LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 LADY HESTE R 
 
 OR 
 
 URSULA'S NARRATIVE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE DAN VERS PAPERS
 
 wm^^smsm: 
 
 "Holding liir infant to hei bosom with one hand, and stretching forth the other 
 o defend it, she cried .doud : ' How, sir, do you come hither in your cups to insult 
 the child that you never heeded?' "—Tagc 256. Frontispiece.
 
 YoNGcE C//#/?iorr£ Mary 
 
 LADY HESTER 
 
 OR 
 
 URSULA'S NARRATIVE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY JAKE E. COOKE 
 
 Hontfou 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1889 
 
 All rights reserved

 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TACK 
 
 SAULT ST. PIERRE 1 
 
 CHAPTFR II. 
 TREVORSHAM I 7 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE PEERAGE CASE 53 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 SEIMPING'S FARM 89 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 SPINNEY LAWN 115 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE WHITE DOE^S WARNING 137 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 HUNTING 163 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 DUCK SHOOTING 175 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 TREVOR'S LEGACY 1 95
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 " Come, my boy, since your own grandfather will not so 
 
 much as look at you " . . . • • fage 35 
 
 "lie asked so much after our boy, that this morning 
 
 Mab took him to the cabin '\ . . . ,, 3 2 9 
 
 " Holding her infant to her bosom with one hand, and 
 stretching forth the other as to defend it, she cried 
 aloud : ' How, sir, do you come hither in your 
 cups to insult the child that you never heeded ?' . ,, 256
 
 LADY HESTER 
 
 OR 
 
 URSULA'S NARRATIVE 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SAULT ST. PIERRE. 
 
 I WRITE this by desire of my brothers and 
 sisters, that if any reports of our strange family 
 history should come down to after generations 
 the thing may be properly understood. 
 
 The old times at Trevorsham seem to me 
 so remote, that I can hardly believe that we 
 are the same who were so happy then. Nay,
 
 2 LADY HESTER 
 
 Jaquctta laughs, and declares that it is not 
 possible to be happier than we have been 
 since, and Fulk would have me remember that 
 all was not always smooth even in those 
 days. 
 
 Perhaps not — for him, at least, dear fellow, 
 in those latter times ; but when I think of 
 the old home, the worst troubles that rise 
 before me are those of the back-board and 
 the stocks, French in the school-room, and 
 Miss Simmonds' " Lady Ursula, think of your 
 position I" 
 
 And as to Jaquetta, she was born under 
 a more benignant star. Nobody could have 
 put a back-board on her any more than on a 
 kitten. 
 
 Our mother had died (oh ! how happily for 
 herself!) when Jaquetta was a baby, and Miss 
 Simmonds most carefully ruled not only over 
 us, but over Adela Brainerd, my father's ward,
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 3 
 
 who was brought up with us because she had 
 no other relation in the world. 
 
 Besides, my father wished her to marry one 
 of my brothers. It would have done very well 
 for either Torwood or Bertram, but unluckily, 
 as it seemed, neither of them could take to 
 the notion. She was a dear little thing, to be 
 sure, and we were all very fond of her; but, as 
 Bertram said, it would have been like marrying 
 Jaquetta, and Torwood had other views, to 
 which my father would not then listen. 
 
 Then Bertram's regiment was ordered to 
 Canada, and that was the real cause of it all, 
 though we did not know it till long after. 
 
 Bertram was starting out on a sporting expe- 
 dition with a Canadian gentleman, when about 
 ten miles from Montreal they halted at a farm 
 with a good well-built house, named Sault St. 
 Pierre, all looking prosperous and comfortable, 
 and a young farmer, American in his ways —
 
 4 LADY HESTER 
 
 free-spoken, familiar, and blunt— but very kindly 
 and friendly, was at work there with some 
 French-Canadian labourers. 
 
 Bertram's friend knew him and often halted 
 there on hunting expeditions, so they went into 
 the house — very nicely furnished, a pretty parlour 
 with muslin curtains, a piano, and everything 
 pleasant ; and Joel Lea called his wife, a hand- 
 some, fair young woman. Bertram says from 
 the first she put him in mind of some one, 
 and he was trying to make out who it could 
 be. Then came the wife's mother, a neat 
 little delicate, bent woman, with dark eyes, that 
 looked, Bertram said, as if they had had some 
 great fright and never recovered it They 
 called her Mrs. Dayman. 
 
 She was silent at first, and only helped her 
 daughter and the maid to get the dinner, and 
 an excellent dinner it was ; but she kept on 
 looking at Bertram, and she quite started when
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 5 
 
 she heard him called Mr. Trevor. When they 
 were just rising up, and going to take leave, 
 she came up to him in a frightened agitated 
 manner, as if she could not help it, and said — 
 
 " Sir, you are so like a gentleman I once 
 knew. Was any relation of yours ever in 
 Canada?" 
 
 "My father was in Canada," answered 
 Bertram. 
 
 " Oh no," she said then, very much afiected, 
 " the Captain Trevor I knew was killed in the 
 Lake Campaign in 1 8 14. It must be a mistake, 
 yet you put me in mind of him so strangely." 
 
 Then Bertram protested that she must mean 
 my father, for that he had been a captain in 
 the — th, and had been stationed at York (as 
 Toronto was then called), but was badly 
 wounded in repulsing the American attack 
 on the Lakes in 18 14. 
 
 "Not dead?" she asked, with her cheeks
 
 6 LADY HESTER 
 
 getting pale, and a sort of excitement about 
 her, that made Bertram wonder, at the moment, 
 if there could have been any old attachment 
 between them, and he explained how my father 
 was shipped off from England between life and 
 death ; and how, when he recovered, he found 
 his uncle dying, and the title and property 
 coming to him. 
 
 "And he married!" she said, with a bewil- 
 dered look ; and Bertram told her that he had 
 married Lady Mary Lupton — as his uncle and 
 father had wished — and how we four were their 
 children. I can fancy how kindly and tenderly 
 Bertram would speak when he saw that she was 
 anxious and pained ; and she took hold of his 
 hand and held him, and when he said something 
 of mentioning that he had seen her, she cried 
 out with a sort of terror, " Oh no, no, Mr. Trevor, 
 I beg you will not. Let him think me dead, 
 as I thought him." And then she drew down
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 7 
 
 Bertram's tall head to her, and fairly kissed his 
 forehead, adding, " I could not help it, sir ; an 
 old woman's kiss will do you no harm ! " 
 
 Then he went away. He never did tell us 
 of the meeting till long after. He was not a 
 great letter writer, and, besides, he thought 
 my father might not wish to have the flirta- 
 tions of his youth brought up against him. 
 
 So we little knew ! 
 
 But it seems that the daughter and son- 
 in-law were just as much amazed as Bertram, 
 and when he was gone, and the poor old 
 lady sank into her chair and burst out crying, 
 and as they came and asked who or what 
 this was, she sobbed out, " Your brother, 
 Hester ! Oh ! so like him — my husband !" or 
 something to that effect, as unawares. She 
 wanted to take it back again, but of course 
 Hester would not let her, and made her tell 
 the whole.
 
 8 LADY HESTER 
 
 It seems that her name was Faith Le Blanc ; 
 she was half English, half French-Canadian, 
 and lived in a village in a very unsettled part, 
 where Captain Trevor used to come to hunt, 
 and where he made love to her, and ended 
 by marrying her — with the knowledge of her 
 family and his brother officers, but not of his 
 family — just before he was ordered to the 
 Lake frontier. The war had stirred up the 
 Indians to acts of violence they had not com- 
 mitted for many years, and a tribe of them 
 came down on the village, plundering, burning, 
 killing, and torturing those whom they had 
 known in friendly intercourse. 
 
 Faith Le Blanc had once given some milk 
 to a papoose upon its mother's back, and 
 perhaps for this reason she was spared, but 
 everyone belonging to her was, she believed, 
 destroyed, and she was carried away by the 
 tribe, who wanted to make her one of them-
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 9 
 
 selves ; and she knew that if she offended them, 
 such horrors as she had seen practised on others 
 would come on her. 
 
 However, they had gone to another resort 
 of theirs, where there was a young hunter who 
 often visited them, and was on friendly terms. 
 When he found that there was a white woman 
 living as a captive among them, he spared no 
 effort to rescue her. Both he and she were 
 often in exceeding danger ; but he contrived 
 her escape at last, and brought her through 
 the woods to a place of safety, and there her 
 child was born. 
 
 It was over the American frontier, and it 
 was long before she could write to her husband. 
 She never knew what became of her letter, but 
 the hunter friend, Piers Dayman, showed her 
 an American paper which mentioned Captain 
 Trevor among the officers killed in their attack. 
 
 Dayman was devoted to her, and insisted
 
 io LADY HESTER 
 
 on marrying her, and bringing up her daughter 
 as his own. I fancy she was a woman of 
 gentle passive temper, and had been crushed 
 and terrified by all she had gone through, so 
 as to have little instinct left but that of cling- 
 ing to the protector who had taken her up when 
 she had lost everything else ; and she married 
 him. Nor did Hester guess till that very day 
 that Piers Dayman was not her father ! 
 
 There were other children, sons who have 
 given themselves to hunting and trapping in 
 the Hudson's Bay Company's territory ; but 
 Hester remained the only daughter, and they 
 educated her well, sending her to a convent at 
 Montreal, where she learnt a good many accom- 
 plishments. They were not Roman Catholics ; 
 but it was the only way of getting an education. 
 
 Dayman must have been a warm-hearted, 
 tenderly affectionate person. Hester loved him 
 very much. But he had lived a wild sports-
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE ir 
 
 man's life, and never was happy at rest. They 
 changed home often ; and at last he was snowed 
 up and frozen to death, with one of his boys, 
 on a bear hunting expedition. 
 
 Not very long after, Hester married this 
 sturdy American, Joel Lea, who had bought 
 some land on the Canadian side of the border, 
 and her mother came home to live with them. 
 They had been married four or five years, but 
 none of their children had lived. 
 
 So it was when the discovery came upon 
 poor old Mrs. Dayman (I do not know what 
 else to call her), that Fulk Torwood Trevor, the 
 husband of her youth, was not dead, but was 
 Earl of Trevorsham ; married, and the father 
 of four children in England. 
 
 Poor old thing ! She would have buried her 
 secret to the last, as much in pity and love to 
 him as in shame and grief for herself ; and con- 
 sideration, too, for the sons, for whom the dis-
 
 12 LADY HESTER 
 
 covery was only less bad than for us, as they 
 had less to lose. Hester herself hardly fully 
 understood what it all involved, and it only 
 gradually grew on her. 
 
 That winter her mother fell ill, and Mr. Lea 
 felt it right that the small property she had 
 had for her life should be properly secured to 
 her sons, according to the division their father 
 had intended. So a lawyer was brought from 
 Montreal and her will was made. Thus another 
 person knew about it, and he was much struck, 
 and explained to Hester that she was really 
 a lady of rank, and probably the only child 
 of her father who had any legal claim to his 
 estates. Lea, with a good deal of the old 
 American Republican temper, would not be 
 stirred up. He despised lords and iadies, and 
 would none of it ; but the lawyer held that 
 it would be doing wrong not to preserve 
 the record. Hester had grown excited, and
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 13 
 
 seconded him ; and one day, when Lea was 
 out, the lawyer brought a magistrate to take 
 Mrs. Dayman's affidavit as to all her past his- 
 tory — marriage witnesses and all. She was a 
 good deal overcome and agitated, and quite 
 implored Hester never to use the knowledge 
 against her father ; but she must have been 
 always a passive, docile being, and they made 
 her tell all that was wanted, and sign her 
 deposition, as she had signed her will, as Faith 
 Trevor, commonly known as Faith Dayman. 
 
 She did not live many days after. It was 
 on the 3rd of February, 1836, that she died; 
 and in the course of the summer Hester had 
 a son, who throve as none of her babies had 
 done. 
 
 Then she lay and brooded over him and 
 the rights she fancied he was deprived of, till 
 she worked herself up to a strong and fixed 
 purpose, and insisted upon making all known
 
 i 4 LADY HESTER 
 
 to her father. Now that her mother was gone 
 she persuaded herself that he had been a cruel, 
 faithless tyrant, who had wilfully deserted his 
 young wife. 
 
 Joel Lea would not listen to her. Why 
 should she wish to make his son a good-for- 
 nothing English lord ? That was his view. 
 Nothing but misery, distress, and temptation 
 could come of not letting things alone. He 
 held to that, and there were no means forth- 
 coming either of coming to England to present 
 herself. The family were well to do, but had 
 no ready money to lay out on a passage across 
 the Atlantic. Nor would Hester wait. She 
 had persuaded herself that a letter would be 
 suppressed, even if she had known how to 
 address it ; but to claim her son's rights, and 
 make an earl of him, had become her fixed 
 idea, and she began laying aside every farthing 
 in her power.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 15 
 
 In this she was encouraged, not by the lawyer 
 who had made the will — and who, considering 
 that poor Faith's witnesses had been destroyed, 
 and her certificate and her wedding ring taken 
 from her by the Indians, thought that the 
 marriage could not be substantiated — but by a 
 clever young clerk, who had managed to find 
 out the state of things ; a man named Perrault, 
 who used to come to the farm, always when 
 Lea was out, and talk her into a further state 
 of excitement about her child's expectations, 
 and the injuries she was suffering. It was her 
 one idea. She says she really believes she 
 should have gone mad if the saving had not 
 occupied her ; and a very dreary life poor Joel 
 must have had whilst she was scraping to- 
 gether the passage-money. He still steadily 
 and sternly disapproved the whole, and when 
 at two years' end she had put together enough 
 to bring her and her boy home, and maintain
 
 16 LADY HESTER 
 
 them there for a few weeks, he still refused 
 to go with her. The last thing he said was, 
 " Remember, Hester, what was the price of 
 all the kingdoms of the world ! Thou wilt 
 have it, then ! Would that I could say, my 
 blessing go with thee." And he took his child, 
 and held him long in his arms, and never spoke 
 one word over him but, " My poor boy 1 "
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 TREVORSHAM. 
 
 I SUrroSE I had better tell what we had been 
 doing all this time. Adela and I had come out, 
 and had a season or two in London, and my 
 father had enjoyed our pleasure in it, and paid 
 a good deal of court to our pretty Adela, 
 because there was no driving Torwood into 
 anything warmer than easy brotherly com- 
 panionship. 
 
 In fact, Tonvood had never cared for anyone 
 but little Emily Deerhurst. Once he had come 
 to her rescue, when she was only nine or ten 
 
 years old, and her schoolboy cousins were 
 
 c
 
 i8 LADY HESTER 
 
 teasing her, and at every Twelfth-day party 
 since she and he had come together as by 
 right. There was something irresistible in her 
 great soft plaintive brown eyes, though she 
 was scarcely pretty otherwise, and we used 
 to call her the White Doe of Rylstone. 
 Torwood was six or seven years older, and 
 no one supposed that he seriously cared for 
 her, till she was sixteen. Then, when my 
 father spoke point blank to him about Adela, 
 he was driven into owning what he wished. 
 
 My father thought it utter absurdity. The 
 connection was not pleasant to him ; Mrs. 
 Deerhurst was always looked on as a design- 
 ing widow, who managed to marry off her 
 daughters cleverly, and he could believe no 
 good of Emily. 
 
 Now Adela always had more power with papa 
 than any of us. She had a coaxing way, which 
 his stately old-school courtesy never could resist.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 19 
 
 She used when we were children to beg for 
 holidays, and get treats for us; and even now, 
 many a request which we should never have 
 dared to utter, she could, with her droll arch 
 way, make him think the most sensible thing 
 in the world. 
 
 What odd things people can do who have 
 lived together like brothers and sisters ! I can 
 hardly help laughing when I think of Torwood 
 coming disconsolately up from the library, and 
 replying, in answer to our vigorous demands, 
 that his lordship had some besotted notion past 
 all reason. 
 
 Then we pressed him harder — Adela with 
 indignation, and I with sympathy — till we 
 forced out of him that he had been forbidden 
 ever to think or speak again of Emily, and all 
 his faith in her laughed to scorn, as delusions 
 induced by Mrs. Deerhurst. 
 
 " I'm sure I hope you'll take Ormerod, Adela,"
 
 20 LADY HESTER 
 
 I remember he ended ; "then at least you would 
 be out of the way." 
 
 For Sir John Ormerod's courtship was an 
 evident fact to all the family, as, indeed, 
 Adela was heiress enough to be a good deal 
 troubled with suitors, though she had hitherto 
 managed to make them all keep their dis- 
 tance. 
 
 Adela laughed at him for his kind wishes, 
 but I could see she meant to plead for him. 
 She had her chance, for Sir John Ormerod 
 brought matters to a crisis at the next ball ; 
 and though she thought, as she said, " she had 
 settled him," he followed it up with her guardian, 
 and Adela was invited to a conference in the 
 library. 
 
 It happened that as she ran upstairs, all in a 
 glow, she came on Torwood at the landing. 
 She couldn't help saying in her odd half- 
 laughing, half-crying voice —
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 21 
 
 " It will come right, Torwood ; I've made 
 terms, I'm out of your way." 
 
 " Not Ormerod !" he exclaimed. 
 
 " Oh ! no, no !" I can hear her dash of scorn 
 now, for I was just behind my brother, but 
 she went on out of breath — 
 
 "You may go on seeing her, provided you 
 don't say a word — till — till she's been out two 
 years." 
 
 " Adela ! you queen of girls, how have you 
 done it ?" he began, but she thrust him aside 
 and flew up into my arms ; and when I had 
 her in her own room it came out, I hardly 
 know how, that she had so shown that she 
 cared for no one she had ever seen except my 
 father, that they found they did love each 
 other; and — and — in short they were going to 
 be married." 
 
 Really it seemed much less wonderful then 
 than it does in thinking of it afterwards. My
 
 22 LADY HESTER 
 
 father was much handsomer than any young 
 man I ever saw, with a hawk nose, a clear 
 rosy skin, pure pink and white like a boy's, 
 curly little rings of white hair, blue eyes clear 
 and bright as the sky, a tall upright soldierly 
 figure, and a magnificent stately bearing, courte- 
 ous and grand to all, but sweetly tender to a 
 very few, and to her above all. It always had 
 been so ever since he had brought her home 
 an orphan of six years old from her mother's 
 death-bed at Nice. And he was youthful, 
 could ride or hunt all day without so much 
 fatigue as either of his sons, and was as fresh 
 and eager in all his ways as a lad. 
 
 And she, our pretty darling ! I don't think 
 Torwood and I in the least felt the incongruity 
 of her becoming our step-mother, only that papa 
 was making her more entirely his own. 
 
 I am glad we did not mar the sunshine. It 
 did not last long. She came home thoroughly
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 23 
 
 unwell from their journey to Switzerland, and 
 never got better. By the time the spring had 
 come round again, she was lying in the vault 
 at Trevorsham, and we were trying to keep poor 
 little Alured alive and help my poor father to 
 bear it. 
 
 He was stricken to the very heart, and never 
 was the same man again. His age seemed to 
 come upon him all at once ; and whereas at 
 sixty-five he had been like a man ten years 
 younger, he suddenly became like one ten 
 years older ; and though he never was actually 
 ill, he failed from month to month. 
 
 He could not bear the sight or sound of the 
 poor baby. Poor Adela had scarcely lived to 
 hear it was a boy, and all she had said about 
 it was, " Ursula, you'll be his mother." And, 
 oh ! I have tried. If love would do it, I think 
 he could not be more even to dear Adela ! 
 
 What a frail little life it was ! What nights
 
 24 LADY HESTER 
 
 and days we had with him ; doctors saying that 
 skill could not do it, but care might ; and 
 nurses knowing how to be more effective than 
 I could be ; yet while I durst not touch him 
 I could not bear not to see him. And I do 
 think I was the first person he began to 
 know. 
 
 Meantime, there was a great difference in 
 Torwood. He had been very much of a big 
 boy hitherto. No one but myself could have 
 guessed that he cared for much besides a lazy 
 kind of enjoyment of all the best and nicest 
 things in this world. He did what he was 
 told, but in an uninterested sort of way, just 
 as if politics and county business, and work 
 at the estate, were just as much tasks thrust 
 on him as Virgil and Homer had been ; and 
 put his spirit into sporting, &c. 
 
 But when he was allowed to think hopefully 
 of Emily, it seemed to make a man of him,
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 25 
 
 and he took up all that he had to do, as if it 
 really concerned him, and was not only a 
 burden laid on him by his father. 
 
 And, as my father became less able to exert 
 himself, Torwood came forward more, and was 
 something substantial to lean upon. Dear 
 fellow! I am sure he did well earn the con- 
 sent he gained at last, though not with much 
 satisfaction, from papa. 
 
 Emily had grown into great sweetness and 
 grace, and Mrs. Dcerhurst had gone on very 
 well. Of course, people were unkind enough 
 to say, it was only because she had such prey 
 in view as Lord Torwood ; but, whatever with- 
 held her, it is certain that Emily only had the 
 most suitable and reasonable pleasures for a 
 young lady, and was altogether as nice, and 
 gentle, and sensible, as could be desired. There 
 never was a bit of acting in her, she was only 
 allowed to grow in what seemed natural to
 
 26 LADY HESTER 
 
 her. She was just one of the nice simple girls 
 of that day, doing her quiet bit of solid reading, 
 and her practice, and her neat little smooth 
 pencil drawing from a print, as a kind of duty 
 to her accomplishments every day ; and filling 
 books with neat up-and-down MS. copies of 
 all the poetry that pleased her. Dainty in all 
 her ways, timid, submissive, and as it seemed 
 to me, colourless. 
 
 But Fulk taught her Wordsworth, who was 
 his great passion then, and found her a -perfect 
 listener to all his Tory hopes, fears, and usages. 
 
 Papa could not help liking her when she 
 came to stay with us, after they were engaged, 
 at the end of two years. He allowed that, 
 away from her mother and all her belongings, 
 she would do very well ; and she was so 
 pretty and sweet in her respectful fear of him — 
 I might almost say awe — that his graceful, 
 chivalrous courtesy woke up again ; and he
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 27 
 
 was beginning absolutely to enjoy her, as she 
 became a little more confident and understood 
 him better. 
 
 How well I remember that last evening ! I 
 was happier than I had been for weeks about 
 little Alured : the convulsions had quite gone 
 off, the teeth that had caused them were 
 through, and he had been laughing and play- 
 ing on my lap quite brightly — cooing to his 
 mother's miniature in my locket. He was 
 such an intelligent little fellow for eighteen 
 months ! I came down so glad, and it was so 
 pleasant to see Emily, in her white dress, 
 leaning over my father while he had gone so 
 happily into his old delight of showing his 
 prints and engravings ; and Tonvood, standing 
 by the fire, watching them with the look of 
 a conqueror, and Jaquetta — like the absurd 
 child she loved to be — teasing them with 
 ridiculous questions about their housekeeping.
 
 23 LADY HESTER 
 
 They were to have Spinney Lawn bought 
 for them, just a mile away, and the business 
 was in hand. Jaquey was enquiring whether 
 there was a parlour for The Cid, Torwood's 
 hunter, whom she declared was as dear to him 
 as Emily herself. Indeed, Emily did go out 
 every morning after breakfast to feed him with 
 bread. I can see her now on Torwood's arm, 
 with big Rollo and little Malta rolling over 
 one another after them. 
 
 Then came an afternoon when we had all 
 walked to Spinney Lawn, laid out the gardens 
 together, and wandered about the empty rooms, 
 planning for them. The birds were singing in 
 the March sunshine, and the tomtits were calling 
 "peter" in the trees, and Jaquetta went racing 
 about after the dogs, like a thing of seven years 
 old, instead of seventeen. And Torwood was 
 cutting out a root of primroses, leaves and all, 
 for Emily, when we saw a fly go along the lane,
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 29 
 
 and wondered, with a sort of idle wonder. We 
 supposed it must be visitors for the parsonage, 
 and so we strolled home, looking for violets by 
 the way, and Jaquetta getting shiny studs of 
 celandine. Ah! I remember those glistening 
 stars were all closed before we came back. 
 
 Well, it must come, so it is silly to linger ! 
 There stood the fly at the hall-door, and the 
 butler met us, saying — 
 
 " There's a person with his lordship, my lord. 
 She would not wait till you came in, though 
 I told her he saw no one on business without 
 
 you 
 
 Torwood hastened on before this, expecting 
 to see some importunate person bothering my 
 father with a petition. What he did see was 
 my father leaning back in his chair, with a 
 white, confounded, bewildered look, and a 
 woman, with a child on her lap, opposite. 
 Her back was to the door, and Torwood's
 
 30 LADY HESTER 
 
 first impression was that she was a well-dressed 
 impostor threatening him; so he came quickly 
 to my father's side, and said — 
 
 " What is it father ? I'm here." 
 
 My poor father put out his hand feebly to 
 him, and said — 
 
 "It is all true, Torwood. God forgive me; 
 I did not know it !" 
 
 "Know what ?" he asked anxiously. "What 
 is it that distresses you, father ? Let me speak 
 to this person " 
 
 Then she broke out — not loud, not coarsely, 
 but very determinately — " No, sir ; you would 
 be very glad to suppress me, and my child, and 
 my evidence, no doubt ; but the Earl of Trevor- 
 sham has acknowledged the truth of my claim, 
 and I will not leave this spot till he has acknow- 
 ledged my mother as his only lawful wife, and 
 my child, Trevor Lea, as his only lawful 
 heir!"
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 31 
 
 Torwood thought her insane and only said 
 quietly, as he offered my father his arm, " I 
 will talk it over with you presently; Lord 
 Trevorsham is not equal to discuss it now." 
 
 " I see what you mean ! " she said quickly. 
 " You would like to make me out crazy, but 
 Lord Trevorsham knows better. Do not you, 
 my father?" she said, with a strong emphasis, 
 the more marked, because it was concentrated, 
 not loud. 
 
 My poor father was shuddering all over with 
 involuntary trembling ; but he put Torwood's 
 hand away from him, and looked up piteously, 
 as if his heart was breaking (as it was) ; but he 
 spoke steadily. " It is true. It is true, Torwood. 
 I was married to poor Faith, when I was a 
 young man, in Canada. They sent me proofs 
 that all had perished when the Indians attacked 
 the village ; but — " and then he put his hands 
 over his face. It must have been dreadful to
 
 32 LADY HESTER 
 
 see ; but Hester Lea was too much bent on 
 her rights to feel a moment's pity ; and she 
 spoke on in a hard tone, with her eyes fixed 
 on my brother's face. 
 
 " But you failed to discover that she was 
 rescued from the Indians ; gave birth to me, 
 your daughter, Hester ; and only died two 
 years ago." 
 
 " You hear ! My boy, my poor boy, forgive 
 me ; don't leave me to her," was what my 
 poor father had said — he who had been so 
 strong. 
 
 My brother saw what it all meant now. 
 " Never fear that, sir," he said ; " I am your 
 son still, any way, you know." 
 
 " You will do justice to me," she began, in 
 her fierce tone ; but my brother met it calmly 
 with, "Certainly, we will do our best that 
 justice should be done. You have brought 
 proof?"
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 33 
 
 His quietness overawed her, and she pointed 
 to the papers on the table. They were her 
 mother's attested narrative, and the certificate 
 of her burial. 
 
 My brother read aloud, " The 3rd of Feb- 
 ruary, 1836," then he turned to my father and 
 said, " You observe, father, the difference this 
 may make, if true, is that of putting little 
 Alured into the place I have held. My father's 
 last marriage was on the 15th of April, 1836," 
 he added to her. He says she quite glared at 
 him with mortification, as if he had invented 
 poor little Alured on purpose to baffle her ; 
 but my father breathed more freely. 
 
 "And is nothing — nothing to be done for 
 my child, your own grandson ?" exclaimed 
 she, " after these years." 
 
 Torwood silenced her by one of his looks. 
 "We only wish to do justice," he said. "If 
 it be as you say, you will have a right to a 
 
 D
 
 34 LADY HESTER 
 
 great deal, and it will not be disputed ; but 
 you must be aware that a claim made in this 
 manner requires investigation, and you can see 
 that my father is not in a state for an exciting 
 discussion." 
 
 " Your father !" she said, with a bitter tone 
 of scorn ; but he took it firmly, though the 
 blood seemed to come boiling to his temples. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " my father ! and if you are 
 indeed his daughter, you should show some 
 pity and filial duty, by not forcing the dis- 
 cussion on him while he can so little bear it." 
 
 That staggered her a little, but she said, "I 
 do not wish to do him any harm, but I have 
 my child's interests to think of. How do I 
 know what advantage may be taken against 
 him ?" 
 
 Torwood saw my father lying back in the 
 chair, trembling, and he dreaded a fit every 
 moment.
 
 Come, my boy, since your own grandfather will not so much as look at you." 
 
 Page 35.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 35 
 
 " I give you my word," he said, " that no 
 injustice shall be done you ;" and as she looked 
 keenly at him, as if she distrusted him, he 
 said, " Yes, you may trust me. I was bred 
 an English gentleman, whatever I was born, 
 and I promise you never to come between you 
 and your rights, when your identity as Lord 
 Trevorsham's daughter is fully established. 
 Meantime, do you not see that your presence 
 is killing him ? Tell me where you may be 
 heard of?" 
 
 " I shall stay at the Shinglebay Hotel till 
 I am secure of the justice I claim," she said. 
 " Come, my boy, since your own grandfather 
 will not so much as look at you." 
 
 Torwood walked her across the hall. He was 
 a little touched by those last words, and felt 
 that she might have looked for a daughter's 
 reception, so he said in the hall— 
 
 "You must remember this is a very sudden
 
 36 LADY HESTER 
 
 shock to us all. When my father has grown 
 accustomed to the idea, no doubt he will wish 
 to see you again ; but in his present state of 
 health, he must be our first consideration. And 
 unprepared as my sisters are, it would be impos- 
 sible to ask you to stay in the house." 
 
 She was always a little subdued by my 
 brother's manner; I think its courtesy and 
 polish almost frightened her, high-spirited, reso- 
 lute woman as she was. 
 
 " I understand," she said, with a stiff, cold 
 tone. Jaquetta heard the echo of it, and 
 wondered. 
 
 " But," he added, " when they understand all, 
 and when my father is equal to it, you shall 
 be sent for." 
 
 When he went back to the library he found 
 my poor father unconscious. It was really 
 only fainting then, and he came round with- 
 out anyone being called, and he shrank from
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 37 
 
 seeing anyone but Torwood, explaining to 
 him most earnestly how, though he was too 
 ill himself to go to the place, his brother-officer, 
 General Poyntz, had done so for him, and had 
 been persuaded that the whole settlement and 
 all the inhabitants had been swept off. It was 
 such a shock to him that it nearly killed him. 
 Poor father ! it was grievous to hear him wish 
 it had quite done so ! 
 
 We only knew that the woman had upset my 
 father very much, and that Torwood could not 
 leave him. Word was sent us to sit down to 
 dinner without them, and Torwood sent for 
 some gravy soup and some wine for him. He 
 went on talking — sometimes about us, but more 
 often about poor Faith, who seemed to have 
 come back on him in all the beauty and charm 
 of his first love. He seemed to be talking him- 
 self feverish, and after a time Torwood thought 
 that silence would be better for him ; so he got
 
 38 LADY HESTER 
 
 him to go to bed, and sent good old Blake, the 
 butler, who had been his servant in the army, 
 to sit in the dressing-room. Blake, it turned 
 out, had known all about the old story, so he 
 was a safe person. Not that safety mattered 
 much. " Lady Hester Lea " — she called herself 
 so now, as, indeed, she had every right — was 
 making it known at Shinglebay. 
 
 So Tonvood came out. I was very anxious, 
 of course, and had been hovering about on the 
 nursery stairs, where I had gone to see whether 
 baby was quietly asleep, and I overtook him as 
 he was going down-stairs. 
 
 " How is papa ?" I asked. 
 
 I shall never forget the white look of the 
 face he raised up to mine as he said, " Poor 
 father! Ursula, I can only call the news 
 terrible. Will you try to stand up against it 
 bravely ? ' 
 
 And then he held out his arms and gathered
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 39 
 
 me into them, and I believe I said, " I can 
 bear anything when you do that ! " 
 
 I thought it could only be something about 
 Bertram, who had rather a way of getting 
 into scrapes, and I said his name ; but just 
 as Fulk was setting me at ease on that score, 
 Jaquetta, who was on the watch, too, opened 
 the door of the green drawing-room, and we 
 were obliged to go in. Then, hardly answer- 
 ing her and Emily, as they asked after papa, 
 he stood straight up in the middle of the rug 
 and told us, beginning with — " Ursula, did you 
 know that our father had been married as a 
 young man in Canada ? " 
 
 No. We had never guessed it. 
 
 " He was," my brother went on, " This is 
 his daughter." 
 
 "Our sister!" Jaquetta asked. "Where has 
 she been all this time ?" 
 
 But I saw there must be more to trouble
 
 4c LADY HESTER 
 
 him, and then it came. " I cannot tell. My 
 father had every reason to believe that — she 
 — his first wife — had been killed in a massacre 
 by the Red Indians ; but if what this person 
 says is true, she only died two years ago. 
 But it was in all good faith that he married 
 our mother. He had taken all means to 
 discover " 
 
 Even then we did not perceive what this 
 involved. I felt stunned and numbed chiefly 
 from seeing the great shock it had been to my 
 father and to him ; but poor little Jaquetta and 
 Emily were altogether puzzled ; and Jaquetta 
 said, " But is this sister of ours such a very 
 disagreeable person, Torwood ? Why didn't 
 you bring her in and show her to us ? " 
 
 Then he exclaimed, almost angrily at her 
 simplicity, " Good heavens ! girls, don't you see 
 what it all means ? If this is true, I am not 
 Torwood. We are nothing — nobody — nameless."
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 41 
 
 He turned to the fire, put both elbows on 
 the mantelshelf, and hid his face in his hands. 
 Emily sprang up, and tried to draw down his 
 arm ; and she did, but he only used it to put 
 her from him, hold her off at arm's length, 
 and look at her — oh ! with such a tender face 
 of firm sorrow ! 
 
 " Ah ! Emily," he said ; " you too ! It has 
 been all on false pretences ! That will have to 
 be all over now." 
 
 Then Emily's great brown eyes grew bigger 
 with wonder and dismay. 
 
 " False pretences !" she cried, " what false 
 pretences? Not that you cared for me, Torwood." 
 
 " Not that I cared for you," he said, with a 
 suppressed tone that made his voice so deep ! 
 " Not that / cared, but that Lord Torwood did 
 — Torwood is the. baby upstairs." 
 
 " But it is you — you — you — Fulk!" said Emily, 
 trying to creep and sidle up to him, white doe
 
 4 2 LADY HESTER 
 
 fashion. I believe nobody had ever called him 
 by his Christian name before, and it made it 
 sweeter to him, but still he did not give in. 
 
 "Ah! that's all very well," he said, and his 
 voice was softer then, " but what would your 
 mother say ? " 
 
 " The same as I do," said Emily, undauntedly. 
 " How should it change one's feelings one bit," 
 and she almost cried at being held back. 
 
 He did let her nestle up to him then, but with 
 a sad sort of smile. " My child, my darling," 
 he said, " I ought not to allow this! It will only 
 be the worse after ! " 
 
 But just then a servant's step made them start 
 back, and a message came and brought word 
 that Mr. Blake would be glad if Lord Torwood 
 would step up. 
 
 Yes, my poor father was wandering in his 
 speech, and very feverish, mixing up Adcla 
 and Faith Le Blanc strangely together some-
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 43 
 
 times, and at others fancying he was lying ill 
 with his wound, and sending messages to Faith. 
 We sent for the doctor, but he could not 
 do anything really. It had been a death-blow, 
 though the illness lasted a full week. He knew 
 us generally, and liked to see us, but he always 
 had the sense that something dreadful had 
 happened to us ; and he would stroke my hand 
 or Jaquetta's, and pity us. He was haunted, 
 too, by the sense that he ought to do some- 
 thing for us which he could not do. We 
 thought he meant to make a will, securing us 
 something, but he was never in a condition in 
 which my brother would have felt justified in 
 getting him to sign it. Indeed there was so 
 little disease about him, and we thought he 
 would get better, if only we could keep him 
 free from distress and excitement ; so we made 
 his room as quiet as possible, and discouraged 
 his talking or thinking.
 
 44 LADY HESTER 
 
 Lady Hester came every day. My brother 
 had sent for Mr. Eagles, our solicitor, to meet 
 her the first time, and look at her papers. 
 
 He said he could not deny that it looked 
 very bad for us. Of the original marriage 
 there was no doubt ; indeed, my father had 
 told Torwood where to find the certificate 
 of it, folded up in the secret drawer of his 
 desk, with his commission in the army; and 
 the register of Faith's burial was only too 
 plain. The only chance there was for us was, 
 that her identity could not be established ; but 
 Mr. Eagles did not think it would go off on 
 this. The whole of her life seemed to be 
 traceable ; besides, there was something about 
 Hester that forbade all suspicion of her being 
 a conscious impostor. Whether she would be 
 able to prove herself my father's daughter was 
 another more doubtful point. That, however, 
 made no difference, except as to her own rank
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 45 
 
 and fortune. If the first wife were proved to 
 have been alive till 1836, then little Alured 
 was the only true heir to the title and estate, 
 and, next after him, stood Hester Lea and 
 her son. 
 
