CHAPTER VIII.

EGERTON HIGHFIELD AGAIN.

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LET us pay another visit, this fine June weather, to the terrace at Egerton Highfield, and see who walks there now, and how that amiable old gentleman, Sir Aymer, is getting on.

It is evening—at least, it is six o'clock, but the sun is still high in the heavens, and the west terrace lies bathed in a glow of warmth and light.

A lady is walking there alone—a small, delicate-looking woman dressed in black, with wonderful cobwebby old lace round her slender throat and wrists, and covering her still dark hair. She wears no speck of colour to relieve the blackness of her rich silk gown or the whiteness of her plain, but pleasant face. This is Lady Anne Egerton, the widow of Sir Aymer's eldest son, and the mother of the heir of Egerton Highfield. She had been a very happy woman during her husband's life, but his death had left her entirely dependent upon Sir Aymer (for she had no fortune of her own); and that her lot thenceforth was not a pleasant one, I think I need scarcely tell you.

She had but one child, a boy, who was about a year older than his unknown cousin Guy. She had had elder children, but they had all died in infancy. Her son, who was named Villiers, was a fine boy, and as like my poor Guy at Ballintra as if they had been twin-brothers; which of course implies that he was very like what his uncle Guy had been at that age; and Sir Aymer's doubtful affection for his heir was not increased by this likeness. Sir Aymer had loved his son Guy as much as a selfish, tyrannical man can be said to love any one; and the very pain it had given him to cast him out of his heart made it disagreeable to be reminded of him perpetually.

Villiers Egerton was a spirited lad, full of promise, clever, manly and affectionate; but it must be confessed that he chafed sorely against his grandfather's unloving despotism. He had now just left Eton, and wanted very much to go at once to college, but Sir Aymer forbad it, saying that he was too young. Then Villiers asked leave to travel, but Sir Aymer would not hear of that, though Lady Anne proposed to go with her son. He desired the boy (as he always called Villiers, to his secret wrath) to remain quietly at home, until it was, in his opinion, time for him to go to Oxford. Against this long residence under the same roof with his grandfather, Villiers chafed sadly, and Lady Anne's gentle face was clouded by anxiety, for every day she feared that an actual quarrel would take place between these two.

Suddenly the concealed door which I have before described, swung open, and Villiers came out, looking flushed and harassed. He had a letter in his hand, and was dressed as if for riding.

"Why, my boy, I thought you were miles away by this time! What has delayed you?"

"I shall not go at all, mamma. Sir Aymer had desired them not to take out any horse to-day without going to him about it!"

"Now, I wonder why?"

"Oh, for no reason, mamma dear, but because he wants to force me to ask leave when I go out to ride. I won't do that—so I shall give up the idea of riding for the present. It would only lead to words, for then he wants to know exactly where I am going; and if I change my mind, and go somewhere else, he suspects a hundred bad reasons for it. But look here, mamma, I have just had a letter from Eustace," (one of Lady Anne's nephews, who had left Eton a little time before Villiers), "and he and one or two others are going for a walking tour in Ireland. They mean to go to the Lakes of Killarney first, and then to the Giant's Causeway, and afterwards to Connemara; and they want me to go with them."

"And you want to go!" she answered, with a sigh. "I don't wonder at it, dear boy; but I do wonder sometimes if I shall ever see you for a month or so, quietly."

"Dear mother, I would do anything to make you happy—you know I would; but I don't think my presence here adds to your comfort. I know you are in a continual fright; and I don't wonder at it. Sir Aymer is really intolerable sometimes. I quite long to fling something at his head as he sits there, thinking of something unpleasant to say. If I were older, I suppose he would not be so bad; but that half-hour after dinner, when you are not there, is more than I can bear!"

"It is all bad enough," Lady Anne said, with a sigh. She had borne it patiently, for Villiers' sake, for many a year; and now he could not bear it, for her sake, for a few months!

"It is indeed! I don't know how you bear it; but positively, mamma, I can't! Last night, as soon as we were alone, he began to cross-examine me as to where I had been, and what I had been doing all day. I told him that I had been riding, and met Mr. Lowther and his daughters, who asked me to go home with them to lunch and play croquet, which I very gladly did; and, said I, 'Miss Gertrude Lowther is a very pretty girl.'

