Englefield Grange Part 10

"A schoolmaster's daughter!" repeated Lady Dora, "I did not know Dr.

Halford kept a school."

"He does, my dear," said Lady Rivers, gently, "but Dr. Halford and his wife are truly well-bred people, and their profession has never lessened the respect and kind interest with which both your father and grandfather have always treated them."

Lady Mary Woodville shrugged her shoulders; she had been a frequent visitor at her grandmother's, the Dowager Lady Rivers, and this lady's influence and opinions had fostered in the heart of Lady Mary her natural pride of birth, and a foolish contempt for those who had to work for their living.

"You have not much to boast of, Mary," said her brother, laughing, as he rose from his seat and approached the window, "if, as papa suggests, we are descended from the gipsies."

"What nonsense you talk, Robert!" replied his sister.

"Well, perhaps I ought to have addressed you, Dora, instead of Mary, for with your brown face and your flashing black eyes you are an out-and-out little gipsy;" but as the youth spoke, his glance of affection too plainly proved that the "little gipsy" was a favourite sister.

"I am like papa, Robert," she replied, good-naturedly.

"Of course you are, my dear," said Lady Rivers, "and he has nothing of the gipsy about him; but do not waste time in talking nonsense.--Robert, I thought you asked Dora to ride with you this morning, and the sooner you order the horses the better, for this bright April weather may not continue all day."

Lord Robert hastened to follow his mother's advice, while Lady Dora gladly escaped from the room to prepare for her ride.

This little peep into the domestic habits and manners of the family at Englefield will give our readers some idea of the pleasant home in which James Halford met his future wife, Clara Marston, in the years gone by.

The present Earl Rivers, who had been Dr. Halford's pupil for three years from the age of twenty-one, had reached his forty-fifth year at the time of which we write. Well might Lady Rivers a.s.sert that there was nothing of the gipsy in his appearance, in spite of the dark eyes and hair in which, as well as in features, his youngest daughter so strongly resembled him. Lord Rivers' tall, commanding figure, n.o.ble bearing, and marked features belonged to the cla.s.s which an Englishman designates aristocratic. Yet he had no proud a.s.sumption of superiority on this account. Although polished and refined, and a true English gentleman of the olden times, his manners were simple and un.o.btrusive; and now, as he rides his horse slowly through the park and along the road to the station, he recalls with pain the fact that he has neglected his friend Dr. Halford long enough for his little daughter f.a.n.n.y, whose marriage is in the _Times_, to grow to womanhood and become a bride.

"I will pay them a visit next week," was his decision at length, as he put his horse into a canter.

April had fulfilled its proverbial destiny. It had pa.s.sed away in "showers" and sunshine, leaving behind as its trophies the "May flowers"

which were to gladden the earth with their beauty and fragrance in this the first summer month of the year.

One morning, while Kate Marston was busy in one of the rooms overlooking the road, she saw a gentleman on horseback stop at the gate and alight.

She heard the peal of the gate bell, and then the question to the man-servant who answered it--

"Is Dr. Halford at home?"

The next moment the tall figure of a stranger to Kate approached the house, and she could hear the footsteps ascending the stairs to the drawing-room.

"Some gentleman about pupils," said Kate to herself, as she returned to her occupation. Yet she could not get rid of the idea that the visitor was not exactly of the same stamp as those who generally presented themselves at Englefield Grange.

Meanwhile Dr. Halford's man-servant had placed a card in his master's hand which made him rise hastily from his desk, leave the schoolroom to the care of the a.s.sistants, and hasten upstairs to welcome his visitor.

As the two gentlemen shook hands, so many recollections of the past thronged to their memories that neither for a moment could utter a word.

Lord Rivers recovered himself first.

"Doctor," he said, the old familiar t.i.tle coming naturally to his lips, "I am positively ashamed to meet you again after so many years of neglect, but here I am at last, to plead for myself, and ask you and your wife to forgive me."

"Lord Rivers," replied Dr. Halford, "there is nothing to forgive. I know too well what the demands upon the time of a man in your position must be, and my old pupil will always be welcome at Englefield Grange;" and as the gentleman spoke he placed a chair for his visitor and begged him to be seated.

"And this is the house you have named after Englefield," said the earl.

