TREVORSHAM
I suppose I had better tell what we had been doing all this time. Adela
and I had come out, and had a season or two in London, and my father
had enjoyed our pleasure in it, and paid a good deal of court to our
pretty Adela, because there was no driving Torwood into anything warmer
than easy brotherly companionship.
In fact, Torwood had never cared for anyone but little Emily Deerhurst.
Once he had come to her rescue, when she was only nine or ten years
old, and her schoolboy cousins were teasing her, and at every
Twelfth-day party since she and he had come together as by right.
There was something irresistible in her great soft plaintive brown
eyes, though she was scarcely pretty otherwise, and we used to call her
the White Doe of Rylstone. Torwood was six or seven years older, and
no one supposed that he seriously cared for her, till she was sixteen.
Then, when my father spoke point blank to him about Adela, he was
driven into owning what he wished.
My father thought it utter absurdity. The connection was not pleasant
to him; Mrs. Deerhurst was always looked on as a designing widow, who
managed to marry off her daughters cleverly, and he could believe no
good of Emily.
Now Adela always had more power with papa than any of us. She had a
coaxing way, which his stately old-school courtesy never could resist.
She used when we were children to beg for holidays, and get treats for
us; and even now, many a request which we should never have dared to
utter, she could, with her droll arch way, make him think the most
sensible thing in the world.
What odd things people can do who have lived together like brothers and
sisters! I can hardly help laughing when I think of Torwood coming
disconsolately up from the library, and replying, in answer to our
vigorous demands, that his lordship had some besotted notion past all
reason.
Then we pressed him harder--Adela with indignation, and I with
sympathy--till we forced out of him that he had been forbidden ever to
think or speak again of Emily, and all his faith in her laughed to
scorn, as delusions induced by Mrs. Deerhurst.
"I'm sure I hope you'll take Ormerod, Adela," I remember he ended;
"then at least you would be out of the way."
For Sir John Ormerod's courtship was an evident fact to all the family,
as, indeed, Adela was heiress enough to be a good deal troubled with
suitors, though she had hitherto managed to make them all keep their
distance.
Adela laughed at him for his kind wishes, but I could see she meant to
plead for him. She had her chance, for Sir John Ormerod brought
matters to a crisis at the next ball; and though she thought, as she
said, "she had settled him," he followed it up with her guardian, and
Adela was invited to a conference in the library.
It happened that as she ran upstairs, all in a glow, she came on
Torwood at the landing. She couldn't help saying in her odd
half-laughing, half-crying voice--
"It will come right, Torwood; I've made terms, I'm out of your way."
"Not Ormerod!" he exclaimed.
"Oh! no, no!" I can hear her dash of scorn now, for I was just behind
my brother, but she went on out of breath--
"You may go on seeing her, provided you don't say a word--till--till
she's been out two years."
"Adela! you queen of girls, how have you done it?" he began, but she
thrust him aside and flew up into my arms; and when I had her in her
own room it came out, I hardly know how, that she had so shown that she
cared for no one she had ever seen except my father, that they found
they _did_ love each other; and--and--in short they were going to be
married.
Really it seemed much less wonderful then than it does in thinking of
it afterwards. My father was much handsomer than any young man I ever
saw, with a hawk nose, a clear rosy skin, pure pink and white like a
boy's, curly little rings of white hair, blue eyes clear and bright as
the sky, a tall upright soldierly figure, and a magnificent stately
bearing, courteous and grand to all, but sweetly tender to a very few,
and to her above all. It always had been so ever since he had brought
her home an orphan of six years old from her mother's death-bed at
Nice. And he was youthful, could ride or hunt all day without so much
fatigue as either of his sons, and was as fresh and eager in all his
ways as a lad.
And she, our pretty darling! I don't think Torwood and I in the least
felt the incongruity of her becoming our step-mother, only that papa
was making her more entirely his own.
I am glad we did not mar the sunshine. It did not last long. She came
home thoroughly unwell from their journey to Switzerland, and never got
better. By the time the spring had come round again, she was lying in
the vault at Trevorsham, and we were trying to keep poor little Alured
alive and help my poor father to bear it.
He was stricken to the very heart, and never was the same man again.
