"'Mid pleasures and palaces—though I may roam—Be it never so humble, there's no place like home.A charm from the heart seems to hallow it there,Which, seek through the world, is not met with elsewhere."
If Lesley's voice faltered a little while singing words with which she herself felt forced to disagree, and to which her mother had given the lie by running away from the home Caspar Brooke had provided for her, the hesitation and tremulousness were set down by the hearers as a very pretty bit of artistic skill, which they were not at all slow to appreciate. Mrs. Romaine put up her eye-glass and looked narrowly at the girl during the last few notes.
"How well she sings!" she murmured in Mr. Brooke's ear. "Positively, as if she felt it!"
Caspar Brooke gave a little start, left off handling his beard, and sat up shrugging his shoulders. "A good deal of dramatic talent, I fancy," he observed. But he could say no more, for the people were clapping their hands and stamping with their feet, in their eagerness for anothersong; and he was obliged to be silent until the tumult abated.
"You must sing again?" said Oliver.
"Must I? Really? But—shall I sing what English people call a sacred piece? A Sunday piece, you know? 'Angels ever bright and fair'—can you play that?"
Oliver could play that. And Lesley sang it with great applause.
But, being a keenly observant young person, and also in a very sensitive state, she noticed that her father held aloof and did not look quite well pleased. And she, remembering her refusal to take singing lessons, felt, naturally, a little guilty.
She had not time, however, to dwell upon her own feelings. The assembly began to disperse, for Mr. Brooke did not let the hours of his "meeting" encroach on church hours, and it was time to go. But almost every man, and certainly every woman, insisted on shaking hands with Lesley, most of them saying, with a friendly nod, that they hoped she'd come again.
"You're Mr. Brooke's daughter, ain't you, miss?" said a tall, broad-shouldered fellow, with honest eyes and a pleasant smile, which Lesley liked.
"Yes, I am."
"I hope you'll give us a bit of your singing another Sunday. 'Tis a treat to hear you, it is."
"Yes, I shall be glad to come again," said Lesley.
"That's like your father's daughter," said the man, heartily. "Meaning no disrespect to you, miss. But Mr. Brooke's the life and soul of this place: he's splendid—just splendid; and we can't think too high of him. So it's right and fitting that his daughter should take after him."
Lesley stood confused, but pleased. And then the man lowered his voice and spoke confidentially.
"There was a bit of a breeze this afternoon, just after you came in, I think; but you mustn't suppose that we have trouble o' that sort every Sunday, or week-day either. It was just one low, blackguardly fellow that got in and wanted to make a disturbance. But he won't do it again, for we'll have a meeting, and turn him out to-morrow. I would just like you to understand, miss, that a good few of us in this here club would pretty nigh lay down our lives for Mr. Brooke if he wanted them—for myself Iwouldn't even say 'pretty nigh,' for I'd do it in a jiffy. He's helped to save some of us from worse than death, miss, and that's why."
"Come, Jim Gregson," said a cheery voice behind him, "you get along home to your tea. Time for shutting up just now. Good-bye."
And Caspar Brooke held out his hand for the workman to shake. He had only just come up, and could not therefore have heard what Gregson was saying; but Lesley preferred to turn away without meeting his eye. For in truth her own were full of tears.
She broke away from the little group, and went into the library, as if she wanted to inspect the books. But in reality she wanted a moment's silence and loneliness in which to get rid of the swelling in her throat, the tears in her eyes. These were caused partly by excitement, partly by an expression of feeling brought to her by the earnestness of Gregson's words, partly by penitence. And it was before she had well got rid of them that Maurice Kenyon put his head into the room and found her there.
"We are going now, Miss Brooke," he said. "Will you come? I—I hope I'm not disturbing you—I——"
"I am just coming," said Lesley, dashing the tears from her face. "I am quite ready."
"There is no hurry. You can let them go on first, if you like," said Maurice, partly closing the door. Then, in the short pause that followed, he advanced a little way into the room.
"Miss Brooke," he said, "I hope you will not mind my speaking to you again; but I want to say that I wish—most humbly and with all my heart—to beg your pardon. Will you forgive me?"
MAURICE KENYON'S APOLOGY.
Lesleystood irresolute. In the other room she heard the sound of voices calling her own name. "We are just going, Lesley," she heard Mrs. Romaine say. She made a hurried step towards the door.
"I can't stop," she said. "They will go without me."
"What if they do?" asked Mr. Kenyon. "I'll see you home."
Lesley looked amazed, as well she might, at this masterful way of settling the question. And while she hesitated Maurice acted, as he usually did.
He strode to the door and spoke to Miss Brooke. "I am just showing your niece some of the books: I'll follow in a minute or two with her if you'll kindly walk on. It won't take me more than a minute."
"Then we may as well wait," said Oliver's voice.
Lesley would have been very angry if she had known what happened then. Mr. Kenyon, by means of energetic pantomime, conveyed to the quick perceptions of Doctor Sophy a knowledge of the fact that Lesley was a little agitated and overcome, and that he was soothing her. And that the departure of the rest of the party would be a blessed relief.
Aunt Sophy was good-natured, and she had complete trust in Maurice Kenyon.
"Don't stay more than a minute or two," she said. "We'll just walk on then—Caspar and I. Mr. Trent is, of course, escorting your sister. Mrs. Romaine will come with us, and you'll follow?"
"I am quite ready," said Lesley.
"All right," answered Maurice, easily, "I must first show you this book." Then he returned to the library, and she heard the sounds of retreating steps and voices as her father and his party left the building.
"You have no book to show me—you had better come at once," Lesley said, severely. But Mr. Kenyon arrested her.
"I assure you I have. Look here: the men clubbed together a little while ago and presented your father's works to the library, all bound, you see, in vellum. I need not mention thathehad not thought it worth while to give his own books to the club."
He showed her the volumes with pride, as if the presentation had been made to a member of his own family. Lesley touched the books with gentle fingers and reverent eyes. "I have been reading 'The Unexplored,'" she said.
"I knew you would! And I knew you would like it!—I am not wrong?"
"I like it very much. But it is all new to me—so new—I feel like Ione when she first heard of the miseries of England—I have lived in an enchanted world, where everything of that sort was kept from me; so—howcould I understand?"
