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Title: Sydney Lisle, the Heiress of St. Quentin

Author: Dorothea Moore

Illustrator: Walter Paget

Release date: January 20, 2020 [eBook #61208]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading
        Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
        images generously made available by The Internet
        Archive/American Libraries. Thanks to the Bodleian Libraries
        for supplying an additional reference copy.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SYDNEY LISLE, THE HEIRESS OF ST. QUENTIN ***




Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
images generously made available by The Internet
Archive/American Libraries. Thanks to the Bodleian Libraries
for supplying an additional reference copy.)





Transcriber’s Note: Some words at the bottom of page 8 were omitted
from the original printing and have been filled in by comparison with
another edition of the book, published by S. W. Partridge & Co. in
London c. 1905:

“Sydney! Sydney!” Mildred said reprovingly, “don’t you [remember what
mother was] saying to you only yesterday?

That other edition also gave the name of the illustrator, Wal Paget.




SYDNEY LISLE

_THE HEIRESS OF ST. QUENTIN_




[Illustration: “She went through the park.”

(Page 297)]




                              SYDNEY LISLE

                       THE HEIRESS OF ST. QUENTIN

                                   BY
                             DOROTHEA MOORE

                             [Illustration]

                              PHILADELPHIA
                         DAVID McKAY, PUBLISHER
                       610 SOUTH WASHINGTON SQUARE




CONTENTS


      CHAP.                              PAGE

         I. A WONDERFUL GUINEA              7

        II. HER OWN PEOPLE                 15

       III. UPROOTED                       27

        IV. THE FIRST NIGHT                40

         V. THE FIRST MORNING              53

        VI. LORD ST. QUENTIN               67

       VII. MISS MORRELL                   78

      VIII. ACCOMPLISHMENTS                86

        IX. THE HEIRESS-APPARENT           97

         X. A MEETING                     105

        XI. ON THE CHURCH TOWER           117

       XII. MERRY CHRISTMAS               136

      XIII. HUGH’S BATTLE                 152

       XIV. AT THE DEANERY                161

        XV. LITTLE THINGS                 170

       XVI. A PROPOSAL                    181

      XVII. ST. QUENTIN’S STORY           197

     XVIII. THE CHAIN BROKEN              205

       XIX. PAULY’S BIRTHDAY              212

        XX. HUGH TO THE RESCUE            220

       XXI. FEVER-STRICKEN                231

      XXII. GIVEN BACK                    245

     XXIII. WHAT HUGH TOLD                251

      XXIV. THE WAITING OF TWO            261

       XXV. IN THE DEANERY GARDEN         270

      XXVI. A HOME-COMING                 279

     XXVII. DESDICHADO                    287

    XXVIII. CONCLUSION                    294




SYDNEY LISLE




CHAPTER I

A WONDERFUL GUINEA


A rainy November afternoon was drawing to its close. The sun had set in
a haze of fog, to which it gave a fleeting warmth of colour. The street
lamps were lit, and chinks of light showed here and there through the
shuttered windows of the tall, dingy houses in a dull old square not far
from Euston Station.

Yes, chinks of light were coming from almost every house, casting little
gleams of brightness on to the wet pavements and rusty iron bars guarding
the areas; but from one, the last in the square, considerably more was to
be seen.

Uncertain blobs of light, now broad, now narrow, from the windows of
the dining-room, suggested that the curtains were being drawn back
impatiently every few minutes, that someone might look out into the
uninviting darkness; and at least three times in one half-hour a broad
blaze streaming out into the night assured the passers-by that the hall
door of Number 20 had been opened wide, despite the fog and rain.

If they had paused at such a moment they might have seen a slender
figure, with brown hair blown away from her bright face, and eager eyes
that searched the familiar square, regardless of the cold, until a call
from within made her slowly close the door and return into the brightness
that looked doubly bright after the darkness without.

“Father and Hugh won’t come any the quicker because you send a draught
right through the house, dear!” a pleasant-looking girl of two or
three-and-twenty remarked, as Sydney came dancing and singing into the
shabby school-room after her third unsuccessful journey to the door;
“they are hardly ever in before half-past five, you know.”

“It feels like half-past six, at least!” cried Sydney. “Oh, dear! oh,
dear! I’ve never known half-past five so _awfully_ long in coming!”

“Sydney! Sydney!” Mildred said reprovingly, “don’t you remember what
mother was saying to you only yesterday? You really must give up slang
and schoolgirl ways, now you are going to be eighteen next month, and to
put your hair up, and leave off doing proper lessons and——”

“And become a real, celebrated authoress!” shouted Tom, who was
despatching bread and butter at the table with a highly satisfactory
appetite. “You’ll have to mind your shaky grammar now, Syd.”

“Of course I shan’t be a celebrated authoress quite at once,” said Sydney
modestly. “I believe you are usually rather more grown up than eighteen
first, and have a little more experience. But it makes one feel ever so
much older when one is really going to be in print.”

“And when you’ve earned a whole guinea—twenty-one whole shillings!”
little Prissie contributed in an absolutely awestruck voice.

“Read us the letter again, Syd,” Hal demanded, stretching out his long
legs to the cheerful blaze. “Go ahead; I really don’t think I took it all
in.”

And Sydney, nothing loth, produced that wonderful letter, which had
come in quite an ordinary way by the four o’clock post that afternoon,
together with an advertisement about a dairy-farm for mother, and an
uninteresting-looking envelope for father, with “Lincoln’s Inn” upon the
back.

The outside of _her_ letter was quite ordinary-looking too, Sydney had
thought, when Fred and Prissie had almost torn the envelope in half, in
their anxiety each to have the pleasure of bringing it upstairs to her.
Just a narrow envelope, with something stamped upon the back, and her
name in very scrawly hand-writing—“Miss Sydney Lisle.”

And then, when she had turned it over several times, and all the
Chichester children who were in had had a look at it, and tried to guess
what the raised and twisted letters on the back might mean, Sydney had
opened it.

And there was a typed letter, and inside the letter a cheque for a
guinea—actually a guinea, the largest sum Sydney had ever owned in the
course of her seventeen years! She never will forget the wonder and
delight of that moment!

“It’s a guinea—twenty-one whole shillings!” she had told the
wildly-excited Madge and Fred and Prissie. “The Editor of _Our Girls_ has
sent it to me. He is going to print my story in the next week’s issue,
and he calls me ‘Madam’!”

This was the astounding news which was told afresh to every member of
the Chichester family as he or she set foot inside the door, and which
made the hands of the school-room clock stand still to Sydney, as she
waited for Dr. Chichester and Hugh to come in from the hospital and hear
it.

How surprised father would be, and what a lovely new fountain pen she
would buy for him! And Hugh—Hugh was always so specially pleased when
anything nice happened to Sydney! She would get Hugh to take her out and
help her to choose presents for everyone out of that wonderful guinea,
which seemed as inexhaustible as Fortunatus’s purse.

Father and mother (_what_ a present mother should have!), and
Mildred—Mildred wanted a new pair of gloves; she should have suède, the
very best. And Hal and Dolly and Tom—Tom should have the bicycle-lamp he
was longing for, in spite of his remark about her grammar; and Madge and
Ronald and dear little Freddie and Prissie, oh, what a doll she would get
for Prissie! with real eyelashes and hair that you could brush! And old
nurse must have a present, too, and Susan the cook. And Hugh—Hugh should
have the very best present of anybody’s, after mother.

So absorbed was she in these thoughts that she never heard the front
door open and the steps, which she had been waiting for so long, come
down the passage to the school-room.

The watched pot had boiled the minute that she took her eyes from it:
Hugh Chichester was standing in the doorway looking at her.

“Oh, Hugh!” She was at his side in a moment, and pouring out the great
news in words that would hardly come fast enough to please her.

He put his hands upon her shoulders and looked down—such a long way he
had to look from his six feet two inches—at her glowing face.

“Why, Syd,” he said, “that’s first-rate, isn’t it? Well done!”

“Three cheers for Miss Lisle, the celebrated authoress!” yelled Tom,
rising from his chair and waving his tea-cup. The toast was received with
enthusiasm.

“Only I wish it were ‘Miss Chichester,’” said Ronald; “it’s so silly for
old Syd to have a different name!”

“Oh, well, she can’t help that,” Tom contributed; “and her father and
mother gave her to us, so it’s just the same.”

“Yes, she’s ours right enough,” said Hugh, putting his arm round his
“little sister,” as Sydney Lisle would have called herself.

And then, quite suddenly, Dr. Chichester’s voice was heard calling
“Sydney! Sydney!”

“There’s father calling; mother must have told him!” Sydney cried, and,
gathering together her precious cheque and letter, she rushed out like a
whirlwind.

“The pater is in the drawing-room, Syd,” Hugh called after her; “he just
took up his letters and went straight in there to mother,” he added, for
the others’ benefit. Sydney was already out of hearing, and only echoes
of her fresh young voice came floating back to them, as she ran down the
long back passage and up the stairs through the hall to the drawing-room.

    “Merrily! merrily shall I live now! Merrily! merrily!”

Mildred stooped to pick up the mending-basket which Sydney’s energetic
movements had swept off her knee. “I wonder whether Sydney ever will grow
up!” she said.

“Well, she’s right enough as she is,” said Hugh, at last beginning on his
long-delayed tea.

Sydney’s merry voice was hushed as she came into the drawing-room, for
mother did not like boisterous ways, and father might be tired. But,
though her feet moved soberly, her eyes were dancing as she held out the
precious letter to the doctor, standing by the window.

He turned, and Sydney suddenly forgot the guinea.

What made him look so old and strange? And surely mother’s head was bent
down low above her work to hide her tears! Sydney stopped short, with an
exclamation of dismay.

Father grasped a letter in a hand that shook. Vaguely she saw that the
crumpled envelope had “Lincoln’s Inn” upon the back. It was the letter
which had come with hers at four o’clock that afternoon!

The hall clock heralded the striking of six by a variety of strange
wheezing sounds: when it had slowly tinged away the six strokes, father
spoke.




CHAPTER II

HER OWN PEOPLE


Half an hour had gone by—the very longest half hour in Sydney’s happy
life; and there was silence in the drawing-room.

Father had been speaking, but he was silent now, standing with his face
turned towards the shuttered windows. On the floor knelt Sydney, her head
on mother’s knee. She was not crying—this calamity seemed too great for
tears—tears such as had been shed over the untimely fate of Prissie’s
bullfinch, or the sewing up by father of that dreadful cut in Ronald’s
cheek. Her shoulders shook with suppressed sobs, but no tears came.

“My little girl,” mother was speaking, with a gentle hand on the untidy
brown head on her knee, “my poor little girl!”

Sydney lifted up her piteous face.

“Oh, mother, you will let me stay your little girl! I can’t go away. Oh,
mother, you always said I was given to you!”

Dr. Chichester blew his nose violently, and came and sat down beside his
wife.

“See here, my little Sydney,” he said. “God knows you can’t cease to
be our child to us, as you have been for these seventeen years. If it
were acting rightly to keep you, do you suppose your mother and I could
consent to let our little girl go from us? Still, we have got to do the
right thing; and when your poor young father gave you to us, he had no
idea of your ever coming near the title. But now this accident to your
cousin, Lord St. Quentin, makes you heiress to it, so your cousin’s man
of business writes to tell me. Lord St. Quentin wants you, and, my little
girl, you _must_ go.”

“Couldn’t I say I don’t want to be a marchioness?” poor Sydney asked
despairingly; “isn’t there anybody else to be one instead?”

Dr. Chichester shook his grey head sadly; Mr. Fenton’s letter had been
clear enough on that point. There was a complete failure of heirs male:
and, in the House of Lisle, the female had the power, in such a case, to
inherit land and title.

Dr. Chichester knew this as a fact, though he had thought about it very
little. There had been nothing to bring it very prominently before him in
the seventeen years that had passed since he promised to be a father to
the little motherless daughter of his dying patient, Lord Francis Lisle.

The doctor had come across many sad things in the course of his
professional experience, but nothing much sadder than the sight he had
seen one cold December day in the little bare bedroom of a miserable
lodging-house off Pentonville. He was attending the more urgent cases
of a sick friend, and in this way came across Lord Francis and his girl
wife. She was lying in the meagre bed, with her young husband fanning
her, and a tiny wailing baby at her side.

It was not the first time that Doctor Chichester’s wife had come to bring
help to her husband’s poorer patients: she went daily to the little dingy
lodging off Pentonville, while the young wife lingered, as though loth to
leave the boy-husband who stood watching her with great, sad eyes. The
good doctor and his wife soon heard their pitiful little story.

Sydney Henderson had but just left school when she went as governess
to the little boy and girl of Lady Braemuir, niece to the Marquess of
St. Quentin. It was a big, gay house; but the little governess, playing
nursery games with her charges, saw little of the company till Lady
Braemuir’s youngest cousin, Lord Francis, came to shoot the Braemuir
grouse before joining his regiment.

The children were full of “Tousin Fwank” before he came. He had stayed
at Braemuir six months previously. When he came, the reason of their
interest in his arrival became speedily apparent. Francis Lisle was
perfectly devoted to children, with a genuine devotion that made mothers
beam upon him.

He was known in the nurseries of many a big house: he made himself at
home in the school-room of his little cousins.

Lady Braemuir laughed at him and his “childish tastes,” but never said
a word upon the subject to the little governess, hardly more than a
child herself, until a day when, coming home from a tennis-party tired
and cross, she heard laughter issuing from the school-room, where Lord
Francis, who had declined going to the party, was found sharing his
little cousins’ tea.

Forgetful of everything but irritation, Lady Braemuir spoke cruelly to
the girl, who knew so little of the duties of a governess. Lord Francis
bore her remarks in silence for a minute, then the frightened appeal in
the childish eyes overcame his prudence.

He went across to the girl and took her hand.

“Excuse me, Gwenyth,” he said sternly; “there is no need to say any more
upon this subject. I am going to ask Miss Henderson if she will be my
wife.” And he did.

“I wash my hands of the whole business!” Lady Braemuir said. “Frank must
explain as best he can to Uncle St. Quentin.”

Until that time his fourth and youngest son had been Lord St. Quentin’s
favourite—this bright, handsome boy, who had made half the sunshine of
his home. He was proud of him, too, and looked to see him do well in
the army, and prove an honour to the name he bore. The pride of the old
marquess was far greater than his love.

“Going to marry a clergy-orphan and a governess!” Frank’s father cried.
“Then you won’t get a penny of mine to help you make a fool of yourself!
Do it, if you choose; but in that case never darken my doors again!”

“Good-bye, then, father,” said Lord Francis; and he took his hat and went.

The little governess had no near relations, and the young couple were
married almost immediately. He was twenty-two and she was eighteen.

He gave up the army and obtained a clerkship in a house of business in
London. But the salary was small, and, strive as they would, they could
not live within their income.

She tried to do a little teaching to add to it; but her health was
delicate and pupils hard to get. Their small reserve fund melted fast,
though Lord Francis worked long after office hours at odd jobs for the
sake of the few extra shillings that they brought him.

Hard work and poor living brought their usual consequence. When Dr.
Chichester broke it very gently to the young husband that there was no
getting better for Sydney, he was aware that the two would not probably
be parted long.

When the young mother died one grey December morning, with her head upon
her husband’s shoulder, Mrs. Chichester carried home the baby to her own
fast-filling nursery, where sturdy seven-year-old Hugh took at once to
“his baby,” as he called her, to distinguish her from red-faced Ronald in
the cradle, whose advent had meant so many “hushings” at times when he
wished to make a noise.

Under Mrs. Chichester’s tender care the little wizened baby girl grew fat
and merry, crowing courageously even when Hugh staggered round the room
with her held in too tight a clasp.

Her young father used to come round to the tall dingy house in the dull
old square, when office hours were over, and sit beside the nursery
fire, watching Mrs. Chichester, as she put the babies to bed, with an
oft-repeated game with the ten bare pink toes of the child upon her knee.

His little daughter learned to know him, and to crow and laugh when he
came into the nursery and held out his arms for her. He began to look
forward to the time when she would learn to call him “Father,” but that
was not to be.

Easter came late, in the spring following little Sydney’s birth, with hot
sun and bitter winds.

Dr. Chichester had never had so many cases of pneumonia to attend, and
one day a scrawl from Lord Francis’s lodgings told of illness there. He
hurried round to find little Sydney’s father in high fever. There was
from the first small chance of his recovery, as his strength was not
sufficient to fight illness. He would have been altogether glad to go, if
it had not been for the thought of his baby girl.

“My people cast me off completely,” he said, one day, when the end was
near, “and they are not at all likely to receive my child.”

“My dear boy,” said the doctor, “don’t you worry. We couldn’t part with
the little lassie now; if I would, my wife wouldn’t. Give her to us, and
she shall be our child. She has our love already, and, God helping us!
she shall have a happy home.”

“I can’t thank you,” Lord Francis had said hoarsely; and the doctor had
said “Don’t!”

It was in his arms that Lord Francis died three days later.

Dr. Chichester had written to the poor boy’s eldest brother, who had now
become the marquess, telling him that Frank was dying; but no notice had
been taken of the letter. Lord Francis was laid beside his wife in the
cemetery, and little Sydney grew from babyhood to childhood and from
childhood to girlhood, with nothing but the difference of surname and the
occasional telling of an old story with the saddest parts left out, to
remind her that she was not a Chichester by birth.

That unknown mother and father, of whom this real living, loving mother
told her at times seemed part of a story, not her own life, and the story
always ended with the comfortable words: “Your father gave our dear
little girl to us, to be our child for always!”

I think perhaps Dr. and Mrs. Chichester forgot too very often that
Sydney bore another name from theirs, for though the doctor certainly
read in the papers of the tragic death while mountain-climbing of Lord
Herbert Lisle, “second son of the late Marquess of St. Quentin,” he
hardly realised Lord Herbert to be little Sydney’s uncle; nor did her
relationship occur to him when, some four years later, Lord Eric, “the
third son, etc., etc.,” fell a victim to malarial fever when travelling
in Italy.

The papers took considerably more interest in the matter, and there were
discreetly hinted fears expressed in them lest the old title should die
out for lack of heirs. The present marquess was in feeble health, and his
only child, Lord Lisle, unmarried. Lord Herbert had been also unmarried,
and Lord Eric a childless widower. Regret was expressed that Lord Lisle
possessed neither brother nor sister. It was then the doctor realised
that in this House, in default of heirs male of the direct line, females
had the power to inherit land and title.

He looked at long-legged, short-frocked Sydney with a sudden anxiety, and
for a few weeks actually glanced down the “Personal and Social” column
of _The Standard_ in the hope of his eye falling on—“A marriage has been
arranged and will shortly take place between Viscount Lisle, only son of
the Marquess of St. Quentin, and ...,” some damsel of high degree. But
before long he forgot the matter in the press of daily life, and five
years had passed peacefully away without anything happening to remind him
of the House of Lisle or its connection with his little Sydney.

And now, without warning, the blow had fallen.

Lord St. Quentin, as Lord Lisle had become through his father’s death
four years ago, had met with a fearful motor-accident, in which he had
sustained some internal injury, from which the doctors feared there was
no recovery. He might linger on for months, but the end was certain, and
he was unmarried.

Sydney Lisle had been ignored by her father’s family for nearly eighteen
years; but their man of business had known where to find her. It was
he who wrote to Dr. Chichester, requesting that he would resign his
guardianship of Miss Lisle into the hands of the cousin whose heir she
had now become, the Marquess of St. Quentin.

“We shall have to let her go,” the doctor had said, as he and Mrs.
Chichester read Mr. Fenton’s letter together. “The child was never put
legally into my charge: I only took her at that poor boy’s expressed
wish. Mr. Fenton writes very sensibly, and tells me that Lord St.
Quentin’s maternal aunt, Lady Frederica Verney, is to be at St. Quentin
Castle, and will take care of the child. And of course she will have
advantages we have no power to give her.”

Mr. Fenton proposed calling upon Dr. Chichester that evening, and, if
quite convenient, would be glad to see Miss Lisle. Hence the speed with
which the news had been broken to the girl.

But when the lawyer came, an elderly man with old-fashioned grey whiskers
and keen, kindly eyes, he had to do without a sight of the poor little
heiress to the title of St. Quentin. For Sydney had gone to bed with an
overpowering headache, and was fit for nothing but to lie still in the
dark, with eau-de-cologne on her forehead and mother’s hand, idle for
once, clasped tightly in both hers.

Perhaps it was as well, for she was spared not only the lawyer’s visit,
but the telling of the dreadful story to the others—the children’s
questions, and what she would have minded more, the sight of Hugh’s face,
first fierce and then very white.

But she cried herself to sleep upstairs, while Mr. Fenton in the
drawing-room was inflicting on the silent doctor a description of the
“splendid position” to which his little Sydney, the child who had been as
his own for nearly eighteen long years, had been called.

He suddenly broke in upon the lawyer’s well-turned phrases, leaning
forward and speaking almost roughly to him.

“You tell me of the age of the title—of the magnificence of the castle—I
don’t want to hear all that! There is only one thing that I want to
know—my little girl, will they be good to her? Will she be happy?”

Mr. Fenton considered this question for some minutes before answering it.
When he came to think of it, it was not such a very easy one to answer.

“Miss Lisle will have, I trust, every reason to be happy,” he replied at
length; “every advantage will be hers, and a splendid, yes, undoubtedly,
a splendid position.”




CHAPTER III

UPROOTED


The time was rather after five o’clock on a dark afternoon a week later.

The train lamps had been lit two hours ago, and cast a vivid, unshaded
light upon a comfortable first-class railway carriage, with its
well-stuffed seats, well-covered floors, and tasselled blinds shutting
out the winter darkness.

Even particular Mr. Fenton thought the light good enough to read by, and
was leaning back luxuriously in his corner of the carriage, immersed in
the _Westminster Gazette_.

But Sydney, who sat opposite him, could not read. A pile of magazines
considered by Mr. Fenton to suit her age and sex lay around her, and she
was idly turning up the pages of one on her knee. But her eyes were fixed
dreamily upon the wall before her, and her thoughts were leagues away
from the swiftly-moving train, which was carrying her ever nearer and
nearer to the new, strange life.

It did not seem possible that she could be the same Sydney who, only a
week ago, had been so wildly happy over the letter from the Editor of
_Our Girls_. Why, though six copies of the paper with her story in it had
arrived for her, “With the compliments of the Editor,” that morning, she
had not even looked at them. No one had cared: all that happiness and
excitement had been years and years ago!

And yet had ever a week gone so quickly?

The days seemed all too short for everything she wanted to do in them.
In the end she had done little except follow mother round the house,
from kitchen to larder, from larder to store-room, and from store-room
to linen-cupboard. The idea of going round to say good-bye to all her
friends had to be given up; after all, it was mother that she wanted most.

At night she and Dolly, who shared a room, used to hold to each other and
cry; but in the daytime Sydney shed few tears. She was very quiet and
wistful-eyed, but trustful of father’s judgment, only growing a little
more silent as the days went on.

There came a letter from Lady Frederica Verney, Lord St. Quentin’s aunt,
beginning, “Dear Miss Lisle,” which opening was in itself a shock, and
asking Sydney if she would be ready to come to Castle St. Quentin on
Tuesday next, under the escort of Mr. Fenton. A maid, whom Lady Frederica
had engaged to wait upon her, would come up to town the day before, spend
the night at an hotel, and meet Sydney at Waterloo in time for the two
o’clock train down to Blankshire.

Nobody in the Chichester household could quite see what use the maid
could be to Sydney on the journey; but, by mother’s orders, she wrote a
little note to Lady Frederica, thanking her for taking so much trouble,
and saying that she would be ready to go with Mr. Fenton on the day and
by the train suggested.

The first copy of that note had two blots upon it, and Sydney had to
write it again. Poor little heiress! she quite longed to hear Mildred
say, “How careless!” and “When _will_ you grow up, Sydney!” But there
were no scoldings now, only a great tenderness from one and all.

Then there was packing to be done, and great discussions whether the
frocks which were to have been “let down” next month when Sydney’s hair
went up, should be altered now. Would Lady Frederica expect to see Miss
Lisle in quite grown-up array, or would skirts to her ankles pass muster?

Sydney took very little interest in the discussion, only, when pressed,
gave her voice in favour of leaving them alone. “She hated everything
that reminded her of what was going to happen!” she said.

The children took the prospect cheerfully until the very end. Nurse had
enlightened them on the grandeur of a title. “Miss Sydney would ride in
her own carriage, pretty dear! with powdered footmen on the box, and
silver on the harness, and wear satin every day. It would do her old eyes
good to see her!”

“You needn’t be such a silly ass about it, Syd,” Freddie had said,
after one of nurse’s conversations. “_I_ don’t mind you being a
Lady-what-do-you-call-it myself! You’ll keep lots of horses and ponies
and merry-go-rounds in your park, and we’ll all come and stay with you
and ride ’em!”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind!” Hugh told him, rather savagely, and was
not greatly mollified by Freddie’s answer:

“Well, _you_ needn’t! But Syd’s promised to ask me and Prissie, haven’t
you, Syd?”

“Oh, I shall want you all!” poor Sydney had cried. “I do hope Lord St.
Quentin will be kind, and ask you all to come and stay soon, very soon!”

“No chance of that!” Hugh had muttered beneath his breath; and then had
put his arm round Sydney, calling himself “a beast to make her cry, and,
of course, they would meet again, yes, very soon indeed!”

And then had come the last evening of the old happy, childish life.
Hugh had been very white and silent as it drew on, and Mildred’s eyes
kept filling with tears, so that she could not see to work, and Dolly
was crying quietly in a corner, and the boys gave up talking about
the hunters Sydney would keep and the motor-cars she would drive, and
relapsed into a gloomy silence; and Fred and Prissie realised suddenly
what “good-bye” meant, and broke down and howled.

Perhaps that was rather a good thing, after all, for everybody was so
busy comforting them and making auguries of future meetings that there
was not very much time to be miserable.

And when one is not yet eighteen, one _is_ sleepy when ten o’clock comes
round, however wretched one may be feeling. Sydney fully expected to lie
awake all night, but she and Dolly were both sound asleep when father and
mother looked, shading their candle, into the small room where to-morrow
night one would be all alone.

The morning had been unreal, like a dream.

They all had a kind of Sunday-manner towards the one who was to leave
them. Mother packed for Sydney; Mildred mended her gloves so beautifully
that one could not see where the mend was; old nurse came and brushed out
the mane of fine brown hair, combed back loosely from the small face and
tied at the back of the neck with ribbon; and Freddie rushed out to the
nearest flower-shop to buy her a bunch of violets to wear on the journey.
He even bore with calmness the hug with which she received them, though
in general he objected strongly to such demonstrations from anyone but
mother.

Father was to take her to the station, and she had her last words with
mother in her little bedroom.

“Be a good girl, my darling, and try as well to be a cheerful one. I know
this is a hard thing for you, but God doesn’t call us to do anything that
is too hard for us. Be brave, my little Sydney, and make the _best_, in
every sense, of this new life. God bless you, my darling!”

“I will try, mother,” said poor Sydney, choking back her tears, and
then father called that the cab had come, and mother put the girl’s hat
straight, and down they went.

The hat grew rather disarranged again in the hall over the various
embracings; but Sydney did not feel as though that or anything else
mattered. Somehow she stumbled, blinded with tears, to the cab, and waved
a farewell to the crowd of dear faces round the well-known door. Then
father said “Right—Waterloo!” and away they drove.

The hot tears rose again to Sydney’s eyes, as she recalled the scene, and
blurred the page before her. Not four hours since she had said good-bye
to home, but oh, how long it seemed!

The drive had been short enough; Sydney thought she would have liked to
go on driving for ever, holding father’s hand, and dreamily watching
blobs of mud fly up against the cab windows.

But Waterloo was reached very soon, and Mr. Fenton was outside upon
the station steps, and coming forward to hand her from the cab, and
regret that she had so dull a day for her journey, and wave forward a
fashionably-attired personage, whom Sydney took for some distinguished
traveller; but who was, it appeared, her maid, “Ward.”

Poor Sydney faltered, “How do you do?” in her shyest tone, and felt
supremely young and miserable. However, if Miss Lisle did not know what
to do with her maid, her maid knew perfectly well what to do with her.
She took Sydney’s umbrella, and inquired for her dressing-case. “I
haven’t one,” the heiress faltered, holding tight to father’s hand.

Ward was too well-bred to be at all surprised. She just said, “Certainly,
Miss Lisle,” and walked behind her to the carriage, where Mr. Fenton had
already ordered rugs and hot-water tins. She inquired if she could get
Miss Lisle anything, and, on a refusal, remarked that she was travelling
in the back part of the train, and would come to Miss Lisle at Donisbro’.
Sydney murmured, “Thank you very much,” and Ward, with a courtly bend of
her head, departed.

Mr. Fenton considerately said something rather inaudible about “papers,”
and left father and daughter for that precious last five minutes, and
then, after all, Sydney could not find anything to say, but could only
stand mutely holding to the worn cuff of his shabby overcoat and looking
at him with great, hungry eyes.

Dr. Chichester had to blow his nose more than once in the course of that
five minutes. “There, there, my dear!” he kept on saying, “things will
look brighter presently.... Be a good girl ... and write to us ... you’ll
like getting our letters, won’t you?... And I expect this Lady Frederica
will spoil you famously, eh, my dear?... There, there! don’t cry; it
won’t be as bad as you think, my little girl!”

And then Mr. Fenton gave a nervous little cough behind him, and said he
was afraid the train was just due to start, and Dr. Chichester apologised
for blocking up the doorway, and kissed Sydney, and said to Mr. Fenton,
in a rather husky voice, “Be good to my little girl, sir.”

And Mr. Fenton looked a little frightened, and said, “Yes, yes, you may
rely upon me; I will make a point of it.” And then a guard yelled, “Stand
clear, sir!” and the train was moving.

And Sydney had stood up and waved her handkerchief till the long
platform, with the tall, slightly stooping figure, was quite out of
sight—the last of home!

The letters on the page danced wildly and then disappeared, as Sydney’s
meditations reached this point. She got her handkerchief out furtively.
It certainly was not being very brave or sensible to cry at her age. She
dried her tears, and found Mr. Fenton looking at her in an anxious manner
over the top of his newspaper.

He had looked at her several times while her thoughts were travelling so
far away. He felt a distinct sense of responsibility with regard to her,
but was handicapped by small knowledge of girls and their ways.

He had done all that he could think of for her comfort. He had provided
her with a perfect armful of ladies’ papers, wrapped a travelling rug
about her knees, felt her hot-water tin to learn if it were really hot,
asked her more than once if he should completely close the window, and
seen to it that she had a cup of tea at Donisbro’.

But still he felt a vague uneasiness—a fear that he had not done
everything that he might have done. The girl’s eyes were very wistful—the
dark grey Lisle eyes, which he had noticed with professional interest.
They filled with tears rather often. Mr. Fenton felt distinctly uneasy—he
hoped the girl was not going to be hysterical!

She saw him looking at her, and forced a rather pathetic little smile.
Mr. Fenton put down his paper, folded it, and leaned forward.

“You are not cold, I trust?”

“No, thank you, not at all.”

“Or tired?”

Sydney considered, and thought perhaps she was a little tired.

“We shall be at Dacreshaw in less than twenty minutes,” he informed her,
looking at his watch. She thanked him, and then took a sudden resolution,
“Mr. Fenton, may I ask you a question?”

“Pray do, my dear Miss Lisle.”

Mr. Fenton felt a little happier about her now, and his tone was fatherly.

“I don’t know anything about my cousin,” she said, looking up at him
appealingly; “will he—will he be kind, do you think?”

Mr. Fenton rubbed his hands together in a considering kind of way. “I do
not think that you will see a great deal of Lord St. Quentin,” he said.
“Since his accident he has lived entirely in two rooms on the ground
floor—no, I don’t think you will see him very often.”

“And Lady Frederica?” ventured Sydney. “You told father that Lord St.
Quentin is thirty-four, so I suppose his aunt is very very old?”

Mr. Fenton never laughed outright at anything a lady said to him, but he
did smile, a little, half-apologetic smile, at Sydney’s question.

“My dear Miss Lisle, ladies nowadays are _never_ old, and it is
particularly difficult to connect that ungallant expression with Lady
Frederica. She is quite a woman of the world, I assure you, and—but you
will find out all about her for yourself. Ah! here is the train stopping
at Dacreshaw Station. Now, my dear young lady, we only have a drive of
six miles, and then we shall have reached our journey’s end!”

A footman in a long drab coat with silver buttons was opening the
carriage door with a touch of his cockade to Sydney; Ward was hurrying
towards her from the second-class compartments of the train; the old
station-master was lifting his gold-banded cap as she went by. Sydney
believed, in thinking over her arrival afterwards, that she clung in a
very undignified way to the arm Mr. Fenton had offered her, with his
old-fashioned gallantry. She was thankful when they reached the shelter
of the brougham sent to meet her, and Mr. Fenton had handed her into it,
and desired Ward to follow in a fly. He considerately made no further
attempt to talk to her, and she leaned back luxuriously on the cushions,
watching the reflections of the carriage lamps in the puddles, but hardly
conscious of anything except fatigue, until the opening of the lodge
gates roused her to the knowledge that she had nearly reached the place
which it seemed such a mockery to think about as home.




CHAPTER IV

THE FIRST NIGHT


“Ah, there you are!” cried a gay voice, as Sydney, blinking in the
lamp-light, was led by Mr. Fenton into the great hall of St. Quentin
Castle.

She felt a butterfly kiss on her forehead, and then the speaker, a tall,
beautifully-dressed lady, went on talking to Mr. Fenton.

“What abominable weather! St. Quentin hardly thought you would bring the
child, and has been abominably fidgety all day in consequence. You must
both be frozen! Come to the fire!”

