Read Ebook: The oak staircase by Lee C Catherine Active Lee M Mary Active Symington James Ayton Illustrator

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Ebook has 895 lines and 81941 words, and 18 pages

'Never mind,' quoth Uncle Algernon, nodding significantly. 'As I said before, she is a very old friend of mine, and I have a strong persuasion that she won't refuse me this; besides, you forget the goloshes of fortune. Nothing can be refused to one, you know, when one has those goloshes on.'

'But, uncle, how can you make her tell it us?'

'Never mind,' said Uncle Algernon again, 'you will see all in good time. Only come to my dressing-room to-morrow when lessons are finished,--you and Robin, nobody else,--and I'll tell you what comes of my interview with her ladyship.'

The dinner-bell rang at this moment, whereupon Uncle Algernon jumped up and beat a hasty retreat into the said dressing-room.

'How does he mean to do it?' asked Silvia, after pondering for a whole minute without speaking.

But at this juncture the discussion came to an end, for the lamp blazed up in the hall below, and Christie came rushing along the gallery, crying, 'Silvia, Robin, have you really been sitting here in the dark all this time? Why, the tea-bell rang a quarter of an hour ago. There are muffins; and Sydney is eating all the blackberry jam!'

The next morning Lady Greensleeves had disappeared from the staircase. Uncle Algernon had a passion for cleaning oil-paintings, and one or other of the family portraits was always to be found in his room whenever he came to stay at Horsemandown.

Not a moment was lost by Robin and Silvia when four o'clock struck that afternoon, and lessons were over, in rushing to the bright, pleasant room which was always called Uncle Algernon's dressing-room, and held sacred to him, even when he was away on his travels on the other side of the world.

There he sat in the midst of his books and drawings, and cases of stuffed birds and curiosities, brought from all parts of the globe. He was in a big arm-chair on one side of the fire-place, and the sofa was drawn up on the other. The portrait of Lady Greensleeves was in the room too, looking much fresher and brighter than she had done ever since the children could remember.

'Well, Silvia, here we are, you see, both at your service,' said Uncle Algernon as they entered. 'Make yourselves comfortable on the sofa; only, first allow me to introduce you to her ladyship, Frances Countess of Desmond, the wife of your old friend Bluecoat; or rather, to give him his proper name and title, Algernon Carey Earl of Desmond.'

'His wife!' ejaculated Robin, staring with a puzzled air, first at Uncle Algernon, and then at Lady Greensleeves' picture. 'But she is a little girl!'

'Oh, Robin,' said Silvia reproachfully, 'don't you know people used to marry when they were children long ago? Don't you remember about Jeanne D'Albret?'

'Used they?' asked Robin vaguely. 'Oh well, I never remember about people in history, so I daresay they did. But, Uncle Algernon, I thought Lady Greensleeves was an ancestor of ours, and that her name was Dalrymple?'

'Oh, Uncle Algernon! Not really. I can't believe it. What do you mean?' cried Silvia, jumping upon her uncle's knee and putting both hands on his shoulders, while she gazed into his eyes to see if he were laughing or not.

'Are you in fun, Uncle Algernon?' said Robin, looking doubtfully from his uncle to Lady Greensleeves.

'No, indeed I am quite in earnest. Lady Greensleeves is going to tell you her history, only through me; for, you see, she only condescends to speak directly to a very old intimate friend like myself; so she has dictated it to me, and I will tell it in her own words exactly as she said it.'

'Exactly,' said Uncle Algernon, laughing. 'And at my special request she has addressed it to you and Silvia, and has kindly consented to bring in as little of "natheless" and "by my halidome" and "in good sooth" as she can possibly help.'

'Oh, thank you, Uncle Algernon, how nice it will be! Please go on.'

And with Silvia on his knee, and Robin on the sofa opposite, Uncle Algernon began the story of Lady Greensleeves.

LADY GREENSLEEVES' STORY.

In the year 1674 , I was born in this house. My name, as you now know, was not Lady Greensleeves or Lady anything then, but plain Mistress Frances Dalrymple. My father, Sir Bernard, was the third baronet of our house. You know his portrait in the mulberry-coloured coat and fair periwig over the dining-room chimney-piece; my mother's hangs opposite, just as it did when I first remember it. Well, as I said just now, I was born in this house, and till I was ten years old I never left it for a single night. You know we could not rush about in my time as you do now: as for going to the sea-side in the summer, such an idea never entered our heads. I suppose we were stronger than you modern people. At all events, doctors never ordered us change of air; and we did very well without it. Besides, we didn't care much about the sea in those days. I daresay you would hardly believe me if I told you that I never even saw it till I was past twenty, and then the sight was anything but pleasant to me. But this was the fact, nevertheless; and I do not think it ever occurred to any of us that we should like to stay by the shore and build castles in the sand, and hunt for shells and pebbles, as children do in these days.

