Sir Charles Danvers. By the author of 'The Danvers Jewels'

Chapter I

'Dear heart, Miss Ruth, my dear, now don't ye be a-going yet, and me that hasn't set eyes on ye this month and more, and as hardly hears a body speak from morning till night.' ' Come, come, Mrs. Eccles, I am always finding people sitting here. I expect to see the latch go every minute.' ' Well, and if they do, and some folks are always a-dropping in, and a-setting theirselves down, ancl a clack-clacking till a body can't get a bit of peace ! And the things they say ! Eh ! Miss Euth, the things I have heard folks say, a-setting as it might be there, in poor Eccles his old chair by the chimley, as the Lord took him in.' To the uninitiated Mrs. Eccles's allusion might have seemed to refer to photography. But Ruth knew better ; a visitation from the Lord being synonymous in Slumberleigh parish with a fall from a ladder, a stroke of paralysis, or the midnight cart-wheel that disabled Brown when returning late from the Blue Dragon 'not quite hisself.' ' Lor ! ' resumed Mrs. Eccles, with an extensive sigh, 'there's a deal of talk in the vdlage now,' glancing inquisitively at her visitor, ' about him as succeeds to old Mr. Dare; but I never listen to their tales.' They made a pleasant contrast to each other. the neat old woman, with her shrewd spectacled eyes and active hard-worked fingers, and the young girl, tranquil, graceful, sitting in the shadow, with her slender ungloved hands in her lap.

They were not sitting in the front parlour, because Ruth was an old acquaintance ; but Mrs. Eccles had a front parlour — a front parlour with the bottled-up smell in it peculiar to front parlours ; a parlour with a real mahogany table, on which photograph albums and a few select volumes were symmetrically arranged round an inkstand, nestling in a very choice woolwork mat ; a parlour with wax flowers under glass shades on the mantelpiece, and an avalanche of paper roses and mixed paper herbs in the fireplace. Ruth knew that sacred apartment well. She knew the name of each of the books ; she had expressed a proper admiration for the wax flowers ; she had heard, though she might have forgotten, for she was but young, the price of the ' real Brussels ' carpet, and so she might safely be permitted to sit in the kitchen, and watch Mrs. Eccles darning her son's socks.

I am almost afraid Ruth liked the kitchen best, with its tded floor and patch of afternoon sun ; with its tad clock in the corner, its line of straining geraniums in the low window-shelf, and its high mantelpiece crowned by two china clogs with red lozenges on them, holding baskets in their mouths. ' Yes, a deal of talk there is, but nobody rightly seems to know anything for certain,' continued Mrs. Eccles, spreading out her hand in the heel of a fresh sock, and pouncing on a modest hole. ' Ye see, we never gave a thought to him, with that great hearty Mr. George, his eldest brother, to succeed when the old gentleman went. And such a fine figure of a man in his clothes as poor Mr. George used to be, and such a favourite with his old uncle ! And then to be took like that, horse back riding at polar, only six weeks after the old gentleman !

But I can't hear as anybody's set eyes on his half-brother as comes in for the property now. He never came to Vandon in his uncle's lifetime. They say old Mr. Dare couldn't bide the French madam as his brother took when his first wife died — a foreigner, with black curls ; it wasn't likely. He was always partial to Mr. George, and he took him up when his father died ; but he never would have anything to say to this younger one, bein' nothin' in the world, so folks say, but half a French, and black, like his mother. I wonder now ' began Mrs. Eccles tentatively, with her usual love of information. ' I wonder now,' interposed Ruth quietly, ' how the rheumatism is getting on ? I saw you were in church on Sunday evening.' 'Yes, my dear,' began Mrs. Eccles, readily diverted to a subject of such interest as herself. 'Yes, I always come to the evening service now, though I won't deny as the rheumatics are very pinching at times.