A splendid fire of logs was burning at the farther end of the hall, which
was divided off by tapestry from the entrance. She led the way towards
it, talking volubly the whole time; so it was not till they were standing
by the cheerful blaze, and Lady Frederica had stopped speaking for a
moment to look at Sydney, that Mr. Fenton had the opportunity of getting
in a word. “How is Lord St. Quentin?”

“Oh, much the same, I think,” she answered carelessly. “He is up to-day—I
suppose he wanted to see Sydney. Dickson seemed to think he wasn’t quite
so well. Dickson is St. Quentin’s man, my dear,” she added, turning to
Sydney; “a most invaluable creature. I really don’t know what we should
do without him, for St. Quentin won’t have a trained nurse. So faddy, but
he doesn’t like them. But Dickson is really quite admirable with him, and
doesn’t mind his temper—_so_ fortunate—and can read to him, and do all
the things which otherwise perhaps might be expected of me. Yes, you are
like the family—their eyes, hasn’t she, Mr. Fenton? But you haven’t much
of a colour, child!”

“Miss Lisle is very tired, I fear,” suggested Mr. Fenton, looking kindly
at the girl. “I think, if I might suggest it, a little rest before
dinner.... I hear her maid arriving now, I believe.”

“Well, come with me, my dear, and see your room,” said Lady Frederica
graciously, laying her hand upon Sydney’s shoulder. “Mr. Fenton, be an
angel, and go in and talk to St. Quentin. He is in the library and as
irritable as can be. I really can’t go near him till he’s in a better
humour. Come, Sydney.”

They went together up the wide, shallow staircase, guarded at its foot by
two highly realistic-looking stuffed bears—shot by the present marquess
in the Rockies some years ago, Lady Frederica explained, in answer to the
girl’s shy admiration.

She had not time to look at the magnificent collection of sheathed
rapiers which adorned the walls of the long corridor through which
they next passed. Lady Frederica hurried her along, remarking that she
would have plenty of time for studying all “those tiresome old historic
treasures” by-and-by.

“The castle is simply full of them,” she said. “All the Lisles have been
collectors; it is one of their many irritating ways. I hope you haven’t
any hobby, my dear?”

“Hobby” was a new word in Sydney’s vocabulary, and she hardly knew how
to answer the question. But a reply was the one thing Lady Frederica
never wanted, and she went on talking in her clear, high-bred, rather
monotonous voice until they reached the first of Sydney’s rooms.

“They all open from one another,” she said, as the girl looked round with
dazzled eyes. “You like them? That’s right. St. Quentin told me to get
everything you would require. Your bedroom is the innermost, you see.
Then comes your morning-room, where you can do what you like without risk
of being interfered with. And this last is your school-room—yours, too;
till you share it with a governess. How old are you, by the way?”

“I shall be eighteen on the thirty-first of December,” Sydney answered.

“Well, perhaps I shall let you off regular lessons,” Lady Frederica
said; “but you must have masters for accomplishments. I shall tell
St. Quentin so. I don’t suppose you learnt much with that doctor—what
was his name?—Chichester? Gracious, child, how white you are! I hope
you are not going to be delicate! One invalid in the castle is quite
enough—especially one with a temper like St. Quentin’s. I’ll send your
maid to you, and you had better rest a little before dressing for dinner.
We dine at eight. Au revoir, my dear!”

And Lady Frederica flitted away, leaving Sydney in her new domain.

She took off her coat, hat, and gloves, and put them tidily away, then
knelt down by the bright fire blazing in the dainty tiled grate of her
bedroom and looked round it.

It was certainly a contrast from the little bare room she and Dolly
shared at home, where there was no space for anything that was not
strictly needful. This room was more like a drawing-room than a bedroom,
Sydney thought.

The prevailing colour was a delicate rose pink; the carpet, soft as
velvet to her feet, was rose and green; the window-curtains fell to the
floor in long, soft folds of rose-silk fringed with gold.

An easy-chair drawn invitingly to the fire was covered in brocade of the
same, and the satin quilt upon the lofty bed was rose and gold.

“It is _much_ too beautiful for me!” thought Sydney, and went through the
curtained door into what Lady Frederica had called her morning-room.

A soft moss green was the prevailing colour here; Sydney’s weariness
was forgotten as she darted from the dainty writing-table with its
silver-topped ink-stands and chased blotting-case, to the small but
perfect piano standing across one corner of the room.

She felt as yet too much a visitor to open it and try its tone, as she
would have liked to do, and the next moment had forgotten the desire,
and had flung herself upon her knees beside the book-case, green and gold
to match her room, and full of story-books!

She took out two or three at random, and “dipped” luxuriously,
half-kneeling, half-sitting, crumpled anyhow upon the floor. A whole
book-case full of new books to be read! She _was_ a lucky girl. A picture
flashed back vividly into her mind of the “children’s book-case” at home,
where every book had been read and re-read times out of number, and was
like an old friend. Oh, if she could only transport all these lovely
things into the shabby school-room at home! How Mildred would love the
rose-and-gold bedroom—dear Millie, who cared for pretty things so much,
and hardly ever had any!

And oh, what raptures Dolly would have gone into over that exquisite
little piano!—Dolly, who had been known to cry, yes, really cry, when
trying ineffectually to wile some music out of the ancient yellow keys
of theirs at home. And how Madge and Fred and Prissie would have loved
some—just half-a-dozen—just _one_, of this profusion of new books before
her!

It is poor fun to enjoy things all alone! A great tear splotched down
upon the blue-and-gold cover of the book that Sydney was holding, and
left a mark upon it. She dried it hastily, and got up from the floor,
just as Ward came into the room.

“Would you wish to dress, ma’am? It is half-past seven.”

“Yes, please,” the girl answered, wondering if she ever would have
courage to address this dignified person familiarly as “Ward.”

It did not seem very possible at present.

Sydney did not own a real evening dress, but Ward managed the plain
white nuns-veiling frock which she and Dolly had had just alike for the
Christmas parties last year so as to make it look very nice.

It proved to be a little short. “I think perhaps I had better let a tuck
down before to-morrow night,” Sydney suggested meekly, noticing how much
slender black ankle showed beneath it.

There was a moment’s pause before Ward answered her with studied calm, “I
do not think that will be necessary, ma’am.”

She was dressed in good time, and stood looking rather forlornly at her
maid, who was on her knees, unpacking, with a quite expressionless face,
the clothes mother had put in so carefully.

“Lady Frederica sits in the gold drawing-room this week, ma’am,” Ward
said, guessing the reason of the girl’s perplexity; “the second door to
the right of the inner hall. Shall I come with you to the stairs, ma’am?”
she added, rising.

Sydney thanked her warmly. “I am a little afraid of losing myself here,”
she said shyly, at which Ward smiled condescendingly, and said that “Miss
Lisle would soon be quite accustomed to the Castle.”

She took the girl to the head of the wide stairs, reiterated her
instructions, and let Sydney to go down the stairs and through the sombre
splendour of the hall, alone.

Although lit by many antique hanging lamps, its immensity made it
rather dark, and the suits of armour standing in the corners had a very
ghost-like appearance. Sydney crossed the black polished floor as fast as
its slipperiness would allow, and was about to open the second door on
the right, according to her maid’s instructions, when a voice spoke, not
loud, but imperatively, “Are you Sydney?”

She turned, and saw that a long couch on wheels was drawn up near the
great log fire, and that the man upon it had moved his head and was
looking at her.

She crossed the hall again and came to him, putting her hand diffidently
into his. “So you are Sydney?” Lord St. Quentin said.

What Sydney saw, as she returned his steady gaze, was a tall man, lying
very nearly flat, his head only just raised by a small pillow. His hair
was dark brown like her own and his eyes grey; but there the likeness
ceased. The face was thin, the mouth cynical, and the sharp line drawn
down the middle of his forehead made it strangely different from the
girl’s smooth one.

What he saw was a slight girl dressed in white, looking taller than she
really was by reason of her slenderness, with a cloud of soft brown hair
framing her face and hanging in a long tail down her back; and earnest,
pitying, dark grey eyes fixed upon him. They looked at each other in
silence for a full minute; then St. Quentin released her hand and pointed
to a low chair by his side.

“You had a cold journey?”

“Not very cold,” said Sydney shyly.

There was a pause. St. Quentin was frowning. Sydney felt that she ought
to originate a subject in her turn.

“I hope you are better to-day, Lord St. Quentin?” she got out with an
effort.

Lord St. Quentin stopped frowning, in surprise.

“Thanks, I’m all right,” he said shortly; then added with half a smile,
“Drop the ‘Lord,’ please—we are cousins!”

“Well, Sydney, so you and St. Quentin have made acquaintance already?”
Lady Frederica exclaimed, coming down the stairs as the gong began to
sound with a roar like distant thunder. “How clever of you to find
each other out! How are you now, my dear boy? Dickson told me you were
‘rather low’: how I hate that expression in the mouth of servants! It
always means ill-tempered. Now, my maid can never say I’m ‘low,’ at
all events. I make a point of never giving way to low spirits. Ah, Mr.
Fenton,” as the old lawyer came into the circle of fire-light, “here you
are!—punctual as usual! I have just been telling St. Quentin he shouldn’t
give way to low spirits; a mistake, isn’t it? I suppose you will dine in
the library, St. Quentin? Shall we see you again to-night?”

“You might come to me in the library for five minutes after dinner, if
you will, Aunt Rica,” he answered rather moodily. “I won’t keep you.
Good-night, Sydney.”

“Good-night, Cousin St. Quentin,” the girl said. Her cousin’s thin hand
took hers for a minute, and she followed Lady Frederica in to dinner.

Sydney thought the meal unending. The long table, the enormous room,
the powdered footmen all combined to make her feel strange and very,
_very_ homesick. But the dessert had been partaken of at last, and Lady
Frederica looked at the girl. “Shall we come, my dear? You’ll join us
presently in the gold drawing-room, Mr. Fenton?”

The old lawyer held the door open, and the two passed out to the
drawing-room.

“Pull a chair up to the fire, child,” said Lady Frederica with a shiver.
“I suppose I must go to St. Quentin: he probably wants to give me some
further directions about you. I shan’t be long: my dear nephew is not by
any means good company, I can assure you!”

And her grey and silver draperies swept out of the gold drawing-room.

Sydney drew a chair to the fire as she had been told, and sat staring
into it with dreamy eyes. Nine o’clock. At this time they all would be
in the drawing-room at home, except the little ones in bed. Father would
very likely be reading aloud to mother something that had interested him;
Madge making doll’s clothes in her special corner of the room, with a
good many whispered appeals to Mildred over some tiresome garment that
would not come right, and Hugh and Hal would be playing one of their
interminable games of chess—supposing Hugh had not been called out to
see some sick person. Just _one_ chair would be empty, that little dumpy
cane one in which she usually sat, which creaked so much as to make a
never-ceasing joke about “Sydney’s prodigious weight”! Sydney’s head sank
low, and the fire grew blurred when she thought about that little chair.
Was it only last night she had been in the dear drawing-room at home with
all of them?

When, ten minutes later, the coffee and Mr. Fenton came noiselessly
together into the gold drawing-room, the old lawyer found the little
heiress leaning back in the great arm-chair by the fire asleep.

He stood looking at her for a moment, and then rang the bell.

“Send Miss Lisle’s maid to her room at once,” he ordered, and then gently
woke her.

“Do not be alarmed, my dear young lady; it is only I,” he said. “I was
compelled to rouse you, because I am certain you ought to go to bed. I
have sent your maid to your room, and I strongly advise you to go there
immediately without waiting for Lady Frederica’s return. I will explain
everything to her.”

Sydney was only too glad to go. “Thank you very much,” she said, holding
out her hand to Mr. Fenton. He watched her go slowly up the wide
staircase before returning to the drawing-room, where he was joined in a
minute by Lady Frederica.

“Went to sleep while you were talking to her, did she?” she laughed.
“Dear me, Mr. Fenton, how abominably prosy you must have been! Oh, it
was _before_ you came in from the dining-room, was it? Fancy the child
finding us so wearying, even in our absence! I must tell St. Quentin
that: it will make him shriek!”

But when she had tripped back into the library where her nephew, his
brows drawn very close together, was endeavouring to read, Lord St.
Quentin did not seem to find the information she had come to bring him so
particularly funny.

“Poor little girl!” was all he said.




CHAPTER V

THE FIRST MORNING


Bright sunshine greeted Sydney when she awoke on the first morning in her
new home.

It fell softly through the shading blinds upon the dainty fittings of
her luxurious room, and on Ward, as she stood beside her with a tray,
containing a fairy-like tea-set for one.

“Oh, what _is_ the time?” cried poor Sydney in dismay. Surely she had
overslept herself, and Ward was bringing her a rather unsubstantial
breakfast in bed!

“Eight o’clock, ma’am,” the maid answered softly, placing the tray on a
little table by her bedside. “Would you wish me to draw the blinds up, or
shall I leave them down till you get up?”

“What time is breakfast?” Sydney asked.

“Lady Frederica breakfasts in her bedroom, Miss Lisle,” said Ward;
“and so of course does his lordship since his accident. Mr. Fenton
commonly likes his about ten o’clock when staying here, I have heard.
He breakfasts downstairs. Lady Frederica thought you would wish to take
yours in bed.”

“I would much rather get up,” said poor Sydney. “I am not at all tired
now, and I get up at seven at home.”

Ward never seemed to be surprised at anything.

“Yes, ma’am; what time would you wish to get up?” she inquired.

“When I have drunk my tea, please,” the girl said; “that is—unless you
think Lady Frederica would mind?”

A very faint smile did part Ward’s lips for a moment, but only for a
moment. “I am sure her ladyship would wish you to do exactly as you
please, ma’am,” she said, and withdrew to desire a housemaid to bring up
Miss Lisle’s hot water.

“Exactly as I please; this _is_ an odd place!” thought Sydney, as she
sipped her tea out of a Dresden china cup and ate the wafer bread and
butter provided.

She took heart of grace and rejected Ward’s services over her morning
toilet: the sunshine had given her fresh courage, and she felt quite a
different being from the tired-out, homesick Sydney of last night.

She was dressed by a quarter to nine, and stood looking from her window
at the green park, with its great bare spreading trees below her. Only
a quarter to nine! What should she do with herself till breakfast time?
At this hour at home, breakfast would be a thing of the past, and father
and Hugh have gone off to the hospital. And mother would have done a
hundred and one things before settling down to teaching the girls; and
the boys would have been off—the younger ones to school, and Hal to
King’s College. And Sydney herself would have been practising, or hearing
Prissie practise, on that old shabby school-room piano. How odd it felt!

Five minutes passed by very slowly; Sydney went and knelt down by the
fire that the housemaid had lit when she brought the water. One hour and
ten minutes before breakfast-time—perhaps more, if Mr. Fenton were late!

“I know!” she cried, rising quickly to her feet, and hurrying into thick
boots, coat and scarlet tam-o’-shanter. She would go out and explore the
park till ten o’clock.

She ran downstairs to the great hall, meeting nobody until she came out
on the splendid flight of marble steps, which a man was cleaning.

He got up from his knees and stared, when he saw a young lady march out
of the double doors, with the evident intention of going for a walk.

“Good-morning!” Sydney cried brightly, as she ran down the steps, leaving
the man still staring after the slight figure and red cap.

“Well, I’m blowed!” he said at last, returning to his work.

The park was rather wet, but Sydney’s boots were thick, and she scorned
the plain, uninteresting road along which she had driven last night.
She cut across the grass at right angles, running at intervals to keep
herself warm, and startling the deer not a little. Never having seen
these animals outside the Zoological Gardens, she was much excited by
their discovery, and made many unsuccessful attempts to coax them to her.

By-and-by she came to the boundary of the park. There was no gate,
but a convenient gap in the hedge; through which she climbed without
difficulty.

[Illustration: “Sydney’s dash forward was not a bit too soon.”

(Page 59)]

As she dropped from the gap into the road beneath, she became aware
that somebody a good deal smaller than herself was going to do the same
thing on the other side of the road. Through a thin hedge topping a high
grassy bank appeared, first, two small kicking legs, and then something
fat and roundabout in blue, surmounted by a crop of red curls. Sydney’s
dash forward was not a bit too soon, for the creature rolled down the
bank at a prodigious pace, alighting fortunately in her arms. It wriggled
from her in a moment, and regained its feet. Then Sydney saw that it was
a round-faced, red-haired little boy, dressed in a navy blue serge smock,
just now extremely muddy.

He stopped to pull on the wet strapped shoe which the mud in the ditch
had nearly sucked from his foot, pulled down his belt about his bunchy
little petticoats, and observed affably, “Hullo, big girl!”

“You have scratched your face, dear, getting through that hedge,” Sydney
said, looking him over; “doesn’t it hurt you?”

The small boy beamed all over in a condescending smile.

“Scwatches don’t hurt _boys_!” he assured her, with a strong emphasis
upon the last word.

“What is your name, dear?” she asked him.

“I’m Pauly Seaton,” he explained confidentially, “and I’m going to be
five quite soon. Big girl, shall we go home now, ’cause I’m daddy’s boy,
and he doesn’t like me to be lostened?”

He put his hand into Sydney’s quite confidingly. “But where do you live,
Pauly dear?” she asked.

“Vicarwidge, of course,” he said; “come on, big girl!”

They went a few steps together; then Pauly stopped, with an expression
of dismay on his round baby face. “Oh, bover, big girl, my shoe is stuck
like my teef in toffee!”

Sydney knelt down to investigate, and extract the little shoe which had
stuck so tightly in the mud. But, alas! in the tug Pauly had given it the
frail bottom had come off.

Sydney picked up the sodden shoe and put it in his hand.

“Get on my back, Pauly, and I’ll carry you.”

Pauly liked this idea, and shouted gleefully, as, with much effort upon
Sydney’s part, his sturdy little form was hoisted to her shoulders, and
his muddy toes, one shoeless, put into her hands.

“Oh, Pauly, you _are_ wet!” she cried. “I expect your mother will put you
into dry socks the minute you get home.”

“Me and daddy haven’t got no muvvers,” Pauly said. “There’s ‘In Memorwy
of Wose’ in the churchyard. God wented and wanted muvver, that was why.
Gee-up, horse!”

Poor Sydney! the “geeing-up” was not so easy. Pauly was no light weight.
Her face grew scarlet and her breath a little gasping. She sincerely
hoped the vicarage was not far away, and was not sorry when, as they
turned into its drive, a tall figure came hurrying to meet them.

“Daddy!” shouted Pauly gleefully, and, as Mr. Seaton hastened to remove
the burden from the tired horse, he explained: “Got frew the hedge of the
kitchen garden, daddy, and fell down a gweat big way, and there was this
gweat big girl there, and she caught me in her gweat big hands!”

The Vicar reached round his small son, to give his hand to Sydney, with a
smile that she liked.

“You seem to have been very good to my little scamp,” he said, “and I’m
afraid you’re quite done up with carrying the great lump—that’s what you
are, Pauly! Come in and have some milk or something; and then, if you’ll
tell me where you live, I’ll drive you home.”

“I am Sydney Lisle,” she answered shyly, “and I have just come to live at
St. Quentin Castle.”

They had reached the pretty gabled Vicarage by now. Mr. Seaton looked at
her with a kindly, amused scrutiny as he held the door open for her. “So
you are Miss Lisle?” was all he said.

A maid was sweeping the hall. “Would you fetch a glass of milk and some
cake, Elizabeth?” the Vicar said. “Now, Miss Lisle, shall I leave you to
rest and refresh yourself in the dining-room, or will you like better to
come to Pauly’s nursery, while I put him into dry clothes?”

“Oh, the nursery, please!” said Sydney.

Pauly led the way up the steep uncarpeted nursery stairs, guarded at
the top by a wicket gate, and would have liked to do the honours of “my
wocking horse” and “my own bed,” but his father quietly checked him.

“Go into the night nursery and take your shoes and socks off, Pauly. Now,
Miss Lisle, sit down in that chair, please. Here comes the milk—that’s
right.”

He put the milk and cake on a small table beside her, and retired into
the night nursery to find dry clothes for his little son. Sydney drank
the milk and ate a noble slice of cake, finding herself really very
hungry now that she had time to think about it.

Mr. Seaton redressed his little son with a speed which showed he was not
playing nurse for the first time, and the two came back into the day
nursery, the Vicar carrying sundry little muddy garments to hang on the
high nursery guard. He talked very pleasantly to Sydney all the time,
asking where she had lived before, and whether she knew Blankshire at all.

“No, we usually go somewhere near London for our holidays,” she
explained. “You see, there are a good many of us.”

“You’ll miss them,” said the Vicar, noticing the little tremble in her
voice, as she spoke of home. “I am afraid it will be rather dull for you
here at first. But you will make your own interests before long. Life
has a knack of growing very interesting, you will find, wherever we are
called upon to live it.”

Sydney had heard things like this in sermons before, but somehow the fact
that this was said to her in the homely surroundings of a nursery made it
strike her more. Certainly Mr. Seaton himself did not look like a man who
found life uninteresting. She smiled and looked up frankly.

“They are all so kind,” she said, “and say, ‘Do what you like.’ But it
doesn’t seem that there is anything to do.”

“Plenty,” said the Vicar briskly, “and you’ll find it if you look for it.
I wonder whether Lord St. Quentin would allow you to take a little class
in the Sunday School, for one thing?”

“Oh, I should just love to!” Sydney cried. “Mother always said I might
when I was eighteen, and my birthday is next month. Only I don’t know a
great deal.”

She noticed that the Vicar did not comment upon her acceptance.

“Thank you very much for your willingness to help,” he said. “I will
write to your cousin.”

“I am certain he won’t mind,” the girl said happily. “He is very kind,
you know, and told Lady Frederica to put the loveliest things into my
rooms. But, please, I think I ought to be going now, for Mr. Fenton has
his breakfast at ten.”

The Vicar laughed. “I am afraid Mr. Fenton will have breakfasted alone
this morning, owing to my little scamp here. Do you know what the time
is?”

“No.” Sydney was rather frightened.

“Ten-thirty.”

She sprang up with a cry of dismay. “Oh, how dreadful! I must run!”

“You won’t do any such thing!” said the Vicar firmly. “I am going to
drive you to the Castle in my pony-cart, and explain your disappearance.”

“I come, too!” Pauly cried, scrambling up from the centre of the
hearth-rug in a great hurry.

“No,” said the Vicar gravely. “I told you not to go into the kitchen
garden alone, Pauly. You must be obedient before daddy takes you out with
him.”

Pauly did not cry, as Sydney half expected. He twisted his fingers in and
out of his belt in silence for a minute; then observed defiantly, “Bad
old Satan come along and said, ‘Pauly, go into the kitchen garden.’”

“Yes,” said the Vicar gravely, “but what ought Pauly to have done?”

Pauly slowly stumped across the room, and stood looking wistfully from
the barred window.

“Wis’ I’d punc’ed his head!” came in a subdued murmur from the bunchy
little figure in the sunshine.

Mr. Seaton smiled and stroked the red hair gently. “Next time Pauly will
say ‘No,’ that will be better.”

Then he opened the door for Sydney, and they went out together.

The Vicar brought round the little cart with its shaggy pony. Sydney got
in, and they drove off. From the nursery window a fat hand was waving to
them with an affectation of great cheerfulness. “Poor little chap!” said
Pauly’s father.

Mr. Fenton was waiting about rather anxiously on the steps of the Castle,
and came forward with a look of unmistakable relief as he recognised
Sydney.

He shook hands with the Vicar and thanked him warmly for “bringing home
Miss Lisle,” but Sydney noticed that he did not ask him to come in. He
said that neither Lady Frederica nor Lord St. Quentin were yet down,
but the servants had been much alarmed by Sydney’s disappearance. She
and Mr. Seaton between them explained its cause; Mr. Fenton reiterated
his thanks, and the Vicar got into his pony-cart and drove away, with a
shy hand-shake from Sydney and a request that he would give her love to
little Pauly.

“Was it wrong to go out for a walk?” Sydney asked, as she and the old
lawyer went into the Castle.

“Oh no, not wrong, my dear young lady!” he assured her, “only perhaps
rather injudicious.”




CHAPTER VI

LORD ST. QUENTIN


By the time she had been a week at Castle St. Quentin, Sydney felt as
though the old happy life in London were years away.

She did not even look like the same Sydney, in the dainty frocks with
which Lady Frederica replaced the clothes mother had packed so carefully.

“Miss Lisle has not a thing fit to wear, my lady,” had been Ward’s
verdict, when Lady Frederica made inquiries into the state of Sydney’s
wardrobe, and Lady Frederica’s own dressmaker in London received a
lengthy order marked “Immediate” that very night.

The frocks were all ankle-length. “We will not put your hair up till
you are presented in March,” said Lady Frederica; but she only laughed
when Sydney threw out a timid suggestion that perhaps in that case the
old frocks might do till she came out. All these new clothes for four
months’ use only: it hardly seemed possible to believe.

Sydney’s wardrobe replenished, Lady Frederica took her education in hand
with undiminished energy. And the girl, although of no very studious
disposition, quite hailed the idea of lessons. Something to do would be
indeed a comfort, was the conclusion she arrived at by the end of the
first week. Writing had lost its zest now she had unlimited time in which
to do it, and even story-books palled when read all day. Solitary walks
were most decidedly forbidden by Lady Frederica, when she heard of the
girl’s adventure on the morning after her arrival; and when Mr. Fenton
left the Castle, as he did in a day or two, her life was lonely indeed.

St. Quentin was worse, and confined to his room for the whole week,
seeing no one but his man and Dr. Lorry; and Lady Frederica was never
down until the two o’clock luncheon.

If it had not been for a long letter of loving understanding counsel
from mother, Sydney would have been more than half inclined to give up
the early rising and other old home ways which made the mornings seem so
long. But mother must not be disappointed in her, and she thought of Mr.
Seaton’s words, and determined to try hard to make the interests which
did not seem inclined to make themselves.

It was on a dull afternoon a week after her arrival that she met
the doctor as he came from the library, where St. Quentin had been
reinstalled for the first time since the night she came.

Dr. Lorry was an elderly man, very kind-hearted and a teller of good
stories by the yard. He held out his hand to Sydney with a smile.

“Come in and see your cousin for a little while this afternoon, my dear
young lady,” he suggested. “I think a visitor would do him good to-day.”

Sydney followed him obediently into the library—a handsome but rather
sombre room, where what little of the wall could be seen for well-filled
book-cases was covered by Spanish leather, and the furniture wore the
same sober tint of dark brown.

St. Quentin’s couch was drawn up near the fire: he looked considerably
more ill now she saw him in daylight. His face was very worn and his eyes
sunken.

“Well, Lord St. Quentin, I’ve brought you a visitor, you see,” the doctor
said, drawing the girl forward. “She is not to chatter you to death—are
you a great talker, Miss Lisle?—but just to quietly amuse you. Good-bye,
I’ll look in again to-night.”

And he went out quietly, with an encouraging nod of his head to Sydney.

“Sit down,” said her cousin. “There, by the fire; you look cold. You
needn’t stay above five minutes if you find it bores you.”

“But I want to stay,” Sydney said. Her glance was the direct one of a
child. “I have been wanting to see you to say thank you for all those
lovely things you have given me—in my rooms, you know. And Lady Frederica
says I am to have a horse, and riding lessons too. It is _awfully_ good
of you!”

She pulled up in confusion at the “awfully” which had escaped her, but
her cousin did not seem to notice it.

“Oh, you like the notion of a horse; that’s right,” he said. “I wrote up
to Braemuir, who’s a pretty fair judge, to choose one suited for a lady,
and to send it down. You ought to look rather well on horseback.”

He looked critically at the slight figure dressed in soft green, touched
with creamy lace, before him. “I’m glad Aunt Rica didn’t make you put
your hair up yet,” he said.

“At home they said I must put it up on my eighteenth birthday,” Sydney
volunteered.

“At ‘home’?” questioned the marquess, with raised eyebrows.

“I mean in London,” she explained, speaking rather low. “Mother always
said I must not keep it down after I was eighteen, but Hugh didn’t want
it to go up.”

“Who is Hugh?” St Quentin’s tone was rather sharp; Sydney wondered if he
were in pain.

“Hugh is the eldest of us, but not a bit stuck-up or elder-brotherish
because of that. He is such a dear boy and very clever too. Why, he has
an appointment at the Blue-Friars’ Hospital that most men don’t get till
they’re _ever_ so old, over thirty! And Hugh is so nice too, at home; he
and I are special friends——”

Sydney could not understand what made her cousin’s voice sound so
unpleasant as he interrupted her with another question:

“How old is this paragon?”

“Twenty-four last birthday, Cousin St. Quentin.” She no longer felt
inclined to enlarge upon Hugh’s merits.

“Does he write to you?”

“Of course he does.”

“Don’t answer his letters, if you please. I have no doubt your
Chichesters are excellent people, but a correspondence between you and
this young paragon is most unsuitable.”

The colour flamed into Sydney’s face. “I don’t know what you mean, Cousin
St. Quentin,” she cried hotly, “and Hugh will think me so—so _horrid_ if
I never answer his letters!”

The cynical smile deepened round his mouth. “The sooner you understand
that playing at brother and sister is out of the question now the
better,” he said quietly.

Sydney set her teeth to keep the tears back and stared hard into the
fire. She would not cry before St. Quentin, but his tone, even more than
his words, made her desperately hot and angry. There was silence in the
room for full five minutes: then the footman came in with a note for Lord
St. Quentin.

He opened it, and read it half aloud with a sneer.

“What’s this ... ‘Miss Lisle ... help in the Sunday School ... small
class ...’ (confound the fellow’s insolence!) ‘subject of course to my
approval ...’ (He won’t get that, I can tell him!)”——

“Oh, Cousin St. Quentin!” Sydney cried, springing to her feet, “is it
about my class in the Sunday School? I told Mr. Seaton I should like to
take one. You will let me, won’t you?”

“Nonsense! You know nothing about it!” he assured her. “You wouldn’t like
it, and I don’t choose you to be always after parsons. Sit down there
at the writing-table—you’ll find pens and paper—and decline his offer,
please!”

“But I promised that I would, Cousin St. Quentin!”

“Well, now you find you can’t! Write—‘DEAR SIR.’”

Sydney wrote obediently, but with rebellion in her heart.

“I regret to find myself unable to take a class in your Sunday School,”
dictated Lord St. Quentin. “Yours faithfully, SYDNEY LISLE.”

But Sydney paused before the “yours faithfully” and faced round with
troubled eyes.

“He was very kind to me, and that sounds rather rude, doesn’t it? Mayn’t
I just put something else before the signature, for politeness?”

“Oh, say your brute of a cousin won’t allow you to do anything you want,”
the marquess suggested, with a rather mocking smile.

Sydney reddened, and, without remark, finished the letter that he had
dictated. Then she directed the envelope to “The Rev. Paul Seaton,”
and, rising, put it in her cousin’s hand. “I couldn’t say a thing like
that, you know,” she said, and he noticed that the childish figure had a
dignity of its own. “Shall I ring for one of the footmen to take it to
the Vicarage?” she added.

“I will,” said her cousin rather sharply, reaching out his arm. His
couch stood rather farther off from the bell than usual, and he turned
a little on his side in the attempt to reach it. The next moment Sydney
saw him fall back with a stifled exclamation of suffering, while his face
grew ashen and his brows contracted. She sprang forward. “Ring twice for
Dickson,” he gasped, “and go!”

She pealed the bell furiously, then, with a remembrance of father, looked
on the little table beside him.

Yes, sure enough, there was the bottle with, “Five drops to be taken in
water when the pain is acute.”

The water was there all ready. She held it to her cousin’s lips, raising
his head carefully. “It is the stuff in the blue bottle, Cousin St.
Quentin. Dickson said you took it when the pain was bad.”

When Dickson came hurrying in, breathless with his run from the distant
servants’ quarters, he found his master lying still with closed eyes,
while Sydney dabbed his forehead with cologne and water.

“Bless me, miss, that ain’t no good!” gasped the servant, forgetting
manners in the exigency of the moment. “That blue bottle, please, miss,
and the water!”

The strained look was passing from St. Quentin’s face, and he opened his
eyes again. “It’s all right, Dickson, Miss Lisle has already given me the
dose, as well as any doctor. Don’t stay now, child; Dickson will look
after me.”

Sydney did not see her cousin again that evening, but Dr. Lorry looked in
and reported him a little better.

And the next afternoon, as Sydney was driving through the village by
Lady Frederica’s side in the great landau, Mr. Seaton came up, and Lady
Frederica stopped the carriage to speak to him.

Sydney, remembering the note she had so unwillingly written him, grew
scarlet and shrank back into a corner of the carriage, but he greeted her
and Lady Frederica as though nothing disagreeable had occurred.

Presently he asked, turning to the girl, “How is Lord St. Quentin to-day?
I thought it so good of him to write himself and explain why you cannot
help us in the Sunday School at present.”

“Did Cousin St. Quentin write to you?” Sydney cried, finding it hard to
believe her ears.

“Yes, I heard from him late last night, explaining what great things you
are going to do in the way of education, Miss Lisle. Naturally he does
not wish you to undertake anything more just now.”

“Yes, Miss Lisle will be presented in March, and till that time we are
going to educate her,” broke in Lady Frederica. “I wish we were not such
a frightful distance from London, for I suppose the Donisbro’ masters
will have to do, unless I carry her off straight to town, which would be
much the best thing to do!”

“Only of course you would not wish to leave Lord St. Quentin in his
present state of health,” said Mr. Seaton rather pointedly, and Lady
Frederica sighed and said she supposed not, but these lingering illnesses
were very inconvenient.

Then the carriage drove on.

