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CHAPTER III
WHAT IS HONOUR?

‘Here is a bit of news for you,’ said Sir Edward Kenton, as, after a morning of work with his agent, both came in to the family luncheon.  ‘Mr. Burford tells me that the Northmoor title has descended on his agent, Morton.’

‘That stick!’ exclaimed George, the son and heir.

‘Not altogether a stick, Mr. Kenton,’ said the bald-headed gentlemanly agent.  ‘He is very worthy and industrious!’

Frederica Kenton and her brother looked at each other as if this character were not inconsistent with that of a stick.

‘Poor man!’ said their mother.  ‘Is it not a great misfortune to him?’

‘I should think him sensible and methodical,’ said Sir Edward.  ‘By the way, did you not tell me that it was his diligence that discovered the clause to which our success was owing in the Stockpen suit?’

‘Yes, Sir Edward, through his indefatigable diligence in reading over every document connected with the matter.  I take shame to myself,’ he added, smiling, ‘for it was in a letter that I had read and put aside, missing that passage.’

‘Then I am under great obligations to him?’ said Sir Edward.

‘I could also tell of what only came to my knowledge many years later, and not through himself, of attempts made to tamper with his integrity, and gain private information from him which he had steadily baffled.’

‘There must be much in him,’ said Lady Kenton, ‘if only he is not spoilt!’

‘I am afraid he is heavily weighted,’ said Mr. Burford.  ‘His brother’s widow and children are almost entirely dependent on him, more so, in my opinion, than he should have allowed.’

‘Exactly what I should expect from such a sheep,’ said George Kenton.

‘There is this advantage,’ said the lawyer, ‘it has prevented his marrying.’

‘At least that fatal step has been averted,’ said the lady, smiling.

‘But unluckily there is an entanglement, an endless engagement to a governess at Miss Lang’s.’

‘Oh,’ cried Freda, who once, during a long absence of the family abroad, had been disposed of at Miss Lang’s, ‘there was always a kind of whisper among us that Miss Marshall was engaged, though it was high treason to be supposed to know.’

‘Was that the one you called Creepmouse?’ asked her brother.

‘George, you should not bring up old misdeeds!  She was a harmless old thing.  I believe the tinies were very fond of her, but we elders had not much to do with her, only we used to think her horridly particular.’

‘Does that mean conscientious?’ asked her father.

‘Perhaps it does; and though I was rather a goose then, I really believe she was very kind, and did not want to be tiresome.’

‘A lady?’ asked her mother.

‘I suppose so, but she was so awfully quiet there was no knowing.’

‘Poor thing!’ observed Lady Kenton, in a tone of commiseration.

‘I think Morton told me that she was a clergy-orphan,’ said Mr. Burford, ‘and considered her as rather above him, for his father was a ruined farmer and horse-breeder, and I only took him into my office out of respect for his mother, though I never had a better bargain in my life.  Of course, however, this unlucky engagement cannot stand.’

‘Indeed!’ said the Baronet drily.  ‘Would you have him begin his career with an act of baseness?’

‘No—no, Sir Edward, I did not mean—’ said Mr. Burford, rather abashed; ‘but the lady might be worked on to resign her pretensions, since persistence might not be for the happiness of either party; and he really ought to marry a lady of fortune, say his cousin, Miss Morton, for I understand that the Northmoor property was never considerable.  The late Mr. Morton was very extravagant, and there are heavy burthens on the estate, by the settlement on his widow, Lady Adela, and on the late Lord’s daughter.  Miss Lang tells me likewise that Miss Marshall is full of doubts and scruples, and is almost persuaded that it is incumbent on her to drop the engagement at any cost to herself.  She is very conscientious!’

‘Poor thing!’ sighed more than one voice.

‘It is a serious question,’ continued the solicitor, ‘and I own that I think it would be better for both if she were induced to release him.’

‘Has she no relations of her own?’

‘None that I ever heard of.  She has always spent her holidays at Miss Lang’s.’

‘Well, Mr. Burford,’ exclaimed Freda, ‘I think you are frightfully cruel to my poor little Creep-mouse.’

‘Nay, Freda,’ said her mother; ‘all that Mr. Burford is considering is whether it would be for the happiness or welfare of either to be raised to a position for which she is not prepared.’

‘I thought you were on her side, mother.’

‘There are no sides, Freda,’ said her father reprovingly.  ‘The whole must rest with the persons chiefly concerned, and no one ought to interfere or influence them in either direction.’  Having thus rebuked Mr. Burford quite as much as his daughter, he added, ‘Where is Lord Northmoor now?’

