Upstairs, shut in her own little room with the door locked, Innocent
opened the sealed packet. She found within it a letter and some
bank-notes. With a sensitive pain which thrilled every nerve in her
body she unfolded the letter, written in Hugo Jocelyn's firm clear
writing--a writing she knew so well, and which bore no trace of
weakness or failing in the hand that guided the pen. How strange it
was, she thought, that the written words should look so living and
distinct when the writer was dead! Her head swam.--her eyes were
dim--for a moment she could scarcely see--then the mist before her
slowly dispersed and she read the first words, which made her heart
swell and the tears rise in her aching throat.
"MY LITTLE WILDING!--When you read this I shall be gone to that
wonderful world which all the clergymen tell us about, but which none
of them are in any great hurry to see for themselves. I hope--and I
sometimes believe--such a world exists--and that perhaps it is a place
where a man may sow seed and raise crops as well and as prosperously as
on Briar Farm--however, I'm praying I may not be taken till I've seen
you safely wed to Robin--and yet, something tells me this will not be;
and that's the something that makes me write this letter and put it
with the pearls that are, by my will, destined for you on your
marriage-morning. I'm writing it, remember, on the same night I've told
you all about yourself--the night of the day the doctor gave me my
death-warrant. I may live a year,--I may live but a week,--it will be
hard if I may not live to see you married!--but God's will must be
done. The bank-notes folded in this letter make up four hundred
pounds--and this money you can spend as you like--on your clothes for
the bridal, or on anything you fancy--I place no restriction on you as
to its use. When a maid weds there are many pretties she needs to buy,
and the prettier they are for you the better shall I be pleased.
Whether I live or whether I die, you need say nothing of this money to
Robin, or to anyone. It is your own absolutely--to do as you like with.
I am thankful to feel that you will be safe in Robin's loving care--for
the world is hard on a woman left alone as you would be, were it not
for him. I give you my word that if I had any clue, however small, to
your real parentage, I would write down here for you all I know--but I
know nothing more than I have told you. I have loved you as my own
child and you have been the joy of my old days. May God bless you and
give you joy and peace in Briar Farm!--you and your children, and your
children's children! Amen!
"Your 'Dad'
"HUGO JOCELYN."
She read this to the end, and then some tension in her brain seemed to
relax, and she wept long and bitterly, her head bent down on the letter
and her bright hair falling over it. Presently, checking her sobs, she
rose, and looked about her in a kind of dream--the familiar little room
seemed to have suddenly become strange to her, and she thought she saw
standing in one corner a figure clad in armour,--its vizor was up,
showing a sad pale face and melancholy eyes--the lips moved--and a
sighing murmur floated past her ears--"Mon coeur me soutien!" A cold
terror seized her, and she trembled from head to foot--then the vision
or hallucination vanished as swiftly and mysteriously as it had
appeared. Rallying her forces, she gradually mastered the overpowering
fear which for a moment had possessed her,--and folding up Hugo
Jocelyn's last letter, she kissed it, and placed it in her bosom. The
bank-notes were four in number--each for one hundred pounds;--these she
put in an envelope, and shut them in the drawer containing her secret
manuscript.
"Now the way is clear!" she said--"I can do what I like--I have my
wings, and I can fly away! Oh Dad, dear Dad!--you would be so unhappy
if you knew what I mean to do!--it would break your heart, Dad!--but
you have no heart to break now, poor Dad!--it is cold as stone!--it
will never beat any more! Mine is the heart that beats!--the heart that
burns, and aches, and hurts me!--ah!--how it hurts! And no one can
understand--no one will ever care to understand!"
She locked her manuscript-drawer--then went and bathed her eyes, which
smarted with the tears she had shed. Looking at herself in the mirror
she saw a pale plaintive little creature, without any freshness of
beauty--all the vitality seemed gone out of her. Smoothing her ruffled
hair, she twisted it up in a loose coil at the back of her head, and
studied with melancholy dislike and pain the heavy effect of her dense
black draperies against her delicate skin.
