Lucia tried to hide the traces of her tears, but the attempt was not
particularly successful. Mrs. Costello saw at once that something was
wrong; she asked whether Maurice had been there, and was told briefly
yes, but she delayed any other questions for two reasons. One was, that
merely saying that "Yes" had brought a quiver over Lucia's face, and the
other, that she herself was tired and had got into a habit of dreading
any kind of excitement. She felt a presentiment that there was nothing
pleasant to hear, and at the same time was quite sure that whatever
there was, her daughter would be unable to keep long from her.
She allowed Lucia to carry away her bonnet and shawl, and arrange her
comfortably on the sofa for a rest. Then she began to describe her
drive, and the shops at which Lady Dighton had been making various
purchases. Lucia listened, and tried to be interested, and to lose the
sense of shame and mortification mixed with real compunction, which was
making her wretched. But her heart ached, and besides, she had cried,
sitting all alone on her bedroom floor, till she was exhausted and half
blind. All the while her mother talked, she kept thinking of
Maurice--she neither called him "Poor Maurice," in her thoughts, nor
"Dear Maurice"--but only "Maurice, Maurice," over and over again--her
friend who was gone from her, whom she had justly lost.
But when she was growing more and more absorbed in her own regrets, and
her mother's voice was beginning to sound to her like one in a dream,
there came a sudden sharp ring at the door-bell. Could it be Maurice?
She grew red as fire while she listened--but the door opened and shut,
and there were no steps but Claudine's in the hall.
The maid came in. "A letter for madame, and a packet for
mademoiselle,"--both directed by Maurice.
Lucia took hers to the window. She scarcely dared to open it, but she
feared to appear to hesitate. Slowly she broke the seals, and found a
tiny morocco case and a note. She hardly looked at the case, the note
would be Maurice's farewell, and she did not know whether it would bring
reproach or forgiveness with it. It was not long--even with her dazzled
eyes, she was not more than a minute reading it.
"My dear old playfellow and pupil"--it began--"I cannot leave Paris
without saying 'Good-bye,' and asking you to forgive me, not for what I
said this morning, but for the way in which I said it. If you cannot
love me (and I understand now that you cannot) it is not your fault; and
I ought to have remembered that, even when it seemed hardest. I cannot
stay here now; but you will recollect that if ever you _want_ me--as a
friend or brother, you know--a single line will be enough to bring me to
your help. Finally, I beg of you, for the sake of old times, to wear the
ring I send. I bought it for you--you ought to have no scruple in
accepting a keepsake from your oldest friend, MAURICE LEIGH."
In the little box was the ring bought so long ago in Liverpool. It
flashed, as if with the light of living eyes, as Lucia opened the lid.
She regarded it for a moment almost with fear, then took it out and
placed it on her finger--the third finger of her left hand. It fitted
perfectly, and seemed to her like the embodiment of a watchful guardian
who would keep her from wrong and from evil. She fancied this, though
just then two or three drops fell heavily from her eyes, and one rested
for a moment on the very diamonds themselves.
Mrs. Costello's note was longer than Lucia's, and she read it twice
over, before she was sure that she comprehended it. Then she called
sharply "Lucia!"
"Come here," she said, as the girl turned her face reluctantly; and
there was nothing to do but to obey. Lucia came to the side of the sofa,
where her mother had raised herself up against the cushions, but she
trembled so, that to steady herself she dropped down on her knees on a
footstool. Her right arm rested on the table, but the other hand, where
the ring was, lay hidden in the folds of her dress.
"What does this mean, Lucia?" Mrs. Costello asked in a tone which she
had never in her life used to her daughter before. "Are you out of your
senses?"
Lucia was silent. She could almost have said yes.
"You know of course that Maurice is gone?"
"Yes I know it," she answered just audibly.
"Gone, and not likely to return?"
"He tells me so."
"What have you said to him?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing! That is absurd. Why did he wish to see you alone to-day?"
"To tell _me_ something," Lucia said with a little flash of opposition
awakened by her mother's anger.
"Yes--I thought so. To tell you something which, to any girl in the
world who was not inconceivably blind or inconceivably vain, would have
been the best news she ever heard in her life. And you said _nothing_?"
"Mamma, it is over. I can't help it."
"So he says--he, who is not much in the habit of talking nonsense, says
this to me. Just listen. 'We have both made the mistake of reasoning
about a thing with which reason has nothing to do. I see the error now
too late for myself, but not, I hope, too late to leave her in peace.
Pray do not speak to her about it at all.' But it is my duty to speak."
"Mamma, Maurice is right. It is too late."
"It is not too late for him to get some little justice; and it is not
too late for you to know what you have lost."
"Oh! I do know," she cried out. "But even if there had been no other
reason, how could I have been different? He never told me till to-day."
And she clasped her two hands together on the edge of the table and hid
her face on them.
Mrs. Costello leaned a little more forward, and touched her daughter's
arm.
"I must speak to you about this, Lucia," she said. "I do not want to be
harsh, but you ought to know what you have done. And, good heavens! for
what? A stranger, a mere coxcomb comes in your way, and you listen to
his fine words, and straight begin to be able to see nothing but him,
though the most faithful, generous heart a girl ever had offered to her
is in your very hand! _I_ was bad enough--but I had no such love as
Maurice's to leave behind me."
