A LOST LETTER.
Hugo's visit to the Herons was paid rather late in the afternoon, and
he, therefore, had the full benefit of the whole family party, as each
member of it dropped in to tea. Mrs. Heron's old habits still
re-asserted themselves, in spite of the slight check imposed on her by
the remembrance that the house belonged to Elizabeth, that the many new
luxuries and comforts, including freedom from debt, had come from
Elizabeth's purse, and that Elizabeth, although she chose to abdicate
her power, was really the sovereign of Strathleckie. But Elizabeth
arrogated so little to herself, and was so wonderfully content to be
second in the house, that Mrs. Heron was apt to forget the facts of the
case, and to act as if she were mistress as much as she had ever been in
the untidy dwelling in Gower-street.
As regarded the matter of tidiness, Elizabeth had made reforms. There
were now many more servants than there had been in Gower-street, and the
drawing-room could not present quite the same look of chaos as had
formerly prevailed there. But Elizabeth knew the ways of the household
too well to expect that Mr. Heron's paint-brushes, Mrs. Heron's novels,
and the children's toys would not be found in every quarter of the
house; it was as much as she could do to select rooms that were intended
to fill the purposes of studio, boudoir, and nursery; she could not make
her relations confine themselves and their occupations to their
respective apartments.
She had had a great struggle with her uncle before the present state of
affairs came about. He had roused himself sufficiently to protest
against making use of her money and not giving her, as he said, her
proper position; but Elizabeth's determined will overcame all his
objections. "I never wanted this money," she said to him; "I think it a
burden. The only way in which I can enjoy it is by making life a little
easier to other people. And you have the first claim--you and my
cousins; because you took me in and were good to me when I was a little,
friendless orphan of twelve years old. So, now that I have the chance,
you must come and stay with me in my house and keep me from feeling
lonely, and then I shall be able to think that my wealth is doing good
to somebody beside myself. You make me feel as if I were a stranger, and
not one of yourselves, when you object to my doing things for you. Would
you mind taking gifts from Kitty? And am I so much less dear to you than
Kitty? You used to tell me that I was like a daughter to you. Let me be
your daughter still."
Mr. Heron found it difficult to make protests in the face of these
arguments; and Mrs. Heron slid gracefully into the arrangement without
any protest at all. Kitty's objections were easily overcome; and the
children thought it perfectly natural that their cousin should share her
good gifts with them, in the same way that, when she was younger, she
divided with them the toys and sweeties that kind friends bestowed upon
her.
Therefore, when Hugo called at Strathleckie, he was struck with the fact
that it was Mrs. Heron, and not Elizabeth, who acted as his hostess. It
needed all his knowledge of the circumstances and history of the family
to convince himself that the house did not belong to Alfred Heron, the
artist, and that the stately girl in a plain, black dress, who poured
out the tea, was the real mistress of the house. She acted very much as
though she were a dependent, or at most an elder daughter, in the same
position as little Kitty, who assumed no airs of authority over anybody
or anything.
Hugo admired Elizabeth, as he admired beautiful women everywhere; but he
was not interested in her. Mentally he called her fool for not adopting
her right station and spending her money in her own way. She was too
grave for him. He was more at his ease with Kitty.
Rupert Vivian's message--if it could be called a message--was given
lightly and carelessly enough, but Hugo had the satisfaction of seeing
the colour flash all over Miss Heron's little _mignonne_ face as he
listened to Mrs. Heron's languid reply.
"Dear me! and is that old relative in Wales really dying? Mr. Vivian has
always made periodical excursions into Wales ever since I knew him.
Well, I wondered why he did not write to say that he was coming. It was
an understood thing that he should stay with us as soon as we returned
from Italy, and I was surprised to hear nothing from him. Were not you,
Kitty?"
"No, I was not at all surprised," said Kitty, rather sharply.
"I had a commission to execute for my friend," said Hugo, turning a
little towards her. "Mr. Vivian asked me to take charge of a parcel, and
to place it in your own hands; he was afraid that it would be broken if
it went by post. He told me that it was a little birthday remembrance."
He laid the parcel on a table beside the girl. He noticed that her
colour varied, but that she did not speak. Mrs. Heron's voice filled the
pause.
"How kind of you to bring it, Mr. Luttrell! Mr. Vivian always remembers
our birthdays; especially Kitty's. Does he not, Kitty?"
"Not mine especially," said Kitty, frowning. She looked at the box as if
she did not care to open it.
"Do let us see what it is," pursued Mrs. Heron. "Mr. Vivian has such
exquisite taste! Shall we open the box, Kitty?"
