"You may be wondering, dearest mamma, why I am writing to you in this way, because you told me that I must not write, and I have put off my explanation until almost the end. I could not bear to be without your letters any longer, and to-day I said so to my father. I could not help telling him, because I was so miserable. And he wishes me to tell you that it was all a mistake, and he is very sorry; he never meant to put a stop to our writing to each other, and he is very,verysorry that we thought so." Lesley's version was not so dignified as her father had intended it to be. "He was terribly distressed when he found out that I was not writing to you; and called himself all sorts of names—a tyrant and an ogre, and asked what we must have thought of him! He was really very much grieved about it, and never meant us to leave off writing. So now I shall write as often as I please, and you, dearest mamma, will write to me too."There is one thing I must say, darling mother, and you will not be angry with me for saying it, will you? I think father must be different now from what he was in the old days; or else—perhaps theremayhave been a mistake about him, such as there has been about the letters! For he is so clever and gentle and kind—a little sarcastic now and then, but always good! The poor people at the Club (which I told you about in the last sheet) just adore him; and they say that he has saved many of them from worsethan death. And you never told me about his book, dear mamma—'The Unexplored.' It is such a beautiful book—surely you think so, although you think ill of the writer? Of course you have read it? I have read it four times, I think; and I want to ask him about some parts of it, but I have never dared—I don't think he even knows that I have read it. It has gone through more than twelve editions, and has been translated into French and German, so youmusthave seen it. And Mr. Kenyon says it sells by thousands in America."It was Mr. Kenyon who first told me about it, and made me understand how blind I was at first to my father's reallygreatqualities. I know he is not like grandpapa—he does sometimes seem a little rough when compared to grandpapa; but then you always said I must not expect every man I met in the world to have grandpapa's courtly manners. And it must have been very lonely for you if he went out at such funny hours as he does now, and did not breakfast or lunch with you! But I am told that all 'journalists keep these hours,' and that it is very provincial of me not to know it! It is a very different house, and different life, from any that I ever saw before; but I am getting accustomed to it now, especially since Mr. Kenyon has talked to me."Dearest mother, don't think that I love you one whit the less because I am away from you, and am learning to love other people a little too. Nobody could be to me what you are, my own dear mother.—Your child,"Lesley."
"You may be wondering, dearest mamma, why I am writing to you in this way, because you told me that I must not write, and I have put off my explanation until almost the end. I could not bear to be without your letters any longer, and to-day I said so to my father. I could not help telling him, because I was so miserable. And he wishes me to tell you that it was all a mistake, and he is very sorry; he never meant to put a stop to our writing to each other, and he is very,verysorry that we thought so." Lesley's version was not so dignified as her father had intended it to be. "He was terribly distressed when he found out that I was not writing to you; and called himself all sorts of names—a tyrant and an ogre, and asked what we must have thought of him! He was really very much grieved about it, and never meant us to leave off writing. So now I shall write as often as I please, and you, dearest mamma, will write to me too.
"There is one thing I must say, darling mother, and you will not be angry with me for saying it, will you? I think father must be different now from what he was in the old days; or else—perhaps theremayhave been a mistake about him, such as there has been about the letters! For he is so clever and gentle and kind—a little sarcastic now and then, but always good! The poor people at the Club (which I told you about in the last sheet) just adore him; and they say that he has saved many of them from worsethan death. And you never told me about his book, dear mamma—'The Unexplored.' It is such a beautiful book—surely you think so, although you think ill of the writer? Of course you have read it? I have read it four times, I think; and I want to ask him about some parts of it, but I have never dared—I don't think he even knows that I have read it. It has gone through more than twelve editions, and has been translated into French and German, so youmusthave seen it. And Mr. Kenyon says it sells by thousands in America.
"It was Mr. Kenyon who first told me about it, and made me understand how blind I was at first to my father's reallygreatqualities. I know he is not like grandpapa—he does sometimes seem a little rough when compared to grandpapa; but then you always said I must not expect every man I met in the world to have grandpapa's courtly manners. And it must have been very lonely for you if he went out at such funny hours as he does now, and did not breakfast or lunch with you! But I am told that all 'journalists keep these hours,' and that it is very provincial of me not to know it! It is a very different house, and different life, from any that I ever saw before; but I am getting accustomed to it now, especially since Mr. Kenyon has talked to me.
"Dearest mother, don't think that I love you one whit the less because I am away from you, and am learning to love other people a little too. Nobody could be to me what you are, my own dear mother.—Your child,
"Lesley."
So Lesley's girlish, emotional, indiscreet letter went upon its way to Lady Alice, who was just then in Eaton Square, and Lesley never dreamt of the tears that it brought to her mother's eyes.
The letter was a shock to Lady Alice in more ways than one. First, it showed her that on one point at least shehadbeen mistaken—and it was a point that had long been a very sore one to her. Caspar had not meant the correspondence between mother and daughter to cease—so he said now; but she was certain that he had spoken very harshly about it when the arrangement was first made. He had even affected to doubt whether she had heart enough to care whether she heard from her child or not.Well, possibly he had altered his views since those days. Lesley said that hemustbe different! Poor Lesley! thought Lady Alice, how very little she knew! She seemed to have been as much fascinated by her father as Lady Alice had been, in days long past, by Caspar Brooke as a lover; but Lady Alice reflected thatshehad never thought of Caspar as good or gentle or "great" in any way. She thought of him chiefly in his relation to herself, and in that relation he had not been satisfactory. Yes, she remembered well enough the sarcastic remarks, the odd hours, the discomfort of her solitary meals. Lesley could see all these points, and yet discover good in the man, and not be disgusted? Lady Alice could not understand her daughter's impartiality.
Of course—it had occurred to her once or twice—that, being human, shemighthave been mistaken. She could have got over the dreariness and discomfort of Caspar's home, if Caspar had but loved her. Suppose—it was just a remote possibility—Caspar had loved her all the time!
