The Project Gutenberg eBook ofBrooke's Daughter: A NovelThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Brooke's Daughter: A NovelAuthor: Adeline SergeantRelease date: January 28, 2010 [eBook #31106]Most recently updated: January 6, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Linda Hamilton and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net(This file was produced from images generously madeavailable by the Canadian Institute for HistoricalMicroreproductions (www.canadiana.org))*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROOKE'S DAUGHTER: A NOVEL ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Brooke's Daughter: A NovelAuthor: Adeline SergeantRelease date: January 28, 2010 [eBook #31106]Most recently updated: January 6, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Linda Hamilton and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net(This file was produced from images generously madeavailable by the Canadian Institute for HistoricalMicroreproductions (www.canadiana.org))
Title: Brooke's Daughter: A Novel
Author: Adeline Sergeant
Author: Adeline Sergeant
Release date: January 28, 2010 [eBook #31106]Most recently updated: January 6, 2021
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Linda Hamilton and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net(This file was produced from images generously madeavailable by the Canadian Institute for HistoricalMicroreproductions (www.canadiana.org))
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROOKE'S DAUGHTER: A NOVEL ***
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BROOKE'S DAUGHTER.A NOVEL.BYADELINE SERGEANT,Author of "A True Friend" etc., etc.Montreal:JOHN LOVELL & SON,23St. Nicholas Street.
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THE END OF HER CHILDHOOD.
TheConvent of the Annonciades, situated in a secluded spot on the outskirts of Paris, has long been well reputed as an educational establishment for young ladies of good family. The sisters themselves are women of refinement and cultivation, and the antecedents of every pupil received by them are most carefully inquired into: so carefully, indeed, that admission to the Convent School is looked on almost as a certificate of noble birth and unimpeachable orthodoxy. The Ladies of the Annonciades have indeed lately relaxed their rules, so far as to receive as parlor-boarders some very rich American girls and the children of a Protestant English marquis; but wealth in the first instance, and birth in the second, counterbalance the objections that might be raised to their origin or their faith. These exceptions to the rule are, however, few and far between; and, in spite of the levelling tendencies of our democratic days, Annonciades Convent is still one of the most exclusive and aristocratic establishments of the kind in Europe.
Although we know too well that small-minded jealousy, strife, and bickering must exist in a community of women cut off so entirely from the outer world as in this Convent of the Annonciades, it must be confessed that the very name and air of the place possess a certain romantic charm. The house is old, turreted like a chateau, overgrown with clematis and passion-flower. The grounds, enclosed by high mossy walls, are of great extent, and beautifully laidout. The long chestnut avenue, the sparkling fountains, the trim flower-beds, are the delight of the sisters' hearts. The green beauty of the garden, and the grey stones of the ancient building, form a charming background for the white-veiled women who glide with noiseless footsteps along the cloisters or the avenue: a background more becoming to them even than to the bevy of girls in their everyday grey frocks, or their Sunday garb of white and blue. For the sisters' quaint and graceful dress harmonizes with the antique surroundings of building and ornament as anything younger and more modern fails to do.
These women—shut off from the world, and knowing little of its joys or sorrows—have a strangely tranquil air. With some the tranquility verges on childishness. One feels that they have not conquered the world, they have but escaped it; and, as one pities the soldier who flies the battle, so one mourns for the want of courage which has condemned these women to an inglorious peace. But here and there another kind of face is to be seen. Here and there we come across a countenance bearing the tragic impress of toil and grief and passion; and we feel it possible that in this haven alone perhaps could a nature which had striven and suffered so greatly find in the end a lasting place. But such faces are fortunately few and far between.
From the wide low window of the greatsalle d'étudea flight of steps with carved stone balustrades led into the garden. The balustrades were half-covered with clustering white roses and purple clematis on the day of which I write; and a breath of perfume, almost overpowering in its sweetness, was wafted every now and then from the beds of mignonette and lilies on either side. The brilliant sunshine of an early September day was not yet touched with the melancholy of autumn: the leaves of the Virginia creeper had not yet changed to scarlet, nor had the chestnuts yellowed as if winter was creeping on apace. Everything was still, warm and bright.
The stillness was partly accounted for by the fact that most of the pupils had gone home for their summer holidays. Thesalle d'étudewas empty and a little desolate: no hum of busy voices came from its open window to the garden; and even the tranquil sisters seemed to miss the sound, and to look wistfully at the bare desks and unused benches of their schoolroom. For they loved their pupilsand their work; both came, perhaps, as a welcome break in the monotony of their barren lives; and they were sorry when the day came for their scholars to leave them for a time. Still more did they grieve when the inevitable day of a final departure arrived. They knew—some by hearsay, some by experience, and some by instinct alone—that the going away from school into the world was the beginning of a new life, full, very often, of danger and temptation, in which the good sisters and their teaching were likely to be forgotten, and it was a sorrow to them to be henceforth dissociated from the thoughts and lives of those who had often been under their guardianship and tuition for many years. Such a parting—probably a final one—was now imminent, and not a few of the sisters were troubled by the prospect, although it was against their rule to let any sign of such grief appear.
It was not the hour of recreation, but the ordinary routine of the establishment was for a little while suspended, partly because it was holiday-time, and partly because an unusual event was coming to pass. One of the parlor boarders, who had been with the sisters since her childhood, first as a boarder and then as a guest, was about to leave them. She was to be fetched away by her mother and her mother's father, who was an English milord, of fabulous wealth and distinction, and, although at present a heretic, exceedingly "well-disposed" towards the Catholic church. It was not often that a gentleman set foot within the precincts of the convent; and although he would not be allowed to penetrate farther than the parlor, the very fact of his presence sent a thrill of excitement through the house. An English milord, a heretic, the grandfather of "cette chère Lisa," whom they were tolose so soon! No wonder the most placid of the nuns, the most stolid of the lay-sisters, tingled with excitement to the finger-tips!