His age seemed to come upon him all at once; and whereas at sixty-five
he had been like a man ten years younger, he suddenly became like one
ten years older; and though he never was actually ill, he failed from
month to month.
He could not bear the sight or sound of the poor baby. Poor Adela had
scarcely lived to hear it was a boy, and all she had said about it was,
"Ursula, you'll be his mother." And, oh! I have tried. If love would
do it, I think he could not be more even to dear Adela!
What a frail little life it was! What nights and days we had with him;
doctors saying that skill could not do it, but care might; and nurses
knowing how to be more effective than I could be; yet while I durst not
touch him I could not bear not to see him. And I do think I was the
first person he began to know.
Meantime, there was a great difference in Torwood. He had been very
much of a big boy hitherto. No one but myself could have guessed that
he cared for much besides a lazy kind of enjoyment of all the best and
nicest things in this world. He did what he was told, but in an
uninterested sort of way, just as if politics and county business, and
work at the estate, were just as much tasks thrust on him as Virgil and
Homer had been; and put his spirit into sporting, &c.
But when he was allowed to think hopefully of Emily, it seemed to make
a man of him, and he took up all that he had to do, as if it really
concerned him, and was not only a burden laid on him by his father.
And, as my father became less able to exert himself, Torwood came
forward more, and was something substantial to lean upon. Dear fellow!
I am sure he did well earn the consent he gained at last, though not
with much satisfaction, from papa.
Emily had grown into great sweetness and grace, and Mrs. Deerhurst had
gone on very well. Of course, people were unkind enough to say, it was
only because she had such prey in view as Lord Torwood; but, whatever
withheld her, it is certain that Emily only had the most suitable and
reasonable pleasures for a young lady, and was altogether as nice, and
gentle, and sensible, as could be desired. There never was a bit of
acting in her, she was only allowed to grow in what seemed natural to
her. She was just one of the nice simple girls of that day, doing her
quiet bit of solid reading, and her practice, and her neat little
smooth pencil drawing from a print, as a kind of duty to her
accomplishments every day; and filling books with neat up-and-down MS.
copies of all the poetry that pleased her. Dainty in all her ways,
timid, submissive, and as it seemed to me, colourless.
But Fulk taught her Wordsworth, who was his great passion then, and
found her a perfect listener to all his Tory hopes, fears, and usages.
Papa could not help liking her when she came to stay with us, after
they were engaged, at the end of two years. He allowed that, away from
her mother and all her belongings, she would do very well; and she was
so pretty and sweet in her respectful fear of him--I might almost say
awe--that his graceful, chivalrous courtesy woke up again; and he was
beginning absolutely to enjoy her, as she became a little more
confident and understood him better.
How well I remember that last evening! I was happier than I had been
for weeks about little Alured: the convulsions had quite gone off, the
teeth that had caused them were through, and he had been laughing and
playing on my lap quite brightly--cooing to his mother's miniature in
my locket. He was such an intelligent little fellow for eighteen
months! I came down so glad, and it was so pleasant to see Emily, in
her white dress, leaning over my father while he had gone so happily
into his old delight of showing his prints and engravings; and Torwood,
standing by the fire, watching them with the look of a conqueror, and
Jaquetta--like the absurd child she loved to be--teasing them with
ridiculous questions about their housekeeping.
They were to have Spinney Lawn bought for them, just a mile away, and
the business was in hand. Jacquey was enquiring whether there was a
parlour for The Cid, Torwood's hunter, whom she declared was as dear to
him as Emily herself. Indeed, Emily did go out every morning after
breakfast to feed him with bread. I can see her now on Torwood's arm,
with big Rollo and little Malta rolling over one another after them.
Then came an afternoon when we had all walked to Spinney Lawn, laid out
the gardens together, and wandered about the empty rooms, planning for
them. The birds were singing in the March sunshine, and the tomtits
were calling "peter" in the trees, and Jaquetta went racing about after
the dogs, like a thing of seven years old, instead of seventeen. And
Torwood was cutting out a root of primroses, leaves and all, for Emily,
when we saw a fly go along the lane, and wondered, with a sort of idle
wonder. We supposed it must be visitors for the parsonage, and so we
strolled home, looking for violets by the way, and Jaquetta getting
shiny studs of celandine. Ah! I remember those glistening stars were
all closed before we came back.
