CHAPTER XXIV

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SIR RUPERT.

The next day was cold and blustery, with winds that shook down the last remaining glory of the trees, and cold rain that beat the orange and scarlet of the dead leaves into so much black mud. It was a day when everything seems dreary. The big sunflowers in the lawn at Annagower broke with their own weight, and hung ruefully on the shattered stalk. The chrysanthemums were bruised and muddy, and the air was full of the repining of the afflicted branches. Even the robin sang as if his heart were not in it.

I sat with Esther a great part of the morning, and would not let her talk too much on the subject that was in all our minds. I tried to distract her by telling her the things that had happened when I was in London; but though she was interested about Freda, and unselfishly rejoiced over my success with the publishers, yet I could see that her mind wandered, that her fingers beat the counterpane impatiently as though the time would never pass.

But the hours turned round at last to five o'clock, and found me hidden like a conspirator in the little alcove off the drawing-room. This was unlighted; it was little more than an archway in fact, with a few feet of space behind, but with the dusk in it and the lit drawing-room beyond I had no fear that even Sir Rupert's unflinching old eyes, as I remembered them, would discover me.

I had placed Lady O'Brien with her back to me and the tea-table before her, and had drawn a chair near the lamplight for Sir Rupert, for I had a great desire to see our old enemy's face during the interview that was to be so momentous to poor Essie.

I had not long to wait, for he was punctual to his time. He came in, a curious figure for a lady's drawing-room, in a great rough old frieze coat such as the farmers wear at the fairs. As he sat down heavily in the chair I had placed for him I saw that he looked older, but scarcely weaker than I remembered him. If a tithe of the stories told about his way of life were true, then he had a constitution of iron.

I saw the gleam of his eyes fixed on my lady's face, and felt that I was going to watch a game of fence. In the heat of the room his coat began to steam, and Lady O'Brien implored him to take it off. He did so, flinging it across a velvet chair, and showed himself clad in a riding suit of very ancient cut, in which, however, he looked a figure of a certain distinction. Then he sat down again and leant towards his hostess, bringing his strong, colourless, old face, with its jaws of iron, within the rays of the lamp.

Lady O'Brien had dressed herself for the interview with a certain coquettishness. Dear old lady, it would indeed be the end of things with her when her pretty vanities were relinquished. She was wearing a gray, stiff silk, trimmed with the most exquisite old yellow lace, and her soft hair was piled high over her delicate face with its sparkling eyes.

I could not see her face, of course, from where I sat, but I could see the flash and glitter of her rings as her still-beautiful hands moved to and fro among the tea-cups.

"I may offer you some tea, Sir Rupert?" I heard her say.

"Well, madam, tea is not much in my line," he answered grimly. "It is a good many years since I have known the taste of it, in fact."

"Oh, Sir Rupert, you men!" said the little old lady, lifting a reproving finger; "it is well for you I know your ways."

She took from a lower tray of her tea-table a little bottle gold-coloured, and a liqueur glass.

"This is the finest old brandy, Sir Rupert," she said. "I won't insult you and it by asking if you will take soda-water with it."

"Brandy is quite good enough for me," he answered. "You were always a woman of a thousand."

"Ah! Sir Rupert, you flatter me," said the old lady, sipping her tea.

"If the truth is flattery," he said, "it is the truth that beauty and wit are seldom found in one garland."

"You have not forgotten your old ways," she said. "Rustication has made you no whit the better."

"Ah!" he said, "when beauty and grace shine on unaccustomed eyes, even the rustic tongue is loosed."

I listened with amazement. I had thought that the Sir Rupert who was a man about town and a pretty fellow ages ago, was quite lost in Sir Rupert the ogre of Angry Castle, the false and vindictive friend, the patient waiter upon vengeance, the sinner stained with so many crimes that it was easy to credit him with all. Yet, grim as he looked, his air now was not saturnine. He seemed to have forgotten for a moment his later years, and turned back to a page of his youth.

He had settled his huge shoulders comfortably in the low chair, and was swallowing glass after glass of the brandy, which apparently did not affect him in the least.

"You will be wondering," said my lady, "why I should have asked for this interview."

She had settled down for serious conversation, having replaced her cup in the tray. I could see the pretty fan with which she had provided herself waving to and fro against the firelight.

