In a cottage on the banks of one of the Cumberland Lakes, two ladies
were seated at the breakfast-table. The windows of the room opened on
a garden which extended to the water’s edge, and on a boat-house and
wooden pier beyond. On the pier a little girl was fishing, under the
care of her maid. After a prevalence of rainy weather, the sun was
warm this morning for the time of year; and the broad sheet of water
alternately darkened and brightened as the moving masses of cloud now
gathered and now parted over the blue beauty of the sky.
The ladies had finished their breakfast; the elder of the two--that is
to say, Mrs. Presty--took up her knitting and eyed her silent daughter
with an expression of impatient surprise.
“Another bad night, Catherine?”
The personal attractions that distinguished Mrs. Linley were not derived
from the short-lived beauty which depends on youth and health. Pale as
she was, her face preserved its fine outline; her features had not lost
their grace and symmetry of form. Presenting the appearance of a woman
who had suffered acutely, she would have been more than ever (in the
eyes of some men) a woman to be admired and loved.
“I seldom sleep well now,” she answered, patiently.
“You don’t give yourself a chance,” Mrs. Presty remonstrated. “Here’s
a fine morning--come out for a sail on the lake. To-morrow there’s a
concert in the town--let’s take tickets. There’s a want of what I call
elastic power in your mind, Catherine--the very quality for which your
father was so remarkable; the very quality which Mr. Presty used to say
made him envy Mr. Norman. Look at your dress! Where’s the common-sense,
at your age, of wearing nothing but black? Nobody’s dead who belongs to
us, and yet you do your best to look as if you were in mourning.”
“I have no heart, mamma, to wear colors.”
Mrs. Presty considered this reply to be unworthy of notice. She went on
with her knitting, and only laid it down when the servant brought in the
letters which had arrived by the morning’s post. They were but two
in number--and both were for Mrs. Linley. In the absence of any
correspondence of her own, Mrs. Presty took possession of her daughter’s
letters.
“One addressed in the lawyer’s handwriting,” she announced; “and one
from Randal. Which shall I open for you first?”
“Randal’s letter, if you please.”
Mrs. Presty handed it across the table. “Any news is a relief from the
dullness of this place,” she said. “If there are no secrets, Catherine,
read it out.”
There were no secrets on the first page.
Randal announced his arrival in London from the Continent, and his
intention of staying there for a while. He had met with a friend
(formerly an officer holding high rank in the Navy) whom he was glad to
see again--a rich man who used his wealth admirably in the interest of
his poor and helpless fellow-creatures. A “Home,” established on a new
plan, was just now engaging all his attention: he was devoting himself
so unremittingly to the founding of this institution that his doctor
predicted injury to his health at no distant date. If it was possible to
persuade him to take a holiday, Randal might return to the Continent as
the traveling-companion of his friend.
“This must be the man whom he first met at the club,” Mrs. Presty
remarked. “Well, Catherine, I suppose there is some more of it. What’s
the matter? Bad news?”
“Something that I wish Randal had not written. Read it yourself--and
don’t talk of it afterward.”
Mrs. Presty read:
“I know nothing whatever of my unfortunate brother. If you think this is
a too-indulgent way of alluding to a man who has so shamefully wronged
you, let my conviction that he is already beginning to suffer the
penalty of his crime plead my excuse. Herbert’s nature is, in some
respects, better known to me than it is to you. I am persuaded that your
hold on his respect and his devotion is shaken--not lost. He has been
misled by one of those passing fancies, disastrous and even criminal in
their results, to which men are liable when they are led by no better
influence than the influence of their senses. It is not, and never will
be, in the nature of women to understand this. I fear I may offend you
in what I am now writing; but I must speak what I believe to be the
truth, at any sacrifice. Bitter repentance (if he is not already feeling
it) is in store for Herbert, when he finds himself tied to a person who
cannot bear comparison with you. I say this, pitying the poor girl most
sincerely, when I think of her youth and her wretched past life. How it
will end I cannot presume to say. I can only acknowledge that I do not
look to the future with the absolute despair which you naturally felt
when I last saw you.”
Mrs. Presty laid the letter down, privately resolving to write to
Randal, and tell him to keep his convictions for the future to himself.
A glance at her daughter’s face warned her, if she said anything, to
choose a new subject.
The second letter still remained unnoticed. “Shall we see what the
lawyer says?” she suggested--and opened the envelope. The lawyer had
nothing to say. He simply inclosed a letter received at his office.
Mrs. Presty had long passed the age at which emotion expresses itself
outwardly by a change of color. She turned pale, nevertheless, when she
looked at the second letter.
The address was in Herbert Linley’s handwriting.