Precaution Part 40

The old man spoke with earnestness, and drew the particular attention of his master to a review of his attire. After reflecting that no gentleman in the house had been attended by any servitor in such a garb, Mr.

Benfield thought it time to give his sentiments on the subject.

"Why I remember that my Lord Gosford's gentleman never wore a livery, nor can I say that he dressed exactly after the manner of Johnson. Every member had his body servant, and they were not unfrequently taken for their masters. Lady Juliana, too, after the death of her nephew, had one or two attendants out of livery, and in a different fas.h.i.+on from your attire. Peter, I think with John Moseley there, we must alter you a little for the sake of appearances."

"Your honor!" stammered out Peter, in increased terror; "for Mr. John Moseley and Sir Edward, and youngerly gentlemen like, dress may do. Now, your honor, if--" and Peter, turning to Grace, bowed nearly to the floor--"I had such a sweet, most beautiful young lady to smile on me, I might wish to change; but, sir, my day has gone by." Peter sighed as the recollection of Patty Steele and his youthful love floated across his brain. Grace blushed and thanked him for the compliment, and gave her opinion that his gallantry merited a better costume.

"Peter," said his master, decidedly, "I think Mrs. Moseley is right. If I should call on the viscountess (the Lady Juliana, who yet survived an ancient dowager of seventy), I shall want your attendance, and in your present garb you cannot fail to shock her delicate feelings. You remind me now I think, every time I look at you, of old Harry, the earl's gamekeeper, one of the most cruel men T ever knew."

This decided the matter. Peter well knew that his master's antipathy to old Harry arose from his having pursued a poacher one day, in place of helping the Lady Juliana over a stile, in her flight from a bull that was playing his gambols in the same field; and not for the world would the faithful steward retain even a feature, if it brought unpleasant recollections to his kind master. He at one time thought of closing his innovations on his wardrobe, however, with a change of his nether garment; as after a great deal of study he could only make out the resemblance between himself and the obnoxious gamekeeper to consist in the leathern breeches. But fearful of some points escaping his memory in forty years, he tamely acquiesced in all John's alterations, and appeared at his station three days afterwards newly decked from head to foot in a more modern suit of snuff-color.

The change once made, Peter greatly admired himself in a gla.s.s, and thought, could he have had the taste of Mr. John Moseley in his youth to direct his toilet, that the hard heart of Patty Steele would not always have continued so obdurate.

Sir Edward wished to collect his neighbors round him once more before he left them for another four months; and accordingly the rector and his wife, Francis and Clara, the Haughtons, with a few others, dined at the Hall by invitation, the last day of their stay in Northamptons.h.i.+re. The company had left the table to join the ladies, when Grace came into the drawing-room with a face covered with smiles and beaming with pleasure.

"You look like the bearer of good news, Mrs. Moseley," cried the rector, catching a glimpse of her countenance as she pa.s.sed.

"Good! I sincerely hope and believe," replied Grace. "My letters from my brother announce that his marriage took place last week, and give us hopes of seeing them all in town within the month."

"Married!" exclaimed Mr. Haughton, casting his eyes unconsciously on Emily, "my Lord Chatterton married! May I ask the name of the bride, my dear Mrs. Moseley?"

"To Lady Harriet Denbigh--and at Denbigh Castle in Westmoreland; but very privately, as you may suppose from seeing Moseley and myself here,"

answered Grace, her cheeks yet glowing with surprise and pleasure at the intelligence.

"Lady Harriet Denbigh?" echoed Mr. Haughton; "what! a kinswoman of our old friend? _your_ friend, Miss Emily?" The recollection of the service he had performed at the arbor still-fresh in his memory.

Emily commanded herself sufficiently to reply, "Brothers' children, I believe, sir."

"But a _lady_--how came she my lady?" continued the good man, anxious to know the whole, and ignorant of any reasons for delicacy where so great a favorite as Denbigh was in the question.

"She is the daughter of the late Duke of Derwent," said Mrs. Moseley, as willing as himself to talk of her new sister.

"How happens it that the death of old Mr. Denbigh was announced as plain Geo. Denbigh, Esq., if he was the brother of a duke?" said Jane, forgetting for a moment the presence of Dr. and Mrs. Ives, in her surviving pa.s.sion for genealogy: "should he not have been called Lord George, or honorable?"

This was the first time any allusion had been made to the sudden death in the church by any of the Moseleys in the hearing of the rector's family; and the speaker sat in breathless terror at her own inadvertency. But Dr.

Ives, observing that a profound silence prevailed as soon as Jane ended, answered, mildly, though in a way to prevent any further comments--

"The late Duke's succeeding a cousin-german in the t.i.tle, was the reason, I presume, Emily, I am to hear from you by letter I hope, after you enter into the gaieties of the metropolis?"

