BROOKE'S DISCIPLE.
Lesleywas sitting in a low chair near a small wood fire, which the chillness of the October day made fully acceptable. She had a book on her lap, but she did not look as if she were reading: her chin was supported by her hand, and her brown eyes were gazing out of the window, with, as Maurice Kenyon could not fail to see, a slightly blank and saddened look. The girl had been now a fortnight in London, and her face had paled and thinned since her arrival; there was an anxious fold between her brows, and her mouth drooped at the corners. If her old friends—Sister Rose of the convent, for instance—had seen her, they could hardly have recognized this spiritless, brooding maiden for the joyous "Lisa" of their thoughts.
Mr. Kenyon had only one moment in which to note the significance of her attitude, for Lesley changed it as soon as she heard his name. He gave her Ethel's message at once and Ethel's parcel, and then stood, a little confused and unready for she had risen and was looking as if, when his errand was accomplished, he ought to go. Fortunately, Doctor Sophy came in and invited him cordially to sit down; rang for tea and scolded him roundly for not coming oftener; then suddenly remembered that one of her everlasting committees was at that moment sitting in a neighboring house, and started off at once to join her fellows, calling out to Lesley as she went to give Mr. Kenyon some tea, and tell her father, who was in the library.
"My father is out: Aunt Sophy does not know that," said Lesley to her visitor.
"Then I ought to go?" said Maurice, smiling.
"Oh, no!"—Lesley looked disturbed. "I did not mean to be so inhospitable. The tea is just coming up."
"Thank you," said Maurice, accepting the unspoken invitation and seating himself. "I shall be very glad of a cup."
She sat down too, veiling the real embarrassment of a school-girl by an assumption of great dignity. Maurice looked at her and felt perplexed. Somehow he could not believe that Brooke's daughter was such a very frivolous girl when he came to look at her. She had a fine brow, expressive eyes, a very eloquent mouth. He wondered what she was reading. Glancing at the title of the book, his heart sank within him. She had a yellow-backed novel in her hand, of a profoundly light and frivolous type. Maurice was fond of certain kinds of novels, but there were others that he disliked and despised, and, as it happened, Lesley had got hold of one of these.
"You are reading?" he said. "Am I interrupting you very much?"
"Oh, no," Lesley answered, smiling and shutting the book. "Tea is coming up, you see. I am falling into English habits, and beginning to love the hour of tea."
Sarah brought in the tea-tray as she spoke; and even Sarah's sour visage relaxed a little at the sight of the young doctor. She went downstairs, and presently returned with a plate of small, sweet cakes, which she placed rather ostentatiously upon the table.
"Sarah must have brought those cakes especially for me," said Mr. Kenyon lightly, when she had left the room. "She knows they are my especial favorites. And your father's too. I don't know how many dozen your father and I have not eaten, with our coffee sometimes in an evening! I suppose you are learning to like them for his sake!"
He was talking against time for the sake of giving her back the confidence that she seemed to have lost, for her face had flushed and paled again more than once since his entry. But perhaps he was wrong, for she answered him with a quietness of tone which showed no perturbation.
"These little macaroon things, you mean? I like them very much already. I did not know that my father cared about them. I have been away so long"—smilingly—"that I know but little of his tastes."
"I could envy you the pleasure you will have, then?" said Maurice, quickly.
Lesley opened her brown eyes. "The—the pleasure?" she faltered in an inquiring tone.
"Yes, the pleasure of discovering what are the tastes and feelings of a man like your father," said Maurice.
Then, as she looked disconcerted still, and as if she did not know quite what he meant, he went on, ardently:
"You have the privilege, you know, of being the only daughter of a man who is not only very widely known, but very much respected and admired. That doesn't seem much to you perhaps?"—for he thought he saw Lesley's lip curl, and his tone became a little sharp. "I assure you it means a great deal in a world like ours—in the world of London. It means that your father is a man of great ability and of unimpeachable honesty—I mean honesty of thought, honesty of purpose—intellectual honesty. You have no idea how rare that quality is amongst public men—or literary men—or journalists. Indeed it is a wonder that Brooke is so successful as he is, considering that he never wrote or said a word that he did not mean. No doubt that seems a small thing to you: it is not a small thing to say of a journalist now-a-days."
"I don't know much about journalists," said Lesley. "But all that you are saying would be taken as a matter of course amongstgentlemen."
There was a snub for Maurice, and a sly hit at her father, too. Maurice began to wax warm.
"Miss Brooke," he said, "you entirely fail to understand me; and I can imagine that you, perhaps, fail to understand your father also."
"If I do," said Lesley, proudly, "I hardly need to be set right by a stranger."
The young doctor sprang to his feet. "I a stranger!" he said. "I, who have known and appreciated and worked with Caspar Brooke for the last half dozen years—I to be called a stranger by his daughter? I don't think that's fair: I don't indeed."
He paused and put his tea-cup down upon the table. "If you'll only think for a minute, Miss Brooke," he said, entreatingly, with such a sudden softening of voice and manner that Lesley sat amazed, "I cannot believe but that you'll pardon me. I owe so much to your father—he has been a guide, a helper, almost a prophet to me, ever since I came across him when I was a medical student at King's College Hospital, and I only want everybody to see him with my eyes—loving and reverent eyes, I can tellyou, though I wouldn't say so to everybody, seeing that love and reverence seem to have gone out of fashion! But to his daughter——"
"His daughter surely does not need to be taught how to think of him by another, whether he be an old friend or a comparative stranger," said Lesley. "She can learn to know him for herself."
"Butcanshe?"—Maurice Kenyon's Irish strain, which always led him to be more eager and explicit in speech than if he had been entirely of Anglo-Saxon nationality, was running away with him. "Are you sure that she can? Look here, Miss Brooke: you come to your father's house straight from a French convent, I believe. Whatcanyou know of English life? of the strife of political parties, of literary parties, of faiths and theories and passions? You are plunged into the midst of a new world—it can't help but be strange to you at first, and you must feel a trifle forlorn and miserable—at least I should think so——"
Lesley was in a dilemma. Kenyon's words were so true, so apt, that they brought involuntary tears to her eyes. She could get rid of the lump in her throat only by working herself up into a rage: she could dissipate the tears only by making her eyes flash with anger. The melting mood was not to her taste. She chose the more hostile tone.
"Mr. Kenyon, excuse me, but you have no right at all to talk about my being miserable. You may know my father: you do not know me."
"But knowing your father so well——"
"That has nothing to do with it. Am I not a separate human being? What have you to do with me and my feelings? You say that I do not know English ways—is it an English way," cried Lesley, indignantly, "to try to thrust yourself into a girl's confidence, and intrude where you have not been asked to enter? Then English ways are not those that I approve."