'"And now, Mistress Frances, where might you be going to in such a hurry?"

'"We were going out with Mr. Atherley's hounds," I faltered out, finding it very hard to keep from bursting into tears.

'"Oh, indeed! Are you in the habit of following Mr. Atherley's hounds all by yourself?"

'"No, sir; Shad is taking me and Oliver. We have only been once before." And as I spoke, I saw, to my great relief, Shad and my brother emerging from a bend in the lane.

'"And pray, what does Shad mean by letting you start at this break-neck pace, and down this lane too,--full of holes like fish-pools, and flints as sharp as the point of my rapier? Out upon him! If you had thrown down Hebe! That old fool Shad shall be taken to account for this."

'In spite of the awe that I felt for my father, I could not sit silently and hear dear old Shad abused, especially when I knew my brother and I were alone to blame with regard to the "break-neck pace."

'"Indeed, sir," I cried eagerly, "it was not Shad's fault at all. He called to us the whole way not to gallop; but we wouldn't stop, because we wanted to run races."

'"Faith! but she's a spirited little damsel," said my father's companion, laughing. "Come, Dalrymple, as Hebe's knees, luckily, are not broken, you must forgive her this time. You won't have the trouble of keeping her in order much longer, you know. It will be somebody else's business to scold her soon."

'Somebody else! What could he mean? I dared not ask, for he had not spoken to me; so I could only glance curiously, first at him, then at my father. There was not much to be gathered from their faces, however. That of the latter was stern, and a little anxious, while his friend's expressed nothing but amusement.

'"There, there! A truce to that for the present, Mountfort," my father said as he caught my eye. "As you say, Hebe's knees are, luckily, not broken--; so we will say no more about it now. Frances, this is my friend, Sir Harry Mountfort. Give him your hand; and don't look sheepish, like a little country maiden who has never seen a gentleman in her life before."

'Now, however sheepish one may feel, one does not like to be called so before a stranger; so I held up my head, and made a tremendous effort to look dignified and self-possessed, as became Mistress Frances Dalrymple of Horsemandown. Sir Harry shook hands good-naturedly; asked me about my hunting; said I sat my horse admirably, and wished me a good day's sport; but I could hardly answer him properly, because I was trying all the time to hear what my father was saying to Shad and Oliver. He did not take Shad to task, as he had threatened to do, but merely told him to go on with Oliver, and to take the horses gently down the lane. But what was my dismay when he said, "Mistress Frances will not hunt this morning. I shall take her home with me!" I really could not keep the tears out of my eyes this time, it was such a terrible disappointment. I looked ruefully at Sir Harry, with a faint hope that he might remonstrate on my behalf, as he had done before. But no: he evidently did not mean to do any such thing; so I was obliged to keep my vexation to myself, and watch Shad and Oliver with longing eyes, as they vanished from view down the lane. I could not understand whether my father was still angry with me or not, but thought he must have put a stop to my hunting as a punishment for my carelessness in risking Hebe's knees. What other reason he could have, I tried in vain to imagine. He had never before cared to have me with him,--never before introduced me to any of the friends who from time to time he brought to Horsemandown. At all events, whatever his motive might be, I thought it very hard to be obliged to ride soberly home by my father's side, when I might have been galloping over the fields, leaping hedges and ditches,--chattering at my ease to Oliver, with no one to control us but poor, dear, old Shad, who let us do almost anything we chose; and whom in return, I am afraid, we teased without mercy. We rode slowly back up the lane, and through the park; and though I kept on crying to myself, I contrived to choke back the sobs that rose in my throat. But tears would roll faster and faster down my cheeks. I thought of my last day's hunting, when I had outstripped all the ladies of the party, not to mention Oliver and Shad,--when the master of the hounds had praised my horsemanship, and I had struck Miles and Roger with awe and admiration by bringing home the brush in my hat. How proud I was of my exploits that day! and how much I had been bent upon gaining even more praise this morning! Dear me! I am afraid I must have been a vain little girl in those days, and a very foolish one too, to make such a fuss about a little disappointment. A year later I had learned to be wiser; for the more of the world we see, the less important we think ourselves; and when once we know by experience what real trouble is, little everyday vexations seem much easier to bear. For some time my father and Sir Harry were too much wrapped up in their own conversation to take any notice of me or my tears. I daresay I should have listened too, and forgotten my grievance, if I could have understood what they were saying; but, unfortunately, they spoke French; and though I used to read French and make translations every day with Master Waynefleet, that was quite a different thing to being able to follow it when people chose to speak in very fast and eager undertones. Now and then I caught my own name, but that only made me feel more aggrieved at not understanding anything else. So I cried on like a silly child, "because I'd nothing else to do" . At last Sir Harry turned his head to ask me whether I thought mamma would give him a night's lodging, and looked somewhat astonished at the sight of my dolorous face.