"The child has infected me with her romantic ideas," said Lady Alice, at last, with a faint, sad smile. "Let me see—what does she say about her friends? The Kenyons—Ethel Kenyon—Mr. Trent—the clergyman of the parish—Mr. Kenyon—Mr. Kenyon I wonder who the Mr. Kenyon is of whom she speaks so highly. Surely not a clergyman too? Poor Caspar disliked clergymen so much. I wonder if Mrs. Romaine is still living in the neighborhood. But no, I remember: she went out to Calcutta and then to some German baths with her husband. What became of her, I wonder! If she were friendly with Caspar still,Lesley would be sure to mention her to me!"
And she read the letter through once more. But Lesley had not said a word about Mrs. Romaine: her heart had been too hot and angry with the remembrance of what Mrs. Romaine's brother had done, to lead her to say one word about the family.
Lady Alice lingered curiously over Lesley's remarks on "The Unexplored." She had not read the book herself. She had seen it and heard of it very often—so often that she thought she knew all that it contained. But for Lesley's sake she resolved to read it now. Perhaps it held strange, dangerous doctrines, against which her daughter ought to be cautioned. Of course the house did not contain a copy.But early in the day Lady Alice went to the nearest bookseller's and bought a copy. The obliging book-seller, who did not know her, remarked that "Brooke's 'Unexplored'" was always popular, and asked her whether she would like an unbound copy, or one bound in neat great cloth. Lady Alice took the latter: she had a distaste for paper-covered books.
She read "The Unexplored" in her own room that morning, but of course she was not struck by it exactly as Lesley had been. The facts which had horrified Lesley were no novelties to her. She was, in truth, slightly angry that her innocent Lesley should have so much of the great city's misery and shame laid bare to her. She acknowledged the truth of the portraiture, the beauty of the descriptions, the eloquence of the author's appeals to the higher classes; but she acknowledged it with resentment. Why had Caspar written a book of this sort? a book that taunted the higher classes with their birth, and reproached the wealthy with their riches? It was rather a disgrace than otherwise, in Lady Alice's aristocratic eyes, to be connected in any way with the writer of "The Unexplored."
Nevertheless, the book stirred in her the desire to vindicate the worth of her order and of her sex; and the next day, after having despatched a long and tender letter to Lesley (with a formal message of thanks to her husband), she went out to call on a lady, who was noted in her circle as a great philanthropist, and mentioned to her in a timid way that she wished she could be of any use amongst the poor, but she really did not see what she could do.
Her friend, Mrs. Bexley, was nothing if not practical.
"But, my dearest Lady Alice, you can be of every use in the world," she said. "I am going to drive to the East End to-morrow morning, to distribute presents at the London Hospital—it is getting so close to Christmas, you know, that we really must not put it off any longer. I generally go once a week tovisit the children and some of the other patients. Won't you come with me?"
"I am afraid I should be of very little use," said Lady Alice.
"But we shall not want you to do anything—only to say a kind word to the patients now and then, and give them things."
"I think I could do that," said Lesley's mother, softly.
She went back to her father's house quite cheered by the unexpected prospect of something to do—something which should take her out of the routine of ordinary work—something which should bring her closer (though she did not say it to herself) to the aims and objects of Lesley and Caspar Brooke.
The visit was a great success. Lady Alice, with her tall, graceful figure, her winning face, her becoming dress, was a pleasant sight for the weary eyes of the women and children in the accident wards. Mrs. Bexley was wise enough not to take her near any very painful sights. Lady Alice talked to some of the little children and gave them toys: she made friends, rather shyly, with some of the women, and promised to come and see them again. Mrs. Bexley was well known in the hospital, and was allowed to stay an unusually long time. So it happened that one of the doctors, coming rather hurriedly into one of the wards, paused at the sight of a lady bending over one of the children's beds, and looked so surprised that one of the nurses hastened to explain that the stranger came with old Mrs. Bexley and was going away again directly.
The doctor nodded, and went straight up to the child's bed. Lady Alice, raising herself after careful arrangement of some wooden animals on the sick child's table, came face to face with a very handsome man of about thirty, who seemed to be regarding her with especial interest. He moved away with a slight bow when she looked back at him, but he did not go far. He paused to chat with another little patient, and Lady Alice noticed that all the small faces brightened at the sight of him, and that two or three children called him imperiously to their bedsides. Something about him vaguely interested her—perhaps it was only his pleasant look, perhaps the affection with which he was regarded, perhaps the expression which his face had worn when he looked at her. She remembered him so well that she was able when she paid a second visit to the hospital to describe him to one of the Sisters, and ask his name.
"Kenyon," she repeated, when it was told to her. "I suppose it is not an uncommon name?"
Lesley had spoken of a Mr. Kenyon. It was not this Mr. Kenyon, of course!
But itwas"this Mr. Kenyon;" and thus Maurice met the mother of the girl he loved in the ward of a Londonhospital, whither Lady Alice had been urged by that impulse towards "The Unexplored," of which her husband was the author. And in another ward of the same hospital lay a patient whose destiny was to influence the fates of both—an insensible man, whose name was unknown to the nurses, but whom Oliver would have recognized as his brother, Francis Trent.
ETHEL REMONSTRATES.
Thehouse in which the Kenyons resided was built on the same pattern as Mr. Brooke's, but it was in some respects very unlike Mr. Brooke's place of residence. Maurice's consulting-room and dining-room corresponded, perhaps, to Mr. Brooke's dining-room and study: it was upstairs where the difference showed itself. Ethel's drawing-room was like herself—a little whimsical, a little bizarre; pretty, withal, and original, and somewhat unlike anything one had ever seen before. She was fond of novelties, and introduced the latest fashions in draperies or china or screens as soon as she could get hold of them; and the result was occasionally incongruous, though always bright and cheerful-looking.
