MR. AUGUSTUS MARKHAM GAVESTON strolled up the village when the children left him, looking curiously at all the cottages, till he came to the little whitewashed country inn, which called itself the Markham Arms. The little gentleman was full of interest in everything. He stopped and looked in at the windows of the little shop, where everything was sold, from biscuits to petticoats—gazed in with as much interest as if it had been a shop in Bond Street. He crossed over the street to see where the post-office was, and to look at the smithy, where the blacksmith and his journeyman and apprentice paused to push their caps from their foreheads and stare at him, as did also the groom from Westland Towers, very trim and fine, who had brought Mr. Westland’s horse to have his shoes looked to. They all stared, and the stranger returned their gaze with smiling complacency, evidently thinking it quite natural that they should stare at him—a thing to be looked for. And the school children stared at him whom he met on their way to the rectory. Mr. Augustus did not mind. He looked at them all paternally, patting the heads of some of the little ones. The little girls curtsied to him—as you may be sure in schools superintended by Miss Stainforth they had been taught to do—and this pleased him greatly. He took off his hat to them, which astonished the children as much as his white umbrella did, and the strangeness of his appearance altogether. The village was in a commotion, as was natural, by reason of the school-feast, and the arrival of so many carriages and visitors. Half at least of the houses were still pouring forth little bands in their best clothes, mothers and aunts standing at the door to watch the effect. So that it was a kind of triumphal progress which he made through the village street, where everybody was glad to have a new object to occupy them after the children had disappeared. The Markham Arms was not a much frequented inn; but it was as clean and neat as it was quiet and homely, and there was a pretty little parlour with a bow-window, all clustered with the common sweet clematis, the travellers’ joy, and honeysuckle, into which Mrs. Boardman ushered the stranger with secret pride, yet many apologies.
There is a bigger room up stairs, sir; but if so be as you could do with this till to-morrow——”
“It is the very thing I want,” he said; and he bade her send some one to the station for his portmanteaus. “Only the portmanteaus. I don’t want the big cases.” This dazzled the landlady, and indeed there were found to be three large cases besides the portmanteaus, cases so large that it was all the little station could do to afford them shelter and safety. John Boardman fetched the other boxes himself, and was duly impressed by this evidence of wealth. The name on the luggage, as on the little gentleman’s card, was Markham Gaveston; but whether by some freak of the uninstructed artist who had written the name in bold characters of print upon the cases, the Gaveston was small, and the Markham large, so that there was some doubt in the minds of the people, both at the station and the inn, which was the name to call the new-comer by; and what was still more odd, when they asked him, he only laughed and answered, “Which you please,” which confused them more and more. He informed John Boardman, however, that he was a relation of the family, but had been in foreign parts all his life, and had never seen Markham before; and, as he brought in the boys from the Chase to dine with him that very evening, there could be no doubt as to the justice of this claim. Also the landlord had a letter to put in the post for him that night which was addressed to Sir William Markham at Oxford. He must be a relation, but who was he? For the next two days the village was very much disturbed by this question. There were old people in the place who were proud to think that they knew Sir William’s relations better than he himself did; but who this little gentleman was, and what might be the degree of his cousinship, they found it very hard to make out. He laughed once more when he was asked if he was “a full cousin,” or a more distant relation.
“Something of that sort,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye, as if this was a capital joke. He was so constantly about, and so ready to make acquaintance with everybody, that in two days the whole village knew him; and this question weighed upon the mind of the community. At last one of the old women in the almshouses who had spent half her life in the nursery at the Chase, by dint of almost superhuman cogitation, found a clue to the mystery. She remembered that one of the daughters of the late Mr. Markham of Underwood, who was “full cousin” to Sir William, had gone abroad after she became a widow, a very long time ago. Most likely she must have married again and become the mother of this little brown gentleman, who no doubt looked older than he was, being so spare and so brown. This was an explanation that satisfied everybody. The lady’s name had been Willoughby when she left England, but what of that? It took a weight off the mind of the village to have the stranger thus made out and set in his right place.
And during the three days he spent in the village Mr. Markham Gaveston made acquaintance with everybody. His curiosity was insatiable. All day long he strolled about and questioned everybody. When he saw old Sophy coming from the woods with her bundle of sticks, he insisted on knowing where she got them, and how she got them, and all about her. Nothing escaped him. He found out that it was Lord Westland’s groom that was at the smithy when he passed, and that the horse belonged to the Honourable Mr. Westland, and that the Honourable Mr. Westland was always finding errands to bring him to the rectory. This information he picked up by the way, as one to whom all news was pleasant; but the Markhams were the real objects of his inquiries. And when the landlady proceeded to intimate that Mr. Westland might save himself the trouble, since Miss Dolly cared more for Mr. Paul’s little finger than for all his grandeur, and his title, the little gentleman at once owned the stronger spell.
