The Lady of the Shroud | Page 5

Mother says thinness is an "appanage of birth."
"My Aunt Janet, sir, is an aunt by love. Courtesy is a small word to use
in connection with such devotion as she has given to us. But I needn't
trouble you with such things, sir. I take it that my relations on the side
of my own house do not affect you. I am a Sent Leger!" Father looked
quite taken aback. He sat quite still before he spoke.
"Well, Mr. St. Leger, I shall think over the matter for a while, and shall
presently let you know my decision. In the meantime, would you like
something to eat? I take it that as you must have started very early, you
have not had any breakfast?" Rupert smiled quite genially:
"That is true, sir. I haven't broken bread since dinner last night, and I
am ravenously hungry." Father rang the bell, and told the footman who
answered it to send the housekeeper. When she came, father said to her:
"Mrs. Martindale, take this boy to your room and give him some
breakfast." Rupert stood very still for some seconds. His face had got
red again after his paleness. Then he bowed to my father, and followed
Mrs. Martindale, who had moved to the door.
Nearly an hour afterwards my father sent a servant to tell him to come
to the study. My mother was there, too, and I had gone back with her.
The man came back and said:
"Mrs. Martindale, sir, wishes to know, with her respectful service, if
she may have a word with you." Before father could reply mother told

him to bring her. The housekeeper could not have been far off-- that
kind are generally near a keyhole--for she came at once. When she
came in, she stood at the door curtseying and looking pale. Father said:
"Well?"
"I thought, sir and ma'am, that I had better come and tell you about
Master Sent Leger. I would have come at once, but I feared to disturb
you."
"Well?" Father had a stern way with servants. When I'm head of the
family I'll tread them under my feet. That's the way to get real devotion
from servants!
"If you please, sir, I took the young gentleman into my room and
ordered a nice breakfast for him, for I could see he was half
famished--a growing boy like him, and so tall! Presently it came along.
It was a good breakfast, too! The very smell of it made even me hungry.
There were eggs and frizzled ham, and grilled kidneys, and coffee, and
buttered toast, and bloater-paste--"
"That will do as to the menu," said mother. "Go on!"
"When it was all ready, and the maid had gone, I put a chair to the table
and said, 'Now, sir, your breakfast is ready!' He stood up and said,
'Thank you, madam; you are very kind!' and he bowed to me quite
nicely, just as if I was a lady, ma'am!"
"Go on," said mother.
"Then, sir, he held out his hand and said, 'Good-bye, and thank you,'
and he took up his cap.
"'But aren't you going to have any breakfast, sir?' I says.
"'No, thank you, madam,' he said; 'I couldn't eat here . . . in this house, I
mean!' Well, ma'am, he looked so lonely that I felt my heart melting,
and I ventured to ask him if there was any mortal thing I could do for

him. 'Do tell me, dear,' I ventured to say. 'I am an old woman, and you,
sir, are only a boy, though it's a fine man you will be--like your dear,
splendid father, which I remember so well, and gentle like your poor
dear mother.'
"'You're a dear!' he says; and with that I took up his hand and kissed it,
for I remember his poor dear mother so well, that was dead only a year.
Well, with that he turned his head away, and when I took him by the
shoulders and turned him round--he is only a young boy, ma'am, for all
he is so big--I saw that the tears were rolling down his cheeks. With
that I laid his head on my breast--I've had children of my own, ma'am,
as you know, though they're all gone. He came willing enough, and
sobbed for a little bit. Then he straightened himself up, and I stood
respectfully beside him.
"'Tell Mr. Melton,' he said, 'that I shall not trouble him about the trustee
business.'
"'But won't you tell him yourself, sir, when you see him?' I says.
"'I shall not see him again,' he says; 'I am going back now!'
"Well, ma'am, I knew he'd had no breakfast, though he was hungry, and
that he would walk as he come,