Hi y^.^y -..■'. •'-■••.■•■'■■ ■'•:■.■■■•:.•'•:'■'••-• '•■!■»•'.■;••■•■'■. •■'•■■■'• v: ■■'■"■■■^ ■'-■■■" mm S ram ^3|h|P illiiiP mmzsm a I B RAHY OF THE UN IVLRSITY Of ILLINOIS Q362k v I KING'S BAYNARD KING'S BAYNARD. BY THE HON. MRS. GEORGE GIFEORD. 1 Mine honour is my life j both grow in one ; Take honour from me, and my life is done : Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try; In that I live, and for that I will die."— shakspeabe. IN THEEE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1866. The right of Translation is reserved. G3C THIS WORK .3. is WITH HIS KIND PERMISSION CO DEDICATED TO JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, ESQ. \ BY on THE AUTHOR. 5 4 CHAPTER I. " Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset ?" KING HENRY VI. ACT 1. KING'S BAYNARD itself had once been a royal chase, as the name implies, and had been a personal gift from his sovereign to the first baronet of that name, as an acknowledgment of services rendered, and of certain moneys advanced by him when the royal exchequers were at a low ebb. The Hall, or Manor House, was a vast, rambling pile of building, more interesting from its air of antiquity, and as a witness to the great wealth of the succeeding generations of Baynards, who had lived VOL. I. B Z KING S BAYNAET). in it, than from any particular architectural beauty that it possessed. It had been added to at various times, and notwithstanding the somewhat melancholy grandeur with which, as an empty and, as report said, a haunted house, it impressed a lively imagination, it was a residence much to be coveted by any true lover of field sports, or of the noble science of woodcraft, in which the old race of Baynards had prided themselves on being peculiarly well skilled. They had indeed every temptation to become experts in a country which has been thus described by an old chronicler, as " a land of orchards and corn-fields, a land of hop-yards and meads, a land of stately oaks and over-arching elms, a land watered by streams famous for trout and grayling," for in the very heart of this delectable land stood the Hall, which was again surrounded by eight miles of Park, whose tangled thickets and wood- king's baynakd. crowned uplands had once been the favourite haunt of the " antlered monarch of the chase." Before describing the locality too accu- rately, I must apprise the reader that, as this history contains so much that has hitherto been private in the family, whose representatives are still living, it will be more courteous, as well as more expe- dient, to substitute fictitious names for the " Shire" in which it stands, and for the towns and places of note in the immediate neighbourhood ; and to give him no better standpoint for the critical comparison of dates than the one with which he was long ago familiar — the child-honoured " once upon a time." The legends attached to the old place, and to the ancient and peculiar race from whom it had descended in an unbroken line from generation to generation, would even now kindle the heart of the anti- b 2 king's baynabd. quary, or of one curious on the subject of what might be called " type-lore." In old times, the Baynards had been celebrated for their hospitalities, and for their adher- ence to the Eoyal House of Stuart ; and rol- licking Cavaliers would ride hard and long to assemble and hold revel within the old Hall, which in still later days had afforded timely shelter to the head of a persecuted king. All its surroundings seemed to speak of past splendour, and of the exercise of a cultivated taste, although, at the time at which this tale commences, desolation and decay had begun to make melancholy in- roads upon every sign of the wealth and care once lavished with a free hand upon beautiful King's Baynard. The terraced walks and gardens on one side of the house, and the acres of velvet turf which spread away to the Park boun- daries on the other, had been the work of king's baynaed. a beautiful Lady Baynard who lived in the time of Charles the Second, and who was removed from the court of the "merrie monarch,' ' by her husband, Sir Ralph, sorely against her own inclination — for she was, as her biographer tells us, " town-bred, and used to the society of nobles and the manners of courts." But, like a wise woman, in the course of time she accommodated herself to her husband's more rural tastes ; and as a reward for her obedience became so much attached to King's Baynard that she could not do too much for its adornment, in laying out the gardens and grounds accor- ding to her own admirable fancy. Amongst the bevy of dames and maidens whose pictures adorned the family gallery, from the pencils of Holbein, Dobson, Yandyck, Lely, and other painters of equal fashion, but less fame, the fairest was that of Amabel, Lady Baynard, who king's baynard. smile d graciously down on the beholder, affording a striking contrast to the scornful scowl of her successor, the termagant Joan. The last-named lady brought vast wealth to her husband, half witted Sir Marmaduke ; but with it she brought the fierce temper and the bitter tongue which had called down a curse upon the Bay- nards and their inheritance, that had for many generations eaten like a canker into the very roots of the family tree. " A curse upon the children of the mad- woman and the fool/* had been the malediction uttered by an old crone (or witch, as she was then styled) as Joan, Lady Baynard, struck at her with her riding wand, after having narrowly es- caped trampling her under the hoofs of the fiery horse, whose temper she loved to madden into impotent rivalry with her own. The echo of that curse was never out KING S BAYNAED. 7 of the proud woman's ears, until she yielded her imperious soul at the bidding of the Ano'el of Death. From that time the sun of the family fortunes declined ; as regarded, at least, the unblemished honour and fair name of the representa- tives of the ancient house. Their wealth did not diminish ; but the richly- stored cof- fers, which the dowers of two heiresses had filled to overflowing, brought no blessing with them to the curse-blighted pair. The two last possessors of King's Bay- nard had been absentees from their patri- archal home, which, at the time the tale commences, was inhabited by the young heir, who had been sent thither by his father, Sir Marmaduke, upon the comple- tion of his school and college career, to take his place in the county, and to attach him- self to his inheritance while he was still young. At least these were the reasons which the Baronet gave to his son, upon 8 king's baynakd. making him aware of his wishes on the sub- ject, and whether the latter believed in them or not, he was so well satisfied with the results, as to be willing to obey them in every particular. He occupied but a very small share of the old house. The library and a bedcham- ber beyond it, on the first floor, had been the rooms prepared for him by Mrs. Grim- stone, the housekeeper ; a lady whose will was despotic, and who had so long reigned and ruled at King's Baynard, the monarch of all she surveyed, that the young heir himself good-naturedly determined not to depose her, as far as the management of the internal economy of the old Hall was concerned. The West wing, which contained what were called the " state apartments," inclu- ding the saloon, picture-gallery, and music- room, was shut up, as far as the public, or even Mr. Baynard himself, were concerned. king's baynard. Mrs. Grimstone and her niece Susan, a housemaid, occupied one room in it, to show themselves superior to the fears openly acknowledged by the rest of the establishment on the score of the Baynard Ghost that was supposed to frequent these apartments ; a belief which was rather encouraged by the old lady herself, who acknowledged more than once to having encountered it during her self-im- posed occupation of the " Haunted Wing." It was the ghost of a lady dressed in green, who was supposed to wander up and down the long corridors, and through the vast dim rooms, consecrated to the relics of a faded past ; and it was be- lieved to be the shade of a Lady Baynard who had been, like Joan, a richly- dowered bride, but who, unlike her, had been pos- sessed of a meekly-cowering temperament, inviting ill-treatment at the hands of her husband, the bully Sir Mark. 10 king's baynard. This last but one of the " wicked baronets," was the grandfather of the hero of this tale. He had inherited the temper of his termagant ancestress, and his wild career had been brought to an untimely end, in consequence of a crime committed in a moment of ungovernable passion, in which he had shot down a man like a dog, whom he had discovered snaring a hare on the Baynard estate. The affair getting wind, although by means of heavy bribes he managed to evade the hands of justice, he was obliged to take refuge on foreign soil, from the Nemesis of univer- sal hate which his evil deeds had brought upon him on his own. His wife had died some months before the crowning villainy took place. She was a gentle harmless woman, plain and faded, with a great partiality for green silk robes and little spaniel lap-dogs. Before the birth of her first and only son, her husband had, king's baynakd. 11 in a playful mood, flung one of these canine favourites into a cauldron of soup that was boiling for his hounds ; and the cries of the tortured animal had such an effect upon the lady, that with more than the usual portion of pain and danger, she gave a sickly, puling heir to the ancient House of Baynard. The terrible baronet was so far conci- liated by this act of hers, that he refrained from any personal violence towards his sick wife, for some months, when she slipped out of his hands altogether and quietly departed this troublesome life. It was, perhaps, as a trifling compensa- tion, for the forbearance so long exercised that Sir Mark had soon afterwards dyed his hands in the blood of the wretched hind, on account of whose murder, in spite of bribes and hush money, he had been forced to fly the country. He carried his infant son abroad with him, whose early years 12 king's baynabd. were spent among such scenes of vice and depravity, that, as might be surmised, he grew up a worthy successor of his father, the wicked Sir Mark. Upon the death of the latter, which took place about the time that his son attained his majority, the young Sir Mar- maduke returned to the home of his ancestors, and took up his residence at King's Baynard. Reared, however, as he had been in the enervating atmos- phere of a depraved foreign court, the quiet routine of country life became insupportably monotonous. He was no sportsman, and the gaming-table was the only field on which this degener- ate specimen of the old Baynard stock cared to distinguish himself. Gambling, drinking, and carousing by day as well as by night, Sir Marmaduke and his friends, town-bred dandies (or bucks, as they were then called,) ignored the king's baynaeb. 13 nobler pleasures of the field and chase, while the only occupants of the stable, were the eight long-tailed coach-horses, who dragged their master, in alternate relays of four, from King's Baynard to town, and from town back to King's Baynard. "I'd like t' see t' strawberry roan again I ood," old Peter the groom used to remark on such occasions, when the four sleek, fat brutes were being yoked to the family coach; and of this strawberry roan's savage temper and daring feats in the field he would wax eloquent, when under the influence of cyder, or, as he familiarly called it, " drink." Mr. Trevylian the rector of the parish, had likewise good reason to remember, if not to regret, as old Peter did, the " strawberry roan ;" for to him he was indebted for the possession of a living worth twelve hundred a year and up- 14 king's baynakd. wards — the Baynard living ; and the best preferment, as far as emolnment went, in the whole county. He was a parson of the old stamp, now almost extinct; coined of a system of private patronage and pluralism; of the system of forcing thoughtless young men into a profession for which they were unfitted, that they might occupy the warm nests which Providence seemed to have lined so comfortably as a portion and provision for the younger sons of the great ones of the earth. No Baynard, however, had as yet been found willing to submit to the trammels of parsonic purity of life and manners, even as it existed in those days ; and the living had been presented to Mr. Trevylian, by the baronet of wife-beating and hind- slaying notoriety, under the follow- ing somewhat peculiar circumstances. Sir Mark, mounted on his powerful king's baynaed. 15 strawberry roan, a horse as renowned for his savage temper as for his unexampled prowess in the field, had gallantly held his own in one of the longest runs that the Derefordshire hounds (famous for their strength, and what was then considered great speed) had ever known. Excited by the brilliant sport, and disregarding the dangerous temper of the roan horse in cramming him at a stiff fence, Sir Mark buried his spurs, for the first time, deep into his heaving flanks. It was all over then — the roan swerved suddenly and vio- lently aside, refusing the fence, and fling- ing his rider heavily to the ground. This, however, was the most harmless part of the proceedings ; for turning upon the prostrate form of his master, the furious animal prepared to pay off old scores, and to revenge himself for the indignity to which his stained flanks bore bleeding witness ; and with ears close to his head 16 king's baynakd. and his formidable mouth open, he rushed at Sir Mark with the ferocity and deadly purpose of a wild beast. As the baronet lay powerless, with his right shoulder dislocated, he believed himself to be at the mercy of an animal which a long course of ill-treatment had made a relentless foe ; when, to his great relief, the butt of a heavy silver-headed hunting-whip, wielded by a slight but powerful arm, fell at the right moment between the savage animal's ears, laid back on his head, and effectually stunned and disabled him. " Gad, if it isn't young Trevylian, the parson !" said Sir Mark, getting up and shaking himself. " That was a good stroke of business, and I promise you that you shall be none the worse for it." Thus it was that, through the agency of the strawberry roan, Mr. Trevylian 17 had become, in due time, rector of King's Baynard, and the envied possessor of the rich preferment for which many more patrician divines had sighed in vain. At the period at which this tale begins, he was a man of some fourscore years, and had seen almost as many vicissitudes as the members of the family upon whom the shadow of the curse had fallen so relentlessly, and so long. After a bachelorhood of extreme gaiety, in which hunting, shooting, dancing, and carousing formed pleasing interludes, be- tween the labours of Sunday and the up- hill task of sermon- writing, the youug rector married a wife, a pretty, blooming girl of eighteen, the daughter of Sir Mark's principal tenant, with a handsome portion of her own, and the additional advantage of being regarded with favour- able eyes by the mighty wife-beating potentate himself. vol. i. o 18 king's baynard. For some years this young couple had remained childless, and not until some time after the birth of the heir, and flight of the branded Sir Mark into foreign lands, did Mrs. Trevylian present her hus- band with a little fair pearl of a daughter, whose marvellous grace and beauty, from her most tender years, were the talk and admiration of the whole rustic population of King's Baynard. Poor little Mabel's bringing up was not calculated to foster the finer qualities which nature had bestowed upon her with an open hand. Spoilt in her cradle, and doubly and more fatally spoilt in her budding womanhood, her impetuous and" domineering temper became the bane of her indulgent parents ; and they trembled with anxiety for the fate of their child, when the power of the master-passion should agitate the ardent nature like a leaf at the mercy of the storm. king's baynard. 19 That time, alas ! came all too soon. Sir Marmaduke, in liis flying visits to King's Baynard, had been in the habit of bring- ing with him a handsome foreign-looking youth, whose ostensible occupation was that of copying some of the fine specimens of the old masters which the picture- gallery contained ; and when his master had left the place for good, as he eventually did, the young man returned to the Hall under the same pretext, but in reality attracted by the beauty of Mabel, whose portrait he had obtained permission to take. He made better use of his ready tongue, and of his roving black eyes, than of his pencil, however, in this case, for before long he had persuaded the proud little beauty, who was a universal coquette, to leave her happy home and indulgent parents, to fly with him to a foreign land. c 2 20 king's baynard. It was a bold stroke, for she was a beauty, a spoilt child, and an heiress, the only child of the amply-dowered mother, and of the rector of the rich Baynard living. But she was wilful and wayward, like many an heiress and many a beauty before her ; and, setting aside all consi- derations of rank, wealth, and position, she broke the hearts of her parents by the crowning act of degradation, that of eloping with a man called by the com- mon people the " painter lad," who had come so inopportunely to the Hall at King's Baynard. It was the old story — stolen interviews, bitter tears shed in private, and wild reckless spirits assumed in public to de- ceive those whose every hope and interest were centred and bound up in her own — ending in flight, misery, and in what was the most cruel thing of all, in deep and irremediable disgrace. The sun of the king's baynaed. 21 rector of King's Baynard seemed fated, indeed, like that of his patron, to set in darkness and gloom. In the bent figure and feeble gait of the aged man, few would have recognised the wiry and athletic frame of the youth who had made such good use of his personal strength at the time when that strength was in its height and prime. It was some time before this affliction had come to the rectory, that the Hall had been deserted by its possessor, Sir Mar- maduke. This Parisian petit maitre, perfumed and mincing, like Harry Percy's fop, had declined to fight a young fire- eating squire in the neighbourhood, who had challenged him on account of some gambling transaction, in which it was said that the baronet did not come out with clean hands. Upon this decided manifestation of the cur (as it was con- sidered in those days), the county gave 22 king's baynard. the cold shoulder to Sir Marmaduke ; and Sir Marmaduke, sick of the place, and pining for the foreign atmosphere in which he had flourished so long, turned his back upon the county and fled. Rumours of him reached King's Bay- nard from time to time. In the enjoy- ment of vast wealth, which he was too prudent a gambler recklessly to dissipate, he had a sort of reputation as one of the dilettanti of that day ; and also, a less enviable one, as one of the most notorious libertines of that lax and profligate age. That there had been a Lady Baynard, young, beautiful and unfortunate, rumour had also affirmed with every one of her hundred tongues. The question, indeed, of " who was Lady Baynard," was one that had had its nine days' run in the neighbourhood, and many conjectures had been formed with regard to the antecedents, and even king's batnard. 23 the maiden name, of this mythical person- age. The subject, however, ceased to be discussed, as the names and doings of the Baynards fell into deserved oblivion, and the old Hall remained unoccupied year after year, presenting a melancholy monument to the crimes and vices of its last possessors. When, however in due course of time King's Baynard's young heir appeared upon the stage, sent over to take possession of the home of his ancestors, the question naturally re- vived, but apparently, without any greater chance of solution than in the first instance. It was a goodly inheritance, that of which young: John Baynard found himself the absolute monarch, on the day when he set foot on it for the first time. The timber on the escate alone, was worth a king's ransom — for with a latent feeling of that family pride which had been a 24 king's baynard. passion in each true-born Baynard, the roue Sir Marmaduke had, amidst his most reckless extravagance, left untouched every relic of former grandeur appertain- ing to the Baynard property. " Not a stick has been touched, Mr. John," said the grey-haired keeper, baring his head reverentially in the presence of the heir, whom he, in common with all the retainers, called " Mr. John," in- stead of "Mr. Baynard." Was there a feeling amongst them that the old house would rise from its ashes with undimin- ished splendour under the auspices of a name hitherto foreign to the family tree ? To those who gazed npon his manly presence, broad noble brow, and deep-set grey eye, that looked as if no dishonour could lurk within its depths, — the thought was a natural one ; and the youth himself felt his heart beat with a new sensation of pleasure, in the posses- king's baynaed. 25 sion of the home which he had been brought up to consider as the centre of boredom and the head-quarters of ennui. His first morning at King's Baynard dissipated the feelings of gloom which had attended his arrival the evening before. In the dim and dusky twilight, sights and sounds had presented them- selves, which lost none of their depressing influence by being presented to an imag- ination already feverish and overwrought. An idiot face had loomed at him from the lodge gate; the mastiffs (dogs of the famous Baynard breed, of giant strength and sinew) had bayed at him from the court-yard ; and the indescribable odour of an unoccupied house had fallen like the odour of death itself upon senses keenly alive to its melancholy meaning. " I have only to make acquaintance with the ghost," he thought, " to have 26 king's baynaed. purchased the freedom of this gloomy Castle of Otranto." But the bright beams of an English September morning dispelled these dreary reflections, like the morning dew. As he saw spread before him a panoramic view of many-hued woods, of richly- watered dales, of purple distance, and of golden foreground, King's Baynard pre- sented charms to him not to be eclipsed he thought by the fairest and widest hereditary domain which this country, rich in such, can boast. His love for his patrimony, from that time, amounted to a passion in his breast. His genial, happy temper, and essentially manly tastes, made him in a few months the idol of the neighbourhood ; and he took a pride in publishing his love for his beautiful mis- tress, and in blazing forth her praises, with a boyish bonhomie, at which not even the greatest stickler for his own king's baynaed. 27 family precedence could have found it in his heart to take offence. " He's a fine fellow ! a noble fellow !" the country squirearchy pronounced ; as in the exuberance of health and spirits, he presided at the breakfasts at the Baynard meets. " He's one of the right sort at last." And it would, indeed, have been hard to believe that his frank, joyous tem- perament, and honest manly nature, con- tained any of the seeds which had borne such bitter fruit, in the last two instances, of the owners of curse-blighted King's Baynard. There was, however, a latent spark in "young John's" deep set grey eye, which like a danger signal, warned those who offended him that they were on forbidden ground. Any allusion to his father, Sir Marmaduke, never failed to produce a quicker succession of these sparks than was 28 king's baynard. altogether pleasant for the heedless ques- tioner to become conscious of; and there was more mystery surrounding the young man's antecedents than appeared at first compatible with his light-hearted courtesy and genial simplicity of manner. 29 CHAPTER II. " In the very May morn of his youth, Rife for exploits, and mighty enterprises." IT will be as well, here, to explain the circumstances under which the young heir of King's Baynard came, as described in the last chapter, to take possession of the Hall, and to be allowed to reign and rule sole monarch of the patrimony which he would hereafter inherit from an un- broken line of powerful ancestors. It was not, indeed, from any over- weening affection or indulgence on the part of his father, Sir Marmaduke, that he had thus made his son the repre- sentative of the family which he himself 30 king's baynakd. had only lived to disgrace. There was little friendship on either side, and, the school and college career of the heir being over, the affectionate father was glad to get rid of the son, on the easy terms of a handsome allowance, and the implied condition of residence at King's Baynard. The fulfilment of the agreement to the strict letter of the law, turned out greatly to the satisfaction of both parties con- cerned. Had "young John" been commanded to become an inmate of his father's foreign home, or a participator in his habits and pursuits, it is more than probable that obedience, on his part, would not have been so unhesitatingly rendered. The natures of the two men were as opposite as the poles. Sir Marmaduke was an infidel libertine of the old school, a finished gentleman amongst the dandies, or bucks king's baynaed. 31 of the Georgian era, a very questionable character amongst the men of the next. Sir Marmacluke was one who, in consi- deration of his grey hairs, no man in his heart could honour : his son one, who in spite of his beardless youth, no man in his heart could despise. A rapid sketch of the character of the former, as belonging to a type now happily extinct, will not be out of place here. Essentially artificial, neither the smile on his lip nor the frown on his brow, betrayed the current which stirred the depths of his nature. The word heart, would be misapplied when used as typical of the deeper emotions of the soul, for, in that sense, at least, Sir Marmacluke was heartless. False at the core, the only honest attribute which he possessed, was the way in which he openly scoffed at the promptings of conscience in natures, more 32 king's baynard. honourable than his own. He was so unblushingly bad, that, as is sometimes the case, he was feared in some instances by better men, for he had wit enough to steep in gall the shafts of his ready tongue, and to give colour to the Vol- taireism under which he smothered the hydra-headed monster which was to him in the place of conscience, for Sir Marma- duke and his monster were not exactly on the terms of courteous indifference, which his well- assumed infidelity wonld have led even those best acquainted with him to suppose. There was a question with regard to the first Lady Baynard, young John's mother, abont which, at all times, that better part of the reprobate baronet was pertinaciously clamorous. Bnt on this delicate subject it was not likely that any stranger wonld intrude any unwelcome question or remark ; and with regard to KING'S BAYNARD. 33 every circumstance respecting his early marriage his second wife was as ignorant, and as expediently silent, as the rest of the world. His skeleton — if he had one — had never as yet been discovered by the Fatima who called him " Lord." Carlo tta, Lady Baynard, was a beau- tiful Italian, who had shared the baronet's home for some years before she had assumed the right to sign herself by his ancient name. Some months before the birth of her child, she had rushed into his presence with dishevelled hair and stream- ing eyes, and had played her part so well, that he had agreed to make her Lady Baynard according to the rites of the Ro- mish church, in time to legitimatise the babe, who was thus, in the eyes of the law, spared the bitter inheritance of shame which would otherwise have fallen to his lot. Sir Marmaduke had always entertained an aversion for his eldest son, VOL. I. D 34 king's baynard. which he was at no pains to conceal ; but upon the little Marmaduke, the latest born, the child of his unvenerable age, he lavished as much paternal love as he was capable of feeling. He was pleased to see the mother, like a beautiful tigress, fondle the infant, which she also loved with the fervour of her passionate southern blood. The child had been born on the same day that John Baynard entered upon possession of the Hall ; but so little com- munication passed between the father and the son, that months had elapsed before the latter knew that his domestic circle, formerly so limited, now included a step- mother and an infant brother. The fact was first announced to him by the family solicitor, Mr. Dale, whose younger and more active partner, Mr. Nathaniel Lines, had been abroad to transact business with Sir Marmaduke, a duty which had become irksome to his king's baynard. 35 senior, owing to the increasing infirmities of age, and to the ill-concealed dislike with which, of late years, both himself and his advice had been received by the formidable Baronet. " Is it possible that you are unaware, Mr, John," he said (for he too adopted the peculiarity of calling the young heir " Mr. John"), that there is now a Lady Baynard, and that she has presented your father with a son, whom they have chris- tened, Marmaduke?" As the shrewd country practitioner said these words, according to a common habit, he took off his spectacles, to look the young heir attentively in the face. He laid a stress upon the name of the infant, as though he would thereby have con- veyed some meaning to his elder brother, that he did not wish to clothe in more parti- cular language. " They have christened him Marmaduke" he said, and after keenly d 2 36 king's baynakd. reconnoitring a countenance which told no tales, added, with a raven-like croak, " the family name." " He is welcome to it," was the laconic reply ; and the lawyer, perceiving that the subject was an unwelcome one, resumed his spectacles and his search for some document which was not forthcoming, and which was necessary for the transac- tion of business, then in hand, known only to Sir Marmaduke and the attorney. The arrival of Mr. Baynard at the long forsaken home of his ancestors, created a nine days' wonder in the village and neigh- bourhood ; and amongst the primitive popu- lation of the former, great speculation was rife as to his appearance, or non-appearance, in the family pew on the following Sunday. The wicked Sir Mark himself had been in the habit of attending church occasion- ally, between the intervals of wife-beating and drunken revelry at the Hall. He king's baynard. 37 knew nothing of Voltaire, and considered it a necessary mark of respect to the parson, for whom, in his rough way, he possessed a sort of attachment. The parson, on his side, had been known to omit from his discourse, on such Sundays, any particular form of denuncia- tion which might have borne unkindly upon any little private weakness, or idiosyncracy, of his worthy patron. On one such occasion, indeed, he had been driven to the rash expedient of extempore declamation, by the unex- pected appearance of the iron-grey head of the " wicked man" in the manor pew, one unlucky Sunday morning, when the parson had prepared a sermon (lying in his pocket, into which it seemed to burn a hole) which treated, in language unusually plain for the rector of King's Baynard, of the evil practice of swear- ing. 38 king's baynatcd. Now as every sentence which fell from the lips of the baronet was garnished and interlarded with an oath, the young divine could not muster courage to preach so personal a sermon, or to thunder down his anathemas upon the reprobate head beneath him ; so he plunged instead into an extempore harangue, and, as he after- wards ruefully expressed it, made such a mistake at his first fence, that he was thrown out for good, and had no more idea which way " hounds were run- ning," or, in other words, of following the thread of his broken and uneven discourse, than a child a month old. " Gad," said the Baronet, as he covered his head at the church door, " I could not have believed the fellow would have made such a fool of himself." This flattering remark lost none of its point by being addressed to pretty Mrs. Trevylian, who was still aglow with the shame which her king's baynard. 39 husband's signal failure had called into her cheeks. It was a curious system, the church patronage of those days ; especially when, as in this instance, the greater part of the tithe was derived from the baronial revenues. How could the parson strike the hand that clothed and fed him ? How could the patron be supposed willingly to supply the means for planting in his own side a perpetual thorn ? The time for such patron-worship, how- ever, and servile submission to the wishes of the great man, had long been over for the aged rector of King's Baynard. The errors and failings of his youth had been those of thoughtlessness, more than of pre- meditated wrong. The hoofs of his strong hackney were as often heard on errands of mercy and love, as those of his hunter had once been on the field, which he had loved so well, and where his prowess had 40 king's baynard. served him in such good stead. The poor had ever idolized Mr. Trevylian and his wife, and since the death of the latter he had devoted himself to their interests with an enduring zeal, which was one of the finest attributes of this rector of a by- gone day. Mr. Trevylian had heard of the arrival of the heir at the family seat with an unusual degree of interest; and he had immediately despatched a letter to the Hall, containing an affectionate word of welcome, and a request that Mr. Baynard would not fail to set an example to his tenants and dependants, by appearing in his place at church on the following Sunday. Upon that auspicious occasion, every eye, indeed, turned eagerly in the direc- tion of the high- walled pew, which would completely have immured and hidden from sight any one who could not boast the average stature of man. John Bay- king's baynard. 