The Castle Mummers

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Illustration: "And then the Duchess melted away, and the old man and his grandson were left alone together."

 

THE CASTLE
MUMMERS

By MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES

ILLUSTRATED BY HENRY COLLER

"IF it's really one's duty to consider the happiness of the greater number," growled the Duke, "then certainly we've done our duty to-day."

And it was quite true. Everyone in the Castle, as well as the great majority of the townspeople, and, indeed, it might almost have been said everyone for miles round, had thoroughly enjoyed little Lady Susie's old-fashioned country wedding to Captain Brentlaw, V.C. Everyone, that is, except maybe the Duke and Duchess, the parents of the bride, and the bridegroom himself.

But he had looked radiant, as well as exultantly happy, when he and his bride had driven off in an open carriage and pair with postillions to the station which was to be the first stage in their journey to India.

"I cried much more on Lettuce's wedding day," observed the Duchess pensively.

"I know you did. And why?"

"Because I knew that she was really leaving us, really going away——"

"How about this daughter of yours? D'you call going to India not really going away?"

She answered at once, quite crossly for her: "Nonsense, James! You know perfectly well what I mean. We have lost our Letty, even if she does live in England. We shall never lose Susie, especially now that she's married to that dear good fellow who's always been, in a sense, like a child of our own. Why, I cried with joy when the news came that Geoffrey Brentlaw had won the V.C.!"

"I remember that I laughed—I really couldn't help it—to think of that poor, slow-witted lad having such a bit of luck. I should have been very much surprised, then, to hear that some day he would be my son-in-law——"

"Susie has got brains enough for two," said the Duchess comfortably.

"Takes after her mother in that, eh?" and the Duke gave the Duchess's ear a little tweak.

"And now," he asked, in a softer tone, "what are we to do now?"

"What we ought to do," said the Duchess decidedly, "is to go right away to that villa at Monte Carlo which has been lent to us by those kind Kilbowies. Could you spare the time, darling? A fortnight would be quite long enough for me."

"I suppose you wouldn't care to go alone, or with one of the children?" he asked.

But she knew that he didn't mean that question to be taken seriously, so she didn't even trouble to answer it.

"I might find the time," he went on slowly. "How long is it, Laura, since you and I were really away together? I mean, right away by ourselves?"

"I don't think we've been away, like that"—and then she looked up at him and smiled—"since our honeymoon. But of course to me it seems as if that were only yesterday."

"Then your married life has been one long honeymoon? That's a feather in my cap, eh?"

She shook her head. "I couldn't tell such a lie as that—not even to please you. But James——?"

"Yes?"

"I should enjoy a second honeymoon!"

Then she took hold of his arm, and laid her head as near his shoulder as she could reach, and murmured, "I know I could recapture——"

"Eh, what?" he said quickly.

"—the first fine careless rapture——"

"You do use the most extraordinary words!"

All the same, he moved his arm, and held her more closely to him.

"Not I, darling—Browning."

"If I were Captain Brentlaw, V.C, I suppose I'd say 'Same here.'"

"Then we are going? What fun!"

"How soon can you be ready?" he asked.

"As soon as you can be. I'll send a telegram to dear old Lady Kilbowie, accepting her kind offer of the villa."

The door opened, and the two sprang apart.

"Never can we have one moment of peace alone together!" exclaimed the Duke irritably.

Then as he saw that the intruder was his daughter Hilda, who came next in age to the bride of to-day, he smiled, in spite of himself. "Well, my dear, what is it? I hope you've not come to say you want to be married too."

"I haven't the slightest wish to be married," cried the girl decidedly.

"So Susie said," interjected the Duke dryly. "Yet see what's happened to-day?"

"You didn't give me time to finish, father. Of course, I mean to be married some day, but I want to have a lot of fun first."

There was a defiant note in the fresh young voice. Then she turned to her mother, and her voice softened. "I've come with a petition," she began.

The Duchess smiled. "I can't grant it before I know what it is, Hilda. Some of your petitions, darling, are so very unreasonable!"

"Algy and I want to know if you will allow us to have a young party? We have all worked so hard to make the wedding a success, mother."

"I know you have."

"We want to ask the girls and men we like, not those whom you think we ought to like," and her eyes lit up with mischief.

"Well, I'll think about it." Then she said, a little shyly: "Your father and I are going away alone together, to the South of France, for two or three weeks."

"Just to get the taste of the wedding away?" And she laughed up in her father's face.

"If you and Algy will come to my boudoir after tea, we can have a talk over your young party," observed the Duchess. "It mightn't be a bad plan for you to have it while we're away."

"Oh, mother! Thank you," and the girl disappeared.

"While the cat's away the kittens intend to have a very good time," said the Duke dryly. "I never heard a greater joy in anybody's voice than in that 'Thank you.' But be careful whom you let them ask down here, Laura. I won't have our house turned into a bear garden just to please your children."

