United States or United States Minor Outlying Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Bowshott, of course, would pass away from him, and the beautiful house with its galleries and its gardens would be the property of some unknown man. Possibly the man had a wife, and where Jane was to have reigned as mistress there would be some woman, unused to great houses, and with manners perhaps not suited to her position.
He loved to remember her in a hundred different ways in white satin, with a string of pearls about her neck; at meets, on one of her sixteen-hand hunters; playing golf; painting the rabbit-hutch in the garden; binding up Toffy's hand that morning, ages ago, when he had had a spill out of his motor-car; playing with the school-children on the lawn; or, best of all, perhaps, dancing in the great ballroom at Bowshott, and sitting with him afterwards in the dimness of his mother's tapestried chamber, her great white feather fan laid upon her knees.
Yet if Purvis did not inherit, he, Peter, was the next heir. That was the thought that knocked at him to the exclusion of nearly everything else: he would benefit by his brother's death. Bowshott would be his, and the place in the Highlands, and Jane and he could be married. He paused for a moment in his feverish survey of events.
'There is a beastly bell for the out-of-door servants at Hulworth, said Toffy, 'which is beside my window, and 'I know that bell, said Peter. 'I tie it up regularly every time I am at Hulworth. 'Have you also got a country seat? asked Mr. Purvis. 'Oh, Hulworth is a mouldy old barrack, replied Toffy. "Country seat" is too fine a name for it. 'Is it quite near Bowshott? asked Purvis.
'Oh yes, I was saying that you were not tiresome although you are engaged to be married. You are not even quite uninteresting, although you are healthy and happy! All the same, I am going to try and persuade you and Peter to have the wedding sooner than you intended. 'Why? said Jane simply. 'I am sick of Bowshott, said Mrs. Ogilvie lightly.
Had the other man in Rosario paid him well to do his work for him, or was Purvis withholding information until a certain price was stipulated? Bowshott was worth a ransom, and Purvis might be playing a double game. Between the two men he might feather his nest very well. The dawn was breaking as Peter rode slowly homewards, and a pale pink light was in the sky.
Everything about Bowshott looked stately and beautiful in the clean, sharp air of the morning, when Peter drove up to the entrance after a long night journey and ascended the flight of steps leading to the hall door. His return to the inheritance which had been indisputably his since he was a little boy had a horrible feeling of unreality about it.
'It is only on such an occasion as this, said Miss Abingdon, 'that one really seems to think that Bowshott is put to its proper use. She was talking to a young man who called old furniture delicious and Spanish brocade sweetly pretty. 'The modern Englishman, said Mr. Lawrence, 'was made to live in barracks or in a stable. Probably he is only in his right place when he is on a horse.
A queer restlessness was upon him, and his wife watched him and said nothing; until one day, seeing him reading a certain paragraph in a newspaper, she said to him, smiling slightly, as they stood together on the broad stone terrace at Bowshott, 'Why don't you go with them on this exploring expedition? Colonel Ogilvie protested. He was a married man, he said, and his travelling days were over.
'Let us be married quietly, first of all, and then we can do everything together. 'I 'm probably a pauper, he said simply, 'without the right to a single stone of Bowshott. I went fully into my father's will with the lawyer last night, and he leaves nearly everything to the eldest son. 'Dear Peter! protested Jane, accepting Peter's statement, but brushing aside its purport.
Word Of The Day