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 NEW AND FORTHCOMING VOLUMES. 
 
 ELLEN THORNEYCROFT 
 
 FOWLER 
 Place and Power 
 
 RICHARD WHITEING 
 The Yellow Van 
 
 "LUCAS MALET" 
 
 The Paradise of Demonic 
 Iglesias 
 
 E. LIVINGSTON PRESCOTT 
 Dragooning a Dragoon 
 The Queen's Own Traitors 
 
 JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER 
 Before the Dawn 
 
 Dr. S. R. KEIGHTLEY 
 The Pikemen 
 
 "RITA" 
 
 The Jesters 
 
 WILLIAM LE QUEUX 
 
 Secrets of the Foreign Office 
 
 ALICE MaoGOWAN 
 The Last Word 
 
 RALPH H. BARBOUR 
 The Land of Joy 
 
 EVELYN EYERETT-GREEN 
 The Niece of Esther Lynne 
 
 RONALD MACDONALD 
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THE SUCCESSOR 
 
SOME EARLY PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 ON 
 
 THE SUCCESSOR 
 
 2>ailg ftelegrapb. 
 
 "An exceedingly interesting story; his characters are clearly and incisively drawn, 
 and his dialogue is both witty and pointed. And to a novel possessing such qualities it 
 would be strange indeed were the public to refuse the hearty welcome which it 
 thoroughly deserves." 
 
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 zest to the clever interest of the story. Gundred is a charming girl." 
 
 /IBorntng poet. 
 
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 Pryce. His latest tale, ' The Successor,' has a double portion of that spirit. The 
 characters are well imagined and deftly individualised." 
 
 Scotsman. 
 
 "The author of this clever and powerful novel has more than once given evidence of a 
 peculiar faculty of holding the reader's interest. There is nothing common-place either 
 in the book's idea or in its execution, and the story should be read with a hearty interest 
 by everyone who begins it." 
 
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 " As was to be expected from the author, the characterisation is crisp and decisive, the 
 dialogue invariably apposite, and the narrative clear, strenuous, and admirable at once 
 for its persuasive humour and the realistic vigour of its descriptive passages." 
 
 notttngbam (Suarfcian. 
 
 "A powerfully-written story. The author has treated a risky subject in a very skilful 
 manner." 
 
 BberDeen tfree press. 
 
 " A vigorously- written, well-worked-out, and interesting story. In his descriptions of 
 the various characters Mr. Pryce is subtle, artistic, and graphic in his touches ; and he 
 does not waste his strength on padding, but works out his singularly clever tale in a 
 straightforward and powerful manner." 
 
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THE SUCCESSOR 
 
 H IRovel 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD PRYCE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "JEZEBEL," "ELEMENTARY JANE," "THE BURDEN OF A. WOMAN, 
 " MISS MAXWELL'S AFFECTIONS," ETC., ETC. 
 
 THIRD EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HUTCHINSON & CO. 
 
 PATERNOSTER ROW 
 1904 
 
Copyright 1904. 
 
 by 
 Richard Pryce 
 
 in the 
 United States of America 
 
sue. 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 152 
 
THE SUCCESSOR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE first Lady Alton de Merringham was an Andover 
 Victoria Gwynedd, second daughter of the fourth 
 Lord Culvert of Ock, by Gwynedd Llywelyn, his wife, 
 who claimed descent from that Prince of South Wales, 
 Seithenyn ap Seidden Seidi, the Drunkard, by whose 
 wanton or muddled tampering with floodgates, as she 
 was never tired of declaring, sixteen fortified towns lie 
 submerged in the waters of Cardigan Bay. The first 
 Lady Alton de Merringham brought her husband 
 the purple in which she was born little else, for the 
 Culverts were always church mice ! was a good wife 
 and woman, did him credit and honour, but bore him 
 no child. She died, fretted, it was said, by the thought 
 of the bad bargain she fancied herself, and in course of 
 time, and in accordance, if report speak true, with her 
 express wish, her lord married again. Once more he 
 allied himself with blood that was blue as his own. 
 
 The second Lady Alton de Merringham was a 
 Redruth of Angerstown. We need not go into her 
 pedigree, which was long as your arm ; but pausing 
 only to remember that Victoria Gwynedd had been 
 slim as a lath, observe that Georgina Veronica the 
 
 3 
 
Successor 
 
 Redruth was plump and well-liking, had broad 
 shoulders and hips, and reminded you (as Mrs. Alton 
 Lord Alton de Merringham's sister-in-law and 
 mother of the heir presumptive is said to have 
 whispered at the time of the wedding) of nothing 
 so much as a healthy and handsome brood mare of 
 good stock. Whether or not Mrs. Alton did indeed 
 make a comparison which jumped to the eyes and was 
 irresistible, I know not, but certain it is that her brother- 
 in-law, never at any time having wasted any liking upon 
 the caustic lady, from that day ceased to ask her 
 to Merringham. The yearly visit which had been an 
 institution was thenceforward a thing of the past, and 
 if, during the life of Georgina, Mrs. Alton did cross the 
 Merringham threshold once or twice, it was at her own 
 bidding. 
 
 In these days Mrs. Alton is said to have smiled at all 
 mention of the place and its master and mistress. 
 
 "Poor dear Alton, I'm told, wears an injured ex- 
 pression," is a sentence that is said to have escaped her. 
 " Two injured expressions, I hear, may be seen . . ." 
 was another; and "No one with eyes could lay any 
 blame at the door of the Redruth," a third. 
 
 What good Mrs. Alton said is nothing to what she 
 did not say. She had a bright and quizzical eye and a 
 curl in her lip. Nothing that she said or did not say 
 but sooner or later reached the ears of Lord Alton. 
 How such "things said" (and unsaid) accomplished 
 their journey who shall tell ? Not Mrs. Alton. Not I 
 who but chronicle what I know. Not one nor another. 
 Since the world began, however, what else may have 
 lacked, there has never been any dearth of tale-bearers. 
 Lord Alton knew when Mrs. Alton's eye twinkled and 
 when her lip curled; knew when she spoke and when 
 she did not speak ; when she laughed. 
 
Ube Successor 5 
 
 The Redruth died, and was buried. She got a chill 
 upon a hot-and-cold day of June at a garden-party; 
 took to her bed ; left it feet foremost, and was laid with 
 her husband's fathers. 
 
 The third Lady Alton de Merringham Mrs. Alton 
 might perhaps be excused for losing, as she said, all 
 patience the third Lady Alton de Merringham! 
 Think of it ! 
 
 Lord Alton went indeed for a third time to the altar. 
 Heavens, the talk in the county ! He gave the Redruth 
 a year to get cold. His hat-band was a foot high upon 
 one Sunday ; the regulation inch and a half upon the 
 next. He was away for six weeks after that and 
 brought home his bride. 
 
 The Peerages of the following January, for those who 
 kept their Peerages to the current issue, and subsequent 
 editions for everyone else, deal shortly with her. 
 " Third," you may read, for " thirdly," if you look up 
 Alton de Merringham, which comes after Altamar, and 
 before Alton of Orsby " Third, Blanche, daughter of 
 the late John Mason, Esq., of Liverpool." The third 
 Lady Alton de Merringham was not born in the purple. 
 
 What the third Lady Alton was born in nobody 
 knew. Rumour, for what rumour was worth, said the 
 spangles and tinsel. She had a great deal of very yellow 
 hair which was always dressed very elaborately. The 
 theory may have taken an illogical start thence. Some- 
 one was said to believe to remember her, or someone very 
 like her, among the lesser lights of a provincial theatrical 
 company ; which is as it may be. Lady Alton herself 
 said nothing at all, or as little as might be. She held 
 off inquiry, indeed, with some skill. Mrs. Alton, upon 
 the occasion of a memorable visit, found her match. 
 The third Lady Alton de Merringham was full able to 
 take care of herself. " Not likely ! " she said gracefully. 
 
Successor 
 
 to her lord's " Mrs. A., my dear, I'll say that for you, 
 didn't get much for her pains." 
 
 "Not likely!" The elegant phrase in a manner 
 presented her type, summed her up, expressed her 
 She had known social vicissitudes. It was generous to 
 say that the third Lady Alton wasn't Quite Quite ; it 
 was nearer the mark to say with indignant Mrs. Alton 
 that she Wasn't at All, that she Didn't Begin to Be. 
 Wits ? Anyone could see that she had had to have her 
 wits about her. There was the stamp of big towns and 
 the struggle for life all over her from the crown of her 
 handsome barmaid's head to the soles of her expensively 
 shod feet, She was the woman of the Golden Shoe, 
 who has known what it is to wear doubtful boots. 
 
 Lady Alton, it is possible, was all this and more. 
 There was, in every probability, a chequered life behind 
 her. She owned to twenty-six, and with never a hair 
 out of place may have experienced the hazard of worn 
 seams and the humiliation of mended gloves. The 
 imperial carriage of her yellow head did not gainsay 
 such surmisings. Rather, if one look about with 
 observant eyes, and see the contemptuous pose of many 
 an obscure but garish head, might one suppose it to 
 give them point. A head so borne may have ducked a 
 little. 
 
 Time went on. Lady Alton kept her own counsel, 
 and preserved it. People knew of her at the end of a 
 year just as much as she chose they should know, which 
 amounted to very little indeed. She was evidently 
 proud of her position, her house and her servants. She 
 drove out every day sitting very upright amongst her 
 cushions, and bowing from the waist to the curtsies of 
 her husband's tenants. She was like pantomime 
 royalty ; the peeress of a penny novel ; Roman pearls 
 or Parisian diamonds, Mrs. Balderton, housekeeper at 
 
ZTbe Successor 7 
 
 Merringham, and at one time an ally of Mrs. Alton, said 
 of her that if she wanted to ring the bell she would call 
 someone to ring for her. 
 
 " She's been used to doing things for herself, 'm, or I'm 
 not a judge of my sex. Inconsiderate ? It's not for me 
 to speak, I know that, but if you'll believe me " 
 
 Mrs. Alton believed. 
 
 " Further and more," Mrs. Balderton said 
 
 Mrs. Alton, who changed later, said " Indeed! " 
 
 " And that's not the half," said the Balderton, who in 
 course of time changed too, and became silent. 
 
 The Balderton had known former Lady Altons, Lady 
 Alton the dowager amongst them, the present peer's 
 mother, and was privileged. She was a little woman 
 with a silk apron, the pockets of which held keys and 
 string, and year in and year out wore a black chenille 
 cap with violet rosettes. A heavy gold chain was round 
 her neck, and she wore elastic-sided boots with patent 
 leather toes on which were little patterns in white dots. 
 She wore a monstrous cameo brooch under her chin, and 
 on her thin hands beaded mittens. In summer her 
 mittens were lace. She wore two rings ; her wedding 
 ring a slender thread, and the mourning ring of the last 
 lord. She was a widow whose three years of marriage 
 had not taken her off the estate. Her interests were 
 bound up with it, and she kept a jealous eye upon its 
 fortunes. The Altons were well served. 
 
 The Andover and the Redruth Mrs. Balderton had 
 welcomed. In alliance with these ladies the Alton 
 traditions were preserved. Neither of them but could 
 show cause why she had been allowed to join herself to 
 the august family. Burke and Lodge and Debrett could 
 answer for one of them ; Burke, (there were gentry, 
 landed and otherwise, that needed no patent of 
 nobility, Mrs. Balderton knew that!) for the other. 
 
8 tlfee Successor 
 
 With the Mason it was different. Nothing answered 
 for her, some local directory perhaps ; Mrs. Balderton 
 doubted it. She was the outsider who had been 
 smuggled in ; the cuckoo in the nest. " Where his 
 lordship can have picked her up," was the form in which 
 one of the things that exercised Mrs. Balderton took 
 shape. " Met," Mrs. Balderton, with some appreciation 
 of subtleties, felt to be hardly the word. There were 
 expressions that the Mason used (" Not likely," perhaps 
 one of them, " No fear " another) in the early days at 
 least for it did not escape Mrs. Balderton that she was 
 apt, and even anxious, to learn expressions to have set 
 old Lady Alton and her other two daughters-in-law 
 turning in their graves. She said " des//Vable," 
 " hos/zVable," "like I do," "seem to care," "if I 
 had've " ; she " went hot " or cold or pale, as the 
 inelegant case might be ; and added ever to her 
 interrogative pronouns, as, for example, "whatever 
 for ? " and " whoever next ? " but (or and) carried her 
 head like an empress ! 
 
 A year toned her down somewhat. She was heard 
 to amend a sentence. She " laid " on the sofa no 
 longer, but lay like anyone else, retracing her steps, if 
 need be, to substitute the one word for the other, and 
 did battle generally to keep an obstinate r from the end 
 of such syllables as ended with a. For her constant 
 entanglement, one of the housemaids at Merringham 
 was Emma by name. Thoughtless ! Another 
 answered to Anna. Inexcusable ! It was difficult in 
 bracketing them not to speak, when occasion arose, of 
 Emmer and Anna, or Anner and Emma, or Anner and 
 Emmer and Kate. Well, in church we have heard (the 
 sensitive among us) of Caner of Galilee, and at play- 
 houses .... what in the name of all that may outrage 
 the ear and set the teeth on exasperated edge has not 
 
Successor 9 
 
 been heard and endured ? Raw-reggs ? The law ris- 
 er risn't? But come! Let us in turn dror a veil 
 .... Lady Alton the third erred in company as good, 
 at least, as her own. 
 
 Two years went by. There was no child at 
 Merringham. The case of Lord Alton was aggra- 
 vated by its circumstances. A daughter would have 
 " sufficed " (hats off to her sex in apology !) to put 
 heirs presumptive out of court and the reckoning. 
 The title a Barony in Fee, with Remainder, etc., etc. 
 originally for the benefit of the first baron who had a 
 daughter but no son to succeed him, passed, failing male 
 heirs direct, in the female line. The Fates giving Lord 
 Alton a double chance had but mocked him. Every 
 tramp's woman that dragged her feet a tired fifty yards 
 behind her man on the dusty high-road outside the 
 park gates had a child at her heels and another at her 
 breast, and another elsewhere. Not a married cottager 
 on the estate but complained that children came apace. 
 Children cumbered the ground in the villages. They 
 sprawled upon the door-steps and the narrow footpaths 
 in front of the houses. A child was born to every 
 frightened girl who forgot her catechism a-maying or 
 a-harvesting or a-fairing. Children were here, there, 
 everywhere ; it was the owner of Merringham only was 
 childless. Assuredly the Fates who gave and withheld 
 were mocking him. Mockings were in the air. He 
 suspected a wink in every glance, a scoff in every smile, 
 jestings behind every door. He was morbidly sensitive 
 in these days, and thinking himself gifted or cursed 
 with intuition, supposed much that had no existence 
 but in his own pallid imaginings. The household could 
 have issued warnings. He was uncertain in his dealings, 
 hasty, obscure, repenting him sometimes of his severity, 
 refusing obstinately at others to listen to reasons or 
 
io ftbe Successor 
 
 reason. The servant who pleased him might find 
 himself at any moment the one of all who was out of 
 favour. He was like a sick king. 
 
 A third year saw no change in the situation. 
 
 Then it was that Mrs. Alton, with Edmund at 
 Winchester, promising, increasing in wisdom and 
 stature, and the picture of his handsome dead uncles 
 in the more glorious days of the Altons de Merringham, 
 drew, and felt she might draw, a long breath. 
 
 But she should have stopped at a long breath. There 
 might be reason and human nature in her attitude the 
 attitude of one who draws a long breath after storm and 
 stress over-ridden though never so buoyantly but she 
 should not have written to her brother-in-law just then, 
 or, if she must write, should have written in different 
 vein. Was it a time to receive money, and garments, 
 and oliveyards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen, and 
 menservants and maidservants ? It was as if she held 
 out the olive branch ... as if she, Mrs. Alton; could 
 afford to make friends and let bygones be bygones, 
 It was the one downright stupid thing she had done in 
 a shrewd and sensible if somewhat independent life. 
 
 Lord Alton, five feet four in his socks, and smarting 
 already had he not known, as we know, when the 
 unwise lady had smiled, when she had shrugged her 
 capable shoulders, when she had talked, and when she 
 had been significantly silent ? Lord Alton, I say, was 
 not to be played fast and loose with, ridiculed, patronised, 
 petted. Edmund at Winchester should have been at 
 home to restrain his competent mother for once. Mrs. 
 Alton in writing chronicled his looks and his inches 
 (Lord Alton was notably plain and meagre) ; said 
 Edmund was an Alton to the tips of his nails (Lord 
 Alton, the survivor of his three comely brothers, had 
 been known from a baby for his unlikeness to the family 
 
Ube Successor n 
 
 type), and suggested that the head of the house and her 
 son should be better known to one another. 
 
 There was more between the lines which were wide, 
 or Lord Alton thought there was more. There was 
 enough in all conscience in the pregnant lines them- 
 selves. The letter was pretty explicit. Lord Alton 
 knew his sister-in-law's circumstances : what she could 
 afford and what not. Edmund, aiming tentatively at 
 the Diplomatic Service, was approaching an age when 
 something must be settled about his future. It must 
 be decided anyway whether or not he was to go on 
 to a university to Oxford ; the Altons were Baliol 
 men. The time had come in fine, Mrs. Alton thought, 
 or appeared to think, for asking Lord Alton what he 
 intended to do for his 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE dining-room at Merringham was a sombre room 
 giving north. It needed for three-fourths of the year at 
 least all the glittering equipment of the well-appointed 
 table to lend it a welcoming air in the morning. Lady 
 Alton, breakfasting in the sunshine, or the sun-blinded 
 shade of her south bedroom, excused her indolence, 
 when she saw fit to excuse it, upon the graceful plea 
 that the dining-room gave her the Creeps. She was 
 nothing, as we know, if not eclectic where words and 
 phrases were concerned, and the Creeps presented, in 
 distinguished English, what the ungilded room gave 
 her till candles transformed it in the evening. She 
 made shift to endure it at luncheon. Lord Alton, as a 
 philosopher of sorts, and patient, moreover, with his 
 latest wife as he had not always been with the others, 
 maintained that in a house the shape and size of 
 Merringham some rooms must be sunless, nor, though 
 he humoured the lady's fancies in most things, would 
 hear of cutting down a monstrous ilex that further 
 obscured the light. The brighter, to be sure, for the 
 sable point of view, the broad acres of Merringham were 
 to be seen from under the spreading branches. It was 
 upon these that Lord Alton's eyes would rest as he ate 
 his solitary breakfast. The undulating park was dotted 
 with trees. To the left of each when the park smiled in 
 the gold of such a morning as brought Mrs. Alton's 
 ill-judged letter, a blot of shadow, cool and heavy, lay 
 upon the shining grass. There were deer grazing ia 
 
 12 
 
ttbe Successor 13 
 
 sight of the windows. To the right the bracken came 
 into range, to stretch thence presently to the foot of the 
 wooded hills. In rain and shine, by night and day, 
 Merringham was beautiful exceedingly, and the thought 
 of it, with other thoughts in train, was never long 
 absent from Lord Alton's mind. 
 
 The post reached Merringham in those days at 
 breakfast-time, and in a locked bag which was laid 
 daily beside Lord Alton's plate. It was Lord Alton's 
 cu:.tom to unlock the heavy leathern case every morning 
 before the servants left the room, and dividing its 
 contents into the several heaps that comprised the 
 letters and papers generally for himself, those for Lady 
 Alton in her bedroom, for what guests might be at 
 Merringham, and the servants' hall, proceed with his 
 breakfast and examine his own correspondence at leisure. 
 There were no guests at Merringham just then, and when 
 the butler had gathered up his mistress's budget bills 
 for the most part, circulars, illustrated papers and 
 withdrawn with his subordinates, who carried the 
 servants' modest pile as something to be smuggled 
 quickly out of sight, Lord Alton was left to himself to 
 taste his sister-in-law's quality and see how he liked it. 
 
 How the little man liked it we who have now a 
 nodding acquaintance with him may guess. The time 
 was supposed to have come, was it . . . ? And was it 
 indeed ? A word that was not actually used leapt 
 from the paper. Mrs. Alton, committed as she was to 
 indiscretion, had stopped short of the great indiscretion 
 of all. But had she stopped short of aught in intention ? 
 Was any line drawn on the hither side of folly ? Lord 
 Alton was seized with trembling in reading. Heir! 
 Heir! It was in raised letters. There it was, and 
 there, and over the leaf! It was in letters of flame 
 They seared Lord Alton's little pink eyes. 
 
M tlbe Successor 
 
 The passion that seized him, that shook him, wrung 
 him, bids fair to make history in the annals of the 
 family. Twenty years afterwards the thing had not 
 ceased to be spoken. There were noises in the dining- 
 room, " rampagings," crashings. The story may have 
 grown. One version has the china and pottery from the 
 shelves and the walls involved with the urn and the 
 breakfast things in one common and insensate smashing. 
 Another gives you the lawn and the gravel path strewn 
 with the fragments of decanters that crashed their way 
 through the windows. Was the cloth really torn from 
 the loaded table? A curtain from its hangings? A 
 footstool dashed through a looking-glass? Embroideries ! 
 Exaggerations ! Neither did Lord Alton, except in the 
 spirit, gash himself, like the priests of Baal, with knives. 
 He knocked over a chair in clambering on to the side- 
 board to reach the picture of Edmund's father, and in 
 ripping this from its frame, in his blind rage, he over- 
 turned a "tantalus" and broke it. The sound brought a 
 startled servant, who fled. His lordship was going on 
 like a madman dancing on the sideboard and tearing 
 the pictures to ribbons. He was blue in the face, 
 " fomenting " at the mouth. Stark staring mad he was, 
 slashing at things with the bread-knife. 'Ark ! What 
 was that ! And there again. Mercy upon them ! Thus 
 and thence might tales spring. . . . 
 
 But Lord Alton was found in a fit upon the carpet, 
 and the picture of Edmund may be seen to-day at some 
 period of its existence to have undergone extensive 
 repairs and restoration. Marvels were done with the 
 canvas, which was pronounced at the outset past mend- 
 ing. The bread-knife had done its work well. Mrs. 
 Balderton, summoned from the housekeeper's room, tells 
 or could tell. She knew Mrs. Alton's handwriting. 
 
 Lord Alton was carried to his bedroom, and Lady 
 
Successor 15 
 
 Alton informed of her husband's indisposition. Her 
 place, she said, was at his side; and she slipped into 
 embroidered slippers and a blue silk dressing-gown. 
 She stopped but thus to array herself and to give a 
 hurried direction that her breakfast, which she had not 
 finished, should not be taken away, and then sped along 
 the corridor to her husband's room. Her Place, she said 
 again in the going, was at his Side. 
 
 His room seemed to be full of servants, two or three 
 of whom were in the act of leaving it by Mrs. Balderton's 
 orders, as their mistress came in. 
 
 "You, Charles and William, get along with you. 
 You're not wanted here blocking the air. Open the 
 window, James not that one, stupid. Yes, wide! 
 Lean him a little on this side so as I can get his arm 
 out of the sleeve. Cut it, then. Where's the scissors ? 
 That's better. Now lift him a bit, Mr. Berners a little 
 more. There, that'll do. Is that the hot water, Emma ? 
 As hot as you can bear ? Leave it, then. Now be off 
 with you, and don't stand about the passages. Your 
 ladyship? The other pillow, Mr. Berners. A little 
 more towards me. Gently. That's it. He'll be easier 
 now." 
 
 " My place is by his side," said Lady Alton, yet again, 
 but with less conviction when she saw the purple face 
 and heard the stertorous breathing. 
 
 Mrs. Balderton, authoritative, collected, capable, 
 seemed, without moving over-much, to be here, there, 
 and everywhere. 
 
 " The first thing was to get him to bed. Yes, they've 
 gone for the doctor. Now the hot-water bottle. No, 
 the flannel right round it. There it is, by James. Give 
 it to Mr. Berners, James ; you're less than no good. 
 That's right. Now, close against his feet. Let me 
 feel it, to see it won't burn him. No, but it's hot 
 
1 6 Ube Successor 
 
 enough. No, my lady, nobody knows just how it 
 happened." 
 
 " His lordship was all right when he got up," said 
 Berners, Lord Alton's body-servant. 
 
 James, a footman, began a story which was taken out 
 of his mouth by Dunwich, the butler, who had been 
 absent from the room giving directions, and who now 
 returned. 
 
 " The dining-room's a sight, your ladyship ; and as for 
 the picture that hung over the sideboard . . ." words 
 failed him. " We hadn't left his lordship not above 
 twenty minutes when he seemed just as usual, though a 
 bit irritable, if I may be excused the expression, over a 
 omelet which, preferring truffles to fine herbs, wasn't quite 
 to his liking, when we heard the commotion. William 
 heard him first, so to speak, passing the dining-room 
 door, and come straight to me. I knew what it 
 was in a minute, having seen apoplexies, and didn't 
 hesitate . . ." 
 
 "But the doctor," said Lady Alton "the doctor?" 
 
 " We sent, your ladyship, post-haste." 
 
 " He can't be here for an hour," said Mrs. Balderton 
 shortly. "We're doing all that can be done in the 
 meantime. A bit more ice, James the big lump. Well, 
 break it. Now, here. Take those away, and that can. 
 Mr. Berners will see to the rest. Yes, my lady, a 
 seizure. Something maybe upset his lordship. It's 
 Mr. Edmund's picture that seems to have given 
 offence . . ." Mrs. Balderton smiled grimly. " Ripped 
 and hacked and torn it is. It hangs from the frame 
 like a dish-cloth. A rush of blood to the head ? Ah, 
 that's what we can't tell, my lady. Some regain con- 
 sciousness in a few minutes, and some will lay in a 
 I forget the word." She paused and hazarded "cata- 
 mose" ... "a catamose state for an hour and more 
 
Successor 17 
 
 though that don't seem the word neither. Your 
 ladyship will know." 
 
 Lady Alton shifted her eyes under the housekeeper's 
 enquiring glance. It was the butler who said : 
 
 " No ; comatose, I think. Isn't comatose the word, 
 Mrs. Balderton?" 
 
 "Yes; catamose, or comatose, it's all one to some 
 of us." 
 
 Lady Alton seemed ruffled of a sudden without 
 reason apparent upon the surface of things, and began 
 finding fault. Lord Alton should not have been carried 
 up from the dining-room till she had been consulted ; 
 should (or should not) have been placed in the draught 
 of the window and door ; should (or should not) have 
 been given brandy at once. Why had not this been 
 done, or that ? Someone ought to have guessed sooner 
 that all was not well. How long had his lordship laid 
 lain, she should say upon the dining-room floor before 
 any of his servants thought it their business to " trouble " 
 to see what was the matter ? That was what she wanted 
 to know. 
 
 Lady Alton's hand, with its many rings, fluttered the 
 lace on her dressing-gown. Whatever the emotions that 
 governed the moment, they were plainly disturbing. 
 The men looked at each other discomfited. 
 
 " I'll have that other bit of ice," Mrs. Balderton said. 
 
 " If it happens again . . ." Lady Alton began. 
 
 " If it happens again/' Mrs. Balderton said, " it'll of 
 course be more serious. They're seldom fatal till the 
 third." 
 
 She gave some directions to Berners. 
 
 Lady Alton left the room soon after this. She was 
 to be informed of the doctor's presence immediately 
 upon his arrival. If in the meantime Lord Alton 
 recovered consciousness, she was to be summoned 
 
 B 
 
is TTbe Successor 
 
 forthwith. The third Lady Alton de Merrin gharri's 
 orders were peremptory. 
 
 It was perhaps "just as well," as we say, that she did 
 not see the shrugging of noses and shoulders that 
 followed the closing of the door. Mrs. Balderton sat 
 down by the bed. 
 
 It was a lady with nerves somewhat ajar who went 
 back to her bed and her breakfast. Bonner, her maid, 
 had a difficult quarter of an hour. Fresh tea must be 
 made at once and the toast was quite cold ; so were 
 the poached eggs. Bonner should have seen that every- 
 thing was ready "against" her mistress's return. At 
 once, did Bonner hear? And it was no good doing 
 more eggs. Lady Alton did not feel " equal " now to 
 an egg. She did not know when she had felt so upset. 
 Just fresh tea and toast and perhaps a slice of ham. 
 Her appetite was gone. . . . 
 
 Her appetite, however, which seldom failed her, was 
 recovered with the reappearance of the breakfast tray. 
 Her palate was responsive to the sight of good food, 
 and Bonner, a discerning person, had not taken her too 
 rigidly at her word. There were many things besides 
 the modest slice of ham upon the capacious tray. There 
 was foie gras, for example ; there were anchovies ; 
 sardines. The toast was there ; a little hot loaf ; a 
 boiled egg. What Lady Alton had eaten of the 
 breakfast that had been interrupted was ignored with 
 commendable tact. 
 
 In the dining-room the picture of Edmund hung limp 
 and ragged from its frame. The servants had not been 
 silent. Already the thing was on view. Coachmen and 
 grooms and gardeners, profiting by the temporary de- 
 moralisation of the house, had set deliberate or furtive 
 foot in the room that had been the scene of their master's 
 
Successor 19 
 
 strange "taking." Inquisitive maids peeped over 
 shoulders or, Mrs. Balderton being absent and known to 
 be occupied, pushed boldly in and hazarded opinions. 
 They the maids each of them nevered ! Did ever . . .? 
 Who would have believed . . . ? Look at the glass on the 
 floor I T't, t't, t't, and the scratches on the me'ogany ! 
 Well ! and there ! And what could have ailed his 
 lordship ? him most in generally so careful ! But his 
 temper was . . . ! Yes, and growing upon him too, so 
 that you never knew where you were, nor what next 
 would upset him. It was constitoosh'nal, upper house- 
 maid Anna believed, whose own aunt, upon her mother's 
 side, had been criss-cross for years owing to being 
 dropped at nurse when an infant. Upper housemaid 
 Anna's relation flew out at nothing whether it might 
 be a door banging, or an east wind, or a noise in the 
 street. You could hardly live with her for her tantrums, 
 and what upper housemaid Anna's cousin (Laura by 
 name) had endured before what you couldn't but call 
 the 'appy release, no one but upper-housemaid Anna's 
 cousin (Laura) knew, and she was in Canada, having 
 married a French mechanical engineer. 
 
 Charles and William, turned out of his lordship's 
 bedroom by the peremptory Balderton, had tongues to 
 wag, and wagged them. Mother B. was on the 'igh 
 'orse, and no one but Mr. Berners was good enough for 
 her except it might be James, who let himself be put 
 upon. It was Mr. Berners this, and Mr. Berners that, 
 and outside please all the rest of you ; and his lordship 
 port-wine in the face, and snorting like a steam-engine, 
 while her ladyship flounced down the passage in her 
 bedgown with " My place is by his side." 
 
 " ' My place is by his side,' she says ! " William 
 mimicked to an admiring gallery. 
 
 Mother B., Charles opined, would have ordered her 
 
20 ZTbe Successor 
 
 out too if we could all have our way in the world. 
 William said " H'm," but did not waste overmuch love 
 upon her ladyship either. It was six of one at any 
 time and half a dozen of the other. The world would 
 be well enough if it wasn't for the women in it. 
 
 The maids upon that had a word or two to say. It 
 was the men in a house that made the trouble any day 
 of the week. Look at his lordship. Look at the 
 scratches on the sideboard, the broken tantalus, the 
 torn picture. . . . 
 
 Mrs. Balderton had let fall an observation or so 
 before the dismissal of Messieurs William and Charles. 
 Mr. Edmund (the portrait) was the father of the heir. . . . 
 
 Everyone knew this, but the fact on a sudden gave 
 point and significance to the incidents of the morning. 
 When it further became known that a letter from Mrs. 
 Alton had been received by Lord Alton, it was manifest 
 that it was with deliberate intention that this picture, 
 and not any other, had been picked out as object, for 
 the venting of the bitter little gentleman's spleen. 
 
 "I suppose," William said, "that that's how his 
 lordship 'd like to serve Master Edmund." 
 
 " He hates him enough." 
 
 The talk became general. One spoke, and another. 
 
 " A fine, upstanding young fellow, they tell me." 
 
 Not much like present folks." 
 
 " That's where the sting come in." 
 
 " Ah ! where the shoe pinches.'' 
 
 " Yet his own flesh and blood." 
 
 " What's that come to ? Blood's as thin as it's thick 
 when there's bad blood in the question. It's thin or 
 thick according as you want it to be. Kinship's nothing. 
 Some hold to their own, and some hold their own at 
 arm's length. It all depends." 
 
 Heads were nodded, with "H'm's" and "Ah's,"and 
 
Ubc Successor 21 
 
 it was generally allowed that the speaker Jebson, the 
 head gardener, from whom a querulous wife lived apart 
 was right, and that it all depended. 
 
 A coachman, one Matthews, a Methodist, quoted 
 " Scripture." In the last days, he said, we should be 
 betrayed by parents and brethren, and kinsfolk and 
 friends ; the son should be set at variance against his 
 father, and the daughter against her mother, and the 
 daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law which last, 
 he conceded, in parenthesis, was but human nature for 
 all time and a man's foes should be those of his own 
 household. 
 
 Well, what was to be would be, upper housemaid 
 Anna held. For her part, she had seen how things 
 were going for a long time back. It was " 'Ope 
 deferred," that's what it was. 'Ope deferred made the 
 'eart sick, she said, and wasn't sure rt but what " that 
 wasn't Scripture too. 
 
 Yes, that was Scripture right enough, Coachman 
 Matthews said. Proverbs, that's what that was. 
 Solomon said that Solomon, the wisest man that 
 ever lived. 
 
 Whereat upper housemaid Anna bridled, but depre- 
 catingly. She wasn't setting up to be the wisest woman. 
 "Far be it," she said, and perhaps meant "Far from 
 it." You never "reelly," she supposed, forgot a good 
 bringing-up, that was all, and her mother had always 
 been " particularly and careful " that her children should 
 know their Bibles. ""Ope deferred/" she said again, 
 well pleased with herself " ' 'ope deferred maketh the 
 'eart sick.' " 
 
 Methodist Matthews was able to complete the 
 aphorism : " But when the desire cometh it is a tree 
 of life." 
 
 Everyone present seemed then to say " Ah ! " With 
 
common accord all appeared to feel that once more a 
 finger was upon the nail. 
 
 Anna looked round as one who says " There," or, 
 " What did I tell you ? " 
 
 So all eyes were upon what was not. The Babe 
 Unborn was at Merringham, and upon this day of all 
 days the Babe that was thought of, and thought of 
 intently, and thought of in more ways than one. Lord 
 Alton had thought of it, but he, as we know, thought of 
 little else. The servants thought of it. Lady Alton, 
 thinking of it occasionally, was to think of it, and 
 thought of it, before night. 
 
 The sound of wheels on the drive, heralding the 
 advent of the doctor some three-quarters of an hour 
 later, found the dining-room still extensively occupied, 
 and emptied it summarily. The maids fled precipi- 
 tately. The footmen felt their coat collars and went 
 to the hall. The outdoor servants creaked by byways 
 to back doors 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 LORD ALTON meanwhile had regained consciousness. 
 The doctor had little to do but ask questions, approve 
 what had been done, write a prescription, order perfect 
 quiet, and look at his watch. He spoke tentatively 
 of a nurse, but the patient shied at the word. No 
 hospital women for him, he said, no hospital women, 
 did everyone hear? 
 
 Lady Alton, in the blue silk dressing-gown still, but 
 with her hair by this time elaborately dressed, rustled 
 attentively, and was the anxious but resourceful and 
 sensible wife in the sick-room. Balderton stood by, 
 speaking only when she was spoken to, and wearing 
 a curious little smile. 
 
 " The ice was right, wasn't it ? " Lady Alton said. 
 
 " Perfectly right," said the doctor. 
 
 His name, when we want it, was Amberley. 
 
 "And the hot bottle to the extremities?" Lady 
 Alton thought she was being technical. 
 
 " Could not have been more judicious." 
 
 " It's so difficult to know just what to do/' Lady 
 Alton said modestly, " in the absence of a medical man." 
 
 " Balderton's a good nurse," said Lord Alton, from 
 the bed, his mind perhaps running still upon " hospital 
 women." 
 
 Lady Alton was clever enough to say, without appear- 
 ance of haste, or of taking her cue from anyone but 
 herself, " Mrs. Balderton is a great help where there is 
 illness." 
 
 23 
 
24 TTbe Successor 
 
 Balderton said, " Thank you, my lord," towards the 
 bed, and smoothed her silk apron. Her keys jingled a 
 little. She may have included her mistress in the old- 
 fashioned bow which accompanied the smoothing of her 
 apron, and which may or may not have been designed to 
 be comprehensive. Her smile was inscrutable. 
 
 Lady Alton looked out of the open window. Every 
 prospect pleased at Merringham, and if anything was 
 vile it was woman. Balderton knew that her place was 
 safe, did she, and that it would be her mistress who 
 would go at the death of Lord Alton, and not she? 
 The dower-house was on the other side of the county, 
 and lay empty waiting. Lady Alton had seen it, and 
 thinking it wonderful enough in the early days (with 
 Heaven knows what to compare it with !), now thought 
 it very small potatoes indeed. She realised then for 
 almost the first time, and by reason somehow of the 
 attitude of Balderton, that to leave Merringham, as 
 she must if death robbed her of her husband and fate 
 gave her no child, would be a wrench unspeakable. 
 Balderton knew. Balderton took liberties . . . felt she 
 could afford to take liberties ! The thought was in- 
 supportable. Lord Alton would never part with her 
 in his lifetime, and her reign (Balderton's) was not 
 dependent upon the life of Lord Alton. Edmund was 
 an Alton. It was traditional with the Altons to keep 
 Balderton. Oh ! and oh ! To be even with her ! To 
 be able to say " This day month," or, tendering wages, 
 "This day! This very day!" (The blessed sound 
 of the words !) " Your keys of office, if you please," and 
 " Be off with you, bag and baggage," and, " Not a word, 
 please. When I say a thing I mean it. Away with 
 you. Pack ! " 
 
 Some such thoughts occupied the interior of the 
 elaborate yellow head, the back of which was turned to 
 
ZTbe Successor 25 
 
 the room as the tried lady stood contemplating the 
 shining view. A peacock was sunning himself upon 
 the lower terrace. A yellow butterfly, fluttering from 
 rose to rose of those that blossomed against the wall 
 of the house, flapped softly up almost to the casement 
 at which she stood. Summer sounds filled the air, 
 hummings, buzzings, twitterings, and the scent of many 
 flowers was upon the languid breeze. 
 
 Would it be possible to surrender Merringham ? 
 
 Lord Alton was not going to die just yet. But he 
 might have been going to die What a scare she had 
 had . . . potentially, for in point of fact she had not 
 been alarmed . . . what a scare ! She felt like one who 
 has escaped some unrealised perhaps unsuspected 
 danger. 
 
 Lord Alton meanwhile began to show signs of agita- 
 tion. His mind, working slowly across the interval of 
 unconsciousness, was groping vaguely after causes. The 
 indistinct events of the morning were taking shape. 
 
 " What happened in the dining-room ? " he asked. 
 " I have a sort of recollection of something being broken 
 bottles glass something ? Did I fall ? The chair, 
 too, slipped from under me, and there was a devil's own 
 crash. I don't remember . . after that. It seems as 
 if ..." 
 
 The doctor here said that We must be calm, and 
 avoid all excitement. Rest was what we needed. Let 
 us be content to let things be for the present. Rest and 
 perfect quiet were essential. If Lord Alton excited 
 himself, Dr. Amberley said in an aside to Lady Alton, 
 one could not be answerable for the consequences. 
 
 "Yes, never mind trying to remember, dear," Lady 
 Alton said. "Dr. Amberley's quite right. You lie 
 still for a little, and try and rest, and you'll be yourself 
 again in no time. Would you like to have the blinds 
 
26 Ube Successor 
 
 down and the curtains drawn, and see if you can get to 
 sleep ? " 
 
 Lord Alton waved the suggestion aside impatiently, 
 " What was I doing on the sideboard ? " he said. 
 
 " There, dear, I wouldn't worry," Lady Alton said. 
 
 " I remember distinctly standing on the sideboard, 
 I pushed the silver out of the way with my foot ..." 
 
 " Perhaps you dreamed, dear ..." 
 
 " Dreamed ? Dreamed ? Dreamed be damned 
 that is, my dear," as Lady Alton looked shocked, 
 " I wish you wouldn't put me off in this way. I was as 
 much awake as you are, and I stood on the sideboard 
 for something or other. What ? Here, Balderton, 
 where are you ? Who came to me first ? I will know 
 what happened. William ? Well, ring for William. 
 Do you hear ? Ring for William." 
 
 " William won't be able to tell your lordship more than 
 we can," Balderton said quietly. "Your lordship was 
 not conscious when he found you and came for help. 
 You'd been on the sideboard right enough." 
 
 " Edmund's picture ! " Lord Alton exclaimed suddenly, 
 and seemed to remember himself. A curious expression 
 passed over his face. " Oh, well," he said, looking at the 
 doctor, " one does odd things when one is ill, eh ? You 
 come across strange cases in the course of your practising, 
 I daresay, Dr. Amberley. There, I'll be quiet. I have 
 felt this little attack coming on for some time. I'm afraid 
 I'm an irritable subject Balderton knows and you, 
 Lady Alton, too, have reason to know it at times, as I 
 fear. But there, I'll be reasonable, and with these two 
 good people to look after me you won't order me nurses. 
 I'm not going to be ill. Oh, 7 know, believe me. I'm 
 over this the worst of it and as you say, have only to 
 take care of myself and be quiet ; only I mustn't be 
 thwarted." 
 
TTbe Successor 27 
 
 Ten minutes later, when Dr. Amberley was taking his 
 departure with, " I shall come in this evening to see how 
 we are going on," Lord Alton Lady Alton still being 
 present called him back to say again : " I mustn't be 
 thwarted, eh ? " 
 
 " Your lordship must not be excited." 
 
 " Any thwarting would excite me," said Lord Alton. 
 
 " We must avoid all excitement." 
 
 " Man," said Lord Alton, " you're thwarting me now, 
 Can't you say what I want ? " 
 
 "Anything in reason," said the little doctor, who 
 lacked humour, and hardly knew how to take his 
 illustrious patient. 
 
 " Then for goodness' sake tell this good lady that her 
 sick husband mustn't be crossed." 
 
 " We must humour Lord Alton," the little man 
 said. 
 
 Lord Alton shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " I suppose," he said, " that that is the most I shall get 
 out of you. You hear, my dear," he returned to his wife, 
 " that it might be fatal to combat me." 
 
 " Oh, I didn't say fatal/' said the doctor. 
 
 " But I did, and do," said Lord Alton, " and you, my 
 dear, hear me." 
 
 Lady Alton left the room with the doctor for the 
 interview outside that every patient, wait he a verdict or 
 not, wots of, though all about him dissemble, and wotting 
 of, resents. Lord Alton, during her absence, was rest- 
 less. Balderton could tell you that his lips moved, and 
 that he muttered to himself. She occupied herself with 
 one thing and another. 
 
 " I had some letters," said Lord Alton suddenly. " I 
 had letters by this morning's post where are they ? " 
 
 11 Your lordship," Balderton said, < had a deal better 
 not worry yourself with letters yet. What the doctor 
 
28 ftbe Successor 
 
 said was you was to be quiet. Let 'em be for the 
 present, won't you ? " 
 
 " Where are they ? " said Lord Alton. 
 
 " Oh, they're here right enough, m' lord. Here on the 
 dressing-table." 
 
 " Give them to me." 
 
 Balderton hesitated. 
 
 " Do as I tell you." 
 
 11 Correspondence," Balderton said. " is a disturbing 
 thing at the best of times." 
 
 " Come, come ! " said Lord Alton impatiently. 
 
 Thus admonished, Mrs. Balderton did as she was bid. 
 She shook her head as she handed him the packet Mrs. 
 Alton's letter being sandwiched between others of less 
 conspicuous import and muttered something about 
 doctor's orders. 
 
 " The doctor's orders," said Lord Alton, " were that I 
 was not to be combated. You were here. You heard 
 them." 
 
 " Oh, I heard," said Balderton. 
 
 Lord Alton was odd in his manner for the rest of that 
 day. That he was shaken and bruised not by his fall 
 alone, but by the paroxysm of rage which had preceded 
 or caused it was patent to all who saw him. When his 
 wife came back to the room he looked at hei strangely, 
 as one tentative, speculating, gauging chances. She was 
 conscious of something unfamiliar in his gaze, and said 
 " Yes, dear ? " and " What is it ? " uncomfortably. She 
 did not like illness. 
 
 Lord Alton said " Nothing, nothing," and averted his 
 eyes, only to refasten them upon her presently. They 
 strayed enquiringly from the soft colour upon her cheeks 
 to the yellow elaborateness of her hair. Lady Alton 
 was using a new cosmetic just then for her lips. Her 
 
ZTbe Successor 29 
 
 husband's eyes rested from time to time upon her lips 
 also. She grew restive under the scrutiny. 
 
 " Is there anything the matter ? " she asked. " Very 
 well, then, I wish you wouldn't stare so. It's enough to 
 give one the fidgets. . . ." 
 
 She had plenty of self-reliance, but had not then 
 acquired the repose of manner that is supposed to mark 
 the caste of Vere de Vere, and that came to her later in 
 life. She was, as we know, in her transitional stage. 
 
 " Was I staring ? " said Lord Alton. 
 
 " Were you staring ! " said the lady. 
 
 She could be curiously vulgar. Harmless phrases on 
 those pretty carmine lips could take a common sound 
 that was not in the 'words as words. A touch of 
 resentment and the most innocent expressions were 
 sullied, tainted, coarsened. 
 
 Lord Alton smiled. 
 
 " And now you smile," said Lady Alton, unpacified. 
 
 "And now," said Lord Alton, "I smile." 
 
 He too had but repeated the other's words. 
 
 Balderton had been in the adjoining room, and came 
 back. 
 
 " Well I must go and dress," Lady Alton said. " The 
 morning's slipped away. You'll send for me if you want 
 me." 
 
 "Very well. I shall want you later not now. I 
 shall have something to say to you. I will send for you. 
 It will be after your lunch probably. I want to be left 
 alone now. I've things to think of. I want to think." 
 
 Lady Alton thought her husband looked excited 
 again. Letters lay on the bed a letter. He was not 
 smiling, and seemed in a moment to have forgotten 
 the recent passage, and to have reverted to matters or 
 thoughts anterior to it. Lady Alton, vaguely uncom- 
 fortable, permitted herself to exchange a glance with 
 
30 ITbe Successor 
 
 Mrs. Balderton. Balderton, after all, knew more about 
 illness than she did ; and if there were these sudden 
 changes of mood. . . . 
 
 " Balderton will be here," she said doubtfully. 
 
 " No, Balderton, I don't want you/' Lord Alton said. 
 " I want to be alone. You must go too, like a good 
 creature. The bell is at my side. I'll ring it if I need 
 anything of anyone." 
 
 " Shall I send Berners to your lordship ? " 
 
 " Neither Berners nor anyone else. Don't you 
 understand that I want to be alone ? " 
 
 There was a little expostulation plaintive upon the 
 part of Lady Alton, reasoning upon that of Balderton 
 and Lord Alton had his way. 
 
 " I don't know what ails him," Lady Alton said, 
 outside the door. 
 
 " We can't answer for our nerves when we are upset," 
 said Mrs. Balderton shrewdly. " They play the wisest 
 and best of us tricks. Has your ladyship been to the 
 dining-room ? " 
 
 Lady Alton had not. 
 
 " It'll surprise you then, my lady. The glass, I 
 expect, is swept up by now, but the picture's, I suppose, 
 as his lordship left it." 
 
 " What can have upset him so ? " 
 
 " Some things upset one," Mrs. Balderton said, " some 
 another. With one it's bills, with another it's letters. 
 You never can tell." 
 
 " I'll go to the dining-room," said Lady Alton. " No, 
 I'll dress first. Tell them to leave it just as it is. I 
 wish to see it. And then you'd better be somewhere 
 near his lordship's room. Whatever he says, there must 
 be someone within hail." 
 
 Lady Alton went her way rustling. Balderton rang 
 for one of the women servants, and sent down her 
 
Ube Successor 31 
 
 orders, and then, having fetched some work, she took 
 up her position at the table that stood under the window 
 at the end of the corridor, near her master's room. 
 
 Silence reigned in the great house. In it many small 
 sounds were audible ; the distant singing of the canaries 
 in the aviary, where, too, a bullfinch piped inter- 
 mittently ; the slow ticking of the clock on the stairs ; 
 the sweeping of a housemaid's broom in a bedroom ; 
 an occasional murmur of far-off talking. Balderton 
 remembered when these same passages resounded with 
 young voices, and the coming and going of young feet. 
 Lord Alton Master Edward was always the quiet 
 one; but the others. . . . What boys ! What wonderful 
 boys ! Master Edmund, whose picture was hanging in 
 ribbons to-day from its frame was anyone like him ? 
 Mischievous ? What pranks were those that he would 
 not be at ? And what was there that you would not 
 forgive him ? She could see him in swaddling clothes, 
 a babe to delight you ; in the petticoats of the twos and 
 threes ; the knickerbockers of the fours and upwards, 
 to his first little trousers. Then she could see him as 
 he came home for the holidays from Eton ; later, when 
 he came down from Oxford ; later, at longer intervals, 
 when he was launched in the world, and made 
 Merringham 3unny with his occasional visits. She 
 could see him as she saw him at his wedding ; as she 
 saw him with his wife, when the bride, as a bride, made 
 her first appearance at Merringham ; a year later 
 dandling the babe he was so proud of the Edmund of 
 Mrs. Alton's indiscreet letter ; and, but one short year 
 later, in his premature shroud. Ah, Master Edmund 
 whom everyone loved, of whom the old lord thought 
 and expected so much ! Master Edmund ! Master 
 Edmund ! 
 
 And Master Terence and Master John ! You made 
 
32 ZTbe Successor 
 
 these corridors ring, in the short day of you, with your 
 young shoutings and laughter. What boys you were ! 
 Altons both of you to the tips of your fingers ! And 
 what men you made ! You were men if the mould be 
 broken. You both died fighting as you would have 
 wished to die. . . . 
 
 Silence, silence in the big house. 
 
 In her room, Lady Alton was making her toilet; 
 Lord Alton, his mind up, in his. 
 
 When half an hour had passed, Balderton rose, and 
 putting down her work, went along the passage and 
 listened outside her master's door. Silence there, as in 
 the house. He was sleeping? She hesitated and 
 knocked lightly. No answer. She opened the door 
 and looked in. 
 
 Lord Alton lay motionless, staring at the ceiling. 
 Never before had Balderton seen quite such a look of 
 abstraction. The face was the face of one who gazes 
 across great distances, ignoring things near. Not till 
 she spoke did he become aware of her presence, and 
 then, though he started at the sound of her voice and 
 looked towards her, raising his head from the pillow, 
 recognition of her travelled slowly to his brain, and 
 back slower still, in outward presentment, to the eyes 
 that met hers. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 IT was three by the clock on the stairs when Balderton, 
 by Lord Alton's direction, summoned Lady Alton to 
 her husband's bedside. The summer's day was 
 unclouded, and the air hummed to the beat of a pulse 
 as at mid-day. Balderton, however, with a foot for a 
 barometer (rarely at fault), and just now a "feel" 
 in it, as she said, prophesied rain before sunset. 
 Lady Alton, looking at the blue, shook her 
 head. 
 
 11 Before sunset, my lady," said Balderton. 
 
 Lord Alton was propped up now in bed. He knew 
 himself, and was not going to be ill. It was a day of 
 odd repetitions. Repetitions were everywhere. Were 
 so many things ever before said twice in twelve hours ? 
 Yet when the door had closed upon Balderton's back, 
 and husband and wife were alone, there was a time 
 when, the conventionalities of the moment and its 
 circumstances having been dealt with conventionally, 
 (Lady Alton herself a very type of convention !), it 
 seemed as if there were nothing left to say. Lord 
 Alton was easier ? Easier. He was sure ? Sure. He 
 had all that he wanted ? 
 
 Here was Lord Alton's opportunity, but he did not 
 seem able or ready to take it. He let it pass with a 
 curt " Everything," having, in fact, everything but that 
 which he wanted. 
 
 When the silence had lasted so long that it began to 
 play upon Lady Alton's nerves, she rose from her chair 
 
 33 c 
 
34 ftbe Successor 
 
 by the bed her " place " by his " side " and went to 
 the window. 
 
 " There isn't a cloud in the sky," she said. " There 
 isn't a speck of dust moving." 
 
 Her husband had followed her with his eyes, and 
 waited. 
 
 " But Balderton," she said, " says there will be rain." 
 
 The prediction might, from her tone, have been supposed 
 a menace to herself, biassed, personal, pointed. 
 
 Lord Alton, sick or well, uncertain, hasty, dangerous, 
 whatever he lacked, lacked not the saving grace of all, 
 and distraught- as he was, excited, nervous even, was 
 able in this moment of tension to smile. 
 
 " ' There is yet one man,' " he said drily, " ' Micaiah, 
 the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the 
 Lord : but I hate him ; for he doth not prophesy good 
 concerning me, but evil.'" 
 
 Lord Alton occasionally talked over his wife's elaborate 
 head. She ignored what she did not understand, and 
 said, irrelevantly it may have seemed, but contemptuously 
 of obvious intention, " By her foot ! " 
 
 Lord Alton did not fail to follow her. 
 
 "I'd back Balderton's foot for all that," he said, 
 "against many a better brain." 
 
 Lady Alton's nerves were perhaps really ajar, or for 
 her rejoinder, and their soothing, she might not have 
 descended to a ready and cheap : " Well, it's large 
 enough, any way." 
 
 "My dear," Lord Alton said suavely, "I think you 
 hardly appreciate Balderton. She is one in a thousand. 
 She is a splendid example of something that is fast dis- 
 appearing. These women are wonderful. They are 
 born in the service of houses such as ours I am so far 
 arrogant ! and die therein. They don't flit from house 
 to house and serve best the master that pays best The 
 
Successor 35 
 
 younger women do that light come, light go. But 
 Balderton she doesn't like me particularly perhaps, but 
 if I lost every penny to-morrow, Balderton would stay 
 with me though she starved for it. Try to see. We 
 must make allowances." 
 
 " I can't bear her," said the lady, with petulance. 
 
 " I am sorry to know it." 
 
 " She flouts me." 
 
 " You don't take her aright. 
 
 " She is impudent." 
 
 "An old servant. She is my earliest recollection. 
 Years give privileges . . ." 
 
 " Privileges ! The privilege to insult her mistress ! " 
 
 " I can't think she would do that. Then unprovoked, 
 let me say, Reconsider her. Balderton dies in this 
 house. As long as I live she shall only leave by her 
 own act and will. On so much, dear, I am determined, 
 and mean no slight to you. Think if I have ever 
 slighted you ? I have even, I believe, been a good 
 husband. Attach Balderton to you. You can do it 
 if you will. You have only, perhaps, not to alienate 
 her deliberately. Attach her to you, and you have an 
 ally for a foe; so at the smallest reckoning, and my 
 wishes apart, it is politic advice that I'm giving you." 
 
 Lady Alton had plenty to say upon that, but, hipped 
 as she might be, was impressed in spite of herself. 
 
 These things, none the less, and as each knew, were 
 not what they had come together to say or to hear. 
 
 " How we got upon Balderton ..." said Lord Alton, 
 
 He was temporising. 
 
 " By the way of her foot," said Lady Alton indiffer- 
 ently, but with a glimmering of the comic spirit that 
 spoke something for influences at work in her. 
 
 Lord Alton, nervous once more, and excited, felt 
 vaguely for respite. 
 
36 trbe Successor 
 
 1 Her foot and the weather, you, Anab, Micaiah, the 
 son of Imlah. . . . God help me ! We are not seeking 
 we can't on the face of things ! to enquire of the 
 Lord." 
 
 He laughed out. The joke was rich indeed. Lady 
 A.lton was astray again, and partly to bridge the diffi- 
 culties of the situation, partly because the picture he 
 had drawn of Balderton's part in the household had 
 indeed impressed her, and the consequent need to 
 justify herself was urgent, she returned to the vanity 
 of vain prophesies. 
 
 " You," she said, " can't see the sky from your bed. 
 Where's the rain to come from ? For rain you want 
 clouds. I've never seen such a sky." 
 
 " Yet I have read of a sky," said Lord Alton it was 
 palpable now that he temporised " of a sky in which 
 there was nothing ... to six lookings ; at the seventh 
 there was a little cloud like a man's hand. After that it 
 was the rush for shelter . . . 'that the rain stop thee 
 not' . . . 'get thee down,' and all that, girdings of 
 loins, runnings, the heaven black with clouds and wind 
 a veritable ' sound of abundance of rain.' You heard 
 as you read. Elijah smelt rain in a sky as blue, I 
 daresay, as your sky there. A fine nose, Elijah's." 
 
 But if Elijah had a fine nose or, to keep to the 
 letter, an ear that was notable Lord Alton had. a 
 tongue that could turn words to his uses. He took 
 the blue sky now to his aid. Mrs. Alton had seen a 
 blue sky and written her letter. It was not always blue 
 skies that were to be trusted. Bolts fell from them 
 sometimes. The unexpected happened the thing to 
 surprise you. 
 
 He was trembling again ; had his hand upon the 
 letter. 
 
 " Here, read it," he said. " The woman counts. . . . 
 
Successor 37 
 
 The impudence of her ! The effrontery ! But read it. 
 It needs no pointing. See for yourself. Take it. See. 
 Here, I can't . . ." 
 
 His trembling fingers wrestled with the envelope. 
 
 " Let me," Lady Alton said, but, the tumult of nerves 
 communicating itself to her also, began to take it by 
 force. It was a strange moment in a day of strange 
 hours. As she seemed like to twist the thing from him, 
 he crammed it into her hands. 
 
 " Can't you wait ? " he snapped. 
 
 "You've hurt my finger," she said. "Your great 
 ring . . . ! I thought you wanted me to read your 
 letter . . ." 
 
 " Not," he said" not to snatch it." 
 
 Veins stood out on his forehead. 
 
 Lady Alton, with the flushed cheeks of a nursemaid 
 who has wrested a toy, or what else, from a recalcitrant 
 charge, and is yet a little bit ashamed of her achieve- 
 ment, looked ruefully at her finger and rubbed it. In 
 doing so she dropped the letter, and stooped for it. 
 
 " Am I to read this ? " she said doubtfully, when her 
 husband, controlling himself for her shaming, kept silence. 
 "You said, 'Read it.' You said/ Take it.' If you wanted 
 me to read it, why didn't you give it to me ? If you 
 didn't want me to, why did you say you did ? " 
 
 But that was not enough. 
 
 " " I don't know what made me," she said then. " It 
 was your impatience, I think the sight of you fighting 
 with the envelope. I didn't seem able to help it." 
 
 She paused, knowing it vaguely to have been the 
 impulse that makes animals attack a wounded 
 companion. 
 
 " I'm sorry," she added abruptly, surprising herself. 
 
 Lord Alton speaking then, spoke sharply, but showed 
 by his words that he accepted her honourable intention. 
 
js Ube Successor 
 
 Who was he, he said, not to recognise the part that 
 nerves played in the ordering of human affairs ? It 
 would well become him to be critical ! Lady Alton had 
 only to look at the picture downstairs, and at the more 
 instructive spectacle still of her husband temporarily 
 laid low a pretty example indeed ! 
 
 " But, heavens above us ! " he finished, " you and I 
 mustn't quarrel. The fault's mine, I daresay, though I 
 don't care whose the fault is. You and I must make 
 common cause or none. It's no time for dissensions 
 in the camp. See what the woman says ! Read ! Of 
 course, I mean you to read." 
 
 His pink eyes watched her as she spread out the 
 sheet. To read " writing " was always a process set 
 with obstacles to her. She read slowly, pausing at a 
 word from time to time, and returning to one or two as 
 unmastered. She referred a hieroglyphic obscurer than 
 the rest to her husband for elucidation, complaining 
 that the writer wrote vilely. 
 
 " I found it legible enough." 
 
 " You know her hand, you see." 
 
 " She makes small bones of showing it. 
 
 "Look at that for a W," said Lady Alton, "and 
 there's an L for you. Any school child would make 
 better pot-hooks. That's meant for a t, I suppose, and 
 just look at her i's." 
 
 " I can't say," said Lord Alton, " that I mind any 
 crosses or dots." 
 
 The reader seemed like to overlook the matter in her 
 zeal to condemn the manner. It was not till she was 
 nearing the end that she realised what it was that was 
 taken for granted. Lord Alton saw perception dawn in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Of all the impudent ..." she said doubtfully, and 
 then broke off. 
 
Ube Successor 39 
 
 " That's it," said her husband ; " impudent, daring, 
 cool. . . ." 
 
 He blew the coals with his adjectives. 
 
 "Are you Sarah?" he said, "... ninety? that she 
 should suppose . . . even if I were a hundred ! Not 
 but that Sarah surprised every one, herself most of all 
 if the woman remembers what she professes to believe. 
 But this is Susan Alton through and through. Do you 
 read her contempt of you? You are not mentioned. 
 There is but one thing that would have made you a 
 person to reckon with, and lacking that you can be 
 ignored as of no account. Am I right to be 
 angry ? " 
 
 " It's a begging letter ! " said Lady Alton ; " it's 
 nothing more nor less than a begging letter. I wonder 
 she isn't ashamed to ask such favours." 
 
 "It isn't what she asks," said Lord Alton; "it's 
 what she assumes." 
 
 He had a vague uneasiness at the back of his mind 
 that she was going to call Mrs. Alton " No lady," but to 
 his relief the horrible phrase was not spoken. 
 
 "Why should she think . . .?" Lady Alton began 
 suddenly, and paused. 
 
 That was the right note. That was what he was 
 waiting for. 
 
 She thinks herself safe," he said. " Her letter, if it 
 says anything, says that we may now consider Edmund's 
 succession assured. Shall we take it that all doubts are 
 at rest on the point ? Shall we adopt her boy, eh ? 
 Pay for his schooling and send him to Oxford ? Shall 
 we sink past differences, hold out the olive branch 
 lacking olive branches ourselves ! and take my brother 
 Edmund's wife and her son to our bosoms ? When I'm 
 safe in my grave there's the dower-house for you, and 
 Merringham (they assume) has got to be theirs. I'm 
 
40 Ube Successor 
 
 only asked to ante-date their well-being by a year or 
 two." 
 
 "But I'm a young woman," said Lady Alton. 
 
 It was the right note again. 
 
 "She dismisses you, my dear, with a shrug of the 
 shoulders. She would say she had given you time." 
 
 Lady Alton, who had been standing, sat down by the 
 bed, and fell to tracing the pattern of the counterpane 
 with one finger. Her rings sparkled with her movements. 
 Lord Alton watched her for some moments in silence. 
 There were lilies in the pattern, roses, twining ivy ; Lady 
 Alton's finger travelled intricately. She might have 
 been weaving fancies or spinning a web. 
 
 A knock at the door recalled her to herself, and 
 brought a frown to the forehead of her husband. What 
 was it now ? he said. Were his orders always to be 
 disregarded ? What he wanted was apparently what he 
 could not get, and that was quiet. Let the servants be 
 careful ! 
 
 Lady Alton went to the door. 
 
 Were there any orders for the carriage? The 
 carriage! Lady Alton's tone was expostulating an 
 appeal to the reason. There were no orders. Stay, 
 though ... it was Lord Alton from the bed. Lady 
 Alton must have her drive. The air would do her 
 good. She would come back to him when she 
 came in. 
 
 The lady consulted her husband with her eyelids. 
 
 " At four, then," she said. She would drive for an 
 hour. 
 
 
 
 "You wish it?" she asked, as she turned again to 
 the bed. 
 
 "Yes; I wish it." 
 
 It meant that the right note having been struck, it 
 might be counted upon to hold the air for a time, as 
 
TOe Successor 41 
 
 the sound of an evening bell lingers in the twilight. 
 All that need be said had perhaps been said. 
 