"I shall do for anything now," she said--"No one will look at me, and I
shall pass quite unnoticed in a crowd. I'm glad I'm not a pretty
girl--it might be more difficult to get on. And Robin called me
'lovely' the other day!--poor, foolish Robin!"
She went downstairs then to see if she could help Priscilla--but
Priscilla would not allow her to do anything in the way of what she
called "chores."
"No, lovey," she said--"you just keep quiet, an' by-an'-bye you an'
me'll 'ave a quiet tea together, for Mister Robin he's gone off for the
rest o' the day an' night with Mr. Bayliss, as there's lots o' things
to see to, an' 'e left you this little note"--here Priscilla produced a
small neatly folded paper from her apron pocke-t-"an' sez 'e--'Give
this to Miss Innocent`' 'e sez, 'an' she won't mind my bein' out o' the
way--it'll be better for 'er to be quiet a bit with you'--an' so it
will, lovey, for sometimes a man about the 'ouse is a worrit an' a
burden, say what we will, an' good though 'e be."
Innocent took the note and read--
"I have made up my mind to go with Bayliss into the town and stay at
his house for the night--there are many business matters we have to go
into together, and it is important for me to thoroughly understand the
position of my uncle's affairs. If I cannot manage to get back
to-morrow, I will let you know. Robin."
She heaved a sigh of intense relief. For twenty-four hours at least she
was free from love's importunity--she could be alone to think, and to
plan. She turned to Priscilla with a gentle look and smile.
"I'll go into the garden," she said--"and when it's tea-time you'll
come and fetch me, won't you? I shall be near the old stone knight,
Sieur Amadis--"
"Oh, bother 'im," muttered Priscilla, irrelevantly--"You do think too
much o' that there blessed old figure!--why, what's 'e got to do with
you, my pretty?"
"Nothing!" and the colour came to her pale cheeks for a moment, and
then fled back again--"He never had anything to do with me, really! But
I seem to know him."
Priscilla gave a kind of melancholy snort--and the girl moved slowly
away through the open door and beyond it, out among the radiant
flowers. Her little figure in deep black was soon lost to sight, and
after watching her for a minute, Priscilla turned to her home-work with
tears blinding her eyes so thickly that she could scarcely see.
"If she winnot take Mister Robin, the Lord knows what'll become of
'er!" sighed the worthy woman--"For she's as lone i' the world as a
thrush fallen out o' the nest before it's grown strong enough to fly!
Eh, we thort we did a good deed, Mister Jocelyn an' I, when we kep' 'er
as a baby, 'opin' agin 'ope as 'er parents 'ud turn up an' be sorry for
the loss of 'er--but never a sign of a soul!--an' now she's grow'd up
she's thorts in 'er 'ed which ain't easy to unnerstand--for since
Mister Jocelyn told 'er the tale of 'erself she's not been the same
like--she's got suddin old!"
The afternoon was very peaceful and beautiful--the sun shone warmly
over the smooth meadows of Briar Farm, and reddened the apples in the
orchard yet a little more tenderly, flashing in flecks of gold on the
"Glory" roses, and touching the wings of fluttering doves with arrowy
silver gleams. No one looking at the fine old house, with its
picturesque gables and latticed windows, would have thought that its
last master of lawful lineage was dead and buried, and that the funeral
had taken place that morning. Briar Farm, though more than three
centuries old, seemed full of youthful life and promise--a vital fact,
destined to outlast many more human lives than those which in the
passing of three hundred years had already left their mark upon it, and
it was strange and incredible to realise that the long chain of
lineally descended male ancestors had broken at last, and that no
remaining link survived to carry on the old tradition. Sadly and slowly
Innocent walked across the stretches of warm clover-scented grass to
the ancient tomb of the "Sieur Amadis"--and sat down beside it, not far
from the place where so lately she had sat with Robin--what a change
had come over her life since then! She watched the sun sinking towards
the horizon in a mellow mist of orange-coloured radiance,--the day was
drawing to an end--the fateful, wretched day which had seen the best
friend she had ever known, and whom for years she had adored and
revered as her own "father," laid in the dust to perish among
perishable things.
