Part 4 (2/2)
”There isn't anybody to leave her a fortune; and what's the good of finding a will when the place is sold? The present owner is a fat old fellow of fifty, with a wife already, and, even if _she_ died, I shouldn't think Loveday would want to marry him. He has three daughters older than she is, and he's quite bald.”
Diana looked baffled. Her romantic plan of restoring the fortunes of the Seton family through matrimony certainly did not seem hopeful.
”I'm fearfully sorry for Loveday,” confided Tattie. ”I know something about her, because some friends of ours live near her aunt. They say she gets very much snubbed; her cousins make her feel it's not her own home.
She wants to go to college, but it's doubtful if she'll be able. Nesta Erskine says Loveday is just _counting_ on a career. She wants to be independent of her aunt.”
”It must be horrible to be snubbed,” commented Diana thoughtfully.
She had admired Loveday before, but now she looked at her room-mate with new eyes. To Diana there was something fascinating about the idea of a ”penniless princess”.
”Do your ancestors go right slap-bang back to the Conquest?” she asked interestedly, while she was undressing that evening.
”Well, not quite so far as that,” smiled Loveday, diligently brus.h.i.+ng a flaxen mane ripply with plaiting. ”But I believe there were Setons in the fourteenth century, long before they had the Abbey from Edward the Sixth's commissioners. There are all sorts of stories and legends about them, of course.”
”What kind of stories? Do tell me! I'd just admire to hear. I'm crazy on Border ballads and legends. Tell me, while I fix my hair.”
”Well, there was little Sir Rowland. When he was only six years old his father was killed in one of the battles of the Wars of the Roses. They were Lancastrians, and the Yorkists seized his estate, and Rowland was only saved from the fury of the conquering party by the devotion of his nurse. She managed to hide him in a secret place in the tower till there was an opportunity to escape, and then she got him away to her father's house in the midst of a wild tract of forest. He lived there, disguised as a forester, for years and years, and helped to cut wood and to hunt, and only two or three people knew the secret of his birth. He used to go errands sometimes to the great Hall of the neighbourhood, and there he saw Lady Anne, the beautiful daughter of Lord Wharton, and fell desperately in love with her. One day when she was out riding he was able to save her from the attack of an infuriated stag, and I suppose she was very grateful, and perhaps showed her feelings too plainly, for her father shut her up in a turret-room, and ordered her to marry somebody whom she didn't like at all. I don't know what would have happened, but just then Henry VII came to the throne, and one of his first acts was to restore Sir Rowland Seton to his possessions and dignity. Lord Wharton must have thought him an eligible suitor then, for he was allowed to marry the Lady Anne, and take her away to his castle.
Their tomb is in Dittington Church. He was killed at the Battle of Flodden, and one of his sons with him.
”There's a romantic story, too, about Sir Roderick Seton, who lived at the Abbey here in the days of Charles I. He had a stone seat made, and put just by the front door. The first person who sat on it was a lovely girl named Katherine, and he said to her: 'Katherine, you have sat on my seat, so you must give me three kisses as toll'. Not very long after he went away to London, leaving his brother William to look after the estate. Then civil war broke out, and he joined the Royalist forces, and followed the young King Charles into exile. After the Restoration he journeyed north, and came on foot to his old home. It was years and years since he had left there, and n.o.body had had any tidings about him, or knew whether he was alive or dead. He found his brother William, who was now married to Katherine, sitting with her and their two children on the stone seat by the door. He asked them for a night's lodging, and, though they did not know who he was, they took him in and treated him kindly. Next morning he asked his hostess to accompany him to the door, and, pointing to the stone seat, said:
”'It is many years since I had three kisses from the dame who first sat on it.'
”She recognized him then, and ran joyously to call the rest of the household. His brother at once wished to hand over the keys to him, but he would not accept them. 'I am old and childless,' he said. 'All I ask here is bed and board till you carry me to the churchyard.' He lived with them for some years, and devoted himself to study. The people of the neighbourhood venerated him as a sage, and after his death he was supposed on very special occasions to appear and give the family warning of future trouble. They say he was seen before the Battle of Culloden, and several times during the Napoleonic wars; but of course I can't vouch for that--it's only legend.”
Diana, sitting up in bed with the curtains of her cubicle drawn aside to listen, gave a long-drawn, breathless sigh.
”O-o-o-oh! How gorgeous to belong to a highfaluting family that's got legends and ghosts. I'm just crazy to hear more. What about the house?
Aren't there any dungeons or built-up skeletons or secret hiding-places?
There _ought_ to be, in a real first-cla.s.s mediaeval place like this.”
Loveday was plaiting her flaxen hair into two long braids; she paused with the ribbon in her hand.
”I don't know--as you say, there ought to be. I've often wondered--especially since----” She hesitated.
”Since what?” urged Diana, scenting the beginning of a mystery.
”Since something that happened once.”
”When? Oh, _do_ tell me!”
”I've never told anybody.”
Diana hopped out of bed, and flung two lace-frilled arms round her room-mate, clinging to her with the tenacity of a young octopus.
”Oh, Loveday! Ducky! Tell me! I shan't let you go till you promise.
Please! please!” she entreated.
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