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A CANADIAN HEROINE.
A Novel.
BY
THE AUTHOR OF "LEAVES FROM THE BACKWOODS."
"Questa chiese Lucia in suo dimando,
E disse: Or ha bisogno il tuo fedele
Di te, e 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. I.
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.
Mrs. Costello had felt it a kind of reprieve when she heard from Mr.
Strafford that they might delay their journey safely for a month. The
sober middle age which had come upon her before its time, as her life
rolled on out of the anguish and tumult of the past, made home and
quietness the most desirable things on earth to her, and her health and
spirits, neither yet absolutely broken, but both strained almost to the
extent of their endurance, unfitted her for the changes and excitements
of long travel. So she clung to the idea of delay with an unacknowledged
hope that some cause might deliver them from their present terrors, and
yet suffer them to remain at Cacouna.
In the meantime all went on outwardly as usual. The duties and
courtesies of every-day life had to be kept up,--the more carefully
because it was not desirable to attract attention. Besides, Mrs.
Costello felt that an even flow of occupation was the best thing for
Lucia, whom she watched, with the keenest and tenderest solicitude,
passing through the shadow of that darkness which she herself knew so
well. Doctor Morton brought his wife home most opportunely for her
wishes. A variety of such small dissipations as Cacouna could produce,
naturally celebrated the event; and Lucia as principal bridesmaid at the
wedding could not, if she would, have shut herself out from them. She
had, indeed, dreaded the first meeting with Bella, but it passed off
without embarrassment. To all appearance Mrs. Morton had lost either the
sharpness of observation or the readiness of tongue that had formerly
belonged to her, for the change which Lucia felt in herself was allowed
to remain unremarked.
Mrs. Bellairs had long ago got over her displeasure with Lucia. She had
watched her narrowly at the time of Percy's leaving, and became
satisfied that there was some trouble of a sterner kind than regret for
him now weighing heavily upon her heart.
Although Mrs. Bellairs told her sister of the intended journey of Mrs.
Costello and Lucia, the preparations for that journey were being made
with as little stir as possible, and except herself, her husband, and
Mr. Leigh, few persons dreamed of such an improbable event. Bella even
received a hint to speak of it to no one but her husband, for Mrs.
Costello was anxious to avoid gossip, and had taken much thought how to
attain the _juste milieu_ between secrecy and publicity. In the meantime
there was much to be done in prospect of a long, an indefinitely long,
absence, and the needful exertion both of mind and body was good for
Lucia. Under no circumstances, perhaps, could she have sat quietly down
to bewail her misfortunes, or have allowed herself to sink under them,
but, as it was, there was no temptation to indolent indulgence of any
kind. Bitter hours came still--came especially with the silence and
darkness of night, when her thoughts would go back to the sweet days of
the past summer and linger over them, till some word, or look, or
trifling incident coming to her memory more distinctly, would bring with
it the sudden recollection of the barren, dreary present,--of the
irreparable loss.
In all her thoughts of Percy there was comfort. He had loved her
honestly and sincerely, and if his nature was really lower than her own,
she was not likely to guess it. She had acted, in dismissing him, on a
kind of distrust, she would have said, of human nature; more truly, of
him; but even this distrust was so vague and so disguised that it never
shadowed his character in her eyes. So, though she had parted from him,
she took comfort in the thought of his love, and kept it in her heart to
save herself from the overwhelming sense of degradation, which took
possession of her in remembering why she had sent him away from her.
It was this feeling which, in spite of her courage and her pride, had
brought to her face that look of real trouble of which Mrs. Bellairs had
spoken. It was a look of which she was herself entirely unconscious,
more like the effect of years of care, than like that of a sudden
sorrow. With this change of expression on her face, and sobered, but
cheerful and capable as ever in her ways and doings, Lucia made her
preparations for leaving the place which was so dear and familiar to
her.
Mrs. Costello's spirits had risen since their plans were settled. The
burden which was new to Lucia had been her companion for years, and,
except when the actual terror of falling once again into her husband's
hands was upon her, she had come to bear it with resignation and
patience. She had, of late years, endured far more on her child's
account than on her own; and to find that Lucia met her share of
suffering with such steady courage, and still had the same tender and
clinging love for herself, was an inexpressible relief. She had faith in
the words she had said on the night when the story of her life had been
told, she believed that a better happiness might yet come to that
beloved child than the one she had lost. So she lived in greater peace
than she had done for years before.
But her greatest anxiety at this moment regarded Mr. Leigh and Maurice.
She had waited for news of Maurice's arrival in England and reception by
his grandfather, before writing to him, as she had promised to do. For
she wished him to be able to decide, on receiving her letter, what was
the best plan for Mr. Leigh's comfort, in case he should himself be
detained in Norfolk. The accounts which the first mail brought showed
plainly that this would be the case. Mr. Beresford had immediately taken
a fancy to his grandson, and would scarcely spare him out of his sight.