 So at four of the clock Lady Alton drove out in the 
 monstrous Merringham landau and solitary grandeur. 
 Her eyes were restless and bright, her forehead 
 puckered, and William, upon the box in his white 
 livery, looking round once to take some direction from 
 his mistress, thought, and afterwards said, that her 
 ladyship had evidently been more put about by the 
 events of the morning than he, for one, would have 
 expected. Inward excitement, in truth, was outwardly 
 expressed by something unusual in every line of her 
 face, and it did not need more than the intelligence of 
 a William to see it. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 LADY ALTON'S brain was in truth working. The 
 wheels turning under the luxurious springs of the 
 carriage did not turn more steadily than the wheels 
 that turned and hummed in her head where, indeed, 
 within every wheel there seemed to be another wheel 
 turning, humming, humming, turning, to a degree of 
 activity that might have been expected to be 
 bewildering, but that, in some odd way, was stimulating 
 instead. 
 
 The slim back and the broad back were in front of 
 her, and had the immobility of well-trained service. 
 There was no one to see her except at the starting, and 
 in the brief moment of the colloquy. Yet Lady Alton 
 lowered her pink parasol, and under it, in the pink 
 radiance of it, her eyes burned, and burned, and burned. 
 Was Mrs. Alton's taunt rankling ? Lord Alton's words 
 were sinking in ? He had pointed the slight assuredly. 
 Was she the lady with the burning eyes under the 
 pink parasol Sarah indeed? ... or ninety. . . .? It was 
 very pink under the pink parasol. 
 
 The country moved by smoothly; trees, hedges, a 
 wood, a common. Here and there a cottage sent blue 
 smoke into the blue. Children bobbed their curtsies 
 to the unresponsive silk. Some hens at a point in the 
 road ran frenzied before, and almost under, the horses' 
 hoofs, and sought noisy shelter in impenetrable fences, 
 to turn back baffled but instantly calm at the passing 
 
 of the danger. A flock of sheep, too, was driven for a 
 
 42 
 
ttt>e Successor 43 
 
 space to part at last like the waters of the Red Sea. 
 Birds were everywhere ; the hedgerows bright with 
 flowers ; the day brimmed with life. 
 
 Under the pink parasol the eyelids closed now and 
 then for a moment or two over the shining eyes, as if to 
 cool them. Always the eyes were opened a little wider 
 then, before they settled down again to their steady 
 burning. They were like two flames in the conven- 
 tional face that looked now so unconventional, and they 
 leapt as flames leap in a draught. 
 
 The sound of the trotting hoofs was sharp on the 
 well-kept roads. The round world on this day of full 
 summer seemed a sounding board for noises, so that the 
 whistle of a train, made pleasant by distance, was yet 
 clear on the fleckless air. Lady Alton hung on to it 
 and found it to conjure up visions of travel. Perhaps 
 for the little that she had travelled her impressions were 
 the more vivid. They were vivid enough. She thought 
 of big London stations ; book-stalls ; Dover ; the 
 Admiralty Pier ; the wash of green water ; Calais ; 
 its refreshment room ; the sound of French ; the names 
 of stopping-places upon a certain journey Laon, Belfort, 
 Bale ; the sound of German and other tongues ; with 
 all the things incidental to voyaging ; frontiers ; pass- 
 ports (the world younger then and less free) ; customs ; 
 couriers. 
 
 The thought grew with her. It was part, or became 
 part, of the other thought. Movement, that was what 
 she wanted movement, fresh places and faces, life. 
 She was young still, and here at Merringham ran risks 
 of settling down prematurely into comfortable middle 
 age. To have been so successful . . . and not to 
 succeed a little more! To let Mrs. Alton have the 
 last word, moreover ! A case, indeed, for the elegant 
 No Fear of earlier days. 
 
44 ^be Successor 
 
 Movement, life, fresh places . . . and faces ? 
 
 " Abroad," she said two or three times to herself, 
 " abroad." 
 
 Another carriage passed, bearing ladies who bowed 
 stiffly. The third Lady Alton was here and there kept 
 outside the cordial nod and smile of intimacy. 
 
 "They, too, think maybe that I'm here but for a 
 time," was a thought that shaped itself vaguely in her 
 mind as she bowed back mechanically. A thought of 
 the distant dower-house came as a pendant to this, with 
 a recollection of the mutilated picture of Edmund, and 
 she laughed to herself under the pink parasol. The 
 picture of Edmund carried its own significance, and the 
 dower-house was further from her perhaps than people 
 would imagine. The incident of the cold bow but 
 increased her inward excitement. 
 
 The day itself was stimulating. Lady Alton from 
 Liverpool had not always the seeing eye. When she 
 drove, the carriage (the coronet on its panels), the horses, 
 the servants in the white liveries that were her admira- 
 tion and pride, and the fact that it was she (who had 
 walked so much !) who sat behind them in state these 
 were the things that occupied her. Landscape, skies, 
 the sights and sounds of the country had their part but 
 as accessories to her well-being. But for once her eyes 
 and ears and nostrils were open to the appeals of 
 Nature. Here was a dragon-fly hovering for a few 
 moments, as with a sort of suspended motion, over the 
 carriage. Its metallic colours shone in the sun. It was 
 like a flying jewel. As she looked at it, wondering, 
 it vanished. There were butterflies, and she saw them ; 
 birds chirping and twittering, and she heard ; fra- 
 grances everywhere of field, or wood, or wayside. 
 The light on the hills caught and held her. Never 
 before, though she had seen it a hundred times, 
 
Successor 45 
 
 had she remarked the odd outline of the hills 
 themselves 
 
 Lady Alton extended her drive. There was a cloud 
 in the sky by the time she gave the homeward order, 
 but conscious of it as her keener perceptions may have 
 caused her to be, she took no heed of it in connection 
 with what had passed earlier in the day, nor of an odd 
 little wind which had arisen and rustled the leaves and 
 taller grasses to the sound of an audible Hush. It was 
 as if the resonant day itself asked for silence. Ssh, 
 said the cornfields, white to harvest, Ssh and Ssh, 
 Ssh, said the trees in a wood. Ssh, sighed the reeds in 
 the lake. 
 
 Lady Alton reached home ten years younger. 
 Balderton, still in her place at the table under the 
 window in the corridor, saw the change in her. Lady 
 Alton was humming who never hummed ! as she 
 came up the wide stairs. 
 
 Balderton, choosing to think she was spoken to, said, 
 " My lady ? " 
 
 Her mistress deigned to smile on her. 
 
 " I know he is better," she said pleasantly ; " you 
 needn't tell me." 
 
 " Well, restless," said Balderton ; " restless, more than 
 ill. I've hardly dared to go near him more than to 
 take him his tea which was hardly tea when you 
 come to that. Something lays on his mind . . . yet 
 doesn't quite lay, so to speak, being more prickly 
 than anything else. Dead weights don't spur and 
 goad you. Better, my lady ? Perhaps, yes. His 
 lordship says he knows, and is not going to 
 be ill." 
 
 " Spur ? " said Lady Alton. " Goad ? " 
 
 " Well, the picture, ..." said Balderton. 
 
 "That reminds me," said Lady Alton. "It will 
 
46 Ebe Successor 
 
 have to go to be repaired. I must speak to Lord 
 Alton about it." 
 
 " Hardly to-day ? " ventured Balderton, who seemed 
 under the dominion of a word. 
 
 "No, perhaps not to-day." 
 
 Balderton appeared to think. 
 
 " It might be taken down," she said, " and out of the 
 frame, and put aside carefully. I'll see to it. Jt seems 
 hardly right to have it hanging there in ribbons for 
 every one to talk about. It has been thought a fine 
 picture, too. I remember the painting of it, and how 
 Mr. Edmund hated sitting. It seems odd to look at 
 it now, and to think . . . but that," she ended abruptly, 
 reverting to the hostile Balderton that Lady Alton 
 knew best " that's for those who have associations 
 with it." 
 
 For once her mistress did not rise. 
 
 " Have it taken down," she said, " and packed. We 
 will decide later what is to be done with it." 
 
 She even smiled. Balderton, perplexed, looked after 
 her wonderingly. 
 
 Nothing more happened that day except that not a 
 word was said definitely upon anything that might have 
 supposed to be occupying two minds. That was indeed 
 what did happen : the happening of nothing. Lady 
 Alton had her tea brought to her husband's room, and 
 when William and James were arranging the table was 
 talking of new chintzes for her boudoir. She sent away 
 the buttered toast, complaining that it was too thick, 
 and found fault, as was her habit, with this or with that. 
 Bread and butter should be curled, she said, in case the 
 eater wore gloves ; and why were there no hot cakes ? 
 William, outside the door said, as he always said, that it 
 
ZTbe Successor 47 
 
 was plain that her ladyship had not all her life had the 
 privilege of giving orders and trouble. 
 
 Balderton questioned him. 
 
 The " boudwor," he told her, was to be done up ; 
 the toast was too thick (James, carrying the dish, 
 raised the cover lowering the corners of his 
 mouth) ; and mimicking Why were there no hot 
 cakes ? 
 
 " Now then," said Balderton sharply. 
 
 " * Why/ " mimicked William unabashed, " ' why, pray, 
 are there no hot cakes ? ' " 
 
 " Well ? " said Balderton sternly. 
 
 "Hot cakes," said William "hot cakes up in the 
 bedrooms! I'd give my lady hot cakes if I'd my 
 way." 
 
 " That clever tongue of yours '11 be getting you into 
 trouble one of these days, my fine gentleman," said 
 Balderton, and went down to her room. 
 
 There was nothing to be learned, 
 
 But neither when Lord and Lady Alton were alone 
 did anything pass between them to have enlightened 
 the inquisitive. Looks perhaps were exchanged or 
 avoided, though on the whole it might be said that 
 looks to any noticeable extent were neither avoided nor 
 exchanged, and the case, if it was understood at all, 
 asked for no words. Lady Alton talked of the new 
 chintzes for the boudoir for quite a long time. There 
 should be roses in the pattern and love-knots roses, 
 falling, garlanded, looped ; with festoons of riband 
 between. 
 
 " I see it all," she said, " in my mind's eye. You 
 don't know how pretty it will be pink roses, of 
 course, and the palest blue ribands. I want it to 
 look like perpetual summer. Is your head easier, 
 dear?" 
 
4 8 
 
 Gbe Successor 
 
 " Better altogether," said Lord Alton. 
 
 He spoke no more of not being thwarted, or crossed, 
 or combated. It seemed he could wait. 
 
 "I've read of or seen what I mean/' Lady Alton said. 
 " I want the whole room to smile. I want it to be 
 everything that the dining-room is not." 
 
 " We won't, I think, talk of the dining-room," said 
 Lord Alton. 
 
 "That's it," said Lady Alton, "you see exactly what 
 I mean. In some of your pictures there's the sort of 
 thing I have in my head. I want the room to look 
 as if no trouble could come near it ; as if there were 
 only and always, mind ! sunshine, and music, and 
 laughter, in the world at all." 
 
 Lord Alton smiled, but said nothing. A new Lady 
 Alton, surely a fourth? who sought the spirit of 
 Versailles, of Ftes Galantes and Fetes Champetres, to 
 the decking of her boudoir! What did he seek in turn? 
 A fourth Lady Alton, wasn't it, in effect ? he who had 
 taken him three to no purpose. This was his fourth 
 Lady Alton. The Andover, the Redruth of Angers- 
 town, the Mason (of Liverpool) there was his list ; but 
 it was the Mason of Liverpool who, comprehending, 
 transformed, was going to be wives three and four to 
 him. 
 
 The fresh toast arrived, and was allowed to 
 remain. 
 
 "You'll find what you want without doubt," Lord 
 Alton said presently. "We'll send to London for 
 patterns, and they'll send, if need be, to Paris. You 
 shall have what you wish." 
 
 Lady Alton looked pleased, and laid her hand lightly 
 upon the hand that lay on the coverlet. 
 
 "You're too good to me," she said "You spoil 
 
ZTbe Successor 49 
 
 Her husband smiled indulgently, his little pink eyes 
 blinking. 
 
 " I was thinking ..." she began, and paused. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Shall we go abroad for a little when you are better ? 
 Paris? and choose things ourselves. Do you think 
 that we stay, perhaps, too much at home ? " 
 
 Lord Alton's eyes followed the movements of a fly 
 upon the counterpane, followed the fly to a picture on 
 the wall, from the picture to one of the posts of the bed, 
 from the post to a spot midway between the bed and 
 the ceiling, where it swam to and fro like a gold-fish in 
 a bowl. 
 
 " Abroad ? " he said, giving no sign. 
 
 " I'm a little bit tired of the country the same 
 people, and no people. I passed Lady Wraysbury 
 to-day and her ugly daughters. Their complexions get 
 worse every year as their noses grow longer. Poor 
 things, it made me quite sorry, and I don't suppose the 
 youngest is much over thirty. She looks twice my age, 
 doesn't she ? " 
 
 " Three times, shall we say, to-day ? " 
 
 He smiled again. 
 
 " Oh, I don't say three times," said Lady Alton 
 modestly. " I'm contented with twice. And then fair 
 people always look younger, don't they? It must be 
 dreadful to be so dark. I shouldn't like to look as if I 
 had ink in my veins for blood, and couldn't scratch 
 my finger without the risk of ironmoulding my 
 handkerchief." 
 
 "Blue blood," murmured Lord Alton, "the Wrays- 
 bury;" but by his expression did not seem to be 
 disapproving, and by his eyelids was waiting. 
 
 " I'd like to be even with it," said the lady quietly, 
 and looked out of the window. 
 
so Ube Successor 
 
 Clouds had come up, and now began to overspread 
 the heavens, but she did not see them. A rose knocked 
 and knocked at the casement where it was open. 
 Another fly and another had joined the fly in mid-air, 
 and the three, more than ever like fish in a bowl, swam, 
 and swam, and swam, this way, that way, crossing, 
 doubling, circling, bobbing to bewilderment and 
 untraceable measure. Lord Alton was busy with 
 them when his wife's eyes came back from the 
 window. 
 
 " Shall we travel a little ? " she said. 
 
 The cue for the saying of what little was said. 
 
 " That's just what we will do." Lord Alton left the 
 flies to their swimming. " England stands for Susan 
 Alton just now, and Edmund and the proud Wraysburys 
 with their noses in the air, and ink perhaps acrid at 
 that for blood, I daresay (as you say), in their veins, 
 and for a good deal else that means defeat for us here. 
 Defeat for me, who may be supposed to have wished 
 . . . and have at least given occasion to the enemy to 
 blaspheme ! and for you in the Reproach, howsoever 
 unreasoning and undeserved." 
 
 Lord Alton drew breath and laughed. 
 
 " Is Susan Alton a clever woman at all ? " he said. 
 "Tell me that." 
 
 " Isn't it rather : Has she shown herself a wise 
 one ? " 
 
 "Blanche," said Lord Alton, "you're wonderful." 
 
 It rained before sundown, as Balderton had prophesied. 
 Lady Alton saw her shut the window on the stairs to 
 " keep out the wet," as the demure housekeeper quietly 
 said and was not angry, and in that Lady Alton was 
 wonderful indeed. But the Lady Alton who had 
 
tEbe Successor s 1 
 
 " risen >f at everything was not quite the Lady Alton 
 who had come in from the pink drive, and perhaps in 
 very truth, without actual change, was to prove a new 
 Lady Alton a "Fourth," after all. Time would 
 show. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 So the odd couple went abroad, taking with them a 
 moderate suite Berners, Bonner, a courier ; visited this 
 country and that ; dawdled here, hurried there ; zig- 
 zagged, made bee-lines, meandered till a year was past, 
 when, as suddenly as they had started, they turned their 
 faces towards home. 
 
 Balderton, as an observer, fancied some change of 
 outlook or attitude. Thoughtful on the whole as Lord 
 Alton had shown himself in his relations with his wives 
 bearing even, in the case of one of them, and forbear- 
 ing he came back from his sojourn abroad a husband 
 attentive to the reigning wife of his bosom, and con- 
 siderate of her to a degree that seemed, to the Balderton 
 at least, to ask explanation. Her first sensation as she 
 welcomed the voyagers home was one of surprise at a 
 physical and mental change of which she became 
 conscious in her master. You would not have expected 
 Lord Alton off a journey to be other than the victim to 
 nerves outraged and demoralised. A train always upset 
 him locomotion, indeed, generally. Yet it was a Lord 
 Alton almost debonair, younger, surely, and hardly 
 furtive ("to speak of") or suspicious, who gave her 
 his hand in the hall with a " Well, Balderton, how do 
 we find you?" and a "Mightily glad to be home 
 again ! " Not the normal Lord Alton, I take it, with 
 Balderton bowing over the urbane and gracious 
 fingers. What had happened, and what? The Lord 
 Alton of Balderton's intimate acquaintance was wont, 
 
 5 2 
 
Ube Successor 53 
 
 after travelling no further than from London, to betake 
 himself to his rooms, shut himself up in them, and there 
 woe betide the disturber of his seclusion ! This Lord 
 Alton, learning that tea had been prepared in Lady 
 Alton's boudoir, which had duly been redecorated in 
 her absence, followed her thither to criticise and 
 approve, hung over her and upon her words, and 
 altogether may be said to have comported himself in 
 ways that his housekeeper, making it her business to be 
 present as long as possible, was at pains to recognise as 
 presenting the man she knew so well. What, again, 
 had occurred? You did not change the habits of a 
 lifetime for nothing. 
 
 Balderton retired to her room, puzzled, intrigued, 
 speculative. Thence, curiosity holding her, she emerged 
 at dinner-time, first to hover genially about the dining- 
 room door for a moment or two, and then, under pretext 
 of seeing that all was right, presently to make her way 
 to Bonner unpacking in her lady's chamber. There she 
 had a long talk. 
 
 Bonner told of the usual difficult mistress. No 
 pleasing her was there at times, though, to be sure, at 
 others it was " Bonner, would you like this ? " and 
 "Bonner, I've been thinking that ..." and butter 
 wouldn't melt in the mouth. " Erritable ? " Well . . . 
 Should they say, Nervous ? Yes, some of her new 
 dresses were lovely. Paris, of course. Mrs. Balderton 
 should see a few of the toilettes in the Bor d'B'long. 
 She should really. But what were they saying? 
 Nervous, that was it excitable, even jumpy. Caught 
 that from his lordship, perhaps. The odd thing was 
 Mrs. Balderton was quite right, and that was just what 
 Bonner had been about to say his lordship was less 
 nervous, and it was Bonner's belief that it was as her 
 ladyship had become more so that he had become less. 
 
54 Ube Successor 
 
 " She has the highest opinion of you, Mrs. Balderton." 
 
 " Of me ? " said the housekeeper. 
 
 " Of you," said the lady's-maid. 
 
 " That's news to me," said Balderton. 
 
 The skies would fall, and yet (talking of skies, too !) 
 had there not been some little alteration in her 
 demeanour upon a day that Balderton remembered ? 
 The going abroad had come soon after that must have 
 been settled about then. That was the day of strange 
 things, and his lordship's " taking." Words, looks, 
 impressions came back to her from the curious day . . . 
 " I mustn't be thwarted." . . . Lord Alton's illness and 
 oddness. . . . Balderton was in a brown study. 
 
 " She says," continued Bonner, shaking out a skirt, 
 " that you are one in a thousand. Look at the lace on 
 this and there's another I must show you. Where did 
 I put it ? Ah, there on the bed ! Look, row upon row 
 the insertion between and the little velvet knots, eh ? 
 She looks very well in this, I will say, with her hair a 
 TEmpire. I don't know what she didn't pay for it. ... 
 One in a thousand, she says." 
 
 Balderton considered. Her mittened hands pink a 
 little at the knuckles and the joints of the fingers 
 played with her silk apron. She pursed a shrewd 
 mouth. 
 
 " There's a trunk or two to come still," proceeded 
 Bonner, folding and unfolding, shaking out, patting, 
 smoothing "things that we wasn't in a hurry for and 
 two or three boxes have come already, I suppose, that 
 was sent off here and there on our way. Her ladyship 
 would buy and buy, and anything she set her heart on 
 she could have. She might think herself lucky, I say. 
 Handkerchiefs ? Look at these, and these are nothing 
 to some. Wait. Yes, Brussels. I don't expect she 
 did always know, but you can go by the price . . . and, 
 
ttbe Successor 55 
 
 of course, there was his lordship. She'd take him with 
 her as often as not, and then they'd bring out the things 
 from the back of the shop. Money, of course, was no 
 object." 
 
 "Indeed, then," said Balderton sharply, "it used 
 to be." 
 
 Bonner, comparatively a new-comer, was telling her ! 
 Lord Alton, to be sure, had never denied the Mason, if 
 his dealings with the Andover and the Redruth of 
 Angerstown had not been marked by any special 
 generosity ; but it was surely of a further change that 
 Balderton was hearing ? Money no object ! 
 
 " It didn't seem to enter into the calculations," said 
 Bonner. 
 
 She launched into descriptions of the recent travels 
 moving rapidly from one place or country to another, 
 but giving on the whole an intelligent and coherent 
 account of her impressions. The Italians, she liked 
 them the French, too, some of them, though one here 
 and there was too saucy for her taste ! She had seen 
 nothing she liked better than Paris ; that she would say. 
 The cafe's and the shops ! but she didn't think much of 
 theatres where you didn't have to dress in the evening. 
 Give her London on the whole, take it all round. Rome 
 she didn't " seem " to care much for 'Omburg, to her 
 mind, was brighter, and there was the band and the 
 gardens, and always something to look at. The bread 
 there she couldn't bear ; it was too fancy for her, and the 
 poor people would Balderton believe? actually ate 
 black that was sour into the bargain, and really hardly 
 fit for Christian food. 
 
 Balderton bore the recital of her individual experiences 
 for the sake of what else she might have to tell her. 
 Only when Bonner enlarged upon the craving that had 
 come upon her in Athens for the taste of a muffin did 
 
56 Ube Successor 
 
 she show a little impatience, and turn the talk on to her 
 master and mistress. But Bonner had only to tell what 
 in the first five minutes she had told of the curious 
 assuagement of nerves upon the one part, and upon the 
 other of a not less curious alternating of excitability with 
 the airs and graces to which all who were acquainted 
 with the third Lady Alton were accustomed. Balderton 
 asked a question or two. Bonner, pausing in her work, 
 or going backwards and forwards between the open 
 boxes and the wardrobes and chests of drawers, answered 
 her volubly. 
 
 Balderton went back to her room satisfied that her 
 perceptions were not at fault, but not a little mystified. 
 
 In the dining-room the pair sat at their dinner. 
 Conversation, when they were alone, could not be said 
 as a general thing to be brilliant or sustained. It was 
 Lord Alton's habit to sit in a moody silence, out of 
 which he roused himself irritably to give some direction 
 to his butler, or send messages, for the most part of 
 disapprobation, to his cook. When he addressed his 
 wife it was always politely, but seldom with any inten- 
 tion of setting a ball rolling. Lady Alton was never 
 entirely silent, but took little trouble to be entertaining 
 or amusing. To-night, however, an air of cheerfulness 
 was over the glittering board. Lord Alton, it was 
 reported, was in high good humour. He ate and drank 
 with apparent satisfaction, took an interest in what was 
 set before him, and while he talked easily and lightly, 
 was heard to praise a dish even, and to remark upon 
 the wine to the gratification of Dunwich, who, feeling 
 the occasion to be a special one, had given the matter 
 of the decanting considerable thought. Lady Alton 
 responded to her husband's mood, and, for her usual 
 languors and airs and graces, wore a smile. She bent 
 to admit that after a course of foreign cooking English 
 
 
ttbe Successor 57 
 
 fare was not distasteful to her. You got tired, she said, 
 of eating you knew not what, and there came a time 
 when . . . and so on. 
 
 " Just so," said Lord Alton. 
 
 Her remarks were never very profound. 
 
 Dinner proceeded. Time had been when just such a 
 "Just so" would have been read into a challenge. 
 Then had her retort been ready and to the point. She 
 was losing, studying, perhaps, to dispossess herself of an 
 alertness that had characterised her in earlier days when 
 give and take had been the rule with her give quickly 
 and as good as you got, take . . . what advantage 
 sharp and sharpened eyes might see ! But those were 
 the days of the struggle for life. She had no longer 
 to fight her way inch by inch, and could suffer herself to 
 relax her vigilance. Languors and elegances were the 
 natural outcome of what had gone before, and, or but, no 
 longer (for the closely observant) parts of an armour 
 wherewith she must needs protect herself. 
 
 " Your room pleased you ? " said Lord Alton. 
 
 It was all that she had hoped to find it, Lady Alton 
 conceded and more. The roses and the twined ribands, 
 with the little cupids (which were repeated in the 
 cornices), had all charmed her. 
 
 " I feel I shall be very happy there," she said. A 
 bride might have been speaking. Lady Alton might 
 have been viewing Merringham for the first time. 
 
 " Roses, ribands, cupids," said Lord Alton, and looked 
 at his wife over the rim of his glass. 
 
 She raised her own to her lips and smiled. The 
 sleeve fell away a little from her arm, which was seen to 
 be round and firm and wonderfully young. It was a 
 bride surely that she suggested. 
 
 Lord Alton, in exuberant good humour, laughed 
 gently to himself. 
 
s 8 ZTbe Successor 
 
 The servants had left the room. The decanters were 
 in their places at the end of the table, and the light of 
 the candles made the wines to throw ruby and amber 
 splashes, like stains, upon the cloth. The white of fine 
 napery was a background to many pleasing things of 
 silver and porcelain and glass. A dish of nuts sent the 
 thoughts to groves and leafy woodlands. The bloom 
 on a bunch of grapes was a thing to arrest the attention, 
 and some peaches were beautiful to hold the eye, and 
 make the mouth water. 
 
 It was the moment when the bridegroom steals round 
 to the side of his bride. . . . Lord Alton did not do 
 this, but he helped himself to a peach, pausing for a 
 moment to admire before disturbing it, peeled it and 
 cut it in half. 
 
 " Adam for Eve," he said ; " Eve for Adam. I doubt 
 that the fruit of the Garden was finer." 
 
 " For Eve ? " Lady Alton said vaguely, but not 
 stupidly, "for Adam?" 
 
 "The case, I mean, is reversed/' said Lord Alton. 
 "So perhaps is the result if Adam tempting Eve 
 neither is turned out of Paradise ! " 
 
 She took the half he held out to her, but not his 
 meaning. He, upon his part, played with the thought, 
 hazarding that they upon theirs aimed did they not ? 
 at not being turned out of Paradise ! The idea seemed 
 to afford him considerable amusement, and Lady Alton 
 looked for once as if she wished she could follow him. 
 She was accustomed, however, to knowing, as we know, 
 that her husband's talk, when he talked, was occasionally 
 over her head, and contented herself with saying that she 
 had never seen him in this mood before. 
 
 " I should like," he said, " to know how in your heart 
 of hearts you regard me." 
 
 She was eating the peach, so was he ; each paused 
 
ttbe Successor 59 
 
 with a piece in mid-air on a fork. The little pink eyes 
 had not released their whimsical smile, yet there was 
 for a moment or two in the big room a feeling of 
 suspension, as when the cry of a child that has tumbled 
 is long in coming. 
 
 " I am jesting," said Lord Alton, breaking the spell, 
 and conveying the piece of fruit to his mouth. " I don't 
 want to know and do know, indeed, for that matter." 
 
 He went back to the peach, dropping Adam and Eve. 
 
 " The best I have eaten this year. My plate is full of 
 the juice of it. Jebson succeeds with his wall fruit. He 
 shall stop with me." 
 
 There spoke geniality. Jebson's predecessor had 
 been sent about his business with a month's wages 
 short shrift, indeed ! That had something to do with 
 his management of orchids, but more with his employer's 
 capriciousness. 
 
 " They are certainly," said Lady Alton, looking at her 
 plate rather than at the dish before her "certainly 
 beautiful and ripe." 
 
 " Exactly," said Lord Alton. He looked at the dish. 
 " Beautiful, as you say and ripe also." 
 
 So much he often permitted himself. After all, it 
 might have been worse, as he had probably told himself 
 long ago. She might might she not? have said 
 " beautifully and ripe," with the housemaids. Not that 
 he was in any mood to find fault ! 
 
 The entrance of the servants with coffee found the 
 odd pair still conversing. Unusual? Unheard of. 
 Lady Alton, since the first days of all when she may 
 be supposed to have been taking her bearings, had 
 always caught her own eye, " gathered up," and rustled 
 from the room as soon as her dinner was finished. 
 
 Dunwich reported, and William. Balderton, we may 
 be sure, heard. 
 
60 Ube Successor 
 
 Dunwich said, "Like a newly-married couple." 
 William said, " Like a couple, anyway " meaning, 
 perhaps, like human beings. Him Balderton thought 
 it necessary to set down with a " Like his impudence 
 which one of these days would, as she always had said, 
 get him into trouble ! " 
 
 Everything, however, was colour of rose, like the 
 garlands, the ribands, and the cupids of her ladyship's 
 boudoir. The day closed in in pink, and Balderton 
 looked for wonders. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 LORD ALTON, settling down into the everyday life at 
 Merringham, continued to show a new spirit. One 
 would have said that a pain had been removed, a sick- 
 ness cured, an anxiety laid. He went his way boldly 
 for suspiciously, and as one who, like the blacksmith, 
 could " look the whole world in the face." The servants 
 began to be less in dread of him less in dread, that is, 
 of his uncertainties. Something had come into his life, 
 or been taken out of it. He glanced about him less 
 from under his pink eyelids, and wore altogether an 
 unfamiliar mien. He kept a good joke to himself, one 
 would have said . . . had a secret . . . knew that which 
 would presently surprise you. 
 
 Balderton watched him, speculation in her shrewd 
 face. From her window she would see him leisurely 
 pace the lawn in the sunshine, or stroll along the gravel 
 paths. He would stop at a bed, examine a flower, pull 
 up the stick beside it, perhaps, to read the name on it, 
 snip off a dead leaf or blossom, and show himself 
 interested, who seldom was interested. There was even 
 something of vigour in his step when he walked. 
 What "ailed" him, she asked herself, that he who had 
 never been well should seem so well ? His study saw 
 less of him, the books which, in orderly parcels, were 
 always arriving from London, and with which he used 
 to shut himself up for hours together. He began on a 
 day to drive out with his wife, and that maybe, to 
 
 61 
 
62 Ufoe Successor 
 
 Balderton, who knew him and his ways, was not the 
 least strange of his doings. 
 
 So were things changing for all who might see. 
 Balderton saw much, but not everything; and to us, 
 whose opportunities for observing need not be bounded 
 by hers, is permitted an intimate glimpse or two which 
 she, by the nature of times and places, perforce was 
 denied. 
 
 Lady Alton has a " taking," talks to herself, sees a 
 vision. Lord Alton goes for a walk and plays the Lord 
 Bountiful to the least deserving but largest family he 
 knows. We may see ! 
 
 The summer waned. Colours other than green began 
 to be seen in the trees. There was sunshine, but a nip 
 in the air, and the evenings which overtook you by 
 craft, as it seemed, and subtlety were chilly. Then 
 there would be days of misty dampness when the clouds 
 did not lift, or lifting, were dirty and ragged. 
 
 It was after a day as of full summer, but upon a 
 falling glass, that there came a sudden eight hours of 
 gusty downpour to affect one at least at Merringham, 
 oddly. The house was full of the sound of rain. The 
 drops, in close slanting lines, beat upon its mullioned 
 windows and lead roof. Water gurgled in its many 
 pipes, and flowed from the mouths of them with a 
 steady unsteadiness that had a sort of halting but 
 insistent rhythm. Little rills and rivulets ran over the 
 stones, and every path had its lake at the sloping edge, 
 or where a gully was blocked. The wind took the rain 
 from time to time, and lashed the panes with it as with 
 whip-cords. 
 
 Lady Alton, amid the garlands, the ribands, and the 
 cupids of her renovated boudoir listened and shivered. 
 The fire burned ill, and did little to mitigate the 
 depressing influences of the day. For colour there 
 
TTDe Successor 6 3 
 
 seemed to be grey shadows everywhere. She moved 
 about restlessly, began to rearrange the ornaments on 
 one of the cabinets, lost interest in her occupation, and 
 left it. She went to the window and looked out across 
 the sodden park, where the dripping trees were shedding 
 their leaves, and the distances were obscured. 
 
 Swish came the rain against the glass an inch from 
 her nose, swish and swish ! Little streaks of air came 
 in at the joints of the leaded panes too minute, almost, 
 to place or reckon with as draughts, but goads to vague 
 discomfort, pin-pricks, touchings on the raw. 
 
 She groaned, and was talking to herself before long. 
 It was the dining-room ! She had broken through her 
 rule and had come down to breakfast that morning, and 
 the room had upset her. It was the blackness of the 
 carved oak ; it was the heavy ceiling ; but principally it 
 was the tree in front of the window. The tree, the tree, 
 the tree! It became for her an object of active and 
 accumulated hatred. 
 
 " Always," she said to herself, " from the first day 
 from the first moment I saw it ! He knows perfectly 
 well. It's been like a dead weight on my spirits. . . ." 
 
 She was working up to a crisis of sorts. She glared 
 from the streaming window, so that one might have 
 supposed her eyes to be fixed then and there on the 
 offending thing. It, however, as we know, was on the 
 north side of the house, where, moreover, in sight of it, 
 but a few hours back, breakfast had been eaten amicably 
 to the tune of pleasant commonplaces. 
 
 " If I am to live here," (she was whipping herself as 
 the rain whipped the windows) " it must be cut down. 
 What does it matter who planted it ? Not to be able 
 to breakfast in one's own dining-room ! A tree ! An 
 ugly black tree! He likes to see me miserable. He 
 cares more for it than for my happiness." 
 
6 4 Ube Successor 
 
 She began an imaginary colloquy with her husband, 
 in which he, protesting that he had forgotten (she 
 was sure that he would so protest), used the old 
 arguments. 
 
 " Such a big tree ! " for example. Lady Alton haa 
 little invention. 
 
 He might well say that ! It was a monster a night- 
 mare to her. She lay awake thinking of it. It hadn't 
 been out of her mind for a day. She might not have 
 said anything, but she didn't forget. And such a little 
 thing to ask of him. 
 
 "Oh!" She said "Oh!" at intervals, and was as 
 unlike herself as could be. 
 
 " My dear, we must try to be reasonable." 
 
 She could hear him say that. 
 
 Reasonable ! Reasonable ! She was reasonable. 
 That was just it. He couldn't complain. He couldn't 
 say she didn't listen to him. Hadn't she borne with his 
 Balderton ? But why should she with his tree? 
 
 He would try expostulation. Useless ! Cajolery ? 
 She was in no mood, she would tell him, for jesting, and 
 would not be mocked. The balm of smooth words ? 
 If he did she would try for a promise. He had used 
 the word reasonable, hadn't he? Very well. She 
 would be reasonable. She was ready to be. Let him 
 listen to her. If ... 
 
 She breathed faster, her hands ruffling her laces, a.nd 
 let a second or two pass. 
 
 " If . . ." Oh, he needn't make her say it. It was 
 not fair. Besides, if she understood at all, there were 
 to be no words. 
 
 The " sound of abundance of rain " was sending her 
 thoughts back as it might have been counted upon to 
 send his to the day of no words which each must 
 remember. It was the lady now who must not be 
 
Successor 65 
 
 thwarted. There were other things unspoken to be 
 remembered or forgotten. 
 
 The rain smote the windows as if it would break 
 them. It was like a torturer who insists, knowing 
 exactly how far he may go. 
 
 She shivered again. She turned from the window, 
 and walked back to the cabinet with some indefinite 
 intention of resettling the things she had left in dis- 
 order. But she had not counted with a mood in which 
 nothing satisfied her. She quarrelled with the objects 
 under her hands till, inanimate as they were, they 
 assumed an air of hostility and defied her. A valuable 
 little jar slipped from her fingers and broke. She had 
 bought it in Florence. A photograph frame refused to 
 stand upright ; she propped it against another. It 
 slipped. She readjusted its balance ; it fell, breaking 
 its glass. By then she was on the verge of unusual 
 tears. 
 
 What was wrong with her ? The room that had so 
 pleased her oppressed her. In the sombre light the 
 garlands and ribands had lost their brightness. It was 
 without warning that in one of the cupids, made pale by 
 the greyness, Lady Alton saw that which sent her hand 
 to her heart. 
 
 The sound of her bell was the first intimation to the 
 household, of disturbance. 
 
 William answered bells leisurely perhaps his master's 
 excepted and had not reached the room before the 
 wires rattled again. 
 
 Lady Alton desired Bonner's presence at once. At 
 once, did William hear ? Bonner was summoned but 
 not before the lady had rung again. 
 
 Lord bless them and save them ! William's lip 
 delivering the message had a curl in it. Did they hear 
 that, and that, if you please ? Upon William's word ! 
 
66 Ube Successor 
 
 Bonner hastened, to be met with distraught looks 
 and upbraidings. What did she mean by not coming 
 immediately? 
 
 11 1 couldn't, m' lady," said Bonner, mildly remon- 
 strant. " I couldn't come quicker than quickly. I'd 
 me mouth full of pins." 
 
 " One might die in this house," said her mistress, 
 " while they get ready to come to you. For ten 
 minutes I've been ringing, and now you stand arguing. 
 What have you to say? I'm waiting. I'm waiting, 
 can't you see ? " She was trembling. " It's the rain, I 
 think," she said. " It's the day, anyway. Can't you say 
 something? You stand there like a stick or a stock, 
 and ought to be able to tell I'm not well.'' 
 
 Bonner, upon that, was all suggestions hot tea; 
 sal volatile; smelling-salts. 
 
 Lady Alton would have none of them. She sat down 
 upon a chair that was near her, and looked towards 
 the window, upon which the rain pelted. 
 
 " Who could be well ? Listen ! There's wind 
 howling in the chimneys, too." She looked over her 
 shoulder. " Come here, Bonner." 
 
 Bonner approached her, wondering. 
 
 " You don't see anything, do you ? " 
 
 " See anything ? " 
 
 " It's it's only the paper, isn't it ... only one of 
 the cupids ? Oh ! Oh ! I saw it again." 
 
 It was two scared women then who looked at each 
 other. 
 
 "What's the matter, m' lady?" Bonner asked 
 nervously. "What's the matter?" 
 
 Lady Alton was trembling. 
 
 " Look at it," she said. " What do you see ? " 
 
 " The wall-paper ? Nothing else." 
 
 On the wall-paper ? " 
 
ZTbe Successor 67 
 
 " Bows of ribbon," said Bonner, H and roses and the 
 cupid." 
 
 " You're sure just a cupid, like the other cupids ? I 
 thought . . ." 
 
 Bonner waited, expectant. Lady Alton gave a little 
 shudder. 
 
 " I thought it was I thought it looked like . . ." 
 
 " Yes," said Bonner ; " yes ? " 
 
 " Like like oh, nothing ! It was foolish. Of course, 
 it's just one of the cupids. I see it is. I'm better now. 
 It was just the tree downstairs and the day, and I was 
 upset. I'm all right again now. You can see I'm all 
 right. You may leave me." 
 
 So it came that Balderton, who heard as much as 
 Bonner could tell her, was disappointed of one bit of 
 knowledge. What Lady Alton supposed she had seen 
 was confided to Lord Alton alone. The fire had 
 burned up by then, and pinkness had returned to the 
 wall-paper. Lord Alton, who, informed by Balderton's 
 advice of what had occurred, had hurried to his wife's 
 side (showing more concern, Bonner thought, than the 
 occasion seemed to warrant), shut the door upon the 
 confidence. 
 
 "Dead?" he said "that? Look at the rolls of fat 
 on him and the pink in the creases a boy, too . . . 
 not that that matters! Nothing could be better food 
 for your eyes. Continue to see such babes. Continue 
 . . . and prosper." 
 
 His face had cleared. There was no need for alarm. 
 Lady Alton wept a little and felt better ; dried her 
 eyes tremulously ; looked pretty and bethought her of 
 Bonner's suggestion. " Hot " tea would perhaps do her 
 good. Had she been very ridiculous ? She poured 
 eau de Cologne upon one of her new handkerchiefs 
 they were pretty, were they not? Did he remember 
 
68 TTbe successor 
 
 how he had helped her to buy them in Brussels ? and 
 would lie down for an hour. 
 
 Not a word of the tree. It had served its purpose in 
 the impossible mood in which one thing for a plaint 
 would have answered as well as another, and was 
 forgotten. Else who knows but that then and there it 
 had been (as indeed it became later on) the head of a 
 St John the Baptist, for such a daughter of Herodias ? 
 Lord Alton assuredly was Herod in the giving mood 
 just then. 
 
 He patted her hand, and saying her maid should be 
 sent to her, went his way beaming. 
 
 Sunset, when the rain ceased, found him still in the 
 same frame of mind. Balderton, passing him in the 
 hall, saw and noted. Lady Alton then was sleeping 
 comfortably, and had given directions that she was not 
 to be disturbed. 
 
 Lord Alton stretched himself and looked at the 
 clock. There was an hour or so before dinner, and the 
 wind had fallen. He opened the hall door and went 
 out on to the steps. The trees were dripping, but a 
 bird or two sang, and an air that had freshness and the 
 smell of earth in it greeted his nostrils. He loitered 
 desultorily for a moment or two, and then, seeming to 
 make up his mind, returned for his hat and coat, and 
 presently was seen to leave the house and walk briskly 
 down the drive. 
 
 He crossed the bridge over the stream that fed the 
 lake, pausing for a few seconds to note the rise of the 
 water, and then instead of following the road across the 
 park, took a narrow lane that branched off from it near 
 the first or the last gate. The rain had washed the 
 autumn day with no gentle hand, and here and there 
 the herbage was battered and bruised. In more 
 sheltered spots where the damage was less the leaves 
 
Successor 6 9 
 
 were beginning to lift themselves, and a tiny rustle might 
 have been heard as, gradually relieved of the burden of 
 heavy moisture, the verdure everywhere sought to find 
 once more its normal poise and level. Stones in the 
 road looked as if the storm had brought them to the 
 surface, and the road itself seemed to have become 
 sandy. Overhead the clouds were still big with rain, 
 and straggled, and were grey, but presently as the road 
 mounted and a wider view might be seen, something 
 approaching to colour was to be found in the sombre 
 evening. 
 
 Lord Alton followed the lane till it came to an open 
 place, where stood a tumble-down cottage. The spot 
 by some overlooking was no man's land, and defied law 
 and order. Mud walls bulged to bursting, and thatch, 
 mended and unmended, had come to look less the work 
 of man than part and parcel of Nature itself, so that, 
 from above at least, and but for the chimney, the roof 
 might have been supposed an uneven mound. What 
 had once been a garden was a tangle of overgrown 
 weeds. The whole was an eyesore or a thing of beauty 
 according as the seer saw. What charm it had was 
 clearly fortuitous. Thriftlessness was written large 
 everywhere, unarrested decay. 
 
 A scurry as of rabbits in a warren greeted Lord 
 Alton's approach. He had been seen and recognised, 
 and but a shaking of the brambles showed where a 
 poacher's children had hidden themselves. 
 
 " Out of it, young rascals ! " cried Lord Alton, poking 
 in the bushes with his stick, and releasing showers of 
 drops from them at every ruffle. " Out of it ! I see y'. 
 Don't think to deceive me. What have we here, eh ? 
 What have we here ? " 
 
 He caught at a brown ankle and tugged. 
 
 " There, I'm not going to eat y', and what are y' 
 
7 ZTbe Successor 
 
 squeaking for ? It wasn't you, eh ? Then who was it, 
 and what went last into the pot? One of my 
 pheasants ... a hare was it? Oh, there's a fine boy I , 
 Bashful are y', my little man ? The back of your hand 
 to your eyes? You're quite right. There's a terrible 
 glare these wet evenings. What, you can't speak? 
 You, then I You're Tommy perhaps, or is it Billy ? 
 One of you's Billy, I'll swear. You, sir ? I was sure of 
 it. Well, Billy, what did you hide for? And this is 
 Matty is it, and this Bessy, and this Kate ? Not Kate ? 
 Oh, Jimmy a boy are y'? Well, Matty, you seem 
 spokeswoman, what's your father doing these days ! 
 Not at home, eh ? I might have guessed." 
 
 The children stood about him doubtfully, shuffling, 
 in various attitudes of interested shyness. A bare foot 
 or two looked ready to run. 
 
 " How many did you say there were of you ? " 
 
 That was only Lord Alton's facetious way of putting 
 his question. 
 
 " Eleven. Bless m' soul. Eleven ! " 
 
 He counted to eight. John was with father, and 
 Abel was somewheres round, and little Phcebe perhaps 
 in the cradle. 
 
 " And all of an age ! " said Lord Alton. 
 
 But there he was wrong. The eldest was fourteen. 
 Only two were of the same age the twins, of course. 
 The rest . . . 
 
 A head appeared round the side of the cottage and 
 was withdrawn, but not before Lord Alton had seen. 
 
 " Mrs. Henster ! " he called. 
 
 There was no answer. The children all turned in the 
 direction of his gaze. 
 
 " Mrs. Henster ! You're there, I know. Come out 
 here to me." 
 
 The head re-appeared at the edge of the wall. 
 
ZTbe Successor 71 
 
 " Look at this," said Lord Alton, " and this, and this." 
 He pointed to the rotting thatch, the bulging walls, the 
 fallen fence. " Pretty sights, to have under my eyes, as 
 I may say almost within sight of my windows ! " 
 
 The woman laughed, secure in the knowledge that her 
 position was impregnable. 
 
 " Well, well/' said Lord Alton, " the house '11 be about 
 your ears one of these days, and don't say you weren't 
 warned. If I'd had the power to turn you out of such 
 ungracious quarters, be sure I'd have done it long ago. 
 What's your husband about ? " 
 
 " Down to Tredbury," said the woman, " after a job." 
 
 "H'm!" said Lord Alton. "If he comes across 
 nothing more tempting to him than a job . . . ! When 
 did he last do an honest day's work? And eleven 
 mouths to feed, eh ? to say nothing of his and your own. 
 Eleven ! Eleven ! Is this the eleventh ? " He pointed 
 to the child in her arms. " A year, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Thirteen months." 
 
 " Eleven of them, and I take it you're not five-and- 
 thirty ! Would they like sixpence apiece ? " He felt in 
 his pocket and brought out some silver. 
 
 "You make it a dozen, I suppose?" 
 
 She laughed again, but differently, dropping her eyes 
 and a curtsey. 
 
 " By Lady Day, your lordship." 
 
 " Disgraceful," he said, and put six shillings into her 
 brown gipsy's palm. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 To Mrs. Alton, meanwhile Susan of the sharp tongue 
 and the possible indiscretion had come and came 
 rumours. Attendant upon fortune and assailed by 
 vague uneasiness, tempered by the amusement she got 
 out of everything, she had marked time in Curzon 
 Street through the long summer days. Was it con- 
 ceivable that she had acted unwisely ? Her brother-in- 
 law's silence seemed to say so, and presently the first 
 rumour which soon was more than a rumour to 
 endorse what his silence might say. Something had 
 happened at Merringham. Lord Alton was ill. That 
 perhaps accounted. Her letter had chanced on his 
 illness ? She was solacing herself with this conjecture, 
 when of a sudden she found some story of tantrums and 
 a torn picture to be about. She held her breath then. 
 The tale of the torn picture once in the air blew this way 
 and that. Mrs. Alton heard it everywhere, and where 
 she did not hear it imagined that she did, much as Lord 
 Alton himself might have imagined, suspecting raisings 
 of eyebrows and shoulders. She laughed, but took 
 care to speak of her " eccentric " connection ; Alton was 
 really "not normal," "excitable," " odd "kindness 
 itself, of course," but " not like other people " ; and then 
 his health was not good. Her heart, none the less, for 
 all its buoyancy, was inclined to sink. You did not 
 destroy valuable paintings for nothing. 
 
 A letter from one of the ugly Miss Wraysburys of 
 Rookhampton, near Merringham, (they of the long 
 
 72 
 
TTbe Successor 73 
 
 noses and ink for blood) gave truth to the 
 story : 
 
 <( Nobody knows quite what happened, and we, of 
 course, go there so little. Mamma thinks some sort of 
 brain attack, for there seems no doubt that he danced 
 on the dining-room table with knives and forks in his 
 hands and did terrible damage before he providentially 
 fell to the floqr in a fit, the noise of which summoned 
 the household. We can't think why it was that parti- 
 cular picture he selected. Mamma says there are worse 
 pictures at Merringham. You may fancy how excited 
 everyone has been. He seems to be better, and they 
 talk of going abroad. Mamma says after a brain attack 
 it is much better to keep quiet, but probably Dr. 
 Amberley, who, between you and I and the penny post, 
 mamma doesn't think a very clever doctor, though well- 
 meaning, was afraid of him, and agreed with whatever 
 he said. We always have Mr. Davenport ourselves, who 
 likes to be called Mister, and won't meet Dr. Amberley. 
 But some people place great faith in him so you can't 
 tell, can you ? You must come and stay with us when- 
 ever you like, dear Mrs. Alton, only not just now, as 
 mamma has had bronchitis again, and does not feel 
 equal to visitors though, of course, we should hardly 
 look upon you as a visitor. The summer is the best 
 time. Perhaps next summer, if you could give us a few 
 days. 
 
 "P. S. We hear it is going up to London to be 
 repaired." 
 
 So much and so little ! Only an innate and uncon- 
 querable distaste for back doors withheld Mrs. Alton 
 then from writing to Balderton for her version of what 
 had happened, and hoping, in a sort of good-humoured 
 
74 Ube Successor 
 
 exasperation, to see her clear and crabbed hand upon 
 an envelope, she watched the posts. 
 
 There was little else, as she told herself, to watch in 
 London in August. Edmund was spending his holidays 
 with a school-fellow, and she, excusing herself from the 
 expensive hospitality of rich friends, was unoccupied. 
 For money, a thing spoken of in those days as little as 
 might be, was tighter even than usual that year in the 
 small house in Curzon Street, and expenses showing a 
 tendency to increase rather than lessen with time and 
 the times, Mrs. Alton saw herself chained for the 
 summer to a city of closed shutters and newspapered 
 windows. She saw London empty itself without over- 
 much repining; but when the house the smallest 
 perhaps in the street was hot, as in that hot August 
 bigger houses were hot, Mrs. Alton, thinking of her 
 friends at Homburg and Wiesbaden, Trouville, Deau- 
 ville, in Switzerland or Scotland, or where else you 
 please, drew many an impatient, if on the whole a 
 philosophic, blind. Oh, ways and means, convention, 
 the botherations generally ! She, for her part, could 
 have scraped along happily enough anywhere, and 
 goodness knew the house in Curzon Street presented a 
 sufficiently dingy front to the world ! But there was 
 Edmund. Curzon Street was Curzon Street when 
 America, South Africa, and Judaea were undiscovered 
 countries, and Mayfair belonged to those for whom 
 Mayfair was built. It was due to Edmund as his 
 uncle's probable heir that his mother should not drop 
 out. The social area, we must remember, had recently 
 been more restricted then. There had been Mayfair, 
 and there had been Belgravia not much else. You 
 might be poor, but unless your poverty was of a kind to 
 send you out of London altogether (who had lived in 
 London) you made sacrifices the putting down of a 
 
TTbe Successor 75 
 
 carriage, a man, or a maid and lived on in those 
 quarters of the town to which, in the nature of things, 
 you belonged. This, at least, as to the possible and 
 impossible, was the attitude of Mrs. Alton as Edmund's 
 mother. 
 
 She had put down considerably more, indeed, than 
 her carriage and her maid at the death of her husband, 
 and it would have surprised not a little a good many 
 people whose footmen rattled the knocker on her dingy 
 door in the manner of that day, and who, in the silks 
 and satins of the time, rustled up her narrow stairs, to 
 have seen the slender figures of the income upon which 
 the small house and decent appearances were kept up. 
 Edmund in the nursery did not know ; Edmund at his 
 first school did not know ; Edmund nearing his last 
 term at Winchester may have guessed. His early 
 recollections were there, at all events, to have 
 enlightened him. The plainest fare had marked his 
 childhood ; cakes were not plentiful, jams even the 
 puddings he liked. Other children seemed to have . . . 
 and habitually ! . . . and were sweet things really 
 unwholesome ? On the whole, it was a cold mutton 
 regime, with rice pudding, but plenty of milk. What- 
 ever it was, he had thriven on it. 
 
 So might Mrs. Alton of the caustic tongue be said to 
 have fought a good fight. 
 
 Balderton did not write ; Lord Alton did not 
 write. But Mrs. Alton, rest assured, did not want 
 for correspondents. 
 
 Lord Alton's seizure, taken in connection with his 
 subsequent silence, seemed to point a significant finger 
 at her. 
 
 The picture was going to be repaired, was it? In 
 King Street maybe, where a picture dealer whom Lord 
 Alton employed from time to time was to be found. 
 
76 Ube Successor 
 
 She walked down to King Street. No ; nothing was 
 known of it there. Mr. Raphael of Old Bond Street 
 might know. Should they send up? By no means, 
 Mrs. Alton said ; she would walk up there herself. 
 Mr. Raphael, who had done considerable business with 
 Merringham, did not know either, but directed her to 
 St. James's Street, where she not only found but ran 
 the picture to earth. 
 
 It was fetched, like the laces for Lord Alton, from the 
 back of the shop and unrolled. Unrolled? Shaken 
 out. Disentangled. She saw Edmund's father in 
 shreds. 
 
 She said " H'm ! " as she saw. 
 
 There seemed nothing else to say, but St. James's 
 Street said gravely that accidents would happen. To 
 which she said absently " H'm ! " St. James's Street 
 did not repeat or even enlarge. An allusion to well- 
 regulated families was not perhaps to be hazarded. 
 
 " Can it be repaired ? " she asked at length. 
 
 So effectually, St. James's Street assured her, that it 
 would scarcely be possible to say where the thing had 
 been injured. 
 
 " Then you can work wonders," Mrs. Alton said 
 shortly. 
 
 Was it a venting of spleen that she read in every slash ? 
 She tried to imagine the scene, but Lord Alton would 
 not dance for her, knives and forks in his hands, quite 
 as Miss Wraysbury had described. Things happened, 
 it seemed, that you could not imagine. 
 
 St. James's Street, pointing out a canvas or 
 two to her, brought her up from Merringham to 
 London. 
 
 " As bad ? " 
 
 " Worse." 
 
 " Quite impossible/' 
 
TTbe Successor 77 
 
 " Well, nearly as bad. You should have seen. You 
 will be surprised, I venture to think." 
 
 "All the same," said Mrs. Alton, "I could wish the 
 picture had been any other." 
 
 She went back to Curzon Street more disturbed 
 always in a grim, half-amused sort of way than she 
 cared to acknowledge even to herself. Had she, by a 
 precipitancy that was assuredly not to have been 
 expected of her, done for poor Edmund ? 
 
 Her impressions during the rest of the afternoon 
 when she sat in her drawing-room looking out into the 
 deserted street were of irrelevant things assuming 
 impertinent proportions in the economy of the day's 
 events ; of workmen taking down a hatchment from 
 one of the larger houses, and making merry over a short 
 labour made long ; of the rumble of a cart, or the whistle 
 of an errand boy, or the bark of somebody's dog released 
 for his daily walk with somebody's butler ; of a milk- 
 woman with a yoke upon her shoulders, and sturdy 
 white legs, who to the tune of the stump of strong boots 
 on the pavement and the clank of milk-pails, was coast- 
 ing the areas squarely ; of old Lady Boscombe's house- 
 maids opposite, leaning out of the windows to shake 
 their fringes at all who might see, and looking look 
 back at them. 
 
 Yet, " humanly speaking "... 
 
 Oh, humanly speaking, Edmund's ultimate inheritance 
 could not be in doubt humanly speaking. Humanly 
 speaking, of course. How else should one speak ? Her 
 thoughts, however, on this horrible afternoon did you 
 ever see such fringes, or such a bobbing of fringes? 
 Lady Boscombe (at Spa) really ought to be told I her 
 thoughts, I say, as if Lord Alton himself had directed 
 them by suggestion, did actually take in Abraham and 
 
78 <Xbe Successor 
 
 miracles, and the laughter of Sarah. But that, perhaps,, 
 was by reason of Mr. Raphael, of Bond Street, who 
 naturally sent the thoughts to the Old Testament by 
 way of Jewry. No, no ! Humanly speaking . . . 
 
 The fringes bobbed and bobbed. Now the workmen 
 who dallied with dead Lord Tantamont's hatchment 
 were implicated. There was an interchange of pleasan- 
 tries that sent Mrs. Alton from the front to the back 
 drawing-room. 
 
 No, no ! It was the day. This was one of the days 
 when everything struck you (in deserted London, at 
 least) as having turned out " so differently " from the 
 turning out of your younger expectation that, nothing 
 else ! She had looked to a life of un-anxious well-being 
 by the side of the husband whose picture she had just 
 seen in ribbons, and whom in the flesh two short years 
 of marriage had taken from her. It was the year of her 
 widowhood which had seen the death of her father, and 
 revealed the disorder of the affairs of that debonair 
 gentleman. There was little enough for her mother, 
 who had promptly died too. What there was was her 
 brother's bad hat of bad hat ; lovable, light, irrespon- 
 sible son of lovable, light, irresponsible father. You did 
 not get help from a brother of the kind. Rather, when 
 you could not help yourself, you helped him. 
 
 A month went by, and another. Edmund was back 
 at Winchester, his future as unsettled as ever. The 
 Alton de Merringhams were abroad. She heard of 
 them here and there, but from them not at all. There 
 was always the possibility that her letter had miscarried 
 . . . but in her heart of hearts she did not believe it to 
 have miscarried. 
 
 There was nothing to be done. The autumn passed, 
 
Successor 79 
 
 and the winter. With the return of people to London, 
 the marking of time was less a thing to be conscious of 
 than in the hot empty days, when the beat, beat, of the 
 process had been as the throbbing of pulses that a 
 patient himself must hear in fever. To see and to hear 
 yourself waiting . . . think of it ! ... and you, if you 
 please, of all people . . . horrible ! ignoble ! Yet so did 
 Fate use you. 
 
 She met friends who had come across her relations in 
 their travels. Did they speak of coming home ? No. 
 On the contrary, they seemed full of plans. 
 
 " Goodness knows," Mrs. Alton said to herself, " why 
 that should disturb me " admitting, you see, that she 
 was somehow vaguely disturbed. Did she regret her 
 letter? She was not of the sort that regrets. But 
 who could have foreseen ? She could not remember 
 that she had chosen her words or her phrases 
 unwisely. 
 
 The Altons, as we know, completed their wanderjahr. 
 
 Now, a point being reached, to write again or not to 
 write ? She seated herself one day at her desk, and 
 idling with her pen for a time did write her eyebrows 
 high, and her mouth drawn up a little to one side in a 
 smile. In the end, however, what she wrote did not go 
 to the post, but in fragments into the waste-paper 
 basket. Edward Alton, if he had not understood, would 
 not understand. 
 
 She paid some visits that summer and autumn, and 
 heard further news and rumours. Lord Alton looked 
 ten years younger for his trip. Why should he look ten 
 years younger ? though, if you came to that, why should 
 he not ? Lady Alton, more golden than ever, more 
 elegant, more rustling, was never out of his sight, and 
 the picture was back in its place in the dining-room. 
 Was there aught to perturb you here ? On the face of 
 
8o Ube Successor 
 
 things, no. And yet in the dark . . . although in the 
 dark " how easy is a bush supposed a bear " ! The good 
 lady rallied herself on nice issues. 
 
 But it was the rumour that Lord Alton was putting 
 his affairs into order, rebuilding his farms, looking to his 
 roofs and fences, and paying off mortgages, that presently 
 moved her (however indirectly) to action. Searching 
 for a reason for her uneasiness, she could show herself 
 no better grounds for it than that such a course upon 
 the part of her brother-in-law seemed to ask an explana- 
 tion which was not forthcoming. You did these things 
 at crises in your life, did you not? Landlords there 
 were, to be sure, whose hobby was the improvement of 
 their properties, but Edward Alton, so far as she had 
 ever known him if at all she had known him ! was 
 not of these. Merringham had never been other than 
 well kept up ; but further than to see that the park and 
 the house and its immediate surroundings were as they 
 should be, Lord Alton, impatient of calls upon his time 
 or attention, had not troubled himself. This unwonted 
 bestirring of sleeping energies . . . whnt did it mean ? 
 
 A year and some months had passed now since the 
 despatch of the letter which had not been answered. 
 How the time had gone Mrs. Alton could hardly have 
 told. In thinkings and in deliberate puttings away of 
 thought, it had passed a not altogether comfortable 
 experience in a life which, on the whole, had seemed to 
 justify its own injudicious humour. It was true that 
 she had smiled as who would not have smiled ? at 
 Lord Alton's three marriages. It was true that she had 
 indulged her sense of the ridiculous in this little com- 
 ment, and that. But "what of it?" . . . what in 
 Heaven's name of it ? Surely, surely at this hour of the 
 day she was not going to develop the sort of conscience, 
 timid, self-accusing, which we call " guilty," and which 
 
Ube Successor 81 
 
 sees a stalking fate in every change and chance? 
 Almost it seemed so ! 
 
 Then this must not be. Unchecked, it would make 
 of her what she was not, and despised. She would sit 
 still no longer. 
 
 To Merringham ! To Merringham, via Ruokhampton. 
 
 F 
 
CHAPTER IX ' 
 
 LORD ALTON DE MERRINGHAM had just come in from 
 looking at some building operations which were in 
 progress at one of his farms (and which stood probably 
 for the " rebuilding of farms " of the " rumour " of the 
 last chapter) when a note was brought to him. The 
 bearer, one of Lady Wra^sbury's grooms, was waiting, 
 Dunwich said with his deferential bow, for an 
 answer. 
 
 Lord Alton took the note, and was proceeding to 
 open it when the handwriting upon the envelope seemed 
 to catch his eye. He* paused ; looked at it ; looked 
 again, and opened. He turned to the end for the 
 signature before reading ; grunted ; read. 
 
 Dunwich, from under the bend of his bow (he never 
 quite assumed the perpendicular in the presence of his 
 master) watched his face. 
 
 Lord Alton read the note twice. 
 
 " Tell the messenger to wait," he said then. 
 
 " Very good, your lordship." 
 
 The note was folded and unfolded by undecided 
 fingers. 
 
 Was her ladyship in her room, did Dunwich know ? 
 
 Dunwich did not, but would " ascertain." 
 
 "No matter," said Lord Alton. "I'll find her. 
 There will be an answer ; I'll ring." 
 
 Dunwich bowed over his " Very good, m' lord," and 
 withdrew. He came back to say that her ladyship was 
 in the library. 
 
 82 
 
Ube Successor 8 3 
 
 There Lord Alton found her. She looked up from a 
 book. 
 
 Her expression as she saw her husband's expression 
 said "Well?" 
 
 "This," said Lord Alton, and held out the note to 
 her. " Is that a hand that you know ? " 
 
 " Rookhampton ? " She looked at the address on the 
 paper. 
 
 " Susan," said Lord Alton shortly. " Susan Alton is 
 staying there and writes, as you'll see, to know what 
 day she may come to see us." 
 
 Lady Alton read half aloud : " Down here for a few 
 days. . . . Should like to go over and see you and Lady 
 Alton. I write because I should not like to miss you, 
 and though Lady Wraysbury very kindly offers me the 
 use of her carriage," and so on. Lady Alton read to 
 the end. 
 
 " I should like to know," she said, " why this was not 
 written to me." 
 
 Her husband waived the point of the etiquette of the 
 thing aside as of small moment 
 
 " I had somehow fancied myself in Susan's debt where 
 letters were concerned," he said, smiling. " But I see she 
 is the generous correspondent who has learned that it 
 is more blessed to give than to receive. Well, well ! 
 What's to be said to her? This time she takes the 
 precaution of sending a messenger who waits for an 
 answer." 
 
 " He needn't necessarily take one back with him," 
 said Lady Alton. 
 
 " Could be told there was none ? " 
 
 " That's what I mean." 
 
 Lord Alton pondered. 
 
 "No," he said at length his wife in the meantime 
 having delivered herself of many sentiments adverse to 
 
84 Ube Successor 
 
 the lady and her offspring " on consideration we will 
 see Susan Alton." 
 
 " See her ? Do you remember her letter ? " 
 
 "Think! "he said. 
 
