Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume Ii Part 38

"Nothing else, ma'am?"

"Nothing; and ask if there are any letters for me. It's a dreadful house, Lucy, for sending one's letters astray. The Chief used to have scores of little scented notes sent up to him that were meant for me, and I used to get ma.s.ses of formal-looking doc.u.ments that should have gone to him; but everything is irregular here. There was no master, and, worse, no mistress; but I 'll hope, as they tell me here, that there will soon be one."

"I don't know,--I have not heard."

"What a diplomatic damsel it is! Why, child, can't you be frank, and say if you are coming back to live here?"

"I never suspected that I was in question at all; if I had, I 'd have told you, as I tell you now, there is not the most remote probability of such an event. We are going back to live at the Nest. Sir Brook has bought it, and made it over to papa or myself,--I don't know which, but it means the same in the sense I care for, that we are to be together again."

"How delightful! I declare, child, my envy of you goes on increasing every minute. I never was able to captivate any man, old or young, who would buy a beautiful house and give it to me. Of all the fortunate creatures I ever heard or read of, you are the luckiest."

"Perhaps I am. Indeed I own as much to myself when I bethink me how little I have contributed to my own good fortune."

"And I," said she, with a heavy sigh, "about the most unlucky! I suppose I started in life with almost as fair a promise as your own. Not so handsome, I admit. I had neither these long lashes nor that wonderful hair, that gives you a look of one of those Venetian beauties Giorgione used to paint; still less that lovely mouth, which I envy you more even than your eyes or your skin; but I was good-looking enough to be admired, and I was admired, and some of my admirers were very great folk indeed; but I rejected them all and married Sewell! I need not tell you what came of that. Poor papa foresaw it all. I believe it helped to break his heart; it might have broken mine too, if I happened to have one. There, don't look horrified, darling. I was n't born without one; but what with vanity and distrust, a reckless ambition to make a figure in the world, and a few other like good qualities, I made of the heart that ought to have been the home of anything that was worthy in my nature, a scene of plot and intrigue, till at last I imagine it wore itself out, just as people do who have to follow uncongenial labor. It was like a lady set down to pick oak.u.m! Why don't you laugh, dear, at my absurd simile?"

"Because you frighten me," said Lucy, almost shuddering.

"I 'm certain," resumed the other, "I was very like yourself when I was married. I had been very carefully brought up,--had excellent governesses, and was trained in all the admirable discipline of a well-ordered family. All I knew of life was the good side. I saw people at church on Sundays, and fancied that they wore the same tranquil and virtuous faces throughout the week. Above all things I was trustful and confiding. Colonel Sewell soon uprooted such delusions. He believed in nothing nor in any one. If he had any theory at all of life, it was that the world consisted of wolves and lambs, and that one must make an early choice which flock he would belong to. I 'm ashamed to own what a zest it gave to existence to feel that the whole thing was a great game in which, by the exercise of skill and cleverness, one might be almost sure to win. He soon made me as impa.s.sioned a gambler as himself, as ready to risk anything--everything--on the issue. But I have made you quite ill, child, with this dark revelation; you are pale as death."

"No, I am only frightened,--frightened and grieved."

"Don't grieve for me," said the other, haughtily. "There is nothing I could n't more easily forgive than pity. But let me turn from my odious self and talk of you. I want you to tell me everything about your own fortune, where you have been all this time, what seeing and doing, and what is the vista in front of you?"

Lucy gave a full account of Cagliari and their life there, narrating how blank their first hopes had been, and what a glorious fortune had crowned them at last. "I 'm afraid to say what the mine returns at present; and they say it is a mere nothing to what it may yield when improved means of working are employed, new shafts sunk, and steam power engaged."

"Don't get technical, darling; I'll take your word for Sir Brook's wealth; only tell me what he means to do with it. You know he gambled away one large fortune already, and squandered another, n.o.body knows how. Has he gained anything by these experiences to do better with the third?"

"I have only heard of his acts of munificence or generosity," said Lucy, gravely.

"What a reproachful face to put on, and for so little!" said the other, laughing. "You don't think that when I said he gambled I thought the worse of him."

"Perhaps not; but you meant that _I_ should."

"You are too sharp in your casuistry; but you have been living with only men latterly, and the strong-minded race always impart some of their hardness to the women who a.s.sociate with them. You'll have to come down to silly creatures like me, Lucy, to regain your softness."