As soon as they reached the Castle, Sydney ran to the library, knocked,
and went in. St. Quentin seemed immersed in a book. She went and stood
beside his couch, her hands behind her.

“Cousin St. Quentin,” she said, “we met Mr. Seaton, so I know now that my
note did _not_ go to him.”

“It went into the fire,” said St. Quentin, without raising his eyes from
his book. “Your hand-writing isn’t precisely a credit to the aristocracy,
you know. You’d better do some copies before you turn into a marchioness.”

But Sydney was not to be put off by his tone.

“I’m very sorry I was cross,” she said earnestly. “It was _ever_ so good
of you to write him a nice note instead!”

St. Quentin went on reading in silence for a minute, then looked up.

“If you are going to remain,” he said, “and pray do, if you feel
inclined, shut the door and don’t talk nonsense!”




CHAPTER VII

MISS MORRELL


A companion-governess was procured for Sydney, the daughter of the vicar
of one of the churches near Donisbro’. The girl was unfeignedly delighted
at the prospect of a companion, even of the rather advanced age, as it
seemed to her, of three-and-twenty.

She grew quite excited over the arranging of Miss Osric’s room, and would
have liked to decorate it with some of the pretty things from her own.
But this Lady Frederica would not allow.

“You can have anything you like for her in reason, child,” she said,
“without stripping yourself. What, you don’t think there are enough
pictures in her room? Well, you may drive in with Ward to Dacreshaw this
afternoon, and get some, if you like. There is a good print-shop there.
Put the bill down to St. Quentin.”

But that was not necessary, for Sydney received a summons to the library
before she set out that afternoon.

Her cousin laid his pen down on her entrance; she saw he had been signing
a cheque.

“I haven’t started you on a dress-allowance, Sydney,” he said, “because
you had better let Aunt Rica rig you out at present. She knows how to do
the thing, you see. But you’ll want some money to play with, so there’s
your first quarter.” He held out the cheque.

Sydney gasped. “It isn’t for me, is it?”

“Yes, it is; there, put it in your purse. You can change it at the Bank
at Dacreshaw, where I hear you’re going. Good-bye, don’t spend it all on
chocolates!”

For the first time since her arrival at St. Quentin Castle, Sydney felt
almost happy. What Christmas presents she could get now for every one
at home! Should she choose them at Dacreshaw, or wait till she went to
Donisbro’ for the lessons in drilling and deportment she was to take with
a very select class of girls in the cathedral city?

She sat in a happy dream all through the drive, and only roused herself
when she reached the print-shop.

The Castle carriage was known, and the owner of the shop came forward
at once to serve the young lady, leaving the customer he had been
attending—a tall, graceful girl, some years Sydney’s senior, with great
calm, clear eyes.

Sydney found the shopman most obliging. He bowed repeatedly; he seemed
willing to reach down every picture in the shop for her to look at,
regardless of the trouble, and he asked with real anxiety after the
health of “his lordship, Lord St. Quentin.”

The tall girl had come rather near to them to examine a picture Sydney
had laid down. She started at the shopman’s question, looked irresolutely
for a minute at the younger girl, then came across to her with a smile.

“Miss Lisle,” she said, “you will not know me, but I know Lady Frederica
very well, and have stayed at Castle St. Quentin. I am Katharine Morrell.”

“Mr. Fenton told me about you,” Sydney said, brightening instantly.
Speaking to another girl felt like meeting a countryman in a strange and
savage land. “Do you live near?” she added eagerly.

“Some distance off; at Donisbro’,” she said; “my father is the Dean of
Donisbro’ Cathedral. I hear you are coming to the calisthenic class at
Lady Helmsley’s. Perhaps I shall see something of you, for I am taking a
little cousin to it.”

“I am _so_ glad you will be there,” Sydney said, brightening still more.
The girl had a lovely face, she thought, its slight look of sadness only
adding to its beauty. She was like some bygone saint.

“I am busy choosing a picture,” said Miss Morrell, “and you are, of
course, on the same errand. I am executing a commission for my father;
perhaps you are for your cousin? By the way, how is he?”

“He has been worse, but seems better these last few days,” Sydney
answered, rather doubtfully. “Dr. Lorry never tells us much about him.”

“They never do,” Miss Morrell said, in a low voice. “We are left to eat
our hearts out in ignorance, because, forsooth, they think a woman cannot
bear the truth. Oh, how much easier it would be if we might know, and
care, and be miserable if we wished!”

Sydney felt vaguely puzzled. Miss Morrell had spoken quietly, but her
voice vibrated, as though the words she spoke were almost forced from
her, and, as she turned away at the shopman’s approach, the girl saw her
hands were shaking. But, after that outburst, her manner returned to its
usual calm, and she busied herself with real kindness in helping Sydney
in that difficult thing—choice.

Four charming prints in sepia of well-known pictures were at length
decided on, and the man managed to fit them with frames from his store,
while Sydney was giving her opinion on the comparative merits of “The
Angelus” in sepia or black-and-white for the benefit of her new friend.

“You must come and have some tea with me at Grayson’s before you drive
home,” said Miss Morrell, when both had paid for their pictures, and
Sydney’s had been placed in the brougham. “Oh, yes, you must: you cannot
possibly be back at the Castle till long past tea time, and I have to
wait for papa, who is at a meeting. Tell your maid to go and get tea for
herself; the coachman will know, I expect, if he ought to put the horses
up.”

Greaves evidently thought he had better do so.

“Very good, ma’am. Call for you in ’arf an hour, ma’am,” he said, and
drove off to the St. Quentin Arms in the next street.

Sydney soon found herself at home with Miss Morrell, and the two girls
talked happily over the cream-cakes and fragrant tea for which Grayson’s
of Dacreshaw is noted. Ward drank hers in the room below with an easy
mind. She had heard enough of Miss Morrell in the servants’ hall of
Castle St. Quentin to feel certain that there could be no objection to
Miss Lisle associating with her.

Sydney took the larger share in the conversation. Miss Morrell had a
knack of drawing people out, and the girl found herself telling of the
Chichester family at home, and making her new friend laugh over funny
anecdotes of Fred and Prissie.

“You must have found it dull at the Castle just at first, after being
used to so large a party,” Miss Morrell said.

“I did,” Sydney owned frankly, “and I find it rather dull still. But Lady
Frederica is kind and amusing, and I like—yes—I do quite like, Cousin St.
Quentin.”

Miss Morrell had stooped to pick up the handkerchief she had dropped
while Sydney was speaking. She took rather a long time in doing so, and
when her head appeared again there was a lovely colour in her face.

“I am afraid I hear your carriage now, dear,” she said, rising, “and we
must not keep the horses standing, must we? No, put away your purse;
I _asked_ you to tea. I expect we shall find your maid waiting for you
downstairs.”

“I do hope I shall see you at the calisthenic class!” Sydney said
earnestly, and Miss Morrell smiled and said she hoped so too.

“Well, what do you think of Dacreshaw?” asked Lord St. Quentin, as Sydney
peeped into the library about an hour later, with a large parcel under
her arm.

She came and sat down beside him, and undid the string with business-like
gravity.

“It is a perfectly lovely place!” she assured him, “and the print-shop
is delightful. The pictures were all so nice that I hardly knew how
to choose among them. Look at that Greuze, Cousin St. Quentin, isn’t
her face just sweet? I’ve seen the original of that in the Wallace
collection. Hugh took Mildred and Dolly and me there one day last year.”

“That eternal Hugh!” muttered the marquess, but beneath his breath, and
Sydney chattered on without hearing.

“I couldn’t settle for _ever_ so long whether to have the girl with the
broken pitcher, or with the lamb, but Miss Morrell said——”

“_Who?_”

“Miss Morrell. She was there in the shop, Cousin St. Quentin, and oh, she
was so nice! She helped me choose, and we had tea together. She knows
Lady Frederica, but I don’t think she knows you—she didn’t say so, but
she asked how you were. Why, Cousin St. Quentin, would you like some more
drops, or shall I ring for Dickson?”

“No, I don’t want anything or anybody; it’s all right. Only you had
better go off to Aunt Rica. I’m tired to-night,” he said, turning away.

She was gathering up her pictures and going obediently, when he asked,
still with his head averted, “Which did you say was the picture _she_
liked?”

“The Broken Pitcher,” Sydney answered wonderingly.

“Well, you might leave me one to look at—that will do—the pitcher one, I
mean.”

Sydney propped her Greuze upon the table where he could see it
comfortably, and went out.




CHAPTER VIII

ACCOMPLISHMENTS


Miss Osric arrived at the Castle on the afternoon following Sydney’s
expedition to Dacreshaw.

A carriage was sent to meet the 4 o’clock train, and Sydney, in spite of
an uncomfortably shy sensation at the bottom of her heart, begged leave
to go and meet her governess.

“Certainly not! it would be most unsuitable!” said Lady Frederica, in
her most decided manner, and she walked away, leaving Sydney to wonder
why everything she wished to do was either unsuitable or absurd. The
words were unknown at No. 20, in that dull old square not far from Euston
Station, which was home.

Still, Miss Osric should have a welcome at the Castle if she could not at
the station, and Sydney hung up the pictures she had bought at Dacreshaw,
and coaxed some lovely hot-house flowers out of the head-gardener,
Macintosh, to fill the vases in her governess’s room.

St. Quentin was rather amused by her extensive preparations. “But you
see,” Sydney remarked, when he made a laughing comment on them, “Miss
Osric may be feeling just as shy and wretched as I did when I came here,
and it will make a difference if somebody is really pleased to see her.”

“Didn’t you think we were pleased to see _you_?” asked her cousin.

“You were all very kind,” Sydney said doubtfully, “but, you didn’t
exactly _want_ me, did you? It is only at home one is really wanted.”

She stopped, remembering his snub on the subject of calling the
Chichesters’ house home; but he only said, with a little smile, “Well,
go and make your governess welcome in your own way, child. I hear wheels
now.” And, as the girl flew out, her long hair streaming behind her, he
said half aloud, “I wonder how it would feel to have anyone to care if
one were wretched or no!”

Sydney was on the steps to receive Miss Osric, and certainly her shy but
eager welcome made a good deal of difference to the feelings of the young
governess, bewildered by this plunge into the outside world, made for the
sake of the younger ones at home, who needed better education than her
father’s means allowed. Mary Osric, just returned from a brilliant career
at Lady Margaret Hall, had begged to be allowed to help towards providing
some of the advantages she had herself enjoyed for her juniors; and a
friend had mentioned her name to Lady Frederica as that of a clever girl,
likely to fill suitably the double post of governess and companion to
Miss Lisle.

Miss Osric had been considered shy at College, despite her cleverness,
and the idea of teaching a strange girl in an absolutely strange place
was terrible to her. But she always declared afterwards that the worst
was over when Sydney came running out into the hall to welcome her.

“You must be cold!” the girl cried. “Would you like to come straight to
your room and take your hat off before tea? Let me carry your umbrella.
Be careful how you walk; the floors are very slippery.”

“It is lovely—just like a picture,” said Miss Osric, beginning suddenly
to feel less homesick. There was something very winning about Sydney’s
tone.

The room where the new arrival was to sleep bore traces also of the
same care for her comfort. A bright fire burnt in the grate, a vase of
hot-house flowers was on the writing-table, the pictures from Dacreshaw
looked charming on the walls, and a little book-case was filled with a
selection of Sydney’s best-loved books.

“What a charming room!” the young governess exclaimed, and Sydney,
colouring a little, murmured she “was glad Miss Osric liked it.” She
stayed with her governess while she took off coat, hat, and fur, and then
brought her to the morning-room, where the shaded lamp shed a delicate
rose glow over everything and the little tea-table was drawn up to the
fire.

“I am so very glad you have come,” said Sydney, as she poured out tea and
handed muffins, and Miss Osric began to realise that the duty she had set
herself need not necessarily prove a hard one.

“Well, do you like the mentor?” asked St. Quentin, as Sydney came into
the library to wish him good-night. “Are you going to be quite happy now
you have another girl to play with?”

And Sydney, meeting the real anxiety in his eyes, said “Yes.”

“But she _is_ still hankering after those confounded Chichesters!” her
cousin said to himself, when the girl had left him, in which conclusion
he was not far wrong.

With the coming of Miss Osric, the “do as you please” system ceased.

Lady Frederica might be lax as regarded solid education. “There’s no
need whatsoever to behave as though you are to be a governess, my
dear,” she said to Sydney, but she was horrified by the girl’s lack of
accomplishments.

“The one and only thing the child can do is to look pretty,” his aunt
complained to St. Quentin, “and beauty without style is very little good.
Of course, we must be thankful for small mercies—one seldom has big
ones to be thankful for—and she might have been fat and podgy! But what
in the world those doctor people were about not to give her drill and
calisthenic lessons, I can’t think!”

“There were herds of them, I fancy,” said her nephew. “Whenever Sydney
mentions them, which isn’t seldom, she springs a new one upon me. They
would make an excellent third volume to the _Pillars of the House_. I
don’t suppose there was overmuch cash to spare for accomplishments.”

“I never can think why it is that those people who cannot afford it
always have such enormous families,” pursued the lady.

“If we had done our duty by Sydney as we should, there would have been
one less all these eighteen years,” her nephew suggested, and Lady
Frederica changed the subject, as she always did when St. Quentin had
what she called a “conscientious craze.”

“It’s your health makes you talk like that, my dear boy,” she declared.
“You are really getting quite ridiculous about Sydney!”

The round of accomplishments now began in good earnest.

Sydney and Miss Osric breakfasted at eight-thirty, after which, when
the weather was at all possible, Sydney took her ride on her new mare
“Bessie,” a charming creature, whom she learned to love! Even Lady
Frederica owned that, after a few lessons from old Banks, who had taught
the present marquess to ride long ago, Sydney passed muster well enough
on horseback. She and Bessie understood each other, and she bade fair to
make a graceful and a fearless horsewoman.

“Of course she can ride; all the Lisles can ride anything that has a back
to it,” St. Quentin said, when Lady Frederica condescended to approve
the girl’s horsemanship; but, though his tone was careless, there was no
doubt he was gratified by the fact that his young cousin took after the
family in that respect.

On three mornings in the week Sydney had masters from Donisbro’ for
French, piano, and singing, and every Saturday a sergeant with a huge
black moustache came to teach her fencing in the long “Gallery-at-Arms,”
where the third marquess of St. Quentin was said to have fought a duel
with the famous Duke of Marlborough one wild morning when a stormy dawn
peered through the mullioned windows, and to have spared his life as
being host.

Sydney came to enjoy her lessons, as soon as she had grown used to the
strange sensation of having every bit of instruction to herself, with
only Miss Osric sitting by to chaperone her pupil.

She had a fresh young voice of no special power, nor was her playing in
the least above the average. She longed that Dolly, who would do her
teachers so much more credit, might enjoy these music lessons in her
stead; but the wish was futile.

She and Miss Osric lunched at two with Lady Frederica, and, if possible,
managed a brisk walk before lunch. Miss Osric was as energetic as Sydney
herself, and always ready to go out, whatever the weather. Sometimes
they had only time for a stroll in the Park, but often extended it to the
picturesque little village, where the broken-down cottages, with their
moss-covered thatch and ivied walls, made Miss Osric long for the summer
and time for sketching.

In the afternoon Lady Frederica generally liked a companion on her drive
and took Sydney, but the girl always managed to find a few minutes to run
into the library to see her cousin; who, except on his worst days, was
wheeled from his bedroom to the library next door about two o’clock.

After the drive there was tea, then usually another visit to St. Quentin,
followed by practice, preparation for her masters, and finishing, not
infrequently, with something she and Miss Osric were reading together.

They dined at eight with Lady Frederica, and afterwards sat in one of the
drawing-rooms till 9.30, when Sydney was despatched to bed.

This was rather a come-down after ten o’clock bed-time at home, but Lady
Frederica was firm on that point.

“I am here to turn you into the right kind of girl for your position,”
she explained to Sydney, “and one of the most important things for it is
a good complexion. I went to bed at seven every night of my life till
I was seventeen and came out, and I don’t think there was a complexion
to match mine in London. Yours will never equal it, my dear, though St.
Quentin does say silly things about you. Yes, my complexion was perfect,
and so was my way of entering a room (you poke, rather!) and getting in
and out of a carriage; and though I never could remember why Romeo wrote
Juliet, or whether Chaucer or Pope was the author of ‘In Memoriam,’ I
married Tim Verney, the millionaire, at the end of my first season!”

Poor Sydney used to listen to such conversations with a vague and
increasing sense of discomfort. Was this to be her life, only this? Was
this where all the accomplishments were leading? Was this, only this,
what mother had meant by “making the best in every sense of this new
life”?

Sydney felt quite sure that it was not!

She grew graver and distinctly more homesick; St. Quentin noticed the
change in her, and put it down to rather too many lessons. By his decree
the ride was lengthened; but it was something more than mere amusement
that poor Sydney wanted. Perhaps the want she was most conscious of
herself was mother.

The drill and fencing lessons were supposed to give the girl that
“deportment” of which Lady Frederica spoke so constantly, but she was
herself Sydney’s most effective teacher. The girl grew very weary of
the constant instructions. “Don’t run downstairs, Sydney!—never seem in
a hurry. My dear, don’t shake hands that way. Miss Osric, kindly give
her your hand again. No, that’s not right! Dear me! I think they might
have taught you such a simple thing as to shake hands gracefully at your
doctor’s.”

If Sydney failed in any way, Lady Frederica was surprised that she had
not been taught better at “the doctor’s.” It made the girl grow hot with
indignation for the dear home people, but she was quite aware that Lady
Frederica would only raise her eyebrows and say, “Gracious, child, don’t
be absurd!” if she expressed a tithe of what she felt.

The bi-weekly calisthenic lessons came as a welcome relaxation. The drive
to Donisbro’ was in itself a pleasure, for, after the first novelty had
worn off, Lady Frederica sent Miss Osric with her pupil.

The class comprised only about a dozen girls between the ages of fourteen
and nineteen, who met at a private house and were taught by a master who
bestowed instructions upon royalty.

It felt like meeting an old friend to Sydney to see Katharine Morrell’s
clear-cut face and calm eyes among the mothers and governesses, and she
enjoyed introducing Miss Osric and telling eagerly the unimportant little
details of her daily life to an ear which was always sympathetic.

She began to look forward to Tuesdays and Fridays as the best days in the
week, and save up the nicest bits of news to tell Miss Morrell—Hugh’s
last success—Madge’s Latin prize at the High School—or some kindness
shown her by St. Quentin.

Katharine Morrell seemed interested in all and everything that Sydney had
to tell, _even_ in the news of the Castle, which seemed to its teller
so infinitely less worth hearing than the doings of the Chichesters and
home.




CHAPTER IX

THE HEIRESS-APPARENT


On a clear, cold December evening a month after Sydney’s arrival, the
grand old castle of St. Quentin seemed to have cast off for the moment
its habitual sombreness.

Sounds of talk and laughter came from the brilliantly-lit dining-room,
and the great hall, though empty still, was gay with flowers—great pots
of chrysanthemums and arum lilies standing against walls where more than
one cannon ball was embedded.

On this night Lord St. Quentin had elected to give a dinner to his
principal tenants, and afterwards to formally present Sydney to them as
his heir.

It was in vain Dr. Lorry urged that excitement was bad for his patient;
it was in vain Sydney begged to be excused the ordeal. The Lisles of
history had been renowned for their obstinacy in the days when half the
Castle had been shattered by cannon, and the present head of the house
was not behind his ancestors in that respect.

“The child has been brought up in a corner,” he said, “but her
acknowledgment is going to be as public as I can make it. The tenantry
may just as well know something of her before she comes to rule over
them.”

So the preparations were made and the guests bidden.

Lady Frederica groaned a good deal over “St. Quentin’s fads,” as she
called them. “If he wants to entertain, he might just as well have
consulted _my_ pleasure by giving a dinner or a dance to our own set,”
she complained; “but to expect me to be enthusiastic over the coming of a
lot of old farmers is a little too much!”

Sydney did not remember that St. Quentin had asked Lady Frederica to be
enthusiastic, or indeed _be_ anything except _be_ there, but of course
she did not say so.

Lord St. Quentin asked his cousin Lord Braemuir to come down to stay at
the castle, and take the head of the table at the dinner.

He was a bluff, hearty-looking man, and Sydney took a fancy to him
because he spoke kindly of her young mother and father, and seemed to
think they had been hardly treated.

“I never could see the girl was to blame,” he told St. Quentin, when they
were alone together. “She was a child and poor Frank was another, and if
only Gwenyth had let well alone, there would have been no harm done. But
perhaps it was just as well she did interfere, for you’ve got a charming
little girl for your heir, Quin, my boy. Well, how things turn out! Fancy
little Miss Henderson’s child coming to be Marchioness of St. Quentin!”

The ladies dined in the library with St. Quentin that night—Lady
Frederica very magnificent in green and gold, with the Verney topazes
gleaming in her hair. Sydney was all in white, and wore no jewelry. Lady
Frederica was rigid in her views upon the etiquette of dress for girls
not yet “out.”

The girl had insensibly improved very much during the past month in style
and dignity. She held herself better, and had grown to be considerably
less shy. St. Quentin watched her with approval as she sat down after
dinner beside Miss Osric, and began a low-toned conversation, which
should not interfere with Lady Frederica’s rather high-pitched stream
then flowing over him.

She was looking very pretty too, he thought; with a colour in her small
delicately-cut face and an earnest look in the great grey eyes. “Yes,
Braemuir was right,” he thought to himself, “I _have_ got a very charming
heir!”

Steps were heard outside, and Lord Braemuir entered, sending his jolly
voice before him. “Are you ready, Quin, my boy, and you, my dear?
Yes, dinner went off splendidly, St. Quentin, and your farmers quite
appreciated it, I assure you. Where is the presentation to take place?
Oh, the great hall, is it? Here, shall I wheel your couch in?”

“Thanks, ring for Dickson, please,” said St. Quentin. “Will you go
and bring the tenants to the hall, Braemuir, and then come back here
and take in Aunt Rica. Sydney, walk beside my couch, please—don’t be
frightened—nobody shall eat you!”

“I am not afraid,” said Sydney, drawing herself up, and they went into
the great hall together, she walking by his side.

Lady Frederica followed, on the arm of Lord Braemuir, and Mr. Fenton, who
had come down for this great occasion, gave his to Miss Osric.

All eyes were turned upon the girl as she walked slowly up the hall, her
colour coming and going, but showing otherwise no sign of nervousness.
They came to the great fireplace and there stopped. St. Quentin raised
his head a little, and spoke, his hand on Sydney’s.

“Well, gentlemen, I’m very glad to see so many of you here to-night. You
all know, I think, why I asked for the pleasure of your company when I am
incapable of entertaining you myself. It is to present to you my cousin
and heir, Miss Lisle.”

Several people cheered at this point, and Mr. Fenton rubbed his hands
together with a little smile. He detected the undercurrent of pride in
St. Quentin’s voice at having such an heir to present. And he remembered
well enough the tone in which the marquess had said, only five weeks ago,
“We _must_ have the girl here, I suppose!”

“A good many of you here to-night will remember her father, Lord
Francis,” St. Quentin went on.

“Yes, my lord,” was heard on many sides.

“Well, Fate and my motor-car between them, have put the title into Miss
Lisle’s hands,” pursued the marquess. “I shouldn’t altogether wonder if
she makes a better hand of the landlord business than I’ve done, when
her time comes to govern for herself. Gentlemen, I have much pleasure in
presenting you my heir.”

One sentence in St. Quentin’s speech was standing out in Sydney’s mind,
and repeating itself over in her head, making her deaf for the moment to
all else going on around her. “I shouldn’t wonder if she makes a better
hand of the landlord business than I’ve done.” Then there was something
she was called upon to do in this new life, besides moving gracefully and
shaking hands in the newest manner! St. Quentin had to touch her on the
arm to rouse her attention to his next remark.

“Will Mr. Hudder be good enough to come forward? Miss Lisle will like
to shake hands with our oldest tenant. Mr. Hudder held his farm in my
grandfather’s time, Sydney,” he explained to her.

Sydney did not feel quite certain as to the proper procedure in such a
case. She went forward and put her hand in the old farmer’s great brown
one. “I am so pleased to meet you, Mr. Hudder.”

The old man retained the little hand, and slowly shook it up and down.
“Man and boy I’ve held my farm under the Marquesses of St. Quentin,
miss,” he said solemnly. “They’ve been good landlords to me, and I’ve
been a good tenant to them. I’m very pleased to see you here among us,
miss; though I’ll not deny but that we _did_ hope to see his lordship
there, marry and bring up a family at the old place and——”

“Bravo!” said a voice from behind the tapestry, and a gentleman, in a
faultless overcoat, drew it aside and walked across the polished floor.
The old farmer dropped Sydney’s hand in some confusion: the new-comer
took a comprehensive glance around him through the monocle screwed into
one of his rather cold blue eyes. “Hope I don’t intrude?” he inquired.

“Not at all,” said the Castle’s owner, “glad to see you.” But the smile
which had been upon his face, as he watched Sydney and the old man,
disappeared.

The monocle located the couch by the fire: the new visitor went towards
it with outstretched hand. “Hullo, Quin, heard you got smashed up!” he
remarked.

“Well, now you see for yourself,” was the dry answer.

“Awfully sorry—quite cut up about it,” he explained; “thought several
times of dropping you a postcard to inquire.”

“Really?” said the marquess; “but one could hardly expect such a literary
effort from you. Aunt Rica, may I introduce Bridge, I don’t think you
know each other. Sir Algernon Bridge—Lady Frederica Verney—Miss Lisle.
Now, my dear chap, you’d better go and dine. Braemuir, you’ll look after
him, as I can’t, won’t you?”

Lord Braemuir had been standing apart since the entrance of this fresh
guest, with an unusually grave expression on his good-humoured face.

At St. Quentin’s words he came slowly forward, and gave his hand to the
new-comer, still without a smile. “How are you, Bridge?” he said.




CHAPTER X

A MEETING


Sydney saw considerably less of her cousin after the arrival of Sir
Algernon.

He announced that he had come to spend Christmas, much to the relief of
Lady Frederica, who declared it would be “such a comfort to have somebody
to amuse St. Quentin.” He himself acquiesced in the arrangement without
saying much, or expressing pleasure or the reverse.

The new inmate of the Castle was distinctly an addition to its
liveliness. He and Lady Frederica had several acquaintances in common,
and Sydney and Miss Osric, sitting quietly at the dinner-table, found
their ideas of various distinguished persons most uncomfortably
disarranged. Sir Algernon had a knack, however, of suiting his
conversation to his company. When he overtook Sydney and her governess
returning from taking soup to a sick child in the village, he walked
between them, talking very pleasantly of the historical associations and
romantic stories connected with St. Quentin Castle—a subject particularly
interesting to Sydney, who was beginning to feel a certain pride in the
past of the grand old house to which she belonged.

It may be presumed that his conversation pleased St. Quentin also, for
his guest was shut up with him a good deal in the library, smoking and
talking.

In other ways besides amusing conversation, Sir Algernon’s presence was a
boon to the ladies. He was a first-rate whip, and the four-in-hand which
St. Quentin used to drive was had out from the stables—where it and his
shattered motor-car had stood so long idle together—for the benefit of
Sir Algernon. He took Lady Frederica and Sydney out in it: one day they
even went as far as Donisbro’ and lunched at the principal hotel there.

Sydney wished to lunch at the Deanery, that she might return a book Miss
Morrell had lent her, but this Lady Frederica would not allow.

“If you will solemnly swear not to go into the Deanery drawing-room on
any excuse whatsoever, I shall be delighted to escort you to the door,
Miss Lisle,” Sir Algernon suggested good-naturedly, noticing the way her
face fell at Lady Frederica’s refusal. “We shouldn’t take above twenty
minutes getting there and back, if you only leave the book at the door.
If Lady Frederica will allow us, we will go directly after lunch, while
she is choosing those cards she spoke of.”

Lady Frederica agreed readily enough to this arrangement, and the two set
out together when their lunch was over, with a parting direction on her
part, “Be sure you hurry, for the afternoons are so short, and we must
start early on our homeward drive.”

They left the parcel with the Deanery footman, and retraced their steps
through the Close and up the steep High Street of Donisbro’.

The shops were very gay with Christmas cards and presents: Sir
Algernon inquired if Miss Lisle still retained a taste for turkey and
plum-pudding? She answered absently, for the Christmas preparations
brought back home with a painful clearness. She thought of the shopping
expeditions which became so many as Christmas Eve drew on, and the
numberless secrets with which the tall old house seemed packed from
garret to cellar, and the wild excitement of Christmas Eve; when all the
boys and girls who might be trusted to be quite conformable, went out to
see the brilliant show of Christmas shops under the guardianship of Hugh
and Mildred.

“What’s the girl thinking of?” Sir Algernon asked himself, a little
piqued, for he was not used to having his remarks received with
inattention or indifference.

Then suddenly a light dawned on him, for Sydney’s eyes, which had been
fixed rather absently upon the sloppy pavement before her, grew bright
with recognition. She broke into a cry of joy, and in a second had sprung
forward to seize both the outstretched hands of a young man, who was
hurrying down the street towards her. “Oh, Hugh! Hugh!”

“By Jove!” Sir Algernon let out between his teeth, as he stood aside,
forgotten by both.

“Hugh! what _are_ you doing at Donisbro’?”

“Sir Anthony had an operation to perform here,” Hugh explained, “and,
like the brick he is, took me as his anæsthetist. I never thought of this
luck!”

“Oh, Hugh! how are they all? How is mother? Oh, dear! there are such
hundreds of things I want to ask you!”

“I’m just the same. How are you, dear? Your letters are jolly, but they
don’t tell a quarter that we want to know. You’re looking well.” The
old brotherly approval in his eyes was replaced, the girl saw, by a new
expression. “Who are you with? Are you driving, or what? Can I walk with
you? You mustn’t stand in this cold.”

“No, I am sure Miss Lisle should not,” Sir Algernon interpolated suavely.
“Mr. Chichester, I suppose?”

Hugh bowed and apologised. Sydney introduced the two in form, with a
loving pride in speaking Hugh’s name which did not escape the baronet.

“We ought to be rejoining Lady Frederica, don’t you think?” he said to
her; “we were ordered not to linger.”

“I forgot,” said Sydney. “Yes, we must go. Hugh, come too. I want to show
you to Lady Frederica.”

And Hugh, against his better judgment, came. It was hard to refuse Sydney
anything when the sweet face looked at him so earnestly. Besides, at home
they would be hungry for news; how could he help saying yes.

He walked beside her, but confidences were impossible in the presence of
Sir Algernon, although that gentleman made himself exceedingly agreeable
according to his wont. Still, Hugh could look at Sydney and hear her
speak, and that was something.

They reached the hotel all too soon. Lady Frederica was looking out
for them and the introduction was made. She was civil, but by no means
cordial, and conveyed an accent of disapproval into her polite surprise
at seeing Mr. Chichester so far from town.

Sydney explained eagerly, but Lady Frederica’s “Indeed!” was
discouraging, and there was a pause. Hugh felt he was expected to take
his leave, and took it.

“Good-bye, Sydney, I’m—awfully glad to have seen you.”

“Good-bye! Good-bye, Hugh—my love to them at home, a great _deal_ of
love, you know, Hugh. Good-bye!”

Oh, dear! how much there was that Sydney wanted to say to him! If only
Lady Frederica would have left them for a little time alone! If only Sir
Algernon had not been there when they met! She wanted—oh, so much!—to
hear the little things that letters never tell; those little items of
everyday home news for which she felt so sick with longing suddenly.
Why hadn’t she asked this, that, and the other? She seemed to have said
nothing but good-bye. She was very quiet upon the homeward drive, so
quiet that Sir Algernon looked curiously at her more than once. And when
they reached the castle, and the girl had gone up to the school-room, he
went into the library to St. Quentin.

“Got any views for that little girl, Quin?” he asked carelessly, when he
had answered his host’s inquiries as to the conditions of the roads, the
“pace of the greys,” and other details of their day.

“Possibly, but none that I need your advice upon, thanks,” was the answer.

“Don’t get riled, old man, I wasn’t offering it.” Sir Algernon lit a
cigarette with great care and sat down by the fire. “It strikes me that
she has views of her own, as well,” he concluded.

“Suppose we leave Sydney out of the conversation, altogether!” said St.
Quentin.

“Oh, just as you please, of course. Do you want the people who brought
her up—the Chichesters—to be a tabooed subject as well?”

“What of them?”

“Oh, a son is at Donisbro’, that’s all.”

“One of the Chichesters?”

“Yes; she called him Hugh.”

Sir Algernon leaned back luxuriously in his chair, stretching out his
feet to the cheerful blaze.

“You don’t mean to say that my aunt allowed the child to enter into
conversation with him?” St. Quentin’s tone was very sharp; Sir Algernon
laughed lightly.

“Don’t look so fierce, old chap. I was the guilty party, I’m afraid. I
was escorting her back to Lady Frederica after leaving a parcel with
some girl or other, when we ran across this young chemist’s assistant,
or whatever he is. They fairly rushed into each other’s arms. I couldn’t
interfere very well, you see, though I did venture to suggest, after
a lengthy period of patient freezing, that there _was_ a limit to the
time he ought to keep her standing in the street. He walked with us to
the hotel, and there Lady Frederica choked him off. You needn’t look so
furious, Quin, there wasn’t much harm done; only I fancy Miss Sydney
isn’t quite the pliable little wax saint you think her, she——”

“Leave her name alone, please!”

“Oh, very well! You’ve grown uncommonly stand-offish of late, my dear
chap; you’ll be showing me the door next, eh?” His laugh was not
particularly pleasant.

