“MY mistress, sir, is too poorly to see anyone.”
“Do you know who I am?” said Ralph.
He stood swelling out his big chest in front of the polite imperturbable figure in black, which made the bushman’s large check still more emphatic.
“Well, sir,” said Saunders, with a deprecating smile, “I am sorry to say as I did not catch the name.”
“I am her brother, you fool,” said Ralph. “Go back and say that it’s her brother, and I must see her before I go. What do you stand there for, gaping? Go back and tell her I can’t go without seeing her. Don’t you hear?”
“I hear very well, sir,” said Saunders, “but I make no doubt, sir, my mistress knew who you was, though I didn’t quite catch the name.”
“Where’s Mr. Parke?” said Ralph.
“He has gone out, sir, with the other gentlemen. I understand his lordship is expected this evening,” said Mr. Saunders, with the importance such an intimation deserved.
“And who’s his lordship?” thundered Ralph.
“His lordship, sir, is master’s brother, Viscount Frogmore. He is an old gentleman, and we’re the heir presumptive in this house.”
Ralph was considerably struck by this intimation, which had not affected him when Mary conveyed the news. An old viscount to whom his sister was heir presumptive must be an important person. He was not very learned in, or else he had forgotten the terms and conditions of English rank. He had heard indeed that Tisch had made a great marriage, but not much more about it, and indeed it had sincerely been more a natural desire to see his sister than any hope of allying himself to the exalted personages to whom she belonged which had moved the ranchman. He stood stroking down his big hand in all the majesty of his large checks and burly person, but with a look of great perplexity on his countenance. What should he do? As a matter of fact his irruption into the drawing-room on the night before, and the sudden sight of Tisch in all her glory, had startled him greatly. His confusion had turned into noise and bravado, as confusion and a sense of inappropriateness often do. And then he had been excited and his head turned by the attention his odd stories had received and the civility of the gentlemen who drew him out. Altogether there had been a whirl of events, which, in conjunction with the case of bottles in the smoking-room, and other potations which had led the way, had dazed Ralph. But now he came to himself. He realized that he was not wanted, with an acuteness which wounded the poor fellow more than such a rash personage could be supposed to be capable of being wounded. He stood and stared at the butler, while this process was going on in his mind. He was very nearly taking that functionary into his confidence, telling him what a trick Letitia had played him, and what a strange reception this was for a man newly come home. He ended his musing, however, by a sudden burst of his big laughter in the face of Saunders.
“Don’t stand and stare like a stuck pig,” he said, “but go and order the dogcart, or whatever you’ve got—for I’m going off. You didn’t suppose I’d stay when I’m not wanted, did you? You’re used to sending fellows off when they’re not wanted—ain’t you, old Tuppeny,” he added, giving Saunders a poke in his ribs.
The laughter and the roughness which made Saunders think Missis’ brother an affable, if not very fine gentleman, were both the product of the confusion in Ralph’s mind, rather than of any desire to expend high spirits in a joke. He took out a sovereign from his pocket and twanged it through the air into the astonished butler’s palm, which somehow, surprised though Saunders was, found itself open to receive the unimportant gift. Ralph intended to show his solemn antagonist that a man who would toss about sovereigns like that was not a man who was in want of anything from Mrs. Parke. But it is doubtful how far he succeeded. Saunders had a profound acquaintance with the ways of men about the world, and his judgment was not that it was rich men who throw their sovereigns about. But he did not in the least object to have pieces of gold flung at him, and, indeed, liked the sound of them twanging through the air.
Ralph, however, was in no hurry to go. He watched the footman strapping up his much-used portmanteau, and intimated that he thought he might as well have some lunch before he left: and he went out and displayed himself in front of the house, making a promenade up and down with his chest thrown well out, and his big footsteps making the gravel fly. He was not aware that Letitia watched him from her window, but he hoped as much, and that it was gall to her to see him in the way of every visitor who might arrive. The first who arrived, indeed, was no visitor, but the representative of the house in the person of Master Marmaduke, a little fellow of five, dressed in one of those childish suits which makes a child look as if it had gone to seed in the upper parts of its person, and was supported by the most incomplete thin stalks below. He was not so firmly planted upon his little legs as he ought to have been, but his shoulders had thus the air of being broad and strong. He returned from his walk with his nurse, while Ralph was taking this little stroll in preparation for the luncheon, which was being prepared for him in the dining-room. Little Duke went up to the intruder, whom he had not seen, with the air of the master of the house, seven times doubled in dignity and consequence. “Were you wanting anything here?” he asked, as if he had been his own father; but John Parke never filled the role so well.
