The Dowager Lady Farrington, after long years of grief and sorrow, had chanced at last upon happier days. Her cup of bliss seemed filled now to overflowing. To be free once more, released from the hateful asylum, with its painful associations and unbroken restraint, was in itself a great joy; that Herbert was restored to her was a yet greater delight, but greatest of all was the knowledge that her heart had not misled her, and that she had rightly recognised him as the offspring of her own ill-used and long-lost boy. Herbert had told her the story as he had had it from Mrs. Larkins, and the statement—although it[80] lacked formal legal proof—was more than sufficient to satisfy her ladyship’s mind. She was, indeed, only too eager to believe it. But had any doubt remained, it would have been more than removed, so she declared, by the living Herbert’s extraordinary resemblance to the one that was dead and gone.

‘As I look at you now, a full-grown man, I seem to see my own poor son once more,’ cried the old lady, with tears of joy in her eyes. ‘You have his face, his features, all his ways. Even the colour of your hair and of your eyes is the same. You are a Farrington, every inch; I know it, I feel it, and everybody else shall own it also, and at once.’

Nothing would please her but that he should assume, without loss of time, the Farrington name and arms.

[81]

‘No, not yet,’ he pleaded; ‘I am not entitled to them.’

‘Are you not my grandson? Who shall gainsay that?’

‘I know it, and I glory in it; but still the case is not satisfactorily proved. Besides, if I am to take the name of Farrington at all, it can only be as the head of the house.’

‘You are Sir Herbert Farrington, at this very moment.’

‘I ought to be, perhaps. But you will admit that to say so positively at present would be quite premature. It would not be in very good taste either, and I had much rather let things stay as they are.’

To this Lady Farrington eventually assented, but not with the best grace in the world.

‘At any rate, everyone shall know that[82] I recognise and adopt you,’ she said, with all a woman’s pertinacity. ‘You may be called Mr. Larkins, but you are the son of this house. All I have is yours, now if you wish it, and absolutely so after I am gone.’

And to prove her words she sought, in spite of his protestations, to load him with rich gifts. Her ladyship happily had ample funds at her disposal. Whatever sinister motives may have actuated Sir Rupert in locking her up, he had behaved with scrupulous honesty towards her effects. As the appointed administrator, he had full power over every penny of hers, but he never misappropriated one. No sooner was Lady Farrington at large, than he rendered an exact account of his stewardship to Mr. Bellhouse, and the balance he handed over was very satisfactory indeed. Out of this Lady Farrington wished to make large[83] settlements at once upon Herbert, contenting herself with her jointure, which would amply suffice for all her needs as before. But she attached a condition that he should retire forthwith from the profession in which he had first begun to climb, and reside with her, devoting himself also to the great emprise of fully establishing his claims.

It was a severe struggle for the young man: On the one side, gratitude to the kind benefactress who had done so much for him impelled him to accept the offer she so generously made; on the other, his affection for the service in which he had already begun to rise urged him as strongly to reject the conditions she wished to impose. At any rate, he begged for time. There was no need to decide in a hurry. He had still six months’ leave to run; something might turn up to support his case—some[84] answers to the advertisement, some news of the missing marriage lines. Lady Farrington consented gladly enough. All she asked was that he should remain always at her side. This time was spent in London, whither the pair had come immediately after Lady Farrington’s discharge. Farrington Court was hateful to her, she declared, and for obvious reasons; it was too near the Hall, too near the monster who had cast a cloud over the last half-dozen years of her life; too full of memories she desired now to shut out for ever. London, with its varied interests and amusements, its busy life, and stirring ways, was more calculated to suit Lady Farrington’s temper than a semi-conventual seclusion in a lonely and nearly empty country place. Mr. Bellhouse had therefore secured a snug house in a Mayfair street, a thoroughfare noisy[85] with carriages, gay and lively always with people passing continually to and fro. Here Miss Ponting had also been installed as lady’s-maid, a very wise precaution, which served to keep Lady Farrington always quiet. ‘The Boy’ was also one of the household. He had given himself his discharge the day after the great scene at the asylum, having done the business entrusted to him, and wishing to avoid any altercation with the angry and suspicious chief. Hanlon’s position in Vaughan-street was not at first quite clearly defined; but, beginning as hall-porter, he lapsed first into general factotum, and then into Herbert’s body-servant and own particular man. His appointment was rather a sinecure; beyond cleaning his master’s boots, to which he gave a lustre which was the envy of every shoeblack whom Herbert passed in the streets, and[86] pipeclaying his kid gloves, for want of anything better on which to try his hand, he had not the slightest idea of the duties of a valet; and Herbert had as little knowledge of what he should ask Hanlon to do. But the two talked constantly together of old times; they compared notes of past experiences, discussed old comrades, cross-questioned each other, and wound up by expressing their unbounded and unshaken opinion that there never was and never would be such a corps in any army in the civilised world as the Duke’s Own. When they came to this point Herbert’s heart grew heavy, and he sought to change the conversation. ‘The Boy,’ after a little, saw this.

‘Faith, sir’—he was most religiously respectful nowadays—‘you jib and shirk whenever we come to talk of the old corps. You’re as bad as the colonel when a Goojerat[87] day came twice in the same week. What’s up, sir? You’re not going to turn your back upon the old corps?’

‘That’s just where it is, Joe. Lady Farrington wants me to retire and live always with her.’

‘And you that’s only just got your commission, sir, and that’ll be adjutant when you please, and a staff officer, and a field officer, and a general officer, and all sorts of officers rolled into one, before you be got a grey hair. G’long with you, sir! It’s the wildest, maddest—well, no, that’s not a pleasant word to use in this house. But you mustn’t do it, sir; you mustn’t do it. Only this blessed day did I see the captain—Greathed—him that’s colonel now, you know; and he axes after you; and sez he, is he pretty stout? sez he; and sez I, he is that, sez I; and I’ll be coming to see him,[88] sez he; and I hope he will, this very day, sez I, for it’s a folly to talk to him, sez I; which it is, sez he; I mean, sez I—but I’m fairly bothered, like Johnny Raw at recruits’ drill.’