“But he got on very well with his first wife, didn’t he?� asked Mrs. Blair, with all a woman’s curiosity.
“O Lord, yes! She worshipped the ground he trod on. It’s the most curious thing, the way human affairs always go contrary. Skelton, although he is a rich man, was disinterestedly loved, because his fortune was nothing to his wife’s—and he had no rank to give her. But she was an Honourable in her own right. And, stranger still, I believe he was disinterested in marrying her. I always said he did it to spite her family. She had a lot of toploftical relations—she was related to half the peerage and all the baronetage—and they got to hectoring her about Skelton’s attentions, when I do assure you, madam, I don’t think he had any notion of falling in love with her. They tried to hector Skelton. Great powers of heaven! You can just imagine how the scheme worked, or rather how it didn’t work!� Here Bulstrode winked portentously. “The lady was her own mistress and could control every stiver of her money, and one fine morning she walked off to church and married Skelton without any marriage settlement! When it was done and over, the great folks wanted to make friends with him, but Skelton wouldn’t have it at all. He held his own with the best of ’em. One secret of Skelton’s power is that he don’t give a damn for anybody. Skelton’s a gentleman, you know. Then the poor young woman was taken ill, and her relations got to bothering her with letters about what she was going to do with her money. Mrs. Skelton used to try and talk to Skelton about it—I was with him then—but he would get up and go out of the room when she mentioned the subject. He’s a very delicate-minded man where money is concerned. And then she sent for her lawyers, and they made her a will, madam, which she signed, after having made some alterations in it with her own hand. And such a will as it turned out to be! Lord, Lord, Lord!�
Bulstrode rose and walked about the room excitedly. Mrs. Blair watched him breathlessly. Blair had stopped his play with Hilary, and was listening with all his ears. When the string of Bulstrode’s tongue was unloosed he usually stopped at nothing. But now he was restrained. He had gone as far as he dared, but he looked hard at Mrs. Blair, and said:
“You are Skelton’s nearest relative—ain’t you, madam?�
“Yes,� answered Mrs. Blair, in a low voice. “I am his first cousin—and I am the last of my family.�
“Lord, Lord, Lord!� shouted Bulstrode again, then relapsed into silence, and suddenly burst into his great laugh. Mrs. Blair felt uncomfortable and perplexed, and Blair got up and left the room.
Bulstrode said no more of Skelton, and went back to his grievances about the racing, and then took up the Latin grammar again. Mrs. Blair, who had a very just estimate of her own knowledge of Latin, had an inordinately high one of Blair’s acquirements in that respect.
“You know, Mr. Bulstrode,� she said, “Mr. Blair is really a very fine scholar. He was quite a distinguished Latinist when he was at William and Mary.�
Bulstrode sniffed openly at Blair’s scholarship and William and Mary.
“Then he ought to teach your boy, ma’am. I swear, Mrs. Blair, it addles my brain sometimes when I see the beauty and splendour of the passion you women bestow on your husbands and children.