"I wish I had died instead of him," she said, half aloud--"or else that
I had never been born! Oh, dear 'Sieur Amadis'!--you know how hard it
is to live in the world unless some one wants you--unless some one
loves you!--and no one wants me--no one loves me--except Robin!"
Solitary, and full of the heaviest sadness, she tried to think and to
form plans--but her mind was tired, and she could come to no decisive
resolution beyond the one all-convincing necessity--that of leaving
Briar Farm. Of course she must go,--there was no other alternative. And
now, thanks to Hugo Jocelyn's forethought in giving her money for her
bridal "pretties," no financial difficulty stood in the way of her
departure. She must go--but where? To begin with, she had no name. She
would have to invent one for herself--"Yes!" she murmured--"I must
invent a name--and make it famous!" Involuntarily she clenched her
small hand as though she held some prize within its soft grasp. "Why
not? Other people have done the same--I can but try! If I fail--!"
Her delicate fingers relaxed,--in her imagination she saw some coveted
splendour slip from her hold, and her little face grew set and serious
as though she had already suffered a whole life's disillusion.
"I can but try," she repeated--"something urges me on--something tells
me I may succeed. And then--!"
Her eyes brightened slowly--a faint rose flushed her cheeks,--and with
the sudden change of expression, she became almost beautiful. Herein
lay her particular charm,--the rarest of all in women,--the passing of
the lights and shadows of thought over features which responded swiftly
and emotionally to the prompting and play of the mind.
"I should have to go," she went on--"even if Dad were still alive. I
could not--I cannot marry Robin!--I do not want to marry anybody. It is
the common lot of women--why they should envy or desire it, I cannot
think! To give one's self up entirely to a man's humours--to be glad of
his caresses, and miserable when he is angry or tired--to bear his
children and see them grow up and leave you for their own 'betterment'
as they would call it--oh!--what an old, old drudging life!--a life of
monotony, sickness, pain, and fatigue!--and nothing higher done than
what animals can do! There are plenty of women in the world who like to
stay on this level, I suppose--but I should not like it,--I could not
live in this beautiful, wonderful world with no higher ambition than a
sheep or a cow!"
At that moment she suddenly saw Priscilla running from the house across
the meadow, and beckoning to her in evident haste and excitement. She
got up at once and ran to meet her, flying across the grass with light
airy feet as swiftly as Atalanta.
"What is it?" she cried, seeing Priscilla's face, crimson with hurry
and nervousness--"Is there some new trouble?"
Priscilla was breathless, and could scarcely speak.
"There's a lady"--she presently gasped--"a lady to see you--from
London--in the best parlour--she asked for Farmer Jocelyn's adopted
daughter named Innocent. And she gave me her card--here it is"--and
Priscilla wiped her face and gasped again as Innocent took the card and
read "Lady Maude Blythe,"--then gazed at Priscilla, wonderingly.
"Who can she be?--some one who knew Dad--?"
"Bless you, child, he never knew lord nor lady!" replied Priscilla,
recovering her breath somewhat--"No--it's more likely one o' they grand
folks what likes to buy old furniture, an' mebbe somebody's told 'er
about Briar Farm things, an' 'ow they might p'raps be sold now the
master's gone--"
"But that would be very silly and wicked talk," said Innocent. "Nothing
will be sold--Robin would never allow it--"
"Well, come an' see the lady," and Priscilla hurried her along--"She
said she wished to see you partikler. I told 'er the master was dead,
an' onny buried this mornin', an' she smiled kind o' pleasant like, an'
said she was sorry to have called on such an unfortunate day, but her
business was important, an' if you could see 'er--"
"Is she young?"
"No, she's not young--but she isn't old," replied Priscilla--"She's
wonderful good-looking an' dressed beautiful! I never see such clothes
cut out o' blue serge! An' she's got a scent about her like our
stillroom when we're makin' pot-purry bags for the linen."
By this time they had reached the house, and Innocent went straight
into the best parlour. Her unexpected and unknown visitor stood there
near the window, looking out on the beds of flowers, but turned round
as she entered. For a moment they confronted each other in
silence,--Innocent gazing in mute astonishment and enquiry at the tall,
graceful, self-possessed woman, who, evidently of the world, worldly,
gazed at her in turn with a curious, almost quizzical interest.
