No expense was spared in tutors, and, as each successive one had a horse to ride and a servant to wait on him, and was treated politely by young Skelton as long as he was let alone, the tutors never complained, and old Tom was quite in the dark as to his ward’s real acquirements. Mrs. Shapleigh frequently urged Mr. Shapleigh to go over to Deerchase and demand categorically of Richard Skelton exactly how much Latin and mathematics he knew, but old Tom had tried that caper unsuccessfully several times. He did find out, though—or rather Mrs. Shapleigh found out for him—that Skelton had fallen desperately in love with his cousin, Elizabeth Armistead, who was as poor as a church mouse; and, although Elizabeth was known to have a weakness for Jack Blair, her whole family got after her and bullied her into engaging herself to the handsome stripling at Deerchase. Skelton was then twenty. Elizabeth herself was only seventeen, but seventeen was considered quite old in those days. This affair annoyed Mrs. Shapleigh very much, whose daughter Sylvia, being about ten years old at the time, she looked forward to seeing established as mistress of Deerchase by the time she was eighteen.
“Mr. Shapleigh,� his better half complained, “why don’t you go over to Deerchase and tell Richard Skelton up and down, that if he has fallen in love with Elizabeth Armistead he has got to fall out again?�
“My love, if I wanted him to fall out of love I’d let him get married. There’s no such specific for love as matrimony, madam.�
“It is not, indeed, Mr. Shapleigh,� answered madam, who, though weak in logic was not deficient in spirit, “and I’m sure that’s what my poor dear mother used to tell me when I thought I was in love with you. But just look at those Armisteads! Not a penny among them scarcely, and plotting and planning ever since Richard Skelton was born to get him for Elizabeth!�
“Gadzooks, ma’am, in that case the Armisteads are too clever for all of us, because they must have been planning the match at least three years before Elizabeth was born.�
“Now, Mr. Shapleigh, how silly you talk! Of course they couldn’t have planned it before Elizabeth was born. But it does seem a hard case that Richard Skelton should be carried off right under our noses, and Sylvia here quite ten years old, and I with my heart set on seeing her Mrs. Skelton, of Deerchase. But those Armisteads are a designing pack. You may take my word for it.�
“I do, my life, I do,� cried old Tom with a wink. Meanwhile there was no doubt that young Skelton was indeed violently in love with his cousin Elizabeth. It was his first passion, and he pursued it with an indescribable fierceness. Elizabeth, who had both beauty and spirit, was a little frightened at the intensity of his love and jealousy. She had been engaged to Jack Blair, of Newington, who was accounted a good match and was a gallant, lovable fellow enough, but, dazzled by Skelton’s personality and position and money, and beset by her family, she threw her lover over. They had one last interview, when Blair left her weeping and wringing her hands, while he threw himself on his horse and galloped home with a face as black as midnight.
Elizabeth could not quite forget Blair, and Skelton was too subtle not to see it. He lavished contempt on Blair, calling him a great hulking country squire, who cared for nothing but a screeching run after the hounds or a roaring flirtation with a pretty girl. He quite overlooked a certain quality of attraction about Blair which made women love him, children fondle him, and dogs fawn upon him. Skelton waked up to it, though, one fine morning, when he found that Elizabeth and Blair had decamped during the night and were then on their way to North Carolina to be married.
How Skelton took it nobody knew. He shut himself up in the library at Deerchase, and no one dared to come near him except Bob Skinny, who would tiptoe softly to the door once in a while with a tray and something to eat. There was a feeling in the county as if Abingdon Church had suddenly tumbled down, or the river had all at once turned backwards, when it was known that Richard Skelton had been actually and ignominiously jilted. Mrs. Shapleigh had a good heart, and, in spite of her plans for Sylvia, felt sorry for Skelton.
“Do, Mr. Shapleigh,� she pleaded, “go over and see poor Richard Skelton, and tell him there’s as good fish in the sea as ever were caught.