A Crooked Path Part 28

"Do come to the fire, dear Mrs. Liddell; you must be so cold! I have been quite uneasy about you," she exclaimed, effusively.

"Have you had a visitor, Ada?" asked Katherine, whose suspicions were aroused.

"I have, and I want to tell you all about it. I am far too candid to keep anything from those I love. My visitor was Colonel Ormonde. He asked me to marry him, and--and, dear Mrs. Liddell--Katherine--I hope you will not be offended, but I--I said I would," burst forth Mrs.

Frederic; and then she burst into tears.

There was a minute's silence. Katherine flushed crimson, and did not speak, but Mrs. Liddell said, kindly: "My dear Ada, if you think Colonel Ormonde will make you happy and be kind to the boys, you are quite right. I never expected a young creature like you to live alone for the rest of your existence, and I believe Colonel Ormonde is a man of character and position."

"He is indeed," cried Ada, falling on her mother-in-law's neck. "You are the wisest, kindest woman in the world. And you, Katherine?"

"I _do_ hope you will be _very, very_ happy," responded Katherine; "but I must say I think he is rather too old for you. That, however, is your affair."

"Yes, of course it is"--leaving Mrs. Liddell to hug Katherine. "I am quite fond of him; that is, I esteem and like him. Of course I shall never love any one as I did my dear darling Fred; but I do want some one to help me with the boys, and Marmaduke (that's his name) is quite fond of them. So now, dear Mrs. Liddell, I will stay on here till--till I am married, if you don't mind."

"It is the best thing you can do, Ada. I wish we could stay and be present at your marriage."

"But that is impossible," cried Katherine.

"And not at all necessary," added Mrs. Frederic, hastily. "My friend Mrs. Burnett will help me in every way, and I have been trouble enough already."

"I do not think so," said Mrs. Liddell, quietly. "But I am very weary. I will go to my room. Katie dear, bring me some tea presently."

And the widow escaped to rest, perhaps to weep over the bright boy so dear to her, so soon forgotten by the wife of his bosom.

Not many days after, Katherine and her mother set forth upon their travels, leaving nothing they regretted save the two little boys, respecting whose fate Katherine felt anything but satisfied. Of this she said nothing to her mother. And so, with temporary forgetfulness of the deed which was destined to color her whole life, she saw the curtain fall on the first act of her story.

CHAPTER XI.

"A NEW PHASE."

"An interval of three weeks--six months--ten years," as the case may be--"is supposed to have elapsed since the last act." This is a very commonly used expression in play-bills, and there seems no just cause or impediment why a story-teller should not avail himself of the same device to waft the patient reader over an uneventful period, during which the hero or heroine has been granted a "breathing s.p.a.ce" between the ebb and flow of harrowing adventures and moving incidents.

It was, then, more than two years since the last chapter, and a still cold day at the end of February--still and somewhat damp--in one of the midland s.h.i.+res--say Clays.h.i.+re. The dank hedges and sodden fields had a melancholy aspect, which seemed to affect a couple of hors.e.m.e.n who were walking their jaded, much-splashed horses along a narrow road, or rather lane, which led between a stretch of pasture-land on one side and a ploughed field on the other. The red coats and top-boots of both were liberally besprinkled with mud; even their hats had not quite escaped.

Their steeds hung their heads and moved languidly; both horses and riders had evidently had a hard day's work. Presently the road sloped somewhat steeply to a hollow sheltered at one side by a steep bank overgrown with brushwood and large trees. The country behind the huntsmen was rather flat and very open, but from this point it became broken and wooded, sloping gradually up toward a distant range of low blue hills.

"Ha, you blundering idiot!" exclaimed the elder of the two men, pulling up his horse, a powerful roan, as he stumbled at the beginning of the descent. He was a big, heavy man with a red face, thick gray mustache, and small, angry-looking eyes. "He'll break my neck some day."