Maurice Kenyon felt that his cause was lost. He had gone rather white about the lips as he listened to Lesley's protest. Of course, he had offended her by his abominable want of tact, he told himself—his intrusive proffer of unneeded sympathy and help. But it was not in his nature to acknowledge himself beaten, and to take his leave without a word. His ardor impelled him to speak.
"Miss Brooke, I most sincerely beg your pardon," he said, in tones of deep humility. "I see that I have madea mistake—but I assure you that it was from the purest motives. I don't"—forgetting his apologetic attitude for a moment—"Idon'tthink that you realize what a truly great man your father is—how good, as well as great. Idon'tthink you understand him. But I beg your pardon for seeming to think that I could enlighten you. Of course, it must seem like impertinent interference to you. But if you knew"—with a tremor of disappointment in his voice—"what your father has been to me, you would not perhaps be so surprised at my wanting his daughter to sympathize with me in my feelings. I had no idea"—this was intended to be a Parthian shot—"that my admiration would be thought insulting."
He bowed very low, and turned to depart, vowing to himself that nothing would induce him ever to enter that drawing-room again; but Lesley, pale and wide-eyed, called him back.
"Stay, Mr. Kenyon," she said, rising from her seat.
He halted, his hat in one hand, his fingers still on the knob of the door.
"I never meant to say," said Lesley, confronting him, "that I was incapable of sympathy with you in admiration for my father. With my feeling towards him you have nothing to do—that is all. I am not angry because you express your own sentiments, but because——"
She stopped and bit her lip.
"——Because I dared divine what yours might be?" asked Maurice, boldly, and with an accent of reproach. "Is it possible that yourscanbe like mine? and am I to blame for saying so? How can you estimate the worth of his work? You, a girl fresh from school! I know it is very rude to say so, but I cannot help it. If you were more of a woman, Miss Brooke, if you had had a wider experience of life and mankind, you would acknowledge that you could not possibly know very much of what your father had done, and you would be glad of the opportunity of learning!"
This was just the speech calculated to make Lesley furiously angry, and it was with great difficulty that she restrained the words that rose impetuously to her lips. She stood motionless and silent, and Maurice mistook her silence for that of stupid obstinacy, when it was the silence of wounded feeling and passionate resentment. He wenton hotly, for he began to feel himself once more in the right.
"Of course youmayknow all about him: you may know as much as I who have lived and worked at his side, so to speak, for the last six years! You may be familiar with his writings: you may have seen theTribuneevery week, and you may know that wonderful book of his—'The Unexplored' I mean, not the essays—by heart; there may be nothing that I can tell you, even about his gallant fight for one of the hospitals last year, or the splendid work he has set going at the Macclesfield Buildings in North London, or the way in which his name is blessed by hundreds—yes hundreds—of men and women and children whom he has helped to lead a better life! You may know all about these things, and plenty more, but youcan'tknow—coming here without having seen him since you were a baby—youcan'tknow the beauty of his character, or the depths of his sympathy for the erring, or the tremendous efforts that he has made, and is still making, for the laboring poor. You can't know this, or else I'd tell you, Miss Brooke, what you would be doing! You would be working heart and soul to lighten his burdens and relieve him of the incessant drudgery that interferes with his higher work, instead of sitting here day after day reading yellow-backed novels in a drawing-room."
And then, in a white heat of indignation, Mr. Maurice Kenyon took his leave. But he did not know the consternation that he had created in Lesley's mind. She was positively frightened by his vehemence. But she had never seen an angry man before—never been spoken to in strong masculine tones of reprobation and disgust, such as it seemed to her that Maurice Kenyon had used. And for what? She did not know. She was not aware that she had behaved in an unfilial manner to her father. She did not realize that her cold demeanor, her puzzled and bewildered looks, had told Mr. Kenyon far more than she would have cared to confess about the state of her feelings. For the rest, Ethel's words and Maurice's vivid imagination were to blame. And, angry as Lesley was, she felt with a thrill of dismay that Mr. Kenyon's discourteous words were perfectly true. She did not appreciate her father; she did not know anything about him. All that she had hitherto surmised was bad. And here came ayoung man, apparently sane, certainly handsome and clever, although disagreeable—to tell her that Caspar Brooke was a hero, a man among ten thousand, an intellectual giant, an uncrowned king. It was too ridiculous; and Lesley laughed aloud—although as she laughed she found that her eyes were wet with tears.
"THE UNEXPLORED."
Lesleyretained for some time a feeling of distinct anger against Maurice Kenyon, even while she came to acknowledge the truth of divers of his words. But their truth, she told herself indignantly, was no justification of his brutality. He was horribly rude and meddlesome and intrusive. What business was it of his whether she gave her father or not the meed of praise that he deserved? Why should she be lectured for it by a stranger? Maurice Kenyon's conduct—Maurice Kenyon himself—was intolerable, and she should hate him all the days of her life.
And in good sooth, Maurice's behavior is somewhat hard to excuse. He certainly had no business at all to attack Lesley on the subject of her feelings about her father, and his mode of attack was almost ludicrously wanting in judgment and discrimination. But that which tact and judgment might perhaps have failed to effect, Maurice's sledge-hammer blows brought home to Lesley's understanding. He was to blame; but he did some good, nevertheless. When the first shock was over, Lesley began to reflect that her own world had been a narrow one, and that possibly there were others equally good. And this was a great step to a girl who had been educated in a French convent school.
Part of Lesley's inheritance from her father, and a part of which she was quite unconscious, was a singularly fair mind. She could judge and balance and discriminate with an impartiality which was far beyond the power of the ordinary woman. Being young her impartiality was now and then disturbed by little gusts of passion and prejudice; but the faculty was there to be strengthened by every opportunity of exercising it. This faculty had been stirred within her when Lady Alice first told her of her father's existence; but she had tried to stifle it as an accursed thing. She held it wicked to be anything but a partizan.And now it had revived within her, and was urging her to form no rash conclusions, to be careful in her thoughts about her new acquaintances, to weigh her opinions before expressing them. And all this in spite of a native fire and vivacity of temperament which might have led her into difficulties but for the counterbalancing power of judgment which she had inherited from the father whom she had been taught to despise.
