LORD FROGMORE had divined the course that would be taken by the ladies, and as soon as he escaped he hurried off in the opposite direction, from which, when Mary reached the door, he was visible tranquilly sauntering towards the house. He called to Mary as soon as he saw her at the door. “Miss Hill! I have been trying in vain to find my way to Marsham Ponds. Have you time to show me how to go?”
Mary begged him to wait a moment and returned to reassure Letitia. “Whoever it was it was not Lord Frogmore. He is out in the West shrubbery trying to find the way to Marsham, and he wants me to show him. Whoever it was it could not be he.”
Letitia drew a long breath of relief. “Well,” she said, “no one else matters much; but for goodness sake never let us begin to talk again without seeing if there’s anybody there.”
“Do you want me,” said Mary, “or can I go? I will tell Felicie to come down and give you your tea.”
“Oh, you can go—it’s better there should be someone to amuse Frogmore: but don’t you think you’ll get anything out of him, for every penny he has should come to the children. Now remember what I say.”
“I want none of his pennies,” said Mary indignantly—but it was with a sense of relief that she got her hat and went out to Lord Frogmore, who was more kind and understanding than any other visitor at Greenpark had ever been. They had all taken her undisguisedly for a dependent, all treated her in the easy and unguarded way which unfortunately is the common way of treating a governess or companion, with that manner of contempt—or perhaps it would be most kind to say indifference—which an old maid who is poor and modest is apt to meet with. Her remarks were not noted—her opinions elicited no response; if she was silent, as she most frequently was, nobody cared. But Lord Frogmore always heard her when she said anything, and asked her what she thought of this thing and that. It pleased poor Mary to be considered like other people, on the same level as the rest—whom inevitably in her own mind she had begun to regard with an involuntary responsive scorn as stupid and without feeling. She thought better of her neighbors because she herself was placed in her right position by the sense, the appreciation, or—as she called it—the kindness of old Lord Frogmore.
They went along together through the copsewood which surrounded the trim clearing of garden and tiny park in which the house was enclosed. It was brown and red with autumnal color and shining in the sun with autumn damp, the heavy dews of the morning which had settled down in the afternoon to a sort of suspended wateriness which made the bushes and the grass glisten. But it was not cold, the afternoon sun diffused a ruddy glow through the air, to which the red and yellow trees added each their suggestion of a contributed light. They had talked about the house, about the weather, so fine for the time of the year, and about Marsham Ponds, which made a picturesque point in the landscape, as they went along, and it was after a little pause that Lord Frogmore began.
“I am going to say something to you, Miss Hill, which perhaps you will consider I have no right to say—but you must remember that I am an old man.”
“You may say what you please, Lord Frogmore. I know it will be kind,” said Mary: and she added after a moment with a smile, “But I think it is a mistake to suppose that age can be counted merely by years.”
“I am glad you are of that opinion,” said the old lord. “I sometimes think so myself; but one is never a good judge in one’s own case. Don’t you think, however, my dear young lady, that you are yourself in rather a false position here.”
Mary looked at him with a quick change of color and a glance of interrogation.
“You know,” he said, “I took you for the governess. I have never ceased to be ashamed——”
“There was nothing to be ashamed about, Lord Frogmore. I wish I were the governess—then I should not be in a false position—but I don’t know enough to teach any one.”
“Not even Duke?” he said with a smile. “You are too humble minded, Miss Hill; but that would not suit Mrs. Parke so well as having all the advantage of you as you are. May I ask, is there any relationship to give her such a claim upon you?”
“Oh, no! But we are very old friends. My father is the Vicar of Grocombe, where all the Ravelstones live.”
“Ah,” said Lord Frogmore, with a look of satisfaction, “that explains the familiarity of that big fellow—that Australian: not so bad a fellow as his sister seems to think.”
“Oh,” cried Mary, with a shudder, “he is very rough and very coarse. He has always been the trouble of the family. I am afraid of Ralph, too; but I knew him very well as I knew them all when we were children. Letitia used to come a great deal to the vicarage——”
“I will be bound she came for help for herself, not for you?”
“Oh, don’t say so, please. I am sure she was fond of mamma. She had no mother of her own. And she is very kind now. Lord Frogmore, I need not conceal,” said Mary, with a sudden flush, “that we are poor. It is quite a poor living, and my father has had to send all the boys out in the world. Unfortunately, we girls have not any education or we might have helped.”
“So much the better, Miss Hill.”
“Oh, don’t say so!” said Mary, “if you knew what it was to feel so helpless, not to be able to do anything: and just to have to live on and on dependent on your father, good for nothing, with nothing to look forward to. I am saying a great deal more to you than I ever said to anyone, Lord Frogmore. Letitia has been very kind. She asked me to come for a long visit so that I might be no expense at home.”
“And reminds you of it every day,” said the old gentleman.
“Oh,” said Mary, off her guard, “how should you know?—not every day—oh, no, no! Sometimes I need to be reminded, for a thing that becomes familiar one is apt to forget. They are very kind at home, and say they miss me more than the good it does them. But I know it is an ease to my father’s mind. He thinks it is one at least provided for.”
“Do you think you are provided for, Miss Hill?”
Mary hung her head. “I am for the moment. I am sure Letitia is very kind; but if there was any change, or when she really has to get a governess——”
“Should you be sorry to go away?”
“Oh, never sorry to go home,” said Mary, with a gleam of light in her face. “I’d rather starve with them than feast with others—but so long as it is an ease to poor papa’s mind. He is not so strong as he was—he is getting old.”
“About my age, I suppose?” said Lord Frogmore.