"I shall be delighted if you let me keep your company."

"We will be sisters, darling, if you will only be frank with me."

"Prove me if you like; ask me anything you will, and see if I will not answer you freely."

"Have you told me all your Cagliari life,--all?"

"I think so; all at least that was worth telling."

"You had a shipwreck on your island, we heard here; are such events so frequent that they make slight impression?"

"I was but speaking of ourselves and our fortunes," said Lucy; "my narrative was all selfish." "Come,--I never beat about the bush,--tell me one thing,--it's a very abrupt way to ask, but perhaps it's the best way,--are you going to be married?"

"I don't know," said she; and her face and neck became crimson in a moment.

"You don't know! Do you mean that you 're like one of those young ladies in the foreign convents who are sent for to accept a husband whenever the papas and mammas have agreed upon the terms?"

"Not that; but I mean that I am not sure whether grandpapa will give his consent, and without it papa will not either."

"And why should not grandpapa say yes? Major Traf-ford,--we need n't talk riddles to each other,--Major Trafford has a good position, a good name, and will have a good estate; are not these the three gifts the mothers of England go in pursuit of?"

"His family, I suspect, wish him to look higher; at all events, they don't like the idea of an Irish daughter-in-law."

"More fools they! Irish women of the better cla.s.s are more ready to respond to good treatment, and less given to resent bad usage, than any I ever met."

"Then I have just heard since I came over that Lady Trafford has written to grandpapa in a tone of such condescension and gentle sorrow that it has driven him half crazy. Indeed, his continual inference from the letter is, 'What must the son of such a woman be!'"

"That's most unfair!"

"So they have all told him,--papa, and Beattie, and even Mr. Haire, who met Lionel one morning at Beattie's."

"Perhaps I might be of service here; what a blush, child! dear me, you are crimson, far too deep for beauty. How I have fluttered the dear little bird! but I 'm not going to rob its nest, or steal its mate away.

All I meant was, that I could exactly contribute that sort of worldly testimony to the goodness of the match that old people like and ask for.

You must never talk to them about affections, nor so much as allude to tastes or tempers; never expatiate on anything that cannot be communicated by parchment, and attested by proper witnesses. Whatever is not subject to stamp-duty, they set down as mere moonshine."

While she thus ran on, Lucy's thoughts never strayed from a certain letter which had once thrown a dark shadow over her, and even yet left a gloomy memory behind it. The rapidity with which Mrs. Sewell spoke, too, had less the air of one carried away by the strong current of feeling than of a speaker who was uttering everything, anything, to relieve her own overburdened mind.

"You look very grave, Lucy," went she on. "I suspect I know what's pa.s.sing in that little brain. You are doubting if I should be the fittest person to employ on the negotiation; come, now, confess it."

"You have guessed aright," said Lucy, gravely.

"But all that 's past and over, child. The whole is a mere memory now, if even so much. Men have a trick of thinking, once they have interested a woman on their behalf, that the sentiment survives all changes of time and circ.u.mstance, and that they can come back after years and claim the deposit; but it is a great mistake, as _he_ has found by this time. But don't let this make you unhappy, dear; there never was less cause for unhappiness. It is just of these sort of men the model husbands are made. The male heart is a very tough piece of anatomy, and requires a good deal of manipulation to make it tender, and, as you will learn one day, it is far better all this should be done before marriage than after.--Well, Jane, I did begin to think you had forgotten about the chocolate. It is about an hour since I asked for it."

"Indeed, ma'am, it was Mr. Cheetor's fault; he was a shooting rabbits with another gentleman."

"There, there, spare me Mr. Cheetor's diversions, and fetch me some sugar."

"Mr. Lendrick and another gentleman, ma'am, is below, and wants to see Miss Lucy."

"A young gentleman, Jane?" asked Mrs. Sewell, while her eyes flashed with a sudden fierce brilliancy.

"No, ma'am, an old gentleman, with a white beard, very tall and stern to look at."

"We don't care for descriptions of old gentlemen, Jane. Do we, Lucy?

Must you go, darling?"

"Yes; papa perhaps wants me."

"Come back to me soon, pet. Now that we have no false barriers between us, we can talk in fullest confidence."

Lucy hurried away, but no sooner had she reached the corridor than she burst into tears.