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 HIS GRACE 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 HIS GRACE 
 
 BY 
 
 W. E. NOERIS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "MDLE. DE MERSAC," " THE ROGUE,' 
 
 "marcia," "jack's father," etc. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 18 BURY STREET, LONDON, W.C. 
 
 18 9 2
 
 9AI 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 I- 
 
 1 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 THE SACKED SOLICITOR, . ... 
 
 PA6R 
 1 
 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 
 
 NORA, ...... 
 
 24 
 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 
 * 
 
 HIS GRACE AND HIS MOTHER, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 43 
 
 ^ 
 
 A HOUSE-WARMING, .... 
 
 62 
 
 < 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 
 CV 
 
 THE SOLUTION OF A DIFFICULTY, 
 
 80 
 
 ^ 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 NORA SCORES A SUCCESS, 
 
 99 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FIRST P.LOOD, ...... 120 
 
 ^
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE Till. 
 
 I'AfJK 
 
 BREAKERS AHEAD, . . . . .136 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 MISS ST GEORGE, ...... 156 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A DAT, . , . .178 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 A CONGENIAL PARTY, ..... 201
 
 HIS GRACE
 
 HIS GRACE. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SACKED SOLICITOR. 
 
 In the month of May, 1887, at which time, as 
 
 will be remembered, preparations were being made 
 
 for the fit celebrating of the Jubilee of our most 
 
 gracious Sovereign Lady Queen Victoria, I, Philip 
 
 Martyn, w^as in a frame of mind very far removed 
 
 from being jubilant. I don't mean to say that 
 
 I am, or was, one whit less loyal than other 
 
 people — on the contrary, I am one of those quiet, 
 
 law-abiding persons who are bound to be loyal 
 
 to the form of government under which they 
 
 live, and, notwithstanding my devotion to the 
 
 House of Hanover, everything leads me to believe 
 
 that, had a British Republic been proclaimed 
 
 before the date of my birth, I should have been 
 VOL. I. A
 
 2 HIS GRACE. 
 
 •anreservedly loyal to that — but I suppose that with 
 the generality of us, our personal affairs and interests 
 occupy a somewhat larger share of our attention 
 than those of the nation at large, and the truth 
 is that, on the particular afternoon to which I 
 allude, I had clean forgotten the circumstances 
 of Her Majesty's having reigned over us with 
 honour and distinction for half a century. My 
 personal affairs and interests were just then in 
 a parlous state ; neither honour nor distinction 
 had I achieved; nor, so far as I could foresee, 
 was there the slightest prospect that, in my case, 
 diligence and conscientious effort would ever be 
 crowned by those rewards. 
 
 "The long and short of it, Philip," my Uncle 
 John said to me, as I helped him to struggle 
 into his overcoat before he left the office, "is, 
 that you are not fitted to take a leading part 
 in a business like ours. Understand me, I am 
 not blaming you; I am merely stating a fact. 
 There are men who are born to be lawyers, and 
 there are other men who, I presume, were born 
 to be something else; though, if you'll excuse 
 my saying so, I'll be hanged if I can lay my
 
 THE SACKED SOLICITOR. 3 
 
 finger upon the especial purpose for which you 
 were created. What I do know, and what it is 
 better and kinder to tell you at once, is that 
 you were not created to be a solicitor. I have 
 had some experience of you by this time, and 
 I think it only fair to warn you, that you may 
 «tay here until your hair is grey without much 
 hope of being taken into partnership. I am 
 sorry for it ; but necessity has no law, and the 
 law has no necessities, except those imposed by 
 Act of Parliament, or by contracts duly signed 
 
 and attested. Not beinof an idiot, I never con- 
 es ' 
 
 tracted to make you a member of my firm; 
 a,lthough I am, of course, aware that that was 
 what you and your mother looked forward to, 
 when I advised that you should pass your ex- 
 aminations, and promised to find employment for 
 you in the office. Personally, I should have 
 been only too pleased to give you every en- 
 couragement; it is no fault of mine, and, I 
 daresay, it is no fault of yours either that I am 
 unable to do so. You lack the requisite abilities, 
 that's all. I am not making any complaint, mind 
 you; only, if I were in your place, I should
 
 4 BIS GRACE. 
 
 drop the law and try to discover my real mission 
 in life. As I said before, I am not clever enough 
 to assist you in your researches; still, the odds 
 are that you have a mission of one kind or 
 another, because it seems scarcely reasonable to 
 conclude that you can have been sent into an 
 overcrowded world without any individual capa- 
 city for usefulness whatsoever." 
 
 It was not often that my uncle treated me 
 to so prolonged a harangue ; nor, I am sure, 
 would he have done so then, had he not been 
 very much in earnest, and rather angry^ into the 
 bargain. He had some excuses for being angry^ 
 with which it is needless to trouble the reader;, 
 he was perfectly justified in intimating that I 
 was not cut out to adorn a profession which I 
 have always abhorred ; his advice, that I should 
 abandon it and seek some other field of enter- 
 prise would have been admirable, if I had possessed 
 ever so small a private income upon which to 
 subsist, while awaiting better things. But un- 
 happily I had nothing beyond what my mother 
 was able to spare me out of her own straitened 
 means; and that was v/hy I was a sorrowful
 
 THE SACKED SOLICITOR. 5 
 
 man as I wended my way westwards after office 
 hours. 
 
 When I sat down to write this narrative, I 
 made up my mind that I would say as little as 
 possible about myself; because, in the course of 
 it, I shall only appear as what I actually am, a 
 practical nonentity, whose disappearance at v.tiy 
 moment from these earthly scenes would cause 
 no appreciable inconvenience to anybody. But 
 the difficulty of speaking in the first person 
 when one is neither a hero nor anything resem- 
 bling one, is somewhat greater than I thought 
 it was going to be ; and it seems almost neces- 
 sary, for the purpose of clearness, that I should 
 start by being a little egotistical. I must just 
 mention that my father had been a wealthy 
 merchant, who had failed in business late in 
 life, and had died shortly afterwards, leaving 
 his widow and his two children with only a 
 few hundreds a year wherewith to engage upon 
 the struggle for existence. I must add that I, 
 who had been originally intended for the Guards, 
 was compelled, by force of circumstances, to accept 
 Uncle John's suggestions with gratitude; and I
 
 6 HIS GRACE, 
 
 suppose I had better also confess, without more 
 ado, that I had a certain facility for the com- 
 position of poetry. Nobody, I am sure, will be 
 so unkind as to grudge me the privilege of call- 
 ing my compositions poetry, because nobody who 
 reads these lines is in the very least likely to have 
 ever perused my poems. They have been pub- 
 lished ; but my publisher assures me, and I can 
 well believe him, that they have at no time had 
 a wide circulation. At that time, however, it did 
 not seem to me an impossible thing that the 
 public might eventually recognise some merits 
 in my attempts at versification, and even go so 
 far as to pay me for the same ; so that, on my 
 way from the city to St James's Street, I asked 
 myself quite seriously whether it was not my 
 probable mission in life to be a poet in a humble 
 fashion. I have since discovered that my mission 
 in life is essentially prosaic. One makes these 
 discoveries in the course of a year or two, and 
 they are doubtless salutary, if they are not pre- 
 cisely agreeable. 
 
 The first thing that I saw, after reaching my 
 club and picking up one of the evening papers,.
 
 THE SACKED SOLICITOR. 7 
 
 was that the Duke 01 Hurstbourne was dead. 
 The announcement interested me, and served to 
 divert my thoughts for the moment from personal 
 perplexities; because, although I had never seen 
 the deceased nobleman, and although, as the 
 newspaper obligingly informed its readers, he had 
 not been in any sense a prominent personage, 
 I remembered that my old schoolfellow Arthur 
 Gascoigne had been his nephew and his heir- 
 presumptive. The presumption had now been 
 converted into a reality ; the small boy who had 
 been my fag not so very long before, who had 
 basked in my smiles and trembled at my frown, 
 was a full-blown duke, while I was but a bud- 
 ding solicitor, not to say a solicitor who had 
 been frostily nipped in the bud. Such are the 
 revenges of time, and such the inequalities of 
 human existence. However, I was not so shabby 
 as to grudge Gascoigne his promotion. We can't 
 all of us be dukes, and he had always been 
 such a good little fellow, that I had no doubt 
 as to his eventually proving quite as presentable 
 a duke as the rest of his compeers. I had not 
 seen much of him since old Eton days, our paths
 
 8 BIS GRACE. 
 
 in life having naturally been so divergent; still 
 we had come across one another every now and 
 again, and he had always seemed glad to see 
 me and chat over bygone times. I was glad 
 to think that all this honour and wealth had 
 come to him, because I suspected from what I 
 had heard that he had become a somewhat ex- 
 travagant young gentleman, and I knew that he 
 was not rich. 
 
 While I was holding the unread newspaper in 
 my hand and meditating philosophically over the 
 tremendous issues involved in a system of heredi- 
 tary succession, I was accosted by another member 
 of the club who was also a former schoolfellow of 
 mine, and who said, — 
 
 " So old Hurstbourne has been gathered to his 
 fathers at last, I see. Luck for little Gascoigne, 
 isn't it? Though I suppose he'll get nothing ex- 
 cept the title and the entailed estates, and what 
 they're worth nobody seems to know." 
 
 " Why won't he get anything more ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Oh, because his uncle wouldn't have anything 
 to do with him. Never saw him, in fact, I believe. 
 There was a deadly feud between his father, Lord
 
 THE SACKED SOLICITOR. 9 
 
 Charles, and the head of the family. What it was 
 ^bout I can't say; but they didn't speak, and 
 -when Lord Charles died, the Duke, who, as you 
 know, lived and died a bachelor, rather ostenta- 
 tiously took up Paul Gascoigne, Arthur's cousin. I 
 expect he has left the whole of the London pro- 
 perty, which is worth any amount of money, to 
 Paul. Still, Arthur ought to do middling well with 
 the estates which are bound to be his, and most 
 likely his mother will manage to pick up an heiress 
 for him to marry. Ever meet Lady Charles ? " 
 
 I had not that advantage, and I said so. 
 
 " Queer old girl," resumed my well-informed 
 friend, with an amused smile. "Not a bad old 
 sort, in her way, though she isn't exactly the 
 sort of mother whom I sliould covet personally. 
 As she isn't one's mother, one only laughs, don't 
 you know; but if she were one's mother, I dare- 
 say one might writhe occasionally. Arthur does 
 not writhe. He's such a good-hearted little beggar 
 that he couldn't for the life of him see a fault 
 in anybody whom he was fond of; and, after all, 
 he's quite right to be fond of her, for she adores 
 him and thinks nothing good enough for him.
 
 lo . HIS GRACE. 
 
 She was an heiress herself once upon a time ;. 
 but that old rip Lord Charles made ducks and 
 drakes of her fortune, they say. Anyhow, she 
 has been pretty hard-up of late years. It's 
 rather a joke, only, of course, as you don't know 
 her, you can't see the joke, that in a few months' 
 time Lady Charles will be doing the honours at 
 Hurstbourne Castle." 
 
 He had a good deal more to say about the 
 late Duke of Hurstbourne, who, it appeared, 
 had been an individual of eccentric and retiring 
 disposition, as well as about the quarrels and 
 peculiarities of the Gascoigne family in general ;. 
 but I did not listen very attentively to his 
 prattle. I had family affairs of my own to think 
 about, which, if less interesting to him and to- 
 the world at large than those of a duke, were 
 far more so to me, and it did not seem likely 
 that I should have any further personal rela- 
 tions with the newly elevated member of the 
 highest rank in the peerage. I remember that,, 
 while he was talking, I felt vaguely sorry that 
 circumstances should have rendered me such a 
 complete outcast from high society — not because
 
 THE SACKED SOLICITOR. ii 
 
 I cared for high society, of which I had little 
 knowledge or experience, but because I cared 
 a good deal for Arthur Gascoigne. 
 
 Nowadays, I sometimes wonder what can have 
 made me care for him at a time when, after 
 all, I was but slightly acquainted with him. He 
 himself declares that it must have been my im- 
 mense superiority to him in the matter of phy- 
 sical size and strength ; for, indeed, I am a big, 
 muscular man, whereas he is a diminutive and 
 not very powerful one, though Heaven knows 
 he has the pluck of a whole regiment ! 
 
 "My dear Martyn," says he, — I don't mind 
 repeating this, because there isn't a word of 
 truth in it — " it is your nature to think of 
 anybody and everybody in the world before 
 you think of yourself ; and as nothing would 
 induce you to admit that you have twice the 
 brains of other people, you are driven to place 
 your biceps at their service. It stands to reason 
 that a poor, unprotected pigmy must have irre- 
 sistible claims upon you ; and that, you may 
 depend upon it, is what made you resolve to 
 be my friend and champion."
 
 12 HIS GRACE. 
 
 All that is very great nonsense. I do not 
 quote it in order to make the reader think me 
 modest and unselfish, but only to convey some 
 idea of the simplicity of Hurstbourne's character. 
 It does not occur to him that he possesses any 
 individual attraction — and in truth, the attrac- 
 tion which he unquestionably does possess would 
 be a little difficult to define — if anyone tries to 
 be a friend to him, he at once assumes that 
 that person must be abnormally noble and gener- 
 ous. Perhaps that is one reason why he con- 
 tinues to the present day to love and admire 
 his mother, who — However, if I have to say 
 anything disparaging about her, I will say it 
 later on. 
 
 At the time of which I speak, I naturally 
 took it for granted that the Duke of Hurst- 
 bourne must henceforth move in a sphere as 
 remote from my own as that of any duke must 
 of necessity be ; yet dukes and beggars do come 
 across one another in the street, and it was in 
 the street that I found myself face to face with 
 my former fag a few days later. The street 
 was muddy, too, after a recent shower, and he
 
 THE SACKED SOLICITOR. is 
 
 came running across it in his patent-leather 
 boots to shake hands with me ; which seems 
 to show that some people may be dukes without 
 realising that it behoves them to beckon their 
 friends through the mud when they wish to 
 speak to them. 
 
 "Well, old chap," said he, "how has the world 
 been treating you this last ever so long?" 
 
 " Not with the same liberality," I replied, some- 
 Avhat gloomily, "as it has treated you. I have 
 not lost a wealthy and noble uncle, for the suf- 
 ficient reason that I have no wealthy or noble 
 uncle to lose. At least, I believe Uncle John i& 
 pretty well off; but he is not dead or going to 
 die; and when he does die, nothing can be more 
 certain than that he won't leave me a penny. 
 At present, he is anxious to make it clear to me 
 that I shall not get many pence out of him 
 even while he lives. All the same, I am glad to 
 think that you are more fortunate." 
 
 " Oh, well," he answered wdth a laugh, " I don't 
 expect my old uncle meant me to be any more 
 fortunate than he could help. I haven't an idea 
 at this moment whether I am a rich man or a
 
 14 HIS GRACE. 
 
 pauper; but I shall hear all about it after the 
 funeral to-morrow, I suppose. What's up between 
 you and your old man? Not a row, I hope? 
 It's awful cheek for me to offer you advice; but 
 really, my dear old Martyn, I wouldn't quarrel 
 with him if I were you. When all's said and 
 ■done, he has it in his power to make you or 
 mar you — hasn't he now ? " 
 
 That was Hurstbourne all over. People who 
 think that they know him, but who are in reality 
 far too stupid to be even remotely conscious of 
 their own stupidity ,are wont to describe him as 
 an excitable, scatter-brained, pleasure-loving sort 
 of fellow, and to assume as a matter of course 
 that, because he likes amusing himself, his per- 
 sonal amusement must invariably occupy the fore- 
 most place in his thoughts. How many of them, 
 I wonder, if they had just succeeded to a dukedom, 
 and were absolutely in the dark as to whether 
 their strawberry-leaves had brought them immense 
 wealth or comparative poverty, would deem the 
 fortunes or misfortunes of a humble lawyer worthy 
 of their attention? Yet I verily believe that 
 Hurstbourne, after I had told him something of
 
 THE SACKED SOLICITOR. 15 
 
 the troubles and perplexities to which I was a 
 prey, was a good deal more anxious about my 
 prospects that he was about his own. 
 
 "Well, we must get you out of that beastly 
 office somehow," he said at length ; " there's no 
 good sticking to work that you hate — especially 
 after the old boy has given you such a broad 
 hint to retire. I wonder whether I couldn't get 
 some sort of appointment for you — a county-court 
 judgeship, don't you know, or something. I'm 
 afraid I'm not going to be a very big man ; 
 still, the title ought to carry a certain amount 
 of influence with it. Anyhow, Lord Chancellors 
 and people of that kind would be pretty sure 
 to receive me civilly if I went and looked them 
 up, eh ? " 
 
 I thought it quite likely that the Lord Chan- 
 cellor would be civil to the Duke of Hurstbourne, 
 and it seemed hardly worth while to explain that 
 I was not eligible for a county-court judgeship. 
 Few, indeed, are the appointments which in these 
 democratic days can be bestowed, without ques- 
 tions asked, upon the nominee of a duke, even 
 though that duke should be, as Hurstbourne was.
 
 i6 HIS GRACE. 
 
 the head of one of the old and formerly power- 
 ful Whig families, and I had common sense enough 
 to be aware that, if I was ever to earn my 
 own bread and butter, I should have to do 
 so by my own exertions. However, I did not 
 wish to distress my kind-hearted little would-be 
 benefactor by throwing doubts upon his ability 
 to help me, and when we parted he clapped 
 me on the shoulder (he had to stand on tiptoe 
 to do it), saying cheerily, — 
 
 "Don't you be down on your luck, old man; 
 it will be all right. Just wait a bit until I've 
 had time to get into the saddle, and you'll see 
 that I sha'n't forget you." 
 
 As I afterwards found out, he really did not 
 forget me during the three or four ensuing weeks, 
 although I am afraid I must confess that I forgot 
 him ; at all events, I did not think of him much 
 or often. I did chance to hear, through the 
 newspapers and from private sources, what his 
 inheritance amounted to, and a very fine inherit- 
 ance it sounded, notwithstanding the somewhat 
 ungenerous will of the late duke, who, as had 
 been anticipated, was found to liave bequeathed
 
 THE SACKED SOLICITOR. 17 
 
 the entire London property as well as a goodly 
 portion of his northern estates to Mr Paul Gas- 
 coigne. However, my young friend got Hurst- 
 bourne Castle, together with the lands apper- 
 taining thereto, which were estimated to bring in 
 an income sufficient (as it appeared to me) for 
 the maintenance of a magnate of the first water. 
 I saw no reason to pity him; and as I had at 
 the moment many and great reasons for pitying 
 myself, I relegated him to one of those back 
 shelves in my memory which I do not generally 
 examine except when I can't sleep at night. 
 
 I suppose Uncle John must have wanted very 
 much indeed to get rid of me, and, all things 
 considered, I can't say that I wonder at it; but 
 I still think that he might have attained his 
 object without being so emphatically disagree- 
 able, and so disagreeably emphatic. Perhaps it is 
 easier to forgive great injuries than small ones ; 
 perhaps it would not be true to say that my 
 uncle ever inflicted any real injury, great or 
 small, upon me ; yet even now, when I am in- 
 dependent of him, and cherish no grudge against 
 him, I cannot recall the sharp speeches which 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 i8 HIS GRACE. 
 
 he used to address to me in those days without 
 feeling the blood mount into my cheeks and my 
 eyes. I only remained on at the office day after 
 day because it was necessary, and because I 
 could not, for the sake of asserting my personal 
 dignity, throw the weight of supporting my great 
 useless body upon my poor old mother's already 
 over-burdened hands. I suppose Uncle John 
 knew that, and it may be that he allowed a more 
 free rein to his tongue in consequence. Well, 
 it is all over, and it doesn't matter, and I admit 
 that he is a very decent sort of man, as men 
 go ; only, of course, my forbearance was exer- 
 cised to little purpose, for when once that kind 
 of thing begins the sooner the inevitable end 
 comes the better. 
 
 In my case it came one afternoon when my 
 uncle told me before all his clerks that I under- 
 stood rather less of my business than the first 
 crossing-sweeper whom he could pick up in the 
 street. He had said worse things than that to 
 me before; but he had not said them in so 
 public a manner, and it seemed to me that, under 
 the circumstances, the only possible course open
 
 THE SACKED SOLICITOR. 19 
 
 to me was that which I made haste to adopt. 
 Shortly afterwards I walked away from the city 
 a free man, and a practically penniless one. 
 
 I was making for the club, and was walking 
 moodily along Piccadilly, when a little man in 
 beautifully -fitting black clothes — never in his 
 life has Hurstbourne had a wrinkle about his 
 person from the crown of his head to the sole 
 of his foot — caught me by the arm, exclaim- 
 ing— 
 
 " Here's luck ! You're the very man I wanted 
 to meet. Come and dine with me at the Clarence 
 at eight o'clock, like a good fellow, will you? 
 I'm in a deuce of a hurry now; but I've got 
 something to say to you, and I'll say it this 
 evening, if you'll come. Are you disengaged ? " 
 
 I was disengaged, and, perhaps, not disinclined 
 to confide my woes to a sympathetic listener ; so 
 when, about twenty minutes after the appointed 
 hour, he arrived at the very smart and modern 
 club which he had named, he found me waiting 
 for him there. He did not apologise for being 
 late ; but he apologised presently for the dinner 
 and the wine, neither of which stood in need
 
 20 HIS GRACE. 
 
 of any apolog}^ and then he proceeded to 
 apologise also for a proposal which he wished 
 to make to me. 
 
 "I daresay," he began, in deprecating accents, 
 *' it isn't exactly what you would choose ; but 
 it's better than nothing, and it needn't be per- 
 manent unless you like. The fact is, that I 
 have been talking to some of these big — wigs, 
 and they all assure me that they can't do any- 
 thing for a solicitor. Barristers, they say, they 
 might be able to help, but I expect that's only 
 because I wasn't asking them to help a barrister. 
 Well, to cut a long story short, what I want 
 you to do, if you will, is to manage my establish- 
 ment and my expenditure for me. It's very 
 evident to me that somebody must do it, or I 
 shall soon get things into a rare mess. There's 
 a land-steward and a house-steward and a lot 
 of other rascals; but unless they have a gentle- 
 man over them to keep them up to their bear- 
 ings, they'll rob me right and left ; and as soon 
 as I realised this I made so bold as to think of 
 you, Marty n. I really don't believe you would 
 find it such a bad berth. You would live at
 
 THE SACKED SOLICITOR 21 
 
 Hurstbourne and have your own rooms, as many 
 of 'em as you wanted, and there would be horses 
 for you to ride, and, of course, the shooting. I 
 can't help thinking that a country life would 
 suit an athletic fellow like you better than 
 office work in this filthy town ; besides which 
 you would have the comfort, which I know 
 would be a very real comfort to you, of think- 
 ing that you were doing me the greatest possible 
 service. I've no head for figures, you see, and 
 my only chance of averting an appalling finan- 
 cial disaster is to commit my aflfairs to some one 
 whom I can thoroughly trust." 
 
 He went into a few details which certainly 
 seemed to bear out his assertion that he was 
 not very well qualified to take care of himself 
 in a financial sense ; he explained what my 
 duties would be, and I did not think them 
 beyond the range of my capacities ; finally he 
 named a salary so preposterously high that I could 
 not in common honesty accept it. But I did, 
 after some hesitation, accept the post offered 
 to me. I knew very well that it was oflfered 
 out of the kindness and generosity of his heart,
 
 22 HIS GRACE. 
 
 and that, if I did not take it, the appointment 
 would probably not be filled by any one else; 
 still I hope I was not absolutely and entirely 
 selfish in the matter. Looking back upon it, 
 I am able to say, with a clear conscience, that 
 I have been of some service to him and have 
 earned my pay. Even at the moment I might, 
 perhaps, have resisted the temptation, powerful 
 as it was, had I not foreseen that he would at 
 least not be a loser by employing me. 
 
 He was so pleased by my consent to let him 
 relieve me of the cares which had almost broken 
 my heart, that he jumped up from his chair to 
 shake hands with me, knocking over a decanter 
 and scandalising the prim waiter, who, no doubt, 
 thought that he had drunk more wine than was 
 good for him. 
 
 "My dear old chap," he exclaimed, "this it 
 awfully good of you, and I don't know how to 
 thank you enough ! My mother will be delighted 
 when she hears of it ; for she knows, if anybody 
 does, that I am the worst hand in the world 
 at keeping accounts. We really ought to have 
 another bottle of fi^z to celebrate this joyful
 
 THE SACKED SOLICITOR. 23 
 
 occasion. Waiter, bring another bottle of that 
 stuif which they have the cheek to call 74 
 Giessler." 
 
 As I am a Christian man, I left that club 
 perfectly sober, yet perfectly convinced that I 
 had behaved like a friend in need. And indeed 
 I believe that such is the impression which my 
 poor, dear Hurstbourne invariably manages to 
 convey to those whom he has befriended.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 NORA. 
 
 The next morning I had a second interview with 
 Hurstbourne, in the course of which my duties 
 and responsibilities were somewhat more clearly 
 defined for me than they had been on the 
 previous evening. I was, it appeared, to be 
 invested with plenary powers as regarded the 
 management of the Hurstbourne Castle estate 
 and establishment. I was to " get things straight," 
 if I could ; I was to effect any reductions which 
 might have to be effected; above all, I was en- 
 treated not to let my young friend spend more 
 money than he possessed. 
 
 "Because," said he ingenuously, "I know very 
 well that that's what I shall do, unless you ride 
 me in a rather sharp bit. I never could see such 
 an awful lot of difference between a sovereign 
 and a shilling, and I don't suppose I ever shall. 
 
 24
 
 NORA. 25 
 
 But if you'll have the kindness just to take a 
 good, strong pull at me when you think I'm 
 getting my head up too much, it'll be all right. 
 I don't want to be bothered about five -pound 
 notes, you understand; but, at the same time, 
 I don't want to come a cropper." 
 
 What he precisely did want was not easy to 
 ascertain, nor, I suppose, were his own ideas 
 particularly distinct as yet; only he had a very 
 decided and not very unnatural desire to get 
 all the fun that he could for his money, and 
 I gathered that, what with yachting, deerstalking, 
 and the claims of London society, he would not 
 spend more than three or four months of the 
 year at Jiis ancestral castle. 
 
 "When I am at Hurstbourne, though, I shall 
 make it lively for you," he added encouragingly ; 
 " and when you're alone — well, you'll have the 
 neighbours, and I daresay there will be work 
 enough to keep you busy for a few hours every 
 day, and in the winter you ought to get plenty 
 of sport. Anyhow, you can but give the plan a 
 trial, and drop it if it doesn't suit you." 
 
 The plan was quite certain to suit me better
 
 26 HIS GRACE. 
 
 than any other that could have been devised on 
 my behalf, and I am sure he knew that, or he 
 would never have asked me to undertake it. I 
 said as much to him when we parted ; but he 
 scouted the idea of my having anything to thank 
 him for, protesting loudly that the obligation was 
 all the other way. So, as there was not much 
 more to be said, and as he apparently had a 
 great many engagements, I left him, promising 
 to let him hear from me as soon as I should 
 have taken up my abode at Hurstbourne Castle, 
 and the same afternoon I journeyed down to Essex, 
 in order to inform my mother of the change 
 which had occurred in my fortunes. 
 