But, dear Lord ! I never come up to the stalls near the chancel, so you ain't likely to see me. To see them Harrises always a-goin' up to the very top, it does go agen me. I don't say as it's everybody as ought to take the lowest place. The Lord knows I'm not proud, but I won't go into them chairs down by the font myself; but to see them Harrises that to my certain knowledge hasn't a bite of butcher's meat in their heads but onst a week, a-settin' theirselves up ' 'Now, Mrs. Eccles, you know perfectly well all the seats are free in the evening.' ' And so they may be, Miss Ruth, my dear — and don't ye be a-getting up yet — and good Christians, I'm sure, the quality are to abide it. And it did my heart good to hear the Honourable John preaching as he did in his new surplice (as Widder Pegg always puts too much blue in the surplices, to my thinking), all about rich and poor, and one with another.

A beautiful sermon it was. But I wouldn't come up like they Harrises. There's things as is suitable, and there's things as is not. No, I keep to my own place ; and I had to turn out old Bessie Pugh this very last Sunday night, as I found a-cocked up there, tho' I was not a matter of five minutes late. Bessie Pugh always was one to take upon herself, and, as I often says to her, when I hear her a-goin' on about free grace and the like, " Bessie," I says, " if I was a widder on the parish, and not so much as a pig to fat up for Christmas, and coming to church reg'lar on Loaf Sunday, which it's not that I ain't sorry for ye, but I wouldn't take upon myself, if I was you, to talk of things as I'd better leave to them as is beholden to nobody and pays their rent reg'lar." I've no patience But eh, dear Miss Ruth ! look at that gentleman going down the road, and the dog too.

"Why, ye haven't so much as got up. He's gone. He was a foreigner, ancl no mistake. Why, good Lord ! there he is coming back again. He's seen me through the winder. Mercy on us ! he's opening the gate ; he's coming to the door.' As she spoke, a shadow passed before the window, and some one knocked. Mrs. Eccles hastily thrust her darning-needle into the front of her bodice, the general rendezvous of the pins and needles of the establishment, and proceeded to open the door and plant herself in front of it. Ruth caught a glimpse of an erect light-gray figure in the sunshine, surmounted by a brown face, and the lightest of bght-gray hats. Close behind stood a black poodle of a dignified and self-engrossed deportment, wearing its body half - shaved, but breaking out in ruffles round its paws, and a tuft at the end of a stiffly undemonstrative tail. ' The key of the church is kep' at Joneses by the pump,' said Mrs. Eccles, in the brusque manner peculiar to the freeborn Briton when brought in contact with a foreigner. ' Thank you, madam,' was the reply, in the most courteous of tones, and the gray hat was off in a moment, showing a very dark, cropped head, ' but I do not look for the church.

I only ask for the way to the house of the pastor, Mr. Alwynn.' Mrs. Eccles gave full and comprehensive direc tions in a very high key, accompanied by much gestic ulation, and then the gray hat was replaced, and the gray figure, followed by the black poodle, marched down the bttle garden path again, and disappeared from view. Mrs. Eccles drew a long breath, and turned to her visitor again. ' Well, my dear, and did ye ever see the like of that ? And his head, Miss Ruth ! Did ye take note of his head ? Not so much as a sbadder of a parting. All the same all the way over ; and asking the way to the Rectory. Why, you ain't never going yet ? Well, good-bye, my dear, and God bless ye ! And now,' soliloquised Mrs. Eccles, as Ruth finally escaped, ' I may as well run across to Joneses, and see if they know anything about the gentleman, aud if he's put up at the inn.' It was a glorious July afternoon, but it was hot.

The roads were white, and the tall hedgerows gray with dust. A waggon-load of late hay, with a swarm of children just out from school careering round it, was coming up the road in a dim cloud of dust. Ruth, who had been undecided which way to take, beat a hasty retreat towards the churchyard, deciding that, if she must hesitate, to do so among cool tombstones in the shade. She glanced up at the church clock, as she selected her tombstone under one of the many yew-trees in the old churchyard. Half-past four, and already an inner voice was suggesting tea ! To miss five o'clock tea on a thirsty afternoon like this was not to be thought of for a moment. She had no intention of going back to tea at Atherstone, where she was staying with her cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Danvers. Two alternatives remained.