 People said she was like the family ; I never 
 could see it, and always thought the likeness 
 due to their imagination. She took one by 
 surprise. She was a tall, well-made woman, 
 with a narrow waist, and a proud, peculiarly 
 upright bearing, though quick, almost sharp in 
 all her movements, and especially with her eyes. 
 Those eyes, I confess, always startled me. They 
 were clear, bright blue, well opened eyes — 
 honest eyes one would have called them — only 
 they appeared to be always searching about, and 
 darting at one when one least expected it. The 
 red and white of the face too always had a clear 
 hard look, like the eyes ; the teeth projected a 
 little, and were so very, very white, that they
 
 46 LADY HESTER 
 
 always seemed to me to flash like the eyes ; and 
 if ever she smiled, it was as much as to say, 
 v I don't believe you." Her nose had an amount 
 of hook, too, that always gave me the feeling of 
 having a wild hawk in the room with me. 
 Jaquetta used to call her a panther of the 
 wilderness, but to my mind there was none of 
 the purring cattish tenderness of the panther. 
 However, that might be only because she viewed 
 us as her natural enemies, and was always on 
 her guard against us, though I do not well know 
 why ; I am sure we only wanted to know the 
 truth and do justice, and Fulk was so convinced 
 that she would prove her case, and that there 
 was no help for it, that at the end of hearing 
 Mr. Eagles question her, he said, " Well, the 
 matter must be tried in due time, but since 
 we are brothers and sisters, let us be friendly," 
 and he held out his hand to her. Mr. Eagles, 
 who told me, said he could have beaten him
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 47 
 
 for the imprudent admission, only he did look 
 so generous and sweet and sad ; and Lady- 
 Hester drew herself up doubtfully and proudly, 
 as if she could hardly bear to own such a 
 brother, but she did take his hand, coldly 
 though, and saying, " Let me see my father." 
 
 He was obliged to tell her that this was 
 impossible. I doubt whether she ever believed 
 him — at least she used to gaze at him with 
 her determined eyes, as if she meant to abash 
 him out of falsehood, and she sharply questioned 
 every one about Lord Trevorsham's state. 
 
 The determination to be friendly made my 
 brother offer to take her to us. She consented, 
 but not very readily, and I am afraid we were 
 needlessly cold and dry ; but we were taken 
 by surprise when my brother brought her into 
 the sitting-room. It was not very easy to 
 welcome the woman who was going to turn 
 us all out, and under such a stigma ; and she
 
 43 LADY HESTER 
 
 — she could hardly be expected to look com- 
 placently at the interlopers who had her place, 
 and the title she had a right to. 
 
 She put us through her hard catechism about 
 my dear father's state, and said at last that she 
 should like to see Lord Torwood. 
 
 Taken by surprise, we looked and signed 
 towards him whom that name had always 
 meant. He smiled a little and said, " Little 
 Alured ! But, remember, I am bound to con- 
 cede nothing till judicial minds are convinced. 
 The parties concerned cannot judge. Can you 
 venture to have Baby down, Ursula ? " 
 
 No, I did not venture. I thought it might 
 have been averted ; but I was only obliged to 
 take her up to the nurseries. On the way up 
 she asked which way my father's room lay. I 
 answered, "Oh! across there;" I did not know 
 if she might not make a dash at it. 
 
 I think she must have heard at Shinglebay
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 49 
 
 how delicate poor little Alured was, and thence 
 gathered hopes of the succession for her boy, 
 for she asked her sharp questions about his 
 health all the way up, and knew that he had 
 had fits. I could not put her down as one 
 generally can inquisitive people. I suppose 
 it was because she was more sensible of the 
 difference in our real positions than I have as 
 yet felt. 
 
 Baby was asleep ; and I think she was 
 touched by the actual sight of him. She said 
 he was very like her boy ; and though I sup- 
 posed that a mere assertion at the time, it 
 was quite true. Alured and Trevor Lea have 
 always been remarkably alike. However, she 
 cross-examined Nurse about his health even 
 more minutely, and then took her leave ; but 
 she came again every day, walking after the 
 first, as long as my dear father lived. 
 
 And she must have talked, for there came 
 
 E
 
 50 LADY HESTER 
 
 a kind of feeling over everyone, as well as 
 ourselves, that something was hanging over 
 us, of which the issue would be known when 
 my father's illness took some turn. 
 
 Mr. Decies came every day to inquire, but 
 I could not bear a strange eye, and Hester 
 might have been looking on. I was steeling 
 myself against him. Was I right ? — oh ! was 
 I right ? I have wondered and grieved ! For I 
 knew well enough what he had been thinking of 
 for months before ; only I did not want it to 
 come to a point. How was I to leave little 
 Alured to Jaquetta? or disturb my father by 
 breaking up his home ? I liked him on the 
 whole, and had come the length of thinking 
 
 that if I ever married at all, it would be 
 
 But that's all nonsense ; and mine could not 
 have been what other people's love was, or I 
 should not have shrunk from the sight and 
 look of him. If it had been only poverty
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 51 
 
 that was coming, it would have been a dif- 
 ferent thing ; but to be nameless impostors 1 
 
 Mrs. Deerhurst had gone out on a round of 
 visits, when Emily came to us, taking her 
 younger daughter. They were not a very 
 letter-writing family. It is odd how some 
 people's pen is a real outlet of expression ; 
 while others seem to lack the nerve that 
 might convey their thoughts to it, even when 
 they live in more sympathy than Emily could 
 well have had with her mother. 
 
 At least, so I understand, what afterwards 
 we wondered at, that Emily never mentioned 
 Hester ; only saying, when, after some days 
 she did write, that Lord Trevorsham was ill. 
 
 So Fulk had the one comfort of being with 
 her when he was out of the sick room. I 
 used to see them from the window walking up 
 and down the terrace in the blue east wind haze 
 of those March days, never that I could see
 
 5 2 LADY HESTER 
 
 speaking. I don't think my brother would have 
 felt it honourable to tie one additional link 
 between himself and her. He had not a doubt 
 as to how her mother would act, but to be 
 in her dear little affectionate presence was a 
 better help than we could give him, even though 
 nothing passed between them. 
 
 Jaquetta used to wonder at them, and then 
 try to go on the same as usual ; and would 
 wander about the garden and park with her 
 dogs, and bring us in little anecdotes, and do 
 all the laughing over them herself. Poor 
 child ! she felt as if she were in a bad dream, 
 and these were efforts to shake it off, and 
 wake herself. 
 
 After all, nothing was ever so bad as those 
 ten days ! But, my brother always said he 
 was thankful for the respite and time for 
 thought which they gave him.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 53 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PEERAGE CASE. 
 
 THE end came suddenly at last, when we were 
 thinking my dear father more tranquil. He 
 passed away in sleep late one evening, just ten 
 days after Hester's arrival. She had gone back 
 to her lodgings, and we did not send to tell 
 her till the morning ; but by nine o'clock she 
 was in the house. 
 
 We had crept down to breakfast, Jaquetta 
 and I, feeling very dreary in the half-light, 
 and as if desolation had suddenly come on 
 us ; and when we heard her fly drive 
 up to the door, Jaquetta cried out almost
 
 54 LADY HESTER 
 
 angrily, "Torwood, how could you!" and 
 we would have run away, but he said, 
 " Stay, dear girls ; it is better to have it 
 over." 
 
 As she came in he rang the bell as if for 
 family prayers, and she had only asked one or 
 two questions, which he answered shortly, when 
 all the servants came in, some crying sadly. 
 Fulk read a very few prayers — as much as 
 he had voice for, and then, as all stood up, 
 he had to clear his voice, but he spoke firmly 
 enough. 
 
 " It is right that you all should know that a 
 grave doubt has arisen as to my position here. 
 Lord Trevorsham had eveiy reason to believe 
 his first wife had perished by the hands of the 
 Red Indians long before he married my mother. 
 What he did was done in entire ignorance — no 
 breath of blame must light on him. This lady 
 alleges that she can produce proofs that she is
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 55 
 
 his daughter, and that her mother only died in 
 February, '36. If these proofs be considered 
 satisfactory by a committee of the House of 
 Lords, then she and Alured Torwood Trevor 
 will be shown to be his only legitimate children. 
 I shall place the matter in the right hands as 
 soon as possible — that is " (for she was glaring 
 at him), " as soon as the funeral is over. Until 
 that decision is made I request that no one will 
 call me by the title of him who is gone ; but I 
 shall remain here to take care of my little 
 brother, whose guardian my father wished me 
 to be ; and for the present, at least, I shall 
 make no change in the establishment." 
 
 I think everyone held their breath : there was 
 a great stillness over all — a sort of hush of awe 
 — and then some of the maids began sobbing, 
 and the butler tried to say something, but he 
 quite broke down ; and just then a troubled 
 voice cried out —
 
 56 LADY HESTER 
 
 "Tonvood, Torwood, what is this?" 
 
 And there we saw Bertram in the midst of 
 us, with the haggard look of a man who had 
 travelled all night, and a dismayed air that I 
 can never forget. 
 
 He had been quartered at Belfast, and we 
 had written to him the day after my father's 
 illness, to summon him home, but there were 
 no telegraphs nor railways ; and there had 
 been some hindrance about his leave, so that it 
 had taken all that length of time to bring him. 
 Fulk had left all to be told on his arrival. He 
 had come by the mail-coach, and walked up 
 from the Trevorsham Arms, where he had 
 been told of our father's death ; and so had 
 let himself in noiselessly, and was standing in 
 the dining-room door, hearing all that Fulk 
 said ! 
 
 Poor fellow ! Jaquetta flung herself on him, 
 hiding her face against him, while the servants
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 57 
 
 went, and before any one else could speak, 
 Hester stood forth, and said, to our amaze- 
 ment 
 
 " Captain Trevor ! You know me. You 
 can and must bear me witness, and do me 
 justice " 
 
 " You ! I have seen you before — but — 
 where ? I beg your pardon," he said, bewil- 
 dered. 
 
 "You remember Sault St. Pierre farm?" 
 she said. 
 
 "Sault St. Pierre! What? You are 
 Mrs. Lea ! Good heavens ! Where is your 
 mother?" 
 
 "My mother is dead, sir. You were the 
 first person who made known to her that her 
 husband, my father, was not dead, but had 
 taken — or pretended to take — an English 
 woman for his wife." 
 
 "Wait!" thundered Fulk, "whatever my
 
 58 LADY HESTER 
 
 father did was ignorantly and honourably 
 done!" 
 
 Bertram was as pale as death, and looked 
 from one of us to the other, and at last, he 
 gasped out . 
 
 "And that — was what she meant ?" 
 
 " There, sir," said Hester, turning to Tor- 
 wood, " You see your brother cannot deny 
 it ! You will not refuse justice to me, and 
 my son." 
 
 I fancy she expected that the house was 
 to be given up to her, and that we were only 
 to remain there on her sufferance, perhaps till 
 after the funeral. 
 
 My brother spoke, "Justice will no doubt be 
 done ; but the question does not lie between 
 you and me, but between me and Alurcd. It 
 is, as I said, a peerage question — and will 
 be decided by the peers. Incidentally, that 
 enquiry will prove what is your position
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 59 
 
 and rank, as well as what may or may not 
 be ours. Any further points depend upon my 
 father's will, and that will be in the hands of 
 Mr. Eagles. I think you can see that it 
 would be impossible, as well as unfeeling, to 
 take any steps until after the funeral." 
 
 Whatever Hester Lea was, she was a high- 
 spirited being, standing there, a solitary 
 woman, a stranger, with all of us four, and 
 one whole household, as it must have seemed, 
 against her. I was outraged and shocked at 
 her defiance at the time, but when, some 
 time after, I re-read King John, I saw 
 that there was something of Constance in 
 her. 
 
 "That may be," she answered, "but when 
 my child's interests are at stake, I cannot 
 haggle over conventionalities and proprieties. 
 I am the Earl of Trevorsham's only legitimate 
 daughter, and I claim my right to remain in
 
 60 LADY HESTER 
 
 his house, and to take charge of my infant 
 brother." 
 
 A sign from Fulk stopped me, as I was going 
 to scream at this. 
 
 " Remember," he said, " your identity has 
 yet to be proved." 
 
 "Your brother there must needs witness. 
 He has done so." 
 
 "What do you witness to, Bertram?" asked 
 Fulk. 
 
 " I do not know ; I cannot understand," said 
 Bertram. " I saw this person in a farm in 
 Lower Canada, and there was an old lady who 
 seemed to have known my father, and was 
 very much amazed to find lie was not killed 
 in 1 8 14. I did not hear her name, nor know 
 whose mother she was, nor anything about her, 
 nor what this dreadful business means." 
 
 "At any rate," said Fulk to her, "your claim 
 to remain in the house must depend on the
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 61 
 
 legal proof of the fact. My father's first mar- 
 riage is undoubted, but absolute legal certainty 
 that you are the child of that marriage alone 
 can entitle you to take rank as his daughter; 
 and, therefore, I am not compelled to admit 
 your claim to remain here, though if you will 
 refrain from renewing this discussion till after 
 the funeral, I will not ask you to leave the 
 house." 
 
 " I do not recognize your right to ask or not 
 to ask," she said, undauntedly. 
 
 " I am either Lord Trevorsham's rightful 
 heir — and it is not yet shown that I am 
 not — or else I am the guardian he ap- 
 pointed for his son. I know this to be so, 
 and Mr. Eagles, who will soon be here, will 
 show it to you in the will if you wish it. 
 Therefore, until the decision is made, when, 
 if it goes against me, the child will no 
 doubt be made a ward in Chancery, I
 
 62 LADY HESTER 
 
 am the person responsible for him and his 
 property." 
 
 " I have no doubt you will take advantage 
 of me and of every quibble against me ;" and 
 there at last she began to break down ; " but 
 if there is justice in heaven or earth my child 
 shall have it, though you and all were leagued 
 against him." 
 
 And there she began to sob. And those 
 brothers of mine, they actually grew com- 
 passionate ; they ran after wine ; they called 
 us to bring salts, and help her. Emily 
 shuddered, and put her hands behind her ; 
 but Jaquetta actually ran up to the woman, 
 and coaxed her and comforted her, when I 
 had rather have coaxed a tigress. 
 
 But I had to go to the table and pour out 
 tea and give it to her with all the rest. I 
 don't know how we got through that break- 
 fast. But we did, and then I made the house-
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 63 
 
 keeper put her into the very best rooms. Any- 
 thing if she would only stay there out of the way. 
 
 When I came back, I found Fulk explain- 
 ing why he had spoken at once, and he said 
 he felt that she would have no scruples about 
 taking the initiative, and that everyone would 
 be having surmises. 
 
 Poor Bertram was even more cut up than 
 we were. It came more suddenly, and he felt 
 as if it was all his doing. He had no hope, and 
 he took all ours away. There had been some- 
 thing in the old woman that impressed him 
 as genuine, and he had no doubt that 
 she had known and loved our father. Nay, 
 no one could suspect Hester of not believ- 
 ing in her own story ; the only question was 
 whether the links of evidence could be sub- 
 stantiated. 
 
 The next thing that happened — I can't tell 
 which day it was — was Mrs. Deerhurst's
 
 64 LADY HESTER 
 
 coming, professing to be dreadfully shocked 
 and overcome by my father's death, to take 
 away Emily. She must be so much in our 
 way. I, who saw her first, answered only by 
 begging to keep her — our great comfort and 
 the one thing that cheered and upheld my 
 brother. 
 
 Mrs. Deerhurst looked keenly at me ; and 
 I began to wonder what she knew, but just 
 then came Fulk into the room, with his calm, 
 set, determined face. I knew he would rather 
 speak without me, so I went away, and only 
 knew what he could bear to tell me after- 
 wards. 
 
 Mrs. Deerhurst had been a great deal kinder 
 than he expected. No doubt she would not 
 break the thing off while there was a shred 
 of hope that he was an earl ; but he could 
 not drive her to allow, in so many words, 
 that it must depend upon that.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 6? 
 
 He had quite made up his mind that It was 
 not right to enjoy Emily's presence and the 
 comfort It gave him, unless he was secure of 
 Mrs. Deerhurst's permitting the engagement 
 under his possible circumstances. 
 
 I believe he flattered himself she would, and 
 let her deceive him with thinking so, instead 
 of, as we all did, seeing that what she wanted 
 was to secure the credit of being constant 
 and disinterested In case he retained his posi- 
 tion. So, although she took Emily home, 
 she left him cheered and hopeful, admiring 
 her, and believing that she so regarded her 
 daughter's happiness that, if he had enough to 
 support her, she would overlook the loss of 
 rank and title. He went on half the evening 
 talking about what a remarkable woman Mrs. 
 Deerhurst was ; and, at any rate, it cheered 
 him up through those worst days. 
 
 Our Lupton uncles came, and were fright-
 
 66 LADY HESTER 
 
 fully shocked and incredulous ; at least, Uncle 
 George was. Uncle Lupton himself remem- 
 bered something of my father having told him 
 of a former affair in America. 
 
 They would not let Jaquetta and me go to 
 the funeral ; and they were wise, for Hester 
 thrust herself in — but it is of no use to think 
 about that. Indeed, there is not much to tell 
 about that time, and I need not go into the 
 investigation. It was all taken out of our 
 hands, as my brother had said. Perrault came 
 over from Canada, and brought his witnesses, 
 but not Joel Lea. He had nothing to prove, 
 had conscientious scruples about appearing in 
 an English court of justice, and still hoped it 
 would all come to nothing. 
 
 We stayed on at the London house — the 
 lawyers said we ought, and that possession was 
 "nine-tenths," &c. Besides, we wanted advice 
 for Baby, who had been worse of late.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 67 
 
 The end of it was that it went against us. 
 Faith's marriage, her identity, and Hester's, 
 were proved beyond all doubt, and little 
 Alured was served Earl of Trevorsham. Poor 
 child, how ill he was just then ! It was de- 
 clared water on the brain ! I could hardly 
 think about anything else ; but they all said 
 it seemed like a mockery, and that he would 
 not bear the title a week. And then Lady 
 Hester would have been, not Countess of Tre- 
 vorsham, but Viscountess Torwood, and at 
 any rate she halved the personal property : 
 all that had been meant for us. 
 
 For we already knew that there was nothing 
 in the will that could do us any good. All 
 depended on my mother's marriage settlements, 
 and as the marriage was invalid they were so 
 much waste paper. 
 
 My uncles, to whom my poor mother's 
 fortune reverted, would not touch it, and
 
 68 LADY HESTER 
 
 gave every bit back to us ; but it was only 
 £10,000, and what was that among the four 
 of us ? 
 
 I was in a sort of maze all the time, think- 
 ing of very little beyond dear little Alured's 
 struggle for life, and living upon his little faint 
 smiles when he was a shade better. 
 
 Jaquetta has told me more of what passed 
 than I heeded at the time. 
 
 Our brothers decided not to retain the Trevor 
 name, to which we had no right ; but they had 
 both been christened Tonvood. after an old 
 family custom, and they thought it best to uie 
 this still as a surname. 
 
 Bertram felt the shame, as he would call it, 
 the most ; but Fulk held up his head more. 
 He said where there was no sin there was no 
 shame ; and that to treat ourselves as under a 
 blot of disgrace was insulting our parents, who 
 had been mistaken, but not guilty.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 69 
 
 Bertram was determined against returning to 
 his regiment, and it would have been really 
 too expensive. His plan was to keep together, 
 and lay out our capital upon a piece of ground 
 in New Zealand, which was beginning to be 
 settled. 
 
 Jaquetta was always ready to be delighted. 
 Dear child, her head was full of log huts 
 and Robinson Crusoe life, and cows to milk 
 herself; and I really think she would have 
 liked to go ashore in the Swiss family's eight 
 tubs! 
 
 The thorough change, after all the sorrow, 
 seemed delicious to her ! I heard her and 
 Bertram laughing down below, and wondered 
 if they got the length of settling what dogs 
 they would take out ! 
 
 And Fulk ! He really had almost persuaded 
 himself that Emily would go with us ; or at the 
 very worst, would wait till he had achieved
 
 •jo LADY HESTER 
 
 prosperity and could come home and fetch 
 her. 
 
 Mrs. Deerhurst had declared that waiting 
 for the decision was so bad for her nerves, 
 that she must take her to Paris ; and actually 
 Our dear old stupid fellow had not perceived 
 what that meant, for the woman had let him 
 part tenderly with Emily in London, with 
 promises of writing, &c, the instant the case 
 was decided. It passed his powers to suppose 
 she could expose her daughter's heart to such 
 a wreck. So he held up, cheerful and hope- 
 ful, thinking what a treasure of constancy he 
 had ! And when they had built their castle 
 in New Zealand, they sent up Jaquey to call 
 me to share it with them. Baby was asleep, 
 and I went down ; but when I heard the plan 
 — it was cross to be so unsympathizing, but 
 I did feel hurt and angry at their forgetting 
 him; and I said, "I shall never leave Alured."
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE -j\ 
 
 " Ursula ! you could not stay by yourself," 
 said Jaquey. And Bertram, who had hardly 
 ever seen him, and could not care for him 
 said it was nonsense, and even if there were 
 a chance of the child living, I could not be 
 left behind. 
 
 I was wrought up, and broke out that he 
 would and should live, and that I would come 
 as a stranger, a nursery governess, and watch 
 over him, and never abandon him to Hester. 
 
 " Never fear, Ursula," said Fulk, " if he lives, 
 he will be in safe hands." 
 
 " Safe hands ! What are safe hands for a 
 child like that! Hester's, who only wishes 
 him out of her way ?" 
 
 " For shame ! " the others said, and I 
 answered that, of course, I did not think 
 Hester meant ill by him, but that, where 
 the doctors had said only love and care 
 could save him — no care was safe where he
 
 72 LADY HESTER 
 
 was not loved ; and I cried very, very bitterly, 
 more than I had done even for my father, or 
 for anything else before ; and I fell into a 
 storm of passion, at the cruelty of leaving 
 the poor little thing, whom his dying mother 
 had trusted to me, and declared I would never, 
 never do it. 
 
 I was right in the main, it seems to me, 
 but unjust and naughty in the way I did it; 
 and when Fulk, with some hesitation, began 
 to talk of my not being asked to go just 
 yet — not while the child lived — I turned round 
 in a really violent, naughty fit, with — "You 
 too, Fulk, I thought you loved your little 
 brother better than that ? You only want to 
 be rid of him, and leave him to Hester, and 
 he will die in her hands." 
 
 Fulk began to say that the Court of Chancery 
 never gave the custody to the next heir. 
 But I rushed away again to the nursery,
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 73 
 
 and sat there, devising plans of disguising 
 myself in a close cap and blue spectacles, 
 and coming to offer myself as Lord Trevor- 
 sham's governess. 
 
 The child had no relations whatever on his 
 mother's side, and though, if he had been 
 healthy, nurses and tutors might have taken 
 care of this baby lordship, even that would 
 have been sad enough ; and for the feeble little 
 creature, whose life hung on a thread, how 
 was it to be thought of? 1 fully made up 
 my mind to stay, even if they all went. I told 
 Jaquetta, so — in my vehemence dashed all her 
 bright anticipation, and sent her again in tears 
 to bed. I wish unhappiness would not make 
 one so naughty ! 
 
 The next day poor Fulk was struck down. 
 A letter came from Mrs. Deerhurst to break 
 off the engagement, and a great parcel con- 
 taining all the things he had given Emily.
 
 74 LADY HESTER 
 
 She must have packed them up before leaving 
 England, while she was still flattering him. 
 Not a word nor a line was there from Emily 
 herself! — only a supplication from the mother 
 that he would not rend her child's heart by 
 persisting — just as if she had not encouraged 
 him to go on all this time ! 
 
 Nothing would serve him but that he must 
 dash over to Paris, to see her and Emily. 
 
 Railroads were not, and it was a ten days' 
 affair at the shortest ; and, with all our pros- 
 pects doubtful and Alurcd still so ill, it was 
 very trying. How Bertram did rave at the 
 folly and futility of the expedition ! but one 
 comfort was, that Alured was a ward of 
 Chancery, and, in the vast kindness and com- 
 miseration everyone bestowed upon us, no one 
 tried to hurry us or turn us out. 
 
 Hester used to come continually to inquire 
 after her brother, and there was something in
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 75 
 
 her way that always made me shudder when 
 she asked after him. I knew she could not wish 
 for his life, and gloated over all the reports 
 she could collect of his weakness. I felt more 
 and more horror of her ; God forgive me for 
 not having tried not to hate her. I sometimes 
 doubt whether my dread and distrust were not 
 visible, and may not have put it into her 
 head. 
 
 And then came Mr. Decies, again and again. 
 He was faithful — I see it now. He cared not 
 if I had neither name nor fortune ; he held 
 fast to his proposals. And I ? Oh, I was 
 absorbed — I was universally defiant — I did not 
 do him justice in the bitterness I did not realise. 
 I thought he was constant only out of honour 
 and pity, and I did not choose to open my heart 
 to understand his pleadings or accept them as 
 earnest — I was harsh. Oh, how little one knows 
 what one is doing ! Too proud to be grateful
 
 76 LADY HESTER 
 
 — that was actually my case. I was enamoured 
 of the blue-spectacle plan ; I had romances of 
 watching Alured day and night, and pouring 
 away dangerous draughts. The very fancy, I 
 see now, was playing with edged tools ; I feel 
 as if my imagination had put the possibility 
 into the very air. 
 
 Once indeed — when Jaquetta had been 
 telling me she did not understand my unkind- 
 ness ; and observed that, even for Alured's 
 sake, she could not see why I did not accept — 
 I did begin to regard him as a possible pro- 
 tector for the boy. But no ; the blue spectacles 
 would be the more assiduous guardian, said 
 my foolish fancy. 
 
 Before I had thought it over into sense or 
 reason, Fulk came back from Paris. He had 
 not been really crushed till now. He was 
 white, and silent, and resolute, and very gentle ; 
 all excitement of manner gone. He did not
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 77 
 
 say one word, but we knew it was all over 
 with him, and that he could not have had 
 one scrap of comfort or hope. 
 
 Nor had he, though even to me he told 
 nothing, till we were together in the dark 
 one evening, much later. He did insist upon 
 seeing Emily ; but her mother would not leave 
 her, or take her eyes off her, and the timid 
 thing did nothing but sob and cry, in utter 
 helplessness and shame, and never even gave 
 him a look. " 
 
 It was not the being neglected and cast off 
 that he felt as such a wrong, to both him- 
 self and Emily, but the being drawn on with 
 false hopes and promises to expect that she 
 was to belong to him, after all ; and he was 
 cruelly disappointed that Emily had not 
 energy to cling to him — he had made so sure 
 of her. 
 
 Bertram and Jaquetta had expected all along
 
 73 LADY HESTER 
 
 that he would be the more eager to be off to 
 the Antipodes when everything was swept 
 away from him here, and he did sit after 
 dinner talking it over in a business-like way, 
 while Bertram gave him all the information he 
 had been collecting in his absence. 
 
 I would not listen. I was determined against 
 going away from my charge ; I had rather have 
 been his housemaid than have left him to 
 Hester, and I must have looked like a stone 
 as I got up, and left them to their talk while 
 I went back to the boy. 
 
 I heard Bertram say while I was lighting 
 my candle, " Poor Ursula ! she will not see 
 it. Hart told me to-day that the child is dying 
 — would hardly get through the night." 
 
 Now I had been thinking all the afternoon 
 that he was better, and I had gone down to 
 dinner cheered. I turned into the doorway, 
 and told Fulk to come and see.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 79 
 
 He did come. There was Alured, lying", as 
 he had lain all day, upon his nurse's knees, 
 with her arm under his head. He had not 
 moaned for a long time, and I had left him 
 in a more comfortable sleep. He opened his 
 eyes as we came in, held out his hands more 
 strongly than we thought he could have done, 
 quite smiled — such an intelligent smile — and 
 said, " Tor — Tor — ," which was what he had 
 always called his brother, making his gesture 
 to go to him. 
 
 The tears came into Fulk's eyes, though 
 he smiled back and spoke in his sweet, 
 strong voice, and held out his arms, while 
 we told him he had better sit down. Poor 
 nurse ! she must have been glad enough — she 
 had held him all that live-long day ! And he 
 was quite eager to go to his brother, and 
 smiled up and cooed out, "Tor — Tor," again, 
 as he felt himself on the strong arm.
 
 So LADY HESTER 
 
 Fulk bade nurse go and lie down, and he 
 would hold him. And so he did. I fed the 
 child, as I had done at intervals all day ; and 
 he sometimes slept, sometimes woke and mur- 
 mured or cooed a little, and Fulk scarcely 
 spoke or stirred, hour after hour. He had 
 been travelling day and night, but, strange to 
 say, that enforced calm — that tender stillness 
 and watching, was better for him than rest. 
 He would only have tossed about awake, if 
 he had gone to bed after a discussion with 
 Bertram. 
 
 But in the morning Dr. Hart came, quite 
 surprised to find the child alive ; and when he 
 looked at him and felt his pulse, he said, 
 " You have saved him for this time, at least." 
 
 (Everybody was lavish of pronouns, and 
 chary of proper names. Nobody knew what 
 to call anybody.) 
 
 His little lordship was able to be laid in his
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE Si 
 
 cot, and Fulk, almost blind now with sheer 
 sleep, stumbled off to his room, threw himself 
 on his bed, and slept for seven hours in his 
 clothes without so much as moving. He con- 
 fessed that he had never had such unbroken, 
 dreamless sleep since he had first seen Hester 
 Lea's face. 
 
 That little murmur of " Tor — Tor " had 
 settled all our fates. I don't think he had 
 realised before how love was the one thine 
 that the child's life hung upon, and that the 
 boy himself must have that love and trust. 
 Then, too, when he had waked and dressed and 
 come down, the first person he met was Hester, 
 with her hard, glittering eyes, trying to condole, 
 and not able to hide how the exulting look 
 went out of her face on hearing that the Earl 
 (as she chose to term him) was better. 
 
 She supposed some arrangement would soon 
 be made, and Fulk said he should see the
 
 g 2 LADY HESTER 
 
 lawyers at once about it, and arrange for the 
 personal guardianship of Lord Trevorsham. 
 
 "Of course I am the only proper person 
 while he lives, poor child," she said. 
 
 I broke in with, "The next heir is never 
 allowed the custody." 
 
 I wish I had not. She hastily and proudly 
 said " What do you mean ? " and Fulk 
 quickly added that " the Lord Chancellor 
 would decide." 
 
 The next day he went out, and on returning 
 came up to me in the nursery, and called me 
 into the study. 
 
 " Ursula," he said, " I find that, considering 
 the circumstances, there will be no objection 
 made to our retaining the personal charge of 
 our little brother. Everyone is very kind. 
 Ours is not a common case of illegitimacy, 
 and my father's well-known express wishes 
 will be allowed to prevail."
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 83 
 
 " And your character," I could not help 
 saying ; and he owned that it did go for some- 
 thing, that he was known to everybody, and 
 had some standing of his own, apart from the 
 rank he had lost. 
 
 Then he went on to say that this would of 
 course put an end to the emigration plan, so 
 far as he was concerned. No doubt in the 
 restless desire of change coming after such a 
 fall and disappointment it was a great sacrifice ; 
 but as he said, " There did not seem anything 
 left for him in life but just to try to do what 
 seemed most like one's duty." And then he 
 said it did not seem a worthy thing to do 
 nothing, but just exist on a confined income, 
 and the only thing he did know anything 
 about, and was not too old to learn, was 
 farming, and managing an estate. 
 
 Trevorsham would want an agent, for old 
 Hall was so old, that my brother had really
 
 8 4 LADY HESTER 
 
 done all his work for a year or two past ; and 
 he had felt his way enough to know he could 
 get appointed to the agency, if he chose. The 
 house was to be let, but there was a farm to 
 be had about two miles off, with a good house, 
 and he thought of taking it, and stocking it, 
 and turning regular farmer on his own account ; 
 while looking after the property, and bringing 
 Alured up among his own people and interests. 
 Bertram did not like this at all. "Among 
 all our old friends and acquaintance ? Impos- 
 sible ! unbearable!" he said. 
 
 But Fulk's answer, was — "Better so! If 
 we went to a strange place, and tried to 
 conceal it, it would always be oozing out, 
 and be supposed disgraceful. If my sisters 
 can bear it, I had rather confront it straight- 
 forwardly " 
 
 "And be pitied" — said Bertram, with such 
 
 a contemptuous tone.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 85 
 
 Nobody, however, thought it would be ad- 
 visable for him to give up the New Zealand 
 plan, nor did he ever mean it for a moment ; 
 indeed, he declared that he should go and 
 prepare for us ; for that we should very soon 
 get tired of Skimping's Farm, and come out 
 to him ; meaning, of course, that our dear 
 charge would be over. 
 
 He even wanted Jaquetta to come with him 
 at once, and the log huts and fern trees 
 danced before her eyes as the blue spectacles 
 had done before mine ; but she did not like to 
 leave me, and Fulk would not encourage it, 
 for we both thought her much too young and 
 too tenderly brought up to be sent out to a 
 wild settler's life alone with Bertram, and with- 
 out a friend near. 
 
 To be farmers' sisters where we had been 
 the Earl's daughters — well, I had much rather 
 then that it had been somewhere else ; but I
 
 86 LADY HESTER 
 
 saw it was best for Baby and still more so for 
 Fulk, and dear little Jaquey held fast to me 
 and to him, and so it was settled ! 
 
 Our friends and relatives had much rather 
 we had all emigrated. They did not know 
 what to do with us, and would have been glad 
 to have had us all out of sight for ever, 
 " damaged goods shipped off to the colonies." 
 We felt this and it heartened us up to stay, 
 out of the spirit of opposition. 
 
 Old Aunt Amelia, who fussed and cried over 
 us, and our two uncles, who gave us good 
 advice by the yard ! Alas ! I fear we were 
 equally ungrateful to them, both cold and 
 impatient. No, we did not bear it really 
 well, though they said we did. We had plenty 
 of pride and self-respect, and that carried us 
 on ; but there was no submission, no notion of 
 taking it religiously. I don't mean that wc 
 did not go to church, and in the main try to
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 87 
 
 do right. Any one more upright than my 
 brother it would have been hard to find ; but 
 as to any notion that religious feeling could 
 help us, and that our reverse might be blessed 
 to us, that would have seemed a very strange 
 language indeed ! 
 
 And so we were hard, we would bear no 
 sympathy but from one another, and even 
 among ourselves we never gave way. 
 
 People admired us, I fancy, but were alien- 
 ated and disappointed, and we were quite 
 willing then to have it so.
 
 LADY HESTER 89 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SKIM PING'S FARM. 
 
 Skimping's Farm was the unlucky name of 
 the place, and Fulk would allow of no modifi- 
 cation — his resolution was to accept it all 
 entirely. Now I love no spot on earth so 
 well. It was very different then. 
 
 The farm-house lay on the slope of the hill, 
 in the parish of Trevorsham, but with the park 
 lying between it and the main village. The 
 ground sloped sharply down to the little river, 
 which, about two miles lower down, blends 
 with the Avon, being, in fact, a creek out of 
 Shinglebay. Beneath the house the stream is
 
 9 o LADY HESTER 
 
 clear and rocky, but then comes a flat of salt 
 marsh, excellent for cattle ; and then, again, the 
 river becomes tidal, and reaches at high water to 
 the steep banks, sometimes covered with wood, 
 sometimes with pasture or corn. 
 
 Then under the little promontory comes the 
 hamlet of fisherfolk at Quay Trevor ; and then 
 the coast sweeps away to Shinglebay town, as 
 anyone may see by the map. 
 
 Ours is an old farm, and had an orchard of 
 old apple-trees sloping down to the river — as 
 also did the home field, only divided by a low 
 stone wall from the little strip of flower-garden 
 before the house, which in those days had 
 nothing in it but two tamarisks, a tea-tree, and 
 a rose with lovely buds and flowers that always 
 had green hearts. 
 
 There was a good-sized kitchen-garden be- 
 hind, and the farm-yard was at the side by 
 the back door. The house is old and there-
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 91 
 
 fore was handsome outside, even then, but the 
 chief of the lower story was comprised in one 
 big room, a " keeping-room," as it was called, 
 with an open chimney, screened by a settle, 
 and with a long polished table, with a bench 
 on either side. Into this room the front porch — 
 a deep one, with seats — opened. At one end 
 was a charming little sitting-room, parted off; 
 at the other, the real kitchen for cooking, and 
 the dairy and all the rest of the farm offices. 
 
 Up-stairs — the stairs are dark oak, and come 
 down at one end of the big kitchen — there is 
 one beautiful large room, made the larger by 
 a grand oriel window under the gable, one 
 opening out of it, and four more over the 
 offices ; then a step-ladder and a great cheese- 
 room, and a perfect wilderness of odd nooks 
 up in the roof. 
 
 As to furniture, Fulk had bought that with 
 the stock and everything else belonging to the
 
 92 LADY HESTER 
 
 farm for a round sum ; and the Chancery 
 people told us that we might take anything 
 for ourselves from home that had been bought 
 by ourselves, had belonged to our mother, or 
 been given to us individually. 
 