"Well, upon that, he burst forth in his best big bow-wow style—the Lowthers are not fit companions for me—Mr. Lowther is only an iron-master—the girls designing flirts, every one of them; and finally, he was sorry to see that I had a taste for low company. I assured him that the Miss Lowthers are very nice girls, highly educated; upon which he remarked that patches of gilding only draw attention to the coarse grain of the wood! Did you ever hear such nonsense? Finally he said I must never go to Heather Hill again, and must cut the girls at once; which I simply refused to do."

"Did he say anything more?"

"Oh yes! A heap of nonsense about liking low company and marrying beneath me! As if at eighteen I was thinking of marrying any one."

"Oh dear! I wish he had not got that idea into his head. Yet you must be patient, Villiers, with your grandfather. He has had one terrible disappointment; and you see, unfortunately, you remind him of it constantly."

"I'm almost inclined to be glad of that," said Villiers, with a gay laugh. "It's only fair that I should aggravate him, when he aggravates me so much. But how do I manage it, mamma? Tell me, that I may enjoy the fun."

"The fun! You wicked boy, it is no fun!" said Lady Anne, glancing round as if half afraid to speak, lest some one should overbear her. "Shut that door, my dear."

Then, as she walked down the terrace with her boy at her side, she said in a low voice, "Did you ever hear of your uncle Guy?"

"My uncle? No, certainly I never did. An Egerton or a Villiers uncle? Egerton, I suppose; for now I remember Rowe, the old keeper, who is pensioned off, you know, telling me I was the image of Mr. Guy; but I thought he was speaking of a brother of Sir Aymer. Rowe is so old, you know."

"Sir Aymer never had a brother. It was, no doubt, your uncle of whom Rowe spoke, for you really are as like him as ever you can be. But you must never speak of him, Villiers, remember that, nor let Sir Aymer know that I have done so."

"But tell me why? Of course I shall not speak of him, but you have filled me with curiosity."

"I will tell you about him, for perhaps it may help you to have patience with your grandfather when he lectures you on the subject of low marriages. Guy was the younger son, and his father's favourite. There was a sister too, poor Clarice—such a lovely creature! She and I were great friends. I knew them all from childhood. Guy was very clever, quite a genius, we used to think. Clarice was killed by a fall from her horse, and Guy was so ill from the shock, that he was sent abroad; and he would not come home again, though Sir Aymer was very angry about it. I rather think he must have had some difference with Sir Aymer before he went."

"I can quite believe that," put in Villiers.

"But I never knew for certain. He wrote accounts of curious antiquities and other things, for scientific journals, and he published a small volume of poems. I have been told that they are very fine, but I don't understand a word of them. I believe he spoke every language that ever was heard of. At last he came home, and then it was discovered that he was married."

"Well—and was it a low marriage?"

"My dear! She was the daughter of a man who kept a small inn, or public-house, in a wild, out of the way part of Germany."

"Oh, jolly! Oh, delicious!" laughed Villiers. "What would I not have given to see Sir Aymer's face!"

"You wicked boy! It was no joking matter, I can tell you. He turned poor Guy out of the house at once, and never has he spoken his name from that day."

"And what became of him?"

"He may be dead, for what I know; but he was alive when your dear father died, for he wrote to me, poor fellow! I have fancied once or twice since then, that he has written to his father, for Sir Aymer got a letter one day which put him into a terrible state of excitement, and he tore it in two without opening it, put it in a cover, and sent it back, but I did not see the address."

"Then you don't know where he lives?" asked Villiers.

"I am not even sure that he is still alive," was his mother's answer. She was not going to say that, if alive, Guy Egerton was in Ireland, when there was a chance of Villiers going thither.

"What an old Turk Sir Aymer is!" said Villiers, presently.

"Well, but my dear, the marriage was a very great mistake, to call it by no harsher name. Your father was under the impression that Guy had been in some way taken in, for he did not seem very fond of her, and he said she could neither read nor write."

Which was exactly the reverse of what Guy had said; but Lady Anne really believed that she was speaking the truth.

"But, for pity's sake, why should Sir Aymer conclude that because his son made a fool of himself, I should do the same? There never was any one less fond of low company than I am; and as to marrying beneath me, why, I am not that kind of fellow in the least," said Villiers drawing up his slight person, and looking very dignified.

Lady Anne turned away to conceal a smile.

"You are so like poor Guy that you never allow your grandfather to forget him, my love. Do try to have a little patience with him."

"Mamma, believe me, I shall have more patience with him when I am walking over Ireland with Eustace and all those fellows, than when—I say, here he comes! Now, I'll ask his leave; and do you back me up, like the very best and dearest mother that ever was."

