to India, Milly, or somewhere; but that was all a story, for he has turned up, just as usual. And what does he mean to do with himself? He has got some money now — your poor father’s will, Maud. Surely he doesn’t mean to go on lounging and smoking away his life among poachers, and prize-fighters, and worse people. He ought to go to Australia, like Thomas Swain, who, they say, is making a fortune — a great fortune — and coming home again. That’s what your brother Dudley should do, if he has either sense or spirit; but I suppose he won’t — too long abandoned to idleness and low company — and he’ll not have a shilling left in a year or two. Does he know, I wonder, that his father served a notice or something on Dr. Bryerly, telling him to pay sixteen hundred pounds of poor Austin’s legacy to him, and saying that he has paid debts of the young man, and holds his acknowledgments to that amount? He won’t have a guinea in a year if he stays here. I’d give fifty pounds he was in Van Diemen’s Land — not that I care for the cub, Milly, any more than you do; but I really don’t see any honest business he has in England.”
Milly gaped in a total puzzle as Lady Knollys rattled on.
“You know, Milly, you must not be talking about this when you go home to Bartram, because Silas would prevent your coming to me any more if he thought I spoke so freely; but I can’t help it: so you must promise to be more discreet than I. And I am told that all kinds of claims are about to be pressed against him, now that he is thought to have got some money; and he has been cutting down oak and selling the bark, Doctor Bryerly has been told, in that Windmill Wood; and he has kilns there for burning charcoal, and got a man from Lancashire who understands it — Hawk, or something like that.”
“Ay, Hawkes — Dickon Hawkes; that’s Pegtop, you know, Maud,” said Milly.
“Well, I dare say; but a man of very bad character, Dr. Bryerly says; and he has written to Mr. Danvers about it — for that is what they call waste, cutting down and selling the timber, and the oakbark, and burning the willows, and other trees that are turned into charcoal. It is all waste, and Dr. Bryerly is about to put a stop to it.”
“Has he got your carriage for you, Maud, and your horses?” asked Cousin Monica, suddenly.
“They have not come yet, but in a few weeks, Dudley says, positively ——”
Cousin Monica laughed a little and shook her head.
“Yes, Maud, the carriage and horses will always be coming in a few weeks, till the time is over; and meanwhile the old travelling chariot and post-horses will do very well;” and she laughed a little again.
“That’s why the stile’s pulled away at the paling, I suppose; and Beauty — Meg Hawkes, that is — is put there to stop us going through; for I often spied the smoke beyond the windmill,” observed Milly.
Cousin Monica listened with interest, and nodded silently,
I was very much shocked. It seemed to me quite incredible. I think Lady Knollys read my amazement and my exalted estimate of the heinousness of the procedure in my face, for she said —
“You know we can’t quite condemn Silas till we have heard what he has to say. He may have done it in ignorance; or, it is just possible, he may have the right.”
“Quite true. He may have the right to cut down trees at Bartram–Haugh. At all events, I am sure he thinks he has,” I echoed.
The fact was, that I would not avow to myself a suspicion of Uncle Silas. Any falsehood there opened an abyss beneath my feet into which I dared not look.
“And now, dear girls, good-night. You must be tired. We breakfast at a quarter past nine — not too early for you, I know.”
And so saying, she kissed us, smiling, and was gone.
I was so unpleasantly occupied, for some time after her departure, with the knaveries said to be practised among the dense cover of the Windmill Wood, that I did not immediately recollect that we had omitted to ask her any particulars about her guests.
“Who can Mary be?” asked Milly.
“Cousin Monica says she’s engaged to be married, and I think I heard the Doctor call her Lady Mary, and I intended asking her ever so much about her; but what she told us about cutting down the trees, and all that, quite put it out of my head. We shall have time enough to-morrow, however, to ask questions. I like her very much, I know.”
“And I think,” said Milly, “it is to Mr. Carysbroke she’s to be married.”
“Do you?” said I, remembering that he had sat beside her for more than a quarter of an hour after tea in very close and low-toned conversation; “and have you any particular reason?” I asked.
“Well, I heard her once or twice call him ‘dear,’ and she called him his Christian name, just like Lady Knollys did — Ilbury, I think — and I saw him gi’ her a sly kiss as she was going up-stairs.”
I laughed.
“Well, Milly,” I said, “I remarked something myself, I thought, like confidential relations; but if you really saw them kiss on the staircase, the question is pretty well settled.”
“Ay, lass.”
“You’re not to say lass.”
“Well, Maud, then. I did see them with the corner of my eye, and my back turned, when they did not think I could spy anything, as plain as I see you now.”
I laughed again; but I felt an odd pang — something of mortification — something of regret; but I smiled very gaily, as I stood before the glass, un-making my toilet preparatory to bed.
“Maud — Maud — fickle Maud! — What, Captain Oakley already superseded! and Mr. Carysbroke — oh! humiliation — engaged,” So I smiled on, very much vexed; and being afraid lest I had listened with too apparent an interest to this impostor, I sang a verse of a gay little chanson, and tried to think of Captain Oakley, who somehow had become rather silly.
Chapter 43.
News at Bartram Gate
MILLY AND I, thanks to our early Bartram hours, were first down next morning; and so soon as Cousin Monica appeared we attacked her.
“So Lady Mary is the fiancée of Mr. Carysbroke,” said I, very cleverly; “and I think it was very wicked of you to try and involve me in a flirtation with him yesterday.”
“And who told you that, pray?” asked Lady Knollys, with a pleasant little laugh.
“Milly and I discovered it, simple as we stand here,” I answered.
“But you did not flirt with Mr. Carysbroke, Maud, did you?” she asked.
“No, certainly not; but that was not your doing, wicked woman, but my discretion. And now that we know your secret, you must tell lus all about her, and all about him; and int the first place, what is her name — Lady Mary what?” I demanded.
“Who would have thought you so cunning? Two country misses — two little nuns from the cloisters of Bartram! Well, I suppose I must answer. It is vain trying to hide anything from you; but how on earth did you find it out?”
“We’ll tell you that presently, but you shall first tell us who she is,” I persisted.
“Well, that I will, of course, without compulsion. She is Lady Mary Carysbroke,” said Lady Knollys.
“A relation of Mr. Carysbroke’s,” I asserted.
“Yes, a relation; but who told you he was Mr. Carysbroke?” asked Cousin Monica.
“Milly told me, when we say him in the Windmill Wood.”
“And who told you, Milly?”
“It was L’Amour,” answered