A Group of Noble Dames | Page 5

had ridden to his estate at
Falls-Park early in the morning on business with his agent, and might
not come back for some days.
Falls-Park was over twenty miles from King's-Hintock Court, and was
altogether a more modest centre-piece to a more modest possession
than the latter. But as Squire Dornell came in view of it that February

morning, he thought that he had been a fool ever to leave it, though it
was for the sake of the greatest heiress in Wessex. Its classic front, of
the period of the second Charles, derived from its regular features a
dignity which the great, battlemented, heterogeneous mansion of his
wife could not eclipse. Altogether he was sick at heart, and the gloom
which the densely-timbered park threw over the scene did not tend to
remove the depression of this rubicund man of eight-and-forty, who sat
so heavily upon his gelding. The child, his darling Betty: there lay the
root of his trouble. He was unhappy when near his wife, he was
unhappy when away from his little girl; and from this dilemma there
was no practicable escape. As a consequence he indulged rather freely
in the pleasures of the table, became what was called a three bottle man,
and, in his wife's estimation, less and less presentable to her polite
friends from town.
He was received by the two or three old servants who were in charge of
the lonely place, where a few rooms only were kept habitable for his
use or that of his friends when hunting; and during the morning he was
made more comfortable by the arrival of his faithful servant Tupcombe
from King's-Hintock. But after a day or two spent here in solitude he
began to feel that he had made a mistake in coming. By leaving
King's-Hintock in his anger he had thrown away his best opportunity of
counteracting his wife's preposterous notion of promising his poor little
Betty's hand to a man she had hardly seen. To protect her from such a
repugnant bargain he should have remained on the spot. He felt it
almost as a misfortune that the child would inherit so much wealth. She
would be a mark for all the adventurers in the kingdom. Had she been
only the heiress to his own unassuming little place at Falls, how much
better would have been her chances of happiness!
His wife had divined truly when she insinuated that he himself had a
lover in view for this pet child. The son of a dear deceased friend of his,
who lived not two miles from where the Squire now was, a lad a couple
of years his daughter's senior, seemed in her father's opinion the one
person in the world likely to make her happy. But as to breathing such
a scheme to either of the young people with the indecent haste that his
wife had shown, he would not dream of it; years hence would be soon

enough for that. They had already seen each other, and the Squire
fancied that he noticed a tenderness on the youth's part which promised
well. He was strongly tempted to profit by his wife's example, and
forestall her match-making by throwing the two young people together
there at Falls. The girl, though marriageable in the views of those days,
was too young to be in love, but the lad was fifteen, and already felt an
interest in her.
Still better than keeping watch over her at King's Hintock, where she
was necessarily much under her mother's influence, would it be to get
the child to stay with him at Falls for a time, under his exclusive
control. But how accomplish this without using main force? The only
possible chance was that his wife might, for appearance' sake, as she
had done before, consent to Betty paying him a day's visit, when he
might find means of detaining her till Reynard, the suitor whom his
wife favoured, had gone abroad, which he was expected to do the
following week. Squire Dornell determined to return to King's-Hintock
and attempt the enterprise. If he were refused, it was almost in him to
pick up Betty bodily and carry her off.
The journey back, vague and Quixotic as were his intentions, was
performed with a far lighter heart than his setting forth. He would see
Betty, and talk to her, come what might of his plan.
So he rode along the dead level which stretches between the hills
skirting Falls-Park and those bounding the town of Ivell, trotted
through that borough, and out by the King's-Hintock highway, till,
passing the villages he entered the mile-long drive through the park to
the Court. The drive being open, without an avenue, the Squire could
discern the north front and door of the