So although she raged with all her young heart and strength against Mr. Kenyon's construction of her feelings and motives, she had the good sense to ask herself whether there had not been some truth in what he said. After all, what did she know of this strange father of hers, whose every action she judged so harshly? She had heard her mother's story, which certainly placed him in a very unamiable light. But many years had gone by since Lady Alice left her husband, and a man's character might be modified in a dozen years or so. Lesley was willing to go so far. He might even be repentant for the past. Then Sister Rose's words came back to her. She, Lesley, might become the instrument of reconciliation between two who had been long divided!
The color flashed into her face and slowly faded away. What chance had she of gaining her father's ear? True, she could descant by the hour together, if she had the opportunity, on Lady Alice's sweetness and goodness; but when could she get the opportunity of speaking about them to him? He looked on her with an eye of mistrust, almost of contempt. She had been brought up in a school of thought which he despised. How far away from her now, by the by, seemed the old life with which she had been familiar for so many years! the life of simple duties, of easy routine, of praise and tenderness and placid contentment. She was out in the world now, as other girls were who had once shared with her the convent life near Paris. Where were they now—Aglae and Marthe and Lucile and Anastasie? Did they all find life in the world as difficult as Lesley found it?
No, there was little chance, she decided, of acting as a mediatrix between her parents. Her father would not listen to any word she might say. And she was quite sure that she could never speak of his private affairs to him. They had been divided so many years; they were strangers now, not father and daughter, as they ought to be.
Curious to relate, a feeling of resentment against the decree that had so long severed her from him rose up in Lesley's heart. It was not exactly a feeling of resentment against her mother. Rather it was a protest against fate—the fate that had made that father a sealed book to her, although known and read of all the world beside. If therewereadmirable things in his nature, why had she been kept in ignorance of them?—why told the one ugly fact of his life which seemed to throw all the rest into shadow? It was not fair, Lesley very characteristically remarked to herself: it certainly was not fair.
If he was so distinguished a man in literature as Maurice Kenyon represented him to be, why had she never been allowed to read his books? She wanted, for the first time, to read something that he had written. She supposed she might; for there was no one now to choose her books for her. Only a day or two before she had dutifully asked her Aunt Sophia if she might read a book that Ethel had lent her (it was the yellow-backed novel, the sight of which had made Maurice so angry), and she had said, with her horrid little laugh—oh, how Lesley hated Aunt Sophy's laugh!——
"Good heavens, child, read what you like! You're old enough!"
And Lesley had felt crushed, but resolved to avail herself of the permission. But where should she find her father's works? She would cut out her tongue before she asked Aunt Sophy for them, or her father, or the Kenyons, or Mrs. Romaine.
She set to work to search the library shelves, and was soon rewarded by the discovery of a set ofTribunes, a weekly paper in which she knew that her father wrote. She turned over the leaves, with a dazed feeling of bewilderment. None of the articles were signed. And she had no clue to those that were written by her father or anybody else.
She returned the volumes to their places with a heavy sigh, and continued to look through the shelves—especially through the rows of ponderous quartos and octavos, where she thought that her father's works would probably be found. Simple Lesley! It was quite a shock to her when at last—after she had relinquished her search in heartsick disappointment—she suddenly came across a little paper volume bearing this legend:—
"The Unexplored. By Caspar Brooke. Price One Shilling. Tenth Edition."
She took the book in her hand and gazed at it curiously. This was the "wonderful book" of which Maurice Kenyon had spoken. This little shilling pamphlet—really it was little more than a pamphlet! It seemed an extraordinary thing to her that her father should writeshilling books. "A shilling shocker" was a name that Lesley happened to know, and a thing that she heartily despised. Her taste had been formed on the best models, and Lady Alice had encouraged her in a critical disparagement of cheap literature. Still—if Caspar Brooke had written it, and Maurice Kenyon had recommended it, Lesley felt, with flushing cheek and suspicious eyes, that it was a thing which she ought to read.
Holding it gingerly, as if it were a dangerous combustible which might explode at any moment, she hurried away with it to her own room, turned the key in the lock, and sat down to read.
At the risk of fatiguing my readers, I must say a word or two about Caspar Brooke's romance "The Unexplored." It had obtained a wonderful popularity in all English-speaking countries, and was well known in every quarter of the globe. Even Lady Alice must have seen it advertised and reviewed and quoted a hundred times. Possibly she had refused to read it, or closed her eyes to its merits. Possibly what a man wrote seemed to her of little importance compared to that which a man showed himself in his daily life. At any rate, she had never mentioned the book to her daughter Lesley. She certainly moved in a circle which was slightly deaf to the echoes of literary fame.
"The Unexplored" was one of those powerful romances of an ideal society with which recent days have made us all familiar. But Caspar's book was the forerunner of the shoal which the last ten years have cast upon our shores. He was one of the first to follow in the steps of Sir Thomas More and Sir Philip Sidney, and picture life as it should be rather than as it is. His hero, an Englishman of our own time, puzzled and distressed at the social misery and discord surrounding him, leaves England and joins an exploring expedition. In the unexplored recesses of the new world he comes across a colony founded in ancient days by a people who have preserved an idyllic purity ofheart and manners, together with a fuller artistic life and truer civilization than our own. To these people he brings his stories of London as it is to-day, and fills their gentle hearts with amazement and dismay. A slender thread of love-making gives the book its romantic charm. He gains the affections of the king's daughter, a beautiful maiden, who has been attracted to him from the very first; and with her he hopes to realize all that has been unknown to him of noble life in his own country. But the book does not end with its hero and heroine lapped in slothful content. For the heart of the maiden burns with sorrow for the toiling poor of the great European cities of which he has told her: to her this region has also the charm of "The Unexplored," and the book ends with a hint that she and her husband are about to wend their way, with a new gospel in their hand, to the very city of which he had shaken the dust from his shoes in disgust before he found an unexplored Arcadia.
There was not much novelty in the plot—the charm of the book lay in the way the story was told, in the beauty of the language; and also—last but not least—the burning earnestness of the author's tone as he contrasted the hopeless, heartless misery of the poor in our great cities with the ideal life of man. His pictures of London life, drawn from the street, the hospital, the workhouse, were touched in with merciless fidelity: his satire on the modern benevolence and modern civilization which allows such evils to flourish side by side with lecture-rooms, churches, intellectual culture, and refined luxury was keen and scathing. It was a book which had startled people, but had also brought many new truths to their minds. And although no one could be more startled, yet no one could be more avid for the truth than the author's own daughter, of whom he had never thought in the very least when he wrote the book.
