by Grant Allen
But he married her — he married her. He did her no wrong in the end. He hadn’t that sin at least to lay to his conscience.
Ah, well, poor Lucy! he had really been fond of her; as fond as a Kelmscott of Tilgate could reasonably be expected ever to prove towards the daughter of a simple Dartmoor farmer. It began in flirtation, of course, as such things will begin; and it ended, as they will end, too, in love, at least on poor Lucy’s side, for what can you expect from a Kelmscott of Tilgate? And, indeed, indeed, he said to himself earnestly, he meant her no harm, though he seemed at times to be cruel to her. As soon as he gathered how deeply she was entangled — how seriously she took it all — how much she was in love with him — he tried hard to break it off, he tried hard to put matters to her in their proper light; he tried to show her that an officer and a gentleman, a Kelmscott of Tilgate, could never really have dreamed of marrying the half-educated, half-peasant daughter of a Devonshire farmer. Though, to be sure, she was a lady in her way, too, poor Lucy; as much of a lady in manner and in heart as Emily herself, whose father was an earl, and whose mother was a marquis’s eldest daughter.
So much a lady in her way, in deed, in thought, and all that — one of nature’s gentlewomen — that when Lucy cried and broke her heart at his halting explanations, he was unmanned by her sobs, and did a thing no Kelmscott of Tilgate should ever have stooped to do — yes, promised to marry her. Of course, he didn’t attempt in his own heart to justify that initial folly, as lie thought it, to himself. He didn’t pretend to condone it. He only allowed he had acted like a fool. A Kelmscott of Tilgate should have drawn back long before, or else, having gone so far, should have told the girl plainly — at whatever cost, to her — he could go no further and have no more to say to her.
To be sure, that would have killed the poor thing outright. But a Kelmscott, you know, should respect his order, and shouldn’t shrink for a moment from these trifling sacrifices!
However, his own heart was better, in those days, than his class philosophy. He couldn’t trample on poor Lucy Waring. So he made a fool of himself in the end — and married Lucy. Ah, well! ah, well! every man makes a fool of himself once or twice in his life; and though the Colonel was ashamed now of having so far bemeaned his order as to marry the girl, why, if the truth must out, he would have been more ashamed still, in his heart of hearts, even then, if he hadn’t married her. He was better than his creed. He could never have crushed her.
Married her, yes; but not publicly, of course. At least, he respected public decency. He married her under his own name, to be sure, but by special licence, and at a remote little village on the far side of the moor, where nobody knew either himself or Lucy. In those days, he hadn’t yet come into possession of the Tilgate estates; and if his father had known of it — well, the Admiral was such a despotic old man that he’d have insisted on his son’s selling out at once, and going off to Australia or heaven knows where, on a journey round the world, and breaking poor Lucy’s heart by his absence. Partly for her sake, the Colonel said to himself now in the silent night, and partly for his own, he had concealed the marriage — for the time being — from the Admiral.
And then came that horrible embroilment — oh, how well he remembered it. Ah me, ah me, it seemed but yesterday — when his father insisted he was to marry Lady Emily Croke, Lord Aldeburgh’s daughter; and he dared not marry her, of course, having a wife already, and he dared not tell his father, on the other hand, why he couldn’t marry her. It was a hateful time. He shrank from recalling it. He was keeping Lucy, then his own wedded wife, as Mrs. Waring, in small rooms in Plymouth; and yet he was running up to town now and again, on leave, as the gay young bachelor, the heir of Tilgate Park — and meeting Emily Croke at every party he went to in London — and braving the Admiral’s wrath by refusing to propose to her. What he would ever have done if Lucy had lived, he couldn’t imagine. But, there! Lucy DIDN’T live; so he was saved that bother. Poor child, it brought tears to his eyes even now to think of her. He brushed them furtively away, lest he should waken Lady Emily.