St. Quentin was frowning heavily. “You might leave me quiet a bit,” he
said. “I’m not in the best of humours, to-night.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Sir Algernon, rising and flinging his cigarette
away; “it’s quite unnecessary, I assure you.” And he went to Lady
Frederica in the drawing-room.

“Would you go to his lordship in the library, please, ma’am, if quite
convenient,” a footman said, a little later, coming to the school-room,
where Sydney and Miss Osric, undeterred by the approach of dinner, were
thoroughly enjoying a very late tea.

Sydney put down her cup and got up at once.

“Are you quite rested now, dear?” asked Miss Osric. “You looked tired
when you came in, and I am sure, if you are tired still, Lord St. Quentin
would excuse you.”

“I don’t think I’m tired,” Sydney said, and went down the wide stairs and
across the hall to the library.

St. Quentin was alone, but she knew Sir Algernon had been there by the
smell of smoke. Her cousin’s eyebrows were drawn close together, and
there was a look upon his face which was new to her. He seemed to have
forgotten to smile at her entrance to-day.

“Come here, Sydney,” he said sharply. “I have something to say to you. I
hear you met that young Chichester this afternoon.” His contemptuous tone
made the colour flame into her face.

“Yes, I did,” she said a little bit defiantly; “of course I was going to
tell you about it.”

“Were you?” said St. Quentin. “Now, Sydney, we had better understand each
other. The Chichesters brought you up, and of course you owe a debt of
gratitude to them in consequence. I have no objection whatsoever to your
paying it—in any reasonable way. I spoke to Braemuir on the subject when
he was staying here, and he promised me to use his influence towards
getting some of those boys a start in life. I don’t suppose you know
that, though the estate is by no means as unencumbered as I could wish,
I offered to refund your doctor what he spent on you in your childhood,
and——”

“He said ‘No,’ of course!” Sydney cried, with flashing eyes. “Why, I was
father’s child—of course he wouldn’t be paid for keeping me!”

“Don’t indulge in heroics, please; they bore me,” St. Quentin observed
drily. “Yes, Dr. Chichester—try to drop the expression ‘father,’ please,
in speaking of him; it only makes you sound ridiculous—Dr. Chichester, I
say, refused my offer with some heat. Like you, he appeared to consider
it insulting. Tastes differ; mine is, as you know, for common sense. Now,
I should be obliged if you would kindly give me your attention for five
minutes. You are going to occupy a great position, and I do _not_ intend
to have those Chichesters hanging round you. Those brother-and-sister
friendships are charming in theory, but they don’t work. I know what they
lead to. I should be obliged if you would correspond less frequently
with the doctor’s family, and shall request Aunt Rica to see to it. And
I distinctly forbid you to have anything to do with that young man when
next he _happens_ to be staying in these parts. Do you understand me?”

“Do you mean you want me to _forget_ mother and father, and all the
rest of them at home?” Sydney cried. There was an odd expression on St.
Quentin’s face, as he watched the growing indignation upon hers.

“Well, something like it—you won’t find it very difficult in time, I
assure you,” was his answer.

“I don’t mean to do it!” she said with a trembling voice. “I shall have
to obey you about not writing so often, or speaking to Hugh if I meet
him, but I can’t and I won’t forget them! I hate this place! I wish I had
never come, and when you talk like that I hate you!... I was beginning to
care about you, but I don’t now at all!” She was fighting to keep back
her sobs. “Do _you_ forget the people you have cared for, that you want
me to?” she asked him fiercely, and went quickly out.

St. Quentin turned his head and looked after her.

“Do I forget?” he muttered; “no, I wish I did!”




CHAPTER XI

ON THE CHURCH TOWER


On the morning following the expedition to Donisbro’, Lady Frederica
received an apologetic note from Herr Felsbaden, Sydney’s music-master,
regretting his inability to give Miss Lisle her lesson that day, owing to
a severe cold. If convenient to Lady Frederica and Miss Lisle, he would
come to the Castle on Friday afternoon instead.

The note was sent in to Miss Osric, when Lady Frederica had glanced
through it over her early cup of tea, and governess and pupil read it
together.

Sydney was looking pale and heavy-eyed this morning, Miss Osric saw, and
guessed that Lord St. Quentin had said something to distress the girl. It
was a bright sunny morning, with that exhilaration in the air which only
a perfect winter’s day has the power to give.

“Suppose, as you have no master coming this morning, we go out for
a walk as soon as we have read a little, Sydney dear?” Miss Osric
suggested. “It is such a lovely morning, and you look tired. I think the
air would do you good.”

“I have a little headache,” Sydney owned, and they set out for their walk
at about 10.30.

The frost was thick in the park, and every little twig upon the great
bare trees outlined clearly against a sky of pale cloudless blue. Sydney
wondered why she did not feel the old exhilaration that a morning such as
this would have once awakened in her, even in smoky London.

But if she could not enjoy the perfect morning, they soon met somebody
who could!

As they passed the gate of the Vicarage, Mr. Seaton came out, holding
Pauly by the hand. The child was in a state of absolutely wild delight,
dancing and jumping by his father’s side, and his eyes glittering like
two stars under the tangle of red hair.

“Going up the great big ’normous tower!” he informed Sydney, as she
stooped to kiss him. “Going to walk miles and miles and miles up ladders,
almost to the sky!”

The Vicar laughed and shook hands with both the girls.

“I have to give some orders about new bell-ropes; ours were rotten, and
I’ve had them taken down,” he explained. “And it was an old promise I
should take this monkey up the tower next time I had to go there. Do you
two feel inclined, I wonder, to come with us, and walk ‘miles and miles
and miles up ladders, almost to the sky’?”

Sydney looked at the tower, standing grey and tall outlined sharply
on the blue, and then at Miss Osric. “Should you like it? It would be
lovely, I think.”

“We should like to go up very much indeed, if Mr. Seaton doesn’t mind
the bother of us,” said Miss Osric, and the four went on together to
Lislehurst Church at the farther end of the village.

The church itself had been rebuilt in the eighteenth century, when the
black oak panelling had been removed as “dirty-looking” and replaced by
whitewash, and relieved at intervals by the St. Quentin Arms painted on
it in the gaudiest colours. At the same time, the few bits of exquisite
stained glass which had survived a visit from the “root and branch” men
of the Commonwealth days had been taken away to make room for a complete
set of crudely coloured windows, which vexed the soul of Mr. Seaton
whenever his eyes fell upon them. But the old tower had been left intact,
and was considered by the learned to be one of the finest specimens of
fourteenth century architecture left in England.

There was a tradition that the saintly Bishop Ken had once climbed it,
and had pronounced the view from the top to be “a foretaste of Heaven.”

Sydney, when she saw the perpendicular ladders tied together, which those
who went beyond the belfry chamber were compelled to climb, doubted
privately the probability of anyone so old and frail as the non-juring
Bishop had grown when he came to Blankshire, having strength or breath to
reach the summit!

“You are not frightened, are you?” asked the Vicar, when he had given his
orders to the man awaiting him in the belfry chamber, now emptied of its
dangling ropes. “Don’t try it, if you feel in the least bit nervous, for
it _is_ a stiffish climb!”

To be quite honest, Sydney did not particularly like the look of the many
ladders to be scaled, but she would have died sooner than own her fears.

After all, this was not so very much more difficult than going up the
ladders in that oast-house in Kent, where they had gone to see the
men stamp out a hop-pocket, when the whole family had spent that happy
fortnight in a Kentish farm-house last summer. Only then Hugh had been
there to help her, and pull her up that awkward step where two rungs had
gone from the ladder. Her back was to the Vicar, but Miss Osric saw the
sudden wistfulness in the girl’s grey eyes.

“Well, come on, if you really don’t feel nervous,” Mr. Seaton said. “Oh,
Hiram,” as the old clerk came stumbling down the ladders at the sound of
their voices, “you here? That’s just as well. Now you can go up in front
and get the little tower door open for the ladies.”

“Gentleman up the tower now, sir,” Hiram said, touching his battered hat.

“All right; he won’t interfere with us,” the Vicar said. “Now, Miss
Lisle, will you go first, and take Hiram’s hand where the ladders cross.
Miss Osric, you next. Then Pauly. Hold tight, you little monkey, or I’ll
take you down again! I’ll bring up the rear, and then if anybody slips,
I’ll catch them.”

The procession started, Mr. Seaton keeping a firm grip of his small son’s
blouse the whole time, and calling at intervals directions to the others.

Up, up they went, clinging to the ladders set perpendicularly against
the rough grey walls, worn with the lapse of time. Higher and higher
still they went, till Sydney and Miss Osric felt as though they had been
climbing for hours instead of minutes.

The elders had no breath for speech, but little Pauly chattered
unceasingly. “Did these funny stairs go right up into Heaven? Would there
be angels at the top of the tower? Would there be stars? Would there be
at least a hole through which Pauly might look into Heaven when he came
so near it?”

Sydney could hear his shrill little voice talking on, and his father’s
grave tones answering him now and then. As they came higher the echoes
caught up the two voices and made the old tower ring with them in a way
that sounded strange and very eerie, Sydney thought.

“Getting tired, Miss Lisle?” called the Vicar cheerily, as she set foot
on the highest ladder.

His words must have been heard by “the gentleman” of whom old Hiram had
spoken, for a square of blue and sunshine opened suddenly above her, and,
as she toiled up the final rungs, a hand, whose touch was certainly
familiar, grasped hers, and swung her over that last awkward step, where
she seemed to hang over a yawning black gulf for a moment, before landing
upon terra firma outside the tower.

“Hugh!” She had forgotten everything for the moment, except the joy of
seeing him again, but in an instant, like a bitter wind, her cousin’s
words swept back upon her—“I forbid you to have anything to do with that
young man.”

Hugh could not think why she withdrew her hand, and went back to the
little low tower door with a cloud on the face that had been so bright a
minute since. “How slow the others are in getting up!” she said.

Hugh watched her uneasily, as she gave her hand to Miss Osric and helped
her through the doorway; then proceeded to the same office for little
Pauly. Surely it was very unlike Sydney to have nothing to say to him,
to be absorbed in these comparative strangers, when he was at her elbow.
Surely her manner had changed with extraordinary speed since yesterday.

She on her part had been rapidly considering the situation. It was
plainly impossible to go down the tower again the very minute after she
had come up it. What excuse could she make that had the slightest sound
of reason? None, she was quite aware. Plainly the only thing that she
could do was to obey her cousin’s order in the spirit though not in the
letter.

She was rather pale, but her voice was steady as she bent over little
Pauly, devoting herself to answering his many questions.

Mr. Seaton talked to Miss Osric and to Hugh, who answered him a little
absently. His eyes were fixed on Sydney. The Vicar looked from one to the
other in a rather puzzled way from time to time, as he did the honours of
the splendid view that lay before them.

Glimpses of the Castle showed through its encircling trees, but in
summer, Mr. Seaton said, when all the leaves were out, it was completely
hidden.

He pointed out in succession the quaint little villages, dotted at
intervals about the valley, with some interesting comment upon each.
There was Loam, which boasted the finest chancel-screen in the county.
Miss Lisle and Miss Osric ought to see it one of these bright days: it
was most distinctly worth the trouble of a visit. That tiny church, with
a tower that looked as though some giant had sat upon it long ago, was
Marston. Did Mr. Chichester remember a humorous account in the papers
two or three years back, of a famous “kill” which had taken place in
Marston churchyard, when the fox had taken refuge in one of the old stone
box tombs, and held the narrow entry, worn by age and weather in the
stone, for full an hour?

Styles and Hurstleigh lay out yonder; it was in Hurstleigh that the Manor
stood, which a loyal lady of the Civil Wars had defended against General
Ireton, till relieved by her husband just as the little garrison were
reduced to the last straits.

At another time Sydney would have been immensely interested in the story,
but to-day somehow she could not care even to see the place where Madam
Courtenay caught the first glimpse of the scarlet mantled horsemen,
riding to her succour only just in time.

She could not put herself to-day into the place of the cavalier lady and
rejoice with her; she could only feel herself, Sydney Lisle, behaving in
a horrid, stiff, unkind way to the brother Hugh, who kept looking at her
with those troubled, questioning eyes.

Miss Osric was the only member of the party who really enjoyed Mr.
Seaton’s explanations, for little Pauly thought them dull to the last
degree. He wanted to know several things, and no one would attend to
his shrill questions. Sydney was looking where Mr. Seaton pointed, with
unseeing eyes, and his father took no notice of various impatient tugs
at his hand. Pauly wanted dreadfully to know why the sky had gone away
again, instead of being quite near as he had expected, and whether mother
and the angels would hear him if he were to call up to them very loudly,
now this minute, and whether a big man, who was big enough to lean over
the stone parapet of the tower which his own head barely reached, could
see “In Memory of Rose” on the white marble cross in the churchyard down
below.

Hugh, to pacify him, looked over, and pronounced that he could see “no
end of crosses.”

But this by no means satisfied Pauly. Hugh must see that special grave
where Daddy took him every Sunday, after service.

“Tell me where to look,” Hugh said; “but you keep still, young man, if
you please. Don’t you go trying to lean over!”

He stared down. “Is your cross a tall one, near a tree?” he asked
presently. Pauly gave a bound of delight.

“Yes, that’s where ‘In memorwy of Wose’ is. Do you see the lovely holly
on the grave? I stuck lots in the tin, I did weally, and my fingers was
all bleedy after. I didn’t mind. Boys don’t mind being bleedy. ’Spect
that big girl that you keep on looking at would mind. Girls cwy when
they’re bleedy, don’t they? Do you cwy? I s’pose not,’cause you’re a big
man. Did you see my lovely holly? No, you won’t see where you are. Oh,
look! You can see my lovely holly this side of the tower as well.”

“I say—stand still!” Hugh said sharply, turning his head round. Pauly,
in a state of wild excitement, was climbing up the three-foot parapet as
nimbly as a cat. “Get down!” Hugh shouted, springing to his feet, and
darting over to the child. He spoke too late.

Pauly had reached the top, and was kneeling on it, peering down upon
his “lovely holly.” “Oh, I can see it! I can see my holly!” he screamed
joyfully, clinging and laughing.

Whether the height turned him giddy, or he lost his balance by leaning
too far, no one knew. There was only time for a cry of horror, and a
frantic grasp into emptiness upon Hugh’s part. The child had fallen from
the parapet!

The poor father staggered backward, his hand to his head—the two girls
clung together, speechless; only Hugh was able to look over. The next
moment he was shaking Mr. Seaton fiercely by the shoulder.

“Quick, sir! Down and cut the belfry ropes. Please God, we’ll save him
yet!”

The Vicar, scarcely able to believe his ears, looked over.

Some nine feet down the tower, at each corner, a large projecting
gargoyle served the purpose of a water-spout, and it was on one of these
little Pauly had fallen—the creature’s stone ear having caught his blouse
as he bumped against it in his fall. He was lying on his back across the
gargoyle’s neck, his legs and head swinging into space, his frock hitched
half across the hideous head. He was still at the moment, but how long
would he remain so? Below him was a drop of seventy feet.

Hugh flung off his coat, and put his leg over the parapet. “Hurry with
the ropes; I’ll go to him.”

“No, no, not you!” the Vicar cried. “I must.”

But Hugh was already letting himself down. “Quick with the ropes!” was
all he said.

[Illustration: “‘Quick with the ropes!’ was all he said.”

(Page 128)]

Sydney and Miss Osric looked at one another. “The belfry ropes are gone!”

Before they had finished speaking, Mr. Seaton was tearing in a
neck-or-nothing fashion down the ladders. It was well for him that
he was forced to act, and not wait to think. Ropes must be got, and
immediately, for what ladder would be long enough? He did not even cast
one glance back at the tower as he rushed through the churchyard in
search of a rope.

There was nothing that Miss Osric and Sydney had the power to do but wait
and pray. They clung to one another silently, with set, white faces,
as Hugh commenced his difficult and dangerous descent, with one eye on
the little figure, which might move and be dashed from its precarious
resting-place at any moment. Was the child stunned? Hugh almost hoped he
might be. Any movement must almost certainly be fatal to his balance.

But as the young man felt carefully his third step in that perilous
climb, there was a quiver in the dark blue bundle on the gargoyle, and
a scared little face was uplifted to his. The hearts of the girls above
stood still.

Hugh was struggling desperately for a foothold which it seemed impossible
to find. Would the child move, or look down? Should he do so, nothing
could save him.

“It’s all right, old chap!” Hugh called in his cheeriest tone. “You
just keep still where you are. Yes, that’s right; now look at me. I’m
coming down to take you up again. No, don’t try and sit up—you can see me
splendidly from where you are.”

His voice broke off, as he all but lost both hold and footing. He
regained it with a frantic struggle and descended another step. “Look at
me, Pauly!”

Pauly’s round eyes gazed up wonderingly. Hugh neared the gargoyle, and
set his teeth for a mighty effort.

Pauly was a particularly large and strong boy for not quite five years
old, and, even on firm ground, would be no joke to lift in one hand. But
the thing must be done. Hugh strengthened his hold with his right hand,
and took an anxious downward glance. Some of the village men were trying
to join ladders, but they were far too short. Mr. Seaton was running
frantically up the road beyond the churchyard, with a coil of rope on his
arm. In the clear air Hugh could see his upturned face, dead white, with
eyes staring wildly.

He could not possibly get through the churchyard and up the tower in less
than ten minutes—Hugh thought he would probably take longer. It was not
therefore possible to risk leaving Pauly on the gargoyle till he himself
should have the help of a rope.

He took the firmest grip he could of the roughened stonework of the tower
with feet and right hand, and loosed cautiously the other, reaching with
it towards the blue bundle on the gargoyle. “Steady, Pauly, keep quite
still, old chap!”

With a struggle that brought beads of perspiration out upon his forehead
and nearly sent him flying into space, he grasped the child, and raised
him slowly from his resting-place; then stepped down on to the gargoyle,
and stood there, clasping Pauly closely, and leaning back against the
wall with closed eyes.

He was too physically exhausted with the terrible anxiety and effort
of the last few minutes to make any further movement then. Besides, it
was now a necessity to wait for the rope. The upward climb would be
impossible when burdened by the well-grown boy.

He had to concentrate all his powers on keeping steady on the slender
foothold, which was all the gargoyle afforded, and waiting for the help
which Mr. Seaton would bring.

It seemed hours before a shout from above came down cheerily to him, and
a rope end struck him on the shoulder. “Now, Pauly,” he said, “hold on
round my neck for all you’re worth, there’s a good little chap!”

He took a firm grip of the child’s blouse in his teeth, and, steadying
himself with infinite difficulty, fastened the rope beneath his own arms,
in the strongest knots that he could make. Then, using his hands as a
trumpet, he called “Ready!”

His left arm was round Pauly, his right grasped the rope above his head.
“Now hold tight, little chap, and don’t be frightened!”

Pauly carried out this order by taking as good a grip as the hair-cutter
allowed of Hugh’s head, and it was in this position that the two were
at length hauled over the parapet by the united strength of the Vicar,
Hiram, and the Vicarage gardener, whom Mr. Seaton had met while searching
for a rope.

Mr. Seaton wrung Hugh’s hand in silence, and held his son to him, in
silence also. No one seemed to have much voice for speech just then; even
Pauly was subdued and shaken by his fall, though he had escaped with
nothing worse than grazed knees.

The descent from the tower was very quiet and sober. A strong shudder
went through the party as they passed the belfry chamber and thought
about the awful moment when they had realised that the ropes were gone.

His father carried Pauly, and Hugh went in front of Sydney and Miss
Osric, and gave them his hand where the ladders turned. He and Sydney
never spoke the whole way down.

They were in the churchyard at last, and Pauly was demanding to be
shown “the funny little step where me and him was standing.” The Vicar,
shivering, hushed him, and turned to Hugh. “You’ll come in and lunch with
me?” he said, a little huskily, his hand upon the young man’s shoulder.

“Thank you, I will,” Hugh answered gravely.

“And, Sydney, we must hurry back,” Miss Osric suggested. “I am sure it is
getting late.”

Sydney moved a step away; then took a sudden resolution.

She went to Hugh and held out her hand. “Good-bye, Hugh. _Please_
understand,” she said very low.

Hugh took the little gloved hand in his, and read rightly the trouble in
her eyes.

“It’s all right—don’t you bother, Syd,” he said. “I understand.”




CHAPTER XII

MERRY CHRISTMAS


“What a lot of times I seem to have said ‘Merry Christmas’ this
afternoon!” Sydney remarked as she and Miss Osric went round the village
in Sydney’s little pony carriage with the pair of lovely little bay
ponies she so much enjoyed driving. “And the sad thing is, that nobody
here seems to feel particularly happy,” she went on. “Mrs. Andrews, to
whom I took that crossover just now, said—‘It was hard enough to feel
joyful when her man was bent double with rheumatism from the dampness of
his cottage!’ Miss Osric, _are_ the cottages in very bad repair here?
Lord Braemuir seemed to think so, and so do the people who live in them.
But when I asked Lady Frederica she said—‘Poor people always grumbled; if
it wasn’t one thing, it was sure to be another!’ What do you think?”

Miss Osric hesitated for a little while before replying.

“Well, Sydney,” she said at length, “I don’t know whether I ought to
tell you this, but it seems to me right you should know something of the
cottages on the estate. It will be your business to know by-and-by. You
know my father is chaplain to the hospital at Donisbro’, and he has often
told me that the amount of cases coming from the cottages on this estate
is appalling. People have been brought to the hospital from Loam and
Lislehurst, and even Styles, where the ground is higher, simply crippled
with rheumatism, and off and on there have been a good many cases of
diphtheria and fever. That doesn’t speak well for the cottages, you know.”

Sydney pulled up the ponies in the middle of the road.

“I shall ask Mr. Fenton,” she said slowly; “I don’t think I could ask St.
Quentin.”

“I think asking Mr. Fenton is not at all a bad idea,” Miss Osric said
cordially; “but, my dear Sydney, we mustn’t dawdle here in the cold even
to discuss points of duty. Have you any more presents to distribute?”

“Just one for Pauly at the Vicarage,” the girl said, gathering up the
reins again; “that is the parcel underneath the seat that you said took
up as much room as we did. It’s a horse and waggon—a horse with real
hair—and I think Pauly will be able to get himself into the waggon if he
tucks his legs up. I’m sure he will be pleased—the darling!”

“I wonder how long that quarter’s allowance is going to last,” laughed
Miss Osric, as they turned the ponies’ heads up the drive to the
Vicarage. “You’ve been so lavish over Christmas presents, Sydney; that
parcel for London alone must have nearly ruined you!”

“I _am_ rather near bankruptcy,” owned Sydney. “It is shocking to
confess, but I never had such a lot of money to spend in my life, and I
went and spent it. But I am not a bit sorry,” she concluded, “for, just
for once, they will have at home exactly what they wanted.” Pauly had
seen them coming from the window of his father’s study, against which he
was flattening his small round nose till it looked exactly like a white
button. He flew to the door and cast himself upon them in the hall with a
shriek of delight.

“Oh, do you know, it’s going to be Chwistmas Day to-morrow!” he
exclaimed, “and I am going to church in the morning like a big man, and
Santa Claus is coming in the night, daddy finks, to put fings in my
stocking, ’cause I’ve been a very good boy for years and not runned away
or been lostened!”

The Vicar, too, was not behindhand in his welcome, though he was not
quite so conversational as his little son.

“Come into the study, both of you,” he said; “we’ve got a real Yule
log there, haven’t we, Pauly?—such a monster!—and I’m sure you must be
frozen.”

The Sydney of six weeks ago would have accepted Mr. Seaton’s offer, but
the Sydney of to-day had learned to think what would annoy her cousin and
Lady Frederica.

“I am afraid we must hurry back, mustn’t we, Miss Osric?” she said.
“We shall be rather late as it is. We have been all round the village,
wishing ever so many people a happy Christmas, so we must only just wish
the same to you, and ask you to tell Santa Claus to see if he can’t find
a rather large, knobby parcel in the corner of the hall for Pauly, when
he comes to visit you to-night.”

“It’s very good of you,” said the Vicar. “Pauly, don’t tear Miss Lisle’s
clothes to pieces in your joy. You spoil him, you know, Miss Lisle, if
you will allow me to say so. Well, if you must go, a very happy Christmas
to you both! You are going the right way to make it a happy one, I think.”

“Mr. Seaton, one thing,” Sydney asked as they went through the hall
together. “Are the people miserable here because their cottages want
rebuilding?”

Mr. Seaton looked at the earnest face beside him, and wondered if the
wish to help her poorer neighbours would continue when she had the power.

“Yes,” he said, “I am sorry to own that most of the cottages here are
in a very neglected condition. But landlords have no easy time of it, I
know, and often lack the means to do all they want.”

“Thank you,” said Sydney, and then she kissed little Pauly, and she and
Miss Osric got into the carriage and drove away, the Vicar watching them,
with his small son, riotous and conversational, on his shoulder, till
they turned out into the road again.

“I don’t think I ever knew anybody more devoted to a child than that man
is,” said Miss Osric, as they reached the lodge gates. “What would he
have done if he had lost him the other day?”

“Oh, don’t talk about that dreadful morning!” said Sydney with a shiver.

Lady Frederica had no love for Christmas.

“One is expected to be so aggressively cheerful and social,” she
complained, “when one is really feeling bored to extinction! And now St.
Quentin’s illness casts a gloom over everything; it is most absurd to
attempt any feeling of festivity. He wouldn’t like it at all.”

“Did Cousin St. Quentin care for Christmas when he was well?” Sydney
asked a little wistfully.

“Well, I remember one year, when both his father and mother were alive,
they had the regular old-fashioned sort of Christmas, and he certainly
seemed to enjoy it. The Dean of Donisbro’ and his daughter Katharine were
here, I remember. The Dean had slipped upon a slide some tiresome boy had
made when he came over to dine here the week before Christmas, and he
fell and sprained his ankle. Of course Dr. Lorry wouldn’t let him travel,
so St. Quentin got poor dear Alicia, his mother, to go to Donisbro’
herself and bring back Miss Morrell to spend Christmas with her father.
There were only those two, you see. My dear, Katharine Morrell _was_ a
pretty girl in those days! You’ve seen her, haven’t you? but she has gone
off a good deal. I fancy St. Quentin admired her rather, but it didn’t
come to anything, though we all thought it would that Christmas-time.
But she was a good deal too strait-laced for him, I expect; not that
he was worse than other young man, but he ran through a lot of money
on cards and racing, and annoyed his poor father very much. Oh! Sir
Algernon, is that you?” (Sir Algernon had entered at the moment). “I was
telling Sydney of that Christmas when the Dean and Miss Morrell were
here. I forget if you have met Katharine Morrell?”

Sydney saw a strange expression cross the handsome face for a moment. But
in a second he had answered in his usual rather languid accents, “Yes, I
know her slightly; very slightly.”

Christmas Day dawned clear and sunny and Sydney, as she stood beside Lady
Frederica in the Castle pew at Lislehurst Church, felt something of the
joy of Christmas coming to her, even in this strange place. She smiled
across at little Pauly, who, standing beside Mr. Seaton’s housekeeper,
was singing, “Hark! the herald angels sing” with all his might, and to a
time and tune quite his own.

Mr. Seaton’s sermon was very short; he said he thought the Christmas
hymns and carols preached a better sermon than he had the power to do. He
only asked his people to remember that next to God’s glory, the angels
had set peace and goodwill upon earth. The second followed on the first.
He wanted all those who had to-day been glorifying God for His great
Christmas Gift, to see to it that peace and goodwill was not lacking in
that small part of God’s earth that concerned each—his or her own home.

Sydney had not seen her cousin since her outburst on the subject of the
Chichesters, and her conscience pricked her. It was true that St. Quentin
had expressed no wish to see her, but she had made no attempt to find out
if he had one unexpressed. Surely the first move towards that peace and
goodwill of which Mr. Seaton spoke should come from her!

She and Lady Frederica drove home together; Sydney full of eagerness for
the post, which would have come while they were at church.

Lady Frederica laughed, and said Sydney was “the most childish girl
for her age she had ever known”; but when they reached the Castle, she
fastened a dainty little pearl brooch into the collar of the girl’s
frock, with a “There, my dear, is a Christmas present for you!”

Sydney was a good deal touched by this kindness from one who generally
seemed dissatisfied with her, but still she was undoubtedly relieved when
Lady Frederica told her that she might take her parcels and letters to
her rooms and amuse herself as she liked till luncheon. Lady Frederica,
it appeared, was going to rest after the tremendous exertion of getting
up sufficiently early to attend eleven o’clock service!

Sydney and Miss Osric spent a blissful hour over the letters and
presents. I think Sydney cried a little over those with the London
post-mark, for Christmas-time with its associations had made her more
homesick than she knew.

They had all written to the absent one, and there were presents from
everybody. No one had forgotten her, from old nurse down to Prissie.
Sydney and Miss Osric undid parcels and munched home-made toffee with a
noble disregard for the spoiling of their appetites, until the luncheon
gong sounded, by which time the morning-room where they were sitting
looked exactly like a Christmas bazaar.

But Sydney had not forgotten her morning’s resolution, and when lunch was
over and Lady Frederica, exhausted, doubtless, by her unaccustomed early
rising, had fallen asleep in her chair, Sydney got up and moved softly
from the gold drawing-room, crossed the hall, and tapped lightly at the
door of the library.

“Come in,” said St. Quentin’s voice.

Sir Algernon was with his host, and both men looked up as she entered.
The excitement of the home letters had brought a flush to her face, and
her eyes were very bright. Sir Algernon let his cigarette drop from
between his fingers as he looked at her. “By Jove!” he muttered.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” said Sydney, flushing under his cool
survey. “I only”—with an unconsciously appealing glance in the direction
of the sofa—“I only came to give my Christmas wishes to you, Cousin St.
Quentin.”

“Thanks,” said St. Quentin, holding out his hand to her. “You’re going
for a stroll in the park, aren’t you, Bridge?”

“Ah, yes, of course I am,” his friend answered. “Have a look round at the
timber, eh, Quin? Miss Lisle, I hope you made my humble apologies to the
Vicar for not attending church this morning. Oh, all right!” in answer to
a rather impatient sound from the sofa. “I’m off, old man. Ta-ta!”

He lounged out, and Sydney felt relieved by his absence.

“You don’t like Bridge?” her cousin asked her quickly.

Sydney was uncompromising in her views at all times. “Not at all,” she
said.

If she had been looking at St. Quentin at the moment she would have seen
an expression of relief on his face at her answer. But she was looking
round the room, which certainly was rather untidy.

“Wouldn’t you like the hearth swept, and these cards put away in their
case, and the papers in a drawer?” she asked her cousin. “I don’t believe
Dickson has been in here since this morning, has he?”

“No, Bridge and I were talking private business.”

“Shall I put away the papers, Cousin St. Quentin?”

“Yes, in the second drawer of the writing-table, left hand side. Lock it,
please, and give me the key.”

She obeyed him, then swept up the hearth, regardless of his “Ring for
Dickson!” and finally sat down in the great brown leather chair by the
fireside.

“Cousin St. Quentin, may I ask you one or two questions?”

“Yes.”

“_Must_ you do business with Sir Algernon? I am sure it can’t be very
good for you. You are looking much more ill. I don’t think Dr. Lorry
would like it.”

He smiled a little at her grandmotherly tone.

“Is it to do with money?” she asked, with a remembrance of a certain
pucker on father’s brow, which Christmas bills brought with them.

“Partly; not all. Let’s talk of something else, instead of boring you
with my affairs,” her cousin said.

“They don’t bore me. Of course I care to know your bothers!” she declared.

He raised his eyebrows and looked at her in a considering kind of way.
“Do you? I wonder why?” He laughed a little. “Go ahead and talk to me,”
he said. “Tell me what you’ve done to-day. I suppose you had letters by
the ream from your beloved Chichesters?”

Sydney reddened, remembering their last interview upon that subject. Her
cousin seemed to recollect it too.

“Has it ever struck you that you’ll have a much better time of it when
I’m gone?” he said. “As long as you look pretty and walk into a room the
right way, Aunt Rica won’t interfere with you much.”

“How can you?” the girl cried, with hot indignation. “I hate to hear
you talk like that! Why, you’ve been very kind to me—except about the
Chichesters!”

“And that’s a rather big exception, isn’t it?” St. Quentin said. “You
haven’t got much cause to like me, Sydney.”

Something in the sadness of his tone appealed to her pity.

“I _do_ care about you!” she said. “You say those horrid things about
the Chichesters just because you don’t understand, that’s all. Some day,
perhaps, you will know that one _couldn’t_ give up loving people, even
if one tried. But I do care about you, really! I think you are the very
bravest person that I ever met!”

St. Quentin did not answer for a minute, and when he spoke, though it was
lightly, his voice was not quite so steady as usual.

“Is it very rude to suggest to a lady, who is going to reach the advanced
age of eighteen in a few days’ time, that her experience of life may
possibly be limited?” he said. “My dear child, I regret to say you’re
out in your conception of my character. I am a coward. Of course, I
hope one is enough of a man not to make a fuss over the inevitable, by
which I mean the consequences of my motor-smash. What is, is, and only
fools whine over it. But for all that, I’m a coward. There, let’s talk of
something else!” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “Tell me what you
like.”

And Sydney told him about Lady Frederica and her present; about Pauly
and the hymn; and everything else she could think of that might amuse or
interest him.

She told of the knobby parcels they had taken round the village in the
pony-carriage yesterday, and of the fright of one old woman when a
rolled-up pair of thick stockings had slipped from Sydney’s over-laden
arms, and gone rolling across the kitchen floor to her very feet.

Suddenly she stopped her merry talk, and her eyes took a thoughtful
expression.

“What are you thinking of?” her cousin asked, looking across at the
creamy-gowned figure in the brown chair.

“I was thinking of the cottages,” she answered. “They are so wretched and
so damp, St. Quentin, and the people told me there could be no ‘Merry
Christmas’ for them!”

