I stifled an imaginary yawn in faint protest against her unbecoming exhilaration. I have not many weaknesses, but I hate scandal and scandal-mongering. All the same I was interested, although I did not care to gratify Lady Naselton by showing it.
“Remember, that I have only been here a week or two,” I remarked; “certainly not long enough to have mastered the annals of the neighborhood. I have not asked any one before. No one has ever mentioned her name. Is there really anything worth hearing?”
Lady Naselton looked down and brushed some crumbs from her lap with a delicately gloved hand. She was evidently an epicure in story-telling. She was trying to make it last out as long as possible.
“Well, my dear girl, I should not like to tell you all that people say,” she began, slowly. “At the same time, as you are a stranger to the neighborhood, and, of course, know nothing about anybody, it is only my duty to put you on your guard. I do not know the particulars myself. I have never inquired. But she is not considered to be at all a proper person. There is something very dubious about her record.”
“How deliciously vague!” I remarked, with involuntary irony. “Don’t you know anything more definite?”
“I find no pleasure in inquiring into such matters,” Lady Naselton replied a little stiffly. “The opinion of those who are better able to judge is sufficient for me.”
“One must inquire, or one cannot, or should not, judge,” I said. “I suppose that there’s something which she does, or does not, do?”
“It is something connected with her past life, I believe,” Lady Naselton remarked.
“Her past life? Isn’t it supposed to be rather interesting nowadays to have a past?”
I began to doubt whether, after all, I was going to be much of a favorite with Lady Naselton. She set her tea cup down, and looked at me with distinct disapproval in her face.
“Amongst a certain class of people it may be,” she answered, severely; “not”—with emphasis—“in Northshire society; not in any part of it with which I am acquainted, I am glad to say. You must allow me to add, Miss Ffolliot, that I am somewhat surprised to hear you, a clergyman’s daughter, express yourself so.”
A clergyman’s daughter. I was continually forgetting that. And, after all, it is much more comfortable to keep one’s self in accord with one’s environment. I pulled myself together, and explained with much surprise—
“I only asked a question, Lady Naselton. I wasn’t expressing my own views. I think that women with a past are very horrid. One is so utterly tired of them in fiction that one does not want to meet them in real life. We won’t talk of this at all. I’m not really interested. Tell me about Mr. Deville instead.”
Now this was a little unkind of me, for I knew quite well that Lady Naselton was brimming with eagerness to tell me a good deal about this undesirable neighbor of ours. As it happened, however, my question afforded her a fresh opportunity, of which she took advantage.
“To tell you of one, unfortunately, is to tell you of the other,” she said, significantly.
I decided to humor her, and raised my eyebrows in the most approved fashion.
“How shocking!” I exclaimed.
I was received in favor again. My reception of the innuendo had been all that could be desired.
“We consider it a most flagrant case,” she continued, leaning over towards me confidentially. “I am thankful to say that of the two Bruce Deville is the least blamed.”
“Isn’t that generally the case?” I murmured. “It is the woman who has to bear the burden.”
“And it is generally the woman who deserves it,” Lady Naselton answered, promptly. “It is my experience, at any rate, and I have seen a good deal more of life than you. In the present case there can be no doubt about it. The woman actually followed him down here, and took up her quarters almost at his gates whilst he was away. She was there with scarcely a stick of furniture in the house for nearly a month. When he came back, would you believe it, the house was furnished from top to bottom with things from the Court. The carts were going backwards and forwards for days. She even went up and selected some of the furniture herself. I saw it all going on with my own eyes. Oh! it was the most barefaced thing!”
“Tell me about Mr. Deville,” I interrupted hastily. “I have not seen him yet. What is he like?”
“Bruce Deville,” she murmured to herself, thoughtfully. Then she was silent for a moment. Something that was almost like a gleam of sorrow passed across her face. Her whole expression was changed.
“Bruce Deville is my godson,” she said, slowly. “I suppose that is why I feel his failure the more keenly.”
“He is a failure, then?” I asked. “Some one was talking about him yesterday, but I only heard fragments here and there. Isn’t he very quixotic, and very poor?”
“Poor!” She repeated the word with peculiar emphasis. Then she rose from her chair, and walked a step or two towards the low fence which enclosed our lawn.
“Come here, child.”
I stood by her side looking across the sunlit stretch of meadows and undulating land. A very pretty landscape it was. The farm houses, with their grey fronts and red-tiled roofs, and snug rickyards close at hand, had a particularly prosperous and picturesque appearance. The land was mostly arable and well-cultivated; field after field of deep golden stubble, and rich, dark soil stretched away to the dim horizon. She held out her hand.
“You see!” she exclaimed. “Does that look like a poor man’s possessions?”
I shook my head.
“Every village there from east to west, every stone and acre belongs to Bruce Deville, and has belonged to the Devilles for centuries. There is no other land owner on that side of the country. He is lord of the Manor of a dozen parishes!”
I was puzzled.
“Then why do people call him so miserably poor?” I asked. “They say that the Court is virtually closed, and that he lives the life of a hermit, almost without servants even.”
“He either is or says he is as poor as Job,” Lady Naselton continued, resuming her seat. “He is a most extraordinary man. He was away from the country altogether for twelve years, wandering about, without any regular scheme of travel, all over the world. People met him or heard of him in all manner of queer and out-of-the-way places. Then he lived in London for a time, and spent a fortune—I don’t know that I ought to say anything about that to you—on Marie Leparte, the singer. One day he came back suddenly to the Court, which had been shut up all this time, and took up his quarters there in a single room with an old servant. He gave out that he was ruined, and that he desired neither to visit nor to be visited. He behaved in such an extraordinary manner to those who did go to see him, that they are not likely to repeat the attempt.”
“How long has he been living there?” I asked.
“About four years.”
“I suppose that you see him sometimes?”
She shook her head sadly.
“Very seldom. Not oftener than I can help. He is changed so dreadfully.”
“Tell me what he is like.”
“Like! Do you mean personally? He is ugly—hideously ugly—especially now that he takes so little care of himself. He goes about in clothes my coachman would decline to wear, and he slouches. I think a man who slouches is detestable.”
“So do I,” I assented. “What a very unpleasant neighbor to have!”
“Oh, that isn’t the worst,” she continued. “He is impossible in every way. He has a brutal temper and a brutal manner. No one could possibly take