E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Mary Meehan, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from
page images generously made available by Early Canadiana Online
(http://www.canadiana.org)
Note: Images of the original pages are available through
Early Canadiana Online. See
http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/33035
UNDER FALSE PRETENCES
A Novel.
by
ADELINE SERGEANT
Author of _Jacobi's Wife, Beyond Recall, An Open Foe, etc._
Entered according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada in the year one
thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine by William Bryce, in the office
of the Minister of Agriculture.
Toronto;
William Bryce, Publisher.
UNDER FALSE PRETENCES.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. Prologue to the Story
CHAPTER II. BY THE LOCH.
CHAPTER III. HUGO LUTTRELL.
CHAPTER IV. IN THE TWILIGHT.
CHAPTER V. THE DEAD MAN'S TESTIMONY.
CHAPTER VI. MOTHER AND SON.
CHAPTER VII. A FAREWELL.
CHAPTER VIII. IN GOWER-STREET.
CHAPTER IX. ELIZABETH'S WOOING.
CHAPTER X. BROTHER DINO.
CHAPTER XI. ON A MOUNTAIN-SIDE.
CHAPTER XII. THE HEIRESS OF STRATHLECKIE.
CHAPTER XIII. SAN STEFANO.
CHAPTER XIV. THE PRIOR'S OPINION.
CHAPTER XV. THE VILLA VENTURI.
CHAPTER XVI. "WITHOUT A REFERENCE."
CHAPTER XVII. PERCIVAL'S HOLIDAY.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE MISTRESS OF NETHERGLEN.
CHAPTER XIX. A LOST LETTER.
CHAPTER XX. "MISCHIEF, THOU ART AFOOT."
CHAPTER XXI. A FLASK OF ITALIAN WINE.
CHAPTER XXII. BRIAN'S WELCOME.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE WISHING WELL.
CHAPTER XXIV. "GOOD-BYE."
CHAPTER XXV. A COVENANT.
CHAPTER XXVI. ELIZABETH'S CONFESSION.
CHAPTER XXVII. PERCIVAL'S OWN WAY.
CHAPTER XXVIII. A REVELATION.
CHAPTER XXIX. CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX. FRIENDS AND BROTHERS.
CHAPTER XXXI. ACCUSER AND ACCUSED.
CHAPTER XXXII. RETRIBUTION.
CHAPTER XXXIII. WHAT PERCIVAL KNEW.
CHAPTER XXXIV. PERCIVAL'S ATONEMENT.
CHAPTER XXXV. DINO'S HOME-COMING.
CHAPTER XXXVI. BY LAND AND SEA.
CHAPTER XXXVII. WRECKED.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. ON THE ROCAS REEF.
CHAPTER XXXIX. BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH.
CHAPTER XL. KITTY.
CHAPTER XLI. KITTY'S FRIENDS.
CHAPTER XLII. A FALSE ALARM.
CHAPTER XLIII. TRAPPED.
CHAPTER XLIV. HUGO'S VICTORY.
CHAPTER XLV. TOO LATE!
CHAPTER XLVI. A MERE CHANCE.
CHAPTER XLVII. FOUND.
CHAPTER XLVIII. ANGELA.
CHAPTER XLIX. KITTY'S WARNING.
CHAPTER L. MRS. LUTTRELL'S ROOM.
CHAPTER LI. A LAST CONFESSION.
CHAPTER LII. "THE END CROWNS ALL, AND THAT IS YET TO COME."
CHAPTER I.
Prologue to the Story.
In Two Parts.
I.
It was in the year 1854 that an English gentleman named Edward Luttrell
took up his abode in a white-walled, green-shuttered villa on the slopes
of the western Apennines. He was accompanied by his wife (a Scotchwoman
and an heiress), his son (a fine little fellow, five years old), and a
couple of English servants. The party had been travelling in Italy for
some months, and it was the heat of the approaching summer, as well as
the delicate state of health in which Mrs. Luttrell found herself, that
induced Mr. Luttrell to seek out some pleasant house amongst the hills
where his wife and child might enjoy cool breezes and perfect repose.