"Perhaps we've made a mistake keeping them so away from their kind," she said a little wistfully, "After all, I don't suppose the young people of to-day are as bad as some of our friends make out."

The Duke said dryly: "Evil communications—eh, Laura?"

"—would never corrupt our children's good manners," exclaimed the Duchess proudly. "They will be so happy here, poor darlings, without us. But not so happy, James, as you and I shall be!"

"Monte Carlo seems such a long way off," he grumbled. "It's always been scenes nearer home for me."

"That's why we've become so moss-grown," she said briskly, moving towards the door.

"Laura?"

She turned, "What is it?"

"It's my impression," he observed, "that the wise thrush to whom you compared yourself a little while ago preferred, like me, his native land—not the place where blooms the gaudy melon-flower...?"

"Darling!" she exclaimed. "How dear of you to remember?"

"I remember every one of the poems we read during our honeymoon."

She ran back and kissed him. "We'll read them all over again this time!" she cried.

II.

Lord Algy and his sister managed to squeeze in two gay young parties in the fortnight that followed. And they all indulged in so much dancing, so much walking, so much riding, and so much motoring, that the brother and sister both felt rather glad at the thought of the few days of solitude before their parents would be back.

Then one morning Lord Algy was handed a telegram. "The parents are staying away another week!" he exclaimed. "Now look here, Hilda, don't you think we might have down Jerry Ockenham for a week-end? He's rather a lonely chap."

"Of course we'll have him down!"

"I'll tell you something rather interesting about Jerry. He's a grandson of that queer old bloke, Colonel Ashbury, who came in for Whittingford House two years ago."

"The man who never goes anywhere, and whom mother used to know?"

"My good child, are you so simple or so young that you don't know that there was an awful scandal about forty years ago concerning Colonel Ashbury? He was caught cheating at cards; and though he always said he was innocent, all his relatives cut him. Even his only child, Jerry's mother, in time broke with him, to please her husband. He was a tremendous friend of mother's father, and he never gave him up. Jerry would give anything to see him!"

 

Young Ockenham proved a great success. He even consented to play nursery games with the younger children; and the whole party spent a happy Friday afternoon "dressing up," the visitor scoring a great success by appearing as an old gentleman, with white hair and side whiskers. He had once taken the part of a Frenchman in a farce, and he much delighted his new young friends by giving them, in character, a potted version of the play.

Lady Hilda had soon made friends with the quiet young man who was so unlike the merry crew who had formed part of their two parties; and shyly he confided to her his great desire to see his grandfather.

"I'm supposed to be very like him," he said diffidently, "and I've certainly inherited his mania for old pictures."

After the younger children had gone to bed, "Why shouldn't we go over to Whittingford House to-morrow?" exclaimed the girl. "Colonel Ashbury has got a lot of old masters, and you know he does allow people to go and see them now and again. We might take Mr. Ockenham dressed up as he was this afternoon, and pretend he's an old Frenchman who wants to see the famous Whittingford Correggio!"

Lord Algy laughed, "I wonder if we could really pull it off?"

"I can't help thinking that if you wrote Colonel Ashbury a nice note, asking him if we may come over with an old French gentleman, he might see us."

"All right! We'll have a shot at it."

"I must dress up, too," she cried gaily, "I can wear that old pink silk frock mother wore at a fancy fair years ago. Now do sit down, Algy, and write that letter right away! Say we'll call on chance; don't give him the opportunity of saying 'No'."

"Does your mother see my grandfather from time to time?" asked young Ockenham eagerly.

Lady Hilda hesitated. She was aware that her mother had very much wished to go and see Colonel Ashbury, but that the Duke had said, characteristically, "Do let well alone."

Illustration: "He accompanied the party to the front door; and, as farewells were exchanged, he could not help being amused by the Marquis de Marly's extraordinary bowings."

"She wanted to go and see him when he first came to Whittingford House. But he gave out that he didn't want to be called on. He lives the queerest life—just like a hermit."

The note was duly dispatched, and, immediately after lunch the next day, the girl and the two young men eagerly began to prepare for their expedition.

About three o'clock there came a knock at the door of the room where Lady Hilda was dressing, surrounded by an admiring group composed of her two younger sisters and of a little brother who had been turned out, much to his chagrin, from the room where Lord Algernon was engaged in travestying Jerry Ockenham into the semblance of an "elderly gentleman."

Illustration: "At last, however, the adieux were all said, and the lonely master of Whittingford House stood gazing at the three."

"Come in," cried Lady Hilda impatiently.

She was arrayed in a pink taffeta frock, made full in the skirt and with a tight bodice. On her fair little head was poised a big leghorn hat wreathed in wild flowers.

"Mrs. Parsleet asks if your ladyship would kindly go and see her for a minute."

"Bother!" said Lady Hilda to herself. "I suppose I must."

