Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/86

9, 1864.]

Stephen Grey could not struggle with the fate which seemed to be working against him, and he quitted his home of years, and betook himself to London. John Grey found a suitable partner in Mr. Charles Lycett, the brother of the curate of St. Mark’s, who was seeking a practice for himself, and Frederick Grey remained with his uncle in South Wennock to pursue his medical studies.

Mr. John Grey’s advice to his brother was:—“Establish yourself well wherever you settle down, whether in London or elsewhere. Spend money in doing so, and the probability is that you will get it returned to you with interest; but if you begin in a little, poking, niggardly way, it’s ten chances to one if you ever get on.” Stephen took the advice; and circumstances favoured him. At the very time of his removal to London, a physician died suddenly in Savile Row. Stephen Grey stepped in, secured the lease of the house at the cost of a trifling outlay, and the practice came flowing in almost without exertion or solicitation on his part. Then he took his degree: and in a few months after he had quitted South Wennock, he found he was gaining a much larger income than he and his brother had counted together.

Nearly a twelvemonth elapsed subsequent to the return of Lady Jane Chesney to South Wennock, and September was come round again. The past year had brought little of event in its wake. An infant, born to Lady Laura Carlton, had died at its birth, and she was one of the gay South Wennock world again. Mr. Carlton’s practice was a very good one now, for fresh people were ever coming to the new buildings springing up around South Wennock, and he was obliged to take an assistant. No further tilt at arms had occurred between him and Frederick Grey. He had, perhaps wisely, overlooked the boy’s dangerous insolence; and since then they had passed each other in the street without speaking. Frederick Grey’s dislike of Mr. Carlton was made a sort of joke in the Grey family; none of them (save his mother, and she was away now) knew its origin; and South Wennock set the dislike down to Mr. Carlton’s somewhat under hand conduct to Stephen Grey.

Thus nearly a twelvemonth rolled on with but little to mark it.

On the grand bed of state which Jane Chesney had lovingly chosen for her father when the newly-taken house was being furnished in Portland Place, lay Eliza, Countess of Oakburn, an infant cradled by her side. There is an old saying “After a wedding comes a burying;” but it more frequently happens that after a wedding comes a christening. Buryings, however, do follow all too surely when their turn comes, and one was not far off that house now.

There had been as little of event to mark the past twelvemonth in the Earl of Oakburn’s house, as there had been in South Wennock. Lady Oakburn had made him a good wife; she had been as solicitous for his comforts as Jane could have been. She made an excellent mistress of his household, a judicious and kind step-mother to Lucy, and the little girl had learnt to love her.

But all her anxious care had not been able to keep the earl’s old enemy from him—gout. He lay in the room above, suffering under an aggravated attack; an attack which threatened danger.

Two days only had the little fellow in the cradle by the countess’s bed seen the light; he was the young heir to Oakburn. Lucy Chesney sat near, touching now and again the wonderful little red face as she talked to her step-mother.

“It is very good of you to let me come in, mamma. What shall his name be?” They were thinking of the christening, you see.

“Francis, of course, Lucy.”

“But I have heard papa say that the heir to Oakburn should be John. It has been—oh, for ages, ‘John, Earl of Oakburn. ”

“Papa shall decide, dear.”

“We can’t ask him to-day, he is so much worse. He”

“Worse?” echoed the countess in a startled tone, whilst an attendant, sitting in the room, raised her finger with a warning gesture.

Lucy coloured with contrition; she saw that she had said what ought not to have been spoken.

“Nurse, you told me the earl was better this morning!” cried the countess.

The woman rose. “My lady, there was not much difference; he was better, if anything,” she responded, endeavouring to put all evasion from her voice. “My lord is in pain, and