Should she go to Slumberleigh Hall close by, and see the Thursbys, who she knew had all returned from London yesterday, or should she go across the fields to Slumberleigh Rectory, and have tea with Uncle John and Aunt Fanny ? She knew that Sir Charles Danvers, Ralph Danvers's eldest brother, was expected at Ather stone that afternoon. His aunt, Lady Mary Cunningham, was also staying there, partly with a view of meeting him. Ralph Danvers had not seen his brother, nor Lady Mary her nephew for some time, and, judging by the interest they seemed to feel in his visit, Ruth had determined not to interrupt a family meeting, in which she imagined she might be de trap. ' My fine tact,' she thought, ' will enable them to have a quiet talk among themselves till nearly dinner-time. But I must not neglect myself any longer.

The Hall is the nearest, and the drive is shady; but, to put against that, Mabel will insist on showing me her new gowns, and Mrs. Thursby will make her usual remarks about Aunt Fanny. No ; in spite of that burning expanse of glebe, I will go to tea at the Rectory. I have not seen Uncle John for a week, and — who knows ? — perhaps Aunt Fanny may be out.' So the gloves were put on, the crisp white dress shaken out, the parasol put up, and Ruth took the narrow church path across the fields up to Slumber leigh Rectory. For many years since the death of her parents, Ruth Deyncourt had lived with her grandmother, a wealthy, witty, and wise old lady, whose house had been considered one of the pleasantest in London by those to whom pleasant houses are open. Lady Deyncourt, a beauty in her youth, a beauty in middle life, a beauty in her old age, had seen and known all the marked men of the last two generations, and had reminiscences to tell which increased in point and flavour, like old wine, the longer they were kept.

She had frequented as a girl the Miss Berrys' drawing-room, and people were wont to say that hers was the nearest approach to a salon which remained after the Miss Berrys disappeared. She had married a grave politician, a rising man, whom she had pushed into a knighthood, and at one time into the Ministry. If he had died before he could make her the wife of a premier, the disappointment had not been without its alleviations. She had never possessed much talent for domestic life, and, the yoke once removed, she had not felt the least inclination to take it upon herself again. As a widow, her way through life was one long triumphal procession. She had daughters, dull, tall, serious girls, with whom she had nothing in common, whom she educated wed, brought out, laced in, and then married, one after another, relinquishing the last with the utmost cheerfulness, and refusing the con dolences of friends on her lonely position with her usual frankness.

But her son, her only son, she had loved. He was bke her, ancl understood her, and was at ease with her, as her daughters had never been. The trouble of her life was the death of her son. She got over it, as she got over everything ; but when several years afterwards his widow, with whom, it is hardly necessary to say, she was not on speaking terms, suddenly died (being a faint-hearted, feeble creature), Lady Deyncourt immediately took possession of her grandchildren — a boy and two girls — and proceeded as far as in her lay to ruin the boy for life. ' A woman,' she was apt to remark in after years, 'is not intended by nature to manage any man except her husband. I am a warning to the mothers, aunts, and grandmothers, particularly the grand mothers, of the future. A husband is a sufficient field for the employment of a woman's whole energies.

I went beyond my sphere, ancl I am punished.' And when Raymond Deyncourt finally dis appeared in America for the last time, having been fished up therefrom on several occasions, each time in worse case than the last, she excommunicated him, and cheerfully altered her will, dividing the sixty thousand pounds she had it in her power to leave between her two granddaughters, and letting the fact become known, with the result that Anna was married by the end of her second season ; and if at the end of five seasons Ruth was still un married, she had, as Lady Deyncourt took care to inform people, no one to thank for it but herself. But in reality, now that Anna was provided for, Lady Deyncourt was in no hurry to part with Ruth. She liked her as much as it was possible for her to like any one — indeed, I think she even loved her in a way.

