BELGRAVIA

NOVEMBER 1875

UNDER LIFE'S KEY

A Story in Two Parts

6

BY MARY CECIL HAY, AUTHOR OF OLD MYDDELTON'S MONEY,'

LEGACY,' ETC.

THE SQUIRE'S

PART I.

CHAPTER I. ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER.

THE boat, with the three young figures in it, glided past just as the Squire and his sister-in-law reached the river bank; and they stood to watch it, he waving his hat-she following the skiff with her eyes, in rather a stern and rigid silence. The Squire was standing out in the June sunshine, his handsome head uncovered; while Miss Macnair stood in the shadow of the limes; and it was plain that her forty years sat more heavily upon her than the Squire's five-andforty sat on him; and that the moody shadow had, by long continuance, become habitual to her grave hard face.

So they stood watching, as the boat passed smoothly and noiselessly on its way. One young man lay idly in the stern, the other rested on his oar, while he tried to teach their companion the skilful management of hers. A turn in the river hid the two groups from each other; then the Squire turned with an inexplicable sigh. Miss Macnair heard it distinctly, and remembered it for a long time.

'Nora Carleton,' she remarked as her brother-in-law joined her, 'has no steadiness of purpose, for I heard her yesterday telling the boys she should never row with them again.'

'She likes to enliven them with such threats as that,' laughed the Squire; by those means (and others) she keeps them in subjection.'

'Her nature is hopelessly unstable, and her manners childish. But,' added Miss Macnair, with slow emphasis, she is still a child, so perhaps we may hope for amendment.'

'She is nineteen, Caroline. How can you call her a child?'

THIRD SERIES, VOL. VIII. F.S. VOL. XXVIII.

B

There was a note of eagerness, even wistfulness, in Mr. Sutton's voice, and his sister-in-law was quick to mark it. Some girls,' she said, with emphasis, are so much younger and less thoughtful for their years than others are. My own dear sister at nineteen was a perfect woman in gravity and stability.'

'She was indeed,' assented the Squire; but he made no effort to enlarge upon the merits of the late Mrs. Sutton.

The beautiful estate of High Sutton had not, so it was whispered, been made a home of unruffled bliss for its master during its late mistress's reign; and though his twin sons had never heard one word of aught save respect uttered either to or of their mother, they were both vaguely conscious that it would take far more even than their aunt's hard and suspicious temper to make High Sutton the unhomelike abode which it must have been in their mother's lifetime. It was perhaps this very consciousness which made Mr. Sutton so gentle in dealing with his second son, who inherited his mother's jealous gloomy temperament. So ever-conscious was he of the misery of it for the young man himself, that it was not in seeming only that he was kinder to the morose and silent lad than to the elder brother (elder only by twenty minutes), who possessed his father's genial nature, and that thorough sincerity which precludes the possibility of suspicion.

But it was not of the Squire's 'twin lads' Miss Macnair was thinking, as she and her brother-in-law strolled away from the river. It was of a theme far more conducive in her mind to uneasy speculation. Unfathomable as are the unuttered thoughts of one's companion, Miss Macnair's might have lain clear as daylight before the Squire, by the utterance of her first remark.

'Nora is reckless, and volatile, and flippant.'.

Sum it up in a word, Caroline,' put in Wynter Sutton pleasantly. Say Nora is Irish.'

6

'I wish she had stayed in Ireland.'

'You do not mean what you say,' was the quiet rejoinder to this unpremeditated flash. 'Nora's mother was the early and constant friend of my wife and yourself. What could you do less than ask her here, and be kind to her, now that she is motherless-like our own lads ?'

'Not much like our own lads,' returned Miss Macnair, pleasantly appropriating the plural pronoun; her father is-why he and Nora are like two senseless children at home at Baggalley, and the whole estate is going to ruin as fast as it can. It never was worth much either. Nora must feel the difference when she is here.'

I hope she does,' said the Squire, while a pleasant light shone in his eyes.

'I mean, of course, in the boys' vacation,' continued Miss Macnair, looking straight on before her; but for my own part I don't like her manner of being so thoroughly at home, even with them.'

'I do. While so young, at any rate, she need not be hemmed round with ceremonious stiffness. I'm sure the boys think of Nora as they would of a pet sister.'

'I don't like it,' exclaimed Miss Macnair, with inexplicable rapidity. They are not brothers and sister, so why should they be

have as such ?'

