“I know, I know,” said the man of business, “that’s how one feels. But you can’t, of course. It’s far beyond your hands. And if you throw back your thoughts, it was a great disappointment when this poor boy was born. I felt it for one. I felt for you and Mrs. Parke deeply. It couldn’t have been expected of a man like your brother, an old man who had never thought of marrying. It was a cruel deception. I can suppose that the poor boy had very engaging qualities, but it seemed a cruel business at the time——”
“It did, it did,” said John. “My wife felt it very much. It was she who brought Mary, the present Lady Frogmore, into the family so to speak—and she did feel it perhaps more than she ought.”
“Not more,” said Mr. Blotting; “it was very natural, I’m sure. Well, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, and you will at least get back your rights. What will you do about those houses when they fall in, Parke? Of course you can always command my best advice, but it will make a great difference when I have no authority in the matter, and you are acting altogether for yourself——”
“Don’t speak of it, Blotting. I can’t enter on such a question. So long as there is life there is hope.”
But John Parke would have been more than man if he had not allowed a thought or two to surprise him in this kind. He hated himself, but he could not help it: that all this would be his, absolutely his, which he had been managing for another; that he should be able to act independently, to think of the children’s interests without any responsibility or restraint was a wonderful thought. Poor little Mar! If he could redeem his young life by any sacrifice! But he could not do that. Not all the lands attached to the Frogmore peerage, or all belonging to the British crown, could have any effect upon the disposition of the Supreme Disposer of events. John acquiesced in this certainty with a sigh; and then he thought—how could he help thinking?—of what, when he was a free agent, he would do.
The cottages were a very picturesque group of red roofs and antiquated brickwork, situated picturesquely among a clump of trees. It was a thousand pities to pull them down or do anything to them. They were always the first sketch made by every amateur artist who visited the neighborhood, and they figured two or three times in the Academy every year under the titles of “A picturesque nook,” “The homes of our forefathers,” “A hamlet in Blankshire,” etc. A rumor had been spread about in the neighborhood that the cottages of Westgate were to be destroyed, and naturally the cottagers were up in arms. As Mr. Parke and Mr. Blotting were seen approaching, first one head and then another were seen at the doors, and finally a very old woman, bent half-double with rheumatism, and with a head continually moving with the tremble of palsy, came out from one of the houses and confronted the gentlemen. “You ain’t a-going to do away with the cottages; now don’t ye say so,” she said, following them wherever they went, keeping between them and the houses, as though her feeble guardianship could have done anything. “Oh, dearie, dearie! Gentlemen, don’t meddle with the old places; they’ll tumble soon enough of themselves. Oh, don’t ye touch the cottages, gentlemen!” she said.
“If we do anything to the cottages we’ll build you new ones, and far better than these, with every convenience,” said Mr. Blotting, to whom the picturesque told for nothing, and who would rather have had water laid on than all the red roofs in the world.
“We don’t want no conveniences,” said the old woman. “We ’as what suits us, and we don’t want nothin’ more. And what’s it all for, gentlemen, as you’re a-pulling of us down? Because the young lord drinked a lot of water when he didn’t ought to, when he was all in a sweat with his walk? I told ’im not to, and I’d make him a cup of tea. But the young ones they never pay no attention. And oh, my good gentlemen, what’s all the fuss about the young lord? He was one as was born to die, he was. Does any of our lads die of the water, them as drinks it every day? No, nor lasses either. They’s used to it, and they’s strong and well, and plenty of air all their lives, and nothin’ goes amiss with ’m. But yon young lord he’s as weakly as a lamb in February. Just to look at his long thin legs, and his white face, and you’d see there was nought that was solid in him. Don’t you go and judge what’s good for us by ’im. Why, that one would ne’er have had no strength, not if he’d been born and bred at Westgate. It wasn’t in ’im, and if it hadn’t been one thing it would have been another. He was born to die, was that young lord. There was his mother afore him that was druv crazed by that tother lady as made a fuss about the baby coming. Lord, just think what a woman to have a baby as couldn’t give her answer back, but went mad when she was talked to! I was at the Park at the time. I was in the laundry, and there wasn’t one of us servants that didn’t know.”
“What does she mean?” said John.
“Nothing. I should say,” cried Mr. Blotting. “Come, old lady, you’ve given no reason why we shouldn’t pull down your old rookeries that are full of damp and dirt and the rot and mildew. Why, it would be far more comfortable for yourselves. You would be ten times better.”