 Lady Alton's " Well, but ... " was cut short with 
 another " Think ! " 
 
 There was some further talk, but the upshot of it was 
 that Lady Alton came round to her husband's view, and 
 the messenger went back to Rookhampton with a note 
 asking Mrs. Alton in cordial terms enough to lunch at 
 Merringham the following day. The note was written 
 by Lord Alton at one of the writing-tables in the 
 library, read over, approved, and despatched to an 
 interchange of smiles. 
 
 Now Mrs. Alton at Rookhampton receiving it smiled 
 also. Wherein as in the case of him of the fable who 
 blows on his fingers to warm them, and upon his pottage 
 to cool it lies I know not what of paradox, of apparent 
 connection of statements, of anomaly generally. Mrs. 
 Alton, whose wits were never at fault, would have been 
 the first to perceive . . . had she known . . . but sitting 
 with the ugly Miss Wraysburys in the hideous Rook- 
 hampton drawing-room, how could she guess that what 
 she read with the smile of satisfaction had been written 
 and sent with smiles equally satisfied ? 
 
 She looked up from her note and the stocking she 
 was knitting for Edmund. 
 
 " To-morrow," she said, her face under the Miss 
 Wraysburys' inquisitive scrutiny assuming its normal 
 unfluttered serenity, " luncheon. I hope it won't be 
 inconvenient to your mother to lend me the carriage." 
 
 Two long noses hastened to assure her that the 
 carriage was at her disposal. 
 
 " I wonder," said the elder and longer, " whether you'll 
 see the picture ? " 
 
Successor 8 5 
 
 "Of course she will." The Miss Wraysburys took 
 one another up. " How silly of you ! It is back in the 
 dining-room, and they're sure to have luncheon there, 
 though Lady Alton is said to hate the room, I don't 
 know why. Do you know why, Mrs. Alton ? " 
 
 " I know so little about this Lady Alton," Mrs. Alton 
 said. 
 
 Indeed, for so long had Merringham been virtually 
 closed to her that Mrs. Alton had met her sister-in-law 
 but two or three times all told. The Miss Wraysburys 
 would gladly have discussed their neighbour, and the 
 situation generally, but Mrs. Alton for some reason or 
 other was not to be drawn. They contented themselves 
 with " You must tell us all about it when you come 
 back." 
 
 " About what, my good women ? " was on Mrs. Alton's 
 tongue, but was not spoken. 
 
 The morrow saw her get into the Wraysbury 
 brougham at the stroke of the half-hour after twelve, 
 and start for the hour's drive. She was of the unstufTy 
 order of women, and that, perhaps, was why she let 
 down both windows with haste and both hands ? 
 
 Her hostesses were on her nerves who had never 
 acknowledged to nerves ! But not her hostesses alone. 
 She was eager and restless to the point of discomfort. 
 What ailed her that she should have been ready to start 
 twenty minutes before the time? She had chafed in 
 her bedroom for the sound of the carriage on the gravel 
 to tell her that she might begin to move, and it had 
 been an effort to her not to hurry down to the hall. 
 For very discipline she had forced herself to put her 
 head in at the morning-room door and say a word or 
 two before setting out. The clock, even thus, hardly 
 struck as she put her foot on the step of the brougham. 
 
 It was humiliating to be so at the mercy of forces 
 
86 ZTbe Successor 
 
 that hitherto she had controlled so successfully ; 
 humiliating to feel humiliated at a time when she had 
 need of all her self-possession. Why should this visit 
 to Merringham exercise her ? Never in her life had she 
 known what it was to dread an interview, or to be 
 unsure of herself. 
 
 The motion of the carriage, and the breeze, fresh and 
 clean, and with a stimulating foretaste of winter in it, 
 served presently to brace her spirits. She took heed of 
 *vhe country through which she was passing. It had 
 once been familiar enough to her. She remembered a 
 dozen little incidents connected indirectly with it, and 
 directly with what she was beginning to regard as the 
 old days. Little was changed. 
 
 Here was Allom Wood, where in the summer it used 
 to be the fashion to picnic. There was one of the 
 bridle-paths she used to know. It led past the " petri- 
 fying " spring, under which nothing in the memory of 
 living man had ever been petrified. Now it was the 
 gates of Fiel Park she was passing, where had lived 
 that Mrs. Phillips who, ostensibly to distinguish herself 
 from another and less important Mrs. Phillips of the 
 neighbourhood, used to have herself announced as Mrs. 
 Phillips of Fiel, and who (rather cheaply and obviously, 
 it must be admitted) had come to be known in the 
 mouths of the unimpressed and facetious as Mrs. Fillet 
 of Veal. Here, after a time, was the village of Tredbury, 
 then more woods breaking suddenly on to a common. 
 It did not seem long after this that the woman at the 
 south lodge was opening the gates and curtseying. 
 There was a mile of park yet. Mrs. Alton was mistress 
 of herself by the time she reached the house. 
 
 The Wraysburys had not spared her a footman, and 
 she had to ring for herself. 
 
 The heavy outer door was open, and through the 
 
TTbe Successor s 7 
 
 glass of the inner one Mrs. Alton could see into a big 
 polished hall. It was as she had always known it too 
 substantial n its scheme for succeeding Lady Altons 
 to leave any appreciable mark on it. The Vandyke 
 and the Rembrandt and the two Gainsboroughs she 
 could see dimly, and the doubtful Botticelli. The last 
 she herself would have hung elsewhere, having little 
 belief in its genuineness, and remembered an argument 
 or two of many that had taken place before it. Alton 
 was conservative on the whole, and given to leave things 
 as he found them. 
 
 A door opened and released a yapping lap-dog 
 Lady Alton's she was sure, just such a little expensive 
 plague as a would-be-great of the sort would deem one 
 of her necessary appointments and following close upon 
 it the servants to admit her. As they advanced she 
 recognised Dunwich, marvelling a little to see a face 
 that she knew. The footmen, though one of them 
 William had been at Merringham quite a presentable 
 time, were new to her. 
 
 "Well, Dunwich," she said, "it's me, you see. I'm 
 glad to see you here still. You're well ? I needn't ask 
 you." 
 
 Dunwich declared himself well ; thanked Mrs. Alton ; 
 hoped she was the same. 
 
 The Same, Mrs. Alton assured him. 
 
 "And all here?" 
 
 His lordship and her ladyship were in excellent health 
 his lordship especially. Dunwich did not know that 
 he had ever known his lordship to be better. 
 
 " That's right," said Mrs. Alton. 
 
 " We haven't," said Dunwich then, relieving her of her 
 cloak, " had the pleasure of seeing you at Merringham 
 for a long time some few years I think, 'm." 
 
 "No, have you?" said Mrs. Alton, with the smile which, 
 
88 ZTbe Successor 
 
 taken in connection with her address generally, gave 
 Dunwich occasion presently to speak in the servants' 
 hall of her affability, and to contrast it with the loftiness 
 and languors of his mistress's manners and manner. 
 You could tell, he said, to a nicety where differences of 
 birth would show themselves. 
 
 The little dog was leaping round her. He was the 
 merest puppy, she saw, and so far from being objection- 
 able, now that he had ceased his shrill bark, showed 
 qualities most engaging. He was none the less of the 
 finicking kind which in theory Mrs. Alton despised. 
 She picked him up and spoke to him. 
 
 " Lady Alton's ? " she said, as she put him down. 
 
 " A new toy, so to speak, 'm," said Dunwich. " He 
 arrived last week, 'm from Germany, I think it was, 
 where his lordship had taken a fancy to the breed. Her 
 ladyship does not altogether care for pets." 
 
 He led the way to the drawing-room. She was to be 
 treated to the ceremony of the room of state ? Life at 
 Merringham used to be lived in the hall or the library, 
 or the study or the gun-room. The Mason of Liverpool 
 might of course have made changes. On the whole, Mrs. 
 Alton inclined to the view that changes had not been 
 made, and that it was intended that a certain formality 
 should attach to her visit 
 
 The great room was empty. It had the cold air 
 that has nothing to do with temperature of a room 
 little used. A fire burned brightly in the grate, but 
 despite its pleasant rays it did little to give cordiality to 
 the room's welcome. This was Merringham, but not 
 Merringham intime. 
 
 There was an appreciable pause, during which Mrs. 
 Alton had time to look about her, and then a jingling 
 and a rustling which heralded, she supposed, the approach 
 of her hostess. 
 
Successor 89 
 
 The Mason, she was sure, would so jingle and so 
 rustle in season and out of season, to the distraction of 
 anyone less incomprehensible than Edward, who had 
 married her. 
 
 It was Lady Alton, sure enough, who, scented and 
 golden, appeared a moment later. She carried the little 
 dog, having stopped at the door, Mrs. Alton believed, 
 to pick him up. Her hands thus seemed very much 
 occupied, and as that, moreover, which she borrowed 
 from her leaping charge to extend to her visitor held 
 her handkerchief and a tiny scent-bottle, Mrs. Alton 
 had an impression of receiving no more than two 
 fingers. 
 
 " It's so good of you," Lady Alton said, " to take all 
 this trouble to come and see us." 
 
 " I couldn't," answered Mrs. Alton, " be in the 
 neighbourhood and do less." 
 
 " It's such a long drive," Lady Alton said ; " and 
 to take it in the morning ! I hardly ever go out before 
 the afternoon, and never can bring myself to accept 
 invitations to luncheon." 
 
 Mrs. Alton smiled. 
 
 " I don't bind myself by any such stringent rule," she 
 said. 
 
 " Oh, /don't bind myself," said Lady Alton, "... my 
 precious, keep still ! . . . that is partly why. No, you 
 must let me say it. It was good of you to come. 
 Lord Alton, I'm sure you'll find, appreciates your 
 coming as I do. Have they a large party at 
 Rookhampton ? " 
 
 " No party at all," said Mrs. Alton blandly. 
 
 " No party ? " 
 
 Lady Alton's eyebrows ran up her forehead. 
 
 "Just you four Lady Wraysbury and those two 
 poor middle-aged things with the black skins?" 
 
90 OTe successor 
 
 " I'm afraid you don't like the Wraysburys," said Mrs. 
 Alton. 
 
 She was as yet more amused and " intrigued " by Lady 
 Alton's grand airs than irritated. 
 
 " I ? " said that lady. " Oh, I don't dislike them. I'm 
 only sorry for them. Who wouldn't be ? so painfully 
 plain as they are. Dislike ? I didn't mean to convey 
 that. They do so much good, I'm told. Visits, you 
 know, and that sort of thing. I've quite a respect for 
 them. I only meant how kind it was of you to take pity 
 on them, and come to stay." 
 
 Mrs. Alton's shrewd face crinkled a little. 
 
 " I confess I hadn't looked upon my visit in that 
 light," she said. 
 
 There was a brief silence, during which Lady Alton 
 played her dog and her scent-bottle, and may or may 
 not be supposed to have been thinking of something to 
 say. The pause did not appear to embarrass her. So 
 much Mrs. Alton, considering her dispassionately and 
 with some amusement, did her the justice to admit. In 
 many ways the woman whom Alton had married was 
 wonderful. For her own part, Mrs. Alton minded 
 silences not at all, and looking at her hostess and Fido 
 and the scent-bottle, felt this one was well filled. 
 
 Fido worried his mistress's handkerchief; was smiled 
 over, caressed. Fido tried to lick his mistress's face ; 
 was cuffed and set down. 
 
 " You were saying . . . ? " said Lady Alton. 
 
 Mrs. Alton wondered whether her expression had 
 betrayed her entertainment. 
 
 " I ? " she said. " No ; I was watching your little 
 dog." 
 
 " A great pet of mine." 
 
 " Come here, Fido." Mrs. Alton put out her hand. 
 
 Fido went to her, and was picked up. He kissed her, 
 
TTbe Successor 91 
 
 and was not cuffed. A thing to have taught him one 
 of two differences a difference between hearts, was it, 
 or a difference between faces ? 
 
 " Don't let him tease you," said his mistress. 
 
 Mrs. Alton laughed over him, and rubbed his kiss 
 off with her handkerchief; which was perhaps exactly 
 what her hostess dared not do. 
 
 "As a rule," Lady Alton said, "I don't care for 
 animals, but Fido's different." 
 
 Mrs. Alton was maybe a little bit disloyal to Fido 
 when, looking at his infinitesimal proportions, and his 
 expensive muff-dog air, she agreed that Fido was 
 different. 
 
 " His father won twenty-two prizes," Lady Alton 
 said, " and his mother belonged to the Grand Duke of 
 Baden-Dordlich." 
 
 " I can understand how proud you are of him." 
 
 " It's Lord Alton more than me," said Fido's mistress. 
 
 Her visitor looked astray. 
 
 " Who is proud of him," said Lady Alton ; " under- 
 stands his value, and all that. I may say he was very 
 er very costly." 
 
 Mrs. Alton conceded that he looked expensive. She 
 flicked him gently with her muff. 
 
 " Worth nearly your weight in gold, aren't you, 
 Fido ? " said Fido's mistress. " And you live on the fat 
 of the land, don't you, darling ? . . . fare what is it ? 
 every day." 
 
 " Sumptuously ? " Mrs. Alton suggested. 
 
 " That's it," said Lady Alton. " ' Fare sumptiously 
 every day.' " 
 
 Mrs. Alton stroked her muff. She felt compensated 
 for a good deal. 
 
 There was another pause. Lady Alton gave it 
 countenance ; her visitor also Lady Alton for 
 
92 Ube Successor 
 
 sheer airs, Mrs. Alton for the feeling, perhaps, that 
 such delicious morsels as " sumptious " (" sumpshus," 
 bien entendu /) were wasted on an audience of one. 
 She Mrs. Alton should assuredly have been there 
 to hear, but Alton should not have been absent ! 
 
 Well, well ! She remembered herself presently. She 
 had not come to Merringham to fight. Rather was her 
 coming conciliatory. 
 
 She broke the silence pleasantly with some question 
 about the time abroad. Lady Alton responded readily 
 enough ; so they talked for some minutes. Lady Alton, 
 her visitor might have observed, dwelt more upon 
 certain times and places than upon others. But it 
 was a conversation sufficiently cordial and sustained, 
 that was interrupted by the sound of a gong. 
 
 " I'm afraid luncheon is a little late," Lady Alton 
 said. " Mr. Linster the agent, you know has been 
 here all the morning. Lord Alton will probably keep 
 him to lunch. You won't, I hope, mind ? " 
 
 " Why should I mind ? " 
 
 " Oh, well . . ." Lady Alton made a show of being 
 confidential, " he's the the agent, you know, very nice 
 and all that, and first-rate, I understand, at his work. 
 Lord Alton has the highest opinion of him but just 
 the agent, you know." 
 
 " I see," said Mrs. Alton. 
 
 A moment or two later Lord Alton made his 
 appearance with the gentleman in question. 
 
 Mrs. Alton rose to meet her brother-in-law, reserving 
 her " Well, Alton ! " till she heard his " Ah, Susan ! " and 
 by his greeting might suppose relations to be friendly. 
 
 " The years pass you by," he said. 
 
 Mrs. Alton smiled. " I may say the same of you," 
 she said. 
 
 In truth, he had never looked better. 
 
Successor 93 
 
 " Mr. Linster and I have kept you waiting, I'm afraid," 
 he said, when he had made the introduction. "We 
 have had a busy morning of it, eh, Linster ? Blanche has 
 probably told you. No ? I have been an idle man, and 
 am becoming an industrious. One wakes to one's 
 responsibilities when there is anything to wake one. 
 Is lunch ready, my dear ? " 
 
 Luncheon was announced as he spoke. 
 
 "You must be hungry," Lady Alton said to her 
 visitor. " Your long drive . . ." 
 
 " You make too much of it," said Mrs. Alton. 
 
 The party adjourned to the dining-room. Lord Alton 
 talked genially, and had more sure a step than that she 
 remembered. Rumour had kept within the mark in 
 reporting the change in him. 
 
 " All much as you remember it," he said as they 
 entered the room. " I don't think anything has been 
 touched in the house since you were here. We're 
 making an improvement or two out of doors, eh, 
 Linster? Where will you sit, Susan? Your back 
 to the fire? The other side? You always liked 
 to face fire, I remember. A good rule to make 
 through life." 
 
 "If one lived by rule." 
 
 "Just so," said Lord Alton. 
 
 It was impossible to determine his attitude. To 
 all appearance it was friendly, cordial even . . . 
 the word forced itself . . . and yet this was not 
 Merringham intime. Edward Alton talked to her, yet 
 held her, she fancied, at a distance. The presence of 
 Mr. Linster was a bar to any but the most general 
 topics, and was, she began to suspect, a thing that was 
 planned. If, on the other hand, Lady Alton engaged 
 her for a moment or two in conversation, Lord Alton 
 resumed the discussion with his agent which the gong 
 
94 ^be Successor 
 
 (presumably) had interrupted. Twice he apologised to 
 his guest for his preoccupation with his affairs. 
 
 " We don't make a stranger of you," he said. 
 
 What it was exactly that they were making of her 
 she was at a loss to know. Incidentally she found that 
 she was learning that a great deal was being done on 
 the estate. The report of the " rebuilding of farms " 
 might be an exaggeration of actual facts, but it was 
 evident that considerable undertakings were in progress. 
 Lord Alton was planting or about to plant extensively. 
 Could one, after all, she heard him say, overplant ? The 
 tenants, Mr. Linster submitted with a smile, might have 
 a word or two to say upon that point. 
 
 " Have I a farm unlet ? " said Lord Alton. 
 
 Agricultural depression had spared Merringham 
 hitherto. It was Lord Alton's boast, moreover, that 
 Merringham was one of the few remaining places in 
 England where something of the feudal spirit survived. 
 Outside the house itself, in which, partly by reason of 
 the present owner's uncertainties, more modern con- 
 ditions prevailed, persons continued to be born or to 
 die on land held by their ancestors in times remote 
 enough at least to cite in argument. Merringham was 
 a fine heritage, and would be, Mrs. Alton gathered, a 
 finer. All of which is or is not by the way. 
 
 Fido was given a bit of the breast of a chicken. 
 
 " I'm afraid you think I spoil him," Lady Alton said, 
 and turned to William : " The bread sauce." 
 
 It was for Fido. William's face was worth reading, 
 or Mrs. Alton, catching a glimpse of it as he stooped 
 over Fido's plate, thought so. 
 
 Mrs. Alton shook her head amiably. She had herself 
 well in hand. 
 
 " No," she said, smiling ; " but we agreed, I think, 
 that he ought to be called Dives." 
 
TTbe Successor 95 
 
 " Why Dives?" asked Mr. Linster. 
 
 Mrs. Alton, her ears itching to hear a word repeated, 
 was wondering whether it would be safe to refer him to 
 his hostess, when he answered himself. 
 
 " But to be sure," he said " and how dull of me ! 
 for his sumptuous fare." 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 It was better perhaps thus to be baulked more 
 especially as Lady Alton, who was quick to hear 
 (though whether or not she had recognised a pitfall 
 her sister-in-law could not decide !) more especially, I 
 say, as Lady Alton the next moment said sumptuous, 
 in exploiting the case, as if never in her life had she 
 been guilty of anything so flagrant as " sumpshus " ! 
 
 "I mustn't," Mrs. Alton said to herself, "be 
 'presumpshus' ;" but was tempted nevertheless. 
 
 Lady Alton, meanwhile, showed no consciousness of 
 either false step or retracing. She occupied herself 
 gracefully with Fido's needs. 
 
 " There, my pretty," she said, as he licked the plate. 
 " Was his dinner nice, then, and did he enjoy it ? Go 
 to William, precious, to have your little mouth wiped 
 with your own little napkin. You have it, William ? 
 That's right." 
 
 The office was performed grudgingly, one at the 
 table believed, and as of necessity, but to Lady Alton's 
 apparent satisfaction. 
 
 " I was telling Mrs. Alton," she said, " how much we 
 prize our Fido." 
 
 "A funny little shrimp," said Lord Alton. "Did 
 Blanche tell you how we bought him ? " 
 
 Something was amusing the speaker. He met his 
 wife's eyes across the table. 
 
 " It was a toss up whether he would come into 
 existence at all. We bought him before he was born 
 
96 trbe Successor 
 
 no, I won't add ' or thought of before he was born 
 I take a certain interest in hazards do you ? " 
 
 He caught the little animal up as he spoke. 
 
 " It was just a chance, Fido, wasn't it, whether your 
 let me see your cousin, was it? who did exist, and 
 whom indeed we bought in the first instance, or you 
 who were in the clouds or well, never mind where you 
 were ! should come to us at Merringham ! " 
 
 Mrs. Alton turned a perplexed face to him. 
 
 " In plain English," said Lord Alton, "we had bought 
 this little person's relation before we heard that there 
 was just a chance of this little person's appearance. We 
 took our chance and waited for this little person. We 
 had a preference for a puppy, do you see ? something 
 that should attach itself to us wholly ? " 
 
 "I see," said Mrs. Alton. "That makes Fido very 
 interesting." 
 
 " Well, to us," said Lord Alton. 
 
 Mrs. Alton just then was not attending very closely. 
 Fido seemed to her of small import, while the question, 
 " Did you or did you not get my letter ? " was a question 
 unasked and unanswered. It was beginning to seem 
 little probable to her that the subject would be broached 
 at all. Of a certainty the talk was kept arbitrarily to 
 such trifles as Fido ; and Mr. Linster in like certainty 
 though he did not know it was present of her brother- 
 in-law's deliberate intention. To ask or not to ask ? 
 
 So her attention wandered. 
 
 The picture was behind her. Stupid to have chosen 
 that side of the table when the choice had been offered 
 to her, and by sitting the other her eyes might have 
 rested upon it all lunch time. She was curious, all other 
 curiosity apart, to see what St. James's Street had been 
 able to do for the tattered canvas. In spite of herself, 
 and behind a grim amusement which the situation 
 
TObe Successor 97 
 
 afforded her (she being she), she felt herself to be 
 baffled. 
 
 " I shall ask him straight out,' 1 the exercised lady 
 said to herself. " If Mr. Thing doesn't go I shall ask 
 Alton to give me five minutes." 
 
 Her mind at least was made up. The question of the 
 receipt of the letter should be settled for ever that day. 
 For the rest, she would be guided by circumstances and 
 that discretion by which in turn (with a single possible 
 exception !) she believed herself to have been guided 
 through life. After all, what had she or Edmund at 
 Winchester to fear ? 
 
 She looked round the room. 
 
 " There's something different about it," she said. " It 
 looks to me brighter than it used." 
 
 Lady Alton beamed upon her in a moment. 
 
 " There ! " she said to her husband. 
 
 "Well," said Lord Alton, "there's something, I admit, 
 to be said for your view. Still, all the king's horses 
 and all the king's men, you know and I liked, myself, 
 to see out from under the branches, even if we were a 
 bit darker here for them." 
 
 " To be sure," said Mrs. Alton, " the big tree is gone. 
 I was conscious of some change at once." 
 
 " A present to my good lady." 
 
 He smiled over the table again into his wife's eyes. 
 
 " A present your good lady had to ask you for," said 
 Lady Alton. " Ask ? Beg, crave, on my knees almost, 
 if Mrs. Alton will believe me." 
 
 Lord Alton's smile broadened. 
 
 " So well," he said, " does your sex, you see, under- 
 stand the power of importunity ! The parable of the 
 unjust judge showed a fine knowledge of women." 
 
 " It showed some slight knowledge of men, I think," 
 said Mrs. Alton. Surprise was growing in her. 
 
Successor 
 
 Never with his former wives had her brother-in-law 
 indulged in like playfulness. She remembered to have 
 heard of many a sombre meal in this room ; timidities 
 on the part of those disappointed ladies, watchfulness, 
 frank apprehensions ; and glumness on the part of their 
 lord. Here was an Edward Alton tame, to come up 
 quite close, as children say of an animal, to eat out of 
 your hand, to twist round a little finger for one little 
 finger at least ! Would the Andover have got her tree 
 out of him? could one suppose for a moment the 
 Redruth of Angerstown ? Not a bit of it ! It took a 
 Mason of Liverpool or Heaven-knows-where to work 
 that miracle. 
 
 Mrs. Alton felt that whatever the outcome of her 
 mission, she would take food for thought back with her 
 to Rookhampton and Curzon Street 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 LUNCHEON proceeded an excellent luncheon, simple 
 as luncheon should be, but admirable of its kind. The 
 cooking at Merringham had always been of a high 
 order. The cook who did not satisfy Lord Alton's 
 somewhat exacting taste was never long under his roof, 
 and if at periods changes had been of rather startling 
 frequency, it was that the standard of excellence might 
 be maintained. Mrs. Alton, d propos, thought once or 
 twice of her own cook in Curzon Street. Nor (by the 
 same token) was the smooth and silent service without 
 its part in the influences of the moment. She would 
 certainly speak. All that she could not do for Edmund, 
 the picture of whose father hung behind her, was with 
 her in epitome Edmund who at this length of time, and 
 humanly speaking. ... It was ill-going to be under the 
 dominion of a phrase. 
 
 "It is quite true," Lady Alton was saying, "that I 
 was what did you say? inopportunate ? It was the 
 only way to get what I wanted." 
 
 Her husband saved that situation. 
 
 " No," he said, " I can't claim that, my dear. That's 
 your own. f Inopportunate ' ! Excellent ! " He smiled 
 at his sherry, holding it for a moment to the light. 
 " Excellent, if it fitted the case. Does it ? To me it 
 seemed that you timed the moment to a nicety. There 
 is an opportunity even for importunity, a time to ask, 
 and a time to refrain from asking, a time to persist to 
 insist. You took me where and when I was weakest." 
 
 99 
 
ioo Ube Successor 
 
 Lady Alton saw perhaps that he was helping her out. 
 
 "We'll let my little jest pass, then," she said. "I 
 gained my point ; that was the main thing. The room 
 was gloomy, and I can't stand gloominess. What's an 
 old tree, as I said to my husband? Why, you could 
 hardly see the pictures before." 
 
 Mrs. Alton made the word Pictures her opportunity 
 to look at the walls, and presently to turn round. 
 
 " One certainly," she said, " sees them better." 
 
 Lord Alton closed on the direction of her eyes. 
 
 "I've had Edmund there restored," he said. "You 
 heard probably ? " 
 
 It was he who was asking her ! 
 
 "It met with an accident. I heard something 
 nothing definite." 
 
 " It got damaged," he said, looking at it complacently. 
 " It happened the day I was taken ill last year. You 
 heard that too ? Oh, yes well, for a few hours I was 
 quite ill, and for some days I kept to my room. Oh, 
 some sort of attack ! I don't know. I was always 
 excitable, as you may remember." 
 
 " You had to be careful for weeks," said Lady Alton. 
 " It's wonderful what going abroad did for him." 
 
 " Wonderful," said Lord Alton. 
 
 He seemed to be laughing whether in his sleeve or 
 out of it Mrs. Alton could not tell. 
 
 " I didn't hear it at the time," she said, " or I should 
 have written. It was only by chance that I heard at 
 all and from outside. You see you didn't let me 
 know. I only heard you had gone abroad from the 
 Wraysburys." 
 
 " I've never been much of a correspondent, I'm afraid," 
 said her brother-in-law, as one who admits a short- 
 coming. " I ought, of course, to have written. I might 
 be said to have owed you a letter." 
 
Successor 101 
 
 What did he mean by that, if you please ? But for 
 the presence of Mr. Linster she would have put her 
 question then. She let the moment pass, however, not 
 choosing to open up a subject involving her son before 
 a stranger. 
 
 Her brother-in-law's allusions to the picture and his 
 illness amazed her. What to make of him ? If this 
 was not " friendliness " it was an hostility that, for very 
 subtlety, was formidable. If under his new amiability 
 he was bearing malice, it was not the ordinary malice 
 that you may dismiss from your mind with a shrug of 
 the shoulders. She found herself thus formulating her 
 thought twice over. Yet when all was said, and let his 
 spleen be what it might, what in effect could he do ? 
 She knew the terms well upon which his successor must 
 succeed. 
 
 " You must look presently at the extraordinary way 
 in which they have managed to repair poor Edmund," 
 said Lord Alton. " At a yard or two's distance you 
 could hardly say where the damage had been." 
 
 He showed no disinclination to pursue the subject. 
 
 Mrs. Alton was no less self-possessed. 
 
 " How did it happen ? " she asked. 
 
 " I did it," he answered quietly. 
 
 If Mrs. Alton was at all taken aback by the calmness 
 of his reply, her face did not betray her. 
 
 " You ? How ? " 
 
 Lady Alton now showed some signs of uneasiness. 
 She jingled rather more than she had been jingling, and 
 pushed a dish of walnuts towards Mr. Linster. 
 
 "With your port," she said. "Walnuts and port, 
 don't they speak of? Alton, won't Mrs. Alton have 
 some dessert ? Some grapes ? we have done exceed- 
 ingly well with our grapes this year or a banana ? " 
 
 " Yes, try these grapes," said her husband to his guest. 
 
io* ttbe Successor 
 
 " As Blanche says, we have done remarkably well in the 
 houses. Indeed, for once we have little to complain of. 
 I never remember better peaches than the walls gave us 
 this year. Take it ail round, it has been a good year." 
 
 Mrs. Alton ate a grape or two and expressed her 
 approbation. But the talk had been diverted from the 
 channel into which it had been flowing. 
 
 " You were telling me ..." was on the tip of her 
 tongue. That she did not speak it was due to no lack 
 of courage, but rather was an offering to expediency. 
 Yet before she could thus bring herself to allow the 
 theme to be abandoned she had again to remind herself, 
 this time somewhat sharply, that her mission was pacific. 
 
 Lord Alton, released, plunged once more into " affairs " 
 with his agent. The hollow in the park, it seemed, 
 where water always collected in the winter, was being 
 drained. She gathered this generally with miscellaneous 
 scraps that told her of other improvements contemplated, 
 begun or completed, as she exchanged conventional 
 politenesses with the Mason. Could it be that her 
 brother-in-law intended her to know of these things ? 
 
 When luncheon was finished, and the move was 
 made, she looked to see whether the picture would be 
 remembered. Her hostess, she believed, did remember 
 it, and was, she thought, for getting her out of the room 
 without mention of it. Her brother-in-law, however, 
 had no such qualms. 
 
 " By-the-by, yes," he said. " I wanted you to look at 
 Edmund, didn't I ? " 
 
 He crossed the room to the sideboard. Mrs. Alton 
 followed him, and stood under the picture of her 
 husband. That it bore marks of extensive repairs 
 could not be denied, but the work had indeed been 
 effected with extraordinary skill and cunning. Mrs. 
 Alton was astonished. It was a moment or two before 
 
Ube Successor 103 
 
 she remembered that she was not supposed to know the 
 extent of the injury the picture had sustained, and she 
 committed herself to a "Wonderful!" before she had 
 time to think. 
 
 " It looks rather different from when you saw it last ? " 
 said Lord Alton, and Mrs. Alton for once in her life 
 had not an answer ready. She looked at him a little 
 blankly, and repeated : 
 
 " When I saw it last ! " 
 
 " In St. James's Street," he prompted. 
 
 At any rate, she did not flounder. Her eyes were 
 steady and managed an amused twinkle, if inwardly 
 she went through some considerable disturbance. St. 
 James's Street, in all innocence, it was probable, had 
 betrayed her. She surveyed her position rapidly, and 
 tried to recall exactly what had passed between her and 
 the picture dealer ; and, more important still, between 
 her and her brother-in-law in the last few minutes. To 
 how much knowledge had she admitted when the sub- 
 ject had first been broached ? " Something nothing 
 definite," buzzed in her ears. 
 
 She decided on perfect frankness. 
 
 " Yes, I took the trouble of going to see it," she said. 
 " It is the only really good likeness there is of Edmund. 
 The thing in crayons that I have in Curzon Street never 
 did him justice, and he always made a wretched photo- 
 graph. They have certainly succeeded in repairing it 
 to a degree beyond my inexperienced expectations. 
 It "she was sorely tempted "it was shockingly torn." 
 
 " It was," said Lord Alton. " My own expectations 
 were equally inexperienced, I confess. Had you much 
 trouble in finding it ? " 
 
 "Finding it?" 
 
 " Where it had been sent, I mean." 
 
 " Oh, no ! I knew, you see, pretty well who' you had 
 
1^4 trbe Successes 
 
 dealings with about pictures. I wanted to see it, and I 
 didn't want to trouble you." 
 
 Lady Alton chipped in here. 
 
 " You are keeping Mrs. Alton standing, Alton. I'm 
 sure she'd rather come to the fire in the drawing-room. 
 We'll have coffee in there. And afterwards, I daresay, 
 you'd like to see the gardens, wouldn't you? though 
 there isn't much to see at this time of the year. Did 
 the servants take Fido, do you know, Mr. Linster ? Ah, 
 well, I can ring for him presently. Shall we go ? " 
 
 They went. At the drawing-room door Lord Alton, 
 with a word about a cigar and joining the ladies pre- 
 sently, held Mr. Linster back, and for half an hour Lady 
 and Mrs. Alton endured each other civilly. By the end 
 of that time, and just as Mrs. Alton's patience was being 
 exhausted, her brother-in-law reappeared alone. He 
 came in suavely, and with apologies. 
 
 " You will excuse me, I know, Susan . . ." 
 
 " You are going out ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, I am now entirely at your service. 
 For leaving you so long, I mean. That is a capital 
 man new, I think, since we saw you. Yes, it was old 
 Estcourt then. He was letting things go to rack and 
 ruin. Oh, past his work, I think, that was all, and a 
 ' time enough ' man always inclined to let things slide, 
 as I was. Linster has a head on his shoulders, and is a 
 great help to me." 
 
 " You seem to be doing a good deal." 
 
 " I am." 
 
 He seated himself in a low chair by the fire, and 
 spread his small, nervous hands to the blaze. There 
 was yet nothing nervous in either his air or his bearing. 
 Mrs. Alton, while she waited for him to speak, found 
 herself wondering what he had done with the uneasiness 
 which she remembered so well, and which, when she 
 
tTbe Successor 105 
 
 had last seen him, had seemed to show rather an 
 increasing than a declining tendency. He smiled 
 absently into the glowing coals. 
 
 "Nothing had been done for years oh, I speak a 
 little widely perhaps ; Merringham has always looked 
 fairly well kept up the natural features of the place 
 helped that but things wanted seeing to. Things are 
 getting what they wanted. When in course of time I 
 am gathered to my fathers " he paused and looked at 
 his sister-in-law " it will be a very different Merringham 
 that my successor will step into." 
 
 Mrs. Alton made no rejoinder. 
 
 Lady Alton said: "Oh, my dear, we needn't talk 
 about that." 
 
 " Every landowner," said her husband, " has a duty to 
 those who come after him." 
 
 "We needn't, I mean," said Lady Alton, "anticipate 
 your demise. Now, I'm sure Mrs. Alton would like to 
 look round the garden. The houses are thought worth 
 seeing if you care for flowers ? " 
 
 " Yes, I should like to see them. I remember them 
 well in the old days. It won't bore you, Alton? and 
 then I must ask for the carriage." 
 
 It seemed to Mrs. Alton then (who may have been 
 fanciful) that Lady Alton consulted her husband with 
 her eyes as to whether she should go too. Lord Alton 
 perhaps signalled back that this was unnecessary, feeling 
 possibly that he was equal to any emergency that 
 might arise in a t$te-a-tete, and having thus no need of 
 the protection of any third person: Mr. Linster had 
 been allowed to go having played his part. Be this 
 as it may, Lady Alton did not accompany her husband 
 and his guest to the gardens, and Mrs: Alton saw before 
 her the " opportunity " she had desired. 
 
 When Lord Alton, at her wish, had ordered her 
 
c Successor 
 
 carriage to be round at what time seemed to her good, 
 they went out by the broad steps on the west side of 
 the house and descended to the terraces. A pleasant air 
 was here, in which were faint fragrances as much of 
 earth and mellow masonry as of the lingering plants in 
 the borders. A bronze Hermes, green in parts with age, 
 and exceedingly beautiful, was one of the beautiful 
 things that made the terraces beautiful when flowers 
 were passing. Vases, also of bronze, and stained like 
 the statue with verdigris, or of stone, flaking and 
 lichened, or of lead, stood at intervals on the low walls. 
 The dignity of time was upon everything. Leisure, 
 well-being, the necessity to be careful for nothing, were 
 on all sides in evidence for the sensitive, or for anyone 
 who seeing might see. Mrs. Alton was not sensitive, 
 but had eyes shrewd enough. As she walked and 
 talked, commenting on this and on that, she was 
 conscious of a wandering attention. Merringham had 
 always had this air of stately orderliness and prosperity. 
 To have spoken of rack and ruin, things let to slide 
 and the like, was indeed to have spoken somewhat at 
 large. But much was evidently being done on the 
 estate, and for some reason or other it was her 
 brother-in-law's intention that she should know it. 
 
 " So you are making improvements," she said, out of 
 a silence in which she thought her absence of mind to 
 have communicated itself to her manner. 
 
 Lord Alton turned to her, smiling. 
 
 " Well, we're beginning," he said. " Mr. Linster has 
 inspired me, or I have inspired him, and all sorts of 
 projects are in the air. A man wants interests in his 
 life. That's what I have only just found out. I mean, 
 as I've told you, to leave Merringham in better case 
 than I found it. Shall we go down to the corner there, 
 to look at the view before we go to the houses ? " 
 
tbe Successor 1^7 
 
 They descended to a second terrace, and reaching 
 the end of it, where there were stone seats, leant on the 
 wall to look over such an expanse of undulating country 
 as a favoured land might show you once, perhaps, in 
 a day's march. Something was changed here. Mrs. 
 Alton, knowing the country well, could not remember 
 to have seen precisely this view of it. A very map of 
 gracious English scenery, pasture, woodland, cornland 
 ploughed now this last, and reddish in the afternoon 
 sunlight with here a farmstead, there the distant spire 
 of a hamlet amongst trees, was spread before her as a 
 chart that is unrolled. Immediately below where she 
 was standing stretched the park, to end in a dip, where 
 out of sight ran the river, which showed presently as a 
 white riband streaming through the valley. Wood and 
 hedgerow were stained gorgeously, wantonly, to very 
 excess of lavish staining, but had they indeed been bare 
 and bleak, Mrs. Alton did not feel that the dowered 
 country over which she gazed would have been robbed 
 of its air of richness and fecundity. The very browns 
 and reds of the soil where the plough had turned it 
 seemed to speak fatness corn and the western 
 equivalent of wine, as the pasturage promised milk, 
 and a row of silent hives under the sheltering wall to 
 the right sent the thoughts to honey. So the land 
 " flowed." All the gifts of a generous earth were there 
 in actuality, assurance, or suggestion. If this now as 
 the year went howsoever exuberantly to its death, what 
 in spring ? in full summer ? Not all that she saw was 
 Merringham, but a good part, and all was Merringham's 
 to see. 
 
 She turned to her brother-in-law, and meeting his 
 eyes, experienced a curious sensation. He had been 
 watching her as she looked ; perhaps reading the 
 thought that that which she saw the sight of it, any 
 
io8 trbe Successor 
 
 way would one day be Edmund's ? Where she stood 
 was only relatively high ground, commanding, though it 
 did, so fine a stretch of opulent country. It was not 
 vertigo then, nor any other physical uneasiness connected 
 with heads and altitudes, that gave her this sudden feel- 
 ing of having been caught up taken for a purpose (as 
 One once for temptation) to a pinnacle of the temple, 
 say, or an exceeding high mountain. She held her 
 breath for a beat or two of the pulse, hardly knowing 
 why. 
 
 Lord Alton was smiling. 
 
 " It was a view to sacrifice a few trees for, wasn't it ? 
 The trees had grown up, shutting everything out as 
 the ilex, by the way, before the dining-room window. 
 This end of the terrace was evidently planned for this 
 view. You don't get quite the same range from any- 
 where else, and the trees had been allowed to blot it all 
 out till the very scheme of the point of vantage had 
 been forgotten. Three generations must have lived in 
 ignorance of so much of the designer's intention." He 
 looked east and west " There's not such another view 
 in the country." 
 
 Mrs. Alton's eyes scanned the horizon. 
 
 "Who comes after me," said Lord Alton, with 
 deliberation, and looking at his sister-in-law with the 
 same expression as a moment ago she had surprised on 
 his face, " will owe me this, too, in a measure. Since I 
 turned my thoughts to improvements, I have been 
 looking about me, and in that way I made my 
 discovery. Now, shall we go to the houses ? " 
 
 They retraced their steps for a few yards, ascending 
 to the first terrace, whence, crossing a lawn, they made 
 for a path leading to the inner gardens, where the hot- 
 houses were. The feeling of bewilderment grew with 
 Mrs. Alton. What had happened to give this little 
 
TTbe Successor 109 
 
 pink man the power of dominating every situation ? 
 and what did these activities portend ? Not once, 
 moreover, nor even twice, had he made his allusions 
 to the future of Merringham. Was there any point of 
 law with which she was unacquainted that could make 
 Edmund's position with regard to the place less secure 
 than she supposed it? Surely, surely he Alton 
 could not still hope . . . could not by any possibility 
 expect . . . 
 
 She ran her eye mentally over the elegancies of her 
 sister-in-law's appearance. Lady Alton's silks and 
 laces. . . . But she always overdressed. And nonsense! 
 Nonsense ! She (Mrs. Alton) would have known in a 
 moment. Her imagination was running away with her. 
 Ridiculous to have entertained so preposterous a thought 
 for an instant. Enough of it. Anyway, she would be 
 seeing Balderton presently which reminded her that 
 she had not asked for Balderton. 
 
 Balderton, Lord Alton said, was away. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE day was assuredly to be marked uncomfortably on 
 Mrs. Alton's mind. 
 
 " Away ? " she said. 
 
 " For her holiday." 
 
 Here was an unexpected check ; and that she should 
 regard the absence of the housekeeper in such light 
 showed her that her misgivings were not wholly 
 formless. 
 
 " I should have liked to see Balderton," she said, 
 "an old friend . . , one of the few remaining old 
 servants." 
 
 " To be sure. The type is dying out I have suc- 
 ceeded in impressing Blanche with a comparatively 
 sound appreciation of its qualities. For a time she 
 hardly understood. Now she accepts Balderton, and 
 what is almost as important I think I may say that 
 Balderton accepts her. You wanted to see Balderton. 
 A pity ! " 
 
 " Oh ! to exchange greetings with her," said Mrs. 
 Alton. " Balderton and I have always been good 
 friends." 
 
 " She will be sorry to have missed you." 
 
 " You must tell her I asked for her." 
 
 Was it intended that she should not see Balderton ? 
 Could they have sent her away to that end ? For what 
 conceivable purpose ? It was impossible to think of 
 11 holidays " in connection with Balderton. What could 
 
 no 
 
Successor m 
 
 she, with her bugles and her mittens, want or do with 
 holidays ? 
 
 Mrs. Alton considered. 
 
 They reached the first of the hothouses now, and she 
 stood back as he opened the door for her. The handle 
 was stiff, and she spent the moment's pause thus afforded 
 in a curious survey of her companion. She who had 
 always laughed at Alton had an unconquerable misdoubt 
 as to the direction just then of the laugh. 
 
 The latch yielded, and he stood back for her to pass 
 in before him, taking in turn as he did so his survey of 
 her, but smiling. They stepped from the fresh outer air 
 into the soft warmth of the hothouse. The scents of 
 many exotic flowers and plants blended (as the frag- 
 rances which mingled in the garden) with others of 
 flower-pot itself and hothouse soil and old red brick 
 to the making of the pot-pourri of sweet essences that 
 is the familiar atmosphere of all such houses. Vivid 
 colours caught and held the eye: crimsons, scarlets, 
 purples, with flaming yellows and gentler blues. Whites 
 were virginal, but not to be overlooked in the patchwork 
 of varied hues. Ferns had sown themselves beneath the 
 gratings underfoot, through which they thrust here and 
 there a spike or a leaf of tender green. 
 
 Lord Alton, pulling up the slip of wood from a pot 
 now and then, and reading from it a Latin name, dis- 
 claimed any special knowledge of flowers, but in his 
 answers to Mrs. Alton's questions and comments 
 showed no small acquaintance with their characteristics 
 and needs. 
 
 " My poor Victoria," he said, " was the gardener of 
 my generation. She lived with her flowers and for 
 them. I see her now with her gardening gloves and a 
 large pair of scissors. The gardens have never been 
 quite the same since she left me." 
 
Successor 
 
 He paused and looked into space, calling up pre- 
 sumably the vision of the Andover in her chamois 
 gauntlets and with the shears of her chosen office. 
 Mrs. Alton found herself recalling also the first Lady 
 Alton. She saw her in the odd garments of her day 
 notably a shady hat of the mushroom order and the 
 longest of long ear-rings. 
 
 "Dear Georgina's hobbies were her dairies and her 
 bees pastoral rather than aesthetic. Herbage grew for 
 the cows that supplied her model dairies, and flowers for 
 her bees. We took prizes in those days for butter and 
 honey." 
 
 " I remember," said Mrs. Alton, a little vaguely. 
 
 It was at the Alton-Redruth wedding that caution 
 was said -to have given her the slip, and neither butter 
 nor honey had reached her in Curzon Street. 
 
 "We were called bucolic," said Lord Alton, "and 
 other things other things. Dear Georgina, as you 
 know, was a picture of health. It was said that com- 
 parisons were found for her to certain domestic animals. 
 A fact. Would one believe ? " 
 
 Mrs. Alton had been bending over a flower. She 
 raised unhurried eyes to meet her brother-in-law's 
 question. 
 
 " Oh, one can believe anything of gossip," she 
 said ; " but if one believe gossip itself, one can believe 
 anything." 
 
 If Mrs. Alton was sorry when she had thus spoken, 
 she did not show it. 
 
 " Nevertheless," said Lord Alton, " I have always 
 been inclined to believe gossip in this instance." 
 
 " One believes, I suppose," Mrs. Alton hazarded, 
 "what one is ready to believe." 
 
 "Just so," said Lord Alton, "just so. Well, well, 
 gossip has its place in the affairs of men, and its uses, 
 
Ube Successor 113 
 
 perhaps. What were we taking of? Oh, characteristics, 
 to be sure by the way, of horticulture, wasn't it? 
 Blanche, I was going to say, cares most for flowers 
 when they are cut. She likes results, as it were the 
 fruits of care, rather than the care itself. So do we 
 differ one from another. Shall we look at the orchids 
 next door ? " 
 
 They left the house and proceeded to another. A 
 gardener was coming up the path, and Lord Alton 
 beckoned to him and gave him some direction. 
 
 " You'd like a few flowers to take back with you, 
 wouldn't you ? We will send some to Lady Wraysbury 
 too. What has she least of at Rookhampton ? that 
 we may not find ourselves sending coals to Newcastle. 
 Belbridge would know; he came to me from Lady 
 Wraysbury. Consult him, Cotton, and cut accordingly." 
 
 " I shall take mine back with me to London," said 
 Mrs. Alton, when the man was gone. " They will be 
 quite fresh. I go home to-morrow." 
 
 "So soon?" 
 
 " I only came for a few days. That's why I wanted 
 to make sure of seeing you." 
 
 Orchids were ever after associated in Mrs. Alton's 
 mind with Edmund and Merringham, and her brother- 
 in-law, and the Mason, and a day of perplexities ; so 
 that she never saw one but some thought of this strange 
 visit, and all that it held and concealed, came to her, as 
 the memory of some curious dream. Not to have 
 known ! . . . not to have seen ! . . . understood ! she 
 who was not a stupid woman ! 
 
 A tangle of thoughts enmeshed her. That she had 
 taken a thrust or two since setting foot in Merringham 
 was not to be disputed. Alton had kept her fencing 
 whether she wished it or no, and it was disturbing to 
 feel that where he would he had pricked her. The 
 
H4 Ube Successor 
 
 picture ... he had her there, forcing even an acknow- 
 ledgment from her of her expedition to King Street. 
 Balderton . . . there, too, she was foiled though what it 
 was exactly that she wanted to see Balderton for, and 
 what it was exactly that Balderton might be supposed 
 to be in a position to tell her, she could not have said. 
 Georgina, the Redruth of Angerstown . . . had the 
 comparison indeed been made ? and if so, had it really 
 reached the ears of the good lady's husband ? Some- 
 one had, in truth, been indiscreet. So did Mrs. Alton's 
 thoughts hold her. 
 
 Lord Alton's voice broke in upon her. 
 
 " Perverse things," he was saying, " aren't they ? " and 
 it was a moment before she realised that he spoke of 
 the plants. " Nothing about an orchid would surprise 
 one. If its roots were in the air, and it blossomed 
 underground, one would shrug one's shoulders and feel 
 that when one had said ' Orchid/ one had said all that 
 was necessary in the way of explanation. To me they 
 are more curious than beautiful. But Victoria loved 
 them, and Jebson takes a great pride in them, so here 
 they are." 
 
 " Jebson ? " said Mrs. Alton. 
 
 " The head gardener. No. I forget who was with 
 us when you were here last. I have the regrettable 
 faculty of offending my servants much as I think of 
 the old breed or rather I have had, for I am inclined 
 to think I am going to lose it ... instead of my temper 
 and them." 
 
 "I wonder," Mrs. Alton said "I wonder what has 
 changed you ? " 
 
 " Do you find me changed ? " 
 
 "Yes or in course of changing. In course of 
 changing, I think, though I don't know why." 
 
 " for the better, I hope, Susan." 
 
Ube Successor 115 
 
 " How/' said Mrs. Alton, " can I answer you that ? 
 If I said ' Yes ' it would imply that there had been room, 
 as we say, for improvement. Nor could I possibly say 
 ( No.' I put the case to you." 
 
 This was safer ground. It was through the give-and- 
 take of banter that Edmund's name must be approached. 
 The orchids, which had looked half-human things, 
 grotesque, distorted, a trifle malignant even, took less 
 subtle and more kindly an aspect. 
 
 " Marriage, I take it, like the years, must affect one 
 in some way," said Lord Alton. 
 
 " Marriage ! " 
 
 " In my case marriages. One doesn't stand still. 1, 
 then, less than most people. Shall we say that we are 
 not, any of us, changing so much as developing? In 
 life there are periods, from time to time, when the 
 process seems quickened. It is so, certainly, with the 
 vegetable life which we are looking at in these 
 plants. Weeks or even months will go to the 
 forming of the bud which a few days or hours will 
 open." 
 
 "It is mainly, isn't it, a question of light and 
 heat?" 
 
 " Mainly, as you say, a question of light and heat," 
 said Lord Alton, " taking light and heat in the case of 
 the man to stand for their equivalents, whatever those 
 may be. Encouragement ? Prosperity ? What shall 
 we say?" 
 
 " And you are feeling encouraged ? prosperous ? You 
 were always prosperous, Alton. Prosperity compara- 
 tive prosperity, anyway and primogeniture go hand 
 in hand in this land of eldest sons. So it must be 
 encouragement in your case. I wish I knew the secret 
 of encouragement. I don't suppose you are going to 
 tell me the secret of yours ? " 
 
n6 TTbe Successor 
 
 " Awakening," said Lord Alton. " I slept and am 
 awake." 
 
 Mrs. Alton shook her head. 
 
 "You are giving me the effect for the cause," 
 she said. 
 
 " Who shall say how he wakes ? " said Lord Alton. 
 " One man wakes when he has had his sleep out ; 
 another when he is called ; another is called and goes 
 to sleep again. I can hardly tell you whether I had 
 had my sleep out when I was called. I am disposed 
 to think that I was called at the very moment at which 
 I was ready to wake. I passed, I know, from sleeping 
 into broad waking." 
 
 Mrs. Alton thought this over. It bore, she believed, 
 in some way upon the torn picture. But she knew not 
 in what manner nor why she should think so. 
 
 "You were ' called/ then ?" she said. 
 
 " I was certainly called." 
 
 " May I ask how ? " 
 
 " Oh, how is one generally called ? " 
 
 " I know so little of men's ways," said Mrs. Alton, 
 smiling. "At home my housemaid since I have 
 no maid of my own comes in to pull up my 
 blinds." 
 
 "And give you your letters," said Lord Alton, 
 "just so. In some such way. And your letters 
 generally see to it that you shan't go to sleep again, 
 don't they?" 
 
 Now, what did he mean by this ... if not to connect 
 her letter with that which underlay, or might be supposed 
 to underlie, his words and hers ? 
 
 But he had not finished. 
 
 " It may be open to question," he was saying, from 
 under eyebrows half-humorously puckered, " which 
 succeed in rousing one most effectually the letters one 
 
tlbe Successor 117 
 
 gets, or the letters one doesn't get. A whimsical, tricky, 
 disturbing thing the post at the best of times." 
 
 Mrs. Alton threw her rapier away. She had done 
 with fencing. If need were she would close with him. 
 
 "I don't know," she said, without further ado, but 
 also without any outward show of fight " I don't know, 
 Alton, whether in what you are saying you mean any 
 allusion to a letter which I wrote to you some time ago 
 considerably more than a year ago and to which I 
 never got any answer. I have been in the difficult 
 position of not knowing whether it reached you." 
 
 Lord Alton leaned against one of the shelves and 
 regarded her slowly. 
 
 " A letter," he said. " It seems to me that I remember 
 something of it. Tell me about it. It was before I 
 went away, wasn't it ? before I was ill." 
 
 " I have been afraid that you were ill when it reached 
 you." 
 
 " I don't think so. I don't remember that I was," 
 
 " You did get it, then ? '' 
 
 " I must appear very stupid or negligent. I must get 
 you to tell me what was in it. You didn't write 
 again ? " 
 
 " It was on a matter of some importance to me," Mrs. 
 Alton said, a little coldly. " As you didn't answer, I 
 could hardly write again. I waited, indeed, expecting 
 to hear from you, Alton. If you will think, you will 
 see that I was in rather a difficult position." 
 
 He shook his head. " I am ready to believe I have 
 been culpably remiss," he said. 
 
 " If the letter had reached you," explained Mrs. 
 Alton, " to have written again would only have seemed 
 a device to hurry you or worry you. As I didn't get 
 my letter back from the Dead Letter Office, I could 
 only suppose that it had been delivered. The post may 
 
us tlbe Successor 
 
 be whimsical and tricky, as you say, but, on the whole, 
 one can rely on the safety of what one commits to it. 
 That, at least, is my experience." 
 
 " The blame, I don't doubt," said Lord Alton, " lies 
 with me. You'll have to help me out, Susan, for all 
 that. I get a good many letters on one subject or 
 another, and from what you say, and from what I fancy 
 I recollect, this one must have come just before I was 
 ill. Since then, you must remember, I have been 
 abroad, and when one is moving about from place to 
 place one is apt to overlook the claims of one's corre- 
 spondence. I make out a lame case for myself, I'm 
 afraid." 
 
 Mrs. Alton allowed a smile to play about her 
 mouth. 
 
 " You speak as if I were taking you to task," 
 she said. 
 
 "I deserve nothing less, do you think, if I have 
 behaved so reprehensibly ? " 
 
 " I don't want to take you to task," Mrs. Alton said. 
 " Who am I that I should ? But I do want, if you will 
 let me, to arrive at some sort of understanding about the 
 matter on which I wrote to you. I should like to have 
 known definitely whether the letter did reach you. 
 Perhaps you may remember ... I wrote to you about 
 Edmund." 
 
 Lord Alton shifted his position to one of more 
 comfort. 
 
 " I haven't asked for him yet. He is well ? I have 
 seen his name once or twice in connection with prizes 
 isn't it ? or games ? " 
 
 " He is very well, and is doing well. I am rather 
 proud of my boy. He is much that his father would 
 have wished him to be, and an Alton from head to 
 foot." 
 
tlbe Successor n$ 
 
 " Points further apart in his case than mine, I 
 daresay." 
 
 Mrs. Alton looked astray for a moment. 
 
 " Ah ! I see," she said then. " Well, perhaps a little. 
 He will be about his father's height, I think ; not a 
 young giant like either of your brothers, though he 
 resembles each of them in some things. Poor Terence 
 had very much the same way of speaking, and I find 
 myself recalling John, too, in small traits the way he 
 comes into a room, for instance. Do you remember 
 that John used always to give you the flattering im- 
 pression that he was delightfully surprised to find you ? 
 He always opened a door as if he were pleasantly and 
 actively interested as to what he should find behind it. 
 I express myself badly ; but if you ever observed what 
 I mean in John, you would recognise something very 
 like it in Edmund." 
 
 " I recollect perfectly what you describe. I commend 
 Edmund's choice." 
 
 " His choice? " said Mrs. Alton. 
 
 " The wisdom he shows in his selection of which of us 
 to take after." 
 
 But Lord Alton spoke as one who speaks lightly, and 
 it was impossible to think he was offended. Mrs. Alton 
 thought it wise, nevertheless, to overlook what might be 
 fraught with dangerous qualities in his comment, and 
 said complacently enough that she would wish nothing 
 better for her son than that he should take after his 
 father's family. 
 
 " A pick of the members of it, anyway." 
 
 "Oh, the Altons generally," said Edmund's mother. 
 " I have never heard of any black sheep among them 
 which is considerably more than I can say of my own 
 family." 
 
 She looked at the orchids as if, in a scarlet blossom or 
 
t*o frbe Successor 
 
 two, she could see prototypes of the sinners on her own 
 side of the house. 
 
 " My poor dear father," she said ; " if Edmund had 
 shown signs of taking after him! Dear father, he 
 meant so well, and left us all in such difficulties. Or 
 poor Roddy ! No, no, Alton, it is your family, not mine, 
 that I should wish my boy to be like." 
 
 Lord Alton said nothing, but had an air of attending. 
 His pink eyelids weighed her words, and he did not 
 show any sign of rinding the topic irksome. She had 
 misjudged this odd little man perhaps even his wife 
 the fearfully and wonderfully lady-like person to whom 
 as the possibility occurred to her she sent a flying 
 thought. 
 
 Encouraged, Mrs. Alton proceeded. 
 
 "If the years don't stand still for us," she said, " they 
 stand less still even for the young. It seems only the 
 other day that Edmund was shortcoated, and here he is 
 now nearly sixteen, and a sort of surprise to me every 
 time he comes home for the holidays. I never realised 
 till I saw my own boy growing up under my eyes how 
 rapid the succession of the stages could be. The infant 
 in arms is like to be a man before you know that you 
 have weaned him." 
 
 Lord Alton nodded inquiringly. 
 
 " Is that so ? I daresay, I daresay. 
 
 He had, of course, no experience of what she was 
 telling him or an experience so subjective as to be 
 valueless. 
 
 The flowers were forgotten, ostensible pretext though 
 they were for the absence from the drawing-room, where 
 presumably Lady Alton sat awaiting the return of 
 her guest. Unconsciously, or subconsciously, Mrs. 
 Alton had sense of them, however, and even observed 
 (always without knowing that she observed) the curious 
 
tlbe Successor 1*1 
 
 "reservoirs" that have their part in the domestic 
 economy of the lives of certain species. The seeds, all 
 unknown to her and unsuspected, of a subsequent and 
 enduring dislike of orchids were being sown then. 
 
 "Well, Alton, to come to the point, the time has 
 arrived had arrived, indeed, a year ago and more 
 when I must decide something as to Edmund's future : 
 whether he must work with a view to earning his living 
 at the earliest possible moment in whatever way may 
 offer, or whether, in view of well, of his position, he 
 may hope to go to the University, as his father did 
 before him, and . . ." she hesitated . . " perhaps even 
 think of the Diplomatic Service." 
 
 She paused. 
 
 " This is what I wrote to you an easier thing, 
 somehow, to write than to say. Yet, after all, whom 
 should I consult if not you ? You're his nearest male 
 relation. I wonder you must let me say just this 
 why, if you got my letter, you did not answer it." 
 
 " I certainly got it," said Lord Alton. " I can't help 
 thinking that you'll find I answered it." 
 
 " I received no answer. I waited and waited, not 
 liking, as I say, to bother you. So you did get my 
 letter ! " 
 
 " I gave it the closest attention. You bring all 
 the circumstances back to my mind. I couldn't 
 forget." 
 
 Mrs. Alton wheeled round in front of him. 
 
 " But this is most extraordinary," she said. " Your 
 answer never reached me. I watched the posts. I 
 came almost to believe that my watching for your 
 letter delayed it prevented its coming. When did 
 you write ? Do you remember ? " 
 
 Lord Alton, she might have observed, but did not, 
 had said nothing of having written. 
 
Successor 
 
 " I dealt with your letter almost at once the same 
 day, anyway. The matter is firmly impressed on my 
 mind. I couldn't forget." 
 
 Mrs. Alton looked more surprised. "But . . ." she 
 began, and broke off. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Just now you didn't appear to remember at all." 
 
 " You have brought it all back to me." 
 
 "Well, I can't understand . . ." said Mrs. Alton. " Your 
 own letter would have come back to you through the 
 Dead Letter Office. And didn't you wonder why you 
 didn't hear from me in answer ? I'm not a very good 
 correspondent, but I always answer letters, and whatever 
 you may have said in your letter it must have . . ." 
 She broke off again. 
 
 "But perhaps you refused," she resumed a moment 
 later. " Yes, I suppose it can only mean that you 
 refused." 
 
 " What you asked ? " 
 
 " You know pretty well how I am placed, Alton. I 
 haven't come to you to-day to make a poor mouth. 
 Edmund's father made the best provision for me that 
 he could ; and if since my own father died, and his 
 affairs were found to be in such an unsatisfactory state, 
 it has been something of a struggle now and then to 
 make both ends meet, both ends, I am thankful to say, 
 have met hitherto. I can scrape along quite comfort- 
 ably; and I have been able, thank God, to give 
 Edmund the education of a gentleman. So far it 
 has been fairly easy to do what was necessary for 
 him ; but if he is to go to Oxford it will be a different 
 matter, and it can only be done if the difficulties in 
 the way of it have any reasonable chance of being 
 removed." 
 
 Lord Alton still heard her attentively. 
 
tTbe successor 123 
 
 l{ You spoke of his position just now Tell me exactly 
 what you mean." 
 
 " His position ? Oh, as an Alton family should 
 count for something and also in regard to yourself." 
 
 Lord Alton nodded. 
 
 "Just so," he said, "just so taking all hazards, of 
 course, into due account just so. Does the boy wish 
 to go to Oxford ? " 
 
 " Naturally, but that is beside the point. Do you 
 think it would be advisable for him to go ? And if it is 
 advisable, is it possible ? Do you, in fact, wish him to 
 go?" 
 
 Then it was that like life, according to Lord Alton 
 the vegetable life, anyway, of this house of strange 
 plants the discussion suddenly flowered, and as 
 suddenly bore fruit. 
 
 "We shall find, I think, one of these days that your 
 letter was answered. But let that pass. I can give you 
 another answer to-day. This I will say : Edmund may 
 go to Oxford. His father was at Balliol, and so were 
 Terence and John in their day. Three hundred a year 
 would enable him to do the thing comfortably ? He 
 may count upon me for that sum for three years." 
 
 " Alton, how good of you ! " 
 
 " For three years we will say a thousand pounds in 
 all. He, or rather you, can have it at once, if you like, 
 in the lump. That indeed would perhaps be best. I 
 shan't ask for any account of it. Apply it, in fact, as 
 you like." 
 
 " This is very generous of you. I hardly know how 
 to thank you. Edmund will write to you." 
 
 " He may think he has little enough to thank me for," 
 said Lord Alton. 
 
 They went back to the house then, where the hour 
 being found to be five of the clock, and the carriage to 
 
1*4 
 
 have been waiting already for a very considerable time, 
 Mrs. Alton's adieux were somewhat hurried more 
 hurried, indeed, than she could afterwards have 
 wished and she had but the briefest glimpse of her 
 hostess. 
 
 So ended her strange visit 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 IT was not till his visitor was safely out of sight that 
 Lord Alton's self-possession gave place to the excite- 
 ment that was the prelude to what was spoken of 
 afterwards as his second "seizure." 
 
 He came back to the drawing-room hurriedly, as one 
 with something to disclose, and Lady Alton looked at 
 him questioningly. 
 
