The heir of Kingsland Court, or, The baronet's bride

Front matter

IviAY AGNES FLEMING

V i t

i

Chapter I. The Baronet's Heir

“ And there is danger of death — for mother and child ?”

“Well, no, Sir Jasper— no, sir, no certain danger, you know ; but in these protracted cases ” — Dr. Parker Godroy paused, and coughed behind his hand — “ it can do no harm, Sir Jasper, for the clergyman to be here. He may not be needed — let us hope be will not be — but your good lady is very weak — very weak, I am sorry to say. Sir Jasper.”

“ I will send for the clergyman,” Sir Jasper Kingsland said, not looking at the grave little London doctor. “ Do your best, as I know you will, Dr. Godroy, and for heaven’s sake let me know the worst or best as soon as may be. This torture of suspense is horrible.”

His voice was sharp and harsh with inward pain. Dr. Parker Godroy looked sympatheti¬ cally at him through his gold-rimmed spec¬ tacles.

“I will do my best, Sir Jasper,” he said, gravely. “ The result is in the hands of the Great Dispenser of life and death. Send for the clergyman, and wait and hope.”

He quitted the library as he spoke. Sir Jasper Kingsland seized the bell and rang a shrill peal.

“ Ride to the village — ride for your life!” the baronet said, .imperatively, to the servant who answered ; “ and fetch the Rev. Cyrus Green here at once.”

The man bowed and departed, and Sir Jasper Kingsland, of Kingsland Court, was alone. Alone in the gloomy grandeur of the vast library — alone with his thoughts and the wail¬ ing midnight storm.

For it was midnight. A clock high up in an ancient turret pealed noisily forth the weird hour, when “churchyards yawn and graves ffive up their dead.” and an army of rooks, disturbed in their ^beauty sleep ” by the dis¬ cordant noise, cawed harshly in reply. A little toy timepiece, of buhl, on the stone mantel¬ piece, chimed musically its story of the hour, and Sir Jasper lifted his gloomy eyes for a moment at the sound. He was leaning against the old, quaintly-carved chimney-piece, looking at the smouldering fire, his dark face full of unutterable trouble and pain. A tall, spare, middle-aged man, handsome once — handsome still, some people said, with iron-grey hair and a proud, patrician face.

“Twelve,” his dry lips whispered to them¬ selves — “ midnight, and for three hours I have endured this maddening agony of suspense I Another day is given to the world, and- before its close all I love best may be cold and stark in death! Oh, Heaven, have mercy and spare !”

He lifted his clasped hands in passionate appeal. There was a picture opposite — a gem of Raffaello’s — the Man of Sorrows, fainting under the weight of the cross, and the rays from the fire playing upon it seemed to light the pallid features with a derisive smile.

The mercy you showed to qthers, the same shall be shown to you ! Tiger heart, yoxi were merciless in the days gone by ! Let your black, bad heart break, as you have broken others !”

No voice had sounded, yet he was answered. Conscience ha.d spoken in trumpet-tones, and with a hollow groan the baronet turned away and began pacing up and down.

It was a large and spacious apartment, this library of Kingsland Court, dimly lighted now by the flickering w . >d fire and the mellow glow of a branch of wa < ights. Huge book-cases, filled to overflowir • lined the four walls, and pictures precious s their weight in rubies looked duskily do - ti from their heavy frames. Busts and bronzes food in brackets and sur¬ mounted doox’s ; a thick, rich carpet of moss green, sprinkled with oak leaves and acorns, muffled the tread ; voluminous draperies of dark green shrouded the tall, narrow windows. The massive chairs and tables, fifty years old at least, were spindle-legged and rich in carving, upholstered in green velvet and qnaintly embroidered by hands mouldered to dust long ago. Everything was old and grand, and full of storied interest. And there, on the wall, was the crest of the house — the uplifted hand grasping a dagger — and the motto, in old Norman French, “ Strike once, and strike well.”

Sir Jasper Kingsland, the last of a long line

A

TEE MEIR OF KINQSLAND COURT.

that traced their ancestry far back beyond the days of the baronet-making king, James the First, stood alone to-night, and took note of all these thing with a dreary sort of wonder that they could afford him no help and no comfort in his hour of supremest need.

