Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume II.

“Your very obedient and faithful servant,

“James Maher,

“Attorney-at-Law, Kildare Place.”

He had had no time to reply to this unpleasant epistle before he started, even had he known what reply to make, all that he resolved on being to do nothing till he saw Sir Brook. He had opened his writing-desk to find Lucy’s last letter to him, and by ill luck it was this ill-omened document first came to his hand. Fortune will play us these pranks. She will change the glass we meant to drink out of, and give us a bitter draught at the moment that we dreamed of nectar! “If I ‘m to give this thousand pounds,” muttered he, moodily, “I may find myself with about eight hundred in the world! for I take it these costs he speaks of will be no trifle! I shall need some boldness to go and tell this to Sir William Lendrick when I ask him for his granddaughter.” Here again he bethought him of Sir Brook, and reassured himself that with his aid even this difficulty might be conquered. He arose to ask if it were certain that Sir Brook would return home that night, and discovered that he was alone in the cottage, the fisherman and his wife who lived there having gone down to the shore to gather the seaweed left by the retreating tide. Trafford knew nothing of Fossbrooke’s recent good fortune. The letters which conveyed that news reached Malta after he had left, and his journey to England was prompted by impatience to decide his fate at once, either by some arrangement with his family which might enable him to remain in the army, or, failing all hope of that, by the sale of his commission. “If Tom Lendrick can face the hard life of a miner, why should not I?” would he say. “I am as well able to rough it as any man. Fellows as tenderly nurtured as myself go out to the gold-diggings and smash quartz, and what is there in me that I should shrink from this labor?” There was a grim sort of humor in the way he repeated to himself the imaginary calls of his comrades. “Where ‘s Sir Lionel Traf-ford? Will some one send the distinguished baronet down here with his shovel?” “Lucy, too, has seen the life of hard work and stern privation. She showed no faintheartedness at its hardships; far from it. I never saw her look happier nor cheerier. To look at her, one would say that she liked its wild adventure, its very uncommonness. I ‘ll be sworn if we ‘ll not be as happy – happier, perhaps, than if we had rank and riches. As Sir Brook says, it all depends upon himself in what spirit a man meets his fortune. Whether you confront life or death, there are but two ways, – that of the brave man or the coward.

“How I wish he were come! How impatient I am to know what success he has had with my father! My own mind is made up. The question is, Shall I be able to persuade others to regard the future as I do? Will Lucy’s friends let her accept a beggar? No, not that! He who is able and willing to work need not be a beggar. Was that a tap at the door? Come in.” As he spoke, the door slowly opened, and a lady entered; her veil, closely drawn and folded, completely concealed her face, and a large shawl wrapped her figure from shoulders to feet.

As she stood for an instant silent, Trafford arose and said, “I suppose you wished to see Sir Brook Fossbrooke; but he is from home, and will not return till a late hour.”

“Don’t you remember me, Lionel?” said she, drawing back her veil, while she leaned against the wall for support.

“Good heavens! Mrs. Sewell!” and he sprang forward and led her to a seat. “I never thought to see you here,” said he, merely uttering words at random in his astonishment.

“When did you come?” asked she, faintly.

“About an hour ago.”

“True? Is this true?”

“On my honor. Why do you ask? Why should you doubt it?”

“Simply to know how long you could have been here without coming to me.” These words were uttered in a voice slightly tremulous, and full of a tender significance. Trafford’s cheeks grew scarlet, and for a moment he seemed unable to reply. At last he said, in a confused way: “I came by the mail-packet, and at once drove out here. I was anxious to see Sir Brook. And you?”

“I came here also to see him.”

“He has been in some trouble lately,” said Trafford, trying to lead the conversation into an indifferent channel. “By some absurd mistake they arrested him as a Celt.”

“How long do you remain here, Lionel?” asked she, totally unmindful of his speech.

“My leave is for a month, but the journey takes off half of it.”

“Am I much changed, Lionel, since you saw me last? You can scarcely know. Come over and sit beside me.”

Trafford drew his chair close to hers. “Well,” said she, pushing back her bonnet, and by the action letting her rich and glossy hair fall in great masses over her back, “you have not answered me? How am I looking?”

“You were always beautiful, and fully as much so now as ever.”

“But I am thinner, Lionel. See my poor hands, how they are wasted. These are not the plump fingers you used to hold for hours in your own, – all that dreary time you were so ill;” and as she spoke, she laid her hand, as if unconsciously, over his.

“You were so good to me,” muttered he, – “so good and so kind.”

“And you have wellnigh forgotten it all,” said she, sighing heavily.

“Forgotten it! far from it. I never think of you but with gratitude.”

She drew her hand hastily away, and averted her head at the same time with a quick movement.

“Were it not for your tender care and watchfulness, I know well I could never have recovered from that severe illness. I cannot forget, I do not want to forget, the thousand little ways in which you assuaged my suffering, nor the still more touching kindness with which you bore my impatience. I often live it all over again, believe me, Mrs. Sewell.”

“You used to call me Lucy,” said she, in a faint whisper.

“Did I – did I dare?”

“Yes, you dared. You dared even more than that, Lionel. You dared to speak to me, to write to me, as only he can write or speak who offers a woman his whole heart. I know the manly code on these matters is that when a married woman listens even once to such addresses, she admits the plea on which her love is sought; but I believed – yes, Lionel, I believed – that yours was a different nature. I knew – my heart told me – that you pitied me.”