Now Mrs. Parsleet was not only the Duchess's housekeeper—she was also the Duchess's old nurse, and she had taken Her Grace from her dying mother's arms. It was known (and resented) by everyone in the Castle that Mrs. Parsleet, during the absence of the Duchess, wrote to her every day. Even those whom the highly favoured old lady called her young lords and ladies regarded her as a kind of domestic super-spy, and disliked her accordingly.

As Lady Hilda hurried down the long passage towards "Mrs. Parsleet's room"—which of course had nothing in common with "The Room," as the housekeeper's room was known to those concerned—she said to herself: "Old Parsey has heard that we're dressing up. But I shan't let her know why. There's no reason why she should—horrid, inquisitive, old thing!"

Even so, remembering the plot she and her brother had evolved, she felt rather uneasy as she stood outside Mrs. Parsleet's room.

"Come in," called out the quavering, yet still stern old voice with which the Duchess's children had been only too familiar all their young lives.

And then Lady Hilda, for a moment, felt touched, for, as Mrs. Parsleet rose from her chair, she exclaimed, "Well, my dearie—your ladyship do look a wision of delight!"

And indeed the little figure that had just stepped into the room was a lovely vision of youth, grace, and charm.

"There now! To think that I never noticed it before! I mean, your ladyship's likeness to your mamma. Why, you're the very image of Her Grace the year she made her deebou, just afore she was presented at Court. Your mamma had a dress just like that you've on now! Pale pink it was, caught up with rosebuds; and oh, how beautiful she did look, to be sure. But of course it was an evening dress. She didn't wear a hat with it, of course—and if you ask me, dearie, that hat spoils the look of it."

"I'm g]ad you think I'm exactly like mother, Mrs. Parsleet."

Mrs. Parsleet coughed. "I can't say that your ladyship's exactly like your mamma. She has such a lovely skin. Not one of you young ladies has that save, maybe, Lady Susan. I do hope she won't lose it in India—they do say that ladies get very yaller there."

"Didn't she look a darling when she went off? She's much too good for Geoffrey Brentlaw. That I shall always think——"

It was well known to Lady Susie's brothers and sisters that Mrs. Parsleet had been a warm advocate of the marriage, but to how great an extent none of them had been informed.

"You're forgetting that Captain Brentlaw is a great hero," said the old lady with dignity.

"'None but the brave deserve the fair,'" replied her little ladyship gaily.

"The very words I uttered to Her Grace when she first came and told me about it!" cried Mrs. Parsleet delightedly.

Then her voice altered; it became slightly severe. "What's this idea of your having round the carriage and pair—and going out dressed up into the town?"

Into the town? Lady Hilda breathed more freely. Then Mrs. Parsleet had no idea of where they were going?

"Who'd care to dress up for nothing?" she said with spirit. "Why, there's actually a song that says, 'All dressed up, and nowhere to go.'"

"I dare say there is, and very common it sounds to me—not at all the sort of song your mamma would ever have sung in the days when she did sing. Will your ladyship come a little nearer to me?"

Unwillingly the girl did as she was asked, or rather ordered, to do.

"And there's something else, dearie! Now you mustn't get cross with me for telling you—if Her Grace was here, I wouldn't say a word."

"Say away! I'm sure nothing you could say would make me cross." And she looked boldly into the grim old face.

Lady Hilda uttered those words just the way her father would have uttered them. But Mrs. Parsleet was a brave woman, and, according to her lights, she always did what she thought to be her duty.

"It's being noised abroad——" she began slowly; and then, "It's said below-stairs," she went on, dropping from the sublime to the ordinary, "that Lord Algy's friend, Mr, Ockenham, is going to be dressed up as an old gentleman—and a furriner, too. And that you're going calling on some of your mamma's friends with him?"

She looked anxiously at the lovely mutinous little face so near to hers.

"Well, what if we are, Mrs. Parsleet? There's no harm in a young man dressing up as an old man."

"I don't say there's any harm, dearie. But I do think it's a thing that His Grace wouldn't at all like to be done—not here, in his Castle."

"Then I hope father will never know," the girl dared not add, "And it will be very horrid of you to write and tell mother!" Instead, she observed flippantly, "It's done now! We're just starting. In fact I expect they're waiting for me——"

She ran to the door, and Mrs. Parsleet stared woefully after her. Lady Hilda was certainly very like what Her Grace had been at eighteen—wilful, sometimes even very naughty indeed, though never sly, as some young ladies are sly.

 

The vehicle in which the three started off on their high adventure was a roomy, old-fashioned victoria, built to the Duke's orders many years ago when his wife was a young mother, and liked to have all her boys and girls about her even when she was driving in the park. The carriage held four comfortably, and so there was plenty of room for stalwart Lord Algy on the back seat.

As the merry party drove through the upper part of the town they were just a little disappointed that they didn't excite more notice. They felt themselves to be, and indeed they were, an extraordinary looking carriage-full. Lady Hilda, in her pink silk frock and large leghorn hat wreathed with flowers, looked as if she was going to a fancy ball.