Presently she spoke in a low, sweet, yet cold voice.
"So you are Innocent!" she said.
The girl's heart beat quickly,--something frightened her, though she
knew not what.
"Yes," she answered, simply--"I am Innocent. You wished to see me--?"
"Yes--I wished to see you,"--and the lady quietly shut the window--"and
I also wish to talk to you. In case anyone may be about
listening, will you shut the door?"
With increasing nervousness and bewilderment, Innocent obeyed.
"You had my card, I think?" continued the lady, smiling ever so
slightly--"I gave it to the servant--"
Innocent held it half crumpled in her hand.
"Yes," she said, trying to rally her self-possession--"Lady Maude
Blythe--"
"Exactly!--you have quite a nice pronunciation! May I sit down?" and,
without waiting for the required permission, Lady Blythe sank
indolently into the old oaken arm-chair where Farmer Jocelyn had so
long been accustomed to sit, and, taking out a cobweb of a handkerchief
powerfully scented, passed it languorously across her lips and brow.
"You have had a very sad day of it, I fear!" she continued--"Deaths and
funerals are such unpleasant affairs! But the farmer--Mr. Jocelyn--was
not your father, was he?" The question was put with a repetition of the
former slight, cold smile.
"No,"--and the girl looked at her wonderingly--"but he was better than
my own father who deserted me!"
"Dear me! Your own father deserted you! How shocking of him!" and Lady
Blythe turned a pair of brilliant dark eyes full on the pale little
face confronting her--"And your mother?"
"She deserted me, too."
"What a reprehensible couple!" Here Lady Blythe extended a delicately
gloved hand towards her. "Come here and let me look at you!"
But Innocent hesitated.
"Excuse me," she said, with a quaint and simple dignity--"I do not know
you. I cannot understand why you have come to see me--if you would
explain--"
While she thus spoke Lady Blythe had surveyed her scrutinisingly
through a gold-mounted lorgnon.
"Quite a proud little person it is!" she remarked, and smiled--"Quite
proud! I suppose I really must explain! Only I do hope you will not
make a scene. Nothing is so unpleasant! And SUCH bad form! Please sit
down!"
Innocent placed a chair close to the table so that she could lean her
arm on that friendly board and steady her trembling little frame. When
she was seated, Lady Blythe again looked at her critically through the
lorgnon. Then she continued--
"Well, I must first tell you that I have always known your
history--such a romance, isn't it! You were brought here as a baby by a
man on horseback'--and he left you with the good old farmer who has
taken care of you ever since. I am right? Yes!--I'm quite sure about
it--because I knew the man--the curious sort of parental
Lochinvar!--who got rid of you in such a curious way!"
Innocent drew a sharp breath.
"You knew him?"
Lady Blythe gave a delicate little cough.
"Yes--I knew him--rather well! I was quite a girl--and he was an
artist--a rather famous one in his way--half French--and very
good-looking. Yes, he certainly was remarkably good-looking! We ran
away together--most absurd of us--but we did. Please don't look at me
like that!--you remind me of Sara Bernhardt in 'La Tosca'!"
Innocent's eyes were indeed full of something like positive terror. Her
heart beat violently--she felt a strange dread, and a foreboding that
chilled her very blood.
"People often do that kind of thing--fall in love and run away,"
continued Lady Blythe, placidly--"when they are young and silly. It is
quite a delightful sensation, of course, but it doesn't last. They
don't know the world--and they never calculate results. However, we had
quite a good time together. We went to Devon and Cornwall, and he
painted pictures and made love to me--and it was all very nice and
pretty. Then, of course, trouble came, and we had to get out of it as
best we could--we were both tired of each other and quarrelled
dreadfully, so we decided to give each other up. Only you were in the
way!"
Innocent rose, steadying herself with one hand against the table.
"I!" she exclaimed, with a kind of sob in her throat.
"Yes--you! Dear me,--how you stare! Don't you understand? I suppose
you've lived such a strange sort of hermit life down here that you know
nothing. You were in the way--you, the baby!"
