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"Your father is coming back, this day this very hour; and you you child you, Philip " Here sobs broke in upon her words, and left her speechless. The letter that had produced this effect ran as follows: TO MRS MORTON, Fernside Cottage. "DEAREST KATE, My last letter prepared you for the news I have now to relate my poor uncle is no more.
"That's a pity; for as I think a week's shooting once a year quite enough, I fear that your visit to me at Fernside may not be sufficiently long to put your hand in." "Fernside!" "Yes; is the name familiar to you?" "I think I have heard it before. Did your lordship purchase or inherit it?" "I bought it of my brother-in-law.
"Blockhead! what the deuce was the good of speaking about it when I was wrapped in flannels! I am never in love when I am ill who is? I am well now, or nearly so; and I've had things to vex me things to make this place very disagreeable; I shall go to town, and before this day week, perhaps, that charming face may enliven the solitude of Fernside. I shall look to it myself now.
I do not wish to hurry your movements; but it will probably be painful to you to remain longer than you can help in a place crowded with unpleasant recollections; and as the cottage is to be sold indeed, my brother-in-law, Lord Lilburne, thinks it would suit him you will be liable to the interruption of strangers to see it; and your prolonged residence at Fernside, you must be sensible, is rather an obstacle to the sale.
Robert Beaufort, in examining the papers of the deceased, chanced upon a document so important to him, he abstracted or destroyed it. Who has purchased the house you lived in?" "Fernside? Lord Lilburne. Mrs. Robert Beaufort's brother." "Humph probably, then, he took the furniture and all. Sir, this is a matter that requires some time for close consideration.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Morton, for by that name we must still call her, and her children, were settled in a small lodging in a humble suburb; situated on the high road between Fernside and the metropolis.
Chambers says that it would be a very good air for me better than Fernside; and as to my castle in the north, I would as soon go to Siberia. Well, if I get better, I will pay you a visit, only you always have such a stupid set of respectable people about you. I shock them, and they oppress me."
It was, indeed, just the spot to captivate a youthful and susceptible fancy. The village of Fernside, though in one of the counties adjoining Middlesex, and as near to London as the owner's passionate pursuits of the field would permit, was yet as rural and sequestered as if a hundred miles distant from the smoke of the huge city.
I don't see that anything more is to be done at present. You can write to me; I shall be at Park Lane or Fernside. Take care of yourself. You're a lucky fellow you never have the gout! Good-bye." And in half an hour Lord Lilburne was on the road to London. The departure of Lilburne was a signal to many others, especially and naturally to those he himself had invited.
I had now a date to go upon; I learned, by careless inquiries, what sales near Fernside had taken place in a certain year. A gentleman had died at that date whose furniture was sold by auction.
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