 "She doesn't know," he said, shutting the door 
 quickly, and coming over to the fire. " She doesn't 
 know now. Actually she has gone without knowing ! " 
 
 Lady Alton, who, a cream-ewer in one hand and a 
 cup in the other, had suspended her operations at the 
 tea-table, gave a little exclamation and waited. 
 
 " She doesn't know," he said again. 
 
 " And you didn't tell her ? " 
 
 " I haven't told her yet." 
 
 Lady Alton smiled. 
 
 " I thought when you came back that you hadn't. 
 She would have looked different somehow if she had 
 known not that, as it was, she didn't look at me. 
 What were you saying to her, then, all that time ? " 
 
 " We found plenty to say. I was prepared to tell her 
 any moment, and it never became necessary." 
 
 "Well," said Lady Alton, "it seemed possible, certainly. 
 . . . Well, I thought you were never coming back. Will 
 you have some tea ? " 
 
 " Tea ! no," said Lord Alton, in impatient parenthesis. 
 " Tea! " with contempt. " We went first to the terrace, 
 
126 Ube Successor 
 
 and I gave her Moses' glimpse of the Promised Land. 
 She didn't know what to think hasn't known what to 
 think from the moment she set foot here. Even now 
 she doesn't, and will still less when she has had time to 
 turn things over a little. What had set me to work? 
 That puzzled her primarily ; all through lunch she was 
 puzzled, and all through the afternoon. She has gone, 
 in fact, from one mystification to another. I could 
 hardly have expected to touch her on so many 
 points." 
 
 " I couldn't imagine what you were going to say 
 about the picture, or for that matter what you were not i 
 How could you ? What were you dreaming of? I was 
 on thorns till I got you out of the dining-room." 
 
 Lord Alton laughed out. 
 
 " To think that I was able to tell her about that ! I 
 did it,' said I, but I would have said anything just then, 
 I believe. And I made her own up to having seen it. 
 ' Rather different, eh, from when you saw it last ? ' 
 ( Saw it last ? ' " He laughed again, reviewing the 
 situation. " She has her wits about her, I'll say so 
 much for her. She didn't falter or stumble, or do 
 anything stupid. Susan's a well-bred one, little as I 
 have reason to like her. But I fancy I pricked her 
 when I wished. There isn't a thing that I wanted to 
 say that I did not contrive to say to-day, and all (I 
 think I may claim for myself, and I think Susan would 
 admit) without abusing my somewhat delicate position 
 as my enemy's host. There was an old score or two to 
 wipe off, and old scores were not passed over to-day, 
 as I fancy she will perceive presently, if she hasn't 
 already." 
 
 Lady Alton helped herself to Sally Lunn. She, at 
 least, might go on with her tea. One meal was not of 
 less importance than another to her, and she had chafed 
 
TObe Successor 127 
 
 under the delays which had kept her from the tea-table 
 till after her sister-in-law's departure. Mrs. Alton, in 
 consideration of the hour and the length of the drive 
 before her, had reluctantly refused tea, and might be 
 supposed now to be sitting " parched " and regretful in 
 the Rookhampton carriage. Lord Alton was too 
 excited to eat or to drink ; but not so Lady Alton. 
 
 " Balderton . . ." said Lord Alton. " She was brought 
 to a stand-still when I told her Balderton was away. A 
 fine talk she had promised herself a nice quiet talk 
 over things generally in Balderton's room. But there 
 we had been just a little too quick for her. I wasn't 
 going to have that, Balderton knows you may bet 
 what you like. Everyone else, please God, will know 
 in a very little while, but Balderton knows this minute. 
 So none of these confidential talks ! Susan, I promise 
 her, shall know in plenty of time. Wasn't I prepared 
 here's the joke of it ! to tell her myself to-day ? But 
 the longer we put it off ... do you see? . . . Why 
 are you looking at me ? " he said, a moment later. 
 
 Lady Alton was in truth looking at him curiously. 
 Something unusual in his aspect disturbed her. She 
 was vaguely uncomfortable hardly knowing why. 
 
 " I wish," she said, " you would sit down quietly and 
 have your tea." 
 
 Five minutes later she was looking at him again. He 
 broke off in a rapid flow of words to say impatiently : 
 
 "Well? Well? What is it?" 
 
 "You're so so excited, dear. I'm quite afraid of 
 your making yourself ill again." 
 
 "111? I'm too well satisfied to be ill! I've no 
 pictures to tear down to-day and tear up." 
 
 Yet there was something that he seemed to be tearing, 
 destroying, consuming (Lady Alton was no 'ologist) 
 yital energy, what, or what else, you will and it wa.s. 
 
I2 8 Ube Successor 
 
 difficult to keep your apprehensive eyes from his face. 
 She went on with her tea, however, as before, and tried 
 to conceal her uneasiness. She was acutely conscious 
 of it till her husband's allusion to the cheque he had 
 promised drove, by the sheer size of the amount, all else 
 from her mind. 
 
 A thousand pounds ! That did seem unnecessary. 
 Really, after all that had happened ? A thousand 
 pounds? Nearly half the cost of their trip. What 
 need was there for this extravagance? Here Lord 
 Alton chipped in with a laugh to point an obvious 
 analogy. Might have been given to the poor ? Well, 
 so it might. Was given to the poor, did he say ? Mrs. 
 Alton wasn't Lady Alton's idea of poverty. 
 
 " She was as well-dressed as I am. I don't, of course, 
 care for that severe style myself. I like a woman to be 
 graceful and more more elegant. But that's a matter 
 of taste, and many people, to be sure, can't wear lace or 
 anything delicate like that . . . particularly if they're at 
 all what I call weather-beaten. And then years do tell, 
 and she can't be far short of well, what shall I say ? 
 But to come here and play the poor relation to work 
 upon your feelings. . . ." 
 
 Lord Alton heard her with commendable self-restraint, 
 and even some amusement. He knew the Mason of 
 Liverpool ; that she should miss the point was inevitable. 
 When she had made an end of speaking, which was not, 
 we are to suppose, for a minute or two, he shrugged his 
 shoulders. 
 
 " Never," he said, " will the writing of any cheque give 
 me so keen a satisfaction. Think ! and when you have 
 thought, think again." 
 
 "You give her money the woman who has flouted 
 you ? " 
 
 "True," 
 
ZTbe Successor 129 
 
 " The woman who has flouted me, and those who 
 came before me." 
 
 " Who will it be who will score in the end ? Even 
 now she is not sure whose the laugh is. What I shall 
 send her will be the key, if she have the perception to 
 know it, to all that is and has been puzzling her. She 
 shall have a day or two in which to be puzzled, a day 
 or two to read her cypher with its help if she can, and 
 then ... do you see ? " 
 
 The Mason's range was limited. A thousand pounds 
 that was not spent upon her was a thousand pounds. 
 Look at it as you would you could not make it less. 
 
 "Edmund's dismissed," said Lord Alton sharply. 
 " Exert yourself to realise ! This is Edmund's 
 dismissal. This is my long answer to Susan. I 
 have waited my time, but I haven't forgotten. Susan 
 won't know it at once, but this, when all's said, is her 
 answer. And now once more, what in God's name is 
 the matter ? " 
 
 For Lady Alton's eyes were fixed on a pink face 
 growing purple, and her uneasiness, swamped tempo- 
 rarily by such more agreeable emotions as astonishment 
 and indignation, had reasserted itself with alarming 
 suddenness, and was not to be concealed. 
 
 And Mrs. Alton? Mrs Alton in the Wraysbury 
 brougham knew not in very truth what to make of her 
 day. Lord Alton himself, flushed, trembling, disordered, 
 could not have wished her more exercised. Was it 
 peace ? She could not tell. There was nothing that 
 she had ever said or done that he had not appeared to 
 know. Was it war, then ? There was the generosity of 
 the promised cheque. Edmund might look forward to 
 Oxford. What to think ! Satisfaction was tempered 
 by she knew not what of apprehension. i 
 
130 Ube Successor 
 
 She had changed her gloves as she neared her destina- 
 tion for a new pair in going, and now as the carriage left 
 the park she took off these, blew into them mechanically, 
 and having folded them up and turned a ring, the stone 
 in which was hurting her finger, she proceeded to put on 
 the old pair. The little act of homely economy served 
 in some way to steady her nerves. Such takings of 
 thought had part in her every-day life. It was thus, 
 broadly, that Edmund's education had been made 
 possible; thus that she was able to keep up the 
 appearances which Lady Alton even now was 
 criticising at Merringham. 
 
 She looked out of the window with eyes that were not 
 for the country through which she was passing if, 
 indeed, in the early dusk there had been light enough 
 remaining to enable her to distinguish its features. She 
 was occupied with the events of the last few hours to the 
 exclusion of everything else. Minutely she went over 
 all that had happened. Fido had part in her thoughts 
 Fido the dog that had been bought before he was born, 
 and on trust and in faith ; Mr. Linster, the exemplary 
 agent, who had incited her brother-in-law to his present 
 exertions ; the Mason, of course, and the Mason's 
 affectations, her mistakes and her cleverness; the 
 picture, Alton's admissions in regard to it, and the 
 admission extorted from herself; more of the Mason; 
 then Alton again . . . and the view, with a vivid 
 recollection of the strange moment connected with that ; 
 some straight speaking ; the orchids ; Edmund ; the 
 plunge, and the surprise of the final outcome of her 
 visit. ,, 
 
 Rookhampton was reached in what seemed an 
 incredibly short time. Here she would have gone 
 straight to her room, but was pounced upon by the 
 younger Miss Wraysbury, who, like a little black cat, 
 
Successor 131 
 
 had been lying in wait for her, and was led to the 
 drawing-room, where the rest of the family was ranged 
 and arranged to receive her. A crescent of three chairs, 
 the unoccupied one of which had been vacated (at the 
 sound probably of wheels on the gravel) by the younger 
 Miss Wraysbury, who now resumed her seat in it, was 
 drawn up on one side of the hearth. Facing this con- 
 clave, there remained in this part of the room a single 
 arm-chair on the other side of the rug before the fire. 
 
 An expectant " Well ? " rose in chorus from the three 
 sallow throats. 
 
 It did not take Mrs. Alton long to pull forward 
 another chair from the distance. 
 
 " I'll keep away from the fire," she said. " Dear me 
 it is a long drive to Merringham." She looked round. 
 " Has tea gone, Carry ? I was afraid so. No, I didn't 
 wait for it at Merringham. I wonder whether I should 
 be giving too much trouble if I asked for some now ? " 
 
 " We made sure you were staying for tea at Merring- 
 ham. It it is nearly half-past six. No, no trouble if 
 you don't think it will spoil your dinner so late. . . ." 
 
 Mrs. Alton, with unruffled geniality, was quite certain 
 it would not spoil her dinner. 
 
 11 I'll ring, then, shall I ? " said Miss Wraysbury. 
 
 " If you will," said Mrs. Alton pleasantly. 
 
 She had no more thought of going without tea for 
 any " difficulties " that might be made than she had of 
 sitting in the seat that had been prepared for her 
 catechism. 
 
 The bell was rung, and tea was ordered "back." 
 " Bring back tea," so did Lady Wraysbury phrase the 
 direction she gave. 
 
 " I'm afraid," Mrs. Alton said, " I am putting you to a 
 great deal of trouble." 
 
 To none, Lady Wraysbury assured her to none 
 
132 Ebe Successor 
 
 whatever ! She was but thinking of her guest's appetite 
 for dinner. That, Mrs. Alton promised her, would be 
 all right, and anyway, she would rather have tea. 
 
 Tea appeared presently, and was supposed to unlock 
 Mrs. Alton's tongue. In reality, she told no more than 
 she chose should be known. From her account it 
 appeared that she had had a very agreeable day. Lord 
 Alton had never looked better, and really Lady Alton 
 was wonderful a little insistent and voyante perhaps, 
 but wonderful. Oh, and she was forgetting, there were 
 some flowers for Lady Wraysbury in the brougham. 
 They would be brought in presently, she supposed. Ah, 
 here they were ! as a servant appeared with them. The 
 houses at Merringham made a good show. The picture? 
 Yes, she had seen the picture. It did not look as if it 
 could have sustained much injury. 
 
 So she held them off. 
 
 The elder Miss Wraysbury plucked up courage to 
 say : 
 
 11 But the the feud, dear Mrs. Alton the estrange- 
 ment. . . ." 
 
 Dear Mrs. Alton laughed. 
 
 " I am tempted to think the whole thing must have 
 been imagined." 
 
 " Oh, but . . ." said Lady Wraysbury, emboldened by 
 the daring of her braver daughter. 
 
 "And they did say," Miss Wraysbury greatly ven- 
 tured, " that the affair of the picture. . . . You see, it 
 was torn with a knife. Cut, you know. It didn't just 
 fall." 
 
 " No, it didn't just fall," put in her sister timidly. 
 
 " It didn't fall at all," said Lady Wraysbury. " It 
 was taken down afterwards with a ladder." 
 
 "Just so in the ordinary way," said Mrs. Alton, 
 smiling irnperturbably. "Well, it is up again in its 
 
ZTbe Successor 133 
 
 place, not much the worse for its accident, so there's an 
 end of it. It shows the mending a little nothing to 
 signify." 
 
 Lady Wraysbury sniffed. She had put down her wool 
 work, and now took it up again. 
 
 " They do wonders nowadays," she said, "with damaged 
 canvasses wonders, as you say." 
 
 Mrs. Alton, who had not said anything of the kind 
 (though something of the kind had, to be sure, been said 
 elsewhere), went on, like Lady Alton at Merringham, 
 with her tea. 
 
 "Well," she said genially, "whatever may have 
 happened to it, there it is. Also our quarrels if we 
 quarrelled are over." 
 
 "We have to congratulate you, then?" Lady 
 Wraysbury said. "This surely is matter for con- 
 gratulation. A reconciliation, I thought, was the whole 
 object of the visit." 
 
 The Miss Wraysburys chirped and fluttered. 
 
 Mrs. Alton kept her patience. 
 
 "Reconciliation," she said, smiling, "is rather too 
 much of a word for the case. I had fancied relations 
 more strained perhaps than they were. Alton met me 
 as if he had seen me yesterday. It showed me how one 
 might imagine, and go on imagining, things that had no 
 foundation outside one's imagination." 
 
 The elder Miss Wraysbury wriggled. "We always 
 thought, somehow . . ." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " That it was as the mother of of . . ." 
 
 Mrs. Alton put down her cup, which was empty. 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " I mean ..." said Miss Wraysbury. 
 
 "We all did," said her sister. "Mamma was sure 
 of it." 
 
134 tTbe Successor 
 
 Mrs. Alton looked from one to another. " I don't 
 quite follow you." 
 
 Lady Wraysbury was spearing her wools with a 
 nervous wooden needle. 
 
 " I think Clara means that your relationship to Lord 
 Alton's next of kin, so to speak, might have prejudiced 
 him against you. You see, it was his father's picture 
 Edmund's his brother's, of course, but your son's father's. 
 I'm afraid I haven't made it very plain." 
 
 " Oh, but perfectly plain," said Mrs. Alton, " on the 
 assumption that the picture was wilfully damaged." 
 
 " It was, you see," said Lady Wraysbury. " We didn't 
 like to say too much at the time. We heard the most 
 minute account of it afterwards. These things leak out, 
 and we had it on the very best authority. They were 
 always parting with their servants. It was a fit of 
 passion the like of which had never been witnessed. 
 He stamped on the sideboard. They say he stabbed 
 the picture with a carving knife. I really didn't like my 
 girls to hear about it." 
 
 " The room was covered with glass." 
 
 " He hurled the decanters through the windows 
 through the panes, you know." 
 
 Mrs. Alton again looked from one to another, a smile 
 playing round her mouth. 
 
 " Was it as bad as that ? " she said. 
 
 "The room afterwards was like the scene of an 
 earthquake." 
 
 " Or a battlefield." 
 
 " Other things suffered, then, besides my poor 
 husband's picture?" 
 
 "No other picture. I'm afraid there was only one 
 inference to be drawn." 
 
 Mrs. Alton heard them to the end, when the dressing 
 bell sounded. 
 
ZTbe Successor 135 
 
 "Well, well," she said, rising and gathering up her 
 things to take them to her room " well, well, whatever 
 happened then, nothing could have been kinder than he 
 was this day about his brother's son. I needn't tell you 
 that I have been anxious about my boy's future. His 
 uncle to-day removed one great anxiety from me. 
 Edmund is to go to Oxford." Six eyebrows were 
 raised in question. "At his uncle's expense. Alton 
 generously relieves me of all anxiety in the matter." 
 
 When Lady Wraysbury found her voice, it was to 
 say " How do you account . . . ? " and break off. 
 
 "Account?" said Mrs. Alton from the door. 
 " Account ? " 
 
 Lady Wraysbury looked at her daughters. 
 
 "For the change," she said "the extraordinary 
 change." 
 
 Mrs. Alton steadied her nerves by shifting her cloak 
 from one arm to the other. 
 
 "What is extraordinary?" she asked. "Edmund is 
 his nearest relation. He decides, very generously, as I 
 say, to do something for him. I confess I did not feel 
 called upon to hesitate to accept his kindness." 
 
 The Miss Wraysburys were standing, as she told 
 herself, like stocks, stones, or stuck pigs, and she longed 
 to knock their heads together and shake them. 
 
 "It's not that," said Lady Wraysbury. "You do 
 perfectly right, and he does no more than he should ; 
 but it has always been thought that he well, resented 
 his brother's son being his heir. You see, having no 
 child of his own ; ; . and your son standing, as it were, 
 for what he lacked ; : . do you see? It was indeed 
 well known in the county no blame, of course, 
 attaching to your son, whose name they said his uncle 
 would not hear mentioned at Merringham. What he 
 did to the picture bore this out though the rights of 
 
136 Ube Successor 
 
 that affair never, I suppose, will be known. Still, there 
 it was: And now he makes provision for him ! Doesn't 
 it strike you as odd ? " 
 
 "No," said Mrs. Alton: "It strikes me as only 
 natural." 
 
 Lady Wraysbury shook her head. 
 
 "Something must have happened to change him," 
 she said. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MRS. ALTON heard of her brother-in-law's illness at the 
 moment of starting for London the next morning. The 
 Rookhampton footman, returning to the carriage after 
 seeing to the comfort of the departing guest, learnt the 
 news from the coachman, whom he found in conversation 
 with one of the Merringham grooms, and being a young 
 man of some intelligence, he hurried back to the plat- 
 form, where he was in time to acquaint Mrs. Alton with 
 the bare fact. 
 
 The train was then in motion. Mrs. Alton learnt that 
 Lord Alton had suffered a recurrence of the malady 
 which had attacked him in the summer of the year 
 before, and was lying unconscious at Merringham. 
 But that the train was moving she would have alighted, 
 and delayed her departure till she had learnt more. 
 As it was she had time but to send a message to the 
 Merringham servant to beg that particulars should be 
 telegraphed to Curzon Street, and was obliged to resign 
 herself to wait what news might reach her in London. 
 
 The journey seemed interminable. She wished Alton 
 no ill, and even prayed for his recovery ; but she was 
 only human, and flesh and blood, and the mother of 
 Edmund ... it was inevitable that she should at least 
 envisager all that it would mean if if Alton did not 
 recover. Never had Merringham seemed so fair an 
 inheritance. The sight of it had refreshed her memories, 
 and added impressions to the making of others. . . . 
 Edmund in the gardens ; Edmund calling his directions 
 
138 Ube Successor 
 
 to the many servants ; Edmund riding down the long 
 avenue. . . . 
 
 By the merciful ordering of things, and the cleverness 
 of the Rookhampton footman, she had the compartment 
 in which she travelled to herself. Little as she expressed 
 outwardly the commotion into which her feelings had 
 been stirred, she could hardly have borne the presence 
 of curious eyes. Was freedom coming at last? So 
 long had she been a prisoner ; so long strive as she 
 would that he should not feel it had held Edmund 
 bound with her chains. Was a wider life coming at 
 last? She could, she knew, have looked her boy's 
 father in the face and said she had fought a good 
 fight. Edmund one of these days, if as yet he was too 
 young to realise it to the full, would know it too. Nor 
 had she complained. But oh, Merringham ! Was her 
 son indeed to come to the heritage of his fathers ? 
 
 She held her breath for a moment and closed her eyes. 
 Then resolutely she tried to put the thought from 
 her. Alton would recover. He was not an old man, if 
 marriage had played so frequent a part in his life ! It 
 was this, the number of his wives, that inclined one to 
 think his years more than they were. He was hardly 
 elderly even had not had his share of life or his full 
 " turn." Why should he die ? He would not die. She 
 did not wish him ill ; indeed, she did not. Merringham 
 was his. None else might dispose of it even in thought. 
 Many years must be wished him in which to enjoy his 
 own only ultimately Edmund. . . . 
 
 But if he did die ! . . . So, in spite of herself, did she 
 see her thoughts work round to the thought of thoughts. 
 
 She tried to imagine what was passing at Merring- 
 ham. Alton had fallen ill the night before, and was 
 still unconscious. Was it possible to conceive of Lady 
 Alton in a sick-room? By now nurses would have 
 
TTbe Successor 139 
 
 been sent for, and Balderton perhaps summoned from 
 wherever she was spending her holiday. Alton would 
 scarcely, she fancied, be patient as a patient. She could 
 picture him irritable, self-willed, intolerant of restraint. 
 Hazarding a guess at the nature of his ailment 
 apoplexy ? the breaking of a blood-vessel ? paralysis ? 
 (interchangeable terms, perhaps) she wondered what 
 news the passing of the hours would bring her. 
 
 The train bore her onwards. She had books with 
 her, but could not read just yet. A large bunch of 
 flowers was in the rack, over her head, and, opposite to 
 her, and where it caught her eye from time to time, a 
 huge bundle of evergreens with which the elder Miss 
 Wraysbury, who meant so well and was so tiresome, 
 had insisted on encumbering her. She did not look 
 back over the past few days with pleasure. Rook- 
 hampton had never been an ideal house for a visit, and 
 her hostess upon this occasion had seemed more than 
 ordinarily trying. Yet she was glad she had gone. 
 Had not a reconciliation been effected with her 
 relations ? and was not Edmund assured his three years 
 at Oxford ? 
 
 She had been provided with an ample lunch many 
 more sandwiches than she could possibly eat to say 
 nothing of cake and a flask of wine, or wine and water, 
 but London was almost reached before she bethought 
 her of eating. When she did break her fast, a few 
 mouthfuls sufficed her. 
 
 She was a capable traveller, and, arrived at her 
 journey's end, it was not long before she had claimed 
 her luggage and was rattling in the excruciatingly noisy 
 cab of those days towards home. The shivering and 
 the chattering of the glass drowned thought even. 
 
 She had set out in fine weather, but London was 
 enveloped in a thin, drizzling mist. The streets looked 
 
i4o ttbe Successor 
 
 wet and cheerless. Hurrying umbrellas reflected on 
 their shining surfaces blurred lights from the lamp- 
 posts and shops. Policemen in their capes looked 
 unspeakably dreary. Half a mile from Curzon Street 
 a cab-runner, soaked and miserable, spied her and 
 began to follow. There was no luggage that her 
 servants could not between them have carried into the 
 house, but hearing in imagination his laboured breathing 
 and the splashing of his broken boots through the mud, 
 she had not the heart to have him sent away. 
 
 Her servants gave her welcome, and a bright fire in the 
 small drawing-room and the tea that was ready for her 
 a few minutes later served somewhat to raise her spirits. 
 Yet she was shaken and unsettled. The telegram had 
 been her first thought, and no telegram awaited her. 
 They were sure ? They were quite sure. Nothing had 
 come but what letters had been forwarded. A few 
 circulars that had not seemed worth sending on were in 
 the dining-room, and that was all. 
 
 Her message might not have reached Merringham at 
 all, or might have been overlooked in the general 
 upheaval that serious illness makes in a house. The 
 Rookhampton footman in the hurry of the moment 
 might not have understood her. Against this his 
 " Very good, 'm " sounded clearly in her ears. Lady 
 Alton chose to keep her waiting, perhaps. 
 
 Doubt renewed her perplexities of the past year and 
 of yesterday. The news of Lord Alton's illness, with all 
 that its possible issue involved, had put every other 
 thought from her mind. Now the misgivings which 
 her kinsman, chuckling, and on the verge of his sickness, 
 had prophesied for her, began once more to assail her. 
 The mother of Edmund was indeed oddly changed 
 from the " caustic lady " who was said to have laughed 
 . . to have let drop a whimsical sarcasm or two . . 
 
ttbe Successor 14* 
 
 to have sharpened a sharp wit on a sensitive hone. . . . 
 With her brother-in-law's promised thousand pounds 
 she spent an uneasy evening so uneasy, indeed, that 
 despite all that she had to tell to Edmund, she put off 
 writing to him till the next day. The morning surely 
 would bring news from Merringham. 
 
 The morning came. Long before she was called 
 she was awake, and listening for the postman's knock 
 along the street. It was later, she thought, than usual, 
 but at last she heard it. The sharp rat-tat sounded 
 from door to door. It was opposite now. That was 
 Lady Boscombe's heavy dolfin ; that, the new Lord 
 Tantamont's brass Mercury. Now the postman was 
 crossing the road. He was next door but one. How 
 long he was there the servants delaying him, probably, 
 at the area railings as he passed. He was next door. 
 He ... she listened intently, almost persuading herself 
 that she could hear his steps . . . was next door on the 
 other side. There was no letter. 
 
 Indignation held her for a time. For immediate ease 
 she wrote out a telegram (wording it carefully, however, 
 that it might bear no trace of her annoyance), and 
 despatched it before she left her room. She calculated 
 that she might expect an answer by noon. Then she 
 breakfasted, and went about her household duties. 
 
 Smaller than ever seemed the little .house that 
 morning, and greater than ever the number of things it 
 needed. That it wanted to be " done up " she had known 
 for a long time. The wall papers were faded, the paint 
 was discoloured. These things must wait. There were 
 matters that asked present attention. Something in the 
 kitchen range had gone amiss in her absence, and must 
 be seen to, and in the night there had been a small 
 leakage from the roof, where yesterday's rain, it would 
 seem, had found out a weak spot. Mrs. Alton gave the 
 
M2 ttbe Successor 
 
 necessary orders. Oh, to know nothing of ranges and 
 roofs ! That was a thought that could be, and was, put 
 from her. 
 
 She began her letter to Edmund. She would keep it 
 open, she wrote, for what news might come of his uncle, 
 but meanwhile must let him know the results of her 
 visit. She came to the point at once, and told him of 
 his uncle's generosity. She had hardly hoped for an 
 issue so satisfactory. He would know the feelings with 
 which she had heard the proposal, and the joy it was to 
 her that this good thing should be in prospect for him. 
 But to Edmund she need put no curb on her pen. 
 Something of her old smile played presently round her 
 lips and her eyes as she wrote of her visit : of Fido ; the 
 Mason; airs, elegances, graces. "Sumpshus" alone 
 had been worth going to hear. "'Sumpshus' (I 
 spell it," she wrote, " as it was spoken), ' Sumpshus ' 
 would have delighted your ears tickled them as it 
 tickled mine ! ' Inopportunate ' was less delicious, 
 savouring more of a conceivable correctness. But I 
 wish you could have heard." 
 
 She gave her humour play for a few lines, becoming 
 more like her old self as she did so. Her pen moved 
 rapidly, making a perceptible and not unpleasant sound 
 in the room. The light falling directly upon her, and 
 revealing more grey perhaps in the neat braidings of the 
 orderly hair than one would have expected to find 
 there, illumined a fine type of Englishwoman. Edmund 
 might be proud of his mother. 
 
 Noon came, but no news. All the afternoon she 
 waited. She kept her letter open till the last moment, 
 and had to post it without adding the bulletin she had 
 thought to receive. More waiting. It was demoralising ! 
 She lost the look of her type. 
 
 Not till seven o'clock was there heard the sound of 
 
ttbe Successor 143 
 
 the knock and the ring for which all day she had listened 
 in vain. A telegram was brought to her. She controlled 
 the annoyance she felt towards the dilatory sender and 
 opened the envelope quietly. 
 
 " Seriously ill," she read in the unpunctuated lines, 
 "London doctors sent for no change." 
 
 Mrs. Alton said, " Poor Edward ! poor Edward ! " and 
 once more wished him better as sincerely as might be, 
 but in spite of her, her heart leapt. 
 
 An almost overwhelming wish to have Edmund with 
 her had to be resisted. She began indeed to compose a 
 telegram asking that he should be allowed leave of 
 absence ... on urgent family family what? business? 
 it was scarcely that . . . and only when she found a 
 difficulty in formulating a reason that should not, in the 
 light of anything that might happen, be committal, did 
 she so far abandon the idea as to tear up what she had 
 written. Yet when all was considered, why should she 
 resist . . . abandon the thought ? Why, after all, should 
 she not have him with her ? Were schools, with their 
 rules and regulations, an end, pray, or a means ? She 
 stretched out her hand for another form, but withdrew 
 it in fine, without taking the piece of paper from its place 
 in the rack. Words she could find, of course, in which to 
 express her wish, and Edmund, equally of course, would, 
 if she desired it, be allowed to come to her ; but what 
 would be effected by precipitancy ? She, it was true, 
 would have the satisfaction of her son's company, with 
 the consequent outlet for feelings that were indeed 
 somewhat overwrought, but he, on the other hand (if to 
 no better " purpose" than this she could trust herself!) 
 would of a surety see his mother in a new light ! Mrs. 
 Alton, unstrung as she might be, knew herself well 
 enough to perceive that her present state did her 
 grave injustice. 
 
144 tlbe Successor 
 
 Lord Alton at Merringham, sick perhaps unto death, 
 but knowing what he knew, would have chuckled, we 
 may suppose, could he have seen then into the poor 
 lady's heart ! 
 
 The morrow found her still wishing for her boy, but 
 glad she had held her hand. She was more sure of 
 herself, and could view foolishness with a sort of good- 
 humoured and tolerant contempt. A telegram from 
 Merringham brought a slightly better account. Lord 
 Alton was conscious. 
 
 She wrote to Lady Alton, and we treat her with but 
 common fairness in not questioning the honesty of her 
 sentiments. She hoped Alton was not suffering ; that 
 even as she wrote he was better, and that by the time 
 her letter reached Merringham he might be in such a 
 reassuring condition as to allay all anxiety. She would 
 be watching for accounts of him. Would her sister-in-law 
 have her kept informed of his progress ? 
 
 Thus and thus did she write ; and waited. 
 
 She wrote again to Edmund, and then to Lady 
 Wraysbury; and waited. 
 
 Visitors called. She denied herself to them ; and 
 waited. The sense of so doing was exceedingly dis- 
 agreeable to her. To fill the empty hours, she devised 
 work for herself, and sewed away at a pair of curtains 
 she had begun to make some time before for Edmund's 
 room. The orchids of a recent memory was it only 
 two days ago that she had walked and talked with the 
 owner of them ? got between her and the stuff. Some- 
 thing not unlike an orchid was, she saw, to be traced in 
 its pattern. She had not observed this before. 
 
 Late in the afternoon came another telegram. The 
 improvement in Lord Alton's condition was maintained. 
 He had even been able to transact some business with 
 his lawyers. 
 
Successor us 
 
 Mrs. Alton received the news with something like 
 relief. He was better \ was going to recover. Indeed, 
 she was glad for him, and for herself glad too, so 
 demoralising had been the uncertainties of the last 
 forty-eight hours. She had gone through a humiliating 
 experience ; learned something of herself at close 
 quarters. Indeed she was glad. Relieved. She had 
 thrown off a burden too heavy for her. Thankful. 
 So she reasoned. 
 
 It was not for some moments that the second piece 
 of information in the telegram arrested her attention. 
 Why was she told that Lord Alton had transacted 
 business with his lawyers ? That the extent of the 
 improvement might be manifest ? Thus she had read 
 at the first and second readings. Subsequent readings 
 led to others and other. She was puzzled as perhaps 
 it was intended that she should be puzzled. 
 
 A brisk walk helped to dispel useless speculations, 
 and a chance encounter with an acquaintance, showing 
 her that busybodies were already agog at the news of 
 the day as it might be supposed to affect her and hers, 
 braced her finely. Some of the papers that morning 
 had, it seemed, regretted to learn that Lord Alton de 
 Merringham lay dangerously ill, and so on. Mrs. 
 Alton, scenting inquisitiveness under enquiry, was glad 
 to be able to give the better account of her illustrious 
 relation. She thought the seriousness of his illness had 
 been exaggerated. She had seen him but a couple of 
 days ago, and had never known him to look better. 
 
 So Mrs. Alton, annoyance (tempered by amusement) 
 helping. 
 
 She chose the other side of Oxford Street after that 
 for her walk, and measured the length, not ungratefully, 
 of several long and straight streets. 
 
 A letter from Rookhampton reached her that night, 
 
M6 TTbe Successor 
 
 It told her, with much underlining and many words, a 
 few details of Lord Alton's illness not, indeed, much 
 more than she knew or had guessed. 
 
 But there was that between the lines which it was 
 not difficult to read. " You are much in our thoughts." 
 " We are so glad to think you have the satisfaction of 
 having seen Lord Alton so lately." "Rely on us to 
 keep you in our minds at this sad time." Rook- 
 hampton, too, was agog, a-cock, a-twitter. As she read 
 she could fancy the chirping. A room in which two or 
 three Wraysburys were gathered together was at any 
 time like a cage of hen canaries. 
 
 "Well, well! well, well!" said the tried lady. 
 " However, he is going to recover. . . ." 
 
 So Mrs. Alton, in Curzon Street. . , . 
 
 But this was as nearly as possible the moment at 
 Merringham when Balderton, silent and still in the 
 silent room, was struck by the silence and stillness. 
 She was alone with her master just then, Berners 
 having gone off duty, and Lady Alton having betaken 
 herself for rest to the sofa in her boudoir. There were 
 no trained nurses (there Mrs. Alton's imagination had 
 been at fault) no hospital women, as it had pleased 
 Lord Alton to call them. Why should there be? 
 Berners on the spot could lift and was handy as a 
 sailor ; Balderton, hastily summoned, was at her post 
 at a few hours' notice. The doctors, in deference to 
 the patient's known prejudice, had sanctioned the 
 arrangement. Lord Alton had seemed better all day 
 notably since the visit of the solicitor, who had been 
 summoned at a demand that was not to be gainsaid, 
 and who had taken certain instructions, the execution 
 of which Lord Alton had refused to see delayed by so 
 much as an hour. Contentment and calm succeeded on 
 
Successor 147 
 
 this excitement. The doctors had seen him recently, 
 were satisfied, would see him at intervals through the 
 night. He was resting, and was to rest. 
 
 At nine o'clock the great room was in the dusk of 
 firelight and of a single lamp turned low. Silence held 
 the room not, as it seemed, the breathless silence of 
 impending storm, but a silence in which grave thoughts 
 might travel far. From the bed came no sound ; from 
 the house but faint noises : the distant shutting of a 
 door many doors intervening to deaden it; a far-off 
 murmur of voices; Fido's little bark. Balderton thought 
 of days and a day, and what she knew and had known. 
 She without light to read or to work by could always 
 sit still. She would have deemed it strange indeed 
 if she could not have counted upon thoughts then for 
 company. The life that stretched evenly behind her 
 was accurately remembered accurately remembered, 
 also, so much of the lives of those with whom it had 
 brought her into contact as had come under her keen 
 eye. There was little that she had seen in the day of 
 her, that she had not seen to good purpose. 
 
 So still sat Balderton that only by the occasional 
 rustle of her silk apron as she moved her hands in her 
 lap, would her presence in the shadow have been 
 suspected. A watch ticking steadily from amongst the 
 medicine bottles on the polished table seemed suddenly 
 to tick loudly, more loudly, still more loudly. 
 Balderton's thoughts travelled back to the silence it 
 emphasized silence of which she herself was a part. 
 What silence ! It was some time since she had moved ; 
 some time since the fire had fallen in the grate ; some 
 time since her master had stirred in the bed. . . . 
 
 At noon the next day Mrs. Alton telegraphed for 
 Edmund. His uncle was dead. Legitimately now 
 
148 TTfoe Successor 
 
 might she send for him. He arrived in the evening 
 a tall boy, as we see him for the first time, and a 
 handsome boy; embodying, as has been said of him, 
 all that was best in the stock of which he came ; and 
 bearing a notable resemblance to the picture of his 
 father. 
 
 It was two days later that there was put into Mrs. 
 Alton's hands the letter which told her that at 
 Merringham a posthumous child was expected. 
 
BOOK II 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 FOR a considerable time after the birth of the solemn 
 but sturdy little fragment of humanity which came into 
 the world some months later, not the least abashed by 
 the honours and glories to which it found itself born, 
 Lady Alton, the mother, plaintive and interesting in 
 her weeds and her widowhood, but curiously nervous 
 and unstrung, seemed to derive solace and help from 
 the uncontrovertible fact that Lord Alton had died 
 happy. The phrase indeed "died happy," alternating 
 with " died content," and rounded or not by a tremulous 
 "at all events," was a phrase often on her lips. She 
 had spoken it in the early days to the doctors, to the 
 nurse, to Balderton, and (into the cradle itself) to the 
 little dimpled creature who had been christened Gundred 
 after many Gundreds, and was known to an interested 
 world from the moment of her appearance in it as the 
 Baroness Alton de Merringham. Later, speaking the 
 phrase with the sigh of one who has earned such con- 
 solations as circumstances may have to offer, she spoke 
 it less generally, perhaps, but whenever her husband 
 was mentioned. If he had not lived, it implied, to see 
 the embodiment of his hopes, at least he had not been 
 denied the knowledge that his hopes were in a fair way 
 to their realisation. She had thus, she appeared to be 
 arguing, much to be thankful for. She would rather, 
 perhaps, have had a son, but fortunately the prospective 
 sex of the infant had been a point as to which Lord 
 Alton could be almost unconcerned ; and she anyway 
 
i $2 Ube Successor 
 
 could not be said to have failed him. All was no doubt 
 for the best. 
 
 She clung to phrases : all was no doubt for the best ; 
 it was to be ; what would be would be ; we little knew 
 . . . and the like ; seeming to have need of even such 
 meagre support as words could give her. 
 
 To Balderton, moreover, who was interested but not 
 a little sceptical, the strange lady turned now as to a 
 friend. 
 
 "You'll never leave me, Balderton, will you?" she 
 said. " I like to have those about me who knew Lord 
 Alton. I have a horror of changes." 
 
 " I've lived long in this house, m' lady," said Balderton, 
 " longer than many would care to remember too long 
 not to know something of change. I have seen changes 
 in my time, and change too." 
 
 That's it," said Lady Alton; "that's what Lord 
 Alton said. The rest might come and go, 'but not 
 Balderton,' he said, 'but not Balderton.' He thought 
 of you as apart from the others. You, he said, were 
 attached to the house and the family. His lordship, 
 I may say, had a very high opinion of you." 
 
 Balderton bent her head. 
 
 "A very high opinion," said Lady Alton, "and he 
 was no ordinary judge. It was his wish that you should 
 stay with me. The wishes of the dead ..." she broke off. 
 " Oh, it's so strange to think that he's dead," she said. 
 
 She looked at Balderton helplessly. 
 
 "There, my lady, there!" Balderton said. "You 
 mustn't give way. If one has been taken, another has 
 been given in his place, There's baby to think of now 
 her ladyship the Baroness, I should say." 
 
 Lady Alton's lips trembled. 
 
 "It's only the thought of all I want to teach baby 
 that keeps me up," she said. " Children grow like what 
 
TTbe Successor 153 
 
 they are with, don't they? pictures, and people, and 
 even places. He believed that, I know." She lowered 
 her voice. " Before baby was born he told me to keep 
 my thoughts on the little fat cupids in my boudoir. I 
 thought one of them looked as if it were dead that 
 was what frightened me one day when I wasn't well 
 (Bonner might remember) ; but he laughed at me. He 
 told me to look at the rolls of fat on him, and the pink 
 in the creases. So you see he believed you could 
 mould them even before they were born, and I've read 
 of such things looking at statues, you know, to make 
 your baby good-looking, and not thinking of anything 
 disagreeable. It's a mystery, of course, but any nurse 
 could tell you. . . . Then how much more afterwards ! 
 A place like this couldn't help making its mark on a 
 child. I know that, and yet. . . . Oh, why must he go 
 and die . . . and . . . and desert me ? When I wanted 
 him most ! It was cruel ! cruel ! " 
 
 Lady Alton's feelings got the better of her, and 
 she burst into tears. Balderton, who had heard her 
 curiously, pondering, perhaps, the seeming inconse- 
 quence of her words, said dubiously : " There ! " again, 
 and " There ! ", as one who hears but hardly understands 
 the sobbing outburst of a child. Her mistress, she 
 thought, had made, after all, but a poor recovery. 
 
 " There," she said, " there! Baby couldn't be healthier. 
 Not for miles round would you see a finer child. What 
 you've gone through has upset you." 
 
 " I am upset. I never expected ... it seemed so 
 different then. It isn't fair. If I had known I should 
 be left like this. ... It has all fallen on me." 
 
 " Fallen on your ladyship ? " 
 
 " The responsibility. Sometimes I feel as if I could 
 hardly bear it." 
 
 "The responsibility?" said Balderton. 
 
i54 Ube Successor 
 
 "You'll help me, won't you?" Lady Alton spoke 
 wildly. " Won't you ? Won't you ? I feel sometimes 
 as if I must have someone to share it. . . ." 
 
 " The responsibility ? " said Balderton again. 
 
 Was her ladyship talking at random? Perhaps the 
 housekeeper's look expressed her thought, for her 
 mistress, catching her questioning eyes, seemed, with 
 an effort, to pull herself together. 
 
 " I'm all alone," she said querulously, and steadying 
 her trembling lips. "Of course I feel responsibility. 
 Everything's a responsibility. Look at this great house. 
 There's Mr. Linster, of course, but a woman looks to 
 a woman. Why do you look like that ? Oh, I know 
 what you mean ! That's all over. There was a time, 
 to be sure . . . but then I didn't understand you as I 
 do now. You can see for yourself that I do now. 
 Do I ever complain? Lord Alton explained to me 
 how you felt yourself to be part of the house. 
 He said your life was bound up with the life of the 
 family. I forget how he put it." 
 
 " His lordship knew I did my best. I've served the 
 family faithfully, I hope, up to now, and his lordship 
 knew it would be my wish to continue, please God, to do 
 so while there was an Alton to follow an Alton." 
 
 " I don't know why you should say that ! " said Lady 
 Alton sharply so sharply that Balderton would not 
 have been Balderton (always supposing her words to 
 have been innocent of any sinister intention) if she had 
 not sifted what she had said for its fancied offence. 
 Lady Alton heard her own sharpness. " I don't know, 
 I mean, why you should put it in that way," she said, in 
 a tone of vexed but gentle remonstrance. " You would 
 have stayed, do you mean, if my baby had not been 
 born ? Mr. Edmund is an Alton, you needn't remind 
 me of that. Who could forget it ? Not I. Not the 
 
Successor 155 
 
 boy's uncle. He made handsome provision. Mr. 
 Edmund, I may tell you, will be able to go to Oxford. 
 That gives him a start in life, and I daresay but we 
 must see what we must see. Of course Mr. Edmund's 
 an Alton. I don't forget it. No one knows better, but 
 it's not a time to remind me. I didn't expect it of 
 you." 
 
 " I'm sure I meant no harm, my lady. How could I ? 
 Isn't there the little Baroness upstairs in her cradle ? 
 Everyone knows it was his lordship's dearest wish to 
 have a child of his own." 
 
 Lady Alton's frown lifted. The tears were still on 
 her cheeks. 
 
 " He wished for a child. You know that, don't you ? 
 I always think his other the other Lady Altons had 
 disappointed him. One couldn't expect him to like to 
 make way for a stranger." 
 
 " Ah, not a stranger, m' lady," said Balderton, " his 
 own flesh and blood. An Alton, as your ladyship said 
 a moment ago. But naturally he would have liked 
 a son or a daughter to succeed him. There's the little 
 Baroness upstairs, as I say. So long as his lordship had 
 his wish, what cause can we have to repine ? " 
 
 Lady Alton disclaimed any repining. Her husband 
 had lived to know that he was to have what he 
 wished. 
 
 Which was but another way of saying that at any rate 
 he had died happy. 
 
 Balderton, we may be sure, went her way from such 
 talks with food for reflection. Truly, as she had said at 
 the outset of this one, she had seen changes and change. 
 An odd woman, Balderton ! How much she had meant, 
 how much she saw, or suspected, or knew, it would have 
 been difficult to guess from her manner. But we may 
 take it that little escaped her keen eye. 
 
156 TTbe Successor 
 
 Her mistress continued abnormal, fretting, sighing, 
 looking for support, and seeming for ever on the verge 
 of saying more than she said. For hours together she 
 would hover on the brink of tears. At such times she 
 would wander aimlessly from room to room, pulling up 
 or pulling down a blind, ringing a bell here and there to 
 order an unnecessary fire ; undecided, impatient, driven. 
 A poor recovery? Yet she had been up and about 
 sooner than any who knew her had expected. De- 
 servedly or not, she had a reputation a "name," as 
 we say for self-indulgence, and it had been looked 
 that an interesting illness would be stretched to the 
 utmost possible limits, and be followed by a protracted 
 convalescence. Instead, the invalid's progress from the 
 bed to the sofa, from the sofa to the arm-chair, from the 
 bedroom to the boudoir, and the house at large, was 
 rapid, to surprise you ! As lightly do the women of the 
 poor take such crises and uprise. Mrs. Henster, the 
 brown gipsy of the tumbledown cottage, and of Lord 
 Alton's curious and sudden generosity, brought to bed 
 of a brown boy at much the same time, was not sooner 
 on her feet again. But the poacher's wife up and stirring, 
 her baby slung round her, went her ways placidly 
 enough, suckling or shaking her child when it cried, 
 and knowing nothing of megrims or humours or nerves. 
 It was once Lady Alton had the use of her legs that her 
 restlessness and her weakness appeared. 
 
 People called. Sometimes she consented to see 
 them, making an effort, as she said ; sometimes, feel- 
 ing " unequal " to visitors, she did not. She drove or 
 did not drive, ordering and counter-ordering the carriage 
 in a way that unsettled the stables. There were wet 
 days, when she would have and keep the horses out for 
 the whole of a pouring afternoon ; balmy days of unex- 
 pected sunshine, when she would shut herself up in her 
 
ZTbe Successor 157 
 
 sitting-room, and refuse herself even to Gundred and 
 her nurses. 
 
 Who, said everyone, could have supposed her so much 
 attached to her husband ? Lord Alton, in his lifetime, 
 had been very estimable and all that, and, whatever his 
 personal attributes, had managed, it could not be denied, 
 to persuade no less than three ladies to link their fortunes 
 with his ; but, after all . . . ! Also, as mother of the 
 little Baroness, her position (she had been nobody before 
 she married, as everyone knew) was materially strength- 
 ened. Why, in the twinkling of an eye, so to speak, 
 and without the addition of a year to her age, she might 
 be said to have been advanced a whole generation. By 
 two stages now was the Mason of Liverpool behind her. 
 And then she was comparatively young, and a widow. 
 
 There were those who could have borne up in her 
 circumstances. 
 
 Well, well, that was an unusually long and depressing 
 winter. With bright intervals, but short and all too 
 rare, low skies frowned persistently on a chilled or 
 sodden earth. The year hung fire, lacking, it seemed, 
 like the lady herself, vital energies. The fields were 
 white when they should have been green ; tree and 
 shrub and hedgerow meagre when they should have 
 been bursting into leaf. There . were cold rains, part 
 sleet, part snow. After the rains came the mists. 
 When the mists went, it was to give place to east 
 winds. 
 
 But at last, two months late it was said, came the 
 spring, slowly at first and timidly, then with a rush of 
 green as the year changed. Without let or hindrance 
 the world unfolded. A few hours turned bare woods 
 into bowers. The spirit of youth was loosed and was 
 abroad. The birds were infected with it and sang. 
 The cuckoo was heard, and the voice of the turtle. 
 
i s ftbe Successor 
 
 The rooks had long since been busy in the elms, where 
 callow sounds mixed now with the hoarser cawings. 
 
 Lady Alton revived somewhat, and revived. There 
 came another change in the speaking of her phrase. 
 Lord Alton had died happy : it had been a supplication 
 at first. Hadn't he died happy ? A plea. Say he had 
 died happy. So in the earliest days. Then a protest : 
 Lord Alton had died happy. She was entitled to the 
 comfort of this knowledge. She would not be robbed 
 of her consolation. Thus in the second phase of her 
 phrase. In the third, to make an end of the matter, 
 Lord Alton had died happy and that was all about it ! 
 
 She seemed to pause and take breath. Had she 
 reasoned things out once for all? She was going to 
 withdraw from the contention ? Wash her hands of it ? 
 and of the blood of a just person ? The just person had 
 scarcely entered her thoughts. With him, at least, if 
 anyone had concern, it was the dead and not she. For 
 the rest, there were plenty of arguments. Some of them 
 she drew from the Marriage Service itself; some of them 
 even obversely, it is true, to meet the case from the 
 Bible. Had Rachel failed in magnanimity, or Leah, or 
 Sarai ? Had Jacob refused the sacrifice, or Abram ? A 
 greater sacrifice was here. Good gracious ! how much 
 greater! And was it hers, anyway, to think? since at 
 her marriage she had thrown in her lot with her husband. 
 The woman's desire was to her husband, and he should 
 rule over her. Her duty, then, was to him, alive or dead, 
 her obedience, her unquestioning allegiance. Lord 
 Alton, to whom she owed everything, had died happy. 
 What more was there to be said ? 
 
 Some such reasonings as these may be taken as 
 presenting generally the arguments with which she 
 calmed herself at this time, and together with an im- 
 proving health mind and body acting, indeed, and 
 
Ube Successor 159 
 
 reacting upon one another may be supposed to have 
 had their share in restoring her to something of her 
 normal appearance and demeanour. She felt herself 
 absolved ? It seemed so. She took heart and looked 
 about her. 
 
 Seeking interests, then, she found unfailing occupation 
 and entertainment in Gundred, who, a contemplative, 
 and in her fine embroideries a resplendent little creature, 
 began to usurp Fido's place in her arms. Gundred 
 ruminated ; Gundred turned solemn eyes on the world ; 
 Gundred broken into slow but wonderful smiles. Taking 
 most things for what they seemed, she clutched inquir- 
 ingly at her mother's elaborate hair, but was not shaken 
 nor chid. Her nurses were enraptured. They said that 
 mother and child made a picture to see. Lady Alton 
 was gratified. 
 
 " A picture," she said, " oh, well ; . . ! But it's you 
 are the picture, my darling, aren't you ? Look at her 
 little white hands ! " 
 
 "Just like your ladyship's own. Aren't her little 
 ladyship's hands like her ladyship's ? " 
 
 Lady Alton spread her fingers, glistening with rings, 
 and looked at them complacently. 
 
 " Baby's have dimples. Yes, I daresay mine had too 
 when I was little. And baby's wrists have dear little 
 creases. Mother must kiss them. Oh, baby ! mother's 
 poor nose ! Little precious ! " 
 
 And then it was Gundred's little feet. 
 
 " This little pig went to market," said one nurse. 
 
 " This little pig stayed at home," said the other. 
 
 "And this little pig," said Lady Alton, "this little 
 pig . . . after all, women were made to have children. I've 
 always wanted a child. That's what has ailed me all 
 this time, I believe" forgetting that she had ailed 
 most since her infant's birth. 
 
160 ZTbe Successor 
 
 The nurses agreed in chorus. That was it. Women 
 were meant to be mothers. Great ladies were not 
 exempt from the universal plan. A woman's life, 
 gentle's or simple's, was incomplete till it embraced 
 motherhood. 
 
 "Your ladyship will be as happy again," said one 
 nurse. 
 
 " Twice as happy," said the other. 
 
 Lady Alton looked at her crdpe. " In time, perhaps," 
 she said. 
 
 But already she was changing and changed. She 
 now took her place in Gundred's little life, and gave 
 Gundred a place in her own. She rustled into the 
 nursery twenty times a day, and rarely drove out 
 without the child and one of her nurses. It became 
 her delight to learn the mysteries of the baby 
 toilet of the bath, the dressing, the putting to bed. 
 She showed an aptness in these things that was 
 even a little surprising, and she was patient, considerate, 
 understanding. 
 
 Thus it was, paradoxical as it may seem, that the 
 hardening of her heart was coincident with its 
 softening. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THAT Lady Alton searched her child's face constantly 
 did not escape one observant as Balderton who 
 indeed, when occasion offered, did not scan it herself 
 with less assiduity. 
 
 Lady Alton would take Gundred's face between her 
 hands and, looking deeply into her eyes, search them 
 as if for a secret. She would examine her features, 
 scrutinising them closely, as a botanist the characteristics 
 of some plant he seeks to classify. She would hold 
 long conversations with the nurses upon children's 
 ways in relation to their parentage. At what age did 
 they begin to display inherited traits? Lord Alton 
 had had a habit of wrinkling up his forehead. It made 
 lines, and was thus not wholly to be approved. Still, 
 did the nurses think that the little Baroness puckering 
 her face for tears, or screwing up her eyes, when 
 washings were the order of the moment, promised to 
 reproduce it ? All children, the nurses declared, twisted 
 their faces (bless their little hearts !) at such moments. 
 No, they did not think her ladyship need be under any 
 apprehension. Baby was going to be a beauty, there 
 was no doubt about that. Lady Alton hastened to 
 deprecate what was nevertheless well-meant. It was 
 they who misapprehended. A mother would wish her 
 child to resemble its father. It was only that his 
 lordship might be said to have spoilt his forehead 
 lined it before its time, and she would not, of course, 
 like baby to do that. She herself (Lady Alton), had 
 
 161 L 
 
163 Ube Successor 
 
 hardly a line, had she? To be sure, she had no right to 
 any yet, but still There ! Baby was putting her 
 hand to her mouth. Did they see? Lord Alton, she 
 had often noticed, used to bring his well, to his chin 
 and stroke it when he lost himself in thought. Baby 
 really did begin to reproduce what you might call 
 traits, didn't she? though in actual face she promised 
 to be much more like her mother. 
 
 " I should like her to have my figure," she said, " and 
 Lord Alton's distinguished manner. Lord Alton was 
 not tall, but he had great distinction. Baby will be 
 darker than either of us, I think. But there have been 
 many dark Altons. So curious the way the colours 
 come out again and again ! Lord Alton's father had 
 black hair, I believe, and Lord Alton's was almost 
 sandy. Baby's, I should think, would be nut brown. 
 That's what I should like it to be, though I'm so fair 
 myself." 
 
 The nurses agreed with whatever she said, declaring 
 Gundred the image of this picture or that. Now it was 
 to Terence Alton that the child's mother suggested, 
 and the nurses found, a resemblance for her; now to 
 John, the cavalier in the hall of widely different type ; 
 now to a former Gundred. 
 
 In their zeal, on a day they found her like the late 
 Lord Alton's first wife the Andover, Victoria Gwynedd, 
 whose portrait stood on an easel in one of the drawing- 
 rooms ! That, however, as Lady Alton pointed out, 
 could hardly be. An ace only saved them then from 
 giving her the eyes or the nose of the Redruth of 
 Angerstown, whose photograph in a Dolly Varden hat 
 and a grenadine " polonaise" was upon a table near by. 
 So evidently just then were likenesses for the baby their 
 mistress's craze. 
 
 Balderton, somewhat aloof from the rest of the 
 
Successor 163 
 
 household, looked on. She went about her business 
 alertly on small flat feet, arranging, directing, con- 
 trolling, making the work of the day to go as on 
 oiled wheels, and keeping her own counsel. Or like 
 a little dark spider in the corner of her web, or 
 a queen-regent in her watch-tower, she sat in her 
 room and thence issued orders and ruled. Nothing 
 escaped her. Without encouraging gossip rebuking it, 
 indeed, in her subordinates, as we have seen she yet 
 knew all that went on outside the four walls of her 
 domain proper. She knew when it was Terence Alton 
 that Gundred was supposed to resemble ; when John 
 the cavalier ; when Gundred of the White Hand. The 
 time came when she had her own opinion as to whom 
 it was that the child resembled. That, however, was 
 not yet, and meanwhile she sniffed to herself over the 
 nurses' enthusiasms. What did they know of the past 
 glories of the house ? New-comers themselves, they 
 took people naturally at their own valuations. To 
 them Lady Alton de Merringham was Lady Alton de 
 Merringham. What standard had they to judge her 
 by? 
 
 So Balderton then not that she was antagonistic 
 exactly to the curious mistress she served. She com- 
 mitted herself to neither approval or disapproval. Her 
 attitude was rather that of one who sits on a fence. 
 Time was when, if she had seen Mrs. Alton, she would 
 have discussed the lady and the situation freely and by the 
 light of her minute observations. Now she was content 
 to observe in silence. Lady Alton talked to her, asked 
 her opinion upon this and that, consulted her, smiled on 
 her, but seemed no longer on the verge of making con- 
 fidences. She appeared to have passed a stage in the 
 history of her needs, and, like the housekeeper herself 
 to be self-sufficing. She had now a gracious word for 
 
164 Ube Successor 
 
 everyone. William even, her arch-critic, began to 
 reconsider her. She had, he said generously, her good 
 points. 
 
 Meanwhile, the first rigours of mourning being over, 
 a few people were asked to tea " quietly " at 
 Merringham. Gundred, jumping and jerking in her 
 nurse's arms, played a prominent part on these 
 occasions. As her veils in the days of her 'more 
 elaborate robing had been lifted proudly for her 
 display to interested eyes, so now would ritual attend 
 her presentation. She would be sent for with many 
 ceremonies. If she were sleeping, she was not to be 
 waked, and so forth, and so on. Or, the day being fine 
 enough for the garden, she would come on to the scene 
 in her perambulator, which had a white silk awning, 
 C-springs, and was fashioned in the semblance of a 
 swan, aad there would be a grouping round her as of 
 pilgrims about a shrine. 
 
 Lady Alton, who contrived to give the air of 
 ceremonial to the occasion, and to invest its smallest 
 circumstance with pomp and rite, spoke of the baby 
 as "her little ladyship," or "the little Baroness" 
 giving her not infrequently the whole of her Alton de 
 Merringham ! and called her a Sacred Charge. 
 
 "We are all expected to bow down and worship," 
 wrote the elder Miss Wraysbury to Curzon Street. 
 "I am bound to confess that most of us do. The 
 sweetest little thing you ever saw if only she isn't 
 spoiled, as she is quite certain to be directly she is able 
 to understand the fuss that is made of her. Mamma 
 says it is quite ridiculous. There was never, she says, 
 this fuss made of either of its. Lady Alton if you 
 could see her! treats her (the baby, I mean) like 
 royalty She not the baby, but your sister-in-law 
 
TTfoe Successor 165 
 
 is in crpe from head to foot. One has to admit that it 
 is very becoming to her, but I fancy it must be generally 
 thought to be a little overdone. Such very deep 
 mourning, and then her hair in such sharp contrast ! 
 Mamma, I know, though she does not say so, thinks 
 golden hair quite unsuitable for a widow. Her own, 
 as you know, has been grey ever since dear papa was 
 taken from us, and she gave up using Mrs. Page. One 
 does admire consistency. You, dear Mrs. Alton, are 
 much in our thoughts." 
 
 But talk as people might, raise their eyebrows, or 
 laugh in their sleeves, they went to Merringham 
 readily, and with a pleasant sense of expectancy. Nor 
 did they come away disappointed. Lady Alton, if she 
 was regarded somewhat in the light of a raree-show, 
 had taken a firm hold on the local imagination. From 
 having been overlooked in the life of her husband as 
 far as might be without actual slight to Lord Alton 
 himself she bid fair to take her place as one of 
 account in the neighbourhood. The company of the 
 small fry was always to be had for the asking, but 
 now "personages," the elect, those of the inner circle 
 of the county who, in other days, had left perfunctory 
 cards, or none, sought her out, and manifested an 
 interest in her existence. The shire's one duchess, 
 her Grace of Middlesex, paid a visit of curiosity. 
 Lady Abbotswood and the Ladies Camlet, Jane and 
 Jessica, drove over from Broadhanger. Lady Henry 
 Witton-Wilson said that she and Lady Alton must 
 see more of each other. And Pandora, Lady Winstaple, 
 who never went anywhere, and had ceased calling upon 
 Lord Alton's wives after the death of the second, 
 saying when she heard of a third that she could not 
 keep up with them, descended upon Merringham in 
 
166 tTbe Successor 
 
 state, and with a gift for Gundred in her august 
 hand. 
 
 Lady Winstaple's visit was the visit of visits, though 
 at the outset, by some momentary misunderstanding, 
 it promised badly. How or why, who shall say ? An 
 abrupt manner perhaps took the baby's elegant mother 
 aback, for to her visitor's " I, you see, know all about 
 her," she turned a blank face, while, instead of respond- 
 ing with the genial civility which the occasion seemed 
 to demand, she gave a little exclamation which seemed 
 indeed to be jerked from her. 
 
 " Her father . . ." began the visitor and paused, 
 thinking something amiss. 
 
 " What about him ? " said Lady Alton, with stiffening 
 lips. 
 
 " If you don't know it, I may tell you that I knew 
 him well." 
 
 " You knew . . ." began Lady Alton. 
 
 " I knew him well," said Lady Winstaple. " I go 
 further than that. I knew not only her father, but her 
 father's father all about her, you see, as I began by 
 saying." 
 
 Lady Alton seemed tongue-tied. Her flow of 
 careful commonplace failed her. 
 
 " And that," said Lady Winstaple, who was thinking 
 that never had she met anyone so extraordinary " and 
 that is naturally more than can be said even of her 
 mother." 
 
 Lady Alton sat, as the visitor expressed it to herself, 
 like a stuck pig. 
 
 Lady Winstaple snorted. 
 
 " One of 'em," she said shortly, "was dead, wasn't he ? 
 before you were born or thought of; and as for me, I'm 
 old enough to remember the Flood." 
 
 What it was that had exercised Lady Alton, Lady 
 
tbe Successor 167 
 
 Winstaple did not know, but she broke into sudden 
 smiles, and with " To be sure ! To be sure ! " (though 
 that was scarcely, perhaps, the right response to her 
 visitor's gratuitous admission of years), changed her 
 manner completely. Extraordinary creature! It was 
 well to have been prepared for surprises, it seemed, on 
 this visit of inspection. As Lady Alton had been 
 tongue-tied, now was she expansive. More, she was 
 cordiality itself. 
 
 Lady Winstaple knew not what to make of her, but 
 was diverted, and not sorry she had called. 
 
 Gundred was sent for and presented to her, and 
 her gift coral and silver bells presented to 
 Gundred. 
 
 " You who knew so many of my husband's family," 
 Lady Alton said, "which of them do you think she 
 resembles ? " 
 
 " It's early days for likenesses," said the old woman ; 
 " those will come out by-and-by." 
 
 " My husband," said Lady Alton, " was quite different 
 in looks from the rest of the family. Likenesses are 
 strange things, are they not ? We think her much more 
 like some of the pictures." 
 
 Lady Winstaple stayed for more than an hour, so we 
 may suppose her visit, however it began, to have afforded 
 her entertainment of sorts. 
 
 " You mustn't," she said, when she rose to go " you 
 mustn't visit my sins of omission upon me. I never, as 
 I daresay they've told you, go anywhere. Moreover, 
 bear with me if I confess that I lost patience with 
 with someone who I see now knew his own business 
 best. It was none of mine, anyway. You gave him 
 a beautiful child, which is what my two poor friends 
 couldn't do for him. He would have been proud of 
 her." 
 
i6& TObe Successor 
 
 " He er he died happy," said Lady Alton, 
 
 Lady Winstaple went her way smiling. Report 
 had not misrepresented Lady Alton the " Paris 
 diamond," the " barmaid in weeds " but after all 
 . . . and was not that, in fine, what she had come 
 out for to see ? Rolling Lady Alton upon her tongue, 
 she drove home to her hill-top. 
 