'"Why, Dalrymple!" cried he; "here's a melancholy state of things. Your daughter is weeping out those bright eyes of hers, by way of giving us a welcome to Horsemandown."

'"What's the matter now, Frances?"

'My father's glance of cold surprise, and the tone of annoyance with which he asked this, checked my tears in a moment.

'"Well!" he repeated when I hesitated, thoroughly ashamed of having behaved so childishly before a stranger. "Oh, is that all?" he said when I murmured something about hunting; and he looked at Sir Harry with a laugh, and an expressive shrug of the shoulders. "Don't be a baby, child! I expected to find you more of a woman."

'This was humiliating. I would have given up two or three days' hunting now not to have cried.

'"Never mind, Mistress Frances," said good-natured Sir Harry; "you can go a-hunting when I am gone, you know. I shall be off to-morrow morning, so you only have to-day to make my acquaintance; and you and I are going to be great friends, I am sure." And so we were, before many minutes had passed. My tears dried in the wind, and in a little while I found myself talking and laughing with Sir Harry Mountfort as if I had known him all my life, and much more at my ease then I had ever ventured to be with my father. Sir Harry asked me all sorts of questions, paid me all sorts of compliments, and said the most absurd things with the gravest of faces; and my father, too, talked more pleasantly than he had ever talked to me before, and laughed at his friend's ridiculous speeches as much as I did myself. I began to think Sir Harry the kindest man I had ever seen, and yet every now and then there was something in his eyes that gave me a suspicion that he was what Robin would call "chaffing me." All the time, I had a vague sort of feeling that my mother would dislike him, though I could not feel sure why. As we rode up to the house, Miles and Roger came tearing out of the poultry-yard to see who we were, but, upon closer inspection, tore back again, and, by the time we had dismounted, reappeared walking demurely one on each side of mamma, who wore her great black garden hood, and had her apron filled with eggs. However she was dressed, mamma could not look anything but a thorough lady, and a very beautiful woman too; still my father, as he greeted her and introduced Sir Harry Mountfort, was evidently a little bit distressed at her costume, and, I could see, was particularly scandalized at the exhibition of the eggs. "So you have brought back Frances!" she said, looking anxiously at my face, which still showed signs of my crying fit.

'"Nothing has happened? She has had no accident with Hebe?"

'The rest of the sentence I lost, but I had heard enough to throw me into a state of extreme curiosity and excitement. Something must be going to happen to me,--there could be no doubt about that; but was it to be something agreeable or disagreeable? I felt half frightened, yet at the same time in tremendously high spirits, as I pondered over this mysterious something, and made all sorts of wild guesses as to what it could be. How I longed for Oliver to come home, that I might talk it over with him! But I knew he would not return till late in the afternoon; and Miles and Roger were so little. Besides, Roger was always making odd remarks, and saying just the thing one did not want him to say. There was no telling what he might repeat before Sir Harry or my father; for Roger never knew what it was to be afraid of anybody, and he had a way of looking at you solemnly, with his head first on one side and then on the other, and then coming out suddenly, in his slow grave voice, with some observation that from any of the rest of us would have sounded most impertinent, but which, from him, only sent people into fits of laughter. No! it would not do, I decided, to consult Miles and Roger. I must keep my conjectures to myself till I could be alone with mamma. She might perhaps tell me something, if there was anything to tell. I saw nothing of her, however, till dinner, which was in the middle of the day, not at eight o'clock in the evening: that was our supper-hour. We generally dined all together, even when my father was at home; but now that Sir Harry was in the house, I was rather afraid that we should be condemned to have dinner in the nursery. That might be all very well for the little boys; but for me, the eldest of the family, mamma's companion, to be classed with them, would be too humiliating. So I fussed and fidgeted, snapped at my brothers, and made nurse quite angry, and good-humoured Rebecca almost cross, by perpetually teasing them to know whether they thought I should be allowed to dine down-stairs. At length a man's step was heard on the staircase, and, when the door opened, who should be seen but my father! Nurse jumped up as if she thought the house must be on fire; Rebecca upset her work-basket and knocked down the fire-irons; and Miles and I stopped in the middle of a furious quarrel about a drum, which he wanted to turn into a cage for dormice. No wonder my father created such a sensation in the nursery; for never before had he been seen there, since I could remember, except once, when Oliver had swallowed a bullet, and was supposed to be dying. "Come down with me, Frances," said he, not deigning to observe the commotion he had excited. He held out his hand, and I sprang towards him, casting a triumphant glance at Miles and Roger as I did so. But my father, instead of taking me at once down-stairs, surveyed me all over so critically that I hung down my head and blushed crimson, painfully conscious of a large hole recently torn in my dress, and of hair which might have been brushed that morning, but which looked as if it had not been touched for a week.

