Kitabı oku: «Lancaster's Choice»

CHAPTER I

Old Lady Lancaster had twenty thousand pounds a year of her own. She had brought that much dower when she came to her husband, the late Lord Lancaster, and now, when he was dead, and she a childless widow, she was like the Martha of Holy Writ—she was troubled over many things.

The possession of great wealth usually entails trouble, it is said, and Lady Lancaster's case was no exception to the rule. The greatest anxiety she had was that she could not decide what she would do with her fortune when she died. She was eighty years old, and although she did not want to die, she knew that she would have to do so some day, and she wanted to make her will before that grewsome event.

The title and estates of Lancaster had descended to the late lord's nephew, young Clive Lancaster. It was but a barren honor, after all, for there was no money to support the dignity of the position. The deceased incumbent had been a spendthrift, and so had his father before him. They had dissipated all the property that was not strictly entailed with the title, and the present heir had little to live on except his pay as a captain in the army, where he still remained after his accession to the title, while at his express wish and desire Lady Lancaster still reigned lady paramount at his ancestral home, and kept up its wonted dignity and state. She said she should leave all her money to Captain Lancaster if he married to please her. If not—and she shook her gray head ominously, not to say viciously, at this point, and remained silent.

Lancaster Park was one of the loveliest places in Devonshire, as Devonshire is one of the loveliest counties in England. It seemed almost a pity that the young lord could not afford to marry and bring home a beautiful bride to grace his stately home. No one doubted but that when the time came he would espouse the bride his aunt selected for him. It would be folly, it would be madness, if he refused. No one supposed that the handsome young soldier could be capable of such rashness. He did not dream of anything but obedience himself. He only hoped that it would be a very pretty girl whom his aunt chose for him, and also that the matrimonial hour was yet in the dim distance. He was only five-and-twenty, and he did not care to surrender his bachelor freedom yet. He was amazed and confounded, therefore, when in a year after his uncle's death Lady Lancaster sent him one of her characteristic letters—short and to the point:

"My dear Clive"—she wrote—"try and get leave to come down to Lancaster Park for a month or so this fall. I have invited a lot of people for that time, among them the girl I have chosen for you. Do not fail me. Delays are dangerous."

It was rather a command than a request, and the last words sounded like a threat. The young lord-captain was taken by storm. His heart sunk to the bottom of his tall cavalry boots. He did not want to be married off-hand like that. He secretly rebelled against a forced surrender of his soldierly freedom, even though he gained twenty thousand pounds a year in exchange for it. He took counsel with his chum, young Harry De Vere, who was a soldier, too.

"I'm ower young to marry yet," he said. "How shall I outwit the old lady's designs upon me?"

"Come over to America with me," said Lieutenant De Vere. "I have leave of absence for six months. You can get it, too, by the asking. I am going over to the States to spend my holiday. I should be delighted to have you for a companion."

The idea took hold of Captain Lancaster's imagination immediately.

"I will go with you," he said. "I have always intended to make the tour of the United States, and if I do not go before I am married, it is not likely I shall do so afterward. I will write to my aunt to postpone her matrimonial designs a little while longer."

He wrote to Lady Lancaster that he was very sorry indeed to disappoint her, but that he had made a most positive engagement to go over to the States next month with his friend Harry De Vere, and now the young fellow would not let him off, but as soon as they returned he should be at her ladyship's command, etc., etc.

Lady Lancaster was profoundly annoyed and chagrined at her nephew's letter. She did not want to postpone the consummation of her favorite scheme. But she wisely concluded to bear with the inevitable this time. She wrote to the truant lord that she would excuse him this once, but that he must be ready to fall in with her plans next time, or it might be worse for him. Her fortune was not likely to go a-begging for an owner.

CHAPTER II

Captain Lancaster got leave and went off in triumph with Lieutenant De Vere to the United States. When he had put the ocean between himself and his match-making relative, he breathed more freely.

"I can count on one year more of single blessedness now, I hope," he said. "I do not suppose my aunt will try to have me married off by a cablegram or a telephone while I am absent."

De Vere laughed at his friend's self-congratulations.

"I never saw any one so unwilling to accept a fortune before," he said.

"It is not the fortune I object to—it is the incumbrance I must take with it," replied Captain Lancaster.

"Should a wife be regarded as an incumbrance?" inquired the other, with a smile.

"That would depend upon whether she were one's own choice or somebody else's. I can not imagine old Lady Lancaster selecting an ideal wife for me."

