A Magnificent Young Man. A novel ... Fourth edition

Front matter

H Hovel. BY JOHN STRANGE WINTER, AUTHOR OP " Bootles' Baby," " Cavalry Life," " Army Society," " Garrison Gossip," " Beautiful Jim," " A Born Soldier," " Mrs. Bob," " Bed Coats," " A blameless Woman," " Private Tinker," Eta, Eta FOURTH EDITION. LONDON : F. V. WHITE & CO., 14, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. 1895. PRINTED by K'LI.Y AND CO. LIMITED, 182, 183 AND ]84, niOD IICLLCUN, W.C, AND KINGSTOK-ON-TIIAMES. CONTENTS ciiAr. I'AOE I. — Bladensbrook op Bladensbrook . . 1 II. — Told By the Gipsy . . . . 10 III. — Mrs. Dangerfield's Notions . . 19 IV. — Heyday .30 V. — Young Folk's Ways .... 37 VI. — Godfrey the Magnificent . . 45 VII. — Margot's Duenna . . . . LG VIII. — A Definite Understanding. . . 64 IX. — An Unfortunate Accident 70 X. — A Dreadful ScKArE ... 8G XL — A Sudden Resolution . ■ . 94 XII. — Husband and Wife . . . . 103 XIII.— A Two Days' Honeymoon . . .113 XIV.— A Mystery 122 XV. — Adsent Without Leave . . . 133 XVI.— At a Dead End ! .... 142 XVIL— A Question 152 XVIII. — The Sorrow of Others , . vi CONTENTS.

XIX.— The Quiet End . . . .171 XX. — Mrs. Bladensbrook Asks a Plain Question .... 178 XXI. — Going Home 190 XXII. — Coming and Going . . . 199 XXIII.— A Trecious Missive . . .209 XXIV.— Ralph 220 XXV. — An Unlooked-for Visitor . . 229 XXVI. — Astounding News . . . 239 XXVII. — Wide of the Mark .... 248 XXVIII. — Common Sense .... 255 XXIX. — To William Smith of London , . 266 XXX.— A Terrible Shock! ... 276 XXXI. — Caught Red-iianded . . . 286 XXXII. — " My Son has more than Satisfied Me!"

Chapter I. Bladensbrook Of Bladensbrook

Mrs. Bladensbrook was queen regent of the estate which bore the same name as she did. Whether the original possessor of Bladensbrook had taken his name from the soil, or whether, the soil had taken its name from the original possessor, history does not record, but the Bladensbrooks of Bladens brook had been powers in Loamshire for some hundreds of years, and when young Godfrey Bladensbrook, the last representative of the old family, was three years old his father was killed by a kick from one of his horses, and Mrs. Bladens brook became for the time queen regent. Ralph, the father, the one who died from a kick of a horse, was a typical Bladensbrook, of immense size and of great personal beauty, but with an upper storey less well furnished than any other part of him. The most astute thing that he had ever done in the whole of his thirty-six years of life was his marriage.

He had not married for money, nor had he gone where money was, but he had chosen a woman of undeniable position. Mrs. Bladensbrook was styled Honourable, the keen-brained daughter of an exceptionally keen-brained father, a peer who in his time had filled the highest offices in the land open to a subject, a woman of extraordinary acumen, who understood thoroughly — to use Ralph Bladensbrook's own words — how many beans make five. Being herself irreproachable as to family, Mrs. Bladensbrook at once flung herself heart and soul into the traditions of the family into which she had married. She always spoke of the Bladensbrooks as if they were a race entirely and distinctly apart from the majority of people. In her estimation the upper classes in this country were divided into three — the Peerage, the Bladens brooks, and the county families.