Well, it must come, so it is silly to linger! There stood the fly at
the hall-door, and the butler met us, saying--
"There's a person with his lordship, my lord. She would not wait till
you came in, though I told her he saw no one on business without you--"
Torwood hastened on before this, expecting to see some importunate
person bothering my father with a petition. What he did see was my
father leaning back in his chair, with a white, confounded, bewildered
look, and a woman, with a child on her lap, opposite. Her back was to
the door, and Torwood's first impression was that she was a
well-dressed impostor threatening him; so he came quickly to my
father's side, and said--
"What is it father? I'm here."
My poor father put out his hand feebly to him, and said--
"It is all true, Torwood. God forgive me; I did not know it!"
"Know what?" he asked anxiously. "What is it that distresses you,
father? Let me speak to this person--"
Then she broke out--not loud, not coarsely, but very
determinately--"No, sir; you would be very glad to suppress me, and my
child, and my evidence, no doubt; but the Earl of Trevorsham has
acknowledged the truth of my claim, and I will not leave this spot till
he has acknowledged my mother as his only lawful wife, and my child,
Trevor Lea, as his only lawful heir!"
Torwood thought her insane and only said quietly, as he offered my
father his arm, "I will talk it over with you presently; Lord
Trevorsham is not equal to discuss it now."
"I see what you mean!" she said quickly. "You would like to make me
out crazy, but Lord Trevorsham knows better. Do not you, my father?"
she said, with a strong emphasis, the more marked, because it was
concentrated, not loud.
My poor father was shuddering all over with involuntary trembling; but
he put Torwood's hand away from him, and looked up piteously, as if his
heart was breaking (as it was); but he spoke steadily. "It is true.
It is true, Torwood. I was married to poor Faith, when I was a young
man, in Canada. They sent me proofs that all had perished when the
Indians attacked the village; but--" and then he put his hands over his
face. It must have been dreadful to see; but Hester Lea was too much
bent on her rights to feel a moment's pity; and she spoke on in a hard
tone, with her eyes fixed on my brother's face.
"But you failed to discover that she was rescued from the Indians; gave
birth to me, your daughter, Hester; and only died two years ago."
"You hear! My boy, my poor boy, forgive me; don't leave me to her,"
was what my poor father had said--he who had been so strong.
My brother saw what it all meant now. "Never fear that, sir," he said;
"I am your son still, any way, you know."
"You will do justice to me," she began, in her fierce tone; but my
brother met it calmly with, "Certainly, we will do our best that
justice should be done. You have brought proof?"
His quietness overawed her, and she pointed to the papers on the table.
They were her mother's attested narrative, and the certificate of her
burial.
My brother read aloud, "The 3rd of February, 1836," then he turned to
my father and said, "You observe, father, the difference this may make,
if true, is that of putting little Alured into the place I have held.
My father's last marriage was on the 15th of April, 1836," he added to
her. He says she quite glared at him with mortification, as if he had
invented poor little Alured on purpose to baffle her; but my father
breathed more freely.
"And is nothing--nothing to be done for my child, your own grandson?"
exclaimed she, "after these years."
Torwood silenced her by one of his looks. "We only wish to do
justice," he said. "If it be as you say, you will have a right to a
great deal, and it will not be disputed; but you must be aware that a
claim made in this manner requires investigation, and you can see that
my father is not in a state for an exciting discussion."
"_Your_ father!" she said, with a bitter tone of scorn; but he took it
firmly, though the blood seemed to come boiling to his temples.
"Yes," he said, "my father! and if you are indeed his daughter, you
should show some pity and filial duty, by not forcing the discussion on
him while he can so little bear it."
That staggered her a little, but she said, "I do not wish to do him any
harm, but I have my child's interests to think of. How do I know what
advantage may be taken against him?"
Torwood saw my father lying back in the chair, trembling, and he
dreaded a fit every moment.
