The Lovely Malincourt. A novel. ... Sixth thousand

Front matter

rf THE "GREENBACK 5ER1ES" POPULAR 3/6 NOVELS By WELL-KNOWN AUTHORS. (Crown 8-jo, Cloth. J Uniform with "The Lovely Malincourt." i. LOUIS DRAYCOTT. By Mrs. Leith Adams. 2nd Edition. 2. GEOFFREY STIRLING. By Mks. Leith Adams. 5th Edition. 3. BONNIE KATE. By Mrs. Leith Adams. 2nd Edition. 4. A NEW OTHELLO. By Hon. Iza Duffus Hardy. 2nd Ed. 5. THE MAID OF LONDON BRIDGE. By Somerville Gibney. 3rd Edition. 6. EVELINE WELLWOOD. By Major Norris Paul. 2nd Ed. 7. OLD LATTIMERS LEGACY. By J. S. Fletcher. 2nd Ed. 8. THAT LITTLE GIRL. By Curtis Yorke. 5th Edition. 9. DUDLEY. By Curtis Yorke. 4th Edition. 10. THE WILD RUTHVENS. By Curtis Yorke. 3rd Edition. 11. THE BROWN PORTMANTEAU, and other Stories. By Curtis Yorke. 2nd Edition. 12. HUSH ! By Curtis Yorke. 3rd Edition. 13. ONCE! By Curtis Yorke. 2nd Edition. 14.

A ROMANCE OF MODERN LONDON. By Curtis Yorke. 3rd Edition. 15. HIS HEART TO WIN. By Curtis Yorke. 2nd Edition. 16. DARRELL CHEVASNEY. By Curtis Yorke. 17. BETWEEN THE SILENCES. By Curtis Yorke. 18. THE PEYTON ROMANCE. By Mrs. Leith Adams. '3rd Ed. 19. THE GOLDEN MILESTONE. By Scott Graham. 3rd Ed. 20. A RECORD OF DISCORDS. By Curtis Yorke. 2nd Edition. 21. "CHERRY RIPE!" By Helen Mathers. 8th Edition. 22. STORY OF A SIN. By Helen Mathers. 5th Edition. 23. EYRE'S ACQUITTAL. (Sequel.) By Helen Mathers. 4th Ed. 24. JOCK O' HAZEI.GREEN. By Helen Mathers. 4th Ed. 25. MY LADY GREEN SLEEVES. By Helen Mathers. 6th Ed. 26. FOUND OUT. By Helen Mathers. 103rd Thousand. 27. THE MEDLICOl'TS. By Curtis Yorke. 28. THE HEART OF A MYSTERY. By T. W. Speight. -\ 29. MAN PROPOSES. By Mrs. A. Phillips. 30. THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.

By Mrs. E. Newman. 31. ALLANSON'S LITTLE WOMAN. By Eastwood Ridson. . 32. LINDSW'S GIRL. By Mrs. Herbert Martin. •***; 33. WRONGLY CONDEMNED. By Mrs. Bagot Harte, h Author of " Bianca," &c. V Sc 34. THE THIRTEENTH BRYDAIN. By Margaret Moule, 0 Author of **' Wingrove's Ways," "Dick's Wife," "Miss ? Maidment," &c. * 35. THROUGH ANOTHER MAN'S EYES. By Eleanor Holmes. ?fi. MRS. WYLDE. By Linda Gardiner. i 37. A PRINCE OF COMO. By E. M. Davy. 2nd Edition. Ready. 38. RUTH FARMER. By Agnes Marchbank. Ready 39. THE LOVELY MALINCOURT. By Helen Mathers. Ready. 40. A GARRISON ROMANCE. By Mrs. Leith Adams. Ready. 41. HARUM SCARUM. By Esme Stuart. Shortly 42. A BOLT FROM THE BLUE. By Scott Graham. Shortly 43* THE MAN IN THE CHECK SUIT. By F. W. H. Delf. [Shortly. OTHERS IN PREPARATION. LONDON: JARROLD &> SONS, \oandix-, Warwick Lane, E.C. a jftomi BY HELEN MATHERS Author os " Comin thro' the Rye" "Cheiry Ripe.'" "My Lady Green Sleeves," " Story of a Sin," " Eyre's Acquittal" " Jock o' Hazelgreen" "Found Out," "A Man of To-day" ifc.