And yet it was a shock to him, the night Lucy died. Just then, he could hardly realize how lucky was the accident. He sat there by her side, the day the twins were born, to see her safely through her trouble; for he had always done his duty, after a fashion, by Lucy. When a girl of that class marries a gentleman, don’t you see, and consents, too, mind you, to marry him privately, she can’t expect to share much of her husband’s company. She can’t expect he should stultify himself by acknowledging her publicly before his own class. And, indeed, he always meant to acknowledge her in the end — after his father’s death, when there was no fear of the Admiral’s cutting off his allowance.
But how curiously events often turn out of themselves. The twins were born on a Friday morning, and by the Saturday night, poor Lucy was lying dead, a pale, sweet corpse, in her own little room, near the Hoe, at Plymouth. It was a happy release for him though he really loved her. But still, when a man’s fool enough to love a girl below his own station in life — the Colonel paused and broke off. It was twenty-seven years ago now, yet he really loved her. He couldn’t find it in his heart even then to indorse to the full the common philosophy of his own order.
So there he was left with the two boys on his hands, but free, if he liked, to marry Lady Emily. No reason on earth, of course, why he shouldn’t marry her now. So, naturally, he married her — after a fortnight’s interval. The Admiral was all smiles and paternal blessings at this sudden change of front on his son’s part. Why the dickens Harry hadn’t wanted to marry the girl before, to be sure he couldn’t conceive; hankering after some missy in the country, he supposed, that silly rot about what they call love, no doubt; but now that Harry had come to his senses at last, and taken the Earl’s lass, why, the Admiral was indulgence and munificence itself; the young people should have an ample allowance, and my daughter-in-law, Lady Emily, should live on the best that Tilgate and Chetwood could possibly afford her.
What would you have? the Colonel asked piteously, in the dead of night, of his own conscience. How else could he have acted? He said nothing. That was all, mind you, he declared to himself more than once in his own soul. He told no lies. He made no complications. While the Admiral lived, he brought up Lucy’s sons, quite privately, at Plymouth. And as soon as ever the Admiral died, he really and truly meant to acknowledge them.
But fathers never die — in entailed estates. The Admiral lived so long — quite, quite too long for Guy and Cyril. Granville was born, and grew to be a big boy, and was treated by everybody as the heir to Tilgate. And now the Colonel’s difficulties gathered thicker around him. At last, in the fulness of time, the Admiral died, and slept with his fathers, whose Elizabethan ruff’s were the honour and glory of the chancel at Tilgate; and then the day of reckoning was fairly upon him. How well he remembered that awful hour. He couldn’t, he couldn’t. He knew it was his duty to acknowledge his rightful sons and heirs, but he hadn’t the courage. Things had all altered so much.
Meanwhile, Guy and Cyril had gone to Charterhouse as nobody’s wards, and been brought up in the expectation of earning their own livelihood, so no wrong, he said casuistically, had been done to THEM, at any rate. And Granville had been brought up as the heir of Tilgate. Lady Emily naturally expected her son to succeed his father. He had gone too far to turn back at last. And yet —
And yet, in his own heart, disguise it as he might, he knew he was keeping his lawful sons out of their own in the end, and it was his duty to acknowledge them as the heirs of Tilgate.
CHAPTER XI.
A FAMILY JAR.
Hour after hour the unhappy man lay still as death on his bed and reasoned in vain with his accusing conscience. To be sure, he said to himself, no man was bound by the law of England to name his heir. It is for the eldest son himself to come forward and make his claim. If Guy and Cyril could prove their title to the Tilgate estates when he himself was dead, that was their private business. He wasn’
t bound to do anything special to make the way easy for them beforehand.
But still, when he saw them, his heart arose and smote him. His very class prejudices fought hard on their behalf. These men were gentlemen, the eldest sons of a Kelmscott of Tilgate — true Kelmscotts to the core — handsome, courtly, erect of bearing. Guy was the very image of the Kelmscott of Tilgate Park who bled for King Charles at Marston Moor; Cyril had the exact mien of Sir Rupert Kelmscott, Knight of Chetwood, the ablest of their race, whose portrait, by Kneller, hung in the great hall between his father; the Admiral, and his uncle, Sir Frederick. They had all the qualities the Colonel himself associated with the Kelmscott name. They were strong, brave, vigorous, able to hold their own against all comers. To leave them out in the cold was not only wrong — it was also, he felt in his heart of hearts, a treason to his order.