It was the incongruity of the ornaments and arrangements which chiefly struck the mind of Oliver Trent as he entered Ethel's drawing-room one afternoon, and stumbled over a footstool placed where no footstool ought to be.
"I wish," he began, somewhat irritably, as he touched Ethel's forehead with his lips, "that you would not make your room quite so much like a fancy fair, Ethel."
Ethel raised her eyebrows. "Why, Oliver, only the other day you said how pretty it was!"
"Pretty! I hate the word. Asif 'prettiness' could be taken as a test of what was best in art."
"My room isn't'art,'" pouted Ethel; "it'sme."
The sentence might be ungrammatical, but it was strictly true. The room represented Ethel's character exactly. It was odd, quaint, striking, and attractive. But Oliver was not in the mood to see its attractiveness.
"It is certainly a medley," he replied, with some incisiveness. "How many styles do you think are represented in the place? Japanese, Egyptian, Renaissance, Louis Quinze, Queen Anne, Early Georgian——"
"Oh, no! please don't go on!" cried Ethel, with mock earnestness. "NotEarly Georgian, please! Anything but that!"
"It is all incongruous and out of taste," said Oliver, in an ill-tempered tone, and then he threw himself into a deep, comfortable lounging chair, and closed his eyes as if the sight of the room were too much for his nerves.
Ethel remained standing: her prettymignonnefigure was motionless; her bright face was thoughtful and overcast.
"Do you mean," she said, quietly, "that I am incongruous and out of taste too!"
There was a new note in her voice. Usually it was light and bird-like: now there was something a little more weighty, a little more serious, than had been heard in it before. Oliver noted the change, and moved his head restlessly; he did not want to quarrel with Ethel, but he was ill at ease in her presence, and therefore apt to be exceedingly irritable with her.
"You wrest my words, of course," he answered. "You always do. There's no arguing with—with—a woman."
"Withmeyou were about to say. Don't spare me. What other accusations have you to bring!"
"Accusations! Nonsense!"
"It is not nonsense, Oliver." Her voice trembled. "I have felt for some time that all was not right between us. I can't shut my eyes. I must believe what I see, and what I feel. We must understand one another."
Oliver's eyes were wide open now. He began to see that he had gone a little too far. It would not do to snub Ethel too much—at least before the marriage. Afterwards—he said to himself—he should treat her as he felt inclined. But now——
"You are mistaken, Ethel," he said, in a tone of half appeased vexation which he thought very effective. "What on earth should there be wrong between us! Open your eyes and your ears as much as you like, my dear child, but don't be misled by what youfeel. The wind is in the East,—remember. You feel a chill, most probably, and you put yourmalaisedown to me."
His tone grew more affectionate as he spoke. He wanted her to believe that he had been suffering from a mere passing cloud of ill-temper, and that he was already ashamed of it.
"I feel the effects of the weather myself," he said. "I have been horribly depressed all day, and I have a headache. Perhaps that is why the brightness of your room seemed to hurt my eyes. You know that I always like it when I am well."
He looked at her keenly, hoping that this reference to possible-ill-health might bring the girl to his feet, as it had often done before in the case of other women; but it did not seem to produce the least effect. She stood silent, immobile, with her eyes still fixed upon the floor. Silence and stillness were so unusual in one of Ethel's vivacious temperament, that Oliver began to feel alarmed.
"Ethel," he said, advancing to her, and laying his hand upon hers, "what is wrong? What have I done?"
She shook her head hastily, but made no other reply.
"Look at me," he said, softly.
And then she lifted her eyes. But they wore a questioning and not a trustful look.
"Ethel, dearest, what have I done to offend you? It cannot be my silly comment on your room that makes you look so grave? Believe me, dear, it came only from my headache and my bad temper. I am deeply sorry to have hurt you. Only speak—scold me if you like—but do not keep me in this suspense."
He was skilled in the art of pleading. His pale face, usually so expressionless, took on the look of almost passionate entreaty.
Ethel was an actress by profession—perhaps a little by nature also—but she was too essentially simple-hearted to suspect her friends of acting parts in private life, and indeed trusted them rather more implicitly than most people trust their friends. It had been a grief to her to doubt Oliver's faith for a moment, and her eyes filled with tears, while they flashed also with indignation, as she replied,
"You must know what I mean. I have felt it for a very long time. You do not care for me as you used to do."
"Upon my soul, I do!" cried Oliver, very sincerely.
"Then you never cared for me very much."
This was getting serious. Oliver had no mind to break off his engagement. He reserved the right to snub Ethel without giving offence. If this was an impracticable course to pursue, it was evident that he must abandon it and eat humble pie. Anything rather than part from her just now. He had lost the woman he loved: it would not do to lose also his only chance of winning a competency for himself and immunity from fear of want in the future.
"Ethel," he said, softly, "you grieve me very much. I acknowledge my faults of temper—I did not think you mistook then for a want of love."
"I do not think I do. It is something more real, more tangible than that."
"What is it, dear?"
She paused, then looked keenly into his face. "It seems to me, Oliver, that Lesley Brooke has won your heart away from me."
He threw back his head and laughed—a singularly jarring and unpleasant laugh, as it seemed to her. "What will you imagine next?" he said.
"Imagine? Have I imagined it? Isn't it true that you have been at her house almost every day for the last three or four weeks? Do you come here as often? Is it not Lesley that attracts you?—not me!"
"Oh, so you are jealous!"
"Yes, I suppose I am. It is only natural, I think."
They faced each other for a moment, defiantly, almost fiercely. There was a proud light in Ethel's eyes, a compression of the lips which told that she was not to be trifled with. Oliver stood pale, with frowning brows, and eyes that seemed to question both the reality of her feeling and the answer that he should make to her demand. It was by a great effort of self-control that at last he answered her with calmness—
"I assure you, Ethel, you are utterly mistaken. What have I in common with a girl like Miss Brooke—one of the most curiously ignorant and wrong-headed persons I ever came across? Can you think for a moment that I should compare her with you?—you, beautiful and gifted and cultured above most women?"