For he had lately had reason to be seriously concerned about Mrs.
Luttrell's health.
The husband and wife were as unlike each other as they well could be.
Edward Luttrell was a broad-shouldered, genial, hearty man, warmly
affectionate, hasty in word, generous in deed. Mrs. Luttrell was a woman
of peculiarly cold manners; but she was capable, as many members of her
household knew, of violent fits of temper and also of implacable
resentment. She was not an easy woman to get on with, and if her husband
had not been a man of very sweet and pliable nature, he might not have
lived with her on such peaceful terms as was generally the case. She had
inherited a great Scotch estate from her father, and Edward Luttrell was
almost entirely dependent upon her; but it was not a dependence which
seemed to gall him in the very least. Perhaps he would have been
unreasonable if it had done so; for his wife, in spite of all her
faults, was tenderly attached to him, and never loved him better than
when he asserted his authority over her and her possessions.
Mr. and Mrs. Luttrell had not been at their pretty white villa for more
than two months when a second son was born to them. He was baptized
almost immediately by an English clergyman then passing through the
place, and received the name of Brian. He was a delicate-looking baby,
but seemed likely to live and do well. Mrs. Luttrell's recovery was
unusually rapid; the soft Italian air suited her constitution, and she
declared her intention of nursing the child herself.
Edward Luttrell was in high spirits. He had been decidedly nervous
before the event took place, but now that it was safely over he was like
a boy in his joyous sense of security. He romped with his little son, he
talked _patois_ with the inhabitants of the neighbouring village of San
Stefano, he gossiped with the monks of the Benedictine foundation, whose
settlement occupied a delightful site on the hillside, and no
premonition of coming evil disturbed his heart. He thought himself the
most fortunate of men. He adored his wife; he worshipped the baby. His
whole heart was bound up in his handsome little Dick, who, at five years
old, was as nearly the image of his father as a child could be. What had
he left to wish for?
There had been a good deal of fever at San Stefano throughout the
summer. When the little Brian was barely six weeks old, it became only
too evident that Mrs. Luttrell was sickening of some illness--probably
the same fever that had caused so much mortality in the village. The
baby was hastily taken away from her, and a nurse provided. This nurse
was a healthy young woman with very thick, black eyebrows and a bright
colour; handsome, perhaps, but not prepossessing. She was the wife of a
gardener employed at the villa, and had been recommended by one of the
Fathers at the monastery--a certain Padre Cristoforo, who seemed to know
the history of every man, woman and child in San Stefano. She was the
mother of twins, but this was a fact which the Luttrells did not know.
This woman, Vincenza Vasari by name, was at first domiciled in the villa
itself with her charge; but as more dangerous symptoms declared
themselves in Mrs. Luttrell's case, it was thought better that she
should take the baby to her own home, which was a fairly clean and
respectable cottage close to the gates of the villa. Here Mr. Luttrell
could visit the child from time to time; but as his wife's illness
became more serious he saw less and less of the baby, and left it more
than ever to Vincenza's care.
Vincenza's own children were with their grandmother at a hamlet three
miles from San Stefano. The grandmother, generally known as old Assunta,
used to bring one or another of them sometimes to see Vincenza. Perhaps
they took the infection of fever in the course of these visits; at any
rate one of them was soon reported to be seriously ill, and Vincenza was
cautioned against taking the Luttrells' baby into the village. It was
the little Lippo Vasari who was ill; his twin-brother Dino was reported
perfectly well.
Some days afterwards Mr. Luttrell, on calling at the cottage as usual,
noticed that Vincenza's eyes were red, and her manner odd and abrupt.
Old Assunta was there, with the baby upon her knee. Mr. Luttrell asked
what was the matter. Vincenza turned away and burst into tears.