“That meddling parson has been putting you up to that idea, I suppose!”
he said sharply.

“No, I saw the cottages for myself. Oh, St. Quentin, can’t _something_ be
done?”

“Nothing!”

She looked at him with troubled eyes. “I expect _I_ cost a good deal of
money. Couldn’t I have fewer frocks and things of that kind? Or perhaps,”
with an effort, “we might sell Bessie: keeping a horse is so expensive,
I’ve heard father say.”

St. Quentin’s voice was stern as he stopped her. “Don’t talk of what you
do not understand. I can do nothing for the cottages at present. If it’s
any consolation to you, I will tell you this—I wish I could. There; talk
of something else, for goodness’ sake!”

She talked on, though feeling little in the mood for conversation, and
was rewarded by his exclamation of astonishment on learning the lateness
of the hour when Dickson came in to light the lamp.

“Why, I’ve kept you here two mortal hours, forgetting all about the time;
you must be sick of me! A nice way to make you spend your Christmas Day!
However, you’ve made mine a bit more cheerful.”

As the girl passed his sofa on the way to the door, he took her hand,
saying, “Have you forgiven me for what I said about the Chichesters the
other day?”

And Sydney, remembering that morning’s sermon, said “Yes,” with all her
heart.




CHAPTER XIII

HUGH’S BATTLE


“What’s the matter, Hugh?”

Dr. Chichester flung the question suddenly into the deep silence which
had fallen on himself and his son, as they sat together by the study fire
on a cold night shortly after Christmas.

They had done a little talking.

Dr. Chichester had said it was a bitter night, and Hugh had assented.
The doctor had remarked that a fire and a book were wonderfully soothing
after a long day’s work, and Hugh had owned the fact. The doctor had
opined that if the frost lasted, there would shortly be skating on
the Serpentine. Hugh had agreed to that as well, but in so absent and
spiritless a manner that his father plainly saw he took no interest
whatever in the skating prospects at the present moment.

And after these attempts at conversation, silence had fallen on them, and
the doctor, forgetful of the book upon his knee, closely scrutinised the
young face before him, with its dark, sad eyes fixed on the glowing fire.

Hugh had been curiously silent ever since that visit to Donisbro’, his
father thought to himself.

And yet, how pleased he had been at being singled out by Sir Anthony to
go with him! And he had come back, having done everything required of him
successfully enough, so far as his father could make out. But he had been
very uncommunicative over his adventures in the quaint cathedral city.

It had been left for Sir Anthony to catch the doctor on the staircase
of Blue-friars’ Hospital, and ask him if “the boy had remembered to
tell his father that Sir Anthony had said he was a credit to the
medical profession.” Hugh had not even mentioned the great man’s rare
commendation.

What had he said about that visit? The doctor went over in his own mind
the rather bald account which the united efforts of the family had with
difficulty pumped out.

Yes, Hugh had seen Sydney. She was looking very well—this in answer to a
question from Mrs. Chichester. She had sent her love to them all. There
hadn’t been much time; Lady Frederica had been in a great hurry to be
off. There was a man with Sydney, a Sir Algernon Bridge. Was he nice?—a
query from Dolly. Well, Hugh hadn’t asked him, but considered that he
looked a sneery brute, although not wishing to say anything against him.
Yes, he had seen Sydney again: she was up the church tower with the
Vicar, who seemed a good sort, and his boy, a jolly little chap. The
incident of Pauly’s rescue somehow failed to transpire at all. No, he
hadn’t been to the Castle—this in reply to some excited inquiries on the
subject of merry-go-rounds from Fred and Prissie. He had lunched with
the Vicar, who had said that Sydney was interested in the cottages, and
took the people soup and things. Hugh didn’t think anything much else had
happened. Oh, how was Sydney dressed? He didn’t know—something blue, he
thought. No, something red, and fur—a lot of fur. Was she looking pretty?
How should he know?

Hugh had become a little irritable at this point, his father recollected:
a circumstance almost as unprecedented as his gravity and silence.

What was wrong with the boy?

The keen-eyed doctor noted his dejected attitude, and the wistfulness of
the gaze turned so persistently upon the fire. If Hugh was reading his
future there it certainly was not a bright one.

Dr. Chichester watched in silence for full another ten minutes, then
repeated his question with a hand upon the young man’s knee.

“Hugh, what’s the matter?”

Hugh started and flushed hotly, becoming conscious of his father’s
scrutiny. Then he pulled himself together, and said, with a lightness
of tone which was rather obviously assumed for convenience’ sake at the
moment, “Oh, nothing, sir. I was thinking, that’s all.”

“Then thinking doesn’t seem to agree with you, my boy,” said the doctor.

Hugh raised himself in his chair, and bent forward with some eagerness.

“Father, do you mind if I go out to my chum, Haviland, in New Zealand? He
wants a partner and—and—I want to go.”

Dr. Chichester considered.

“You have a very good position at the Blue-friars, Hugh,” he said at
length. “Do you want to throw that up?”

Hugh rose, and walked about the room a little restlessly.

“I know it seems foolish,” he said, “but I’ve a fancy for trying new
ground, and Haviland is beginning to establish a practice, and——”

“And you want to get as far away from England as you can?” his father
quietly suggested.

Hugh’s back was turned towards him and he did not answer. The doctor went
to his son, and put an arm through his.

“Sit down, my boy, and tell me all about it,” he said gently.

“Well, I see you know,” cried poor Hugh. “I always cared specially for
Sydney, more than I did for Mildred, or Dolly, or the rest. I didn’t
know why—just I did. And then she got carried off by this Lord St.
Quentin, and you bet they mean to marry her to that idiot with a drawl
and eye-glass, who was with her at Donisbro’. She was quite different on
the church tower, but I saw that she minded, bless her! Of course I tried
to make her think I was all right. I couldn’t have her worry herself
thinking I was angry at the way she treated me. _She_ wasn’t to blame,
anyway. I think she thought I was—all right; but I _must_ get right away
from England and forget it all. There’s no other way.”

“There is,” said the doctor. “Look here, my boy. This is a hard thing
for you, I know; but running away from a trouble is not the best way of
getting over it, by any means. I’m not going to talk to you about the
help you are at home with the younger boys, nor what it will mean to your
mother and myself if we have to give up our eldest son. You are a man,
making your own way in the world, and you have a perfect right to judge
for yourself. More, if you find the struggle too hard for you to face,
and face cheerfully, I counsel you to go abroad, and start a new life
there. If at the end of a week you still want to go to New Zealand, I’m
not the man to put difficulties in your path. My poor boy, I wish I could
say to you, as they do in novels, ‘Make yourself worthy of our little
girl’s acceptance, and then Love will win.’ I can’t say that, but I can
tell you something finer still: Make yourself worthy to love her, and
some day you’ll thank God, Who gave you the love, though not its earthly
fulfilment. I wouldn’t wish you not to love the child, for love is God’s
best gift. Only take it as God meant His gifts to be taken—thankfully,
and not asking more than He is pleased to offer. Do you remember our
little girl going wild over that copy of ‘Dorothy Osborne’s Letters,’
which I got for her last birthday, and reading bits aloud whenever
she could get a listener? Dorothy Osborne’s lover called himself her
‘servant.’ There, that’s something for you to think of, eh, my boy? True
love wants to serve humbly and not grasp.”

“If I thought she’d ever need my service——” Hugh began impulsively.

“Who knows that she may not?” said the doctor with a smile. “But decide
nothing in a hurry, dear boy; and go to bed now, for it’s after one.”

“Just one thing more?” Hugh said, his hand on the door. “You—you would
rather that I stuck to the Blue-friars, I suppose?”

“I would rather you did what seems best to you when you have thought it
over for a week,” the doctor said. “Good-night, and God bless you, my
boy.”

“Good-night, father,” Hugh said, and so went thoughtfully upstairs to his
attic bedroom, leaving the doctor to sit down again over the dying fire,
and think sadly of his boy’s trouble, this cloud which seemed so little
likely to roll away.

That week was a very long one to the doctor and to Hugh’s mother; the
others were in ignorance of the decision in course of making.

Hugh was very quiet all the time, doing his work day by day, and when at
home noting all that went on with a new observance.

But when the appointed day arrived, he seemed suddenly to have cast off
his troubles.

His father and mother exchanged glances as he romped with Fred and
Prissie before they went to bed, and seemed in all ways to have returned
to his old cheery self.

“What shall we do without him?” was the thought in both their minds, for
they could not doubt his high spirits to be caused by the thought of
beginning on a new life with the old troubles left behind him.

The evening came to an end at last, and all the juniors except Hugh and
Mildred had retired to bed.

Hugh fidgeted with the lamp for a minute, and then threw himself down
upon the rug, his head upon his mother’s knee. She smoothed his hair with
loving fingers. “Well, dear?”

“Well, I wrote to Haviland this morning and declined his offer,” Hugh
answered; “told him I had too good a berth at the Blue-friars to throw
it up, but ‘thanked him kindly all the same,’ and——”

“You’re going to stay, my boy?” his father cried, in a voice that was not
quite so firm as usual.

“Yes,” Hugh said steadily, “I’m going to stay.”




CHAPTER XIV

AT THE DEANERY


“This _is_ delightful!” Sydney cried, as she sat down beside the bright
fire in the pretty bedroom near Katharine’s, which had been allotted to
her at the Deanery. “It is quite too lovely of you to ask me, and it
is quite too lovely of them to let me come! I never thought I should
be allowed to, and Lady Frederica said ‘No’ at first, and I mustn’t go
visiting because of not being ‘out’; but St. Quentin stood by me, and
said everyone had holidays at Christmas-time, and I _should_ go if I
wanted. You can guess how much I did want; even now it seems too good to
be true!”

“Well, I am very pleased to have you, dear,” Katharine said, smiling
across at the girl, “though I wish it were for longer than two days.
There is so much I want to hear. I miss the calisthenic class now that
there are Christmas holidays for everybody. How did you spend Christmas,
and how is your cousin?”

“I hoped he might be better because he didn’t seem getting worse,” Sydney
said a little sadly; “but Dr. Lorry doesn’t seem to think so. He says St.
Quentin must get weaker, and that it is only his splendid constitution
makes him fight so long.”

There was silence for a few minutes in the pretty room.

“Well, you haven’t told me yet how you spent Christmas?” Katharine asked,
rousing herself with an effort.

“Sir Algernon was with us——” began Sydney, but was interrupted.

“Whom did you say?”

“Sir Algernon Bridge; he is a friend, I think, of Cousin St. Quentin’s.”

“And he is at the Castle now? Sydney dear, promise me, don’t have more to
do than you can help with that man!”

Sydney hardly knew the quiet girl; her eyes were flashing, and there was
a bright colour in her face.

“I can’t bear him!” she said; “and I don’t see a great deal of him—at
least, I did not, but since Christmas Day he has been more with Miss
Osric and me.”

“Have as little to do with him as possible,” said Katharine earnestly.
“Your cousin ought not to allow him to be with you. I will tell you
something about him, Sydney, and then you will see what I mean.”

She played nervously for a minute with the fire-screen on her knee, then
began, speaking low.

“It is a story about a girl, not very much older than you are, whose life
was spoiled because she listened to him. This girl cared for a man very
much indeed, and he cared for her; only she would not be engaged, because
the man did not care enough to give up his faults and extravagances for
her sake.

“But she did care, more than you can understand! Sir Algernon knew her,
and one day he asked her to marry him. She said ‘No,’ of course, and he
was angry, for he guessed about this other man.... Then—I don’t know how
to tell you, Sydney dear—a very dreadful thing happened.... The man she
cared for was suspected of doing an exceedingly dishonourable action. The
girl was away from home when this—thing—happened, so she knew nothing
till she came back. The first thing she did when she heard, was to
snatch up pen and paper and write a letter to the man she loved, telling
him that she did not believe a word against him, and only cared for him
more if possible than she had done before....”

“That’s the kind of thing you would have done!” cried Sydney; “please go
on. Wasn’t the man very, very pleased to get the letter?”

Katharine knelt down to stir the fire, although it did not stand in any
need of stirring.

“She never sent the letter, Sydney dear.... She had just addressed it
when Sir Algernon came in. He told her he had come to ask for her advice.
He had had a letter, seeming to come from some poor woman in distress, he
said, and asking for his help. Knowing the girl was interested in such
cases, he asked her if she would read the letter, and tell him if she
thought the case one suited for his help....

“Of course the girl said ‘Yes,’ and he gave her a dirty envelope, looking
very carefully inside it first, she saw, though she hardly noticed at the
time. He told her, as he gave it to her, that she would need to read it
very carefully and slowly, as the woman was exceedingly illiterate.... It
was written in a cramped, odd hand-writing, but it was quite correctly
spelled. When the girl had read about half, she saw that the letter was
from no poor woman ... but from the man she cared for, and oh, Sydney!
it seemed to show beyond possibility of doubt that he was guilty of
this dreadful meanness in which the girl had refused to believe.... Sir
Algernon pretended to be dreadfully distressed when the girl gave him
back the half-read letter, and said he must have put this by mistake
into the wrong envelope, and he never should forgive himself, for he had
promised to suppress the man’s letter, because they had been friends. And
the girl thought he was very generous!

“When he had gone, she put that loving letter in the fire, and wrote
another to the man she loved, not mentioning the letter she had seen, but
merely saying that she never wished to see or hear of him again! I think,
even then, she half hoped for some explanation from him, but none came.
She was very miserable, Sydney.”

“I think she deserved to be!” Sydney cried. “Why, if she really cared for
the man, how could she help believing in him?—all the more if things went
against him. I don’t believe she loved him!”

She wondered as she spoke why her friend looked so white, even in the
dancing fire-light.

“She did care, but not enough,” said Katharine Morrell, and there was a
pause.

“Did she ever get to know?” asked Sydney, after waiting in vain for her
to go on.

“Yes, by-and-by, when she had thought about it more, and grown older, and
heard more about Sir Algernon. She felt sure then that the man she loved
was innocent of that dishonourable action: that he could not have been
guilty of it. And she guessed that Sir Algernon had given her the note to
read on purpose that she might act as she did. He had set a trap for her,
but she would not have fallen into it if she had only had more love and
trust and patience.”

“When she knew, did she write to the man and tell him?” Sydney questioned
earnestly.

“No, dear, she couldn’t. The man had given up caring, for one thing, you
see. No, that is the end of the story! I am afraid there is no ‘lived
happily ever after’ to finish this. I only tell you of it, because I
want you to be warned against Sir Algernon.” There was a silence in the
pretty room; then Katharine rose a little wearily. “Good-night, dear;
don’t be worried by that girl’s story, which is all past and gone. Only
be warned, as I wish she had been warned, against Sir Algernon.”

Sydney thought a good deal of Katharine’s words during the busy, happy
day which followed, when she seemed plunged back for the time being into
the merry Sydney of home. There was a Christmas-tree at the Hospital, and
Sydney went with her friend and helped her take round the presents to the
patients, and made the acquaintance of Miss Osric’s father, and enjoyed
herself exceedingly.

And next day Miss Morrell entertained all the women of her working-party
at the Deanery, and Sydney and the little cousin Sylvia helped to wait on
them at tea and amuse them. Sydney quite made friends with a gentle-faced
woman, whose smile made her think a little bit of mother’s, and sat
beside her talking to her for a great part of the evening.

“Yes, this sewing-party it were Miss Morrell’s plan, miss,” said Mrs.
Carter, “and many’s the times as we’ve blessed her for it. You see, miss,
most of us here went out to service that early as we hadn’t time to learn
more sewing than the roughest kind, and patterns and things of that kind
don’t come much in the way of poor folk. Well, Miss Morrell she knew
that, so she went and learned herself how to make gowns and underwear
and children’s clothes and such-like, and then she has a working-party
once a week for to learn us. And we sits in her own morning-room, with
all her pretty things about, for all the world as if we was ladies, and
she has the rolls of stuff down cheaper from the big shops than we can
buy it, and lets us pay as we can. And she cuts out the things for us,
and learns us all about the making of ’em, talking or reading to us in
between, very sweet. And by-and-by we has tea; all served very dainty,
with Mr. Tomkins, the footman, handing round as polite as anything. I
can tell you, miss, it makes a real rest for us to sit and work in that
there pretty room, and it makes a sight of difference, too, to the way
that we dress the children. Why, mine was turned out as neat and nice as
anything, though I say it as shouldn’t, all through last winter, and at
half the cost of dressing ’em in them shop-made things, as comes all to
pieces before you know where to have ’em. Miss Morrell, she don’t hardly
let nothing interfere with our sewing-party. She’s a real young lady, she
is, bless her!”

“Katharine,” said Sydney that evening, when the guests had departed,
“I wish I were half as good as you are. Don’t you sometimes find that
work-party a great bother?”

“Oh, of course it is a little inconvenient sometimes,” she said; “but the
women are so nice and so grateful, and one is so glad to have something
one can do for them oneself. Papa is always very good in letting me
relieve special cases of trouble, but it is _his_ money, not mine, you
see. The best kind of giving is what one gives oneself, don’t you think?
And most of us can give our time and trouble, even if we can give nothing
else.”

Sydney took these words home with her next day, when reluctantly she had
bade good-bye to Katharine, and been put by the silver-haired Dean into
the charge of Miss Osric, who had come to Donisbro’ to fetch her.

“Most of us can give our time and trouble, even if we can give nothing
else.”




CHAPTER XV

LITTLE THINGS


“Mrs. Sawyer says she will be proud and pleased to let us use her kitchen
for nothing,” Sydney said, “but we must pay her for the fire. She doesn’t
have one in the afternoons, as a rule. How much does a fire cost, Miss
Osric?”

The girl was puckering her brows over a business-like account book open
on the table before her. Miss Osric stood opposite, driving a great pair
of squeaking scissors through a double fold of flannel.

“We should want it for about two hours, shouldn’t we?” she said, in
answer to Sydney’s question. “It would probably cost about sevenpence a
time, but that depends upon the sort of coal Mrs. Sawyer has, and how big
a fire you mean to keep.”

“Fourteen pence—one and twopence a week,” Sydney said, noting the fact
down in her account book. “And then there is the tea,” she went on. “I
wonder how much that will cost? And I don’t suppose the people will be
able to pay much at first towards the stuff they use. They are so poor,
and one wants to help them.”

“Let them pay something towards it, Sydney,” said Miss Osric; “don’t make
paupers of them—that is a mistake. Say they pay half expenses.”

“Well, perhaps,” the girl said. “How many petticoats will that roll of
flannel make, do you think?”

“Not very many, and flannel is so dreadfully expensive; you will have to
use flannelette, I think.”

“No, it _must_ be flannel,” said Sydney. “I asked Dr. Lorry, and he
said rheumatic people should wear flannel. And you know how dreadfully
rheumatic they are here.”

There was another anxious calculation of accounts, which lasted until
Sydney, pulling out the lovely little gold watch which had been her
cousin’s present to her on her birthday, a day or two ago, found that it
was time to dress for going out with Lady Frederica.

The girl had lost no time on her return from that Christmas visit at the
Deanery in starting on her plans. Miss Osric proved a willing helper,
and Lady Frederica, approached judiciously at a favourable moment on the
subject, had raised no objection to the projected working-party. “Oh,
yes, amuse yourself as you like, my dear,” she said, “as long as you
don’t go about alone, or damage your complexion.”

And Sydney had joyfully availed herself of the permission to drive in to
Dacreshaw and order such materials as Miss Osric thought would be most
useful to the women of the village.

Sydney had no difficulty in persuading them to come, though at first they
found it hard to believe that anybody from the Castle was really going
to take an interest in their troubles. But Sydney’s bright face, as she
brought soup or invalid fare of some kind, coaxed out of Mrs. Fewkes,
the Castle cook, had grown familiar already in cottages where there was
illness, and they were beginning slowly to realize that the future Lady
St. Quentin held very different views from her cousin on the subject of
the tenantry who would be hers some day.

“There’ll be a good time coming when that little lady’s mistress here,”
they said to one another, and welcomed the idea of the working-parties
with enthusiasm.

All was to be as far as possible on the lines of Miss Morrell’s, and
Sydney set about buying just the same materials as those used by her
friend. But flannel, long-cloth, wool, and serge cost money, and she
found the small remains of her quarter’s allowance quite inadequate. Her
extensive Christmas purchases had reduced the amount, which had seemed at
first so inexhaustible, to a very small remnant by the time she set about
the shopping for this new scheme. Hence the anxious discussion with Miss
Osric over ways and means.

It never struck Sydney for one moment to apply for help to her cousin. He
had said he could do nothing for the cottages; clearly what was done must
be done by herself alone.

How did girls in story-books make money? She cast her mind over those
that she had read. The heroines of fiction seemed to have a habit of
painting the picture of the year, or writing a novel that took all London
by storm. Sydney felt quite certain of her inability to follow either
example.

Sometimes they were adopted by wealthy old gentlemen or ladies in search
of deserving heirs, but Sydney thought she had had enough of changing
her home! Sometimes they discovered treasure in places where even
newspaper editors would never think of hiding it. “It would be a great
deal easier if some of them did little things,” poor Sydney thought.

No solution of the problem had occurred to her by the date fixed for the
first working-party; when a plain but plentiful tea was spread on Mrs.
Sawyer’s dresser, and a somewhat meagre pile of unmade flannel petticoats
adorned the table.

Sydney received her guests a little shyly, but with so much real pleasure
in her face that they had no doubt of their welcome. She and Miss Osric
helped them to take off their shawls and jackets, which Mrs. Sawyer, a
sickly looking woman in a very clean apron, put away in the ill-drained
and ill-ventilated cupboard which she called the back kitchen.

Then came the distribution of garments to be made for themselves or
their children by the workers, and here poor Sydney found the demand for
flannel petticoats far exceeding her supply.

The women were exceedingly polite about it, and assured her that it did
not matter, but the girl felt she would have given anything to have had
enough for their wants.

Needlework, an accomplishment Lady Frederica had not asked for, was
one that Sydney had learnt “at the doctor’s,” and Miss Osric had had
plenty of experience in the cutting-out line in old days at her father’s
Vicarage. So everything went smoothly: conversation was much easier than
Sydney had expected it to be, and the women seemed to thoroughly enjoy
their tea. All would have been quite delightful to the girl, even though
the ill-ventilated kitchen was very close with so many people sitting
in it, and the damp of the uneven stone floor made her feet, in their
delicate Parisian boots, extremely cold, if it had not been for the
haunting thought of how she should procure the money necessary for the
carrying on of her scheme.

“Only the sixth of January,” she said dismally to Miss Osric, as the two
hurried down the village to the second working-party. “Only the sixth of
January to-day, and Quarter Day isn’t till the twenty-fifth of March.
What shall I do?”

“I wish I could help you,” said Miss Osric, “but you know I must send all
I can spare to them at home. It costs so much to send my brother Jack to
Oxford, and there are Dorothy and Hilda who ought to go to school as soon
as we can manage it.”

“Oh, I know!” cried Sydney. “I wouldn’t have you help in the money way
for anything; just think what an amount of the other kind of help you are
giving!” And they went into Mrs. Sawyer’s cottage and discussed the money
question no more.

An observation of Lady Frederica’s next day gave Sydney the idea for
which she was longing. Sir Algernon, who had been in town since Sydney’s
return from the Deanery, came back that morning, and announced at
luncheon that the Castle clocks were all behind London time. Sydney,
eager to establish the perfections of her new watch, pulled it out
triumphantly to inform the company that in that case her treasure was
correct, for St. Quentin had declared it only that morning to be rather
fast.

Its beauty caught Lady Frederica’s eye. “Dear me, child!” she said, “is
that the watch St. Quentin gave you on your birthday. What a little
beauty! But how extravagant of him, when he was speaking to me quite
seriously only a day or two ago about retrenching!”

“Poor old chap, is he feeling pinched?” Sir Algernon said lightly. “There
are moments, Lady Frederica, when I bless the luck that gave me a title
unencumbered by a property to keep going. May I see the watch, Miss
Lisle?” He spoke with a new inflection in his voice which did not escape
Lady Frederica. “Yes, it _is_ a beauty and no mistake. I expect they
rooked old Quin something heavy for that.”

“It was _very_ kind of St. Quentin,” Sydney said, and Sir Algernon
murmured, “Lucky beggar!” in a tone the girl found hard to understand.

The conversation turned on other topics, but Sydney did not forget it,
and, after much screwing up of her courage, went into the library a day
or two later, having previously watched Sir Algernon off on a ride.

“St. Quentin,” she said, feeling very much astounded by her own daring,
“I’ve come to ask a favour of you; and please—_please_ be very kind, and
don’t ask any questions or be angry when you hear what I want. Do say
you’ll be kind!”

“Well, that’s a nice modest request, anyhow,” her cousin said, smiling a
little. “What awful things have you been doing? Oh, of course, I’m not
to ask. If you were a boy I should guess you to be in a scrape, but girls
keep clear of those things, don’t they?”

“Don’t laugh,” said Sydney; “at least, I would rather you laughed than
were angry. St. Quentin, _please_ don’t think me horribly ungrateful, but
may—can I change the watch you gave me on my birthday?”

“What, don’t you like it?” said St. Quentin slowly.

“Oh, I do! I do!” she cried; “but, please, you _said_ you wouldn’t ask
questions, and I want to change it!”

“Who will do the job for you?” her cousin said. “I ordered the watch from
Oliver’s in Donisbro’, if you wish to know; but mind, I won’t have you
poking about changing things yourself.”

“Miss Osric said she knew her father would change it for me, if you gave
permission,” said Sydney. “St. Quentin, I can see you are vexed.”

“No, I’m not,” he said, a little bit impatiently, “but I should like to
get at the bottom of this, Sydney. Can’t you tell me straight out what’s
wrong?”

“No, I couldn’t,” she assured him, “and nothing is wrong really, on my
honour! Miss Osric knows all about it, and she is _ever_ so wise and
experienced!”

“A Methuselah of twenty-three years, isn’t she?” St. Quentin said,
smiling despite his vexation. “Well, Sydney, I suppose I must let you go
your own way. Put the matter into the hands of your mentor’s father, and
have nothing personally to do with it, that’s all.”

If it cost Sydney a pang to part with her treasured watch, and it did
undoubtedly, she was more than repaid by the look upon the women’s
faces as they saw the noble pile of flannel garments laid out for their
benefit. Mr. Osric had done his part well, and obtained for Sydney very
nearly the full value of the watch, after some argument with Mr. Oliver,
who declared that he “never took back an article when sold.”

He was, however, speedily rewarded for yielding by a gentleman with light
blue eyes and a monocle, who had been turning over scarf pins at the
other end of the shop during Mr. Osric’s transaction.

This gentleman came closer to Oliver, when Mr. Osric had gone out, and
requested to be allowed to examine the little watch the clergyman had
left behind him. After a brief but careful examination he asked the
price, and bought it, leaving Mr. Oliver, who knew Sir Algernon Bridge
well enough by sight, to shrewdly surmise that a “single gentleman who
bought a lady’s watch must shortly be intending to be married.”




CHAPTER XVI

A PROPOSAL


A sleety rain was falling, but, despite the cold, St. Quentin’s couch was
drawn up close beneath the mullioned windows of the library, from which
he could look out upon the green expanse of Park and the mighty trees,
which had seen generations of his family reign their reign at the great
old Castle, and die.

The present owner’s face was sad enough, as he gazed out on the splendid
prospect, beautiful even in the bareness of winter and the dreariness of
rain.

At his elbow lay an invalid writing-desk and a sheet of paper, on which
the words were written: “Dear Fane—Cut the timber from....” He had gone
no further, though he had started that letter to his agent when Sir
Algernon had left him an hour ago.

A sentence kept rising up before him whenever he took up his pen to
write, a sentence which, though spoken more than five years ago, was
fresh as though he heard it yesterday.

“_We’ve never let the timber go, my boy._”

Yes, he remembered that his father had paid his, St. Quentin’s, debts
by care and economy, but without sacrificing any of the splendid trees,
which were the pride of the county. “_We’ve never let the timber go, my
boy._” He turned his head with an impatient sigh and flung the paper down
again, staring from the rain-washed window gloomily.

As he looked aimlessly enough, something crossed his line of vision that
made him start into a sudden interest and life.

Two ladies, wrapped in waterproofs and wrestling with refractory
umbrellas, passed beneath his window, carrying a large basket. In spite
of sleet and rain they walked fast as though in a hurry, and quickly
disappeared amid the trees, though not before Sydney’s cousin had
recognised the scarlet tam-o’-shanter and long tail of refractory brown
hair, blown every way.

“What on earth can the child be thinking of to go out on such an
afternoon!” St. Quentin said to himself, and he rang sharply for Dickson.

“Where has Miss Lisle gone?”

“I will enquire, my lord.”

The servant vanished, but returned in a few minutes with the
information—“Miss Lisle and Miss Osric have gone down to the village,
my lord. Miss Lisle holds a sewing meeting for the village women on two
afternoons a week, my lord.”

St. Quentin considered this information, then enquired, “Is Lady
Frederica in?”

“I will enquire, my lord.”

“If she is disengaged, ask if she could spare me five minutes.”

Dickson withdrew, and shortly afterwards Lady Frederica tripped in,
looking as though she considered somebody very much to blame for the
dreariness of the afternoon.

“Aunt Rica,” said her nephew, “did you know of this preposterous idea of
Sydney’s—teaching old women to sew or something, on a beastly afternoon
like this?”

“Oh, yes, she asked my leave to do something of the kind,” Lady Frederica
answered, with a yawn. “She said something, I remember, about the people
being poor and miserable here, and wanting to help them, and you having
told her you could do nothing. All she wanted was to do something or
another for the women—I forget what—but I know it did not seem to me
likely to damage her figure or complexion. Oh, I see, you don’t like it,
but girls _will_ amuse themselves, St. Quentin, and slumming is quite
_the_ last thing, you know!”

A remembrance of the girl’s earnest face as they talked on Christmas Day
came over her cousin. How keen the child had been over the rebuilding of
those cottages, which were a disgrace to him, he knew, and not the only
blot by a long way on the great St. Quentin estates. So that was why
she wished to change her watch. Why on earth couldn’t he have seen, and
given her the money, instead of leaving her to sacrifice her own little
treasures for the benefit of his tenants! Having failed to persuade him
to do his duty by them, she was trying, with the little means she had, to
do it for him. He crushed that unfinished letter to his agent impatiently
between his fingers. The order he had been about to give him became if
possible more distasteful than it had been before. How _could_ he cut
off all chance of doing something for his wretched tenants! And yet—and
yet—what else was left for him to do but write?

“Well, St. Quentin, if you don’t want me any more I’ll go back to my
novel,” Lady Frederica said with another yawn. “You’re most depressing
company, my dear boy; almost as depressing as the weather!”

“Thanks awfully for coming,” he said absently. She turned to leave him;
as she did so her eye fell upon the crumpled paper on the floor.

“St. Quentin,” she cried sharply, “you’re _not_ telling Mr. Fane to cut
down timber, are you? Gracious, what would your poor dear father have
said!”

“What I feel,” he said bitterly, “that it’s a very good thing my reign is
near its end.... Don’t stay if you’d rather not, Aunt Rica.”

She was by no means unwilling to leave him for the more cheerful company
of a novel in her own private sitting-room, where the fire was bright and
the chairs very comfortable. Left once more to himself, he snatched up
a pen, took a fresh sheet of paper, and began again, “Dear Fane”; then
paused.

Sydney’s words on Christmas Day kept rising up before him, instead of
those which he meant to write.

“_Can you do nothing for the cottages?_”

“Nothing,” he said half aloud; “and yet—she thought me brave!”

His letter had progressed no further when Dickson came in an hour
later, as the short winter’s afternoon drew towards its close. With an
exclamation at the cold, the man wheeled his master’s couch to the fire,
which he stirred noiselessly into a blaze, brought him some tea, and lit
his reading-lamp.

“Miss Lisle in yet?” asked St. Quentin.

“I will enquire, my lord.” This was Dickson’s almost invariable answer.

“Miss Lisle has not yet returned, my lord,” he informed St. Quentin after
a voyage in search of her.

“Ask her to come to me when she does.”

“Yes, my lord.” Dickson closed the door softly, and St. Quentin was left
alone. He made no attempt to go on with his letter, but stared idly in
the fire, listening intently. In about ten minutes the door opened and
Sir Algernon strolled in.

“You!” said St. Quentin, in a tone which was not expressive of the
keenest pleasure.

“Yes, I, old man. I want to talk to you. By the way, have you sent that
note to Fane about the timber?”

“No.”

“You haven’t?”

“No; the truth is, Bridge, I’m getting rather sick of this blackmailing
business.”

“You are?” Sir Algernon surveyed the weary, impatient face in silence
for a minute. “I wonder if you’d like to try another tack,” he suggested
softly. “I’ve had a good deal of cash out of you one way and another, and
now you’re—er—er——”

“Dying,” his host supplied the word.

“Well, going to send in your checks some time pretty soon, I suppose?”
Sir Algernon amended. “Look here, I know the estate’s heavily encumbered
and all that, but I’m not a mercenary man, and the girl’s pretty——”

“Of whom are you speaking?”

“Why, Sydney.”

“Kindly leave her name alone: we’re not talking of her.”

“Aren’t we? You’re a bit out, old chap. What I have to say _does_ concern
her, as it happens. What do you say to this, Quin? I’ll give my word not
to squeeze you further, and, what’s more, I’ll burn a certain letter
that we know of here—before your eyes—if you’ll swear to make a match
between that little girl and me. You won’t have opposition to contend
with, I imagine. She’s too much of a child to have any violent fancies
elsewhere, especially since you and Lady Frederica between you choked off
the chemist’s assistant. I’d have made running with a bit myself this
last fortnight, only she’s always about in cottages and accompanied by
the governess. The combination is a little too much for me to swallow,
specially when the cottages are _yours_, my dear chap. So I’ll leave you
to do the courting for me, since she evidently looks on you _in loco
parentis_. Eh, if she knew a little more about you she wouldn’t be so
keen to pin her faith upon you, would she?”

