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A CANADIAN HEROINE.
A CANADIAN HEROINE.
A Novel.
BY
THE AUTHOR OF "LEAVES FROM THE BACKWOODS."
"Questa chiese Lucia in suo dimando,
E disse: Or ha bisogna il tuo fidele
Di te, ed io a te lo raccomando."--_Inferno. Canto II._
"Qu'elles sont belles, nos campagnes;
En Canada qu'on vit content!
Salut ô sublimes montagnes,
Bords du superbe St. Laurent!
Habitant de cette contrée
Que nature veut embellir,
Tu peux marcher tête levée,
Ton pays doit t'enorgueillir."--_J. Bedard._
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET. STRAND
1873.
[_All rights Reserved._]
PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO.,
LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.
A CANADIAN HEROINE.
CHAPTER I.
Mr. Leigh was in a very depressed and anxious mood. His late
conversations with Mrs. Costello had disturbed him and broken up the
current of his thoughts, and even to some extent of his usual
occupations, without producing any result beneficial to either of them.
She had told him a strange and almost incredible story of her life; and
then, just when he was full of sympathy and eagerness to be of use to
her, everything seemed suddenly to have changed, and the events that
followed had been wholly, as it were, out of his reach. He thought over
the matter with a little sensation, which, if he had been less simple
and generous a man, might have been offence. Even as it was, he felt
uncomfortably divided between his real interest in his old friends, and
a temptation to pretend that he was not interested at all. He
remembered, too, with a serio-comical kind of remorse, the manner in
which he had spoken to Mrs. Costello about Maurice. He was obliged to
confess to himself that Maurice had never said a word to him which could
be taken as expressing any other than a brotherly feeling of regard for
Lucia; he had certainly _fancied_ that there was another kind of
affection in his thoughts; but it was no part of the old soldier's code
of honour to sanction the betrayal of a secret discovered by chance, and
he felt guilty in remembering how far the warmth of his friendship had
carried him. He considered, by way of tormenting himself yet further,
that it was perfectly possible for a young man, being daily in the
company of a beautiful and charming girl, to fancy himself in love with
her, and yet, on passing into a different world and seeing other
charming girls, to discover that he had been mistaken. It is true that
if any other person had suggested that Maurice might have done this, Mr.
Leigh would have been utterly offended and indignant; nevertheless,
having proposed the idea to himself, he tried to look upon it as quite
natural and justifiable. After all, this second theory of inconstancy
rested upon the first theory of supposed love, and that upon guesses and
surmises, so that the whole edifice was just as shadowy and
unsubstantial as it could well be. But then it is curious to see how
much real torment people manage to extract from visionary troubles.
While his neighbours were still at Moose Island Mr. Leigh received two
letters from Maurice. The first not only did not contain the usual note
enclosed for Mrs. Costello, but there was not the slightest message to,
or mention of, either her or Lucia. Mr. Leigh examined the letter,
peeped into the envelope, shook the sheets apart (for Maurice's writing
filled much space with few words), but found nothing. The real
explanation of this was simple enough. Maurice had written his note to
Mrs. Costello, and then, just as he was going to put it in the envelope,
was called to his grandfather. In getting up from the table he gave the
note a push, which sent it down into a wastepaper basket. There it lay
unnoticed, and when he came back, just in time to send off his letters,
he fancied, not seeing it, that he had put it into the envelope, which
accordingly he closed and sent to the post without it. But of course
Mr. Leigh knew nothing about this.
The second letter was equally without enclosure or message, though from
a very different cause. It was scarcely a dozen lines in length, and
only said that Mr. Beresford was dying. Maurice had just received Mrs.
Costello's farewell note; he was feeling angry and grieved, and could
think of no better expedient than to keep silence for the moment, even
if he had had time to renew his expostulations. He had not fully
comprehended the secret Mrs. Costello entrusted to him, but in the
preoccupations of the moment, he put off all concerns but those of the
dying man until he should have more leisure to attend to them. Thus, by
a double chance, Mr. Leigh was allowed to persuade himself that Maurice
had either never had any absorbing interest in the Costellos, or that
his interest in them was being gradually supplanted by others. In this
opinion, and in a curiously uncomfortable and contradictory humour, his
friends found him when they came back from the island.
Mrs. Costello, on her part, had been entirely unable to keep Maurice out
of her thoughts. As Christian's death, and all the agitation consequent
upon it, settled back into the past, she had plenty of leisure and
plenty of temptation to revert to her old hopes and schemes. Half
consciously she had allowed herself to build up a charming fabric of
possibilities. _Possibly_ Maurice might write and say, "It is Lucia I
love, Lucia I want to marry. It matters nothing to me what her father is
or was." (Quixotic and not-to-be-counted-upon piece of generosity!)
_Possibly_ she herself might then be justified in answering, "The
accusation brought against her father has been proved false--my child is
stainless--and you have proved your right to her;" and it was
impossible, she believed, that Lucia, hearing all the truth, should not
be touched as they would have her.
These imaginations, built upon such ardent and long-indulged wishes,
acquired a considerable degree of strength during her visit to Mr.
Strafford; and although a little surprised at not receiving, during her
stay there, the usual weekly note from Maurice which she had calculated
would cross her last important letter on the way, she came home eager to
see Mr. Leigh, and to hear from him the last news from England.