"If you like," returned Kitty. "Here is a pair of scissors."
"Oh, we could not think of opening your box for you; open it yourself,
dear. Make haste; we are all quite curious, are we not, Mr. Luttrell?"
Mr. Luttrell smiled a little, and toyed with his tea-spoon; his eyes
were fixed questioningly on Kitty's mutinous face, with its
down-dropped, curling lashes and pouting rose-leaf lips. He felt more
curiosity respecting the contents of that little box than he cared to
show.
She opened it at last, slowly and reluctantly, as it seemed to him, and
took out of a nest of pink cotton-wool a string of filagree silver
beads. They were very delicately worked, and there was some ground for
Vivian's fear that they might get injured in the post, for their beauty
was very great. Mrs. Heron went into ecstasies over the gift. It was
accompanied merely by a card, on which a few words were written: "For
Miss Heron's birthday, with compliments and good wishes from Rupert
Vivian." Kitty read the inscription; her lip curled, but she still kept
silence. Hugo thought that her eye rested with some complacency upon the
silver beads; but she did not express a tithe of the pleasure and
surprise which flowed so readily from Mrs. Heron's fluent tongue.
"Don't you like them, Kitty?" asked an inconvenient younger brother who
had entered the room.
"They are very pretty," said Kitty.
"Not so pretty as the ornament he sent you last year," said Harry. "But
it's very jolly of him to send such nice things every birthday, ain't
it?"
"Yes, he is very kind," Kitty answered, with a shy sort of stiffness,
which seemed to show that she could well dispense with his kindness.
Hugo laughed to himself, and pictured Vivian's discomfiture if he had
seen the reception of his present. He changed the subject.
"Have you been long in Scotland, Miss Murray?"
"For a fortnight only. We came rather suddenly, hearing that the tenant
had left this house. We expected him to stay for some time longer."
"It is fortunate for us that Strathleckie happened to fall vacant," said
Hugo, gravely.
"Do you know, Betty," said one of the boys at that moment, "that Mr.
Stretton says he has been in Scotland before, and knows this part of the
country very well?"
"Yes, he told me so."
"Mr. Stretton is our tutor," said Harry, kindly explaining his remark to
the visitor. "He only came yesterday morning. He had a holiday when we
came here; and so had we."
"I presume that you like holidays," said Hugo, caressing the silky
moustache that was just covering his upper lip, and smiling at the
child, with a notion that he was making himself pleasant to the ladies
of the party by doing so.
"I liked holidays before Mr. Stretton came to us," said Harry. "But I
don't mind lessons half so much now. He teaches in such a jolly sort of
way."
"Mr. Stretton is a favourite," remarked Hugo, looking at the mother.
"Such a clever man!" sighed Mrs. Heron. "So kind to the children! We met
him in Italy."
"I think I saw him at the station yesterday. He has grey hair?"
"Yes, but he's quite young," interposed Harry, indignantly. "He isn't
thirty; I asked him. He had a brain fever, and it turned his hair grey;
he told me so."
"It has a very striking effect," said Mrs. Heron, languidly. "He has a
fine face--my husband says a beautiful face--and framed in that grey
hair----I wish you could see him, Mr. Luttrell, but he is so shy that it
seems impossible to drag him out of his own particular den."
"So very shy, is he?" thought Hugo to himself. "I wonder where I have
seen him. I am sure I have seen him before, and I am sure that he knew
me. Well, I must wait. I suppose I shall meet him again in the course of
time."
He took his leave, remembering that he had already out-stayed the
conventional limits of a call; and he was pleased when Mrs. Heron showed
some warmth of interest in his future movements, and expressed a wish to
see him again very soon. Her words showed either ignorance or languid
neglect of the usages of society, but they did not offend him. He wanted
to come again. He wanted to see more of Kitty.
He had ridden from Strathleckie to Netherglen, and he paced his horse
slowly along the solitary road which he had to traverse on his way
homewards. The beautiful autumn tints and the golden haze that filled
the air had no attractions for him. But it was pleasant to him to be
away from Mrs. Luttrell; and he wanted a little space of time in which
to meditate upon his future course of action. He had seen the woman whom
his aunt wished him to marry. Well, she was handsome enough; she was
rich; she would look well at the head of his table, ruling over his
household, managing his affairs and her own. But he would rather that it
had been Kitty.
At this point he brought his horse to a sudden standstill. Before him,
leaning over a gate with his back to the road, he saw a man whom he
recognised at once. It was Mr. Stretton, the tutor. He had taken off his
hat, and his grey hair looked very remarkable upon his youthful figure.