“Oh, Master Duke,” said the nurse, dismayed, “the gentleman is staying in the house!”
Duke surveyed the bushman from head to foot with a child’s disapproval of a type unknown.
“Hold your tongue,” he said, “and let me alone. He’s not staying in the house! Why, I’ve never seen him till this moment, and he’s not like anybody I know.”
“What’s your name, little man?” said Ralph. “Come here and shake hands, and I’ll give you a bit of Australian gold, my boy, to know your uncle by.”
Duke planted his thin little legs very wide apart and stared. He liked the idea of that bit of gold without any special certainty as to what it was, but he did not approach too close to a man whose appearance did not satisfy his perceptions. “I don’t know you,” he said, “I don’t know you a bit. I never saw any one the least like you. Do you mean that you’re my uncle? What are bits of Australian gold like?”
“They are very much like sovereigns,” said Ralph.
Duke’s legs involuntarily brought him a little nearer. “You are not like the rest of the gentlemen,” said Duke. “You are very queerly dressed. I don’t think you can be my uncle. But I should like to see the Australian gold.”
Australian was a big mouthful for such a small boy. He got over it in syllables and with an effort.
“Look here,” said Ralph, repeating the manœuvre which he had tried with Saunders. Only he twanged the sovereign into the air with his thumb and caught it this time in the palm of his own hand. Duke watched the coin with the greatest interest and drew near to look at it, but did not put forth his own little hand.
“It’s just money,” he said, in a tone of half disappointment, half contempt. Then he added, “Should I have that to spend if—if you gave it me, you know.”
“Oh yes, you should have it to spend. You shall have it when you come and shake hands with your uncle,” said Ralph.
The boy came nearer. Then paused again and said, “I’m sure you can’t be Lord Frogmore.”
“Why not?” said Ralph, with his big laugh.
Duke looked at him critically and seriously, “Because you don’t look like a——, because I don’t think you’re a——.” What he wanted to say was that his new acquaintance was not a gentleman. Duke thought he was like the keepers. One of the grooms in his Sunday clothes had very much the air of this strange person who caught the sovereign in his hand in that clever way. But little Duke did not like to suggest, looking up into a big man’s face, that he was not a gentleman. So he stopped and stared, almost forgetting the Australian gold in this perplexity which was an experience not at all familiar to him.
“Not like a lord?” said Ralph. “How do you know? I don’t suppose you know many lords, do you, little man? I might be a duke for aught you know.”
The little boy stared again less assured. He had not been used to think of lords as a different species, but he had never known a duke. It was well within the limits of possibility that a duke might be like a gamekeeper. The species was unknown to little Marmaduke Parke.
“Are you a duke?” he asked with much seriousness and eyes very keen and sharp in the study of the new species. Ralph burst into a big laugh.
“No,” he said, “my little man, but I’m your uncle. Not Lord Frogmore, but one of the other side. I’m your Uncle Ralph. Come and shake hands.”
Duke advanced slowly as it were under protest, and at last ventured to place a little soft hand in the comparatively monstrous palm of Ralph, who squeezed the sovereign into it with such energy that the little boy cried out, and unaccustomed to such gratuities let the coin drop upon the path. But Duke picked it up with a practical sense which did him credit, and turned it over with eyes in which awe and eagerness were combined. He recognized the Queen’s head—but there was something about it which struck him as unusual. Unfortunately he could not yet read. He began to spell A—u—s——
“That’s Australia,” cried the newly-recognized uncle.
Duke, somewhat suspicious, handed the coin to nurse. “Oh, Master Duke, how can you?” cried that anxious woman. “A beautiful sovereign; and you’ve never thanked the kind gentleman. I don’t know, sir,” she said, curtseying to Ralph, “if his mamma would let him take it, for my mistress is very particular—but——”
“Not take it from his uncle?” roared Ralph.
The discussion was interrupted by the sound of a step upon the gravel which made them all look round. The new-comer was an old gentleman with snow-white hair, but a ruddy wholesome complexion and the round ripe face which reminds one of a winter apple. “Frosty but kindly” was the look of the small twinkling eyes, the carefully trimmed-whisker, the smoothly-shaven chin and upper lip. The old gentleman was of short stature compared with Ralph: his neatness, his perfect cleanness, his well-brushed, well-dressed, carefully preserved look, all showing to greater advantage beside the big figure of the bushman in his big checks. He walked with great activity and alertness—like a young man, people said—but there was indeed a special energy almost demonstrative in his activity which betrayed the fact that it was something of a wonder that he should be active. He flourished his stick perhaps a little to make it apparent that he had no need of it. He eyed the group very curiously as he walked past them to the door—and then it was that he heard Ralph’s cry, “Not from his uncle?” At the sound of those words he turned round quickly and came back.
