CHAPTER XXVIICLEARING SKIES
It was of no use to go to bed. The sun was rising.
Judy, leaving Mike fast asleep, came downstairs, summoned the housekeeper and gave directions for an early and ample breakfast.
Then she went into the library to look after the Leggs.
She found Lamia lying on the sofa with her face buried in the cushions. She lay perfectly still, so that she might be asleep, ashamed or only sulky.
Mrs. Legg lay back in her easy-chair, fast asleep.
John Legg sat in the great leathern armchair, with his hands clasped upon his knees and his chin bent upon his chest; he was awake, as deep sighs showed him to be.
Clay Legg was nowhere to be seen.
Judy was so calm and reassured now that, without once falling into dialect, she addressed herself to the old man.
“Mr. Legg, there have been bedrooms at the disposal of yourself and family all last night. I hope the servant, whose duty it was to do so, has not failed to let you know this or to offer to show you to your apartments?”
“No, madam, thank you. No one has failed to execute your hospitable orders; but who could go to bed in such a night as has been passed? No, madam; just as soon as my wife and daughter are a little rested we shall bid you good-by and take our leave of your hospitable home.”
“I am sorry that such is your resolution; but as soon as Mrs. and Miss Legg shall awaken I hope you will ring a bell and a servant shall show you to your rooms, where, at least, you may have the refreshment of the toilet service before breakfast,” concluded Judy, pleased with her victory over the brogue.
“You are very kind, madam, and we will avail ourselves of your offer,” said John Legg, with a bow.
Judy smiled and left the library.
No sooner had the door closed behind her than Lamia reared her head like a serpent from the sofa and said:
“Well, then, ring the bell now. I am awake, at any rate, and I should like a bath and then breakfast to myroom. I shall not go down to the breakfast table to face a sneering pack of hypocrites.”
John Legg sighed and rang the bell.
The commotion waked up Mrs. Legg, who yawned, rubbed her eyes and looked about her.
“Where are we? What place is this? How came we here?” she muttered.
And then she suddenly recollected the situation and circumstances and added:
“It’s well I’m strong. John Legg, how have you stood it?”
“As well as man could, Julia, I hope. But here is a young woman come to show us to our rooms, where we can wash our faces before breakfast,” he added, as a housemaid appeared at the door.
The three arose and prepared to follow the girl, who led them up the first flight of stairs to one of the best suites of rooms in the house.
When John Legg and Julia Legg had made their simple and hasty toilet, they went downstairs and into the drawing-room, where they found Mr. and Mrs. Randolph Hay, Mr. Will Walling and Dandy Quin awaiting them.
They greeted the party, and then John Legg apologized for the absence of his daughter as best he could.
Judy excused herself for a moment and went out immediately to speak to the housekeeper and order an excellent breakfast sent up to Miss Legg in her room.
Then she returned to her guests and conducted them to the breakfast parlor, where the morning meal was already laid.
After breakfast Mr. and Mrs. Legg took leave, and with old Dandy, who wept at parting with his friends, and with their daughter, closely veiled and silent, left Haymore Hall in a carriage proffered by Ran and drove to Chuxton, where they took the train for London, en route for Medge.
Clay Legg had not been seen since he had fled from before the face of the frenzied Gentleman Geff. He was afterward heard of in Wales, as a hanger-on to his father-in-law, under whose protection his wife and children had lived for some time past.
Michael Man’s good constitution, excellent health and temperate habits were all so much in his favor that in afew days he began to get well, and before the week was out he came downstairs and joined the family at their meals.
The rector came over every day to inquire after Mike and to bring reports of Gentleman Geff, who was at death’s door with brain fever and not expected to recover. Longman, the colossus, was established in the sick-room as his constant attendant. Elspeth remained at the rectory for the present. She would not leave the family under present circumstances. Meanwhile Randolph Hay had given orders to his bailiff, Prowt, to have the gamekeeper’s cottage put in complete repair and refurnished for the Longmans.
Christmas came, and the young couple at the Hall sent invitations to their few intimate friends to come and spend the sacred festival with them. They were loyal to the humblest among these. They really invited not only Mr. and Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Montgomery and Dr. Hobbs, but old Dandy from Medge and Longman and Elspeth from the rectory. Will Walling and Michael Man were still staying in the house.
