Elster's Folly

Lord Hartledon, with an unmistakable look at the countess-dowager, rose from his seat in silence and rang the bell. There could be no correction in the presence of the dowager; he and Anne must undo her work alone. Carrying the little girl in one arm, he took the boy's hand, and met the servant at the door.

"Take these children back to the nursery."

"I want some strawberries," the boy called out rebelliously.

"Not to-day," said his father. "You know quite well that you have behaved badly."

His wife's face was painfully flushed. Mr. Carr was critically examining the painted landscape on his plate; and the turban was enjoying some fruit with perfect unconcern. Lord Hartledon stood an instant ere he resumed his seat.

"Anne," he said in a voice that trembled in spite of its displeased tones, "allow me to beg your pardon, and I do it with shame that this gratuitous insult should have been offered you in your own house. A day or two will, I hope, put matters on their right footing; the poor children, as you see, have been tutored."

"Are you going to keep the port by you all night, Hartledon?"

Need you ask from whom came the interruption? Mr. Carr passed it across to her, leaving her to help herself; and Lord Hartledon sat down, biting his delicate lips.

When the dowager seemed to have finished, Anne rose. Mr. Carr rose too as soon as they had retired.

"I have an engagement, Hartledon, and am obliged to run away. Make my adieu to your wife."

"Carr, is it not a crying shame?—enough to incense any man?"

"It is. The sooner you get rid of her the better."

"That's easier said than done."

When Lord Hartledon reached the drawing-room, the dowager was sleeping comfortably. Looking about for his wife, he found her in the small room Maude used to make exclusively her own, which was not lighted up. She was standing at the window, and her tears were quietly falling. He drew her face to his own.

"My darling, don't let it grieve you! We shall soon right it all."

"Oh, Percival, if the mischief should have gone too far!—if they should never look upon me except as a step-mother! You don't know how sick and troubled this has made me feel! I wanted to go to them in the nursery when I came up, and did not dare! Perhaps the nurse has also been prejudiced against me!"

"Come up with me now, love," he whispered.

They went silently upstairs, and found the children were then in bed and asleep. They were tired with sight-seeing, the nurse said apologetically, curtseying to her new mistress.

The nurse withdrew, and they stood over the nursery fire, talking. Anne could scarcely account for the extreme depression the event seemed to have thrown upon her. Lord Hartledon quickly recovered his spirits, vowing he should like to "serve out" the dowager.

"I was thankful for one thing, Val; that you did not betray anger to them, poor little things. It would have made it worse."

"I was on the point of betraying something more than anger to Edward; but the thought that I should be punishing him for another's fault checked me. I wonder how we can get rid of her?"

"We must strive to please her while she stays."

"Please her!" he echoed. "Anne, my dear, that is stretching Christian charity rather too far."

Anne smiled. "I am a clergyman's daughter, you know, Val."

"If she is wise, she'll abstain from offending you in my presence. I'm not sure but I should lose command of myself, and send her off there and then."

"I don't fear that. She was quite civil when we came up from dinner, and—"

"As she generally is then. She takes her share of wine."

"And asked me if I would excuse her falling into a doze, for she never felt well without it."

Anne was right. The cunning old woman changed her tactics, finding those she had started would not answer. It has been remarked before, if you remember, that she knew particularly well on which side her bread was buttered. Nothing could exceed her graciousness from that evening. The past scene might have been a dream, for all traces that remained of it. Out of the house she was determined not to go in anger; it was too desirable a refuge for that. And on the following day, upon hearing Edward attempt some impudent speech to his new mother, she put him across her knee, pulled off an old slipper she was wearing, and gave him a whipping. Anne interposed, the boy roared; but the good woman had her way.

"Don't put yourself out, dear Lady Hartledon. There's nothing so good for them as a wholesome whipping. I used to try it on my own children at times."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MR. PIKE ON THE WING

The time went on. It may have been some twelve or thirteen months later that Mr. Carr, sitting alone in his chambers, one evening, was surprised by the entrance of his clerk—who possessed a latch-key as well as himself.

"Why, Taylor! what brings you here?"

"I thought you would most likely be in, sir," replied the clerk. "Do you remember some few years ago making inquiries about a man named Gorton—and you could not find him?"

"And never have found him," was Mr. Carr's comment. "Well?"

"I have seen him this evening. He is back in London."

Thomas Carr was not a man to be startlingly affected by any communication; nevertheless he felt the importance of this, for Lord Hartledon's sake.

"I met him by chance, in a place where I sometimes go of an evening to smoke a cigar, and learned his name by accident," continued Mr. Taylor. "It's the same man that was at Kedge and Reck's, George Gorton; he acknowledged it at once, quite readily."

"And where has he been hiding himself?"

"He has been in Australia for several years, he says; went there directly after he left Kedge and Reck's that autumn."

"Could you get him here, Taylor? I must see him. Tell me: what coloured hair has he?"

"Red, sir; and plenty of it. He says he's doing very well over there, and has only come home for a short change. He does not seem to be in concealment, and gave me his address when I asked him for it."

According to Mr. Carr's wish, the man Gorton was brought to his chambers the following morning by Taylor. To the barrister's surprise, a well-dressed and really rather gentlemanly man entered. He had been accustomed to picturing this Gorton as an Arab of London life. Casting a keen glance at the red hair, he saw it was indisputably his own.

A few rapid questions, which Gorton answered without the slightest demur, and Mr. Carr leaned back in his chair, knowing that all the trouble he had been at to find this man might have been spared: for he was not the George Gordon they had suspected. But Mr. Carr was cautious, and betrayed nothing.

"I am sorry to have troubled you," he said. "When I inquired for you of Kedge and Reck some years ago, it was under the impression that you were some one else. You had left; and they did not know where to find you."

"Yes, I had displeased them through arresting a wrong man, and other things. I was down in the world then, and glad to do anything for a living, even to serving writs."

"You arrested the late Lord Hartledon for his brother," observed Mr. Carr, with a careless smile. "I heard of it. I suppose you did not know them apart."

"I had never set eyes on either of them before," returned Gorton; unconsciously confirming a point in the barrister's mind; which, however, was already sufficiently obvious.

"The man I wanted to find was named Gordon. I thought it just possible that you might have changed your name temporarily: some of us finding it convenient to do so on occasion."