The Master of Greylands. Mrs. Henry Wood
dressed in a rather uncommon kind of overcoat, faced with fur. The face was that of a stranger; but the servant fancied it was a face he had seen before.
"Is my uncle Peter at home?"
"Sir!" returned the servant, staring at him. For the only nephew the banker possessed, so far as he knew, was the son of the Master of Greylands. "What name did you please to ask for, sir?"
"Mr. Peter Castlemaine. This is his residence I am told."
"Yes, sir, it is."
"Can I see him? Is he at home?"
"He is at home, in his private room, sir; I fancy he is busy. I'll ask if you can see him. What name shall I say, sir?"
"You can take my card in. And please say to your master that if he is busy, I can wait."
The man glanced at the card as he knocked at the door of the private room, and read the name: "Anthony Castlemaine."
"It must be a nephew from over the sea," he shrewdly thought: "he looks foreign. Perhaps a son of that lost Basil."
We have seen that Thomas Hill took in the card and the message to his master. He came back, saying the gentleman was to wait; Mr. Peter Castlemaine would see him in a quarter of an hour. So the servant, beguiled by the family name, thought he should do right to conduct the stranger upstairs to the presence of Miss Castlemaine, and said so, while helping him to take off his overcoat.
"Shall I say any name, sir?" asked the man, as he laid his hand on the handle of the drawing-room door.
"Mr. Anthony Castlemaine."
Mary Ursula was alone. She sat near the fire doing nothing, and very happy in her idleness, for her thoughts were buried in the pleasures of the past gay night; a smile was on her face. When the announcement was made, she rose in great surprise to confront the visitor. The servant shut the door, and Anthony came forward.
He did not commit a similar breach of good manners to the one of the previous day; the results of that had shown him that fair stranger cousins may not be indiscriminately saluted with kisses in England. He bowed, and held out his hand with a frank smile. Mary Ursula did not take it: she was utterly puzzled, and stood gazing at him. The likeness in his face to her father's family struck her forcibly. It must be premised that she did not yet know anything about Anthony, or that any such person had made his appearance in England. Anthony waited for her to speak.
"If I understood the name aright--Anthony Castlemaine--you must be, I presume, some relative of my late grandfather's, sir?" she said at length.
He introduced himself fully then; who he was, and all about it. Mary Ursula met his hand cordially. She never doubted him or his identity for a moment. She had the gift of reading countenances; and she took to the pleasant, honest face at once, so like the Castlemaines in features, but with a more open expression.
"I am sure you are my cousin," she said, in cordial welcome. "I think I should have known you for a Castlemaine had I seen your face in a crowd."
"I see, myself, how like I am to the Castlemaines, especially to my father and grandfather: though unfortunately I have not inherited their height and strength," he added, with a slight laugh. "My mother was small and slight: I take after her."
"And my poor uncle Basil is dead!"
"Alas, yes! Only a few weeks ago. These black clothes that I wear are in memorial of him."
"I never saw him," said Miss Castlemaine, gazing at the familiar--for indeed it seemed familiar--face before her, and tracing out its features. "But I have heard say my uncle Basil was just the image of his father."
"And he was," said Anthony. "When I saw the picture of my grandfather yesterday at Greylands' Rest, I thought it was my father's hanging there."
It was a long while since Miss Castlemaine had met with anyone she liked so well at a first interview as this young man; and the quarter of an hour passed quickly. At its end the servant again appeared, saying his master would see him in his private room. So he took leave of Mary Ursula, and was conducted to it.
But, as it seemed, Mr. Peter Castlemaine did not wait to receive him: for almost immediately he presented himself before his daughter.
"This person has been with you, I find, Mary Ursula! Very wrong of Stephen to have brought him up here! I wonder what possessed him to do it?"
"I am glad he did bring him, papa," was her impulsive answer. "You have no idea what a sensible, pleasant young man he is. I could almost wish he were more even than a cousin--a brother."
"Why, my dear, you must be dreaming!" cried the banker, after a pause of astonishment. "Cousin!--brother! It does not do to take strange people on trust in this way. The man may be, and I dare say is, an adventurer," he continued, testily: "no more related to the Castlemaines than I am related to the King of England."
She laughed. "You may take him upon trust, papa, without doubt or fear. He is a Castlemaine all over, save in the height. The likeness to grandpapa is wonderful; it is so even to you and to uncle James. But he says he has all needful credential proofs with him."
The banker, who was then looking from the window, stood fingering the bunch of seals that hung from his long and massive watch-chain, his habit sometimes when in deep thought. Self-interest sways us all. The young man was no doubt the individual he purported to be: but if he were going to put in a vexatious claim to Greylands' Rest, and so upset James, the banker might get no loan from him. He turned to his daughter.
"You believe, then, my dear, that he is really what he makes himself out to be--Basil's son?"
"Papa, I think there is no question of it. I feel sure there can be none. Rely upon it, the young man is not one who would lay himself out to deceive, or to countenance deception: he is evidently honest and open as the day. I scarcely ever saw so true a face."
"Well, I am very sorry," returned the banker. "It may bring a great deal of trouble upon James."
"In what way can it bring him trouble, papa?" questioned Mary Ursula, in surprise.
"This young man--as I am informed--has come over to put in a claim to Greylands' Rest."
"To Greylands' Rest!" she repeated. "But that is my uncle James's! How can anyone else claim it?"
"People may put in a claim to it; there's no law against that; as I fear this young man means to do," replied the banker, taking thought and time over his answer. "He may cost James no end of bother and expense."
"But, papa--I think indeed you must be misinformed. I feel sure this young man is not one who would attempt to claim anything that is not his own."
"But if he supposes it to be his own?"
"What, Greylands' Rest his? How can that be?"
"My dear child, as yet I know almost nothing. Nothing but a few words that Mrs. Castlemaine said to me last night."
"But why should he take up such a notion, papa?" she asked, in surprise.
"From his father, I suppose. I know Basil as much believed Greylands' Rest would descend to him as he believed In his Bible. However, I must go down and see this young man."
As soon as Peter Castlemaine entered his private room, and let his eyes rest on the face of the young man who met him so frankly, he saw the great likeness to the Castlemaines. That it was really his nephew, Basil's son, he had entertained little doubt of from the first; none, since the recent short interview with his daughter. With this conviction on his mind, it never would have occurred to him to deny or cast doubts on the young man's identity, and he accepted it at once. But though he called him "Anthony," or "Anthony Castlemaine"--and now and then by mistake "Basil"--he did not show any mark of gratification or affection, but was distant and cold; and thought it very inconvenient and ill-judged of Basil's son to be bringing trouble on James. Taking his place in his handsome chair, turned sideways to the closed desk, he faced the young man seated before him.