CHAPTER IX.

MR. STEPHEN LORRAINE COMES TO AN UNDERSTANDING WITH HIS HEIR.

JOHN GLYNNE would have been surprised could he have known how little Aldyth had enjoyed that ride with her cousin. She had been conscious of something unusual in Guy's manner towards her. He had been more assiduous in his attentions to her than he was wont to be, yet at the same time he had vexed her by contemptuous allusions to John Glynne, and the report that had been circulated in Woodham.

It had become a sore subject with Aldyth, and she was far from appreciating the witticisms in which Guy indulged at her expense. Yet Guy had no intention of annoying her. On the contrary, he meant to try his best to please his cousin. But it was not easy to substitute for the old, free and easy, cousinly intercourse, the new rôle he had taken upon himself. He had not succeeded in his endeavours, and he felt that he had not.

"I shall never be able to do it as I should," he said to himself, as he rode back to Wyndham, after lingering a while in the High Street, in the hope of seeing the Blands. "I wish I had not promised; but Wyndham is worth a sacrifice; though it is hard that a fellow may not choose his own wife." And Guy felt anything but comfortable as he surveyed the position in which he found himself.

A few days earlier Stephen Lorraine had ridden back from Woodham in the worst of humours. He had never accustomed himself to put any kind of restraint on his irritability, and he had no sooner returned, than his household had cause to know that something had "put him out."

Guy, who came into dinner a few minutes late, received his share of his uncle's wrath.

"You will be good enough to remember, sir, that my dinner hour is six. It is doubtless disagreeable to you to conform to my habits; but it cannot be for long now, and I think I have a right to expect that you will pay me that degree of respect."

Happily Guy, who was tolerably easy of temper, did not encourage his uncle's quarrelsome tendency.

"I am sorry to be late, uncle," he said. "I assure you I like my dinner at six; but that fellow Ames detained me. Is there any soup coming for me?"

"I believe so; but if you have any consideration for your throat, you will have nothing to do with it," said the old man, grimly. "Cook evidently considers pepper the chief ingredient in making soup."

"It is rather highly seasoned, certainly," said Guy, as he tasted the soup the servant placed before him. "How did you find things at Woodham? Much as usual, I suppose?"

An impatient sound escaped old Stephen's lips, but he said nothing, and Guy did not pursue the inquiry, though he was full of wonder as to the cause of his uncle's ill-temper. The few carefully-chosen remarks on which he ventured being ungraciously received, Guy finished his dinner in silence. As the dessert was placed on the table, the old man's manner brightened somewhat. He sent for a bottle of special port from the cellar, and having filled his own glass, pushed the black, cob-webbed bottle towards Guy.

"Fill up; you'll find it worth drinking," he said. "It's almost as good as the '54 will prove, I trust, which I am keeping for your wedding."

Guy laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Time enough to think of that, sir," he said, lightly.

"Nay, not so," said the old man, with repressed eagerness; "it is time you began to think about it seriously, my lad, if I am to have the pleasure of drinking the health of your pretty bride."

Guy coloured, and fell to studying his wine-glass to hide his embarrassment.

"I should be sorry to think that you would not see my wedding, sir," he replied, with becoming seriousness; "but happily you are a rare man for your years, and will, I trust, see many more, for I am but a young fellow to think of marrying."

"Nonsense," said the old man, sharply; "you are twenty-four, and in your case there is no reason why marriage should be delayed. Now, do not smile, Guy, if you please. I am in earnest, and I wish you to be."

"Certainly, uncle, I will consider what you say; but a fellow can hardly get married at a moment's notice."

"Pshaw! How you talk!" cried old Stephen, impatiently. "One would think you had to go far to seek a bride. Come, sir, do you know what is being said about Aldyth at Woodham? Do you know that the gossips will have it she is going to marry that jackanapes in cap and gown—the fellow who lectures—tush! I've forgotten his name, but you know whom I mean."

Guy had turned a startled look on his uncle, and his face grew a shade paler as he caught the drift of his speech; but he said, coolly—

"Mr. Glynne, you mean. Well, why should not Aldyth marry him if she fancies him?"

"Guy, are you beside yourself? Do you know what you are saying? How dare you suggest that such a marriage would be suitable for Aldyth? A beggarly usher—a fellow of no social position whatever! Would you tamely submit to see her throw herself away upon such an one?"