At last, after long watching, he fell asleep. But he slept uneasily. When he woke, it was with a start. He found himself murmuring to himself in his troubled sleep, “Break the entail, and settle a sum on the two that will quiet them.”
It was the only way left to prevent public scandal, and to save Lady Emily and his son Granville from a painful disclosure: while, at the same time, it would to some extent satisfy the claims of his conscience.
Compromise, compromise; there’s nothing like compromise. Colonel Kelmscott had always had by temperament a truly British love of compromise.
To carry out his plan, indeed, it would be necessary to break the entail twice; once formally, and once again really. He must begin by getting Granville’s consent to the proposed arrangement, so as to raise ready money with which to bribe the young men; and as soon as Granville’s consent was obtained, he must put it plainly to Guy and Cyril, as an anonymous benefactor, that if they would consent to accept a fixed sum in lieu of all contingencies, then the secret of their birth would be revealed to them at last, and they would be asked to break the entail on the estates as eldest sons of a gentleman of property.
It was a hard bargain; a very hard bargain; but then these boys would jump at it, no doubt; expecting nothing as they did, they’d certainly jump at it. It’s a great point, you see, to come in suddenly, when you expect nothing, to a nice lump sum of five or six thousand!
So much so, indeed, that the real difficulty, he thought, would rather lie in approaching Granville.
After breakfast that morning, however, he tapped his son on the shoulder as he was leaving the table, and said to him, in his distinctly business tone, “Granville, will you step with me into the library for ten minutes’ talk? There’s a small matter of the estate I desire to discuss with you.”
Granville looked back at him with a curiously amused air.
“Why, yes,” he said shortly. “It’s a very odd coincidence. But do you know, I was going this morning myself to ask for a chance of ten minutes’ talk with you.”
He rose, and followed his father into the oak-panelled library. The Colonel sat down on one of the uncomfortable library chairs, especially designed, with their knobs and excrescences, to prevent the bare possibility of serious study. Granville took a seat opposite him, across the formal oak table. Colonel Kelmscott paused; and cleared his throat nervously. Then, with military promptitude, he darted straight into the very thick of the fray.
“Granville,” he said abruptly, “I want to speak with you about a rather big affair. The fact of it is, I’m going to break the entail. I want to raise some money.”
The son gave a little start of surprise and amusement. “Why, this is very odd,” he exclaimed once more, in an astonished tone. “That’s just the precise thing I wanted to talk about with you.”
Colonel Kelmscott eyed him with an answering start.
“Not debts!” he said slowly. “My boy, my boy, this is bad. Not debts surely, Granville; I never suspected it.”
“Oh, dear no,” Granville answered frankly. “No debts, you may be sure. But I wanted to feel myself on a satisfactory basis — as to income and so forth: and I was prepared to pay for my freedom well. To tell you the truth outright, I want to marry.”
Colonel Kelmscott eyed him close with a very puzzled look. “Not Elma Clifford, my boy,” he said again quickly. “For of course, if it is her, Granville, I need hardly say—”
The young man cut him short with a hasty little laugh. “Elma Clifford,” he repeated, with some scorn in his musical voice, “Oh, dear no, not HER. If it had been her you may be sure there’d be no reason of any sort for breaking the entail. But the fact is this: I dislike allowances one way or the other. I want to feel once for all I’m my own master. I want to marry — not this girl or that, but whom ever I will. I don’t care to come to you with my hat in my hand, asking how much you’ll be kind enough to allow me if I venture to take Miss So-and-so or Miss What-you-may-call-it. And as I know you want money yourself for this new wing you’re thinking of, why, I’m prepared to break the entail at once, and sell whatever building land you think right and proper.”