41 nard was slightly but powerfully built; and from that circumstance was often con- sidered to be taller than he actually was. At the same time, he was not one of the giants of popular modern fiction; and those among the King's Baynard popu- lation who were old enough to remem- ber his grand-father (his own father had never been known to pass the threshold of the church porch) declared that the new heir was " shorter by a head than the wicked Sir Mark." " He's a foine lad though, a foine lad," the old men said, shaking their heads as if they contained the concentrated essence of the wisdom of all the sages that ever lived ; but so would they have pro- nounced, had the young man been a far less worthy inheritor of the noble phy- sical development of the old Baynard stock. Great was the astonishment of the 42 king's baynard. better educated part of the overflowing rural congregation, when at the conclu- sion of the prayers read by the curate, who constantly officiated, owing to the age and increasing infirmity of the rector, the old man himself appeared from the vestry, arrayed in cassock and gown, and evidently preparing, with the aid of his stick, and the arm of the clerk, almost equally infirm, to ascend the pulpit steps. His venerable appearance and fine apos- tolic-looking head were, in themselves, remarkable ; and the attention of Mr. Baynard was at once attracted. It was Paul preaching before Felix ; and there was no lack either of fluency or of fervency, in the second extempore sermon which the rector of King's Baynard attempted in the presence of the great man of the Hall. His sight had long been failing; and he held no manuscript or note-book on that important occasion, from which king's bayxakd. 43 to read the lesson he appeared to have so nearly at heart. Those who had known him of old, and who remembered the charge of sycophancy to the reigning powers which had then been brought, not without some cause, against him, were astonished at the out- spoken honesty of his address ; and at the marked manner with which, towards the close of it, he turned towards the manor pew, and addressed himself almost personally to its single occupant. His text had been singularly chosen. It was, " The glory is departed from Israel ; for the ark of God is taken," and as he warmed into eloquence, while he dwelt on the mournful meaning of the words, he went on to say, in accents mellowed by age, and to which his white hair and venerable figure, added patriarchal dig- nity. " And so, my brethren, shall all earthly 44 king's baynard. glory depart, even as the glory of nations, and of houses has vanished like a morn- ing cloud. As surely, indeed, as that the sun which now shines upon us shall set in darkness to-night, so surely shall the sun of all earthly glory set ere long in an enduring and palpable gloom. From the majesty of the intellect, from the graces of the person, from the sunlight which is the happiness of the soul, shall the pride, the 'glory,' as it is well called here, most certainly, either sooner or later depart, and the ark of God be taken. " The glory of which the text treats, ' the glory of a people, or of a house,' is that parti- cular form of pride, which is, perhaps, the most deeply rooted of all in the breast of err- ing and fallible man. The glory, not of one particular individual, but of the whole ; the house of which he is but as a single stone in a lordly structure, deriving honour from, rather than imparting it, to the king's baynard. 45 the building, which claims the admira- tion of all who behold it. And there is not one amongst us, however humble his station may be, who has not some sort of notion with regard to what gives, and to what takes away, the glory of a noble house. " Honour — worldly honour — is a word that we all understand. It means some- thing unsullied, something bright, some- thing immutable, something great. It is the word of a man ; it is the chastity of a woman. It is the pearl of great price, which gold cannot purchase. It is the boast of the members of those great houses, that are spoken of as having an existence apart, to hand down intact from father to son, an heir-loom of ines- timable worth. Honour, as we account it in a worldly sense, treads closely upon the heels of godliness; but it does not of necessity savour of the divine element, 46 king's batnard. without which ' no man can see the Lord.' A godly man must, it is true, be an ho- nourable man ; but an honourable man — as the world accounts honour — need not, of necessity, be a godly man. " I stand before you this day, my brethren, to remind you of the noble inheritance in store for the sons of God ; of the unfading glory of the house of which He invites you to become members — that house not built with hands ; that inheritance eternal in the heavens, from which the glory shall never depart ; from which the ark can never be taken. ' Choose ye then this day whom ye will serve;' and you, to whom honour and an unsullied name upon earth are as the breath of heaven, as the fountain of life itself, lay fast hold of the heirship of that glory which fadeth not — of that honour which shines brightly as the sun at noon day, which appertaineth to the children of God." king's baynard. 47 Young John Baynard, although little given to the appreciation of sermons generally, was struck by the earnestness of the one preached before him in his parish church on that day, and he felt an almost filial reverence for the grey head of the ancient rector, who had roused himself to this unwonted exertion on his account, and in his anxiety for the welfare of his hitherto uncared-for soul. His religious training had been but a name, and of that dry and sapless kind of which boys at school have often such bitter experience, and from which many an ardent spirit has turned in weary dis- gust, not recognising in the truths so urged, food for the aspirations of the divine element within, towards the never- ending and mysterious life that is hid with « Christ in God." " Young John" was a noble specimen of manhood, a perfect nature, as far as 48 king's baynard. nature went ; but the glory to which the preacher had alluded was to him nothing more than an image in a classical fable, than the conventional language of the particular school to which the preacher, as a man of erudition, belonged. When I say, however, that he was not of a religious tone of mind, as far as the spirit of religion was concerned, I do not mean to hint that he was a doubter of any of the living truths which religion preaches and instils. On the contrary, he could not have doubted, because the existence of doubt betrays the presence of thought, and hitherto he had bestowed no thought upon the subject at all. The colour had risen to his brow, and the danger-signal alluded to had sparkled in his eyes, at more than one passage in the sermon of which the concluding sentences have been quoted above. They had told home, and in so king's baynard. 49 doim* had fulfilled the intention of the preacher. Jn the deeply secluded life which Mr. Trevylian had led, he had never entirely lost sight of the heir — that is, figuratively speaking — for he had fol- lowed with mental gaze the outlines of his career, both at school and college ; and had even carried his interest so far, as to have communicated from time to time, with those on whom the task of his early education had devolved. The accounts he had received from such sources had been satisfactory and full of hope; and the venerable man, bowed down as he was by years and sorrow, looked forward to the day when, under the auspices of a worthy heir, King's Baynard itself would rise from the ashes of the past, and shake off the curse which had clung to it with such relentless and bitter persistency, since the days of the termagant Joan. VOL. I. e 50 king's baynard. " Young John" had felt his heart warm towards the old man, who was evidently shaken by the emotion which the fervour of his zeal had called up in his own breast, and he determined to do him all honour in the presence of the con- gregation. He waited for him at the church door with uncovered head, to exchange greetings with him, and to thank him for the sermon he had just preached. As the sunlight streamed down upon the heir's " comely head," and lighted his fine and purely chiselled features with an almost godlike beauty, the old man gazed upon his face, as though it had been the face of an angel, and the tears streamed down his withered cheeks as he clasped the offered hand with uncontrollable emotion — he was only able to say by way of welcome, " God bless you, my dear boy, God bless you I" king's baynard. 51 It was Mr. Baynard' s welcome home, the first that had ever been addressed to him in the cordial paternal accents, which had been strangers to his former life. No wonder, then, that his heart went out to meet that of the bowed and strick en old man, whose hand trembled in his own, and whose life had been spent at King's Baynard, the beautiful patrimony which had already begun to exert such potent influence over the ardent imagi- nation of the proud heir. No wonder that the heart of the aged rector softened towards the worse than orphaned scion of the accursed race, while the remem- brance of the blight which had hitherto spared no true-born Baynard, hovered, in his opening manhood, like a cloud over the head of this one, who stood gracious and smiling before him, the Felix before whom he had preached. e 2 UBRARY " UNIVERSITY OF MfWtS 52 king's baynabd. " Surely it will spare him, surely it must spare that handsome lad, with the stamp of honesty in his face, such as I have never seen before in one of that stock. Thank God for all his mercies ! and may the curse that has fallen upon six generations be lifted from their house at last I" Such thoughts as these passed through the mind of the Rector, as he returned to the Rectory with feeble steps, and leaning upon his servant's arm. It was the last time that he ever preached in the parish-church of King's Baynard. 53 CHAPTER III. "To his eye, There was one beloved face on earth, And that was shining on him." BYRON. SOON after the establishment of " young John " at the old Hall, another event of almost equal importance occupied the minds and the tongues of the gossips of Elminster, and of the neighbour- hood for miles round. The reader will be good enough to re- member, that the scenes which I will do my best to bring vividly before his mind's eye occurred many years ago, the exact date of which it is not necessary here to record. 54 king's baynaed. The events of note and importance in a county were to a great many, in those days, the events and importance of a world ; and the market-town of Elminster (the fictitious capital of the mythical shire, for which I have before apologized) was thronged on Saturdays with the members of each important or insignificant family who had place, seat, farm, or even villa in the neighbourhood. " I shall be in town on Saturday," was a sentence continually on the lip of squire, sportsman, farmer, or retired tradesman, anxious to make an appointment with some friend or patron ; and nothing less than serious illness, or a recent death in the family, would have prevented any county magnate from attending the usual rendez- vous "in town on Saturday.' ' The town was in a state of unusual excitement on one particular Saturday of Saturdays, upon which the brilliant, witty, king's baynard. 55 and eccentric Henry Vavasour was to pass through with his bride on their way back to Vavasour Park, after a foreign tour. Male gossips discussed the fact of the bachelor turned Benedict at the mature age of fifty, at the bar of the inn, where the newly married couple were expected to change horses ; and women tore the subject to shreds at their different places of meeting in the town, noted for the cele- bration of the mystical rites of luncheon (five o'clock teas were unknown in those days, and the fair sex were much given to luncheons and early dinners) and scandal ad libitum. What gave pungency and zest to the fact was that the wary and sarcastic states- man and orator was generally believed to have been out-generaled and circumvented by the wiles of a siren thirty years his junior, the celebrated opera-singer and most beautiful woman of her day, already so well 56 king's baynard. known to the public by her maiden name of St. Marque. However that might have been, there was the undoubted fact that lie had married her ; and the other un- doubted fact that the worthy host of the " Red Lion " had sent from his stable that morning four of his best horses to bring the bride and bridegroom " through " to Elminster. " He's not ashamed of it, at all events," remarked Mr. Town-Eden (a popular county squire and magistrate, and a near neighbour of the bridegroom, Henry Va- vasour) "or he would not have chosen Saturday for coming through, of all days in the week." " We shall get a glimpse of c the St. Marque' unless they keep the blinds matrimonially down," observed the son of the last speaker, a manly-looking, hand- some young sportsman, supposed by his compeers to be equally strong in his judg- KING'S. BAYNAED. 57 ment as regarded the points either of a woman or a horse. The words were hardly spoken, when all doubts or misgivings on that head were satisfactorily cleared away; and a hand- some plain chariot, with the blinds well up, dashed through the archway into the inn- yard, mud-bespatterd, and drawn by four road - stained posters, whose heaving flanks and distended nostrils bore witness to the speed with which the last stage had been traversed. It was the work of a moment or two to unyoke them from the carriage, and to replace them by four blood bays, Mr. Vavasour's own property ; for in those days the great county families travelled in more state than royalty itself in our own will consent to be encumbered with. The neatly-appointed postillions were in their saddles in an instant ; but in that flash of time the eyes of the eager assern- 58 KING'S B4TNABD. bled crowd had feasted upon the face of the beautiful bride, who had wound such a laurel crown around her own name of St. Marque, that the prouder one of her husband paled in its splendour before it. " ' The St. Marque ' is lovelier than ever — is not our Ninon a royal bride P" remarked the young sportsman before alluded to, to Mr. Baynard, who gazed with equal admiration at the beautiful profile of the songstress, but silently, and without expressing his opinion upon the subject of her charms. "Why, there's not one of our county ladies can hold a candle to her," added this enthusiastic admirer, heedless of the black looks bestowed upon him by some of the " county ladies " in question, who were ' not prepared to hold themselves eclipsed by an opera-singer and aparvenue. The excitement of the day was over. The bride and bridegroom had " gone king's baynaed. 59 through," and, as the sounds of the horse-hoofs and the rumble of the chariot-wheels died away, the order was given " to saddle" and "put to," while the shouts of ostlers and stable-boys, and the trampling of steeds innumerable proclaimed to experienced ears that the worthy host of the " Red Lion " had reaped a more than usually abundant har- vest on that Saturday of all Saturdays, when the bride of Henry Vavasour made her first appearance in the town, which was crowded to overflowing in honour of the auspicious event. The road was crowded that afternoon with steeds and vehicles of every description, from the open barouche and pair of the Squire's lady to the don- key-cart of the humble market-woman. Gigs, too, were prevalent in those days, and were much affected by the parson and the farmer; frequently by those to 60 king's baynaed. whom the Banting regime would have been of service. Our hazy recollection of the road on such occasions, presents a picture of one or two very fat farmers proceeding with a sort of wabbling mo- tion, and at jog trot pace, in that antiquated and now exploded vehicle. Memory also carries us back to the feelings of deep humiliation attending the process of being tied into a gig, strongly and firmly, by means of a yellow silk handkerchief. As the Hon. and Rev. Archibald Strange- ways was proceeding leisurely homewards in one of those vehicles, drawn by a weedy thorough-bred drafted out of the racing stables of the noble Earl, his brother, 66 young John " dashed past him with his spurs in the flanks of a powerful chest- nut, whose hot blood could little brook the indignity offered him, and who was going at racing pace. king's baynaed. 61 " I shall take a line across country, and meet the carriage at Mark's Bush," shouted the handsome lad ; and as the chestnut crashed over the first fence, and seemed in his rapid stride to devour the open, over which he was galloping, the Reverend remarked to his companion, an elderly farmer, to whom he was giving a lift, " What a glorious fellow he is ! What a fine thing it will be for King's Baynard when he comes into the property I" " He's a right good un himself, but he comes of a bad stock. They used to say, when I was a lad, that old Sir Mark had sold himself to the devil. There was some very dark stories about that Bar' net, and they say the present one favours him both in faytur and temper." As " young John " scoured the country on his wild chestnut, to get another glimpse at the sweet southern eyes which had 62 KING S BAYNAKD. fascinated him, we will carry the reader into the presence of the far-famed beauty herself, who, leaning back in the chariot, with an expression of deep thought upon her countenance, was awoke from her reverie, as she entered the princely domain of which she was now the mistress, by her husband's voice saying : "Look up, Ninon, you are on your own ground now ; we are just at Mark's Bush, which is the boundary of the Vava- sour property." Mrs. Vavasour did look up eagerly, in obedience to the wish so expressed; and as she did so, her eye rested upon the glowing countenance of " young John," who, with his horse in a white foam, was passing the carriage at the moment; and lifting his hat partly in acknowledgment of his acquaintance with Mr. Vavasour, and partly in homage to the presence of the beautiful bride. king's baynakd. 63 "Who is that?" Mrs. Vavasour ex- claimed. " I never saw a finer counten- ance in my life," she added, as she follow- ed with her eyes the vanishing form of the heir of King's Baynard. " That young man," answered Mr. Vavasour rather drily, " is the son of Sir Marmaduke Baynard, who resides abroad; his estate is next mine, and he has lately sent his son to take possession of the old place. He is a fine fellow, and his name is the greatest disadvantage he possesses ; for his father and grandfather did their best to make it odious and contemptible. The spot we have just passed, was called Mark's Bush, because Sir Mark Baynard shot a peasant there for some trifling offence, and in conse- queuce was obliged to fly the country. The Baynards have been half foreigners since, with the exception of this one, who seems to enter heart and 64 king's batnard. soul into the pleasures of English country life." Mnon was silent — she was gazing with admiration, not unmingled with awe, at the noble inheritance of the Yavasours ; and as the park gates were thrown open upon their hinges, a kind voice at her side said, " Welcome, Mnon — welcome home" — and as her husband pressed the little hand confidingly laid in his own, he added with a smile of pleasure at her evident amazement, "And what do you think of it, child?" " It is beautiful ! it is grand ! too beautiful — too grand for me !" answered she; the tears swimming in her bright eyes, with emotion caused by the new sensation which accompanied the words, "Welcome home," from the lips she loved best in the world. Home to her had hitherto been but as a dream and a by-word ; for she had been king's baynard. 65 homeless, and a wanderer from her early infancy. " I have given it a beautiful mistress," Mr. Yavasonr remarked, almost as if speaking to himself, rather than to his companion. If this were the case, his attention was soon directed into the proper channel ; for his wife, pressing his hand between both her own, said softly, " Thank you, Henri, for all your kind- ness to me — all your love; and thank you from my very heart that before I came here you should have told me all." Mrs. Vavasour spoke English with a foreign idiom and accent that was just enough to be very charming. Her history had been a short (she was but twenty when Mr. Vavasour married her) but an eventful one. Her father, the heir to a French Mar- VOL. I. F 66 king's baynaed. quisate, had in the heyday of youth and passion allied himself in marriage with the Signorina San Marca, or the Siren of the South as she had been christened du- ring her brief but brilliant operatic career in the French capital. She was a beautiful, impassioned woman, totally incapable of either feeling or bestowing domestic tranquillity and happiness. Her young husband, madly in love, and distrusting the temptations of the capital for one so sought after and idolized, carried her, sorely against her will, to the dismal old chateau in Brittany where his father, the Marquis, reigned in solitary grand- eur. There, the little Mnon had opened her wondrous and wondering eyes upon the world. There, she had known, for a brief space, the overflowings of her young father's tenderness — her mother had none to spare for her. king's baynard. 67 She was at that time engaged in an intrigue with one of her Parisian ad- mirers, who had followed her to the rural retreat; and when little Mnon could just walk alone, her mother deserted her and fled — bringing shame to the noble family of her husband, and death to the gallant young man himself, whose only fault had been that of loving her too well. He followed the fugitives, and was killed in mortal combat by the betrayer of his honour, who himself escaped uninjured, and who was received none the less gladly by the heartless wife, that his hands were imbrued in the blood of the injured and the innocent. Ninon thus left an orphan, was sent at an early age to Paris to be educated. She soon became the pet and the play- thing of the simple-minded nuns, who were fascinated by the innocent ways and the surpassing loveliness of the child, who F 2 68 king's baynakd. was thrown upon their hands in such a desolate and friendless condition. The Marquis of the ancient regime, Ninon's grandfather, entertained nothing but feelings of aversion for the daughter of the woman who had brought' shame to his noble house ; and when attracted by the marvellous richness and quality of her voice, the great maestro and composer of the age proposed to adopt her as his own, he gave his ready and even eager assent. " Only let her resign the name of our house," was his one stipulation ; and with a lingering re- membrance of the glories of the siren San Marca, and with a due regard to the more noble French blood inherited from her father, the maestro bethought him of a happy compromise, and introduced the child to the world under the name which was afterwards to earn world-wide reputation, that of Ninon St. Marque. king's bayxaed. 69 " She will be the Queen of the Parisian stage," he exclaimed prophetically, the first time he heard her sing, and noted the marvellous flexibility and volume of her voice. His prophecy was fulfilled ^ some years after, when Paris received the talented and youthful prima donna, with an enthu- siasm, and an ovation, such as that art- loving city alone can feel and render. " The St. Marque" was but eighteen when she made her triumphant debut on the Parisian stage ; the year afterwards, she made an equally successful one in London ; the grave, severe audiences of which more sober town so often fill the ardent foreign artists with a new-born dread. From the proud position of " Queen of Song," which she had attained in both capitals, she had now abdicated in order to reign and rule, supreme, over the affections of one of England's noblest statesmen; a 70 king's baynard. man who amidst the din and strife of politics had preserved his honour intact, and who had swayed the minds of his colleagues in office, as they can only .be swayed by the consciousness of a purer integrity, as well as a more exalted in- tellectual standard than their own. Notwithstanding the disparity of years which existed between Mnon and her hus- band, she loved him with her whole heart and soul, with a far stronger love even than that which she had entertained for the maestro, who had been father, mother and brother to her in one. Amongst the brilliant band of suitors who had sought her hand in marriage, her heart had never spoken, as the French express it, to any but to the one she had chosen, who was more than thirty years her senior. She had passed by the stripling possessors of coronets, all des- perately in love, and all vying with each king's batnaed. other in respectful homage to " the St. Marque," and had laid her little white hand, in love and loyal confidence, in that of Henry Yavasour, a bachelor of fifty years standing. Those women who were charitable and large-hearted enough to understand and sympathise in her choice, quoted in her defence the words of the great master, whose genius penetrates the windings and secrets of their own subtle and intricate natures. He says : — " Let still the woman take An elder than herself— so wears she to him So sways she level in her husband's heart : For boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and infirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won Than women's are." Mnon was not one to doubt or hesitate in a matter in which her own happiness was vitally concerned. She read the gene- 72 KING'S J3ATNARD. rous, lofty nature of Henry Vavasour like the page of a book — it was this that had attracted her, and not as the world more than insinuated his princely wealth or his proud position, both in social and political life. These attributes were not without their charms as " accessories after the fact," and the bride enjoyed, with almost childish delight, the first introduction to the stately home, which had been so long barren of the element and centre of attraction — a loving and beloved mistress. ~No one had ever contemplated the pro- bability of Mr. Vavasour's breaking the spell of bachelorhood, which had hitherto held him as in a vice. That there had been a secret chamber in which lay the shrouded form of a dead past, Ins wife with womanly penetration had long since discovered ; but her husband had been per- sistently silent on the subject, and had 73 never told her the history of his first love, until they were traversing the last stage to Elminster, on the auspicious Saturday upon which he took her home. It was this confidence which she had thanked him for, as they were about to enter it together ; but, nevertheless, it had not been entire. She had pressed him eagerly for the name of the woman, whose image had been so long enshrined in his memory, but a spasm of pain had passed over his countenance as he answered firmly, but tenderly — " No, no, I have sworn that her name shall never pass my lips again. You women do not trifle with us for nothing. Let the subject drop now, as you love me." "Only one question and I have done; forgive me, Henry — does she live ?" " No !" " It is well, I could not have borne a liv- ing rival," she answered with a smile; 74 king's baynard. one of those bewitching smiles that made her irresistible to rivals even, and whose power over her subjects was unlimited enough to be dangerous. " You have little cause for fear," said Mr. Vavasour, looking at her with fond exultation. " To me, there is none like you but yourself." Mr. Vavasour was proud of his choice, and most men would have pronounced that he had reason to be proud of it. He was a man whose brilliant public career had rendered him fully alive to the omnipo- tence of opinion, and as Mrs. Vavasour took her place at the head of his table for the first time, dressed in the simple but costly toilette which showed her natural graces to the greatest advantage, he owned to himself that she nobly adorned the position to which he had raised her. " You have made a sensation already," said he to his wife, as soon as the servants king's baynaed. 75 had left the room; "it was only to get another sight of you that e Young John ' waylaid us to-day." " Ah ! these Baynards have excited my interest; — they are neighbours, you told me ; and this young man, about whom you are pleased to jest, tell me, will he be rich some day ? — as rich as he is hand- some? for I, too, you see, Henri, have lost my heart to this ( young John.' Are you not jealous, my husband ?" she added, laughing merrily, and placing her hand on Mr. Vavasour's arm. " Perhaps I shall be, if you go on attracting young men in the wake of your chariot wheels, at the peril of their necks, whenever you make your public appearance, Mnon. As for this lad, he will be rich some day, when he comes into the Baynard property ; and it will be a good day for the property when he does." 76 king's baynakd. " His father — you told me lie was an outlaw, a vaurien, if I remember." " I did ; and, besides his own short- comings, he is married to a foreign woman of bad reputation, who would not be received or visited here." " The mother of this boy ?" " No. Sir Marmaduke Baynard was married before to a young and beautiful woman — so report says, at least — who. died young." "Who was she, then, this first Lady Baynard ?" " There was the mystery. Nobody knew who she was ; and, as I tell you, she soon died, and the curiosity which had been excited respecting her died away. He never brought her to King's Baynard." " I remember now," said Mrs. Vavasour eagerly, "where it was that I heard the name. It was at Rome, when I was there king's bay n A ED. 77 with the maestro. Sir Marmaduke was living there with a bold Italian woman, who terrified me, and did me an ill turn, for she was jealous of my success. She was not Lady Baynard then," she added, with a hot blush, and a curl in her haughty lip. " Were you singing in Rome then, Ninon ?" " In private only. I had happy days in Rome until — " "Until what, child? — until some one fell a victim to your evil eye, I suppose. Xow tell me, in confidence, you know, you were talking of rivals, how many living rivals have I? What prince, or marquis, or count did you sing out of this pretty toy for instance?" Mr. Va- vasour asked, pointing to a bracelet of brilliants which adorned the lovely arm resting confidingly on his shoulder. " Fear not," she answered, while a sudden cloud spread itself over her fair 78 king's baynaed. brow, " the rival who gave me these gems is dead long ago. He was stabbed in the streets of Rome by the hirelings of his haughty relatives, for seeking to ally himself with the singer Ninon. These brilliants, poor boy, are the price of his blood; but I knew nothing until long after ; I would never go to Rome again," she added, with a shudder. " Ninon," said her husband, gravely but tenderly, " to-morrow I will give you bet- ter, fairer gems than these. I ask you as a favour, let me see these no more." "You ask me a favour !" she exclaimed, with an exulting expression in her face. "It is the first, you are too good," and, flinging it from her, she said, " I vow to you, Henri, I will never wear it again. Are you satisfied now ?" " Who would not be satisfied with you, child?" was the reply. "You are an en- chantress and a witch." 79 CHAPTER IV. " And therefore, lords, since he affects her most, It most of all these reasons bindeth us, In our opinions she should be preferr'd." TT was a strange alliance, but not one -*- likely to be attended with unhappy results. To his stately bachelor home, sacred hitherto to Blue Books, and to deep classical study and research, the statesman had brought his young and lovely, but hitherto undomesticated bride. They had both of them lived, more or less, upon the world's stage, and tasted of the applause of men — how sweet it was — and they were both pre-eminently fitted to win what was to them as a part of the air 80 king's baynaep. they breatlied. Brilliant, lustrous na- ture^ such as theirs, like the precious gems which they resemble, reflect rather than originate light. They cannot of themselves illumine the darkness, but they can reflect with dazzling brilliancy the rays from without ; and society, or the world of men, supplies those rays, which are to be focussed, and multiplied in a thousand different hues, from the crystal centre of ge- nius or intellect, which alone can give them back to the beholder beautified and enriched. The author, or the philosopher who can shine to the world, though he never pass his study, possesses the light in himself, and is a different nature from the man who shines in the world, through the brilliancy of his personal gifts. The power of the great orator is worked by altogether dif- ferent forces from those that work the power of the great author. The first sways by the personality of the soul, and appeals to king's batnabd. 