The girl whose departure from the convent school was thus regretted was known amongst her English friends as Lesley Brooke. French lips, unaccustomed to a name like Lesley, had changed it into Lisa; but Lesley loved her own name, which was a heritage in her family, and had been handed down to her from her grandmother. She was always glad to hear it from friendly English lips. She was nineteen now, and had stayed with the sisters an unusually long time without exactly knowing why. Family circumstances, she was told, had hitherto prevented her mother from taking her to an English home. But now the current of her life was to be changed. She was to leave Paris: she was, she believed, even to leave France. Her mother had written that she was to go to London, and that she (Lady Alice Brooke) would come for her, in company with Lesley's grandfather, Lord Courtleroy, with whom she had been traveling abroad for some time past.
Lesley was overjoyed by the news. She had lately come to suspect something strange, something abnormal, in her own position. She had remained at school when other girls went to their homes: she never had been able to answer questions respecting her relations and their belongings. Her mother, indeed, she knew; for she sometimes spent a portion of the holidays with Lady Alice at a quiet watering-place in France or Italy. And her mother was all that could be desired. Gentle, refined, beautiful, with a slight shade of melancholy which only made her delicate face more attractive—at least in Lesley's eyes—Lady Alice Brooke gained love and admiration whithersoever she went. But she never spoke of her husband. Lesley had gradually learned that she must not mention his name. In her younger days she had been wont to ask questions about her unknown father. Was he dead?—was he in another country?—why had she never seen him? She soon found that these questions were gently but decidedly checked. Her mother did not decline in so many words to answer them, but she set them aside. Only once, when Lesley was fifteen, and made some timid, wistful reference to the father whom she had never known, did Lady Alice make her a formal answer.
"I will tell you all about your father when you are old enough to hear," she said. "Until then, Lesley, I had rather that you did not talk of him."
Lesley shrank into herself abashed, and never mentioned his name again.
All the same, as she grew older, her fancy played about this unknown father, as the fancy of young girls always plays about a mystery. Had he committed some crime?Had he disgraced himself and his family that his name might not be breathed in Lady Alice's ear? But she could not believe that her good, beautiful mother would ever have loved and married a wicked man!—such was thephrase that she, in her girlish innocence and ignorance, used to herself. As to scandal and tittle-tattle, none of it reached the seclusion of her convent-home, or was allowed to sully her fair mind. And it was impossible for her to connect the idea of folly, guilt, or shame with the pure, sweet face of her mother, or the stately pride and dignity of her mother's father, the Earl of Courtleroy. There was evidently a mystery; but she was sure of one thing, that it was a mystery without disgrace.
And now, as she stood waiting on the stone steps, her face flushed a little, and her eyes filled at the thought that she would now, perhaps, be allowed to hear the story of her parents' lives. For she knew that she was going to leave the convent, and it had been vaguely hinted by Lady Alice in a recent letter that on leaving the convent Lesley must be prepared for a great surprise.
Lesley looked over the silent, sweet-scented garden, and half-sighed, half-smiled, to think that she should leave it so soon, and perhaps for ever. But she was excited rather than sad, and when one of the sisters appeared at the door of the study, orsalle d'étude, Lesley turned towards her with a quick, eager gesture, which not all the training to which she had been subjected since her childhood would have availed to suppress.
"Oh, sister, tell me, has she come?"
The sister was a tall, spare woman, with a thin face and great dark eyes, with eyelids slightly reddened, as though by long weeping or sleeplessness. It was an austere face, but its severity softened into actual sweetness as she smiled at her pupil's eagerness.
"Gently, my child: why so impetuous?" she said, taking the girl's hand in her own. "Yes, madame has arrived: she is in the parlor, speaking to the Reverend Mother; and in five minutes you are to go to her."
"Not for five minutes?" said Lesley; and then, controlling herself, she added, penitently. "I know I am impatient, Sister Rose."
"Yes, dear child: you are impatient: it is in your nature, in your blood," said the sister, looking at her with a sort of pity in her eyes—a pity which Lesley resented, without quite knowing why. "And you are going into a world where you will find many things sadly different from your expectations. If you remember the lessons that we havetried to read you here—lessons of patience, endurance, resignation to the will of others, and especially to the will of God—you will be happy in spite of sorrow and tribulation."
The young girl trembled: it seemed as if the sister spoke with a purpose, as if she knew of some difficulty, some danger that lay before her. She had been trained to ask no questions, and therefore she kept silence. But her lips trembled, and her beautiful brown eyes filled with tears.
"Come, my dear child," said Sister Rose, taking her by the hand, after a short pause, "I will take you to your mother. She will be ready for you now. May God protect you and guide you in your way through the world!"
And Lesley lowered her head as if she had received a blessing. Sister Rose was a woman whom Lesley honored and revered, and her words, therefore, sank deep, and often recurred to the young girl's mind in days to come.
They went in silence to the door of the parlor. Here Sister Rose relinquished her pupil's hand, tapped three times on one of the panels, and signed to Lesley to open the door. With a trembling hand Lesley obeyed the sign; and in another moment she was in her mother's arms.