 My mother, I should mention, still lived in the 
 neighbourhood where we had been accustomed 
 to reign supreme in the days of our prosperity. 
 When the crash came, and when my father, by 
 good luck, had found an immediate purchaser for 
 Fern Hill in Lady Deverell, we had gone up to 
 London for a time ; but after his death, my 
 mother, having no ties elsewhere, had thought 
 it best to return to the old country, and there 
 she and my sister Nora dwelt in a modest cottage,
 
 NORA. 27 
 
 not more than a mile from what had formerly 
 been our own park gates. It sounds like a rather 
 painful arrangement, and perhaps it was so to 
 Nora ; but I don't think my mother felt it much. 
 The truth is that, after our great misfortune, she 
 never felt anything very much. All the same, 
 there could be no doubt but that the news of 
 my rupture with Uncle John would cause her 
 pain and anxiety; so that I was very thankful 
 to be able to couple this announcement with 
 another to the effect that I had obtained at least 
 temporary employment of a much more remun- 
 erative character. 
 
 I found her seated in the little, shabbily-fur- 
 nished drawing-room, and very frail and old and 
 ill she looked; though she summoned up a smile 
 to welcome me, and did her best to disguise what 
 was so evident, that she was in mortal terror 
 lest this unexpected arrival of mine should por- 
 tend some fresh calamity. There are people whom 
 it makes one's heart ache to see deprived of the 
 luxuries which seem to be their birthright — people 
 upon whom comparative indigence entails as much 
 actual suffering as positive want does upon those
 
 28 HIS GRACE. 
 
 of more robust temperament — and my poor mother 
 was one of these. She had been brought up in 
 cotton- wool; she had always been delicate and 
 had always been assiduously taken care of ; never 
 until her old age had she known what it was 
 to lack every comfort that money could buy. 
 It was a perpetual miracle to me that she had 
 had the physical strength to survive the succes- 
 sive blows which had shattered her small world 
 into fragments. As for lier uncomplaining cour- 
 age, I did not wonder so much at that; for she 
 was well-born, and that she should do her duty 
 to the best of her ability was no more than was 
 to be expected of her. 
 
 The tiny white hands that held her knitting- 
 pins trembled while I unfolded my tale, and so 
 did the grey curls which have been arranged 
 after the same fashion on either side of her 
 thin face since the year 1840 or thereabouts ; 
 for I am a clumsy, methodical fellow, and I 
 can't unfold my tale unless I begin at the be- 
 ginning; but she did not interrupt me, and she 
 heaved a long sigh of relief when she heard 
 that, in spite of my ill-advised quarrel with her
 
 NORA. 29 
 
 brother-in-law, I was not left without the means 
 of earning my subsistence. 
 
 "I am sure you know best, Philip," she said, 
 when I had made an end of speaking, " and I 
 daresay you will be happier at Hurstbourne 
 Castle than you would have been in London ; 
 but — isn't it a rather uncertain sort of pros- 
 pect?" 
 
 Well, of course, it was that ; only, as I pointed 
 out to her. Uncle John had offered me no pros- 
 pect at all, except that of being assisted out 
 into the street, if I did not adopt the more 
 dignified plan of stepping over the threshold 
 of my own accord. She was easily reassured. 
 She had lost the power of looking far ahead ; 
 probably also she thought, what ought to be 
 quite true, that an able-bodied man is never in 
 any real danger of starving. Naturally enough 
 she was less confident with regard to my sister's 
 future, and I was not surprised v»^hen she pre- 
 sently appealed to me to say what was to become 
 of a girl who had been educated as a lady (and 
 was consequently quite incompetent to educate 
 others) in the event of her being left alone and
 
 30 BIS GRACE. 
 
 penniless in the world. What, indeed ! My 
 mother had put this question to me many a 
 time before, and never had I been able to 
 make any satisfactory reply. 
 
 " Let us hope that she will marry," said I ; 
 for I could hit upon nothing more original or 
 more comforting to say. 
 
 " Yes," assented my mother ; " that is what 
 we must hope for; and even if she should not 
 make such a marriage as we might have thought 
 desirable in old days, we must still be thankful 
 that she has found a home. This afternoon 
 she has gone over to Fern Hill to see Lady 
 Deverell, who has been most kind to her. Lady 
 Deverell is really a good, kind woman." 
 
 My mother said this as if she rather expected 
 to be contradicted, and, as a matter of fact, I 
 did not altogether agree with her ; but, not 
 wishing to be argumentative, I thought it 
 would save time to inquire at once whether 
 Lady Deverell had selected a husband for Nora. 
 I obtained no reply; for at this moment my 
 mother dropped her ball of wool, which she 
 begged me to pick up for her, saying that the
 
 NORA. 31 
 
 housemaid always made a point of entangling 
 her legs in it when it was left on the floor; 
 and before I was off my knees, Nora herself 
 had come in. 
 
 As my sister Nora is one of the personages 
 chiefly concerned in the simple narrative which 
 I have undertaken to relate, I should be glad, 
 if I could, to convey some accurate impression 
 of her ; but my own impression of her is, I 
 suppose, a good deal coloured by fraternal 
 partiality, and it may very well be that she 
 did not appear such a strikingly pretty girl 
 to everybody as she always appeared to me. 
 Still, I do think that almost everybody would 
 have admitted the fact of her prettiness, if 
 only in virtue of her dark-blue eyes and long 
 curved eyelashes. Such eyes are unquestionably 
 both rare and beautiful, and although the rest 
 of her features may not have been absolutely 
 perfect, she had the advantage of a complexion 
 above all criticism. Beauty, as we all know, 
 admits of no closer definition than something 
 at which we find pleasure in gazing ; and I 
 have reason to believe that I am by no means
 
 32 HIS GRACE. 
 
 the only man who finds pleasure in gazing at 
 
 my sister. 
 
 What seems to show that there must be some- 
 thing wrono^ about the above definition is, that 
 she found and expressed unbounded pleasure in 
 gazing at me. And yet who can tell ? It is 
 not impossible that, in her eyes, my homely 
 countenance may, by reason of her aflfection for 
 me, have been glorified by some distant sugges- 
 tion of that comeliness which nature has denied 
 to it. Anyhow, she was as glad to see me as 
 I was to see her. 
 
 "But, my dear Phil," said she, presently, "you 
 might have gone to the expense of a sixpenny 
 telegram before bouncing in upon us like this. 
 If I had only known you were coming, I 
 wouldn't have promised to dine with Lady 
 Deverell to-night. I'll tell you what you 
 shall do ; you shall come and dine there with 
 me. It isn't a party, and she won't at all 
 mind my bringing you; but, to make assur- 
 ance doubly sure, I'll write her a line, saying 
 that you are here for twenty-four hours — of 
 course, you can't have got leave for more than
 
 NORA, 33 
 
 twenty-four hours — and that I really cannot 
 do without you for a whole evening out of 
 that short time." 
 
 I demurred to this proposition, because Lady 
 Deverell was not exactly the sort of person 
 with whom I felt inclined to take a liberty ; 
 but my mother rather eagerly backed Nora 
 up, and the end of it was, that, ^yq minutes 
 later, the boy who cleaned the knives and boots 
 and was supposed to weed the garden was de- 
 spatched to Fern Hill with a note. He returned 
 before the dressing hour, bearing a scrawl in 
 pencil from Lady Deverell, which Nora handed 
 to me, — "Very happy to see your brother, my 
 dear. Sorry I have no lady for him." 
 
 Poor people, and people who have seen better 
 
 days, are doubtless apt to detect slights when 
 
 perhaps none have been intended. I confess 
 
 that I did not like what seemed to me to be 
 
 a somewhat studied lack of ceremony on Lady 
 
 Deverell's part ; but then, for the matter of 
 
 that, I did not like Lady Deverell ; and, after 
 
 all, it was we, and not she, who had begun by 
 
 being unceremonious. 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 34 HIS GRACE. 
 
 At the risk of being suspected of a jealous 
 prejudice against the two people who had done 
 the most good in the parish since our losses 
 had debarred my mother from taking any pe- 
 cuniary share in works of charity, I will confess 
 that, if we had a neighbour whom I disliked 
 more than Lady Deverell, it was Mr Burgess, 
 our respected Rector ; so that I was not over- 
 joyed to find him standing in the well-known 
 drawing-room, with his hands behind his back 
 and his legs wide apart, just as he had been 
 used to stand in the old days when he came 
 to dine with us, and when his manner in ad- 
 dressing us had been so very different. He 
 addressed me now in a tone of kindly patron- 
 age, holding out his fat hand, calling me "my 
 young friend," and expressing a hope that I 
 was sticking to work. 
 
 "Work — work! Nothing like work for keep- 
 ing the body and the mind healthy, you may 
 depend upon it," he was pleased to say. 
 
 His body was unquestionably, not to say ob- 
 trusively, healthy ; I cannot answer for the 
 state of his mind; but, in any case, I really
 
 NORA. 35 
 
 did not think, from what 1 knew of him, that 
 he could have arrived at that pitch of happy 
 certitude through personal experience of the means 
 recommended. Thirty years ago Mr Burgess 
 would, I imagine, have been a prominent Evan- 
 gelical; for he was a stout, heavy man, with 
 bushy eyebrows, a long upper lip and a great, 
 foolish nose ; living in this later epoch, he had 
 become known as a somewhat advanced High 
 Churchman. He could not possibly make him- 
 self look the part, which was a pity ; but he 
 had a fine, sonorous voice, and his method of 
 singing the service was admired by some people. 
 Indeed, to be quite fair, I believe there were 
 also some people who admired his sermons. Just 
 now he was entitled to the respectful sympathy 
 of his parishioners, having recently suffered a 
 severe bereavement in the death of his wife, who 
 had left him with the cares of ministering to 
 a large small family upon his hands. 
 
 Mr Burgess, it appeared, was the only guest 
 besides ourselves who had been invited to dine, 
 but there were a number of people staying in 
 the house, none of whom struck me as being
 
 36 HIS GRACE. 
 
 particularly interesting. Lady Deverell, who was 
 as rich as she was pious, was given to hospi- 
 tality; but I imagine that she preferred enter- 
 taining those whom she could safely bully — old 
 maids, missionaries at home on leave, and so 
 forth. After dinner she put me through my 
 facings in her usual abrupt, peremptory fashion. 
 Why was I giving up my profession ? Didn't 
 I think that, if there was any disagreement 
 between my uncle and myself, the chances were 
 in favour of the older and more experienced 
 man being in the right ? Had my management 
 of my own affairs been so successful that I 
 could count with any certainty upon success in 
 managing the affairs of a friend ? She drew her- 
 self up and looked more forbidding than ever 
 when she heard who my friend was. 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! *' said she, in accents of cold dis- 
 pleasure. " I am not acquainted with the present 
 Duke of Hurstbourne; but if he at all resembles 
 his father, his house is not one in which I 
 should wish to see any son of mine take up 
 his abode." 
 
 I was sufficiently irritated to reply that I
 
 NORA. 37 
 
 had never in my wildest dreams contemplated 
 the honour of calling Lady Deverell my mother 
 as a conceivable state of things, and that a 
 man in my humble position could not, of course, 
 aspire to her exclusiveness. Thereupon, she stared 
 at me for a moment and turned her back. She 
 is a tall gaunt woman, with a beaky nose, rather 
 sunken black eyes and iron-grey hair. I do not 
 think that I have ever been exactly afraid of 
 her ; but no doubt I should have been less 
 uncivil to her if she had been less alarming. 
 
 Moreover, I was, I must own, in a rather 
 bad temper at the time, having other reasons be- 
 sides my hostess's impertinence for feeling annoyed. 
 I did not like, and I never had liked, Mr Burgess's 
 manner with my sister. Of course he was old 
 enough to be her father, and he had baptised 
 her and prepared her for confirmation and all 
 that; still, there was something about his pon- 
 derous and paternal playfulness in addressing 
 her which had always been offensive to me and 
 which I could not help thinking was displayed 
 to an unusual extent that evening. It would 
 have been as absurd to accuse this elderly clerical
 
 38 HIS GRACE. 
 
 widower of flirtation as to connect any idea 
 of delicate innuendo with a blue-bottle fly; still 
 I was so provoked by the way in which he 
 kept buzzing round Nora that I took her away 
 at the earliest possible moment, on the plea that, 
 as I had to leave home the next morning, I 
 wished to see as much as I could of my family 
 before going to bed. Mr Burgess followed us 
 into the hall and was anxious to drive us home 
 in his pony-chaise ; but I firmly declined his 
 proflered courtesy, declaring that, on such a lovely 
 night, we should both of us much prefer to 
 walk home across the fields. 
 
 "I can't imagine," said I, as we passed out 
 of the garden into the park together (for in 
 my unreasonable, masculine way I was a little 
 vexed with Nora, as well as with the Rector), 
 "what pleasure you can find in listening to the 
 oily egotism of that old bore." 
 
 " Can't you ? " she returned, without meeting 
 my eyes. "But — did I say I found any plea- 
 sure in it?" 
 
 "No; you didn't say so," I admitted; "but 
 really anybody who had watched you with him
 
 NORA. 39 
 
 to-night might have thought you did. His spirits 
 don't seem to have been much affected by his 
 loss. I suppose the next thing we shall hear 
 will be that he has appointed some worthy 
 successor to the vacant place in his affections." 
 
 "Yes," agreed Nora, absently; "I shouldn't 
 wonder." 
 
 Unlike Mr Burgess, Nora was evidently out 
 of spirits. She did not listen to what I said ; 
 she did not laugh at the time-honoured jokes 
 with which we had been in the habit of diverting 
 one another from our infancy, and which I had 
 never before known to pall upon either of us. 
 It was only when I reminded her of that memor- 
 able occasion on which the old cab-horse — a 
 designation conferred by us upon our esteemed 
 pastor in compliment to certain peculiarities of 
 action — had slipped up, while ambling down the 
 chancel, and had seated himself with a resound- 
 ing crash upon the tiles, displaying the soles of his 
 immense feet to his flock — it was only then, I 
 say, that she roused herself from her abstraction, 
 and suddenly laid her hand upon my arm. 
 
 "Phil," said she, "I don't want you to call
 
 40 HIS GRACE. 
 
 Mr Burgess the old cab-horse any more ; I 
 don't want you to say anything disagreeable 
 about him, if you can help it; because, — don't 
 look at me, please — because — I am going to 
 marry him." 
 
 I don't remember what answer I made; but 
 I suppose I must have said that such a thing 
 was impossible, and added some strong expres- 
 sions ; for I remember how gently and patiently 
 the poor girl exerted herself, as we walked on, 
 to make me understand that she had taken a 
 step from which she had no intention of receding. 
 She did not pretend to be enamoured of Mr 
 Burgess — that would have been a little too ridi- 
 culous — but she assured me that he expected 
 nothing of the sort ; that the prospect of keep- 
 ino- house for him, and lookinor after his children 
 was not such a very disagreeable one to her ; 
 that he had been extremely kind, as had also 
 Lady Deverell, who approved of the match, and 
 that my mother's consent had been willingly 
 given. 
 
 "But, gracious heavens I" I exclaimed, "if it 
 is necessary for you to marry somebody — which
 
 NORA. 41 
 
 I suppose is what you mean — aren't there dozens 
 of other men in England who would be only 
 too glad to marry you ? Besides, the old wretch 
 has only just buried his wife. To my mind, 
 his conduct is downright indecent." 
 
 " The dozens of men who are so eager to marry 
 me haven't found their way into Essex," 
 answered Nora, with a faint smile; "and, as 
 for the wedding, there won't be any indecent 
 haste about it. Mr Burgess wishes me to take 
 my own time and says he would rather our 
 engagement was not formally announced yet. 
 Indeed, I hope — I mean I think — that he will 
 not ask me to leave home while mamma lives." 
 
 "Is that it?" I asked, with a quick pang of 
 apprehension. " Is she worse, then ? " 
 
 " Yes ; much worse. She didn't want you to 
 know, because she said there was no use in 
 distressing you ; but about a month ago she 
 was very ill for a few days, and the doctor told 
 me plainly that in cases of heart-disease like 
 hers, the end may come at any moment. Only 
 it is quite possible that she may live on for 
 years, if we can save her from worry and anxiety.
 
 42 HIS GRACE. 
 
 Now, do you understand, Phil? Of course, she 
 is anxious and worried now, not knowing how 
 you will take this news, and you must pretend 
 to be pleased — anyhow, to be resigned. I don't 
 ask you to be pleased with me, and if you 
 can't help being disgusted with me, well, you 
 can't help it. But you won't say so before her, 
 will you ? " 
 
 I had to give the pledge required of me. I 
 didn't see at the time, and I don't see now, how 
 I could have acted otherwise. Nevertheless, I 
 said to myself very decidedly that, if Mr Burgess 
 ever married my sister, it should be no fault of 
 mine. It was bad enough that, for the present 
 and for my mother's sake, he must be allowed 
 to consider himself engaged to her. 
 
 "Don't look so miserable, Phil," said Nora; "it 
 will all come right in the end, you'll see." 
 
 And I could not but wonder whether, in 
 the inmost recesses of her heart, her intentions 
 with regard to the good Rector might not, per- 
 haps, be as perfidious as my own.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HIS GRACE AND HIS MOTHER. 
 
 After what had been told me, I anticipated a 
 rather painful interview with my mother ; and 
 it is not unlikely that she may have antici- 
 pated a painful interview with me. If so, it 
 was, I hope, as great a relief to her as it was 
 to me to find our respective apprehensions 
 groundless. 
 
 Wonderfully little passed between us upon the 
 subject of Nora's proposed marriage. She said, 
 with an appealing glance at me, that she 
 believed all had been arranged for the best; 
 and I refrained from putting forward a con- 
 trary opinion. Then something was said about 
 Nora's love for children and the respect and affec- 
 tion with which she had always regarded Mr 
 Burgess. It was further stated by one of us, and 
 assented to by the other, that a considerable 
 
 disparity of age between husband and wife 
 
 43
 
 44 BIS GRACE. 
 
 constitutes no necessary drawback to matri- 
 monial felicity. Finally, the paramount import- 
 ance of securing a home for one who might 
 any day be left destitute was recognised on 
 both sides ; after which we hastened to speak 
 about other matters. I suppose the truth was 
 that we were both heartily ashamed of our- 
 selves. 
 
 And yet my mother — poor old lady ! — had no 
 such great reason to feel ashamed. This pre- 
 posterous union had not, as I gathered, been 
 suggested or promoted by her. Lady Deverell 
 and Mr Burgess appeared to have done the 
 courtship between them, and the responsibility 
 of having brought it to a successful issue 
 rested upon them — in so far as it did not 
 rest upon Nora herself. 
 
 "But the whole thing has really been my 
 own doing, Phil," Nora declared, when I gave 
 expression to the above sentiment, before tak- 
 ing leave of her. "I don't want to beg my 
 bread, and I don't know how to earn it; so — " 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders, and made a 
 grimace, which, I daresay, was intended to
 
 HIS GRACE AND HIS MOTHER. 45 
 
 convince me what a heartless and selfish little 
 cynic she was. 
 
 That was not the impression produced upon 
 me by it, for her eyes were swimming in 
 tears, and I knew her too well to suspect her 
 of heartlessness or selfishness. But what could 
 I do, except answer in a hurried and shame- 
 faced manner that I supposed beggars must 
 not be choosers? If I had spoken kindly to 
 her, she would only have broken down, which 
 would have done neither her nor me nor my 
 mother any good. 
 
 As I said before, I was resolved not to let 
 her marry old Burgess; but 1 believe I was 
 wrong in hinting, at the end of the last chapter, 
 that she herself had any arriere pensee in the 
 matter, beyond a not unpardonable desire to 
 put off the evil day as long as might be. 
 The sacrifice which she contemplated is one 
 which is made by hundreds — thousands, perhaps 
 — of women every year ; and since the results 
 are seldom openly tragic, no doubt their ex- 
 amples encourage the others. I should not think, 
 however that there can be many men to whom
 
 46 HIS GRACE. 
 
 the idea of marriage without love is anything 
 short of inherently repulsive. 
 
 This being so, and the circumstances admit- 
 ting of no immediate action on my part, I was 
 glad to turn away from the connection of any 
 such thought with my sister. For the first 
 time in my life, I was glad to leave her, and 
 to betake myself to Hurstbourne Castle, where, 
 as it turned out, there was plenty of work 
 waiting for me with which to occupy my mind. 
 
 Hurstbourne Castle ought, perhaps, rather to 
 be known as Hurstbourne Palace ; for it cer- 
 tainly is not a castle in the strict sense of 
 the word — having been built in the sixteenth 
 century, upon the site of the ancient feudal 
 structure which was demolished to make way 
 for it. 
 
 The late duke (so I have been told by a 
 lady who knew him) once remarked that it 
 was a fine place to look at, and suitable for 
 purposes of entertainment on a large scale ; but 
 that he should be sorry to be condemned to 
 live there. As a matter of fact, he did not 
 live there — preferring the adjacent estate of
 
 HIS GRACE AND HIS MOTHER. 47 
 
 Lavenham, which he had purchased, and where 
 there was a large modern house, surrounded 
 by gardens — upon the cultivation of which he 
 had expended a small fortune. 
 
 Hurstbourne he had been accustomed to make 
 use of two or three times in the course of the 
 year for the purpose just mentioned, and possibly 
 his dislike for the place may have been connected 
 with his well-known dislike for entertaining upon 
 a large scale. His enormous wealth enabled him 
 to maintain an enormous establishment in a resi- 
 dence which he so rarely visited ; and thus it 
 did not present a deserted or uncared-for appear- 
 ance, although the general effect of it was a 
 trifle gloomy and depressing during the winter 
 months. 
 
 It was on a fine hot afternoon in one of the 
 finest and hottest summers of recent years that 
 I first made acquaintance with my future place 
 of abode, and it certainly struck me that any 
 duke who could not be satisfied with such a 
 glorious and beautiful home must be an un- 
 commonly hard duke to please. For the vast 
 Tudor building, which is pronounced by com-
 
 48 HIS GRACE. 
 
 petent judges to be as perfect a specimen of 
 that order of architecture as there is in exist- 
 ence, stands high, dominating a boundless ex- 
 panse of park, where fallow deer and Highland 
 cattle can scarcely be conscious of any sense 
 of captivity, and the timber is more magnificent 
 than anything that I know of elsewhere, and 
 in the month of June the admiring spectator 
 is seldom reminded of the proximity of the 
 storm - swept German Ocean. The number of 
 people who cannot stand country life unless 
 they are supported by the presence of a crowd 
 of fellow-creatures is, I know, large and increas- 
 ing ; but, personally, I am not capable of entering 
 into their feelings. I was brought up in the 
 country ; I love it and everything belonging 
 to it, be the weather fair or foul: added to 
 which, I am not, and never was, fitted to shine 
 in society. Consequently, I was by no means 
 scared at the prospect of a prolonged period 
 of solitude; nor, when I was shown the very 
 comfortable quarters which had been prepared 
 for my reception, did I see any reason to 
 regret my stufiy little London lodgings.
 
 HIS GRACE AND HIS MOTHER. 49 
 
 There is no occasion to weary the reader 
 with a detailed account of the affairs which 
 it was now my duty to take in hand, or of 
 the obstacles in my path which I had to sur- 
 mount or push aside; I will only say, with 
 regard to those obstacles, that they proved far 
 less numerous than I had anticipated, and that 
 there was every excuse for the old retainers 
 who, at first, showed some disposition to be 
 obstructive. New brooms cannot expect to be 
 welcomed; it was, of course, probable that the 
 young Duke, being so much less wealthy than 
 his predecessor, would wish to cut down ex- 
 penses, and a servant who for many years has 
 been well paid in return for very little work 
 naturally does not relish the idea of dismissal. 
 However, my present instructions were to dis- 
 miss nobody, and, after a long and careful 
 study of the documents submitted to me, I 
 was able to arrive at the highly satisfactory 
 conclusion that nobody needed to be dismissed. 
 Stewards, bailiffs, gamekeepers and house servants, 
 they were all respectful and civil to me from 
 the outset ; as soon as they understood that I 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 50 HIS GRACE. 
 
 did not contemplate any sweeping reforms, they 
 became my very good friends and did what 
 they could to assist me in the carrying out of 
 those which I deemed imperative. There was, 
 to be sure, rather a superfluity of dependents; 
 still, Hurstbourne's means were ample enough to 
 justify him in retaining their services — always 
 supposing that is, that he did not squander his 
 means in London or elsewhere. 
 
 "I do hope, sir," said the house-steward, a 
 grave, grey-headed personage, "that we shall 
 see his Grace here before the autumn. I should 
 think, sir, that his Grace would reside chiefly 
 at Hurstbourne, now that Lavenham has gone 
 away from the family." 
 
 I could give no information as to the new 
 owner's plans, seeing that I did not possess any. 
 
 "But Lavenham hasn't gone away from the 
 family, has it ? " I asked. " I understood that 
 it had been left to Mr Paul Gascoigne." 
 
 "Yes, sir, yes; the property was left to Mr 
 Paul," answered the house-steward, with an air 
 of discreet reserve. "I meant that the property 
 had been left away from his Grace. I am
 
 HIS GRACE AND HIS MOTHER. 51 
 
 sorry for it, sir, if I may make so bold as to 
 say so. I fear that liis Grace's influence in 
 the county may be diminished, and that some 
 folks will be inclined to look upon Mr Paul 
 Gascoigne as the head of the family — which he 
 is not, sir." 
 
 From this, as well as from other hints which 
 were dropped in my presence, I was led to 
 infer that Mr Paul Gascoigne had not won the 
 affections of his late uncle's retainers ; but I 
 asked no questions, not caring to discuss such 
 delicate matters with those amongst whom it 
 was obviously essential to maintain a strict 
 standard of discipline. I will say for them, 
 that they, on their side, abstained from ques- 
 tioning me more than they could help, great 
 though their curiosity must naturally have 
 been to hear something about the young head 
 of the family, upon whom none of them had 
 set eyes during his uncle's lifetime. I gave 
 them such information as I could ; I told them 
 that he was of a generous disposition, that he 
 was a good sportsman, that he had many friends 
 and, to the best of my belief, no enemies. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF flUNOIj?
 
 52 HIS GRACE. 
 
 More than that I could not tell them, because 
 that was all, or almost all, that I myself knew 
 about him. I was not going to mention certain 
 misgivings which, as time went on, began to 
 trouble me, owing to the accounts which 1 
 received from him of his expenditure. 
 
 For he did appear to me to be going the 
 pace somewhat faster than was prudent. No 
 doubt it was necessary that he should have a 
 London residence, since the family mansion in 
 Park Lane had passed into his cousin's posses- 
 sion, and he may have done well to purchase 
 a large house and furniture in Berkeley Square 
 which happened to be in the market just then; 
 but I should have been better pleased if he 
 had waited awhile before treating himself to 
 a five-hundred-ton steam yacht and a deer-forest 
 in Scotland, while his casual intimation that 
 he proposed ere long to set up a racing-stable 
 filled me with dismay. It was not that there 
 was anything out of the way in a man of his 
 income owning such luxuries — or, at all events, 
 some of them; only, his uncle having left him 
 literally without one penny in hard cash, I did
 
 BIS GRACE AND BIS MOTBER. 53 
 
 not see how houses and yachts and deer-forests, 
 not to speak of racing-studs, were to be paid 
 for without the negotiation of a considerable loan. 
 Now, the negotiation of loans did not come 
 within the scope of my department ; so that 
 I had to content myself with warning him 
 that , so far as I could calculate the cost of 
 his present scale of living, his bankers' book 
 would show but a small balance at the end 
 of the year. He replied by return of post 
 that that was first-rate. " Balance indeed ! Who 
 wants a big balance ? " he asked ; and as I 
 read the words, I seemed to hear the jolly 
 laugh with which they had been written. 
 
