The Squire burst out into a broken laugh. It would have been more easy to cry, but that does not do for a man. He put his soft old tremulous hand upon the boy’s head. “Little Johnny,” he said, “little Johnny!—that was my little brother’s name, long, long ago.”
“Did he play with you? I wish I had a little brother. I have nothing but girls,” said Nello. “But say you will come to-morrow—do say you will try!”
The Squire gave another look round him. Nobody was there, not a mouse or a bird. He took the child’s head between his trembling hands, and stooped down, and gave him a hasty kiss upon his soft round forehead—“God bless you, little man!” he said, and then turned round defiant, and faced the world—the world of tremulous branches and fluttering leaves, for there was nothing else to spy upon the involuntary blessing and caress. Then he plunged through the very passage in the brushwood where the branches had shaken so strangely—feeling that if it was Randolph he could defy him. What right had Randolph to control his actions? If he chose to acknowledge this child who belonged to him, who was the image of the little Johnny of sixty years ago, what was that to any one? What had Randolph,—Randolph, of all men in the world,—to do with it? He would tell him so to his face if he were there.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE BAMPFYLDES.
The same day on which these incidents occurred the Stanton family were in full conclave at Elfdale. It was the birthday of Laura, and there were various merrymakings on hand, an afternoon party, designed to include all her “young friends,” besides a more select company in the evening. As Laura was the one whom the family intended to be Lady Stanton, her affairs, with the willing consent, and indeed by the active energy of her sister, were generally pushed into the foreground. And Geoff and his mother were the chief of the guests specially invited, the only visitors who were staying in the house.
To say that the family intended Laura to be Lady Stanton is perhaps too wild a statement, though this settlement of conflicting claims had been tacitly decided upon when they were children. It was chiefly Lydia who actively intended it now, moved and backed up by some of the absent brothers, who thought it “hard luck” that the young unnecessary Geoff should have interfered between their father and the title, and vowed by Jove that the only fit thing to do in the circumstances was to marry him to one of the girls. Lydia, however, was the most active mind in the establishment at Elfdale, and carried things her own way, so that though Sir Henry disliked fuss, and disliked Geoff’s mother, who had done him so much wrong, yet the party in the evening had been specially selected to suit her, and Maria, Lady Stanton, was established in the house.
“It can’t last long, papa,” Lydia said; “but we can’t have Geoff without her.”
“What do you want with Geoff?” growled Sir Henry.
“Papa! in the first place he is our cousin; and Laura likes him; and you know we girls must marry somebody. You can’t get commissions and nominations for us, more’s the pity; so we must marry. And Laura may as well have Stanton as any one else, don’t you think? and of course in that case she ought to be on good terms with her mother-in-law; and people expect us—— ”
“Oh, that will do,” said Sir Henry, “ask whom you like, only free me from all this clatter. But keep that woman off me with her sanctified airs, confound her,” said the baronet. He had forgiven Geoff for being born, but he could not forgive Geoff’s mother for bringing him so unnecessarily into the world.