" You must never forget," she would say to her son, "that you were born a Bladensbrook." By reason of this wholesale adoption of her husband's family, Mrs. Bladens brook obtained and kept during the five years ot her married life an absolute power over her husband. He worshipped her from first to last ; he adored her. If they were parted for a few hours he was as a lost soul, as a needle without its pole; a boat without a rudder was truly an apt illustration of what Ralph Bladensbrook was like when he was separated for ever so short a time from his wife. His opinion of her far-sighted shrewdness was immense, his belief that she would understand the most difficult accounts, advise him rightly in the most awkward situation, and be as a tower of strength in the most trying circumstances, was as unshakable as it was genuine.

So after the fatal day when Ralph Bladensbrook was found done to death by the hoofs of his own favourite hack, no one was surprised that he was found to have left a will naming his widow as his sole executor and the sole guardian of his only child, leaving her, in fact, queen regent over the Bladensbrook property, and over the last of the name. He had made no provision against his wife's marrying again, and Mrs. Bladensbrook's father was quick to notice it and to comment upon it. " I shall never marry again," said Mrs. Bladensbrook quietly ; " all my interest in life will be to bring up my son to be as worthy of his name as his father was before him." " Quite right, my dear," said Lord Pollington approvingly ; " I am very glad that you accept your responsibilities so thoroughly. They are responsibilities, and very grave ones, but you will be more than equal to them."

In truth, Lord Pollington had always regarded the dead and gone Ralph as a thoroughly good fellow who was as near an idiot as it was possible for an English genllenian to be; but of course there was no occasion to express that opinion in plain words to his widow. For a little time people round about the neighbourhood of Bladensbrook discussed the new state of affairs, and even ventured on more or less lugubrious predictions concerning the future of the child and the care which would be taken of the property, but as Mrs. Bladensbrook had no one to consider but herself, she did not trouble about what rumour might be saying, even if she ever knew it ; still less did she trouble as to the opinion of others in the upbringing of her only child. From the very first she treated him as if he were a young king.

She impressed a due sense of his responsibilities upon him, made him fully aware of the 1* importance of his place in this world, and always treated him — even when correcting him — with a certain deference which she held due to the head of her family; and it must be remembered that young Godfrey was only three years old when his father died. From the day following that of Ralph Bladens brook's funeral, the young squire sat iu his place, and was invariably spoken of and to as Mr. Bladensbrook. It was characteristic of this woman that she never called him " Godfrey" when speaking of him to anyone else, not even to people who were more than her social equals ; she invariably said " My son." Sometimes, if she chanced to be speaking to a very great lady, she would soften it to "My little son," but to all people inferior to herself, she made a rule of calling him Mr. Bladensbrook.

She never did marry again. She held the reins of government with a firm yet easy hand. She neither rushed into undue extravagance nor cur tailed expenses. In fact, she lived in precisely the same manner as she had lived during the five yea-s of her husband's lifetime. During the first twelve months she did not entertain. She wore the deepest of widow's weeds, and accepted no invita tions whatever, but she always had three men servants to wait at dinner, and the dignified butler always stood behind " Mr. Bladensbrook's " chair at luncheon. At the end of the twelve months she relaxed her mourning and her seclusion, breaking the ice by going to a few small entertainments, and by giving several small dinner parties. At the end of two years she had laid aside her mourning, and entertained on precisely the same scale as she and her husband had been wont to do, excepting that she never gave hunt breakfasts as he had done.

So the years passed over, and young Godfrey Bladensbrook grew up. In some senses he had been very wisely governed. He had been fearlessly given over to the instructions of the coachman, the head groom, and the head gamekeeper. He had had the manliest tutor whom Mrs. Bladensbrook could hear of, and the result was that when he was old enough to go to Eton he knew most things that a boy should know of country life, and rode, drove, shot and fished with any other boy of his age, was big and strong for his years, and quite as handsome as his father had been before him, was exceedingly sweet-tempered, and without being brilliant in the way of intellect, had certainly inherited a fair share of his mother's astuteness of character ; and yet, he had been so hedged about, so guarded, so watched, so considered in every way, that in some respects he had grown up to be what other boys of his age called a " bit of an ass !