“Have you any more to say?” enquired St. Quentin.

“No—I think that’s about all. You won’t be altogether sorry to save your
timber, eh, Quin?”

“Not on your terms, thank you, Bridge.”

“Eh, what? Oh! you don’t believe I have the letter; there it is.”

He pulled out two or three envelopes from a pocket-book. “That’s it,” he
said, “inside that thumbed grey envelope; the other is the letter that
you wrote me before settling to pay up—talking a lot of high faluting
about expecting me to believe your innocence for the sake of auld lang
syne, etc., as if I should be such a fool!”

“Destroy that letter, anyhow,” St. Quentin said, his thin hands
clenching. “It’s a bit of a mockery to keep it now. I still believed in
you more or less when I wrote it, you see.”

Sir Algernon laughed easily. “You were always a bit of a fool, Quin, from
Eton days onwards. As you say, I may as well get rid of this precious
production of yours. There’s not much sentiment left nowadays about our
intercourse with one another, is there? and I’ve nearly muddled it with
the jockey’s before now. Here goes!—Stop, let me just make sure I’ve
got the right one; yes, that’s it, the cream-coloured envelope with ‘Re
Quin’ on the back. Aren’t I a model man of business, eh? There goes your
letter to me into the flames, old chap, and yours to Duncombe back into
my pocket-book until you choose to have it follow suit!”

“I don’t choose.”

“What?”

“I reject most absolutely your proposal, thank you. I’ve been a fool and
worse, but I’m not quite the cad that comes to. I’d sooner see her marry
that young Chichester!”

Sir Algernon’s face wore no very amiable expression. “Is that your final
answer?” he said.

“It is.”

“You _don’t_ mean to help me marry Sydney?”

“No, and what’s more, I don’t intend to have you in the Castle any
longer. You’re not fit to associate with a girl like that. The
Chichesters have brought her up the right way, anyhow, and I don’t intend
to have you with her any longer. You must go—and—how much do you ask for
destroying Duncombe’s letter, for good and all? I won’t have the child
blackmailed when I’m gone. You must destroy the letter in my sight this
time. How much payment do you want to do what any decent chap would have
done long ago?”

An ugly look was on the handsome face before him. “You’ll have to pay
this time, my boy,” Sir Algernon said slowly; “well, rather heavily.”

“How much?”

Sir Algernon, without moving from his lounging posture in the arm-chair,
named a sum which made St. Quentin start with indignation.

“You are well aware I can’t pay that, or half it!” he cried.

“Well, don’t, then! I daresay Miss Lisle will be a little less stingy,
when she comes of age, and I enquire if she would like the letter
published.”

St. Quentin’s hands clenched over one another.

“Don’t be such a fool, old chap,” his companion said, rising and coming
close to him. “I don’t really want to be hard upon you. Give me your word
you’ll manage the match, and I’ll destroy the letter on the spot, and,
what’s more, turn over a new leaf as well. You needn’t be afraid she
won’t be happy—I’ll reform when I marry that little girl.”

“Have done with Sydney, please. I’d sooner see her dead than married to
you!”

“Pay up, then,” sneered Sir Algernon.

“_Can you do nothing for the cottages?_”

“_We’ve never let the timber go, my boy._”

“_Can you do nothing for the cottages?_”

Without answering Sir Algernon, St. Quentin seized pen and paper, and
began again—

    “DEAR FANE—

    “Cut the timber from....”

The knock at the door was unheard by both, and neither noticed Sydney’s
entrance.

She had changed her wet clothes, but her hair hung straight and damp
about her face. The face itself was bright with exercise, and looked a
strange contrast to the faces of the two men in the lamp-lit library.

“You sent for me?” she said, going straight up to her cousin.

“Yes, dear, but it doesn’t matter now,” he said. “Go back to Miss Osric.”

She looked at him. “You are very tired, St. Quentin! Let me write that
letter for you.”

She laid her hand upon the desk. “You ought not to be bothered with
letters when you are so tired, and,” with a reproachful glance at Sir
Algernon, “I am _sure_ that you ought not to talk business any longer.”

“It’s not the talking which has tired him, Miss Lisle,” said Sir
Algernon; “it’s the thought of something rather disagreeable he must do,
unless you care to save him from it!”

“Hold your tongue, Bridge!” said St. Quentin, but Sydney had already made
a quick step towards Sir Algernon.

“Will you tell me, please, what I can do to save my cousin’s trouble?”
she said simply. “I would do anything I could for him.”

[Illustration: “‘I do not believe one word you say against my cousin!’”

(Page 195)]

“Sydney!” cried St. Quentin hoarsely, but Sir Algernon had sprung forward
and caught the girl’s hands in his. “Sydney! would you? Shall I tell
you?”

Her cousin’s voice behind her made her start; it was so full of
concentrated fury. “Let her go, you scoundrel! Sydney, leave the room,
dear; that man isn’t fit to speak to you!”

She pulled her hands away, and stood between the two, trembling from
head to foot. Sir Algernon lost in his anger the last vestige of his
self-control.

“If I’m unfit to speak to her, what are you, St. Quentin?” he snarled. “A
cheat—a liar—a trickster—a——”

“How dare you!” Sydney cried, flinging herself on her knees beside her
cousin’s couch as though to protect him. “Leave the room, please!”

“You wouldn’t cling about him if you knew what I know. What everybody
else shall shortly know!” Sir Algernon said between his teeth. “He is——”

Sydney had left childhood behind her as she faced him with clear,
scornful eyes that met his fearlessly.

“You need not trouble to say any more,” she said, “for I do not believe
one word that you say against my Cousin St. Quentin!”

In the stillness that followed a footman knocked and came in with a
something on a salver. “A telegram for Sir Algernon, my lord,” he said.

Sir Algernon tore it open and read it, changing colour as he did so, then
crumpled it and tossed it into the very heart of the blazing fire. “I
have to write an answer for the post,” he said. “Au revoir, Quin; we’ll
finish our talk when reluctantly deprived of Miss Lisle’s society. Miss
Lisle, if you still doubt what I said about St. Quentin, ask _him_ what I
meant. _He_ knows.”

He went out hurriedly.




CHAPTER XVII

ST. QUENTIN’S STORY


St. Quentin looked at Sydney’s earnest face in silence for a moment, then
spoke abruptly:

“Sit down. I’ve a good mind to tell you a story which will make you
understand—well, a good many things—among others what a contemptible cad
I really am. It isn’t a particularly pretty story, but you may as well
know all about it.”

“I don’t believe _one word_ Sir Algernon said about you,” she answered,
flushing. “Don’t tell me anything, St. Quentin. I don’t want to hear!”

“A part of what he said was true, none the less,” he answered steadily.
“Listen. You know Bridge is five or six years my senior, and he
patronised me when I was a little chap in turn-down collars at Eton. Of
course he left years before I did; but when I went into the Guards he was
a captain in my regiment, and the old intimacy grew up again. I was a
young fool and flattered by the friendship, as I thought it, of a man who
had seen the world. Well, luckily you’ve had no chance of knowing what
fools youngsters in the Guards _can_ make of themselves!

“My father paid my debts again and again, until he grew sick of it, and
said I must resign my commission: he couldn’t stand any more.

“I was sobered by that, for my father and mother were awfully cut up
about it, and I knew they had treated me far better than ever I deserved.
I _did_ try to pull up then, and pretty soon—no, don’t stir the fire,
I like the dark—I got to know a girl ... it doesn’t matter who, except
that she was a great deal too good for me.... She was interested in the
cottages, like you are, Sydney. You remind me of her now and then, and
she was just eighteen when first I knew her, nine years ago.

“Well, my extravagance had crippled my father, and he couldn’t do half he
wanted for his cottages. She minded that a good deal, I remember. I felt
quite certain that if she would only be engaged to me, I should find it
impossible to be reckless or extravagant again; but her father wouldn’t
hear of an engagement then, and even _she_ said I must give proof of
being trustworthy.

“It was at this time, when I was half maddened by the constant
restrictions laid upon our intercourse, that I chanced on Bridge again.
We had never quite dropped each other; and when he left the Guards and
went into a regiment of Dragoons which was quartered at Donisbro’ he
came and looked me up at St. Quentin. We saw a lot of each other, and I
introduced him at the——to the girl’s father, and he went to the house
a good deal. She never liked him much, though, I fancy.... I was sick
to death of home and a quiet life and trying to take an interest in the
estate and tenants, as my father wished, and was ready enough to join
in the diversions of the officers. There wasn’t much harm in that—they
were mostly a good set, but it was a rich regiment, and I found the money
going faster than I liked.

“I had always been noted in the Guards for my horses—so was Bridge. I
know we got talking horses one day, and bets passed about the respective
mettle of my favourite, Bridge’s, and another chap’s—young Gibbs, who
also fancied himself as a judge of horse-flesh. Somehow a race was
arranged, and we got our jockeys and each put a horse in training.

“I was mad, I think, for I took enormous bets on my MacIvor beating the
other two hollow. I somehow felt that I _must_ win, and then you see
I could have recouped myself for my losses at cards, and started fair
again; at least I thought I could—that sort of fair start isn’t worth
much, really. The only kind of fair start that is any good is to set your
face against temptation: that’s the kind _she_ wanted.

“My people were at Nice just then. My mother had been ill. If they had
been at home I could hardly have gone so far. But I was pretty desperate,
and everybody knew it. That made things look all the blacker for me later
on.... Two days before the race I got thrown, and broke my right arm.
I was cut about the head too, and Lorry kept me in bed, though I was
wild to be up and doing. Then, as I couldn’t go to the race, I did the
idiotic act which ruined me, though I didn’t really get much worse than
I deserved. I wrote to my jockey Duncombe, urging him to win the race at
all costs, and promising him a heavy sum extra to his pay if he did.

“I remember one of the expressions that I used was ‘pull the show
through somehow—anyhow!’

“It was a feverish, excited kind of scrawl, and, after I’d sent it, I got
worse and didn’t know much about anything for the next week. Then Bridge
came to see me, and what do you think he said?

“The bets had been far heaviest on us two, Gibbs wasn’t in it ... but it
was he who pulled the race off, after all. Bridge’s horse had been hurt,
and fell at the first fence; and then my jockey seemed to lose his head
altogether, all the lookers-on said. Do you know why? No, you wouldn’t;
but they did. Bridge was ready to kill his man, Grey, for not watching
the horse carefully enough, and he split on my jockey Duncombe, whom he
had seen lurking round the stable the night before the race. Duncombe, to
save himself, told Bridge he had injured Bridge’s horse by _my_ orders,
and showed up the letter I had written him, as proof. Everything was
against me, from the expressions I had used in it to the fact that it was
written in what looked like a disguised hand and was unsigned. (Lorry
came as I was finishing it, and I knew he would stop my writing, and
threw it into an envelope without waiting to put any more.)

“Bridge didn’t make the letter public. He just bought it off the jockey
and came to me. He absolutely refused to believe what I told him of my
innocence, but offered to suppress the letter if I would pay him an
appalling sum in hush-money. I told him to go to Jericho at first, but
when I got up again, I realised how fishy it all looked for me, and how,
if that letter were published, it would be taken as absolute proof of my
guilt. I felt—I told you that I was and am a coward—that it would break
my father’s heart, and I couldn’t bear—_her_—to think that I had done
the thing. I went to the Jews, raised the sum upon a post-obit, and paid
Bridge his hush-money. He told his brother-officers he was satisfied
I had no hand in the laming of the horse, but he didn’t destroy the
letter. He has it now, and at intervals blackmails me with a threat of
publication if I won’t pay him for his silence. I have done so hitherto.

“That’s about all, Sydney. You see now why Bridge is here, and why I
can’t do my duty by my tenants. That motor-smash was about the best
thing that could happen to me, I suppose, and if I weren’t so abominably
strong, I should have left a better Lisle than I am in possession some
time ago.... If it weren’t for the old name that has been handed down
pretty clean from father to son all along the line, I’d have let Bridge
publish the letter long ago,” he added bitterly. “_She_ wrote to me just
after I had been fool enough to pay Bridge his hush-money. She must have
heard the rumours against me and believed in them. She wrote, giving no
reason, but saying all must be over between us. That was all—I think it
was enough!”

A light dawned on Sydney, as she thought about another story she had
heard not so very long ago. She knelt down beside him, and laid her hands
on his.

“I know I’m not much good,” she said, “but, Cousin St. Quentin, I _do_
care for you, in spite of this. _Why_ didn’t you go and tell the girl all
about it—just everything, as you have told me? Mother says if you love
people really you must go on loving even if they do wrong, because the
real love that is put into us is a bit of God. That girl would have gone
on loving you—I know she would.”

“I wish to goodness I had let Bridge do his worst!” said St. Quentin. “I
wish I’d had the pluck to do the right thing then, instead of wasting the
money that was given me to use, not chuck away. Now you know why I’m
telling Fane to ruin the estate my ancestors took pride in by cutting
down the timber at the bidding of that man! Because I was too great a
coward to do the right thing first—when I could.”

Sydney looked her cousin in the face.

“Please forgive me if I am very impertinent, St. Quentin,” she said
earnestly. “You say you wish that you had done the right thing then.” She
hesitated for an instant, and then spoke the last words firmly: “You wish
that you had done it then—why don’t you do it now?”




CHAPTER XVIII

THE CHAIN BROKEN


For a full minute there was silence in the big room. Then St. Quentin
looked up.

“It’s rather late in the day,” he said, “but possibly better late than
never. Sydney, will you write a letter for me?”

She thought of another letter she had written for him more than two
months ago, but there was a considerable difference in the subject matter
of that letter and to-day’s.

“DEAR FANE,”—he dictated—“we must have five hundred pounds’ worth of
timber down as soon as possible, as I want fresh cottages to replace
those in Water Lane and Foxholes. Have workmen over immediately. This
rebuilding is by the wish of my heir, Miss Lisle.”

“Now bring it me to sign,” her cousin said.

She brought it, and, as she gave him his pen, she did what she had never
done before, she stooped and kissed his forehead.

“I didn’t like to tell you before,” she cried, “because you said you
could do nothing for the cottages, but Mrs. Sawyer is ill, and when
I went to see her this afternoon she said she never would be better
while she lived in that cottage. Will she have one of the new ones, St.
Quentin?”

“Yes, and I’ll mark hers for pulling down. We’ll do this business
thoroughly while we’re about it, beginning with Lislehurst, but going on
to the rest.”

He wrote his signature large and clearly. As he did so, Sir Algernon came
back into the room. He glanced at the letter.

“So you’ve done it. I say, my dear fellow, philanthropy is all very well,
but you can’t afford it at present.”

“Since when did I give you leave to read my private letters?” asked St.
Quentin drily. As he spoke he placed the letter in an envelope, directed
it, and put it into Sydney’s hand.

“One of the men is to take it over to Fane’s place at once,” he said.

Sir Algernon stood between the girl and the door. “You’re mad, Quin!
You’ll have enough to do to raise my screw, without attempting any more.”

“Let Miss Lisle pass,” said St. Quentin quietly. “On the proverbial
second thoughts, which we all know to be not only better, but best, I
have changed my mind. Publish Duncombe’s letter if you choose! I’ll not
pay a farthing more to stop you, nor will Miss Lisle when she comes of
age. That’s all. Sydney,”—the girl was at the door—“tell somebody to
let Bridge’s man know that he finds he has to catch the 8.15 to town
to-night.”

The girl went out, the precious note in her hand and a tumult of joy in
her heart.

That horrible Sir Algernon was leaving, and St. Quentin, of his own
freewill, was going to rebuild his neglected cottages. She felt she could
have danced, despite the dignity of her eighteen years.

In the entrance hall she met the old doctor, struggling out of his wet
mackintosh and goloshes. “_What_ a night!” he exclaimed. “But this
disgusting weather seems to suit you, my dear Miss Lisle. You are looking
blooming, if you will allow an old man to say so. How is your cousin,
eh? Moped a bit this dreary day, no doubt? Meant to look in upon him
earlier to see if he fancied a chat, but I was kept in the village. And
that reminds me, my dear young lady, I shouldn’t go to Loam for a day or
two, if I were you; they’ve got something about there that I don’t quite
like the look of. I’ve been warning the Vicar; that boy of his follows
him about like a dog to all the cottages. Not that this kind of low fever
is infectious, but you may take my word for it that where there’s fever
there’s a reason for it. So don’t you go to Loam till I give you leave.
Not that I’m anxious, you know, not at all.”

Sydney thought the old doctor was rather more anxious than he cared to
own. His face was considerably graver than usual as he walked across the
hall to the door of the library.

As he reached it, Sydney, who had followed him, caught his hand with a
cry of terror. “Oh, go in quickly!” she cried.

Sir Algernon had been almost stunned by astonishment for the first few
minutes after Sydney had left the room with the letter which practically
spelt defeat to him. There was a changed, drawn look about his face, when
at length he recovered himself sufficiently to speak.

“You don’t mean what you said just now?” he demanded hoarsely.

“I do. Will you dine before you leave, Bridge?”

“Oh, confound you!”

“Don’t make a scene, it is quite unnecessary.”

Sir Algernon laughed rather wildly, and played his last card.

“You won’t be able to take that high line much longer, my good fellow!”
he snarled, fumbling in his pocket-book. “I’ll just refresh your memory
on the subject of the expressions used by you in that precious letter
before it—goes to press!”

St. Quentin’s tone was calm enough. “Do.”

Sir Algernon drew out the dirty envelope on which “Re Duncombe” was
scrawled in his own hand, and pulled from it a letter in the cramped
left-hand writing.

“Here we are. Some of these expressions will look rather fine in print, I
fancy; the Society papers will have a treat. Why——”

A violent exclamation burst from him, as he stared wildly, first at the
letter in his hand, then at the envelope, and back at the letter again.

“What is it?” asked St. Quentin.

Sir Algernon came quickly towards him. “You made me do it!” he hissed.
“You made me burn your note to Duncombe. Your letter to me and to
Duncombe were in each other’s envelopes, and you made me burn the wrong
one!” His voice, loud, harsh, and grating in his fury, rang out into the
hall, despite the heavy curtain over the door of the library. “You made
me do it, and I’ll——”

“Don’t touch me,” said St. Quentin, vaguely aware as he spoke that all
might well be over before Dickson had the time to answer his ring. “It
wouldn’t take a great deal to finish me, you see, and Lorry would require
an explanation.”

“He does!” the old doctor cried, hurrying into the room with Sydney at
his heels. “May I ask what you’re doing, Sir Algernon? Get a little
farther off from my patient, if you please.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” said St. Quentin, “Bridge and I were only
discussing my new scheme for rebuilding the cottages. But, interesting as
I find his views, I am afraid we shall have to close the discussion, as
he has a train to catch. Good-bye, Bridge.”

Sir Algernon turned fiercely upon him.

“You think you’ve won the game and can keep your secret in your hands.
You can’t! Miss Morrell read the letter. I showed it to her, and she read
it and asked what it meant. I told her and she believed in me—not you!
not you!”

“She did _not_!” said Sydney, “for she told me all about it. She believed
in it just at first, because she did not know how wicked you could be,
Sir Algernon. But by-and-by, when she grew older, she knew that St.
Quentin could not possibly have done what you accused him of. She didn’t
understand about the letter to the jockey; but she just knew that St.
Quentin could not possibly be mean or dishonourable. And she knows you
are both!”

“Hear, hear!” said Dr. Lorry, in a very audible aside, and Sir Algernon,
muttering some indistinguishable remark about his train, went out.

“Lord St. Quentin, your heir is a trump!” the old doctor said
enthusiastically, and St. Quentin, as he bade good-night to Sydney,
agreed.




CHAPTER XIX

PAULY’S BIRTHDAY


A small army of workmen had appeared at Lislehurst, and the village folk
were beginning to realise the incredible fact that their marquess did at
length intend to do his duty by them, when Pauly’s fifth birthday came
round.

“May I have him to tea with me?” Sydney asked, and on receiving
permission began to make extensive preparations in the way of good cheer.

Mrs. Fewkes was easily induced to devote her energies to the making of
a truly stupendous cake, conical in shape and covered with white sugar,
adorned with amazing flowers and fruits of all colours. And there were
birds, butterflies, and beetles made of chocolate upon it, and five pink
candles fixed around its topmost peak, to signify the five years which
the small birthday king would have reached.

Not content with this marvel of confectionery, Mrs. Fewkes further added
dishes of cream, buns, and other delicacies for which she was deservedly
famous, so altogether Pauly’s birthday tea bid fair to be a very great
success.

It was spread in the school-room, and on his plate was seated a large
furry toy dog, with red tongue hanging out in a _dégagé_ manner, and a
spring which, when pressed, caused him to jump uncertainly about, and
also bark in a thin and spasmodic way. This was Sydney’s present to the
hero of the day. Miss Osric had contributed a box of bricks, which stood
upon his chair.

All was in readiness at four o’clock, when Pauly arrived in charge of his
nurse, looking rather extra fat and red about the cheeks, Sydney thought.

He was immensely excited over something and would not wait, as she
suggested, to take off his little overcoat upstairs, but insisted on
removing it the very moment he had set two rather muddy little feet
inside the hall.

The reason of his eagerness was soon apparent. The blouse and bunchy
petticoats were raiment of the past; Pauly was attired in all the glories
of his first sailor suit!

Sydney knelt down beside the small sturdy figure and kissed the round
important little face. “Why, Pauly, you _are_ splendid! and what a great
big boy you look to-day!”

“As big as Daddy?” he enquired.

“Ever so much bigger than you looked when first I saw you,” Sydney
answered, evading the question with dexterity. “Isn’t he a man to-day,
Miss Osric?”

Miss Osric admired duly, and then suggested an adjournment to the
school-room. But Pauly stood like a rock, his legs planted wide apart and
his hands in his pockets.

“Want to show my twousers to Mrs. Fewkes,” he said.

“Oh, but you can’t, little man,” said Miss Osric.

“Come, Pauly!” Sydney cried.

He did not budge.

“Want to show my twousers to Mr. Gweaves.”

Sydney and Miss Osric exchanged puzzled glances. What was to be done? Of
course he was naughty, but neither liked to scold him on a birthday.

Sydney had recourse to coaxing.

“There is such a lovely cake upstairs,” she said, “a cake as high as
that.” She held her hand some distance from the floor. “It has sugar all
over it and such lovely fruits and sweets, white and pink, and all kinds
of nice things upon it. Don’t you want to see it, Pauly?”

He scorned bribery. “Want to show my twousers to the ill one!”

“What, dear?”

“To the ill one. Want to show my twousers to the ill one!”

“Lord St. Quentin, I suppose he means,” Miss Osric said aside to Sydney.
“But I don’t think he would like to see the child, do you?”

Sydney was rather doubtful. “There is something so wonderful upstairs in
your plate, Pauly,” she assured him insidiously; “something that has such
a nice funny voice, and jumps about too, doesn’t it, Miss Osric?”

Pauly put one irresolute foot forward in the direction of the
bear-guarded staircase, and then drew it back again.

“Want to show my twousers to the ill one,” he said, in the same loud
sing-song voice as he had used before.

It is sad to relate that two grown-up girls were worsted by this scrap of
manhood wearing to-day manly garb for the first time. Sydney rose from
her knees and went toward the library. “I will ask St. Quentin,” she
said, feeling rather small.

Her cousin seemed rather tickled by the story of the fight.

“Oh, bring him to me, by all means!” he said. “Upon my word! that boy
ought to make a Prime Minister. He has enough force of character for
anything. Tell him the ‘ill one’ will be _charmed_ to see the trousers!”

Sydney led the boy in, whispering to him not to make a noise, for Lord
St. Quentin was very tired.

“_Never_ make a noise,” he assured her, without much regard for truth.

St. Quentin surveyed his small visitor with fixed and flattering
attention. “Hullo!” he said, “what’s this huge chap coming in? The Vicar
himself, I suppose? Oh, his son, is it, Sydney? Well, how are you, eh,
Paul? Is that your name? Going to shake hands with me—that’s right. I
suppose you’re seven at least, aren’t you?”

“I am five,” Pauly said, with modest elation.

“Dear me! and I’m thirty-five and not half so proud of it. And these
are the new trousers. Upon my word! they’re remarkably fine specimens,
aren’t they, Sydney? You want a pinch for your new clothes, don’t you,
youngster? or would you rather have a sixpence to put into each of those
trouser pockets? What, you would rather have the sixpences? That’s odd,
isn’t it? There, put them in your pockets, and now you may run away; only
don’t eat _quite_ all the cake Miss Lisle has provided for you, or you
won’t be able to walk home! He looks as if he eats too much already,” he
concluded aside to Sydney. “What a colour the child has!”

“He is a good deal redder than usual, and fatter-looking too,” Sydney
said. “I have never seen him look quite like this before.”

“Well, don’t stuff him too much,” said her cousin, and the two went out.

St. Quentin’s caution was not needed. For once Pauly did not seem hungry,
even for cake. He was delighted with his dog and kept it on his knee all
through tea-time, but though he set up a little shout of joy at the sight
of the splendid cake, he only played with the noble slice that Sydney cut
for him, and couldn’t be persuaded to be hungry even when “Carlo” was
made to bark for crumbs!

“I don’t think the child is well,” said Miss Osric.

They gave up coaxing him to eat after that, and all three sat upon the
hearth-rug, building, with Miss Osric’s bricks, a most wonderful kennel
for Carlo.

For a little while Pauly seemed happy, and laughed merrily enough, then
suddenly, without apparent reason, he began to cry.

Sydney, who had never seen the manly little fellow shed tears yet for any
reason whatsoever, was alarmed.

She gathered him into her arms and tried to find out what was wrong.
“What is it, Pauly, darling? Aren’t you well?”

“Want Daddy?” Pauly sobbed, nor could they comfort him.

Sydney had risen to ring and order the pony-carriage, thinking that
she and Miss Osric had better take their little visitor back at once
to the daddy he was crying for, when one of the footmen came up to the
school-room to announce “Mr. Seaton is come for Master Paul.”

Sydney ran downstairs to ask if Mr. Seaton were walking, and to offer the
pony-carriage. The Vicar was looking very tired and grave, and seemed in
a hurry to be off. He said he had been visiting in the village all the
afternoon: there was a great deal of illness about. “I think you must
discontinue your working-party for a week or two, Miss Lisle,” he said.
“Dr. Lorry thinks Mrs. Sawyer is suffering from some kind of low fever;
the same thing which seems prevalent in Loam. Don’t go into her cottage
for a day or two, at all events, till we see how things are. I am keeping
Pauly from the village now.”

Declining the offer of the pony-carriage, he took his small son, quiet
now that he had got his daddy, and still clasping Carlo, in his arms, and
the two went out together.




CHAPTER XX

HUGH TO THE RESCUE


“Fever epidemic in Blankshire. Medical help urgently required. The
villages specially affected by the fever, are Loam, Hurstleigh, Marston,
Styles, and Lislehurst—all on the estate of the Marquess of St. Quentin.

“The epidemic is of a very serious nature. The Chief Sanitary Inspector
of Donisbro’ visited the affected villages upon the outbreak of the
illness, and declares the cottages to be in a greatly neglected condition.

“The local physician has applied for help to the staff of the London
Hospitals.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Hugh Chichester read these words in the hall of the Blue-friars Hospital,
as he and another young doctor waited for a “case,” which was being
brought in from the street.

“Estate of the Marquess of St. Quentin,” his companion commented. “Isn’t
that the chap who had that frightful motor-smash three months ago? Why,
hullo! Chichester, old man! Are you off your head?”

For Hugh had flung himself into the lift without a word, and was swooping
upward to the first floor, where he knew that he would find his father.

The doctor was free for the moment, but Hugh knew that he himself was
not. He only paused to thrust the paper in his father’s hand, with a
hoarse “Read that,” and was down the staircase and in the hall again,
before the “case,” upon its stretcher, had crossed the wide open paved
courtyard of the Blue-friars Hospital.

Dr. Chichester was quick of understanding, as doctors generally are.

“You want to go to Blankshire, my boy?” he said, when he and his son met
for their hastily-snatched luncheon.

“Yes, father.”

“I think it may be possible,” the doctor said. “Help is certainly needed,
to judge from the papers, and I would not hold you back. But, my boy, you
must remember it may mean the loss of your post here, unless the Hospital
elects to send you to Blankshire.”

Hugh nodded.

“And, Hugh,” his father went on, “you must give me your word that you
keep away from Sydney. It won’t be easy, but I know that I can trust you
to think of her and not yourself. You want to spare her from suffering
what you suffer. You will prove yourself her true ‘servant’ in this, as
‘Dorothy Osborne’ would say to us. If you can trust yourself to keep
clear of intercourse with her, I think that you are right to volunteer
your services. I should have done so myself years ago.”

“Yes, I’ll keep away from her,” Hugh muttered, and the doctor said, “All
right, my boy, I trust you. We will see what your mother says to sending
you to Blankshire.”

And Mrs. Chichester said “Yes.” Perhaps those little snatches of
fireside talk, for which big bearded sons on the other side of the
world grow homesick, had made her understand her boy with that absolute
understanding sympathy which only mothers have the power to give.

“Yes, you must go, my Hugh,” she said, “for you will be able to help
those poor people, and I know that you will be my unselfish son, as you
have always been, and make it easy for Sydney.”

“I will, mother,” Hugh said, and so packed his things and offered his
services to Dr. Lorry.

The old doctor met him at Dacreshaw Station; he was looking older and his
cheery utterances came out with an effort.

“I am very glad to see you, Mr. Chichester, extremely glad; for I can’t
deny that this fever is a very serious one, and the condition of the
cottages is so much against the poor people’s chances of recovery. Still,
I have no doubt, no, none at all, that, with your able assistance, we
shall soon see a marked improvement.”

“They haven’t got it at the Castle, have they?” Hugh asked anxiously as
he climbed up into the high dog-cart by the old doctor’s side, and was
driven rapidly along the muddy country roads towards Lislehurst.

“No! no!” Dr. Lorry said, “and I see no real reason why they should. Lady
Frederica is extremely anxious to carry off Miss Lisle to town, but I
have endeavoured to dissuade her. Miss Lisle has been so much about among
the cottages of late, that I am anxious—not about her, oh dear no! but
anxious, I repeat, to have her under my own eye for a day or two longer.
And it is not as though she ran any risk in remaining, as I have assured
Lord St. Quentin. These low fevers cannot well be called infectious.” He
relapsed into silence,—an unusual state with him—which lasted till they
reached Lislehurst, and his own gate. They got down and a man took the
cob’s head. “Now we are at my house, my dear—er, Chichester,” he said,
rousing himself, “and perhaps, when you have lunched, you would not mind
coming round with me to see the little boy at the Vicarage, who is, I
fear, in a rather critical condition.” Hugh started. “Little Paul ill! I
will come at once, if you don’t mind, sir.”

“You will come at once? Well, if you are not fatigued, I own it would
be a relief. His condition is decidedly critical, and your science is
a good deal fresher than mine. Not that I take at all a hopeless view
of his case, far from it!” the old doctor said, blowing his nose rather
fiercely; “but he’s his father’s only child, sir, and—motherless.”

Hugh was already hurrying out into the village by the old doctor’s side.
“Little Pauly ill!—that jolly little chap!” he kept on saying, and he
walked so fast that the old man could hardly keep pace with him.

There was a strange silence in the village. Hardly any children were
playing in the road. “We had to shut the schools,” said Dr. Lorry.

The village seemed almost as though it held its breath and waited for
some stroke to fall.

Hugh looked up at the tall, grey tower of Lislehurst Church as they
passed beneath it, and thought of little Pauly as he had been on that
bright December morning, full of life and mischief. It seemed incredible
to imagine illness or death coming near him.

Dr. Lorry followed the direction of his eyes.

“The Vicar told me of that morning on the tower,” he said. “You saved the
boy once, Chichester; please God, you’ll save him again.”

The Vicarage nursery was a good deal changed from the cheerful room where
Sydney had sat on her first morning in Blankshire. The toys, no longer
wanted, were pushed aside and put away in cupboards; their absence giving
a curiously forlorn appearance to the room.

Sickroom appliances had taken their place, and the little iron cot,
from which Pauly’s restless fingers used to scrape the paint on summer
mornings when getting-up time seemed long in coming, was pulled into the
centre of the room.

Pauly’s thick red curls had been cropped close to his head for coolness,
and the sturdy, roundabout figure was shrunk to a mere shadow of its
former self. It was hard to believe him the same child who had displayed
the glory of his first knickerbockers with such pride at the Castle only
a short week ago!

Beside the little cot the Vicar stood, very quiet, as he had been all
through the illness, but with eyes that asked more questions than his
lips.

But he held out his hand to Hugh with a look which showed that he had
not forgotten that morning on the church tower in the midst of all this
trouble.

“Mr. Chichester indeed! I could hardly believe Dr. Lorry’s new colleague
to be you. This is luck. I am very glad.”

His eyes were searching Hugh’s face as he spoke, as if to read there what
he thought of little Pauly.

“These young men have all the science nowadays,” old Dr. Lorry said, in a
very audible aside. “We’ll see him work wonders with the boy, please God!”

Pauly was lying in a sort of restless doze, and they would not wake him.
One arm clasped Carlo’s black form to his heart.

“He wakes and cries for that beast if he finds it gone,” the Vicar
whispered, with a sad little smile. “Tell Miss Lisle when you see her,
Lorry.”

