Lettice

Chapter One.

“It Has Come.”

”…The Faith

…Which winged quick seeds of hope beyond the boundary walls of death.”

Lettice moved to the window. She choked down a little sob which was beginning to rise in her throat, and by dint of resolutely gazing out at what was before her, tried to imagine not only that she was not crying, but that she had not, never had had, the slightest inclination to cry.

A clumsy cart laden with wood, drawn by two bullocks, came stumbling down the hilly street. The stupid patient creatures, having managed to wedge their burden against some stones at the side of the road, stood blinking sleepily, while their driver, not altogether displeased at the momentary cessation of his labours, kept up a great appearance of energy by the series of strange guttural sounds he emitted, in the intervals of strenuous endeavours to light his pipe. Two or three Spanish labourers, looking, with their fine presence and picturesque costume, like princes in disguise, came slowly and gravely up the hill, the brilliant sunshine lighting up the green or scarlet sashes knotted round their waists and hiding the shabbiness of their velveteen breeches. One, a youth of not more than sixteen or seventeen, happened to look up as he passed by the window where the fair-faced, brown-haired girl was standing, and a gleam of gentle, half-comprehending pity, such as one sees sometimes in the expression of a great Newfoundland dog, came into his large, soft, innocent-looking dark eyes. Lettice started indignantly.

“What does that boy stare at me for?” she said to herself. “Does he think I am crying?”

But the quick movement had played her false. Two or three unmistakable tears dropped on to her dress. More indignantly still, the girl brushed them away.

“Absurd!” she half murmured to herself. “I am too silly to take things to heart so. Mamma not quite herself to-day. She is nervous and fanciful, no doubt, like all invalids, and less clearheaded than usual. One should not always pay attention to what an invalid says. She is weak, and that makes her give way to feelings she would not encourage generally.”

But just then the sound of her mother’s voice – low and faint certainly, but in no way nervous or querulous, with even a little undernote of cheerfulness in the calm tones – reached her where she stood. Even Lettice, with all her power of self-deception, could not feel that it seemed like the voice of a person who did not very well know what she was talking about; and, with another little jerk of impatience, she drew out her watch.

“I wish it were time to go out,” she half muttered to herself. “Nina is so childish; I can’t understand how mamma doesn’t see it.” For the snatches of talk going on about her mother’s sofa had to do with nothing more important than the grouping and placing of some lovely ferns and wild-flowers, which eighteen-year-old Nina and Lotty, the baby of the family, had brought in from their morning ramble.

“Yes,” said the mother, with real pleasure, almost eagerness, in her voice, “that is beautiful, Nina; I shall have the refreshment of those ferns before me all day, without having to turn my head. I shall be able, almost, to fancy myself in the woods again.”

“Why can’t you come, mamma?” said Lotty’s high-pitched, childish voice. “It really isn’t far, and you could have one of those nice low little carriages nearly all the way. I don’t think it could tire you.”

For an instant there was no reply. Lettice felt, though she could not see her mother, that she was striving to regain the self-control which Lotty’s innocent speeches now and then almost upset. And tears, sadder but less bitter than those which had preceded them, welled slowly up to the elder sister’s eyes. Then came Nina’s caressing tones, in half-whispers, as she stooped over her mother.

“Darling?” Lettice heard her murmur; and then, turning to Lotty, “Run away and take off your things; mamma is going to sleep a little.”

And Lettice still stood by the window, though the bullock-cart had jerked and slid down the street and was now lost to view, and the young Spaniard with the gentle lustrous eyes had long since passed out of sight. She was crying now – softly but unrestrainedly; her mood had changed. It would have mattered little to her present feelings though all the world had seen her tears.

“Oh! it is so sad, so unutterably sad, for her and for us,” she was whispering to herself. “There are times when I could almost find it in my heart to wish it were already over. I cannot bear to think of her suffering more.”

Just then an arm was passed round her waist, and the same caressing voice whispered, this time in her ear, the same word —

“Darling!”

Lettice did not speak, but she leant for a moment against her sister in a more clinging way than was usual with her.

“Nina,” she said wearily.