"All the same you will accept the one she provides for you. It would be madness indeed to refuse," said his friend.

"Well, well, we will not discuss it. May the evil day be yet far off," responded Lancaster, fervently.

Woe unto him if her ladyship, far away under English skies, could have heard his regrets, or have known that he had taken his trip solely to stave off the evil day of his marriage, as he so considered it. She was vexed over it. While she deemed it an accident, she would have been furiously angry could she have known it to have been design. At home she was eating her heart out with impatience and vexation, and eagerly counting the weeks and months as they rolled away, thinking that each one brought her nearer to his return and to the accomplishment of her cherished scheme.

The months glided by, and at length the winter was past and spring was at hand. It was April—that tender, timid month, with its violets and daisies. Lady Lancaster's heart beat more lightly. She had had a recent letter from the traveler. He wrote that he would be at home by the first of June. She began to lay her plans accordingly. She would have a merry party at the Park to welcome him home, and he should make up his mind then. There was no time for delay.

She sent for the housekeeper to come to her immediately. She wanted to make all her arrangements at once, and she could do nothing without consulting Mrs. West, the model housekeeper who had ruled at Lancaster Park for sixteen years. My lady grew impatient while she sat in her great velvet arm-chair and waited for the woman's coming. Her small black eyes snapped crossly, she wriggled her lean, bent body in its stiff brocade, and the bony little hands, with the great jeweled rings hanging loosely upon them, grasped the jeweled serpent-head that topped her walking-cane with nervous energy as she gasped out, angrily: "Why don't the woman come? How dare she keep me waiting?"

The door opened softly and Mrs. West entered just in time to catch the impatient exclamation—a very lady-like person indeed, in noiseless black silk, and a neat lace cap that surrounded a face only half as old as that of the lady of Lancaster Park.

"I am very sorry that I kept you waiting, my lady," she said, quietly.

Then Lady Lancaster looked up and saw an open letter in the housekeeper's hand, and the signs of inward disturbance on her usually unruffled countenance.

"You know that I hate to be kept waiting, West," she said, "and you are usually very prompt. But I see that something has happened this time, so I am ready to excuse your tardiness. What is it?"

"You are right, Lady Lancaster. Something has happened," said Mrs. West. She sunk down quietly, as she spoke, into the chair that her mistress indicated by a nod of her grim, unlovely head. "I have had a letter with bad news in. I shall be obliged to quit your service."

"Quit my service!" echoed Lady Lancaster, wildly. Her voice rose almost to a shriek, it was so full of dismay and anger.

"That was what I said, my lady," reiterated the housekeeper, deprecatingly.

Lady Lancaster regarded her in incredulous dismay a moment, then she burst out, sharply:

"But I say you shall do no such thing; I can not spare you, I can not get on without you at all—that is, not without six months' warning to supply your place."

"A month is the usual time, Lady Lancaster," said the housekeeper, mildly; and then, as the old lady regarded her in speechless dismay, she added, quickly: "But I am sorry that I can not even give you a month's warning to supply my place, for I am obliged to leave you right away. I have a long journey to take. I must cross the ocean."

"Cross the ocean! Now, did I ever! Are you crazy, West?" demanded the old lady, wrathfully.

"I knew you would think so," said Mrs. West. "But if you will be kind enough to let me explain the circumstances, you mightn't think so hardly of me, Lady Lancaster."

"No circumstances could excuse your going off in this way," flashed Lady Lancaster. "There is Lord Lancaster coming home by the first of June, and of course I must invite a party to meet him; and there are the rooms, and—and—everything to be seen to. No one knows my ways and my wishes like you who have been at Lancaster Park so many years. Now, what am I to do?"

She lifted her wrinkled hands helplessly.

"There will have to be a new housekeeper found, of course," hazarded Mrs. West, timidly.

"Oh, yes; an ignorant creature who knows nothing, and who will have everything wrong, of course, just when I want all to be at its best," groaned the wizened old aristocrat. "I call this downright ungrateful in you, West, this going off just as we had got used to each other's ways."

Mrs. West suppressed a struggling smile around the corners of her lips, and, rising up, stood respectfully before her hard mistress.

"My lady, I'm sorry you think so hard of me. Indeed, I would not leave you but for good cause," she said. "I had hoped and expected to spend all my days at Lancaster Park, but my duty calls me elsewhere. I assure you it is as hard for me as for you. Think how hard it is for me, a poor lone woman, to have to cross the ocean—at my time of life, too! And then to have to take a child to raise and spend all my earnings on—a child that's no kin to me, either, you understand, my lady!"