"No, no!" said Lady Anne, hastily. "If it must be, let me manage it. Go into the house before he sees you, change your dress, and come back; bring your drawing things, and that unfinished sketch of the west front: go, now, if you want me to help you."

Villiers fled by the door through which he had appeared, and hastened to obey his mother's mysterious directions, wondering much what they might mean.

Sir Aymer came up the terrace stops and joined his daughter-in-law.

"Out still, Lady Anne?"

"Yes, it is such a lovely afternoon. I had a letter from my brother this morning, Sir Aymer. He wants Villiers to go to Deepdale for a time, and I should like him to go, if you don't mind. I wish him to know and to be liked by my own people."

If Lady Anne had really wished her son to go to Deepdale, she would never have made that speech. In fact, it looked rather as if she wished to provoke the old gentleman.

Sir Aymer fell into the trap, if trap it were, at once.

"I do not wish my heir to be made a Radical, Lady Anne! The Egertons have been Conservatives ever since—well, for many generations; and your brother is enough to corrupt any lad, particularly one who, like Villiers, has not an ounce of brains."

"I do not think his Eton course shows any lack of brains," Lady Anne replied, quietly, and then went on to urge several reasons why Villiers should go to Deepdale; among others, his intimacy with the Miss Lowthers.

The argument was still going on, when Villiers appeared, carrying a half-finished drawing, a box of water-colours, and a camp-stool; also he had a cigar in his mouth, and was attired in a loose kind of blouse, very suitable for painting in, if not very ornamental.

"And where may you be going, young gentleman?" asked Sir Aymer.

Villiers glanced at his mother for directions.

"Oh, are you going to colour that sketch?" she said. "Well, you won't have much time now, dear, so we will not delay you."

So, of course, Sir Aymer delayed him as long as he could. I would not venture to suggest a comparison between Sir Aymer Egerton and Paddy's celebrated pig on the road to Cork, so I will merely say that a long course of petty tyranny had taught Lady Anne the art of getting what she wanted by indirect means to perfection. She was not by nature an insincere woman, but she was weak, and when you bully a weak person continually, you drive them into crooked ways.

"Show me that drawing," said Sir Aymer. "Ha! Not bad, I dare say. If you were some penniless lad looking out for a livelihood, I dare say you could make something of your drawing; being what you are, it is simply so much time wasted."

[Illustration: VILLIERS APPEARED, CARRYING A HALF-FINISHED DRAWING.]

"Is this the drawing you promised to Miss Lowther?" asked Lady Anne.

"Yes," Villiers answered, unwillingly; and privately added, "You are making a mull, little lady."

Lady Anne went on without attending to his looks.

"You naughty boy! Answering your poor little mother so shortly, and all because I would not hear of you going tiring yourself to death with Eustace and all those men. Only fancy, Sir Aymer, this overgrown boy of mine wanting to set out on a walking tour with Eustace—my nephew, you know—in Ireland; as if Villiers were fit for such a trying performance!"

"He is as fit for it as any lad of his years," said Sir Aymer; "and it would be a great deal better for him than playing croquet with one Miss Lowther, and doing paintings for another; ay, or listening to Lord Villiers talking rank revolutionism every day after dinner. Go, by all means, boy; I'll give you a cheque—By the way, though, what part of Ireland are they going to?"

"Dublin," Villiers answered with alacrity, "and by train to Cork; walk to Killarney, back to Dublin, and by train to the north; walk to the Giant's Causeway, and finish by doing Connemara, if time and money permit."

"They shall permit in your case," said Sir Aymer. "Write and accept, and stay as long as you like. Dublin, Killarney, the Causeway, Connemara; yes, no danger. Lady Anne, you don't seem to be pleased, but you cannot tie a lad to your apron-strings all his life!"

"Yet I may be excused for wishing to see something of my only child, Sir Aymer. Now, if he went to Deepdale, I could go also."

Sir Aymer smiled, and walked away without answering. The gate of Cork (supposing Cork to have a gate) closed behind the deluded pig. Pig-driving is tiring work.

"There, Villiers, I have managed it for you. Oh, dear, how weary I am of it all!"

"Managed it for me, mamma! Why, you fought hard on the other side; I declare I thought it was all up with me!"

"Oh, go away, you literal-minded boy! I am going in to get some tea. An engagement with Sir Aymer tires me to death."

In a few days Villiers set out for Dublin, where he was to meet his cousin and the rest of the walking party.

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