 Hurstbourne has a clear, ringing laugh which 
 I would defy the most saturnine of mortals 
 to resist. When he indulges in it he shuts 
 his eyes and throws back his head, displaying 
 a fine double row of white teeth, and in 
 another moment everybody within ear-shot of 
 him has begun to grin or chuckle. No doubt 
 he was at that time doing a great deal towards 
 promoting the general hilarity in London ; for, 
 judging by the reports which penetrated to
 
 54 J'lIS GRACE. 
 
 our nothern regions during that period of 
 Jubilee, he was taking part in every species 
 of obtainable amusement. Under the circum- 
 stances, he could not without obvious hypocrisy 
 have pretended to lament his deceased uncle, 
 and nobody, I believe, has ever thought of 
 accusing Hurstbourne of hypocrisy. 
 
 When the London season was at an end, he 
 betook himself, as was to be expected, to Good- 
 wood and Cowes, and I presumed that he 
 would proceed from thence to Scotland. I was, 
 therefore, both pleased and surprised when, 
 towards the middle of August, I received a 
 notification from him to the effect that he was 
 coming home, accompanied by his mother, and 
 that he hoped the spare bedrooms were all 
 right, because he had asked a lot of people 
 down to stay. The spare bedrooms were all 
 right, and, indeed, everything in the house was 
 all right; the late ov/ner having, it appeared, 
 been in the habit of allowing ca7ie blanche to 
 the housekeeper in the matter of necessary 
 renewals of furniture, and having also had 
 the decency to let the furniture go with the
 
 BIS GRACE AND HIS MOTHER. 55 
 
 title ; so that the only thing I had to think 
 about was the organising of a suitable recep- 
 tion for the new Duke. 
 
 Aided by the steward, the bailiff and others, 
 I was able to arrange this to my satisfaction. 
 The tenantry turned out on horseback, triumphial 
 arches were erected, a holiday was accorded to 
 the school children, and shortly before the ap- 
 pointed hour I arrived at Lavenham Road Station, 
 with an illuminated address tucked under my 
 arm, which Mr Higgins, the senior tenant, who 
 was to present it, had intrusted to me, explain- 
 ing that when he mounted his young mare he 
 preferred to have the free use of both hands. 
 T was quite astonished to see such a crowd upon 
 the platform, where I became aware of many faces 
 hitherto unknown to me, nor could I account for 
 the presence of half-a-dozen strange servants attired 
 in the Gascoigne livery; but when Mr Higgins, 
 very red in the face after his ride, joined me, 
 he cleared up the mystery and gave me imfor- 
 mation as to what he and I agreed was a some- 
 what awkward conti'eteriips. Mr Paul Gascoigne, 
 it seemed, had selected this day of all others for
 
 56 JUS GRACE. 
 
 taking formal possession of his property; he was 
 coming down in the same train with the Duke ; 
 for him also triumphial arches had been set up; 
 his tenantry, like ours, had assembled to welcome 
 him ; and the worst of it was that he had a 
 much larger array of tenants than his cousin 
 could boast of. 
 
 "He have done it o' purpose, sir," the old man 
 said, adding some forcible expressions which, as 
 Mr Higgins is churchwarden, I forbear to record. 
 "His nature it is to spoil sport, and true to his 
 nature he will be so long as there's life in the 
 . ugly carcass of him, you may depend. Now, I 
 ain't got no quarrel with them as is bound to 
 receive him proper ; but it do grieve me to think 
 that his Grace must drive away from this station 
 in a carriage and pair, when that there feller 
 has got four bosses and postillions waiting for 
 him." 
 
 We might have had four horses, and I was 
 sorry that I had not thought of it; but there 
 was no time to make any alteration in the 
 arrangements; so I stated boldly that the Prince 
 of Wales habitually sat behind a pair, and that
 
 HIS GRACE AND HIS MOTHER. 57 
 
 in these days of macadamised roads, leaders were 
 considered as not only useless but as savouring 
 of vulgar ostentation. 
 
 I don't know whether Mr Higgins was satis- 
 fied ; but I know that I was not, and when 
 the train drew up beside the platform and 
 Hurstbourne stepped out of a saloon carriage, 
 I saw at once by his face that he, too, was a 
 little bit annoyed. He was followed by a stout 
 lady, whose hair was of that peculiar golden 
 tint which has never yet been known to grow 
 naturally upon a human scalp, and to whom he 
 introduced me, saying, — 
 
 "You ought to be acquainted with my mother, 
 Martyn, for she has been acquainted with you 
 by repute for a very long time." 
 
 She had a good-natured face, and she said 
 a few kindly words to me as she shook hands ; 
 and she manifested quite plainly the vexation 
 which her son was making gallant efforts to 
 disguise. 
 
 The next person to emerge from the train 
 was a tall, thin, clean-shaven man with an eye- 
 glass, whose identity was immediately revealed
 
 SS HIS GRACE. 
 
 by the somewhat uncalled-for haste with whicK 
 his henchmen pushed forward to greet him. I 
 could not altogether agree with Mr Higgins that 
 his carcass was an ugly one, although I did not 
 much like the look of him. He wore a depre- 
 cating and faintly amused air, as who should 
 say, "I am really very sorry to have put any- 
 one to inconvenience; but it is no fault of mine. 
 I can't help it, my dear cousin, if I am a bigger 
 man than you, and I can't prevent all these 
 good people from displaying their natural affec- 
 tion for me." 
 
 I believe he actually did say something almost 
 as bad as that to Hurstbourne, on taking leave 
 of him, after they had received and responded 
 to their respective addresses and were moving 
 towards the exit, amidst an outburst of cheer- 
 ing, which, let us hope, was meant to be divided 
 impartially between them. 
 
 "I must say," exclaimed Lady Charles, as we 
 seated ourselves in the carriage, "that that man's 
 impudence is past all bearing. Anybody else 
 would have felt ashamed of having schemed to 
 defraud a relation of his rights, but he positively
 
 HIS GRACE AND HIS MOTHER. 59 
 
 glories in it. Thank Heaven, he hasn't got the 
 title — though, I believe, if he could see his way 
 to get it by poisoning you without risk of de- 
 tection, he would." 
 
 " Oh, come, mother," said Hurstbourne laughing, 
 "he isn't so bad as all that, and I daresay he 
 didn't scheme. But he's an irritating beggar, 
 I admit, and I don't think it was very pretty 
 of him to come down and take the shine out 
 of us in this way." 
 
 "We'll take the shine out of him before we've 
 done with him," returned Lady Charles in a 
 resolute voice. 
 
 Lady Charles Gascoigne was a vulgar woman,, 
 and the vulgarity of her mind was destined to 
 cause me much subsequent annoyance, because 
 I did not think that the influence which she 
 exercised over Hurstbourne was a salutary one ; 
 but it is mere justice to her to own that she 
 was kind - hearted and that, according to her 
 lights, she had been a good wife and mother. 
 The only daughter of a rich Birmingham merchant, 
 she had cheerfully acquiesced in the squandering 
 of her fortune by her husband, and had as cheer-
 
 6o HIS GRACE. 
 
 fully submitted to privations in order that her 
 son might be enabled to associate with his equals. 
 I am sure she would have cut off her right hand 
 to serve him ; if she did not know how to serve 
 bim wisely, perhaps she was not to blame for 
 her incapacity. Later in the evening, when our 
 stately progress had been accomplished without 
 a hitch, and the tenants had been refreshed, and 
 Hurstbourne had addressed them in a neat 
 little speech, she was so good as to take an 
 opportunity of morally patting me on the head. 
 
 ''His Grace," said she (it was one of her 
 provoking habits to speak always of her son 
 in that absurd way), " has a great esteem for 
 you, Mr Martyn, and I do feel that we are 
 much indebted to you for all the trouble that 
 you have taken. It is such an immense bless- 
 ing in a large establishment like this to have 
 -a gentleman to whom one can give instructions, 
 and who will see that they are probably carried 
 out. His Grace, as you know, is by no means 
 as rich as he ought to be; still, he is very 
 desirous of entertaining his visitors in a style 
 befitting his rank, and I am sure you will
 
 BIS GRACE AND HIS MOTHER. 6i 
 
 understand how vexed he would be if his 
 cousin, who, I believe, is going to have a 
 large house-party next week, were to out-do 
 him in any way." 
 
 I certainly did not think that it would be 
 worth his Grace's while to out-do in the 
 matter of splendour a man who was notori- 
 ously far more wealthy than he ; but I only 
 bowed and held my peace. What disquieted 
 me more than Lady Charles's ambition was 
 a remark which fell from Hurstbourne himself, 
 while we were sitting in the smoking-room 
 after she had gone to bed. 
 
 "I've no quarrel with that fellow Paul," 
 said he, "and I'm not going to quarrel with 
 him so long as he chooses to keep friends; 
 but I don't mean him to ride rough-shod over 
 me either, and if he tries that on, I expect 
 there will be a fight." 
 
 Now, Hurstbourne was a combative little 
 man, and, considering what the respective 
 situations of the rivals were, it seemed not 
 unlikely that his combativeness might assert 
 itself after a very foolish fashion.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A HOUSE-WARMING. 
 
 On the following morning Hurstbourne and I 
 went out for a ride together. He said he 
 wanted to have a look at his new dominions, 
 and certainly he could not have made ac- 
 quaintance with them under more favourable 
 conditions; for a light wind was blowing from 
 the eastward, which tempered the heat of the 
 sun, and the whole face of Nature wore so 
 smiling and peaceful an aspect, that w^e might 
 almost have fancied ourselves as many miles 
 south of London as we actually were north 
 of that grimy, sweltering city. Our horses, 
 having for a long time past done no work 
 beyond their daily walking exercise, were fat 
 and out of condition ; so that they gave us 
 no trouble, and we could chat quite comfort- 
 ably as we jogged across the grass. Hurst- 
 bourne, with his mouth open, kept on drawing 
 
 62
 
 A HOUSE-WARMING. 63 
 
 long breaths of the salt-laden breeze into his 
 lungs, and heaving little sighs of contentment. 
 
 "This is something like," said he. "This 
 is better than Hyde Park, and a very great 
 deal better than stifling ball-rooms. I wish 
 I could live here all my days, like a country 
 gentleman, and perhaps run up to town for 
 a couple of months or so in the season." 
 
 "I wish you would," I replied, "and I know 
 no earthly reason why you shouldn't." 
 
 He shook his head, and assured me that 
 there were lots of reasons why such a scheme 
 of existence must be regarded as impracticable 
 in his case. 
 
 "I don't want to be an absolute cypher," 
 he explained ; " I don't think a Duke of Hurst- 
 bourne ought to be that. My uncle, to be 
 sure, lived his own life and didn't bother him- 
 self much about politics or society; but then 
 he was so beastly rich that it wasn't possible 
 to disregard him, and he knew very well that 
 he could make his power felt at any moment 
 if he chose. It's rather different with me, 
 you see; I must keep myself pretty promi-
 
 64 HIS GRACE. 
 
 nently before the eyes of the world, or I 
 
 shall sink into downright insignificance." 
 
 I asserted somewhat hastily that a duke can 
 never be an insignificant personage; but he 
 responded by naming one or two wearers of 
 the strawberry-leaves to whom I had to ad- 
 mit that the adjective applied, and he added 
 that he was not desirous of swelling that in- 
 glorious list. 
 
 " My mother," said he, " saw from the first 
 how it would be; and a sharp fellow like 
 you has most likely discovered already that 
 my mother has a head upon her shoulders." 
 
 I had been sharp enough to discover that 
 Lady Charles Gascoigne had a singularly fool- 
 ish head upon her shoulders; but, naturally, 
 I did not hint at anything so impolite as that. 
 I merely inquired in what particular fashion 
 her ladyship desired that her son should render 
 himself prominent. 
 
 " Oh, not in one way more than another," 
 he answered ; " only she sees what you your- 
 self must have seen yesterday, that Paul Gas- 
 coigne means to over-shadow me, if he can
 
 A HOUSE-WARMING. 65 
 
 and she thinks I should be an ass to submit 
 to it. So do I, for the matter of that." 
 
 Being unable to concur in such sentiments, 
 I held my tongue, and he went on to eulogise 
 liis mother in terms which were half painful, 
 half comical to a disinterested hearer. He 
 did not stop at declaring her to be the clever- 
 est woman of his acquaintance ; as I am a 
 sinful man, he proceeded to praise her personal 
 beauty, the remarkable youthfulness of her 
 appearance and her unerring good taste. Often 
 and often have I wondered whether Hurst- 
 bourne's filial afiection and admiration were in 
 reality what they were ostensibly. One knows 
 how a man will take you into his stables 
 and defiantly forestall criticism by claiming 
 points for his horses which are the very 
 points they lack. "You imagine," he seems 
 to say, "that that animal is not well -ribbed 
 l:)ack, or that that fore-leg upon which you 
 have fixed your eye shows signs of a splint ; 
 but let me tell you that you are utterly and 
 ridiculously mistaken." Perhaps one thinks that 
 he ought to know best; in any case, one 
 VOL. I. E
 
 66 HIS GRACE, 
 
 refrains from saying what one had been going 
 to say. But, upon the whole, I really do 
 believe that Hurstbourne was sincere. It is 
 his nature to be like that ; his geese are 
 swans ; the people whom he loves cannot do 
 wrong, and I am afraid also that the few 
 people whom he hates cannot do right. 
 
 It was plain enough that he hated his 
 cousin. He did not say so; but he gave me 
 to understand as much, and I gathered that 
 the large and influential assemblage which he 
 was about to entertain was intended to be in 
 some sort a slap in the face to the neighbour- 
 ing potentate. He furnished me with a list — 
 and a very imposing list it was — of the guests 
 who were to arrive that day and the next. 
 There were two Cabinet Ministers among them 
 and a host of lords and ladies, some of whose 
 names were familiar to me, while others, as I 
 learnt from him, were stars of the first magni- 
 tude in that system which revolves round a 
 royal sun. 
 
 "I'm going to make a sort of house-w^arm- 
 ing business of it, don't you know," said he
 
 A HOUSE-WARMING, 67 
 
 " One is bound to have a house-warming, eh ? 
 Anyhow, my mother thinks so, and her idea 
 is to give a big dinner to the neighbours, 
 followed by a ball. She has found out that 
 there's no ball-room at Lavenham ; so we 
 ought to score one there." 
 
 This sounded very feminine, and, whatever 
 Hurstbourne may be, he is not a feminine 
 person; but who doesn't know the disastrous 
 effects of feminine influence upon the best of 
 men? It is in fact upon the best of men, I 
 think, that such influence proves the most 
 deteriorating ; only a downright brute can 
 boast that he is his wife's master. Lady 
 Charles, it is true, was not Hurstbourne's 
 wife; but he was such a good fellow, that a 
 mother was almost as bad as a wife to him. 
 So there was evidently nothing for it but to 
 engage in this contemptible contest, and as 
 soon as we returned to the house I had an 
 interview with the housekeeper, who informed 
 me that she had already been in consultation 
 with her ladyship. 
 
 Neither then nor at any subsequent time was
 
 68 HIS GRACE. 
 
 I brought into collision with her ladyship. Her 
 notions with regard to entertaining were some- 
 what magnificent; but then it was quite right, 
 and, indeed, inevitable, that if Hurstbourne was 
 to entertain at all, he should do so in a mag- 
 nificent style. There was money enough to 
 meet current expenses, there was plenty of 
 wine in the cellars, and it was not my business 
 — at any rate for the present — to protest 
 against such orders as had been given. The 
 exalted personages who proceeded to take up 
 their quarters with us were not, I trust, dis- 
 satisfied with the board and lodging provided 
 for them, nor, with such an army of well- 
 trained domestics at command, was there any 
 difficulty about making them comfortable. Of 
 course, I kept out of their way as much as I 
 could. I was only a sort of upper servant, 
 though my dear old Hurstbourne was at great 
 pains to explain to each and all of them that 
 I was under his roof in the character of a 
 tried and valued friend. I don't for a 
 moment suppose that they believed him; still 
 they were kind enough to refrain from tramp-
 
 A HOUSE-WARMING. 69 
 
 ling upon me, and I had to play lawn-tennis 
 with some of them, no sport being obtainable 
 at that time of the year for the employment 
 of their leisure hours. 
 
 The big dinner proved, all things considered, 
 a big success. The lord-lieutenant of the 
 county and the other local celebrities, great 
 and small, were present at it; they were 
 charmed, as well they might be, with their 
 genial host; they did not seem to be much 
 shocked by their genial hostess; and my only 
 reason for speaking in qualified terms of the 
 triumph of the feast is, that Mr Paul Gas- 
 coigne was one of those who sat down to it. 
 I frankly confess that I am unable to draw 
 an impartial portrait of Paul Gascoigne. All 
 I can find to say for him is that he is a 
 gentleman of unblemished reputation, that 
 he has earned a high character for benevo- 
 lence, and that he is one of those wealthy 
 and respectable mediocrities from whom the 
 rank and file of British statesman are 
 commonly recruited. He is irrevocably destined 
 to be a Secretary of State one of these fine
 
 70 BIS GRACE. 
 
 days. Unfortunately, he is one of those people 
 — everybody is acquainted with a few such — 
 who have always been personally abhorrent 
 to me ; people whom one cannot greet in the 
 ordinary manner without an almost irresis- 
 tible longing to rub one's hand vulgarly after- 
 wards upon one's trousers; people to whom 
 one cannot manage to speak civilly, although 
 one has no excuse whatsoever for describing 
 them as scoundrels. I have said already that 
 he was tall, thin, clean-shaven, and that he 
 wore an eyeglass ; I may add now that he 
 was rather good-looking than otherwise, and 
 that he had a clear, not unmelodious voice. 
 To what the prompt aversion which I con- 
 ceived for him was due I cannot explain, 
 because I don't know. It was not, at all 
 events, due to his air of slightly contempt- 
 uous patronage, nor even to the irritating 
 way in which he made himself at home and 
 seized opportunities of addressing each of the 
 servants by name. Hurstbourne (Castle had, 
 as a matter of fact, been his home for many 
 years, and he was perhaps entitled to remind
 
 A HOUSE-WARMING. 71 
 
 us of the circumstance. However, if I had 
 not ah'eady hated him in the earlier part of 
 the evening, I daresay I should have done so 
 when the ladies left us after dinner, and 
 when he deliberately set to work to provoke 
 his cousin. 
 
 "How are you getting on with the good 
 people hereabouts, Arthur ? " he inquired, dangling 
 his eyeglass on his fore-finger and adopting 
 very much the tone which a good-natured 
 sixth -form boy might adopt in addressing a 
 youngster. "You'll find the farmers rather a 
 hard-headed lot to deal with; though my im- 
 pression of them — and of course I know them 
 pretty well — is that their Radicalism is only 
 skin deep. Still you must take them the right 
 way, if you want to do any good with them." 
 
 "I haven't spoken to them about that sort of 
 thing," answered Hurstbourne; "but, perhaps, if 
 I had, I shouldn't have tried to convert them 
 from what you call Radicalism." 
 
 "My dear fellow, you surely don't mean to 
 say that you yourself are a Radical ? That 
 would be very funny."
 
 72 HIS GRACE. 
 
 "Would it? Well, I don't suppose I am so 
 funny as that. I have always been a Liberal, 
 like the rest of our family," said Hurstbourne, 
 who, I am sure, had never in his life been guilty 
 of holding any political opinions whatsoever. 
 
 "The rest of our family? Oh, if you mean 
 my uncle, I can assure you that he was as 
 good a Tory as I am, although, for the sake 
 of old traditions, he called himself a Liberal 
 Unionist. For my own part, I don't think it 
 is either wise or honest to use thin disguises, 
 and that is why I proclaim myself openly as 
 being what I am." 
 
 " Well, so long as you do that, nobody is likely 
 to question your wisdom or your honesty," re- 
 marked Hurstbourne, cutting short the harangue 
 upon which an elderly statesman, who was seated 
 beside him, had embarked. "We mustn't begin 
 to talk politics, or we sha'n't get out of 
 the room in time to receive the dancing people. 
 What are you drinking?" 
 
 " Port, thanks. This is the '47 of course. I 
 was so glad to let you have it. I have some 
 of the same vintage at Lavenham ; but, as I
 
 A BO USE- WARMING. 73 
 
 always used to tell my uncle, it hasn't matured 
 in the same way. I only wish it had." 
 
 " I paid you your own price for it, you know," 
 Hurstbourne said. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; you paid me what I asked. One 
 can't really put a price upon such wine as this ; 
 but I felt that it would be a positive sin to 
 disturb it." 
 
 He leant back in his chair and held his glass 
 up to the light, closing one eye, while he scruti- 
 nised its contents. "Ah, I thought so," he 
 sighed ; " it has been a little bit shaken. I 
 remonstrated with Feltham again and again about 
 his carelessness in carrying up wine; but it was 
 no use, and finally I had to make a point of 
 doing it myself. The fact is, that one can't 
 trust the best butler in the world with these 
 delicate operations. You will find Feltham a very 
 good, steady man in other respects, though." 
 
 Hurstbourne, who is too thorough a gentleman 
 to resent any impertinence on the part of a 
 guest, kept his temper admirably. Nevertheless, 
 I have no doubt that he longed to kick the 
 fellow, and so did I. That we were not alone
 
 74 HIS GRACE. 
 
 in entertaining such sentiments was made evident 
 to me by the tightened lips and lowered brows of 
 the country gentlemen who formed the majority 
 of the assemblage. While we were leaving the 
 room, one of these, a spare, gray-headed individual, 
 whom I subsequently discovered to be Colonel 
 Corbin, the M.F.H., told me how glad he had 
 been to hear that the Duke was a hunting as 
 well as a shooting man. 
 
 "In the old Duke's time," said he, "that beg- 
 gar Paul Gascoigne had things all his own way, 
 and the consequence was, that we never drew 
 these coverts, except for form's sake. I wish 
 to heaven we hadn't got him at Lavenham ; but 
 it's something that he doesn't rule the roost here- 
 abouts any more." 
 
 " Mr Gascoigne doesn't hunt, then ? " said I 
 interrogatively. 
 
 " He ! Lord bless your soul, no ; he wouldn't 
 risk his precious person in that way. He can 
 shoot, or he thinks he can — well, I believe he is 
 a pretty fair shot. But he's no sportsman, as I've 
 taken the liberty of telling him more than once." 
 
 From this, and from other remarks, which were
 
 A HOUSE-WARMING. 75 
 
 made to me during the evening, I was led to 
 conclude that Mr Gascoigne enjoyed no greater 
 popularity- amongst his equals in the county 
 than he did amongst his inferiors. Yet money 
 is power, and i£ the men, or some of them, 
 fought shy of him, the ladies appeared to like 
 him very well. I watched him from the retired 
 position which I had taken up in a corner of 
 the ball-room, and I saw that the old women 
 welcomed him eagerly, while such of the young 
 ones as he was pleased to dance with evidently 
 exerted themselves to earn his approval. He 
 was, however, a bad dancer, and probably he 
 did not care enough about any of the young 
 ladies to exhibit himself under an unbecoming 
 aspect for their benefit. Long before the supper 
 hour he ceased to adventure himself in the 
 throng and sauntered down the long room, paus- 
 ing every now and again to address a few con- 
 descending words to this or that person among 
 the lookers-on, until he reached the spot where 
 I was standing, when he was good enough to 
 lean against the wall, by my side, and enter 
 into conversation.
 
 76 HIS GRACE. 
 
 "Am I to compliment you upon this brilliant 
 transformation scene, Mr Martyn?" he inquired. 
 " You are playing Mentor to Arthur's Telemachus, 
 I am told, and certainly I can't imagine that 
 either he or his mother possess the decorative 
 skill of which we see so many evidences around 
 us. It is diflScult to believe that this is really 
 the same old Hurstbourne Castle which my 
 uncle and I used to regard as the dreariest of 
 our abodes." 
 
 I said that the credit of having arranged the 
 floral display which he admired was due, I be- 
 lieved, to the head gardener, and I added that 
 my duties were not of the nature alluded to. 
 
 "No? That is almost a pity, I think; for 
 if the entertaining department is to be confided 
 to Lady Charles, I am afraid we shall not 
 always have such cause to congratulate our- 
 selves as we have to-night. There she is, and 
 one must make the best of her ; but who her 
 friends are, and what sort of people she will 
 invite to stay in the house, one shrinks from 
 conjecturing. She appears to be a worthy kind 
 of woman in her way, though. Has she got
 
 A HOUSE-WARMING. 77 
 
 Arthur completely under her thumb, do you 
 think?" 
 
 I replied that I really didn't know, but that 
 a man of Hurstboume's age is usually assumed 
 to be out of leading-strings. 
 
 "Oh, but that is a very unwarrantable 
 assumption," he rejoined, laughing. "Arthur, 
 I should say, would always be in leading-strings, 
 and I was rather in hopes that you held them. 
 I suppose he wouldn't listen to good advice 
 from me; but he stands sorely in need of good 
 advice from somebody, I assure you. He is 
 trying, you see, to make a pint-pot hold a 
 quart, which is an experiment that has never 
 yet been crowned with success, often as it has 
 been attempted. He may hold on for a year or 
 two, if he doesn't bet; but, of course, he will 
 bet. I am sorry for it, — especially as it won't be 
 in my power to help him by buying this estate, 
 which is entailed ; but quos Deus vult perdere — " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and turned away, leav- 
 ing me with a firm conviction that he had meant me 
 to report those last words of his to Hurstboume, 
 and with an equally firm determination that
 
 78 HIS GRACE. 
 
 1 would do no such thing. He would have 
 alarmed me more if his malevolence had not 
 been so obvious; still, even as it was, he did 
 contrive to make me feel uneasy. The deer- 
 forest and the yacht and the home entertain- 
 ments were all very well ; but when a man 
 takes to owning race-horses and backing them, 
 who can fix any limit to his possible liabilities ? 
 
 My somewhat gloomy meditations were pre- 
 sently interrupted by the subject of them, who 
 came running across the room to ask me what 
 in the world I meant by not dancing. 
 
 " You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you lazy 
 beggar. Come along and be introduced to the 
 youth and beauty of the neighbourhood." 
 
 But I was not destined to become acquainted 
 with the youth and beauty of the neighbour- 
 hood that evening; for he had not towed me a 
 dozen paces before we were intercepted by a 
 servant, who handed me a telegram which, he 
 said, had just been brought from the station. 
 I knew instinctively that it had come from 
 Nora. I knew what its contents must be, and 
 when I tore it open, my worst fears were veri-
 
 A HOUSE-WARMING. 79 
 
 tied. I showed it to Hurstbourne, who glanced 
 at the urgent summons which it conveyed — 
 " Come home at once. Mother is very ill " — 
 and who, like the good, kind fellow that he 
 is, wasted no time in uttering commonplace 
 condolences, but took prompt measures for hav- 
 ing me sent to Lavenham Road to catch the 
 night mail. 
 
 " They'll stop it by signal for you," said he ; 
 "one of the grooms shall gallop over in a 
 minute or two to tell them. You'll have plenty 
 of time to pack up what things you want — a 
 good half -hour. Good-bye, old chap ; let me 
 have a line when you can, and, of course, don't 
 dream of coming back here until you can leave 
 home with a quiet mind. We're off to Scotland 
 next week ; but I hope I shall see you again 
 before very long." 
 
 So we parted ; and as I was being driven 
 rapidly across the park in a dog-cart, it seemed 
 to me by no means improbable that I had 
 turned my back upon Hurstbourne Castle for 
 ever.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SOLUTION OF A DIFFICULTY. 
 