"I know! I know!—You make me doubly ashamed of myself. I have lived, metaphorically, in dust and ashes ever since we had that talk together. Miss Brooke, I must have seemed to you the most intolerable prig! Can you ever forgive me for what I said?"
"But," said Lesley, looking straight into his face with her clear brown eyes, "if what you said was true?——"
"I had no right to say it."
"That is true," Lesley answered, coldly; and she turned about as though she did not wish to pursue the subject.
"But can you not forgive me for it? I was unjustifiably angry I confess; but since I confess it——"
"Mr. Kenyon, we ought to be going home. I see the woman is waiting to put the lights out."
"We will go home if you like—certainly," said Maurice, in a tone of vexed disappointment. "Take care of the step—yes, here is the door. I am afraid we cannot get a cab in this neighborhood; but as soon as we reach a more civilized locality, I will do my best to find one for you."
By this time they were in the yard. Night had already fallen on the city, whether it had done so in the country or not. The lamps were lighted in the streets; a murky fog had settled like a pall upon the roads; and in the Sunday silence the church bells rang out with a mournful cadence which affected Lesley's spirits.
"London is a terrible place," she said, with a little shiver.
"Can you say that," he asked, looking at her curiously, "after seeing the good work that is being done here? If it is a terrible place, it is also a very noble and inspiring one."
"I know I am ignorant," said Lesley, heavily. "It seems terrible to me."
They were silent for a minute or two, for they were passing out of the yard belonging to the "model dwellings," as Macclesfield Buildings were called, into the squalid street beyond; and in avoiding the group of loafers smoking the pipe of idleness, and enjoying the comfortable repose of sloth, Lesley and Mr. Kenyon were so far separated that conversation became impossible.
"You had better take my arm," said Maurice, shortly, almost sternly. "You must, indeed: the place is not fit for you. I ought to have gone out and got a cab."
"Indeed, I do not need it. I can walk quite well. What other people do, I suppose I can do as well."
"Miss Brooke, you have not forgiven me."
Lesley was silent.
"What can I say? I have no justification. I simply let my tongue and my temper run away with me. I am cursed with a hot temper: I do not think before I speak; but I never intended to hurt you, Miss Brooke, I am sure of that."
"No," said Lesley, very quietly, "I understand you. If you had not thought me so stupid as not to see your meaning, or so callous as not to care if I did, you would not have spoken in that way. I don't know that your excuse makes matters much better, Mr. Kenyon. But I am not offended: you need not concern yourself."
"Then you ought to be offended," said Kenyon, doggedly. "And I don't believe you."
"You don't believe me."
"No, indeed I don't."
Lesley's offence was so great now, whatever it had been before, that it deprived her of the power of speech. Her stately head went up: her mouth set itself in straight, hard lines. Maurice saw these tokens, and interpreted them aright.
"Don't be angry with me again. I mean that you could not fail to despise me, to look down on me, for my wantof tact and sense. I thought that you did not understand your father—I was vexed at that, because I have such a respect, such an admiration for him—but I know now that I was mistaken. You ought to be angry with me, for I acknowledge that I spoke impertinently; but having been angry, you can now be merciful and forgive. I apologize from the bottom of my heart."
"How do you know that I understand my father? Why have you changed your opinion?" said Lesley, coldly. "You have nothing to go upon—just as in the other case you had nothing to go upon. You rushed to one conclusion, if you will excuse me for saying so, and now you rush to another—with no better reason."
"You are very severe, Miss Brooke," said Maurice. "But you are perfectly right, and I must not complain. Only—if I may make a representation——"
"Oh, certainly!"
"——I might point out that when I spoke to you first you had not read your father's book, you had not, I believe, even heard of it; that you knew nothing about the Macclesfield Club, and that when I spoke to you about his work amongst the poor you were very much inclined to murmur, 'Can any good come out of Nazareth?'"
"Mr. Kenyon——"
"I beg your pardon, Miss Brooke, but isn't that substantially true? If you can honestly say that it is a misapprehension on my part, I won't say another word. But isn't it all true?"
He turned his eager face and bright blue eyes towards her, and read in her pale, troubled face a little of the conflict that was going on between her candor and her pride. "Now, what will she say?" he thought, with what would have seemed to Lesley incomprehensible anxiety. "On her answer depends my opinion of her, now and for ever."
And this appeared to Maurice quite an important matter, though possibly Lesley might not have thought it so.
She turned to him at last with a frank, decisive gesture.
"Itistrue," she said. "I knew nothing about his books or his works, and so how could I appreciate them? I had never heard of 'The Unexplored' before. You are right, and I had no business to be so angry. But how do you know that I am different now?"
"Oh, I know you are," said Maurice, confidently. "You have come to the club for one thing, you see; and yousang to the people and looked at them—well, as if you cared. And you have read 'The Unexplored'now?"
"Yes. I have," said Lesley, hesitatingly.
"And you like it?"
"Yes—I like it." The girl looked away, and went on nervously, hesitatingly. "It is very well done," she said, "It is very clever."
"Oh, if that is all you can find to say about it!"
"But isn't it a great deal?—Mr. Kenyon, I don't know what to say about it. You see I can't be sure whether it is all—true."
"True? The story? But, of course——"
"Of course thestoryis not true. I am not such a goose as that. But is the meaning of it true? the moral, so to speak? Is there so much wickedness in the world as my father says? So much vice and wealth and selfishness on the one side: so much misery and poverty and crime on the other? You are a doctor, and you must have seen a great deal of London life: you ought to know. Is it an exaggeration, or is it true?"
There was such intensity and such pathos in her tones that Kenyon was silent for a minute or two, startled by the vivid reality which she had attached to her father's views and ideas. He could not have answered her lightly, even if it had been in his nature to do so.
"Before God," he said, solemnly, "it is all true—every word of it."
"Then what can we do," said Lesley, gently, "but go down into the midst of it and help?"
Mr. Maurice Kenyon, being a man of ardent temperament, always vows that he lost his heart to Lesley there and then. It is possible that if she had not been a very pretty girl, the most noble of sentiments might have fallen unheeded from her lips; but as she was "so young, so sweet, so delicately fair," Kenyon could not hear his own opinions reciprocated without an answering thrill. How delightful would it be to walk through life with a woman of this kind by one's side! a woman, whose face was a picture, whose every movement a poem, whose soul was as finely touched to fine issues as that of an angel or a saint! All these reflections rushed through his mind in an instant, and it was almost a wonder that he did not blurt some of them out at once. But Lesley went on speaking in a quiet, pensive way.
