The Grey Monk

by T. W. Speight

That might, or might not, have been the case.

It was while Alec was at Harrow that Sir Gilbert married again.

There was no question of sentiment mixed up with his second matrimonial venture, as there had been with his first. It was the simple fact of Miss Delmayne being possessed of a fortune of sixty thousand pounds in her own right that led him to propose to her.

On her part, the lady, who had seen thirty summers, had no illusions. She was perfectly aware for what reason she was being sought, but, all the same, it seemed to her that she would have been very foolish to let slip the chance of becoming Lady Clare, of Withington Chase.

She was a capable, managing woman, who allowed her husband to go and come and do just as he liked, without any repining or questioning on her part—a mode of procedure which just suited the baronet. On the other hand, she tolerated no interference in domestic matters, or the indoor management of the Chase. It may be accounted as a virtue in her that she was no more inclined for an extravagant style of living than was her husband. Still more did this become the case after her three sons were born; indeed, for the sake of their future she began after a time to develop a disposition which, in a person of her social position, might almost be termed penurious.

Lady Clare’s special grievance, and it was one which debarred her from seeking the sympathy of others—the one thorn in her pillow—was the existence of her husband’s eldest son.

In that particular, if in no other, it seemed to her that Providence had dealt hardly with her. No such person ought to have been born; or, if that could not have been avoided, his sojourn in this vale of tears should have been of the briefest. To her it seemed a monstrous thing that anyone other than her own darling Randolph should be the legal heir to his father’s title and estates. More especially hard did it seem to her in view of the fact that a third of the dowry she had brought her husband had gone to clear off certain old mortgages contracted by the preceding baronet, and in so far, might be said to have benefited the estate in perpetuity.

Yet, in the face of this, Randolph, at his father’s death, would only be entitled to a younger son’s share of the baronet’s savings—provided there should be any to divide—both the Hertfordshire and the Yorkshire estates being strictly entailed. Her ladyship felt that she had indeed just cause for repining.

She was coldly gracious to Alec, whenever that young man made his appearance at the Chase, which, as time went on, became less frequently than ever. He felt that he was not wanted at home, that he had now become less to his father even than he had been before, and he knew that his instincts did not deceive him when they told him that in her ladyship he had an enemy whom no efforts on his part would avail to conciliate.

It was as well, perhaps, for more reasons than one, that Lady Clare had no knowledge of the considerable sums disbursed by the baronet from time to time in liquidation of the debts contracted by his spendthrift heir. In those matters Mr. Page, the family solicitor, was the only person taken into Sir Gilbert’s confidence. It was a source of gratification to her ladyship to know that father and son lived on permanently bad terms with each other; and when, after that October night which saw the heir banished from home, her husband told her that Alec had gone abroad, and that they were not likely to be troubled with him or his affairs again for a long time to come, she sincerely rejoiced. Alec was wild and careless of his health, and reckless in many ways. There was no knowing what might come to pass. It no longer seemed to her the foolish daydream she had deemed it heretofore, that she might, perhaps, live to hear her son addressed as Sir Randolph Clare of Withington Chase.