“So there’s a love-story going on, is there?” he cried briskly. “Mr. Paul! that’s my young relation, I suppose? Are they going to marry? Come, tell me all about it. This interests me.”
“Oh, marry, sir; bless you! No, it ain’t gone so far as that,” Mrs. Boardman cried. And she had to protest that there was nothing but “idle tales” in what she had said—her own silly fancies, as she added, with anxious humility, and bits of gossip among the servants. “You won’t say as I said it, sir,” she added. “I wouldn’t be the one to make mischief for all the world, nor vex Miss Dolly, so good as she is; and most likely my lady wouldn’t like it—and I don’t say nothing for Mr. Paul neither. He is mostly away; it isn’t what you could call keeping company. Oh, if us women hadn’t got no tongues, what a deal o’ mischief’d be spared!’
“That’s what I’m always telling you,” said John.
“And the men’s worse,” said his wife, going on. “Us women, we lets a thing slip, and never thinks; but the bad stories, them as sets folks by the ears, they always comes from the men.”
This amused Mr. Markham Gaveston greatly. He clapped his hands and encouraged them both to continue.
“At her, John!” he said, behind the good woman’s back; but John shook his head and retired. He knew better.
And Mrs. Boardman wiped her hands on her apron, and went off “to see to my dinner.” The dinner naturally was not hers, but her guest’s, who was a small eater—much too small an eater; a single chop was all he had for lunch, a chicken served him two days for dinner. There was little credit in cooking for any one who was so easily satisfied. To be sure he had suggested one or two eccentric dishes to her when he came, which Mrs. Boardman had never heard of, and which she had declared could not be half so good for any one’s “innards” as a plain joint; but since that the stranger had made no remarks, eating what was set before him without remonstrance, but too little of it to please his hostess. He was much more greedy of news than he was of his dinner; and this last piece of information cost him a great deal of thought.
Next day, the third day of his stay at Markham Royal, Dolly Stainforth had a little expedition to make by railway. Though she was far from being an emancipated young lady, and though her father was very careful that she should have in general all the guardianship that her position required, yet to be always accompanied by a servant on the little journeys which she made periodically to see an old aunt only two stations off was a burden Dolly could not consent to: for which reason it had become the habit at Markham Royal to appropriate a vacant carriage to the use of ladies—a carriage over which the guard was supposed to watch, defending it from all male intruders. In this compartment old George, the man-servant at the rectory, carefully placed his young mistress; and all went on as usual till the very moment before the train started, when old George was gone, and the attention of the guard distracted; when the door of Dolly’s carriage was suddenly, swiftly, noiselessly opened, and a little gentleman, in loose, light-coloured clothes, jumped in.
Dolly was so much startled that it was a minute before she found her breath, and in that minute the train had glided from the station.
“I fear I have frightened you,” the stranger said.
Dolly was not at all frightened, but she was true to her father’s precautions.
“Oh, no; but this is a carriage for ladies,” she said.
“Dear me, what a pity!” cried the little man; but it was easy to see by his countenance that he did not think it a pity. “I am a stranger here,” he said, “a stranger in England. I don’t know all your ways. I will change at the next station if I am disagreeable to you.”
“Oh, no,” cried Dolly, horrified to be supposed guilty of rudeness. “It is not that. It is only that I am supposed always to travel by myself. Papa insists on a ladies’ carriage. But it does not at all matter,” she added, with a glance that was not flattering to the special intruder in question. “Nobody could mind——”
Dear, dear! Dolly thought to herself, this is ruder still; and blushed crimson.
The stranger, however, did not draw from this any conclusions which were humiliating to himself. People are not so close to mark our looks and words as we imagine them to be. He smiled serenely, and as the train was now plunging along in the fussy yet leisurely manner common to a country train which stops at all the stations, resumed, with an air of great satisfaction and complacency—
“I am very glad you don’t mind; for I came into the carriage on purpose—because I saw you get in. I wanted to speak to you,” said Mr. Markham Gaveston, with a genial smile.
Then Dolly began to quake a little. Was he mad—or what did he mean? “Do you know me?” she said, faltering. She had heard of the stranger at the Markham Arms, but had not seen him.
“I have the pleasure of knowing who you are,” he said, taking off his hat with the utmost politeness. “My little—relations, the little Markhams, pointed you out to me.’
“Oh,” cried Dolly again, “then you are——?”