Mrs. Costello, therefore, wrote to Maurice, telling him that the time
she had half anticipated had really arrived, and that she and Lucia were
about to leave Canada. At the same time she had a long conversation with
Mr. Leigh, describing to him more of her circumstances and plans than
she wished any other person to know, and expressing the regret she felt
at leaving him in his solitude. A question, indeed, arose whether it
would not be better for him to leave his large solitary house, and
remove into the town, but this was soon decided in the negative. He
would remain where he was for the present. Maurice might yet return to
Canada; if not, possibly next year he might himself go to England. One
circumstance made Mrs. Costello and Lucia more inclined to favour this
plan--the old man's health had certainly improved. Whether it was the
link to his earlier and happier life, which had been furnished by the
late relenting of his wife's father, or from some other cause, he seemed
to have laid aside much of his infirmity, and to have returned from his
premature old age to something like vigour.
A fortnight yet remained before the cottage was to be deserted, when
Doctor Morton and his wife returned home. The gossip of the
neighbourhood which, as was inevitable, had been for a little while busy
with Mr. Percy and Lucia, was turned into another channel by their
coming, and people again occupied themselves with the bride. Lucia was
obliged to visit her friend, and to join the parties given on the
occasion, and so day after day slipped by, and the surface of affairs
seemed so unchanged that, but for one or two absent faces, it would have
been difficult to believe in all that had happened lately.
But, of course, it did at last become known that Mrs. Costello was going
away. She and Lucia both spoke of it lightly, as an ordinary occurrence
enough; but it was so unlike their usual habits, that each person who
heard the news instantly set himself or herself to guess a reason, and,
connecting it with the loss of Lucia's gay spirits, most persons came
naturally to one conclusion.
It did not matter whether they said, "Poor Lucia!" with the
half-contemptuous pity people give to what they call "a disappointment,"
or "What else could she expect?" "I told you so!" or any other of the
speeches in which we express our delight in a neighbour's
misfortunes--every way of alluding to the subject was equally
irritating to Mrs. Bellairs, who heard of it constantly, and tried in
vain to stop the tongues of her acquaintance. She could not do it; and
what she feared most, soon happened. Lucia came, in some way, to be
aware of what was going on, and this last pain, though so much lighter
than those she had already borne, seemed to break down all her pride at
once. In her own room that night she sat, hour after hour, in forlorn
wretchedness--her own familiar friends, the companions of her whole
life, were making her misery the subject of their careless gossip. They
knew nothing of the real wound which she had suffered, but they were
quite ready to inflict another; and the feeling of loneliness and
desertion which filled her heart at the thought was more bitter than all
that had gone before. She remembered Maurice, and wondered drearily
whether he too would have misjudged her; but for the moment even her
faith in him was shaken, and she turned from her thoughts of him without
comfort.
But this mood was too unnatural to last long. Before morning her courage
had returned, and her strong impulse and desire was to show how little
she felt the very sting which was really torturing her. She stood long
before her glass that morning. The face which had grown hateful to
herself was still beautiful to others. She studied it in every line. She
wanted to see what there could be in it to give people the idea of
love-sickness. She wanted to force back into it the old light and
gaiety. Impossible! With a shudder she covered it with her hands. Never
again could she be a child. She had passed through the storm, and must
bear its traces henceforward. But, at least, it had been the thunderbolt
of heaven, and not the hand of man, which had wounded her. Her very
sorrow was sacred. She lifted up her head again, and saw that there was
a calm upon her face, which was better than pride. Instinctively she
knew that none but idiots could look at her with contempt, or the pity
which is so near it; and she went out into her little world again, sad
at heart, but steadfast and at peace. So the days passed on, and grew
into weeks, and the time for their leaving Cacouna came very near. It
had been delayed more than a week beyond the month on which Mrs.
Costello had first counted for security; but on the very eve of their
departure she had overcome her anxiety, and was secretly glad to make
the most of every little excuse for lingering yet another and another
day at the cottage.
It was now Monday evening, and on Wednesday they were to start. A letter
from Maurice had arrived that morning--the first which he had written
after receiving news from home, and it contained an enclosure to Mrs.
Costello, which Lucia wondered her mother did not show her. But she
would have wondered more, perhaps, if she had known why, in spite of the
easily-read wistfulness in her glance, that note was so carefully
withheld from her. It alluded, in fact, too plainly to the conversation
in which, for the first time, Maurice had, just before going away,
spoken to Mrs. Costello of herself and his affection for her. He said
now, "My father has sent me an account of Miss Latour's wedding, which
he said he made Lucia describe to him for my benefit. But I have a
curiosity to hear more about it, or rather about her. To tell the truth,
I am longing for a letter from you, not only to bring me news of my
father, but to satisfy me that all my hopes are not being built upon an
impossibility. Is Percy still at Cacouna? Don't laugh at me. My
occupations here leave me plenty of time to think of you all, and I
depend upon you not to let me be left quite in the dark on the subject
to which I cannot help giving most of my thoughts."
Mrs. Costello smiled to herself as she read; but she put off Lucia's
questioning with a very unfaithful summary of the contents of the note.
It was certainly strange how much vague comfort she took in the
knowledge of Maurice's love for her child. It might have seemed that the
same causes which had parted Lucia from Percy, and which she had said
would part her from the whole world, would be just as powerful here; but
the mother had at the bottom of her heart a kind of child-like
confidence that somehow, some time, all must come right, and in the
meantime she loved Maurice heartily, and wished for this happy
consummation almost as much for his sake as for her daughter's.