CHAPTER X.
KNIGHT-ERRANTRY.
Lesley found that she had unintentionally given great offence to Sarah, who was a supreme authority in her father"s house, and possibly to her aunt as well, by the arrangement with her father that she would have a maid of her own. In vain she protested that she did not need one, and had not really asked for one; the impression remained upon Miss Brooke"s mind and Sarah"s mind that she had in some way complained of the treatment which she had received, and they were a little prejudiced against her in consequence.
Miss Brooke was a good woman, and, to some extent, a just woman; but it was scarcely possible for her to judge Lesley correctly. All Miss Brooke"s traditions favored the cult of the woman who worked: and Lesley, like her mother before her, had the look of a tall, fair lily--one of those who toil not, neither do they spin. Miss Brooke was quite too liberal-minded to have any great prejudice against a girl because she had been educated in a French convent, though naturally she thought it the worst place of training that could have been secured for her; and she had made up her mind at once, when she saw Lesley, that although there might be "no great harm" in the poor child, she was probably as frivolous, as shallow-hearted, and as ignorant as the ordinary French school-girl was supposed to be.
With Sarah the case was different. Sarah was an ardent Protestant, of a strict Calvinist type, and she had taken up the impression that Miss Lesley must needs be a Romanist. Now this was not the case, for Lesley had always been allowed to go to her own church, see her own clergyman, and hold aloof from the devotional exercises prescribed for the other girls. But Sarah believed firmly that she belonged to the Church of Rome, and she did not feel at all easy in her mind at staying under the same roof with her. She made this remark to Miss Brooke on the third day after Lesley"s arrival, and was offended at the burst of laughter with which Miss Brooke received it.
"Do you think the house will fall in, Sarah? or that you will be corrupted?"
"I think I may hold myself safe, ma"am," said Sarah, with dignity. "But I"m not so sure about the house."
She stood with her arms folded, grimly surveying her mistress, who, if the truth must be told, was lying on a sofa in her bedroom, smoking a cigarette. Sarah knew her mistress" tastes, and had grown generally tolerant of them, but she still looked on the cigarettes with disapproval. Miss Brooke was discreet enough to smoke only in her own room or in her brother"s study--a fact which had mollified Sarah a little when her mistress first began the practice.
"The minute you smoke one o" them nasty things in the street, ma"am, I shall give notice," she had said.
And Miss Brooke had quietly answered: "Very well, Sarah, we"ll wait till then."
It must be added, for the benefit of all who are shocked by Miss Brooke"s practice, that she had begun it by order of a doctor as a cure for neuralgia. She continued it because she liked it. Lesley was only just beginning to suspect her aunt of the habit, and was inexpressibly startled and alarmed at the thought of such a thing. That her aunt, who was indisputably kind, clever, benevolent, respectable in every way, should smoke cigarettes, seemed to Lesley to justify all that she had heard against her father"s Bohemian household. She could not get over it. Sarah _had_ got over this outrage on conventionality, but she was not yet prepared to forgive Lesley for having lived in a French convent.
"Oh, you"re not sure about the house," said Miss Brooke. "Well, I"m sorry for you, Sarah. I"ll send in a plumber if you think that would be any good."
"No, ma"am, don"t; but if it will not ill-convenience you I should like to put a few tracts in Miss Lesley"s room, so that she may look at them sometimes instead of the little book of Popish prayers that she has brought with her."
Miss Brooke wondered for a moment what the book of Popish prayers could be; and then remembered a little Russia-bound book--the well-known "Imitation of Christ" which she had noticed in Lesley"s room, and which Sarah had doubtless mistaken for a book of prayer. It would not have been at all like Miss Brooke to clear up the mistake. She generally let mistakes clear themselves. She only gave one of her short, clear, rather hard laughs, and told Sarah to put as many tracts as she pleased in Lesley"s room. Whereon, Lesley shortly afterwards found a bundle of these publications in her room, and, as she rather disliked their tone and tendency, she requested Sarah to take them away.
"They were put there for you to read," said Sarah, with stolid displeasure.
"By my aunt?"
"Your aunt knew that I was going to put them there. And it would be better for you to sit and read them rather than them rubbishy books you gets out of master"s libery. Your poor, perishing soul ought to be looked after as well as your body."
"Take them away, please," said Lesley, wearily. "I do not want to read them: I am not accustomed to that sort of book." Then, the innate sweetness of her nature gaining the day, she added, "Please do not be angry with me, Sarah. I would read them if I thought that they would do me any good, but I am afraid they will not."
"Just like your mother," Sarah said, sharply. "She wouldn"t touch "em with the tips of her fingers, neither. And a maid, and all that nonsense. And dresses from France. Deary me, this is a sad upsetting for poor master."