 It was very good and thoughtful of Hurstbourne 
 to have the night mail stopped for me ; but 
 in reality the stationmaster's complaisance did 
 not save me much time; for I had to go up 
 to London, and, when there, I was compelled 
 to wait several hours before the early morning 
 train left for Essex. The delay, however, was 
 of small consequence, and indeed that was what 
 I kept on saying to myself, while I paced 
 wearily up and down the platform at Liver- 
 pool Street. I had read between the lines of 
 my sister's telegram; I had guessed that her 
 wish had been to spare me an unnecessary shock, 
 and when, between nine and ten o'clock in the 
 morning, I reached my destination at last, and 
 saw that all the blinds of our poor little cottage 
 were drawn down, there was no need for the
 
 THE SOLUTION OF A DIFFICULTY. 8i 
 sobbing incoherence of the housemaid to convince 
 me that all was over. 
 
 Nora, who evidently had not taken her clothes 
 off all night, came downstairs presently to tell 
 me all about it. TJiere was not much to tell. 
 She had been out rather late on the previous 
 afternoon, and, on her return, had found our 
 mother sitting, as usual, in her arm-chair and 
 apparently asleep. Something about the attitude 
 of the frail little figure had alarmed her; her 
 efforts to restore animation had failed; and then 
 she had sent for the doctor, although, long before 
 he appeared, there had been no doubt as to 
 the nature of the verdict. 
 
 " I didn't like to tell you what had happened," 
 
 Nora said in conclusion, "because I knew how 
 
 dreadfully you would feel it, and it seemed a 
 
 pity that you should be made unhappy through 
 
 all that long journey, with nobody to speak a 
 
 word of comfort to you. But you must try 
 
 to take comfort now, Phil ; for her life wasn't 
 
 a happy one of late, you know, and the doctor 
 
 says she must have died almost painlessly. After 
 
 all, there are many worse things than death." 
 VOL. I. F
 
 82 BIS GRACE. 
 
 I could quite understand her thinking so, poor 
 child, and I was touched, as well I might be, 
 by her ready sympathy with my sorrow, which 
 was not, and could not be, so heavy a one to 
 bear as hers. Nevertheless, the loss which had 
 fallen upon us was a deep and bitter grief to 
 us both. It is one with which almost every- 
 body must, of necessity, make acquaintance, and, 
 like other griefs, it is certain to be cured by 
 lapse of time ; yet there cannot be a great 
 many people who have, or have had, a mother 
 so patient, so indulgent and so self-sacrificing 
 as ours had always shown herself to us, nor 
 perhaps are there many people to whom the 
 death of a mother means all that it meant in 
 our case. Mr Burgess, who looked in, in the 
 course of the day, but whom Nora declined to 
 see, told me that we had been most mercifully 
 dealt with and ought to feel very thankful. 
 Possibly he was right; yet I didn't think at 
 the time, and don't think now, that I myself 
 should use such language if I wished to be 
 consolatory. 
 
 Mr Burgess was anxious to ascertain my wishes
 
 THE SOLUTION OF A DIFFICULTY. 83 
 
 with regard to the funeral, and also displayed 
 what struck me as a rather premature curiosity 
 as to the disposition of my poor mother's scanty 
 fortune. I answered his questions upon the 
 former point ; respecting the latter, I was unable 
 to give him any immediate information, and he 
 went away after expressing some dissatisfaction 
 at Nora's refusal to accord him an interview. 
 He said he hoped she was not meeting affliction 
 in a rebellious spirit, and I replied that, to 
 the best of my belief, she was not, but that 
 I could not have her disturbed for the present. 
 He did not allude to his engagement, nor did 
 I deem it incumbent upon me to make any 
 reference to that subject. 
 
 But of course I had to speak to Nora about 
 it. Not until after our mother's body had been 
 laid in its last resting-place beneath the shadow 
 of the old grey church - tower, were plans for 
 the future mooted by either of us; but on the 
 succeeding morning it was plain that we must 
 no longer shirk what was almost sure to be 
 a painful discussion. By that time we knew 
 the provisions of the will which Uncle John
 
 84 HIS GRACE. 
 
 who came down from London to attend the 
 funeral, informed us had been drawn up under 
 his instructions and advice. A sum of one 
 thousand pounds was to be held in trust for 
 Nora, while the remainder of the personalty, 
 amounting in all to something under nine thou- 
 sand, was bequeathed to me. Uncle John said 
 the arrangement was a fair and usual one, and 
 perhaps it was so, although it had the obvious 
 drawback of leaving practically unprovided for 
 a person who was not only incapable of pro- 
 viding for herself, but was a great deal too 
 proud to allow her brother to provide for her. 
 
 "I couldn't possibly do such a thing, Phil," 
 was the decisive answer which she returned to 
 a certain proposal of mine. "Setting aside any 
 personal scruples that I might feel about robbing 
 you, it would be downright dishonest to treat 
 our poor, dear old mother's will as if it didn't 
 exist. She knew very well what she was doing 
 when she made it, and she was certainly right. 
 With the little that she had to dispose of, forty 
 or fifty pounds a year was the utmost that she 
 could be expected to leave to a maiTied daughter."
 
 THE SOLUTION OF A DIFFICULTY. 85 
 
 " Only you are not a married daughter," I 
 observed. 
 
 " Well, I shall be before long ; there is nothing 
 to prevent me from fulfilling my engagement now." 
 
 I did not think it desirable to dispute that 
 assertion at the moment; but I pointed out that 
 the wedding could hardly take place next week, 
 or even next month. 
 
 "And what is to become of you in the mean- 
 time ? " I inquired. 
 
 That was not a very easy question to answer, 
 nor could Nora's declaration that she would 
 manage somehow, and that I wasn't to bother 
 myself, be regarded as disposing of it. However, 
 Mr Burgess, when he turned up soon after 
 luncheon, with a little pile of devotional works 
 under his arm, came prepared with a solution 
 of the difficulty which he was so kind as to 
 submit to our approval. Having heard his 
 elephantine tread upon the gravel, and having 
 caught a glimpse of him before he rang the 
 door-bell, I retired hurriedly into the garden to 
 smoke. He was entitled to claim the privilege 
 of a private interview with his fiancee, and if
 
 86 HIS GRACE. 
 
 he had anything to say to me, I presumed she 
 would let him know where to find me. 
 
 Well, I was tolerably sure that he would have 
 something to say to me ; so that I was not 
 surprised when, at the expiration of half an 
 hour or thereabouts, he came pacing across the 
 grass in order to say it. Nor, as far as that 
 goes, was I greatly surprised at the somewhat 
 aggrieved tone in which his remarks were de- 
 livered. He had not anticipated (so I forced him 
 to admit in plain terms after a lengthy and cir- 
 cuitous preamble) that my sister would be left 
 with so meagre a dowry. He himself was not 
 a rich man ; he had his children to consider ; 
 and, in short, he must confess that his dear 
 friend Mrs Martyn's testament appeared to him 
 to have been framed without due regard to the 
 circumstances of the case. 
 
 "I am sorry for that," answered I briskly; 
 "but of course you won't expect me to agree 
 with you. As for your engagement to my sister, 
 which I tell you frankly that I don't consider 
 by any means a good bargain for her, you have 
 only to say the word and it shall be off*."
 
 THE SOLUTION OF A DIFFICULTY. 87 
 
 He threw up his great hands and closed his 
 eyes in shocked deprecation of my brutality. Not 
 by him, he solemnly affirmed, should a promise, 
 once given, ever be revoked ; I little knew him 
 if I imagined that he was one who coveted riches, 
 or who would be willing to sacrifice the happiness 
 of others to his own comfort. Nevertheless, he 
 could not but feel that, if he had a sister situated 
 as my sister was — 
 
 "Yes, I am quite sure you would," I inter- 
 rupted, anticipating the generous course which 
 he would adopt in such an event; "but you 
 see, Mr Burgess, I have no pretensions to resemble 
 you in any way, and I am not a bit inclined to 
 pauperise myself in order that my sister may 
 become the stepmother of your children. I only 
 want to know what your intentions are; so that 
 I may make our arrangements fit in with them." 
 
 He looked pained, but disclaimed any intention 
 of gibing, which was rather a disappointment 
 to me. For reasons, the cogency of which he 
 said he had no doubt that I should appreciate, 
 he could not propose an immediate celebration 
 of his second nuptials. Advent would be upon
 
 88 HIS GRACE. 
 
 us before Nora could decently lay aside her 
 crape ; Christmas was always a busy and anxious 
 season ; Lent would fall early next year ; upon 
 the whole, he did not see how he could recon- 
 cile it with his duties and obligations to be 
 married until after Easter. He added that he 
 had talked the matter over with dear Nora, 
 who was quite of one mind with him about it. 
 Then he brought forward the proposition to which 
 I alluded just now. It was that Nora should 
 be despatched to a certain Home by the sea- 
 side that he knew of, where she would be well 
 cared for by the Sisters and would be provided 
 with work, in consideration of which no charge 
 would be made for her keep. He said he was 
 convinced that such a period of calm seclusion 
 and well-doing would contribute to her spiritual 
 as well as her temporal advantage. 
 
 I thanked him very much, and undertook to 
 give his plan full consideration. I also promised 
 (for indeed I was extremely anxious to get rid 
 of him) that I would consider the earnest and 
 affectionate counsels which he felt it right to 
 urge upon me with regard to my personal inheri-
 
 THE SOLUTION OF A DIFFICULTY. 89 
 
 tance. Ought I to profit by what he feared he 
 must call an unjust display of maternal tender- 
 ness ? Ought I to consult my own ease rather 
 than that of a helpless girl whose natural pro- 
 tector I was ? Those were questions which he 
 said he would leave to be decided in obedience 
 to the dictates of my conscience, and I replied 
 that he might safely do so. 
 
 It is, I hope, needless to say that I no more 
 intended my sister to enter that Home than I 
 intended her to espouse our saintly pastor; but 
 my half-formed resolution was to some extent 
 modified when I re-entered the house, where I 
 found Lady Deverell seated with Nora, and was 
 informed of an alternative project to which I 
 felt bound to agree, although I own that I 
 did so with some reluctance. 
 
 "It is all settled," Lady Deverell told me in 
 benevolent, authoritative accents; "Nora is to 
 come to me at Fern Hill as soon as you leave, 
 and to stay with me until she marries. I shall 
 be very pleased to have her, and I think I 
 can answer for it that Mr Burgess will approve 
 of her remaining in the parish. Mr Burgess
 
 90 HTS GRACE. 
 
 is so good and so disinterested a man that he 
 will be sure to be pleased with what pleases 
 her, so long as that does not conflict with his 
 strong sense of duty." 
 
 What could I say? It was certainly kind 
 of Lady Deverell to give such an invitation; 
 Nora was evidently eager to accept it, and 
 some little time must, in all probability, elapse 
 before I could offer my sister the shelter of a 
 roof of my own. I endeavoured, therefore, to 
 appear grateful and gracious ; but, I believe 
 I have already mentioned that I am a clumsy 
 creature, and perhaps my inability to swallow 
 down the bread of charity without making a 
 wry face over it was not concealed from our 
 patroness. At all events, she did not make me 
 look more pleasant (but possibly it was not 
 her wish to do that) by saying she had heard, 
 upon trustworthy authority, that the Duke of 
 Hurstbourne was leading "a profligate life," and 
 hoping that I should ere long sever my con- 
 nection with one whose example could not but 
 be injurious to me. 
 
 I replied that the risk of contagion was com-
 
 THE SOLUTION OF A DIFFICULTY. 91 
 
 paratively slight, seeing that the greater part 
 of his time had been spent, and was likely 
 to be spent, away from Hurstbourne Castle; 
 after which I effected a change of subject. I 
 could not quarrel with the woman whose help- 
 ing hand I had just taken on my sister's behalf, 
 nor could I very well help quarrelling with her 
 if I allowed her to calumniate my friend any 
 farther. 
 
 I had, however, made up my mind, on other 
 grounds than those so charitably urged by Lady 
 Deverell, that I must resign the post which I 
 held at Hurstbourne Castle. What my future 
 occupation was to be I hardly knew (I am 
 afraid I must confess that I had some thought 
 of earning a living by my pen); but my first 
 duty clearly was to secure a humble home in 
 London and remove Nora to it. She could not 
 refuse to keep house for me, even though she 
 would not hear of putting her fingers into my 
 purse. Nevertheless, she would, I knew, have 
 refused to let me give up my present employ- 
 ment on her account, and for that reason I 
 refrained from telling her what I proposed to do.
 
 92 HIS GRACE. 
 
 A few days later we parted. We had only 
 been yearly tenants of our cottage, for which 
 a new occupant was found without much diffi- 
 culty; the furniture was to be sold by auction, 
 and such of our belongings as we had been un- 
 willing to relinquish had, by Lady Deverell's 
 permission, been transported to the lumber room 
 at Fern Hill. 
 
 "I suppose the next time I shall see you, 
 will be on my wedding - day, Phil," Nora said 
 rather wistfully, when I took leave of her; to 
 which I replied that there was a very fair 
 chance of our meeting again before that aus- 
 picious date. 
 
 I did not want to have a scene — like the 
 majority of male Anglo-Saxons, I prefer letting 
 people divine my sentiments to expressing them 
 — but I did feel that I was a horrid brute, as 
 I drove towards the station and realised how 
 completely my poor Nora must be convinced 
 that I had abandoned her. I went straight to 
 Hurstbourne Castle, where I had some matters 
 of business to attend to; thence I telegraphed 
 to Glendwinish Lodge, which was the name
 
 THE SOLUTION OF A DIFFICULTY. 93 
 
 of Hurstbourne's newly - acquired Highland re- 
 sidence, to ask whether he could put me up 
 for a night, as I was anxious to confer with 
 him ; and, on receiving an affirmative reply, 
 I proceeded northwards. 
 
 On reaching my destination, I found a rather 
 large party assembled in a house of moderate 
 dimensions, for it appeared that there were 
 grouse as well as red -deer upon the Glend- 
 winish estate, and when I heard the names of 
 some of the noblemen and gentlemen who were 
 partaking of my patron's hospitality, I per- 
 ceived that the prospects of sport held out to 
 them must have been of no mean order. The 
 natural inference was that the price demanded 
 for such a property must have been a heavy 
 one ; but that, as I reflected with a sigh, was 
 a point as to which I had no longer any right 
 to feel anxiety. The men were tired after a 
 long day's shooting, and most of them went 
 to sleep even before they went to bed ; Lady 
 Charles, who was the sole representative of her 
 sex, disappeared immediately after dinner ; so 
 that the evening was not far advanced when
 
 94 HIS GRACE. 
 
 Hurstbourne, who had clad himself in a gorgeous 
 smoking-suit, was able to lead me into a small 
 room on the ground-floor where, he said, we 
 could talk without any fear of being inter- 
 rupted. He handed me a cigar, pushed me 
 into an arm-chair and began — 
 
 "Now, I know very well what has brought 
 you here, old chap. I've been outrunning the 
 constable, and you've come all this way to 
 lecture me, isn't that it ? Well, now you're 
 here, you'll have to stop and help us to bring 
 the grouse down, that's all. Of course, I've 
 parted with a good lump of money; but it's 
 the first start that comes so expensive, don't 
 you see ? Don't you fret yourself ; by this 
 time next year I shall be quite a capitalist. 
 That is, if I have any sort of luck." 
 
 I explained that, although his method of 
 converting himself into a capitalist did not 
 strike me as a particularly promising one, it 
 was not on that account that I had made so 
 bold as to invite myself to Glendwinish. I had 
 already informed him by letter of my mother's 
 death; I now thought it best to tell him quite
 
 THE SOLUTION OF A DIFFICULTY. 95 
 candidly how I was circumstanced. I narrated 
 the whole story of Nora's engagement to Mr 
 Burgess and Lady Deverell's proffered hospi- 
 tality, concluding by saying that I was sure 
 he would understand how necessary it was that 
 I should hand in my resignation, now that it 
 had become imperative upon me to take my 
 sister under my wing. 
 
 "My dear fellow," he returned unhesitatingly, 
 "there isn't the slightest necessity in the world 
 for you to resign your functions, unless you 
 want to resign them. I quite agree with you 
 that you will have to get your sister away 
 from that old tabby and her pet parson; but 
 what is to prevent her from joining you at 
 Hurstbourne? Surely the house is large enough 
 to hold two of you; and, for about three- 
 quarters of the year, you'll have it to your- 
 selves. I tell you plainly, Martyn, that I shall 
 think it deuced unfriendly of you if you leave 
 me in the lurch like this, at a moment's 
 warning ; and you will hardly be such an old 
 humbug as to pretend that I shall lay you 
 under any obligation by offering your sister
 
 96 HIS GRACE. 
 
 house-room. You know as well as anybody 
 that the amount of food which a young lady 
 is likely to consume won't make a perceptible 
 difference in the cost of keeping up the estab- 
 lishment." 
 
 That, of course, was a statement which could 
 not be controverted ; but I pointed out to him 
 that the extent of an obligation is not always 
 to be measured by the standard of pounds, 
 shillings and pence ; and, sincerely though I 
 was touched by his kindness, I felt compelled 
 to decline it. He argued with me for the 
 best part of an hour, and I had some ado to 
 resist appeals the force of which I could not 
 help inwardly acknowledging. However, I did 
 resist them; and at length he jumped up sud- 
 denly and made for the door, halting upon 
 the threshold to say — 
 
 " Stay where you are. I'll be with you 
 again in half a second." 
 
 He did not return quite so soon as that. 
 But I don't think more than twenty minutes 
 had elapsed before he re-entered the room, 
 dragging after him a lady who appeared to
 
 THE SOLUTION OF A DIFFICULTY. 97 
 
 have arrayed herself somewhat hurriedly in a 
 lace-bordered dressing-gown, and whose golden 
 locks were piled on to the top of her head 
 after a fashion which displayed the silver 
 undergrowth only too plainly to the amazed 
 beholder. 
 
 "Don't look at me, Mr Martyn!" exclaimed 
 Lady Charles, who, like the good-natured soul 
 that she was, was evidently almost as much 
 tickled as vexed at being exhibited in such a 
 plight. "It's all Arthur's fault. He has taken 
 it into his head that, if we can't persuade 
 you to do as we wish to-night, you will be 
 off the first thing in the morning; and he 
 thinks I can persuade you, though he can't." 
 
 She came and laid her hand on my shoulder, 
 adding — 
 
 "Now, my dear, good man, you mustn't be 
 so stupid and obstinate about it. What do 
 you know about girls and their requirements? 
 At any rate, you do know what our require- 
 ments are; and you may take my word for 
 it that your sister will be happier, as well as 
 more welcome, under our roof than she would 
 VOL. I. G
 
 98 HIS GRACE. 
 
 be with that sanctimonious old Lady Deverell. 
 She shall be free to do exactly as you and 
 she please; but if you like to let me chaperon 
 her, I will; and I really am a perfectly re- 
 spectable woman, though I know I don't look 
 like one at the present moment." 
 
 She was so kind, so natural, and so obviously 
 sincere — she did not even remember to call 
 Hurstbourne his Grace — that I ended by yield- 
 ing to her solicitations. I don't know whether 
 I was right or wrong ; I often thought, after- 
 wards, that I had been very wrong indeed ; 
 but, hypocritical as it may sound to say so, 
 I did honestly believe at the time that I should 
 be doing these good people a service by re- 
 maining with them, while it is needless to 
 add that the service which they proposed to 
 render to Nora was, in my view, an almost 
 incalculable one.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 NORA SCORES A SUCCESS. 
 
 Notwithstanding Hurstbourne's kindly entreaties, 
 I set my face south on the following day with- 
 out having exterminated a single grouse. I was 
 eager — perhaps too eager — to remove my sister 
 from the neighbourhood of Mr Burgess, and I 
 wanted to lose no time in imparting to her 
 what I hoped she would regard as good news. 
 From subsequent avowals which I have received 
 from her, I am led to believe that she did so 
 regard it; but at the time she disappointed me 
 a good deal by raising a cloud of difficulties, so 
 that quite a lengthy correspondence took place 
 between us before the last of her scruples was 
 overcome. It is true that both she and I had 
 to reckon with Lady Deverell, who was strongly, 
 not to say bitterly, opposed to our scheme, and 
 who wrote to me upon the subject in very 
 
 forcible terms. 
 
 99
 
 loo HIS GRACE, 
 
 "I do not expect gratitude," she declared, in 
 one of her epistles; "I do not expect my per- 
 sonal wishes to have any weight with one whom 
 I have done my best to befriend, but I do ex- 
 pect that young people who have been brought 
 up as you and Nora have been should have 
 some slight sense of reason and propriety. To 
 accept hospitality from me is one thing ; to accept 
 it from such a woman as Lady Charles Gas- 
 coigne, who, even if her position in society were 
 what it is not and never can he, would stiJl be 
 a total stranger to you and your family, is 
 quite another. Of the Duke of Hurstbourne I 
 will only say that he is a very young man and, 
 by all accounts, a very dissipated and irreligious 
 young man. Whether it is expedient that your 
 sister should become a member of his house- 
 hold I must leave it to your conscience and 
 your common sense to decide. You and she are 
 free agents ; you can manage your affairs as 
 may seem best to you; but upon you must fall 
 the responsibility of having placed your sister 
 (if you should so determine) in a thoroughly 
 false position."
 
 NORA SCORES A SUCCESS i o i 
 
 Most people, I daresay, will think that, if 
 Lady Deverell did not express herself over and 
 above courteously, she nevertheless had reason 
 on her side ; but I confess that to me her dis- 
 courtesy was more apparent than her resonable- 
 ness. It was absurd to say that Nora was 
 about to become a member of Hurstbourne's 
 household ; it was certainly false to speak of 
 him as dissipated and irreligious; while, as for 
 Lady Charles, I really could not see what her 
 social status had to do with either of us. There- 
 fore I gave Lady Deverell to understand that 
 her views were not mine, and hinted, with all 
 necessary politeness and circumlocution, that I 
 proposed to undertake the conduct of my own 
 business. Mr Burgess, so far as I could gather, 
 took no active part in the discussion. Rightly 
 or wrongly, I imagined that Mr Burgess was 
 a good deal less keen about his second marriage 
 than he had been before the provisions of my 
 mother's will had been made known to him. 
 
 However that may be, the upshot of it all 
 was, that Nora and her modest belongings were 
 deposited at Lavenham Road Station one fine
 
 I02 HIS GRACE. 
 
 evening, and that she was able to bring with 
 her an assurance of the consent, if not precisely 
 the approval, of her betrothed. I should have 
 been just as well pleased had she been pro- 
 vided with neither the one nor the other; but 
 when I said something to that effect, she im- 
 plored me, as a personal favour, to abstain from 
 such remarks for the future. 
 
 "It is all settled," she declared, "and my 
 having left Essex doesn't alter anything. Lady 
 Deverell chooses to make out that my having 
 come to you is a sort of preliminary to jilting 
 Mr Burgess, but he doesn't think so, and of 
 course it isn't so. No actual date has been fixed> 
 but, I suppose, if I have another six months of 
 spinsterhood before me, it's about as much 
 as I have. Let us enjoy those six months 
 together as much as we can, Phil. I'm afraid 
 we sha'n't enjoy them at all, unless we can 
 agree to put other people out of sight and out 
 of mind." 
 
 It was doubtless impossible for either of us 
 to carry out that compact to the letter; but it 
 was both possible and agreeable to avoid all
 
 NORA SCORES A SUCCESS. 103 
 
 mention of Mr Burgess's name, and I need scarcely 
 say that I, for my part, had no sort of wish to 
 mention the man. As for our enjoying ourselves 
 together, I can answer for it that that part of 
 the programme was faithfully executed by one 
 of us, and I think I may add that it was by 
 the other also. 
 
 We had, in fact, everything to make us happy. 
 We had liberty, which, I take it, is almost the 
 chief of earthly blessings; we had all the small 
 luxuries belonging to wealth, which are not to 
 be despised ; we had horses to ride (for Hurst- 
 bourne, doubting my willingness to make myself 
 entirely at home, had despatched special instruc- 
 tions to the stud-groom upon the subject), and 
 we had congenial society. By that I mean that 
 we had each other's society; but we were like- 
 wise favoured by the friendly visits and invita- 
 tions of the neighbours, Avho showed us much 
 kindness, and did not seem to think that there 
 was anything extraordinary in the circumstance 
 of my sister's being domiciled in the Castle with 
 me, though I have since been assured that they 
 must have thought it very odd indeed. If so,
 
 I04 HIS GRACE. 
 
 I can only say that they disguised their senti- 
 ments with singular skill and success. 
 
 It is, I should think, most unlikely that I 
 shall ever again be as happy and as free from 
 care as I was that autumn, when I ought by 
 rights to have been full of care and anxiety 
 about the future. It was then that I composed 
 the greater part of those poetical works to which 
 I have made allusion above, and I was not 
 ashamed to read them to my companion, who, 
 on her side, affirmed without a blush that they 
 were more spirited and stirring than any com- 
 positions of the kind that had previously come 
 under her notice. Idiotic as it may have been 
 of me to swallow even a grain of such flattery, 
 I did swallow it, and liked it ; but I can honestly 
 say that I did not derive half as much pleasure 
 from that as I did from the daily evidences of 
 returning gaiety and good spirits with which 
 Nora gladdened my heart. I remember her 
 saying to me, as we rode homewards one 
 evening, while the sun was sinking in the 
 west behind a gorgeous bank of ruddy and golden 
 clouds, that she now knew for the first time
 
 NORA SCORES A SUCCESS. 105 
 
 in her life what it was to be absolutely 
 contented. 
 
 "If only we could go on like this — ^just you 
 and I together, Phil — until we died, how glorious 
 it would be ! " she exclaimed. Then she sighed 
 and added: "However, since we can't, and since 
 it is always as well to have something reason- 
 able to hope for, let us hope that the Duke of 
 Hurstbourne won't take it into his head to come 
 here and disturb us this winter." 
 
 As far as I could see, there was no likeli- 
 hood of our being interfered with in the 
 way of which she spoke. Hurstbourne had 
 gone from Scotland to Newmarket, and in his 
 last letters he talked of spending the winter 
 months at Melton. Wherever he went, he 
 took his mother with him, which would, no 
 doubt, have been a good thing had Lady 
 Charles been a different sort of woman. As 
 it was, one could only admire his filial de- 
 votion and trust that her ladyship might show 
 herself in some degree worthy thereof. It 
 certainly did not occur to me that the death 
 of Colonel Home, one of the county members.
 
 io6 HIS GRACE, 
 
 would effect any alteration in Hurstbourne's 
 plans; yet it seemed that I had under-esti- 
 mated my friend's interest in contemporary 
 politics, for one morning in December I re- 
 ceived the following telegram from him — 
 
 "Must be home for election. Arrive to- 
 morrow evening. Only self and mother for 
 a few days." 
 
 The wording of the above missive was, it 
 will be perceived, somewhat ambiguous. Did 
 he mean that he and his mother were only 
 coming for a few days, or that other people 
 would join them after a few days ? Nora, 
 being of a sanguine temperament, inclined to 
 the former belief; my own impression was 
 in favour of the latter, inasmuch as, after 
 all, the nomination day had not yet been 
 fixed, nor did we even know whether the 
 seat was to be contested or not. It turned 
 out that I was right. Hurstbourne had aban- 
 doned all present idea of hunting (a sacrifice 
 made easier for him by the prevalence of 
 north-east winds and hard frost) in order 
 that he might bring that influence to bear
 
 NORA SCORES A SUCCESS. 107 
 
 upon the coming election, from which, I be- 
 lieve, peers of the realm are supposed to 
 abstain, and he had invited various eloquent 
 and celebrated personages to come down and 
 assist him. 
 
