The earl remained in Paris, while Lady Alice went with her daughter from Havre to Southampton, and thence to London. Dayman travelled with them; and a supplementary escort appeared in the person of Captain d.u.c.h.esne, who "happened to be travelling that way." Lady Alice was not displeased to see him, although she had a guilty sense of stealing a march upon her husband in providing Lesley with a standard of youthful good-breeding and good-looks. It might tend to preserve her from forming any silly attachment in her father"s circle, Lady Alice thought. As a matter of fact, she was singularly ignorant of what that circle might comprise.
She had left him before his more prosperous days began to dawn, and she continued therefore to picture him to herself as the struggling journalist in murky lodgings--"the melancholy literary man" who smoked strong tobacco far into the night, and talked of things in which she had no interest at all. If matters were changed with Caspar Brooke since then, Lady Alice did not know it.
She had ascertained that Mr. Brooke"s sister was living in his house, and that she was capable of acting in some sort as Lesley"s chaperon.
Then, a connection of the earl"s was rector of a neighboring church close to Upper Woburn Place--and he had promised to take Miss Brooke under his especial pastoral care;--although, as he mildly insinuated, he was not in the habit of visiting at Number Fifty. And with these recommendations and a.s.surances, Lady Alice was forced to be content.
She parted from her daughter at Waterloo Station. It did not seem possible to her to drive up to her husband"s house in a cab, and drive away again. She committed her, therefore, to the care of Dayman, and put the girl and her maid into a four-wheeler, with Lesley"s luggage on the top. Then she established herself in the ladies" waiting-room, until such time as Dayman should return.
With beating heart and flushing cheek Lesley drove through the rapidly-darkening streets to her father"s house. She was terribly nervous at the prospect of meeting him. And, even after the history that she had learnt from her mother, she felt that she had not the slightest notion as to what manner of man Caspar Brooke might turn out to be.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MANNER OF MAN.
On the day preceding Lesley Brooke"s arrival in London, a tall, broad-shouldered man was walking along Southampton Row. He was a big man--a man whom people turned to look at--a distinctly noticeable man.
He was considerably taller and broader than the average of his fellows: he was wide-chested and muscular, though without any inclination to stoutness; and he had a handsome, sunburned face, with a short brown beard and deep-set, dark-brown eyes. His hair was not cut quite to the conventional shortness, perhaps: there was a lock that would fall in an unruly manner across the broad brow with an obstinacy no hairdresser could subvert. But, in all other respects, he was very much as other men: he dressed well, if rather carelessly, and presented to the world a somewhat imposing personality. He did not wear gloves, and he had no flower at his b.u.t.ton-hole; but the respectability of his silk hat and well-made coat was unimpeachable, and he had all the air of easy command which is so characteristic of the well-bred Englishman. The slight roughness about him was as inseparable from his build and his character as it is to the best-groomed and best-bred staghound or mastiff of the highest race.
Southampton Row, as is well known, leads into Russell Square. In fact the straight line of the Row merges imperceptibly into one side of the Square, whence it continues under the name of Woburn Place, the East side of Tavistock Square, Upper Woburn Place, and Euston Square, losing itself at last in the Northern wilderness of the crowded Euston Road. It was at a house which he pa.s.sed in his straight course from Holburn towards St. Pancras that this very tall and strong-looking gentleman stopped, at about five o"clock on a September afternoon.
He stood on the steps for a moment, and looked up and down the house doubtfully, as if seeking for signs of life from within. A great many people were still out of town, and he was uncertain whether the occupants of this house were at home or not. The place had evidently been in the hands of painters and cleaners since he saw it last: the stone-work was scrupulously white, the wood-work was painted a delicate green. The visitor lifted his well-defined eyebrows at the lightness of the color, as he turned to the door and rang the bell. It was easy to see that he was an observant man, upon whose eyes very few things were lost.
"Mrs. Romaine in?" he asked the trim maid who appeared in answer to his ring. He noticed that she was a new maid.
"Yes, sir. What name shall I say, please, sir?"
"Mr. Brooke."
The girl looked intelligent, as if she had heard the name before. And Mr. Brooke, following her upstairs to the drawing-room, reflected on the quickness with which servants make themselves acquainted with their masters" and mistresses" affairs, and the disadvantages of a civilization in which you were at the mercy of your servants" tongues.
These reflections had no bearing on his own circ.u.mstances: they proceeded entirely from Mr. Brooke"s habit of taking general views, and making large applications of small things.
The day was cloudy, and, although it was only five o"clock, the streets were growing dark. The weather was chilly, moreover, and the wind blew from the East. It was a pleasant change to enter Mrs. Romaine"s drawing-room, which was full of soft light from a glowing little fire, full of the scent of roses and the lovely tints of Indian embroideries, Italian tapestries, dead gold-leaf backgrounds, and china that was beautiful as well as rare. Lady Alice Brooke, in her narrow isolation from the world, would not have believed that so charming a room could be found east of Great Portland Street. In which opinion she was very much mistaken; for her belief that in "society" and society"s haunts alone could one find taste, culture, and beauty, led her to ignore the vast number of intellectual and artistic folk who still sojourn in the dim squares of Bloomsbury and Regent"s Park. Sooth to say Lady Alice knew absolutely nothing of the worlds of intellect and art, save by means of an occasional article in the magazines, or a stroll through the large picture galleries of London during the season. She was a good woman in her way, and--also in her way--a clever one; but she had been brought up in another atmosphere from that which her husband loved, elevated in a totally different school, and she was not of a nature to adapt herself to what she did not thoroughly understand.