Chapter I

Vanity Fair was at its height, and its chiefest mart of fashion was crowded in every part. To and fro the people thronged, buying and selling, if only for hearts, chaffering for a smile from beauty, a bow from the great, for any and every trifle for which the world pays so high, and by which the wise set no store at all, the humbler ones fighting for a place whence they could the better view the orderly magnificence of a show not to be matched, surely, in any other capital in Europe. Jarring notes there may be, ugly blots of colour representing those who come neither to buy nor sell, only to stare and gape at the brave men and the fair women, who seem of B another race to themselves ; but they cannot mar the absolute perfection of the scene, in which the faultless horses, equipages, and servants play a brilliant and conspicuous part.

Two persons chatting together near a window in Park Lane, that overlooked Stanhope Gate, had turned their backs on the tide of life flowing below ; and the lady had a ruffled air, as of an orchid rudely hustled by an easterly wind, as she unfolded a letter, and regarded it with extreme disfavour before announcing its contents. " I don't know how to tell you, I'm sure, Ronny," said Lady Appuldurcombe at last. " I know how you dislike girls, and really I never will forgive Malincourt, never ! " " Malincourt is the chap who lives in Somer setshire all the year round, and married your half-sister, isn't he ? " inquired Ronny, lazily, from the depths of his big chair. "Yes. It was the first time I ever found Cecilia's taste at fault ; but I suppose if I had been born a beauty, I should have made a muddle of my life too.

However, I'll read you his letter — the first I've had from him for five years, and I haven't seen him for ten. " ' Malincourt, June 25, 1894. ' My dear Jane, " ' I don't think I have troubled you much, but now I want you to do me a favour. Ask my girl, Lesley, up to stop with you for a month ; I'll warrant that four weeks of town, noticed by nobody, will break her of her tricks, and make her glad enough, after jilting half the county, to put up with Bob Heatherly ' — dear me, Ronny, what a name ! — ' the best fellow that ever breathed. She vows she won't come, but she shall, and if you will send to Waterloo to meet the 6.26 train this day week, she and her maid shall be there. You needn't bother about her clothes — she has plenty.' " — Lady Appuldurcombe groaned. — " 'Mind, I don't complain of her being too fond of the men ; it's only that she encourages them to be too fond of her.

And, if I make my request curtly, it is only because I know how barefaced and utterly inexcusable it is. " ' Your affectionate brother-in-law, " ' Malincourt.' ' "And it is now 6.30," exclaimed Ronny, glancing at his watch. " Mother, why didn't you tell me in time, so that I might go and meet her ? " URT. 4 " My boy ! " exclaimed his mother, " and when I have not had you back for more than twenty-four hours ! I have sent the brougham, and Parker. But how like Malincourt to think he is punishing a girl by packing her off to taste the whipped-up cream of a London season ! However, he was always mad on that point. He could stand Paris for a week, when Cecilia wanted new frocks, but nothing would persuade him to sleep a night in town ; and, what was more amazing still, he persuaded my sister to think the same.

She was always an extraordinarily well-turned-out woman," added Lady Appuldurcombe, meditatively, "and she died of the country, no doubt. The child was then about eight ; so the girl must be that odious age to everybody but herself, eighteen. Naturally, she will be provincial to the last degree " " Now, mother," said Ronny, laughing, "do allow the county to have a little taste. Some of the nicest girls in the world never come to town at all, and show their sense, / think, by stopping away." "Well, I can't forgive her," said Lady Appuldurcombe, crossing over to drop a lovino kiss on his close-cropped, curly head ; " it's too bad, after all these months of torture I've gone through, not knowing if you were alive or dead, for a silly, flirting girl to appear, and spoil everything." " The trouble is all over now, mother," he said cheerily, " and you know I always came back to you before, didn't I ?

I was in hopes those confounded newspapers would have let us alone " " Newspapers don't spare mothers," she said ; then added softly, " Cynthia was a great comfort to me ; she suffered horribly " " Mother ! I didn't ask her to do it," he burst out hotly, and got up, and stood looking across Park Lane at those geometrical masses of bloom which yearly announce the full flood tide of that London season which rolls with muffled roar beside them. His mother looked anxiously at him as his eyes followed the horses, not the people, though they were near enough to the park for many eyes to distinguish him upon the balcony where he stood, and more than one hand was waved to him in a greeting he did not see. " I think I'll run down to the stables to night," he said presently. " You are not going out, I hope ?

