Belchamber

Belchamber is one of the most beautiful places in England. The name, if not the house, dates from days when Norman-French was the polite language of our kings; the reigning mona...

The world is like a huge theatrical company in which half the actors and actresses have been cast for the wrong parts. There are heavy fathers who ought to be playing the lover,...

Probably nothing is less calculated to make a man feel at home in another’s society than the knowledge that he owes him a debt which he cannot pay. Custom enables a number of pe...

Lord Corstorphine had been an Oxford man, but some curious lingering dread of Puseyism made Lady Charmington send Sainty to Cambridge. She gave a moment’s anxious thought to the...

In spite of his untoward mania for study, or rather because of it, the years spent at Cambridge were the happiest of Sainty’s life. He allowed himself to be dissuaded from going...

During the long years of Sainty’s minority there had been but a moderate establishment kept at Belchamber. Lady Charmington had been anxious the boys should be brought up there,...

The Duchess of Sunborough had not revisited her former home since she left it after the death of her first husband. Sainty had paid one or two duty visits to his grandmother on...

Whether or not there was truth in what Lady Charmington had said, that no one took so little interest in the festivities of his coming of age as Sainty himself, it certainly cam...

Sainty did not think it necessary to go home for the covert shooting, and it is doubtful if he was much missed. Young Traffords and Montgomeries came as usual, Lord Firth brough...

Belchamber’s first feeling was that it was a judgment on him for having allowed his mind to wander to worldly frivolities and thoughts of personal amusement. Certainly he had be...

Sainty rather expected a letter with some attempt at exculpation from his cousin; but Claude was evidently aware that in many awkward positions there is no course so expedient a...

Without seeing any one at Monkton’s but the servant, or even disclosing his identity, Sainty was able in a very few words to establish the correctness of his surmises. Arthur ha...

No one can live at the height of great crises. After the storm, when the wind has sobbed itself to sleep, the sun comes peeping shyly to count the damage done, the draggled, fla...

It was natural that with other people in the house Sainty should see less of Cissy; he told himself so several times a day, yet the thought was not altogether a pleasant one tha...

Lady Eccleston’s business kept her in London longer than she expected. Each day brought hurried notes from her, full of regrets and apologies, compunction for all the trouble th...

The wedding was fixed for the first week in June. As Lady Charmington said, there was no reason for delay, though it must be owned that neither of the young people seemed very e...

The Duke of Sunborough having only a castle in Scotland, a palace in the Midlands, a detached house with a garden in the centre of London, a shooting-lodge in the north of Engla...

The Belchambers took possession of their new town-house just in time for the opening of Parliament in the ensuing year. It was only partially furnished as yet, and most uncomfor...

After Easter, when Cissy had a morning-room and a boudoir, and the drawing-rooms were practically finished, Sainty entered into undisputed possession of his two back rooms, and...

‘But you will come to _my_ ball,’ said the duchess with decision. The ‘but’ was in answer to Sainty’s assertion that he did not go to balls. ‘_Vous vous faites ridicule, mon enf...

From the time of their coming to London it had required no effort on their part for the Belchambers to be very little together, but after the ball at Sunborough House, Sainty wa...

Although Belchamber had become a very different place from the home of his childhood, it was still a relief to Sainty to get into the country. It must be confessed that the part...

To Sainty, sitting alone in his old room in the western pavilion, it seemed that there was no bitterness left untasted. Far into the night he sat, his elbows on the table, his h...

Though the birth of an heir to the house of Belchamber might naturally be supposed a festive occasion, it brought little satisfaction to those principally concerned. It is true...

The interview last recorded between Belchamber and his heir was to have momentous consequences for both of them. The principal gain was at first to the baby, as the immediate re...

It has already been intimated that Sainty cherished a very real affection for this young man, holding a character so manly and direct to be little short of miraculous in a child...

‘My little boy, my poor little boy! You were conceived in sin, and your birth was a lie. Your father never owned you, your mother never loved you. It was left to me, who should...