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A CANADIAN HEROINE.




A CANADIAN HEROINE.

A Novel.


BY

THE AUTHOR OF "LEAVES FROM THE BACKWOODS."


"Questa chiese Lucia in suo dimando,
E disse: Or ha bisogna il tuo fidele
Di te, ed io a te lo raccomando."--_Inferno. Canto II._

"Qu'elles sont belles, nos campagnes;
En Canada qu'on vit content!
Salut o sublimes montagnes,
Bords du superbe St. Laurent!
Habitant de cette contree
Que nature veut embellir,
Tu peux marcher tete levee,
Ton pays doit t'enorgueillir."--_J. Bedard._


IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET. STRAND
1873.


[_All rights Reserved._]

PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO.,

LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.




A CANADIAN HEROINE.




CHAPTER I.


Mr. Leigh was in a very depressed and anxious mood. His late
conversations with Mrs. Costello had disturbed him and broken up the
current of his thoughts, and even to some extent of his usual
occupations, without producing any result beneficial to either of them.
She had told him a strange and almost incredible story of her life; and
then, just when he was full of sympathy and eagerness to be of use to
her, everything seemed suddenly to have changed, and the events that
followed had been wholly, as it were, out of his reach. He thought over
the matter with a little sensation, which, if he had been less simple
and generous a man, might have been offence. Even as it was, he felt
uncomfortably divided between his real interest in his old friends, and
a temptation to pretend that he was not interested at all. He
remembered, too, with a serio-comical kind of remorse, the manner in
which he had spoken to Mrs. Costello about Maurice. He was obliged to
confess to himself that Maurice had never said a word to him which could
be taken as expressing any other than a brotherly feeling of regard for
Lucia; he had certainly _fancied_ that there was another kind of
affection in his thoughts; but it was no part of the old soldier's code
of honour to sanction the betrayal of a secret discovered by chance, and
he felt guilty in remembering how far the warmth of his friendship had
carried him. He considered, by way of tormenting himself yet further,
that it was perfectly possible for a young man, being daily in the
company of a beautiful and charming girl, to fancy himself in love with
her, and yet, on passing into a different world and seeing other
charming girls, to discover that he had been mistaken. It is true that
if any other person had suggested that Maurice might have done this, Mr.
Leigh would have been utterly offended and indignant; nevertheless,
having proposed the idea to himself, he tried to look upon it as quite
natural and justifiable. After all, this second theory of inconstancy
rested upon the first theory of supposed love, and that upon guesses and
surmises, so that the whole edifice was just as shadowy and
unsubstantial as it could well be. But then it is curious to see how
much real torment people manage to extract from visionary troubles.

While his neighbours were still at Moose Island Mr. Leigh received two
letters from Maurice. The first not only did not contain the usual note
enclosed for Mrs. Costello, but there was not the slightest message to,
or mention of, either her or Lucia. Mr. Leigh examined the letter,
peeped into the envelope, shook the sheets apart (for Maurice's writing
filled much space with few words), but found nothing. The real
explanation of this was simple enough. Maurice had written his note to
Mrs. Costello, and then, just as he was going to put it in the envelope,
was called to his grandfather. In getting up from the table he gave the
note a push, which sent it down into a wastepaper basket. There it lay
unnoticed, and when he came back, just in time to send off his letters,
he fancied, not seeing it, that he had put it into the envelope, which
accordingly he closed and sent to the post without it. But of course
Mr. Leigh knew nothing about this.

The second letter was equally without enclosure or message, though from
a very different cause. It was scarcely a dozen lines in length, and
only said that Mr. Beresford was dying. Maurice had just received Mrs.
Costello's farewell note; he was feeling angry and grieved, and could
think of no better expedient than to keep silence for the moment, even
if he had had time to renew his expostulations. He had not fully
comprehended the secret Mrs. Costello entrusted to him, but in the
preoccupations of the moment, he put off all concerns but those of the
dying man until he should have more leisure to attend to them. Thus, by
a double chance, Mr. Leigh was allowed to persuade himself that Maurice
had either never had any absorbing interest in the Costellos, or that
his interest in them was being gradually supplanted by others. In this
opinion, and in a curiously uncomfortable and contradictory humour, his
friends found him when they came back from the island.

