m +j*> "LI B RAHY OF THE UN IVERSITY Of ILLINOIS Ol3se v.l THE SECOND SON MRS. OLIPHANT T. B. ALDRICH THE SECOND SON BY MRS. OLIPHANT AUTHOR OF 'THE WIZARD'S SON,' 'HESTER,' ETC. IN THREE VOLS. VOL. I 3L o n tr o u MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 18 8 8 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh 013 ^*~ v.l CONTENTS I. >- II. CO III. IV. CO <7> V. <© VI. csi VII. \— o VIM. a IX. t* X. Y ) XI. XII. XIII. 4 XIV. it XV. U XVI. The Family at Melcombe Their Neighbours . Brothers .... The West Lodge After Dinner . Nina ..... Mother and Daughter . Primogeniture . Mount Travers The Lawyer The Squire Mr. Mitford's Investigations Nina's Views . A new Actor . Love Thoughts and Talks i i7 38 54 75 94 ii5 *33 i5i 168 185 201 218 234 252 271 THE SECOND SON THE FAMILY AT MELCOMBE Mr. Mitford of Melcombe had three sons. His estates lay in one of the richest of the midland counties, and they were not entailed. His house was not very imposing nor beauti- ful in itself, being of comparatively recent erection, and built at a period when comfort within was more considered than beauty without. It was low, no more than two stories in height, but spreading over a wide area, with a long garden front which per- mitted a very handsome suite of rooms ; delightful to live in, though without archi- tectural pretensions of any kind. Though the house was so recent, the Mitfords had been at Melcombe for as many centuries as were necessary to establish their claims as VOL. I B THE SECOND SON county gentry of the best class, and had met with those misfortunes which are almost as indispensable as success and prosperity to the thorough establishment of an old race. They had suffered more or less in the Jacobite rebellions, their house had been burnt down more than once, they had given their family valuables to the king when he was at Oxford. These circumstances made the fact that their house was new and ugly, their plate a little scanty, their jewels de- fective, rather a point of pride than of humiliation for the family. It was also rather a feather in their cap that the entail embraced only a very small portion of their possessions ; for had it not been broken in haste during the eighteenth century, in order to leave the heir free to follow Prince Charlie without ruining the family in case the Hano- verians should hold, as happened, the winning side ? This step, however, is a very important one, when the family, and not the individual possessor, is taken into view. It is generally supposed that the law of natural justice re- quires the abrogation of all such restrictions as those involved in laws of primogeniture THE TAMIL Y AT MELCOMBE and entail. But there are, as usual with most human questions, two ways of looking at this matter. If you have made a great deal of money, it is only right that you should have the power of dividing it among your descendants, or (which is still another view) giving it to whom you choose. But when an inheritance has been handed down to you by your fathers and grandfathers in succession, the natural justice runs all the other way. Then it becomes a breach of right to contradict the purpose with which it was constituted, the limitations under which you received it : since it is not your property at all save in trust. But this is neither the moment nor the place for a treatise upon the English laws of succession. Mr. Mitford was a man who had a great idea of his rights as an individual,, and he was the third in succession who had held the estates of Melcombe entirely in his own hands. His three sons were Roger, Edmund, and Stephen. The eldest son, notwithstanding the power of disinheritance which was in his father's hands, had been brought up as eldest THE SECOND SON sons usually are, without any alarm as to his future, or idea that under any possibility he could be displaced from his natural position. He had been in the Guards in his youth, and had passed that blossoming portion of his existence without any discredit, if also with- out any special use. He had withdrawn, however, from a life somewhat too expensive for his allowance and circumstances some years before the beginning of this history, and, with occasional absences for pleasure or adventure, lived at home, managing as much of the business of the estate as his father permitted to pass out of his own hands, looking after the stables, hunting a little, and finding enough to occupy him in that busy idleness of country life which is so seductive and looks so much like important work when the doer of it has nothing else to do. Roger was not, however, ignorant of what men have to do in regions where existence is less easy. He had been, as people say, a great deal about the world. He had taken that round which to young men of the present day stands in the place of the grand tour which their forefathers took with more or less ad- THE FAMIL Y AT MELCOMBE