CHAPTER XXVIII

CONCLUSION

Katharine sided with the lovers, as her husband had foretold, and he withdrew his opposition.

“Only, how do you intend to live?” he enquired one day of Sydney, as she sat nursing the little heir upon her knee.

“We are going to wait, of course,” she explained, “till Hugh is earning rather more, and in the meantime I am going to be so busy. I shall learn cooking and housekeeping and everything useful I can think of, and then it won’t matter if Hugh and I are not so very rich at first, will it?”

“H—m,” said St. Quentin. “You’re right about not being in a hurry. Katharine and I can’t do without you yet. But, you ridiculous little goose! has it never struck you that there are such things as wedding presents—and as marriage settlements? Look here, old Lorry wants to retire, if he can get a good offer for his practice. It’s a first-rate one, you know, and it appears your Hugh won golden opinions here at the time of the fever. Lorry thinks if he were to come down and work in with him a little, the youngster would be received with enthusiasm by the patients when he himself cuts the concern. If your Hugh likes the notion, I’ll buy the practice for him and set you up in Lorry’s house, which you can have rent free, of course. How would that suit you as a wedding present? You see, old Lorry means to retire on Donisbro’, where some of his own people hang out.

“It’s a nice enough house and handy to the Castle, which is fortunate; for even if Katharine and I would allow you to leave Lislehurst, my tenants wouldn’t. So if this plan suits you and your Hugh, you can go on with your work-parties and soup-kitchens and all the rest of it, and you and Katharine together see what you can do towards turning me into a model landlord. What do you say to that scheme, eh?”

“Hugh come here, and he and I live here for always!” Sydney cried. “Oh, St. Quentin, you don’t mean it?”

“Then you like the notion?” said her cousin with a pleased smile.

“Like it!” cried Sydney. “Why, the part of being married that I minded was the leaving you!”

* * * * *

Lord Lisle entertained quite a large party at his christening feast.

Mrs. Chichester was there, seeming to grow visibly younger in the freedom from household cares, and rapidly finding a congenial spirit in Katharine, and Dolly, very happy to be with Sydney again, and Fred and Prissie, who in spite of some natural disappointment at finding no merry-go-rounds in St. Quentin’s Park, managed to enjoy themselves exceedingly, with the ecstatic joy of London children in the country.

And Lord Braemuir was there, burly and good-natured as ever, and most hearty in his congratulations both to Hugh and St. Quentin, and Mr. Fenton, absolutely beaming, and looking with a nervous interest at the baby, whom he liked very much, he explained, “at a distance.”

And Hugh was there, with Dr. Lorry, whose door already bore the brass inscription,

DR. GUSTAVUS LORRY. DR. HUGH CHICHESTER.

And Mr. Seaton was there, looking as though all his cares had rolled away with the coming of the bright-faced bride on his arm, who made all the better housekeeper, he used to say proudly, for knowing as much Greek as he did himself.

And Pauly was there, but in no very sociable frame of mind, for he ignored everyone but Freddie, the length of whose nine-year-old legs filled him with awe and admiration. He refused to even look at the baby, but kept his round eyes fixed on Freddie, who patronised him in a way that amused the looker-on considerably.

Both boys, however, managed to do full justice to the splendid christening cake, on which Mrs. Fewkes had expended her utmost pains and skill. Indeed, Pauly very decidedly made up for his abstinence upon that celebrated fifth birthday.

And old Mr. Hudder was there, rather prosy but extremely happy, and never more so than when St. Quentin asked his “oldest tenant” to propose the health of the son and heir.

“My Lord, Your Ladyship, and Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said, “man and boy I’ve held my farm under the Marquesses of St. Quentin. They’ve been good landlords to me, and I’ve been a good tenant to them. My Lord, Your Ladyship, Ladies and Gentlemen, we didn’t look to see this happy day. All of us standing here have got a lot to thank God for. He has raised up his lordship and given us the fine strong heir as we’re thanking Him for to-day. I’ll not deny but that we looked forward to seeing the young lady that we’ve learned to love reign over us, but it seems she’s satisfied with the woman’s kingdom that is hers to-day. God bless her! and give her and her husband that is to be every happiness, and the same to you, My Lord and Your Ladyship. And in the name of your lordships’ tenants, I wish a long and happy life, and all prosperity, to Sidney, Lord Lisle.”

* * * * *

That was indeed a happy day, but there was one to come that was even happier—the day on which Sydney Lisle laid down her maiden name and became, what she had always felt herself, a Chichester.

Lord St. Quentin gave the bride away. “A thing which I am bound to do considering it was I who took her from you,” he said, laughing.

He and Hugh were good friends by this time, all the better perhaps for having begun, as the famous Mrs. Malaprop would say, with “a little aversion,” and Hugh did not misunderstand the marquess when he said—“Sydney used to annoy me by insisting upon being three-parts Chichester when I wished her to be all Lisle: now it is my turn to insist that she does not quite forget the Lisle side, when she is a Chichester by right.”

“But we are all _one_ family now, aren’t we, Quin?” Sydney said softly, and her cousin did not contradict the statement.

It was on a perfect September day, with that deeper blue in the clear sky and wonderful freshness in the air which summer’s end brings with it, that Sydney was married.