" UR T " I'm afraid I must. I can throw over the other things, but Green Park House is open this evening, and I must look in for an hour. If you will tell Charville you are out, and refuse to go to your club, or into the park, because you dread an ovation, has it not occurred to you that, if you are the most popular man in England just now, I am the proudest mother in it to-day ? " " Oh, mother ! " he said shame-facedly, for, so it is, that the men who are the very pith and marrow of English manhood, and who plant the English flag with bleeding hands, maybe, but unwaveringly, in the far corners of the earth, cannot bear to talk about it, and will run a mile rather than hear their brave deeds openly mentioned. "And you will take that poor girl with you, of course, mother ? " he added eagerly.

" I want you to be nice to her " — and he looked lovingly at the tall woman, whose elegance was erroneously supposed to be in excess of her heart. " After all, what harm do you know of her ? Merely that she is not as fond of the men, as the men are of her. Give her a good time, and then let her marry her own Bob Heatherly, or some one else's Bob, and be happy." " As if she would have a frock fit to go in ! " said his mother, looking shocked. " You forget, my dear, that any one under my wing is certain to be observed ; and, really, I don't know how to explain it. An Appuldurcombe, a Kilmurry, and a Malincourt, all closely re lated ; really, it hardly sounds respectable ! " Ronny's eyes twinkled. His mother knew what was coming, smiled, and beat a retreat ; her prospective marriage, not his, being a standing joke between them.

When she had gone, he thought how few people would have honoured the blank cheque her brother-in-law Malincourt had drawn on their kindness as she had done ; but, indeed, though a woman of society, Lady Appuldurcombe was an absurd person, who could not get rid of a heart, and, if you're born so, with a hankering to do kind things, you may get rapped over your knuckles fifty times a day, but you will go on doing them simply because you cannot help it. Looking at the shifting stream that, to him, was not even picturesque, but simply monotonous, Major Kilmurry's face fell into the stern lines of one in whom sight and thought is suddenly arrested, and action, keen, swift, and decisive, takes its place. With head thrown back, and in his nostrils the wild flicker and savour of fight, he lived once more those supreme moments that, when rightly seized, prove the hero, and pass as a national heritage into the history of that man's country.

The reality of life, not the mockery of it, had always claimed Ronald Kilmurry for its own, and, if birth and circumstance had thrust him into the dallying ways of society, he had struck out with all the fierceness of a drowning swimmer against them, and not altogether in vain. A man should belong to himself — and, I am afraid, Ronny would have added, his horse — he need not caper round in a self-imposed treadmill of pleasure, and spend his life in trying to convince people he loved it. He was glad to be home. He loved his mother as it is given to but few happy mothers to be loved when a boy's earliest school-days are over, he had men friends by the score, and horses that were almost more to him than his friends, but one disagreeable fact just then stuck in his recollection, and that fact was a woman.

He would meet her to-night, of course ; and — and then he turned suddenly, with an odd THE L O VEL Y MALINCO URT. 9 sense of fragrance and sunshine in the atmo sphere, to see Charville retreating in the dis tance, and Lesley the Scapegrace standing beside him. Oh, youth, youth ! the sap in the tree, the blossom on the bough, to which unconsciously we yearn as to spring — and yet it was youth shy, and proud, and ashamed, that stood looking at Ronald, with eyes which asked him wistfully, " Do I look such a desperate character, after all ? What have I done to be thrust upon your unwilling hospitality like this ? " He laughed as he took her hand, and shook it heartily. " You are awfully welcome, Cousin Lesley," he said, seeing how, with that keen ness of the senses which goes only with the morning of life, she was still examining him, hoping, but by no means sure, that she had found, not a lover, but a friend.