She had taken but small notice of her while she was in the schoolroom, for she cared little about girls as a rule ; but as she grew up tad, erect, with the pale, stately beauty of a lily, Lady Deyncourt's heart went out to her. None of her own daughters had been so distinguished-looking, so ornamental. Ruth's clothes always looked well on her, and she had a knack of entertaining people, and much taste in the arrangement of flowers. Though she had inherited the Deyncourt earnestness of character, together with their dark serious eyes and a certain annoying rigidity as to right and wrong, these defects were counterbalanced by flashes of brightness and humour which reminded Lady Deyncourt of herself in her own brilliant youth, and inclined her to be lenient, when in her daughters' cases she would have been sarcastic.

The old woman and the young one had been great friends, ancl not the less so perhaps because of a tacit understanding which existed between them that certain subjects should be avoided upon which, each instinctively felt, they were not likely to agree. And if the shrewd old woman of the world ever suspected the existence of a strength of wdl ancl depth of character in Ruth such as had in her own early life been a source of annoyance ancl perplexity to herself in her dealings with her husband, she was skilful enough to ignore any traces of it that showed themselves in her granddaughter, aud thus avoided those collisions of will, the result of which she felt might have been doubtful. And so Ruth had lived a life full of varied interests, and among interesting people, and had been waked up suddenly in a gray ancl frosted dawn to find that chapter of her bfe closed.

Lady Deyncourt, who never thought of travelling without her maid and footman, suddenly went on a long journey alone one wild January morning, starting without any previous preparation for a land in which she had never professed much interest heretofore. It seemed a pity that she should have to die when she had so thoroughly acquired the art of living, with little trouble to herself, and much pleasure to others ; but so it was. And then in Ruth's confused remembrance of what followed, all the world seemed to have turned to black and gray. There was no colour anywhere, where ad had been colour before. Miles of black cloth and crape seemed to extend before her ; black horses came and stamped black hoof-marks in the snow before the door. Endless arrangements had to be made, endless letters to be written.

Some thing was carried heavily downstairs all in black, scoring the wall at the turn on the stairs in a way which would have annoyed Lady Deyncourt exceedingly if she had been there to see it, but she had left several days before it happened. The last pale shadow of the kind, gay little grandmother was gone from the great front bedroom upstairs. Mr. Alwynn, one of Ruth's uncles, came up from the country and went to the funeral, and took Ruth away afterwards. Her own sister Anna was abroad with her husband ; her brother Raymond had not been heard of for years. As she drove away from the house, and looked up at the windows with wide tearless eyes, she suddenly realised that this departure was final, that there would be no coming back, no home left for her in the familiar rooms where she and another had lived so long together.

Mr. Alwynn was by her side in the carriage, patting her cold hands and telling her not to cry, which she felt no inclination to do ; and then, seeing the blank pallor in her face, he suddenly found himself fumbling for his own pocket-handkerchief.

Chapter II

On this particular July afternoon, Mr. Alwynn, or, as his parishioners called him,' The Honourable John,' was sitting in his arm-chair in the little drawing-room of Slumberleigh Eectory. Mrs. Honourable John was pouring out tea ; and here, once and for all, let it be known that meals, particularly five o'clock tea, will occupy a large place in this chronicle, not because of any importance especially attaching to them, but because in the country, at least in Slumberleigh, the day is not divided by hours but by the meals that take place therein, and to write of Slumberleigh and its inhabitants with disregard to their divisions of time is ' impossible, and cannot be done.' So I repeat boldly, Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn were at tea. They were alone together, for they had no children, and Ruth Deyncourt, who had been living with them since her grandmother's death in the winter, was now staying with her cousin, Mrs. Ralph Danvers, at Atherstone, a couple of miles away.

If it had occasionally crossed Mr. Alwynn's mind during the last few months that he would have liked to have a daughter like Ruth, he had kept the sentiment to himself, as he did most senti ments in the company of his wife, who, while she complained of his habit of silence, made up for it nobly herself at all times and in ad places. It had often been the subject of vague wonder among his friends, and even at times to Mr. Alwynn himself, how he had come to marry ' Fanny, my love.' Mr. Alwynn dearly loved peace and quiet, but these dwelt not under the same roof with Mrs. Alwynn. Nay, I even bebeve, if the truth were known, he bked order and tidiness, judging by the exact arrangement of his own study, and the rueful glances he sometimes cast at the litter of wools and letters on the newspaper table, and the gay garden hats and goloshes, hidden but not concealed, under the drawing-room sofa.