"She has lost her baby, signor," the old woman explained. "The little
one died last night at the village, and Vincenza could not see it. The
doctor will tell you about it all," she said, nodding significantly, and
lowering her voice. "He knows."
Mr. Luttrell questioned the doctor, and received his assurance that
Vincenza's child (one of the twins) had been kept strictly apart from
the little Brian Luttrell; and that there could be no danger of
infection. In which assurance the doctor was perfectly sincere, not
knowing that Vincenza's habit had been to spend a portion of almost
every evening at her mother's house, in order to see her own children,
to whom, however, she did not seem to be passionately attached.
It is to be noted that the Luttrells still learned nothing of the
existence of the other baby; they fancied that all Vincenza's children
were dead. Vincenza had thought that the English lady would be
prejudiced against her if she knew that she was the mother of twins, and
had left them both to old Assunta's care; so, even when Lippo was laid
to rest in the churchyard at San Stefano, the little Dino was carefully
kept in the background and not suffered to appear. Neither Mr. Luttrell
nor Mrs. Luttrell (until long afterwards) knew that Vincenza had another
child.
Two months passed before Mrs. Luttrell was sufficiently restored to
health to be able to see her children. The day came at last when little
Richard was summoned to her room to kiss a pale woman with great, dark
eyes, at whom he gazed solemnly, wonderingly, but with a profound
conviction that his own mamma had gone away and left her place to be
filled up by somebody else. In point of fact, Mrs. Luttrell's expression
was curiously changed; and the boy's instinct discovered the change at
once. There was a restless, wandering look in her large, dark eyes which
had never been visible in them before her illness, except in moments of
strong excitement. She did not look like herself.
"I want the baby," she said, when she had kissed little Richard and
talked to him for a few moments. "Where is my baby?"
Mr. Luttrell came up to her side and answered her.
"The baby is coming, Margaret; Vincenza is bringing him." Then, after a
pause--"Baby has been ill," he said. "You must be prepared to see a
great change in him."
She looked at him as if she did not understand.
"What change shall I see?" she said. "Tell Vincenza to make haste,
Edward. I must see my baby at once; the doctor said I might see him
to-day."
"Don't excite yourself, Margaret; I'll fetch them," said Mr. Luttrell,
easily. "Come along, Dick; let us find Vincenza and little brother
Brian."
He quitted the room, with Dick at his heels. Mrs. Luttrell was left
alone. But she had not long to wait. Vincenza entered, made a low
reverence, uttered two or three sentences of congratulation on the
English signora's recovery, and then placed the baby on Mrs. Luttrell's
lap.
What happened next nobody ever precisely knew. But in another moment
Vincenza fled from the room, with her hands to her ears, and her face as
white as death.
"The signora is mad--mad!" she gasped, as she met Mr. Luttrell in the
corridor. "She does not know her own child! She says that she will kill
it! I dare not go to her; she says that her baby is dead, and that that
one is mine! Mine! mine! Oh, Holy Virgin in Heaven! she says that the
child is mine!"
Wherewith Vincenza went into strong hysterics, and Mr. Luttrell strode
hastily towards his wife's room, from which the cries of a child could
be heard. He found Mrs. Luttrell sitting with the baby on her knee, but
although the poor little thing was screaming with all its might, she
vouchsafed it no attention.
"Tell Vincenza to take her wretched child away," she said. "I want my
own. This is her child; not mine."
Edward Luttrell stood aghast.
"Margaret, what do you mean?" he ejaculated. "Vincenza's child is dead.
This is our little Brian. You are dreaming."
He did not know whether she understood him or not, but a wild light
suddenly flashed into her great, dark eyes. She dashed the child down
upon the bed with the fury of a mad woman.
"You are deceiving me," she cried; "I know that my child is dead. Tell
me the truth; my child is dead!"
"No such, thing, Margaret," cried Mr. Luttrell, almost angrily; "how can
you utter such folly?"