"Don't take away his character," returned his companion, laughing.

"Remember he has had a hard run, and you are not a feather-weight." The speaker was tall (judging from the length of the well-shaped leg which lay close against his horse's side), large-framed, and bony; his plain strong face was tanned to swarthiness by exposure to wind and weather; moreover, a pair of deep-set dark eyes and long, nearly black mustache showed that he had been no fair, ruddy youth to begin with.

"No, by Jove!" exclaimed the first speaker. "I don't understand how it is that I grow so infernally stout. I am sure I take exercise enough, and live most temperately."

"Exercise! Yes, for five or six months; the rest of the twelve you do nothing. And as to living temperately, what with a solid breakfast, a heavy luncheon, and a serious dinner, you manage to consume a great deal in the twenty-four hours."

"Come, De Burgh! Hang it, I rarely eat lunch."

"Only when you can get it. Say two hundred and ninety times out of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year."

"I admit nothing of the sort. The fact is, what I eat goes into a good skin. Now you might _cram_ the year round and be a bag of bones at the end of it."

"Thank G.o.d for all his mercies," replied De Burgh. "The fact is, you are a spoiled favorite of fortune, and in addition to all the good things you have inherited you pick up a charming wife who spoils you and coddles you in a way to make the mouth of an unfortunate devil like myself water with envy."

"None of that nonsense, De Burgh," complacently. "The heart of a benedict knoweth its own bitterness, though I can't complain much. If you hadn't been the reckless _roue_ you are, you might have been as well off as myself."

De Burgh laughed. "You see, I never cared for domestic bliss. I hate fetters of every description, and I lay the ruin of my morals to the score of that immortal old relative of mine who persists in keeping me out of my heritage. The conviction that you are always sure of an estate, and possibly thirty thousand a year, has a terrible effect on one's character."

"If you had stuck to the Service you'd have been high up by this time, with the reputation you made in the Mutiny time, for you were little more than a boy then."

"Ay, or low down! Not that I should have much to regret if I were. I have had a lot of enjoyment out of life, however, but at present I am coming to the end of my tether. I am afraid I'll have to sell the few acres that are left to me, and if that gets to the Baron's ears, good-by to my chance of his bequeathing me the fortune he has managed to sc.r.a.pe together between windfalls and lucky investments. The late Baroness had a pot of money, you know."

"I know there's not much property to go with the t.i.tle."

"A beggarly five thousand a year. I say, Ormonde, are you disposed for a good thing? Lend me three thousand on good security? Six per cent., old man!"

"I am not so disposed, my dear fellow! I have a wife and my boy to think of now."

"Exactly," returned the other, with a sneer. "You have a new edition of Colonel Ormonde's precious self."

"Oh, your sneers don't touch me! You always had your humors; still I am willing to help a kinsman, and I will give you a chance if you like.

What do you say to a rich young wife--none of your crooked sticks?"

"It's an awful remedy for one's financial disease, to mortgage one's self instead of one's property; still I suppose I'll have to come to it.

Who is the proposed mortgagee?"

"My wife's sister."

"Oh!"

The tone of this "Oh!" was in some unaccountable way offensive to Colonel Ormonde. "Miss Liddell comes of a very good old county family I can tell you," he said, quickly; "a branch of the Somerset Liddells; and when I saw her last she was the making of an uncommon fine woman."

"But your wife was a Mrs. Liddell, was she not?"

"Yes. This girl is her sister-in-law, really, but Mrs. Ormonde looks on her as a sister."

"Hum! She _has_ the cash? I suppose you know all about it?"

"Well, yes, you may be sure of sixty or seventy thousand, which would keep you going till Lord de Burgh joins the majority."

"Yes, that might do; so 'trot her out.'"

"She is coming to stay with us in a week or two, before the hunting is quite over, so you will be down here still."

"I suspect I shall. The lease of the lodge won't be out till next September, and I may as well stay there as anywhere."