“Yes, dear,” said Nina. She was always very proud, poor girl, when Lettice seemed to turn to her for support or sympathy.

“It’s so miserable, isn’t it?”

“Yes, dear,” said Nina again. She would dearly have liked to add some words of comfort, but she did not know what to say. It was true. It was very miserable!

“Why should we be so unhappy?” Lettice went on. “Why should such troubles come to us; other people go on living happy peaceful lives, without these dreadful earthquakes of trouble? And we have only her.”

“I know,” said Nina softly.

“And, as things are, we can’t even wish it to go on, can we?” said Lettice, unconsciously raising her voice a little, as she spoke more energetically. “She suffers more and more, and – do you know, Nina?” She hesitated.

Nina looked round anxiously.

“Come into the other room,” she said. “Bertha is in the ante-room; she hears the slightest movement. But I don’t think mamma is very soundly asleep, and our talking may disturb her.”

“We may as well go into the garden a little,” said Lettice indifferently.

“And what was it you were going to say when I interrupted you?” asked Nina, half timidly, when they found themselves pacing up and down a little raised terrace walk which overlooked the street.

Lettice reflected for a moment.

“Oh, I remember,” she said. “It was about mamma. Don’t you think sometimes, Nina, that all this suffering is weakening her mind a little? She doesn’t seem so clear about things, and it worries me. For of course, though I would like, after – after mamma is gone, to do exactly as she would have wished, yet one must discriminate between what her real wishes and advice are, or were, and the sort of weak – yielding to feeling – I – I don’t quite know what to call it – I don’t mean to be disrespectful, of course – that must have come with her long illness and the suffering and all that. And it makes it difficult for me, still more difficult, to discriminate, you know. For it is such a responsibility on me – such a heavy responsibility!” and Lettice gave a little sigh.

But something in the sigh seemed to say that the heavy responsibility was not altogether disagreeable to her.

Nina walked on, her blue eyes fixed on the ground, her fair face contracted into an expression of unusual perplexity. She could not bear to disagree with or contradict Lettice – Lettice so clever, so unselfish, so devoted – the heroine of all her girlish romance! And yet —

“I don’t think quite as you do about mamma,” she said at last. “I can’t say that I see any sign of – of her mind failing. On the contrary, as she grows bodily weaker it seems to me that her mind – her soul, I would almost rather say – grows wiser and stronger, and sees the real right and best of all things more and more clearly.”

She had forgotten her fear of Lettice in the last few words, but she soon had cause to remember it again.

”‘Her mind failing,’” repeated Lettice contemptuously. “How coarsely you express things, Nina! Whoever would say such a thing? As if mamma were an old woman in her dotage! What’s the matter? Surely you are not going to cry– for nothing!”

For Nina’s face had grown very red, and she fumbled about with her parasol in an uneasy manner. But she was not crying, and Lettice, watching her, saw another cause for the blush and the discomfort, in the person of a young man, who just then crossing the street raised his hat with a shy yet eager deference, which the most scrupulous of chaperones could not have objected to.

“That boy!” said Lettice under her breath. “And just now when I wanted to make Nina thoroughly sympathise with me! It is really detestable – one has no privacy here. We had better go back into the house,” she said aloud.

“Hush, Lettice; he will hear you!” exclaimed Nina, some stronger feeling overcoming even her awe of her sister. “He is going to speak to us.”

And before Lettice had time to reply, the young man came to a halt just below where they were standing.

“Is – I hope – excuse my interrupting you,” he began, for Lettice’s expression was not encouraging, to say the least. “I was so anxious to know if Mrs Morison is better to-day.”

“Thank you,” said Lettice, civilly but coldly. “Yes, on the whole I think she is rather better to-day.”

Nina, from under her parasol, darted on her sister a look half of reproach, half of surprise. “Better!” Mamma any better! How could Lettice say so? To her eyes it was very evident that she was daily growing worse. And she felt sure that Lettice saw it too. “She won’t allow it to herself,” she thought. “But I think it is better to own the truth. I would like Philip Dexter to know – I like him to be sorry for us.”

