At the sight of Mr. Landale's weighted brow she propped up her own long sallow face, upon its aching side, with a trembling hand, and, full of agonised prescience, ventured to ask if anything had happened.
"Sit down," said her brother, with a sort of snarl – He possessed an extremely irritable temper under his cool sarcastic exterior, a temper which his peculiar anomalous circumstances, whilst they combined to excite it, forced him to conceal rigidly from most, and it was a relief to him to let it out occasionally upon Sophia's meek, ringleted head.
Sophia collapsed with hasty obedience into a chair, and then Mr. Landale handed to her the thin fluttering sheets, voluminously crossed and re-crossed with fine Italian handwriting:
"From Tanty," ejaculated Miss Sophia, "Oh my dear Rupert!"
"Read it," said Rupert peremptorily. "Read it aloud."
And throwing himself back upon his chair, he shaded his mouth with one flexible thin hand, and prepared himself to listen.
"Camden Place, Bath, October 29th," read the maiden lady in those plaintive tones, which seemed to send out all speech upon the breath of a sigh. "My Dear Rupert, – You will doubtless be astonished, but your invariably affectionate Behaviour towards myself inclines me to believe that you will also be pleased to hear, from these few lines, that very shortly after their receipt – if indeed not before – you may expect to see me arrive at Pulwick Priory."
Miss Landale put down the letter, and gazed at her brother through vacant mists of astonishment.
"Why, I thought Tanty said she would not put foot in Pulwick again till Adrian returned home."
Rupert measured the innocent elderly countenance with a dark look. He had sundry excellent reasons, other than mere family affection, for remaining on good terms with his rich Irish aunt, but he had likewise reasons, these less obvious, for wishing to pay his devoirs to her anywhere but under the roof of which he was nominal master.
"She has found it convenient to change her mind," he said, with his twisting lip. "Constancy in your sex, my dear, is merely a matter of convenience – or opportunity."
"Oh Rupert!" moaned Sophia, clasping the locket which contained her dead lover's hair with a gesture with which all who knew her were very familiar. Mr. Landale never could resist a thrust at the faithful foolish bosom always ready to bleed under his stabs, yet never resenting them. Inexplicable vagary of the feminine heart! Miss Sophia worshipped before the shrine of her younger brother, to the absolute exclusion of any sentiment for the elder, whose generosity and kindness to her were yet as great as was Rupert's tyranny.
"Go on," said the latter, alternately smiling at his nails and biting them, "Tanty O'Donoghue observes that I shall be surprised to hear that she will arrive very shortly after this letter, if not before it. Poor old Tanty, there can be no mistake about her nationality. Have the kindness to read straight on, Sophia. I don't want to hear any more of your interesting comments. And don't stop till you have finished, no matter how amazed you are."
Again he composed himself to listen, while his sister plunged at the letter, and, after several false starts, found her place and proceeded:
"Since, owing to his most unfortunate peculiarity of Temperament and consequent strange choice of abode, I cannot apply to my nephew Adrian, à qui de droit (as Head of the House) I must needs address myself to you, my dear Rupert, to request hospitality for myself and the two young Ladies now under my Charge."
The letter wavered in Miss Sophia's hand and an exclamation hung upon her lip, but a sudden movement of Rupert's exquisite crossed legs recalled her to her task.
"These young ladies are Mesdemoiselles de Savenaye, and the daughters of Madame la Comtesse de Savenaye, who was my sister Mary's child. She and I, and Alice your mother, were sister co-heiresses as you know, and therefore these young ladies are my grand-nieces and your own cousins once removed. Of Cécile de Savenaye, her strange adventures and ultimate sad Fate in which your own brother was implicated, you cannot but have heard, but you may probably have forgotten even to the very existence of these charming young women, who were nevertheless born at Pulwick, and whom you must at some time or other have beheld as infants during your excellent and lamented father's lifetime. They are, as you are doubtless also unaware – for I have remarked a growing Tendency in the younger generations to neglect the study of Genealogy, even as it affects their own Families – as well born on the father's side as upon the maternal. M. de Savenaye bore argent à la fasce-canton d'hermine, with an augmentation of the fleurs de lis d'or, cleft in twain for his ancestor's memorable deed at the siege of Dinan."
"There is Tante O'Donoghue fully displayed, haut volante as she might say herself," here interrupted Mr. Landale with a laugh. "Always the same, evidently. The first thing I remember about her is her lecturing me on genealogy and heraldry, when I wanted to go fishing, till, school-boy rampant as I was, I heartily wished her impaled and debruised on her own Donoghue herse proper. For God's sake, Sophia, do not expect me to explain! Go on."
"He was entitled to eighteen quarters, and related to such as Coucy and Armagnac and Tavannes," proceeded Miss Sophia, controlling her bewilderment as best she might, "also to Gwynne of Llanadoc in this kingdom – Honours to which Mesdemoiselles de Savenaye, being sole heiresses both of Kermelégan and Savenaye, not to speak of their own mother's share of O'Donoghue, which now-a-days is of greater substance – are personally entitled.
"If I am the sole Relative they have left in these Realms, Adrian and you are the next. I have had the charge of my two young Kinswomen during the last six months, that is since they left the Couvent des Dames Anglaises in Jersey.
"Now, I think it is time that your Branch of the Family should incur the share of the responsibility your relationship to them entails.
"If Adrian were as and where he should be, I feel sure he would embrace this opportunity of doing his duty as the Head of the House without the smallest hesitation, and I have no doubt that he would offer the hospitality of Pulwick Priory and his Protection to these amiable young persons for as long as they remain unmarried.
"From you, my dear Nephew, who have undertaken under these melancholy family circumstances to fill your Brother's place, I do not, however, expect so much; all I ask is that you and my niece Sophia be kind enough to shelter and entertain your cousins for the space of two months, while I remain at Bath for the benefit of my Health.
"At my age (for it is of no use, nephew, for us to deny our years when any Peerage guide must reveal them pretty closely to the curious), and I am this month passing sixty-nine, at my age the charge of two high-spirited young Females, in whom conventional education has failed to subdue Aspirations for worldly happiness whilst it has left them somewhat inexperienced in the Conventions of Society, I find a little trying. It does not harmonise with the retired, peaceful existence to which I am accustomed (and at my time of life, I think, entitled), in which it is my humble endeavour to wean myself from this earth which is so full of Emptiness and to prepare myself for that other and better Home into which we must all resign ourselves to enter. And happy, indeed, my dear Rupert, such of us as will be found worthy; for come to it we all must, and the longer we live, the sooner we may expect to do so.
"The necessity of producing them in Society, is, however, rendered a matter of greater responsibility by the fact of the handsome Fortunes which these young creatures possess already, not to speak of their expectations."
Rupert, who had been listening to his aunt's letter, through the intermediary of Miss Sophia's depressing sing-song, with an abstracted air, here lifted up his head, and commanded the reader to repeat this last passage. She did so, and paused, awaiting his further pleasure, while he threw his handsome head back upon his chair, and closed