'"Go and tell nurse to make you fit to be seen, child," said he in his usual cold, measured tones; "and then you can come with me."

'Of course nurse was excessively elaborate in her proceedings after this injunction. I thought she never would have done combing and curling my unfortunate locks, or arranging and smoothing each plait and fold of my best dress. But at last it was over, and I suppose the result was satisfactory; for though my father led me away without a word, Sir Harry Mountfort turned to my mother when we entered the dining-room, and said something about "a sweet little bride," and "hoping to see a coronet on those pretty dark tresses,"--remarks which, while they puzzled me exceedingly, caused me to hold up my head and colour with surprise and pleasure.

'I had never heard so many compliments before, and felt rather vexed that mamma only smiled very faintly, and immediately began to talk about something else--about a certain Earl Desmond, in whom both she and my father appeared to be greatly interested, though I, who had never heard his name before, could not care about him. So I let my thoughts wander off to all kinds of subjects. I wondered what sort of a day's sport Oliver and Shad were having,--whether Hebe was as sorry as I was, to be cheated of her day with the hounds; and then I wondered afresh what Sir Harry's mysterious words could mean. Perhaps it would be as well to listen to what was going on, in case I might be able to glean something from the conversation about myself. So I turned my eyes away with an effort from the sunny slope of green, swelling down, on which they were gazing , and fixed them on Sir Harry just as he was saying:

'"Ah, your daughter will have a splendid position at court one day, I doubt not, madam. The Earl of Desmond's ancient title and large estates must give him a good deal of political influence, even if he does not turn out, as I think he will, a man with a pretty strong character of his own."

'The Earl of Desmond still! But what could he have to do with me? And how, oh how, was I to have a splendid position at court through his means? I did not dare to ask, as one of you would have done; for to speak in the company of one's elders, without being spoken to, was a proceeding unthought of in those days. I could only glance from Sir Harry's to my mother's face, and then for the first time I noticed how sad and anxious it looked. Her eyes, too, had a red rim round them, as if she had been crying. What could be the reason?

'"That she may be good and happy, sir, is all I desire for her," replied she; "and that I trust she may be, in whatever position she is placed."

'"With such a mother, she cannot be otherwise than good," replied Sir Harry, with a little bow. "And as for happiness, she will have all that people covet most, to give it her,--rank, wealth, beauty."

'And here, I suppose, Sir Harry caught sight of me gazing at him with eyes rounded by astonishment; for he broke off what he was saying, to ask me if I had forgiven him yet for spoiling my ride, and whether I would do him the great favour of showing him the fox's brush I had told him about, etc. etc. He certainly was very good-natured, and treated me more like a woman than any one had ever done before. He asked me to take wine with him, and bowed with so much deference, that I felt quite shy and uncomfortable for a moment. He asked about all my plays and studies, seemed quite interested in hearing of the delights of going fishing with Oliver and Roger, in stories about the young hawks which Miles and I were bringing up between us, and in the brood of rabbits which belonged to us all. Then he wanted to know if I was fond of music; if I could sing or play or dance; and, for the first time in my life, I felt rather ashamed of being obliged to say no to all these questions.

'"But you would like to learn, would you not?" said Sir Harry when we arrived at this point in the conversation, putting another bunch of grapes on my plate as he spoke.

'"Yes; I think I should, if mamma would let me;" and I looked doubtfully in her direction. But it was my father who replied.

'"Liking has nothing to do with it. Frances will of course learn whatever is necessary for her future rank and station. There is plenty of time: the child is only ten years old, I believe."

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