It IS a very fine thing to be a baronet — a Kingsland of Kiugsland — with fifteen thousand a year, and the finest old house in the county ; but if Death will stalk grimly over your threshold and snatch away the life you love more than your own, then even that glory is not omniscient. For this wintry midnight, whilst Sir Jasper Kingsland walks moodily up and down — up and down — Lady Kingsland in her chamber above, lies sick unto death.

An hour passed — the clock in the turret and the buhl toy on the stone mantelpiece toll solemnly one. The embers drop monotonously through the grate — a dog bays deeply some¬ where in the quadrangle below — the wailing wind of coming morning sighs lamentably through the tossing copper-beeches, and the roar of the surf afar off comes ever and anon, like distant thunder. The house is silent as the tomb — so horribly silent that the cold drops start out on the face of the tortured man. Who knows r Death has been on the threshold of that upper chamber all night, waiting for his prey. This awful hush may be the pa^an that proclaims he is Master !

A tap at the door. The baronet paused in his stride, and turned his bloodshot eyes that way. His very voice seemed to tremble as he said ;

“Come in.”

A servant entered— the same who had gone his errand.

“ The Kevereud Cyrus Green is here, sir. Shall I show him up?”

“Yes — np — I cannot see him. Show him into the drawing-room until he is needed.”

“He will not be needed,” said a voice at his elbow ; >iud Dr. Godroy came briskly forward. “ My dear Sir Jasper, allow me to congratulate you. All is well, thank Heaven, and — it is a son !”

Sir Jasper Kingsland sank into a seat — thrilling from head to foot — turning sick and faint in the sudden revulsion from despair to hope.

“Saved?” he said, in a gasping whisper.

“ Both, my dear Sir Jasper,” the doctor re¬ sponded, cordially. “Your good lady is very much prostrated — exhausted — but that was to be looked for, you know ; and the baby — ah, the finest boy I have had the pleasure of presenting to an admiring world within ten years ! Come »nd see them.”

“ May I ?” the baronet cried, starting to his feet.

“Certainly, my dear Sir Jasper — most cer¬ tainly. There is nothing in the world to hinder, only be a little cautious, you know. Our good lady mustn’t be excited the least in life — she must be kept composed and quiet, and left to sleep ; and you will just take one peep and go. We won’t need the Keverend Cyrus this bout.”

He led the way from the library, rubbing his hands as your brisk little physicians do, up a grand stairway where you might have driven a coach-and-four, and into a lofty and most magnificently furnished bed-chamber.

The sick lady lay in a bed in the centre of the room — a lofty, four-posted affair, carved and quaint, and old as the hills, and covered and draped with white. But whiter than the draperies — whiter than the winter snow — her face looked up from the pillows, awfully corpse¬ like in its deathly pallor. The eyes were closed — the small, bloodless hands lay loose on the counterpane. In her shroud and windingsheet she would never look more ghastly than now.

“ Quiet now — quiet,” the doctor whispered, warningly. “ Excite her, and I won’t be answerable for the result.”

Sir J asper Kingsland replied with a rapid gesture, and walked forward to the bed. His own face was perfectly colourless, and his lips were twitching with intense suppressed feel¬ ing, He bent above the still form.

“Olivia,” he said, “my darling — my dar¬ ling!”

The heavy eyelids fluttered and lifted, and a pair of haggard, dark eyes gazed up at him. A wan smile parted those pallid lips.

“Dear Jasper, I knew you would come I Have you seen the baby ? It is a boy.”

“ My own, I have thought only of you. My

f)oor, pale wife, how awfully death-like you ook !”

“ But I am not going to die — Doctor Godroy says so” — smiling gently. “And now you must go, for I cannot talk. Only kiss me, and look at the baby first.”

Her voice was the merest whisper. He pressed his lips passionately to the white face, and rose up. Nurse and baby sat in state by the fire, and a slender girl of fifteen years knelt beside them and gazed in a sort of rapture at the infant prodigy.

“ Look, papa — look ! -The loveliest little thing, and nurse says it’s the picture of you.”

