“Richard,” said Lord Eskside, “this is not the way to enter upon a subject so important. Let me speak. He knows my way best.”
Richard turned away with a short laugh—not of amusement indeed, but full of that irritated sense of incongruity which gives to anger a kind of fierce amusement of its own. Lord Eskside cleared his throat—he preferred to have the matter in his own hands.
“Friends have told you little,” he said; “but an enemy, Val, the enemy whose daughter you have just told us you want to marry—but that’s neither here nor there—let you know the story. Your father there, Richard Ross, my son, married when he was young and foolish, like you. It was not an equal marriage, and the—lady—took some false notion into her head, I know not what, and left him—taking her two babies with her, as you have heard. These two babies,” said the old lord, once more clearing his throat, “were your brother and you—so much as this you know.”
Here he stopped to take breath; he was gradually growing excited and breathless in spite of himself.
“We could not find you, though we did our best. We spared no trouble, either before you were brought home or after. Now, my boy, think a little. It is a very strange position. You have a brother somewhere in the world—the same flesh and blood, but not like you; a mother——” He instinctively glanced at the woman who sat behind backs, like a marble statue, immovable. The crisis became too painful to them all. There was a stir of excitement when Lord Eskside came to this pause. His wife put her hand on his, grasping it almost angrily in the heat of suspense. Richard Ross began to pace about the room with restless passion.
“Go on, oh, go on!” cried my lady, with a querulous quiver in her voice. I am not sure that the old lord, though so much excited himself, had not a certain pleasure in thus holding them all hanging on his breath.
“In good time—in good time,” he said. “Valentine, it may be a shock to you to find out these relations: it cannot be but a great surprise. You are not prepared for it—your mind is full of other things——”
“For God’s sake, sir,” cried Richard, “do not drive us all mad! Valentine, make up your mind for what you have to hear. Your mother is found——”
“And your brother,” cried Lady Eskside, rushing in unconsciously as the excitement grew to a crisis. “Your brother, too! Oh, my boy, bear up!”
Dick had been standing by, listening with I know not what fire in his heart: he could bear it no longer. The shock and suspense, which were as great to him as to Valentine, had not been broken in his case by any precautions; and it hurt his pride bitterly, on his mother’s account as well as his own, that the knowledge of them should be supposed such a terrible blow to Val. He stepped forth into the middle of the room (his own room, in which they made so little of him), his honest face glowing, his fair, good-humoured brows bent, almost for the first time in his life,—