Mrs. Harry Coghill

“ There had been a little flutter of expectation in Lucia's mind for the last half-hour, in which she wondered her mother did not express more sympathy; and when, at last, the door opened, she was seized with a sudden tremor, and for an instant felt herself deaf and blind. The moment passed, however, and there came sweeping softly into the room a little figure with golden hair and widely flowing draperies; a fair face with a pleasant smile, and a clear musical voice; these were the things that first impressed her as belonging to Maurice's formidable cousin. ”

“ Costello was both puzzled and annoyed; Maurice, worn out in mind and body, and only resolute to shield Lucia at his own expense; Lucia herself more thoroughly uncomfortable than she had ever been in her life. She partly understood Maurice's conduct, but doubted its motives. Sometimes she thought he was influenced by his old dislike to Percy, and that even his kindness to herself was mixed with disapproval or contempt. Sometimes a suspicion of the truth, so faint and so unreasonable in her own eyes, that she would not acknowledge it for a moment, flashed across her mind ”

“ Lucia knelt down, and put her arms softly round her mother's waist.
"Dear mother," she said slowly, "I wish you would go back to England."
Mrs. Costello started. "To England?" she said, "you know quite well that it is impossible."
"You would be glad to go, mamma."
"Child, you do not know how glad I should be. To die and be buried among my own people!"
"To go and live among them rather, mamma; Maurice put it into my head that you might." ”

“ Maurice left Lucia at the door, and went back to the hotel where he had promised Lady Dighton to lunch with her. She was waiting for him, looking more than usually fair and pretty in the mourning she wore for her grandfather. He could not help thinking, as he came in, how rich and handsome everything about her seemed, in contrast to the bare simplicity of his poorer friends—yet certainly nature had intended Lucia for a much more stately and magnificent person than this little lady. ”

“ Lucia went and sat down on a footstool at her mother's feet to tell her the news. Mrs. Costello laid her hand on her child's head and sighed softly.
"You will have to give up this fashion of yours, darling," she said, "you must learn to be a woman now."
Lucia laughed.
"I don't believe I ever shall," she answered. "At least, not with you or with Maurice."
"Would you like to go to Dighton?"
She considered for a minute.
"Yes, mamma, I think I should. You know how things are in those great houses; but I have never seen anything but Canada, and even there, just the country. ”

“ If he had but loved Lucia well enough to dare to take her with all her inherited shame, how richly he would have been rewarded when the cloud cleared away! Where would he find another like her? And now, since Maurice could change, who might ever be trusted?
No doubt these meditations were romantic. If Mrs. Costello had been the mother of half-a-dozen children—a woman living in the midst of a busy, lively household, where motherly cares and castle-buildings had to be shared among three or four daughters—she would not have had time to occupy herself so intensely with the affairs of any one. ”

“ Mrs. Costello felt that she had done all she could in the cause of prudence, and therefore rejoiced without compunction in seeing her favourite scheme for her darling restored to her more perfect than ever. Maurice, without having more than the minimum quantity of masculine vanity, had great faith in the virtues of perseverance and fidelity, and took the full benefit of Lucia's delight at seeing him; while Lucia herself was just simply glad—so glad that for an hour or two she quite forgot to think of Percy. ”

“ Leaving behind all the friends, all the associations [Pg 43] of so many years, they were going alone—a feeble and perhaps dying woman, and a young girl—into a strange world, where every face would be new, and even their own language would grow unfamiliar to their ears. Even the hope which had brightened this prospect to Lucia's eyes, looked very dim, now that the time for proving it was at hand; and of all others, the person who occupied her tenderest if not her most frequent thoughts was the one who best deserved that she should think of him—Maurice Leigh. ”

“ Had Maurice really sent to him a note for Mrs. Costello which by any carelessness of his had been lost? Had the change he remembered in her manner been connected with the loss? Had Lucia cared for Maurice? Had either mother or daughter thought so ill of Maurice as he, his own father, had done? The poor old man tormented himself, much as a woman might have done, with these speculations, but he dared not breathe a word of them. ”

“ Lucia came home late in the evening. Mrs. Costello, resuming her old habits, had sent the servant to bed, and herself admitted her daughter. They went into the drawing-room together to talk over the day's doings.
"You look very bright," Mrs. Costello said with her hand on Lucia's shoulder. "You have enjoyed yourself?"
"Yes, mamma, so much. You know I was a little afraid of Lady Dighton, and dreadfully afraid of Sir John. But they have both been so good to me; just like people at Cacouna who had known me all my life." ”

“ I had rather not inquire too closely; but I will say that it is rather hard to find that the people who ought to know one best, cannot trust one for six months."
Mrs. Costello listened attentively while Maurice made his explanation with no little warmth and indignation.
"Do you mean to say that you did not perceive how foolish and wrong it had become for you to think of marrying Lucia?"
"How in the world could it be either foolish or wrong for me to wish to marry the girl I have loved all my life? Unless, indeed, she preferred somebody else." ”