" There were joys in the lives of other lads which had never entered into his. His mother had never debarred him from seeing as much as was possible of the boys of his own class in the neighbourhood, but they were not many, and when he was with them he could scarcely understand their likings and dislikings any more than a grown-up man or woman might be able to do. He could not for the life of him see anything to go into ecstasies over in a filthy, evil-smelling ferret, guinea pigs bored him to death and always had done, rabbits he would have none of, and white rats and mice were an abomination to him. " They stink so ! " was his comment when the two lads at the Rectory took him to their own quarters adjoining the stables and proudly displayed to him all their live stock. " I can understand you thinking a lot about that fellow," pointing to a very well-bred bull terrier who was standing by quiver ing with excitement on the chance of there being a rat-hunt on foot, " but these horrid, sinuous, ill smelling ferrets I cannot see anything to like in !

" The two young Dangerfields, not knowing what sinuous meant; did not pursue the subject further, but led their guest on to the pen where the rabbits were. It was no use. Rabbits, white rats, white mice, guinea pigs, all met with the same quiet disgust as the ferrets had done, and so the two lads looked at one another with a look which conveyed, " What an ass this chap is ! " and suggested that perhaps he would like to go and see the pigs. The Dangerfield lads loved the pigs themselves, and were on the most friendly relations with all of them. There was Mrs. Isaacs, a large black lady who spent the greater part of her days in hanging over the edge of her sty watching for the pailful of steam ing wash which filled her trough at certain hours. If Mrs. Isaacs was not standing on her hind legs watching for the pail, she was sure to be lying flat on her side basking in the hottest rays of the sun, or to be within the sty half buried in a heap or clean straw.

These two lads loved Mrs. Isaacs. They simply could not understand the mind which could regard Mrs. Isaacs as an ordinary pig, and take no more interest in her than if she were one of the white sows down in the village. On the other side of the yard was Mrs. Isaacs' last family — nine small black persons, who also waited with great eagerness for the arrival of the wash-pail, but who had not yet attained to the height which permitted their mother to hang over the edge of her sty and look for it. Then a little further down was Mrs. Grundy. Mrs. Grundy was a younger lady than Mrs. Isaacs, and scarcely so advanced in worldly knowledge, but she was very dear to the two boys, and they spent many a ten minutes scratching away at the back of one or the other of them with an old stable broom. In an adjoining shed was a nine weeks' old calf, a wee, bonny thing that mis took everybody's fingers for feeding bottles.

Young Godfrey Bladensbrook did not conceal the fact that he strongly objected to fostering such an illusion. " They are so slobbery ! " he said, as he watched Jack Dangerfield standing patiently while the pretty brown animal sucked away at his two first fingers, " You will have to go and wash your hands now." As a truthful chronicler I must confess that Jack Dangerfield laughed outright, and the next moment he wiped his fingers on the side of his trousers, first the inside, then the outside — " Oh, they are all right," he said ; " it's clean enough, poor little thing." Two stalls away was the mother of the calf, a patient Alderney cow, who apparently found life no small trial. " What's she kicking up that row for ? " asked young Godfrey. You see, he never went into his own farmyard ; indeed, it was three miles away from the house, so perhaps he had not the same temptation to do so as the young Dangerfields.

" Oh, she's worrying after her calf. He has only been taken from her since yesterday or the day before, or some time or other. Poor Daisy," patting the bereaved mother upon the neck. " It is very hard on you to have your children taken away, isn't it? And the little chap's going to the butcher next week ! " Young Godfrey turned round and walked straight out of the shed. It was hia first intimate intro duction to the maternal joys and sorrows of the stock-yard. He felt as if he could never touch veal again as long as he lived. " You must come and see the donkey," said Jim Dangerfield, catching him by the arm. " Oh, yes, where is the donkey ? " He felt that a donkey would be comparatively harmless. This donkey was, however, not quite harmless. He was a pet and went in a small governess cart, being most often driven by the Rector's little daughter, Margot ; but something happened to be wrong with Joko that day, and he made himself so intensely unpleasant that Jack and Jim escorted their young guest back to the front of the house in a, state of mind akin to despair.

