“Who is she?” asked the landlady of the footman, in a low tone, arresting him as he was marching past her; for she did not know as yet who the stranger was, except that she was one of the family from which their inn took its sign.
“The Lady Jane Chesney; the new earl’s daughter.”
And the footman stood with his imposing cane, and bowed Jane into the carriage, and the people of the Oakburn Arms bowed again from its entrance; and thus Jane was bowled off in state to Chesney Oaks, the fine old place now her father’s.
Winding through a noble avenue of trees, the park stretching out on either hand, the house was gained. A red-brick mansion, with a wing extending out at either end. The wings were of modern date, and contained the handsomest rooms; the middle of the house was cramped and old-fashioned. In the wing to the left, as they approached, the poor young earl had lain ill and died; what remained of him was lying there now. Jane found that the carriage did not make for the principal entrance, but turned suddenly off as it approached it, continued its way to the other wing, and stopped there at a small door.
A gentleman in black—he looked really like one—was at the door to receive Jane, evidently expecting her. It was the groom of the chambers. He said nothing, only bowed, and threw open the door of a small sitting room, where the new earl was standing.
“Lady Jane, my lord.”
It would take Jane some little time to get accustomed to this. Lord Oakburn was in conversation with a grey-haired man who wore spectacles, the steward, as Jane afterwards found, and some books and papers were lying on the table, as though they were being examined.
“So it’s you, Jane, is it?” said the earl, turning round. “And now what on earth has brought you here, and what’s the matter? That idiot says that it’s not Lucy’s hands, and he’ll say no more, but stares and sobs. I’ll discharge him to-night.”
Jane knew how idle was the threat; how often it was hurled on the unhappy Pompey. Before she could say a word, her father had begun again.
“The idea of your sending for me to Pembury! Just like you! As if, when you had come so far, you could not have come on to Chesney Oaks. It’s my house now—and yours. You never do things like anybody else.”
“I did not care to come on, papa,” she answered in a low tone. “I thought—I thought Lady Oakburn might be here, and I did not wish to meet her just now; I have brought very bad news. And I thought, too, of the fever.”
“There’s no danger from that; the poor fellow’s lying in the other wing. And Lady Oakburn’s not here, but what difference it would make to you if she had been, I’d be glad to know. And now, what have you got to tell me? Is the house burnt down?”
Jane looked at the steward, who was standing aside respectfully. He understood the look—that she wished to be with her father alone—and turned to his new master.
“Shall I come in again by-and-by, my lord?”
Lord Oakburn nodded acquiescence. He had slipped as easily and naturally into his new position as though he had been bred to it. As the son of the Honourable Frank Chesney, he had seen somewhat of all this in his youth. Jane had not. Although reared a gentlewoman, she had been always but the daughter of a poor naval officer.
The room they were in, plain though it was as compared to some, bore its signs of luxury. The delicate paper on the walls, the gilded cornices, the rich carpet into which the feet sank, the brilliant and beautiful cloth covering the centre table. Lord Oakburn had been shown to it that morning for breakfast, and intended to make it his sitting-room during this his temporary sojourn in the house. How things had changed with him? and, but for the terrible escapade of the previous night, what a load of care would have been removed from Jane’s heart! No more pinching, no more miserable debts, no more dread of privation for her dear father!
She untied her bonnet strings, wondering how she should break it to him, how begin. Lord Oakburn pushed the steward’s papers into a heap as they lay on the costly cloth, and turned to her, waiting.
“Now, Jane, why don’t you speak? What is it?”
“It is because I do not know how to speak, papa,” she said at length. “I came myself to see you because I thought none could break the news to you so well as I: and now that I am here I seem as powerless to do it as a child could be. Papa, a great calamity has overtaken us.”
The old sailor, whatever his roughness of manner, his petty tyranny in his home, loved his children truly. He leaped to the conclusion, in spite of Pompey’s denial, that something bad had arisen from Lucy’s hands. Perhaps the places had burst asunder, and she had bled to death. He believed, now that he