Conversation about the dearness of butchers' meat and the enormities of servants palled upon him, I think, after a time, but he had taken his wise's style of conversation for better for worse when he took her gaily-dressed self under those ominous conditions, and he never showed impatience. He loved his wife, but I think it grieved him when smart -coloured glass vases were strewn among the cherished bits of old china and enamel which his soul loved. He did not like chromo-lithographs or the framed photographs, which Mrs. Alwynn called her ' momentums of travel,' among his rare old prints either. He bore them, but after their arrival in company with large and inappropriate nails, and especially after the cut-glass candlesticks appeared on the drawing room chimney-piece, he ceased to make his little occasional purchases of old china and old silver.

The curiosity shops knew him no more, or if he still at times brought home some treasure in his hat -box on his return from Convocation, it was unpacked and examined in private, and a little place was made for it among the old Chelsea figures on the bookcase in his study, which had stood ever since he had inherited them from his father on the drawing-room mantelpiece, but had been sdently removed when a pair of comic china elephants playing on Adolins had appeared in their midst. Mr. Alwynn sighed a little when he looked at them this afternoon, and shook his head ; for had he not brought back in his empty soup-tin an old earthenware cow of Dutch extraction which he had long coveted on the shelf of a parishioner ? He had bought it very dear, for when in ad his life had he ever bought anything cheap ?

And now, as he was tenderly wiping a suspicion of beef-tea off it, he wondered, as he looked round his study, where he could put it. Not among the old Oriental china, where bits of Wedgwood had already elbowed in for want of room elsewhere. Among his Lowestoft cups and saucers ? Never. He would rather not have it than see it there. He had a vision of a certain bracket, discarded from the hall, ancl put aside by his careful hands in the lowest drawer of the cupboard by the window, in which he kept little stores of nails and string and brown paper, among which ' Fanny, my love ' performed fearful ravages when minded to tie up a parcel. Mr. Alwynn nailed up the bracket under an old etching, and placed the cow thereon, and after contemplating it over his spectacles, went into the drawing-room to tea with his wife.

Mrs. Alwynn was a stout, florid, good-humoured looking woman, with a battered fringe, considerably younger than her husband in appearance, and with a tendency to bright colours in dress. ' Barnes is very poorly, my dear,' said Mr. Alwynn, patiently fishing out one of the lumps of sugar which his wife had put in his tea. He took one lump, but she took two herself, and consequently always gave him two. ' I should say a bttle strong soup would ' At this juncture the front-door bell rang and a moment afterwards ' Mr. Dare ' was announced. The erect light-gray figure which had awakened the curiosity of Mrs. Eccles came in close behind the servant. Mrs. Alwynn received a deep bow in return for her look of astonishment ; and then, with an eager exclamation, the visitor had seized both Mr. Alwynn's hands, regardless of the neatly folded slice of bread-and-butter in one of them, and was shaking them cordiady.- Mr. Alwynn looked for a moment as astonished as his wife, and the blank, deprecating glance he cast at his visitor showed that he was at a loss.

The latter let go his hands and spread his own out with a sudden gesture. ' Ah ! you do not know me,' he said, speaking rapidly ; 'it is twenty years ago, and you have forgotten. You do not remember Alfred Dare, the little boy whom you saw last in sailing costume, the little boy for whom you cut the whistles, the son of your old friend, Henry Dare ? ' ' Good gracious ! ' ejaculated Mr. Alwynn, with a sudden flash of memory. ' Henry's other son. I remember now. It is Alfred, and I remember the whistles too. You have your mother's eyes. And, of course, you have come to Vandon now that your poor brother We have all been wondering when you would turn up. My dear boy, I remember you perfectly now ; but it is a long time ago, and you have changed very much.' ' Between eight years ancl twenty-eight there is a great step,' replied Dare, with a brilliant smile. ' How could I expect that you should remember all at once ?