“Oh, a great deal more, certainly a great deal more!” cried Mary. She gave, however, a sidelong glance at Lord Frogmore’s face to make quite sure. “And he has had a hard life. That makes a man old more than years.”
“You were good enough to say the same thing before,” said the old lord, “that age cannot be counted by years. That is always a pleasant thing to be said by the young to the old.”
“But I am not young,” said Mary, with a little, frank laugh. “I am middle-aged, which many people think is the worst of all.”
“In that case I must borrow your formula, and say age is not counted by years,” said the old gentleman. “You have a face on which peace is written. You have not had much trouble, I think, in your life.”
Mary grew very serious, for this is an imputation which few people can accept without a protest. But as she was very sincere she assented, after a moment, “No; only being poor. And what is that when all the boys, thank God, have done so well?”
“Is that the only trouble you can think of?” said Lord Frogmore.
“The chief—the greatest. When you have to be ashamed of a brother, or to watch him going wrong, and able to do nothing, and never to trust him. There is nothing in the world so dreadful as that. I can forgive Letitia anything,” cried Mary, almost with vehemence, “when I think how well all our boys have done, and that two of the Ravelstones—— That is the most dreadful of all.”
“I don’t think it will interfere with Mrs. Parke’s rest,” said Lord Frogmore, calmly. “And I saw no harm in the Australian. Will you tell me what the boys are doing who have done so well?”
He listened with great interest while Mary, with a brightened countenance and many smiles, made him aware of the successes of “the boys.” They were not very great successes from Lord Frogmore’s point of view, but he listened as if he had been hearing of bishoprics and woolsacks, while Mary told of the advantages of John, who was in New Zealand, and George, who was farming in Canada, and the missionary who had won golden opinions, if not joys, in Africa, and the soldier, who was in India with his regiment, but could not afford to come home because of the lessened pay. They were all “abroad” for it was so difficult to get things at home, but all so approved, so well spoken of, so thoroughly satisfactory! It went to the old lord’s heart to see her face of exultation, her happy pride in her family. “Perhaps you will think it is nasty of me to rejoice so over them, when there is poor Ralph so different,” said Mary, “but of course there was a great, a very great, difference in their upbringing, though that doesn’t always tell, as perhaps you know, Lord Frogmore.”
“Indeed I do know: sometimes the most carefully trained go astray. I have known many instances.”
“And the most neglected,” cried Mary, “whom nobody could have expected anything from, sometimes turn out so well! So that shows it is individual—it is in them, whatever may be their education. Ah, here we are,” she said, suddenly, with a calming down which was very evident from the fervor of her previous tone, “at Marsham Ponds.” One would have said Mary was disappointed to find herself so soon at the end of her walk.
Marsham Ponds were a series of fishponds, a trace of the old time, when a great abbey had stood near, and the supply of fish for Lenten fare was a pressing necessity which had to be provided for. “I think I must turn back now,” said Mary, “you will find your way quite easily, Lord Frogmore.”
“Stop a little; we may as well return together. I wanted the walk, not to see the ponds. I have seen them often before,” said Lord Frogmore. “We lived at Greenpark in the old days when I was a child—if you can suppose I ever was a child.” He laughed and paused a little, then resumed, “I remember—it must be about a hundred years ago—my father bringing me here when he came to the title. He succeeded his grandfather you may have heard. He brought me here, and lifted me up to see the view. It’s not much of a view,” said Lord Frogmore, in a parenthesis, “but seen in one particular light it is not without interest. He said to me, ‘Look there, Duke, that’s all ours——’” Here he paused again, looked over the wide landscape, which was flat and fell away into long blue depths of distance, and then burst into a laugh. “That is what John will be saying to another little Duke one of these days. They are both quite primed for it,” he said.
“Oh, Lord Frogmore, not Mr. Parke—that is not in his thoughts.”
The old lord turned round upon her with a little moisture in the corner of his eye. He put out his hand to her hastily, “Thank you, Miss Hill. I think you are right. My brother is free from such thoughts.”
“Nobody has any such thoughts,” said Mary, but not in the same assured tone.
He shook his head and looked at her smiling, “Not after what your friend said—that all I had belonged to the children, every penny—that it was their right. Mrs. Parke was very explicit, Miss Hill.”
“Oh,” said Mary, in a tone of horror, “then it was you after all, and you heard what we said.”
“I heard you say nothing that did not do you honor. The other did not surprise me at all. It may be a little premature. Things may not be so certain.” He paused a little as if he would have said something more. He was a very neat, well-preserved model of an old gentleman, not so old as the Parkes concluded; with a good color, a good figure, a firm light footstep; active and lively notwithstanding his age. The thought of little Duke, who was to be Lord Frogmore some day, and of all his property and possessions, which were being discounted by Mrs. John as belonging to the children, made him not sad but angry. He had never been disposed to be a passive person, to be managed by those about him; and no one could be less likely to consent to being powerless or helpless now. No one thing of all the many things they calculated upon was certain. His property was still in his own hands—even his title. Many things surged up in the old gentleman’s head. Suggestions which disturbed and excited him, but not unpleasantly. What if they might be disappointed altogether, the scheming woman, the silly little boy. John—Ah! John! Lord Frogmore turned upon Mary Hill, who was walking by his side, much agitated and in a great tremor; and put his hand upon her arm. “Miss Hill,” he said, “I can’t tell you how much I am obliged to you for doing justice to my brother John.”
“Oh, Lord Frogmore, Letitia is like all mothers, she thinks only of her children. She did not mean what you think. She is not without heart. She is——”
“We’ll say nothing about Letitia,” said the old lord. “But I am thankful to you for doing justice, and making me do justice, to my brother John.”