'Let the subject drop, Caroline,' remarked Mr. Sutton, with a tone of pain in his quiet voice. Nora is your guest here; and a motherless girl, who has not learnt so much perhaps as other girls have learnt we seemed just then to have forgotten that. By the way, it is time they had landed and overtaken us.'

They stay too long on the river, I think,' observed Miss Macnair, turning stiffly to look behind her. 'I am always nervous about the Fall.'

'Nervous about a danger a mile away!' was the laughing response. Why even Ernest and Drury do not row below the boathouse, unless it may be a few yards, to moor their boat in the shadow as they fish. You must own, Caroline, that they know how to use their oars, and are both prudent, as well as obedient, lads.'

'But there is Nora.'

'Nora again,' laughed the Squire. Her curiosity often enough leads her to the Fall on terra firma, I know; but not on the water, Caroline. I believe she would be terrified at going within sight of it in the boat, even if not forbidden.'

'I would not like to trust her if any whim seized her.'

At that moment a rushing sound reached them from behind, and presently, in the grass beside them, the three of whom they had been speaking darted past in a race. Nora Carleton first, hatless, but with roses twined in her dishevelled hair, her eyes radiant, and her cheeks pink. Then Ernest, gaining upon her, his slight well-knit figure bent a little, and a merry smile upon his face. Last, Drury, running steadily, with his brows drawn and his elbows planted. firmly at his sides.

'Well done, Nora,' cried the Squire as they passed. 'Look to your laurels, Dru. They must leave off giving Nora a start,' he added merrily as they passed out of hearing; she will beat them. both.'

As of course she did, waving her hat in triumph, while she sat upon the low fence which stopped their race.

'You run splendidly, Nora,' said Ernest, fanning himself with his straw-hat as he lay upon the grass beside her.

boast again of my celebrity at Oxford.'

'I must never

'Are you celebrated at Oxford too, Drury?' asked the girl,

balancing herself deftly upon the rails.

'Not in that line,' put in his brother.

'Dru excels more in

skilful than in muscular pursuits. He favours whist and billiards.'

Nora, from her unsteady seat, chanced to be looking into Drury Sutton's face, when his eyes met hers.

6 There are times,' he said, in his heavy tones-and as he spoke he drew his handkerchief lightly across his face—' when men need sports which do not heat or weary them-how intense the heat is here!--but Ernest talks rubbish. No young fellow of twenty could stand the chance of being beaten by the practised players, whom of course one must meet everywhere—would meet, at least, if one went in for the thing at all.'

'Then you lose the games as you lost this race ?' asked Nora, her eyes clear and bright again as that inexplicable shade left Drury's face.

'I am not a fool,' the young man muttered sullenly as he crossed the fence. But in a moment his tone changed, and he turned and gave his hand to Nora with a smile.

'I'm coming,' she cried, tying on her hat hastily, and preparing to spring from the fence. Let's go and gather cherries now. You two shall climb and gather, and I'll catch and eat. nice arrangement, isn't it?'

That's a

'An excellent one,' cried the Squire, joining them just as Nora alighted on the grass beside Drury, and Ernest followed at her summons; a fair division of labour indeed.'

'Did you see me wave my hat, Mr. Sutton ?' asked the girl, turning gladly at the sound of his voice, and linking her hand in his arm with a familiarity which greatly quickened the regular breathing of Miss Macnair. That was to show I had won the race.'

You had far too good a start, little lady. I wouldn't have allowed it if I had been either of the lads.'

Now sup

But you aren't either of the lads, I'm glad to say. pose we have a race, you and I, Mr. Sutton; we'll run to the cherry-orchard, and start in a line, to further the ends of justice. Miss Macnair, will you start us please-awfully fairly ?'

6

Awfully is not a word to employ as you employ it, Nora,' began Miss Macnair; you, particularly, in whom nothing and nobody inspires any awe at all.'

'O, I always forget,' cried Nora, tossing back her dishevelled hair. 6 Papa uses it too, so perhaps it's a manner and custom of the Irish. We often laugh at each other, yet we never remember to cure ourselves.'

'It should be cured,' rejoined the elder lady impressively.

'All in good time,' put in the Squire, when he saw the shy colour rise in the girl's cheeks. 'I'm ready, Nora. One, two, three! Away!'

Words would fail in describing the rigid displeasure of Miss Macnair's visage as the two figures fled from her, followed by her nephews, laughing heartily; and cheering, when the Squire, using his