LADY ALICE'S STORY.
The girl shrank back a little, but she did not remove her eyes from her
mother's face. A great dread, however, had entered into them. A hot
color leaped into her cheeks. Scarcely did she yet know what she
dreaded; it was something intangible, too awful to be uttered--the
terror of disgrace.
But Lady Alice saw the look and interpreted it aright.
"No, my darling," she said, "it is not _that_. It is nothing to be
ashamed of--exactly. I do not accuse your father of any crime--unless it
be a crime to have married a woman that he did not love, and to whom he
was not suited, and to have been cruel--yes, cruel--to her and to her
child."
And then she burst into tears.
"Mamma, dear mamma!" said Lesley, clasping her and sobbing out of
sympathy, "it was a crime--worse than a crime--to be cruel to _you_."
Lady Alice sobbed helplessly for a few minutes. Then she commanded
herself by a great and visible effort and dried her eyes.
"It is weak to give way before you, child," she said, sadly. "But I
cannot tell you how much I have dreaded this moment--the moment when I
must tell you of the great error of my life."
"Don't tell me, mamma. I would rather hear nothing that you did not want
me to know."
"But I must tell you, Lesley. It is in my bargain with my husband that I
should tell you. If I say nothing he will tell you _his_ side--and
perhaps that would be worse."
Lesley kissed her mother's delicate hand. "Then--if you _must_ tell
me--I should be glad to hear it all now," she said, in a shaking voice.
"Nothing seems so bad as to know half a story--or only to guess a
part----"
"Ah, you have wondered why I told you nothing of your father?"
"I could not help wondering, mamma."
"Poor child! Well, whatever it costs me I will tell you all my story
now. Listen carefully, darling: I do not want to have to tell it twice."
She pressed her handkerchief to her lips as if to prevent them from
trembling, and then turning her eyes to another part of the room so that
they need not rest upon her daughter's face Lady Alice began her story.
"My tale is a tale of folly, not of crime," she said. "You must
remember, Lesley, that I was a motherless girl, brought up in a lonely
Scotch house in a very haphazard way. My dear father loved me tenderly,
but he was away from home for the greater part of the year; and he
understood little of a girl's nature or a girl's requirements. When I
was sixteen he allowed me to dismiss my governess, and to live as I
liked. I was romantic and dreamy; I spent a great deal of time in the
library, and he thought that there at least I was safe. He would have
been more careful of me, as he said afterwards, if I had wanted to roam
over the moors and fields, to fish or shoot as many modern women do. I
can only say that I think I should have been far safer on the hillside
or the moor than I was in the lonely recesses of that library, pouring
over musty volumes of chivalry and romance.
"My only change was a few weeks in London with friends, during the
season. Here, young as I was, I was thrown into a whirl of gaiety; but
the society that I met was of the best sort, and I welcomed it as a
pleasant relaxation. I saw the pleasant side of everything. You see I
was very young. I went to the most charming parties; I was well
introduced: I think I may say that I was admired. My first season was
almost the happiest--certainly the most joyous--period of my life. But
it was still a time of unreality, Lesley: the glitter and glamour of
that glimpse of London society was as unreal as my dreams of love and
beauty and nobleness in the old library at home. I lacked a mother's
guiding hand, my child, and a mother's tender voice to tell me what was
false and what was true."
Involuntarily Lesley drew closer than ever to her mother.
The ring of pain in Lady Alice's voice saddened and even affrighted her.
It suggested a passionate yearning, an anxiety of love, which almost
overwhelmed her. It is always alarming to a young and simple nature to
be brought suddenly into contact with a very strong emotion, either of
anguish, love, or joy.
"I suffered for my loss," Lady Alice went on, after a short pause. "But
at first without knowing that I suffered. There comes a time in every
woman's life, Lesley, when she is in need of help and counsel, when, in
fact, she is in danger. As soon as a woman loves, she stands on the
brink of a precipice."
"I thought," murmured Lesley, "that love was the most beautiful thing in
the world?"
"Is that what the nuns have taught you?" asked her mother, with a keen
glance at the girl's flushing cheek. "Well, in one sense it is true.
Love is a beautiful thing to look at--an angel to outward show--with the
heart, too often, of a fiend; and it is he who leads us to that
precipice of which I spoke--the precipice of disillusion and despair."
To Lesley these words were as blasphemy, for they contradicted the whole
spirit of the teaching which she had received. But she did not dare to
contradict her mother's opinions. She looked down, and reflected dumbly
that her mother knew more about the subject than she could possibly do.
The good Sisters had talked to her about heavenly love; she had made no
fine distinctions in her mind as to the kind of love they
meant--possibly there were two kinds. And while she was considering this
knotty point, her mother began to speak again.
