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 was in at the finish, with its concomitants.
"There were but five at the last," she added. "Joan dropped out very early over some scruple about Ruby. Bless me, Joan, why did you look? If you had not seen the raw, you might have gone on with a safe conscience. Do not pry, and seek to discover what is best not known. Take it for granted that all is well, till you have the contrary forced upon you. That is my doctrine and philosophy."
"Prying—exactly!" said Mr. Frobisher, looking up from his shrimps. "We have had an exemplification of prying here, that I have very properly exposed. Joan, did that cub happen to ask the sizes of the several rooms, so as to enable him to provide carpets? and the height of the windows for the furnishing of curtains?"
"Papa," answered Miss Frobisher, with pain in her face and in her tone, "I take the entire blame upon myself, as I have already assured you; he was most reluctant to intrude, but I insisted. I put it in such a way as to leave him no option but to come here. Sibyll is my witness. Even had I known that he was the man to whom Pendabury must eventually fall, I do not think that such knowledge would have weighed heavily with me. Usually the heir to an estate is not kept at a distance from it, and treated as an enemy by him who is in present enjoyment. If that were the usual condition of affairs, a father would be invariably at daggers drawn with his eldest son."
"Joan, the circumstances in this case are peculiar."
"I know no more of them than what I have just been told. I daresay that I have judged hastily from insufficient acquaintance with the particulars. Let this pass, papa. I had no intention of causing you annoyance, I can well assure you; and no one can regret more than I do that this contretemps has occurred."
"What is all this ruction about?" asked Sibylla, and then, without waiting for an answer, which, a she saw, neither was disposed to give, she went on, "Papa, Joan, who are coming to dinner to-night?"
"The rector and Mrs. Barker, and the young lady who is staying at Westholt,—I forget her name,—Colonel Wood, and Mr. Prendergast."
"Let me see," said the younger girl. "Papa takes in mother Frump; you are led by the rector; Colonel Wood gives his arm to Miss Somebody or other; and I am consigned to Jack Prendergast, the rector's pupil. Thank you. I shall have a headache and not appear."
"But, Sibyll, you must."
"A lively dinner for me, indeed, with that hobble-de-hoy, who can talk of nothing but his dog, and whose notions of sport rise no higher than ratting. Last time I sat by him he took my appetite away, because he would talk of his dog's distemper—and diagnose the disorder minutely. I am tired through hunting; I shall not come down."
"But, Sibyll, indeed you must remember what is due to our guests."
"Other people may be ill when they please, why not I?"
"But, remember, you are the heroine of this day."
"Ah, I forgot! Yes; I shall be down. I'll open Jack Prendergast's dull eyes. Why does he not come out?"
"He has not got a horse."
"But he should have one."
"I suppose he or his father cannot afford it."
"Then I do not see that we have any call to show him civility. A man who does not keep his hunter should know that his level is not ours."
"My dear Sibyll, it is not a note of gentility to have a well-stuffed purse. A man may be nice and yet poor."
"But he is not nice at all. He is not worth the trouble of talking to."
"If he had a horse, he would yarn about that; as he has only a dog, that interests him, and it is your duty to condescend to him, and maintain a doggy conversation."
"I will not trouble myself to discuss what does not interest me, and with a fellow so dull. He is reading with Mr. Barker for the university, and is safe to be plucked. He will disappear and subside into some business or other, and we shall happily see him no more."
The butler entered with a salver, and presented to the squire an orange envelope containing a telegraphic despatch.
Mr. Frobisher dipped his fingers in water, and leisurely wiped them on his napkin. Then be adjusted his pince-nez, and tore open the envelope.
Joan noticed that his face suddenly changed—a shadow fell over it, and it became grey as his hair.
He rose, staggering, to his feet
"Matthews, order Fashion to be saddled and brought round. I must at once to Lichfield."
"Papa, not now!" exclaimed Sibyll. "You will hardly be back for dinner."
"Papa, not Fashion," urged Joan; "he is given to shying. Let Thomas drive you in."
"Bid them saddle Fashion at once," said Mr. Frobisher, putting out his hand, groping for his stick.
"Yes, sir. Is it to be immediately?" asked the butler.
"At once."
"What is the matter, papa?" asked Joan, as soon as the butler had withdrawn. At the same time she found the stick and placed it in her father's hand.
"Matter? You heard. I must go to Lichfield. If I am not back at the time our guests arrive, make my excuses. Say that urgent business has called me away."
"But you must be back," said his youngest daughter. "You must. Who else is to lead in Mrs. Barker?"
"We will settle that," said Joan to her sister; and then to her father, "I wish you would let Thomas drive you over in the dogcart."
"No, no," he answered impatiently. "I shall be there quicker if I ride. Besides, I do not want company of any kind."
"Joy!" exclaimed Sibyll, "Colonel Wood will take Mrs. Barker in, and Jack Prendergast will bring in the young lady, and I shall thrust myself on the left of Colonel Wood—he is a blasé old fool, but amusing, and better company than Jack Prendergast." She hummed a tune. "Joan, what was that tiff about between you and the daddy?" she asked, so soon as her father had left the room.
"It was due to me. I brought in Mr. Beaudessart, and he did not like it."
"What nonsense! Of course, whenever the hunters come this way we must offer them some refreshment. I don't care whether papa growls and grumps—I shall go on doing so."
"It was the name of Beaudessart that ruffled him."
"A man cannot help his name. And Beaudessart is a good name, and is connected with this place."