Mrs. Costello, on her part, had been entirely unable to keep Maurice out
of her thoughts. As Christian's death, and all the agitation consequent
upon it, settled back into the past, she had plenty of leisure and
plenty of temptation to revert to her old hopes and schemes. Half
consciously she had allowed herself to build up a charming fabric of
possibilities. _Possibly_ Maurice might write and say, "It is Lucia I
love, Lucia I want to marry. It matters nothing to me what her father is
or was." (Quixotic and not-to-be-counted-upon piece of generosity!)
_Possibly_ she herself might then be justified in answering, "The
accusation brought against her father has been proved false--my child is
stainless--and you have proved your right to her;" and it was
impossible, she believed, that Lucia, hearing all the truth, should not
be touched as they would have her.

These imaginations, built upon such ardent and long-indulged wishes,
acquired a considerable degree of strength during her visit to Mr.
Strafford; and although a little surprised at not receiving, during her
stay there, the usual weekly note from Maurice which she had calculated
would cross her last important letter on the way, she came home eager to
see Mr. Leigh, and to hear from him the last news from England.

But when she had paid her visit to her old neighbour, she came back
puzzled, disappointed, and slightly indignant. There was an air of
constraint about Mr. Leigh, especially when he spoke of Maurice, which
was so entirely new as to appear a great deal more significant than it
really was; and this, added to the fact that two letters had been
received, one written before, and the other after the arrival of hers,
neither of which contained so much as a message for her or Lucia,
suddenly suggested to Mrs. Costello that she was a very foolish woman
who was still wasting her wishes and thoughts on plans, the time for
which had gone by, instead of following steadily, and without
hesitation, what her reason told her was the best and most sensible
course. She so far convinced herself that it was time to give up
thinking of Lucia's marriage to Maurice, as to be really in earnest both
in completing her preparations for leaving Canada, and in rejoicing at
the receipt of a letter from her cousin expressing his perfect approval
of her decision to return to Europe.

This letter even Lucia could not help acknowledge to be thoroughly kind
and kinsmanlike. Mr. Wynter proposed to meet them at Havre, and, if
possible, accompany them to Paris.

"If you are travelling alone," he said, "I may be of service to you; and
since you have decided on going to France, I should like to see you
comfortably settled there. By that means, too, we shall have plenty of
time to talk over whatever arrangements you wish made with regard to
your daughter. However, I have great hopes that when you find yourself
away from the places where you have suffered so much, and near your own
people, you will grow quite strong again."

There were messages from his wife and daughters, in conclusion, which
seemed to promise that they also would be ready to welcome their unknown
relatives.

"Blood is thicker than water." Mrs. Costello began to feel that the one
secure asylum for Lucia, in her probable orphanhood, would be in the old
house by the Dee.

The next time she saw Mr. Leigh, she told him her plans quite frankly.
She did so with some suspicion of his real feelings, only that in spite
of their long acquaintance she did him the injustice to fancy that he
would, for reasons of his own, be glad that Lucia should be out of
Maurice's way if he returned to Canada. She supposed that he had, on
reflection, begun to shrink from the idea of a half-Indian
daughter-in-law, and while she confessed to herself that the feeling
was, according to ordinary custom, reasonable enough, she was at heart
extremely angry that it should be entertained.

"My beautiful Lucia!" she said to herself indignantly; "as if she were
not ten times more lovely, and a thousand times more worth loving, than
any of those well-born, daintily brought up, pretty dolls, that Lady
Dighton is likely to find for him! I did think better of Maurice. But,
of course, it is all right enough. I had no right to expect him to be
more than mortal."