Lesley rose from her perusal of it with burning cheeks and humid eyes. She herself, without knowing it, was in much the same position as the heroine of her father's book. Like the girl Ione, in "The Unexplored," she had lived in a charmed seclusion, far from the roar of modern civilization, far from the great cities which are the abomination of desolation in our time. Knowledge had come to her filtered through the minds of those who closed their eyesto evil and their ears to tales of sin. She did not know how the poor lived: she had only the vaguest and haziest possible notions concerning misery and want and disease. She was not only pure and innocent, but she was ignorant. She had scarcely ever seen a newspaper. She had read very few novels. She had lived almost all her life with women, and she had imbibed the notion that her marriage was a matter which her mother would arrange without particularly consulting her (Lesley's) inclinations.
To a girl brought up in this way there was much to shock and repel in Caspar Brooke's romance. More than once, indeed, she put it down indignantly: more than once she cried out, in the silence of her room, "Oh, but it can't be true!" Nevertheless, she knew in her heart of hearts that the strong and burning words which she was reading could not have been written were they not sincerely felt. And as for facts, she could easily put them to the test. She could ask other people to tell her whether they were true. Were there really so many criminals in London; so many people "without visible means of subsistence?" so many children going out in a morning to their Board Schools without breakfast? But surely something ought to be done! How could people sit down and allow these things to be? How could her father himself, who wrote about such things, live in comfort, even (compared with the wretchedly poor) in modest luxury, without lifting a finger to help them?
But there Lesley caught herself up. What had Mr. Kenyon said? Had he not spoken of the things that Caspar Brooke had done? For almost the first time Lesley began to wonder what made her father so busy. She had never heard a word concerning the pursuits that Mr. Kenyon had mentioned as so engrossing. "The splendid work at Macclesfield Buildings:" what was that? The people whom he had helped: what people? Whom could she ask? Not her father himself—that was out of the question. He never spoke to her except on trivial subjects. She remembered with a sudden and painful flash of insight, that conversations between him and his sister were sometimes broken off when she came into the room, or carried on in half-phrases and under-tones. Of course shehadheard of Macclesfield Buildings; and of a club and an institute and a hospital, and what not; but the wordshad gone over her head, being destitute of meaning and of interest for her. She had been blind and deaf, it seemed to her now, ever since she came into the house; but Maurice Kenyon and her father's book had opened her eyes to the reality of things.
Later on in the day her maid came to help her to dress for dinner. Lesley looked at her with new interest. For was she not one of the great, poor, struggling mass of human beings whom her father called "the People?" Not the happy peasant-class, as depicted in sentimental storybooks: whether that existed or not, Lesley was not learned enough to say: it certainly did not exist in London. She looked at the woman who waited on her with keenly observant eyes. Her name was Mary Kingston, and Lesley knew that she was not one of the prosperous, self-satisfied, over-dressed type, so common amongst ladies' maids; for she had been "out of a situation" for some time, and had fallen into dire straits of poverty. It would not have been like Miss Brooke to hire a common-place, conventional ladies' maid; she really preferred a servant "with a history." Lesley remembered that she had heard of Mary Kingston's past difficulties without noting them.
"Kingston," she said, gently, "do you know much about the poor?"
Kingston started and colored. She was a woman of more than thirty years of age—pale, thin, flat-chested, not very tall; she had fairly good features and dark, expressive eyes; but she was not attractive-looking. Her lips were too pale and her dark eyes too sunken for beauty. There was a gentleness in her manner, however, a patience in her low voice, which Lesley had always liked. It reminded her, in some undefined way, of her old friend, Sister Rose.
"I've lived among the poor all my life, ma'am," Kingston said.
"Do they suffer very much?" Lesley asked.
Kingston looked slightly puzzled. "Suffer, ma'am?"
"Yes—from hunger and cold, I mean: I have been reading about poor people in this book—and——"
Kingston cast a rapid glance at the volume. Her face kindled at once.
"Oh," she said, "I've read that book, ma'am, and what a beautiful book it is!"
"Do you know it?" Lesley asked, amazed. Then, moved by a sudden impulse, "And you know it was written by my father?"
Who would have thought that she could say the last two words with such an accent of tender pride?
"No, ma'am, I did not know. Is it reallythisMr. Brooke? The name, you see, is not so uncommon as some, and I did not think——"
"I know, I know," said Lesley, hurriedly. "But just tell me this—is it true? Do the poor people suffer as much in England as he says they do?"
"Oh yes, ma'am, I'm afraid so, at least. I've seen a good deal of suffering in my day."
Lesley was quiet for a little while, and the woman brushed out her shining hair. "Tell me," she said, "what is the worst suffering of all—will you? I mean, a suffering caused by being poor—nothing to do with your own life, of course. Is it the being hungry, or cold—or what?"
Kingston considered for a moment. "I think," she said at last, "it isn't the being cold or hungry yourself that matters so much as seeing those that belong to you cold and hungry. That's the worst. If you have children, it does go to your heart to hear them ask you for something to eat, and you have nothing to give them."
"Yes," said Lesley, softly, "I should think that is the worst."
"But I don't know," said Kingston, in a perfectly unmoved and stolid tone, "whether it's worse than having no candles."
Lesley looked up in astonishment.
"It's when any one's ill that you feel that," the woman went on, in the same level tones. "In winter it's dark, maybe, at four o'clock, and not light again till nearly nine in the morning. It doesn't matter so much if you can go out. But if you have to sit by some one who's ill, and you can't see their faces, and if they leave off moaning you think they're dead—and perhaps when the early morning light comes it's only a dead face you have to look upon, and you never saw them draw their last breath—why, then, you feel mad-like to think of the candles that are wasted in big houses and of the bread that's thrown away."
Lesley listened, appalled. A homely detail of this kind impressed her more than any appeal to her higher imagination. The woes of the poor had suddenly become real.
"I hope you never had to go through all that, Kingston," she said, very gently.
"Yes, ma'am, twice," said Kingston. "Once with my mother, and once with my little boy. They were both dead in the morning, but I didn't see 'em die."
"But where was your husband? Was he dead?" said Lesley, quickly.
"Oh, no, ma'am. But he was amusing himself. He was a gentleman, you see—more shame to me, perhaps you'll say. I couldn't expect him to think of things like candles."
"Oh!—And is he—is he dead?"
"No ma'am, he isn't dead," said Kingston. And from the shortness of her tone and the steadiness with which she averted her face Lesley came to the conclusion that she did not want to be questioned any more.
Lesley went down to dinner feeling that she had made some new and extraordinary discoveries. She noticed that her father and her aunt made several allusions which would have seemed mysterious and repellant to her the day before, but which now possessed an almost tragic interest. When before had she heard her aunt speak casually of a Mothers' Meeting and a Lending Library? These were common-place matters to the ordinary English girl; but to Lesley they possessed the elements of a romance. For was it not by means of hackneyed, common-place machinery of this kind that cultured men and women put themselves into relation with the great, suffering, coarse, uncultured, human-hearted poor?
