Part 57 (2/2)
”Why I am returned from a long ride. I have had symptoms of a fit of the gout, and been trying to keep it off by exercise. I have been to a cottage that belongs to me, some miles from the town--a pretty place enough, by the way--you must come and see me there next month. I shall fill the house for a battue! I have some tolerable covers--you are a good shot, I suppose?”
”I have not practised, except with a rifle, for some years.”
”That's a pity; for as I think a week's shooting once a year quite enough, I fear that your visit to me at Fernside may not be sufficiently long to put your hand in.”
”Fernside!”
”Yes; is the name familiar to you?”
”I think I have heard it before. Did your lords.h.i.+p purchase or inherit it?”
”I bought it of my brother-in-law. It belonged to his brother--a gay, wild sort of fellow, who broke his neck over a six-barred gate; through that gate my friend Robert walked the same day into a very fine estate!”
”I have heard so. The late Mr. Beaufort, then, left no children?”
”Yes; two. But they came into the world in the primitive way in which Mr. Owen wishes us all to come--too naturally for the present state of society, and Mr. Owen's parallelogram was not ready for them. By the way, one of them disappeared at Paris;-you never met with him, I suppose?”
”Under what name?”
”Morton.”
”Morton! hem! What Christian name?”
”Philip.”
”Philip! no. But did Mr. Beaufort do nothing for the young men? I think I have heard somewhere that he took compa.s.sion on one of them.”
”Have you? Ah, my brother-in-law is precisely one of those excellent men of whom the world always speaks well. No; he would very willingly have served either or both the boys, but the mother refused all his overtures and went to law, I fancy. The elder of these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds turned out a sad fellow, and the younger,--I don't know exactly where he is, but no doubt with one of his mother's relations. You seem to interest yourself in natural children, my dear Vaudemont?”
”Perhaps you have heard that people have doubted if I were a natural son?”
”Ah! I understand now. But are you going?--I was in hopes you would have turned back my way, and--”
”You are very good; but I have a particular appointment, and I am now too late. Good morning, Lord Lilburne.” Sidney with one of his mother's relations! Returned, perhaps, to the Mortons! How had he never before chanced on a conjecture so probable? He would go at once!--that very night he would go to the house from which he had taken his brother. At least, and at the worst, they might give him some clue.
Buoyed with this hope and this resolve, he rode hastily to H-----, to announce to Simon and f.a.n.n.y that he should not return to them, perhaps, for two or three days. As he entered the suburb, he drew up by the statuary of whom he had purchased his mother's gravestone.
The artist of the melancholy trade was at work in his yard.
”Ho! there!” said Vaudemont, looking over the low railing; ”is the tomb I have ordered nearly finished?”
”Why, sir, as you were so anxious for despatch, and as it would take a long time to get a new one ready, I thought of giving you this, which is finished all but the inscription. It was meant for Miss Deborah Primme; but her nephew and heir called on me yesterday to say, that as the poor lady died worth less by L5,000. than he had expected, he thought a handsome wooden tomb would do as well, if I could get rid of this for him. It is a beauty, sir. It will look so cheerful--”
”Well, that will do: and you can place it now where I told you.”
”In three days, sir.”
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