Mrs. Romaine knew well enough that she was quite as well able to hold her own in the fashionable world if once she obtained an entrance to it as any Lady Alice or Lady Anybody of her acquaintance. But then the difficulty of entering if was very great. She had not sufficient fortune to vie with women who every year spent hundreds on their dress and on their dinner. She was handsome, but she was middle-aged. She had few friends of sufficient distinction to push her forward. And she was a wise woman. She thought it better to live where she enjoyed a good deal of popularity and consideration; where she could entertain in a modest way, where her husband had been well known, and she could glow with the reflected light that came to her from his shining abilities. These reasons were patent to the world: she really made no secret of them. But there was another reason, not quite so patent to the world, for her living quietly in Russell Square, and this reason she kept strictly to herself.
Mrs. Romaine had been a widow for three years. Her husband had been a very learned man--Professor of numerous Oriental languages at University College for some years, afterwards a Judge in Calcutta; and as he had always lived in the West Central district during his Professorate, Mrs.
Romaine declared that she loved it and could live nowhere else. The house in Russell Square was only partly hers. Her brother rented some of the rooms (shared the house with her, as Mrs. Romaine vaguely phrased it), and lightened the expense. But the two drawing-rooms, opening out of one another, were entirely at Mrs. Romaine"s disposal, and she was generally to be found there between four and five o"clock in an afternoon--a fact of which it is to be presumed that Mr. Brooke was aware.
"So you have come back to town?" she said, rising to meet him, and extending both hands with a pretty air of appropriative friendship.
"Yes; but I hardly expected to find you here so early."
Mrs. Romaine shrugged her shoulders a little.
"I found the country very dull," she said. "And you?"
"Oh, I went to Norway. I was well enough off. I rather enjoyed myself.
Perhaps I required a little bracing up for the task that lies before me." He laughed as he spoke.
Mrs. Romaine paused for a moment in her task of pouring out the tea.
"You are resolved, then, to a.s.sume that responsibility?" she said, in a low voice.
"My dear Rosalind! it"s in the bond," answered Caspar Brooke, very coolly.
He took the cup from her hand, stirred its contents, and proceeded to drink them in a leisurely manner, glancing at his hostess meanwhile, with a quiet smile.
Mrs. Romaine"s dark eyes dropped before that glance. There was an inscrutable look upon her face, but it was a look that would have told another woman that Mrs. Romaine was disappointed by the news which she had just heard. Caspar Brooke, being a man, saw nothing.
"I am sorry," Mrs. Romaine said presently, with an a.s.sumption of great candor. "I am afraid you will have an uncomfortable time."
"Oh, no," he answered, with indifference. "I shall not be uncomfortable, because it will not affect me in the least. When I spoke of bracing myself for the task, I was in jest." Mrs. Romaine did not believe this statement. "I shall go my own way whether the girl is in the house or not."
"Why, then, did you insist on this arrangement?"
"It is only right to give the girl a chance," said Mr. Brooke. "If she has any grit in her the next twelve months will bring it out. Besides, it is simple justice. She ought to see and judge for herself. If she decides--as her mother did--that I am an ogre, she can go back to her aristocratic friends in the North. I shall not try to keep her." There was the suspicion of a grim sneer on his face as he spoke.
"Do you know what she is like?"
"Yes: I saw her one day in Paris. She did not know, of course, that I was watching her. She is like her mother."
The tone was unpromising. But perhaps it would have been as well if Rosalind Romaine had not murmured so pityingly--
"My poor friend! What you have suffered--and oh, what you _will_ suffer!"
Brooke looked at her in silence, and his eyes softened. Mrs. Romaine seemed to him at that moment the incarnation of all that was sweet and womanly. She was slender, pale, graceful: she had velvety dark eyes and picturesque curling hair, cut short like a Florentine boy"s. Her dress was harmonious in color and design; her att.i.tude was charming, her voice most musical. It crossed Mr. Brooke"s mind, as it had crossed his mind before, that he might have been very happy if Providence had sent him a wife like Rosalind Romaine.
"I shall not suffer," he said, after a little silence, "because I will not suffer. My daughter will live for a year in my house, but she will not trouble my peace, I can a.s.sure you. She will go her own way, and I shall go mine."
"I am afraid that she will not be so pa.s.sive as you think," said Mrs.
Romaine, with some hesitation. "She has been brought up in a very different school from any that you would recommend. A girl fresh from a French convent is not an easy person to deal with. Whatever may be the advantages of these convents, there are certain virtues which are not inculcated in them."
"Such as----"
"Truth and honesty, Caspar, my friend. Your daughter"s accomplishments will not include candor, I fear."
Mr. Brooke was silent for a moment, his face expressing more concern than he knew. Mrs. Romaine watched him furtively.
"It may be so," he said at last in a rather heavy tone, "but it can"t be helped. I had no hand in choosing a school for her, Rosalind"--his voice took a pleading tone "you will do your best for her? You will be her friend in spite of defects in her training?"
"I will do anything that I can. But you will forgive me for saying, Caspar, that it is hard for me to forget that she is the daughter of the woman who--practically--wrecked your life."
Brooke"s face grew hard again. He uttered a short laugh, which had not a very agreeable sound.
"Wrecked my life!" he repeated, disdainfully. "Excuse me, Rosalind. No woman ever had the power of wrecking my life. Indeed, I have been far more fortunate and prosperous since Lady Alice chose to leave me than before."