"I wonder whether I can do anything—while I am here. I shall not have so very long a time, but I might try."
"Not so long a time, Miss Brooke? I thought you had come home for good."
"Only for a year," said Lesley, coloring hotly. "Then I go back to mamma."
Maurice said nothing at first. He felt the hand that rested on his arm tremble slightly, and he knew that he ought to make no more inquiries. But he could not refrain from adding, almost jealously—
"You will be glad of that?"
"Oh, yes! You do not know my mother?" said Lesley, half shyly, half boldly.
"No, I never saw her."
"It is very hard to be so long away from her. She is so sweet and good."
"But you have your father? You are learning to knowhimnow."
"Oh, yes, but I want themboth," said Lesley, with an indescribably gentle and tender intonation. And as they reached Euston Road and were obliged to leave off talking while they threaded their way through the intricacies of vehicular traffic, Mr. Kenyon was revolving in his mind a new idea, namely, the possibility of a reconciliation between Brooke and his wife. He had never thought much about Lady Alice before: she seemed to him to have passed out of Caspar Brooke's life entirely; and if it were not for this link between the two—this sweet and noble-spirited and lovely girl—she would not have been likely to come back into it. But Lesley might perhaps reunite the two, and Maurice's heart began to burn within him with fear for his hero's happiness. Why should any Lady Alice trouble the peace of a worker for mankind like Caspar Brooke?
They did not talk very much more on their way to Upper Woburn Place. They found Ethel and Oliver standing on the steps of Mr. Brooke's house, evidently waiting for the truants. It struck Lesley as she came up that Oliver Trent's brow was ominously dark, and that Ethel's pretty, saucy face wore an expression of something like anxiety or distress.
"We are almost tired of waiting for you, good people," she began merrily. "Fortunately it is fine and warm, or we should have gone and left you to your own devices, as Mr. Brooke and Rosalind have done."
"Where have they gone?" asked Maurice.
"Walked off to her house. Miss Brooke is at home. Lesley, youarean imposition! Think of having a voice like that, and keeping it dark all this time."
"We shall requisition Miss Brooke for the club very often, I know that," said Maurice.
"You'll come in with us, Lesley?" Ethel asked.
"No, thank you, Ethel. Not to-day. Thanks."
She wondered a little nervously why Oliver was looking so vexed and—yes, so miserable, too! He seemed terribly out of spirits. Had he and Ethel quarrelled? The thought gave a look of tender inquiry to her eyes as she held out her hand to him. And on meeting that sweet glance, Oliver's face brightened. He had been feeling an unreasonable annoyance with her for walking home with Maurice Kenyon, and had even in his heart called her "a little French flirt." Though why it should matter to him that she was a flirt, did not exactly appear.
They said good-bye to each other, and separated. Maurice went off to see a patient; Oliver accompanied Ethel to her own house; Lesley entered her own home.
She was alone for an hour or two, and, to tell the truth, she felt rather dull. Miss Brooke went away to her circle of select souls, and her father, as she knew, had gone to Mrs. Romaine's. She took out her much-prized volume of "The Unexplored," and began to read it again; wishing that she could talk to her mother about it, and explain to her how really great and good a man her father was. For—she had got as far as this—she was sure that her mother did not understand him. It would have been impossible for him to do a mean, a cruel, a dishonorable action. There had been a misunderstanding somewhere; and Lesley wished, with her whole soul, that she could clear it up.
The sound of the opening and closing of the front door did not arouse her from her dreams. She read on, holding the little paper-covered volume on her lap, deep in deepest thought, until the door of the drawing-room opened rather suddenly, and her father walked in.
It was an unusual hour at which to see him in the drawing-room, and Lesley looked up in surprise. Then, half unconsciously, half timidly, she drew her filmy embroidered handkerchief over the book in her lap. She had a shy dislike to letting her father see what she was reading.
He did not seem, however, to take any notice of her occupation. He walked straight to an arm-chair on the opposite side of the hearth, sat down, stretching out his long legs, and placing his elbows on the arms of the chair. The unruly lock of hair, which no hairdresser could tame, had fallen right across his broad brow, and heightened the effect of a very undeniable frown. Mr. Caspar Brooke was in anything but an amiable temper.
It was with a laudable attempt, however, to keep the displeasure out of his voice that he said at length—
"I thought I understood you to say, Lesley, that you were not musical!"
The color flushed Lesley's face to the very roots of her hair.
"I do not think I am—very musical," she said, trying to answer bravely. "I play the piano very little."
"Of course you must know that that is a quibble," said Mr. Brooke, dryly. "A talent for music does not confine itself solely to the piano. I presume that you have been told that you have a good voice?"
"Yes, I have been told so."
"And you have had lessons?"
"Yes, a few."
"Then may I ask what was your motive for declining to take lessons in London when I asked to do so? You even went so far as to make use of a subterfuge: you gave me to understand that you had no musical power at all, and that you knew nothing and could do nothing?"
He paused as if he expected a reply; but Lesley did not say a word.
"I cannot understand it," Mr. Brooke went on; "but,"—after a pause—"I suppose there is no reason why I should. I did not come to say anything much about that part of the business. I came rather to suggest that as you have a good voice, it is wrong not to cultivate it. And your lessons will give you something to do. It seems to me rather a pity, my dear, that you should do nothing but sit round and read novels—which, your aunt tells me, is your principal occupation. Suppose you try to find something more useful to do?"
He spoke with a smile now and in a softer voice; but Lesley was much too hurt and depressed to say a word. He looked at her steadfastly for a minute or two, and decided that she was sullen.
"I will see about the lessons for you," he said, getting up and speaking decidedly, "and I hope you will make the most of your opportunities. How much time have you been in the habit of devoting to your singing every day?"
"An hour and a half," said Lesley, in a very low voice.
"And you left off practising as soon as you came here? That was a great pity; and you must allow me to say, Lesley, very silly into the bargain. Surely your own conscience tells you that it was wrong? A voice like yours is not meant to be hidden."