 However, it was not until some hours after 
 we had had the privilege of welcoming him 
 and his mother that he alluded to the cause 
 of their sudden descent upon us. They were 
 both of them as kind as possible. They took 
 Nora's presence quite as a matter of course, 
 making no fuss about it, and treating her 
 not so much like a guest as like one of the 
 family. I had known beforehand that Lady 
 Charles would be kind, only I had feared 
 that she would be rather patronising; but she 
 was not in the least so, and she had not 
 been a quarter of an hour in the house before 
 I saw, to my great satisfaction, that she and 
 my sister were going to be friends. I don't 
 think she ever thoroughly liked me — probably 
 she was a little jealous of my power over 
 her son — but she took a fancy to Nora from 
 the first, and she could not have been more
 
 io8 HIS GRACE. 
 
 considerate and thoughtful and natural with 
 the girl if she had been as well-bred as she 
 was, unhappily, vulgar. 
 
 As for Hurstbourne, never yet have I met 
 the man or woman with whom he was in- 
 capable of becoming intimate at a moment's 
 notice. Long before dinner was over Nora 
 and he were like brother and sister; they 
 had discussed every horse in the stables, had 
 differed as to the merits of the animals, had 
 backed their respective opinions, and had 
 agreed to bring matters to a decisive issue on 
 the first open day. When Nora wished me 
 good-night, she whispered to me — 
 
 "Your Duke is as delightful as if his name 
 were Brown, Jones or Robinson, and he had 
 just come home from school for the holidays. 
 I don't want him to stay too long; but I 
 tbink we may manage to put up with him 
 for a week, or even a fortnight." 
 
 In the smoking-room I learnt that our host 
 was likely to remain with us for at least 
 that length of time. He was determined, he 
 informed me, that no effort on his part should
 
 NORA SCORES A SUCCESS. 109 
 
 be wanting to secure the return of Mr Somers, 
 the Liberal-Unionist candidate. 
 
 "And, of course, it's a most unfair and dis- 
 graceful thing that a Tory should come for- 
 ward to stand against him. Everybody says 
 so. Don't you think so yourself?" 
 
 I confessed to that absence of prejudice which 
 belongs to total ignorance. 
 
 "I thought," said I, "it was understood that 
 Unionists were not to be disturbed. Who is 
 this malignant Tory, and what does he mean 
 by breaking away from the allegiance which 
 he owes to the wire-pullers ? " 
 
 " Good gracious me ! don't you know who 
 he is ? Why, Paul Gascoigne, of course ! I 
 hear that his own people have begged him 
 to retire; but he won't. He has the cheek 
 to swear that the constituency is Conserva- 
 tive — though everybody knows that it has 
 returned Whigs to Parliament from time im- 
 memorial — and that the late man only got in 
 because he had pledged himself to support 
 the Government. He pretends that Somers, 
 who has owned to holding rather Radical
 
 no HIS GRACE. 
 
 views upon certain questions, can't be trusted ; 
 and the worst of it is that he has immense 
 local influence. We shall have a hard fight 
 for it, as far as I can make out ; but I be- 
 lieve we shall win." 
 
 He evidently enjoyed the prospect of a 
 fight with his cousin, whatever might be the 
 result of it, and I am afraid my sage advice 
 that he should temper zeal with discretion was 
 altogether thrown away upon him. 
 
 "Don't be alarmed, old man," said he, laugh- 
 ing. "I won't bring myself within reach of 
 the arm of the law. But I'm not going to 
 conceal my opinions, and I believe I'm en- 
 titled to let Somers have the use of my 
 carriages on the polling-day. Meanwhile, if 
 only this beastly frost will give, you and I 
 will have a day or two with these hounds, 
 and we'll take Miss Nora out with us. I'm 
 awfully glad she rides; I like a girl who 
 can ride, don't you ? " 
 
 The Fates ordained that Nora should be 
 denied any opportunity of showing how de- 
 serving she was of Hurstbourne's regard in
 
 NORA SCORES A SUCCESS. iii 
 
 that respect, for the frost, far from giving 
 increased in intensity; so that on the following 
 day it became plain that there was nothing to 
 be done but to send, post-haste, to the neighbour- 
 ing town for a supply of skates. 
 
 The park at Hurstbourne Castle boasts of 
 of a large sheet of ornamental water, which 
 in hard weather has always been thrown 
 open to the skating public, so that when we 
 betook ourselves thither, we found quite a 
 numerous concourse of people disporting them- 
 selves upon the ice and received a warm greet- 
 ing from many of them. The young Duke, 
 I soon saw, was going to be popular — it is not 
 very difficult to be popular when one is a 
 young duke — he speedily found favour in the 
 eyes of such members of the assemblage as he 
 had not been previously acquainted with, and 
 if he was not a particularly brilliant performer 
 on the skates, he was, at all events, a very 
 plucky and good-humoured one. Nora and 
 I, having been born and bred in a cold 
 county, were tolerably proficient in the art 
 of cutting figures, and it was to Nora's
 
 TI2 HIS GRACE. 
 
 tuition that he was pleased to submit him- 
 self. She managed to make him go through 
 some remarkable evolutions ; she chaffed him 
 without mercy — he did not appear to mind 
 being chaffed — (for, indeed, there never lived a 
 more unaffected or unpretending creature than 
 he), and, seeing that they were getting on so 
 well together, I thought I would leave them 
 and join Lady Charles, who, enveloped in furs, 
 was stamping up and down the bank to keep 
 herself warm. 
 
 Lady Charles began at once to talk about 
 Nora, of whom she spoke in language which 
 I suppose I may be excused for calling ap- 
 preciative. After all, I don't know why the 
 fact that Nora is my sister should debar me 
 from recognising and proclaiming her fascina- 
 tions — especially as I bear no sort of personal 
 resemblance to her. 
 
 " She is a perfectly charming girl," Lady 
 Charles declared — "pretty, without being self- 
 conscious, and clever, without always struggling 
 to say smart things, as most of them do. It 
 shall be no fault of mine if she isn't provided
 
 NORA SCORES A SUCCESS. 113 
 
 with an excellent husband by this time next 
 year. You really must confide her to me 
 when we go up to London in the spring. I 
 daresay you won't care to come to town your- 
 self; besides, you have your avocations here, 
 which his Grace tells me you are discharging 
 admirably." 
 
 I said I was very glad to hear that I had 
 so far given satisfaction, and I did not think 
 it my duty to say anything about the Reverend 
 George Burgess, M.A. 
 
 "But isn't it rather difficult to find an 
 excellent husband for a dowerless young- 
 woman, however pretty and clever she may 
 be ? " I inquired. 
 
 Lady Charles shook her head. " Not half 
 
 so difficult as you suppose," she replied ; " not 
 
 half so difficult as it is to find a suitable wife 
 
 for a young man of the highest station, who 
 
 has every bodily and mental advantage. You 
 
 see, Mr Martyn, it is essential that the Duke 
 
 of Hurstbourne should marry a girl of high 
 
 rank, and it is also most desirable that he should 
 
 marry an heiress. The unlucky thing is that 
 VOL. I. H
 
 114 ^^S GRACE. 
 
 I can't, at the present moment, lay my finger 
 upon a single lady of high rank who has a 
 fortune of her own, or is even likely to inherit 
 one, and you may imagine how anxious this 
 makes me ; for I need scarcely tell you that 
 his Grace has been run after in the most open 
 and barefaced manner ever since he succeeded 
 to the title." 
 
 I suggested that, under those distressing 
 circumstances, it might be well to accept a 
 compromise. Perhaps rank without wealth, or 
 wealth without rank, might be put up with. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. " Well, if it comes 
 to that, I am afraid we shall have to pocket 
 our pride and take the money," she replied. 
 " His Grace was most unfortunate at New- 
 market — I daresay he has told you about it 
 — and he has had other heavy and unavoidable 
 expenses. Oh, yes, there is no doubt that 
 money is more necessary for us than rank. To 
 be sure, we already have the one, and it seems 
 that we haven't a superfluity of the other." 
 
 Hurstbourne had not mentioned his losses 
 at Newmarket to me; but that he had had
 
 NORA SCORES A SUCCESS. 115 
 
 other heavy expenses, unavoidable or otherwise, 
 I had been made unpleasantly aware that same 
 morning, and this foolish lady's casual revela- 
 tions disquieted me not a little. He might, I 
 presumed, count upon ridding himself of his diffi- 
 culties by espousing some rich woman; but it 
 seemed a pity that he should be driven to have 
 recourse to such expedients. Meanwhile, it was 
 evident that the thought of his embarrassments did 
 not weigh heavily upon him. He approached us 
 after a time, grinning from ear to ear, and swear- 
 ing that he wasn't going to stand this kind of 
 thing any longer. 
 
 "Just you wait a bit," said he, turning round, 
 as he took off his skates, to shake his finger 
 at Nora, who was executing graceful pirouettes 
 behind him. "I owe you one for holding me 
 up to public obloquy and ridicule, and the first 
 day that we get a thaw I'll remember to pay 
 my debts. I never said I could skate ; but you 
 have committed yourself to the assertion that 
 you can ride, and if you don't go straight, you 
 shall hear of it, I promise you/' 
 
 "Don't lose your temper just when you are
 
 ii6 HIS GRACE. 
 
 beginning to get on well," returned Nora com- 
 posedly. "If you ride as recklessly as you 
 skate, you will be all right ; because, you know, 
 you haven't a single horse in your stables who 
 really requires to be ridden." 
 
 They wrangled all the way home, and only 
 made friends upon the doorstep, when Hurst- 
 bourne remarked, with a sigh, that he supposed 
 we might as well give up attempting to be 
 jolly together any longer, as " a lot of solemn old 
 cockalorums " would be arriving before dinner time. 
 These honourable and right honourable gentlemen 
 appeared in due course, primed with the speeches 
 whereby they hoped to arouse the sluggish con- 
 sciences of wavering electors, and I am bound 
 to say that their conversation was extremely 
 tedious. I am no politician ; so that I can 
 speak with true impartiality of those politicians 
 with whom I have been brought into contact, 
 and if I am wrong in my impression that a 
 theoretical Liberal is the most wearisome and 
 unconvincing of created beings I am willing to 
 admit and apologise for my error; but if any- 
 body ever persuades me to humiliate myself in
 
 NORA SCORES A SUCCESS. 117 
 
 that way, I am quite sure that it will not be 
 Hurstbourne, whose gallant efforts to swallow 
 his yawns during the harangues to which we 
 were treated before his guests retired for the 
 night were piteous to behold. 
 
 "It's all very fine to be a magnate of the 
 first water," he said to me confidentially, while 
 we were smoking a last cigar together in peace ; 
 "but there are drawbacks, you know — most con- 
 founded drawbacks. These talking beggars, whom 
 it is one's duty to listen to respectfully, are one 
 of them, and, between you and me, the people 
 who think they would like to be duchesses are 
 another. I'm not such a very desirable duke, 
 as dukes go ; but I can tell you that, if I hadn't 
 my mother to protect me, I should find myself 
 engaged to somebody or other before I knew 
 where I was." 
 
 "Your mother," I replied, "will undoubtedly 
 engage you to somebody before you know where 
 you are ; you had better make up your mind 
 to that. However, her choice is certain to be 
 a wise one; and after she has disposed of you, 
 she means to take Nora in hand. She was
 
 ii8 HIS GRACE. 
 
 telling me so while you were skating, and she 
 most kindly offered to chaperon a humble no- 
 body through the next London season." 
 
 Hurstbourne is the most hospitable of man- 
 kind ; yet he did not second his mother's in- 
 vitation with the alacrity which I should have 
 expected of him. On the contrary, he frowned 
 and looked quite annoyed. 
 
 " Oh, I don't think that would be a good plan," 
 said he. " Of course you are the best judge 
 of the sort of life that you would wish your 
 sister to lead; but I must say that, if I had 
 a sister, I wouldn't throw her among those 
 London women unless I was obliged. You don't 
 know what they are — I doubt whether any fellow 
 can know without being a duke or a very 
 rich man." 
 
 He proceeded to tell me what they were, 
 supporting his assertions by sundry anecdotes 
 which, I own, surprised me, and wound up by 
 declaring emphatically that it would be a down- 
 right sin to launch an innocent, simple girl like 
 my sister upon such turbid waters. 
 
 " What in the world do you think that she
 
 NORA SCORES A SUCCESS 119 
 
 would gain by it ? " he inquired. " Do you 
 imagine that she would come out of it any 
 better or happier than she is ? Do you imagine 
 that she would learn anything more than she 
 already knows, except a few things which you 
 can't wish her to know ? " 
 
 Well, I supposed that she might gain what 
 they all hope to gain ; that is to say — a husband. 
 But I refrained from putting the case so coarsely 
 to this young moralist, and after all, it was a 
 great deal more likely than not that Lady Charles 
 Gascoigne would forget her promise. I changed 
 the subject by asking him how much money 
 he had dropped over the autumn handicaps, 
 whereupon he promptly discovered that it was 
 high time to go to bed.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FIRST BLOOD. 
 
 The influential politicians had quite a gay time 
 of it with us. They had, of course, to show 
 themselves at meetings and, I suppose, to pre- 
 pare their speeches in advance, and the work 
 of canvassing was carried on briskly; so that 
 not much leisure was left to them for disporting 
 themselves upon the ice. But there were dinner 
 parties for them every evening, and, as these 
 were attended by a certain number of young 
 people, they were followed by dancing, to the 
 strains of sundry musicians whose services had 
 been secured from the neighbouring town. Hurst- 
 bourne danced a great deal with Nora. Whether 
 he exhorted her to reserve her saltatory skill 
 for provincial festivities, instead of exhibiting 
 it in the limited space afforded by London ball- 
 rooms, I do not know ; but I imagine that he 
 
 120
 
 FIRST BLOOD, 121 
 
 must have given her the benefit of some quasi- 
 fraternal advice; for she spontaneously informed 
 me, one day, that she had no ambition to make 
 the acquaintance of great ladies. 
 
 "Lady Charles," she remarked, "couldn't be 
 accused by anybody of being a great lady. She 
 is a dear old woman and she means to be 
 very kind, and she naturally fancies that I must 
 long for the sort of society in which she her- 
 self delights. But I shouldn't really care about 
 it, even if I had been born a member of it, 
 and I think you and I will spend the London 
 season here all by ourselves, Phil. That is, 
 unless — unless I have to leave you before it 
 begins." 
 
 I made some discreet observation to the effect 
 that she could not be compelled to leave me 
 any sooner than she felt inclined. I did not 
 want to talk about Mr Burgess, whom I hoped 
 to get rid of by a gentle and gradual process 
 of retreat, and I was by no means sure that 
 I did not want Nora to have a season in 
 London. I am not, I believe, more worldly 
 than another ; but how could I remain blind
 
 122 BIS GRACE. 
 
 to the advantages that might accrue to my 
 sister from being taken up hj a duke and a 
 duke's mother. Hurstbourne, meanwhile, had 
 converted her into so vehement a partisan that 
 she actually found and proclaimed much to 
 admire in Mr Somers, a stupid little sandy- 
 haired man, who had not even sense enough 
 to keep his opinions to himself. He avowed 
 that he was a Radical, and appeared willing 
 to go any lengths in the way of ordinary 
 radicalism, though, for some reason best known 
 to himself, he was prepared to lend his valu- 
 able support to the Irish policy of the existing 
 administration. It seemed to me that we had 
 got hold of about as weak a candidate as was 
 obtainable, and I should not have been very 
 much astonished to hear that a similar convic- 
 tion was entertained by persons of greater im- 
 portance than I. The Carlton, I presume, looked 
 on at the contest with serenity, if not with 
 absolute approval, since, in any event, the issue 
 could not affect the Ministerial majority. 
 
 Late one afternoon, when we were drinking 
 five -o'clock tea in the library, the rival candi-
 
 FIRST BLOOD. 123 
 
 date surprised us by calling. He followed his 
 name into the room, looking bland and amiable, 
 and, I daresay, not more supercilious than he 
 could help. He had come, he said, to show 
 there was no ill-feeling, though I cannot answer 
 for it that those were his exact words. He 
 shook hands with everybody, and sat down and 
 had some tea; he evidently did not think that 
 the course which he had adopted in standing 
 for the division against a gentleman who had 
 the ostensible support of his own party called 
 for any apology from him. 
 
 "In cases of this kind," he remarked com- 
 posedly, while he munched a slice of bread and 
 butter, "one can but hope that the best man 
 will win, and by the best man one naturally 
 means one's own man. It is a matter of very 
 little consequence to me, personally, whether I 
 take my seat in the present Parliament or not; 
 but, situated as I am, I felt that all this 
 bother must be accepted as one of my duties." 
 "I hope you don't find it a very irksome 
 duty," said Hurstbourne, rather grimly. 
 
 " Oh, not so very. It is a bore to have to
 
 124 B-JS GRACE. 
 
 shout out commonplaces from a platform, but 
 not more of a bore for me than it is for you 
 and your friends. I have the great advantage, 
 you see, of knowing exactly what I mean and 
 saying it." 
 
 This challenge was promptly taken up by 
 one of the eminent personages present, who 
 said that, for his part, he knew very well what 
 he meant, and that he would be interested in 
 hearing the precise meaning of Mr Gascoigne's 
 apparent desire to stir up discord in the Un- 
 ionist camp. However, I don't think he ob- 
 tained the information for which he asked, 
 although Mr Gascoigne was courteously and 
 discursively explanatory. The latter wound up 
 by declaring that the wishes of the constitu- 
 ency were really his wishes; his sole object 
 was to ascertain what these were, and if, con- 
 trary to his expectation, it should be proved 
 to him that the division was a Radical one, 
 he would bow to the expressed will of the 
 majority. 
 
 "Well, if the verdict of the majority goes 
 against you, you will have to acknowledge your-
 
 FIRST BLOOD. 125 
 
 self beaten, I suppose, whether you make a bow 
 or not," remarked Hurstbourne. "Not that we 
 are Radicals; but then, you know that as well 
 as I do." 
 
 "I was under the impression that Mr Somers 
 had sounded the Radical trumpet and thumped 
 the Radical drum rather loudly," said Mr Gas- 
 coigne, with a smile. "You, of course, are not 
 a Radical — indeed, it would be hardly in the 
 nature of things that you should be — so, in the 
 event of my being returned, you will have the 
 consolation of knowing that the Legislature con- 
 tains one more humble defender of your in- 
 terests. Either way, I trust and believe that 
 this political conflict will produce nothing re- 
 sembling a breach between us." 
 
 Hurstbourne, it may be assumed, shared 
 neither that trust nor that belief ; for he only 
 responded by a dubious sort of grunt, and 
 the rest of us grunted in sympathy. 
 
 It is almost impossible to convey, by a mere 
 report of his words, any idea of how exasper- 
 ating and offensive Paul Gascoigne was. I 
 daresay that what provoked us beyond all en-
 
 126 HIS GRACE. 
 
 durance was that, although he had sinned 
 flagrantly against the laws of both political 
 and social courtesy, he had the air of being 
 quite willing to forgive us which belongs to 
 conscious superiority. Or, if it was not that, 
 it may have been that he obviously counted 
 upon defeating us at the poll. I am glad to 
 be able to add that not one of us openly 
 lost his or her temper. It was only after he 
 had taken his leave that we exploded; and, I 
 must say that never in my life have I heard 
 a man abused with more hearty unanimity. 
 
 Lady Charles, who, when roused, has a fine 
 flow of language at command, expressed, I be- 
 lieve, the general opinion when she asserted 
 that that nephew of hers was a despicable, 
 sneaking, malicious hypocrite. 
 
 " He ought to have been a woman ! " she 
 cried, nobly surrendering the defence of her 
 sex for the time being. " No Trian would 
 stoop to the miserable little devices that he 
 adopts to gratify his feelings of jealousy and 
 revenge. As if everybody couldn't see that he 
 came here to-day in the hope of making us
 
 FIRST BLOOD, 127 
 
 put ourselves in the wrong by quarrelling with 
 him. And as if everybody didn't know that, 
 if he had been the Duke of Hurstbourne, he 
 would have backed up Mr Somers. He never 
 will be the Duke of Hurstbourne, though ; I 
 can promise him that much ! " 
 
 The holder of the title to which Mr Paul 
 Gascoigne was heir-presumptive laughed a little 
 at this promise, which, in truth, sounded a 
 somewhat bold one ; but he answered : 
 
 "All right, mother ; I'll take care of myself 
 — if only for his sake; and, if it should ever 
 please Heaven to let me have a chance of 
 fighting him without the gloves, I'll do my 
 best to give him a licking that he won't for- 
 get in a hurry. For the present, I suppose, 
 we shall have to content ourselves with licking 
 him out of the field on the polling day." 
 
 It really did seem as if we ought to be 
 able to accomplish that triumph, considering 
 how universally unpopular our opponent was ; 
 yet, as the decisive moment drew near, it be- 
 came increasingly evident that the struggle was 
 going to be a close one. Promises of support
 
 128 HIS GRACE. 
 
 we did receive in large numbers, but those 
 who were most competent to gauge the true 
 sentiments of the voters expressed a good deal 
 of doubt as to whether all those promises 
 would be fulfilled. 
 
 Mr Gascoigne, besides being a very powerful 
 man by reason of his wealth and his position 
 in the county, was a fairly fluent speaker. 
 He appeared to have convinced many of the 
 electors that his views were those held by the 
 late Duke. Not a few of them were persuaded 
 that such a candidate as Mr Somers would 
 not, in the late Duke's time, have had the 
 countenance of the Castle ; and, as the fight 
 was not, strictly speaking, a party one, there 
 was, we were told, a probability of numerous 
 abstentions. 
 
 Towards the end of the time our exertions 
 grew indefatigible, and Hurstbourne, who was 
 in high spirits and sanguine of success, vowed 
 that, whatever happened, a vote of thanks 
 would be due to Nora. 
 
 "Your sister has gone about winning hearts 
 and votes for us like a regular trump, Martyn,"
 
 FIRST BLOOD. 129 
 
 said he. " She is worth a dozen of a lazy old 
 philosopher like you — at least, at an election 
 time." 
 
 She is, I am sure, worth more than a dozen 
 of me at any time, and she certainly threw 
 herself into this fray with a vigour beyond 
 the capacity of so lukewarm a politician as 
 myself. All the same, I don't think that the poli- 
 tical question can have had much to do with 
 her enthusiasm; for she confessed to me, when 
 nobody was listening, that in her conversations 
 with electors and electors' wives she had been 
 obliged to avoid all discussion of the respective 
 programmes of Conservatives, Liberal Unionists, 
 Gladstonians and Home Rulers. 
 
 "What is the use," she pertinently inquired, 
 "of squabbling over matters which neither they 
 nor I understand? This is simply a fight be- 
 tween the Duke and Mr Gascoigne, and if they 
 prefer Mr Gascoigne to the Duke, all I can 
 say is that they are too stupid to deserve the 
 franchise at all." 
 
 It is to be hoped that a more statesmanlike 
 view of the situation was taken by Hurstbourne's 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 130 iriS GRACE. 
 
 eminent guests; although, from certain remarks 
 which they allowed to fall, I gathered that Mr 
 Somers, with his indiscreet utterances as to the 
 Established Church, the hereditary branch of 
 the legislature and the principle of one man 
 one vote, did not command their entire sym- 
 pathy. Before the election day they all left 
 us. They had done everything that they could 
 do — they had talked themselves hoarse — their 
 presence could render no further service to the 
 cause, and some of them had engagements else- 
 where, while others proposed to seek a little 
 well-earned rest in their own homes. So they 
 departed, after assuring their entertainer of their 
 hearty good wishes, and receiving in return the 
 thanks which were their due. 
 
 As soon as the last of them had driven away, 
 Hurstbourne, with a beaming countenance, came 
 skipping into the room which had been appro- 
 priated by Lady Charles as a boudoir. 
 
 " Hooray ! " he shouted ; " now let's all of us 
 stand on our heads ! " 
 
 He suited the action to the word, and made 
 me do the same, notwithstanding my protesta-
 
 FIRST BLOOD. 131 
 
 tions. I hope it is not necessary for me to add 
 that our example was not followed by the two 
 remaining members of the quartette ; but I dare- 
 say three of us were really very thankful for 
 our deliverance. Lady Charles, I believe, liked 
 company, and derived enjoyment from rubbing 
 shoulders with distinguished persons. 
 
 But if we were inclined to be a trifle up- 
 roarious, now that we were once more left to 
 ourselves and could speak before we thought, 
 instead of thinking before we spoke, a very 
 effectual damper was in store for our too 
 exuberant spirit. We all stayed at home 
 on the polling day : we had been advised 
 to do so, and we recognised the wisdom of 
 the advice ; for, after all, it does not be- 
 seem a duke and his immediate circle to 
 descend from the serene heights on which 
 they dwell into the turmoil of a contested elec- 
 tion. But, of course, arrangements had been 
 made for acquainting us with the result at the 
 earliest possible moment, and very sad were the 
 tidings conveyed to us by a mounted messenger. 
 Anybody can account for a victory — it is to be
 
 132 HIS GRACE. 
 
 accounted for by the straightforward and satis- 
 factory assumption that the majority of the 
 electors are intelligent men — but when one is 
 called upon to explain away a defeat, a rather 
 larger supply of ingenuity has to be brought 
 into play. For the next few days I made a 
 careful study of the London newspapers, and 
 I gathered, after perusing many leading articles, 
 that the return of Mr Gascoigne by a majority 
 of over eight hundred was chiefly due to the 
 ill-advised interference of the young Duke of 
 Hurstbourne. No constituency — so these learned 
 scribes appeared to have discovered — likes being 
 dictated to; no honest Englishman is apt to 
 be predisposed in favour of a Radical who 
 pledges himself to support a Tory administration ; 
 a contest of the kind which had just been 
 witnessed ought never to have taken place at 
 all, and if the juvenile nobleman who had 
 exerted himself so ostentatiously in promoting 
 the candidature of Mr Somers, had been a 
 little older and a little more experienced, he 
 would have thrown the weight of his influence, 
 such as it was, into the scale on his cousin's be-
 
 FIRST BLOOD. 133 
 
 half. That is the sort of gratitude that one ob- 
 tains from one's friends when one has been beaten. 
 
 I don't think Hurstbourne was greatly dis- 
 heartened or distressed by the comments of the 
 press ; but he did not affect to deny that Paul 
 Gascoigne's triumph was a heavy blow to him. 
 
 " That beggar has got first blood," said he ; 
 " there's no disputing that. He's very much mis- 
 taken if he thinks I shall throw up the sponge, 
 though. We'll do better at the next election, 
 and in the meantime he won't trample me under 
 foot without a fight for it, I can tell him." 
 
 "Never," declared Lady Charles, who was 
 highly incensed, "will we receive that man or 
 speak to him again. He deserves to be cut by 
 the head of the family, and cut he shall be." 
 
 Nora, though not less angry, was a good deal 
 less silly. 
 
 "You mustn't let him think that you feel in 
 the least sore," said she ; " the best plan would 
 be to ask him to dinner and congratulate him 
 and pat him on the back. He has secured a 
 seat in Parliament — much good may it do him I 
 Who, except a few really clever people, cares
 
 134 HIS GRACE, 
 
 to spend the best part of the year listening to 
 dreary debates in a stuffy chamber, filled with 
 vulgar nobodies? Parliament isn't everything, 
 and out of Parliament I should think Mr Gas- 
 coigne was about the easiest man in England to 
 put to confusion. He poisons foxes, he doesn't 
 play cricket, he isn't much of a shot, and I 
 haven't yet met a single individual who pretends 
 to like him personally. Just let him try to 
 trample upon his betters, that's all. 
 