As for Monsieur le Marquis de Marly, who sat by her side, he looked, if very, very old, yet dapper, and even elegant, in his black suit, large silk scarf arranged like a stock round his neck, and an old-fashioned "topper" which had belonged to the Duchess's father, and which she kept, though her children were unaware of the fact, as a cherished relic. In his hands, covered with lemon-coloured kid gloves, the Marquis grasped a fine old walking-stick, with a curved ivory handle.

"I can't tell you how funny you look!" exclaimed Lady Hilda, going off into a peal of laughter.

"No funnier than you do," interrupted her brother severely. "I can't think why you should have dressed up, too. It wasn't necessary at all. It may make the old chap suspect there's something queer."

"Oh, no, it won't. He never sees anyone." She turned to Colonel Ashbury's grandson. "Isn't it odd of him?"

The person addressed fidgeted uncomfortably. After all, the man they were hoping to see this afternoon was his own grandfather, and bore what had once been his dead mother's name.

"I don't think it's funny at all," he said slowly. "He's led a most tragic life since all that trouble. He was turned out of all his clubs, and most of his friends cut him."

"My grandfather, mother's father, didn't," cried Lady Hilda proudly.

"Almost everyone else did; and he went about the Continent for years, like the Wandering Jew. But he always declared he was innocent, you know; and he broke with my own father, his son-in-law, because on being asked the straight question my father said he believed he had cheated——"

"Perhaps he didn't, after all," said Lady Hilda. She had something of her mother's generous nature, and always liked to think the best of everybody.

"I'm the only human being related to him in the world. It's so queer we've never met, isn't it?"

"I hope you'll meet him now! We shall be there very soon."

"I wonder if your mother would approve of what we're going to do?" said the young man.

"I don't suppose she'd approve; but Algy will make it all right. Algy always gets his own way with mother."

Lord Algy leant forward. "What's that? Who's taking my name in vain?"

"Mr. Ockenham wonders if mother would approve of what we're doing."

"Too late to think of that! We've got to go through with it. It was you who made me write that letter, Hilda. Colonel Ashbury is expecting us—we can't get out of it now."

 

Stately Whittingford House looked vast in the bright sunshine of the early spring day, and, as the carriage stopped before the high flight of marble steps leading up to the huge mahogany front door, even Lord Algy began to feel rather nervous.

"I'll ring the bell!" exclaimed the girl. "You two stay in the carriage." And jumping down, she ran up the steps and rang the bell.

A moment later the door was slowly opened by an aged-looking butler.

"I think Colonel Ashbury is expecting us," said Lady Hilda, in an ill-assured voice, "my brother sent him a note this morning."

"The Colonel received Lord Algernon's letter, and he is looking forward to seeing your ladyship, and your ladyship's friend."

The old man was looking at her a little hard. What a strange-looking "get-up" was this lovely young lady's—especially as it was far from warm to-day.

"Oh, thank you so much," she exclaimed childishly.

Then she turned and ran down the steps. "It's all right! He's going to see us! Come on——"

"Colonel Ashbury hopes you will send your carriage round to the stables. He expects you to stay to tea, my lady."

A look of astonishment came over the man-servant's face when he saw the very peculiar-looking old gentleman who formed one of the little party. He reminded the butler of a portrait of the great Duke of Wellington, painted in extreme old age.

Soon they were standing in the bleak-looking black and white hall.

Pretty little Lady Hilda said suddenly: "Are you Mr. Cherry?"

"I am, your ladyship."

"Then you must have known my mother."

"Of course I remember Her Grace! If I may make so bold, your ladyship's very like her, as she was when I last saw her. But long before then the two families were very intimate"—he coughed a little awkwardly—"and I was asked in, together with my wife, who was Colonel Ashbury's cook, to see your poor grandmamma dressed up for the Drawing Room, when she was presented on her marriage."

The girl looked at him with awe. How very, very old he must be!

"Lady Hilda Ardvilly, Lord Algernon Ardvilly, and——?"

"The Marquis de Marly," said the lady of the party quickly.

For a moment they all hung back, then Lord Algernon walked forward with his sister into the fine library where their host was awaiting them.

The first thing that struck the girl, as she gazed at the man who stood, his hand outstretched, before her, was that he was ludicrously like his grandson. He had the same neat features, the same short, spare, upright figure, and even the same way of standing, as young Ockenham.

"I am very glad to welcome your mother's daughter to my house," said Colonel Ashbury with elaborate courtesy. "I hope the Duchess is well? It is a long time since I last had the pleasure of seeing her."

"May I introduce the Marquis de Marly, Colonel Ashbury? He is a great connoisseur, and is longing to see your pictures," said Lord Algernon gravely.

And then he nearly choked, for the Marquis, in a queer falsetto voice, suddenly observed: "What a be-autiful house! What super-rb pictures! What attractive books!"

His host looked a little surprised, but he answered civilly, "I hope, Monsieur de Marly, that, you will allow me to show you, before we have tea, the Correggio which I understand you specially desire to see?" And he looked inquiringly at the oddly attired old man.