Lady Alice Brooke was a very attractive looking woman. She was tall, slight, and graceful, and although she must have been close upon forty, she certainly had not the appearance of a woman over four or five and thirty. Her complexion was untouched by time: her cheeks were smooth and fair, her blue eyes clear. Her pretty brown hair had perhaps lost a little of the golden tinge of its youth, but it was still soft and abundant. But the reason why people often turned to look at her did not lie in any measure of grace and beauty that she possessed, so much as in an indefinable air of distinction and refinement which seemed to pervade her whole being, and marked her off from the rest of the world as one made of finer clay than others.
Many people resented this demeanor—which was quite unconscious on Lady Alice's part—and thought that it signified pride, haughtiness, coldness of heart; but in all this they were greatly, if not altogether, mistaken. Lady Alice was not of a cold nature, and she was never willingly haughty; but in some respects, she was what the world calls proud. She was proud of her ancient lineage; of therepute of her family, of the stainlessness of its name. And she had brought up Lesley, as far as she could, in the same old tradition.
Lesley was like her mother, and unlike, too. She had her mother's tall, graceful figure; but there was much more vivacity in her face than there had ever been in Lady Alice's; much more warmth and life and color. There was more determination in the lines of her mouth and chin: her brow was broader and fuller, and her eyes were dark brown instead of blue. But the likeness was there, with a diversity of expression and of coloring.
"I thought you were never coming," said Lesley at length, as she clung fondly to her mother. "I could hardly sleep last night for thinking how delightful it would be to go away with you!"
Lady Alice gave a little start, and looked at the girl as if there had been some hidden meaning in her words.
"Go away with me?" she repeated.
"Yes, mother darling, and be with you always: to look after you and not let grandpapa tire you with long walks and long games of backgammon. I shall be his companion as well as yours, and I shall take care of you both. I have planned ever so many things that I mean to do—especially when we go to Scotland."
"Lesley," said Lady Alice, faintly, "I am tired: let me sit down." And then, as the girl made her seat herself in the one arm-chair that the room contained, and hung over her with affectionate solicitude, she went on, with paling lips: "You never said these things in your letter, child! I did not know that you were so anxious to come away—with me."
"Oh, mamma, dear, you surely knew it all the time?" said Lesley, thinking the comment a reproach. "You surely knew how I longed to be with you? But I would notsaymuch in my letters for fear of making you think I was unhappy; and I have always been very happy here with the dear sisters and the girls. But I thought youunderstoodme, mamma—understood by instinct, as it were," said Lesley, kneeling by her mother's side, and throwing an occasional shy glance into her mother's face.
"I understand perfectly, dear, and I see your unselfish motive. It makes me all the more sorry to disappoint you as I am about to do."
"Oh, mamma! Am I not to leave school, then?"
"Yes, dear, you will leave school."
"And—and—with you?"
"You will come with me, certainly—until to-morrow, darling. But you leavemeto-morrow, too."
The color began to fade from Lesley's cheeks, as it had already faded from Lady Alice's. The girl felt a great swelling in her throat, and a film seemed to dim the clearness of her sight. But Sister Rose's words came back to her mind with an inspiring thrill which restored her strength. "Patience, endurance, resignation!" Was this the occasion on which she was to show whether these virtues were hers or not? She would not fail in the hour of trial: she would be patient and endure!
"If you will explain, mamma dear," she said, entreatingly, "I will try to do—as you would like."
"My darling! My Lesley! What a help it is to me to see you so brave!" said her mother, putting her arms round the girl's shoulders, and resting her face on the bright young head. "If I could keep you with me! but it will be only for a time, my child, and then—then youwillcome back to me?"
"Come back to you, mamma? As if anything would keep me away! But what is it? where am I to go? what am I to do? Why haven't you told me before?"
She was trembling with excitement. Patience was not one of Lesley's virtues. She felt, with sudden heat of passion, that she could bear any pain rather than this suspense, which her mother's gentle reluctance to give pain inflicted upon her.
"I did not tell you before," said Lady Alice, slowly, "because I was under a promise not to do so. I have been obliged to keep you in the dark about your future for many a long year, Lesley, and the concealment has always weighed upon my mind. You must forgive me, dearest, for this: I did not see the consequence of my promise when I made it first."
"What promise was it, mamma?"
"To let you leave me for a time, my dear: to let you go from me—to let you choose your own life—oh, it seems hard and cruel to me now."
"Tell me," pleaded Lesley, whose heart was by this time beating with painful rapidity, "tell me all—quickly, mamma, and I promise——"
"Promise nothing until you have heard what I have to say," said her mother, drawing back. "I want you to hear the story before you see your grandfather again: that is the reason why I begged the Mother to let me speak to you here, before you left the convent. I have been forced into my present line of action, Lesley: I never took it wilfully. You shall judge for yourself if it were likely that I——But I will not excuse myself beforehand. I can tell you all that is necessary for you to know in very few words; and the rest lies in your hands."
Lady Alice's pale lips quivered as she spoke, but her eyes were dry and filled with a light which was singularly cold and stern. Lesley, kneeling still, looked up into her face, and, fascinated by what she saw there, remained motionless and mute.
"I have not let you speak to me of your father," Lady Alice began, "because I did not know how to answer your questions truthfully. But now I must speak of him. You have thought of him sometimes?"
"Yes."
"And you have thought him dead?"
"I thought so—yes."
"But he is not dead," said Lady Alice, bitterly. "To my exceeding misfortune—and yours also—your father, Lesley, is alive."
LADY ALICE'S STORY.
Thegirl shrank back a little, but she did not remove her eyes from her mother's face. A great dread, however, had entered into them. A hot color leaped into her cheeks. Scarcely did she yet know what she dreaded; it was something intangible, too awful to be uttered—the terror of disgrace.