"I was between eighteen and nineteen," said Lady Alice, "scarcely as old
as you are now, when a new interest came into my life. My father gave
permission to a young literary man to examine our archives, which
contained much of historical value. He never thought of cautioning me to
leave the library to Mr. Brooke's sole occupation. I was accustomed to
spend much of my time there: and the stranger--Mr. Brooke--must have
heard this fact from the servants, for he begged that he might not
disturb me, and that I would frequent the library as usual. After a
little hesitation, I began to do so. My father was in London, and my
only chaperon was an old lady who was too infirm to be of much use.
Before long, I began to help Mr. Brooke in his researches and inquiries.
He was writing a book on the great Scottish families of that part of the
country, and the subject interested me. Need I tell you what followed,
Lesley? Need I explain to you the heedless selfish folly of that time? I
forgot my duty to my father, my duty to myself. I fancied I loved this
man, and I promised to marry him."
There was a light of interest in Lesley's eyes. She did not altogether
understand her mother's tone. It sounded as though Lady Alice condemned
lovers and all their ways, and such condemnation puzzled the girl, in
spite of her convent breeding. During the last few months she had been
allowed a much wider range of literature than was usual in the Sisters'
domain; her mother had requested that she should be supplied with
certain volumes of history, fiction, and poetry, that had considerably
enlarged Lesley's views of life; and yet Lady Alice's words seemed to
contradict all that the girl had previously heard or read of love. The
mother read the unspoken question in Lesley's eyes, and answered it in a
somewhat modified tone.
"My dear, I do not mean that I think it wrong to love. So long as the
world lasts I suppose people will love--and be miserable. It is right
enough, if it is opposed by no other law. But in my case, I was wrong
from beginning to end. I knew that my father would never give his
permission to my marriage with Mr. Brooke; and, in my youthful folly, I
thought that my best plan was to take my own way. I married Mr. Brooke
in private, and then I went away with him to London. And it was not
long, Lesley, before I rued my disobedience and my deceit. It was a
great mistake."
"But mamma, why were you so sure that grandpapa would not give his
consent?"
Lady Alice opened her gentle eyes with a look of profound astonishment.
"Darling, don't you see? Mr. Brooke was--nobody."
"But if you loved him----"
"No, Lesley, your grandfather would never have heard of such a
marriage. He had his own plans for me. My dear, I am not saying a word
against your father in saying this. I am only telling you the fact--that
he was what is often called a self-made, self-educated man, who could
not possibly be styled my equal in the eyes of society. His father
had been a small tradesman in Devonshire. The son being clever
and--and--handsome, made his way a little in the world. He became a
journalist: he wrote for magazines and newspapers and reviews: he was
what is called a literary hack. He had no certain prospects, no certain
income, when he married me. I think," said Lady Alice, with a sort of
cold scorn, which was intensified by the very softness of her tones,
"that he could not have done a more unjustifiable thing than persuade a
girl in my position to marry him."
Lesley felt a slight diminution of sympathy with her mother. Perhaps
Lady Alice was conscious of some change in her face, for she added
hastily.
"Don't misjudge me, Lesley. If there had been between us the strong and
tender love of which women too often dream, poverty might perhaps have
been forgotten. It sounds terribly worldly to draw attention to the fact
that poverty is apt to kill a love which was not very strong at the
beginning. But the fact was that neither Caspar Brooke nor I knew our
own minds. He was three-and-twenty and I was eighteen. We married in
haste, and we certainly repented very much at leisure."
"Was he not--kind?" asked Lesley, timidly.
"Kind?" said her mother, with a sigh. "Oh, yes, perhaps he was kind--at
first. Until he was tired of me, or I was tired of him. I don't know on
which side the disillusion was felt first. Think where I came from--from
the dear old Castle, the moors, the lochs, the free fresh air of
Scotland, to a dreary lodging of two little rooms in a dingy street,
where I had to cut and contrive and economize to make ends meet. I was
an ignorant girl, and I could not do it. I got into debt, and my husband
was angry with me. Why should I tell you the petty, sordid details of my
life? I soon found out that I was miserable and that he was miserable
too."
Lesley listened breathlessly with hidden face. The story was full of
humiliation for her. It seemed like a desecration of all that she had
hitherto held dear.
"My father and my friends would not forgive me," Lady Alice went on. "In
our direst straits of poverty, I am glad to say that I never appealed to
them. We struggled on together--your father and I--until you were four
years old. Then a change came--a change which made it impossible for me
to bear the misery of my life. Your father----"
She came to a sudden stop, and sat with eyes fixed on the opposite wall,
a curious expression of mingled desolation and contempt upon her cold,
clear-cut face. For some reason or other Lesley felt afraid to hear what
her mother had to say.
