THE NOVELIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 1892, 15 May 1890, Page 33

THE NOVELIST.

[NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.]

A BITTER BIRTHRIGHT; OR, LADY GILMORE'S TEMPTATION. By DORA RUSSELL, Author of " Footprints in the Snow," " The Broken Seal," " The Traok of the Storm." &o. [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] •

Chapter 11.

Lady Blenkensop. '.E same day Nancy wrote to her mother's friend, Lady Blenkensop, and told her truthfully how little there was left for them to live on, and also how ill and broken dpwn poor Mrs Loftus was. And she added with flushed cheeks and trembling hands :

"As soon as dear mother is well enough for me to leave her, I shall be very grateful to you if you will help me to obtain some situation that would enable me to assist mother," and so on.

The lady to whom this letter was addressed received it on the following morning at breakfast, and read it with her double gold glasses fixed on her high and well-shaped nose.

She was a good-looking woman this, of some 55 years, with clear, shrewd, searching eyes, a fresh complexion, and iron-grey hair. Opposite to her sat General Blenkensop, a little man, white-haired and ehrewdlooking also. He was reading a newspaper, but laid it down when his wife addressed him.

" This is from Nancy Loftus," said Lady Blenkensop, in a loud but not unpleasant voice. She had a very decided manner, and spoke like a woman who quickly made up her mind.

"Ah ? " answered the General inquiringly, looking at his wife through his spectacles. "And how are they getting on poor things ?" "Very badly. Just as I thought. Mrs Loftus is ill, and one cannot wonder at it, and they are left wretchedly poor."

" I was afraid of that. Poor Loftus, it was a sad business."

"Nancy says here that her father bad written to his lawyer about insuring his life for £3000 only a few days before he was killed. Was there ever anything so unfortunate? But no man should ever put off for a day what is a positive duty if he has a wife." The General gave a sort of assenting groan

his life was insured for £5000, and had been done so at the repeated requests and representations of his wife, therefore he was very well acquainted with her opinions on the subject.

" Nancy seems inclined to behave well and sensibly," continued Lady Blenkensop. "She says she will be glad to take a situation as soon as she can leave her mother ; and the sooner she does this the better. They will ail have to put their hands to the wheel now, and poor Mrs Loftus must exert herself for the sake of the younger children, as Nancy is the only one old enough to work." "It's hard on poor Nancy; and such a pretty girl, too."

"But her good looks won't bring them bread. . She's a well-educated young woman, and under their unfortunate circumstances she must turn her education to account, and spare some of her salary to help her mother. I shall see about getting her a situation at once."

" Wasn't Godfrey Erne rather sweet on her in India ? "

"Godfrey Erne is in no position to be sweet, as you call it, on anyone ; certainly not on a penniless girl," answered Lady Blenkensop sharply ; for Godfrey Erne was her nephow, and she did not like to hear his name coupled with Nancy's. " Well, I'm sorry for the poor little lassie," said the General as he once more raised his newspaper, for he was a kind man, and remembered the pretty girl so well, who had been the belle of many an Indian ballroom.

Lady Blenkensop was a kind woman, too, but her kindness was of that active and somewhat aggravating nature which displays itself in the management of other people's affairs. The moment breakfast was over, therefore, she retired to a little sitting room of her own and at once drew out her visiting list and began seriously to consider, as she conned the names, which family would be most likely to require a governess suited to the age and capabilities of Nancy Loftus.

"The children must be young," mentally decided her ladyship in her energetic way ; "Nancy is not old enough to manage big girls — Lady Gilmore's twins are seven or eight, I believe — I wonder if she would do for them."

And the idea of Lady Gilmore's twins found favour in Lady Blenkensop's mind. " She is very rich and can afford to give Nancj a good salary," went on her reflections. "It would be a splendid thing for the girl if I can manage it. Well, I will try."

And Lady Blenkensop did try. She drove the same day 12 miles in a cold, bleak mist to Wrothsley Castle, which was one of the show places of the county, and one of the many residences of the widowed Lady Gilmore.

Lady Blenkensop knew this lady, and had visited her occasionally since the General had held his present command in the neighbourhood ; and she knew, too, that Lady Gilmore was considered a somewhat eccentric and odd-tempered woman. Her marriage was said also to have been an unhappy one. The late lord, a gay and handsome man, had married in his youth the daughter of a proud, poor Northern Catholic family, who had brought him neither money nor beauty, and yet who esteemed her blue blood to be far beyond the new title and the great wealth of Lord Gilmore.