 So the furniture of Fulk's rooms in London 
 —most of which he had had at Oxford — my 
 own piano, our books, and various little work- 
 tables, chairs, pictures, and knicknacks apper- 
 tained to us ; also, we brought what belonged 
 to the little one's nursery, and put him in the 
 large room. His grand nurse — Earl though 
 he was — could not stand the change ; but old 
 Blake, who was retiring into a public house, 
 as he could do nothing else for us, suggested 
 his youngest sister, who became the comfort 
 of my life, for she was the widow of a small 
 farmer, and could give me plenty of sound 
 counsel as to how much pork to provide for 
 the labourers, and how much small beer would
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 93 
 
 keep them in good heart, and not make them 
 too merry. And she had too much good 
 sense to get into rivalry with Susan Sisson, 
 the hind's wife, who lived in a kind of lean-to 
 cottage opening into the farm-yard, and was 
 the chief (real) manager of the dairy and 
 poultry — though such was not Jaquetta's view 
 of the case by any manner of means. 
 
 What a help it was to have one creature 
 who did enjoy it all from the very first ! 
 
 The parting with Bertram was sore, and 
 one's heart will ache after him still at times, 
 though he is prosperous and happy with his 
 wife and fine family at the new Trevorsham. 
 Fulk went through it all in a grave set way, 
 as if he knew he never should be happy again, 
 and accepted everything in silence, as a matter 
 of course, not wanting to sadden us, but often 
 grieving me more by his steady silence than 
 if he had complained.
 
 94 LADY HESTER 
 
 One thing he was resolved on, that he would 
 be a farmer out and out — not a gentleman 
 farmer, as he said ; but though he only wore 
 broadcloth in the evening and on Sundays, I 
 can't say he ever succeeded in not looking 
 more of the gentleman. 
 
 We fitted up the little parlour with our 
 prettiest things, and it was our morning room, 
 and we put a screen across the big keeping- 
 room, which made it snug for a family gather- 
 ing place. But those were the days when 
 everyone was abusing the farmers for not 
 living with their labourers in the house, and 
 Fulk was determined to try it, at least the 
 first year, either for the sake of consistency, 
 or because he was resolved to keep our ex- 
 penses as low as possible. " Failure would be 
 ruin," he impressed on us, and he thought we 
 ought to live on the profits of the farm, except 
 what was directly spent on the boy, and to
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 95 
 
 save the income of the agency. (Taking one 
 year with another, we did so.) 
 
 So he gave up his own dear old Cid, and 
 only used the same horses that had sufficed for 
 our predecessor — a most real loss and depri- 
 vation — and he chose to take meals at the 
 long table in the keeping-room with the farm 
 servants. He said we girls might dine in our 
 little parlour apart, but there was no bearing 
 that, and the whole household dined and 
 supped together. Breakfast was at such un- 
 certain times that we left that for the back 
 kitchen, and had our own little round table by 
 the fire, or in the parlour, at half-past seven ; 
 and so we took care to have a good cup of 
 coffee for Fulk when he came in about five or 
 six ; but the half-past twelve dinner and eight 
 o'clock supper were at the long table, our three 
 selves and Baby at the top — Baby between me 
 and Mrs. Rowe ("Ally's Rowe," as he called
 
 96 LADY HESTER 
 
 her), then George and Susan Sisson opposite 
 each other, the under nurse, the two maids, 
 the hind, and the three lads. 
 
 I believe it was a very awful penance 
 to them at first. We used to hear them 
 splashing away at the pump and puffing like 
 porpoises ; and they came in with shining 
 faces and lank hair in wet rats' tails, the fore- 
 most of which they pulled on all occasions 
 of sitting down, getting up, or being offered 
 food. 
 
 But they always behaved very well, and the 
 habit of the animal at feeding-time is so 
 silent that I believe the restraint was com- 
 pensated by the honour ; and it did civilise 
 them, thanks, perhaps, to Susan's lectures on 
 manners, which we sometimes overheard. 
 
 Fulk made spasmodic attempts to talk 
 to Sisson ; but the chief conversation was 
 Jaquetta's. She went on merrily all dinner-
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 97 
 
 time, asking about ten thousand things, and 
 hazarding opinions that elicited amusement in 
 spite of ourselves : as when she asked, what 
 sheep did with their other two legs, or sug- 
 gested growing canary seed, as sure to be a 
 profitable crop. Indeed, I think she had a 
 little speculation in it on her own account in 
 the kitchen garden — only the sparrows were 
 too many for her — and what they left would 
 not ripen. 
 
 But the child was always full of some new 
 and rare device, rattling on anyhow, not for 
 want of sense, but just to force a smile out 
 of Fulk and keep us all alive, as she called it. 
 
 She knew every bird and beast on the farm, 
 fed the chickens, collected the eggs, nursed 
 tender chicks or orphan lambs and weaning 
 calves, and was in and out with the dogs all 
 day, really as happy as ten queens, with the 
 freedom and homely usefulness of the life — ■ 
 
 H
 
 98 LADY HESTER 
 
 tripping daintily about in the tall pattens of 
 farm life in those days, and making fresh 
 enjoyment and fun of everything. 
 
 I used to be half vexed to see her grieve 
 so little over all we had lost ; but Fulk said, 
 " I suppose it is very hard to break down a 
 creature at that age." 
 
 And even I was cheered by the wonderful 
 start of health Alured took from the time 
 Mrs. Rowe had him. He grew fat and rosy, 
 and learnt to walk ; and Dr. Hart was quite 
 astonished at his progress, and said he was 
 nearly safe from any more attacks of that 
 fearful water on the brain till he was six or 
 seven years old, and that, till that time, we 
 must let him be as much as possible in 
 the open air, and with the animals, and not 
 stimulate his brain — neither teach, nor excite, 
 nor contradict him, nor let him cry. The farm 
 life was evidently the very thing he wanted.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 99 
 
 What a reprieve it was, even though it 
 should be only a reprieve! 
 
 He was already three years old, and was 
 very clever and observant. 
 
 We were glad that he was too young to 
 take heed of the change, or to see what was 
 implied by his change from "baby," to "my 
 lord;" and we always called him by his 
 Christian name. Mrs. Rowe felt far too 
 much for us to gossip to him, and he was 
 always with her or with me, though I do 
 believe he liked Ben — the great, rough, 
 hind — better than anyone else ; would lead 
 Mrs. Rowe long dances after him, to see him 
 milk the cows, and would hold forth to him at 
 dinner, in a way as diverting to us as it was 
 embarrassing to poor Ben, who used to blurt 
 out at intervals, " Yoi, my lord," and " Noa, 
 my lord;" while the two maids tried to swallow 
 their tittering. The farmers at market used
 
 loo LADY HESTER 
 
 to call Fulk, "my lord/' by mistake, and then 
 colour up to their eyes through their red faces. 
 
 I believe, indeed, it was their name for him 
 among themselves, and that they watched him 
 with a certain contemptuous compassion, in 
 the full belief that he would ruin himself. 
 
 And he declares he should if he had lived 
 a bit more luxuriously, or if he had not had 
 the agency salary to help him through the 
 years of buying experience and the bad season 
 with which he began. 
 
 Nor was it till he had for some years in- 
 troduced that capital breed which thrives so 
 well in the salt marshes, and twice follow- 
 ing showed up the prize ox at the county 
 show, that they began to believe in " Farmer 
 Tonvood," or think his "advanced opinions" 
 in agriculture anything but a gentleman's 
 whimsies. 
 
 As to friends and acquaintance, I am afraid
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 101 
 
 we showed a great deal of pride and stiffness. 
 They were kinder than we deserved, but we 
 thought it prying and patronage, and would 
 not accept what we could not return. 
 
 It is not fair to say we. It was only 
 myself — Jaquetta never saw anything but 
 kindness, and took it pleasantly, and Fulk 
 was too busy and too unhappy to be con- 
 cerned about our visiting matters. If I saw 
 anyone coming to call I hid myself in the 
 orchard, or if I was taken by surprise I was 
 stiffness itself; and then I wrote a set of 
 cards (Miss Torwood and Miss Jaquetta Tor- 
 wood), and drove round in the queer old- 
 fashioned gig to leave them, and there was an 
 end of it ; for I would accept no invitations, 
 though Jaquetta looked at me wistfully. And 
 thus I daunted all but old Miss Prior. Poor 
 old thing ! All her pleasures had oozed down 
 from our house in old times to her ; and
 
 102 LADY HESTER 
 
 her gratitude was indomitable, and stood all 
 imaginable rebuffs that courtesy permitted me. 
 I believe she only pitied and loved me the 
 more, and persevered in the dreadful kindness 
 that has no tact. 
 
 It did not strike me that pleasure might be 
 good for Jaquetta, or that Fulk's stern silent 
 sorrow might have been lightened by variety. 
 Used as he had been to political life and Lon- 
 don society, it was no small change to have 
 merely the market for interest, the farm for 
 occupation, and no society but ourselves ; no 
 newspaper but the County Chronicle once a 
 week ; no new books, for Mudie did not exist 
 then, even if we could have afforded it. We 
 had dropped out of the guinea country book 
 club, and Knight's " Penny Magazine " was our 
 only fresh literature. However, Jaquetta never 
 was much of a reader, and was full of business 
 — queen of the poultry, and running after the
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 103 
 
 weakly ones half the day, supplementing George 
 Sisson's very inadequate gardening — aye, and 
 his wife's equally rough cooking. She found 
 a receipt book, and turned out excellent dishes. 
 She could not bear, she said, to see Fulk try 
 to eat grease, and with an effort at conceal- 
 ment, assisted by the dogs, fall back upon 
 bread and cheese. 
 
 Luckily plain work in the school-room had 
 not gone out in our day, and I could make 
 and mend respectably, but I had to keep a 
 volume of Shakespeare, Scott, or Wordsworth 
 open before me, and learn it by heart, to keep 
 away thoughts, which might have been good 
 for me ; but no — they were working on their 
 own bitterness. 
 
 Sunday was the hardest day of all to Fulk, 
 for this was the only one on which he could 
 not be busy enough to tire himself out. We 
 were a mile from church, and when we got to
 
 io4 LADY HESTER 
 
 the worm-eaten farm pew there was a smell, as 
 Jaquey said, as if generations of farmers had 
 been eating cheese there, and generations of 
 mice eating after them ; and she always longed 
 to shut up a cat there. 
 
 The old curate was very old, and nothing 
 seemed alive but the fiddles in the gallery — 
 indeed, after the " Penny Magazine " had made 
 us acquainted with the Nibelung, Jaquey took 
 to calling Sisson, Folker the mighty fiddler, so 
 determined were his strains. 
 
 After the great house was shut up, one ser- 
 vice was dropped, and so the latter part of 
 the day was spent in a visit to all the live- 
 stock, Fulk laden with Alured, and Jaquetta 
 with tit bits for each and all. 
 
 She and Alured really enjoyed it, and we 
 tried to think we did ! And then Fulk used 
 to stride off on a long solitary walk, or else sit 
 in the porch with his arms across, in a dumb
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 105 
 
 heavy silence, till he saw us looking at him ; 
 and then he would shake himself, and go and 
 find Sisson, and discuss every field and beast 
 with him. 
 
 At least we thought we should have been at 
 peace here ; but one afternoon, when Jaquetta 
 had gone across to the village to see some 
 purchase at the shop, she came back flushed 
 and breathless, and said as she sat down by me, 
 "Oh! Ursie, Ursie, I met Miss Prior; and site 
 has bought Spinney Lawn." 
 
 She was Hester ; it had never meant anyone 
 else amongst us when it was said in that 
 voice. Fulk, when we told him, had, it ap- 
 peared, known it for some days past. All he 
 said was, "Well! she has every right." 
 
 And when I exclaimed, "Just like a harpy, 
 come to watch our poor child !" he said, 
 " Nonsense." 
 
 But I knew I was right, and sat brooding —
 
 106 LADY HESTER 
 
 till presently he said, "Put that out of your 
 head, Ursula, or you will not be able to 
 behave properly to her." 
 
 " I don't see any good in behaving properly 
 to her," said Jaquetta. "What business has 
 she to come here?" 
 
 "I do not choose to regale the neighbour- 
 hood with our family jars " — said Fulk, 
 quietly. 
 
 And then — such a ridiculous child as 
 Jaquetta was — she burst out laughing, and 
 cried, " What a feast they would be ! Pre- 
 served crabs, I suppose;" and she brought a 
 tiny curl into the corner of his mouth. 
 
 My pride was up, and I remember I 
 answered, "You are right, Fulk. No one 
 shall say we are jealous, or shrink from the 
 sight of her!" 
 
 "When Smith told me that he had no idea 
 who was the bidder, or he would not have
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 107 
 
 suffered it," said Fulk, " I told him I could 
 have no possible objection ! " 
 
 And so we endured it in our pride and our 
 dignity. 
 
 Lady Hester Lea was the heroine of the 
 neighbourhood. The romance of the disowned 
 daughter was charming ; and I was far too dis- 
 agreeable to excite any counterbalancing pity. 
 She was handsome, and everybody raved about 
 her likeness to poor papa and the family por- 
 traits; and her Montreal convent had given her 
 manners quite distinct from English vulgarity; 
 or, maybe, her blood told on her bearing, for 
 she was immensely admired for her demeanour, 
 quite as much as for her beauty. 
 
 Old Miss Prior — whom no .coldness on my 
 part could check in her assiduous kindness, and 
 nothing would hinder from affectionately telling 
 us whatever we did not want to hear — kept 
 us constantly informed of the new comer's
 
 io8 LADY HESTER 
 
 triumphs. Especially she would dwell upon the 
 sensation that Lady Hester produced, and all 
 that the gentlemen said of her. Her name 
 stood as lady patroness to all the balls and 
 fancy fairs, and archery, that Shinglebay pro- 
 duced ; and there was no going to shop there 
 without her barouche coming clattering down 
 the street with the two prancing greys, and 
 poor little Trevor inside, with a looped-up 
 hat and ostrich feather exactly like Alured's ; 
 for by some intention she always dressed him 
 in the exact likeness of his little uncle's. I 
 used to think Miss Prior told her, and sedu- 
 lously prevented her ever seeing his lordship 
 out of his brown holland pinafores, but the 
 same rule still held good. 
 
 What tender enquiries poor Miss Prior used 
 to make after " the dear little lord," as she called 
 him. My asseverations of his health and intel- 
 ligence generally eliciting that it was current
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 109 
 
 among Lady Hester's friends that he could 
 neither stand nor speak, and was so imbecile 
 that it was a mercy that he could not live to 
 be eight years old. 
 
 Of course that was what Hester was waiting 
 for. And no small pleasure was it when Alured 
 would come pattering in with a shout of " Ursa, 
 Ursa," and as soon as he saw a lady, would 
 stop, and pull off his hat from his chesnut 
 curls like the little gentleman he always 
 was. 
 
 Spinney Lawn was bought before Joel Lea 
 came to England. If he had seen where it 
 was I doubt whether he would have consented 
 to the purchase ; but Perrault managed it all, 
 and then, with what he had made out of the 
 case, bought himself a share in Meakin's office 
 at Shinglebay, and constituted himself Lady 
 Hester's legal adviser. 
 
 Mr. Lea, after vainly trying to get his wife
 
 no LADY HESTER 
 
 to return to Sault St. Pierre, thought it wrong 
 to be apart from her and his son, and came to 
 England. 
 
 Fulk went at once to call on him, expecting 
 to be disgusted with Yankeeisms ; but came 
 home, saying he had found a more unlucky 
 man than himself! 
 
 Fancy a great, big, plain, hard-working 
 back-woodsman, bred only to the axe and 
 rifle, with illimitable forests to range in, happy 
 in toil and homely plenty, and a little king 
 to himself, set down in an English villa, with 
 a trim garden and paddock, and servants every- 
 where to deprive him of the very semblance 
 to occupation ! 
 
 Poor man ! he had not even the alleviation 
 of being proud of it, and trying to live up to 
 it. Puritan to the bone of his broad back, he 
 thought everything as wicked as it was weari- 
 some and foolish ; and lived like Faithful in
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE m 
 
 "Vanity Fair," solely enduring it for the sake 
 of his wife and son. I suppose he could not 
 have carried her off, or altered her course 
 without the strong hand ; for she was a deter- 
 mined woman, all the more resolute because 
 she acted for her child. 
 
 He was a staunch Dissenter, and would not 
 go to church with Lady Hester, who did so as 
 a needful part of the belonging of her station, 
 or, perhaps, to watch over us, but trudged two 
 miles every Sunday to the meeting-house at 
 Shinglebay, where he was a great light, and 
 spent all that she allowed him on the minister 
 and the Sunday school. 
 
 As to society, he abhorred it on principle, 
 and kept out of the way when his wife gave 
 her parties. If she had an old affection for 
 him in the depths of her heart, it was swal- 
 lowed up in vexation and provocation ; and 
 no wonder, for the verdict of society, as Miss
 
 H2 LADY HESTER 
 
 Prior reported it, was — " How sad that such 
 a woman as Lady Hester should have been 
 thrown away on a mere common man — not a 
 bit better than a labourer." 
 
 I detested him like all the rest ; but Fulk 
 declared he was sublime in passive endurance, 
 and used to make opportunities of consulting 
 him about cattle or farming, just to interest 
 him. 
 
 Fulk and the dissenting minister were the 
 only friends the poor man had, and the latter 
 Hester would not let into her house. As to 
 Perrault, he loathed and shrank from him as 
 the real destroyer of all his peace, and still 
 the most dangerous influence about his wife. 
 He never said so, but we felt it. 
 
 I think the poor man's happiest hours were 
 spent here ; and, now and then in a press of 
 work, or to show how a thing ought to be 
 done, he put his own hand to axe, lever, or
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 113 
 
 hay-fork, and toiled with that cruelly-wasted 
 alert strength. 
 
 Fulk always says there never was anyone 
 who taught him so much as Joel Lea, and he 
 means deeper things than farming. 
 
 Sometimes Mr. Lea brought his little boy. 
 I was vexed at first ; but Alured, who had 
 hardly spoken to a child before, was in 
 ecstasies, as if a new existence had come 
 upon him ; and Trevor Lea was really a very 
 nice little boy. He was only half a year the 
 elder ; and they were so much alike that 
 strangers did not know them apart, dressed 
 alike, as they were ; or they were taken for 
 twins, and it made people laugh to find they 
 were uncle and nephew. 
 
 And I must allow the nephew was the best 
 
 behaved, though it made me savage to hear 
 
 Fulk say so. 
 
 But our Ally's was not real naughtiness — 
 
 1
 
 H4 LADY HESTER 
 
 only the consequence of our not being able to 
 keep up discipline, while we lived in dread of 
 that seventh year that might rob us of our 
 darling — always sweet and loving.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE u 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SPINNEY LAWN. 
 
 A CHANGE or two began to creep into our 
 life. One afternoon, as Jaquetta, in her pretty- 
 pink gingham and white apron, with her black 
 hair in the Grecian coil we used to wear when 
 our heads were allowed to be of their own 
 proper size, was gathering crimson apples from 
 the quarrendon tree close to the river, a voice 
 came over the water — 
 
 " Oh, my good girl, if you would but stand 
 so a minute, and allow me to sketch you!" 
 
 Jaquetta started round and laughed. No 
 doubt she was looking like an Arcadian ; but
 
 n6 LADY HESTER 
 
 I — as from under the trees I saw two gentle- 
 men on the other side of the little stream, 
 and jumped up to come to her defence — I 
 must have looked more like a displeased if 
 not draggle-tailed duchess, for there was an 
 immediate disconcerted begging of our pardons, 
 and a hasty departure. 
 
 Jaquctta made a very funny account of my 
 spring forward in awful dignity, so horribly 
 affronted at her being called a good girl ! 
 and she made Fulk laugh heartily. The gloom 
 did seem to be lightening on him now. 
 
 Walking tourists, we supposed, though one 
 we thought was a clergyman ; and on Sunday 
 we saw him in the desk and the draughtsman 
 in the parsonage pew ; and we discovered 
 that these were the proposed new curate, Mr. 
 Cradock, and his younger brother. Our rector 
 was a canon who had bad health and never 
 came near us, and the poor old curate was
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 117 
 
 past work, and, indeed, died a week or two 
 after he had given up. 
 
 I saw that younger brother colour up to the 
 roots of his bright hair as Jaquetta walked up 
 the aisle, in her drawn black silk bonnet with 
 the pink lining (made by herself) ; and I think 
 she coloured too, for she was rosier than usual 
 when we faced round in the corners of our pew. 
 
 We saw no more of them for a month, and 
 a dainty, bridal-looking little lady appeared in 
 the parsonage seat, with white ribbons in her 
 straw bonnet, and modest little orange flowers 
 in the frill round her pleasant face. 
 
 Mrs. Cradock she was, we heard ; and not 
 only Miss Prior, but Fulk, wanted us to call 
 on her. 
 
 "What's the use?" said I. "Farmers' families 
 are not on visiting terms with the ladies of the 
 parsonage." 
 
 Poor Jaquey uttered an "Oh dear!" but she
 
 n8 LADY HESTER 
 
 and Fulk knew I was past moving in that 
 mood. 
 
 However, one morning in the next week, in 
 walked Fulk into the keeping-room, and the 
 clergyman with him, and found Jaquey and 
 me standing at the long table under the 
 window, peeling and cutting up apples for 
 apple-cheese. 
 
 " Mr. Cradock, my sister," he said, just in 
 the old tone when he brought a friend into 
 our St. James's-street drawing-room ; and he 
 hardly gave time for the shaking of hands 
 before he had returned to the discussion about 
 the change of ministry, just with the voice and 
 animation I had not seen for two whole years. 
 
 We went on with our apples. For one thing, 
 we were not wanted ; for another, there was no 
 fire in the little parlour, and the gentlemen 
 both seemed to be enjoying the bright one 
 that was burning on the hearth.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 119 
 
 The only difficulty was that dinner time 
 began to approach. The men could not be 
 kept waiting ; and I heard Alured awake 
 from his sleep, pattering about and shouting; 
 and as we began to gather up our apples one 
 of the maids peeped in with a table-cloth over 
 
 her arm. 
 
 Mr. Cradock saw, though Fulk did not, 
 and said his wife would expect him; and 
 then he looked most pleasantly to me, 
 and said he was not at all wanted at 
 home, while his wife was luxuriating in a 
 settlement of furniture ; but this was, he 
 was assured, the last day of confusion, and 
 to-morrow she would be quite ready for 
 all who would be so good as to call on 
 her. 
 
 I could only say I would do myself the plea- 
 sure ; and then he still waited a moment to 
 say that his brother Arthur could not recover
 
 120 LADY HESTER 
 
 from his dismay at his greeting to Miss 
 Torwood. 
 
 "But," he said, "the boy's head was quite 
 turned by the beauty of the country. He had 
 been raving all day about the new poet, 
 Alfred Tennyson, and I believe he thought 
 he had walked into lotus-land." 
 
 "Nearer the dragon of the Hesperides, per- 
 haps," said Fulk, laughing. " Is he with you 
 now ?" 
 
 " No ; he has gone back to Oxford. He is 
 in his second year ; and whether he takes to 
 medicine or to art is to be settled by com- 
 mon-sense or genius." 
 
 " Oh, but if he has genius ?" began Jaquctta 
 eagerly. 
 
 "That's the question," said Mr. Cradock, 
 laughing. "But I am hindering you shame- 
 fully ;" and with that he took his leave, having 
 quite demolished our barriers.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 121 
 
 And his wife was of the same nature — simple, 
 blithe, and bonny — ready to make friends in a 
 moment ; and though she must have known all 
 about us, never seeming to remember any- 
 thing but that we were her nearest lady 
 neighbours. 
 
 Jaquetta, whose young friendships had been 
 broken short off, because the poor girls really 
 did not know how to correspond with her 
 under present circumstances, took to Mrs. 
 Cradock with eager enthusiasm, and tripped 
 across the park to her two or three times a 
 week, and became delightedly interested in all 
 her doings, parochial or otherwise. 
 
 Dear Jaquey's happy nature had always been 
 content ; but when I saw how exceedingly she 
 enjoyed the variety, liveliness, and occupations 
 brought by the Cradocks, I felt that it had 
 been scarcely kind to seclude her to gratify 
 my own sole pride ; but then there had been
 
 122 LADY HESTER 
 
 nobody like the Cradocks — to drop or be 
 dropped. 
 
 The refreshment to Fulk was even greater. 
 The having a man to converse with, and break 
 his mind against, one who would argue, and 
 who really cared for the true principles of poli- 
 tics, made an immense difference to him. When 
 after tea he said he would walk to the parson- 
 age to see how the debate had gone, and we 
 knew we should not see him till half-past ten, 
 we could not but be glad ; it must have been 
 so much pleasanter than playing at chess, 
 listening to our old music, or reading even the 
 new books they lent us. 
 
 He brightened greatly that winter, and I 
 ceased to fear that he was getting a farmer's 
 slouch. He looked as stately and beautiful as 
 ever Lord Torwood had done, and the dejec- 
 tion had gone out of his face and bearing, 
 when suddenly it returned again ; and as
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 123 
 
 Miss Prior was away from home, I never 
 found out the cause till one day, as I was 
 shopping at Shinglebay, and was telling the 
 linendraper that Mr. Torwood would call for 
 the parcel, I saw the lady at the other counter 
 start and turn round, as if at a sudden shock. 
 
 Then I saw the white doe eyes, full of the 
 old pleading expression, and the lips quivering 
 wistfully, but I only said to myself, "The old 
 arts ! That is what has overthrown Fulk 
 again ;" and away I went with a rigid bow, 
 and said nothing. 
 
 There was no exchange of calls. That 
 was not my fault, for we could not have 
 begun ; and we heard that Mrs. Deerhurst 
 said, "The Torwoods had shown very good 
 taste in retiring from all society, poor things. 
 Only it was a great mistake to remain in 
 the neighbourhood — so awkward for every- 
 body !"
 
 124 LADY HESTER 
 
 Mrs. Cradock was much struck with Emily's 
 sweet looks ; but I believe that Jaquetta told 
 her all about it, and we never met the Deer- 
 hursts there. 
 
 In fact they were not intimate, for there 
 must have been a repulsion between Mrs. 
 Deerhurst and such a woman as Mary Cra- 
 dock. 
 
 The Deerhursts owned a villa en the out- 
 skirts of Shinglebay ; indeed, I believe it 
 was the difficulty in letting it that had un- 
 willingly forced Mrs. Deerhurst home, after 
 having married her second daughter, but not 
 Emily. She was only a mile and a half 
 from Spinney Lawn, and speedily became 
 familiar there, being as entirely Hester's 
 counsellor in etiquette as was Perrault on 
 business. People saw a marked improve- 
 ment in elegance from the time she became 
 adviser.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 125 
 
 That next winter poor Joel Lea died. I sup- 
 pose it was merely the dulness and want of 
 exercise that killed him, for he had lost flesh 
 and grown languid in manner for months 
 before a low fever set in, and he had no 
 power to struggle with it. 
 
 He had been ill a long time, when he 
 sent a message to beg Mr. Torwood to 
 come and see him. Jaquetta and I per- 
 suaded ourselves that he had discovered 
 that Perrault had suborned witnesses, or 
 done something that would falsify the whole 
 trial. 
 
 Jaquetta said she should be very glad for 
 Fulk, and if it happened now little Alured 
 would never feel it ; but for her own part, she 
 should hate to go back to be my lady again. 
 She had never known before what happiness 
 was. 
 
 I could not help laughing. Nobody had ever
 
 126 LADY HESTER 
 
 detected anything amiss with Lady Jaquetta 
 Trevor's spirits, but that they were too high 
 at times. 
 
 " Of course I don't mean that I was miser- 
 able !" she said ; " but there's something now 
 that does make everything so delicious." 
 
 "Could you not take that something to the 
 park ?" I asked, laughing. 
 
 " I don't know ! It would not be so bad 
 if I could run in and out at the parsonage as 
 I do now." 
 
 And as I smiled, it smote me as I recollected 
 that Arthur Cradock was always at the par- 
 sonage in the vacations. Jaquetta had been 
 sketched many a time as nymph of the 
 orchard, and many a nymph besides. And 
 if he was yielding to his brother's wisdom in 
 making medicine his study and art his pleasure, 
 was not our unconscious maiden the sugar that 
 sweetened the cup of prudence ? Might not
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 127 
 
 elevation be as sore a trial to her as de- 
 pression had been to us ? 
 
 However, our troubling ourselves was all 
 nonsense. Good Joel Lea would never have 
 connived at any evil doings. All he had 
 wanted of Fulk was to be certain of his for- 
 giveness for the injury he had suffered through 
 his wife, and to entreat him to keep a watch 
 over her and the boy. 
 
 "You are her brother, when all is come and 
 gone," he said ; " and I do not trust that 
 Perrault. If ever he fails her, or turns against 
 her, you'll stand her friend, and look to the 
 boy?" 
 
 Fulk heartily promised, and Joel further 
 begged him to write to her eldest brother, 
 Francis Dayman (who was prospering im- 
 mensely in the timber trade), and let him 
 know the state of things — though he had been 
 so angered at Hester's sacrifice of his mother's
 
 128 LADY HESTER 
 
 good name and his own birth, that he had 
 broken with her entirely. 
 
 " But if anyone can get her out of 
 Perrault's hands, it is Francis," poor Joel 
 said ; and he went on to talk of his poor 
 boy, about whom he was very anxious, 
 having no trust in any of Hester's intimates, 
 and begging Fulk to throw a good word to 
 him now and then. 
 
 " He thinks much of you," he said. " I 
 heard him tell Miss Deerhurst that it was no 
 use for anyone to try to be such an out-and- 
 out gentleman as his uncle, for they couldn't do 
 it, and he had rather be like you than anyone 
 else. I don't care for gentlemen, and all that 
 foolery, as you know. I wish I could leave 
 him to my old mate, Eli Potter ; but you 
 are true and honest, Fulk Torwood, and I 
 think not so far from the kingdom " 
 
 Then he asked Fulk to read a chapter to
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 129 
 
 him. No one else would do so, except little 
 Trevor, when now and then left alone with him ; 
 but Hester would not believe him seriously ill, 
 and thought the Bible wearied him and made 
 him low spirited ; and as to his friend the 
 Dissenter, she would never admit him. 
 
 Fulk was so indignant that he wanted to 
 drive to Shinglebay and fetch Mr. Ball, but 
 Lea thanked him and half smiled at his super- 
 stition of thinking that a minister was needed 
 to speed his soul ; but he was pleased that 
 Fulk came to him on each of the four or five 
 remaining days of his life, and read to him 
 whatever he wished. 
 
 He sank suddenly at last, while Hester was 
 at church on Sunday morning, and died when 
 alone with Fulk. 
 
 Somehow the intense reality of that man 
 and the true comfort his faith was to him 
 made an immense impression on my brother, 
 
 K
 
 130 LADY HESTER 
 
 and seemed, as it were, to give the communi- 
 cation between his religious belief and his 
 feelings, which had somehow not been in force 
 before. He thought and borrowed books from 
 Mr. Cradock, and there came a deepening and 
 softening over him, which one saw in many- 
 ways, that made him dearer than ever. He 
 looked more at peace, even though one felt 
 that each passing sight of Emily was a 
 sting. 
 
 Hester was dreadfully stricken down at first, 
 and her anguish of lamentation and self-re- 
 proach was terrible to witness ; but she would 
 not hear of Fulk's fetching either of us — in- 
 deed, I fancy that was the fault of my dry, 
 cold looks — nor would she allow him to do 
 anything for her. 
 
 Mrs. Dcerhurst came to be with her, and 
 Perrault managed everything. 
 
 They had a magnificent funeral — much grander
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 131 
 
 than my father's— and laid him in the family 
 vault. 
 
 Perrault took the opportunity of insulting 
 Fulk by pairing him with old Hall, the ex- 
 agent; but Hall found it out in time, and 
 refused to go, and when the moment came 
 everybody fell back, and Fulk found himself 
 close to poor little Trevor, who tried to get 
 his hand out of Perrault's and cling to him ; 
 but Perrault held him tight till, at the mo- 
 ment when they moved to the mouth of the 
 vault and were to go down the steps, terror 
 completely seized the poor child, and he began 
 to shriek so fearfully that Fulk had to snatch 
 him up and carry him out of the church, 
 trembling from head to foot. 
 
 It was very cruel to send a sensitive child 
 of six years old in that way; but Hester 
 was too much exhausted with her violent 
 grief to go herself, and, devoted mother as
 
 132 LADY HESTER 
 
 she was in all else, she never perceived 
 that poor child's instinctive shrinking from 
 Perrault. 
 
 We tried to be kind to her, and hoped she 
 would soften towards us ; but she did not. I 
 could see her eyes glitter with their keen, 
 searching glance under her crape veil, as if 
 she were measuring Alured all over when the 
 child walked into church with me ; and, indeed, 
 when he went to the Zoological Gardens some 
 time later, and saw the cobra di capello, he 
 said — 
 
 " Ursa, why does that snake look at me just 
 like Lady Hester?" 
 
 There must have been fascination in the eager 
 mystery of the gaze, for, strangely enough, he 
 was not afraid of her. She always made much 
 of him if he came in her way, and he was so 
 fond of Trevor Lea that nothing made him so 
 eager or happy as the thought of seeing him.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 133 
 
 The one idea that her boy was ousted by 
 Alured, and the longing to see him the heir, 
 seemed to drive out everything else from 
 Hester — almost feeling for her husband. 
 
 Fulk had written to Francis Dayman, and 
 he intended to come and see after his sister 
 as soon as he could leave his business ; but 
 this rather precipitated matters. Hester was 
 persuaded that Alured could not live through 
 that eighth year of his life at the utmost, and 
 Perrault somehow persuaded her, that only as 
 her husband could he protect her interests 
 and Trevor's, though what machinations she 
 could have expected from us, I cannot guess ; 
 or how, in the case of a minor, we could 
 have interfered with her rights. But the man 
 had gained such an ascendancy over her, that 
 she did not even perceive that the connection 
 was not good for that great object of her's, 
 her son's position in society. In fact, he
 
 134 LADY HESTER 
 
 persuaded her that he was of a noble old 
 French family, and ought to be a count. How 
 we laughed when we heard of it ! She did 
 preserve wisdom enough to insist upon having 
 her fortune conveyed to trustees for her son, 
 so that Perrault could only touch the income, 
 and not the principal ; and as she told everyone 
 that he had been determined upon this being 
 done, I suppose he saw that any demur would 
 excite her suspicion. 
 
 They went to London, and were married 
 there, while we were still scouting poor Miss 
 Prior's rumours. We were very sorry when we 
 thought of poor Joel's charge ; and, besides, 
 " the count " had an uncomfortable slippery 
 look about him. I can't describe it otherwise. 
 He was a slim, trim, well-dressed man, only 
 given to elaborate jewellery and waistcoats, 
 with polished black hair and boots, and keen 
 French-looking eyes, well-mannered, and so
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 135 
 
 versatile and polite, that he soon overcame 
 people's prejudices ; and he was thought to 
 make a much better master of the house than 
 poor Joel had ever done.
 
 LADY HESTER 137 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE WHITE DOE'S WARNING. 
 
 HERE was Alured's eighth birthday, and 
 he had never been ill at all, but was as fine- 
 looking healthy a boy as could be seen. 
 
 We took him to London, and showed him 
 to Dr. Hart, and he said that the old tendency 
 was entirely outgrown, and that Lord Trevor- 
 sham was as likely to live and thrive as any 
 child of his age in England. 
 
 It really seemed the beginning of a new 
 life, not to have that dreadful fear hanging 
 over us any longer ! We felt settled, that 
 was one thing ; not as if we should do as
 
 138 LADY HESTER 
 
 Bertram expected, have to come off to New 
 Zealand. 
 
 The farm had just began to pay. Fulk's 
 sales of cattle had been, for the first time, 
 more than enough to clear his rent. He had 
 a great ox in the Smithfield Cattle Show, and 
 met our Lupton uncles there not as an un- 
 successful man. 
 
 And I ? I had a dim feeling that Alured 
 would soon cease to need me, and Jaquetta 
 would not be claimed for a long time ; and 
 if 
 
 But in the midst of that if I saw a haggard 
 face driving in the park by the side of a little, 
 over-dressed, faded woman. 
 
 And Aunt Amelia told me how (in the re- 
 bound from my harshness, no doubt) Mr. 
 Decies had, as it were, dropped into the 
 hands of a weak, extravagant girl, who had 
 long been using all the intellect she had to
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 139 
 
 attract him, and now led him a dreary life 
 of perpetual dissipation. 
 
 I don't know how much I had been to 
 blame. I am sure he was meant for better 
 things. Mine could never have been real love 
 for him, and the refusal could not have been 
 wrong. It must have been the pride and 
 harshness that stung him ! 
 
 I was very sorry for him, though I could not 
 think about it, of course, still less speak ; but 
 that was the beginning of my hating myself, 
 and I have hated myself more and more ever 
 since I have taken to write all this down, and 
 seen how hard and foolish I was, how very 
 much the worst of the three. 
 
 Even my care for Alured sprang out of ex- 
 clusive passion, and so, though I do think that 
 by Heaven's mercy I had a great share in 
 cherishing him into strength and health, I had 
 managed him badly, I had indulged him over
 
 i 4 o LADY HESTER 
 
 much, and was improperly resentful of any 
 attempt of Jaquetta, or even of Fulk, to inter- 
 fere with him or restrain him. 
 
 Thus, when the anxiety was over, and he 
 was a strong boy, full of health and activity, 
 his will was entirely unrestrained, he had no 
 notion of minding any of us, still less of 
 learning. Trevor Lea could read, write, talk 
 French, say a few Latin declensions, when 
 Alured could not read a word of three letters, 
 and would not try to learn. 
 