"I give you my word," he said, "that no injustice shall be done you;"
and as she looked keenly at him, as if she distrusted him, he said,
"Yes, you may trust me. I was bred an English gentleman, whatever I
was born, and I promise you never to come between you and your rights,
when your identity as Lord Trevorsham's daughter is fully established.
Meantime, do you not see that your presence is killing him? Tell me
where you may be heard of?"
"I shall stay at the Shinglebay Hotel till I am secure of the justice I
claim," she said. "Come, my boy, since your own grandfather will not
so much as look at you."
Torwood walked her across the hall. He was a little touched by those
last words, and felt that she might have looked for a daughter's
reception, so he said in the hall--
"You must remember this is a very sudden shock to us all. When my
father has grown accustomed to the idea, no doubt he will wish to see
you again; but in his present state of health, he must be our first
consideration. And unprepared as my sisters are, it would be
impossible to ask you to stay in the house."
She was always a little subdued by my brother's manner; I think its
courtesy and polish almost frightened her, high-spirited, resolute
woman as she was.
"I understand," she said, with a stiff, cold tone. Jaquetta heard the
echo of it, and wondered.
"But," he added, "when they understand all, and when my father is equal
to it, you shall be sent for."
When he went back to the library he found my poor father unconscious.
It was really only fainting then, and he came round without anyone
being called, and he shrank from seeing anyone but Torwood, explaining
to him most earnestly how, though he was too ill himself to go to the
place, his brother-officer, General Poyntz, had done so for him, and
had been persuaded that the whole settlement and all the inhabitants
had been swept off. It was such a shock to him that it nearly killed
him. Poor father! it was grievous to hear him wish it had quite done
so!
We only knew that the woman had upset my father very much, and that
Torwood could not leave him. Word was sent us to sit down to dinner
without them, and Torwood sent for some gravy soup and some wine for
him. He went on talking--sometimes about us, but more often about poor
Faith, who seemed to have come back on him in all the beauty and charm
of his first love. He seemed to be talking himself feverish, and after
a time Torwood thought that silence would be better for him; so he got
him to go to bed, and sent good old Blake, the butler, who had been his
servant in the army, to sit in the dressing-room. Blake, it turned out,
had known all about the old story, so he was a safe person. Not that
safety mattered much. "Lady Hester Lea"--she called herself so now,
as, indeed, she had every right--was making it known at Shinglebay.
So Torwood came out. I was very anxious, of course, and had been
hovering about on the nursery stairs, where I had gone to see whether
baby was quietly asleep, and I overtook him as he was going down-stairs.
"How is papa?" I asked.
I shall never forget the white look of the face he raised up to mine as
he said, "Poor father! Ursula, I can only call the news terrible. Will
you try to stand up against it bravely?"
And then he held out his arms and gathered me into them, and I believe
I said, "I can bear anything when you do that!"
I thought it could only be something about Bertram, who had rather a
way of getting into scrapes, and I said his name; but just as Fulk was
setting me at ease on that score, Jaquetta, who was on the watch, too,
opened the door of the green drawing-room, and we were obliged to go
in. Then, hardly answering her and Emily, as they asked after papa, he
stood straight up in the middle of the rug and told us, beginning
with--"Ursula, did you know that our father had been married as a young
man in Canada?"
No. We had never guessed it.
"He was," my brother went on, "This is his daughter."
"Our sister!" Jaquetta asked. "Where has she been all this time?"
But I saw there must be more to trouble him, and then it came. "I
cannot tell. My father had every reason to believe that--she--his
first wife--had been killed in a massacre by the Red Indians; but if
what this person says is true, she only died two years ago. But it was
in all good faith that he married our mother. He had taken all means
to discover--"
Even then we did not perceive what this involved. I felt stunned and
numbed chiefly from seeing the great shock it had been to my father and
to him; but poor little Jaquetta and Emily were altogether puzzled; and
Jaquetta said, "But is this sister of ours such a very disagreeable
person, Torwood? Why didn't you bring her in and show her to us?"
Then he exclaimed, almost angrily at her simplicity, "Good heavens!
girls, don't you see what it all means? If this is true, I am not
Torwood. We are nothing--nobody--nameless."