As on that first morning at the Castle long ago, she rose before the rest of the household, and went out into the Park, where diamond dew lay thick and the hedges sparkled with jewelled cobwebs.

She would not call Dolly to come with her: she wanted for a little while upon this happy morning to be the lonely Sydney again.

But there was little to recall that first walk, as she stood on the marble steps of the Castle and looked into the glory of September sunshine glittering around her.

She went through the Park, making for the gap in the hedge she knew so well, and drinking in the beauty which was so atune with her heart to-day—the dark-foliaged trees, the upland fields, some bare, some covered still with corn-sheaves, stacked in _hiles_, as the Blankshire people called them—the glitter of dew at her feet, where every tiny blade of grass seemed jewelled in the sunshine.

She could not resist one peep through the mullioned windows of the quaint, dark, comfortable, Queen Anne house, furnished throughout by loving hands to suit the girl’s taste. The fittings from her luxurious rooms in the Castle had gone with her to this new home by St. Quentin’s wish, and the beautiful plate on the sideboard spoke eloquently enough of the feeling among the tenantry of the estate for “our young lady.”

Mackintosh had filled the conservatory with his choicest flowers, and Bessie and the pair of ponies already inhabited the roomy stables. This was to be her home and Hugh’s. Her home and Hugh’s!—how good it sounded!

Her eyes shone as she turned into the road leading into the village.

How different all was from that first walk, when the new life had appeared so strange and lonely, and home so terribly far away! Had it ever seemed possible then that she would come to love Lislehurst so well, could come to be as happy there as she was to-day?

At the gap where they had first met Pauly was waiting, with a basket and a broad smile of satisfaction on his round chubby face.

“Going to get mushrooms,” he explained, submitting to her kiss. “Muvver’s coming, and daddy, and dear Dr. Hugh. Come too!”

“Not this morning, Pauly dear,” said Sydney, “but another morning we will all go out together, won’t we, and have a good time? Now good-bye, and don’t forget to come and help us eat the wedding cake.”

“Do I hear you pressing wedding cake on Pauly?” observed Pauly’s father, appearing at the moment, also armed with a mighty basket. “Please don’t, for I assure you it is quite unnecessary. He never needs much pressing, do you, Pauly? Miss Lisle, won’t you come into the Vicarage and have some milk or something, in memory of that first visit that you paid us?”

“When I missed breakfast altogether, and had such a scolding from Lady Frederica for paying calls upon my own account,” Sydney said, laughing. “No, not this morning, thank you, Mr. Seaton: I must hurry home.”

“You’re not afraid of a scolding now?” the Vicar asked with a twinkle in his eyes.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I don’t think Katharine ever learned the way to scold, and St. Quentin has forgotten it.”

And then she put her hand on the Vicar’s arm, as he held the gate open for her.

“Do you remember our talk on that first morning that we met, and how you told me there was work for everyone to do, if they would look for it? I don’t suppose you know how much that helped me.”

“Thank you,” said the Vicar with a smile, “that is a thing it does one good to hear. But it is not everyone who looks to such good purpose as you did.”

And, as Sydney walked rapidly away, he looked after her, thinking of the great results which had followed on the girl’s simple straightforward performance of that work she found to do.

He thought of the enormous difference to be seen in the villages all over the estate; of their owner, honestly striving to do his best for the people whose comfort was committed to his charge; of the happy marriage brought about by her means, and he did not wonder at the hearty cheers with which the bride was received, as she came down the crimson-covered churchyard path upon her cousin’s arm.

Sydney flushed with pleasure: it was very pleasant to feel herself surrounded by so much affection and goodwill.

“I am so very glad it is not ‘good-bye’ to this home,” she whispered to St. Quentin; and he smiled, well pleased.

She had her own way about the wedding festivities, and all the tenants, rich and poor alike, were feasted in the Castle grounds.

It was a day long remembered through the county, and any doubt the tenants may have felt as to Sydney’s perfect pleasure in her dispossession were quite swept away then by the sight of her radiant face.

“Our young lady,” she would be always to the Lislehurst people, but they plainly saw that she was happy in the humbler path her feet were to tread.

“She looked for all the world like a bit of spring and sunshine,” Mrs. Sawyer used to say, in talking of that happy wedding day, “and Dr. Hugh, his face matched hers for gladness, as it should. God bless ’em both!”

It was a bewilderingly happy day, from the moment that Sydney put her hand into Hugh’s strong one, where she could so safely trust her future, to that in which Pauly, after some loudly whispered directions from old Mr. Hudder, marched forward, and laid in Sydney’s hand the lovely little gold watch, with which she had parted for the sake of her poorer neighbours. “For you,” he said briefly.

“A testimony of respectful affection from his lordship’s tenantry in Lislehurst to their young lady,” Mr. Hudder amended.

“And I gave free pennies for it,” Pauly put in.

I think Sydney nearly cried as she kissed the little boy and held out her hand to Mr. Hudder.

“Thank you, and thank everybody, oh, so much!” she said.

But perhaps the very best moment in the whole long happy day was that in which Sydney Chichester was able to throw her arms about the neck of father and mother, and call herself “their little girl” again.

THE END

_THE CREAM OF JUVENILE FICTION_

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