There was growing passion in the old man's tones. Guy was alarmed, but he took refuge in sulky indifference.

"I do not know what you mean by 'tamely submitting' to it. Of course it would be a pity. I should not admire Aldyth's taste; but I could not interfere in the matter."

"It is absurd for you to affect to misunderstand me," said Stephen Lorraine, growing more angry. "You must know perfectly well that I have always looked forward to your marrying Aldyth."

"Indeed, sir!" said Guy, looking blank. "This is the first time you have acquainted me with the fact."

"You should not have needed information. You might have seen it was the only thing to be thought of."

"But I have never thought of it," said Guy; "and I must confess that I do not like the idea. Aldyth is my cousin."

"Your second cousin," said his uncle.

"Second or first," said Guy, "it is the same. We have grown up together almost like brother and sister. I am fond of Aldyth, but I tell you honestly, sir, I have no wish to make her my wife."

"You will find that it is to your interest to do so," said his uncle, with a calmness born of intense passion. "Listen to me, sir. Aldyth is every whit as dear to me as you are. When I have looked on you as the heir to Wyndham, it has been with the thought that she would share your inheritance. I do not choose to divide my property between you; but neither do I mean that Aldyth should suffer loss. If you resolve to disregard my wish in this matter, I shall have to reconsider the disposition of my property. Now, I have given you fair warning."

Guy heard his uncle with feelings of the utmost dismay. "I don't know about the fairness of the matter," he muttered, then added in a louder tone: "You must allow that this has come upon me very suddenly. It is hard for a man to have it dictated to him whom he is to marry."

"Not at all," interrupted his uncle, "when the girl is such a fair, sweet girl as Aldyth."

"I don't believe she will have me," said Guy, with the air of having hit upon a happy solution of the difficulty. "You will not blame me, uncle, if she refuses me?"

"Yes, I shall," returned old Stephen, grimly. "If she refuses, it will be because you have wooed her in a sorry fashion. You ask her properly, and tell her that I wish it, and she will have you fast enough."

Guy devoutly hoped that his uncle might be mistaken in this belief. But he lacked the courage to withstand him, and boldly claim his right to act as he would in a matter that so closely concerned his happiness. Guy believed that Hilda Bland was the girl who could make him happy; but he was not one to deem the world well lost for love. The heirship of Wyndham was dear to him. Not for any girl's sake could he bear to be disinherited. So he temporized, and drifted into a sort of tacit promise that he would seek to win Aldyth for his wife.

It was with poor spirits that Guy set himself to carry out his purpose. He had little hope that Aldyth would really refuse his brilliant offer. A woman, he told himself in his youthful wisdom, regards marriage from a very different point of view from that of a man. Was it likely that one whose matrimonial chances were so limited and uncertain would reject, in one breath, himself and Wyndham?

But somehow Guy was not very successful in his efforts to act the part of a lover. He found it impossible to convince Aldyth of his sincerity. She would take purely as a joke his pretty speeches and the devoted airs he tried to assume. She laughed at him, and bantered him on what she believed to be mere affectations. The chief result of his endeavours was to raise doubt and jealousy in the mind of Hilda Bland, towards whom his friendliness was marked by strange fluctuations, and who was quick to perceive that Guy was more attentive to his cousin than he had formerly been. One day he would treat Hilda with such apparent indifference that her thoughts would turn with sympathy to Mariana in "The Moated Grange," and she would dream of dying early of a broken heart; then again he suffered himself to be betrayed into the old tenderness of voice and look, and Hilda's heart would beat with tumultuous delight, and life seemed to stretch before her again as a long, bright vista.

Meanwhile, poor Hilda grew daily more dreamy, and unpractical, more neglectful of home duties, more oblivious of all that lay outside the rosy curtains which screened her own inner world of self-conscious emotion. Even Aldyth felt impelled to take her to task sometimes.

"You are getting lazy, Hilda," she exclaimed one day when she was at Mrs. Bland's, and heard Hilda refuse to carry a soup ticket to a poor woman whom Mrs. Bland was desirous of helping.

Kitty, who was present, had at once volunteered to do the errand, and was now buttoning her boots by the fire.

"Oh, it is really too cold to go out this morning," said Hilda, lounging in her easy-chair by the fire, with her pretty little feet on the fender. "Kitty does not mind the cold, but I hate to go out before I have had time to get thoroughly warm."