81 the emotions of his hearers ; the other by the personality of the intellect, which domi- neers over the passionless mind. The "life of life was society" to Henry Vavasour and to his talented young "wife ; for society alone, presented the arena on which their laurels could be won. How dear does that arena become to the suc- cessful in life ! Those can bear witness to the fact who have fought and conquered on the blood-stained field. The rostrum to the orator, the senate to the statesman, the studio to the artist, the plain of war to the soldier, are all as clear to them as the scent of the battle to the war-horse of Job. " He saith among the trumpets, • ha, ha ;' and he smelleth the battle afar off, and the thunder of the captains and the shouting." The scene of an early failure on the contrary, or the witness of a tyro hand, are unsupportable to the sight, and come back like the shades of VOL. i. g 82 king's baynard. foes wlio mastered us in the lists, when the warfare was unequal and new. Mr. Vavasour not being, as the reader will perceive from the description given of him, a man to despise public opinion, laboured under a certain amount of an- xiety as to the reception of his young bride amongst the haughty and exclusive county aristocracy of a haughty and exclusive Shire. There was, indeed, no reason why the ojjera singer, who had borne during her short but brilliant career the most crystal like purity of character, should not take the place to which her marriage entitled her amongst her husband's compeers. But so much, in these matters, depends upon the tone which the women, who are the leaders of society, choose to assume to- wards the new comer, that it is impossible, until the die is cast, to foresee either sixes or blanks. This Mr. Vavasour well knew — and it was a question of more importance KINU's BAYNARD. 83 to oneinMr8. Vavasour's position, in those days, than it would be now, when town and country are so much more united, bound together by the iron grasp of the rail. Then, indeed, the society of a county was more or less the society of a world to those who lived in it. It was a question then of some moment, even to one in Mr. Vavasour's position, as to the tone of the welcome vouchsafed by the county ladies and dames to his bride ; for if she was recognised at all, it must be with the honour and deference due to the wife of the representative of one of the oldest families in the neighbourhood. The annual county ball was to take place at Elminster the following week ; and it was in order to be present at this popular gathering, that the Vavasours had returned from their continental tour before the time originally fixed for their doing so. By this change of plans, in- G 2 84 king's baynabd. deed, they had thwarted, unintentionally, the designs of some of the most jealous of the county ladies, who had foreseen a dangerous rival in the beautiful and graceful woman whom they still amongst themselves perversely called "the opera singer, St. Marque." Mr. Vavasour had, however, intended from the first, that his bride should make her public appearance in Derefordshire on this occasion, and he was too keen a diplomatist to let the opportunity pass for making the decided coup at once. What though the two county factions, led on one side by the Dowager Duchess of Silch ester, and on the other by the young Countess of Arranmore, had de- clared that the parvenue should never take her place among them "as one of us, my dear" they would be obliged to yield before the clamour of the popular cry, which Mr. Vavasour knew enough of the king's baynapj). 85 world to be sure would be on the side of bis lovely and all-accomplisbed bride. " Only let them see her," thought this proud husband, " and the day is ours." And that they should see her in all her glory, radiant in the far- famed Vavasour jewels, which had not seen the light, nor basked on the neck of beauty for many a long day, he was equally determined. The morning after their arrival, Mr. Vavasour requested the pleasure of his wife's society in the most interesting room in the house, called from time immemorial the " Oak Chamber ;" a chamber winch had been particularly appropriated to the ladies of the family (when ladies there had been), and which, during the bachelor days of Henry Vavasour, he had dedicated to the memory of the gracious presences departed, by making it the depositary and store-room for all the rich and costly 86 king's baynard. articles of female luxury which apper- tained to the house of Vavasour. Here might have been found the wedding suits of brides whose great grand- children had long been mingled with dust. Here the patch-box of some proud beauty, with a Petitot enamel on the lid ; here a chate- laine, there a fan ; here a tiny high-heeled shoe, testifying to the living limits of the Vavasour fairy foot ; every sort of femi- nine relic might have been found in the Oak Chamber by one interested in prose- cuting a search among the glories of a bygone day; and in the iron-proof safes which occupied a recess in this chamber of delights were immured the brilliant gems, which under Ninon's auspices were once more to see the light of day. " Splendid ! magnificent ! regal !" she exclaimed, as with a true woman's delight in jewels, she opened one after another the cases containing the Vavasour diamonds, king's baynaed. 87 of which her experienced eye at once saw the inestimable worth. " You will become them well, Mnon." (( Yes, and they me. If I had seen these gems before, Henri, I should have been afraid to marry you." " Why so ?" " The world would have said, what woman could have withstood those ? But it was you, yourself, that Ninon St. Marque could not withstand." How fondly Mr. Vavasour gazed on his young wife, as she said the words ! Surely the dead past will be folded in its pale shroud now, and the light of those glorious eyes will drown every bitter memory, making impossible the poet's "crown of sorrow," that of "remember- ing happier things." Some such thought must have passed through his mind, for he drew Mnon towards him and tenderly embraced her, while his keen grey eyes 88 king's baynaejd. filled with tears as he did so. For the last years of his life the treasures of the intellect had been to him all in all — now the treasures of the heart were beginning in his maturer age to unfold and to deve- lop themselves once again. With the pleasure of a boy, he decked his bride in one magnificent set of jewels after another, and exulted in her marvel- lous beauty in each. Pearl or diamond, ruby or sapphire, turquoise or emerald, re- flected or contrasted with some charm of nature's own bestowing on her. "I do not know which I prefer," he ended with ; " but there is no question but that you must wear the diamonds on Friday; they have not been seen in the county since my mother wore them as a bride ; she would not wear them after- wards in the county for fear of exciting jealousy. Lady Arranmore's are the finest, with the exception of these ; but they are king's baynaed. 89 not to be compared with them, either for size or lustre." " Where is the pendant belonging to this set ?" asked Mrs. Vavasour, as she handled lovingly a pearl necklace, com- posed of three rows of pearls of great size and value, to which there had evi- dently been a jewel or locket attached. "It is in my escritoire ; it contained some of my sister's hair, and was the only jewel of value in my eyes as a bachelor, Ninon." " Ah !" she said, laughing softly to her- self, a musical rippling laugh, which one of her worshippers had pronounced to be "a song," on her lips, " mais nous avons change tout cela, n'est-ce pas, mon ami?" " Indeed, we have; but I must get that locket— the set is spoiled without it. I have got the key somewhere among these." 90 king's baynard. "It is rusty, Henri; you do not use this escritoire now ?" " Not for years ; I should not open it now, but for you. Kemember, Ninon," he added seriously, and turning to look into her face as he spoke, " remember to look into this escritoire when I die ; I wish you then to hioiv all. Will you remember, my child ?" " Surely, if when you die I remember any- thing, I promise you I will remember this." " You promise, Mnon ?" " I promise — but if it pains you, why should you open it now ?" " I have a fancy to see that locket. I think the hair in it is the same colour as yours." The key, rusty as it was, turned easily in the lock, and the lid flying backwards with a spring, disclosed a beautifully fitted but old-fashioned bureau, or cabi- net, in which were drawers and secret KING S BAYNARD. 91 receptacles innumerable, for such things as were of value either intrinsically, or in their owner's eyes. Here were evidently some relics of the dead past — some " tender touches of a hand long still " to smite upon the living heart, and wake its master chords into life and music once again. Henry Vavasour must have been blest, indeed, if he could invoke the shades and memories of his youth, without a pang of regret as he did so. It is seldom that maturer years bring us the courage and the strength to dare such an experi- ment as that. It was the greatest com- pliment he could have paid the bride who, according to the world's way of seeing things, was scarcely capable of apprecia- ting her lord. " See, Ninon," he said, as they bent to- gether over the contents of this mysterious cabinet, " what were my treasures before I found the greatest." 92 KING S BAYNARD. " I see, and I am not jealous, even of her," she answered, looking confidently into her husband's face, as he placed in her hand a miniature picture, which she knew instinctively was the portrait of the dream of his youth. She gazed long and earnestly at the fair false face, there so skilfully limned, which had once wrought such bitter wrong to her husband. " I understand," she said at last thoughtfully. " I see it all now. But answer me truly, Henri, did Heaven give her all that?" "All!" replied Mr. Yavasour, briefly ; " she was the most beautiful woman but one that I ever looked upon." " Ah ! so fair, and so bitterly false. It is a cruel face through all its loveliness. It is not a face to trust." " She lies in her nameless grave, Ninon, and nameless let her be to us evermore. king's batxaed. 93 She has no longer the will, or the power to wound." " Thank God !" murmured Mnon softly ; " I am to you now, what she might have been long ago. I have nothing to hate her for now, she is dead /" There was a light in her eyes as she said these words, that sparkled for a moment and was gone ; it was the lightning flash of the sunny south, the witness to the ardent nature which she had never learnt or wished to conceal by the strict rule of conventional reticence. She was accustomed to let flashes of the most earnest thought and feeling play upon her fine countenance without concealment, as they came and went. It was this attribute which had made what was called her acting so perfect. She threw her soul into the part and nature did the rest. "It is no use to give me a part that I do not feel" she would say to her em- 94 king's eaynaed. plovers ; " for I assure you I cannot act." Mr. Vavasour had said of her the first time he had heard and seen her on the stage, " Do not call her an actress, but an artist of the highest order; there is truth in every action and every tone ; not the representation of truth, but truth itself. He had made this enthusiastic declaration in a loud voice at his club, and the younger men turned amused to listen to this flattering critique of the goddess of the hour, from the lip of the distinguished statesman. " By Jove, Vavasour's bit," said one of his contemporaries, when he had left the room. " I trust he does not contemplate robbing the public of ' the St. Marque,' for he never tried for anything and failed yet." Perhaps the secrets of the successful statesman's private bureau would have king's baynard. 95 told a different tale ; but in the case of the songstress, he was, as we have seen, to add another laurel to his well-earned wreath. Not a month after that memor- able speech, the town was electrified by the news that the young and beautiful Ninon and the sedate middle-aged Henry Yavasour, were man and wife. 96 CHAPTER V. " No — Man for his glory To ancestry flies ; But "Woman's bright story Is told in her eyes. "While the Monarch but traces Through mortals his line, Beauty, born of the Graces, Eanks next to Divine !" — moore. rilHE ball-room was beginning to fill. -*- " Some of the best people are come," said Miss Fydgette to Miss Flyte ; and the two little old ladies, who had been El- minster belles some half century before, spread their scanty skirts over the rout seats, and prepared to enjoy themselves, after a fashion peculiarly their own. They knew everybody, and everybody knew thenu king's baynard. 97 and this consoling remark was made to some early comers, who had been fretting themselves for some time previously, on the score of having committed the mistake of entering the ball-room half an hour before the atmosphere had been refined by the presence of the genuine aris- tocracy, from the surrounding neighbour- hood. " I told you how it would be, mamma,'' said Miss Emily Jane, as she picked perse- veringly at the button which would not come to terms with the legitimate hole; "you are never happy unless we are here to light the candles." " Law, my dear," said good-natured Miss Flyte, with a dash of ridicule in her voice, " when I was a girl, I never com- plained of being taken too soon to a ball, and did not call it early unless we did light the candles ; but young people are sadly changed since my day." VOL. T. h 98 . king's batnaed. " The Town-Edens are come/' whispered the well-fed, black-whiskered brother of the genteel Emily Jane, who had just suc- ceeded in buttoning her glove. The result of the operation was the reverse of becom- ing, as the tight pink flesh of her plump arm swelled painfully at the junction where it was encircled by the tight white glove. This advent of the Town-Edens had a magical effect upon others, as well as upon our two young friends. Simpering and fidgeting, and anxious attempts at eye catching were perceptible as the grandees, with their party, moved up the room in the direction of the raised dais set apart for the occupation of the high-born dames who should honour the Elminster county ball with their illustrious presence. Many a stout struggle for precedence, indeed, had been witnessed by that well-fought field, when the bewildered male magnate, or chief steward of the ceremonies had king's baynard. 99 stood awe-stricken in the presence of two dowagers of equal rank, one of whose ancestors had fought at Cressy, and the other at Agincourt, arid each one hugging to her ample and agitated bosom a belief in the prior claims of her own position and dignity. On one occasion, indeed, a scene of an awful and imposing character, based upon some such grounds, had afforded the gossips of Elminster and of the country round, a fund of interesting matter for discussion during ensuing weeks and months. The Dowager Countess of Longaville, who, in the absence of the Duchess of Silchester, had an undisputed right to the claim of precedence, had been exposed to the indignity of beholding the steward of the highest rank, and whose name was the first on the list, leading into supper the young and beautiful Lady Constance Beauxyeux, evidently oblivious of the fact that the dowager diamonds h 2 100 king's baynard. were flashing with light, agitated by the storm of rage then surging within the dowager breast. No one will forget the tones of the widow of a Longaville as, gathering her affrighted troop about her, she left the room with a tragic sweep, saying, loud enough to be heard by all, to a trembling lordling who offered to escort her in to supper : " No, my Lord, J thank you — I sup at home." Lesser spirits quailed before the awful storm ; but it was whispered that the high steward and the Lady Constance ate a good supper, unconscious of the outburst of dowager indignation ; and that, upon their return to the ball-room, this irre- verent observation escaped the lips of the former is upon record, " Where on earth is the old witch gone to ? I suppose I ought to have taken her in to supper, as chief broomstick in waiting." It was not much of a joke, but the Lady king's bayeard. 101 Constance's mother, who was on the look out for an establishment for her fair daughter, looked upon it as the sally of an eligible, and, playfully tapping the arm of the perpetrator thereof with her fan, told him he was " so witty, so sa- tirical, that Constance had really laughed her hair out of curl, and always com- plained that he was so dreadfully severe, she was quite afraid of him." Here were two good strokes made — a man's weak point besieged and taken, and attention called to the chief attraction which the beauty of some three seasons possessed, her lovely and abundant hair. When this digression began, it will perhaps be re- membered that the Town-Edens had just arrived, to the evident satisfaction of the black-whiskered young man, and his apple- faced sister in the tight gloves. The Town-Edens were people of high standing and position in the county. Miss 102 king's baynakd. Town-Eden had been the acknowledged beauty of the former season, although, of course, there had not been wanting detractors to remark that she " had been decidedly overrated, you know." She was, however, without being really beau- tiful, a very pretty girl; and, with her fine auburn hair, fair skin, and large blue eyes, formed a picture an artist's eye might have dwelt on with pleasure. She had no sooner appeared, and made the tour of the ball-room, leaning on her father's arm, than a crowd of eager as- pirants for the honour of her hand in the first dance assembled round her. " Engaged! engaged!" she said gaily, " en- gaged three deep, and a month ago, too." " Oh ! that is too bad," exclaimed her adherents in chorus ; and the band striking up, added the most forward, " And where is the happy man ?" " I do not see him, and if he does not king's baynard. 103 appear in five minutes from this time, I declare I will not wait." " I applaud your resolution, Miss Town- Eden." " I shouldn't think of it," " Pray don't" were the remarks echoed on all sides ; but the eye of the beauty seemed to quarrel slightly with the clock, as the long hand proclaimed that the grace minutes had passed away. " Time's up !" was exultingly declared at last, and as a rather boisterous attempt was made to secure Miss Town-Eden as a partner in the first dance, a sour-faced maiden, over whose head some five-and- thirty summers might have come and gone, remarked with much asperity to her cha- perone, " How Maggie Town-Eden does enjoy a romp." The face of the young lady, however, belied her feelings, if she did enjoy that noisy demonstration of her adherents in 104 king's baynaed. her favour, and the black - whiskered " squireen," who, by dint of excessive for- wardDess, ultimately carried off the prize, found himself considerably snubbed before the first figure of the quadrille was gone through. The only topic upon which Miss Town-Eden condescended to be in the least degree interested, was the topic of the night — the expected appearance in the ball-room of Mr. and Mrs. Vavasour. "It's sure to be true," her partner had observed with the importance of one who speaks with authority ; " for Hodgson tells me he has sent horses to the Park. Mr. Va- vasour never has his own out at night." " Have you ever seen Mrs. Vavasour?" " No ; but I have seen ' the St. Marque' often." This apology for a joke, and ill-bred attempt at familiarity on the part of her partner, disgusted Miss Town-Eden so completely, that nothing but the feeling king's baynard. 105 of curiosity paramount just then in her breast, would have induced her to continue the conversation. Urged, however, by the promptings of that feminine weakness, she condescended so far as to inquire, " Is she as beautiful as report says ?" " No one could possibly overrate her ; did you hear what John Baynard said of her in town last Saturday ?" "No." The monosyllable was uttered abruptly, while the colour rose to the temples of the now interested, if not pleased listener. Recovering her self-pos- session, she added with- an attempt at carelessness, transparent enough to have been detected by a child — " I should have had greater confidence in Mr. Baynard's opinion had a horse been the animal under discussion." " You are severe, Miss Town-Eden ; you don't know ' young John,' perhaps — he's a rare judge of beauty, either 106 king's baynard. in women or horses, I can assure you." " Indeed ! I have had the pleasure of his acquaintance for some little time, without having learnt to tremble under his critical eye. I hear a carriage now," she added after a pause. " They must be come at last." And the sentence, " They are come," was upon a hundred lips in a moment, while that curious stir succeeded the announce- ment, which betokens that a sensation is agitating the pulses of a crowd. Pale ! pale ! ye lesser luminaries ! for the queen of the night advances ! lustrous in beauty and jewels — the star of the sunny south ! Exquisitely beautiful, indeed, the bride appeared, as, leaning upon her husband's arm, she advanced to take her place at the upper end, appropriated by tacit con- sent to the occupation of the county aris- tocracy. There was no doubt of it then — her place could have been no where else ; king's baynaed/ 107 and such was the magic of her personal influence and fascination, that the most stately of the dowagers thawed and re- laxed in the sunlight of her actual presence. The old Duchess of Silchester herself, who had been the most eloquent upon the subject of presenting an opera-singer with the freedom of the charmed circle, was the first to request Mr. Yavasour to present her to his wife. It was generally observed that he volunteered this honour to nobody — he was determined she should be sought, and the triumph and ovation were com- plete. The presence of royalty itself could not have cast such a spell over the crowded assembly, as did that of the far- famed Mnon. Curiosity and admiration, the master-passions of a crowd, were both strained to the uttermost, and to ca,tch a glimpse of the well-known face, amid scenes and under circumstances so new, was the object of every individual member of it. 108 king's baynaed. Mr. Vavasour, the bridegroom, notwith- standing his years, was the noblest-looking man in the room. Erect, stately, grand, with a touch of the " old school " in his chivalric bearing towards women, which distinguished him from the younger men of the day, he was just the husband to appreciate and worship the lovely girl at his side, who for her own part looked up to him as the Chevalier, the Bayard of men. The notice and admiration which her beauty was attracting was very grateful to his pride, which was of that sort to which popularity is the sweetest food. There is a pride that scorns the " breath of public praise," and one to which it is the " breath of life." Mr. Vavasour's was of the latter kind. " Will you dance ?" he asked his wife, with as much respectful homage as though he were addressing a queen. " They are king's baynard. 109 very urgent. I think it will give great pleasure if you will oblige them." The plural pronoun referred in that instance to the five stewards, appointed to do the honours of the ball-room, and who were distinguished by a white ro- sette worn in the button-hole. Foremost amongst them was Mr. Baynard, known to the county generally by the sobriquet of "young John." He had engaged pretty Margeret Town-Eden to open the ball with him a month previously at the cover- side, and, to his shame as a gallant cavalier, had forgotten his engagement until it was too late to fulfil it. It was a genuine forget; for there was nothing of the coxcomb about " young John." His brain had been somewhat turned by the beautiful vision that had flashed upon him for a moment in the yard of the " Red Lion," on the Saturday before. He did not, therefore, deserve the 110 king's baynard. honour he obtained in the hand of Mrs. Vavasour for her first dance; but he was the pet and the idol of the county, which was doing its best to spoil the frankest and most generous nature in the world. He had been put forward with one consent by the other stewards, to be the " lucky man," when Mr. Va- vasour declared, with a smile, that "Mrs. Vavasour would make no invidious com- parisons, but would have much pleasure in dancing with one of them." " The eldest, of course," said good- natured, gouty Lord Alderbury ; " the eldest takes precedence in such a case. I put it to the vote." " The youngest, the youngest," said a clear, ringing voice above them all. " Englishmen, stand to your colours, take the side of the weakest, if you are worthy of the name." " Not the lightest, though, by gad," king's baynakd. Ill said the burly peer, as "young John," in pressing forward, stepped on his gouty foot. " You have lamed me for the night, youngster; I resign my preten- sions in your favour." " Spoken like a nobleman and a gentle- man," was the laughing reply; and with more self-possession and aplomb than generally falls to the share of two-and- twenty, " young John" stepped forward to claim the prize, his handsome face glowing with exultation, and with the ingenious candour of youth. As he led his partner to her place in the dance, the feeling amongst all be- holders was, " What a splendid couple ! How well they are matched !" Two cheeks paled, however, and two hearts sank among the throng of spectators, as their owners watched the movements of the graceful pair. They belonged respec- tively to Mr. Vavasour and to Margaret 112 king's baynard. Town-Eden. Was lie jealous already, this strong-hearted greybeard ? — and of a stripling like " young John ?" Was daisy-like Margaret jealous? and was her heart bursting with an impassioned angry sob ? She had, indeed, some cause for jealousy; but it was a bad omen for the happiness of Ninon's married life, if the handsome face of a mere lad could plant so bitter a thorn in the heart of her noble-minded husband. He seemed, however, spell-bound as he gazed upon it, and followed the youth so per- sistently with his eyes, that the council of dowagers on the raised dais made pointed remarks upon the subject. The flowers or turbans on their ancient heads nodded ominously in time to the click- clack of their busy tongues. " Depend upon it, my dear, he's jealous. He don't like her dancing with a younger king's baynard. 113 man than himself, and I don't know that he is not right." " Indeed, what your Grace remarks is very true ; women who have been in her position get too fond of admiration, they can't live without it ; and John Baynard is a great flirt." Mrs. Town-Eden was the last speaker, and she knew with a mother's intuition that Margaret's heart was very sore that night — pretty Margaret, whose high, joy- ous spirits during the ten mile drive had never nagged, had pricked her finger with the thorn, where she had hoped to grasp the rose. Her mother, therefore, must be pardoned for a sharp word or two, in the council of dowagers, while the wound was still bleeding, and the injury warm in her mind. " His father being such a notorious roue, I do not know why they should make such a fuss with the son," said a VOL. I. I 114 king's baynaed. dignified maiden lady, who was called " Lady Haughyet," by the old-fashioned coterie who clung to such words as " ob- leeged," " dimonds," " Haughyet" (for Har- riet), and the mild slang of a by-gone day. " Oh ! there's no harm in him, I am sure," said the Duchess, warmly ; for " young John" was a particular pet and protege of hers. " I did not mean that, when I said Mr. Vavasour was right. But old men, with young pretty wives, should not be above looking after them, and Mrs. Vavasour is more than pretty, she is s t rikingly b eautif ul . ' ' These last words were overheard by Margaret Town-Eden, who had declined dancing that particular dance, and was come to nestle under her mother's wing (chaperons were something more than a name then), and, like a sharp in- strument, they seemed to cut into her brain. king's baynaed. 115 " Strikingly beautiful !" and, in speaking of her, she knew that her most ardent admirer had never soared higher in the realms of compliment than to call her " a pretty girl." She turned over in her mind all her school-girl confidences, with regard to remarks that had been made on her own personal charms ; and, to be candid, we must admit that the one she referred to most frequently was one which Mr. Baynard was reported to have made on seeing her on horseback for the first time. " How pretty Miss Town-Eden looks in a hat !" had been his casual remark to a friend of Margaret's ; and these words, repeated with a significance with which they had not been spoken, formed the foundation stone for a pretty castle in the air, which that night's inauspicious events were now cruelly dispelling. Poor Margaret would have been content to be plain to all the rest of the world, if she I 2 116 king's baynaed. could only have been " strikingly beautiful " for him. Now, under this new basilisk influence, her beauty-laurels were fading away, and all her little world of subjects and ad- herents were forsaking her cause and standard. JSTo one is half sorry enough for the beauty of last season, whose star is going down, paled by the brighter rays of a newer and more dazzling planet. It must be a moment of keen enjoyment to a girl, with a woman's heart beating in her breast, when she first discovers the fact that she is beautiful ; one full of bitterness, when she feels intuitively, that her success- ful rival is more beautiful or more successful than herself. Margaret Town-Eden had hitherto reigned supreme, and now a fairer woman than she, was robbing her of her crown and sceptre, and winning away her ad- herents one by one. It was wrong of king's baystabd. 117 her, she thought, in the bitterness of her wounded vanity a married woman and a bride, to care about dancing like a very girl, and to monopolise the best partner in the room. It was wrong and cruel of him to forget his engagement of such long stand- ing with herself, and to see nothing but the allurements of those basilisk eyes, belonging to the wife of another. As she watched the graceful movements of Mrs. Vavasour in the dance, the eyes of the two met for a moment, and, on one side, at least, were as quickly withdrawn. Margaret blushed deeply as she turned away her head, ostensibly to address some remark to her mother, while Mrs. Vavasour observed to " young- John," " Who is that very pretty girl, and why is she not dancing?" For the first time that night, Mrs. Vavasour's partner perceived that Miss 118 king's baynaed. Town-Eden was in the room, and, with a heightened colour, he exclaimed, "It's Margaret Town-Eden, and I was engaged to open the ball with her. What a brute she must have thought me not to be here in time." Mrs. Vavasour looked as if she could have found it in her heart to agree y with the tenor of this remark. Had she been aware that Mr. Baynard's defalcation was caused by his awaiting her own arrival in a draughty passage, in order to be the first of the stewards to do homage to the beautiful stranger, her womanly vanity might have induced her to judge leniently of the offence. As it was she only said : " I am surprised that so pretty a girl should be allowed to sit down for one dance even ; amongst all these dowagers, she looks like a living rosebud in a bowl of dead leaves." " What a charming simile]! I must king's baynard. 119 repeat that to her presently; if, indeed, she will have anything to say to me, after such inexcusable forgetfulness. I think, however, our friendship will stand the test, and that she will forgive my shortcomings." " She will be very good-natured if she does ; it is not the sort of offence, Mr. Baynard, that women are apt to for- give." " I suppose I must not plead the ir- resistible nature of my temptation." " Certainly not," said Ninon gaily, " you must think of some better excuse to offer. I fear your case is a bad one." The quadrille was over, and Mr. Bay- nard resigned his partner into the hands of her husband. The latter appeared to have got over the feeling of jealousy or pain with which he had at first regarded him, for, laying his hand kindly on his shoulder, he said : 120 king's baynaed. " We are glad to have you amongst us ; King's Baynard has been too long deserted by the lords of the soil." " It has, indeed," was the reply. " It is a glorious old place, barring the ghost," he added, laughingly addressing Mrs. Va- vasour, " and that makes a point of howl- ing every windy night, making the darkness hideous; but, like all ghost-seers, I am wonderfully brave in the morning." " We are near neighbours — you must come over to us when the ghost is trouble- some," Mr. Vavasour said; but his man- ner had changed again, and was colder than was usual when he gave an invitation to his hospitable mansion. "You must go and make your peace," Mrs. Vavasour suggested, with a grace- ful bow of dismissal and a glance in the direction of Margaret Town-Eden, who was paying eager attention to the remarks addressed to her by the most king's baynakd. 