"News! ... news!" he muttered apologetically, and clutching at his collar, which seemed to be choking him, "what news--er--I pray you, ma'am?"

"That clew?" she insisted.

"It was very slight," he stammered.

"And it led to naught?"

"Alas!"

Her eagerness vanished. She sank back into her chair and moaned.

"My last hope!" she said dully.

"Nay! nay!" rejoined Master Skyffington quite cheerfully, his courage seemingly having risen with her despair. "We must not be despondent. The n.o.ble Earl of Northallerton hath interested himself of late in the search and ..."

But she shrugged her shoulders, whilst a short, bitter laugh escaped her lips:

"At last?" she said with biting sarcasm. "After twelve years!"

"Nay! but remember, ma'am, that his lordship now is very ill ... and nigh on seventy years old.... Failing your late husband, Master Rowland--whom the Lord hath in His keeping--your eldest son is ... hem ... that is ... by law, ma'am, ... and with all respect due to Sir Marmaduke ... your eldest son is heir to the Earldom."

"And though his lordship hates me, he still prefers that my son should succeed to his t.i.tle, rather than Sir Marmaduke whom he abhors."

But that suggestion was altogether too much for poor Master Skyffington's sense of what was due to so n.o.ble a family, and to its exalted head.

"That is ... er ..." he muttered in supreme discomfort, swallowing great gulps which rose to his throat at this rash and disrespectful speech from the ex-actress. "Family feuds ... hem ... er ... very distressing of a truth ... and ... that is ..."

"I fear me his lordship will be disappointed," she rejoined, quite heedless of the little attorney's perturbation, "and that under these circ.u.mstances Sir Marmaduke will surely succeed."

"I was about to remark," he rejoined, "that now, with my lord's help--his wealth and influence ... now, that is, ... that he has interested himself in the matter ... hem ... we might make fresh inquiries ... that is ... er ..."

"It will be useless, master. I have done all that is humanly possible. I loved my boys dearly--and it was because of my love for them that I placed them under my mother's care.... I loved them, you understand, but I was living in a gay world in London ... my husband was dead ... I could do naught for their comfort.... I thought it would be best for them ..."

It was her turn now to speak humbly, almost apologetically, whilst her eyes sought those of the simple little attorney, trying to read approval in his glance, or at any rate an absence of reproof. He was shaking his head, sighing with visible embarra.s.sment the while. In his innermost soul, he could find no excuse for the frivolous mother, anxious to avoid the responsibilities which the Lord Himself had put upon her: anxious to be rid of her children in order that she might pursue with greater freedom and ease that life of enjoyment and thoughtlessness which she craved.

"My mother was a strange woman," continued Mistress de Chava.s.se earnestly and placing her small white hand on the black sleeve of the attorney, "she cared little enough for me, and not at all for London and for society. She did not understand the many duties that devolve on a woman of fashion.... And I was that in those days! ... twenty years ago!"

"Ah! Truly! truly!" sighed Master Skyffington.

"Mayhap she acted according to her own lights.... After some years she became a convert to that strange new faith ... of the people who call themselves 'Friends' ... who salute no one with the hat, and who talk so strangely, saying: 'thee' and 'thou' even when addressing their betters.

One George Fox had a great hold on her. He was quite a youth then, but she thought him a saint. 'Tis he, methinks, poisoned her mind against me, and caused her to curse me on her deathbed."

She gave a little shudder--of superst.i.tion, perhaps. The maternal curse--she felt--was mayhap bearing fruit after all. Master Skyffington's watery eyes expressed gentle sympathy. His calling had taught him many of the hidden secrets of human nature and of Life: he guessed that the time--if not already here--was nigh at hand, when this unfortunate woman would realize the emptiness of her life, and would begin to reap the bitter harvest of the barren seeds which she had sown.

"Aye! I lay it all at the door of these 'Friends' who turned a mother's heart against her own daughter," continued Mistress de Chava.s.se vehemently. "She never told me that she was sick, sent me neither letter nor message; only after her death a curt note came to me, writ in her hand, entrusted to one of her own co-worshipers, a canting, mouthing creature, who grinned whilst I read the heartless message. My mother had sent her grandchildren away, so she told me in the letter, when she felt that the Lord was calling her to Him. She had placed my boys--my boys, master!--in the care of a trusted 'friend' who would bring them up in the fear of G.o.d, away from the influence of their mother. My boys, master, remember! ... they were to be brought up in ignorance of their name--of the very existence of their mother. The 'friend,' doubtless a fellow Quaker--had agreed to this on my mother's deathbed."

"Hm! 'tis pa.s.sing strange, and pa.s.sing sad," said the attorney, with real sympathy now, for there was a pathetic note of acute sorrow in Mistress de Chava.s.se's voice, "but at the time ... hem ... and with money and influence ... hem ... much might have been done."