She despised, in fact, the origin of that great; wealth, and never quite forgot that her husband's father had been a brewer, whose riches had grown and grown year by year, until a vast fortune was accumulated. He had been created a baronet first, and then, when he was quite an old man, a peer, and scarcely lived a year to bear his new honours.

Then his young, good-looking son came into possession of the great estates, the gorgeous mansions, the huge vats, the mighty dray horses, and the coronet that the old man had left behind. He soon got rid of the vats and the dray horses, and the famous beer bis father had brewed was not used in the new Lord Gilmore's household, nor was it a word ever to be heard on his lips. He married into the oldest and proudest family he was acquainted with, for Miss Dorothy Vaux could not find it in her heart to refuse the handsome wooer, though she scorned his new name. She loved him, was jealous of him, and sometimes reminded him with her sharp tongue tbat "her people" came of long descent, and that trade had never once stained their escutcheon. And these taunts did not tend to increase the young lord's affection for his wife, and he sometimes swore at his highly-born Dorothy, and used very strong language indeed when the shadow of one of the black-robed priests of her church was to be seen crossing his threshold.

But Lady Gilmore clung to her old taith, and there was a bitter quarrel between the husband and wife when an heir was born, in what tenets he should be reared. Lord Gilmore, however, got his own way, and the boy was christened by the vicar of the parish ; but the mother shed many secret tears over the cradle, and prayed silently words she dared not speak aloud.

The child was sickly and ailing from its birth, and died shortly after a second son was born, and again the mother struggled for what she deemed the new babe's salvation. But Lord Gilmore was firm ; no child of his should be brought up a Koman Catholic, he told her, and Lady Gilmore was compelled to submit to this dictate. Again the vicar of the parish was summoned, and Lord Gilmore named his second son Hugh, and wished many a time, both openly and in private, that this stalwart boy had been born the heir.

He was unjust [and mean enough even to taunt his wife with her first-born's bodily delicacy, and when the child died made no pretence of regret. He indeed grew a little more domestic in his habits than formerly, and was ne^er weary of playing with and admiring the little Hugh, whom he justly considered had inherited his own good looks and straight and well-formed limbs.

And as the boy was born, so he grew up ; a beautiful child, a handsome lad, he was the pride and darling of both his parents, and no other child that was born to them was ever regarded as he was. He remained the only son, though Lady Gilraore had four daughters, two of whom died in infancy; but when young Hugh was about 17 the last of Lady Gilmore's children— the twin girls

that Lady Blenkensop was now so anxious to provide a governess for — were born, and ' three years later their father died, and thus ' at 20 Hugh Gifford, the heir, became Lord Gilmore. It was a trying position for so young a man, and from that day his mother had watched over him with absolutely feverish anxiety and unrest. She had an excitable temperament, with strong, ardent feelings, and the jealous, yearning love she had once given to her husband was now all centred on this handsome and beloved son. She sent him to travel with a private tutor when he was 21, but some rumours having reached her ears, she started after him at an hour's notice, and remained with him the whole time he was abroad. He made herlife half miserable in fact, just as the late Lord Gilmore had done, but he was also the sole interest and hope of it. Her little girls in the nursery were almost nothing to her, and her thoughts by day and dreams by night were all filled with one image. There was none like him, she often proudly thought ; and many fair women whom Lady Gilmore did not choose to know, and many fair girls who courted her for his sake, were ready to agree with her, and declare that there were few, if any, so handsome, so winning, as the young, rich, third Lord Gilmore. He was now 24 years of age, and the life he led was said to be far from a creditable one. But this did not prevent him being popular and sought after; his enormous wealth and personal advantages overveighed all the rest, and " he had but to choose," his mother said when speaking of his marriage ; an event which she feared, dreaded, and