"Well, it is a charming spot; and what a splendid prospect from that window!" he added, rising and approaching to obtain a more extended view. "I feel myself honoured by your choice of a name for such a residence."

"It can scarcely be called an honour," said the doctor, "but this house is a great improvement upon the one at Bayswater; do you remember it, Lord Rivers?"

"Indeed I do, to my regret. My last visit there must be nearly ten years ago, and that reminds me--I will make my confession at once--I saw in the _Times_ of last week a notice of the marriage of your only daughter.

I suppose the little f.a.n.n.y I met at my last visit. The name of Englefield Grange attracted my youngest daughter's notice, and when she pointed it out to me I felt inclined to say, like the chief butler in Pharaoh's court, 'I do remember my faults this day.'"

"My dear Lord Rivers," began Dr. Halford, but the visitor stopped him.

"I will not say another word on the subject, doctor. And now tell me all about your daughter; whom she has married, and how many sons you have.

And one question I should have asked first--how is Mrs. Halford? I must not go away without seeing her."

Dr. Halford was at this time fourteen years younger than on the day when Mrs. Armstrong called upon him to arrange about her little boy; a man still in the prime of life, scarcely ten years older than his late pupil, yet the parting with his only daughter had sprinkled the first grey streaks in his dark hair, and already aged him in appearance. Lord Rivers had brought to his memory the occasion to which his lordship had referred. On that last visit at Bayswater, f.a.n.n.y, the eldest, had not been the _only_ girl: his family consisted then of five children; four of these he had lost during a few succeeding years, and of the two boys born since, his son Henry alone survived.

The bereaved father felt that while the loss of his daughter f.a.n.n.y was such a recent event he must nerve himself before he could call up old memories to enlighten his kind visitor.

Lord Rivers, he knew, was actuated by the kindest interest in questioning him on the past, and the earl's present ideas about f.a.n.n.y's marriage were formed on the supposition that it was a matter for congratulation, and a time of joyful hopes. All this was evident to Dr.

Halford, and he gladly seized upon the opportunity offered by the mention of Mrs. Halford's name to say--

"Lord Rivers, you will stay and lunch with us in our plain simple way; you must not refuse, indeed you must not, for the sake of olden times,"

he added quickly, as he noticed a look of hesitation in his friend's face.

"I do not mean to refuse," said his lordship, "but I was thinking about the horses and my groom; if he could be told to take them to the inn for an hour or so, and get provender for them and himself, I will gladly remain with you to lunch."

Glad of an excuse to leave the room and tell Mrs. Halford of the arrival, Dr. Halford, with a hasty apology and a promise to send the order of Lord Rivers to the groom, left the gentleman to himself.

But Mrs. Halford, the Clara Marston of olden times, was more calm and self-possessed in cases of emergency than her erudite husband. She had heard from Kate of the arrival of a gentleman on horseback, and from Thomas the name on the card.

Giving orders at once for lunch to be prepared in the private dining-room, she made some trifling addition to her dress, and waited for a summons from her husband.

As he left the drawing-room she met him on the stairs.

"Lord Rivers is here, Clara," was his flurried remark.

"I know it, my dear; everything is ready. Whither are you going?"

"To send Thomas out to the groom about the horses. You go up to the visitor; he is going to lunch with us."

"Do not be long," she said, as she continued her way upstairs and entered the room.

Lord Rivers started forward with pleasure to receive her, and in a very few minutes they were talking eagerly of old times at Englefield, when the earl, then Lord Woodville, a youth in his teens, had been sometimes a troublesome intruder on the school hours or music and drawing lessons of his two young sisters, Miss Marston's pupils.

Presently Dr. Halford joined them; he was more able to touch upon family sorrows with his wife for an ally, and a great amount of the sad part of the details was got over before the summons to lunch.

In one point, however, Lord Rivers did some real good.

Dr. Halford was expressing a kind of mournful regret that his daughter's marriage should take her so far away from home, when Lord Rivers interrupted him.

"My dear doctor, you are not keeping pace with the times. In the present day a voyage to Australia is not more distant as regards time than America or even the Mediterranean in years gone by. And the wonderful facility of communication by post unites friends personally separated by thousands of miles as closely in these days of rapid travelling as those who a hundred years ago merely occupied different parts of our own little island."

"Very true," replied Dr. Halford, "yet, still----" and he paused.