But when she had paid her visit to her old neighbour, she came back
puzzled, disappointed, and slightly indignant. There was an air of
constraint about Mr. Leigh, especially when he spoke of Maurice, which
was so entirely new as to appear a great deal more significant than it
really was; and this, added to the fact that two letters had been
received, one written before, and the other after the arrival of hers,
neither of which contained so much as a message for her or Lucia,
suddenly suggested to Mrs. Costello that she was a very foolish woman
who was still wasting her wishes and thoughts on plans, the time for
which had gone by, instead of following steadily, and without
hesitation, what her reason told her was the best and most sensible
course. She so far convinced herself that it was time to give up
thinking of Lucia's marriage to Maurice, as to be really in earnest both
in completing her preparations for leaving Canada, and in rejoicing at
the receipt of a letter from her cousin expressing his perfect approval
of her decision to return to Europe.
This letter even Lucia could not help acknowledge to be thoroughly kind
and kinsmanlike. Mr. Wynter proposed to meet them at Havre, and, if
possible, accompany them to Paris.
"If you are travelling alone," he said, "I may be of service to you; and
since you have decided on going to France, I should like to see you
comfortably settled there. By that means, too, we shall have plenty of
time to talk over whatever arrangements you wish made with regard to
your daughter. However, I have great hopes that when you find yourself
away from the places where you have suffered so much, and near your own
people, you will grow quite strong again."
There were messages from his wife and daughters, in conclusion, which
seemed to promise that they also would be ready to welcome their unknown
relatives.
"Blood is thicker than water." Mrs. Costello began to feel that the one
secure asylum for Lucia, in her probable orphanhood, would be in the old
house by the Dee.
The next time she saw Mr. Leigh, she told him her plans quite frankly.
She did so with some suspicion of his real feelings, only that in spite
of their long acquaintance she did him the injustice to fancy that he
would, for reasons of his own, be glad that Lucia should be out of
Maurice's way if he returned to Canada. She supposed that he had, on
reflection, begun to shrink from the idea of a half-Indian
daughter-in-law, and while she confessed to herself that the feeling
was, according to ordinary custom, reasonable enough, she was at heart
extremely angry that it should be entertained.
"My beautiful Lucia!" she said to herself indignantly; "as if she were
not ten times more lovely, and a thousand times more worth loving, than
any of those well-born, daintily brought up, pretty dolls, that Lady
Dighton is likely to find for him! I did think better of Maurice. But,
of course, it is all right enough. I had no right to expect him to be
more than mortal."
And Lucia went on in the most perfect unconsciousness of all the
troubled thoughts circling round her. She spoke honestly of her regret
at leaving Canada when, perhaps, Maurice might so soon be there, though
she kept to herself the hopes which made her going so much less sad than
it would have been otherwise. She was extremely busy, for Mrs. Costello,
now that she thought no more of returning to the Cottage, had decided to
sell it; all their possessions, therefore, had to be divided into three
parts, the furniture to be sold with the house, their more personal
belongings to go with them, and various books and knickknacks to be left
as keepsakes with their friends. It was generally known now all over
Cacouna that Mrs. Costello was going "home," in order that Lucia might
be near her relations in case of "anything happening,"--a thing nobody
doubted the probability of, who saw the change made during the last few
months in their grave and quiet neighbour. They were a little vague in
their information about these relations, but that was a matter of
secondary importance; and as the mother and daughter were really very
much liked by their neighbours, they were quite overwhelmed with
invitations and visits.
So the days passed on quickly; and for the second time, the one fixed
for their journey was close at hand. One more letter had arrived from
Maurice, containing the news of his grandfather's death. It was short,
like the previous one, and almost equally hurried. He said that he was
struggling through the flood of business brought upon him by his
accession to estates so large, and till lately so zealously cared for by
their possessor. As soon as ever he could get away, he meant to start
for Canada; and as the time of his doing so depended only on his
success in hurrying on certain affairs which were already in hand, his
father might expect him by any mail except the first after his letter
arrived. There was no message to Mrs. Costello in this note, but, on the
other side of the half sheet which held the conclusion of it, was a
postscript hastily scrawled,
"Tell Mrs. Costello to remember the last talk we had together, and to
believe that I am obstinate."
This postscript, however, Mr. Leigh in his excitement and joy at the
prospect of so soon seeing his son, never found out. He read the letter
twice over, and then put it away in his desk, without even remembering
at the moment, to wonder at Maurice's continued silence towards his old
friends. The thought did strike him afterwards, but he was quite certain
that he had read every word of the letter, and was only confirmed in the
ideas he had begun to entertain. He sighed over these ideas, and over
the loss of Lucia, whom he loved with almost fatherly affection; but
still, even she was infinitely less dear to him than Maurice; and if
Maurice really did not care for her, why then, sooner than throw the
smallest shadow of blame upon him, _he_ would not seem to care for her
either.
So Mrs. Costello learned that Maurice was coming, and that he had not
thought it worth while to send even a word to his old friends.
"He is the only one," she thought, "who has changed towards us, and I
trusted him most of all."
And she took refuge from her disappointment in anger. Her disappointment
and her anger, however, were both silent; she would not say an ill word
to Lucia of Maurice; and Lucia, engrossed in her work and her
anticipations, did not perhaps remark that there was any change. She
made one attempt to persuade her mother to delay their journey until
after Maurice's arrival, but, being reminded that their passage was
taken, she consoled herself with,
"Well, it will be easy enough for him to come to see us. I suppose
everybody in England goes to Paris sometimes?"
And so the end came. They had not neglected Maurice's charge, though
Maurice seemed to have forgotten them. Whatever was possible to do to
provide for Mr. Leigh's comfort during his short solitude they had
done. The last farewells were said; Mr. Strafford, who had insisted on
going with them to New York, had arrived at the Cottage. Mrs. Bellairs
and Bella had spent their last day with their friends and gone away in
tears. All their life at Cacouna, with its happiness and its sorrow, was
over, and early next morning they were to cross the river for the last
time, and begin their journey to England.