 Lady Alton, on her part, when the hall-door had 
 closed upon her visitor, laid her hand over her heart 
 and said, " Oh, my goodness ! " with eyes to the ceiling. 
 She was thinking perhaps of the momentary " awkward- 
 ness " which had marked the beginning of the visit, and 
 wondering what she could have been about so to lose 
 the use of her tongue. Presently, however, the signifi- 
 cance of the visit itself began to occupy her, and soon 
 to outweigh other considerations whatever these may 
 have been. Lord Alton would have been gratified. 
 The Old Woman of the Hill had called on her. She 
 saw the county at her feet. 
 
 She looked forward. At the end of a year she would 
 be able to see a little society, go out "quietly," of 
 course give and accept informal invitations ; at the 
 end of two she might entertain. 
 
 She had Gundred brought to her, and sent the nurses 
 away. 
 
 " Everything will be for you, my heart's joy," she 
 said. " I make you my life's end and object as you 
 were his end and object . . . attained, mind you 1 
 Attained, you little funny thing you ! Attained ! do 
 you hear me ? Never, I don't believe, was anyone so 
 ardently desired. Never, do you know that? Why, 
 they speak of the wish being father to the thought, 
 don't they? You were the Thought. He was the 
 Wish, then, in all conscience. If you were the 
 Thought, my goodness, who else was the Wish? 
 
Ube Successor 169 
 
 Isn't it simple enough, when you look at it reason- 
 ably ? As simple as simple. As simple as mother's 
 little innocent here. So mother's got no responsi- 
 bility but baby. Mother didn't see that at first, and 
 was very, very unhappy. But now it's all been made 
 plain to her, and she sees her duty as clear as clear. 
 As clear as clear she sees it, and you are her sacred 
 charge." 
 
 The Wish and the Thought ! A travesty (in sound, 
 at least) of such juggling with words as Lord Alton 
 himself in certain moods used to delight in. 
 
 Gundred took all solemnly. Everything, everyone, 
 was for contemplation to her wondering eyes. She 
 turned grave looks upon her nurses, the other servants, 
 Fido, the nursery lamp, and all shining things; and 
 regarding her mother not less intently than that 
 curious person regarded her, indulged no doubt in 
 much interesting speculation concerning her. She 
 broke now into one of her wonderful smiles. 
 
 Lady Alton kissed her, and carried her over to an 
 easel on which stood a portrait in crayons of Lord 
 Alton. 
 
 " The first word your little lips are to speak is 
 'Father,' my darling ' Father.' It'll be a long time, 
 of course, before you can say it ; but ' Father/ do 
 you see ? ' Father.' " She pointed to the picture. 
 " Daddy, dad-dee." 
 
 She went over to the mantelpiece and took down a 
 photograph, waving it before Gundred's round eyes. 
 
 " Daddy," she said again. " Daddy dad-dee." 
 
 She took up a miniature and repeated the words. 
 Then she carried Gundred round the house, showing 
 her the Alton ancestors one by one, and pointing out 
 to her in what particulars she might be said to resemble 
 them. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 MRS. ALTON in Curzon Street had bowed her head 
 with sufficiently good grace to the inevitable. She did 
 not repine, beat her head against the bars, nor after the 
 birth of Gundred seek to relieve her feelings by giving 
 breath to such smallnesses as "smuggled infant" in 
 reference to her, " baby of the warming pan," " impostor/' 
 " interloper," or what else might suggest itself to the 
 embittered or the disappointed. Embittered indeed she 
 was not. Disappointed ? She was Edmund's mother, 
 and would have acknowledged unreservedly to dis- 
 appointment. But the hours of uncertainty over, with 
 their exasperating complement of petty humiliation, she 
 had risen up undiscomfited stronger maybe for the 
 knowledge they had given her. She had been proud of 
 Edmund. The recollection of ten minutes of boyish 
 feeling given boyish reign she treasured for what had 
 succeeded them. Edmund (it was a revelation to her) 
 had been conscious of the chains that held him. One of 
 the natural consequences of her effort to give him his fair 
 start in the race of life. Had she not placed him handi- 
 capped by want of means amongst the unhandicapped ? 
 She became aware in those ten minutes of what he had 
 kept from her. Still, for the sake of the qualities that 
 showed themselves, when the first smart was over, she 
 would not have wished things otherwise. If the dis- 
 cipline had been severe it had not been lost on him. 
 She saw her boy ready to face life for himself. 
 
 Edmund, in truth, had not looked to dead men's shoes. 
 170 
 
tEbe Successor 171 
 
 Merringham had been no more to him than the symbol 
 of a state of well-being, into which in the very distant 
 future it might be his lot to step. He spoke of it as 
 little as might be, and had never indulged in vague 
 allusions to the position in which he stood with regard 
 to it. Till the week of his uncle's last illness, when the 
 possible, looming suddenly big out of the darkness, had 
 come so close as to speak to call itself the probable, 
 the assured, the accomplished even he had hardly 
 given his potential inheritance serious thought. Not 
 his mother only had felt that week to be demoralising. 
 Carefully as she had written, her restlessness had com- 
 municated itself to him, who so seldom was restless, and 
 what was to be expected had happened. He had hurried 
 up to London, supposing himself one thing when he was 
 another. For two days he had been allowed to suppose 
 . . . and was so heartily ashamed of himself ! 
 
 What he had seen in his forty-eight hours' imaginary 
 reign I cannot tell you. Freedom, scope, a clear horizon; 
 so much we may guess. He may have remodelled the 
 house and the stables, planted, cut timber, shot, hunted, 
 fished ; wild horses would not have dragged this from 
 him. While his mourning was being made, and, with 
 his mother he had waited further tidings, there had been 
 time and to spare for such mental exercises. He was 
 not idle, we may be sure. He asked an occasional 
 question. There were trout (for example) in the stream? 
 There used to be. His uncle did not fish but his uncles 
 and his father had been keen fishermen. No doubt there 
 were trout. 
 
 " Your uncle has made great improvements." 
 
 " This house looks so shabby," he said cheerfully, out 
 of a silence. 
 
 It had " done " well enough, Mrs. Alton said, implying 
 maybe that it had served its purpose. She was glad to 
 
172 ZTbe Successor 
 
 have had nice things pictures, china, The walls, after 
 all, were well covered. 
 
 " Mother ! " Edmund said more than once, with a long 
 breath and shining eyes, and half laughing for very 
 excitement. " Oh, mother ! " 
 
 She knew so well what was in his mind. Afterwards 
 she was glad that some things had not been put into 
 words. 
 
 " There are a lot of people," he said, out of another 
 teeming silence " a lot of people who have been most 
 awfully good to one," and paused. 
 
 His mother waited. 
 
 " Well, one hasn't been able to do much for them," he 
 said, "has one?" 
 
 " I don't think people want any return for kindness," 
 Mrs. Alton said, "... people who are worth anything 
 . . . worth thinking about." 
 
 "Still, one would like . ." said Edmund, 
 smiling. 
 
 So his thoughts ran then. His mother neither 
 encouraged nor checked him. Each knew what was 
 in the mind and the heart of the other. 
 
 Well, we know how, and how rudely, such imaginings 
 were dissipated. The iron entered into Edmund's soul, 
 but he was strong enough presently to pluck it out. 
 After all, possessing nothing he had lost nothing. If 
 Fate had mocked him, he had allowed himself in this 
 week of disintegration to be betrayed into providing the 
 opportunity. After his brief outburst he pulled himself 
 together. He was sorry that his mother should have 
 seen, while she, as we know, for the knowledge it gave 
 her of him, was glad. 
 
 He too had seen something illuminating. Any 
 thought of his mother which came to him at school or 
 elsewhere gave her amused eyes, shrewd, tolerant, witty. 
 
Successor 173 
 
 He did not remember ever before to have seen even 
 whimsical tears in them. 
 
 "Why," he said, "mother!" 
 
 " I have a horrible feeling that you owe this to me." 
 
 " To you ! I owe everything else to you. Do you 
 think I don't know what I owe you ? " 
 
 " This with the rest," she said, half to herself, " though 
 I should be hard put to it to say how." 
 
 She could have laughed. The blow was to be taken 
 quietly and without spleen, but it is not to be supposed 
 that a mind active as hers did not find occupation. Not 
 a word spoken in the Merringham hothouses but was 
 large now with elusive meaning ; not a tone, an inflection, 
 a gesture, but was reticently eloquent. She had food 
 for thought to bewilderment ! The laugh was with 
 dead Alton, small doubt of that ; but, and but, and 
 but. ... Oh, there were plenty of "buts"! 
 
 At the end of three days Edmund went back to 
 Winchester. For the sake of appearances, Mrs, Alton 
 would have wished him to have been present at his 
 uncle's funeral, but as Lady Alton made no sign of 
 desiring his company she did not suggest it. So back 
 he went to school a little older, perhaps, for his 
 experiences, but none the worse for them and in due 
 course came the news of Gundred's birth. 
 
 That clinched matters. Mrs. Alton, having faced the 
 situation, had accepted it unconditionally, and no 
 insidious thinking of Gundred in the light of a " slender 
 life between" was allowed to hold her for a moment. 
 She was glad, on the contrary, that the child was 
 strong. Merringham for good and all was out of the 
 reckoning. 
 
 In the lull which followed these somewhat exhausting 
 experiences, Roderick Carmelin, Mrs. Alton's beguiling 
 brother, turned up and paid her one of his flying visits. 
 
174 TObe Successor 
 
 He was wholly delightful, full of sympathy for her, and 
 as Edmund was not there to run risks of contamination 
 by his uncle's dangerous and persuasive influence, she 
 could permit herself to enjoy his reprehensible society 
 without misgiving. If she had a weak spot in her heart, 
 it was for this good-for-nothing to whom, if the years 
 taught no wisdom unless to live for the moment be 
 the truest wisdom of all ! they were yet so lenient that 
 he hardly looked out of his teens, and had kept 
 unimpaired the boyish good looks which stood him for 
 fortune, and a thousand " good fortunes " to boot. 
 
 Poor Roddy, with the slow, pleasant voice, who, if he 
 had ever made any apology for his life, or had the grace 
 even to see that it needed apology, would have pleaded, 
 I doubt not, that he was the Pilgrim of Love ! Love, 
 like wisdom, was justified of her children, and love was 
 abiding. It was not his fault if the object of love must 
 change, and the inconstancy of the lover be the chief 
 earnest of his constancy. In some such perverse and 
 whimsical way he would have argued. 
 
 " I make," he said, " a distinction between riding away 
 and riding on. I only plead guilty to riding on." 
 
 Mrs. Alton had long since ceased to judge him by 
 ordinary standards, or indeed to judge him at all. 
 There were laws Roddy seemed to be outside them. 
 Moreover, as life had taught her to gauge something of 
 the essential difference between one nature and another, 
 so had she divined the astounding divergence of 
 individual experiences. That all things do not happen 
 to all men was a conclusion she had come to as the sum 
 of her observations, and Roddy, who could not help 
 being Roddy, was of the kind to which things do 
 happen. So much a clear-sighted sister might 
 guess. 
 
 Anyway, and let his morals and the excuses that 
 
Successor 175 
 
 were to be made for them be what they might, she was 
 unfeignedly glad to see him. He was of her own flesh 
 and blood. To him she could unburden her soul and 
 say what she could not write. 
 
 " My poor old Susan," he said, from time to time. 
 
 "There's nothing to say," she said. "One has not 
 even the right to be disappointed. One had no right to 
 expect and one didn't expect. Roddy, we've never 
 been time-servers, any of us. You know that. Only it 
 seemed as if Edmund must . . . didn't it ? It was like 
 finding one had drawn the number next to the prize in a 
 lottery." 
 
 As for a moment she thought of what she had gone 
 through, she allowed herself an " Oh ! " and an " Oh ! " 
 
 Roddy had seen Lord Alton in Belgium the year 
 before, and said he had thought him much changed. He 
 had kept out of his way, however, and did not know the 
 third Lady Alton by sight. Like Lady Winstaple, the 
 " Old Woman of the Hill," he said it was impossible to 
 keep up with the wives of a man who was always 
 replacing one by another. 
 
 " This one, all the same," he said, " must be allowed to 
 have justified him." 
 
 " She appears certainly to have justified herself," 
 said his sister. 
 
 The talk veered round to Edmund, for whom his 
 uncle had the liveliest sympathy. 
 
 " Poor young Edmund," he said, " it was damned hard 
 lines. How did he take it ? " 
 
 " One gets a knock or two in life," said Mrs. Alton. 
 "One may as well learn early as late to take what 
 comes." 
 
 "He stood up to it, I'll swear. Took it without 
 flinching." 
 
 " He didn't fail me." 
 
i7<* ITbe Successor 
 
 " He's a Carmelin," said his uncle. 
 
 Mrs. Alton shook her head. 
 
 " An Alton," she corrected him, and looking at his 
 handsome face, smiled as she remembered some words 
 from the memorable interview with Lord Alton. She 
 had deprecated, she remembered, the suggestion that 
 Edmund might take after her family. Her poor dear 
 father she had said, or poor Roddy as one who should 
 add, " God forbid ! " ? c No, no, Roddy, an Alton, not a 
 Carmelin." 
 
 Roddy said the boy might do worse than take after 
 the Carmelins. 
 
 Mrs. Alton met her brother's fine eyes in a looking 
 glass, and smiled again. 
 
 " Wretch," she said, " I'm not denying you looks. 
 As a family, you've enough and to spare poor old 
 father ; Caroline, till just before she died ; and you, of 
 course. Edmund has looks, I'm thankful to say, but 
 somehow he doesn't get them from us. I'm even glad 
 that he's fair." 
 
 Though Edmund was fair, however, and Roddy was 
 dark, and though Edmund was so like the Altons, who, 
 in turn, were so unlike the Carmelins, there were yet 
 points of resemblance between Mrs. Alton's son and 
 her brother. Strangers observed them people who did 
 not see the two often. There were moments, indeed, 
 when Edmund was remarkably like his Carmelin 
 uncle. 
 
 " I'm sorry he's not here," said Mr. Roddy. " I should 
 like to have seen him." 
 
 " I'm sorry too," said Mrs. Alton. " I should have 
 liked you to see him. All the same," she added, "as 
 you know, I'm always rather relieved when you don't." 
 
 Her brother smiled. " I should do him no harm." 
 
 " Dear Roddy ! " said Mrs. Alton. 
 
TTbe Successor 177 
 
 But he was as impossible as ever, and before he left 
 wanted to tell Mrs. Alton one of his adventures must 
 tell her! 
 
 " When I was at Bruges . . ." he began. 
 
 Mrs. Alton put up her hand. She knew his adventures 
 but too well. 
 
 " Last summer," he began again, " when I was at 
 Bruges . . ." 
 
 Mrs. Alton would not listen. There, he declared, she 
 was wrong, for he had, he said, such a little story to 
 tell of silence and mystery and the night as Boccaccio, 
 at one end of the line of story-tellers, or De Maupassant 
 at the other, would have rejoiced to find to his pen. 
 
 " Boccaccio himself," he said ; " or coming down a 
 few centuries, De Maupassant. Either would have 
 jumped at it." 
 
 Mrs. Alton did not doubt him, but would not hear, 
 though she laughed. 
 
 "Silence and mystery and the night," he repeated. 
 " You don't realise ! Boccaccio, I tell you. De 
 Maupassant. . . . Think ! Someone I never saw . . ." 
 
 " Be quiet," said Mrs. Alton. " You are abandoned 
 abominable ! Is it any wonder that I don't want 
 Edmund to see more of you than is necessary ? " 
 
 She was cheered, nevertheless, by his visit. 
 
 Time now began its usual beneficent work. With 
 Edmund growing up under her eyes, and showing 
 himself more and more capable of looking life in the 
 face on his own account, it did not seem long before 
 she was able to regard what had happened with 
 equanimity. Partly to tide over the most difficult period 
 of all, partly because her boy's words on an open day had 
 not fallen on deaf ears, she contrived to scrape together 
 enough to allow the house to be put into the hands of 
 
 M 
 
178 TTbe Successor 
 
 paperers and painters. The work of choosing, the very 
 inconvenience of the business itself, interested her and 
 helped her. The weeks slipped imperceptibly into 
 months, the months into a year, two years, and 
 Edmund his uncle's thousand pounds having duly 
 come to him -was presently a freshman at Balliol. 
 
 She heard of her sister-in-law's " successes " with 
 quiet amusement, but as of happenings infinitely remote. 
 If she permitted herself a jest or two upon the subject, 
 it was as one who jests upon that with which he has 
 little concern. Poor Alton, it was clear, had been a 
 disadvantage to his wife, since, standing now upon her 
 own merits, his widow found foothold ! The Miss 
 Wraysburys plied her assiduously with news which she 
 never asked for, and upon which, in her answers to 
 their gushing letters, she seldom commented. Merring- 
 ham, she heard, was never empty of parsons. Edward 
 again, who, patron though he was of several livings, had 
 not cared much for parsons! Their place, he used to 
 say, was the pulpit rather than the drawing-room ; and 
 he would, if he could, have curtailed their occupation of 
 that but he, to be sure, was not " churchy." Lady 
 Alton, vice-reigning at Merringham, was nothing (did 
 report speak true) if not " churchy " a very bulwark of 
 what, in an elegant moment, she was said to have called 
 the Sacred Edifice and carried on Sundays, with her 
 scent bottle and her pocket handkerchief, a prayer book 
 of monumental proportions adorned with the smallest 
 possible coronet and the largest possible cross. 
 
 All this came as gossip from a far country. Curzon 
 Street was nothing to Merringham ; and Merringham 
 now nothing to Curzon Street. Time went on. The 
 Wraysburys fell off in their correspondence, finding it 
 somewhat one-sided perhaps. People ceased to speak 
 to Mrs. Alton of her relations upon flimsy pretext or 
 
ZTbe Successor 179 
 
 none, and, hanging on to them, to look sympathetic and 
 be irritating. Edmund's letters breathed Oxford, and 
 Oxford, and Oxford youngness, the joy of living, the 
 world for a football ; and Merringham, no longer a 
 thought at the back of all other thoughts, drifted further 
 and further away. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 So for a few years yawned the breach between the 
 Altons de Merringham and the Altons, and so might 
 the breach have continued indefinitely to yawn, if on a 
 day and at an hour when circumstances took a couple 
 of distinguished travellers through Oxford, Edmund 
 had not chanced to be at the station. He had come to 
 pick up a parcel which he knew to be waiting for him, 
 and as it was some time in forthcoming, he had strolled 
 out on to the platform. A lady, from the window of a 
 first-class carriage in the train which had just come in, 
 was trying to attract the attention of either or each of 
 two persons : a young woman her maid presumably 
 whom she appeared to have despatched to the bookstall 
 with incomplete instructions, and the boy from the 
 refreshment room, whose back, by the natural perversity 
 of things, was towards her. Another young woman 
 who seemed to be a nurse, and on whose knee sat a 
 little girl of three or four years old, was respectfully 
 pulling her mistress by the sleeve with a "Let me, 
 your ladyship. Let me." 
 
 Edmund, who saw and heard what was passing, 
 proffered his services. 
 
 "If you would ask that tiresome boy with the tray to 
 come here," the lady said gratefully. " My little girl 
 wants a bun. Thank you! And further, if it would not 
 be troubling you too much, you see the young woman in 
 black by the bookstall? would you add to my obligation 
 to you by asking her to come to speak to me ? " 
 
 i So 
 
trbe Successor 181 
 
 Edmund, assenting politely, was moving away when 
 a porter, who had come up behind him and was waiting, 
 touched his cap and said : 
 
 " Alton, sir ? Did you say Mr. Edmund Alton, sir ? 
 The parcel is here." 
 
 "All right," Edmund said. "I'll see to it in a 
 moment." 
 
 He hurried after the boy with the buns, and having 
 despatched him up the platform, went over to the 
 bookstall to deliver his message. 
 
 The lady meanwhile was repeating the porter's words 
 to the porter : 
 
 " Alton, did you say ? Edmund Alton ? " 
 
 The maid, with a "Very good, sir, thank you," 
 hurried back to her mistress. Edmund, looking round, 
 found himself face to face once more with the porter, 
 who in turn had a message for him. 
 
 " Wishes to speak to me ? Very well," he said, and 
 went back to the carnage, concluding as he did so that 
 the lady had exaggerated views on the subject of the 
 thanks which small services demanded. The maid, 
 with a handful of silver and more directions, was 
 already on her way back to the bookstall. Edmund, 
 as he approached the carriage, became conscious that 
 he was being looked at curiously. The little girl, 
 kneeling now on her nurse's lap, was at the open 
 window by her mother. Edmund had an impression 
 of solemn eyes with mischief in them, and the 
 underneath more or less of a penny bun. 
 
 The lady was speaking. 
 
 " I have a fancy," she said, " to know whom I have to 
 thank." 
 
 "You have not to thank anyone," said Edmund; 
 " but my name is Alton Edmund Alton." 
 
 In a moment he knew. This was his aunt, and the 
 
1 82 ZTbe Successor 
 
 Bun (with the beautiful eyes) was his cousin. It occa- 
 sioned him, therefore, no surprise, though some small 
 inward excitement, when he heard himself identified 
 as the lady's nephew. 
 
 " By marriage," she added, but she put out a gracious 
 and most beautifully gloved hand. 
 
 She looked at him with interest, but did not, it is 
 perhaps worth noting, appear to be affected by anything 
 deeper or less transient than such small fluttering of 
 the surface emotions as any unexpected meeting might 
 have caused her. The dominant note of her aspect was 
 that of a sort of beneficent complacence. She was 
 elaborately dressed. Edmund had an impression of 
 furbelows, laces, and sumptuous appointments generally. 
 
 " My nephew by marriage, if you are indeed Edmund 
 Alton, for I am Lady Alton de Merringham, and this 
 is your cousin Gundred. Say how do you do to the 
 gentleman, darling." 
 
 The little girl extended her unoccupied hand. 
 Edmund took it in his. When he had shaken it she 
 retained hold of his finger, and for as long as the train 
 stopped she held it. Whether or not the child's action 
 had any part in determining Lady Alton's attitude, I 
 cannot say, but Edmund saw that she eyed him kindly. 
 Perhaps, however, as he was exceptionally well favoured, 
 and a nephew of whom any aunt might reasonably be 
 proud, his looks, of which he was wholly unconscious, 
 had something to do with her graciousness. He thought 
 her " not half bad " not quite a lady, perhaps, in the 
 sense in which his mother was a lady, but " not half 
 bad." 
 
 Vague benevolences and cordialities seemed to 
 pervade her. 
 
 " I wonder," she said, " whether Mrs. Alton would 
 spare you to us some time or other for a little visit? 
 
Successor 183 
 
 You have never seen Merringham, have you ? Oh, well, 
 not since you were a little boy. Not, anyway, in my 
 time. Your uncle's health was uncertain for so long 
 his last few years, indeed. Aren't you thought very 
 like your father? There is a portrait of him in the 
 dining-room that you remind me of you may have 
 heard. Indeed, your uncle always said you promised 
 to be like his brother. You must come and pay us a 
 little visit some day if, as I say, your mother will spare 
 you to us. You remind me much more of the picture 
 of your father than of her. You hardly remind me of 
 her at all." 
 
 " I'm sorry for that," said Edmund. He was trying 
 to think of whom it was that, as he looked at his little 
 cousin, he himself was vaguely reminded. " I should 
 like to be like my mother. Like my father, of course, 
 but like my mother too/' 
 
 " Ah, well, perhaps you are a little when you speak. 
 But, to be sure, I have seen your mother so seldom. She 
 has so rarely honoured us with a visit." 
 
 She was carrying the war into the enemy's country, 
 and perhaps thought better of doing so, for abruptly she 
 turned the conversation to Gundred, who was becoming 
 more and more absorbed in her new relation. 
 
 "We're taking this little person to the sea," Lady 
 Alton said. 
 
 " I've had a illness," said Gundred, speaking for the 
 first time. 
 
 Her mother smiled. 
 
 "Nothing infectious," she said to Edmund; and to 
 Gundred in parenthesis : " An illness, darling." 
 
 " A nillness," said Gundred. 
 
 " A little feverish cold," said Lady Alton indulgently ; 
 " but sea air was prescribed for her. I had a wish to see 
 the Welsh coast, so we're going to Llandudno. To-day, 
 
184 ttbe Successor 
 
 of course, we only go as far as Shrewsbury, 
 believe in rushing things ; do you ? " 
 
 But Gundred, having found her tongue, had begun to 
 talk, and the few minutes that remained before the train 
 started were filled by her. She showed Edmund her 
 bangle and her little blue brooch, and an infinitesimal 
 scar on her little fat wrist, which, she explained, was her 
 burn. She had also, she said, a bruise and a bump. 
 
 Her mother and the nurse and the maid, who had 
 returned from the book-stall, watched her, smiling. 
 
 " The jolliest little kid," Edmund was saying to him- 
 self, and in anticipation to his mother "the jolliest 
 little kid. The prettiest little thing you ever saw." 
 
 When the moment for farewell came, and the guard's 
 whistle sounded, Gundred, told to say good-bye to him, 
 threw her arms round his neck. So tightly did she hold 
 him that, the train beginning to move, he was forced, 
 amid shouted " Stand backs ! " to take his place for a 
 moment upon the step. Gundred's arms were unclasped 
 from about him by the excited women in the carriage, 
 and he stood down. In doing so, however, he nearly 
 lost his balance, floundered for an instant . . . but kept 
 his feet. Those who saw, perhaps, had the worst of the 
 incident. Lady Alton gave a little cry and shut her 
 eyes. People sprang to the windows. All was well ; 
 but for many years Gundred clung to the belief that 
 she had nearly been answerable for his death. 
 
 Edmund calmed excited officials, waved his hand to 
 the departing train, and trying to look as if he had not 
 overheard the remark of a motherly spectator, who 
 didn't wonder his friends wanted to kiss him, went back 
 for his parcel. 
 
 Lady Alton, meanwhile, was giving Gundred 
 admonishment. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said, " oh ! " her hand to her heart. " You 
 
Successor 185 
 
 shouldn't, my dear darling ; you really shouldn't. It 
 was most dangerous. You must never again ; never 
 again from a railway train. If he hadn't recovered 
 himself, or had stumbled or slipped, I hesitate to 
 contemplate what would have happened. I shudder to 
 think/' 
 
 " He'd a-been killed to a certainty, your ladyship to 
 a perfect certainty. Oh, it was naughty of you, my 
 precious ! " 
 
 " Killed dead ? " asked Gundred. 
 
 " Killed dead," said her nurse. 
 
 " Like a door nail ? " 
 
 That was what dead things were as dead as in the 
 nursery or the course of a walk flies or butterflies or 
 little field-mice, and once a beautiful robin redbreast. 
 You touched them, and they did not move. They were 
 said then to be dead as a door nail. 
 
 " Luckily, he managed to keep his feet," said Lady 
 Alton. 
 
 " He was most mercifully and spared," said the nurse, 
 " but the turn it gave us all ! " 
 
 " I feel it still," said Lady Alton. 
 
 The immediate result of this was that luncheon was 
 eaten a little earlier than had been intended ; the more 
 indirect, but the further reaching, that Edmund remained 
 in a mind out of which he might else have slipped. 
 
 So it came that the tentative invitation which she had 
 given on the spur of an expansive moment became actual, 
 and Edmund found himself asked to name his own time 
 for a visit to Merringham, The note, which was cordial, 
 ended with a postscript : 
 
 "Your little cousin specially hopes that you will 
 come." 
 
 Mrs. Alton heard of the friendly encounter at the 
 station with interest, some amusement, and an open 
 
186 C&e Successor 
 
 mind. She was not surprised that her boy should have 
 made, as it was evident that he had made, a favourable 
 impression upon the unaccountable lady. You had 
 only to see Edmund. But somehow it was not a little 
 diverting. Lady Alton, she doubted not, felt that with 
 the little Baroness beside her she could afford to over- 
 look family feuds. Bygones were to be bygones ? 
 Hatchets buried ! It seemed so. Well, why not ? 
 Time had taken the sting not only out of a dis- 
 appointment which, as she had herself said, she had had 
 no right to feel, but even out of what she had had every 
 right to feel the peculiar maliciousness of Lord Alton's 
 attitude towards her on the day when, knowing what he 
 knew, he had kept silence the longer to laugh at her. 
 That indeed had been difficult to forget. She had 
 no wish however, to maintain hostilities. She wrote 
 Edmund her views, bidding him go to Merringham by 
 all means if his aunt should renew or substantiate her 
 invitation. When, therefore, the definite invitation came 
 he accepted it wondering a little what there would be 
 to " do " and named the beginning of September for 
 his visit. 
 
 September that year came in crowned with sunshine 
 and the fruits of the earth a ripe month, a rich month, 
 a month of plentiful harvest. Smiling skies were over 
 a smiling land as Edmund was borne by a fast train 
 towards the home of his fathers. He had parted 
 with a friend at Lucerne after a happy and extremely 
 healthy three weeks in Switzerland, and half 
 regretted an engagement which brought him back 
 to England. 
 
 He looked forward however, rather than back, and 
 interested himself with conjectures as to what it would 
 be " like " at Merringham. He had been told to bring 
 a gun, so he supposed he might expect a go at the 
 
TTbe Successor 187 
 
 partridges. His tennis racquet and his fishing-rod were 
 in the rack over his head. 
 
 At the station he was met by a carriage, and was soon 
 bowling over smooth roads, and behind a pair of fast- 
 trotting cobs to his destination. He recognised old 
 landmarks from the time when in his childhood he had 
 been with his mother a yearly visitor at Merringham. 
 The roads were much as he remembered them, but the 
 hills were not so high in which respect it is probable 
 that the hills suffered by his recent experience of 
 mountains. But what a country it was, what a country! 
 It was green with pasture where it was not yellow with 
 corn. He felt something of what his mother had felt 
 when she looked at the view on the day of her 
 "temptation." A land truly which the gods had 
 blessed ! 
 
 Presently he was at the entrance to the park, which 
 had been approached from the west side, where there 
 was no lodge. When the footman got down to open 
 and shut the gate, Edmund stood up for a moment and 
 looked about him. He wanted to see if he remembered 
 what had been to him as a child a place of enchantment, 
 and wonder and delight. Yes, he remembered the park. 
 It was as it had always been, nor, as he was borne to 
 a click-click of hoofs on yellow roads, through nearly 
 two miles of it, did it appear to him to have shrunk. 
 The greensward in undulating lines, with here a gnarled 
 oak or a clump of beech trees, there a stretch of bracken, 
 seemed boundless as ever. Nothing was changed. 
 There was the old scurry of bob-tailed rabbits as the 
 carriage passed ; the same perfunctory trotting away of 
 the deer when the herd was surprised on the open. 
 The bridge over the stream greeted his eyes next, and 
 the sight of the lake. A few minutes later he was at 
 the house. 
 
i8S tlbe Successor 
 
 There was the sound of the bark of a dog, followed by 
 another sound, the scamper of feet upon a polished 
 floor, and an excited little figure in blue flung itself into 
 his arms. Behind her was someone in whom, from the 
 old days, he recognised Balderton, and who, appearing 
 as she did before the butler and the footman could 
 reach the door, must have been listening in company 
 with her young mistress for the sound of the wheels on 
 tha gravel. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 WHEN Edmund looked back upon this visit to 
 Merringham, it was Balderton, and always Balderton, 
 who stood out most clearly from among his impressions. 
 Perhaps because after Gundred she was the first to give 
 him welcome? Perhaps because in Merringham as he 
 had known it neither Gundred nor Lady Alton had 
 any existence! Like the servants, his uncle's wives 
 might come and go. Balderton, like the house itself, 
 was abiding. Whether or not it was with a deliberate 
 intention of giving him welcome that she had met him 
 with Gundred upon the threshold, he was not able to 
 determine. Curiosity regarding him, or more probably 
 devotion to her little mistress a devotion which was 
 apparent in all that she did, and which would dispose 
 her to enter in sympathy at least into the little girl's 
 obvious excitement had part, he was inclined to think, 
 in the motives which prompted her action. 
 
 There she was, anyway, and when, with a frank 
 " How do you do, Balderton ? I'm very glad to see you 
 again ! " he put out his hand, she looked not surprised 
 but gratified, as she curtseyed over it, and in curious 
 old-fashioned terms bade him welcome to the house of 
 his fathers. 
 
 She scanned him eagerly, seeking and finding, as he 
 guessed, likenesses for him to his father and the two 
 uncles he was said so strongly to resemble. Something 
 like the outward expression of a misgiving passed, he 
 fancied, over her face for an instant, and caused him, 
 
 189 
 
i9 Ebe Successor 
 
 when he thought later that he saw the same look again, a 
 vague wonder. She bent quickly and kissed Gundred, 
 who had hold of her hand and of his, and the servants 
 appearing at this moment, she delivered him over to 
 their ministrations and withdrew, her keys jingling 
 softly. 
 
 She went, if he could have seen, to the dining-room, 
 and stood silently and for many minutes without moving 
 under the restored picture of his father. Even then 
 Edmund was impressed. Though she had passed from 
 his sight, and he had no knowledge of her movements, 
 he yet had sense of her even after he had been ushered 
 into the drawing-room, where Lady Alton, rustling in 
 silks and laces, and expressing in every look and 
 gesture a complacent self-satisfaction which seemed to 
 radiate vague well-wishings and benignities, received 
 him cordially. 
 
 The great windows were open to the terrace, the 
 tea-table placed near to them. A garden hat with 
 hanging pink ribbons lay on a sofa at hand. Lady 
 Alton, who had had her own tea, bade Gundred ring for 
 more, which appeared almost at once, and then, while 
 she asked him of his journey and the like, she took her 
 place at the glittering table and officiated gracefully 
 amongst the cups. In her manipulation of them she 
 crooked her fingers, he observed, and was perhaps 
 altogether rather more "elegant" than was strictly 
 needful. 
 
 But he was not in a mood to be critical. Summer 
 scents and sounds came in from the garden. There 
 was a delightful coolness and airiness about the room 
 itself Lady Alton's shady hat contributing even in a 
 measure thereto and he was pleasantly hungry and 
 thirsty. Tea had never tasted better than that which 
 he was drinking, and the bread and butter and the 
 
Successor 191 
 
 cakes with which Gundred most engagingly plied him 
 taking toll herself, with her mother's smiling permission, 
 from a plate or two were delicious enough to have 
 engendered indulgence, if any had been necessary. 
 Fido, to whom he had now been made known, danced 
 about him, begging irresistibly, and died for Gundred 
 and the Queen. Edmund at tea, and with Balderton 
 hovering interestingly at the back of his mind, was 
 enjoying himself. 
 
 That evening, Lady Alton said, there would only be 
 themselves with the exception of the Rector of Little 
 Merringham, who was coming to dinner. The next 
 day she had arranged for him to shoot, if that was 
 agreeable to him, with some neighbours whom she 
 named. There would be other shooting to be had if he 
 cared for the sport. A few people were coming to stay 
 in the course of the next day or two, and there were 
 garden parties at Merringham and elsewhere in prospect. 
 She hoped he would not find his stay very dull. 
 
 " But we are quiet people," she said, " and our friends 
 are kind enough to take us as they find us." 
 
 Edmund made some suitable rejoinder. He was not 
 afraid now that his stay would be dull. Merringham 
 was a place of many delights. The gardens, as he saw 
 them from the window, were gay with flowers to attune 
 the mind to pleasantness. A gardener passed, tending 
 what should please. The sun was shining. 
 
 "Now you must eat a peach," Lady Alton said. 
 "Your dear uncle was very proud of our peaches. 
 They have been thought to be fine. Give your cousin 
 a plate, and a knife and fork, darling. Let me see how 
 well you can carry them. Now the peaches. Both 
 hands, dear ; that's right. Or perhaps he would ratber 
 have an apricot or some grapes ? " 
 
 But Edmund preferred a peach and took one, adrnir- 
 
Successor 
 
 ing it as he did so. It was indeed such a specimen of 
 the fruit as any fruit grower might have been proud to 
 claim to his harvest, and like some others which Lady 
 Alton may or may not have remembered, might have 
 represented the peach for all time in a picture of still 
 life, Grapes, apricots, and greengages, all exquisite of 
 their kind, were on the table from which Gundred had 
 taken and to which she returned the dish safely. The 
 natural beauty of these things contrasted oddly with the 
 singular gaudiness of the dessert dishes upon which 
 they reposed. 
 
 Edmund, in spite of his disinclination to aught that 
 savoured of cavilling, found himself glancing at his plate. 
 Later he learned that it was vain to ignore eccentricities 
 in his aunt's taste, which, controlled no doubt to con- 
 siderable extent in the life of her husband, were not now 
 to be overlooked. Queer little tuppenny - halfpenny 
 " ornaments," for instance, stood cheek by jowl with 
 objects of art which, even in his inexperience, Edmund 
 could conceive to be of long and discriminating accumu- 
 lation ; and grandiloquent plushes and satins warred 
 here and there with faded but precious brocades. Lady 
 Alton bought largely at bazaars. 
 
 When Edmund had finished tea he was shown his 
 room a big oak-panelled chamber, overlooking the 
 park whence presently he descended to rejoin his 
 aunt and Gundred, whom he found on the terrace. 
 Lady Alton wore the garden hat with the fluttering 
 ribbons which he had seen in the drawing-room, and in 
 it looked like a somewhat mature Watteau shepherdess 
 as she played with her little daughter. 
 
 Gundred ran to him as soon as she espied him. She 
 was caught up, kissed, and lifted to his shoulder. 
 Holding her there he ran with her, to her screaming 
 delight. She had no fear. His h^t flew off. She 
 
tlbe Successor 193 
 
 clasped her arms round his head, more by way of 
 expressing the ardour of her affection than for support. 
 She had little gold bangles on her wrists, and one of 
 them pressed his forehead so that a little mark was 
 made upon it. Lady Alton looked on smiling. 
 
 " Isn't she very heavy ? " she said from time to time, 
 as they returned to her or she came up with them. 
 " Isn't she too heavy for you ? " or, " Don't let her tire 
 you," or, " You must be very strong, are you not ? " 
 
 She looked at him with something of admiration. 
 
 Lord Alton, as we know, had been a variation from 
 the Alton type, and here was the type in perfection. 
 Making due allowance for period, Edmund repeated in 
 his appearance certain of the family characteristics as 
 they were exemplified in half-a-dozen portraits which 
 hung upon the walls of the old house. Careful study of 
 such records (in the interests of Gundred) had made 
 Lady Alton familiar with them. She was not stupid 
 or blind. She was confronted with what she must 
 necessarily have seen. Small difficulty to trace like- 
 nesses for Edmund ! Yet no revulsion of feeling took 
 place to disturb her equanimity. She could look at 
 him with complacent approval, as one who, in tune with 
 pleasant things and pleasant thoughts, looks at a pleas- 
 ing prospect or what else is impersonal and gratifying 
 to the eye. Lord Alton had said she was wonderful. 
 Her detachment was complete. 
 
 She showed Edmund the gardens that day, as 
 Solomon may have shown his gardens to the Queen 
 of the South. Like her, he felt that, modest in all 
 probability as was Merringham compared with many 
 and many another place of which he knew the name, 
 though no more as yet than the name, the half had not 
 been told him. The spell of the gorgeous evening was 
 upon him. 
 
 N 
 
194 ^ be Successor 
 
 Gundred, on foot now, ran before. She ran back 
 every now and then to point out this or that to him, 
 to seize his hand, and, when her excitement outsped 
 the pace her leisurely mother was setting, to pull him 
 along with her. Thus she dragged him a ready slave 
 to her imperious willing to see the view which his 
 uncle had shown to his mother. 
 
 " A view," his aunt said, as, overtaking the pair, she 
 sat down upon one of the stone seats " a view which 
 has been thought fine, and which your dear uncle may 
 be said to have discovered." 
 
 She explained to him, as Lord Alton upon a memor- 
 able day had explained, how the trees had grown up 
 and stultified the scheme of his ancestor who had 
 designed that part of the gardens. 
 
 " The end of this terrace was evidently planned for 
 nothing else than to command the stretch of country 
 before you. Ah ! everyone admires Merringham. How 
 fond your uncle was of it every stick and stone ! Yes, 
 darling, you may stand upon the parapet if Cousin 
 Edmund is kind enough to hold your hand." 
 
 Edmund lifted the child up on to the broad grey 
 stone. He put his arm round her. 
 
 The stillness of evening was settling upon the land. 
 The shadows were lengthening, and the light was 
 golden with a tinge of pink. The sun, eclectic in 
 his favours, picked out a wood here, a bit of upland 
 there, as if for benison. The air was extraordinarily 
 clear. You could see to the edge of the world. 
 
 Edmund stood silent. He knew, as his mother had 
 known when it was she who had stood where he was 
 standing, that not all that was visible was Merringham ; 
 but in the exceeding loveliness of the scene was some- 
 how comprised all that held the spirit of the place, and 
 all, anyway (his mother's thought, if he had known it !), 
 
Successor 195 
 
 was Merringham's to see was Gundred's was the little 
 child's beside him. Without a thought of himself, this 
 made Gundred seem wonderful. 
 
 " I was sure it would please you," said Lady Alton. 
 " I take particular delight in this spot myself. To me 
 it is indissolubly associated with your uncle." 
 
 She said " indiss0/ubly," as Edmund could not help 
 noticing. He found himself hoping that Gundred had 
 not observed the false accent, and then smiled as the 
 absurdity of the apprehension struck him. But he hoped 
 that when the time came for a governess she might 
 have the good fortune to fall into the hands of a 
 gentlewoman. 
 
 It was his first experience of certain feelings which, 
 hardly realised as yet, were at times to define them- 
 selves clearly. Lady Alton, profoundly unconscious of 
 what was passing in her nephew's mind, continued to 
 give utterance to amiable sentiments and commonplaces. 
 She bade him look at the bees, whose hives stood in a 
 row under the wall ; and she paraphrased the estimable 
 Dr. Watts. She had something to say about the calm 
 of the evening, which for her, she said, turned the 
 thoughts to peace. Resting upon her elbow, and 
 looking approvingly at the landscape, she declared 
 herself thankful to live in so beautiful a world. 
 
 Gundred, tiring presently of the parapet, was put 
 down. She wanted to be shown the gold fish in the 
 basin of the fountain, and to show them to 
 Edmund. 
 
 " We mustn't tire Cousin Edmund," said her mother. 
 "It will soon be time to dress for dinner, and I daresay 
 he has seen enough for to-day." 
 
 But Cousin Edmund, though it seemed to him that 
 he had seen a good deal, was not tired. 
 
 " Well, just the gold fish, then. But isn't this nurse 
 
196 ttbe Successor 
 
 coming for somebody ? Isn't it ? I think it is, Shall 
 we keep the gold fish for to-morrow ? " 
 
 A figure had appeared upon the steps. 
 
 Gundred flew to Edmund's hand. No, no ! Her 
 mother had said she might show him the gold fish. 
 
 " Just the gold fish," she said, and looked to him for 
 support. 
 
 " The gold fish, please ! " said Edmund. There was 
 nothing that he wanted so much as to see the gold fish. 
 If he did not see the gold fish he would not be able to 
 sleep that night. 
 
 " Five minutes, then, nurse," said Lady Alton in- 
 dulgently. " And you needn't wait. I shall be coming 
 in then. I will bring the Baroness to you." 
 
 The five minutes were extended to ten. When the 
 gold fish had been duly admired, there was the fountain 
 itself, which had to be turned on for her ; then turned 
 off that she might see it stop, then turned on again. 
 After that, unheard-of delights ! What it was to have 
 a newly discovered cousin ! Edmund was found to 
 have the power of making the water do wonderful 
 things such as it never did for the gardeners, who were 
 generally requisitioned to work the magic key which 
 set it playing. He could make it jump high or low, die 
 down to a gentle gushing, uprise suddenly to startle 
 you. 
 
 " Again," said Gundred, " again ! " and shouted with 
 laughter. 
 
 Her glee was infectious. Lady Alton, protesting 
 that it was time to go in, but unwilling to set a term 
 to delight so inspiriting, let her stay from minute to 
 minute. Edmund, laughing like a school boy, and 
 keenly enjoying the little girl's amusement, anticipated 
 a tussle of wills when the final moment should arrive. 
 There was nothing of the sort. 
 
Zlbe Successor 197 
 
 " Now," Lady Alton said. 
 
 He turned off the fountain. Gundred watched it 
 dwindle, " helped " him to take the iron key from its 
 socket and put it away, and giving him one hand, 
 trotted round cheerfully to give her mother the other. 
 
 So the three walked up to the house: Lady Alton, 
 Gundred, Edmund Gundred holding a hand of each. 
 There was something singularly intimate in the appear- 
 ance they presented as they walked thus. Here was a 
 family party, a stranger would have said, though he 
 would have been puzzled, perhaps, to determine how 
 the members of the little company were related. 
 Between two of the three there was no resemblance; 
 between other two, something of resemblance, though 
 not much ; between the remaining two, of the combina- 
 tions possible to the number, as much resemblance as 
 might exist between persons differing from each other 
 in every particular, but recalling a common third. That 
 the three which we have thus been separating into pairs 
 at our pleasure, should stand to each other in the 
 relations respectively of husband, wife, and child, was 
 as impossible as that they should be mother, daughter, 
 and son. Yet each of these hypotheses, howsoever 
 instantly to be rejected, would have presented itself to 
 the speculative observer. The little group, then, may be 
 said to have looked united. There was one who thought 
 so, and marvelled, though she held her peace. Perhaps 
 it was Lady Alton's shepherdess hat which gave to her 
 face the peculiar serenity of the face on a bon-bon 
 box. Not a care was behind that smiling exterior to 
 cloud it. 
 
 She who saw, and who, if she had not lived in a house 
 of many pictures, might have been expected to know 
 more of the art of the bon-bon box than of eighteenth 
 century France, could have pointed to a picture or two 
 
198 ftbe Successor 
 
 by Watteau or Fragonard or Pater in her late master's 
 special collection which presented faces of like 
 unshadowed complacency. She might then, if her 
 education had allowed her to go a step further, have 
 drawn many interesting inferences, and learned some- 
 thing of the influences of laxer times. But if she 
 thought of the picture it was but to find the nearest 
 comparison for a face as she saw it, and she went no 
 deeper into the matter nor into side issues at all. The 
 three, meanwhile, were smiling as they approached the 
 house one boyishly, as at the second's chatter; the 
 second of very youngness and lightness of heart ; but 
 (and this it was which filled her with amazement) 
 neither was smiling more naturally or with less complete 
 disingenuousness than the astonishing third. 
 
 Edmund and Gundred became conscious at the same 
 moment of someone behind the curtain in one of the 
 windows. 
 
 " Balderton, Balderton ! " cried Gundred, and ran into 
 the house. But Balderton was not at the window 
 when she reached it. She was in the hall, however, 
 where Gundred found her a moment later, and was 
 folded in her arms. 
 
 " Did you want me, my darling ? " 
 
 " I only saw you looking at us," said Gundred, and 
 burst into accounts of her cousin's exploits with the 
 fountain. Balderton said " Oh ! " and " Just fancy that," 
 and " Up to the sky and then down again. Dear, dear ! 
 dear, dear!" 
 
 "Were you wanting me?" asked Gundred slyly, a 
 moment later. 
 
 There was sometimes what was called a " Good-night " 
 biscuit in Balderton's room. 
 
 "I'm always wanting you, darling. You're just the 
 light of my old eyes . . ." 
 
tTbe Successor i$$ 
 
 The rest of what she said was murmured under her 
 breath. 
 
 Edmund, who had followed Gundred out into the hall, 
 did not hear it. But Gundred was nearer and heard. 
 
 " Why did you say that ? " she asked. 
 
 "Say what?" 
 
 " ' God forgive me,' " said Gundred, quoting 
 conscientiously. 
 
 "Did I, dear?" said Balderton. But she addressed 
 herself to Edmund for answer. 
 
 " It is difficult not to risk spoiling this young lady," 
 she said. "You will come to believe that, sir, if you 
 don't believe it already." 
 
 She looked at him curiously. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 EDMUND'S visit passing pleasantly was, to outward 
 seeming, uneventful. He had two or three days' 
 shooting, and acquitted himself well, to the gratification 
 not only of himself, but of such as had known his father, 
 and had looked to see a sportsman in his father's son. 
 The knowledge that he had his father's reputation to 
 live up to, to say nothing of his sporting uncles', put him 
 on his mettle, if it also made him a little nervous, and 
 he was glad to find that he was thought to have given 
 a satisfactory account of himself. He heard himself 
 called the " right sort," a " chip of the old block," an 
 "Alton for you," and gathered that it was pretty 
 generally agreed that he would " do." It would be idle 
 to pretend that he was not elated. Contemporaries of 
 his father's, who had not cared much for the late lord, 
 wrung him cordially by the hand. Time was, said one 
 of them, bolder or less discreet than the rest, but happily 
 into his private ear time was when they had looked to 
 to see him young Edmund's boy (his father, it seemed, 
 had been known as young Edmund) reigning at 
 Merringham. "Your uncle, though, with the help of 
 your third aunt, changed all that." 
 
 To this, Edmund, who felt that the speaker's goodwill 
 towards him was making for delicate ground, said 
 nothing, and was glad that his youth made excuse for 
 him in his momentary lack of a suitable rejoinder. In 
 truth, he was somewhat taken aback, and could have 
 thought of nothing to meet the case. He was relieved, 
 
 200 
 
Ube Successor aoi 
 
 therefore, when the conversation was changed. But he 
 had been made to feel that if " things had been other- 
 wise," he would have been welcomed at Merringham for 
 his own sake as well as his father's, and incidentally had 
 been allowed to divine something of the attitude of the 
 county towards the lady whom his indiscreet friend had 
 spoken of as his third aunt. 
 
 He might have had more shooting, but felt that of 
 the ten days of his visit he must not absent himself for 
 more than a reasonable number. The guests of whom 
 his aunt had spoken had duly arrived, and proved agree- 
 able, if they were in no way remarkable. All came 
 from the neighbourhood from which circumstance it 
 may be conjectured that outside the calling radius 
 of Merringham Lady Alton had not many acquaint- 
 ances. There were the widow of a bishop and her two 
 daughters ; an old admiral, who had known the 
 Carmelins, and asked cordially for his mother, and slyly 
 for his Uncle Roddy, of whom Edmund, by the way, 
 reminded him a little, he said ; a young soldier from 
 the Depot ; a weather-beaten Diana, of imperturbable 
 good-humour and no particular age or sex ; and, that 
 the scriptures of the gossiping Miss Wraysburys might 
 be fulfilled, a brace of the local clergy. It was not, 
 perhaps, such a party as the hostess of these days would 
 have collected for the entertainment of a young guest 
 during his stay, but it served its purpose well enough. 
 At the garden party and the three dinner parties which 
 followed, Edmund, playing host for his aunt with 
 becoming modesty, enjoyed further popularity and won 
 golden opinions. 
 
 He played tennis with the younger members of the 
 party, and croquet, a game then in its decline with the 
 elder. Archery at this time had gone out, but there 
 were still targets at Merringham ; and Lady Alton> 
 
*62 tTfoe 
 
 seeing a certain elegance in what she called the Pastime, 
 was trying to revive it. 
 
 With such amusements, and Gundred for a perpetual 
 plaything, the time did not hang heavily upon his hands. 
 The ten days were extended to a fortnight. He was 
 urged to stay longer. 
 
 The child, indeed, had cast a spell over him. He 
 found stories to tell her, developing an unsuspected 
 talent as the need arose. Thus he discovered that he 
 knew all about the fairies who dwelt in the heart of the 
 flowers. More, he could tell of a race of little prickly 
 beings who lived under certain weeds nettles, for 
 instance. Then the gold-fish, Gundred learned from 
 him, served for steeds to the water-elves who inhabited 
 the fountain, but who only rode out on very wet days 
 when you were indoors, or when the wind made such a 
 ripple on the water that you could not see down into it. 
 On ordinary days, as you might see for yourself, the 
 gold-fish were riderless, which "just showed," he said. 
 Gundred readily accepted such " evidence " as conclu- 
 sive, realising, perhaps, that you had to accept some- 
 thing, or there could be no stories, and there were 
 stories . . . such stories ! When Edmund had got to the 
 " And so they married and lived happily ever after- 
 wards " of one, Gundred would demand another. 
 
 " When people marry do they ..." she broke off one 
 day to ask breathlessly. 
 
 " Do what ? " said Edmund. 
 
 " Live happy ever after ? " 
 
 " Oh, always ! " said Edmund. 
 
 Gundred considered. 
 
 " I nearly killed you," she said, following what train 
 of thought it would be impossible to say. " Anyway, I 
 might have done you a injury." 
 
 " A injury," said Edmund. " Dear me ! a injury ? " 
 
trbe Successor *<>$ 
 
 " Nurse says so," said Gundred solemnly ; " a vital 
 injury." And with " nurse," whom she quoted, meant 
 mortal, no doubt ! 
 
 Edmund laughed. The idea of Gundred in connection 
 with injuries tickled him hugely. He dropped a line 
 for a probable bite. 
 
 " Shall we say an injury ? " he said, smiling, as Lady 
 Alton upon a similar occasion had said " an illness." 
 
 Gundred took the bait at once. 
 
 " A ninjury," she said, to his delight, as before she had 
 said " a nillness." 
 
 He swung her off her feet, held her shoulder-high, 
 kissed her. 
 
 "You're the rummest little beggar," he said; "the 
 rummest, and the prettiest and the dearest." 
 
 If she had indeed done him a " ninjury," mortal or 
 vital he laughed again at the thought he felt that it 
 would have been easy to forgive her. He remembered 
 Balderton's devotion to her, and understood it. Had 
 she not said to him in so many words that he would 
 come to understand it presently, if he did not already. 
 Small difficulty to understand ! 
 
 Not for a day or an hour did that wonderful September 
 fail of its promise. The days were the days of June. 
 There were starlight nights to draw you into the 
 gardens, and later to keep you from your bed. 
 Edmund, retiring with the rest, but reluctant to part 
 with each day while the summer should last, would 
 lean from his window and breathe the air deeply into 
 his ardent young lungs. With the scent of the roses 
 which climbed to a foot or so below him were those 
 fragrances peculiar to Merringham of which his mother, 
 less sensitive though she may have been to such 
 influences, had yet been conscious upon the autumn 
 day of her trial. In the semi-darkness he would 
 
204 Hbe Successor 
 
 surrender his mind to lazy activities bred of his mood 
 and the hour. . . . 
 
 It was presently the last night of his visit. The rest 
 of the party had dispersed the day before, and Lady 
 Alton, at closer quarters with him than she had been 
 since the evening of his arrival, had disarmed by her 
 graciousness whatever there may have been that was 
 derogatory in his estimate of her. For even involuntary 
 lapses in loyalty towards her, when little errors of taste 
 or of breeding had jarred upon him, he took himself to 
 task. 
 
 How still it was without and within how still ! The 
 moon, rising, vanquished the stars almost as he looked. 
 He watched the light spread and the shadows shift their 
 places. The park then, white in the pale radiance, with 
 patches of inky blackness under the trees and where the 
 ground was uneven, stretched to the horizon and seemed 
 boundless. A night-jar called. The sound recurring at 
 brief intervals laid stress on the silence. 
 
 Edmund at his window kept vigil, communing, 
 however unconsciously, with the night and his boyish 
 soul. 
 
 Gundred, in her nursery, slept the flushed sleep of 
 healthy childhood. 
 
 Lady Alton, in her sumptuous bedroom and the 
 hands of the long-suffering Bonner, disrobed leisurely, 
 and soon, too, would be sleeping. 
 
 Edmund, Gundred, Lady Alton . . . one roof over 
 all. 
 
 In the housekeeper's room, from which opened the 
 linen closet upon one side and the little panelled 
 chamber in which she slept upon the other, Balderton, 
 like a sentinel at his post, or, more aptly, like one whom 
 
Ube Successor 205 
 
 his lord at his coming should find watching, was yet 
 astir. This was the hour when she made up the books, 
 which, kept in her neat crabbed hand, and showing 
 never a blot nor a smear, were balanced to a farthing. 
 This was the hour when such work was done as she 
 would entrust to no hands but her own. There was 
 linen at Merringham from the days of fine linen. If 
 you had looked at the table-cloths and napkins on the 
 fragrant shelves of the linen press, the sweet-smelling 
 towels and sheets and pillow-cases, you might, with 
 keen sight, have arrived at a conclusion as to how the 
 strange little woman employed herself when the rest of 
 the household slept. There were hands in plenty to 
 have done the work for her, and we need not suppose 
 she allowed them to be idle. But certain things no one 
 might touch. Here were darnings, if you looked for 
 them, such as the needles of few could have executed 
 fine drawings, hardly to be detected for cunning and 
 subtlety. Long after the sounds had ceased in the 
 house, and the last candle was extinguished, one lamp 
 would be burning under its green cardboard shade. 
 Overseeing, directing, controlling ; counting, comparing, 
 balancing; guarding, renewing, preserving, Balderton 
 laboured early and late; Lord Alton had not over- 
 rated her services. She, at least, whenever it should be 
 asked of her, would be found ready to give account of 
 her stewardship. . . . 
 
 On this particular night, her books made up for the 
 day, she was engaged on some repairs of more than 
 usual delicacy. The clock ticking loudly upon the 
 mantelpiece was almost the only sound which broke 
 the stillness. As on the night of Lord Alton's death, 
 there were periods to be measured by minutes when, 
 for any sound that she made to proclaim her presence, 
 the room might have been supposed empty. Her needle 
 
206 Ube Successor 
 
 travelling slowly through cambric was scarcely audible ; 
 her breathing wholly inaudible. To one pausing, say, 
 on the threshold, the rustle of her dress when she moved 
 in her chair would have come as a surprise, and the 
 sudden rattle from her work-box, when she rummaged 
 in it for this or that, as a thing unexpected, startling. 
 The rest was a silence so profound that in it the call of 
 the night-jar, considerably more distant here than from 
 the room in which Edmund hearkened to it, was yet 
 discernible. It was perhaps the intricacy of the work 
 upon which she was engaged that caused her usually 
 smooth forehead to wear such a frown. She could work 
 and think, however. Her face, if she had raised it, 
 would have been seen to be seamed as with care. 
 
 It was late when she finished what she was doing. 
 She smoothed her work out and examined it mechani- 
 cally. For a moment or two she seemed not able to 
 see, and with a little exclamation of impatience passed 
 her hand over her eyes. She picked at a stitch or two 
 with the point of her needle, and looked again. Then 
 taking a square inch or so of the material between the 
 first finger and the thumb of each hand, she strained 
 it gently. A pucker hardly to be detected disappeared. 
 She did not seem wholly satisfied even then, but deciding, 
 probably, that she could do no more that night, she 
 gathered up her work, and taking the lamp with her, 
 went to the adjoining room. She unlocked one of the 
 great presses which lined the walls, and restored what 
 she had mended to its place. At the sight of the laden 
 shelves, before which she lingered, her face gradually 
 cleared. The appeal of flax to her was never made in 
 vain. Her fingers touched the linen reverently, and 
 with a movement almost caressing. . . . 
 
 Here in the linen closet the night-jar calling in the 
 park could be heard distinctly. Balderton, who had 
 
Ube Successor 207 
 
 been dimly conscious of it while she worked, now became 
 actively aware of it. As she stood contemplating the 
 things which her soul loved, she listened. She liked 
 the sound. As it had seemed to Edmund upstairs to 
 make the silence more silent, so for her it pointed the 
 stillness of the sleeping house. Noiseless herself in all 
 her movements, she had affinity with the stillness, and 
 if for that reason alone she took pleasure in being up 
 while others slept. 
 
 When she had locked the doors of the cupboard and 
 returned the key to her pocket, she went to the window 
 and opened it. As she did so, another sound smote her 
 ear a sudden and sharp sound, small but penetrating, 
 the first of a series of little agonised squeals from 
 somewhere near-by in the garden. She knew what it 
 meant a rabbit caught and struggling in a trap set by 
 one of the gardeners. A memory stirred within her. 
 She shut the window quickly, but found she had not 
 shut out the sound. The crying was piteous. It beat 
 against the glass . . . against her. She stood irresolute, 
 arguing with her softness of heart. Rabbits could not 
 be allowed on the flower-beds. There they were vermin, 
 and like other vermin must die. But the cries, and the 
 memory of other cries. . . . 
 
 She took up the lamp and went quickly from the 
 room. As she reached the hall, someone was running 
 downstairs in the darkness. Her lamp showed her 
 Edmund. 
 
 He recognised her. 
 
 "There's a poor little devil of a rabbit caught in a 
 trap under my window," he said. " Before I go to bed 
 I've got to knock it on the head." 
 
 Balderton did not say that he ought not to have 
 troubled himself. Without speaking, she led him quickly 
 to a side door which communicated with that part of the 
 
208 Ube Successor 
 
 garden whence she judged the sound to proceed, and 
 drew back the bolts. 
 
 Edmund stepped out into the moonlight. Balderton, 
 standing in the doorway, watched him run down the 
 path. She was now in the very grip of a memory. 
 What was happening had happened before. Edmund 
 was bare-headed, and having just begun to undress, 
 was in his shirt sleeves and collarless. He had not 
 waited for his coat. Even to smallest detail was an 
 incident of long ago repeating itself. . . . 
 
 Thirty years back just such a little squealing had 
 disturbed her. A hundred other such squealings must 
 have been heard by her in the course of the years 
 between, but across them, as across a gulf, it had been 
 to the cry of one particular rabbit that her thoughts had 
 been transported to-night. Why? Who shall say? 
 The breeze, perhaps, was in the same quarter ? The 
 trap by chance in the same spot ? Who could tell what 
 combination of circumstances made for similarity? 
 She had remembered before she saw Edmund, or knew 
 that anyone had heard the sounds but herself. That 
 was strangest of all. 
 
 Balderton closed her eyes for a moment. Thirty 
 years back a young man, comely in his half-dress as 
 this one, had hurried through that very door on a like 
 errand of mercy. Thirty years back she had waited, as 
 she waited now, for a little burst of keener squealing 
 which should precede silence. 
 
 Edmund came back to her in a few minutes. He 
 held a dead rabbit in his hand. 
 
 " Poor little beast ! " he said. 
 
 A moment or two ago its little frightened heart had 
 been thumping against his palm. 
 
 "Ah," Balderton said, as she saw it, " they've gone back 
 to the old traps. His lordship would not have them used." 
 
Ube Successor 209 
 
 They stood for a few seconds discussing snares and 
 the little dead animal. 
 
 " But you'll catch cold, sir," said Balderton. 
 
 Edmund shook his head. 
 
 Balderton looked at his healthy face. No, he would 
 not catch cold. 
 
 But he came in and she bolted the door. He still 
 held the rabbit. 
 
 "What shall I do with it ?" he said. 
 
 " I'll take it," said Balderton. " I beg your pardon, 
 sir, I was forgetting." 
 
 She took it from him. 
 
 " Your father," she said, " came down one night just 
 as you've done to-night. He had heard a rabbit 
 squealing, and couldn't sleep till he'd put it out of its 
 pain. I met him in the hall as I met you. He was in 
 his shirt-sleeves just as you are yourself, sir. That's 
 thirty years ago, sir. When I look at you it might be 
 yesterday, or rather it might be to-night it might be 
 this minute, and you might be my Mr. Edmund, sir. 
 It makes one think, sir." 
 
 Edmund looked at her with interest. 
 
 " He couldn't stand it either ?" 
 
 " He couldn't bear the thought of anything suffering, 
 sir. Sport, he said, was different. We stood talking, 
 Mr. Edmund, as you and I are talking now. Sport was 
 different. It was the thought of anything dragging out 
 time in pain. Those were his words as near as I can 
 remember them." 
 
 " I wish I had known my father," said Edmund. 
 
 " You are so like him, sir. Doesn't Mrs. Alton think 
 you like ? " 
 
 " Yes. More latterly, I think. Lady Alton said so 
 too when I first met her." 
 
 " She never saw him," said Balderton. " She has only 
 
 o 
 
2io abe Successor 
 
 pictures to go by. That's not the same as flesh and 
 blood." 
 
 She was waving her mistress aside. 
 
 "She never saw him," she said again. "And it 
 doesn't do," she added, " to be seeing likenesses all the 
 time. They're family things and they're odd things, 
 and you never know where they may take you. My 
 lady is a great one for likenesses." 
 
 Balderton's manner was hard, but not disrespectful. 
 