The eyes of the elder men watched Hugh with a pathetic eagerness as he
bent above the little cot, feeling the wasted wrist, and listening to the
uncertain breathing.

“These young men ... more scientific treatment,” the old doctor said
again and again, in a husky whisper. But all Hugh said was, “I should
like to consult with Dr. Lorry over a new treatment.”

Further directions having been given to the nurse, who seemed a capable
kind of person, the doctors took their departure, and Mr. Seaton
accompanied them out.

“You coming, Vicar?” Dr. Lorry questioned with surprise in his tone.

“Yes,” Mr. Seaton said. “I must do some visiting. Mine is not the only
house in trouble to-day.”

And with a last look at Pauly, lying in his cot, he passed out with the
doctors from the shadowed Vicarage.

Where the road to the village skirted the Park they met Sydney, alone.
She was walking fast, and with her head bent down: she did not see them
till they were quite close to her. Then she looked up suddenly, and a
quick flush overspread her pale face. She hesitated for a moment: then
went forward with outstretched hand.

Hugh found himself taking it and speaking to her as a mere acquaintance.

He had seen the account of the epidemic in the papers, and the
Blue-friars had given him permission to volunteer his services. He was
glad to have met Sydney to-day, as he should be—very busy—he expected,
and there would be no seeing anybody, he believed.

And there he broke off, stammering, as the clear eyes seemed to ask the
meaning of this strange manner from her brother Hugh, who had said at
their last parting that “he understood.”

There was an awkward silence of full a minute before Sydney recollected
herself and asked after Pauly. “Thank you, he is very ill,” said Pauly’s
father.

And then Dr. Lorry, whose kind eyes had seen a good deal during Hugh’s
rather halting explanation, interposed with professional authority.

“Miss Lisle, my dear young lady, you really must not stand about in the
cold; you are looking quite chilled. Take an old man’s advice, walk home
as fast as you can, and have a good cup of chocolate or cocoa as soon as
you get to the Castle.”

“Thank you,” said Sydney, and the three men took the small tan-gloved
hand again, and passed on to their work.

And Sydney passed on also, thinking with a strange, sore feeling in her
heart, that Hugh had changed a good deal. He had not even seemed pleased
to see her: Hugh—who had been her special friend from babyhood!

Had there ever been a time when Hugh had not wanted her before? She could
not recollect it, if there were. How many times had she not sat beside
a big, long-limbed school-boy, doing his preparation at the school-room
table, with its much-kicked legs and much-inked table cover, and been
proud to think she was “helping Hugh” when she blotted his exercises, or
held the book, while he reeled off pages in some tongue unknown to her!

Had he ever failed to seem pleased when she offered her assistance, even
when he was working with a pucker on his forehead, and ten fingers
running through his hair? He had always seemed to want the little Sydney
in an inky pinafore, however busy he might be; but now he had changed.

“He did not think he should see her again—he would be very busy.” Could
the Hugh of old days have spoken to her in that cool, indifferent tone?
Sydney felt sure that he could not. For the first time the girl found the
homeward walk too far for her active feet. The distance seemed unending
through the Park.

Pauly was very ill, very likely going to die, and Hugh—Hugh did not care
to see her any more.




CHAPTER XXI

FEVER-STRICKEN


“Cousin St. Quentin,” Sydney said, coming straight into the library, “I
want to tell you that I saw and spoke to Hugh to-day. You must forgive
me, please, this time—I won’t again.”

Her cousin looked at her with a curious expression in his eyes: at
another time she would have been surprised to see no anger there at her
confession, but now she did not seem to be surprised at anything. Pauly
was very ill—perhaps going to die—and Hugh had not cared to see her.
Nothing else seemed to matter very much.

“Are you ill, Sydney?” Her cousin spoke to her twice before she heard him.

She put her hands to her head. “I don’t know; my head aches rather.”

“Go and lie down,” said St. Quentin. “You’ve been worrying about that
poor little chap at the Vicarage. Lie down till luncheon; then you will
feel better.”

She felt dimly that his tone was kind in spite of her disobedience with
regard to Hugh. With a sudden impulse she knelt down beside his couch and
laid her head upon his hand. “I shall not disobey you again,” she said,
“for Hugh—Hugh doesn’t care, I think, to see me now.”

She was on her feet again, and had left the room before he had time to
answer her.

St. Quentin gazed after her with a softened look in his tired grey eyes.
“Poor little soul!” he muttered.

Dr. Lorry looked in at the Castle as Lady Frederica and Miss Osric were
sitting down to luncheon. Sydney had fallen asleep on the sofa in the
morning-room, and Miss Osric would not rouse her. The old doctor refused
luncheon and went to the library at once. His face was very grave.

“Is the little chap at the Vicarage any worse?” St. Quentin asked him
sharply.

“Very little change since yesterday,” the old doctor said. “I have great
hopes from young Chichester, and fresh treatment.... These young men, you
know, are up in all the latest developments of science.”

“What does he think of the fever?”

“Badly, I’m afraid. Now the school is closed he wants it turned into a
hospital, and to borrow nurses from Donisbro’, to work with the more
effective women here. He thinks the patients will have very little chance
of recovery in their own cottages.”

The marquess winced, then reached his desk and pen. “How much money will
you want to start with?” he said. “I am, of course, accountable for all
this. Save what lives you can, and never mind my pocket.”

There was no time for mincing matters. The doctor told him what would be
required, and St. Quentin drew a cheque for the amount and signed it.

“Let me know when more is wanted,” he said. “And now will you go upstairs
and look at Sydney. I think she needs change. If you agree, Lady
Frederica shall take her off to the South of France somewhere to set her
up after all this.”

Dr. Lorry made no comment upon this suggestion, but went quietly upstairs
to Sydney. She was awake now, looking rather better for her sleep and
eating a basin of soup, which Miss Osric had brought her.

Dr. Lorry sat down beside her on the sofa, felt her pulse, looked into
her eyes, and asked if she would like to go to bed.

“I think you would be more comfortable there,” he said, and Sydney did
not contradict him.

“Well?” asked St. Quentin anxiously, as Dr. Lorry re-entered the brown
library a few minutes later. “How about the South of France—or do you
think sea air would be better for her?”

“I shouldn’t recommend you to consider the idea of change quite at once,”
the old doctor observed cautiously. “You see, Miss Lisle has been a good
deal about among the cottages, and——”

“All the more reason for her needing change!”

“Yes—yes; but that cottage where she held her meeting for the women
was, I regret to say, in a most unhealthy condition, owing to defective
drains, and——”

“I know; it was one I had marked to be pulled down!”

“Miss Lisle was in it for two hours twice a week, and oftener when that
poor woman first fell ill,” the doctor persisted, as though his keen old
eyes failed to see that the subject of the neglected cottages was a very
sore one to their owner. He hated himself, as he saw how the thin face
flushed beneath his words, but something had to be said, and he said it.

“So I should not recommend your worrying over sending Miss Lisle away
from home at present.”

“What do you mean?” St. Quentin had turned upon him like a flash and
caught his hand as in a vice. “What is it? Don’t say the child is ill!
Good heavens! _not_ the fever!”

“Remember, she will have every possible advantage,” the old doctor
faltered, “every chance that anybody could have of complete recovery.
There is no need to be at all despondent, but I fear—don’t agitate
yourself—I fear we must not deceive ourselves into the belief that she is
going to escape the fever.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Ten long days had gone by—the longest, Mr. Fenton thought, that he had
ever known.

He had come straight down to the Castle on hearing of Sydney’s illness,
to do what he could for Lord St. Quentin, under this fresh calamity which
had fallen on what really seemed a doomed house.

He sat with the marquess in the library, except when, morning and
evening, he walked down to the improvised hospital to get the latest news
of the battle raging there.

Sometimes it was Dr. Lorry, with the trimness gone from his person and
his eyes a little bloodshot, who would come out and report to the lawyer
waiting there in the deserted play-ground. Sometimes Hugh’s tall form and
young haggard face would emerge from the school-door; or sometimes Miss
Morrell, who had come from Donisbro’ when the doctors were at their wits’
end to find sufficient and efficient nurses, and had stayed ever since,
toiling with the rest to save the many sick.

Or sometimes it was the Vicar, striding between the Vicarage and the
hospital, who would stay to deliver his report upon the fight which he
was sharing with the doctors and the nurses.

And Mr. Fenton would go back to Lord St. Quentin, lying staring dumbly at
the fire, and thinking—thinking of that Christmas Day, when the girl who
lay upstairs in the grip of fever had asked him if he could do nothing
for the cottages. If he had _only_ done it then, when she had asked him,
what anxiety and distress would have been obviated!

“They are saving so many,” Mr. Fenton would say, “and that young
Chichester is invaluable. Dr. Lorry cannot say enough for him. They are
saving so many, that one cannot help feeling very hopeful for Miss Lisle.”

“I have no hope,” said St. Quentin.

A specialist from London had come to see the girl on whom so many hopes
were centred.

“She is very seriously ill,” had been his verdict—that verdict which
seemed so terribly unsatisfying. “A great deal depends upon the nursing.
There is no need to give up hope.”

Then he had gone away, leaving those who loved the girl to make what they
could out of those brief sentences.

“She is very seriously ill.”

“A great deal depends upon the nursing.”

“There is no need to give up hope.”

“She would have made a better job of the landlord business than I’ve
done!” St. Quentin said to Mr. Fenton, again and again. “She cared for
the people, and when I wouldn’t do my duty, tried to do it for me!”

“They are quite devoted to her in Lislehurst, and, indeed, at Loam and
Styles as well,” said Mr. Fenton. “It is most touching to see the way
men and women come rushing from their cottages as I pass, to ask for the
latest news of her. She has won their hearts in the short time she has
been among them.”

“She cared for them, and that accounts for it,” said St. Quentin. “She
even cared for me, though, God knows! I gave her small cause to do
so. I took her from the people whom she loved, and cut her off as far
as possible from intercourse with them. I made her unhappy for my own
selfish ends, and now I’m going to lose her!”

“Please God, no,” said Mr. Fenton, but his voice was not quite steady.

“I would give anything to think I made her happy——” poor St. Quentin was
going on, when he was checked by the entrance of a footman.

“Mr. Chichester to see Mr. Fenton, my lord.”

“Show him in here.”

Mr. Fenton rose. “Hadn’t I better go to him?”

“Show him in here.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The footman withdrew, and in a minute Hugh came into the library. He was
very white as he went forward to the man who had taken Sydney from them.
Neither attempted any conventional greeting, and Mr. Fenton’s murmured
introduction was unheard by both.

“So you are Hugh Chichester?” St. Quentin said. “Tell me—if I wire to
your father and mother to come down to Sydney, will they come?”

“Is she worse?” Hugh’s voice was metallic in the effort that he made to
keep it steady.

“No!” St. Quentin spoke so loudly as to make the lawyer jump. “Tell me,
would they come?”

Hugh laughed unsteadily. The question seemed to him almost a mockery.
“They’d come to her from the world’s end,” he said.

St. Quentin filled hastily a telegraph form with the words:

    “Forgive me, and come to Sydney.

                       “ST. QUENTIN.”


This he directed to “Dr. and Mrs. Chichester” in full.

“Send it off as you pass the post office,” he said to Hugh, who took the
form and went out silently.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was the night after the arrival of Dr. and Mrs. Chichester.

All was very quiet in the nursery at the Vicarage. At the foot of the
little iron cot knelt the Vicar, his face hidden in his hands. Hugh was
bending over it, his arm under Pauly’s head, his eyes intently watching
the worn baby face.

Dr. Lorry had been sent for to the Castle. Short as Sydney’s illness had
been in comparison with little Pauly’s, its crisis had come to-night, and
they knew that before the wet February dawn crept up into the sky they
would see whether life or death were to be the girl’s portion.

“Put a light in the passage window next her room, if—when—she turns the
corner,” Hugh had said to Dr. Lorry, when the old man was summoned to the
Castle that evening. “I _must_ stay with Pauly to-night, but—put a light
in the window! I can see it from the Vicarage!”

“I will, my boy,” the old doctor said, and went up to the Castle,
thinking deeply.

“One” boomed out from the clock upon the church tower, and Pauly stirred
and moaned. His father was on his feet in a second, but Hugh signed for
silence and put something in a spoon between the child’s lips. Pauly
cuddled himself close into the circle of the young man’s arm, and closed
his eyes.

“Is he going?” whispered the poor father hoarsely.

“Hush!” Hugh said, and there was silence again.

An hour went slowly by. Hugh was sitting now upon a high nursery chair
beside the little cot, but sideways, that he might not move the arm on
which the child was resting. Two struck, and the Vicar, with a long look
at the little wasted face, rose from his knees and stole out to the
hospital.

Three struck, and four: the Vicar had returned, with a whispered, word
to Hugh that all was well at the hospital and in the village, and Dr.
Mitchell, who had come to their help, satisfied. Outside it was very
dark. Mr. Seaton rose and looked long and earnestly from the window.

“Is there a light in the passage next her room?” Hugh’s voice was hardly
more than a thread of sound.

The Vicar came across and laid a hand upon the young man’s shoulder.

“No.”

The nursery clock, ticking on evenly, sounded very loud in the
stillness. The nurse stole into the room to peer round the shaded lamp at
the little patient, and then go away again.

Five struck, and with it came the first faint sleepy twitter of a
half-awakened bird.

Pauly stirred: the Vicar raised his head: the child looked at his father
for a moment with a half-puzzled smile of recognition; then, with a
little drowsy sound of contentment, dropped back upon the pillows,
peacefully asleep.

Hugh rose from his cramped posture and rubbed his stiffened arm. “Thank
God!” he said. Mr. Seaton’s hand closed over his in a way that was more
expressive than any words had power to be. “The little chap will do now,”
the young doctor told the father gently, and left him with his child.

He went down the stairs like a man in a dream, looked into the hospital,
and then directed his steps straight towards the Castle. The whole world
seemed unreal to him to-night; he was unconscious that he had not slept
or eaten for hours. All his powers seemed centred on one thought: Was
there a light in that passage window?

The lodge gates had been left open for the convenience of the doctors,
and Hugh made his way unopposed through the Park, where Sydney had gone
that first morning.

As he drew near the Castle he saw that he was not the only watcher. Half
a dozen figures were grouped near the marble steps, waiting, for the most
part, silently. As he joined them Hugh saw that one was old Banks the
groom, and the rest men from the village. No one made any comment when
the young doctor stood among them. A common trouble makes the roughest
quick of understanding.

Old Banks was speaking as Hugh came up to the little group.

“She were a rare one for the riding,” he said in a low husky voice.
“Bless you! I’ve put a many up, but never one as took to it better than
she did. And his lordship were fine and pleased, he were, for I saw the
look in his eyes as we went past they windows of the library.

“‘Please tell me anything I don’t do right, Banks,’ she says, as pretty
as can be, ‘for I want to ride well and please my cousin.’”

Hugh went and stood close beside the old man, and silence fell again upon
the little group of watchers.

“It were _her_ as were all for the building of they new cottages on
the hill,” Sawyer said presently. “Mr. Fane, he told me so himself. His
lordship wrote to him as it were ‘by the wish of his heir, Miss Lisle.’”

There was another pause, and in the silence they heard the distant clock
upon the church strike six, followed immediately by the deep booming
notes of the Castle clock above the stables.

Hugh involuntarily turned his head to hear from what the deep solemn
sounds proceeded. As he turned old Banks caught his arm in a convulsive
grip—“Look, sir!”

A hand had come to the window in the passage, dark and shrouded till that
moment, and had left a light there.

A minute later, and the young doctor, of whose courage Dr. Lorry could
not say enough, was hurrying back towards the village, crying like a
child.




CHAPTER XXII

GIVEN BACK


Sydney seemed to herself to have a good many odd dreams during that time
of illness.

Strange faces looked out of a great darkness, and pictures came and went
like magic-lantern slides. But one thing always stayed, and that was
fever.

Then there came a time when she seemed to herself to be all alone in a
dark place where no one came to her, though she cried continually for
mother, and was certain that if only this weight would leave her head,
she could lift it and call loud enough for mother to hear her!

And then, quite suddenly, there was shaded lamp-light in the rose
bedroom, and mother was sitting there beside her bed.

She tried to speak, but found the words did not come; nor did a hand,
that seemed lying loosely on the counterpane belonging to nobody, move
from its place, but mother took it in hers and kissed it. Sydney had a
vague kind of feeling that everything was right now mother had come.

Then there was a time when things grew clearer; when she knew that
there was sometimes daylight on the wall and sometimes lamp-light, and
then father was beside her, looking at her through the gold-rimmed
eye-glasses she knew so well. And presently Mr. Seaton was kneeling by
her bed, saying words which she was dimly conscious he had said before.
Then suddenly everything was quite clear, and a mild spring-like air was
coming in through the open window, and she felt as if all the dreams had
passed away in that long night of fever.

“I always said she would turn the corner when Mrs. Chichester came!”
Dr. Lorry declared, rubbing his hands gleefully; and though of course
all credit should be given to the doctors and the nurses, I think Mrs.
Chichester’s presence and her strong mother-love had no small amount
to do with calling back the girl, whose feet had gone so very near the
margin of that river we call death.

Dr. Chichester himself brought the news that Sydney had turned the sharp
corner and come back to those who loved her, to the kinsman keeping his
watch on the sofa in the library, and I think any feelings of antagonism
towards the Chichesters that St. Quentin may have had left, were quite
swept away by the look on the doctor’s face and the choke in his voice as
he said, “She has turned the corner now—thank God for it!”

The marquess even went so far as to remember Hugh and his feelings and,
unconscious of that watch the young man had kept outside the Castle,
desired that a servant should instantly go down with a message to the
improvised hospital.

It was the next morning—a strange, disorganised morning—when everybody
seemed to be united in the one absorbing gladness, that St. Quentin asked
to see the Vicar when he came down from his visit to Sydney.

Mr. Seaton wondered at the summons, but rejoiced over it with all his
heart. It had been one of his great griefs that he was allowed to give no
help or comfort to this man who stood so plainly in need of both.

“So you’ve pulled your boy round?” was St. Quentin’s greeting, as the
Vicar came into the library. “I can’t tell you how glad I am of that—the
jolly little chap! That will be something to tell Sydney when she’s
strong enough to hear news.... That isn’t what I want to say, though.”
He stopped; then brought the last words out with a rush: “Isn’t there
something you pray in churches when you’ve something—very special—to be
thankful for?”

“Yes,” said the Vicar, sympathising with the effort in his tone—“there is
a prayer of thanksgiving for ‘great mercies vouchsafed’—that is what you
mean, I think?”

St. Quentin nodded. “I didn’t exactly deserve mercy,” he said, “but I am
thankful for it! She’ll be a credit to the name, you know.... Say the
prayer for me, will you, now? I can’t go to church, you see!”

And the Vicar, kneeling, thanked God for more than His gift of life to
the girl upstairs!

“Come and look me up again when you’ve time, will you?” said the
marquess, when Mr. Seaton took his leave; and the Vicar said, “I will,”
with all his heart.

Sydney was very happy in her dainty rose-room, with mother sitting by her
bedside, holding her hand: she was very happy when carried to the sofa in
the morning-room, where mother read to her, or talked and worked. “But I
want to go downstairs and see St. Quentin,” she said, and Dr. Lorry was
prevailed upon to sanction the proceeding as soon as it was at all safe.

Grand preparations were made downstairs for the great event. Dickson
worried St. Quentin to the verge of distraction with his repeated
tidyings of the library, and would have worried him into a very bad
temper if the preparations had been made on behalf of anyone but Sydney.

A deputation arrived from the convalescent village to know if anyone
would be allowed to see “our young lady,” and though Dr. Lorry was
obliged to decline such attentions for his patient on her first
appearance, the deputation was dismissed with the assurance that Miss
Lisle would soon be out and among them once more.

Dr. Chichester came down again for twenty-four hours to see how “his
little girl” bore the move, and Sydney had another visitor.

“I suppose she won’t be happy without the paragon!” St. Quentin said to
Dr. Lorry, “so you’d better bring him up with you to tea. But mind, he’s
not to be up to any of his fool’s tricks with her—talking as though they
were mere acquaintances, as he did when last they met. Tell him to be
natural and brotherly, or else to stop away!”

But Hugh came. Perhaps his manner was not quite brotherly as he came
forward to arrange the sofa for the slight girl whom his father carried
in so easily, but Sydney did not seem to find anything amiss with it.

She lay smiling blissfully upon them all—father—mother—Hugh—St. Quentin.
“Oh, Cousin St. Quentin, if only you could get well I should be quite
happy!” she said.




CHAPTER XXIII

WHAT HUGH TOLD


“Mr. Chichester to see you, my lord.”

St. Quentin and Sydney looked up; the latter with a quick flush, which
made her prettier than ever, her cousin thought.

She was reading the paper to him, with a praiseworthy effort, hitherto
not crowned with much success, to feel a keen interest in the “Imperial
Parliament.”

“Oh—Hugh,” St. Quentin said, with a glance at Sydney. “I suppose he has
run down to see Lorry. Ask him to come in, John.”

Hugh was looking rather excited, and his voice could not repress a
certain eagerness, as he took the hand the marquess held out. St. Quentin
could not help liking the look of the clean-cut, honest young face, with
straightforwardness and self-control in every line of it.

“It’s a frightful pity he hasn’t ten thousand a year,” the marquess
thought to himself, watching the way Sydney’s eyes shone as she greeted
the young man. “If he had anything respectable in the way of an income,
he should have the child, upon my word he should! But a young doctor with
no special prospects!” and he shook his head.

“You wanted me, eh? Hope you left the Doctor and Mrs. Chichester quite
well? Sydney, hadn’t you better get your ride while the sun’s out? It’s
a first-class morning, and you’ll see Mr. Chichester at lunch, you know,
and get all your town news then.”

Hugh’s eyes followed the graceful figure from the room. He had not seen
her before in long dresses and with the hair coiled round the shapely
head. Though the presentation had not taken place, partly owing to the
illness, and later to Sydney’s obstinate refusal to leave the cousin to
whom she was becoming daily more necessary, even Lady Frederica had seen
the impossibility of keeping the child-Sydney any longer.

They had grown used to the change at the Castle, but Hugh saw her for the
first time with the unspeakable charm of sweet young womanhood upon her.

St. Quentin noted the direction of his eyes and spoke.

“I’m sorry for you, Hugh; indeed I am. If things were different——”

“Oh, I know!” poor Hugh burst out. “You needn’t be afraid, Lord St.
Quentin. I know I’ve got to keep out of her way all I can. You needn’t
be afraid of my forgetting that I never can be anything but her brother
Hugh—some one to stand by her if she should need any one to do it, but
never to presume on that!”

He walked to the window, and stood staring out at the fresh green of the
Park and the spring glory of the garden, all ablaze with crocuses, in
lilac, white, and gold.

“Well,” St. Quentin said, “I think the child would have been a good deal
happier if circumstances hadn’t put her into this position. But they
have, and she will make a first-rate Lady St. Quentin one of these days,
I imagine, though there’s no doubt she’ll spoil the tenants shamefully,
you Chichesters having taught her to think of everyone except herself.
You are an unselfish family, and you’ve taught her to be the same. I
wish—I wish—you wanted something I _could_ give you.”

“I don’t want anything except to see Sydney happy,” poor Hugh said,
and then he came and sat down by his host. “I’m forgetting what I came
about,” he said. “Will you forgive me for touching on a subject which
must be rather painful to you?”

“The new cottages are all right, surely?” cried St. Quentin.

“Oh, yes, they are certain to be all right,” Hugh said; “it isn’t that.
There was a man brought into the Blue-friars the other day, frightfully
hurt internally, and we thought it was all up with him, or would be soon,
at least. Well, after a bit I was with him alone, and saw he was in great
distress of mind, to add to his other troubles. I got presently at what
was wrong. He gathered that we thought him in a very bad way, and had it
on his mind that he had once wronged a man frightfully. I got the poor
chap to make his confession to me, and took it down, and he signed it.
His name is Duncombe.”

The colour rushed into St. Quentin’s pale face.

“Go on!” he said, in a voice of strained calm.

“His confession was this. He was riding your horse, MacIvor, in a race
against a certain Sir Algernon Bridge and another man—I forget his
name—it didn’t signify. Duncombe was in trouble of some kind and wanted
money over and above the pay you promised him for riding. A letter from
you, written just before the race, promised him an extra fifty if he
won it. He went and injured in some way Sir Algernon’s horse, Doll, the
night before, but being in a funk he overdid the business, and the horse
bowled over sooner than he meant it to. There were enquiries, and Sir
Algernon’s jockey accused Duncombe. In his fright he declared—forgive me,
please—that he acted by your orders, producing the letter you had written
him to prove his words. He was awfully ashamed of that part of the
business, for of course he knew all along you only meant fair play. But
he said he had an old mother who depended on him, and it wouldn’t mean
prison for a gentleman. I don’t believe he understood it meant something
infinitely worse. Sir Algernon Bridge took the letter from him and bribed
him to say nothing more about it. He was only too glad to hold his tongue
at first, for Sir Algernon assured him that he was your friend, and
intended to suppress the letter for your sake, but later on he seems to
have had qualms at having acted unfairly by you. He said he never meant
to do you a wrong, for you had been extremely kind to him. He seems
to have guessed later that Sir Algernon meant no good to you; for his
old mother lives at Loam, and comes to Sydney’s work-parties. They kept
him up to some knowledge of your doings.... He asked me to give you his
confession, and begged that you would make what use of it you liked, and
not consider him.”

St. Quentin took the paper from Hugh’s hand and read it slowly. What
would he not have given for it long ago? Now he was dying, and nothing
seemed to matter very much.

“May I tell the poor chap you forgive him?” Hugh said.

“Is he still alive?” asked St. Quentin in surprise.

“Yes, and will live, I think. It’s a most extraordinary case; quite
unique in the annals of the hospital, and we are awfully proud of the
operation which has saved him. His injury had till now been considered
hopeless, but Sir Anthony is a genius, and he’s pulled him through, we
hope. I am going down the village to tell Lorry of the case, if you don’t
want me any longer. He is so interested in all fresh developments of
science.”

He rose.

“Thank you very much,” St. Quentin said. “Come back to luncheon, and tell
that poor fellow, when you see him next, that it’s—all right.”

Hugh went through the Park and down the village, where cottages of a
greatly improved kind were rising rapidly in place of the old ones. The
thinning trees of the Park told at what cost this long-neglected duty was
performed.

He soon reached the charming, roomy redbrick Queen Anne house where Dr.
Lorry lived, and was receiving the heartiest of welcomes from his old
friend in the quaint, dark, comfortable dining-room.

“My dear boy, this is capital!—capital, I say! I am quite delighted. You
must put in a few days with me now you’re here, for all your patients
will be clamouring to see you. I get nothing but enquiries after ‘Dr.
Hugh.’ You’ve quite taken the wind out of my sails here, I can tell you,
and that little rascal Pauly—‘I want Dr. Hugh,’ he cries, whenever I go
up to physic him!”

“I see you are still a famous story-teller, sir,” Hugh said, laughing.

“Ah! in my anecdotage,” chuckled the old doctor. “A friend I hadn’t seen
for thirty years came home the other day from Africa, and looked me up.
‘Why, you hardly look a day older, Lorry!’ he said, ‘and I quite expected
to find you in your dotage!’”

“‘The stage before it—_anecdotage_, Tom!’” I said. “I thought he would
have died!”

“A good many stages still before it, _I_ take leave to think!” Hugh said.

“No, no. I’m getting old, my boy, and thinking of retiring,” said the
doctor. “Little Pauly isn’t far wrong when he cries out for a younger
man!”

“I hope the little chap is all right again?” asked Hugh.

“I should just about think so, and more rampagious than ever. Father
can’t let him out of his sight, you know, but I don’t think he altogether
spoils him. Miss Lisle and Miss Osric do that. By the way, though it’s
not announced yet, I think we may feel pretty sure the Vicar won’t let
Miss Osric leave Lislehurst when Miss Lisle dispenses with a governess.”

“Is that so?” Hugh said, looking pleased. “I’m very glad. Sydney thinks
no end of Miss Osric, I know, and the Vicar is a downright brick. And
Pauly wants a mother.”

“Yes, he won’t get so many chances of tumbling off church towers or
catching fevers then,” the doctor said. “It will be a fine thing for the
little monkey in every way. And I agree with you about Miss Osric: she’s
a very nice girl, a very nice girl indeed. But Master Pauly has to do
the courting for his father now, for the Vicar and Lord St. Quentin have
struck up quite a friendship; that’s a new departure, isn’t it? It’s very
good for St. Quentin! Well, and what news have you brought me down from
town, my dear boy? Anything fresh on the placards this morning?”

“Only a big jewel robbery,” Hugh said, laughing. “I really came to see
Lord St. Quentin on a bit of business concerning him that I chanced to
come across. And, while I was here, I thought I would give myself the
pleasure of looking you up, and telling you of our last triumph at the
Blue-friars. A really remarkable case: I’m sure you will be interested.”

Hugh was right in his conviction, but even he had not expected such a
violent interest as his old friend displayed.

Dr. Lorry leaned forward, putting quick, sharp questions as to the exact
nature of the injury which had been operated on so successfully, and
finally, as Hugh concluded, seized the young man’s hand and nearly wrung
it off his wrist.

“Thank God! thank God!” he cried. “It has saved one man; it can save
another!”

“What do you mean?” Hugh cried. The old man’s intense excitement was
infectious.

Dr. Lorry stood up, trembling with eagerness. “Lord St. Quentin’s injury
is _the same as that which you have been describing_,” he said. “If your
Sir Anthony has saved this Duncombe, we must have him down to save St.
Quentin!”




CHAPTER XXIV

THE WAITING OF TWO


A week later, and Sydney was at the Deanery again.

Hugh’s hero, the great surgeon who gave his services to the Blue-friars
Hospital, had come down to see St. Quentin, and perform on him the
operation which had saved the life of the man Duncombe.

Under these circumstances Lady Frederica declined absolutely remaining at
the Castle.

“My nerves really wouldn’t stand it,” she explained. “I hate anything to
do with illness, but hitherto St. Quentin’s has been kept comparatively
in the background: in fact, it has been possible to forget it. But an
operation—with doctors and nurses hovering round—and bulletins upon the
door, and people expecting one to have a full, true, and particular
account of how the patient is at one’s finger’s ends! No, thank you. I
shall go to town, and Sydney shall come with me.”

But Sydney rebelled, and appealed against the verdict to her cousin.

“If I must go away, let me go to the Deanery!” she implored. “I can’t go
with Lady Frederica! I must go to somebody who cares too!”

A flush swept over St. Quentin’s face.

“Who cares too?” he muttered, then with an effort turned to her and spoke
aloud.

“Sydney, I’ll tell you this. If, in God’s mercy, I get through the
operation, I am going to follow your advice, and tell the girl I love
just everything, as I told you.”

Sydney got her way, and went to the Deanery, accompanied by Miss Osric,
leaving Lady Frederica to go off to town alone.

The third day of her absence from the Castle had come—a long dreary day,
which seemed unending. It was to relieve the strain of that waiting time
that Katharine suggested, when the shadows were falling long about the
Close, that they should go across to Oliver’s, to choose a gold chain as
a birthday present for the little cousin Sylvia, whose birthday was to be
on the morrow.

Action of any kind was something of a comfort, and Sydney came.

A shabbily-dressed man was just concluding some bargain with the
jeweller as the two girls came into the shop—some bargain with which he
seemed very much dissatisfied. “It’s worth _ever_ so much more, confound
you for a screw!” they heard him say. “Why, that’s two quid less than you
gave the parson for it. I only brought it here because I thought you’d
give a better price for your own thing.”

Sydney started violently, for the voice was Sir Algernon’s, and on the
counter between him and Oliver there lay her little watch.

Katharine had recognised him also, and her eyes flashed. “Come away,
Sydney dear,” she said.

Low as she spoke, he caught the words and turned. But for his voice,
Sydney hardly would have known him.

The light of a pale spring evening fell upon his face through the open
doorway of the jeweller’s shop, and showed up pitilessly the wreck he
had made of it. His eyes were bloodshot and furtive, and the lines had
deepened round them, while his hair showed very grey above the ears. He
looked to-day far older than his forty-one years warranted.

He made an uncertain movement forward. Katharine drew away: “Come,
Sydney!”

They left the shop, but, once outside, the younger girl paused, looking
back.

Sir Algernon had followed them into the street, and was gazing after them
as though he wished to speak. Sydney noted the shabbiness of his dress
and the fact that he had not shaved that morning.

“Katharine,” she said, “won’t you hear what he has to say?”

He heard her and came forward. The hand with which he lifted his hat
shook. Katharine drew herself away from him, but Sydney stood her ground.

“Thank you,” he said, “I only want you to give Quin a message from me.
He wrote to me, you know, to tell me that he had Duncombe’s written
confession of the part I’d played after that miserable race, but didn’t
mean to publish it, or show me up. He’s treating me a long way better
than I treated him. I want you to tell him that, if you will, and also
tell him that he won’t be bothered by me any more. That evening I left
St. Quentin Castle I had had a wire to tell me that I was practically
ruined. The man of business to whom I had pinned my faith—as far as I
ever pinned it upon anybody—had taken a leaf out of my book, and gone in
for gambling—speculation rather. When he’d finished his own money he
used mine, relying on the fact that I was too busy screwing poor old Quin
to attend to my own affairs. Of course he thought he’d get it back; they
always do! But he didn’t, and the shock killed him. That was what the
wire told me, and it was that that made me so hard on Quin. To make him
pay up then was my last chance, you see; but you baulked that! You won
the game, and I drop it for the future. I’m going abroad somewhere now;
tell Quin he’s done with me for good and all, and I have sold the watch I
bought for you to pay my passage out. Good-bye, Miss Lisle.”