But Lady Alice saw the look and interpreted it aright.
"No, my darling," she said, "it is notthat. It is nothing to be ashamed of—exactly. I do not accuse your father of any crime—unless it be a crime to have married a woman that he did not love, and to whom he was not suited, and to have been cruel—yes, cruel—to her and to her child."
And then she burst into tears.
"Mamma, dear mamma!" said Lesley, clasping her and sobbing out of sympathy, "it was a crime—worse than a crime—to be cruel toyou."
Lady Alice sobbed helplessly for a few minutes. Then she commanded herself by a great and visible effort and dried her eyes.
"It is weak to give way before you, child," she said, sadly. "But I cannot tell you how much I have dreaded this moment—the moment when I must tell you of the great error of my life."
"Don't tell me, mamma. I would rather hear nothing that you did not want me to know."
"But I must tell you, Lesley. It is in my bargain with my husband that I should tell you. If I say nothing he will tell youhisside—and perhaps that would be worse."
Lesley kissed her mother's delicate hand. "Then—if youmusttell me—I should be glad to hear it all now," she said, in a shaking voice. "Nothing seems so bad as to know half a story—or only to guess a part——"
"Ah, you have wondered why I told you nothing of your father?"
"I could not help wondering, mamma."
"Poor child! Well, whatever it costs me I will tell you all my story now. Listen carefully, darling: I do not want to have to tell it twice."
She pressed her handkerchief to her lips as if to prevent them from trembling, and then turning her eyes to another part of the room so that they need not rest upon her daughter's face Lady Alice began her story.
"My tale is a tale of folly, not of crime," she said. "You must remember, Lesley, that I was a motherless girl, brought up in a lonely Scotch house in a very haphazard way. My dear father loved me tenderly, but he was away from home for the greater part of the year; and he understood little of a girl's nature or a girl's requirements. When I was sixteen he allowed me to dismiss my governess, and to live as I liked. I was romantic and dreamy; I spent a great deal of time in the library, and he thought that there at least I was safe. He would have been more careful of me, as he said afterwards, if I had wanted to roam over the moors and fields, to fish or shoot as many modern women do. I can only say that I think I should have been far safer on the hillside or the moor than I was in the lonely recesses of that library, pouring over musty volumes of chivalry and romance.
"My only change was a few weeks in London with friends, during the season. Here, young as I was, I was thrown into a whirl of gaiety; but the society that I met was of the best sort, and I welcomed it as a pleasant relaxation. I saw the pleasant side of everything. You see I was very young. I went to the most charming parties; I was well introduced: I think I may say that I was admired. My first season was almost the happiest—certainly the most joyous—period of my life. But it was still a time of unreality, Lesley: the glitter and glamour of that glimpse of London society was as unreal as my dreams of love and beauty and nobleness in the old library at home. I lacked a mother's guiding hand, my child, and a mother's tender voice to tell me what was false and what was true."
Involuntarily Lesley drew closer than ever to her mother.
The ring of pain in Lady Alice's voice saddened and even affrighted her. It suggested a passionate yearning, an anxiety of love, which almost overwhelmed her. It is always alarming to a young and simple nature to be broughtsuddenly into contact with a very strong emotion, either of anguish, love, or joy.
"I suffered for my loss," Lady Alice went on, after a short pause. "But at first without knowing that I suffered. There comes a time in every woman's life, Lesley, when she is in need of help and counsel, when, in fact, she is in danger. As soon as a woman loves, she stands on the brink of a precipice."
"I thought," murmured Lesley, "that love was the most beautiful thing in the world?"
"Is that what the nuns have taught you?" asked her mother, with a keen glance at the girl's flushing cheek. "Well, in one sense it is true. Love is a beautiful thing to look at—an angel to outward show—with the heart, too often, of a fiend; and it is he who leads us to that precipice of which I spoke—the precipice of disillusion and despair."
To Lesley these words were as blasphemy, for they contradicted the whole spirit of the teaching which she had received. But she did not dare to contradict her mother's opinions. She looked down, and reflected dumbly that her mother knew more about the subject than she could possibly do. The good Sisters had talked to her about heavenly love; she had made no fine distinctions in her mind as to the kind of love they meant—possibly there were two kinds. And while she was considering this knotty point, her mother began to speak again.
"I was between eighteen and nineteen," said Lady Alice, "scarcely as old as you are now, when a new interest came into my life. My father gave permission to a young literary man to examine our archives, which contained much of historical value. He never thought of cautioning me to leave the library to Mr. Brooke's sole occupation. I was accustomed to spend much of my time there: and the stranger—Mr. Brooke—must have heard this fact from the servants, for he begged that he might not disturb me, and that I would frequent the library as usual. After a little hesitation, I began to do so. My father was in London, and my only chaperon was an old lady who was too infirm to be of much use. Before long, I began to help Mr. Brooke in his researches and inquiries. He was writing a book on the great Scottish families of that part of the country, and the subject interested me. Need I tell youwhat followed, Lesley? Need I explain to you the heedless selfish folly of that time? I forgot my duty to my father, my duty to myself. I fancied I loved this man, and I promised to marry him."
There wasa light of interest in Lesley's eyes. She did not altogether understand her mother's tone. It sounded as though Lady Alice condemned lovers and all their ways, and such condemnation puzzled the girl, in spite of her convent breeding. During the last few months she had been allowed a much wider range of literature than was usual in the Sisters' domain; her mother had requested that she should be supplied with certain volumes of history, fiction, and poetry, that had considerably enlarged Lesley's views of life; and yet Lady Alice's words seemed to contradict all that the girl had previously heard or read of love. The mother read the unspoken question in Lesley's eyes, and answered it in a somewhat modified tone.