" Oh, here's Margot," said Jim, as they turned the corner by the drawing-room windows. It was a glorious July day, and Margot, who was ten years old, was just coming out of the house by way of the conservatory. " Have you been round the yard ? " she asked. " Yes," answered Jack. " I do think it's mean of you to go round the yard without me. You know I love going round. I call it horrid of you both." " It ivas rather horrid," admitted Jim, " but you see we didn't know what to do with Godfrey here." " You might have come to the foot of the stairs and shouted," said Margot, indignantly. Now one of the articles of faith in which Godfrey Bladensbrook had been brought up was exces sive courtesy and attention towards women-kind. Although they had been intimately known to each other for years and years, ever since they had been little toddling children, so that the Dangerfields and young Bladensbrook were more like brothers and sister than neighbours, he took off his hat to Margot as he would have taken it off to Her Majesty.

Margot was very much flattered, and instantly attached Godfrey to herself, leaving her two older brothers to follow behind them. " Have you seen everything ? " she asked. " I believe I have," said Godfrey, very politely, and scarcely able to repress a shudder of disgust. " Did you see the ferrets ? " " Yes." " And the guinea pigs ? " " Yes." " And the rats ? " " Yes." " And the mice ? ' " Yes." " And the rabbits ? " " Yes." « And the calf ? " "Yes." " And the cow ? " " Yes." " And the donkey ? " " Yes." " You never went and showed my donkey ? " "I am afiaid we did, Margot," said Jack, apologetically. "You are afiaid you did! Then I suppose you went and showed my kittens ? " " No, we forgot the kittens ! " cried Jim and Jack in the same breath. " Well, then, I will take you to see my kittens," said Margot, turning to Godfrey triumphantly.

Chapter II. Told By The Gifsy

It was brilliant summer weather once more. Nearly a year had gone by since the day on which the young Dangerfields had introduced Godfrey Bladens brook to Mrs. Isaacs and the donkey7, and since that time they had not met. All three boys had been at their respective schools, Godfrey at Eton, and Jim and Jack Dangerfield at Charterhouse. Godfrey had not come home to Bladensbrook for Christmas, his mother having spent the entire winter in the south of France, where he had joined her on his holidays beginning. The Easter vacation he had 01 course spent with her in London, and so it was with a sense of everything being to a certain extent strange that he found himself once more in his own kingdom. He had reached home but barely in time to dress for dinner, and naturally he and his mother had much to say to each other during the first evening.

The following day, too, he had more than enough to occupy him, improvements to see, different servants and workmen to speak to, to go through the stables and glass houses, and to hear a good deal of what his mother had been doing during his absence; and immediately after lunch the two lads from the Rectory arrived to bid him welcome home and to beg that he would come down and spend the afternoon with them. On the whole young Godfrey would rather have done nothing of the kind. He had had a good deal of boys' society at Eton, and would have preferred to drive with his mother and discuss several questions which were far more inter esting to him than the Rectory ferrets ; but Mrs. Bladensbrook, who never lost a chance of any course which she believed would give her boy's mind a right turn, took it for granted that he would prefer to spend the rest of the day with those of his own level rather than with her.

" Oh, Godfrey will be very pleased, won't you, Godfrey? " she said, as Jim preferred his request. Whereupon Godfrey had practically no choice but to acquiesce in his mother's decision. " I am going to make a call some miles away," Mrs. Bladensbrook went on, in her great lady fashion, "and shall not be back till nearly dinner time, so you will not trouble about me, Godfrey." " Not at all, Mother," said he. In truth, he never did trouble about his mother. He would have con sidered it rather an impertinence than otherwise to trouble about a lady who was so terribly well able to take care of herself as Mrs. Bladensbrook. " If you would like Jim and Jack to come back to dinner with you, pray bring them," the lady went on ; " let Godfrey spend the afternoon with you, and' you come up and dine with Godfrey."