"Mamma, don't tell me! Don't look like that," she cried. "I can't bear
to hear it! Why need you tell me any more?"
"Because," said her mother, slowly, "because your father exacts this
sacrifice from me: that I should tell you--_you_, my daughter--the
reason why I left him. I promised that I would do so, and I will keep my
promise. The thing that hurts me most, Lesley, is to think that I may be
injuring you--staining your innocence--darkening your youth--by telling
you what I have to tell. At your age, I would rather that you knew
nothing of life but its brighter side--nothing of love but what was fair
and sweet. But it is the punishment of my first false step that I should
bring sorrow upon my child. Lesley, in years to come remember that I
have warned you to be honest and true, unless you would make those
miserable whom you love best. If I had never deceived my father, my
husband would never perhaps have deceived me; and I should not have to
tell my child that the last person in the world whom she must trust is
her father."
There was a little silence, and then she continued in a strained and
unnatural tone.
"There was a woman--another woman--whom he loved. That is all."
Lesley shivered and hid her face. To her mind, young and innocent as it
was, the fact which her mother stated seemed like an indelible stain.
She hardly dared as yet think what it meant. And, after a long pause,
Lady Alice went on quietly--
"I do not want to exaggerate. I do not believe that he meant to leave
me--even to be untrue to me. I could not speak to you of him if I
thought him so black-hearted, so treacherous. I mean simply this--take
the fact as I state it, and inquire no further; I found that my husband
cared for some one else more than he cared for me. My resolution was
taken at once: I packed up my things, left his house, and threw myself
at my father's feet. He was good to me and forgave me, and since
then ... I have never entered my husband's house again."
"He must have been wicked--wicked!" said Lesley, in a strangled voice.
"No, he was not wicked. Let me do him so much justice. He was upright
on the whole, I believe. He never meant to give me cause for complaint.
But I had reason to believe that another woman suited him better than
I did ... and it was only fair to leave him."
"But did he--could he--marry her? I mean----"
"My poor Lesley, you are very ignorant," said Lady Alice, smiling a wan
smile, and touching the girl's cheek lightly with her hand. "How could
he marry another woman when I was alive? Your father and I separated on
account of what is called incompatibility of temper. The question of the
person whom he apparently preferred to me never arose between us."
"Then, is it not possible, mamma, that you may have been mistaken?" said
Lesley, impetuously.
Lady Alice shook her head. "Quite impossible, Lesley. I accuse your
father of nothing. I only mean that another woman--one of his
friends--would have suited him better than I, and that he knew it. I
have no cause for complaint against him. And I would not have told you
_this_, had I not felt it a duty to put in the strongest possible light
my reasons for leaving him, so that a day may never come when you turn
round upon me and blame me--as others have done--for fickleness, for
ill-temper, for impatience with my husband; because now you know--as no
one else knows--the whole truth."
"But I should never blame you, mamma."
"I do not know. I know this--that your father is a man who can persuade
and argue and represent his conduct in any light that suits his purpose.
He is a very eloquent--a very plausible man. He will try to win you over
to his side."
"But I shall never see him."
"Yes, Lesley, you will. You are going to him to-morrow."
"I will not--I will not"--said the girl, springing from her knees, and
involuntarily clenching her right hand. "I will not speak to him--if he
treated my darling mother so shamefully he must be bad, and I will not
acknowledge any relationship to him."
A look of apprehension showed itself in Lady Alice's eyes.
"Darling," she said, "you must not let your generous love for me run
away with your judgment. I am bound, and you must be bound with me.
Listen, when your father found that I had left him he was exceedingly
angry. He came to your grandfather's house, he clamored to see me, he
attempted to justify himself--oh, I cannot tell you the misery that I
went through. At last I consented to see him. He behaved like a madman.
He swore that he would have me back--tyrant that he was!"
"Mamma--perhaps he cared?"
"Cared! He cared for his reputation," said Lady Alice growing rather
white about the lips. "For nothing else! Not for me, Lesley! When his
violence had expended itself we came to terms. He agreed to let me live
where I liked on condition that when you were eight years old you were
sent to school, and saw me only during the holidays----"
"But why?"
"He said that he dreaded my influence on your mind," said Lady Alice.
"That you should be brought up at a good school was the first thing.
Secondly, that when you were nineteen you should spend a year with him,
and then a year with me; and that when you were twenty-one you should
choose for yourself with which of the two you preferred to cast in your
lot."
"Oh, mamma, I cannot go to him now."
"You must go, Lesley. I am bound, and you are bound by my promise. Only
for a year, my darling. Then you can come back to me for ever. I
stipulated that I should see you first, and say to you what I chose."
"But cannot I wait a little while?"
"Twenty-four hours, Lesley; that is all. You go to your father
to-morrow."