CHAPTER I.

SIR AYMER EGERTON.

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THE stately homes of England! Well may the poet exclaim; and among these stately homes it would be hard to find one statelier than Egerton Highfield. Its grey old walls, close covered by a mantle of ivy, which clings even round the immense chimneys; its fine terrace, with broad steps leading down into a quaint old flower garden, with a huge fountain in the centre, and only separated by a wire fence and a wide ha-ha from an extensive deer park, through which winds one of the approaches to the house; the age and grandeur of the trees, and the extent of the massive buildings, all combine to make this a truly "stately home."

But perhaps the grandest-looking thing about it was its master, who, on the day on which I mean to introduce him to you, was walking up and down the terrace of which I have spoken. This terrace ran along the west side of the house, and was therefore a sheltered place even in March—though March, in Yorkshire, is not exactly a balmy month. Perhaps it was for this reason that Sir Aymer had gone to walk there, when he became too restless to remain indoors, and there he might be seen walking up and down, up and down with slow and measured tread, always turning at the same spot, always going at the same pace; always carrying his handsome old head well up, and keeping his arms folded across his broad chest.

He was a perfect picture to look at; for though his hair was turning grey, it was still thick and curly, and in his dark blue eyes age had not tamed the fire of youth, while his finely cut, haughty features, and pale, clear complexion were scarcely changed by the touch of time. Yes, he was very pleasant to look at; but, alas, that was all! For he was by no means pleasant to live with. An only child, he had become Sir Aymer Egerton while yet in his cradle; a weak, doting mother spoiled him utterly, and as she educated him at home, there was no school influence to undo the mischief. She died while he was still young, and he married soon afterwards.

He had two sons and one daughter, and soon after the birth of the latter, Lady Egerton died, literally worn out, poor lady, by his imperious temper. The elder boy, Aymer, was a fine, open-hearted creature, full of life and joy. He was sent to school early, which was lucky for him. The other son, Guy, was his father's special pride and darling. He was exceedingly like him in appearance, and, unfortunately, so far like him in disposition, that he had a most difficult temper, though not a passionate one. He was wonderfully clever, particularly as a linguist; and as his sister Clarice shared his tastes, he was well content to remain at home.

But Clarice did not live long to brighten his life, and her death was the more sad because it was the result of accident. She was riding with Guy and her father, when the horse took fright at the fall of a tree which some labourers were felling in the hedge at the roadside. Sir Aymer stopped to swear at the careless woodmen, and to dismiss them from his service on the spot; Guy rode after his sister. Her horse kept to the road.

He perceived that by crossing the fields, he could shorten the distance between them, if not get before her, which was his best chance of giving her effectual help. Some trees hid the road from him as he flew across the fields, but when he regained the road, he knew by the sound of the horse's feet that he had gained his object—he was in front of the runaway. A moment more, and the terrified horse came in sight. Alas, he was riderless!

Guy uttered a cry of horror, and rode back along the road, but when he reached his sister's side, she was dead. She had been killed on the spot.

Guy knelt beside her in silent agony, and before he had quite realised the awful truth, Sir Aymer rode up, still swearing and gesticulating, too angry to see the sad group which barred his way until Guy shouted to him hoarsely to stop.

The horror of this event shattered the young man's nerves completely, and, for a time, seemed to threaten his reason. He was of a nervous, delicate temperament, and it really seemed as if he never quite recovered from the effects of this shock. He was seriously ill for some time, and when the illness passed away, he had become possessed by the unfounded notion that if his father had followed poor Clarice, instead of stopping to rage at the workmen, she might have been saved. In very truth, Sir Aymer could in no way have prevented the accident; but Guy during his illness was haunted by the look of his father's face as he rode up, panting and furious, to where he knelt beside his dead sister.

As soon as he was well enough to travel, he left home, in spite of Sir Aymer's wrath, and for ten years he travelled about without once seeing his father. Then he wrote that he was in London, and Sir Aymer ordered him to come to Egerton Highfield without delay: it was for Guy that he was waiting now, as he paced the west terrace on that bright blustering March day.

Presently a door, opening from the great hall on the terrace, which, to all appearance, was merely a window, with the usual heavy wooden frame and the stone wall of the house beneath it, swung open, and young Aymer Egerton came out.

"Sir Aymer, I am going up to the East Lodge to meet Guy. He'll think it strange if I don't meet him there, at least."

"Never mind what he thinks. I wish to see him first, and alone," replied Sir Aymer, curtly. "I desired you not to meet him at the station—why then should you think I want you to meet him at the Lodge? It is quite enough that you should be an obstinate fool yourself, without teaching him to be another."

"I should hardly have time to do that, sir, in the drive up from the gate."