" Poor little soul," he said to himself, as he took a dainty bag containing purse and hand kerchief from her, observing thankfully as he did so, that there was not the faintest perfume of any kind about it, for perhaps Cynthia de Salis's greatest fault in his eyes, bar one, was that delicate perfume of Parma violets by which her approach was always made known. "Mother will be here directly," he said, " and meanwhile you must let me give you some tea," he added, as Charville himself came to wait on her, profoundly satisfied with this recruit to the " family." But Lesley declined tea, though she looked as if she really wanted it. Ronny thought how awkward it would be if she starved herself in revenge ; and, after a moment's hesitation, told her so. "And how would you like it," she flashed out, " if you were packed off like a parcel labelled ' This Side Up,' to people you had never seen, or scarcely heard of, and who didn't want to see you in the very least, but had not the courage to refuse to take you in ?

" " We really ought to see something of each other, because we are cousins, you know," said Ronny, rather taken aback to find that, when she was angry, she stood nearly as tall as he did, and looked twice as game. " Only half" she said, still with that insult ingly tall air. Her shame seemed quite gone now. " To be sure," said Ronny cheerfully ; " but the fact is, we've got rather a way of marrying twice in our family — that's why I'm a Kilmurry. THE L O VEL Y MALLNCO URT. 11 But mother draws the line at third marriages ; in fact, she's awfully down on them. She thinks matrimony might become a shockingly bad habit if too long persisted in ! " " Are you married ? " inquired Lesley. " No one would ever undertake me," said Ronny, with unabated cheerfulness. " Too many vices, you know, and too little money."

Lesley smiled, and walked out on to the balcony, looking with interest at the park, now just beginning to empty. " It's almost as good as the country," she said, " only with the pulse of life beating through. It's not a bit like Dad told me — all bricks, and mortar, and blacks, and miserable people. Oh ! what lovely horses ! " she cried out, suddenly and joyfully, just like a little child, as Lady Appuldurcombe's voice was heard approaching from the room behind them. Lesley turned, with a wild, startled gesture that completely disarmed her aunt — the girl was so very young to begin to be ashamed of herself — and Lady Appuldurcombe's heart relented, as she took her sister's child in her arms, and kissed as much of the extremely small face as she conveniently could. " We are glad to see you, my dear," she MALINCOURT. 12 said, at the same time taking in every detail of her appearance with a sense of astonishment that Ronny did not share, though he after wards remarked that he knew Lesley's clothes must have been all right, because he did not notice them ; if they had been all wrong, they would have infallibly stuck in his recollection, as most disagreeable things did.

"And how is Malincourt?" inquired Lady Appuldurcombe, presently. " Dad is always well," said Lesley, her eyes following Ronald as he left the room. " What is his name ? " she inquired, sitting down opposite her aunt. " He is Ronny Kilmurry," said his mother, proudly, as if she had said he was the Pope. " I like him," said Lesley, calmly. " He is not handsome, but he has a kind face, and I like the way his chin curves up." She took her own small chin in her palm, and turned it up fiercely. " I wonder Dad never said any thing to me about him." " Do you never read the newspapers ? " said Lady Appuldurcombe, coldly. " Never. Dad left off reading them long ago, and I never began. You see," Lesley looked out thoughtfully at the fast thinning THE LO VEL Y MALINCO URT 13 park, "we live in the open air, Dad and I, and we don't want to hear about things and people we are not interested in."

" And do you never read ? " exclaimed her aunt, horror-struck, " or is your father the man who has a library full of books — not one of which has ever been cut ? " Lesley laughed. It was a baffling laugh, and her aunt could have boxed her ears for it. The girl got up, and moved about the beautiful saloons, expressing surprise at nothing, but pausing only to look at what was rarest and best. She had evidently learned taste from her country surroundings. " There are no Malincourts here," she said, as she came back slowly, and lifting her head in a way peculiar to her mother's family, who had all been swift of foot, long and lithe of limb, like herself. "And none of your mother's people are at Malincourt, I suppose ? " said Lady Appul durcombe, a little coldly. " It is a fine old place, I believe ; but your father never wished to see any of us in it."

"And yet," said Lesley, in a tone of reproach, " he believes you capable of turn ing a silly little fool into a sensible woman ! THE LO VEL Y MALINCO URT. 14 You are the only one of my mother's family he ever spoke of, ever admired. And poor mamma died so young ; Dad says you were abroad with your first husband all the while she was at Malinqourt." "Poor Cecilia," said Lady Appuldurcombe, and her heart warmed to Cecilia's child, at once so wild yet so independent, pride making her carry off a difficult position with an aplomb, she was far from feeling. Lesley came over and kneeled down, and the two women looked earnestly into each other's eyes. " I will be good," said Lesley, quite simply, but struggling to keep down the tears in her throat. " I've come to you with a bad cha racter, I know, but I'll try hard to leave you with a clean one !