He turned to the fire, put both elbows on the mantelshelf, and hid his
face in his hands. Emily sprang up, and tried to draw down his arm;
and she did, but he only used it to put her from him, hold her off at
arm's length, and look at her--oh! with such a tender face of firm
sorrow!
"Ah! Emily," he said; "you too! It has been all on false pretences!
That will have to be all over now."
Then Emily's great brown eyes grew bigger with wonder and dismay.
"False pretences!" she cried, "what false pretences? Not that you
cared for me, Torwood."
"Not that I cared for you," he said, with a suppressed tone that made
his voice _so_ deep! "Not that _I_ cared, but that Lord Torwood
did--Torwood is the baby upstairs."
"But it is you--you--you--Fulk!" said Emily, trying to creep and sidle
up to him, white doe fashion. I believe nobody had ever called him by
his Christian name before, and it made it sweeter to him, but still he
did not give in.
"Ah! that's all very well," he said, and his voice was softer then,
"but what would your mother say?"
"The same as I do," said Emily, undauntedly. "How should it change
one's feelings one bit," and she almost cried at being held back.
He did let her nestle up to him then, but with a sad sort of smile. "My
child, my darling," he said, "I ought not to allow this! It will only
be the worse after!"
But just then a servant's step made them start back, and a message came
and brought word that Mr. Blake would be glad if Lord Torwood would
step up.
Yes, my poor father was wandering in his speech, and very feverish,
mixing up Adela and Faith Le Blanc strangely together sometimes, and at
others fancying he was lying ill with his wound, and sending messages
to Faith.
We sent for the doctor, but he could not do anything really. It had
been a death-blow, though the illness lasted a full week. He knew us
generally, and liked to see us, but he always had the sense that
something dreadful had happened to us; and he would stroke my hand or
Jaquetta's, and pity us. He was haunted, too, by the sense that he
ought to do something for us which he could not do. We thought he
meant to make a will, securing us something, but he was never in a
condition in which my brother would have felt justified in getting him
to sign it. Indeed there was so little disease about him, and we
thought he would get better, if only we could keep him free from
distress and excitement; so we made his room as quiet as possible, and
discouraged his talking or thinking.
Lady Hester came every day. My brother had sent for Mr. Eagles, our
solicitor, to meet her the first time, and look at her papers.
He said he could not deny that it looked very bad for us. Of the
original marriage there was no doubt; indeed, my father had told
Torwood where to find the certificate of it, folded up in the secret
drawer of his desk, with his commission in the army; and the register
of Faith's burial was only too plain. The only chance there was for us
was, that her identity could not be established; but Mr. Eagles did not
think it would go off on this. The whole of her life seemed to be
traceable; besides, there was something about Hester that forbade all
suspicion of her being a conscious impostor. Whether she would be able
to prove herself my father's daughter was another more doubtful point.
That, however, made no difference, except as to her own rank and
fortune. If the first wife were proved to have been alive till 1836,
then little Alured was the only true heir to the title and estate, and,
next after him, stood Hester Lea and her son.
People said she was like the family; I never could see it, and always
thought the likeness due to their imagination. She took one by
surprise. She was a tall, well-made woman, with a narrow waist, and a
proud, peculiarly upright bearing, though quick, almost sharp in all
her movements, and especially with her eyes. Those eyes, I confess,
always startled me. They were clear, bright blue, well opened
eyes--honest eyes one would have called them--only they appeared to be
always searching about, and darting at one when one least expected it.
The red and white of the face too always had a clear hard look, like
the eyes; the teeth projected a little, and were so very, very white,
that they always seemed to me to flash like the eyes; and if ever she
smiled, it was as much as to say, "I don't believe you." Her nose had
an amount of hook, too, that always gave me the feeling of having a
wild hawk in the room with me. Jaquetta used to call her a panther of
the wilderness, but to my mind there was none of the purring cattish
tenderness of the panther. However, that might be only because she
viewed us as her natural enemies, and was always on her guard against
us, though I do not well know why; I am sure we only wanted to know the
truth and do justice, and Fulk was so convinced that she would prove
her case, and that there was no help for it, that at the end of hearing
Mr. Eagles question her, he said, "Well, the matter must be tried in
due time, but since we are brothers and sisters, let us be friendly,"
and he held out his hand to her. Mr. Eagles, who told me, said he
could have beaten him for the imprudent admission, only he did look so
generous and sweet and sad; and Lady Hester drew herself up doubtfully
and proudly, as if she could hardly bear to own such a brother, but she
did take his hand, coldly though, and saying, "Let me see my father."