Though the Frenchman spoke English but poorly, he showed such a real knowledge of, and interest in, certain schools of old Spanish and Italian painting, that Colonel Ashbury's heart warmed to him. There was no doubt but that he knew what he was talking about.

On the other hand, Lady Hilda—at whom the host looked with a very kindly feeling, because of her likeness to her mother—knew nothing of art; and as he escorted "the Marquis" back to the library, which was his real living-room, he murmured, "I understand that young people are not taught nowadays anything about the great painters and sculptors of the past. When I was a youth, say over fifty years ago, everyone in a certain class of life was taught to distinguish a good picture from a bad one."

"Sapristi! Oui!" exclaimed the Marquis de Marly, speaking French for the first time. That had been his great exclamation in the farce where he had played the part he was playing now.

They all three made an excellent tea, and Colonel Ashbury felt mildly surprised to see that the old Frenchman was enjoying that peculiarly English meal as if to the manner born. They had been too excited at the thought of their coming adventure to eat much lunch. As for their host, he thoroughly enjoyed entertaining this odd party.

Then suddenly he bethought himself that it was rather strange that this lovely child—she did not look more than sixteen—should be acting hostess to an old French nobleman.

"I understand that your parents are absent just now, Lord Algernon?"

"Yes, sir. They were lent a villa at Monte Carlo by an old friend of my mother, Lady Kilbowie."

"Lady Kilbowie? Why, of course, I remember her. I knew her, too, when she was a girl." And he sighed a quick, sad sigh. "I suppose the Marquis has been at the Castle some time?"

Now that, as Lord Algernon said to himself, was a poser. But he took the fence flying, as he described it afterwards to his somewhat horrified elder brother.

"The Marquis came over to see the French pictures at the National Gallery, and he finds London very trying at this time of year, so my mother suggested that he should come down for a rest. He is going back to Paris in a few days."

Time was going on, also Lord Algernon was getting a little nervous, so he pinched his sister's arm hard. Surely, he reminded himself crossly, it is always the lady of the party who gets up and says good-bye?

Lady Hilda turned on him quickly. "Don't do that, Algy! You're hurting me."

He said in a low voice: "We're tiring Colonel Ashbury. Get up, you silly thing!"

But their host had overheard the brotherly admonition. "It's a great pleasure to see you both here. I'm not at all tired, and I hope you'll stay a little longer."

He moved close to Lady Hilda, and he was sorry and surprised to see that her cheeks were rouged, and her lips painted. What a strange thing that the mother he still thought of as "Laura" should allow her young daughter to make up like this! Colonel Ashbury had "looked up" Lord Algernon and this little lady in his old Peerage that very morning, so he knew she was barely seventeen. And then all at once it struck him that her dress looked quite unlike the straight up and down frocks worn by the young women who formed part of his own considerable household, when they went of! to the town hard by, smartly attired for an afternoon or evening out.

The dress Lady Hilda was wearing to-day looked almost like a fancy dress. But perhaps Duchess Laura didn't approve of modern fashions. In any case, the child looked very charming in her panniered pink gown and flower-laden leghorn hat. Still, if she had been his granddaughter he would very soon have put an end to that rouge and—what was it called?—lipstick.

At last he accompanied the party to the front door; and, as farewells were exchanged, he could not help being amused by the Marquis de Marly's extraordinary bowings and scrapings, and over-effusive thanks for his entertainment. The old man might have stepped out of the Court of Louis the Fifteenth.

At last, however, the adieux were all said, and the lonely master of Whittingford House stood gazing at the three while they packed themselves into the roomy victoria. Evidently the Duke and Duchess of St. Andrews were old-fashioned folk, and no doubt they hated motors as much as he did himself.

Unmindful of the cold spring wind, he gazed after the carriage as it rolled slowly down the long avenue. He felt as if he had snatched a dream-like hour out of one of those careless days when he was a good-looking, debonair, popular man-about-town, before disgrace, despair, and bitter shame had all come on him together.

III.

The Duke and Duchess had been home about an hour, and the Duchess was resting in her boudoir. The long journey had tired her, but she felt very happy, for the holiday had been a great success, and oh! how glad she was to be home again.

And then she heard the Duke's voice: "Are you there, Laura? May I come in?"

She roused herself. "Come in! What is it, darling?"

He walked in, holding an open letter in his hand. "Look at that!"

She saw that he was putting a strong constraint on himself.

"Has anything happened?" She jumped off the sofa and looked so frightened that his heart softened.

"Nothing of any real consequence," he said hastily. "But still I wouldn't have had it happen for a thousand pounds!"

Hastily she took from him the double sheet of old-fashioned note-paper, and saw written there, in a handwriting with which she had once been familiar, the following words:

 

"Colonel Ashbury presents his compliments to the Duke of St. Andrews. He presumes that the Duke is unaware of the impudent trick which was played on the 15th inst. by his son, Lord Algernon Ardvilly, on Colonel Ashbury.