"Do you mean--?"
"Yes--I mean what you ought to have guessed at once--if you were not as
stupid as an owl! I've told you I ran away with a man--I wouldn't marry
him, though he asked me to--I should have been tied up for life, and I
didn't want that--so we decided to separate. And he undertook to get
rid of the baby--"
"Me!" cried Innocent, wildly--"oh, dear God! It was me!"
"Yes--it was you--but you needn't be tragic about it!" said Lady
Blythe, calmly--"I think, on the whole, you were fortunately
placed--and I was told where you were--"
"You were told?--oh, you were told!--and you never came! And you--you
are--my MOTHER!"--and overpowered by the shock of emotion, the girl
sank back on her chair, and burying her head in her hands, sobbed
bitterly. Lady Blythe looked at her in meditative silence.
"What a tiresome creature!" she murmured, under her breath--"Quite
undisciplined! No repose of manner--no style whatever! And apparently
very little sense! I think it's a pity I came,--a mistaken sense of
duty!"
Aloud she said--
"I hope you're not going to cry very long! Won't you get it over? I
thought you would be glad to know me--and I've come out of pure
kindness to you, simply because I heard your old farmer was dead. Why
Pierce Armitage should have brought you to him I never could
imagine--except that once he was painting a picture in the
neighbourhood and was rather taken with the history of this place--Briar
Farm isn't it called? You'll make your eyes quite sore if you
go on crying like that! Yes--I am your mother--most unfortunately!--I
hoped you would never know it!--but now--as you are left quite alone in
the world, I have come to see what I can do for you."
Innocent checked her sobs, and lifting her head looked straight into
the rather shallow bright eyes that regarded her with such cold and
easy scrutiny.
"You can do nothing for me," she answered, in a low voice--"You never
have done anything for me. If you are my mother, you are an unnatural
one!" And moved by a sudden, swift emotion, she stood up with
indignation and scorn lighting every feature of her face. "I was in
your way at my birth--and you were glad to be rid of me. Why should you
seek me now?"
Lady Blythe glanced her over amusedly.
"Really, you would do well on the stage!" she said--"If you were
taller, you would make your fortune with that tragic manner! It is
quite wasted on me, I assure you! I've told you a very simple
commonplace truth--a thing that happens every day--a silly couple run
away together, madly in love, and deluded by the idea that love will
last--they get into trouble and have a child--naturally, as they are
not married, the child is in the way, and they get rid of it--some
people would have killed it, you know! Your father was quite a
kind-hearted person--and his one idea was to place you where there were
no other children, and where you would have a chance of being taken
care of. So he brought you to Briar Farm--and he told me where he had
left you before he went away and died."
"Died!" echoed the girl--"My father is dead?"
"So I believe,"--and Lady Blythe stifled a slight yawn--"He was always
a rather reckless person--went out to paint pictures in all weathers,
or to 'study effects' as he called it--how I hated his 'art' talk!--and
I heard he died in Paris of influenza or pneumonia or something or
other. But as I was married then, it didn't matter."
Innocent's deep-set, sad eyes studied her "mother" with strange
wistfulness.
"Did you not love him?" she asked, pitifully.
Lady Blythe laughed, lightly.
"You odd girl! Of course I was quite crazy about him!--he was so
handsome--and very fascinating in his way--but he could be a terrible
bore, and he had a very bad temper. I was thankful when we separated.
But I have made my own private enquiries about you, from time to
time--I always had rather a curiosity about you, as I have had no other
children. Won't you come and kiss me?"
Innocent stood rigid.
"I cannot!" she said.
Lady Blythe flushed and bit her lips.
"As you like!" she said, airily--"I don't mind!"
The girl clasped her hands tightly together.
"How can you ask me!" she said, in low, thrilling tones--"You who have
let me grow up without any knowledge of you!--you who had no shame in
leaving me here to live on the charity of a stranger!--you who never
cared at all for the child you brought into the world!--can you imagine
that I could care--now?"