"Oh, thank you awfully, Mrs. Bladensbrook," said Jack, who was more impulsive than Jim and sometimes spoke first. "And be sure that you are here at a quarter to eight," Mrs. Bladensbrook continued. " A quarter to eight ? Yes, we will be here. And Margot, are we to bring Margot ? " Jack asked. " Oh, well, do you think that your mother will allow Margot to come ? " " Oh, I think Mother will allow it. You see, Margot is so dreadfully put out if she is left out of it in any way. I think if you don't mind our bringing Margot " — " Very well, if your mother will allow Margot to come I shall be very pleased, and you can say that I will send you home in the carriage at ten o'clock." " Very well, thank you awfully. Then we will be going along now, if you don't mind, Godfrey." So the two carried Godfrey off in triumph between them.

He was rather bored at the prospect of the ferrets, Mrs. Isaacs and the other pigs, to say nothing of any calves and other domestic animals that might be hanging about, but he was very fond of Margot, and the certainty that she would be there somewhat mitigated his feeling of unwillingness to have his original plans altered. They found Margot under the great weeping elm, which shaded the lawn in front of the Rectory, swinging herself to and fro in a hammock in company with Dido, the pug, and two small pug puppies. As she caught sight of Godfrey she jumped up, upsetting herself, Dido, and the puppies on to the ground. "Oh, Godfrey, I didn't really believe that you were coming back ! " she ex claimed, holding out both her hands. "Why it is years since you were here last ! " " Only one year," interrupted Godfrey.

" Only one year ? ten — ten ! I thought you were never coming back again. How horrid of you to go to France for your Christmas holidays. We were dreadfully dull without you. See, this is my pug, Dido, isn't she a beauty ? And these are her pups. Father said I was absolutely insane to want to keep them both ; he would have drowned them, but it would have been wicked to drown them, wouldn't it ? They are such beauties." " They are beauties," said Godfrey, who knew the points of a dog as well as most boys of his age. " We have got all sorts of young things in the yard," Margot went on, looking at him out of a pair of brilliant hazel eyes, and having evidently no idea that his soul loathed ferrets and such like ; " would you like to go round the yard now, Godfrey, or would you like to stay here under the tree ?

Or would you like to go and see if there are any strawberries ? Or have you too many strawberries up at Bladensbrook ? Or shall we go and see if Mrs. Wilson has got any cakes ? I know she has cakes, for I was in the kitchen this morning and saw them being made. They are little cakes, you know — 'fat rascals' — with currants in. Wouldn't you like some of those, Godfrey ? " Godfrey sighed. He had just eaten an exceedingly good lunch, and did not feel that even fat rascals, whose quality was well known to him, were particularly desirable. However, his code of manners did not allow him to refuse the offering of a lady, so he assented to her proposal that they i-hould pay a visit to the Rectory cook, and felt himself lucky that her heart's desire did not tend towards the ferrets. It was quite a new experience for the young squire to find himself going round to the kitchen entrance to gather largesse of the cook.

In his own establishment if he had desired a plateful of fat rascals he would have rung the bell and ordered them, but on the principle of doing in Rome as the Romans do, he meekly went along kitchenwards with Margot, who calmly told the two boys that as they had been exceedingly rude to Mrs. Wilson during the morning, they had better keep themselves out of sight, and she would get what provender she could and bring it out to tbe hammock, where they would divide and enjoy the spoils. Now the way in which domestic affairs were arranged at the House was no secret in the village. It was well known in the Rectory kitchen that if the young squire chanced to be lunching or dining alone he would be waited on in precisely the same state as if his mother were there ; it was well known that he would dress for his dinner, and have the regular number of courses, and behave himself as if he were forty instead of fourteen ; so when he appeared together with Miss Margot in quest of fat rascals, Mrs. Wilson could — to use her own phraseology — "have been knocked down with a feather."