121 distmgue-lookmg man in the room, with the exception of the heir of King's Bay- nard. "It is too late, I fear ; the young lady appears to be better engaged, and I shall only be treated " " As you deserve," said Mrs. Vavasour, finishing the sentence for him. "You must make the amende honorable by placing yourself at her mercy at ouce." "Young John" was hastening to obey these commands, and to calm the qualms of his own wounded conscience, for he was too much of a " gentle knighte " not to feel that he had behaved, as he ex- pressed it, "like a brute" in the matter. He was too late, as v he had anticipated. Margaret Town- Ed en was a proud as well as a pretty girl. She merely recognised his approach by a bow so haughty that it sealed his lips ; and placing her hand at once within the arm of the new candidate 122 king's baynard. for her smiles, she left " young John " to " chew the cud M of remorse for the slight he had put upon one who well knew how to resent ifc. 123 CHAPTER VI. GOING- home after a ball is, in any case, but a dreary proceeding ; but after a country ball, when the roads are bad, and the horses precious and old, it is, perhaps, one of the most trying evils to which humanity subjects itself, in its frenzied pursuit after pleasure. Excitement over, in the case of the young spirits of the party, and weariness at its climax in the case of the old, the inherent selfishness of the human heart manifests itself in sundry ways, according to the peculiar tempera- ment or infirmity of the party con- cerned. The father of a family of blooming daugh- 124 king's baynard. ters, who has been dragged from his arm- chair on a bitter mid- winter night, in order (as his good wife told him before he started) to " do his duty by the girls, and give them the same advantages which other young people enjoy," with the dread of bronchitis before him, pulls up all the windows, and before they are a mile on the road begins to snore audibly. ■ His youngest daughter who sits opposite to him, feverish and restless after the excite- ment of her first ball, longs to kick her aggravating parent with her blistered feet, which are throbbing in their satin prisons, in their cramped and uncomfortable posi- tion. The eldest daughter, not so pretty or attractive, is spared the irritation in her feet, but feels a proportionable amount of asperity in the region of her temper. She is wondering in her own mind what people see so particularly engaging in Maggie Town-Eden, and ends by assuring herself king's baynaed. 125 that, for a plain girl over thirty, to go to a ball is worse than a crime, according to Prince Talleyrand's view. There are not many circumstances and situations more purgatorial, if acute phy- sical suffering be taken into consideration, than those attending the transit of a weary family party, in a tight family coach, ten or twelve miles over the hills, from the scene of enjoyment to the family seat. On the morning after the Elminster ball, one carriage full of heart-ache ground away from the doors of the county assem- bly room a little after two o'clock — very early in the country to be homeward bound. Poor little Margaret, like many a greater heroine and many a great hero, found her first failure a hard one to bear. Last year, at this season, in the very same ball-room, she had reigned proudly the queen of the revels — now she has been deposed, and a fairer rival has been 126 king's baynaed. elected in her place. When out of the range of the last street-lamp, the bitter consciousness of this fact brought the hot tears to Margaret's eyes, and they fell silently on the feverish, impatient little hands, from which she had pulled the gloves. " Tired, my love ?" said Mrs. Town-Eden gently, taking one of the wilful hands into her own, in a motherly, caressing way. Margaret, however, was in no mood to bear even this sign of sympathy, which looked too much like pity ; and she thought her father still more more cruel, as he re- marked in the bantering manner peculiar to good-natured old gentlemen fond of a joke— " Tired ! What lassie of eighteen was ever tired of exhibiting on the light fastas- tic — eh, my dear ? Why, when I was a youngster, I thought nothing of riding king's baynakd. 127 forty miles to a ball. Gently, John ! gently," he added, banging down the win- dow, and apostrophising the coachman; " remember the mare's not so young as she was, by a good deal — there's no occa- sion to drive so fast." " Let us get on, my dear," said the kind mother, who had seen the little by-play between her daughter and " young John," and who knew what it was costing her. " I'm tired, if Margaret is not." " I don't know what's the matter with you both," said the old squire, now rather put upon his mettle ; " I never had a mo- ment's peace until I promised to take you to this ball, and if this is all the thanks I get, hang me I if go to an- other !" " I "have a headache, papa," Maggie said apologetically ; a heartache would have been nearer the truth — but no doubt her head was aching, too, with the sharp, 128 KING S BAYNARD. stinging throb of a first sorrow. Her life bad, hitherto, been a bright and joyous one — nature and circumstances had been bountiful in their gifts, and no care had darkened the landscape. The little cloud had now arisen, and she had experienced the bitterness of a slight in a quarter in which it had great power to wound. It was no quarrel, no lover's pique, that would have been comparatively easy to bear. It was the shadow of indifference that had come between her and one who had unconsciously become all in all to Mar- garet Town-Eden. He had been evidently so dazzled by the splendour of the proud southern beauty, that he had had no eyes, no ears, no thought, no consideration for any one else in the room. To show how nearly Margaret missed be- coming the heroine of this tale, and to pre- sent the sketch of an episode in one young life which happens daily to some member of king's baynaed. 129 the community, the attention of the reader has been enlisted in her behalf before he passes on to busier and more exciting scenes. But perhaps we hear the fair reader exclaim, " Were Margaret's affections be- stowed unsought ? and was the hero whom you have described as the soul of honour and chivalry, guiltless in the matter ?" Of all but thoughtlessness and total un- consciousness of his own attractive qualities — yes. Mr. Baynard had neither flirted with Miss Town-Eden, nor trifled with her affections. He had been thrown much into her society, and had paid her the natural homage which an ardent, chivalrous, manly nature considers due to a young and beau- tiful woman, not unkindly inclined towards itself. " Young John " was too free from conceit, to discover how dangerous this innocent gallantry became to the peace of VOL. I. K 130 king's baynakd. mind of one of the parties concerned, for, as regarded himself, there did not exist a particle of sentiment in the friendly feelings which he entertained for Mar- garet, in common with the rest of her family. It was a hard and unjust judg- ment, therefore, which Mrs. Town-Eden had pronounced, when she called him a great flirt; but we know she was suf- fering through the wounded feelings of her child, therefore we must, on our side, excuse this outbreak of maternal warmth. No outsider can tell, when two young people are constantly thrown together, how much, or how little, has passed be- tween them in the way of exchange of sentiment, which is the only real basis of flirtation. Those who are themselves given to this fascinating but dangerous pastime know to a nicety when an intimate acquaintanceship becomes a sentimental one, and when, with the greatest apparent king's baynaed. 131 unity of tastes or intellect, the Rubicon lias never been passed. That Mr. Bay- nard had had no intention of passing that Rubicon, with regard to Margaret Town-Eden, a less anxiously interested observer than a mother would have dis- covered at once. The world's opinion upon the subject would probably have been the same as that of the ill-natured old lady who shook her head ominously when the handsome pair rode side by side through the village, after a bril- liant run with the Derefordshire fox- hounds. " If Mrs. Town-Eden doesn't look out," she observed, " she'll have Margaret breaking her heart for that young John Baynarcl, for it's easy to see with half an eye that he means nothing, my dear." It was easy, perhaps, for a casual or cynical observer to perform the singular I. E 132 king's baynard. optical gymnastic described, but difficult, very difficult, for pretty Margaret, the one most vitally interested in the matter, to see with her blue eyes wide open, whether he " meant anything, my dear," or whether he did not. It is not the problems upon the solu- tion of which depends our happiness, or its opposite, upon which we bring to bear the clear-sightedness, and the sound judgment, which we exercise with regard to the same problems applied to the in- terests and happiness of others. Mar- garet in the instance, in point, wished to believe that Mr. Baynard' s friendly regard for her was ripening into affec- tion; and, therefore, she did believe it. In this unwise precipitancy, she was encouraged and abetted by a lively young friend and schoolfellow, who re- peated in her willing ears all the compli- ments or flattering speeches he had ever king's baynard. 133 made in her hearing upon the subject of Margaret's beauty, and numerous accom- plishments. Margaret, no doubt, was rash in the matter, and her friend silly ; but there are assailable points, perhaps, in stronger natures than those of these foolish children — for after all, they were nothing more. The fire of a deep set grey eye, the graceful poise of a comely head, the winning smile upon a well-chiselled lip, are of course ridiculous things to compare with the idols of maturer age. .What are the childish trials of the affec- tions compared with those to which we are subject, who cut our wise teeth some ten or twenty years ago ? with such important matters as the rise or fall of the Funds — with the extravagance of the son at the University — with the long milliner's bill, which came by this morning's post — with baby's whooping-cough or Edith's crooked 134 king's batnaed. teeth? How nobly superior, we, who suffer under such anxieties as these facts entail, can look down upon the poor anxious little heart, trying to solve for itself the enigma, the answer to which was so palpable to the cynical eye. It had been the question of Margaret's life for some time, whether the young heir of King's Baynard regarded her with warmer feelings than those with which he regarded the rest of the world, and it had been answered as we have seen above. No wonder, then, that she was tired and out of mood for the Squire's good- humoured but rather clumsy raillery ; or that she was glad when the carriage drew up, which it did at last, with a jerk, at the lodge gate, thereby precipitating the worthy man almost into the lap of his wife, who, seated opposite to him, had been in the hazy land of dreams also; although those of the matron were natu- king's baynaed. 135 rally of a less romantic and more practical character than those of the young daugh- ter at her side. She too, however, had been attending in imagination the funeral obsequies of a new-born hope. That hope which has been powerfully described as "the dream of a man awake," had just ex- pired within her matronly arms; for she saw as plainly as Margaret had done, that Mr. Baynard meant nothing, according to the accepted understanding of the phrase, in the eyes of the world. Her thoughts, too, had reverted to old times, when at an Elminster ball Mabel Trevylian had won the beauty laurels from her, in the same triumphant manner in which Mrs. Vavasour had won and worn them in the face of all that nio-ht. She remembered how Sir Marmaduke Baynard, then a gay young baronet, newly come to the Hall, had devoted himself amono- others to that blooming co- 136 king's baynard. quette, after having carried on a syste- matic flirtation of some weeks with another of the prettiest girls in the county. There had been more than one dowager, indeed, and more than one matron at the ball that night, to whom the well-known name, and the presence among them of King's Bay- nard's heir, had brought back the vision of the " long ago," when the father of the young man had run amongst them his brief but rollicking career, and had paid his uni- versal addresses, with the zest, for the time being, of a man really in earnest, wearing the hearts of the beauties of that day like impaled butterflies on his sleeve. It had been agreed amongst the " old loves," in solemn conclave, that the wicked young knight who had " loved and ridden away" from them years before, had not possessed the handsome countenance and noble bear- ing of his son, " young John," and the question had revived with something >of king's baynard. 137 its former interest, " And who was Lady Baynard?" with reference to the first wife, every one knew too well the history and antecedents of the second. Perhaps the halo of mystery which sur- rounded all his belongings, made the heir himself more interesting to the women- kind, who conspired to spoil and idolize him ; and who, on his side, had infused fresh life and vigour into the dull but aristocratic county clique which had re- quired some such mercurial element to keep it from sinking into the sloughs of ennui, from pure inertion and sluggishness of blood. Picnics, archery meetings, balls, and meets, all owned a staunch supporter in the young Squire of King's Baynard. He was by far the most popular man in the county, and Margaret had heard his praises sounded on every side with a proud blush and with a ^eating heart. 138 king's baynard. He had certainly often singled her out as an object of his particular attention, both in the dance and in the field. Mar- garet was a perfect horsewoman, and ever rode with the most daring when "young John" was at the bridle rein of her pretty mare Jocuncla. It was doubly hard, there- fore, to be obliged to learn the unwelcome lesson of that night, that these gratifying and distinguishing attentions meant no- thing more than the homage of an ardent spirit to a young and pretty woman, too happy to accept them as her due. Tears had to be shed, and strong mur- murs to be made, in getting that lesson by heart. When Margaret retired to her room that night, which she had left in such joyous spirits but a few hours before, she felt very weary and sick at heart. When she approached the glass mechanically, during the process of undressing, per- king's baynabd. 139 formed by a sleepy maid, she was as- tonished to see her own pale face there reflected, and thought it might have answered her waiting-maid's question of, " Have you had a pleasant evening, ma'am?" without her lips going through the expected form of reply. "Pretty well; but I am wretchedly tired, and you can go now." If no man is a hero to his valet-cle- chambre, no woman is a heroine to the maiden who tires her head, and the one in question proposed this mental problem for her own private solution, as she left her young mistress's room. " What is the good of folks werrettin' and ficlgettin' for a week before, about going to a ball, only to come back as cross as two sticks at last." In this remark she would have been borne out by the old squire, who made a solemn vow under his tasselled night- cap, and with his downy 140 king's baynaed. pillow to witness, that not all the wiles of his womankind should tempt him to another ball this season, " for they don't seem to enjoy it when they get there," he said — and snored. When Margaret was left alone, she sat for more than an hour with slippered feet on the fender, and her released hair falling in chestnut waves upon her fair shoulders — dreaming about the future and regret- ting the past. " What have I done to deserve it ? I could not help liking him ! It was not wrong ?" she thought ; and then the hot blood rushed to her temples, as the humi- liating reflection came to her " but you were not sought — your affection was given unsolicited — you were too hasty in drawing the conclusions you wished to be true." I am bound to reveal Margaret's maiden meditations for two reasons ; the first, that king's baynard. 141 I like upon all possible occasions to assume the storyteller's privilege of disclosing secrets ; the second, that I wish the reader to receive positive and conclusive testi- mony as to my hero's innocence in the matter, which could only come with weight from Margaret's own lips. The admission as coming from that source, is a very strong point in his favour ; for she was a proud girl, as well as an honest one, and it was a fact that stung her to the quick, and made the rebellious tears gather thick and fast, and called the hot flush of early youth into her lately pale cheeks. " I did not think it had come to this," she said softly to herself; "I am very miserable, but I have no one to blame but myself." I saw a little child the other day, of some three or four years' old, out of whose eager grasp a big boy had snatched the cherished toy. Tears rained down its injured face — tears half of pas- 142 king's baynakd. sion and half of bitter unmitigated woe. Margaret's first real sorrow greatly resem- bled this pitiful outburst. She was too sorry to be very angry, but much too an- gry to break her heart ; hers was no meek, spaniel temperament, ready to fondle and caress the hand which offered it no spon- taneous return. She was very angry, indeed; much more angry than^ sorry, when she thought of the slight put upon herself in honour of the successful rival ; and her eyes shone with passion at the recollection of it, even through the rain- fall of tears which nature insisted upon, in liquidation of the severe tax levied upon her that night. Margaret would have shrunk from the avowed expression of sympathy, if it had taken the shape of pity, from the heart nearest to her own ; but she felt intuitively that her mother had known what she was suffering, when she had said with such king's baynahd. 143 gentle solicitude, " tired my love ?" She loved and blessed her for it heartily in the silence of her morning solitude. " She knows it," she thought to herself. " I have often fancied she must have had a romance of her own — for I do not think she can have been in love with papa ; people seem to get on very well in the world without it. I do not know that a Darby and Joan hum-drum sort of life is altogether to be despised after all." Rather a practical un- romantic sort of finis, to poor Margaret's book of dreams, and rather an ignoble view of the importance of domestic love in the great scheme of human happiness upon earth; but youth is the age of ex- tremes, and the airy fabric of hope once annihilated, there often appears in its place a red brick mansion, substantial, roomy, comfortable, with little grandeur or pretence about it — the abode of com- mon-place. 144 king's baynard. Thus it fell out that the two first public appearances of the beautiful Mnon, in her new neighbourhood, had told upon the fate of the girl whose beauty had attracted her on the night of the ball at the Elmins- ter Assembly Rooms. If " young John " had not caught a glimpse of her own statuesque profile, at the carriage window on the Saturday before, he would not have been so engrossed with the idea of behold- ing it again, as to forget his carelessly made engagement a month before. If he had danced with Margaret that even- ing, as he had intended to do, some word or look of hers might have betrayed to him the secret which, as it turned out, he was never to know. Had that secret been by any chance suspected by one who was the soul of honour, Margaret's whole fate might have been changed. So does it often happen in the world's highway ; we miss the path by one step, king's baynaed. 145 which leads to happiness — the happiness of our ideal — and plod steadily on the long straight road, where no wild flowers tempt us to turn aside and gather them, and no grateful spreading shade to pause upon our way and rest. The intimate friend- ship which had existed hitherto between " young John " and the family of the Town-Edens was broken off at this point ; there was an uncomfortable feeling of coldness between them, which the former was far from attributing to the real cause. VOL. I. 146 CHAPTER VII. " Open, candid, and generous, his heart was the con- stant companion of his hand, and his tongue the artless index of his mind." — canning. IF "young John" was beloved in the county, he was idolized at home. From the idiot boy at the gate, to Talbot, the patriarch of the court-yard, there was not an individual on the estate who would not have sacrificed his most valued possession, if, in doing so, he could have added an additional blessing to those already showered upon the young and prosperous heir. He had, indeed, a kind Avord and a ready smile for every living creature in or about his beloved King's Baynard. That love had enlarged, beau- king's baynard. 147 tified and softened his whole nature, so that he might have been described, like one of history's heroes, in language which appears to be the essence of simple no- bility : " Only for the general good, and against the wrongful oppressor; for kindness alone, and busy purposes, and affections to those around him, the irrepressible ardour of his temper re- mained." That irrepressible ardour of tempera- ment had found an object on which to expend itself, and a centre to which to attract natures less ardent and less as- piring than itself. The possession of it is the secret of popularity ; the redundant life, belonging to such a temper, gives itself out in rays which are like the rays of the sun, glorifying and euriching every object upon which they fall. Popularity has a good influence upon such a temper. It had a good and a softening effect on the i, 2 148 king's baynard. young heir, to whom it was very sweet to find himself generally beloved. His position was a peculiar and a difficult one, and one as well calculated to test the purity or baseness of the metal in which its occupier was cast, as could well be imagined. The wise man has said, " The glory of a man is from the honour of his father, and a mother in dishonour is a reproach to her children." The heir of King's Baynard belonged to, and was in a mea- sure the representative of a house the glory of which had been tarnished, and whose name disgraced, through and in his father, the voluntary exile ; and dim- mer and more shadowy still was the veiled spot in the backward vista of time, where lay enshrined the image of the young and beautiful woman of whom rumour itself had nothing but the wildest suggestions to make. king's batnabd. 149 There was one fact, however, patent to all observers, that the shadow of the family disgrace could never fall, under any circumstances, upon him. Nature does occasionally set this stamp of inborn nobility on her favourites, and as the greatest proof I can give of the sharp- ness and clearness of the impression with which she had set her seal on the fine countenance of " young John," I need only assure my readers who are sportsmen (and I hope I have many such) that in dealings with regard to the noble animal which so often lead to ig- noble results, he was to be trusted im- plicitly. Men took his simple word upon the merits or demerits of a horse of his own for sale, as gospel truth, and can I say more for the purity of his honour than this ? A specimen of his mode of horse- dealing will give this side of his character 150 king's baynabd. in its true colours ; we take the first instance that conies to hand. On the morning after the ball at El- minster, Mr. Baynard was at home, transacting some business in that branch of merchandise, over which it is con- stantly asserted that the closest ties of friendship or relationship can cast no softening spell. To speak plain English, lie was exhibiting a horse for sale, and under rather peculiar circumstances ; the buyer, in this instance, being his own worst enemy, and doing his best to in- duce the seller to victimize him on his own responsibility, as will be seen from the following conversation. " Lead him up and down, Saunders," said the seller, as a splendid looking chestnut horse, that shone brazen in the sun, was led out into the stable-yard, " lead him up and down, and let the gen- tleman have a look at him." king's baynard. 151 The gentleman in question was a raw youth, just appointed to a Dragoon regiment, who flattered himself that he was a better judge of horseflesh than his colonel, to whom " paterfamilias " wished to transfer the responsibility of the choice of a charger. Anxious to forestall this arrangement, and very sweet upon the famous chestnut, whose per- formances in the hunting-field had earned him a wide renown, he chose to ignore the fact of the dangerous and untamed temper of the animal, which had often placed in jeopardy the life of the heaven- born horseman, which John Bayriard was. Orion, indeed, was as notorious, for his vicious propensities, as the strawberry roan of happy memory, to which the rector of King's Baynard had been in- debted for his sudden and unlooked-for promotion in the church. But a more 152 king's baynaed. magnificent horse, as to shape, symmetry, and action, could not have been found; and as he stood in the stable-yard like an image, shapely and grand, with his clean-cut nostril snuffing the morning air, the youth beheld the realization of his idea with regard to the Bucephalus on which he wished to make his debut in the well-mounted regiment he was shortly to join. " What an arm ! what a crest ! what a picture altogether !" exclaimed the in- cipient dragoon, proclaiming his inexpe- rience by lauding the animal he was so anxious to buy. " He'll make a splendid charger," he went on, gnawing the head of his silver-mounted riding- whip. He was very sweet on the chestnut horse Orion, who stood in the stable- yard, calm but defiant, with that sort of preoccupied air which is rather com- mon with dangerous horses, as though king's baynahd. 153 he disdained to bestow any attention on the insignificant biped man, until called upon to try his strength with him in real earnest. " That's exactly what he won't do," answered the dealer, " he'll never make a charger. If you want a charger, 1 cannot conscientiously recommend Orion to your notice ; you don't know what his temper is when it's up." " I can't afford to buy a horse that won't make a charger," said the cornet, "not a horse of that figure, at least; and as to his temper, that's much the same, I suppose, for one man as an- other." " I don't recommend you by any means to buy him," answered Mr. Bay- nard, taking no notice of the tone of pique in which the last sentence had been given. "I'd rather you gave me a hun- dred for old Senator, than pick your pocket 154 king's baynabd. of two for the chestnut, because I'm posi- tive he would not suit. Your colonel would not thank me, I am sure, for send- ing a bolter into the regiment." " Senator's not sound," was the sulky and thankless reply. " If he were, you might add another hundred to his price, and call him cheap at that. I don't want you to buy Senator, but I won't sell you the chestnut. I tell you honestly, you could never make a charger of him. I am parting with him, myself, because he's a dangerous horse at his fences, when he's sulky. No one can beat him when he means going, or I should not have kept him as long as I have." " He's not so hot as he wur, Mr. John, by a great deal," said Saunders, the groom, who saw no reason why his master should not land the flat who was so persistently seeking the net. king's batnaed. 155 " He's too hot for me, at times ; that's all I know abs>ut it. He's given me a fall or two lately, that would have broken every bone in your body," he added laughingly, turning to the mortified youth, whose physique was of that limp, flaccid nature which suggests to the imag- inative mind a gutta-percha ball from which the air has escaped. " I'm not going to buy Senator, if that's what you mean," was the youngster's surly reply. Any one who knows what it is to have in his stables a beloved brute, in which, under circumstances the most hostile, he is certain to have a good day — who is the "lucky horse" who has carried him gal- lantly, advised him sagaciously, borne with him patiently, and triumphed with him glo- riously times without end — who is the friend of his heart, the jewel without price, a screw of the first water — will know 156 king's baynabd. whether " young John" was likely under any circumstances to endeavour to plant Senator on the young cornet, so anxious to be done, and for whom he had offered to make a real sacrifice. " My good fellow," he said drily, " I could sell the chestnut to you much more to my advantage, than I could the other horse ; but he would be worse than useless to you, and I could not let you have him under the circumstances. He is worth the price I ask for him to a dealer, but not to you." "Take him in, Saunders," and "ware heels," he added, as Orion made a spiteful demonstration in the direction of the dis- comfited cornet, who went back crest-fallen and with wrath in his heart against the dealer in horseflesh who had proved so unamenable to his views. This was the way Mr. Baynard had of horse- dealing, a proof that he was honest king's batnaed. 157 and honourable to the core ; for there was not a man in Derefordshire who had a bet- ter eye for a horse, or a better seat, or a greater instinctive insight into the sterling qualities that make a horse valuable than he had ; nor was there one upon whose judgment in the matter men were more ready to rely, or whose advice they were more apt to ask in any question of difficulty or perplexity. " He's one of the right sort," they said ; and the honour of the old house did appear to be rising from the ashes of the past. The stables at King's Baynard were, perhaps, at that time the most habitable- looking portion of the pile of buildings, which succeeding generations of Baynards had heaped up in heterogeneous confusion, leaving the stamp of individual identity on each separate mass. There were six hunters in the loose boxes, and two har- 158 king's baynard. • ness horses in the stalls. The hunters were Orion and Senator; old Senator as he was lovingly called, more from the amount of service done than on account of the years that had passed over his head, and Lady Di, and Kangaroo, and Brown Kate, and Mohawk, the last a powerful brown horse with the courage of a lion, and the temper of a dove ; while each and every one was noted for some peculiar quality or merit, which gave them first rank, and their owner the first place among the hard riding squires of sport- ing Derefordshire. These peerless animals were worthily housed in the magnificent stables which had been built by our hero's grandfather, when he married the hapless lady in green, whose well filled coffers had contributed handsomely to that, and many another equally expensive whim of her husband, Sir Mark. Adjoining to them were the kennels, where the boiling of king's batnaed. 159 the poor lady's-lap clog had taken place, and which had been tenanted at that time by a pack of sturdy beagles, the pride of the baronet's heart. The pack had not been kept np by Sir Marmaduke, his successor, the only one of his race who had ignored the pleasures of the field; and "young John's" handsome bat not unlimi- ted income would not admit of his seeing them occupied, as he would have wished, by worthy descendants of the once famous Baynard pack. " I can follow hounds, if I cannot keep them," he would exultingly say, when one of the neighbouring farmers would twit him with this symptom of decay in the sporting prestige of the Hall ; and they would shake their ponderous sides with laughter, as they replied, 8< No doubt of that, Mr. John, as well as the best of them, as well as the best." They followed the example of his 160 king's baynaed. immediate dependants, and, as the reader will observe, preferred the more familiar title to the one to which our hero was en- titled, and addressed him as "Mr. John." The library and the room next to it, were the ones which had been prepared for the heir on his arrival at the Hall. The greater part of the old straggling building was shut up, and had become a prey to cobwebs and to devouring dust. Up and down those lonely, deserted rooms, the saloon and the ball-room, the withdrawing rooms, the long corridors and gloomy passages, the ghosts of the dead Baynards might have wandered un- molested at their will. There was no one to dispute their right, or to mingle with their ghostly revels, in the deserted cham- bers sacred to the memory of the past. That ill-conditioned spirits were occasion- ally heard to howl and shriek about the building at night, " young John " often king's baynabd. 161 asserted, as we have heard him do to Mr. Vavasour on the night of the Elmin- ster ball ; but he always said it in a manner that might have been taken either for jest or earnest, and so perhaps he meant that it should. There was a tinge of supersti- tion in his own nature, and it was possible that he did not altogether discredit the legend of the Baynard ghost. "Whether he knew aught of the curse which had blighted the later fortunes of his ancient house, it was impossible to tell. The heir had fallen from the clouds, as it were, into his noble inheritance, and stood absolutely alone, with regard to all ties either to the past or the present ; or to any source from which he could obtain information respecting the history of his immediate predecessors. That he was not aware of the tragedy in winch his grand- father, Sir Mark, had been the principal actor, those who knew him gathered from VOL. I. M 162 king's baynard. his having himself singled out the spot which went by the name of Mark's Bush, as a place of meeting for the Derefordshire fox-hounds. It was a place of which people would have spoken shyly and under their breath to the heir of King's Baynard, if he, with the majesty of innocence, had not taken the initiative and proclaimed it in public, as the most eligible place on the estate. The Bush itself, which had obtained such an unenviable notoriety in the neighbour- hood, was a thorn in which the song- thrushes sang sweetly in the spring time ; and it stood in an angle of a cover of gorse and at the meeting of four different roads. "What do they call this place?" Mr. Baynard had inquired of the keeper as he introduced him to the beauties of his wide domain. " It is called < Mark's Bush,' Mr. John," was the lowly muttered reply; and had 163 the inventive faculties of old Simon been in working order, there is little doubt but that that too notorious spot would have been re-christened then and there, for the bene- fit of the grandson of the wicked baronet. There was one, indeed, who was in a position to have put the young heir in possession of all the important facts that had occurred at King's Baynard, within the limits of at least half a century ; but the lips of that one were sealed on a subject that lay too deep at his heart for words. Mr. Trevylian, the aged rector, had lived a life time on the spot over which he firmly believed lay the shadow of a curse, still potent to blight and to destroy. " How long will it spare him — how long?" was the constant burden and refrain of a mind which time had weak- ened, and over which was spreading a cloud of superstitious belief and dread, which a long residence amongst people m 2 164 king's baynakt). and things connected by a train of gloomy associations with the past, is likely to induce. The circumstance of place is one that has more power to mould the disposition and temper of our minds than we are always at first ready to admit. To the constant occupant of some low-browed chamber, with the relics of the past ever about him, and the shadow of the past hanging like a cloud over the material and palpable present, the things of time have an unreal and visionary aspect ; and the blanks of his existence are filled up with a hand- writing which is not his own. It is a keen and subtle enjoyment which an ideal mind derives from such surroundings, and from the dwellers in an unseen world, which haunt his imagination and make the past the reality, and the present the dream ; but like other keen enjoyments it- is. bought at the price of the wasting king's baynard. 