“I will tell St. Quentin,” Sydney answered gravely, holding out her hand.
“Good-bye.”

Sir Algernon took the little hand.

“Good-bye,” he said again, then added, as though half against his will,
“After all, I’m not particularly sorry that you won the game.”

He walked off quickly in the opposite direction, and passed from Sydney’s
life as suddenly as he had entered it.

“I hope you did not mind my speaking to him, Katharine,” she said, as the
two went through the cool, green, peaceful Close together. “I could not
have done it, if—if—he had not been so shabby. But I think if—_when_ he
gets well, and we tell him, that St. Quentin will be glad.”

“I believe you were right,” Katharine said quietly, and the two passed
into the Deanery together.

A great hush seemed upon everything, and as the girls sat in the deep
window of the drawing-room when dinner was over, the whole world seemed
to wear a look of listening. It was one of those wonderfully mild spring
evenings which March sometimes gives us as a foretaste of the summer that
is coming. Katharine let the fire burn low, and did not close the window.

There was no breeze to stir the daffodils and tulips, which had lost
their colour in the fading of the light: across the Close the grey
Cathedral stood silent and solemn, looking down with grave, infinite
pity upon the fleeting troubles and anxieties of the people living their
little lives around its walls.

To and fro across the shadowy turf the Dean walked, with his hands behind
him, deep in thought. The soft, sweet-scented spring darkness had fallen,
but Katharine would not ring for lights. The girls sat quietly together,
their hands clasped in the dimness.

Into the silence came the mellow chime of the cathedral clock: the four
quarters, which had passed while they were sitting there, pealed out one
after another, and then the nine deep strokes of the hour.

“There must be news of some kind by now,” Sydney cried.

It was too dark to see her companion’s face, and Katharine did not answer
her.

Hard upon her words there came a sound of quick, sharp footsteps ringing
out upon the flagged path running through the Close. The Dean raised his
head and stood still.

“Canon Molyneux returning,” Katharine said, but she rose, with a strained
expectancy in her position.

The steps came nearer. Sydney darted down the stairs, and was flinging
back the heavy front door in a moment. “Hugh!”

“Sir Anthony thinks he is going to pull round!” was all Hugh said.

Katharine had followed Sydney to the hall, but when a moment later the
girl looked round for her, she had gone.




CHAPTER XXV

IN THE DEANERY GARDEN


Katharine Morrell sat in a sheltered nook in the Deanery garden, all
flooded with the mellow sunshine of an April afternoon.

The trim, box-edged garden beds were gay with spring flowers, and the air
was full of the song of birds and of the faint, sweet, sleepy scent of
the poplar.

Before her the great grey cathedral reared its mighty pile against a sky
of pale, pure blue, relieved by clouds of fleecy whiteness. Pigeons were
sunning themselves here and there on some projecting buttress, or in some
quaintly-carved niche. The whole world seemed full of peace and hope and
life renewed.

Katharine’s hat was on the grass beside her, and the soft spring breeze
lightly stirred the fair hair on her smooth, white brow, and brought a
touch of pure rose colour to her fair face.

On her knee there lay an opened letter in Sydney’s hand-writing. She took
it up and read the last page through again.

“It is so good to see St. Quentin walk across the room, even though
still leaning on a stick. Dr. Lorry says he is making a most marvellous
recovery, and Sir Anthony, who has been down to the Castle twice since
the operation, is delighted with him. Sir Anthony said several _ever_
such nice things about Hugh; I wish father could have heard him. He would
have been so pleased.

“St. Quentin actually went yesterday to see that poor man Duncombe, who
has come down here to live with his mother. He is to do light work in
the gardens as soon as he is strong enough. He was so pleased to see St.
Quentin, and he could not say enough about Hugh’s kindness to him while
he was at the Blue-friars Hospital. He seems a nice man, and is terribly
sorry for all the harm which he has done St. Quentin, though St. Quentin
tells him ‘not to think about it any more.’

“This morning we have been to call upon the Vicar. St. Quentin walked all
round the Vicarage garden to look at Mr. Seaton’s hyacinths, and was not
over-tired. Doesn’t that sound like being really better?

“He talks of driving in to Donisbro’ to thank the Dean for his kind
enquiries.”

It was this last sentence that Katharine read again and again, with a
light in her eyes and a flush upon her cheek.

“He talks of driving in to Donisbro’ to thank the Dean for his kind
enquiries.”

Bees hummed in and out among the flowers, with their peculiar sound of
infinite contentment; along the sunny borders the yellow heads of the
daffodils were nodding gently in the breeze. Katharine thought she had
never known the garden look so lovely—never since that spring day nine
long years ago, when her father brought Lord Lisle, as St. Quentin had
been called then, into it for the first time.

Nine years—was it really nine years since that April afternoon when she
had gone out to gather daffodils to fill the vases in the drawing-room?

She was eighteen then, and dressed in a gown of pale green, she
remembered. Her father had a fancy for green and loved to see her in it.

She remembered how the tall young man at the Dean’s side had looked at
that young Katharine of nine years ago, and how presently they were
walking side by side along the straight flagged garden paths, he carrying
her bunch of daffodils.

What had they said? Nothing very much, she fancied. They talked about
the flowers, and he spoke of his mother’s famous orchids at St. Quentin
Castle, and said how much he should like the Dean and Miss Morrell to see
them.

Nine years ago; but she could recall every line of the tall young figure,
with handsome head erect, and eyes that said so much. She could even
bring back to her memory the very look of the strong, shapely hand that
held the daffodils—her daffodils.

Had not daffodils been the flowers she loved best ever since—yes, ever
since! though she had tried to think she hated them upon a certain day
five years ago when she had burnt a little dried-up bunch of them which
for four years had lain among her treasures.

Had a spring and daffodil time ever come and gone through all these nine
years that she had not thought of the tall figure and the handsome face,
and of the grey eyes that looked at her more often than the flowers he
had come to see?

A rather faltering step was upon the flagged path skirting the
close-shaven lawn. Katharine looked up.

He was there before her, the man of whom she had been thinking—the same,
yet not the same. There was little to remind her of the gay young lover
of nine years ago, except the eyes, which looked forth from the worn face
with the old expression in them—the old expression she remembered so
well, only deepened and intensified.

“Katharine!” said Lord St. Quentin.

She was at his side in a moment. “You should not be standing! Take my
arm. Here is an easy chair for you.”

He sank into the chair she had drawn forward; she sat down quietly at his
side.

Around them hyacinths were springing everywhere about the grass—it was a
fancy of the Dean’s to grow them so, instead of in the garden beds. The
air seemed filled with their rare fragrance.

Under the grey line of the old Deanery ran a border bright with golden
daffodils.

“You stood there when I saw you first,” St. Quentin said. “You were
outlined against the grey wall in your pale green gown, and you held
a bunch of daffodils in one hand. You wore no hat, and the breeze was
stirring your hair on your temples as it is to-day.”

She put her hand to her head with a nervous gesture quite unusual with
her.

“Nine years ago,” she said. “I have changed.”

“And I have changed more,” he answered gravely. “Katharine, look at me.”

She looked as he bade, almost timidly, at the thin earnest face beside
her.

“You know—you _must_ know why it is I have come here to you to-day,” he
said, his voice vibrating strangely. “Katharine! I have no right to ask
or expect that you can care for me still. And I am not here to offer you
my love; I gave it to you nine long years ago, and you have had it ever
since. I have come to make you a confession.”

He told the story of his selfishness and folly—hiding nothing. She
listened silently, her head bent, her hands clasped on her knee.

“I have no right to offer you what’s left from the wreck I’ve made of my
life,” he concluded, “but my love is yours—as it always has been since
that first spring afternoon I saw you, as it always must be through life
and beyond it.”

He rose slowly from his chair, leaning upon his stick.

“Thank you for listening to me, dear. Good-bye.”

She came swiftly towards him, and laid her two hands upon his arm.

“You have no faith,” she said, “though perhaps I hardly deserve that you
should believe in my love after that cruel letter that I wrote five years
ago. St. Quentin, don’t you know that I have cared always?—that I cared
even when I told you that I never wished to see or hear of you again? It
is not possible to give up caring, and, dear, I care more, far more now,
than ever I cared in that bright spring time long ago. Dear, don’t you
understand?”

And St. Quentin did.

“I don’t deserve it,” he said hoarsely, “but please God you sha’n’t
regret your trust and your forgiveness.”

“We both have something to forgive,” she said; and then he caught her to
him with a murmured, “My darling! my darling!” and there fell a silence
on the two in the flower-filled garden, flooded with the mellow sunshine
of that April afternoon. And overhead a full-throated thrush broke into
its liquid song—a song which was so wonderfully full of gladness that it
almost seemed as though it spoke the words of thankfulness to which they
could not give voice.

The silver-haired Dean found the two among the hyacinths, when he came
down the paved walk an hour later, and was filled at once with kindly
solicitude upon his guest’s behalf.

“My dear St. Quentin, it is most delightful to see you on your feet
again; but, my dear boy, what rashness to come all the way to Donisbro’
so soon! What was your doctor thinking of? What could possess you to do
anything so foolish?”

The Marquess wondered vaguely what _had_ been the reason he had given to
himself and others for his visit to Donisbro’. Katharine, with a little
gleam of laughter in her clear eyes, came to his assistance.

“St. Quentin came to return thanks in person for your kind enquiries,
father,” she said, taking the old man’s hands in both hers. “That was so,
wasn’t it, St. Quentin? And while he was here he thought he had better
tell me something as well.”

A smile of understanding broke out upon the Dean’s benevolent old face.

“Will you forgive me, sir, and trust her with me?” said St. Quentin,
holding out his hand. “I am not worthy of her, but with God’s help I’ll
try to do my best to be so, and to make her happy. Will you give her to
me?”

The old man’s warm handclasp was sufficient answer, and made the hearty
words, “With all my heart,” unnecessary. And he added, as he drew his
daughter to him, kissing her upon the forehead, “I am not afraid to trust
her to you _now_, St. Quentin.”

“Please God, you shan’t regret it, sir,” St. Quentin said, as he had said
before to Katharine, and the three went toward the Deanery together along
the path beside the daffodil-filled border.

“It was little Sydney who sent me here to-day,” St. Quentin said
to Katharine, as they stood a moment just inside the low-browed,
quaintly-carved stone porch of the old Deanery, looking back on what must
be to them for evermore an enchanted garden; “it was she whose faith in
love’s endurance sent me here to-day to test it, Katharine. God bless the
child for that, and for all!”

And Katharine echoed from her heart, “Yes, God bless her!”




CHAPTER XXVI

A HOME-COMING


“’Tis May without and May within!” might well have been Sydney’s song, as
she literally danced along the Park on a perfect afternoon a few weeks
later.

Though she and Miss Osric had been up since seven o’clock, the day had
seemed all too short for everything she wanted to crowd into it.

“No one should do the flowers but herself,” she declared, and Mackintosh
groaned over the ravages she made in “his conservatories” and “his
gardens.” But Miss Lisle was a privileged person in his eyes, so his
groans were only inward, and he actually went so far as to walk round
the conservatories with her, cutting what she wanted, with the face of a
martyr at the stake!

“Not that I grudge flowers in reason to her ladyship,” he explained, “but
what’s to become of my flower-show next month, miss, I ask you?”

“Indeed, I won’t take all your flowers,” said Sydney; “but surely,
Mackintosh, you want the Castle to be gay as much as I do when Lord St.
Quentin is bringing home his bride at last!”

“Well, miss, I’ll not say but that I do rejoice with all my heart,”
the old man said. “And a fine upstanding ladyship we shall have, says
I! I mind her well enough when she come here first with the Dean, and
looked at my flowers for all the world as if they were Christians, and
understood what she said to ’em. ‘Oh, you beauties! you lovely things!’
she cried as she comes into the conservatories, as his lordship he was
showing to her. No, miss, I don’t grudge my flowers, in reason—not to you
or to her ladyship!”

The wedding had taken place very quietly a fortnight ago. Both Katharine
and St. Quentin felt that they had waited long enough for the happiness
that had so nearly never come at all. They were married early one
morning, in one of the little side chapels of the great cathedral, by
Katharine’s white-haired father, with only Sydney and the little cousin
Sylvia present, and old Dr. Lorry, who insisted upon coming, to see
how his patient got through the ceremony. There were so few relations
upon either side to come, even if the health of the bridegroom had been
fit for anything but the quietest of weddings. St. Quentin asked Lady
Frederica to be present from a sense of duty, but was neither surprised
nor disappointed when she wrote to explain it was impossible to expect
her to attend a wedding which was fixed for so unconscionably early an
hour, but she sent her best wishes to them both. She also sent a handsome
wedding present, for which the bill came in afterwards to St. Quentin.
So there were only those few there to hear the words that made Katharine
and St. Quentin man and wife at last. The honeymoon had been passed in a
health-giving cruise on the Mediterranean, and now they were to come home.

Lady Frederica had never returned to the Castle after St. Quentin’s
operation, and it cannot be said that her nephew missed her. He invited
Mrs. Chichester to come and stay with Sydney during the period of his
convalescence, and inwardly determined, as he saw the delight with which
the girl showed all her favourite haunts to “mother,” that she should
have at least the female portion of the house of Chichester to stay with
her as often as she liked. In fact, Katharine had already expressed her
intention of being great friends with them all.

But Mrs. Chichester had gone back to London now, and for the fortnight
of the honeymoon Miss Osric and Sydney had been alone, and had certainly
made good use of their time in the business of arranging a welcome for
St. Quentin and his bride.

The Castle was ablaze with flowers and the air ablaze with sunshine, as
Sydney, her labours finished, but too excited to sit still and wait,
went dancing onward through the Park and out into the village, where the
hedges were fast breaking into the bridal white of hawthorn blossom.
Miss Osric, as soon as all the work was finished, had discreetly betaken
herself to the Vicarage, leaving the girl to welcome Katharine and her
cousin alone.

It was four o’clock: they would hardly be here for another quarter of an
hour, Sydney thought to herself, and she slackened her pace and looked
upward at the gorgeous decorations with which the little village was
aflame.

The children were all drawn up in a body on the village green, under
the charge of the schoolmistress, and armed with little, tight, hard
bunches of flowers, to cast before the happy pair. Most of the tenantry,
the farmers on horseback, were waiting at the top of the village at the
turning on the Dacreshaw road. Some few of the women, however, were
remaining quietly at the cottage doors, satisfied without that first view
of the bride and bridegroom which the others seemed to think so desirable.

Among the number of these last was Mrs. Sawyer, who, with a healthy
colour in the face that used to look so sickly, was standing smiling at
the neat white gate of her new cottage.

Sydney paused to shake hands with her and ask if everything in the new
cottage were entirely satisfactory.

“Why, that it is, miss,” was the hearty response, “if it weren’t for
just a little leakage in the boiler. But there, miss, I’ve no call to
complain, for indeed I scarcely know myself with my beautiful tiled
kitchen, as is almost too good to use, and my back-kitchen as is fit for
duchesses to work in, and all the rest as ’is lordship ’as done for me.
Reckon that there boiler is my crumpled rose-leaf, miss!”

Mrs. Sawyer was so serious that Sydney felt it would not do to laugh,
though the description of the large black boiler as “a rose-leaf” made
the corners of the mouth twitch ominously.

She volunteered to come and look at it, and was bending down to examine
the defective tap, when a roar of distant cheering made both forget the
leaking boiler and rush wildly to the door. “They are coming!”

Round the bend in the road, under the great arch wreathed with flowers
and bearing the inscription, “Welcome to the bride and bridegroom,”
bowled the carriage. There they were!

St. Quentin, still very thin, but upright, hat in hand, smiling and
nodding to his tenants as they roared their welcome, and by his side
Katharine, fair and stately, unchanged, except that the sadness had
passed from her eyes.

Sydney ran forward, and the carriage stopped.

“Hullo! what are you doing wandering about alone?” St. Quentin asked,
laughing, when they had exchanged greetings. “Lucky for you Aunt Rica
isn’t here! What is it?”

“I am trying to make out what is wrong with Mrs. Sawyer’s boiler,” she
explained; “it leaks.”

The marquess said something in a low tone to his wife, jumped down,
handed her from the carriage, and turned to Greaves, wooden with surprise
upon the box, at this extraordinary conduct on the part of the bride and
bridegroom.

“Drive on, Greaves; we’ll walk up presently. Now, Mrs. Sawyer, let’s have
a look at the boiler.”

“You could have knocked me down with a feather!” Mrs. Sawyer was wont
to say when dilating on the story afterwards. “For in they all come, as
sure as I’m a living woman! and down goes his lordship on his knees,
as interested in that boiler as if it was a newspaper full of the
quarrellings of that there silly Parliament, and turns the tap about,
and then jumps up and looks about to see if the workmen had left any
putty, and as pleased as may be when he finds it, and down on his knees
again—and thankful I was as I’d scrubbed the floor only that morning—and
makes as neat a job of it as may be, just to last till the plumber comes
to do it proper, he says; and full of jokes all the time he was, as made
me laugh till I cried nearly!

“And her ladyship sitting by, in my best chair, and nursing Liza’s baby,
as though she fair loved to have it on her knee; and our young lady,
bless her! looking as bright and happy as though her world was just made
of spring and sunshine, as I hopes it may be!

“And his lordship made a rare good job of the boiler too,” she would add,
as though anybody had presumed to doubt his powers as a plumber, “and
washed his hands in the back kitchen when he finished, and dried ’em on
the round towel, not a bit proud, and when he knocks his ’ead against the
lintel going out, he laughs again, and says, says he—‘Fane must make my
tenants’ doors a little higher,’ says he, ‘for I mean there to be room
for me to come in,’ he says.”

The three walked together through the Park with the late afternoon
sunshine glittering on the glory of fresh green beneath and overhead, and
up the marble steps to the splendid castle towering above them.

As they reached the top, St. Quentin raised his hat, and took a hand of
each.

“Welcome home!” he said.




CHAPTER XXVII

DESDICHADO


It was a brilliant June morning rather more than a year after the events
mentioned in the last chapter.

The air was full of the song of birds and the hum of bees, and of another
sound to which Sydney Lisle was listening, as she stood upon the steps of
the Castle, shading eyes that danced joyfully from the dazzling sunshine,
and listening to the pealing of the bells.

They were plain enough from Lislehurst Church across the Park, but she
could distinguish, mingling with these, the more distant peal from Loam,
and even, she thought, Marston’s little tinkling duet from its two
cracked bells, which were being pulled with a goodwill that went far to
atone for their lack of music.

The glory of “leafy June,” that queen of months, was upon the tall trees
of the Park, among which presently the girl went wandering. How wonderful
a world it was to-day! She felt as though she wanted to drink in the
beauty around her.

The sunshine came flickering through the trees, making a chequer of light
and shade upon the grassy path before her; in front the softly dappled
deer were feeding peacefully, undisturbed by her approach.

“Pang—pang—pang—pang—pang—pang—pang—pang!” went the bells, and Sydney
smiled in sympathy with that wonderful abandonment of joy which only
bells can give.

The girl made a charming picture as she stood there on the soft grass,
with the mighty trees she loved so well towering in their grandeur
overhead, and the sunshine flickering through the leaves upon her white
gown and sweet face.

She was good to look upon indeed in her dainty gown, with a great bunch
of yellow roses at her belt, and that flush upon her cheek and sun of
gladness in her eyes. She might have stood for an embodiment of the sweet
young summer which was making the world good to dwell in.

So at least thought a young man, who, catching through the trees a
glimpse of her white dress, had left the road and cut across the Park
toward her. As he came near his eyes were fixed upon her earnest face,
raised to the glory of sight and sound above. She did not hear his
footsteps till he was quite close to her; then she sprang to meet him
with a low cry of delight.

“Oh, Hugh! have you heard?”

“Yes, I heard at Donisbro’ and came straight.”

Something new in his voice brought a sudden flush to the delicately
tinted face. Her eyes fell before his eager ones.

“Come into the gardens,” she said, turning, and the two went wandering
together in a strange silence over the cool turf of the bowling green
where King Charles I. had once played at his favourite game with a loyal
Lisle of old, a Sydney too.

The balmy, fragrant air was filled with the clang of bells; beyond the
Park they were beginning to cut hay in the long meadows sloping upwards
towards the grey-green downs. A great bush, covered with the little
yellow roses Sydney wore, smiled up at the two who stood before it.

“Pang—pang-pang-pang—pang—pang-pang-pang!” went the bells.

“They ring with goodwill,” Hugh said, with a smile.

“They are very glad,” said Sydney, “and oh, Hugh, I wonder whether
anybody on the whole estate is more glad than I am!”

And then Hugh turned and caught her hands and said, with an odd break in
his voice, “Syd, are you really?”

She looked straight up at him, and he knew that she had spoken truth.

“If you are, what must I be!” he cried. “My darling, you don’t know, you
can’t know what this means to me!”

His voice broke suddenly.

“Tell me,” she said. But I think she understood without telling.

Later, as the two sat together on the grassy bank bordering the bowling
green, the girl said, “Do you know, I think we ought to be grateful to
St. Quentin for taking me away from home and all of you. It was very,
very hard to give up my brother Hugh, but this is better!”

“It is,” Hugh said, with absolute conviction.

“Pang—pang-pang-pang—pang-pang-pang-pang!” went the bells, tripping one
another up in their haste to clang out the glad tidings of the birth of
an heir male to the great St. Quentin title and estates.

But Sydney had come, in those few quiet minutes in the garden, into a far
greater heritage than that of which the little heir’s birth had deprived
her!

A tall figure with brown hair touched with grey about the temples was
coming down the path towards the bowling green. Sydney sprang to her feet
and went to meet him, Hugh following her closely.

Lord St. Quentin too was listening to the bells, with a smile upon the
face that had nearly lost its cynical expression. “But I feel almost as
if the little beggar were doing you an injury, Sydney,” he said, laying
his hand upon the girl’s slight shoulder as she joined him.

“You are not to say that!” she cried. “Do you think there is any one more
glad and happy than I am to-day? Oh, St. Quentin, if you only knew how
glad I am to be disinherited!”

He looked down at her glowing face, then turned from hers to Hugh’s. The
light of comprehension dawned in his eyes.

“Upon my word!” he exclaimed as sternly as he could. “What mischief have
you two been doing now?”

“Well,” Sydney said audaciously, looking up into his face, that she had
grown so fond of, “you see, you forbade me to look upon Hugh as a brother
any longer—and—and I always try to obey you.”

“When I heard at Donisbro’ this morning that she was safely out of the
succession, I couldn’t wait,” Hugh said. “There was just time to catch
the next train, and I caught it!”

The corners of St. Quentin’s mouth twitched, and after one or two
attempts to look serious, he gave it up and laughed outright.

“You are a nice pair!” he said. “If it weren’t for the fact that
Katharine is sure to be upon the side of true love, and that you, Sydney,
always insist upon your own way, I’d play the stern guardian, and send
Master Hugh to the right-about!”

“But of course you are not going to do anything so absolutely horrid,”
Sydney said with confidence. “You’re going to take him in to see the
baby.”

“It’s all the baby’s fault,” grumbled its father, when Hugh had been
presented to the red-faced, crumpled, kicking object who was Lord Lisle.
“I believe I bear him a grudge. You would have made a first-rate
landlord, Sydney!”

“I never should have made a marchioness,” she declared with much
decision. “Ask Lady Frederica. And oh, Quin, don’t be cross, but be glad
that I haven’t got to try!”




CHAPTER XXVIII

CONCLUSION


Katharine sided with the lovers, as her husband had foretold, and he
withdrew his opposition.

“Only, how do you intend to live?” he enquired one day of Sydney, as she
sat nursing the little heir upon her knee.

“We are going to wait, of course,” she explained, “till Hugh is earning
rather more, and in the meantime I am going to be so busy. I shall learn
cooking and housekeeping and everything useful I can think of, and then
it won’t matter if Hugh and I are not so very rich at first, will it?”

“H—m,” said St. Quentin. “You’re right about not being in a hurry.
Katharine and I can’t do without you yet. But, you ridiculous little
goose! has it never struck you that there are such things as wedding
presents—and as marriage settlements? Look here, old Lorry wants to
retire, if he can get a good offer for his practice. It’s a first-rate
one, you know, and it appears your Hugh won golden opinions here at the
time of the fever. Lorry thinks if he were to come down and work in with
him a little, the youngster would be received with enthusiasm by the
patients when he himself cuts the concern. If your Hugh likes the notion,
I’ll buy the practice for him and set you up in Lorry’s house, which
you can have rent free, of course. How would that suit you as a wedding
present? You see, old Lorry means to retire on Donisbro’, where some of
his own people hang out.

“It’s a nice enough house and handy to the Castle, which is fortunate;
for even if Katharine and I would allow you to leave Lislehurst, my
tenants wouldn’t. So if this plan suits you and your Hugh, you can go
on with your work-parties and soup-kitchens and all the rest of it, and
you and Katharine together see what you can do towards turning me into a
model landlord. What do you say to that scheme, eh?”

“Hugh come here, and he and I live here for always!” Sydney cried. “Oh,
St. Quentin, you don’t mean it?”

“Then you like the notion?” said her cousin with a pleased smile.

“Like it!” cried Sydney. “Why, the part of being married that I minded
was the leaving you!”

       *       *       *       *       *

Lord Lisle entertained quite a large party at his christening feast.

Mrs. Chichester was there, seeming to grow visibly younger in the
freedom from household cares, and rapidly finding a congenial spirit
in Katharine, and Dolly, very happy to be with Sydney again, and Fred
and Prissie, who in spite of some natural disappointment at finding
no merry-go-rounds in St. Quentin’s Park, managed to enjoy themselves
exceedingly, with the ecstatic joy of London children in the country.

And Lord Braemuir was there, burly and good-natured as ever, and most
hearty in his congratulations both to Hugh and St. Quentin, and Mr.
Fenton, absolutely beaming, and looking with a nervous interest at the
baby, whom he liked very much, he explained, “at a distance.”

And Hugh was there, with Dr. Lorry, whose door already bore the brass
inscription,

    DR. GUSTAVUS LORRY.
    DR. HUGH CHICHESTER.

And Mr. Seaton was there, looking as though all his cares had rolled
away with the coming of the bright-faced bride on his arm, who made all
the better housekeeper, he used to say proudly, for knowing as much Greek
as he did himself.

And Pauly was there, but in no very sociable frame of mind, for he
ignored everyone but Freddie, the length of whose nine-year-old legs
filled him with awe and admiration. He refused to even look at the baby,
but kept his round eyes fixed on Freddie, who patronised him in a way
that amused the looker-on considerably.

Both boys, however, managed to do full justice to the splendid
christening cake, on which Mrs. Fewkes had expended her utmost pains and
skill. Indeed, Pauly very decidedly made up for his abstinence upon that
celebrated fifth birthday.

And old Mr. Hudder was there, rather prosy but extremely happy, and never
more so than when St. Quentin asked his “oldest tenant” to propose the
health of the son and heir.

“My Lord, Your Ladyship, and Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said, “man and
boy I’ve held my farm under the Marquesses of St. Quentin. They’ve been
good landlords to me, and I’ve been a good tenant to them. My Lord, Your
Ladyship, Ladies and Gentlemen, we didn’t look to see this happy day. All
of us standing here have got a lot to thank God for. He has raised up
his lordship and given us the fine strong heir as we’re thanking Him for
to-day. I’ll not deny but that we looked forward to seeing the young lady
that we’ve learned to love reign over us, but it seems she’s satisfied
with the woman’s kingdom that is hers to-day. God bless her! and give
her and her husband that is to be every happiness, and the same to you,
My Lord and Your Ladyship. And in the name of your lordships’ tenants, I
wish a long and happy life, and all prosperity, to Sidney, Lord Lisle.”

       *       *       *       *       *

That was indeed a happy day, but there was one to come that was even
happier—the day on which Sydney Lisle laid down her maiden name and
became, what she had always felt herself, a Chichester.

Lord St. Quentin gave the bride away. “A thing which I am bound to do
considering it was I who took her from you,” he said, laughing.

He and Hugh were good friends by this time, all the better perhaps
for having begun, as the famous Mrs. Malaprop would say, with “a
little aversion,” and Hugh did not misunderstand the marquess when
he said—“Sydney used to annoy me by insisting upon being three-parts
Chichester when I wished her to be all Lisle: now it is my turn to insist
that she does not quite forget the Lisle side, when she is a Chichester
by right.”

“But we are all _one_ family now, aren’t we, Quin?” Sydney said softly,
and her cousin did not contradict the statement.

It was on a perfect September day, with that deeper blue in the clear sky
and wonderful freshness in the air which summer’s end brings with it,
that Sydney was married.

As on that first morning at the Castle long ago, she rose before the rest
of the household, and went out into the Park, where diamond dew lay thick
and the hedges sparkled with jewelled cobwebs.

She would not call Dolly to come with her: she wanted for a little while
upon this happy morning to be the lonely Sydney again.

But there was little to recall that first walk, as she stood on the
marble steps of the Castle and looked into the glory of September
sunshine glittering around her.

She went through the Park, making for the gap in the hedge she knew
so well, and drinking in the beauty which was so atune with her heart
to-day—the dark-foliaged trees, the upland fields, some bare, some
covered still with corn-sheaves, stacked in _hiles_, as the Blankshire
people called them—the glitter of dew at her feet, where every tiny blade
of grass seemed jewelled in the sunshine.

She could not resist one peep through the mullioned windows of the
quaint, dark, comfortable, Queen Anne house, furnished throughout by
loving hands to suit the girl’s taste. The fittings from her luxurious
rooms in the Castle had gone with her to this new home by St. Quentin’s
wish, and the beautiful plate on the sideboard spoke eloquently enough of
the feeling among the tenantry of the estate for “our young lady.”

Mackintosh had filled the conservatory with his choicest flowers, and
Bessie and the pair of ponies already inhabited the roomy stables. This
was to be her home and Hugh’s. Her home and Hugh’s!—how good it sounded!

Her eyes shone as she turned into the road leading into the village.

How different all was from that first walk, when the new life had
appeared so strange and lonely, and home so terribly far away! Had it
ever seemed possible then that she would come to love Lislehurst so well,
could come to be as happy there as she was to-day?

At the gap where they had first met Pauly was waiting, with a basket and
a broad smile of satisfaction on his round chubby face.

“Going to get mushrooms,” he explained, submitting to her kiss. “Muvver’s
coming, and daddy, and dear Dr. Hugh. Come too!”

“Not this morning, Pauly dear,” said Sydney, “but another morning we will
all go out together, won’t we, and have a good time? Now good-bye, and
don’t forget to come and help us eat the wedding cake.”

“Do I hear you pressing wedding cake on Pauly?” observed Pauly’s father,
appearing at the moment, also armed with a mighty basket. “Please don’t,
for I assure you it is quite unnecessary. He never needs much pressing,
do you, Pauly? Miss Lisle, won’t you come into the Vicarage and have some
milk or something, in memory of that first visit that you paid us?”

“When I missed breakfast altogether, and had such a scolding from Lady
Frederica for paying calls upon my own account,” Sydney said, laughing.
“No, not this morning, thank you, Mr. Seaton: I must hurry home.”

“You’re not afraid of a scolding now?” the Vicar asked with a twinkle in
his eyes.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I don’t think Katharine ever learned the way to
scold, and St. Quentin has forgotten it.”

And then she put her hand on the Vicar’s arm, as he held the gate open
for her.

“Do you remember our talk on that first morning that we met, and how you
told me there was work for everyone to do, if they would look for it? I
don’t suppose you know how much that helped me.”

“Thank you,” said the Vicar with a smile, “that is a thing it does one
good to hear. But it is not everyone who looks to such good purpose as
you did.”

And, as Sydney walked rapidly away, he looked after her, thinking of the
great results which had followed on the girl’s simple straightforward
performance of that work she found to do.

He thought of the enormous difference to be seen in the villages all over
the estate; of their owner, honestly striving to do his best for the
people whose comfort was committed to his charge; of the happy marriage
brought about by her means, and he did not wonder at the hearty cheers
with which the bride was received, as she came down the crimson-covered
churchyard path upon her cousin’s arm.

Sydney flushed with pleasure: it was very pleasant to feel herself
surrounded by so much affection and goodwill.

“I am so very glad it is not ‘good-bye’ to this home,” she whispered to
St. Quentin; and he smiled, well pleased.

She had her own way about the wedding festivities, and all the tenants,
rich and poor alike, were feasted in the Castle grounds.

It was a day long remembered through the county, and any doubt
the tenants may have felt as to Sydney’s perfect pleasure in her
dispossession were quite swept away then by the sight of her radiant face.

“Our young lady,” she would be always to the Lislehurst people, but they
plainly saw that she was happy in the humbler path her feet were to tread.

“She looked for all the world like a bit of spring and sunshine,” Mrs.
Sawyer used to say, in talking of that happy wedding day, “and Dr. Hugh,
his face matched hers for gladness, as it should. God bless ’em both!”

It was a bewilderingly happy day, from the moment that Sydney put her
hand into Hugh’s strong one, where she could so safely trust her future,
to that in which Pauly, after some loudly whispered directions from
old Mr. Hudder, marched forward, and laid in Sydney’s hand the lovely
little gold watch, with which she had parted for the sake of her poorer
neighbours. “For you,” he said briefly.

“A testimony of respectful affection from his lordship’s tenantry in
Lislehurst to their young lady,” Mr. Hudder amended.

“And I gave free pennies for it,” Pauly put in.

I think Sydney nearly cried as she kissed the little boy and held out her
hand to Mr. Hudder.

“Thank you, and thank everybody, oh, so much!” she said.

But perhaps the very best moment in the whole long happy day was that
in which Sydney Chichester was able to throw her arms about the neck of
father and mother, and call herself “their little girl” again.


THE END




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