 Oh ! the antics he played when I tried to 
 teach him ! Then Fulk tried, and he was tame 
 for three days, but then came idleness, wilful- 
 ness, anger, punishment, but he laughed to 
 scorn all that we could find in our hearts to 
 do to him. 
 
 As to getting other help we were ashamed 
 till he should be a little less shamefully back- 
 ward. The Cradocks offered to teach him,
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 141 
 
 but then, unless he was elaborately put on 
 honour, he played truant. 
 
 He had plenty of honour, plenty of affec- 
 tion, but not the smallest conscience as to 
 obedience ; and Fulk would not have the other 
 two motives worked too hard, saying the one 
 might break, the other give way. 
 
 We had not taught obedience, so we had to 
 take the consequences, and we were the less 
 able to enforce it that he had come to a 
 knowledge of our mutual relations much sooner 
 than we intended, and in the worst manner 
 possible. 
 
 Of course he knew himself to be Lord 
 Trevorsham, and owner of the property ; but 
 one day, when Fulk found him galloping his 
 pony in the field laid up for hay, and ordered 
 him out, he retorted that " You ain't my proper 
 brother, and you haven't any rights over me ! 
 Tt is my field, and I shall do as I like."
 
 142 LADY HESTER 
 
 Fulk got hold of the pony's bridle, and took 
 Alured by the shoulder without one word, then 
 took him into the little study, and had it out 
 with him. 
 
 It was Hester who had told him. He had 
 been at Spinney Lawn with Trevor all one 
 afternoon, when we had thought him out with 
 old Sisson. He had told no falsehood indeed, 
 but Hester and her husband had made him 
 understand, so far as such a child could do, 
 that there was some disgrace connected with 
 us ; that Fulk had once been in his place, and 
 only wanted to get it back, and now had it 
 all his own way with his young lordship's 
 property, and that he owed us neither duty 
 nor affection, only to his true relative, Lady 
 Hester Perrault. 
 
 The dear boy had maintained stoutly that 
 he did love Ursula and Jacquey, and that 
 Hester wasn't half so nice, and that he had
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 143 
 
 rather they bullied him than that she coaxed 
 him ! But there was the poison sown — to 
 rankle and grow and burst out when he was 
 opposed. He had full faith and trust in Fulk, 
 and accepted his history, owning, indeed, from 
 a boy, that he had been a horrid little wretch 
 for saying what he did, and asking whether it 
 had not been a great bore ; indeed, he be- 
 haved all the better instead of the worse for 
 some little time, dear fellow. 
 
 But he was too big and strong to tie to 
 one's apron-string, and his greatest pleasure 
 was in being with Trevor. I think Trevor's 
 own influence never did any harm. Poor Joel 
 Lea had trained him well, and he was a con- 
 scientious, good boy, who often hindered Alured 
 from insubordination ; but the attraction to 
 Spinney Lawn was a mischievous thing — for 
 there was no doubt that the heads of the family 
 would set him against us if they could.
 
 144 LADY HESTER 
 
 So Fulk thought it wiser to send him to 
 school, since he was learning nothing properly 
 at home, and only getting more disobedient 
 and unruly. 
 
 Immediately Trevor Lea was sent to the 
 same school, to the boys' great delight. They 
 cared little that Trevor was placed nearly 
 at the top and Trevorsham at the bottom 
 of the little preparatory school. They held 
 together just as much, and Alured came 
 home wonderfully improved and delightfully 
 good, but more than ever inseparable from 
 Trevor. 
 
 In the meantime Francis Dayman had come 
 to pay his sister a visit. He had made some 
 fortunate speculations, and had come on to be 
 a merchant of considerable wealth and weight 
 in the Hudson's Bay Company. 
 
 A handsome man of a good deal of strength 
 and force he seemed to be, and Perrault had
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 145 
 
 certainly been wise in securing his prize before 
 Hester had such a guardian. 
 
 He was an open, straight-forward man, with 
 a fresh breath of the forest about him ; suc- 
 cessful beyond all his hopes, and full of activity. 
 He took to Fulk, and seemed to have a strong 
 fellow-feeling for us. 
 
 But little had Fulk expected to be made 
 the confidant of his vehement admiration for 
 Emily Deerhurst. The gentle lady-like girl 
 impressed the backwoodsman in a wondrous 
 manner. It seemed to him, as if his wealth 
 would have real value, if he could pour it all 
 out on her. 
 
 And her mother encouraged him. Emily 
 was six years older than when she had cast 
 off Fulk, and there was a pale changed look 
 about her ; and the rich Canadian, who could 
 buy a baronetcy, and do anything she asked, 
 tempted Mrs. Deerhurst. 
 
 L
 
 i 4 G LADY HESTER 
 
 Though, as Fulk said bitterly, if the stain 
 on his birth was all the cause of the utter 
 withdrawal, was it not the same with Francis 
 Dayman? Only in his case it was gilded! 
 
 Dayman knew nothing of this former affair. 
 The world was forgetting it, and if Hester 
 knew it, she kept it from his knowledge, so he 
 used to consult Fulk as to what was to be 
 done to please an English lady, and whether 
 he was too rough for her ; and Fulk stood 
 it all. He even knew when the young lady 
 herself was brought forward — and refused, 
 gently, sadly, courteously, but unmistakably ; 
 and then, when driven hard by the eager 
 wooing, owned to an old attachment, that 
 never would permit her to marry ! 
 
 What a light there was in Fulk's eyes when 
 he whispered that into my ears! And yet 
 he had kept his counsel, even though Mr. 
 Dayman told him that the mother declared
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 147 
 
 it to be a foolish romantic affair of very early 
 girlhood, that no doubt his perseverance would 
 overthrow. 
 
 " And her persecution !" muttered poor Fulk. 
 But he did enjoy the confidences in a bitter- 
 sweet fashion. It was justifiable to be a dog 
 in the manger under the circumstances. 
 
 Mr. Dayman went to London, and Hester 
 was negociating about a house where Mrs. 
 Deerhurst and her daughters were to stay 
 with her for a few weeks. I fancy Mrs. Deer- 
 hurst thought that the chance of seeing 
 Farmer Torwood ride by to market had a 
 bad effect. It was the Easter holidays, and 
 both boys were at home ; always trying to be 
 together, and we not finding it easy to keep 
 Alured from Spinney Lawn, without such flat 
 refusals as would have given his sister legiti- 
 mate cause of complaint and offence. 
 
 One beautiful spring afternoon, when Alured,
 
 143 LADY HESTER 
 
 to my vexation and vague uneasiness, had 
 gone over there, I was sowing annuals in the 
 garden and watching for him at the same 
 time, when, to my surprise, I saw, coming 
 over the fields from the park, a lady with a 
 quick, timid, yet wearied step. Had she lost 
 her way, I thought ? There was something 
 of the tame fawn in her movement ; and 
 then I remembered the white doe. Yes ! it 
 was Emily ! 
 
 The one haunting anxiety of my life broke 
 out — " You havn't come to say there's any- 
 thing amiss with my boy ?" I cried out. 
 
 " No ; oh no ! I think he is safe now ; but I 
 wanted to tell you, I think you ought to be 
 warned." 
 
 She was trembling so much that I wanted 
 to bring her in and make her rest ; but she 
 would only sit down on the step of the 
 stile, and there she whispered it, in this way.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 149 
 
 "You know there's a dreadful scarlet fever 
 at old Brown's." 
 
 "The old man that sells curiosities? No, I 
 did not know it ; I'll keep Trevorsham away," 
 I said, wondering she had come all this way ; 
 and then asking in a fright, "Surely he has 
 not been there ? " 
 
 " No ; I met him on the road with Lady 
 Hester Perrault, and I told them. I walked 
 back to Spinney Lawn with them. But," as 
 I began to thank her, and her voice went lower 
 still, "but — oh, Ursula, Lady Hester knew it!" 
 
 " Knew it ! " 
 
 "Yes, knew it quite well." 
 
 " She was doing it on purpose ! " 
 
 " Oh," Emily hid her face in her hands, " I 
 pray God to forgive me if I am doing a very 
 cruel wicked wrong ; but I can't help thinking 
 it. I had told her only yesterday how bad 
 the fever was in that street. She said she had
 
 ISO LADY HESTER 
 
 forgotten it, and thanked me ; but she had not 
 her own boy, Trevor, with her. 
 
 I was too much frozen with the horror of 
 the thing to speak at first, and perhaps Emily 
 thought I did not quite believe her, for she 
 said, under her breath, "And I've heard her 
 talk — talk to mamma — about her being so 
 certain that Lord Trevorsham could not live, 
 even when he was past seven years old. They 
 always have said that the first illness would 
 go to his head and carry him off. And when 
 
 people do wish things veiy much " And 
 
 then she grew frightened at herself, and began 
 blaming herself for the horrible fancy, but 
 saying it haunted her every time she saw 
 Lord Trevorsham in Lady Hester's sight. 
 That old ballad, "The wee grovelling doo," 
 would come into her head, and she had felt 
 as if any harm happened to the child it 
 would be her fault for not having spoken a
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 151 
 
 word of warning, and this had determined 
 her. 
 
 By this time I had taken it in, and then the 
 first thing I did was to spring up and ask how 
 she could leave the boy still in the woman's 
 power, to which she answered that she had 
 walked them back to Spinney Lawn — a whole 
 mile — and that Lady Hester could not set 
 forth again, now that Alured had heard the 
 conversation. 
 
 He had been bent on going to buy a tame 
 sea-gull there, as a birthday present for Trevor ; 
 and Emily had lured him off from that, by a 
 promise of getting one from an old fisherman 
 whom she knew. So there was not much fear 
 of his running back into the danger, though 
 I should not have a happy moment till he 
 was in my sight again. 
 
 Then Emily sprang up, saying, she must 
 go. She had walked four miles, and she
 
 152 LADY HESTER 
 
 must get back as fast as she could. Most 
 likely mamma would think her at Spinney 
 Lawn. 
 
 But what must not it have cost that timid 
 thing to venture here with her warning! 
 
 It gave me a double sense of the reality 
 of my boy's peril, that she had been excited 
 to it, and she would not hear of coming in to 
 rest ; and when I entreated her to wait till 
 I could get the gig to drive her part of the 
 way, she held me fast, and insisted, with all 
 the terror of womanly shamefacedness, that, 
 "he— that Tor — that Mr. Torwood — should 
 not know." And she sprang up to go home 
 instantly, before he could guess. 
 
 " Oh, Emily, that is too bad, when nothing 
 would make him so glad." 
 
 " Oh ! no, no ! he has been used too ill ; 
 he can't care for me now, and as if I 
 ghould "
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 153 
 
 I don't think poor Emily uttered anything 
 half so coherent as this, at any rate I under- 
 stood that she disclaimed the least possibility 
 of his affection continuing, and felt it an out- 
 rage on herself to be where she could even 
 suppose herself to have voluntarily put herself 
 in hfe way. 
 
 I thought there was nothing for it but 
 to let her start, hurry after her with some 
 vehicle, and then call and bring home my 
 boy ; but in the midst of my perplexity 
 and her struggle with her tears, who should 
 appear on the scene but Fulk himself, driving 
 home the spring cart wherein, everybody 
 being busy, he had conveyed a pig to a new 
 home. 
 
 I don't know how it was all done or said. 
 My first notion was that he should be warned 
 of our dear boy's danger, and rescue him before 
 anything else. I could not get into my head
 
 154 LADY HESTER 
 
 that there was no present reason for dread, 
 and yet when I had gasped out " Oh, Fulk — 
 Alured — Fetch him home! Emily came to 
 warn us !" the accusation began to seem so 
 monstrous and horrible that I could not go 
 on with it before Emily. She too, perhaps, 
 found it harder to utter to a man than to a 
 woman, and between the strangeness of speak- 
 ing to one another again, and her shyness and 
 his wonder and delight, it seemed to me un- 
 reasonable that poor little Alured's danger 
 was counting for nothing between them, and 
 I turned from the former reticence to the be- 
 reaved tigress style, and burst out, "And are 
 we to stand talking here while our boy is in 
 these people's power?" 
 
 Then Fulk did listen to what it was all 
 about ; but even then it seemed to me he 
 would not think half so much of the peril as 
 of what Emily had done. In truth, I believe
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 155 
 
 all they both wanted was to get out of my 
 way ; but they pacified me by Fulk's under- 
 taking, if Emily did not object to the cart, 
 to drive her across the park where no one 
 would meet her, and she could get out only 
 a mile from home, and to call at Spinney 
 Lawn in returning by the road and take up 
 Alured 
 
 What a drive that must have been ! Fulk 
 had the advantage over Emily in knowing 
 what poor Mr. Dayman had told him, whereas 
 she, poor child, only knew that he had been so 
 vilely served that she thought his affection and 
 esteem had been entirely killed. 
 
 They had it all out in that tax cart, a 
 vehicle Fulk now regards as a heavenly chariot, 
 and I heard it all afterwards. 
 
 Poor Emily! she had grown a great deal 
 older in those six years. At eighteen she had 
 implicitly believed in her mother. Mrs. Deer-
 
 156 LADY HESTER 
 
 hurst had been so good all those years of 
 striving not to frighten my father, that she had 
 been perfection in her daughter's eyes. Emily 
 had believed with all her heart in her apparent 
 disinterestedness, and her hopes and sympathy 
 for us were real ; and so, when the crash really 
 came, and she told the poor girl with floods 
 of tears that it was impossible, and a thing not 
 to be thought of, for a right-minded woman to 
 unite herself to a man of such birth. And 
 poor Emily, with the conscious ignorance of 
 eighteen, believed, and was the sort of gentle 
 creature who could easily be daunted by the 
 terror that her generous impulses to share the 
 shame and namelessness were unfeminine and 
 wrong. The utter silence had been the con- 
 sequence of her mother assuring her, with 
 authority, that the true kindness was to betray 
 no token of feeling that could cherish hope 
 where all was hopeless, and that he would
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 157 
 
 regret her less if she commanded herself and 
 gave him no look. 
 
 It had been terrible, calm self-command, 
 and obedience to abused filial confidence in 
 her mother's infallibility. 
 
 And then Mrs. Deerhurst had been sinking 
 ever since in her daughter's esteem, as Emily 
 could not but rise higher from the conscientious 
 struggle and self-denying submission, and be- 
 sides grew older and had more experience ; 
 while Mrs. Deerhurst, no doubt, deteriorated 
 in the foreign wandering life, and all her 
 motives made themselves evident when she 
 married the younger daughter. 
 
 Emily had thought for herself, and seen 
 that advantage had been taken of her inno- 
 cence, and that her betrothed had rights, 
 which, if she had been older, she would not 
 have been persuaded to ignore. But coming 
 home, two years later, and meeting my cold
 
 158 LADY HESTER 
 
 eyes and Fulk's ceremonious bow, and hearing 
 on all parts that he had accepted his position 
 and had a hard struggle to maintain his two 
 sisters ; she, knowing herself to be portion- 
 less, could but suffer and be still. 
 
 Of course every attempt of her mother's to 
 get her to marry advantageously, and, even 
 more, Mrs. Deerhurst's devotion to Lady 
 Hester, tore away more and more of the veil 
 she had tried to keep over her eyes ; and as 
 her youngest sister grew up into bloom, and 
 into the wish for society, Emily had been 
 allowed more and more to go her own quiet 
 way in the religious and charitable life of 
 Shinglebay, where she had peace, if not joy. 
 
 And then came the Dayman affair, when 
 all the old persecution revived again, and 
 Emily's foremost defence against him, her 
 blushing objection to his birth, was set aside 
 as a mere prudish fancy of a young girl,
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 159 
 
 The gentle Emily had been irate then, and 
 all the more when her mother tried to cover 
 her inconsistency by alleging that everybody 
 knew of Lord Torwood's fall, whereas no one 
 knew or cared who Francis Dayman was, or 
 where he came from. Henceforth Emily's 
 shame at the usage of Fulk had been double 
 — or rather it turned into indignation. Re- 
 ports that he was to marry a rich grazier's 
 daughter had no effect in turning her in 
 pique to Dayman. She had firmly told 
 her mother that if it were wrong for her 
 to take the one, it must be equally so to take 
 the other. 
 
 This Mrs. Deerhurst had concealed from 
 poor Mr. Dayman ; nor would Emily's modesty 
 allow her to utter the objection to the man's 
 own face. So Mrs. Deerhurst encouraged him, 
 and trusted to London reports of the grazier's 
 daughter, and persevering appeals to that filial
 
 i6o LADY HESTER 
 
 sense of duty which had been strained so 
 much too far. 
 
 And now, how did it stand ? 
 
 When I, secure in knowing that Alured was 
 safe at home, thinking it abominable nonsense 
 in Miss Deerhurst to have bothered about 
 scarlet fever, Hester herself had said so. When 
 I could hear Fulk's happiness, and try to 
 analyse it, what did it amount to ? 
 
 Why, that they knew they loved one another 
 still, and never meant to cease. And with 
 what hopes ? Alas ! the hopes were all for 
 some time or other. Emily would do nothing 
 in flat disobedience, and there was little or no 
 hope of her mother's consent to her marrying 
 Farmer Torwood. She meant to tell her 
 mother thus much, that she had seen him, and 
 that they loved each other as much as ever ; 
 and as Mrs. Deerhurst had waived the objec- 
 tion to Dayman, it could not hold in the other
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 161 
 
 case. It would be, in fact, a tacit compact — 
 scarcely an engagement — with what amount of 
 meeting or correspondence must be left for 
 duty and principle to decide, but the love that 
 had existed without aliment for six years might 
 trust now. And " hap what hap," there never 
 was a happier man than my Fulk that evening. 
 He was too joyous not to be universally charit- 
 able. Nay, he called it a blessed fancy of 
 Emily's that brought her here, as it was 
 Emily's, and had brought him such bliss he 
 could not quite scorn it, but he did not, could 
 not believe in it as we did. It was culpable 
 carelessness in Hester, but colonial people had 
 been used to such health that they did not 
 care about infection. But it was a glorious 
 act of Emily's ! In fact the manly mind could 
 believe nothing so horrible of any woman. 
 
 U
 
 LADY HESTER 163 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HUNTING. 
 
 Emily told Mr. Dayman the whole truth. Poor 
 fellow ! he could not face Fulk again, and went 
 back to Canada. 
 
 No doubt Emily went through a great deal, 
 but we never exactly knew what. 
 
 Fulk wrote to Mrs. Deerhurst, stating that 
 he hoped in four years' time to be able to 
 purchase the farm, of which he had the lease, 
 and without going into the past, asking her 
 sanction to the engagement. 
 
 She sent a cold letter in answer, to desire 
 that the impertinence should not be repeated.
 
 1 64 LADY HESTER 
 
 And Emily wrote that her mother would 
 not hear of the engagement, and she knew 
 Fulk would not wish her to deceive or dis- 
 obey, " And so we must trust one another 
 still ; but how sweet to do that !" 
 
 And when any of us met her there were 
 precious little words and looks, and Fulk 
 meant to try again after the four years. In 
 the meantime he was much respected, and 
 had made himself a place of his own. It 
 chafed Hester to perceive that though she 
 had pulled us down she could not depress 
 us after the first. She had lowered her 
 position, too, by her marriage. At first 
 Perrault was on his good behaviour, and 
 made a favourable impression among the 
 second-rate Shinglebay society Hester got 
 round her ; but as the hopes of the 
 title coming to her diminished, he kept 
 less within bounds, did not treat her
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 165 
 
 well at home, and took to racing and 
 gambling. 
 
 I never could get Fulk to share my alarms 
 about Alured, but he did not think Perrault's 
 society fit for the boy, told Alured so, and 
 forbade him to go to Spinney Lawn. But 
 though Alured was much improved as to 
 obedience, it was almost impossible to enforce 
 this command. Hester had some strange fas- 
 cination for him. She would fiercely caress 
 him at times, and he knew she was his 
 sister, and could not see why, when she was 
 often alone, he should not be with her. The 
 passion for Trevor was in fall force, too, and 
 the boys could not be content only to meet 
 at the farm. We tried sending Alured to 
 make visits from home in the holidays, but 
 he did not like it, and he was not happy ; 
 his heart was with his home, and with 
 Trevor. We tried having a tutor for the
 
 166 LADY HESTER 
 
 spring holidays before he went to Eton, but 
 it did not answer. He was not a sensible 
 man, did not like dining in the keeping- 
 room with the household, and though he 
 did it, he showed that he thought it a con- 
 descension. 
 
 Moreover, instead of attending to Alured, 
 he was always trying to flirt with Jaquetta, 
 infinitely disturbing Arthur Cradock's peace ; 
 and the end of it was, that Alured was a 
 great deal more left to his own devices than 
 ever he had been before, and exasperated 
 besides. 
 
 He was in that mood, when one day, as he 
 was riding along the lanes, he met Perrault 
 and Trevor coming in from hunting. 
 
 Alured had a very pretty pony, but he was 
 growing rather large for it, and Fulk had 
 promised that, if he worked well at Eton, he 
 should have a lovely little Arab, that was
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 167 
 
 being trained by a dealer he knew ; and that 
 another year, Fulk himself would go out hunt- 
 ing with him. 
 
 Perrault began to pity him for having missed 
 the run. Why did not his brother take him 
 out ? Fulk's old mare was a sort of elephant, 
 and it was not convenient to get another horse 
 just then. That Alured knew and explained, 
 but he was pitied the more for being kept 
 back, and Perrault ended by saying that if on 
 the next hunting day he could meet them at 
 the corner of the park, a capital mount should 
 be there for him. 
 
 The hour was attainable if Alured made 
 haste with his studies, and he accepted gladly, 
 and without compunction. Fulk had never in 
 so many words forbidden him, and besides, 
 Fulk had delegated his authority to the hateful 
 tutor. 
 
 But the next morning, before Alured was up
 
 168 LADY HESTER 
 
 Trevor was in his bedroom. "You won't go, 
 Trevorsham ? " 
 
 " Yes, I shall ; I'm not such a muff as to 
 stay for that fellow." 
 
 But I need not try to tell what passed, as 
 of course I did not hear it ; I never so 
 much as knew of it till long after, only Tre- 
 vorsham was determined, and Trevor tried 
 all round the due arguments of principle, 
 honour, and duty ; but Alured had worked 
 up a schoolboy self-justification on all points, 
 and besides had the stronghold ot " I will," 
 and "I don't care." 
 
 Then Trevor told him, under his breath, he 
 was sure it was not a safe horse. But my 
 high-spirited boy laughed this to scorn. "And 
 perhaps he'll play you some trick," added 
 Trevor. But Trevorsham was still undaunted 
 in his self-will, till Trevor resolutely announced 
 his determination, if nothing else would stop
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 169 
 
 it, of going at once to Fulk, and informing 
 him. 
 
 The boy endured all the rage and scorn 
 that a threat so contrary to all schoolboy 
 codes of honour and friendship might deserve. 
 I believe Alured struck him, but at any rate 
 Trevor Lea gained his point, though at the 
 cost of a desperate quarrel. 
 
 Alured held aloof and sulked at him for 
 the remaining fortnight at home, and only 
 vouchsafed the explanation to us that " Lea 
 was a horrid little sneak, and he had done 
 with him." 
 
 They did not make it up till they met in the 
 same house at Eton, and then, though Trevor 
 was placed far above Alured, they became as 
 friendly as ever. In fact, I believe, Alured, 
 having imprudently denominated himself by 
 his full title, was having it kicked out of him, 
 when the fortunate possessor of the mono-
 
 i;o LADY HESTER 
 
 syllabic name came and stood by him and 
 made common cause, to the entire renewing 
 of love. 
 
 Poor Trevor ! his was a dreary home. His 
 mother loved him passionately, but she 
 was an anxious, worn, disappointed woman, 
 always craving, restless and expectant of 
 something, and Perrault was always tor- 
 menting her for money. He was deeply 
 in debt, and though he could not touch 
 the bulk of her fortune — neither, indeed, 
 could she, as it was conveyed to trustees — 
 he was always demanding money of her, 
 and bullying her ; while matters grew worse 
 and worse, and they were in danger of 
 having to let Spinney Lawn and go to live 
 abroad. 
 
 As to keeping Trevor at Eton that was 
 becoming impossible. At Christmas the tutor 
 consulted Fulk about how he should get Lea's
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 171 
 
 bills paid, and intimated that he must not 
 return unless this were done. 
 
 And poor Trevor himself had little com- 
 fort except with us. We encouraged him to 
 come to us, for we had all come to have 
 a very real love for the dear lad himself, 
 and we saw he was unhappy at home ; be- 
 sides that, it was the only way of keeping 
 Alured contented. 
 
 Trevor had entirely left off inviting Alured 
 to Spinney Lawn. Partly, he was too gentle- 
 manly and good a boy not to be ashamed 
 of the men who hung about the stables ; 
 and besides, we now perceive that the 
 same awful impression that was on Emily 
 Dcerhurst was upon him, and that he had 
 a sense that Trevorsham was regarded in 
 a manner that made his presence there a 
 peril. 
 
 He was but a boy, and it was an undefined
 
 172 
 
 LADY HESTER 
 
 horror, and he never breathed a word of it; 
 but oh, there was a weight on that young 
 brow, an anxious look about the face, and 
 though now and then he would be all joy and 
 fun, still there was the older, more sorrowful 
 look about him. 
 
 We thought he was grieving at not going 
 back to Eton, and Fulk was living in 
 hopes of an answer to the letter he had 
 written to Francis Dayman about it, but 
 that was not all. One day — Christmas Eve 
 it was — Mr. Cradock, on coming into the 
 church to look at the holly wreaths, 
 found Trevor kneeling on his father's grave- 
 stone in the pavement, sobbing as if his 
 heart was breaking, and heard between the 
 sobs a broken prayer about " Forgive " — 
 "don't let them do it" — "turn mother's 
 heart." 
 
 Then Mr. Cradock went out of hearing, but
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 173 
 
 he waited for the boy outside, and asked if he 
 could do anything for him. 
 
 "No." Trevor shook his head, thanked him, 
 and grew reserved.
 
 LADY HESTER 175 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DUCK SHOOTING. 
 
 Alured'S thirteenth birthday was on the 10th 
 of January, and he had extracted a promise 
 from Fulk, to take him duck-shooting to the 
 mouth of our little river. 
 
 Nothing can be prettier than our tide river 
 by day, with the retreating banks overhung 
 with trees, the long-legged herons standing in 
 the firs, looking like toys in a German box ; 
 while the breadth of blue water reflects the 
 trees that bend down to it. 
 
 But, on a winter's night, to creep in perfect 
 silence and lie still under an overhanging
 
 i 7 6 LADY HESTER 
 
 bank, not daring to make a sound, till you 
 could get a shot at the ducks disporting them- 
 selves in the moonlight, on the frozen mud 
 on the banks ! Such an occupation could only 
 be endurable under the name of sport. 
 
 However, Fulk and Bertram had had their 
 time, and now Alured was having the infec- 
 tion in his turn ; but Trevor was driven over 
 to spend the day, much mortified that he had 
 a bad broken chilblain, which made his boots 
 unwearable, and it was the more disappointing, 
 that it was a very hard frost, and there was 
 a report that some wild swans had been 
 seen on the river. 
 
 But in the course of the day Jaquetta routed 
 out a pair of India rubber boots which, with 
 worsted stockings beneath, did not press the 
 chilblains at all, and after having spent all the 
 day in snow-balling and building forts, Trevor 
 declared himself far from lame, and resolved
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 177 
 
 not to lose the fun. He had not come 
 equipped, so Alured put him into an old 
 grey coat and cap of his own, and merrily 
 they started in the frosty moonlight, with 
 dashes of snow lying under the hedges, 
 and everything intensely light. Fulk grum- 
 bling in fun at being dragged away from 
 his warm fire, and pretending to be grown 
 old, the boys shouting to one another full 
 of glee, all the dogs in the yard clamour- 
 ing because only the wise old retriever, 
 Captain, was allowed to be of the party ; 
 Arthur Cradock making ridiculous mistakes 
 on purpose between the uncle and nephew, 
 Trevorsham and Sham Trevor, as he called 
 them. 
 
 Alas! Nay, shall I say alas, or only be 
 thankful ? 
 
 They had been gone some time when we 
 heard a rapid tread coming towards the porch. 
 
 N
 
 178 LADY HESTER 
 
 Something in the very sound thrilled Jaquetta 
 and me at once with dismay. We darted out, 
 and saw Brand, the head gamekeeper in the 
 park. 
 
 " Never fear, my lady ; thank God," he said, 
 "my lord is quite safe. It is poor Master 
 Lea who is hurt ; and Mr. Torwood sent me 
 up for some brandy, and a mattress, and a 
 lantern, and some cloths." 
 
 That assured us that he was alive, and we 
 ran to fulfil the request in the utmost haste, 
 without asking further questions, and sending 
 off Sisson to ride for the poor mother, 
 and to go on to Shinglcbay for the doctor, 
 though, to our comfort, we knew that 
 Arthur had almost finished his surgical educa- 
 tion, and was sure to know what was to be 
 done. 
 
 "A stray shot," we said again and again to 
 each other ; and we called Nurse Rowe, and
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 179 
 
 made up a bed in Alured's old nursery, 
 and lighted a fire, and were all ready, with 
 hearts beating heavy with suspense before the 
 steps came back — my poor Alured first, as 
 we held the door open. How pale his face 
 
 looked ! and his brows were drawn with 
 horror, and his steps dragging, saying not 
 a word, but trembling, as he came and held 
 by me, with one hand on my waist, while 
 Fulk and Sisson carried in the mattress, 
 Arthur Cradock at the side, and Perrauit, 
 who had joined them, walking behind with 
 the flask. 
 
 Dear Trevor lay white with sobbing breath 
 and closed eyes, the cloths and mattress 
 soaked through and through with blood. 
 They put him down on the keeping-room 
 table, and Arthur poured more brandy into 
 his mouth. 
 
 I said something of the room being ready
 
 I So LADY HESTER 
 
 but Arthur said very low " He is dying — internal 
 bleeding;" and when Jaquetta asked " Can no- 
 thing be done?" he answered, "Nothing but to 
 leave him still." 
 
 " Trevorsham," murmured the feeble voice, 
 and Alured was close to him ; " Ally ! you are 
 all right !" and then again, as Alured assured 
 him he would be better — " No, I shan't ; I'm 
 so glad it wasn't you. I always thought he'd 
 do it some day, and now you're quite safe, I 
 want to thank God." 
 
 We did not understand those words then ; 
 we did soon. 
 
 The weak voice rambled on, " to thank God ; 
 but oh, it hurts so — I can't — I will when I get 
 there." Then presently " Mother !" 
 
 " She'll come very soon," said Alured. 
 
 "Mother! oh, mother! Trevorsham, don't 
 let them know. O Trev., promise, pro- 
 mise 1 "
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 181 
 
 " Promise what ? I promise, whatever it is ! 
 Only tell me," entreated Alured. 
 
 " Take care of her — of mother. Don't 
 
 let " and then his eyes met Perrault's, 
 
 and a shudder came all over him, which 
 brought the end nearer ; and all another 
 spoonful of brandy could do was to enable 
 him to say something in Alured's ear, and 
 then a broken word or two — " forgive — 
 glad — pray ; " and when we all knelt and 
 Fulk did say the Lord's Prayer, and a 
 verse or two more, there was a peaceful 
 loving look at Fulk and Jaquetta and me, 
 and then the whisper of the Name that 
 is above every name, as a glad brightness 
 came over the face, and the eyes looked 
 upwards, and so grew set in their gaze, 
 and there was the sound one never can 
 forget. 
 
 Nurse Rowe laid her hand on Alured's
 
 182 LADY HESTER 
 
 neck, as he knelt with his head close to 
 Trevor's. Fulk and I looked at each other, 
 and we knew that all was over. 
 
 They had tried in vain to check the bleed- 
 ing. No one could have done more than 
 Arthur had done, but a main artery had been 
 injured, and nothing could have saved him. 
 He had said nothing after the first cry, 
 except when he saw Alured's grief. "Never 
 mind ; I'm glad it was not you. " And 
 once or twice, as they carried him home, 
 he had begged to be put down, though 
 they durst not attend to the entreaty, and 
 Arthur did not think he had suffered much 
 pain. 
 
 It jarred that just as we would have 
 knelt for one silent prayer, Perrault's voice 
 broke on us. " Ah ! poor boy, it is better 
 than if it lasted longer ! I saw that half- 
 witted fellow, Billy Blake about. So I
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 183 
 
 don't wonder at anything ; but of course it 
 was a mere accident, and I shall not 
 press it." 
 
 Scarcely hearing him, I had joined Mrs. 
 Rowe in the endeavour to detach Alured from 
 his dear companion, when there was poor 
 Hester among us, with open horror-stricken 
 eyes, and a wild, frightful shriek as she leapt 
 forward ; and no words can describe the misery 
 of her voice as she called on her boy to look at 
 her, and speak to her — gathering him into her 
 bosom with a passionate, desperate clasp, that 
 seemed almost an outrage on the calm awful 
 stillness of the innocent child ; and Alured 
 involuntarily cried, " Oh, don't," while Fulk 
 spoke to her kindly ; but just then she saw 
 her husband, and sprang on her feet, her eyes 
 flashing, her hands stretched out, while she 
 screamed out, " You here ? You dare to 
 come here? You, who killed him!" Fulk
 
 184 LADY HESTER 
 
 caught her arm, saying, " Hush ! Hester ; 
 come away. It was a lamentable accident, 
 but " 
 
 " Oh !" the laugh she gave was the most 
 horrible thing I ever heard. " Accident ! I 
 tell you it has been his one thought to make 
 accidents for Trevorsham ! And he hated 
 my child — my dear, noble, beautiful, only 
 one ! He made him miserable, and murdered 
 him at last !" 
 
 She gave another passionate kiss to the 
 cheeks, and then just as I hoped she was 
 going to let us lead her away, she darted 
 from us, rushed past Mr. Cradock who was 
 entering the porch, and in another moment, 
 he hurrying after her, saw her rush down the 
 steep grassy slope, and fling herself into the 
 swollen rapid stream. 
 
 His shout brought them all out, and Fulk 
 found him too in the river, holding her, and
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 1S5 
 
 struggling with the stream, which winter had 
 made full and violent, and the black darkness 
 of the shadows made it hard to find any land- 
 ing place, and he was nearly swept away before 
 it was possible to get them out of the river; 
 and Fulk was as completely drenched as he 
 was when they brought poor Hester, quite un- 
 conscious, up to the house, and brought her 
 to the room that had been prepared for her 
 son ; and there Dr. Brown and Arthur gave 
 us plenty to do in filling hot-water baths and 
 warming flannels, or rubbing the icy hands 
 and feet. Only that constant need of exertion 
 could have borne us through the horror of it 
 all. But it was not over yet. There was 
 a call of " Ursula," and as I ran down, 
 I found Fulk standing at the bottom of 
 the stairs with Alured in his arms looking 
 like death ! 
 
 I found him on the parlour sofa, the little
 
 1 86 LADY HESTER 
 
 window and the escritoire open ! Fulk said 
 breathlessly, " the villain !" 
 
 " I'm not hurt," said dear Alured's voice, 
 faintly, but reassuringly, " Oh ! put me down, 
 Fulk." 
 
 We did put him down on the floor — there 
 was no other place — with his head on my 
 lap, and I found strange voices asking him 
 what Perrault had done to him. " Oh ! 
 nothing ! 'twasn't that. Yes, he's gone, out 
 by the window." 
 
 He swallowed some wine and then sat up, 
 leaning against me as I sat at the bottom of 
 the stairs, quite himself again, and assuring us 
 that he was not hurt ; Perrault never touched 
 him — "Threatened you, then," said Fulk. 
 
 " No," said Alured, as if he hadn't spirit 
 to be indignant ; " I meant him to get 
 off." 
 
 " Lord Trevorsham !" cried a voice in great
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 187 
 
 displeasure, and I saw that Mr. Halsted, the 
 nearest magistrate, was standing over us. 
 
 " He told me— Trevor did "—said Alured. 
 
 " Told you to assist the murderer to escape !" 
 exclaimed Mr. Halsted. 
 
 Alured let his head fall back, and would 
 not answer, and Fulk said, " There is no need 
 for him to speak at present, is there? The 
 constable and the rest are gone after Perrault, 
 but I do not yet know what has directed the 
 suspicion against him." 
 
 And then at the stairfoot, for there was no 
 other place to go to, we came to an under- 
 standing, the two gentlemen and Brand the 
 keeper standing, and I seated on the step 
 with my boy lying against me. I could not 
 trust him out of my sight, nor, indeed, was 
 he fit to be left. 
 
 It seems that Brand had been uneasy about 
 the number of shooters whom the report
 
 :■■ LADY HESTER 
 
 of the swans had attracted ; and though the 
 :::.:: ::" t/.e river v~ = :.:: Trtvcrshr.rr. 
 ground, he had kept along on the border of 
 the covers higher up the hill, to guard his 
 hires ir..l r,heisir.:s. 
 
 Thus he had seen everything distinctly in 
 the moonlight against the snowy bank below; 
 and he had observed one figure in particular, 
 moving stealthily along, in a parallel line with 
 that which he knew our party would take, 
 though they were in shadow, and he could 
 not see them. 
 
