"I'll see if I can fetch you home again. Petre Ravenshoe, in 1778, married a milkmaid. She remembered the duties of her position so far as to conveniently die before any of the family knew what a fool he had made of himself; but so far forgot them as to give birth to a boy, who lived to be one of the best shots, and one of the jolliest old cocks I ever saw—Old James, the Ravenshoe keeper. Now, my dearly beloved grandmother Ascot is, at this present speaking, no less than eighty-six years old, and so, at the time of the occurrence, was a remarkably shrewd girl of ten. It appears that Petre Ravenshoe, sneaking away here and there with his pretty Protestant wife, out of the way of the priests, and finding life unendurable, not having had a single chance to confess his sins for two long years, came to the good-natured Sir Cingle Headstall, grandmamma's papa, and opened his griefs, trying to persuade him to break the matter to that fox-hunting old Turk of a father of his, Howard. Sir Cingle was too cowardly to face the old man for a time; and before the pair of them could summon courage to speak, the poor young thing died at Manger Hall, where they had been staying with the Headstalls some months. This solved the difficulty, and nothing was said about the matter. Petre went home. They had heard reports about his living with a woman and having had a baby born. They asked very few questions about the child or his mother, and of course it was all forgotten conveniently, long before his marriage with my grandaunt, Lady Alicia Staunton, came on the tapis, which took place in 1782, when grandma was fourteen years of age. Now grandma had, as a girl of ten, heard this marriage of Petre Ravenshoe with Maria Dawson discussed in her presence, from every point of view, by her father and Petre. Night and morning, at bed-time, at meal-times, sober, and very frequently drunk. She had heard every possible particular. When she heard of his second marriage (my mouth is as dry as dust with this talking; ring the bell, and send your maid down for some claret and water)—when she heard of his second marriage, she never dreamt of saying anything, of course—a chit of fourteen, with a great liability to having her ears boxed. So she held her tongue. When, afterwards, my grandfather made love to her, she held it the tighter, for my grandaunt's sake, of whom she was fond. Petre, after a time, had the boy James home to Ravenshoe, and kept him about his own person. He made him his gamekeeper, treated him with marked favour, and so on; but the whole thing was a sort of misprision of felony, and poor silly old grandma was a party to it."
"You are telling this very well, Ascot," said Adelaide. "I will, as a reward, go so far out of my usual habits as to mix you some claret and water. I am not going to be tender, you know; but I'll do so much. Now that's a dear, good fellow; go on."
"Now comes something unimportant, but inexplicable. Old Lady Hainault knew it, and held her tongue. How or why is a mystery we cannot fathom, and don't want to. Grandma says that she would have married Petre herself, and that her hatred for grandma came from the belief that grandma could have stopped the marriage with my grandaunt by speaking. After it was over, she thinks that Lady Hainault had sufficient love left for Petre to hold her tongue. But this is nothing to the purpose. This James, the real heir of Ravenshoe, married an English girl, a daughter of a steward on one of our Irish estates, who had been born in Ireland, and was called Nora. She was, you see, Irish enough at heart; for she committed the bull of changing her own child, poor dear Charles, the real heir, for his youngest cousin, William, by way of bettering his position, and then confessed the whole matter to the priest. Now this new discovery would blow the honest priest's boat out of the water; but——"
"Yes!"
"Why, grandma can't, for the life of her, remember where they were married. She is certain that it was in the north of Hampshire, she says. Why or wherefore, she can't say. She says they resided the necessary time, and were married by license. She says she is sure of it, because she heard him, more than once, say to her father that he had been so careful of poor Maria's honour, that he sent her from Ravenshoe to the house of the clergyman who married them, who was a friend of his; farther than this she knows nothing."
"Hence the advertisement, then. But why was it not inserted before?"
"Why, it appears that, when the whole esclandre took place, and when you, my Lady Ascot, jilted the poor fellow for a man who is not worth his little finger, she communicated with Lord Saltire at once, and the result was, that she began advertising in so mysterious a manner that the advertisement was wholly unintelligible. It appears that she and Lord Saltire agreed not to disturb Cuthbert till they were perfectly sure of everything. But, now he is dead, Lord Saltire has insisted on instantly advertising in a sensible way. So you see his advertisement appears actually in the same paper which contains Cuthbert's death, the news of which William got the night before last by telegraph."
"William, eh? How does he like the cup being dashed from his lips like this?"
Lord Ascot laughed. "That ex-groom is a born fool, Lady Ascot. He loves his foster-brother better than nine thousand a year, Lady Ascot. He is going to start to Varna, and hunt him through the army and bring him back."
"It is incredible," said Adelaide.