"Well, really," smiled Lady Blythe--"I'm not sure that I have asked you
to care! I have simply come here to tell you that you are not entirely
alone in the world, and that I, knowing myself to be your
mother--(although it happened so long ago I can hardly believe I was
ever such a fool!)--am willing to do something for you--especially as I
have no children by my second marriage. I will, in fact, 'adopt' you!"
and she laughed--a pretty, musical laugh like a chime of little silver
bells. "Lord Blythe will be delighted--he's a kind old person!"
Innocent looked at her gravely and steadily.
"Do you mean to say that you will own me?--name me?--acknowledge me as
your daughter--"
"Why, certainly not!" and Lady Blythe's eyes flashed over her in cold
disdain--"What are you thinking of? You are not legitimate--and you
really have no lawful name--besides, I'm not bound to do anything at
all for you now you are old enough to earn your own living. But I'm
quite a good-natured woman,--and as I have said already I have no other
children--and I'm willing to 'adopt' you, bring you out in society,
give you pretty clothes, and marry you well if I can. But to own that I
ever made such an idiot of myself as to have you at all is a little too
much to ask!--Lord Blythe would never forgive me!"
"So you would make me live a life of deception with you!" said
Innocent--"You would make me pretend to be what I am not--just as you
pretend to be what you are not!--and yet you say I am your child! Oh
God, save me from such a mother! Madam"--and she spoke in cold,
deliberate accents--"you have lived all these years without children,
save me whom you have ignored--and I, though nameless and illegitimate,
now ignore you! I have no mother! I would not own you any more than you
would own me;--my shame in saying that such a woman is my mother would
be greater than yours in saying that I am your child! For the stigma of
my birth is not my fault, but yours!--I am, as my father called
me--'innocent'!"
Her breath came and went quickly--a crimson flush was on her
cheeks--she looked transfigured--beautiful. Lady Blythe stared at her
in wide-eyed disdain.
"You are exceedingly rude and stupid," she said--"You talk like a
badly-trained actress! And you are quite blind to your own interests.
Now please remember that if you refuse the offer I make you, I shall
never trouble about you again--you will have to sink or swim--and you
can do nothing for yourself--without even a name--"
"Have you never heard," interrupted Innocent, suddenly, "that it is
quite possible to MAKE a name?"
Her "mother" was for the moment startled--she looked so intellectually
strong and inspired.
"Have you never thought," she went on--"even you, in your strange life
of hypocrisy--"
"Hypocrisy!" exclaimed Lady Blythe--"How dare you say such a thing!"
"Of course it is hypocrisy," said the girl, resolutely--"You are
married to a man who knows nothing of your past life--is not that
hypocrisy? You are a great lady, no doubt--you have everything you want
in this world, except children--one child you had in me, and you let me
be taken from you--yet you would pretend to 'adopt' me though you know
I am your own! Is not that hypocrisy?"
Lady Blythe for a moment tightened her lips in a line of decided
temper--then she smiled ironically.
"It is tact," she said--"and good manners. Society lives by certain
conventions, and we must be careful not to outrage them. In your own
interests you should be glad to learn how to live suitably without
offence to others around you."
Innocent looked at her with straight and relentless scorn.
"I have done that," she answered--"so far. I shall continue to do it. I
do not want any help from you! I would rather die than owe you
anything! Please understand this! You say I am your daughter, and I
suppose I must believe it--but the knowledge brings me sorrow and
shame. And I must work my way out of this sorrow and shame,--somehow! I
will do all I can to retrieve the damaged life you have given me. I
never knew my mother was alive--and now--I wish to forget it! If my
father lived, I would go to him--"
"Would you indeed!" and Lady Blythe rose, shaking her elegant skirts,
and preening herself like a bird preparing for flight--"I'm afraid you
would hardly receive a parental welcome! Fortunately for himself and
for me, he is dead,--so you are quite untrammelled by any latent
notions of filial duty. And you will never see me again after to-day!"
"No?"--and the interrogation was put with the slightest inflection of
satire--so fine as to be scarcely perceptible--but Lady Blythe caught
it, and flushed angrily.
"Of course not!" she said--"Do you think you, in your position of a
mere farmer's girl, are likely to meet me in the greater world? You,
without even a name--"
"Would you have given me a name?" interposed the girl, calmly.