But you are not changed. I knew you the first moment. It is the same kind, good face which I remember well.' Mr. Alwynn blushed a faint blush, which any word of praise could always call up ; and then, reminded of the presence of Mrs. Alwynn by a short cough, which that lady always had in readiness wherewith to recad him to a sense of duty, he turned to her and introduced Dare. Dare made another beautiful bow ; and while he accepted a cup of tea from Mrs. Alwynn, Mr. Alwynn had time to look attentively at him with his mild gray eyes. He was a slight, active-looking young man of middle height, decidedly un-English in appearance and manner, with dark, roving eyes, moustaches very much twirled up, and a lean brown face that was exceedingly handsome in a style to which Mr. Alwynn was not accustomed.

And this was Henry Dare's second son, the son by his French wife, who had been brought up abroad, of whom no one had ever heard or cared to hear, who had now succeeded, by his half-brother's sudden death, to Vandon, a property adjoining Slumberleigh. The eager foreign face was becoming famdiar to Mr. Alwynn. Dare was like his mother ; but he sat exactly as Mr. Alwynn had seen his father sit many a time in that very chair. The attitude was the same. Ah ! but that flourish of the brown hands ! How unlike anything Henry would have done ! And those sudden movements ! He was roused by Dare turning quickly to him again. ' I am teding Mrs. Alwynn of my journey here,' he began ; ' of how I miss my train ; of how I miss my carriage, sent to meet me from the inn ; of how I walk on foot up the long hdls ; and when I get there, they think I am no longer coming.

I arrived only last night at Vandon. To-day I walk over to see my old friend at Slumberleigh.' Dare leant forward, laying the tips of his fingers bghtly against his breast. ' You seem to have had a good deal of walking,' said Mr. Alwynn, rather taken aback, but anxious to be cordial ; ' but, at any rate, you will not walk back. You must stay the night now you are here, mustn't he, Fanny ? ' Dare was delighted — beaming. Then his face became overcast. His eyebrows went up. He shook Ids head. Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn were most kind — but — he became more and more dejected — a bag, a simple valise — It could be sent for. Ah ! Mr. Alwynn was too good. He revived again. He showed his even white teeth. He was about to resume his tea, when suddenly a tall white figure came lightly in through the open French window, and a clear voice began — ' Oh, Uncle John, there is such a heathen of a black poodle making excavations in the flower-beds !

Do ' Ruth stopped suddenly as her eyes fell upon the stranger. Dare rose instinctively. 'This is Mr. Dare, Ruth,' said Mr. Alwynn. ' He has just arrived at Vandon.' Ruth bowed. Dare surpassed himself, and was sdent. All his smdes and flow of small talk had suddenly deserted him. He began patting his dog, which had followed Ruth indoors, ancl a moment of constraint fell upon the little party. ' She is shy,' said Dare to himself. ' She is adorably shy.' Ruth's quiet, self-possessed voice dispelled that pleasing illusion. ' I have had a very exhausting afternoon with Mrs. Eccles, Aunt Fanny, and I have come to you for a cup of tea before I go back to Atherstone.' ' Why did you walk so far this hot afternoon, my dear ; and how are Mrs. Danvers and Lady Mary ; and is any one else staying there ; and, my dear, are the dolls finished ? ' 'They are,' .said Ruth. 'They are aU out rageously fashionable.

Even Molly is satisfied. There is to be a school-feast here to-morrow,' she added, turning to Dare, who appeared bewildered at the turn the conversation was taking. ' Ad our energies for the last fortnight have been brought to bear on dolls. We have been dressing dolls, morning, noon, and night.' ' When is it to be, this school-feast ? ' said Dare eagerly. ' I wid buy one, three dods.' After a lengthy explanation from Mrs. Alwynn as to the nature of a school-feast as distinct from a bazaar, Ruth rose to go, and Mr. Alwynn offered to accompany her part of the way. ' And so that is the new Mr. Dare about whom we have all been speculating,' she said, as they strolled across the fields together. ' He is not like his half-brother.' 'No; he seems to be entirely a Frenchman. You see, he was educated abroad, and that makes a great difference.