"I don"t interfere with your master," said Lesley, somewhat bitterly.
"He does not trouble about me--and I don"t see why I should trouble about him."
She said it almost below her breath, not thinking that Sarah would hear or understand; but Sarah--after flouncing out of the room with an indignant "Well, I"m sure!"--went straight to Miss Brooke and repeated every word, with a few embellishments of her own. Miss Brooke came to the conclusion that Lesley was, first of all, very indiscreet to take servants so much into her confidence, and, secondly, that she was inclined to rebel against her father"s authority. And it seemed good to her to take counsel with Mrs. Romaine in this emergency; and Mrs.
Romaine soon found an opportunity of pouring a sugared, poisoned version of what she had heard into Caspar Brooke"s too credulous ears. So that he became colder than ever in his manner to Lesley, and Lesley wondered vainly how she could have offended him.
The sole comfort that she gleaned at this time came from the Kenyons.
Ethel called on her, and won her heart at once by a peculiarly caressing winsomeness that reminded one of some tropical bird--all dainty coquetries and shy, sweet playfulness. Not that Ethel was in the least bit shy, in reality; but she had a very tiny touch of the stage habit of _posing_, and with strangers she invariably posed as being a little shy.
But in spite of this innocent little affectation, and in spite of a very fashionable style of dress and demeanor, Ethel was true-hearted and affectionate, and Lesley"s own heart warmed to the tenderness of Ethel"s nature before she had been in her company half an hour.
"You know you are not a bit like what I expected you to be," Ethel said sagely, when the two girls had talked together for some little time.
"What did you expect?" said Lesley, her face aglow.
"I hardly know--something more French, I think--a girl with airs and graces," said Ethel, who had herself more airs and graces than Lesley had ever donned in all her life; "nothing so Puritan as you are!"
"Puritan, after so many years of a French convent?"
"Yes, Puritan: no word suits you half so well! There is a sort of restrained life and gladness about you, and it is the restraint that gives it its attraction! Oh, forgive me for speaking so frankly; but when I see you I forget that I have not known you for years and years! I feel somehow as if we had been friends all our life!"
"And so do I," said Lesley, surrendering herself to the spell, and letting Ethel take both her hands and look into her face. "But you are not at all like the English girls I expected to meet! I thought they were all cold and stiff!"
"Have you never seen an English girl before, dear?"
"Yes, but I have had no English girl friend. I never talked to an English girl before as I am talking to you."
"Oh, how charming!" said Ethel. "And I never before talked to a girl who had lived in a convent! We are each a new experience to the other! What a basis for friendship!"
"Do you think so?" said Lesley. "I should have thought the opposite--that what is old and well-tried and established is the best to found a friendship upon."
She spoke half sadly, with a memory of her parents and her own relations with her father in her mind. Ethel gave her a shrewd glance, but made no direct reply. She was a young woman of marvellously quick intuitions, and she saw at once that Lesley"s training had not fitted her to take up her position in the Brooke household very easily.
When she went home she turned this matter over in her mind a good many times; and was so absorbed in her reflections that her brother had to ask her twice what she was thinking about before she answered him.
"I was thinking about Lesley Brooke," she answered promptly.
"A lively subject. I never saw a girl with a more melancholy expression."
"Well, of course, as yet she hates everything," said Ethel, comprehensively.
"Hates everything! That"s a large order," said the young doctor.
They were at dinner--they dined at six every day on account of Ethel"s professional engagements; and it was not often that Maurice was at home.
When he was at home Ethel knew that he liked to talk to her, so she abandoned her brown studies.
"Well, she hates the fog and the darkness, and the ugly buildings and the solid furniture of Mr. Brooke"s house, which dates back to the Georgian era at the very least. I"m sure she hates Sarah. And I shouldn"t like to say that she hates Doctor Sophy"--Ethel always called Miss Brooke Doctor Sophy--"but she doesn"t like her very much. She is awfully shocked because Doctor Sophy smokes cigarettes."
"Quite right of Miss Lesley Brooke to be shocked," said Maurice, laughing. "However, she need not despair, there is always old Caspar to fall back upon."
Ethel pursed up her lips, looked at her brother very hard, and shook her curly head significantly.
"Do you mean to say," cried the doctor, "that she doesn"t appreciate her father?"
"I don"t think she understands him. And how can she appreciate him if she doesn"t understand?"
Maurice laid down his knife and fork, and simply glared at his sister.
He was an excitable young man, and had a way of expressing himself sometimes in reprehensibly strong language. On this occasion, he said--
"Do you mean to tell me that that girl is such a born idiot and fool that she can"t see what a grand man her father is?"