LESLEY SEEKS ADVICE.
Addedto Lesley's new views of life, there was also a new feeling for her father. In the first rush of enthusiastic admiration for his book, she forgot all that she had heard against him, and believed—for the moment—that he was all Maurice Kenyon represented him to be. But naturally this state of mind could not last. The long years of her mother's influence told against any claim to love or respect on the father's part. Lesley remembered how bitterly Lady Alice spoke of him. She could not think that her mother had been wrong.
It is a terrible position for a son or daughter—to have to judge between father and mother. It is a wrong position, and one in which Lesley felt instinctively that she ought never to have been placed. Of course it was impossible for her to help it. Father and mother had virtually made her their judge. They said to her, "Live for a year with each of us, and choose which you prefer. You cannot have us both." And as the only true and natural position for a child is that in which he or she can have both, Lesley Brooke was in a very trying situation. She had begun life in her father's house as her mother's ardent partisan; and she was her mother's partisan still. Only she was not quite sure whether she was not going to find that she could love her father too. And in that case, Lesley was tremulously certain that Lady Alice would accuse her of unfaithfulness toher.
She turned with a sigh from the contemplation of her position to her new views of London and modern life. The poverty and ignorance of which she read had seemed hateful to her. But her impulse—always the impulse of generous souls—was not to shrink away from this newly-discovered misery, but to go down into the midst of it and help to cure the evil.
Still blindly ignorant of what was already done, or doing, she hardly knew in which way to begin a work that was so new to her. Indeed, she hardly estimated its difficulties. All the poor that she had ever seen were the blue-bloused peasants, or brown-faced crones, and quaint little maidens with pigtails, who had visited the convent at Fontainebleau. She was quite sure that English poor people were not like these. Her father knew a great deal about them, but she could not ask him. The very way in which he spoke to her—lightly always, and jestingly—made serious questioning impossible. To whom then should she apply? The answer presented itself almost immediately, and with extraordinary readiness—to Mr. Oliver Trent.
This decision was not so remarkable as it at first may seem. Lesley had run over in her mind a list of the persons whom she could not or would not ask. Her father and Miss Brooke?—impossible. Mrs. Romaine?—certainly not. Ethel?—Lesley did not believe that she knew anything about the poor. Maurice Kenyon?—not for worlds. The neighboring clergy?—Mr. Brooke had said that he did not want "the Blacks" about his house. The other men and women whom Lesley had seen were mere casual acquaintances; not friends of the family, like Oliver Trent.
At least, shesupposedthat Oliver was a friend of the family. He was Mrs. Romaine's brother; and Mrs. Romaine was a good deal at the house. In her own mind Lesley put him on the same footing as Mr. Kenyon—which estimate would have made Caspar Brooke exceedingly indignant, could he have known it. For though he did not exactly dislike Oliver Trent, he would never have thought of classing him with his friend, Maurice Kenyon.
But Oliver had already called twice on some pretext or other, since Lesley had come home: and on the latter of these occasions he had sat for a full hour with her in the drawing-room, talking chiefly of France and Italy—in low and softly modulated tones. Lesley was losing all her horror of interviews with young men. If the nuns had seen her now they would indeed have thought her lost to all sense of propriety. For one of Miss Brooke's chief theories was that no self-respecting young woman needs a chaperon. And she had flatly refused to chaperone Lesley except on inevitable or really desirable occasions. "Thegirl must learn to go about the world by herself," she had said. "And I will say this for Lesley, she is not naturally timid or helpless—it is only training that makes her so." And under this tuition Lesley soon acquired the self-possession in which she had been somewhat wanting when she came, newly-fledged, from her convent.
So when Oliver called again—it was on a message from his sister, and it had not yet recurred to Lesley to wonder at the readiness shown by English brothers to run on messages to their sisters' friends—he found Lesley alone, as usual, in the drawing-room, and she welcomed him with considerable warmth—a warmth that took him by surprise.
"I am so glad to see you, Mr. Trent: I wanted to ask you something," she said, at once.
"Ask me anything—command me in anything," he replied.
He sank into a low chair at her right hand, and looked quite devotionally into her face. Lesley felt a trifle disturbed. She could not forget that Oliver was Ethel's lover, and she did not think that he ought to look at her so—eagerly—she did not know what else to call it. It was a look that made her uncomfortable. Nobody had ever looked at her in that way before. They did not look like that in the convent.
"It is nothing very particular," she said, shrinking back a little. "Only I have nobody to ask."
"I know—I understand," said Oliver, in his softest tones. Somehow his sympathy did not offend her, as Mr. Kenyon's had done.
"It is very stupid of me," Lesley went on, trying to smile, "not to ask my father or Aunt Sophy; but I am afraid they would only laugh at me."
"I shall not laugh at you," said Oliver, marvelling inwardly.
"Won't you? You are sure? It is only a little, stupid, ordinary question. Do you know anything about Macclesfield Buildings?"
Oliver drew himself up in his chair. Wasthatthe question? He did not believe it. But he answered her unsmilingly.
"Yes, Miss Brooke. They are the blocks of workmen's dwellings where your father has founded aClub."
"Has he?" said Lesley, her eyes dilating. "That is—very good of him, isn't it?"
"Oh, I suppose so," Oliver answered, with a little laugh. "Of course—but I must not insinuate worldly motives into his daughter's ears!"
"Oh, please, go on: I want to hear!"
"It is nothing wrong. Only if a man wants to stand well with the working-people—if he wants votes, for instance—it isn't at all a bad move to begin with a Working-Men's Club."
"Votes, Mr. Trent? What for?"
"School Board, or County Council, or Parliament," said Oliver, coolly. "Or even Board of Guardians. I don't know what your father's ambitions are, exactly. But popularity is always a good thing."
Lesley pondered a little, the color rising in her cheeks. "Then," she said, "you think my father does good things from—from what people call 'interested motives?'"
"Good heavens, no, Miss Brooke, I never said anything of the kind," declared Oliver, somewhat alarmed by her straightforwardness. "I was only thinking of the general actions of man, not of your father in particular."
Lesley nodded. "I don't quite understand," she said. "But that doesn't matter for the present. I have another question to ask you, Mr. Trent. Do you know anything about the poor?"
"I'm very poor myself," said Oliver, laughing. "Horribly poor. 'Pon my word, I don't know any one poorer."
"Oh, you are laughing at me now," said Lesley, almost petulantly. "And you said that you would not laugh."