Again Lucia moved, without speaking. As she did so, the ring on her hand
flashed.
"What is that on your finger?" Mrs. Costello asked.
"Maurice's ring. _He_ was not so hard on me."
"Hard?" Mrs. Costello was pressing her hand more and more tightly to her
side. "Child, it is you that have been hard with your unconscious ways."
But Lucia had found power to speak at last.
"After all," she said obstinately, "I neither see why I should be
supposed to have done wrong, nor why anybody else should be spoken of
so. It is no harm, and no shame," she went on, raising her head, and
showing her burning cheeks, "for a girl to like somebody who cares very
much for her; and I think she would be a poor creature if she did not go
on caring for him as long as she believed he was true to her."
The little spark of pride died out with the last words, and there was a
faint quiver in her voice.
"Maurice would say so himself," she ended, triumphantly.
"Of course he would. But I don't see that Maurice would be a fair judge
of the case. The question is, what does a girl deserve who has to choose
between Maurice and Percy, and chooses Percy?"
Lucia recoiled. She could hardly yet bear to hear the name she had been
dreaming over so long spoken in so harsh a way, and still less to hear
it coupled in this way with Maurice's.
"Maurice will soon find somebody else," she said. "He is not a poor man,
mamma, that he should mind so much."
Mrs. Costello half rose from the sofa. Pain and anger together
overpowered her. She stood up for a moment, trying to speak, and then
suddenly fell back, fainting.
Lucia sprang from her knees. Was her mother dead? It was possible, she
knew. Had they parted for ever in anger? But the idea, from its very
horror, did not affect her as a lighter fear might have done. She
brought remedies, and called Claudine to help her, in a kind of calm.
They tried all they could think of, and at last there came some feeble
return of life. But the agitation and fatigue of the day had been too
much for such strength as hers to rally from. One fainting fit
succeeded another, with scarcely a moment's interval.
All evening it was the same. A doctor came, and stayed till the attacks
ceased; but when he went away, his patient lay, white and almost
unconscious even of Lucia's presence. It was terrible sitting there by
the bedside, and watching for every slight movement--for the hope of a
word or a smile. It was consolation unspeakable when, late at night,
Mrs. Costello opened her eyes, free from the bewildered look of
suffering, and, seeing her child's pale face beside her, put out her
hand, and said softly, "My poor Lucia!"
After that she dropped asleep, and Lucia watched till early morning. It
was the first of such watches she had ever kept, and the awful stillness
made her tremble. Often she got up from her seat to see if her mother's
breathing still really went on; it seemed difficult to believe that
there was any stir whatever of life in the room. In those long hours,
too, she had time to revert to the doings of the past day--to remember
both Maurice's words and her mother's, and to separate, to some degree,
the truth from all exaggeration. Her mind seemed to go back also, with
singular clearness, to the time of Percy's coming to Cacouna, and even
earlier. She began to comprehend the significance of trifles, which had
seemed insignificant at the time, and to believe in the truth of what
Maurice had told her, that even then he was building all his hopes on
the possibility of her loving him. She wondered at herself now, as
others had wondered at her; but she still justified herself: "He was my
brother--my dearest friend. _He_," and this time she did not mean
Maurice, "was the first person who ever put any other ideas into my
head. And I have lost them both." But already the true love had so far
gained its rights, that it was Maurice, far more than Percy, of whose
loss she thought. Once that night, when she had sat quite without moving
for a long time, and when her meditations had grown more and more
dreary, she suddenly raised her hand, and her ring flashed out in the
gloom. By some instinct she put it to her lips; it seemed to her a
symbol of regard and protecting care, which comforted her strangely.
When the night was past, and Claudine came early in the morning to take
Lucia's place, Mrs. Costello still slept; and the poor child, quite worn
out--pale and shivering in the cold dawn--was glad to creep away to
bed, and to her heavy but troubled slumber.
All that day the house was kept silent and shut up. Mrs. Costello had
been much tried, the doctor thought, and needed a complete calm in which
to recover herself. With her old habit of self-command she understood
this, and remained still, almost without speaking, till some degree of
strength should return. Lucia tended her with the most anxious care, and
kept her troubled thoughts wholly to herself.
About two o'clock Lady Dighton came. Hearing that Mrs. Costello was ill,
she begged to see Lucia, who came to her, looking weary and worn, but
longing to hear of Maurice.
It seemed, however, as if she were not to be gratified. Lady Dighton was
full of concern and kind offers of assistance, but she said nothing of
her cousin until just as she went away. Then she did say, "You know that
Maurice left us yesterday evening? I miss him dreadfully; but I dare say
he thinks much more of whether other people miss him."
She went, and they were alone again. So alone, as they had never been
while Maurice was in Paris, when he might come in at any moment and
bring a cheerful breath from the outer world into their narrow and
feminine life,--as he would never come again! 'Oh,' Lucia thought, 'why
could not he be our friend always--just our own Maurice as he used to
be--and not have these miserable fancies? We might have been so happy!'
Towards night Mrs. Costello had greatly revived. She was able to sit up
a little, and to talk much as usual. She did not allude at all to her
last conversation with her daughter, and Lucia herself dared not renew
so exciting a subject. But all anger seemed to have entirely passed away
from between them. They were completely restored to their old natural
confidence and tenderness; and that was a comfort which Lucia's terror
of last night made exquisitely sweet to her.