The young girl — Miss Mildred Kingsland— and until to-night the baronet’s only child, pulled away a profusion of flannel, and dis¬ played triumphantly a little red, wrinkled face.

TUB HEIR OF KINGSLAND COURT.

Not very lovely, certainly, but Sir Jasper Kingsland’s eyes shone with pride and joy as he looked. For was it not a boy F Had he not at last, after weary waiting, the desire of his heart — a son to inherit the estate, and per¬ petuate the ancient name ?

“ It is so sweet, papa !” Miss Mildred whis¬ pered, her small, rather sickly face quite radiant ; “ and its eyes are the image of yours ! He’s asleep now, you know, and you can’t see them. And look at the dear, darling little hands and fingers and feet, and the speck of a nose, and the dot of a mouth ! Oh, papa, isn’t it nice to have a baby in the house?”

“Very nice,” said papa, relaxing into a smile. “ A fine little fellow, nurse ! There, cover him up again and let him sleep. We must take extra care of the heir of Kingsland Court. And Mildred, child, you should be in bed. One o’clock is no hour for little girls to be out of their nests.”

“ Oh, papa ” — reproachfully — “ as if I could sleep and not see the baby !”

“ Well, you have seen it, and now rnn away to your room. Mamma and baby both want to sleep, and nurse doesn’t need you, I am sure.”

“ That I don’t,” said nurse, “ nor the doctor either. So run away. Miss Mildred, and go to sleep yourself. The baby will be here all safe for you in the morning.”

The girl — flaxen-haired, pretty -featured, kissed the baby, kissed papa, and dutifully departed. Sir Jasper followed her out of the room and went into the library, with the face of a man who has just been reprieved from sudden death. As he re-entered the library, he paused and started a step back, gazing fixedly at one of the windows. The heavy curtain had been partially drawn back, and a white, spectral face was glued to the glass, staring in.

“ Who have we here ?” said the baronet to himself. “That face can belong to no one in the house.”

He walked straight to the window — the face never moved. He could see the snow falling noiselessly, rapidly — the ground covered, the spectral face set in a winter frame of white flakes. A hand was raised and tapped on the glass. A voice outside spoke :

“For Heaven’s sake, open and let me in, before I perish in this bitter storm.”

Sir Jasper Kingsland opened the window, and flung it wide. A rush of bitter wind, a shower of snow whirled in his face.

“ Enter, whoever you are,” he said. “No one shall ask in vain at Kingsland this happy night.”

He stepped back, and, all covered with snow, the midnight intruder entered and stood before him. And Sir Jasper Kingsland saw the strangest-looking creature he had ever beheld in the whole course of his life.

Chapter II. Achmet The Astrologer

An old man, yet tall and upright, wearing a trailing cloak of dull black, long grey hair flowing over the shoulders, and tight to the scalp a skull cap of black velvet. A patriarchal beard, abundant and silver-white, streamed down his breast, and out of a dull, white face, seamed and wrinkled, looked a pair of eyes piercing and black.

Sir Jasper took a step backwards, and re¬ garded this singular apparition in undisguised wonder. The old man folded his arms across his bosom, and made him a profound Oriental salaam.

“ The lord of Kingsland gazes in amaze at the uninvited midnight stranger. And yet I think Destiny has sent me hither.”

“Who are you?” the baronet demanded.

“ What jugglery is this? Are you dressed for an Eastern dervish in a melodrama, and have you come here to play a practical joke ? I am afraid I cannot appreciate the humour of the masquerade. Who are you ?” — sternly.

The old man folded his arms again, and once more bent servilely low.

“ Men call me Achmet the Astrologer.”

“ An astrologer ! Humph ! Tour art, it seems, could not protect you from a January storm,” retorted Sir Jasper, with a cynical sneer. “But come in — come in. Astrologer ov demon, or whatever you are, you look too old a man to be abroad such a night, when we would not turn an enemy’s dog from the house. The doors of Kingsland are never closed to the tired wayfarer, and of all nights in the year they should not be closed to-night.”

“When an heir is born to an ancient name and a princely inheritance. You speak rightly, my lord of Kingsland !”