"My dear, I do not mean that I think it wrong to love. So long as the world lasts I suppose people will love—and be miserable. It is right enough, if it is opposed by no other law. But in my case, I was wrong from beginning to end. I knew that my father would never give his permission to my marriage with Mr. Brooke; and, in my youthful folly, I thought that my best plan was to take my own way. I married Mr. Brooke in private, and then I went away with him to London. And it was not long, Lesley, before I rued my disobedience and my deceit. It was a great mistake."
"But mamma, why were you so sure that grandpapa would not give his consent?"
Lady Alice opened her gentle eyes with a look of profound astonishment.
"Darling, don't you see? Mr. Brooke was—nobody."
"But if you loved him——"
"No, Lesley, your grandfather would never have heard of such a marriage. He had his own plans for me. My dear, I am not saying a word against your father in saying this. I am only telling you the fact—that he was what is often called a self-made, self-educated man, who could not possibly be styled my equal in the eyes of society. His father had been a small tradesman in Devonshire. The son being clever and—and—handsome, made his way a littlein the world. He became a journalist: he wrote for magazines and newspapers and reviews: he was what is called a literary hack. He had no certain prospects, no certain income, when he married me. I think," said Lady Alice, with a sort of cold scorn, which was intensified by the very softness of her tones, "that he could not have done a more unjustifiable thing than persuade a girl in my position to marry him."
Lesley felt a slight diminution of sympathy with her mother. Perhaps Lady Alice was conscious of some change in her face, for she added hastily.
"Don't misjudge me, Lesley. If there had been between us the strong and tender love of which women too often dream, poverty might perhaps have been forgotten. It sounds terribly worldly to draw attention to the fact that poverty is apt to kill a love which was not very strong at the beginning. But the fact was that neither Caspar Brooke nor I knew our own minds. He was three-and-twenty and I was eighteen. We married in haste, and we certainly repented very much at leisure."
"Was he not—kind?" asked Lesley, timidly.
"Kind?" said her mother, with a sigh. "Oh, yes, perhaps he was kind—at first. Until he was tired of me, or I was tired of him. I don't know on which side the disillusion was felt first. Think where I came from—from the dear old Castle, the moors, the lochs, the free fresh air of Scotland, to a dreary lodging of two little rooms in a dingy street, where I had to cut and contrive and economize to make ends meet. I was an ignorant girl, and I could not do it. I got into debt, and my husband was angry with me. Why should I tell you the petty, sordid details of my life? I soon found out that I was miserable and that he was miserable too."
Lesley listened breathlessly with hidden face. The story was full of humiliation for her. It seemed like a desecration of all that she had hitherto held dear.
"My father and my friends would not forgive me," Lady Alice went on. "In our direst straits of poverty, I am glad to say that I never appealed to them. We struggled on together—your father and I—until you were four years old. Then a change came—a change which made it impossible for me to bear the misery of my life. Your father——"
She came to a sudden stop, and sat with eyes fixed on the opposite wall, a curious expression of mingled desolation and contempt upon her cold, clear-cut face. For some reason or other Lesley felt afraid to hear what her mother had to say.
"Mamma, don't tell me! Don't look like that," she cried. "I can't bear to hear it! Why need you tell me any more?"
"Because," said her mother, slowly, "because your father exacts this sacrifice from me: that I should tell you—you, my daughter—the reason why I left him. I promised that I would do so, and I will keep my promise. The thing that hurts me most, Lesley, is to think that I may be injuring you—staining your innocence—darkening your youth—by telling you what I have to tell. At your age, I would rather that you knew nothing of life but its brighter side—nothing of love but what was fair and sweet. But it is the punishment of my first false step that I should bring sorrow upon my child. Lesley, in years to come remember that I have warned you to be honest and true, unless you would make those miserable whom you love best. If I had never deceived my father, my husband would never perhaps have deceived me; and I should not have to tell my child that the last person in the world whom she must trust is her father."
There was a little silence, and then she continued in a strained and unnatural tone.
"There was a woman—another woman—whom he loved. That is all."
Lesley shivered and hid her face. To her mind, young and innocent as it was, the fact which her mother stated seemed like an indelible stain. She hardly dared as yet think what it meant. And, after a long pause, Lady Alice went on quietly—
"I do not want to exaggerate. I do not believe that he meant to leave me—even to be untrue to me. I could not speak to you of him if I thought him so black-hearted, so treacherous. I mean simply this—take the fact as I state it, and inquire no further; I found that my husband cared for some one else more than he cared for me. My resolution was taken at once: I packed up my things, left his house, and threw myself at my father's feet. He was good to me and forgave me, and since then ... I have never entered my husband's house again."
"He must have been wicked—wicked!" said Lesley, in a strangled voice.
"No, he was not wicked. Let me do him so much justice. He was upright on the whole, I believe. He never meant to give me cause for complaint. But I had reason to believe that another woman suited him better than I did ... and it was only fair to leave him."
"But did he—could he—marry her? Imean——"
"My poor Lesley, you are very ignorant," said Lady Alice, smiling a wan smile, and touching the girl's cheek lightly with her hand. "How could he marry another woman when I was alive? Your father and I separated on account of what is called incompatibility of temper. The question of the person whom he apparently preferred to me never arose between us."
"Then, is it not possible, mamma, that you may have been mistaken?" said Lesley, impetuously.