"That is just it. You see, Sibyll, we are, though papa may not relish the term, yet manifestly and undoubtedly interlopers. This is a Beaudessart house and estate, that has by some irregularity devolved upon us. I do not quite riddle it out, but as far as I can understand, old Mr. Hector Beaudessart passed over his son, and left the place to papa, although no blood relation whatsoever."
"I will get the new County History that is being issued in parts," said Sibyll; "it is in the room, and our parish comes into one of the earlier numbers. It is kept over yonder."
She went to the bookstand, and drew out some paper-covered, octavo-sized parts.
"Here we are, Joan, and here is a view of the house. What do you want? nothing about the parish, and the church, and all that. Here is Pendabury! Listen! 'Pendabury is a noble seat, formerly in the possession of the Beaudessart family; the mansion stands with its back to a red sandstone hill crowned with entrenchments, supposed to have been occupied by the renowned Penda, King of the Mercians.' We don't want all this. Now to the point. 'This beautiful estate and residence was devised by the late Mr. Hector Beaudessart to his wife's son by a former husband, the present much esteemed possessor, Martin Frobisher, Esq.' Well, that is all right! It was left to papa, and here papa and we are. What more would you have?"
"Is there a pedigree of the Beaudessarts in the book?" asked Joan.
"Yes, a long one—generations of them, since the Conquest."
"How does it conclude?"
"Here—'Hector Beaudessart of Pendabury, Esq., J.P., D.L., a former High Sheriff of the County, married, in the first place, Prudence, daughter of Herbert Knight, Esq., and had issue Walter of Montreal, Canada, who married Josephine, daughter of Henry Perleux of Les Rapides, Esq., and has issue, in addition to a daughter, Julia, one son, Hector.'"
"That was the young man who helped me home. Go on, Sibyll."
"'Hector Beaudessart married secondly Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Francis, Esq., and widow of Samuel Frobisher, Esq., and had no issue by his second wife. The estate passed by his will to Martin Frobisher, eldest son of the said Samuel and his wife Elizabeth.'"
"That is our father, and this shows that we are interlopers."
"Interlopers or not, we are jolly comfortable here," said Sibyl!. "A blessed thing that old Hector quarrelled with his son, and left Pendabury to papa. I could kiss the old man for doing so."
"But it was very hard on his son and grandson."
"That is no concern of ours. Old Squire Hector had a right, I suppose, to do with the property as he would."
"As things stand, papa did not relish young Mr. Beaudessart coming to see the place."
"It was natural that the fellow should like to take a peep at what his father lost. Not so bad a lot, Joan, that of the cuckoo. Lucky job for us, anyhow. It is an ill wind that does not blow good to someone. Blessed be the east wind that touched up old Hector's liver when he made his testament."
"But Pendabury is left to our father for his life only."
"What, are not we to be co-heiresses?"
"No."
"I call that mean. I could box old Hector's ears for that."
Sibylla threw the parts of the County History on the carpet.
"Joan," said she, leaning back in the cushioned easy chair, "we shall have rare fun to-morrow. You know there will be a shooting party and a beat of the Bradstreet coverts. We are to lunch in the wood, and then, in the evening, have a dinner. No old fogies and young half-baked lumps of fellows, but really nice people, full—brimming with chaff."
"Yes. I am aware. But, Sibyll, do not leave those numbers of the County History on the floor."
"Why not?"
"Joseph is so thoughtless. When he comes to put coals on the fire he may tread on them as waste paper. Put them back on the stand whence you took them."
"Not I—I am stiff and tired. I will tell Joseph to mind where he treads, and to collect them."
Joan stooped and gathered together half a dozen dispersed separate issues of the volume, and after arranging them in their proper sequence, replaced them on the shelf whence her sister had taken them, in a stand at the farther end of the room.
This done she turned round, and saw something that startled and annoyed her.
"Sibyll, for shame! what are you doing?"
"Only looking at the telegram, Joan. Papa had dropped it under the table."
"Put it down. You have no right whatever to look at it."
"If it had been so particular and private, he would have burnt it or carried it away."
"He was unnerved, and perhaps forgot what he did with it. You have acted very wrongly in touching it."
"I have done more than touch it; I have read it," said Sibyll. "It is from London: 'Willjoens Reef smashed up. J. F. absconded.' J. F. may stand for Uncle James."
At that moment the butler threw open the door and Mr. Frobisher entered in hat, greatcoat, and muffler, and with a whip in one hand.
"Did chance to leave an orange envelope?" he asked." Oh!" Sibyll had hastily laid the telegram on pink paper upon the table. "That is what I want, not the envelope."
He took it up with a hand that shook, as Joan observed
The without giving final instructions to his daughters, he was about to leave, when Joan said—
"Father, you will try to be back in time for dinner."
"If possible—can't say. Very serious news."
Then he left the room.
Joan went to one of the long windows and looked out. Next moment she saw her father ride past.
"I wish," said she, "that he had not decided on Fashion. Papa is much troubled in mind, and should have had a steadier horse to ride." Then, leaving the window, she picked up the telegram envelope and threw it into the fire, saying, "Sibyll, I am vexed with you. You know that you did wrong in reading the telegram."
"I don't care," retorted the younger. "Willjoens Reef smashed up. Dynamite, I suppose. J. F. absconded into space, blown up into the clouds, maybe. But no, dynamite strikes downwards. I wonder if J.F. stands for Uncle James. If so, perhaps this telegram promises us relief from his rather tiresome presence and tedious commercial talk. I loathe all that smacks and savours of trade and money-making. It is vulgar."