The History of Sir Richard Calmady. Lucas Malet

profession went somewhat against the grain. She would have preferred a nice grocery, or other respectable, uneventful business in a country town, and dissipation in the form of prayer rather than of race-meetings. But as a slender, slightly self-righteous, young maiden she had fallen very honestly and completely in love with Tom Chifney. So there was nothing for it but to marry him and regard the horses as her appointed cross. She nursed the boys when they were sick or injured, intervened fairly successfully between their poor, little backs and her husband's all-too-ready ash stick; and assisted Julius March in promoting their spiritual welfare, even while deploring that the latter put his faith in forms and ceremonies rather than in saving grace. Upon the trainer himself she exercised a gently repressive influence.

      "We won't swear, Mr. Chifney," she remarked mildly now.

      "Swear! It's enough to make the whole bench of bishops swear to see that lad."

      "I did see him," Mrs. Chifney observed.

      "Yes, out of window. But you didn't carry him round, and hear him talk—knowledgeable talk as you could ask from one of his age. And watch his face—as like as two peas to his father's."

      "But her ladyship's eyes," put in Mrs. Chifney.

      "I don't know whose eyes they are, but I know he can use 'em. It was as pretty as a picture to see how he took it all."

      Chifney tossed off the remainder of his tumbler of brandy and water at a gulp.

      "Swear," he repeated, "I could find it in my heart to swear like hell. But I can find it in my heart to do more than that. I can forgive her ladyship. By all that's——"

      "Thomas, forgiveness and oaths don't go suitably together."

      "Well, but I can though, and I tell you, I do," he said solemnly. "I forgive her.—Shoot the Clown! by G—! I beg your pardon, Maria;—but upon my soul, once or twice, when I had him in my arms to-day, I felt I could have understood it if she'd had every horse shot that stood in the stable."

      He held the tumbler up against the lamp. But it was quite empty.

      "Uncommon glad she didn't though, poor lady, all the same," he added, parenthetically, as he set it down on the table again. "What do you say, Maria—about time we toddled off to bed?"

      CHAPTER V

      IN WHICH DICKIE IS INTRODUCED TO A LITTLE DANCER WITH BLUSH-ROSES IN HER HAT

      "Her ladyship's inquired for you more than once, sir." This from Winter meeting the pony-carriage and the returning prodigal at the bottom of the steps.

      The sun was low. Across the square lawn—whereon the Clown had found death some thirteen years before—peacocks led home their hens and chicks to roost within the two sexagonal, pepper-pot summer-houses that fill in the angles of the red-walled enclosure. The pea-fowl stepped mincingly, high-shouldered, their heads carried low, their long necks undulating with a self-conscious grace. Dickie's imagination was aglow like that rose-red sunset sky. The virile sentiment of all just heard and seen, and the exultation of admitted ownership were upon him. He felt older, stronger, more secure of himself than ever before. He proposed to go straight to his mother and confess. In his present mood he entertained no fear but that she would understand.

      "Is Lady Calmady alone?" he asked.

      "Mr. and Mrs. Cathcart are with her, Sir Richard." Winter leant down, loosening the rug. His usual, undemonstrative speech took on a loftiness of tone. "Mrs. William Ormiston and her daughter have driven over with Mrs. Cathcart."—The butler was not without remembrance of that dinner on the day following Dickie's birth. Socially he had never considered Lady Calmady's sister-in-law quite up to the Brockhurst level.

      Richard leaned back, watching the mincing peacocks. It was so fair here out of doors. The scent of the may hung in the air. The flame of the sunset bathed the façade of the stately house. No doubt it would be interesting to see new people, new relations; but he really cared to see no one just now, except his mother. From her he wanted to receive absolution, so that, his conscience relieved of the burden of his disobedience, he might revel to the full in the thought of the inheritance upon which—so it seemed to him—he had to-day entered. Still, in his present humour, Dickie's sense of noblesse oblige was strong.

      "I suppose I've got to go in and help entertain everybody," he remarked.

      "Her ladyship'll think something's wrong, Sir Richard, and be anxious if you stay away."

      The boy held out his arms. "All right then, Winter," he said.

      Here Chaplin again gave that admonitory cough. Richard, his face hardening to slight scorn, looked at him over the butler's shoulder.

      "Oh! You need not be uneasy, Chaplin. When I say I'll do a thing, I don't forget."

      Which brief speech caused the butler to reflect, as he bore the boy across the hall and up-stairs, that Sir Richard was coming to have an uncommonly high manner about him, at times, considering his age.

      An unwonted loudness of conversation filled the Chapel-Room. It was filled also by the rose-red light of the sunset streaming in through the curve of the oriel-window. This confused and dazzled Richard slightly, entering upon it from the silence and sober clearness of the stair-head. A shrill note of laughter.—Mr. Cathcart's voice saying, "I felt it incumbent upon me to object, Lady Calmady. I spoke very plainly to Fallowfeild."—Julius March's delicately refined tones, "I am afraid spirituality is somewhat deficient in that case."—Then the high flute-like notes of a child, rising clearly above the general murmur, "Ah! enfin—le voilà, Maman. C'est bien lui, n'est-ce pas?" And with that, Richard was aware of a sudden hush falling upon the assembled company. He was sensible every one watched him as Winter carried him across the room and set him down in the long, low armchair near the fireplace. Poor Dickie's self-consciousness, which had been so agreeably in abeyance, returned upon him, and a red, not of the sunset, dyed his face. But he carried his head proudly. He thought of Chifney and the horses. He refused to be abashed.

      And Ormiston, breaking the silence, called to him cheerily:—

      "Hello, old chap, what have you been up to? You gave Mary and me the slip."

      "I know I did," the boy answered bravely. "How d'ye do, Mrs. Cathcart?" as the latter nodded and smiled to him—a large, gentle, comfortable lady, uncertain in outline, thanks to voluminous draperies of black silk and black lace. "How d'ye do, sir?" this to Mr. Cathcart—a tall, neatly-made man, but for a slight roundness of the shoulders. Seeing him, there remained no doubt as to whence Mary inherited her large mouth; but matter for thankfulness that she had avoided further inheritance. For Mr. Cathcart was notably plain. Small eyes and snub nose, long lower jaw, and gray forward-curled whiskers rendered his appearance unfortunately simian. He suggested a caricature; but one, let it be added, of a person undeniably well-bred.

      "My darling, you are very late," Katherine said. Her back was towards her guests as she stooped down arranging the embroidered rug across Dickie's feet and legs. Laying his hand on her wrist he squeezed it closely for a moment.

      "I—I'll tell you all about that presently, mummy, when they're gone. I've been enjoying myself awfully—you won't mind?"

      Katherine smiled. But, looking up at her, it appeared to Richard that her face was very white, her eyes very large and dark, and that she was very tall and, somehow, very splendid just then. And this fed his fearlessness, fed his young pride, even as, though in a more subtle and exquisite manner, his late experience of the racing-stable had fed them. His mother moved away and took up her interrupted conversation with Mr. Cathcart regarding the delinquencies of Lord Fallowfeild. Richard looked coolly round the room.

      Every one was there—Julius, Mary, Mademoiselle de Mirancourt, while away in the oriel-window Roger Ormiston stood talking to a pretty, plump, very much dressed lady, who chattered, laughed, stared, with surprising vivacity. As Dickie looked at her she stared back at him through a pair of gold eye-glasses. Against her knee, that rosy light bathing her graceful, little figure, leant a girl about Dickie's own age. She wore a pale pink and blue frock, short and outstanding in the skirts. She also wore a broad-brimmed, white hat, with,