vantage in the way of culture and art. He had been all over America, he was still part owner of a Californian ranche, he had touched at Japan, and he knew familiarly many a place which, a generation ago, only sailors by profession or merchants' clerks knew any- thing about. How much good all these varied experiences had done him it would be hard to say, but they had at least contributed with many other influences to form the man. Edmund, the second son, was of a very different mould. He was one of those who are untravelled, and have not knocked about or roughed it, as it is the fashion to do ; that is to say, he knew Europe and the great countries which have marched with his own through the comparatively modern levels of history, and he knew books and rather more art than was good for him. He had a mild little fortune of his own, derived from his mother ; the just enough which is supposed to be very bad for a young man by inducing him to believe that it is unnecessary to do anything for himself, but which the present writer takes the liberty of believing is some- times very good for a young man, keeping THE SECOND SON him out of the ranks of the struggling without that sense of guilt and helplessness which must always characterise the ineffect- iveness of the poor. Edmund cared little for game, great or small ; he was not inter- ested in savage life, whether that of the hunter, or the cattle-owner, or the aboriginal, though more in the last than in the first. He was a man somewhat without motive in the world, reading a great deal, wandering more or less, writing a little, musing much. His musings did not come to anything to speak of; indeed, there was supposed to be little use in him of any kind. He could not even lay claim to that high reputation in the way of bric-a-brac which, for a dilettante such as he allowed himself to be, is a kind of salvation. Whether it was indolence, or whether it was that he had no conviction of the importance of Japanese fans and china plates in decoration, he had not made much even of the rooms which had been given up to him at home. They were hung only with pictures and water-colour sketches, some of which were done by his own hand, without a fan among them, or any other barbaric ' bit THE FA MIL Y AT MELCOMBE of colour.' He did not come up to his possibilities even in that respect. His pres- ence or absence did not tell very much upon the house. It is true that most of the inhabitants at Melcombe were glad to have him there ; but those very qualities which made everybody pleased to see him diminished the importance of his going away. He gave so little trouble that no one missed him, though when he was at home the fact that he gave little trouble was his highest praise. Stephen was the one who turned the house upside down when he appeared. He was a soldier, with his regiment, spending only his intervals of leave (and not always those) at Melcombe. But no one could be under any doubt on the subject when Stephen was at home. He had everything altered to suit his pleasure ; even Mr. Mitford, who never departed from his rules, was unconsciously thrust out of them on Stephen's return, and thought nothing of it. This not because he was the favourite. He could not be said to be the favourite. He was too noisy, too imperious, for that part. He had not the sweetness, the persuasiveness, which procures THE SECOND SON one of a family his own way. He got the upper hand because he insisted upon it. None of the others felt themselves able to oppose Stephen. As for Edmund, he shrunk at once from any controversy, feeling that he must go to the wall ; and Roger would give in with a growl, saying in his moustache that the fellow was not here for long, or else Mr. Mitford yielded with a still worse grace, but he did yield also, — chiefly because he felt it undignified to engage in any strife unless he was certain to be victorious, and that could never be certain when it was Stephen who was the antagonist. Stephen did not mind in the least what weapons he used. He would speak of his father's age in a way which made Mr. Mitford furious. ' I don't want to disturb you, sir, at your time of life. One knows, of course, that habit is more than second nature with old people.' — ' Who the deuce do you mean by your old people?' Mr. Mitford would shout in a passion, con- scious of being only sixty-seven, and well out of sight yet of the three score and ten years. The servants invariably flew to execute Mr. Stephen's orders. Anything for a quiet life, THE FAMIL Y AT MELCOMBE they said. And thus it was that without go- ing out of his course to conciliate anybody, or troubling himself about the least recompense, Stephen got most things his own way. He was, perhaps, the handsomest of his family, as features and merely physical attributes go. He was taller than his brothers, he was better at all outdoor pursuits ; or perhaps it was because