"Of course! I should have invented one for you--
"I can do that for myself," said Innocent, quietly--"and so you are
relieved from all trouble on my score. May I ask you to go now?"
Lady Blythe stared at her.
"Are you insolent, or only stupid?" she asked--"Do you realise what it
is that I have told you--that I, Lady Blythe, wife of a peer, and
moving in the highest ranks of society, am willing to take charge of
you, feed you, clothe you, bring you out and marry you well? Do you
understand, and still refuse?"
"I understand--and I still refuse," replied Innocent--"I would accept,
if you owned me as your daughter to your husband and to all the
world--but as your 'adopted' child--as a lie under your roof--I refuse
absolutely and entirely! Are you astonished that I should wish to live
truly instead of falsely?"
Lady Blythe gathered her priceless lace scarf round her elegant
shoulders.
"I begin to think it must have been all a bad dream!" she said, and
laughed softly--"My little affair with your father cannot have really
happened, and you cannot really be my child! I must consider it in that
light! I feel I have done my part in the matter by coming here to see
you and talk to you and make what I consider a very kind and reasonable
proposition--you have refused it--and there is no more to be said." She
settled her dainty hat more piquantly on her rich dark hair, and smiled
agreeably. "Will you show me the way out? I left my motor-car on the
high-road--my chauffeur did not care to bring it down your rather muddy
back lane."
Innocent said nothing--but merely opened the door and stood aside for
her visitor to pass. A curious tightening at her heart oppressed her as
she thought that this elegant, self-possessed, exquisitely attired
creature was actually her "mother!"--and she could have cried out with
the pain which was so hard to bear. Suddenly Lady Blythe came to an
abrupt standstill.
"You will not kiss me?" she said--"Not even for your father's sake?"
With a quick sobbing catch in her breath, the girl looked up--her
"mother" was a full head taller than she. She lifted her fair head--her
eyes were full of tears. Her lips quivered--Lady Blythe stooped and
kissed them lightly.
"There!--be a good girl!" she said. "You have the most extraordinary
high-flown notions, and I think they will lead you into trouble!
However, I'll give you one more chance--if at the end of this year you
would like to come to me, my offer to you still holds good. After
that--well!--as you yourself said, you will have no mother!"
"I have never had one!" answered Innocent, in low choked
accents--"And--I shall never have one!"
Lady Blythe smiled--a cold, amused smile, and passed out through the
hall into the garden.
"What delightful flowers!" she exclaimed, in a sweet, singing voice,
for the benefit of anyone who might be listening--"A perfect paradise!
No wonder Briar Farm is so famous! It's perfectly charming! Is this the
way? Thanks ever so much!" This, as Innocent opened the gate--"Let me
see!--I go up the old by-road?--yes?--and the main road joins it at the
summit?--No, pray don't trouble to come with me--I can find my car
quite easily! Good-bye!"
And picking up her dainty skirt with one ungloved hand, on which two
diamond rings shone like circlets of dew, she nodded, smiled, and went
her way--Innocent standing at the gate and watching her go with a kind
of numbed patience as though she saw a figure in a dream vanishing
slowly with the dawn of day. In truth she could hardly grasp the full
significance of what had happened--she did not feel, even remotely, the
slightest attraction towards this suddenly declared "mother" of
hers--she could hardly believe the story. Yet she knew it must be
true,--no woman of title and position would thus acknowledge a stigma
on her own life without any cause for the confession. She stood at the
gate still watching, though there was nothing now to watch, save the
bending trees, and the flowering wild plants that fringed each side of
the old by-road. Priscilla's voice calling her in a clear, yet lowered
tone, startled her at last--she slowly shut the gate and turned in
answer.
"Yes, dear? What is it?"
Priscilla trotted out from under the porch, full of eager curiosity.
"Has the lady gone?"
"Yes."
"What did she want with ye, dearie?"
"Nothing very much!" and Innocent smiled--a strange, wistful
smile--"Only just what you thought!--she wished to buy something from
Briar Farm--and I told her it was not to be sold!"