The young doctor, the rector and his wife and daughter accepted the invitation, but Elspeth and Longman declined it on the ground that she would have to stay at home to mind the baby and he to attend to the sick man; but these were not the only reasons; they both felt that their presence, as even Christmas guests at the Hall, would be a social solecism; for as Elspeth said to her son:
“These generous young people from the woods of a foreign country don’t know what they are a-doing of when they invite you and me to dinner, Samson! It might do well enough in the mines of the backwoods. But here! Why, bless ’em, if they go on in this way not a single soul among the country families will have a thing to do with ’em, if they are the lord and lady of the manor! But they’ll find out better.”
Longman fully agreed with his mother, and so he wrote his excuses for both.
Old Dandy Quin also wrote from Medge and begged to be excused on two pleas: the first that he was not able to make the long journey from one end of England to the other twice in ten days; and the second was that he wanted to eat his Christmas dinner with his new-found relatives. He added the information that he did not mean to carry outhis first intention of buying an annuity with his savings, but that he should go into partnership with his nephew, and that in the spring they should move into a larger house and increase their business.
He concluded with a piece of news that made Ran, Judy and Mike break into one of their shouting Grizzly Gulch laughs.
He wrote that poor Miss Lyddy Legg—and just think of the queenly and beautiful Lamia Leegh being called “poor Miss Lyddy Legg!”—was very broken-hearted, though she need not be, for it was not her fault that she had been taken in by a false marriage; and that everybody was as kind to her as kind could be, and that he himself—Dandy Quin—had so much respect and sympathy for her that he offered to marry her out of hand and make an honest woman of her and leave her all his property at his death! but that the poor, misguided and demented young woman, who did not know what was for her own good, had refused him with scorn and insolence. There!
Think of the vain and haughty Lamia Leegh receiving an offer of marriage from Dandy Quin!
Notwithstanding, or perhaps because of these “regrets,” Mr. and Mrs. Randolph Hay enjoyed their Christmas with the few friends who gathered around them.
In the morning they walked to the village church in company with Will Walling and Mike. They heard a good Christmas sermon from the Rev. Mr. Campbell and listened to some really fine music from the organ and grand anthems from the choristers.
After the service they shook hands with the rector and his wife and daughter and with Elspeth.
Longman was at the rectory keeping guard over the dying man.
That evening Mr. and Mrs. Randolph Hay entertained at dinner the Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell, Mrs. Montgomery, Dr. Hobbs, Mr. Will Walling and Mr. Michael Man. And the festival passed off pleasantly, nor did Judy, nor even Mike, once fall into dialect.
When the Christmas holidays were over, Mr. Will Walling, having seen his friend and client, Mr. Randolph Hay, in quiet and undisputed possession of Haymore, prepared to take leave of the Hall and return to New York.
A few days before his expected departure he called Ran and said:
“Well, what are your plans?”
“We shall not leave Haymore until the spring,” replied Hay.
“Well, give me half an hour in the library alone with you. I have something to talk about.”
Ran followed his guest to the room of books and gave him a chair and took another.
Then, however, instead of seating himself, Mr. Will Walling went to one of the book shelves and took down a large, heavy volume bound in red cloth and gold.
“This,” he said, as he laid it on the table and turned over the leaves, “is the last year’s edition of ‘Burke’s Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland.’”
“Well?” carelessly inquired Ran.
“And this,” continued the lawyer, as he paused at an open page, “is the genealogy of the Hays, of Haymore.”
“Well?” again inquired Ran.
“I want you to look at it with me. I don’t wish to bore you to go over the whole history, with its marriages, births and deaths, but only to notice this fact that runs through the whole, from your first known ancestor, Arthur Hei, who married Edda, a daughter of Seebold, Earl of Northumberland, down to your grandfather, the late squire, who married Gentil, daughter of Pharoah Cooper, of Esling. Moor, Yorkshire.”
“She was a gypsy, and the child of a gypsy,” said Ran.
“Yes; still she is set down here as the daughter of a certain somebody. All your ‘forebyes’ have married the daughters of certain somebodies, from dukes down to gypsies.”
“Well, but what does all this talk tend to?” demanded Ran.
“To this: It is too late for your name as Squire of Haymore to appear in this year’s edition of the ‘Landed Gentry’; the volume is probably already issued. But before long theHerald Collegewill be getting up next year’s edition, and you will receive letters or messengers inquiring for authentic statistics concerning your succession, marriage and so on.”