“Yes, exactly,” he said, smiling, “that is what I am. I have come from the tropics, and I do not know much about England. If I say anything that is very unusual, I hope you will excuse me. It is disagreeable that they should be away just when I have come so far to see them.”
“Yes,” said Dolly, hesitating. She could not refuse to answer him; but to discuss her friends with a stranger was a thing against which her heart revolted. “They did not expect to be away; it was quite unexpected,” she said.
“And I have no reason to complain, for they did not know I was coming. All the same, one may say it is disagreeable, don’t you think? I have to put up in the inn, instead of being in my—instead of being among my own people.”
“Do you know the Markhams, sir?” said Dolly.
She had a way of saying “sir” to men whom she considered old men; but happily Mr. Markham Gaveston did not know what was his title to so respectful an address.
“I know the little boys and the little girls,” he said. “I could wish there were no more.”
“Why?”
Dolly turned upon him with a flash of indignation, with eyes wide open and lips apart.
“Ah! what a silly thing to say, wasn’t it?” he said. “You may be sure I couldn’t have meant it. I want you to tell me about the others—the eldest girl and the boy.”
“I! tell you—about the others!”
Dolly grew pale, and then red again. Either he must be mad, which had been her first thought, or else——
“Yes,” he said, quite calmly, “don’t be frightened. I want to have a good account of them and that is what has brought me to you.”
Once more Dolly stared at him in consternation. She wanted to be angry and think him impertinent, but he was not impertinent.
“Don’t be frightened,” her strange companion went on. “I want to hear all that is good of them. They tell me that I won’t hear anything that is not good from you.”
“Mr. —— sir! —— How can I talk,” cried Dolly, with crimson cheeks, “of my friends to you? I—don’t know you. Why do you want to question any one about them? Who told you I would say nothing that was not good? Does anybody think,” cried Dolly, her eyes flaming, “that I would say either good or bad, for any one, that was not true?”
“I cannot answer so many questions at once,” said the little gentleman; “besides, that is not what I want; I want to ask, not to answer. I want to know about my—relations. When I see them, perhaps they may not be very civil to me; they may think me a bore.”
“Oh!” cried Dolly, “certainly they will be civil. Alice is too kind for anything else, and Paul—Paul is a gentleman,” she said, raising her head. A softness came over the girl’s eyes. She had no thought of betraying herself; perhaps indeed she was not aware that there was anything to betray; but in spite of herself, a certain subdued and dreamy glow, a kind of haze of golden light, came into her brown eyes at Paul’s name.
“Well, that is something,” said the stranger; “you don’t think then that they will take to me much? but because the one is kind, and the other a gentleman——”
“That was not what I meant. Am I to pay you compliments to your face?” said Dolly, stopping short and looking suddenly up, half impatient, half amused.
“Certainly, if you wish to,” he cried, promptly. “Oh, yes—do not be shy. I should not at all mind a compliment or two; indeed I think I should like them. Do not stand upon ceremony. If you can say seriously that you think me so nice that Alice will like me at once, and your Paul claim me as a brother——”
“He is not my Paul,” cried Dolly, with another hot blush. “I do not like such a way of speaking. And, Mr. ——”
She paused for his name, but the little man was malicious, and would not give it. He nodded his head two or three times.
“Just so,” he said. “That is quite right,” smiling with a mischievous smile.
“Mr.—Markham,” Dolly said with a burst. “If that is not your right name, it is not my fault. How could Paul receive you as a brother? You must mean as—an uncle perhaps. Do you know that Paul is only just come of age, and Alice is but six months older than I?”
“Ah,” said Mr. Markham Gaveston, stroking his moustache. “I did not think of that,” and he looked at her with an expression half comic, half sad, slightly discomfited there could be no doubt. From this he shook himself free, however, and asked suddenly, “How old may Sir William be?”
“Sir William? Oh, quite old,” said Dolly. She gave a furtive glance at him this time, anxious to keep on the safe side, and making a calculation in her own mind how old this little brown gentleman himself could be. Fifty, sixty? these two ages were much the same to Dolly. There was not to her any appreciable difference in their extreme oldness and far-offness. Even forty was very old. Her mind wandered hazily, confused on these grey and misty heights. “He is not so old as papa,” she said with hesitation, “for papa, you know, was his tutor at college; but he is a great deal older than Lady Markham. He did not marry till he was about—I don’t quite know how much—about forty, I think I have heard people say,” said Dolly, with a certain awe in her voice.
“And that seems quite old to you?”
“It is old to be married, is it not? And Lady Markham was so beautiful, everybody says. She is beautiful still. I don’t know any one so lovely. I tell Alice often though I love her dearly, she is not half, oh, not a quarter so pretty as her mamma.”