 Suddenly, a chance shot fired somewhere 
 made all the ducks fly up. A head and 
 shoulders that Brand took for his young lord's, 
 appeared beyond the shadow, beside Full^s: 
 and, at the same moment, he saw the man 
 whom he had been watching level his gun 
 from behind, and fire. Then came the cry, 
 and Brand running down in horror himself,
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 189 
 
 was amazed to see this person doing the 
 same, and when they came up with the group, 
 he recognised Pcrrault ; and found, at the same 
 time, that Trevor was the sufferer, and that 
 Lord Trevorsham was safe. He then would 
 have thought it an accident, but for Perrault's 
 own needless wonder, whence the shot came, 
 and that same remark, that Billy Blake, the 
 half-witted son of a farmer, was about that 
 night. 
 
 Brand, a shrewd fellow, restrained his reply, 
 that Mr. Perrault knew most about it himself. 
 He saw that the most pressing need was to 
 obey Fulk in fetching necessaries from our 
 house, and that Perrault meant to disarm 
 suspicion by treating it as an accident, so he 
 thought it best to go off to a magistrate 
 with his story, before giving any alarm ; 
 feeling certain, as he said, that the shot had 
 been meant for the Earl ; as indeed, Perrault's
 
 I9C LADY HESTER 
 
 first exclamation on coming up showed that 
 he too had expected to find Trevorsham the 
 wounded one. 
 
 Mr. Halsted had sent for the constable and 
 came at once, though even then inclined 
 to doubt whether Brand had not imputed 
 accident to malice. But Perrault's flight had 
 settled that question. During the confusion, 
 while Hester was being carried upstairs, the 
 miscreant had the opportunity of speaking to 
 the child. 
 
 " Drowned ! No, she is not drowned ; but 
 she may be the other thing if you don't get me 
 off! What, don't you understand? Let the 
 law lay a finger on me, and what is to hinder 
 me from telling how your sweet sister has been 
 plotting to get you — yes, you, out of the way 
 of her darling. No, you needn't fear, there's 
 nothing to get by it now. Lucky for you you 
 brought the poor boy out, when I thought him
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 191 
 
 safe by the fire nursing his chilblain. But 
 mind this, if I am arrested, all the story shall 
 come out. I'll not swing alone. If I fired, she 
 pointed the gun ! And you may judge if that 
 was what poor Trevor meant by his mutterings 
 to you about ' mother.' " 
 
 "But what do you want?" Alured asked. 
 He had backed up against the wall; he was 
 past being frightened, but he felt numb and 
 sick with horror, and ready to do anything 
 to get the wretch out of his sight. 
 
 " I want a clear way out of the house and 
 all the cash you can get together. What! no 
 more than that? I'd not be a lord to be 
 kept so short. Find me some more." 
 
 Alured knew I should forgive him, and he 
 took my key from my basket, unlocked the 
 escritoire, and gave him my purse of house- 
 hold money, undid the shutters, and helped 
 Perrault to squeeze himself through the little
 
 192 LADY HESTER 
 
 parlour window ; and then, as he said, some- 
 thing came over him, and he just reached the 
 sofa, and knew no more. 
 
 He did not tell all this about Hester be- 
 fore Mr. Halsted ; only when Fulk, finding 
 how shaken he was, had carried him upstairs, 
 and we had taken him to his room, he asked 
 anxiously whether anyone had heard Hester 
 say that dreadful thing, and added, " Then 
 if Mr. Perrault gets away no one will know 
 — about her." 
 
 " Was that why you helped him ? " we 
 asked. 
 
 " Trevor told me to take care of her," he 
 said ; and then he told us of Perrault's argu- 
 ments, but we ought not to have let him talk 
 of them that night, for it brought back the 
 shuddering and sobbing, and the horror seemed 
 to come upon him, so that there was no sooth- 
 ing him or getting him calm till the doctor
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 
 
 193 
 
 mixed an anodyne draught ; and let it go as 
 it would with Hester, I never left my boy 
 till I had crooned him to sleep, as in the old 
 times.
 
 LADY HESTER 195 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TREVOR'S LEGACY. 
 
 Jaquetta bore the brunt of that night, and 
 showed the stuff she was made of, for poor 
 Hester had only revived to fall into a most 
 frightful state of delirium, raving and struggling 
 so that the doctor and Arthur could hardly 
 hold her. 
 
 So it went on for hours, Alured the only 
 creature asleep in the house, and we not daring 
 to send for any help from without, poor Hester's 
 exclamations were so dreadful. 
 
 Poor Alured ! his waking was sad enough ! 
 He had loved Trevor with all his heart, and
 
 196 LADY HESTER 
 
 the wonder that anyone could be so wicked 
 oppressed him almost as much as the grief. 
 The remnants of the opiate hung upon him, 
 too, and he lay about all day, hardly rousing 
 himself to speak or look, but giddily and 
 drowsy. 
 
 Not till the inquest was it perceived how 
 cleverly Perrault had taken his measures, so 
 that had he not made the mistake between the 
 two boys, he would scarcely have been sus- 
 pected : certainly not but for Brand's having 
 watched him. 
 
 The report of the wild swans was traced to 
 him. No doubt it was as an excuse for a heavier 
 charge, for poor Trevor was wounded with shot 
 that would not have been used merely for 
 ducks, and besides, the other shooters it at- 
 tracted would be likely to make detection less 
 easy. Indeed, Fulk had seen that there were 
 enough men about to spoil their sport, and
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 197 
 
 but for the boys' eagerness, would have turned 
 back. 
 
 Moreover it was proved that Perrault had in 
 the course of the morning met Billy Blake, and 
 asked him if he meant to bag the swan — if 
 he followed the young lord's party and fired 
 when they did, he would be sure to bring 
 something down. He did not know that the 
 Blakes never let the poor fellow load his old 
 gun with anything but powder. 
 
 Then his joining the horrified group, as if he 
 had been merely after the ducks, and had been 
 attracted by the cry, had entirely deceived 
 us; and but for Hester's accusation, Brand's 
 evidence, and his own flight, together with all 
 the past, might have continued to do so. 
 
 He had gone to his own house, as it after- 
 wards turned out, entered so quietly that the 
 listening, watching servants never heard him, 
 collected all the valuables he could easily carry
 
 198 LADY HESTER 
 
 away, changed his dress, and gone off before 
 the search had followed him thither. 
 
 A verdict of wilful murder was returned 
 against him at the inquest, but it is very 
 doubtful whether he could have been con- 
 victed of anything but manslaughter ; for even 
 if the intention could have been proved, without 
 his wife, whose evidence was inadmissible, the 
 malice was not directed against his victim, but 
 against Trevorsham. We could not but feel 
 it a relief day by day, that nothing was heard 
 of him ; for who could tell what disclosures 
 there might be about the poor thing who 
 lay, delirious, needing perpetual watchfulness. 
 Arthur devoted himself to the care of her, 
 and never left us, or I do not see how we 
 could have gone through it all. 
 
 Alured was well again, but inert and crushed, 
 and heartless about doing anything, except 
 that he walked over to Spinney Lawn, and
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 193 
 
 brought home Trevor's dog, to which he gave 
 himself up all day, and insisted on having it 
 in his room at night. 
 
 The burial was in the vault — nobody attended 
 but Fulk and Alured, not even Arthur, for 
 though the poor mother was not aware of 
 what was going on, it was such a dreadful 
 day with her, that he durst not leave us 
 alone to the watch. It was enough to break 
 one's heart to stand by the window and hear 
 her wandering on about her Trevor coming to 
 his place, and not being kept from his position ; 
 while we watched the little coffin carried across 
 the field by the labouring men, with those 
 two walking after it. Our boy's first funeral 
 was that of the friend who had died in his 
 stead. 
 
 We were glad to send him back to Eton, 
 out of the sound of his poor sister's voice ; 
 though he went off very mournfully, declaring
 
 200 LADY HESTER 
 
 that he should be even more wretched there 
 without Trevor than he was at home ; and 
 that he never should do any good without 
 him. But there he was wrong, I am thankful 
 to say. Dear Trevor was more a guide to 
 him dead than living. Trevor's chief Eton 
 friend, young Maitland, a good, high-principled, 
 clever boy, a little older, who had valued him 
 for what he was, while passing Alured by as 
 a foolish, idle little swell, took pity upon him 
 in the grief and dejection of his loss — did 
 for him all and more than Trevor could do, 
 and has been the friend and blessing of 
 his life, aiding the depth and earnestness 
 that seemed to pass into our dear child as he 
 hung over the dying lad. Yes, Trevor Lea 
 and John Maitland did for our Trevorsham 
 what all our love and care had never been 
 able to do. 
 
 Meantime Hester's illness took its course.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 201 
 
 The chill of that icy water had done great 
 harm, and there was much inflammation at 
 first, leaving such oppression of breath that 
 permanent injury to the lungs was expected, 
 and therefore it was all the sadder to see the 
 dumb despair with which she returned to 
 understanding, I can hardly say to memory, 
 for I believe she had never lost it for a 
 moment. 
 
 Hopeless, heedless, reckless, speechless, she 
 was a passive weight, lying or sitting, eating or 
 drinking as she was bidden, but not making 
 any manifestation of preference or dislike, save 
 that she turned rigidly and sullenly away from 
 any attempt to read prayers to her. 
 
 She asked no questions, attempted no cm- 
 ployment, but seemed to care for nothing, and 
 for weeks uttering nothing but a " yes," " no," 
 or a mechanical " thank you." Jaquctta tried 
 to caress her, by force of nursing and pity.
 
 202 LADY HESTER 
 
 Jaquetta really had come to a warm tender 
 love for her, but she sullenly pushed away the 
 sweet face, and turned aside. 
 
 We never ventured to leave her alone, and 
 this, after a time, began to vex her. She bade 
 us go down once or twice, and tried to send 
 away Mrs. Rowe; and at last, when she found 
 it was never permitted, she broke out angrily 
 one day, "You are very absurd to take so 
 much trouble to hinder what cannot make any 
 difference." 
 
 It made one's blood run cold, and yet it was 
 a relief that the silence was broken. I can't 
 tell what I said, only I implored her not to 
 think so, and told her that her having been 
 rescued was a sign that Heaven would have 
 her repent and come back, but she laughed 
 that horrible laugh. " Do you think I repent ?" 
 she said ; " No, only that I left it to that 
 fool ! I should have made no mistakes."
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 203 
 
 I was too much horrified to do anything but 
 hide my eyes and pray. I thought I did not 
 do so obviously, but Hester saw or guessed, 
 stamped at me, and said, " Don't ; I will not 
 have it done. It is mockery !" 
 
 " Happily you cannot prevent our doing 
 that, my poor Lady Hester," I said. 
 
 " All I wish you to do is, what you 
 would do if you had a spark of natural 
 feeling." 
 
 " What ? " I asked, bewildered at this apparent 
 accusation of unkindness. 
 
 " Leave me to myself. Send me from your 
 door. Not oppress me with this ridiculous 
 burthensome care and attention, all out of the 
 family pride you still keep up in the Trevors ! " 
 she sneered. 
 
 "No, Hester. Sister Hester, will you not 
 believe it is love ? " I said, thinking that if she 
 would believe that we loved her and forgave
 
 204 LADY HESTER 
 
 her, it might help her to believe that her 
 Father above did. I had never called her by 
 her name alone before ; but I thought it 
 might draw her nearer; but it made her only 
 fiercer. 
 
 " Nonsense," she said, " I know better." 
 
 And then she fell into the same deadly 
 gloom ; but I think she had almost a wild 
 animal's longing for solitude ; for she made a 
 solemn promise not to attempt her life if we 
 would only leave her alone ! 
 
 And we did, though we took care someone 
 was within hearing ; for she was still very weak, 
 and we had not a bell in the house, except a 
 little hand one on the table. 
 
 So the Easter holidays drew on, and she was 
 still far too weak and unwell for any thought 
 of moving her ; so that we were in trouble 
 about Alurcd's holidays, not liking him to 
 come home to a house of illness that would
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 205 
 
 renew his sorrow, and advising him to accept 
 some invitations from his schoolfellows ; but 
 he wrote that he particularly wished to come 
 home — he could not bear to be away, and 
 Maitland wanted to see the place and know 
 all about dear Lea, so might he bring him 
 home ? 
 
 We were only too glad to consent, and 
 I had gone to sleep with Jaquetta, so as 
 to make room — feeling very happy over 
 the best school report of our boy we had 
 ever had, though not the best we were to 
 have. 
 
 He spent two or three days at Mr. Maitland's 
 in London, and then he and his friend, John, 
 came on here. 
 
 The railway did not come within twenty 
 miles then, and they had to post from it in 
 flies. How delightful it was to see the tall 
 hat and wide white collar, as he stood up in
 
 206 LADY HESTER 
 
 the open fly, signalling to us, and pointing 
 us out to his friend. Only, what must it 
 have been to the poor sufferer in the room 
 above ? 
 
 Oh ! did not one's heart go out in prayer 
 for her ! 
 
 Out jumped Alured among all of us, and 
 all the dogs at the garden gate ; and the first 
 thing, after his kiss to us all, was to turn to 
 the fly and take out a flower-pot with a 
 beautiful delicate forced rose in it. 
 
 " Where's Hester ? " he said. 
 
 " My dear child, she has not left her room 
 yet." 
 
 " She is well enough for me to take 
 this to her, I suppose ? " he said. " He 
 always did get some flower like this to bring 
 home to her, you know, she liked them so 
 much." 
 
 It was just his one idea that Trevor had
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 207 
 
 told him to take his place to her. We looked 
 doubtfully at each other, but Fulk quietly 
 said, " Yes, you may go." And added, as 
 the boy went off, " It can do no harm to her 
 in the end, poor thing ! " 
 
 " To her, no ; that was not my fear." 
 
 There was Alured, almost exactly what 
 Trevor had been when last she saw him, with 
 his bright sweet honest face over the rose, 
 running up the stairs, knocking, and coming 
 in with his boyish, " Good morning, Hester, 
 I do hope you are better ; " and bending 
 down with his fresh brotherly kiss on her 
 poor hot forehead, " I've got this rose 
 for you, the bud will be out in a day or 
 two." 
 
 If ever there was a modern version of St 
 Dorothy's roses it was there. 
 
 That boy's kiss and his gift touched the 
 place in her heart. She caught him passion-
 
 208 LADY HESTER 
 
 atcly in her arms, and held him till he almost 
 lost breath, and then she held him off from 
 her as vehemently. 
 
 "Boy — Trevorsham — what do you come to 
 me for?" 
 
 "He told me," said Alured, half dismayed. 
 "Besides, you are my sister." 
 
 " Sister, indeed ! Don't you know we 
 would have killed you ?" 
 
 "Never mind that," said Alured, with an 
 odd sort of readiness. " You are my sister 
 all the same, and oh — if you would let me 
 try to be a little bit of Trevor to you, though 
 I know I can't " 
 
 " You — who must hate me ?" 
 
 " No," said he, " I always did like you, 
 Hester ; and I've been thinking about you all 
 the half — whenever I thought of him." 
 
 And as the tears came into the boy's eyes, 
 the blessed weeping came at last to Hester.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 209 
 
 He thought he had done her harm, for she 
 cried till she was absolutely spent, sick, faint 
 and weak as a child. 
 
 But she was like a child, and when her head 
 was on the pillow she begged for Trevorsham 
 to wish her good-night. I think she tried to 
 fancy his kiss was Trevor's. 
 
 Any way the bitter black despair was 
 gone from that time. She believed in and 
 accepted his kindness like a sort of after 
 glow from Trevor's love. Perhaps it did 
 her the more good that after all he was 
 only a boy, sometimes forgot her, and 
 sometimes hurried after his own concerns, 
 so that there was more excitement in it 
 than if it had been the steady certain ten- 
 derness of an older person on which she 
 could reckon. 
 
 She certainly cared for no one like Trevor- 
 sham. She even came downstairs that she
 
 2io LADY HESTER 
 
 might see him more constantly, and while he 
 was at home, she seemed to think of no 
 one else. But she had softened to us all, 
 and accepted us as her belongings, in a 
 matter-of-course kind of way. Only when 
 he was gone did she one day say in a 
 heavy dreary tone, that she must soon be 
 leaving us. 
 
 But I told her, as we had agreed, that she 
 was very far from well enough to go away 
 alone ; for indeed, it was true that disease of 
 the lungs had set in, and to send her away 
 to languish and die alone was not to be 
 
 thought of. 
 
 My answer made her look up to me, and 
 say, " I don't see why you should all be so 
 good to me ! Do you know how I have 
 hated you ?" 
 
 I could not help smiling a little at that, 
 it had so little to do with the matter ; but I
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 211 
 
 bent down and kissed her, the first time I had 
 ever done so. 
 
 " I don't understand it," she said, and then 
 pushing me away suddenly. 
 
 " No ! you cannot know, that I — I — I was 
 the first to devise mischief against that boy. 
 Perrault would never have thought of it, but 
 for me ! Now, you see whom you are harbour- 
 ing ! Perhaps, you thought it all Perrault's 
 doing." 
 
 " No, we did not," I said. 
 
 "And you still cherish me! I — who drove 
 you from your home and rank, and came 
 from wishing the death of your darling, to 
 contriving it ! " 
 
 I told her we knew it. And at last, after 
 a long long silence, she looked up from her 
 joined hands, and said, " If I may only see 
 my child again, even from the other side of 
 the great gulf, I would be ready for any
 
 212 LADY HESTER 
 
 torment ! It would be no torment to me, so 
 I saw him ! Do you think I shall be allowed, 
 Ursula?" 
 
 How I longed for more power, more words 
 to tell her how infinitely more mercy there 
 was than she thought of! I don't think she 
 took it in then, but the beginning was made, 
 and she turned away no more from what she 
 looked on at first as a means of bringing her 
 to her boy, but by-and-by became even more 
 to her. 
 
 Gradually she told how the whole history 
 had come about. She had thought nothing 
 of the discovery of her birth till her boy was 
 born, but from that time the one thought of 
 seeing him in the rank she thought his due 
 had eaten into her heart. She had loved 
 her husband before, but his resistance had 
 chafed her, and gradually she felt it an in- 
 justice and cruelty, and her love and respect
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 213 
 
 withered away, till she regarded him as an 
 obstacle. And when she had spent her 
 labour on the voyage, and obtained recogni- 
 tion from her father — behold ! Alured's exist- 
 ence deprived her of the prize almost within 
 her grasp. 
 
 A settled desire for the poor baby's death 
 was the consequence, kept up by the con- 
 tinued reports of his danger. Till that time 
 she had prayed. Then a sense that Heaven 
 was unjust to her and her boy filled her with 
 grim rebellion, and she prayed no more; and 
 Perrault, by his constant return to the subject 
 and speculations on it, kept her mind on it far 
 more. 
 
 But Alured lived, and every time she saw 
 him she half hated him, half loved him ; hated 
 him as standing in her son's light, loved him 
 because she could not help loving Trevor's 
 shadow.
 
 214 LADY HESTER 
 
 That day, when Emily met them — it had 
 been a sudden impulse — Alured had been 
 talking to her about his plans for Trevor's 
 birthday ; and, as he spoke of that street, 
 the wild thought came over her how easily 
 a fever might yet sweep him away. And 
 yet she says, all down the street, she was 
 trying to persuade herself to forget Emily's 
 warning, and to disbelieve in the infection. 
 After all, she thought, even if she had not 
 met Emily, she should have made some excuse 
 for turning back, such a pitiful thought came 
 of the fair, fresh face flushing and dying. 
 
 But it was prevented, only it left fruits ; for 
 Perrault had heard what passed between her 
 and Trevorsham. " Did you take him to the 
 shop ? " he asked. And when she mentioned 
 Miss Deerhurst's reminder, he said, "Ah! that 
 game wants skill and coolness to carry it 
 out."
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 215 
 
 She says that was almost all that passed 
 in so many words ; but from that time she 
 never doubted that Perrault would take any 
 opportunity of occasioning danger to Trevor- 
 sham ; and, strange to say, she lived in a 
 continued agony, half of hope, half of terror 
 and grief and pity, her longing for Trevor's 
 promotion, balanced by the thought of the 
 grief he would suffer for his friend. Any 
 time those five years she told me she 
 thought that had she seen Perrault hurting 
 him, she should have rushed between to 
 save him ; and yet in other moods, when 
 she planned for her son, she would herself 
 have done anything to sweep Alured from his 
 path. 
 
 And the frequent discussion with Perrault 
 of plans depending on the possession of the 
 Trevorsham property, kept the consciousness 
 of his purpose before her, and as debt and
 
 2i6 LADY HESTER 
 
 desperation grew, she was more and more 
 sure of it. 
 
 That last day, when Trevor had been driven 
 away, lamenting his inability to go out duck 
 shooting, Perrault had quietly said in the late 
 evening, " I shall take a turn in the salt 
 marshes to-night — opportunities may offer." 
 
 The wretch ! Fulk thinks he said so to 
 implicate her. 
 
 At any rate it left her shuddering with dread 
 and remorse, yet half triumphant at the notion 
 of putting an end to Fulk's power over the 
 estate, and of installing her son as heir of 
 Trevorsham. 
 
 She had no fears for him, she trusted to his 
 lame foot to detain him, and said to herself 
 that if it was to be, he would be spared the 
 sight. She was growing jealous of his love for 
 Alured and of us, and had a fierce glad hope of 
 getting him more to herself.
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 217 
 
 And then ! oh ! poor Hester ! 
 No wonder her desire was to be 
 
 Anywhere, anywhere, 
 Out of the world. 
 
 But out of all the anguish, the remorse, 
 the despair, repentance grew at last. Love 
 seemed to open the heart to it. The 
 sense of infinite redeeming love penetrated 
 at last, and trust in pardon, and with pardon 
 came peace. Peace grew on her, through 
 increasing self-condemnation, and bearing her 
 up as the bodily powers failed more and 
 
 more. 
 
 There is little more to say. She was a 
 dear and precious charge to us, and as she 
 grew weaker, she also became more cheerful ! 
 and even that terrible, broken-hearted sense of 
 bereavement calmed. 
 
 She found out about Jaquetta and Arthur,
 
 2i8 LADY HESTER 
 
 and took great interest in his arrangements for 
 getting a partnership at Shinglebay. 
 
 " And Hester," said Jaquetta, " it is so 
 lucky for me that I came down from being 
 a fine lady. I might never have known 
 Arthur ; and if I had, what an absurd 
 creature I should have been as a poor man's 
 wife ! " 
 
 As to the Deerhursts, the mother sent a 
 servant once ' or twice to inquire, but never 
 came herself to see her dear friend ; and Miss 
 Trior took care to tell us that there were 
 horrid whispers about, that Hester had known, 
 and if not, Mrs. Decrhurst could not have on 
 her visiting list the wife of a man with a 
 warrant out against him ! She thought it 
 very unfeeling in us to harbour her. 
 
 But Emily came. Hester had a great 
 longing to thank her for checking her on 
 that walk to the scarlet-fever place, and asked
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 219 
 
 Jaquetta one day to write to her and beg her 
 to come to see a dying woman. 
 
 Emily showed the note to her mother, and 
 did not ask leave. The white doe had become 
 a much more valiant animal. 
 
 Hester had liked Emily even while Emily 
 shrank from her, and she now realized what 
 she had inflicted upon her and Fulk. 
 
 She asked Emily's pardon for it, as she 
 had asked Fulk's, and said that when she was 
 gone she hoped all would come right. Of 
 course the old position could not be restored, 
 but she knew now why Joel Lea had such an 
 instinct against it. 
 
 " I feel," she once said, " as if Satan had 
 offered me all this for my soul, and I had 
 taken the bargain. Aye, and if God's provi- 
 dence had allowed our wicked purpose, he 
 would have had it too. My husband ! he 
 prayed for me ! and my boy did too."
 
 220 LADY HESTER 
 
 She always called Joel Lea "my husband" 
 now, and thought and talked much of their 
 early love and his warnings. I think the 
 way she had saddened his later years grieved 
 her as much as anything, and all her affection 
 seemed revived. 
 
 She lingered on, never leaving the house 
 indeed, but not much worse, till the year had 
 come round again, and we loved her more 
 each day we nursed her. And when the end 
 came suddenly at last, we mourned as for a 
 dear sister. 
 
 Perrault wrote once — a threatening, swagger- 
 ing letter from America, demanding hush- 
 money. It did not come till she was too ill 
 to open it — only in the last week before her 
 death, and it was left till we settled her 
 affairs. 
 
 Then Fulk wrote and told him of the verdict 
 against him, and recommended him to let him-
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 221 
 
 self be heard of no more. And he took the 
 advice. 
 
 We found that dear Hester had left all the 
 fortune, ^30,000, which had been settled on 
 herself and Trevor, to be divided equally 
 between us three. Nor had we any scruple in 
 profiting by it. 
 
 Trevorsham had enough, and it was what 
 my father would have given us if he could. 
 
 It was enough to make Jaquetta and her 
 young Dr. Cradock settle down happily and 
 prosperously on the practice they bought. 
 
 And enough too, together with Emily's 
 strong quiet determination, to make Mrs. 
 Deerhurst withdraw her opposition. Daughters 
 of twenty-nine years old may get their own 
 way. 
 
 Moreover a drawing-room and dining-room 
 were built on to Skimping's Lawn, though 
 Alured declares they have spoilt the place, and
 
 222 LADY HESTER 
 
 nothing ever was so jolly as the keeping- 
 room. 
 
 We had a beautiful double wedding in the 
 summer, in our old church, and since that I 
 have come to make the old Hall home-like to 
 my boy in the holidays. 
 
 We are very happy together when he comes 
 home, and fills the house with his young 
 friends ; and if it feels too large and empty 
 for me in his absence, I can always walk 
 down for a happy afternoon with Emily, or 
 go and make a longer visit to Jaquetta. 
 
 And I don't think, as a leader of the fashion, 
 she would have been half so happy as the 
 motherly, active, ready-handed doctor's wife. 
 
 But best of all to me, are those quiet 
 moments when Alured's earnest spirit shows 
 itself, and he talks out what is in his heart ; 
 that it is a great responsibility to stand in the 
 place such a man as Fulk would have had — -
 
 OR URSULA'S NARRATIVE 223 
 
 yes — and to have been saved at the cost of 
 Trevor's life. 
 
 I believe the pure, calm remembrance of 
 Trevor Lea's life will be his guiding star, and 
 that he will be worthy of it.
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS.
 
 THE 
 
 DANVERS PAPERS. 
 
 Never have I seen a more beautiful and ro- 
 mantically-placed abode than Castle Ballymore. 
 It stands at the inner end of one of those deep 
 indentations of the coast that are fiords in 
 Norway, firths in Scotland, but become loughs 
 in less-accurate Ireland. Lough Ballymore is 
 nestled beneath that shaggy crest which Ireland 
 seems to be shaking at the outstretched hand 
 of Galloway. In the rear arc plantations, 
 ending in a waste of purple heath and bog, 
 
 and plantations likewise shelter this little 
 
 9. 2
 
 223 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 secluded inlet of sea, clothing its rugged sides 
 wherever they are not too rocky and precipi- 
 tous on the one hand, or too gentle and fertile 
 to be thus employed on the other. The south 
 side is all wood and rock, an exquisite contrast 
 of dark pine and purple-red stone ; the northern, 
 sloping more gradually, displays fields and 
 meadows of the true green of the Emerald 
 Isle; and beneath, the exquisite colour of the 
 lake-like sea, and the reflections, mirror-like and 
 yet fantastic, are an ever - varying vision of 
 delight. Or when the wind drives the waves, 
 struggling and foaming, to lash the guardian 
 cliffs, and heave the small isolated lough into 
 remembrance of its connection with the great 
 agitated ocean, the scene has such a fascination 
 that it is difficult not to watch it continually. 
 
 The Castle stands at the head of the lough. 
 It is a castle only by courtesy, being really a 
 large substantial building, showing traces of
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 229 
 
 the handiwork of various generations, but 
 nothing older than the bastard Tudor of the 
 early Stuart reigns. Within, however, it is a 
 delightfully-irregular house, rendered charming 
 by Irish warmth and brightness, and teeming 
 with old traditions, droll, fantastic, or terrible, 
 though even the most frightful seem to lose 
 their horror when told round the cheerful fire- 
 side of Sir Bernard and Lady Danvers. 
 
 These traditions were resuscitated in full 
 force this last summer, on the occasion of a 
 visit from some American guests, Mr. and 
 Miss Danvers, who claimed ancient kindred 
 with the Ballymore family, and were as much 
 exalted as enchanted to find that they thus 
 might lay as much claim as did their hosts, to 
 all the wild background of Ultonian history. 
 They were specially curious about old family 
 papers, and letters respecting the first settle- 
 ment of their branch in America, and Sir
 
 230 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 Bernard was at last stimulated to open a certain 
 mysterious iron door, and turn us loose into his 
 archives. I must confess that for some time 
 we were not much the wiser for the crumpled 
 old wills — if wills they were — that we hunted out, 
 but at last we arrived at a large bundle tied with 
 broad black ribbon, containing not parchment, 
 but paper, and with the endorsement, "Letters 
 from and concerning my dear sister Penelope. 
 F. C." They dated onwards from the year 1680, 
 and a reference to the Peerage and Baronetage 
 made it clear who were the writers. 
 
 It appeared that the Ladies Penelope and 
 Frances Bernard were the co-heiresses of the 
 Earl of St. Giles, who had come into possession 
 of Ballymore by his marriage with the only 
 daughter of an old Cromwellian general, named 
 Blackmore, the same who had nearly exter- 
 minated the aboriginal Irish of the estate, and 
 supplied their place with the staunch Protes-
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 231 
 
 tant Scottish tenantry, whose descendants thrive 
 there still. The portrait of the Lady Penelope 
 hangs in the dining-room, and she appears a 
 very unpromising heroine, small, pale, and sandy- 
 haired. Sir Peter Lely has set her up as a 
 shepherdess, in blue satin and pearls, in which 
 she looks bleak, prim, and shrinking, pulling a 
 scarf tightly over her somewhat low bodice, 
 with a thin skinny arm, not at all meant for 
 such exposure. Dark, bright-eyed Lady Frances, 
 looking arch under her nut-brown curls, would 
 be a more desirable ancestress, but unluckily she 
 seems to have had no children. The topmost of 
 the letters in the packet was a sheet closely 
 written, with parting advice from the Countess 
 of St. Giles to her two daughters. They were 
 born in 1663 and 1665, and she died in 1680, 
 bequeathing them much earnest and excellent 
 advice, with a very Puritan sound in it. Penelope 
 had, it appears, been for years past contracted
 
 232 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 to Mr. Thomas Danvers, the only son of a 
 wealthy baronet highly esteemed by her father, 
 and the good lady's advice is chiefly directed 
 to her conduct in the "Married State" — as 
 she calls it. Wise, true, and good, much of it 
 is, but it is curious how the husband is assumed 
 to be no co-operator, but an external authority, 
 whose mandates are likely rather to be for evil 
 than for good. In Lady St. Giles's view, marriage 
 was evidently for the wife a sort of Babylonish 
 captivity, to be dealt with on the principle 
 of obedience in things lawful and indifferent. 
 Elaborate rules are given for the employment 
 of the day, hours of devotion, hours of charity, 
 hours of housewifery, hours of study, hours of 
 needlework, hours of religious instruction to igno- 
 rant servants, and withal stringent warnings 
 against dissipation and Court habits. If carried 
 into society by compulsion of father or husband, 
 all " unnecessary Words or Looks must be
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 233 
 
 avoided." " Eyes must be kept fixed upon the 
 Ground ; " and if forced to dance, it must be 
 in " a Grave and Recollected Manner." Or, 
 at "a Theatre," if forced to be present there 
 by the husband's will or Court requirements, a 
 devout book had better be carried within the 
 playbill, to keep both eyes and ears from what 
 might be passing on the stage. "Should any 
 Gallant address you, reply with due Courtesy, 
 make a low Reverence, with Eyes downcast, 
 and take Care to show him that his Attentions 
 are disagreeable to you." 
 
 Poor Penelope's portrait looks as if such pre- 
 cautions would, in her case, be as superfluous as 
 if the fabulous owlets had tried to guard against 
 the blandishments of the eagle ; but it is im- 
 possible not to feel great compassion and sym- 
 pathy for the strictly religious mother, obliged 
 to leave her daughters without guidance in the 
 Court of Charles II., where, no doubt, she had
 
 234 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 preserved her own innocence by such pre- 
 cautions as these. 
 
 Apparently the young ladies continued to 
 live in the country with their grandmother, old 
 Mrs. Blackmorc, the Parliamentary general's 
 widow, for the only letters extant are some 
 formal ones to their "honoured Lord and 
 Father," informing him of their studies, occa- 
 sionally asking for books or articles of dress 
 from London, or reporting on the health of 
 Penelope, who was always a great sufferer from 
 asthma. 
 
 In the meantime, her intended father-in-law 
 died, and his son appears to have been in no 
 haste to fulfil the contract. He was born in 
 1656, so as to be seven years older than his 
 betrothed, and he was " taking his Swing as a 
 Young Man," as Lord St. Giles terms it, in a 
 letter to old Mrs. Blackmore, desiring that 
 his daughters may be sent to London, fitly
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 ~ JD 
 
 attended, in order that Pen's marriage may 
 immediately take place. This was in the early 
 spring of 1683, when the two girls were nearly 
 twenty and eighteen. Lady Frances was the 
 first to write to her grandmother, giving her 
 impression of her sister's future husband. 
 
 "My Lord brought Sir Thomas Danvers to 
 Dinner Yesterday Afternoon, without notice, 
 and poor Pen was so greatly dashed at 
 the Suddenness of the Thing that she durst 
 scarcely lift up her Head, nor open her Lips, 
 and scarcely ate a Morsel all Dinner-time ; 
 indeed, she was beholden to me for using my 
 Eyes sufficiently to be able to tell her that 
 he is a comely-looking Man enough, of a 
 stout Build for his Years, of a quick Eye 
 and ruddy Cheek, but with the air of a 
 clownish Country Squire, rather than of a 
 Gentleman of Birth and Breeding. He made 
 for her with a Sound like a Laugh, saying:
 
 236 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 ' Well, my Lady, so you and I are to be 
 Sweethearts ; ' and when she merely made him 
 a low Reverence, and never offered him her 
 Cheek, as he was familiar enough to expect, 
 he fell back, and spoke to her not another 
 Word, till he was going away. Then, his 
 Courage being, I suppose, heated by the 
 Wine, he came to her again, laughed out more 
 broadly, took her by the Hand, and kissed her 
 heartily, with ' There, Madam, we will be 
 better Friends yet' Poor Pen had nearly 
 wept, for which my Father rated her, saying 
 that she was proud and pert, and much that 
 was so hard that she wept the more in our 
 own Chamber, and heartily wished herself at 
 Home once more. Moreover, if what Madam 
 Belmont tells us be true, Sir Thomas has led 
 a very debauched Life, both here and in his 
 own County of Somerset ; but she says it is 
 so with all Young Men in these Godless Days,
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 237 
 
 and especially among those Sons of the Malig- 
 nants who now begin to be called Tories, and 
 that my Sister may thank Heaven that Sir 
 Thomas is kindly-natured and generous. It 
 seems to me, though, that we poor Ladies are 
 in Evil Case, and have far less choice of our 
 Mates than Bet and Sue the Milkmaids ; and 
 I bless my Stars that, my poor little Lord 
 dying when he did, there is no Contract yet 
 on Foot for me. Methinks I can so deal with 
 my Father and my Suitor, that none shall 
 have me unless I be better pleased than poor 
 Pen hath cause to be." 
 
 From Lady Frances's first impressions we 
 proceeded to a study of Sir Thomas's portrait. 
 Everyone has seen the like : the red, coarse 
 double-chinned visage, an unmeaning thick 
 pair of lips, and big black eyes, all enclosed 
 within an enormous curled wig flowing over 
 the shoulders of a gray coat, faced with
 
 233 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 scarlet ; by no artist of name, moreover, and 
 so badly painted, that except as a record of 
 an ancestor, no one could have let it disfigure 
 the walls. Nothing could have looked worse 
 matched than the big coarse-looking man, and 
 the prim, pale, fragile girl ; and the principles 
 must have matched quite as ill, for the Dan- 
 verses were hot-headed Cavaliers and High- 
 Churchmen, while the Ladies Bernard were 
 evidently brought up under the strong Puritan 
 influence of the Cromwcllian General's widow. 
 Their father was in name a Whig, but was a 
 discreet trimmer of his sails, and probably this 
 connection with such a family as the Danverses 
 was with a view to securing favour under the 
 Restoration. 
 
 The indignation of our American Fanny 
 Danvers, at finding no appearance of resist- 
 ance, was most amusing. She was thankful 
 that she bore the name of the sister who had
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 239 
 
 a little sense and spirit ; she was ready to dis- 
 own Lady Penelope for an ancestress ; nay, she 
 would almost have given over the researches 
 into the history of so slavish a creature, had 
 not Lady Danvers ingeniously suggested that 
 perhaps all Penelope's appeals and entreaties 
 had been destroyed. I believed no such thing. 
 Obedience to a parent's choice was regarded 
 as a paramount duty, and there is not so much 
 as a hint of any objection raised by Penelope. 
 There is not even a letter descriptive of the 
 marriage, which, the pedigrees say, took place 
 on the 20th of December, 1682. No doubt 
 some near friend of Mrs. Blackmore was 
 present, and took the report of the splendours 
 of the wedding. The young people continued 
 to reside at Lord St. Giles's mansion in town, 
 and there, apparently, Sir Thomas's first shy- 
 ness gave way, and his manners became more 
 unpleasant.
 