She leaned back in her chair, with heightened color and brightening eyes: her breath came a little more quickly than usual, as if her pulses were quickened. There is nothing so catching as emotion. Oliver's sluggish pulses began to stir at the sight of her. That soft and tender face seemed more beautiful to him than the sparkle and vivacity of Ethel Kenyon's. If it had not been for Ethel's twenty thousand pounds, he did not know but what he would have preferred Lesley. Rosy had said that Lesley would suit him best.
"I am not laughing; I swear I am not," he said earnestly. "I know what you mean—you are thinking of the London poor. Your tender heart has been stirred by the sight of them in the streets—they are dreadful to look at, are they not? It is like you to feel their woes so acutely."
"I want to know," said Lesley, rather plaintively, "whether I cannot do anything for them?"
"You—do anything—for the poor?" repeated Oliver. Then he scanned her narrowly—scanned her shining hair, delicate features, Paris-made gown, and dainty shoe—and laughed a little. "You can let them look at you—that ought to be enough," he said.
Lesley frowned. "Nonsense, Mr. Trent. What does my father do for his Club?"
"Smokes with the men, sometimes, I believe. You couldn't do that, you know——"
"Although——" and then Lesley stopped short and laughed.
"Although Aunt Sophy does. It's no secret, my dear Miss Brooke. Half the women in London smoke now-a-days, I believe. Even my sister indulges now and then."
Lesley gave her head a little toss. "What else does my father do?" she asked.
"Sings to them. Sunday afternoon, that is, you know. The wives are allowed to come to the Club-room then, and he has a sort of little concert for them—good music, sacred music, even, I believe. He gets professionals to come now and then; they will do anything to oblige your father, you know—and when they don't come, he sings himself. He really has a very good bass voice."
"Ladies don't sing, I suppose," said Lesley, after a little pause.
"Oh, yes, they do. He nearly always has a lady to sing. Why don't you go down on a Sunday afternoon? The club is open to friends of the founder, if not of the members, on Sunday afternoons. Don't Mr. Brooke and Miss Brooke always go?"
"I suppose they do—I never asked where they went," said Lesley, with burning cheeks. She remembered that they always did disappear on Sunday afternoons. No, she had not asked; she had not hitherto felt any curiosity as to their doings; and they had not asked her to accompany them. She began to resent their lack of readiness to invite her to the club.
"You might go down on Sunday afternoon," said Oliver, lazily. "I'm going: they have asked me to sing. Though you mayn't know it, Miss Brooke, I have a very decent tenor voice. Ethel is going with me. Won't you come?"
"I don't know," said Lesley, nervously. She bethought herself that she could not easily propose to accompany her father, and that Ethel and Oliver Trent would not want her. She would be one too many in either party. She could not go.
But Oliver read the reason of her scruples. "If you will allow me," he said, "I will ask my sister to come too. Then we shall be a compact little party of four, and we can start off without telling Mr. Brooke anything about it."
Lesley hesitated a little, but finally consented. She had a great desire to see what was going on in Macclesfield Buildings. But Oliver, it may be feared, believed in his heart that she went because he was going. And he resolved to bestow his society on her rather than on Ethel and Mrs. Romaine on Sunday. It was decidedly more amusing to waken that still sweet face to animation than to engage in a war of wit with Ethel.
Lesley thought of Oliver very little. Once or twice he had startled her by an assumption of intimacy, a softening of his voice, and a look of tenderness in his eyes, which made her shrink into herself with an instinctive emotion of dislike. But she had then proceeded to scold herself for foolish shyness and prudery—the prudery of a French-school girl, who was not accustomed to the ways of men. She had begun to feel herself very ignorant of the world since she came to her father's house. It would never do to offend one of her father's friends by seeming afraid of him. So she tried to smile and looked pleased when Oliver drew near, and she was all the more gracious to him because she had already quarrelled with Maurice Kenyon, who was even more her father's friend than Oliver himself. But what could she do? Mr. Kenyon had insulted her—the hot blood rose to her cheeks as she thought of some of the things that he had said. Insulted her by assuming that she could not appreciate her father because she was too careless, too frivolous, too foolish to do so. That she was ignorant, Lesley was ready to acknowledge; but not that she was incapable of learning.
Oliver had no difficulty in persuading his sister to make one of the party on Sunday afternoon. Indeed, Mrs. Romaine made the expedition easier by inviting Lesley to lunch with her beforehand.
"I asked Maurice and Ethel Kenyon, too," she said to Lesley, "but they would not come. Mr. Kenyon had his patients to attend to; and Ethel would not leave him to lunch alone."
Lesley did not answer, but privately reflected that if the Kenyons had accepted the invitation she would have lunched at home.
She went to church by herself on Sunday morning, for Mr. Brooke was not up, and Doctor Sophy frequented some assembly of eclectic souls, of which Lesley had never heard before. So she went demurely to that ugliest of all Protestant temples, St. Pancras' Church, and was not very much surprised when she perceived that Oliver Trent was in the seat behind her, and that he sat so that he could see her face.
"I did not know that you went to St. Pancras'," she said, innocently, as they stood on the steps together outside when the service was over.
"Nor do I," he answered her. "It is the most hideous church I ever saw. But there was an attraction this morning."
Lesley looked as if she did not understand. And indeed she did not.
"You are coming to lunch with us, are you not? Will you let me escort you?"
"Thank you, Mr. Trent. But—do you mind?—I shall have to call at my father's house on my way. Just to leave my prayer-book. It will not take me a minute."
Oliver could not object, although he was not altogether pleased. For Mr. Brooke's house was immediately opposite the Kenyons', and Miss Ethel was as likely as not to be sitting at the drawing-room window. Her sharp eyes would espy him from afar, and she might ask Lesley if he had been to church with her. Not a very great difficulty, but Oliver had a far-seeing mind, and one question might lead to others of a more serious kind.
However, there was no help for it. He paused on the steps of number fifty, while Lesley rang the bell. She had been formally presented with a latch-key, but the use of it was so new to her, and the fear of losing it so great, that she usually left it on her dressing-table.
A maid opened the door and said something to Lesley in an under tone. Oliver was looking across the streetand neither heard the words nor saw the woman's face. But Lesley turned to him hastily.
"Oh, Mr. Trent, I am so sorry to keep you waiting, but I must run up to my aunt for a moment."
She disappeared into the house, and then Oliver turned and met the eyes of Lesley's waiting-maid. And at the same moment he was aware—as one is sometimes aware of what goes on behind one's back—that Ethel, in her pretty autumn dress of fawn-color and deep brown, had come out upon the balcony of her house and was observing him.
