My Friend Prospero | Page 5

sat up straight and stared; but with the eleventh her attitude relaxed. She had regained her outward nonchalance, and resolved upon her system of fence.
"Ah," she said, on a tone judiciously compounded of feminine artlessness and of forthright British candour, and with a play of the eyebrows that attributed her momentary suscitation to the workings of memory, "of course--Blanchemain. The Sussex Blanchemains. I expect there's only one family of the name?"
"I've never heard of another," assented the young man.
"The Ventmere Blanchemains," she pursued pensively. "Lord Blanchemain of Ventmere is your titled head?"
"Exactly," said he.
"I knew the late Lord Blanchemain--I knew him fairly well," she mentioned, always with a certain pensiveness.
"Oh--?" said he, politely interested.
"Yes," said she. "But I've never met his successor. The two were not, I believe, on speaking terms. Of course,"--and her forthright British candour carried her trippingly over the delicate ground,--"it's common knowledge that the family is divided against itself--hostile branches--a Protestant branch and a Catholic. The present lord, if I've got it right, is a Catholic, and the late lord's distant cousin?"
"You've got it quite right," the young man assured her, with a nod, and a little laugh. "They had the same great-great-grandfather. The last few lords have been Protestants, but in our branch the family have never forsaken the old religion."
"I know," said she. "And wasn't it--I've heard the story, but I'm a bit hazy about it--wasn't it owing to your--is 'recusancy' the word?--that you lost the title? Wasn't there some sort of sharp practice at your expense in the last century?"
The young man had another little laugh.
"Oh, nothing," he answered, "that wasn't very much the fashion. The late lord's great-grandfather denounced his elder brother as a Papist and a Jacobite--nothing more than that. It was after the 'Forty-five. So the cadet took the title and estates. But with the death of the late lord, a dozen years or so ago, the younger line became extinct, and the title reverted."
"I see," said my lady. She knitted her eyebrows, computing. After an instant, "General Blanchemain," she resumed, "as the present lord was called for the best part of his life, is a bachelor. You will be one of his nephews?" She raised her eyes inquiringly.
"The son of his brother Philip," said the young man.
Lady Blanchemain sat up straight again.
"But then," she cried, forgetting to conceal her perturbation, "then you're the heir. Philip Blanchemain had but one son, and was the General's immediate junior. You're John Blanchemain--John Francis Joseph Mary. You're the heir."
The young man smiled--at her eagerness, perhaps.
"The heir-presumptive--I suppose I am," he said.
Lady Blanchemain leaned back and gently tittered.
"See how I know my Peerage!" she exclaimed. Then, looking grave, "You're heir to an uncommonly good old title," she informed him.
"I hope it may be many a long day before I'm anything else," said he.
"Your uncle is an old man," she suggestively threw out.
"Oh, not so very old," he submitted. "Only seventy, or thereabouts, and younger in many respects than I am. I hope he'll live for ever."
"Hum!" said she, and appeared to fall a-musing. Absently, as it seemed, and slowly, she was pulling off her gloves.
"Feuds in families," she said, in a minute, "are bad things. Why don't you make it up?"
The young man waved his hand, a pantomimic non-possumus.
"There's no one left to make it up with--the others are all dead."
"Oh?" she wondered, her eyebrows elevated, whilst automatically her fingers continued to operate upon her gloves. "I thought the last lord left a widow. I seem to have heard of a Lady Blanchemain somewhere."
The young man gave still another of his little laughs.
"Linda Lady Blanchemain?" he said. "Yes, one hears a lot of her. A highly original character, by all accounts. One hears of her everywhere."
Linda Lady Blanchemain's lip began to quiver; but she got it under control.
"Well?" she questioned--eyes fixing his, and brimming with a kind of humorous defiance, as if to say, "Think me an impertinent old meddler if you will, and do your worst,"--"Why don't you make it up with her?"
But he didn't seem to mind the meddling in the least. He stood at ease, and plausibly put his case.
"Why don't I? Or why doesn't my uncle? My uncle is a temperamental conservative, a devotee to his traditions--the sort of man who will never do anything that hasn't been the constant habit of his forebears. He would no more dream of healing a well-established family feud than of selling the family plate. And I--well, surely, it would never be for me to make the advances."
"No, you're right," acknowledged Lady Blanchemain. "The advances should come from her. But people have such a fatal way--even without being temperamental conservatives--of leaving things as they find them. Besides, never having seen you, she couldn't know how nice you are. All the same, I'll confess, if