CHAPTER III

Lady Lancaster settled her gold-bowed spectacles on her long Roman nose, and fixed a keen, penetrating stare on the troubled face of her housekeeper.

"Whose child is it, and what is it all about, anyhow?" she sputtered, vaguely.

"It's my brother-in-law's child, and he's dead away off in New York somewhere, and the child's left to me—his penniless, friendless orphan child, left to me by the dead; and how could I refuse the charge, my lady?" inquired Mrs. West, reproachfully. "I should think the dead would come from his grave, away off yonder in America, to haunt me if I didn't do his bidding," cried she, glancing behind her with something like a shudder of superstitious fear.

"I didn't know you were simpleton enough to believe in ghosts, West," sniffed my lady, contemptuously. "And I didn't know you ever had a brother-in-law, either. Where has he been all these years?"

"If you will read this letter, Lady Lancaster, you will find out in fewer words than I can tell you," said Mrs. West, respectfully presenting her letter, which all this time she had been holding open in her hand.

My lady took the black-edged sheet into the grasp of her thin, bony hand, and ran her keen eyes down the written page.

"Dear Sister-in-Law"—it ran—"I know you've wondered many a time since I caught the gold fever and ran away to California, twenty years ago, what's become of the willful lad that you and John couldn't manage; although you tried so hard and so faithfully. I always meant to write to you some day, but I put it off from time to time in my hard, busy life, until now it's almost too late, and I seem to be writing to you from the borders of that other world where I've somehow heard my brother John went before me, and where I'm hastening now. For I'm dying, sister-in-law, and I'm quite sure that I shall be dead before this comes to your hand. Well, I've had ups and downs in this life, sister Lucy—good luck and ill luck—and now I'm dying I have one great care upon my mind. I'm leaving my little girl, my pretty Leonora—named so for her mother, who died when her baby was born—all alone in the cold, hard world. She is friendless, for we've led such a roving life once she was born that we have made no friends to aid us now in our extremity. Dear sister-in-law, you were always a good woman. You tried to do your duty by the wayward orphan boy who has so poorly repaid your care. Will you be kinder still? Will you come to America and take my child for your own? Will you give her a mother's love and care? Remember, she is friendless and forsaken in the world, without a living relative. What would become of her if you refused my dying prayer? I inclose a card with our New York address upon it. She will wait there after I am dead until you come for her. I feel sure that you will come; you will not disregard my dying wish and request. Forgive me all my ingratitude and thoughtlessness, sister Lucy, and be a mother to my darling little Leo when I am no more.

"Your dying brother,

"Richard West."

The letter rustled in Lady Lancaster's nervous grasp. She looked up thoughtfully at the patient, waiting woman.

"I could not refuse such a prayer as that, could I, my lady?" she asked, wistfully. "You see, he was my husband's only brother—poor, handsome, willful Dick. His parents were both dead, and he had only me and John, my husband. He was restless and ambitious. He ran away and left a letter that he should go to California and seek his fortune. From that day to this, never a word has been heard of Dick. And now he's dead—not so old, either; only in the prime of life—and he's left me his little girl. She will be a trouble, I know. I must give up my quiet, peaceful home here and make a new home for the child somewhere. But I can not refuse. I dare not, for John's and Dick's sake. I must go to America and get the child. I can not do less than he asked me. He was always restless, poor Dick. He could not stay in his grave if I refused his dying prayer."

CHAPTER IV

Lady Lancaster, filled with chagrin and despair, sat gazing on the floor in silence. The thought of losing this trusty, capable woman, who had belonged to the staff of Lancaster Park so long, was most annoying to her. It had come upon her with all the suddenness of a calamity. She viewed it as nothing less.

She was an old woman, and she disliked exceedingly to have new faces around her. Under Mrs. West's efficient régime the affairs of the house had gone on with the precision and regularity of clock-work. It would take a new woman years to attain to her proficiency. She had grown to regard the good housekeeper almost as her own property—a piece of her personal goods and chattels. She could not help being angry at the thought of losing her.

"It is too bad," she blurted out, indignantly. "Why do folks go and die like that, and leave their wretched brats on other people's hands."

A faint color crept into Mrs. West's comely face at the scornful words.

"My lady, it's the will of God," she said, in her quiet, deprecating way.