Sir Jasper was closing the window; but at the gently murmured words he faced sharply round.

“ How say you ? What do you know of the events of this night. Sir Astrologer?”

“ Much, Sir Jasper Kingsland, and for the ' very reason you deride — because I am an astro¬ loger. I read the stars, and I lift the veil of the future, and lo ! I behold your life years before you have lived it !”

Sir Jasper Kingsland laughed a cynical, un¬ believing laugh.

“ You jeer at me, you scoff at my words,’*

THE HEIR OP KINGSLANH COURT.

murmured the old man, in soft, steady tones,

‘ ‘ and yet there was no one to tell me on my way here that a son and heir had been born to the house of Kingsland within the past hour.”

He lifted his arm and pointed to the clock, his full, dark eyes fixed in a powerful gaze upon the baronet’s changing face. There was majesty in his mien, a lofty grace in the gesture, a thrilling sweetness in his voice, that indescri¬ bably fascinated the listener,

“You deride the power I profess, yet every day you quote Shakespeare, and believe him when he says, ‘ There are more things in heaven .and eai*th than are dreamt of in our philosophy.’ But I am accustomed to derision, and it does not offend me. Let me prove ray power, so that even the most resolute scepticism dare doubt no longer. Judge of my skill to read the future by my ability in reading the past. I have come here — I have taken a long journey to look into the future of your new-born son. Before I begin, let me look into the past of his father. Sir Jasper Kingsland, let me read your palm.”

But Sir Jasper drew back, his pale, patrician face cold and set in proud surprise.

“ You have taken a long journey to look into the future of my son ! Pray, my good astro¬ loger, what is my son to you

“ That is my secret, Sir Jasper, and my secrets I keep. Come, hold forth your hand, and test my skill.”

‘ ‘ Why should I ? Even if you cjin bring before me my past life, of what use will it be, since I must know all better than you P”

“ My power to read the past may prove my power to read the future.”

“ Nay, you may easily know the past, with¬ out magical skill. Many thanks, my vener¬ able friend, but I will not put your necromancy to the test.”

The astrologer folded his arms, and looked the haughty baronet straight in the eyes until he quailed.

“ Is Sir Jasper Kingsland afraid ?” he said, slowly. “ Surely not, for verily he comes of a daring race. And yet it seems like it.”

The baronet made a stride forward, with eyes that blazed up suddenly like flames.

“ By Heaven, if a younger man had spoken those words, I would have hurled him by the throat from yonder window ! Be careful of your words, old man, else even your hoary hairs may fail to save you.”

Once more the astrologer bent servilely.

“I cry your mercy, my haughty lord of Kingsland. It shall be as you say. I will depart as I came. I will neither serve you nor yo^r new-born son, since you refuse to be sery^A. I will depart at once. I fear no earthly storm. Good night. Sir Jasper Kings¬ land. Look to the heir of your house yourself. When ‘ angels unaware ’ visit you again, treat them better than you have treated me !”

With a gesture indescribably grand and kingly, the silver-haired old man turned to go, folding his long cloak about him. But the voice of the baronet called him back.

“ Stay,” he said. “ You speak of serving my son. What danger threatens his infant life that you can avert?”

“ I know of none. I have not cast the horo¬ scope yet.”

“ Then you wish to do so ?”

“ With your good permission. I have taken a long and toilsome journey for that very pur¬ pose, Sir Jasper Kingsland.”

“ Then you shall,” the baronet cried, yield¬ ing to a swift impulse — “ you shall cast his horoscope. If it can avert no evil, it can at least cause none. But, first, there is no action without its ruling motive. What aro me or mine to you, to make you take a long and toil¬ some journey on our account?”

The old man paused, drawn up to his fullest height, imposing as a new King Lear, his deep, dark eyes glowing with inward fire.

“ I will tell you,” he said, in a deep voice. “ Years ago. Sir Jasper, when you were a young man, you did an honour and a service to one I dearly love, that I have never for¬ gotten, and never will forget. You have ceased to remember it, years ago, no doubt ; but I never have, nor ever will until my dying day.”

The baronet stared.