sometimes hoped for. Lady Blenkensop was thinking of this mother and son as she drove along the misty roadways towards Wrothsley. She was not personally acquainted with the young lord, who only paid occasional, and sometimes very brief, visits to^his mother, though to do him justice he was fond of her, and unwilling to wound her unless his own- pleasures and conveniences interfered with "his filial affection. " Well, it is a fine place," thought Lady Blenkensop, as they entered the vast park, driving through the open lodge gate, at which stood the rosy-cheeked, stout lodgekeeper's wife, surrounded by four rosycheeked children, who all seemed in some strange state of excitement or other. " Absurd, having those children out in a mist like this," mentally reflected Lady Blenkensop as she passed this family group, for she never could resist managing her neighbours' affairs, and absolutely thought of stopping the carriage to give the woman this advice. She did not do this, however, but proceeded across the park by the wide carriage road, the state cf the atmosphere almost hiding from her view the broad grass lands and stately groups of leafless trees on either side of it. The castle was also invisible through the murky air ; that vast pile of buildings which the first Lord Gilmore, then Sir Thomas Gifford, had raised with such pomp and \ pride. Nothing that wealth could purchase had not been spent on it, and the second lord had been proud of his father's pictures, if not of his beer. All the great masters were represented at Wrothsley, and Sir Thomas used to boast that for the seven paintings the state dining room contained he had spent over £25,000. "It is strange how unequally money is divided," reflected Lady Blenkensop, thinking of these things as she proceeedei on her way, and of the poor, almost penniless, well-born girl, whose bread she was now going to beg for from the heirs of the rich brewer. Almost as this thought went through her active mind, a groom, splendidly mounted and dressed in the Gilmore livery, galloped past the carriage in hot haste, the sudden appearance of the man and hie steed through the mist somewhat startling Lady Blenkensop's horses. The groom was riding from the castle, which was still distant about half a mile, so extensive was the park ; and as Lady Blenkensop put her head out of the window and looked after the man, wondering what made him ride at such dangerous f_ sed, she perceived a group of figures also approaching the carriage, and in a moment later they had hurried past it, and among this group Lady Blenkensop -recognised a face, a figure, that she knew. " Surely that was Lady Gilraore," she muttered to herself; "whatever can have happened ? " Lady Gilmore's appearance wa3 indeed sufficiently startling. Her dark hair was uncovered, and her dark eyes were fixed before her with an expression of such

anguish and mental fear written on them that no wonder Lady Blenkensop was sure that something dreadful must have occurred. She stopped the carriage ; she descended on the roadway, and looked eagerly after Lady Gilmore's flying footsteps. Two women were with her, and one or two men-servants ; and as Lady Blenkensop hesitated a moment what to do, another woman and a man also came running towards her from the direction of the castle, and Lady Blenkensop at once addressed the foremost of these. " What is the matter ?" she asked of an excited young woman-servant. "Surely that was Lady Gilmore who passed just now ? " " Yes, my lady," answered the panting, breachless girl ; " that was her poor ladyship, and she's in a fearful state." "What has happened?" again inquired Lady Blenkensop sharply. " The young: lord has been shot, my lady, and they say he's lying dead and murdered in the wood down there," answered the maid, and she pointed down the road. " One of the keepers brought the news, and my lady ran out just as #he was, and they've sent John the groom galloping for the doctor, but; the keeper thinks it's no good." " How dreadful 1 " cried Lady Blenkensop, greatly shocked, and her clear, rosy complexion grew a little pale. She was thinking of the mother whose devoted love for the young lord was well known, and her kind heart bled'for her. " I'll follow her," she said the next moment in her quick way. "Get up beside the coachman, girl, and direct him to the' wood where you say Lord Gilmore was found. Did the keeper leave him alone when he brought the news to Lady^Gilmore 1 " "No, my lady, two keepers found him,