 Hurstbourne considered this a very spirited 
 speech on Nora's part. He told me so after- 
 wards, adding that he believed my sister was 
 as shrewd a woman as his mother, which he 
 meant for a high compliment. He did not 
 detect any shrewdness at all in my recommenda- 
 tion that he should leave his cousin alone ; he 
 was unable to see the slightest point in my 
 allusion to brazen and earthenware vessels, he 
 said he was a peaceable creature, but that if 
 people chose to tread on his toes, they must 
 take the consequences. He was, in a word, so 
 evidently bent upon having his revenge, by hook 
 or by crook, that it was useless to reason with
 
 FIRST BLOOD, 135 
 
 liim. Were this world inhabited only by the 
 male variety of the species, we should, doubtless, 
 be spared an infinity of worry, not to mention 
 occasional catastrophes ; but we have been created 
 male and female, and, like the unwary persons 
 who tread upon Hurstbourne's toes, I suppose we 
 must accept the consequences of our embarrass- 
 ing position.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BREAKERS AHEAD. 
 
 On looking back at the concluding paragraph of 
 the previous chapter, I see that I have permitted, 
 myself therein to speak of the female sex in 
 terms which may seem to imply that I am not 
 alive to the nature of woman's beneficent mission 
 upon the surface of this planet. But I really 
 did not mean to be rude when I wrote the 
 words, and should any lady do me the honour 
 to peruse the present narrative (as it seems not 
 improbable that a few will) I would venture to 
 appeal to that lady's kindness and sympathy not 
 to be too hard upon me. She will, I know, 
 admit that women, and especially young women, 
 require to be managed by women; with her 
 quick intelligence she will at once guess why 
 the memory of bygone irritation and perplexity 
 caused me to express myself irritably ; of course, 
 
 136
 
 BREAKERS AHEAD. 137 
 
 too, she will have seen, ere this, something which, 
 I solemnly declare that I never dreamt of until 
 circumstances forced a most distressing conjecture 
 upon me. And if I may now be permitted, like 
 a parson in those churches where the men sit on 
 one side of the aisle and the women on the 
 other, to turn to the male section of my readers, 
 I hope that they also will feel for me, though, 
 perhaps, it would be unreasonable to expect that 
 they should acquit me of stupidity. There is, 
 no doubt, always a possibility, almost a pro- 
 bability, that, when a young man and a young 
 woman are thrown together from morning to 
 night in a country house, they will end by 
 falling in love with one another. I quite allow 
 that; only I do think it was excessively improb- 
 able that the Duke of Hurstbourne should fall 
 in love with my sister, or she with him. It 
 was so absolutely out of the question that any- 
 thing could come of it if they did, and so 
 natural to assume that they must both be 
 thoroughly aware of that. Moreover, Nora was 
 already betrothed to Mr Burgess, and Hurst- 
 bourne knew it.
 
 138 HIS GRACE. 
 
 Nevertheless, I ought to have had my wits 
 about me, and I suppose if I had been a woman 
 I should have had them about me, although I 
 may plead, as some extenuation of my blind- 
 ness, that Lady Charles Gascoigne's wits appeared 
 to have gone wool-gathering. Lady Charles, I 
 imagine, saw no more danger in her son's in- 
 timate companionship with Nora than she would 
 have seen in his making a friend of his grand- 
 mother, or of an infant ; the one thing which 
 impressed her most powerfully about him was 
 that he was a duke ; dukes, it is generally 
 conceded, cannot contract matrimonial alliances 
 with a class far beneath their own, and even 
 if he did indulge in an occasional flirtation with 
 some impossible person, he would be none the 
 worse off for that. I am not sure that, suppos- 
 ing these to have been her sentiments, she would 
 have been wrong, only it was obvious that my 
 point of view was not, and could not be, iden- 
 tical with hers. 
 
 So, if the reader pleases, I will write my- 
 self down an ass. I suspected nothing ; it did 
 not occur to me to attribute Hurstbourne's de-
 
 BREAKERS AHEAD. 139 
 
 termination to stay on for a while at the 
 Castle to any other cause than the continuance 
 of the hard weather, which, as he truly said, 
 prevented its being worth any man's while to 
 undertake a journey to Leicestershire ; I did 
 not even smell a rat when a thaw came and 
 when he telegraphed for three of his hunters 
 to be despatched from Melton. The fact is 
 that I was very busy and not a little bothered 
 with accounts; I could not often accompany 
 these young people when they begged me to 
 ride or skate with them ; and, as they seemed 
 to get on quite comfortably without me, I de- 
 voted my attention to my work, and did not 
 always remember to inquire how they had been 
 spending their many hours of leisure. Lady 
 Charles slept a good deal. She was one of 
 those lazy, good-humoured persons who are 
 usually contented so long as those about them 
 are contented, and although an uneventful mode 
 of existence may not have been greatly to her 
 taste, she did not complain of it. Most likely 
 she thought that it would not last long, and 
 that she would soon be removed into circles
 
 140 HIS GRACE. 
 
 where the fascinations of hair-dye and pearl- 
 powder are properly appreciated. 
 
 I believe the first thing that gave me a 
 vague sensation of uneasiness — and even then it 
 was but a vague sensation — was Hurstbourne's 
 saying abruptly to me, one evening, that I 
 really ought to insist upon my sister's engage- 
 ment being broken off. 
 
 "It's utterly monstrous, you know," said he; 
 " it can't be allowed to go on ; and the sooner 
 that old bloke is told so, the better, in my 
 opinion." 
 
 I replied that it scarcely came within the 
 range of my privileges to convey the suggested 
 information to the old bloke, but that, as I 
 had already mentioned, I was not without hope 
 of that information being imparted to him sooner 
 or later by one more directly interested in the 
 matter than I was. 
 
 " Oh, it's all very fine to throw the whole 
 responsibility upon your sister," returned Hurst- 
 bourne rather angrily, "but you know as well 
 as I do that she hates the man, and that 
 she would give him the sack to-morrow if
 
 BREAKERS AHEAD. 141 
 
 she wasn't afraid of becoming a burden upon 
 you." 
 
 "Upon my honour, I don't know that," I 
 answered. " How do you know it, pray ? " 
 
 He said he had heard it from her own lips 
 — which, I confess, startled me; for, considering 
 that Nora had not for a long time past so 
 much as mentioned Mr Burgess's name to me, 
 it did seem strange that she should have made 
 a confidant of a mere acquaintance. However, 
 he dispelled my nascent apprehensions by dwell- 
 ing upon her unselfishness and by a repetition of 
 his statement that she was afraid of burdening 
 me with the expense of her maintenance. 
 
 " Which is utter nonsense," he added ; " because, 
 as long as you remain here, she won't cost 
 you a penny. You needn't tell me, my dear 
 old chap, that you wouldn't grudge her every 
 penny you possess ; that's a matter of course. 
 Only you must see that she can't very well 
 take the first step ; it's for you to do that." 
 
 Was it for me to kick the reverend gentleman 
 into space ? I was unable to think so, much 
 as I should have enjoyed the task, and I assured
 
 142 HIS GRACE. 
 
 my friend that I could not, without due author- 
 isation, assume such a responsibility. 
 
 " I told you long ago," said I, " that I ab- 
 horred this engagement ; but I am not entitled 
 to forbid it, and unless Nora breaks it off of 
 her own accord, as I hope she will, I can do 
 nothing." 
 
 " Oh, bosh ! " he returned impatiently ; " there's 
 no doubt about her wishing to break it off. 
 All you have to do is to show a little sym- 
 pathy and — and encouragement, don't you know." 
 
 I did not take his advice. I said to myself 
 that Nora would certainly come to me as soon 
 as she had made up her mind, and perhaps 
 I was not altogether pleased with Hurstbourne's 
 intervention, although, as I said before, his 
 words only caused me a temporary uneasiness. 
 During the next few days I confidently ex- 
 pected my sister to apply to me for counsel 
 and consolation, and she disappointed me by 
 doing nothing of the sort. Indeed, I scarcely 
 saw her ; for when she was not out riding 
 with Hurstbourne, she was playing billiards or 
 otherwise amusing herself with him. There was
 
 BREAKERS AHEAD. 143 
 
 nothing that I could detect at all resembling 
 a flirtation between them ; they were more like 
 a couple of children than two grown-up people. 
 At luncheon and at dinner they engaged in 
 a perpetual squabble, to which Lady Charles 
 and I listened with benevolent amusement; she 
 criticised his horsemanship, while he did his 
 best to get a rise out of her by pretending 
 to doubt her knowledge of the subject under 
 discussion ; sometimes he was successful and 
 chuckled gleefully over his success, sometimes 
 she managed to provoke him into vainglori- 
 ous boastings ; it all sounded quite silly and 
 harmless. 
 
 So I went back to my figures, which, with 
 all the pains that I bestowed upon them, could 
 not be made to work out to my satisfaction, 
 and reflected, foolishly enough, that sufficient 
 unto the day is the evil thereof. The chief 
 evil of those days, from Hurstbourne's point 
 of view, was that they were non-hunting days. 
 It was not, to be sure, actually freezing; but 
 the frost had gone deep into the ground, meets 
 were not yet advertised, and there were many
 
 T44 BIS GRACE. 
 
 signs that the partial thaw which had set in 
 was not going to last long. One night the 
 wind veered to the east of north; the next 
 morning we woke to find our windows coated 
 with ice, and then there was nothing left for 
 a poor fox-hunter to do but to curse the 
 climate of his native land and inquire dis- 
 consolately what had become of his skates. 
 
 "His Grace," said Lady Charles to me, with 
 her comical little air of condescension, "is won- 
 derfully good at accommodating himself to cir- 
 cumstances. You may imagine how tedious it 
 must be to him to go on living in this hum- 
 drum way — removed from all his friends and 
 all his amusements ; but he never grumbles, as 
 other men would, and, whatever his feelings 
 may be, he contrives to hide them." 
 
 In common justice to him, it must be ad- 
 mitted that he hid them very well indeed. Any 
 uninformed person would have supposed that 
 he was enjoying himself immensely, notwith- 
 standing the severe shakings which he received 
 from his daily falls upon the ice ; and, when 
 his mother disinterestedly proposed that they
 
 BREAKERS AHEAD. 145 
 
 should run up to London for a week, and see 
 the new plaj^s, he looked quite dismayed. 
 
 " London in an east wind ! " he exclaimed in a 
 tone of pained remonstrance. " Oh, I don't think 
 that would be good enough — I don't really ! 
 Why, there would be such dense fogs that we 
 shouldn't be able to stir out of doors all day 
 long ; and as for the plays, they're utter rot. 
 You can see that for yourself in the papers. 
 Of course, if you ivant to go, mother, we'll go; 
 but I don't believe you would like it when you 
 were there, and goodness knows how long it will 
 be before I get another opportunity of proving 
 to Miss Martyn that, with a little practice, I can 
 do all the figures that she is for ever bragging 
 about." 
 
 " I wasn't thinking of myself," answered good- 
 natured Lady Charles ; " I was only afraid that 
 you must be getting bored to death here. If 
 you aren't, so much the better." 
 
 " Oh, I'm all right," Hurstbourne declared, with 
 a prompt brightening of face and tone. " I 
 shouldn't like our friend Paul to think that he 
 had driven me out of the county like a beaten 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 146 HIS GRACE. 
 
 cur. Besides, I'd really rather be here than any- 
 where else. Skating isn't hunting; but it does 
 well enough to fill up the time when there's no 
 other sport to be had, and it's better than totting 
 up sums in addition all day long, anyhow. Now, 
 look here, Martyn, you must come down to the 
 lake with us this afternoon and get a little 
 healthy exercise. I believe half the time, when 
 you pretend to be so busy, you're only writing 
 sonnets, or something of that sort." 
 
 A modest blush suffused my cheeks, for 1 did 
 feel that, however communicative Nora might 
 have seen fit to be respecting her own affairs, 
 she ought to have respected her brother's 
 secrets; but she looked as if she did not 
 know what Hurstbourne meant, and I thought 
 I wouldn't pursue the topic. I said I would 
 run down to the ice in the course of the 
 afternoon, if I could manage it ; but that, 
 without any humbug, I had an awful lot of 
 work on hand. 
 
 My excuse was accepted. Perhaps, after all, 
 my company was not so very ardently desired; 
 and, soon afterwards, I was free to grapple
 
 BREAKERS AHEAD, 147 
 
 once more with those daily labours in the 
 discharge of which I received no assistance 
 from the only person who could have rendered 
 them lighter or more hopeful for me. To cut 
 your coat according to your cloth is an excellent 
 plan ; but what size or shape of coat can be cut 
 when you are ignorant of the quantity of cloth 
 sX your disposal? What bothered me was that, 
 although I had pretty well ascertained the 
 amount of my employers income, actual and 
 prospective, I had no means of discovering more 
 than a certain proportion of his expenditure. 
 He had already slightly overdrawn his banking 
 account. I did not like to ask him whether 
 I was correct in my suspicion that he had 
 borrowed money from less trustworthy and 
 more expensive gentlemen than the family 
 bankers. Nevertheless, I resolved, that same 
 afternoon, that I would risk his displeasure by 
 putting the above inquisitorial question to him. 
 Unless 1 did so, and unless he answered me 
 candidly, my services would be scarcely worth 
 the price he was paying for them ; so that, 
 when I closed my books and took my skates
 
 148 HIS GRACE. 
 
 in my hand, I saw quite clearly the path 
 marked out for me by the finger of duty — 
 which is always a comforting mental position 
 to have reached. 
 
 I was crossing the park at a slinging trot, 
 planning as I went how I would lead Hurst- 
 bourne aside and stretch him on the rack with- 
 out further delay, when I met my proposed 
 victim, who was running as hard as he could 
 in the opposite direction, and who, on catching 
 sight of me, pulled up. He was breathless and 
 much agitated. 
 
 "Your sister has had an accident, Martyn," 
 said he hurriedly; "you'll find her in the boat- 
 house. I hope it isn't serious ; but I don't know, 
 and I'm going back to the Castle to send for 
 the doctor. Some infernal tinker ran full tilt 
 against her and knocked her over. She was 
 sensible when I left her, so there's no concus- 
 sion of the brain, I trust ; only, I'm afraid there 
 must be a broken bone, because she seemed to 
 be suiFering so much. Go to her, and have her 
 carried up to the house if you think she can 
 stand it — I mustn't stop. That fool of a doctor
 
 BREAKERS AHEAD. 149 
 
 was there, skating, yesterday when nobody wanted 
 him. Why the deuce couldn't he be there to- 
 day ? Just like him. Well, I must run on." 
 
 He was out of sight before I had time to ask 
 for further particulars; but, indeed, it was plain 
 that I should obtain speedier information from 
 the evidence of my own senses than I was 
 likely to get out of him. It did not take me 
 long to reach the boat-house, where I found 
 Nora lying upon a pile of cloaks and over- 
 coats, and surrounded by a dismayed and sym- 
 pathetic throng. She was pale and seemed to 
 be in a good deal of pain, but I perceived at 
 once, to my great relief, that her brain was 
 uninjured, and as soon as she saw me, she 
 tried, without very much success, to summon 
 up a laugh. 
 
 ** Don't look so horrified, Phil," said she, " I'm 
 not killed this time. I had all the breath knocked 
 out of me, and I have bumped the back of my 
 head, and I rather think I have broken my 
 arm ; but I'm quite capable of walking home, 
 if they would let me." 
 
 It appeared to me that she might, at any rate,
 
 I50 BIS GRACE. 
 
 be carried home out of the cold, and I was 
 making preparations for doing this when, by 
 good luck, the doctor, who had come as usual 
 to seek a little recreation after his daily rounds, 
 arrived upon the scene. 
 
 " What's all this ? " asked the burly little red- 
 headed man. "Been coming to grief, Miss 
 Marty n ? Not through any want of skill on 
 your own part then, I'm quite sure." 
 
 A tall, melancholy-looking youth, upon whom 
 the eyes of the rest of the assemblage were 
 fixed in severe condemnation, confessed almost 
 tearfully that he had been the unintentional 
 cause of the disaster. He protested with pathetic 
 earnestness that he wished he had broken both 
 his legs before he had been so clumsy; but his 
 repentance met with scant acknowledgment from 
 the doctor, who interrupted him by remarking 
 curtly that if he hadn't anything more sensible 
 to say than that, he had better take himself off. 
 The other bystanders were not much more civilly 
 dealt with. They were requested to go outside, 
 and stay there until their assistance was asked 
 for ; after which there was a brief examina-
 
 BREAKERS AHEAD. 151 
 
 tion of the patient, followed by a satisfactory- 
 verdict. 
 
 " No great damage done," said the doctor, who 
 was kneeling beside my sister, and who glanced 
 round to nod reassuringly at me ; " only a shaking 
 and a few contusions and a dislocated shoulder, 
 which I'll put right in a minute. Now, Miss 
 Martyn, I'm not going to hurt you very much ; 
 but whether I hurt you or not, you'll have to 
 bear it. Just give me your hand, will you ? " 
 
 He kicked off his boot, placed his foot under 
 her arm-pit, and, with one vigorous tug, the 
 operation was accomplished. 
 
 "There," said he. "Now, we must take you 
 home and put you to bed ; you have had more 
 of a shock than you think for; but you'll find 
 it out to-morrow, and you'll be pretty stifi* for 
 a day or two, I can tell you. Lucky it was no 
 worse. That young gaby was trying to skate 
 backwards, I suppose. Well, he won't attempt 
 to do such a thing again, unless he has the 
 whole of the lake to himself, you may be sure. 
 It isn't likely that he will be allowed to forget 
 to-day's performance."
 
 152 HIS GRACE. 
 
 As a matter of fact, I believe tJiat the poor 
 young man never has been allowed to forget it. 
 In quiet rural neighbourhoods the memory of all 
 performances, whether good or bad, is apt to die 
 hard, and public indignation had been power- 
 fully aroused by this mishap to a lady who, as 
 I think I have mentioned before, had known 
 how to make herself popular. However, we did 
 all we could to convince him that we bore no 
 malice ; Nora insisted upon sending for him 
 before we took her home, in order that he might 
 see for himself how little she had suffered from an 
 unavoidable collison ; even Hurstbourne, whom we 
 encountered on our way back, and who expressed 
 extreme joy on finding that his apprehensions had 
 been exaggerated, went so far as to promise that 
 he would not break the stupid idiot's head. 
 
 I should not be telling the truth, were I to 
 deny that I myself felt a strong inclination, in 
 the course of the same evening, to break the 
 head of another stupid idiot, and that that head 
 was placed above the shoulders of his Grace 
 the Duke of Hurstbourne. Of course his con- 
 duct had been due to mere stupidity and idiocy;
 
 BREAKERS AHEAD. 153 
 
 of course he had no serious intentions ; of course 
 he would have been horrified at the idea of 
 breaking a rustic maiden's heart for his amuse- 
 ment; and, of course, two-thirds of the cruelty 
 that is committed in this world is unintentional 
 cruelty. That is just the provoking part of it. 
 
 Nora was put to bed as soon as we reached 
 the Castle, and Lady Charles fussed round her 
 in the kindest possible wajT-, and everything was 
 done to make her comfortable. She was going 
 to be all right in a day or two ; only in the 
 meantime her nervous system had been upset; 
 and I suppose that was why she informed me 
 abruptly, while I was sitting beside her and en- 
 deavouring to interest her in the latest intelli- 
 gence conveyed to us by the evening papers, 
 that she had determined to throw over Mr Bur- 
 gess. Immediately after making this announce- 
 ment she burst into tears, which distressed and 
 alarmed me ; because crying is not, as a general 
 rule, one of her weaknesses. I could only say 
 (for I was reluctant to agitate her more than 
 I could help) that I was very glad to hear it, 
 and that I saw no reason for her distressing
 
 154 ^^S GRACE. 
 
 herself about a thoroughly sensible resolution ; 
 but, as she didn't stop weeping, I inquired pre- 
 sently whether she had any cause for unhappi- 
 ness beyond that which she had mentioned. 
 
 " None whatever," she answered. " It makes 
 me feel rather like a brute, and it leaves me 
 as a dead weight upon your hands, that's all. 
 Still I can't help it. I don't love him, and I 
 can't possibly marry him. You yourself told me 
 once, Phil, that it was shameful to marry a man 
 whom one doesn't love." 
 
 I assured her that I had no inclination at all 
 to recede from an opinion which I had always 
 held, and which I continue to hold to the present 
 day. 
 
 " But," I ventured to add, " it isn't, I suppose, 
 out of deference to my views that you have so* 
 suddenly changed your own. Hurstbourne told 
 me, the other day, that you had been speaking 
 to him about your engagement, and no doubt 
 he has dissuaded you from keeping it. That is 
 all very well ; only Hurstbourne, you know, good 
 fellow though he is, is not precisely one whose 
 advice it would always be safe to follow blindly."
 
 BREAKERS AHEAD. 155 
 
 At this Nora began to laugh. 
 
 " Oh," said she, " the Duke is a goose and 
 you are wise ; nobody knows that better than 
 he does. All the same, it does occasionally come 
 to pass that wisdom proceeds out of tlie mouth 
 of fools." 
 
 "Is it his wisdom or his folly that leads 
 you to discuss subjects with him upon which 
 you decline to enter with your brother ? " I 
 asked sternly. 
 
 I looked at her, hoping against hope that she 
 would not blush; but she did blush; so I picked 
 up the evening paper again, with a heavy heart, 
 and read out scraps of fashiouable intelligence 
 which were probably as unmeaning to her as they 
 were to me. She had virtually told me all that 
 there was to tell ; I could not expect, or even 
 wish, that she should be more explicit.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MISS ST GEORGE. 
 
 Nora was soon herself again. She had been 
 mentally as well as physically upset, and she 
 had said things which she may possibly have 
 regretted when her nervous system recovered its 
 customary equilibrium ; but she had quite made 
 up her mind to renounce the care of Mr Burgess 
 and his children. In assuring me of her unaltered 
 resolution she, nevertheless, took occasion to beg 
 that I would say nothing about it for the present. 
 
 " There is no hurry," said she ; " Mr Burgess, 
 as you know, isn't in a hurry, and of course my 
 private affairs don't concern anybody here except 
 you and me." 
 
 "Most certainly they don't," I replied, with 
 
 an emphasis of the futility of which I was fully 
 
 aware. " It can't signify a straw to Lady Charles 
 
 Oascoigne whether you marry this or that person 
 
 156
 
 MISS ST GEORGE, 157 
 
 or whether you remain a spinster; as for Hurst- 
 bourne, he is a simple, kind-hearted fellow, and 
 I can well understand that he may have been 
 shocked at the idea of your engaging yourself 
 to a man of Mr Burgess's age ; but I am afraid 
 he will forget your existence and mine as soon 
 as we are out of his sight, and his own affairs, 
 you may be sure, interest him a hundred times 
 more than yours — which, after all, is only 
 natural." 
 
 " You do the Duke an injustice," said Nora ; 
 " he doesn't forget you when you are out of his 
 sight. He looks upon you as his best friend, 
 and I don't think he is very far wrong." 
 
 Then she laughed, and inquired whether, by 
 any chance, I imagined that she had lost her 
 heart to this appreciative scion of the British 
 aristocracy. 
 
 I avoided giving a direct answer. I was under 
 no illusion upon the subject ; but I had sense 
 enough to see that the mischief had passed 
 beyond the range of verbal correctives. What 
 course it behoved me to take, and what course 
 our mother would have taken, had she been
 
 158 HIS GRACE. 
 
 situated as I was, I could not tell ; but it seemed 
 to me best to promise that I would keep Nora's 
 secret and to adopt every possible precaution 
 for preventing further private intercourse between 
 her and Hurstbourne. I can't say for certain, 
 but I rather suspect that, during the ensuing 
 ten days, they both of them found me a per- 
 sistent and intolerable nuisance. They behaved 
 very well about it; they professed, and even 
 appeared, to be delighted with the companion- 
 ship which I so ruthlessly thrust upon them ; 
 they never inquired how it was that I had 
 such a superfluity of leisure upon my hands all 
 of a sudden; there was not, properly speaking, 
 the smallest flirtation between them when I 
 joined in their games of billiards, or when, a 
 genuine thaw having at last set in, I attended 
 them in the hunting-field. Yet, watching them 
 narrowly, I perceived by a thousand little signs 
 that my fears rested upon only too solid a 
 foundation and that the worst that could happen 
 had happened. The worst, I mean, as regarded 
 the existence of a calamity which I was power- 
 less to avert or minimise; of course, a much
 
 MISS ST GEORGE. 159 
 
 worse time was in store for poor Nora; for, 
 whereas she was now ridiculously happy, it was 
 beyond doubt that she would ere long be quite 
 as ridiculously, but not less thoroughly, miser- 
 able. And all this because a well-meaning young 
 man, with a rather handsome face, had not vanity 
 enough to preserve him from making havoc of 
 the future of a girl to whom he had taken a 
 passing fancy. I feel confident that everyone 
 who reads these lines will excuse me for having 
 snapped viciously at him every now and then, 
 without ostensible cause for so doing, and will 
 agree that he ought not, in all conscience, to 
 have looked so surprised and hurt when he 
 was snapped at. 
 
 Well, I daresay he became less dense later on; 
 but whether he did, or whether he didn't, the 
 inevitable had to occur. One morning there was 
 a lawn-meet at the house of a neighbouring 
 squire which was patronised by all the great 
 people of the county, together with their wives, 
 their families, their horses and their carriages. 
 Amongst the latter I speedily recognised the 
 equipage which had been sent to the station
 
 i6o HIS GRACE, 
 
 to meet Mr Paul Gascoigne on the day when 
 he had so thoughtfully put our noses out of 
 joint by ordering postillions. If I did not at 
 once recognise one of the ladies who sat in it^ 
 facing its owner, that was because she was 
 about the last person in the world whom I 
 should have expected to encounter in such a 
 place, or on such an occasion. 
 
 But Nora, who was close beside me, touched 
 my elbow with her hunting crop, exclaiming, not 
 without a perceptible inflection of alarm in her 
 voice, — 
 
 " Good gracious, Phil, there's Lady Deverell ! " 
 And sure enough, the forefinger and the hook 
 nose of the venerable lady began presently to 
 convey to us signals which it was impossible to 
 disregard. 
 
 Her ladyship, so we were informed after we had 
 approached and had exchanged greetings with her 
 and with the newly elected M.P., was staying for 
 a short time at Lavenham. She was accompanied 
 by her niece, Miss St George, to whom she was 
 graciously pleased to introduce us, and who, I 
 thought, took somewhat unnecessary pains to
 
 MISS ST GEORGE. i6i 
 
 show us what very small fry we were in her 
 estimaticn. Miss St George was a very tall 
 young lady. Her large, dark eyes only rested 
 upon me superciliously for a single moment; 
 yet, such is my calm impartiality that I was 
 ready to acknowledge at the time, as I am 
 ready to acknowledge now, the fact of her 
 being singularly beautiful. I don't say that I 
 admired her, that is quite another thing. There 
 is no law that I know of which compels free- 
 born Britons to admire beauty when they see 
 it, and if my taste is bad, it is, nevertheless, my 
 taste, and will remain such. 
 
 For about five minutes I listened with one ear 
 to the fluent political commonplaces and the 
 ill - disguised political exultation of Mr Paul 
 Gascoigne, while with the other I caught frag- 
 ments of the kindly lecture which Lady Deverell 
 was addressing to my sister. 
 
