LET us pay another visit, this fine June weather, to the terrace at Egerton Highfield, and see who walks there now, and how that amiable old gentleman, Sir Aymer, is getting on.
It is evening—at least, it is six o'clock, but the sun is still high in the heavens, and the west terrace lies bathed in a glow of warmth and light.
A lady is walking there alone—a small, delicate-looking woman dressed in black, with wonderful cobwebby old lace round her slender throat and wrists, and covering her still dark hair. She wears no speck of colour to relieve the blackness of her rich silk gown or the whiteness of her plain, but pleasant face. This is Lady Anne Egerton, the widow of Sir Aymer's eldest son, and the mother of the heir of Egerton Highfield. She had been a very happy woman during her husband's life, but his death had left her entirely dependent upon Sir Aymer (for she had no fortune of her own); and that her lot thenceforth was not a pleasant one, I think I need scarcely tell you.
She had but one child, a boy, who was about a year older than his unknown cousin Guy. She had had elder children, but they had all died in infancy. Her son, who was named Villiers, was a fine boy, and as like my poor Guy at Ballintra as if they had been twin-brothers; which of course implies that he was very like what his uncle Guy had been at that age; and Sir Aymer's doubtful affection for his heir was not increased by this likeness. Sir Aymer had loved his son Guy as much as a selfish, tyrannical man can be said to love any one; and the very pain it had given him to cast him out of his heart made it disagreeable to be reminded of him perpetually.
Villiers Egerton was a spirited lad, full of promise, clever, manly and affectionate; but it must be confessed that he chafed sorely against his grandfather's unloving despotism. He had now just left Eton, and wanted very much to go at once to college, but Sir Aymer forbad it, saying that he was too young. Then Villiers asked leave to travel, but Sir Aymer would not hear of that, though Lady Anne proposed to go with her son. He desired the boy (as he always called Villiers, to his secret wrath) to remain quietly at home, until it was, in his opinion, time for him to go to Oxford. Against this long residence under the same roof with his grandfather, Villiers chafed sadly, and Lady Anne's gentle face was clouded by anxiety, for every day she feared that an actual quarrel would take place between these two.
Suddenly the concealed door which I have before described, swung open, and Villiers came out, looking flushed and harassed. He had a letter in his hand, and was dressed as if for riding.
"Why, my boy, I thought you were miles away by this time! What has delayed you?"
"I shall not go at all, mamma. Sir Aymer had desired them not to take out any horse to-day without going to him about it!"
"Now, I wonder why?"
"Oh, for no reason, mamma dear, but because he wants to force me to ask leave when I go out to ride. I won't do that—so I shall give up the idea of riding for the present. It would only lead to words, for then he wants to know exactly where I am going; and if I change my mind, and go somewhere else, he suspects a hundred bad reasons for it. But look here, mamma, I have just had a letter from Eustace," (one of Lady Anne's nephews, who had left Eton a little time before Villiers), "and he and one or two others are going for a walking tour in Ireland. They mean to go to the Lakes of Killarney first, and then to the Giant's Causeway, and afterwards to Connemara; and they want me to go with them."
"And you want to go!" she answered, with a sigh. "I don't wonder at it, dear boy; but I do wonder sometimes if I shall ever see you for a month or so, quietly."