The Moon Rock by Arthur J. Rees (e novels to read TXT) 📗

another world, but the remains of the priory still stood on a barren headland near Cape Cornwall. And there was a tomb in St. Fair church, behind the altar, marked by a blue slab, with an indent formerly filled by a recumbent figure. On the blue slab was a partly obliterated inscription in monkish Latin, which yielded its secret to him, and divulged that the remains beneath were those of Father Simon of St. Fair.

With this important discovery to help him, Robert Turold had very little difficulty in completing the particulars of the family genealogy. Further search of the churchtown records brought to light that Simon’s other son, Robert, left Cornwall as a young man, and after some years of wandering had settled in Suffolk. Father Simon, of course, died without family, but Robert married, the family name came to be spelt “Turold,” and thus was founded that branch of the family of which the last Robert Turold was now the head. The family tree was complete.

Such was the substance of Robert Turold’s life quest, and the story had occupied two hours in telling.

“I have petitioned the King’s most excellent majesty to terminate the abeyance in my favour and declare that I am entitled to the peerage,” he concluded. “I have no doubt that my claim will be admitted. I have set out the facts with great care, and in considerable detail. I have traced a clear line of descent back to Simon Turrald, younger brother of the last baron, and there are no coheirs in existence. Ours is the last surviving branch, or it would, perhaps, be better if I said that Austin and myself, and Austin’s son, are the only male members of the family. It is a difficult matter to give effectual proof of a long pedigree, but my lawyer has not the least doubt that the House of Lords will admit the validity of my claim, and will terminate the abeyance in my favour. The Attorney General has inspected my proofs, and I am to appear before the Committee for Privileges next week. In a few weeks at the outside, allowing for the worst of law’s delays, I shall be Lord Turrald.”

Robert Turold’s whole bearing was transfigured as he made this announcement. His sound eye gleamed, his shrunken form seemed to expand and fill, and his harsh sallow features took on an expression which was almost ecstatic. It was his great moment, the moment for which he had lived for twenty years, and it compensated him for all his worry, delayed expectation, fruitless labour, and the bitter taste of the waters of despair.

“I shall be Turrald of Great Missenden,” he said, and again the expression of his face showed what the words meant to him.

“Bob! So you’ve actually succeeded after all!” Mrs. Pendleton stepped quickly across to her brother as he sat regarding his audience from behind his pile of documents. It was like a sister, at that moment, to slip back to the juvenile name and kiss his elderly face with tears in her eyes. Robert Turold received the caress unmoved, and she went back to the sofa.

“Lord Turrald! It sounds well,” murmured her husband, whose ideas were sufficiently democratic to give him a sneaking admiration for a title. He gazed at his brother-in-law with a new respect, discerning unsuspected indications of noble blood in his grim visage.

“How do you account for the two forms of spelling your family name?” observed Dr. Ravenshaw. “The House of Lords will require proof on that point, will they not?”

“I shall be able to satisfy them,” returned Robert Turold. “The first Robert Turold reverted to the Norman spelling when he settled in Suffolk. Turrald is the corrupted form, doubtless due to early Saxon difficulties with Norman names. The Saxons were never very glib at Norman-French, and there was no standardized spelling of family names at that period.”

“It would be interesting to know how the name of Simon came to be bestowed upon the Simon Turrald who fled to Cornwall after Bosworth. The name is Biblical—not Norman. The Normans were pagan, worshipping Woden and Thor, though supposed to be Christianized after Charles the Simple ceded Neustria to Rollo.”

“Simon was a good mediaeval name in France and was fairly common in England from the twelfth century until after the Reformation. It was Norman, as being that of an apostle, and was never popular among the Puritans.”

“It seems a pity that you cannot claim the Turrald estates,” put in Austin. “They must have been immensely wealthy.”

“It is quite out of the question,” replied Robert decisively. “They have been alienated for centuries. But it has been part of my life’s work to provide for the upkeep of the title when I gained it. I shall be able to ensure my heirs an income of nearly eight thousand pounds a year.”

It was Mrs. Pendleton’s first intimation of the amount of the fortune her brother had gained abroad. “Eight thousand a year!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Robert, it is wealth.”

“One could live very comfortably on eight thousand a year,” remarked her husband, “very comfortably indeed.”

“It’s not much to support a title, after the tax-gatherers have taken their pound of flesh in income tax and super-tax,” said Austin. “Robert, with his iron frame, will probably outlive a weakling like myself, but if he doesn’t I’m sure I shall find it difficult to keep up the title on the money.”

“One word!” said Dr. Ravenshaw, with a quick glance at Robert Turold. “This is a barony by writ that you are claiming. Does not your daughter succeed you if you gain it, and not your brother?”

“No,” replied Robert Turold. “The next holder of the title, after me, will be my brother, and his son will succeed him.”

Little Mr. Pendleton looked questioningly at his brother-in-law.

“A similar question was on my lips,” he said hesitatingly. “I know very little of such matters, but in view of our family’s probable entry into the ranks of the old nobility I have deemed it my duty to make myself acquainted, to some extent, with the history of the Turrald title and peerage law. It seems a very complicated business—peerage law, I mean—in the case of baronies by writ, but I certainly gathered the impression that a sole daughter can succeed, although several daughters are regarded as coheirs.”

“My daughter cannot succeed to the Turrald title,” rejoined Robert Turold. The words seemed to be wrung out of him reluctantly.