he always said he was the best that everybody thought so. Then he had the reputation of being open-handed and liberal, because people who are so noisy and impul- sive generally are as careless of money as they are of other people's comfort, or at least it is usual to think so. Stephen is so thought- less, everybody said ; you don't expect Stephen to remember little precautions, or to curry favour, but at bottom he's the most good-natured fellow ! He doesn't pretend to be clever, but he sticks to his friends like a good one, the gentlemen said. He's a little rough, but then he's so very good-natured, said the ladies. So Stephen went on steadily thinking of nothing but how to please himself. There is no branch of human industry in which perseverance is more sure of its reward. io THE SECOND SON i There were daughters in the Mitford family, but they had never been taken much into account. The mother had died young, and no feminine head of the house had ever suc- ceeded her. There was an excellent house- keeper, Mrs. Simmons, who devoted herself to the boys, but thought youngladies were best in the schoolroom, and kept the governesses at a haughty distance. The young ladies were timid girls, who were frightened of their brothers, and thought Mrs. Simmons quite right. Somehow or other, nobody quite knew how, two of them married out of that school- room, and escaped into what we must hope was a better life. One little girl was still left at home. Her name was Katherine, but she had not the vigour which that name implies. To have called her Kate would have been impossible, or even Katie. The universal sentiment of those who knew her averted this false nomenclature by calling her Nina, sup- posed to be a contraction of the last syllable of her name, as it is of so many names. She was nearly eighteen at the period to which I am referring ; a pretty enough little girl, look- ing much younger than her age, and with a i THE FAMIL Y AT MELCOMBE 1 1 constantly apologetic tone about her, as if she had no business to be in the way, or show herself in superior male society, — which, to tell the truth, she did very little. The last governess had departed some time before : governesses had not been welcome in the Mitford family, nor had they been happy ; and in what way Nina had been educated,, or her sisters before her, nobody knew. It was supposed that they could read and write, and it was known (by the nuisance it was) that they could play badly upon a well-thumped schoolroom piano, out of which more noise than music was ever got. Now that the governess was gone, Nina was more often visible than she had been before. The hum- blest of little apologetic girls cannot live in a schoolroom all alone. If there had been no other reason against it, there was this reason, that it was now nobody's business to carry up tea to that secluded place. The schoolroom maid had departed along with the governess, and when this dilemma was reported to Mrs. Simmons her deliverance was very decisive. * It is high time Miss Nina came down to dinner,' she said, although on a former occa- 12 THE SECOND SON i sion she had protested that the schoolroom was the proper place for young ladies. This proves that even the housekeeper was not always consistent ; but then, in the present case, tea in the schoolroom instead of dinner downstairs had the air of being a privilege for Nina, a thing that evidently could not be. When it was thus settled that she should make her appearance at dinner, Nina learned to show herself much more downstairs during the day. She was all alone, poor little thing ; there was nobody to talk with upstairs, or with whom to exchange those innocent little secrets which belong to girlhood. She was very heartsick with longing for her sisters, and for Miss Beaumont, who had been kind, and even for Mattie, the little schoolroom maid. Had she been left alone, the deserted girl would in all likelihood have formed a very unsuitable but devoted friendship with Mattie ; or she might have fallen in love with the gardener, or done something of a desperate kind. Mrs. Simmons saved her by issuing that recommendation, which was as good as an order. Nina did not like it at first, but afterwards she got to like it. She was a THE FAMIL Y AT MELCOMBE pretty little creature. She was very anxious to please. And when any one walked into the drawing-room, which had hitherto been empty, save on great occasions, and became aware of a little startled movement, and the raising of a pair of half-frightened eyes, and the flutter of a frock which seemed ready to flatter out of sight on the faintest indication that it was in the way, the spectacle soon came to be quite an agreeable thing. The sitting-rooms of the house were en suite. There was first a library, with windows all round, in one corner, then a large drawing- room, then a small one, and at the other corner the dining-room. The