I can't forgive Dad vet for humiliating me so ; but probably he'll be so wretched without me, he'll send for me back before the end of the week ! " "And supposing you don't want to go?" said Lady Appuldurcombe. " That is to say, of course, if you can do without Bob." " Oh, spare me ! " cried Lesley, starting up, and putting her hands to hide cheeks upon which lay a bloom so rich, so soft, as almost THE LO VEL Y MALINCO URT. 15 to simulate art. "There is one comfort, at least, that I am rid of him ! It's in the bond that he is not to venture near town while / am here." " My dear," said her aunt, solemnly, if irre levantly, " who makes your frocks ? " Lesley ran over a short list that made her aunt open her eyes. " None of these people were in vogue when Cecilia died," she remarked. " Pray who has taken you in hand, and sent you to exactly the right new ones ?

And then your maid — she does your hair very cleverly, and in a crush, if you only take care of your head, you can safely leave Providence to look after your skirts. But now we really must dress for dinner, and to-morrow morning you shall come to my boudoir for a chat." When she had shown Lesley to her room — a very different Lesley to the put-in-the-corner one who had arrived an hour or two before, Lady Appuldurcombe slowly and thoughtfully, as one who revolves many things in her mind, descended the stairs in search of Ronny. " She wears gowns made by Rouff — her hat is by Virot — and she had never even heard of you ! " she said, sitting down helplessly, when she had discovered her darling deep in a pile of racing papers, dated some months back, in the library. " Thank God ! " said Ronny.

" Now, mother, didn't I always tell you what a mistake it was to read the newspapers ? They were written for ghouls and cannibals, not decent people, and as to geography, especially when there is any fighting going on — why, it ought to be one of the lost arts of one's childhood. But, mother," he looked disconsolately down the column of entries he had just been scanning, " what a lot of good things I have missed by being away, to be sure ! " MALINCOURT. 17

Chapter II

The roar of conversation rose and fell like the lions' voices at feeding time in the Zoo. There were no carpets on the polished floors of Green Park House, and it was curious to note how a lull would come, in which you might almost hear a pin drop, then out would swell the raucous sounds again, though apparently the menagerie-like effect was ob served by only one person present, and that was Lesley. There was never any music here, which made the house extremely popular, the music of our own voices being so much sweeter than any other sound we ever heard, or are ever likely to hear. " You needn't worry, mother," said Ronny, when presently he found her looking round for Lesley, "she is going like hot cakes. The men here seem to be in the same condition as c the county— one half jilted, and the other wanting to be."

And I don't know what Lesley's quality was, if she were magnetic, or only human, but when she came into a room, it seemed to grow brighter and fresher, and people began to smile after the first half-dozen words with her, and heartily to dislike leaving her company. " She is like a glass of tip-top champagne, only you don't get a headache afterwards," said one of her fox-hunting lovers, not very elegantly; and to-night men smiled under their bearded lips at the irresponsible gaiety and youth of this country girl, who had appeared on the scene just as all the other women's bloom was fading, and who wore a gauzy white frock that only an artist genuinely in love with youth could have created. Through the jaded assemblage a rustle, a freshness went with her, and a rustle of another kind accompanied Ronald, who was stopped at every step, praised, congratulated, and made generally to feel as sick as the average Briton does on being begged to roar, when all he longs for, is to be let alone.

"Why do they all run after my cousin like sheep ? " inquired Lesley, a little indignant, THE L 0 VEL Y MALINCO URT. 19 as most women would be, at seeing a mere man create a greater sensation than herself. The quiet, distinguished-looking man she addressed, whose breast was crossed by a star and ribbon, and who enjoyed to the full this tripping vision of youth and brightness, smiled and said — " He is a very brave man." " All men should be brave. Do you mean to say that the others here are cowards ? " " Some would be if they dared." " And you ? " His Excellency turned to look at her meditatively. For all her exquisite freshness, which was able subtly to suggest the fragrance of a dew pearled morning meadow, there was a total lack of rusticity in her, and a fearless know ledge of the heart of man and his foibles, that astonished him.

