Ravenshoe. Henry Kingsley
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subjects, and he himself had been somewhat notorious for that sort of thing; but look at him now: he conformed with the times, and went to church. Every one went to church now. Let him call their attention to the fact that a great improvement had taken place in public morals of late years.
So the good-natured old heathen gave them what, I daresay, he thought was the best of advice. He is gone now to see what his system of morality was worth. I am very shy of judging him, or the men of his time. It gives me great pain to hear the men of the revolutionary era spoken of flippantly. The time was so exceptional. The men at that time were a race of giants. One wonders how the world got through that time at all. Six hundred millions of treasure spent by Britain alone! How many millions of lives lost none may guess. What wonder if there were hell-fire clubs and all kinds of monstrosities. Would any of the present generation have attended the fête of the goddess of reason, if they had lived at that time, I wonder? Of course they wouldn't.
Charles went alone to the poultry-yard; but no one was there except the head keeper, who was administering medicine to a cock, whose appearance was indictable—that is to say, if the laws against cock-fighting were enforced. Lady Ascot had gone in; so Charles went in too, and went upstairs to his aunt's room.
One of the old lady's last fancies was sitting in the dark, or in a gloom so profound as to approach to darkness. So Charles, passing out of a light corridor, and shutting the door behind him, found himself unable to see his hand before him. Confident, however, of his knowledge of localities, he advanced with such success that he immediately fell crashing headlong over an ottoman; and in his descent, imagining that he was falling into a pit or gulf of unknown depth, uttered a wild cry of alarm. Whereupon the voice of Lady Ascot from close by answered, "Come in," as if she thought she heard somebody knock.
"Come up, would be more appropriate, aunt," said Charles. "Why do you sit in the dark? I've killed myself, I believe."
"Is that you, Charles?" said she. "What brings you over? My dear, I am delighted. Open a bit of the window, Charles, and let me see you."
Charles did as he was desired; and, as the strong light from without fell upon him, the old lady gave a deep sigh.
"Ah, dear, so like poor dear Petre about the eyes. There never was a handsome Ravenshoe since him, and there never will be another. You were quite tolerable as a boy, my dear; but you've got very coarse, very coarse and plain indeed. Poor Petre!"
"You're more unlucky in the light than you were in the darkness, Charles," said a brisk, clear, well-modulated voice from behind the old lady. "Grandma seems in one of her knock-me-down moods to-day. She had just told me that I was an insignificant chit, when you made your graceful and noiseless entrance, and saved me anything further."
If Adelaide had been looking at Charles when she spoke, instead of at her work, she would have seen the start which he gave when he heard her voice. As it was, she saw nothing of it; and Charles, instantly recovering himself, said in the most nonchalant voice possible:
"Hallo, are you here? How do you contrive to work in the dark?"
"It is not dark to any one with eyes," was the curt reply. "I can see to read."
Here Lady Ascot said that, if she had called Adelaide a chit, it was because she had set up her opinion against that of such a man as Dr. Going; that Adelaide was a good and dutiful girl to her; that she was a very old woman, and perhaps shouldn't live to see the finish of next year; and that her opinion still was that Charles was very plain and coarse, and she was sorry she couldn't alter it.
Adelaide came rapidly up and kissed her, and then went and stood in the light beside Charles.
She had grown into a superb blonde beauty. From her rich brown crêpé hair to her exquisite little foot, she was a model of grace. The nose was delicately aquiline, and the mouth receded slightly, while the chin was as slightly prominent; the eyes were brilliant, and were concentrated on their object in a moment; and the eyebrows surmounted them in a delicately but distinctly marked curve. A beauty she was, such as one seldom sees; and Charles, looking on her, felt that he loved her more madly than ever, and that he would die sooner than let her know it.
"Well, Charles," she said, "you don't seem overjoyed to see me."
"A man can't look joyous with broken shins, my dear Adelaide. Aunt, I've got some bad news for you. I am in trouble."
"Oh dear," said the old lady, "and what is the matter now? Something about a woman, I suppose. You Ravenshoes are always—"
"No, no, aunt. Nothing of the kind. Adelaide, don't go, pray; you will lose such a capital laugh. I've got rusticated, Aunt."
"That is very comical, I dare say," said Adelaide, in a low voice; "but I don't see the joke."
"I thought you would have had a laugh at me, perhaps," said Charles; "it is rather a favourite amusement of yours."
"What, in the name of goodness, makes you so disagreeable and cross to-day, Charles? You were never so before, when anything happened. I am sure I am very sorry for your misfortune, though I really don't know its extent. Is it a very serious thing?"
"Serious, very. I don't much like going home. Welter is in the same scrape; who is to tell her?"
"This is the way," said Adelaide; "I'll show you how to manage her."
All this was carried on in a low tone, and very rapidly. The old lady had just begun in a loud, querulous, scolding voice to Charles, when Adelaide interrupted her with—
"I say, grandma, Welter is rusticated too."
Adelaide good-naturedly said this to lead the old lady's wrath from Charles, and throw it partly on to her grandson; but however good her intentions, the execution of them was unsuccessful. The old lady fell to scolding Charles; accusing him of being the cause of the whole mishap, of leading Welter into every mischief, and stating her opinion that he was an innocent and exemplary youth, with the fault only of being too easily led away. Charles escaped as soon as he could, and was followed by Adelaide.
"This is not true, is it?" she said. "It is not your fault?"
"My fault, partly, of course. But Welter would have been sent down before, if it hadn't been for me. He got me into a scrape this time. He mustn't go back there. You mustn't let him go back."
"I let him go back, forsooth! What on earth can I have to do with his lordship's movements?" she said, bitterly, "Do you know who you are talking to?—a beggarly orphan."
"Hush! don't talk like that, Adelaide. Your power in this house is very great. The power of the only sound head in the house. You could stop anything you like from happening."
They had come together at a conservatory door; and she put her back against it, and held up her hand to bespeak his attention more particularly.
"I wish it was true, Charles; but it isn't. No one has any power over Lord Ascot. Is Welter much in debt?"
"I should say, a great deal," was Charles's reply. "I think I ought to tell you. You may help him to break it to them."
"Ay, he always comes to me for that sort of thing. Always did from a child. I'll tell you what, Charles, there's trouble coming or come on this house. Lord Ascot came home from Chester looking like death; they say he lost fearfully both there and at Newmarket. He came home quite late, and went up to grandma; and there was a dreadful scene. She hasn't been herself since. Another blow like it will kill her. I suspect my lord's bare existence depends on this colt winning the Derby. Come and see it gallop," she added, suddenly throwing her flashing eyes upon his, and speaking with an animation and rapidity very different from the cold stern voice in which she had been telling the family troubles. "Come, and let us have some oxygen. I have not spoken to a man for a month. I have been leading a life like a nun's; no, worse than any nun's; for I have been bothered and humiliated by—ah! such wretched trivialities. Go and order horses. I will join you directly."
So she dashed away and left him, and he hurried to the yard. Scarcely were the horses ready when she was back again, with the same stem,