And Lucia went on in the most perfect unconsciousness of all the
troubled thoughts circling round her. She spoke honestly of her regret
at leaving Canada when, perhaps, Maurice might so soon be there, though
she kept to herself the hopes which made her going so much less sad than
it would have been otherwise. She was extremely busy, for Mrs. Costello,
now that she thought no more of returning to the Cottage, had decided to
sell it; all their possessions, therefore, had to be divided into three
parts, the furniture to be sold with the house, their more personal
belongings to go with them, and various books and knickknacks to be left
as keepsakes with their friends. It was generally known now all over
Cacouna that Mrs. Costello was going "home," in order that Lucia might
be near her relations in case of "anything happening,"--a thing nobody
doubted the probability of, who saw the change made during the last few
months in their grave and quiet neighbour. They were a little vague in
their information about these relations, but that was a matter of
secondary importance; and as the mother and daughter were really very
much liked by their neighbours, they were quite overwhelmed with
invitations and visits.

So the days passed on quickly; and for the second time, the one fixed
for their journey was close at hand. One more letter had arrived from
Maurice, containing the news of his grandfather's death. It was short,
like the previous one, and almost equally hurried. He said that he was
struggling through the flood of business brought upon him by his
accession to estates so large, and till lately so zealously cared for by
their possessor. As soon as ever he could get away, he meant to start
for Canada; and as the time of his doing so depended only on his
success in hurrying on certain affairs which were already in hand, his
father might expect him by any mail except the first after his letter
arrived. There was no message to Mrs. Costello in this note, but, on the
other side of the half sheet which held the conclusion of it, was a
postscript hastily scrawled,

"Tell Mrs. Costello to remember the last talk we had together, and to
believe that I am obstinate."

This postscript, however, Mr. Leigh in his excitement and joy at the
prospect of so soon seeing his son, never found out. He read the letter
twice over, and then put it away in his desk, without even remembering
at the moment, to wonder at Maurice's continued silence towards his old
friends. The thought did strike him afterwards, but he was quite certain
that he had read every word of the letter, and was only confirmed in the
ideas he had begun to entertain. He sighed over these ideas, and over
the loss of Lucia, whom he loved with almost fatherly affection; but
still, even she was infinitely less dear to him than Maurice; and if
Maurice really did not care for her, why then, sooner than throw the
smallest shadow of blame upon him, _he_ would not seem to care for her
either.

So Mrs. Costello learned that Maurice was coming, and that he had not
thought it worth while to send even a word to his old friends.

"He is the only one," she thought, "who has changed towards us, and I
trusted him most of all."

And she took refuge from her disappointment in anger. Her disappointment
and her anger, however, were both silent; she would not say an ill word
to Lucia of Maurice; and Lucia, engrossed in her work and her
anticipations, did not perhaps remark that there was any change. She
made one attempt to persuade her mother to delay their journey until
after Maurice's arrival, but, being reminded that their passage was
taken, she consoled herself with,

"Well, it will be easy enough for him to come to see us. I suppose
everybody in England goes to Paris sometimes?"

And so the end came. They had not neglected Maurice's charge, though
Maurice seemed to have forgotten them. Whatever was possible to do to
provide for Mr. Leigh's comfort during his short solitude they had
done. The last farewells were said; Mr. Strafford, who had insisted on
going with them to New York, had arrived at the Cottage. Mrs. Bellairs
and Bella had spent their last day with their friends and gone away in
tears. All their life at Cacouna, with its happiness and its sorrow, was
over, and early next morning they were to cross the river for the last
time, and begin their journey to England.




CHAPTER II.


Maurice had full opportunity for the exercise of patience during the
last weeks of his grandfather's life. It was hard to sit there day after
day watching the half-conscious old man, who lay so still and seemed so
shut out from human feelings or sympathies, and to feel all the while
that any one of those hours of vigil might be the one that stole from
him his heart's desire. Yet there was no alternative. 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 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. It is true that he was only troubled--not discouraged by the
appearance of this phantom. He was as ready to fight for his Una as ever
was Redcross Knight--but then would his Una wait for him? To be forcibly
held back from the combat must have been much worse to a true champion
than any wounds he could receive in fair fight. So at least it seemed to
Maurice, secretly chafing, and then bitterly reproaching himself for his
impatience; yet the next moment growing as impatient as before.