 " A year or two back it was all likenesses for a baby 
 who was pretty much like most babies, but not just then 
 like anyone else. Well, one might say now that she 
 was like you, sir. There is a look . . ." 
 
 "Quite probably though of course one never sees 
 these things oneself. Still, cousins generally have some 
 traits in common." 
 
 " Just so, sir, and you may see one likeness sometimes 
 through another. You're like enough to all the Altons, 
 sir, but you're like your mother's family too like Mr. 
 Roderick Carmelin as I remember him. So as the little 
 Baroness is like you, and you are like him, we shall be 
 finding her like him next." 
 
 " She is rather like him," said Edmund. " Why," he 
 added, remembering, " that is who she's like.'.' 
 
 The elusive thing had been puzzling him. 
 
 " I've seen it since I've seen you, sir." 
 
 " Rummy," he said, " for though he's my relation and 
 she's my relation, he and she are no relations." 
 
 " So where would likenesses lead us ? " said Balderton. 
 She looked at him blankly. But as she looked her face 
 softened. Something that was maternal came into it, 
 and her tone when she spoke next had lost its 
 harshness. 
 
 "When you came in at the door, sir, a fortnight ago . . ." 
 She broke off, and there was a moment's pause. " You 
 
ttbe Successor 211 
 
 shook hands with me, sir. It was that, I think, partly. 
 Your father and your uncles always shook hands with 
 me when they arrived from anywhere even his lordship. 
 It came naturally to them, as it were. And you looking 
 like one of them did the same thing. I hadn't seen 
 you since were a little boy, but if only by that, sir, I 
 should have known you for one of the race, sir, which I 
 have had the honour to serve." 
 
 It was in tune with something of strangeness in the 
 meeting of these two in the sleeping house that they 
 presently found themselves in the dining-room, standing 
 under the picture which had played its part, however 
 passively, in the affairs of the family. Balderton, tilting 
 the cardboard shade, held the lamp so that the light was 
 thrown on to the canvas. Directed thus, the light caused 
 the seams in it to show more than they showed by day. 
 
 Out of a pause Edmund heard himself saying : " How 
 did it happen ? " 
 
 He thought Balderton gathered herself together to 
 speak. 
 
 " We shall never know, sir. But his lordship was not 
 himself neither then, as I think, nor to the day of his 
 death. He was never quite like other people. He had 
 much to try him, and always one vexation. You never 
 knew how he would take anything. Something had 
 happened to upset him that day. I am as sure of that 
 as that I stand here. He was ill afterwards, as you have 
 heard. But he wasn't himself, sir not then nor to the 
 hour he died. If he had been himself . . .'' 
 
 She stopped, and there fleeted across her face that 
 expression which he had remarked on the day of his 
 arrival. 
 
 A child's painted ball lay on the sideboard under the 
 picture. Gundred, Edmund remembered, had brought 
 it in with her to luncheon, and some trifling difficulty 
 
2i2 ttfoe Successor 
 
 having arisen in connection with it, one of the footmen 
 had been told to put it away till the meal should be over. 
 By chance it had been overlooked, and had lain on the 
 sideboard ever since. It broke the thread now of what 
 Balderton had been saying : 
 
 "My little mistress will be looking for this in the 
 morning, sir. She generally runs into my room the first 
 thing when she comes down." 
 
 Edmund waited, looking up at the seams in the picture. 
 Some change, however, had come over Balderton, or he 
 thought so. 
 
 " His lordship was ill when the accident happened. 
 No one was with him. We found him unconscious, and 
 the picture torn as you see." 
 
 Her arm may have been aching. She put the lamp 
 down, and the tilted shade slipped back into its place. 
 The effect of this was to plunge the picture into 
 darkness. 
 
 They stood talking for a few moments longer, but 
 something seemed to have come between them. What 
 Balderton said was not what she had been going to say. 
 The intimacy of the last few minutes had received a 
 check, and Balderton had receded from him. Her face 
 when he searched it for explanation was inscrutable, and 
 the strange interview ended in a constraint which even 
 the sight of the little dead rabbit, lying where Balderton 
 had placed it in the hall, was not able to dispel. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 LADY ALTON'S life was fuller now than in days when 
 the hostility of a favoured servant had had the power to 
 annoy her, and her serenity too deep-rooted a thing to 
 be easily shaken. It was some time, therefore, after the 
 going of Edmund from which date, as uncomfortable 
 consideration made her afterwards aware, the disturbing 
 change actually took place before she became conscious 
 of something that was disquieting in Balderton's look, 
 and in her attitude generally. If, off hand, she had 
 given the matter a thought indeed, she would probably 
 have believed herself proof against influences of the 
 kind. As she would have supposed herself released by 
 custom, circumstance, education even, from the petty 
 thraldom of sensitiveness to the opinion of inferiors, so 
 would she assuredly have supposed herself quit once for 
 all of morbid apprehensions. Had a qualm assailed 
 her ? since the early qualms to the onslaught of which 
 illness and a backward spring had conspired to expose 
 her ? In lonelier moments even ? In the watches of 
 the night ? In dark days or the long summer evenings ? 
 Never ! She appeared to have reasoned things out to 
 good purpose. Her sleep was unbroken. The beauties 
 of sundown, if we are to believe her, attuned her mind 
 to thoughts of peace. Beside Gundred, then ? Face to 
 face with young life happy, guileless, unquestioning ? 
 We have heard her call Gundred a sacred charge. Face 
 to face, then, with Edmund ? With Balderton, we have 
 seen her give him her hand. 
 
 213 
 
214 ZTbe Successor 
 
 What, moreover, as we may reasonably pause here to 
 ask, had the lady to fear? A glance at the situation 
 would have given her, of the original protagonists, one 
 silent, the other silenced. Lord Alton de Merringham, 
 dead as the Andover or the Redruth of Angerstown 
 (poor, unsatisfied ladies !), could not speak if he would. 
 Susan of the erstwhile sharp tongue had taken her 
 defeat whatever she may have suspected, or refused to 
 suspect, of the means used to defeat her and treated 
 the contest as over. Whom else? Herself, Edmund, 
 Gundred and somewhere, at a venture, a gallant whom 
 we know nothing about, but may guess at, a seeker after 
 adventures, a light-lover, anyway. . . ! Of these might 
 any one be thought likely to move ? Not Edmund, who 
 was unsuspecting as poor, innocent Gundred herself. 
 Not the stranger, who in the obscurity which enshrouded 
 him knew as little of the mischief he had wrought as we 
 know of him. Not Lady Alton, one would have thought, 
 who might surely at this length of time wipe her mouth 
 with a " Tush ! " and a " God hath not seen ! " 
 
 We upon our part may put two and two together, 
 and to such a making of four, as, adding a fourth to 
 the trio we have seen hand in hand, gives us pause 
 indeed . . . but what should arrest Lady Alton on her 
 tranquil and prosperous way? What move her out 
 of it? 
 
 Disapproval, however, is an insidious thing, working 
 oddly, and when she became aware of the new 
 unfriendliness of one whom she had thought long since 
 to have conciliated, she found herself, to her surprise, at 
 close quarters with a formidable menace to her peace. 
 Edmund had been gone a month when she first noticed 
 what she was soon constrained to attribute to his recent 
 presence. So taken aback was she that she thought 
 she must have been mistaken. She saw Balderton with 
 
Ube Successor 215 
 
 Gundred, and was sure she had been mistaken. She 
 saw Balderton alone, and knew that she had not. 
 
 The servants were surprised suddenly to find 
 amusements being planned for them. A detachment 
 was sent in a brake to a neighbouring fete ; another to 
 an entertainment at Westerton Derbolt in connection 
 with the bazaar for the organ fund. 
 
 " In the winter," Lady Alton said to Dunwich, 
 William and James being by " in the winter you shall 
 have a ball. It is time we thought about such little 
 pleasures. His lordship, I know, would have wished it. 
 There hasn't been a servants' ball in my time, but there 
 shall be this year. I will speak to Mrs. Balderton about 
 it, and you must talk it out amongst yourselves. Just 
 think it over, you know, and let me know when you all 
 think would be the best time, and I must see if I can 
 manage it. I think you all know I like to give you 
 what little recreations are in my power about 
 Christmas, I thought, or the New Year. I daresay I 
 may be entertaining myself just then, but we must try 
 and manage, mustn't we ? I like you all to be happy." 
 
 Thoughtfulness thrice thoughtful ! What had come 
 to her? William's pleasant impudent face, when 
 Dunwich glanced at him, was one large wink. 
 
 Lady Alton smiled and went a benevolent way. She 
 was not less exacting, as Bonner could have testified, 
 but she had assumed a giving mood. She sent for Mr. 
 Linster, and spoke to him provisionally of the ball. 
 He would help her to arrange it when the time should 
 come ; and was she doing all that she should for the 
 tenants ? 
 
 " It is here," she said, " that I miss the guiding arm 
 so much of Lord Alton. He always knew so exactly 
 the right thing to do. I should like there to be no 
 discontent on the estate. . , ." 
 
216 TCbe Successor 
 
 There was none, Mr. Linster assured her. Farmers, 
 of course, always grumbled a little, but while there 
 were half-a-dozen applicants for any farm that became 
 vacant, there could be no complaints worth serious 
 consideration. As in Lord Alton's time, every farm 
 was let. 
 
 "Ah, I know," said Lady Alton, "that the land is 
 rich and fertile, and that here at Merringham we are 
 abundantly blessed. I know, too, that in your hands 
 the tenants are sure of fair treatment. I do not forget 
 how high an opinion my husband had of your discretion. 
 But is there anything that I personally could do ? Any 
 little attention that I could pay them, and that they 
 would like? I do, of course, call on them all from 
 time to time, and take the little Baroness, or send 
 her with her nurses. But anything further is there 
 anything further that I could do to please them ? " 
 
 Mr. Linster thought not. There was nothing left 
 undone, he assured her, to promote the well-being of 
 anyone on the estate. He did not think that Lady 
 Alton could do more than she did. The yearly dinner 
 was an institution. There were little bounties to the 
 poorer members of the community at Christmas which 
 never failed to give satisfaction. On the farms any 
 reasonable grievances were met. 
 
 " Your tenants indeed think themselves fortunate," 
 said Mr. Linster. 
 
 " Still, anything that I could do . . ." said Lady 
 Alton vaguely. 
 
 Mr. Linster reached for his hat. 
 
 " We must not spoil them," he said. " Lady Wrays- 
 bury has a new agent over at Rookhampton. He 
 complains, I hear, that Merringham is continually held 
 up to him as an example." 
 
 "Oh, Rookhampton," said Lady Alton. "If the 
 
ttfoe Successor 217 
 
 property is run on the same lines as the house. . . ! 
 Yes, I think we can do better than Rookhampton. 
 Still, anything that I can do . you will remember, 
 Mr. Linster, will you not ? " 
 
 " I shall remember." 
 
 Lady Alton considered. She seemed to have 
 something yet to say. 
 
 " For yourself, Mr. Linster," she said, after a brief 
 pause, "you are happy with us here at Merringham, 
 are you not ? " 
 
 " I should think myself hard to please if I were not," 
 he said, smiling. 
 
 " It's that I do so realise my responsibilities," she said 
 plaintively. " I feel them, and try to discharge them as 
 best I can. People, I daresay, seeing me in society " 
 she had not forgotten apparently the novelettes of earlier 
 days " think I live only for such things, and that I 
 have not a care in the world. How little they know ! 
 Situated as I am, the management of the estate during 
 the Baroness's minority must naturally be a heavy 
 burden. My dear husband was taken from me at the 
 time when most of all I needed him. I live now but 
 for the little Baroness, and to nurse the property for 
 her. Whatever I think Lord Alton would have 
 wished, it is my endeavour to do. I put my duty to 
 him as I think a wife should before any personal 
 considerations . . ." 
 
 Lady Alton paused, and Mr. Linster said " Quite so." 
 
 " One should," she said, " should one not ? " 
 
 Mr. Linster said " Certainly." 
 
 " I am in the position of regent, as it were, for my 
 child Queen Regent, I might almost say, perhaps," she 
 smiled sadly, " and as I should like my regency to be 
 wise, so I should like it to be happy. I think in this 
 life one should do all one can to make others happy. 
 
218 Ube Successor 
 
 I like to see cheerful looks and bright faces about 
 me." 
 
 Mr. Linster's face, as its owner left the library where 
 the interview had taken place, wore in its amused smile 
 the equivalent, perhaps, of the impudent William's 
 engaging, if undignified, wink. 
 
 But Lady Alton might breathe benevolences and 
 beneficences as she would, Balderton's look did not 
 soften towards her. To her disquieted fancy it held 
 an unfriendliness more potent than in the days of its 
 early hostility. The thing became a fret and a touch 
 on the raw, and a vexation of spirit. She tried to ignore 
 it. Why should it trouble her? What weakness did 
 her position confess to that it should affect her ? To 
 dispose of it finally. What was it this imagined 
 antagonism ? Balderton had always been odd a 
 reserved and a strange person, with thoughts too deep 
 for guessing and a nature difficult to understand. Why 
 should she (Lady Alton) suppose that her housekeeper 
 avoided her, spoke to her as little as might be, retired 
 into herself at her approach ? But Balderton did avoid 
 her. The fact was incontestable. Then why should she 
 care ? What was Balderton to her ? She had but to 
 give her " notice," if need be. A servant, after all, like 
 the other servants, she could be sent packing like any one 
 of them with a month's wages any day of the year. 
 
 But that, as Lady Alton knew with a tightening 
 of the muscles of her heart, was just what Balderton 
 was not, and her dismissal, summary or otherwise, was 
 exactly what could not be thought of. Balderton, Lord 
 Alton had said, should leave Merringham but at her 
 own wish. She remembered the day of his saying so. 
 How could she forget, or expect to forget ? it was the 
 day of the saying of nothing! She knew, as Balderton 
 also knew, it is probable, that she would not dare to 
 
ttbe Successor 
 
 dismiss her to disobey what in effect was her husband's 
 command. Balderton, Lord Alton had said, would die 
 at Merringham. She remembered the prophecy. It, 
 too, held an uncompromising injunction. Useless to 
 tell herself that Balderton could be parted with. 
 Balderton could never be parted with. The knowledge 
 was not such as to calm her. 
 
 Lady Alton disquieted was Lady Alton ill. It 
 became patent that something was amiss with her. 
 Harassed Bonner suggested a doctor. Lady Alton 
 would not hear of a doctor. There was nothing the 
 matter with her, she declared. She was a little run 
 down a little " below par " but it was nothing. 
 What should be the matter with her? Bonner did 
 not know, and appealed to the ceiling. 
 
 " Very well, then," said her mistress irritably. 
 
 There was no pleasing her. It was a return to the 
 old days. 
 
 " She was just like this," Bonner said downstairs 
 "just exactly like this after the little Baroness was 
 born. I'm sure when I first came she used to give 
 trouble enough for twenty; but that was nothing to 
 what it was after the baby arrived. It was dreadful. 
 She wouldn't eat then, if you remember, and she's not 
 what you would call a small eater in general. She 
 hasn't touched her morning tea for a fortnight. I don't 
 know what's the matter with her, I'm sure." 
 
 " It was all talk of a ball for us a week or two back," 
 said Dunwich " a ball, and liking us to have our little 
 natural pleasures." 
 
 "Well, it isn't now," said Bonner. "It's fret, fret, 
 fret, about everything." 
 
 It was true ; fretfulness took the place of considered 
 graciousness, benevolence made way to contrariety. 
 She said no more about wishing to be surrounded with 
 
220 Ube Successor 
 
 happy faces, about what she could do to promote 
 universal contentment, and the like. She was the 
 Lady Alton of the exacting days, with the Lady 
 Alton of the days of the dominion of phrases and 
 a phrase, superadded. What ailed her ? 
 
 Yet what was so palpable to her that the conscious- 
 ness of it became a very obsession, was probably 
 perceptible to no one else in the house. Balderton, to 
 all appearance, went her accustomed way. There was 
 nothing in her mien or her behaviour that was unusual 
 to outward seeming. If an aloofness came into her face 
 when her mistress addressed her it was such that her 
 mistress alone perceived it. It might hold unspeakable 
 things . . . condemnation . . . the fixing of a gulf . . . 
 it was for one only. Impossible for that one not to 
 suppose deliberate intention in what was so unswervingly 
 precise. If Lady Alton could have persuaded herself 
 that any one else shared these looks with her she could 
 better have borne them. 
 
 Gundred at this time had a curious mother, who petted 
 her or sent her from the room. It was not easy for a 
 little girl to be "good" just then. What you were 
 kissed for yesterday, was said to be "troublesome" 
 to-day. You were told to go to Balderton for your 
 noise, dear, was distracting or not to spend all your 
 time in the housekeeper's room ! You were told that 
 you were your mother's joy or pride, the light of her 
 eyes, all that she had to live for, and straightway were 
 cried over irritably as if you were nothing of the sort. 
 There were other perplexities. You were talked to a 
 great deal about Balderton ; were asked if you loved 
 her, and why ? Better than the other servants ? That 
 was right. Balderton was so good and kind. It was 
 right that you should love her. Balderton was not like 
 anyone else. There were few Baldertons in the world. 
 
TTfoe Successor 221 
 
 Papa had said there was no one like Balderton. You 
 must always be nice to her, and do what she told you, 
 and treat her as a dear friend. When this seemed to be 
 settled, you were told that you were much too fond of 
 servants' society, and must remember who you were. 
 A lady's place was the drawing-room. You would learn 
 no good from inferiors, who were a mischievous, gossiping 
 set. 
 
 All of which was perplexing. 
 
 If there had been anyone to observe Lady Alton just 
 then he must have seen that she had difficulty in keeping 
 off the subject of her housekeeper, who appeared to 
 exercise an irresistible fascination for her. She talked 
 of her directly or indirectly a dozen times a day. With 
 visitors even she contrived to lead the conversation 
 round to her. " My housekeeper says," were words 
 often on her tongue ; or " Leaving everything to 
 Balderton as I do my old housekeeper . . . ; " or 
 "Anything that I want to know I ask Mrs. Balderton 
 the advantage of having someone about one who has 
 lived all her life with the family." Then darkly she 
 would hint that it was possible to keep servants too 
 long. "They mean no harm, but get a little beyond 
 themselves. Sometimes I question the wisdom of 
 letting servants grow old in your employment." 
 
 Why did she not ask the old woman point-blank 
 what she meant by her conduct ? " Have it out " with 
 her . . . demand and insist upon an explanation ? Why 
 not, indeed? There were days when a question was 
 almost wrung from her jerked from her lips. She got 
 as far as " Balderton ! Balderton ! " one day, but retired 
 in disorder before Balderton's chilling " My lady ? " 
 
 " Nothing," she said, " nothing ! I forget what I was 
 going to say." 
 
 So things went on. The summer, which broke 
 
222 Ube Successor 
 
 suddenly after Edmund's visit, had given place to a 
 wet autumn, which was followed in turn by a more 
 than usually dispiriting winter. If Merringham had a 
 fault, it was that it often rained there. Lady Alton, at 
 the mercy of herself and the elements, went from room 
 to room on wet days as at a time which we remember. 
 Why had Lord Alton died, thus to leave her to bear 
 alone a burden too heavy for her? It was cruel 
 unjust. . . . 
 
 She cast about her for distraction. Gundred as an 
 interest had helped her before. She began again to 
 point likenesses. She seized now upon the absent 
 Edmund and pressed him into the service. That till 
 that moment (oddly enough) she had not observed in 
 him even so much resemblance to her little daughter as 
 in point of fact he did bear to her, did not hinder her 
 protestations. 
 
 " I think her so like her cousin," she said to Gundred's 
 nurse. "All the time Mr. Alton was staying here I 
 found myself remarking it the strong family likeness. 
 Something that isn't in anything that you can take 
 hold of for he is fairer than she is but that is quite 
 unmistakable. You must see it everyone must, don't 
 you think ? " 
 
 The nurse, ready to assent to anything, hesitated 
 here. She did not forget that once in her readiness 
 she had betrayed herself into finding the little girl like 
 one or other of Lord Alton's former wives. 
 
 " Her little ladyship's so much darker, my lady, isn't 
 she ? Her eyes are brown, and Mr. Alton's are blue . . ." 
 
 "Don't I say so?" said Lady Alton sharply. "It 
 isn't a question of colour likeness never is. Why, I'm 
 fair myself, and I suppose the Baroness is like me. It 
 would be surprising if she were not. What I refer to 
 is something in expression, I think a movement of 
 
Ube Successor 223 
 
 the features, perhaps. Well, well, one person sees these 
 things, and another does not." 
 
 Gundred's nurse put her head on one side to consider. 
 She could find likenesses for her little mistress to 
 pictures. That was easy enough. One picture was 
 pretty much like another. But with living faces it 
 was different. 
 
 " The chin, perhaps," she hazarded. 
 
 " Yes, the chin," said Lady Alton doubtfully. " The 
 Baroness's chin and Mr. Alton's have just the same 
 curve." 
 
 " The chin," said the nurse " of course the chin ! I 
 wonder I never noticed it." 
 
 But it was not the chin. They had both chins. 
 There, so far as that feature was concerned, the 
 resemblance began and ended. 
 
 Yet there was a likeness for such as might see. 
 Unable to keep away from her, or from her own 
 thoughts, Lady Alton put the question to Balderton. 
 
 " Yes, my lady. I've seen it some time." 
 
 Lady Alton looked at her with astonishment. Had 
 she been mistaken after all ? 
 
 " There," she said triumphantly. " Haven't I always 
 said? And Mr. Alton's such an Alton from head to 
 foot, isn't he? I fancied somehow I know, of course, 
 how much you think of the Altons and this great 
 house that you didn't think the little Baroness was 
 quite like her ancestors. But this proves it." 
 
 " I don't think her like them," said Balderton. 
 
 Lady Alton searched her face. " But you said she 
 was like Mr. Edmund." 
 
 11 Not through the Altons.' 
 
 " How else could she be ? " 
 
 " How can I say, my lady ? " 
 
 "But he is such an Alton/' persisted Lady 
 
224 TTbe Successor 
 
 Alton. " Everyone says so. Hardly even like his 
 mother." 
 
 Balderton's small eyes were upon her. 
 
 " Did your ladyship ever see Mr. Carmelin ? Mrs. 
 Alton's brother." 
 
 Lady Alton shook her head 
 
 " No, my lady ? " 
 
 " No. Why ? " 
 
 " Only that Mr. Edmund reminds me of him," said 
 Balderton. " I understood your ladyship to speak of 
 Mrs. Alton." 
 
 Lady Alton looked at her as if she did not follow. 
 But Balderton made no attempt to explain, and she 
 went back to her contention that any likeness to 
 Edmund upon Gundred's part must prove the exist- 
 ence of a likeness to the Altons. 
 
 " It must be so." 
 
 " I see no likeness," said Balderton. " None." 
 Her look and her tone were alike uncompromising. 
 Lady Alton had difficulty in preventing her eyes from 
 faltering. 
 
 It chanced, however, that Gundred herself ran up 
 at this moment, and Lady Alton, clutching maybe at 
 what saved the situation, saw that the old woman's 
 face underwent an instantaneous and wonderful change. 
 
 She meant no harm, then? could mean no harm while 
 she could look so at Gundred. The affection of her barren 
 years was lavished upon the little girl for any to see. 
 Thus she could mean no harm. Yet what did she 
 mean ? A likeness, and no likeness ! The cold and 
 hard look for her mistress . . . but the melting and 
 the gentleness for her mistress's daughter. The things 
 were not of a piece. Could they be thought of a piece 
 or made to agree ? 
 
 Lady Alton, apprehensive, unnerved, driven, did not 
 
TEbe Successor 225 
 
 abate her self-torment. What, she asked herself again 
 and again, could be the workings of Balderton's mind ? 
 not seeing that Balderton, who served a house and 
 not an individual, might yet be drawn in two ways. 
 Even now the strange lady's misgivings could in no 
 sense be said to be upon injured Edmund's account 
 She had disposed of him as we know, holding him no 
 concern of hers, and passing him over to the tender 
 responsibility of his dead uncle. That the Abomination 
 of Desolation sat where it should not (let him that 
 readeth understand indeed !) seems not to have been 
 for her comprehension at all nor, as it affected Edmund, 
 the enormity of the wrong which had been committed. 
 As the child of her husband's wish, Gundred was to her 
 distorted vision veritably perhaps her husband's child, 
 and the proper, if not the lawful, inheritor of his name 
 and substance. If she could not appreciate her offence 
 at the hundredth part of its gravity, she was neverthe- 
 less acutely and grievously troubled. To be in the 
 dark, as she found herself, was to be the prey to every 
 bewilderment Balderton's allegiance must be, must it 
 not, to Edmund or to Gundred ? Foolish to have let 
 her see Edmund, who should have remained for her but 
 a name and a recollection of a small boy. Foolish to 
 have allowed the handsome Alton inside the gates, since 
 it was, as she guessed, to have allowed him to become a 
 living soul, and not a living soul only, but also his father's 
 son. Balderton might not have loved Lord Alton, faith- 
 fully as she had devoted herself to his service, but she 
 had always loved his handsome brothers Edmund, if 
 Lord Alton had been right, most of all. Here was 
 Edmund, as even Lady Alton could see, come to life. 
 What wonder if Balderton, who, if she knew if she 
 knew ! could not be expected to understand, should 
 look to the very stones of Merringham to cry out! Did 
 
226 ZTbe Successor 
 
 she know ? Could she know ? How could she know ? 
 It was Edmund for her or Gundred. No likeness . . . 
 none! and the bitter look. She knew! and it was 
 Edmund. But the sudden and wonderful change at 
 Gundred's appearing. It was Gundred . . . and did 
 she know ? What to think ! What to think ! 
 
 Fate, it may be seen, with its usual irony was avenging 
 Mrs. Alton almost in kind. On the memorable day of 
 the bewilderment which Lord Alton had planned for 
 her most deliberately and maliciously, if chucklingly, 
 and with his tongue in his cheek Mrs. Alton had not 
 suffered more by uncertainty. Mrs. Alton's conscience, 
 however, was clear. Wherein, howsoever shamefully 
 (though she did not know it) she was being treated, 
 she had had the unspeakable advantage of her adver- 
 sary. Lady Alton's conscience could not be said to be 
 clear. It had not troubled her, but it could not be said 
 to be unsmirched. It was now, when disordered and 
 unarmed she was least able to meet the attack of an 
 enemy so insidious, that it found her out and accused 
 her. She was in church one Sunday morning when 
 familiar things became unfamiliar. The Thou Shalts 
 and Thou Shalt Nots of the Ten Commandments con- 
 fronted her ; took sudden meaning. It was not whether 
 Balderton knew or did not know that mattered : not 
 Balderton nor human judgments at all. Thou Shalt ! 
 Thou Shalt Not ! It was as if she had heard for the first 
 time. Thou Shalt Not ... and she Had ! The Prayer- 
 book with the large cross and the infinitesimal coronet 
 slipped from her hand. 
 
 And that, by curious chance, was the day when the 
 Rector of Merringham felt it to be his duty to refuse a 
 member of his congregation the Sacrament. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 POOR Matty Henster did not trouble church much as a 
 rule. Life at the tumbledown cottage was a haphazard 
 thing, into the unconsidered scheme of which the obvious 
 respectabilities hardly entered at all. Lee Henster, who 
 poached notoriously and disappeared for months together, 
 did not set his offspring any very meritorious example. 
 Mrs. Henster, sly, comely, indifferent, bothered her head 
 about appearances as little as he. The children, as was 
 natural, followed in their parents' footsteps. Not a 
 church-going lot the Hensters. 
 
 But Matty, the eldest of the brood, who, under the 
 influence of a former schoolmistress, had for a brief 
 period in her little wild life shown glimmerings of a 
 feeling for religion, and had even allowed herself, con- 
 trary to all family traditions, to be confirmed, had gone 
 strawberry-picking in the summer ... to find herself 
 presently in need of spiritual consolations, for physical 
 reasons which by the winter were all too apparent. 
 Mr. Silarian found himself in a difficult position. The 
 tumbledown cottage was practically closed against him. 
 Mrs. Henster, who held the debatable ground upon which 
 it stood to be out of his, as of every other jurisdiction, 
 and did not encourage visitors, was not to be run to 
 earth. The children, whose father was generally wanted 
 for something, were scouts of Nature's own making. 
 There were always half-a-dozen little tatterdemalions, 
 brown as the countryside, to scent any unwelcome 
 approach and give warning. The girl herself, looking 
 
 227 
 
228 ZTbc Successor 
 
 defiant denials when the thing became a village scandal, 
 avoided him, but continued her shy visits to his church. 
 He had made fruitless expeditions to her home, and 
 many ineffectual attempts to waylay her, when, the talk 
 in his parish being most rampant, the unhappy girl, to 
 his horror and amazement, must needs present herself 
 at the Communion rails to participate in the holiest rites 
 of his Church. 
 
 Poor Matty ! It was a dreadful moment. Who shall 
 say what blind achings had screwed her courage to the 
 desperate step ? Did she seek absolution or to strike a 
 blow at public opinion ? Was it an act of self-abasement 
 or self-assertion ? of piety or defiance ? Mr. Silarian, 
 horrified out of his wits, could not determine nor either 
 of his sleek young curates. His first " No, no!" was 
 almost inaudible to his own ears. Matty Henster, having 
 got quickly to her knees, did not look up. The curates 
 exchanged dismayed glances. One of them advanced, 
 and stood back. A flurried communicant, meaning no 
 harm, probably, but acting in sheer nervousness, moved 
 hurriedly away from her. Another, who had been 
 making for the place on the other side of her, paused, 
 and chose a spot further along the line. There was 
 thus a space on each side of her which no one filled. 
 She might have been an infected or even an infectious 
 person. She became conscious of her isolation suddenly, 
 and raised her eyes. The curate who had advanced 
 before took a nervous step forward, looking hesitatingly 
 to his superior for direction. Mr. Silarian recovering him- 
 self, and motioning him aside with a wave of his book, 
 went over to where Matty was kneeling. He bent and 
 said something in a low voice to her. She looked dazed, 
 and did not move. 
 
 The pause was so long that people in the body of the 
 church became aware of it, and all eyes were on the 
 
TTbe Successor 229 
 
 chancel. From the great Merringham pew Lady Alton 
 was watching the scene fearfully with reluctant but 
 fascinated gaze. 
 
 The clergyman's voice was heard again. 
 
 " I will see you in the vestry," it was heard to say. 
 " I cannot give you the Sacrament. Wait for me after 
 the service. I must speak to you." 
 
 There was a painful silence. For a few moments no 
 one moved. Mr. Silarian touched Matty gently on the 
 shoulder, and signed to her to withdraw. 
 
 " At the close of the service," he said kindly. 
 
 Still for a moment or two she did not move. She 
 seemed not to understand. Then suddenly she stumbled 
 to her feet, and groping her way like one obstructed by 
 darkness or too great light, made for the door. No one^ 
 when the latch had been heard to yield to her trembling 
 ringers, could have supposed her to be waiting in the 
 vestry. Someone rose and closed the door which she 
 had left open, and the service proceeded. 
 
 That there was a meeting of such churchwardens as 
 were present to consider what was to be done is a 
 matter which does not concern us. Poor Matty Henster 
 herself, hiding in the woods for the rest of that day, and 
 for many days afterwards, while her case was being 
 talked out by people who did not, nor could ever, come 
 within a hundred miles of understanding it, hardly con- 
 cerns us either. What does concern us is that Lady 
 Alton has an illness a crisis of nerves, a " taking." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Silarian, calling at Merringham that 
 afternoon to discuss the distressing situation, were 
 grieved to learn that Lady Alton was indisposed. 
 She had returned from church that morning con- 
 siderably upset, Dunwich said, and had not been 
 at all herself since lunch. Mr. and Mrs. Silarian were 
 full of solicitude. No one, they declared, could be 
 
230 Ube Successor 
 
 surprised. An incident had occurred of a peculiarly 
 unfortunate nature, as Dunwich doubtless had heard, 
 and it was not to be wondered at that one of her 
 delicate sensibility should have been affected by it. 
 Would Dunwich convey to Lady Alton their sympathy 
 and their regrets ? Mr. Silarian would give himself the 
 pleasure of calling the next day in the hope of finding 
 her better well enough even, perhaps, to see him. 
 
 Lady Alton saw no one the next day, nor the next, 
 but on the day after that Mr. Silarian was admitted. 
 
 Not to acquit the Miss Wraysburys wholly of ex- 
 aggeration, it was yet not an unusual thing to find more 
 than one parson in any room in which Lady Alton was 
 receiving. The present occasion was the clergy's own. 
 If the tumbledown cottage was upon any man's land, it 
 was upon Lady Alton's. If the regrettable incident of 
 that Sunday morning touched any member of the cloth 
 it touched all. Mr. Silarian found sitting with Lady 
 Alton, Archdeacon Witton- Wilson, Lady Henry's cousin, 
 who had driven over from Norton-under- the- Hill, and 
 Mr. Minory of Westerton Derbolt. 
 
 " Ah, here," said the Archdeacon genially, " is our 
 brother to speak for himself." 
 
 Lady Alton gave her visitor a nerveless hand, and 
 responded a little peevishly to his enquiries after her 
 health that there was nothing the matter with her, 
 and that she was "far from well," were statements 
 which she made almost in a breath. 
 
 Mr. Silarian feared, as he shook hands with the 
 Archdeacon and Mr. Minory, that the recent painful 
 scene was responsible for their friend's most regrettable 
 indisposition. 
 
 Lady Alton said: "Oh, I don't know; it is the 
 weather, I think. I was run down before that." 
 
 The talk quickly ranged itself round poor Matty 
 
ttbe Successor *$i 
 
 Henster. Mr. Silarian's action, it may be said at once, 
 was approved, generally speaking, by his critics. (That 
 his friends were his critics was incidental to their calling 
 and the nature of the case.) No other course, the 
 Archdeacon declared, had been open to his good friend. 
 What he himself could not understand, however as 
 with some bluffness he " confessed " was how things 
 should have come to this pass at all. Here, he implied, 
 though he did not say so in so many words, was a 
 young woman who obviously had strayed from the 
 paths of right, but who appeared, in presenting herself 
 at the Holy Table, to have sprung a mine upon her 
 spiritual pastors and masters. 
 
 Mr. Silarian chose partially to misunderstand, or 
 rather to understand but partially he could not, of 
 course, acknowledge himself taken to task. He 
 answered the spoken words in saying that strawberry- 
 picking was like hop-picking, a sort of picnic. The 
 strawberry beds were twenty miles off in the adjoining 
 county. The pickers camped out in the neighbourhood 
 of their labours, or lodged with the local cottagers. 
 There was, he feared, no one to look after them. It 
 was a sad state of things a state of things which in the 
 hop-growing districts he believed to be even worse. It 
 was a rough class which went working in the fields, and 
 the conditions of the work, he was afraid, were sub- 
 versive of morals. He enlarged on the theme. He 
 knew but too well what he was talking about, for a 
 former curate of his own had come to him from a parish 
 in Kent, and told a sad story of the standards of conduct 
 which prevailed amongst the members of the yearly 
 incursion. 
 
 The Archdeacon's unspoken words he answered with- 
 out as he hoped appearing to be conscious of them. 
 The peculiar difficulty of the case, he said confidentially, 
 
232 ttbe Successor 
 
 lay in the anomaly of the Hensters' position. Who was 
 to look after people who refused to be looked after? 
 They were not exactly in any one's parish. Not one of 
 them as a rule came to church. The door of the tumble- 
 down cottage was shut, as he dared say Lady Alton even 
 knew, to visitors. It had proved impossible to get a word 
 with either the unhappy girl or her mother. They were 
 half gipsy, he believed, and thought nothing of spending 
 a night in the woods. 
 
 " Your keepers," said the Archdeacon, turning to Lady 
 Alton, " would have something to say to that." 
 
 Mr. Silarian was of opinion that if the Hensters could 
 elude him, they would not have much difficulty in 
 eluding keepers. 
 
 " They are sad poachers," said Lady Alton, " but my 
 husband never allowed the keepers to be hard on them. 
 There have always been Hensters or Lees he is Lee 
 Henster, you know at No Man's Corner. It is a 
 tradition. We must not be too much down on people 
 who have been denied our own advantages." 
 
 She spoke with an air of mild remonstrance. Vague 
 charitablenesses were in her manner, and gentle 
 expostulations. 
 
 " We must make allowances," she said to Mr. Silarian, 
 and " must we not ? " to the others. 
 
 " Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Silarian, " all due 
 allowances every allowance, in fact," but looked 
 surprised. Was she teaching him his duty ? lessons in 
 Christian forbearance ? This was hardly what he had 
 expected of the Lady Alton of the monumental cross 
 and the infinitesimal coronet. The Prayer-book which 
 was well known to everyone had seemed symbolical of 
 an attitude. Here was a lady who went back, as it were, 
 of the Attitude. 
 
 " A certain responsibility seems to me to attach to 
 
Successor 233 
 
 checking impulses towards good," she said, but depre- 
 catingly, as one who ventures upon another's territory. 
 " The poor creature meant well. One can't help seeing 
 that. What else could have induced her to go up with 
 the rest ? It must have required some courage. Shall 
 we not encourage endeavour . . . aspirations . . ." 
 
 She paused for a word. 
 
 " Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Silarian again. " We 
 should be very careful how we deal with the fledgling 
 soul. An untimely rebuff may, as you suggest, lead to 
 consequences disastrous as they are far-reaching. I 
 should be the last to put an obstacle in the way of any 
 poor sinner who turns, however hesitatingly, to the light. 
 But I should have failed in my duty to the office which 
 I fill if I had permitted what, in the circumstances, 
 would have been a profanation of the Holy Table. I 
 think the Archdeacon and Mr. Minory will agree with 
 me." 
 
 Mr. Minory agreed the Archdeacon with an evident 
 mental reservation. 
 
 " The girl's attitude," went on Mr. Silarian, " if it 
 means anything, means defiance and denial. I have no 
 evidence of her repentance or of any determination 
 upon her part to lead a new life." 
 
 "Then you mean to go on refusing her the 
 Sacrament ? " Lady Alton looked at him anxiously. 
 
 " I have no choice." 
 
 The Archdeacon here broke in with something of 
 impatience. 
 
 " But I suppose the girl will be reasoned with. Oh, 
 yes, I know she avoids you." His tone, its veiled 
 impatience notwithstanding, was quite moderate. 
 " They all do avoid one in such cases. But it must be 
 possible sooner or later to see her. Hide-and-seek is a 
 game which cannot be prolonged indefinitely." 
 
 V 
 
234 ftbe Successor 
 
 Lady Alton turned towards him. He was speaking 
 a temperate word for the sinner. Lady Alton, by her 
 expression, might have been supposed to be looking 
 that he should say more. 
 
 ' Yes, sooner or later you will see the poor girl," she 
 said vaguely. 
 
 " Of course," said Mr. Silarian, who still looked 
 surprised ; " of course ! But I have been up twice to 
 the cottage since Sunday without success. So has Mr. 
 Acres. So has Mr. Naseby. Mrs. Silarian walked up 
 yesterday evening, but found no one, though there 
 were evident traces of the family in the immediate 
 neighbourhood. I have written both to the girl's 
 mother and to the girl herself. I hardly expect 
 any answer. Things are thus at a deadlock, as 
 you see." 
 
 " A difficult case," said Mr. Minory judicially " a 
 difficult case." 
 
 " A most difficult case," said Mr. Silarian, " We can 
 only wait our opportunity. I have the satisfaction, I 
 may say, of knowing that I have the approval of the 
 Bishop, though the incident naturally cannot be too 
 greatly deplored." 
 
 Mr. Silarian pointedly omitted to look at Archdeacon 
 Witton-Wilson. He felt a little sore. The visit was 
 not turning out as he had expected. He could not 
 think that Lady Alton (who, as we know, had been 
 called a Bulwark of the Church) was doing herself 
 justice. Her thoughts, to his surprise, seemed to run 
 more on Matty Henster herself than upon the ecclesias- 
 tical side of the regrettable occurrence of the preceding 
 Sunday. She had subscribed in a manner to the 
 Archdeacon's reprehensible detachment. What business 
 had he to make his mental reservations ? Mr. Silarian, 
 who had promised himself glorious talkiflcation at 
 
trbe Successor 235 
 
 Merringham, had found himself, though all professed to 
 approve him, put, so to speak, on his defence. 
 
 But though an undercurrent of discord might be dis- 
 cernible, there was no want of unanimity between the 
 three clergymen when it came to the question of the 
 solution of the problem which poor Matty had set for 
 herself and for all of them. 
 
 "What?" asked Lady Alton, when Mr. Silarian, 
 sticking to his guns, had repeated that he must continue 
 to refuse Matty the Sacrament " what could the poor 
 girl do?" 
 
 The good lady was certainly not doing herself justice. 
 She seemed now to be at the mercy of her nerves. She 
 turned from one to another. 
 
 Matty, they all said, must marry the man who had 
 betrayed her. 
 
 Lady Alton had no need to be told. It was the old 
 solution of all. She would have suggested it herself a 
 few years back. 
 
 " If," Mr. Silarian said, " she had come to me married, 
 I should not have felt myself justified in refusing her." 
 
 " Certainly not," said the Archdeacon. 
 
 Mr. Minory, who had not spoken much, except to 
 agree with everybody, said that in the lower walks of 
 life many marriages, unfortunately, were made upon 
 such a basis. We must not, he said, look for too fine 
 feelings. Thus many a child who would otherwise 
 have been nameless came into the world able to look 
 it in the face, and many a girl was spared shame. It 
 was, before all things, desirable that the young woman 
 should marry the father of her expected child as soon 
 as possible. 
 
 Lady Alton made a little movement with her 
 eyebrows and hands. 
 
 " And if the poor thing doesn't know . . ." 
 
236 TTbe Successor 
 
 Mr. Silarian and Mr. Minory looked shocked. 
 
 " Oh," they said almost together, " I hope it isn't as 
 bad as that." 
 
 Was this Lady Alton at all ? Mr. Silarian was asking 
 himself. He had expected her to be outraged. Her 
 suggestion was almost indelicate. He could think of 
 no one, of his decorous acquaintance, who would have 
 ventured to express such a thought, except Lady 
 Winstaple perhaps, who, great lady though she was, 
 was often and notoriously bluff to coarseness ! Lady 
 Alton, of all people, who had normally an almost 
 hyper-delicacy the ultra refinement, if Mr. Silarian had 
 been able to appreciate subtleties, of the not-quite-sure 
 Lady Alton, of all people ! 
 
 " I mean it might be difficult to trace him," she said. 
 
 The Archdeacon smiled. 
 
 " The difficulty, in the first instance, seems to be to 
 trace her," he said. 
 
 Mr. Silarian did not know which shocked him most, 
 the lady's essential and unaccountable lack of " retire- 
 ment," her virtual defence of the young person, or the 
 Archdeacon's levity. 
 
 But Lady Alton clearly was not herself. She was 
 really ill feverish, if he mistook not, from the touch of 
 her hand when, tea having been brought in, she gave 
 him his cup. She took none herself, he remarked, a 
 thing which he had never known her to do before. She 
 waved in the direction of the plentiful cakes and foods 
 generally, but ate nothing. 
 
 "I am afraid," he said with concern, "that all this 
 talk has been too much for you." 
 
 A weight seemed to be upon her. Under it she 
 chafed or was appealing. 
 
 " No, no," she said, answering him after an interval. 
 "Why should it be?" 
 
Successor 237 
 
 Gundred came in presently, and made a diversion. 
 She had been out, and looked the picture of health and 
 vigour. Lady Alton's eyes rested upon her contempla- 
 tively in an interval of quietude. She might have been 
 considering her in the light of something which had 
 preceded her entrance. She sighed and withdrew her 
 eyes, which became exercised as before. Edmund was 
 mentioned. The three visitors had met him during his 
 stay at Merringham, and all had something to say in 
 his praise. Lady Alton joined absently, but un- 
 grudgingly, in the chorus. It was not, we may gather, 
 with Edmund that she was concerned. That she was 
 " concerned," however, was as obvious as that she was 
 irritable, nervous, and ill. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 SHE was veritably ill by night, and Balderton, invaluable 
 as we know in the sick-room, was constrained to repent 
 her (partially, at least) of the evil if evil there were in 
 her attitude towards her mistress and showed herself a 
 tower of judicious strength. From no one else presently 
 would a fractious patient take medicine or nourishment, 
 or listen to reason. 
 
 The going of the parsons had been the signal for 
 violent hysterics, culminating in a series of fainting fits. 
 Bonner in an emergency could hardly be said to exist. 
 She hung or wrung her hands, and made futile 
 suggestions, and wept. 
 
 Balderton said, " Come, none of this nonsense ! It's 
 her ladyship's ill, not you, and I'm not going to have 
 two on my hands. If you can't be of use, go and sit in 
 your bedroom and send someone to me who can. 
 Stop crying this minute." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Balderton," sobbed Bonner, " how can 
 you be so unkind to me ? You do speak so sharp." 
 
 " Then don't be a fool," said Balderton ; " and here 
 you, Anna, help me to get her ladyship to bed." 
 
 Bonner at that pulled herself together. It should 
 never be said that her place was usurped, or her duty 
 shown to her by a housemaid by even an upper 
 housemaid. Her place (she might have been quoting 
 or paraphrasing Lady Alton herself upon an occasion 
 altogether remarkably like the present !) her place, she 
 said was at her mistress's side. If Mrs. Balderton 
 
 238 
 
Ube Successor 239 
 
 wanted help, she was the one to apply to. Indeed, it 
 was she who was indebted to Mrs. Balderton for hers. 
 She was sure she was very much obliged to Mrs. 
 Balderton. 
 
 " Oh, we'll all thank and apologise to each other 
 afterwards," said Balderton. "Just now we've got to 
 get our lady to bed." 
 
 Which was done. 
 
 Dr. Amberley was sent for, and Lady Alton's serious 
 and somewhat obscure illness may be said to have 
 begun in earnest. She was ill for five weeks, during 
 which time Balderton was in almost constant attendance 
 upon her. Incidentally it may be said here that the 
 thanks and apologies which had to be exchanged 
 amongst the servants, the routine of whose days was 
 upset, were spread over the whole of the period. 
 Bonner, excellent lady's-maid as she was, had small 
 talent for nursing, and the less competent she showed 
 herself the more tenacious was she of what she con- 
 sidered her rights. Anna had "feelings." She didn't 
 mind what she did. She was ready to go on till she 
 dropped. She was never one to take upon herself . . . 
 but when Miss Bonner looked at her like this, and spoke 
 to her like that well, one had one's duty to oneself to 
 to think of ... and so on, and so on. Balderton, if she 
 had not had her grim humour to back her and a very 
 genius for management, would have had a difficult task. 
 Lady Alton, who, when she was not bewailing her 
 illness, was protesting that there was nothing the matter 
 with her, set her face, like Lord Alton (of sheer mimicry, 
 it is probable), against professional nurses. She had 
 Balderton, Bonner, Anna, Emma what more could she 
 want? She had Balderton. She wanted and would 
 have no one but Balderton. 
 
 Balderton, sceptical as she was, and at heart modifying 
 
240 TTbc Successor 
 
 nothing in her estimates and judgments, allowed her 
 expression to soften. Suffering was always a passport 
 to her pity, if not to her sympathy. Lady Alton became 
 the trapped rabbit to whose pain it was in her power 
 to put a term. Lady Alton, in the arrogance of high 
 health, might suppose herself to have neither rteed nor 
 fear of her. Then Balderton could be pitiless. Lady 
 Alton sick was almost at her mercy. The odd little 
 woman could spare. She smoothed the crumpled 
 pillow, and, as she brought cool and capable hands to 
 such ministrations, so mentally did she bring a soothing 
 and reassuring influence to bear upon the patient's 
 troubled spirit. 
 
 What went on inside the burning yellow head who 
 shall say? It grew less yellow as the days added to 
 each other. Time enough for lotions and washes when 
 its aching should be cured. 
 
 Lady Alton tossed and turned and sighed. Moving 
 from side to side, she would break off in her complaints 
 to say that Mr. Silarian was a hard man. She did not 
 like Mrs. Silarian, whose bonnets, she had always said, 
 were unsuitable for a clergyman's wife. Oh, had he 
 called again indeed ? No, she did not want to see him. 
 She disapproved of his action in connection with that 
 poor girl at No Man's Corner. She was not sure that 
 she should be able to bring herself ever again to take 
 the Sacrament from his hands. He incurred the greatest 
 responsibility, she considered, in checking the poor 
 creature's little leanings towards better things. She 
 had said so, and would say so again. Poor, misguided 
 girl ! She had disappeared, had she ? Small wonder, 
 and small blame to her. 
 
 Balderton heard without comment. She could always 
 get behind her own silence, so to speak, and it was plain 
 that it eased Lady Alton to talk. At any moment now 
 
ZTbe Successor 241 
 
 she could have known the truth had she chosen, and 
 there was one day when it was her conviction that she 
 even warded off a confession. She did riot wish to 
 know. Suspicion was trial enough for her since she 
 had seen Edmund, and she had no intention of sharing 
 her mistress's burden. She might accuse ; she was 
 not going to be a partner, howsoever unwilling, to 
 knowledge. 
 
 Lady Alton, " harping " upon Mr. Silarian and his 
 action till it might have been supposed to have bearing 
 upon her very illness, no longer eyed Balderton uneasily. 
 She seemed, for the time being at least, to have forgotten 
 Balderton's recent attitude, and to take her interested 
 allegiance to herself for granted. She meant, she said, 
 to befriend Matty. If the girl could be traced, some 
 employment should be found for her upon the estate. 
 
 " I shall interest myself in the poor little nameless 
 baby, if only to show Mr. Silarian my opinion of the 
 course he has chosen to take. Who is Mr. Silarian ? 
 a man we appointed ourselves ! Such a return for his 
 lordship's good nature ! To think that I, the Lady of 
 the Manor, cannot go to my own church without being 
 exposed to such a scene. I've a very good mind to 
 stand godmother upon my word, I have. And I shall 
 make Matty Henster a present. I shall send her mother 
 ten pounds." So she played off one thought one frame 
 of mind even against another. 
 
 A few days later her tune had changed a little. 
 Perhaps, after all, it would be better if Matty could 
 find and marry her baby's father. Mr. Silarian might 
 so far be right. She did not exonerate him from blame. 
 His judgment had been wholly mistaken and wholly 
 reprehensible. But, for everyone's sake, it would be 
 best perhaps if the young woman could be respectably 
 married. She, upon her part, would like to do what 
 
242 Ube Successor 
 
 she could. There should be twenty pounds to give the 
 young couple a start when proofs should be forthcoming 
 of their marriage. That, she supposed, would satisfy 
 even Mr. Silarian. Twenty pounds indeed, she did 
 not mind making it forty. Mr. Linster, who could 
 manage most things, should take the matter in hand. 
 
 Upon this, as rowers upon their oars, she rested for a 
 while, and let herself drift in the direction in which the 
 impetus of so much activity should take her. It took 
 her into quieter waters, and to the region of the Fixed 
 Idea. The Fixed Idea ? That was it. Dr. Amberley 
 might visit her, feel her pulse, take temperatures, pre- 
 scribe ; Balderton, with the assistance of Bonner and 
 Anna and Emma, might nurse ; it was the Fixed Idea, 
 when all is said and done, and the Fixed Idea only, 
 which drew her out of the storm and stress of illness to 
 convalescence. 
 
 She sent for Mr. Silarian, and made an invalid toilet. 
 She chose a pink silk bed-jacket with wide hanging 
 sleeves, and tied a becoming lace scarf over her head. 
 Thus, propped up with pillows, she received him. 
 
 She put out a white hand. 
 
 " I've been thinking a great deal about the subject of 
 our last conversation," she said, when she had answered 
 his enquiries and heard his solicitude "a great deal. 
 As I have lain here " (time was when she would have 
 said " laid ") " I have turned many things over in my 
 mind. It is, I think, when our frail bodies are ill that 
 our minds are sometimes most active." 
 
 " Illness is ofttimes sent to us," said Mr. Silarian 
 clerically, " that things may be made plain." 
 
 Lady Alton considered this, and her face brightened. 
 
 " Ah ! you think so ? " she said, after a moment. 
 "You believe that too?" 
 
 " We may not understand at the time. Here we see 
 
TTbe Successor 243 
 
 through a glass darkly. We can only grope after the 
 truth push blindly towards the light." 
 
 " How true how true that is ! But light at special 
 times is vouchsafed to us." She fell into his phrase- 
 ology. " Our eyes are opened, our path shown to us." 
 
 " Thus our afflictions," said Mr. Silarian, " are often, if 
 we could but know, blessings in disguise." 
 
 They both grew expansive. Lady Alton spoke of 
 the " thorny " cross, the pitfalls which " bestrewed " the 
 way ; Mr. Silarian of the need of " guidance," the neces- 
 sity for the upholding of authority, the wisdom of the 
 Church's teaching, and ended by quoting at some length 
 from the Communion Service. 
 
 Cut-glass bottles and many silver things were upon 
 the table by the bedside. A bowl of damask roses was 
 amongst them, and the fragrance of these and of other 
 flowers rilled the room. A pleasant room, Mr. Silarian 
 thought incidentally a pleasant room in which to be ill. 
 Lady Alton could have told maybe of days and of nights 
 when one room would have seemed the same as another. 
 
 She heard his quotations with something of a return 
 to her uneasiness. The words, awful if they had any 
 meaning, were in tune with the spirit of the words which 
 had upset her. 
 
 " ' Or else,' " continued Mr. Silarian impressively, 
 " c come not to that holy table lest . . .' " and laid stress 
 on the warning. And again, "'. . . we kindle God's 
 wrath against us ; we provoke him to plague us with 
 divers diseases and sundry kinds of death.' " 
 
 The words lost nothing on the lips of Mr. Silarian. 
 Lady Alton gave a little shudder. The "Thou shalt 
 not " of her undoing rose up against her again. Thou 
 Shalt Not ... and she Had ? Was she of the Children 
 of Disobedience for whom the Denunciations had been 
 framed ? Thou Shalt Not ... to have dared in the face 
 
244 TOe Successor 
 
 of that ! She held her breath. She had a vision of the 
 church, and experienced once more the sense of hearing 
 for the first time. It was the familiar become suddenly 
 unfamiliar that had been frightening. " Thou shalt not 
 . . . Thou shalt not ! " Had she never heard before ? 
 
 But Matty Henster, who had been the unconscious 
 means of pointing the horrors of that day, came now to 
 her rescue. Lady Alton remembered what it was that 
 had led to Mr. Silarian's presence. 
 
 "Yes," she said quickly, "just so. I see that there 
 was perhaps no other course open. As I have said, I 
 have thought a great deal while I have lain here, and I 
 have that poor girl much on my mind. I wanted to ask 
 you. I thought perhaps I ought to do something. In 
 my position, perhaps, it almost devolves on me. If they 
 were anyone's tenants, you see, they would be ours. Now 
 I thought perhaps of offering something to start the 
 pair if they married to set them up, so to speak." 
 
 She looked at Mr. Silarian for encouragement. 
 
 " Quite so," he said, " quite so. Most desirable." 
 
 " It is on her account," continued Lady Alton " on 
 hers solely. Men can look after themselves. It may 
 be weak of me, and I daresay it is, but I can't bear to 
 think of anyone being kept outside the pale denied 
 the privileges of the Church. Evidently the poor girl 
 has felt her situation keenly ; and that she has a desire 
 for better things has, I think, been amply shown. She 
 has disappeared, I hear, but I have very little doubt that 
 if we make it known that there is something waiting for 
 a young couple anxious to turn over a new leaf and 
 make a fresh start, all will be well." 
 
 Mr. Silarian bowed his approval. Here was the 
 solution of the difficulty. His ruling was upheld. All 
 was well. 
 
 " That's settled, then," said Lady Alton, " I shall put 
 
trbe Successor 245 
 
 the matter into Mr. Linster's hands so clever he is 
 in carrying things through. But now there is just one 
 thing I want to know. I have the girl's case at heart, 
 and act solely, as I say, in her interests." 
 
 " Just so," said Mr. Silarian, and wondered what was 
 coming. 
 
 " What you've just been saying about ' eating and 
 drinking your own damnation ' is so dreadful," said Lady 
 Alton. " It is shocking to think of such things Sundry 
 kinds of death too ... so alarming ! Now this poor 
 girl might look in vain for the father of her child of 
 her expected child, I ought to say. It is not a probable 
 contingency, I hope, but it is a possible one. She might 
 look in vain, do you see ? " 
 
 Mr. Silarian waited for her meaning. 
 
 "Supposing," said Lady Alton "supposing she should 
 not be able to find him. ..." She raised herself a little 
 in the bed and twisted the rings with which her fingers 
 were loaded. Her eyes were occupied with the stones. 
 
 " If the man was not to be found," said Mr. Silarian, 
 " there would be nothing to be done." 
 
 It seemed pretty clear. 
 
 "But the girl herself?" said Lady Alton, without 
 looking up. "I tell you, I am thinking of the girl." 
 
 " I don't think I understand." 
 
 " If she looked for him and could not find him . . . 
 she might come to you then with a clear conscience, 
 might she not ? " 
 
 " She could not be blamed for not being able to find 
 him." 
 
 " What you have been saying would not then apply to 
 her? You would not feel obliged to refuse her the 
 Sacrament ? " 
 
 " N-no," said Mr. Silarian. " No." 
 
 Lady Alton, who had raised her eyes, looked at him 
 
246 ttbe Successor 
 
 as if she expected that he might recant. But he did 
 not. 
 
 " No," he said again more firmly. 
 
 " Or if," said Lady Alton, " for any reason she should 
 find he was unable to marry her ? " 
 
 " Unable ? " 
 
 " He might be married already. He might be dead 
 ... a dozen things." 
 
 " No," said Mr. Silarian. 
 
 " Or even unwilling," said Lady Alton, who seemed 
 determined to have the matter settled once and for all. 
 " He might decline merely refuse point-blank." 
 
 " No," said Mr. Silarian again. " If I were convinced 
 that she was penitent, and had done or was doing her 
 best to retrieve her position, I should not feel myself 
 justified in refusing her." 
 
 Lady Alton gave a sigh of relief, and leant back 
 amongst her pillows. She seemed satisfied, and dis- 
 missed the subject. She hoped to be about again in 
 a few days, she said, and would go and see Mrs. Silarian 
 as soon as she felt able. Mr. Silarian admired her roses. 
 They were pretty, were they not ? The colour so deep 
 and rich, and the scent of them, as he said, like the 
 breath of a garden. She chose out three or four of the 
 finest, and begged that he would take them to Mrs. 
 Silarian, with her love. 
 
 " With my love," she repeated, 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 MATTY HENSTER, thanks to Mr. Linster's cleverness 
 and good offices, married her man, and the marriage 
 may even be said in the long run to have turned out 
 well. Work was found for a decent enough young 
 labourer on one of the farms, and the tumbledown 
 cottage relieved of an inmate. Everyone was satisfied : 
 Matty, who, run to earth, had shrugged her shoulders 
 with a " Well, settle it among y' ; " the young labourer, 
 who had " been thinking it was time " he should be 
 "getting married to someone"; Mrs. Henster, who 
 didn't much care one way or the other, but was not 
 in the main opposed to respectability made worth 
 while ; and, wholly and unreservedly, Mr. Silarian, who 
 claimed, indeed, under Providence, thus to have brought 
 things to their happy issue. Lady Alton professed 
 herself gratified (by post), and made her presentation 
 duly by Mr. Linster, with many gracious messages. 
 But, in point of fact, Matty's part was played, and 
 played out so far as Matty herself was concerned 
 on the day when Mr. Silarian answered her 
 patroness's questions, and Mrs. Silarian was sent 
 damask roses. 
 
 Lady Alton, the Fixed Idea permitting, went to early 
 service on the first available Sunday after the events 
 here set forth. Upon that Sunday also, at the later 
 service, a Member of the Congregation (who, it may be 
 said, was not Matty) desired to return Thanks to 
 Almighty God for Late Mercies Vouchsafed to her. On 
 
 247 
 
24$ ftbe Successor 
 
 the Sunday following, Gundred and her nurses occupied 
 the great pew alone. Lady Alton had gone abroad. 
 
 And now was to be observed the beginning of a 
 notable change in the course and the conduct of Lady 
 Alton's life. Since the death of Lord Alton she had 
 lived almost wholly at Merringham. A yearly pilgrim- 
 age to the seaside with Gundred in the interests of 
 young health, and an occasional visit to London upon 
 her own account, represented the extent of her journey- 
 ings afield. Now, however, of a sudden, as it seemed, 
 she altered all that. The brief travels upon which she 
 set out after her convalescence and the marriage of 
 Matty proved, in effect, to be the first of a series of 
 wanderings which were to spread themselves over a 
 very considerable period. Fixed ideas do not lightly 
 possess you. 
 
 "Change of air" covered her first pilgrimage. She 
 had been rather seriously ill, and nothing was more 
 natural than that she should feel the need of what is 
 prescribed for most convalescences and many ailments. 
 
 Lady Alton came home from her trip well, but 
 preoccupied. She had been " abroad," but Bonner had 
 to tell of nothing in particular. They had visited this 
 place and that as, by the way, in the wanderings 
 after Lord Alton's illness. 
 
 " It put me very much in mind of that time only 
 there wasn't his lordship, of course, nor yet Mr. Berners. 
 Still, somehow, it was like . . ." 
 
 "Of course it was like, if you went to the same 
 places," said Balderton. 
 
 "I don't know that it was altogether that," said 
 Bonner. 
 
 In saying which, as Balderton came subsequently to 
 believe, Bonner touched upon more than she suspected. 
 
 Half unconsciously, as Edmund's visit slipped into 
 
tEbe Successor *w 
 
 the past, half by force of circumstance, Balderton had 
 allowed her austerity to relax. A glance which Lady 
 Alton had bestowed upon her as she greeted her on 
 her return the furtive, reconnoitring glance of one who 
 takes rapid survey of a situation had not been lost 
 upon her, and though she realised that her mispress was 
 reassured by what she saw, she had suffered it to be so, 
 and foreborne to harden her face. To what good, after 
 all, to express what she felt to feel even what, for a 
 time, she had expressed ? What was done was done. 
 She had had time for thought. There were things in 
 life which, once effected, were irremediable. Hours of 
 calm thinking had yielded her that, and she was too 
 wise to mistrust her own wisdom. After the moment 
 in which her feelings had so nearly betrayed her into 
 avowals which even if she could have substantiated 
 them she would always have regretted, she had not 
 wavered. Nothing could be done then or ever. From 
 the moment of Gundred's birth nay, from the moment 
 of Lord Alton's death, the wrong was unrightable. As 
 she had looked on, so she must continue to look on. 
 . . . The active protest of her look and manner was 
 allowed to fall into abeyance. 
 
 But like Matty Henster, if she had known it, and 
 with Matty Henster, too, it had played its part. 
 
 Lady Alton had not been back a month before she 
 left home again. This time she was away but a few 
 days. She had had a fancy, she said, to run up to 
 town. Natural enough. Again, what more natural? 
 Thenceforward, however, this was a "fancy" that 
 would often take her, and quite an appreciable part 
 of her time, as Balderton began to see, was spent, and 
 to be spent, away from Merringham. In the following 
 summer she visited several of the English watering- 
 places, staying a week or so at each. She passed most 
 
s$a tbe Successor 
 
 of the autumn at Brighton. A list of the places she 
 went to at one season or another during the next few 
 years would have held most of the names that 
 would easily occur to the polite tripper. Anyone able 
 to watch her closely would have seen that she scanned 
 faces for a face. She was not restless, however, nor 
 hurried. She had set herself a task, one might have 
 supposed, and was performing it. 
 
 In other respects, meanwhile she had resumed her 
 ordinary ways if perhaps with an added zeal. The 
 Prayer-book, with the large cross and the infini- 
 tesimal coronet, seemed once more to sum her 
 up, to present her, to speak for her. More than 
 ever was she a Bulwark of Sacred Edifices. She lent 
 her drawing-room for drawing-room meetings. She 
 opened bazaars. She was on church committees. 
 Christmasses and Rasters and Harvest Thanksgivings 
 were decorated from out of the treasure of the 
 Merringham gardens and hothouses. 
 