But his remonstrance passed unheeded. Mrs. Luttrell had, sunk insensible
to the floor; and her swoon was followed by a long and serious relapse,
during which it seemed very unlikely that she would ever awake again to
consciousness.
The crisis approached. She passed it safely and recovered. Then came the
tug of war. The little Brian was brought back to the house, with
Vincenza as his nurse; but Mrs. Luttrell refused to see him. Doctors
declared her dislike of the child to be a form of mania; her husband
certainly believed it to be so. But the one fact remained. She would not
acknowledge the child to be her own, and she would not consent to its
being brought up as Edward Luttrell's son. Nothing would convince her
that her own baby still lived, or that this child was not the offspring
of the Vasari household. Mr. Luttrell expostulated. Vincenza protested
and shed floods of tears, the doctor, the monks, the English nurse were
all employed by turn, in the endeavour to soften her heart; but every
effort was useless. Mrs. Luttrell declared that the baby which Vincenza
had brought her was not her child, and that she should live and die in
this conviction.
Was she mad? Or was some wonderful instinct of mother's love at the
bottom of this obstinate adherence to her opinion?
Mr. Luttrell honestly thought that she was mad. And then, mild man as he
was, he rose up and claimed his right as her husband to do as he thought
fit. He sent for his solicitor, a Mr. Colquhoun, through whom he went so
far even as to threaten his wife with severe measures if she did not
yield. He would not live with her, he said--or Mr. Colquhoun reported
that he said--unless she chose to bury her foolish fancy in oblivion.
There was no doubt in his mind that the child was Brian Luttrell, not
Lippo Vasari, whose name was recorded on a rough wooden cross in the
churchyard of San Stefano. And he insisted upon it that his wife should
receive the child as her own.
It was a long fight, but in the end Mrs. Luttrell had to yield. She
dismissed Vincenza, and she returned to Scotland with the two children.
Her husband exacted from her a promise that she would never again speak
of the wild suspicion that had entered her mind; that under no
circumstances would she ever let the poor little boy know of the painful
doubt that had been thrown on his identity. Mrs. Luttrell promised, and
for three-and-twenty years she kept her word. Perhaps she would not have
broken it then but for a certain great trouble which fell upon her, and
which caused a temporary revival of the strange madness which had led
her to hate the child placed in her arms at San Stefano.
It was not to be wondered at that Edward Luttrell made a favourite of
his second son in after life. A sense of the injustice done him by his
mother made the father especially tender to the little Brian; he walked
with him, talked with him, made a companion of him in every possible
way. Mrs. Luttrell regained by degrees the cold composure of manner that
had distinguished her in earlier life: but she could not command herself
so far as to make a show of affection for her younger son. Brian was a
very small boy indeed when he found that out. "Mother doesn't love me,"
he said once to his father, with grieving lips and tear-filled eyes; "I
wonder why." What could his father do but press him passionately to his
broad breast and assure him in words of tenderest affection that he
loved his boy; and that if Brian were good, and true, and brave, his
mother would love him too! "I will be very good then," said Brian,
nestling close up to his father's shoulder--for he was a child with
exceedingly winning ways and a very affectionate disposition--and
putting one arm round Mr. Luttrell's neck. "But you know she loves
Richard always--even when he is naughty. And you love me when I'm
naughty, too." What could Mr. Luttrell say to that?
He died when Brian was fifteen years old; and the last words upon his
tongue were an entreaty that his wife would never tell the boy of the
suspicion that had turned her love to him into bitterness. He died, and
part of the sting of his death to Mrs. Luttrell lay in the fact that he
died thinking her mad on that one point. The doctors had called her
conviction "a case of mania," and he had implicitly believed them.
But suppose she had not been mad all the time!
II.