"It has only just been brought to Colonel Ashbury's notice that the party of young people who called at Whittingford House, and were courteously received there, included a young Englishman masquerading as an aged Frenchman—'the Marquis de Marly,' forsooth.

"Colonel Ashbury regards himself as entitled to a very humble apology from the three who took part in this unworthy and impertinent joke."

 

"I don't believe it," said the Duchess suddenly; "there's some mistake. Why, the idea's absurd! Why should Algy have done such a thing?"

"Let's send for him now, and see at once what he has to say," returned the Duke.

Then he muttered as if to himself: "If it had only been anyone else in the world——"

"I'm sure it isn't true!"

The Duchess pressed the bell as she spoke, and when her maid appeared, "Will you try and find Lord Algernon? Please ask him to come here, at once, to my boudoir," she exclaimed.

The two waited in silence, broken only by the Duke's saying kindly: "I think you're probably right, Laura. I can't believe that any son of yours could do such an ungentlemanly thing, even in joke."

Lord Algernon came in, looking, if surprised, then quite happy. But when he saw his father's face he suspected, as he afterwards ruefully admitted to his sister, that there must be horrid mischief in the wind.

"Algernon?"—the Duke very seldom called his second son "Algernon"—"I must ask you to look at this letter which I have just received from a man who, whatever his faults, was the closest, and to the very end of his life an esteemed, friend, of your mother's father."

Lord Algernon's face changed colour—from a healthy brown it became a dusky red.

"I presume," went on the Duke in an icy tone, "that Colonel Ashbury has been misinformed?"

"I'm sorry to say that it's true, father. We didn't think Colonel Ashbury would ever find it out."

"That is less than no excuse."

The Duke's voice was very, very stern. "Sit down here, at your mother's writing-table, and compose the humblest apology you can invent. Nothing you can write will meet the case, and of course I shall have to write an abject apology as well. But however I word it, it will never be abject enough——"

The Duke turned away; he was overcome with angry, pained annoyance, all the more intense because he was the kind of man who at no time of his life would have had the smallest sympathy with a practical joke.

"Oh, Algy——" The Duchess was sobbing now. "How could you do such a thing to Colonel Ashbury! I ought to have got in touch with him long ago. Of course, he must feel bitter and sore with me. This letter proves it. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What shall I do? I've never felt so unhappy before——"

On hearing those terrible words, uttered by the being he loved most in the world, Lord Algernon rushed forward, and though he was not far from twenty-three, he felt as if in another moment he would burst out crying.

"Mother!" he exclaimed, "don't say that! Do forgive me—though I shall never, never forgive myself for having made you so unhappy!"

"Whatever made you think of doing such a thing?" she asked piteously.

The Duke suddenly turned on his son. "Who was the young man who lent himself to this masquerade?" he asked fiercely. "To think that you should have asked to my house any young man willing to lend himself to such a stupid trick "

"I'll tell you why we did it. Oh, what idiots we were!" cried Lord Algy. But he was determined not to give his friend or his sister away. "You see, father, we'd asked down young Ockenham for the week-end——"

"Well, what of that? You're not going to tell me young Ockenham dressed up like an old Frenchman?"

"Ockenham?" repeated the Duchess. "You don't mean Colonel Ashbury's own grandson?" And her voice trembled with horror. She felt she was living through a hideous nightmare.

"That's why we did it," said Lord Algy ruefully. "Ockenham was very, very anxious to see his grandfather. He's fearfully good at private theatricals, and so I thought it would be a way of smuggling him into Whittingford House."

"And was Colonel Ashbury really taken in?" asked the Duke. "If so, the poor old chap's mind must be giving way!"

"Oh, no, father. His mind's all right, though he was quite taken in. I wonder who the deuce told him?"

"As this escapade of yours must have been known to everybody in the town as well as in the Castle," observed his father dryly, "the wonder is that he didn't know sooner than he did."

The Duchess looked quickly at the Duke. She could see that he was not quite so angry as he had been a few moments ago.

"We must hope that he'll never find out who the French marquis was," she said quietly.

"I've never written a letter of apology. I don't know what to say," mumbled Lord Algy, in a shamefaced voice.

"I should have thought your conscience would dictate the right form of words to use," said his father with renewed sternness. "However, I'll make a rough draft of what I think you ought to write, and then, if you agree, you can copy it."

He sat down at his wife's writing-table, and after a painful pause, started writing. He wrote on and on for what seemed both to his wife and to his son a long time.

At last he got up. "There! I've done my best. You may think it too abject. But, considering all the circumstances, it can't be too abject in my opinion."

He left the room, and the Duchess threw her arms round her son's neck. "It's so unlike you," she said, "to do such a very impertinent thing to a man more than old enough to be your grandfather."

"Ockenham told Hilda that he'd give anything to see Colonel Ashbury."

"I suppose it was Hilda's idea, eh?" And as her son remained silent, she went on: "How stupid of me not to have guessed that before! The child's always been crazy about dressing up."