 Balderton, seeing everything, knew not what to make 
 of her. As before, with returning health her mistress 
 seemed relieved of some pressing " necessity." Was it 
 to unburden herself? Whatever her need had been, it 
 was no longer pressing. She was able in some way to 
 pacify, assuage, or silence it. Like the fasting woman 
 at the fair, who cannot be caught eating but loses no 
 flesh, she had some secret source of nourishment. 
 Whence did she draw her support? 
 
 She was in the prime now of her life and her looks. 
 The tendency to the over-emphasis, which was as surely 
 in store for her as overblowing to the rose, was not yet 
 too pronounced for comeliness. She was thus a hand- 
 some woman, of generous but shapely proportions, and 
 not more vulgar in appearance than many a one whose 
 birth and breeding are unimpeachable. She held 
 
ttbe Successor m 
 
 herself very upright, and what dressmakers would have 
 called her " figure " was much to the front. There was 
 something about her withal which, in a discreet and 
 ladylike way, was mildly challenging. 
 
 Emma and Anna wondered sentimentally why she 
 did not think of marrying again. She was young for 
 a widow. 
 
 <{ And not so bad-looking either," said William, with a 
 wink. " 7 wouldn't mind marrying her." 
 
 Which was William's polite way of not saying exactly 
 what he meant. 
 
 These remarks did not reach Balderton, who would 
 have known very quickly how to deal with such 
 impertinences. But the thought of marriage was 
 presently in the air. It came to her of its own accord. 
 Lady Alton was "coming out" a good deal, wasn't she? 
 She had always been over-dressed, over-coifed, over- 
 scented, but there was a difference . . . something in 
 Lady Alton herself. She wore almost habitually the 
 look with which she had come in from the drive which 
 Lord Alton had bidden her take on the day of her 
 illness. Balderton, at this period, was perpetually 
 reminded of that day. 
 
 If Lady Alton was thinking of marrying, however, she 
 was taking her time about it. She went away and 
 away, and came back and came back, and Gundred 
 leaped up the years. Gundred was ten in what seemed 
 no time to those about her, if ages to her. She was no 
 sooner ten than she was twelve ; twelve, than she was 
 fifteen ; fifteen, than Lady Alton, in short, took her 
 time. 
 
 Still and still, she put off the moment of her over- 
 blowing, kept an expectant air, and went away and 
 away. Was the thought of marriage influencing her 
 indeed . . . keeping her young, sustaining her ? Then 
 
Successor 
 
 what hindered ? Time might be kind, but she had none 
 to lose. She would soon have a grown-up daughter. 
 Gundred's nurses long since had made way for a 
 governess the governess, temporarily, for Paris and a 
 finishing school. Lack of suitors ? No. For in the 
 course of the years, as Balderton had reason to believe 
 and not from the hints only which her mistress, in con- 
 fidential mood, would drop from time to time more 
 than one aspirant to the lady's hand haH presented or 
 attempted to present himself. It was common talk in 
 the neighbourhood one summer that the local M.P. 
 would have liked to represent his county at and from 
 Merringham Park, rather than The Fernery, Westerton 
 Derbolt. A certain impoverished landowner would no f 
 take " No " for an answer. Meek Mr. Minory even was 
 said to have pretensions. There were others. But the 
 lady would have none of them. 
 
 The confidential mood grew with her. She came, we 
 must remember, of a class not much above that of those 
 who served her a class addicted to confidences. 
 
 " If I ever did think of marrying again," she said to 
 Balderton one day " if I ever could bring myself to 
 contemplate such a thing, I should want to choose my 
 husband for myself." 
 
 " Yes ? " said Balderton. 
 
 Lady Alton was smiling. 
 
 "Marriage," she said confidentially, "does seem in 
 some ways forced upon a woman, doesn't it ? She feels 
 the need of a strong arm. She was not meant to stand 
 alone. When my baby was born they used to say to 
 me, I remember, that women were meant to be mothers. 
 So they are, and they're meant to be wives too. Don't 
 you think so ? " 
 
 Balderton conceded that, everything else being equal, 
 they were meant to be both. She did not say what she 
 
Successor 253 
 
 might have said even when Lady Alton, enlarging 
 upon the theme, went on to say that children were 
 intended to have parents. 
 
 " Not to lose them," said Lady Alton, " one or other 
 . . . not to lose them. I can think of nothing sadder. 
 People marry again in the interests of their children a 
 great deal oftener than people think : a widower to give 
 his child the advantage of a mother's love ; a widow to 
 provide hers with a father." 
 
 She paused, and repeated pensively: "A great deal 
 oftener, believe me, than people think." 
 
 " I daresay," said Balderton. 
 
 " There are those, to be sure," continued her mistress 
 presently, "who do not hold with approve, I should 
 say, of second marriages. Whether in general they are 
 desirable is, of course, questionable what they call in 
 law, I think, a a mute point." The term did not sound 
 quite right, and Lady Alton repeated it with a " Some 
 such expression " for safety, and passed on. " In many 
 cases, I daresay, they are not. But when one is quite, 
 quite free " she lowered her voice to a still more 
 confidential tone "when one is quite, quite free . . ." 
 but broke off to say : " Won't you sit down, Balderton. 
 I haven't had a talk with you for a long time. Sit 
 down." 
 
 " Thank you, my lady, I prefer to stand." 
 
 " As you like," said Lady Alton graciously, " as you 
 like," and proceeded : " . . . quite free, I was going to 
 say, it alters the aspect of the case altogether. Some 
 husbands, you see, taking the possibility of their pre- 
 decease into consideration, lay restrictions upon their 
 wives. Lord Alton de Merringham did nothing of the 
 kind. He was a generous, noble man a nobleman, in 
 fact, in the truest and best sense grateful to me, too, 
 as I think, for what I had done or was to do for him, 
 
254 ftbe Successor 
 
 He provided for me amply, without stipulation of any 
 sort or kind, and quite independently of his successor. 
 If anything had happened, if the Baroness had not 
 survived her birth, or had succumbed in infancy, or or 
 anything dreadful like that I should still be a rich 
 woman, and free to do as I liked. So if I wanted 
 to marry again, or ever, as I say, could bring myself to 
 contemplate such a step, there would be nothing to 
 prevent me." 
 
 She looked at Balderton, who said : ". Just so, my lady, 
 just so." 
 
 " I don't think I ever could," said Lady Alton, twist- 
 ing her rings. " I don't think I ever could. But if I 
 could, I shouldn't believe in taking the first that offered. 
 A woman known to be wealthy runs risks. There won't 
 always be Merringham, of course, but there's the Dower 
 House for life, and I could buy or could build. There 
 are some I could name who wouldn't be averse to hang- 
 ing up their hats here even with the knowledge that the 
 peg would eventually have to be changed. . . ." She 
 smiled significantly. " Not one and not two," she added. 
 
 Her thoughts seemed to afford her satisfaction. She 
 delved in her mind for some moments, the smile playing 
 round her lips. 
 
 " No, no," she said presently. " I should want to 
 choose for myself. Why should the choosing be all 
 done by the man ? The man thinks he has only to open 
 his mouth. The effrontery ! I've hardly patience. . . . 
 So it won't be just anyone that likes to ask if it's any- 
 one at all. Why should the asking either be all in the 
 mouth of the man ? I shall never be made to see that. 
 I can imagine circumstances in which the woman 
 might have the best right to speak. Can't you ? Can't 
 you yourself, Balderton ? " 
 
 She spoke half playfully, and Balderton smiled, if a 
 
Successor 255 
 
 little grimly, as she said that the proposal, she believed, 
 was generally supposed to come from the man. 
 
 " Supposed," said Lady Alton. " Supposed ! There 
 we are at once ! And why after all ? The man might 
 have least to offer. The woman's very means and 
 position might stand in her way, and in his way 
 too. I think if the rank were higher on the 
 woman's side it might even be her duty to take the 
 initiative. Any way, I consider that she might break 
 the ice." 
 
 She gave a little laugh, and gathered up her gloves 
 the interview had been taking place in the housekeeper's 
 room and her umbrella and her muff; whatever she 
 had put down when she came in with her confidences. 
 
 <: But all this about marriages and marrying," she said, 
 " is talking in the air, for of course I haven't a thought 
 of anything of the kind . . . not a ghost of a notion." 
 
 " Oh ! haven't you, my lady ? " said Balderton, when 
 the door had closed behind her. " Have you not, 
 indeed ? " 
 
 It had been clear enough before that. What was 
 surprising was, that the time was allowed to pass. A 
 plump woman could generally find a husband a plump 
 rich woman always. But this talk of choosing ... of 
 speaking even, if need be ? Had she some particular 
 person in view ? There seemed to be more to know 
 now than at the time of her mistress's illness, when, as 
 she still believed, she might have known everything if 
 she had consented to listen. Could there be more to 
 know ? Balderton was puzzled. Lady Alton might 
 not speak quite what was in her mind, but Balderton 
 had a pretty shrewd suspicion that her words, even 
 when they were most extravagant, had some bearing 
 upon thoughts which occupied her, and motives which 
 underlay her actions. Words with her might be used 
 
256 tTbe Successor 
 
 to conceal thought, but if so, they pointed the existence 
 of the thought they concealed. Second marriages were 
 often made in the interests of the children of the first ! 
 Balderton was to understand that her young mistress 
 was not being forgotten on the contrary, was being 
 considered. The widow, forsooth, to provide a father 
 for her child ! What stuff and nonsense were here ? 
 What fiddlesticks ? A father for her child ! 
 
 Balderton stood still, the finger of a mittened hand to 
 her lips. The words arrested her. A father for her 
 child ! Not . . . Not. . . . Oh, surely, surely not ! 
 . . . Lady Alton could not be thinking . . . ! She 
 held her breath, and sank into a chair. 
 
 That would be another pair of shoes altogether. 
 That, with a vengeance, would be putting a thought 
 into words speaking the truth to hide it. Could she 
 be thinking . . . ? Was it possible ? Yet choose for 
 herself . . . and not anyone that offered . . . and speak 
 if need be ... take the initiative. . . . 
 
 Then what did she go away for ? go here, there, and 
 everywhere ? Balderton was pulled up short. 
 
 She got up and went in search of Bonner, whom she 
 found in the work-room sewing buttons upon her 
 mistress's gloves. After a few preliminaries, with which 
 we need not concern ourselves, she brought up the 
 subject of the lady they served in their different ways. 
 Bonner went about with her. Bonner knew perhaps 
 without knowing so much as that there was anything 
 to know ! But Balderton's remarks and casual ques- 
 tions drew forth no mention of the name she might 
 have expected to hear. Lady Alton abroad had kept 
 a good deal to herself at first, making a few hotel 
 acquaintances, but not many, and meeting a few friends. 
 Now, of course, she knew a good many more people, and 
 would come across them. Any particular people ? Oh ! 
 
Successor 357 
 
 the So-and-So's and the So-and-So's, and Mr. This and 
 Colonel That. Bonner reeled off some names, adding 
 another from time to time as it occurred to her after she 
 had come to an end of those she knew best. No mention 
 of the name. If it had been amongst those familiar to 
 her, Balderton must have drawn it She ventured to 
 speak it, and saw that it conveyed nothing to Lady 
 Alton's maid. 
 
 Something else she learned, when in her perplexity 
 she had permitted herself to ask a further question. 
 
 " What does she do with herself mostly ? " 
 
 It was rarely now that she talked, and Bonner was 
 flattered. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. There's plenty to do. There's 
 plenty of life in some of these places. Always some- 
 thing to see or to do. She never seems at a loss. She 
 just looks about her. I think she likes doing that 
 better than anything else. If it's a place where there 
 are steamers she'll go and watch them come in. She 
 likes to see the people who arrive. ' Now, Bonner,' 
 she'll say, 'we'll go and see the boat come in' or the 
 diligence " (Bonner said " dillyjonce "), " or whatever it 
 may be. I used to think she was looking for someone." 
 
 " Looking for someone ? " 
 
 " And once I thought she thought she'd found him," 
 said Bonner, smiling at a recollection. " Ladies are 
 funny things to have to do with." 
 
 " Him ? Who ? " said Balderton. 
 
 Bonner laughed. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," she said. " It was only my idea. 
 We were at Folkstone seeing the packet off, it was, that 
 day and somebody went down the gangway just at the 
 last moment (I didn't see him myself), and she said 
 c Oh ! ' just like that, and I looked at her and said ' My 
 lady ? ' and she was looking hard at his back which was 
 
258 tCbe Successor 
 
 disappearing, and she didn't seem to hear me, but looked 
 and looked. But he didn't appear again. Well, what 
 made me think was that we crossed ourselves by the next 
 boat, though I don't believe we'd been thinking of any- 
 thing of the sort before, and went on to Paris, where it 
 certainly did seem as if she was looking for someone. 
 Oh, no, of course we didn't see him again, whoever he 
 was. And we've gone on suddenly to other places often 
 enough since then. It was only my idea." 
 
 " No, you hadn't much to go on," said Balderton. 
 
 She thought for the rest of the day. 
 
 Looking? Seeking? That, at least, did not agree 
 with the theory which had sent her to Bonner. It dis- 
 posed of it rather. Seeking ? She would not have far 
 to seek. How could she be seeking ? 
 
 Unless. . . . 
 
 Balderton, going to her linen closet that night, came 
 to a standstill with a jerk. 
 
 " Good gracious," she said to herself, " it can't be that 
 she doesn't know ! It can't be ! It can't be that I know 
 what she doesn't. . . ." 
 
 It seemed, however, as time went on and Gundred 
 grew up, and Lady Alton continued what, if it was not 
 a search, was remarkably like one, that Balderton verily 
 must and did know what her mistress did not as if 
 Lady Alton, in other words, prime mover though she 
 was and had been throughout, changer of destinies, 
 tamperer with eternal truths, knew less than her house- 
 keeper who rarely moved beyond the four walls of her 
 room, and whose opportunities for acquiring knowledge 
 of what went on outside her narrow sphere were as 
 circumscribed as those of the old woman who lived in a 
 shoe. 
 
TTbe Successor 259 
 
 " They must marry," Balderton said to herself. " Oh, 
 they must marry. It's the only way to right it. They 
 must marry." 
 
 But she did not mean Lady Alton and whom Lady 
 Alton might be seeking. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 SHE meant Gundred and Edmund. 
 
 She did not fear reluctance upon the part of her 
 young mistress. She had laid her own plans too 
 cleverly for that. Since Edmund's first visit to 
 Merringham ; during the two years which, for reasons 
 which she was able to divine, elapsed before he was 
 asked there again ; between each of his subsequent 
 visits before absence from England kept him away, 
 and during the whole period of his absence, she had 
 kept his memory green for him. It had not been 
 difficult. With such looks as his, he seemed made 
 for the fairy prince of a little girl's tales of wonder 
 and enchantment. He was the hero presently of the 
 boy's books which were the next phase in a young 
 literary life. When he was attached to the Embassy 
 in Vienna, and Gundred was reading her first novels, 
 he was stalking through them all on his long legs. It 
 had been easy enough to keep him in a plastic mind. 
 
 And he ? 
 
 Who shall say ? He was " boy " to her " girl " in her 
 childhood. If a couple of young souls divided by a few 
 negligible years had ever seemed of an age and an 
 accord, and of common and indistinguishable interests, 
 it was this pair of playmates and comrades. He was 
 "boy" to her "girl" indeed " boy " to her "boy "in 
 the boyish days when she scampered through the 
 holiday hours with flying locks, and climbed trees ! 
 There were bird's-nestings then. Edmund knew by 
 
 260 
 
TObe Successor 261 
 
 instinct where the rarer birds nested. There were 
 long mornings ; risings at five or six sometimes to 
 a first breakfast, spread overnight in the schoolroom, 
 to which Balderton, stealing in, would add hot things 
 of her own preparing; wonderful returnings at nine 
 to demolish a second with appetite in the dining- 
 room ; there were enthralling forenoons in the saddle ; 
 afternoons with a rod and line, and such school-room 
 teas ! A breathless Gundred would fly to her Balderton 
 to tell. One, in all this, was scarcely less ardent than 
 the other. " Boy " to her " boy " then. But " man " to 
 her " maid " ? Ah ! that was the question. 
 
 At least he was not married. There was a hope so 
 long as he was not married. 
 
 Not Mrs. Alton herself had followed his fortunes with 
 keener interest than Balderton. From Oxford, Fate 
 being kind to him, he had passed in time into the Foreign 
 Office the opportune death of a distant relation of his 
 mother's having eased the family resources, and pro- 
 vided him with the wherewithal which allowed him to 
 think of the Diplomatic Service. Significant, indeed, 
 of the power of money that, by the unexpected posses- 
 sion of a few hundreds a year, a career, as it is called, 
 should have opened before him who else must have 
 been content with whatever should promise a livelihood ! 
 Mrs. Alton, if she was not overburdened with money 
 even then, had plenty of interest in influential quarters ; 
 and Edmund, his foot once upon the ladder, had not 
 stood still. His appearance and his manner made ready 
 friends for him. He had a quiet way of doing the right 
 thing in the right way as a matter of course, without 
 fuss or ferment and wholly unconsciously that gained 
 him the confidence of his chiefs. He was said to have 
 "brains," a "head on his shoulders," "stuff" in him, 
 "grit," and much else. Nor when his qualities had 
 
262 ttbe Successor 
 
 begun to be recognised did he incur the jealousy of 
 his fellows. A natural simplicity (he had the frank 
 eyes of a boy all his life) and a very modest estimate 
 of his own abilities were attributes, characteristics call 
 them what you will which stood him, had he known 
 it, in good stead. Well, there are men marked to get 
 on ; Edmund, by tacit or applauding consent, was 
 allowed to be one of them. He went ahead by undis- 
 puted, if unwitting and involuntary, right of something 
 conferred upon him by Fate or the stars at his birth. 
 
 Gundred mounting the years spoke of him constantly. 
 Balderton had rejoiced to find not so very long since 
 that she still hugged a belief that she had nearly caused 
 his death. Nothing could be better. With a nice 
 discretion and a clear conscience (for she knew 
 Edmund as she knew her young mistress), the old 
 woman fostered not that thought exactly, but such 
 thoughts. Merringham, for example, might have been 
 his for nearly half his life had seemed like to be 
 his. 
 
 " He might reasonably have hated me," Gundred said. 
 
 " If he had been someone else," said Balderton, 
 smiling. 
 
 There was just one Mr. Edmund in the world. 
 Balderton could always see him best standing in the 
 moonlight with the little dead rabbit in his hand. But 
 together the old woman and the young girl could see 
 him in a dozen ways ; swinging across the park with a 
 dog at his heels and his gun under his arm ; riding to a 
 meet, spic and span, keen as Gundred beside him on 
 her pony ; coming back from his day's hunting splashed 
 and ruddy ; or in his flannels (a summer view of him), 
 tilting his straw hat over his eyes, It was to Balderton 
 that Gundred talked of him, not to her mother. 
 
 Edmund, in point of fact, did upon his part think of 
 
Successor 263 
 
 Gundred thought of her as much as even Balderton 
 could have hoped. Some of the happiest hours of his 
 life were those in which he shook off a few years to be 
 a child with her at Merringham. He had watched her 
 course as Balderton had watched his. More intimate 
 acquaintance with his aunt did not dispose him to regret 
 an inability to like her wholly. As he came to know 
 her better he sought less to excuse himself for what 
 was instinctive, still less to take himself to task. What 
 it was, indeed, that made the thought of Gundred's close 
 association with her distasteful to him, he could not 
 have told. He only knew that every time he saw the 
 little girl he feared to find traces in her of her mother's 
 influence. The anxiety made Gundred very dear to 
 him. What did he fear ? To find Gundred dressed in 
 plush? She wore serge, cool linens, brown holland. 
 To hear her say " sufficient " for " enough," " commence " 
 for " begin," or (more terrible still !) " whyever " ? She 
 said none of these things. By what marvel did she 
 escape them? Was it the Alton influence as against 
 the Mason? Merringham itself? Merringham, he 
 thought, and presently Miss Moberly, the wise and 
 discerning gentlewoman into whose hands by good 
 fortune she fell for her training, and with whom, during 
 her mother's frequent absences, she was inevitably so 
 much thrown. These, and always, and always Balder- 
 ton. Merringham was Merringham, and an education 
 in itself. Could one live the impressionable years in 
 such surroundings untouched by the gracious spirit 
 which pervaded them? Miss Moberly understood by 
 intuition what the situation asked of her. Balderton 
 was Balderton, as Merringham was Merringham, and 
 held the traditions of the house. Three influences 
 against one. There was his own influence, too, if he had 
 known it. 
 
264 Ube Successor 
 
 The years gave him confidence. Gundred was to 
 preserve her individuality, and express not her mother's 
 nature but her own. His affection for her increased. 
 As it had been Gundred who (with Balderton in the 
 background) had first welcomed him to Merringharn, 
 so was it always Gundred who met him on the 
 threshold in her childhood, and at the station in her 
 pony-cart as she grew older. 
 
 As she grew older. That was the devil of it . His 
 last visit, when Gundred was sixteen and looked 
 seventeen, had warned him that he was in danger of 
 growing too fond of her. 
 
 Gundred, on the verge of womanhood, was of a type 
 less rare in Southern than in Northern latitudes. Her 
 development had been unusually quick, and at an age 
 when most girls are fat to awkwardness " great lumps " 
 or thin to boniness " all legs and elbows " she was 
 rounded and slender as a Frenchman's conception of an 
 odalisque. Her skin was fine as satin ; her muscles firm 
 as her splendid young flesh. Her hair, which was dark 
 and abundant, grew rather low upon her forehead the 
 whiteness of the skin at the roots showing the clear 
 steel-blue tinge of perfect health. A sleeping roguery 
 was in the velvety shadows of her eyes. 
 
 Such was Gundred verging upon womanhood. One 
 who saw her later, and whose knowledge of her sex was 
 not inconsiderable, saw in her attractive and dangerous 
 quality a menace to the peace of mind not of those only 
 who should come in contact with her. If thought this 
 one, gauging her looks with a respectful (happily) but a 
 practised eye if she should not have the good fortune 
 at the outset to marry a husband she could care for, 
 there would be trouble in and out of Merringharn. But 
 he, knowing too much, perhaps, and too little, con- 
 founded the individual with the type. Edmund had 
 
ilbe Successor 265 
 
 awakened suddenly to a disturbing sense of her beauty. 
 He had carried her, swung her off her feet, wrestled with 
 her a dozen times, when upon a day so small a thing as 
 her hand on his arm troubled him. He experienced a 
 moment of acute if divine emotion, and had to turn from 
 her to hide his face till he should be able to compose it 
 to some semblance of calmness. 
 
 The recollection of that moment was often in his 
 thoughts. It meant, did it, that the pleasant hours were 
 over ? That the happy comradeship of the years must 
 go, with the happy years themselves ? At the time there 
 had seemed no alternative. If to see Gundred was to 
 love her, he must not see her. He remembered how a 
 sleepless night had determined him to cut his visit short. 
 The day which followed was indelibly impressed upon 
 his memory. He remembered every moment of it. It 
 was a Gundred day from earliest dawn. Was there 
 indeed some accord between them that she, knowing 
 nothing of what had happened, should also upon that 
 day have been impelled to rise with the sun ? 
 
 The dew was on the grass when he stepped out on to 
 the terrace, and he remembered the look of it, and of 
 the drops which glittered upon every leaf. All night 
 his windows had been open to the stars, but refreshment 
 unspeakable was in the air of the new-born day. Here 
 on the terrace the air was clear as spring water ; over 
 the park hung gentle vapours which the sun, gaining 
 strength, would presently disperse. The deer were 
 awake, the birds, and the bees, but not, he thought, a 
 human being. This was the hour when the round 
 world is the heritage of whomsoever will rise from his 
 bed to receive it. Edmund, looking at everything as 
 one who sees for a first or a last time, walked out a few 
 yards into the sunshine. His shadow, like the shadow 
 of everything else, was long before him. The warmth 
 
266 ZTbe Successor 
 
 of the sun on his bare head in the surrounding coolness 
 was a pleasant thing of which he was dimly conscious. 
 He walked to the end of the terrace, and finding himself 
 confronted there with the shady side of the house, he 
 turned about and went down to the lower garden. 
 Someone was moving about the gravel paths Gundred. 
 
 " Eddy ! " she cried. 
 
 Pleasure was in her cry, but hardly any surprise. It 
 was as if she had been expecting him. 
 
 " I knew," she said, " I knew . . ." and broke off smiling. 
 
 They stood facing each other like Adam and Eve in 
 the empty world. There was not even a gardener 
 stirring yet. Wild things, tame in the stillness, came 
 near, taking no heed of two who seemed as much as 
 themselves a part of the life of the early day. A robin 
 alighted almost at Gundred's feet. A squirrel sat up and 
 looked round a few yards from each of them. 
 
 For a moment or two neither spoke Edmund 
 because his heart was beating so fast that he could 
 hardly have found a voice ; Gundred possibly because 
 something in his look kept her silent. 
 
 "What made you get up?" Edmund said at last. 
 His voice sounded husky in his ears. He had not 
 taken in her words. 
 
 " I was so broad awake," she said, hesitating. 
 
 "You hadn't been sleeping?" 
 
 She looked at him quickly. " Why ? " she said. 
 "Hadn't you?" 
 
 Edmund did not answer. 
 
 " I dreamt you called me," she said then. " I was 
 fast asleep when I thought I heard my name, ' Gundred ! 
 Gundred ! ' quite clearly. It awoke me. I knew, of 
 course, that you hadn't called me, but I couldn't 
 sleep after that. I I was as broad awake as if you 
 had." 
 
Successor 267 
 
 She glanced at him shyly, as he thought, for the first 
 time in her life. 
 
 " You have often enough," she added. " I've never 
 gone to sleep after you called me." 
 
 It was true. Half a dozen times in the bird's nesting 
 days he had knocked at her door with a subdued shout. 
 Gundred was not a light sleeper. But though nurses 
 and maids might be hard put to it out of the holidays to 
 have her in time for breakfast, Edmund had never had 
 to call her twice never even to call to her ! With a 
 sudden feeling of exultation he realised the fulness of 
 his power. Never, if he chose to call her, would he 
 have to call twice never in all the years that were to 
 come. And never as a rider to this thought came 
 another never, because she was Gundred, because all 
 that his eyes might rest upon was hers, might he call to 
 her again. 
 
 He could not tell her then that he was not going to 
 stay his time out. Afterwards he believed that though 
 he had not told her she had known it. He pulled 
 himself together. There should be no cloud over this 
 day. If afterwards it should seem to have been the 
 day when in Paradise their eyes had been opened to the 
 knowledge of good and evil, no shadow should darken it 
 while it lasted. 
 
 What should they do with themselves in a world that 
 belonged to them ? For more than an hour it would be 
 theirs wholly, for hours almost their own. While they 
 deliberated, they walked down to the lower terrace and 
 to the stone seat at the end of it. Already the mists 
 were lifting. 
 
 " A gun for the rabbits, Gunny-one, or a rod for the 
 fish ? " 
 
 He shook his head almost as he spoke, and answered 
 himself. 
 
268 TTbe Successor 
 
 " No, why should we kill anything ? To-day we 
 won't hurt any living thing. Well live, and let live. 
 What shall we do, then, as killing's barred ? You shall 
 choose." 
 
 She thought busily for a moment or two. Edmund 
 waited. She would think, he said to himself, never fear, 
 and tried to think of her thoughts that he might not 
 think of his own. 
 
 11 Tell you what, Eddy-one ! " she said at last. 
 
 " What's ' what,' Gunny-one ? " 
 
 " Wait here. Don't move till I come back." 
 
 She was gone in a moment. He lighted a cigarette 
 and waited. Five o'clock struck some ten minutes 
 later as she reappeared. She carried a basket. 
 
 " Eat that," she said, giving him a biscuit. " We've 
 got a long walk before us." She looked at his shoes. 
 " That won't do," she said. " What a donkey I am ! 
 You might have been getting ready all this time. 
 Boots, Eddy ; it will be wet in the fields drenching in 
 this dew. Thick ones ; and a hat. Off you go ! 
 Quick ! " 
 
 He obeyed her as he had obeyed her years before, 
 without question, and came back almost before she 
 expected him. He found her resettling her basket, into 
 which she appeared to have crammed a variety of things. 
 A napkin covered the whole. She tucked in the edges 
 of it as she saw him. 
 
 " Now," she said. 
 
 He took the basket from her. 
 
 " Turn about," she stipulated. 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 " You promise ? " 
 
 "Very well." 
 
 "We're going to breakfast up on Abbot's Peak." 
 
 They dropped into the park where the wall, under 
 
Successor 269 
 
 which the bee-hives stood, was lowest, and began their 
 walk. The wet grass was cool to their feet as they 
 followed their long shadows over the undulating ground. 
 They went down to the brook, and though thereby the 
 way was made a little longer, followed the course of it 
 upstream to where it entered the park. They were 
 rewarded by the glimpse of an otter in one of the 
 deeper pools. Twice they saw a kingfisher, and once 
 a heron rose at their coming, and took its straggling 
 flight across the sky like some embroidered bird trailing 
 across a screen. A mile or two of meadow land after 
 they had left the park of pasture where the cattle 
 looked after them with soft eyes, or young horses 
 followed them inquisitively, and a hare or two was 
 started, brought them to the high road, which they 
 followed till they came to a lane, down which they 
 turned presently to find themselves amongst the heather. 
 Here the character of the landscape changed. For the 
 green of the fields there was purple, with here and there 
 the yellow of abundant gorse. 
 
 The sun was hot now, and the tangle of the heather 
 dry underfoot. The air was laden with sweet smells. 
 Bees, some of them from Merringham maybe, were 
 busy amongst the myriad bells. 
 
 Resisting the temptation to sit down and rest, they 
 pushed forward. They were hungry now even Edmund 
 and the thought of breakfast was incentive to energy. 
 Presently they were climbing. Their feet slid upon 
 slippery roots and mosses. Wider and wider the land- 
 scape opened about them. They were making for a 
 rock whence the ruins of a monastery beside a little 
 pine wood commanded the surrounding country. The 
 last half mile was steep climbing, but at last they were 
 there. 
 
 The delights of the meal that was prepared there and 
 
270 TTbe Successor 
 
 eaten under the blue of the sky are scarcely to be told 
 in words. Edmund, his vigorous health, the exercise, 
 and the exhilarating properties of the air combining 
 to give him respite by suffering the body to triumph 
 momentarily over the spirit, was to look back to just 
 one breakfast in all his life. Gundred's basket held 
 everything. Even in her haste she had forgotten 
 nothing, and had "raided" to some purpose! Edmund, 
 despatched to fill a " folding " kettle at the spring which 
 once had supplied the monks with water, came back to 
 find a spirit-lamp lighted and something cooking in a 
 diminutive frying-pan over the flame. Bacon, by all 
 that was glorious ! It mattered nothing that, to boil 
 the water, the frying-pan had to be displaced, and to 
 rechauffer the cooling bacon, the kettle. The great 
 kitchen range at Merringham, with its array of 
 gleaming copper pots and pans, had never had 
 part in the preparation of a meal which was more 
 appreciated. 
 
 %< I didn't wait to cut it thin," said Gundred of the 
 frizzling thing, the scent of which was mingling with 
 the hundred scents of the hillside. 
 
 " Thick or thin," he said, " it was an inspiration." 
 
 The tea did not taste more metallic than any tea 
 made in a tin kettle and drunk out of doors. Edmund 
 pronounced it excellent, and asked for more. The 
 Merringham bread tasted at all times like no other 
 bread that he knew. 
 
 They ate and looked out over the world. It was no 
 longer quite their own. On a road down in the valley 
 they could see a waggon lumbering, the team straining 
 in the sandy soil. Smoke was rising from the chimney 
 of a cottage. Human sounds had taken their place 
 amongst those that were to be heard if you listened 
 for them in the silence. 
 
Ube Successor 271 
 
 But behind his pleasure in an hour which had allowed 
 him a spell of forgetfulness, behind the pleasant hunger 
 which could so easily and so pleasantly be satisfied, 
 were the hunger which could never be satisfied at all, 
 and the pain of the knowledge that all was changed, 
 and that the happy, careless days were over. Gradually, 
 like one who, waking from slumber, becomes conscious 
 of some pain that has not slept with his sleeping, he 
 had wakened to recollection. Gundred's hand, palm 
 upwards, lay near him on the grass. A few hours back 
 he would have taken it. The sight of it now it was 
 browned a little with the sun like the hand of a boy, but 
 exquisitely fashioned brought a sudden dimness to his 
 eyes. 
 
 He must go, there was no doubt about that go, and 
 not come back till he was cured of this folly. He had 
 not even the excuse of youth for it. Not for him was 
 the beauty which hurt him so grievously. Another's to 
 wake the sleeping princess with a kiss . . . with kisses 
 feather-light upon the finger-tips ... or, the face buried 
 humbly even and with tears in that open hand, with 
 kisses where the flesh was golden-pink in the palm. 
 Could he bear it ? Oh, Gundred ! (The wonder of a 
 name !) Gundred ! Someone else would come to woo 
 you, to wed you someone else, by right of those 
 accidents of birth or of fortune which are in no one's 
 control. . . . But would he love you as you were loved 
 at that moment? would he know you as he did who 
 had seen your beauty grow, your body and your soul 
 unfold like the petals of a flower ? 
 
 A little sound escaped him. Gundred looked up. 
 She had been lying still, with her hat tilted over her 
 eyes. She pushed it back. 
 
 " Don't move," he said huskily ; " don't move ! " 
 
 " Eddy, what is it ? " 
 
272 Ube Successor 
 
 He turned from her. " Don't speak to me," he said, 
 " for a moment." 
 
 He turned over upon his face on the turf. If she had 
 touched him he must have cried out. He knew that she 
 was looking at him. He could feel her eyes upon the 
 back of his head, but he did not see that in an instant 
 they had filled with tears. He did not know what 
 Balderton knew, or what rightly or wrongly Balderton 
 had been doing. What he knew was that unaccount- 
 ably he was making a fool of himself, and that he must 
 go tenfold must go, for what was so unexpectedly 
 happening. He recovered himself in a few seconds, but 
 neither spoke of what each must have known was 
 uppermost in the mind of the other. 
 
 " Now," Edmund said at last, " oughtn't we to be 
 making a start?" 
 
 They packed the basket. There was a sense as of 
 performing last rites in the putting away of what a 
 short while since they had unpacked apparently so 
 lightheartedly. 
 
 "We might be wanting these things, or they could 
 stop here till they were fetched," said Gundred doubt- 
 fully, when all was done. "They would be quite 
 safe." 
 
 Edmund did not say that they would not be wanting 
 them, but as much to make talk (to make talk with 
 Gundred !) as for the sake of prudence, said that some 
 tramp might find and make off with them. 
 
 " We'll leave them at the cottage down there," said 
 Gundred. " One of the men can ride over for them this 
 afternoon." 
 
 They walked back in unaccustomed silence. 
 
 Edmund left the next day, and Balderton, surprising 
 the unfamiliar in her young mistress's look, had so 
 
TTbe Successor 273 
 
 much to go upon. It would not be Gundred who 
 would be reluctant. God grant that it would not be 
 Edmund. Something had happened. She was sure of 
 it when he did not come at Christmas, at which season 
 she knew that he was to have had some leave, nor at 
 Easter, nor the summer following. Something had 
 happened, but there was plenty of time. Edmund, 
 Gundred Gundred, Edmund . . . Balderton repeated 
 the names as if, by such yoking, the two who bore 
 them might be drawn together repeated them as one 
 who invokes the saints, or like a prayer. 
 
 Then quite suddenly something else happened. Lady 
 Alton, who had been abroad, flounced home in curious 
 spirits to decide that Gundred, who was to have 
 waited for her presentation in the spring, should 
 come out at Merringham, and have a preliminary 
 canter. 
 
 Balderton recognised the signs of some fresh 
 development, and waited. 
 
 'We'll have a ball," Lady Alton said to her 
 Gundred being at Scarborough, where she was pursuing 
 holiday studies with Miss Moberly, and whence she was 
 now to be recalled " a party, rejoicings. We are only 
 young once. We have lived perhaps almost too quietly 
 at Merringham. Something is expected of us. Why, 
 I might like a little excitement myself. Sometimes 
 I really hardly feel older than my own daughter. 
 Sometimes , . ." She broke off. " So the sooner the 
 better," she said, after a little pause. " This autumn 
 October; I shall lay myself out to make this party 
 notable. I know charming people to ask the advan- 
 tage of going about as much as I do. We'll have 
 young people and a few of maturer years. Oh, I know 
 charming people ! " 
 
 She wanted excuse for a party ! 
 
 s 
 
274 Ufoe Successor 
 
 "Mr. Edmund, I hope," said Balderton vaguely, while 
 she wondered. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Lady Alton lightly. "Mr. Edmund, 
 I daresay." She did not seem to be thinking of him. 
 " We must see. To think that I should have a daughter 
 grown up approaching a marriageable age ! I feel, I 
 declare, quite excited. There are moments in one's 
 life, aren't there, at which one seems to have reached 
 a turning-point or a a goal or something. Such a one 
 must come to a mother, I think, when she brings out 
 her daughter and sees the results of her labours, and if 
 such a time should coincide with a point, as it were, in 
 the life of the mother herself. . . ." 
 
 She paused again as Balderton said, " My lady ? " 
 
 " Ah, well," said Lady Alton, " I was thinking that it 
 would seem as if Providence, watching over all things, 
 did favour the right did crown, so to speak, our poor 
 efforts with blessing." 
 
 " Yes ? " said Balderton; 
 
 She would understand, she supposed, in due time. 
 Her thoughts fled to Edmund in Vienna, to Gundred 
 at Scarborough victims both. But they did not just 
 then fly to one who, equally with them, and little as he 
 knew it, was victim and sport of an untoward fate. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 RODDY upon a journey of curiosity Edmund's 
 engaging but reprehensible uncle, Mrs. Alton's beloved 
 but unsatisfactory brother was little changed from 
 Roddy as we may remember him upon a visit of 
 condolence. The years still dealt gently with this 
 gentleman, and at an age for which no one would have 
 given him credit he kept his hair and his fine teeth, and 
 even his slim figure. Contemporaries of his were elderly 
 men ; he barely looked middle-aged. Yet he could 
 hardly be said to have spared himself. He had 
 wandered far and wide in the time that had elapsed 
 since we met him in Curzon Street, pursuing a fortune 
 that never was overtaken, and doubtless finding his 
 diversions by the way. He was a rolling stone, 
 however, which, if it gathered no moss, rolled so 
 smoothly and pleasantly down the hillside as never to 
 damage itself, and so ornamentally as to justify in 
 appearance, at least, its downward career. 
 
 And what was he doing now? doing now in that 
 galley a first-class carriage in a train bound for 
 Westerton Derbolt, junction for Broadhanger, Upton, 
 Queen's Horton, and Merringham. If there had been 
 any to put the question to him, he would probably have 
 answered in his slow pleasant voice, and with an amused 
 smile, that he had been asked to Merringham for the 
 functions connected with the coming out of his nephew's 
 cousin, and was on his way to fulfill the obligations he 
 
 275 
 
276 tlbc Successor 
 
 had incurred in an unguarded moment in accepting the 
 invitation. 
 
 But what was he doing? He could hardly have told 
 you. Following up an adventure? Not the kind of 
 adventure, then, to which he was accustomed. 
 
 The summer which was over had supplied him with 
 an adventure of sorts for all that. He had had what he 
 could not but believe was an offer of marriage and 
 from no less a person than his sister's extraordinary 
 sister-in-law, whom by the merest chance in the world 
 he had met at a little German spa! The lady, whom 
 he had never seen before, arriving suddenly at Baden 
 Dordlich, where, for some trifling ailment, he was 
 undergoing the cure of the moment, had to all 
 appearance been struck by something in him or in his 
 appearance, and had hardly released him from her sight 
 till he had been given (as he had to think, laugh as he 
 would) a chance of refusing her! He could laugh still. 
 An offer of marriage. Think of it ! Had he accepted ? 
 Or had he, with a " This is so sudden " (which it was !) 
 asked for time? He scarcely knew. He was at that 
 moment on his way to Merringham for nothing else, he 
 believed, but to find out. 
 
 Yet something did give the encounter in retrospect, 
 anyway, and its preposterous developments apart the 
 air of an adventure : something in the circumstances of 
 their first meeting, after a glimpse which he had caught 
 of her on her arrival in passing a hotel omnibus on its 
 way from the station ; something in connection with 
 the surprise with which one at least of the two had 
 heard the other's name. 
 
 What had happened? Baden Dordlich was at the 
 back of Godspeed, where an arrival was an arrival, and 
 the sight of a " civilised " head (the colour of a new 
 penny, if you please, in that year of grace !) an event to 
 
Ufoe Successor 277 
 
 mark the day which held it. You may gauge the 
 resources of Baden Dordlich. There is a depth to be 
 sounded there, as Mr. Carmelin could have told you 
 at which, to the male visitor, a head which has taken 
 the trouble to be not quite of the colour which Heaven 
 made it, will seem a head which respects itself. So 
 much for the glimpse preliminary which sufficed to 
 rouse his curiosity ! The lady's luggage, and maid, 
 and appointments generally, were of the important kind 
 which inspires respect amongst hotel officials. He had 
 not been surprised then to hear at his hotel (there 
 were only two hotels of any standing) that a great 
 English lady had arrived at the other, but got no 
 nearer to her name that evening than the " Hortense 
 Meringue" Ladee Hortense Meringue of a French 
 waiter's attempt at it, or the "Altode Meringer" of a 
 German. So came it that meeting the lady herself 
 next morning he did not know who she was. What 
 characterised the encounter made it different from the 
 thousand and one encounters of travellers who, meeting 
 by hazard, are presently to learn that indirectly they 
 are known to each other ? He could not tell. He had 
 just taken his first glass of water, and was going for his 
 prescribed walk in the gardens when he came face to 
 face with her. She was coming down the path which 
 he was going up. Now she at that moment might 
 conceivably have been in his thoughts. It seemed 
 impossible that he whom, as far as he knew, she had 
 never seen before should have been in hers. Yet in the 
 moment which made the curious impression upon him, 
 it was as if she had recognised him. More, she looked 
 as one looks who comes unexpectedly upon something 
 or someone that he is thinking about or even looking 
 for. There was what he described to himself as the 
 oddest little moment, and each said, " I beg your 
 
278 TTbe successor 
 
 pardon ! " It was not till afterwards that he saw that 
 the very apologies were, upon the face of things, without 
 reason, for though they had both, as he believed, had 
 the sense of having come to a standstill or otherwise 
 behaved unusually, they had not, when he came to 
 think of it, done anything of the sort ! 
 
 Half an hour later after an interval during which he 
 had had the strange but in some sort entertaining 
 feeling of being watched from a distance, from as 
 near as might be, from divers points of view she 
 had approached him upon a pretext veiling but thinly 
 an obvious desire to make his acquaintance. He would 
 overlook her unconventionality, would he not? He 
 was, she thought, an Englishman. Did he by chance 
 speak German ? She was at Baden Dordlich to replace 
 a pet dog of the breed for which the Grand Duke who 
 took his name from the place, as doubtless he was 
 aware, was famous. Her own little dog had been 
 dead some years. She had loved him greatly, and 
 was hoping to be able to get one as like him as 
 possible. She did not expect to have any difficulty 
 in her negotiations, but was an indifferent German 
 scholar, and if she should find it impossible to make 
 herself understood, might she might she venture to 
 ask the assistance of a compatriot ? 
 
 Roderick Carmelin, secretly amused, had professed 
 his readiness to render any help in his power. That, 
 the lady said, was very kind of him. She was afraid he 
 would think her very extraordinary. They had never 
 met before, she thought? No? Then, that she might 
 not be supposed to have any " anterior " motive (had he 
 mistaken her, or did she mean " ulterior " ?) she must tell 
 him her name. She was Lady Alton de Merringham. 
 
 Lady Alton de Merringham ! (She had said 
 " anterior " probably !) Lady Alton de Merringham ? 
 
Ube Successor 279 
 
 Then they were known to each other by hearsay 
 indirectly, even, connected. 
 
 Known to each other ? connected ? He had just said, 
 she thought, that they had never met before. Had they ? 
 No ? Had they ? He was sure ? She persisted, and 
 broke off with a Then then who was he ? 
 
 Roderick Carmelin, he told her. 
 
 Carmelin ? Carmelin ? Roderick Carmelin ? Then 
 he must be ... 
 
 Mrs. Alton's brother, he said. 
 
 Mrs. Alton's brother. Edmund's uncle . . . For a 
 minute or two she seemed taken aback. 
 
 An appreciable time passed, during which she searched 
 his face more or less furtively, and exclaimed at the 
 " extraordinariness of it all " more than once. He was 
 too old a traveller, perhaps, to be as much struck with 
 the coincidence as she. 
 
 " But you're no relation," she said, after a pause, and 
 gave a little laugh. It was as if she had arrived at a 
 conclusion which relieved her. " I thought, do you know, 
 for a moment that you must be." 
 
 " None." 
 
 " Still, it's extraordinary," she said. 
 
 They met again in the afternoon. Together the next 
 morning they chose the pretty but weasely little 
 creature which was to take the place of another of the 
 same species, which in its lifetime had borne the name, 
 it seemed, of Fido. She told him much about Lord 
 Alton, and a good deal about Gundred. She spoke of 
 Edmund. She regretted an "estrangement" which in 
 the later years of her husband's life, and since his 
 deplored death, had somehow kept her and his sister 
 apart. She knew nothing of the causes of what no one 
 regretted more than she. Edmund, she was glad to say, 
 was allowed to go to them. They were very fond of 
 
280 ZTbe Successor 
 
 him at Merringham. Everyone spoke highly of him, 
 and it rejoiced her to know that he was getting on so 
 well. Great things were prophesied for him. His 
 mother and his uncle must be proud of him. Who 
 knew but that, if his father had lived, Merringham and 
 Curzon Street might never have been disunited. 
 
 Daily the lady grew more confidential. He was 
 pleasantly entertained. She was made up of con- 
 tradictions. With that in her look to challenge and 
 provoke you, she was of a monstrous and surprising 
 respectability. Never in his life had he met anyone so 
 respectable. A suspicion of levity in his tone sent her 
 retiring into impregnable fastnesses of decorous reserve ; 
 the hint of impropriety in a word or the turn of a phrase 
 brought down fluttering but protesting eyelids. Yet she 
 was scarcely retiring. From telling him about herself, 
 Guridred, Merringham, her difficulties, interests, pursuits, 
 she went on to tell him about her circumstances with 
 stress upon the liberality of her late husband's provision 
 for her. Her purpose became unmistakable, if it was 
 somehow a thought half-hearted. She did not waver. 
 He must get tired, must he not, of his wandering life ? 
 Did he never get tired of it? Never wish to anchor 
 himself, so to speak ? Think of of settling down ? 
 
 A week, to Mr. Carmelin's amusement, brought them 
 to that ; a fortnight to something even more definite, 
 with some talk of his soul in between, and the saving 
 graces of the life domestic. (There must come a time, 
 for example, when this world would fail us. Such an 
 hour came, she believed, to each one of us. But first 
 there was vouchsafed to us sometimes an opportunity 
 for making our peace with Heaven. Well for us if we 
 recognised such opportunity when it came. Ah, he 
 need not smile. She was serious. But why should 
 she think ? . . . Ah, she was shaking her head over 
 
trfoe Successor 281 
 
 him, she feared she knew but too well.) He hardly 
 knew what to make of her. Had she a " mission " ? 
 If so, it was a mission out of which the spirit had 
 evaporated. She was a trifle mechanical. Yet . . . 
 and yet again ! She spoke of loneliness upon the day, 
 a woman's need of a Strong Arm, her own unfettered 
 position. . . . 
 
 And he ? He had feigned innocence but was going 
 to Merringham. We need not suppose that he had 
 committed himself. Too old a bird this to be caught 
 with chaff! The idea was preposterous, unthinkable, 
 out of the question, but somehow he wanted to hear 
 more of it ... to see her again. Here he was, anyway, 
 in the train on a journey of what? Sentiment? He 
 was heart-whole. Discovery ? Hardly. Curiosity ? 
 That or nothing. 
 
 If she had not been an Alton, or he had not been a 
 Carmelin, he might perhaps have allowed himself to 
 give something not unlike consideration to the thought 
 of a change in his lot ; for, to the polite libertine who 
 has formed no ties, there comes in time, if not neces- 
 sarily the hour when, the world bidding fair to fail him, 
 he turns for solace to thoughts of the heaven which he 
 has neglected for so long a sense, yet, of dissatisfaction 
 with the conditions of his life, and a consequent hanker- 
 ing for the security of a home and the more abiding 
 comforts of domesticity. Lady Alton, in what had at 
 the time the semblance of an aside, but was not in effect 
 far from being the motive of her whole discourse, had 
 found there the weak spot in his armour. Roderick 
 Carmelin, repenting him nothing, was nearing the 
 parting of the ways. 
 
 Meanwhile, he was also nearing his destination. 
 From old times, when before and after his sister's 
 marriage he had stayed often enough at Merringham, 
 
282 Ube Successor 
 
 he recognised stages upon the route. Edmund's father 
 had been his friend. Poor Edmund he meant Edmund's 
 father and poor Edmund too ! That was how many 
 years ago ? More than he could afford to count. Poor 
 Susan (from whom he had borrowed so often !), how 
 shabbily for all her pluck, and her present comparative 
 prosperity notwithstanding, how shabbily life had dealt 
 with her ! 
 
 He passed the later years in review, considering them 
 as they regarded Merringham, and chuckling once more 
 over a recent use of the word " estrangement " in con- 
 nection with them. He and she, he fancied, would have 
 something to talk over perhaps laugh over when he 
 saw her on his way back. She knew of his projected 
 visit, for he had not accepted the invitation without 
 writing whimsically to sound her first upon the subject, 
 and receive her " Go, by all means." Of course he must 
 go, she said, and afterwards he must come and tell her 
 all about it. How much he should be able to tell her 
 he did not quite know, but though she would not listen 
 to all his stories there would assuredly be something 
 which could be told to such a sister as his. She had 
 expressed no surprise, perhaps because nothing that 
 happened to her brother could ever surprise her ! 
 
 Here, meanwhile, was Culverton Regis, which he 
 remembered well. Twenty minutes now would see him 
 at Westerton Derbolt. Momentarily the country was 
 growing more beautiiul. A recollection of the exceeding 
 beauty of Merringham came to him, as the character of 
 a landscape, which he recalled as he saw it again, 
 established itself. He put down the papers which he 
 had not been reading, and turned more directly to face 
 the window. Where else, in or out of England, would 
 you find such a country ? A tree or two of the trees 
 was already flaming in its autumn dress presage of 
 
ZTbe Successor 283 
 
 the near days when the wooded hills would be a medley 
 of exuberant colours. The sight of so much beauty, 
 with the knowledge that Merringham, like a jewel in 
 exquisite setting, was in the very heart of it, smote him 
 with a momentary pang for his sister's disappointment 
 such a pang as Edmund might have felt if he had not 
 been Edmund, and Susan in her heart of hearts must 
 have felt, though she might not have acknowledged it. 
 But dear Susan (our traveller could never be serious for 
 long!) how funny she was! funnier in the old days 
 before she put a curb on her tongue. " Brood Mare ! " 
 He must remind her of that . . . and something in the 
 very early days about "Injured Expressions!" He 
 laughed to himself. 
 
 It is significant that he approached Merringham in 
 the spirit of laughter. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 So while Edmund kept silence in Austria, obstinate, 
 deaf alike to invitations and appeals, and Gundred in 
 England, sore to heartsickness, showed at succeeding 
 intervals an interested, indifferent, rebellious, excited, 
 but always beautiful face, Roddy, the stranger of 
 Balderton's surmismgs, the gallant, the light-lover (but 
 also, as has been hinted and little as she guessed it, in 
 this case the innocent victim of circumstance), neared 
 Merringham, where Lady Alton was walking on air. 
 
 Lady Alton, expecting him, trod nothing less buoyant. 
 She had not looked so young or so well for years. She 
 was like a ship nearing the haven, a horse turned 
 towards home, a maid who awaits her lover. It was as 
 if she had reached the hour of her triumph. 
 
 Had she not reached it? Heaven indeed was smiling 
 upon her, as she had hazarded to Balderton had smiled 
 upon her, promised to smile to the end. All her phrases 
 had justified themselves. Lord Alton had died happy. 
 Everything was for the best. What had to be not only 
 was to be, but had been. Now she was entering upon 
 her rest. Now she was reaping her reward. 
 
 She looked back and saw how guardian angels had 
 watched over her. Who had guided her if not angels 
 and ministers of grace? Difficulties had assailed her. 
 She had been enabled to over-ride them. The terrors 
 of hell had gotten hold of her. She had been shown 
 how to shake them off. Like Jonah's gourd as suddenly, 
 anyway Matty Henster in her hour had been raised 
 
 284 
 
Ube Successor 285 
 
 up for her admonishment ; more, for her guidance. 
 Impossible not to see a Decree, a Pre-ordination, an 
 All-wisdon in all that had happened and in poor 
 Matty's case the very finger of God. God worked, we 
 all knew, in strange ways, choosing the humblest instru- 
 ments for His inscrutable purposes " frail earthen 
 vessels," as the hymn told us, " things of no worth ! " For 
 what else in the day of doubt and fear had the gipsy girl 
 come into her life ? God was very good. The hairs of 
 our heads were numbered. A sparrow did not fall to the 
 ground without His knowledge . . . and were we not 
 indeed much better than they? Thou Shalt Not . . . 
 and she Had. But the Almighty, in raising up a fellow- 
 sinner for her example, had shown her not only the way 
 she should take, but a sign. The message was plain. 
 No obscurities. No veiled meanings. Do this. A faith- 
 ful servant had but to obey. What were God's priests if 
 not His mouthpiece ? Matty must marry be willing to 
 marry her man, they said. Upon the face of things 
 and without prejudice, could it be other than for her 
 sake that Matty had first to find him had even to find 
 him ? 
 
 Roddy, meanwhile, had reached Westerton Derbolt, 
 where he changed trains. Here a talkative clergyman, 
 with a face like a good-looking bun, and a name like 
 the name of a note-paper, got into conversation with him. 
 This person, after some remarks upon the state of the 
 weather, a little volunteering of the information about 
 himself which put Roddy in possession of his name 
 Silurian was it ? Silarian ? something of the sort and 
 a few civil generalities, alluded to the coming festivities 
 at Merringham. 
 
 " You, sir, I can see are to be one of the party." 
 Mr. Carmelin bowed. " Though why you should 
 think so . . . ? " he hazarded vaguely. 
 
286 ttbe Successor 
 
 The clergyman smiled, waving his hands. 
 
 " As Rector of Merringham," he said, " I naturally see 
 a good deal of the family. The living indeed is, as you 
 probably know, in their gift. I have known Lady Alton 
 de Merringham since she came here as a bride, and the 
 young lady who is to come out at the ball to-morrow 
 night from an infant. Anyone, sir, could see that you 
 were a relation. Though I have not yet the pleasure of 
 knowing your name, I could not be mistaken." 
 
 Roddy lazily put him right, disclaiming relationship 
 with Lady Alton's family, and blood relationship with 
 the Altons. His fellow-traveller seemed surprised, 
 continued to be surprised for as long as they journeyed 
 together ; could not, he said, as they were parting at 
 Merringham Station, get over his surprise. No relation 
 to the young lady, to be sure, as brother-in-law of her 
 late father's brother ; no relation at all to her, albeit uncle 
 to her cousin ; yet the likeness was extraordinary. Any- 
 one might be pardoned for making the mistake. Was 
 he not commonly thought very like her ? Roddy, 
 inwardly damning his persistence though wholly good- 
 temperedly remembered dimly to have heard that 
 Edmund had said that Gundred reminded him of his 
 uncle. 
 
 " It is most remarkable, sir," said the clergyman. 
 
 <c Really, sir ? " said the layman. 
 
 The clergyman was met by a lady in a pony chaise, 
 and a carriage from Merringham was waiting for the 
 Merringham guest. The two parted to go their separate 
 ways, and Roddy would have thought just then little 
 more of the matter if, as the pony chaise drove off, he 
 had not seen that he was being volubly discussed by its 
 occupants. 
 
 He conceived an amiable dislike of the Rector of 
 Merringham. 
 
tlbe Successor 287 
 
 He got into the carriage, and was driven, like 
 Edmund before him, through scenery which he 
 recognised yard by yard. 
 
 Rubber tyres made the wheels noiseless on the well- 
 kept roads. The carriage was a new one, or had lately 
 been re-lined, and it was perfect in all its appoint- 
 ments. Life, he perceived, was a smooth thing at 
 Merringham. 
 
 In course of time they turned into the park. What 
 a splendid expanse of it ! In contemplation of it, he 
 forgot what had exercised him. In the twilight it 
 seemed to stretch to the horizon. Well to be the 
 favoured young woman to whom all this belonged, 
 together with the right to pass on her name in good 
 time to her offspring. A lucky young woman ! He 
 began to be curious to see her. Common report gave 
 her looks. Her curious mother, in urging him to come 
 to Merringham, had expressed a wish that he should see 
 her. She did not know why, but she would like him to 
 see her. She was proud of her ; it was that, she supposed. 
 Gundred, she said, was such a daughter as any parent 
 might be proud of. When she was not talking of 
 herself, indeed, the lady had talked of her daughter, 
 and therefrom of the happiness of parentage. Gundred 
 had come to her he had heard perhaps ? at a time of 
 great sorrow. Mr. Carmelin probably knew she was a 
 posthumous child. But of course he must know. Was 
 he not connected with the family ? There was some- 
 thing singularly sad, then, to a woman in the thought 
 that her child could not know its father singularly 
 sad. And such a child . . . ! Oh, he must really see 
 Gundred ! 
 
 Well, that was what he was now going to do. 
 Entertaining to hear from a stranger that she 
 resembled him ! 
 
28$ tlbe Successor 
 
 There was an air of preparation over Merringham 
 when it came into sight. Too big a house to need 
 the ease and aid of tents or outbuildings for its enter- 
 tainments, it yet bore signs of the approaching 
 festivities. A small forest of palms, destined probably 
 for the ball-room and the passages, stood under cover 
 of the twilight at a side-door. An awning had been 
 erected over the great hall-door itself ; and as the 
 carriage came round the curve in the drive, a small 
 army of gardeners, engaged in carrying pots of flowers 
 into the hall, stood back in line upon each side of the 
 threshold. 
 
 Through an avenue of men and boys holding hot- 
 house flowers of divers descriptions, from scarlet 
 geraniums to the odd-looking orchids of Mrs. Alton's 
 aversion, Edmund's uncle stepped into Merringham. 
 The accident gave his entrance, as he was amused to 
 think, the air and the aspect of no ordinary arrival. 
 
 A new combination for Merringham. The first in its 
 hour had been strange enough : Edmund, Gundred, Lady 
 Alton ! That, in its hour, had been strange enough 
 strange enough surely ! But Lady Alton, Gundred, the 
 new-comer. . . . Could one roof cover these ? 
 
 Balderton, in the housekeeper's room, sat raging and 
 frozen too ; her eyes shut, cold hands to a burning head. 
 
 Roddy, crossing the hall in the wake of the butler, 
 and becoming conscious as he did so of sounds be- 
 tokening a full house, found himself wondering what 
 his hostess would look like out of the hotel surroundings 
 into which she had seemed to fit so admirably. In 
 Merringham, as he saw it again, he began to see her 
 less easily. 
 
ZTfoe Successor 289 
 
 He was shown into a small room where a tea-table 
 stood near a blazing fire. He was being asked whether 
 he would like anything stronger than tea, and was 
 deciding, as the hour was late, in favour of sherry and 
 bitters, when Lady Alton appeared. 
 
 She greeted him, her two hands outstretched. 
 
 " Welcome ! " she said, smiling. " Welcome to 
 Merringham ! " 
 
 There was that which was proprietory in her manner 
 in the intimacy even of the small room. He was her 
 special guest, and she had prepared a bower for him. 
 The fire gave him welcome, even as herself, the tea-table 
 temptingly beside it, its slender burden of porcelain 
 and silver shining and sparkling in the dancing light. 
 Tea-time was over by an hour or more. This was a 
 traveller's own little private tea if he cared to have it. 
 He was half regretting, in the snugness of the cosy 
 room, that he had decided for wine (which asked other 
 surroundings), when the sight of the butler reappearing 
 with his cocktail, and of a footman respectfully waiting 
 in the background for his keys, reminded him of the 
 comparative nearness of dinner and of the duty he owed 
 to his appetite. 
 
 Lady Alton, meanwhile, looked her part better than 
 he would have expected. The carriage of her elaborate 
 head gave her something of a grand air, if always with 
 a suggestion of pinchbeck behind it. Probably she was 
 better-looking now than she had been as a younger 
 woman. Viewed with unprejudiced eyes, she was comely 
 enough, and to see her radiant for you in the world 
 who were but the acquaintance of a chance meeting, 
 tended, if you were not without your natural vanities, 
 to show her in a favourable rather than an unfavourable 
 light. She had a dozen good points. 
 
 He stood with his back to the fire. It was very 
 
290 Ube Successor 
 
 pleasant in the warm room. While he answered 
 hospitable questions about his journey, and told her 
 what he had been doing with himself since they parted 
 at Baden Dordlich, his eyes wandered round the walls. 
 He remembered some of the pictures, here one and there 
 one looking, as he mentally realised, to days when his 
 hostess, to all intents and purposes, had not had any 
 existence. Here were portraits of the Andover, whom 
 he had known, and the Redruth. Unlikely that in 
 Lord Alton's lifetime these had hung side by side as 
 they did now. Here they were, however, and Blanche, 
 Lady Alton, sat under them ! Here, near at hand, was 
 a small picture of Edmund's father as a boy, which 
 might have been a picture of Edmund himself at the 
 same age. Then it was another picture which caught 
 his eye Lord Alton a portrait which we may recognise 
 as the original of the crayon drawing before which 
 Gundred had once been danced and dandled in Lady 
 Alton's boudoir. The painting occupied a place of 
 honour over a writing-table. As a work of art, it was 
 no great thing, but as a presentment of the ferrety little 
 man, it had a verisimilitude which might be superficial, 
 but which was striking. 
 
 Lady Alton followed his eye to it. You could hear 
 the small voice as you looked, recall little tricks of 
 speech and manner. The pinched nose, the skin 
 tightly stretched across the bones of the forehead, the 
 pink-rimmed eyes, all seemed to give you the man. 
 That in reality they gave you but the husk, the kernel 
 being absent the essential air of refinement which had 
 characterised Lord Alton, and made his insignificant 
 appearance distinguished did not prevent the likeness 
 from being remarkable. The man was there without 
 his subtleties, without his humour, his temper, his 
 mettle, without the perverse and whimsical soul which, 
 
Successor 291 
 
 making him capable of unspeakable things perhaps, 
 explained, if it could not justify him. An indifferent 
 picture, if not a downright bad one but physically the 
 man was there. 
 
 Bared of his attributes, Lord Alton was not pleasing. 
 Something of futility marked him. Not, one would 
 have said, a man to take a woman's fancy ; not a type 
 to perpetuate notably, perhaps, not a type to 
 perpetuate. 
 
 " You remember him well ? " Lady Alton asked, in the 
 subdued voice which a certain sort of person thinks it 
 necessary to assume in speaking of the dead. 
 
 " Oh, very well ! That, though I should say it hardly 
 expresses him, brings him vividly before me." 
 
 " I think it good," Lady Alton said. " It was the last 
 portrait of him done about a couple of years before he 
 died. I forget the artist's name, though he stayed here 
 to do it. Such sums as they get, some of these painters ! 
 Lord Alton did not think very much of it himself. Of 
 course, it's not flattering." She smiled as at a recollec- 
 tion, and continued after a little pause : " I said so at 
 the time, I remember, and my dear husband was quite 
 impatient with me, as if that hadn't been what he meant, 
 or I had missed the point or something. He said 
 'Flattering!' I remember, just Ike that 'Flattering! 
 as if one wanted a pretty picture ! ' Then, as I said to 
 him, what did he want? For it was exactly like him. 
 No, I must say I always thought it very good. I have 
 a copy of it in my own sitting-room." 
 