"That is nothing to the point," said Ethel, quickly. "Men don't love women because of their gifts and their culture."
"No," he rejoined, "but because of some subtle likeness or attractiveness which draws one to the other. I find it in you, without knowing why. You—I hoped—found it——"
His voice became troubled; he dropped his eyes. Ethel trembled—she loved him, poor girl, and she thought that he suffered as she had suffered, and she was sorry for him. But her outraged pride would not let her make any advance as yet.
"I may be a fatuous fool," said Oliver, after an agitated pause, "but I thought you loved me."
"I do love you," cried Ethel, passionately.
"And yet you suspect me of being false to you."
"Not suspect—not suspect"—she said, incoherently, and then, was suddenly folded in Oliver's arms, and felt that the time for reproach or inquiry had gone by.
She was not sorry that matters had ended in this way, although she felt it to be illogical. With his kisses upon her mouth, with the pressure of his arm enfolding her, it was almost impossible for her to maintain, in his presence, a doubt of him. It was when he had gone that all the facts which he had ignored came back to her with torturing insistence, and that she blamed herself for not having refused to be reconciled to him until she had ascertained the truth or untruth of a report that had reached her ears.
With a truer lover she might have gone unsatisfied to her dying day. A faithful-hearted man might never have perceived where she was hurt; he would not have been astute enough to discover that he might heal the wound by a few timely words ofexplanation. Oliver, keenly alive to his own interests, reopened the subject a few days later of his own accord.
They had completely made up their quarrel—to all outward appearance, at any rate—and were sitting together one afternoon in Ethel's obnoxious drawing-room. They had been laughing together at some funny story of Ethel's associates at the theatre, and to the laughter had succeeded a silence, during which Oliver possessed himself of the girl's hand and carried it gently to his lips.
"Ethel," he said, softly, "what made you so angry with me the other day?"
"Your bad behavior, I suppose!" she said, trying to treat the matter in her usual lively fashion.
"But whatwasmy misbehavior? Did it consist in going so often to the Brookes'?"
"Oh, what does it matter?" exclaimed Ethel, petulantly. "Didn't we agree to forgive and forget? If we didn't, we ought to have done. I don't want to look back."
"But you are doing an injustice to me. Ethel, I dare not say to you that Iinsiston knowing what it was. But I very stronglywishthat you would tell me—so that I might at least try to set your mind at rest."
"Well," said Ethel, quickly, "if youmustknow—it was only a bit of gossip—servants gossip. I know all that can be said respecting the foolishness of listening to gossip from such a source—but I can't help it. One of the maids at Mr. Brooke's——"
"Sarah?" asked Oliver, with interest. "Sarah never liked me."
"Who, it was not Sarah.—it was that maid of Lesley's—Kingston her name is, I believe—who said to one of our servants one day that you went there a great deal oftener than she would like, if she were in my place. There! I have made a full confession. It was a petty spiteful bit of gossip, of course, and I ought not to have listened to it—but then it seemed so natural—and I thought it might be true!"
"What seemed natural?" said Oliver, who, against his will, was looking very black.
"Why, that you should like Lesley; she is the sweetest girl I ever came across."
In his heart Oliver echoed that opinion, but he felt morally bound to deny it.
"You say so only because you have never seen yourself! My darling, how could you accuse me merely on servants' evidence!"
"Is therenotruth in it, Oliver?"
"None in the least."
"But you do go there very often!"
Then Oliver achieved a masterpiece of diplomacy. "My dear Ethel," he said, "I will go there no more until you go with me. I will not set foot in the house again."
He knew very well that Mr. Brooke would not admit him. It was clever to make a virtue of necessity.
"No, no, please don't do that! Go as often as you please."
"It was simply out of kindness to a lonely girl. I played her accompaniments for her sometimes, and listened to her singing. But as you dislike it, Ethel, I promise you that I will go there no more."
"Oh, Oliver, forgive me! I don't doubt you a bit. Do go to see Lesley as often as you can. I shouldlikeyou to do it. Go for my sake."
But Oliver was quite obdurate. No, he would not go to the Brookes' again, since Ethel had once objected to hisgoing. And on this pinnacle of austere virtue he remained, thereby reducing Ethel to a state of self-abasement, which spoke well for his chances of mastery in the married life which loomed before him.
LADY ALICE'S PHILANTHROPY.
Meanwhile, Lady Alice Brooke, in pursuit of her new fancy for philanthropy and the sick poor, had wandered somewhat aimlessly into other wards beside those set apart for women and children—at first the object of her search. She strayed—I use the word "strayed" designedly, for she certainly did not do it of set purpose—with one of the nurses into accident wards, into the men's wards, where her flowers and fruits and gentle words made her welcome, and where the bearded masculine faces, worn sometimes by pain and privation of long standing, appealed to her sensibilities in a new and not altogether unpleasant way.
For Lady Alice was a very feminine creature, and liked, as most women do like, to be admired and adored. She had confessed as much when she told the story of her life to her daughter Lesley. And she had something less than her woman's due in this respect. Caspar Brooke had very honestly loved and admired her, but in a protective and slightly "superior" way. The earl, her father, belonged to that conservative portion of the aristocratic class which treats its womankind with distinguished civility and profoundest contempt. In her father's home Lady Alice felt herself of no account. As years increased upon her, the charm of her graceful manner was marred by advancing self-distrust. In losing (as she, at least, thought) her physical attractions, she lost all that entitled her to consideration amongst the men and women with whom she lived. She had no fixed position, no private fortune, nothing that would avail her in the least when her father died; and the gentle coldness of her manner did not encourage women to intimacy, or invite men to pay her attentions that she would scorn. In any other situation, her natural gifts and virtues would have fairer play. As a spinster, she would still have had lovers; as a widow, suitors bythe dozen; as a happily married woman she would havebeen courted, complimented, flattered, by all the world. But, as a woman merely separated from a husband with whom she had in the first instance eloped, living on sufferance, as it were, in her father's house, "neither maid, wife, nor widow," she was in a situation which became more irksome and more untenable every year.