"Don't go! That's all about it," answered Sir Aymer, in a voice which one would hardly use in speaking to a dog, unless that dog were in grievous error.

Aymer shrugged his shoulders and walked back into the hall, and almost as he did so, his father heard him cry out, "What, Guy! Is this you, old fellow? I hardly thought you could be here yet."

Sir Aymer looked in. His sons were shaking hands hurriedly, and he could not distinguish that any more words passed between them.

But, in fact, the elder was whispering rapidly, "Guy, for pity's sake, don't contradict him whatever he says, don't refuse bluntly."

Guy passed on to the terrace, and found himself face to face with his father, who seized his hand, looked earnestly into his face, and then drew him close and held him fast. He really loved Guy; yet his first words were not gracious.

"So you have obeyed me at last, Guy."

Guy made no answer, and his brother made his appearance on the terrace before Sir Aymer could speak again.

"Here, old boy—let's have a look at you," he said, with his cheery, careless smile. "What has ten years of wandering done for you? Not much—you look older than you ought, and yet you are not much changed."

"You don't look a day older than when we parted," answered Guy, "and neither does my father."

"Go in, Aymer; I told you I wished to speak to Guy alone," said Sir Aymer, imperiously.

And his son obeyed, with a furtive but expressive glance of caution at his brother.

"Now, Guy, walk beside me. I have much to say to you. From your last letter I have concluded that you are at length weary of wandering, and mean to take your proper place in the world again. I hope it is so. Aymer is a fool, without an idea in his head beyond hunting and shooting, and he insists upon marrying Lady Anne Villiers—do you remember her?—the daughter of a man I never can get on with for five minutes. I look to you, Guy, to bring honour to the family. I will get you into Parliament, and make a man of you, if you will only use your brains for something practical. All this archæological and antiquarian and philological nonsense—only fit for magazine articles—will never really advance you a step; and you used to have ambition, Guy."

"Had I, sir? Well, I am as anxious as you can wish to begin a more settled life and to increase my income."

"I'm glad to hear it, very glad. Then you will be pleased with my plan for you, which will at once give you 20,000£. a year, and open a career for you in Parliament."

Guy stared. He knew that Sir Aymer could not give more than that, if so much, to his elder son.

"I don't think I understand you, sir," he said.

Sir Aymer laughed: he was in a wondrously pleasant humour.

"Did you wonder why I desired you to come here, instead of answering your question, as you asked me to do, in writing? Come here, Guy—come this way."

He walked on a little beyond his usual place for turning, to a window near the corner of the house. It was the window of what had been his daughter's sitting-room, and Guy hung back and turned pale, but Sir Aymer laid his hand on his shoulder and pushed him on.

"Look in!" he said, in the well-remembered tone of command.

Guy looked in, and saw a young lady reading quietly in the pretty room he knew so well. A bright, handsome girl about eighteen; but I need not describe her, as she has nothing more to do with this story after the hasty glance Guy cast upon her before his father drew him back.

"There, Guy; that's my ward, Adela Chenevix; she has 20,000£. a year, and is cousin to the Premier. Now do you understand?"

Guy looked round helplessly. He was a student—a scholar—with half a dozen languages at his finger-ends, but not one of them came to his aid at that moment.

"Do you understand, Guy?"

"You want me to marry her?" he said at last.

"Yes. Aymer ought to have had the first chance; but you, Guy, you will be a greater man than Aymer would ever be."

In this assertion I think Sir Aymer was wrong. Guy had not the making of a great man about him. His cleverness was all of the most dreamy and unpractical kind, and he had not even readiness enough to temporise with his father, as his brother had tried to advise him to do. Aymer could not have done worse, and would probably have done better.

"I cannot do it, Sir Aymer."

"Nonsense! Stay here a while, and see her; she's a very good girl I believe, and she's certainly very pretty. I don't want you to marry her to-morrow morning. You're six and thirty—you ought to marry: don't be a fool!"

"I cannot do it!" repeated Guy.

"Why not?"

"Because—I am married already."

Sir Aymer's face grow crimson. He could scarcely speak, and it was in a strangled whisper that he said,—

"Married! Secretly! And trying to keep concealed from me. Guy! Tell me in one word; have you made a low marriage?"

"I have been married for nearly a year, and—"

"I don't care how long. Who is she?"

"It was for this reason that I wrote to you. I must settle somewhere, and my allowance is not enough now. I must add to my income in some way, and—"

"Answer my question, sir! Money I can give you, if that is all. You have disappointed me, you have defied me; but only tell me that you have married a lady, and I will try to forgive you."

Guy was silent.

Sir Aymer waited, staring gloomily at his son's agitated face.