And there was a depth of sadness in her eyes that found its way straight to the young man’s heart, as, without having spoken a word, she bent her head in farewell when Mr Dexter turned to go.

“Stupid boy!” said Lettice impatiently. “Could he not have seen we did not want to speak to any one? But he is kind-hearted,” she went on, relenting, as she often did, after a too hasty speech; “I dare say he means well.”

“And are you not a little – just a little – prejudiced?” said Nina.

“Perhaps I am,” Lettice replied calmly; “and so, it seems to me, I and you and all of us should be. It is just that that I am thinking of, Nina. You know how strongly papa felt about his relations, and till now mamma has always seemed to feel the same.”

“No,” interrupted Nina; “mamma has often said to me that though she loved papa for feeling it so, for it was for her sake, she herself could not resent it all so much.”

“But that is not to say we should not,” exclaimed Lettice hotly. “Mamma is an angel, and now especially,” – here, in spite of herself, the girl’s voice broke – “she has none but gentle feelings to all. But for us– that is what is troubling me so. Mamma has actually said to me that after she is gone she hopes we may make friends – with them, that if they show any kindly disposition she hopes we will meet them half-way. How could we do so? Nina, it would not be right. You don’t think it would be right?”

Nina hesitated.

“Besides,” pursued Lettice, “we shall have no need of kindness or help from them or any one. We shall have enough to live on, with care and management, and I understand all about that. I have been training myself all this time to replace mamma, and it is her greatest comfort to know this. I am not afraid of anything, except interference.”

“But about money – you must have some one to help you,” said Nina. “About investments, and interest, and dividends, – a girl can’t manage all that.”

“Oh, as for that,” said Lettice airily, as if such trifling matters were quite beneath her consideration, “of course the lawyers and trustees can see to all that. Our cousin Godfrey Auriol is responsible for all that, and he must be very nice. I don’t mind him at all, for of course he would never think of interfering; he is much too young.”

“Too young!” said Nina; “why, he is not far off thirty! Philip Dexter told me so the other day. He is quite five years older than – ”

“Philip Dexter has no business to talk of any of our relations at all,” said Lettice loftily.

“Not even about how old they are?” said Nina.

“No, not even that,” replied Lettice, though, in spite of herself, a little smile crept round her mouth.

Then the two girls stood still for a moment, and from the highest point of the terrace gazed out in silence on the lovely view before them. The fertile valley at their feet, the gently rising ground beyond, and far in the distance the lofty mountains, with their everlasting crown of snow; and over all the intensity of blue sky – the blue sky of the south, glowing and gleaming like a turquoise furnace.

“How beautiful it is!” said Nina.

“Yes,” replied Lettice, “I suppose it is. But I shall never care for that kind of sunshine and blue sky again, Nina. I would rather have it grey and cloudy. It is such a mockery. It seems as if nature were so heartless to smile and shine like that when we are, oh, so miserable!”

“I like clouds, too, some clouds, better than that all blue,” agreed Nina. “There is no mystery, no behind, in that sky. It doesn’t make me feel nearer heaven.”

And then they turned and went in again, for it was but seldom they both together left their mother for even so short a time.

Mrs Morison was dying, and she knew it. She had been ill for more than a year, but only since coming to spend a winter in the south had her malady assumed a hopeless form. It was not consumption, for which she was more than thankful for her children’s sake. Indeed, it had been the result of over-exerting herself in attendance on her husband, whose death was the consequence of an accident on horseback some years previously. There had been a hope that the change of climate and the peculiarly soothing effect on the nervous system of the air of Esparto might have at least arrested the progress of her disease; but this hope had been of short continuance. For herself she was resigned, and more than resigned, to die; but, for long, the thought of leaving her children had caused a terrible struggle. But with decrease of physical strength had come increase of moral force, and above all, spiritual faith. She could trust God for herself, why not as fully for those far dearer to her than herself? And slowly but surely she had learnt to do so, thankful for such mitigation of the sorrow as had come by its gradual approach, which gave her time to prepare her elder daughters for what would be before them when they should have to face life without her. To endeavour, too, to undo certain prejudices which they had, not unnaturally, imbibed from their father, and even at one time from herself – prejudices which she now saw to have been exaggerated, which she had always in her heart felt to be unchristian.

