were born, to see her safely through her trouble; for he had always done his duty, after a fashion, by Lucy. When a girl of that class marries a gentleman, don’t you see, and consents, too, mind you, to marry him privately, she can’t expect to share much of her husband’s company. She can’t expect he should stultify himself by acknowledging her publicly before his own class. And, indeed, he always meant to acknowledge her in the end—after his father’s death, when there was no fear of the Admiral’s cutting off his allowance.
But how curiously events often turn out of themselves. The twins were born on a Friday morning, and by the Saturday night, poor Lucy was lying dead, a pale, sweet corpse, in her own little room, near the Hoe, at Plymouth. It was a happy release for him though he really loved her. But still, when a man’s fool enough to love a girl below his own station in life—the Colonel paused and broke off. It was twenty-seven years ago now, yet he really loved her. He couldn’t find it in his heart even then to indorse to the full the common philosophy of his own order.
So there he was left with the two boys on his hands, but free, if he liked, to marry Lady Emily. No reason on earth, of course, why he shouldn’t marry her now. So, naturally, he married her—after a fortnight’s interval. The Admiral was all smiles and paternal blessings at this sudden change of front on his son’s part. Why the dickens Harry hadn’t wanted to marry the girl before, to be sure he couldn’t conceive; hankering after some missy in the country, he supposed, that silly rot about what they call love, no doubt; but now that Harry had come to his senses at last, and taken the Earl’s lass, why, the Admiral was indulgence and munificence itself; the young people should have an ample allowance, and my daughter-in-law, Lady Emily, should live on the best that Tilgate and Chetwood could possibly afford her.
What would you have? the Colonel asked piteously, in the dead of night, of his own conscience. How else could he have acted? He said nothing. That was all, mind you, he declared to himself more than once in his own soul. He told no lies. He made no complications. While the Admiral lived, he brought up Lucy’s sons, quite privately, at Plymouth. And as soon as ever the Admiral died, he really and truly meant to acknowledge them.
But fathers never die—in entailed estates. The Admiral lived so long—quite, quite too long for Guy and Cyril. Granville was born, and grew to be a big boy, and was treated by everybody as the heir to Tilgate. And now the Colonel’s difficulties gathered thicker around him. At last, in the fulness of time, the Admiral died, and slept with his fathers, whose Elizabethan ruff’s were the honour and glory of the chancel at Tilgate; and then the day of reckoning was fairly upon him. How well he remembered that awful hour. He couldn’t, he couldn’t. He knew it was his duty to acknowledge his rightful sons and heirs, but he hadn’t the courage. Things had all altered so much.
Meanwhile, Guy and Cyril had gone to Charterhouse as nobody’s wards, and been brought up in the expectation of earning their own livelihood, so no wrong, he said casuistically, had been done to THEM, at any rate. And Granville had been brought up as the heir of Tilgate. Lady Emily naturally expected her son to succeed his father. He had gone too far to turn back at last. And yet—
And yet, in his own heart, disguise it as he might, he knew he was keeping his lawful sons out of their own in the end, and it was his duty to acknowledge them as the heirs of Tilgate.
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