“ The last hours, full of excitement and impatience as the voyage drew to a close, were not unpleasant ones. Very early one morning a great commotion and a babel of unusual sounds on deck awoke the travellers, and the stewardess going from room to room brought the welcome news,
"We are at Havre."
Lucia was up in a moment. The stillness of the vessel, after its perpetual motion, gave her an odd sensation, not unlike what she had felt when it first began to move; but she was quickly dressed and on deck. ”

“ Then came the minor considerations of a new housekeeping, and Margery was heartily regretted; though what the good woman would have been able to do where she could neither understand nor make herself understood, would not have been easy to say. Even Mrs. Costello, who, in her youth, had had considerable practice in speaking French, found herself now and then at a loss; and as for Lucia, having only a sort of school-girl knowledge of the language, she instantly found her comprehension swept away in the flood of words poured upon her by every person she ventured to speak to. ”

“ If you cannot love me (and I understand now that you cannot) it is not your fault; and I ought to have remembered that, even when it seemed hardest. I cannot stay here now; but you will recollect that if ever you want me—as a friend or brother, you know—a single line will be enough to bring me to your help. Finally, I beg of you, for the sake of old times, to wear the ring I send. I bought it for you—you ought to have no scruple in accepting a keepsake from your oldest friend,
Maurice Leigh. ”

“ Maurice clenched his hand. The very simplicity of her words stirred his anger more deeply against his successful rival. For her he had still nothing but the most pitiful tenderness.
"Some men, Lucia, love themselves too well to have any great love for another." ”

“ The long low point of land beside which they lay; the town in front, with a flood of cold sunlight resting on its low round tower, and the white sugar-loaf shaped monument, which was once the sailor's landmark—the lofty chapel piously dedicated to Notre Dame de Bons Secours now superseding it—the broad mouth of the Seine and the Norman shore, bending away to the right—all these photographed themselves on Lucia's memory as the first-seen features of that new world where her life was henceforth to be passed. ”

“ Lucia watched these people to-night with a new interest. Every time the strong glare fell upon a shabby slouching figure, or on a poorly dressed man who wanted the air of being a Frenchman, she thought, "Is that Bailey?" When the lamp came in, Mrs. Costello had fallen asleep, so Lucia turned it down low, and [Pg 269] still sat at the window. The light on the tower shone out clear and bright—above it the stars looked pale, but the sky was perfectly serene. Maurice, if he came soon, had every prospect of a fair passage. ”

“ Costello suddenly roused herself from a fit of thought.
"We must go somewhere," she said. "That is certain, whatever else is. As soon as Maurice comes we ought to be prepared to start. Do go, Lucia, and see if there is any packing you can do—without attracting attention, you know."
"But, mamma," Lucia objected, "Maurice cannot be here to-day, nor even, I believe, to-morrow, at the very soonest, and I will soon do what there is to do."
"There is a great deal. And I can't help you, my poor child. And there ought not to be a moment's unnecessary delay." ”

“ What a charming young man! How tall he was! and what magnifiques yeux bruns! Now, surely, Mademoiselle would not be so triste? She would go out a little? and everybody would remark them, Mademoiselle being so graceful, and monsieur so very tall."
Lucia told her mother, laughing, that she and Maurice were going to walk up the Champs Elysées next day, with placards, saying that they were two North Americans newly caught; and when Maurice came next morning, she repeated Claudine's comments to him with a perfect enjoyment of the good little woman's admiration for "ce beau Monsieur Canadien." ”

“ Maurice cried desperately. "Listen to me, Lucia! I, too, have been happy lately. I have been living on a false hope. I have been deceived, and placed all my trust in a shadow. Don't you think we ought to be able to feel for each other?" ”

“ Lady Dighton, however, had said to Mrs. Costello,
"It is quite extraordinary to me how Lucia can have seen Maurice's perfect devotion to her, and not perceived that it was more than brotherly."
Mrs. Costello did not feel bound to explain that Lucia's thoughts, as far as they had ever been occupied at all with love, had been drawn away in quite a different direction, so she contented herself with answering,
"She is very childish in some things, and she has been all her life accustomed to think of him as a brother. ”

“ Maurice said rather crossly. "I am anxious and worried." [Pg 19]
"You can do no good by writing?"
"I seem to do harm. Don't talk to me about it, Louisa. Nothing but my being there could have done any good, and now it is most likely too late."
She saw plainly enough the fight that was going on—impatience, eagerness, selfishness of a kind, on one side—duty and compassion on the other. She had no scruple about seeing just as much of her cousin's humour as his looks and manner could tell her, and she perceived that at the moment it was anything but a good or heroic one. ”

“ His grandfather, who had received and adopted him, was suffering and solitary, dependent wholly on him for what small gratification he could still enjoy. Gratitude, therefore, and duty kept him here. But there, meanwhile, so far out of his reach, what might be going on? He lived a perfectly double [Pg 14] life. Lucia was in trouble—some inexplicable shadow of disgrace was threatening her—something so grave that even her mother, who knew him so well, thought it an unsurmountable barrier between them—something which looked the more awful from its vagueness and mystery. ”