“Thank you, Master Aubrey Late-hours,” replied she; “ ’tis a bit too late for my supper, and Lettice’s likewise, without she can eat two of a night. How is it with my Lady Lettice? I hope, lad, you help and comfort her all you can.”
Aubrey looked rather astonished.
“Comfort her?” he said. “She’s all right.”
“How old are you, Aubrey?”
“Why, Aunt Temperance, you know I was twenty last month.”
“One makes blunders betimes, lad. That speech of thine sounded about ten.”
“What mean you, Aunt Temperance?”
“Nay, lad, if God have not given thee eyes and brains, I shall be ill-set to do it.—Run in, Lettice. No, I’m not coming—not while to-morrow morning. Remember to be up early, and help all you can—both of you. Good even.”
Temperance shut the door, and they heard her quick foot tread sharply down the gravel walk.
“I say, ’tis jolly moving house, isn’t it?” said Aubrey.
“I can’t think why Aunt Temperance supposes that Grandmother or any body should want comforting.”
“Well, we are young, and she is old,” replied Lettice; “I suppose old folks care more about those things, perhaps.”
“Oh, ’tis but because they are lazy and have the rheumatism,” said Aubrey, laughing. “Beside, Grandmother cares not about things like Mother. Mother’s for ever fretting, but Grandmother’s always cheery.”
The cousins left the deep whitewashed porch and the oak-panelled hall, and went forward into the chief sitting-room of the house, known as the great parlour. The word “withdrawing-room” was still restricted to palaces and palatial mansions, and had not descended so low as to a country gentleman’s house like Selwick Hall. The great parlour was a large room with a floor of polished oak, hung with tapestry in which the prevailing colour was red, and the chairs held cushions of red velvet. On the tiled hearth a comfortable fire burned softly away, and in a large chair of dark carved wood beside it, propped up with cushions of red velvet, sat an old lady of seventy-six, looking the very picture of comfort and sweetness. And though “her golden hairs time had to silver turned,” and she was now a widow indeed, and desolate, some of my readers may recognise their old friend Lettice Eden. Her eyes, though a little sunken, kept their clear blue, and her complexion was still fair and peach-like, with a soft, faint rose-colour, like a painting on china. She had a loving smile for every one, and a gentle, soothing voice, which the children said half cured the little troubles wherein they always ran to Grandmother. Aunt Faith was usually too deep in her own troubles, and Aunt Edith, though always kind, was also invariably busy; while there was considerable hesitation in making an appeal to Aunt Temperance, who might answer it with a box on the ear instead of a comforting kiss, or at best had an awkward way of turning the tables on the plaintiff by making him out to be the offender instead of the defendant. But nobody ever hesitated to appeal to Grandmother, whose very rebukes fell as softly as rose-leaves, and were always so justly deserved that they had twice the effect of those which came from perpetual fault-finders. Aubrey had grown up in this atmosphere, but it was much newer to his cousin Lettice, the daughter of Dudley Murthwaite and Helen Louvaine. Until she was twelve years old, Lettice had dwelt with her father at Skiddaw Force, her Aunt Temperance having supplied the place of the dead mother who had faded from her child’s memory, for Helen passed away when her daughter was only two years old. It had not been exactly Dudley’s choice which had placed Temperance in that position. He would have preferred his wife’s youngest sister, Edith, to fill the vacant place of mother to his little girl; but Edith firmly though kindly declined to make her home away from Selwick Hall. The natural explanation of course was that she, being the only unmarried daughter of the house, preferred to remain with her parents. Edith said so, and all her friends repeated it, and thought it very natural and proper. And no one knew, except God and Edith, that the reason given was only half the truth, and that the last place in this world which Edith Louvaine could take was the place of that dead sister Helen who had so unconsciously taken the one thing which Edith coveted for herself. Thus thrown back on one of his own sisters, Dudley tried next to persuade Faith to make her home with him. It might have been better for Faith if she had done so. But she liked the more luxurious life of Selwick Hall, where she had only to represent herself as tired or poorly to have any exertion taken for her by some one else; and she was one of those unconscious impostors who begin by imposing on themselves. Whatever she wished to do, she was always capable of persuading herself that she ought to do. Faith therefore declined to remove to her brother’s house. The last resource was Temperance, who, when appealed to, averred herself perfectly ready to go wherever she was most wanted. One baggage-horse would be enough for her luggage, she thanked goodness; she had two gowns for winter and two for summer, and no reasonable woman ought to have any more. As to ruffs and puffs, cuffs and muffs, she troubled herself with none of those ridiculous vanities. A plain laced bodice and skirt were good enough to work in, and a pair of stout shoes to keep her out of the mire, with a hat and kerchief for outdoor wear, and a warm cloak for cold weather. Her miscellaneous possessions were limited to a big work-basket, two silver spoons and a goblet, and three books—namely, a copy of the four Gospels, a Prayer-book, and Luther on the Lord’s Prayer. Packing and unpacking were small matters. In these circumstances, and Temperance’s change of residence was the affair of an afternoon. Six years afterwards her brother Dudley died; and Temperance, taking into consideration the facts that Skiddaw Force was a very lonely place, having no house within some miles save a few isolated cottages of charcoal-burners and shepherds; that a small house at Keswick belonged to Lettice; and that the child’s grand-parents on the mother’s side were desirous to have her near them, let the house at Skiddaw Force, and came to live at Keswick.
The family at Selwick Hall had once been much larger than now. All were gone but these few—Milisent to another home; Anstace, Walter, and Helen lay in the churchyard, and Ned, the father of young Aubrey, under the waves of the North Atlantic; and then Mynheer Stuyvesant, the old Dutch gentleman who had been driven from his own land for the faith’s sake, and having been the boys’ tutor, had stayed for love after necessity was over, took his last journey to the better country; and dear, honest, simple Cousin Bess Wolvercot, friend and helper of all, went to receive her reward, with—
“Nothing to leave but a worn-out frame,
And a name without a stain;
Nothing to leave but an empty place,
That nothing could fill again—”
And after that, Lady Lettice felt herself growing old. The evening shadows crept further, and her right hand in household affairs was gone; but with the constant love and aid of Edith, she held on her way, until the sorest blow of all fell on her, and the husband who had been ever counsellor and comforter and stay, left her side for the continuing City. Since then, Lettice Louvaine had been simply waiting for the day when she should join him again, and in the interim trying through growing infirmities to “do the next thing,”—remembering the words uttered so long ago by his beloved cousin Anstace, that some day the next step would be the last step.
When Sir Aubrey Louvaine died, at the age of seventy-nine, two years before the story opens, Aubrey, his grandson and namesake, became the owner of Selwick Hall: but being under age, every thing was left in the hands of his grandmother.
The pang of Lady Louvaine’s bereavement was still fresh when another blow fell on her. Her husband had inherited Selwick from a distant cousin, known in the neighbourhood as the Old Squire. The Old Squire’s two sons, Nicholas and Hugh, had predeceased him, Sir Aubrey had taken peaceable possession of the estate, and no one ever doubted his title for fifty years, himself least of all. Three months after his death, Lady Louvaine was astounded to receive a lawyer’s letter, claiming the Selwick lands on behalf of one Oswald Louvaine of Newcastle, a young man who asserted himself to be the grandson of the long-deceased Hugh. His documentary proofs were all in order, his witnesses were numerous and positive, and Lady Louvaine possessed no counter-proof of any kind to rebut this unheard-of claim. After a