"I don't believe God has anything to do with it," cried the old lady, violently. "If He did, He would prevent poor folks from marrying, in the first place."

And then as she saw how patiently the woman endured these taunts, she had the grace to be ashamed of herself.

"Well, there, there; I dare say you don't care to hear your folks spoken of in that way," she said, in a milder tone. "But then Richard West was no kin to you, anyway—only your husband's brother!"

Mrs. West could not forbear a pertinent little retort.

"And Captain Lancaster is only your husband's nephew, my lady, yet you take a great interest in him," she said.

Lady Lancaster gave her a keen little glance. "Humph! West has some spirit in her," she said to herself; then, aloud, she replied:

"I can assure you the only interest I take in him is because he is my Lord Lancaster; and as he holds the title my late husband held, I should like for him to have money enough to support it properly. But if he does not marry to please me, you shall see how little I care for the young popinjay."

Mrs. West made no reply, and her mistress continued, after a moment's thought:

"Must you really take the child, do you think, West?"

"I couldn't think of refusing poor Dick's dying request," was the answer.

"Shall you make your home in America?" continued the lady.

"Oh, no, no; I should come back to dear old England. I couldn't consent to pass my last days in a strange country."

Lady Lancaster was silent a moment. Her eyes were very thoughtful; her thin lips worked nervously. Mrs. West waited patiently, her plump hands folded together over the letter that had brought her such strange, unwelcome news. "Where are you going to live when the child comes?" Lady Lancaster snapped, almost rudely.

"I don't know yet, my lady. I have made no plans. I only received my letter a little while ago."

"You don't want my advice, I presume?"—more snappishly than ever.

"I should be very glad of it," Mrs. West replied, respectfully.

"Why didn't you ask it, then?"

"I didn't dare."

"Didn't dare, eh? Am I an ogress? Should I have eaten you if you had asked my advice?" demanded the irascible old lady, shortly.

"Oh, no, Lady Lancaster; but I shouldn't have presumed to trouble you so far," Mrs. West replied, in her quiet way that was so strange a contrast to the other's irritability.

"Very well. I've presumed to lay a plan for you," replied the grim old lady.

"A plan for me!" Mrs. West echoed, vaguely.

"Yes. You shall not go away from Lancaster Park. You shall have the child here."

"Here!" cried the housekeeper, doubtful if she were in her proper senses.

"Why, do you echo my words so stupidly, West?"

"I beg your pardon. I was doubtful if I understood your words rightly. I thought you disliked children," Mrs. West answered, confusedly.

"I did, and do," tartly. "But, for all that, I had sooner have Dick West's child here than for you to leave me. You could keep her in your own rooms, couldn't you? I needn't be bothered with her society?"

"Certainly," faltered Mrs. West, in a tremor of joy. She was very glad that she was not to leave Lancaster Park, where she had dwelt in peace and comfort for sixteen years—ever since her faithful, hard-working John had died and left her a lone widow with only fifteen pounds between her and the world. She had thought herself a very fortunate woman when she secured this place, and her heart bounded with joy at the thought that she was to stay on in peace, in spite of the incumbrance of her brother-in-law's orphan child.

"Oh, Lady Lancaster, I don't know how to thank you!" she cried. "I shall be very glad not to go away from the Park. I will keep Leonora very close, indeed I will, if you allow me to bring her here."

"Well, she shall be brought here. Of course I rely on you to keep her out of my way. I dislike the ways of children," said the hard old lady, who had never had any children herself, and who was an old maid at heart. "That is all I ask of you. Don't have her around under my feet, and I shall never remember that she is here."

"Thanks, my lady. And when am I to go and fetch my niece?" inquired the housekeeper, timidly.

"You're not to fetch her at all. I thought I had told you that already," tartly.

Mrs. West's eyes grew large and round with dismay.

"Indeed, I thought you said I should have her here," she exclaimed.

"So I did; I said she should be brought here, but I didn't say you should go to New York and fetch her home!"

"But Dick wished me to go," perplexedly; "and how is she to come if I do not go?"

"She may come with Lord Lancaster the first of June. I dare say he can go and get her all right."

"But it seems as if I ought to go myself. Besides, Lord Lancaster mightn't like it, indeed," whimpered poor Mrs. West.

"Fiddlesticks! I do not care whether he likes it or not," declared the octogenarian, snapping her fingers. "He shall do as I bid him. Aren't you willing to trust the brat with him?"

"Oh, yes, my lady," declared the housekeeper, with a sigh of relief.