"No reason was needed, my lady, except that you had not forgotten me like the rest of the world."

"Was that enough to bring you half-a-dozen miles in drenching rain?"

"Since when have I been afraid of a shower?"

"Oh, Sir Rupert! you know you are a recluse by your own choice. The world would not have forgotten you if you had not willed to be forgotten. This being so, I did not lightly invade your solitude."

"The wish to meet again and recall old memories had been quite enough."

"Ah!" said her ladyship, "old memories are bitter-sweet; let them rest. But I thank you for coming all this way. I would have found my way to your solitude, but I was assured you barred your gates against all the world."

"Country folks' tales," he said. "But it would be to reverse the natural order of things if you had come. Besides, my house is hardly fit to receive a lady."

"That is why I longed to come."

"Because you had heard strange stories about me and it, eh?" he said shrewdly.

"Perhaps. You are somewhat of an ogre, De Lacy."

"Yes, I let the gobemouches say their say."

"Do you mean that really Castle Angry is like any other old house?"

"You do me too much honour to be interested in it. Castle Angry is perhaps as like any other old house as I am like any other old man."

"Well, you are not at all like any God-fearing kindly old man, carrying peace and honour upon his gray hairs."

Sir Rupert laughed grimly.

"You are right. I'm not the grandfatherly sort. If you've heard half the gossip of the country you're a brave woman to have me in your drawing-room. There are a good many milestones between this and our last merry meeting."

"I'm not a bit afraid of you, De Lacy," said my lady, still waving her large fan. "Though I know you're a bad lot, still I remember that some good people loved and trusted you once upon a time, so I hope the Lord may yet change your heart."

"Ah, thank you!" said Sir Rupert shortly. I guessed that my lady's reference was to my grandfather, and that it had angered Sir Rupert.

"Well, your reason, madam, for desiring an interview," he said with a slight barring of his strong yellow teeth, "since it is not for the pleasure of my company."

"You have a grandson, Sir Rupert."

"I have, madam."

"A charming youth," said my lady pensively. "I congratulate you upon him!"

"Did you send for me to say so, Lady O'Brien?"

"Of course not, De Lacy. But I have missed him of late."

"He is a fortunate fellow."

"I am fond of young society. He came often, and I was grateful to him. Now he comes no more, and though I have written to him I have had no answer."

"Young men, I have heard, are cavalier nowadays."

"They may be, but I don't think the lad is. Do you know anything of him, De Lacy?"

"Do you think I carry him in my pocket, madam?"

"Is he at Angry?"

"If he were, would he not have flown at your call?"

"I feared he might be ill. He is not yet recovered of his hurts when he fell in the spring. I feared he might be at Angry needing a woman's care."

"Your heart is too tender. If he had needed nursing he could have found it where it was supplied to him so generously before. He would naturally turn to my neighbours at Brandon."

"They were very good to him, De Lacy. It was true Christianity of them to take him in. It ought to wipe off old scores in your mind."

His face went livid.

"A new way to pay old debts," he sneered; "but your sex is ever romantic, my lady."

"I am glad the boy is so little like you."

"Little enough as far as that goes, as little as his father was before him. But to what am I indebted for this interest in my flesh and blood?"

"To himself, De Lacy, be sure, and not to you. Partly, too, because he is dear to someone who is dear to me."

"Ah! an affair of the heart. I did not credit him with being a gallant. But I daresay he had a score of pretty affairs I knew nothing of. The county is famed for its rustic beauties, and young men will be young men."

The fan trembled violently in my lady's hand.

"You insult your grandson, sir, and you insult my adopted daughter, to whom he is betrothed."

"Your ladyship's adopted daughter?"

"Miss Esther Brandon."

I leant forward with my heart in my mouth. Sir Rupert had half sprung from his chair, and for a second his attitude was so menacing that I was in the act to rush to the bell-rope. Then he resumed his seat and looked at my lady with narrowed eyes. Something in the look told me that he was answering a defiance in hers. Still her feather fan waved airily up and down.

"The plot thickens," he said at last, and his voice had grown hoarse. "Am I to understand that you contemplate a marriage between this modern Romeo and Juliet? I suppose so, since the affair has flourished under your roof."

