CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | ||
| I | LADY SELINA CHANDOS | [9] | |
| II | HENRY GRIMSHAW | [40] | |
| III | CUPID SPEEDS HIS SHAFTS | [66] | |
| IV | CHIEFLY CONCERNING CICELY | [95] | |
| V | TIDDY APPEARS | [127] | |
| VI | GRIMSHAW RETURNS | [156] | |
| VII | TIDDY AND CICELY | [186] | |
| VIII | PEARLS OF DEW | [232] | |
| IX | TIMOTHY FARLEIGH | [239] | |
| X | UNDER THE VILLAGE TREE | [267] | |
| XI | REVOLUTION | [297] | |
| XII | RECONSTRUCTION | [320] | |
[Transcriber’s Notes] can be found at the end of this eBook.
WHITEWASH
CHAPTER I
LADY SELINA CHANDOS
I
Lady Selina laid down her pen—a quill—smiling pensively. Early in life she had been taught to smile by a mother with half a dozen attractive but dowerless daughters, who had smiled themselves obediently into wives and matrons. Critics admitted that the smile had quality. No derision twisted it. Artlessly, with absolute sincerity, Lady Selina scattered her smiles as largesse. Royalties know the value of such smiles, and so do politicians.
Her eyes—blue, heavily-lidded, with arched brows above them—wandered from her desk, the desk of a busy lady of the manor, to the portrait of her late husband which hung above the chimney-piece. Henry Chandos had been her senior by some five and twenty years. During another quarter of a century of tranquil married life Lady Selina had loved, honoured and obeyed him as the dominant partner. A stranger, looking at the portrait, might have guessed that the Squire of Upworthy—if physiognomy is to be trusted (which it isn’t)—was likely to inspire honour and obedience rather than love. An uncompromising chin, a Wellingtonia gigantea nose and steel-grey eyes overhung by beetling brows, bespoke the autocrat. He wore a stained red hunting coat and grasped a hunting horn in his left hand. Hounds came swiftly to the toot of that horn; and eager horsemen, you may be sure, followed at a respectful distance. Henry Chandos never bullied his “field.” He checked “thrusters” with a glance. The wags christened him “Old Gimlets.” And in the County Council, upon the Bench, in and out of his own house, he exercised a gift of silence. His neighbours knew that he took his own line over any country regardless of obstacles. If damage ensued he paid for it generously.
When at work in her sitting-room, Lady Selina was always conscious of her husband’s portrait, sensible that his counterfeit presentment looked down approvingly upon her labours. He, too, had worked hard in this fine room, and since his death the widow had carried on that work along his lines, as, with his last breath, he had entreated her to do.