He was obliged to tell her that this was impossible. I doubt whether
she ever believed him--at least she used to gaze at him with her
determined eyes, as if she meant to abash him out of falsehood, and she
sharply questioned every one about Lord Trevorsham's state.
The determination to be friendly made my brother offer to take her to
us. She consented, but not very readily, and I am afraid we were
needlessly cold and dry; but we were taken by surprise when my brother
brought her into the sitting-room. It was not very easy to welcome the
woman who was going to turn us all out, and under such a stigma; and
she--she could hardly be expected to look complacently at the
interlopers who had her place, and the title she had a right to.
She put us through her hard catechism about my dear father's state, and
said at last that she should like to see Lord Torwood.
Taken by surprise, we looked and signed towards him whom that name had
always meant. He smiled a little and said, "Little Alured! But,
remember, I am bound to concede nothing till judicial minds are
convinced. The parties concerned cannot judge. Can you venture to
have Baby down, Ursula?"
No, I did not venture. I thought it might have been averted; but I was
only obliged to take her up to the nurseries. On the way up she asked
which way my father's room lay. I answered, "Oh! across there;" I did
not know if she might not make a dash at it.
I think she must have heard at Shinglebay how delicate poor little
Alured was, and thence gathered hopes of the succession for her boy,
for she asked her sharp questions about his health all the way up, and
knew that he had had fits. I could not put her down as one generally
can inquisitive people. I suppose it was because she was more sensible
of the difference in our real positions than I have as yet felt.
Baby was asleep; and I think she was touched by the actual sight of
him. She said he was very like her boy; and though I supposed that a
mere assertion at the time, it was quite true. Alured and Trevor Lea
have always been remarkably alike. However, she cross-examined Nurse
about his health even more minutely, and then took her leave; but she
came again every day, walking after the first, as long as my dear
father lived.
And she must have talked, for there came a kind of feeling over
everyone, as well as ourselves, that something was hanging over us, of
which the issue would be known when my father's illness took some turn.
Mr. Decies came every day to inquire, but I could not bear a strange
eye, and Hester might have been looking on. I was steeling myself
against him. Was I right?--oh! was I right? I have wondered and
grieved! For I knew well enough what he had been thinking of for
months before; only I did not want it to come to a point. How was I to
leave little Alured to Jaquetta? or disturb my father by breaking up
his home? I liked him on the whole, and had come the length of
thinking that if I ever married at all, it would be-- But that's all
nonsense; and mine could not have been what other people's love was, or
I should not have shrunk from the sight and look of him. If it had
been only poverty that was coming, it would have been a different
thing; but to be nameless impostors!
Mrs. Deerhurst had gone out on a round of visits, when Emily came to
us, taking her younger daughter. They were not a very letter-writing
family. It is odd how some people's pen is a real outlet of
expression; while others seem to lack the nerve that might convey their
thoughts to it, even when they live in more sympathy than Emily could
well have had with her mother.
At least, so I understand, what afterwards we wondered at, that Emily
never mentioned Hester; only saying, when, after some days she did
write, that Lord Trevorsham was ill.
So Fulk had the one comfort of being with her when he was out of the
sick room. I used to see them from the window walking up and down the
terrace in the blue east wind haze of those March days, never that I
could see speaking. I don't think my brother would have felt it
honourable to tie one additional link between himself and her. He had
not a doubt as to how her mother would act, but to be in her dear
little affectionate presence was a better help than we could give him,
even though nothing passed between them.
Jaquetta used to wonder at them, and then try to go on the same as
usual; and would wander about the garden and park with her dogs, and
bring us in little anecdotes, and do all the laughing over them
herself. Poor child! she felt as if she were in a bad dream, and these
were efforts to shake it off, and wake herself.
After all, nothing was ever so bad as those ten days! But, my brother
always said he was thankful for the respite and time for thought which
they gave him.