Hugo walked his horse slowly forward, but the beat of the animal's feet
on the hard road aroused the tutor from his reverie. He glanced round,
saw Hugo approaching, and then, without haste, but without hesitation,
quietly opened the gate, and made his way into the field.
Hugo stopped again, and watched him as he crossed the field. He was very
curious concerning this stranger. He felt as if he ought to recognise
him, and he could not imagine why.
Mr. Stretton was almost out of sight, and Hugo was just turning away,
when his eye fell upon a piece of white paper on the ground beside the
gate. It looked like a letter. Had the tutor dropped it as he loitered
in the road? Hugo was off his horse instantly, and had the paper in his
hand. It was a letter written on thin, foreign paper, in a small, neat,
foreign hand; it was addressed to Mr. John Stretton, and it was written
in Italian.
To Hugo, Italian was as familiar as English, and a momentary glance
showed him that this letter contained information that might be valuable
to him. He could not read it on the road; the owner of the letter might
discover his loss and turn back at any moment to look for it. He put it
carefully into his pocket, mounted his horse again, and made the best of
his way to Netherglen.
He was so late in arriving that he had little time to devote to the
letter before dinner. But when Mrs. Luttrell had kissed him and said
good-night, when he, with filial courtesy, had conducted her to the door
of her bed-room, and taken his final leave of her and of Angela on the
landing, then he made his way to the library, rang for more lights, more
coal, spirits and hot water, and prepared to devote a little time to the
deciphering of the letter which Mr. John Stretton had been careless
enough to lose.
He was not fond of the library. It was next to the room in which they
had laid Richard Luttrell when they brought him home after the
"accident." It looked out on the same stretch of garden; the rose trees
that had tapped mournfully at that other window, when Hugo was compelled
by Brian to pay a last visit to the room where the dead man lay, had
sent out long shoots that reached the panes of the library window, too.
When there was any breeze, those branches would go on tap, tapping
against the glass like the sound of a human hand. Hugo hated the noise
of that ghostly tapping: he hated the room itself, and the long, dark
corridor upon which it opened, but it was the most convenient place in
the house for his purpose, and he therefore made use of it.
"San Stefano!" he murmured to himself, as he looked at the name of the
place from which the letter had been dated. "Why, I have heard my uncle
mention San Stefano as the place where Brian was born. They lived there
for some months. My aunt had an illness there, which nobody ever liked
to talk about. Hum! What connection has Mr. John Stretton with San
Stefano, I wonder? Let me see."
He spread the letter carefully out before him, turned up the lamp, and
began to read. As he read, his face turned somewhat pale; he read
certain passages twice, and then remained for a time in the same
position, with his elbows upon the table and his face supported between
his hands. He found matter for thought in that letter.
It ran as follows:--
"My Dear Mr. Stretton,--I will continue to address you by this name as
you desire me to do, although I am at a loss to understand your motive
in assuming it. You will excuse my making this remark; the confidence
that you have hitherto reposed in me leads me to utter a criticism which
might otherwise be deemed an impertinence. But it seems to me a pity
that you either did not retain your old name and the advantages that
this name placed in your way, or that you did not take up the
appellation which, as I fear I must repeat, is the only one to which you
have any legal right. If your name is not Luttrell, it is Vasari. If you
object to retaining the name of Luttrell, why not adopt Vasari? Why
complicate matters by taking a name (like that of Stretton) which has no
meaning, no importance, no distinction? All unnecessary concealment of
truth is foolish; and this is an unnecessary concealment.
"Secondly, may I ask why you propose to accompany your English friends
to a place so near your old home? If you wish it to be thought that you
are dead, why, in Heaven's name, do you go to a spot which is not ten
miles from the house where you were brought up? True, your appearance is
altered; your hair is grey and your beard has grown. But your voice:
have you thought how easily your voice may betray you? And I have known
cases where the eyes alone have revealed a person's identity. If you
wish to keep your secret, let me entreat you not to go to Strathleckie.
If you wish to undo all that you have succeeded in doing, if you wish to
deprive the lady who has inherited the Strathleckie property of her
inheritance, then, indeed, you will go to Scotland, but in so doing you
show a want of judgment and resolution which I cannot understand.
"You were at the monastery with us after your illness for many months.
We learned to know you well and to regard you with affection. We were
sorry when you grew restless and wandered away from us to seek fresh
work amongst English people--English and Protestant--for the sake of old
associations and habit. But we did not think--or at least I did not
think--that you were so illogical and so weak as your present conduct
drives me to consider you.