"Still, it was my fault, mother."

"Yes, I think it was. Sit down over there and copy the letter your father has written for you, dear boy. I'll have my car round in half an hour, and take your letter myself to the poor old man. I think I can make it all right."

"Oh, mother, you are a brick! D'you think father will ever forgive me?"

"Of course he'll forgive you. But I don't think he'll ever forget it. I'm sure I sha'n't." And she sighed. "How very, very silly my poor little Hilda is for her age!"

Lord Algernon said quickly: "Please don't tell father she had any part in it, mother."

"I can't make you any such a promise as that, my dear. You must leave it to me."

 

As the motor drew up, in the twilight of a late March afternoon, before the marble steps of Whittingford House, the Duchess said quickly to her chauffeur: "I'll get out now and ring the bell myself. You needn't stop; I'll walk back."

She did not choose that anyone should witness her discomfiture, should Colonel Ashbury, her father's one-time dearest friend, refuse to receive her. So she watched the car disappear down the long avenue, and then, with a very heavy heart, she rang the old-fashioned bell.

After what seemed, to one who was not accustomed ever to be kept waiting, a very long time, the great door was opened slowly, and an old, old man peered out.

"Who's there?" he said sharply.

The stranger drew herself up. "I am the Duchess of St. Andrews, and I've come to see if Colonel Ashbury will kindly spare me a few moments."

Without waiting for an answer she walked through into the dimly lit hall, and then she faced the manservant. "I hope that you remember me now, Cherry. I should have known you anywhere."

"Your Grace looks so young still; that deceived me; if I may be pardoned for saying so."

She smiled, woman enough to feel pleased, as well as touched, by the excuse.

"Do try and get Colonel Ashbury to see me, Cherry! I've come to express my own and the Duke's deep regret for what my foolish children did the other day. I've brought with me a letter of apology from Lord Algernon."

She had taken out her card-case, and on her card she was writing in pencil the words: "I do beg you to see me for the sake of old times." And she had signed the pleading words, "Laura."

"I daren't show in Your Grace without telling the Colonel, for all I've been with him forty-seven years."

"I quite understand that. I'll wait here."

"Won't Your Grace come into this room? I don't like the thought of Your Grace waiting in the hall."

"I'd much rather wait here," she said decidedly.

After what seemed even to her not more than a very few moments, old Cherry returned, and though he was far too well trained a servant to smile, she saw at once that he brought good news.

"Colonel Ashbury will be very pleased to see Your Grace. He's quite disturbed that you have put yourself about for what he knows was just a practical joke."

He added in a low tone: "I know my master is very sorry that he wrote to His Grace about the matter."

"He has no reason to be sorry, Cherry." The Duchess spoke feelingly. "I'm sure the Duke would have written an even more angry letter in his place."

"Boys will be boys, and one can't put old heads on young shoulders, Your Grace," ventured Cherry.

Then he conducted the Duchess to the library where Colonel Ashbury had received with such kindness and courtesy the Castle Mummers.

As she saw her father's old friend her eyes filled with tears; though she knew him to be a very old man, he was amazingly little changed since the day when she, as a girl of nineteen, had last seen him during one of his brief furtive visits to his London house. True, his hair, which had then still been light brown, was now iron grey. But the contour of his face, and his neat, small features, were just the same, and he looked years younger than his real age.

He took her hand, and led her to the fireplace; near by there stood a high reading-lamp. "So this is Laura," he said, and gazed into her eyes.

And then: "I'm ashamed, deeply ashamed, to think that my ill-considered, intemperate letter should have given you the trouble to come here yourself." He added, as if to himself: "Yet I should bless anything which brought about a meeting between me and my dear Robin's daughter."

She murmured: "We were away, and so was our sensible eldest boy, Ardvilly. He would never have allowed such a foolish, impertinent practical joke to be played, had he been at home."

"We'll think and say no more about it, Laura—if I may call you so. I'm a peppery old chap, and I suppose the fact was that I felt incensed at being so entirely taken in!"

He smiled a little grimly. "It never occurred to me that the rather odd-looking old chap with whom I tried—I flattered myself, successfully—to make polite conversation, was really a young man. In fact, when I first was told of it I refused to believe it! Partly, I confess, because this pseudo-French Marquis showed such a remarkable knowledge of art, and of the branch of art in which I have always been, as you know, especially interested."

"He is a very nice, intelligent, and cultivated young man," faltered the Duchess. Was it possible that her host had no suspicion as to the identity of "the Marquis de Marly"?

"Is the young gentleman still at the Castle? If he is, I should like to congratulate him on the cleverness of his make-up. Though the title he chose ought to have made me suspicious. He might as well have styled himself 'Duc de Versailles!'"

"He left some time ago," she said quickly, and then she handed him an envelope. "This is Algy's letter of apology. I know you will accept it in the spirit in which it was written. Please read it now."

He read the letter through, slowly.

"A very handsome letter!" he exclaimed. "It does your son's heart and mind great credit."

