"Not once did he suggest such a thing. 'She has gone out of my house like an ingrate,' he said; 'I have done with her.' That was all. It was at breakfast-time we missed you, and I went to him straight with the news. About an hour later there came a man who had seen a coach-and-four waiting by the wicket-gate, and that seemed conclusive evidence to Mr. Bosworth. He had no further doubt as to what had happened."
Durnford rang, and requested that a messenger should be sent to the livery-yard to order a coach-and-four. And then he pressed Mademoiselle to refresh herself at the breakfast-table, which was somewhat luxuriously provided. The servants brought a fresh chocolate-pot and a dish of rolls for the new-comer, and although Mademoiselle was too agitated to have any appetite, her quondam pupil hung about her affectionately, and insisted upon her taking a good breakfast.
"And so this fine house belongs to Lord Lavendale," said the little Frenchwoman. "Are you to live here always?"
"Nay, Mademoiselle, do not think so meanly of me as to suppose I would be content to lodge my wife in another man's house, even if I were satisfied to live at free quarters as a bachelor, which I was not. No, to oblige Lavendale, who was very pressing, I accepted the use of this fine house for my honeymoon. It is a kind of enchanted palace in which we are to begin the fairy tale of married life; but so soon as we sober down a little, Rena and I mean to find a home of our own. We shall look for some rustic cottage in one of the villages near London, Chelsea or Battersea, most likely – for I must not be far from the House – and we shall begin domestic life in an unpretending manner. We will not take a fine house, as poor Steele did, and call it a hovel, and be over head and ears in debt, and our furniture pledged to a good-natured friend. No, we will live from hand to mouth if needs must, but we will pay our way. I have a trifle put by, and I count upon my comedy for giving me the money to furnish our nest."
"And if the Squire should turn me out of doors, as I reckon he will in a day or so, may I come and be your housekeeper?" asked Mademoiselle. "I should save you a servant, for I can cook as well as teach, and I would do all your housework into the bargain, for the sake of being near Rena. I have saved a little money, so I should not be any expense to you; and I would have my little room apart, like Mrs. Layburne, so as not to disturb your tête-à-tête life as married lovers."
"Dearest Maman, I should love to have you with us, but not to work for us. That would never do, would it, Herrick?"
"No, indeed, love. And though we are not rich, we shall be able to afford some stout serving-wench. But if Mademoiselle would keep house for us, go to market occasionally, and toss an omelette or mix a salad now and then, just to show our silly British drudge how such things should be done – "
"I will do all that, and more. I love the cares of the ménage."
After this came much hugging and kissing between governess and pupil, and then a footman announced that the coach was at the door, and they all three started for Fairmile.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when the four horses, a fresh relay from Kingston, drew up in front of the Squire's door. It had not entered into his mind that his runaway daughter could be so brazen as to come back to the house she had deserted yet awhile, so he issued no orders for her exclusion. She and her husband walked into the house boldly, to the alarm of the old butler, and were ushered straight to the small parlour, the Squire's den, where he sat in a dejected attitude beside a desk strewn and heaped with papers. Uppermost among them was a document in several folios, tied together with green ferret, which looked suspiciously like a will.
He started at his daughter's entrance, lifted his heavy head, and glared at her with angry eyes under scowling brows.
"What, madam, do you dare to intrude upon the solitude of the parent you have outraged?" and then recognising Durnford close at his wife's elbow, "and to bring your pauper-husband at your tail? That is an insolence which you will both repent. Leave my house this instant, fellow, or I will have you kicked out of it by my servants."
"I doubt if there is one of them strong enough for the office," said Herrick; "do not vent your spleen upon me, Mr. Bosworth, till you have heard what I have to say in my own defence. That I am here to-day must show you that I mean honestly."
"Honestly, sir! there is no such thing as honesty in a man who steals an heiress. You have secured your prize, I take it. You have bound her fast in matrimony."
"Yes, sir, we are bound to each other for life. We were married at the chapel in Curzon Street at ten o'clock yesterday morning."
"What, by the Reverend Couple-Beggars, by that scurvy dealer in marriage-lines, Parson Keith? A highly respectable marriage, altogether worthy of a landed gentleman's daughter and heiress – a marriage to be proud of. Leave my house, woman! You and I have nothing more to do with each other."
"Father," she pleaded, sinking on her knee at his feet, where he sat scowling at her, not having stirred from his brooding attitude since her entrance; "father, can you be so cruel to me for having married the man of my choice? As to your fortune, with all hope of being rich in days to come, I resign it without a sigh. What I saw of wealth and splendour, pleasure and fashion, last winter, only served to show me how false and hollow such things are, and how one's heart may ache in the midst of them. I can be happy with the man I love in humble circumstances, or can rejoice in his good fortune if ever he should grow rich: but I cannot be happy without your forgiveness."
"Then you may perish in your sorrow, for I can never forgive. You had best drop sentiment, wench; blot me out of your life, as I have blotted you out of mine. You have had your own way. You had a father, you have a husband; be content to think, you have profited by the exchange."
"Why are you so angry?" she asked piteously.
"Why?" he echoed, "why?" and then bringing his clenched fist down upon the document of many folios, "because I had built all my hopes on you – because I had speculated and hoarded, and calculated and thought, in order to amass a mighty fortune for you and your heirs. I would have made you a Duchess, girl. Yes, by Heaven, I had negotiations in hand with a ducal house, and you would have been taken to town a few weeks hence to be courted by the heir to a dukedom. I should have lived to see my daughter mistress of half a dozen palaces – "
"Not your daughter, sir," said Herrick gravely; "your daughter has long been mistress of one narrow house – a tenement which none would care to dispute with her."
"What are you raving about, fellow?"
The Squire started to his feet, and looked at Durnford in a kind of savage bewilderment.
"I am here to reveal the trick that has been played upon you, sir, and to justify myself as a man of honour," answered Herrick. "I stole no heiress when I took this dear girl from beneath your roof. I counselled no disobedience to a father when I urged her to fly with me. I speculated upon no future fortune, hoped nothing from your relenting bounty. The girl I loved was a nameless waif who for thirteen years has been imposed upon you as a daughter, and who loves you and reverences you as truly as if she were indeed your child."
"Not my daughter?" muttered the Squire; "not my daughter? It is a foul lie – a lie hatched by you, sir, to cozen and torment me – an outrageous, obvious, shallow, impudent lie!"
"Should I invent a lie which deprives my wife of any claim to your wealth? However indifferent I may be to riches, I am too much a man of the world to so wantonly sacrifice my wife's prospects."
"Upon what grounds?" cried Bosworth. "What proof?" And then suddenly gripping Irene by the arm, "Unfasten your bodice, girl. Let me see your right shoulder."
He almost tore the upper part of the bodice from the fair and dimpled shoulder in his furious impatience, and there at the top of the arm was revealed a deep cicatrice, the scar of a wound healed long ago.
"Out of my sight, you beggar's brat!" he cried huskily. "Yes, I have been tricked, deluded, cozened damnably. But by whom? There could be only two concerned in it. Bridget and that other one – that she-devil. Follow me, both of you. We'll have it out! We'll have it out!"
He dashed out of the room and along the