Lesley wished that at that moment she could find any voice at all. She sat like a statue, conscious only of an effort to repress her tears. And Mr. Brooke, having said all that he wanted to say, took up a book, and thought how difficult it was to manage women who met remonstrances in silence.
Lesley got up in a few moments and walked quietly out of the room. But she forgot her book. It fell noiselessly on the soft fur rug, and lay there, with leaves flattened and back bent outwards. Caspar Brooke was one of the people who cannot bear to see a book treated with anything less than reverence. He picked it up, straightened the leaves, and looked casually at the title. It was "The Unexplored."
He held it for a minute, gazing before him with wide eyes as if he were troubled or perplexed. Then he shook his head, sighed, smiled, and put it down upon the nearest table. "Poor little girl!" he said. "I wonder if I frightened her at all!"
AT MRS. ROMAINE'S.
Thereason why Caspar Brooke spoke somewhat sharply to Lesley was not far to seek. He had been to Mrs. Romaine's house to tea. The sequence of cause and effect can easily be conjectured.
"How charmingly your daughter sang!" Mrs. Romaine began, when she had got Mr. Brooke into his favorite corner, and given him a cup of her best China tea.
"Yes, she sang very well," said Brooke, carelessly.
"I had no idea that shecouldsing! Why, by the bye—did you not tell me that she said she was not musical?—declined singing lessons, and so on?"
"Yes, I think I said so. Yes, she did."
"She must be very modest!" said Mrs. Romaine, lifting her eyebrows.
"I don't know—I fancy she did not want to be indebted to me for more than she could help."
Mrs. Romaine looked pained, and kept for a few moments a pained silence.
"My poor friend!" she said at last. "This is very sad! Could she"—and Brooke knew that the pronoun referred to Lady Alice, not to Lesley—"could she not be content with abandoning you, without poisoning your daughter's mind against you?"
Caspar said nothing. He leaned forward, tea-cup in hand, and studied the carpet. It was, perhaps, hard for him to find a suitable reply.
"It is too much," Rosalind continued, with increasing energy. "You have taken not a daughter, but an enemy into your house. She sits and criticizes all you do—sends accounts to her mother, doubtless, of all your comings and goings. She looks upon you as a tyrant, and a disreputable person,too. She has been taught to hate you, and she carries out the teaching—oh, I can see it in every line of her face, every inflection of her voice: she has beentaught to loathe you, my poor, misjudged friend, and she does not disguise her loathing!"
It is not quite pleasant for a man to hear that his daughter hates him, and makes no secret of the hatred. Caspar immediately concluded that Lesley had made some outspoken remarks upon the subject to Mrs. Romaine. Secretly he felt hurt and angry: outwardly he smiled.
"What would you have?" he said, lightly but bitterly. "Lady Alice has no doubt indoctrinated her daughter, as you say; all that I can expect from Lesley is civility. And I generally get that."
"Civility? Between father and daughter? When she ought to be proud of such a father—proud of all that you are, and all that you have done! She should be adoring you, slaving for you, ready to sacrifice herself at your smallest word—and see what she is! A machine, silent, useless, unwilling—from whom all that you can claim is—civility! Oh, women are capable sometimes of taking a terrible revenge!"
She threw her hands out with a gesture of despair and deprecation, which was really fine in its way; then she rose from her chair, went to the mantelpiece, and stood with her face bent upon her clasped hands. Caspar rose too, and stood on the hearthrug beside her, looking down at the pretty ruffled head, with something very like affection in his eye.
He did not quite understand this emotion of hers, but its sincerity touched as well as puzzled him. For she was sincere as far as he was concerned, and this sincerity gave her a certain amount of power, such as sincerity always gives. The ring of true feeling in her voice could not be counterfeited, and Caspar was flattered by it, as any man would have been flattered at having excited so much sympathy in the heart of a talented and beautiful woman.
He knew that Alice had been jealous of Rosalind Romaine, but, he thought, quite unreasonably so. Poor Rosalind, tied to a dry old stick of a husband, to whom she did her duty most thoroughly, was naturally glad to talk now and then to a man who knew something of Art and Life. That was simple enough, and he had been glad of her interest and sympathy, especially as these were denied to him by his wife. There was nothing for Lady Alice to be jealous about. And he had dismissed the matter impatiently fromhis thoughts. Alice had left him because she hated his opinions, his manner of life, his profession—not because she was jealous of Rosalind Romaine. But Rosalind knew better.
The woman's sympathy affected him so far, however, that, after standing silent for a minute or two, he laid his hand softly upon her arm. It was a foolish thing to do, but then Caspar Brooke was never a particularly wise man, in spite of his goodness of heart and fertility of brain. And Rosalind felt, by the thrill that ran through her at his touch, that she had gained more from him than she had ever gained before. What would he say next?
Well, he did not say very much. "Your sympathy, Rosalind," he said, "is very pleasant—very dear to me. But you must not give me too much of it. Sympathy is enervating, as other men have found before me!"
"May I not offer you mine?" she said, plaintively. "It is so hard to be silent! If only I could make Lesley understand what you are—how noble—how good——"
Caspar laughed, and took away his hand. "Don't talk to her about me; it would do no good," he said.
He stood in the firelight, looking so massive, so stern, so resolved, that Mrs. Romaine lost herself for a moment in admiration of his great frame and leonine head. And as she paused he spoke again.
"I have not lately observed much hostility to myself in Lesley's demeanor," he said. "At first, of course—but lately—well, I have been more struck by a sort of languor, a want of interest and comprehension, than anything else. No doubt she feels that she is in a new world——"
"Ah yes, a world of intellect and activity to which she has not been accustomed," said Mrs. Romaine, briskly. Since Caspar had removed his hand she had been standing erect, watchfully observant of him. It was by his moods that she intended to regulate her own. "I suppose she has been accustomed to nothing but softness and self-indulgence; and she does not understand this larger life to which she now has access."
"Poor child!" said Mr. Brooke.
But this was not at all the remark that Mrs. Romaine wanted him to make. She tried to beat back the tide of paternal affection that was evidently setting in.
"She wants rousing I am afraid. She ought not to be allowed to sink into a dreamy, listless state. It must be very trying for you to see it; you must be pained by the selfishness and waywardness from which it proceeds——"
"Do you think it does?" said Mr. Brooke, almost wistfully. "I should be sorry to think Lesley selfish. Sophy says that she is more ignorant than selfish."