In San Stefano life went on tranquilly from month to month and year to
year. In 1867, Padre Cristoforo of the Benedictine Monastery, looked
scarcely older than when he picked out a nurse for the Luttrell family
in 1854. He was a tall man, with a stooping gait and a prominent,
sagacious chin; deep-set, meditative, dark eyes, and a somewhat fine and
subtle sort of smile which flickered for a moment at the corner of his
thin-lipped mouth, and disappeared before you were fully conscience of
its presence. He was summoned one day from the monastery (where he now
filled the office of sub-Prior) at the earnest request of an old woman
who lived in a neighbouring village. She had known him many years
before, and thought that it would be easier to tell her story to him
than to a complete stranger. He had received her communication, and
stood by her pallet with evident concern and astonishment depicted upon
his face. He held a paper in his hand, at which he glanced from time to
time as the woman spoke.
"It was not my doing," moaned the old crone. "It was my daughter's. I
have but told you what she said to me five years ago. She said that she
did change the children; it was Lippo, indeed, who died, but the child
whom the English lady took to England with her was Vincenza's little
Dino; and the boy whom we know as Dino is really the English child. I
know not whether it is true! Santa Vergine! what more can I say?"
"Why did you not reveal the facts five years ago?" said the Father, with
some severity of tone.
"I will tell you, Reverend Father. Because Vincenza came to me next day
and said that she had lied--that the child, Dino, was her own, after
all, and that she had only wanted to see how much I would believe. What
was I to do? I do not know which story to believe; that is why I tell
both stories to you before I die."
"She denied it, then, next day?"
"Yes, Father; but her husband believed it, as you will see by that
paper. He wrote it down--he could write and read a little, which I could
never do; and he told me what he had written:--'I, Giovanni Vasari, have
heard my wife, Vincenza, say that she stole an English gentleman's
child, and put her own child in its place. I do not know whether this is
true; but I leave my written word that I was innocent of any such crime,
and humbly pray to Heaven that she may be forgiven if she committed it.'
Is that right, Reverend Father? And then his name, and the day and the
year."
"Quite right," said Padre Cristoforo. "It was written just before
Giovanni died. The matter cannot possibly be proved without further
testimony. Where is Vincenza?"'
"Alas, Father, I do not know. Dead, I think, or she would have come back
to me before now. I have not heard of her since she took a situation as
maid to a lady in Turin four years ago."
"Why have you told me so useless a story at all, then?" said the father,
again with some sternness of voice and manner. "Evidently Vincenza was
fond of romancing; and, probably--probably----" He did not finish his
sentence; but he was thinking--"Probably the mad fancy of that English
lady about her child--which I well remember--suggested the story to
Vincenza as a means of getting money. I wish I had her here."
"I have told you the story, Reverend Father," said the old woman, whose
voice was growing very weak, "because I know that I am dying, and that
the boy will be left alone in the world, which is a sad fate for any
boy, Father, whether he is Vincenza's child or the son of the English
lady. He is a good lad, Reverend Father, strong, and obedient, and
patient; if the good Fathers would but take charge of him, and see that
he is taught a trade, or put to some useful work! He would be no burden
to you, my poor, little Dino!"
For a moment the Benedictine's eyes flashed with a quick fire; then he
looked down and stood perfectly still, with his hands folded and his
head bent. A new idea had darted across his mind. Did the story that he
had just heard offer him no opportunity of advancing the interests of
his Order and of his Church?
He turned as if to ask another question, but he was too late. Old
Assunta was fast falling into the stupor that is but the precursor of
death. He called her attendant, and waited for a time to see whether
consciousness was likely to return. But he waited in vain. Assunta said
nothing more.
The boy of whom she had spoken came and wept at her bed-side, and Padre
Cristoforo observed him curiously. He was well worthy of the monk's
gaze. He was light and supple in figure, perfectly formed, with a clear
brown skin and a face such as one sees in early Italian paintings of
angelic singing-boys--a face with broad, serious brows, soft, oval
cheeks, curved lips, and delightfully dimpled chin. He had large, brown
eyes and a mass of tangled, curling hair. The priest noted that his
slender limbs were graceful as those of a young fawn, that his hands and
feet were small and well shaped, and that his appearance betokened
perfect health--a slight spareness and sharpness of outline being the
only trace which poverty seemed to have left upon him.