To a woman conscious of such a jar in her private life, it was really a new and delightful experience to find herself in a place where she could be of some real use, where she was admired and respected and flattered by that unconscious flattery given us sometimes by the preference of the sick and miserable. The men in one of the accident wards were greatly taken with Lady Alice. There was her title, to begin with; there were her gracious accents, her graceful figure, her gentle, beautiful face. The men liked to see her come in, liked to hear her talk—although she was decidedly slow, and a little irresponsive in conversation. It soon leaked out, moreover, that material benefits followed in the wake of her visits. One man, who left the hospital, returned one day to inform his mates that, "the lady" had found work for him on her father's estate, and that he considered himself a "made man for life." The attentions of such men who were not too ill to be influenced by such matters were henceforth concentrated upon Lady Alice; and she, being after all a simple creature, believed their devotion to be genuine, and rejoiced in it.
With one patient, however, she did not for some time establish any friendly relations. He had been run over, while drunk, the nurses told her, and very seriously hurt. He lay so long in a semi-comatose condition that fears were entertained for his reason, and when the mist gradually cleared away from his brain, he was in too confused a state of mind for conversation to be possible.
Lady Alice went to look at him from time to time, and spoke to the nurse about him; but weeks elapsed before he seemed conscious of the presence of any visitor. The nursing sister told the visitor at last that the man had spoken and replied to certain questions: that he had seemed uncertain about his own name, and could not give any coherent account of himself. Later on, it transpired that the man had allowed his name to be entered as "John Smith."
"Not his own name, I'm certain," the nurse said, decidedly.
"Why not?" Lady Alice asked, with curiosity.
"It's too common by half for his face and voice," the Sister answered, shrewdly. "If you look at him or speak to him, you'll find that that man's a gentleman."
"A gentleman—picked up drunk in the street?"
"A gentleman by birth or former position, I mean," said the Sister, rather dryly. "No doubt he has come down in the world; but he has been, at any rate, what people call an educated man."
Lady Alice's prejudices were, stirred in favor of the broken-down drunkard by this characterization; and she made his acquaintance as soon as he was able to talk. Her impression coincided with that of the Sister. The man had once been a gentleman—a cultivated, well-bred man, from whom refinement had never quite departed. Over and above this fact there was something about him which utterly puzzled Lady Alice. His face recalled to her some one whom she had known, and she could not imagine who that some one might be. The features, the contour the face, the expression, were strangely familiar to her. For, by the refining forces which sickness often applies, the man's face had lost all trace of former coarseness orcommonness: it had become something like what it had been in the days of his first youth. And the likeness which puzzled Lady Alice was a very strong resemblance to the patient's sister, Rosalind Romaine.
Lady Alice was attracted by him, visited his bedside very often, and tried to win his confidence. But "John Smith" had, at present, no confidence to give. Questions confused and bewildered him. His brain was in a very excitable condition, the doctor said, and he was not to be tormented with useless queries. By the time his other injuries had been cured, he might perhaps recover the full use of his mind, and could then give an account of himself if he liked. Till then he was to be let alone; and so Lady Alice contented herself with bringing him such gifts as the authorities allowed, and with talking or reading to him a little from time to time in soothing and friendly tones. It was to be noted that before long his eyes followed her with interest as she crossed the ward; that his brow cleared when she spoke to him, and that all her movements were watched by him withgreat intentness. In spite of this she could not get him to reply with anything but curtness to her inquiries after his health and general welfare; and it was quite a surprise to her when one day, on her visit to him, he accosted her of his own accord.
"Won't you sit down?" he said suddenly.
"Thank you. Yes, I should like to sit and read to you a little if you are able——"
"It isn't for that," he said, interrupting her unceremoniously; "it's because I have something special to say to you. If you'll stoop down a moment I'll say it—I don't want any one else to hear."
In great surprise, Lady Alice bowed her head. "I want to tell you," he said gruffly, "that you're wasting your time and your money. These men in the ward are not really grateful to you one bit. They speculate before you come as to how much you are likely to give them, and when you are gone they compare notes and grumble if you have not given them enough."
"I do not wish to hear this," said Lady Alice, with dignity.
"I know you do not; but I think it is only right to tell you. Try them: give them nothing for a visit or two, and see whether they won't sulk and look gloomy, although you may talk to them as kindly as ever——"
"And if they did," said Lady Alice, with a sudden flash of energy and insight which amazed herself, "who could blame them, considering the pain they have suffered, and the brutal lives they lead? Why should they listen to my poor words, if I go to them without a gift in my hand?"
She spoke as she would have spoken to an equal—an unconscious tribute to the refinement which stamped this man as of a higher calibre than his fellows.
"It is a convenient doctrine for them," said John Smith, and buried his head in the bedclothes as if he wanted to hear nothing more.
For Lady Alice's next two visits he would not look up, or respond when she came near him, which she never failed to do; but on the third occasion he lifted his head.
"Well, madam," he said, "you have after all been trying my plan, I hear. Do you find that it works well?"
Lady Alice hesitated. The averted faces and puzzled, downcast—sometimes sullen—looks of the sick men andboys to whom she had of late given nothing but kind words, had grieved her sorely.
"I suppose it proves the truth, in part, of what you say," she answered gently, "but on the other hand I find that my gifts have been judged excessive and unwise. It seems that I have a great deal to learn in the art of giving: it does not come by nature, as some suppose. I have consulted the doctors and nurses—and I have to thank you for giving me a warning."