"But what is ignorance save a form of selfishness?" cried Rosalind, indignantly. "She might know if she chose! She does know the common duties of humanity, the duty of every man or woman to labor for others, to gain knowledge, to make broad the borders of light! Oh, I cannot bear to hear ignorance alleged as an excuse for self-love! It is impossible that any one with Lesley's faculties should not see her duty, even if she is idle and indifferent enough to let it pass when she does see it."
Mr. Brooke sat down, regardless of the fact that Mrs. Romaine was standing, and looked at the carpet again with a sigh.
"You may be right," he said, in a pained tone; "but if so, what am I to do?"
"You must speak to her," said Rosalind, energetically. "You must tell her not to be idle and obstinate and wayward: you must show her her duty, so that she may have no excuse for neglecting it."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"That's not a man's duty, it seems to me. Woman to woman, man to man. I wish you would do it, Rosalind!"
"Oh, no; I have not amother'sright," said she, softly.
But the remark had an effect which she had not anticipated.
"That is true. It is a mother who should tell a girl her duty. Poor Lesley's mother has not done all that she might do in that respect. Our unhappy quarrel has caused her to represent me to the girl in very dark colors, I believe. But I have lately been wondering whether that might not be amended. Did you hear that man's taunt this afternoon—about the wife that had left me? I can't endure that sort of thing. Think of the harm it does. And then the child must needs go and sing 'Home, Sweet Home.' To me, whose home was broken up byhermother. I had the greatest possible difficulty in sitting through that song, Rosalind. And I said to myself that I was a great fool to put up with this state of things."
His sentences were unusually short, his tones abrupt; both covered an amount of agitation which Mrs. Romaine had not expected to see. She sat down and remained silent and motionless: she even held her breath, not well knowing what to expect. Presently he resumed, in a lower tone—
"I know that if I alter existing arrangements I shall give myself some pain and discomfort, and inflict more, perhaps, upon others; but I think this is inevitable. I am determined, if possible, to end my solitary life, and the solitary life also of a woman who is—I may say it now—dear to me." He spoke with deliberate gravity. Mrs. Romaine's pulses beat faster: the hot color began to steal into her cheeks. "I never wished to inflict pain upon her. I have always regretted the years of separation and loneliness that we have both spent. So I have resolved—perhaps that is too strong a word—I am thinking of asking her to share my home with me again."
"Again?" The word escaped Rosalind's lips before she knew that she had spoken.
"Yes, once again," said Caspar, quite unconscious of her emotion. "We did not get on very well when we lived together, but we are older now, and I think that if we made a fresh start itmightbe possible—I wonder if Alice would consent?"
There was a moment's pause. Then—"You think of asking Lady Alice to come back to you?" said Mrs. Romaine, in a hard, measured voice, which made Caspar look at her with some transient feeling of surprise. But he put down the change of tone to her astonishment at his proposition, and went on unmoved.
"I thought of it—yes. It would be much better for Lesley."
"Are you so devoted to Lesley that you want to sacrifice your whole life for her?" asked Rosalind, in the same hard, strained voice.
"My whole life? Well, no—but you exaggerate, Rosalind. I do not sacrifice my whole life by having my wife and daughter in my house."
"That is plausibly said. But one has to consider what sort of wife and daughter yours are, and what part of your life will have to be devoted to them."
Brooke sat and stroked his beard. He began to wish that he had not mentioned his project to Mrs. Romaine. But he could not easily tell her to hold her tongue.
"I am not going to presume," said Rosalind, "to say anything unkind—anything harsh of your wife: I know I have not the right, and I know that you would—very properly—resent it. So don't be afraid. But I only want to remind you that Lady Alice is not even where she was when, as an over-sensitive, easily-offended girl, she fled from you. She has had twelve years of life under conditions differing most entirely from yours. She has lived in the fashionable world—a world which of all others you dislike. What sympathy can there be between you? She may be perfect in her own line, but it is not your line: you are different; and you will never be happy together."
"That is a hard thing to say, Rosalind."
"It will be a harder thing for you if you try it. Believe me, Caspar"—her voice trembled as she used his Christian name, which she very seldom did—"believe me that if it would be for your happiness I would welcome the change! But when I remember the discord, the incompatibility, the want of sympathy, which used to grieve me in those old days, I cannot think——"
She stopped short, and put her handkerchief to her eyes.
"Lady Alice could not understand you—could not appreciate you," she said. "And it was hard—hard for your friends to look on and say—nothing!"
Brooke rose abruptly from his chair. "No one ever had a truer friend than I have in you," he said, huskily. "But it seems to me that Alice may have changed with the lapse of years; she may have become easier to satisfy, better able to sympathize——"
"Does she show that spirit in the way she has spoken of you to your daughter? What do you gather from Lesley as to her state of mind?" said Mrs. Romaine, keenly.
He paused. She knew very well that the question was a hard one for him to answer.
"Ah," he said, with a heavy sigh, "you know as well as I do."
Then he turned aside, and for an instant or two there was a silence.
"I suppose it would not be wise," he continued, at last. "But I wish that it could have been done. It would bebetter in many ways. A man and wife ought to live together. A girl ought to live with her parents. We are all in false positions. And, perhaps, if any one is to be sacrificed, it ought to be myself," he said, with a curious smile.
"You forget," said Mrs. Romaine with emotion, "that you sacrifice others in sacrificing yourself."
"Others? No, I don't think so. You allude to my sister?"
"No—not your sister."
"Sophy could go on living with us and managing the household affairs," said Brooke, who had no conception of what poor Mrs. Romaine meant; "and she is not a person who would willingly interfere with other people's views or opinions. Indeed, she carries thelaisser-faireprinciple almost to an extreme. Sophy is no proselytizer, thank God!"
"I did not mean Sophy: I meant your friends—old friends like myself," said Rosalind, desperately. "You will cast us all off—you will forget us—forget—me!"
There was unusual passion in her voice. Then she hid her face in her hands and burst into tears. Brooke made two steps towards her, and stopped short.
"Rosalind!" he exclaimed. "You cannot think that! you cannot think that I shall ever forget old friends!"
Then he halted, and stood looking down at her, and biting his beard, which he was crushing up to his lips with one hand, after his fashion when he was embarrassed or perplexed. Some glimmer of the truth had begun to manifest itself to him. A hot, red flush crossed his brow.