165 and decay of the nervous system. It had been so with the Rector of King's Bay- nard, he had lived amongst the relics of the past, until the past became more to him than either the present or the future. " Such tricks hath strong imagination, That if it would but apprehend some joy- It comprehends some bringer of that joy : Or in the night imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear. But all the story of the night told over, And all their minds transfigured so together, More witnesseth than fancy's images, And grows to something of great constancy ; But, howsoever, strange, and admirable." '5^ A rooted conviction in the potency and relentless nature of the curse that hung over the doomed house of King's Baynard, and to which he believed that every in^ dividual member of it, must in the end succumb, saddened the heart of Mr. Trevylian every time he looked upon the face of the voung heir, whom he loved as 166 king's baynaed. though he had been his own son. " It must spare him — it shall spare him," he would repeat over and over again to himself, after one of the almost daily visits which " young John" paid him at the Rectory ; but often as he repeated the sentence, he could not bring himself to believe that it would be so. He had seen the fatal curse worked out, again and again, in his own time, and he could not shake off the conviction so natural to the human mind, that what has been, will be again, and so on for evermore. However, he had kept these forebodings secret in his own heart, and had exerted himself to prove something of a com- panion to the young man who, on his part, looked up to the Rector with the most affectionate esteem. They had much in common — the wide field of classics, and the open book of nature, were dear to both of them, and like the cry of the king's batnabd. 167 hounds to an old hunter, came the roll of the sonorous languages of the dead upon the appreciative ear of one of the best scholars of the day. In his early youth Mr. Trevylian had distinguished himself at the university and earned classical honours ; in his athletic youth he had given up to a great extent his intellectual pursuits and become, as we have seen, more of a sportsman than a student; so that in his old age he could enter into the pleasures of the field, or sympathize with the literary tastes of one between whom and himself, at first sight, time would have appeared to have placed an insurmountable barrier. On the morning after the ball at Elmin- ster, the attempt at horse-dealing, on the part of the cornet, having concluded as we have seen, it had been Mr. Baynard's intention to ride over to Killerton — the seat of the Town-Edens — in order, if possi- 168 KING'S BAYNARD. ble, to make his peace with Margaret. But fate was impropitious to the poor girl in every way, and interfered again between her and the happiness she had once be- lieved to be near at hand ; for as Saunders was engaged in the somewhat perilous task of saddling the chestnut, there arrived, from the Rectory hard by, a young and breathless messenger, who, pulling his forelock to the squire, alarmed him with the intelligence that the Eector had been taken with a stroke, and that he had only just sufficiently recovered to make the doctor understand that he wished to see Mr. Baynard at once. The young man, full of concern for nis dear old friend, hastened to obey the summons ; and the ride to Killerton was postponed, for that day at least. Upon his arrival at the Rectory he was met by the housekeeper, who had lived in Mr. Trevylian's service for the fifty king's baynard. 169 years that had seen him rector of King's Baynard. " Will you be pleased to step into the study, Sir," she said ; " the master's doz- ing now, but he never sleeps long; and may be," she added humbly, for the Bay- nards of each succeeding generation had ever been great, if not good, in her estima- tion, " may be you'll bide till he wakes." " That I will," was the reply; "pray do not think of disturbing your master. I will wait as long as you like." The study was a dear, old-fashioned room, furnished with oak carvings, the work of the Rector himself. The windows looked over the trim and closely mown lawn, bounded by a yew hedge, in which gaps had been cut to afford peeps of the richly wooded uplands of the Baynard deer-park. But the tasteful hand of Amabel, Lady Baynard, had stopped short at the Rectory gates; and there 170 king's baynabd. was nothing beautiful about the arrange- ment of the shrubberies and gardens, although both were suggestive of order and comfort. In the furniture and de- corations of the study itself, might have been read the epitome of the old man's life. On the table, from which he had not long risen when attacked by the para- lytic seizure, lay an open Bible and a pair of spectacles. The last stage had found him in harness, and affliction had bowed the spirit which in youth had led him into extravagancies unworthy of his holy calling. In these are not in- cluded the athletic and manly sports of fishing, shooting, cricketing, or hunt- ing, of which many tokens were displayed on the walls of the study, while piled to- gether in dark corners were hunting-whips, fishing-rods, gun-cases, cricket-bats, and other appliances of the field and chase, speaking of an active out-door life. The king's baynakd. 171 walls were adorned, also, with many a curious ornithological specimen, for a su- perior education, combined with great powers of observation, had made Mr. Trevylian what few men of his age were, a naturalist as well as a sportsman. The titles of the books which the carved oak book-shelves contained, proclaimed their possessor more in the light of a classical scholar than of a profound divine. Mr. Trevylian, indeed, as might be ima- gined, had never gone deeply into the study of theology, and the deep feeling of religion which then pervaded his life, was the religion of the heart rather than the intellect ; of the heart softened by adversity into the close communionship with its Creator, and brought by in-dwel- ling conviction to the truth which no mere dogmatical teaching could have so deeply instilled. Besides the books there were pictures ; 172 king's baynard. and Mr. Baynard found plenty of objects of interest to beguile the half-hour, 'during which he waited for his old friend to awake from the stupor, rather than doze, into which he had fallen. A crayon picture of Mrs. Trevylian, of which the eyes, cheeks, and hair only were tinted with colour, bore witness to the sweetness of a face which the most depraved style of art could not entirely spoil ; but the prin- cipal picture in the room, and the one which immediately attracted the whole attention of Mr. Baynard, was a full length portrait of a young and beautiful girl, which smiled at the beholder with subtle coquetry from under a soft cloud of richly-tinted auburn hair. This picture had never been finished, neither appar- ently was it always exposed to view, for it was provided with a silken curtain, evidently intended to conceal it from the gaze of the uninterested or the vulgar. king's baynaed. 173 Mr. Baynard himself, although the study was the room in which he had always sat with Mr. Trevylian, had never seen this picture before. It struck him very forcibly then, as he looked at it for the first time, as the embodiment of all that was beautiful in female face and form. The contour of the face was exquisite, and tenderly rounded in the graceful mould of youth. The auburn hair and hazel eyes were the types of a beauty more common among our grandmothers than ourselves, if we may judge from the portraits of them that have been handed down to posterity ; and the peach-like bloom of the cheeks gave a richness and glow to the deep browns of the background, as the rosy clouds at sunset kindle into crimson the russet of the' autumn landscape. There was power and truth in the picture, though, perhaps, to an artist's eye, it might have borne wit- ness, as far as details were concerned, to 174 king's baynard. the hand of a tyro. " Young John " paid a tribute, indeed, to the genius of the painter, which nothing ungenuine or con- ventional could have levied from him. His eyes filled with tears as he gazed upon this relic of a buried, and, as far as the world was concerned, of a forgotten past. The beauty and the name even of Mabel Trevylian had passed away from her early home like a dream. It was an hour before Mr. Trevylian awoke. " He had not slept so long or so soundly since he had been taken," the housekeeper informed Mr. Baynard apo- logetically. " She was sorry," she added, " that he had been kept waiting so long." " Pray do not mention it," he replied, " I am glad that your master has been able to sleep before the fatigue of seeing me. I have been well employed in looking at the most beautiful face I ever saw. king's baynakd. 175 Tell me, pray, is that the portrait of Mrs. Trevylian?" (i jSTo, Mr. John," was the answer, given under the influence of evident agitation, " it is a portrait of master's daughter. Have you never heard of Miss Mabel, Sir ? Maybe not, for she's well nigh forgotten in King's Baynard now." "I have known but little of the place until the last few months," said Mr. Bay- nard, " no one would have been likely to speak of Miss Trevylian to me, but your master himself, and he never does, I sup- pose," he added, glancing at the thick cur- tain as he spoke, which seemed suggestive of a sorrow too deep and too bitter for words. "Master has spoken of her once or twice since you came back, Sir ; it seems to bring back the old times to his mind. He must have been looking at the picture when the stroke took him, or else 176 king's baynaed. the curtain would not have been drawn. Will you step up now, Sir ? or he'll be dropping off again." Thus "young John" was ushered, for the first time in his life, into the solemn presence of the Angel of Death. A more selfish or egotistical nature would have shrunk from exposing itself to a sensa- tion new, strange, and most probably disagreeable — and calling for the expres- sion of sympathy which such a nature finds it impossible to give. A total un- consciousness of self, in such a position, is not on the other hand incompatible with the instinctive self-reliance of a strong na- ture. Such self-reliance is rather the attractive force, drawing all things and all natures, weaker than itself, into the current which feeds its own depths. Self- consciousness is a sign of weakness that re- pels instead of attracting, for it is ever fearful of erring on the demonstrative side. king's baynahd. 177 " I am grieved to find you so ill, Sir," said the young man, in the full prime of health and vigour, to one who in his own youth would have rivalled him in manly beauty, and in the symmetry of his power- ful and strongly-knit frame. " I had no notion you had been ailing, or I should have been here before." " Thank you, dear lad," replied the old man, in weak, broken accents, which fell painfully on " young John's " ear ; for they were the accents of the most friendly voice which he had ever known in the world. " Thank you," he repeated, as he tried to raise himself from the pillows, an action which the young man interpreted aright, and speedily propped him on his own strong arm, while he listened respect- fully to what he believed to be a parting ad- monition from the lips of the aged Eector. " I wanted to give you my blessing be- fore I go. I have been fifty years rector VOL. i. N 178 king's baynaed. of King's Baynard, and I have seen the right heir at last. Do you remember my last sermon ? It was for you. Do not forget God, and He will not forget you. Keep yourself pure and honest in the sight of all men, and the glory will return to your house." He was silent for a moment or two ; but " young John" felt the pressure of the feeble fingers upon his own, and he grieved for the old man, as a son might have grieved — while the bitter tears gathered in his eyes, at the thought that even that slight pressure must soon be withdrawn for ever, and those feeble ac- cents be silenced in the grave. " I will remember," he uttered solemn- ly, and as he believed in the presence of death. " I take God to witness that I will remember your parting words, and do what in me lies to repair the honour of our house. You will take my word ?" he king's baynard. 179 added, as lie touched the wrinkled hand with a caress that for tenderness might have come from a woman, " that has never been broken yet." It might have been that that gentle touch called up old associations in the bereaved husband's breast, or it might have been that the brain fatigued with the tension put upon it, sank back into a dor- mant state; for Mr. Trevylian's eye began to wander, and the past became present to him, while the present was as though it were not. This annihilation of the rules of time, to the soul on the brink of eter- nity, is one of the most remarkable phenomena attending that world of phe- nomena, the fancies of a sick man's brain. The impalpable past becomes pal- pable again, and the soul as it were goes before to judgment, for the deeds done in the fast dissolving flesh. "Mabel," said the old man suddenly, N 2 180 king's batnaed. and with a voice so strong that it brought the nurse and housekeeper at once to his side., " Where is Mabel, my darling ? She died without my blessing. God bless her ! my poor child ! I forgive her with all my heart. My heart she broke, but I forgive her. ' God bless Mabel, my dar- ling !" Then wandering into another strain, he would address his wife — tell her it was " church time," and that " Sir Mark was coming ;" and then he would fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, and babble of green fields, as the Great Mas- ter hath, it, whose universal genius did, indeed, seem capable of grasping the whole circle of creation, and to paint it in true colours, in its every phase and stage. " Poor soul ! dear soul !" said the kind, weeping woman, who had nursed his only king's baynabd. 181 child, and closed the eyes of his beloved wife. " Oh, Mr. John, I fear that he is very ill. He never wandered like this be- fore. Oh ! my dear master, what will King's Baynard do when you're gone ?" The well-known name struck upon the old man's ear with the power of a master chord; the love of the place and all belong- ing to it was knitted into his very being — he had been no unfaithful pastor in the mat- ter of affectionate interest and zeal, with regard to his parish and his parishioners. " King's Baynard," he said, " who spoke of King's Baynard ? Do you not know, have you not heard, that the curse is upon it still ?" The last words were hissed rather than spoken, in the terrible whisper which gives utterance to the wanderings of a brain diseased, well-known to those accustomed to attend upon beds of sickness and death ; but the heir started as he heard them, 182 king's baynaed. for they seemed to him as the words of an aged prophet, and they found an echo in his own breast. " The curse is upon it still." This ominous sentence pronounced, the old man fell back so heavily on Mr. Baynard's supporting arm, that he believed he had expired in the effort of pronounc- ing them; but it was not so. He had fallen again into the stupor which the doctor declared to be the effect of weak- ness, rather than of active disease. The stroke, he told the nurse, had not been a severe one, neither had paralysis attacked the brain — as in that case he would have been bereft of speech; but he added, shaking his head and feeling the wrist in which the pulse of life was scarcely per- ceptible, " It is a bad case, I fear — a bad case." " There will be no change for some hours, Mr. John," he added, turning to king's baynaed. 183 the young Squire, who was unwilling to leave the bedside ; " I would not deceive you, Sir, but I assure you you'll do more good to our poor friend if you go home now, and come back again at night. He'll get restless and wandering then, and we shall want your help." So " young John" returned sadly to the old Hall, his mind filled with gloomy presentiments, and with an aching grief, as he thought of his friendless position at King's Baynard when his dear old friend should be gone. " I did not know what it was to me before," he said to himself, " having the Eectory to go to, and a kindly face always at hand ;" and as he thought of these things, the voung man, whom we have seen in such buoyant spirits only the night before, laid his head upon his folded arms, and wept in his solitude aloud. He had ordered an early dinner at five 184 king's baynard. to be served in the library — the room which he always inhabited when alone — in order that he might be at the Rectory at the hour mentioned by the Doctor as the one in which he expected a change to take place in his patient. Having hastily despatched the meal, and taken a draught of the choice wine with which the old butler had favoured him, in considera- tion of his being " so down like," as he expressed it; he was glad to leave the solitude and silence of the dim room which, combined with troublous thought, had begun to tell even upon his iron nerves. As he unfastened the shutters of the library window, which opened upon one of the fair Amabel Baynard' s favourite ter- race walks, he could not deceive himself as to the fact that, in addition to the noise which his own proceedings involved, the stillness of the night was broken by a low king's baynaed. 185 wailing sound more properly described as an " utterance," which he had heard occasionally before, but which in his present mood gave a new meaning to the story of the Baynard ghost. The sound was in itself so wild and unearthly, that although heard distinctly for the moment, it was impossible to recall it in any shape to the mind's ear when it had once ceased, and Mr. Baynard him- self, if hard pressed, would have been at a loss to say what he really believed with regard to its cause, or its reality. He had jested the night before about the howling ghost which was supposed to haunt the old Hall, but I incline to think he would have resented any openly avowed disbelief in the truth of the legend. The servants and retainers of the household all devoutly and orthodoxly believed in it. Mrs. Grimstone, the housekeeper, had seen it ; and as she was not given to flights of 186 king's baynaed. imagination, it was impossible to reject her testimony. It was dressed in green, she said, and followed by a King Charles' spaniel ; which fact, of course, gave rise to the conclusion that it was the ghost of the unhappy lady whom her husband, the " wicked baronet" had harassed into an early grave. A " draped ghost" has somewhere been quaintly described as a decent impro- bability, and the presence of the canine shade would also present difficulties to the practical inquirer, but be as honey to the soul of the kindly philan- thropist who maintains that dogs have souls. The belief in the identity of the ghost herself was confirmed by a curious re- semblance which some said the " utter- ance" bore to the words, " Ah ! Sir Mark ! Ah ! Ah !" sounds which, according to the testimony of the oldest inhabitant king's baynaed. 187 had not been unknown at the Hall during the lifetime of the unhappy wo- man. Here, too, I think might be observed that subtle difference between the sublime and the ridiculous, involved in the sub- stitution of one monosyllable for another. " Oh ! Sir Mark, oh, oh !" would have been simply ridiculous ; " ah ! Sir Mark, ah, ah !" was pathetic, and, therefore, par- took of the nature of the sublime. " Young John " heard it that night with new and awakened perceptions. He felt as though something had struck like cold steel at the hopes of his youth, and at the honour and pride of his name ; he felt the presence of the curse which those dying lips had pronounced to be hanging over his inheritance still ; and he felt it for the first time. To shake off such dismal forebodings, he went round to the stables to see the 188 king's baynaed. horses littered down for the night. They whinnied to him affectionately, as they recognised his familiar voice, all but Orion, who occupied a lonely stall at some dis- tance from the rest, his dangerous temper making him an undesirable neighbour. "What's the matter with you, old fellow?" said his master, approaching him, " won't you wish me good night ?" he added, laying his hand firmly but gently on his back, ' and following it up warily, until it lay on his magnificent crest. "What's the matter with this horse?" he called out to a lad who was busy about the favourite, Old Senator, "he's in a tremendous sweat, and trembling all over." That some soul-subduing horror had made the lofty soul of Orion quail in its presence was indeed evident ; and his master suspected that violence had been king's batnaed. 189 resorted to by some helper or groom who had found him otherwise unmanageable. This suspicion roused the Baynard lion in his breast at once, and he said sharply to the lad who answered his summons, "It's no use your telling me a lie, what have you been doing to the horse ?" " I ain't a done nothink, Sir," said the boy, trembling in his turn. " I daren't go anigh him. But he's heard the ghost, please, Sir, and Mr. Saunders will tell you, Sir, it's the only thing as ever scares him." 100 CHAPTER VIII. " Man that flowers so fresh at morn, and fades at evening late." — spenser. rjIHE arrival of Mr. Baynard at the home -*- of his ancestors, and the young life thus springing, as it were, out of the ruin and decay of the old, had indeed, as the housekeeper had said, brought the remem- brance of times long past very vividly to Mr. Trevylian, her aged master. He had, as we have seen, roused himself to the extent of preaching in the young man's presence a sermon which touched upon the tarnished honour of his house, and which set before the heir of it, in forcible language, the fountain head of all true king's baynard. 191 glory, and urged him to choose that better part. In return for this honest and tender solicitude, " young John " had bestowed upon his Mentor his grateful affec- tion, the affection of a son for a good father. His upright nature ever rang true to the touch of uprightness and ho- nesty in others; and he loved and re- spected the motive which had made the preacher so outspoken on the day of his first appearance in his parish church. It was, therefore, with a pang of the keenest sorrow which he had ever experienced, that he heard the old servant's announce- ment, that " the Doctor was with her mas- ter, and that she did not expect he would live through the night." " Poor, dear old gentleman," she added, sobbing heavily. " he's the last of the old stock, and he'll be sorely missed when 192 king's baynard. he's gone — the poor will lose their best friend." " That I am sure they will, as well as ourselves," answered Mr. Baynard, whose genial nature seemed to invite the confidence of all. "I shall remain here to-night," he added, " and as long as I can be of any use. The Doctor is with him now you say ?" "He is up there now, Sir, but he'll be down presently, and you'll be company like ; but won't they be expecting you at the Hall ?" "No, no one at the Hall will trouble himself about me, Mrs. Meredith, ex- cepting Saunders, and he knows where I am. I'll sit up with the Doctor." " He'll be wanting his glass then, and maybe his pipe," observed Mrs. Meredith, forgetting that she was, according to an old habit of hers, thinking aloud, her grief for her old master having upset her, or king's baynakd. 193 " put her about," as she would have said, to such an extent, as hardly to have left her mistress of herself ; and, she added, " mas- ter himself never smoked in this room." " Do not be uneasy on that score," said Mr. Baynard, courteous to any woman, young or old, and in whatever station of life. " I am not in a mood for a pipe to- night, and I dare say the Doctor will fol- low suit." There was not much fear on that score. Dr. Blake had lived in King's Baynard all his life, and the name even of one of the family from the Hall exercised over him a potent spell. He had succeeded his father, who had been apothecary in ordinary to the Baynard family, and who had owed the rather extensive practice he enjoyed during Ins life to their patronage and interest. There had been curious secrets, the old gossips said, concealed under the snowy cambric-frilled shirt which it was the Doc- vol. i. o 194 king's baynabd. tor's custom to assume when he attended his more distinguished patients ; and the delicate folds of that garment had often been agitated by the palpitations of the medical breast, when Sir Mark had seen fit to preside over doctor and patient together, in the sombre sick-room of the unfortunate Lady Baynard. It was after some consultation — if a con- versation consisting of oaths and impreca- tions on one side, and meek and persistent remonstrance on the other can come under that head — respecting the expediency of the lady's attempting to nurse her own child, that she had taken the opportunity of gently slipping out of their hands alto- gether. The doctor had acted honestly by his patient, notwithstanding his awe of the wicked baronet ; and had strongly advised her to forbear an attempt, which her great weakness would probably have rendered fatal. king's eaynard. 195 Sir Mark caring little for the welfare of the mother, but anxious for the life of his heir, pressed, or rather commanded the duty; and the poor lady, weary of the stormy dissertation in her sick-chamber, signed to the nurse to bring her the child, when Dr. Blake stepped forward and said emphatically, regardless of an angry gesture from Sir Mark, " I oodn't, mylady — indeed, I oodn't attempt it." They were the last words that fell upon the dying ear of Lady Baynard. She took the good doctor's ad- vice so conscientiously given, and attempted nothing more in this troublesome life. It was the soundest perhaps that he could have volunteered, in the widest sense of the words ; for life itself had been but a dreary attempt to the poor faded woman who had brought such a mine of wealth into .her husband's family. Did the silent shade, in the green robes and attendant doggie, ever recall the scene o 2 196 king's baynard. which concluded with the mournfully sug- gestive words, " I oodn't, my lady — indeed, I oodn't attempt it ?" No sooner had Mrs. Meredith informed the Doctor that " Mr. John was below," than he prepared to join him, saying as he laid down the thin blue-veined hand on the counterpane, " I must go and give him my report of our patient, our pulse is decidedly stronger than it was, ma'am ; if we get through the night we shall do." As the old woman took her seat at the bed's head of her beloved master, prepared practically, and literally to sit ujo with him, and not to snore soundly at his side — a proceeding for which the same phrase is sometimes delicately a euphemism — she took up his thin hand and kissed it tenderly, while the grateful tears bedewed her own cheeks. She loved him with the faithful, constant, untiring love, peculiar to the class in which love is an king's baynard. 197 instinct ; and which like the love of a faith- ful dog, is unchanging in a world of change. As the Doctor joined Mr. Baynard, who was anxiously awaiting him in the study, he at first assumed the conventional manner and form of expression which we all know so well, and which we have all cursed so heartily when the life of some dear one has been trembling in the balance. As though nothing artificial or conventional, however, could long exist in that honest eager presence, the Doctor himself soon gave up the sham, and shaking the young man heartily by the hand, he exclaimed : " Thank God, Sir ! the danger is past, and our dear old friend will get over it this bout." " Thank God !" echoed Mr. Baynard fer- vently ; " this is indeed good news ; for I certainly thought he was dying this morning." " Gad, Mr. John," said the Doctor, a 198 king's baynaed. little ashamed perhaps of his burst of emo- tion, " I am too old to make such a fool of myself; but I was thinking of the glorious fellow he was when he first came among us. Such a wife and daughter as he had too, and to lose them both as he did ! It was that which broke his heart, Sir, but he was not the one to die of it. He'd too much of the right stuff in him for that." " I have only known Mr. Trevylian lately," answered Mr. Baynard, " but in that short time I have conceived a great affection for him. I found him an upright man and a courteous gentleman; but with the sad history you speak of, Doctor, I am unacquainted. I did not even know that he had ever had a daughter until to- day." " Indeed, Mr. John, you surprise me; but then I forget that time flies, and I ought to know if any one does, for I brought the poor thing into a world of king's baynaed. 199 troubles, just five and forty years ago next Christmas. What a lovely creature she grew into ! She made fine havoc with the young men's hearts in her day — and no wonder, Sir, no wonder." " Was she like her picture ? — that pic- ture, T mean," asked Mr. Baynard, in- dicating the spot where the curtain concealed it, which had been rearranged by the careful hand of Mrs. Meredith since the morning. " Like it as she could stare, Sir ; or rather the picture was like her — the rascal could paint — " " You must enlighten me, Doctor, if I am to follow you. Sit down if you will, and spare me an hour's gossip. I do not mean to go back to the Hall to-night." " Willingly, Mr. John, willingly. I should not have thought, either, of going home to-night, although I trust the dan- ger is past. I will step up and see my 200 king's baynaed. patient again, and then I shall be prond of your company, Sir, proud of your com- pany," the little man added, rubbing his hands, and his countenance beaming with satisfaction ; for, besides the real pleasure he promised himself in Mr. Baynard's society, he thought also what prestige it would give him among his patients when he talked of his long night-watch with the popular heir of King's Baynard. " We are getting on favourably, our pulse is decidedly better," he announced, with his professional manner on, as he returned to the study ; and then he said, with a peculiar little jerk of his head, like that of a bird of the daw tribe, " you smoke, Mr. John, I think." " Sometimes I do, but not to-night. This room is under his, if I re- member rightly," was Mr. Baynard's answer ; for he recollected the careful ser- vant's well-timed soliloquy with regard to king's baynaud. 201 the desecration of the study. Seeing the Doctor's countenance fall, he pushed to- wards him the well furnished tray which Mrs. Meredith had provided to minister to the creature comforts of the watchers ; saying as he did so, " Take care of your- self, Doctor, and tell me more of this young lady ; you must remember that I knew absolutely nothiug of King's Bay- nard, or its inhabitants, until I came here to live. I do not wish to discuss matters of mere private interest," he added, " but I suppose every one in the place, excepting myself, is acquainted with her history. You must make me more at home with the Wends of the neighbourhood." The Doctor looked up quickly for he felt that he was on dangerous ground, and that most of the King's Baynard legends would scarcely bear repeating in the presence of the young heir. A moment's reflection, however, reassured him ; for with the un- 202 king's batnard. happy fortunes of Mabel Trevylian, the members of that doomed house had no- thing to do. She had not been born until long after the disappearance of Sir Mark Baynard from the country, with the heir presented to him by the lady in green ; and although the next baronet, during his short residence at the old Hall, had carried on a passing flirtation with his lovely neighbour at the Rectory, it was of that frivolous kind, that no one could mistake for a genuine attachment on either side. He had flirted, indeed, with every pretty girl in the county, without the slightest intention of putting his head into the noose matrimonial, or of settling down as a Benedict in the place which he so cordially hated. The Doctor, therefore, saw his way from the beginning to the end of Mabel's history without touching on forbidden ground, and began as follows. " It was a sad story, Mr. John, a very king's baynaed. 