But, alas! prejudice and dislike are seeds more easily sown than uprooted, for they grow apace, and, with a sigh, Mrs Morison realised that, as regarded Lettice, above all, she must leave this trouble, with many others, in wiser hands.

“I have said and done all I can for the present,” she said to herself; “I must leave it now. I would not have our last days together disturbed by what, after all, is not a vital matter. Lettice is too good and true to stand out should circumstances show her she is wrong.”

For Lettice was good and true, unselfish and devoted, eager to do right, but with the eagerness and self-confidence of an untried warrior, knowing nought of the battle and thinking she knew all, satisfied as to the temper and perfection of the untested weapons in her possession, full of prejudice and one-sidedness while she prided herself on her fairness and width of judgment.

But self and its opinions were kept much in the background during the few days that followed the morning I have been telling you of. Very calm and peaceful days they were, very sweet and blessed to look back upon in afterlife; for their calm was undisturbed by any misgiving that they might be the last– nay, to the sisters it was even brightened by a faint return of hope, when they had thought all hope was past.

“If mamma keeps as well as she has been the last few days, it will be almost impossible not to begin hoping again,” said Lettice one evening, after their mother had been comfortably settled for the night.

Nina’s less impulsive nature was slower to receive impressions, yet there was a gleam of real brightness in the smile with which she replied to her sister.

“Yes, really,” she said; “and doctors are sometimes mistaken. We must do all we can to keep her from having the least backcast now, just so near Arthur’s coming. How happy – oh, how wonderfully happy – we should be if she were to get even a little better, really better. Oh, Lettice, just think of it!”

“And how she will enjoy having us all together again next week. For Auriol’s holidays begin then too, you know, Nina; and with Arthur here to keep him quiet, poor little boy, it will be much easier than it was at Christmas.”

And with these happy thoughts the poor girls went to bed.

They had slept the sound peaceful sleep of youth, for three or four hours perhaps, when, with a start, they were both aroused by a soft knocking at the door. Half thinking it was fancy, they waited an instant, each unwilling to disturb the other. But again it came, and this time more distinctly. Trembling already so that she could scarcely stand, Lettice opened the door. Ah! there was no need for words. There stood old Bertha, her mother’s maid, with white though composed face, and eyes resolutely refusing to weep as yet.

“My dears,” she whispered, “there is – there is a change. You must come. Miss Lotty, poor thing, too. And I have sent for Master Auriol.”

Lettice’s face worked convulsively. She caught hold of Nina, and for an instant they clung together.

“It has come,” whispered Nina. “Let us be good for her sake, Lettice darling.”

“Yes,” said Bertha, “she wants you all.”

“All,” repeated Nina; “but, oh, Bertha, think of poor Arthur!”

Chapter Two.

A New-Comer

“Who was this gentleman-friend, and whence?”

About ten days later, a sad little group was assembled in the pretty drawing-room of the Villa Martine. It was a lovely evening, but the sunshine outside was not reflected on the young faces of Lettice Morison and her brother and sister. Lotty and Auriol, the children of the family, were amusing themselves quietly enough on the balcony, though now and then a little laugh made itself heard from their direction, causing Lettice to look up with a slight frown of disapproval on her pale face.

“How can they?” she said in a low voice, and she was moving to check them, when Nina held her back.

“Don’t be vexed with them,” she said deprecatingly, “they are only children. She would not be vexed – indeed, I think she would be glad for them not to be too crushed down.” Lettice’s eyes filled with tears – they were never far to seek in these days – and she sank down again in her seat with a sigh. The boy beside her, a slight, dark-haired fellow, with soft eyes like Nina’s, put his arm caressingly round her waist.

“Dear Lettice,” he said, “I can’t bear to see you looking so very unhappy.”

Lettice submitted to the caress, but scarcely responded to it. “I can’t help it, Arthur,” she replied. “I do not give way to grief wrongly, for I do not allow it to make me neglect any duty. I have been very busy to-day, getting in all the bills and so on that we owe here, writing to the landlord, and all kinds of things. You don’t know all there is upon me.”