Lady Alice shook her head. "Quite impossible, Lesley. I accuse your father of nothing. I only mean that another woman—one of his friends—would have suited him better than I, and that he knew it. I have no cause for complaint against him. And I would not have told youthis, had I not felt it a duty to put in the strongest possible light my reasons for leaving him, so that a day may never come when you turn round upon me and blame me—as others have done—for fickleness, for ill-temper, for impatience with my husband; because now you know—as no one else knows—the whole truth."
"But I should never blame you, mamma."
"I do not know. I know this—that your father is a man who can persuade and argue and represent his conduct in any light that suits his purpose. He is a very eloquent—a very plausible man. He will try to win you over to his side."
"But I shall never see him."
"Yes, Lesley, you will. You are going to him to-morrow."
"I will not—I will not"—said the girl, springing from her knees, and involuntarily clenching her right hand. "I will not speak to him—if he treated my darling mother so shamefully he must be bad, and I will not acknowledge any relationship to him."
A look of apprehension showed itself in Lady Alice's eyes.
"Darling," she said, "you must not let your generous love for me run away with your judgment. I am bound, and you must be bound with me. Listen, when your father found that I had left him he was exceedingly angry. He came to your grandfather's house, he clamored to see me, he attempted to justify himself—oh, I cannot tell you the misery that I went through. At last I consented to see him. He behaved like a madman. He swore that he would have me back—tyrant that he was!"
"Mamma—perhaps he cared?"
"Cared! He cared for his reputation," said Lady Alice growing rather white about the lips. "For nothing else! Not for me, Lesley! When his violence had expended itself we came to terms. He agreed to let me live where I liked on condition that when you were eight years old you were sent to school, and saw me only during the holidays——"
"But why?"
"He said that he dreaded my influence on your mind," said Lady Alice. "That you should be brought up at a good school was the first thing. Secondly, that when you were nineteen you should spend a year with him, and then a year with me; and that when you were twenty-one you should choose for yourself with which of the two you preferred to cast in your lot."
"Oh, mamma, I cannot go to him now."
"You must go, Lesley. I am bound, and you are bound by my promise. Only for a year, my darling. Then you can come back to me for ever. I stipulated that I should see you first, and say to you what I chose."
"But cannot I wait a little while?"
"Twenty-four hours, Lesley; that is all. You go to your father to-morrow."
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.
Theconversation between Lesley and her mother occupied a considerable time, and the sun was sinking westward when at last the two ladies left the Convent. Lesley's adieux had been made before Lady Alice's arrival, and the only persons whom she saw, therefore, after the long interview with her mother, were the Mother Superior, and the Sister who had summoned her to the parlor.
While Lady Alice and the Reverend Mother exchanged a few last words, Lesley drew close to Sister Rose's side, and laid her hand on the serge-covered arm.
"You were right," she said. "Sister, I see already that I shall need patience and endurance where I am going."
"Gentleness and love, also," said the Sister. Then, as if in answer to an indefinable change in Lesley's lips and eyes, she added gently, "We are told that peacemakers are blessed."
"I could not make peace——" Lesley began, hastily, and then she stopped short, confused, not knowing how much Sister Rose had heard of her mother's story. But if Sister Rose were ignorant of it, her next words were singularly appropriate. For she said, in a low tone—
"Peace is better than war: forgiveness better than hatred. Dear child, it may be in your hands to reconcile those who have been long divided. Do your best."
Lesley had no time to reply.
It was a long drive from the Convent of the Annonciades to the hotel where Lord Courtleroy and Lady Alice were staying. The mother and daughter spoke little; each seemed wrapped in her own reflections. There were a hundred questions which Lesley was longing to ask; but she did not like to disturb her mother's silence. Dusk had fallen before their destination was reached; and Lesley's thoughts were diverted a little from their sad bewilderment by what was to her the novel sight of Paris by gaslight,and the ever-flowing, opposing currents of human beings that filled the streets. Hitherto, when she had left the Sisters for her holidays, her mother had wisely kept her within certain bounds: she had not gone out of doors after dark, she had not seen anything but the quieter sides of life. But now all seemed to be changed. Her mother mentioned the name of the best hotel in Paris as their destination: she said a few words about shopping, dresses, and jewellery, which made Lesley's heart beat faster, in spite of a conviction that it was very mean and base to feel any joy in such trivial matters. Especially under present circumstances. But she was young and full of life; and there certainly was some excitement in the prospect before her.
"I shall not need much where I am going, shall I?" she hazarded timidly.
"Perhaps not, but you must not be in any difficulty. There is not time to do a great deal, but you can be fitted and have some dresses sent after you, and I can choose your hats. And a fur-lined cloak for travelling—you will want that. We must do what we can in the time. It is not likely that your father sees much society."
"It will be very lonely," said Lesley, with a little gasp.
"My poor child! I am afraid it will. I can tell some friends of mine to call on you; but I don't know whether they will be admitted."
"Where is—the house?" Lesley asked. She did not like to say "my father's house."
"In Upper Woburn Place, Bloomsbury. I believe it is near Euston Square, or some such neighborhood."
"Then it is not whereyoulived, mamma?"
"No, dear. We lived further West, in a street near Portman Square. I believe that Mr. Brooke finds Bloomsbury a convenient district for the kind of work that he has to do."