To him in this mood came Mrs. Costello's last letter. Now at last the
mystery was cleared up, and its impalpable shape reduced to a positive
and ugly reality. Like his father, Maurice found no small difficulty in
understanding and believing the story told to him. That Mrs. Costello,
calm, gentle, and just touched with a quiet stateliness, as he had
always known her, could ever have been an impulsive, romantic girl, so
swayed by passion or by flattery as to have left her father's house and
all the protecting restraints of her English life to follow the fortunes
of an Indian, was an idea so startling that he could not at once accept
it for truth. In Lucia the incongruity struck him less. Her beauty, dark
and magnificent, her fearless nature, her slender erect shape, her free
and graceful movements--all the charms which he had by heart, suited an
Indian origin. He could readily imagine her the daughter of a chief and
a hero. But this was not what he was required to believe. He had read
lately the description of a brutal, half-imbecile savage, who had
committed a peculiarly frightful and revolting murder, and he was told
to recognize in this wretch the father of his darling. But it was just
this which saved him. He would believe that Christian was Mrs.
Costello's husband and Lucia's father, because Mrs. Costello told him so
herself and of her own knowledge--but as for a murder, innocent men were
often accused of that; and when a man is once accused by the popular
voice of a horrible crime, everybody knows how freely appropriate
qualities can be bestowed on him. So the conviction which remained at
the bottom of Maurice's mind, though he never drew it up and looked
steadily at it, was just the truth--that Christian, by some train of
circumstances or other, had been made to bear the weight of another
person's guilt. As to the other question of his giving up Lucia, Maurice
never troubled himself to think about it. He was, it must be confessed,
of a singularly obstinate disposition, and in spite of his legal
training not particularly inclined to listen to reason. Knowing
therefore perfectly well, that he had made up his mind to marry Lucia,
provided she did not deliberately prefer somebody else, he felt it
useless to complicate his already confused ideas any further, by taking
into consideration the expediency of such a connection. There was quite
enough to worry him without that; and by some inconceivable stupidity it
never entered his head that, while he was really so completely incapable
of altering his mind, other people should seriously think he was doing
it.

Yet as he read Mrs. Costello's letter over a second time, he began to
perceive something in its tone which seemed to say clearly--"Don't
flatter yourself that the matter rests at all with you. I have decided.
I am no longer your ally, but your opponent." At this a new element came
into play--anger.

He had been rather unreasonable before--now he became utterly so. "A
pretty sort of fellow she must think me, after all," he said to himself.
"I suppose she'd be afraid to trust Lucia to me now. However, if she
thinks I mean to be beaten that way, she'll find that she is mistaken."

He was walking up and down his room, and working himself up into a
greater ill-humour with every turn he made.

"If I could only get to Lucia herself," he went on thinking, "I should
see if I could not end the matter at once, one way or the other--that
fellow is clear out of the way now, and I believe I should have a
chance; but as for Mrs. Costello, she seems to think nothing at all of
throwing me over whenever it suits her."

Poor Maurice! he sat down to write to his father in a miserable
mood--Mr. Beresford had become suddenly and decidedly worse. The doctors
said positively that he was dying, and that a few days at the utmost
would bring the end. Maurice had stolen away while he slept, but his
angry meditation on Mrs. Costello's desertion had taken up so much of
his time, that Mr. Leigh's note was short and hurried. Ill-humour
prevailed also to the point of the note being finished without any
message (he had no time to write separately) to the Cottage.

His packet despatched, he returned to his grandfather's room. Lady
Dighton, now staying in the house, sat and watched by the bedside; and
by-and-by leaving her post, she joined Maurice by the window and began
to talk to him in a low voice. There was no fear of disturbing the
invalid; his sleep continued, deep and lethargic, the near forerunner of
death.

"Maurice," Lady Dighton said, "I wish you would go out for an hour. You
are not really wanted here, and you look worn out."

"Thank you, I am all right. My grandfather might wake and miss me."

"Go for a little while. Half an hour's gallop would do you good."