This Emily cheerfully promised, and the conversation took another turn.

Mrs. Wilson had carefully avoided all communications with the rector concerning his youthful friend, and the Doctor appeared unwilling to commence anything which might lead to his name being mentioned. "He is disappointed in him as well as ourselves," thought the widow, "and it must be unpleasant to have his image recalled. He saw his attentions to Emily, and he knows of his marriage to Lady Laura of course, and he loves us all, and Emily in particular, too well not to feel hurt by his conduct."

"Sir Edward!" cried Mr. Haughton, with a laugh, "Baronets are likely to be plenty. Have you heard how near we were to have another in the neighborhood lately?" Sir Edward answered in the negative, and his neighbor continued--

"Why no less a man than Captain Jarvis, promoted to the b.l.o.o.d.y hand."

"Captain Jarvis!" exclaimed five or six at once; "explain yourself, Mr.

Haughton."

"My near neighbor, young Walker, has been to Bath on an unusual business--his health--and for the benefit of the country he has brought back a pretty piece of scandal. It seems that Lady Jarvis, as I am told she is since she left here, wished to have her hopeful heir made a lord, and that the two united for some six months in forming a kind of savings'

bank between themselves, to enable them at some future day to bribe the minister to honor the peerage with such a prodigy. After awhile the daughter of our late acquaintance, Sir William Harris, became an accessory to the plot, and a contributor too, to the tune of a couple of hundred pounds. Some circ.u.mstances, however, at length made this latter lady suspicious, and she wished to audit the books The Captain prevaricated--the lady remonstrated, until the gentleman, with more truth than manners, told her that she was a fool--the money he had expended or lost at dice; and that he did not think the ministers quite so silly as to make him a lord, or that he himself was such a fool as to make her his wife; so the whole thing exploded."

John listened with a delight but little short of what he had felt when Grace owned her love, and anxious to know all, eagerly inquired--

"But, is it true? how was it found out?"

"Oh, the lady complained of part, and the Captain tells all to get the laugh on his side; so that Walker says the former is the derision and the latter the contempt of all Bath."

"Poor Sir William," said the baronet, with feeling; "he is much to be pitied."

"I am afraid he has nothing to blame but his own indulgence," remarked the rector.

"You don't know the worst of it," replied Mr. Haughton. "We poor people are made to suffer--Lady Jarvis wept and fretted Sir Time out of his lease, which has been given up, and a new house is to be taken in another part of the kingdom, where neither Miss Harris nor the story is known."

"Then Sir William has to procure a new tenant," said Lady Moseley, not in the least regretting the loss of the old one.

"No! my lady!" continued Mr. Haughton, with a smile. "Walker is, you know, an attorney, and does some business occasionally for Sir William. When Jarvis gave up the lease, the baronet, who finds himself a little short of money, offered the deanery for sale, it being a useless place to him; and the very next day, while Walker was with Sir William, a gentleman called, and without higgling agreed to pay down at once his thirty thousand pounds for it."

"And who is the purchaser?" inquired Lady Moseley, eagerly.

"The Earl of Pendennyss."

"Lord Pendennyss!" exclaimed Mrs. Wilson in rapture.

"Pendennyss!" cried the rector, eyeing the aunt and Emily with a smile.

"Pendennyss!" echoed all in the room in amazement.

"Yes," said Mr. Haughton, "it is now the property of the earl, who says he has bought it for his sister."

Chapter x.x.xIX.

Mrs. Wilson found time the ensuing day to ascertain before they left the hall, the truth of the tale related by Mr. Haughton. The deanery had certainly changed its master, and a new steward had already arrived to take possession in the name of his lord. What induced Pendennyss to make this purchase she was at a loss to conceive--most probably some arrangement between himself and Lord Bolton. But whatever might be his motive, it in some measure insured his becoming for a season their neighbor; and Mrs. Wilson felt a degree of pleasure at the circ.u.mstance that she had been a stranger to for a long time--a pleasure which was greatly heightened as she dwelt on the lovely face of the companion who occupied the other seat in her travelling chaise.

The road to London led by the gates of the deanery, and near them they pa.s.sed a servant in the livery of those they had once seen following the equipage of the earl. Anxious to know anything which might hasten her acquaintance with this admired n.o.bleman, Mrs. Wilson stopped her carriage to inquire.

"Pray, sir, whom do you serve?"

"My Lord Pendennyss, ma'am," replied the man, respectfully taking off his hat.

"The earl is not here?" asked Mrs. Wilson, with interest.

"Oh, no, madam; I am here in waiting on his steward. My lord is in Westmoreland, with his grace and Colonel Denbigh, and the ladies."