"Rosalind," he said, in a softer but also a colder tone, "you must not take this matter so much to heart. Rest assured that I—and my wife, if she comes back, and my daughter also—will always look upon you as a very dear and valued friend."
"I am so alone in the world," she said, wiping away her tears and slightly lifting her head. "I cannot bear to think that the day will come when I——"
She paused—perhaps purposely. But Caspar was resolved to treat the subject more lightly now.
"When you are without friends? Oh, that will never be. You are too kind and sympathetic to be without as many friends as you choose to have."
"And you—yourself——"
"Oh, I am of a very constant disposition," he said, cheerfully. "I suppose it is for that reason that I want Alice back. You know that in spite of all our disagreements, I have always held to it that I never saw a woman half as charming, half as attractive, as Alice."
This was a speech not calculated to soothe Mrs. Romaine's wounded feelings, or to implant in her a liking for Lady Alice. For Mrs. Romaine was not very generous, and she was irritated by the thought that she had betrayed her own secret. She rose to her feet at once, with a quick and rather haughty gesture.
"You are indeed a model of constancy," she said. "Some men would resent insults, even if offered to them by wives. You are capable, it seems, of much forgetfulness and much forgiveness."
"Do you think that a fault?" asked Brooke, calmly. Her mood changed at once. She burst into a shrill little laugh.
"Oh, not at all. Most convenient—for the wife. There is one danger—you may incur the censure of more worldly men; but then you are too high-minded to care for that!"
Caspar shrugged his broad shoulders.
"I think I can take care of myself," he said, good-humoredly. "And now I must go. Pray don't distress yourself on my account. I will not do anything rash."
They stood facing each other, she with her eyes down, he looking straight into her face. Some instinct told her not to break the spell by looking up. There was a conflict going on in Caspar Brooke's mind—a conflict between pity (not love) and duty. He was a tender-hearted man, and it would have been very easy to him just then to have given her some friendly, comforting words, oreven——
Yes, he acknowledged to himself, he would have liked to kiss those soft lips of hers, those downcast eyelids, slightly reddened by recent tears! And he did not think that she would resent the caress.
But how could he ask his wife to return to him if he did this thing? As he had indicated by his words, he still loved Lady Alice. He had the courage to be faithful to her, too. For Caspar Brooke was a man of strong convictions, steadfast will, and stainless honor. However great the temptation might be, he was not going to do a thing that he knew he should afterwards regret.
"Good-bye, Mrs. Romaine."
"Good-bye, Mr. Brooke."
So they took leave of each other; and Rosalind went to bed with a bad headache, while Caspar Brooke returned home to find fault with his daughter Lesley.
THE WIFE OF FRANCIS TRENT.
Faraway from the eminently respectable quarter of London, adorned by the habitation of families like the Brookes, the Kenyons, and the Romaines, you may find an unsavory district in Whitechapel which is known as Truefit Row. It is a street of tall and mean-looking houses, which seem to be toppling to their fall; and the pavement is strewn with garbage which is seldom cleared away. Many of the windows of the houses are broken; many of the doors hang ajar, for the floors are let out in flats, and there is a common stair for at least five and twenty families. It is a dreary-looking place, and the dwellers therein look as dreary as their own abode.
In one of these houses Mr. Francis Trent had found a resting-place for the sole of his foot. It was not a fashionable lodging, not even a particularly clean one; but he had come down in the world, and did not very much care where he lived, so long as he had plenty to drink, and a little money in his pockets. But these commodities were not as plentiful as he wanted them to be. Therefore he passed a good deal of his time in a state of chronic brooding and discontent.
He had one room on the third storey. The woodwork of this apartment was so engrained with grime that scarcely any amount of washing would have made it look clean; but it had certainly been washed within a comparatively recent date. The wall paper, which had peeled off in certain places, had also been repaired by a careful hand; and the curtains which shaded the unbroken window were almost spotlessly clean. By several other indications it was quite plain that a woman's hand had lately been busy in the room; and compared with many other rooms in the same building, it was quite a palace of cleanliness and comfort.
But Francis Trent did not think so. He sat over his small and smouldering fire one dark November afternoon,and shivered, partly from cold and partly from disgust. He had no coals left, and no money wherewith to buy them: a few sticks and some coke and cinders were the materials out of which he was trying to make a fire, and naturally the result was not very inspiriting. The kettle, which was standing on the dull embers, showed not the slightest inclination to "sing." Francis Trent, outstretched on a basket-chair (the only comfortable article of furniture that the room contained), gave the fire an occasional stir with his foot, and bestowed upon it a deal of invective.
"It will be out directly," he said at last, sitting up and looking dismally about him; "and it's nearly five o'clock. She said she would be here at four. Ugh! how cold it is! If she doesn't come in five minutes I shall go to the Spotted Dog. There's always a fire there, thank goodness, and they'll stand me a glass ofsomething hot, I daresay."
He rose and walked about the room by way of relieving the monotony of existence, and causing his blood to circulate a little faster. But this mode of activity did not long please him, and he threw himself back in his chair at last, and uttered an exclamation of disgust.
"Confound it! I shall go out," he said to himself.
But just at that moment a hand fumbled at the latch. He called out "Come in," an unnecessary call, because the door was half open before he spoke, and a woman entered the room, shutting the door behind her.
She was slight, trim, not very tall: she had a pale face and dark eyes, dark, glossy hair, and delicate features. If Lesley had been there, she would have recognized in this woman the ladies' maid who called herself Mary Kingston. But in this part of the world she was known as Mrs. Trent.
Francis did not give her a warm welcome, and yet his weak, worn face lighted up a little at the sight of her. "I thought you were never coming," he said, grumblingly, and his eyes fell greedily to the basket that she carried on her arm. "What have yougot there?"
"Just a few little things for your tea," said Mary, depositing the basket on the table. "And, oh—what a wretched fire! Have you no coals?"
"Neither coals nor food nor drink," he answered, sullenly, "nor money in my pocket either."
The woman stood and looked at him. "You had two pounds the day before yesterday," she said.
"Billiards," he answered, laconically. But he turned away so as not to see her face.
She gave a short, sharp exclamation. "You promised to be careful!"