She spoke very formally of her husband; but Lesley began to notice an under-current of resentment, of something like contempt, in her voice when she spoke of him. Lady Alice tried in vain to simulate an indifference which she did not feel, and the very effort roughened her voice and sharpened her accent in a way of which she was unconscious. The effect on a young girl, who had not seen much of human emotion, was to induce a passingdoubt of her mother's judgment, and a transient wonder as to whether her father had always been so much in the wrong. The sensation was but momentary, for Lesley was devotedly attached to her mother, and could not believe her to be mistaken. And, while she was repenting of her hasty injustice, the carriage stopped between the white globes of electric light that fronted a great hotel, and Lesley was obliged to give her attention to the things around her rather than to her own thoughts and feelings.
A waiter conducted the mother and daughter up one flight of stairs and consigned them to the care of a chambermaid. The chambermaid led them to the door of a suite of rooms, where they were met by Dayman, Lady Alice's own woman, whose stolid face relaxed into a smile of pleasure at the sight of Lesley.
"Take Miss Brooke to her own room and see that she is made nice for dinner," said her mistress. "His Lordship has ordered dinner in our own rooms, I suppose?"
"Yes, my lady. Covers for four—Captain Duchesne is here."
"Oh," said Lady Alice, with an accent of faint surprise, "oh—well—Lesley, dear, we must not be late."
To Lesley it seemed hardly worth while to unpack her boxes and dress herself for that one evening in the soft embroidered white muslin which had hitherto served for her best Sunday frock. But Mrs. Dayman insisted on a careful toilette, and was well satisfied with the result.
"There, Miss Lesley," she said, "you have just your mamma's look—a sort of finished look, as if you were perfect outside and in!"
Lesley laughed. "That compliment might be taken in two ways, Dayman," she said, as she turned to meet her mother at the door. And in a few minutes she was standing in the gay little Frenchsalon, where the earl was conversing with a much younger man in a glare of waxlights.
Lord Courtleroy was a stately-looking man, with perfectlysnow-white hair and beard, an upright carriage, and bright, piercing, blue eyes. A striking man in appearance, and of exceedingly well-marked characteristics. The family pride for which he had long been noted seemed to show itself in his bearing and in every feature as he greeted his granddaughter, and yet it was softened by a touch of personal affection with which family pride had nothingwhatever to do. For Lord Courtleroy's feelings towards Lesley were mixed. He saw in her the child of a man whose very name he detested, who stood as a type to him of all that was hateful in the bourgeois class. But he also saw in her his own granddaughter, "poor Alice's girl," whom fate had used so unkindly in giving her Caspar Brooke for a father. The earl had next to no personal knowledge of Caspar Brooke. They had not met since the one sad and stormy interview which they had held together when Lady Alice had left her husband's house. And Lord Courtleroy was wont to declare that he did not wish to know anything more of Mr. Brooke. That he was a Radical journalist, and that he had treated a daughter of the Courtleroys with shameful unkindness and neglect, was quite enough for the earl. And his manner to Lesley varied a little according as his sense of her affinity with his own family or his remembrance of her kinship with Mr. Brooke was uppermost.
Lesley was too simply filial in disposition to resent or even to remark on his changes of mood. She admired her grandfather immensely, and was pleased to hear him comment on her growth and development since she saw him last. And then the visitor was introduced to her; and to Lesley's interest and surprise she saw that he was young.
Young men were an unknown quantity to Lesley. She could not remember that she had ever spoken to a man so young and so good-looking before! Captain Henry Duchesne was tall, well-made, well-dressed: he was very dark in complexion, and had a rather heavy jaw; but his dark eyes were pleasant and honest, and he had a very attractive smile. The length of his moustache was almost the first thing that struck Lesley: it seemed to her so abnormally lengthy, with such very stiffly waxed ends, that she could scarcely avert her eyes from them. She was not able to tell, save from instinct, whether a man were well or ill-dressed, but she felt sure that Captain Duchesne's air of smartness was due to the perfection of every detail of his attire. She liked his manner: it was easy, well-bred, and unassuming; and she felt glad that he was present. For after the communication made to her by her mother, the evening might have proved an occasion of embarrassment. It was a relief to talk to some one for a little while who did not know her present circumstances and position.
Lady Alice watched the two young people with a little dawning trouble in her sad eyes. She had known and liked Harry Duchesne since his childhood, and she had not been free from certain hopes and visions of his future, which affected Lesley also, but she thought that her father's invitation had been premature. Especially when she heard Captain Duchesne say to the girl in the course of the evening—
"Are you going to London to-morrow?"
"Yes, I believe so," said Lesley, looking down.
"And you will be in town during the winter, I hope?"
Lady Alice thought it well to interpose.
"My daughter will not be staying with me. She goes to a relation's house for a few months, and will lead a very quiet life indeed. When she comes back to Courtleroy it will be time enough for her to commence a round of gaieties." This with a smile; but, as Henry Duchesne knew well enough, with Lady Alice a smile sometimes covered a very serious purpose. His quick perceptions showed him that he was not wanted to call on Miss Brooke during her stay in London, and he adroitly changed the subject.
"Unfashionable relations, I suppose," he said to himself, reflecting on the matter at a later hour of the evening. "Upon my word I shouldn't have thought that Lady Alice was so worldly-minded! She certainly didn't want me to know where Miss Brooke was going. To some relation of that disreputable father of hers, I should fancy. Poor girt!"
For, like many other persons in London society, Captain Duchesne knew only the name and nothing of the character of the man whom Lady Alice had married and left. It was vaguely supposed that he was not a very respectable character, and that no woman of spirit would have submitted to live with him any longer. Lady Alice's reputation stood so high that it could not be supposed that any one except her husband was in fault. Brooke is not an uncommon name. In certain circles the name of Caspar Brooke was known well enough; but was not often identified with the man who had run away with an earl's daughter. He had other claims to repute, but in a world to which Lady Alice had not the right of entry.
