CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE DOWAGER'S ALARM.
Again the years went on, bringing not altogether comfort to the house of Hartledon. As Anne's children were born—there were three now—a sort of jealous rivalry seemed to arise between them and the two elder children; and this in spite of Anne's efforts to the contrary. The moving spring was the countess-dowager, who in secret excited the elder children against their little brothers and sister; but so craftily that Anne could produce nothing tangible to remonstrate against. Things would grow tolerably smooth during the old woman's absences; but she took good care not to make those absences lengthened, and then all the ill-nature and rebellion reigned triumphant.
Once only Anne spoke of this, and that was to her father. She hinted at the state of things, and asked his advice. Why did not Val interpose his authority, and forbid the dowager the house, if she could not keep herself from making mischief in it, sensibly asked the Rector. But Anne said neither she nor Val liked to do this. And then the Rector fancied there was some constraint in his daughter's voice, and she was not telling him the whole case unreservedly. He inquired no further, only gave her the best advice in his power: to be watchful, and counteract the dowager's influence, as far as she could; and trust to time; doing her own duty religiously by the children.
What Anne had not mentioned to Dr. Ashton was her husband's conduct in the matter. In that one respect she could read him no better than of old. Devoted to her as he was, as she knew him to be, in the children's petty disputes he invariably took the part of his first wife's—to the glowing satisfaction of the countess-dowager. No matter how glaringly wrong they might be, how tyrannical, Hartledon screened the elder, and—to use the expression of the nurses—snubbed the younger. Kind and good though Lady Hartledon was, she felt it acutely; and, to say the truth, was sorely puzzled and perplexed.
Lord Elster was an ailing child, and Mr. Brook, the apothecary, was always in attendance when they were in London. Lady Hartledon thought the boy's health might have been better left more to nature, but she would not have said so for the world. The dowager, on the contrary, would have preferred that half the metropolitan faculty should see him daily. She had a jealous dread of anything happening to the boy, and Anne's son becoming the heir.
Lord Hartledon was a busy man now, and had a place in the Government—though not as yet in the Cabinet. Whatever his secret care might have been, it was now passive; he was a general favourite, and courted in society. He was still young; the face as genial, the manners as free, the dark-blue eyes as kindly as of yore; eminently attractive in earlier days, he was so still; and his love for his wife amounted to a passion.
At the close of a sharp winter, when they had come up to town in January, that Lord Hartledon might be at his post, and the countess-dowager was inflicting upon them one of her long visits, it happened that Lord Elster seemed very poorly. Mr. Brook was called in, and said he would send a powder. He was called in so often to the boy as to take it quite as a matter of course; and, truth to say, thought the present indisposition nothing but a slight cold.
Late in the evening the two boys happened to be alone in the nursery, the nurse being temporarily absent from it. Edward was now a tall, slender, handsome boy in knickerbockers; Reginald a timid little fellow, several years younger—rendered timid by Edward's perpetual tyranny, which he might not resent. Edward was quiet enough this evening; he felt ill and shivery, and sat close to the fire. Casting his eyes upwards, he espied Mr. Brook's powder on the mantelpiece, with the stereotyped direction—"To be taken at bedtime." It was lying close to the jam-pot, which the head-nurse had put ready. Of course he had the greatest possible horror of medicine, and his busy thoughts began to run upon how he might avoid that detestable powder. The little fellow was sitting on the carpet playing with his bricks. Edward turned his eyes on his brother, and a bright thought occurred to him.