and one of them stayed with him," replied the maid as she prepared to obey Lady Blenkensop's command, and was assisted up by the coachman to the box after he had turned his horses. „,.„. „ "Drive as fast as you can, Williams, directed Lady Blenkensop, as she re-entered the carriage ; and Williams therefore drove rapidly back the same road he had come, until he pulled up in view of a small wood, or rather coppice, when he descended from his box and went to the carriage window to speak to his lady. , " The young woman, my lady, says yon s the wood where the young lord was found, and there's no carriage road through git," he explained.)] "In that case I shall get out," replied Lady Blenkensop, "and the young woman must show me the way, and you wait here until I return." Williams touched his hat, and went and gave directions to the " young woman ;" and a moment or two later Lady Blenkensop and the maid left the roadway, and crossed the damp grass until they reached the coppice, and entered the narrow pathway through its midst where every bough and branch of the leafless trees and every leaf of the tall dark hollies were hung with dewdrops from the mist. They walked on almost in silence, for they heard a murmur of voices in advance of them, and presently down a glade — some seven or eight yards from the pathway — they saw figures moving, and guided by these soon came on a sight which might have moved the coldest heart. They saw Lady Gilmore, bare-headed, White-faced, kneeling on the damp grass, and in her arms, pressed frantically against her bosom, was the still, ghastly face of the young man whose favoured lot Lady Blenkensop had so lately been thinking of, and whose life-blood was now streaming on his mother's breast. Lady Blenkensop was a woman of prompt and energetic action, and she did not waste any time in exclamations of pity or horror, as her eyes fell on the young lord's white face. She kneeled down on the grass, raised one of the limp, colourless hands that hung helplessly by his side, and felt in vain for any pulsation iat the wrist. But still something in his expression told her that the last breath of life had not passed away from his pallid lips. "He has fainted from loss of blood, I think," she said in her quick way, addressing Lady Gilmore, whose face was rigid with the anguish and terror of her soul. "We must try and stop the bleeding until the doctor comes," she added, glancing round at the agitated group of servants present. "Have any of you a knife or a pair of scissors ? We ought to cut the sleeve out of his coat ; and we want brandy." Ths butler, a respectable, middle-aged man, now stepped forward and produced a cut-glass bottle containing brandy. " I caught up this, my lady, as I ran out of the house, as I thought it might be useful," he said. " It is very well you had the good sense to bring it," replied Lady Blenkensop, as she rose from the ground. She was wearing a handsome new plush cloak lined with fur, and as she put up her hand to unfasten the clasp for a moment she^ hesitated, for as a rule she was a saving woman, and very careful of her garments. But the grass was damp, and Lord Gilmore's hands cold and icy, and Lady Blenkensop saw no help for It. So he took off her cloak and spread it on the ground. " Now, Lady Gilmore, let your people lift him on this," she said ; " you should not hold up his head as you are doing, and I will try to get a little brandy between his lips, and first of all we must endeavour to stop the bleeding." Lady Gilmore was too much overcome to offer any opposition to the elder woman's stronger will. She allowed them to take her eon from her arms and lay him on Lady Blenkensop's cloak, crawling to his side on her knees, while Lady Blenkensop tried to pour a little brandy between his lips, and directed the butler to rub his hands and feet with the spirit. Then Lady Blenkensop began energetically to cut the sleeve out of the young man's coat, through which the blood was still pouring fast. She soon accomplished this, and rolled back the soaked shirt below, and came to the wound close to the shoulder, to which she at once held a handkerchief with her firm hand. "Go to the house for linen bandages, pillow cases— anything will do," she said, looking up, and one or two of the women servants at once ran to do her bidding, and in a short time Lady Blenkensop had everything she required, and knew enough of the nature and binding of wounds to be of the greatest possible assistance to the injured man. He sighed faintly twice, and his face lost its extreme pallor even before the doctor arrived. This doctor, a little, pompous, fat, red-faced man, was in a state of considerable excitement at being called in to attend on Lord Gilmore, as his services had only hitherto been required by the servants at Wrothsley. But he was the nearest medical man at hand, and the groom had ridden to his house in the village close by, and had happily found him at home, and Dr Roberts had lost no time in hurrying to the young lord's side. "He is beginning to revive, isn't he, doctor 1 " said Lady Blenkensop, addressing him as he knelt down and took up one of Gilmore's chill hands and felt for his pulse. " I hope so, my lady," answered the little doctor nervously, and then he proceeded to examine the faintly blue-edged bullet wound. "The shoulder is badly injured, I am afraid," he said. "Is the bone broken 1 " asked Lady Blenkensop inquiringly. " Yes," answered the doctor, " but we can do nothing with that here ; Lord Gilmore must be taken at once to the castle." He bound the wound up and then directed a mattress to be brought, and a gate to be hastily taken off its hinges, and when this was done, Lord Gilmore, still wrapped in Lady Blenkensop's cloak, was lifted on it, and thus carried home, followed by his mother, whom Lady Blenkensop had raised irom the damp ground. " Come, you must not give way ; he is all right ; he will pull through," she said, kindly and consolingly, to the white or rather grey-

faced woman, as Bhe put her arm through Lady Gilmore's and took her hand ; and Lady Gilmore rose stiffly, still never once taking her eyes off her son.

Fcur men lifted the gate on which Lord Gilmore now lay, and bore him towards the castle, the doctor walking by his side ; and just as the two ladies were about to follow, Lady Blenkensop felt someone touch her gown, and turning quickly round saw the young maid-servant who had accompanied her to the spot, standing by her side.

" If you please, my lady," she said rather in a frightened tone, "I picked up this ribbon by the bush there, near where my lord way lying, and I thought I had better give it to you."

" Quite right," answered Lady Blenkensop quickly, and she took the bunch of cardinalcoloured, ribbons in her hand. It had evidently belonged to a woman's dress ; a dainty bow, fresh and new-fangled, and without another word, and without attracting Lady Gilmore's attention to it, she slipped it into the pocket of her gown.

" It had caught on that bush there," said the maid, pointing to a trailing bramble ; and Lady Blenkensop nodded, and then silently put here arm through Lady Gilmore's, and together they walked out of the little wood behind the men who bore the young lord

(To be contmued.)