“It is not for me to question your knowledge—your great knowledge—of English peerage law, Robert,” pursued Mr. Pendleton with a kind of timid persistence. “But I brought a book down with me in the train in which I remember reading that the right of a single daughter to succeed to a barony by writ had been well established by the Clifton case and several others. I am not precisely aware what the Clifton case is, but I’ve no doubt that you are well versed in the particulars of it. As you have no son your daughter has priority of claim over your brother and his son. From what you say I can see that I must be quite wrong, but I’d be glad if you would explain to me.”

“You have stated the law accurately enough,” said Robert Turold, “but my daughter does not succeed to the title.”

“Why not?”

Embarrassment, perceptible as a cloud, deepened on Robert Turold’s face. He regained his self-control with an effort.

“There was an informality in my marriage,” said he at last. “My daughter’s birth was irregular.”

“Do you mean that she is illegitimate?” asked Dr. Ravenshaw.

Robert Turold inclined his head. “Yes,” he said.

At this admission his sister bounced from the sofa with a startled cry. “So that was why there was no name plate on the coffin,” she exclaimed. “Oh, Robert, what a terrible thing—what a disgrace!”

“Spare me your protests until you have heard the explanation,” Robert coldly rejoined. “She”—he pointed a hand in the direction of the churchyard—“was married before she met me. She kept the fact from me. It was apparently a secret passage in her life. During our long association together she gave no hint of it. She confessed the truth on her deathbed. In justice to her memory let me say that she believed her husband dead.”

Robert Turold told this with unmoved face in barest outline—etched in dry-point, as it were—leaving his hearers to fill in the picture of the unhappy woman who had gone through life tormented by the twin demons of conscience and fear, which had overtaken her and brought her down before she could reach the safe shelter of the grave.

Mrs. Pendleton, whose robust mind had scant patience with the policy of cowardice which dictates death-bed confessions, regretted that Alice, having remained silent so long, had not kept silence altogether.

“You do not intend to make this scandal public, Robert?” she said anxiously.

“I am compelled to do so,” was the gloomy response.

“Is it necessary?” she pleaded. “Cannot the story be kept quiet—if not for Alice’s sake, at least for Sisily’s? You must consider her above all things. She is your daughter, your only child.”

“I agree with Aunt,” said Charles Turold. He rose from the window-seat and approached the table. “Sisily must be your first consideration,” he said, looking at Robert Turold.

“This has nothing to do with you, Charles,” interposed Austin hastily.

“I think it has,” said his son. “You told me nothing about this, you know.”

“I was not aware of it myself,” replied his father.

“Now that I know, I shall have nothing further to do with this,” continued the young man. “I’m not going to help you wrong Sisily.”

“I hardly expected such lofty moral sentiments from you,” said Austin, with a dark glance.

His son flushed as though there was a hidden sting behind the jibe. He appeared to be about to say something more, but checked himself, and went back to his seat by the window.

“Is there no way of keeping this matter quiet, Robert?” said his sister imploringly.

“I see none,” was the rejoinder. “It is a very painful disclosure, but I think it is inevitable. Do you not agree with me, Austin?”

“Do not ask my opinion,” his brother coldly replied. “It is for you to decide.”

Robert Turold paused irresolutely. “What do you say, Ravenshaw?” he said, glancing round at the silent figure of the doctor. “I asked you to be present this afternoon to have the benefit of your advice. I owe much to you, so I beg you to speak freely.”

“Since you have asked my advice,” said Dr. Ravenshaw gravely, “I say that I entirely agree with Mrs. Pendleton. Your first duty is to Sisily. She should out-weigh all other considerations. If you make her illegitimacy public you may live to be sorry for having done so.”

Mrs. Pendleton cast a moist, grateful glance at the speaker, but Austin Turold turned on him a look of cold hostility.

Robert Turold sat brooding for a few moments in silence. He had asked advice, but his own mind was made up. The humane views of his sister and Dr. Ravenshaw were powerless to affect his decision. The monstrous growth of his single purpose had long since strangled such transient plants as human affection and feeling in his heart and mind.

“The facts must be made public,” he said inexorably. “The honour of a noble family is in my hands, and I must do my duty. It would be an insult to my Sovereign and my peers, and a grievous wrong to our family, if I concealed any portion of the truth. I shall make adequate provision for Sisily. You will not refuse to take charge of her, Constance, because of this disclosure?”

“You ought to know me better than that, Robert. She’ll need somebody to take care of her, poor child! But who is to tell her the truth? For I suppose she must be told?”

“I want you to tell her,” said Robert Turold. “Choose your time. There is no immediate hurry, but she must be in no false hopes about the future. She had better be told before the Investigations Committee meets.”

“Bother the Investigations Committee!” exclaimed Mrs. Pendleton. “Really, Robert—”

Mrs. Pendleton broke off abruptly, in something like dismay. She had a fleeting impression of a pair of eyes encountering her own through a crack in the doorway, and as swiftly withdrawn. She walked quickly to the door and flung it open. There was nobody outside, and the passage was empty.

“We have been talking family secrets with the door open,” she said, returning to her seat. “I thought I saw one of the servants eavesdropping.”

“My servants would not listen at doors,” said Robert Turold coldly. “You must have imagined it.”

Mrs. Pendleton made no rejoinder. She had a strong belief that someone had been watching and listening, but she could not be sure.

“We must really be going,” she announced, with a glance at the clock. “Joseph”—such was her husband’s