CHAPTER XXIII.

The rumors as to Mr. Prosper.

It was still October when Harry Annesley went down to Buston, and the Mountjoys had just reached Brussels.  Mr. Grey had made his visit to Tretton and had returned to London.  Harry went home on an understanding,—­on the part of his mother, at any rate,—­that he should remain there till Christmas.  But he felt himself very averse to so long a sojourn.  If the Hall and park were open to him he might endure it.  He would take down two or three stiff books which he certainly would never read, and would shoot a few pheasants, and possibly ride one of his future brother-in-law’s horses with the hounds.  But he feared that there was to be a quarrel by which he would be debarred from the Hall and the park; and he knew, too, that it would not be well for him to shoot and hunt when his income should have been cut off.  It would be necessary that some great step should be taken at once; but then it would be necessary, also, that Florence should agree to that step.  He had a modest lodging in London, but before he started he prepared himself for what must occur by giving notice.  “I don’t say as yet that I shall give them up; but I might as well let you know that it’s possible.”  This he said to Mrs. Brown, who kept the lodgings, and who received this intimation as a Mrs. Brown is sure to do.  But where should he betake himself when his home at Mrs. Brown’s had been lost?  He would, he thought, find it quite impossible to live in absolute idleness at the rectory.  Then in an unhappy frame of mind he went down by the train to Stevenage, and was there met by the rectory pony-carriage.

He saw it all in his mother’s eye the moment she embraced him.  There was some terrible trouble in the wind, and what could it be but his uncle?  “Well, mother, what is it?”

“Oh, Harry, there is such a sad affair up at the Hall!”

“Is my uncle dead?”

“Dead!  No!”

“Then why do you look so sad?—­

  “’Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
  So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
  Drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night.’”

“Oh Harry do not laugh.  Your uncle says such dreadful things!”

“I don’t care much what he says.  The question is—­what does he mean to do?”

“He declares that he will cut you off altogether.”

“That is sooner said than done.”

“That is all very well, Harry; but he can do it.  Oh, Harry!  But come and sit down and talk to me.  I told your father to be out, so that I might have you alone; and the dear girls are gone into Buntingford.”

“Ah, like them!  Thoroughbung will have enough of them.”

“He is our only happiness now.”

“Poor Thoroughbung!  I pity him if he has to do happiness for the whole household.”

“Joshua is a most excellent young man.  Where we should be without him I do not know.”  The flourishing young brewer was named Joshua, and had been known to Harry for some years, though never as yet known as a brother-in-law.