‘He wrote to me from Northmoor after the funeral, Sir Edward, saying that he would return on Saturday.  Of course, though three months’ notice would be due, I should not expect it, as I told him at first; but he assures me that he will not leave me till my arrangements for supplying his place are complete, and he will assist me as usual.’

‘It is very proper of him,’ said Sir Edward.

‘It will be awkward in some ways,’ said Mr. Burford.  ‘Yet I do not know what I could otherwise have done, he had become so necessary to me.’

‘Stick or no stick,’ was the family comment of the Kentons, ‘there must be something in the man, if only his head is not turned.’

‘Which,’ observed Sir Edward, ‘is not possible to a stick with a real head, but only too easy to a sham one.’

CHAPTER IV
HONOURS WANING

‘And who is the man?’  So asked a lady in deep mourning of another still more becraped, as they sat together in the darkened room of a Northmoor house on the day before the funeral.

The speaker had her bonnet by her side, and showed a kindly, clever, middle-aged face.  She was Mrs. Bury, a widow, niece of the late Lord; the other was his daughter, Bertha Morton, a few years younger.  She was not tearful, but had dark rings round her eyes, and looked haggard and worn.

‘The man?  I never heard of him till this terrible loss of poor little Mikey.’

‘Then did he put in a claim?’

‘Oh no, but Hailes knew about him, and so, indeed, did my father.  It seems that three generations ago there was a son who followed the instincts of our race further than usual, and married a jockey’s daughter, or something of that sort.  He was set up in a horse-breeding farm and cut the connection; but it seems that there was always a sort of communication of family events, so that Hailes knew exactly where to look for an heir.’

‘Not a jockey!’

‘Oh no, nothing so diverting.  That would be fun!’ Bertha said, with a laugh that had no merriment in it.  ‘He is a clerk—an attorney’s clerk!  What do you think of that, Lettice?’

‘Better than the jockey.’

‘Oh, very respectable, they say’—with a sound of disgust.

‘Is he young?’

‘No; caught early, something might be done with him, but there’s not that hope.  He is not much less than forty.  Fancy a creature that has pettifogged, as an underling too, all his life.’

‘Married?’

‘Thank goodness, no, and all the mammas in London and in the country will be running after him.  Not that he will be any great catch, for of course he has nothing—and the poor place will be brought to a low ebb.’

‘And what do you mean to do, Birdie?’

‘Get out of sight of it all as fast as possible!  Forget that horses ever existed except as means of locomotion,’ and Bertha got up and walked towards the window as if restless with pain, then came back.

‘I shall get rid of all I can—and come to live as near as I can to Whitechapel, and slum!  I’m free now.’  Then looking at her cousin’s sorrowful, wistful face, ‘Work, work, work, that’s all that’s good for me.  Soberly, Lettice, this is my plan,’ she added, sitting down again.  ‘I know how it all is left.  This new man is to have enough to go on upon, so as not to be too beggarly and bring the title into contempt.  He is only coming for to-morrow, having to wind up his business; but I shall stay on till he comes back, and settle what to do with the things here.  Adela and I have our choice of them, and don’t want to leave the place too bare.  Then I shall sell the London house, and all the rest of the encumbrances, and set up for myself.’

‘Not with Adela?’

‘Oh no; Adela means to stick by the old place, and I couldn’t do that for a constancy—oh no,’ with a shudder.

‘Does she?’ in some wonder.

‘Her own people don’t want her.  The Arlingtons are with her now, but I fancy she would rather be sitting with us—or alone best of all, poor dear.  You see, she is a mixture of the angel that is too much for some people.  How she got it I don’t know, not among us, I should think, though she came to us straight out of the schoolroom, or I fancy she would never have come at all.  But oh, Lettice, if you could have seen her how patient she has been throughout with my father, reading him all about every race, just because she thought it was less gall and wormwood to her than to me, and going out to the stables to satisfy him about his dear Night Hawk, and all the rest of it.  When she was away for that fortnight over poor little Michael, I found to the full what she had been, and then after that, back she comes again, as white as a sheet, but all she ever was to my father, and more wonderful than all, setting herself to reconcile him to the notion of this new heir of his—and I do believe, if my father had not so suddenly grown worse, she would have made us have him up to be introduced—all out of rectitude and duty, you know, for Adela is the shyest of mortals, and recoils by nature from the underbred far more than we do.  In fact, I rather like it.  It gives me a sensation.  I had ten times rather this man were a common sailor, or a tinker, than just a stupid stick of a clerk!’