 " You really must not ask me to approve of 
 it, my dear," I heard her saying; "hunting 
 cannot be considered a suitable amusement for 
 the future wife of a parish priest. As for sport 
 in the abstract, there is much to be said in favour 
 VOL. J. I
 
 i62 HIS GRACE. 
 
 of its being supported by those whose means 
 and position entitle them to engage in it. Mr 
 Gascoigne, as I daresay you know, is a sports- 
 man himself and an excellent shot ; but he has 
 far too deep a sense of his responsibilities to 
 give up his life to sport, as his cousin does. 
 Though, to be sure, I understand that when the 
 present Duke of Hurstbourne is not engaged in 
 sport, he is usually even worse employed." 
 
 At that moment the present Duke of Hurst- 
 bourne rode up and joined us, thereby, perhaps, 
 preserving a friend of his from speaking un- 
 advisedly with her lips. He greeted his cousin 
 pleasantly — Hurstbourne can't help being pleasant, 
 except when he means to be downright rude — 
 he was introduced to Lady Deverell, who bowed 
 in a very distant and stately fashion, and 1 noticed 
 that Miss St George's languid eyes brightened a 
 little as she acknowledged his salutation. How 
 queer it is that the stupidest and most unobserv- 
 ant people sometimes discover, by a sort of in- 
 spiration, things which have not even happened 
 yet, but which are certainly going to happen. 
 I know it is so, because I can speak from personal
 
 MISS ST GEORGE. 163 
 
 -experience, but I cannot account for the fact, nor 
 have I the slightest idea why I was persuaded, 
 before Miss St Georofe had exchano^ed a dozen 
 words with Hurstbourne, that she intended to 
 set her cap at him. I overheard all, or nearly 
 all, that they said to one another ; nothing could 
 have been more innocent or more dull. It was 
 a, good job, he remarked, that that beastly frost 
 had gone at last; she assented, and, in reply to 
 a question of his, confessed that she was fond 
 of riding. She added that she did sometimes 
 hunt, but that she had not put on her riding- 
 habit that day, because it had not been suggested 
 to her that she should do so, and because she 
 had been given to understand that Mr Gascoigne 
 was not a hunting man. 
 
 " More's the pity," observed Hurstbourne : where- 
 upon she shrugged her shoulders and held her 
 peace. 
 
 I think there was a pause after that, or if any 
 further observations were exchanged between them, 
 they were drowned by the deep voice of Lady 
 Deverell, who had resumed h'^r interrupted homily 
 /to my sister. The next words from Hurstbourne'?.
 
 i64 I^IS GRACE. 
 
 lips which caught my ear were of a kind which 
 refiected credit upon him and gave evidence of 
 conciliatory and neighbourly inclinations on his 
 part. He was calling his cousin " old chap," and 
 was inviting the whole party to come over and 
 lunch some day. There wouldn't be anything 
 for them to do, he said ; but, perhaps, they might 
 like to see the place, and if Lady Deverell or 
 Miss St George cared at all about flowers, he 
 could show them a pretty fair display, consider- 
 ing the time of year. " No swagger orchids, 
 such as I suppose you have at Lavenham; still, 
 a decent amount of ordinary stove and green- 
 house plants, you know." 
 
 The invitation was accepted. Mr Gascoigne's 
 manner implied that he was always happy to 
 confer a favour upon a poor relation ; Lady 
 D ever ell's was that of an austere saint, who 
 knows that for her there can be no risk in 
 visiting the haunts of profligacy, while Miss 
 St George was almost eflusive in her gratitude. 
 
 "Oh, thank you so much!" she exclaimed. 
 " I have always longed to see Hurstbourne 
 Castle, which everybody says is one of the
 
 MISS ST GEORGE. 165 
 
 finest places in England ; but I didn't like to 
 ask Mr Gascoigne to take us there as sight- 
 seers while you were at home." 
 
 On our way towards the covert-side, Hurst- 
 bourne caught me up and said, — 
 
 " That's an awfully good-looking girl." 
 
 " Yes," I replied ; " she is very good-looking 
 indeed. I doubt whether she is anything 
 more." 
 
 "Oh, you be hanged," returned Hurstbourne 
 laughing; "you're an old St — what's his name 
 — Anthony, wasn't it ? Pretty faces don't appeal 
 to you, you must needs have mental beauty; 
 whereas everybody else, including our esteemed 
 friend Paul, knows that if a woman isn't physi- 
 cally attractive, she has missed her vocation. 
 I don't suppose you noticed anything; but I'll 
 lay you two to one in whatever you like that 
 Paul has lost his heart to that Miss St George." 
 
 I did not take his offer ; because, for one 
 thing, I can't afford to bet, and, for another, 
 he was mistaken in his assumption that I had 
 noticed nothing. On the contrary, I had noticed 
 that Mr Gascoigne liad not half liked his guest's
 
 i66 BIS GRACE. 
 
 gracious reception of the young Duke, and that 
 he had made several vain attempts to break 
 in upon their brief and harmless colloquy. How- 
 ever, I did not care no mention this ; I only 
 said, — 
 
 " Well, if he has lost his heart to her, by 
 all means let him marry her. I shall not for- 
 bid the banns, nor, I presume, will you; and 
 if appearances are to be relied upon, they ought 
 to make a remarkably well-suited couple." 
 
 Hurstbourne gave a sort of snort and left 
 me. I knew just what the state of his mind 
 was; I knew perfectly well that he would like 
 to forbid the banns if he could. I knew that 
 he had been a little bit fascinated and that 
 he had a very strong desire to cut his cousin 
 out in any way that might seem to lie open 
 to him. I couldn't help it, though. I could 
 only hold my tongue, and wish that I hadn't 
 been such an ass as to bring my poor dear 
 Nora to Hurstbourne Castle, and wonder what 
 Providence could be about to let things fall 
 out so askew, without the faintest apparent 
 prospect of advantage to the persons concerned.
 
 MISS ST GEORGE, 167 
 
 My mother used to be fond of afBrming that 
 the designs of Providence are beyond our com- 
 prehension. Everything leads me to believe that 
 she was right. 
 
 We had a blank day, which was possibly 
 the reason why we all three returned home 
 out of spirits and out of temper. Other causes 
 may have been at work; but I can't say for 
 certain, because, of course, I don't know what 
 passed between Hurstbourne and Nora after I 
 lost sight of them. The latter, when I rejoined 
 her on the homeward path, had some harsh 
 things to say about Lady Deverell, the justice 
 of which I felt to be indisputable, and con- 
 sequently did not attempt to dispute ; but she 
 cordially — almost too cordially — concurred in 
 Hurstbourne's outspoken admiration of Miss St 
 George, and I daresay he was more surprised 
 than I was by the uncalled-for way in which 
 she snubbed him when he said cheerfully, — 
 
 "Well, Miss Nora, we've wasted our time 
 and our patience to-day, haven't we ? But never 
 mind ; we'll have better luck next Saturday 
 Of course you'll come out on Saturday."
 
 i68 HIS GRACE. 
 
 "I think not," she replied; "it's hardly good 
 enouffh. If one has a chance of beinof shown 
 any sport, one can submit to sermons from Lady 
 Deverell and to hours of improving conversa- 
 tion with — with other people, but this doesn't 
 seem to be a very sporting county." 
 
 I don't think anybody would accuse Hurst- 
 bourne of being a bad-tempered man ; but he is 
 certainly rather short in the temper, and he is 
 young. So, instead of asking Nora point-blank 
 what was the matter with her (which would 
 have driven her into a corner), he raised his 
 chin an inch and a half and looked huffy. Alto- 
 gether, it was scarcely one of those days which 
 deserve to be marked with a white stone. 
 
 What sort of a stone ought to have marked 
 the day on which Mr Gascoigne, accompanied 
 by his fair visitors, came to partake of luncheon 
 with us, I can't pretend to decide. Such ques- 
 tions depend, of course, upon the point of view 
 of the individual who holds the stone; and if, 
 on that occasion, I had held a stone in my hand 
 and had possessed perfect freedom of action, I 
 really don't know whether I should have hurled
 
 MISS ST GEORGE, 169 
 
 the missile at Paul Gascoigne's head, or at Lady 
 Deverell's, or at Miss St George's — they were 
 all of them, in their several ways, so extremely 
 disagreeable. However, I take it that Hurst- 
 bourne did not find Miss St George disagreeable, 
 whatever may have been his opinion with re- 
 gard to the two others. 
 
 It was with the two others that Nora and 
 I and poor Lady Charles had to deal. I don't 
 mind admitting now that they got the better 
 of us ; because there are, after all, certain con- 
 tests in which it is more honourable to be van- 
 quished than to conquer, and although it may 
 be that we should have said as many nasty 
 things as they did, if we had been clever enough 
 and rude enough, I am sure we consulted our 
 own dignity by remaining strictly on the de- 
 fensive. Lady Deverell, who was an honest 
 woman, insulted us all pretty openly. She ap- 
 peared to have a violent prejudice against Hurst- 
 bourne ; she despised Lady Charles ; she was 
 displeased with Nora, and she had always, I 
 believe, regarded me as being three-fourths of 
 a fool and a quarter of a knave. Her observa-
 
 I70 HIS GRACE. 
 
 tions were not agreeable ; still they were not 
 as oifensive as those of Mr Gascoigne, who, while 
 maintaining a perfectly polite and urbane de- 
 meanour, contrived, by various more or less adioit 
 insinuations, to goad us into a condition border- 
 ing upon fury. 
 
 Yet, as will have been surmised from my 
 statement that these charming persons were left 
 to be entertained by three of our number, there 
 were excuses for Mr Gascoigne. It could not 
 have been pleasant to him to see Hurstbourne 
 lead Miss St George off to the conservatories 
 immediately after luncheon; he could not, I am 
 sure, have liked the young lady's persistent deaf- 
 ness to his hints that he, too, would be glad to 
 inspect the exotics ; and by taking his revenge 
 upon unoffending persons, he was perhaps only 
 doing what it is human and natural to do. I 
 can't say that I liked him well enough to be 
 sorry for him ; but I endeavoured to make al- 
 lowances, and I abstained from inviting him to 
 explain himself when he gave us to understand 
 that his cousin had become mixed up with a 
 disreputable gang of racing men.
 
 MISS ST GEORGE. 171 
 
 " Racing," said he, " is a national pastime which 
 tends, no doubt, to improve the breed of horses 
 throughout the country. It is quite right that 
 it should be supported; only I should never 
 advise any man to engage in it unless he could 
 afford to do so en grand seigneur." 
 
 "His Grace," observed Lady Charles, "would 
 always do that." 
 
 Thereupon Mr Gascoigne laughed a little and 
 inquired whether his Grace was a millionaire. 
 " Onl}^ millionaires," he was good enough to 
 inform us, "can race without betting, and only 
 people who don't mind losing their money can 
 bet without involving themselves in transactions 
 which a grand seigneur would feel to be im- 
 possible for him." 
 
 I hardly know how he managed to convey to 
 us the impression that, in his opinion, Hurst- 
 bourne's position was absurdly imcompatible with 
 that of a grand seigneur; but such was the 
 impression that he did convey, and he conveyed 
 several others, equally unflattering, into the bar- 
 gain; so it was no wonder that, after a time, a 
 fine natural colour asserted itself through Lady
 
 172 HIS GRACE. 
 
 Charles's powder and rouge, or that Nora affected 
 to be interested in the contents of a book which 
 she had snatched up at random from the table. 
 
 Those plants seemed to require a great deal 
 of examination. I believe that I am guilty of 
 no exaggeration when I say that a good solid 
 hour had elapsed before Lady Deverell lost 
 patience and requested that a servant might be 
 despatched in search of her niece. 
 
 "Leila is a most good-natured girl," said she; 
 " but I doubt whether she knows anything at 
 all about botany, and I really think she has 
 been victimised long enough. Besides, it is high 
 time for us to be going." 
 
 Mr Gascoigne rose with alacrity, and offered 
 to start in quest of the truants ; but Lady 
 Charles said we would all go, and the upshot 
 of it was that we all went. Through the con- 
 servatories we trooped, a grim and silent phalanx, 
 Lady Charles leading the way and the rest of 
 us following; we visited the palm-house and the 
 intermediate houses, and the hothouses and even 
 the stove-house where the big Farleyense is : 
 but nowhere were we rewarded by a sign or
 
 MISS ST GEORGE. 173 
 
 a trace of our quarry. At last somebody — tlie 
 humble writer of these lines, perhaps — put for- 
 ward a timid suggestion that it might be worth 
 while to try the stables; and in the stable-yard, 
 sure enough, we found Hurstbourne and Miss 
 St George, seated upon a couple of inverted 
 buckets, and conversing as unconcernedly as if 
 nothing had been further from their thoughts 
 than that they had for some time past been 
 causing five respectable persons to use inward lan- 
 guage quite unfit for publication respecting them. 
 Hurstbourne was smoking a cigar, and looked, as 
 I have no doubt he felt, perfectly contented. 
 
 " Oh, there you all are ! " he said, as we hove 
 in sight ; " we were just wondering what had 
 become of you." 
 
 One or two of us — I was one — responded by 
 a feeble sort of giggle ; but Lady Deverell is 
 not given to giggling when she is angry. 
 
 " What are you dreaming of to sit out of 
 doors in this cold air, Leila ? " she asked. " I 
 understood the Duke to say that he wished to 
 show you the conservatories ; though I might 
 have guessed that he would be more at home
 
 f74 HIS GRACE. 
 
 with grooms than with gardeners. I don't know 
 ;a.t what hour you ordered the carriage, Mr Gas- 
 coigne ; but unless we start at once, we certainly 
 shall not reach Lavenham before nightfall." 
 
 Mr Gascoigne went off to look for his coach- 
 man, while Miss St George, who did not appear 
 to be much in awe of her aunt, explained that 
 she was not in the least cold, and that she 
 agreed with the Duke of Hurstbourne in pre- 
 ferring horses to flowers. 
 
 "You won't forget your promise of coming- 
 over some day to inspect your cousin's stud, 
 will you % " she added turning to her host. " As 
 I told you, it isn't much of a stud, because he 
 isn't a hunting man; still, he has one or two 
 animals that you might care to run your eye 
 over, and, if it won't be troubling you too 
 much, I should like you just to try that mare 
 of his which he says can carry a lady." 
 
 To an unprejudiced listener this sounded pretty 
 cool ; but Hurstbourne seemed to think it all 
 right, and declared, with a foolish air of gratifica- 
 tion which made me long to wring his neck, that 
 he would not for the world allow Miss St George
 
 MISS ST GEORGE, 175 
 
 to mount any animal without having previously 
 ascertained that it was fit for her to ride. What 
 Mr Gascoigne may have thought must remain a 
 matter of conjecture, but when he returned to 
 us he seconded the invitation which had been 
 given in his name with a tolerably good grace. 
 One should always try to allow the devil his 
 due, and if I can't find anything else to say in 
 favour of Paul Gascoigne, I am at least willing 
 to admit that he possesses the gift of self- 
 command. 
 
 It was not until some minutes after our guests 
 had departed that Lady Charles interrupted her 
 son's warm encomiums upon Miss St George's 
 beauty and amiability by remarking, — 
 
 "My dear Arthur, she may be this, that or 
 the other ; but if she were staying in my house, 
 I shouldn't like her to make herself so much 
 at home. The idea of her asking you to go 
 over to Lavenham, and of that long-legged gaby 
 submissively backing her up. He hadn't even 
 the civility to ask me either." 
 
 " Oh," answered Hurstbourne, looking a trifle 
 disconcerted, " I am sure they would have asked
 
 176 BIS GRACE. 
 
 you, mother, if they had thought you would 
 care to go." 
 
 ''They!' retorted Lady Charles, with a toss of 
 her flaxen head ; " who are theyy pray ? I was 
 under the impression that Lavenham belonged 
 to Paul Gascoigne. Not, of course, that it ought 
 to belong to him, and not that I should think 
 of troubling myself to drive all that distance 
 for the privilege of seeing his unpleasant face 
 again and listening to his unpleasant talk. Nor,^ 
 I sincerely hope, will you do so, Arthur." 
 
 Well, it was probably not for the sake of the 
 privileges mentioned that Hurstbourne intended 
 to go there, and did go there. I was more than 
 doubtful whether his incentive was even the 
 totally inadequate one which he was pleased to 
 confide to me later in the evening. 
 
 " I rather flatter myself that I put Master Paul's 
 nose out of joint a bit to-day," said he, with a 
 mischievous chuckle. "He isn't engaged to Miss 
 St George yet, and it's not quite a thousand to 
 one certainty that he ever will be. It does that 
 chap a lot of good to let him see that he isn't 
 absolutely invincible."
 
 MISS ST GEORGE. 177 
 
 " But are you so very anxious to do him good ? " 
 I ventured to inquire. "I thought you weren't 
 particularly fond of him. If you were, one might 
 understand your sitting upon a stable bucket 
 and playing with fire. Doesn't it strike you 
 that, if you don't mind what you are about, you 
 may find yourself engaged to Miss St George 
 one of these fine days ? And don't you think 
 that, in that case, Mr Gascoigne might have tlie 
 laugh on his side ? " 
 
 Hurstbourne answered, " Oh, bosh ! " and went 
 out of the room. He has a happy knack of 
 leaving the room when he can't hit upon a 
 rational rejoinder. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A DAY. 
 
 HuRSTBOUENE, as I have said, went over to 
 Lavenham in spite of his mother; some more 
 definite invitation than that which he had received 
 in my hearing, must, I suppose, have reached 
 him by post. Anyhow, he went, and, for my 
 part, I tried to persuade myself that it was just 
 as well that he should go. Miss St George or 
 another, what did it matter ? Sooner or later 
 my poor Nora was certain to be ejected from 
 her fool's paradise, and the sooner she was made 
 to submit to that painful process of eviction the 
 sooner her troubles would be over. I may be 
 mistaken, but my impression is that nine people 
 out of ten recover from the pangs of unrequited 
 afiection within a year, or, at the outside, eighteen 
 months. It is true that there always remains 
 
 the case of the tenth person to be considered, 
 
 78
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A DAY, 179 
 
 and that is why I was a sorrowful man in those 
 days. Nora might be exceptional ; nothing proved 
 to me that she was not so ; I could not tell how 
 she was taking it all, and of course I could not 
 ask her. Only I saw, by the heaviness of her 
 eyelids and the pallor of her cheeks, that she 
 was not getting her fair share of sleep, added 
 to which, she assumed a certain hard gaiety of 
 demeanour which was neither natural nor of 
 a nature to deceive anybody less obtuse than 
 Lady Charles Gascoigne. 
 
 All the same, it appeared to deceive Hurst- 
 bourne, whose attention, no doubt, was other- 
 wise occupied, and who no longer either sought 
 my sister's society or looked as if he missed 
 it. There was no quarrel between them ; that 
 little tiff on the way back from hunting, of 
 which mention has been made, had blown over, 
 and they laughed and joked together as usual 
 when they met ; but they did not often meet 
 now, except at meals, nor was the cover re- 
 moved from the billiard-table any more. Hurst- 
 bourne returned from his visit to his cousin 
 in high glee.
 
 i8o HIS GRACE. 
 
 " What do you think ? " said he. " The hounds 
 are to draw the Lavenham coverts on Tuesday, 
 and Paul is going to give a big breakfast. 
 He doesn't half like it, and I believe he is 
 in a blue funk because we have persuaded 
 him that it is his bounden duty to get on a 
 horse for the occasion. However, as we are 
 pretty sure not to find, and as he has some 
 very sober beasts in his stables, there isn't much 
 chance of his getting chucked," added Hurst- 
 bourne regretfully. 
 
 " Is that girl a good rider ? " inquired Lady 
 Charles, with languid interest. 
 
 " I don't know ; I haven't seen her in the 
 saddle. But I tried that little mare of Paul's, 
 and an uncommonly nice little mare she is. 
 If there's a run, Miss St George ought to be 
 able to see it ; anyhow, we'll show her the 
 way, won't we. Miss Martyn ? " 
 
 " I daresay you will ; I shan't have that privi- 
 lege, because I sha'n't be there," answered Nora. 
 
 " Why not ? — what nonsense ! — what do you 
 mean?" asked Hurstbourne almost angrily. 
 
 "Well, I mean, for one thing, that I don't
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A DAY i8t 
 
 see the fun of fox-hunting without a fox, and 
 for another thinsf, that I would rather not be 
 preached at again by Lady Deverell if I could 
 help it. Thirdly and lastly, I should prefer 
 to stay at home. There's no use in arguing 
 with a person who says she would prefer to 
 stay at home." 
 
 "I also will stay at home," observed Lady 
 Charles, with a laugh and a yawn ; " if Mr 
 Gascoigne wishes for our company, let him 
 have the good manners to ask for it, and then 
 we'll refuse." 
 
 Hurstbourne grumbled a little ; he could do 
 no less. He said that even if there were no 
 foxes at Lavenham, there would be foxes some- 
 where in the neighbourhood, and that, suppos- 
 ing the worst came to the worst, it was better 
 to be out in the open air than to sit over 
 the fire all day doing nothing, he should have 
 thought. But he evidently was not particu- 
 larly keen about Nora's company, and it is 
 superfluous to add that that sad fact was as 
 obvious to her as it was to me. Much to 
 my relief, she did not display her true feel-
 
 i82 HIS GRACE. 
 
 ings more undisguisedly than she had ah^eady 
 done; though I daresay she might have been 
 painfully explicit without causing that foolish 
 young man to suspect their existence. 
 
 The end of it was that I was forced, some- 
 what against my will, to go with him and 
 see him through. Hurstbourne is one of those 
 good, simple creatures who can't enjoy any- 
 thing alone and can't understand the failure 
 of other people to enjoy what affords them 
 satisfaction. He must needs always have a 
 friend at his elbow to whom he can impart 
 his joys, his sorrows, his desires and the rest 
 of his ephemeral emotions, and it seemed, for 
 the time being, to be my destiny to fill a 
 part which would not in itself have been dis- 
 tasteful to me. Only, as sympathetic readers 
 will readily realise, I could not, under all the 
 circumstances, precisely relish the prospect of 
 looking on at his philanderings with Miss St 
 George. I am not gifted with that remark- 
 able insight into the thoughts of my fellow 
 creatures which is boldly claimed by such a 
 number of people in these days ; so that I really
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A DAY. 183 
 
 don't know whether Hurstbourne set forth with 
 the intention of conquering Miss St George's 
 affections or only with that of making his 
 cousin jealous ; but certainly, when we arrived 
 at our destination, his behaviour was of a kind 
 to lend support to either hypothesis. We found 
 a great crowd in the dining-room, and met 
 with a cordial reception from everybody, in- 
 cluding our host, who was very nicely got 
 up in boots and breeches, but had wisely ab- 
 stained from donning a pink coat. 
 
 "Delighted to see you Arthur," said he. "I 
 hope we shall be able to show you some sport ; 
 but, as you know, that is more the keeper's 
 affair than mine. All I can say is that I gave 
 strict orders upon the subject as soon as I 
 succeeded to the property." 
 
 " Any man," observed Colonel Corbin, who 
 chanced to be standing near, " can have both 
 foxes and pheasants, if he likes, and any keeper 
 that I ever heard of will kill foxes, if he 
 dares. It's a mere question of whether he has 
 been told that he is to interpret strict orders 
 strictly or not."
 
 1 84 HIS GRACE. 
 
 Colonel Corbin, it was plain, entertained no 
 sanguine anticipations, and did not think it worth 
 while to conceal his sentiments ; but, as lawn- 
 meets are usually attended by plenty of sports- 
 men to whom sport is a matter of secondary 
 importance, Mr Gascoigne was not, so far as 
 I am aware, distressed by any further speeches 
 of the above uncomplimentary description. He 
 was extremely polite, affable and discursive; no 
 doubt he wished to make himself popular, and 
 to a certain extent he may have been success- 
 ful. I suppose he could not, for the life of 
 him, have helped being condescending; other- 
 wise he might easily have secured more friends 
 than his money and his position had already 
 earned for him. 
 
 He was not, however, so bumptious on that 
 occasion as was his wont; for he was palpably 
 nervous. I saw him mount the big, staid roan 
 horse which had been brought to the door for 
 him ; I saw his groom indulge in a grin and 
 a wink when his back was turned ; but I also 
 saw in a y^yj few minutes that he had been 
 taught to ride. If Hurstbourne expected him to
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A DAY. 185 
 
 go over his horse's head, Hurstbourne was likely 
 to be disappointed. But Hurstbourne was not 
 looking at his rival ; he was helping Miss St 
 George into the saddle, and for the next quarter of 
 an hour or more he had no eyes for anybody except 
 Miss St George. That young lady sat well and 
 handled her spirited little mare as if she knew 
 what she was about ; of course it remained to 
 be seen whether she was really a horsewoman 
 of Nora's class. Not, to be sure, that that 
 mattered much; still I was, I confess, mean 
 enough to hope that she had not all Nora's 
 pluck. It was disgraceful of me to admit such 
 feelings into my mind; but I did admit them. 
 Perhaps one or two very kind and forgiving 
 people will refrain from condemning a frail 
 fellow-mortal. 
 
 And now occurred an unexpected and (as I 
 was subsequently assured) an unprecedented event. 
 We actually found a fox in Lavenham woods. 
 There were, I believe, certain people who affirmed 
 — but no matter ! The gossip of the hunting- 
 field is only a shade less contemptible than that 
 of the drawing-room, and, whatever may have
 
 i86 HIS GRACE. 
 
 been the antecedents o£ Mr Gascoigne's unique 
 fox, he proved a game one and gave us a ratt- 
 ling spin of forty minutes. It is to be regretted 
 that the gentleman who had thus done his duty by 
 the hunt so nobly and satisfactorily should, through 
 some unfortunate mishap or other, have been 
 thrown out at the very beginning of the run. I 
 saw nothing of Mr Gascoigne after we got away ; 
 but, on the other hand, I saw a good deal of 
 Miss St George, who rode with skill and judg- 
 ment, and fairly earned the brush which was 
 awarded to her. As much could not be said 
 for Hurstbourne. It is, or was, Hurstbourne's 
 habit to ride upon a system calculated to make 
 the blood of all beholders run cold. Nobody 
 that I ever heard of thinks of disputing his 
 courage; he has a good seat and tolerably good 
 hands ; but I firmly believe that if, at that time 
 (he has reasons for behaving less insanely now- 
 adays) he had seen a seven-foot stone wall in 
 front of him, he would have put his horse at it 
 without troubling himself for one moment to con- 
 sider whether he was attempting an absolute im- 
 possibility or not. In that part of the world stone
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A DAY. 187 
 
 walls are neither numerous nor lofty, but we 
 had to negotiate some rather awkward fences, 
 and over one of these he managed, in his own 
 words to "come a most superior crowner." Both 
 he and his horse escaped with a shaking; he 
 was soon in the saddle again, and he galloped up 
 in time to witness the finish, with a countenance 
 illuminated by smiles and adorned by two long 
 scratches, as well as by various smears of mud. 
 
 Miss St George contemplated him with calm 
 curiosity. 
 
 " Have you insured your life ? " I heard her 
 inquire. 
 
 And when he answered, laughing, that he had 
 neglected that precaution, she returned, — 
 
 "Do you know, I don't think I would neglect 
 it any longer, if I were you." 
 