“Eh,” he said, “his uncle? Who is this little fellow, my good woman? Marmaduke Parke? Then, my boy, I’m your uncle too.”
Duke looked at this new claimant without the hesitation which he had shown to Ralph. There was no doubt on the most superficial examination that this was a gentleman. He took off his little hat and held out his little hand.
“How do you do?” said the little boy. “Mamma is poorly and papa is out, and I’m just come back from my walk: but if you will come in, please, Saunders will know what to do.”
When Ralph gave vent to the great roar of a laugh which seemed to make a sort of storm in the air above the heads at once of Lord Frogmore and of little Marmaduke, there was more than merriment in that outburst. The bushman felt the distinction which the little boy had made, though it was only a very little boy that had made it. He assumed an additional swagger in consequence. “I’m on the other side, my lord,” he said, “for I presume you’re Lord Frogmore. I’m Ralph Ravelstone, the brother of the missus—but we’re on different tacks, you and me. She aint at all proud of her brother, I’m sorry to say, though I want nothing from them—not a brass farthing. So I’m clearing out of the way.”
“Ah!” said Lord Frogmore. He added after a moment, “You will not, of course, expect me to interfere—people know their own concerns best.”
“Interfere!” said Ralph. “I never thought of that. Tisch knows her own mind, and there’s nobody I ever heard of could make her change it. Oh, I’m going. It’s not good enough to hang on here in a bit of a country place like this, for anything I’ll get from Tisch. Besides I want nothing from them. I’ve just come from the bush with dollars enough once in a way. I came out of kindness. If she don’t want me I can do without her, and that’s all I’ve got to say.”
To this Lord Frogmore made no reply, save by bowing his head politely, as to a conclusion of which he might approve indeed, but which left nothing to be said. But Ralph stood swaying his big person about, not knowing how to get himself off the scene—and indeed with a sentiment of elation in the unexpected and unaccustomed felicity of talking to a lord.
“You see, my lord,” he said, “through her,” and he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, “we are a kind of connections, you and me.”
“Oh!” said Lord Frogmore, gravely, “We are—a kind of connections?”
“Yes,” said Ralph. “I’m very glad to make your acquaintance. This little beggar here is nephew to us both. It’s droll if you think of it,” added Ralph, stopping to laugh, “that he should be nephew to you—and also to me.”
“Perhaps it is a little—droll as you say,” said Lord Frogmore. Fortunately he did not think it was his own age that Ralph referred to. He thought it was indeed a wonderful thing that he and this wild bushranger, or whoever he was, should stand in the same relationship to anyone. At this moment the footman appeared at the hall door, with a look of intelligence addressed to Ralph. The bushman started and changed into a tone of almost ostentatious hospitality. “My lunch is ready,” he said, “there’s sure to be enough for two. I hope, my lord, you’ll come and have a share.”
Lord Frogmore had left the railway at a different station from that which the Parkes ordinarily used. He was proud of his walking powers, and liked to show that he was as able for exertion as much younger men. Indeed it was his delight to surprise people who sent carriages for him and were anxious to save such an old gentleman fatigue by appearing suddenly at their door as he had done now. But so much exercise required exceptional support—and he felt the want of a glass of wine. He received Ralph’s invitation with amusement but not without pleasure. “Don’t you think,” he said, “that we had better wait for some of the people of the house.”
“Don’t be shy, my lord,” said Ralph. “Why, we’re all people of the house.”
Little Duke then stood forth, feeling the call of duty. “Mamma’s poorly upstairs—and papa is out shooting,” he said. “But I’m here. And it’s me the next after papa.”
“Oh it’s you the next, little man?”
“Yes,” said Duke, without guile—“first there’s you, don’t you know, if you’re Uncle Frogmore—and when you’re dead, papa—and when papa’s dead, me—I’ll be Lord Frogmore some day,” said the boy. “And then I shan’t want your Australian sovereign, you, uncle—man—for I don’t know your name.”
“Oh,” said the old gentleman gravely, “so you’ll be Lord Frogmore.”