 240 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 Frances tells her grandmother, in the first 
 week of 1683, that he has shown himself "rude, 
 coarse, and intolerable in his Familiarity ; " and 
 that when he came in "flustered with Wine," 
 Penelope repelled him "with that Coldness and 
 Dignity that become her so well," he had at 
 first laughed " a brutal sottish Laugh," and 
 then " had become offended, and sworn at her ; 
 and when she remained unmoved, had shown 
 her a sullen Distance, whereof she was very 
 glad. But that my Lord, her Father, had 
 remarked the Coolness of their Demeanour, and 
 questioning her (Frances) on the Cause, she 
 had told him what Offence her Sister had 
 received, whereupon he had but laughed at 
 what he called her Squeamishness, and cursed 
 his own Folly in leaving his Daughters to be 
 bred up among peevish Precisians ; " and when 
 she (evidently the favourite child) entreated 
 him to rebuke Sir Thomas and to make peace,
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 241 
 
 he answered that, did he rebuke anyone, "it 
 should be his daughter Pen, for her fretful 
 Ill-Humour, and for flouting a good Husband, 
 when she ought to be only too thankful to 
 him for noticing a little panting Farthing 
 Rushlight such as she." Well might Lady 
 Frances exclaim : " Pray for us, dear Grand- 
 mother, for well might you say you were send- 
 ing us forth into an evil World, like Lambs 
 among Wolves." 
 
 Another fertile cause of offence was evidently 
 Sir Thomas's unmeasured abuse of the Noncon- 
 formist divines, and his sympathy with the 
 persecution of the Scottish Covenanters ; but 
 there is not much detail on this head, only that 
 Penelope once writes something of "Flesh 
 trembling at the foul Words that she was 
 forced to hear respecting the Godly." She 
 seems as much as possible to have acted up 
 to her mother's advice, to have refused all 
 
 R
 
 242 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 Sunday gaieties, and, when taken to any enter- 
 tainment on any day of the week, to have held 
 as much aloof as possible from conversation, so 
 as to incur the reproach of thinking no one good 
 enough to speak to. 
 
 There is a notice, however, of Lady Russell 
 having spoken to her " with infinite grace and 
 sweetness," inquired for her honoured grand- 
 mother, and also said that she remembered 
 Lady St. Giles. But this interview did but 
 increase Penelope's troubles by giving her a 
 strong individual interest in those implicated in 
 the Rye-house plot, and her openly-displayed 
 grief and indignation at the arrest of Lord 
 Russell and Algernon Sidney must have given 
 great alarm to her father, and offence to her 
 Tory husband. Her letters at this period are 
 repetitions of what history has already told us, 
 pointed with all the anguish of warm present 
 feeling.
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 243 
 
 It would seem that an entertainment had 
 been appointed to take place at Lord St. Giles's 
 on the very day on which she heard of Lord 
 Russell's condemnation, and that on the tidings 
 " she fell into a Passion of Grief and Tears 
 before Major Chetwynd and several other Gen- 
 tlemen ; that she said the King was unjustly 
 slaughtering a better Man than himself, and 
 that the old Days of Persecution and of Bloody 
 Mary were returning upon the Land." Then, 
 without consulting father or husband, she and 
 her sister took on themselves to despatch billets 
 to all the intended guests, saying that she had 
 heard such ill news as to be too much indisposed 
 to be able to act as hostess. 
 
 The domestic storm must have been great, to 
 judge by the scared way in which even high- 
 spirited Frances writes, that their father declares 
 that Pen cannot safely be trusted in London till 
 
 she had learnt more discretion, and that they 
 
 r 2
 
 244 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 were to go to Highbury Dan vers so soon as she 
 could safely be moved. Moreover, Pen had 
 striven to write a letter of condolence and ad- 
 miration to Lady Russell, but Sir Thomas 
 coming in and finding what she was about, 
 absolutely forbade her. "My Sister, with her 
 own Meekness, folded her hands and said: 'You 
 are obeyed, Sir, you are my Lord, and I submit 
 in all Things lawful ; ' and with an appealing 
 Look to Heaven, she tore the Letter to Frag- 
 ments. But the best Treatment she received 
 on this was that her Husband absolutely 
 stamped upon the Floor, and cursed her, 
 telling her if she so admired Lady Russell 
 she had best follow her Example a little more. 
 She was a true Helpmate to her Husband — vile 
 Traitor that he was — and not an intolerable 
 Torment, with her sanctimonious Airs. Where- 
 at our dear Penelope, with her white meek Face 
 and downcast Eyes, simply said : ' She is a
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 245 
 
 happier Woman than 1/ and her Look might 
 have melted a Heart of Stone, but it only made 
 him rage the more. He burst out : ' You think 
 so, Madam ; well, some Day, when your ac- 
 cursed Friends get the upper Hand, you may 
 have your Wish, and bring me to the Gallows ; 
 but, meanwhile, none of mine shall traffick with 
 Traitors.' " 
 
 All Frances's hope is that her sister may be 
 out of town before the "Martyrdom of Lord 
 Russell," a title that the two fair Whigs were 
 all the more bent on giving to his execution 
 after the persecution their sympathy had brought 
 on them. The move had taken place before 
 that 2 1st of July ; for, three days later, Frances 
 dates a letter to her father, telling him that the 
 journey had not taken more than the week that 
 had been reckoned upon, for there was only one 
 place so miry as to need that oxen should be 
 fetched to assist the horses, and there had been
 
 246 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 but two over-turns, in neither of which her sister 
 had been hurt. Sir Thomas, and his friend 
 Major Chetwynd, had ridden all the way beside 
 the coach, and on no one evening had Sir 
 Thomas shown himself the worse for liquor, 
 and this she attributes to the influence of his 
 companion. 
 
 It was evidently time to study the portrait of 
 this same Chetwynd. It turned out to be one 
 that I had hitherto taken for either Marlborough 
 or Claverhouse, for there was the same delicacy 
 and refinement of feature so rare at that period, 
 as well as the military scarlet and scarf. But if 
 he were only a major of Dragoons, how did 
 Frances obtain the triumph of true love? 
 
 There was a great failure of all correspon- 
 dence just here. Our American Fanny was 
 sure that the brutal husband had put a stop to 
 poor Penelope's writing as soon as she strove to 
 show that she had any will save his, but the
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 247 
 
 cause became apparent by a reference to the 
 genealogy, by which it appeared that old Mrs. 
 Blackmore died in the winter of 1683-84, and 
 not improbably her grand-daughters were with 
 her, and together. 
 
 When the letters are resumed, in the summer 
 
 of 1684, Frances is in London with her father, 
 
 apparently somewhat out of favour with him, 
 
 and no wonder, for she mentions suitors at 
 
 different times whom she appears to dispose of 
 
 after her own will. " I made such good use of 
 
 my Fan that he could not choose but see that I 
 
 would never willingly look at him." "I trust 
 
 that my Demeanour taught my Lord to fear 
 
 whether he might find a Gray Mare in his 
 
 Stable." And then, again: "Dear Sister, would 
 
 that I might come down to see you and your 
 
 little Son. I made it my most earnest Entreaty 
 
 that I might go down under Sir Thomas's 
 
 Escort, but I had but a sour Look, and an
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 Answer that would I but learn my Duty and 
 take the young Lord I might go whither I 
 pleased, but I was not to be going down to 
 Highbury to be confirmed in Contumaciousness, 
 and to meet all the debauched young Officers of 
 the Garrison at Bristol. Whereat I told him 
 that I knew whom he meant, and that the fair 
 Epithet he had made use of applied better to 
 the Son-in-law he had already than to any I 
 should be like to give him." 
 
 This was pretty well to write to that Son-in- 
 the loveless marriage was treated 
 rvedly enough between the sisters, and 
 Lady Penelope's own letters were at this time 
 chiefly taken p with the ailments of her little 
 sickly child, and his father's indifference to them, 
 and with other household troubles, caused chiefly 
 by the interference of Sir Thomas's rollicking, 
 disorderly men-servants, grooms, and huntsmen, 
 with the "Godly Discipline" she strove to esta-
 
 THE DAXVERS PAPERS 249 
 
 blish among her maidens, with the assistance 
 of her own woman, Mistress Word-in-Season 
 Worth, the elderly daughter of an ejected Non- 
 conformist minister. The chaplain, Mr. Basildon, 
 she had begun by pronouncing " a pious man, 
 but a rank Arminian ;" however, the assistance 
 and support she derived from him in dealing 
 with her domestic difficulties seemed to be 
 gaining her respect at least. She seems to 
 have been infinitely relieved when Sir Thomas 
 went up to attend his duties in Parliament, and 
 left her to her solitude with her child, on whom 
 her j.rtection was expending itself, and it is 
 piteous to find her writing that her term of 
 peace was nearly over, when she bejan to 
 expect his return. Before that, however, Frances 
 had written a joyous letter announcing that " '. 
 had a regiment of his own, and she knew well 
 by whose Interest it was." Then comes another 
 letter :
 
 250 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 "No, my sweet Pen, never more will I hear 
 a Word against your Husband. To me he 
 shall ever be the most disinterested and generous 
 of Men. Yesterday he was closeted with my 
 Father for I know not how long, but the upshot 
 is this, that he persuaded my Father that he, 
 having his own English Estates, besides your 
 Irish Property, and being resolved not to lose 
 his own Honourable name in any Title, it 
 would be more to the Glory and Permanence of 
 the Bernard and St. Giles, to endow me with 
 the St. Giles's Inheritance, and wed me to one 
 whose Name and Rank would not be a hind- 
 rance to his obtaining a fresh Creation. How 
 he wrought with my Father, I know not, but 
 thus it is ; and that same evening, the dear 
 good Man — for such he is, and such shall I ever 
 uphold him— came up to me, saying he had a 
 Colonel of Dragoons to present to mc, and 
 there, stately and beautiful more than ever, was
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 251 
 
 standing and bowing he whom I now dare term 
 my own. After that what if your Good-man did 
 trip and stagger somewhat after the drinking of 
 our Healths, shall he not for ever and a Day be 
 a good Man to me ? For, Thanks to him, sweet 
 Sister, my Lord hath gone so forward in this 
 Matter that he cannot now retract, or if he 
 should try to do so, enough has passed between 
 my dearest Love and me to make me able to 
 bear any Persecution rather than break my 
 Pledge. Sister, would that I could tell you 
 how dear and true and excellent he is. Would 
 that you could be as blessed as I, and had one 
 whom you could love as I love him. Nay, but 
 what am I wishing ? But for Sir Thomas, he 
 were not mine. My prayer then must be that 
 you should love Sir Thomas as I love my 
 Colonel. And may we pray for what seems 
 past Possibility ? Methinks this is running into 
 Profaneness, so I will have done, but in Truth I
 
 252 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 know not what to wish. I could wish my Love 
 were less staunch in his Protestant Principles, 
 that so he might win my Father's Favour by 
 getting Promotion at Court, and so our Happi- 
 ness might be sooner brought about. But then 
 he would not be the upright Man he is. In 
 good Sooth, I know not what to wish, save that 
 all the World, and you above all, sweet Sister, 
 were as happy as is 
 
 "Your loving Sister, 
 
 "Frances Bernard." 
 
 The new Colonel went down to Highbury 
 Danvers with Sir Thomas : and though Frances 
 was not allowed to go too, yet there is a pre- 
 serve of billets, in which they term each other 
 "Sweetest Heart," "Mine own honoured Love," 
 " My dearest Life," into which latter commence- 
 ment the gentleman settled down for the rest 
 of married life. His visit could not have been
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 253 
 
 a cheerful one, even at the first, for he tells 
 Frances that her sister looked sadly ill and 
 moped, but refuses all endeavours to bring her 
 more out, and disdains the country sports and 
 neighbours. He trusts that "his dearest Life" 
 will convince her that her Strictness is un- 
 advised, and so far from recommending her 
 Religion, drives her husband into worse Com- 
 pany and greater Excesses than he would ever 
 seek after, if she did not shut herself up, and 
 hold aloof from all innocent Mirth and Pastime. 
 "And yet," concludes the good Colonel, "it 
 seems profane to write even thus much Blame 
 of one whose very Look is so pure and holy, 
 so suffering, and resigned, as one detached from 
 this World. Were she only a little less of the 
 Angel, or he a little less of the Clown, there 
 might be better hope for both ; but as it is, 
 I see him for ever offending and grieving her 
 on the one side by his Licence, and she
 
 254 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 repelling and displeasing him by her Sadness 
 and Severity, and yet I cannot but love his 
 many good Parts, as much as I esteem her 
 many Christian Graces, till I long to set them 
 at one again." 
 
 Good Colonel Chetwynd was to see worse 
 things than these. The poor little son and 
 heir died when scarcely a year old, and he 
 gives a terrible account of the scene that 
 ensued. The child had been ailing from his 
 birth, and Lady Penelope's cares and fears had 
 been so unremitting,, that they had become a 
 weariness to her husband, and little regard 
 was paid to her anxieties ; and thus it was 
 that, in spite of warnings and alarms, Sir 
 Thomas was entertaining his boon companions 
 at supper, and was in the midst of noisy mirth 
 and revelry at the moment when the child 
 was struggling in the last fatal convulsion. 
 
 Colonel Chetwynd (probably the only sober
 
 or; 
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 25 
 
 person present) was summoned to the door of 
 the hall by the chaplain, and informed of the 
 state of things. "I should have done well to 
 withhold your Brother-in-law/' he owns in his 
 letter; "but even if I had had the Power, I 
 had not the Right." It is easy to see what 
 it must have been, when Sir Thomas, hot from 
 his debauch, half-sobered but wholly disordered, 
 with dress out of order, and steps reeling as 
 much from the shock as from the liquor, came 
 stumbling into the calm still chamber, with 
 the hush and holiness of death upon it ; and 
 where, pale and cold, the mother sat with the 
 babe on her lap, not yet realising that the 
 anguish was over, and that infinite calm was 
 soothing her little one. This we gather from 
 Colonel Chetwynd's words. "I attended him 
 to the Door, and even then would have drawn 
 him back, for the Air of the Chamber and 
 the Ouiet thereof was like that of a Church,
 
 256 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 and your Sister sat like a Figure beside a 
 Monument till he came near her, speaking 
 thick and stammering, so that I know not 
 what he would have said ; but she at once 
 started to her Feet, shuddering as it were 
 with Horror, and holding her Infant to her 
 Bosom with one Hand, and stretching forth 
 the other as to defend it, she cried aloud, 
 'How, Sir, do you come hither in your Cups 
 to insult the Child that you never heeded ? * 
 In his Amazement at her Passion and his own 
 Disorder, an Oath came readiest to poor Danvers's 
 lips, as though the very Devil had put it there 
 to make further Estrangement, and ere it was 
 well spoken, my Lady cut him short. ' Go 
 away, Sir. Defile not this holy Presence. 
 This is no more your Heir and Firstborn, Sir, 
 for you to ruin, both Body and Soul. He is 
 God's Angel and mine : God has kept him 
 wholly mine, and taken him from you and
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 257 
 
 your Corruptions, and I thank Him for 
 it. Come not near, he is all mine now.' 
 And, while she spake these terrible Words, 
 she swept from the Room ; while Danvers, 
 after staring like one astounded, was again, I 
 think, prompted by the Devil to burst. into a 
 loud noisy Laugh ere he flung himself out of 
 the Room. She must have heard it, the poor 
 Lady; and after it, the Parson and I labour 
 in vain to make her hear of the Anguish of 
 Tears wherewith her Husband bewailed his 
 Child, when we had got him to his own Room. 
 She replies, and with Truth enough, that these 
 were Tears of a Man in Liquor ; but could she 
 but perceive how stricken and woe-begone he 
 is, she would surely have Pity for him. She 
 distrusts both Mr. Basildon and myself as his 
 partial Friends, and truly she seems so entirely 
 to derive her Comfort by dwelling solely on 
 her Child's Heavenly Bliss, that it is a Cruelty
 
 258 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 passing the Powers of either of us, to recall 
 her to Earth again by the Thought of what 
 so distresses her. I fear me, however, that 
 this Affliction, so far from bringing them to- 
 gether, hath severed them further than ever." 
 
 Penelope herself only writes : " It has pleased 
 my good Lord of His Mercy to call my Babe 
 to Himself. You will have heard, dear Sister, 
 that my unhappy Husband so behaved himself 
 as to turn my Sorrow into Consolation that 
 I can never see my Innocent Lamb become 
 such an One, which Thought must content me 
 in being a Wife and Mother most desolate. 
 If one should ask me, ' Is it well with the 
 Child ? ' I could answer from the Fulness of 
 my Heart, 'It is well.'" And therewith the 
 poor lady falls into a mother's natural recapi- 
 tulation of her child's pretty ways and looks, 
 and dawnings of intelligence, with a piteous 
 tenderness and resignation. Mr. Chetwynd is
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 259 
 
 very good to her, she says, and adds that, " be 
 your Lot what it may, my sweet Frank, you 
 will be a happier Woman than your Sister." 
 
 The unfortunate parents seem to have coldly 
 met and gone to church together and afterwards 
 dined together, on the Sunday after the funeral, 
 and the next day Sir Thomas and Colonel 
 Chetwynd returned to London. Frances laments 
 the being prevented from coming to her sister, 
 by her father's command, and by her own 
 appointment to be maid of honour to the new 
 Queen ; for the death of Charles II. and the 
 accession of his brother had taken place un- 
 noticed by the correspondence, and Sir Thomas 
 had been re-elected for his borough, and gone to 
 take his place in James II. 's Parliament. He 
 continued for some months in town, apparently 
 leading his old life, as a gay bachelor, and pro- 
 bably in very extravagant company ; but the 
 
 Colonel must have taught Frances to be more 
 
 s 2
 
 2 6o THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 tolerant, for she is far less apt to drop hints to 
 his discredit than is her sister. 
 
 Penelope writes that she feels greatly calmed 
 and relieved by the quiet of Highbury. In his 
 absence, she walks in the garden, attends to the 
 wants of the poor, and teaches the children their 
 catechism. Five come to her by turns after 
 church on Sundays, and always have their 
 dinner afterwards, and the more ignorant of the 
 servants come to her in rotation to be instructed 
 in the first truths of Christianity. " It may be," 
 she says, " that but for such humble Endeavours, 
 the last Sparks of true Religion will be extin- 
 guished by Popery ; " for she is filled with 
 anxiety by the news-letters that come to her 
 twice a-week, and she was almost drawn off from 
 her private griefs by a burning desire that the 
 cause of religion and liberty, as she says, should 
 be vindicated. All her zeal, however, had not 
 prepared us for the ensuing letter :
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 261 
 
 "Highbury Danvers, June ig/k, 16S5. 
 
 "Mine own dear Frank, — I would that 
 you had been with me to have aided me in 
 paying Honour to the gallant Prince who has 
 staked his very Life to maintain our Country's 
 Laws, and our true and holy Religion ; but no 
 doubt you likewise will soon be hailing him as 
 your deliverer from the Popish Usurper whom 
 you are at present forced to serve. Indeed, I 
 hope what I have done may be of service to 
 you, for the Names that I mentioned were most 
 graciously heard, and writ down, by express 
 command, in Lord Gray's Tablets. But to my 
 Story : 
 
 " On the 17th of this Month, as we rose from 
 Prayers, which I was reading, Mr. Basildon being 
 gone to Bath on Business with the Bishop, who 
 should ride up to the Door but Mr. Holroyd, 
 whom you must remember as from Time to 
 Time visiting my Grandmother. He asked first
 
 262 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 whether Sir Thomas were within, but hearing 
 that he was absent, desired to see me. Then he 
 said that, learning that his honoured Friend's 
 Grand-daughter was here resident, he had made 
 his Way in Advance, so soon as the Line of 
 March had been fixed, to tell me that if we 
 locked our Gates and gave our Keepers the 
 Papers of Protection he would write for me, 
 sending also Plenty of good Fare to regale the 
 Troops in the Village, neither I nor any of my 
 People should suffer any Molestation. Then it 
 was that I first understood that it was true that 
 the Duke of Monmouth had landed at Lyme 
 Regis, as had been reported, and that he has 
 been joined by all the Country round, rejoicing 
 to see a Door opened for the Maintenance of 
 the true Protestant Faith. Mr. Holroyd assures 
 me that the Duke, or more truly the King, hath 
 the most irrefragable Proofs of the late King 
 his Father's, Marriage with Mrs. Waters ; so that
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 263 
 
 even my Husband, Stickler for Divine Right 
 though he be, cannot gainsay that here we have 
 our true and lawful Sovereign. Our good 
 Friend, being aware of Sir Thomas's Tory 
 Principles, had come hither to secure me from 
 Alarm or Annoyance, to which I answered, as 
 well you may believe, that I should scorn myself 
 did I fear aught from the Supporters of the pure 
 Faith, and of true Liberty ; and that rather than 
 lock my Gates, and shrink out of the Way for 
 Fear, I would add my poor Voice to the general 
 Acclaim of the true and lawful Defender of his 
 Rights and ours. Then, said Mr. Holroyd, he 
 might understand that I would not object to 
 testify my Sentiments, if his Highness should 
 ride this Way ; to which I could not but reply, 
 that I should deem myself highly honoured 
 should he condescend to favour my House with 
 his Presence, and thereupon it appeared that the 
 March would bring him this Way shortly after
 
 264 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 Noon, and thus, that it might consort well with 
 his Movements, to take his Dinner here, and 
 ride on to Taunton to Supper. You can well 
 believe what Baking, Roasting, and Boiling 
 began ; with how excellent a Will our good 
 Mrs. Worth toiled at Pastry and Jellies, and 
 how I myself went from Hall to Chamber, 
 decking them with green Boughs and Roses, 
 and filling Beau Pots with Flowers for the Table. 
 Old Hazlitt, the Steward, was at first froward, 
 doubting whether his Honour would not mislike 
 such Doings in his Absence ; but when I showed 
 him that the Duke is our only true and legiti- 
 mate Sovereign, and that our Welcome would 
 smoothe the Way for Sir Thomas's Reconcilia- 
 tion, his Face cleared up, and he gave his hearty 
 Aid, even going down to cause the Church Bells 
 to be rung, as they were, he says, on the Re- 
 storation Day, and a better Restoration, do I 
 trust, that this will be. After all our Haste, we
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 265 
 
 had more Time than enough. I drew up the 
 little Daughters of the Steward and Bailiff, 
 dressed in White for the Nonce, with Baskets 
 of Roses and white Lilies, to strew on the Steps 
 of the grand Entry ; and I myself for that Day 
 put off my Mourning, and arrayed myself in the 
 Sky-blue and Silver Suit that you were wont to 
 love to see me in. But we waited even till Four 
 o'clock before the Bells began, and then we 
 heard the Trumpets, and at last the Duke, or 
 his Majesty, as we now rightly style him, rode 
 through the Gateway, attended by Lord Gray, 
 Mr. Fletcher of Saltoun, Mr. Holroyd, and other 
 gentlemen. I stood at the Head of the Steps, 
 with my Women behind me, the Men on either 
 side in the Court ready to raise a Hurrah ; the 
 little Maidens were ranged with their Backs 
 against the Balustrade, and old Hazlitt stood 
 ready to hold the Duke's Horse. I am sorry to 
 say, however, that the Hurrah was far less
 
 266 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 hearty than I could have wished, being, more- 
 over, well-nigh drowned in the Bayings of Sir 
 Thomas's Great Hound, Rockwood, who, though 
 ordinarily well-natured to all save Beggars and 
 Vagabonds, now put me to Shame and Pain, by 
 barking and yelling, as I never heard, save on 
 the Night of my Affliction. And as the Duke 
 ascended the Steps, the Brute growled, and had 
 not the Grooms withheld him by Force, I verily 
 believe he would have been at his Throat, when 
 he did me the Honour to raise me from the 
 Ground and kiss my Forehead. Also the Children, 
 though well-instructed, became awkward at the 
 Moment, and let fly their Posies rather at his 
 Majesty's Head than his Feet, so that one large 
 white Lily smote him on the Cheek, and left a 
 long yellow Smear athwart it. He treated all, 
 however, with an infinite Merry Grace, reminding 
 me of Tales I have heard my Father tell of the 
 late King, whom he much resembles, though he
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 267 
 
 is far better favoured. I had seen him before, 
 but never spoken with him ; and he, with that 
 ready Recollection that I have heard called the 
 Gift of Kings, knew me perfectly, asked for you, 
 and said that he knew that Colonel Chetwynd's 
 Heart would be with his Cause; though the 
 Point of Honour, that none respected more than 
 he, might prevent him from declaring himself. 
 He spoke warmly of the wondrous Favour that 
 Heaven has everywhere vouchsafed him in the 
 Sight of the People, and is evidently a truly 
 religious and Protestant Prince, marked out by 
 Nature, as by Grace, for the Throne that I trust 
 will soon be won by him. I could tell you much 
 of his Condescension, but Time fails me, and I 
 will only say that he would have me dine at the 
 Head of the Table, he sitting on my Right 
 Hand, conversing familiarly on the State of the 
 Country. The Meal was, of necessity, hurried, 
 not to baulk the expectations of the good Folk
 
 263 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 of Taunton, but I was able to procure his 
 Assurance of Favour and Protection for my 
 Husband, my Father, and the Colonel. In 
 Truth, the Proofs of his Birth that he sets forth 
 are so manifest that none can chuse but acknow- 
 ledge them ; and thus, once more, may we trust 
 to see good Days brought back to our Country 
 and our Faith. I well believe there will soon be 
 an Accommodation without any actual Warfare, 
 for no true Englishman can draw his Sword 
 against such a Prince as this. I send this Letter 
 by one of the Servants, who likewise bears 
 another to my Husband, to inform him of the 
 Duke's most gracious Assurance, that if no overt 
 Act be performed in Resistance, he may rest 
 secure of Safety, both for Person and Estate, 
 and thus, I trust, I have at least done him one 
 Service. And so, praying Heaven to protect 
 both yourself and all whom you love, I rest for 
 the present, — Your loving Sister, 
 
 " Penelope Danvers."
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 269 
 
 Her letter to her husband is not extant, 
 and indeed he probably never received it ; 
 for two days later (before the battle of Sedg- 
 moor was fought) he made his appearance at 
 home, having made his way thither by by- 
 roads, apparently to collect his tenants as 
 volunteers for King James's army. 
 
 In feeble characters, as though she had been 
 severely shaken, and were still suffering from 
 some great shock, Penelope's letter of the 
 2 1st of June narrates that her husband had 
 returned more wrathful and passionate than 
 ever she had thought to see man, and had 
 demanded whether it had been of her own 
 free will, as the servants insolently reported, 
 that she had received and banqueted rebels 
 in his house. " In a low Voice, that my 
 Terror scarce allowed me to keep steady, I 
 replied that it was ever my free Will to offer 
 my poor Services in the Cause of Religion 
 and Virtue."
 
 270 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 Then it is plain that Sir Thomas's indigna- 
 tion knew no bounds : he stormed at her with 
 unbridled rage, and considering what a handle 
 she had given the stout Tory by pronouncing 
 the profligate Monmouth the champion of 
 religion and virtue, no wonder if his abuse of 
 him, at least, was as coarse as it was violent ; 
 while Penelope sat before him, white and 
 trembling indeed, but neither shedding a tear 
 nor uttering a word of penitence, and no doubt 
 enraging him more by almost putting him in 
 the wrong, by comporting herself so like a 
 martyr* She says, however, nothing more 
 than that, weak as she was, she trusts that 
 neither by tear nor word did she betray her 
 principles of silence and meekness, under the 
 whole storm of vile and scurrilous language 
 
 * Indeed, Sir Bernard pronounced her an intolerable woman, 
 Whom he should certainly have horsewhipped, which Fanny 
 declared to be a convincing proof of the barbarism of the 
 elder hemisphere !
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 271 
 
 that she cannot repeat — but by which he 
 worked himself up, at length, into swearing 
 that his father's loyal house should no longer 
 shelter one who had harboured within it a 
 vile parricide and traitor, and that he was 
 glad of the loss of their only child, rather 
 than have him bred up by his mother to be 
 a canting hypocritical rebel and traitor. "And 
 here, dear Sister, a Swoon saved me from 
 hearing more ; and when I came to myself, 
 only Worth was with me, and I was lying on 
 my Bed. Worth tells me that Sir Thomas 
 had placed me there before he called her, 
 and that he lingered in the room, cursing so 
 fearfully under his Breath, the good Woman 
 says, that but for me, she had not endured 
 it, and that so soon as I began to recover he 
 left the Chamber and ran downstairs. Nor 
 have I seen him since, though it is now Noon- 
 day, but I hear he is about to set forth this
 
 272 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 Afternoon for Lord Feversham's Camp with 
 Twenty of his Men. Pray God that there 
 may be an Accommodation. Then how blessed 
 will it be to have been the Means of saving 
 him, and letting his Rescue, through my 
 Intercession, be the Requital of this dreadful 
 Evening. I am suffering, and much shaken 
 this Day, as you may well believe, but I think 
 there will be no further ill Effects, and the 
 Trust in the Triumph of Truth, and in the 
 Pardon I have gained for him, holds me up 
 and gives me Strength." 
 
 That strength must have failed Penelope 
 when the cause to which she had given her 
 hopes so signally failed on the 5th of July. 
 Probably she was too much dispirited to write, 
 for there is nothing of hers till the 10th of 
 July, when she writes : 
 
 "My dear Sister,— Old Hazlitt will, for
 
 THE DAN VERS PAPERS 273 
 
 very Pity, let you have this Letter, if he can, 
 and mayhap it may enable my Father or 
 Colonel Chetwynd to trace me out, and come 
 to my Rescue. Whither I am going I know 
 not, but towards six o'clock this Evening, my 
 Husband came Home, miry and heated, and 
 coming without ceremony into my Apartments, 
 bade my Clothes to be packed, and myself to 
 be ready by Midnight for a long Journey, 
 taking with me two Women, whomsoever I 
 would. His Face was set as Iron, and I saw 
 that Words would be vain, even if my 
 Mind were not set to obey him in all Things 
 not unlawful ; so I merely answered, ' I will 
 be ready, Sir/ and strove to hush Worth, 
 when she would have objected the Danger to 
 my Health ; but she, as you know, loves me 
 too well to be easily silenced, and she spake 
 her mind with her usual Freedom, to which 
 he only replied, ' Your Lady has made it
 
 274 . THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 necessary. You will be ready, Madam,' then 
 turned on his Heel and left us. He is in no 
 Rage as before, and used no foul Words, but 
 I perceive that he has some fixed and deadly 
 Purpose, in Accordance with the Oath he 
 swore, that this House should no longer 
 harbour me. My good Worth will never leave 
 me, and all the other poor Maids have been 
 sobbing round me, but they are every one 
 afraid to go ; and it is to Worth alone that 
 I dare trust, therefore I have taken Leave of 
 them — the poor Good Girls, with their Wages 
 and Gifts besides. Whatever betide me, you 
 know that I love you, dear Sister ; and should 
 I, as I expect, be mewed in some lonely 
 Tower to die in foreign Parts, I know that 
 you and your good Colonel will never rest 
 till you have done your best for your un- 
 happy Sister, 
 
 "P. D."
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 275 
 
 "Bristol Channel, July nth. 
 
 " My DEAR Stster, — It is as I feared ; we 
 
 are already on board Ship to be taken out of 
 
 the Country, to some Place where, no doubt, 
 
 Sir Thomas hopes to work his Will, and bend 
 
 mine by Violence, far from any to whom I 
 
 can make my Moan. I was ready and at my 
 
 Prayers, in the Spot in my Chamber where my 
 
 Child was taken from me, when he came to 
 
 say the Coach was ready. I rose up and 
 
 silently moved on ; he took the Ends of my 
 
 Fingers, and led me down the Stairs, across 
 
 the Hall, and to the Coach. He shut me in 
 
 with Worth, and rode on Horseback, with his 
 
 twenty Troopers, all armed to the Teeth, as I 
 
 could see in the Twilight of the Summer Night. 
 
 We scarcely halted, even to bait the Horses, 
 
 and by early Morn came into the City of 
 
 Bristol, "where the Gates were watched by Train 
 
 Bands, who gave Entrance at Sight of his 
 
 t 2
 
 276 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 Papers. We drove straight down to the Wharf, 
 and there young Hazlitt came up and had 
 Speech with him. I saw him hand out a heavy 
 Bag, as if of Gold, and then, coming to the 
 Window, he said, 'Now, my Lady,' — opened 
 the Door and handed me out. Says I, ' Whither 
 do you take me, Sir ? ' and he, ' To Ireland, 
 Madam. It cannot be helped. It will be the 
 better for us all if you take it quietly.' ' I am 
 so taking it,' I answered, for I would not have 
 him think me like to resist my lawful Master 
 and Husband, by creating a Pother in the Public 
 Streets* — but my Throat swelled so that I 
 could hardly speak. Only, I gave liim my 
 Hand, and I thought he looked at me not 
 unkindly, but with a sort of Tenderness, as 
 though he would have relented, were he not 
 too proud and stubborn to go back from his 
 Will and Word. He seated me in the Boat, 
 
 * " Why not ? " said Fanny.
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 277 
 
 wrapped me up warmly from the chill Morning 
 Air, and sat down at the other End, with his 
 Dog Rockwood at his Feet, drawing his Cloak 
 over his Face so that I could not see it, or 
 guess his Mood. We were rowed off to the 
 Ship, where I am now in the Cabin, a miserable 
 little Hole, so dark and unsavoury that Sir 
 Thomas was startled at the Aspect, and would 
 have made some Excuse, but I would not 
 attend thereto, and merely said, ' It would serve 
 the Purpose,' whereat he bowed ; and, telling 
 me that he should send a Servant home with 
 Letters, and I might write to my Sister if I 
 would, he left me. Sure, he would not let me 
 write if he meant very badly by me ; and this 
 gives me some Hope. What I chiefly appre- 
 hend is his becoming a Papist, and endeavour- 
 ing to force me thereto in that wild Country; 
 but I trust that Heaven will at least give me 
 Strength to die a Martyr, rather than betray
 
 278 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 my Faith, and I am less weak in Spirit than 
 in Body. Yet will my Father, I trust, interfere 
 to save me. Commend me to him, and above 
 all commend me in your Prayers. And so 
 believe me, 
 
 " Your Ever-Loving and Unhappy P. D." 
 
 The next letter from the poor lady bears 
 date Castle Ballymore, and is very desolate. 
 Penelope is glad that her father and sister 
 should know where to find her, and writes a 
 hurried billet the day after her landing to tell 
 them that she had spent day and night on 
 deck, not being sick, but unable to breathe in 
 the cabin, and that her husband had been not 
 ungentle with her, so much so that she could 
 almost think him sorry for his purpose, what- 
 ever it might be; but fair it could hardly be, 
 as he would not have brought her to so dreadful 
 a place. "There is an Inlet of the Sea," says
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 279 
 
 poor Lady Penelope, "closely shut in, as it 
 were, by two frowning savage Rocks, that 
 seem to guard it as a very Pirate's Den. The 
 Sides are frightful Precipices, rugged with bare 
 Rocks, and partly hidden in tangled Thickets 
 and dark Trees, and the People are barefooted, 
 half-clothed, and barbarous beyond Conception. 
 They received us with Cries, Shrieks, and Ges- 
 ticulations, like Indians on some Savage Island, 
 and the mere Irishry cannot so much as speak 
 a Word of English, but have an uncouth bar- 
 barous Jargon of their Own ; and so horrid 
 were their Noises and Gestures that Sir Thomas 
 constantly showed his own Dismay by bidding 
 me not be affrighted, though I trust I gave 
 him none occasion to mark any Weakness in 
 me. He would let none of them touch me, 
 but himself carried me, wading through the 
 shallow Water to the Landing, then up the 
 Steep Ascent to the Castle. Cold Comfort is
 
 2 8o THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 there, though it could not well be worse than 
 I looked for, and the People, though Scots, 
 and mostly brought hither by my own Grand- 
 father, speak so that we cannot understand 
 them, and I doubt whether one of them would 
 stand my Friend, they all seem so infected with 
 the Barbarity of the Place. Poor Worth wails 
 and cries, and says there is not a Christian to 
 speak to, not a Window Pane whole, not a 
 Door that will shut, and that all the Hangings 
 are torn down, and Sir Thomas goes from one 
 room to another raging and fuming with all 
 his wonted Fury of Tongue, and frightening 
 those who are trying to set Things in Order 
 by his Passion. For my Part, I sit calm, 
 endeavouring not to be perturbed, but to leave 
 him to do as he will, while I remain set to 
 endure stedfastly whatever proofs Heaven may 
 have appointed for my Constancy. My Mortal 
 Body may be, indeed it is, sorely feeble and
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 281 
 
 ailing, but I trust to be so supported in Mind 
 
 as never to betray the Protestant Faith, nor 
 
 your Interests, my dear Sister. If you should 
 
 hear of my Death, as may well be, remember 
 
 these are my last Words to you. 
 
 " P. D." 
 