When Harry Duchesne had departed Lady Alice went with Lesley to her bedroom. Mother and daughter satdown together, clasping each other's hands, and looking wistfully from time to time into each other's faces, but saying very little. The wish to ask questions faded out of Lesley's mind. She could not ask more than her mother chose to tell her.
But Lady Alice thought that she had already said too much, and she restrained her tongue. It was after a long and pregnant silence that she murmured—
"Lesley, my child, I want you to promise me something."
"Oh, yes, mamma!"
"I feel like one who is sending a lamb forth into the midst of wolves. Not that Mr. Brooke is a wolf—exactly," said Lady Alice, with a forced laugh, "but I mean that you are young and—and—unsophisticated, and that there may be a mixture of people at his house."
Lesley was silent; she did not quite know what "a mixture of people" would be like.
"I am so afraid for you, darling," said her mother, pleadingly. "Afraid lest you should be drawn into relationships and connections that you might afterwards regret: Do you understand me? Will you promise me to make no vows of any sort while you are away from me? Only for one year, my child—promise me for the year."
"I don't think I quite understand you, mamma."
"Must I put it so plainly? I mean this, Lesley. Don't engage yourself to be married while you are in your father's house."
"Oh, that is easily promised!" said Lesley, with a smile of frank amusement and relief.
"It may not be so easy to carry out as you think. Give me your word, darling. You promise not to form any engagement of marriage for a year? You promise me that?"
"Oh, yes, mamma, I promise," said the girl, so lightly that Lady Alice almost felt that she had done an unwarrantable thing in exacting a promise only half understood. But she swallowed her rising qualms, and went oh, as if exculpating herself—
"It is a safeguard. I do not ask you to marry only a man that I approve—I simply ask you to wait until I can help you with my advice. It will be no loss to you in any way. You are too young to think of these things yet;but it is on the young that unscrupulous persons love to prey—and therefore I give you a warning."
"I am quite sure that I shall not need it," said Lesley, confidently; "and if I did, I could write and ask your advice——"
"No, no! Oh, how could I forget to tell you? You are not to write to me while you are in your father's house."
"Oh, mamma, that is cruel."
"It ishisdoing, not mine. Intercede withhim, if you like. That was one of the conditions—that for this one year you should have no intercourse with me. And for the next year you will have no intercourse with him. And after that, you may choose for yourself."
But this deprivation of correspondence affected Lesley more powerfully than even the prospect of separation—to which she was used already. She threw herself into her mother's arms and wept bitterly for a few moments. Then it occurred to her that she was acting neither thoughtfully nor courageously, and that her grief would only grieve her mother, and could remedy nothing. So she sat up and dried her eyes, and tried to respond cheerfully when Lady Alice spoke a few soothing words. But in the whole course of her short life poor Lesley had never been so miserable as she was that night.
The bustle of preparation which had to be gone through next day prevented her, however, from thinking too much about her troubles. She and Lady Alice, with the faithful Dayman, were to leave Paris late in the afternoon; and the morning was spent in hurried excursions to shops, interviews with milliners and dressmakers, eager discussions on color, shape, and fitness. Lesley was glad to see that she was not to be sent to London with anything over-fine in the way of clothes. The gowns chosen were extremely simple, but in good taste; and themodistepromised that they should be sent after the young lady in the course of a very few days. There was some argument as to whether Lesley would require a ball dress, or dinner dresses. Lady Alice thought not. But, although nothing that could actually be called a ball-dress was ordered, there were one or two frocks of lovely shimmering hue and delightfully soft texture which would serve for any such festivity.
"Though inmyday," said Lady Alice, smiling, "we did not go to balls in Bloomsbury. But, of course, I don't know what society Mr. Brooke sees now."
Lesley was conscious of the sarcasm.
The earl remained in Paris, while Lady Alice went with her daughter from Havre to Southampton, and thence to London. Dayman travelled with them; and a supplementary escort appeared in the person of Captain Duchesne, who "happened to be travelling that way." Lady Alice was not displeased to see him, although she had a guilty sense of stealing a march upon her husband in providing Lesley with a standard of youthful good-breeding and good-looks. It might tend to preserve her from forming any silly attachment in her father's circle, Lady Alice thought. As a matter of fact, she was singularly ignorant of what that circle might comprise. She had left him before his more prosperous days began to dawn, and she continued therefore to picture him to herself as the struggling journalist in murky lodgings—"the melancholy literary man" who smoked strong tobacco far into the night, and talked of things in which she had no interest at all. If matters were changed with Caspar Brooke since then, Lady Alice did not know it.
She had ascertained that Mr. Brooke's sister was living in his house, and that she was capable of acting in some sort as Lesley's chaperon. Then, a connection of the earl's was rector of a neighboring church close to Upper Woburn Place—and he had promised to take Miss Brooke under his especial pastoral care;—although, as he mildly insinuated, he was not in the habit of visiting at Number Fifty. And with these recommendations and assurances, Lady Alice was forced to be content.
She parted from her daughter at Waterloo Station. It did not seem possible to her to drive up to her husband's house in a cab, and drive away again. She committed her, therefore, to the care of Dayman, and put the girl and her maid into a four-wheeler, with Lesley's luggage on the top. Then she established herself in the ladies' waiting-room, until such time as Dayman should return.
With beating heart and flushing cheek Lesley drove through the rapidly-darkening streets to her father's house. She was terribly nervous at the prospect of meeting him.And, even after the history that she had learnt from her mother, she felt that she had not the slightest notion as to what manner of man Caspar Brooke might turn out to be.