“I shall, of course, provide for her.”
“I know you will do all that is kind and generous; but money is not everything. Monica is peculiar: she wants controlling, yet – ”
“Yet no one can control her: I know that well; or only Arthur and his whims. She has no companions but her dogs and horses. My blood runs cold every time I see her on that wild black thing she rides, with those great dogs bounding round her. There will be another shocking accident one of these days. She ought to be controlled – taken away from her extraordinary life. Yet she will not hear of coming to London with me even on a short visit; she will not even let me speak of it,” and Lady Diana’s face showed that she was much affronted.
“That is just it,” said Lord Trevlyn, slowly; “her life and Arthur’s both seem bound up in Trevlyn.”
Lady Diana made a significant gesture, which the earl understood.
“Just so; and yet – unless under most exceptional circumstances – unless what I hardly dare to hope should happen – she must, they must both leave it, at some not very distant date.”
The hesitation of Lord Trevlyn’s manner did not escape his sister.
“What do you mean?” she asked abruptly.
“I mean that I have been in correspondence lately with my heir, and that I expect him shortly at Trevlyn.”
“Your heir?”
“Yes, Randolph Trevlyn, one of the Warwickshire branch. The extinction of the Trevlyns at Drayton last year, you know, made him the next in succession. I made inquiries about him, and then entered into personal communication.”
Lady Diana looked keenly interested.
“What have you made out?”
“That he is very well spoken of everywhere as a young man of high character and excellent parts. He is wealthy – very wealthy, I believe, an only son, and enriched by a long minority. He is six or seven and twenty, and he is not married.”
Lady Diana’s eyes began to sparkle.
“And he is coming here?”
“Yes, next week. Of course I need not tell you what is in my thoughts. I object to match-making, as a rule. I shall put no pressure upon Monica of any kind, but if those two should by chance learn to love one another, I could say my ‘Nunc dimittis’ at any time.”
Lady Diana looked very thoughtful.
“Monica is undoubtedly beautiful,” she said, “and she is interesting, which perhaps is better.” Her brother, however, made no reply, and as he did not appear inclined to discuss the matter farther – they were seldom in entire accord in talking of Monica – she presently rose and quitted the room, saying softly to herself as she did so, “I should love to see that proud girl with a husband’s strong hand over her.”
That evening, when alone with his daughter, Lord Trevlyn introduced the topic most in his thoughts at that time.
“Monica, do you never want a little variety? What should you say to a visitor at Trevlyn?”
“I would try to make one comfortable. Are you expecting anyone, father?”
“Yes, a kinsman of ours: Mr. Trevlyn, whose acquaintance I wish to make.”
“Who is he? I never heard of him before.”
“No; I have not known much about him myself till lately, when circumstances made him my heir. Monica, have you ever thought what will happen at Trevlyn in the event of my death?”
A very troubled look crept into Monica’s dark, unfathomable eyes. Her face looked pained and strained.
“I think you ought to know, Monica,” said the earl, gently. “Perhaps you have thought that the estates would pass to you in due course of time.”
Monica pressed her hands closely together, but her voice was steady, her words were quietly spoken.
“I do not know if I have ever thought about it; but I suppose I have fancied you would leave all to Arthur or to me.”
“Exactly, you would naturally inherit all I have to leave; but Trevlyn is entailed in the male line, and goes with the title. At my death Mr. Randolph Trevlyn will be the next earl, and all will be his.”
Monica sat very still, feeling as if she had received some sudden stunning blow; but she could not take in all in a moment the gist of such intelligence. A woman in some matters, she was a child in others.
“But, father,” she said quietly, and without apparent emotion, “Arthur is surely much nearer to you than this Mr. Trevlyn, whom you have never seen?”
The earl smiled half-sadly, and shook his head.
“My dear, you do not understand these things; I feel towards Arthur as if he were my son, but he is not of my kindred. He is my wife’s son, not mine; he is not a Trevlyn at all.”
Monica’s troubled gaze rested on her father’s face.
“He cannot live anywhere but at Trevlyn,” she said, slowly. “It would kill him to take him anywhere else;” and in her heart she added – a little jealous hostility rising up in her heart against the stranger and usurper who was coming – “He ought to have it. He is a son and a brother here. By every law of right Trevlyn should be his.”
Foolish, irrational Monica! Where Arthur was concerned her eyes were blinded, her reason was warped by her love. And the ways of the great outside world were so difficult to understand.
Presently she spoke in very low, measured tones, though not without a little falter in her voice now and then.
“You mean that if – if you were to die – Arthur and I should be turned out of Trevlyn.”
“You would neither of you have any right to remain,” answered Lord Trevlyn, choosing his words with care. “You would find a home with your aunt; and as for Arthur, I suppose he would go to his cousins – unless, indeed, if he seemed unable to live away from the place, some arrangement with my successor could be made. Everything would depend on him, but of course it would be a difficult arrangement.”
She drew a long breath, and passed her hand across her eyes.
“Mr. Trevlyn is coming here, you say?”
“Yes, next week. I think it is right that we should become acquainted with our kinsman, especially as so much may depend upon him in the future.”
“I think so too,” answered Monica; and then she quietly left him, without uttering another word.
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
MONICA’S RIDE
The next morning dawned fair and clear, as is often the case after a storm. Monica rose early, her first thought, as usual, for Arthur. She crept on tip-toe to his room, to find him as she had left him, sleeping calmly – as he was likely now to do for hours, after the attack of the previous day; and finding herself no longer required by him, the girl was not long in making up her mind how these early hours of glimmering daylight were to be spent.
Seven o’clock found her in the saddle, mounted on her glossy black thorough-bred, who, gentle under her hand, would brook no other rider, and showed his mettle in every graceful eager movement, and in the restless quivering of his shapely limbs. His coat shone like satin in the pale early sunlight; he pranced and curvetted as he felt his rider upon his back. Monica and her horse together made a picture that for beauty and grace could hardly meet its match in the length and breadth of the land.
The girl was perfectly at home in the saddle. She heeded no whit the pawing of her steed, or the delighted baying of the great hounds who formed her escort, and whose noise caused Guy’s delicate nerves many a restive start. She gathered up her reins with practised hand, soothed him by a gentle caress, and rode quietly and absently out of the great grass-grown court-yard and through a stretch of tangled park beyond. Once outside the gates, she turned to the right, and quickly