"The luck was against me," he said. "I thought I should win, but my hand's taken to shaking so much that I couldn't play. I don't see why you should blame me—I've precious few amusements."
She did not answer, but began to take the parcels, one by one, from her basket, and place them on the table. Her own hands shook a little as she did so. Francis turned again to watch her operations. She took out some tea, bread, butter, eggs, and bacon. There was a bottle of brandy and a bundle of cigars. Francis Trent's eyes glistened at the sight. He stole closer to his wife, and put his arm around her.
"You're a good soul, Mary. You'll forgive me, won't you? Upon my honor, I never meant to lose the money."
"I have to work hard enough for it," she said dryly.
"I know you have! It's a shame—a d——d shame! If I had my way, you should be dressed in satin, and sit all day with your hands before you, and ride in your own carriage—you know you should!"
"I don't know that I should particularly care about that kind of life," said Mary, still coldly, but with a perceptible softening of her eye and relaxation of the stiff upper lip. "I would rather live on a farm in the country, and do farm-work. It's healthier, yes, and it's happier—to my thinking."
"So it is; and that's the life we'll lead by and by, when Oliver pays us what he has promised," said Francis, eagerly. "We will have some land of our own, and get far away from the temptation of the city. Then you will see what a different fellow I'll be, Mary. You shan't have reason to complain of me then."
"Well, I hope so, Francis," she said, but not too hopefully. Perhaps she noticed that his hand and eye both strayed, as if involuntarily, towards the bottle of spirits on the table. And at that moment, the last flicker of light from the fire went out.
"Have you no candles?" she asked, abruptly.
"Not one."
"I'll go out and fetch them, and some coal too. Sit down quietly, and wait. I won't be long. And as Ihaven't a corkscrew, I'll take the bottle with me, and get it opened downstairs."
Francis dared not object, but his wife's course of action made him sulky. He did not see why she should not have left him the bottle during her absence: he could have broken its neck on the fender. But he knew very well that she could not trust him to drink only in moderation if he were left alone with the bottle; and, like a wise woman, she therefore took it with her.
She was back again in a few minutes, bringing with her fuel and lights. Francis was lying in his bed, his face turned sullenly to the wall. Mary poured a little brandy into a glass, and brought it to him to drink.
"You will feel better when you have had that," she said, "and you shall have some more in your tea if you want it. Now, I'm going to light up the fire."
So well did she perform her task that in a very short time the flames were leaping up the chimney, the shadows dancing cheerfully over the ceiling, the kettle hissing and puffing on the fire. The sight and sound drew Francis once more from his bed to the basket chair, where he sat and lazily watched his wife as she cut bread, made tea, fried bacon and eggs, with the ease and celerity of a woman to whom domestic offices are familiar. When at last the tea-table was arranged, he drew up his chair to it with a sigh of positive pleasure.
"How homelike and comfortable it looks: Why don't you always stay with me, Mary, and keep me straight?"
"You want so much keeping straight, Francis," she said, but a slight smile flickered about the comers of her lips.
It was characteristic of the pair that he allowed her to wait on him, hand and foot: he let her cut the bread, pour out the tea, carry his plate backwards and forwards, and pour the brandy into his cup, without a word of remonstrance. Only when he had been well supplied and was not likely to want anything more just then, did he say to her——
"Sit down, Mary, and get yourself a cup of tea."
Mary did not seem to resent the condescending nature of this invitation. She thanked him simply, and sat down; pouring out for herself the dregs of the tea, and eating a piece of dry bread with it. Francis had the grace to remonstrate with her on the poverty of her fare.
"It doesn't matter what I eat now," she said. "I have the best of everything where I'm living, and I don't feel hungry."
"I hope you're comfortable where you are," said Mr. Trent, politely.
"Yes, I'm very comfortable, thank you, Francis. Though," said Mrs. Trent, deliberately, "I think I should be more comfortable if I wasn't in a house where Mr. Oliver visited."
"Oliver! Do you mean my brother Oliver? Why do you call himMr.Oliver? It is so absurd to keep up these class-distinctions."
"So I think," said Mary, "but when other people keep them up it's not much use for me to be the first to cast them over board. Your brother Oliver comes to the house where I'm living much oftener than I think he ought."
"What house is it? You never told me."
"It's Mr. Brooke's. Mr. Caspar Brooke—him as wrote 'The Unexplored.' I brought it to you to read, I remember—a good long time ago."
"Awful rot it was too!" said Francis, contemptuously. "However, I suppose it paid. What are you doing there? Wasn't it his wife who ran away from him? I remember the row some years ago—before I went under. Is she dead?"
"No, she's living with her father, Lord Courtleroy. It's her daughter I've come to wait on: Miss Lesley Brooke."
"Brooke's daughter!" said Francis, thoughtfully. "I remember Brooke. Not half a bad fellow. Lent me ten pounds once, and never asked for it again. So it'sBrooke'sdaughter you— hm—live with. Sort of companion, you are, eh, Mary?"
"Maid," said Mary, stolidly. "Ladies' maid. And Miss Lesley's the sweetest young lady I ever come across."
Francis shrugged his shoulders. "Your employment is causing you to relapse into the manner—and grammar—of your original station, Mary. May I suggest 'came' instead of 'come'?"
Mrs. Trent looked at him with a still disdain. "Suggest what you like," she said, "and think what you like of me. I never took myself to be your equal in education and all that. I may be your equal in sense andheart and morals; but of course that goes for nothing with such as you."
"Don't be savage, Mary," said Francis, in a conciliatory tone. "I only want you to improve yourself a little, when you can. You're the best woman in the world—nobody knows it better than I do—and you should not take offense at a trifle. So you like Brooke's daughter, eh?"
"Yes, I like her. But I don't like your brother Oliver."
"I know that. What is he doing at Brooke's house? Let me see—he isn't engaged tothatgirl? It's the actress he's going to marry, isn't it?"
He had finished his meal by this time, and was smoking one of the cigars that his wife had brought him. She, meanwhile, turned up her sleeves, and made ready to wash the cups and plates.
"Tell me all about it," said Francis, who was now in high good humor. "It sounds quite like the beginning of a romance."
"There's no romance about it that I can see," said Mrs. Trent, grimly. "Your brother is engaged to Miss Kenyon—a nice, pretty young lady: rich, too, I hear."
