Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/531

 paper, which was lying partially folded on the table, having only recently been brought in, and she read it out aloud to her father.

Captain Chesney lifted his stick and brought it down on the table after his own fashion, as they entered. “Take up that newspaper, Jane,” he exclaimed, “and see what it is that Lucy has stumbled upon in the deaths.”

Jane Chesney ran her eyes downwards from the top of the column, and caught sight of something in the notice of births which she read aloud.

“On the 12th instant, in South Audley Street, the Countess of Oakburn of a daughter.”

Then in the deaths:

“On the 14th instant, in South Audley Street, aged twenty-one, Maria, the beloved wife of the Earl of Oakburn.”

“On the 14th instant, in South Audley Street, Clarice, the infant child of the Earl of Oakburn.”

Jane’s voice ceased, and the captain brought his stick on the floor with one melancholy thump, as did Uncle Toby his staff, in the colloquy with Corporal Trim.

“Gone!” uttered he. “The young wife gone before the old grandmother!”

“Did you know the parties, sir?” asked Mr. Carlton.

“Know them, sir!” returned the choleric captain, angry at having, as he deemed, so foolish a question put to him, “I ought to know them, for they are my blood relations.”

“I was not aware of it,” said Mr. Carlton.

“No, sir, perhaps you were not aware of it, but it’s true, for all that. My father, sir, was the Honourable Frank Chesney, the second son of the ninth Earl of Oakburn and brother to the tenth earl; and the late earl, eleventh in succession, and father of the present earl, was my own cousin. It’s a shame that it should be true,” continued the captain, his stick noisily enforcing every other word, “a shame that I should be so near the peerage of England, and yet be a poor half-pay navy captain! Merit goes for nothing in this world, and relationship goes for less. If the late earl had chosen to exert himself, I should have been an admiral long ago. There have been Admiral Chesneys who distinguished themselves in their day, and perhaps I should have made no exception,” he concluded, with a violent accession of the stick accompaniment.

“They named the little child ‘Clarice,’ you see, papa,” observed Jane, after a pause.

“As if the old dowager would let them name her anything else!” cried the captain. “You don’t know the Dowager Countess of Oakburn, probably, Mr. Carlton; the present earl’s grandmother?”

“No, sir, I do not.”

“You have no loss. She is his grandmother, and my aunt; and of all the pig-headed, selfish, opinionated old women, she’s the worst. When Jane was born”—nodding towards his daughter—“she says to me, ‘You’ll name her Clarice, Frank.’ ‘No I won’t,’ I said, ‘I shall call her by her mother’s name,'—which was Jane. The same thing over again when Laura was born. ‘You’ll name her Clarice, Frank, and I’ll stand godmother,’ cries the countess. ‘No I won’t,’ I said, ‘I shall name her after my sister Laura'—who had died. And then my lady and I had a lasting quarrel. Her own name’s Clarice, you see. Yes! I am as near as that to the great Oakburns (who are as poor as church mice for their rank, all the whole lot), and I’m a half-pay captain, hard up for a shilling!”

“Are there many standing between you and the title, sir?” asked Mr. Carlton.

“There’s not one between me and the title,” was the answer. “If the earl should die without children, I become Earl of Oakburn. What of that? He is a young man and I am an old one. He’ll soon be marrying again, and getting direct heirs about him.”

“I think if I were as near the British peerage as that, I should be speculating upon reaching it,” said Mr. Carlton, with a genial laugh.

“And prove yourself a fool for your pains,” retorted the blunt sailor. “No; it’s bad enough looking after old men’s dead shoes; but it’s worse looking after young ones’. I thank goodness I have not been idiot enough for that; I never, sir, allowed myself to glance at the possibility of becoming Earl of Oakburn: never. There was also another heir before me, the young earl’s brother, Arthur Chesney, but he died. He got into a boating row at Cambridge a year or two back, and was drowned. Jane, you must see to the mourning.”

Jane’s heart sank with dismay at the prospect of the unexpected cost. “Need we go to the expense, papa?” she faltered.

“Need we go to the expense!” roared the captain, his tongue and his stick going together, “what do you mean? You’d let the young countess go into her grave and not put on mourning for her? You are out of your senses, Miss Chesney.”

Mr. Carlton rose. He buttoned his coat over his slender and very gentlemanly figure, and contrived to whisper a word to Laura as he was departing.

“Be at ease, my darling. You shall be mine. Should they deny you to me, I will steal you from them.”

Her hand was momentarily in his; his