"You, Mary?" said Oliver, in a stifled whisper.
The woman looked at him with hard, defiant eyes. "Yes, me," she said. "You ought to know that I couldn't do anything else."
He stood looking at her with a frown.
"This is the last place where you ought to have come," he said.
"Because they are friends of yours?" she asked. "I can't help that. I didn't know it when I came, but I know it now."
"Then leave," said Oliver, still in the lowest possible tone, but also with all possible intensity. "Leave as soon as you can. I'll find you another place. It is the worst thing you can do for your own interest to remain here, where you may be recognized."
"I can take care of that," said Mary Kingston, icily. "I'll think over it."
Oliver put his hand into his pocket as if in search of a coin. But Kingston suddenly shook her head. "No," she said, quickly, "I don't want it. Not from you."
And then Lesley's foot was heard upon the stairs. Oliver looked up to Ethel's balcony. Yes, she was there, her hand upon the railing, her eyes fixed on him with what was evidently a puzzled stare. Oliver smiled and raised his hat. Ethel nodded and smiled in return. But he fancied—though, of course, at that distance he could not be sure—that she still looked puzzled as she returned his bow and smile.
He walked on with Lesley. But his good-humor was gone: the usual suavity of his manner was a little ruffled. His recognition of Mary Kingston had evidently been displeasing as well as embarrassing to him.
"HOME, SWEET HOME."
Mrs. Romaineand Oliver Trent attributed Lesley's desire to see Macclesfield Buildings to a young girl's curiosity, and, perhaps, to a desire for Oliver's company. They had no conception of the new fancies and feelings, aims and interests, which were developing in her soul. Only so much of these were visible as to lead Oliver to say to his sister before they sallied forth that afternoon—
"I fancy she is getting up an enthusiasm for her father. Won't that be awkward for you?"
Mrs. Romaine was silent for a moment. Then she answered, with perfect quietness—
"I think it will be more awkward for Lady Alice. It may be rather convenient for us."
And Oliver noticed that for the rest of the afternoon she took every opportunity of indirectly and directly praising Mr. Brooke, his works and ways. But he could not see that Lesley looked pleased—perhaps Mrs. Romaine's words had rather an artificial ring.
Somehow, it seemed to Lesley as if she hated the expedition on which she came. Was it not a little too like spying upon her father's work? He had never invited her to Macclesfield Buildings. And he would never know the spirit in which she came: it would seem to him as though she had been brought in Mrs. Romaine's train, perhaps against her will, to laugh, to stare, to criticize. She would rather have crept in humbly, and tried to understand, by herself, what he was trying to do. What would he think of her when he saw her there that afternoon?
She was morbidly afraid of him and of his opinion. Caspar Brooke would have been as much hurt as astonished if he knew in what ogre-like light she regarded him.
Ethel joined them before they started for Macclesfield Buildings, and as rain was beginning to fall, Oliver insistedthat they should take a cab. It was for his own sake, as Rosalind reminded him, rather than for theirs. He had a profound dislike of dirty streets, dirty people, unpleasant sights and sounds. And there were plenty of these to be encountered in the North London district to which they were bound that afternoon.
The three Londoners—for such they virtually were—could hardly refrain from laughing when they saw Lesley's horrified face as the cab drove up to the block of buildings in which the club was situated. "But this is a prison—a workhouse—a lunatic asylum!" she exclaimed. "People do not live here—do they—in this dreary place?"
Ah, me, and a dreary place it was! Three lofty blocks of building, all of the same drab hue, with iron-railed balconies outside the narrow windows, and a great court-yard in which a number of children romped and howled and shrieked in play: it was perhaps the most depressingly ugly bit of architecture that Lesley had ever seen. In vain her friends told her of the superior sanitary arrangements, the ventilation, the drainage, the pure water "laid on;" all she could do was to clasp her hand, and say, with positive tears in her bright eyes, "Butwhycould it not all have been made more beautiful?" And indeed it is hard to say why not.
"Now we are going down into a coal hole," said Oliver, as he helped the ladies to alight. "At least it was once a coal hole. Yes, it was. These four rooms were used as storehouses for coals and vegetables until your father rented them: you will see what they look like now."
"Lesley is horrified," said Ethel, with a little laugh. "Not at the coal-hole," Lesley answered, trying also to be merry, "but at the ugliness of it all. Don't you think this kind of ugliness almost wicked?"
"Oliver thinks all ugliness wicked," said Mrs. Romaine, maliciously.
"Thenweought to be very good," said Ethel. But Oliver did not answer: he was looking at Lesley, whose face had grown pale.
"Are you tired?—are you ill?" he asked her, in the gentlest undertones. They were still picking their way over the muddy stones of the court-yards, and rough children ran up to them now and then, and clamored for a penny. "Is the sight of this place too much for you?"
"Oh, no," said Lesley, with a sudden, inexplicable flush of color: "It is not that—it is ugly, of course; but I do not mind it at all."
Oliver glanced round suspiciously, as if to discover why she had blushed. All that he could see was the tall figure of Maurice Kenyon, who was standing in a doorway talking to somebody on the stairs. Even if Lesley had seen him, she surely would not blush for that! What chance had Kenyon had of becoming acquainted with her? Oliver forgot that other sisters besides his own might send their brothers on messages.
Down a flight of stone steps, through a low doorway, and into a dark little corridor, was Lesley conducted. She noticed that Mrs. Romaine and Ethel were quite accustomed to the place. "We have often been before, you know," Ethel explained. "It's your father's hobby, you know; his doll's house, or Noah's Ark, or whatever you like to call it—his pet toy. I always call it his Noah's Ark myself. The animals walk in two by two. The men may bring their wives on Sundays. Oh, by the bye, Lesley, I hope you don't mind smoke. The men have their pipes, you know."
And then Lesley, dazzled and confounded by her surroundings, found herself in a brilliantly lighted room of considerable size—really two ordinary rooms thrown into one. Immediately the squalor and ugliness of the outer world were thrown into the background. The walls of the room were distempered—Indian red below, warm grey above; and on the grey walls were hung fine photographs of well-known foreign buildings or of celebrated paintings. In one part of the room stood a magnificent billiard-table, now neatly covered with a cloth. A neat little piano was placed at the other end of the room, near a large table covered with a scarlet cloth, strewn with magazines, papers, and books, and decorated with flowers. The chairs were of solid make, seated with red leather ornamented with brass nails. In fact, the whole place was not only comfortable, but cheery and pleasant to the eye. Lesley was told that there was also a library, beside a kitchen and pantry, whence visitors could get tea or coffee, "temperance drinks," and rolls or cakes.