"Law, there, now," said she, to the parlourmaid afterwards, " it give me quite a turn when I see that grand young gentleman coming along with Miss Margot to ask for a plateful of fat rascals. Lucky thing to have had 'em by me. Many's the day when I haven't got a fat rascal in the place, and it would have looked poor to the squire if we hadn't got that much. I don't think he had ever been through a kitchen door in his life before. He touched his hat and he says — ' Aw — good day,' as if he was a long way off and didn't quite see me. It was very queer, and Miss Margot she says to me, says she, * Mrs. Wilson,' she says, ' please we have come to ask you a favour.' ' Certainly Miss — and Sir,' said I. ' Well, you did a baking of fat rascals this morning?' 'I did, Miss Margot,' says I, ' and Sir.' ' Well, please Mrs. Wilson, if you don't want them all for tea we should like to have some, because the squire here has never tasted a fat rascal in his life, have you, Godfrey ? ' The young squire said he believed as he hadn't. So I bustles in and fetches 'em out a plateful, and temptin' they were.

I meant to have had that plateful for our tea, Patterson, though that's neither here nor there. You girls must just put up with a spoonful of jam instead. And Miss Margot said to me, * Are these all you made this morning ? ' 'They are not quite all,' says I. 'Well, then, Mrs. Wilson, we'll have the lot,' says she ; ' what do you think?' she says, turning to the squire. 'Aw,' says he, ' yes — I think if Mrs. Wilson doesn't mind that it would be as well to have the lot. You see, there are others.' Now both the young gentlemen was very saucy to me this morning; but there, I couldn't deny Miss Margot before the squire's very face, so I bustled in again and I fetched out all that I had made. It do go to my heart, but there, it's to keep up the credit of the house, and Miss Margot she picks out a little nice brown one and she sticks it up to the squire's mouth and says, ■ Taste that ! ' and he took it quite meekly, though he did look as if he was forty instead of fourteen, and she gives me a nod and says, ' Thank you, Mrs. Wilson, you are an old duck ! ' and then they went away together and all my fat rascals with 'em."

" Godfrey," said Margot, as they turned out of the back premises into a more showy part of the Rec tory demesne, " you are a brick ! " " I am glad to hear that," said Godfrey. " Because you might have spoiled everything if you had been stupid and stuck-up and pretended you didn't know what a fat rascal was. We should have been undone, and Jack and Jim would have been the losers, because I shouldn't have shared out with them unless I had got the lot." They found that Jim and Jack had brought several basket-chairs out under the great elm, and so the four sat and disposed of the dainty little cakes, Margot and Godfrey sitting in the hammock, which her restlessness swung to and fro, and the two boys reposing in deep basket-chairs. " Margot," said Jim with his mouth full, " what a brick you are, though you are a girl !

" "No, it's Godfrey who is the brick," said Margot, " I shouldn't have got them all out of Mrs. Wilson unless Godfrey had been there. Godfrey, I think she thought you were going to hit her." " Oh, no, I was quite civil." "My dear, you were deadly civil — deadly civil, but it awed Mrs. Wilson, and I can tell you, Godfrey, it takes a lot to awe Mrs. Wilson." They were still sitting there, and the last of the fat rascals had vanished, when a soft voice from the other side of the privet hedge accosted them — " My pretty lady and gentleman, let the poor gipsy tell your fortune." " Oh, what a lark ! " cried Jack. " What do you charge, because we haven't got much ? " added Jim. " Cross the poor gipsy's hand with a bit of silver. The poor gipsy will never be hard on young ladies and gentlemen." " Well, go down the hedge a httle way and you will come to a gate.