whole line of rooms was lighted at night. The drawing- rooms served only the purpose of a passage from the library at one end to the banquet at the other. But the flutter of- Nina's frock changed this arrangement, and made the silent passage room into a little centre of do- mestic life, more pleasant than the heavy library, which was lined with books and hung with heavy curtains, as became the abode of knowledge and masculine mental occupation. It may be doubted, perhaps, whether Mr. 14 THE SECOND SON i Mitford ever discussed a question more pro- found than how to gain a little upon his new leases, or keep back a little from the new buildings and repairs which his farmers demanded. But these are questions serious enough in their way, and the library was grave enough in appearance to be tenanted by a bishop. The young men and their father, not always on the best of terms with each other, formed a sufficiently gloomy pro- cession when they came from under the shade of the dark velvet portiere, marching along to dinner, four tall men, and not a smiling face. When first Nina's white frock had been seen to rise timidly from one of the sofas it made a sensation in the group ' What are you doing here at this hour ?' Mr Mitford said to his daughter somewhat gruffly 1 Please, papa, Miss Beaumont has gone, said Nina, trembling a little. ' To be sure, he said, mollified by her wistful look, and offered his daughter his arm. How Nina had trembled as she took that formidable arm ! She was ready to sink into the earth one minute, but the next could not help saying to her- self, 'Oh, that Mrs. Simmons could see me!' i THE FAMIL Y AT MELCOMBE 1 5 For though it was the housekeeper who had been the cause of this bold step, she had not intended it to be to Nina's advantage ; nor had it ever occurred to her that her master, who was so little careful of the girls, should, on seeing this little one, with her downcast eyes, trembling before him, have remembered that little Nina was a lady, and offered her his majestic arm. By and by, dating from this time, a change came about in the domestic arrangements at Melcombe. Edmund was the first who for- sook the gloomy assembly in the library, and went to Nina in the drawing-room when the gong sounded for dinner ; and at last it came to this, that Mr. Mitford issued alone out of the library door, and found his three sons, in their black coats, all gathered round Nina, as if she somehow, who was nobody, only the youngest and a girl, had become a sort of head in the house. She did not, however, rise to the occasion. Nor did Roger, to whom his father left it to give the little lady his arm, give over to her the head of the table, which had been his place since she was a baby. She sat at her brother's right hand, 1 6 THE SECOND SON i as if she had been a little guest. It would have appeared absurd to all of them to put this little thing, though they all liked her well enough, in the place of the mistress of the house. Such were the Mitfords and their house and family at the time w T hen this episode of their story begins. II THEIR NEIGHBOURS Neighbours, as everybody knows, are vastly more important in the country than they can be in town. The Mitfords were not people who kept much company ; indeed, the female element being so entirely suppressed as it was, they can scarcely be said to have kept any company at all. They had parties of men in the house in September, and sometimes at other periods, when an election or some great public event occurred in the country ; or in the race week at Beaulieu, when everybody is expected, more or less, to entertain. It might perhaps have been on these occasions that the elder girls met their respective hus- bands ; but the matches were all made in neighbouring houses, never at home. And speaking of society, there was none at Mel- combe, for who would call a shooting-party, vol. i c THE SECOND SON or a collection of men gathered together for any one distinct male object, society ? But the neighbourhood was, as everybody said, distinctly sociable and friendly. The nearest house, of course, was the Rectory, and the nearest neighbours were clerical. How it is that the English gentry should for so many centuries have suffered the existence at their very door of households fraught with peril to their younger members is a question which has not passed without previous discussion, that we should introduce it head and shoulders here without warning. It is one of the highest proofs of the sincerity of religious principle and faith in the national church which a body of excellent but perhaps not remarkably spiritual -minded persons could give. The Rectory is almost always at the Squire's park gates ; it is nearer than any other house. In, say, six cases out of ten, it is full of sons and daughters about the same ages as the Squire's sons and daughters ; young people evidently quite as good in