A look of surprise passed across the man's face.
"You're better than some of them," he said, curtly. "I thought you'd never look at me again. I don't know why I should have interfered. But I did not like to see you cheated and laughed at."
Lady Alice colored, but she felt no resentment against the man, although he had shown her that she had made herself ridiculous when she was bent on playing Lady Bountiful, and posing as an angel of light. She said after a moment's pause—
"I believe you meant kindly. Is there nothing that I can do for you?"
He shook his head. "I don't think so—I can't remember very well. The doctors say I shall remember by and by. Then I shall know."
"And if I can, you will let me help you?"
"I suppose I ought to be only too glad," said the patient, with a sort of sullenness, which Lady Alice felt that she could but dimly understand. "I suppose I'm the sort of man tobehelped; and yet I can't help fancying there's a—Past—a Past behind me—a life in which I once was proud of my independence. But it strikes me that this was very long ago."
He drew the bedclothes over his head again, and made no further reply. Lady Alice came to see him after this conversation as often as the rules of the hospital would allow her; and, although she seemed to get little response from him, the fact really remained that she was establishing an ascendancy over the man such as no nurse or doctor in the place had yet maintained. Others noticed it beside herself; but she, disheartened a little by her disappointment in some of the other patients, did not recognize the reality of his attachment to her. And an event occurred about the time which put John Smith and hospital matters out of her head for a considerable time to come.
Old Lord Courtleroy died suddenly. He was an old man, but so hale and hearty that his death had not been expected in the least; but he was found dead in his bed one morning, and the doctors pronounced that his complaint had been heart disease. The heir to the title and estate was a distant cousin whom Lady Alice and her father had never liked; and when he entered upon his possessions, Lady Alice knew that the time had come for her to seek a home elsewhere. She had sufficient to live upon; indeed, for a single woman, she was almost rich; but the loneliness of her position once more forced itself upon her, especially as Lesley was not by her side to cheer her gradually darkening life.
She wrote the main facts concerning Lord Courtleroy's death and the change in her circumstances in short, rather disjointed letters to Lesley, and received very tender replies; but even then she felt a vague dissatisfaction with the girl's letters. They were full of a wistfulness which she could not understand: she felt that something remote had crept into them, some aloofness for which she could not account. And as Captain Harry Duchesne happened to come across her one day, and inquired very particularly after Miss Brooke, she induced him to promise to call on Lesley when he was in London, and to report to her all that Lesley did or said. If it was a somewhat underhand proceeding, she told herself that she was justified by her anxiety as a mother.
Lord Courtleroy had left a considerable sum to Lesley, and when mother and daughter were reunited, as Lady Alice hoped that they would shortly be, there was no question as to their having means enough and to spare. Lady Alice began to dream of a dear little country house in Sussex, with an occasional season in London, or a winter at Bagnères. She was recalled from her dreams to the realities of life by a letter from her husband. Caspar Brooke wrote to ask whether, under present circumstances, she would not return to him.
CAPTAIN DUCHESNE.
Lesley'slife seemed to her now much less lonely than it had been at first. The consciousness of having made friends was pleasant to her, although her affection for Ethel had been for a time overshadowed by the recollection of Oliver's unfaithfulness. But when this impression passed away, as it gradually did, after the scene that had been so painful to her, she consoled herself with the belief that Oliver's words and actions had proceeded from a temporary derangement of judgment, for which he was not altogether responsible, and that he had returned to his allegiance; therefore she might continue to be friendly with Ethel without any sensation of treachery or shame. An older woman than Lesley would not, perhaps, have argued in this way: she would have suspected the permanence of Oliver's feelings more than Lesley did. But, being only an inexperienced girl, Lesley comforted herself by the fact that Oliver now avoided her; and said that it could not be possible for her to have attracted him away from Ethel, who was so winning, so sweet, so altogether delightful.
Then, apart from the Kenyons, she began to make pleasant acquaintances amongst her father's friends. Caspar Brooke's house was a centre of interest and entertainment for a large number of intellectual men and women; and Lesley had as many opportunities for wearing her pretty evening gowns as she could have desired. There were "at homes" to which her charming presence and her beautiful voice attracted Caspar's friends in greater numbers than ever: there were dinner-parties where her interest in the new world around her made everything else interesting; and there was a constant coming and going of people who had work to do in the world, and who did it with more or less success, which made the house in Woburn Place anything but a dull abode.
The death of her grandfather distressed her less from regret for himself than from anxiety for her mother's future. Lady Alice's notes to her were very short and somewhat vaguely worded. It was, therefore, with positive joy that, one afternoon in spring, she was informed by her maid that Captain Duchesne was in the drawing-room, for she felt sure that he would be able to tell her many details that she did not know. She made haste to go down, and yet, before she went, she paused to say a word to Kingston, who had brought her the welcome news.
"I wish you would go out, Kingston; you don't look at all well, and this spring air might do you good."
It was certainly easy to see that Kingston was not well. During the past few weeks her face had become positively emaciated, her eyes were sunken, and her lips were white. She looked like a person who had recently passed through some illness or misfortune. Lesley had tried, delicately and with reserve, to question her; but Kingston had never replied to any of her inquiries. She would shut up her lips, and turn away with the look of one who could keep a secret to the grave.
"Nothing will do me good, ma'am," she answered dryly.
"Oh, Kingston, I am so sorry!"
"Go down to your visitor, ma'am, and don't mind me," said Kingston, turning her back on the girl with unusual abruptness. "It isn't much that I've got to be sorry for, after all."
"If there is anything I can do to help you, you will let me know, will you not?" said Lesley.
But Kingston's "Yes, ma'am," fell with a despairing cadence on her ear.
