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Wingfold left the room, when in came Barbara in her riding-habit, with the glow of joyous motion upon her face, for she had just ridden from Mortgrange. "How do you do, mamma?" she said, but did not come within a couple of yards of her. "I've had such a ride as straight as any crow could fly, between the two stations! I never could hit the line before.
All the explanation he could get from lady Ann was, that the young woman's mother was impossible; she was more than half a savage. Time's wheels went slow thereafter at Mortgrange. Sir Wilton missed his firstborn. Whatever annoyed him in his wife or any of her children, fed the desire for Richard. Arthur did not please him.
The remaining twin was so delicate that it was very doubtful if he would succeed: if he did not, and land could be had between to connect the two properties of Mortgrange and Wylder, the estate would be far the finest in the county; when, as lady Ann hinted, means might be used to draw down the favour of Providence in the form of a patent of nobility.
When she left for Mortgrange, they had agreed that her husband should say she was gone to her father's; and as nobody where they lived knew who or where her father was, nobody had the end of any clue. For some time after her return she did not show herself, leaving it to her husband to say she had come back with her baby.
The same day Simon went to Mortgrange and saw the baronet, who agreed at once to go to the cottage to meet his sister-in-law. The moment he entered the little parlour where they waited to receive him, he made Mrs. Tuke a polite bow, and held out his hand. "You are the sister of my late wife, I am told," he said.
She lived in the neighbourhood, but was more at Mortgrange than at home; one consequence of which was, that, as would-be-clever Miss Malliver phrased it, the house was very much B. Wyldered. Nor was that the first house the little lady had bewildered, for she was indeed an importation from a new colony rather startling to sedate old England.
Then Richard and she moved away together in the direction of Mortgrange, and left Simon praying God to give them to each other before he died. They had not gone far when it became Richard's turn to stop. "Oh, miss," he said, "I must go back! Neither of us has been to see Alice, and I haven't for more than a week! Think of her lying there, expecting and expecting, and no one coming!
Then first the thought struck her, that it must be his grandfather's doing that he was in the house! and there he was, at their very door, eager to bear testimony to the bookbinder as his grandson and heir to Mortgrange! Alas, the thing must be a fact, a horrible fact! All was over! But she would do battle for her rights! She would not allow that the child was found!
On the day of the funeral, no one disputed Richard's right to the place he took, and when it was over, he joined the company assembled to hear the late baronet's will. It was dated ten years before, and gave the two estates of Mortgrange and Cinqmer to his son, Arthur Lestrange There was in it no allusion to the possible existence of a son by his first wife. Richard rose. The lawyer rose also.
As he left the room, a servant met him with the message that lady Ann wished to see him in the library. Cold as ever, but not colder than always, she poked her long white hand at him. "This is awkward for you, Richard," she said, "but more awkward still for Arthur. Mortgrange is at your service until you find some employment befitting your position. You must not forget what is due to the family.
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