“That I did,” said he, with a quivering lip.

“You pitied me because you saw the whole sad story of my life. You saw the cruel outrages, the insults I was exposed to! Poor Lionel’!” and she caught his hand as she spoke, “how severely did it often try your temper to endure what you witnessed!”

Trafford bit his lip in silence, and she went on more eagerly: “I needed not defenders. I could have had scores of them. There was not a man who came to the house would not have been proud to be my champion. You know if this be a boast. You know how I was surrounded. For the very least of those caresess I bestowed upon you on your sick-bed, there was not one who would not have risked his life. Is this true?”

“I believe it,” muttered he.

“And why did I bear all this,” cried she, wildly, – “why did I endure, not alone and in the secrecy of my own home, but before the world, – in the crowd of a drawing-room, – outrage that wounds a woman’s pride worse than a brought-home crime? Why did I live under it all? Just for this, that the one man who should have avenged me was sick, if not dying; and that if he could not defend me, I would have no other. You said you pitied me,” said she, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Do you pity me still?”

“With all my heart I pity you.”

“I knew it, – I was sure of it!” said she, with a voice vibrating with a sort of triumph. “I always said you would come back, – that you had not, could not, forget me, – that you would no more desert me than a man deserts the comrade that has been shipwrecked with him. You see that I did not wrong you, Lionel.”

Trafford covered his face with both his hands, but never uttered a word, while she went on: “Your friends, indeed, if that be the name for them, insisted that I was mistaken in you! How often have I had to hear such speeches as ‘Trafford always looks to himself.’ ‘Trafford will never entangle himself deeply for any one;’ and then they would recount some little story of a heartless desertion here, or some betrayal there, as though your life – your whole life – was made up of these treacheries; and I had to listen to these as to the idle gossip one hears in the world and takes no account of! Would you believe it, Lionel, it was only last week I was making a morning call at my mother-in-law’s, and I heard that you were coming home to England to be married! Perhaps I was ill that day – I had enough to have made me ill – perhaps more wretched than usual – perhaps, who knows, the startling suddenness of the news – I cannot say how, but so overcome was I by indignation that I cried out, ‘It is untrue, – every syllable of it untrue.’ I meant to have stopped there, but somehow I went on to say – Heaven knows what – that I would not sit by and hear you slandered – that you were a man of unblemished honor – in a word, Lionel, I silenced your detractors; but in doing so, I sacrificed myself; and as one by one each visitor rose to withdraw, – they were all women, – they made me some little apology for whatever pain they had given me, and in such a tone of mock sorrow and real sarcasm that as the last left the room, I fell into a fit of hysterics that lasted for hours. ‘Oh, Lucy, what have you done!’ were the first words I heard, and it was his mother who spoke them. Ay, Lionel, they were bitter words to hear! Not but that she pitied me. Yes, women have pity on each other in such miseries. She was very kind to me, and came back with me to the Priory, and stayed all the evening with me, and we talked of you! Yes, Lionel, she forgave me. She said she had long foreseen what it must come to – that no woman had ever borne what I had – that over and over again she had warned him, conjuring him, if not for his own sake, for the children’s – Oh, Lionel, I cannot go on!” burst she out, sobbing bitterly, as she fell at his feet, and rested her head on his knees. He carried her tenderly in his arms and placed her on a sofa, and she lay there to all seeming insensible and unconscious. He was bending anxiously over her as she lifted her eyelids and gazed at him, – a long steadfast look it was, as though it would read his very heart within him. “Well,” asked she, – “well?”

“Are you better?” asked he, in a kind voice.

“When you have answered my question, I will answer yours,” said she, in a tone almost stern.

“You have not asked me anything, Lucy,” said he, tremulously.

“And do you want me to say I doubt you?” cried she, with almost a scream. “Do you want me to humble myself to ask, Am I to be forsaken? – in plain words, Is there one word of truth in this story of the marriage? Why don’t you answer me? Speak out, sir, and deny it, as you would deny the charge that called you a swindler or a coward. What! are you silent? Is it the fear of what is to come after that appalls you? But I absolve you from the charge, Trafford. You shall not be burdened by me. My mother-in-law will take me. She has offered me a home, and I have accepted it. There, now, you are released of that terror. Say that this tale of the marriage is a lie, – a foul lie, – a lie invented to outrage and insult me; say that, Lionel – just bow your head, my own – What! It is not a lie, then?” said she, in a low, distinct voice, – “and it is I that have been deceived, and you are – all that they called you.”

“Listen to me, Lucy.”

“How dare you, sir? – by what right do you presume to call me Lucy? Are you such a coward as to take this freedom because my husband is not here to resent it? Do not touch me, sir. That old man, in whose house I am, would strike you to the ground if you insulted me. It was to see him I came here, – to see him, and not you. I came here with a message from my husband to Sir Brook Fossbrooke – and not to listen to the insulting addresses of Major Trafford. Let me go, sir; and at your peril touch me with a finger. Look at yourself in that glass yonder, – look at yourself, and you will see why I despise you.” And with this she arose and passed out, while with a warning gesture of her hand she motioned that he should not follow her.