Kingston had been to her husband's lodgings only to find that he had disappeared. He had left some of his clothes, and the few articles of furniture that belonged to his wife, and had never said that he was going away. The accident that had made Francis Trent a patient at the hospital where Lady Alice visited was of course unknown to his landlady, as also to his wife. And as his memory did not return to him speedily, poor Mary Trent had been left to suffer all the tortures of anxiety for some weeks. At first she thought that some injury had happened to him—perhaps that he was dead: then a harder spirit took possession of her, and she made up her mind that he had finally abandoned her—had got money from Oliver and departed to America without her. She might have asked Oliver whether this were so, but she was too proud to ask. She preferred to eat out her heart in solitude. She believed herself deserted forever, and the only grain of consolation that remained to her was the hope of making herself so useful and acceptable to Lesley Brooke, that whenLesley married she would ask Mary Kingston to go with her to her new home.
Kingston had made up her mind about the man that Lesley was to marry. She had seen him come and go: she had seen him look at her dear Miss Lesley with ardently admiring eyes: she believed that he would be a true and faithful husband to her. But she knew more than Lesley was aware of yet.
Lesley went slowly down into the drawing-room. She remembered Captain Duchesne very well, and she was glad to think of seeing him again. And yet there was an indefinable shrinking—she did not know how or why. Harry Duchesne was connected with her old life—with the Paris lights, the Paris drawing-rooms, the stately old grandfather, the graceful mother—the whole assembly of things that seemed so far away. She did not understand her whole feeling, but it suddenly appeared to her as if Captain Duchesne's visit was a mistake, and she had better get it over as soon as possible.
It must be confessed that this sensation vanished as soon as she came into the actual presence of Captain Duchesne. The young man, with his grave, handsome features, his drooping, black moustache, his soldierly bearing, had an attraction for her after all. He reminded her of the mother whom she loved.
It was not very easy to get into conversation with him at first. He seemed as ill at ease as Lesley herself had been. But when she fell to questioning him about Lady Alice, his tongue became unloosed.
"She does not know exactly what to do. She talks of taking a house in London—if you would like it."
"Would mamma care to live in London?"
"Not for her own sake: for yours."
"But I—I do not think I like London so much," said Lesley, with a swift blush and some hesitation. Captain Duchesne looked at her searchingly.
"Indeed? I understood that you had become much attached to it. I am sure Lady Alice thinks so."
"I do love it—yes, but it is on account of the people who live in London," said Lesley.
"Ah, you have made friends?"
"There is my father, you know."
"Yes." And something in his tone made Lesley change the subject hurriedly. Captain Duchesne would never have been so ill-bred as to speak disparagingly of a lady's father to her face; and yet she felt that there was something disparaging in the tone.
"Have you seen the present Lord Courtleroy?" she asked.
"Yes; I have met him once or twice. He is somewhat stiff and rigid in appearance, but he is very courteous—more than courteous, Lady Alice tells me, for he is kind. He wishes to disturb her as little as possible—entreats her to stay at Courtleroy, and so on; but naturally she wishes to have a house of her own."
"Of course. But I thought that she would prefer the South of France."
"If I may say so without offence," said Captain Duchesne, smiling, "Lady Alice's tastes seem to be changing. She used to love the country and inveigh against the ugliness of town; but now she spends her time in visiting hospitals and exploring Whitechapel——"
Lesley almost sprang to her feet. "Oh, Captain Duchesne, are you in earnest?"
"Quite in earnest."
"Oh, Iamso glad!"
"Why, may I ask?" said Duchesne, with real curiosity. But Lesley clasped her hands tightly together and hung her head, feeling that she could not explain to a comparative stranger how she felt that community of interests might tend to a reconciliation between the long separated father and mother. And in the rather awkward pause that followed, Miss Ethel Kenyon was announced.
Lesley was very glad to see her, and glad to see that she looked approvingly at Captain Duchesne, and launched at once into an animated conversation with him. Lesley relapsed almost into silence for a time, but a satisfied smile played upon her lips. It seemed to her that Captain Duchesne's dark eyes lighted up when he talked toEthel as they had not done when he talked toher; that Ethel's cheeks dimpled with her most irresistible smile, and that her voice was full of pretty cadences, delighted laughter, mirth and sweetness. Lesley's nature was so thoroughly unselfish, that she could bear to be set aside for a friend's sake; and she was so ingenuous and single-minded that she put no strained interpretation on the honest admiration which she read in Harry Duchesne's eyes. It may have been partly in hopes of drawing her once more into the conversation that he turned to her presently with a laughing remark anent her love of smoky London.
"Oh, but it is not the smoke I like," Lesley answered. "It is the people."
"Especially the poor people," put in Ethel, saucily. "Now, I can't bear poor people; can you, Captain Duchesne?"
"I don't care for them much, I'm afraid."
"I like to do them good, and all that sort of thing," said Ethel. "Don't look so sober, Lesley! I like to act to them, or sing to them, or give them money; but I must say I don't like visiting them in the slums, or having to stand too close to themanywhere. I am so glad that you agree with me, Captain Duchesne!"
And not long afterwards she graciously invited him to call upon her on "her day," and promised him a stall at an approachingmatinee, two pieces of especial favor, as Lesley knew.
Captain Duchesne sat on as if fascinated by the brilliant little vision that had charmed his eyes; and not until an unconscionable time had elapsed did he seem able to tear himself away. When he had gone, Ethel expressed herself approvingly of his looks and manners.
"I like those soldierly-looking men," she said. "So well set up and distinguished in appearance. Is he an old friend of yours,Lesley?"
"No, I have met him only once before. In Paris, he dined with us—with my grandfather, my mother, and myself."
"And he comes from Lady Alice now?"
"Yes, to bring me news of her."
Ethel nodded her bright little head sagaciously.
"It's very plain what Lady Alice wants, then?"
"What?" said Lesley, opening her eyes in wide amaze.