The sub-Prior of San Stefano saw these things; and meditated upon
certain possibilities in the future. He went next day to old Assunta's
funeral, and laid his hand on Dino's shoulder as the boy was turning
disconsolately from his grandmother's grave.
"My child," he said, gently, "you are alone."
"Yes, Father," said Dino, with a stifled sob.
"Will you come with me to the monastery? I think we can find you a home.
You have nowhere to go, poor child, and you will be weary and hungry
before long. Will you come?"
"There is nothing in the world that I should like so well!" cried the
boy, ardently.
"Come then," said the Padre, with one of his subtle smiles. "We will go
together."
He held out his hand, in which Dino gladly laid his hot and trembling
fingers. Then the monk and the boy set out on the three miles walk which
lay between them and the monastery.
On their arrival, Padre Cristoforo left the boy in the cool cloisters
whilst he sought the Prior--a dignitary whose permission would be needed
before Dino would be allowed to stay. There was a school in connection
with the monastery, but it was devoted chiefly to the training of young
priests, and it was not probable that a peasant like Dino Vasari would
be admitted to the ranks of these budding ecclesiastics. The Prior
thought that old Assunta's grandchild would make a good helper for
Giacomo, the dresser of the vines.
"Does that not satisfy you?" said Padre Cristoforo, in a rather peculiar
tone, when he had carried this proposal to Dino, and seen the boy's face
suddenly fall, and his eyes fill with tears.
"The Reverend Fathers are very good," said Dino, in a somewhat
embarrassed fashion, "and I will do all that I can to serve them, and,
if I could also learn to read and write--and listen to the music in the
chapel sometimes--I would work for them all the days of my life."
Padre Cristoforo smiled.
"You shall have your wish, my child," he said, kindly. "You shall go to
the school--not to the vine-dressers. You shall be our son now."
But Dino looked up at him timidly.
"And not the English lady's?" he said.
"What do you know about an English lady, my son?"
"My grandmother talked to me of her. Is it true? She said that I might,
turn out to be an Englishman, after all. She said that Vincenza told her
that I did not belong to her."
"My child," said the monk, calmly but firmly, "put these thoughts away
from your mind. They are idle and vain imaginations. Assunta knew
nothing; Vincenza did not always speak the truth. In any case, it is
impossible to prove the truth of her story. It is a sin to let your mind
dwell on the impossible. Your name is Bernardino Vasari, and you are to
be brought up in the monastery of San Stefano by wise and pious men. Is
that not happiness enough for you?"
"Oh, yes, yes, indeed; I wish for nothing else," said Dino, throwing
himself at Padre Cristoforo's feet, and pressing his lips to the monk's
black gown, while the tears poured down his smooth, olive cheeks.
"Indeed I am not ungrateful, Reverend Father, and I will never wish to
be anything but what you want me to be."
"Better so," soliloquised the Father, when he had comforted Dino with
kind words, and led him away to join the companions that would
henceforth be his; "better that he should not wish to rise above the
station in which he has been brought up! We shall never prove Vincenza's
story. If we could do that, we should be abundantly recompensed for
training this lad in the doctrines of the Church--but it will never be.
Unless, indeed, the woman Vincenza could be found and urged to
confession. But that," said the monk, with a regretful sigh, "that is
not likely to occur. And, therefore, the boy will be Dino Vasari, as far
as I can see, to his life's end. And Vincenza's child is living in the
midst of a rich English family under the name of Brian Luttrell. I must
not forget the name. In days to come who knows whether the positions of
these two boys may not be reversed?"
Thus mused Father Cristoforo, and then he smiled and shook his head.
"Vincenza was always a liar," he said to himself. "It is the most
unlikely thing in the world that her story should be true."
END OF THE PROLOGUE.