further in his survey of the room. He remained staring at the young lady. THE IMPORTANT PARTY. 51 She was dressed in white — that was the whole description he could have given. He could not have said for certain that she was pretty. His discrimination, his self-pos- session, his very consciousness seemed to forsake him. As he looked at the young lady, he felt his soul, as it were, evaporating, being absorbed into hers ; his heart actually leaving him to attach itself irrevocably to hers. In a word, he there and then fell in love. " Who ever loved, who loved not at first sight ? " We mock at the line now. A litde reflec- tion, we begin with ; a little repulsion ; not with love. Yet a few simple souls remain who don't reflect gloomily or much, and who would never overcome an antipathy. They survive from some past generation, no doubt, but they are capable of one most delightful feat — they can fall in love at first sight. Tom belonged to them ; and so, oblivious of all else, he stared on at the young lady, already la maitresse de son ccBur. "'"'^'