"There is only one explanation possible. You risk discovery, you follow
these people to Scotland because one of the ladies of the family has
given you, or you hope that she will give you, some special marks of
favour. In plain words, you are in love. I have partially gathered that
from your letters. Perhaps she also is in love with you. There is a Miss
Heron, who is said to be beautiful; there is also Miss Murray. Is it on
account of either of these ladies that you have returned to Scotland?
"I speak very frankly, because I conceive that I have a certain claim
upon your confidence. I do not merely allude to the kindness shown to
you by the Brothers of San Stefano, which probably saved your life. I
claim your regard because I know that you were born in this village,
baptised by one of ourselves, that you are of Italian parentage, and
that you have never had any right to the name that you have borne for
four-and-twenty years. This was suspicion when I saw you last; it is
certainty now. We have found the woman Vincenza, who is your mother. She
has told us her story, and it is one which even your English courts of
law will find it difficult to disprove. She acknowledges that she
changed the two children; that, when one of her twins died, she thought
that she could benefit the other by putting it in the place of the
English child. Her own baby, Bernardino, was brought up by the Luttrell
family and called Brian Luttrell. That was yourself.
"How about the English boy, the real heir to the property? I told you
about him when you were with us; I offered to let you see him: I wanted
you to know him. You declined; I think you were wrong. You did see him
many a time; you were friendly with him, although you did not know the
connection that existed between you. I believe that you will remember
him when I tell you that he was known in the monastery as Brother Dino.
Dino Vasari was the name by which he had been known; but I think that
you never learnt his surname. He had a romantic affection for you, and
was grieved when you refused to meet the man who had so curious a claim
upon your notice. I sent him away from the monastery in a few days, as
you will perhaps remember; I knew that if he saw much of you, not even
my authority, my influence, would induce him to keep the secret of his
birth--from you. You are rivals, certainly; you might be enemies; and,
just because that cause of rivalry and enmity subsists, Dino Vasari
loves you with his whole soul. If you stood in your old position, even I
could not persuade him to dispossess you; but you have voluntarily given
it up. Your property has gone to your cousin, and Dino has now no
scruple about claiming his rights. Now that Vincenza Vasari's evidence
has been obtained, it is thought well that he should make the story
public, and try to get his position acknowledged. Therefore he is
starting for England, where he will arrive on the eighteenth of the
month. He has his orders, and he will obey them. It is perhaps well that
you should know what they are. He is to proceed at once to Scotland, and
obtain interviews as soon as possible with Mr. Colquhoun and Mrs.
Luttrell. He will submit his claims to them, and ascertain the line that
they will take. After that, he will put the law in motion, and take
steps towards dispossessing Miss Murray.
"I write all this to you at Dino's own request. I grieve to say that he
is occasionally headstrong to a degree which gives us pain and anxiety.
He refused to take any steps in the matter until I had communicated with
you, because he says that if you intend to make yourself known by your
former name, and take back the property which accrued to you upon Mr.
Richard Luttrell's death, he will not stand in your way. I have pointed
out to him, as I now point out to you, that this line of action would be
dishonest, and practically impossible, because, in his interests, we
should then take the matter up and make the facts public, but he insists
upon my mentioning the proposal. I mention it in full confidence that
your generosity and sense of honour will alike prevent you from putting
obstacles in the way of my pupil's recognition by his mother and
succession to his inheritance.
"If you wish that Dino (as for the sake of convenience I will still call
him) should be restored to his rights, and if you desire to show that
you have no ill-feeling towards him on account of this proposed
endeavour to recover what is really his own, he begs you to meet him on
his arrival in London on the 18th of August. He will be in lodgings kept
by a good Catholic friend of ours at No. 14, Tarragon-street,
Russell-square, and you will inquire for him by the name of Mr. Vasari,
as he will not assume the name of Brian Luttrell until he has seen you.
He will, of course, be in secular dress.
"I have now made you master of all necessary facts. If I have done so
under protest, it is no concern of yours. I earnestly recommend you to
give up your residence in Scotland, and to return, at any rate until
this matter is settled, to San Stefano. I need hardly say that Brian
Luttrell will never let you know the necessity of such drudgery as that
in which you have lately been engaged.
"With earnest wishes for your welfare, and above all for your speedy
return to the bosom of the true Catholic Church in which you were
baptised, and of which I hope to see you one day account yourself a
faithful child, I remain, my dear son,
"Your faithful friend and father,
"Cristoforo Donaldi,
"Prior of the Monastery of San Stefano."