every way, but probably not at all rich, or likely to increase by connection or otherwise the greatness of his house. The sons, young fellows getting afloat in ii THEIR NEIGHBOURS 19 the professions, or scuffling through the long vacation as best they can between the Hall, which is the chief house in the parish, and the clerical house, which is the second, — what a danger for the Squire's daughters, probably just at the impressionable age, and not yet competent to judge of the advantages of a good match ! And the girls, still more dan- gerous, innocent man-traps laid in the very sight of an indignant father ! Sometimes the familiarity in which the two sets of young people have grown up, calling each other by their Christian names, and assuming almost brotherly and sisterly relationships, is a safe- guard ; but not always, for these sorts of fraternal relations often expand into some- thing nearer and dearer. The Mitfords were exceptionally fortunate, however, in their clerical family. The Rector of Melcombe had but two children : the daughter (providentially) older than any of the Mitford boys ; the son younger even than Nina, which was more than could have been hoped for. The Rector was of a Jersey family, and his name was spelt Le Mesurier, as no doubt it ought to have been pronounced ; 20 THE SECOND SON n but as a matter of fact he was called Le- measurer, as if it were one word, and he never objected to the mispronunciation. Miss Lemesurier was the housekeeper, nay, the head of the house, at the Rectory. Her mother was dead long ago. Miss Leme- surier was approaching forty, and she was by far the best curate her father had ever had. Not only did all the external affairs of the parish pass through her hands, but most of the spiritual too. She was a large woman, larger than her father, and overshadowing him both mentally and bodily. She had a great deal of fair hair, somewhat sandy, but which in its day had been celebrated as gold, and this was her chief external distinction. She wore it in an old-fashioned way, in large massive braids, so that it could never be ignored, and was a conspicuous part of her somewhat imposing personality. Her name, it was believed, was Patience, but she had never been known as anything but Pax, though the origin of that cognomen was lost in the mists of antiquity. The Rectory, with- drawn among its trees, had a dignified and impressive appearance, with the spire of Mel- ii THEIR NEIGHBOURS 21 combe old church rising beyond it into peace- ful blue skies flecked with English cloud, and scarcely stained by the village smoke. But through an opening in these trees, Pax Le- mesurier, from where she sat at her favourite window, commanded the gate of the great house, and saw everybody who went and came. Nature had at first afforded this facility, but it was kept up by art. She had the opening carefully preserved and trimmed, so that no intrusive boueh should ever shut that prospect out. This was the nearest female neighbour our Squire's family had. Naturally, as she was several years older than the Mitfords, two of them in succession had fallen in love with Pax. It had been a short affair with Roger, who had learned better after his first period of service with his regiment. But Edmund had held by it a long time, and would have brought it to the crisis of mar- riage if Pax would have listened to him ; but she was not that kind of woman. Marrying, she declared at once, was not in her way. She had a house of her own, as much as any married woman had, and a great deal more THE SECOND SON independence, and to change this free and full life for that of a younger son's wife, watching her husband's countenance to keep him in good-humour, and conciliating his father that he might increase their allowance, was a sort of thing to which nothing would make her submit, — ' nothing, at least, with which I am at present acquainted,' Pax said. ' Of course such a thing might happen as that I should fall in love.' She said this with such gravity that everybody laughed, putting aside, as it were, a margin for future possibilities. At the moment Edmund was very angry and much offended by this speech, which showed how entirely that specific was out of the question in his own case : but in the end he learned to laugh, too. Another notable member of the neighbour- ing society may best be introduced to the reader as she appeared in Pax's drawing- room, one spring morning, having ridden over to see her friend from her own house, which was quite near as country calculations go, being about five miles off. This young lady was a person of great importance in the circle round Melcombe. She was an heiress, ii THEIR NEIGHBOURS 23 not only of money, but of a delightful and highly prosperous estate ; and though her name was not of much account, and her con- nection with the district recent, no one could have a finer position than Elizabeth