"Father! If you cast me off, I shall be a beggar. She has only a few hundred pounds—I have nothing. She's a good girl, and a pretty creature. I was ill—a sudden attack of fever—and she nursed me through it; and when I recovered, I found that she had learned to love me, and—"

"You have not answered my question. Until I know who and what she is, I have no ears for a romantic story."

Sir Aymer was trembling from head to foot, and his voice sounded like the muttering of distant thunder.

"Her father is an innkeeper in the Black Forest," blurted out Guy at last.

Sir Aymer turned nearly black in the face: his voice was now quite gone, and he stamped his foot and shook his fists more like a madman than a sober baronet of the nineteenth century.

At last he pulled out his pocket-book, opened it with blundering, shaking hands, and drew out a bank note.

"Take that," he shouted, "and go!"

Guy tried to remonstrate, but he might as well have talked to the wind, which at that moment rose with a long wild moan, as if of sorrow.

Sir Aymer thrust the note into his son's pocket, and turning sharp round entered the hall. A servant stood there waiting.

"Bid them bring the carriage round again. Have Mr. Guy's luggage put in, and let it follow him to the East Lodge. Leave the house, sir; I will never see your face, nor speak your name again!"

He walked through the hall and disappeared; and almost at the same moment, his older son came in, having been watching the scene from the window of another room.

"What is it, Guy? Why on earth did you contradict him?"

"I couldn't help it; he would have the truth. And there was no use in putting it off for a day or two. I have done for myself, Aymer. I am married,—to a German girl, little above a peasant. And you know best whether my father will ever forgive that!"

"Whew!" whistled Aymer. "What possessed you?"

"I don't know," was the dreary answer. "Poor little Elise! She deserved a better fate. Good-bye, Aymer; don't risk getting into a scrape by coming with me; good-bye, old fellow."

Aymer, however, insisted on walking with him until the carriage overtook them; and during that time he contrived to form a very true opinion of his brother's strange marriage. Elise was very pretty, very gentle, and very innocent, and she let the handsome, pleasant-mannered stranger see that she loved him; and Guy, always purposeless, was weak and ill, and let himself drift into an engagement.

"She could read and write," he said; "and her father gave her what he and all his neighbours considered an immense fortune!"

Five hundred pounds of our money is not, however, a large sum on which to begin the world, nor was Guy Egerton the man to make the most of it.

"He gave me this," Guy said, drawing out the note. "Take it back to him, Aymer. I won't have it."

"Nonsense! You have a journey before you, and you'll never get another penny from him, I'm afraid. Keep it, and I'll send you more as I can. Where is your wife?"

"In London. I must go back to her."

"Of course; and when you are settled, write to me. I'll consult Anne—do you remember Anne, who used to come here to play with poor Clarice? I'll ask her father to get you something—some Government situation. I'll do what I can for you, Guy. I wish, old fellow, I could comfort you up a bit. I wish—oh, Guy, I wish you were in love with the girl, since the deed is done."

"Ay, I wish I was," answered Guy, as he entered the carriage.

So the brothers parted, never to meet again in this life.

Guy did not write for many months, for, when his brother's kind voice no longer soothed him, his foolish, morbid pride was up in arms. He was not going to be a suppliant for some small place, or dependent upon any one. To return to his wife's native place was also distasteful to him, for the rude plenty of her father's house disgusted him; and thus it came to pass that he threw himself headlong into the first scheme that suggested itself.

He saw in a newspaper an advertisement of the "House and Lands of Ballintra," (pronounced as if written Ballintray), "in the County of W—, in Ireland, and within six miles of the town of E—"; and then followed a description of the fertility and beauty of the estate, the excellent dwelling-house, spacious gardens, etc.—all going a-begging, apparently, for a long lease was offered for thirty pounds a year; and there were sixty acres of land.

Guy Egerton, who shared in the very common delusion that every man is born a farmer, thought that this was the very thing for him. In order to be prudent, however, he wrote to the attorney who had advertised the place, to make a few inquiries, and heard that the reason for the lowness of the rent was, that the house required repairs, though it was quite habitable, and that the land was a little "out of heart,—" "whatever that may mean," thought Guy to himself—but that even as a sheep farm it was sure to prove a good investment to any one possessing a few hundred pounds to stock it.

Guy at once closed the bargain. He took his wife over to Ireland, and before he wrote the promised letter to Aymer, they had been some time settled in their new abode, and their eldest son had been born. Indeed, it was to ask his brother to be the child's godfather that he wrote at last: and he named the boy Aymer.

It has seemed to me necessary to sketch the early life of the father of my heroine—Clarice Egerton—that my readers may be prepared to make some allowance for him when they meet him again after the lapse of some years. This chapter is, therefore, merely introductory, and I hope I have not made it too long; but without it, I do not think I could have made my story clear and plain, without going back frequently to explain, which I wished to avoid.

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