‘Then Adela means to stay at the Dower House?’

‘Yes, she has rooted herself there by all her love to her poor people, and I fancy, too, that she does not want to bring Amice up among all the Arlington children, who are not after her pattern, so she intends to bear the brunt of it, and not leave Northmoor, unless the new-comers turn out unbearable.’

‘She goes away with her brother now.’

‘Oh yes, she must, and Lord Arlington is fond of her in a way!  Can’t you stay on with me, Lettice?’

‘I wish I could, my dear Birdie, but I am anxious about Mary; I don’t think I must stay later than Sunday.’

‘Yes; you are too devoted a mother for me to absorb.  Never mind, you will be in London, and I shall soon be within reach of you.  You are a comfortable person, Lettice.’

CHAPTER V
THE PEER

Poor Miss Lang!  After all her care that her young pupils’ heads should not be turned by folly about marriage and noblemen, the very event she had always viewed as most absurdly improbable had really occurred, and it was impossible to keep it a secret; though Miss Marshall did her very best to appear as usual, heard lessons with her accustomed diligence, conducted the daily exercises, watched over the instructions by masters, and presided over the needlework.  But she grew whiter, more pinched, and her little face more mouse-like every day, and the elder girls whispered fancies about her.  ‘She had no doubt heard that Lord Northmoor had broken it off!’—‘A little poky attorney’s clerk, of course he would.’—‘Poor dear thing, she will go into a consumption!  Didn’t you hear her cough last night?’—‘And then we’ll all throw wreaths into her grave!’—‘Oh, that was only Elsie Harris!’—‘Nonsense, Mabel, I’m sure it was her, poor thing.  Prenez garde, la vieille Dragonne vient.’

That Lord Northmoor was to come back by the mail train was known, and Miss Lang had sent a polite note to invite him to afternoon tea on the Sunday.  The church to which he had been for many years devoted was a district one, and Miss Lang’s establishment had their places in the old parish church, so there was not much chance of meeting in the morning, though one pupil observed to another that ‘she should think him a beast if they did not meet him on the way to church.’

It is to be feared that she had to form this opinion, but on the other hand, by the early dinner-time, tidings pervaded the school that Lord Northmoor had been at St. Basil’s, and sung in his surplice just as if nothing had happened!  The more sensational party of girls further averred that he had been base enough to walk thither with Miss Burford, and that Miss Marshall had been crying all church time.  Whether this was true or not, it was certain that she ate scarcely any dinner, and that Miss Lang insisted on administering a glass of wine.

Moreover, when dinner was finally over, she quietly crept up to her own room, and resumed her church-going bonnet—a little black net, with a long-enduring bunch of violets.  Then she knelt down and entreated, ‘Oh, show me Thy will, and give me strength and judgment to do that which may be best for him, and may neither of us be beguiled by the world or by ambition.’

Then she peeped out to make sure that the coast was clear—not that she was not quite free to go where she pleased, but she dreaded eyes and titters—out at the door, to the corner of the lane where for many a Sunday afternoon there had been a quiet tryste and walk.  Her heart beat so as almost to choke her, and she hardly durst raise her eyes to see if the accustomed figure awaited her.  Was it the accustomed figure?  Her eyes dazzled so under her little holland parasol that she could hardly see, and though there was a movement towards her, she felt unable to look up till she heard the words, ‘Mary, at last!’ and felt the clasp of the hand.

‘Oh, Frank—I mean—’

‘You mean Frank, your own Frank; nothing else to you.’

‘Ought you?’  And as she murmured she looked up.  It was the same, but still a certain change was there, almost indescribable, but still to be felt, as if a line of toil and weariness had passed from the cheek.  The quiet gray eyes were brighter and more eager, the bearing as if ten years had been taken from the forty, and though Mary did not perceive the details, the dress showing that his mourning had not come from the country town tailor and outfitter, even the soft hat a very different article from that which was wont to replace the well-cherished tall one of Sunday mornings.

‘I had not much time,’ he said, ‘but I thought this would be of the most use,’ and he began clasping on her arm a gold bracelet with a tiny watch on it.  ‘I thought you would like best to keep our old ring.’

‘If—if I ought to keep it at all,’ she faltered.

‘Now, Mary, I will not have an afternoon spoilt by any folly of that sort,’ he said.

‘Is it folly?  Nay, listen.  Should you not get on far far better without such a poor little stupid thing as I am?’

‘I always thought I was the stupid one.’

‘You—but you are a man.’

