A Fair Mystery: The Story of a Coquette. Charlotte M. Brame

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      Lady Estelle, with a swift glance, assured herself that the duchess was at the most remote corner of the room.

      "Ah, yes, that has a flavor of romance," said the bishop.

      "And you say the child is healthy and pretty?"

      "Both, I am told, to an unusual degree. It has the fatal gift of beauty."

      "Why fatal?" asked Lady Estelle, with listless politeness.

      "Not fatal to those born to rank, parents, and every care, but fatal to the poor, the unprotected, the unknown. I cannot imagine a more terrible gift to a friendless girl."

      "I never thought of that," said Lady Estelle, and then her brief interest in the little child seemed to pass into the gentle indifference with which she regarded all the events of life.

      For hours afterward Lady Estelle Hereford thought of the fair foundling that had been left at Brackenside Farm, and an uneasy feeling came over her as she reflected upon the bishop's words:

      "The child possesses the fatal gift of beauty. I cannot imagine a more terrible gift to a friendless girl."

      CHAPTER IV

      THE MARBLE PSYCHE

      Mark Brace was the tenant of the Duke of Downsbury, as his fathers before him had for many generations been the tenants of the duke's ancestors; yet no two lines of life seemed to run farther apart than those of the duke and the farmer. The duke respected and appreciated his tenant, and the tenant sturdily held loyal faith in his duke, as the noblest duke in England.

      Yet, when Downsbury Castle was shut up, and all the family were abroad, seeking, year by year, health for the patrician daughter, that absence of the noble patron made no change in the current of life at the farm. Patty and Mark, when the duke came to their minds, hoped he would find for his only child the health he sought.

      "How we should feel if our Mattie was delicate!" said Patty.

      "What a pity it is," said Mark, "that the duke has no son. He has hoped and hoped, but now he knows he will be the last Duke of Downsbury."

      "But Lady Estelle will get strong, perhaps, and marry, and he will have great comfort in his grandchildren," said Patty.

      Meanwhile, at Brackenside Farm, little Doris grew every day in beauty and brightness. Never was such a winsome wee thing. Patty felt sure the saucy blue eyes would count many victims when Doris bloomed into girlhood's beauty. Patty was tender of her charge, as of some strange tropic bird that had fluttered into her homely nest. Mattie, with her frank simplicity, adored, waited on, yielded to, her "little sister." Honest Mark fell a complete slave to the fascinations of her beauty: he could not give a severe look, nor a reproving word: the twining of those dimpled arms around his neck brought instant submission to any whim of Miss Doris.

      "Mark, Mark, you are like all the men – you think the world and all of a pretty face," said Patty, laughing.

      "She's just a wonder, and I can't cross her," said Mark. "Not but I like Mattie best. You can rely on Mattie, somehow: she's worth twenty of this pretty Doris; but I can say 'no' to her, and I can try to train her up to be a good woman; but this little golden and pearly thing is just like a butterfly or a humming-bird to me, that's a fact. And then, Patty, we have had luck ever since she came; her hands brought us blessings."

      Was it any wonder that it came about that when one child was to yield to the other, Mattie yielded to Doris? Mattie was older and stronger, and, truth to say, yielded more readily. If Patty called on a child to help her, to pick up toys, or a spool, or run to call Mark, was it not natural that Mattie, true, industrious child of the house, was the one called on, rather than the child who paid a hundred pounds a year? Was it strange that, thinking of that lady-mother, who might any day come to claim her own, Patty protected the snowy beauty of her nurse-child with nankeen mitts, and sleeves, and wide-brimmed hat? Did it seem less than honest, when one considered that yearly hundred pounds, and the gentle birth, to give the child finer shoes and daintier garments than little Mattie had?

      Thus it came about that pride, and vanity, and indolence, and imperious self-will, were nursed insensibly in this child, whose soul Patty greatly desired to keep white and pure.

      Mark Brace, too, felt the duties that the yearly payment pressed upon him. When Doris was three years and a half old, he said to his wife:

      "We must make her mannerly, lest her mother should not be satisfied. When she gets big she must learn music and languages; now she must learn to sew and to read. We will let our Mattie learn what she does. She is our only child; we can afford it."

      "And you mean me to teach them?" asked Patty.

      "Oh, no, wife. You are too busy. We will send them every day to Brakebury, to the Misses Hopwell."

      The Misses Hopwell were very genteel ladies; a surgeon's daughters, fallen into narrow circumstances, and keeping a little school, very genteel indeed, where they taught the making of samplers, the tables, reading, writing, the globes, etc., in prim, old-fashioned style.

      To this "ladies' school" went Mattie and Doris every day, in a little wicker cart, drawn by a donkey, beside which ran a bare-foot farm-boy as their charioteer. And so time went on, and Doris had been four years at the farm, and news now spread abroad that Lady Estelle Hereford was better at last, and the duke was coming home.

      Back to England finally, and the castle was filled with guests.

      "I believe," said the duchess to the duke, "that the best thing for our daughter would be a happy marriage. She is over twenty-two. If we could rouse her up to take any interest in any one – all she lacks is animation. She is a Psyche before the coming of Cupid. I heard a gentleman in Italy calling her 'the marble Psyche,' speaking to a friend."

      "I cannot understand it," said the duke. "During her first year in society she seemed animated and interested. I believe I even once spoke sharply to her for dancing twice with Captain Rodney Alnwick."

      "You were quite right," said the duchess. "I spoke to her myself about him. He was entirely ineligible in every particular. But that all passed by. I thought she liked him a little, and I was glad when he exchanged his regiment and went off to India. A ne'er-do-well family, if an old one."

      "We must bring together the best partis," said the duke, "and she may fancy some one. I long to see her settled, and to have grandchildren about me."

      The guests came; and among them, calm, gracious, lovely, went Lady Estelle, untouched by adoration, a goddess moving in a nimbus of her own impregnable repose.

      There was a dinner-party given for the Bishop of Lansdown, and, as usual, the bishop was full of stories, and told them well.

      "I remember," said Lady Estelle, "before we went abroad, you told me some story that interested me – something about a child – "

      "No doubt – about the child left at Mark Brace's door."

      "Perhaps that might be it. I suppose it has been claimed."

      "Not at all. Mark has it yet, and shows himself a most honest man in his care of it."

      "Ah! In what way?"

      "He not only adores the child, but he rears it delicately, and he means to educate her."

      "Yes? And can one be educated at Brakebury?" said СКАЧАТЬ