After this, John Scott spent all his holidays at Lone, and much of them in the society of the handsome shepherdess. His attentions in that direction were regarded with strong disapproval by his father"s tenantry, but it was not their place to censure their supposed "young lord," and so they only expressed their sentiments with grave shaking of their heads.
During the progress of the work, the ducal family never came to Lone, so that the tenantry there were never set right as to the ident.i.ty of John Scott.
Only once the duke made a visit, to inspect the progress of the workmen.
He stopped at the Hereward Arms, and there heard nothing of the pranks of John Scott, although, upon one occasion, he came very near doing so.
The landlord respectfully inquired if they should have the young marquis up there as usual.
The duke stared for a moment, and then answered:
"You are mistaken. Arondelle does not come up here. Whatever are you thinking of, my man?"
The host said he was mistaken, that was all, and so got himself out of his dilemma the best way he could, and took the first opportunity to warn all his dependents and followers that they were not to "blow" on the young marquis.
"He was an unco wild lad, nae doobt, but his feyther kenned naething about his pranks, and sae the least said, sunest mended," said the landlord.
And thus, by the pranks of his "double," the reputation of the excellent young Marquis of Arondelle suffered among his own people.
CHAPTER XLIV.
RETRIBUTION.
But a crisis was at hand.
The debts of John Scott increased every year, while the ready means of the Duke of Hereward diminished--everything being engulfed by the Lone restoration maelstrom.
The guardian determined to expostulate with his ward.
He went down to Oxford just before the close of the term. He found his ward established in elegant and luxurious apartments, quite fit for a royal prince, and very much more ostentatious than the unpretending chambers occupied by the young Marquis of Arondelle at Cambridge, and ridiculously extravagant for a young man of limited income and no expectations like John Scott.
The duke was excessively provoked; the forbearance of years gave way; the bottled-up indignation burst forth, and the guardian gave his ward what in boyish parlance is called, "an awful rowing."
"You live, sir, at twenty times the rate, your debts are twenty times as large, you cost me twenty times as much as does Lord Arondelle, my own son and heir!" concluded the duke, in a final burst of anger.
John Scott had listened grimly enough to the opening exordium, but when the last sentence broke from the duke"s lips, the young man grew pale as death, while his compressed lips, contracted brow, and gleaming blue eyes alone expressed the fury that raged in his bosom.
He answered very quietly:
"Your grace means that I cost you twenty times as much as does your younger son, Lord Archibald Scott, as it is natural that I should being the elder son and the heir of the dukedom."
To portray the duke"s thoughts, feelings or looks during his deliberate speech would be simply impossible. He sat staring at the speaker, with gradually paling cheeks and widening eyes, until the quiet voice ceased, when he faltered forth:
"What in Heaven"s name do you mean?"
"I should think your grace should know right well what I have known for years, and can never for a moment forget, though your grace may effect to do so--that I am your eldest son, the son of your first marriage, with the daughter of the Baron de la Motte, and therefore that I, and not my younger half brother, by your second marriage, am the right Marquis of Arondelle, and the heir of the Dukedom of Hereward," calmly replied the young man, with all the confidence an a.s.sured conviction gave.
The duke sank back in his seat and covered his face with his hands.
However John Scott had made the discovery, it was absolutely certain that he knew the whole secret of his parentage.
"What authority have you for making so strange an a.s.sertion?" at length inquired the duke.
"The authority of recorded truth," replied the young man, emphatically.
"But does your grace really suppose that such a secret could be kept from me? My dear, lost mother never revealed it to me by her words, but she unconsciously revealed enough to me by her actions to excite my suspicions, and set me on the right track. The records did the rest, and put me in possession of the whole truth."
"What records have you examined?" inquired the duke, in a low voice.
"First and last, in Italy and France, I have examined the registers of your marriage with my mother, and of my own birth and baptism; and in England, Burke"s Peerage. All these as well as other well-known facts, As easily proved as if they were recorded, establish my rights as your son--your eldest son and _heir_."