" You flatter me," he said, and smiled again, when she lifted her head with that proud little gesture which distinguished her, and actually blushed. " And yet you have never been in town before?" he said tentatively. "It was wise of you to wait till the season has tired most of us, and then come to our refreshment." " It was not that," she said. " Father knows nothing about the seasons ; he only recognizes the hunting, the shooting, and the fishing ones. When he sent me up here, he had no idea " she stopped abruptly. " He sent you ? You did not wish to come then ? " " Oh, no ; it was a punishment ! " "And what had you done?" inquired His Excellency, smiling, with a pretty good idea of what her delinquencies had been. " Nothing." If she had been nearer five feet, than five feet seven, she would have looked a very sprite of mischief and devilry as she turned her face upon him ; and it struck Ronny vividly, who just then came up, that she did not look as if she had ever been ashamed of herself, or sorry in her life, and that she was up to her country tricks already.

" Are you getting tired ? " he said, when he had saluted her companion. " I think mother is quite ready to go home," — which was untrue : Lady Appuldurcombe shone glorious among mothers that night, and was enjoying herself au bout des ongles. " No," said Lesley, " I am not ready. Who is the red woman in scarlet behind you ? '"' she inquired of His Excellency, and while he was putting up his eyeglass, and turning about to see, she neatly slipped off, making a sign to Ronny to follow. " His Excellency," he began. "Was growing inquisitive," she said. " Would you mind telling me," she added naively, " why all these people are running after you more than any woman here ? It isn't fair, it isn't even decent." — this after Ronny had been violently laid hands on half a dozen times in half as many steps.

" For no earthly reason," he replied crossly, " but that I have done what any schoolboy would — his duty." " And to cap it all," said a voice behind them, in one of the wild-beast pauses of con versation, " he is cousin to The Lovely Malin court ! Really, the way that girl's head is set on her shoulders " " All this comes of being Lady Appuldur combe's niece," said Lesley ruefully, as hers and Ronny's eyes met. " Oh, poor Dad ! to let me have my frocks made in Paris, and send me as a penitent to enjoy myself under the wing of one of the greatest ladies in town ! " "How did you find that out?" he said, greatly amused. " Come for a walk," she said gaily ; and as he smiled and went, somehow he seemed to himself to have become quite old beside this buoyant mortal whom every one turned to stare at, and admire.

" If Bob Heatherly could only see you now," he said softly. " Who told you about Bob ? " she said faintly, and for a moment looking somewhat as she did on her arrival. But he only laughed, and said that he in tended to watch over Bob's interests in his absence ; for which she thanked him malici ously, and said Bob was able to take excellent care of his own. The rooms were thinning, persons stood out with greater distinctness, and Lesley presently caught sight of something that made her exclaim — " How wonderful ! Who is she ? " Ronny looked everywhere but in the right direction, though in every nerve of his body he knew what was there and the exact spot where she was standing. " A woman in an orange gown — with THE LO VEL Y MALINCO URT. 23 barbaric gleams of red and orange embroidery — she is looking at you — she is coming towards you !

" Alas ! for the bravery of the bravest ! Isa trap door had opened at his feet down which he could have shot, Ronny the hero would have vanished through it there and then ; but, as it was, he bowed, and advanced unwillingly. " How do you do, Major Kilmurry ? " If there be sermons in stones, there are life tragedies in voices, and Lesley knew in a flash that the woman before her had given boundless treasures of love to this man who had nothing particularly striking about his appearance, except, perhaps, the eyes that had seen so much — seen most of the great, and passed all the littlenesses of life, by. " How do you do, Miss De Salis ? " he said coldly ; then introduced Lesley as " My cousin, Miss Malincourt." As Cynthia's glance coldly swept the girl from head to foot, Lesley could scarcely have told why her heart went out to this poor woman, poor in her gorgeous robes of red and orange, excepts that she had always been nice to her own sex, and never wilfully taken their lovers away from them, or done them any sort of THE L O VEL Y MALINCO UR T 24 mean trick, yet the friendliness she now dis played, did not wholly bridge over the discom fort of the situation, and Lady Appuldurcombe's sudden descent upon them was hailed by all as that of an angel from Heaven — an angel in three shades of mauve, illuminated by diamond drops of dew.