‘So much the worse!’

‘Yes; but, Frank, don’t you see what I mean?  This thing has come to you, and you can’t help it, and you are descended from these people really; but it would be choice for me, and I could not bear to feel that you were ashamed of me.’

‘Never!’ he exclaimed.  ‘Look here, Mary.  What should I do without you to come back to and be at rest with?  All the time I was talking to those ladies and going through those fine rooms, I was thinking of the one comfort I should have when I have you all to myself.  See,’ he added, going over the arguments that he had no doubt prepared, ‘it is not as if you were like poor Emma.  You are a lady all over, and have always lived with ladies; and yet you are not too grand for me.  Think what you would leave me to—to be wretched by myself, or else—  I could never be at home with those high-bred folk.  I felt it every moment, though Miss Morton was very kind, and even wanted me to call her Birdie.  I did feel thankful I could tell her I was engaged.’

‘You did!’

‘Yes; and she was very kind, and said she was glad of it, and hoped soon to know you.’

‘Oh, Frank dear, I am sure no one ever was more really noble-hearted than you,’ she almost sobbed; ‘you know how I shall always feel it; but yet, but yet I can’t help thinking you ought to leave it a little more unsettled till you have looked about a little and seen whether I should be a very great disadvantage to you.’

‘Seen whether I could find such a dear, unselfish little woman, eh?  No, no, Mary, put all that out of your head.  We have not loved one another for twenty years for a trumpery title to come between us now!  And you need not fear being too well off for the position.  The agent, Hailes, has been continually apologising to me for the smallness of the means.  He says either we must have no house in London, or else let Northmoor.  He cannot tell me yet exactly what income we shall have, but the farms don’t let well, and there is not much ready money.’

‘Every one says you ought to marry a lady of fortune.’

‘My dear Mary, to what would you condemn me?  What sort of lady of fortune do you think would take an old stick like me for the sake of being my Lady?  I really shall begin to believe you are tired of it.’

‘Stick! oh no, no.  Staff, if’—and the manner in which she began to cling was answer full and complete; indeed, as she saw that her resistance had begun to hurt him as much as herself, she felt herself free to throw herself into the interests, and ask, ‘Is Northmoor a very nice place?’

‘Not so pretty as Cotes Kenton outside.  A great white house, with a portico for carriages to drive under, and not kept up very well, patches of plaster coming off; but there is a beautiful view over the woods, with a purple moor beyond.’

‘And inside?’

‘Well, rather dreary, waiting for you to make it homelike.  They have not lived there much for some time past.  Lady Adela has lived in the Dower House, and will continue there.’

‘Did you see much of them?’

‘Not Lady Adela.  Poor lady, she had her own relations with her.  She had not by any means recovered the loss of her little boy, and I can quite understand that it must have been too trying for her to see me in his place.  I understand from Hailes—’

‘Your Mr. Burford,’ said Mary, smiling.

‘That she is a very refined, rather exclusive and domestic lady, devoted to her little girl, and extremely kind to the poor.  Indeed, so is Miss Morton, but she prefers the London poor, and is altogether rather flighty, and what Hailes calls an unconventional young lady.  There was a very nice lady with her, Mrs. Bury, the daughter of a brother of the late Lord, a widow, and very kind and friendly.  Both were very good-natured, Miss Morton always acted hostess, and talked continually.’

‘About her father?’

‘Oh no, I do not think he had been a very affectionate father, and their habits and tastes had been very different.  Lady Adela seems to have latterly been more to him.  Miss Morton was chiefly concerned to advise me about politics and social questions, and how to deal with the estate and the tenants.’

He seemed somewhat to shudder at the recollection, and Mary certainly conceived a dread of the ladies of Northmoor.  It was further elicited that he meant to help Mr. Burford through all the work and arrangements consequent on his own succession, indeed, to remain at his post either till a successor was found, or the junior sufficiently indoctrinated to take the place.  Of course, as he said, six months’ notice was due, but Mr. Burford has waived this.  During this time he meant to go to see ‘poor Emma’ at Westhaven, but it was not an expedition he seemed much to relish, and he wished to defer it till he could definitely tell what it would be in his power to do for her and her children, for whose education he was really anxious, rejoicing that they were still young enough to be moulded.

Then came the tea at Miss Lang’s—a stately meal, when the two ladies were grand; Lord Northmoor became shy and frozen, monosyllabic, and only spasmodically able to utter; and Mary felt it in all her nerves and subsided into her smallest self, under the sense that nobody ever would do him justice.