203 sad one. Miss Mabel was an only child and an heiress, for Mrs. Trevylian, her mother, had a pretty penny of her own, and this living is the best in the county, as, of course, you know. She had plenty of swains all sighing at her feet, and languishing for a kind glance from her fine eyes ; but she was as saucy and skittish as her own little mare, Lightfoot, and played fast and loose with them, just as it suited her whim. She'd be all smiles one day, and all frowns the next ; flirting and coquetting with them by turns, and tossing her pretty head so scornfully when she was not in the best of tempers." " A real primitive village beauty, an Olivia Primrose, in fact ; your description, Doctor, is graphic and delicious," re- marked " young John," who had risen to pull aside the curtain that he might gaze again on the beautiful face that had fascinated him so completely. " Those 204 king's baynahd. hazel eyes look as if they could flash with some purpose, if they liked," he added. " You are right, Sir, quite right. Mabel Trevylian was no angel, as far as temper went. But then she had been spoilt from her cradle, her mother made an idol of her, and her father thought God's earth itself not good enough for her to step upon. One couldn't blame them either. She was born when they had given up all hopes of a child, and she was like a sunbeam in the Rectory from that time until the end. Only to think, that had she lived, she'd have been old enough for your mother ; and there was I saying to myself just now, when you were looking so sweet on the picture, what a match she would have been for the heir of King's Baynard ! She was all light and fire, all spirits and fine health — a stamp of woman that's dying out very fast. They're poor lack-a-daisical things, king's baynakd. 205 now, the best of them, as far as I can see, at least." "Have you seen Mrs. Vavasour, Doc- tor? if not, suspend your judgment. She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen." " No, Mr. John, I hadn't the luck. I was not ' in town' on Saturday. Farmer Newman's ploughboy, of course, chose that day of all others to break the small bone of his leg. It was a great miss, Sir ; a great miss, for I hear that they went through in style." " They did, indeed. I met them again last night at the ball, when she appeared to even greater advantage. What a dif- ferent scene to-night ! I went over early, or I should have heard of the Rector's ill- ness before." " It has been coming on for some time, Sir ; the cerebral tissues have been weak- ened by trouble, and his fine constitution 206 king's baynabd. has given away at last. You should have seen him as I remember him ; no one could beat him across country, and he was as pretty a judge of a horse as the wick — I mean as the old baronet himself." Here the Doctor checked himself sud- denly, and Mr. Baynard, perceiving his confusion, kindly helped him out of his difficulty, by remarking, " Mrs. Meredith tells me that her master was taken ill while looking at his daugh- ter's picture, which he only does, she assures me, on rare occasions. You must continue her story, Doctor, for I am deeply interested." " Certainly, Mr. John, certainly ; her story is not one that will take long in the telling, more's the pity, poor deluded young thing ! She ran away, Sir, from this very house, one summer's evening, with a painter fellow — a bold, black-eyed chap that she ought to have been above king's baynard. 207 speaking to. The shock killed her mother, who never held up her head again — the shock and the disgrace, too ; for he was a low fellow, and what Miss Mabel saw in him, it is impossible to say — she who used to hold her head so high, too, poor thing ! poor thing !" " But this is not the end, Doctor ? What became of her after all ? Is she living or dead at the present moment — the original of this beautiful face?" "Dead, Mr. John — dead long ago; be- fore that picture which has struck you so much ever found its way to the Rectory. Mr. Trevylian received the intelligence of his daughter's death before he had for- given her, and it broke him down. The letter was from the villain himself; but he gave the poor father no clue by which he could hold any communication with him. He sent him a miniature portrait of Mabel, and a lock of her hair ; and there was no 208 king's baynard. reason to disbelieve his statement, as the poor girl was an heiress, it would have been his object to become reconciled to the family, not to kill her." " And the picture itself, how did it come here ?" " It was left at the ' Baynard Arms,' in the hurry of the flight. No one thought Mr. Trevylian would have looked at it, as it was through that portrait that the unfortu- nate acquaintance began ; but when the news came of his daughter's death, he sent for it, and hung it there with his own hands, telling the housekeeper to provide a curtain for it ; and that's all .that I, or any one in King's Baynard know about the picture, Mr. John. I've never heard him mention her name till to-night, when he was wandering a little, and I could not make out all he said." " What brought the man to the ' Bay- nard Arms ?' That is what puzzles me in king's bayxakd. 209 it all," observed "young John," after both men had been silent for a short space, while the Doctor peered curiously into his companion's face, holding the spoon in the stiff glass of " something comfortable," dex- terously out of the way of his nose as he did so. "He came down there first, when Sir Marmaduke was amongst us," the Doc- tor said, hesitatingly; " he was always a patron of the fine arts, you know ; and the fellow was copying some of the pic- tures at the Hall." Mr. Baynard made no comment upon the reply to his question. The mention of his father's name always had the effect of sealing his lips at once. The Doctor, see- ing that his mood had changed, and that he did not seem inclined for further conver- sation, took the opportunity of making a second visit to his patient, whom he found what the faithful watcher at his side called VOL. I. P 210 king's baynaed. "very comfortable." His sleep did, in- deed, seem calm and painless, undisturbed by sad images either of the present or the past. The Doctor foreseeing that he would continue in this state for some hours, and that there was no likelihood of any farther change that night, strongly recommended Mr. Baynard to go home and to bed, re- minding him that the members of the Derefordshire hunt breakfasted at the Hall the next morning, for which hos- pitality on the part of the heir, so long a vigil would be but a bad preparation. " You are right, Doctor," answered the young man, "if our old friend is not likely to require my services, I had better go home, and come over the first thing in the morning;" and as he shook the old man cordially by the hand, he said, "Thank you for the story; although a sad one, it has beguiled the time and king's baynaed. 211 given me the clue that was wanting to account for the strain of melancholy, which I had been at a loss to account for, in the mind of my dear old friend. Good night, Doctor. God grant that he may be spared to us yet !" p 2 212 CHAPTER IX. " I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns." — king henry, Act 3. fTlHE "hounds met at King's Baynard the -*- next morning. A gusty night had been succeeded by one of those moist ge- nial mornings so dear to the heart of the fox-hunter. The ground was soft and elastic, and the covers were still dripping with the moisture that rose from the earth in gentle mist. The Baynard breakfast meet " was always a lucky one," men said, as they passed each other on the road, holding their powerful hunters fresh from the effects of a six weeks frost. king's baynaed. 213 " There go the hunters !" shouted the delighted children, as the village street became alive and gay with the red-coats, on their way to the Hall. " And there be the hourids," they added, as the noble pack, with their master in their midst, jogged quietly on with the business-like preoccupied air peculiar to those who know that there is work before them to do. " This is like old times, Allonby," said a heavily-appointed, heavily-mounted squire of the old school, to a brother fogie on an equally ponderous scale, as they trotted together up the avenue leading to the old Hall, which was the growth of many centuries, but which was not older than the Baynards themselves. "It is indeed," was the reply ; "we only want the parson out to make the illu- sion complete, he did ride, by Jove ! Some one was saying on the road that he'd had 214 king's baynaed. had a stroke. If the old boy goes there'll be a good thing vacant. The Baynard living is worth twelve hundred a year, if it's worth sixpence." "Beg pardon, squire, can't hold my mare," said a madcap hard rider of the new school, as he made the turf fly right and left, cut from the soft soil as with a knife, by the heels of his high-flying chest- nut, and causing the gentleman so ad- dressed and so bespattered, to make use . of language unbecoming either to his years or his dignity. " That's a nice chap," he said, looking after him with a face as scarlet with rage as his own coat ; " a nice fellow indeed to ride over gentlemen. Why, his father kept a public, Sir, — a low public in Elminster, and his father's son sets up for a gentle- man, and rides to the devil in a red coat." " A sign of the times that's all, Allonby ; king's baynakd. 215 set a beggar on horseback — you know the rest," was the philosophical reply of the brother fogie, who had not been bespat- tered, whose horse had not curveted and who therefore was less irascible on the subject, notwithstanding his Tory princi- ples. As soon as the master appeared upon the lawn, surrounded by the pack, the banqueting hall was thrown open to the ravages of as goodly a field as could be mustered in Derefordshire, which was a sporting and hard riding county. The " Mark's Bush" meet, and " the Baynard meet" were not one and the same thing ; the latter implying a breakfast to the hunt from the young and hospitable heir, the other implying nothing more than met the eye ; but both were suggestive of sport, for foxes abounded in the covers, and each and everyone of the King's Baynard ten- ants were sportsmen to the back bone. 216 king's baynaed. On the particular morning in question, " young John's" mind having been relieved of its anxious solicitude by good news from the Rectory, his spirits rose high in proportion to the depression which they had experienced, so that the tide of popu- larity was at its full flow. " He is a good fellow," said one ; " And there's no one like him," said another; "And there are good days coming for King's Baynard now," said a third. In the midst of this good company might have been seen the little Doctor, rubbing his hands and jerking his head from side to side, as was his wont, whilst he informed every one present that he had been sitting up with " young Mr. John" the night before, and "that he was the best company of any man he knew." " How do, Doctor, how's the parson ?" echoed the elderly squire before alluded to, who seemed to take a lively interest king's bayxaed. 217 in the Rector of the King's Baynard living. " Better, Sir, decidedly better. Heard the hounds go this morning, Sir, pricked up his ears, and said, c there'll be a good scent to-day, Doctor.' Haven't heard him say such a thing before for years, lost all his interest in sport of late." " ' The ruling passion strong in death,' that's the secret of it, as I take it," said the old squire who had a son in orders, and who became fidgetty and anxious about every good living in the neighbourhood, likely to become vacant. He accordingly pooh-poohed the Doctor, who replied to his remark. " No such thing, Sir, no such thing, he'll get over it this bout, I'll stake my reputation on it." The worthy squire, however, was not so fully convinced on that score ; and he surprised his neigh- bour at the hospitable board, by giving him suddenly a poke in the ribs, and asking 218 king's baynakd. him before he had time to .remonstrate, " How would you go to work now, about that sorb of thing, eh ?" " Go to work, why cut it to be sure," replied his friend, thinking the squire's remark had reference to the game pie be- fore him, not having been supplied with any other clue to the problem proposed for his solution. There were sharper ears', however, on the other side of the table belonging to a very shrewd attorney from Elminster, who had two ruling passions, in the gratifica- tion of which he had equally keen enjoy- ment — the one was fox hunting, the other jobbing. He was called " Limping Lines," from an inequality in his gait ; and was a partner in the business of Mr. Dale, the old established and respectable solicitor who managed the business of all the great families in the immediate neighbourhood. People had complained of late years that king's baynatcd. 219 lie left too much to the younger and more energetic partner, in whose hands they did not feel their honour and integrity to be quite on the same safe footing as when entrusted solely to the keeping of the principal, who had practised in Elminster from time immemorial, and his father before him. In the same manner, however, that the young practitioner in the medical profes- sion is artfully insinuated into the practice of the time-honoured family physician, by being sent in the first instance, to less responsible cases, and then taking the game of life and death by degrees into his own hands, was " Limping Lines" inserted by the thin end of the wedge into the legal prac- tice of Elminster and the neighbourhood. " He was a good man of business," men said, "a sharp fellow;" but they did not say, as they had said of Mr. Dale in his day, that he was a " safe man," or, " slow 220 king's baynaed. as a top, Sir, but honourable to the back bone." These things were not said of that sharp practitioner and good man of busi- ness, Mr. Nathaniel Lines. His presence at the Hall that day was owing to the circumstance of a deed being required for business purposes, which was in a safe in the library occupied by Mr. Baynard, to which the family solicitor had the means of access. The breakfast at the Hall, and the prospect of sport with the Herefordshire hounds, enabled him to kill two birds with one stone; so it was altogether a red letter day in the mental calendar of the Elminster attorney. He liked to show off his familiarity with the ins and outs of the Hall, and, indeed, did the honours of it, when the heir was not present, in the manner which hangers on at great houses so often assume ; taking in greedily, at the same time, all the floating gossip which KING S BAYNARD. 221 such gatherings of men in high spirits, and with good cheer before them, is sure to put into circulation. The illness of Mr. Trevylian he thus heard of casually, and did not fail to balance the probabilities of a speedy vacancy of the Baynard living. He knew as much, or indeed, more than his princi- pal, with* regard to the Baynard property. The manner in which it was entailed — the amount of the rent-roll — and even the feeling and temper of Sir Marmacluke himself, concerning matters purely private and personal, had come under his cogni- zance ; for upon him had lately devolved the office of conveying the rents to the Baronet, and of transacting all business requiring personal communication. Mr. Dale was getting infirm; and preferred leaving these excursions to the more active partner, who had gradually acquired an influence over Sir Marmaduke, which the 222 king's baynakd. more worthy solicitor liacl never been able to effect. To " young John" himself, the presence of Mr. Lines was as a perpetual thorn in his side. His manner to the heir was offen- sive and familiar. He alone, of all his acquaintances and friends in the neigh- bourhood, dared to make his private concerns a matter of public observation and comment. On this occasion, inspired perhaps by the potency of the home- brewed ale, he actually baited the heir by the cool impertinence of his remarks to him, made down the whole length of his own table. " Next time I see Sir Marmaduke, Mr. John," he began, " I must try what can be done about our refractory friend at the North Farm. It won't do, however, to take the old gentleman out of his mood, or her ladyshij) either, as far as that goes I take it." king's baynaed. 223 This was going a step too far, lie had bearded the Hon once too often ; and Mr. Baynard fixing the attorney with an indig- nant gaze, said in clear ringing accents which were well heard by everyone then present, "Mr. Lines, you will be good enough to bear in mind for the future, that references to matters purely private and personal, with regard to my family in my presence, are not consistent either with your position or with mine. I must request you in future to find other subjects for discussion." Mr. Nathaniel Lines, who was as bitter as hyssop when subjected to defeat or humiliation, whispered to his next neigh- bour, as the renewed buzz of voices made his observation inaudible at the upper end. " The Baynard cockerel crows loud, but there's one that will one day crow louder than he. His position indeed — let him look to it." 224 king's baynakp. His remark met with no response, and indeed fell unheeded on the ear of the worthy gentleman farmer to whom it was addressed, and who was mnch more intent upon the discussion of the game pasty before him, than upon any observation, from him whom he called contemptuously " Nat Lines," detrimental to the popular heir. As the respected master of the hounds, Major Dalkeith, rose from his chair, and proceeded to the lawn, where his "dappled darlings" greeted him with all the warmth of their canine natures, the banqueting hall was speedily deserted. "What do you ride to-day ?" more than one man asked "young John," as he settled himself in his saddle, or directed his critical eye to the good points of his own steed. " The chestnut horse," was the reply, " I am ridipor ] imi to sell." king's baynard. 225 As he spoke, Saunders appeared in sight, leading the splendid brute, which contrary to custom, appeared to be docile as a lamb ; he even allowed his rider to mount, without the display of temper on his part which generally accompanied the proceeding. " What's the meaning of this, Saun- ders ?" asked his master, as he patted Orion on the neck, and looked at the groom for information with regard to this unprecedented tranquillity of demeanour on the part of the " chestnut devil," as the horse was called among the members of the Derefordshire hunt. " It means mischief, to my thinking, Sir," answered Saunders, ominously. " I don't believe that 'ere 'oss is right in his 'ead ;" with which sententious remark, the oracle proceeded to mount the sweetest mare that ever entered the Baynard stables, by name Brown Kate, for which fabulous vol. I. Q 226 king's baynakd. sums had been offered, but offered in vain. If Brown Kate was not equal to Orion in the length of her stride, her qualities as a fencer were superior to his, and she carried the spare form of Saunders as she would have carried a fly. As they trotted off to cover, a splendid and well mounted field, they were joined by one or two ladies and their attendant cavaliers, and Mr. Baynard recognised amongst them the light graceful figure of Margaret Town-Eden, on her favourite mare, Jocuncla, at whose bridle-rein he had so often ridden, a favoured knight. " I wonder if this brute will let me go near her," he thought, as, standing at the cover-side, he caught Margaret's eye, and raised his cap in respectful homage. She looked wonderfully pretty; the healthy colour mantling in her cheeks, and the snowy white of her gloves and collar contrasting so well with the dark king's baynakd. 227 hues of her habit, while the riding hat, so becoming to some faces, especially young ones, crowned the auburn tresses, which are the boast of an English Hebe. Jocunda was worthy of her mistress, and as she cocked her taper ears to the whimper of the hounds, and curved her beautiful neck against the restraining hand, they formed a picture dear to all Englishmen, that of a beautiful woman mounted on a beautiful horse. " Young John," the last man in Eng- land to deny the fascination of either, ventured so far upon the wonderful phase of docility exhibited by Orion, as to steer him carefully alongside of the gentle Jo- cunda. " I must venture upon it, Miss Town- Eden," he said, in his frank and genial manner, " I must ask your forgiveness for my forgetfulness the other night. Not that I am such a coxcomb as to think it mattered to you, but it matters seriously Q 2 228 king's baynaed. to me whether in future you exclude Hie or not from the honour of your notice. Will you forget — that is a better way of putting it — for there was not much to forgive in it, on your part, at least." " Sometimes it is easier to forgive, than to forget" answered Margaret, " but in our case there is little difficulty on either score. If I assure you I have both for- given and forgotten, will that content you?" "It ought to do more," he answered, really relieved that he had so easily made his peace, and not perceiving the under- current of bitterness in Margaret's tone ; and still in his utter innocence of any sentiment towards her, eluding the little pi I falls which the inborn spirit of coquetry led her to lay in his path. Turning the conversation altogether into a different channel, he told her of the extraordinary conduct of Orion that king's baynaed. 229 morning ; of the attempt at purchase made by the young cornet, and of his (Mr. Baynard's) enthusiastic admiration of Mrs. Vavasour, of which, indeed, she had already seen and heard enough. Margaret's interest at this point of the conversation apparently fell to zero, and she began to pull Jocunda's silken mane through her fingers, and to flip the ears of the pony her little brother was riding, with her whip, as she answered, with apparent carelessness, "Yes, she is pretty; but I think she looks better on the stage than in a private room." This remark was intended as a little stab to the refined taste of Mr. Baynard, and it had the effect desired. There is something very vulgar and commonplace about the idea of a stage, although a true and exalted artist every now and then does descend to the common boards. Words 230 king's eaynaed. have great power over susceptible orga- nisations, and that word stage jarred upon the sensitive perceptions — as far as women were concerned — of " young John." He would not have been as much fascinated with Mrs. Vavasour, had he ever seen her in her public capacity — a woman's name to him was too sacred to be breathed upon by the vulgar breath. Margaret Town-Eden little knew how fatal to any latent hopes she might have entertained with regard to winning: his affections, was the very popularity that made her " Maggie Town-Eden," in the mouths of many of the young men of his acquaintance. He never could have given his own lofty heart, pure and intact, to any woman who was " Maggie" to any other man than himself. It was not a day for any prolonged talk at the cover-side. The hounds found al- most directly, and came out of cover in a 231 KING S BAYNABD. body, with a stout fox in front of them and hearts of steel behind, prepared to keep up the prestige so well earned by the flower of the Derefordshire hunt. " You mean riding, to-day, I see, Mr. Baynard," Margaret had just time to say, as, with the spirit of true sportsmen, the horsemen, one and all, above any petty jealousies, gave the hounds fair play, and let them get well upon their scent, before they followed in their wake, as they streamed away over ridge and furrow of the stiff clay bottom of the Baynard mere. " I do, indeed," he answered, laughingly, as Orion roused himself from his lethargy and bounded to the front, " and this brute means going, I really believe." There was no doubt of it, and if the chest- nut horse had exhibited the signs of a disordered intellect, as darkly hinted at by 232 king's baynabd. Saunders in the morning, there appeared to be " method in the madness," as he shook himself into his stride and seemed to swal- low the broad ditches which intersected his way. He rose at his fences in superb style, and leapt neither higher nor farther than was necessary, instead of adopting his usual custom of rushing at them with the fury of a steam-engine and the blindness of a bat. "You are worth your weight in gold," said "young John," addressing his horse, who thundered on, half a field ahead of the hardest riders in the hunt, with a wild eye and a blood red nostril, yet perfectly under control, and as obedient to the hand as the park hack of a Belgravian damsel. There was a good deal of jealous riding (as, indeed, where is there not ?) amongst the horsemen of Dereford shire, and many a man risked his neck that day, in emula- KING'S BArNAKD. 233 tion of the exploits of the daring pair. One of these was a hero no less exalted than Nathaniel Lines himself, who had the advantage of an intimate acquaintance with every stick and stone of the country which he was riding over. He was mounted on his well-known weedy thorough-bred, which he had christened Quill-driver, and was riding as straight as " young John " himself, saving his horse a little for the crowning triumph which he believed would be his. With a shrewd twinkle in his left eye, he saw that his superior knowledge of the line of country had given him an advantage over his enemy; for Mr. Bay- narcl and his flying horse, unswerving in their course, were following the hounds to the very edge of a deep ravine, down which, as the attorney muttered to him- self, neither man nor devil could jump and live. Turning, therefore, sharply to the right, he rode desperately in the direc- 234 king's baynard. tion of a spot which was leapable for horse and man, and to reach which " young John" must of necessity retrace his career, upon finding the other impracticable. He should thus, he believed, distance him by half a field ; and the crafty but not craven heart of the scrivener glowed with grati- fied revenge at the thought. When within twenty yards of his own leap, which was by no means a despicable affair, he shot a glance in the direction of his rival, about a field distant from him in a parallel line. What he now saw, appalled even him ; his yellow skin assumed a dull leaden-grey hue, and his heart and his horse leapt at the same moment. He cleared the fence in his own way, and turned in his saddle to see what had become of the reckless rider of that demon steed. "By he must be killed," he said; "but it is no business of mine," he added, as he saw the hounds a field ahead, and not 235 a single man of the Derefordshire hunt in their wake. This was a triumph he had never before achieved, and he must follow it up, if the necks of all the Baynards that ever lived had been broken within a stone's throw of him. The attorney had reckoned without his host in that instance ; for the dark form of Orion with a rider on his back, of the same hue as himself, appeared in the rear of the hounds ; the pair had performed a feat unparalleled in the annals of the Derefordshire hunt. As Xathaniel Lines gazed at the apparition with a feeling not unmixed with awe, he exclaimed, "It's of no use riding against the devil himself." It was a thing clone in a moment, but which lives in the recollection of riding-men to this day ; a crash, a struggle, a roll, in which the horse and the rider gathered the stiff clay soil so thickly upon them, as to lose all distinguishing colours, and they found themselves in a tangled brake, or 236 king's baynard. thicket, sound of limb, but stunned some- what with the violence of the fall, for fall it was rather than a jump, although taken by the common consent of the horse and his rider, who were evidently agreed upon one point that day, to keep first to hounds, or to die in the attempt. " Where the devil is he gone ?" was the exclamation of a horseman who had followed on his line, and who had been riding very jealous of " young John," of late, as he drew rein on the brink of that ravine, into which our hero had plunged like Marcus Curtius into the Roman gulf of old. The question was answered by Saunders, who, on Brown Kate, had kept his master in sight from the commence- ment of the run. "Down there," he said, smiling grimly, and pointing to the spot from which Orion must have made the jump. He, too, like the sharp- sighted attorney, had caught king's baynard. 237 sight of the well-known figure in the wake of the streaming pack, and lie could afford to smile as he called attention to the feat. Up rode at that moment, also, the limp cornet, with whose views concerning the horse whose fame would now ring far and near, we are previously acquainted. He had cordially hoped that "young John" might have cause to repent the asper- sions cast upon his horsemanship and his judgment ; instead of that, the notorious chestnut had won for his master the crown which the hardest riders in the field that day were not likely to attempt to wrench from his grasp. The hounds continued at the top of their speed, over the open country which lay before them, and the giant stride of Orion kept him well in their rear. "Young John," always very susceptible to the good or valuable qualities of the 238 king's baynaed. animal lie bestrode, could, like the lady in the Spanish ballad, have kissed the foam from the lips of the gallant brute which had carried him so gloriously on that memorable day; he had made up in that run for the shortcomings or ferocity of his former career, and his master said to him, as he drew rein at the first check, " Two hundred, indeed, old fel- low ! Make them thousands, and I won't part with you. You've a heart of steel." As the field, profiting by the check, came up one by one, some with horses dead beat, and all showing symptoms of distress, more or less, " young John " was addressed by one or two of the least jealous among the horsemen who had heard of his desperate feat. "By jove ! Baynard," said one, "you've turned a field of good men to-day." " Is that yourself, or your ghost ? as king's baynakd. 239 the Irishman said," remarked another. " What will you take for the chestnut now, Sir ?" asked Saunders, quietly, but with a latent grin, that showed how deeply he enjoyed his master's triumph. "Nothing less than his weight in gold," was the reply, ( " and I am not quite sure I would that." Before the words were spoken, the hounds were again on the scent, and those amongst the horsemen whose horses had hardly recovered their wind, saw with dismay that the fox had turned in a direc- tion which showed he had full confidence in his own power of staying, and gave every prospect of a sharper thing than had ever been red-lettered before in the annals of the Derefordshire hunt. Many a good man, and many a good horse, saw little more of the flying pack on the clay of that celebrated run ; and three horsemen only lived with them to 240 king's baynard. the finish, and witnessed the kill of the stoutest fox that ever broke cover from the gorse bushes of King's Baynard parle. Those three were Major Dalkeith, the mas- ter, who was splendidly mounted on his favourite hunter, the King of Trumps ; a Leicestershire man who was staying with him, and who had been riding against " young John " all day; and our hero, on the gallant Orion. " What will you take for that horse ?" asked the Major, as the two rode nearly abreast at the last fence — the Leicester- shire man was distanced — " you said you were riding him to sell." " I have changed my mind," was the reply, as Orion rose at the leap, and the next moment fell with his rider heavily on the other side. " He rose short," said the Major, as he stood by the side of the fallen horse, from whose prostrate form " young king's baynard. 241 John" had quickly disentangled him- self. But it was not so ; the good horse had done his duty, and had died in doing it. Worthy of his high descent, worthy of his pure blue blood, Orion died the death of the brave. " He gathered up his strength to die worthily," was once said of some good knight of old, and in the gathering of his mighty pulses for the last effort, the gallant heart of Orion had given way. " Dead as a door nail," was the verdict of the jury, composing the coroner's in- quest that sat upon the body. "Young John" turned away from the spot, with tears in his eyes, which did him no dis- credit among the gallant members of the Dereforclshire hunt. It was a melancholy ending to that day of triumph; and as "young John" rogle home on Gentle Kate, he thought sadly of the fate of the gallant beast which had VOL. I. R 242 KIND'S BAYNARD. so lately bounded beneath him, in the glory of his matchless strength. And the words from which I quoted, at the begin- ning of the chapter, recurred to him, for he had a good memory, and " the bard" had been his favourite study from his boyish days, "When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk; he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it ; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes. It is a beast for Perseus ; he is pure air and fire ; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him." " He was, indeed, a horse," he added, sadly, " and all other jades you may call beasts." With a touch of superstition, too, which, as I have already hinted to my readers, was not altogether foreign to the young man's soul, he remembered king's baynaed. 