 They looked up at the indecisive face. Roddy was 
 thinking that he understood Lord Alton's impatience. 
 It was improbable that the artist's jest was deliberate or 
 even conscious. He had painted in good faith, but if 
 he had wanted to score off an enemy by exposing him, 
 by holding up the mirror to nature at a disadvantage, 
 
292 Ufoe Successor 
 
 he could not have painted to more judicious and 
 malicious purpose. Meagreness was the keynote of his 
 record and message meagreness, arrested development, 
 insignificance. 
 
 Mr. Carmelin's eyes were upon the picture when the 
 door opened, and there came in Gundred. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IT was the wrong moment to see her for the first time, 
 or it should not have been Roddy just then who saw 
 her. It was like looking from death to life. The 
 contrast was startling. Gundred's thoughts might be 
 with Edmund in Vienna ; her appearance suffered 
 nothing, but had the peculiar warmth and glow which 
 no distemper of mind or body ever took from her, and 
 which made her beauty so unusual and so telling. 
 (There were those who were never to be " able " to 
 admire her the Miss Wraysburys, for instance, who 
 thought such excess of good looks hardly ladylike, and 
 one or two others.) She was like some young wild but 
 gentle thing of the fields and woods. 
 
 Inevitable that Roddy, as Roddy, looking from the 
 picture to her, and with goodness knows what knowledge 
 of life to make for cynicism, should at least take note 
 of unlikeness so remarkable. No one else, perhaps, 
 would have observed it, and not even he if, at the 
 moment of her entrance, his mind had not been full of 
 Lord Alton as the picture falsely, but also horribly 
 truly, presented him. Observe it he did, however, with 
 (morally) his tongue in his cheek, and an imaginary and 
 freakish glance from the tail of his eye, not at Lady 
 Alton, but at the lady of the remarkable behaviour at 
 Baden Dordlich. This in the briefest moment, and 
 without any perception of whereto such thinking must 
 lead him. He hardly formulated his thoughts, indeed 
 there was not time and maybe was conscious just 
 
294 tlbe Successor 
 
 then of no more than a curious impression, and his 
 usual inclination to levity. 
 
 But as Gundred gave him her hand and looked into 
 his eyes with eyes which, though she did not know it, 
 and he did not know it either, were so perilously like his 
 own it was of a stranger impression still that he became 
 conscious. His mood underwent a rapid and unaccount- 
 able change. Later, he felt that he had known something 
 at once not the unthinkable truth, but that at least 
 which, when the truth came to him, inconceivable as it 
 seemed, incredible almost, confirmed and established it. 
 It was, as he expressed it to himself afterwards, as if he 
 recognised his kind ... so that before Gundred spoke 
 he had divined what the sound and the tone of her voice 
 would be. When she spoke, as she did almost immedi- 
 ately, her voice and a certain eager but unhurried way 
 that she had of speaking were as things with which he 
 was already familiar. Feelings of sympathy for and 
 with her, of lively kindliness towards her, mingled with 
 his admiration of her, and with another feeling. He 
 believed, to his surprise, and yet which was more sur- 
 prising still not wholly to his surprise, that he had an 
 intimate understanding of her. He knew, for example, 
 in fewer minutes than he stayed hours at Merringham, 
 that though a serviceable enough affection might exist 
 between her and her mother, there was no really close 
 accord. The two, if he was not mistaken, looked at life 
 not only from different points of view, but from different 
 planes. There was something ridiculous about Lady 
 Alton ; something which always inclined him to laughter. 
 When she was elegant, and said "sufficient " for " enough," 
 " request " for " ask," " endeavour " for " try," he wanted to 
 answer her in mischievous kind with such flowers of speech 
 as " comprehend," " commence," " evince " ; to drag a 
 church into the conversation, that he might call it a 
 
ttbe Successor 295 
 
 " place of worship " ; a funeral, that he might speak of the 
 " obsequies " ; a burial, to call it an " interment," Gundred 
 no more than he could overlook what was so obvious. 
 She and her mother were two. Yet he could see that 
 she owed not a little to a mother who had much to 
 transmit. Her bold outlines she owed to her modified 
 as they were in her own young case her straight back, 
 the carriage of her shoulders. The mother laid stress, 
 perhaps, upon what the daughter only suggested. 
 Making every allowance for the difference in their ages, 
 he saw that Gundred had improved upon all that 
 had been handed down to her ; but that Lady 
 Alton was largely represented in her daughter was 
 indisputable. 
 
 Gundred was welcoming him to Merringham too 
 differently somehow from her mother. She was telling 
 him that Edmund spoke of him often. That in itself he 
 gathered incidentally was passport to her good-will. 
 But . . . what was it about her? She affected him 
 differently from anyone he had ever seen. Thence he 
 thought of Edmund, and felt sure that in different sort 
 still she must affect him also must if he knew anything 
 of one strain of the blood which ran in his veins ! Not 
 the usual girl from the school-room by any means; 
 not one to be held by the conventions of a stupid world, 
 or be content to let the joys of life pass her by. She was 
 made for the great happinesses, and someone (it was then 
 that he read or mis-read her) was bound to suffer for 
 her ! But in the strange moment of his insight, when 
 the veil seemed raised, "he guessed at another Gundred 
 too, who, if she was to make sore hearts, was of the kind 
 whose own heart would ache in the process. This or 
 that ? Which was the real Gundred ? Both. Her look 
 quickened at his ! Surely, as he held the hand she had 
 extended, her look quickened, and something of his own 
 
296 tTbe Successor 
 
 unaccountable sense of spiritual kinship came to her 
 also ! 
 
 Unconsciously he let his eyes rest on the picture from 
 which he had withdrawn them at her entrance, and 
 reluctantly still without thinking it out to its conclusion 
 found himself again with his first thought. 
 
 " Oh," she said, as if answering it, and following the 
 direction of his eyes as her mother had done, " I don't 
 believe that was like my father. I am certain that it 
 was a libel upon him. I know it is a favourite of yours, 
 mother, but I don't like it. We must show Mr. 
 Carmelin the one in the library." 
 
 "Ah, that one the one in the library looks so 
 grave," said Lady Alton. " This one is smiling a little. 
 That's why I like it. He always had his joke though 
 half his jokes, I'm bound to say, I couldn't make head 
 or tail of. He often laughed when he was in good 
 health. This one has the nearest approach to a smile. 
 I can't see much wrong with it." 
 
 Gundred shook her head. 
 
 He looked away from the portrait with a feeling 
 of relief, and went back to her gladly. (Pleasant 
 things for him always, smooth things, the easy way !) 
 She held him as music may hold you. It was not 
 entirely that she was beautiful. Over and above beauty, 
 she had a quality which he was quick enough to 
 recognise. The magnetism of her personality was 
 potent, and in the capacity (happily) of Edmund's 
 uncle rather than of Roderick Carmelin, he found him- 
 self under the spell of it, and wondering no longer how 
 Edmund regarded her, but whether a potential if not an 
 actual ardour in his feelings towards her might not have 
 to do now with his absence ? 
 
 As these thoughts passed through his mind, he 
 became conscious that Lady Alton was watching him 
 
ttbe Successor 397 
 
 attentively had been watching him, indeed, since her 
 daughter came into the room. She was proud of her, 
 he supposed, and was trying to gauge the impression 
 she made upon one who saw her for the first time. 
 There was small fear that Gundred would not be 
 admired. She compelled admiration. Lady Alton, 
 however, looked from one to the other. 
 
 A little scratching at the door and a diminutive bark 
 outside made a diversion. Fido the Second was 
 admitted, and introduced to the kind gentleman who 
 had helped to choose and to buy him. He was so small 
 that his mistress had had no difficulty in smuggling him 
 into the country. 
 
 " I gave you a dear little sleeping draught, didn't I, 
 my sweet, and just put you into the inside of my jacket. 
 Nobody guessed you were there, did they, and we had 
 no bother." 
 
 Gundred, whom Edmund's uncle had from the first 
 reminded of Edmund, thinking of the other Fido who 
 had skipped and danced about Edmund's long legs, and 
 died for Queen Victoria, wandered to Vienna while 
 her mother talked. 
 
 "Edmund," she was saying to herself, "Edmund, 
 why aren't you here ? Cruel ! You know I want you. 
 I know you want me. Dear Edmund, why aren't you 
 here?" 
 
 Long, long thoughts for no one's reading ! But, 
 pensive for the moment and tragic, she looked more 
 unlike the picture than before, and this was what 
 Edmund's uncle could see, and saw. 
 
 It was not till Roddy went to his room, where the 
 footman who had unpacked for him was laying out 
 his things, that he realised what it was that had entered 
 his mind at the sight of Gundred. He came to a 
 
298 trbe Successor 
 
 standstill on his way to the dressing-table. The 
 footman, one Frederick, a new-comer, spoke down- 
 stairs of a gentleman so absent that you had to 
 speak to him twice before he heard you. 
 
 " A white waistcoat, sir ? " 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Will you wear a white waistcoat, sir ? " 
 
 " A white waistcoat ? " 
 
 Edmund's uncle came back, as we may remember 
 Edmund's other uncle upon a notable day to have 
 come back, as from a great, great distance. 
 
 "Eh? White? Black? I don't know. Leave them 
 there. I'll see presently." 
 
 "Very good, sir," said Frederick. "Dinner is at a 
 quarter-past eight, sir," and withdrew. 
 
 " All right ! All right ! " said Roddy to the closing 
 door. 
 
 When it had closed and he was alone, some minutes 
 passed before he began to dress. 
 
 What he had noted so lightly was threatening by 
 that time to trouble him. He had never taken Lady 
 Alton seriously. To him she was still not Lady Alton 
 at all, but the Head which had been at the pains of 
 dyeing itself, the extraordinary Encounter at the springs, 
 and even more extraordinary Proposal. Of her, then, 
 as of the passer-by or of anyone else who is unknown to 
 you, all things were conceivable. But of the mother of 
 Gundred. . . . 
 
 In the light of the half-dozen wax candles which 
 illumined the room (the same which Edmund had 
 occupied upon his first visit, and from which he had 
 heard the cries of the trapped rabbit), Edmund's uncle 
 showed an absent and perturbed expression very unlike 
 that with which he had stepped into Merringham. 
 What had happened to him? Guessing nothing, did 
 
tlfoe Successor 299 
 
 he yet see himself trapped ? Was it a way of escape 
 that he was seeking as his forehead wore this unusual 
 frown? If so, it was only to find himself confronted 
 first by one and then by the other of the two thoughts 
 which beset him. Each in its separate way seemed 
 to be disturbing. 
 
 In the old-fashioned grate the fire ticked and clicked 
 pleasantly to have called the attention of anyone less 
 preoccupied to itself. Padding about on the soft carpet 
 when at length he had begun to dress he heard it, 
 perhaps, for he stopped before the hearth from time 
 to time and looked deeply into the red heart of the 
 coals. He saw Gundred there maybe, as everywhere 
 else. 
 
 But with the face of Gundred behind it, beside it, 
 over it was the face of the picture. The sharpness of 
 the contrast was insistent. Then what of it ? What, in 
 Heaven's name, of unlikeness ! Not one child in twenty 
 resembles its parents. Unlikeness was nothing less 
 than nothing. 
 
 He argued with himself warmly. He particularly 
 disliked disagreeable things, and if he was stumbling 
 upon upon anything, it was extremely disagreeable. 
 
 But unlikeness as of kind . . . difference of 
 species ! A grape of a thorn ? A fig of a thistle ? 
 
 There were mezzotints on the walls, some that he 
 knew, some that he did not know, some that he saw 
 were rare indeed. The candlesticks were Battersea 
 enamel. Some bits of Staffordshire pottery stags, 
 dogs, sheep were upon the mantelpiece. A stag had 
 lost its antlers. The great four-post bed had purple 
 hangings. These things he remarked absently, with 
 the nice appointments of the room generally. 
 
 And if, urged his thoughts the while if so, why then 
 Edmund . 
 
Successor 
 
 Good God ! what was this that he was thinking ? He 
 pulled himself up with a jerk. This idea of his was 
 horrible. What imp of mischief had put it into his 
 head ? It was monstrous. There were no grounds for 
 it. It was iniquitous even to give it so much attention 
 as to combat it. There had never been any talk, any 
 breath of suspicion? Abominable, then, to fancy, 
 imagine, invent . . . 
 
 He did not silence his thinking. 
 
 And so we have Roddy at Merringham, and not only 
 at Merringham but, by accident and something which 
 was not accident, upon the trail of that which he did 
 not even suspect. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 MR. CARMELIN came but Mr. Carmelin went. 
 
 It was many months before Balderton got the 
 explanation of that episode. Then, on a day, Lady 
 Alton said out of a silence : 
 
 "Why does Matty Henster -Matty Jake, I should 
 say never come to church ? She's been a respectable 
 married woman these fifteen years. Why does she 
 never take what she was once refused ? She could now. 
 She could have done so directly she had made up her 
 mind to marry the father of her child directly she had 
 made up her mind even to look for him." 
 
 Balderton sent her thoughts back across the years, 
 and they took her to the scene in the church and to an 
 illness which had attacked one who had been witness of 
 it an illness of the kind known as obscure. They 
 might have taken her a little further still without 
 overstepping the mark, and have shown her her own 
 attitude towards her mistress after the coming and 
 going of Edmund, when feelings beyond her control 
 had almost betrayed her into foolishness irremediable. 
 They took her far enough for her purpose. Lady 
 Alton had uprisen from her sick bed to begin what 
 had assuredly been a quest. After fifteen years she 
 had found what she sought ... to no purpose, it had 
 seemed. To no purpose ? 
 
 Lady Alton's speech was illuminating. 
 
 The little old woman grew more and more silent. 
 Her spirit shone out of bright eyes which nothing 
 
 301 
 
302 Ufoe Successor 
 
 escaped. The fires of life might burn low ; they 
 burned clear like a fire of coals on a winter's night. 
 Her health was wonderful. Her skin was becoming 
 like parchment ; it was ivory white in the light of the 
 lamp by which she balanced her books. She crooned 
 to the linen sometimes as she tended it, much as she 
 would have crooned to a child little old songs that her 
 own mother had taught her who in turn had learned 
 them from hers. They were of so long ago that they 
 seemed to belong to a different dispensation. They 
 came back to her now. But she relaxed nothing of 
 her hold upon life. 
 
 One thing when time and her mistress's quiescence 
 had shown her that after all there was to be no amazing 
 complication by marriage one thing she did not under- 
 stand : why, if Mr. Carmelin was all that her horror 
 painted him, he should have come to Merringham at 
 all. Sometimes she wondered if, thinking she knew 
 everything, she did not indeed know but a part. There 
 was that in his conduct which had shaken her certainty. 
 Watching him as closely as might be when, on the 
 morning after his arrival, she had had an opportunity of 
 observing him as he walked with her young mistress on 
 the terrace under her window, she had stored food for 
 thought. What were these puzzled looks which he 
 turned on her? wondering looks, tender, questioning, 
 something apprehensive ? . . . looks impossible, she 
 would have supposed, to the scoundrel she thought 
 him. At the moment she had held her breath, not 
 for this just then, but for what the night might bring 
 forth. The house was full of strangers the party 
 (Lady Alton's circle having enlarged considerably since 
 the days of Edmund's first visit) drawn grandly from 
 new acquaintances of travel. Small matter if strangers 
 saw what was plain for all to see. They would not 
 
trbe Successor 303 
 
 interpret. But at the ball there would be those who 
 knew the intimate history of Merringham who would 
 not, by a confusion of ideas natural enough to outsiders, 
 account for the evidences of their senses by supposing 
 Mr. Carmelin to be the young Baroness's uncle. Mr. 
 Carmelin might be almost Gundred's uncle as she, 
 calling him Uncle Roddy for Edmund's sake, laughingly 
 declared him. In reality, he was nothing of the sort. 
 The night, then, must bring forth something. But the 
 night brought forth nothing. Mr. Carmelm, suddenly 
 and surprisingly pleading illness, did not appear at the 
 ball. Could he, ne'er-do-well as he was known to be, 
 have come innocently to Merringham ? Could he have 
 been ignorant of the truth till he found himself face 
 to face with it ? Was it conceivable ? possible ? 
 There were things which even Balderton was never to 
 know. 
 
 For the rest, Gundred occupied all the old woman's 
 attention. At an age when other girls are hardly out 
 of the school-room, Gundred was called upon to make 
 decisions for life. Two people wanted to marry her. 
 The love affairs of a pair of most desirable young men 
 began at Gundred's first ball and ended there, if either 
 of them could have been induced to believe it. Gundred 
 hunted that winter. Her suitors waylaid her as she rode 
 to a meet, forestalling one the other when it was possible, 
 glaring at each other when they met, and laying the 
 foundations of an enmity which presently divided two 
 houses. For years there was a coldness between Lady 
 Abbotswood and Lady Henry Witton-Wilson, by reason 
 of young Lord Abbotswood's opinion, upon the one 
 hand, of Mr. Witton-Wilson's ideas of honour ; and 
 of Mr. Witton-Wilson's, upon the other, of Lord 
 Abbotswood's notions of fair-play. Gundred would 
 have neither of them. She was even a little bit cruel. 
 
304 TTbe Successor 
 
 Lady Alton awaking was mildly remonstrant. For 
 some time she was too much taken up with her own 
 recent disappointment to concern herself actively in the 
 affairs of her daughter. Duty and inclination for once had 
 lain in the same direction. She had thought so much 
 about the extraordinary circumstances of her meeting 
 with Mr. Carmelin that she had really come to look 
 upon him as her fate. All other considerations apart, 
 he was such an one as any woman might have chosen. 
 In a measure she might be said to have chosen him. 
 There had been a sense of wonder unspeakable in the 
 consciousness of knowing what no one else knew in the 
 world. Waiting then she was elated, expectant, excited. 
 The issues were with Heaven, but he would surely see 
 wisdom. She had been prepared for hesitation. It was 
 but seemly that he should hesitate, having everything 
 to gain. She would wish it ... but he would not 
 be there if he had not understood. Yet he came 
 and he went. The air upon which Lady Alton 
 was walking let her down to the earth somewhat 
 suddenly. 
 
 When at length, however, it became clear that he had 
 gone for good, backing out of that to which at Baden 
 Dordlich he had seemed not disinclined to commit 
 himself, Lady Alton, injured, plaintive, mildly piqued, 
 but bearing no malice, began to look about her. Her 
 conscience at any rate was clear. She was no Naaman 
 to demur when Heaven spoke by the mouth of its 
 prophets, and had not demurred. She had fulfilled her 
 directions as she had received them to the letter. Not 
 her fault that her efforts were fruitless ; not her fault 
 that he who should have supported had failed her. As 
 she was relieved of her quest, so was she absolved of her 
 trespass for ever. 
 
 Gundred, meanwhile, was refusing fine chances. She 
 
Ube Successor 305 
 
 was over-young to think of such things, but woman was 
 born to marriage as the sparks fly upward. Lord 
 Abbotswood was Lord Abbotswood. What had 
 Gundred against him ? Nothing. Mr. Witton-Wilson, 
 then? 
 
 " Nothing," said Gundred ; " but I don't want to hear 
 of him. Of either of them of anybody." 
 
 Something ailed her. So much even her mother was 
 presently to see. 
 
 Gundred, little as she might show it, was suffering 
 indeed. She rode hard often merely that she might 
 tire herself; walked far and walked long that she might 
 find sleep in the long nights. Let no one in years to 
 come tell Gundred that youth does not suffer ! Gundred 
 knows better! Later years might bring her sorrow 
 she was to know no acuter pangs than stabbed her 
 young heart at this period. What was Edmund doing, 
 and what? Whom was he making happy by his 
 presence unhappy by his absence? Who touched 
 his hand, looked at him, heard his voice? She was 
 glad that she did not know, yet felt that she would 
 have walked barefoot to London to see someone who 
 had seen him. A vision that she had of him constantly 
 showed him to her lying face downwards on the turf, 
 with the early morning sun on his hair finding gold in 
 it his face hidden. She heard his voice as she had 
 never heard it before. ... It wrung her heart to know 
 that she had made him suffer and gave her a sense of 
 exultation also. She was very unhappy. 
 
 She rose early one day to take the walk which they 
 had taken together upon that last morning. All was 
 changed. Winter bemeagred the day, grudging it light 
 to begin with, and wrapping everything in a sombre 
 greyness. Trees and shrubs looked shrunken, as if at 
 the touch of the chilly air they had drawn themselves 
 
 V 
 
306 Ube Successor 
 
 in, shivering. For the silver mists of an enchanted hour 
 fog hung over the park. There was little animal life 
 stirring. Gundred made for the stream and followed it. 
 Stillness everywhere not the throbbing stillness of 
 summer, but silence that was a weight on the spirit. 
 The trees dripped. All that you touched was cold and 
 wet. Here, in course of time, was the high road where 
 she had insisted on taking her turn at carrying the 
 basket. She smiled as she remembered. He had put it 
 down as he got over a low wall, and she, reminding him 
 of his promise, had taken it. They had had a little 
 tussle, out of which she had come triumphant. Here 
 was the lane. Here the heather country. Here at 
 weary length Abbot's Peak. Ichabod ! But she knelt 
 upon the wet turf, and kissed it where his face had 
 lain. 
 
 " What did you see ? " She asked it under her breath. 
 "What did you see when he turned his face from 
 me?" 
 
 Oh, that wonderful day, when the world had belonged 
 to them ! He had belonged to her too, then. It was 
 because he belonged to her, and because he knew that 
 she belonged to him, that he had turned from her. 
 Why had she let him? Now he was out of reach. It 
 she could have back but one day in her life ! 
 
 She knew as well as if he had told her why he had 
 gone away. He had gone away to cure himself would 
 stop away till he should know himself cured. That was 
 the hard thought of all ; that she would not see him till 
 he had ceased to love her. She thought of the brave 
 days. She had loved him, she believed, all her life. 
 Looking back, there did not seem to be a time when she 
 had not loved him. If he succeeded in curing himself, 
 could she bear it. ... 
 
 Balderton saw the empty weeks pass, aching for her. 
 
Successor 307 
 
 but biding her time, glad while she grieved to recognise 
 her handiwork the results of her deliberate purpose. 
 If he suffered too, as she fervently believed, a part might 
 be saved ... a remnant so as by fire. 
 
 " Only wait," she said to herself, addressing her young 
 mistress in imagination. " Only wait. He shall come 
 to you, darling. If I have to tell him, he shall come to 
 you. He is strong enough, big enough, man enough. 
 His father's son, my dear one. You will see, he will 
 come to you." 
 
 She watched for a movement on the part of Lady 
 Alton. The days and weeks passed. The movement 
 was long in coming, but came. 
 
 Lady Alton, her occupation gone, and turning to 
 Gundred, perceived at last that Gundred's energies were 
 flagging. It was to her housekeeper that she had to go 
 for counsel. 
 
 " It isn't that she is ill," she said ; " though you could 
 hardly tell if she was ill. It's something about her. 
 Young girls should be happy. I don't like to think 
 she's not happy. She used to be so happy such a 
 happy child." 
 
 Balderton said nothing. 
 
 " Is it change she wants ? I would take her abroad if 
 I thought so ; though, for my own part, I feel as if I 
 should never want to leave home again. Is it 
 change ? " 
 
 " It isn't change," said Balderton. 
 
 " She misses her schoolfellows, perhaps, or Miss 
 Moberly. I would have Miss Moberly back as a 
 companion for her if I thought that. She likes 
 study books and things and German music. . . . 
 There again ! Her heart's out of her music. She hasn't 
 touched the piano for weeks. She used to be singing 
 all day. Does she ever sing now? It it makes me 
 
308 Ube Successor 
 
 unhappy. I don't feel very bright myself. We all have 
 our sorrows, and I don't complain. But there are times 
 when everything seems to go for nothing all one's 
 little endeavours. Oh, not any one thing or any other. 
 Not anything that you can put your ringer on, and say 
 this ails you or that. You seem to lose your grip on 
 life, that's all." 
 
 Lady Alton's eyes filled with tears whether for pity 
 of herself or of Gundred it would have been difficult to 
 say. She dabbed them with a lace pocket handkerchief. 
 
 "She refuses people the highest in the land and 
 without even consulting me. If she had been a little 
 older, either of them would have been all that I, as her 
 mother, could have wished for her. Either ! It isn't 
 every girl who has such chances. Almost before she is 
 out, too. Some mothers might be tempted to bring 
 pressure to bear on her. I don't attempt to coerce her. 
 I only wish her to be happy. If there was anything 
 that I could do ! Hasn't she all that she wants ? " 
 
 Lady Alton was at a loose end. This seemed the 
 moment. 
 
 "Is that perhaps what ails her?" said Balderton. 
 " Has she more than she wants, and less ? " 
 
 Lady Alton questioned her with her eyes. 
 
 " What she has stands maybe in the way of what she 
 wants." 
 
 " How can that be ? " 
 
 "Have you wondered, my lady, why Mr. Edmund 
 wouldn't come to the ball ; why he hasn't been here all 
 this time ; why he won't come ? " 
 
 Lady Alton's look tightened on her. Balderton 
 smoothed her silk apron with her mittened hands. 
 They were very old hands, but very full of life. 
 
 " You think that too ? " Lady Alton said doubtfully. 
 
 Balderton said nothing, 
 
tlbe Successor 309 
 
 "Of course it would be out of the question," said 
 Lady Alton. 
 
 " Mr. Edmund might think so," said Balderton. 
 
 The year dragged, halted, " hopped and went one." 
 The winter, like that which had preceded Gundred's 
 birth, seemed like to be interminable. Lady Alton 
 came to the housekeeper's room again. She was 
 obviously unsettled. Fido the Second was in her 
 arms, but she regarded him with little interest. 
 
 " He's not what the other Fido was. He was a little 
 gentleman. This one I don't know. I can't attach 
 myself to him in the same way. There, go down ! 
 Your hairs come off on my sleeve. I daresay I shall 
 give him away." 
 
 She said one thing and another, beating plainly about 
 the bush. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know why you should think that 
 about Mr. Edmund," she said at last. 
 
 Then it was that Balderton spoke showing no more of 
 her hand than seemed to her good (since to have insisted, 
 as she believed that she had it in her power to insist, 
 would have been to risk that upon the part of her 
 mistress which must above all things be guarded against) 
 spoke temperately, reticently, wisely, till Lady Alton, 
 her face brightening from moment to moment, thought 
 that an alliance for Gundred with Edmund (a veritable 
 Alton we must remember, with shrewd Balderton) was 
 the one thing of all that was desirable, and a solution of 
 difficulties which were not even troubling her. 
 
 Balderton had gauged her accurately, chosen the right 
 moment to strike. But perhaps this was the moment 
 when the old woman whose life had shown her strange 
 people marvelled most of all. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 LADY ALTON at Merringham might go a complacent 
 way, planning benevolences, reconciliations, and (inci- 
 dentally) even reparation of sorts for that which was 
 irreparable, there was one who could not take things so 
 lightly. 
 
 Roddy, by reason of the knowledge with which his 
 ill-starred visit had saddled him, went the way of the 
 damned. Wherein, perhaps, is instanced an essential 
 difference in consciences. 
 
 He did nothing foolish. Death was not the way out, 
 though there were days when he would gladly have put 
 an end to a plague of thinking. It needed not that he 
 should look at Lord Alton's will (as he did on his way 
 through London) to know that nothing could be done. 
 Nothing could be done, nor for obvious reasons could 
 anything have been done if anything had been possible. 
 At Merringham it had been but a step from the per- 
 sistent thoughts which had haunted his dressing to the 
 amazing truth. His second day gave it to him suddenly 
 under the restored picture of Lord Alton's brother 
 small things leading up to it, unheeded if steadily. Then 
 as in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye. . . . And after- 
 wards he was to ask himself whether he had not known 
 from the beginning. Good God ! as he thought of it, 
 might not Adam awaking out of deep sleep so have 
 wondered about Eve before he learned that she was 
 bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh ! He had known, 
 known, known, from the moment he saw her. 
 
 310 
 
ZTbe Successor $n 
 
 The night was a horror of blackness. His first 
 impulse had been to see Lady Alton, and confront her 
 with what he knew. He wanted no confirmation from 
 her lips. He knew, but too well, what had befallen 
 him. One folly out of all his life had sprung upon him 
 to overwhelm him. But what in Heaven's name had 
 she sought him out for ? He need never have known, 
 and she, knowing, felt apparently no misgiving. What 
 had she brought him to Merringham for? where he 
 had learnt what perhaps even there might have escaped 
 him. He could not tell. A blind fury possessed 
 him. 
 
 Merringham stifled him. He wanted to get away 
 from it ... only to see that he must neither upset 
 Lady Alton nor even leave suddenly. He could not 
 appear at the ball, nor if there was that in his face which 
 who ran might read was it advisable that he should. 
 But there must be no risk of disturbing the existing 
 tranquillity. It did not take him long to see that the 
 tranquillity which existed must never be disturbed at 
 all. He must stay his time out till next day that was 
 and get away without appearance of having made 
 any discovery. 
 
 All night long he heard the beat of the dancers' feet 
 and the sound of the music. He was to learn soon 
 enough the torment of sleepless nights. He walked up 
 and down his room in the firelight like some caged 
 animal. He was supposed to be suffering from neuralgia, 
 and he did not care if he was heard. The remedies 
 which Lady Alton had sent up to him, with many 
 messages of sympathy and regret, stood on a table. A 
 rose which Gundred had sent to him from her bouquet 
 lay beside them crushed by his handling. 
 
 All night long dance tunes fine tunes to set young 
 feet tapping and all night long the thought of Edmund, 
 
312 tXfoe Successor 
 
 " Oh, my God," he said to himself, " what have I done to 
 bring this on me ! " 
 
 There was no sense in it. It was not even retribution. 
 A horrible chance had chosen him for its sport. There 
 was nothing even to be learned from the blow it had 
 dealt him. Dance tunes, dance tunes, this one and 
 that, and a throb in the old timbers of the house. 
 Sometimes he put his fingers in his ears, but when he 
 could not hear the tunes he could feel them. He could 
 see Lady Alton going about smiling amongst her 
 guests. . . . 
 
 He left the next morning before anyone was stirring, 
 taking first the precaution of writing a colourless note 
 to his hostess, which, without giving a hint of the 
 knowledge which had come to him, should summarily 
 dispose of any extraordinary ideas she might have in 
 her head. A pencilled line from her, written overnight 
 and brought to his bedside in the morning, had begged 
 him to stay. He made his excuses. He was better, 
 well enough to travel, and must go. He had been glad 
 to see Merringham again, he said, as he was so little in 
 England that it was unlikely that he would have an 
 opportunity of seeing it again only sorry that he had 
 been robbed of so much of an agreeable visit, and 
 missed by ill-luck the very thing for which he had been 
 invited. He regretted not to see her again before 
 leaving. 
 
 And then he went his way to face himself as he was, 
 and life and the future. 
 
 ( 
 
 Mrs. Alton, meanwhile, in Curzon Street waited in 
 vain for his promised visit. She wanted to see him not 
 only for his own sake, but that she might have an 
 outlet for an anxiety which she was feeling at this time 
 upon Edmund's account. Edmund would not come to 
 
Ubc Successor 313 
 
 England, and a fortnight which she had spent with him 
 recently in Vienna had shown her that which she could 
 not but view with concern. Nothing definite passed 
 between them, but Mrs. Alton did not need to be told 
 when the mystery of mysteries had got her son by the 
 throat. For the first time she found herself necessarily, 
 as she conceded outside his confidence, and suffered 
 what every woman suffers for her son, and by him, when 
 she knows that another woman's seal is upon him. 
 Whose ? He did not tell her. Whose, that by reason 
 of it his days should be lean? Gundred's? A little 
 thinking told her whence he had first come, shackled. 
 
 She watched for Roddy, and waited. The days 
 passed. He was to have stayed two or three at 
 Merringham, not more, and then to have come to see 
 her. Why didn't he come? He must know that at 
 least she was full of curiosity to hear what had taken 
 him there. In describing his meeting with her sister- 
 in-law at Baden Dordlich, he had hinted at things for 
 her private ear. He and she were to have laughed 
 together. There was always something to laugh over 
 with Roddy on the rare occasions when she saw him. 
 She was in truth unable to conceive what took him 
 who never paid visits to Merringham ... to 
 Merringham, of all places under the sun ! 
 
 A week passed. He did not write. Then came a 
 letter from one of the Miss Wraysburys, describing the 
 ball: 
 
 " We did not take a party as, strictly speaking, we 
 don't go to balls. Mamma made an effort. We wore 
 blue. It was all most beautifully done. Mamma could 
 not help asking herself whether perhaps it was not even 
 a little over-done. Such a profusion of flowers^ and so 
 many hot dishes at supper not just one or two, as 
 
3*4 Ube Successor 
 
 most people think are as much as is necessary, and the 
 band from London ! But why wasn't Edmund there ? 
 That was what everyone was wondering. As her 
 nearest relation, of course. But perhaps he couldn't 
 get away. Lady Alton de Merringham was in white 
 velvet, and really would have looked very well if she 
 had not worn quite so many diamonds. We wore our 
 pearls. Mamma would have preferred her in black. 
 The debutante seemed to be very much admired. 
 Harry Witton-Wilson, we thought, paid her a great 
 deal of attention, and so did young Lord Abbotswood 
 but he, of course, is such a boy. We have ourselves 
 always said how nice it would be if Edmund and she 
 but perhaps that's not to be thought of." 
 
 Mrs. Alton snorted, but read to the end. Not a word 
 of Roddy till the postscript : 
 
 " We have just heard that Mr. Carmelin was there, or 
 was to have been there. We did not see him." 
 
 Perhaps he had not gone after all. 
 
 Nothing, however, accounted for a silence which was 
 maintained. When time went on and he neither came 
 nor wrote, she began to feel a little bit "hurt." 
 Presently she heard casually that he had been at 
 Merringham, and she heard of the " indisposition " 
 which had kept him from the ball. Indisposition? 
 Oh, headache, or gout, or something. Her informant 
 was not sure. Nothing serious, anyway. Unlike 
 Roddy, if he had been there, not to have written ! 
 She had often enough been without his address before, 
 for months at a time, but never by chance when she 
 had particularly wanted to see him as she did now. 
 She wrote to his bankers, to find that they for the 
 
ttbe Successor 3 i s 
 
 moment a moment numbering months ! did not know 
 it either. She wrote to his club where presumably 
 her letter lay, for she got no answer. She did not 
 think he had been really ill at Merringham, or someone 
 would have communicated with her. There was nothing 
 to do but to wait. 
 
 She was reminded of other days when she had waited. 
 Curzon Street was little changed. She had lost one or 
 two of her neighbours. Old Lady Boscombe was dead 
 the behaviour of whose housemaids she recalled to 
 that day ! A hatchment had been up for another 
 Lord Tantamont, and the race was extinct. But the 
 Tantamont knocker survived, and the rare milkwoman, 
 who, coasting the railings squarely on sturdy legs, her 
 milk-pails hanging from a yoke, was yet to be seen in 
 Mayfair, if nowhere else in all London. 
 
 Rather persistently now, for no apparent reason, Mrs. 
 Alton's thoughts began to run upon days which she had 
 supposed forgotten. If such a thing were possible, one 
 might almost believe them to have been directed thither 
 by the sustained thinking of one who was verily sick 
 with much thinking. Against her will she found 
 herself constrained to go over ground which she had 
 considered once and for all abandoned. She would be 
 reading or at work in her snug little drawing-room 
 when she would think of it suddenly, not as the room in 
 which she passed a considerable part of her time, but as 
 that in which upon a day some twenty years back she 
 had put pen indiscreetly to paper. Or she would come 
 in from shopping to see in a casual telegram lying 
 upon the hall-table, not a replica of the thousand and 
 one telegrams which she had received in the course 
 of her life, but of just one telegram that which had 
 announced the death of her brother-in-law. She dined 
 out, to find that a dinner-table was decorated with orchids. 
 
trbe Successor 
 
 Things thus seemed to be working round to some- 
 thing, or, more accurately, seemed afterwards to have 
 been preparing her, first for a letter which she now got 
 from Merringham, and then for that of which it was 
 the direct, if also the indirect, precursor. Who wrote to 
 her from Merringham, and why ? 
 
 Lady Alton to suggest that bygones should be 
 bygones ! 
 
 Mrs. Alton's eyebrows went up as she read. At this 
 length of time? There was more, however, to come. 
 Lady Alton went straight to the point. There had 
 lately come to her knowledge the existence of an 
 attachment which appeared to have sprung up between 
 her daughter and Mrs. Alton's son, by reason of which 
 two young persons were, she believed, very unhappy. 
 Mrs. Alton passed her hand across her eyes as if to 
 clear her vision . . . and read on. One of these was 
 over-young yet to think of marriage, but if at the end of 
 a year or so the two young people for Lady Alton 
 thought she might still speak of Edmund as young 
 were of the same mind, she wanted Mrs. Alton to know 
 that she for one would raise no obstacle to their 
 marriage, but on the contrary would regard it as the 
 outward and visible sign of a reconciliation which she 
 had long desired and hoped for. 
 
 Mrs. Alton's eyebrows ran up her forehead almost to 
 her hair. It was more than the unexpected which 
 happened. She read the letter again ; after that again ; 
 many times. She ate little breakfast that morning. 
 
 Walking eased her ; physical exercise. She took her 
 thoughts with her to the furthest parts of the park to 
 Kensington Gardens, to distant streets. So had she 
 walked once before. Edmund, with nothing to give 
 and everything to get never ! Edmund ? Never ! She 
 laughed to herself. 
 
TTbe Successor 317 
 
 She ate her lunch mechanically, and saying that she 
 was not at home to visitors, went up as mechanically to 
 the drawing-room, where the sounds of Curzon Street 
 came to ears that did not hear them. She did not even 
 hear the hansom which stopped at her own door, and 
 scrambled back with difficulty to the present when her 
 parlourmaid, having used her own discretion, announced 
 Mr. Carmelin. 
 
 It was a moment before she took in that it was her 
 brother at last. 
 
 " Roddy ! " she cried, " Roddy ! The person in all 
 the world whom I wanted to see. Wretch ! why 
 haven't you been to see me all this time ? I've been 
 wanting to ask you a dozen things . . ." 
 
 She broke off as she saw what a man looks like when 
 sleep has deserted his eyes. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 " IT'S Edmund," he said ; " I can't get him out of my 
 head." 
 
 " Edmund ! " said Mrs. Alton. She looked at her 
 brother with something of alarm. " What has happened, 
 Roddy ? " 
 
 She drew him down on to the sofa beside her. 
 
 " Nothing has exactly happened. Nothing will 
 happen, because nothing can, and also in a way 
 because nothing must." 
 
 " But Edmund ? " she said. " You spoke of 
 Edmund . . ." 
 
 A horrible fear came to her that Edmund was ill, and 
 that his uncle had come to tell her. 
 
 " No, no ; Edmund's all right. It isn't anything 
 about him. I haven't seen him. I couldn't go to see 
 him either. I didn't come to see you because I 
 couldn't. I've come now because I couldn't keep away 
 any longer. There's nothing the matter with me, except 
 that I can't sleep. I've seen doctors. I've been in Paris 
 since I left Merringham. I got back this morning." 
 
 He got up and walked to the hearth, where he stood 
 desultorily. He took up one of the Dresden figures 
 which were on the mantelpiece, and turned it over and 
 over in his hands. Mrs. Alton watched him a little 
 nervously. She was fond of her china. 
 
 " Look here, Susan," he said suddenly, " I can't tell 
 you. You've got to know somehow without my telling 
 you." 
 
 318 
 
TTbe Successor 3*9 
 
 Mrs. Alton nodded quickly. She forgot Lady 
 Alton's letter ; forgot everything, wondering only what 
 was coming. 
 
 " There was a story that I wanted to tell you once 
 which you wouldn't listen to. Do you remember ? " 
 
 Mrs. Alton frowned a little as she tried to think. 
 
 " It's a long time ago," he said, to guide her. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Oh, think ! It was just after Edward Alton died. 
 I came to see you. We talked about Edmund." 
 
 " I remember something. Yes. I've no doubt I was 
 right not to listen. You don't want me to hear it 
 now?" 
 
 " I couldn't tell it as I could have told it then. It's 
 so long ago that I myself have almost forgotten it." 
 
 "I remember something," said Mrs. Alton again. 
 " I do remember. You said Boccaccio might have 
 fathered it." 
 
 " Did I ? He might. It was more like some of 
 the moderns, for all that the Frenchmen . . . De 
 Maupassant, perhaps." 
 
 "You spoke of him too," said Mrs. Alton. "It 
 comes back to me." 
 
 " Entirely ? " 
 
 " I think so. I didn't hear it, remember. What you 
 said about it comes back to me. What made me refuse 
 to listen, indeed." 
 
 Roddy said nothing for a moment or two. He put 
 the figure back on to the mantelpiece. 
 
 " The drugs they give you to make you sleep aren't 
 a bit of good," he said irritably. He looked about. 
 Something was disturbing him. A little clock ticked 
 busily upon a writing-table. "Any sound . . ." he said ; 
 "you don't know what it is. May I stop it? There 
 was a dog that barked in Paris. I had to change my 
 
320 zrbe Successor 
 
 room. I can't dine in some of the restaurants because 
 of those ventilating things that go round. Sometimes 
 the sound of footsteps in the street . . . ! Mr. Hyde 
 or was it Dr. Jekyll? trampled a child to death. I 
 believe she had nails in her boots, and walked just in 
 front of him or just behind him." 
 
 " My poor Roddy ! " said Mrs. Alton. She was 
 seriously alarmed. 
 
 " She may not even have had nails in her boots. So 
 that she walked just in front of him or just behind 
 him. Oh!" He shuddered and gave a little 
 laugh. 
 
 " Have you ever seen Gundred ? " he said abruptly. 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Alton. 
 
 " Photographs of her ? " 
 
 " Yes, one or two. Edmund has some." 
 
 She looked about her at photographs which stood 
 on a table, as if amongst them she expected to see 
 those that were in her mind. 
 
 "There are none here," she said. "He has them in 
 Vienna. They are all of her as a child." 
 
 " Photographs might not have it," Roddy said. 
 
 " Have what ? " said Mrs. Alton. She was beginning, 
 uncomfortably, to wonder whether his brain was 
 affected. 
 
 " Has he ever described her to you ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. But you've seen her, haven't you ?" 
 
 " What did he say ? " 
 
 "What did he say? Oh, that she was dark and 
 tall, I think. Rather like you, he said. Rather 
 like . . ." 
 
 The words died on her lips. She bent forward a little. 
 Her brother met her eyes. 
 
 There was a long pause. Roddy turned to the 
 mantelpiece and began mechanically to rearrange the 
 
Successor 3" 
 
 figures. He took one here, one there, put a pedlar to 
 talk to a courtier, a water-seller to a harlequin. He 
 made groups ; dispersed them. Mrs. Alton watched 
 him stupidly. 
 
 " But it's impossible," she said at last. 
 
 He shook his head and went on with what he was 
 doing. 
 
 " That's just what it isn't," he said. " Everything else 
 improbable, inconceivable, incredible almost. Not 
 impossible. On the contrary, it was just possible, and it 
 happened. Do you think if there had been any way 
 out I should be like this? There's no loophole. At 
 least, there's none for me. There may be for 
 her." 
 
 Mrs. Alton did not quite follow. " For her ? " she 
 said. 
 
 What she had to tell Roddy was at the back of her 
 mind. 
 
 "Oh, well ..." he said. He pushed the figures 
 from him as if he had done with them. "There is 
 always a saving doubt. * It's a wise father ' and so 
 on. She doesn't appear to realise, anyway." 
 
 "But . . ." 
 
 The " Buts " crowded upon her as once before in 
 strangely different case. The "But" with which she 
 began a sentence which was not finished attempted to 
 hold them all, and could not. She stopped, face to face 
 with the incapacity of mere words to express. There 
 were objections and bewilderments which she could not 
 even formulate. 
 
 " If there had been any way out of believing it . . ." 
 Roddy said " any way for me, I mean. There wasn't. 
 You haven't seen Gundred or you would know, and 
 Edmund has seen her from a child, and has lost sight of 
 what he seems to have had at least a glimpse of. Why, 
 
 x 
 
3*2 TTbe Successor 
 
 strangers a man in the train ! Those are the people 
 these things strike. I shouldn't have dared to show at 
 the ball after I knew even if I could have gone through 
 with it, which I could not. It was rather a knock-down, 
 as you may suppose/' 
 
 It was difficult (and seemed impossible) to know 
 where to begin. 
 
 " But likeness, Roddy," Mrs. Alton said" likeness ! " 
 
 " That's what I told myself. Nothing, nothing if it 
 were only likeness. ... It isn't only likeness. I might 
 not have seen that. One doesn't to oneself. She didn't, 
 thank God ! in me to herself, or herself to me, and it was 
 a whole day before I saw what was staring me in the 
 face. Indeed, it was Caroline that I thought her like 
 Caroline, before she was ill and lost her looks before 
 I saw suddenly that it was myself. But it isn't only 
 likeness. I can't explain. I knew when I saw her." 
 
 " What did you do ? " 
 
 " I didn't do anything. There was nothing to be 
 done. But I'd give ten years of my life to have it out 
 with her." 
 
 He was speaking of another " her " now. Mrs. Alton 
 did not need to be told. 
 
 " I may keep my ten years," he added. 
 
 He did not look good for so many just then. His 
 sister's heart smote her even as she wrestled with a 
 bewilderment which did not allow her to think of 
 more than one thing at a time. She had never felt 
 so helpless. 
 
 Roddy took a few steps up the room. 
 
 "That's what amazes me," he went on presently 
 "amazes me! She goes about smiling doing kind 
 things, I can see, respected probably in a way, and 
 liked in a way. She doesn't appear to see. I don't 
 believe she does see. She can't see. Why, she spoke 
 
tTbe Successor 323 
 
 of Edmund ; told me she was fond of the boy. 
 Nothing happens to her. And here are we you, and 
 I, and Edmund, when he knows, if he is to know, 
 which is what I am here for forced, in spite of 
 ourselves, to help her." 
 
 " To help her ? " 
 
 "You'll see, when you've had time to think. All 
 our hands are tied. We're bound to a conspiracy of 
 silence." 
 
 There was another pause. Mrs. Alton filled it for 
 herself. Her thoughts had been moving round the 
 days which she had hoped were banished for ever 
 from her mind, and now sped to them automatically. 
 Her " Buts " then had been upon the other side. She 
 had not let herself think. . . . Oh, outrage that had 
 robbed Edmund of his heritage ! She was filled with 
 resentment. 
 
 " If it's true," she said. " If it's true . . ." 
 
 " It is true," Roddy said very quietly. " That has 
 got to be accepted without any proofs. There are 
 no proofs ; there couldn't be any. But it is true. 
 If you saw Gundred you would know. Oh, I don't 
 know that you would. I had to. It was 
 indescribable . . ." 
 
 He seemed to be going to say more, but broke off. 
 
 Mrs. Alton's eyes pondered her brother. 
 
 " You do understand, don't you ? " he said, some 
 minutes later. "You are though this isn't the point, 
 or even important you are understanding me ? " 
 
 " You ? " 
 
 " Me. I suppose no one would think that I had any 
 right to expect you to get over this to me. I do expect 
 it." 
 
 Seconds which would have been ticked away by the 
 clock he had stopped passed silently. 
 
324 ttbe Successor 
 
 " I do expect it," he repeated. 
 
 I am understanding you. I don't admit that it 
 isn't important. It makes all the difference. I hardly 
 connect you with what has happened. But oh, Roddy, 
 Roddy ! " 
 
 " No," he said, answering her thought, " I can't learn 
 any lesson. What has happened to me to poison the 
 rest of my days might just as well not have happened 
 to me. Don't even misinterpret my motive in telling 
 you. I may get some sleep to-night as the result of 
 your knowing. It will be as the result of your taking 
 it as I knew you would take it. What I have just been 
 saying is not in the nature of the confession which is 
 good for the soul. What I have had to face isn't 
 punishment either. Don't think that. A horrible trick 
 is played one by a sort of wanton fate laughing in its 
 unholy sleeve. Nothing so senseless and illogical could 
 be looked upon in the light of retribution. If I have 
 been taught anything, it is that I am capable of emotions 
 that I did not suspect I had it in me to feel. It is like 
 like life, I suppose, that it should show one good, only 
 to deny it to one ! You've little reason to think kindly 
 of Gundred though, as far as she is concerned, you've 
 as little reason not to. Oh, you're different from other 
 women, Susan ! I don't really have to remind myself of 
 that. If you saw Gundred you would see her as she is ; 
 and as you would see her as she is, you would know 
 that it costs me something to know that I can't see her 
 again. That is what I should not have believed." 
 
 He leant on his elbow for a moment, and looked into 
 the fire. 
 
 " I understand one or two things that I have never 
 understood before things that have even bored me a 
 little." 
 
 "What sort of things?" 
 
Successor 325 
 
 " Things about parents. Their pride in their children, 
 for one thing. If you could see Gundred. Oh, 
 Susan ! " 
 
 Mrs. Alton's eyes, which had been dry, filled with 
 sudden tears. 
 
 "If you could see her! I don't know how she is 
 what she is. How she escapes but she has escaped. 
 You believe it?" 
 
 Mrs. Alton did not speak, but she nodded. She 
 knew from Edmund that Gundred had "escaped." It 
 was even his word. 
 
 " The two of us. Oh, my God, Susan, what chance 
 had she ? Well, she has. The flower sometimes grows 
 on the dunghill." 
 
 " Ah, please, please ! " 
 
 " It's true. I understand the instinct to shelter too. 
 Why you, for instance, never wished Edmund when he 
 was a boy to see more of me than he could help. No," 
 as his sister put up her hand, "let me say it I 
 understand it. I even think you were right. It is 
 the outlook that matters, and I'm ready to believe that 
 mine is all wrong. But that is neither here nor there. 
 What is here and what is there, what is everywhere, 
 is Edmund as he is affected. I can't get him out of my 
 head. What's to be done, Susan, when nothing can be 
 done ? Is he to know, or isn't he ? " 
 
 Silence fell between them. Mrs. Alton had not had 
 time to realise yet the lull bearings of what she had 
 learnt. Edmund to know? Or not to know? She 
 could not determine. Her brain refused to work for 
 her. Relevantly or irrelevantly, a recollection of the 
 smell of hothouses came to her thrust itself upon her ; 
 and then it was a memory of the view from the terrace 
 at Merringham which pushed its way into her mind. 
 Flying thoughts caught her up, made her fly with them 
 
326 Zlbe Successor 
 
 whither they would. Lady Wraysbury's brougham had 
 had a green cloth lining. She had changed her gloves 
 going and coming. She had not been allowed to see 
 Balderton. 
 
 " It was my letter, then," she said to herself. " It was 
 my letter." 
 
 It seemed to her as if she had always wondered. 
 Presently she was making ineffectual efforts to set aside 
 what she knew to be sealed. 
 
 " But I don't understand," she said. " Did she not 
 know you?" 
 
 " Not who I was. It was a surprise to her some- 
 thing of a shock. Even I could see that. I couldn't 
 interpret, of course, as I could afterwards." 
 
 There were many questions, inevitably "You've 
 forgotten my story the conditions, that is, of what I 
 did not tell you," the answer to some of them. 
 
 "But I still don't understand. You meet, and she 
 asks you to Merringham ! Why ? Why if ... Surely 
 one would have supposed . . ." 
 
 Roddy had his own views upon this a point which 
 puzzled him considerably. He was a long time in 
 answering. 
 
 " I believe it was her conscience," he said at 
 last. 
 
 " Her what ? " Mrs. Alton said faintly. 
 
 " Her conscience," he said. " At some time or other 
 when exactly, I don't know it has accused her. How 
 shall I make you understand ? I believe she was 
 looking for me in a desultory sort of way. She had at 
 some time or other had qualms not about Edmund. 
 About herself. Her own trespass. Not even the fraud 
 at that. Her trespass. The twopenny-halfpenny well, 
 I won't say it. I think I think she thought we ought 
 to marry." 
 
Ube Successor 327 
 
 Mrs. Alton looked at him blankly. Her mouth 
 twitched at the corners. She experienced an almost 
 overpowering inclination to laugh. There was a quality 
 in the situation, grim as it was, that made for laughter. 
 The tragedy, by reason of this, impotently wrote itself 
 comedy. Comedy ! The " most lamentable," but 
 comedy ! 
 
 " I could laugh," she said. " I could laugh and not 
 stop." 
 
 "I have laughed," said Roddy. "Those were my 
 worst days." 
 
 Mrs. Alton's face changed. 
 
 " Oh, my dear Roddy ! " she said. " My dear Roddy, 
 I am forgetting you. You've got to get well. You've 
 got to sleep, Roddy. Your eyes haunt me. They look 
 so tired. Where are you staying ? We'll send for your 
 things. I'll have a room got ready for you. You must 
 come here. We'll nurse you back to health." 
 
 She would not take a refusal. 
 
 It was a relief indeed to get up and ring; to speak 
 for a moment or two of other things in the interval 
 of waiting for the maid's appearance ; and, when she 
 appeared, to give directions. It was as Mrs. Alton was 
 speaking that her eye fell upon Lady Alton's letter, 
 which she had been carrying about with her all day. 
 An hour or so ago she would have scouted the idea 
 that anything could happen to her to banish it even 
 momentarily from her mind. She did not break off, 
 but finished giving her orders. While she made the 
 necessary arrangements, Roddy wrote a note to be taken 
 round to the hotel at which he had intended to stay, 
 explaining his change of plans, and directing that his 
 things should be sent on to Curzon Street. 
 
 "They know me," he said. "There won't be any 
 difficulty." 
 
328 Ube Successor 
 
 Tea was brought in then, and Mrs. Alton had to wait 
 till they were alone again to give her brother the 
 letter. 
 
 " This settles it about Edmund," Roddy said when he 
 had read. " It's out of our hands." 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 EDMUND with nothing to give . . . Edmund's mother 
 knew her son. But Edmund with everything . . . and 
 it was Balderton who had not misjudged him. Edmund 
 faced things, and saw what there was to face. His 
 concern was for Gundred, whose well-being hung 
 by the precarious thread of her mother's extra- 
 ordinary conscience. How precarious this thread 
 was, and how extraordinary the conscience (by 
 the tortuous workings of which the lady was able 
 to hold herself absolved !), he did not know as we 
 know, or he had perhaps been tenfold concerned. 
 But for this conscience he would never have known 
 anything at all. Merringham, through the years, had 
 successfully guarded a secret which to all seeming was 
 safe for all time. There was not, indeed, any reason why 
 it should ever have come to the knowledge of anyone 
 least of all to the knowledge of the one in the world 
 who was part of it. But the lady has, as we have seen, 
 a " taking " ; looks over her shoulder ; must needs 
 herself stretch out a hand to what lies safely behind her 
 to draw it into the light of day. So courageous a 
 sinner as she had shown herself . . . and to have lacked 
 the final courage of inaction ! She had only not to 
 move and had moved ! Only to hold her breath and 
 (virtually) must cry out ! 
 
 If Edmund had known the steps by which his present 
 "knowledge" was arrived at, he would have thought 
 Gundred's peace of mind precarious indeed. What he 
 
 3 2 9 
 
33 ttbe Successor 
 
 knew of human nature made him think it sufficiently 
 hazardous. Nothing could be done, but things might 
 happen. If anything ever threatened, he must have 
 power to avert it. Gundred's position must be unassail- 
 able. There was one way to make it so. He loved her 
 too well to care what might be said. 
 
 There were other things to face. Mrs. Alton trembled 
 for him. 
 
 "Shall you be able? It's for all your life. You'll 
 always know. She won't know. In married life even 
 the happiest allowances have to be made." 
 
 " This will be the happiest," he said, smiling gravely. 
 
 She knew what he felt, but had to warn him. 
 
 " I know how much you care for her. I haven't any 
 doubt that she is all that you think her. But we are 
 strange creatures. There will be days when she will 
 try you bear with me, Edmund there will be days 
 when the woman you hold dearest on earth will exas- 
 perate you. It won't be her fault. We are variable, 
 the strongest of us. It seems to be conceded now that 
 we are even entitled by our natures to be variable. 
 Well, there will be days. . . . And you will only be 
 human. And she will only be human, and won't know. 
 Won't know, remember, what you have done for her, 
 and what you are doing. Then shall you be able . . . ?" 
 
 " I should not perhaps, if we were talking of anyone 
 but Gundred." 
 
 " It won't be only Gundred. There'll be someone 
 who is not on a very high plane, or very understanding 
 of nice feelings. It won't have been for Merringham, 
 and all that Merringham means. I know that. It 
 won't have been to try lamely to put things even 
 distantly right for yourself incidentally, when we're 
 all dead and gone, it will have put them right in a 
 way for your children ; but it won't have been for that. 
 
Successor 33 i 
 
 I know what it will have been for, but she won't. The 
 discipline won't be light on occasion." 
 
 Edmund shook his head. It was not going to be 
 very easy, but it was not, he believed for reasons 
 connected with Gundred going to be as difficult as his 
 mother feared. If, however, her worst fears were to be 
 justified if he had known then and there that they 
 were to be justified his course would still have been 
 plain. Gundred was not what she supposed herself. 
 He could not endure the thought of the false position 
 in which she stood. This and without any posing, as 
 we shall believe, if in the few glimpses we have had of 
 him we have learned to know him at all this was far 
 more disturbing than the knowledge of the monstrous 
 wrong which had been done to himself. Not that he 
 failed to realise the extent of the wrong. A night, 
 sleepless as one of the nights which his Uncle Roddy 
 had known, showed it to him in its entirety, with much 
 else as well. He wrestled with it, but in the end he 
 prevailed. It did not bear thinking about. He was 
 going to put it from him ; going to be able to put it 
 from him as completely, he hoped, as if it had never 
 been. He had that to give which no one else could 
 give. What matter what the idle and ignorant might 
 say of him ? He exulted in the thought of his power. 
 
 So it came that Gundred, standing listlessly one 
 morning looking at the view from the terrace, turned at 
 the sound of a footfall to see Edmund, and saw that in 
 his face which put colour into a bleak day. Winter 
 held the earth, but there was spring in her heart spring 
 in Edmund's. And so it came that Balderton, working 
 through the years for a definite end, was in fulness of 
 time to sing her Nunc Dimittis. She lived to see Lady 
 Alton, as the strange lady let herself go, overblow at 
 
332 TTbe Successor 
 
 the Dower House, lose something of her veneer of 
 refinement, but never to any appearance or purpose 
 look back ; to see Edmund, by reason of her, exercise 
 an amazing self-control more than once, patience, a 
 wonderful forbearance; but she lived to see Edmund 
 and Gundred happy, and to dandle their son in whom 
 ultimately the diverted succession must right itself 
 automatically in her arms. 
 
 Truth out of a lie ? It seemed so. Those who knew 
 understood ; Roddy, the other side of the world ; Mrs. 
 Alton in Curzon Street. It was to be " all the same a 
 hundred years hence." All the same ! All the same ! 
 
 Then was the " irony of it all " complete ? Not quite. 
 It was after Balderton's death, and when thus the last 
 possible menace (which was no menace) to Lady Alton's 
 peace of mind was removed, that there came into the 
 lady's eyes a troubled look. Edmund, coming back 
 from Haltsburg-Wissenstein, where he was British 
 Minister, saw it at once. She would look at him ; look 
 at Gundred. Something troubled her. It fell to him 
 to soothe her as David soothed Saul. 
 
 THE END 
 
 "Printed by Cowan & Co., Limited ', Perth, 
 
A Selection from Hutchinson'a Colonial Library, iv. 
 
 HAYES, F. W. 
 
 Qwynett of Thorohaugh 
 
 HYNE CUTCLIFFE 
 The Lost Continent 
 The Filibusters 
 
 HYRST, H. W. Q. 
 
 Chasma 
 
 JEROME K. JEROME 
 Paul Kelver 
 
 KENEALY, ARABELLA 
 Woman and the Shadow 
 A Semi- Detached Marriage 
 Charming Renee 
 The Love of Richard derrick 
 
 KENNARD, Mrs. EDWARD 
 The Motor Maniac 
 
 KILMARNOCK, LORD 
 Ferelith 
 
 LE QUEUX, WILLIAM 
 The Seven Secrets 
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 The Gamblers 
 The Under Secretary 
 
 MARCH, E. SUTCLIFFE 
 
 A Stumbler in Wide Shoes 
 
 MARSH, RICHARD 
 
 The Chase of the Ruby 
 
 MARCHMONT, ARTHUR W. 
 By Right of Sword 
 A Dash for a Throne 
 The Greatest Gift 
 Sarita the Carlist 
 
 MARRYAT, FLORENCE 
 
 The Blood of the Vampire 
 
 A Passing Madness 
 
 The Strange Transfiguration 
 
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 Iris the Avenger 
 
 MITFORD, BERTRAM 
 
 The Word of the Sorceress 
 
 MONTRESOR, F. F- 
 At the Cross Roads 
 Into the Highways and 
 
 Hedges 
 The One who Looked on 
 
 MOORE, F. FRANKFORT 
 I Forbid the Banns 
 The Jessamy Bride 
 They Call it Love 
 Phyllis of Philistia 
 
v. A Selection from Hutchinson's Colonial Library. 
 
 MOORE, F. FRANKFORT-on. 
 
 A Gray Eye or So 
 Daireen 
 
 One Fair Daughter 
 The Millionaires 
 In our Hours of Ease 
 The Fatal Gift 
 Well After All- 
 According to Plato 
 A Damsel of Two 
 A Nest of Linnets 
 
 OLIPHANT, Mrs. 
 
 The Cuckoo in the Nest 
 A House in Bloomsbury 
 
 PRITCHARD, MARTIN J. 
 The Other Man 
 
 RA1NE, ALLEN 
 A Welsh Singer 
 Torn Sails 
 By Berwen Banks 
 Garthowen 
 A Welsh Witch 
 
 REYNOLDS, Mrs. FRED 
 
 The Man with the Wooden 
 Face 
 
 " RITA " 
 Souls 
 
 The Sinner 
 Peg the Rake 
 Master Wilberforce 
 A Woman in it 
 Kitty the Rag 
 Gretchen 
 Adrienne 
 Petticoat Loose 
 A Woman of Samaria 
 An Old Rogue's Tragedy 
 The Lie Circumspect 
 
 ROBERTS, MORLEY 
 Immortal Youth 
 The Way of a Man 
 
 ROBINS, G. M. 
 
 The Relations and 
 they Related 
 
 what 
 
 SCHREINER, OLIVE 
 
 The Story of an African 
 Farm 
 
 SERGEANT, ADELINE 
 The Mistress of Quest 
 Roger Vanbrugh's Wife 
 The Idol Maker 
 
 SHERLOCK, C. R. 
 Your Uncle Lew 
 

 A Selection from Hntchinson's Colonial Library, vi 
 
 SLADE, A. F. 
 Mary Neville 
 
 STEUART, JOHN A. 
 Wine on the Lees 
 The Eternal Quest 
 A Son of Gad 
 
 SWAN, ANNIE S. 
 
 Memories of Margaret 
 Grainger 
 
 Elizabeth Glen, M.B. 
 
 A Bitter Debt 
 
 Mrs. Keith Hamilton, M.B. 
 
 A Stormy Voyager 
 
 A Victory Won 
 
 The Ne'er Do Weel 
 
 Wyndham's Daughter 
 
 A Son of Erin 
 
 The Burden Bearers 
 
 An American Woman 
 
 TEARLE, CHRISTIAN 
 
 The Vice Chancellor's Wai* 
 
 TWEEDALE, VIOLET 
 
 The Honeycomb of Life 
 
 WALLACE, EDGAR 
 
 Unofficial Despatches 
 
 WHITE, PERCY 
 
 The New Christians 
 
 WILSON, AUGUSTA EVANS 
 A Speckled Bird 
 
 YOXALL, J. H. 
 
 Alain Tanger's Wife 
 
 ZOLA, EMILE 
 
 The Mysteries of Marseilles 
 A Love Episode 
 The Ladies' Paradise 
 The Monomaniac 
 
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