"You certainly may understand it, De Lacy. I don't see why your wicked old feuds and hatreds should overshadow two young lives. Let alone that the feud was entirely of your making."

"Do you expect me to abet you?"

"Oh, indeed, I expect little of you, De Lacy, unless the grace of God should soften your heart!"

"Will it alter matters that the youth inherits nothing but the barren acres of Angry? You and--Miss Brandon--are probably thinking of him as the inheritor of my wealth. But my money is my own, and I'd rather leave it to Gaskin to found a family, or endow a home for mangy cats with it."

The fan moved more airily than ever.

"As you will, Sir Rupert. I am a poor woman, but what little I have goes to my dear child."

"She may not be satisfied with that," he said, sneering viciously. "You probably underestimate her common-sense. And he--he may know on which side his bread is buttered."

"You wrong them both, De Lacy. Love is enough for them."

"A very pretty sentiment in the mouth of an old woman."

The fan fluttered as if the hand that held it were agitated, and I guessed that the rude shaft had gone home.

"It was hardly worth my while to ask you if you were friend or foe," she said after a moment's silence. "I might have known. Do your worst, De Lacy, you cannot hurt them."

"Oh, hurting of the kind you mean is out of fashion! They have my worst wishes. Otherwise, all I desire is to hear no more of the cub who calls himself by my name, and the pauper he has chosen."

"For shame, Sir Rupert! You are unnatural, or you would love the boy and think of nothing but his happiness."

The old man rose from his seat and made an exaggerated bow.

"You are welcome to him," he said, "the poor, pretty, puling fool! I hope the girl has enough manhood for two."

"If he were not a man, De Lacy, he would never have spent an hour in Angry Castle. What are you, to judge of gentleness and chivalry?"

She had stood up now, and, leaning on her stick, shook an angry head at him.

[Illustration: "LADY O'BRIEN STOOD UP NOW AND SHOOK AN ANGRY HEAD AT HIM."]

"What have you done with him, De Lacy?" she cried. "I believe you know where he is, and will not say."

"What, then, is Master Milksop to be spirited away like a yearling child?"

"He is not with you, then?" she said, too eager to be baffled by his insults.

"He is not. He left three months ago."

"Three months ago! Why hasn't he written then?"

"How can I say? He has tired of his fancy, I expect."

"That is not true, De Lacy, and you know it is not."

"If he has not, let him come back to her."

Lady O'Brien rang the bell, and in answer the page-boy appeared.

"Show this gentleman out," she said, and stood erect till the door had closed behind the enemy.

The instant he was gone I ran to the window to see him mount his dog-cart and disappear in the wet night. Then I came back to Lady O'Brien's side. She had sunk into her chair, and the sparkle and fire were gone out of her face.

"Ah," she said, drawing a long breath, "if I only had the flogging of that man! And to think how helpless we are, an old woman and two girls, my dear. And time was when twenty fine fellows would have been ready to flog him for me!"

"I suppose he really knows nothing of his grandson?"

"I suppose not. After all, as he says, the boy is not an infant. He must have grown sick of the place and gone away. I know his life there was insupportable, though Sir Rupert never actually showed him the door."

"What are we to say to Esther?"

"That is what is troubling me."

"We hardly know Harry De Lacy. Is it possible he could care less than she does, and knowing his own poverty, and that Sir Rupert would never consent, has given her up and gone away?"

She shook her head.

"Esther would say it was not possible. I only know him through her love. For myself, I saw a handsome and gentle boy, a gentleman, and with the tastes and habits of one. I could say as much for fifty lads of my acquaintance."

"You don't think the gentleness could imply weakness?"

"Ah! that I cannot answer for. Esther will never believe that he could go away and forget her. Ah, my poor child! I dread to tell her that we have heard nothing. If no word of him comes I don't know what she will do."

"There is nothing left for us to do but wait," I said sadly.

"I suppose not," she said, "especially as there was no formal engagement between them. Poor child! if she had trusted me earlier, all this might have been averted. We cannot go out into the world, you and I, Hilda, and track him down."

"No," I assented, "but we will hope. You have done what you could, brave little fairy godmother! We must leave the rest to God."

But when we told Esther, she only turned her head away, and said nothing. In her heart of hearts I am sure she said over and over that he was dead, or was kept from coming to her. No matter what happened, she would never believe anything else.

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