Travers, to whom all the greatest families in the neigh- bourhood possessing sons showed the utmost attention. She was not in her teens, like the usual heroines of romance, but in her twenties, which is very different, and had seen a good deal of the world. It would be impossible to pretend that she was unaware of the position she held, and the great advantages, as people say, which she possessed. As these advan- tages were evidently not hers, but those of her wealth, she was not proud of them, but occasionally, indeed, a little bitter, like a woman who felt herself wronged, although she got nothing but compliments and wor- ship. Her position was so far peculiar that she had inherited all this from an uncle, recently dead, who out of some abstract im- pression of justice, believing that Elizabeth's father had laid the foundations of the fortune which he did not live to enjoy, had left every- thing to his niece, with but a slender provision 24 THE SECOND SON n for the insipid, delicate invalid wife whom he left behind. Mrs. Travers had been kept in ignorance of this arrangement, which had taken even her own house from her. It was the one thing upon which Elizabeth insisted. The poor lady was told that Elizabeth was the final heir, and that it was not in her power to leave anything away from her husband's niece, who had always lived with her, and of whom in reality she was both fond and proud. Mrs. Travers, all unsuspicious of the truth, had shed a few tears over even this disability. 4 If there had been only ten thousand, my dear,' she said, 'which I could have called my own ! Of course I should have left the most of it to you. He need not, I'm sure, have ever supposed that I would leave it away from you ; but to think I could do what I liked with it, and leave a few legacies when I passed away, would have been a pleasure. I don't know why your uncle should have had so little faith in me, my dear.' • It was not that he had little faith in you, dear auntie. Besides, you have more than ten thousand pounds, I am sure. And what- ever legacies you wish to leave, you may be ii THEIR NEIGHBOURS 25 certain that they will be paid,' said Eliza- beth. But Mrs. Travers shook her head, declar- ing that what she wished was not any such assurance, but only that, to show his trust in her, he had left her something which she could have considered as her very own. This was quite as great a grievance to the poor lady as if she had known the real state of the case, which Elizabeth, with so much trouble, and even at the cost of a fib or two (but it was the lawyers who told them, and that did not matter), so carefully concealed from her. Thus they lived together ; Mrs. Travers ordering everything as if it were her own, and believing it so to be, with Elizabeth, her dependent, in the house. She treated her niece as if she had been her daughter, it must be allowed, but now and then would exhibit little caprices of proprietorship, and debar her from the use of a horse or a carriage. 1 It may be yours to do what you like with after I die, but it's mine as long as I live,' she would say pettishly : notwithstanding that the house and everything in it, the carriages and horses, were Elizabeth's, and not hers at all. 26 THE SECOND SON n This assertion of rights had been of little im- portance while the two ladies led a secluded life of mourning, after the death of the head of the house ; but that period was about ending, and Elizabeth's embarrassments and difficulties were likely to increase. It was upon this subject, with perhaps some others underneath, that she had now come to un- burden her heart. Miss Lemesurier sat in her usual chair near the window, which commanded the Melcombe park gates. She was in alight gown, as was also her wont, though it was not becoming. Her flood of light hair, in two great heavy braids, framed her face, and was twisted in a great knot behind. Her complexion, which had grown a little dull, was not capable of over- coming the mingled effects of the light hair and dress, and her eyes, though they were large and animated, were gray, too, of a yellowish tone, concentrating rather than giving forth light. She lent her full attention to Elizabeth, and yet she kept her eyes on the park gates of Melcombe, and not a beggar or tramp could pass out or in without being seen by Pax. ii THEIR NEIGHBOURS 27 ' It is vexing, that's all,' said Elizabeth, drying her brown eyes, which in their wet condition sent sparks of light all round her, and illuminated the scene. ' It isn't as if I wished poor auntie to lose the least of the pleasure she takes in her things.' 1 Only they are not her things ; they're your things.' 1 Oh, what does that matter ? What do I care whose things they are ? But she cares, poor dear !" 'I'm not fond of self-deception,' said Pax, folding her large hands in her lap. * If you didn't care, my dear, you would never come and tell me.'