“How does Alice like that? It will not please her much, I should think. I should not say that if I wanted her to like me.”
The disdain with which Dolly erected her small head, and looked at him!
“That only shows,” she said, “how little you know. Any girl would be a great deal more proud of her beautiful mamma than if she were ever so pretty herself. And Alice is very pretty. She has the sweetest eyes you ever saw. Quite blue like the sky—the deep sky. Not this little bit of no colour at all,” she said, pointing upwards to the hazy grey-blue of heat: “but the deep, deep sky—the blue-blue behind the clouds. Everything about her is pretty; but she is not so handsome, so beautiful, as Lady Markham. Being beautiful, and being pretty, are two different things.”
Her companion did not pay much attention to Dolly’s reflections. He broke the thread of them quite abruptly by asking all at once—
“And Paul?”
“Paul!” Dolly raised her slight figure bolt upright as though she had been fifty. “You are very much interested in Paul, Mr.—Markham; but then you don’t know them. I care for Alice most.”
He answered by a laugh. What did he laugh at, this very strange disagreeable little gentleman? Dolly had thoughts of turning her back upon him, of saying no more to him, of requesting him to change into another carriage at the station which they were approaching. But after all she did not want to be rid of him. She could not help liking to talk about the Markhams. What could be more natural? Were they not her oldest friends? her nearest neighbours? the people to whom she owed most of her pleasures? It was not doing any harm to them; on the contrary, it might be doing them good. Dolly tried to remember, though her heart fluttered, whether she had ever heard of any rich uncle or benevolent relation who might intend to surprise them, to come home incognito, and find out their characters before he left them all his money. If this was so, might it not be for their very highest advantage that she should talk of them? Mr. Markham Gaveston was the ideal of a rich uncle travelling incognito, such as appears now and then in novels. Perhaps he might intend to represent himself as a poor, not a rich, relation in order to try them. Dolly smiled within herself as this idea crossed her mind. Then indeed it was quite certain who his money would come to! He would be received as if he were a prince. Lady Markham and Alice would not know how to do enough for him. They would try to make him forget his imaginary troubles; they would comfort him for all his losses. If this was what he meant to do, Dolly smiled to think of the certain issue. Before she came to this smile, she had made a long circuit in her thoughts, and had half or wholly forgotten the laugh which had for a moment roused her indignation. And when he saw her smile, her companion took it as a sign of amnesty, and himself resumed the conversation.
“Come,” he said, “you have told me about the ladies; it is the turn of the others now; so if you please, let us return to the most important. I want to know about Paul.”
“Is he the most important?” said Dolly, doing her best to move her pretty upper lip into a semblance of scorn; then she dropped from this height of proud disdain, and admitted in a cheerful tone, “I suppose he will be to gentlemen. I do not know Paul so well; that is natural. He has been away a great deal—not always at home like Alice; he was at school first, and now he has been nearly three years at Oxford. I have seen him only in the holidays. That makes a great difference,” said Dolly, demurely. She looked at her questioner with quiet defiance. If he thought she was going to betray herself a second time! And Mr. Markham laughed too. They established a little tacit confidence on this point—not that Dolly would have owned to it for any inducement—but the stranger was quick, and understood.
“Shall you go and stay with them,” she said, beginning to carry the war into the enemy’s country, “when they come back?”
“If they will have me,” he said.
“Oh, I am sure they will have you. If you take my advice, Mr.—Markham, this is what you must do. Pretend to be quite poor. Say you have lost everything, and that instead of coming to England rich as you had hoped, you have come with nothing. Oh, what fun it will be,” cried Dolly. “I will back you up in everything you say. I will pretend you told me about it. Do this, Mr. Markham, and you shall see what will happen.”
“What would happen in many houses would be that I should be turned to the door. But how do you know that I am not poor? then it would be no fun at all.”
Dolly’s laugh was a pleasure to hear; it was so honest, and simple, and sure. She had no doubt whatever on the question. Her theory explained everything delightfully. She did not even take the trouble to reply to this suggestion. She said—
“We are coming to the Pemberton station. Do you mean to change here as you said?”
“I will go certainly, if you turn me out.”
Here Dolly’s laughing countenance suddenly clouded over. She cast at him a quick glance of entreaty.
“Oh, no, don’t go, don’t go,” she cried. And then she added, in a tone of annoyance, “I think everybody is travelling to-day. Some people are always travelling. It is horrid,” cried Dolly, “to see the same faces and hear the same voices wherever one goes.”
The cause of this ebullition of temper was easily explained. It was George Westland, very deprecating and humble, who had opened the carriage door.