CHAPTER V.
Colonel Lenny left his valise in the hall, where, when he rose, it was very visible, a dusty object upon the soft carpet. Lady Markham looked at it with alarm. Did it mean that he intended to stay? Was she to be punished for having received one unsuitable visitor by being forced to be rude to another? She led the way into the drawing-room in great perplexity and trouble. As for Brown and Charles, they both went and looked at the valise with curiosity as a natural phenomenon.
“Is all the beggars coming on visits?” said the footman; “I ain’t agoing to wait on another, not if my wages was doubled.”
“Hold your tongue,” said Brown; “you’ll do what I tell you if you want to go from here with a character. So mind your business, and keep your silly remarks to yourself.”
But when Charles disappeared muttering, Brown turned over the dusty, humble portmanteau with his foot, with serious disgust. “My lady hasn’t the heart to say no to nobody,” he said to himself. He felt perfectly convinced that this miserable representation of a gentleman’s luggage would sooner or later have to be carried up stairs.
The stranger followed Lady Markham into the drawing-room, at which he gazed with wonder and admiration. “This is something like a house,” he said. “Little we thought when I used to know Will Markham that he would ever come to this honour and glory. It was in the year—bless me, not any year you can recollect—forty years ago if it is a day. His brothers were living, and he was nearly as poor as the rest of us. I married Katey. He must have spoken of the Gavestons, though he might not mention his old friend Lenny. Ah, well, maybe no—to be sure I am not taking everything into consideration. Did your father ever tell you, my boys, of the West Indies, and the insurrection, and all the stirring times we had there?”
Harry and Roland looked at each other with eyes brightening, yet confused. Papa was not a man who told stories of anything,—and Lady Markham interposed. “I think you must be making a mistake,” she said. “I am sure Sir William has never been in the West Indies. You must be thinking of some one else of the same name.”
The old soldier looked at her with bewildered surprise. “A mistake!” he said. “I make a mistake about Will Markham? I have known all about him, and the name of his place, his family, and all his belongings for the last forty years! Why, I—I am his——” Then he paused and looked at Lady Markham, and added slowly, “One of his very oldest friends, be the other who he may.”
“I beg your pardon,” she said, concealing her embarrassment over the tea-table.
Colonel Lenny was not particularly fond of tea: he would have liked, he thought, something else instead of it, something that foamed and sparkled; yet the tea was better than nothing. He gave her his pardon very easily, not dwelling upon the offence.