A few women in their "Sunday best" were looking at the books and periodicals, or gossiping together, but theywere not so numerous as the men—respectable working-men for the most part; some of them smoking, some reading or talking, without their pipes. In one little group Lesley recognized, with a start, that her father was the centre of attraction. He was sitting, as the other men were, and he was talking: the musical notes of his cultivated voice rose clearly above the hum of rougher and huskier voices. Lesley gathered that some proposition had been made which he was combating.
"No," he said, "I won't have it. Look here—did you open this club, or did I?"
"You did, guv'nor," said one of the men.
"Then I'll have my say in the management. Some of you want the women turned out, do you? It's the curse of modern life, the curse of English and all other society, that you do want the women turned out, you men, where-ever you go. And the reason is that women are better than you are. They are purer, nobler, more conscientious than you, and therefore you don't want them with you when you take your pleasures. Eh?"
There was a melodious geniality about the last monosyllable which made the men smile in spite of themselves.
"'T'ain't that," said one of them, awkwardly. "It's because they're apt to neglect their 'omes if they come out of an afternoon or an evening like we do."
"Not they!" said Mr. Brooke. "To come out now and then is to make them love their homes, man. They'll put more heart in to their work, if they have a little rest and enjoyment now and then, as you do. Besides—you've got hold of a wrong principle. The women are not your slaves and servants; they ought not to be. They are your companions, your helpers. The more they are in sympathy with you, the better they will help you. Don't keep your wives out of the brighter moments of your lives, else they will forget how to feel with you, and help you when darker moments come!"
There was a pause; and then a man, with rather a sullen face—evidently one of the malcontents—said, with a growl,
"Fine talk, gov'nor. It'll end in our wives leaving us, like they say yours done."
There was an instant hiss and groan of disapproval. So marked, indeed, that the man rose to shoulder his way to the door. Evidently he was not a popular character.
"We'll pay him out, if you like, sir," said a youth; and some of the older men half rose as if to execute the threat.
"Sit down: let him alone," said Mr. Brooke, sharply. "He's a poor fool, and he knows it. Every man's a fool that does not reverence women. And if women would try to be worthy of that reverence, the world would be better than it is."
He rose as he spoke, with apparent carelessness, but those who knew him best saw that the taunt had stung him. And as he moved, he caught Lesley's eye. He had not known that she was to be there; and by something in her expression—by her heightened color, perhaps, or her startled eye—he saw at once that she had heard the man's rude speech and his reply.
He stopped short, grasped at his beard as his manner was, especially when he was perplexed or embarrassed; then crossed over towards her, laid his hand on her arm, and spoke in a tone of unusual tenderness.
"Youhere, my child?"
Lesley thrilled all over with the novel pleasure of what seemed to her like commendation. But she could not answer suitably.
"Mrs. Romaine brought me," she said.
"Ah! Mrs. Romaine?"—in quite a different tone. "Very kind of Mrs.Romaine. By the bye, Maurice"—to Mr. Kenyon, who had just appeared upon the scene, and was looking with curiously anxious eyes at Lesley—"the music ought to begin now. Is Trent ready? And will Ethel recite something? That's all right—I suppose Miss Bellot will be here presently."
And leaving Lesley without another glance, he went to the piano and opened it. The audience settled itself in its place, and gave a little sigh of expectation. Mr. Brooke's Sunday afternoon "recitals," from four to five, always gave great satisfaction.
Oliver sang first, then Ethel recited something; then Mr. Brooke sang, and then Oliver played—he was a very useful young man in his way—and then there came a little pause.
"A certain Miss Bellot promised to come and sing, but she has not appeared," Ethel explained to her friend. "Lesley, you can sing: I know you can, for I saw a lot of songs in your portfolio the other day. Won't you give them something?"
"Oh, no, I couldn't!"
"It's not a critical audience," said Oliver, on her other side. "You might try. The people are growing impatient, and your father will be disappointed if things do not go well——"
Lesley flushed deeply. A week ago she would have thought—What is it to me if my father is disappointed? But she could not think so to-night.
"I have no music here. And I cannot sing properly when I play my own accompaniments."
"Tell me something you know and let me see whether I can play it," said Oliver.
She paused for a moment, then, with a smile in her eyes, she mentioned a name which made him laugh and elevate his eyebrows. "Do you knowthat?" she said.
"Rather! Is it not a trifle hackneyed? Ah, well, not for this audience, perhaps. Yes, I will play." And then, just as Caspar Brooke, with a slight gesture of annoyance, turned to explain to the people that a singer whom he expected had not come, Oliver touched him on the arm.
"Miss Brooke is going to sing, please," he said. "Will you announce her?"
Mr. Brooke stared hard for a moment, then bowed his head.
"My daughter will now sing to you," he said, curtly, and sat down again, grasping his brown beard with one hand.
"Canshe sing?" Mrs. Romaine said in his ear, with an accent of veiled surprise.
"I do not know in the least. I hope it will be English, at any rate. These good people don't care for French and Italian things."
Mrs. Romaine saw that he looked undoubtedly nervous, and just then Oliver began the prelude to Lesley's song. It was certainly English enough. It was "Home, Sweet Home."
Every one looked up at the sound of the familiar air. "Hackneyed" as Oliver had declared it to be, it is a song which every audience loves to hear. And Lesley made a pretty picture for the eyes to rest upon while she sang. She was dressed from top to toe in a delicate shade of grey, which suited her fair skin admirably: the grey was relieved by some broad white ribbons and a vest of softwhite silk folds, according to the prevailing fashion. A wide-brimmed grey hat, trimmed with drooping grey ostrich feathers, also became her extremely well. Mrs. Romaine noticed that Caspar Brooke looked at her hard for a minute or two, and then sat with his eyes fixed on the ground, his right hand forming a pillow for his left elbow, and his left hand engaged in stroking his big brown beard. What she did not notice was, that Maurice Kenyon had withdrawn himself to a post behind Mr. Brooke's chair, where he could see and not be seen; and that his eyes were riveted upon the fair singer with an expression which betokened more perplexity than admiration.
As Lesley's pure, sweet notes floated out upon the air, there was an instant stir of approbation and interest among the listeners. If the girl had been less intent upon her singing, the unmoved and unmoving stare of these men and women might have made her a little nervous. It was their way of showing attention. The men had even put down their pipes. But Lesley did not see them. She had chosen her song at haphazard, as one which these people were likely to understand; but its painful appropriateness to her own case, perhaps to her mother's case as well, only came home to her as she continued it.