CHAPTER XXIII.—JASPER FEELS PERPLEXED.

Jasper Denzil, as he slowly made his elaborate toilet on the sunny September morning which succeeded to the eventful night on which he had espied from his window Ruth’s slight form gliding across the lonely park, turned over many things in his mind. His man, who groaned over the dull monotony of rural existence, and longed to be once more in Mount Street or Bond Street lodgings, silently opined, as he applied the ivory-backed brushes to his master’s hair or removed the silver-gilt stoppers of the scent-bottles, that ‘the captain’ was brooding over his turf calamities. But he was wrong. Jasper’s reverie was on a different theme.

Who or what was this mysterious Miss Willis, this interesting orphan, whom regard for the mythical major her defunct papa had induced Sir Sykes to take into the bosom of his family? The conversation which he had overheard when lurking in the frowsy garden of The Traveller’s Rest recurred again and again to his memory, and served to explain much, but not all. That the presence beneath his roof-tree of Ruth Willis had been imposed upon the baronet by Hold’s importunity, he well knew. That he had with his own ears heard Hold describe her as his sister, he well remembered, but he recalled too the sneering tone in which the adventurer had claimed kindred with the Indian orphan.

Of one thing alone did Captain Denzil feel sure. Ruth, be her understanding with Hold what it might, was a lady, and no blood-relation of the rough rover who claimed to be her brother. Who then was this Ruth? Again and again Jasper’s thoughts flew back to the little sister that had died so early, and whose untimely death was reported to have made the owner of Carbery Chase the morose joyless recluse that he had long been. Could it be—was it possible that the child had not died at all, that a false registry, a sham burial, had thrown dust in credulous eyes, and that the missing member of the family, hidden for years from all eyes, had at length been introduced under a fictitious name into the household?

A profound distrust of their fellow-creatures is usually a cardinal point of belief with young men of such tastes and habits as those of Jasper; nor did he find it difficult to accredit Sir Sykes with concealed villainy of some sort, or Miss Willis with not, as in sporting language he pithily paraphrased it, ‘running square.’ But he did desire to find a conceivable motive of some kind; and in the absence of that was driven to speculations too wild to shape themselves in rational form.

‘If the governor had been touched in the head’—thus ran the son’s dutiful meditations—‘I could have set down the thing as a rich man’s crazed caprice; but no! he’s as sound as a bell. And then that fellow the pirate actually bullying him to get this girl foisted upon us! What imaginable interest can he have in planting her at Carbery Chase, or what can be the bond of union between a refined dainty little creature and a buccaneering vagabond of his stamp? The whole affair is a riddle.’

It might be added that Jasper was not an adept in the solution of such social puzzles. Turf rascalities of any sort came quite naturally within the compass of an understanding well fitted to grasp all that could be done on the offensive or the defensive where a race-horse was concerned. He knew as much as an outsider could know regarding touts and horse-watchers, stable strategy and the tactics of the course. He no more expected straightforward conduct on the part of an owner than on that of a trainer or of a jockey. He did not except even those owners, trainers, and jockeys, whose honesty was proverbial on the English turf. The money to be won was in his eyes motive sufficient for any moral obtuseness. But the behaviour of Sir Sykes did not square itself with any of his ethical theories, however tolerant.

When, for the very first time since his accident at the steeplechase, Captain Denzil made his appearance at the family breakfast-table, he received the congratulations of his sisters on the marked improvement in his looks. And it was a fact that he not merely seemed but felt in better health than before, in spite of the loss of sleep incumbent on his vigil of the previous night. The activity of his thoughts had stirred his languid pulses and lent a pleasing vigour to his sluggish mind, and he even began to find existence at Carbery more endurable since his fancy had been stimulated by the partial discovery which he had chanced upon.

‘I should like to have a word with you, Jasper,’ said Sir Sykes. (It was a very unusual thing for him to say.) ‘You will find me in the library after breakfast.’

Jasper, who had been stealthily admiring the calm unconcern with which Miss Willis met his gaze, and the perfect steadiness of that young lady’s nerves, started, but instantly recovered himself. ‘To be sure, sir,’ he said, toying with his tea-spoon, while his heart quickened its beating. The enigma was about to be solved then. He could not doubt that the communication which his father had to make had reference to the strange doings of which Carbery Chase had of late been the theatre.

Sir Sykes, in his favourite apartment, was not kept waiting very long. His only son, in obedience to his father’s invitation, sauntered in with his customary air of nonchalant indifference, and took his seat loungingly in an easy-chair opposite to that of Sir Sykes. The baronet seemed at a loss for words wherewith to begin the announcement he desired to make.

‘You are nearly yourself again, Jasper, after your heavy fall?’ said Sir Sykes, by way of a prelude to the conversation.

‘Yes; thanks. My arm is a little troublesome, but otherwise I am getting on capitally,’ replied Jasper after an instant’s hesitation. He had hesitated in diplomatic doubt as to whether the part of an invalid would stand him in better stead than that of a flourishing convalescent, but contented himself with giving an ambiguous answer. Had Captain Prodgers or any sporting friend put the query, ‘I feel fit and well’ would have been the appropriate rejoinder; but with his parent the ex-Lancer did not care to lose any coigne of vantage-ground.

‘I am glad of it,’ mechanically returned the baronet; and then there was another pause, more awkward than the last.

‘My boy,’ said Sir Sykes, plunging with an effort into the subject nearest to his thoughts, ‘you can’t suppose that I like to see you wasting your young life in indolent inaction, or that I am blind to the fact that the quiet humdrum ways of Carbery often pall upon you.’