"Yes, indeed! As you and I are going to find out by and by, old lady," and he chuckled to himself at the thought of his prospective wealth.
"And he ought to be content with that. Instead of which, he's never out of our place; and when he's there he never seems to take his eyes off Miss Lesley. Playing the piano while she sings, reading to her, whispering, sitting into her pocket, so to speak. I can't think what he's about, nor other people neither."
"What does Miss Kenyon say?" asked Francis, with sudden sharpness. For it occurred to him that if that match were broken off he would not get his two thousand pounds on Oliver's wedding-day.
"She doesn't seem to notice much. Once or twice lately I've seen her look at them in a thoughtful, puzzled kind of way, as if something had set her thinking. She looks at Miss Lesley as if she could not quite make her out—though the two have been friends ever since Miss Lesley came home from school."
"And the girl herself?" said Francis, with considerable and increasing interest. "What does she do?"
"She looks troubled and puzzled, but I don't think she understands. She's as innocent as a baby," said Mrs. Trent, with compassion in her tone.
"I wonder what he's doing it for," soliloquized Francis. "He can't marry her."
Mary Trent paused for a moment in her housewifely occupations. "Whycanhe not?"
"Because——well, I may as well tell you as not I've never mentioned it—I don't know why exactly—but I'll tell you now, Mary. A few weeks ago, when we were so down on our luck, you know—just before you began to work again—I met Oliver in Russell Square, and told him what I wanted and what I thought of him. I brought him to terms, I can tell you! He had just got himself engaged to Miss Kenyon; and she has twenty thousand pounds besides her profession; and he promised me two thousand down on his wedding-day. What do you say to that? And within six months, too! And if he doesn't keep his word, I shall not hold my tongue about the one or two little secrets of his that I possess—do you see?"
"Perhaps," said Mrs. Trent, slowly, "he thinks he could manage to pay you the money even if he married Miss Brooke? So long as you get the two thousand, I suppose you don't mind which girl it is?"
"Not a bit," answered her husband frankly. "All I want is the money. Then we'll go off to America, old girl, and have the farm you talk about. But Brooke's daughter won't have two thousand pounds, so if he marries her instead of Miss Kenyon, he'll have to look out."
Mrs. Trent had finished her work by this time. As she stood by the table drying her hands there was a look of fixed determination on her features which Francis recognized with some uneasiness.
"What do you think about it? What are you going to do?" he asked, almost timidly.
"I am not going to see Miss Lesley badly treated, at any rate."
"How can you prevent it?"
"I don't know, but Ishallprevent it, please God, if necessary. Your brother Oliver is engaged to one girl, and making love to another, that's the plain English of it; and sooner than see him break Miss Lesley's heart, I'd up and tell everybody what I know of him, and get him turned out of the house."
"And spoil my game?" cried Francis, rising to his feet. His faced had turned white with anger, and his eyes were aflame. She looked at him consideringly, as if she were measuring his strength against her own.
"Well—no," she said at length, "I won't spoil your game if I can help it—and I think I can get my own way without doing that. I want you to win your game, Francis. For you know"—with a weary smile—"that if you win, I win too."
Her husband's face relaxed. "You're not a bad sort, Polly: I always said so," he remarked. "Come and give me a kiss. You wouldn't do anything rash, would you? Choke Oliver off at Brooke's as much as you like; but don't endanger his relations with Ethel Kenyon. His marriage with her is our only chance of getting out of this accursed bog we seem to have stuck fast in."
"I'll be careful," said Mrs. Trent, drily.
Francis still eyed her with apprehension. "You won't try to stop that marriage, will you?"
"No, why should I? Miss Kenyon's nothing to me."
Francis laughed. "I didn't know where your sympathies might be carrying you," he said. "Brooke's daughter is no more to you than the other girl."
"I suppose not. But I feel different to her. You can't explain these things," said Mrs. Trent, philosophically, "but it's certain sure that you take a liking to one person and a hate to another, without knowing why. I liked Miss Lesley ever since I entered that house. She's kind, and talks to me as if I was a woman—not a machine. And I wouldn't like to see any harm happen to her."
"Oh, you may indulge your romantic fondness for Miss Brooke as long as you like, if you don't let it interfere with Oliver's marriage," said Francis, with a rather disagreeable laugh. "It's lucky that you did not go to live with Miss Kenyon instead of the fair Lesley. You might have felt tempted to tellheryour little story."
"Ay, so I might," said the woman, slowly. "For she's a woman, after all. And a nice life she'll have of it with Oliver Trent. I'm not sure——"
She stopped, and a sombre light came into her deep-set eyes.
"Oh, for goodness' sake, don't get on that old grievance," said Francis, hastily, almost rudely. "Don't thinkabout it—don't mention it to me. It's all very well, Polly, for you to take on so much about your sister; and, indeed, I'm very sorry for her, and I think that Oliver behaved abominably—I do, indeed; but, my dear girl, it's no good crying over spilt milk, and Oliver's my brother, after all——"
"And he's going to pay you two thousand pounds on his wedding-day," said Mrs. Trent, with cruel curtness. "I know all about it. And I understand. Why should I be above making my profit out of him like other people? All right, Francis: I won't spoil your little game at present. And now I must be getting back."
She took up her bonnet and shawl and began to readjust them. Francis watched her hands: he saw that they trembled, and he knew that this was an ominous sign. It sometimes betokened anger, and when she was angry he did not care to ask her to give him money. And he wanted money now.
But she was not angry in the way that he thought. For after a moment's silence her hands grew steady again, and her face recovered its usual calm.
"I've got three pounds here for you, Francis," she said. "And I hope you'll make it last as long as you can—you will, won't you? For I shan't have any more for some little time to come."
He nodded and took the sovereigns from her hand. A touch of compunction visited him as he did so.
"Keep one, Polly," he said. "I don't want them all."
"Oh, yes, you do. And I have no need of money where I am. You'll not spend it all at billiards, or on brandy, will you?"
"No, Polly, I won't. I promise you."
And he meant to keep his promise. But as matters fell out, he was blindly, madly drunk before the same night was out, and he had lost every penny that he possessed over a game at cards. And plunging recklessly across the street, in the darkness of the foggy night, he was knocked down by passing cab, and was carried insensible to the nearest hospital. Where let us leave him for a time in good and kindly hands.