Maurice laughed impatiently.

"Why should I want doing good to? It is you, I should think, who ought
to go out."

"I was out yesterday. Are you still anxious about your father and
Canada?"

Lady Dighton's straightforward question meant to be answered.

"Yes," Maurice said rather crossly. "I am anxious and worried."

"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. She thought it
possible that it would have been a relief to him to have struck, or
shaken, or even kicked something or somebody; and yet she was not at all
tempted to think the worse of him. She did not understand, of course,
the late aggravations of his trouble; but she knew that he loved loyally
and thought his love in danger, and she gave him plenty of sympathy,
whatever that might be worth. She had obtained a considerable amount of
influence over him, and used it, in general, for his good. At present he
was in rather an unmanageable mood, but still she did not mean to let
him escape her.

"He looks dreadfully worried, poor boy!" she said to herself. "Being
shut up here day after day must be bad for him. I shall _make_ Sir John
take him out to-morrow."

But when to-morrow came, and Sir John paid his daily visit to his wife,
she had other things to think about. He found the servants lingering
about the halls and staircases in silent excitement, and in the sick
room a little group watching, as they stood round the bed, for the old
man's final falling asleep.

He had been conscious early in the morning, and spoken to both his
grandchildren; but gradually, so very gradually that they could not say
"he changed at such an hour," the heavy rigidity of death closed upon
his already paralysed limbs, and his eyes grew dimmer. It was a very
quiet peaceful closing of a long life, which, except that it had been
sometimes hard and proud, had passed in usefulness and honour. And so,
towards sunset, some one said, "He is gone," and laid a hand gently upon
the stiffening eyelids.

Sir John took his wife away to her room, and there she leaned her head
against his shoulder and cried, not very bitterly, but with real
affection for her grandfather. Maurice went away also, very grave, and
thinking tenderly of the many kind words and deeds which had marked the
months of his stay at Hunsdon. And yet within half an hour, Lady Dighton
was talking to her husband quite calmly about some home affairs which
interested him; and Maurice had begun to calculate how soon he could get
away for that long-deferred six weeks' absence.

But, of course, although they could not keep their thoughts prisoners,
these mourners, who were genuine mourners after their different degrees,
were constrained to observe the decorous, quiet, and interregnum of all
ordinary occupation, which custom demands after a death. Lady Dighton
returned home next day, hidden in her carriage, and went to shut herself
up in her own house until the funeral. Maurice remained at Hunsdon,
where he was now master, and spent his days in the library writing
letters, or trying to make plans for his future, and it was then that
the letter with his lost message to Mrs. Costello was sent off.

Yet the space between Mr. Beresford's death and his funeral was to his
heir a tedious and profitless blank. He had till now been kept here by
living powers, gratitude and reverence; death came, and handed his
custody over to cold but tyrannous propriety. Now he rebelled with all
his heart, and spent hours of each solitary day in pacing backwards and
forwards the whole space of the great dim room which seemed a prison to
him.

The day before the funeral broke this stillness, two or three gentlemen,
distant relations or old friends of his grandfather, came to Hunsdon,
and towards evening there arrived the family solicitor, Mr. Payne. At
dinner that day Maurice had to take his new position as host. It was, as
suited the circumstances, a grave quiet party, but still there was
something about the manner of the guests, and even in the fact of their
being _his_ guests, which was unconsciously consoling to Maurice as
being a guarantee of his freedom and independence. Next morning the
house was all sombre bustle and preparation. Lady Dighton and her
husband arrived. She, to have one last look at the dead, he to join
Maurice in the office of mourner; and at twelve o'clock, the long
procession wound slowly away through the park, and the great house stood
emptied of the old life and ready for the commencement of the new one.

The new one began, indeed, after those who had followed Mr. Beresford
to the grave had come back, and assembled in the great unused
drawing-room to hear the will read. Lady Dighton shivered as she sat by
one of the newly-lighted fires, and bending over to Maurice whispered to
him, "For heaven's sake keep the house warmer than poor grandpapa used
to do."

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