Maurice paid his visit to Dighton--paid two or three visits, indeed--and
his cousin came to Hunsdon still oftener, so that in the course of a few
weeks, a considerable degree of intimacy grew up between them. Sir John
was, as his wife said, always busy; he was hospitable and friendly to
his new connection, but in all family or social matters he was content,
and more than content, to drop into the shade, and let Lady Dighton act
for both; so that Maurice, like the rest of the world (always excepting
his constituents and tenants), very soon began to consider him merely as
an appendage, useful, certainly, but not of much importance to anybody.
In the progress of their acquaintance it was natural that the cousins
should often speak of Canada. Lady Dighton understood as little, and
cared as little, about the distant colony as English people generally
do; but she had considerable curiosity as to Maurice's past life; and in
her benevolent efforts to improve and polish him, she was obliged to
recognize the fact that, loyal Englishman as he was by birth, education
and association, he might have said truly enough,
"Avant tout, je suis Canadien."
She had no objection whatever to this; on the contrary, she had enough
romance in her disposition to admire all generous and chivalric
qualities, and her cousin's patriotism only made her like him the
better; but in spite of his frankness in most things, she had no idea
that this affection for his native country was linked to and deepened by
another kind of love. Lucia's name had never passed his lips, and she
had no means of guessing how daily and hourly thoughts of one fair young
Canadian girl were inseparably joined to the very roots of every good
quality he possessed. This ignorance did not at all arise from want of
interest. Her feminine imagination, naturally fertile on such subjects,
soon began to occupy itself with speculations in which every eligible
young lady in the country figured in turn. It was not to be supposed
that the heir of Hunsdon would find much difficulty in obtaining a wife;
the really embarrassing task for his mentors was to see that he looked
in the proper direction. And in this matter Mr. Beresford was not wholly
to be trusted. So, as it happened, Lady Dighton began to take a great
deal of perfectly useless thought and care for Maurice's benefit, at the
very time when he, all unconscious of her schemes, was beginning to
consider it possible that he might confide to her the secret of his
anxious and preoccupied thoughts.
It happened that Mr. Leigh, unaware of the deep interest his son took in
the movements of Mr. Percy, only mentioned him in describing Bella
Latour's wedding, and omitted to say a word about his leaving Cacouna.
Thus it was not until three weeks after his arrival in England that a
chance expression informed Maurice that his dangerous rival was gone
away, without giving him the satisfaction of knowing that he had been
dismissed and was not likely to return. The same mail which brought
this half intelligence, brought also a letter from Mrs. Costello, which
spoke of her own and Lucia's removal as a thing quite settled, though
not immediate, and left the place of their destination altogether
uncertain. These letters threw Maurice into a condition of discomfort
and impatience, which he found hard to bear. He was extremely uneasy at
the idea of his father being left without companion or nurse. This
uneasiness formed, as it were, the background of his thoughts, while a
variety of less reasonable, but more vivid, anxieties held a complete
revel in the foreground. He had not even his old refuge against
troublesome fancies; for work, real absorbing work, of any kind was out
of the question now. His attendance on his grandfather, though often
fatiguing enough, was no occupation for his masculine brain. If he had
been a woman, he would have had a far better chance of imprisoning his
mind as well as his body, in that sober, undisturbed, sick room; but
though he could be almost as tender as a woman, he could not school
himself into that strange kind of feminine patience, which even Lucia,
spoiled child as she was, instinctively practised and grew strong in,
while she tended his father.
He found himself perpetually losing the thread of some relation or
dissertation which was intended for his benefit, and that of Hunsdon
under his rule; he ran serious risk of displeasing Mr. Beresford, and
finally he became so weary of thinking incessantly of one subject, but
never speaking of it, that he made up his mind to take his cousin to
some degree into his confidence. To some degree only--it could be a very
small degree indeed, according to his ideas, for he could not tell her
all, even of the little he knew, about the Costellos, and he had no
intention of speaking much about Lucia, only mentioning her as an old
playfellow of his sister's; quite forgetting that he would have either
to change his own nature, or to dull Lady Dighton's ears and eyes,
before he could talk of _her_, and not betray himself.
But a good opportunity for this confidence seemed hard to find, and
whenever one did really occur Maurice let it slip, so that time passed
on, and nothing was said; until at last, a new trouble came, so heavy
and incomprehensible as entirely to eclipse the former ones.
One morning, about six weeks after his arrival at Hunsdon, there arrived
for Maurice two Canadian letters and a newspaper; the letters from his
father and Mrs. Costello, the newspaper addressed by Harry Scott.
Maurice dutifully opened Mr. Leigh's letter first; he meant just to see
that all was well, and then to read the other; but the news upon which
his eye fell, put everything else for the moment out of his head. He
glanced half incredulously over what his father said, and then tore open
the newspaper to seek for its confirmation. He had not far to seek. Two
columns of the thin provincial sheet were scored with black crosses, and
bore the ominous heading, "Dreadful Murder!" in the largest capitals. He
read the whole terrible story through, and thought, as well as he could,
over it, before he remembered the second and still unopened letter.