Jasper pricked up his ears. Here was an exordium which promised well, too well almost. Could it be possible that his father was going to sign, so to speak, his social ticket-of-leave, and to send him back where Fashion reigned supreme—to London, Newmarket, Melton? Had the Fates grown kind; and could he, Jasper Denzil, with a satisfactory bank balance, once more take his place in the constellation of the gilded youth of Britain? He opened his lazy eyes a very little wider, and looked at his father with a renewed interest in the next words that he should hear.

‘The case,’ went on Sir Sykes, ‘lies in a nutshell. You are discontented simply because you have nothing to occupy you and no one to care for. I should like very much, Jasper, to see you happily married; I should indeed.’

Jasper stared. His roseate visions of a prompt reappearance in betting-rings and military clubs were fading fast. But this novel anxiety on the part of Sir Sykes as to his son’s matrimonial future might be twisted somehow into the foundation of at least a qualified prosperity. ‘He can’t mean,’ such was Jasper’s inward soliloquy, ‘myself and my wife to be mere pensioners, living indolently here at Carbery. He must do something for us, he must indeed; unless it is an heiress he is about to suggest as a desirable daughter-in-law.’—‘I suppose I must marry, like other people, some of these days,’ said Jasper, with Pall-Mall philosophy.

‘And there is this advantage in your position,’ returned Sir Sykes, in a quick flurried manner, ‘that you need not look for fortune in a wife. The heir-expectant of Carbery can afford to disregard such matters as dowry and portion.’

A little pink flush rose to the roots of Jasper’s fair hair. He did not quite enjoy the hearing himself described as heir-expectant, not feeling sure but that a covert sneer was intended; but it was pleasant to be told that he was not expected to earn his bread, as he had known other broken-down men of fashion to do, by wedlock. Perhaps it was rank, not wealth, on which the governor’s thoughts ran—perhaps Lady Gladys De Vere. But here Jasper’s meditations were interrupted, and his thoughts turned into a new channel, when the baronet suddenly said: ‘Has it never occurred to you that Miss Willis, our new inmate here at Carbery, was a very charming little person, a good girl, and a clever one, and who would make an excellent wife?’

The explosion of a hand-grenade would not have produced a more startling effect on Jasper’s nerves than did this wholly unexpected speech on the part of Sir Sykes. For a moment or two he sat motionless, with arched eyebrows and parted lips, and then said, stammeringly: ‘Why, I thought the relationship—no, not that, but I supposed—obstacle—marriage!’

It was for Sir Sykes then to look astonished. Either he was a consummate actor, or his son’s last words had been to him utterly inexplicable.

‘I hardly know,’ said the baronet, in that cold half-haughty tone that had become habitual to him, ‘to what you allude, or what insuperable stumbling-block you conceive to stand in your way, should you incline to do so sensible a thing as to pay your addresses to my ward, Miss Willis. She has, it is true, no fortune; but that deficiency, as I have already said, is one which I can easily remedy. In addition to Carbery Chase, which is quite,’ he added with marked emphasis, ‘at my own disposal, I have a large amount of personal property, and should be willing to settle a considerable income on your wife—I say on your wife, Jasper, because, unhappily, I cannot rely on your prudence where money is concerned.’

‘I know I’ve made too strong running, know it well enough,’ answered the ex-cavalry officer, stroking his yellow moustache; ‘and I don’t deny, sir, that you have treated me very kindly as to money and that. But really and seriously, sir, can you wish me to marry Miss Willis?’

‘Really, my son, your pertinacity in cross-questioning me on the matter is—I am sure most unwittingly—almost offensive,’ replied Sir Sykes nervously. ‘Nor do I see what there would be so very wonderful in your selection of an amiable and accomplished girl, domiciled in your father’s house, and the daughter of—poor Willis!’ added the baronet in conclusion, as though the memory of the deceased major had suddenly recurred to him with unusual vividness.

Jasper, who remembered the conversation which he had overheard at The Traveller’s Rest, fairly gasped for breath. His parent’s talent for duplicity seemed to him to be something strange and shocking, as the untruthfulness of an elder generation always does appear.

‘I should not have urged my views upon you as I have done,’ continued Sir Sykes after a pause, ‘but that I have some idea that the young lady who has been the unconscious subject of this conversation entertains—what shall I say?—a preference for your society, which her feminine tact enables her to hide from general notice. I feel assured that it only rests with you to win the heart of Ruth Willis—a prize worth the winning.’

We are all very vain. Jasper, fop and worldling though he was, felt a thrill of gratified vanity run through him like an electric shock, as his father’s artful suggestion sank into the depths of his selfish mind. But he made haste to put in a disclaimer.

‘I’m afraid, sir, you are too partial a judge,’ he said, with an involuntary glance at the Venice mirror opposite. ‘Miss Willis is too sensible to care about a good-for-nothing fellow like me.’

‘I think otherwise, Jasper,’ returned Sir Sykes. ‘However, for the present we have talked enough. My wishes, remember, and even—even my welfare, for reasons not just now to be explained, are on the side of this marriage. Think it over. To you it means easy circumstances, a home of your own, the reversion of Carbery Chase, my cordial good-will, and the society of a charming and high-principled wife. Think it over.’

‘I will think it over, sir,’ said Jasper, rising from his chair, and lounging out of the library with the same listless swagger as that with which he had lounged into it. ‘I should be glad of course to meet your wishes, and that. Quite a surprise though.’

Left alone, Sir Sykes buried his face in his hands, and when he raised it again it looked old, worn, and haggard. ‘That scoundrel Hold,’ he said with a sigh, ‘makes me pay a heavy price for his silence, and even now his motives are to me a problem that I cannot solve.’

(To be continued.)