“ A service ! An honour ! What could it have been ? I recollect nothing of it.”

“ I expected as much. But my memory is a good one ; it is stamped on my heart for ever. Great men like Sir Jasper Kingsland, grandees of the land, forget these little things rendered to the scum and offal ; but the scum and offal cherish them eternally. I owe you a long debt. Sir Jasper, and I will pay it to the uttermost farthing.”

His black eyes blazed, his low voice rose, his arm uplifted fiercely for an instant, in dire menace. Then, quick as lightning flashes, all was transformed. The eyes were bent upon the carpet, the arms folded, the voice sank, soft and servile.

“ Forgive me,” he murmured. “ In my gratitude I forget myself. But you have my motive in coming here — the desire to repay you, to look into the future of your son — to see the evils that may threaten his youth and manhood, and to place you on your guard against them. ‘Forewarned is forearmed,’ you know. Do not doubt my power. In far«

THE HEIR OF KINGSLAND COURT.

off Oriental lands, under the golden stars of Syria, I learned the lore of the wise men of the East. I learned to read the stars as you Englishmen read yonr printed books. Believe and trust, and let me cast the horoscope of your son.”

“ First let me test your vaunted power. Show me my past, before you show me my son’s future. ”

He held forth his hand with a cynical smile. The old man took it gravely.

“As you will. Past and future are alike to me — save that the past is easier to read. Ah, a palm seamed and crossed, and marked with troubled lines. Forty years have not gone and left no trace behind -

“ Forty years !” interrupted Sir Jasper, with sneering emphasis. “Pray don’t bungle in the very beginning.”

“1 bungle not !” answered Achmet, sternly. “ Forty years ago, on the third of next month, you, Jasper Southdown Kingsland, were born beneath this very roof.”

The baronet looked considerably surprised at this very minute statement.

“Eight!” he said. “Tou know my age. But go on.”

“ Your boyhood you passed here — quiet, eventless years — with a commonplace mother and a dull, proud father. At ten your mother went to her grave. At twelve the late Sir Noel followed her. At thirteen you were a lonely orphan, removed from this house to London, in the charge of a guardian that you hated. Am I not right?”

“You are. Pray go on.”

“ At fourteen you went to Eugby. From that time until you attained your majority, your life passed in public schools and universi¬ ties, harmlessly and monotonously enough. At twenty-one yon left Cambridge, and started to make the grand tour. Your life, just then, gave the promise of bright and brilliant things. You were tolerably clever ; you were young and handsome, and heir to a noble inheritance. Your life was to be the life of a great and good man — a benefactor of the human race. Your memory was to be a magnificent memento for a whole world to honour. Your dreams were wild and vague, and sublimely impracticable ; and ended in— nothing !”

Sir Jasper Kingsland listened and stared, like a man in a dream, his scepticism fading away like mist before sunrise. Achmet the Astrologer continued to read the palm with a fixed, stony face.

“ And now the lines are crossed, and the trouble begins. As usual, a woman is at the bottom of it. Sir Jasper Kingsland is in love I”

There was a pause. The baronet winced a little, and the astrologer bent lower over the palm.

“ It is in Spain,” he continued, in the dreamy, far-off tone of a man who sees a Vision,

“ glowing, gorgeous Spain, and she is one of its loveliest children. The oranges and pome¬ granates scent the burning air ; the vine¬ yards glow in the tropic sun, and golden summer for ever reigns. But the glowing Southern sun is not more brilliant than the Spanish gipsy’s flashing black eyes — nor the pomegranate blossoms half so ripe and red as her cheeks. Her step is light as the step of an antelope ; her voice sweet as the harps of heaven. She is Zenith the Zingara, and you love her.”

“ In the fiend’s name I” Sir Jasper Kings¬ land cried, snatching away his hand. “ What jugglery is this ?”

He was ashen white, and his steady voice shook. Calmly the astrologer repossessed him¬ self of the baronet’s hand.

