The Frobishers. Baring-Gould Sabine

of chill from the presence of the squire. "I have ventured to ask Miss Frobisher to permit me to see the pictures."

      "Papa!" said Joan, also aware of the coldness of her father's manner," I insisted on Mr. Beaudessart coming in, he has been so kind. Ruby was frightfully rubbed, and he lent me his mare. Had he not done so I should have had to walk home from Littlefold Wood."

      "What Mr. Beaudessart may this gentleman be?" asked the squire, with a freezing manner. He was an old, spare man, with shrivelled legs, about which his trousers hung loosely, with a long, knife-like face, his hair very grey and curled about the temples. His nose was aquiline, his eyebrows thick and white, and his eyes bright and hard.

      He wore a grey suit that, however, did not become him. He was one of those men with face and figure belonging to the first half of the nineteenth century, who look ill fitted in modern costume, one whom nothing would become save the high-collared coat, and the short waistcoat and abundant necktie of the reign of William IV. The studied absence of graciousness of manner assumed by Mr. Frobisher affected both the young people with a feeling of discomfort.

      "My father was Walter," said the stranger; "he was son to that old gentleman yonder. My name is the same as that of my grandfather—Hector Beaudessart."

      Joan was aware that something grated on and angered her father.

      "My dear papa," she said, "you have no idea what a generous assistance Mr. Beaudessart has rendered me—at the sacrifice of his day's sport and pleasure. How I could have got home without his courteous and ready help I cannot tell. And having seen me to the Pendabury gates, he proposed returning home. But I would not hear of it; I insisted on his coming in and having some refreshment. Sibyll followed the hounds to the grim death, but I was brought to a full stop in the wood by the condition of Ruby."

      "Sir," said Mr. Frobisher, looking straight at Mr. Beaudessart and ignoring his daughter, "I take it as a most surprising piece of assurance, your thrusting yourself into this house."

      The young man coloured up, and replied with dignity—

      "I grieve to my heart that you should so regard it; I am aware that there was some ill-feeling existing between yourself and my father, but I can assure you I do not share it, and I trusted that you, on your part, would have laid aside any sentiment that was bitter when the earth closed over his head. Allow me to relieve you of my presence."

      "Sir," said Mr. Frobisher, bridling up and pointing at him with his stick," I repeat, and emphasise my opinion, I consider it a gross, an unwarrantable piece of effrontery your intrusion here, taking advantage of my daughter's ignorance of the world, and of circumstances that must for ever estrange our families. Your deceased father's conduct"-

      "Excuse me, sir. I may be to blame for my thoughtlessness, or for my belief that human nature was gentler than I find it, but I can hear nothing against my father. He behaved always as an honourable man. What charge can you or anyone lay against him?"

      "That of having formed and obstinately maintained opinions contrary to those held by his father, the author of his being and the squire of the parish!" He flourished his stick and pointed to the picture of the old Squire Hector. "He might at least have kept his views to himself. I maintain that, by his conduct, he lost the blessing which is pronounced upon dutiful sons."

      "A man is free to form his own opinions," said the young Hector, "and it would be unworthy of a man to keep them to himself. If he is worth his salt he will maintain them. My father did not disguise what he felt in his heart, and he suffered for his independence. I wish you a good-day."

      He bowed and looked hastily at Miss Frobisher, whose cheek burned with shame. She could not meet his eye; her own were lowered and full of tears.

      "Oh, papa! Papa!" she gasped.

      Mr. Beaudessart was gone.

      "Papa, how could you treat him so after his great civility to me? It was I who asked him in. He was most reluctant to come here, but I insisted."

      "Like a fatuous girl, you did wrong out of sheer dulness. It was a piece of outrageous impertinence in him, poking his nose into this house. I am, thank God, not dead yet, and till I am—But there, I have no patience to speak of the fellow. To come prying here! Desirous to see the pictures, indeed! He wanted to peer about at everything—take stock of all there is in the house."

      "But why so, papa?"

      "Why!—because, forsooth, some day Pendabury will be his."

      "His—Mr. Beaudessart's!"

      Joan was startled.

      "Yes, his; but not one minute before I am laid in the churchyard."

      "How can that be? The estate has left the Beaudessarts and come to us Frobishers."

      "It has left them only during my life. Mr. Hector yonder"—he pointed with his stick to the portrait of the old squire—"his grandfather, very rightly was incensed with his son, Walter, for taking up with liberal views in politics, and for being bitten with advanced church opinions, such as were promulgated by the Oxford tract writers. Young fools at the time were up in the clouds with all sorts of inflated notions. Mr. Hector, the old squire, was furious with his son. As Walter would not abandon his opinions, the old man washed his hands of him, would not speak to him or admit him over his doorstep. He left the estate to me, his second wife's son by her former marriage, for my life, to revert to the Beaudessarts only after my decease and that of his son Walter, who, he protested, should be excluded entirely from the property."

      "Really, papa, I think that Walter was very hardly treated. Young men are hot-headed and enthusiastic, but they cool down as they grow older."

      "I do not see that he was hardly treated. I do not see it at all. It is I, or you, who meet with unfair treatment. If I had been so happy as to have had a son of my own, would I not have desired to transmit Pendabury to him? Is it not a monstrous injustice that I should be debarred from so doing? And you. I should have liked to constitute you heiress, so that, on your marriage, you would have carried this place to your husband. But it cannot be. This Beaudessart cub intervenes. When I depart this life you will have to pack your portmanteaus and turn out. It is atrocious, inhuman, unchristian."

      "But, papa, it is we who are the interlopers. It is the Beaudessarts who have been unjustly treated."

      "Interlopers! Oh, you think that jackanapes is defrauded of his rights by your own father? Is that an opinion a child of mine dares to entertain? There is filial respect, indeed! There is reverence for my grey hairs! Is contrariety a thing bred in these walls? Does a curse rest on Pendabury, that the child there should rise up and call its parent opprobrious names?"

      "Oh, papa, I never did that! If any wrong were committed, it was not by you, but by the old Squire Hector. However, let all that be—I really know nothing of the particulars except what you have divulged. But do consider in what a painful, humiliating position I was placed by your speaking to the young Mr. Beaudessart as you did, and practically turning him out of the house."

      "It was due to your own thoughtlessness."

      "I knew nothing of what you have now told me; if I had I would have hesitated about asking him in."

      "But he was aware, and should not have taken advantage of your ignorance. Enough of this—pour me out some tea. Ha, shrimps! Tea is the only meal at which I care for them, and then—if fresh—I love them."

      Chapter 3

       Table of Contents

      AN ORANGE ENVELOPE

      Sibylla came singing into the dining-room in bounding spirits.

      "Oh, I am hungry! So glad there is cold beef. I must have some beer. I cannot stand your tea slops after a hard day. Papa, congratulate me! I have had the most splendid day in my life; a day to be marked with white chalk, a day never to be forgotten."

      Then ensued an account of how she