A slight glance, which Lettice did not see, passed between Nina and Arthur. It seemed to encourage the boy to say more.

“I know,” he said. “I have seen how busy you have been. But are you sure that it was necessary? You know none of us have any legal authority – we are all minors – and our trustees must settle these things. And it would be so much less painful for you not to force yourself to do it all yourself. Godfrey Auriol will be here to-morrow; he is coming on purpose to get all settled.”

“Godfrey Auriol!” repeated Lettice with a slight tone of contempt. “What can he know about such things? His trusteeship is merely nominal. Of course it was natural and right to name him, our only relative, though not a very near one. But I have never thought of him as really to be considered.”

“You will find yourself mistaken, then, I suspect,” said Arthur, a touch of boyish love of teasing breaking through even his present subdued mood.

Lettice drew herself away from his arm.

“How can you?” she exclaimed, her tears flowing still more freely. “Nina, speak to him. How can he? And – and – Arthur, you can’t know what we have gone through, or you wouldn’t speak so. You weren’t here; you – ”

“Oh, Lettice, don’t say that to him,” interrupted Nina. “It is the not having been here that has been the cruellest of all to him, and he has not been selfish about it. Still, Arthur, you shouldn’t say anything to hurt Lettice;” for Nina was always assailed at her weakest point, by any approach to “appeal” on the part of her elder sister.

“I am very sorry. I didn’t mean it. That’s a stupid thing to say, but it’s true,” said Arthur penitently.

“And I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean what it sounded like,” said Lettice. “I know it has been worse for you than for any of us,” she went on, looking up in Arthur’s face with her tearful eyes.

Lettice was one of the few people in the world who seldom show to greater advantage than when in tears. Her eyes were not so fine as Nina’s and Arthur’s soft brown ones; they were grey – good, sensible, “well-opened” eyes, but in a general way with a want of depth and tenderness in them. And this want the tears supplied. Her recent sorrow, too, had, as it were, etherealised and softened her whole face and its expression, whose real beauty was often marred by a certain hardness which seemed to render square and angular the outlines intended by nature to be curved and graceful. The thought struck Nina as her glance fell upon her.

“How very sweet and lovely Lettice looks just at this moment.”

And the thought, though not in quite the same form, struck another person who just at that moment entered the room.

He had never seen her before.

“What a lovely girl! Can that be Lettice? I have always heard that Nina was the beauty, but this girl is too dark to be Nina,” were the reflections that rushed through his mind in far less time than it takes to tell them. And in a moment his ideas were confirmed, for another girl, whose face had been completely hidden, turned at the slight sound of his approach, and by her exceedingly fair hair and complexion he recognised the Nina who had been described to him. But his eyes turned quickly from her to her sister.

“I beg your pardon a thousand times,” he said, his own face colouring a little as he spoke.

“I rang, but as no one answered, and as the front door was open, I ventured to come in. You know who I am,” – for all the three young people had started to their feet, too surprised as yet to find their voices. “I am Godfrey – Godfrey Auriol, your cousin, I hope I may call myself.”

By this time Lettice and the others had recovered their wits. Lettice came a step or two forward and held out her hand.

“Our cousin,” she repeated; “yes, certainly, Mr Auriol, we should be very sorry not to count you our cousin – you who are, I may say, our only relation;” and at these words an expression crossed her face which Godfrey saw but did not understand. But it was gone before it had time to settle there, or to spoil the first pleasing impression which he had received.

“I was so grieved,” he went on, while he shook hands with them all, “so very grieved that I could not be in time; that it was utterly impossible for me to come over in time for – ” He stopped short, but they all knew what he meant.

Lettice’s lips quivered.

“I wish you could have come,” she said softly, and again the expression that so embellished it stole over her face. “Indeed, that was really the only reason for your coming so far at all; you will not find much to see to, I think,” and she smiled a little, so that Mr Auriol felt puzzled. Her tone was too gentle for him to suspect any assertion of independence to be intended. “But we all knew you could not help it,” she added.