“One moment more, my lord of Kings¬ land,” he said, “ and I have done. Let me see how your love dream ends. Ah, the old, old story ! Surely I might have known. She is beautiful as the angels above, and as innocent — and she loves you with a mad abandon that is worst idolatry, as only women ever love. And you — you are grand and noble, a Mi-lor Inglese, and you take her love, her crazy worship, as a demi-god might, with up¬ lifted grace, as your birthright — and she is your pretty toy of an hour, and then, care¬ less and happy, you are gone. Sunny Spain, with its olives and its vineyards, its pome¬ granates and its Zenith the Citana, is left far behind, and you are roaming, happy and free, through France. And io. Zenith, the forsaken, lies prone on the ground, and tears out her hair by the handful, and goes stark mad for the day-god she has lost 1 There, Sir Jasper Kingsland — the record is a black one ! I wish to read no more.”

He flung the baronet’s hand away, and once more his eyes glowed like the orbs of a demon. But Sir Jasper, pale as a dead man, saw it not.

“ Are you man or devil?” he said, in an awej struck tone. “No living mortal knows what I you have told me this night.”

Achmet the Astrologer smiled — a dir^, dark smile. His eyes shone upon the speaker, full of deadliest menace.

“Man, in league with ” — he pointed down- ■^ards — “ the dark potentate yon have named, if you like. Whatever I am, I have truthfully told you the past, as I will truthfully tell youit< son’s future.*’

THE HEIR OF KINGSLANB COERT.

“ By palmistry?”

” No, by the stars. And bebold,” cried the astrologer, drawing aside the curtain, “ yonder they shine !”

Surely the storm had cleared away , leaving the world wrapped in a winding sheet of dead white, and up in heaven the silver stars swing, crystal-clear, sparkling bright.

“Take me to an upper room,” the astro¬ loger exclaimed, in an inspired tone, “and leave me. Destiny is propitious ; the Fate that ruled your son’s birth has set forth the shining stars for Achmet to read. Lead on !”

Like a man in a dreamy swoon. Sir Jasper Kingsland obeyed. He led the astrologer up the grand sweeping staircases — up and up, to the very top of the house — to the lofty, lonely battlements. Clondless spread the wide night sky ; countless and brilliant shone the stars ; peaceful and majestic slept the purple sea ; spotless white gleamed the snowy earth under the moon at its full. A weird, witching scene !

“Leave me,” said the astrologer, “and watch and wait until the hour of four ; then come to me.”

He waved him away with a regal motion. He stood there gazing, rapt, at the stars, as a king looking upon his subjects. And the haughty baronet, without a word, turned and left him.

The endles.s hours wore on — two, three, and four. Sir Jasper mounted to the battlements, still like a man in a dazed dream.

Achmet the Astrologer turned slowly round. The pale, silvery moon blanched his everwhite face with the hue of death. In his hand he held a folded paper. He had been writing.

“ Have yon dope?” the baronet asked.

“ I am done. Your son’s fate is here.”

He touched the paper ; he spoke in a voice of awful solemnity ; his eyes had a wild, dilated look, from which Sir Jasper shrank — they looked so horribly like the eyes of a man who has been face to face with disembodied spirits.

“ Is that for me?” he asked, shrinking pal¬ pably from it, even whilst he spoke.

“This is for you” — the astrologer handed him the paper as he spoke. “ It is for you to read — to do with after as you see fit. I have but one word to say. Not I, but a mightier power traced the words you will read — your son’s irrevocable fate. Don’t hope to shirk it. Fate is fate — doom is doom. My task is ended, and I go. Farewell !”

“ No, no,” the baronet cried — “ not so. Remain and breakfast here.”

“ No, Sir Jaspe^ Ningsland, I brea-k no bread under yoiWroof. I have dop^e my work, and depart for ever. Look to your'son 1”

He spoke the last words slowly, with a tigerish glare of hate leaping out of his eyes, with deadly menace in every syllable. Then he was gone, down the winding stairway, like a black ghost, and so out and away.

Sir Jasper Kingsland took the folded paper and sought his room. There in the pale day-dawn he tore it open. One side was covered with cabalistic characters, Eastern symbols, curious marks, and hieroglyphics. The other side was written in French, in long, clear, legible characters. There was a heading — “Horoscope of the Heir of Kingsland.” Sir Jasper sat down eagerly and began to read.