"She wants you to marry him, my dear."
"Nonsense!"
"It's not nonsense: don't get so red about it, you silly girl. What a baby you are, Lesley."
"I am sure mamma never thought of anything of the kind," said Lesley, with dignity, although her cheeks were still red.
"We shall see what we shall see. Well, I won't put my oar in—isn't that kind of me? But, indeed, your Captain Duchesne looks thoroughly ripe for a flirtation, and it will be as much as I can do to keep my hands off him."
"How would Mr. Trent like that?" said Lesley, trying to carry the war into the enemy's camp.
"He would bear it with the same equanimity with which he bears the rest of my caprices," said Ethel, merrily; but a shade crossed her brow, and she allowed Lesley to lead the conversation to the subject of hertrousseau.
Captain Duchesne did not seem slow to avail himself of the favor accorded to him. He presented himself at Ethel's next "at home;" and devoted himself to her with curious assiduity. Even the discovery of her engagement to Mr. Trent did not change his manner. It was not so much that he paid her actual attention, as that he paid none to anybody else. When she was not talking to him, he kept silence. He seemed always to be observing her, her face, her manner, her dress, her attitude. Yet this kind of observation was quite respectful and unobtrusive: it was merely its continuity that excited remark. Oliver noticed it at last, and professed himself jealous: in fact he was a little bit jealous, although he did not love Ethel overmuch. But he had a pride of possession in her which would not allow him to look with equanimity on the prospect of her being made love to by anybody else.
Ethel enjoyed the attentions, and enjoyed Oliver's jealousy, in her usual spirit of childlike gaiety. She was quite assured of Oliver's affection for her now; and she looked forward with shy delight to the day of her wedding, which had been fixed for the twentieth of March.
Meanwhile, Oliver was devoured with secret anxiety. For what had become of Francis, and when would he appear to demand the money which had been promised to him on the day when the marriage should take place?
MR. BROOKE'S DESIRES.
Lady Alice'smovements were not without interest to Caspar Brooke, although Lesley did not suspect the fact. It was quite a surprise to her when he entered the library one day, with apparently no other object than that of saying abruptly,
"What is your mother going to do, Lesley?"
"To do?" said Lesley, flushing slightly and looking astonished.
"Yes"—impatiently. "Where is she going to live? What will become of her? Do you want to go to her? I wish to hear what you know about her arrangements."
He planted himself on the hearth-rug in what might be termed an aggressive attitude—really the expression of some embarrassment of feeling. It certainly seemed hard to him at that moment to have to ask his daughter these questions.
"I think," said Lesley, with downcast eyes, "that she is trying to find a house to suit her in Mayfair."
"Mayfair. Then half her income will go in rent and taxes. Will she live there alone?"
"Yes. At least—unless—until——"
"Until you join her: I understand. Will"—and then he made a long pause before continuing—"if she wants you to join her at once; and you wish to go, don't let this previous arrangement stand in the way. I shall not interfere."
His curtness, his abruptness, would once have startled and terrified Lesley. She had of late grown so much less afraid of him, that now she only lifted her eyes, with a proud, grieving look in them, and said,
"Do you want me to go away, then?"
"Wantyou to go? Certainly not, child," and Mr. Brooke stretched out his hand, and drew her to him with acaressing gesture. "No: I like to have you here. But I thought you wanted to go to her."
"So I do," said Lesley, the tears coming to her eyes. "But—I want to stay, too. I want"—and she put both hands on his arms with a gesture as affectionate as his own—"I want my father and mother both."
"I'm afraid that is an impossible wish."
"But why should it be?" said Lesley, looking up into his face beseechingly.
His features twitched for a moment with unwonted emotion. "You know nothing about it," he said—but he did not speak harshly. "You can't judge of the circumstances. What can I do? Even if I asked her she would not come back to me."
And then he put his daughter gently from him and went down to his study, where he paced up and down the floor for a good half-hour, instead of settling down as usual to his work.
But Lesley's words were not without their effect, although he had put them aside so decidedly. With that young, fair face looking so pleadingly into his own, it did not seem impossible that she should form a new tie between himself and his wife. Of course he had always known that children were conventionally supposed to bind the hearts of husband and wife to each other; but in his own case he had not found that a daughter produced that result. On the contrary, Lesley had been for many years a sort of bone of contention between himself and his wife; and he had retained a cynical sense of the futility of such conventional utterances, which were every day contradicted by barefaced facts.
But now he began to acknowledge that Lesley was drawing his heart closer to his wife. The charm of a family circle began to rise before him. Pleasant, indeed, would it be to find that his dingy old house bore once more the characteristics of a home; that womankind was represented in it by fairer faces and softer voices than the face and voice even of dear old Doctor Sophy, with her advanced theories, her committees, and her brisk disregard of the amenities of life. Yes, he would give a good deal to see Alice—it was long since he had thought of her by that name—established in his drawing-room (which she should refurbish and adorn to her heart's content), with Lesley byher side, and himself at liberty to stroll in and out, to be smiled upon, and—yes, after all, this was his dearest wish—to dare to lavish the love of which his great heart was full upon the wife and child whose loss had been the misfortune of his life.
As he thought of the past years, it seemed to him that they had been very bleak and barren. True, he had done many things; he had influenced many people, and accomplished some good work; but what had he got out of it for himself? He was an Individualist at heart, as most men are, and he felt conscious of a claim which the world had not granted. It was almost a shock to him to feel the egoistic desire for personal happiness stirring strongly within him; the desire had been suppressed for so long, that when it once awoke it surprised him by its vitality.
The outcome of these reflections was seen in a letter written that day after his talk with Lesley. He seated himself at last at his writing-table, and after some minutes' thought dashed off the following epistle. He did not stop for a word, he would not hesitate about the wording of sentences: it seemed to him that if he paused to consider, his resolution might be shaken, his purpose become unfixed.