“Well, they can have them,” said Ran indifferently.
“Yes, but I am afraid there will be some awkwardness for you on one point.”
“Which point?”
“That of your marriage.”
“How should that be?”
“Why, in this way—listen. The items of entry in your case will be something like this:
“‘Hay, Randolph; born July 15, 184—; succeeded his grandfather as tenth squire, March 1, 186—,’ (for you know that your succession will date from the day of his death); ‘married December 2, 186—, Judith, daughter of ——’ Whom? There’s where the awkwardness would come in.”
“I would say simply—Judith Man,” replied Ran Hay.
“Very well—Judith Man, daughter of—whom? TheHerald’s Collegeare very precise in these matters. You will have to find a father for her.”
“Mr. Walling! If you were not my friend and my guest, I should be very angry with you. My sweet wife is a child of the Heavenly Father! but for an earthly parent of either sex I do not know where to look.”
“Look here then, Hay, to me. I didn’t mention the difficulty without having a remedy for it. I am a childless widower, as you know. And though it would be straining a point of probability to represent a man of thirty-seven as the lawful father of a woman of nineteen, still I would like to adopt your wife as my daughter, that she may be entered in the Red Book as Judith, daughter of William Walling, Esq., attorney-at-law, New York City. Come, Hay, my friend, you know I mean the best by you and by her. Now what do you say to accepting me as your father-in-law?” inquired Will Walling, with a laugh.
Randolph Hay paused before he replied. He was more pained than pleased. Yet he appreciated the lawyer’s good intentions, and was grateful for them.
At length he answered:
“I thank you from my heart, Mr. Walling, for your intended kindness; and I feel grieved that I cannot accept your gracious proposal, since not to do so must seem so very ungracious as well as ungrateful to a friend whom I love and esteem as much as I do you. And yet I cannot accept it.”
“But why not?” inquired the lawyer.
“I—do not know. I cannot tell. I have a feeling against it which I am unable to define or analyze.”
“But I am not. I know the cause of your reluctance. It is because it would not be strictly true. That is it. You need not answer, Ran, my boy. But you must allow me to tell you that you are a little too scrupulous for a practical world, though I do not like you the less on that account,” said Will Walling, with his usual little laugh.
“And I hope my scruples, as you call them, will not affect our friendship?”
“I have just told you that they will not. There, let the matter drop!” concluded the lawyer.
Judy never heard of the offer Mr. Will Walling had made to adopt her as his daughter for the sake of giving her a good antenuptial position, nor did she ever guess that there would be any awkwardness in the record of her marriage in the Hay, of Haymore, item of “The Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland.” She was not troubled on that subject.
All the affairs of the Hays were so satisfactorily settled now that the young couple were only waiting for the departure of Will Walling to leave Haymore for London, where they might live in retirement in that great city until they should have fitted themselves to mingle with the more critical of their Yorkshire neighbors.
Early in the new year pleasant letters came from America. They were from Cleve and Palma Stuart, and brought news of the change of fortune that would take them to the mountain farm of West Virginia.
Ran and Judy were pleased, yet puzzled.
“I should have thought, if they left New York, they would have gone to that fine plantation in Mississippi,” said Judy.
“So should I, and not to what must be a poor farm on the mountain,” added Ran. And then turning to Walling, he added:
“You see you will have to take the documents, putting Palma in possession of the property I have made over to her, all the way to West Virginia.”
“I will do that with pleasure. I have never yet seen the Alleghany Mountains,” replied Will Walling, who was always ready to travel over any new ground.
It was nearly the first of February that Will Walling at length reluctantly made up his mind to take leave of his friends at Haymore.
In bidding them farewell he said:
“I cannot help regretting that you would not accept me for your father-in-law, Hay.”
Ran only laughed in reply.
“What did he mean by asking you to be his father-in-law?” inquired Judy, after the dogcart that was taking Will Walling to the station had rolled away from the door.
“Oh, only his nonsense. You know, of course, that, as I have no mother nor he any daughter, he could never have been my father-in-law,” replied Ran.
So Judy never suspected how it was.
But before many months Judy and Mike were claimed by a father with a pedigree which the most heathenish worshiper of rank might have been proud to acknowledge.