“Marry, and I thank you for the proposal with all my heart, madam,” said the Knight. “There are so many noble houses decayed, and so many more in which the exercise and discipline for the training of noble youths is given up and neglected, that I have often feared I must have kept Gil to be young master at home; and I have had too little nurture myself to teach him much, and so he would have been a mere hunting hawking knight of Derbyshire. But in your ladyship’s household, and with the noble young Earl, he will have all, and more than all, the education which I could desire.”
“There shall be no distinction betwixt them, cousin,” said the Countess; “Margaret Stanley’s son shall be as much the object of care to me as my own, since you are kindly disposed to entrust him to my charge.—You look pale, Margaret,” she continued, “and the tear stands in your eye? Do not be so foolish, my love—what I ask is better than you can desire for your boy; for the house of my father, the Duke de la Tremouille, was the most famous school of chivalry in France; nor have I degenerated from him, or suffered any relaxation in that noble discipline which trained young gentlemen to do honour to their race. You can promise your Julian no such advantages, if you train him up a mere home-bred youth.”
“I acknowledge the importance of the favour, madam,” said Lady Peveril, “and must acquiesce in what your ladyship honours us by proposing, and Sir Geoffrey approves of; but Julian is an only child, and——”
“An only son,” said the Countess, “but surely not an only child. You pay too high deference to our masters, the male sex, if you allow Julian to engross all your affection, and spare none for this beautiful girl.”
So saying, she set down Julian, and, taking Alice Bridgenorth on her lap, began to caress her; and there was, notwithstanding her masculine character, something so sweet in the tone of her voice and in the cast of her features, that the child immediately smiled, and replied to her marks of fondness. This mistake embarrassed Lady Peveril exceedingly. Knowing the blunt impetuosity of her husband’s character, his devotion to the memory of the deceased Earl of Derby, and his corresponding veneration for his widow, she was alarmed for the consequences of his hearing the conduct of Bridgenorth that morning, and was particularly desirous that he should not learn it save from herself in private, and after due preparation. But the Countess’s error led to a more precipitate disclosure.
“That pretty girl, madam,” answered Sir Geoffrey, “is none of ours—I wish she were. She belongs to a neighbour hard by—a good man, and, to say truth, a good neighbour—though he was carried off from his allegiance in the late times by a d—d Presbyterian scoundrel, who calls himself a parson, and whom I hope to fetch down from his perch presently, with a wannion to him! He has been cock of the roost long enough.—There are rods in pickle to switch the Geneva cloak with, I can tell the sour-faced rogues that much. But this child is the daughter of Bridgenorth—neighbour Bridgenorth, of Moultrassie Hall.”
“Bridgenorth?” said the Countess; “I thought I had known all the honourable names in Derbyshire—I remember nothing of Bridgenorth.—But stay—was there not a sequestrator and committeeman of that name? Sure, it cannot be he?”
Peveril took some shame to himself, as he replied, “It is the very man whom your ladyship means, and you may conceive the reluctance with which I submitted to receive good offices from one of his kidney; but had I not done so, I should have scarce known how to find a roof to cover Dame Margaret’s head.”
The Countess, as he spoke, raised the child gently from her lap, and placed it upon the carpet, though little Alice showed a disinclination to the change of place, which the lady of Derby and Man would certainly have indulged in a child of patrician descent and loyal parentage.
“I blame you not,” she said; “no one knows what temptation will bring us down to. Yet I did think Peveril of the Peak would have resided in its deepest cavern, sooner than owed an obligation to a regicide.”