243 the expression made use of the night before by the stable lad, that " t'horse had heard the ghost," and that it was the only thing that ever scared him. " I, too, have heard the ghost," said the heir, " and it has scared me so far, that I be- lieve in the curse they speak of, with re- gard to our house, and I believe that it will fall on me." It seemed hard that the dark shadow should spread its wings so soon ; that the little cloud should appear against the horizon so early in the joyous day; but so it was, the ominous words, pronounced by the old man in his wanderings, had haunted the upright heir of the disgraced- house, since he heard them, " The curse is upon it still /" e 2 244 CHAPTER X. " One master passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest." — POPE. rpHE reader will perhaps remember a -*- fact which I mentioned in the first part of my story — the birth of an infant son to Sir Marmaduke and Lady Baynard, which occurred a little before the time when our hero took up his abode at the home of his ancestors. During the short period occupied by the events that have been recorded, in- cluding a space of about five months, this child had grown and prospered mightily, and had become the idol of both his KING S BAYNARD. 245 parents. He was a very comely rosy boy, inheriting the beauty of his mother, which had once been of a surpassing kind, although the fiery passions (all earth-born) of her ardent temperament had swept like a tornado over her classical features, and left only a magnificent sort of desolation, painful, and yet fascinating, to behold. She had been an opera-singer in her youth, of world-wide reputation, but she had never been an artist. The grandeur and force of her acting had been owing to the passionate strength, rather than to the loftiness or aspiration of her soul. It has been aptly said, that " the winged car of Jupiter suggests the notion of a holy soul being furnished with wings and soar- ing aloft. " " The subtler instincts of the sense enthralled The passions raised and thro' the mortal part Th' immortal touched, to heaven's gate unappalled The soul rides buoyant on the wings of art." 246 king's baynard. " The unholy soul," on the contrary, the soul in which the divine element has no upward yearning, (i loses its wings and feathers, flutters downwards, and becomes an earth worshipper." Carlo tta — I will not add the English name, which weds incongruously with the soft Italian — Carlo tta had been an earth worshipper in the zenith of her artist life ; it was scarcely probable that she would spread her wings and soar, now that time had blasted the imperial gift, which had once made her empress over the pas- sions of men. Talent, the gift of perception and ex- pression, had been made the tool of her ambition — but genius, the spark kindled from the altar fires of heaven, she had never possessed. Before proceeding farther with the de- scription of a household, which I would fain have passed over in silence, but for king's batnaed. 247 the bud of rosy innocence, round whose cradle the plot of my story is woven, I must make the reader acquainted with the fact that the once notorious woman, to whom I am about to introduce him, known to the world then under the name of Lady Baynard, was the mother of the beautiful Ninon, whom we have seen in- stalled with tender triumph, on the part of her husband, the mistress of one of the proudest homes of the country which had adopted her as its own. This, indeed, was a fact unknown to Mrs. Vavasour, who had never been acquainted with the history of her unhappy mother, shielded from the saddening influence which such knowledge would have cast over her life, by the tender forethought of her more than father. She had told her husband in perfect good faith her own history, as far as she was herself informed upon the subject. 248 king's baynaed. In as few words as might be, she had told him of her mother's desertion of her, and of her noble young father's unhappy end ; but that her mother lived and, in her own way, prospered, she did not tell him, for she believed her to have been long since dead. No spark of maternal affection, had ever stirred the passionate heart of the " Syren of the South," for her first and, till the birth of little Marmaduke, her only child. The remembrance of the dismal chateau and of the cold patrician state with which she had been made bitterly acquainted for a short era in her life, had ever had the effect of bringing a shudder to her soul as she thought of it ; and the memory of the bright-faced child that had been born to her there, had never awoke the mother's yearnings in her bosom, or planted one sting of regret for her hapless and aban- doned fate. Sir Marmaduke was not the king's baynakd. 249 Englishman who had been the partner of her flight on that occasion ; she had lived a wild tempestuous life, and had experienced many vicissitudes before we meet her again in the position of the acknowledged wife of the reprobate baronet, in which position only her fortunes become interwoven with the thread of this tale. She and her husband had taken up their abode in Paris for the winter. Their immense wealth enabled them to live in luxury wherever they chose to pitch their tent; but with the daily growth of the fair babe, there grew up a fear in the mother's heart which made her live less in the enjoyment of present good, than in the shadowed dread of evil to come. Am- bition, as far as she was concerned, had been rewarded beyond her expectations. At the eleventh hour she had been per- mitted, in consideration of her approaching maternity, to share the title of the English 250 king's batnahd. " mi-lor" whose wealth she had before shared in dishonour; and now with a stronger motive power agitating her stormy breast, she began to plot and scheme, not for her own aggrandizement, but for that of her idolized child. Sir Marmaduke was rich — he possessed in his own country, she knew, a lordly in- heritance, and it became the darling object of her life, that this inheritance should descend to the little Marmaduke to the exclusion of his elder brother. She knew but little of English laws of primogeniture, and believed that it lay in the power of the father to declare the child his sole heir. She saw with delight how his fondness for the son of his old age grew and daily increased. In the days of his foppish youth, an infant had been held in abomination by him. He had never been known to take his first born into his arms, although the young king's baynahd. 251 motlier of that child had tried to awaken on his account the feelings of affection, that as regarded herself, were either dying or dead. He would, on the contrary, send daily for the little Marmaduke, and lavish on him such caresses as his sterile nature could afford. If there was one tender spot in the heart of the painted and padded old relic of a profligate youth, it was occupied by the child who was seldom out of his mother's arms. The wealth of the Baronet was at that time very great. The extravagances of his youth had never made any real inroad upon the bulk of his fortune, and the avarice of his old age added to the list of vices which had earned for Sir Marmaduke Baynard an unenviable notoriety. There was one subject which Carlotta had not yet dared to broach to her hus- band, although it was the subject of her daily and hourly meditation — the expe- 252 king's baynaed. diency of making his will. Should he die intestate, she had ascertained from the family solicitor (or rather from his partner, Mr. Nathaniel Lines, who was gradually- taking his place) that the elder son would inherit all the landed property, from which the revenues of wealth were -derived ; and the object of Carlotta's life was now to induce Sir Marmaduke to make a will, a document in which she believed as in a mys- terious occult power, to be invoked for the benefit of her own son. She would sit for hours with the child upon her lap, lost in thought, while he amused himself with the long snake-like tresses of her still abundant hair, which uncoiled themselves with their own weight, and fell in ebon scrolls into his outstretched fingers. Sometimes she sang to him songs of the sunny south, as softly as some gentle golden-haired matron of the western isles ; and the babe would listen in apparently king's baynakd. 253 entranced enjoyment, to the low melodious notes, as he ceased to entangle his fingers amongst her hair, and gazed into her face with that enquiring stare, with which in- fants appear to be endeavouring to pene- trate the secrets of humanity. One winter's day, in her luxurious Parisian boudoir, she sat with him thus, sometimes singing, and every now and then straining the child to her heart with a passionate caress. " Bless thee!" she said softly in the low sweet accents of the tongue which should be " writ on satin." " Bless thee sweet babe ! for thee, I would dare all ; for thee I would lay down my life, sweetest and fairest of God's creatures art thou ! thou hast brought joy into my heart ! Thou art an angel ! a rose ! a pearl !" Then with a sudden change of mood, she fiercely exclaimed, " and yet thy mother fears to dare for thee this old man's wrath, 254 king's baynaed. and thou wilt be a beggar and an outcast at thy father's gate. No ! I will do it !" she almost shrieked in her vehemence. " I will beard him, I will threaten, I will command /" she said stamping her foot, while the lightning flashed again in her faded eyes, lighting up her face with the terror, if not the beauty of the past. The child cried. The outburst of the tigress nature on the part of its dam, scared the innocent quickly beating heart, and it lifted up its voice and wept ; at the sight, the mother melted into gentleness once again, as she tried to soothe its tender grief, " Hush thee, my babe ! hush thee ! we will drive the wolf from the door, did I scare thee, sweet one ? Hush thee, hush thee, on thy mother's breast." Gradually she succeeded in tranquillizing the child, and was herself yielding to the gentle influences she had brought to bear upon him, when she was aroused by the king's baynard. 255 sound of many footsteps on the stairs ; the sound of heavy shuffling footsteps, as of those who carry a powerless form, a helpless burden between them, a heavy helpless burden unable to shift for itself. Carlotta, Lady Baynard, turned pale at the sound, but she turned paler still, and there was a fearful expression on the hard livid face, as her own maid rushed into the room, exclaiming in her native tongue, " It is Sir Marmaduke, my lady, he has fallen in the streets — he is ill — he is dying ! they have sent for the doctor, but he has already ceased to breathe." " Dead !" exclaimed Lady Baynard, with a concentration of agonized suspense, that kept her from crying, or shrieking aloud, as her demonstrative nature would have prompted. "Not dead, my girl? My God !" she added, as the terror of the past over- mastered her, and she wrung her hands in 256 king's baynard. anguish. " He shall not be dead ! it is too soon — too soon 1" and placing the child in the arms of the trembling maid, she flew to the room into which the shuffling feet had passed but an instant back, but the door of which was already closed to the mistress of the establishment, by the English valet of her own husband. This man was a ruling power in that strange household, and Carlo tta's haughty spirit succumbed before his. " Let me pass," she said imploringly, as he stood doggedly in front of her, so that she could not even obtain a view of the ghastly object which she knew was so near at hand. " Let me see whether he still breathes — let me — I entreat you to let me pass!" she gasped, fetching her breath heavily, for the tumult of her soul was pas- sionate, and shook her with so much fury, that baffled and circumvented, she ended by swooning at his feet. king's baynaed. 257 To account for this audacity on the part of the servant, it will be necessary to ex- plain that although nominally filling this position in the baronet's household, no menial office was ever performed by Sir Marmaduke's English valet, Luke Grim- stone. A confidential companion, brother, friend, any one of these titles would have suited this exalted personage, better than the one of s&rvcmt to which, indeed, he could not have laid claim — for he served nobody, not even Sir Marmaduke for whom he entertained an affection, thus earning for himself a distinction from the rest of creation; for he was perhaps the only human beino^ existing at that time, who did entertain any affection for that singu- larly unamiable individual. The affection, too, was returned after a fashion ; the two men understood each other, and were dependant upon and useful to one another; besides, they had vol. i. s 258 king's baynard. been brought up from childhood at the same woman's knee, and were foster- brothers. On Mrs. Grimstone had de- volved the maternal task, which the good doctor advised Lady Baynard so graphi- cally not to attempt. It had happened that the wife of the lodge-keeper at King's Baynard had given birth to a boy on the same night as the young heir was born, and being a strong healthy young woman, the doctor had strongly recommended her as a nurse to the motherless infant. She and her hus- band, therefore, had shared the night of Sir Mark after the unlucky affair of the hind murder, and the two children — for Mrs. Grimstone's own child grew, and flourished, contrary to the general rule in such cases — were brought up, or rather ran up together — the parents seeing with delight the influence which the strong nature acquired over the weak, giving king's baynard. °.59 promise tliat in the course of time', Master Luke Grimstone would be the show-man to Sir Marmaduke Baynard the puppet, to be worked at the pleasure of his stronger will. So, indeed, it had turned out, Sir Marmaduke had done many dishouourable actions, as the world counts dishonour, and many bad actions, judged by a higher standard than that which the world is content to abide by ; but he had done no action, whether dishonourable, bad, or mean, in which he had not been prompted by his friend and foster-brother, Luke Grimstone. Small chance would Carlotta, Lady Bay- nard herself have had with the Baronet, if the secret councils of this mysterious power had not aided and abetted her in her suit. For some reason of his own, he had judged it expedient that the mistress should be converted into the wife, and s 2 260 king's baynard. the obdurate Sir Marmaduke became as wax in his hands. The results we have seen ; but the reader is mistaken if he believes the syren had exercised her spells upon this man, and won him over to her side by the irresistible powers of fascina- tion. Quite the reverse, the poor woman herself trembled under the dominion of this household autocrat, and when she had told her child that she dreaded the old man's wrath, it was the wrath of Mr. Luke Grim- stone of which she was virtually in dread. Before making this digression, we left the unfortunate woman in a swoon, prone at the feet of the contemptuous valet ; who, upon seeing her condition, very cooly closed the door upon her prostrate form, moving it, in fact, out of the way with his foot, and having thus secured a few moments of privacy before the arrival of the doctor, he hastened to search the pockets of the unconscious man, king's baynard. 261 in order to possess himself of his keys. He was the same age to a day as Sir Marmaduke, both men being about fifty years old; but whilst the latter, whose constitution, inherited from his mother, was broken and decayed, looked nearer seventy than fifcy, the valet might have passed for forty-five — for he was tall and upright, and his dark hair, of which he had a profusion, was but very slightly streaked with grey. Sir Marmaduke was fond of mentioning the fact of their ages being the same; certainly no one would have guessed it, if he had not been so communicative on the subject. Mr. Grimstone had only just completed the business which must have been of paramount importance in his eyes, or he would first have satisfied his solicitude on his master's account — for he was so- licitous, although the cold-blooded pro- 262 etng's baynard. ceeding here chronicled would justify the reader in arriving at an opposite conclu- sion — when the arrival of the English doctor made a stir in the alarmed house- hold. He was a grave, severe-looking man ; and he administered a trenchant reproach to the foreign maid-servants, who were chattering volubly together, while their mistress still lay in the passage, standing so much in need of their assistance. He gave orders that she should be car- ried to her own apartment, " she can be of no use here," he said quickly and au- thoritatively in French ; " and take away also that screaming child. The room must be cleared at once" The Doctor's accent was decidedly angli- cised ; but his actions were expressive and intelligible enough, and the sick room was soon cleared of all but the English doctor, and the English valet. KIND'S BAYNAED. 263 " "WTiat relations has Sir Marmaduke," asked the Doctor, " besides these ?" he added, with a gesture expressive of con- tempt for the domestic life of the sick man, as far as it had come under his cog- nizance. " He has a son in England," was the short reply. " Let him he sent for at once," said the Doctor. " What do you think of the case ?" asked Luke Grimstone then ; for he had known all along that Sir Marmaduke was not dead, although the foreign servants had said so, and he did not choose to contradict them. " I think it a bad one," replied the Doctor, " but by no means a hopeless one." He then proceeded to give direc- tions to the valet, with regard to the reme- dies to be employed, and the medicines to be given ; but neither of the two men re- 264 king's baynard . ferred either in word, or hint, to the sick man's wife, who had a right, if so minded, to take up her station at his bed- side, and to nurse him either for life or death. Lady Baynard, indeed, sorely lamented her husband during the remainder of the day, and through the gloomy hours of the ensuing night, before any of her house- hold thought it worth their while to inform her that Sir Marmaduke was not dead. Neither did any one think it worth while to inform the son in England, of whom Mr. Luke Grimstone had made rather con- temptuous mention, that the life of his father was trembling in the balance, and that a hair's breadth more or less might put him in possession of the inheritance which had become so fair in his eyes. The only person written to in England with reference to the baronet's illness, was the Elminster Solicitor, Mr. Nathaniel Lines. 265 CHAPTER XL " All tongues speak of him." CORIOTANTJS. T T was on a Friday that the famous run -*- took place, which I am told lives still in the remembrance of the members of the Derefordshire hunt, and it was of course very fully discussed in Elminster on the fol- lowing Saturday. The terrible jump taken by " young John" on his famous chestnut Orion, the subsequent death of the latter, and the jealousy of the hard riding men, who declared that the leap had been much magnified by report — all these facts made a rich harvest of gossip on that day ; and many bets were made and taken on the 266 king's baynakd. subject, in the excitement of the moment which were in some cases afterwards re- gretted, and in others altogether ig- nored. There was one object very conspicuous to all beholders, which was the white hat of Mr. Lines, the attorney. It fluttered about from group to group, gathering within its shabby circumference the pith of all the gossip which circulated in the social veins of the county, that Saturday. There was another well known figure, which, according to the remark of a celebrated statesman, was only " conspicu- ous from its absence" from the centre of public resort — the figure of no less a person- age than our hero " young John," who had hardly ever been known to miss riding into town on Saturday afternoons. It was this circumstance, perhaps, which had made gossip dull and slander silent concerning the Baynard family, since the advent of king's baynard. 267 its representative in the county. Elmin- ster was the centre of gossip, the bar at the "Red Lion" the centre of Elminster ; and as long as the frequenters of that bar believed it to be not only possible, but probable, that the fiery-hearted heir of the disgraced house might come suddenly within ear- shot and take any slander that might be afloat boldly by the horns, they handled very warily the subject concern- ing which he had taken the initiative, by being profoundly reticent. No one would have mentioned in his presence the names either of Sir Marma- duke or Lady Baynard, or even that of his infant brother; and without the stand- point of a name, how can the lovers of gossip move the pulses of the gossiping world. The tongue of Mr. Nathaniel Lines, indeed, would neither have wagged so long nor so loud, amid the hum of voices, 268 king's baynard. which increased as the day went on, had he not received authentic communi- cation from Dr. Blake that "young John" was safe for the afternoon, at- tending at the bedside of the aged Rector, who was progressing favourably, and able to enjoy the society of the " dear lad," as he fondly called the heir, although the latter was fully arrived at man's es- tate. The fever of youth, indeed, appeared to have returned to the veins of the old man, and he listened to the animated account of the yesterday's run, as a su- perannuated hunter to the cry of the hounds. " Famous, capital !" he exclaimed re- peatedly. His delight was great in hear- ing of the signal defeat of the tactics of the Elminster attorney. " He was coming up to his fence as I went down, Sir ; but he had all his king's baynaed. 269 ground to regain. I made up my mind then ; but it was like riding into chaos. I don't know now how we did it." " You'll not part with the chestnut now ?" observed the Rector, interroga- tively ; for the fate of the gallant horse had been kept back by Mr. Baynarcl, and he now replied with an evasion, " No, nothing shall part us now." He did not wish to sadden the old man's heart, with the announcement that no- thing ever could; but he added, in the bitterness of his own remorse, " Poor fellow ! I was riding him to sell." Then he diverged into other gossip, finding his old friend in such a buoyant mood, and told him of the success of the ball on the night he was taken ill, of the superlative beauty of Mrs. Vava- sour, the bride, and of the ovation which had been paid to her charms. " They must be well paired," remarked 270 king's baynard. Mr. Trevylian, thoughtfully, "he was a fine-looking young fellow, as I remember him." " Young: John " could harcllv refrain from laughing aloud at the description, as applied to the stately elderly man, whom, as a very young man himself, he looked upon in the light of a venerable greybeard. " That must have been some time ago, Sir," he confined himself, however, to remarking, adding, after a pause, " He is a very fine-looking man now; but in age, he and his wife are a decided and remarkable contrast." " What could have made him marry so young and beautiful a woman, I won- der?" Mr. Trevylian said, musingly, "it seldom answers." " I don't know what made him do it, excepting his own inclination, which no one can wonder at ; but I know that king's baynard. 271 it is a very good thing for the county, for Mrs. Vavasour is a charming woman." u It will hardly conduce to the elderly bridegroom's domestic happiness, that all the good-looking young men should think so," said Mr. Trevylian, in reply to this remark, with rather a mournful smile. " Will you promise me something, dear lad ?" he added, placing his thin, tremu- lous hand upon the young man's, and looking him earnestly in the face, " will you promise me never to flirt with a married woman ? Forgive me," he added, as the cloud gathered on " young John's" bVow, and fire danced in his eyes for a moment, " I am very jealous for the honour, for the glory of your house — and beauty has been a great snare to your race in days long passed away." " I have nothing to forgive, I am deeply indebted to you," answered the younger man ; but he added, solemnly, 272 king's baynard. and in his turn scanning his companion's countenance eagerly, " I am beginning to fear that the glory you speak of has passed away, never to return. I have tried hard, Sir, to lay the ghost of our past, but it meets me at every turn." " Persevere, dear lad, persevere," an- swered the old man, " something within tells me that you will restore honour to the name of Baynard. I have watched over you — " and here his voice was broken with a sob, "as though you had been my own son, and when I first saw you, I felt inclined to say ' Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,' for I felt that you were noble at the core." The old man showed so much emotion at this stage in the conversation, that Mr. Baynard feared he had done harm by en- couraging him to talk, and after one or two soothing remarks upon more general king's baynaed. 273 subjects, lie announced his intention of leaving him to enjoy a doze. It struck him as a curious thing, that the very fact of his illness appeared to have lifted the veil which had hung like a cloud over the old man's life, as he had hitherto known it, and a mental reaction had evidently taken place, which surprised as well as delighted the young man who looked upon him in the light of a father. " I have never seen your master so cheerful, or found him so talkative," he said to Mrs. Meredith, as he left the Eectory, promising to return later, " I was only afraid he would talk too much." " Did he tell you about what he's been asking of me to do, Sir?" said the house- keeper with tears in her eyes. " No, he did not mention anything in particular. What is it, Mrs. Meredith? anything in which I can be of use ?" " Oh, dearie no, Sir, dearie no, I oughtn't VOL. I. T 274 king's baynaed. to have said nothing to you about it, if the master hasn't told ; but," she added, with the feminine logic which always errs on the communicative side, " perhaps he did not tell you because he thought I should. He's been asking of me to write to Miss Trevylian, Sir, to come and nurse him ; but I'd rather nurse him myself, poor dear soul," she added, with a burst of tears, " and I thought I'd better bide a bit. It might be only a sick fancy, and then he'd worrit hisself about it as he got round." " I think you did right," said " young John," upon whose mental vision fell the image of a be-flounced prim spinster, the shadow of whose gaunt presence came like a cloud between him and his dear old friend, " I think we can manage to nurse your master between us, we must not run the risk of entailing an after regret if this should prove, as you say, an invalid's fancy." king's baynakd. 275 As the young man walked home, how- ever, he came to the conclusion that he had acted selfishly, and he resolved when he dropped in that evening, to reverse the verdict he had pronounced, and to advise the good woman to obey her master's be- hests at once. Never, indeed, had his impressionable nature drank so deeply of the softening influences so opposed to self-hood in any shape, than it had done upon that after- noon ; and as though the outward face of nature would contribute her meed to the good work, never had King's Baynard appeared so lovely in the eyes of her heir. The distant belts of woodland were of a deep and beautiful blue, and glimpses of them between the sun-lio*htecl boulders of the trees in the avenue afforded one of those peculiar winter effects, which are as rare as they are transcendently grand. t2 276 king's baynaed. Against some lake of pure bine ether in the storm-ridclen sky, the gnarled and twisted branches of the ancient trees rose like giant arms fixed into contortion in the agonies either of passion or death, while a dark pregnant cloud hovered over the old Hall itself, an emblem of the curse that was upon it. The landscape pre- sented an epitome of the history of King's Baynard for the greater part of a century ; but, as the glistening sunbeams were upon it then struggling bravely for the mastery, there was a bright spot in its moral life, struggling against the past for good. " It is too late to go into town now," said Mr. Baynard to Saunders, as, on paying his usual visit to the stables, he found a horse saddled in anticipation of the observance of the habit which was thus broken through for the first time. He felt, indeed, more inclined for a soli- tary walk, and thus it fell out that on king's baynard. 277 a more important occasion than usual, Mr. Nathaniel Lines had the field to himself, and that he was enabled to discuss matters relative to King's Baynard and its heir with greater licence and daring than usual. Men, indeed, disliked the attorney tho- roughly; but there is something in tho- rough-going ill-nature which has a grim sort of fascination to most of us ; and a man who can say sharp, stinging things that strike to the quick of the weaknesses, or worse of our friends and neighbours, is generally considered good company by better natured men of the world. Mr. Lines on that particular day, too, had news of a startling character to impart, news that had come to the office that morning, and with which no other soul in Elminster — with the ex- ception of the senior partner — could by any possibility be acquainted. 278 king's baynabd. " Sir Marmaduke Baynard had had a stroke, and .his man of business had been summoned to attend him on matters of great importance, with reference to the dis- posal of his property." This was the substance of the communica- tion as imparted by Mr. Lines, and no news concerning the profligate baronet had been so greedily received for years as was this foreshadowing of his speedy demise. He had, indeed, for years been regarded as a my- thical being, and men had never endowed himin imagination so tangibly with flesh and blood as they did upon this occasion, when they were told that he was most probably on the point of shuffling off this mortal coil. Their thoughts naturally at once reverted to the popular heir, and "young John " and his fortunes were, owing to his unusual absence, more amply discussed than they had ever been before at the bar of the " Red Lion" that day. king's baynabd. 279 a t Young John ' is all right in any case," said a voice, which, as it apper- tained to no one with whom the reader will have anything further to do in the pages of this history, need not be par- ticularly appropriated ; " the Baynard pro- perty is strictly entailed." " On the eldest son born in wedlock — ahem — yes," said the attorney, giving a snake-like hiss to the last letter of the monosyllable, "yes," "the property is strictly entailed; but Sir Marmaduke is not dead yet, gentlemen, not dead yet." {i More's the pity," remarked an out- spoken country squire, with a florid face and an honest eye, " he is a rascal, if ever one lived on this earth. He never showed his face here again after that ugly business about the cards. Turned and refused to fight Tom Eden, who gave him a squeak for his honour, which he need not have done. Why, I remember the whole 280 king's baynard. affair, as if it happened but yesterday. He was a cur, Sir, a sneaking, rascally cur." " It's in the blood," observed Mr. Lines blandly, " with all their bluster, there has been no Baynard of late years free from the taint." " What do you mean by that assertion, Sir ?" said a hot-blooded young man, in whose keeping "young John's" honour would have been safe as in his own, " you'd find it hard to make your words good in one quarter, I take it ; you forget you include John Baynard in your un- qualified remark." " I stand corrected," answered Mr. Lines, with a bitter smile. " I was not thinking of Mr. John when I spoke of the Baynards." " Then you would do well to be more careful in your choice of words for the future, Sir, as Mr. Baynard told you the king's baynaed. 281 other day at his own table," was the angry reply. The minimum of blood which the at- torney's wizen body contained, flew into his face at that speech. He was no craven, as I have observed before ; but he well knew that the hits of the fomsrue tell better in some cases than the blows of the fist ; and he went into training from that hour to be prepared to administer them, when occasion offered, thick and fast, on some vulnerable point of the young man's moral frame. Mr. Nathaniel Lines, I need hardly tell the reader, after the sketch I have given of his character, was a bitter and impla- cable enemy. The news of Sir Marina- duke's illness once set abroad, flew like wildfire over the town ; but the one most concerned in it, and to whom the fact was of the greatest moment, remained unaware of the serious illness of the Baronet, his 282 king's baynaed. unworthy parent. The English doctor's advice had not been taken, the son in England had not been summoned to the sick bed, nor had any one thought it worth while to inform him of his father's precarious state. Mr. Lines, however, had strongly coloured the statement which had been received at the office, from the glowing palette of his imagination, and given a meaning to the words which did not exist in their original form. Business had, of course, been mentioned in the letter which summoned his man of busi- ness to attend the Baronet abroad, but no mention was made of the testatory nature of that business, which the wily solicitor's version had more than implied. " That's the reason, I suppose, 6 young John ' is not in to-day," remarked the worthy old gentleman, who had evinced so much curiosity with regard to the future disposal of the King's Baynard living. KING S BAYNAED. 