 They had nearly been her last, for, by the 
 same messenger, Sir Thomas sent a brief note, 
 in vile handwriting and spelling, to announce, 
 through Colonel Chetwynd, to her father and 
 sister, that the next morning she had given 
 birth prematurely to a dead infant. He con- 
 tinues : " She took her Voige marvellous quiet ; 
 mayhap it would have eased her Heart had 
 she wept and cried as another Woman might 
 have done, but she spake no W T ord of Com- 
 plainte or Entrety," nor durst I tell her of 
 the Danger in which she stood. They tell me 
 she is in no extraordinare Peril now, needing 
 only rest. So now to Bisncss : For the stinking
 
 282 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 Tub that brought us hither, I had to pay 50 
 pounds in Gould down, and give a Bond for 
 as much more. Here is my Blank for you 
 to fill up as you will, for a sop to the Blood- 
 hounds, only, for God's sake, let them spare 
 my poor People. Mine own known Honesty 
 should serve, but if not, buy them off, though 
 I should starve for it ; I am last in the Entail. 
 As Things stand, having now no Child, I could 
 sell, if means can not otherwise be raised, but 
 I would rather cut off my Rite Hand. So no 
 more from your 
 
 " Grateful and obedient Servant, 
 
 " Thomas Dan vers." 
 
 " Well, he does not seem such a wretch 
 after all. He has some feeling for his wife," 
 commented Lady Danvers. " I hope he is not 
 going to persecute her after ail. But who are 
 the bloodhounds ? "
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 283 
 
 That question was answered by the yellow 
 slip of paper which fell out of the next of 
 Sir Thomas's franks that we opened, containing 
 an account of moneys expended : 
 
 To Colonel Kirk .... £s°° 
 
 To his Officers . . c 200 
 
 To satisfy his Men . . . .150 
 
 This, then, was only a part of the price of 
 poor Penelope's enthusiastic reception of Mon- 
 mouth. Such was the only means by which 
 her husband, negotiating through Colonel Chet- 
 wynd, was able to save his innocent tenantry 
 from expiating her fit of disloyalty under the 
 tender mercies of Kirk and Feversham. Some 
 hint of the intended vengeance upon all the 
 abettors of Monmouth's treason must have been 
 conveyed to him, and have been the cause of 
 his hastily hurrying his wife away ; thus pro- 
 bably sparing her from the Bloody Assize, and
 
 284 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 possibly from the fate of Alice Lisle. Indeed, 
 his letters show him to have been still quite 
 uncertain whether a warrant might not still 
 follow her to Castle Ballymore ; and her father 
 had, in much alarm, gone down into the country, 
 avoiding all that could lead to the suspicion 
 that he had been connected with her escapade. 
 Colonel Chetwynd was left to act for Sir 
 Thomas, and he had to use his utmost influence 
 with Churchill and Feversham before he could 
 even open his communications with the higher 
 powers. He seems to have had to strain every 
 effort, and to pay down gold right and left, to 
 Halifax, Jeffreys, Father Petre, and " The 
 Ladies," before it was intimated that, in con- 
 sideration of Sir Thomas Danvers's loyalty 
 and past services, his lady's offence should be 
 commuted and hushed up, for a fine of ^10,000. 
 This sum was avowed, but it had been more 
 than doubled by the bribery that achieved it ;
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 285 
 
 and as the whole was necessarily to be immedi- 
 ately forthcoming in ready money, Sir Thomas 
 was forced to mortgage his paternal estate, sell 
 large portions, and break up his establishment 
 at Highbury; his own debts during his bachelor 
 days, and still more during the few unfortunate 
 months of licence that followed the death of 
 his child, having contributed to increase his 
 difficulties. So much is gathered from the 
 more formal deeds and letters that are preserved 
 in the more regular parchments of the family ; 
 there is very little about it in this packet of 
 familiar correspondence, only in one letter to 
 Colonel Chetwynd, where he is giving orders 
 as to the transport of furniture, pictures, and 
 other property, to Castle Ballymore, and directing 
 that the old servants and retainers should be 
 pensioned off. There are absolutely two large 
 tear blisters on the thick old paper — marks 
 inexpressibly touching, for what suffering must
 
 286 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 not have wrung them from that rough, jolly, 
 reckless nature ! 
 
 He must have been bred up on that avowed 
 principle of the seventeenth century, which con- 
 demned the heir to crass ignorance, for his 
 letters have a very illiterate appearance, and 
 must have cost him a world of trouble. It is 
 hard to reconcile our idea of a gentleman with 
 the notion of a man who spelt like a ploughboy, 
 drank like a porter, and swore like a trooper ; 
 yet that Sir Thomas had some of the most 
 important essentials of one can hardly be denied 
 after reading his answer to a letter in which 
 Colonel Chetwynd declares that both he and 
 Lady Frances thought that Lady Penelope's 
 own estates ought to pay the cost of her adven- 
 ture, and recommending that both she and her 
 father should be consulted, since no doubt her 
 feelings would thus be greatly changed towards 
 her husband. He replies :
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 287 
 
 "To that Proposition I say Nay. I will 
 not expose my King's Shame to One Whig 
 more than I can help. Nor shall my Wife 
 know what she has cost me. What she will 
 not yield for Love and Duty shall not be 
 bought for a Price, nor forst by Obligashion. 
 Nor is there any. 'Tis a Man's part to save his 
 Wife. She is a rare Creature for Strength and 
 Curage, in her little Body, an, if it was for the 
 Misfortune of both she was given to me, it 
 cannot be helped. She amends slowly, and 
 is so languishing that I dare not tell her of 
 all that has past among her Friends, or of 
 the Peril she has been in, tho', thank God 
 and you, that be past. Moreover, when I was 
 mad with her for dabling Avith Treson, I 
 swore a rash Oath that my Father's Roof 
 should not harbour One who brought a Trator 
 there, and it seems I have been taken at my 
 Word. — So no more of that."
 
 2S8 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 This letter was written in August, and 
 Penelope's recovery must have been very- 
 tardy, for it is not till September is half over 
 that there is a letter from her, and she has 
 evidently been secluded from all knowledge 
 of what passed in England. Rather provok- 
 ingly, there are very few letters from Frances, 
 and it is not clear whether she were prohibited 
 from writing, or whether she had been warned 
 not to alarm her sister. In this first letter 
 Tenelope tells her to believe her to be 
 regaining strength, but slowly, though the sea 
 air agrees with her breath, so that she thinks, 
 save for her heavy heart, she shall soon be 
 in better health than usual. She is in much 
 fear and care as to the fate of the Duke of 
 Monmouth and his friends, but is sure the 
 King cannot be hard with his own nephew, 
 and she hopes Frank will soon send her all 
 particulars. For her own part, it is plain
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 2S9 
 
 that her husband means to try cajolery and 
 blandishment, for, during her illness, -he has 
 had her apartments perfectly repaired, and 
 fitted with her own furniture, pictures, spinnet, 
 and books ; so that but for the dismal prospect 
 of rocks and sea from the window she could 
 think herself at Highbury. 
 
 In the next she narrates how, after her 
 many inquiries had been turned aside, Mrs. 
 Worth had at last satisfied her as to the fate 
 of the unhappy Monmouth, and from thence 
 had gone on to inform her of the horrors of 
 Feversham's campaign, and Jeffreys' circuit 
 — horrors that she at first believed to be 
 merely the exaggeration of rumour, so that 
 when Sir Thomas came to pay her his daily 
 visit, she appealed to him to tell her the facts 
 and let her read the Newsletters, so long 
 withheld. 
 
 " He lookt upon me with unusual Gentle- 
 
 u
 
 290 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 ness, and said, 'Yes, Madam, it is only too 
 true that there has been Hellish Work. Our 
 own People have scaped, Thanks to good 
 Chetwynd, but you had best ask no more/ 
 ' But/ I said, ' can even Women Ladies, have 
 been haled before the Judge and put to a 
 shameful Death ? ' ' Even so,' he answered, 
 and then I would know how I was exempt, 
 to the which he answered, with a Smile, 
 that he had timely Warning, and more- 
 over that Money could do much. I would 
 have him tell me whether it were for this 
 that he brought me hither so hastily, and 
 he replied, hanging his Head, that he would 
 not have done so could he have helped it. I 
 demanded wherefore he told me not the True 
 Cause of our Journey, and he said that doubt- 
 ing as he did that we might be pursued, or 
 stopped at Bristol, he would not terrify me 
 with the whole Urgency of the Matter. Thus
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 291 
 
 is it with these Men : He knew not that I 
 had far rather have known that I was fleeing 
 from the most Bloodthirsty Foe for Conscience' 
 sake than have gone in unspeakable Terror 
 of his Sinister Designs. If he thus acted 
 merely to save his heinous Purpose, ah me 
 he succeeded not ; but however that may be, 
 I must to the end of my days bless God's 
 good Providence for having saved me from so 
 grievous a Danger. We sat silent for some 
 Time, and then I, feeling that next to Provi- 
 dence he had saved me, who had judged him 
 wrongly, and done little to merit any Care 
 from him on my Behalf, made a Motion towards 
 him, and said, ' I am sorry, Sir, my Zeal gave 
 you so much Concern and Trouble.' With 
 that, he caught at my Hands with a sudden 
 Eagerness, and said, ' You are sorry, Madam ? ' 
 I drew back my Hands, and said, ' I am sorry 
 
 for the Inconvenience it has caused you, Sir. 
 
 v a
 
 292 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 What I repented not when the Party triumphed, 
 I will not repent because they have been cruelly 
 and bloodily crushed.' He turned up and down 
 the Chamber, and coming back to me, said, 
 forcing down as it were the Passion of his 
 Voice, and quashing a profane Word when 
 half out of his Lips : ' You have a Spirit of 
 your own, Madam, and there's Reason in 
 what you say. Look you, we have both 
 somewhat to forgive one another. Let us 
 make a fresh Beginning, and try if we cannot 
 be more of one Mind for the Future.' Now, 
 it would have been a mere Betraying of my 
 Principles to have allowed that I did wrong 
 in upholding the Protestant Cause, so that I 
 could only bend my Head, and say, 'I will 
 be submissive to you in all Things Lawful.' 
 Behold how was I requited. He stamped with 
 his Foot, swore a horrid Oath, and cried, 'I 
 had rather ten Times you raved like a Ter-
 
 THE DAN VERS PAPERS 293 
 
 magant than drove me Crazy with this accursed 
 Submission of yours.' Therewith he quitted 
 me in Haste, nor have I seen him since, but 
 I am resolved he shall never see me wanting 
 in the Duty and Submission of a Wife, and 
 I am about to resume my Place in the House 
 and to the Housewifery as before. Indeed, 
 my Mind is greatly relieved since I find that 
 there was cause for this Journey, nor have 
 I any Fears for my Religion being attacked 
 since good Mr. Basildon is expected daily 
 from England." 
 
 Lady Danvers was thoroughly angry with 
 Penelope now, all the more so for Fanny's 
 admiration and sympathy with her ; and there 
 was even worse to come, for in a letter shortly 
 after, where she describes the flower-garden 
 that was being laid out for her, and the road 
 that the peasants were working on, that she 
 might take carriage exercise without being
 
 2Q4 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 shaken and jolted to death, she adds : " In 
 all this Sir Thomas is Good-Natured and Kind- 
 Hearted ; nay, he does seem so well pleased if 
 I do but speak a Wish or utter a Word of 
 Thanks, that I sometimes fear that for Lack 
 of other Employment he may take to Love 
 of me ; and truly that would deprive me of all 
 the little Liberty or Peace I have, so I do 
 my Part to maintain him in the Indifference 
 that must needs be the Portion of Beings 
 mated as we are. All the Happiness is 
 reserved for my own dear Sister." 
 
 " Horrid woman ! " said Lady Danvers. " I 
 only wish he had let Jeffreys do his worst. 
 Don't let me hear any more about her/' 
 
 The ensuing letters are chiefly about 
 Penelope's domestic concerns, and her own 
 difficulties, and those of Mrs. Worth, with Irish 
 servants. Sir Thomas is not much mentioned, 
 but he seems to have been driven by her
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 295 
 
 coldness to consort chiefly with the gentry of 
 the neighbourhood, and to have engaged 
 heartily in their sports and uproarious fes- 
 tivities ; which were, probably, some degrees 
 wilder than those of his old friends in 
 Somersetshire. 
 
 In the spring of 1688, Colonel Chetwynd 
 became a major-general, and Lord St. Giles at 
 last consented to let the marriage take place, 
 having perhaps a presentiment that Whiggcry 
 might soon be in the ascendant, since James's 
 measures could not fail to produce a reaction. 
 Very handsome settlements were made upon 
 Frances, for Sir Thomas was still much out 
 of favour with his father-in-law, who fancied 
 the state of Highbury to be chiefly owing to 
 his extravagance, and would probably have 
 given away even more to the younger daughter 
 but for General Chctwynd's generous scruples. 
 That summer also was eventful at Castle Bally-
 
 296 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 more, for a living and life-like son was there 
 born, and the father writes : " My Lady is 
 doing well. Poor Sole, I trust this may bring 
 her some Pleasure in Life. It pitties my very 
 Heart to see her so mopish and melancholic ; 
 there is not such another Woman for Piety and 
 Patience, be the other who she may." 
 
 She must have improved, for since that letter 
 wherein she professed to be afraid of his be- 
 taking himself to love for her, she had not 
 made one direct complaint of his conduct ; and 
 a few days after her child's birth, she yielded in 
 a point that must have cost her something. 
 
 The Ballymorc tenants were mostly Scots, 
 imported in the Cromwcllian days when the 
 native population were almost exterminated ; 
 but a few O'Neils and O'Regans had crept 
 back to their old nooks among the rocks, and 
 of course the deadliest chronic feud existed, 
 even as at the present day, when Sir Bernard
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 297 
 
 spends every 1st of July in watching to keep 
 them from each other's throats. In that excited 
 summer, when men's minds were at fever-pitch 
 between the trial of the seven Bishops and the 
 birth of the Prince of Wales, Ireland neces- 
 sarily reflected, or rather refracted English 
 quarrels, for it was their continuation in a dis- 
 torted form ; and thus Sir Thomas, riding home 
 into his own valley, found himself dispersing a 
 terrible fight between Scots and Irish, in which 
 a fine young man, named Maurice O'Regan, 
 had been killed, and was being bewailed with 
 overpowering anguish by his young wife, the 
 mother of a babe scarcely older than the little 
 heir of Danvers. Deeply moved, kind-hearted 
 Sir Thomas insisted that the poor woman 
 should be brought to the castle to become 
 foster-mother to his own little son ; and 
 Penelope, in the first letter she could write, 
 excuses herself to her sister for having accepted
 
 298 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 the services of a Roman Catholic and mere 
 Irishwoman, on the plea of obedience to her 
 husband as well as pity for Mab O'Regan ; who 
 was moreover a fine, tall, healthy woman, able 
 to speak a little English, and so tender in her 
 ways that little Tom throve as Penelope had 
 never hoped to see a child of hers flourish. 
 
 The letters at this most interesting period 
 are, however, scanty. General Chetwynd, ever 
 a conscientious Whig, came, of course, into 
 favour with the Revolution ; while Sir Thomas 
 Danvers, with his old-fashioned unreasoning 
 loyalty, cleaving to the Crown, on however 
 thorny a bush it might hang, plunged headlong 
 into the Tory politics of Ireland, and was as 
 deep as so honest and blundering a man could 
 be, in the counsels of Tyrconnel and Melfort, 
 spending most of his time with them, or in 
 riding hither and thither, to promote the cause. 
 Communication must have been interrupted,
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 299 
 
 for in all the year 1689 there is only one billet 
 from Penelope, and that a very mournful one, 
 to prepare her sister for hearing no more of 
 her for some time. " For," she says, " I would 
 hold no Correspondence with those who must 
 be esteemed as the Enemies of my Husband's 
 Party. He is assured of high Command in the 
 Army raised here for King James, though it 
 may be but in Name that he is a Leader. I 
 have seen him only once since Christmas, when 
 he came home to see what Men he could raise, 
 and what ready Money. Methought he looked 
 careworn and harassed, and he seemed doubtful 
 of the good Faith and Honesty of more than 
 One with whom he had to act, so that I even 
 ventured to say to him that he should remember 
 that now he is a Father, he should less freely 
 and vainly risk his Life, and that the late 
 King scarce merited from him any very haz- 
 ardous Act of Devotion. But he made answer
 
 30o THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 that he were a base Villain to let Grudges 
 of his own diminish the Loyalty due from 
 every Subject to his King ; and as for the 
 Risk, it must be as Heaven willed it. I tell 
 you this, dear Sister, that you may perceive 
 what Manner of Man he truly is, and how 
 great a Soul of Honour has been concealed by 
 his Breeding and Demeanour. Indeed, as to 
 that, he is much changed from the Rudeness, 
 whether for Kindness or Anger, of old Times ; 
 he is never ungentle with me now, nor have I 
 scarce, since we came here, seen him in Liquor, 
 nor heard one of his profane Words, but he 
 treats me with a grave Distance, as though 
 I were a Thing he is unhappily bound to 
 protect, and whose Weakness he respects. 
 Perhaps if I had not been so opinionated at 
 the Time of our Marriage, we might have 
 drawn together, and I might have won him 
 from the Habits in which he is now fixed ; but
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 301 
 
 it is too late now, and all I can hope is to bring 
 up my Boy to be a true Joy to him, and pray 
 that he may be spared through these evil Days." 
 
 Accordingly, there is no more correspondence 
 till the June of 1690, when James II. with his 
 French and Irish forces was in possession of 
 the South of Ireland, and William of Orange 
 was occupying County Down with his troops. 
 General Chetwynd rode over from headquarters 
 to Ballymore, and gives the following account 
 of his visit in a letter to his wife in England : 
 
 "I found your Sister looking stronger and 
 better, and truly do I believe that her enforced 
 Residence here has been of much Benefit 
 to her Health. She seems to have learnt 
 to love the Place and People, and her 
 Garden is a fair and pleasant Sight amid 
 the wild Savagery of the Landskip, and the 
 Sluttishness of every other Demesne I have 
 yet seen in this Country. Moreover, all say
 
 302 THE DAN VERS PAPERS 
 
 that she and good Mr. Basildon have done 
 an Infinity of Good, both to the Bodies and 
 Souls of those around them. She is, however, 
 now sorely distressed and full of Fears for her 
 Husband, since, as we long since apprehended, 
 his strong Principle of what he deems his Duty 
 has made him among the most zealous Sup- 
 porters of the late King. Our Forces being 
 interposed between this Place and the Enemy, 
 she is cut off from all Intelligence, so that much 
 which I told her of Tyrconnel's Movements was 
 News to her. Her little Son is a fine chubby 
 Fellow, much resembling his Father, and full of 
 Health and Life. He refused to give me a Kiss, 
 because, says he: 'You are a Whig, and Papa is 
 gone to fight the Whigs.' I was unadvised 
 enough to say in jest: 'And what is Mama?' 
 but the Water at once stood in her Eyes, as she 
 said: 'Pray, Brother, let not the Child ever 
 guess at any Difference between us ; let him
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 303 
 
 always find his Son as Single-hearted as him- 
 self.' She asked much after you, but it is plain 
 that her whole Heart is much gone out after her 
 Husband, and that she thinks of little else. Yet 
 in a Conversation I had with the Chaplain, I 
 cannot find that there had been previously much 
 Diminution of the Coldness and Constraint 
 between them, and he even allowed to me that 
 he had often thought that Sir Thomas might 
 have been weaned from many of his worse 
 Habits, his Intemperance for instance, had she 
 shown herself pleased, or striven to enliven his 
 Evening when he came Home sober, instead of 
 treating him with uniform Indifference, such as 
 sometimes daunted, sometimes offended him. 
 Yet since he has been absent from Home and 
 in Danger, no Wife could be more full of 
 trembling Anxiety, and it may be of Remorse, 
 Ah ha ! my Frank, do your perverse Sex even 
 in these Things go by Contraries ? "
 
 304 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 The neighbourhood of the English army 
 opened the way to fresh and frequent corre- 
 spondence between the two sisters, whose hus- 
 bands were thus engaged on opposite sides. 
 The next matter of interest is, however, the 
 following note, dated on the morning of the 2nd 
 of July, that following the battle of the Boyne : 
 
 "My dearest Life, — This is but a Frag- 
 ment to assure you that I am whole and sound 
 after a hot day's Fighting and complete Victory, 
 for which God be praised. Credit no rumours 
 of the King's Wound ; it was a mere Scratch, 
 and he is in good Health and Activity. I would 
 I could say the same for poor Danvcrs, but he 
 was cut down in the Charge of the Irish Horse ; 
 and his Servant Ilazlitt, who was taken just 
 after, has no doubt of his Death, having seen 
 his Skull cloven by the Sabre of one of our 
 Dragoons. May be, it is the best Fate for one
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 305 
 
 of his high Spirit, since his Cause is utterly lost, 
 and his Party can never make Head again ; but 
 my Heart aches at the Task before me, for my 
 Horse is even now led round for me to ride with 
 the sore Tidings to your poor Sister. I have 
 received the King's Orders to take the Com- 
 mand of the Troops on the Coast, and shall 
 make my Headquarters there, hoping thus to 
 protect her from Vexation or Insult. And if the 
 War be ended as quickly as we now hope, it 
 may be that I shall myself bring her Home to 
 you. Time fails me for more. 
 
 " Your loving Husband, 
 
 " Richard Ciietwynd." 
 
 He writes the next day describing poor 
 
 Penelope's grief. Quickly as he had ridden, 
 
 report had preceded him ; and he found her at 
 
 the door, saying: "You need not speak, brother; 
 
 I knew how it would be." "And," he adds, 
 
 x
 
 J 
 
 06 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 "as I took her Hand and kissed her Brow, 
 it was as if I touched a Corpse ; and though 
 she does not shed a Tear, there is a Death- 
 stricken Look on her Face. She led me into 
 her Chamber, and made me tell all I had 
 been able to learn of his Death, and how I have 
 given Orders that the Remains be sought and 
 honourably brought hither, and she thanked me 
 calmly. This Morning I have seen her again, 
 and I fear there is a Fever in her Manner, so 
 vehemently, poor Lady, doth she urge how 
 loving and tender he had been to her, and 
 how generously he had borne with her, dwelling 
 much on his Conduct in the unhappy Affair of 
 Monmouth, of which even then she did not 
 know the Whole, nor of his Magnanimity 
 towards her and her Father. It threw her into 
 an absolute Transport when I related all to 
 her, but it failed to make her weep, merely 
 adding to the burning Anguish of Remorse
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 307 
 
 that seems to consume her, and makes her 
 
 deem poor, honest, simple Sir Thomas almost 
 
 as of a martyred Saint to whose Patience she 
 
 was the perpetual Plague. She says she 
 
 suffered no Surprise, having always known 
 
 that thus it would be, and she takes Thought 
 
 for all that is needful, till I often fear that 
 
 her Brain can scarcely bear the Oppression she 
 
 labours under, but it may be the Sight of the 
 
 body will bring Tears. She has just sent me 
 
 the Billet that I enclose." 
 
 This piteous billet opens by Penelope's 
 
 telling her sister to render her thanks to her 
 
 father for having bestowed on her a husband 
 
 whose worth so far transcended what she 
 
 deserved. "It is all ended now," she writes. 
 
 "My childish Pride and Conceit of myself 
 
 blinded me to the Worthiness of that true 
 
 Heart ; and I was a sore Torment to his 
 
 Patience, as well as the Ruin of his Prospects ; 
 
 x 2
 
 3o3 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 holding out in my Sullenness even while he 
 spake no Word of Reproach for the Evil I 
 had brought on him. He, who almost 
 struck me to the Earth for Disloyalty to the 
 King he honoured, never so much as told me 
 that it had caused the Desolation of his 
 Father's House. Yea, if I had let him, he 
 would have begun to love me for the very 
 Harm I had done to him. And now I can 
 never make up to him. My folly led him 
 hither among these Intriguers to perish in 
 their lost Battle ; and what am I but his 
 Murderess ? I know not what I say, dear 
 Sister ; but you and your good Husband, who 
 knew what he was, still will pity and pray for 
 me, that in Heaven one Day I may meet 
 him, and obtain his Tardon. No other Thought 
 can sustain me, and yet I must live awhile 
 or his Child will never learn what a Father 
 he had."
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 3&9 
 
 So wrote Penelope on the 3rd of July. On 
 the 4th the General writes : 
 
 " This morning your Sister is much changed. 
 Last night there was silent heart-stricken 
 Calmness; To-day, there are Tears, Tremblings, 
 Flutterings, Sentences half-spoken, a strange 
 Colour on her Cheek and Lustre in her Eye 
 that Yesterday was so dull and dead. Either 
 it is a strange Passion, or else she has some 
 secret Intelligence, but this Despatch may 
 make you better informed than I, for I was 
 obliged to say before her that I must not be so 
 much her Brother as the King's Officer, and 
 that if I hear of a Rebel in Concealment my 
 Duty must be done." 
 
 Large and well-pressed was the black seal 
 to the letter accompanying this, and thus it 
 began ; 
 
 "My dear and only Sister, — You are
 
 3lo THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 no Orange Officer, and you may hear of my 
 Joy and Thanksgiving. I have him back 
 sick, wounded, and in Pain — sore Pain — but 
 knowing me, enduring me, and, as I trust, able 
 to forgive me. Now can I thank God, now can 
 I pray, now can I bear whatever He may send 
 me. He has been more merciful than I 
 deserved, and has accepted my Repentance 
 and Tears of these long Months. I wholly 
 trust He will grant my dear Husband's Life ; 
 but even at the worst, I could bear it better 
 now, or at least I could die in Peace, and Hope, 
 and Thanksgiving. But he will not die, it is 
 but a Wound in the Shoulder, and cannot be 
 Mortal, and the deadly Weakness was passing 
 even when I came away. I must not be with 
 him again till Night, and I dare not speak 
 with your Husband or any other, lest my Joy 
 should betray me, and I am shut up in my 
 Closet to pray and bless God, and to write
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 311 
 
 to you. Thus it came to pass. I had heard 
 
 Mr. Basildon's Prayers, bidden him and the 
 
 General Good-night, and betaken me to 
 
 my Bed - chamber, most providentially re - 
 
 fusing Worth's Offer to sleep with me. 
 
 Poor Woman, I cannot well bear the Sight 
 
 of her, when I think how ill I have dealt 
 
 in letting her bring evil Reports of my dear 
 
 Husband. I said I would have my Child to 
 
 sleep with me, for nothing so quenched my Pain 
 
 as to hold him to my Bosom, so I bade Worth 
 
 send Mab with him. Poor Worth, she does love 
 
 me ; for much as she dislikes Mab, she said not 
 
 one Word of Murmur. When she was gone, Mab 
 
 stole in on tiptoe ; and when I looked for my 
 
 Boy, she said, with her Finger to her Lips : 
 
 'There's better nor him, the Darling, for ye, 
 
 Lady dear;' and then she told me how her 
 
 brother-in-law, Feargus O'Regan, had come to 
 
 say my dear husband was at his Cabin, having
 
 3 i2 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 walked all the way from the Battle Field where 
 he got his Wound. They had sent off a Gossoon 
 for old Sheelah O'Brien, who is said to be skilful 
 in Wounds, and Feargus came hither for Linen, 
 Dressings, Food, and other Necessaries. So ill 
 did they think of me, that the O'Regans had been 
 for leaving me in this cruel ignorance of my 
 Husband's case ; but Mab knew better, Heaven 
 bless her ! and having sent Feargus off with what 
 she could lay Hands on at once, only waited till 
 the House was quiet and I had parted with 
 Worth, to come to me for all that was further 
 needed. I could laugh even now to think how 
 warily we crept to the Linen Closet, and how, in 
 repairing to the Larder, I blessed what I had so 
 often bewailed, the Carelessness of our Irish 
 Servants ; but I am far enough from Laughing 
 when I think of my dear Husband lying in a 
 kind of Cavern, behind the Cabin, in a sort of 
 Gorge below the Castle. It is the Place where
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 313 
 
 the Irish distill their Whisky, and is very secure, 
 but miserable and squalid beyond Imagination. 
 I could see Nothing at first for the Fire of Peat 
 that was burning in Front, but I heard a Groan ; 
 and when I came behind the Smoke, I saw by 
 the dim Candlelight, my dear Husband held up 
 in old Regan's arms, while the old Dame Sheelah 
 was probing the Wound in his Right Shoulder. 
 He was so spent and swooning under the Torture 
 that he saw nothing, and Sheelah knows no 
 English, so it was only through Mab that I 
 could hear that she did not despair of him, and 
 I scarce knew even then whether they meant 
 what they said, or only sought to comfort me. 
 When the old Woman ceased her cruel Work. 
 we made up his Bed with what we had brought ; 
 for before, though the good Creatures had done 
 their best, he was lying on Rags unspeakably 
 foul and loathsome. Then I moistened his 
 Lips, and bathed his Face with Essences, and he
 
 3H THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 so far revived as to lift up his Eyes, look at me, 
 and then close them for very Exhaustion. Mab 
 tells me his Wound is not dangerous, but either 
 it is in itself frightfully painful, or the old 
 Woman made it so ; for all the time I was there 
 it rent my Heart to witness such Suffering. He 
 was so weary and spent that he was more 
 sleeping than waking, and scarcely sensible, 
 only constantly turning, writhing, and moaning, 
 even in his Sleep, as though utterly worn with 
 very Weariness, yet unable to rest ; and I could 
 do Nothing but kneel and pray God to have 
 Pity. Once, just at early Morning, he looked 
 into my Face, and said : ' What are you crying 
 for V — for it seems the Tears were running down 
 my Cheeks, unknown to me. ' At your Pain,' I 
 answered, and he shut his Eyes, as though ex- 
 hausted by the very Look, and it seemed to me 
 that after that he slept sounder and moaned less. 
 No sooner was the Sun risen, than Mab and
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 315 
 
 Feargus came to fetch me, so that Worth might 
 find me in my Bed ; and when I stooped over 
 him, and kissed him as he lay, he put forth a 
 Hand, held me, and gazed up at me with such 
 Eyes as would be keeping me there now, if Mab 
 and Feargus had not almost forced me away. 
 Not till all is still at Night may I return, and all 
 these long Hours must he lie with no better 
 Nurse Tenders than old Sheelah and Feargus. 
 The Cut on the Head is not deeper than the Skin, 
 and the Gunshot Wound in the Shoulder reaches 
 no Vital Part. I am assured that there is no 
 Peril save from Fever or Gangrene, which God 
 in His mercy avert." 
 
 Here we begged to know whether the place 
 were still remembered where Sir Thomas was 
 hidden. Oh yes ; had we not been shown " the 
 Lady's Leap," a favourite walk for those who 
 had no objection to climbing ? So, for an after-
 
 316 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 noon walk we bent our steps to visit the spot by 
 the very way that poor Lady Penelope must have 
 gone, as Fanny enthusiastically observed ; but at 
 this our host laughed, saying that the present 
 path had been made by his father : it was far 
 wilder when he first remembered it, and was fit 
 for nothing but boys and goats before the 
 picturesque was invented. 
 
 It was a lovely walk, through thicket inter- 
 spersed with rock, to a sudden descent into a 
 gorge, cloven, as it were, for the course of a 
 little dashing streamlet, which brawled and leapt 
 down to the sea. Rocks, birches, rowans, gorse, 
 heath, fern, and traveller's joy so mantled the 
 sides that a person unaware of the existence of 
 the chasm would hardly have found it, even with 
 the guidance of the rustic path partly cut out, 
 partly built up, that led along the side of the pre- 
 cipice, and was quite steep enough to daunt Fanny 
 Danvers, who had little notion of scrambling.
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 317 
 
 However, between helping her and laughing at 
 her, we got her down at last into the beautiful 
 little ravine, which ran parallel with the lough, 
 and opened to the sea with a tiny beach of its 
 own, shut in and veiled, as it were, by an enor- 
 mous mass of rock, fallen from the northern 
 promontory of the lough. Behind, stood — in the 
 midst of rich green pasture and dreary ill-kept 
 arable land — two or three cottages, with a 
 tottering easy-going air about them, and sur- 
 rounded by horses, cows, pigs, poultry, and 
 children, much as they may have been in 
 Penelope's time. Nothing more secluded could 
 well have been found : the only difficulty was 
 how she ever entered it. There was a more 
 moderate slope on the other side, and a rough 
 cart-track led up the ravine, but to reach this 
 from the Castle would take two or three hours, 
 though the gorge itself was not a quarter of a 
 mile from it.
 
 3i8 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 "Is it the Lady's Lape ye mane,your Honour ?" 
 
 demanded the handsome barefooted young wife, 
 
 who might have sat for Mab O'Regan. "Just 
 
 there, where ye see the blue stones with the 
 
 lusmore over them. Yes, me Lady, 'twas there, 
 
 as I have often heard Tim's grandmother tell, 
 
 that her grandfather's father brought the Lady 
 
 down, night after night. He and his sister, Mab 
 
 O'Regan, handed and lifted her down illigant, 
 
 from stone to rock, and bush to stone ; and she 
 
 a timid dainty English lady that scarcely ever 
 
 put a foot beyont the garden, they say, but she 
 
 never cried nor turned giddy, nor seemed to see 
 
 what a path it was ; and how should she, me 
 
 Lady, for sure wasn't her heart with him that lay 
 
 below ? Yes, sure, your Honour, this is the cave 
 
 where the gentleman was hid away from the 
 
 Orangemen, and where the lady tended him all 
 
 night away from his inimies." 
 
 We could realise it better. There was the low-
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 319 
 
 browed cavern, which at that time, as Sir Bernard 
 
 proved to us by marks of ruins and holes in the 
 
 face of the rock, had had the cabin built up in 
 
 front of it, leaning against the cliff. The cave 
 
 would thus have been an inner chamber to the 
 
 cabin, and could easily be concealed by closing 
 
 the opening of communication, and heaping 
 
 furniture (if there were any) or fodder against it. 
 
 Probably it was generally open — but what a 
 
 stifling hole it must have been for tender 
 
 asthmatic Penelope, and yet she seems to have 
 
 heeded it as little as the terrible path, the hunter's 
 
 clamber, where the tender-hearted faithful Mab 
 
 and Feargus, climbing catlike with their brave 
 
 feet, upheld her with their strong arms, like the 
 
 Guardian Angels who assuredly must have been 
 
 about her unseen. 
 
 "Does not this make up for all, Lady 
 Danvers ? " ardently asked Fanny. 
 
 " I don't know, my dear. Anyone would
 
 320 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 have done this— and she had a great deal to 
 make up for." 
 
 So we went back with double eagerness to 
 our papers, for, happily for us, Penelope poured 
 out to her sister the feelings she could express 
 to no one else. 
 
 " My dear sister will rejoice to hear that 
 my dearest Heart is much better, having slept 
 nearly all Yesterday, and being freer from Pain, 
 though very weak. When I came to him last 
 Night, he held out his Hand, and said joyfully : 
 ' Then it was no Dream ; ' and when I greeted 
 him with a Kiss, he said, little guessing how it 
 pierced my Heart, that now he could believe 
 in last Night's Embrace, the first I had ever 
 given him of my own Accord. And we have 
 been Seven Years married ! Oh fie upon me, 
 that I should have so used him that he thanked 
 me for that one poor Kiss, and said that all 
 through this last long Day, between Waking
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 321 
 
 and Sleeping, he was ever vexing himself to 
 know whether it were but a precious Dream 
 that he had seen me tending him and weeping 
 for him ; and the Regans and Sheelah knowing 
 no English, he could not ask them, or under- 
 stand what they said. He told me that his 
 one Thought was, he could die content; for 
 ever since the Day he had seen Mab wailing 
 over her Husband, he had envied the Man 
 whose Wife so mourned him ; and thus the 
 mere Sight of those few poor Tears of mine 
 sent him to sleep in Peace, as though the worst 
 Bitterness were passed. As well as I could I 
 asked his Pardon, but he would not hear me, 
 and said all that had been over long ago, and 
 he could not be vexed with hearing of it. By- 
 and-by, he told me of the Manner of his Escape. 
 Of the Battle he would not speak, so cruelly is 
 he grieved at the Sight of the Valour and 
 Loyalty there thrown away by this King, whom
 
 322 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 even he allows to be the most ill-advised that 
 ever sat upon a Throne. He got his Wound in 
 the first Charge, but heeded it little while he 
 with the other Mounted Gentlemen were cover- 
 ing the Retreat, until he was cut down and 
 ridden over by a Dragoon ; indeed he thinks 
 half the Regiment must have passed over him, 
 so sorely is he bruised in many Places. All 
 this, however, was while he lay Senseless ; and 
 when he came to himself, all was still, and he 
 was alone, save for poor Creatures worse than 
 himself. 
 
 " Then the Sound of dropping Shot at a 
 Distance showed him that the Pursuit must be 
 now far away, and as he knew it would be use- 
 less to seek for Headquarters, he being in no 
 Condition for further Service, he determined to 
 make the best of his Way Home, before his 
 Hurts should grow too stiff. He soon came to 
 some of the poorest Sort of Irish, but he knew
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 373 
 
 he had nothing to fear from them, when they 
 saw his White Cockade ; and one good Fellow 
 helped him to his Cabin, bound his Wounds, 
 and gave him Whisky, as well as disguised 
 him with one of their long loose Coats, and, 
 still thinking him in no State to travel alone, 
 walked five Miles to guide him through By- 
 ways, till he could put him in Charge of another 
 honest Fellow. Nor would they take any Pay* 
 ment ; he has brought Home his Watch and 
 his Purse as full as it was before the Battle, 
 but the good Fellows must be sought out and 
 rewarded so soon as it may be done with 
 Safety to themselves. Thus they brought him 
 from One to Another, by secret rugged Ways, 
 mostly along the Shore, till, when almost close 
 at Home, when his Strength was quite spent, 
 they found that our House was occupied by the 
 Enemy (forgive me, dear Sister, I cannot help 
 it). My poor Sir Thomas sat down under the 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 Hedge, where he could see the Lights of the 
 Castle, while his Friend went to consult with 
 the Regans, and there he fell into a Swoon, and 
 knew not how they carried him into the Cavern, 
 where he must lie some Days longer, and then 
 Heaven knows what next. To this Pass hath 
 my Pride and Sullenness brought me, that my 
 only happy Hours should be in this wretched 
 Cave, and that I should dread nothing so much 
 as my Husband being able to move. 
 