He crumpled up the letter, and threw it into the fire.

"We've been wondering," said the Duchess timidly, "whether you'd do us a great kindness?"

He looked at her gravely. "If it's in my power to do it, I certainly will."

"We want you to come over and stay with us this next week-end. We shall only have one or two young people, and it will give me, especially, such real happiness to have you under my roof."

Turning away, she melted into tears.

"You don't know what you're asking, my dear. I stayed away from my native land for full fifteen years; and now that I'm back, I not only feel a ghost—lam a ghost, Laura."

"But you will come——?"

Eagerly she dashed away the tears from her eyes. "Everything shall be done to make you comfortable!" And then she saw she had made a mistake.

"I have no wish to be made comfortable," he said stiffly. "I suffer as yet from none of the infirmities of old age. Sometimes,"—and then he gave a weary sigh—"I feel as if I were doomed to live for ever! All the people who meant anything to me are dead—both those who were faithful, and those who were faithless. Even Jenny's odious husband has gone now."

"But Jenny"—she looked at him straight, though she was shivering inwardly—"left a son: Jerry Ockenham. He's a delightful young fellow. My two elder boys know him quite well."

"He's never made the slightest attempt to get in touch with me." The old man spoke with bitterness. "But, then, why should he? Everything I possess, with the exception of this place, is bound to go to him at my death. Of course he knows that as well as I do. His father certainly remembered it when he quarrelled with me, and caused my only child to do so, too."

"You're unjust to this boy—you are, indeed! Jerry Ockenham is most anxious to meet you—he told my girl, Hilda, that it was the greatest wish he had in the world."

"Very odd of him to tell that to a young lady, however charming, when—forgive me, Duchess, for reminding you of it—there's the post open to him. Nowadays motors annihilate distance; and as he's a rich man now, I presume he has a motor. He could have come down here any day and asked to see me."

"He was in a difficult position. You had quarrelled with his father——"

"I had reason to," said the old man grimly.

IV.

Four days later the Duke, the Duchess, Lord Algernon, and Lady Hilda were in the long library of the Castle. It was tea-time, and they were expecting Colonel Ashbury.

To the Duchess the minutes seemed like hours. She felt nervous and anxious, the more so that she knew the Duke was quite out of sympathy with a certain scheme she had evolved just after her visit to Whittingford House.

At last her quick ears heard the opening and shutting of doors, and she began walking quickly down the book-lined room.

"Colonel Ashbury, Your Grace."

Being the manner of men and women they happened to be, no one looking on would have supposed that there was anything at all untoward in the meeting between the old gentleman who had just arrived at the Castle on a week-end visit, and these four who, in their different ways, were all so painfully anxious to do him honour.'

As he shook hands with Lord Algy, Colonel Ashbury smiled a curious, thin smile. "It's you I have to thank, young man, for the pleasure of being here; and I do thank you."

Lord Algy, for once at a loss, muttered awkwardly: "It's very good of you, sir, to say that. I'll never cease reproaching myself——"

But the other cut him short. "Tut! tut! A joke's a joke. And as for 'the Marquis'—he ought to have been called de Carabas—I've retained a most pleasant recollection of him! Will you tell your young friend that—next time you're in touch with him?"

The Duchess took her guest's hand. She led him close to the fire, and threw a quick look of dismissal at her son and daughter.

"Our young friend is here," she said, "also staying this week-end."

The Duke looked as if he, too, would have liked to run away, and leave her to carry out the plot she had hatched.

The Duchess took pity on him. "I know you've a letter to write, James, before the post goes," she exclaimed. "I'll stay on here for a little while with Colonel Ashbury."

Then she turned to the old man. "Algy's friend wants to tell you himself how very much ashamed he is of what he did. The truth is, he was so very anxious to see you——"

"To see my Correggio, you mean? He would have been welcome to do that without going to the trouble of masquerading as an old Frenchman——"

Meanwhile, Lady Hilda, hidden in a room which opened into the long library, was "binging up," as she expressed it to herself, Jerry Ockenham to go through the door—and at last she succeeded.

As the young man came down the room towards the fireplace, holding his head high, the Duchess went forward to meet him. Putting her hand through his arm, she brought him up to her old friend, "Here is Monsieur le Marquis!" she exclaimed. "Doesn't he remind you of someone?"

But, even so, Colonel Ashbury had as yet no suspicion of the truth.

"Well, young sir, you look very much more to your advantage now than you did——"

And then suddenly he stopped.

"Is it——?" he asked. And then again, in a tone of painful agitation: "Is it——?"

"—Jenny's son? Of course it is!" exclaimed the Duchess.

"After what you said to me the other day, I felt that I might venture to bring you together. Jerry's one wish, all his life, has been to make friends with you."

"It has indeed, sir," said the young man sincerely.

And then the Duchess melted away, and the old man and his grandson were left alone together.

Copyright, 1927, by Paul Reynolds, in the United States of America.