meet her. He looked into her queer little face and all his indifference vanished. She was his only brother’s only child. He had loved his brother better than any one on earth, and, come what might, he would give that brother’s child a welcome. So he took both of Evelyn’s tiny hands, and suddenly stooping, he lifted her an inch or so from the ground and kissed her twice. Something in his manner made the little girl give a sort of gasp.
“Why, it is just as if you were father come to life,” she said. “I am glad to see you, Uncle Ned.”
Still holding her hand, the Squire walked up to the hearth and stood there facing Audrey and his wife.
“You have been introduced to Audrey, have you not, Evelyn?” he said.
“I did not need to be introduced. I saw a girl in the hall, and I guessed it must be Audrey. ’Cute of me, was it not? Do you know, Uncle Ned, I don’t much like this place, but I like you. Yes, I am right-down smitten with you, but I don’t think I like anything else. You don’t mind if I am frank, Uncle Ned; it always was my way. We are brought up like that in Tasmania – Audrey, don’t frown at me; you don’t look pretty when you frown. But, oh! I say, the bell has gone, has it not?”
“Yes, my dear,” said Lady Frances.
“And it means dinner, does it not?”
“Certainly, Evelyn,” said her uncle, bending towards her with the most polished and stately grace. “Allow me, my niece, to conduct you to the dining-room.”
“How droll you are, uncle!” said Evelyn. “But I like you all the same. You are a right-down good old sort. I am awfully peckish; I shall be glad of a round meal.”
CHAPTER III. – THE CRADLE LIFE OF WILD EVE
Eighteen years before the date of this story, two brothers had parted with angry words. They were both in love with the same woman, and the younger brother had won. The elder brother, only one year his senior, could not stand defeat.
“I cannot stay in the old place,” he said. “You can occupy the Castle during my absence.”
To this arrangement Edward Wynford agreed.
“Where are you going?” he said to his brother Frank.
“To the other side of the world – Australia probably. I don’t know when I shall return. It does not much matter. I shall never marry. The estate will be yours. If Lady Frances has a son, it will belong to him.”
“You must not think of that,” said Edward. “I will live at the Castle for a few years in order to keep it warm for you, but you will come back; you will get over this. If she had loved you, old man, do you think I would have taken her from you? But she chose me from the very first.”
“I don’t blame you, Ned,” said Frank. “You are as innocent of any intention of harm to me as the unborn babe, but I love her too well to stay in the old country. I am off. I don’t want her ever to know. You will promise me, won’t you, that you will never tell her why I have skulked off and dropped my responsibilities on to your shoulders? Promise me that, at least, will you not?”
Edward Wynford promised his brother, and the brother went away.
In the former generation father and son had agreed to break off the entail, and although there was no intention of carrying this action into effect, and Frank, as eldest son, inherited the great estates of Wynford Castle, yet at his father’s death he was in the position of one who could leave the estates to any one he pleased.
During his last interview with his brother he said to him distinctly:
“Remember, if Lady Frances has a son I wish him to be, after yourself, the next heir to the property.”
“But if she has not a son?” said Edward.
“In that case I have nothing to say. It is most unlikely that I shall marry. The property will come to you in the ordinary way, and as the entail is out off, you can leave it to whom you please.”
“Do not forget that at present you can leave the estate and the Castle to whomever you please, even to an utter stranger,” said Edward, with a slight smile.
To this remark Frank made no answer. The next day the brothers parted – as it turned out, for life. Edward married Lady Frances, and they went to live at Wynford Castle. Edward heard once from Frank during the voyage, and then not at all, until he received a letter which must have been written a couple of months before his brother’s death. It was forwarded to him in a strange hand, and was full of extraordinary and painful tidings. Frank Wynford had died suddenly of acute fever, but before his death he had arranged all his affairs. His letter ran as follows:
“My dear Edward, – If I live you will never get this letter; if I die it reaches you all in good time. When last we parted I told you I should never marry. So much for man’s proposals. When I got to Tasmania I went on a ranch, and now I am the husband of the farmer’s daughter. Her name is Isabel. She is a handsome woman, and the mother of a daughter. Why I married her I can not tell you, except that I can honestly say it was not with any sense of affection. But she is my wife, and the mother of a little baby girl. Edward, when I last heard from you, you told me that you also had a daughter. If a son follows all in due course, what I have to say will not much signify; but if you have no son I should wish the estates eventually to come to my little girl. I do not believe in a woman’s administration of large and important estates like mine, but what I say to myself now is, as well my girl as your girl. Therefore, Edward, my dear brother, I leave all my estates to you for your lifetime, and at your death all the property which came to me by my father’s will goes to my little girl, to be hers when you are no longer there. I want you to receive my daughter, and to ask your wife to bring her up. I want her to have all the advantages that a home with Lady Frances must confer on her. I want my child and your child to be friends. I do no injustice to your daughter, Edward, when I make my will, for she inherits money on her mother’s side. I will acquaint my wife with particulars of this letter, and in case I catch the fever which is raging here now she will know how to act. My lawyer in Hobart Town will forward this, and see that my will is carried into effect. There is a provision in it for the maintenance of my daughter until she joins you at Castle Wynford. Whenever that event takes place she is your care. I have only one thing to add. The child might go to you at once (I have a premonition that I am about to die very soon), and thus never know that she had an Australian mother, but the difficulty lies in the fact that the mother loves the child and will scarcely be induced to part with her. You must not receive my poor wife unless indeed a radical change takes place in her; and although I have begged of her to give up the child, I doubt if she will do it. I cannot add any more, for time presses. My will is legal in every respect, and there will be no difficulty in carrying it into effect.”
This strange letter was discovered by Frank Wynford’s widow a month after his death. It was sealed and directed to his brother in England. She longed to read it, but restrained herself. She sent it on to her husband’s lawyer in Hobart Town, and in due course it arrived at Castle Wynford, causing a great deal of consternation and distress both in the minds of the Squire and Lady Frances.
Edward immediately went out to Tasmania. He saw the little baby who was all that was left of his brother, and he also saw that brother’s wife. The coarse, loud-voiced woman received him with almost abuse. What was to be done? The mother refused to part with the child, and Edward Wynford, for his own wife’s sake and his own baby daughter’s sake, could not urge her to come to Castle Wynford.
“I do not care twopence,” she remarked, “whether the child has grand relations or not. I loved her father,