 " ' Nothing ' did I say ? Alas ! Your kind 
 General asked to see me as I writ this. He 
 came to tell me, without looking me in the 
 Face, that no Search hath availed to find the 
 Body, and that Hazlitt is come back to him 
 weeping, with Tidings that he is not with the 
 Rebels. ' Now,' says the General, with his Eyes 
 on the Ground, ' this leaves a Loophole for 
 Hope that he may be in Concealment ; where, 
 I trust No One will reveal to me. But I came to
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 325 
 
 tell you that the King will return Thanks for 
 his Victory at Dublin on the 9th, and that if 
 you will meet him at the Door of St. Patrick's 
 Cathedral, with your little Son, and present him 
 with a Petition in our good Danvers's Behalf, 
 your known Affection to the Protestant Cause 
 will give him one of those Apologies for 
 Clemency of which he is never slow to avail 
 himself, and so would my good Brother be none 
 the worse.' What could I do but thank him, 
 and say I would consider the Matter ? Act, I 
 dare not, without my Husband's Consent ; yet 
 how happy should I be should my past Indis- 
 cretion become the Means of procuring his 
 Safety. The General has made the rough 
 Draft of the Petition, and promises to go with 
 me, and bring me to Speech of the Prince of 
 Orange, if I can resolve on the Journey. If 
 not, my dear dear Husband lies in peril of 
 being shot by any savage Trooper who finds
 
 326 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 him ; and even my kind Brother would have 
 no Choice but deliver him up to the Law, if he 
 were told where he was. He himself is all 
 Goodness, and will neither see nor hear, but he 
 has two Aides-de-Camp, four Orderlies, and 
 Messengers going and coming without number ; 
 and, moreover, I have, for my misfortune, filled 
 the House with English or Scots Servants, who 
 are all against the Tories ; nor is one to be 
 trusted, save my dear Mab and poor Hazlitt, 
 whom I have just seen. He is full of Joy, but 
 he thinks the Irish treacherous, and cannot 
 endure that his Master should be in their 
 Power. But if Sir Thomas will only consent 
 to my Intercession for his Pardon, what happy 
 Days we may yet have." 
 
 "July 7th. — It is as I feared, my dear Frances. 
 My Husband will not hear of Intercession being 
 made for him. First he smiled, and said, Where 
 would be the Use? for he would soon, please
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 327 
 
 God, be committing the same Offence, and 
 perhaps desiring Clemency, not for himself, but 
 for good Chetwynd. Then I told him what I 
 had kept from him before, of the King's em- 
 barkation for France, and the Surrender of 
 Drogheda and other towns ; and that it is 
 thought Kinsale and Limerick are only held 
 out till the Gentlemen therein can make terms 
 for their own Departure to France. He mused 
 at this, and was much concerned, asking me 
 after many more Gentlemen than I knew the 
 Names of; and when I ventured to urge that 
 the Cause of King James was past Hope, and 
 that surely he might accept Grace from the 
 King whom all acknowledge, he burst forth 
 with his old Heat. ' What Right has the Prince 
 of Orange to pardon me ? ' and then, as though 
 overcoming himself: 'Dear Life/ said he (I 
 love to write the Word), ' I would pleasure you 
 in all I can, but you yourself taught me that
 
 328 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 a good Cause is none the worse because it 
 fails. I am sworn to King James, nor can 
 I take Pardon from any but my rightful Prince, 
 above all for what I hope to do again. The 
 Lands being yours, and your Father living, 
 are safe from Forfeiture, so you and little Tom 
 need not starve, and you will teach him to 
 look for me when the King has his Own again.' 
 Then, indeed, I wept, when I understood his 
 fixed Resolution, either to join his Friends in 
 the South, or slip over to France. He says 
 he shall soon return with King James, but I 
 cannot but think, with your Husband, that this 
 Party is in a desperate State, and that it will 
 be a long and dreary Exile. Yet must I plan 
 his Escape, and pray for it as the chief Good 
 I can now seek. Still I am full of Gratitude 
 for this brief Space of Comfort in One Another, 
 for it would have been Anguish I could scarce 
 have borne, had he sailed without seeing him
 
 Hi asked so much after our boy, that this morning Mab took him to the cabin." 
 
 Page 329.
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 329 
 
 again, with no Remembrance except of my 
 insufferable Pride and Coldness. He is much 
 better, and might almost be out of his Bed, 
 had he a Place to sit in ; and he asked so 
 much after our Boy, that this Morning Mab 
 took him to the Cabin, and though they took 
 Care to use no Word he could understand, 
 and he could not know his Father, not having 
 seen him since he was in Arms, yet I promise 
 you- the little Rogue's Prattle about the poor 
 Man in the dark Hole put me to no small 
 Pain ; and your good Husband, after much 
 hemming and coughing, was fain at last to 
 quit the Room. He is so good to my little 
 Fellow, and makes so much of him, that he 
 will surely be a most fond Father ; and he 
 will, no doubt, aid me greatly, if I be left to 
 bring up my poor little Son as almost an 
 Orphan. I am concocting Means with Hazlitt 
 for the Escape that will, indeed, end these
 
 330 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 dreadful Apprehensions, but will leave me 
 Time for Repentance and Heart-Sickness." 
 
 "July Qtk. — Long before my dear Frank 
 reads this, my dear Husband will, I trust, be 
 in all the Safety that an Exile can have. In 
 two Nights more, the Tide will serve to run 
 the Pleasure Boat in hither, and take him on 
 board, whence we can easily cross to the Isle 
 of Man, where a trusty Agent is always able 
 to find Passages to France for Gentlemen in 
 Trouble. The Boat is a large one, and he 
 has often been out all Night fishing in it ; we 
 have three good trustworthy Rowers besides 
 Hazlitt, and Hazlitt is well able to dress his 
 Wound, which is much better, but well you 
 can believe how sore it is thus to part from 
 him. My dear Sister will forgive my sending 
 with him all our Jewels, for I have so little 
 Money in Hand that he would be much 
 straitened before I could send him any. He
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 331 
 
 is willing that I should return to you, accord- 
 ing to your Husband's kind Offer, but you 
 will have to bear with a poor broken Creature, 
 whose chief Endeavour must be to teach her 
 Child to remember his Father. He is again 
 gone to him To-day, though I greatly dread 
 what he may say among the Maids, but Mab 
 never leaves him, and knows how to give a 
 Turn to his Prattle. She is very ready-witted, 
 and Heaven forgive me if I leave her to make 
 monstrous Inventions. Only last Night she 
 and I were absolutely seen by a Soldier. I 
 was well muffled in Mab's red Cloak, Irish 
 fashion, and crouched out of Sight as best I 
 might, while she answered his Question, where 
 she was going, with a long Story about her 
 own Child having the Chin-cough, and her 
 Sister coming to fetch her, and her stealing 
 out at Night, because he knew my Lady 
 would be fearful of her Son catching it— all
 
 332 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 so like Truth that my Flesh crept at her 
 Readiness in coining Lies, and my own Endu- 
 rance of them ; and withal her Manners are 
 so winning, and she has such a cajoling Way 
 with her, that every one of the Soldiers is 
 more than half in Love with her, while she 
 loathes them in Heart ; and, I verily believe, 
 would kill them if she could. Sir Thomas is 
 mightily pleased with his Son, and, in spite 
 of the Peril, I have not the Heart to withhold 
 him, for my poor Husband has nothing else 
 to divert him in that dark Den, save good 
 Rockwood, who, having once found him, seems 
 not to know how to fondle him enough, and 
 lies by his Side, or presses up to be caressed 
 by him all Day long. Little Ellen, too, Tom's 
 foster Sister, gives him some Amusement, but 
 there is no one who knows English enough 
 to talk with, and the Place is so dark that 
 he cannot see to read the Newsletters I take
 
 THE DAN VERS PAPERS 333 
 
 to him. Yet I know not whether I dread or 
 hope the most for the Time he can leave 
 it. He will soon be in perfect Health and 
 Strength, and then, among his old Friends, 
 he will return to his old Life ; and kind 
 as he is now, he will be glad to be quit of 
 the peevish sickly Wife, who has made her 
 Religion unacceptable to him. Alas ! dear 
 Frank, this is but a Foretaste of the discon- 
 solate Talk I fear you will hear when I come 
 
 to you." 
 
 July 10th. 
 
 "My DEAR BROTHER, — I write in my dear 
 Husband's Name as well as my Own, to thank 
 you with all our Hearts for your Goodness 
 to us, and entreat you to do us the further 
 Favour of taking our poor Child to your 
 Home and your Heart. I know you and my 
 Sister will be true Father and Mother to him, 
 and we trust him confidently to your Good-
 
 334 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 ness, or I could not leave him. Pardon my 
 Brevity, you will know all from my Sister. 
 My Letter to her tells her what has brought 
 me to this, and I know you well enough to 
 be sure of your Approbation. I pray you let 
 the Irish Nurse go with my poor little Boy 
 to England ; and if she ever must part from 
 him, let it not be till he has learnt to love 
 his Aunt, as he soon will do, and your Good- 
 ness to him is a great Comfort to my Heart. 
 I will only say more, that no Person, pledged 
 to your Service or to that of your King, merits 
 Blame for our Escape ; that is, if it please 
 God to let it be an Escape. Praying Him to 
 bless you for your infinite Consideration during 
 these Days of Suspense— 
 
 " Your loving Sister and obedient Servant, 
 u Penelope Danvers." 
 
 This lesser note was folded separately from
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 335 
 
 the larger packet, which had evidently con- 
 tained other treasures besides the letter 
 addressed to Lady Frances. 
 
 " Mine own dear Sister, — I scarce know 
 what I write, but you must accept my poor 
 little Boy in the Stead of his Mother, and for 
 her Sake I know you will love him. Heaven 
 knows how long it may be ere I see his dear 
 Face, yet I am the happiest Woman on Earth, 
 or should be, save for this. You will be a 
 Mother to him, and I fear not, or rather my 
 Happiness swallows my Grief. Thus it came 
 about. It was so fair and calm last Night, that 
 my Husband came, partly dressed and with his 
 Cloak about him, to the Door of the Hut to 
 meet me, and we went down to the Sea Shore, 
 and sat there on a Rock, Hand in Hand, in the 
 early Dawn. He spoke much, giving me Direc- 
 tions on all his Affairs ; but strive as I would, I
 
 336 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 could not fix my Mind so as to comprehend or 
 remember from one Moment to another. I 
 could only listen to the Sound of his Voice, as 
 one listens to Musick, and feel how soon I should 
 hear it no more. By-and-by it grew husky, and 
 the Light having grown stronger, I saw his 
 Eyes full of Tears, and he broke off what he 
 was saying of Leases and Mortgages, to say 
 abruptly that what should comfort him was, that 
 we should be far better without him, the Estate 
 might be saved for the Boy, and I should have 
 my peaceful Household unbroken. He thanked 
 me, wringing my very Heart by so doing, for 
 what he called being so good to him this late 
 Week, and he said he knew how much happier I 
 should be without him. This was past all 
 bearing ; I know not what I said, but I believe 
 I cried out for very Pain, and flung myself on 
 his Breast, with Tears and Sobs, telling him 
 how he was my only Happiness, and that I
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 337 
 
 should have besought him to take me with him, 
 did I not know that I was a Burthen, without 
 whom he would better enjoy Life. I can never 
 forget how he looked me in the Face, and said : 
 ' You would go with me, Penelope ? Thank 
 God that I can take that with me.' Sister, you 
 can understand how I fell to begging and 
 praying him to let me go, and not to leave me 
 behind to my Misery, and only then it was that 
 we told one another all. The last Week was 
 nothing to this blessed Morning when the Light 
 streaming over the Sea seemed to shine into our 
 very Hearts. Then I found that he had loved 
 me ever since the sad Day when he brought me 
 here. He says it was for my Patience and Con- 
 stancy, but I know it was because he cannot 
 protect and guard without loving, even as he 
 loves this unhappy King ; but he deemed him- 
 self too rude and harsh for me, and so kept 
 apart and tried to quench the Pain at his Heart
 
 33 8 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 in Sports and in Politicks ; while I held aloof in 
 the Self-Righteousness that never gave way, till 
 I began to fear to lose him, and the Scales fell 
 from my Eyes, so that I saw his Greatness of 
 Soul, never greater than in bearing with my 
 Conceit and Scorn. And the End of it was, 
 that we both owned that it were worse than 
 Death to part. He even cried out : ' Ah my 
 Lady ! were you with me, I need not fall 
 again into what I have repented of as I lay in 
 yonder Cavern.' And then there was no more 
 to hinder us, save the Thought of our Child, and 
 his Fears for my Health. But to the first, I 
 answered that he is better to me than ten Sons, 
 and that the General already loves poor little 
 Tom, and I knew you would treat him as your 
 own ; and to the other, that where he, a half- 
 recovered wounded Man could go, there could 
 I ; and his Love, and Presence, and Pardon 
 were Life and Health to me, while without him
 
 THE DANVERS PArERS 339 
 
 would be Pining and Decay. After all, he doth 
 
 but half consent by Word, but once more I shall 
 
 be a wilful Wife, feeling sure that he would be 
 
 sorely disappointed if I were not at the Boat 
 
 Side at half-past Two to-morrow Morning. I 
 
 know your good Husband will think me the 
 
 more right in going, as my dear Sir Thomas is of 
 
 that generous Nature, that I am certain that 
 
 Consideration for me will cause him to be the 
 
 less led into those Habits and that Company 
 
 which would easily grow on him if he were alone 
 
 with none to care for but himself. I pray you to 
 
 tell good Mr. Basildon that it has grieved me 
 
 much to say Nothing to him, and not to bid him 
 
 Farewell ; but we thought that it might be for 
 
 his Safety that he should know Nothing, and we 
 
 hope that if we remain in some settled Place, he 
 
 may join us there. Say to him, that I thank 
 
 him heartily, and that nothing has so contributed 
 
 to my present Happiness as his constant, grave, 
 
 z a
 
 34Q THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 though indirect Testimony against my past 
 Unwifeliness, never seeming to see that Aught 
 was amiss, and ever taking it, as it were, for 
 granted, that I was what I ought to be, thus 
 rendering me ashamed of myself. Have no 
 Fears for me, dearest Sister, we have all that we 
 desire in one Another, and we trust our Child to 
 you, entreating you to let Mab remain with him 
 so long as she can bear to be in England, or 
 Absent from her own little Girl. Be good to 
 Worth ; but it were better to find her another 
 Situation, than let her remain to talk to my Boy 
 about his Father. The good Soul has thought 
 fit to bring her Needlework into my Chamber, 
 and I am, therefore, constrained to run on the 
 longer, lest my sending her away should seem 
 suspicious, while yet we can make no Prepara- 
 tions before her ; since for very Love to me, and 
 to hinder me even by Force, I verily think she 
 would deem her Duty done by betraying her
 
 THE DAN VERS PAPERS 341 
 
 Master. I will write so soon as I may safely do 
 so, and tell you of the Agents who can arrange 
 for our Communication ; and so Farewell, and 
 God for ever bless you, mine own dearest Sister. 
 And so no more from her who is happier than 
 ever she looked to be — 
 
 14 Penelope Danvers." 
 
 Yes. No doubt happier than ever she looked 
 to be, as she sat beneath that rugged cliff, where 
 it was so easy to picture her, muffled in the 
 peasant's madder-coloured cloak, clinging to the 
 side of her husband, as they sat hand in hand, 
 under the rock, gilded with lichen and wreathed 
 with ivy, in the pure rosy light of the eastern 
 dawn streaming over the glassy summer sea, 
 and shining with new hope on their great peace 
 of mutual new-found love, glorifying these two 
 ordinary common-place beings — the one by the 
 nobleness of self-devoted, self-sacrificing loyalty,
 
 342 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 even to an unworthy Prince, the other by the 
 might of that great love and trust that launched 
 her fearlessly to share the banishment of him 
 her only Sovereign. 
 
 What an embarkation it must have been 
 in the summer night, when the boat kept 
 cautiously to the shore, and in that pure 
 pale silvery twilight, the husband and wife 
 committed themselves to the frail bark and 
 to uncertain wanderings, strong only in faith 
 and love ! 
 
 " It was calm and still," writes Penelope, 
 in the letter returned by the hand of the 
 faithful Feargus, " the Sea Glow-worms shone 
 out like Stars below, and the Waves made 
 scarce a Plash upon the Rocks. It was as 
 if our good God had given us all that could 
 make our Adventure easy in Mercy to my 
 dear Husband's weak State. I had not thought 
 he would feel it so sorely, but after he had
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 343 
 
 seen that I was there, and muttered : ' Thank 
 God, this is what Love can do,' he scarcely 
 spoke, but let Hazlitt and me place him as 
 we would, and fill the Boat with the small 
 Baggage Mab and I had got together. Only 
 when we said Farewell to our good Mab, and 
 he would have given her some Charge as to 
 our poor Boy, his Voice became so choked 
 that he broke off short. And it so chanced 
 that just as we came opposite the opening 
 of our Gulf, where the Castle may be seen, 
 the Sun arose, and shining on the Windows 
 made them all one Blaze of Light, in which 
 we could see twinkling the very Nursery 
 Window where I had left my Child, little 
 dreaming, poor Darling, that no Mama would 
 answer him. And then it was that my dear 
 Sir Thomas hid his Face, and brake into 
 such a Passion of Tears and Weeping, as I 
 never saw the like, as though it were only
 
 344 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 then that he fully knew how he had cast him- 
 self loose from Child, Friends, and Home ; 
 but he held one Arm tight round my Waist 
 all the Time, and I, unnatural Mother that I 
 am, could scarce feel a Pang for my poor 
 Child, so thankful was I that in this Anguish 
 my Husband was not utterly alone ; and when 
 he could hear me once more, and gathered 
 himself up, looking at me, saying that he was 
 a Fool, for he had got what was better than 
 Son or Home or Country, I should have been 
 Happiness itself had I not known that it 
 was I that cut him off from the real Home 
 of his Fathers that he loved. Yet when I 
 looked around by-and-by in Mid -Channel, 
 as our little Boat rose on the Swell of the 
 heaving Wave, and saw nothing round but 
 the Sea and Sky, it was sweet to feel that 
 here we were alone together in God's Hand, 
 to live or die together, so much better than
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 345 
 
 when he was in Battle, not only by himself, 
 but unknowing of our Love to One Another. 
 A fresh Breeze sprang up, which enabled us 
 to sail, and thus we reached Peeltown about 
 Sun-down, though not till my dear Husband 
 was so much spent and exhausted that he 
 could hardly walk up to the Lodgings that 
 Hazlitt went on to find for us. We go by a 
 feigned Name, and the Agent of whom I told 
 you will wait a favourable Time, when the 
 Fleet is no longer in the Channel, for enabling 
 us to go over to France, with others of the 
 late King's Party who have taken Refuge 
 here. Sir Thomas is lying on his Bed while 
 I write, and even now we overheard what 
 made us smile. Two Gentlemen, whom he 
 knows well, are in the next Room, but they 
 have not seen us, only we heard them even 
 now say, through the thin Wainscot of the 
 Partition : ' So I hear Danvers arrived last
 
 346 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 night with his Wife.' 'Nay now,' said the 
 Other, 'if there be a Wife in the case, it is 
 not Danvers's, for he is wedded to so pestilent 
 and sanctimonious a Whig that his Outlawry 
 will be a very Gladness to him for escaping 
 from her.' Truly, Sir Thomas has done nothing 
 ever since but chuckle at the thought of their 
 Dismay, when at Dinner he will present them 
 to me." 
 
 Thereupon follow a fresh instalment of 
 motherly injunctions as to her little boy, 
 and further promises of writing from France, 
 but alas! this was the last letter of all the 
 bundle. 
 
 Had she forgotten ? Had her letters been 
 lost ? Alas ! there was another reason. Those 
 old genealogies have here and there a tragedy 
 in their driest dates. 
 
 " Frances Bernard, b. Sept. 12th, 1665, 
 m. Nov. 1 8th, 1688, Richard Chetwynd (after-
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 347 
 
 wards Knight and Lieut-General), d. October 
 1st, 1690, having issue, Penelope Frances, b. 
 Sept. 30th, d. October 2d, 1690." 
 
 Therefore it was that bright, loving " Frank " 
 had bound up her sister's letters in that one 
 packet, and had added no more to the pile. 
 How was it with the widower ? How was it 
 with the little nephew ? How was it with the 
 parents ? We thought of the weary deterior- 
 ating time of dangling at the Court of St. 
 Germain, among petty intrigues, mean cares 
 and sordid dissipation, which formed so sad a 
 conclusion to so much of heroism and devotion. 
 How could a man like Sir Thomas, removed 
 from his natural duties and pleasures, resist 
 the temptation ? And might not Penelope's 
 generous confidence have resulted in a more 
 saddening life than ever ? 
 
 The cousins had an answer to this. The 
 purchase of their present home — Highbury, in
 
 348 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 Virginia — was known to have taken place in 
 1693, the year subsequent to the battle of La 
 Hogue, when the Jacobite cause was finally 
 ruined. They knew Mr. Basildon to have been 
 the first minister of the frightful round-arched 
 church that they regarded as nearly as vener- 
 able as St. Patrick's Cathedral ; and their 
 substantial well-built house had the Danvers's 
 shield, with the Bernard scutcheon of pretence 
 carved over every gateway and window. 
 
 And Sir Bernard Danvers came to our 
 further aid. In an old book of memoirs 
 of one of the lesser luminaries of the Augustan 
 Age, he showed us a letter in which occurred 
 the following sentence : " I dined yesterday at 
 Sir Richard Chetwynd's Country House, with a 
 pleasing Company, of whom himself was not 
 the least agreeable, being a Gentleman of excel- 
 lent Parts and high Reputation, only his Spirits
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 349 
 
 are greatly obscured by the early Loss of his 
 Wife, by all accounts a Lady of great Beauty 
 and Virtue. He takes, however, infinite Solace 
 in her young Nephew, the Son of a Baronet 
 of Jacobite Principles, whom he has bred up 
 from Infancy, and between whom and himself 
 there exists such an Affection that None to see 
 them together would suppose young Danvers 
 to be other than a most dutiful Son, or he 
 other than a tender Parent." 
 
 " But did Sir Richard really keep him, then, 
 and poor Penelope never see him again ? " was 
 the cry. 
 
 " I can find you one other letter," said Sir 
 Bernard, "from no other than Tom himself; 
 but you must observe first, that according to 
 the Genealogy he had a commission in the 
 Dragoons in 1703, when he must have been 
 about fifteen, and was present in all Marl-
 
 3;o THE DAN VERS PAPERS 
 
 borough's battles — I believe upon his uncle's 
 staff; and he was a captain by 171 2, when this 
 last letter of the series was written." 
 
 Everybody was satisfied when the letter 
 turned out to be addressed to Sir Richard 
 Chetwynd, and dated from the American 
 Highbury : 
 
 " I would I had the pen of Mr. Addison," 
 says the youthful Captain, " to describe to you 
 the Beauty and Peacefulness of this Place, 
 whereof my Father has made a perfect Paradise. 
 The large Forest Trees, such as would distract 
 Mr. Evelyn with Admiration, shut in a perfect 
 Park sloping to the River, and there is a Flower 
 Garden round the House, where my Mother 
 reigns like a Queen. I can hardly wonder that 
 neither of them ever wishes to come Home. 
 They say you, my dear Uncle, are the only 
 Friend they would desire to see again, and my
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 351 
 
 Father is as staunch as ever in declaring that 
 the Oaths he took to King James must remain 
 inviolate. This has withheld him from holding 
 any Magistracy in the Colony, but he is not 
 the less respected, and my Mother is treated 
 as one from whom a Word is a Distinction. I 
 know not what you meant by preparing me to 
 think my Father a rough Diamond ; he is 
 certainly not deeply read, but I never saw a 
 more dignified Gentleman, and his Manners to 
 my Mother have a gallant Sweetness that 
 almost brings the Tears to my Eyes when I 
 think of the Letters you gave me to read ; but 
 then who could not but be full of tender 
 Respect to my Mother ? You never told me 
 how sweet and lovely is her Countenance, nor 
 will my Sisters ever be her equals, though they 
 be pretty Girls enow. My Father did wince a 
 little when his eyes fell on the Queen's Initials 
 on my Sword Belt, but he is never weary of
 
 352 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 setting me on to tell of our Campaigns, and 
 cannot but rejoice that we have thrashed the 
 French, whom he says, even in Ireland, he 
 longed to be driving into the Sea. He said, 
 as he wrote to you, that I was bound by no 
 engagement to King James, and that he was 
 heartily glad I had seen Service, and not been 
 bred like himself to my young Master's Idle- 
 ness. So good were both to me that I have 
 ventured to broach the Matter so near my 
 Heart. My Father cried : ' So be it then ; if 
 you have Chetwynd's consent you have mine.' 
 And then, more thoughtfully, he said : ' So it is 
 to be a Love Match, Tom ? May be, it will 
 save her and you some Pain. Look you. For 
 five Years I was too great a Brute to love your 
 Mother. For two more I was too great a Brute 
 for her to love; but since that time two Doves, 
 that came together for sheer Love could not have 
 been more to one another than we. So only take
 
 THE DANVERS PAPERS 353 
 
 you care, Captain Tom, that beginning in Love 
 Things do not go by contraries with you.' To 
 the which I made Answer as you may suppose, 
 and my dear Mother is as fond of listening 
 to the praises of my Darling as is my Father 
 to the Siege of Lisle, while my Sisters promise 
 wonderful gifts of Birchbark Broideries to be 
 procured from the Indians. My Brother Francis 
 will return with me to study for a year or two 
 at the University before coming back to the 
 Estate here, which he loves too well ever to 
 wish to leave this country, though my Mother 
 begs that before he comes back hither, I will 
 take him to Ballymore, to bear her greetings 
 to good old Mab, and to see the Place that she 
 says is dearer to her than any other in the 
 Old World. And verily, my dear Uncle, were 
 it not for you, and for that one Other, I 
 could not bear to quit them again, and once 
 more become a Stranger Son ; but my Mother 
 
 2 A
 
 354 THE DANVERS PAPERS 
 
 says that ever since Francis was born she has 
 looked on me as your Right, and well-nigh 
 the Offering required from her to show her true 
 Love and Value for my Father. And sure I 
 am that no married Pair were ever more happy 
 and blessed than are they." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE I
 
 ^hc Illustrate (Ebittan 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NOVELS AND TALES 
 
 OF 
 
 CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. 
 
 In Crown 8vo. Price G3. each. 
 
 The Heir of Redclyffa. Illustrated by Miss Kate Greenaway. 
 
 Heartsease. Illustrated by Miss Kate Greenaway. 
 
 Hopes and Fears. Illustiated by Herbert Gandy. 
 
 Dynevor Terrace. Illustrated by Adrian Stokes. 
 
 The Daisy Chain. Illustrated by J. Priestman Atkinson. 
 
 The Trial : More Links of the Daisy Chain. Illustrated by J. Priestman 
 
 Atkinson. 
 Pillars of the House. Vol. I. Illustrated by Herbert Gandy. 
 Pillars of the House. Vol. II. Illustrated by Herbert Gandy. 
 The Young Stepmother. Illustrated by Marian Huxley. 
 Clever Woman of the Family. Illustrated by Adrian Stokes. 
 The Three Brides. Illustrated by Adrian Stokes. 
 My Young Alcides. Illustrated by Adrian Stokes. 
 The Caged Lion. Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy. 
 The Dove in the Eagle's Nest. Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy. 
 The Chaplet of Pearls. Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy. 
 Lady Hester, and the Danvers Papers. Illustrated by Jane E. Cooke. 
 Magnum Bonum; or, Mother Carey's Brood. Illustrated by W. J. 
 
 Hennessy. 
 Love and Life : An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume. Illustrated 
 
 by W. J. Hennessy. 
 Unknown to History : A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland. 
 
 Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy. 
 Stray Pearls : Memoirs of Margaret de Ribaumont, Viscountess of Bellaise. 
 
 Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy. 
 The Armourer's 'Prentices. Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy. 
 The Two Sides of the Shield. Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy. 
 Nuttie's Father. Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy. 
 Scenes and Characters. Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy. 
 Chantry House. Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy. 
 A. Modern Telemachus. Illustrated by W. J. Hennessy. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.
 
 WORKS BY CHARLOTTE M. YONGE— continued. 
 
 Byewords : A Collection of Tales New and Old. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 The Prince and the Page : A Tale of the Last Crusade. Illustrated. 
 
 New Edition. Globe 8vo. 4s. 6d. 
 Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe. With Twenty-four Illustrations by 
 
 Erolich. New Edition. Globe 8vo. 4s. 6d. 
 A Book of Golden Deeds. i8mo. 4s. 6d. Globe Readings Edition for 
 
 Schools. Globe 8vo. 2s. Cheap Edition, is. Third Edition. 
 
 Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 The Story of the Christians and the Moors in Spain. With a Vignette 
 
 by Holman Hunt. i8mo. 4s. 6d. 
 P's and Q's ; or, The Question of Putting Upon. With Illustrations by 
 
 C. O. Murray. Third Edition. Globe 8vo, cloth gilt. 4s. 6d. 
 The Lances of Lynwood. With Illustrations. New Edition. Globe 8vo. 
 
 4s. 6d. 
 The Little Duke. New Edition. Globe 8vo. 4s. 6d. 
 A Storehouse of Stories. Edited by. Two vols. Each 2s. 6d. 
 A Book of Worthies. Gathered from the Old Histories and written Anew. 
 
 l8mo, cloth extra. 4s. 6d. 
 Cameos from English History. Vol. I. — From Rollo to Edward II. 
 
 Extra fcap. 8vo. 5s. Vol. II.— The Wars in France. 5s. Vol. III. 
 
 — The Wars of the Roses. 5s. Vol. IV. — Reformation Times. 5s. 
 
 Vol. V. — England and Spain. 5s. Vol. VI. — Forty Years of Stuart 
 
 Rule, 1603— 1643. 5s. 
 The Victorian Half Century. Crown 8vo. Paper covers, is. ; limp 
 
 cloth, is. 6d. 
 A Parallel History of France and England. Globe 8vo. is. 6d. each. 
 
 With Comments, 3s. 6d. each. Consisting of Outlines and Dates. 
 
 Oblong 4to. 3s. 6d. 
 France. i8mo. is. [Literature Primers. 
 
 History of France. With Maps. i8mo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 [Histoi ical Course for Schools. 
 Scripture Readings for Schools and Families. First Series — Genesis to 
 
 Deuteronomy. Second Series — Joshua to Solomon. Third Series — 
 
 Kings and Prophets. Fourth Series — The Gospel Times. Fifth Series 
 
 — Apostolic Times. 
 History of Christian Names. New and Revised Edition. Crown 8vo. 
 
 7s. 6d. 
 The Life of John Coleridge Patteson, Missionary Bishop. New Edition. 
 
 Two vols. Crown 8vo. 12s. 
 The Pupils of St. John. Illustrated. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 Pioneers and Founders; or, Recent Workers in the Mission Field. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 Th« Herb of the Field : Reprinted from "Chapters on Flowers" in The 
 
 Magazine for the Young. A New Edition, Revised and Corrected. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.
 
 MESSRS. MACMILLAN & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS 
 
 CHEAP EDITION OF THE WORKS OF 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEY 
 
 A New and Cheaper Edition of the most popular of Mr. 
 Kixgsley's Books. The New Edition will be printed in 
 Crown 8vo, from entirely new type, and will be issued in 
 Monthly Volumes, price 3s. 6d. each, in the following order : — 
 
 
 
 
 18S9. 
 
 Westward Ho ! 
 
 Eeady. 
 
 Poems. 
 
 April. 
 
 Hypatia. 
 
 >> 
 
 The Heroes. 
 
 May 
 
 Yeast. 
 
 >, 
 
 The Water Babies. 
 
 June. 
 
 Alton Locke. 
 
 >> 
 
 Madam How and Lady Why. 
 
 July. 
 
 Two Years Ago. 
 
 »> 
 
 At Last. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 Hereward the Wake. 
 
 )» 
 
 Prose Idylls. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 CHEAP EDITION OF THE WORKS OF 
 
 CHARLOTTE M. YONGE 
 
 Concurrently with their Cheap Edition of Charles Kingsley's 
 Writings, it is the intention of the Publishers to issue a 
 New, Cheap, and Uniform Edition of the Popular Novels by 
 Miss Charlotte M. Yonge. In order that the Series may 
 be completed within a reasonable time, it will appear at the 
 rate of Two Volumes per Month in the order indicated below. 
 All the Original Illustrations will be given, and the price will 
 be 3s. 6d. per volume. 
 The following is the order of publication : — 
 
 The Heir of Redclyffe. Ready. 
 
 Heartsease. ,, 
 
 Hopes and Fears. ,, 
 
 Dynevor Terrace. ,, 
 
 The Daisy Chain. ,, 
 The Trial : More Links of 
 
 the Daisy Chain. ,, 
 
 Pillars of the House. Vol. I. , , 
 
 Pillars of the House. \o\. II. ,, 
 
 The Young Stepmother. ,, 
 
 Clever Woman of the Family. ,, 
 
 The Three Brides. ,, 
 
 1SS9. 
 My Young Alcides. March 15. 
 
 The Caged Lion. April 1. 
 
 The Dove in the Eagle's Nest. ,,15. 
 
 1889. 
 The Chaplet of Pearls. May 1. 
 
 Lady Hester, and the Dan- 
 
 vers Papers. ,, 15. 
 
 Magnum Bonum. June 1. 
 
 Love and Life. ,,15. 
 
 Unknown to History. July 1. 
 
 Stray Pearls. ,, 15. 
 
 The Armourer's 'Prentices. Aug. 1. 
 The Two Sides of the Shield. ,,15. 
 Nuttie's Father. Sept. 2. 
 
 Scenes and Characters. ,,16. 
 
 Chantry House. Oct. 1. 
 
 A Modern Telemachus. ,, 15. 
 
 Bye Words. Aoy. 1. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.
 
 Now Publishing, Crown 8vo, price 2s. 6d. each. 
 
 TWELVE ENGLISH STATESMEN. 
 
 " We had thought that the cheap issues of uniform volumes on all manner of subjects 
 were being overdone ; but the ' Twelve English Statesmen,' published by Messrs. Mac- 
 millan, induce us to reconsider that opinion. Without making invidious comparisons, we 
 may say that nothing better of the sort has yet appeared, if we may judge by the five 
 volumes before us. The names of the writers speak for themselves." — Times. 
 
 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. By Edward A. Freeman, 
 
 D.C.L., LL.D. [Ready. 
 
 " It deals with a man whose individual influence on our national history and develop- 
 ment was of exceptional strength and importance, and it is written by one who enjoys an 
 exclusive knowledge of his subject." — Athenaum. 
 
 CARDINAL WOLSEY. By Professor M. Creighton, M.A., 
 D.C.L., LL.D. [Ready. 
 
 " Exactly what one of a series of short biographies of ' English Statesmen ' ought to 
 be." — Saturday Review. 
 
 WILLIAM THE THIRD. By H. D. Traill. [Ready. 
 
 "The general narrative is also good, and though Mr. Traill does not pretend to deal 
 with military matters with any extreme minuteness, his handling of them is judicious and 
 thorough. . . . We have shown to some extent the goodness of the manner in which 
 Mr. Traill has set forth matter unusually sound and good." — Saturday Review. 
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL. By Frederic Harrison. [Ready. 
 
 "Mr. Harrison's Life of Oliver Cromwell is admirably impartial and unexpectedly 
 sympathetic. The great apostle of Positivism thoroughly appreciates the profound 
 religious convictions which actuated the Protector. Necessarily Mr. Harrison has nothing 
 to tell that is very new, but he gives a wonderfully vivid picture of events, nor does 
 he shrink from speculating on the incidents which history has left most obscure. As for 
 the grand subject of his monograph, he paints him as Cromwell desired to be painted." — 
 Times. 
 
 HENRY THE SECOND. By Mrs. J. R. Green. [Ready. 
 
 "Mrs. Green presents us with a series of vivid sketches of the men and women, of the 
 classes and interests, over which Henry ruled. . . . Mrs. Green has written a book that 
 will instruct, yet a book which can be read for its own sake ; and if it gives no fresh con- 
 ception of Henry as an English statesman, it enables us to gauge his statesmanship from 
 no mere objective standpoint, but to view it relatively to the state of things with which 
 he had actually to deal." — St. James's Gazette. 
 
 * # * Seven other Volumes to follow as announced: — 
 
 EDWARD I. By F. York Powell. 
 
 HENRY VII. By James Gairdnf.r. 
 
 ELIZABETH. By E. S. Beesley. // 
 
 WALPOLE. By John Morley. "[Shortly. 
 
 CHATHAM. By John Morley. 
 
 PITT. By John Morley. 
 
 PEEL. By J. R. Thursfield. [In the Press. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. [l
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CAYLORO 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN US A.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL UBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 606 674 o 
 
 312| jm 
 
 3 1210 01285 1109