"There is one kind of poetry Hilda does not appreciate," remarked Kitty—"the poetry of motion."

"And she has yet to learn that one should occasionally sacrifice one's own inclinations for the sake of helping others," said her mother, in rather a severe tone, as she quitted the room.

As soon as she was alone with her friend, Hilda burst into tears.

"That is always the way now," she said. "Mother is for ever finding fault with me. Kitty is her favourite daughter, and nothing that I do is right."

"Nonsense, Hilda," said Aldyth; "you fancy such things. I do not believe Mrs. Bland has a favourite, but Kitty is of course a great help to her."

"Yes; but then Kitty likes doing all sorts of things," said Hilda, vaguely. "She is so different from me. I do not get any sympathy from her. She laughs at my love of poetry; and as for mother, I am sure she grudges me the time I give to self-improvement. I suppose she wishes I were like Kitty, who scarcely ever reads anything except a novel."

"Now you are wronging your mother," said Aldyth, quickly. "I am sure she was very pleased that you and I should study together for the lectures. But talking of novels, what were you doing when I came in? Is not that a novel I see in your lap?"

"Certainly it is," said Hilda, "but such a novel!" And she held up "Romola" to view.

"Ah! That is a grand book," said Aldyth; "terribly sad, yet as true as it is sad. I can never lose the impression made on me by its revelation of the slow but sure decline into evil of Tito—so bright, and lovable, and unsullied as we see him at first that we love him almost as Romola does, and share the bitterness of her disappointment."

"Yes, it is very sad," said Hilda; "but what a splendid woman Romola is. I have just been reading how she devoted herself to those poor people dying of the pestilence. They might well take her for the Madonna. Oh, to go amongst the poor and suffering like that would be a life worth living; I often wish that I could be trained as a nurse, but mother would never hear of my leaving home. It is horrid to live in a place like Woodham, where there is nothing to be done."

"Only some poor people to be visited and supplied with soup tickets," said Aldyth, mischievously.

Hilda coloured. "Oh, that is nothing," she said.

"It is only a small thing, certainly," said Aldyth. "But I think the small duties may prepare us for great ones, if we should ever be called to undertake them. 'He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.' But, Hilda, I had no idea that you had any leaning towards a nurse's vocation. I should have thought that kind of work would not have been at all to your taste."

"Perhaps not," said Hilda, looking piqued; "but you do not know all the thoughts that I have."

And she said to herself that Aldyth understood her no better than did her mother and sister.

There was a pause, then Hilda asked, "Are you going to ride to-day?"

"No," said Aldyth. "Guy has gone to Colchester, but he proposes that we should all have a ride on Saturday—you on Brown Bess. You feel quite comfortable on her now, do you not?"

"Yes, indeed, I am not a bit afraid of her now," said Hilda, her face lighting up with pleasure. "I shall enjoy another ride. And oh Aldyth, what do you think? Mother says we may have a party on my twenty-first birthday. Won't that be lovely? Mind you keep yourself disengaged for the twenty-third."

"No doubt of that," said Aldyth. "Parties are not so numerous at Woodham that I am likely to have another invitation for that date. I will tell Guy to keep himself free, for I suppose you mean to invite him?"

"I dare say mother will send him an invitation," said Hilda, demurely. Then she laughed. "Perhaps he will not care to come; but I do hope it will be a nice party. Mother talks of sending out fifty invitations."

"Your parties always are nice," said Aldyth. "And this is the mother with whom you are not a favourite! Oh, Hilda, Hilda! You do not deserve to have such a mother."

As the days passed by and Christmas drew near, the proposed party in honour of Hilda's attaining her majority became a matter of absorbing interest to the three girls—an interest which, when the invitations had been issued, was shared by many others at Woodham.

Would Mr. Glynne accept or decline? Was there any possibility of his remaining at Woodham for Christmas? Aldyth could not answer these questions. She knew that Mr. Glynne's sister was recovering from her fever, but whether her convalescence had advanced to such a stage as to render it safe for him to return home for the holidays, she could not say. Somehow during the last few weeks, John Glynne had fallen out of the habit of paying frequent visits to Miss Lorraine's cottage; nor had the Blands seen much of him of late. But the examinations were taking place at the Grammar School. It was a busy time for the masters; there was no difficulty in accounting for the fact that Mr. Glynne had little leisure to bestow upon his friends.