Blood Royal: A Novel

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Allen Grant. Blood Royal: A Novel

BLOOD ROYAL

CHAPTER I. PERADVENTURE

CHAPTER II. THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE

CHAPTER III. DISCOUNTING IT

CHAPTER IV. A ROYAL POURPARLER

CHAPTER V. GOOD SOCIETY

CHAPTER VI. THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING

CHAPTER VII. AFFAIRS OF THE HEART

CHAPTER VIII. AT ‘OXFORD COLLEGE.’

CHAPTER IX. A SUDDEN RESOLVE

CHAPTER X. MR. PLANTAGENET LIVES AGAIN

CHAPTER XI. A TRAGEDY OR A COMEDY?

CHAPTER XII TRAGEDY WINS

CHAPTER XIII. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

CHAPTER XIV. BREAKING IT OFF

CHAPTER XV. A WILLING PRISONER

CHAPTER XVI. LOOKING ABOUT HIM

CHAPTER XVII. IN SEARCH OF AN ANCESTOR

CHAPTER XVIII. GOOD OUT OF EVIL

Отрывок из книги

Chiddingwick High Street is one of the quaintest and most picturesque bits of old town architecture to be found in England. Narrow at either end, it broadens suddenly near the middle, by a sweeping curve outward, just opposite the W hite Horse, where the weekly cattle-market is held, and where the timbered gable-ends cluster thickest round the ancient stone cross, now reduced as usual to a mere stump or relic. In addition to its High Street, Chiddingwick also possesses a Mayor, a Corporation, a town pump, an Early English church, a Baptist chapel, and abundant opportunities for alcoholic refreshment. The White Horse itself may boast, indeed, of being one of the most famous old coaching inns still remaining in our midst, in spite of railways. And by its big courtyard door, one bright morning’ in early spring, Mr. Edmund Plantagenet, ever bland and self-satisfied, stood sunning his portly person, and surveying the world of the little town as it unrolled itself in changeful panorama before him.

‘Who’s that driving the Hector’s pony, Tom?’ Mr. Plantagenet asked of the hostler in a lordly voice, as a pretty girl went past in an unpretentious trap. ‘She’s a stranger in Chiddingwick.’ For Mr. Plantagenet, as one of the oldest inhabitants, prided himself upon knowing, by sight at least, every person in the parish, from Lady Agatha herself to the workhouse children.

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Mary returned to the pony, and Richard to his ream, which he was cutting into sermon-paper. But Mary Tudor’s pretty face seemed to haunt him at his work; and he thought to himself more than once, between the clips of the knife, that if ever he married at all, that was just the sort of girl a descendant of the Plantagenets would like to marry. Yet the last time one of his house had espoused a Tudor, he said to himself very gravely, the relative roles of man and woman were reversed; for the Tudor was Henry of Richmond, ‘called Henry VII., of our younger branch and the Plantagenet was Elizabeth of York, his consort. And that was how ‘the estates’ went out of the family.

But ‘the estates’ were England, Wales, and Ireland, he often complained in the bosom of the family.

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