283 " I incline to think not, Squire," an- swered Mr. Lines. " He is not likely to receive auy communication with regard to his father, for they are on the worst of terms, as I have good authority for saying. Sir Marmaduke can hardly bear the men- tion of his name." " Indeed ! I was not aware of that. I am glad you mentioned it, because I shall know better how to set to work. With regard to that living, you know," he added, getting confidential, and placing his hand on the attorney's shoulder, " I want some one to do me a good turn, in case that living should fall vacant, and from what you say, I suppose it's of no use applying to ' young John ' himself." " Not unless you want to burn your fingers pretty considerably, Squire — cer- tainly not," said Mr. Lines, rubbing his hands, a practice common with him when enjoying a good joke, with regard to the 284 king's baynabd. weakness or short-sightedness of his fellow plotters. " You'll be quite in the wrong box if you set to work in that way. Why Sir Marmaduke would no sooner think of lis- tening to any suggestions that Mr. John might make in the matter, than he would think of listening to mine, I was going to say : but hang it, if I don't think there's a better chance of that than the other. On my honour — now I do." Here was a hint thrown out, of which the Squire, knowing his man, was not slow to see the point ; and Mr. Nathaniel Lines knew perfectly well what he meant, when, before leaving town, he sought him out and asked him to come over to the " Court" any day after his return, and " have a crack at the pheasants — bring a friend with you, if you like." Here was a good stroke of business done, by a mere wag of the well-oiled tongue; for I need hardly say that any king's batnaed. 235 mention of the Baynard living to Sir Mar- maduke, with reference to the interests of the pompous Squire, was as far from the attorney's thoughts, as one pole from its opposite — but he said, " All right, Squire," with a knowing wink, the meaning of which detracted from that worthy but obtuse gentleman's self- respect as he drove home to the " Court," chewing the cud of the reflection that he had lowered himself in the eyes of the Squirearchy, by his connection " over the way," with Nat. Lines the attorney. " I should like to find out how the land lies though," he consoled himself with thinking ; for he was one of those men who, hopelessly inadequate to the task, are ever plotting and planning with a view to some impossible end, which like the chalk egg, with which the knowing hen-wife deludes the silly hen, does not possess in itself the element of fruition. 286 king's baynard. " Have you seen anything of my wife and daughter ?" asked a well muffled elderly gentleman, looking in at the bar, which commanded a view of the entrance by which the ladies who had been in town shopping, sought the private rooms, in which they waited for their carriages and indulged in feminine gossip with friends from the other side. " They came in an half-an-hour ago, Sir, and are waiting in No. 20, the ladies are, Sir," said the loquacious waiter, who had lived all his life, man and boy as he said himself, at the " Red Lion," and was much patronized by the frequenters of that hostelry, in consequence of his ready wit and obliging manners. I was in Elminster a week or two ago, and found to my sorrow, that the good old " Red Lion," with its familiar faces of landlord and landlady, waiter and ostler, bar and chambermaid, with its well filled king's batnaed. 287 stables, and well equipped drivers and " boys" had passed into the hands of a " company" — all individuality, all identity swamped and absorbed by that monstrous plural life, which is as awe-inspiring and as unsympathetic with the joys and sorrows of common humanity, as the terrible editorial ive. The waiter was " a stranger to the place," and although included in the charges, hovered around with terrible and almost threatening significance, as the time for departure drew nigh. The fly was from the station, and the porter from the station rivalled the waiter in the perti- nacity of his attentions to No. 5 — for I was reduced to No. 5, in the dear old town which I had known from infancy, and in the dear old inn where I had once been an honoured guest. Thus I took my leave of Elminster under the incognita which I had no wish to maintain ; under the veil of unin- 288 king's baynard. teresting mystery, which veiled No. 5 as with a leaden shroud. Mr. Town-Eden — for it was our old ac- quaintance who had made the enquiry with regard to his wife and daughter that led to this digression — betook himself to No. 20, to look for the women-kind, to ask for instructions concerning the car- riage, and to retail into their willing ears some of the gossip which had been rife in Elminster on that occasion. Of course, it did not lose either in interest or impor- tance in the telling, and the trumpet-like announcement of, " The old baronet's dying or dead, and we shall have ' young John ' in for the property and the title before we can look round," brought the hot flush into the cheek of Margaret, who had not yet learned to hear that name mentioned with the high-bred indifference of a Yere de Yere. " Sir Marmaduke dying !" exclaimed king's baynaed. 289 Mrs. Town-Eden, coming to the rescue, and her thoughts involuntarily reverted to the time when she had flirted with the foppish young Baronet in his own youth; "it is shocking to think of, for he is not by any means an old man, my dear." " Old in iniquity," answered Mr. Town- Eden, "if 'young John's' all right, it's the best news I have heard for many a day ;" and then the voluble old gentleman, who invariably got harmlessly excited under the influence of social intercourse and brandy and water, began to describe to his daughter the brilliant run of the day before, and the daring feat of" young John " on the chestnut. Margaret's cheek grew pale as her father graphically de- scribed the danger of the leap, and the tears gathered in her eyes as he ended his narration with the account of the death of Orion. vol. i. u 290 king's baynard. " Broke his heart, and fell as if he had been shot." " Poor beast," she said, " T wish there had been no such tragedy to end with. He was a splendid horse. Is Mr. Baynard in town to-day, papa?" she added, with as much indifference as she could assume ; for she had sorely missed his usual friendly greeting, and began to think the task she had set herself of forgetting, was not such an easy one as she could have wished. " I have not seen him," was the reply, " and I should incline to think not, by the way that fellow Lines is making free with his name down below. He'll get into trouble with ' Sir John,' if he doesn't take care what he is about." " I suppose there is no doubt about his coming into the property and the title," remarked Mrs. Town-Eden, half to her- self, but loud enough to be heard by the Squire, who said, irascibly enough, KING S BAYXAKD. 291 " Doubt — what in Heaven's name are you thinking of, ma'am ? What doubt can there possibly be, with regard to an eldest son inheriting an entailed pro- perty ? You are as bad as Nat Lines him- self." " There, don't put yourself out, papa," said the good-tempered woman, who was accustomed to the harmless ebullitions of wrath on the part of her liege lord, " but order the carriage up at once, for it is getting late, and we shall be benighted before we get home. As Mrs. Town-Eden and her daughter made their way through the crowd of men who thronged the entrance to the inn, the latter missed for the first time the gallant attentions of her gentle knight, who was in the habit of escorting them to their carriage; and she felt her colour rise to her temples, as she encountered the rude stare of the scions of the Derefordshire u 2 292 king's baynaed. squirearchy, who believed it would have been derogatory to their manhood to pay any of those little attentions which are prized so much by the feminine heart. "What a set of louts they are," re- marked Margaret to her mother, as the carriage rumbled under the archway, out of the inn-yard, " not one of them had the civility to put us into the carriage, or hardly to move out of our way." "What airs she gives herself," said one of the louts in question, between the puffs of his cigar, " she was a jolly girl once, before she got above herself, and enter- tained hopes of ' yonng John.' ' " It's all very well, you know," chimed in theblack- whiskered squireen, whom Mar- garet had snubbed so unmercifully at the ball, and who believed himelf to be an Adonis on the strength of his black hair and whiskers, and the assurances of his mamma and sisters to that effect, "he's a king's baynakd. 293 good fellow enough, in his way, is ' young John,' but I don't call him a handsome fellow, by any means." "Don't you?" answered Major Dal- keith, a gentleman of the old school, and intolerant of the airs of " these puppies Sir," as he styled the young men for whom Margaret had found an equally con- demnatory appelation. " I am sorry to hear you say so, because, in that case, what must become of you and me, Sir ?" As the Major was a plain-featured man, who made a boast of his own ugliness, this remark told, and silenced the Adonis, while it raised shouts of laughter from the ranks of his delighted compeers. These observations and scraps of con- versation worthless in themselves, I have recorded here, to show the tone of feeling which prevailed in the neighbourhood with reference to Mr. Baynarcl ; which took a more definite shape than usual, owing to 294 king's baynabd. his non-appearance in the town on that occasion of social reunion, and the chance of his being placed before long in a more important position by the death of his father, whose name had been mentioned once again with interest, in a locality where it had been forgotten for many years. One curious phase in the many hued life of society was developed in this instance : the new born doubt, respecting the prospects and the security of the incoming heir. It is increased, or diminished, in proportion to the importance of the interests at stake, and the human breast is particu- larly open to doubt and distrust in this crisis of circumstance, facts which it had ac- cepted unquestioned until the time for fulfil- ment came upon it like a thief in the night. The time of approaching fruition, is not the time of belief. This is strik- ingly shown in the case of expected king's baynahd. 295 legacies or heirships. " Supposing that he has cut me off with a shilling after all," is the first thought of a legatee expectant, who has kept himself in decent ignorance of the wording of his relative's will, and doubt is the feeling most prevalent in his breast, until the reading of the all im- portant document has either sealed his hopes in certainty, or condemned them to eternal oblivion. So when the probability of "young John's" becoming speedily master of King's Baynard — one of the wealthiest baronetcies in the county, was suddenly brought into the notice of his friends and neighbours — there appeared for the first time, the little "reft within the lute," which was to produce many a harsh dis- cord, and many a bitter twang, before certainty was so established, as to the key note of the strain, which can alone ring true, either in experienced or inex- 296 king's baynard. perienced hands — the master key of truth. If Mr. Nathaniel Lines had a sinister purpose in sowing broad cast his seeds of doubt in the matter, no such motive can surely be attributed to Mrs. Town- Eden, who had never entertained a sinister purpose in her life. In her case, the speculative feeling arose from the veil of mystery which had enveloped the history of the first Lady Baynard, which constant genial intercourse with that lady's son had done nothing as yet either to dissipate or remove. It was the mere fact of stimu- lated curiosity, that in this case originated doubt; and the certainty of the succes- sion of "young John" to the name and estates of his forefathers, had never been called into question at all, most probably, had he not been hindered by circum- stances, from being in Elminster on the very day on which the important news of Sir Marmaduke's serious illness had king's baynard. 297 reached the office of the wily attorney. As lie spent a solitary evening in the old manor house, and pondered over many things — his own peculiar position among the number — he little thought how himself and his position were being canvassed at almost every country house of any im- portance in the neighbourhood, or how the legends of the buried past had sprung into life, for the benefit of the younger members of families, who were not old enough to remember how the country had once rung with the enquiry, which had of late years grown obsolete and forgotten, " and who was Lady Baynard ?" 298 CHAPTER XII. " Her bloom was like the springing flower, That sips the silver dew ; The rose was budded in her cheek, Just opening to the view." Percy's relics. lyTAEY TREVYLIAN was the great- ■"-*■ niece of the Rector of King's Baynard, the only child and heiress of Colonel Trevylian, the last male repre- sentative of the elder branch of the family. Soldiers and sailors, from time immemorial, this gallant race had earned to themselves fame rather than wealth; but they gloried more in this inheritance, and in their well-known soubriquet of king's baynard. 299 " fighting Trevylians," than they would have done in any amount of riches, amassed in less honourable pursuits. The name of the family place was Brackenlea. It was situated in the same county as King's Baynard, but on the opposite side. To this place, and to the estates and farms appertaining to it, which realized an income of little more than twelve hundred a year, Mary Tre- vylian was the undisputed heiress. This consideration gave her a certain amount of weight and importance in the country side, and made her hand an object of ambition to the poorer among the county squirearchy, who had, as they expressed it, " sons to marry." To tell the truth in the matter, it made Miss Trevylian also an object of envy, and as a natural consequence, of ill-concealed dislike to the matrons and maidens, from whose allegiance the young men fell off, 300 king's baynaed. when exposed to the influence of the superior charms of the little heiress. It was the women, indeed, who had given her the title based upon her prestige with regard to wealth ; men were more apt in their familiar conversation with each other, to call her the "little beauty," than the " little heiress." At the time when " young John " pic- tured to himself the unprepossessing image of a stern maiden aunt, bristling in stiff silks, and with the time-honoured bunch of housekeeping keys at her side, this blooming creature was a sylph of nine- teen, with the lythe movements of a fallow deer, and with the same graceful poise of the symmetrically-shaped head. She was too, of that perfection of stature, neither remarkable as being tall, or short ; with hands and feet of perfect beauty. Those, however, whose eyes rested for the first time on the features of this charming king's baynakd. 301 girl let them linger long, before they sought the minor graces of her form, which in this case, might have been justly described as accessories only to the crowning fascinations of her face. Her picture is before me as I write these words ; and the feeling of a beautiful dead past steals over me as I gaze upon it, and as the the rich scent of rose leaves preserved after the fashion of our grand- mothers, adds one more touch of the " by-gone" to the associations that have been thus fondly recalled. To describe this picture is a task to which I acknowledge myself unequal. It has the stamp of that genius which cele- brates the nuptials of beauty with art, and which sets the seal of its own identity on the master-pieces of nature herself. A painter can copy a nose, an eye, or a mouth ; but it takes a heaven-born artist to paint the living soul — a soul such as 302 king's baynakd. that which beams out of the liquid hazel- grey eyes, which speak to me from the canvass, as they would have spoken in life ; awakening the emotions by which the in-dwelling divinity within, asserts the supremacy of the beautiful, whether in nature or art. The face is represented' as of an egg- shaped oval; the point of the chin ter- minating in a delicate upward curve, reminding us of the work of a carver in ivory, and forming the proper harmonious opposition to the curve of the nostril, which, sensitive as that of the Arab horse, turns down, cutting with a fine stroke the transparent cartilage of the nose. That feature itself is small, straight, and well chiselled, and, combined with the proud expression of the short upper lip — of which the carnation hue is but a deep- ening shade of the bloom of the glowing cheek — with the spirited turn of the head, king's baynard. 303 well set upon the rounded neck, makes life in the picture the prominent idea. The Titian-tinted hair is gathered, a la Greuze, from the fair shores of the fore- head, and among its masses lies, half perdu, the silken sheen of the ribbon that confines them, but from whose loving embrace every here and there a stray tress is allowed to escape. The eyebrows are marked, and darker than the hair by se- veral shades, lying in delicate tracery against the inner brow, if one may be allowed thus to describe the part of the face which lies between the eye and the eyebrow, the shadow upon which is calcu- lated to throw into grand relief the fire of a deeply set eye. Of this last-named feature how inade- quate are mere words to tell. The purely animal eye, the ox-eye of Juno, or the languishing depths of the dark oriental orb, are the only eyes, beautiful as they 304 king's batnard. are, of which it is easy to write. They flash, they languish, they melt, they are large as saucers, and as dusky as night ; through them passion speaks, passion un- hallowed by the higher aspirations of the soul, which can be adequately rendered in language that partakes of its own force. But eyes at which the spirit dwelling within is ever sitting, as at an open window — eyes at which each changing thought brings a corresponding change in expression and in hue — it must, indeed, be a moment of inspiration in which the artist catches the life, or, as we call it, the expression of such eyes as these. In the portrait before me, if the eyes are not trne, then must the painter, in- deed, have caught a spark of the divine ideal. They are of the warm rich hazel sub- siding into grey, into which the hues of sunset are largely merged, and which, king's baynard. 305 under the shade of their thickly fringed lids, seem to melt depth into depth, until the eye of the beholder loses itself in the mysteries of shade. They are eyes that, in the grand old days when chivalry was young, might have won or lost a world, eyes that, had they been living, we might have gazed on sadly as too bright, and beautiful, and tender, for the rough re- alities of life ; but which, thus stamped in death, with the seal of immortality, we gaze into with wonder and delight. There can be no doubt but that the original of this picture was strikingly beautiful, and the halo of romance, which among the members of her own family even now surrounds her name, bears wit- ness to the fact so touchingly rendered by the poet, " You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will cling to it still." Mary Trevylian's mother had died in vol. i. x 306 king's baynabd. giving birth to her daughter, the unlooked- for child, who came in life's evening tide to cheer the declining years of her father, Colonel Trevylian, who doted upon the infant, the parting gift of the wife he had adored. He had been for years a martyr to pain, the effect of wounds received in honourable service to his king and country, and died two years before this tale com- mences, leaving his daughter and heiress to the motherly care of Aunt Dorothy, her mother's elder sister, who had reared her from her cradle, and to whom, since the death of her father, Mary had clung with the whole warmth of her loving nature. Aunt Dorothy was a single-minded, sensible woman, not blinded by her affec- tion for her beautiful niece, into over in- dulgence to the waywardness and caprices of early youth. She had superintended her education with scrupulous care, and Mary king's baynaed. 307 Trevylian's accomplishments were not only shining, but genuine. She was a good musician, an adept at foreign languages, a mistress of the beauties and litera- ture of her own, and a graceful and fearless rider. " Whatever you attempt to do," it was one of Aunt Dorothy's max- ims "do it iv ell ; if you have neither talent or inclination for an accomplish- ment, give it up at once." So under her auspices, and with great natural gifts Mary Trevylian learned to do many things well. Such was the niece whom the venerable Rector of King's Baynard, the only sur- viving and best beloved uncle of the late Colonel Trevylian, summoned to his bed- side. Since the sharp attack of illness which had so lately threatened his life, his mind had undergone a wonderful and al- most resuscitating process, with regard to the banishment of the evil cloud which x 2 308 KING'S BAYNATfcD. had overshadowed it of late years. It had become childlike in its susceptibility to outward things, and childlike also in the preponderance of the present in the balan- ces of life ; the past had lost its bitterness, the future its fears for him. Free from pain, and with an admirable se- renity on his countenance, those who knew him well, noted this change, with feelings approaching to awe. The old housekeeper, Mr. Baynard, and even the Doctor looked upon it as the " beginning of the end." The following is the letter Mrs. Mere- dith, the housekeeper, wrote, and her master indited to Mary, the heiress and pride of the Trevylians. " Dear child, 11 A dying old man writes to his dear great-niece, to his favourite nephew's only daughter and says come. She must come and nurse him, for his soul yearns for a king's baynaed. 309 sight of her, before he goes home. He has but one word to express all that he has left to wish for here, and that one word is — come." This last word Mr. Trevylian wrote himself, and it was traced in the trembling characters which betokened that the strong right hand had indeed forgot its cunning. Mary Trevylian wept over this sign of decay, in one whom she remembered as so determined both in action and will. She ran at once to her Aunt, who was engaged in some domestic, and to her there- fore sacred, avocation, with tears in her loving bright eyes, crying, " I must go at once, Aunt Dorothy — Uncle Gilbert is ill — dying — and he was papa's favourite uncle." " What is it you say, my love ? do not be so excitable, do not be so impulsive ;" re- plied Aunt Dorothy, who although not without sympathy and deep feeling herself, 310 king's baynard. disliked nothing so much as having her breath taken away as she called it, with the over hasty announcement of tidings whether evil, or good. " Uncle Gilbert is ill — dying I" her niece repeated, with every sign of distress on her speaking countenance, " and will you, please, dear Aunt, make arrangements for me to go to him at once." It was a very fine trait in MaryTrevylian's character, that where she truly loved, her self-abnegation knew no bounds. If there was one weak point in the nature of the dear old woman, to whom every hair on Mary's head was more precious than the wealth of the Indies, it was her love of sway and dominion, not in essentials but in little things. Colonel Trevylian had been too long master at Brackenlea, for his notable sister-in-law to have assumed anything like interference in those matters which belong to the male jurisdiction ; but king's baynard. 311 her feminine rale had been positive and undisputed, and the "heiress of theTrevy- lians" queen paramount on the soil of her ancestors, had submitted with child-like obedience to the excellent woman who had ever, on her part, treated her with a mother's love. " Must you go to-day, Mary ?" she asked doubtingly, and thinking in her own mind of those fine muslins and laces belonging to Miss Trevylian, which were being got up, with much care, under the superintendence of the old lady herself. " Bless me ! If I could only have had a few hours notice, I could have sent you off in more creditable fashion. But in a case of illness, all other considerations must be waived. You will take Martha, of course." "Of course, Auntie; she will be of the greatest use. Martha is invaluable in a case of illness. I will send her to you, 312 KING S BAYNA'RD. and if you will tell her what to put up, I will be ready and the carriage will be round in an hour." "You said that just like your poor father, Mary, he never thought the limits of possibility in the waiting line, could exceed ' an hour ;' he used to say he never wished for more to prepare for any of the contingencies attending either life or death." " Uncle Gilbert was his favourite uncle," repeated Mary, almost mechanically ; and it was this circumstance that had endeared the almost unknown great-uncle to his niece's imagination. His great trouble had fallen upon him before she was born ; and the very sight of her fair young face, radiant in the health and beauty that had once proved such a snare to his own darling child, had been at times more than the old man could bear. " Do not spoil her, George," he would king's eaynaed. 313 say to his nephew, the Colonel ; " it will go hard with her if you do, poor child." It had been in this case an unnecessary caution. Indulged, petted, caressed, Mary Trevylian had been from her cradle ; but spoilt — never. She had learnt the lesson early, which to a high-spirited woman comes so hard in after life, to be subser- vient to a stronger will. Colonel Trevylian, every inch a soldier, had ever been master in his own family, and in consequence he had been not only loved, but revered by every member of it. Since she had lost the support of her strong right hand, Mary's character had strengthened and deepened; and in the exercise of her own will she was gradually feeling her way. Power came to her, when she was mature enough to feel its responsibility, and she took it fearfully and with trembling, lest she should abuse the gift. It was sweet to her sometimes 314 king's baynard. to say, " may I do sucli and such a thing, Auntie," as of old ; and yet a prouder, or more independent spirit never fired the heart of any Trevylian, than burnt in the breast of their youthful heiress. In "an hour," the well appointed travelling carriage was at the door; and Miss Trevylian and her maid were receiving the last instructions from the lips of Aunt Dorothy, whose mind, having by this time absorbed the fact of Uncle Gilbert's illness, now ran fluently in the direction of strengthening jellies, and other invaluable and infallible recipes, heirlooms in the Trevylian family, from generation to generation. "And take care of yourself, my own precious child," was the old lady's last injunction, " I shall be sorely dull without you, my May-blossom, but we must not always think of ourselves." Her own eyes wet with the tears which king's bayxard. 315 the sight of her Aunt's had not failed to summon into them, Mary Trevylian and her faithful handmaid, Martha, set forth on their journey of twenty miles, to ren- der sweet womanly offices at the bedside of sickness and age. It was late in the winter's afternoon when they arrived at the Rectory, to which it was the first visit of the great- niece of the Rector of King's Baynard, strange as it may appear, separated as it was by a distance of only twenty miles. " I am too old to have young things about me," argued the Rector to himself, whenever the thought of the expediency and the kindness of having his niece and her good Aunt Dorothy to stay with him, had suggested itself to his once hos- 7 Co pit able imagination. But since the arrival of the heir at the home of his an- cestors, the idea of the beautiful girl who was heiress in esse of the inheritance of 316 king's baynaed. the fighting Trevylians, and heiress in posse of all that he himself had to leave, had presented itself with something like persistency, to the mind of the aged man. An early attachment to a worthy object would be the making and the saving of this last of the Baynard stock. This noble youth was to redeem the tarnished glory of his house; the " dear lad" who had wound himself so closely round the old man's heart, would by such a course be kept straight if under the legitimate influence of the beauty which, as he had justly observed, had ever been a snare to his race. He had heard that his niece's beauty had fulfilled the promise of its spring ; and he knew also that her accom- plishments, and her warm generous temper were eulogized by all who had been happy enough to have felt their influence. These circnmstances had made him decide upon inviting Mary Trevylian to king's baynard. 317 his home, before the event of his sudden illness had taken place, as recorded above, and it is not improbable that the contend- ing emotions which accompanied the de- cision, had hastened the attack which had so alarmed his friends on his account. The effort it would have cost him to make such a break in the monotonous course of his life, had he continued in his usual health, would have been very severe ; but under the spell of the change which his illness had wrought upon his mind, he looked forward with a gentle kind of im- patience to the arrival of his expected guest. I must be candid enough to acknow- ledge that notwithstanding the ties of blood which united him to this lovely girl, that it was the interests of "young John," whom he called his adopted son, that he had most at heart in the matter. He only thought of her as a means to an 318 king's baynapj). end — an end which he now prayed daily that he might be blessed enough to see accomplished before death came to release him from the cares and anxieties, which had been his portion of late years in this care-full and troublesome world. That end, as the reader is already aware, was to have some tangible sign and token of the removal of the curse, which had so long blighted the fortunes of the Baynards, and to see a worthy heir spring from the ashes of the once noble, but now degenerate, stock. Long before the close of the short winter evening, long before his niece could, with the greatest despatch, have obeyed his summons, Mr. Trevylian has been straining his feeble eyes to catch a glimpse of the carriage in a turn of the road, which was distinctly visible from his bed as he lay, and which, with due vigilance on the part of the watcher, king's baynaed. 319 nothing could pass without his becoming cognizant of the fact. The silver hand- bell which stood at his right hand was rung often er in that single afternoon, than it had been rung throughout the illness of the generally patient invalid. " Are you sure the fires burn brightly down stairs, Meredith ? Is everything prepared in Miss Trevylian's room ? She is accustomed to every luxury at home. Does Thomas understand that the horses are to be put up here ? Wheel the arm- chair to the bedside, and place the footstool before it." With each silvery tingle, came some order, or injunction, on the part of " the master," and to each and every one did the faithful servant give her best and most particular attention ; but for a good hour, after all had been thought of for the due honour and welcome of the coming guest, Mrs. Meredith and " the master," also, 320 king's baynard. found that there was nothing more to be done but patiently and hopefully to resign themselves to wait. As a matter of course, exactly at that period when waiting had become a habit, and expectancy of the thing waited for had died into a feeble flame, both the watchers were betrayed at the same mo- ment by the sound of approaching car- riage wheels, into the exclamation, " Here they are at last." " Go down, Meredith, go down," said Mr. Trevylian, as the old housekeeper glanced anxiously at his flushed face, which contrasted strangely with the soft white hair, disordered by the restless movements of the head of the old man, and resembling the fleecy clouds that flit across the summer sky. " Go down and let her in — I should like to see her at once — remember — at once /" With the soft indescribable rustle of an king's baynabd. 321 arrival of which the element is purely feminine, the fair young stranger entered the Rectory Hall, and taking the old housekeeper's two hands in her own, she asked eagerly, but in the subdued tones naturally assumed within possible earshot of a sick brain, " Tell me, how is my Uncle ? may I go up to him at once ?" The " at once," of the young girl seemed to Mrs. Meredith but as an echo of the "at once," with which her master had speeded her on her errand, to welcome the orphaned heiress to his roof; and after conveying to her her Uncle's affec- tionate greeting, she added, " He'll be very pleased, Ma'am, if you will step up and see him now." " Will he ? oh, how kind of him ! why did he not send for me before ?" added Mary Trevylian impulsively, for she felt her heart yearn towards this "last of her clan" on her father's side of the house. VOL I. Y 322 king's baynard. She did not realise to herself how wide apart they had been as far as intercourse went. It was the spirit of that one word " Come," traced in his own feeble charac- ters, that had struck into a flame the warm spark of her affectionate heart. "I am come, dear Uncle, you see at once," she said, advancing to his bedside with the eager confidence and candour of early youth, and the next moment she felt the feeble arms encircle her, while with a voice broken with sobs, her Uncle Gilbert said but one word — the name of his lost daughter — Mabel ! END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. LONDON': PRINTED BY A SCDULZE, POLAND STREET.