"Ah! believe me, master, I did what I could. I was in London then.... I flew to Canterbury where my mother lived.... I found her dead ... and the boys gone ... none of the neighbors could tell me whither.... All they knew was that a woman had been living with my mother of late and had gone away, taking the boys with her.... My boys, master, and no one could tell me whither they had gone! I spent what money I had, and Sir Marmaduke n.o.bly bore his share in the cost of a ceaseless search, as the Earl of Northallerton would do nothing then to help me."

"Pa.s.sing strange ... pa.s.sing sad," murmured Master Skyffington, shaking his head, "but methinks I recollect ... hem ... some six years ago ... a quest which led to a clew ... er ... that is ... two young gentlemen ..."

"Impostors, master," she rejoined, "aye! I have heard of many such since then. At first I used to believe their stories ..."

"At first?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in amazement, "but surely ... hem ... the faces ... your own sons, ma'am ..."

"Ah! the faces!" she said, whilst a blush of embarra.s.sment, even of shame, now suffused her pale cheeks. "I mean ... you understand ... I ... I had not seen my boys since they were babes in arms ... they were ten years old when they were taken away ... but ... but it is nigh on twenty-two years since I have set eyes on their faces. I would not know them, if they pa.s.sed me by."

Tears choked her voice. Shame had added its bitter sting to the agony of her sorrow. Of a truth it was a terrible epilogue of misery, following on a life-story of frivolity and of heartlessness which Mistress de Chava.s.se had almost unconsciously related to the poor ignorant country attorney. Desirous at all costs of retaining her freedom, she had parted from her children with a light heart, glad enough that their grandmother was willing to relieve her of all responsibility. Time slipped by whilst she enjoyed herself, danced and flirted, gambled and played her part in that world of sport and Fashion wherein a mother's heart was an unnecessary commodity. Ten years are a long while in the life of an old woman who lives in a remote country town, and sees Death approaching with slow yet certain stride; but that same decade is but as a fleeting hour to the woman who is young and who lives for the moment.

The boys had been forgotten long ere they disappeared! Forgotten?

perhaps not!--but their memory put away in a hidden cell of the mind where other inconvenient thoughts were stored: only to be released and gazed upon when other more agreeable ones had ceased to fill the brain.

She felt humbled before this simple-minded man, whom she knew she had shocked by the recital of her callousness. With innate gentleness of disposition he tried to hide his feelings and to set aside the subject for the moment.

"Sir Marmaduke was very disinterested, when he aided you in the quest,"

he said meekly, glad to be able to praise one whom he felt it his duty to respect, "for under present circ.u.mstances ... hem! ..."

"I will raise no difficulties in Sir Marmaduke's way," she rejoined, "there is no doubt in my mind that my boys are dead, else I had had news of them ere this."

He looked at her keenly--as keenly as he dared with his mild, blue eyes. It was hard to keep in sympathy with her. Her moods seemed to change as she spoke of her boys and then of Sir Marmaduke. Her last remark seemed to argue that her callousness with regard to her sons had not entirely yielded to softer emotions yet.

"In case of my Lord Northallerton's death," she continued lightly, "I shall not put in a claim on behalf of any son of mine."

"Whereupon--hem Sir Marmaduke as next-of-kin, would have the enjoyment of the revenues--and mayhap would have influence enough then to make good his claim to the t.i.tle before the House of Lords ..."

He checked himself: looked furtively round and added:

"Provided it please G.o.d and my Lord Protector that the House of Lords come back to Westminster by that time."

"I thank you, master," said Mistress de Chava.s.se, rising from her chair, intimating that this interview was now over, "you have told me all that I wish to know. Let me a.s.sure you, that I will not prove ungrateful.

Your services will be amply repaid by whomever succeeds to the t.i.tle and revenues of Northallerton. Did you wish to see Sir Marmaduke?"

"I thank you, mistress, not to-day," replied Master Skyffington somewhat dryly. The lady's promises had not roused his enthusiasm. He would have preferred to see more definite reward for his labors, for he had worked faithfully and was substantially out of pocket in this quest after the two missing young men.

But he was imbued with that deep respect for the family he had served all his life, which no conflict between privilege and people would ever eradicate, and though Mistress de Chava.s.se's origin was of the humblest, she was nevertheless herself now within the magic circle into which Master Skyffington never gazed save with the deepest reverence.

He thought it quite natural that she should dismiss him with a curt and condescending nod, and when she had swept majestically out of the room, he made his way humbly across the hall, then by the garden door out towards the tumble-down barn where he had tethered his old mare.

Master Courage helped him to mount, and he rode away in the direction of the Dover Road, his head bent, his thoughts dwelling in puzzlement and wonder on the strange doings of those whom he still reverently called his betters.

CHAPTER VI

UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE ELMS