But no sooner had he opened and read this, than the news which had just
before seemed to bring the most fearful realities of life and death so
near to him, faded away almost out of his recollection to make way for
the really personal interest of this calamity. Mrs. Costello wrote,
"I have done wrong; and I should feel more difficulty, perhaps, in
asking you to forgive me, if I did not, with you, have to regret the
bitter disappointment of my hopes and wishes. You and Lucia must not
meet again, unless, or until, you can do so without any thought of each
other except as old playfellows and friends. This sounds cruel, I know,
and unreasonable,--all the more so after the confidence there has been
between us lately; but you must believe me when I say that I have tried,
more than I ought, to keep for myself the consolation of thinking that
my darling would some day be safe in your care, and that this
consolation has been torn from me. But what can I say to you? My dear
boy, only less dear to me than Lucia, I know you will, you _must_, blame
me, and yet it is for your sake and for that of my own honour that I
separate you from us. You have a right that I should say more, hard as
it is. My daughter, whom you have known almost all her innocent life,
would, if you married her, bring, through those most nearly and
inseparably connected with her, a stain and a blot upon your name; no
honourable man can ever make her his wife, and the best prayer that can
be made for her is, that she may remain as unconscious of all earthly
love as she is now of yours. We are going away, not just yet, but very
soon, to try to lose ourselves in the world; very possibly an
explanation of much that I have not courage to tell you may soon become
so public that even in England you may hear of it, and thank me for what
I have written."
The letter broke off abruptly, but there was a postscript reminding him
that no one, not even his father, knew more, or, indeed, as much as he
did, of her secret, and bidding him not betray her; this postscript,
however, remained at first unnoticed: there was enough in the letter
itself to bewilder and stupefy its unfortunate reader. He went over it
again and again, trying, trying to understand it; to make certain that
there was not some strange mistake, some other meaning in it than that
which first appeared. But no; it was distinct enough, though the writing
was strangely unsteady, as if the writer's hand had trembled at the
task. The task of doing what? Only of destroying a hope; and hope is not
life, nor even youth, or strength, or sense, or capacity for work, and
yet when Maurice rose from his solitary breakfast-table, and carried his
letters away to his own room, although he looked and moved, and even
spoke to a passing servant just as usual, he felt as if he had been
suddenly paralysed, and struck down from vigorous life into the shadow
of death. He sat in his room and tried to think, but no thoughts came;
only a perpetual reiteration of the words, "You and Lucia must not meet
again." Over and over, and over again, the same still incomprehensible
sentence kept ringing in his ears. It was much the same thing as if some
power had said to him, "You must put away from you, divorce, and utterly
forget, all your past life; all your nature, as it has grown up, to this
present time; and take a different individuality." The two things might
equally well be said, for they were equally impossible. He laughed as
this idea struck him. His senses were beginning to come back, and they
told him plainly enough that any separation from Lucia, except by her
own free choice and will, was as impossible as if they were already
vowed to each other "till death us do part." There was so much comfort
in this conviction that at last he was able to turn to the latter part
of the letter, and to occupy himself with that mysterious yet terrible
sentence, which said that Lucia, his purest and loveliest of women, whom
all his long intimacy had not been able to bring down from the pedestal
of honour and tender reverence on which his love had placed her, would
bring a blot upon her husband's name.
In the first place, he simply and entirely refused to believe in the
truth of the assertion; it was a fancy, an exaggeration at the least,
and in itself, not a thing to be troubled at; but allowing that the idea
could not have existed in her mother's mind without some foundation,
what could that foundation be? To consider with the most anxious
investigation everything he knew of the Costellos, their life, their
characters, their history, brought him some comfort, but no
enlightenment. He supposed, as all Cacouna did, that Mrs. Costello was
the widow of a Spaniard, and that her husband had died when Lucia was an
infant, but how to make any of these scanty details bear upon the fact
that now, lately, since he himself had left Cacouna, something had
happened, either unforeseen, or only partly foreseen by Mrs. Costello,
which brought disgrace and misery upon her and her child, he did not in
the least understand. Personal disgrace, the shadow of actual ill-doing,
resting upon either mother or daughter, was too utterly improbable a
thought ever even to enter his mind; but what the trouble could be, or
whence it came, he seemed to be less and less capable of imagining, the
more he thought and puzzled over the matter. And the hint that
by-and-by the mystery might be unravelled, not only to him, but to the
whole world, was far from giving him comfort. Rather than have Lucia's
name dragged out for vulgar comment, he would have been content to let
her secret remain for ever undiscovered; and besides, this unwelcome
revelation promised to come too late, when the Cottage was empty and its
dearly loved occupants were gone far away out of his very knowledge.
Fortunately for Maurice, Mr. Beresford was later than usual in leaving
his room that day, so that he had two hours in which to grow at least a
little accustomed to his new perplexities before he had to attend his
grandfather in the library. Even when he did so, however, he found it
impossible to force his thoughts into any other channel, and his brain
worked all day painfully and fruitlessly at schemes for finding out Mrs.
Costello's secret, and demonstrating to her that far from its being a
reason for depriving him of Lucia, it was an additional reason for
giving her to him.