The father held his breath. What on earth could this mean? “And who is the girl, Granville?” he asked, with unconcealed interest.
“You won’t care to hear,” his son answered carelessly.
Colonel Kelmscott looked across at him with a very red face. “Not some girl who’ll bring disgrace upon your mother, I hope?” he said, with a half-pang of remorse, remembering Lucy. “Not some young woman beneath your own station in life. For to that, you may be sure, I’ll never consent under any circumstances.”
Granville drew himself up proudly, with a haughty smile. He was a Kelmscott, too, as arrogant as the best of them.
“No, that’s not the difficulty,” he answered, looking rather amused than annoyed or frightened. “My tastes are NOT low. I hope I know better than to disgrace my family. The lady I want to marry, and for whose sake I wish you to make some arrangement beforehand is — don’t be surprised — well, Gwendoline Gildersleeve.”
“Gwendoline Gildersleeve,” his father echoed, astonished; for there was feud between the families, “That rascally, land-grabbing barrister’s daughter! Why, how on earth do you come to know anything of her, Granville? Nobody in Surrey ever had the impertinence yet to ask me or mine to meet the Gildersleeves anywhere, since that disgraceful behaviour of his about the boundary fences. And I didn’t suppose you’d ever even seen her.”
“Nobody in Surrey ever did ask me to meet her,” Granville answered somewhat curtly. “But you can’t expect every one in London society to keep watch over the quarrels of every country parish in provincial England! It wouldn’t be reasonable. I met Gwendoline, if you want to know, at the Bertrams’, in Berkeley Square, and she and I got on so well together that we’ve — well, we’ve met from time to time in the Park, since our return from town, and we think by this time we may consider ourselves informally engaged to one another.”
Colonel Kelmscott gazed at his son in a perfect access of indignant amazement. Gilbert Gildersleeve’s daughter! That rascally Q.C.’s! At any other moment such a proposal would have driven him forthwith into open hostilities. If Granville chose to marry a girl like that, why, Granville might have lived on what his father would allow him.
Just now, however, with this keen fit of remorse quite fresh upon his soul about poor Lucy’s sons, Colonel Kelmscott was almost disposed to accept the opening thus laid before him by Granville’s proposal.
So he temporized for awhile, nursing his chin with his hand, and then, after much discussion, yielded at last a conditional consent — conditional upon their mutual agreement as to the terms on which the entail was to be finally broken.
“And what sort of arrangement do you propose I should make for your personal maintenance, and this Gildersleeve girl’s household?” the Colonel asked at length, with a very red face, descending to details.
His son, without appearing to notice the implied slight to Gwendoline, named the terms that he thought would satisfy him.
“That’s a very stiff sum,” the master of Tilgate r
etorted; “but perhaps I could manage it; per — haps I could manage it. We must sell the Dowlands farm at once, that’s certain, and I must take the twelve thousand or so the land will fetch for my own use, absolutely and without restriction.”
“To build the new wing with?” the son put in, with a gesture of assent.
“To build the new wing with? Why, certainly not,” his father answered angrily. “Am I to bargain with my son what use I’m to make of my own property? Mark my words, I won’t submit to interference. To do precisely as I choose with, sir. To roll in if I like! To fling into the sea, if the fancy takes me!”
Granville Kelmscott stared hard at him. Twelve thousand pounds! What on earth could his father mean by this whim? he wondered. “Twelve thousand pounds is a very big sum to fling away from the estate without a question asked,” he retorted, growing hot “It seems to me, you too closely resemble our ancestors who came over from Holland. In matters of business, you know, the fault of the Dutch is giving too little and asking too much.”
His father glared at him. That’s the worst of this huckstering and higgling with your own flesh and blood. You have to put up with such intolerable insults. But he controlled himself, and continued. The longer he talked, however, the hotter and angrier he became by degrees. And what made him the hottest and angriest of all was the knowledge meanwhile that he was doing it every bit for Granville’s own sake; nay, more, that consideration for Granville alone had brought him originally into this peck of trouble.
