House, and sent in a card which he had had printed in town. He was shown into a room where the two ladies were waiting for him. They had been some four or five years younger than his father, a fact of which he was not aware, and instead of being elderly women, as he expected, he found by their appearance they were scarcely entering middle age. They were evidently much agitated.
' I have come down without waiting for an invitation,' he said. 'I was anxious to deliver my father's letter to you, or at least a copy of it, as soon as possible. It was written before his death, some eighteen years ago, and was intended for my mother to give to you should she return to England. Its interest to you consists chiefly in the proof of my father's affection for you, and that he felt he could rely on yours for him. I may say that this is a copy, signed as correct by Mr. Tufton. He could not give me the original, as it would be required as an evidence of my father's identity in the application he is about to make for me to be declared heir to the title.'
'Then Gregory has been dead eighteen years!' the elder of the ladies said. 'We have always hoped that he would be alive in one of the colonies, and that sooner or later he would see the advertisement that had been put in the papers.'
'No, madam; he went out to Alexandria with my mother shortly before I was born. He died some three or four years before his brother. It was seldom my mother saw an English paper. Unfortunately, as it turned out, my father had dropped his surname when he accepted a situation, which was a subordinate one, at Alexandria, and his reason for taking it was, that my mother was in weak health and the doctor said it was necessary she should go to a warm climate; therefore had any of her friends seen the advertisement, they would not have known that it applied to her. I myself did not know that my proper name was Hartley until a year back, when I discovered my father's journal at Hebbeh, the place where he was murdered, and then opened the documents that my mother had entrusted to me before her death, with an injunction not to open them until I had ascertained for certain that my father was no longer alive.'
One of the ladies took the letter and opened it. They read it together. 'Poor Gregory !' one said, wiping her eyes, 'we were both fond of him, and certainly would have done all in our power to assist his widow. He was nearer our age than Geoffrey. It was a terrible grief to us when he quarrelled with our father. Of course our sympathies were with Gregory, but we never ventured to say so, and our father never mentioned his name from the day he left the house. Why did not your mother send his letter to us?'
' Because she did not need assistance. She was maintaining herself and me in comfort by teaching music, French, and English to the wives and children of several of the high Egyptian officials.'
' How long is it since you lost her?'
' More than three years ago. At her death I was fortunate enough to obtain an appointment similar to that my father had, and at the same time a commission in the Egyptian service, and have been fortunate in being two or three times mentioned in dispatches.'
'Yes; curiously enough, after receiving Mr. Tufton's letter we saw Colonel Wingate's dispatch in the paper, in which your name is mentioned. We should have been astonished indeed had we not opened the letter before we looked at the paper. Well, Gregory, we are very glad to see you, and to find that you have done honour to the name. The dispatch said that you have been previously mentioned under the name of Gregory Hilliard. We always file our papers, and we spent an hour after breakfast in going through them. I suppose you threw up your appointment as soon as you discovered that Geoffrey died years ago, and that you had come into the title?'
' I should have thrown it up, but Lord Kitchener was good enough to give me six months' leave, so that if I should fail to prove my right to the title, I could return there and take up my work again. He was so kind as to say that I should be given a responsible position in the civil administration of the Soudan.'
' Well, we both feel very proud of you, and it does sound wonderful that, being under twenty, you should have got on so well, without friends or influence. I hope you intend to stay with us until you have to go up to London about these affairs.'
' I shall be very happy to stay a few days, Aunt, but it is better that I should be on the spot, as there may be questions that have to be answered, and signatures, and all sorts of things. I have brought my Arab servant down with me. He has been with me for three years, and is most faithful and devoted, and moreover he once saved my life at tremendous risk to himself.'
' Oh, of course we can put him up! Can he speak English?'
'He speaks a little English, and is improving fast.'
'Does he dress as a native?'
'No, Aunt; he would soon freeze to death in his native garb. As soon as I got down to Cairo with him I put him into good European clothes. He is a fine specimen of a Soudan Arab, but when he came to me he was somewhat weakly; however, he soon got over that.'
' Where is he now?'
' He is with the trap outside. I told him that he had better not come in until I had seen you, for I thought that your domestics would not know what to do with him till they had your orders.'
' You brought your portmanteau with you, I hope ?'
' I have brought it, but not knowing whether it would be wanted, for I did not know whether you would take sufficiently to me to ask me to stay.'
' The idea of such a thing! You must have had a bad opinion of us.'
'No, Aunt; I had the best of opinions. I am sure that my father would not have written as he did to you unless he had been very fond of you; still, as at present I am not proved to be your nephew, I thought that you might not be disposed to ask me to stay. Now, with your permission I will go and tell Zaki—that is the man's name—to bring in my portmanteau; I can then send the trap back.'
' Do you know, Gregory,' one of his aunts said that evening, ' even putting aside the fact that you are our nephew, we are delighted that the title and estates are not to go to the next heir. He came down here about a year ago, his regiment had just returned from the Soudan. He drove straight to the hall and requested to be shown over it, saying that in a short time he was going to take possession. The housekeeper came across here quite in distress, and said that he talked as if he were already master; said he should make alterations in one place, enlarge the drawing-room, build a conservatory against it, do away with some of the pictures on the walls, and in fact he made himself very objectionable. He came on here, and behaved in a most offensive and ungentlemanly way. He actually enquired of us whether we were tenants by right or merely on sufferance. I told him that if he wanted to know he had better enquire of Mr. Tufton; and Flossie, who is more outspoken than I am, said at once that whether we were tenants for life or not, we should certainly not continue to reside here if so objectionable a person were master at the hall. He was very angry, but I cut him short by saying, 'This is our house at present, sir, and unless you leave it at once I shall call the gardener in and order him to eject you'.'
' I am not surprised at what you say, Aunt, for I met the fellow myself on the way up to Omdurman, and found him an offensive cad. It has been a great satisfaction to me to know that he was so, for if he had been a nice fellow I could not have helped being sorry to deprive him of the title and estates which he has for years considered to be his.'
After remaining four days at the Manor House, Gregory went back to town. A notice had already been served upon the former claimant to the title that an application would be made to the court to hear the claim of Gregory Hilliard Hartley, nephew of the late Marquis, to be acknowledged as his successor to the title and estates, and that if he wished to appear by counsel he could do so. The matter was not heard of for another three months. Lieutenant Hartley was in court, and was represented by a queen's counsel of eminence, who, however, when Gregory's narrative had been told, and the various documents put in, at once stated that after the evidence he had heard, he felt that it would be vain to contest the case at this point, but that he reserved the right of appealing should anything come to light which would alter the complexion of the affair.
The judgment was that Gregory Hilliard Hartley had proved himself to be the son of the late Gregory Hilliard Hartley, brother of and heir to the late Marquis of Langdale, and was therefore seized of the title and estates. As soon as the case was decided, Gregory went down again to Devonshire and asked his aunts to take charge for him. This they at first said was impossible, but he urged that if they refused to do so he should be driven to go back to the Soudan again.
'My dear Aunts,' he said, 'what in the world am I to do? I know no one; I know nothing of English customs or society; I should indeed be the most forlorn person in existence, with a large country estate and a mansion in London. I want someone to introduce me into society and set me on my legs, manage me and my house, and preside at my table. I am not yet twenty, and have not as much knowledge of English ways as a boy of ten. I should