"As my son, but not as my heir, for your most unhappy mother--"
"STOP!!" suddenly exclaimed the young man, while his blue eyes blazed with a dangerous fire. "I warn you, Duke of Hereward, that you must not breathe one word reflecting in the least degree on my dear, injured mother"s name. You have wronged her enough, Heaven knows! and I, her son, tell you so. Yes! from the beginning to end, you have wronged her grievously, unpardonably. First of all, in marrying her at all, when you must have seen--you could not have failed to see--that she, gentle and helpless creature that she was, was _forced_ by her parents to give you her hand, when her broken heart was not hers to give! And, secondly, when she discovered that the lover (to whom she had been sacredly married by the church, though it seems not lawfully married by the state,) and whom she had supposed to be dead, was really living; and when she took the only course a pure and sensitive woman could take, and withdrew herself from you both, _writing to you her reasons for doing so_, and expressing her wish to live apart a quiet, single, blameless life, you did not wait, you did not investigate, but, with indecent haste, you so hurried through with your divorce, and hurried into your second marriage, as to brand my mother with undeserved infamy, and delegalized her son and yours before his birth."
"Heaven help me," moaned the Duke of Hereward, covering his face with his hands.
"You have done us both this infinite wrong, and you cannot undo it now.
I know that you cannot, for I have taken the pains to seek legal advice, and I have been a.s.sured that you cannot rectify this wrong. But--use my injured mother"s sacred name with reverence, Duke of Hereward, I warn you!--"
"Heaven knows I would use it in no other way! I loved your mother. She and you were not the only sufferers in my domestic tragedy. Her loss nearly killed me with grief even when I thought her unworthy. The discovery of the great wrong I did her has nearly crazed me with remorse since that."
"Then do not grudge her son the small share you allow him of that vast inheritance which should have been his, had you not unjustly deprived him of it."
"I will not. Your debts shall be paid."
"And do not upbraid me by drawing any more invidious comparisons between me and one who holds my rightful place."
"I will not--I will not. John we understand each other now. Your manner has not been the most filial toward me, but I will not reproach you for that. You say that I have wronged you; and you know that wrong can never be righted in this world. "If I were to give my body to be burned," it could not benefit you in the least toward recovering your position; but I will do all I can. I will sell Greencombe, which is my own entailed property, and I will place the money with my banker, Levison, to your account. I have a pleasant little shooting-box at the foot of Ben Lone.
We never go to it. You must have the run of it during the vacations. When you are ready for your commission I will find you one in a good regiment.
In return I have one request to make you. For Heaven"s sake avoid meeting the d.u.c.h.ess or her family. Do this for the sake of peace. I hope now that we _do_ understand each other?" said the duke with emotion.
"We do," said the young man, his better spirit getting the ascendency for a few moments. "We do; and I beg your pardon, my father, for the hasty, unfilial words I have spoken."
"I can make every allowance, for you, John. I can comprehend how you must often feel that you are only your mother"s son," answered the duke, grasping the hand that his son had offered.
So the interview that had threatened to end in a rupture between guardian and ward terminated amicably.
John Scott"s debts were once more paid, his pockets were once more filled, and he left for Scotland to spend his vacation at the hunting-box under Ben Lone, in the neighborhood made attractive to him, not by black c.o.c.k or red deer, but by the presence of his handsome shepherdess.
The duke sold Greencombe, and placed the purchase-money in the hands of Sir Lemuel Levison and Co., Bankers, Lombard Street, London, to be invested for the benefit of his ward, John Scott.
The unhappy duke did this at the very time when he was so pressed for money to carry on the great work at Lone, as to be compelled to borrow from the Jews at an enormous interest, mortgaging his estate, Hereward Hold, in security.
And John Scott, with an ample income, and without any restraint, took leave of his good angel and started on the road to ruin.
Meanwhile, the great works at Lone were completed and the ducal family took possession, and commenced their short and glorious reign there by a series of splendid entertainments given in honor of the coming of age of the heir.