 He seemed to accept her observation as a 
 compliment; very likely it may have presented 
 itself to him in that light; and while we were 
 jogging along towards Kingstead Gorse, he was 
 most assiduous in his attentions to her and super- 
 lative in his praises of the manner in which she 
 had hitherto acquitted herself. Riding close be-
 
 1 88 HIS GRACE. 
 
 hind them, I caught occasional fragments of their 
 dialogue which would have convinced me, if in- 
 deed any convincing process had been required, 
 that he was making love to Lady Deverell's 
 niece with the uncompromising thoroughness that 
 was wont to characterise every action of his. 
 Lady Deverell's niece appeared to like it, and 
 there was no reason to suppose that Miss St 
 George's aunt would dislike it; because, after all, 
 a duke is a duke, though he may have a cousin 
 wealthier than himself. As for me, it was not 
 to be expected of me that I should like it; nor 
 in truth should I have liked it even if Nora 
 had not, on an ill-starred day, come to take up 
 her abode at Hurstbourne Castle; for, admirably 
 adapted though Miss St George was to adorn 
 the station of a duchess, she did not strike me 
 as being the sort of woman to render a kind- 
 hearted, hot-tempered, matter-of-fact little man 
 happy. 
 
 But the great merit of fox-hunting, as of all 
 other sports and pastimes worthy to be so called, 
 is that, while the excitement of it lasts, nothing 
 else signifies one farthing; and there was excite-
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A DAY. 189 
 
 ment enough in our second run that day to 
 content the most insatiable of fox - hunters. I 
 am not going to describe that historic run. To 
 begin with, I couldn't possibly do justice to its 
 incidents unless I were to ascend or descend into 
 rhyme (a practice which I have abandoned) ; 
 added to which, I am sorry to saj^ that I only 
 saw a portion of it. However, I thoroughly 
 enjoyed that portion of it in which I was privi- 
 leged to take part, and a man whose bones are 
 as big as mine are knows only too well that 
 he must be a Rothschild into the bargain if he 
 wants his horse to stay for ever. My poor old 
 grey floundered into a ditch at last and gave 
 me to understand, after I had got him on to his 
 legs again, that he had shot his bolt. I had 
 not spared him as perhaps I ought to have done, 
 and I was not even sure that he would be able 
 to carry me home. 
 
 One thing was beyond all question, and that 
 was that homewards we must set our faces. So, 
 after a brief breathing space, we started at a 
 foot's pace, threading our way through the sinuous 
 and miry lanes, until we arrived at a public-
 
 I90 HIS GRACE. 
 
 house, where I thought I had better halt and 
 gruel my exhausted mount. It was almost dark 
 when I hoisted myself once more into the saddle 
 and, catching the sound of approaching hoofs, 
 paused in the hope that some other belated horse- 
 man might be able to inform me of the result of 
 the day's sport, or at least to direct me as to the 
 shortest way to Hurstbourne Castle. 
 
 However, it was a horsewoman, not a horseman, 
 who presently showed up black against the red 
 glow of the western sky, and as she approached 
 I recognised Miss St George, who drew rein and 
 honoured me with a nod. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know," she said rather crossly, 
 in answer to my first question. " They were still 
 running when I had to leave them, and they 
 looked as if they meant to run until next year. 
 Meanwhile, my mare has dropped lame, and 1 
 haven't the most remote idea where I am. I 
 suppose you are acquainted with the geography 
 of this hideous country, aren't you ? Perhaps yon 
 wouldn't mind telling me what point of the com- 
 pass I ought to make for in order to reach Laven- 
 ham before I die."
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A DAY, 191 
 
 I was not in a position to furnish her with 
 the required instructions, but I made inquiries 
 of the people at the public-house, who were as 
 voluble and incomprehensible as rustics always 
 are under such circumstances. It was very evi- 
 dent that I should have to see her home, which 
 was not altogether an enchanting prospect, seeing 
 that it behoved me to find my own way home, 
 and that that task was likely to take me all my 
 time. She neither protested nor apologised when 
 I proclaimed my generous intentions; she ap- 
 'peared to think that I could do no less. That is 
 what they generally appear to think, though I 
 am quite at a loss to explain why they should. 
 I concluded, from certain observations which 
 escaped her, after we had started, that she con- 
 sidered Hurstbourne wanting in gallantry, inas- 
 much as he had not taken more care of her, 
 and this tickled me so much that it helped me 
 to overcome my incipient sulkiness. As if Hurst- 
 bourne was the sort of man to cut himself out 
 of a run for any woman upon the face of the 
 earth ! 
 
 "I am sure," said I gravely, being perfectly
 
 192 HIS GRACE. 
 
 sure of the contrary, "that he would never have 
 left you to take care of yourself if he hadn't 
 been convinced that you were capable of doing 
 that. You must try to forgive him. He probably 
 thought, as I did after seeing you go, that you 
 stood in no need of a pilot." 
 
 "I don't require anybody to break my fences 
 for me, if that is what you mean," replied Miss 
 St George; "but I am not ashamed to confess 
 that I can't find my way instinctively about a 
 country which I never saw before in my life and 
 have no wish to see again." 
 
 She was so obviously out of temper that she 
 rendered me quite cheerful, in spite of all the 
 the good reasons that I had for feeling depressed. 
 
 " I am very sorry," said I, " that you don't like 
 this part of the world and don't wish to revisit 
 it. Hurstbourne will be very sorry too, and so, 
 no doubt, will Mr Gascoigne. By the way, Hurst- 
 bourne may have imagined that Mr Gascoigne 
 could escort you home, if he could do nothing 
 else for you." 
 
 My companion made a half-turn in her saddle 
 and contemplated me with a disdain which, I
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A DA Y. 193 
 
 daresay, would have withered me if I could have 
 seen it ; but as her back was turned to what little 
 light there was left, I was denied the pleasure of 
 scrutinising her features. 
 
 " From your way of speaking of him," she said 
 after a pause, " I suppose the Duke is an intimate 
 friend of yours." 
 
 "I have been acquainted with him since he 
 was a very small boy," I answered. "That 
 accounts for the lack of deference and respect 
 which seems to have struck you and which would 
 perhaps be only becoming in one of his present 
 subordinates." 
 
 She neither resented nor even noticed my 
 snappishness. I was not a sufficiently important 
 person to be worth snubbing ; nor, I frankly con- 
 fess, did I ever succeed in provoking Miss St 
 George, although, during my subsequent inter- 
 course with her, I did more than once try my 
 hand at that foolish and hopeless game. 
 
 She remained silent for a few minutes; after 
 which she resumed, — 
 
 "As you know him so well, and as, according 
 
 to Mr Gascoigne, you are employed in managing 
 VOL. I. N
 
 194 ^IS GRACE. 
 
 his affairs, you probably know whether it is true 
 
 or not that he is over head and ears in debt." 
 
 "What is not only probable, but certain," I 
 observed in reply, "is that, if I were in pos- 
 session of that knowledge, I should not impart 
 it to a total stranger. But I don't in the 
 least mind telling you that I know very little 
 more about the matter than you do. The Duke 
 of Hurstbourne might be in debt without my 
 being aware of it; he might also have been 
 singularly lucky in his racing ventures without 
 having rendered any account of them to me." 
 
 " Has he been lucky ? " she inquired, with a 
 touch of eagerness. 
 
 " I have said already that I don't know. 
 Perhaps he has, and perhaps he hasn't." 
 
 "Well," she remarked in musing accents, after 
 we had ridden on for a short distance, "most 
 likely he hasn't. Still, there's no knowing; it 
 is just possible that he may have a head on 
 his shoulders, though one would hardly suppose 
 so from his style of riding." 
 
 " You mean," I suggested, " that his head 
 won't remain on his shoulders much longer if
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A DAY, 195 
 
 he continues to rush at his fences in that 
 mad way." 
 
 She answered quite seriously, — 
 
 "It would be a difficult thing to knock one's 
 head off; but it is as easy as possible to frac- 
 ture one's skull or break one's neck, and I 
 should say that the Duke was in a fair way 
 to do the one or the other. Of course, if any- 
 thing should happen to him, Mr Gascoigne 
 would succeed to the title." 
 
 I have never met anybody like Miss St 
 George; nor, I should imagine, can there be 
 many people quite so imperturbably and cynic- 
 ally candid. Nora affirms that what puzzles 
 me about the woman is merely her phenomenal 
 stupidity, and that similar manifestations in a 
 man would not surprise me at all. It may be 
 so; but, personally, I am inclined to ascribe 
 rather to supreme contempt for her hearer than 
 to density my companion's open avowal (for 
 really it amounted to nothing less), that she 
 was undecided whether to marry the Duke of 
 Hurstbourne for the sake of his title or to 
 wait a little longer upon the chance of securing
 
 196 HIS GRACE. 
 
 the title and Mr Gascoigne's wealth at one 
 and the same time. She put a great many 
 more questions to me about my patron and 
 friend; she wanted to know whether he was 
 a gambler ; whether he had other vices that 
 I knew o£; whether the legitimacy of his birth 
 had ever been called in question ; what he or 
 his mother had done to incur Lady Deverell's 
 dislike ; why his father had been cut by the 
 late Duke, and so forth. I gave her such in- 
 formation as I thought fit, and then, for my 
 own amusement, endeavoured to draw her out 
 upon the subject of Mr Gascoigne ; for I 
 thouo-ht it would be interesting to hear her 
 frank opinion of that gentleman. But, ready 
 as she was to cross - examine me, she had no 
 notion of being cross - examined in her turn, 
 and she disposed of my modest queries by the 
 simple and efiectual method of leaving them 
 unanswered. In fact, she soon ceased to take 
 any notice at all of me. She had, I presume, 
 found out as much as she wanted to hear, or 
 as much as she thought I could tell her, and 
 for at least a couple of miles we rode on.
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A DAY. 197 
 
 side by side, in a silence broken only by my 
 perplexed murmurings when we arrived at a 
 sign-post, and when I tried to decipher the 
 half -effaced inscriptions upon it. Thick dark- 
 ness fell upon us by-and-by. I imagined that 
 we must be somewhere near Lavenham ; but 
 I was by no means sure of our whereabouts, 
 so that it was a great relief to me to descry 
 a man on a tired horse ahead of us, and a still 
 greater relief to be hailed by him in Hurst- 
 bourne's familiar, cheery voice. 
 
 " Hullo, Martyn ! is that you ? " he called 
 out, as soon as he recognised- me. "Who have 
 you got with you ? Miss St George, by Jove ! 
 Well, and how are you both ? Pretty well 
 dead-beat, like the rest of us, eh ? We liave 
 had something like a day, haven't we ? " 
 
 "I was beginning to be afraid," I remarked, 
 "that we were in for something like a night 
 in the saddle, too. Do you happen to have any 
 idea of where we are at the present moment ? " 
 
 "Bless your soul, yes! We're within half-a- 
 raile of Lavenham. I shall have to put my 
 poor old gee into the stable there, and you
 
 iqS his grace. 
 
 had better do the same. I daresay Paul will 
 let us have something to drive home in." 
 
 He was in such exuberant spirits, and so 
 eager to narrate every episode of a run which 
 had terminated gloriously by a kill in the 
 open, that he took no heed of Miss St George's 
 manifest displeasure. Yet he might have known 
 that nothing in the world is more tedious to 
 listen to than an accurate description of a run in 
 which one has been precluded from participating ; 
 and, if my perfunctory '• Ohs " and " Ahs " did 
 not convince him of that elementary truth, he 
 was made aware of it, at length, in a more 
 unequivocal manner by the lady, who said — 
 
 " Yes ; we quite understand that you have 
 had capita] fun. I suppose it never occurred 
 to you that a stranger, who didn't happen to 
 be as well mounted as you were, might fail 
 to see the joke of being abandoned to her own 
 devices in a country of which she knew no 
 more than she does of Central Africa." 
 
 He then apologised so profusely and earnestly 
 that, by the time that we had reached Laven- 
 ham and he had assisted Miss St George to
 
 SOMETHING LIKE A DAY. 199 
 
 dismount, his lack of courtesy had been graciously 
 forgiven. 
 
 "Only, if you want to show that you are 
 really repentant," said she, "you will send for 
 what clothes you want and stay the night 
 here. I don't doubt for one moment that you 
 would much rather go home; but you admit 
 that you deserve some punishment — and a form 
 of penance which confers some slight benefit 
 upon others ought to be especially welcome to 
 you. Words cannot convey any notion of the 
 dulness of the evenings that I have been spend- 
 ing of late with my aunt and Mr Gascoigne." 
 
 It is not impossible that, despite the fascin- 
 ations of Miss St George, Hurstbourne would 
 have preferred to go home. He was somewhat 
 in awe of his mother, and I think, also, he 
 was not anxious to accept more hospitality 
 than he could from his cousin. But his scruples 
 were vanquished when Mr Gascoigne came out 
 to meet us, and when Miss St George said 
 coolly — 
 
 "I have just been telling the Duke and Mr 
 — er — the other gentleman that we can't
 
 200 BIS GRACE. 
 
 turn them out in the cold again at this hour 
 of the night, and that they had better dine 
 and sleep here. There will be time for a 
 groom to go over to Hurstbourne Castle and 
 fetch their things before dinner, won't there ? " 
 
 I don't know whether it was Paul Gascoigne's 
 polite entreaties or his wry face that prevailed 
 upon Hurstbourne to yield ; but I should imagine 
 that, in all probability, it was the latter. He 
 hated Paul Gascoigne so much that I believe 
 he could not resist any chance of fighting him, 
 either with or without the gloves — which was 
 not at all the spirit in which he was accus- 
 tomed to meet an adversary. 
 
 " Oh, rubbish ! " said he, when I modestly 
 requested that I might be sent home with the 
 groom; "you must stop and see me through. 
 Besides," he whispered, as we ascended the 
 staircase together, "it's going to be grand sport. 
 That beggar is positively yellow with jealousy." 
 
 I said " Take care ! " and he answered im- 
 patiently that of course he would take care. 
 And of course there was not the slightest 
 chance that he would do any such thing.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 A CONGENIAL PARTY. 
 
 Different people have different methods of ex- 
 pressing the ire which has to be expressed some- 
 how or other, but which good manners forbid 
 them to put into language. Lady Deverell, when 
 she is angry, lets off steam, so to speak, by 
 blowing her nose loudly, frequently and un- 
 necessarily. Now, on entering the drawing- 
 room at Lavenham, arrayed in the evening 
 garb which had been duly delivered to me 
 just as the dressing - bell rang, I perceived 
 that Lady Deverell was the sole occupant 
 of that vast saloon, and also that she was 
 blowing her nose. It was, therefore, very 
 evident to me that I was going to catch it — 
 and sure enough, I did. 
 
 " Your duties," she began, " don't appear to 
 
 be very arduous. May I make so bold as to 
 VOL. L 201 O
 
 202 HIS GRACE. 
 
 ask whether you do anything at all when you 
 are at Hurstbourne Castle ? " 
 
 I replied that on most days of the week I 
 did a great many things; whereupon she wanted 
 to know what things. 
 
 '• Well," I said, " the management of the 
 estate is in my hands, and I keep all the 
 accounts." 
 
 " Oh, indeed," she returned, with a snort. 
 "The keeping of the accounts must be very 
 interesting and satisfactory work, from all 
 that I hear, and no doubt you give your 
 entire mind to it. Your labours don't seem 
 to prevent you from treating yourself to a 
 whole holiday as often as you like, though." 
 
 To attempt to defend oneself against the 
 attack of an irritable old woman is, I take 
 it, a sheer waste of time. Consequently, I 
 made no reply, but listened patiently while 
 I was told, in more or less plain terms, that 
 I was going to the deuce and that Lady 
 Deverell was very glad my poor, dear mother 
 had been spared the spectacle of her son's 
 degradation. But, of course, it was not really
 
 A CONGENIAL PARTY. 203 
 
 with me that her ladyship was so wrath, and 
 when she had whetted her teeth upon my 
 blameless and defenceless character, she pro- 
 ceeded, as I knew she would, to fall upon 
 her genuine quarry. 
 
 " I suppose it would be absurd," she remarked, 
 after she had said every ill-natured thing 
 about Hurstbourne that she could possibly 
 say, "to expect good taste from his mother's 
 son ; but I do rather wonder at his having 
 forced poor Mr Gascoigne to put him up for 
 the night when there wasn't the slightest 
 necessity for it. Generous and liberal as Mr 
 Gascoigne is, he can't have much friendly 
 feeling for a man who strained every nerve 
 to keep him out of Parliament, and, political 
 considerations apart, the Duke of Hurstbourne 
 is scarcely the sort of person whom he would 
 have wished to have in his house, if he had 
 been allowed any choice in the matter." 
 
 "Liberality and generosity," I replied, "are 
 not always interchangeable terms, and I would 
 not for the world cast a doubt upon the 
 liberality of so staunch a Conservative as
 
 2 04 BIS GRACE. 
 
 Mr Gascoigne. That he is generous we all 
 know, and I feel sure that, in this instance^ 
 his generosity has not been misplaced. Upon 
 my honour as a gentleman, I do not believe 
 that Hurstbourne will pocket the forks and 
 spoons; still, if, as a measure of precaution, 
 Mr Gascoigne would like to have him searched 
 before we leave, I have nothing to urge against 
 it. Only, I hope for the sake of my nose 
 and my front teeth, that I shall not be the 
 person told off to search him." 
 
 "My poor young friend," returned Lady 
 Deverell, who, I was glad to see, was highly 
 incensed by my rejoinder, "very few people 
 know how to be clever, and every child knows 
 how to be impertinent. If you can't find any- 
 thing better than that to say in defence of 
 your friend, I should advise you to hold your 
 tongue." 
 
 Well, at all events, I had put this arrogant 
 and religious lady into a rage, and I don't know 
 what more I could have done. I was quite con- 
 tented with that humble triumph. However, I 
 am free to confess that she might have turned
 
 A CONGENIAL PARTY. 205 
 
 the tables upon ine and put me into a rage if 
 our conversation had not, fortunately, been inter- 
 rupted by the entrance of our host and Miss 
 St George, who had apparently met outside the 
 door, and who were in the midst of a temperate 
 discussion as to the relative merits of hunting 
 and shooting. 
 
 " Of course," Mr Gascoigne was saying, " I 
 admit that one of the obligations imposed upon 
 all landed proprietors is to preserve foxes, and 
 I think that, as a rule, they recognise this. 
 They must give and take ; only what we shoot- 
 ing men sometimes venture to complain of is 
 that the hunting men are more ready to take 
 than to give. They are under the impression 
 that everything and everybody ought to yield 
 to them, and we can't altogether share that im- 
 pression." 
 
 " How many times have your coverts been drawn 
 this season ? " inquired Miss St George blandly. 
 
 "Once only, and that was by invitation. The 
 draw, as you know, resulted in a find. I make 
 no complaint; I merely wonder what the fox- 
 hunters have to complain about. After this,
 
 2o6 HIS GRACE. 
 
 perhaps, I may be permitted to shoot my own 
 
 pheasants." 
 
 " Then Hurstbourne joined us, and must needs 
 put his oar in. Doubtless he thought his cousin 
 was in the wrong, and doubtless his cousin was 
 in the wrong; but the occasion was hardly a 
 propitious one for saying so, and he got the 
 worst of the argument. Miss St George, who 
 promptly retired from the fray, looked on at it 
 with, as I surmised, the calm and amused indif- 
 ference of one who was aware that it was being 
 fought upon a false issue. Not on account of 
 foxes or pheasants was Hurstbourne becoming 
 red in the face and Mr Gascoigne frigidly sar- 
 castic; there was quite another bone of con- 
 tention between them, and the bone knew that 
 as well as I did. Possibly Lady Deverell, who 
 continued to blow her nose noisily in the back- 
 ground, knew it too. 
 
 I can't tell whether Miss St George enjoyed 
 herself or not during dinner; very likely she 
 did. But I am quite sure that not one of those 
 who sat at meat with her was happy. We got 
 off' the subject of sport, after a time, and attacked
 
 A CONGENIAL PARTY. 207 
 
 that of politics, which was scarcely a change 
 for the better. Mr Gascoigne chose to identify 
 his guest with his late opponent and to assume 
 that the former professed all the Radical views 
 entertained by the latter. Now, it was a very 
 simple matter to make fun of those views in 
 a quiet, courteous way, and a still simpler 
 matter to point out the absurdity of their being 
 held by a Duke. Poor Hurstbourne made a 
 fool of himself, said several things that he did 
 not mean, had to confess that he had failed to 
 see the logical outcome of his opinions and was 
 finally driven to appeal to one of the weaker 
 sex for support. 
 
 " Look here, Miss St George," said he ; "I 
 put it to you as a disinterested outsider : Wasn't 
 I justified in expecting that a constituency 
 which had always voted Liberal would go on 
 voting Liberal, even after one of our family had 
 seen fit to turn his coat ? Mind you, I'm not 
 saying that this, that, or the other measure 
 ought to be carried ; I only ask you whether 
 it wasn't fair to anticipate that the majority 
 of the electors would stick to the old flag ? "
 
 2o8 HIS GRACE. 
 
 Miss St George roused herself from a fit 
 of abstraction to say — ] 
 
 "Well, you see, I don't quite know what 
 the old flag was. Wasn't it the Union Jack 
 that Mr Gascoigne kept on waving before their 
 eyes ? " 
 
 This question, as it may have been intended 
 to do, cast fresh fuel upon the flames, and 
 the altercation which ensued certainly appeared 
 to show that Hurstbourne was one of those 
 unpatriotic citizens who are prepared to lend 
 their aid to the gradual disintegration of the 
 Empire. Yet, though he got the worst of the 
 encounter, he might, if he had cared to do 
 so, have plumed himself upon the achievement 
 of a success somewhat akin to that which I 
 myself had accomplished against Lady Deverell; 
 for he had obviously made his cousin angry. 
 It took a good deal to make Paul Gascoigne 
 angry, and I don't think that any amount of 
 political heterodoxy on Hurstbourne's part would 
 have produced that eflect upon him. Thus it 
 became rather amusing to watch Miss St 
 George, arbitra pugnce, and to note the im-
 
 A CONGENIAL PARTY. 209 
 
 partiality with which she alternately soothed 
 and urged on the combatants. 
 
 Still, this was not so amusing but that I 
 was sincerely glad to see her and her aunt 
 leave the room. Rows are always to be de- 
 precated, and they are more especially so when 
 one's own side seems likely to come out of 
 them with loss of breath and loss of glory. 
 We cooled down and grew very distant and 
 polite after the ladies had quitted us; nor was 
 it long before we followed them. I don't know 
 what took place then between the rivals and 
 the rather unworthy subject of their rivalry. 
 Whatever Nora may say, I don't believe that 
 Miss St George was a stupid woman, and I 
 have the best of reasons for conjecturing that 
 she spent a pleasant evening. However, I can't 
 uphold my conjecture by any support of per- 
 sonal observation ; for no sooner had I entered 
 the drawing-room than I was imperatively 
 beckoned to seat myself beside Lady Deverell, 
 who, it appeared, had not yet done with 
 me. 
 
 " You were pleased to rebuke me before
 
 2IO HIS GRACE, 
 
 dinner/' she began. "You need not apolo- 
 gise for it — " 
 
 "I wasn't going to apologise," I interpolated 
 meekly. 
 
 "You would have done so if I had given 
 you to understand that I expected it, and you 
 would have been right to do so, because you 
 certainly expressed yourself in an uncalled-for 
 and impertinent manner. But I don't ask you 
 to apologise, nor do I quarrel with you for 
 standing up for your friend. Whether you 
 have chosen your friend wisely time will show; 
 I may be allowed to have my own opinion 
 as to that. But what I was going to say to 
 you when we were interrupted, and what my 
 conscience compels me to say to you now, is 
 that you have made a very great — I fear I 
 might almost call it an irreparable — mistake 
 in permitting your friend to provide a home 
 for your sister. As you know, I was strongly 
 opposed to the arrangement; it was persisted 
 in, notwithstanding my protests, and since I 
 have been here I have heard more than enough 
 to convince me that exactly what I foresaw
 
 A CONGENIAL PARTY. 211 
 
 has happened. Your sister and the Duke have 
 been seen together at all hours of the day, 
 without even so poor a chaperon as Lady 
 Charles Gascoigne to look after them; people 
 have begun to talk, and I leave you to judge 
 who is likely to be the chief sufferer from 
 such gossip." 
 
 This was not pleasant hearing for me; but 
 I forced out a laugh and said the sort of thing 
 which, I suppose, men always do say under 
 similar circumstances. We know — or at any 
 rate most of us do— that gossip is not a thing 
 which any girl can afford to treat with contempt, 
 but we take up high ground when our sisters 
 are attacked, partly because we are infuriated 
 with the malicious women who attack them and 
 partly because we can't see any other dignified 
 attitude to adopt. 
 
 " That is all very fine," observed Lady Deverell, 
 when I had finished; "but you must bear in 
 mind that you are not the only person, nor even 
 the principal person, interested in protecting Nora 
 from slander — for I am quite ready to admit 
 that it is probably slander. You owe some
 
 212 BIS GRACE. 
 
 account of your actions, and she owes an ac- 
 count of hers, to Mr Burgess, who would be 
 both grieved and displeased if he were to hear 
 the things that I have heard during the last 
 few days." 
 
 "Well, suppose you impart them to him," I 
 replied, subduing a strong inclination to break 
 faith with Nora by announcing that she no 
 longer owed anything at all to Mr Burgess. 
 " Then he will know the worst, and we must 
 endeavour between us to bear the brunt of his 
 grief and displeasure." 
 
 Lady Deverell shook her head. 
 
 " We are approaching the season of Lent," 
 she remarked. " Have you in your neighbour- 
 hood any properly qualified priest to whom Nora 
 can make her confession, as we all ought to do 
 before Ash Wednesday ? " 
 
 "We are without that privilege," I answered; 
 "we have no priest within hail of Hurstbourne 
 Castle, only an old-fashioned country parson, who 
 who would be frightened out of his five wits 
 if any lady oflfered to confess her sins to him. 
 Let us trust that Nora has not a great many
 
 A CONGENIAL PARTY. 213 
 
 sins to avow. If she has, I can't see anything^ 
 for it but that Mr Burgess should undertake a 
 journey to the north and give or refuse absolu- 
 tion, as may seem expedient to him." 
 
 Lady Devereil, whose eyes were at that 
 moment fixed sternly upon the little group at 
 the other end of the room, cannot, I presume, 
 have heard what I said, for she rejoined quite 
 irrelevantly — 
 
 "Well it makes no difference to me, because 
 we shall leave the day after to-morrow. Don't 
 say that I didn't warn you, that's all." 
 
 I assured her that I would bring no such 
 unjust accusation against her, and, further, that 
 I should not in the least mind if her sense 
 of duty should lead her to convey a warning 
 to Mr Burgess into the bargain. I did not 
 understand at the time why it was that she 
 tried to look indignant, yet could not altogether 
 banish an incipient grin of satisfaction from 
 her hard-featured countenance. Afterwards I 
 realised that she might not be unwilling to 
 do what she could towards promoting a flirta- 
 tion between the Duke of Hurstbourne and
 
 214 ffIS GRACE. 
 
 any woman in the world, save her neice; but 
 I should have been infinitely more clever than 
 I have any pretension to be if I had arrived 
 at that conclusion without feminine aid. How 
 was I to guess that she hated Hurstbourne 
 as only a deeply religious lady can hate, or 
 that his coronet had none of the charms in 
 her eyes which coronets of that exalted de- 
 scription almost invariably possess for her sex ? 
 As little could I divine that she was anxious 
 both to wash her hands of responsibility and 
 to obtain a plausible excuse for declaring that 
 I was insanely desirous of placing those straw- 
 berry-leaves upon Nora's brow. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
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